Mira Katirai Web Site

I spent a considerable amount of time helping to launch the Mitra Katirai web site. The web site contains:

• A search engine with more than 10,000 real estate listings of homes for sale in Toronto, North York, Richmond Hill, Vaughan and Markham -- and it lets you visualize what's for sale in your area in the form of a Google Map.
  
• An Ontario and Toronto Land Transfer Tax Calculator.
  
• Neighborhood reports including ones listing the best schools, and the relative crime rates of different neighborhoods.

Launch of PharmAchieve

Over the last few months I've been actively working on PharmAchieve -- an organization that mentors foreign pharmacists become licensed in Canada. We hire professional actors trained by local medical schools to interact with pharmacists in about 100 scenarios. In each scenario, the pharmacist must interact with a patient to solve a case. Our setup mimics the Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada's OSCE exam required for licensing in Canada. All lead instructors at PharmAchieve received their training from Harvard Medical School. The growth of PharmAchieve has been nothing short of amazing. In 6 months, we outgrew our Yonge Street location near Yonge/Finch in North York and have added a Bay Street location. We have also have a staff of about 20 actors and pharmacists per course -- most of whom graduated from the University of Toronto. Our team includes 3 PharmDs, 1 Certified Geriatric Pharmacist, 1 Certified Asthma Educator, 2 University of Toronto Pharmacy Instructors and more.

Graduation Pics

  

More Graduation Pics

  

Our Graduation Reception

 

A few Baha'is graduated at the same time, so we decided to have a joint graduation reception. Here's us cutting the cake. 

The Stata Center

  

One final shot of the place I used to work.

  
A poster I designed for devotions this Sunday!

An Evening with Noam Chomsky

I've been studying at MIT for 3 years, but until last night had never seen Noam Chomsky. Last night, my class had a private question and answer dinner with him. For those that don't know who he is the:

• Most cited person in the world that is still living.
  
• The person who single handedly invented the field of linguistics, and the theory used by computers to understand computer languages
  
• A well known political dissident -- especially of US foreign policy.

A lot of people hate him; while even more people see him as a hero. I recall listening to a debate on NPR between a supporter and a detractor of Israel. The pro-Israel debater kept responding to charges in Chomsky's book leading the other debater to say:

You keep quoting Chomsky.
Why are you quoting Chomsky?
He's not here.
*I* am here.

Such is the power of Chomsky: Love him or hate him; you simply can't ignore him.

At this evening, there was no planned agenda; just a night of questions from my classmates who had crowded into a tiny room. It was easily the most well attended event our class's society had organized all year -- because people like me, came out of their thesis cubby holes to see it. What surprised me was how mild mannered his voice was.

I gave him a copy of Hatcher's Love, Power and Justice, and Foad Katirai's "Global Governance and the Lesser Peace" and was excited by an invitation to "come by sometime" to his office to talk more about the books.

How to predict divorce with more than 94% accuracy

John Gottman, has created a model that can predict whether a couple will divorce with 94% accuracy. I first heard about it at an Association for Bahai Studies conference in Toronto.

The model was created by studying more than 700 couples for more than a decade.

To apply model, Gottman videotapes a couple discussing a contentious issue for 15 minutes. A team then reviews the tape to identify all instances of pre-specified positive and negative behaviors.

For example, the introduction of humor during a tense moment, is given a score of +4, while the rolling of the eyes is given a score of -4. A nod, to acknowledge the other person's point is given a score of +1.

If the ratio of positive to negative scores isn't at least 5:1, the couple is predicted to divorce.

He has produced a number of interesting books accessible to the public including Why Some Marriages Succeed while Others Fail.

Movies that Matter: Trading Races

A poster I designed for our latest Baha'i club event designed to facilitate a discussion on race. We viewed an Oprah episode discussing the experiences of two families -- one white, one black. By meeting a hollywood makeup artist they were given the unique experience of temporarily changing their race.

The Doctor is In

Sorry I've been incognito for a while -- I'm in the whirlwind of exams, finals, projects, and job interviews -- all the activities you go through when finishing school. But I had to poke my head out of hibernation to talk about this new find: A band called Tree Wave.

