VincentKardioGram

Packing up my bags...

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 03:58:00 +0000

I'm migrating my blog from blogspot to my own domain!

You can find the updated version of my personal life at www.vincentkardiogram.com

Download Legal Free Tunes - Ratatat and Gotan Project

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:48:00 +0000

Coachella of 2007 was a truly memorable experience. Not only did I get to see Rage, but I was able to see Ratat and Gotan Project for the first time.

Since watching both groups live, I've been an avid fan. Amazon and XL records have a sampler available for free download. Enjoy!

Things to do in Montevideo, Uruguay

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 23:21:00 +0000

Typically, when I travel, I don't get the chance to really soak in the culture. For 21 days, I'll be in Montevideo, Uruguay thanks to the IBD project. I've been staying in Pocitos, which is a nice part of town within walking distance to the beach. A couple things I definitely recommend if you come to Montevideo:

Go watch a proper football game. We saw an exhibition game of Uruguay v. Israel.
Go out at night. The night starts at 2AM. Most people take a nap after work on Friday before they head out.
Eat a Chorizo. Just not at the stadium. They say that there is a reason there are no stray dogs around the stadium. I made this mistake and spent 4 days in the hotel.
Try a Milanesa. So much is fried here, just give it a shot. It's a cross between a Tonkatsu and a Chicken friend steak.
Try Mate, the original wing-maker. It's a complicated process to get some caffeine. But when in Montevideo, you'll see people walking around with a thermos of hot water and a mate at all times of the day.

Venue Discovery with Location Awareness

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:08:00 +0000

Foursquare, a mobile social networking game that gets users to "check in" at places they visit in the real world, has experienced explosive growth. While people are acquiring mayorships in droves in the US and the UK, bold users in other countries are marking their territory as well.

While we're all in search of those elusive badges or fighting to retain those mayorships, the real value of Foursquare may be much, much more. For people traveling abroad, it's been a brilliant source of current advice and tips.

Having travelled a good amount, I'm always cautious of my research before getting into the country. Some sites and listings haven't been updated for years, and its not when you get there that a) the place no longer exists, b) the venue isn't what it was like in 2008, c) the crowd is vastly different.

I always check my check-out list with locals just to make sure.

With Foursquare, I have easy access to local tour guides. The desire to recommend and be "in the know" knows no boundaries. Each mayor is potential guide. Here are a few new mayors in Montevideo, where I'm currently traveling.

Surfing through their postings, I can quickly find where I need to be on Thursday Nights. Looks like Francisco V thinks I should head to Lou Bizzarro Bar on Thursday night.

3D provides depth to the bottom line, for now

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:39:00 +0000

Originally posted on the Berkeley DMEC blog page.

The movie industry is experience some better times with box offices revenues already running 8.8% ahead of 2009 figures (itself a $10B year). A huge driver has been the versioning for 3D and IMAX for tent-pole movies. Increased traffic for 3D coupled with significant price increases (reported as much as a 26% bump) have continued to feed the hype. This has been some positive news in terms as revenue as studios expect a 12% drop in DVD sales.

The question is how marginal traffic will making a 3D movie bring in?

With How to Train Your Dragon opening at 27% lower than Dreamwork’s Monster Vs. Aliens may indicate that new features like 3D may not necessarily trump good ole word of mouth. Indeed, the willingness to pay for a superior 3D experience for the family may not be enough to cover the $40-$60 required to take a family to the movies.

To convert a 3D movie, it takes studios an estimated $30 M, will the ROI remain? Wish three more 3D movies coming down this season’s pipeline, 3D may fast becoming the new normal.

3 Days in Basque Country

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:29:00 +0000

It's been three days since I flew from SFO to the Basque region in Spain. Thus far:

Spent a day in Bilbao
Took naps on benches in Bilbao
Went Pinxto hopping in San Sebastián
Had dinner at a Cider House

Here are a couple pics of my trip to far.

My winter vacation...

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:54:00 +0000

Cross posted on the Berkeley MBA Student Blog:

"CAL" braving -15°C in the Forbidden City

They say that time waits for no one and it won't wait for me. What seemed like for long weeks have quickly sped by as I start for my second semester at Haas.

