About a month ago, I experienced very sore and easily fatigued legs as well as severe pain in my quads, hips and lower back, especially when trying to sit down or get back up (one of these lift chairs would have been amazingly helpful)– but the symptoms had gone away after a few days, so I attributed it to simply being tired/burnt out, stressed, and in need of some serious rest in the short term and some serious exercise and getting back into shape in the long term. Unfortunately, by the beginning of Christmas week– right after my office finally closed for the winter closure/break and I started a two-week vacation– my entire body was aching (on any of the commonly used pain scales, approximately 5/10 at best, 10/10 at worst), like it would the day after doing a hundred squat thrusts or lunges with weights in each hand (which of course I hadn’t done). I wasn’t able to do much for days (didn’t even sufficiently proofread my tweet!) and I simply sat or lay down with a heating pad, hoping that plus some rest would clear things up. But things only got worse: I could barely sit down or stand back up without being in excruciating pain (imagine how challenging going to the bathroom becomes at that point, especially for us women folk) and in addition to the pain, I started to experience not just simple fatigue, but actual muscle weakness. By Wednesday morning, I was having trouble getting out of bed (literally– not “I feel sad and don’t feel like getting out of bed,” but more like “I can’t get out of bed because I can’t actually move parts of my body and moving the parts I can causes intense pain) and getting dressed, the pain and weakness having spread by then to my arms and back. I had already contacted my primary care physician, trying to determine if this was more serious than just being tired, stressed and out of shape, and I was supposed to go in on Thursday afternoon to see her, but by late Wednesday night, partial paralysis had already set in.

Nature’s call woke me up at about 2 am on Wednesday (technically, Thursday) night; partial paralysis had set in and I found myself unable to get myself out of bed. I could barely move my arms and legs, much less push myself up and out of bed. I had left the heat set a little too high, so I not only had to go to the bathroom, but I was already starting to overheat. I couldn’t even move my legs enough to get out from under the covers, my legs becoming more entangled in the sheets with every pathetic kick, or move my arms enough to somehow pull the covers back. Panic started to set in as I struggled more and more, my now tangled legs adding to the feeling of being trapped, my normally featherweight duvet feeling like a weighted net holding me down, and each miserable movement only making it warmer and more agonizing in the trap that my bed had become. For those of you who know me relatively well, you know I’m no stranger to pain or nausea or illness in general: I have regularly suffered through days, weeks, maybe even months of constant headache/migraine pain, nausea and vomiting. I have woken up in the middle of an endoscopy to see the inside of my own stomach on the screen, had multiple bad drug interactions, from painful dystonic reactions to full-blown pancreatitis and liver inflammation, and found myself crawling to the kitchen because my back hurt so much. But I have never experienced such severe muscle weakness or paralysis of any kind and that feeling of such sudden helplessness is one of the scariest things I have ever experienced. I remembered a college classmate of mine who became paralyzed after contracting the Epstein-Barr virus– very athletic, he was a healthy high school student whose legs suddenly gave out from under him and hours later, they were paralyzed. I didn’t think it was nearly that bad, but I couldn’t help but remember his story.

I tried to calm down and assess the situation. I’ve been through enough neurological exams to do a few tests on my own and found that I could at least wiggle my fingers and toes, weakly twitch muscles over most of my body, and still feel things along my skin, so I knew I wasn’t completely paralyzed and just tried to focus on what to do. I struggled for nearly half an hour, trying to get out of bed enough to call 911 (and for some reason, the 911 operator kind of gave me a hard time because my cell phone number and location weren’t showing up correctly, but I digress…). Once the paramedics/ambulance were on their way, somehow, I managed to get some pants on (forget about any vanity– couldn’t lift my arms even to shoulder height, much less hold them up, so bed head ponytail and glasses had to do) and amazingly, once I was standing, I could actually walk, albeit awkwardly and stilted like a zombie (“traditional” zombie pace, not superfast like the crazed zombies of recent cinematic fame). I unlocked my apartment door (thank God for front door buzzers) and leaned against the wall, waiting for help. Once they got to my apartment, the paramedics wanted to sit me back down again to check me out while waiting for the actual ambulance, but I told them, “If I sit down, I won’t be able to get back up.” This wouldn’t normally be a big deal, but they hadn’t brought up a gurney/stretcher since it’s difficult (but not impossible) to fit one in my building’s elevator (not sure why I’ve never seen paramedics/EMTs out here use one of those stretchers that folds up more like a wheelchair, with the patient strapped in– the paramedics used that years ago with my father to navigate slightly narrow stairs at our old house). However, since I could still kind of walk, I just said “forget it, let’s just try walking” and we made our way down the hall to the elevator. Unfortunately, if you’re parked near the front door rather than the garage entrance, there are still two half flights of stairs before you’re on precious parking lot, car-level land. Gritting through the pain and holding on to one of the paramedics for support, I went down first the hard, indoor, linoleum covered stairs, then the even harder concrete stairs outside, feeling like I could go down head first at any second (and having done it as a child, going head first into concrete is not cool). Once they got me settled outside, they started checking me out while they wheeled out the gurney and one of the paramedics or EMTs asked why I was sweating so much. Another paramedic pointed out that I had said I had been pushing hard for the past half hour just to call 911 and unlock my door, not to mention just getting downstairs, which was good because I really was about to lose it from a combination of fear, panic, and pain.

Luckily, I live literally around the corner from the hospital, so getting there was quick, but I didn’t feel like folks were really taking me seriously until after the ER doctor saw me and then definitely once my blood tests came back, despite almost collapsing when they were moving me from the gurney to a wheelchair and all the help required me to get me into a hospital gown and onto the bed/stretcher in my room in the ER. It kind of felt like because I couldn’t name some recent injury or some underlying condition and because I was able to move a bit, they thought I was maybe not faking, but exaggerating things a bit. But when the ER doctor came in, she immediately asked if I knew how my potassium levels were, which of course I didn’t (it’s not like taking your temperature– checking your potassium level actually requires a blood test). My primary ER nurse was very nice, patiently holding my cup so I could drink some soda to help settle my stomach (I was nauseated, of course, as usual) and urging me not to push myself, to let her help me, even if it’s as boring as holding my cup so I could drink something (I was also pretty dehydrated by this point). Those of you who know me know that I like to be pretty independent, often to a fault, so you could imagine how hard even something as simple as that would be for me, but eventually, I was in so much pain and so exhausted that I just gave up and decided to lay there, stop worrying, and let the doctors and nurses do their thing.

