Pop quiz: Where can you find 4 generations of student/teachers in a class? Apparently, in the Engineering Apollo class that some of my classmates are taking now. One of the professors, Prof. Young, invited his student, his professor, and his professor's professor to speak at his class. The relevance that these gentlemen brought to the class is their experience in the Apollo project some 30-40 years ago. This gets better, if you do the math, at least one of the 4 persons has to be about 70 years old. True enough, accordingly to Matti, Charlie Duke, the youngest of the bunch is 60+ years old. Read Robbie's blog for more information. Amazing!!!

4/30/2005 2:26:40 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [20]

School

I discovered 2 new cool places at MIT in the last 2 days - the MIT hobby shop and the Kresge auditorium. I spent some time at the MIT hobby shop with Matt and Dave to finish up the final prototype for our Product Design & Development (PDD) class. Both Matt and I decided to forgo our usual social and drinking activity at the Muddy Charles and finished fabricating the remaining pieces for our prototype. The next task on tap is the painting of the beast, which Spiros and Christian will do later this weekend. I hope that they add some serious "blink" to the beast to raise its cool factor up for next week's final presentation. So far, everyone in the team took initiative and volunteered for the work assignments. Thankfully, our team has not encountered the same team rants and horror stories that I heard from other teams. Anyway, enough discourse on team dynamics and PDD. The hobby shop is well equipped with woodwork and metalwork equipment, and has staff that readily provides advice and help to students. I totally felt like a geek hacking away with the saw and drill in the hobby shop today. But you can't spell MIT without the words, "hack" and "geek".

I went to the MIT Wind Ensemble concert in the Kresge auditorium with Eimear later that evening. The concert was fun and it was like going to a typical school or college sports event or art performance. I even thought that I have seen a few of the performers at the Z-center or along the Infinite Corridor before. The first repertoire was a little rough but the performers settled down and gave a fairly good performance the rest of the concert.

4/29/2005 11:45:58 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [13]

School

Here is an interesting article on the relationship between your political affiliation and the type of car you drive. So Camille, are you displaying repressed Republican inclination with the red Cherokee of yours? Thanks to Siobhan for the clipping.

4/28/2005 10:32:07 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [13]

News

My team brought back the "bacon" earlier tonight. Yes, we won 2nd place overall in the student category for our business presentation at the $125k competition. In additional, we won the coveted top prize of $25k rent credit to Cummings Properties. I am very excited and pleased that my experience at Analog Devices and sleepless nights of crunching the financial data have contributed to the team’s success.

No rest for us now, we need to focus in getting into the final round of the MIT $50k competition - the holy grail of all business plan competitions. To my some of my fellow classmates who have been telling me that my free time could have better spent on class work, I have this to say: "There's definitely more that one can experience beyond the confines of the classroom."

4/28/2005 1:03:42 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [18]

Entrepreneurship

Microsoft will be releasing solutions based on its new technology called Metro for the printing and electronic document exchange market. So I might be right after all, Microsoft is going after Adobe's market. It will be interesting to see how Adobe's products like Postscript, PDF, and the newly acquired Flash can fend off this new threat.

4/27/2005 3:02:02 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [21]

Business

My $50k team presented our executive summary to the judges at the $125k Business Presentation Competition for Clean Energy Technologies a month ago. Today, we will be making a pitch about our business in vapor deposition technology in the final round of the $125k competition at the Stata Building at MIT. We will be demonstrating our technology at the exhibition session between 4:30pm to 5:30pm before making our presentation after 5:30pm. I hope we win. Stay tuned...

4/27/2005 11:14:11 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [18]

Business

Swimming is now my favorite exercise. I love the feeling of tiredness and accomplishment after each swim. Most of all, swimming is a great cardiovascular exercise. I got my pool time at the Z-center where I swam 24 laps with occasional 2-5 seconds intermittent breaksearlier tonight. I have been good progress on improving my swimming. What a difference a month of lessons can do to one's swimming. It took me 26-30 strokes to swim a 25m lap a month ago. I was able to cover the same distance effortlessly wtih 18-20 strokes tonight.

