Blogs March 2005
March
Thursday, 2005-03-30
Strange day
Today did not start well. I was somehow so stressed, and afraid of something, that I could not sleep more than 45 minutes without waking up. Terrible, I was just devastated in the morning, and I have to confess that I shed a tear for my lowly existence. But then, after wise advice and comforting words from S, things started to get better. First of all, I tried to reach professor emeritus Kerrobrock, but he had disappeared. So, I decided that I have next to nothing to lose, and called John Houbolt. He is the man, who most the most vocal advocate of Lunar orbit rendezvous. He agreed to answer our questions by email. We all are so proud and happy. This is a privilege. Tomorrow, on Friday, we (me , Bill, and Ben) will go and interview Robert C Seamans, who was the Associate Administrator of NASA during the LOR-decision. Quite a privelege, too. No wonder I had some stress, I would say.
I gave the our team's presentation in the Product development class. I decided to make it a bit funny, and used my somewhat good improvisation skills. But the product is funny, too, so I do not take credit of all laughs. There was a lot laughter in the classroom. And I did prove, that one can give a good and humorous presentation without any videos or photos. At least sometimes.
Later, we had the SDM-party in the New England Aquarium. Even though seen all classmates is really nice, I was even more impressed by the penguins (some 30 of them), and the giant green murana.
This is the blog of the day. Blogging is good. Some 20 minutes of blogging before going to bed guarantees nice and deep dream. At least for me.
Wednesday, 2005-03-29
I may have to cut down the amount of blogging. I have taken so many courses, and most of them are now nearing their final project, that I am a bit unsure how I will cope with all of them. Anyway, I try to write something a few times a week. After all, I need to keep record what is happening. But I have to exercise the utmost care with my time management during the coming 7 weeks. A short time, but lot of things to do. The trick is to be able to sleep enough.
Tuesday, 2005-03-28
Group work
I have written about group work earlier, so bear with me. I just cannot help wondering how much different groups differ from each other: in some groups things are easy, results come without any real effort, and everyone has real fun. Some other groups are the opposite: the amount of results is less than individual work would accomplish, work is not fun, and everyone just suffers. I do not know what causes it, but I know that the following are some of the necessary conditions for a group being better than doing things alone. 1. People have more or less similar speed of thinking. 2. People can trust each other to do what they promise and if something is not OK, to tell it openly and in time. 3. Everyone is able to understand some common language, and understand without excessive repetitions. 4. There are no secret subgroups reversing common decisions. 5. People communicate with each other: sending status emails must be a common habit. 6. People have somewhat different backgrounds.
Daily crono
Today we had the last systems optimization class. It has been a good class, and I have learned if not lot, at least a decent amount. The exercises have been hard enough, but still doable in less than 5 hours. In the afternoon, we had the disruptive technologies class, which was as good as always. In addition to learning what Clay Cristenssen means with this "innovators dilemma", I learned that MIT has two over 100-year old active faculty memmbers, including one professor in aeronautics. He has seen it all since 1920s. Quite fascinating. Then we has the product development class with several group presentation. I cannot understand how much time some students are willing to spend on making fancy presentations. It is total waste of effort: learning to make presentations is not what at least I paid for. Of course, one must have some skills in making slides etc, but overdoing it is just wasting one's only life.
Some cohort-building in the Characters-par ended the day. Nice to chat with the distance students. I did not drink beer - I still have to read one 100-page paper today.
Blog of the day
I find the blog of Bruce Schneier both entertaining and important. Even if one would not be that interested in encryption algorithms, one cannot be but fascinated in the things that are going on around the world in the security area. Like the government telling the airliner pilots not to fly close by nuclear plant, and at the same time not telling where the plants are. Well, the pilot went to the internet, and draw a map containing all nuclear powerplant. They dared to publish this map in their website. The government told them to take the map of, since the information is classified...
If you have some doubt on the political importance of blogging, you should know that China has now banned most widely used blogging software. Some other countries are bound to follow. See the article.
Speaking of China, this article claims that there is already a shortage of unskilled workers in some parts of China. Which in free capitalism (which is what there is now in China) means that the salaries must get higher. Interesting.
Monday, 2005-03-28
Music
Yet another net radio: David Byrne's. May be interesting. Other interesting thing is Arthur magazine, which I even subscribed to. One needs to stay up to date with contemporary art. Which means that one must visit NYC bimonthly or monthly.
Blog of the day
Strange things are taking place in Nepal. Check a Nepalese blog if you want to keep up to date. Or ckeck United We Blog.If anyone knows a good blog from Myanmar/Burma, I would like to know it too. In English, that is.
