What the Buzz?

Is there room for me on the Google Buzz bandwagon?

I don't know what Google is trying to do with this new service, as Buzz fundamentally doesn't add any new value to Google's other services - the 'sharing' aspect has already been there for awhile with Google Reader, and the only really 'new' feature is it allows you to comment on other's Gmail status messages (a la Facebook). Even the feature to add notes or share a link has been available, although rarely used, on Reader.

There has been a lot of hoopla about Google trying to take traffic away from both Facebook and Twitter with Buzz, but I think that this interpretation is misguided.

While Facebook and Twitter are 'loose' social networks (Facebook is great because it lets you 're-connect' - however that's defined - with long-lost high school and college friends; Twitter is even better because you can 'follow' celebrities and other people you will never meet in real-life), Google Buzz is attempting to create a 'tighter' online social network where your 'friends' are those you already interact with via Gmail contacts.

If anything, Buzz should drive more traffic to Reader rather than away from either Facebook or Twitter. The interface for each Google Buzz post is identical to Reader, and most of the sharing seems to be done from there.

Obviously, as a new service, there's still a lot to be desired and many features that most users don't know about. For example, while writing this post, I found out that you can click on a user's name and see all the buzz they've created(?)! Pretty nice feature, and one that's needed if people want to expand their network beyond their Gmail contacts.

It'll be fun to see how Buzz fares in the near future. Unlike Wave, which people could easily forget about since there were no email notifications, Buzz will at least stay in the minds of users since they'll see a link every time they check their email.

Entering the Lion's Den

Obama's State of the Union speech this week had moments that were reminiscent of his 2008 campaign. He had that same fiery tone and determination, and used history as a great motivator for why we must act. If you listened to the media, his campaign and the Democratic party was in trouble. Obama's poll numbers have definitely dropped since he took office, but the decline was more a reflection of reality than any failures on his part.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Obama is at his best when he delivers a live prepared speech directly to the American people. This is not to say he's only a good speaker or that he's all talk and no action. Speeches give him a platform to present his vision unfiltered from the media. His State of the Union was a great example of him portraying his perspective of the past year. He did a great job of mixing new policy initiatives with a fiery inspirational beginning and end.

Past presidents have put a positive spin on bad years ("The State of the Union is strong" when it was anything but), but Obama from the very beginning of his speech never once tried to pretend things were good. He laid out the facts and basically put the ball in Congress' court to get things done. He specifically went after the Republicans, challenging them to come up with practical alternatives instead of just voting down every single Democratic proposal.

Which brings us to the video in this post. I remember him saying he'd meet with the Republican caucus, but it seems that engaging with them in an outright Q&A is about as ballsy as dissing the Supreme Court when they're a few feet away (which he did on Wednesday!).

Many people expect the economy to take a turn for the better in the early part of this year. If that happens, Obama will have a lot more leverage to get some things done and the Democrats may even win some more seats in Congress.

It's interesting that after a full year of Obama's presidency, we still don't really know how it will turn out. He's trying to make decisions that won't see results until the next generation, but he was elected in a generation that uses Facebook, YouTube and text messaging - a generation that demands instantaneous gratification and instant results.

Let the madness begin

I've been helping my parents a bit with the planning for my sister's wedding.

The first big task (after getting over the shock/realization of how much you have to spend to host a somewhat decent event) was to find a venue.

It's pretty interesting to see the wide range of venues available. We saw everything from a small hall inside an office building off the side of the highway to a massive 600-person ballroom. As with most things, you have to look around a bit to see how you can spend money in the best way. It's even more true for weddings though, as the unit of currency seems to be $1000. One venue even charged $800 if you wanted a dance floor! She claimed that presidents had danced on it (but she was also kinda crazy - who shows the bathrooms as the first thing?!?)

My sister came last weekend from New York to see the venues in person. I think we ended up seeing something like 9 venues on Sunday as part of a whirlwind weekend. We drove from DC to NYC on Friday night to meet the groom's parents on Saturday, and then came right back from NYC to DC on Saturday night in time for dinner! I felt like I had jet lag for a good part of Sunday.

