oh my head...
Posted by bert at 05:45 AM on April 1, 2007 in ME.
=(
bert's musings
Entries for April, 2007
April 1st, 2007
April 2nd, 2007
OSU vs FLA
Posted by bert at 06:07 PM on April 2, 2007 in ME.
national title game tonight.. and the end to march madness?
who do i like tonight?
April 4th, 2007
weddings...
Posted by bert at 09:24 PM on April 4, 2007 in ME.
Friends, don't get me wrong. I Love you all, and am glad you are getting married. I love that you are going to be joined in holy matrimony, and that you have found the yin to your yang. I'm just pleading with you to space it out a little more please...
Airfare + hotel + gifts + bachelor parties +<use your imagination> = very poor MBA student
btw.. a big upcoming congrats to:
Eric and Erin
Scott and Christine
Casey and Michelle
Sean and Katherin
and.. soon to be Matt and Holly =).
now.. i just need my stocks to triple in 1 month to afford all your wedding presents...
April 8th, 2007
brrr...
Posted by bert at 06:37 PM on April 8, 2007 in ME.
i know some people have been complaining about the cold..
we had a beach weekend at Myrtle Beach so on Wednesday it was 80 degree out...
But by friday? 50 degrees!!...
omg.. i was freezing my ass off this weekend, and the hot tub couldn't stay over 95 degrees... *shiver*
and tomorrow? it's 75 in myrtle again..
oh.. and South Carolina is still ghetto. You can't change my mind out this... Unless of course we check out Charleston and Tim is right...
oh joy... back to powerpoint.
April 9th, 2007
grr... study abroad rant
Posted by bert at 04:53 PM on April 9, 2007 in ME.
ok. one of my big reasons for b-school, and yes this is a self-indulgent one... was that I would be able to study abroad. I never did it as an undergrad because i was so friggen absorbed with all those engineering classes i had to take.
Looking back, my networking topology and laser optics classes just don't seem so worthwhile. digital signal processing? right..
so anyway, B-School allows me to travel to some pretty top notch international schools (except Beijing University, which is inconspicuously absent on the list). Who cares, my top choice was Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
but my dumb ass wrote an application talking about going to "a univeristy in Hong Kong" instead of specifically citing HKU. On top of that we had 6 people from my class apply to two slots for HKU as well, so to "accommodate the most people" i got slotted to the Chinese University of HK. blah blah blah.. so yeah.. i f***ed up. anyway. I guess I didn't really want to practice my Cantonese anyway, since I also got into the National University of Singapore. NUS is not the most prestigious, but its well... on the harbor of Singapore, and its on the metro line going into Orchard blvd... and oh.. it speaks Mandarin.
So.. i'm pretty sure i'll be going to Singapore for my study abroad. Now i just need to figure out how the hell i'm going to fit a January - May into my plans for the coming up school year.
another girls post...
Posted by bert at 05:52 PM on April 9, 2007 in ME.
girls should come with "Easy Buttons"... and this is just so i can understand what exactly they are saying.
April 10th, 2007
Continuing on the topic of girls...
Posted by bert at 08:56 PM on April 10, 2007 in ME.
I have a next door neighbor friend. Cute blond girl, but not my type. I've been trying to bring her out since she's said that she thinks some of my friends are cute. and some are all about her.
now what i can't stand is obscene tardiness. Last week, I brought her out for the basketball games and she made me 30 minutes late for tip off. Not something i'm happy with, so tonight i reminded her to be ready at 9:30 anticipating a 10-10:15 departure.
well.. she just got off the phone with me, upset that I was suddenly preoccupied at 11:45 at night when she was finally ready.
now what gets me is the 9:30 was missed.. fine... she said she'd be ready at 10:30. that's fine.. a girl's got to dry her hair right?
even 11 is acceptable to someone who's had the week I had..
but i watched ALL of "how to lose a guy in 10 days" with commercials while waiting. That's fucking rediculous.
perhaps i'm mean.. i stayed around and waited until she was finally ready. And then i went home because i didn't "feel like" going out anymore.
well.. at least this beer is mighty tasty.
oh yeah.. and to my basic point. WTF takes girls so long to get ready for? I can understand 30 minutes to an hour... but... anything over that is rediculous.
April 11th, 2007
are you kidding me?
Posted by bert at 08:25 PM on April 11, 2007 in ME.
it's only wednesday?!?!?
come on friday... get here...