They make innovative music using obsolete computer equipment (including a Commodore 64 and a Dot Matrix printer) and female vocals. But before you dismiss the band's concept as too out there to possibly be any good, give them a listen. In the words of one reviewer

"...it isn't the bleep and bloop-fest you might expect, it is really quite lush...."

and another

"...they make remarkably sublime music...strangely beautiful, but definitely warm inside...."

The guy takes advantage of an analog synth built in to a Commodore 64 -- who would have thought! Here's a link to some of their songs.

World's first undersea restaurant

Babzi mentions the Hilton Maldives Resort on Rangali Island, this restaurant claims to be the first with an underwater view -- about 5 metres below the Indian Ocean. You can read more about it here.

At the beach at 4am

A few weekends ago, I experienced my first Beverely Hills wedding. There I met tons of cousins I never knew I had. It was kind of funny because I took a look at the map my parents were using to drive to an afterparty. The address? In Beverely Hills, 90210 :) This picture was taken after the party, when one of the locals took us to the town then to the beach.

 

At the beach in Santa Monica, 4am in the morning :) 

Whitewater Rafting

In Seattle, people seem to enjoy nature more often -- by going on hikes, camping, etc. This weekend I went whitewater rafting with some friends from Microsoft. Shown below is a 14 foot drop at one part of the journey. I'm the guy on left in the front row. 

 

 

 

Today, my team at Microsoft took the day off, to volunteer as laborers at Habitat for Humanity -- a charity that helps build homes for the homeless. We've just arrived at the construction site, waiting to be assigned our tasks. 

Damn. This is what I call "a hike." 

Another shot from the hiking trip 

I snapped this shot during a recent hike. 

You got to do what you love

Steve Jobs, gave an inspirational commencement address at Stanford.

This blog was cited in alumni newsletter

This appeared in this month's MIT Alumni Association newsletter

"Full of photos of everything from transparent concrete to lights attached to bicycle spokes, notes on how to hack a Pepsi bottle, and thoughts from a negotiation class called Playing to Win vs. Playing Not to Lose, engineering systems division graduate student Hooman Katirai offers a humorous and insightful look at life in his blog, Treadmill to Infinity."

Thought of the Day: On Taking Risks

"Looking back in 20 years, you are less likely to regret the risks you took now, than those risks you did not take."
-Author Unknown

Playing to Win vs. Playing Not to Lose

I realized in negotiation class today that some people play to win, while others play "not to lose."

To use a baseball analogy, people who "play to win," feel comfortable walking a batter to load the bases. They are fine with trusting people and taking some calculated risks if it increases their chances of winning.

On the other hand, people who "play not to lose," are driven by their fear of getting hurt. They seek to protect themselves at all costs. They are very hesitant to trust other people and are pre-occupied with avoiding risks.

Of course, there is a spectrum between these two extremes. But my life philosophy is that a strategy solely focused on "playing not to lose" isn't very effective.

Years ago my father told me to "never do business with people you don't trust, because in the end you will always lose." No matter how comprehensive your contract, no matter how airtight your patent, they will find a way around it.

If you find yourself emphasizing the "playing not to lose" mode of thinking when crafting a partnership, ask yourself "am I dealing with people I don't trust?"

An obsession with protecting oneself from harm doesn't serve to create anything of value. It's what can be termed a "negative" strategy, because it is focused on what you "don't want to happen."

If you are to truly benefit from the what a partnership can bring, you need to also foster a culture of co-operation that make partnerships work and to clarify the benefits of the partnership both to yourself and your partners. This is a "positive strategy" insofar as it focusea on what "you want to happen."

Lacking a positive strategy, you are basically assuming your partnership will fail.

So the optimal solution seems to be the middle road: (1) introduce safeguards into your agreements but (2) Develop a vision of a successful partnership and (3) clarify and publicize both for yourself, your partners, and employees, the benefits of the partnership and (4) to maximize the chance of success, find ways to allow people at all levels in both organizations to foster strong working relationships.

