On the school front, things are getting more exciting in Product Design & Development (PDD) as we get into the product concepts phase of our team's semester-long project.

On other news, I have been long-time musical fan of the Finn brothers who are better known as the founding members of the music groups, Split Enz and Crowded House. So I was delighted when I learned that they will be playing in the Somerville Theater on March 2. Unfortunately, as hard as I tried, the tickets to the gig were completely sold out by Saturday. I am very disappointed and so far my luck in procuring tickets to the shows that I wanted to see this year has been dismal. Anyway, here is the playlist of my top 10 favorite songs by the Finn brothers.

1. Better be Home Soon by Crowded House (Temple of Low Men)
2. I Got You by Split Enz (True Colours)
3. Private Universe by Crowded House (Afterglow)
4. Dont' Dream it's Over by Crowded House (Crowded House)
5. Only Talking Sense by Finn Brothers (Finn)
6. Distant Sun by Crowded House (Together Alone)
7. Recurring Dreams by Crowded House (Afterglow)
8. World Where You Live by Crowded House (Crowded House)
9. Where is my Soul by Finn Brothers (Finn)
10. Last to Know by Neil Finn (One Nil)

2/28/2005 11:57:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [12]

Music

In my quest to create what I would call the ultimate personal blog site that I can live with for a long time, has made me jump from one blog solution to another in the past month. In order to blog, you either need to have blog software running on your web host or utilize some of the commercially available web hosts available on the Internet. I was using a .NET open-source blog solution called BlogX from 2003-2004 on my website but it wasn’t as stable as some of the more popular blog software like MovableType. My laziness aside, the lack of good editing tools on BlogX was one reason why I didn't update my blog for almost over a year prior to 2005. It was only coming to MIT that Matti and especially Yoav profoundly influenced my decision to share my thoughts and life with other people online.

To save time, I decided to use a blog host for my blogging needs a month ago. My first free blog host is Blogger, which I still high recommend to people who wish to start blogging online. It was free, easy-to-use, and fast, but I wanted more features, in particular, category. So I went to Modblog, which has more features but a lot slower and restrictive on how you can customize your blog. Along the way, I tried other free blog hosts like My blogsite and Typepad but none met my needs. My blogsite impose an online ad on every client's blog, it's ugly but the blog hosting is free (well, sort of). Typepad is cool but it's not free and it's really not as good as Blogger IMHO. I don't know why I was so insistent on the feature of using icons along side with blog categories (like slashdot). Despite the shortcomings of BlogX, I was able to modify BlogX source code and implemented what I the icon-category feature quite easily. Fed up with the inadequacies of these free blog hosts, I decided to download the latest version of BlogX and create a completely revamped blog site on my own website.

When I downloaded BlogX, I was quite surprised to find that BlogX is now under new management by Newtelligence who has done a good job in maintaining the software and the software has now been renamed to dasBlog. Anyway, I hacked the source code to implement what I want and completely redesigned my website to come out with what you currently see the past weekend. There are still bugs and as usual, this project is still a work-in-progress but I am mighty proud of it. I have managed to transfer my previous blog entries but the timestamp for each blog entry was lost during transfer. So without further ado, may I present to you Cybersam's blog version 4.0. Suggestions are most welcome.

2/27/2005 9:11:28 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [13]

Blog

We have a wonderful guest lecturer in today’s Innovation in the Marketplace class. He guest lecturer was Ken Morse who co-teaches the Entrepreneurship Lab course and a class in high-tech sales. His fame prior to MIT as he claimed at the beginning of the lecture was he played a critical role in launching 6 MIT-related high-tech start-ups, which 5 did well. He thought he delivered his 2-hour highly-condensed lecture very well, in which he covered some of the material from both his entrepreneurship and sales classes.

His one big tenet that he asserted during his lecture was managers have to focus about delivering value to customer and be passionate in doing it. This is especially true for startups and small enterprises because they can't get funded if they don't have customers. From a sales/marketing perspective, you need 2 people to play the role of executive manager and sales/marketing in the early phase of a new enterprise. The president of the company has to be passionate about delivering value to the company. The sales/marketing person has to be demanding and cares about customers, not internal politics. When it comes to sales, engineers are among theworst. Engineers can demo the products very well but they can't sell. Your customer, especially the finance guy, wants to understand payback and risk, not demo or benefits. You have to explain the Return On Investment (ROI) in less than 1 minute. Unfortunately, if you look at many of the successful companies right now, it is good selling strategy that beats superior technology. While the knowledge on entrepreneurship and selling is valuable, I thought the most insightful remark from this lecture was his career. If you are in a "cost center", it's time to move to a "profit center." The closer you are to the customers the higher the advancement you can achieve. Simply put, which brings more value to the company - gaining revenue or saving money?

