Saket Vora

Today’s update by Tom Evans and Keith Thompson over at Supertopos.com:

Zodiac: The NC boys are putting on a clinic!! Yesterday the made it to the start of the Nipple and by the time I got there today they were just finishing up cleaning the Nipple. The light was nice and I got some sweet shots of them. When I left they were headed for Peanut Ledge and that was around 2pm. So they will most likely be off today late. A really nice ascent. I noticed that they were in and out of the belays in 5 to 10 minutes and that sure doesn’t hurt the time on each pitch!

Peyton is on the bottom here:

Peyton leading the Mark of Zorro (up top):

Peyton reaching high on the Mark of Zorro pitch:

Whoa.

The past week at Apple was busy but productive. We had a good game of ultimate on Thursday but the turnout should be higher next week. The big event of the week was the kickoff of the executive speaker series for interns. This week the speaker was Steve Jobs himself. Apple does a good job with their intern program.

On Friday my buddy Peyton Hassinger flew into town. He’s enjoying his short summer break from the Mayo Clinic (where he’s a medical student) by climbing El Capitan in Yosemite. This is the Mecca for modern rock climbing and Peyton speaks of it in reverence. He’s going to be doing a 4-day climb with a friend on the Zodiac route. I met up with him in Palo Alto and we grabbed dinner on University Avenue. In response to the recent legalization of same-sex marriage licenses in the State of California, there was a rather vocal protest setup by some right-wing religious homophobes outside Pizza My Heart. The best part? A bunch of guys wearing Guy Fawkes masks came by protesting Scientology, and minutes later they were joined in the same square by tabla-playing Hare Krishnas chanting. I am not making this up.

Check out the forum at SuperTopos, a climbing website. Search for the daily El Capitan report and we can all follow Peyton’s progress. The current status:

Zodiac: The North Carolina boys, Nathan and Peyton were on the rock early after fixing yesterday. They arrived with a lot of very shiny new equipment causing some comments at the bridge that perhaps they were a long shot to make it. Well forget that shiit, fool. They are smoking up the route and had already done the Black Tower by the time I left this afternoon around 3. The lads are looking real solid up there.

~ Tom Evans at the El-Cap Report , 6/29/08

Just looking at those pictures of the climbers on El Capitan makes me think they all have severe psychological disorders. Check out Peyton! (or is it his friend, Nathan?)

On Saturday I took care of some much needed errands then went over to Studio 1 to check out Nader’s new guitar — a Gibson SG. He’s quite happy with it, and it looks and sounds great. He just needs to find some better music…I mean..Juliana Hatfield? Really? But then he took me over to the CCRMA, the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. The FM synthesizer, the thing that was licensed to Yamaha and earns $texas in royalties each year, helped launch this group I think. What’s amazing is that the center bought the President of Stanford’s old mansion and turned it into their building. It’s gorgeous. The computer lab is setup in the middle of a nice dining room. The place is loaded with professional recording spaces, studio equipment, a state of the art listening room, etc. If you’ve taken a certain class, you get 24/7 access to the lab and the equipment. Hopefully we’ll get in there an jam a bit (by “we’ll” i mean nader and jordan…i’ll tag along and leech off their musical talent). The place has amazing views. You go out on the 2nd floor balcony and see the foothills and the Big Dish, and on the other size you see the campus spread out below you. After walking back we synced up with Bikiran and Siddharth and went to Palo Alto Sol for dinner before seeing Wanted. DO NOT SEE THIS. It was soooo awful.

Sunday morning I went over to an apartment to watch the Spain vs Germany Euro 2008 final. Pity Germany played so badly, it was a shame to see them lose. Sunday was also the day of a cookout I organized. I hadn’t seen the Nicks in a while and some other people, so it was a good excuse to put on a get together. The turnout was great. The Nicks came and brought a neuroscience friend. Luke and Dora were there. A sizable NC community too: Amit, Mary, Matt, Terrell Russell, Ben Darnell (Park alum at working at Google), Jordan Price, Nader. Bikiran and Siddharth from EE came too. A good chance to mingle. We grilled some corn-on-the-cob, made fresh guacamole, cantaloupe, grilled portabella mushroom caps with goat’s cheese, burgers, and drinks. We then picked up the Frisbee and everyone got in on a friendly game of Ultimate Frisbee that lasted for about an hour. It was a lot of fun with nice weather and a lovely way to cap a weekend.