In the real world– not the CSI, Law & Order, ER world– labs take a while, but after 1-2 hours (who’s counting at this point?), my tests came back and sure enough my potassium level had plummeted to a dangerously low level– normal potassium levels are between 3.5 and 5.0 mEq/L, mild hypokalemia is considered 2.5-3 mEq/L, severe is less than 2 mEq/L. My potassium level was 1.9 mEq/L, at which point flaccid paralysis (muscle weakness, paralysis, loss in muscle tone) and hyporeflexia (reduced or absent reflexes) can present. Rhabdomyolysis can also occur, skeletal muscle damage releasing harmful proteins into the bloodstream, and even respiratory depression (muscle is muscle after all and it takes some muscle to keep breathing) as well as cardiac problems, such as irregular heartbeat (prompting the fastest EKG ever). I had all of those symptoms, except for respiratory or cardiac problems thankfully (although they did have me hooked up to some type of cardiac monitor the whole time I was in the hospital– if your hospital gown doesn’t have the little pocket for it, you literally carry this thing around with you all the time like an albatross around your neck).

Ultimately, I was eventually moved into an actual bed to make me more comfortable while waiting to be admitted and moved to a regular room, this time with enough manpower to move me more easily (albeit painfully), doing the ol’ 1-2-3 lift from stretcher to bed. I was eventually put in the Progressive Care Unit (one notch below ICU and filled with patients who have had heart attacks, strokes, etc.) and they pumped me full of IV potassium which, in itself, is rather painful to administer (fyi, potassium chloride is one of the drugs used in lethal injection cocktails) and is usually mixed with lidocaine not only in the IV bag, but in the IV site as well to numb the pain (and with my small veins, they had to turn down the flow rate too). Low potassium levels really screw with almost everything– I experienced my first auditory hallucinations that first night. The lidocaine injection set off this horrible, loud ringing in my ears and even though I knew it wasn’t real, that it was a hallucination, it was new to me and scary. It was a full day before I could fully move my arms and legs again and not until Friday could I actually get up, walk around, go to the bathroom by myself, etc. After physical therapy, occupational therapy (i.e., showing I can put pants on, use the bathroom, stand at the sink without help, etc.) and several visits to the can (never knew how rewarding it would be to be able to go to the bathroom by myself again), I was exhausted by mid-afternoon and hurting all over, but at least I could walk again, feed myself, hold my phone to my ear, text message briefly– you know, the important things.

So, what caused all this? About six months ago, one of my doctors put me on a diuretic/water pill (hydrochlorothiazide) to help control my blood pressure and in turn, better prevent migraines, which worked (good), but that particular water pill has the unfortunate “occasional” side effect of hypokalemia (bad). This, in combination with a possible underlying genetic condition called hypokalemic periodic paralysis, made my body continuously lose potassium, eventually dipping to this dangerously low level. As I said at the beginning of this post, after looking through tweets/status updates, emails, and text messages, etc., I realized that for at least several weeks, maybe even a few months before being hospitalized, I was having more pain than usual– aside from headaches/migraines, I was having more than normal back pain, some soreness and weakness in my legs, and a return of moderate to severe numbness and tingling in my wrists and hands (which I wrote off as symptoms of repetitive stress/carpal tunnel). I realized that I had been having hypokalemia symptoms for months, but in addition to simply attributing them to just being tired, stressed and in need of getting some rest and back into shape, I have been going through continuous bouts of pain and related issues for a few years now and no one has been able to pinpoint and fix the exact cause or really even theorize a new cause other than the usual: being tired, stressed and in need of both rest and exercise. I think I felt like if I had brought things up a month or two ago, I was going to be told the same thing, so I saved myself the effort, discouragement and co-pay. Unfortunately, this time, there really was something “new” wrong and both doctors and nurses told me repeatedly how lucky I was, that considering how low my potassium level was that it could have been much, much worse. Well, message received and I am certainly thankful that only after a little over a day, I was able to move and walk again and that I didn’t sustain any lasting muscle damage, especially to my heart. I’m thankful to everyone, from the paramedics and EMTs to the doctors and nurses who took care of me to my friend who left Christmas Day with his family to pick me up and take me home.

I continued to experience pretty bad pain and soreness from the hypokalemia and rhabdomyolysis– muscle doesn’t repair overnight– but once I was taken off of IV potassium and able to sustain a normal potassium level through diet alone, I was able to go home on Christmas Day. I’m still recovering– mostly dealing with receding muscle pain, trying to build back up muscle strength, resting and sleeping lots as I’m still easily exhausted, and finally, making sure that I get my potassium through a glass of orange juice or a banana every day.

It’s been a whole year since my last IdeaFarm™ post and I thought I would post an update. I didn’t see the truck around for a while (at least in Mountain View– they apparently have people at locations all over the Bay Area), but then, a few months ago, they popped up again, parked near the intersection of Central Expressway and Rengstorff Avenue. They’ve apparently downsized to this trailer and bike (plus what looks like solar panels?).

This week, the trailer was parked at the corner of El Camino Real and Phyllis Ave after having been “silenced by MVPD” (Mountain View Police Department). I’m not sure what they did since I’ve never actually seen anybody next to/around the truck or trailer, but I suppose just parking for long periods of time in front of businesses and at busy intersections could cause problems. Nevertheless, I haven’t seen anything that would actually be illegal and if they had done something illegal, I assume the truck/trailer/whatever would have disappeared altogether.

So, I’d be curious to know what caused them to be “silenced” and how MVPD silenced them, but I still haven’t figured out what the actual, practical purpose of IdeaFarm™ is, what they do or how they do it. (One commenter summarized it as a version of “libertarian socialism”.) In any case, the IdeaFarm™ website has been updated once again, so maybe you can take a look and try to make some sense of it.

Otherwise– or perhaps as background– you can check out my previous posts:

• IdeaFarm™ (February, 28, 2008)
• Idea Farm™, part 2 (March 27, 2008) – includes information and comments from the man behind it all
• IdeaFarm™, part 3: Return of the Truck

Related posts:

1. IdeaFarm™ Returns – August 2009
2. IdeaFarm™, part 3: Return of the Truck
3. IdeaFarm™

I don’t know when the sign was put up, but apparently, the automatic espresso machine set up by Coupa Cafe on the first floor of Meyer Library at Stanford is under audio and video surveillance at all times. The machine was installed as a substitute for the currently vacant kiosk between Meyer and Green Libraries. MoonBean’s Coffee originally occupied the space– for eleven years, starting in 1998– but lost the bid for the space when its contract expired at the end of 2008. It’s sad really: the coffee spot was the only drink/food stop in this particular area of campus– conveniently between the two major undergraduate libraries (although Meyer only houses books on the fourth floor now and the rest is devoted to public computing/study spaces and staff offices). On top of that, Jennie Reynolds, the owner of MoonBean’s, had already closed her other Bay Area cafes to focus on the Stanford spot and her effort wasn’t wasted– MoonBean’s became a beloved part of the Stanford community, as noted in the community’s reaction to the news and this farewell message in The Stanford Daily.

