I had lunch with one of my friends yesterday. He voiced his dissent that he has been receiving either a 3% or no raise in the last few years. He said that he is a hard working person and that he is getting really discouraged because he wasn't properly compensated. I understand and empathize his frustration because I consider him not only a diligent but a good performer in what he is doing.

I thought about his issue on wage raise after lunch and this was my initial reaction. For the past 2 years, 3% is generally considered the inflation rate in this country. The economist in me is saying that if someone is given an annual 3% raise, he/she isn't getting any raise at all because despite the 3% wage increase, his/her wage was adjusted sorely for inflation and not for his/her performance or even extra workload. In other words, real wage for my friend has remained unchanged and in the years when he received no pay raise, his real wage has actually gone down. Worse, my friend has been filling in the jobs of people who were let go due to corporate downsizing a few years ago. With his above-average performance, proven experience, and added responsibilities, shouldn't he deserve a raise that is beyond a mere 3%?

11/18/2005 1:35:27 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [1]

Business

At the end of last summer, I purchased 3 books with the intent of reading them before my fall semester. I have only finished reading Freakonomics, which I highly recommend to anyone who has read it already. The other book Truth against Logic was a bit of a disappointment. I have finally found time to read Tom Friedman's book The World is Flat, which I really enjoy. The World is Flat is a pager-turner and it echoes many of the things that I have been hearing in classes at MIT - globalization, innovation processes, India, China, etc. I hope to share my thoughts on the book and the issues that it discusses on this blog as I read more of it. For starters, Yoav contributed this link that is critical of Friedman's work.

11/17/2005 6:05:34 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [2]

Personal

I listened to a public radio news program yesterday where Rob Gifford, a China correspondent for NPR for 6 years, was interviewed. It was a very insightful and thought-provoking show. Here are some of the highlights from the show:

• Actually, the central Chinese government is keen on addressing problems, especially the younger bureaucrats. The curse of the Chinese civilization, as it has always been, isn't the officials in Beijing, but the local officials. The problem is in the provincial government, they have the tendency to cover up. Furthermore, most of the corruption in government happens at the local level. (Very true).
• China is still 1-party and can still be a police state if it wants to. But ideologically, communism doesn't exist in China anymore. No one in China believes in communism anymore. Also, the Chinese economic model is clearly a capitalist one. The question is: What is going to replace communism in China? The big thing that seems to be emerging is nationalism.
• China was the middle kingdom, the most advanced civilization in the ancient times. After the 1700's, they were humiliated by Western powers and Japan. For 150 years, they have been playing catch-up and have been getting it wrong time after time. Now they are hungry, they are close to catching up to the rest of the world.
• Westerners may say that the Chinese system is a socialist system without true democracy. The Chinese are going to say: so what, call it whatever you want. As long as we are better off now than we were years ago.
• Here's the paradox of a 1-party state. The 1-party state can push through some terrible policies. But a 1-party state can also push through good economic policies with such vigor and efficiency that multi-party states can't do.

11/17/2005 1:44:37 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [6]

Politics

The last few lectures in our class, Introduction to Technology and Policy, was given by Prof. Dan Roos, a co-author of the "Machine that Changed the World." Overall, I really enjoyed his lectures on the automotive industry. One item from his lectures that I found interesting was that in terms of labor rate, there are 2.5 retirees for every worker at GM. This number prompted me to think... What this means is that an average worker is indirectly responsible for paying the retiring pension cost of 2.5 retirees. On top of that, GM pension funds are still under funded by a few billions dollars!!! Actually, according to statistics that I saw in one of my readings, GM is being competitive on wages with the rest of the automotive industry. But on a whole, the labor cost at GM is just astronomically high due in large part to legacy cost. There are other factors that contributed to GM's current woes, and legacy cost is definitely one of them.

11/15/2005 11:50:19 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [1]

Business

I have been writing intensively over the last weekend. I managed to compile a write-up for the small project assignment for my System Architecture class, where our team did a critical analysis of the Mac OS X architecture. It was a really fun paper to write since operating systems and UNIX system programming are subjects that I am interested and familiar with. As much as I had been ranting about Mac and disagree with many of Apple's human interface choices (like the 1-button mouse and the ridiculous copy folder behavior), I find the Mac OS X an elegant design. At the system level, Mac OS X has integrated open-source technologies with closed-proprietary technologies very well. Underneath that snazzy looking Aqua interface, which is designed entirely in-house at Apple, is an open-source UNIX-based layer that works well. Anyway, it was a fun assignment and there is so much more that I could have written. Now, it is up to Greg to edit and polish up the paper for submission on Wednesday.

I have also spent significant time last weekend on composing a business executive summary for the $1k competition with the same people from last year's $50k team. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing exercise for $1k competition as it has allowed me to think about creating a business to pursue opportunities in the marketplace.

11/14/2005 11:06:47 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [2]

School

After reading Ilana's blog entry on her nerd test, I have decided to take one myself.

