The Masochist's Institute of Technologyanecdotes of an ambitious MIT student

There’s never a dull moment in my life, it seems. Well, besides the fact that I’m sitting at my computer on Veteran’s Day desperately trying to learn Laplace transforms. That’s not exactly dull either; it’s simply something stressful that I would rather not do.

Thankfully, one of the wonders of college life lies in the fact that there always seems to be weekend distractions to alleviate said stress. October 2009 was definitely interesting; I attended a few parties and had a some majorly exciting moments. Here are a few of the highlights:

The night before the launch of Windows 7, the Microsoft Cambridge office held a huge launch party! There were students from Northeastern, Boston University, MIT, Harvard, and more. Although it wasn’t quite as exciting as I had hoped, it was definitely quite an adventure. I gorged myself on chips and salsa and wandered around with Chao and Jason. There was a Microsoft Surface table to sample, Rockband (Beatles version) to play – although I did not, because I’m not a Beatles fan – and free prizes to be had. They must have given away hundreds of dollars in prizes; Tiffany managed to wrestle a copy of Office 2007 out of someone’s hands, even though she managed to slice her thumb open in the process. Props to Tiffany and her dedication to free goods ;)

Late October, instead of accepting my invitation to the Alpha Delta Phi semiformal, I headed out amidst the wind and rain to karaoke with two of my Alpha Chi Omega sisters – Sarah Sprague ’13 and Ingrid Chaires ’11! We managed to sing everything from Broadway musicals (Phantom of the Opera!) to late-90′s pop (Britney Spears) to 80′s pop to the latest hits (Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, etc.) It was a ton of fun, especially since all of us were perfectly content to warble out the songs without caring too much about how on-pitch we happened to be…

“What’s this?” you say. “Vivian, I thought you got out of all that math-sciency stuff, aren’t you an economics major now?” Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but economics majors deal with numbers all the time. Especially at MIT, where the economics is very highly mathematical. This is a piece of my first 14.02 (macroeconomics) problem set, which I nearly aced after only attending class for a week. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself =)

And of course, the obligatory food image. Let’s just say that as of late I’ve gotten quite addicted to Next Dining‘s salad bar. I always get the same – a bunch of greens, topped with a ton of tomatoes (no one seems to like them), eggs, noodles (when available), olives (at times), and the slightest bit of vinaigrette dressing. And the best thing? An entire box of salad (which can fill up my Tupperware bowl) is only worth a jaw-dropping $1.50! Talk about cheap and healthy dinner…

Last but certainly not least, Alpha Chi Omega recently had its pledge class 2009 initiation… That means I’m now a full-fledged sister! After the ceremony, we went back to the student center and had celebratory desserts, serenades, and photo-ops. Shown above are all the sophomores (c/o 2012) currently in the sorority – there were four sophomore initiates this year. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the entire 2009 pledge class, but I’m sure the photo above is completely representative of the electric happiness present in the room the entire night =)

A week ago, I rode the Red Line all the way to the very last stop – Braintree, MA – to get a preview glimpse of Microsoft’s upcoming Zune HD, which will be released in September. And thankfully, they let me get some pictures of it!

The Microsoft representative had set up his table right in front of the main entrance. He had a large Samsung HD monitor, which can display the Zune’s screen in widescreen HD. He had a working 16gb device with him, along with empty cases of the 32gb model. There were also various pamphlets and cards for you to reserve your Zune HD. I didn’t reserve mine since I already have a perfectly working Zune 30gb (first generation), but I’ll admit after seeing the gorgeous interface, I was definitely tempted.

Here are close-ups of the devices. I am really impressed by the interface – it’s really simple but still maintains the Microsoft flair instead of trying to imitate the iPhone. The animations are really smooth, and the glowing effects make it very web 2.0. Plus, white-on-black is always a winner. The left model is the 32gb, while the right is the 16gb.

Here’s a closer look at the variety of pamphlets available. Note the really nice box – it’s a list of the Zune HD’s features, overlayed with a rainbow gradient. Very aesthetically pleasing, I must admit. I’m really excited for this release; I know my 11-year-old brother is already super psyched and is planning to request one for Christmas, haha. As for me, I think I’ll wait a few years before I replace my current Zune. The only downside is that they won’t be releasing a firmware update for the older Zunes alongside the Zune HD’s release, but hopefully in the future we old-school Zune users will also get the new, pretty interface =)

If you’re interested more about the technical specs, check out CNET’s hands-on.