4/26/2005 11:30:22 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [14]

Sports

I was listening to my recently downloaded songs by the Pixies on my iPod while walking around at MIT yesterday. As I turned a corner and walked along the Infinite Corridor, I suddenly found myself surrounded by those young and naïve undergraduates. I soon experienced a retrospection of me being an undergraduate listening to the same exact song on my walkman 12 years ago. I feel like doing something stupid and naïve then. Sometimes, reminiscences of yesteryears is good for the soul.

4/26/2005 8:24:42 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [15]

Personal

I have been watching a movie every weekend in April. I saw the Uber-violent Sin City two weeks ago. I thought that the cinematography and story plot was cool but the violence was unnecessary and just too graphical even for my standards. My verdict for Sin City is, watch it if you like violence. On the other hand, if you are looking a date movie that has something to do with Boston or the Boston Red Sox, then Fever Pitch is the movie for you. I saw the movie last week and I thought it was alright. The plot outline of the movie is about Drew Barrymore's character who is stuck in middle of her love relationship with Jimmy Fallon's character and his passion for the Boston Red Sox. I saw Kung-Fu Hustle last night and I really enjoy it. Thankfully, the movie is in Cantonese and thus retains the comical context of the movie. I have been a fan of the lead actor, Stephen Chow, for many years and have seen many of his movies before, so I am glad that his movie is finally making into America. However, I wasn't sure if the American audience was fully ready for his brand of humor. Judging from the audience's laughter and ticket sales last night, I think the response was good. Watch this movie if you love humor and kung-fu.

4/24/2005 11:46:15 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [19]

Movies

I couldn't help it, I caved to my craving for grilled mackerel teriyaki earlier tonight. Eimear and I went to one of the cafes in Little Tokyo inside Porter Exchange for grilled mackerel teriyaki after swimming at the Z-center. It hit the spot alright. I am still craving for the dish just by writing about it. Yummy...

4/24/2005 1:33:42 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [7]

Food

I discovered eMusic.com while surfing the web today. Their music selection is very limited. But here's the good news, you get to download songs in high quality VBR (average out to about 256 bitrate) MP3 format. Even better, the songs come without the annoying Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Since a few of my Pixies' albums are in vinyl, I was thrilled to discover that they have the entire discography of the Pixies available for download. I can finally listen to the Pixies on my iPod. Discounting "The Best of the Pixies" album, there are 7 albums from the Pixies available for downloading - Come on Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa, Doolittle, Bossanova, Trompe le Monde, Pixies, and Complete B/Sides. Nevertheless, I spent only $15 to download all 7 albums. How did I do it? Here's how. When you sign up for eMusic, you get 50 downloads for free as part of the trial. You then pay $15 to start the subscription for an additional 65 songs per month. This adds up to a total of 115 songs that you can download in the first month, thereby allowing you to download all 94 songs from the 7 albums. You can cancel your subscription at any time if you don't like the service.

4/24/2005 1:26:04 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [17]

Music

I think there is a new food to be added to my list of favorite foods. It is called Grilled Mackerel Teriyaki Rice Bowl. The strong taste of mackerel makes it a great candidate for grilling. But the best taste of the mackerel comes not from the flesh but the skin and especially the fatty layer. The slight tinge of teriyaki (the real Japanese teriyaki sauce as opposed to the American version) and the fatty layer along with the skin of a mackerel always hit the spot.

I ordered this dish while I was having dinner with Kevin, Maja, Yoav, Allison, Rachael, Chris, and Ilana at Maluken Japanese Restaurant at Fenway earlier tonight. It was good but I still think that the best mackerel teriyaki that I have so far was from one of the Japanese eateries in Porter Square Exchange. In any case, I am starting to crave for mackerel teriyaki just by writing it. I know my discerning taste won't stop till I have found the best grilled mackerel teriyaki in town. Maybe when I get the time, I should make it myself. Hey, I am a self-proclaimed good cook anyway. So let me get some sake, rice wine, vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, rice, mackerel, salt, and white pepper for the recipe and make it myself. How hard can it be? Maybe my mackerel teriyaki may end up being the best in town. I think it is time to fire up the grill. Oh yes...

