I'm usually not that big on New Year's Resolutions. Mainly because I never felt the need to stop smoking, lose weight or drink less, the main resolutions we always hear about. But this year, a few factors have come together to help me make a New Year's Resolution

1) I feel that my episodic or "experiential" memory (as opposed to my semantic or "reading" memory) is very weak and lacking. I don't remember things that happened to me a year ago - other people will tell me things I said or did. (And no, it's not because I was wasted...)

2) I never feel as organized as I want to be. There are always things I need to do that slip through the cracks, or appointments that I miss and I want that to change.

3) When buying a gift for my mom at the Stanford Bookstore, I saw a Daily Planner Moleskine. I'm a big fan of Moleskines and it looked so nice and professional. I wanted it.

So these factors combined have lead me to make a Resolution: each evening I will review my appointments and tasks for the next day, and write one sentence about any interesting or significant or happy things that happened during the day (inspired by the Happiness Project's journal). This will allow me to become better organized, and happier as well. Not a bad combination in my view.

I want this planner/journal thing to become a habit. I have a very hard time developing good habits - I just do things as they come to me, and I hope this Resolution will become a daily habit that makes my life better. So if you're still thinking about making a New Year's Resolution (it's not too late!), think about making a daily, or weekly habit. Imagine the difference one year later.

It's what you do everyday, not what you do once in a while, that counts.

I've lived in three dorms in my Stanford career: Twain, Toyon and now Granada. Never in that time have I heard of people "readjusting" shower heads themselves (as I've heard was done in FroSoCo), nor have I seen emails whose subject line reads: "Serious issue with shower heads" (as one Bob resident recently wrote to their chat list). The issue has been a common dinner-time conversation, at multiple tables in the dining hall every night for the past few days.

Actual picture of Stanford shower head on its way soon

Over break, it seems like Housing went ahead and replaced a good number of the shower heads in campus residences. The new ones, as I understand, are designed for lower water flow to help save water and be environmentally-conscious. This is clear to anyone who has used one, however, because the water is more of a trickle. It is like showering under a sink faucet, really. On my first night back, after taking a shower I asked one of my friends, "Dude, have you taken a shower yet since we've gotten back?" and immediately he responded, "I KNOW! The shower heads...what the heck did they do to them!?!?!" He knew exactly what I was talking about, and didn't even think that I could be referring to his God-awful stench. Just kidding!

Want to see what I've done to help resolve the shower dilemma and we might be able to save every dorm on campus? Read on!

Barry McCarthy joined Netflix as CFO when few were believed the company could rival the industry leader, Blockbuster. Today, Netflix is the biggest player in the video rental market and just finished its first billion-dollar sales year.

MP3 File | Subscribe via iTunes | Add to del.icio.us

Our guest in this podcast is Barry McCarthy, Chief Financial Officer of Netflix. For the past eight years, Barry has been responsible for all of Netflix’s legal and financial affairs. During his tenure at Netflix, Barry has helped the company grow from a few million dollars in sales to Netflix’s first billion dollar year in 2007. He played an integral role in the company’s initial public offering in 2002 and has helped the company become the most highly valued player in the video rental market.

Barry discusses with Nir the future of content delivery over the Internet and what technologies he sees as opportunities and threats. He also discusses how Netflix stayed nimble and aggressive in the face of powerful competitors. Barry also frankly talks about how he decided to bet on the Netflix business model even when few thought it would work.

Enjoy the podcast and let us know what you think!

-Nir of iinnovate

This weekend both the Stanford Men's and Women's Gymnastics competed in their first competition for the season. The men were away at Chicago for the Windy City Invitational while the women competed at home against Georgia, the defending national champions.

The Stanford Men's team went into Chicago on Saturday with a #1 preseason ranking - and we showed everyone that we deserved it. Facing off against Michigan, Illinois, UIC, Minnesota, Iowa and Ohio State, our Cardinal went for 354.450 to win the meet by a 7 point margin. David Sender (my roommate in Bob) won the individual all-around also by nearly 7 points over the 2nd place finisher. The men's have their first home meet on Saturday, January 26th in the Stanford Open. (If you haven't been to one, you have to go. Men's gymnastics meets are awesome).

The Women's team competed to an massive and enthusiastic crowd at Burnham Pavillion. Even with hitting 23 out of 24 routines, the Cardinal were unable to top Georgia, losing by only 7 tenths (196.875-196.150). Carly Janiga (who also lives in Bob) had the top beam score for the evening with a 9.9. The girls compete again at home on Sunday, January 20th against University of Arizona.

I never thought I'd say this ... but the new Macbook Air is just unnecessarily thin.

The thinness really ruins the product - it has only ONE usb port, NO cd drive, and a TINY hard drive. It is slow. This really reduces its usefulness a great deal. One of my friends has been holding out on getting a new apple and now he's just dejectedly looking at the older macbook line.

Now I've got nothing against Apple. They are making products that look like they belong 20 years in the future - I speak specifically of the iPhone and the iPod Touch. And the Macbook Air does still pack 2GB of Ram, a multi-touch pad and 5 hour battery into something as thin as a finger. And of course, tons of people are still going to lap it up.

But reducing the functionality that much makes the Air reminiscent of Palm's worst decision ever (aka the Palm Foleo). It's got the sweet Apple coverings, but is that enough? Are you going to get a Macbook Air? Do you know anyone who has?

After my girlfriend found out I hadn’t seen Good Will Hunting, she said I had to see it with her. Well I just watched it, and I thought it was pretty good. One-line synopsis - Matt Damon is Will, a troubled 20 year old who is a math genius, and Robin Williams plays the therapist who is unwilling to quit on him. Here are a few thoughts.

