The Daily Parker - Duke

Stealing from themselves?

David Braverman — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:29:10 GMT

Dilbert creator Scott Adams raises an interesting point in his blog today:

I'm fascinated by the degree to which brains have evolved to become more powerful than guns. Society's founding geniuses engineered a social system that encourages the young people who have guns to shoot at each other instead of robbing old people. Forgive me for calling that awesome.

In other news, my total working hours for August was 275.5, so I'm actually looking forward to the Term 6 residency for a respite. We've only got four full classes this term, so, you know, it's easier.

Only 102 days left...

Just gotta get right out of here

David Braverman — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:01:55 GMT

For the first time I can recall—going back more than two years, at least, and probably longer—I don't have a flight booked to anywhere. I started realizing this as I got closer to flying to Boston last weekend. Combine that with the brand-spanking-new passport I just got, and I feel oddly confined.

So, possessed of a ton of frequent-flyer miles but with no possibility of making the next level of elite status this year, and also facing a dramatic shift in my work-life balance in just over 110 days, I have started plotting my escape.

Where to go, though?

First criterion: Get out of the U.S. A passport without stamps (or creases, scuff marks, bent edges, etc.) just looks sad. Unused. Unloved. Wherever I go in December, then, must get me a passport stamp.

Second: Use frequent-flyer miles. Even though it's August, the number of available seats for miles in mid-December looks pretty grim to a lot of places. Forget most warm spots; forget popular Christmas destinations. At least, not for less than 100,000 miles, and a four-day trip just isn't worth that amount.

Third: Eight hours or less from O'Hare. I'm not relishing the thought of a longer flight for a four-day trip. That rules out Asia, most of South America, and parts of Europe. I can live with that.

So: Candidates. Initially I thought of going someplace warm and sitting on a beach. There are non-stops on American from Chicago to Cancún, Cabo San Lucas, México, and Acapulco. But I'm not really a resort kind of person, and getting anywhere more interesting in Mexico carries risks right now I'm not completely comfortable taking. A connection in Miami opens up the Carribean and Central America; but the number of available seats makes that expensive.

Of course, I'd go to London for almost any reason anyway. It's my second-favorite city in the world, it's only 7 hours away, and in December business-class miles tickets are only 35,000 miles in some cases. But think: London in December? I don't expect to sit along the Thames and sip beer in the six hours of daylight I get before the sun sets just before 4pm.

I think I've settled on Quito, Ecuador. With a connection in Miami it's 7 hours from Chicago (and no overnight flights!). It's reasonably warm. It has living history, being a UNESCO World Heritage site. And very few people speak English, which will force me to practice my Spanish.

More information as events warrant.

One year on

David Braverman — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:19:10 GMT

I can scarcely believe I've spent (only!) a year in the CCMBA already. We started last August 14th in London, and we're already almost done with our fifth term. I'd write more, but I've already spent most of today working.

About that workload: for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that I'm a nerd, and not most of which is that I've been a consultant for most of my professional life, I've tracked the time spent on this program. So far, including getting to and from the residencies, time in class, pre-reading, homework, team meetings, etc., I've spent 1,157 hours on it. For those keeping score at home, that's almost 7 months of full-time work. This is in addition to the actual full-time work I've had to do during the same period.

I honestly have no idea what I'll do with all that time when I'm finally done with the program.

I am, however, done for the day. Done. Except for that Operations paper I need to finish. But it's not due until tonight, so I'm off with Parker to go watch the Blue Angels, which have just buzzed me 200 meters directly above my house.

Back in the US

David Braverman — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:12:12 GMT

The first day or so back is always hectic and exhausting. I still marvel that the 11½-hour time change from India was easier than the 9-hour change from St. Petersburg (or, come to think of it, the 8-hour change from Dubai.)

I'm still getting back into my life, so I'll end here, but for this non-sequitur: I have t oget these cookies.

Hero-City Leningrad

David Braverman — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 11:02:33 GMT

The monument to the heroes of the seige of Leningrad:

More photos at The Daily Parker.

St. Petersburg Residency, Day 8

David Braverman — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:37:33 GMT

Ah, the quandry. Quandries, in fact: there are two.

The biggest is that it's 4:30am in St. Petersburg but only 7:30pm in Chicago. I need to be back on Chicago time by Tuesday morning. Thus, I'm staying up very late in order to remain conscious at work in three days. I hope it works.

The other is that I took some photos of my classmates at the end-of-term party tonight, but I haven't secured permission for general publication yet. On Facebook, only Dukies and my family can see the Duke photos (if I've set up the permissions right). Here, on The Daily Parker, anyone on the Intertubes can see them. So I tend to publish photos of Parker instead of my classmates, because he has no privacy rights and they do.

So there are a ton of photos I'd like to publish to show off my photo skillz, but this is the only one for which I have permission to publish so far:

Yeah, they're that cute together. Before prospective CCMBA students get all excited after Googling the program, I should point out that they've been engaged for quite some time, and only one of them is in my class. Still, this is the kind of shot that makes the photographer blow on his fingernails, so I just had to publish it.