Berkeley, CA

A little known fact: Berkeley has a low-cost, fairly broad student health insurance plan (SHIP). Under SHIP, we not only enjoy $5 copay for eye exams, but also 50% discount on Lasik. Following my last final, I walked across the street from Haas to the UC Berkeley School of Optometry. The next couple days were a bit dark.

Taipei, Taiwan

A week later, got onto a plane and headed to Taiwan. My wife and I got married right before school started and I wanted to take her to Taipei to meet the rest of my family. While in Taipei, I was able to connect with Haas alumni. I was amazed at the loyalty of the alumni that they were willing to go out of their way to meet a stranger. I learned more about what consulting, technology, financial services was like in Taiwan.

Taiwan Alumni dinner with a MBA '11

Shanghai and Beijing, China

On the 5th, I flew from Taipei to Shanghai to meet up with 59 other Haas MBAs (combination of Full Time and evening/weekend) on a 10 day China Trek. Treks are entirely student run and five of my classmates put together a truly memorable trek.

Read more here.

top tier

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:37:00 +0000

top tier
Originally uploaded by VinceHuang

Bit sized tasks [Volunteerism]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:30:00 +0000

A platform called "The Extraordinaries," allows people who have even a few minutes of time to volunteer for a cause. With an iPhone app, volunteers donate their time. The for profit company gets paid from nonprofits who are looking to outsource these micro-tasks.

Pretty cool.

Crowd-Sourced Mapping [Bing]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:06:00 +0000

I've been a fan of Photosynth since I first heard of it during a TED presentation. While traveling to Jordan, I made a synth of El-Dier Monastery in Petra (Transformer 2). With geotagging, this will help to create a visually stunning and detailed user experience.

To compete with Google Maps, Microsoft has laced photosynth technology to create Bing Maps. Competition is always good. Both Google and Microsoft have been making incredible improvements to their mapping technology.

You can read more about it at Fastcompany.

Making it Rain [Cloud Computing]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:18:00 +0000

Over the horizon, we're starting to see many clouds moving shifting over. With the city of angels moving over to Google Apps, its no surprise that Cloud Computing and SaaS (Software as a service) is picking up speed.

Karen Klein outlines a couple benefits of the cloud:

Fixed cost advantage
Keeping data safe

The field is still very green, with many players planting seeds. The key concerns are still reliability. This will be solved as the industry matures. What is perhaps most interesting, as Karen points out, is the shift in cost structure for paying for these services to a subscription based model.

Read Karen Klien's post here.

Image Source: ahisgett

Your story [lotd]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:19:00 +0000

Source: roaddsidepictures

[Leaders] frame their life stories in ways that allow them to see themselves not as passive observers of their lives but rather as individuals who can develop self-awareness from their experiences. Authentic leaders act on that awareness by practicing their values and principles, sometimes at substantial risk to themselves.

-Bill George

What are your personal levers?

Pictures of Stats [Visualization]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:11:00 +0000

"Artist Chris Jordan shows us an arresting view of what Western culture looks like. His supersized images picture some almost unimaginable statistics -- like the astonishing number of paper cups we use every single day."

In one of his pieces, he creates an fantastic image resembling pollution spewing out of a factor. When you get up close and personal, you realize that its actually made of lots of plastic cups. As a matter of fact, it includes 1 million cups, which is the number of plastic cups that are used on airline flights in the United States every six hours.

His work is a pretty cool intersection between art/design and infographics. You can check out his website here and his latest book here.

Diversions [Artful Procrastination]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:15:00 +0000

Finals are next week, along with a series of papers and the >play conference. It through it all, I still seem to find some time to browse the Internets.

The Cat Piano from PRA on Vimeo.

I see MC curves [economics]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:44:00 +0000

Dan Brown's latest book, "The Lost Symbol" sold an unprecedented 2 million copies in 2 weeks. Tim Hartford writes that part of the boost was driven (at least in the UK) by an unprecedented price war.

The Bookseller, an industry magazine, Waterstone’s offered a mere 50 per cent discount – £9.49 instead of £18.99. Tesco asked £7 and Asda £5. Asda’s book buyer celebrated “fantastic” sales, despite the fact that the store is thought to be losing £4 a copy. The old joke is made real: losing money on every sale, but making it up on volume. The Book Depository, an online retailer, grabbed headlines with a price of £4.99 – whereupon Amazon quickly cut prices to match. These prices have prompted many people in the industry to feats of rhetorical self-flagellation. Industry insiders complained to The Bookseller about “ridiculously aggressive discounting” and asked “how can the book trade take itself seriously?”

