Saket Vora

Set against the backdrop of some stunningly beautiful fall weather — the warm sun, cool breeze, the tips of leaves turning colors — this weekend would have been made perfect if I took a leisurely stroll in a new open space preserve or the Big Dish hike.

After catching some morning college football games, I headed over to Castro St. in downtown Mountain View to have lunch with Melih and Matt, my two friends who went to the President’s Cup golf tournament a few weekends ago. We munched on sandwiches in a sports tavern (or rather, what passes as a sports tavern in Mountain View, jeez) while watching the Penn State vs Michigan game (yawn) and having a free ranging discussion about college football (of course!), technology, monetary policy, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury department, state of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the visible impact of America’s huge trade deficit with China. Matt described seeing the trains go by while growing up in Oklahoma, and how two decades what used to be grain and wheat was slowly replaced by finished goods from Chinese, with all the trains being full going east and all empty coming back west.

We then headed to a nearby Turkish cafe (where, when I asked if it was kosher to add cream to Turkish coffee Melih responded with “why don’t you just desecrate my culture and steal my property?”) to brainstorm ideas for our submission to the NYC Big Apps contest. Melih told me about this contest, in which the New York City is encouraging people to aid its transparency and openness by building apps using its public data archives. It’s a fun outlet for us to try something new and get the creative juices flowing. This should keep us occupied over the next few weeks.

On the way home, I picked up an immersion blender that has a mini-food processor attachment. It’s a nice multi-tasker in the kitchen, and it’s handy having a chopper around. A brief stop at the Milk Pail, a European style open-air market got me a fill of fresh fruits and vegetables. I was planning on cooking something for dinner, but Mike arrived and we walked a few blocks down to the nearby Dutch Goose, where over burgers and drinks we enjoyed the Stanford football game against Arizona State. It was homecoming weekend, so spirits were high and Stanford played great! We’ve got a terrific football team this year. Mike’s high school friend Greg also dropped by.

Sunday was quieter — spent most of the day finishing up some volunteer work for the California Clean Tech Open, taking care of some errands, and cooking. I made some salsa with my new blender, but put in one too many habanero peppers. Boy it can burn! Dinner was some Japanese eggplant, red bell pepper, and garlic with sauteed baked tofu. Mike and Karla prepared some excellent pasta with butternut squash sauce, also giving the blender for a spin. Butternut squash is rather amazing…it has such a dominating nice taste that you’re often not sure what else you should add to make it taste good. I want to start using it more.

And finally, some really great news! Joseph and Heidi’s baby — Henry Isaac Fisher — was born early Saturday morning. The whole family is doing great. Congratulations Joseph and Heidi!

If you have ever worked with me in a group where document collaboration is important, you know that I keep a close eye on filenames. Maintaining good, descriptive file names that can work well in any environment (don’t use spaces, use underscores!) isn’t hard to do and can save a lot of headaches when trying to track down the right document.

For me, this is especially true with photos. While photo managers like Picasa, iPhoto, Lightroom, and Aperture all have nice methods for organizing photos into albums, I find it important to keep order with original files and folders. This is especially useful when you want to select some photos to put online. Having left my Thinkpad in California, I thought I’d just use my MacBook to transfer my recent Diwali photos online.

In Windows, I use Windows Live Photo Gallery to import my photos, which allows me to quickly enter desired destination folder and filenames for different batches of photos (separated by time taken), all in one dialog box. That way my photos are automatically given a human-readable filename like “diwali 002″ instead of “IMG_9982.” To my dismay, I discovered that iPhoto doesn’t support the ability to rename the photo filenames upon import. Neither does Picasa for Mac. Nor does the built-in Image Capture utility in Mac OS X. So I found a freeware batch file re-namer and fixed the files after importing.

This makes me wonder: Am I just weird for refusing to simply accept photo filenames like IMG_5429.JPG? How come these hugely popular programs lack what I consider to be a necessary feature? I mean heck, the simple baked-in image importer utility in Windows XP had the functionality I desire, and yet Windows Vista decided to cripple it by not letting you rename the files on import. Fortunately the free Windows Live Photo Gallery not only restored it, but improved it. I think I must just be weird.

My friend Mike Hsu, a fellow Raleigh-ite (insert requisite shout out to Enloe HS!) who graduated with me from Stanford and is now working at a startup in San Francisco, recently tweeted a very poignant question:

“What’s your most radical belief?”

My friends know that I can be rather loquacious, but it’s been a day since seeing this question and I still don’t know my answer.

My mind finds itself wandering between many lobes. Platitudes or statement of beliefs grounded in political or moral theory? A pithy quote from a favorite thinker, author, or figure? A number of “quasi-conspiracy” theories that I have varying degrees of stock in? A vision of a new product/system/solution that will change the world?