It's experience weekend here at UNC. All our admitted students were invited to come enjoy the "sell weekend" should be a lot of fun.. We get to take 100+ admits out drinking saturday night. On UNC (our tuition's) dollar.
Two more presentations to make before i get there though.
April 13th, 2007
is there a market for "Hate radio?"
Posted by bert at 01:29 PM on April 13, 2007 in ME.
Before anything is said... I have to say Don Imus and Howard Stern disgust me.
now. With the racy statements and the reason Imus got fired (loss of advertising revenue). Is hate speech considered a part of freedom of speech? (i believe it is..) So assuming the advertising revenue were in place, could a Hate Radio Station be conceivable as a future result? Scary enough I think so.
now hypothetically speaking...
Lets say we have this huge ass chinese population in SF. and lets say i buy a broadcast station in the area, broadcast in chinese, but all I'm saying is "I hate the <insert ethnic group>." "they are a detraction from my <insert some constitutionally guaranteed> rights." basically spreading my gospel of hate 24/7. Would there be anything illegal about it?
In an age dominated by sensitivity and equal rights, i think we're hitting a point where talking about hate gets audience share. and Audience share is what really matters in media broadcasts. and I don't see why a station wouldn't go the route of hate to achieve this... yeah.. i'd be outraged, but it does make some sense.
ok.. i don't like where my post is going so i'm done.. and i'll leave it be.
April 17th, 2007
almost there...
Posted by bert at 01:04 PM on April 17, 2007 in ME.
With experience weekend (UNC's sell weekend) just pass the corner, that means we are now just 3 weeks left in the school year.
we have two more presentations to go. One to Home Depot about possible growth strategies depending on market forcasts, and a second to MDI and the Chamber of Commerce about PR expansion.
should be a lot of fun.
but afterwards i get a beautiful 1 month vacation.. and now there's a possibility of going to Taiwan too. Woo.
May can't get here fast enough.
April 18th, 2007
bad jokes...
Posted by bert at 05:15 PM on April 18, 2007 in ME.
I (as usual) made a stereotype joke about Chinese people today using a silly Chinese accent.
Now there are those of you who would frown on me for doing so, but hey, I poke fun at my own damn heritage, and it's not your right to tell me what I can or can not say. Besides... it's pretty damn funny.
What the joke was, is besides the point. One comment I got from a passerby is that I should be "more sensitive towards Asians in our growing time of need."
Growing time of need???
i asked for her to elaborate on this point since I obviously did not understand what my growing need was.
She proceeded to tell me that the Asian community should watch themselves since tensions are so high right now between the American and Asian factions, in light of the Va Tech shootings.
alright.. obviously i said a few things back to her to enlighten her on what the fuck actually happened, but since she goes to Carolina, I don't actually expect her to comprehend. (ok.. yet another form of my bad jokes)
ANYWAY.
I came to a not so startling conclusion about my educated peers at UNC.
- No matter how educated people may be, we are still in the deep south
- Asian is Asian is Asian. Has it really ever mattered to any non-Asian if the person was Chinese/Japanese/Korean?
- Ignorance is prevalent in America's youth
- Why doesn't anyone feel sorry for the shooter or his family?
- Why is the typical reaction of a race as a whole to play victim when a person of that race commits something atrocious?
- poor Russel Peters has now lost 1/3 of his stand-up act.
OK so anyway, as is tradition with catastrophes and the such, the US media doesn't focus on two of the more important issues at hand.
1.) There are still more people dying in Iraq than Virginia, so why don't people actually GIVE A SHIT?!?!??!
2.) How the hell can a kid get two guns so easily?
So me looking for silver lining? Hopefully these oncoming presidential debates do go over tangible issues like Gun Control.
btw.. please please please let Newt Gingrich moderate the Republican primary.
oh and. um.. Go Obama? for now.
April 22nd, 2007
TV Sequels
Posted by bert at 08:28 PM on April 22, 2007 in ME.
i was surfing some TV while bored silly doing homework. I clicked into a re-run marathon of Cheers. But it really got me to thinking about how Cheers was successful in spinning off Frasier as a TV Show. And how no other series was ever really able to spin off a sequel series. After thinking about it for awhile, I couldn't think of any sequel series's that were actually successful, outside of Cheers/Frasier.
what about you guys? Can you think of any other examples?
April 24th, 2007
Apple is more secure than PC?