Back to paying business
Or the business I pay dearly for. So, this was my first day of MIT after the spring break. We will have 7 weeks before the next break, and I am already a bit excited how this all will turn out. I assume well, but I will have to work more than I have ever worked: some 10-14 hours a day, every day. This is what I calculated. Today, I went to the ERBA-class. They would have returned my quiz with intermediate grades, but I consider that unnecessary information: I cannot change the result, and knowing the result would not change my way of studying. I will just do my best and try to get a B. Next, we would have had some guest lecture. It is our spring business trip, after all. I and other Apollo-scholars were too busy. We just went for the free lunch. The Sloan faculty club has always decent food. And it was fun to see at least some of the distance students in flesh. The Apollo-class was good, but I will have to do a lot of work for it: first of all, I need to figure out whom to interview for the class. A smallish anxiety is growing bigger. I continue to work on Apollo for the rest of the evening: I got a draft reading list and a draft outline done. In addition, I did some system optimization and product development things. Enough of MIT for now.
War - warriors missing
The mighty US-army is not able to recruit enough new cannon-fodder. The recruiting is some 25% smaller than necessary. This has cause more and more serious discussion about introducing draft again. Quite many respectable commentators are speculating about draft (see for example articles in the www.antiwar.com and in New York Times). The real meaning of this discussion is that USA cannot really attack any new countries at the moment, which is a good thing for Iran and other dictatorships who are not allies. And China also knows, that USA could not really do anything, if China would try to invade Taiwan.
China evaluates US human right situation
Since USA has evaluated China's human right situation for a long time, China has started to evaluate US. The report tell, for example, that "American society is characterized with rampant violent crimes ... 31000 Americans were killed by firearms each year", "the number of Americans in poverty has been climbing for three year ... to 35.9 million". Read the report, it is, well, interesting. I assume the statistics are more or less correct. How to interprete them is another matter.
Sunday, 2005-03-27
Spring , civilized things
It seems that spring is here. I had a walk with Kössi in the morning in nice sunshine. We bought New York Times, from the guy who sells them in the corner of Fairfield and Commonwealth Avenue (it is, by the way, the only newspaper that requires a plastic bag for carrying to the cafe). In order to feel belonging to some civilized community of decent humans, we went to have caffe latte in the cafe Sonsie in the Newbury Street. They serve excellent coffee in porcelain cup. Today, they had opened the wall to the street, and one could really enjoy oneself, the beautiful people, sunshine, and newpaper. So nice. On the way back home, we made another discovery: the small grocery shop in the corner of Newbury and Fairfield sells several brands of real chocolate and, to out great surprise, even Finnish licorice.
Arms
President Bush, and his subordinates (or is the other way round), has decided to sell F-16 fighter planes to the dictator of Pakistan. As we all remember, Mr Bush promised to get rid of all dictatorships during his second term. Now, it is not starting that well. India was a bit upset of the sales, and thus mr Bush et all have also promised to sell similar planes to India, too. This is the way to promote peace and democracy, I assume. Closer to USA, the autocrats/dictators of Venezuela have decided to buy some 200000 AK-47 machine guns from Russia. According to Bush et all, this is not good, as it will somehow tip the regional balance. Go figure.
Blogging
In New York, we went to see the off-off-Broadway theater Baghdad burning. It was based on the blog of Riverbend, who is a young Iraqi woman writing from Baghdad. Read it. You will get another view on the situation. What impressed me most was Riverbend's claim, that after USA attacked Iraq, the situation of Iraqi women has worsened drastically. Before the illegal attack, most women were working, earning the same as men, allowed to walk unaccompanied outside their homes, etc. Not anymore. It seems, that the illegal attack and its incompetently handled aftercare have unleashed the reactionary, militant, and conservative forces, which were somehow kept in check before the attack. Furthermore, the attackers have miserably failed to restore basic infrastructure (water, electricity). But do not take my word on it, read for yourself.
See United Stages for more information about the theater. See also FeministPress for information about, well, feminist writing.
Spring break ending
We broke the spring break by getting together in the SDM-office and working on the systems optimization case study. After some discussion, Kumar, Spiros, and I got convinced that our solution is close enough and we can submit it. Nice. It took total 6 hours of work. Not too bad. After this, we went for Chinese dinner to the Harvard square.
Saturday, 2005-03-26
Air traffic policies
The best way to start a new day is to read New York Times (online), and do some work. Today, I wrote two proposals for my term paper for the air traffic policies-seminar.
Developing a set of general requirements for evaluating the different proposals for NGATS.
Without knowing and evaluating requirements, we cannot decide whether the proposed new policies are acceptable and desirable for the stakeholders of NGATS. Furthermore, we cannot know whether NGATS is feasible from economical and environmental point of view.