St Petersburg Residency, Day 7

David Braverman — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:51:47 GMT

The Culture Dash took me back to Kazan Cathedral today, only this time, I went inside:

Dehli Terminal 3 completed

David Braverman — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:43:26 GMT

Back in February, some of us got the opportunity to tour Indira Gandhi Airport Terminal 3, then under construction. It opened this week:

The new terminal—Terminal 3—was "inaugurated" on July 3rd (Saturday) with India's great and good in attendance, and flights will start from July 14th. Mumbai’s airport is also getting a new terminal, but I don’t think it’s nearly as far along as Delhi’s, which needed completing before the Commonwealth Games this October. There is much excitement in the Indian media about the scale of the thing. Nobody seems able to decide whether it will be the world’s third-, fifth-, or eighth-biggest airport terminal. But it seems pretty certain that it will be a vast improvement over what came before (that’s a low bar, I suppose). Perhaps readers can help resolve this issue: in terms of floor area, which are the world's biggest airport terminals, and how big are they? (The most reliable stuff I've seen puts Delhi T3 in roughly the same ballpark as Madrid's T4, the Mexico City airport, Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi, and a couple of others—around 500,000 square meters—and about half the size of Beijing's new terminal, and a third that of Dubai's).
Of course, however spiffy the building, there is always scope for Heathrow T5-style shenanigans with baggage and so on to mess things up. I’m curious, therefore, to hear from any readers travelling through Delhi after July 15th. Do let us know how you found the new terminal. I myself won’t be passing through until mid-October. I am timing my annual visit home until after the Commonwealth-Games madness, such as it is, is over. By then, teething troubles will hopefully have been sorted out.

Kazan Cathedral

David Braverman — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:13:33 GMT

Only a couple blocks from the hotel:

St Petersburg Residency, day 6

David Braverman — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:21:58 GMT

Unavoidable, I suppose. And looking increasingly like an real option after nearly a week of British-inspired Russian cooking:

Good news, bad news

David Braverman — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:01:13 GMT

The good: Spain beating Germany last night. The bad: The sound of "¡Olé olé olé olé!" ricocheting around my aching head this morning. The ugly: Receving a (hopefully-mail-merged) message from the program reminding me of the importance of attending class after I missed for the second time in my MBA program.

Walking (and boating) in St Petersburg

David Braverman — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:26:36 GMT

I've got KML files of the boat tour and walk from which I took some of the photos posted already in the blog. Of course, as GPS receivers are illegal in Russia, I spent a lot of time meticulously figuring out the coordinate pairs in these files, including the zig-zag lines that perfectly simulate the distorted readings someone would get walking in a heavily-urbanized area.

St Petersburg Residency, Day 5

David Braverman — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:32:38 GMT

I took a walk yesterday around 9pm, down Nevsky Prospekt to the Hermitage (about 8 km round-trip). Like today, yesterday it was about 30°C outside. And like today, the sun never quite set. This is from half past midnight:

More photos at The Daily Parker.

St Petersburg Residency, Day 4

David Braverman — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 12:25:42 GMT

I didn't come to Russia for the food.

This is fortunate. The lunch buffet yesterday had pork filets, penne with cream sauce, white rice, salmon roulades, roasted carrots with butter. Then the dinner buffet had pork roulades, spaghetti with cream sauce, black and white rice, salmon filets, roasted carrots with butter. Same Sunday, same Saturday, though there was a minor stir when we found out the Halal meal was lamb chops, which the Muslim students eagerly devoured leaving none for the rest of us.

A Ukrainian friend asked, "This does not sound like traditional Russian food to me. What hotel are you based in?" Ah, here's where the story takes a particularly grim turn: we're in the British-owned Corinthia Nevskij Palace. British-owned. Which is odd, because our food in London was actually pretty good, especially breakfast.

Russia does, however, have tasty things to drink. But we'll leave that aside for now.

And another thing, which is keeping me in the building for the time being: It's bloody 30°C outside. Yecch. I'm hoping it cools off a bit before I head out for more photography and meeting up with my team to watch the Dutch beat Uruguay.

St Petersburg Residency, Day 2

David Braverman — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 05:59:11 GMT

They started us off beautifully this term, with one class yesterday followed by four hours of free time and a tour of the city. Then they gave us the morning off today. I wish all the residencies had started so easily.

This gave me a chance to get some photos processed, starting with the train ride from Helsinki. This is near Vyborg:

More at The Daily Parker.

St. Petersburg Residency, Day -1

David Braverman — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:50:56 GMT

I love that for €54 and an hour and a half (round-trip, both numbers), you can take a boat from Finaland across the Baltic Sea and be in Estonia. The abandoned immigration and customs counters look a little forlorn to me, but have got to look completely eerie to anyone who made the trip before 2008, when Estonia entered the Schengen area.

