While talking to first year students at MIT recently, I have noticed that many people are unaware or not taking advantage of the MIT Opencourseware (OCW) project. The OCW is a great resource for finding past assignments and exams as well as their solutions. I have found archived OCW assignment solutions - although not all courses in OCW offer this - to be effective study guides. They help me to cut down study time without compromising my understanding of the course subject. Finally, practicing past exams is an effective way of preparing for exams.

10/14/2006 10:53:34 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

I wrote about the continuing DVD format war between HD DVD and Blu-Ray on my previous blog entry. The question is who will emerge as the victor in this battle? NEC announced today that it has developed a chip that is capable of decoding the two DVD formats at the same cost of a decoder that reads only one format. Just like any other format wars before, the whole format compatibility becomes a non-issue as future DVD players will support both formats. Ultimately, there are no winners or losers in this silly format war. The only problem now is to find an affordable optical pickup that reads both formats.

10/11/2006 10:54:49 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Technology

My fellow classmate, Sorin appears on the latest issue of News at MIT, an MIT Sloan student newsletter, to talk about his perspective on living overseas.

10/10/2006 8:32:20 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

I had dinner with Michelle and Camille at House of Tibet Kitchen, a small Tibetan restaurant in Somerville. I have had Tibetan food before but I found it to be rather greasy and strong-flavored. If you like Tibetan food that is fresh, light, and delicious, then those served from House of Tibet Kitchen will appeal you. Their lentil soup is phenomenal - it is simple yet palatable. For appetizers, I highly recommend Friendly Snack which consists of an assortment of all their appetizers for only $6.50. Some of their appetizers are deep-fried but they do not taste greasy. The place is small but it has a great ambience. I recommend this place to anyone.

10/8/2006 11:25:18 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Food

One recent movie that has been receiving no publicity but is amazingly brilliant is The Illusionist. It is odd that such a good movie with mostly positive reviews receive absolutely no publicity at all. I didn't see any of the cast on late night talk shows or a preview of the movie on TV. The first time I heard about the movie was when someone asked me for a show I was interested in watching an hour prior to the showtime. My choice then was The Black Dahlia or The Illusionist. Knowing that The Illusionist comes from the producers of my recent favorites, Crash and Sideways, I naturally picked The Illusionist.

The movie tells a story of Eisenheim the Illusionist (Edward Norton) in the turn of the century Vienna where a rivalry exists between the magician and the Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) who is bent on exposing Eisenheim as a fraud. The rivalry is further intensified by Duchess Sophie (Jessica Biel), a future consort of the prince and a love interest of Eisenheim. I especially like the character development of Paul Giamatti's character, Chief Inspector Uhl, from a petty agent of the prince to an honorable, rational detective who eventually become an Eisenheim's sympathizer. I actually found myself respecting and even empathizing with Uhl even more at the end of the story. And for Eishenheim, he is ultimately portrayed as the anti-hero of the story who strives to pit his values against those of the insecure prince. Ultimately, it is his talent in the arts of manipulating the truth or maybe even the supernatural that dazzles and tricks us into Eisenheim's game. The movie has a great cast and entertaining plot. I highly recommend the movie.

10/7/2006 2:49:42 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Movies

One of the classes that I am taking this semester is ESD.103 - Science, Technology, and Public Policy, a course that applies theories of political economy to explore the issues at the intersection of technology, public policy, and business. This course is taught by Prof. Ken Oye who is very articulating and has been providing great cases and examples in class. I find this class very insightful although I wish he could structure his frameworks with the cases in a more concise and coherent way.

Yesterday, Prof. Oye made an interesting case in class on how regulation can actually improve on competitiveness in the economy. As someone who is keen on apply public policy and economics in the private business sector, I find this case very intriguing. In particular, Prof. Oye mentioned that regulations can increase the value of proprietary intellectual properties of private firms. Here is the case, which we discussed yesterday: suppose company X developed and patented methods to improve its products as a matter of good corporate citizenship and to get a head of anticipated regulatory standards. Its competitors, mostly from overseas, found it difficult to meet the new tightening standards although they have been enjoying high profit margin on their products because of lower costs. It now seems likely that the regulators will raise standards and require every manufacturer to produce products that meet this new standards. If you were in company X situation, what would you have done?

A. Resist tighter standards.
B. Indifferent about the whole matter.
C. Support more stringent standards.

Choice C is the rational choice. In reality, however, most companies tend to support status quo industry association position and resist tighter standards.

