Blogs January 2005
I am slightly dyslexic. Please, try to tolerate some misspellings.
The order of notes is from newer to older. Within a note, the order is the opposite.
The order of notes is from newer to older. Within a note, the order is the opposite.
January
Monday, 2005-01-31
One month in MIT is over. I am bit older, somewhat more well educated, and much happier than I was for the last 3 years when working in N. So, it was a good idea to come here. I miss all my friends/relatives etc in Finland, and in China, but even I cannot be in two or more places at the same time.
Thanks to Paul at Fairfield Realty my studio now has a new window, and my living comfort is up at least 77.5%. After all, everything turned out just fine, I have nice and cheap (relatively) place to live in the poshest neighborhood, I did not catch cold during the freezing nights, and I think there are no hard feelings on either side.
One thing I definitely miss from Europe is to have decent cafes, with real cups, not just paper ones. I have not seen a decent cafe in this town. It is all those terrible, drug-addicted Starbucks and clones. So sad, one cannot even enjoy the legal drugs here. Fun spoilers, addicts with no class. And furthermore, a real cafe has some newspapers for the customers to read.
My brains are still off. No political analysis today, even though I must repeat that I am really positively exited about the Iraqi elections.
The spring term starts tomorrow. I have registered to so many courses, that completing all of them would really make a difference. I will try my best. I will apply my new lean studying-methodology. I will drive out all muda, concentrate only in the most important issues, and manage my time relentlessly and in an adult manner. Let's see. If it works, I will write a book about lean studying, sell it to all struggling students, and laugh all the way to the bank. Or something. Maybe I could use lean studying as my product development topic?
If you feel complacent, read this report on greenhouse effect, and maybe the feeling goes away. Personally, I feel that I should devote whatever talents, skills, and knowledge I have after graduating from MIT to developing technologies and policies to combat the CO2-buildup. Thanks to Sam for waking me up from my technological dream. What about developing a new, better, cheaper, more efficient, but lots of human labor requiring solar energy system, and the installing lots of them to the Arabic countries, which have both too much sunshine and too many unemployed young men. And getting USA to finance to whole thing, because it would deprive the terrorist most of their potential recruits. Hm, this sounds like a plan. And it would be really fun thing to do!
If you want to see Mandelbrot talking about fractals, Thurow talking on China, etc, go to MITWORLD video archive. Rather nice thing to know about. Thanks to Robbie for pointing out this service.
I had an excellent dinner of fish and chips (I try to find the best fish and chips in town) with Mirja and Milton in some local Irish-pub in Brookline Village. I think the bar was called Murphy's pub or something. Their fish and chips is the best I have got here in Boston (but not as good as the one I got in Broken Bay, NSW, Australia). But good enough. Food aside, it was nice to meet friends, and discuss various topics. I walked all the way to Brookline Village, and got lost. One should always carry a map. I got to see the Boston University and some small town-like places on the way, so the walk was worth it. I came back by tram, it took 10 minutes.
Sunday, 2005-01-30
I seem to be able to sleep 8 hours, even if I stay awake until 3 am. Great. So, I slept until, had long discussion with S using Skype. Skype works surprisingly well, and I recommend it to anyone. Try it, and call me. My Skype-name is masumane.
I have new T-mobile SIM-card. My new number is
+1 617 372 31 34I will keep this number for the rest of my (current) stay in USA. I still cannot get a regular calling plan, which reminds me that I am still untrustworthy alien. But who cares. Life here is great fun.
Iraq
Elections in Iraq went rather well. More than 70% voted, which is rather remarkable. More comments coming later, even in this blog. But somehow I think that the elections may, after all, turn out to be a success.
Travel pages updated
I updated my travel-pages. Especially, the list (and graph) of my flights is now up to date, at least almost. I have flown at least 399384 km during the last 10 years.
Also coming: an evaluation of the January in MIT, some discussion about Finnish and American trucks, etc. But now I am too tired to write, my brains scream for some time to read some nice novel or anything else not-study related. Also listening to American Idiot by Green day helps and relaxes. Thanks to Lavonardo for pointing out this excellent record. See also what music Larz Wirzenius listens to when he writes code.
Saturday, 2005-01-29
Lazy day. Paying bills, sorting out apartment related things (it is going to be OK on Monday), having Indian food for lunch and Middle Eastern for dinner, taking long naps in the afternoon, seeing Sideaways in cimena with Sam, hanging out in bars in Cmbridge with Sam, Ilana, Elisabeth, Kevin, Maja, and Brian, and just trying to forget MIT for one day. No succes. The first Guardian Weekly arrived, but got lost in some bar. Now, too tired to write more. Tomorrow I will tell how I found January in MIT etc.
Friday, 2005-01-28
First encounter with local social security
I visited the local social security number office with Vineet in the morning. It was far away, in some suburb. I complained about the location to Kumar, when a lady overheard us. She said: "Remember to vote for democrat next time. Otherwise the republican will take all offices away because of security reasons. ". Kind of funny. The office itself opened at 9, we were lucky enough to be among the first customers. But our luck run out soon. It turned out, that one of our documents was missing the employer identification number of MIT. I asked the official whether she knew the number. She answered:"Yes I know, but I do not have to". So, we have to get a new letter. It is really sad and terrible how afraid of terrorists/getting fired/imprisonment these people are. They dare not to take any initiative, not to use their common sense at all. All they can do is to follow a process, whatever that may be. I wonder how they can do any creative work in this country with all these frightened people around. And in general, it is waste of human dignity to live in fear all the time. But I cannot change anything here, I must adopt and stop ranting.
There was a sign in the social security number office saying :" It is a criminal offense to kill, kidnap [] social security official when they are on duty". Sic! There were also several signs prohibiting firearms in the premises. Maybe there has been armed robberies in the past or something else. Otherwise it is a bit hard to understand the need for the signs.
Other issues
I met professor Crawley in the afternoon. He has some preliminary areas, in which one could do some interesting thesis work. I need to think about those in more detail during the weekend.
In the evening, I went shopping with Vineet and Kumar. Shopping is necessary, but really exhausting. I bought enough food for the whole February.
Thursday, 2005-01-27
Boot camp is over
January session is now over. Nothing really to do today, tomorrow, and on Monday. I came to MIT only at 11 am, had a free lunch (yes, there are such things here), and finalized the last assignment with Cenkhan. Now, I have done everything required, but I have not read enough. The only real problem so far has been lack of time for reading. I have to gather some more self-discipline, and maybe I have to start reading while walking to MIT. I did read while walking to my office in Finland, so I know it is possible, even in the dark with certain arrangements. Now, it is time to go to Muddy Charles Pub at MIT for the last cohort building event. There is another pub too in the Stata-building selling beer for $3 per pint. Nice.
Muddy Charles is a nice place, a student hang-out without anything fancy. One can buy drinks, but no food. But one can order food from the local take-away places. We had nice time, said temporary goodbyes to those distance students who must face the normal life on Monday. Poor them.
Religion and politics
Some religious man is talking on the radio on the US internal politics. He is clearly against the interpretation of the Bible that the White House represents. He says, White house should deal with justice, not compassion. He also says that more than half of the religious Americans are for some kind of legal protection of same-sex marriages. He is also, as you can guess, against (he is Jim Wallace) the war in Iraq and accuses Mr Bush defying the pope, who was against the war. And he thinks that the most important thing would be to reduce the poverty in US, even according to the Christian belief, and that the current administration in not doing anything at poverty. Interesting discussion. I think listening to public radio really pays off.
Light up and you will get fired!
Be careful! Even using legal drugs may endanger your career. According to story in BBC, 4 employees were fired because they refused to participate in test whether they were smoking outside office hours. Next, the fat will be fired - the same company will fire the fat, since they are so expensive to insure! So, what about speeding? Or drinking alcohol, or not doing any exercise? This is really interesting: a new prohibition is coming - free markets are better in enforcing it than governments. Just wondering where and when the idea of freedom disappeared. Joking aside, if the governments are not able to come up with any lean approaches to health care, this kind clearly fascist company policies will become more and more common. There will be a lecture about lean health care in MIT (E40-298) on 9th of February, noon to 1pm. Free pizza, very good for one's arteries, is available for free.