Transparent Concrete

While waiting to meet someone in the library, I browsed Domus (an amazing Italian Designer magazine), and noticed they had an article on transparent concrete. They were trying to figure out how to use the new medium. One of their pictures was very beautiful. The picture below, is not as beautiful as the one I saw. But it should give you an idea of this new medium.

Bicycle Lights that can display computer generated patterns!

Attach this to a spinning bicycle wheel,



and you get this:



A blue version:



the thing can even connect to a palm pilot to display custom text:



Hokey Spokes are unique bicycle safety lights that allow riders to display computer generated images while riding at night.

I wouldn't want to be seen riding with these lights, but they are pretty remarkable.

I found this while browsing Cool Neon's store.
Speaking of which, Cool Neon sells plastic wires that glow when connected to a power source. You can make some pretty funky stuff using this wire; for instance, check this "modded case" out:



Some of my friends created interesting halloween costumes using Cool Wire. Speaking of which I'm trying to find an excuse to use some too -- it's only $1.00 per foot on sale and it lasts 800 to 3000 hours.

Nice way of putting it

I love how this guy describes the Adobe-Macromedia merger:

In the classic 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film, "Blow-Up," the protagonist is at a small rock concert where pandemonium breaks out as the lead guitarist throws his guitar into the audience -- putting it up for grabs.

A fight ensues. Somehow, the protagonist ends up with the guitar and scoots into the street chased by an angry mob -- all demanding the instrument. Soon he looks back and the mob is gone. He looks at the guitar one last time, then throws it into the trash.

Dorri's Birthday

Tonight, the MIT Baha'i club and some friends celebrated Dorri Ziai's birthday. Finally: an excuse to buy one of those layered scents!

The "invent your scent" kit we bought for Dorri. It has 12 scents that can be blended to produce interesting combinations. The book details some combinations for beginners who may be unsure of which scents will clash with each other. 

The guys at Dorri's party 

Dorri & Norah at Dorri's B-day party 

Boston Marathon

At 109 years old, the Boston Marathon is the oldest and most well-known North American marathon. What amazes me, is how it matter-of-factly swings through streets in my little neighborhood. People crowd the sidelines along the entire route to cheer the runners on. Every time a runner passed the crowd would applause and goad the runners on by saying things like "Yeah! you can do it! Good job!" This picture was taken a mile before the finish line. 

Marathon pics

Emmanuel and I at the Marathon (on Commonwealth Ave) 

Thought of the day: On Leadership

Most people want to hear the truth even if it is unpalatable
-Susan Scott

Pepsi bottles ... hacked!

While at the campus convenience store I noticed one guy carefully examining Pepsi bottles. I realized he was trying to figure out which bottles would let him win a free song (Pepsi is running a promotion where 1 in 3 bottles contains a code that will let you download one free song from Apple's iTunes music store).

"Can you actually figure out which ones have a free song?" I asked him.

"Sure" he says,

"it's easy! -- Just tip the bottle, and look from the bottom to read the bottle cap. If it says 'sorry try again,' your outta luck but if you can't make out what it's saying, it's probably the random code you have to type in to get a free song -- In fact, here's a winning bottle" he says as hands me bottle before walking off.

But the bottle he gave me was of the "diet" variety, so I had to find my own winning bottle. I tried what he said and to my amazement it worked! In about 10 seconds, I too walked off with a winning bottle. Now I'm off to pick my free song.

I was the only person who fired their employee

Ah well. We had a negotiation simulation in my power & negotiation class. The situation: you are an employer, and your best manager asks to go to a weeklong conference in San Diego.

One day, you need some sales data, and you use your master key to open up your manager's office. You get the data you need from a binder and needing a piece of scrap paper but not wanting to use paper from their office, you grab a piece of paper from their wastebasket and write on the other side the figures you need.

Your pen jams, and for some reason you turn the sheet over. You discover a note in your employee's handwriting to one of their friends. It gives the clear impression that the employee intends to skip every day of the conference, and to use the company expense account while spending the week scuba diving and wind surfing with a friend.

In other words, the conference trip amounts to a "de-facto vacation." Moreover, it was strange that they signed up for the conference in the first place because the conference didn't seem well aligned with the company's goals or even the employee's expertise.