Tim then proceeds to outline the economic thinking behind perfect competition and price wars:

Every retailer has to charge a mark-up to cover overheads, and faces a tension between the immediate pressures of competition and the need to stay in business. Every item sold, even at the tiniest mark-up, is better than no sale at all. Yet if the mark-ups are too thin, bankruptcy will not be far away.

In other words, perfect competition will drive down the price down to almost the marginal cost of the item.

It's always nice when you see theory in practice.

I have been typecast [Identity]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:23:00 +0000

I AM Times New Roman.

Am I timeless or a snob? Or maybe both (MWF, TThSat, Sunday I rest). Take the quiz here to find out "What font are you?"

Boston

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 07:23:00 +0000

Over the summer, Kelly and I got married in the Boston Public Gardens. The entire week was put together in large part with the help of our friends. Jen was able to recruit Emily Sterne to help photograph the special event.

You can read Jen's recount and emily's amazing photos.

Ethnography and Design [Innovation]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:00:00 +0000

It's been a great couple days here at Berkeley. I'm constantly inundated with new ideas. I've been truly amazed at the ad hoc conversations that occur within the interstitial time between meetings and classes.

One topic that has gotten me really excited is the concept of design thinking. As once an aspiring graphic designer, I have always been fascinated with design. It is the last mile between us and utility.

One core component of design thinking centers around tying cultural analysis and ethnographic observation to create big "I" insights. The following is a great short video on how design thinking was used to design the future of sustainable fishing:

Design Ethnography from Central

HT: Youngandbrilliant

That's a good question... [lotd]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:05:00 +0000

Lesson #4: When someone responds, "That's a good question." That means that they don't have the answer at hand.

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? [Economy]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:44:00 +0000

Paul Krugman, let's it rip in the NY Times piece:

Few economists saw our current crisis coming, but this predictive failure was the least of the field’s problems. More important was the profession’s blindness to the very possibility of catastrophic failures in a market economy. During the golden years, financial economists came to believe that markets were inherently stable — indeed, that stocks and other assets were always priced just right. There was nothing in the prevailing models suggesting the possibility of the kind of collapse that happened last year. Meanwhile, macroeconomists were divided in their views. But the main division was between those who insisted that free-market economies never go astray and those who believed that economies may stray now and then but that any major deviations from the path of prosperity could and would be corrected by the all-powerful Fed. Neither side was prepared to cope with an economy that went off the rails despite the Fed’s best efforts.

Read the entire article here.

The long game [Lessons]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:55:00 +0000

Lesson #3. It's all about constant and long-term vigilance. It's easy to say yes now, but can one follow through?

Ideas should scale [Lessons]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:24:00 +0000

Lesson#2: Insights do not scale. Ideas scale. Insights lend themselves to new ideas. Build rapid prototype and explore the idea. Good ideas are not about specifications and therefore, scale.

From:
Putting the People First: Human-Centered Poverty Alleviation.
Featured Speakers: Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO; Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO and Founder, Acumen Fund. Moderated by Stuart Davidson, Managing Partner, Labrador Ventures

Image Source: Tumitu Design

There was an easier way all along. [Lessons]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:10:00 +0000

Lesson #1: Instead of a series of embedded “if statements” I can make histograms with a data analytics pack. The realization that hours of Xcel juggling for no good reason at all. Sometimes its easier to ask to challenge your previous assumptions. There may have been a faster way.

Image Source: wallyg

Independent v. Indie [Film]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:15:00 +0000

Strong Bad, has a funny video differentiating the key traits of Independent vs. Indie films.

HT: MiracleMax

Bay Bridge [Bay Area Construction]

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 02:45:00 +0000

A portion of the bay bridge is undergoing seismic retrofits. Over the holiday, the bridge was completely shut down. To compensate, BART has been running virtually 24-hours--a rare occurrence.

SFist writes:
Captin_nod put together this mesmerizing video featuring time-lapse photography of yesterday's ongoing Bay Bridge construction and the rising of last night's very lovely full moon.

You can also check out these Bay Bridge 360 live video cams all weekend.

In related news, SF Appeal reports that yesterday was BART's second highest day of ridership ever, and the transit agency has also apparently embraced social networking.