We finally settled on this nice, house-like manor just outside of town. It's far enough away to feel like you're on a farm in the middle of nowhere, but close enough to the outlet malls and IHOP to know that you're not. Not sure how I gave off this vibe, but the salesperson at the manor thought I was the groom the entire time! He seemed to be making more eye contact with me than with my sister or parents! And sadly, this wasn't the first venue where that happened.

When work meets real life

I'm used to working for companies whose products never see the light of day. Products whose ideas are great, but the company itself has very little direction or focus and so customers are few and far between.

It's been an interesting transition to work for a company where the product not only matters, but is an important part of people's lives. In a nutshell, one of our main products is the pivotal component used by a major telecommunications carrier for routing all SMS/MMS (picture messages).

So, an interesting thing happened at work today. We received a customer complaint from a small telecom provider that "close to 100% of their queries failed in the first hour of January 1."

Yup, you guessed it. All those texts/picture messages that everyone sends at exactly midnight on New Year's caused our application to stop working for other customers since the traffic was so high for the major telecom company. We're still trying to figure out (from an application/infrastructure point of view) what exactly happened, but the increased traffic is something we've never seen (at least not to that degree). Personally, I'm surprised that the application didn't crash.

Seoul!

I tagged along with my parents earlier this month to South Korea. My dad had a business trip to work with the military base there in helping the US withdraw forces by 2011 (here's to us being in Iraq and Afghanistan 'til 2050!).

If it sounds like a random, spontaneous trip, it definitely was. But how often do you get a chance to go to Seoul? It doesn't exactly make the list of vacation destinations.

Since my dad had to work during the week, it was up to my mom and me to figure out where to go and what to do during the day. Day 1 was spent wandering around the various palaces in the cities. I'm used to indoor palaces where it's warm and there's nice furniture and wall/ceiling decorations. In Seoul, palaces are mostly outdoor courtyards where you have to walk a bunch to the few indoor buildings only to find that they're completely empty!

Day 2 was Olympic day. We had originally planned to see the Olympic stuff in the morning and then something else in the afternoon, but we went the wrong way (3 or 4 times!) on the subway and then still got off at the wrong stop (you would think the main entrance to Olympic Park would be at the Olympic Park subway stop, but you'd be wrong) so it ended up taking the entire day. The park is actually really nice since they have sculptures scattered throughout, and I'm sure it's a great place to take a walk in the summer. However, when it's 20 degrees out and windy, and you have no idea where you are, and there's no one who can guide you, it's not so pleasant.

The next few days were spent wandering around the various markets. I'm not sure anything could have prepared me for the huge number of stores. Everywhere we went, there were literally thousands of small stores (most the size of an office cubicle) just packed with stuff. There would be one store dedicated to buttons. Stacks and stacks, and rows and rows of just buttons. Your could probably find every kind of button imaginable in that one store.

I think the most interesting specialty product was fabric. Here we have fabric stores. There, they had 3 or 4 floors of small, cubicle-sized stores all selling fabric. I don't know how people buy anything there. First, you have to pick one out of a thousand stores. Then, from that store, you need to pick one of 10,000 possible fabrics! I also think there was some understood system there about how to buy the fabric because we saw a bunch of teenage girls running around with these small notebooks with samples of fabrics. They seemed to be going to each store and collecting samples or something.

I thought the variety here was ridiculous. The amount of variety and choice available there gave me a headache.

Overall, the places we went to were very modern/Western. In fact, we only found a few stores that sold "traditional" Korean souvenirs/crafts. If it wasn't so clean and everyone wasn't so friendly, I would have thought we were still in America! Well, besides the fact that nothing was written in English, of course.

So, despite the fact that it was freezing cold, hardly anyone spoke English, and it was really hard to find vegetarian food, we had a great time!

TWoods

The whole Tiger Woods saga has completely shattered my world view.

The fascination stems mostly from what's not being said, and the fact that it's really people's imaginations creating the story.