2/25/2005 3:06:53 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

School

I have been very quiet on cyber blogspace the last 3 days. It’s not that I have nothing to contribute to my blog, but I was simply overwhelmed by a business proposal that I need to compose for the 50k competition that was due earlier today. 2 days ago, I was contacted by a semiconductor research scientist at MIT whom I met at last week's 50k smoozing session about his interest in entering the 50k with me. I wasreally planning to enter the 50k competition next year when I would be better prepared for the competition after completing a few essential management classes. But the scientist's idea was simply too good to pass up. Our idea for the competition is to create a business venture to commercialize semiconductor material that is based on his research. After all these years working in the wafer fab as a software engineer, I actually learned more about semiconductor in the past 2 days while writing the executivesummary for the 50k entry than I ever did in my entire career at Analog Devices. You are generally more motivated to learn new things in graduate school while you tend to work on a need-to-know basis unless it's a task that you are directly responsible for.

I was glad that our team had managed to submit our entry successfully by the deadline. I'll cross my fingers and hope that our business proposal will go make it to the finals, which should make the 50k experience much more interesting. Regardless, this is a great educational venture for me whether we win or not.

2/24/2005 3:05:41 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

Entrepreneurship

I remember seeing this creature in a TV commercial during the Super Bowl 2 weeks ago. It is a bison-like robot that you can ride on. The commercial didn't catch my attention then since I didn't know what it was trying to convey. I saw the ad again earlier today and I still don't know what it was trying to convey. However, this time it did manage to spark my curiosity. From the commercial, it looks like people are getting into a rodeo ring to ride this mechanical beast as they would a bucking bronco. The ad ends with the narrator saying"Anybody can ride an Esuvee, but not everybody rides it right." For a moment, I honestly thought the narrator was asking me to test drive a mechanical wooly beast that I can ride on the road. So I went to the website to find out more about this new product. I was struggling to understand what the website is about. There is neither any product information in sight even nor background information about the Esuvee. Everything on the website is about SUV safety. It took me 20 minutes before I realize what the Esuvee is about. To my chagrin, Esuvee is pronounced as "SUV." The website is nothing more than a campaigning tool that is paid for by Ford Motor Company to educate SUV owners how to drive their vehicle safely. But I think behind all the fluff, it is also a good marketing campaign to convince people that they are not invulnerable when they get behind the wheel of a SUV. Alright to be fair, I think educating the public about car safety is a good service but I really think that the marketing strategy of featuring a product-like mascot is not only misleading but ineffective. People don't change their behavior just through education from an ad. What a waste of my 20 minutes? Can you say ASS-U-V?

2/21/2005 3:04:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [18]

Rants

Now that I have started school and didn't have the time to organize social activities for the gang, Milt took over the helm in organizing a dinner with the Hudson's and friends from 217, both parties whom we have not hung out for a while. We had great Irish fare at the Phoenix Landing where we met up with Michelle and Paul. With the exception of Paul and the Hudson's, we continued the night as participants ofan ongoing pub crawl event that a friend of ours had organized. We were joined by some SDMers and their significant others - Dave, Britney, Patty, Chris, Matt, Spiros, Ilana, and Eve. In all, it was good to hang out with old and new friends in one night.

2/20/2005 2:59:09 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

Social

Yoav, Matti, and I mentioned about the incident at Muddy Charles last Friday where Matti was denied admission to. Matti asserted that the bouncer should have used his/her judgment on Mattis obviously mature looks as an indicator of being over 21 years of age. Yoav argued that U.S. is overly litigious and relying on appearance is a risk too much for businesses to bear. I think Yoav has a good point but I cant help but to wonder where do common sense and human judgment have in todays society? Are we so enslaved to rules and so sensitive of mitigating ones liability that common sense and human judgment are merely after-thoughts. Case in point, read the following news where an ambulance was clamped down for parking in an parking spot reserved for emergency use at the Dublin Airport. Even if the ambulance was violating the no-parking rule, a simple phone call could have been made to the ambulances company for verification.