The least corrupted civil servant in the world
According to the corruption index, Finland is the least corrupted country in the world. A South-Korean television company got curious about the fact and sent some reporters to Helsinki to find out, what is so special in Finland (their country ranks 47th). The reporters arrived in Finland, went to the town hall and requested to see the least corrupted civil servant in the city (and thus in the world). The officials told them to visit Matti Kaijansinkko, who is S's brother in law and my good friend. Mr Kaijansinkko is responsible for the design and implementation of a new district in central Helsinki. Mr Kaijansinkko is extremely honest, straight, and clever man, and incredibly competent in urban design and civil architecture (but when I asked for some advice on DC2, he told that our scale is way too large.) The moral of the story is: Finns are honest, and you cannot bribe them. Strange country, strange people.
Wednesday, 2005-01-26
S pointed out, that I did after all learn a lot from DC2. I may have not learned so much about technical system architecting, but I got a good lesson on the human/social/belief system related concerns. So, I take back some of my complaints that the whole DC2 was waste of time. I was looking it from different/wrong way. Anyway: "before flight it is an opinion, after flight it is a fact" and "first quick analysis are always wrong" and "prepare to throw one away, you will anyway.", as Rechtin writes.
It is snowing again. This time it is going to be bad enough for MIT to get scared and close itself down. Which means that our real, graded classes were cancelled. So, we did not have time to present our pioneering results in managing technical professionals etc. This is unfortunate enough, but hearing that our dinner/cohort-building in the New Englan Aquarium got cancelled too, was enough to drive us to a pub later today. Well, we have to pay ourselves, but the results will be more or less the same.
We had some discussion with SMD04-students about getting jobs after this. It seems to take a lot of effort, and even with lot of effort, it will be rather hard thing to do. But it may of course be, that difficulty is due to too high expectations. Of course, getting a CTO-position is not the easiest thing to do. But for me, things should be easy. I just want to do system architecting is some firm/company, which gives me decent salary (say, anything over 70000 euros per year), and which gives extremely lot of freedom how to do my job, when to do, and how much holiday I want to take. Working 10 hours a day, 11.5 months a year, is not the life I want to lead. Unless the work itself is extremely interesting, fun, and somehow makes the world a better place. Let's see. If everything else fails, I will just establish my own system architecture consulting company. Or then I will start working as travel writer, which would certainly be fun.
I also updated my course selections in my MIT-pages. I try to take as many courses as humanly possible in the spring, so that I would have lots of time for my thesis in the summer and fall. And after paying all the money to MIT, I think it just makes sense to make the most out of my time here.
In the evening, I went with my class mates to a bar in Central Square for a couple or a few or many beers. It was nice: I feel really priveledged to be here in MIT with these people and this faculty. It is so nice to be when the others are smart, smarter than me, and one does not have to explain anything several times. And being in the "epicenter of technoloy research", as Dave put it, is just fantastic. Yes, it is hard work, but I think to complain would be just inappropriate. This is really worth every cent and every intellectual effort this may require.
I am too happy/in too joyful mood to write anything much about the daily affairs. But I did notice, that UK is drifting away from the normal European justice. They still have laws, under which one can be arrested forever without any charge. This is really worrisome, and I hope EU somehow intervenes. If we give up our basic principles, the terrorist have won. It is as simple as that. Basicly, if we step down the road to unlawful arrests, we follow the footsteps of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and, well, umh. Anyway, no country in Europe should do it. See the leader of Guardian for more arguments.
Tuesday, 2005-01-25
The final presentations of our second design challenge were due today. Since there were 10 groups, it took 4 hours, which is a long time. I will not comment others presentations in any detail. Some notes still: teaching a little political science would not hurt. It seems that most of our class have never been really exposed to political science or anything else similar. Another thing is the terrible fear of being perceived as a communist, which causes unnecessary excuses. And still: there is a wide misconception of China being a communistic country. It is not, it is a capitalistic dictatorship, as is Singapore, and as was Taiwan. Capitalism, or free market economy does not require democracy. See e.g. John Gray's book False Dawn for a lenghty discussion on this topic (and in general on globalisation and different ways to arrange capitalism in the world. The US-model is just one of them. Others are (at least) German, Chinese, Japanese, Singaporean, South korean, and maybe Nordic). Other thing I noticed was tendency to see the electricity problems in California a few years ago as technical, power grid related. They were not; they were a direct result of failed privatisation and deregulation (and even were predicted in advance). See Paul Krugman's book The great unravelling. There were other things I would have emphasized more, but that's just me. For example, there are ways to both keep up the competitive incentives in developing new drugs and at the same time providing the resulting life-saving drugs to the customer at a reasonable price. But this is now enough.
I slept only 6 hours last night and I have been irritated and not able to concentrate for the whole day. I definitely need 7-8 hours of sleep. I am totally worthless now.
Monday, 2005-01-24
All classes were cancelled today because of he snow. I was really surpised of the amount of snow outside: about 40 cm everywhere and up to 1.5 meters in some drifts. For a Finn, of course, this is not so extraordinary an event. What is more strange is to local way of coping with snow: nobody has proper shovels for removing the snow, there are no real ploughs etc. Somehow, they still manage to dig narrow paths though drifts. When they hit the ground, they start throwing great amount of salt, which then melts whatever they could not shovel away. Funny!
Robbie had found the MIT event list. We (including Biju) went to listen a panel on evaluating job offers. I learned two things: one cannot negotiate salaries and one cannot have extra holidays. Also otherwise working in USA seems to be lot less free than working in Europe. In general, I find that quite a lot of the famous freedom in USA is really negative freedom, not positive. More about that later.
Our leadership teacher Jan Klein introduced the term career anchor. It means the fundamental drive, which more or less determines what we do with our lifes. There are many, but my career anchor is definitely freedom/autonomy. I get a acute sense of anxiety and panic, when I think that I may have to work in some large organisation and take orders of second quality persons. I must never do that again.
I read an interesting article about oursourcing medical experiments to India. It is much cheaper to conduct clinical trials in India than in USA. There are of course some problems: ethical (the Indians testing the drugs will never have money to buy the drugs), practical (guaranteeing correct dosages etc with semi-illiterate people), experimental (different diets etc). I have to read more about this issue.
I updated something in my MIT-page. And remember "We can quit a job, but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril" as William Safire put it today in his farewell. I personally will never retire. Retirement is for whimps and sissies.
Sunday, 2005-01-23
The snow storm is over. There is some 50 cm snow outside, but who cares. I will let others take care of it. I myself took care of system architecture assignments. It took me some 8 hours to figure out somehow satisfying answers to the questions. The method and notation prof Crawley teaches us is good, but requires really much practice. Or then it is just me. I did order the book about the method and will study it during the srping. It has some wisdom, which I want to capture, and to which I would like to add something. Let's see.
Late today, Vineet and Kumar paid me a visit. I was already going crazy staying at home for 1.5 days. It was nice to have friends over.
Nothing more today. I had a drink or two, and I am now ready to read some 20 pages of the future of the work-book.
On society
Greg has found an excellent quote of Confucius:
When the perfect order prevails, the world is like a home shared by all. Virtuous and worthy people are elected to public office, and the capable hold posts of gainful employment in society; peace and trust among all men are the maxims of living. All people love and respect their own parents and children, as well as the parents and children of others. There is caring for the old; there are jobs for the adults; there are nourishment and education for the children. There is a means of support for the widows, and the widowers; for all who find themselves alone in the world; and for the disabled. Every man and woman has an appropriate role to play in the family and society. A sense of sharing displaces the effects of selfishness and materialism. A devotion to public duty leaves no room for idleness. Intrigues and conniving for ill gain are unknown. Villains such as thieves and robbers do not exist. The door to every home need never be locked and bolted by day or night. These are the characteristics of an ideal world, the commonwealth state
I could not have written better idea myself.
On SDM contents
It is quite funny, that people, who had devoted years of their life/career in figuring out more efficient ways of killing other humans are now asking us, students, to figure out ways to improve overcrowding of large cities and problems of health care. If they were serious, they would stop working for any kind of defence/attack industry and start working on the health/city-problems themselves. Maybe they are working on these issues, but at the level of common discourse military applications still prevail. So, if we really want to solve at least some of the world problems by making better engineering systems, abonding development of military systems would be a good start. I am not holding my breath, though. Again, I send trouble moving a little faster. Tom Allen should be happy.