The ferry terminal on the Estonian side is a ghastly pile of Soviet concrete to horrible for me even to photograph. To give you an example, this is directly across from the terminal, and is one of the first things you see entering Tallinn:

More at The Daily Parker.

St Petersburg Residency, Day -2

David Braverman — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:22:15 GMT

Helsinki Cathedral:

More at The Daily Parker.

Finlandia

David Braverman — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:52:28 GMT

I just got in to Helsinki. I wrote the following on the flight:

29 June 2010, 18:33 EDT, 10,500 m over the Maine-New Hampshire border

Finnair’s A330 business class is the most comfortable experience I’ve ever had on an airplane[1]. First off, the plane is brand-new. It’s quiet, clean, and (not surprisingly) very European-looking. But this isn’t your grandfather’s Airbus. Dig it:

Finnair has introduced new seats in business class. The left side alternate 2-1-2, the middle are all paired, and the right side—where I sat—is a staggered single column. The staggering allows them to put more seats in the cabin while also allowing the seats to fold completely flat, which is the whole point of upgrading on an overnight flight. But the arrangement also means every seat but four are aisle seats. (Seats 1A, 3A, 5A, and 7A are trapped window seats.)
The business class seats also have universal power outlets (fits North American, British, European, and I think Russian plugs), a 5v USB connector for recharging electronics, and an RJ-45 network connection. I didn’t have an RJ-45 cable with me so I have no idea what network it connects to.
The airplane has a freaking nose camera that the pilots turned on for the takeoff and landing rolls. It also has a belly camera that allows you to look straight down. Both are accessible in flight through the entertainment center. When the nose camera came on as we taxied into position on the departure runway, I just boggled. This was the coolest thing I had ever seen on a commercial airplane. The belly camera, while also a seriously cool feature, has less practical benefit because the field of view almost exactly the wrong scale. At 10.5 km up it shows an area probably no larger than 1km across—too big to see anything in detail but too small to see a more complete picture.
Finnair’s in-flight navigation software is the best I’ve seen, except for one of the screens where the animators got clever. Oddly, at one of the scales it shows, it depicts shipwrecks. As we passed over New England it highlighted the wrecks of the Andrea Doria and the Thresher, which I suppose is an advertisement for the safety of air travel over sea travel, but still.
Outboard washrooms have windows. It seems silly when you read it, but it’s actually kind of cool.
What a yummy wine list—in 9 languages[2]. Joseph Perrier Cuvée Royale Brut 2003 to start, a white Burgundy from Rully, a lovely Douro, and a 1995 Niepoort Colheita for dessert. And, of course, Finlandia.

I’m almost disappointed I’ll be asleep for a several hours.

There is no reason I can see that American Airlines can’t do this as well. Or British Airways for that matter. Maybe the two largest carriers in the oneworld alliance are just too big. Maybe Finland just has higher standards of comfort than the U.S. and U.K. Or maybe my experience flying back to the U.S.—in coach—will change my mind.

I will ponder these things over dinner...

[2] Finnish, Swedish, English, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and (I think) Urdu. (I’ll confirm the last one with a classmate when I get to St. Petersburg.)

Update, 00:46 UTC, about 1,700 km southwest of Iceland:

The dinner service done, the cabin crew dimmed the lights, but so gently one might worry he was going blind. Also, because we’re so far north, the left side of the plane looks to be in a permanent sunset. The flight map shows us skimming the dark side of the terminator without ever quite diving in all the way. Plus, the local time in Helsinki is 3:50: just 30 minutes or so before sunrise. I might not get much sleep after all.

Later update, 00:51 UTC

I wrote too soon. They just killed the lights with a switch. It’s suddenly dark in the cabin. I shall therefore dim my laptop, which, because it has an ambient light sensor, is fighting me on this...

Still later update, 00:57 UTC

The almost-full moon just popped above the horizon. It’s still not completely dark out there though.

Good timing

David Braverman — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:31:09 GMT

This morning I finally opened up the pre-reading packets for Term 5, and discovered that going to Boston on August 21st may have been the better choice academically. Final exams are due August 30th, not September 6th as I'd originally thought, so taking 36 hours out of the weekend of August 28th would have been colossally stupid.

The flipside of that, however, is I actually get a long weekend for Labor Day. So it works out.

Resuming the Geas?

David Braverman — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 16:17:35 GMT

Three things encourage me to resume the 30-Park Geas this season. First, I haven't seen a baseball game in almost a year; second, three weeks from now I'll be done with all the CCMBA travel; and third, American Airlines is running a triple-miles promotion this summer from Chicago to New York and Boston.

So: my options are Boston on August 21st or New York on August 28th.

Boston would cost $40 more for the airfare; New York would cost about that much more for a hotel room. (And no, I wouldn't stay in Queens.) So it's a wash. Adding to the dilemma is the question, do I want to see the oldest park in the country, or the newest? And then there's the issue of having many more friends in New York than in Boston.

