June 2011
2 posts
My Sloan Fellows degree thesis →
My thesis: Drop-in Replacement Biofuels: Meeting the Challenge
December 2010
2 posts
8 tags
Obama's post-election politics
President Obama’s post-election politics have always raised questions in my mind, as well as for many other people I know who are interested in politics and governance. What gives? Why not put your money where your mouth is? Especially after saying “discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis” I have mulled this issue in my mind for a good year now and could not quite...
7 tags
Education and our future
I came across this article when reading the paper today: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html
A few spots in the article caught my eye:
“We have to see this as a wake-up call,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an interview on Monday.
“I know skeptics will want to argue with the results, but we consider them to be accurate and reliable, and we have to see them...
October 2010
1 post
3 tags
6 months since the last post
Wow - time flies! It has been over 6 months since my last post and it feels like yesterday. I guess everyone has heard about the MIT firehose that I have been drinking from for the past 4.5 months. Its been a lot of work but a tremendous experience. In many ways it is sad that we are at the halfway mark in the program. Regardless it has been an excellent summer and early fall. I have made many...
April 2010
1 post
3 tags
Looking forward in 2010
Two weeks ago I attended the MIT Sloan Fellows, Class of 2011 orientation. Thats right - I made my decision and it is to go back to school. It was very difficult to walk away from an awesome job. But the idea of being back in school with about a hundred other very smart professionals, some at the top of their institutions and from varied backgrounds, in an intense one-year course on leadership and...
March 2010
4 posts
5 tags
The challenge remains but a dream comes true...
… or how one man trudged through the professional wastelands of 2008 and 2009
Life throws practically anything at you, at whatever speed, often multiple things. Some are meatballs, you dont even break your stride. Others purely intend to bring you down. I vividly remember riding high in the late 90s, the rocket that was the telecom industry. We felt invincible because of the...
9 tags
First Boxee. And now Google? →
These are exciting times for anybody dying to break free from their provider’s cable captivity. If my wife was not a die-hard tennis fan I would have switched to internet-only TV. Consequently we are smack in the middle of the bell curve. I pretty much use Boxee exclusively on my MacBook and will sometimes sync to an AppleTV. But I can’t wait to build my own home theater on a netbook...
8 tags
Some of the computer science behind the internet...
I recently became interested in the structure of large internet systems but did not get to take a deep dive until today. I followed a bunch of links, ended up wiki-ing NoSQL and landed on a couple of excellent articles that explain the architectural concepts underlying some of the infrastructure technology deployed by internet giants like Amazon, Google, Facebook, eBay and Twitter.
Chirag Mehta...
6 tags
A software keyboard for and search in Boxee
Boxee is a wonderful application that brings the convenience we normally associate with using a TV. It aggregates so much content via an excellent interface and any imperfections are merely feature or bugfixes away. The one thing I do consider a nuisance is having to type using the remote-control operated keyboard. I would love to use one of my home computers to enter text instead. I know there...
February 2010
11 posts
2 tags
Boxee beta now on ATV →
The Boxee beta is now finally available on Apple TV- yeah! I love the Boxee guys and community - very creative and always focused.
3 tags
Wonderful melange of colors and form
I am not an expert by a long shot but like most people I know immediately when I really like an art piece. That is how I feel about Nikita Duncan’s work. I could not stop feasting on her art work when I stumbled upon it on Flickr. I find her abstract pieces particularly appealing as they evoke a wonderful combination of joyful cheeriness with gorgeous visual vibrance.
And thank you very...
5 tags
bijan sabet: We're looking for an associate →
We are looking to hire an associate at Spark. The title “associate” means different things at different venture capital firms so let me tell you what it means at Spark. An associate at Spark is part of our investment team in our Boston office. He or she will help our team with market &…
Bijan is one of the sharpest VCs in the Boston area. With investments like Twitter, Tumblr (service...
3 tags
1 tag
3 tags
Is a G-backlash in the making?
When Gizmodo puts up an article like this http://gizmodo.com/5476386/how-to-escape-from-googles-clutches-once-and-for-all, you know that the subject matter is in the geek mainstream. If I am at Google, I would be keep tabs on this issue. Even though computing, including cloud-computing, has large inertia (who wants to move data, change apps…), the proliferation of high quality tools with...
2 tags
A different take on social networking
Yesterday I came across a startup that offers a different take on social networks. AFAICT it’s biggest differentiation is the ability to easily create an affinity group. And individuals can easily become part of or leave a group. So whereas Facebook defines a single relationship, Sparkcloud lets you participate in multiple relationships. What I would like to see added is the ability to...
3 tags
The Data Liberation Front
My Feb 10th post cited the lack of data portability as a concern. I stand corrected - Google has an active and thoughtful initiative - The Data Liberation Front - that lets you extract your data from Google and take it with you.
Such initiatives can only come from an open culture that encourages active work on innovative ideas and an enterprising spirit. Of course, being a wildly successful...
3 tags
Could you buzz a little Buzz for me... Hmmm......
Google’ Buzz is powerful but I think Google’s tight integration with Gmail was a poor decision. To be clear, I am not against integrating it with Gmail - in my opinion that is what makes Buzz so much more powerful. What I dislike is the poorly explained service and its default tight integration with Google’s services and profile; but even worse is the utter lack of simple and...
3 tags
Tumblr and a whole lot of CSS 2 over two days
I only just started a tumblelog and have fallen in love with the service. In the last couple of days I really wanted to get some control over the theming of my site so I decided to dive into making a theme. I started with Bill Israel’s beautiful Letterhead theme and found myself drawn deep into CSS. After approximately 20 hours of figuring out visual formatting models and the quirks of CSS...
3 tags
Does Buzz make it TMI with Google?
I am a shameless Google junkie for three reasons - seamless integration between cloud, mobile and big-computing-device, significantly higher-than-average quality and free, free, free. I became an ardent fan of the organization based on their credo of no evil. But with its growing set of compelling apps only increasing my dependence, I am now concerned about my data. Previously when I bought an app...