Saturday, 2005-01-22
I went to my landlords office and applied some pressure on him. He promised to fix the window on Monday and even sent one guy to cover the window with a plastic sheet. It is not blowing in the wind so much anymore. The repair-man was nice, and also fixed my toilet seat, which broke down today. So, living in old house seems to have some disadvantages.
After 1.5 hours phone consultation, I got my own internet connection up and even the wireless works now. I will now leave my neighbors' networks in peace.
It is cold outside
It is also dangerous. The official warning reads as follows:
A DANGEROUS WINTER STORM WITH HEAVY SNOW AND STRONG WINDS WILL AFFECT SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND TONIGHT INTO SUNDAY. ANY TRAVEL IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED TONIGHT. IF YOU LEAVE THE SAFETY OF BEING INDOORS TONIGHT...YOU ARE PUTTING YOUR LIFE AT RISK.
I assume it is wiser to stay inside and try to study system architecting. At 7 pm, the showfall starts to be significant. I cannot see it from my studio, I have to walk down the stairs, when I want to check the situation.
Friday, 2005-01-21
It is still cold, my window is still broken. Tomorrowt we will have snow storm here in Boston. It will be fun. Fortunately I can stay inside in the afternoon, when the storm hits.
Iraq - food for thought from one classmate
Kevin gave a short presentation about his time as captain of US army in Bagdad. His company was in charge of reconstruction of the broken infrastructure. in 16 months they managed to repair 25 schoold, some universities, several hospitals, some pumping station, and something else. Kevin's talk reinforced my understanding that most of the US troops are doing a good job in Iraq and that the problems is in somewhere up in the chain of command. I am not sure how much I may repeat what Kevin told us, but it was pretty interesting indeed.
Our cohort/class is really interesting. We have several guys from US army, one from Indian army, one from Greek army, one from Singapore army. Then we have persons from defense industry, automotives, aerospace, non profit, software, and I have not even been ableto talk to everyone. It really seems that there is lot to learn from classmates. It is going to be pretty interesting to learn all new things and points of view.
New books
I have tried to enforce a quota of 1 book per week. Today I failed. I bought The road since structure, Philosophical Essays, 1970-1993, with an Autobiographical Interviewand The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life. Both of them are definitely worth reading. I am especially interested in the Structure-book, and I have to find time to read at least the interview of Kuhn.
Wallmart foundation
Wallmart foundation advertises itself on the public radio. They say that they are giving back to the community. Well, that is rather fair: according to some studies, Wallmart pays so low salaries, that the community has to give income subsidies of $2000 per each Wallmart employee per year. And since Wallmart has more than 1 million employees in USA (or something like that), there is some giving back to do just to pay back those subsidies. Interesting country: state is supporting crocery-stores! Somehow I remember that this happened in some communist countries earlier. But I may be confused.
Thursday, 2005-01-19
On time
Since time immerorial, the best minds have been wondering what time is. I was to write my master thesis (in theoretical philosophy) about time, how it has been anylysed by the Greeks, Augustimus, etc, about time travel and causality etc, but I found it bit too difficult. Or at least time consuming (sic!). Anyway, I read some books about the topic and am still fascinated. One nice piece of trivia is the fact that Kurt Gödel proved that time travel is possible in Einstein's universe under certain circumstances (by the way, Gödel is one of the most fascinating characters in the history of mathematics). Here is my own contribution, which of course is not novel to anyone else but me: when I have interesting things to do (like now in MIT), time flies, but feels long afterwards. When I did not have interesting things to do (like in the fall of the year 2004 in Nokia), time stalled, but felt short afterwards.
Fellow bloggers in SDM@MIT
Some of my classmates are also writing their own blogs:
- Yoav
- Robbie. See also his other blog. and even third one. He is quite energetic guy, indeed.
- Sam, but he has been lazy lately
Fantasy machines
We had a pre-preview of our Giga-city-projects today. Other teams have used rather complex engineering approached (Chaos theory, fractal, genetic algoritms, 3D-modelling, etc) and reached more or less same results as our team reached by thorough comtemplation. Good - either we are all mistaken or then not. After the review, we had an interesting discussion on whether it is possible to design engineering systems, which would (semi)automatically design large cities from certain initial parameters. Some of us thought that striving for such machines is a sensible goal (and likely to attract funding). I was, of course, as always, more skeptical. I have a few arguments for my position. First of all, I think devising a machine which would spit out suitable political systems for any city, is not possible (and such a machine would not be accepted anyway, and there has been infamous examples of attempting something like this). So, if one wants to engineer the city-designing machine, one must leave political system outside the goal. But does this argument also hold for education, health care, and court system as well? I think it does. So, the machine could more or less design only the physical cities. IMHO, engineering systems cannot replace (system) architecting. They also make (system)arhictectine easier, as they have been doing for several thousands of years already.
On SDM contents
Now some trouble stirring just to fill my duty as a student. First, I think that the Giga-city work is not really teaching anything - the time we spend on it would be better spent e.g. on reading system architecting books and comtemplating in peace. It may be that there are some other purposes for the project, and I actually trust that there is - I just have not found them yet. Second, I think the above discussion of fantasy machines shows that there would/could be some use/need for some courses in history of technology, some fundamental philosophy or similar. The SDM boast having multi-disciplinary faculty of political scientist etc, but they are suspiciously absent from the curriculum. More stirring later, but I think the trouble is already moving a little!
George the liberator took the oath
A poll by BBC world service found out, that "a clear majority [of the humanity] has grave fears about the next four years" and also " that his new administration will make the world a more dangerous place." We will see. At least George himself has now declared to get rid of all tyrannies in the world during the next 4 years. See for example this analysis He also pledged to make the world a safer place. If he walks his talk, we will see USA attacking at least China, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Iran, several Central Asia countries, Baelorussia, maybe even Russia itself. And there are at least 15 countries in Africa with more or less terrible tyrannies in place. So, if one wants to invest, investing in defence/attack industries would be a wise move now. Or could George find non-military means for getting rid of all the tyrannies in 4 years? More seriosly, George's way of speaking ""History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction set by liberty and the author of liberty" gives me the creeps. Every time so far, when someone with power and might has used this language in the past, millions have died. It is one thing to have an ideological view of the world, but this kind utopian talk is extremely dangerous. I hope for the best, for some moderation in the Congress and House.
Wednesday, 2005-01-19
11 hours of lectures today. Even though the last two hours we were watching movie "Dead Poets Society" as part of our leadership class, I am rather tired now. So, nothing much here today. Actually, I just want to tell what Tom Allen, program director from Sloan told me today. He said: "Students have to stir up trouble" and was a disappointed as we were not doing that at that moment. My intuition says that he will not have to wait for long before we stir up something. Having 62 talented engineer with not so small egos and weak opinions is a guaranteed way to invent some trouble, too.
I also had a nice discussion with Paul on the US milatary and foreign policy and on Kyoto-treaty. Excellent, it is always fun to talk about these issues and learn new ways to look at them, and hear new opinions and arguments. One point I still want to make: I am not totally against armies, I think we need some armies (preferably under UN command) to take care and pacify military crisis and genocides etc (of course, preventing them would be even better, but I am not naive anymore). Furthermore, I do think that most of the US and other soldies in Iraq and elsewhere are doing a great job. It is not their fault, that their commander in chief and his mobs are a bit misguided.
Leadership training is really important. It is also emotionally really hard, since the only real tool in leadership in one's one person: emotions, feelings, way of speaking, the content of speaking, body language, character, etc. Every time we discuss some not so good way of leading, I remember committing each of the bad examples. Really tiring, but of utmost importance. Thay have said many time that SDM is life changing experience. I start to believe them, but I also notice that changing is painful and requires lots of energy, humbleness (?), and also courage and even daring. I find studying here like being in emotional rollercoaster. And I can appreciate the acronym IHTFP.
Tuesday, 2005-01-18
Harvard is getting unwanted publicity. I wonder when the first courtcase is due. Someone must have suffered extreme mental disconfort etc. Thanks to S for the link.
