Mac Vs PC

For today’s topic, I decided to talk about the new Mac campaign that started several years ago. A campaign where each commercial ads starts with:

“Hello I’m a Mac”

“…And I’m a PC”

These two sentences are now so popular that they are even now embedded in our culture. And to admit, I believe it is thanks to these ads that I have switched from PC to Mac. And I’m quite happy about it. But what I really like about this ad campaign is how the creator and scenarist came up with this idea. How would you be able to show the potential of a PC and Mac? How about making them talk? Therefore, they came up with the idea of materializing a Mac by a cool and relaxed teenager and a PC who’s old-fashioned style not to say “Daddy’s style” and funnily looks like Bill Gates. And then, they make them interact with each other. What a great idea! In almost all the ads, there is at least one weakness of PC that is shown. But it is shown in a way so Mac can pin him down without too much effort. Sometimes it’s totally the opposite, PC pin himself down by trying to be perfect but then looks totally ridiculous.

Here is one perfect example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOx-lsaAfSo

Another aspect of the ads is that ALL pc users have at least encountered these lacks at least once. We all got annoyed by our PC performance once, how many time did our pc crashed because of a Virus? How many useless software do we take on board when we buy a PC. Why is my PC running so slow? Why do I need to update my software just right after I buy my PC?

The magic behind these ads is the fact that Apple cleverly brings back to our memory all the difficult time we had with our PC, and from a Mac’s point of view it is totally a joke. It is true that Apple’s overdo sometime and they happen to be even ignorant at a certain extend. But Ignorance is bliss. This reminds me a saying of one of my teacher. She once told me that if during a debate, you have the opportunity to make fun of your counterpart, don’t miss the opportunity. Not only will you bring people to your side by making them laugh but also you’ll win the debate even though you know you’re wrong

Power Point

Today, I had project meeting with my mates for negotiation. And like most project, a power point is required. Now, I’d like to talk about this feature. Why? Because I recently discovered that I actually like making power point. Also this Tuesday was a presentation day. And for most presentation, well ... Let’s just say that I almost ended up not understanding any single one. Is it because I’m not paying enough attention? Maybe… Is it because the presentation wasn’t well created? Most likely… Call me old fashion but I believe that presenting your own work should be considered as teaching. It is up to the presenter to make their work interesting. Your audience should not concentrate in trying to follow you. It is up to you me to catch their attention and make them enjoy my piece of work. Many people think is a hassle to create them. Indeed, it may be hard to know what to put in it and it may be frustrating to talk in front of so many people. I have to admit that my first power point was a total disaster. I had to make a 15 min presentation but the teacher threw at my face with his Scare face eyes “ Pfff, finally it’s over, I thought your presentation lasted 2 hours”. I was indeed too worried of how I should say to make people understand me. And when you care too much, you usually end up doing exactly the opposite. From this day on, I decided to get rid of all sort of support in my hands. Only the power point to back me up.

After creating a few, I’ve realized that power point was one of the supports where you can present your work with your own words. You don’t have to be someone else; I believe it is actually your only chance to present the work with your own words and with your own perspective. It is your chance to be interesting and to break the rules. Like you said Bruce about me breaking the rules, I believe presenting your work is a lot like blogging. Some people care too much about the formal style, about how it should be presented “properly”… Most of them have their paper ready during the presentation. And for most of them, I end up understanding almost nothing. PowerPoint is also the only opportunity to explain fact with illustration. Why writing long paragraph where only one picture may be enough and gives you the opportunity to illustrate?

Of course, there will be situation where formalities will b required. However, would rather me speak with a formal way and understand almost nothing? Or speak with my own word trying to explain things my own way?

In both case, I believe that if the message wasn’t sent to the audience, you failed your presentation.

Rockfeller Center

8h30: My alarm is kicking. I’ve set it this early so we could have a little breakfast before we leave to our next destination: the Rockefeller Center. However, since I was so dead tired, I decided to Switch it off and continue my sleep cycle. But to my great mistake, breakfast ends at 9h am and we were starving. To make it up to her, decided to take her to the nearest Starbuck coffee of the Rockefeller. However finding a Starbuck was ironically very hard. Aren’t they supposed to be in every corner of any city? Well I guess not, we had to walk 20 min to finally find one.

