This is an excellent article on the BBC about the rising concern in the U.S. over the decline of science and technology in the country.

8/24/2005 12:23:42 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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News

Computer science specialist is now a thing of the past, says this NYTimes article. The trend now is to combine computer science with other disciplines such as biotech, business, and sociology. According to the article, people who are technically savvy and can apply technology in other industrial context have brighter job career prospects.

8/24/2005 12:15:45 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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News

After listening to Carlos's thoughts on the varying degree of difficulty between the different Microeconomic classes available at MIT and Harvard, I’ve decide to examine the course content of various courses at the MIT OpenCourseWare website. There, I compared the assignments for courses 15.010 and 14.122, an Economic class for MBA students and a Microeconomic class for Economics graduate students respectively. To make the comparison more meaningful, I compare the assignments on Game Theory from both classes. Well... see for yourself. This is an assignment from 14.122 and here's an assignment from 15.010. Further comparison indeed affrims that 14.122 to be the more challenging class. I am still debating if I should take 15.010 or 14.121/14.122 in the fall. If my thesis (which I am still formulating right now) includes significant economic content then I should take 14.121/14.122. My only reservation is that I will be overloaded with courses this fall and taking 14.121/14.122 will surely introduce more stress to my life. Yikes... In any case, I'll still have 2 more weeks before class registration to make the decision.

8/23/2005 11:20:40 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

I was in Building E51 (Tang Center) to attend the first class of the week long Economics Review series that was organized exclusively for incoming TPP students who have little or no background in Microeconomics. As I entered the building, I was greeted by a congregation of incoming MBA students who were socializing and having lunch at the building's main lobby. The MBA class of 2007 had started their first day of student orientation earlier today. A far cry from last week, the whole East Campus is looking busy once again with new and returning students.

This year's TPP Economics Review sessions are being taught by Carlos Osorio, a current ESD PhD student. We went through the very basics of Economics like supply/demand and elasticity - nothing groundbreaking but refreshing nonetheless. The most fascinating piece of information is Carlos's insights to the availability of Microeconomics courses at MIT and Harvard (via Cross Registration) that TPP students can choose to take. Here's an outline of the Microeconomic courses listed in ascending difficulty:

Course No.	Course Name	School	Level	Note
API-101	Markets and Market Failure	Harvard KSG	Master (Public Policy)	More qualitative
15.010/011	Economic Analysis for Business Decisions	MIT Sloan	Master and MBA	More qualitative
API-102	Economic Analysis of Public Policy	Harvard KSG	Master (Public Policy)
API-111/112	Advanced Microeconomic Analysis I and II	Harvard KSG	Master (International Development)
14.121, 14.122, 14.123, 14.124	Microeconomic Theory I thru' IV	MIT Economics Dept.	PhD (Economics and Management)	Very few numbers, mostly symbolic equations
EC2010a/b	Microeconomic Theory	Harvard	PhD (Economics)	Very few numbers, mostly symbolic equations

8/22/2005 6:30:56 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

I have discovered a new and novel energy drink called Trek Energy over the weekend. I found them in the "Wild Harvest" section of the Shaw's Supermarket situated halfway between MIT and Central Square. I paid $2.15 for a 620ml bottle to try it out. But I got more than just a drink, the bottle is designed like a mini Nalgene bottle. Yes, you can actually reuse the bottle as your own outdoor water bottle. The bottle is lightweight but tough. The cap twists off easily but seals the bottle well when it is tightened. Even better, it comes with a carabina which I can clip the bottle onto my backpack. As for the drink itself, I have only tasted the lemon-lime flavor, which I found it to taste exactly like Smirnoff Ice only without the vodka. In any case, the drink is definitely worth paying $2.15 for the free accessories.

8/21/2005 11:36:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Sports

Yesterday, I called a few people for a night out in Central Square on a whim. Only Milt and Fanny responded to my calling. We started the night with dinner at Rangzen Tibetan restaurant. I was thrilled to finally dine at Rangzen as I have heard many good things about this restaurant. Indeed, I was impressed by its Tibetan food. I also learned from last night that Rangzen serves inexpensive buffet for lunch and being halfway between my apartment and MIT, I know that I will be coming back to Rangzen for more Tibetan delights very soon.

