Ah... the reporter was paddling in what looks like a river until 2 guys walked by her canoe. It then became apparent that the canoe is really in no more than 4 inches of water. Here's a video of it.

Jon Stewart: "What? It's very interesting. Very rarely has the media cover anything with that kind of depth. In this case it's only only inches deep."

Touted as the show to watch if you have the balls, The Colbert Report (TCS) premiered last night with Stephen Colbert, one of my favorite correspondents from the Daily Show (TDS), as the anchorman. Being a spin-off of TDS, it uses the same tried and true satirical formula of TDS. While TDS reports on the the hypocrisy and contradictions of politics and the news media, TCS is supposed to make fun of news talk show and media pundits like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. And you know what, I love it. It's like having the a 30-minute extension of TDS or what I consider the best show on TV right now. Colbert was hilarious last night although it still has some way to go before it catches up to Stewart's smooth, relaxed presentation style. Colbert seemed a little tense and unsettled when he was interviewing his guest. Still, the gravitas face-off with Stone Phillips last night was entertainingly funny. I see myself sticking around on Comedy Central after TDS. I hope that Stephen Colbert will continue "This Weekend in God" segment on the Colbert Report.

10/18/2005 6:19:07 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

The Daily Show

I have a lot of zen today, which I attribute to a good weekend of partying with my buddy Brian. The great thing Brian brings with him whenever he is in town is his amazing ability to gather everyone that we know together. So it is no surprise that Eimear, Blanche, Alberto, Brian, and I spent a good portion of Sunday at 647 Tremont to catch up with one another's life. It was a great time.

Speaking of 647 Tremont, I have wanted to visit the restaurant ever since I heard about its pajamas brunch where their staff and some customers are dressed in pajamas for brunch. But I was a little disappointed by the pajamas thing during my first visit to the restaurant yesterday. Now that I have seen it in person, I just don't see the novelty in seeing people wearing pajamas while eating. While the food quality is above average, there's a certain lack of freshness that makes it fall short of outstanding. I tasted my friend's Enchilada and found it to be too rich and overloaded with oregano. I had the pizza with bacon, potato, cheddar, scallion, and toppled with eggs done over easy. I have to admit the pizza is creative and quite tasty but the dough just wasn't as fresh as I had hope. It's just me, fresh, warm, and tasty dough is something that I look for in a delicious pizza.

10/17/2005 11:48:35 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

Food

I am turning the TV off, the New England Patroits game is getting too painful to watch. This is a good choice since I also need to focus on finishing up my homework. With the way the Pats are playing now, I don't see them playing in the playoffs; but then again, the entire AFC East is playing so bad at the moment, the Pats may still stand a good chance.

10/16/2005 6:30:17 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [2]

Sports

It was interesting to see 2 different groups of my friends coming together this weekend. One group is made up of people I know from MIT and the other group consists of people I knew prior to MIT. You might think that these 2 disparate groups have very little in common. But in reality, they all share one thing in common - they all read my blog. Moreover, through my blog entries, blog comments, and links to friends' blogs, my diverse group of friends have unknowingly crossed paths in some point in their life before.

A case in point, I introduced Yoav to Brian as the guy who is the first to comment on my blog entries. Brian immediately recognized who this guy is. Likewise, Yoav had apparently read Brian's travel blog prior to meeting Brian last Friday. When I introduced Ilana to my friends at Blanche's party, people apparently recognized her as the lady of the pink blog than some random stranger at a party. On the other hand, Yoav and Ilana are always keen on meeting the real Siobhan, whom had made several comments as well as being mentioned several times on my blog. It also find it amusing when I hear people citing my blog. Today, Eimear cited several interesting material not just from my blog but from the blogs that are connected from my blog site. Last but not least, I sometimes have random people coming to me to tell me that they have read my blog and enjoyed doing it. Overall, it is a highly gratifying experience knowing that I have readership and that people are some how connected to one another through my blog.

