Long overdue update

My other domain (http://fittingly.net) was hacked awhile back, but yesterday I finally spent some quality time with FTP, raw access logs and creative !p@5$w0RdS&, so I think my site should be back in order for now. Edit: Still hacked and I don’t have time to devote to fixing it at the moment, so I’ve moved over to my portfolio site in the meantime (maybe forever?).

I’ve missed having a blog because I don’t feel like I’m imposing my great sense of humor and self-serving life updates on anyone. I am mostly kidding about the great sense of humor thing, though someone DID tell me I was rather humorous the other day and I nearly proposed to him. Anyway, I know at least three people read this so I’m updating for you!

Read more…

Paper: Art for Culture – The Making of a Global City with MOCA

This paper was submitted for “Urban Planning C184: Looking at Los Angeles” with Professor Jackie Leavitt in Spring 2011.

What started as a worry about artists and collectors fleeing to New York transformed the contemporary art scene in Los Angeles and set the city on the path to become a global city. I use global city as opposed to world city, for its subtle nuances as Saskia Sassen has noted. Global cities incorporate more of a networked hub of activity than just an insular hub of activity, as a world city is understood to be.

Read more…

Daily Bruin Radio Interview: The Verizon iPhone

I was interviewed about the release of the Verizon iPhone for Daily Bruin Radio’s Long Story Short program. Listen to the mp3 here.

“Verizon releases its own iPhone 4 on Feb. 10, and according to president and chief executive officer Dan Mead, online sales broke records within the first two hours. But is it worth it to upgrade or buy the phone at full price, or even switch services? Daily Bruin senior staff Millie Tran gives her take on Verizon’s big step.”

Daily Bruin Column (A Millie Second): Firesheep brings out the hacker in us all

This column was first published in the UCLA Daily Bruin on November 17, 2010.

Let’s be clear: I do not know how to hack a computer.

However, with the release of a new Firefox extension, any schmo like myself could access your information stored as “cookies” fairly easily.

And I did – I put my hand in the cookie jar, kind of.

Read more…

Daily Bruin Column (A Millie Second): Facebook has changed; friendships haven’t

This column was first published in the UCLA Daily Bruin on November 9, 2010.

“Pics or it didn’t happen,” is generally a joke. But really, if an event happens and there are no photos on Facebook, did it really happen?

Humans have terrible memories. Robots and computers generally have terrific memories.

Documenting and quantifying things help us by giving concrete reassurance, ensuring that whatever we’re doing is optimized.

Numbers and the act of quantifying provide the opaqueness where our flimsy memories only provide a foggy recollection.

Now, with the help of Facebook, all of your friendships are neatly delineated on one page.

Read more…