10/6/2006 6:08:08 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Business

I played squash with AJ earlier tonight. No, not SDM AJ but Dr. AJ from Course 2 (MIT speak for mechanical engineering) who recently earned his new salutation of doctor after his successful thesis defense a month and a half ago - congratulations, Dr. AJ.

I can't believe it's been more than 10 weeks since I last played squash with AJ. I will pay the price tomorrow with sore thighs and wrist. It was a good game. We should do it again, AJ.

10/5/2006 12:11:48 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Sports

I am starting to have a hankering for blogging since I have not been writing for sometime. True, I am still preoccupied with other things in my life but I figure out that I can certainly spend fifteen to thirty minutes to write a decent blog. Regretfully, due to time constraint the blog will be short.

So expect my blog to be succinct from now on.

10/4/2006 11:56:28 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Blog

Lately, I haven't been motivated to blog at all. I feel like there are things other than blogging that demand my attention. Nonetheless, for the benefit of my friends, here is an outline of what I have done in the past week:

• Sep 18 - I started taking a Microeconomics at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Being that this is my last semester at MIT, I might as well take advantage of cross registering at Harvard.
• Sep 19 - I gave a presentation of my recent dive trip to Manado and global threats to coral systems to my fellow TPP students. For those who don't know me well, scuba-diving is my favorite pastime and the preservation of reef system is something that is dear to my heart.
• Sep 21
• MIT hosted the annual career fair that day. Once again, management consulting and financial companies seem to have the biggest presence at the career fair.
• These days, every Thursday evening means hanging out with my SDM buddies at the Muddy Charles, a popular MIT hangout. There was a good showing of the usual suspects plus a new newbies; but Sorin and Ilana were conspicuously absent.
• After hanging out at the Muddy, we attended the first C-Function this semester. C-Function, short for "consumption function" or "cultural function," is a weekly social event sponsored by the MIT Sloan School of Management.
• Sep 23 - Due to a shortfall of players, the SDM IM flag football team merged with another team to form 2 Sloan IM flag football teams. We had our first practice on Saturday.
• Sep 24 - I practiced my first volleyball this semester with the Sloan Volleyball Team. Surprisingly, I was hitting and passing really well; but I could not for the life of me serve that day.

Alright, that's all I got. I know, it's a pretty lame post. :-(

9/25/2006 10:49:57 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

The MIT Careers Office offers a rich recruiting program for current students and alumni. There are two major on-campus recruiting schedules that are run throughout the year, one in early fall (from early September to mid Novmenber) and another in late winter (mid February to late March). The fall recruiting season is by far the busiest and biggest with about 200-300 companies that are registered for the MIT recruiting program each fall. In addition, the MIT Careers Office along with other student organizations and certain employers offer services in resume critique, mock interviews, and workshops in resume writing and interviews.

Last week, the MIT recruiting fall season started with several high-profile companies (like Google, Lehman Brothers, and The Boston Consulting Group) coming to campus to make presentations about their company and meeting with prospective students. These company presentations are hard to miss. Everyday I get solicited not by recruiting staff but by my fellow students to attend these presentations. I typically hear: "Hey Sam. You going to the BCG presentation tonight?" And I would respond by saying: "Oh, I didn't know that there's a presentation." For next few weeks, there will be company presentations on every night (except Friday and the weekend). Even better, some of the presentations have receptions or offer free pizzas. Even though I can afford for a decent dinner these days, like any student, I seek free food whenever I can. I still find gratifying for being to find and consume free food at a school event - yes! In fact, last year I was able to get myself fed just by attending these events. This year, however, I actually more motivated to attend a company presenation for learning about a company than solely for food.

The paramount event of the fall recruiting schedule at MIT has to be the MIT Career Fair. According to the student section of the web site, which is accessible to MIT students only, there are currently more than 250 employers who will attend the Career Fair on September 20, 2006 next week. I was at the career fair last year and I was definitely impressed and overwhelmed by the number of companies at the fair. I love talking to representatives from different companies. Even if I am not actively looking for job, it is still a great opportunity for me to learn about a company and network with recruiters - like I always say: "it may come on handy someday."

I look forward to next week's Career Fair and the month long schedule of company presentations. It should be fun.

9/16/2006 1:18:41 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

Two weeks ago, I cited the Fung Wah bus rollover on a highway ramp in Auburn, MA on this blog. Not surprisingly, one of the passengers is now filing a lawsuit against the bus company.

Also, the Washington Post has written an article questioning the safety of curbside buses, so-called "Chinatown buses."

9/16/2006 11:04:34 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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News