Interesting lecture
Mr Ed Dunn gave a lecture about ceramics. He had been designing some high-eng ceramics. The funding came from US government. The idea was to develop ceramics, which would pass through infrared light and use them in the missile heads. The advantage would be to have the good properties of ceramics (heat tolerance etc) and ability to see through the head, which would enable thermal goal seeking etc. The main problem was how to connect the ceramic to the metal structure of the missile. I will not bore you with the rather interesting details about how they went about to accomplish this. More interesting was his attitude/idea of using government/military money for funding the basic research and later trying to find commercial/nonmilitary uses of the results (in this case they would be in car engines or in golf clubs). Now, this raises the old question: does the end justify the means? The answer is not so straightforward - we really would need to go deep in ethics to get any answer. However, this example makes me think more and deeper about my commitment not to work for any company making thinks for killing humans. Furthermore, if one thinks that the end justifies the means, whatever they may be, one needs to discuss and distance oneself form some nasty dictatorships of the past century. Reading the books "Humanity" by Jonathan Glover and "Straw Dogs" by John Gray is a good start. I have my own opinion on this issue, but I won't say it here. You may be able to guess it, though.
Coctail party
SDM organized a nice coctail party (with great food) in Hotel@MIT this evening. It was nice to see alumni, older students (SDM 04s), and the faculty. I got to learn, that I have already earned a certain reputation here,even though I have been really careful and hold back as much as I have been able to. I am not sure, but this thing may be my real challenge/opportunity. Let's see. Anyway, noticing the cultural differences in great fun. One thing I have noted is the difference between the talk and the walk here. It is common here to emphasize the freedom and individualism of the local culture. At the same time, everyone makes the utmost effort to please their bosses, not to speak up in wrong situation, etc. Or this is what I have understood. I may be mistaken. Anyway, my career anchor is clearly autonomy/freedom. I do not know where it will drag me to, but I am really interested to see and experience the journey.
On traffic signs
Here is another cultural difference. In Europe, the traffic sign contain only symbols and no text. Here, in USA, most traffic signs contain both, and many only text. I wonder why. I would say that having symbols is more efficient. I can give two arguments: symbols are faster to read (in traffic one does not have too much time) and symbols are more or less universal (meaning that they are clear for foreigners/Spanish speakers/illiterate person). Just wondering.
Monday, 2005-01-17
I got finally keys to my mailbox, which was quite full of letters and advertisements. I even got a new VISA-card even though I do not remember applying for one. I wonder what this means? Do they want me to use the card and get into deep depts? I also got some letters from S, and now I am a very happy campter indeed.
Otherwise, I have spent the day studying: thinking and writing about Giga-cities. It is fun enough. I had late lunch with Kumar in the local Pho Pasteur. It is more expensive than the one in Chinatown and there is no difference in the quality of food.
It is getting seriously cold outside. The window is still broken. I tried to fix it by hanging some quilts etc in front of the door, but it did not help. The temperature difference within my room (3 meters) has been 2.3 to 3.1 C today. Surprisingly much.
Requirements for transportation systems
As part of my Giga-city thinking, I wrote these requirements for personal transportation systems. On terminology: a city has 5 million inhabitants, a citylet 500000, and a neighborhood has 25000. An inter-connected system of 10 to 20 cities makes up a Giga-city.
Appendix 1: Requirements for transport system Introduction This appendix defines the system-level requirements for the Giga-city personal transport system. Since most requirements contain numerical values, we give each value a name and a reasonable numerical suggestion. All values are averages over the whole transport system. Fulfilling these requirements does not guarantee, that an individual trip will meet these requirements. These requirements are totally solution independent. In particular, they do not specify the technical solutions. This is a draft. Availability - The median waiting time for transport in intra-citylet traffic shall be smaller than 5 minutes (A1) - The median waiting time for transport in intra-city traffic shall be smaller than 10 minutes (A2) - The median waiting time for transport in inter-city traffic shall be smaller than 15 minutes (A3) Transfer speed The overall speed means the speed of transfer excluding the times it takes to reach the start terminal and the time after reaching the end terminal. - The overall intra-citylet transfer speed shall be greater than 15 km/h (TS1) - The overall intra-city transfer speed shall be greater than 25 km/h (TS2) - The overall inter-city transfer speed shall be greater than 45 km/h (TS3) Actual travel time is the time spent in transport (e.g in bus, train, cab, etc). Total travel time is the time it takes to transfer from A to B (e.g. door-to-door). - In intra-citylet travel, the ratio actual travel time to the total travel time shall be greater than 9:10 (TS4) - In intra-city travel, the ratio actual travel time to the total travel time shall be greater than 8:10 (TS4) - In inter-city travel, the ratio actual travel time to the total travel time shall be greater than 7:10 (TS4) Reliability - The transport system shall not have any single points of failure Cost / money - The total cost of the transport system shall not exceed 3% of the GDP (CM1) - The total cost of the transport shall not exceed 10% of median personal net income (CM2) - Cost / environment - The average energy consumption per personal kilometer shall be less than the equivalent of 2 liters of gasoline per 100 km (118 miles/gallon) (CE1) - The average CO2-production per passenger kilometer shall be less than 0.25 grams (CE2) - The average VOC-production per passenger kilometer shall be less than 0.06 grams (CE3) - The average NOx-production per passenger kilometer shall be less than 0.25 grams (CE3) - The average particle production per passenger kilometer shall be less than 0.01 grams (CE4) o According to http://www.epe.be/workbooks/tcui/2.2.html the current values for coaches with 22 passengers per coach are 0.77g, 0.18g, 0.75g, and 0.04g, respectively. - The transport system shall use less than 1.5 % of the total Giga-city area (CE5) o According to http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch6en/conc6en/carlandarea.html this equals to the current situation in whole USA. - Other - The average number of legs in intra-citylet transport shall be 2 or less (O1) - The average number of legs in intra-city transport shall be 2 or less (O2) - The average number of legs in inter-city transport shall be 2 or less (O3)
Send any comments or complaints by email.
In addition to the set of requirements, I wrote some 12 pages of preliminary design considerations. I am not sure if they contain any intellect, but at least I had fun during the effort. Now I also understand why professors need research assistants: I would also need somebody, who would check my assumptions and dig some values out of statistical sources. Not having time nor assistant, I just guessed. Heh! Anyway, professor Crawley's method is to first think and come up with a solution, then do some research, and finally, synthetise one, better solutions. Now I have taken the first step - so much more than half of the work is still ahead.
According to several news sources, USA has already some special troops operating insiden Iran, and is also planning all-out war against Iran. The pretext is to establish democracy in the Middle-East. See for example the article in the New Yorker (it is really long one, but first 10 paragraphs are enough to get the point). What I do no really understand, is how destroying countries, distributing hundreds of tons of high-explosives, abusing prisoners, breaking the Geneva convention, causing middle-to-high-intensity civil wars, destroying all security systems, etc, is going to help in turning any county, not to speak of a region into a democracy. But, of course, if having elections, possibly rigged and uncomplete/unfair, is the only requirement for having a democracy, then the plan may be feasible. But if one wants basic socia systems, positive peace, law and order, civil liberities, and some kind of fair representation, one cannot hope too much from this crusade. Furthemore, I cannot really understand where they are going to get enough soldiers (consription?) or money for additional wars?
Home, sweet home
Some pictures of my home here in Boston. Note the quilts nailed over the window. Guest are welcome at any time (call first, I am seldom at home).
and the other way
while I hack someting important (like this blog)
the place for refreshments
another view of the living area
Sunday, 2005-01-16
Oops, "theory of system architecture" is the same course as "System architecture". It is a good course indeed, but I cannot take it twice. I will take "Space System Architecture and Design" instead. Space systems are not only really interesting, but they also provide rather well defined context, in which one encounteres all important aspects/problems of architecting: human interaction, variable environment, hostile environments, difficult mechanical problems, need for ultra-quality software, communication issues, scarcity of energy, need to involve large number of designers of different disciplines, maintenance problems, high availaility, run-time SW updates, etc. So, even if one does not want to make one's career in designing space systems, doing some work with them is time well spent. At least I think and hope so. Let's see what is the official opinion of MIT. I would also like to take "Architecting organizations" and "Organizatorial process", but they overlap with the Apollo-course. I should really spend at least two years in MIT, there are so many interesting courses to take and things to learn and study.
