[1694] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] Re: dollar bill mural
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (bzhao@mit.edu)
Wed Dec 14 13:02:23 2005
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 13:01:42 -0500
From: bzhao@mit.edu
To: mit-talk@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <6cfe8a400512140950i1e15616ek2726e0e6edb28c90@mail.gmail.com>
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
what about translucent glass?
same brightness and "techy" look, less intrusion on privacy?
Quoting Courtney Shiley <cshiley@MIT.EDU>:
> Yeah, but was that because people liked it when tourists took their picture
> while they were working? I used it because it was by far the most convenient
> cluster. I also liked the window because I could quickly see if there was a
> machine open, but I didn't like people watching me. I simply tolerated it.
>
> That was a cluster. This is a lounge. They are not the same thing.
>
> MIT has, lately, been in an architectural phase of putting windows on
> everything so random folk can watch you do your thing. Have you noticed the
> sight lines in Stata, that let you study a grad student's workspace from
> four floors away? And then there's the nano lab. This is a terrible trend,
> and it should be resisted. Opaque is *good*. It provides privacy, comfort,
> and a sense of intimacy. Glass is not very opaque. Walls, conveniently, are.
>
>
> -C
>
>
>
> On 12/14/05, David Z Maze <dmaze@mit.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Martha Angela Wilcox <angela@csail.mit.edu> writes:
>>
>> > A student lounge should be a comfortable place
>> > to hang-out with friends. A fish bowl where international tour groups
>> > (yes, one actually walked up and took a picture with me once when I was
>> > in lobby 7 like I was some sort of mit statue), sketchy grad students,
>> > or tired undergrads can oogle at people supposedly "hanging out" does
>> > not sound very comfortable. In fact, being so close to such a
>> > high-traffic area, it seems like the only way to make the lounge
>> > somewhat comfortable would be to partially shield it from the
>> > hustle-bustle of the Infinite.
>>
>> Before the current Student Services Center was built, the space in
>> Building 11 where the current "quick-cluster" is was three separate
>> Athena clusters and some other I/S-related space. The outermost
>> cluster had all glass walls, and was commonly known as "the fish
>> bowl", since every campus tour would stop outside of it to talk about
>> Athena. This didn't stop it from being one of the heaviest-used
>> clusters on campus; the trip to other nearish clusters (37-312, 4-035,
>> 1-142, ...) could often get you a login faster than waiting for a
>> machine in the fishbowl to open up.
>>
>> --dzm
>>
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>
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