The past few months, the Internet community has created quite the uproar about a page on Microsoft‘s site, declaring that users should “get the facts” about Internet Explorer 8, the version that will be shipping with their latest operating system, Microsoft Windows 7.

Windows Internet Explorer 8: Get the Facts (external link to page)

Naturally, Microsoft haters, Mac fanboys, and Linux zealots alike pounced on the opportunity to point out Microsoft’s sly, underhanded errors. A few of my friends have ranted incessantly about how immoral and blasphemous Microsoft’s actions have been in putting up this page, oftentimes coincidentially glorifying Firefox/Safari/Chrome/InsertBrowserHere in the process. To which I say: hold your horses and hear me out.

I won’t go through and pick out exactly what is true and what is false about each of Microsoft’s claims – plenty of Firefox-fanatics are happily doing that for me. Instead, I’d like to present a very brief view of the IE8 campaign through Microsoft’s rose-coloured lenses.

Note that Microsoft did not include Opera or Safari in their tests. Why? Because Opera and Safari are known for surpassing IE in many of these fields (Acid3 Test, anyone?) Of course Microsoft couldn’t have that, so they simply waved them off as “lesser” browsers (although I can assure you the number of Opera users can definitely match up to the number of Chrome users.) Also, note how Microsoft refrains from specific language in their descriptions – instead of naming specific “customizations”, they simply refer to “many of the customizations you’d want to download for Firefox.” Note also that they do not claim to have more customizations, or that Firefox has less; they merely point out that IE customizations are already built-in. You know what? This is true. Firefox believes in the freedom and ability of the user to customize as they so wish, which is why they do not include unneccesary add-ons. Microsoft saw an opportunity and pounced, by using Firefox’s absence of toolbar-overload against them.

The tactic is present in many of the points that Microsoft makes. For example, in the “Ease of Use” category, of course Internet Explorer wins! It’s been the standard for over 10 years, so naturally people are more accustomed to opening a Start Menu and hitting the button that says “Internet.” It took me two tries to clarify to a friend that Opera was a web browser and not an oratorio written by Handel. If you were giving your grandmother a new computer, would she recognize “Internet Explorer” or “Safari” or
Chrome” as an Internet browser? Yeah, exactly.

Ultimately, I cannot say I completely agree with what Microsoft is doing (slyly hinting that other browsers’ lack of features is a flaw, whereas the open-souce community insists it’s a good thing to have control over your computer). However, I can understand and sympathize with their tactics – they are a huge corporation. Their job and goal is to make money for shareholders and investors. They know how to market to the general public using tactics that “exploit” human instinct (unlike another OS we know – hint: starts with an L). Microsoft understands that the members of the general public operate mainly on placebo effects - if they think they’re getting better software protection, then they most likely will continue to trust in the product even if a few Trojans manage to slip by. Microsoft understands that people jump to hasty conclusions about their computing experience, and that focusing on improving what used to be bad gains more supporters than improving on what already worked (“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”) The perfect example would be the Vista to Win7 transition.

Microsoft didn’t become a near-monopoly overnight. It didn’t make Bill Gates one of the richest men by catering to sappy fanboys. It certainly didn’t claim such a large share of the marketplace by appealing only to nerds who knew their terminology and could sniff out lies. Instead, Microsoft rose to power by appealing to the general public, who are guillable, not-so-highly educated, and are too lazy to customize a Firefox browser. The general public wants something that works and is familiar. By this time, Microsoft has become a worldwide name. Because the general public trusts heavily-marketed brands, Microsoft can spill half-lies and 70% of the public will gobble it up, which is plenty enough for it to claim a majority of the market share.

In short, Microsoft knows how to twist the truth just right, so that they can appeal to a large portion of users and make them think they are satisfied with what they get. In case you’ve been living under a rock, this phenomenon is called marketing strategy. Don’t be hating on large corporations just because they want profit.

[I now brace myself for flames from the M$-hating community.]