You are now in the performance review. The employee has previously complained that the company vacation policy was skewed towards more senior employees.
In my simulation, I focused on the fact that fraud had r -- and that my trust had been violated. I used the following framework:

0. I told the employee he was my best manager -- which was actually a true fact. Then I told him "but that's why it breaks my heart to hear these allegations."

1. Get a truthful explanation -- when confronted with what your what you know about the trip does the employee deny it? Are they genuinely remorseful?

2. Solve the problem -- As a senior manager with a fiduciary duty to the company, I decided to cancel the trip to the conference. It was clear from the case study that the conference was of no benefit to the company and was merely a front for the vacation.

3. Prevent the problem from occuring again and explain the natural consequences of continuing this behavior -- let the employee know that they are on the edge of being fired and if someone like this happens again -- trust will degrade even further resulting in their firing.

4. Get some action to occur that will rebuild trust -- Since the problem as I saw it was a degradation in trust, the solution would have to focus on rebuilding trust. I didn't want to monitor the employee. I wanted to trust them, but We couldn't just repair the situation using words alone. I needed to see some kind of action.

It turned out the employee continued to justify their actions in stage 4, by saying I needed to understand he didn't get enough vacation time. He could have gone to jail for what he had done, yet he was justifying his actions.

I fired him and I was the only person in the class that did this. I felt like I failed in the negotiation by not turning things around, but what was I supposed to do when an employee commits fraud, and is not genuinely sorry they did it? Can you trust that they won't do something highly unethical again?

Strangely half the groups in the class let the employee continue to go the conference so long as the employee gave a presentation when they returned on what they had learned -- to force the employee to show up to the conference. I think this was a cowardly thing to do and I don't think the shareholders would like to spend money on a conference that is unlikely to benefit the company.

I hung out with a friend last night who had been the general manager of one Microsoft's divisions. Since that time he has been the CEO of a number of technology companies. He told me he would have unquestionably fired the person. The fact that they were you "best employee" indicated to him that the person was experienced and that he should have known better.

Having him agree with me made me feel better, but I can't help wondering if there is something to learn from what my negotiation instructor is trying to teach me. Is there really a way to turn things around when a violation of trust of this magnitude has occurred? My negotiation instructor suggested I tell the employee "the fact that you are continuing to justify what you've done gives me less confidence that something like this will not be repeated in the future. You are on the edge." He also suggested giving the employee a paid day off to think about "what we talked about" and to "construct a plan to rebuild trust."

Movie about time travel

An Emerson student put up a short documentary on Time Travel (quicktime viewer required) on studentfilms.com. I enjoyed the film. Perhaps you will too.

Randomly Generated Paper Accepted at Conference

A couple of MIT students created a program to randomly generate computer science papers complete with graphs, citations, etc. The program learns to write papers, given numerous examples of real papers. In their own words, "One useful purpose for such a program is to auto-generate submissions to "fake" conferences; that is, conferences with no quality standards, which exist only to make money." Amazingly, one of their auto-generated papers was accepted at a conference. They are now accepting donations to give a randomly generated speech at the conference with a straight face. You can even generate your own auto-generated paper from their site.

One of my favorite quotes from a speech by Dr. Arbab -- a Baha'i, and a member of an International Baha'i Body that governs Baha'i affairs:

One of the greatest powers seeded in the depths of the human soul is attraction to beauty ... At one level, attraction to
beauty manifests itself in an individual’s impulse to fashion beauty through the visual arts, music, and crafts, and the pleasure he or she derives from beholding the fruits of these creative endeavors. It motivates search for order, meaning and balance, and creates drive for excellence. At another level it makes obedience a most joyous act, a response to Bahá’u’lláh’s exhortation: “Observe My commandments for the love of My beauty.”
How else is the ardent lover of Bahá’u’lláh to understand the mystery of sacrifice, to persist, and to overcome the formidable difficulties that inevitably arise in the path of service to His Cause?

Wow.. I never thought of the the quest for excellence to a search for beauty ..

