Downtown Portland

I've always feared downtown Portland. Ever since I could drive, the region bordered by I-405 and I-5 has been the Bermuda Triangle of my nightmares. One-way streets, frenetic bike/pedestrian traffic, erratic grid layouts, illogically placed on- and off-ramps. The stuff of legends.

Needless to say, I've avoided downtown like the plague. Until recently, that is. You see, I was offered an internship in the Pearl district, and--poor college student that I am--was loathe to turn it down.

The name of the company--Puppet Labs--was intriguing enough to override my survival instincts. I'm pleased to report that, contrary to initial expectations, the company doesn't act as a benevolent marionette master (or a malignant one, for that matter). Instead, they're a software company that develops tools used to automate server administration. But, to be frank, the most interesting thing about the company isn't the product, it's the workplace environment.

In my brief stints at other tech companies, I've been exposed to a fairly standard set of workplace guidelines.

• Dress code? Business casual.
• Pets allowed? No.
• Assigned workspace? Cubical; bench in an RF-shielded lab; trapeze over the company shark pool, etc… (just kidding)

Puppet Labs is… different.

• Dress code? Bare feet, surfer shorts, and a mohawk (with pink highlights, if you like).
• Pets allowed? The more the merrier (dogs produce such a wondrous cacophony of sound).
• Assigned workspace? Workbench, or couch, or hammock… or coffee joint down the street.

It's different, it's bizarre, but I'm liking the casual environment. It almost felt like a sin to come into work dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, but it's something I'll acclimatize to rapidly.

Another great thing about the company. Even though they're a startup, they provide their employees with drool-worthy hardware. In fact, if I have any complaint against my prior multi-national employers, it's the four-year-old laptops they outfit their employees with. You have to be a genie (and a good one at that) to be productive on 1-2GB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive. I nearly had an epileptic seizure (and I don't even have epilepsy) when my new boss handed me a 27" Apple cinema display and MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. I kept looking furtively over my shoulder, as though there were some social injustice in trusting an intern with $4000-worth of hardware.

But as I say, I'll adjust. Give me a week or two, and this won't feel wrong anymore. Well… except for the Bermuda Triangle of Portland. That one's gonna take time.

Ciao,
- Daniel

Rekindling a Love of Reading

The Amazon Kindle is fairly boring by modern computational standards. It's an 8"x5" tablet with a monochrome screen and primitive QWERTY keyboard. What's it used for? Reading. That's about it.

Why would you want to buy a dedicated device just for reading? Good question. Let me reverse the question. Why wouldn't you want to use a general-purpose computer for reading? (hint: it's all in the screen)

A modern computer uses an LCD screen. LCD screens work by refreshing 60-120 times per second, which makes them useful for displaying video and smooth animations (the human eye requires at least 24 frames per second to create the illusion of motion). The catch is that this constant flickering causes eye strain. You know the kind. Head-splitting, migrane-inducing, wanton destruction of brain cells.

What about the Kindle screen? It's most certainly not an LCD screen, as the agnoizingly slow 4 frame per second refresh speed would suggest (first-person shooters, anybody?). Color isn't a selling point either, as it can only handle 16 different shades of gray (even the cheapest of LCDs can display 16,700,000 colors). Indeed. So what's special about the screen?

There are a couple of interesting points to make. First, the technology behind the Kindle's screen, known as e-Ink, consists of tiny charged black-and-white particles. Power is only required when particles are moved to the front or back of the screen, not to hold them there. Consequently, you only draw power when turning pages, not when reading a page. This means that a Kindle has an astonishing battery life--up to 2 months in the case of the Kindle 3.

Second, a corollary of the way pages are displayed is the effect it has on the eyes. When you're reading a page, the screen is static--it isn't being refreshed (flickering) at all. Consequently, it induces almost the same level of eyestrain as a printed page, which is to say, not a lot.

