So I was going to write a long post, nay, multiple long posts about my new job, moving to San Francisco, how cool my new place is, how much I love living here, etc, etc, etc. You know, the usual stuff from someone who moves from suburbia of South Bay to the coolest city in the country. But I'll save you the grief of reading through that and summarize:

1. My new job (at Outspark) is cool. I get to build platforms to support games that we publish and all these games include some type of social interaction. So, Web 2.0 + games = profit!


2. Our first game — Fiesta — is blazing through our target demographic like Homer Simpson through week-old donut bucket behind Kwik-E-Mart.


3. San Francisco rocks. You should try living here at least once.


4. On second thought, no, don't try living here, it's crowded and expensive enough as-is. You can visit, but if you do, please, never, ever call it San Fran. Or SF. Or, heaven forbid, Frisco. The locals call it "the city", but for you it's San Francisco. St. Francis of Assisi, mkay? Welcome.


5. You should vote for my submission to the Passport theme photo contest at JPG Mag. Really. All the cool kids are doing it.

Let's move on to the real topic. Even before I moved to the city, I kept hearing that the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market is something to be experienced. So this past weekend, I got up early enough (yes, 10 am, I blame my co-workers for the previous night) and went to "experience" it. My place is just over a mile from the Ferry Building and it's a very nice walk along Embarcadero and all the piers. Just beautiful, especially on a cool, breezy morning.

The market itself is outside, along the front of the building, but most of it is on the rear plaza overlooking the Bay. Walking through it is enough to make you salivate: fresh vegetables piled high on the tables, golden honey glistening under the sun, heirloom tomatoes showing their multi-hued juiciness to the public. I saw a stall that sold not fewer than 6 different types of pluot. I tasted (and bought) Snow Giant white peaches that were so sweet and tender that you don't even have to chew them. I lost count of the word "organic" written on the product signs. And if you tire or get hungry, like I did, just walk to one of the food stalls on the south side, get yourself a nice California-style omelet, salad, or sandwich, and enjoy it while sitting by the water and thinking how awesome this place is.

Still with me? Good, it's not over yet. There's also the Ferry Building itself, which I can unabashedly and without slightest exaggeration call "foodie heaven". From Cowgirl Creamery, making dozens of varieties of cheeses and creams, to I Preferiti di Boriana, giving you a taste of Tuscany, to Recchiuti Confections, that looks nothing more like Apple Store, but for chocolates. And then there is Tsar Nicoulai Caviar Cafe, which surprised even me with their selection. Plus, there are restaurants, cafes, wine shop, gelateria, and even a bookshop, to complete the picture. Quite awesome, to sum it up, and a great place to spend a few hours. Or a day. And a bunch of your money. The only other place I've seen anything like it is Paris.

Granted, Mountain View Farmers Market is quite good and is cheaper. But then, it is in Mountain View.

So if you do visit San Francisco — or if you live here, but haven't bothered to visit the market — do yourself a favor and get over to Ferry Building on a nice Saturday morning. You won't regret it.

7777

Accidentally looked at the title bar of Mail.app after hitting Send today and noticed that I've sent 7777 messages since January 1, 2004. Lucky sevens!

In the previous post I mentioned that Outspark publishes casual online MMORPG games. The first upcoming game is called Fiesta, and it's a new, 3D cartoon style game with simple gameplay and rich graphics. It's also free to download and play. You can check out a Flash video with demo of the gameplay on the front page of the Outspark site. Closed beta will be launching soon, so go and register for it.

Before starting at Outspark I wanted to take a break between jobs, in order go on vacation, decompress, refresh, and come back ready to tackle any challenges. Since this is a start-up, my manager asked me if I could be here for a couple of weeks to help things along and I agreed. My time here so far has been busy with getting settled in, preparing platform code for the beta, and familiarizing myself with the commuting routine. This coming Sunday, however, I will be going on my trip.

It took me a while to figure out what exactly I wanted to do on this break. I considered doing another Contiki tour, but couldn't really find any tours in the summer that looked interesting. I also thought about going to Japan or Iceland, two destinations that are the top of my list, but they are fairly expensive and I would not have enough time to prepare for them. Then I finally asked myself: where could I go to see new places, chill out, take photos, and be fairly cut off from any sort of communications. And the answer was: South Pacific. I did some searching and found that Air New Zealand had a special ticket for going from Los Angeles to Rarotonga, Cook Islands, onto Fiji, and back to Los Angeles, which sounded perfect. I could do scuba diving certification, hang out on the beach, go snorkeling, party it up, or just lie in hammock and snooze. So I booked it promptly. I'll be staying at budget resorts, such as Vara's on Rarotonga and Beachouse on Fiji. No Internet, no TV, no cell phone, no newspapers. I'll bring along iPod Nano, my camera, a few books, and maybe playing cards. Should be fun enough socializing with other guests and doing all the stuff that sun-filled islands have to offer.

See you soon.

This past Friday was my last day at Yahoo!.

I went digging through the archives for a post from the previous time I switched jobs, and the only one I could find was written after I already started at Yahoo!. Nothing from before even hinting that I was job hunting. Perhaps secrecy is a necessary part of this process. At least this time I did drop some clues that I was leaving soon.

In any case, my time at Yahoo! has ended, and suffice it to say that it was a great time. I've made a lot of friends, did good work, grown professionally and as a person, and was able to contribute to reaching out to millions of people who use the Yahoo! services. So where am I going next?

I have joined a small start-up in San Francisco called Outspark. Outspark publishes casual online MMORPG games based on a common technology platform. The first game will be hitting closed beta soon, so you should go sign up for it.

