After Rain

William Trevor wrote a wonderful short story called "After Rain". In the end of the story, the protagonist experienced a moment of clarity. Where that revelation lead the protagonist to we never knew, because the story end abruptly, but ever since reading that story, I became sensitive to the quality of air and light after rain. From Trevor's writing I realized what a powerful writer could do. Though I had forgot the story line, the atmosphere of the story stayed with me forever. 

   

Cloud Spotting Day (from my Phone)

Crossing the Line

I hope I won't make it a habit of photographing my own feet, but the phone camera's capability to take photos of myself walking is too hard to resist.

P.S. My friend Chinchih told me with the photo below it looked like I had 3 legs.

More Fun from Phone Camera

The phone camera works best when there's enough even light and everything is on the same plane.

Another discovery, don't even think about using the phone camera on cats. Cats demand absolutely the best photo equipments. At least that's what Mitty told me.

Playing with Macro Mode of My Phone Camera

Playing with the "macro" feature today. Conclusion: don't expect any creaming background or great bokeh, but the result can still be interesting.

Photos from My Phone Camera

Finally I upgraded my dinosaur phone to a smart phone (a Droid 2 global). It's a lot of fun to play with those interesting new (new to me) features. For example, I had never uses phone camera before and found it such a inspirational tool. I can take photos almost anywhere without getting any unnecessary attention (or feeling self conscious). True, the photo quality suffers, but under the right lighting condition the photos are still viewable. It's like a photographer's sketch book. It gives me so much freedom to explore. It's such a liberation!

Looking at Sky from My Phone Camera

Downtown Mountain View

Backstreet Mountain View

What to Do on Earth Day (4/22)

Perfect movie for cat loves, big or small.

The Young Mitsuko Uchida

So this is what Mitsuko Uchida was like when she was still a child prodigy. From the other youtube videos you can see the grown-up Uchida is well articulated and very thoughtful (and full of passion for music, also funny and humorous). I have had a few classmates in grade school who could play like the young Uchida, but few child prodigies mature to their full potentials.

Visited Physics Department in NTU

During my last trip to Taiwan, I visited my alma mater. Considered how unhappy I was in my collage years. It took me a lot of courage to enter the old Physics department building. Fortunately, the entire department had moved to a new building and the first floor of the building was repurposed to a museum so I didn't feel too discouraging. 

Took a peek at the old general physics lab.

Best Book About Software Development Process in 2010

Over the years, I have read many books on software development methodologies. Some are good, some are totally useless, but even the best one still makes me feel something is lacking. In the early days, they tried to make make the "unpredictable" thing "predictable" (which may be idealistic but  is never realistic). Worse, by making things predictable, the software development process became too rigid. The agile movement recognized this error and started to anticipate change as an important element in software development process. However, whether it's scrum or extreme programming, the agile practice still focuses on the technical side. A metaphor for how changes and collaborations can successfully work in the software development process is missing. Now, I finally found the missing piece in "the Jazz Process".

Reading this books is like having many "aha" moments.  So much "implicit knowledge" I have learned over the years fits perfectly with this metaphor. For example, how does team dynamics impact a software project? In what way? (The issue becomes obvious to me since our team is going through fast growth now.) How can a bunch of smart people collaborate (without keep fighting each other with their big egos)? "The Jazz Process" provides a very convincing model (how Jazz improvised) and simple guidelines based on it. The writing is never dull, the examples covers a lot of interesting topics (such as how a special operation force team is organized), and if you are a Jazz fan, it's also full of interesting stories about Jazz performers. After reading this book, I think I will never listen to a Jazz performance the same way again.

 

   

Heading Home

Now I have had things packed, my D3x sent back to Nikon for sensor cleaning, I am ready for my yearly trip back to Taiwan. Though my time in my parents' place sometimes felt more like a house arrest than a vacation, last year I managed to get some work done and found it very productive. Compared to the daily conflict with my mom, working feels like a vacation.   

The King's Speech

I managed to go to this movie before heading home. Other movies (black swan, true grit, etc) will have to wait until I am back from Taiwan.

The Sorrow and Joy of Working at Startup

 Today is my last working day of the year. Because our company is preparing to move to a new building next week and I will be on vacation by then, I stay late to pack my things. Looking around the empty building (everybody gone, packing boxes scattered everywhere), knowing that I will be starting a new year in a new location, I can't but look back and reflect on the passing year.

It's quite a rocky year. More than 30% of the people I had worked with in 2009 were gone in 2010. Some left because work was too stressful, some left for better opportunities, and some left for other reasons. I had my moments of doubts too. Yet against all odds I stayed.  A coworker (who left last week) once asked me and another coworker, what motivated us to stay in this company. We couldn't give him a good answer. We knew it was not money since we hadn't gotten any salary raise for 2 years and probably wouldn't get one any time soon. (I even got a cut when I joined.) The working hours were long. The future was uncertain (whoever thought he could make quick money working at start up probably hadn't worked at one for long). So why did I stay? Or, change the question slightly, what kept me going?

It took me quite some soul searching to find the answers. They are:

- the people I work with. When I worked long hours, I knew my other coworkers worked just as hard (if not harder), and no matter what challenges I was facing I knew I could always get good advices from them. I was not alone. (I sometimes even feel slightly guilty because most of them have families and are making more sacrifices working at a start up.)

- the sense of accomplishment. To write the first line of code in many modules and see them grow, to master things I doubted I would ever be able to learn, to overcome my fear of talking to strangers and help on customer support, the action of accomplishing things becomes its own reward.

- the sense of adventure. Just one year ago we didn't even have a customer, now we have doubled our revenue for four consecutive quarters. How's that possible? Will we be like that next year? Honestly, I don't know. Yet I now know why epics like Iliad and Odyssey are relevant after two thousand years. We are all living in epics of our own.

Maybe the answers are not good enough for my parting coworker (he will laugh his head off and tell me I am too naive), but they are good enough for me. At least for now.

P.S. I started this post yesterday, so the "today" is actually yesterday.

QE Explained

Surprise Birthday Gift from the Interns

Our company hired two interns from Sweden lately. They are young, full of joie de vivre, and super passionate about programming. They also care a lot about engineering practice. To promote unit testing (they are helping us on test automation), they even hand-made some badges and gave one to us if we wrote more tests. (I got the first badge and felt so honored.) Working with them really teaches me to be humble.

Several days ago (my birthday), I was going out to have tea with Chinchih (as a celebration) and  told them it was my birthday on my way out. When I was back, I noticed a print-out on my desk with a book cover and a happy birthday mark from the interns. "Thanks for the print-out, why there's a book cover on it?" I asked the interns. "Oh, we thought you would like the book so we bought it as your birthday gift. You will receive it in 5-8 days. It's shipped to your home." A bit surprised, I asked them, "But how do you know my home address?" "Oh, we asked the HR. She told us." Wow, I was speechless. Never in my life had anybody gone through so much effort to send me a gift (let alone someone I barely know). I was moved, I could even feel tears in my eyes.

OK, maybe life is not that bad after 41. Sometimes even a small gesture can lighten up other people's life. That's probably the most important thing I learned from the interns.