Friends from Stanford

Spotted old colleagues and new at CHI last month. Not only are these talented technologists from Stanford also great kazoo players, they also take requests. Mike Bernstein, Dave Merrill, and Monzy from Stanford performed impromptu kazoo renditions of popular songs, like "Wipe Out" to entertain Wendy Ju and other CHI reception partygoers. They were definitely the highlight of the closing CHI ceremonies.

Toasty friends

It was fun to see Elwin and Mandy again at Legal's yesterday. Since Elwin was visiting from LA, it was a real trip to hang out and talk about life outside MIT. Mandy has returned from India (and doing artistic things). Also met Frank, who is the head of UCLA's alumni group. Missed Zahra and LiWei, but maybe next time!

Engelbart & Clinton

This week, our group met with Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the mouse. He gave a talk about his new vision. It was terrific to meet a living legend. It was great to spend time listening to him talk about where HCI should go and how representing knowledge in different ways would be useful to mankind. He was very positive, and just enthusiastic. The best part about meeting great people is how nice they usually are, and how happy they are about the work that they do. Usually they are very generous with compliments and his thoughts on what was interesting about the work he saw. For example, Doug also invented a chording keyboard, and he brought it out and talked about how people were able to use the keyboard effectively/efficiently even more with chording and how amazed he was by that. His enthusiasm for this chording feature was clear.
Reminds me of the time I met Douglas Dayton, from IDEO (and before that Hovey-Kelley), who drew the CAD drawings of the mouse for commercialization. Always cool to meet people who worked on a seminal project, and listen to their stories.
I'm rambling now, cause its 5:30am, but I recently caught Bill Clinton on TV talking to the Potomac school. It was great to hear such an articulate leader who had thought about the pros and cons of world situations. Again, his strong convictions on what America should do in Iraq and other places was clear, and he showed his understanding was more than surface level. He identified that Democracy is not just majority rule, but an idea based on respecting the greater good and minority viewpoints. The best thing I learned was that different ways of seeing things (e.g. multiple identities/sympathies) are good. He applied this to religion: we can have many different religions and celebrate their differences, but also having alternate identities than just a religious identity helps people understand their fellow human beings and celebrate mankind. By understanding differences in different ways, we can understand that there is no ONE correct or dominant way of doing things. As long as we respect each other and seek the greater good, humanity will always triumph.

It is impressive the amount of background knowledge this man had in his impromptu speech. Here are some interesting quotes that came from the Fairfax Times news article:

"...Study something they love, and to challenge themselves, make it difficult ... spend some time getting to know people different than you."

"Globalization is inadequate. Our world is too small, we all need each other, and divorce is not an option. You cannot escape each other."

"Everybody needs an opportunity to participate. People need to feel responsible for the success of an endeavor, a sense of belonging."

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Other than that, I had a terrific time seeing my friends who I have neglected in a while. Lily and Ben, Rich and Virginia showed up for dim sum, along with Jim Barabas, Betsy, MayLin, Lily and Jordan, and new folks Jo and Nick. It was a terrific time, and I learned about what was going on with everyone's lives it was good to appreciate how hard everyone works and enjoys their jobs.

Congratulations to Lily & Ben for getting married! They are very happy and i'm sure it will be a motivating factor for Lily to finish her thesis so she can go on a honeymoon!

We went shopping at Costco today, too, and bought finals breakfast food. It will be an exhausting week but I'm sure we'll have a lot of good times as well.

Flowers everywhere

Everywhere around campus, there are azaleas blooming. Pleasant breezes and nice weather were the norm until today. Today it is rainy and full of thunderstorms. I'm going to go out in it, to have dinner at Penang with Aileen.

Post Sponsor week catch-up

Its been a looong week. After flying the red-eye back from San Jose, it was time for sponsor week. I think I must have slept a total of 8 hours the whole week. I took advantage of this weekend to catchup and see my friend Sarah (and my cousin Joyce) who was visiting from Miami. Sarah has a baby, Violette, who is ultra cute and quiet. It was nice to get our mani-pedis in Harvard, and just catch up. So much has happened since we were last together about 3 years ago. Its nice to know that things are going well. When you're in school it doesn't seem like time is moving. Its like a vacuum, or as TadT says, its a bubble that reflects in on itself. Still, it seems like life is good. Otherwise, things in school are coming to an end of a semester. Students are getting their plans together for summer, and all the end of year events are rolling by. It will be a busy end of semester, as many of the seniors on my hall are moving on to bigger and better things. We'll be doing some end-o-year events and as usual, it will be a busy but fun time.

Back from California

Me, Tom, Julie and Duff are having desserts at Mel's diner in SF here. I am back from a great time in california, after hopping off the red-eye to partake in Sponsor week at the Lab. I started off at CHI (flickr posts coming soon), then LA and SF. It was very nice to see a lot of ML alumni, get a sense of what they were working on, and give me perspective on what life could be like after MIT. The work that they're doing now out west seems satisfying and deeply meaningful. I was amazed at the level of detail, quality, and robustness of the engineering work being done at Oblong and BlackDust. Lots of startups. Tom's got Whooptones and some secret ones that will be announced soon...*hush*. These guys have visions on on the future of technology, and you can buy/play/live with it. More on this in a later post, after I get the pix up. I also had a terrific time meeting with old MIT friends, and soaking up the rays on a hike at Penitencia Creek Park with c/o 97'ers Julie and Duff-- its been too long. Here's a shout-out to the i-dogs "Arrouuuu!"