If this is the hardest decision I have to make this month, I'm doing all right.

Coffee and maths

David Braverman — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:54:54 GMT

From Matthew Yglesias, information about coffee consumption worldwide, which apparently peaks in Finland:

The Swedes are actually a bit less coffee-mad than the Finns, Norwegians, Danes, or Icelanders but as you can see here all the Nordic peoples drink a ton of coffee, in the Swedish case a bit less than twice as much per capita as Americans do. The Södermalm area of Stockholm where Mikael Blonkvist and Lisbeth Salander live and Millenium and Milton Security are headquartered is just littered with coffee houses like nothing I’ve ever seen in America (incidentally, this is where I stayed when I was in Stockholm on the recommendation of a blog reader—it’s a hugely fun neighborhood, definitely stay there if you visit). Personally, I drink way more coffee than the average American and find this aspect of Swedish life congenial. Even I, however, had to balk at the extreme quantity of coffee I was served in Finland where consumption is absolutely off the charts.

And another from math teacher Dan Meyer:

It is exceptionally easy for me to treat the skills and structures of mathematics as holy writ. My default state is to assume that every student shares my reverence for the stone tablets onto which the math gods originally etched the quadratic formula. It is a matter of daily discipline to ask myself, instead:

what problem was the quadratic formula originally intended to solve?
why is the quadratic formula the best way to solve that problem?
how can I put my students in a position to discover the answers to (a) and (b) on their own?

This last is particularly intriguing because not only would I like those answers about the quadratic formula, I'd also like those answers about the Capital Asset Pricing Model and Black-Scholes.

Off to San Francisco this afternoon, to put off dealing with my head-exploding workload for three days. If the guy sitting in the row ahead of me leans back so I can't use my laptop, I will cry.

Velocity

David Braverman — Fri, 28 May 2010 02:48:30 GMT

I mentioned a few days ago that I'm swamped. I didn't realize at the time how swamped, sadly. It turns out I'm more swamped than Florida. I'm so swamped, the Rs.O.U.S.[1] are drowning.

So, though it's redundant, I'll reiterate I'm not dead. I am, however, slowing to the worst ratio of blog entries per month since October 2007.

Part of this comes from how much work and school are challenging me right now. This is good, actually. I have only a finite amount of creativity, but I'm using it all. And Decmeber 12th—the end of my MBA—really isn't that far away.

[1] Since "rodent" is the subject, it gets pluralized. "ROUSs" may be what Westley called them on first reference, but on second reference he said "rodents of unusual size." Q.E.D.

Lost in the weeds

David Braverman — Sun, 23 May 2010 15:05:42 GMT

I've got about three hours left on the 8-hour clock for my finance midterm, which is good because I think it will take me only about four hours to finish the last bits. I'm pleased we're learning all the skills required to perform detailed financial analysis at someone else's direction, rather than the skills to direct someone else to do it and to figure out what it means, because it provides a nice break from all that stuff in all our other courses.

After today, we have hardly any work left this term:

Strategy case, due Saturday May 29th before class
Finance assignment #5, due Monday May 31st
Finance assignment #6, due Monday June 7th
Finance and Strategy final exams, both due Monday June 14th
A 20-page Strategy paper, also due Monday June 14th
CCL culture dash video, due Wednesday June 16th
CCL business analysis paper, due Thursday June 17th

Our Term 5 books should arrive right around then, along with Term 6 registration, as the rock slides down the mountain again.

At least we're more than halfway done. And I've got the Lost finale tonight. I expect it'll make more sense than finance.

Random round-up

David Braverman — Fri, 14 May 2010 02:13:26 GMT

So, with a project running somewhere around 105%, an old and patient client that predates my current employment waiting for some updates, Global Financial Management requiring that I figure out the combined beta of two companies about to merge, Foundations of Strategy expecting a transaction cost analysis Saturday morning, and an overwhelming anticipation of seeing Diane and Parker tomorrow after almost two weeks, I find myself completely out of creativity. Heaven bless my winter office (probably, now that the pizzeria around the corner has left, simply "my remote office").

Fortunately, other people on the Intertubes have plenty of it. Creativity, I mean. Here is a quorum, mostly pinched from Sullivan:

The Washington Post has a list of twelve things to toss out this spring, as written by Elizabeth Warren, Karl Rove, and Onion editor Joe Randazzo. (The last is an indictment of Internet memes.) There's also a bit on virginity.
Writer Andrea Donderi posits a dichotomy between Asker and Guesser cultures. In Cultures, Civilization, and Leadership (one of the CCMBA's core classes) we'd look at this in terms of ICE profiles, which I would explain if I could find the link. (See above re: being overloaded.) This comes via The Guardian, who have the distinction this week of having endorsed for prime minister the guy who became deputy PM. By the way, this kind of embarassment (two guys running against each other only to have to work together as #1 and #2) hasn't happened in the US since 1800. But that's not important right now.
While on the subject, it's a little daunting that we haven't had our midterms yet and I've made no progress on the video, but there are only 50 days until our next residency starts. (See above re: being really overloaded.)
Finally, Sam Harris has a new demolition of the Catholic Church Good line near the top: "This scandal was one of the most spectacular 'own goals' in the history of religion, and there seems to be no need to deride faith at its most vulnerable and self-abased." (I would explain that my views are probably more moderate than Harris's, and yet I enjoy his writing, but see above re: being really monster raving loony overloaded.)