The drama around the cafe space continues long after our farewell to MoonBean’s though, and not just in this closely (and creepily) monitored espresso machine. Coupa Cafe, which already has an on-campus location at Y2E2 as well as in Palo Alto, Beverly Hills and Caracas, won the bid for the space and was originally set to take over when MoonBean’s moved out at the end of June 2009. That launch date was then pushed back to January 2010 after Coupa ran into delays while trying to get the necessary county building permits. Then, when January finally came, they first said that they would be pushing back the opening date to February, again because of issues with building permits. Toward the end of January, they again announced that Coupa Cafe would be opening March 3 at the earliest, but really, they were saying that even if they completed construction/renovation by March 3, the site wouldn’t be fully operational. Well, obviously, March 3 has come and gone and there’s still no Coupa Cafe. Last week, they finally announced that they would be opening by spring break (which starts next week, finals end this Friday, March 19), but of course with the caveat that they pass all inspections and besides, there’s actually no official date set. I have a clear view of the space from my office (which made it convenient to see if it was a good time to get coffee, depending on the line) and they have been working on the space, but it’s not clear if they’re going to make the spring break deadline. I don’t see any new signage or the like and the outdoor seating/furniture hasn’t been changed, something highlighted as one of the renovations being done by Coupa. And let’s not even get into the fact that after all is said and done, this remodel is going to cost the Stanford Libraries around $180,000.

But back to the espresso machine: it was advertised as a substitute until Coupa opened and a convenient 24-hour option after the opening (the first floor of Meyer Library is open 24 hours now, not just the “infamous” 24-hour study room). I found somebody lauding its virtues to a visitor one day– e.g., it uses freshly ground beans– but really, you’re paying over $2.00 for a mediocre, small cup of vending machine espresso. Oh, and it only takes plastic, so forget about using that loose change to spring for a quick cup of coffee. And hopefully, when you decide to avail yourself of this service, there will be cups (and sugar, etc.) available and it doesn’t decide to randomly clean itself, making you wait until whatever foaming ritual is necessary.

In any case, it’s not really clear to me why the surveillance is necessary or what the purpose of it is. The Libraries are usually* good about privacy– you should be able to read and research without being monitored– and I suppose the espresso machine is in a relatively empty back hallway, but it still gives me the creeps. Is it because there are credit card transactions involved (and they are monitoring usage like they do at ATMs)? Are they trying to deter vandalism? Or do they just want to make sure we don’t steal the cups?

* Although I heard there are other cameras in the libraries and I really, really wish they would install electronic detectors again at the exits so that they don’t have to search my bag (for stolen library books) every time I leave the library.

I finally tried The Bay Fish & Chips last week and it has that greasy spoon with great food feeling. Aside from pleasantly big, deep-fried pieces of fish, they also offer shrimp, calamari, scallops, etc. And aside from classic chips, they also have deep-fried mushrooms, zucchini, artichoke, onion rings, etc.

What’s twisted, though? The fish tank with two giant goldfish swimming around, sitting right there, up on the counter, with a good view to where they cook the fish.

The “bridge” entrance to Meyer Library (awkwardly marked in the photo) is not actually attached to or part of the building. From what I’ve heard, the whole structure is actually firmly, but oh so gently pushed up against the building.

Yesterday, I was sitting out there on the landing at the top of the bridge, my butt on the landing that’s still part of the building and then my feet resting on a stair that’s part of the bridge. From there, you can see where the building ends, where the bridge begins, and the flimsy adhesive material that somehow holds the two together securely. I assume securely because there have been times when this entrance has been closed because, among other reaons, the bridge was not considered stable or safe. What changed to make it safe again? I have no idea and from what I can tell, there’s nothing visibly different about the “safe” bridge compared to the “unsafe” one.

And this theory that there actually isn’t anything different and it’s not “more secure” now is further supported by the fact that, when I was sitting there that day, I could feel and see the entire bridge shaking continuously while a (normal-sized) person– a single person– walked down the thing.

And yet, I still sat there and will probably sit there again. And I will use the bridge to get in and out of Meyer every single work day, just like I did yesterday soon after the whole thing shook before my eyes.

Hmm.

(And can you believe this website is still around? I can’t and I’m the one who created it.)

Related posts:

1. Accidental death

Noticed this in the basement of Dinkelspiel Auditorium (or Dink Meeker Auditorium, as I like to call it). Ha ha, very funny. Those crazy Stanford kids.

Related posts:

1. The Stanford Copyright Integrity Initiative
2. Mr. Bush comes to Stanford
3. Stanford Facebook Class: 10 Million in 10 Weeks

I cut my hair pretty short for the first time in a decade at the beginning of July this year. I’m sick of it already, but I did get a nice thank you card from the folks at Locks of Love after donating. And here’s a picture of the thank you note AND the donation itself to prove it.

Related posts:

1. Vonnegut on Love, Men and Women
2. And that’s another reason why I love the Kids in the Hall…
3. I love technology, but even I am surprised by my dorkiness

I meant to post this a while ago, but here it is now: the IdeaFarm™ truck reappeared at the corner of Castro St. and El Camino in Mountain View, CA in late August. It disappeared apparently on September 11 at the conclusion of its Political Economy course. If you can’t read the sign, it reads (I think): “Mexicans colonize because you don’t receive them as brothers.”

Read my previous posts on IdeaFarm™: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

The IdeaFarm™ website has been significantly updated since my previous posts and it looks like there will be a big opening performance.

Related posts:

1. IdeaFarm™, part 3: Return of the Truck
2. IdeaFarm™
3. IdeaFarm™, part 2

Crappy cell phone picture of a cool looking tree at Finch Ave and Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino, CA. The Google Street View is a bit better, although I don’t think it looks as cool in the daytime:

View Larger Map

Related posts:

1. The KKUP Cupertino – 91.5 FM Listeners Award, 1971 Dodge Charger
2. Christmas Tree
3. Christmas Tree

Bathroom stall ashtray
Originally uploaded by sindy

Still in Seattle. Stopped in a casino for the buffet and when visiting the bathroom, found this convenient ashtray next to the toilet.

So, is this to discourage people from dropping their cigarettes in the toilet (and therefore, preventing clogs) or is it so people don’t have to stop smoking just because they’re going to the bathroom?

I would say each answer has an equal shot of being the right one. Who knows, maybe it’s both. No matter what, one thing I know is that it sure is convenient.

The Mini-Max
Originally uploaded by sindy

In Seattle for the weekend. While settling into my hotel room, found the “intimacy kit” provided by the good people at the Hotel Max, complete with the “minimax.” (Actually, my friend found it while nosing around my room.) Apparently, my pleasure is their pleasure.

(Sorry for the blurry image; I’m on cameraphone until I find a USB cable.)

UPDATE 4.19.2008: Uploaded a better photo. Click to zoom in on the details.

Over $4.00
Originally uploaded by sindy

It’s official: gas prices are over $4.00 per gallon (at least for premium). Taken in the Palo Alto/Mountain View, CA area. President Bush should have been paying more attention to those rumors.