10/16/2005 4:12:21 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [2]

Blog

It was blast at Blanche's birthday party last night. I was also happy than Jon and Ilana came out to the party and hung out with us. Disappointedly, Bruce, Denise, and Hanri were nowhere to found at the party despite responding with an affirmative YES to the Evite. I suspect that I will be seeing less of them now that Fanny has returned home to Amsterdam.

Despite the downpour yesterday, the turnout last night was great. I met Andre who is a bartender at the Asgard, a favorite hangout for a lot of MIT students. Nice... By 12 midnight, the living room, kitchen, and balcony was packed with people. By the time we left at 2:30am, the beer in the fridge and the cooler were all gone. Thanks for inviting and happy birthday, Blanche.

10/15/2005 7:41:58 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Social

Brian, my buddy from San Francisco (although currently on a 1-year work stint in NYC), arrived in town on Thursday with plans to visit HBS and MIT Sloan as a prospective student.

Having arranged a campus tour with HBS in advance, he successfully completed the first objective of his big tour by noon on Friday. However, since he couldn't schedule an official campus visit with Sloan on time, I arranged a unofficial tour for Brian. I recruited Yoav to act as ambassador for an afternoon class that Friday with Brian and took Brian for a tour around MIT afterwards.

I think Brian's tour of HBS and Sloan was a productive one as he mentioned to me at the end of the MIT campus walk that he now felt much more motivated to continue his essays on the application forms, which he has been dragging for some time. Curiously, I asked him about the contrast between HBS and Sloan, and he said the following:

• It seems like everyone in HBS is either in consulting or banking prior to HBS. At MIT Sloan, most students seem have an engineering background or from the high-tech industry.
• HBS campus is simply gigantic and clean but exclusive. MIT Sloan is small and the overall MIT campus looks a little dull but very functional.
• When comparing between the case studies that he attended at Sloan and HBS, Brian has this to say: Sloanies tend to draw more their experience in case studies than HBS students while HBS students tend to be more touchy-feely in their discussion. But Brian did express it is really hard for him to qualify on this comment since both case studies and class compositions are very different from each other. For benefit of readers who are not entirely aware of the context. The Sloan class that Brian had attended was Software Business, which a good portion of its students are from the SDM program and the Sloan Fellows program - both programs with students with significant work experience. On the other hand, the class that Brian attend at HBS was Organization Behavior, which might explain the touchy-feely discussions.

Finally, good luck with your application to B-schools. I hope that you get accept to the school of your choice.

10/15/2005 7:18:55 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

Two blog entries on politics in 1 day... Is that enough insights into the world for you yet, Siobhan? Actually I didn't really generate those insights, I merely provide links to them.

Anyhoo... I paid a visit to the MIT Writing and Communication Center to consult their writing coaches. I have been writing a lot of papers lately but I feel that I still somewhat unproductive in producing what I would consider well-written works. I felt that I still have plenty of room for improvement. Here are some notes from my session:

• It's very hard to do write everything in one fell swoop (no draft)
• Writing is like engineering design. It is done in several iterations (drafts) with each iteration getting closer to the final product
• Just write down anything that comes to mind on the first draft. Content first, worry about flow later
• Proofread your work verbally. Reading your sentences out loud helps to uncover hard-to-spot typos more effectively
• If you are proofreading strictly for grammatical errors, try reading your essay backwards and aloud. This way you separate the content from words

10/13/2005 8:01:10 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

2 days after I wrote about yet another sober view of the state of competitiveness and education in America, I saw this interesting article about the erosion of U.S. science on Slashdot.