This was a guy who people said could run for president. His public persona was one of an upstanding citizen who worked hard for everything he did, had a beautiful wife and kids, and was living a great life. I'm not sure if that whole image was one that he carefully managed or if this was the result of a great PR campaign, but either way, it was one that was held by a large majority of the public.

Stories like this make you step back and wonder how many other celebrities are guilty of projecting a public image that is very different (and in some cases, completely contradictory) to their own private lives.

Radio Recorder

There needs to be something similar to a DVR for the radio.

If you hear a song you like, you could press a 'record' button and it would store the rest of the song on a hard drive in mp3 format.

You saw it here first. Just like the light on a pen that I invented back in the 5th grade, and then was in a mall 10 years later.

Halloween Weekend

To get in the mood for Halloween, I saw Paranormal Activity on Friday night with a couple of friends. I had heard mixed things, ranging from the scariest movie ever to not scary at all.

Overall, I would say it had its moments with a pretty scary ending, but it was more psychological thriller than straight-up horror film. It was also a very well-made movie - great character development with good pacing of the storyline. The entire movie takes place in the house, and we only meet 4 characters. I don't know a ton about film and movie-making, but I think it's a great example of how to make a good film.

I searched online afterward, and I have to say that some of the "alternate endings" sound a lot better than the one they went with.

On Saturday, after the UT game (we're #2 now!), a friend and I headed to DC for Halloween fun. Our first choice had a ridiculous line around the corner, so we quickly needed to come up with a plan B. Our plan B place is usually really chill and never has a line. Not sure why (maybe since it was Halloween?), but there was a line there too!

Oh, and on the way to plan B, we went to this other bar that seemed a lot less crowded than every other place so we decided to check it out. Yeah, we quickly figured out why. Not only was it pretty crowded inside, but I got a full bottle of beer spilled on me within 2 minutes of walking around inside. Disgusting.

We finally ended up at another place that had a rooftop bar. This sounds a lot better than it was, especially since it was raining on and off, and we spent a good part of the (rest of the) night trying to huddle under the umbrellas. My friend said that it's usually a packed line to get to the rooftop, and I can see why there was no line now.

For costumes, there were a number of cereal killers (why was that popular this year?), a few Lady Gagas, a few variations of H1N1/swine flu, a couple of people from the Hangover, and a Billy Mays. We also saw a guy wrapped completely in bubble wrap. Not sure who he was supposed to be, maybe the bubble boy?

Lying

I've made an interesting self-observation at work this week.

I'm a terrible liar.

Not in the sense that I can't lie when I need to, because I'm pretty sure I could if the situation called for it. I mean that if someone asks me a question, I'm incredibly honest, almost to a fault.

I've noticed that others tend to "massage the truth," either to lessen the impact of negative news or for self-preservation. Well, that's not me. If someone made a mistake, even if it's me, I'll say it - even if others would rather go with the "we were being conservative" explanation.

I'm not sure if being able to lie more effectively is something that comes with more experience or if it's a personality thing, but my guess is that it's the latter since I have been told numerous times that I need to get better at lying (by my parents, no less!).

Cubes in the Kitchen!

Apparently, there's no more empty cubes left in our building, but we have contractors coming in next week from India and they have no place to sit.

So where to put the new cubes? The kitchen, of course!

Well, not the kitchen, but the break room. So when people are warming up their food or taking a coffee break, or even having lunch at one of the tables, there will be people trying to work just a few feet away. One of the cubes is not even 5 feet away from the TV which is on all day.

I do not envy them. They probably have no idea of their working conditions.

US Open

I've been watching a lot of tennis lately. Usually, I only watch the last weekend, with the men's and womens's semifinals/finals, but this year I started watching since the beginning.

This year's tournament has been really interesting, since a lot of the big names have already fallen - Roddick, Venus Williams, Murray, Sharapova, etc. It will be fun to see who the next crop of tennis players are in a few years after Federer and Nadal have slipped a bit.