Oh my gosh... I am nerdy. I scored exactly 87, same as Ilana. The result of the test indicated that I am "High-Level Nerd. You are definitely MIT material, apply now!!!" Indeed.

11/14/2005 11:53:34 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [6]

Personal

Here is another rant on the Mac. On Windows, when you drag a folder onto the top of a folder with the same name, the system will recursively merge the content of both folders. On the Mac, you replace the entire folder when you do the same operation. This really pisses me off big time because I lost a bunch of important data. Sometimes I wonder the wisdom of switching to Mac.

11/13/2005 11:55:47 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [5]

Mac

Lately, the trendy Boston South End has been my favorite place to hang out and dine. On Friday night, I went out for a nice dinner with Michelle at Tremont 647 in the South End. One of the highlights of going Tremont 647 is to sample their unorthodox menu items. However, I found myself craving for steak that night and ordered something ordinary: the ribeye steak done medium rare. The steak was good although not out-of-this-world as I would expect for the price I paid. Overall, the dinning experience was positive and would recommend this place. However, I wished we hadn't sat that close to the smoky kitchen as our clothes smell like grilled steak when we left the restaurant. Afterwards, we stopped by at the Garden of Eden for more wine, coffee, and pastries. I tried their homemade Mogador cake, which consists of layers of chocolate mousse and genoise, toppled with a layer of raspberry glaze. The cake was great. I am drooling for more pastries already... I will go back to this place for more sinful indulgence.

11/12/2005 11:21:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [2]

Food

On Thursday night, I went to the Middlesex Lounge to check it out. I have heard that this place is extremely popular with MIT graduate students, especially those who are living at the Sidney-Pacific dormitory. This place is definitely larger than the Enormous Room, 2 blocks down the street. The DJ spins good trippy house music. The Middlesex Lounge reminded me of some of the chic lounges and dance clubs that I had visited in Europe and judging from the crowd that night, I have to say that most people there are indeed from Europe.

11/12/2005 11:20:24 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [3]

Social

My mac is driving me crazy these days. I am quickly realizing the limitation of a mac; yep, I still think that they are overrated. Anyway, my latest complaint is that I can't read attachments in emails that were sent from Microsoft Outlook. Apparently, all file attachments sent by Outlook are encapsulated into a single attachment file called winmail.dat and there's no native support on Mac OS X to read this file. Thankfully, after a quick google on this issue, I found this program called TNEF's Enough, which opens the winmail.dat file and extracts the embedded files.

11/9/2005 7:40:25 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [1]

Mac

I heard this on the radio earlier today: always sprinkle grated cheese before adding sauce to the pasta. This tip makes perfect sense, the warmth from both the pasta and sauce melts the grated cheese, and consequently blends it into the sauce more effectively.

11/9/2005 6:11:17 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [4]

Food

I have been listening the following music albums, which I acquired last week:

1. American Idiot by Green Day
   I have never given a 5-star rating (like that in iTunes and iPod) to every song in an album until I listened to this album. Yes, it is that good and deservingly so - after all it did win the Grammy Award for the Best Rock Album in 2005. In this album, Green Day has demonstrated significant music refinement and maturity while still maintaining the raw style that we hear in Dookie. But what I really like about this album is Green Day's forays into rock operas in grand punk style with a thoughtful theme on today's social woes in America. Wikipedia has a great article on the interpretation of the album's story. This is a great rock album, I highly recommend it.
2. Demon Days by Gorillaz
   Ever since I heard that iPod commercial featuring the song Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz, I have been wanting to get my hands on the actual music CD. I am not disappointed with this CD.
3. Franz Ferdinand by Franz Ferdinand
   The first time I heard of Franz Ferdinand was from the Sony PSP commercial that featured the band's signature rock anthem, Take me Out. I won't call the music album groundbreaking; but being a sucker for post-punk revival music, I consider this album a must-have in my iPod.
4. Live at Stubb's by Matisyahu
   This album features a rabbi look alike singing Reggae - an odd combination but Matisyahu is quite an accomplished Reggae artist. I find this album refreshing since I don't get to hear a lot new Reggae materials these days. The song "King without a Crown" is a masterpiece.
5. Bridging the Gap by the Black Eyed Peas
   I have only listen to this album once so far but I like what I am hearing.
6. X&Y by Coldplay
   My least favorite Coldplay album. It is not that is bad but the earlier Coldplay albums are a lot better.

11/8/2005 12:26:10 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [1]

Music

Wow... women really like men who dress well. Case in point... I went out with a group of friends, which included a significant number of women, last friday to the Burren at Davis Square for a few pints. That night, I was wearing a tan suede leather blazer/jacket with a green t-shirt - a polished look of tan leather paired with an apathetic green t-shirt. The women were raving about how nice I dressed that night. The comments from them were very positive and, I have to admit, ego-boosting as well. The truth is that I bought the leather blazer from the Garment District for $5 and probably after friday a great investment. But I will definitely keep this in mind: always dress to look your best.

11/7/2005 5:14:03 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [1]

Social