Posted by bert at 12:45 PM on April 24, 2007 in ME.
that's what apple would let you believe.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-6178787.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news
i firmly believe neither are that secure, but when it comes to hackers, they look at hacking from a pure McKinsey market sizing case. Its no secret that Windows owns the vast majority of the market, which would mean that hacking Windows is much more important for hackers than worrying about Mac O/S.
anyway.. this article just goes to show that Apple isn't this fortress of security, and that it too can be exposed by flaws.
April 28th, 2007
Duke MBA students caught cheating
Posted by bert at 09:21 PM on April 28, 2007 in ME.
They did it again... Duke really likes to keep their name in the news...I'm just going to post the article in full.
Fuqua students may face expulsion
BY BRIANNE DOPART
The Herald-Sun
April 27, 2007
Nine students at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business could be expelled for cheating on a take-home exam, according to Mike Hemmerich, the school's associate dean for strategy and institutional research.
Thirty-eight daytime business students at the school were accused of honor violations in 22 separate cases heard by the school's judicial board over the past several weeks. All but one of the 38 were accused of cheating in a third quarter class while one was charged with "a lying offense."
The charges stemmed from the outcome of a single take-home test taken by 410 of the first-year class's 411 students, Hemmerich said. Friday, the university's judicial board announced it found nine students guilty of "extremely severe offenses" while 15 were found guilty of "severe offenses" and 10 were found guilty of "minor offenses," he said.
Four students were found not guilty of violating the honor code.
The honor code, the preamble of which is posted in "any classroom at Fuqua" according to a statement released Friday by Douglas T. Breeden, dean of the school, is distributed to all students who enter Fuqua. Violations of the code include lying, cheating, stealing and failing to report those offenses.
The school's decision was explained to Fuqua students at a Friday afternoon session. Some students said they felt the punishment for the cheating students was not harsh enough, but at least one student said cultural differences might have confused some of those taking the test and therefore the punishment was too severe.
That student was putting up a poster, which read: "9 EXPULSION is all we need??????? PUNISHMENT OR EDUCATION?????" It also bore a statistic stemming from Duke's own Center for Academic Integrity that says 56 percent of American MBA students reported having cheated in a 2002-2004 survey.
Hemmerich declined to comment on reports that the majority of those charged with the offense were international students. The university is bound by law to keep the identity of the charges against students private, he said, and identifying the charged students as international students could "identify" some of them.
He said that international students do attend a summer program before entering the school that addresses the cultural differences between the U.S. and their respective countries of origin.
Erwin Chan, a second-year student who believes the expulsions were well warranted, said the school's decision to take action against the alleged cheaters spoke to Fuqua's commitment to integrity.
"I think you should see [the expulsions] as a sign we do take integrity very seriously," he said, adding that the school's decision to welcome back those found guilty of less offenses was a testament to his school's compassion.
According to the study performed by the Center for Academic Integrity, which polled 5,300 students, MBA students were more likely to cheat than their engineering, law and education student counterparts -- a finding that led the author of the study, Donald McCabe, to urge business schools to address their significant problem with cheating last fall.
"The type of student attracted to business is exceedingly decisive and often will substitute expediency for ethics," said the center's executive director Tim Dodd.
Hemmerich said the school's new fall curriculum will offer a class called "Global Institute" that will address the issues of leadership and ethics in business.
For the nine guilty of extremely severe offenses, the punishment will be expulsion and a notation that will appear on their transcript for four years.
The 15 guilty of severe offenses received a lesser punishment of a one-year suspension, an F in the related course and a notation that will appear on their transcript for three years. The punishment was similar for the 10 guilty of minor offenses, but the notation on those students' transcripts will appear for only one year.
The single student charged with lying received a zero grade on the take-home test and will have a notation on his or her transcript for three months.
April 29th, 2007
How do you beat walmart?
Posted by bert at 07:30 PM on April 29, 2007 in ME.
If anyone knew... they'd be paid a lot of cash. Target is almost doing it... but they have a long ways to go.
I had a discussion with someone about Walmart earlier, and both agreed that they exist because it is eventually a consumer driven mechanism. Walmart embodies the concepts of capitalism to its fullest. yada yada. and I have no beef with the company. Doesn't mean i'll shop there though.
Until I saw this today (i'll do anything to avoid studying)
Dyson has been amazing for so long. Such a good success story, and an American example of "innovation" (I really hate that word now). But if Wal-mart has set their eyes on Dyson, how can they compete?
I don't know... but lets just say I won't be throwing money in Dyson stock...