Beginning to study again after a one-day holiday is extremely difficult. I know this feeling, but I do not know any simple way to avoid it. It always comes and gets me. Now, I just have to force myself and write something about Giga-cities. It would help if I could first explain my ideas to someone. I read that ENTPs are good writers, but they must first talk about what they are about to write. I am definitely an ENTP, and I have noticed this peculiarity myself. Speaking of being and ENTP, some peer of mine told me in the leadership evaluation that I am an ENTP and must race on my strengths, and at the same time train my weaknesses. Let's see how well training goes. Or then I need to find a job, in which I will have someone to talk to and many persons to finalize all my various projects.
Giga-cities
I started to write a draft document on Giga-cities. Thanks to S for encouragement and support. I have so many ideas, that once I now managed to start, my typing speed has become the most pressing constraint. And of course drawing figures using a computer is too timeconsuming, so I just write, and draw the figures on paper by hand. Anyway, without constant support from S I would be lost.
Visit to friends
I visited my friends, Mirja et Milton, in Rosindale (beyond the urban rail transport). We had dinner, wine, etc, and it was fun. The evening was a bit exceptional, because when I arrived, they were not at home. Their car had broken down somewhere in Blue Hills, where they had been observing wildlife. Fortunately, I could figure out a way to get in (well, I happened to had a key to their place with me), and then I sat there sipping wine and reading books about cycling. After a few glasses of wine, my hosts arrived with another bird watcher, who had great many interesting stories to tell. After telling and listening to several stories, I left by foot towards the subway station. The weather was terrible, snowing, strong wind, minus 6 centigrade, 2 inches of snow. I fell on my face after my ankle sprained. Fortunately, I got a taxi and now I am back at home. Quite an evening.
Saturday, 2005-01-15
I have now decided which elective courses to take. See my MIT-page for details. I would have liked to take some courses on renewable energies etc, but I could not fit them im my schedule. So, I will take courses on "Distruptive technologies", "Engineering Apollo 13", "System dynamics for engineers", and on "Theory of System Architecture". They will together meet the minimun requirements of the SDM program. But I may take additional courses in the fall term, if my thesis work goes well and I have time.
I spent whole afternoon evening shopping, arranging practical matters, and cleaning. Partly because I have to take care of small issues so that I can concentrate 100% in my studies, and partly because my brains required some rest. I think I must arrange my life as regular as possible so that I need not think every small issue every day again. In order to make that possible, I bought 9 identical T-shirts. Now I have enough clothes for 2 whole weeks, so I need only take my clothes to the laundry two times per month. Means that I need to use only 10 minutes per week for laundy. Quite good.
First, I had dinner with Kumar in one South-East Asian restaurant in Mass Av. Then we drove (he has a car) to some wholesale store 15 miles west of Boston. Everything was so cheap there. I wonder whom I exploited. I saw some small town, which I took as being typical American small towns. I would go nuts in two days if I had to live in one of those places. I am really happy, that I can now live here in Back Bay. Back at home, I intalled my new wireless weather station and ADSL-modem.
Another soldier has turned into a pacifist after seeing what war causes. The same stories, the same helpless fear, anxiety, and despair, which we have read in so many other books and letters. And still we wage war. It is so sad, especially when there is absolutely no reason, no justification, and even no goal, no plan, but just wrecking havoc. I cannot do much about this war, but I have decided not to work for any company making any guns or other fighting equipment for any army. I think designing better (more lethal, easier to use from distance, etc) guns is a crime, absolute waste of human lifes and creativity. We have so many real problems in this world, that we must not waste our energy and creativity on any effort in killing others. We could start, for example, by implementing ideas of Jeffrey Sachs. He has recently proposed spending $150 billion per year for 10 years on removing absolute poverty from Africa. I listened to an interview with him yesterday, and I think his ideas are more than feasible, they make sense and not impelementing them is unethical. I wonder if I can use my skills and energy after MIT on something, which would make the world a better place. Designing guns is not one of the desirable things, and I am bit douptful about mobile phone networks too.
And now to warmongering idiots, morons, and their infamous friends from all over the world have been destroying Babylon. Really, this is incredible. Why cannot they leave even ancient ruins in peace? Where does this uncivilized urge to destroy our common history come from? There are no excuses for this kind of barbaric actions. It is a pity noboby can sue the architects of this insanity.
And then some pictures from Titan. Excellent work from both ESA and NASA, and a really great leap for mankind. It would be nice to meet the architects of the Huygens probe, and even work with them. Maybe later?
Friday, 2005-01-14
I slept 8 hours and my English is much better now. I find rarer words, like,more easily. And I can think and come-up with semi-original ideas, at least. I conclude that for me 8 hours of sleep per day is an absolute necessity. If it prevents me from getting a GPA of 5, I am just happy to accept the fact.
On walking
Another cultural difference: how people walk. Observe e.g. Mr Bush. Almost nobody in Europe walks like him, but here his style is quite common. Or compare Italian and Finnish women. Now, let me explain why there are these differences. I think they are due the way we learn to walk by imitating our parents and ohters nearby. But this does not explain the origins of the differences, which must be due cultural preferences or, maybe, the type of shoes used, or the terrain most commonly walked on. Strange anyway. Send your explanations by email.
S sent some possible explanations:
I think one reason for walking differently is different body structures - the length of legs compared to back, the hip structure etc. Compare e.g. Europe and Asia in this respect.
But mostly it is a cultural matter. Ways of walking have always been - consciously or unconsciously - culturally impregnated. Cf. feet binding in China; the purpose was to make women to walk with as small steps as possible, i.e. to be supine, which was the sexual ideal.
But what is the difference between high heels and feet binding? High heels are a matter of free choice - and can be used powerfully to create a certain image of oneself - whereas no woman ever could choose whether her feet were bound or not.
Yes, and in India, and I guess in Africa too, people walk very slowly and with a very immobile posture. Two reasons for that: 1) the heat, you don't want to sweat any more than is necessary in that climate, 2) people are used to carrying things on the top of their heads, and then it is important to be as balanced as possible.
Then next puzzle is why people here walk to the cafe, get a cup a coffee and drink it while walking to some other place (office?), and people in Italy walk to the cafe, drink their coffee there and then walk to some other place (restaurant?). IMHO, if one is too busy to drink coffee in a cafe, one needs to reconsider one's time management skills. Being busy means being unproductive or at least uncreative.
On stress
I did not remember, that moving to a new country and trying to adapt to local culture and language is this hard. I am really exhausted. Even though there are many similarities between USA and Finland, I still find the culture rather strange. There are so many small differences, which one encounteres daily. Each of them requires a little amount of energy and concentration. And even though my English is not too poor, I find listening to all different accents rather hard. Some of our professors are speaking really fast, which is OK, but I need to get more rest. Moving to China was much easier, because my employer took care of practical matters and because my daily job did not change. When I moved here, everything changed at once.
Friday night
Well, one cannot spend all Friday nights at MIT, if one wants to be creative. So, I had dinner with Kumar in Pho Pasteus in Chinatown and later two (!) pints of local beer in the local Irish pub. Now I have relaxed, my brains are working again and I feel good. Using drugs is never a waste of money. Nor is talking to friends.
Thursday, 2005-01-13
I have some preliminary results of the ongoing experiment on durability. Sleeping less than 7 hours per night is not enough for me. I have now tried it and the results are discouraging: my memory falters, my spoken English is poorer than ever (which may also have something to do with the facts that, first, Americans use simple spoken language (you know, like simple), and, second, that I have been talking with other foreigners a lot, and, third, that I have not had time to read any fiction or even decent newspapers, not to speak of poetry), and I cannot takie initiative in any endeavour. So, I have to start sleeping 8 hours pers night. That leaves me still at least 13 hours per day for studying, maybe even 14. I am quite convinced that very few of us can study more that 10 hours per day in the long run, where long is anything longer than a week.
So, I am tired, and need to take is easy. We had only one real class today. It was about system architecture. I may have said this before, but I am rather passionate about the topic. I will write my thesis about system archictures, lean product development and distributed systems, if nothing more interesting turns up. Then we had a short class about career services and job hunting. As I have quite much decided that I will not go back to Nokia, this class was quite useful. I am also considering not to leave MIT, but instead stay here and get a PhD. Who knows?
