Memorial Day Weekend!

I feel bad for not posting more regularly, since I had made a resolution to post to this thing more often. Soooo.....

Thefacebook: Wow. Everyone is transferring and there are SO many emails. I may have to ask for some help or do some other programming to write a script to take care of things. Wow. It's not a bad job though, and some emails are interesting.

MobMov: So Bryan ran two more MobMovs, which I think should now be renamed MobiMovie (thanks Jen) because it rolls off the tongue more easily. Bryan's thinking about it, I hope. We watched The Graduate on Thursday(?) and then American Graffiti on Sunday, with American Graffiti being MobMov's first public debut! American Graffiti was a little hard to follow, I think the drive-in format distracts a bit, which I guess explains why most people don't really go to drive-ins to watch the movie. =) Don't worry though, me and Sanjay behaved during our movie.

Gypsy's: I had an interesting conversation with Heena a couple nights ago, we were talking at Gypsy's Trattoria (which I will sorely miss when I leave Berkeley) about Berkeley Innovation's recycling project and got onto the topic of recycling and the environment. And I again made my proclamation that the environment will be THE political issue of the 2008 presidential election. We talked about the president and then got onto the topic of Supreme Court justices, which I think is the scariest thing for America this presidential term. It would take too long to go into this in detail, but I'm scared that one of the "liberal" justices will die or retire and then Bush will appoint a conservative justice to the bench, possibly altering the status quo on landmark decisions like Roe v. Wade, which was one of the 5-4 decisions (in favor of preserving the right of a woman to have an abortion).

Memorial Day: Heena organized a potluck today and Sanjay and I brought our grillin' power to Memorial Glade today and we had a little tbp get together. I hope I didn't get sunburned.

In other news, I will be moving down to San Diego these next few days, packing a UHaul trialer behind my SUV and putting it all into a Public Storage facility. And I'll get to see Jen! =D

Speaking of identity theft...

Senator Ted Stevens wanted to know just how much the Internet had turned private lives into open books. So the senator, a Republican from Alaska and the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, instructed his staff to steal his identity.

"I regret to say they were successful," the senator reported at a hearing he held last week on data theft.

- Courtesy of The New York Times

So I thought I lost my identity...

When going down to sign papers with thefacebook, I had to bring along my driver's license as well as my social security card for them to make copies. I happily obliged, and after signing, went on with my day, visiting Hanna at Stanford (which is like literally across the street from thefacebook's offices) and shopping at Target before going to dinner with a family friend, before going home. When I got home I realized that I didn't have my social security card and my driver's license, and felt completely stupid. I had some spare time before the dinner, so I decided to clean up my car to free it from the various papers I had amassed, and I could only assume I had thrown my cards away along with the trash, since I recall getting my cards back and putting them in my pocket. I spent hte next day scheduling an appointment at the DMV and filling out the paperwork to get my social security card back, and worrying about identity theft if some bum in Palo Alto (yeah that city is totally over-run with bums, unlike Berkeley) picks up my stuff. A day later, after I apply for a new social security card (which is free, btw), I get an email from thefacebook that we had left my cards in the copier. This once again proves to me that none of us is dumber than all of us (echoing that awesome Teamwork poster from Despair, Inc.). Crisis averted.

Part-time at thefacebook!

I got the job at thefacebook! I just got the email from thefacebook, offering me a spot on their team. I'm really excited because it's a good job to have, and it's good experience, i think, to have some experience working at a startup company. Props to Debbie for hooking it up! I can't wait to start working...I'm supposed to go to Palo Alto next week to sign stuff and get oriented. YAY job! This will definitely help me get through my tough PhD years (which only pays me a modest $21,000 stipend).

Senioritis!

I feel really lethargic today. I guess it's senioritis, but still, it makes me feel gross to sit here and not do productive things. Am I gross? I'm gross, huh? Typically, to get out of this rut, I'll just dive into something and start working, and I think i've decided that that something is going to be this blog, which I still haven't made decisions about yet. I may in fact scrap blogger, and use the nifty blog package that Bryan uses, because it has some nifty features not available here.

I'll stick with this one for a bit though and see how it works out. The following were possible angles my blog could take.

- Moblog - Use Flicker to upload pics from my cell phone for everyday shots and integrate that into daily stories about random stuff. Can't promise the most exciting of days though.
- News commentaries - I know there are a bunch out there already, but I am a pretty avid reader of the NYTimes and I usually find some good stories that are worthwhile reads.
- Thought column - I have my idea repository posted elsewhere on blogger, but myabe it should just be integrated into my main blog.
- I kind of want to also have a general "news about me" section, so that people who don't check the blog that often can just catch up on the basics of what's going on in my life. "Life news" or something like that.
- I'd also like a future adventure section or something that tells people about an upcoming adventure, i dunno.
- Do you think I could make money on the internet selling naked pictures of myself?

OK bye.

Paul Graham talk

Here's a link to a transcript of an interesting talk I attended last week. Paul Graham spoke to an audience of undergraduate computer science majors about how the trend in hiring is moving away from traditional recruiting, and more towards purchasing startup companies or entire teams of people. He argues that it's win-win for both parties because the employees get paid more, and the company gets a close-knit team that is already excited about working on the project. It's an intriguing idea, and definitely one that has altered how I think about starting up a company.

http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html

Feeling blah...

I dunno...lately I have felt a sort of lackadaisical attitude towards everything. I guess it could be senioritis...but whatever. I guess I'll just relax and kick back until things pick up this summer. I'm really excited by the way. I've started to pick up Jono's books, and the techniques look really intriguing. For some reason when I think of Jono, I start thinking with a British accent. Yes, I also find it quite odd.

Jen also suggested I work with Geert Schmidt-Schoenbein when I go to San Diego, who does research I'm genuinely interested in on inflammation...more on that later!