2/19/2005 2:58:36 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

Thoughts

The topic of today's Marketing class is "Do most innovations come out of systematic thinking or a "spark of genius?" I really enjoyed the last 2 marketing classes by Professor Ariely. As usual, Professor Ariely kept the class lively, which made the 3 hours lecture a little more tolerable. Anyway, the crux of today's lecture was about how most people are able to recognize good ideas but aren't able to come out with ideas, hence the common phrase "Why didn't I think of it myself?" So is creativity intrinsically a product of a genius or can we become more creative through systematic analysis of products and their attributes? The lecture went on with the notion that businesses can’t just use market research to come out with very creative ideas. Sometimes, users may not provide enough insights. Perhaps this is the reason why the most innovative ideas are the result of the so-called "spark of genius." So for the rest of us, there are many systematic methodologies to analyze the market and create innovative products. In closing, the later half of the lecture focused on 2 specific mechanisms in systematic marketing creativity - attribute dependency and replacement.

Anyway, here are some of the really funny and creative advertisements that the professor showed in class.

2/18/2005 2:57:36 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [0]

School

Since attending the last 50k competition event last week, I have been receiving emails about upcoming events relating to 50k competition. Last night's event was an informal pizza dinner/get-together to discuss about energy related technology as well as identifying compatible participants to form teams for the competition. Once again, I was over dressed with suit and tie for the occasion as I had mistaken the event as a formal dinner. Yeah, I did appear looking like a sleazy well-dressed student from the management school. Note to self, unless explicitly told, dont ever wear a tie and suit to any MIT event. Gosh, I am a geek and I am hanging out with geeks now. It's ok to be scruffy. Nonetheless, this is the best 50k meeting that I have attended so far. It was very informative and I really found myself surrounding by some of the brightest minds in energy technology and research. I can see why 50k kick-off events are melting pots of technologists looking for business people to commercialize their ideas, while business people looking for opportunities with new technology emerging out from the labs of MIT. We openly discussed some great novel energy technology and business ideas on how we can capitalize them. I dont think I am ready for the competition yet nonetheless it was a good learning experience (and good pizza).

2/17/2005 2:51:37 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [13]

Entrepreneurship

So I met the 2 guys who invited me to form a team with them to enter the MIT 50k competition. Unfortunately, I really thought that their proposed idea was too complicated for entry to the competition. It would require a lot of research and planning to write a good business plan and proposal to convince the judges that the business model is sound. I think the idea is fairly good but project would be time consuming. Consequently, I decided not to join the team and wished them good luck.

I went for my first outside run of the year earlier tonight. I think I am doing well for my triathlon training. I just need to start practicing swimming soon. But what I really need is swimming lessons to improve my strokes. There are some semi-private swimming lessons that I can take at MIT but I need to buddy up with at least a person to qualify for it. So anyone interested?

2/15/2005 2:50:30 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [23]

Entrepreneurship

Let me start off by making a "Note to Self" -Do not reuse pots if they are not washed even if they look clean and hygienic. My gastrointestinal discomfort due to my cooking (yeah, my cooking) kept up most of the night before. Surprisingly, I was able wake up feeling fully rested for System Optimization class. I was able to focus much better today than I did last week. System Optimization is a 3 hour-long lectureand can be intensive at times but I have discovered that the best way to learn and understand the material is to pay attention at class. The professor, David Simchi-Levi is not only well-known in the field of supply chain and planning, but a very engaging lecturer. The professor enjoys asking students questions during the class. One can tell who the smarter ones are since they are often the ones who would answer the most difficult questions promptly and accurately. I am just an average Joe but John, Matt, Matti, Steve, and Uday are in a different class of their own.

Today's ERBA recitation, which I am somewhat ambivalent to, was a disaster. There were connection problems with the long-distance students and every student had a different question for the TA that he needs to answer within an hour. Needless to say, we didn't cover a lot of material in the class today. But to the TA defense, it was tough for him since the level of math background in the class is IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) multifarious. Some students complained that the class is a cakewalk while a few are simply buried in the rigorous statistics requirements of the class. To be honest, I did struggled a little with ERBA but once I understand the concepts, which thanks to a large part to Spiros for explaining, it isn't bad at all. A lot of people mentioned that there's very little use of ERBA in their profession. I respectfully disagree, I think as an engineer we need to have a good understanding of statistics and probability. While ERBA is not purely a statistics class, I find that the review useful and who knows we may learn a few tools or techniques that may help us in our job in the future.