If you blog, be careful. Otherwise, you will be fired.
Wednesday, 2005-01-12
Another day in MIT has passed. Quite a busy one: first 3 hours of "human side of technology" (mostly discussing how to manage talented, but socially nonconformant persons), then 2 hours on how to write resumees, 2.5 hours on creativity, and finally doing assignments and design tasks for 4 hours. Fortunately Biju gave Robbie, Kumar, and me a lift home. It was then 10.30pm, now it is 11pm. I spent 30 minutes preparing for tomorrow's system architecture class. It will be fun again. This all is fun, but in a slightly masochistic way - if everyone would work this hard in the industry, we could kick 66% of the workerd away.
Socialization happens really fast. I think eveyone has already made many friends, most of us have some semi-static roles (or disguises). It is good that the "human side of technology" (which used to be called "organizatorial processes") is right now in the beginning. We are our own guinea pigs!
On security
This country seems to be obsessed about security, but nobody ever defines the term "security". So, let me try. "Security" comes from "secure". The opposite of "secure" is, well, "dangerous". Thus, make enhancing security means, by and large, removing danger. But danger of what? I would say danger of premature, unnatural death. Therefore, all invesments in security should be measured in terms of number of avoided premature deaths per dollar.
So far, terrorists have killed approximately 3000 persons in USA. After 9/11 at least 150000 persons have been killed in road traffic in USA. Some 50000 have been killed in shootings. According to CIA statistics, quoted by Kristof in NY Times, some 60000 babies have died just because of the inefficiences etc of the US medical system (compared to e.g Singapore). The list of uncessary, avoidable deaths is much longer, but this may be enough. So, is waging "the war on terrorism" the most efficient way to increase security?
Another thing is, as some former chief of homeland security pointed out in the radio last night, that the "security measures" defined and implemented by the Bush administration are basicly doing what the terrorists, e.g. bin-Laden, have wished for. The society is closing, becoming a police state. The same problem was real in Europe in 1970s, but the Europeans found ways to deal with terrorism and still keep their societies open and uphold the principles of fair trials etc. The former chief has written a book about this. The title of the book is something like "USA 10 years from now". Read it and send me a summary.
Just wondering. Now I am too tired to even wonder.
Something fun
How many pages does it take to define the process for making and baking cookies? See the story of the military way to find out. And give it a try!
Tuesday, 2005-01-11
Having convert US measures to metric ones is suprisingly hard. Say, you have to decide whether your laundry bag weights 10 more or less. It is something like 5 kg, but deciding is hard. So, I ended up paying for 10 pounds of laundry even tough I had only some 8 pounds. Maybe I need to buy a scale. Anyway, I think that the most time efficient way to handle laundry is to have enough clothes for 2 weeks and use some commercial laundry service. This way I will us 20 minutes per week for this domestic task. Another repeating task in buying food, which I think one can also done only once a week or even biweekly. The only thing to figure out is how to keep my home clean with less that 30 minutes of weekly work. Of course, living in a hotel and eating in restaurants would be the best solution, but unfortunately I cannot afford that this year.
Paul Krugman is back and writing as good columns as ever. This time he explains why Mr Bush's new proposal for privatizing social security will just ruin the economy. But I think privatization would go forward anyway,no matter the real results.
Monday, 2005-01-10
This week seems to be lot less overloaded that last week. Today, we had a couple of classes and were given the next design challenge. Our group will try to figure out ways to alleviate the existing and future problems of world biggest and fastest growing cities. Interesting and rather difficult task to do, but one that system architects should focus some of their attention on.
I finally got my health insurance and student fees paid by using a system called eCheck. It is effectively the same as normal account transfer in Finland. I also found a way to get money from Finland to USA. Not that easy task to do - creating a world-wide money transfer standard would not be a bad idea.
In the evening, I went with my classmate Kumar to Harvard book store. I found The man who loved only number, a biography of Paul Erdos, for $6. Great bookstore. I also bought the newest issues of Foreign Affairs and Harvard International review. For our upcoming creativity class, I bought Think like a genius by Siler. Great to have books. My home is way too empty, not to speak of my head. Books help me in filling up both of them.
And then we had a beer.Only one, not many.
More later. Now I think I read something for 30 minutes.
Sunday, 2005-01-09
After sleeping 12 hours I am now ready to do the rest of this weeks assignment. I will walk to MIT and meet my team mates there. It is going to be fun. We will work on System Architecture course assignments. And then I have to go to buy food food the next week. I also try to meet Milton and Mirja.
US starting a civil war in Iraq?
According to this article, the Pentagon is planning to send special forces to train to Iraqi Kurds to fight Sunnis. The reason is that US is losing the war against the insurgents/freedom fighter/ rebels/you-name-them. The only outcome I can think of is a large scale civil war in Iraq. The Arab countries/ organizations will not stand idle and let US train one part of Iraqis. The lack of creativity in Pentagon and in Rumsfeld mobs is quite astonishing.
Nokia does not value world class education
I just got to know, that Nokia has withdrawn its support for my studies in MIT. Previously, they promised to refund 25% percent of the tuition, if I graduate, return to Nokia, and stay there for 2 years. 25% of the tuition is $13500, which is more or less the average sign-up bonus for SDM-graduates. So, if I will return to Nokia after graduating from MIT, I will lose more than $10000 the first day. Go figure! And this all happens in a company, which has continous learning as one of its values, and which wants to be number one in its industry. Clearly, some complacency is taking over in Nokia.
MIT - time is precious
It has now become clear, that one has to learn to organize one's days in the most efficient manner possible. The amount of work this program requires is just astonishing. And energy too: one classmate of mine has already lost 1.5kg of his weight. I think I have lost even more. There simply not enough time to eat enough. Or is it just lack of time to drink beer? Anyway, I would not mind losing some 15 kg.
Saturday, 2005-01-08
Robot tournament is about to start. Our is the 4th lightest one and one of the few which contain only Lego-part. It is a charming piece of mechanical and software engineering. Of course, the SW is not perfect and it does make some odd state transitions. We could not figure them out last night before 2.30 am, when we decided that it was (and still is) good enough. Sometimes it even finds its way back home - which I assume no other robot is able to do. This is going to be real fun.
The original intension was to not to stay up late (or early). But then we got more than a bit carried away and now most of us are somewhat fuzzy. As this text proves. We also had dinner is some nearby Thai-restaurant, and it took quite long which of course delayed the whole thing. But who cares. For lunch, we had Indian food in Cambridge. So,it has been great even though I was really desperate on Thursday morning.
We lost, but who cares. It was a fun fight!
Professor Crawley hold a quiz yesterday. First we got to ask him questions about international politics, economy etc. When he could not answer (it took some time to come up with a question he could not answer), we got to answer to the question and return our answers in writing. There were 3 questions, and the better one answers, the better grade one gets. Quite a scheme. I like it a lot, since it really shows that he is serious when he emphasizes the importance of reading. I need to get some newspapers etc.
On cars and transport
It seems that I have already earned a reputation of hating or at least wanting to get rid of cars. This is not true, it is a misunderstading of what I have been saying. I find cars fascinating, some of them are really nice and technically interesting. Also the history of the car industry and the production, logistical, and development methods of the car industry are worth serious attention. What I am definitely and resolutely against is building car based transportation systems and urban planning which creates suburbs and exurbs. I hope this is now clear. If not, please ask for more argumentation and explanations. I have them ready.
Gathering speed
I feel that was really wasting my time in Nokia. I had to spend nonimally 40 hours a week at office, and for the last 6 months there was not a single real learning opportunity. Furthermore, all my novel ideas about how to do things better and more efficiently were ignored oblivion. It was not fun. Here in MIT things should be more fun, and I feel I am so full of "nervous energy". I just have to find a way to focus the energy on useful things. Let's see. But this is really a stimulating environment.
An observation. Here in MIT the toilets have stange faucets. They are semiautomatic: one button for cold water, one button for hot water. When one presses either one, one gets a short burst of cold or hot water, respectively. Hot water is too hot for washing hands, cold is unpleseantly cold. I wonder why they do not just have one button distributing lukewarm water.
