There's never a shortage of stuff to watch at night after work. During the last thirty days, I've watched about fifteen movies (a couple of which I had already watched before). That's probably more movies than I watched during the entire academic year. In approximate chronological order, they are:

Nacho Libre
Syriana
The Constant Gardener
Lord of War
Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara [Hindi]
Superman Returns (IMAX 3D)
Who Killed the Electric Car
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Munich
Rear Window
History of Violence
Being Cyrus
Bluffmaster [Hindi]
Clerks II
V for Vendetta

And I've almost finished watching every episode of Entourage to date, starting from Season 1. If this keeps up, I might start suffering from withdrawal when coursework starts again in Fall. :P

6 interns, 6 laptops, 8 sec. shutter speed...

Note: I wasn't actually involved in the making of this picture. Just received it via email from John Mishanski through an internal mailing list some days ago, and thought it was cool enough to share. :)

It's been almost two weeks since the last update, so I guess I'm going to bundle a whole bunch of things into one disorganized post.

Work has been picking up nicely. The initial learning curve is pretty steep - the codebase is massive, it's a new build environment, there are lots of tools that you learn to use, and it often takes time to find out who the right person to talk to is when you have questions about something in particular. But I'm getting a hang of things, and enjoying it all.

Besides working, I've been attending lots of tech talks on campus; I try to go to at least one every week. Sometimes, the speakers are other Googlers talking about the work they're doing, and sometimes they're people from outside the company who have been invited to present something new and interesting.

Last week, for example, I went to check out a presentation by Rick Woodbury, the President of CommuterCars, a company based in Spokane, WA. Rick's team builds this fully electric car called the Tango, that can go from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds and fits in half a freeway lane. They actually managed to bring the car to the second floor of the building. It's a neat little vehicle, although you're going to have to shell out over $100K for one until it starts being mass-produced. George Clooney was apparently their first customer. And speaking of electric cars, the Tesla Roadster was also unveiled this week. Gorgeous car that uses Lithium-ion batteries to run 250 miles on a full charge. Is the electric car finally on its way towards making a comeback?

Other than that, we've been watching lots of movies here in the apartment at night after work. One of my housemates, Aaron, has a projector that we use, so it's a mini-theater like experience. I've also started watching episodes of Entourage from the beginning. It's just an entertaining, laidback show that's fun to watch at the end of the day.

So that's the update for now. More later, hopefully without the two week gap this time around... :)

As promised, here are some pictures of the main campus that I quickly took this morning. Click for larger versions...

Hotmail turned 10 years old last week. I logged into my Live account and realized that I registered my Hotmail address on November 25, 1997...almost 9 years ago! It was my very first email address, and I still use it as my Windows Live Messenger ID today.


Email has become such a big part of our lives, it's hard to imagine how we did without it. Remember sending letters to friends and family by snail-mail and waiting for several days, and sometimes even weeks before you got back a response? Do you remember when you got your first email address, and how awestruck you were at the nearly instantaneous speed of delivery? :)

A group of us went to watch the just-released, second part of Pirates last night after work.

Very entertaining, just like the first one. Johnny Depp's mannerisms were hilarious. The crowd in the theater cheered and clapped when he made his appearance. The entire movie was fast-paced, action-packed, and humorous. Some scenes might even make you jump in your seat! I'd definitely recommend watching it if you enjoyed Curse of the Black Pearl.

On my first day of work, I arrived at the Googleplex early, and since I didn't have a badge yet, I checked in as a visitor and sat down in the Building 43 lobby, waiting for the orientation folks to show up. There was a copy of the MetropolisMag on the table in front of me, and on the cover was the title of an article about the design of the Google campus - "Behind the Glass Curtain."

It was an interesting read, and there were lots of pictures (bear in mind that I hadn't actually been inside any of the buildings then). Take a look if you're curious to see what the environment here is like. Of course, the whole place is much busier (and consequently, less pristine-looking) during the day, but the pictures give you a general idea of what it looks like. I'll also try to post some pictures of the campus and the building where I work sometime soon.

Just watched the IMAX 3D version of Superman Returns this evening. I'm a big Supe fan, and I really enjoyed the movie.

The cast was great...all of them, especially Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey, played their parts really well. The settings, the camera work, and the special effects were awesome. If you have a choice, go for the IMAX version. I'm glad we did, even though it was a 40 minute drive. It's worth it; this movie's totally made for it.

On a related note, I just found out that the world premiere of the movie was in Westwood, right outside the UCLA campus. The Smallville cast was there too. I bet it would have been really cool to go check that out if I were still there. :)

It's been a really busy and fun week! Started work at the Goog on Tuesday, and I'll be here as a software engineering intern this summer.

New hires had the initial orientation session on Tuesday - lots of paperwork, getting our badges, learning more about the company in general etc. During the rest of the week, we attended a number of talks, many of which were really interesting and informative. Most of the content was confidential though, so I can't really say anything more than that. For the same reason, I'll be blogging more about my general experience here during the next three months, rather than going into any specific details about my work.

On Thursday evening, they took us to the Texas Rangers vs. SF Giants baseball game at AT&T Park in San Fransisco. I had never been to a baseball game before, so it was an interesting experience. I've put up some pics that you can take a look at.


On Friday, I attended my first TGIF meeting, which is a weekly, company-wide gathering where executives (including Larry, Sergey and Eric) give us an update on all the latest happenings at Google. All Nooglers (short for "new Googlers") had to wear propeller-head hats and placards. It was quite amusing.


The work environment here is awesome. Everyone I've met and talked to has been friendly and helpful. There are internal tech talks all the time, so you can learn more about new technology and projects that other groups are working on. The perks are great. The food is excellent (yes, free breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday on campus, as you might have heard), and there's a huge variety in each of the cafeterias to cater to almost everyone's tastes. The micro-kitchens on each floor are stocked with snacks, about 20 different types of cereal, and a whole bunch of drinks, and you can go pick up anything you like, anytime. There are massage chairs, couches and bean-bags all over the place if you want to take a break and relax for a while. There's an on-site gym, volleyball courts, and free laundry machines to wash your clothes too. You just don't feel like ever leaving the place. ;)

I'm still in the process of exploring the campus and learning more, and I get the feeling the next three months here are going to be really cool. :)