In addition to defining the types (availability, reliability, speed, safety, cost, etc) and instances of requirements, we also need to define the acceptable ranges for each requirement. Then, we need, at least for some of the requirements (as time allows), we need to take a look at the current values (both averaged over the whole system (e.g. speed), and locally (e.g noise)), and the likely direction of development of the values. Finally, we can also see, what kind of technological advances are necessary for fulfilling the requirements.
The impact of higher price of oil on NGATS
According to current predictions (see e.g. "The end of oil" by Paul Roberts, Mariner books, New York, 2005), the production of oil is going to peak soon. After the peak, the oil prices will inevitably rise, and stay high. We also know, that the price of oil, and thus kerosine, is a major part of the costs of airlines. We thus propose to write a paper to investigate how significantly higher oil prices would affect NGATS.
Friday, 2005-03-25
Spring break
MIT is having its official spring break this week. I have been doing all kinds of extra-curriculum activities: traveling, having nice lunches and dinners, drinking enough in order to tee-total whole April, and, of course, reading. What follows is a long story compressed short, and after that longer stories of certain events.
Non-blogged week
Last week: Thursday: doing the last exercises (especially systems optimization case studies, and preparing the NGATS-presentation. In the morning, giving the RFID-presentation with Kumar. Long day, ending with having pizza with professor Sarma, and some pints with Spiros, Cristian, and others, I assume since I cannot remember anymore. Friday: the NGATS-presentation, last marketing class, then meeting with Kössi and Ville: a few beers in the R&D-pub, some more with classmates in the Muddy Charles bar (which I am not that fond of), then having squid, lobster, and Key lime pie in Barking Crab, and still some beer at Boston Beer works (the reader may google the places, I have no energy to do that today). Saturday: taking the Grayhound to New York (the busses are bad, just like those we used to have in Finland 25 years ago, terrible), checking in the hotel (the one owned by the German Church for Seafarers), having not-so-good Indian dinner in the 6th street, listening to some local bands in the Continental--club. Sunday: walking around NYC, visiting downtown, seeing what used to be and is not anymore and what I do not miss, but which still is sad, and still happening daily by both sides, having nice Thai-food in Brooklyn in the evening, and still a couple pints and watching semi-naked drunken local girls dancing and kissing each other in some local pub in Brooklyn. Strange, explicit. Monday: in the evening, seeing off-off-Broadway theater (more later), and later seeing the punk/heavy karaoke in Continental (really fun: excellent band playing classic songs, and some locals shouting in the vocals). Tuesday: walking around Brooklyn, having pizza and enough wine under the Brooklyn bridge (excellent Italian pizzeria there), in the evening seeing Henry Rollins ranting and doing some stand-up comedy in the Zipper-theater. Wednesday: returning by bus to Boston (even worse bus and really unskilled driver - I really miss the nice bussed of Brazilia...), seeing The Soundtrack of our lives from Sweden in the Axis-club. Thursday: trying to do some MIT-stuff, and even managing to produce something, visiting Mirja and Milton in the evening. Friday: walking in Back Bay, working on some classes, visiting MIT for the first time in one week, and them something coming up later.
New Books
In New York, we visited Strand and several other book stores. Some books arrived by mail, too. I think, that one cannot ever be so busy that one would not have time to read some good books. How could one? I would be as being dead, or at least in persistent vegetative state. Or, as Chekhov puts it: "What you must do is work unceasingly, day and night, read constantly, study, exercise willpower. Every hour is precious" (quoted by Nick Hornby in The polysyllabic spree. I do agree - a day spend just partying is waste of one's life: at least one should read something, there are always some short moments during the day, when one is waiting for something or someone, and one can immerse oneself in some great book.
My new books are
- Conversations with Joseph Brodsky by Solomon Volkov - my favorite poet speaking.
- Joseph Brodsky - conversations by (edited) Cynthia L. Haven
- The polysyllabic spree by Nick Hornby. A collection of essays on reading and literature.
- Small things considered - why there is no perfect design by Henry Petroski. Essays on designs of every-day things - fascinating.
- The end of oil by Paul Roberts. What happens soon enough when the oil production peaks, why USA really invaded Iraq, etc. Good background material for current political discussions and developments.
- I, etcetera and Regarding the pain of others by Susan Sontag, one of my favorite essayists and art theorists.
- Granta 44: the last place on Earth containing stories by Paul Auster and Paul Theroux
- Shake hands with the devil by Romeo Dallaire, the UN-commander of peace keepers in Rwanda 10 or more years ago.
- Brotherhood of the bomb by Gregg Herken telling the story of Oppenheimer, Lawrencem and Teller, and the A-bomb.
New CDs
Music is important, too. Therefore, one must have some CDs at home. My newest CDs are:
- Psychic by Thurston Moore. Excellent solo record. I especially like "Ono Soul" and "Patti Smith math Scratch"
- Hidros 3 by Mats Gustafsson / Sonic Youth with friends. Rather strange modern noise, dedicated to Patti Smith.