I think tennis is one of the more dramatic and fascinating sports because there's no team to help you out. It is just you out there on the court, and you can either sink or swim. Since it's a 3 or 5 set match, it also forces you to play and makes the winner prove that they have both the stamina and skill to beat the other person consistently.

There have already been some great matches, and I'm sure the quality of play will just go up as we move on. Sucks that there aren't any Americans left on the men's side though. It's not looking great for the American wonderchild Oudin either.

OMG

There's no greater motivation to learn something than when you are forced to learn it. Sink or swim.

The main technical lead on our project has been on vacay for the past three weeks, and because the stars have lined up in a particular way, I'm the next most knowledgeable person. Everyone has been asking me all these questions about how things work and why they work the way they do.

I know some of the answers, but for most of them, I just give my best guess. Hope I'm right!

Luckily, he gets back on Monday so maybe I can get some work done again.

Wedding Fun

I went to a wedding this past weekend in Chapel Hill, NC. I already knew I wouldn't know anyone there (I hadn't seen or spoken to the bride since I was five, and we were on the bride's side!), so the main highlight for me was just going to be seeing the state - Duke, UNC, etc.

The Duke campus was pretty amazing. It was huge - we must have walked 2 miles and I think we only saw a small percentage of the overall campus. The architecture was also beautiful and unique. I can only imagine what it would have been like to go there for undergrad. I guess there's always an MBA, eh?

I actually liked how the couple did their whole wedding. It was a nice hybrid of American and Indian ceremonies - from the "we are gathered here" to the rounds around the fire. My dad commented that an Indian priest would never have conducted the ceremony since it didn't conform to the Indian traditions, but I think it's really admirable that the couple took the parts from each culture and modified it to fit their own vision of a marriage. At the end, it's all about your relationship and how you want your marriage to begin, right?

Most of the toasts were really, really good. As I said at the beginning, I didn't know either the bride or the groom, but based on the toasts, these people sounded awesome! Have you ever noticed that funerals and weddings are the two events where the people are portrayed as practically perfect?

I met a guy there who had the exact same name as me, except he spelled his name with an 'i' instead of two 'e's. I hung out with him after the reception when he met up with some of his high school friends. I'm not a huge fan of someone else having the same name as me, but at least he's pretty cool. His friends were all really nice and laid back too, and it was pretty fun to see another side of North Carolina, or the 919 as I like to call it.

Bribe?

Is it normal for the federal government to outright bribe citizens to buy things?

I'm specifically referring to the 'cash for clunkers' program and the $8,000 tax refund for new homeowners.

It's a tricky situation to get people motivated and confident to buy again, but using outright cold hard cash to get them in the door?

Brief Update

It's been awhile!

This is the second week in my condo. I have the most amazing view (if I got a telescope, I could see right into the penthouse of the Hyatt across the street!), and have way more space than I need. I also love my shower - it feels like the kind of shower you get in the fanciest of hotels. My kitchen is also pretty spacious, and now that the garbage disposal is fixed, I'll be using that more often too.

Also, how sad is it that I can't figure out how to set up a wireless network using a Mac? I've followed the steps in a lot of online forums, but so far, nothing.

All in all, I've spent way more money this year than I thought I would. I easily could have settled for a practical car and a practical condo, but where's the fun in that?

Oh, and just because I bought a condo doesn't mean I'm getting married any time soon. Not sure why every Indian co-worker equates the two.

More about MJ

I'm still fascinated by the media coverage of MJ's death.

The memorial service will be on Tuesday at Staples Center. I called that right after they said it couldn't be at Neverland (not entirely sure why not). But going there will never be the same.

I think it would be a little creepy going to a Lakers or Clippers game there after a memorial service was held there. It would be a little like seeing any sporting event at the Superdome after Katrina.

According to the news, 500 million people tried to hit the website (and brought it down) to get tickets for the memorial service. Is that number right? That's the equivalent of every single person in the United States plus the entire population of Brazil. That's insane. If that's true, I could see the crowd in LA either equaling or surpassing the number of people at Obama's inauguration.