A recap of good things Summer 04

We have have all the good things here. I found my Summer Pix from 2004, and am seriously looking forward to this year's round of BBQs, outings, and Fairs.




We also have the summer birthdays and excursions from earlier that year. Jim frosted all those ladybug cakes! I baked popovers, cause he likes em so. In retrospect, it was a busy summer where people were moving around a lot. There were visits to and from family (UK, NY, and Long Island), Roo's Thermal Spray lab at SUNY, and then there was trips to the beach. We saw the HelloMoto boat and met the captain and enjoyed fireworks on the 4th over the Charles. We baked a lot, and looked out the windows onto the MIT dome from our apartment in central square.

Journey to Cinque Terre

Just looking at the pictures takes my breath away. I've finally uploaded pix of our Journey to Cinque Terre last spring break. It was one of the most captivating hikes I've ever been on, and I would definitely like to return. We had a terrific meal overlooking the gorgeous views, and met many kind people. Next time, we'll definitely go climb the castle and eat more frutti di bosc gelati!

ML Model Hack

Little green men have stormed the Media Lab Model . Looks like someone's research is causing quite a stir. Hold on to your thumbtacks and resistors, they might be commandeered by the troops.

Rubber ducky, you're the one!

A fun and wacky valentines day on Stickmen where we had some serenading, hearts, and tasty goodness. The last video is of the hall at the housemaster's studybreak. Its been a giggle of a term. The stickmen also rocked the house at the recent Cookie bakeoff. We submitted 5 entries (including a GRT entry), and they would have all won if we had enough prizes for them. Jim's GRT entry didn't get to be voted on, but I thought it was the best one (and I'm not biased at all!). Pix of the Cookie Bakeoff TBA. Congratulations to the power bakers Sarah and Kathy for their award-winning entries of Spagetti Cookies and the Great Dome Hack. We had the most innovative hall, with the spirit of Colin Cross revived in cookie form by Chris's "Colin Cookies"-- a hall secret recipe, and also the spirit of 3D creation from Kelly, which had people wondering how she made it!

Key West pics finally uploaded

I finally put up the pix from 2 summers ago of our drive to the Keys:Key west adventure. There were some very beautiful parts, like the sunsets, the super rainy downpour, and the waterspouts along the Seven Mile Bridge. We visited that Key Lime Pie factory, and ate some goodies, saw some "funny people" at the "ladies night" on the main drag, and enjoyed getting our tans. The drive was long, but it was kind of fun-- only 4 hours from Miami with cruise control. One nice part was hanging out with Jim and my parents, and enjoying the lighthouse views at the southernmost tip of the US. We went all the way to Mile 0 of I-95, the beginning of that beast of a road that makes its way all the way up to Boston! I found that my street is in the center of town, and we even saw a pirate store! Arrgh!

See Duff talk at Google!

My friend, physicist/scientist/inventor/programmer, Mike Duff, will be giving a talk at google today. Hope those of you in Mountain view can go. Sounsd like he'll be talking about internet security at SRI, one of the coolest innovation companies around.

Congratulations Robbin!

A big kudos to my friend and colleague, Robbin Chapman, for her recent appointment to diversity recruiting in the MIT School of Architecture Planning. She's so positive and energetic, I think that she will make a big impact in the admissions process for our department.

One See in Four Stages, by Mat Laibowitz

Hey folks, this looks like a cool installation by Mat Laibowitz at EXIT ART. If you are in NYC, this might be a visual experience that changes the way you think about light, space, and time.

Marty Johns sent me Bubbles

Bubbles
Watch it become.
Thanks Marty! That's very nice of you. Makes me want to go to the circus.

Happy Chinese New year, happy valentine's day!

This is going to be an awesome year! Its going to be terrific, and I'll get to see my friends a lot more this year! I celebrated in style, with dim sum and dinner, with some good friends and my awesome hall. So this year, I know it will be easier to see my friends than in previous years. :) I might have good opportunity to fly to your neighborhoods, friends who are afar (SF, Dallas, Miami, NYC)!
I'll try to blog more this year, that way you can have constant updates! For those of you on RSS readers, you'll know the scoop from the source.
This is from my cousins in China:


As the weather would have it, I was snowed in on Valentines Day and ended up not flying to my conference in Baton Rouge. So I spent the day *working* next to my handsome man, and also hung out with my favorite students! It seems those close to me will also be close to me next year. Yay yay yay!

Congratulations Ian, my Guy101.

Congratulations to Ian for winning a BAFTA. You know you rock. That was the best winner's walk I've seen. Nice bling too! xxoxoxo! Watch him snag the prize!
Here's 2 my favorite Guy 101! *kiss* *kiss* snootchy bootches. *bye cutie*

Congratulations to Jonah

Lucky for me, I know lots of winners! Congrats to Jonah on winning for his entry Alerting Infrastructure, the OpenCall for Labcyberscpaces!

Happy Birthday Virginia!

We went to Amelia's Kitchen, in cozy Teal Square. I had pesto, everyone else had yummy pasta! yum yum! happy birthday Virginia, what a year!! hope that next year is even better!

Happy Turkey Day,Stickmen!

Kudos to my hall for making mondo food for Sunday's Thanksgiving feast. Click here of pictures of kevin Making Turducken. It was way cool, and we are way full.