- Silver session for Jason Knuth by Sonic Youth. Total looping guitar-noise, extremely strange.
- Untitled by Pray for the soul of Betty. This is some heavy with Sonic Youth style guitars. It is a present from S.
- End of silence demos by Rollins band. Rollins band sounds very much like Black Flag did, but the songs are not that good.
- Elämä ja kuolema by Kauko Röyhkä. Older rockers are getting better in Finland. A present from Kössi.
- Kinaportin Kalifraatti by Tuomari Nurmio & Alamaailman vasarat. More older and even better rockers from Finland - but they are not playing rock at all. A present from Kössi.
- Origin vol 1 and Behind the music by The soundtrack of our lives. An excellent rock-band from Sweden. I saw them live in Boston, and they are even better live than on CD. The singer is like overweight resurrected Jesus. Presents from Kössi.
Wednesday, 2005-03-16
Still lean
Lean studying rules still. I am about 4 hours ahead still in my studies, so I can slack a little, if absolutely possible. No time for catching a flu, though. I did not realize how physically exhausting even lean studying can be, when done is an absolutely extreme manner. I am totally tired, and look forward to next week and spring break. I know that the second half of the spring term is not going to be easier, but I am sure it will manageable - I just have to continue without any hesitation, and develop my lean studying skills further. If everything goes fine, I will know that my methods are OK, and I can write the book (and laugh all the way to the bank, hopefully).
Today, I skippe the risk analysis course, and read some Apollo-stuff instead. VIlle accompanied me to the class, and we both enjoyed it a lot. Later, we (me and Kumar) finalized our system optimization case study (it took total 7 hours of work), and prepared for the RFID-presentation tomorrow. It will be the last assigment in the excellent RFID-class (which packed the lectures and assignments of a 12-credit course in the time of a 6-credit one, really though).
New stuff
I bought Regarding the pain of other by Susan Sontag, one of my all-time favorite author. I will enjoy the essay during the spring break. I also received an excellent CD by Soundtrack of our lives. Thanks go to Mr Ranto, who will arrive in Boston in 36 hours.
Tuesday, 2005-03-15
Destruction
The Department of Homeland whatever has published a list of possible catastrophes that may take place in USA. The list is quite reassuring. All but one of the the man made catastrophes are likely to kill less than cars kill every year (and at most the same amount as the liberal gun laws kill). So, there is no immediate reason for concern. Just stay out of religious sects. And do not drive in anything smaller than a bus.
But since the existing terrorists are not able to do any serious damage, they should read carefully the the real ways to destroy the whole Earth. These plans are seriously evil, and I am wondering how the Departments have not yet censored them from the cyber-space. Now, anyone willing to get rid of the whole world (e.g a wealthy leader of an apocalyptic sect), please contact me. I will start developing the von Neuman machine, if I will get the necessary venture capital of, say, 200 million dollars.
Otherwise my day was quite normal, and lasted from 8 am to midnight. Not too bad, as we even got something done. What a surprise.
Monday, 2005-03-14
Slow
The local business papers tell me that the productivity of people is higher here than in Europe. I find it extremely hard to believe. Each time I go to buy a coffee in a cafe, or some groceries in a shop, I am totally shocked by the slow speed of selling. All cafeterias are working at least for time slower than they could. According to my measurements, it takes about 1 minute to sell a cup of coffee, which means that the total sales per hour cannot exceed 100 cups. This is not that much.
Of course, this may just be because of my infamous impatience. Anyway, it leads me to wonder how the local papers measure productivity. If they just count the hours per worker per year, then I understand. If they count what people actually achieve per hours worked, then I tend to disagree. To me it seems, that Europeans can easily do in 35 hours the same amount of work than Americans in 50 hours.
Daily
Yesterday, on Sunday, some studying, but before that a nice cup of coffee latte in one nice cafeteria/bistro in Newbury Street. The place is just like the nice places one can find in Paris. I will definitely visit it often. Also, lunch with Kumar in Pho Pasteur in Chinatown. It is an excellent Vietnamese restaurant and I am sure that the quality/price-ratio is the highest in the whole Boston.
Today, my first exam in MIT. Not that bad. Then, trying to find out how I could do two master degrees with the effort of 1.5. Not that simple to find that out. Later, Apollo-class, working on Apollo-project proposal. Later, having a couple pints in the R&D-pub with Dave, Christian, and Kumar, and once in the good mood, finalizing the RFID-term paper and related presentation. Even later, from 11 pm to 0.30 am, writing a 3-page individual paper on RFID. The RFID-course is a 12-credit course given in time of a 6-unit course, and having the assignment of the former. Too much work, but also many important things to learn.