Back in Boston

One of the things I love about student tickets is that you can buy your ticket and fly on the same day -- without penalty! I actually bought my ticket to Toronto, on the cab on the way to the airport!

Semi Formal in Toronto

Another Semi-Formal Shot. 

Emerson and Eli 

The 3 divas 

More semi-formal pics. 

Kurosh, my sis, and I. 

Pics of the Rack

Some of my friends kept asking me why I flew to canada 3 times in a single month and what the heck was taking so much of my time. I was working on setting up a 140-port network for my parent's office. The thing in this picture is called a rack. Every single network connection and telephone port in the office ends up here. A rack is simply two metal beams to which you can mount equipment in a space-efficient manner. You could for example stack 48 computers on top of each other in the space shown on the rack. Instead we've chosen to use the rack to host a new experimental phone system that transmits telephone signals over internet wires. Why would you want to do that? Well you computer and phone systems can communicate with each other. So when the phone rings, you can, for example, make your computer pop up a window telling you who's calling and what you last talked about, before you pick up the phone. The computer at the bottom of the rack is the web server for
Veristage.

Another pic of the rack. Yellow wires carry voice traffic; black (not visible in this pic) carries data. 

This is what the rack looks like from behind. 

My bro justin, affectionately known as "justy."

Aerial Photography using a Kite! And a Self-Updating Picture Frame

 

Target is selling kites for $10 ... This Kite Aerial Photography project lets you take pictures using a kite and a cheap kodak disposable camera.


An electronic, self-updating picture frame

In the .COM days, there was a picture frame that (in theory) you could give to you mom. It would connect to the internet (wirelessly of course) and presenting whatever picture you as the dutious child decided to show her. But the frame was too expensive -- the company wanted $10 a month for the service and the picture frame cost over $100.

Now this guy has found a way to convert a Mattel Juicebox ($11 at walmart) into an LCD picture frame!!

Transparent Screens

People are putting up photos of their laptops with desktops that make the laptop screen seem transparent. From a decorating perspective, the effect seems to create more space.



Some examples:

Gallery 1
Gallery 2

And here's a how-to. If you have one of those Sony laptops with a built-in web cam, you should in theory be able to set your background to update automatically.

Back in Canada ....

Awhhh yeah. Except I forgot there will be a big-ASS (read J-Lo) formal tonight and I didn't bring my suit. The formal is an annual event that should be lots of fun with youth from all over in attendance.

So I got two options: (1) Buy a new suit (which isn't feasible because not only does that take a while, but I'd have to get the alterations done the same day) or (2) Wear one of the suits I hadn't already transported to Boston, or (3) show up without a suit and feel underdressed all night.

I think I'm going with (2) while sporting a tie from my Dad's stash. "The suits I left behind in Canada ain't so bad" or so I keep telling myself. I mean, five years ago, when I had just graduated, they got me a job :)

Archive.org and OurMedia.com

You probably heard of the WayBackMachine at Archive.org -- it's a funky web site that been around for years that will let you see what a web site looked like in the past. You could for example, see what cnn.com looked like on September 11th, or any other day for that matter -- and strangely they index almost all of the web.

Well the same people that brought you Archive.org just released OurMedia -- a web site that will host photos, blogs AND videos for free. It's only been up for 4 days ... but a lot of people are signing up and they are getting big fast. They need volunteers to keep it up ... moderators, programmers, the whole deal ...

Victim no more! A guy catches identity thieves in 2 hours

This happened today: a guy had his credit card number stolen. But unlike most stories this guy caught the thieves and got the last laugh. For anyone who has ever had their credit card number stolen, it's satisfying to see the thieves caught; in two hours no less!

Some funky art ...

The Zoom Quilt.

Slides for Computers And God

Are available in Powerpoint or HTML and Flash

Have fun figuring out what this does

 

This is a funky image search, with a twist!

http://www.c6.org/toogle/

Fasting

So for the next 19 days, I got to wake up around 5am and not eat from sunrise to sunset. Why would I subject myself to this brutality? Ask me later! But I will say this. There is no better time for ending bad habits, and returning to a more spiritual state. I seem to have much better discipline during the fast.