After having this late brunch, off we go to the Top of the Rock. I remember asking people where the Top of the rock was, but it was just before my eyes. It’s just that I can’t have the whole building in my sight of vision. This later is not as high as the Empire State Building but the view is so much more wonderful. Indeed, first there is no fence wasting the view. There are big squarish glasses though but it’s much more discrete than metal fence. Second, the view on Central Park is so much nicer. You have a full view of the giant park and all the building surrounding it forming a perfect rectangle. At that time, I couldn’t help thinking about the first field trip we had couple months ago. Wouldn’t be more beneficial to have tall business building instead of this huge giant park? Seriously, it seems that the park just comes out of nowhere (and this is probably why I give so much attention to central park).

Then we came back at night to watch the sunset. As the Sun went down, sky slightly changed from blue to orange and even pinkish. I gotta admit, it was kinda romantic. It is said that during sunsets, the very last ray of sunlight is supposed to be green. Lot of stories are said surrounding this green ray of sunlight. However, I didn’t get the chance to witness any of them. Maybe it was just rumor after all…

Macy's

There is one thing about NYC that strikes me the most. Everything they have is huge. They have one of the tallest buildings, one of the biggest parks, and the biggest Macy’s of the world. And by huge, I mean huge as messed up. I believe they have over 6 stories of items, from cloth, to souvenirs, shoes and even a food court. But the most confusing part about Macy’s NYC is that they have halves stories as well. Yes, that’s right, for example, they have floor n°1 and floor n°1 ½. oO. And to make it even more complex, the ground floor is considered as the 1rst floor. So to put it simple, you never know on which floor you are. Like this wasn’t enough, my phone couldn’t call my friends because of some network problem. I was in the men section, and Helena in the girls of course. Meeting each other in this huge several stories maze was a real hassle. Since we couldn’t call each other, we agreed on having meetings every 30 minutes on some specific floor. However we weren’t aware of halves stories, and we totally forgot how ground level was considered as 1rst story. Shopping in such place was a big challenge, as I was beginning to worry my friend just kept shopping through all the floors. So it wasn’t easy task to find her. However, I knew where her last destination would be, the souvenirs shop. After 3 hours of wondering in the entire Macy’s, from bras, shoes, dresses and underwear… You know what I discovered? Women section will always be much developed than man section somehow. Isn’t unfair for the men community?

Then I finally found her, doing what girls do best: shopping.

Central Park

Central park has always been the only one thing on earth I wanted to visit with my own eyes. I’ve seen many pictures, movies but I never thought that one day, I would be able to jog in it. You may wonder why central park fascinates me the most. Well when I think about New York City, I think about very tall buildings, I think about a very high dense of population, taxi waiting for the green light so they could frustrate by standers, it’s very dynamic and unfortunately, it’s a lot of stress as well.

However, I also think about this huge rectangle in the city that just seems to come out of nowhere. From very tall skyscraper, landscape suddenly changes to a huge peaceful quiet park. A park where people enjoy spending time together. From grey skyscrapers, the colors suddenly turn to all different type of green. From taxi’s honking, you hear birds singing. These are the reasons why I want to see central park, to see the broken line between the city and its park.

Today was at the same time just an ordinary day and a special day. Indeed, I did my daily jogging but for the first time, somewhere else than my usual treadmills. Oh and beside, I can run much longer than 10 minutes now. With me being so stubborn, I’m able to run for 1H20 min ^^.

I woke up at 8AM, took a quick breakfast and went out of the hostel. By the time I went out, I couldn’t help notice how sunny it was however cold at the same time. Time to run to Central Park. Since this latter is so huge, there is no way for me to visit all central park in just one morning of jogging. So I just ran through the north of it. There I saw a huge lake: the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir. So I decided to make quick tour. Nevertheless, running in a park and on a treadmill is totally different things. I would never though that it would actually be harder to run outside than on our fitrec. The ground is uneven and the wind is blowing on me with a freezing intensity. As for as the landscape, you feel like you are running in a huge forest but when you look at the horizon, you can see the tall building emerging from the park. And that is exactly what I wanted to witness.