No rest for the wicked, it seems! And which is why these blog-entries are getting shorter.
Saturday, 2005-03-12
Sabbath
Once again I found out that I have to take a day off from my studies each week: Saturday. Even though we have mid-term exam coming on Monday, I was totally unable to do any work. I was just too tired. Brains are limited, or at least mine. I agree with Jews, one must not do any work on Saturdays. Still, I did something, I attended an extra lecture for the thing we have the exam. Everything should be quite OK.
I do not know whether it is appropriate to eat seafood and drink beer during the day of rest, but I did so. Lavonardo and Seppo arrived today. They have their daily allowances, or had. We had a nice dinner in McCormick & Schmick's: soups, some strange clams, excellent deep-fried squid, and some fish. I had shark, and it was good. They also served excellent Key Lime Pie, but I skipped it. Later, we had some beer in the Boston Beer Works.
Sundays are good for studying. Now, time to call it a day.
Friday, 2005-03-11
Open source, future of work etc
We had some discussion on open source today in the marketing class. I realized, that soon enough the big SW companies (and also SW-intensive companies) are going to have time just attract enough talented employees. It seems that new ways of organizing the entity we call company are taking over. There is no need for talented persons to dedicate their career and lives to large companies. Instead, they can work as free agent, very much like actors, independent musicians, etc work today. The time of large companies is over as we know them now. Or something. And even if large companies somehow would survive, they have to make do without me. It will be hard for them. Hmm, I am not too clear today. I am confused. I wonder whether confusion is sex still.
Damn machines
I need to become a big shot soon. I need a secretary/assistant. I cannot stand printers, copiers, staplers and other office machines. They are always broken, and waste my time. It also seems that computer and office computer systems are just getting worse every year. It is always more and more time consuming just to get a memo printed. Oh, I used 1 hours just trying to print some lecture notes. The printer broke down, the copier broke down, the stapler was broken. Terrible. But there was something good, though. This Apple Powerbook never crashes, and is reasonable fast too. A bit slow, but within the limits I can tolerate. I just cannot understand how people can work with Windows laptops. They seem to be always broken. Ah, enough ranting for today.
Thursday, 2005-03-10
Daily notes
I was given some valuable presentation skill advice today by Mrs Cash. She told me that I should vary either the pitch of my tone, or the rhythm of my speech. The first one is very difficult to me as I cannot hear pitch differences with any reliability. So, I will start varying the rhythm, or at least emphasizing some words. She also told me that this would make my facial expression more lively, which would be good too. Very interesting, but also something I have to train a little. And it may cause even more laughter in the classes I am taking.
Otherwise, this was a rather normal Thursday. First, RFID-class (or more exactly sci-fi class), then the communication session, then library database class, then a meeting on Apollo, disruptive technology class (I made some comment, I am not sure whether I should have refrained from doing that, then product design class, and after 10 hours, the official program ended. Actually, this was a short Thursday. I think I will still be able to work on something for 3 hours later today. Maybe I write a first draft of the next RFID-paper, or learn how to use Gzigzag. Or just idle. Yesterday was way too long in terms of working hours.
Oops, we appear to have adapted to working late, but not too late, with Kumar. Today, we could not call it a day at 7pm. We just had to do something. So, went did do 90% of the work for the last RFID-essay in 25 minutes. The speed is increasing. Professionalism rules. Now, at 9.16 pm, I am about to call it a day, and only read some Apollo-material about the life support systems (space toilets, space medicine etc etc).
On services and alternatives
Tomorrow, Total Care Laundy will pick up my laundry in the morning, and deliver it clean and carefully folder before I will be back at home. It just cannot recommend this service enough. I think one should leave all housekeeping practicalities for some companies to take care. It would be nice just to come home, know that there is whatever necessary food available, and that every 2 weeks someone would come and clean up the place. Well, I can clean my house as it is so small, and cleaning takes only 20 minutes. Should I have a bigger home, I would not clean it. Of course, I have read Nickel and Dimed , and know that the exploitation of low-salary workers is a serious problem here in USA (and it seems to be getting worse, we are returning back to the early capitalism), but I assume there could be some alternative cleaning companies. I would be willing to pay decent wages, just I expect to be paid a decent salary, whatever I will end up doing after MIT.
Speaking of alternatives, I have noticed the following peculiarity here. Despite all talk about individualism, the range of commonly accepted ways of living and behavior is much narrower here than it is in Europe. Somehow this narrow range causes the alternative groups and individual either be or appear much more radical and alternative than they do in Europe (or at least in Finland). It is a black/white-situation: either one is a total freak or then a totally normal coffee-cup-walker. Strange.