Shannon has brought my last drink and my check, my teammate KW is busy compiling all of our notes for Strategy, and Parker, I expect, is getting a relaxing belly-scratch from Diane 1,000 km away. I think we're all OK with this, but Parker has the best deal.

Also, for those of you watching in real time, yes: I posted this blasted entry five times in quick succession, because I kept finding typos. This should come as great news to the people currently engaged in Scrabble games with me on Facebook.

Postcards and Books

David Braverman — Sat, 08 May 2010 18:56:10 GMT

Before going to Shanghai, I picked up James Fallows's Postcards from Tomorrow Square, a collection of his essays from living there 2006-2009. (Yes, he lived in the building that houses the hotel where our CCMBA cohort stayed.)

First, I'd like to call attention to page 76:

The easier America makes it for talented foreigners to work and study there, the richer, more powerful, and more respected America will be. America's ability to absorb the world's talent is the crucial advantage no other culture can match—as long as America doesn't forfeit this advantage with visa rules written mainly out of fear.

Second, the book should be required of CCMBA students visiting Shanghai to complement Travels of a T-Shirt in a Global Economy, which we had to read for our Global Markets and Institutions (GMI) class. In the essay "China Makes, the World Takes" (available at The Atlantic.com in shorter form), Fallows looks at the Chinese side of Livoli's traveling t-shirt. Computer accessories, for instance:

The other facility that intrigued me, one of Liam Casey’s in Shenzhen, handled online orders for a different well-known American company. I was there around dawn, which was crunch time. Because of the 12-hour time difference from the U.S. East Coast, orders Americans place in the late afternoon arrive in China in the dead of night. As I watched, a customer in Palatine, Illinois, perhaps shopping from his office, clicked on the American company’s Web site to order two $25 accessories. A few seconds later, the order appeared on the screen 12,500 km away in Shenzhen. It automatically generated a packing and address slip and several bar-code labels. One young woman put the address label on a brown cardboard shipping box and the packing slip inside. The box moved down a conveyer belt to another woman working a “pick to light” system: She stood in front of a kind of cupboard with a separate open-fronted bin for each item customers might order from the Web site; a light turned on over each bin holding a part specified in the latest order. She picked the item out of that bin, ran it past a scanner that checked its number (and signaled the light to go off), and put it in the box. More check-weighing and rescanning followed, and when the box was sealed, young men added it to a shipping pallet.

By the time the night shift was ready to leave—8 a.m. China time, 7 p.m. in Palatine, 8 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast—the volume of orders from America was tapering off. More important, the FedEx pickup time was drawing near. At 9 a.m. couriers would arrive and rush the pallets to the Hong Kong airport. The FedEx flight to Anchorage would leave by 6 p.m., and when it got there, the goods on this company’s pallets would be combined with other Chinese exports and re-sorted for destinations in America. Forty-eight hours after the man in Palatine clicked “Buy it now!” on his computer, the item showed up at his door. Its return address was a company warehouse in the United States; a small Made in China label was on the bottom of the box.

Finally, a bleg: what book or books do you think, dear reader, should be required reading for visitors to your city? For example, I'd say Nelson Algren's prose-poem City on the Make and Mike Royko's Boss for Chicago. Thoughts?

Germany v. China infographics

David Braverman — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:20:57 GMT

Via one of my classmates, an graphic depiction of the differences between Germany and China by graphic designer Yang Liu. For example, the evolution of transport over the last 40 years:

Shanghai cultural disconnect

David Braverman — Mon, 03 May 2010 22:56:35 GMT

For some reason, the Cultural Disconnect I just wrote for the Shanghai residency was the hardest. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Full text on The Daily Parker.

Two more from Shanghai

David Braverman — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:27:49 GMT

I haven't had a lot of time to go through all the Shanghai photos. These two caught my eye, though. First, the Urban Planning Museum in People's Square:

And, just because I thought it looked cool, Terminal 2 at Pudong International Airport:

Vroom — I mean, vroom

David Braverman — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:26:30 GMT

The video doesn't do the experience justice. I have to say, moving on land at 430 km/h on a public conveyance was a lot of fun. That's better than twice the cruising speed of the Cessna airplanes I fly (195 km/h).

More photos later today.