Beliefs are deemed “radical” in the context of the society they emerge from. In some parts of the world, the belief that everyone should be given the opportunity to receive an education would be “radical” enough to warrant violence. In another part of the world, the belief that a wealthy prosperous nation should have the moral decency to provide universal access to essential healthcare is deemed “radical”.

What would be “radical” for me – a product of a two-parent financially stable upper-middle class family with an entirely absent period of adolescent rebellion that has enjoyed the opportunity of a world class graduate education with international experience, surrounded by a widely selfless, encouraging, and loyal network of friends and mentors, and now enjoying a professional career in an affluent liberal city while stereotypically drinking my french-pressed coffee, listening to NPR, reading high brow periodicals, while having the luxury to think and blog about big thoughts like the one I’m writing about right now?

Throughout my life, I have continually self-selected myself to be around like minded peers — whether in school, in my social life, or in my professional life. In such a context…

Am I even capable of having a radical belief?

I remember back in the mid-to-late 1990s, IBM ran a marketing campaign based around the motto “Solutions for a Small Planet.” It was timely because the rapid expansion of the Internet was truly accelerating the shrinking of the world from a business and market opportunity sense, and it seemed to reflect IBM’s pivot away from heavily hardware-based offerings towards business services that were global and expansive in scope. Today, the latest marketing campaign from IBM revolves around the idea of “A Smarter Planet”.

Smarter power. Smarter cities. Smarter traffic. Smart computing. Smarter healthcare.

I find them dynamic. Unabashedly diverse and global. These ads deeply resonate with me. I think “hey, that’s what I want to do!” It makes me excited at the promise the future holds, especially because my experiences over the last couple of years – immersed in a community of entrepreneurs and scholars who are keenly aware of the intersection of technology and society – makes me aware that this indeed is the future. At least, it’s the future we must strive towards if we are to achieve a better planet for ourselves and for our children.

Once again, the push emphasizes again the role that IBM seeks in this new, meta-knowledge economy. A decade of intense development of information technology infrastructure has put elements of our world into play for advances in innovation that was merely a dream 20 years ago. The realization of Moore’s Law, the ubiquity of connectivity, and the software to manage and harness vast amounts of information have made a smarter planet possible, but not a guarantee. It’s up to business, communities, governments, and ultimately ourselves to deliver on its promise.

I don’t have the skills yet to play the role I desire. But I’m learning them. When the opportunity comes, I aim to be ready for it.

This past weekend I was back home in North Carolina for the Indian New Year, Diwali. It was a special family re-union, with Sapana coming in from Chicago and Sachi down from Charleston, because our grandmother Ba was visiting from India. Diwali is known as the ‘Festival of Lights’ because of all lamps that were lit in celebration upon Ram’s triumphant return to Ayodyha after 14 years of exile in the forest. It is symbolically the end of the Indian year, and is traditionally when many businesses end their fiscal year. As you can read, Diwali is a rather special time of year for a lot of Indians. Saturday was Diwali, and due to a quirk in the lunar calendar, new year’s day was actually on Monday.

The visit was wonderful, as expected. I took Friday and Monday off work to make the most of the moment. Mom had all the best food lined up waiting to go, we spent time together as a family, and I got to see some of my closest friends again.

On Saturday the family dressed up in our “Sunday best” and took some family photos. They came out rather nice!

Mother and daughter.

I also took iLife’s PhotoBooth application for a spin with Ba and the family. I must say…I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so excited and happy using a piece of software as PhotoBooth. Tip of the hat to Apple. Check out the goofy pictures here. Some are quite funny, others reveal the true horrors within.

I also took a moment to get Sapana up and running on her actual domain (www.sapanavora.com), after chiding her for not sharing more of her adventures and experiences in Chicago. She showed a photo of her with Jesse Jackson, gorgeous night-time photos of the Chicago skyline, visits to shows and baseball games, and amusing anecdotes about her lab and school. She promises now to be more active in blogging.

I was hoping to visit the State Fair, but weather wasn’t cooperating on Sunday so deep-fried Snickers bar will have to wait at least another year (sorry Eli in Spain). Scary fact: The Economist wrote about deep fried butter at a (Texas) state fair in a recent issue. An ominous sign to be sure, regardless whether it’s about America’s health or The Economist’s editorial oversight.