One last thing — I got the new Sigur Rós album today, Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust (translation: “with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly”). Friends will know that I’ve taken a liking to this distinctly unique Icelandic band. Their previous work has been dominated by deliberate, carefully layered orchestral rock, often brooding and dense. Their new album is so fresh and accessible! One of the songs, Inní mér syngur vitleysingur (translation: “within me a lunatic sings”), just made me feel happy. I have no idea what it is being said, but it feels about simply rejoicing life and its wonders. It’s my summer song. Take a listen…

Two interns will be leaving this week, both from Northeastern. They have a summer quarter they must get back for, but both have been working since January. One of them, Ian, is working directly in our group, and I’ll be taking over his project. Really, he has done the vast majority of it and done a great job. There are always a few different things going on too. We also got a new intern from Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo. We had orientation on Monday and a few schools in particular stuck out as being well represented. It wasn’t as useful for me because I had done the paperwork last week; but I did spot some classmates from Stanford.

Nader has been stockpiling the wares of students moving out of his dorm who are probably too well off for their own good. Nader picked up a pair of computer speakers, a monitor, a whole computer, two microwaves, a blender, and yes, a car. He showed me the title. Sheesh. He then called me later to say that he had an executive-style leather office chair. Looks brand new. He didn’t want it cause it had arm rests. Yeah. He’s weird. But I got it from him! We also grabbed a microwave for Simon’s new place. Then found a photo printer in the hallway. Abandoned.

Great news! Melih, a friend of mine who just finished a Master’s in Computer Science at NC State, just took a full-time position at video startup Tokbox and is moving out to San Francisco! He’ll be arriving later this week. Mary and Matt are almost to Cincinatti for Race Across America, and the rest of my family is enjoying some vacation too.

On Saturday, Nader and I planned an overnight hiking trip to Portola Redwoods State Park, nestled in Portola Valley about 12 or 15 miles south of Stanford. We had bought hiking packs and were going to hike in three miles to a backpackers’ camp. Nader was very excited (i.e., insistent) that we bike there. We headed out at around 2pm and was making good progress. Nader took a turn and we went down a cool 1-mile stretch of downhill curves…that ended into a dead-end. D’oh! After getting back on track, we reached a bicycle-only path that would take us to the junction of Skyline and Page Mill Road. Only, they should have said “hardcore mountain bike path”. Carrying 30 lb packs, the going was really slow and we lost a lot of time. We caught this view on the way up.

I know it’s hard to see with the small image, but if you zoom in that part between the trees, you’d see this:

The Hoover Tower! I was shocked to see how far we came. By the time we made it to that point, it was 6:30pm and we still had six miles to go on road, plus 3 miles of trails to the camp. Sunset was in about 2 hours. We decided to turn back on Page Mill Road and go back to campus. But, it was a pretty remarkable view. We could see all over the valley, from maybe Menlo Park down to San Jose.

You can make out the giant Moffett Aircraft Hanger. Pretty cool. The trip down Page Mill Road was awesome — six miles dropping 1700 feet with lots of hairpin turns. The houses up here are unreal. I saw one person’s patio that looked to be the size of a basketball court and had a completely uninterrupted view of the vista as shown above.

We got back to campus just before sundown. I was pretty tired…my legs had cramped up pretty badly. I’m glad I did this, if only to determine that I prefer hiking on real trails in the quiet of nature than pedaling on asphalt. I know some people love it, just not me.