Related posts:

1. IdeaFarm™
2. Mr. Bush comes to Stanford
3. Trouble in Paradise

Just when I thought this chapter: was over, the IdeaFarm™ truck reappears! I saw it parked on the corner of Castro St. and El Camino Real. Looks like the website is back up too– and chock full of stuff.

Related posts:

1. IdeaFarm™, part 2
2. IdeaFarm™
3. Living in a coed interacial world, part 1: Negotiating

Here’s a random story: I saw these on sale at a local drug store and it made me think of two things: first, I found the use of the word “ginormous” as part of an actual product name amusing– my friends and I were using it often and liberally circa 1999, long before it was included in the dictionary. (Merriam-Webster claims that the word actually dates back to 1948 as British military slang.)

The second, more interesting thing I thought of was that, of course, the “Ginormous Googly Ball” is really a giant version of the 80′s hit, the Koosh Ball. Koosh balls are a little special to me because the son of the inventor of the original Koosh Ball lived in my freshmen dorm. The rumor was that if you were at his house and he was so inclined, his father, Scott Stillinger, would actually take you out to the garage and make you a classic Koosh ball with the original equipment, straight from the inventor’s own hands!

I never really knew his son well and didn’t get the chance to get my very own hand-crafted Koosh ball, but it’s moments and memories like these that make me glad I went to Stanford– there are few universities out there where you can meet such unique people and have such random experiences!

I see this truck almost everyday, parked in various locations along El Camino as I drive from Palo Alto to Mountain View. (I’ve always wanted to take a picture of it, but have never had the chance to, so, even though I have no idea who you are, thanks cjanebuy for posting a pic onto Flickr.) The combination of the self-lettering, the accusatory nature of the phrase/motto of “THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM IS THAT YOU HAVE BECOME A SELFISH PEOPLE, and the strategy here for marketing their message by parking these trucks all over the area and inviting passersby to “come and eat with us” to find out more has all the trappings of a cult, of some type of weird group of fanatics of something. (Not to mention that all interactions are done “anonymously,” participants using only first names.)

I finally bothered to visit the website– www.ideafarm.com– and while I don’t think it’s a cult like The Family International– but it’s definitely an enigma (they also depict IdeaFarm as “IdeaFarm City,” trademarked, of course, and a federal constitutional protectorate of the US.) It’s very Silicon Valley– the “civil and political project funded by the sale of software products and services,” such as the IdeaFarm ™ Piggyback Distributed Operating System (I, like you probably, have never head of this and have no idea of the pros/cons of this OS).

The mission of the project is to “[P]romote unselfish living by creating a compelling economic incentive to live wholesomely connected to other people, to the Earth, and to one’s Higher Power.” The main way to do this is through a yet-to-be-released “zero spam, zero advertisement, zero thought steering, secure email service.” Participants in this project are divided into two groups– the first, composed of non-members, agrees to a) “sign a public declaration of intent to live unselfishly” and b) participate anonymously in weekly community dinners. If you decide to become an actual member, you move up and become part of the second group who agrees to a) “participate regularly in the weekly community dinners,” b) “loan $8 to the organizer for 64 days, and c) pay 1 cent per day.” In turn, you apparently get “nifty” IdeaFarm software products and services plus richer access to the website.

In any case, reviewing the website and information, a few things to note that might raise red flags for you:

• For an organization with unselfish living at its core, it is still a “private, for profit entity” and the “owner can dispose of revenue as he sees fit.”
• The “owner” or “leader” of the organization is never mentioned or known by his name (not even his first name)– he is only referred to as the “Governing Propietor.” While anonymity is central to their interactions, disclosing the leader’s name (at least first name) seems like an acceptable exception, especially to lend credibility to the whole thing since they claim he is a “libertarian student of political economy, a product of the Ph.D. program in economics at the University of Chicago.”
• A stratified system of participation and membership, largely based on financial contributions– Scientology anyone?* To be fair, they do assert that they are not asking for nor will they accept donations– financial contributions are considered “loans.”
• Discussion of IdeaFarm and the website will only be done via email.
• They’re using a yahoo email address. Weak.

Anyway, so if you see this truck around the Bay Area, now you know a little bit more. Judge for yourself!

* PS to the Scientology folks: please don’t sue me.

I’ve been working somewhat with, among others, the instructors (especially BJ Fogg and Dan Ackerman Greenberg) for the Stanford Facebook class CS377W: Creating Engaging Facebook Apps, figuring out how to use Facebook and its application development platform to encourage development of apps to promote student life, aid in teaching and learning, reach out to alumni, and more. (My department, Student Computing, is currently running an app contest to encourage development of just those kinds of apps.) Wednesday night, I attended the class final– a full-blown presentation on the class (including the journey from the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab exploring how to computerize persuasion in 1993 to the development of the class itself), aims of the course, lessons learned, and, most importantly, the apps produced by the class’ 25 student teams.

The class has gotten a lot of hype, especially in the blogosphere, and much of it has been about how students were looking to find the secret to building the next big app and, in turn, making big money from it (check out this WREX-TV, NBC11.com video and try not to be distracted by the dumbed-down and sometimes nonsensical tech imagery for the narration). Much of the class focused on metrics and taking advantage of the viral nature of social networking sites like Facebook– aiming, for each app, a high number of users (especially daily active users) and high engagement (number of page views and time spent with the app). The apps developed, as you can tell from the phrase “10 million in 10 weeks,” were largely successful in achieving these goals with over 10 million installs, over one miliion daily active users, and a handful ranking in Facebook’s top 100 apps (out of over 10,000): Perfect Match, Send Hotness, Hugs, and KissMe (originally based on the Full Moon on the Quad tradition at Stanford). (Sorry if I missed any that reached the top 100.)

However, focusing on getting the largest number of users doesn’t always result in developing the “deepest” or most “socially meaningful” applications– as one commenter put it, even the “Stanford intellectual elite [can be] devoted to producing such monumental drivel.” (Before the Stanford-developed KissMe app, just think of the success of the unbelievably simple Zombies app.) So, instead of focusing on the apps that had the highest number of users, I want to point out two apps that are particularly socially conscious and show how to take advantage of the power of the Facebook network:

• The Giving Tree – the developers of this app partnered with Kiva to piggy-back on the growing awareness of the power of microlending. Facebook users don’t even need to pony up their own money– instead, once 50 people have added one of the selected businesses to their profile, $25 is pushed to the business using money donated from companies.
• Save the Rainforest – here, the developers partnered with The Nature Conservancy to take advantage of some of the time Facebook users are spending on the site everyday. Users play a vocabulary game and for every six correct answers, one square foot of the rainforest will be adopted through The Nature Conservancy’s Adopt an Acre program. As of the class’s final presentation night (December 12, 2007), 5,000 square feet had already been saved!