Why did I decide to make the switch? Life at Yahoo! was definitely good, but without going into too much detail, I simply wanted to find new, interesting, and challenging work in a somewhat different domain from what I've been doing, and I wanted to live in San Francisco. Besides, I know a few people in the company already, some of which are my good friends, so it's bound to be a great environment.

My joining Outspark does not mean that I will stop work on PHP 6 or related projects. It does mean, however, that I will not necessarily be paid to spend substantial amount of time on it. But then again, I wasn't being paid to work on it before joining at Yahoo!.

I'll be moving to San Francisco sometime in July, fully planning to enjoy the entirety of that fantastic city.

And so, it begins.

Hello and Happy New 2007 to everyone! I have just returned from a trip to Portland, Oregon, where I visited some friends and spent New Year's Eve skiing at Mt. Hood's Skibowl (it's been a year since I first gave skiing a try). Some other highlights of the trip included good food and drinks at such places as Pix Patisserie, Brazil Grill, and Andina, a couple of loooong visits to Powell's City of Books, and ringing in the new year at a huge house party that must have had around a hundred people.

Tomorrow, the work resumes. I feel bad about not getting the Unicode preview release of PHP 6 out before the end of the year, but there was one crucial piece still missing and having a release without it did not make sense. But rest assured, we are very, very close and I anticipate making the release in the next week or two once we have this piece integrated and all the details ironed out.

I must again confess how much I love Powell's: it is truly a bibliophile's dream. Its 1+ million new and used books are organized by the staff with care and evident love and one could get lost amidst its twelve foot high shelves for a whole day. I also had a chance to visit the Rare Books room and flip through the first edition of The Fellowship of the Rings ($1000) and an 1805 printing of a large format Latin dictionary ($1200 for 4 volume set). Too bad they didn't have Newton's Principia at the time.

I decided that I would buy only used books on this trip, to avoid carrying back something I can purchase new anywhere. What did I come away with after hours of browsing and a few cups of coffee? 12 books for a total cost of $101.19.

• The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention by Guy Deutscher
• Mouse or Rat? by Umberto Eco
• A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths
• Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley
• The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman
• How to Dunk a Doughnut: The Science of Everyday Life by Len Fisher
• The Design of Everyday Things by David A. Norman
• The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry by Mario Livio
• Novelties & Souvenirs: Collected Short Fiction by John Crowley
• Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions by Neil Gaiman

• Artifact by Gregory Benford
• What Do You Know? Volume 2: The All-New Test of Common (And Not So Common) Knowledge by Jaime O'Neill

I have not posted lately, mostly because I had been busy with the phonemic analysis paper for my phonology class. Having turned that in last Thursday, I have to say that, in retrospect, I should probably have picked a language that is phonetically simpler than Danish (like Hawaiian). In any case, thanks go to Rasmus for help with the paper. I think I can finally pronounce a basic word like rød without making Danes collapse in weeping paroxysms of laughter.

Having wished for a good illustration of RAID principles, I believe this one fits the bill rather nicely. :)

And finally, I'll be turning 29 on Wednesday. Time to open the bubbly and celebrate.

I am not a violent man. I'd much rather sip a latte in a café than engage in broken bottle bar fights. But exchanges like the following make me want to use the Chinese water torture (or vice grips) on the designers of said systems:

Andrei is calling Comcast to change some services. 1-800-COMCAST.

Phone Voice: Thank you for calling COMCAST. Please enter the telephone number including area code for where you have or want service.
Andrei: (enters the phone number)
Phone Voice: For English press 1, para español oprima el dos.
Andrei: (dutifully selects 1 as he doesn't know Spanish)
The phone system waits for an inordinate amount of time all the making sounds like someone trying to quitely pass a kidney stone.
Phone Voice: (cheerfully) To continue this call in English press 1, para español oprima el dos.
Andrei: (jamming finger into 1 again)
The phone system passes another, but smaller, kidney stone.
Phone Voice: Please enter the phone number of your account.
Andrei: the hell ? (enters phone number again)
Phone Voice: I will connect you to the customer service representative now.

CSR comes on line.

CSR: How can I help you?
Andrei: I need to change some of my services. (but really wanting to say "by fixing your damn phone menu")
CSR: Can I have your phone number please?
Andrei: (head explodes)

Yahoo! has an internal mailing list that started off as a way for employees to buy from and sell things to fellow coworkers. However, over the years it has evolved into a much more diverse tool used for recommendations, rides, advice, offers of services, and general venting and ranting. People even try to sell their houses on it.

Being in a mischievous mood on a slow Friday, I decided to see exactly what one could get away with:

My goal was to make it just plausible enough for people to wonder whether I had a real bulldozer or was simply looking for laughs. Apparently, I made it too authentic, because in about 15 minutes I got a reply from someone (let's call them Bob):

By this time other replies were rolling in: commenting on the hilarity and absurdity of the ad, offering submarines and space stations for sale in paltry imitation, and complaining about list pollution (losers). I noticed that Bob posted his own ad for a tricked-out RV, which coincidentally was priced at $22,000 as well.

And soon:

Just to mess with their minds a little more, that afternoon I sent another email to the list:

One of the replies:

Indeed.

I got home after work and noticed the red message light blinking on the house phone. The voicemail was from UPS, "Please call us, we think we might have a package for you". How tentative, I thought. The call went something like this:

Andrei: "I got a message that you might have a package for me?"
UPSer: "Yes, we have one with half of its label torn off. It's addressed to your street and apartment number, but we have no building number. Are you expecting a package?"
Andrei: (trying to recall) "Maybe. Where is it from?"
UPSer: "New England."
Andrei: (boggles) "New England? Can you be more specific?"
UPSer: "No, that's all it says: NE."
Andrei: (wishing one could smack people over the phone) "Yes, it's mine."

I was in fact expecting a package. From Nebraska. Clearly UPS has superior training for its associates.