Want to know a secret? In addition to eating well, The key to an easy fast is wearing warm clothes. Why? If you wear warm clothes, your body nees to burn fewer calories to keep warm. And while we're on the subject, did you know that ice water has negative calories? Why? Because that cold water has to be heated to body temperature. 

Beautiful Poems by Rumi

I love this poem. I've been thinking about it all day:

Seek ye not water,
Seek ye thirst,
and waters from the very ground shall burst!
-Rumi

A similar verse:

Seek ye not water,
for water is everywhere,
seek thirst!
-Rumi

What it means to me: if you are looking for knowledge, first seek curiosity. If you are looking to excel in your work, find work that's fun. And if want to find knowledge of God, first find that thirst.

Interestingly, I'm fairly certain Baha'u'llah quotes the first verse.

Poster for "What might computers tell us about God?"

This is an interesting talk I gave last year at MIT, that I'll also be giving this tuesday at MIT. More details including the slides are available here (sorry the old link didn't work).

Ayyami-Ha Parties

This is the time of year when Baha'i's give gifts to one another. And with these gifts, come a flurry of parties and visits to relatives. So last night, I went to the first, in what will certainly be a string of many get-togethers.

Do'in it Persian Style, means visiting at least 3 relatives on a given day, possibly as many as five. You do this mostly on weekends, but you could potentially do this sort of thing on a smaller scale on weekdays. The way it works is that you "declare" a day where you will stay home and the world comes to you. Conversely, you have to find out, when other people are staying home, so you can plan a route that lets you visit as many as possible! Every person serves you tea in tiny tea cups (you may visit 5 people after all) and some dessert.

Thing is, you have 12 days to visit every relative in your city. Bah, that's trivial you might say, but persian families can get quite big!

Science & Religion Forum @ Harvard

We worked Dr. Hatcher hard. Less than one hour after giving an introduction to the Baha'i Faith at MIT, we shuttled him over to Harvard where he gave what I thought was a more polished version of the Science & Religion talk. Guess we helped debug his talk. 

Song by Ulrich Schnauss Downloadable for Free

For the last couple of days, I've been waking up to the sounds of Ulrich Schnauss. Fortunately, one of my favorite songs, "On My Own" by him is available FREE courtesy of Domino Records.

Thought of the Day

I find self-reflective statements like "I can't live with myself" fascinating. I think they are evidence for the existence of a soul.

I find it fascinating that there is within us the voice of an observer. This is the I in quotes like "I can't live with myself."

This observer examines our current state and express satisfaction or regret. It is distinct from our current state (the "myself").

The observer in my opinion, is the ear that hears our thoughts. In other words, the observer is distinct from the mind! One of my favorite poems by Rumi goes like this:

"But what is that ear inside me that hears my thoughts?
Who sees with my eyes?
What is the soul?
I can't stop asking"
-Rumi

This brings me to my latest thought, that I realized a few days ago:

"Seek to be that person that you yourself would like to be around with."

Do you frequently complain to yourself? When you look at something do you often see the ways it can be improved (i.e. the bad), rather than its positive qualities? Perhaps you believe that the internal critic helps you improve by highlighting areas for improvement. That may be true. But ask yourself, if your thoughts were personified, would you like to hang around such a person?

We tend to enjoy the company of postitive people -- who are upbeat, pleasant to be around with and happy. So why not apply this to our own selves?

Try this out for a while: tell the critic to pack it's bags. It's time for it to take a vacation for all the overtime it's been putting in. And in the meantime, let your thoughts exemplify the company of someone you'd enjoy spending time with.

3 Million Hits in 3 Days!

We managed to get our Science & Religion event featured on the MIT main homepage (www.mit.edu). Needless to say this drove traffic to to our web site. David Gray and Adam Ludwin are figuring out how we could leverage this to get us featured on other high-profile sites.  

Fascinating Web Site

They asked a number of leading scientists, "what do you think is true even though you can't prove it?" Here's what they said (a fascinating read).

Ah life in the fast lane! Well actually, this is the kind of photo you take when you are stuck in traffic and have nothing better to do! [notice the spedometer is at zero :)]

Hmmmm.. What's wrong with this picture?