We got a call from Blanche and Ketan after dinner who suggested that we watch "Wedding Crashers" at Loews Boston Commons. The movie was aptly suitable for Milt and I as we will be attending 2 weddings in September. Aside from the superfluous sex theme, the movie deploys the same type of humor like those of "Old School", "Anchorman", and "Meet the Parents." Overall, it was an entertaining movie to watch on a Friday night. After the movie, we went back to Central Square for a few pints at my home bar, the People's Republik. It was a good Friday night to be doing something on impulse.

8/20/2005 11:38:07 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Social

Errata... As it turns out, the Economic review class that I mentioned on my last blog is for TPP students only. It is not the same as the one that is offered for the MBA students.

There were reports of theft in my apartment building's mailboxes recently. Coincidentally I have not received my last 2 issues of the Economist. So, I am delighted to finally receive this week's issue of the Economist in my mail.

Speaking of Economics, I heard this on Marketplace (the radio program) while driving yesterday. It seems that the U.S. dollar is losing its appeal to overseas. Reports shows that confidence in greenbacks is falling, which is reflected in the low dollar value against the Yen and Euro. In today's economy, we import much more than we export. With the ever increasing trade deficit, we are becoming more dependent on foreign investment to stabilize the dollar. On the political front, deliberate resistance to halt foreign acquisition of U.S. assets may send yet another bad image that investments in U.S. is more of hassle than it is worth. But the bigger question is why should foreign investors be buying dollars now, only to invest in our public debt? Perhaps, the looming budget deficit may be the biggest factor in turning investors away from investing in the U.S. economy. If all this is true, this means that the dollar will continue to decline and inflation will eventually rise. Interesting piece...

8/20/2005 1:57:24 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Radio

Yesterday, I met with Pat Hale, the SDM Program Director, and Yoko Urano, the TPP Program Administrator, to sort out a few administrative and logistical concerns of my dual degree status. It was a productive day. I am really looking forward to meeting my new classmates in the TPP program. According to Yoko, the incoming TPP class is 40 students strong, representing diverse cultural and academic backgrounds. I have also learned from yesterday's meeting with Yoko that there's an optional week-long Economic Review that new TPP students should take especially if they have little or no background in Microeconomics. I believe that this is the same Economic review class, along with 2 other review classes in Math/Statistics and Accounting, that MIT Sloan offers to its incoming MBA students. Since my undergrad Microeconomics course was so badly delivered, my knowledge on economics is rusty. So it would be pertinent for me to attend this week-long review class. Besides, I heard that there'll be unofficial happy hours at Sloan next week.

8/19/2005 9:26:28 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

Since Dinesh, a recent SDM graduate, was throwing out a bunch of stuff as he prepared to move out of Sidney-Pacific dormitory, I eased his burden by collecting a handful of his swags. I am planning to, once again, sell my excess personal inventory at the MIT Swapfest this coming Sunday. I shouldn't have any problem selling Dinesh's items along with my stuff as I suspect that there will be plenty of incoming and returning students at the swapfest.

On other news, Pat Hale, our program director, was pleased that a handful of students showed up at Wednesday's SDM info session to meet with prospective students. He said that prospective students appreciate a different perspective to the program from current students. Conversely, I also learn something from prospective students about their profession, motivation, and career objectives. It was insightful.

8/19/2005 3:20:20 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Personal

I have just written a paper titled "Analyzing Link-Level Acknowledgements Using Extensible Information" with 4 other distinguished experts in the field of Network Communication. You can download the full paper here.

...

If you think I wrote that paper, think again. Some MIT students from CSAIL wrote a web application called SCIgen that randomly generates Computer Science/Engineering technical papers. And in the grand tradition of MIT hacks, the writers of SCIgen tested out their program last spring by generating a random paper and submitted it to WWSCI 2005 conference.

"Three Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate students attracted a flurry of media attention in April after a questionable academic conference accepted their randomly-generated, nonsensical paper. Now the students are stars of a lighthearted video they made when they went to the conference even though their invitations had been withdrawn."

Check out their home-brewed video here.

8/18/2005 11:39:22 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Humor

My powerbook has been crashing the past few weeks. We are talking about hard (kernel-level) system hang-ups here. For weeks, I tolerated the inconveniences associated with system crash and rebooted my machine every time without complaints. But when my mac crashed over 20 times over the course of last weekend, that's when I told myself "enough is enough."

