Saket Vora

the ee314 final that is. three questions. the last question was what i expected - a question about oscillators. i think i did ok on that one.

the second one i was completely unprepared for. this class has been about radio frequency cmos integrated circuits. i spent my time focusing on the concepts we spent a lot of time covering: low noise amplifier (LNA) design, linearity and distortion concepts (IP3, IP5, SFDR, etc), impedance transformation (L-match, inductive source degenerations), mixers, power amplifiers, oscillators, phase noise, mosfet noise. Problem 2 instead was entirely about classical noise theory. we have covered the high level concept in class for about 10 minutes, but hadn’t worked any problems or examples from it. so yeah. totally unprepared.

i’m noticing this trend now: i don’t test well. the same thing happened last quarter in ee214; i could talk pretty fluently about amplifier design and the concepts, but i didn’t do well on the tests. in ee314, there were some classmates actually looking to me to explain things, and the responses to my questions in class generally indicated that my thinking was on track. but i just test so poorly.

sigh. i’m getting on a plane in about 9 hours, spring break has started.

I just wanted to try out one of the Y-Combinator launches: Mixwit. You can create little music player widgets that have a distinctly retro style. Here are two songs from The Shins latest album. The first one, “Australia”, is incredibly catchy and I’ve been playing it a lot these past few days. I love the little “no!” at the beginning when told “it’s time to put the earphones on.”

The attention to detail is pretty nice: if your playlist is long enough, the tape will spool and unspool from side to side.

Variety has confirmed the Dune remake with Peter Berg at the helm. More details are emerging about who will serve as producers. This was reported back in December but now it looks like its becoming more of a done deal. Expect a 2010 release.

Much thanks to Win for the link.

Expect more activity at my www.sandsofarrakis.com site in the upcoming weeks, months…years.

I’m pleased to add another friend to the blogroll: Joy Johnson, who is a first year Ph.D. student at MIT in electrical engineering!

Happy blogging Joy.

My teammate is turning in the Palm strategy report as I write this. Good to have that done; I’ll add it up to the ‘Writings’ section next week. We are sending it to the three people we spoke with. I’ve taken a cubicle in Green Library and vow to sequester myself here until I finish the neuro paper AND presentation. Yes, aiming for a double here.

I’ve got to do it in order to have more time and focus for the circuits exam on Friday. It’s going to be bad.

Look at her poster for Cancer Biology II.

Seeing this and with my own digging into neuroscience literature, I have a new found respect for biological sciences.

But Sapanabear, it looks too plain! Gotta glitz it up. :)

Hey all. Finally got the EE 314 project turned in on Monday. On Wednesday the teaching staff highlighted our report in a lighthearted way for our retro way of drawing the schematic. We did our presentation on Palm on Thursday and Dave Daetz was kind enough to come to campus. We bought him lunch and he helped answer questions from the class.

My outlook for the next week: strategy paper due Monday, Neuroengineering paper + presentation due Wednesday, and the EE314 final exam on Friday. I catch the red-eye back to NC on Friday night.

A friend I made in 2005 while in Sweden is going to be in San Jose for a conference next week. He’s gonna come by Stanford and we’ll do lunch. Pretty cool.

That’s just it for now.

Oh yeah — WaterPLUS advanced in the Carolina Challenge and the Duke Startup Challenge. I’ve been negligent on that side…hope to correct that soon.

when deadlines loom near.

Yikes! Gotta spend a few minutes and tidy things up. Sigh.