Me and David decided to get some grub at a truckstop on the way home from NEBY. 

William Hatcher's presentation at MIT.

Alycia & my sister @ NEBY Fest. 

Thought of the Day: On Leadership

We are what we repeatedly do.
--Aristotle

Nothing like a height adjustable desk :) 

Thought of the Day: On Excellence

"Excellece then is not a act but a habit."
-Aristotle

"... Those who strive for excellence are those who have accustomed themselves to going beyond the bounds of what is normally considered within the realms of human endurance."
-Abdu'l-Baha

Anna's Tacoria: a new restaurant opened up at MIT. More than 2000 people came to this restaurant on its opening day. 

The Sidney-Pacific Bike auction 

Baha'i Association Meeting

David and Ravi making the important decisions.

Dori & David concentrating profusely at a Baha'i Club meeting 

50k Competition Team

My team for the 50k business plan competition. What are we working on ? Well, that's a SECRET.

The deepening crew again 

I went to the Vader's tonight for a deepening -- a deepening is the Baha'i analogue to a "Bible Study" except we literally have more than 100 books from which we can study from. We decided to study and read random quotes from one of my favorite compilations called "Fire and Gold."  

I stole Linda's bike shortly after she won the bike auction. After she let me hop on her bike "to take a look at it," I rode off with it into the halls. She wrote this note outside of my room!

Met with Ulrich today before he leaves for Germany. He suggested this nice restaurant called 'The Elephant Walk" that serves Cambodian French cuisine. I got a Tuna steak at the recommendation of the waiter. YUM!

Thought of the day: on Leadership

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" - Thomas Keller

So if neither resources, nor confidence, or even chances of success were an issue, what would do? for yourself? for others? for those you love?

Site of the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab where I work.

Interfaith Dinner I

The Baha'i Club invited 5 other faiths to participate in an interfaith dinner. Each group gave a 10 minute presentation answering the question "Is there a higher more desirable state for human beings (such as happiness, salvation, enlightenment, knowledge, etc)? If so who decides what is that state? And why should we trust that authority? About 80 people attended. Kosher, Halal, Vegetarian and regular dinners were served.

A poster I designed for the interfaith dinner.

McCain's essay on torture

A very moving, cogent piece on why torture should be banned. An Excerpt:

Those who argue the necessity of some abuses raise an important dilemma as their most compelling rationale: the ticking-time-bomb scenario. What do we do if we capture a terrorist who we have sound reasons to believe possesses specific knowledge of an imminent terrorist attack?

-Sen. John McCain

The Red Sox win the world series

After 86 years drought, the Red Sox finally won the world series against their arch-rivals, the New York Yankees.

One fun part about this rivalry was the story of Pedro Martinez.

Hired by the Boston Red Sox, Pedro was one of the best pitchers in the league. But he consistently performed miserably against the New York Yankees.

One day in frustration he said "I just tip my cap and call the Yankees my daddy."

This statement would come to haunt him as Yankees fans would chant "Who's your DADDY?" at every game he'd play.

They would also hold up signs like this one.



But after the Red Sox won you would see signs all over Boston saying

  "Hey YANKEES! Who's your DADDY NOW?"

After the Red Sox won, people took to the streets. Me and my friend Pedze, joined the celebration. We're holding up a "Who's your DADDY NOW?" T-Shirt.

 

3-D Monitor and 3-D Printer

I visited Derek Nowrouzi a friend from Microsoft, who's now a graduate student. He gave me a tour of his lab and showed me two impressive demonstrations.

The first is a 3-D monitor (see video) -- which in this case is showing a 3-D molecule. I've seen 3-D TVs before but this system was truly 3-D in that you could walk around the object and see it from completely different perspectives.

The second demo was a 3-D printer (see video). Basically you send it a design -- and presto -- out comes a plastic, 3-D object. What's amazing is that can output complex, multi-part objects in one go.

We Won!