Language skills
One day I read Financial times, and there was an interesting article about Palm (and other companies) incorporating vocabulary exercises in mobile devices. The article claimed, that there is a great need for this kind of services, since young people have great difficulties in passing the English tests when moving to high school or to college. This was a surprise to me, since I do not remember anyone having problems with vocabulary in Finland, when I was young. I might have forgotten, though. Anyway, I have notices that the spoken vocabulary here is about 1000 words, or even less, and the most active is quite small, a few hundred words at most. This leads us to the site of the day: wordcount. So, next time you do not understand a word, check what is its rank. If it is below 5000, shame on you! Use also thesaurus. It removes the shame.
Trivialities
According to some experts War on terror may breed more terrorism, which should not come as a big surprise. We all know the crusaders are the same ones who are waging the war on drugs. And ever since the war on drugs was declared, the drug use, and related problems, has been on the rise. And the population behind the bars is growing, and being denied even the basic health care, according to one column. And at the same time use of depressions, anxiety etc drugs is exploding. Good for the share owners and some politicians, I assume, but not for the whole society. But who has ever really believed, that policies are for the common good, and not for short-term gains of some obscure special interest groups.
Wednesday, 2005-03-09
On "not sleeping cult"
From my email to some students boasting about not sleeping and just working until 4 am every day etc.
I think the heroic cult of not sleeping, and boasting about the lack of sleep, is plain stupid and counterproductive. It is well known and proven, that without enough sleep (at least 7 hours a day), one does not learn anything. And we all are in MIT to learn, not to not to sleep, right? I find this heroic cult utterly disgusting, and also as a sign of total unprofessionalism.
On public speaking
Here is what I think:
I think there are two separate problems. 1. Not being able to speak fluently. This is something one can help by taking some training. And I agree some of us, if not all of us, would need some training in this regard. 2. Not being able to formulate interesting, coherent, and novel ideas. I know many people who try to mask this deficiency by speaking fluently, but they always fail miseably. So, the order is. First, think what you are going to say, and if you cannot come up with anything new and interesting, shut up. Second, express your novel ideas as succintly as possible. One may speak without thinking in advance, if one's improvisation skills are well developed. Otherwise, one should think and then talk! Third, be entertaining, do not take it so seriously, make jokes, and make people laugh. When they laugh, they remember what you have said. - mane the mean, a wanna-be stand-up comedian.
Daily notes
Skip this, if you have better things to do. Waking up at 7, reading for Apollo, attending risk analysis from 9.30 to 11, meeting with professor Utterback and the group of Norwegians until 1, then nice lecture about Apollo and life support systems by Jeff, a meeting on Apollo (we agreed on our project's scope), meeting with the air policy group (not that successful due to disagreement on the definition of "value"), coming home, finishing the marketing paper by 9.30, and then working with Kumar on the definition of "value" and types of values and value networks until 0.30. Then some housekeeping: I fixed my shower, by basically breaking it with my knife. That's the way to do. Now I do not have to go the MIT-gym just for washing my hair - I can do it at home. Not too bad a day, many achievement, of which fixing the shower is the most important and instantly satisfying one.
Next week Lavonardo comes over from Finland for the whole week. Also Mika and Seppo come but only for a few days. Nice to have Finnish friends around. But I am do not have too much free time for entertaining them, unless they will come to visit our classes. That would be fun for them to do.
Tuesday, 2005-03-08
Daily notes
Strange weather here. In the morning, +8C, almost calm, no rain. It the evening, blizzard: -8C, upto 20m/s wind gusts, and 1 inch show per hours. The whole city s[ht]opped. There is not enough salt to fight this. What a pity, everything is going to be nice and white for a few hours. I walked back from Kumar's and enjoyed it a lot. The sound of wind howling over the complex roofs of these old houses was beautiful.
Otherwise, a long day. We had RFID at 8am, and I got complimented by the professor: "There is one bright out there". I like this. There is no limit to my vanity. I came back home, slept a few hours, did some ERBA, and went back for the disruptive technologies class. This time we had group presentations, and they were interesting. Especially one about micropayment, that is payments of less than dollar or so, was interesting. In USA, there is going to be an industry for this, whereas in Finland we use normal online banking for this. The bank system here is at least 10 years behind Finland. Again back home, more ERBA, and then some more with Kumar, and later, again, some pleasant work with system optimization. Now, I would still have to read 100 pages for Apollo, and some for NGATS, but I will not. I will do that tomorrow. If then.
Yesterday, normal class, and then writing the marketing paper until 12pm. It is almost ready.
I have decided to get 7 hours of sleep tonight.