Pick a peck of pickled packets (Shanghai residency day 9)

David Braverman — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 06:37:44 GMT

The Internet experience at Pudong International Airport differs markedly from the experience at our hotel. I've noticed a pattern, whereby unencrypted data, like The Daily Parker, seems to move about an order of magnitude faster than encrypted data, like the HTTPS connection I've got going with my mail server. The interesting part is that both sites are going through the same router back in Chicago. So, either the Web terminal I'm using has a particularly hard time with secure websites, or something is slowing down the mail packets. Hmmm...can't think what that might be...

Compounding my Internet woes, my laptop's hard drive corrupted its boot sector Saturday afternoon. I have no idea how this happened. The Bitlocker recovery key no longer works. I expect tomorrow I'm going to have to install a new hard drive and then install all my software again. This does not make me happy. On the other hand, I have two episodes of Lost to catch up on before Tuesday.

This, anyway, explains why I didn't post anything yesterday, and why the video clip of the world's fastest land vehicle will have to wait until later today. (Because of the International Date Line, even though I have a 13-hour overnight flight, I arrive at O'Hare 30 minutes after I leave Shanghai.)

Two hours until my flight home. Maybe my email will finish downloading by then?

Shanghai at night (Residency day 7)

David Braverman — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:22:50 GMT

One of my teammates has Extra Special Super-Duper status with Marriott Hotels, giving him access to the ESSD Lounge atop the building. Two flights up from that the hotel has an observation deck. I have a camera. The result:

I should mention the reason we're on the 59th floor: we've got a paper due tomorrow afternoon. So, the last night of the residency, we're surrounding ourselves with top-floor views, free booze, and Foundations of Strategy binders. Yes, we're that exciting.

Cultural tour to Zhouzhuang (Shanghai residency day 6)

David Braverman — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:03:49 GMT

Given the option of touring a corporate office building or going to a culturally-significant place to run around and talk to real people, of course I would put on a tie and head straight for the PowerPoint deck.

Right. I'm actually 1-for-4 with corporate tours now, the one being Indira Gandhi Airport. That tour was cool.

Today's cultural tour took us to Zhouzhuang, a lake village about 72 km west of Shànghăi. Before I run to a lecture on the financial crisis, here are two photos from the place; more when I get another free moment, possibly Saturday:

Another:

I'm not dead (Shanghai residency day 4)

David Braverman — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:37:30 GMT

This is the point in the residency when I see how much work I have to do by Saturday afternoon and wonder if I should have taken the bar exam instead.

And as much as I love Chinese and Indian food, I'm ready for a Whole Foods salad about now.

Before resuming my Strategy reading, I'd like to draw the reader's attention to this front-page story in the Shanghai Daily News:

Dense fog affected Shanghai yesterday, blocking dozens of ships and ferry boats and delaying at least 150 flights.

At least 400 ships changed their sailing schedules and the 180 commuter ferries for Chongming Island and on the Huangpu River in the city's suburban areas stopped running in the morning, said the Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration.

Other front-page stories included a test run at the Expo site and the announcement of an official day of mourning tomorrow in remembrance of the Qinghai earthquake victims.

I contrast this with the front page of the New York Times, which included stories about the $3.6bn Goldman Sachs bonus payments, the mislaid iPod prototype, and back in Chicago, the shocking, didn't-see-that-one-coming, whocodanode news that Rahm Emanuel wants to be mayor.

It's a slow news day everywhere, but somehow, the Shanghai paper just didn't feel like a paper. More to think about; possibly a cultural disconnect.

Changing views of China (Shanghai residency day 3)

David Braverman — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 09:15:24 GMT

I mean, literally. Sunday afternoon:

This morning:

Shanghai has been hazy since we arrived, so some of the fog is man-made. It isn't approaching the level of London in December 1952, but it isn't exactly the fresh spring fog of an Appalachian valley, either. (I'll have more to say about China's economic development in a bit.)

Culture Dash (Shanghai residency day 2)

David Braverman — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 10:44:17 GMT

Before I get to today's actual entry, I should mention to those of you reading on Facebook that I still haven't regained access to the service. I'm looking into a different VPN solution after the Great Firewall figured out how to block the Duke VPN, but it's possible that my Scrabble games will have to languish for another week. Apologies.

Also, just a reminder, if you're reading the blurbs on Facebook, you can see complete blog entries at The Daily Parker.

Today's actual blog entry, with photos, is here.

Team-building cooking class (Shanghai residency day 1)

David Braverman — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 13:42:03 GMT

Really, it's the food. We're all going to double our waist sizes here. This afternoon they took us on a teambuilding exercise in which we made lemon chicken and pork fried rice. Much fun, many calories. Our team won best preparation but, owing to a lack of salt (we think), only came in second overall. Our presentation:

One of my teammates copied down on his iPhone the entire procedure as the chef demonstrated it. Once he's able to send me the note, I'll repost it. It involved only one ingredient whose name the chef's translator couldn't translate, that seemed to be a lemony-orangy powder. Without the powder, you can make fried chicken with lemon slices, which is not lemon chicken. I'd bet there's a Chinese grocery somewhere in Chicago that can hook me up with the secret lemon powder. Otherwise, with a commercial stove and a wok the size of an airplane engine, it's a pretty easy recipe.