10/13/2005 5:19:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [2]

Politics

Here's an interesting commentary that I heard on The Marketplace Radio a few nights ago. I will try my best to reproduce what was said on air:

"You would think that times and pump prices being what they are, that all the oil and gas that are produced in this country would stay in this country. The more we keep you would think, the lower price it would be. It's supply and demand, and all that. Don't look now, but a part of supply is on its way overseas. Refineries make the residential oil that the warms your home. Part of the reason why home heating oil is skyrocketing is there are barely enough refineries meet demand. Oil companies like it that way. A scare commodity keeps their prices and profits high. So the push on in Washington to increase American refinery capacity. There is one catch though. If you want to see prices fall, oil companies have sell their oil and petroleum products here in America, not in Singapore or Chile. You see, right now in the period of peak demand and limited supply, oil companies are exporting our home heating oil all across the globe. That has created shortage right here, at home and driving up the price. The department of Energy data show that oil companies have exported 1 1/2 billions more gallons of liquid heating products in the first 7 months of 2005 than during the period last year. That amounts to about 20 times greater than the size of the entire Northeast Strategic Reserve for Heating Oil. At the same time, the department of Energy numbers show that imports are falling. With a severe Winter warning, that's a recipe for big profits for oil companies and impossible choices for consumers. The poorest has to choose between food and keeping their family warm. It's a choice that no family has to make in America. Legislation had passed in the House of Representatives last week gave new subsidies to oil companies that build refineries but the bill gave no new restrictions on where the petroleum products could be sent. In other words, it's all carrots but no stick."

10/13/2005 5:13:11 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

Politics

How do they do it? I mean Apple!!! A month after the iPod Nano was released, Steve Jobs surprised the world with yet another version of the iPod. This time, it is an upgrade for the iPod line and as it turns out most of the rumors of a video iPod is true after all. Surprise, surprise... Apple signed a deal with ABC to distribute ABC TV shows like "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" through iTunes and watch them on iPods.

10/12/2005 8:34:15 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [4]

Mac

I recently had lunch with my former advisor who is now the dean of the school where I did my undergraduate. Having graduated from the school for so long, I asked my advisor about the current affairs at my alma mater. He said that he is getting really concerned about the quality of high school education in this country. He said that since I left the school, more and more freshmen in the Engineering department are being placed in the pre-calculus class. He continued to explain that these bright students who had obtained good grades from their high schools but they just haven't gone through the same rigor or level of advanced math as their predecessors did.

My advisor echoed many of the same concerns that many people have - that is the current state of education (especially in the science and engineering discipline) in this country. So far, I haven't seen or heard anything that indicates that the state of American is improving. As far as I know, all sources seem to indicate that the American innovation and education is falling behind. I still can't believe that the number 1 country in world in science and engineering can't produce enough students in these fields. What ever happen to the American competitive edge? But the bigger question is: do Americans care? Are we not investing enough in education? Has the education quality has declined in recent years? Maybe this article that I read earlier today may shed some light on those questions. While I think that the spew in this article is a little baseless and sensationalized, there is some truth in it.

10/11/2005 6:52:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [5]

Thoughts

I saw a post on Slashdot earlier today with a reference to a WSJ article about company executives getting more actively involved in communicating with their employees. Personally, I think that this is good trend and that every manager should adopt an "open door" policy. Speaking from my own personal experience, all the companies that I have worked for do not have such a policy. "My way or the highway" style of management simply doesn't work in corporate environment anymore, in today's competitive environment, open-communication is of the essence.

10/10/2005 9:29:20 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [2]

Business

This is a funny video of George Bush, who was then the Governor of Texas when he gave the camera a "One-Fingered Salute" before going on the air.

10/10/2005 11:56:36 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [2]

Humor

I went to the Sloan Convocation early today. The morning sessions were presentations/discussions of various management topics by Sloan faculty. But the highlight of today's convocation is the keynote addess by Morris Chang, Chairman and CEO of TSMC. Being in semiconductor industry myself, I find Chang's insights on business innovation and the semiconductor industry to be valuable. Here are the notes from the talk:

Chang on innovation, business models, and business model innovation

• Innovation often fails. Even when it doesn't, the benefits are often incremental.
• Practice aspect is important, an idea is not enough. You need to practice to gain benefits.
• Build a company infrastructure that rewards successful innovations without punish the failed ones. Failed innovators are punished enough by their failure and loss of time. Chang postulated that younger people are more innovative than older people because older people have less time to lose.
• Business model is a new term. No one talked about it in 80's. It only became popular in the late 90's. Back then companies link their business performance to products and services.
• These days, all we hear about in the business world is business model.
• Business model as defined by Chang as how a company conducts its affairs with its customers. Customer interface is an important element in today's business.
• Technology innovation has become too common.
• 50's to 80's were about technological innovation.
• Business model innovation dominates from 90's to present.
• Business model innovation is actually harder to emulate.
• Another good example is Starbucks, they basically make a $3 coffee out of a $0.50 coffee.
• Dell has no innovation in technology, but they have have innovation in business model.

Chang on TSMC and the semiconductor industry

• When the semiconductor industry started, every company share the same business model. They did the same design and production, and have the same customers.
• Semiconductor IC design is technology intensive but not capital intensive.
• Semiconductor manufacturing, on the other hand, is both technology and capital intensive.
• When TSMC started in 1987, foundry business was a new business model.
• A new business model, however, does not have a market - thus there's were no customers.
• Then in 1992, a number of startup design companies (or fabless companies in semiconductor lingo) surged and they became TSMC new customers. TSMC reputation became reliable and these new companies started pitching their business to VCs by mentioning their relationship with TSMC.
• In manufacturing, TSMC has to be competitive. So the company has to evolve. For example, today 1/3 of Ebay's business is not in the auction business. But evolving is difficult, because as you grow the company becomes burden with the old model.
• At TSMC, they don't evaluate their managers based on the amount of money they make (or in semiconductor terms cycle-time, yield, etc) but the level of customer satisfaction (how many problems they solve for their customers).

Chang on Leadership

• Chang has 2 simple principles on leadership
1. The leader needs to know what direction he is taking his followers. A leader who doesn't know the direction, leads in circle.
2. A leader needs to have a following.
• In politics, totalitarian usually works. But in business, totalitarian won't work.

10/8/2005 9:54:20 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

Business

One of the perks of being a MIT student is that I get to attend many of the talks/lectures/seminars that are organized on campus. MIT Sloan, the Engineering department, and the Science department are active in organizing and getting speakers to speak at these events. By and large, MIT has no problem drawing speakers, who include successful alumni, industry leaders, scholars, and government figures. On the other hand, the speakers seem to enjoy coming to campus to speak and interact with students. There is always at least a high profile talk everyday at MIT. Just this week alone, we have the following events on campus:

• Monday - How Not to Work on the Wrong Thing: Lessions from Science and Business. Speaker: Greg Blonder, Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures.
• Tuesday - Business and Human Rights: Corporate Opportunities, Business Risks, and Entrepreneurial Dilemma. Speaker: Klaus Leisigner, CEO, Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development.
• Wednesday - Big questions after Big Hurricanes. Speakers: Various MIT faculty members.
• Wednesday - Nobel Lecture in Chemistry. Speaker: Richard Schrock.
• Thursday - MIT Sloan Convocation 2005 Day 1. The Passion to Action, MIT Leadership Center Launch. Speakers: Phil Sharp, Bob Metcalfe, Bob Langer, etc.
• Friday - MIT Sloan Convocation 2005 Day 2. Talks and seminars featuring industry leaders and Sloan faculty. Speakers: Ken Morse, Rebecca Henderson, Carly Fiorina, John Thain, etc.
• Saturday - MIT Sloan Convocation 2005 Day 3. Speaker: Morris Chang, CEO, TSMC
.

In my opinion, while MIT is excellent in organizing talks/seminar type events, we are absolutely terrible in advertising them. For example, I couldn't even find Morris Chang's talk on MIT Google page nor have I seen any advertising posters for MIT Sloan Convocation on campus bulletin boards.

10/6/2005 5:35:07 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [3]

School