You, like me, are probably trying to reduce the app clutter on your Facebook profile, but if you’re going to use apps, I think these two are certainly worth it.

And with that, I leave you with a short video of Dave McClure leading the audience in The Wave to get them psyched up for the presentations:

Related posts:

1. links for 2007-10-24
2. Update: YMU and Stanford
3. How to get into Stanford

This is about as much as I can show you of the art exhibit we dropped by during lunch yesterday. A series of oil paintings of an Asian-American woman having sex with various American presidents (and we’re talking like George Washington, not Bill Clinton). As one of my coworkers said, “She can paint, for sure.”

View “Join or Die,” by Justine Lai. and read her statement about the paintings. Also, read the Stanford Daily article about the exhibit.

UPDATED 8.29.2009: from reading her statement, I discovered that the woman in the paintings is actually herself!

As I mentioned earlier, two of my photos from my Barcelona trip this past summer were short-listed to be included in the fourth edition of the Schmap Barcelona Guide. I just found out that they have been selected for final inclusion! Check them out:

• Via Laietana
• Tramoia

I had a great time there, so I’m glad that my photos can be used to direct and guide others to this great city. Check out the photos, the guide, and if you can do it, the city itself, live and in-person.

Related posts:

1. Schmap!! and Barcelona
2. Status: Sindy is back from Spain and not looking forward to returning to regular life.
3. Circuit City is a big fat liar

Despite being one of the most amateur of amateur photographers with my point and shoot digital camera, I just found out that two of my photos from my trip to Barcelona this past summer have been short-listed for the fourth edition of the Schmap Barcelona Guide (to be released later this month). I guess it pays to actually make some of your Flickr photos public and publish them with a Creative Commons license.

Random!

If you’re curious, check out the photos: photo #1 (shown here) taken while walking down Via Laietana and photo #2 taken while lunching at La Tramoia. Or browse through the entire Barcelona photoset.

Related posts:

1. Status: Sindy is back from Spain and not looking forward to returning to regular life.
2. Photos
3. Now that’s a big fat rooster

(This is similar to my first appearance as an amusing Google search result for “blog breasts.”)

Related posts:

1. Amusing Google search
2. Weirdest SWAG Ever: Ragtotes Tampon Holder
3. Web site logs and search engines

In the bag full of stuff at GHC, from Northwestern University Female Researchers in EECS– “At the Bleeding Edge.” We jokingly said it was a tampon holder, then we thought it was a pencil holder and then… we realized it’s right there on the box. It really is a tampon holder.

Wow.

At first I thought, a) “what corporate gift catalog do you find that in?” and b) “isn’t there collective agreement that we shouldn’t be referring to menstruation as ‘the rag’? Or is this some kind of female empowerment thing where we’re trying to claim that word back?”

Anyway, check it out: ragtotes.com.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday on Friday, including my co-workers who called me during my usual work-at-home-Friday to sing “Happy Birthday.” I turned 28 on the 28th!

Unfortunately, I spent Friday evening, into the wee hours, at the ER and then most of the afternoon and into the late evening on Saturday again at the ER. No, it wasn’t a “drinking related emergency” or any such fun– I had been suffering through five days of an excruciating headache and eventually ended up in the ER. The photo here shows the TWO IVs I ended up having put in on Saturday after they failed THREE times to get an IV in, finally got one in (the one in my hand) and then realized they needed to put a larger needle in higher for the contrast scan.

In any case, a total of fourteen hours later, I’m sick of the ER, but finally pain free and everything looks okay. (If you’re going to the ER and you have the chance, bring a book– you’re going to be waiting.) Thanks to the ER staff who, although they couldn’t get my scans to happen faster (who am I to trump a trauma?), were very nice and took care of me well.

Related posts:

1. Status: Sindy is back from Spain and not looking forward to returning to regular life.
2. The world catches on to the life of programmers

After 15+ hours on two different planes, passing through about four different security checkpoints, and having already finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I’m finally back from Barcelona. It was a fun and relaxing vacation and weirdly, home and everything that comes with it, everything that is already rushing back into the forefront of my mind and vying for attention, seem strangely foreign to me.

Anyway, check out photos.

Related posts:

1. Back to life, Back to reality
2. “Sindy is graduating” (Part 1)
3. The world catches on to the life of programmers

Yes, I couldn’t wait. My pre-ordered copy should be delivered to my house today, but I’m overseas, so I still bought it. Check out the covers for the UK edition, including the “adult cover” on the right.

(Harry Potter y los santos de la muerte is the rumored Spanish translation title.)

Related posts:

1. Harry Potter is scary

Can you guess what it is?

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1. In our own backyard

I’m slowly recovering from helping to put on the Virtual Goods Summit yesterday– got up at 5am and was running around all day, helping with everything from printing badges and registration lists, configuring and setting up computers and networking support, checking in attendees, and, most difficult of all, trying to steer a ridiculously heavy media cart with only two out of four pivoting wheels around campus and narrow building hallways. I finally got home around 7pm and went straight to make sure I drank my beer for the day (a story for another time).

But to recap on the conference itself, I didn’t get to sit in most of the sessions because of all the running around, but from what I did get to attend and from what I overheard, the very first Virtual Goods Summit seems to have been a success– all of the sessions were panels focused around a particular topic and included three to four speakers and a moderator directing the discussion. Whether it’s because virtual goods and economies are such an emerging technology and market or it’s because it was such a humble setting– the 350-person capacity basement auditorium of the Cummings Art Building on the Stanford campus (I don’t think it’s ever seen so many laptops and the network slowed to a crawl as 300+ people did God knows what during the breaks)– but as I overheard one attendee put it, unlike most conferences, there was less grandstanding (regardless of what the grandiose term “summit” might imply) and more open, honest discussion among key players in this space. Rather than what many conferences have degenerated into– simple vendor fairs and opportunities for companies to advertise and sell their products and services– it really felt like a summit: some of the most important and interesting companies and people involved in virtual goods coming together to talk about the present and future of the space.

On one hand, there was plain old valuable information– explanation of what virtual goods and economies are and how they work in their various settings, both in terms of technology (gaming, social networks, etc.) and geography/culture (especially the US and the West versus Korea and the East). On the other hand, there was also interesting discussion around current hot topics, such as the effects of money moving through and back and forth between the virtual and real worlds. These are issues that are becoming increasingly relevant to not just gamers accruing arsenals of virtual weapons or teenagers exchanging virtual gifts on social networks, but to everyone in the real world. Why? Because, as one speaker mentioned in kind of an overblown example of a Venn diagram, the virtual and real worlds are not separate and they don’t intersect per se, but rather, the virtual world is completely encompassed by the real one. In one way, the virtual world is a subset of the real world, but more simply, the better way to think of it is that they are inexorably connected– we spend real time playing games in virtual worlds and we spend real money buying virtual goods. In the end, they are all real choices with real consequences and when you realize and accept that, the line between virtual and real becomes blurred, perhaps even erased, and the discussion becomes that much more important. I look forward to much more growth in this space, much more discussion, and hopefully, another exciting summit next year.