It’ll be a good summer. Just finished my first day at Apple. Lindsay helped get my paperwork through and Joseph gave me a quick intro to the lab where I stayed the rest of the day and met the fellow labmates. I was struck by the diversity of my colleagues and the total lack of pretentious with everyone I met. For the first few days it’ll be just getting the lingo and up to speed on where we are on projects. Had lunch at the Caffe Macs. It’s about a 18-20 minute drive on 280 South to Cupertino. Despite the distance, the drive is great — gentle curves through rolling hills dotted with trees. And at least during commute hours, the NPR out here might not suck.

I borrowed and watched The Kingdom from Green Library. I was mildly interested in it when it came out, and it had Jason Bateman from Arrested Development, but now even more so cause Peter Berg directed it. And as you know, Berg is the director of the new Dune film. A Stanford did-i-really-just-see-that moment: I’m down at the media reserves desk to pick up the DVD. You look up the number of the film and give it to a student clerk who goes into the background and fishes out the DVD you want. A sign was up stating they were hiring subs and positions for the summer. The pay? $12/hour. Yes. $12 an hour to stand at a desk in a library and get DVDs for people. Sigh.

Greg’s sharp eyes found this article regarding ionospheric interference in GPS signals, which was the subject of my lightweight research project while at PARS last year in Alaska.  Nice one!

Ian, a colleague at Apple, is finishing up on Friday and it looks like the group will go up to Napa on Sunday. I’ll likely join in. We went bowling tonight with the group.

A final parting note: gasoline (the cheapest stuff) is $4.69 here.

Done with the quarter! Went around town today, up to San Carlos, taking care of errands. On Sunday Nader and I got some gear for our hiking trips this summer….Nader plopped down some serious cash but is pretty much set to go. I got a hiking pack with one of those internal frames as well as a pair of Merrell trail runners. I don’t feel like buying another sleeping bag when I’ve got a perfectly good one back home…just need to find a way to get it over here. In the short term, I can rent one from REI. We’re actively planning for our Yosemite / Half Dome Trail trip. But Yosemite is a really hard thing to read. The website is pretty adament about how you will never find a place to stay in the month of June. But almost exactly this time last year, when we visited Yosemite, our whole campsite was nearly empty. Granted, it was a Wednesday, and our trip will have to be a weekend due to work. Also, it’s Father’s Day weekend this time. But then gas prices are exorbiterantly high that might keep people away. But then another person says the weak dollar makes America more attractive to foreign visitors. Gah. Then there is the whole mess between wilderness camping versus normal campsite. Yosemite gives out a limited number of wilderness camping permits per trail. Some of these, and some traditional campsite locations are first-come first-served. One website hints that all the trailhead permits for the month of June are taken. Yikes. Now this of course affects our plans considerably, in terms of when we need to actually arrive at Yosemite. Wilderness camping also forces a reassessment of one’s gear, and whether everyone in our party is ready for it. So yeah. It’s becoming a bit of headache, especially on short notice. I’m gonna call the park tomorrow.

But regardless. I’m becoming more and more keen on doing weekend trips to the numerous parks around here. Gene says I can borrow his tent. I’ll soon get my sleeping bag. I’ve got a nice pack now. And why not? It’s just too good an opportunity to pass up.

No, this isn’t about the Krispy Kreme Challenge. Today inadvertently ended up rather food-centric. Not that I made anything fancy. I did make some sweet tea that I enjoyed later. Simon tried a mint sauce for lamb that he hasn’t made before, and then enjoyed a refreshing chilled mint tea made with a handful of fresh mint leaves and a splash of lime.