A quick sports update too: Panthers (surprise) actually won. NC State (no surprise) lost.  It’s been such a futile, spirit-crushing effort to watch this Wolfpack team this year. I blame it squarely on the defense and the receiving corps. Russell Wilson looks to be the only one on offense playing like he wants to win, but he can’t do it alone. He was given great protection by the o-line. The receiving corps were dropping open passes in the season opener, and they are still dropping open passes now. And don’t even get me started on the obscene mediocrity of the defense. It’s an utter disgrace. What’s more maddening about the situation is that Russell Wilson is a baseball player, and he’s the only one on the football team that seems to care! As my friend Mike said: “at the end of each game, the whole team should apologize to Russell Wilson for sucking so much.” Put RW on the bench so we don’t ruin his baseball career with a freak injury. Let’s get Mike Glennon a lot of snaps and start re-building for next year – right now. My roommate Troy must be happy though; his Georgia Tech team persevered over #4 Virginia Tech, and then his Falcons destroyed the 49ers. Chargers are playing the Broncos for Monday Night Football as I type this (on the airplane), and I really hope Philip Rivers can spoil Denver’s perfect season so I can poke fun at my buddy Birschbach. You know how we NC people like to jaw, right Chris?

Update: The Broncos beat the Chargers. Good game, Chris. :)

Last Friday, Apple held a party to celebrate the iPod/iTunes launch, even though it took place a month ago. As Rishabh and I approached the first beer station, I saw Spatan and Weihenstephaner on tap. After spotting Bitburger and Marzen it was easy to see the Oktoberfest theme. Inside Caffe Macs they had bratwurst, pretzels, chocolate cake, apple strudel, etc. Yum.

A live band called M88 from LA was playing in the amphitheater, and we all enjoyed a fine autumn evening on the lawn.

Dan seeks enlightenment at the Infinite Loop….

Sara is cameraphobic, and violently so!

Being so far from home is hard sometimes. It’s easy, isn’t it, to become so pre-occupied on what is going in our own personal lives — the here and now — that we forget there are loved ones still carrying on without us. I don’t think I fully acknowledge the impact of me being away so far for so long.

This song, from an NPR concert in 2007, prompted these thoughts and feelings.

Iron & Wine – Upward Over the Mountain

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Mother don’t worry, I killed the last snake that lived in the creek bed
Mother don’t worry, I’ve got some money I saved for the weekend
Mother remember being so stern with that girl who was with me
Mother remember the blink of an eye when I breathed through your body

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
Sons are like birds flying upwards over the mountain

Mother I made it up from the bruise on the floor of this prison
Mother I lost it all of the fear of the Lord I was given
Mother forget me now that the creek drank the cradle you sang to
Mother forgive me I sold your car for the shoes that I gave you

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
Sons can be birds taken broken up to the mountain

Mother don’t worry I’ve got a coat and some friends on the corner
Mother don’t worry she’s got a garden we’re planting together
Mother remember the night that the dog had her pups in the pantry
Blood on the floor and the fleas in their paws
And you cried ’til the morning

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
Sons are like birds flying always over the mountain

I just can’t comprehend how mothers do it.

It’s astonishing.

On Saturday, it looks like I’ll be spending the day up at the Harding Park golf course in Daly City for the President’s Cup, a PGA event which features a team of top American golfers take on a team of top golfers from the rest of the world. This is all thanks to Melih, who scored tickets from work.

I’ve never attended a golf tournament before, but this sounds like an exciting one to see!

After coming back from our weekly iPod ultimate game, I found Dan in the lab with a new piece of datalogging software. There was one large square button flashing red on the screen.

Me: “What’s that master alarm there?”
Dan: “Well, it’s not a main bus B undervolt.”

I love my colleagues here.

Once again, NPR has proved to be one of the greatest things ever. I spent much of the weekend enjoying several free concert podcasts published by NPR’s All Song’s Considered. Joseph, Dan and I were discussing the lineup for the weekend’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass concert — a huge free weekend concert in Golden Gate Park — and he mentioned a great Iron & Wine concert that came on NPR. One that catches people’s ears who have to even ask “is this really Iron & Wine?” And indeed, it was fantastic.

I heard  two older songs I hadn’t heard much before — Upward Over the Mountain (around the 53:10 minute mark with an amazing jam at around 57:30) and Jezebel (around the 59:50  minute mark). Excited, I found them on albums and felt that the versions I had heard in the concert sounded better (I learned later that these were deliberate reimaginations). I later listened to an NPR concert of Passion Pit, to mixed results. Which of course leads to the question:

Q: Are there bands or musical artists you prefer hearing their studio sound over their live show? Vice versa?

One thing I’ve noticed is that a significant portion of my preferred music has been carefully produced and assembled in the studio in order to get the sound that I like. Others, like Nader especially, prefer the lo-fi taped-in-a-garage-on-a-single-track type sound. That being said, I almost universally prefer the sound of Dave Matthews Band in concert rather than the studio. And I vividly remember while attending a Decemberists concert in Raleigh three years ago, I felt like I was hearing some of the songs for the first time. And I know Sachi and Sapana rave about the live Nickel Creek shows. But even still, as exhilarating it was to see Sigur Rós live, if you talk about pure music quality their studio albums win out. What say you?