As far as rating for Maluken Japanese restaurant is concerned, it gets a 7/10.

4/23/2005 2:06:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [17]

Food

My swimming lessons have finally come to an end tonight. I am definitely swimming much better now than I did a month ago. My strokes and body movements are much more efficient. Knowing that this is my last class, I asked the instructor to coach me breaststroke. After a few drills in breaststroke, my instructor said that my breaststroke is fine but has a tip for me. She introduced me a new technique call gliding that I can use when swimming in breaststroke. Basically, the swimmer reduces the body hydrodynamics as the swimmer pushes the water to the side at the completion of the breaststroke arm movement. However, to compensate we can just extend both arms and legs straight after taking a gasp of air. This motion allows the body to glide after each stroke thereby improving the body hydrodynamics. I tried the new technique out in the pool and there was a noticeably difference in the speed. I finished the class with several lapse of a swimming medley of free-style and breaststroke. Indeed, the swimming lessons have been very rewarding.

4/22/2005 12:00:14 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [16]

Sports

I am becoming more critical on real-life businesses since I started taking the Technology Strategy class. For instance, I just realized that an ex-colleague of mine have just started a new company providing semiconductor yield management software tools and consulting. Being similar with this industry, I evaluated his business with the principles that I learned from the strategy class and I don't like what I see. I see 2 main problems with his business. First, there're no groundbreaking products or services that his company has to offer. Second, yield management is a saturated and established sector in the semiconductor industry. The barriers to entry for a new startup without a breakthrough products or services are very high to almost impossible. Furthermore, just like any competitive market, current companies are being squeezed out of the market because of competition. I am a huge supporter of entrepreneurship but I feel that pursuing a well-established market without groundbreaking products or services simply doesn't sound like a sound strategy to me.

On other business news, I have just learned that Adobe had just acquired Macromedia. With that move, Adobe practically has the entire computer graphics market cornered. However, will the merger of two different company cultures be seamless? But tactical questions aside, I suspect that Adobe is making the first move to acquire Macromedia out of fear that Microsoft may do it before Adobe does. Perhaps, this makes sense since Microsoft never really got a foothold in the computer graphics market and acquiring Macromedia seems like a good strategic move for the software giant. In terms of new products and the Internet, coupled with Adobe's own product offerings like Acrobat and Photoshop, Adobe will also receive a diverse portfolio of Internet enabling products such as Flash and Dreamweaver from this acquisition. Is Adobe also trying to corner the Internet market with this acquistion? Maybe this acquisition is starting to make sense to me now.

4/21/2005 11:21:38 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [16]

Business

You know you have fan, when someone asked "Hey, there's nothing on your blog." So Matti, just for you, I am going to start blogging now.

I have been running like a chicken with the head cut off 3 weeks in a row now. Things have been pretty crazy at MIT. This is what happens when all assignments or deadlines are due in one day of the week - Wednesday. Take today for instance, I have to complete 2 papers, study for 1 quiz, and complete the financial plan in my team's business plan for the MIT $50k competition. Once again, I have grossly underestimated the amount of work that is required for financial plan. I was practically consumed by financial plan over the past 4 days. After 2 nights of number crunching and coordinating with my team members, I got the financials done at 3 am last night. Unfortunately, this left me with less than 2 hours to study for the ERBA quiz, something that most of my classmates have been dreading. I woke up at 2 hours before the test and study for it. At this point, I was somewhat indifferent how I may do in the test. To my surprise, I knew what was doing in the ERBA quiz despite 1 hour of study and 3 hours of sleep. I think I am going to do well. I then stopped by at John's office and did a final review of the business plan with the rest of team before submitting it to the $50k competition website at 12 noon. I can finally start enjoying the beautiful spring weather that I missed over the last 4 days.

4/20/2005 5:51:14 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [13]

School