We had a lecture on Intellectual Property by a guest lecturer who worked at the MIT Technology Licensing Office (TLO) at today's Product Design & Development class. He mentioned that in his 10 years of work at MIT TLO, he has seen about 45,000 inventions, which about half of these inventions were filed for patents. Only 5 inventions didn't get patented. The moral of the story is that if you have a great idea, file for a patent; the chances of getting a patent grant is greater than you think.

2/15/2005 2:48:33 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [18]

School

You are welcome Yoav for thanking me for blogginig regularly. Let me return my thanks to Yoav and Matti who reintroduced blogging back to my life again. I am not an eloquent or prolific writer, but I have found blogging conducive to improving my writing skills. I have also discovered blog as a good way to share my life and thoughts to others, especially my friends. No more repeating the same story any more, I just tell my friends to read my blog. Furthermore, with blogging my thoughts are captured at the moment I write my blog.

The schoolworkload has been very light this weekend, I was able to finish my ERBA homework and put in some hours to my professional work. My friend, Joanna is in town and so a few of us went to Legal Sea Foodsfor dinner and followed by attending a party organized mainly by BU students at Tantric. I felt really happy for Joanna who will be graduating from U of Chicago buisness school this summer and marrying Zack this fall. I will be booking a flight to Detroit (Rock City) to attend the wedding very soon.

2/12/2005 2:44:14 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [13]

Blog

Dan Ariely taught the Friday session of Innovation in the Marketplace class, which I found to be one of the most interactive class so far. He really engaged the students, especially the distance students in class discussion, which unfortunately Sky (our classmate) was busted for dozing when he asked him a question. But to the distance students' defense, the volume and latency of the class broadcast are known to be badand Sky may not have heard the question clearly. Nonetheless, we covered a lot in a 3 hour session, which can be summed up in the following:

• Frame the question right and ask it at the right time and place (aka my stupid remark of the day).
• Intel has created something that the customers dont feel directly yet we want to buy Intel products because the product where the chip is used is labeled as "Intel Inside". Ah... the power of branding.
• If there was no need or potential need there was no way to create a product, but finding need can be very hard.

A few of us went to Muddy Charles after class; unfortunately Matti was turned down by the bouncer who requested for I.D. for proof of being 21 or over. As you can see, Matti is Finnish and being relatively new to this country he does not have a driver license, which in the U.S.A. that's our only source of identification that can be carried in a wallet. So for Matti to get into any bar inthe U.S. he has to carry his passport with him, which I think it's utterly stupid. Both Yoav and Matti were right, if one can vote at 18, why not has the right to consume alcohol? But Matti's argument is that the bouncer should be able to see that he is over 21. So how about it? Should a bouncer use good judgment or is the proof of identity required at all times to determine one's age?

Anyway, after consuming 3 glasses of beer, I went to the Z-center and worked out with Cenkhan. I was doing much better with my running that night. Eventually, I need to start incorporating swimming and running to my weekly exercise if I am going to sign up for a triathlon this summer. This is a tall order (don't give me grief if I don't end up doing a triathlon). There isso much to do but so little time.

2/11/2005 2:42:34 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [13]

School

I realized I have been quoting Yoav in my last few blogs but what the heck. Well for our 15.980/ESD.936 - Product Design & Development (PDD) class, we had selected a team of 7 people to design, develop, and market a product that is based out of Yoav's proposed idea. The team will be given $1,000 that can be spent on the design and fabrication of the product, which will become the final project for this class. This is going to be an exciting and fun class.

Finally, I am in agreement with Yoav on something. I agree with Yoav on the guest speaker at Thursday's thesis seminar. I wished that he would have skipped the first half of his talk on the World Wide Web and Web Service, and go right into RFID, which I find fascinating. But to Professor John Williams's credit, he was able to explained Web Service eloquently to the people who has not been involved in Information Systems. Even though I have been using C# and .NET professionally to implement enterprise web and desktop solutions at my work place, I get uncomfortable when faculty members show strong bias towards commercial programming language like C#, Visual Basic, Delphi and even Java (well unless SUN relinquish control of Java to the open standard/source community, it's still a commercial product IMHO).