One thing I discovered a while back in Word is that you aren’t restricted to using just one page size and orientation in your Word doc. Say, for instance, that you have a chart or table that would look a lot better in landscape mode, but you certainly don’t want to write the rest of your report in landscape mode. Before I learned this technique, I used to just print the chart on a separate Word doc file.

But you can actually change the page size, orientation, and margins from page to page inside a single Word file, like so:

click to enlarge

This doc has a letter landscape mode, letter portrait mode, followed by two tabloid sized (11″ x 17″) portrait pages with small margins for some large Excel charts, then a tabloid landscape mode for another wide chart. To do this, go to the Page Layout tab and insert a Next Page Section Break (this is different than a normal page break). Word lets you divide your doc into different sections that can be independently formatted. Modify your page size and layout, but be sure to close the section by inserting another Next Page Section Break and resume your normal formatting. Note — when using my CutePDF printer it prints the PDF in whatever page size that the doc shows, so it looks fine electronically. I don’t guarantee the same results if you try sending that to a normal paper printer.

Right on cue, fall has arrived in the Bay Area. It was like flipping a switch — almost immediately the tone switched from summer to fall. And with fall, we enter a new season of food!

I spotted a fall-themed potato salad recipe on Mark Bitten’s The Minimalist column in the NY Times. Instead of normal potatoes and lots of mayo, this recipe showcased roasted sweet potatoes, black beans, and a southwest style dressing of lime juice and minced jalapeno and a healthy helping of cilantro.

I’ve actually never cooked with sweet potatoes before, but they are quite nice. Bitten’s recipe showed them being orange-ish on the inside, but mine were more white. But I roasted the cubed sweet potatoes with chopped red onions on a cooking sheet drizzled with some oil, then made the dressing with some olive oil, juice of a few limes, minced jalapenos and garlic, salt + pepper, then mixed all together with chopped bell pepper and a can of black beans.

I combined this with some homemade guacamole (I’m such a sucker for guacamole), and spent the day watching college football with my housemate Troy, who is equally obsessed with college football.

We also had these freakishly large mutant seedless grapes.

These took on a new form of finger food. They’d take two bites to eat. Pretty cool. And red grapes are far superior to green grapes.

The following has been expanded upon and developed from an IM conversation.

Back in late August, as I was preparing for the formal interviews at Apple, I chatted with my friend Melih, who also been thinking some big thoughts recently, as he is profoundly apt to do. He gave me an interview practice question:

“Where do you want to be in 5 years?”

We’ve all heard it before, and I started to take a step back to let the question roll around in my head. After all, this was a confusing time. Freshly minted graduate degree from one of the finest institutions in the world in my hand, an inner understanding that there is so much more to learn about, and torn between career paths and opportunities. So I parried.

“With the way that question is phrased, there is almost an implicit assumption of ‘progress’.”

What does ‘where’ refer to? A position on an org chart? Geographically in the world? Where along in a relationship? Where along in starting a family?  Perhaps its natural for us to figuratively map these factors onto the common progressions of the general order of life, and judge, like horses along a race track.

“It’s interesting — a form of that question is semantically intended to mean one thing, but the question is unintentionally tinted depending on what specific word is used. There’s the common “what do you want to be in 5 years?”, but consider the question “how do you want to be in 5 years?” How might one’s answer change? Or more intriguingly: “why do you want to be in 5 years?”

So I took a shot.

Where do you want to be in 5 years?

• Career — an influential person in a small-ish company, ideally in the greentech sector or similar.
• Location — not sure. Bay Area still? Too early to tell.
• Relationship — Ideally, married. Or at least engaged.
• Family — couple years away? Too early to tell.

What do you want to be in 5 years?

• An entrepreneur or professional engaged in the greentech/cleantech field, ideally.
• A person who gives back — to family, to friends, to the community, to society.

I don’t put words like ’successful’ or ‘respected’ or ‘rich’ here, because if I stay true to my core values, then these will come — and they’ll come from the people that matter to me.

How do you want to be in 5 years?

• Happy during the week, happy on the weekends. Excited at work, excited at home.
• Curious. Without curiosity, the world becomes a boring place.
• Motivated (or is ‘determined’ a better word?). As years go by, one can lose energy or start settling for compromises. Retaining the motivation and determination to continue to improve (at work, at home, at relationships, in society, in the world) is important. I don’t want to lose sight of that.

Why do you want to be in 5 years?

• So I can help the people I care about — hospitality, advice, career, a shoulder to lean on. If I’m gone, I can’t do that.
• To help move the ball forward in solving the problems the world is facing today. Whether it’s technological, political, or social problems; whether it’s in my backyard or halfway around the world. I believe I’m capable of playing a role in these endeavors, and I want to an opportunity to contribute.
• Because if I want to honor everything my family and friends have done for me, I’m going to need a lot more than 5 years!

So there’s my response. Let’s see how these change over the years. Thanks for reading.