New Model Army
On Sunday evening, I went to see New Model Army live in the Middle East club. I went 1 hours earlier, sat in the bar and read some Apollo-papers. When I saw NMA live first time in Helsinki about 18 years (sic!) ago, I definitely did not read anything, but were just so exited. So, times are changing. The gig itself was nice, the band played well, even if the sound was not so clear. I liked the band more without the second guitarist and keyboards. Anyway, it was good. To my great surprise, I was most like below the average age of the audience. There were quite a few grey haired men standing, and some of them even dancing in the front. Overall, the crowd behaved like any crowd in any rock club. Some were dancing in the front, but the further back one look, the more immobile the audience was. In the back row, one could hardly see a nod. That's the way.
Monday, 2005-03-07
Time-out for a couple of days. Too much to do, and also some extra-curricular activities in addition to this blog. Meanwhile, check out Democracy now, a new site, at least for me, found by S.
Saturday, 2005-03-05
Daily notes
It seems that in addition to needing one free day per week and 7-8 hours sleep per night, I need to stay up late once a week. Why? No idea, but I always find myself immersed into some hacking late Fridays, and just cannot stop before 4 am. Then I will sleep late, have a nice lunch, preferably in the small India restaurant opposite the music college, walk around, buy some records, take a nap, and finally, after 5 pm I am again able to work. This happens every week, so I think it is best not to try to avoid it.
I went to the Middle East club and bought tickets for the New Model Army show on Sunday. It is strange how much Back Bay and Cambridge differ from each other. Back bay is very quiet, posh, and almost European. Cambridge, around Central Square at least, is very American, post-industrial, with some income-impaired persons loitering etc. I like both areas, but somehow I think Back Bay is much better place for me now. And any place here is millions times better than Makoko.
I did some studying today. First, I wrote a little my marketing paper. It still requires 2.5 hours of work. Late in the night, I finalized our RFID-paper with Kumar. The paper is very good, we will certainly get an A. Speaking of grades, I got to know that some employers want to see the grades, and require more or less 5 out of 5 GPA. This has caused grade inflation. Stupid. And I will never work for any company, who is more interested in my GPA than in what I know, and what is my experience. If all companies ask for my GPA, I will just establish my own company. It is as simple as that. Same holds true with suits, and certain other things. I am quite picky when it comes to working environments.
Friday, 2005-03-04
The ultimate "exercise while sitting"-product
This is what we should have designed in out Product Development class. The Ultimate Webexercise video by always so nice Kittens. See also Punk Kittens and the hilarious Independent Woman, and also Angry Kittens, who are just like me when I am hungry!
Chicken harvester
Here is a rather neat machine. It must have been fun to design. And it is absolutely important. Check it out and remember to watch the video. Debugging the harvester, a cool task indeed.Do not roll your own cigarettes
Since they look like joints. And since the war on drugs is still on, and all wars cause collateral damage, you may end up as bad or even worse as this guy, who got fired. Again another example how fear overrides freedom or ability of using brains.
MIT, Wifi, etc
I am working on a paper on how WiFi will disrupt the current telecom providers and manufacturers. It seems that they have already taken notice. One politician, who may have got some campaign support, has proposed bill to ban free Internet access. We have seen similar cases in the history, and they have always failed. Let's see. It is always funny to see these republicans, who are so much for competition and minimal government, passing bills in favor of monopolies etc.
Today was quite a normal Friday. First, air traffic policy seminar discussed the ways to present shareholder values and relationships. I enjoy the seminar so much, it combines engineering, policy, and management in a nice way. Second, we had the first meeting of SDM leadership committee. Every student must take part in one committee. That's it. Third, the marketing class on mass customization and user innovation toolkits. Interesting stuff, and very useful. Back home, some phone calls to Finland, then Thai-food for dinner, and later hacking ERBA etc with Kumar. Even later, or actually rather early on Saturday, I wrote the RFID policy paper. It was only 2 pages, but it was hard, as I am not used tosuch a style. Good writing exercise, anyway.
Around the world and beyond
There are some human right abuses and violation of the rule of law going on in Pakistan. And the local democracy there is also quite thin. I do hope Mr. Bush will take up some strict action and make things right, and make sure that the bad guys can ride but not hide. I will hold my breath, but only momentarily.
A new space race has started. According to the Guardian, the Japanese want to establish a moon base in 20 years.. The Chinese are not going to stand still and just watch. Also the American have plans, both for Moon and Mars. I am quite sure that the Indians will pick up their part in this global race soon too. I just hope that EU will stay out of this race - there are enough players already. And I would like to see some global co-operation. Or else we are going to see a war in the moon, soon. Furthermore, just investing some money in preventing AIDS in Africa, could have tens of millions of lives according to an article in BBC. I would say that saving 15 million humans would be a better propaganda stunt for any government/ideology than sending 15 humans to Moon. But I may be wrong.