There's some people who are saying that they should stop the media coverage and let him rest in peace. I disagree. I think he would have loved everything that's going on and would thoroughly enjoy the attention.

MJ

Michael Jackson died last Thursday.

It sounds like he went peacefully and anti-climatically, but the by the amount of media coverage and drama, you'd never know it.

I find it fascinating how varied the reports are of his health before he died. One report will say he was incredibly healthy with so much energy, and another will say he was a walking corpse. One will insist he inhaled a few bottles of pills a day, and a fourth says he never took a drug in his life.

The truth is probably somewhere in between, given that he passed a four-hour physical earlier in the year, but clearly had to have some sort of powerful drug injected that would cause death.

I'm not sure how all this will play out, but I think it would have been fun to grow up when he really hit it big. We'll probably never see another celebrity break down barriers and dominate the world the way he did, and it would have been interesting to live that experience.

Wacky Weekend!

Well, it wasn't really wacky, but it made for a good headline, no?

It was pretty busy though. I went into DC on Friday night to meet a friend for drinks. I promised myself I wouldn't drink that much since I had to go to Delaware to visit another friend the next morning, but these promises are rarely kept.

I was supposed to leave at 10 on Saturday, but ended up leaving closer to 11:30. I must say that the drive was much, much nicer in my new car. It was way smoother and more comfortable and the time went by pretty quickly. Plus, it's nice to have a reliable CD player again.

Delaware was fun too. Obviously, no one goes to that state for touristy things, but my friend is moving to Colorado so I wanted to visit him one last time. We had debated whether he should come to DC or I should go up there, and I said that there would rarely be other opportunities to visit good ol' Delaware.

It turns out there are some nice places to visit, and I think once the monsoon season calms down, it would be fun to go back and see some of the natural places.

The Dupont family also apparently owns a good part of the state, and we went to see one of their estates. One of the Duponts clearly had no interest in furthering the family business, so he decided to start collecting American furniture. He built an extension to the house just to house whatever new pieces he found. There were literally rooms in the house that were just to hold furniture. Ridiculous.

After touring the estate, we ate at a funky little restaurant on the main street. It would have been nice to stay a night in Delaware just to see what the bars are like, but I again had plans the next morning - more on that later. I was good this time though, and didn't have anythign to drink at dinner.

So I got home at around 9pm, and the next morning - well at 1am, we had a fucking install for our new product at work. The timing was insane. I can understand if we had customers beating down the door to try our new product, but as of today, I still don't think anyone has tried to use it. It took us until 9am to finish, and then we had another session at 7pm to fix an issue that was discovered in the morning. Not a fun day.

Looking back, maybe it was a pretty wacky weekend.

Movies!

Summer may be my favorite time of year. I don't think I appreciated it as much in Texas, since it was pretty much hot year-round.

However, up here, there is a noticeable difference in temperature, and summer is the one reliable season where you can go out in t-shirts and flip-flops.

Summer is also great because of all the awesome movies. So far, I've seen Up and The Hangover. Completely different genres, but both were great movies. I was really surprised that for Up in 3D you still need to wear the cheesy glasses. You'd think with all the great technological innovations, you wouldn't need the glasses any more.

I'm looking forward to Year One and Bruno also. I've been a bit disappointed with the previews for Year One, but figure with such a funny cast, it has to be good. They also had a preview for Bruno before The Hangover and it looks just as hysterical/politically-incorrect as Borat (if not more so).

Drunk Tank

The drunk tank (aka any Metro ride from DC back to the 'burbs from like 12am - 3am) is by far the highlight of any night out in DC.

Last night, there were people racing down an escalator going the opposite way, a guy telling another to "meet me.. fucking wherever", and a group of guys who I'm pretty sure caused a girl to get off earlier than her actual stop.

Obviously, it's also luck of the draw depending on which car you're in. Sometimes there will just be a bunch of passed out people, but if you're lucky you'll get at least a few rowdy people who make the trip quite entertaining.