2/10/2005 2:40:45 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [16]

School

I went to the MIT 50k competition kick-off event last night. For those of you who dont know what the 50k competition is, it is a competition at MIT where students form teams to propose an idea or product (often the result of some research on campus)that has huge business potential. Teams with the best business plan wins. Entrants get to meet venture capitalists and other industry contacts that may fund or help launch entrants' own companies. In fact, 50k competition has given birth to some very successful companies in past, like Akamai, net.Genesis, Virtmed, etc. I didn't have any agenda going to the 50k event other than checking it out. There were 2 guest speakers that night who talked about the do's and don'ts of entrepreneurship. One was the co-founder of net.Genesis and the other the found of NewMerix and Service Metrics. There were also a few venture capitalists that night, although I didn't get the chance to talk to them. But seriously, it wasn't as extravagant as it sounds. It was my first experience in such event and I found the atmosphere to be very causal and cordial. To my surprise, you don't have to have a great idea to participate in 50k. Is like this, people match up with people who complements their own skills and talents. Diversity is critical to any successful enterprise. Every team member of an enterprise contributes something important, people with big ideas or vision will look for people of other talents and vice versa. I was surprised that a few people talked to me regarding opportunities in forming a team but I doubt I have the time for it. However, I am definitely looking forward to the 50k competition in the fall. This should give me the whole summer to think about the next big idea.

2/10/2005 2:32:10 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [17]

Entrepreneurship

I thought if I had most of the difficult questions in my ESD.72 Engineering Risk & Benefit Analysis (ERBA) homework done, I would have more free time that night. I was wrong. I drafted the homework solutions on scratch papers and they weren't in a presentable format. So I literally have to spend a lot of time cleaning and rewriting the solutions onto a more presentable form. I started working on the homework at 1am after slacking off at the Z-center, talking to my mother,and adding "Steal These Buttons" on my blog. I thought I would finish the problem set by 2pm. Well, I didn't go to bed till 5am again, thanks to the ball-busting task of expanding an 8th order factorized polynomial equation problem, which I ended spendinga lot of time on. For those of you who have not attempted this before, it is both stupid and senselessly time-consuming. In any case, I overslept and went to the ERBA class late. Worse, I didn't actually get to finish expanding the ridiculously long polynomial equation till 1 hour after class. The TA was a little stern and expressed dissatisfaction when I submitted my homework even an hour late. He warned that he will penalize any late submission in the future. Yikes!

Nonetheless, I find todays ERBA lecture interesting. The professor talked about Bayesian probability and how it can be applied to help make important decision, in particular the choice of doors in an execution room to open so that you wont get electrocuted. Unlike my classmate Yoav, I do find ERBA interesting. In fact, I have found it interesting enough that I signed up for the 12-unit full version of ERBA instead of the 9-unt abridged version of the same class that the SDM students are required to take. Let me finish this blog and get an early shut-eye tonight. Yawn...

2/9/2005 2:31:15 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [17]

School

I think System Optimization is now my favorite class this semester. The professor in this class, David Simchi-Levi promotes active discussions during his lectures. The material also relates very well to the nature of my professional work, which is operations management and decision support. Regretfully, I didn't pay too much attention in his class today since I only got less than 3 hours of sleep last night. I didn't get to sleep till 5am last night as I tried to finish the assignment for this class, which was due at the end of the class. I made some irreversible revisions to the model that I needed to optimize, consequently screwing my entire model. Anyway, thanks to Uday who gracefully helped me to rectify the problem, I was able to complete the homework by the end of the lecture.

Yahoo! I actually got the homework for Engineering Risk & Benefit Analysis (ERBA) done before 4pm today. With the free time that I got, which doesn't come often these days, I went to the Zesiger center to workout. Since coming to MIT, I have lost count of the number times I came here to work out. This is a beautiful fitness facility, which I thought was 10 times better than the health gym that I was with before coming to MIT. I did some running, lifting, and stretching at the Z tonight. My ankle is doing much better now than a month ago and I slowly ramping up my running to prepare for some races in spring and summer. In my desire todo a triathlon this summer, I just joined the MIT triathlon yesterday to participate in their training programs. Right now, I handling my studies, work, sports, and social activities quite well but I don't how long I can hold up. We'll see, stay tuned...

2/8/2005 2:07:38 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [17]

School

My good buddy, Brian Squibb decided to quit his high-paying job in San Francisco and started traveling around the world. He just emailed me the link to his travel blog. Let's see what misadventures he can find.

Not to be outdone by Brian, I started my own travel blog. The only problem is that I am currently stuck in Cambridge, Massachusetts attending school. I need to start filling that blog soon. Yes, I know I have to get a better picture than the one that is currently on my travel blog.