Self-Education
“You blew 150k on an education you could have gotten in$1.50 in late fees from the library.”
I’m a huge believer in self-education, and Will is the epitome of the self-taught man. He’s read from all the great minds of the ages and knows he knows his stuff. He’s math genius and clearly has a powerful memory. But some of his other intelligences are missing.

Wasting Potential
“I mean, you’re sittin’ on a winnin’ lottery ticket. You’re too much of a pussy to cash it in, and that’s bullshit.”
As a gymnast, I have seen lots of kids with tons of potential. Kids who are super flexible, and strong and learn skills easily. And it is just heartbreaking to see when they quit gymnastics out of boredom, or because they are unwilling to work hard, or they are scared of something. And that’s what Will has been doing for most of his life. Until he finally sacks up.

Vulnerability as Strength
But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable … You don’t know about real loss, ‘cause it only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself.
Will is an orphan and was abused by his foster parents. It made him scared of getting close to people. But he hasn’t realized that to be really strong, he has to face his fears of getting hurt again. You have to embrace life for what it is, pain and all.

The challenge of doing what you really want
This is a problem that Will shares with most of Stanford students. When you have so many opportunities open to you, what do you choose to do? Will works in construction, but could have any number of jobs - from Wall Street to the NSA. The same is true for most Stanford students, truly anything is open. But then the problem becomes - what do you really want to do? And most people have a bitch of a time answering that one.

All in all, a great movie. I recommend it.

And the man on the cross says, "I bleed,"
the bleeding God says, "I need."

I need too, I bleed too,
But what good has bleeding ever done someone?

- cycle (circa 1996)

something I wrote a long time ago that popped into my head this morning

Last Tuesday at the Stanford Women’s Community Center, Terry Root, a recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for her work on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC), came to discus challenges she’s faced in as a woman in the scientific community. Her first experience with sexism in academics came from her own father, who asserted “Girls aren’t supposed to be good at math”, when informed of Terry’s outstanding grade on a middle school math exam. She proceeded to become a math major at the University of New Mexico, later going on to pursue biology at the University of Colorado, and getting her PhD in the subject at Princeton. Historically women have had it rough in academia.
Now the gender gap is skewed in favor of women, with female students continuing to outnumber male students, in the admission process as well as enrollment. It is estimated that 56% of undergraduates in the US are women. While women are adequately represented in the undergraduate population, those numbers diminish as we look at the next steps on the institutional ladder.

(This is the second time I’m writing this post, as the first one got deleted. Hate when that happens…)
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about different post-graduate opportunities. It’s still a bit early for me as I’m a senior whose doing a 5th year coterm. But like most Stanford students, I’ve got a wide array of options on the table. Personally, I’m considering:

Research, joining a tech startup, starting my own company, management consulting, non-profit work, Google, med school and b-school. As I consider all these options, there are a bunch of factors I taking into account:

• How much I will enjoy the day to day work?
• What I will learn in terms of knowledge, skills and experience?
• Who I will interact with: friends, colleagues, bosses, mentors?
• What I will have accomplished?
• Is this opportunity is available later on in life?
• How much I will get paid?
• Whether I’m making a positive contribution to society?

You may have your own list as well. The problem with all these opportunities is that you stress about whether or not you there is a “best one” for you, and making sure that you get it. As research has shown, more options = less happiness with final choice.

But when I think about all most fulfilling, educational and admirable things I’ve done or been a part of, I realize that there are two things they all shared:

1) There were always times when I hated what I was doing, or thought it was a waste of time, or felt unhappy with how I was being treated.

2) I got what I put into in. If I just tried to coast by, do the minimum, or go through the motions, I gained little of value. But when I put everything into it, went the extra mile and really made it a priority, I gained something very valuable.

So here’s what I’m saying - Don’t stress too much over the post-grad stuff. Whatever you end up choosing will be good for you provided you enter with a curious, honest and willing-to-work attitude. We’re all exceptional people here at Stanford, and we bring that with us, wherever we end up going.

In November, Facebook rolled out its new tightly targeted advertising platform, to much fanfare, fanfare and fanfare.

Yay, many said, now advertisers can target exactly whom they want to reach and Facebook will leverage all the data points they have on users like me to decide which ads I see.

Which leads me to believe that they have something of an opinion on me. You know, if they serve up ads on my homepage about saving kittens from trees then they recognize how I'm a kind-hearted individual, etc.

But that's not what they think of me, clearly.

For the record, I'm not one of these people whose Facebook interests include "boozing it up," so it's not as simple as pulling keywords from my profile page. And I haven't added the BeerMe, Booze Mail or How Much Can You Drink? applications. So they're not using my App adoption data. Is it just demographics: male and in college = in need of DUI help? Um, I'm not even 21.

Is it just me or are other people noticing some weird ads on their Facebook pages? I'm not talking about outside Application canvas pages or anything (where the Developers would decide what you see). I'm talking about your homepage, profile page, friends or networks page, etc. I had other ads pitch things like trading foreign currency, "Top Paid Internships," among others.

There is something sinister in the air. The evidence is everywhere: social outtings are canceled or postponed, student group meetings have half their normal turnout, the libraries are always full. Ah yes, the four weeks of rolling midterms have arrived. And with them comes thousands of stressed out Stanford students.

The problem with midterms at Stanford is that each class often has two, making it hardly "midterm". Add to that the 10 week quarter, and students get basically 2-3 weeks of free time before all hell breaks loose.

And we've all heard the horror stories: 3 midterms in 36 hours. A paper, a pset and an exam all on the same day. I personally have 2 quantitative midterms both on Tuesday of next week. 4 hours of equations doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.

How does your midterm schedule look? What's the worst story you've heard?