Recently, I have had a the opportunity to listen to and interact with some incredible people.

I had a chance to listen to and interact with Jay Forrester for a System Dynamics course. I was taking a course taught by the person who invented the field. What I found more exciting was the way they are applying it in education. It is amazing to see the application of a tool in such a manner and as it turns out kids pick up these things way more easily that most adults. I can attest to the fact because to me it is counter-intuitive and I spend entire nights trying to figure out assignments.

Other notables include Jeff Hoffman and Tom Allen. It is almost a un-expressible to be interacting with these people not because of what they have achieved but because of their humility and openness. You feel in awe and humbled afterwards.

I have been incredibly busy with a number of things. Along with work, friends and all the things I have taken on, it seems like 24 hours is not enough but it has been that way for a while now. I absolutely love it.

The other day my desktop got fried and it sucks. I am contemplating buying a new one but transferring the data would be a pain. All my music is stuck there till I ressurect it but Last.fm kicks ass. I did notice ever since they got bought up, their algorithm was acting funky more than once. it is so easy to tell when the suits are working.

My little not-for-profit entrepreneurship venture with a very close friend has finally taken fruit and we are currently doing user testing and optimizing the platform. We are planning to release it to public later this month. We are very excited with the initial feedback. It is immensely satisfying to be involved in building something that other people find value in.

Especially since I was able to contribute even though I have so many things happening. This week, I went to my coffee shop as usual to do my readings and think about the project with my friend and we forgot to pay the bill and just walked out. I realized it and went back to the shop to pay.. while I was apologizing the waitresses said: you are a regular, we would have got it the next time. I promise to go into more details soon enough.Those long nights and the caffeine were not such a waste after all.

I had the chance to travel around a bit and some more travel is coming up. We are planning a small trip to celebrate our little project. However I did manage to catch MySpace by the amazing Prof. John Maeda whose work on Simplicity never ceases to inspire me. His work is the motivation for the current design for this site.

A picture that I particularly like taken not too long ago:

And finally I end this with a quote that is both memorable and jarring to me as a professional and more so personally. I am learning that human behavior and mathematics cannot be reconciled. I am having fun along the way though.

"The greatest sin that mathematicians ever foisted on human-kind was developing the differential equation: It is useless to develop a understanding of the real world because nature never takes a derivative. It is a completely theoretical concept and completely useless because there is no causality."