The weather has been tolerable. It is not too cold, rarely below 0 centigrade. On Thursday, it was raining something between water and snow, but on Friday we had very nice sunshine, which was the main reason for having lunch outside campus.
Thursday, 2005-01-06
It is getting almost too hectic here In SDM@MIT. This is why I must, possibly, cut down the amount of blogging I do. We have so many assignments due on Friday (tomorrow) in addition to the robot thing. And I still would like to read newspapers. Now back to the lecture/class. It will be about leadership.
Also the leadership class good. The lecturer, Jan Klein, is lively, clearly knows her topic and is able to get the attention and interest of the students. We discussed at lenght the leadership around the Big Dig-project here in Boston. The project has been under construction now for decades and its aim is to move an 8-lane elevated highway undergroud. The highway cuts the downtown into two pieces. Whatever. One important thing is that everyone here considers Big Dig extraordinary expensive etc. But I would estimate that the war in Iraq has already cost more, and is definitely less necessary and much more destructive. Hmm, but may I think like this. I should find out the figures.
Our robot is quite much ready. The algorithms we came up with on Wednesday seem to be easy to implement and sufficiently working. And by dividing the total work cleverly we also got all assignments done. Excellent. In the morning I was quite stressed out and desperate, now I am rather confident that this program is hard, but not really too hard.
Wednesday, 2005-01-05
It is snowing outside, but this classroom is already getting hotter. Some excitment and great hopes: my first class/lecture in MIT is about to start. It is about "the human side of technology". The course takes only 4 week, 6 hours lectures per week, and has a 600-page coursebook. I have not even taken classes in USA, only seen fictional charatecters taking them in movies. Let's see how much the movies are telling lies. Based on my experience so far, not much. As S pointed out, most American films, sitcoms, etc are not that fictional. This is not a value statement, so do not be offended.
The lecture was quite interesting. The teeaching stele seems to very interactive and repetitive. Every points will be illustrated by numerous examples, which is both good and irritating, if one gets the point right away. But one certainly learns what the lecture is about. Which is the purpose of lectures in general, I assume.
1 am, at home, trying to get something done. Not that succesfull, so a short blogging break. The other class today was "System Architecture" by Ed Crawley (e.g. the chief architect of Nasa etc). Great! Really good materil, lightning fast speed, no repetition, and really lots of homework and reading to do. I was first a bit shocked, but now I think it is going well. I like the topic, it is my long-time passion. Crawley emphasized, that an architect must think holitistically, read (e.g. NY Times, Financial Times, subject field issues, ), talk, listen. I love this approach and I hope that by doing really much thinking, reading, listening, and talking, I will both pass the course and learn a lot.
Robot is not ready and the excessive homework load is not exactly helping. I hope this all serves some positive purpose.
Tuesday, 2005-01-04
I am not anymore too nervous about MIT and studying. I managed to sleep 6.5 hours and surprisingly it was quite enough. Some nervousness is still there: my dreams would require serious parental advisory if they were movies. No need to take any hallusogenics.
I cannot button the upmost of my shirt. And I cannot figure out how to tie the tie. And I cannot see any reason to wear a tie either. Stupid traditionalism from some ancient French court. Americans should boycot ties for similar reasons as for calling French fries "freedom fries". Or something. I will never work for a company, in whose R&D one needs to wear suit and tie. In a pinch, I will establish my own company. This is as good reason as any, and better that establishing a company just to get rich.
Afternoon. 4 hours of developing games, team play, and, luckily a lunch. The games were quite similar to the games we had in Nokia in team development. I do not have any strong opinion on them, they are useful, I suppose, but sometimes one gets a bit fed up with games. Anyway, we had fun, and we will continue to gave fun by developing the small robot of ours. I try to convince others to keep it simple. But it is funny to notice that my brains still work - and I can figure out some parts of the solution in real-time. Nice.
Furniture has arrived
I came back from MIT at midnight and was pleased to find my new, rented furniture at my home. Not the place looks just like I wanted it to be. Excellent, now I have a home and can start to live here for earnest. I like this service!
Robot competition
Out robot has some rather basic skills already! It took a while for us to figure out how to program it etc, but now we are rather confident that we can get something that stays on board and may even be a nasty opponent to the other robots. And we had a lot of fun!
But I have not had any time to follow what is up in Iraq or elsewhere. I must order some magazines and read them on Sundays. Otherwise I will not be uptodate. Which would be untolerable.
Testing the sofa
I tested my new sofa by reading a few poems by Joseph Brodsky. Both sofa and the poems work well. Reading poems prevents nightmares. Try it. Or read at least this one:
I sit at my desk,
my life's grotesque.
I have a new writing desk.
Monday, 2005-01-03
I think I am really nervous because of my studies. For the last 3 weeks, I have woken up at 4.20am, but have fortunately been able to fall asleep again. But today I woke up a 3.20am, and could not fall tightly asleep anymore. Instead, I saw some rather worrying nightmares about studying. Strange. But now I just have to dress up (casually, tomorrow I need to wear a suit, hmm, and I do not really know how to tie the tieknot..), go out and walk to MIT. The weather should be nice, clear skies, some 5 degree centigrade. It wil be late before I am back at home. It will be long day, we need to staart our first design contest, which is going to a small robot made out of Legos. Have a nice day! And take care!
First day in MIT
The first day in MIT is now over, but work is not. I still has to learn to the NQC programming language for Lego Mindworks. We must design and implement a simple robot with the Lego-system. The robot must then face head-on other similar robots in a sumo-type tournament. Rather fun, but there is some work to do before the robot is ready to fight. Means spending a few long evenings in MIT.
The first day was mostly introductory. First the director Pat Hale introduced the program contents and goal (after, of course, Ted Hoppe had introduced etc everything in his characteristic and enthusiastic style). Then we, the 62 students in this SDM05 class, of which 6 are woman, introduced ourselves. There are students from (at least) USA, UK, Germany, Greece, Turkey, China, India, Taiwan, Pakistan, Poland, Canada, and maybe somewhere else. Most students have been doing rather complex systems, but I did find it conforting/surprising/strange, that there were really few who would have experience of systems of similar complexity and size as I do. It seems that the "200 million euro" education I got in Nokia (using the expression of Reijo Koivula) pays off rather well, if not for Nokia but at least for me. And it seems that no other has travelled in more than 45 countries and that nobody has more than 5 patents (as I do). So, maybe I do not have to continue waking up at 4 am due to nervousness. That said, I am confident that the others have a lot of experiences, ideas, and point of view, which are new for me and from which I can learn quite much. And as many other said, it is a realization of a longtime dream to be studying in MIT. It will not hurt, at least.
I walked both ways. It is really nice to walk to MIT and back, it keeps me from losing my composure totally.
But now I have to read and learn the NQC. It is not that hard thing to do. It is basicly a limited set of C with some predefined macros for getting the values of sensors and for controlling the motors (both of which there are only 3 pieces).
Well, it seems that programming in NQC is a piece of cake. The difficult thing is to decide what to program: how the robot is going to find the other robot, how it will either destroy the opponent or push it from the playground (and realize that it has done so), and how it find its way back to the starting point. I have some ideas already, but I will not write them here just in case anyone from the other 9 teams would be reading this. Basicly, the thing should be somewhat simple, but, at the end of the day, luck has a lot to do with this: one only has one touch sensor, so if one will hit the other robot when moving in the wrong direction, one does not realise it (except that one could, I guess, use the rotation sensort to realize that one has hit something). Or one could have a rotating arm with the touch sensor. Or whatever. It is time to get some sleep.
Still another note. I find it really nice to work with a group with a design task when everyone is excited about what we are doing and we can communnicate even late in the night via email etc. It has been a while since I have been doing any real design. The last time was in China in April 2004. Of course, this little robot is nothing compared to real life embedded real-time systems, but the design process is more or less the same. Maybe one could use something like this for distilling some essential truths. I do not know. But however it may be, this is going to be fun and life is good when one has fun - and product development is much more fun than doing drugs. Really! Try both if you do not believe me. But of course product development and drugs together, well, that is even more fun. Sad that the US government is waging its insane, braindead, and unsuccesfull and unnecessary war on drugs (as well as on terrorism). The war of drugs is actually a war on happiness, as is the war on terrorism, too, but this has quite a little to do with designing robots. Or does it? Anyway, neither of the wars is not going to make US, not to speak of the rest of the world any safer. At least if making the world/US safer means doing something to recude the amount of avoidable premature deaths as much as possible with the given amount of money.