I really like the way Apple set up their Apple Stores. A typically Apple Store personifies the Apple culture right on the mark. Its uber coolness and hipness appeal to both the young and the old (like me). The staff are friendly, passionate, and knowledgeable on their products that they sell. I have grilled the store staff with several hard computer-related questions before and they have responded well to my questions. But far from being satisfied because of my powerbook problem, I brought my mac to the Apple Store in CambridgeSide Galleria last night for a technician (or what Apple call an Mac Genius) to look at it. As I described my problem to Mr. Mac Genius at the store, it suddenly dawned on me that I had added a new variable call extra RAM into system a few weeks ago. Innocently enough, the 512MB DIMM module fits right into the powerbook and it is even recognized by the system; however, but I was starting to suspect that the DIMM is the cause of my problem as the problem started surfacing after I had installed the RAM module. For this reason, I told Mr. Mac Genius that I am going to revert my machine back to the original factory memory configuration to test my hypothesis, thereby possibly avoiding my powerbook from being sent back to Apple for service. So far, my powerbook has not crashed since the reversion.

Unfortunately, we found another problem during my visit to the Apple Store. Apparently, the base of my powerbook is slight warped and not laying flat onto the table surface, consequently causing the powerbook to wobble when I type. Mr. Mac Genius told me that I should send the powerbook back to Apple for service. There is actual a good chance that I may actually end up with a brand new powerbook as replacement for this flaw. Hmmm... That's quite an appealing suggestion.

8/17/2005 11:04:56 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Mac

Yesterday was great day for me. First, I declared summer semester officially over after turning in my final paper for Fabrication Technology. What a relief. I can finally start to enjoy my summer. But the day got even better. Other than the great news from TPP, I got a few of surprises in my mail as well. I was happy to receive a rebate from Apple for their Student Union promotion within 2 weeks of mailing my rebate application to them. The big surprise, however, was my receipt of a refund from Comcast. They said that I double paid for my July bill and they are refunding me the surplus. Sweet!

8/17/2005 12:11:43 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Personal

Other than the heavy school load and apartment moving, another high stress that I experienced this past summer was my admission application for Technology and Policy Program (or TPP). Since TPP doesn't accept GMAT but GRE scores as part of their admission application, I had to take the GRE 1 1/2 months ago. The stress and efforts spent in the TPP admission process finally paid off today. It is now official, I was notified earlier today that I have been accepted to the TPP program. In other words, I will be pursuing 2 degrees simultaneously at MIT.

So what made me decide to suddenly take a policy track in my academic pursuit? I think it was my self-affirming experience in last year's tsunami disaster that made me contemplate on how responsible and pragmatic engineering can help to solve issues and problems confronting the human society. I grew up asking big questions, so naturally I want to broaden my academic interests to include economics and policy. Specifically, I am interested in assessing opportunities, hazards, and benefits of nanotechnology in society and politics. With this in mind, I need to start searching for research opportunities and a thesis advisor in this area. Also, with this new development, I won't be graduating in June 2006 as originally planned, but by January 2007. For once, I would just like to take my time to finish up my classes and be more engaged with the student and research community at MIT. I am glad; my academic plan at MIT is finally taking hold.

8/16/2005 11:36:45 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

I was supposed to run the Witch City Triathlon 2 weeks ago. But due to the excessive school load I couldn't find time to train and eventually gave up on running the triathlon. Today, I received a surprise refund check from Fiske Independent Race Management or F.I.R.M, the organizer of the event. Kudos to the organizer for the cash.

On a different note, the evening run today was great. With my chest pain gone, my strides were strong and my posture confident and relaxed. The temperature was nice too. Overall, it was a good run. I just have one more thing I need to do today: to complete my final paper for Fabrication Technology. So let's get it over with...

8/15/2005 8:32:32 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Sports

For people who have read the excellent book The Whale and the Reactor, are immediately familiar to Langdon Winner's thesis on how technology are often design, built, and then deployed in society with little concern for sustainability, humane regard, and conservation. Being a fan of the book, I was especially excited when I found Langdon Winner's blog on the Internet earlier today.

8/15/2005 5:30:25 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Blog