2/8/2005 2:06:53 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [12]

Blog

First of all, it's official the New England Patriots is officially a dynasty for winning 3 superbowls in 4 years. Go Pats! But then again, isnt it a little premature to call the team a dynasty now? Don't get me wrong, the Patriots is a team to beat and they have proven with its impeccable record. However, shouldn't dynasty be used in a historical context?

Anyway, other than seeing the Patriots win, I thought the Superbowl last night was the worst Superbowl that I have ever watched. First of all, the half-time show was the lamest I have ever seen. I have always held high esteem for Paul McCartney, but I think we need more extravagance in the half-time show. I will tell you why Janet Jacksons show last year was the best Superbowl half-time show of all time. No, it wasnt her bare breast, but rather if you think about people are still talking about the half-time show a year later. From a marketing point of view, thats success. Speaking of marketing, the Superbowl commercials were the worst I have ever seen. With the exception of the Budweiser: "Salute to soldiers", Budweiser: "Designated Driver featuring Cedric", Tabasco sauce, and Toyota Primus commercials, the other commercials didnt really leave an impression on me. Honorary mention for the worst commercial I have seen goes to the Frito Lay commercial featuring M.C. Hammer. It's simply awful.

2/7/2005 2:05:55 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [12]

Rants

I would like to start off today with a quote that goes like this:

That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned;
That until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation;
That until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes;
That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race;
That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained...

Do you know where I got the quote from? If you guessed Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia’s speech to the United Nation in 1963, you are correct. However, if you guessed Bob Marley you are also correct as the words were popularized in a song called War by him. Bob Marley would have been 60 today; I would like to dedicate this blog to honor a great musician whose music I have come to love. To find out more about the music, life, and convictions of Bob Marley, I did a search in Wikipedia and found this "must-read" article about Bob Marley. Here are some interesting facts I have found about Bob Marley:

• Bob Marley and I share the same birthday - Feb 6th.
• Bob Marley was a devoted Rastafarian. His actions and lyrics about Rastafarianism have been intentional to bring the religion to world attention. For instance, the association with Haile Selassie was no coincidence. Rastafarianism takes its name from Ras (Prince or Duke) Tafari Makonnen, Haile Selassie's name until he was crowned emperor of Ethiopia in 1930. The faith predicted that a new king with the power of God would rise out of Africa. There are many Rasta terms that are used regularly in Bob Marley’s songs, including Babylon that refers to the white patriarchy that has been oppressing the black race for centuries through economic and physical slavery; I and I is a complex term that referes to the oneness of Jah (God) and every human; Zion refers to either Ethiopia or the whole continent of Africa. Read here for more information on Rastafarianism
• If you haven't noticed, the colors of Rastafarianism is the same as the colors of the flag of Ethiopia
• Finally, Redemption Song is my favorite Bob Marley song, but I have never fully understand the meaning of the song until I searched the Internet for more information. Do you know that Redemption Song was the last track on Bob Marley's final album, Uprising. It was also the last song performed at Marley's final concert. Redemption Song has a spiritual message and is devoid of any Reggae tone (in fact, the only Bob Marley song that is not reggae). The spiritual theme of the song was probably the result of his struggle with cancer. When Bob writing this song in 1979, he was already in a lot of pain from the cancer he was diagnosed earlier. Redemption Song is about his struggle with cancer and his dealing with his mortality. In the song, he urges people that true freedom is only attained by freeing themselves from their self-imposed mental shackles, as clearly shown in this line of the song - "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery". As a metaphor, this song decries racism and celebrates freedom from oppression.

Source: Wikipedia

2/6/2005 1:57:08 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [14]

Music

Thanks go out to the following people who reminded me that I am a year older now: Blanche, Brian, Bruce, Eimear, Fanny, Hanri, Karine, Matt, Mike, Milt, and Wacek.

I got a good treat from the crowd at Bombay Club and later Redline at Harvard Square, Cambridge last night.

So my thoughts on getting 1 year older? I have really tried not to think about my age since my 30th birthday. To me, it's just another day, REALLY. Man of my age should be living the suburbs, taking junior to the minor, mowing the lawn, and taking that 8 hour road trip with the family to visit the in-laws. Nope, I think mentally I am still going 25 - yeah I have going 25 for almost a decade now. I am slowly realizing that I am not really 25 despite my mental state and behavior. Well, I don't run as fast as I did when I was 25. It certainly hurts a lot more now than it did 9 years ago. So slow down and stop breaking my body.