Check out: vgsummit2007 on Flickr

Related posts:

1. Virtual Goods Summit 2007
2. Virtual Goods Summit 2007: One Last Plug
3. links for 2007-06-21

I grabbed lunch yesterday at the Village Cheese House, one of the few great delis around here (at least from an East Coast-ers perspective). They always have a great, eclectic variety of stuff (and manage to do it without seeming snobbish or condescending)– they make their own candy canes from scratch during the holiday season, they’ve got candy and chocolates from around the world (from gourmet European chocolates to fruit-flavored Japanese goodies) and they stock their shelves with a rotating selection of unique beverages.

I’m not just talking about stocking their shelves with stuff that aren’t “brand name” or “corporate” in the way places like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods like to do– instead, I’m talking about Dr. Pepper in glass bottles with old-fashioned labeling; even good ol’ Vernor’s Ginger Ale in glass bottles with labeling/packaging I haven’t seen anywhere else (and as an aside, why don’t more people in this world love ginger ale?). It’s where I found Jolt Silver (and unfortunately, never saw it there or anywhere else ever again).

In any case, my latest find was this bottle of “Leninade,” boasted as having “a taste worth standing in line for” and the bottle itself is stamped with the phrase “the Party wants you.” I bought it for a friend who I thought would appreciate the humor, so I don’t know what it tastes like– I’m sure nothing particularly unique, but I’m sure there’s a pinko lemonade joke in there somewhere.

Go to: Leninade Dot Communist! website.

Found this waiting on my chair in my office this morning when I got in. There are so many things wrong with this that I can’t even begin to get into it. All I have to say is, as Lil’ Romeo says, “Stay in school.”

Go to: Rap Snacks website.

Related posts:

1. Racist snack foods

I stopped by the CS 194 Senior Project Faire today– for those of you unfamiliar with it, Stanford computer science majors are required to complete a senior project to graduate. The course serves as a capstone to their years of study and the projects are displayed and demonstrated at a type of trade show for students, staff, faculty, and visitors from industry. Prizes are also awarded in a number of categories (and not to brag, but back in 2001, I was also an award winner).

One of this year’s projects was a virtual version of Beer Pong (also known as Beirut by some), by Ned Rockson, Luiz Pereira, and Fred Thompson (and a special shout out to Fred, a member of the Residential Computing family). The demonstration showed a very impressive implementation with realistic physics and polished graphics and the use of the extremely popular Nintendo Wii remote as the input device. Check out this photo of one of our coworkers, Becky, in action.

Of course, in the end though, what’s the fun of beer pong without the beer (and usually cheap beer at that)? And especially the resulting increasing inebriation, spilled beer, and all the mess that goes with the aforementioned?

Interestingly, most of the project team hadn’t even played beer pong in real life and they relied on one team member’s “expertise” for their requirements gathering and analysis. I’ve never been much of a beer pong player myself (I don’t need a game for an excuse to drink), but as I watched people take their hand at lobbing the virtual ball into a virtual cup, I reminisced about the many games of real beer pong I’ve watched in my day. Perhaps the most memorable was at a party last Thanksgiving weekend in my hometown: like most games of beer pong, the table wasn’t a ping pong table. However, in this case, the table was a retired kitchen counter that’s seen better days (including the hole for the sink) with a makeshift net and resting on two sawhorses. I think the beer was Coors Light or some other reasonably cheap analogue and the setting was an unfinished basement. You can’t get more ghetto fabulous than that. I wonder if version 2.0 of Virtual Beer Pong will have an option for something like that.

Related posts:

1. Virtual Goods Summit 2007
2. That’s not beer: distractions at the John Mayer show
3. Real life in cartoons: abusive relationships

Last year, I replaced my office PowerMac G5 tower with a 20″ iMac and re-purposed the CPU cage on my desk. Well, as you can see, the 20″ iMac is gone now too and I’ve moved to a MacBook, but I digress… Rather, over the course of a year, out of three planted, the bottom spider plant flourished while the top two died. You see, only the bottom one had any exposure to sunlight– I have a corner cube and the window is behind and to the left of my desk. Plus, I don’t even have overhead lighting because I had the fluorescent lighting removed over my office (preferring ambient natural light during the day or incandescent light when dark outside instead– trust me, it’s easier on the eyes, especially when you’re staring at a computer screen for hours). And we know it’s the lighting issue because the schefflera that sits directly in the corner window is completely out of control and grows like a weed.

In any case, after some huddling, we decided to plant a new spider plant to replace the two we lost (may they rest in peace) and implement a new overhead lighting scheme. The tools: a clip on lamp I bought during junior year in college (I have been waiting seven years to find a use for that thing) and a special GE Plant Light Bulb. Now, my original thought was that it would compensate for lack of sunlight (based on the advice of the supposed resident houseplant expert in the office), but the production information reads:

The GE Plant Light bulb is tinted blue to highlight the natural beauty and color of your plants — so they appear healthier and greener.

Now, I don’t know if it’s an issue of just bad wording or fear of making guarantees, but I don’t know if appearing healthier and greener is the same thing as actually being healthier and greener. Photographing someone with soft focus resulting in a picture of them looking younger doesn’t actually make them younger. In any case, we’ll see what happens. Hey, if it works, maybe we’ll start growing some “herbs.”

As mentioned earlier, I spent most of today at the 6th Annual San Jose City College Street Rod & Classic Car Show and just wanted to say congrats to my friend Noel Clarke for winning the KKUP Cupertino – 91.5 FM Listeners Award for his 1971 Dodge Charger. The station’s website should be updated soon with photos, etc. about the award.

Weirdest thing about the show though: the presence of “Natalie,” Miss Northern California, about whom I can’t find any information on the web. She helped present the awards, wearing her inappropriately short skirt (imagine what happens when the wind blows), and you didn’t really get a choice whether she was in your award photo or not (you actually didn’t even get an opportunity to get out of the car either when they took the photo either). And being very blond and very pale, she didn’t really strike me as being a very “representative” Miss Northern California– I would have gone with someone Asian or Chicano myself.

For more: Another photo of the award presentation and a closeup too.

I spent most of today at the 6th Annual San Jose City College Street Rod & Classic Car Show and among other things, met this cute little Bull Terrier. Interestingly, the dog didn’t respond to calling her name (I think it was “Whetta”) because she’s deaf– factoid for the day: as many as 18% of Bull Terrier puppies are born with less than perfect hearing. Apparently, congenital deafness can appear in any breed, but is particularly prevalent in those with white pigmentation and there is a fair amount of information known about the genetics behind deafness in dogs. Deaf dogs and, in turn, their owners, live difficult lives– they require excessive care, are difficult to train, and because of the disability, are prone to problems such as being easily startled (and as a result biting) or dying from unfortunate accidents (cars, etc.). Some say to euthanise deaf puppies immediately, others say that such dogs can grow up to live happy, healthy lives, and still others say that they can be raised to live happy, healthy lives, but should not be allowed to breed.