Girl Shopping

What surprises me most about NYC is its number of shopping place. From Time Square, the fifth avenue and century21, all the choices are there in this huge city. As of this day, we decided to do some little shopping instead of visiting a touristic place. However, it wasn’t any kind of shopping. It was girl-shopping -_-. Yep Helena wanted to visit some luxury brand such as “Louis Viton”, “Burberry” and Sonia Riquel. As for as I am concerned, I am not into that kind of brand so I guess it is the opportunity for me to learn some piece of info on how they became famous. How did they start and so on.

First we went to Louis Viton. This latter is mostly know for its bag. Girls are really crazy about it. One of its famous products is about 30 year old and they still sell it. It is just a simple bag with no extra pocket inside: The speedy. What is interesting about “Louis Viton is that he didn’t start business by selling bags”. He first sold trunks, those big rectangle boxes where you can put anything in. It was used long time ago by archeologists. Indeed, they had to put minerals and travel on car pulled by a horse. Thanks to this idea of “box in the back of the car”, car trunks were born.

Even though I’m not a fan of bag shopping, if I can learn some piece of history, then it’s totally worth it.

Editorial: Why so much hate surrounding cigarettes.

Smoking is now a day considers as a bad habit that most people wants to get rid of. But it wasn’t always like this back in the days where cigarettes were considered as “The cool things to do”. Movie had a huge impact on the cigarette industry. Indeed, directors had the need to make their actor do something when talking. Now, when someone is smoking, he’s either a psychopath or European. But why so much hate around cigarette? Do you really believe that cigarette is the number one killer in America? Studies have proved that obesity was overtaking smoking. According to CNN, heart disease is still the America’s number one killer in America. Though these proven facts, have we stamps all burger and any cholesterol product with death skulls? Are they as many warning sign on cigarette than on cheddar cheese, the number one cholesterol in America? Well no… Then why should cigarettes?

Some people will tell you that these logos are required to warn the person who’s not aware of the danger of cigarette. Those people are mostly children who tend to be easily influenced and fascinated by harmful product. Indeed, if the adult can do it, why not them? However, awareness of danger doesn’t come from a sign of a pack of cigarette. It comes from education, from teachers and mostly, from parental education. It is there responsibility to warn their children of all the danger of our world so they can decide for themselves and be prepared.

Long time ago, liquors were a big issue and were even prohibited for a period of time. However, this prohibition only worked to a certain extends and now is revealed as a complete disaster. Crime rates surrounding liquor has arisen drastically.

By implementing such harsh rules on cigarettes, aren’t we afraid to redo the mistakes of the past?

Does it really make sense to put some death logo to packs of cigarettes that isn’t the number one killer in America? If yes, why not cheese burger and all other food loaded with cholesterol?

Do people actually know that they are even more dangerous product than cigarette?

Is the tobacco industry to blame or should it be education?

These questions deserved to be asked since there is so much debate concerning the tobacco industry.

The Statue of Liberty

To tell you the truth, visiting the Statue oLiberty wasn’t in my to do list. Indeed, saying “hello” to a high tall spiked headed lady painted in green doesn’t seem really exciting to me. But hey, I’m a tourist, Helena wants to drop by in her island and visit “Miss liberty”, I guess I can make an exception. Perhaps, I may learn why people have decided to paint her in green … (I know, I’m just being silly, I know why it’s green of course thanks to the State House field trip).

But first things first. We went to a small restaurant for a brunch. Pretty nice and old fashion style. Helena wasn’t familiar with the term “Brunch”, a mixed between breakfast and lunch. So I told her that when you skipped breakfast but still want to eat an early lunch, than we have what we called a brunch. Then we took off for Miss hulk… erf… the statue of liberty sorry.

So when you arrived at the border right before taking the boat to Liberty Island, you can have a quick look at the “Statue of Liberty” and … I thought she would be taller. We bought the ticket, and hop on the boat for Liberty Island. On our way, I couldn’t help noticing 2 things. While the city and its huge skyscrapers started to shrink, the Statue of Liberty started to grow bigger and bigger. There… oh wow… I can’t have the whole statue in my field of vision. While we walked around we took many picture of her, many ones were pretty funny.