Old Town Shanghai (Residency day 0)

David Braverman — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 09:25:17 GMT

I'm still digesting Shànghăi, possibly because it's all about the food. Take, for example, the family dinner my classmate Kyle invited me to. Including me, there were five of us. This is what Kyle's mother and wife prepared:

That doesn't show the rice, by the way. All of it was delicious. I admit, I didn't try the green jellied duck eggs, but Kyle smoothed that out with his folks.

Continued here...

Walk to the Bund

David Braverman — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 05:52:33 GMT

Obligatory Pŭdōng skyline shot:

And completely surprising shot of the kids that mobbed me to practice their English:

Obligatory hotel-room-view shot

David Braverman — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:33:11 GMT

Best view yet:

Much better than Dubai.

In Shanghai (Duke Residency day -1)

David Braverman — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 21:26:49 GMT

It's 5:20 in the morning here, and I don't know what day it is. This, believe it or not, I expected, which explains why I got here a day early.

Just one major complaint: The Great Firewall apparently blocks Facebook[1]. Those of you waiting for me to play Scrabble, I'm sorry. (The Great Firewall sometimes changes its mind, so I'll keep trying.)

I won't bore you with details about my messed-up circadian rhythm when I could do it with something else, so here, à propos of nothing, is a photo of Tokyo Narita Airport:

When I (a) figure out what I'm doing today and tomorrow and (b) actually do it, I'll post more.

[1] It also apparently blocks the Wikipedia entry about itself. That's funny.

On the way to get my 3rd term grades

David Braverman — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:07:23 GMT

I discovered this joke from the head of Duke's CCMBA IT department:

An accountant is having a hard time sleeping and goes to see his doctor. "Doctor, I just can't get to sleep at night."
"Have you tried counting sheep?"
"That's the problem - I make a mistake and then spend three hours trying to find it."

And 24 hours from now, I'll be somewhere over Minnesota on my way to Shanghai...

Shocking—to a Cubs fan

David Braverman — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 13:59:47 GMT

I think I can get used to having an association with a national champion team of some kind, which in my life hasn't happened since 1998:

The Duke Blue Devils officially were the last team standing Monday night, the only team on the podium with the championship trophy in hand.

Duke claimed its fourth NCAA championship but the first for any of its current players with a 61-59 victory over hometown favorite Butler in front of 70,000-plus fans at Lucas Oil Stadium.

The Blue Devils won with defense. Holding the Bulldogs to 34 percent shooting and contesting every possession as tenaciously as Butler, which allowed 60 points for the first time since February. Zoubek, the 7-foot-1 center, finished with two blocks, 10 rebounds and too many altered shots to count, but also came out to trap the Butler guards and disrupt an offense that was already struggling.

Now if only the Cubs can win a game. At the moment, they're 161 games out of first place, which isn't the worst they've ever been.

Update: I suppose I have to mention this as another reason to be thankful I'm a Dukie:

ATLANTA — The Cubs are marketing the 2010 season as "Year One," referring to the first year of the Ricketts family ownership. But on the first day of Year One, the Cubs suffered their worst Opening Day defeat in 126 years, losing 16-5 to Atlanta before 53,081 at Turner Field.

I mean, day-um.

No rest for the weary

David Braverman — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:41:49 GMT

Yesterday I expressed more relief than dread after finishing my Term 3 finals. Dread just won:

Subject: FedEx Shipment Notification
[Redacted] of Duke Fuqua School of Business sent David Braverman 1 FedEx Express Saver package(s).
This shipment is scheduled to be sent on 03/29/2010.

Oh. Joy. The Term 4 books are coming.

Sigh.

Respite? I wish

David Braverman — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 23:28:20 GMT

I've just finished my final exams for Duke CCMBA Term 3. Total time: 10.8 hours on statistics, 8.2 hours for marketing, 4.9 hours sobbing quietly at my desk about not having studied more.

As the program has six terms, in a sane universe this would mean I'm half-way done with my MBA. Sadly, I'm not even done with Term 3 yet. And anyway the end of Term 3, officially April 7th, isn't really the half-way point.

First, I have the Delhi Culture Dash video to produce. My team has succeeded mightily with a divide-and-conquer approach, so for each the three projects that remain in Term 3 (two, technically, being term 4 projects due before term 4 officially starts), we have one project author and one reviewer. I volunteered for the video project when the entire team thought it was due April 6th. It's actually due Thursday. I'm guessing this is another 10 hours of work. Good thing I have all that time to do it, otherwise I'd continue sobbing at my desk.