Thursday, 2005-03-03
Daily crono
If days get any longer, I need to adopt some old and proven concepts from leading diplomats. I need to stop clocks or something. Still fun, though, my life here, I mean. Today, at 8 am we were on the wrong side of the camera listening a lecture from Spain. The quality of transmission was pretty poor, and I was cold called to explain how less theft affects the market capitalization of a retail company. It was a nice exercise in fast improvisation, and I did well. I like this practice of cold calling, it keeps people awake and from reading their emails. It is strange how so many people are willing to pay tens of thousands dollars just be to able to read their emails during MIT-classes. Strange investment, and maybe not the most profitable. There were other classes etc today: a short meeting on air traffic policies with Bruno and Francis, real professional, such a pleasure to work with them, just like I imagined it to be here. Next, writing presentation for tomorrow's class, then some 1 hour of hand-on exercises on library databases, a lecture on distributed technologies (with a guest lecture), the product development class, 2 hours of group work with rather heated argumentation (I am not the most patient guy after 13 hours work), and finally dinner with Robbie and Ben in Pho Pasteur. Excellent day. Now, at 10.30 pm at home, maybe starting to write one essay. As you see, this is the place to be, for anyone with decent amount of curiosity and passion in technology and management. Sell your home, car, and take a decent loan, and come here.
Music
I do not have many records here. I have bought some. Just now I listen to a collection of Joy Division's best song. Joy Division was one of the best bands ever, and it is sad enough for. The sadder the better, when I write some essays. Keeps my mood even, not too hilarious. I also bought one record in which Sonic Youth, I.C.P, and the Ex play together some extremely experimental jazz or noise. It is way too strange for background music, but rather interesting. Sonic Youth recorded it in 2001 during the Holland Festival, in which they were performing pieces of contemporary composer. I have a recording about those sessions too, or some other recording of SY playing contemporary music. It is also quite hard to digest. What other music is good for writing? Late in the night, Rammstein works well, and Ramones is usually quite inspiring. Listening to the Ramones always reminds me that passion, ideas, and execution counts, not the actual technical skills.
Wednesday, 2005-03-02
Fear
Die Zeit runs an interesting article Kultur der Angst on the use and abuse of fear in USA. Read it if you can read German. Oh, German is so nice language: "Sicherheitsmaßnahmen als Herrschaftsinstrument". Read and enjoy. Thanks to S for the link.
Daily crono
Busy or busier, but all the time merrier. I think I am able to complete all courses I took. It will take some effort, some long days at my desk, and lots of writing, and even some thinking, at least in most classes. The goal is learn how to think, not what to think, even though one course is exactly the other way round. Yesterday, we had the normal Tuesday-classes, and after that the normal agonizing with the risk analysis homework. I have now decided, that I will not use more than 6 hours per week for the exercises. It should be enough for getting a decent grade. I think one thing to learn in MIT is to learn when to stop working, what is good enough. The amount of work, even if one does not take excessive course load, is not insignificant. If one tries to do all the work, and even well or perfectly, one gets overloaded and ends up to some not so nice place. The place has some white rooms, and people in white clothes. As they say, you know what I am talking about. But risk analysis homework got me irritated, that I just had to do the system optimization assignment after returning to home after midnight. It was nice, fun, pleasing, and I did learn a lot. Today, quite normal day, some trouble stirring in the morning, and then Apollo-class. Bob Seamans was supposed to come, but was hit by a train on the way and ended in the place with people with white clothes. I really hope he will be fine soon. Later, thinking about NGATS, and how to represent stakeholder relationships, and then going to the gym to wash my hair, and punish some metal, and later drinking wine with Kumar. All work and no fun is not for us. That would lead us to snowy maze, and there would be nobody to salt the snow away. Shovels are old-fashioned.
It seems that one cannot present all the relationships (power, influence, cooperation, opposition, implementation power, adaptation power, value generation, etc) in one figure. Not even using OPM will offer any help. Basically, one need to have as many dimensions as one has relationship, and some ability to see only one dimension at a time. The GZigZag would provide a nice way to do this, so I may take a look at it later. Anyway, one has to be careful. For example, one stakeholder can have power on something without having influence, and the other way round. Also, one must always be careful in mentioning all objects of relation ships. For example, saying that X and Y cooperate is not enough. One must take on which they cooperate. This holds for opposition, too. What about value generation, then? I think here OPM works fine, but the problem is that in a system of the complexity of NGATS, one will needs quite many graphs. These are my initial thoughts. But incorporating GZigZag into the Crawley-machine could be a neat thing to do. I will have to think about that!
The ex-CEO of WorldCom was in court today. He told the court that he does not know anything about telecommunication, nor does he understand accounting or finance. Now I know why I can never make it to CEO-position. I am not ignorant enough! This also raises another interesting question: is it necessary to be ignorant in order to be arrogant? I think that most arrogant persons are ignorant, but the converse is not always the case.
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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