I also learned some piece of history. Did you know that Mr. Eiffel made the last pieces of the Statue of Liberty? The one who built and designed the Eiffel tower in France. Well this may be the reason why she is so gorgeous ^^. I also notice that she wasn’t built on a socle but on a fort. Indeed, long time ago, the Liberty Island was a military position. It served as a scouting fort to spot incoming invaders. The fort where the statue stands is shaped as a 11 spiked stars to have a 360 field of vision.

Then our next stop was Ellis Island. This place is huge, loaded with historical facts as well as movie facts. Indeed this is where they shot the movie “Hitch” with will Smith. This latter dates Eva Mendes to the island to show her that one of her ancestor was a pioneer. Anyway, the most important one is that it was used as a place where new comers who wanted to live in America had to pass a health check. Two diseases were common at that time. One of them was called trachoma, a disease that can make people blind. The second, well I don’t remember.

On our way back to the Manhattan, there was this guy dressed as Spiderman. His outfit was... hum pretty tight... and he was striking some weird poses for by standers pictures... But I couldn't help noticing all these girl gathered around him. Roughly 10 girls around him, each one of them giving him 1 dollar for a pose. It is really unexpected and now, I believe beeing Spiderman is quite an earning job.

After leaving the statue of liberty, we had a quick look at the NYSE-Euronext. Pretty beautiful. Now a days I believe that NYSE is less croweded because of new way of communication ( internet). Bye bye to all the messy people screaming at each other with pens and paper sticked to their mouth. I also notice one strange thing: very fancy Gym clubs surrounds these stock option houses.

At last but not least, I invited Helena to a sushi restaurant. Since it was her birthday, it was my treat. So Helena is a bit afraid of trying out new stuff. She doesn’t like to go on unknown territory. Since I have some experience with sushi I ordered several different fancy rolls. Why fancy? Because they are not just casual sushi’s such like the California rolls. There are a bit more… well fancy… More topping and so on. Then for our final sushi I made her try something really unusual. The “ Uni Sushi”. Uni stands for sea ursine. It has a very particular taste and a very particular way of eating. You have to put it in your mouth and eat it really slowly so the taste just blows your mind. It kinda feels like the sea is invading your entire mouth. And you know what? She totally agreed ^^. Sharing your experiences and likes is really enjoyable (especially when we both agreed).

The next day… guess what we had for dinner again…

I <3 NYC. Trip day and empire state building

My friend Helena Mignon, a former classmate who happens to study in Mexico for the second semester, decided to come to Boston and New York to celebrate her 23^rd birthday. Now the funny part is that we don’t really know each other very well. Even though we were in the same class the first semester, I realized that we never talked to each other. And now, we’re going to visit NYC together. Wouldn’t you feel awkward to visit such city with someone you don’t really know? Well I guess this trip is my opportunity to know her better.

The main issue is she’s coming right in the middle of the week and therefore, I have to skip some classes in order to show her around. Of course most teachers gave me green light for skipping classes in exchange of extra work. Now the funny thing is that I warned them on the 1^st of April and I would never thought that even teachers would take advantage of this special day to fool me.

The previous day before my trip to NYC was a rough day. I had to buy the tickets as well as the Hostel. This latter is so hard to find especially when you plan to stay for more then 4 days during Easter Sunday. However, with a bit of effort, I was able to find a little hostel right next to Central Park and a nice bus ride.

The trip to Boston lasted 4 hours or so with only one break. When we were about to arrive in NYC, the bus started to stop and go on almost every relight and I started to get really sick. Hopefully, I managed to hold my breakfast in my stomach and finding our hostel wasn’t that hard after all. After unpacking, we decided to visit NYC.

We first went to Ground 0. It was so windy and cold that we decided to go shopping next to that famous century 21. It’s a shop were almost everything is on sale. You can find almost anything you want from clothing to gift with a relatively cheap price. However, good luck in finding your right size. You can chose between XL, XXL, and XXXL (I didn’t know this latter could even exist).