Do I love my Kindle? Yes I do. I've already downloaded a bevy of free classics from the Amazon Kindle store, as well as some technical books that would easily weigh 5 pounds apiece. My gut instinct isn't to pick up light readling like "A Tale of Two Cities" or "Uncle Tom's Cabin", but when said literature is a 30 second download away, why not?

Oh, and did I mention that the 3G version of the Kindle comes with free Internet access? No, I probably shouldn't have. It'll wreak havok with your literary escapades. On second thought, forget I said anything at all.

Until next time,
- Daniel

On Pikermis and Pain (yes, again)

13.1 miles. Yep, I can cross the half-marathon off my bucket list. It's kind of a cool feeling, knowing that--when the zombie acopalypse rolls around--I'll be capable of escaping to the great strongholds of Tigard, Tualatin, Wilsonville, and Beaverton. On foot if necessary. Take that, you zombie hordes.

(while those glorious images of daring and adventure are floating around in your brains, I'll be making my way to the emergency exit...)

Okay, so maybe the half marathon wasn't a terribly exciting experience in and of itself... and maybe I ran out of steam half-way through (which might cause me to become a zombie sandwich in aforementioned disaster scenario... but who's counting?)

The first 9 miles went great. I was grooving, passing manly men and winsome women right and left. No cramps, no intestinal issues. Nirvana on earth. You get the picture.

About mile 10, after yet another sub-8 minute mile, it hit. The dreaded wall. Suddenly, my shoes filled with lead and an invisible gravity well started pulling me backwards. One by one, those manly men and winsome women began passing me, looking ever so much more manly and winsome than the buggy-eyed gentleman trailing behind them. I'm still chalking it up to a freak exception of relativity, but suddenly my watch was reading a pace in the 9-10 min/mile range.

As the gorgeous wave of humanity rushed past me, I knew there was but one thing to do. Finish.

"Easier said than done," my brain chided me, as it made me agonizingly aware of my aching calves and the 5K distance remaining to the finish line. And... yes... there it was. A colossal hill right smack in the middle of mile 12. What kind of sadistic mind puts something like that in a long distance race?

Normally, I hold back some energy for a bit of bravado at the end of the race. You know, pick up the knees and sprint for the most beautiful word in the English language: F-I-N-I-S-H. Not this time. I'm still a bit fuzzy on that exact moment in time, but the watch doesn't lie. The watch tells all... and it tells me that I most certainly did not resemble an Usain Bolt at the end of that race.

Ah well, there's always next time. ;-)

Trivia: there's an effort underway to rename the half marathon to the "pikermi" (pee-KER-me). Why? Because being labeled a "half-marathoner" is derogatory! We 13.1 milers undergo just as much pain as those running the full 26.2, it's just for a shorter duration is all. Oh, the inhumanity!

Exhortation to Friendship

I want this to be a highly positive note. What is friendship? Webster defines it for us:

Friendship - the state of being friends.

What is a friend? Webster comes to the rescue again:

Friend - one attached to another by affection or esteem.

Clearly, this is a noble calling, more than a passing notice or an infrequent bringing to the mind. The secular definition above gives a sense of continuity, investment, and--frankly--hard work. But we can do better. How does the Bible define friendship?

Ecclesiastes 4:12 - Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Proverbs 18:24 - A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Friends are important. Very important. In times of persecution or hardship, they may be the primary tool God uses to get you through. Not only that, but I'd wager a guess that true friends are rare. Hard to find, harder to keep and keep in touch with.

Here's where the exhortation comes in. Find friends. Friends who will pray with you, inspire you, exhort you, challenge you, and stick by you. When you find these people--and you will, if you haven't already--don't take them for granted. The person who knows how to friend and be a friend is a rich person indeed.

To everyone reading this note, embrace the challenge. Spend your life learning what friendship is all about. Follow God's example. Don't settle for anything less than His best for you. Life is a journey. May He guide yours.

All the best,

- Daniel