Thirding John and Dan‘s recommendations. Very impressed with the story, especially with the layers not becoming cumbersome (like Lost). We were left looking for more.
-Shlok
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My little brother is in China for the next week. He took off with my new iPod, and I’m relegated to his Zune. He wanted the Nano’s better battery life and decided to be thrifty with 1/7th of the Zune’s capacity. Gut always told me this thing would be a hassle, but this is ridiculous:
- The software, while sexy, is bloated, slow and buggy.
- I can’t buy movies or TV shows.
- I have to use third party software (I have to pay for) to convert what I do have to a Zune-friendly format.
- That process takes hours on end.
- Turning the damn thing off requires holding down two buttons on the directional pad.
Plus: it just flat out cannot interact with my MacMini which acts as my media center. So I have to pull my media off my external, onto the Mini, then onto the PC. Easy enough on a home network, but still a step I don’t want or need.
Total garbage.
-Shlok
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Very well done intense film. Someone had a solid understanding of the dynamics at play in Pakistan and communicated it well. Additionally and surprisingly, the script was “open” in the sense it had a lot of references to the area’s security environment that go unexplored but avail themselves to those familiar with the region. (For example, HuJI is mentioned a quarter of the way through the film.) Adding it to the shelf next to Syriana.
-Shlok
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MIT’s Ed Boyden has a good cheat-sheet on how to think:
- Synthesize new ideas constantly.
- Learn how to rapidly learn.
- Work backward from your goal.
- Always have a long-term plan.
- Make contingency maps.
- Collaborate.
- Make your mistakes quickly.
- Write up best-practice protocols.
- Document everything obsessively.
- Keep it simple.
Some of this stuff should be kept implicit, including his particular conversations-notes strategy, but its an excellent rundown. Sometimes I think he class he wants to teach should be the sole focus of of an undergraduate program.
-Shlok
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