We were in the living area watching Food Network (our apartment essentially could have just five channels: CNN, FoxNews, ESPN, Comedy Central, and Food Network), in particular Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt show and Iron Chef America. We talked about food, like we often do — if I haven’t mentioned it before, Simon is the most accomplished chef I’ve had as a housemate (sorry Jordan, no contest here but you get points for trying). Some serendipitous moments — moments after I was extolling the virtues of a good sweet tea after making it for the first time out here, Alton exclaims to the camera how he missed sweet tea. I had asked Simon if he knew how to make a risotto, because I want to learn how and possibly add it to the list-of-dishes-I-can-make-without-looking-at-a-recipe. I’m currently at about a dozen. My mom? Like 784 at least. Sure enough, the secret ingredient in Iron Chef America was rice, with risotto making many appearances. Simon had mentioned some crayfish-like animal with a fancy-sounding name and it showed up in the AB show. There were a few more like this. Alas, no mint was used. He described a meat pie stand in Woolloomooloo, a suburb of Sydney, called Harry’s Cafe de Wheels which has a huge following. The owner signed a several hundred year lease a long time ago and as a result is the only food stand in Sydney, because recent city ordinances have banned the rest. Woolloomooloo was a blue-collar, dock worker’s area that has been transformed into a Soho-like trendy spot, and Harry’s simple food stand is a nice foil to the three-star and Michelin rated restaurants just down the road from it. I told him of  the Indian snack stand (think the equivalent of a hot dog stand, only 100x better) in the neighborhood of Matunga, where my mom was born and brought up, that has been at the same street corner for 30+ years.  The AB show showed a simple hamburger place in which the current chef had been working for 35 years. What a different life…I can’t really wrap my head around that.

This summer I want to add a few dishes to the list. I’ve mentioned the risotto. Mike offered a fried-rice recipe after I said that for some inexplicable reason, despite having a rice cooker, I rarely make rice at home. I always forget to put it on before I’m ready to eat. I’m going to stop buying salad dressing too. I’ve gotten to know of the versatility (and power!) of good balsamic vinegar (both normal and white) from Simon (he loves the stuff) and a quick inspection of our kitchen reveals all the ingredients needed for a vinaigrette. What other recipes should I look into?

When I think of people and food, I first think of Mom (with a capital M) for obvious reasons. Beyond relatives, Mary Elting ranks right up there..a vivid memory to this day from my undergraduate years was being invited to a dinner party at Mary’s house in Raleigh and seeing that beautiful European pizza oven. She is very creative and is always trying new things out….Which reminds me — she and Matt are taking part in the famous Race Across America bike race as members of the support crew for the team representing the Portola Valley Presbyterian Church. This group is supporting the Peninsula Habitat for Humanity and heading up one of the big projects out here. They are leaving this Wednesday! Check out the websites and follow along at their blog.

Ok, two down and one to go. Submitted our final hardware layout (done in Cadence) yesterday. It’s not fully optimized, but it works. We never got our grades from the midterm software project, so not sure how I’ll be doing in that class.

The last thing for me is a 3 to 5 page investment memo for finance class. I have to evaluate an online language learning venture. I’ve procrastinated a lot since the pitches on Tuesday, but I’m making a concerted pitch today to knock it out before sleep (note that sleep time can be sometime tomorrow…)

On Thursday I went to the CS225A robotic class’s Demo Day and saw some really cool things. The department has numerous robotic arms and, from what I hear, multiple Asimo robots. But alas, none made an appearance. Though I did hear the professor Dr. Khatib (who has a vague Ian McKellen look about him) murmering about issues with the robot’s apartment. Take what you want from that….who knows what goes on here! Anyway, one group used a simulator to demonstrate robots interacting with soccer balls, a 3D wireless haptic control of a robotic arm, a Xylophone playing robot, and a Shuffleboard playing robot. My favorite though was the team that built their own two-camera motion-capture system and used it to control a huge robotic arm.

One member has bike lights strapped on his arm and hat, and a camera above him and in front of him records his movements. By changing his arm and turning his head, he can control all three joints of the robot’s arm.

I, for one, welcome our future robot overlords.

As a final note before I crunch through this memo — what are some of your summer reading lists? I know summer has started for some of you but I’m curious nonetheless. Any recommendations for me? So far, mine include:

• Processing, by Ben Fry and Casey Reas
• Heat, by Bill Buford
• In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson
• Freedom at Midnight, by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre