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I’ve co-founded or been an early investor in many things. One of my favorites is the MIT Banana Lounge. I will be hanging out there Tuesday afternoon and doing an AMA from 2pm to 4pm.

It began with an email from Zoe Sheill. I met Zoe at PSL when she was an intern the summer before her freshman year at MIT. We stayed in touch, and I went bananas when I got the following email from her on May 3rd, 2021.

… Right now, though, we’re running into a bit of trouble raising the money for starting the banana lounge again in the fall. In the past, we’ve given out about a quarter of a million bananas per semester, and about 76% of our budget is just bananas. The Undergraduate Association funded us in previous years – they are now using their limited money for newer projects now that the banana lounge has gotten a lot bigger (over 15k students would visit the lounge per week). Malte (the student that started the banana lounge 3 years ago), me, and Greg had a meeting a while ago and Greg recommended talking to you as a successful MIT alum and someone also excited about the possibilities with bananas.

After some back and forth, I agreed to provide the needed funding. Zoe responded with:

Our banana guy for 2021-22, I’m so excited! You are saving Banana Lounge. So many students will benefit from this and we are very much looking forward to sharing your story with them. I’m humbled by your generosity and the team is grateful and excited, thank you.

The MIT Banana Lounge has become a core part of the institution. Its fame began with a tweetstorm by Iain Cheeseman, a professor at the Whitehead Institute and the MIT Department of Biology.

More fame followed with articles in Boston Magazine (The World Needs More Ideas Like the MIT Banana Lounge) and the Boston Globe (At MIT’s ‘Banana Lounge,’ it’s not just the free food that’s a-peeling.) It appeared in Psychology Today (The Psychology of MIT’s Banana Lounge). The MIT Class of ’62 hunted it down, and MIT President L. Rafael Reif spent about five minutes on it in his Charge to the Class of 2022.

I get an update from the team every few months. The stats so far for the 22-23 academic year (through January) follow:

The complete 22-23 academic year plans include 600,000 bananas and 500,000 student visits.

After I provided the funding in 21-22, I was joined by Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy (co-founders of Harmonix) along with MIT Undergraduate Asociation and some students and recent alumni.

Because it’s MIT, I get graphs in my periodic updates.

I’ve moved on from sponsoring bathrooms, although I finally did get a bathroom sponsored at MIT. It’s top secret where it is, so don’t tell the MIT administration if you happen to find it.

The post The MIT Banana Lounge appeared first on Brad Feld.

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Dave Jilk and I had a long discussion last night, which included some rambling about AI. If you have been following me for a while, you know that in 2010 I stated that the machines have already taken over for us and are patiently waiting for us to feed all human knowledge into them.

This morning, Dave told me about the new HyperEncabulator project by SANS ICS as part of their ICS initiative. If you aren’t aware of the ICS initiative, it’s essential for industrial applications, especially IoT and security.

But first, some history, since it’s an evolution of, and inspired by, the Retro Encabulator initiative, which was foundational but little known in the arc of encabultors.

The HyperEncabulator came out in the middle of 2022. Notably, side fumbling is still effectively prevented.

When I asked ChatGPT, “How does a Retro Encabulator work?” they had an accurate but humorless response.

The Retro Encabulator is a fictional machine invented for an engineering-themed comedy sketch in the 1970s. It is described as “an intricate and implausible device for the purpose of regaining lost energy.” The Retro Encabulator is a humorous parody of an electromechanical machine and its purpose is to perform useless tasks. The machine consists of numerous components, such as pistons, flywheels, and other components, that serve no real purpose. The device usually ends up producing more energy than it consumes, although this is never explained.

Grammarly had a few suggestions to improve ChatGPT’s writing.

The Retro Encabulator is the fictional machine invented for an engineering-themed comedy sketch in the 1970s. It is described as “an intricate and implausible device to regain lost energy.” The Retro Encabulator is a humorous parody of an electromechanical machine whose purpose is to perform useless tasks. The machine consists of numerous components, such as pistons, flywheels, and other components, that serve no real purpose. The device usually produces more energy than it consumes, although this is never explained.

When I asked ChatGPT, “Are you aware how little a sense of humor you have?” they said, “No, I do not have self-awareness.” So I hope they figure out how to connect to the HyperEncabulator.

FYI – when I asked ChatGPT, “What are your pronouns” so I could write the previous paragraph correctly, they said, “My pronouns are they/them.”

The post AI and the HyperEncabulator appeared first on Brad Feld.

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