From time to time, I would join eMusic then download a mega load of digital music before canceling my membership. I would repeat this cycle a few months later. However, the selection at eMusic must be getting better lately because I find myself rejoining eMusic every month to seek and download new music.

Last week, I rejoined eMuisc to download a fresh batch of digital music, which consists of the following albums:

• Picaresque by The Decemberists - If you need an introduction to The Decemberists, this is the album to get. After reading rave reviews about this band and their music, I decided to download this album to listen for myself. I was blown away by the band's lyrical tunes along with the wonderful voice of Colin Meloy, the band's lead singer and songwriter. I could not exactly categorize the musical genre that identifies the band. They have a broad range of musical style that ranges from folksy music akin to that of The Thrills to the upbeat indie pop similar to that of The Smiths. Absolutely my favorite album at the present. I highly recommended this album.
• Castaways and Cutouts by The Decemberists - A close second favorite album by the band.
• 18 B Sides by Moby - This is one of the two albums from Moby that features B-sides, which some people consider as rejected stuff that did not make it to the main album. But do not let this negative connotion fool you in believing that this album is infrerior. While the album may not be as refined as the parent album 18, it does have a collection of great dance and ambient songs. The goods news is that all tracks on this album sound quite differently from those on the parent album. Overall the album sounds very refreshing and appealing - the album feels more like a new relese than a collection of B-sides.
• Play: The B Sides by Moby - This album is so-so.
• Ambient by Moby - Somehow I do not like this album that much. It is refined but nothing stands out from this album. My least favorite of the six albums.
• Bellavista Terrace: Best of the Go-Betweens by The Go-Betweens - A compilation of top tunes from an 80's indie band from Australia.

10/17/2006 12:11:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Music

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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