Sunday, 2005-01-02
Home, sweet home
First morning in my new home. A bit lonely, but I find some of the Boston radio stations somewhat conforting. Even though I have never been a real radio listener, I realize I might do well to become one now. My record collection here is mostly limited to Sonic Youth, Rammstein, and Tuomari Nurmio. The local classical radio station complements them nicely.
A loft makes sense in a house like this, in which the only window has only one pane and even it is partly broken. Fortunately there is a door with small windowpanes between the room and the outer window. It is cold down here, but warm up there on the loft. o
I have upto 4 wireless networks to choose from and all of them are free. I will get my own next week. I think it is not so polite to use other network connections in the long run.
Security concerns
Some more-than-a-bit-paranoid official suggested that all air passangers should be X-rayed before entering their planes. This would prevent the numerous suicide terrorist from carrying bombs on or in their persons. The only problem is that some clever terrorist could well have simple X-ray blocking clothes. So, X-raying requires either making every passager to strip at the "security" gate, or requiring everyone to wear some standardised flying suit/wear. So, that one would need to tell the travel agent one's size and one would then receive suitable clotehs by mail or whatever. I am sure they will come up with this too, later.
Moving to a new country
It is really humbling to realize how many things one takes for granted at home. One has, of course, a hammer, some nails, a plate, some brushes, sheet, pillows, frying pan, a pot, and many other issues. In a new home, in some faraway country, one does not have any of these. So, one ends up spending several days trying to find all necessities. And each country has its own traditions, and one has some difficulties in figuring out where to find what. Here in Boston, finding cheap lamps was really difficult. The furniture stores do not have them, the big department stores do not either. Neither has does Radio Shack. After 3 days of looking for them, I found them in one small hardware store. Way back in early 90's, I was looking for sanitary napkins in Latvia with my girlfriend. It was getting desperate, but in the end found them in the paper (envelope, etc) department in a department store. They are, after all, made of paper, at least partly.
Then there are some more serious difficulties. One of the most irritating here in USA is the lack of trust. I do not have credit history in USA, so I am of no good at all. So, I cannot get a normal GSM-connection. Instead, I must use a prepaid one. The mobile phone company does not trust in my international credit card. This is insane, since the MasterCard-company/ my bank in Finland will always pay them. If there is going to be some problems, they will be between me and my bank. But, this is just normal, told one of my classmates. I could, as can anyone here, just leave the country and move to Mexico. But this is not the real explanation, because I can rent furniture with monthly payments with my credit card. Whatever, this is strange.
Route to MIT
I took a trial-walk to MIT. It takes 26 minutes from my home to the house of the Sloan School of Management. Surprisinly it takes as long both ways: downriver over the Longfellow bridge and upriver over the Harvard bridge. Walking down by the riverside is nicer, as there is a nice park there. Either way, this means that I will have about 1 hour of walking to do each day. Excellent, it is just enough to keep me fit and lean.
My home is south of the river in the corner of Beacon and Clarendon, Sloan is on the other side of the river in the corner of Memorial Drive and Wadsworth Street. The bridge 2A is the Harvard bridge.
Air France or Boston Logan airport sucks! Or both.
We took a close look at my bicycle with Milton. The damages are: deformed handlebar, broken brake lever, deformed frame, missing front wheel, bend mud guards, at least. Also the fork is not quite OK. This all means that I have to get a new bike. Fortunately Air France is going to pay for it! But it means that I have to use some precious hours for getting their messes sorted out. This sucks!
Cycling
Despite the hard efforts of Air France, we could get the bike in semi-ridable condition and had a short ride around the centre. We means me, Milton, and Mirja. The first stop was one rather good outdoor shop. I was not going to buy anything, but ended up getting new hiking boots. They may be necessary for getting to MIT later this month. There will be some snow. And where there is snow, the local will sprinkle a lot of salt. The result is a terrible mess, which turns shoes into pickled leather. These people cannot stand any snow, but are lazy enough not to shovel the snow away. Strange!
Cycling seems to be a good way of getting around here. I think I will start cycling quite much later. But I think it still makes sense to walk to MIT. One can think better while walking. And cycling 2 times 3 kilometers does not keep one fit.
Restaurants of the week
I have visited several restaurants this week. On Monday we went to Doyle's, a traditional American restaurant in Forest Hills. They served us decent fish and chips. Then I had lunches while shopping in two Indian restaurants in Central Square (Gandhi and Indian village). Gandhi was a bit better, but the $6 lunch buffet is well worth the money in both places. I also ate twice in Pho Pasteur in Chinatown, both time seafood fried rice. Then we had new year eve's dinner in one Japanese in Rosindale village. Not bad, rather creative food. Today we had Thai and Chinese in one smal foodcourt in Chinatown. The food was as good as the atmosphere was authentic. Next to the restaurant there is a strange Chinese bakery serving all kinds of sweet things. I am rather curious to see how good lunch places there are near Sloan building. Should be many and good...
Confusion
Saturday, 2005-01-01
A new, a new country, a new home, a new set of audio equipment, some new friends, so many new restaurants to visit, oh, life is nice. But I still miss S, friends in Finland and elsewhere, some places in many other parts of the world. I do consider missing good - if one does not miss anything, one leads an empty life devoid of any real meaning. And such a life is not for me. What follows is a random collection of events, observations, and descriptions of daily life, both mental and not.
I finally moved in my new home in Back Bay, Boston, this morning. Milton and Mirja, by whom I have had the priviledge to spend this weeks, gave me and my luggage a lift. I also got to know a bit of the principal sights here - local people are great guides. I also received my bicycle after waiting for it for 5 days. Or, actually, most of it: the front wheel is missing. Fortunately Air France promised to give me money for a new one. Otherwise the bike seems to be in good shape. It seems that someone had simply removed the front wheel, maybe in order to fit the bike in some small space, and then later forgotten to assemble the bike.
I live in Back Bay, one of the most expensive areas in Boston. This is a nice place, with quiet streets, not too much traffic. Beacon Street, in which I live, does not have any stores, but 3 blocks away in Newbury street there are enough shops, restaurants, cafes, laundries, food stores, pharmacies, art galleries, hardware stores, etc, to meet all my commericial needs. One block further, in Boylston Street, one can visit some large shopping malls, cinemas, and one superb food store. So, the only thing for which I have to leave Back Bay, is MIT, to which it takes 25 minutes by foot. Or then one can take the subway, which takes also about 25 minutes, as one has to change trains once. The nearest cheap restaurant, Pho Pasteur, serves inexpensive Vietname food until 11.30 pm. For example, a large bowl of seafood noodle soup cost 7 dollars, which means that, after all, there is no pressing need to cook at home. But I have bought some cooking untencils anyway, and even cooked some pasta for myself today. Cooking is nice, but also a great way to feel lonely.
I bought a new stereo-set: Model Two and Model Cd from Tivoli Audio. Their sound is as good as they promised. Excellent engineering by an MIT-graduate. Strongly recommended. The radio has great reception and the sound quality is surprisingly natural for such a small system.
In USA, or at least in Boston, one must put one's garbage bags outside one's door on Mondays and Thursday. One must not do that on any other day, neither must one try to take the garbage bags outside oneself. In China, one could put the garbage bags outside one's door any day. In Finland, one must take the garbage bags to the garbage bin of the property. Small things, but it does take some time to get used to all of them, when one moves around the world.
The subway stations have both revolving door and normal doors. The normal doors are automatic and, basicly, reserved for those using wheelchairs. But I have noticed several people who cannot anymore fit through the revolving door. So they are using the automatic doors. Boston Globe told yesterday, that the number of obese people has almous doubles in the last 13 years. So, soon the revolving doors will be useless. The not-so-anorectic men here have a funny beard-fashion: they sport a thin line of beard making the place where the chin should be, but is not. It is rather funny.
All opinions are mine and do not reflect opinions etc of my current or future employers as far as I am aware.
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