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.

Continue reading »

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.”

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.

Continue reading »

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.

Continue reading »

This column was first published in the UCLA Daily Bruin on November 2, 2010.

Once I foolishly thought that liking computers meant I could and should be a computer scientist. Half of two programming classes later, I sought refuge in the social sciences.

Since that lapse in judgment, I decided to overcompensate by reading about everything tech-related to stay in the loop.

Continue reading »