My point in all of this: congenital deafness and how to handle these puppies raise interesting ethical questions, especially considering the fact that the problem may be of our own creation– the possible result of breeding habits over a hundred years (originally by cross breeding the now extinct Old English Bulldog and Old English Terrier breeds). On one hand, dogs are dogs– not people– but on the other hand, many pets become like parts of families, loved even more than some of our actual family members. Did you know that when you pet a dog, not only does the dog’s blood pressure drop, but so does yours, relieving stress almost immediately? So, what is our responsibility to these creatures?

For more: Another photo of the Bull Terrier

Just got back from the John Mayer concert at HP Pavilion in San Jose. Great, as usual, and included an extra special opening guest– Ben Folds.

Of course, you may be wondering though then what this is a photo of. Well, my camera phone can’t really pick up anything worth putting up here, so you’ll have to rely on photos from the show page. However, my camera phone can pick up a picture of the puddle left by the drunk concert guy who visited the stairwell we were sitting right next to. I noticed him first since he decided to have a smoke (regular tobacco, for those wondering) in our stairwell, but at some point realized that the smoking had stopped and he had moved on to something else. I suppose I realized what he was doing right away and in fact, I wasn’t really that surprised, but my camera phone reflexes aren’t fast enough yet, so before I knew it, he had shaken it off, zipped it up, and fled the scene of the crime.

The even funnier thing is that a) his seat was only about three rows down and half a section over and b) there was a men’s bathroom directly outside. I guess he just really couldn’t miss any of the concert, at any price.

We proceeded to monitor peeing concert guy as he became more and more intoxicated. We also monitored how many people unknowingly walked through his puddle, probably thinking it was just spilled beer. It was a lot. The stairwell between sections 102 and 103 also turned out to be a very happening place in general. We almost got to see a handjob performed (there’s something about a finale that gets the juices flowing I guess), but at the last minute, I think they got stage fright.

So, in any case, drunk guy with the longish blond hair, in section 102, approximately row 15: we saw you. We saw you pee.

Related posts:

1. John Mayer’s trying to do something up there
2. More John Mayer missed connections
3. More John Mayer missed connections, part 2

We went up to Napa yesterday and visited some spots that we hadn’t visited before, one of them Summit Lake Vineyards. Tastings are by appointment only, which made sense because it took a while to drive all the way up the mountain and find the place, but it’s a cozy little spot. We ate our lunch and had the tasting out on the picnic tables as Susan the Dog rested at our feet and the chickens wandered around, guarded over by one big fat rooster. Then we had a tour of the small winery, including a peek in on goats.

Random. Fun, but random.

I picked this up at the only place I’ve seen it sold (the friendly local gas station down the street) because I heard it’s finally being pulled off the shelf and being redistributed under a new name. Apparently, the FDA considered the energy drink illegal because a) it is being marketed as a “legal alternative” to the illegal street drug (as you can see if you can make out the tag line on the can in the photo) and b) the company claims that it treats or cures disease. When I last checked the website (a few weeks ago, before they pulled the product from the shelves), there were actually a few disclaimers related to both of the above statements– that the drink doesn’t contain any illegal substances, isn’t really an alternative to any illegal substances (and who cares if it really is– is that really illegal?), and doesn’t treat or cure disease, the last point most energy drink marketing materials point out for themselves.

In any case, being a good sport, Redux, the company behind the energy drink, is rebranding the drink with the new name “Censored.” Ha!

If anyone remembers, Cocaine got some attention a while back from a spot on The Daily Show because of the name controversy (if anybody knows where I can get a clip of the spot, please let me know). In the end, it seemed like the worst thing about the drink wasn’t the name or the marketing message, but the taste itself. And after having tried it today, I can say it does taste pretty bad– it tastes like some combination of overly sweet energy drink and cough syrup and goes down with a frightening burning sensation that is probably similar to the way real cocaine burns away your sinus cavities. Yum.

Of course, all this ridiculous hype fails to mention how the original Coca-Cola formula contained stimulants from coca leaves because the original recipe was a cocawine, a mixture of wine and cocaine. How’s that for ya?

Read: Banned ‘Cocaine’ energy drink re-emerges as ‘Censored’

Related posts:

1. Go Girl

The Stanford Band playing today in front of The Claw. Don’t know why, but there they were.

Related posts:

1. Whiteboard Zen
2. Late night service
3. Go Girl

I was at the Dream Machines show this past Sunday at Half Moon Bay airport to support some friends who had his beautifully restored Dodge Charger in the show and in an effort to actually find them, I literally walked all over the entire place and saw everything there was to see. Here’s a shot of an Elvis wannabe figurine peeking out from the back of a vintage trailer.

A few more pictures here.

Today’s energy delivery system. The name and packaging a little cheesy? Yes, but both sugar free and a portion of the proceeds are donated to breast cancer research. Go girl indeed.

Go to: the Go Girl Sugar Free Energy Drink website.
Read: an old post about breasts and the special relationship women have with theirs.

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1. Queer and fag hag eye for the straight girl
2. All the small things
3. Breasts

Discovered a new caffeine delivery system. Notice the marketing approach– an “all positive” battery!

Related posts:

1. links for 2006-04-27

For some time now, squirrels have regularly been taunting and wreaking havoc on my plants and balcony in general. Well, it’s really just one squirrel– pictured here, the little devil– and basically, he is slowly driving me nuts (no pun intended) by regularly digging up my plants and kicking up dirt all over my balcony.

When I first moved out to the Bay Area for school, I was amazed at how tame squirrels were, especially on the Stanford campus. I grew up living within a 50-mile radius on New York City my entire life and back East, squirrels are afraid of human beings, like most wild animals are. Like George laments in the Seinfeld episode about the unsaid agreement between pigeons and humans, I thought there was an unsaid agreement between squirrels and humans: we try not to hit them with our cars, they leave us alone. Specifically, they scamper away when we’re around. Apparently, not so in California– they are not the least bit frightened by people and they simply hang around. They’re not even looking for a food hand out. They’re just going about their business. It is the strangest thing and certainly takes getting used to.

Don’t get me wrong– I have nothing against squirrels. I think they’re pretty cute actually and might even want to pet one, if it weren’t for the fact that they’re basically rodents, carry all sorts of disease– including plague– and even if they’re trained to feed from your hand, often mistake fingertips for food.