2/6/2005 1:24:30 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [10]

Social

I can't believe that I was doing homework on a Friday night. The good news is, I am done with the assignment for System Optimization. It took me 3 hours to formulate a system model that I need to optimize but once the model is established, the rest of the assignment became quite easy to do.

I plan on completing the assignment for Engineering Risk & Benefit Analysis (ERBA) by today so that I can go for my birthday party that Eimear had organized tonight. Alright time to hit the books now.

2/5/2005 1:23:30 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [13]

School

As a SDM student, I take classes at MIT Sloan School of Business and MIT School of Engineering. This is a generalization from my observation of the classes that I have attended so far at MIT, but I see a pattern emerging here. I have found that there is a difference in presentation, discussion style, and most of personality between students at MIT Sloan and students at the rest of the MIT campus. Let's start off with attire. Sloan students definitely got the polished look. Most students at Sloan are dressed up. Students at the rest of MIT belong are part of the blue jeans culture. Even the professors are different, professors at Sloan typically wear suit and tie, non-Sloan professors on the other hand are causally dressed sometimes even scruffy. At Sloan, students usually draw from their experience when participating in class discussion. At the rest of MIT, sutdents who are usually younger, are more precise and curious in their discussion. Last but not least, since almost all management classes are structured as class discussions, there are a lot of interaction among students and the teaching staff in the class. At non-Sloan classes, I have found that there are much fewer opportunities for ineraction. This is a CRUDE OBSERVATION since I have only been at MIT for a month.

2/3/2005 1:23:01 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [14]

School

Marvin Minsky is one of the pioneers in Artificial Intelligence and the co-founder of MIT AI Lab. Before coming to MIT, I had read his book titled "The Society of Mind", which explains some highly speculative theories on how minds (artificial or natural) might work in plain simple English that non-technical readers can understand. So when I saw that the "The Society of Mind" class by Marvin Minsky is being offered in spring, I registered for it and attended the first meeting of the class today. So what are my first impression of the class? Well, for starters, Professor Minsky looks a lot older than how he looks on the picture that is posted on his home page. The first part of the lecture was about some new theories from his new book titled "The Emotion Machine". The second part of the lecture was class discussion on the topics found in "The Society of Mind" book. Now that I have started taking classes in the engineering side of MIT, I have a noticeable difference in the presentation, discussion style, and personality between Sloan (and some extent ESD) students and the rest students at MIT. This observation is still highly speculative. Any comments from anyone about this? I am going to cut tonight's blogging activity short since I still have a case study to read. Later...

2/2/2005 11:14:31 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

School

I miss the Category feature in my previous blog software. Since I am new to Blogger, can someone tell how I can associate each blog entry with a category? Instead of reading the material for a class tomorrow, I started hacking with cybersam.org to correct the problem that I had the night before. I am just too compulsive to let the problem rest. On the bright side, I added new code to associate icons with categories. Nonetheless, I still question the wisdom of this decision since I will probably wind up using blogger anyway.

On the bright side, I went out for some beer with Chris, Dave, Matt, and Spiros after "Product Development" class. As usual, drinking helped to induce creativity, we came out with a few ideas that we may actually use as individual product design proposal for this class. Time for shut-eyes. I am getting tired.

2/1/2005 10:44:43 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [16]

Blog

So they decided to publish my tsunami experience at MIT after only being there for a month. Check this out News @ MIT Sloan The printed copy will be available to all students next week. In reality, it is really not that dramatic as it sounds, but it always does after applying a set of "adjectives" to the story. I have to give credits to the writer who did a splendid job in conveying my thoughts into words. This is best line from the passage, which I reflect how I feel from the tragedy and I quote:

Although he describes himself as "agnostic," Chow says the experience has left him feeling more spiritual. "I should cherish my life, and cherish life around me. It brings a different perspective to life, and that perspective actually brings a different set of values to me."

With this, I am going to bring closure to this tsunami thing. It would be great if you can contribute something to help the less fortunate, domestic or international, tsunami or non-tsunami related, big or small. More importantly whatever you do, cherish your life and the life around you. Tsunami aside, I really had a great time traveling to Thailand with Camille and Brian. And thanks again to those who inquired about my well-being when the disaster struck.

2/1/2005 10:23:01 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [10]

Personal