Second, Term 6 will really be two terms. During the residency we have four classes, then after the residency we have two 6-week distance periods, with two sets of finals.

Third, the chronological midpoint of the program is actually April 11th.[1] So, really, we're almost there, though I suspect the psychological midpoint will be April 25th, when we leave Shanghai. Or maybe December 12th, the day before the thing ends.

Sorry about that. I may have spent too much time doing statistics this weekend. I will now retire to the pub, with The Travels of a T-Shirt in a Global Economy, which I need to finish reading (for Global Markets and Institutions) before next week.

[1] The program officially started with Term 1 pre-reading on 8 August 2009; our last final exam is due 13 December 2010; that's 492 days; so 246 days after August 8th is April 11th. QED. If you use the first day of the London residency, August 15th, as the starting point, the midpoint is April 14th.

Last video from Delhi

David Braverman — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:54:35 GMT

I mentioned that the traffic and chaos in Delhi just seems to work most of the time. Sometimes, however—as when 60 bicycle rickshaws try to make a right turn through traffic at the same time—it doesn't:

I'm curious what everyone is saying...though I can guess.

Walking around Delhi

David Braverman — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:19:49 GMT

Also as promised, I've finally gotten around to converting and uploading video from Delhi. I'll have more later this week; here's the first:

Delhi residency, day 8

David Braverman — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:40:55 GMT

I am pooped.

The third residency is over, and I've got a 7am flight out of Delhi tomorrow. This being Delhi, that means I have to get up around 3:45am to meet one of my classmates at 4:30—and that might be cutting it close. That means I'll leave the hotel around 10pm London time and arrive there around 9am, and somehow I'll have to stay awake for the rest of the day. I don't usually sleep on airplanes, but tomorrow morning I think I'll make an exception, whether I want to or not.

I almost forgot: Nandan Nilekani spoke to us Wednesday evening. Once I get all of India sorted out in my head I may write a bit more about him:

For the moment, I'll just wander aimlessly for a few hours until I fall asleep. I think that's the limit of what my brain can handle right now.

Another walk around Delhi

David Braverman — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:48:53 GMT

Apparently, Chandni Chowk (चाँदनी चौक) is closed Fridays in observance of the Islamic Sabbath. The formal shopping center, anyway. I'm willing to bet the actual street and neighborhood of the same name remained open this afternoon, but I could not convince my auto-rickshaw driver to take me there. I couldn't seem to break the language and cultural barriers separating him from an understanding that I just wanted to walk around without actually going in anywhere. In fact, I spent a lot of time this afternoon trying to convince people—mostly taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers, surprise—that my entire purpose was to walk around in Delhi without a fixed destination.

So, I let the guy take me to a carpet shop, and after spending a couple of minutes getting hard-sell from the salespeople inside I left. Wouldn't you know, the driver thoughtfully waited for me outside, and followed me down the street suggesting all manner of temples and shops he would happily take me to.

At some point he gave up, and let me take photos in peace. Here follows a quorum:

More after the jump...

Delhi Culture Dash exercise

David Braverman — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:32:39 GMT

Our team scored a coup, which I'll keep under wraps for now. In the meantime, I'm going to make my own way over to Chandni Chowk. I just have to see it again.

More, with photos, later today.

The Daily Parker - Duke

Stealing from themselves?

Just gotta get right out of here

One year on

Back in the US

Hero-City Leningrad

St. Petersburg Residency, Day 8

St Petersburg Residency, Day 7

Dehli Terminal 3 completed

Kazan Cathedral

St Petersburg Residency, day 6

Good news, bad news

Walking (and boating) in St Petersburg

St Petersburg Residency, Day 5

St Petersburg Residency, Day 4

St Petersburg Residency, Day 2

St. Petersburg Residency, Day -1

St Petersburg Residency, Day -2

Finlandia

29 June 2010, 18:33 EDT, 10,500 m over the Maine-New Hampshire border

Good timing

Resuming the Geas?

Coffee and maths

Velocity

Lost in the weeds

Random round-up

Postcards and Books

Germany v. China infographics

Shanghai cultural disconnect

Two more from Shanghai

Vroom — I mean, vroom

Pick a peck of pickled packets (Shanghai residency day 9)

Shanghai at night (Residency day 7)

Cultural tour to Zhouzhuang (Shanghai residency day 6)

I'm not dead (Shanghai residency day 4)

Changing views of China (Shanghai residency day 3)

Culture Dash (Shanghai residency day 2)

Team-building cooking class (Shanghai residency day 1)

Old Town Shanghai (Residency day 0)

Walk to the Bund

Obligatory hotel-room-view shot

In Shanghai (Duke Residency day -1)

On the way to get my 3rd term grades

Shocking—to a Cubs fan

No rest for the weary

Respite? I wish

Last video from Delhi

More Delhi video

Walking around Delhi

Delhi residency, day 8

Another walk around Delhi

Delhi Culture Dash exercise