You see, squirrels, cute and harmless as they may seem, are not the brightest animals in the world and it amazes me that they have somehow managed to survive this long as a species. (Have you ever seen the confusion and utter lack of instinctual decision making capacity of a squirrel trying to cross a street?) From what I can gather, persistence is their most admirable trait. My daily squirrel visitor (I should really come up with a name for him) lives in the tree whose branches hang over my balcony and lead a convenient path right to my sego palm. And every day, I watch this poor squirrel, I’m assuming, either bury or look for nuts in the several potted plants of varying sizes I have on my balcony. Do you know why he does this constantly? Well, squirrels have very limited memories and never actually remember where exactly they buried their nuts– instead, they use spatial clues to remember, such as always burying nuts on the north side of trees. So, instead of X marks the spot, you get X marks every spot on the north side of the tree. How efficient.

In any case, I’m not sure what spatial clue this one is using, but this squirrel has convinced himself that he always buries his nuts somewhere in these potted plants. Well, because he is constantly digging up these plants and kicking up dirt everywhere, I am often forced to add dirt, reset the plants, etc. and in the process, I have never found anything buried. Not one single nut or anything remotely resembling something a squirrel might want to eat.

But who am I to judge?

Anyway, there are worse things squirrels can do to you in terms of being household pests, so I have come to accept this sad state of affairs. But apparently, weird behavior among squirrels is a particular phenomenon in my city– after several actual squirrel “attacks” (yes, more than just one or even a few) in a local park, the city officials actually want to trap and euthanize “aggressive” squirrels. It’s launched a big controversy of course and now they’re looking to alternatives to stop the wave of attacking squirrels. Read all about it: Online outrage over Mountain View squirrel-killing plan.

If this isn’t proof that the Earth is turning against us, I don’t know what is.

(For more fun squirrel facts, check out the squirrel Wikipedia entry.)

Seen in a Stanford dorm room window today while walking into work.

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1. Fee for service? Not in education!
2. KimbAladdin
3. Lovely seaturtles

I wore a t-shirt today into the office that featured the Playboy bunny logo in gold. Putting it on in the morning, I certainly realized that it might a bit controversial, a bit eyebrow raising. But I work at a pretty liberal University and specifically, a pretty casual office at that, so aside from the wearing t-shirt and jeans non-issue, I kind of vaguely wondered if people would make an issue out of the shirt. The worst I expected was some ultra-feminist woman to make some snide comment about how magazines like Playboy objectify women. To which, I would probably respond something about how women have got much bigger problems and enemies than Playboy and the like and, if anything, we should thank Mr. Hefner and his magazine for helping to protect and exercise the First Amendment so well. There are certainly those who are supposedly in higher brow businesses, but are much more interested in and better at keeping women down– and many of them are women themselves– keeping us under glass ceilings and telling us what we can and cannot do with our bodies.

In any case, back to my day at the office: truth be told, I usually keep a jacket or something on for most of the day since the office is usually cold, so I didn’t expect many people to see the shirt anyway. During the short time I did have my jacket off, I did get a few quick looks and comments– the director of our department (a woman) did a quick double-take and I got out of the way before she could say something, good or bad. A co-worker said he liked the shirt. My boss first merely noted that I was wearing a shirt with the Playboy bunny on it and then asked the question, part-jokingly, part-rhetorically, “is that appropriate in the modern workplace?”

The interesting thing is that no one is really sure. I probably wouldn’t have worn it in any other office setting, but in this one, I thought I could probably get away with it. But what am I really getting away with it? What is so threatening about it? Is it because the bunny symbolizes “adult entertainment?” Is it because it refers to a very famous, very specific adult entertainment franchise that people might have strong feelings about, for or against? What if a man were to wear a t-shirt from a no-name strip bar– would that cause the same kind of uneasiness? Is the mere presence of the bunny a form a sexual harassment? Is the mere presence of something that is non-sexual in itself, but that is linked to something sexual considered the automatic creating of an uncomfortable work environment? Have we really become that sensitive and paranoid?

Well, I haven’t heard anything from anyone yet, so perhaps I’ve gotten through a day without causing too much of a controversy. Maybe the fact that I was a woman wearing a t-shirt with a Playboy symbol over some big boobs was just a little too weird. What could they say? “Some women feel threatened by the bunny symbol on your very large chest.” Right.

Related posts:

1. LOTR Easter Egg
2. In honor of Valentine’s Day

I replaced my office PowerMac G5 tower with a 20″ iMac, so the CPU cage on my desk was left empty. Removing it would have meant taking apart the entire desk, so we decided on some creative reuse.

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1. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

The weather cleared up. It’s like it’s just not allowed to rain in Hawaii when somebody’s paying to be visiting. Lovely.

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1. I’m in Hawaii, Bitches
2. Christmas Wreath

It’s raining and thus the slightly gloomy/grey quality to the photo, but hey, it’s still Hawaii and it’s still vacation. And once again, I was off the plane for a grand total of 10 minutes before someone asked me if I was from the islands. I’m keeping track of how many times this happens.

Work and school and life have been taking over lately and there will be more blog entries soon, but for now, here’s a pic of my new hair color. I was going for a reddish-purple/black. I am becoming a comic book character.

Related posts:

1. Serendipity: downloading comics
2. Comic book heroes and history

Once again, they should have called it “iPodWorld,” but here are some photos from MacWorld SF 2006. Nothing too exciting, but just things I found amusing at the exhibit hall today.

Related posts:

1. Things I learned at MacWorld
2. Bay Area public transportation, missed John Mayer connections, and MacWorld 2005
3. LOTR Easter Egg

Another shot of the Winter sky from the back porch of my parents’ home in upstate NY.

Related posts:

1. Winter Sky
2. Sunset
3. Winter in California

A shot of the Winter sky from the back porch of my parents’ home in upstate NY.

Related posts:

1. Sunset
2. Winter in California
3. Christmas Tree

Lovely wreath I won at my department’s holiday party– handmade by one of our administrative associates.

Related posts:

1. Christmas Tree
2. Christmas Tree
3. Lovely seaturtles

Here’s a better pic now that I have my camera back.

Related posts:

1. Christmas Tree
2. Happy Holidays
3. Sunset

Sorry for the crappy picture, but my digital camera broke and I am borrowing the worst digital camera in existence.

Related posts:

1. Happy Holidays
2. Oh, Photo!

My friend Marina finally finished the lovely piece of artwork shown here in my own little private dining room exhibit. The photos don’t do it justice, especially since I’m using my simple point-and-shoot DiMage and I couldn’t get the lighting to quite work out the way it should. Nevertheless, to take a closer look, check out the closeups of the whole piece, the left-hand panel and the right-hand panel.

This whiteboard sits on the first floor of one of our undergraduate libraries and serves mainly to separate the “Teamspace” from the rest of the first floor lobby area. Usually unused, some students (or one industrious student with too much time on his hands) decided to decorate. But alas, all good things must come to an end. (Check out the close-up.)