Then we walk up the street up to the Empire state building. Like many touristic place, the Empire state building is an Iconic symbol of NYC. I believe this latter is one of the tallest building in NYC if not the highest. It also has a huge impact on American movie history with King Kong and other old style movie. The inside of the building is old school fashion style and it feels like you are living in a 1960 movie. It is so sixties that the architecture and design deserve big attention.

While we reached the top, NYC was drowning in the dark. Many little white light from tall building were drawing the cities. It was really breathtaking. We spent roughly 1-hour taking picture of the entire city.

Then it was already 0h00 and we ate nothing since we arrived. So we decided to eat at Wendy’s then come back to ou hostel, dead tired.

My apologies

Hello Bruce, I wanted to apology for not updating my blog these later days. I really wanted to post my daily entries in NYC, but I never realized how tiring NYC could be. We walked all day long and I got pretty tired by the end of the day. I know that you’re asking of us only 15 min of bloging but to tell you the truth, I spend much more than only 15 min. However, I’m willing to make it up by writing you every single day I’ve spent in New York in every detail with illustration too. I hope you’ll enjoy it because I’ve got so many things to tell you.

Complicated Subject: Moral Flexibility

During the movie, Nick Naylor, who happens to be a lobbyist on the behalf of cigarette, have this conversation with his son.

Son: “Can’t anyone be a lobbyist?”

Nick Naylor: “No… It requires a certain moral flexibility that goes beyond most people.”

Son: “Do I have flexible morals?”

Nick Naylor: “Well… Let’s say you become a lawyer and you were asked to defend a murderer, no worst than that, a child murderer. Now the law states that every person deserves a fair trial. Would you defend him?”

As for my complicated subject, I’ve decided to explain a particularly term used in“ Thank you for smoking” which is moral flexibility.

Our live is built on decisions and dilemmas. Every actions and calls we make are based upon our perception of what we consider the “right” things to do or the “wrong” things to do. Now the key to moral flexibility is that since our moral in influenced by our OWN perception of the world and society, even though you may come across someone who shares your principle and values, you can always play and bend your morale factor to act without feeling guilty. Why? Because we are all different. And no one is going to blame you for your values.

Now let’s talk about “moral flexibility. What is it? Well first of, it is composed of two words:

Moral: which concerns the principle of “right” and “wrong”.

Flexibility: to be easily modified to respond to altered circumstances or conditions.

As such, moral flexibility is the aptitude to bend our principle to achieve many spins for many purposes. On one hand, people with flexible morale can either come to their end or use it as a “get away” technique from a situation where they would be cornered if they were to stick with their principles. The most interesting part is that by bending your moral, not only you get away but you simply don't feel guilty whatsoever. One the other hand, people who would stick firmly to their principle would in theory, always chose the action they believe to be right.

Do you have flexible morale? Well as for as I’m concerned, we all have some sort of moral flexibility to a certain extend. People cheat, people lie. People download. Let’s talk about downloading, a subject we talked about couple months ago. It is considered as stealing and unethical and therefore the “wrong” things to do. Many people are aware of what downloading represents and how it is perceived. However, so many people still download without feeling guilty. Why? Because (thanks?) to their flexible moral.

In some situation, flexible morale is always used where there is no “right” outcome. Both decisions end up in a “No win situation”. This is where you have to prioritize your principles.

In the movie, Nick Naylor stressed how parental education is important in a children growth during a debate against the health organization. Education doesn’t come from a sign of a pack of cigarettes, it comes from parental control.

Health organization:” Ok Mr. Nick Naylor, what are you going to do when your son turns 18. Are you going to share one lovely afternoon smoking cigarettes?”

From this moment, Nick Naylor is cornered. He has the choice of speaking on the behalf of the cigarette OR as a father.

On one side, if he speaks as a father and say "No because smoking kills" , he would then lose the debate. On the other side, if he speaks on the behalf of cigarette, he goes against his principles. For both case, moral flexibility is required.

After speaking on the behalf of cigarette, Nick Naylor comes out of the conference room with a sense of guiltiness.

Nick Naylor may not seems so flexible when it comes to his son.