 

My team won a policy competition judged by members of the National Academies of Science. It's amazing how international my team was. Home to members of my team includes Canada, France, India, Japan, Jamaica, Singapore and of course, the USA. Many of us felt that a major advantage that our team had was a project management methodology outlined here. 

Simmons Hall

Simmons Hall - a funky undergraduate residence @ MIT

Ithaca

I picked up my sister from Ithaca, NY yesterday. She was doing an internship at Cornell, working as a lawyer in some kind of enlightened, experimental family court. My sister just finished her first year in law school at Queens University in Canada. It was an 8 hour drive to get there and only 6 hours to get back when I decided to try some shortcuts against the advice of Microsoft Maps & Trips (a computer program that gives you Mapquest-like functionality when you are disconnected from the internet).

Ithaca was an interesting place. If you can imagine a city founded by hippies and based on hippy ideals then that is what Ithaca is like. Despite the city's size, there are no Starbucks, Burger Kings or McDonald's to be found; the city somehow blocks the entry of these mega-corps through by-laws.

The local restaurants only serve organic food, the eggs sold there only come from "free-range chickens." And the stores eschew polyesterl opting instead for cotton grown in the continental USA guaranteed to be assembled in non-sweat shop conditions. In a word, they seeking to live sustainably.

I went to a famous vegetarian restaurant there called Mooseheads famous for publishing a series of vegetarian cookbooks that is closely followed by a legion of fans. I purchased their "quick and easy" cookbook; translation: a cookbook for people who don't have time to cook.

Interestingly the people of Ithaca have set up their own currency called "Ithaca hours" which is pegged to the US dollar. The currency is designed to promote the local economy. They call their currency "hours" to emphasize a view of money that sees it as "potential labor."

Who are these people? They are mostly hippies, Cornell professors, and a whole bunch of lower-income people, who, despite lacking means still adhere to the city's ideals.

The city also has some interesting natural features. First the city has a series of gorges aka waterfalls. I followed my sister through a beautiful nature walk that consisted of a long upward climb that followed the path of a river. The river twisted through a series of mini water falls culminating in a super long waterfall at the end of the trek. Cornell has taken advantage of these gorges by situating its buildings in such a way that they overlook the gorges. Also there is one river that snakes through the middle of their campus. I tried standing under a waterfall -- it really is quite relaxing.

The tallest gorge is taller than Niagara Falls, NY. Not surprisingly, the city is full of hills. The hills are so steep that I actually wonder how people get around during the winter without sliding. Anyways, that's all for now. -H:)

First Night in Cambridge

The bank machines across the street from my house dispense both Canadian and US funds. So with Canadian money in my left pocket and American money in my right pocket, I started driving towards America.

I love my sister. She helped pack my things, and did a super-fantastic job at that -- when I was busy running around taking care of other things. Whenever you leave for a new place, it's always wonderful to get that help from those you love.

I started driving from Toronto at 11am and started seeing signs for Boston and Cambridge around 10pm. On the way, I rang up Safa and had dinner before I even bothered to unpack. I arrived at my new residence past midnight to find the front desk empty.

How would I get the keys to my new apartment?

By a stroke of good fortune I happened to bump into the welcome coordinator, who out of sheer coincidence happened to be passing through the lobby at midnight. He called the "Facilities department," that had a 24-hour line to let people in after hours. A nice guy showed up about 10 minutes later, and he let me into my room.

I turned on the light to find a decent-sized, hexagonal shaped room. My bedroom door was detached from its hinges. In fact, the door it was lying against a wall, while a big screen TV on wheels lay against one of my walls. My apartment mate had e-mailed me to warn me about this.

Apparently his room was too small to store a projection TV his grandma had bought him as a graduation present. His TV was so large that he had to take my door off its hinges to get it into my room. I opened up the drapes to reveal a great view of the Cambridge skyline that included the Charles River. This was the 18th floor of a 24-storey tower -- not bad. The view was better than what had at home!

I unpacked what things I could -- and after unpacking the essentials including my comforter, and bedspread, I decided to go to sleep. I noticed that I had forgotten my pillow. No matter, I was going to sleep and after rolling up an extra sheet as a substitute pillow, I soon fell asleep.