I was going to end being one of the losers who stayed at home on Saturday night if it wasn't for Blanche who accompanied me to watch the movie, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. I have the opportunity to watch other movies, including The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I chose to watch this movie. I guess it is because I perceive this movie as a big case study on management, so I was intrigued by it.

Contrary to what you might think, this movie isn't a political documentary like Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. It is simply an investigative documentary on white-collar crime. I find the 110 minutes running time for the movie excessive long. Nonetheless, I still find the movie enlightening. Therefore, my verdict for the movie is, watch it if you have an appreciation for management or are curious to find out what actually happen in Enron. Prior to the movie, I always had the impression that Enron is just another good company gone bad. However, the executives were con men right from the beginning. It was amazing how they were able to get away with their accounting practices. One tactic that they use was called Mark-to-Market, an accounting practice that the SEC had approved at that time. Using Mark-to-Market, it means that if Enron starts a venture that generates $100 million years from now, they can claim that $100 million as income now. Enron executives used this trick to conjure up numerous phantom ventures that reported extravagant amount of revenues on their financials. I was even more shocked to find that Balance Sheet and Cash Flows are not required by the SEC for a company's earning report at that time. Do you also know that the cause of the California energy crisis in 2001 can be traced back to Enron? There are strong evidences that showed Enron power stations in California deliberately withheld power back so that Enron energy traders can overcharge California by selling electricity back to the state. At the end, it is heart wrenching to see that the innocent employees of Enron were left a worthless pension and without a job. In closing, I am going to quote Roger Ebert on his conclusion for the movie.

Strange, that there has not been more anger over the Enron scandals. The cost was incalculable, not only in lives lost during the power crisis, but in treasure: The state of California is suing for $6 billion in refunds for energy overcharges collected during the phony crisis. If the crisis had been created by Al Qaeda, if terrorists had shut down half of California's power plants, consider how we would regard these same events. Yet the crisis, made possible because of deregulation engineered by Enron's lobbyists, is still being blamed on "too much regulation." If there was ever a corporation that needed more regulation, that corporation was Enron.

5/1/2005 1:59:08 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [11]

Business

I stumbled upon an event that commemorates the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War at the Kresge auditorium after leaving the Z-center yesterday morning. Even before coming to MIT, I have heard about Professor Noam Chomsky as an outspoken and controversial anti-war figure. Being curious about what he has to say, I went into the auditorium. Professor Chomsky talked about the history of atrocities committed by American soldiers and the failed American foreign policy at that time. With Vietnam War as a component of the lexicon of the Iraq War, the talk slowly shifted to the Iraq War. Prof. Chomsky thinks that the U.S. presence in Iraq, just like the Vietnam War, would not be reduced any time soon. In fact, the U.S. military presence would probably be extended because of Iraq's oil resources and its close proximity to Syria and Iran. Overall, I don't find his talk all that controversial as I had previously thought but there are some parts which I think are certainly partial to some extent.

After the talk, I roamed around the lobby of Kresge auditorium. Maggie, one of the bystander at the lobby, approached me and started preaching to me about the Socialists movement. She then changed the subject and charged the U.S. of imperialism because the Bush administration demanded that the Chinese stop pegging the Yuan on the Dollar. I am not a big fan of the Bush administration, but I decided to play the antagonist just to debate with her. I argued that the U.S. trade deficit is likely to be reduced and the price level improved if the Chinese were to allow the Chinese Yuan to float on the open market instead of being pegged on the Dollar. Furthermore, the Chinese economic is mature enough that floating its currency would not destabilize the country's economy. She then argued that capitalism is inherently evil and that it should be eradicated. That really struck a nerve with me and I proceeded to argue that no ideology is perfect; all forms of governance and market model have its own flaws and advantages. We need to understand that the stability of a country or society lies in the existence of the middle class. To achieve that, I still believe that uncorrupted democracy along with fair and accountable capitalism still offer the best chance of building a stable and viable society. Whether we have achieved this goal, that's another question.

5/1/2005 2:15:04 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [13]

School

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