Palo Alto - a la PARC

So my first few days at work...

PARC (no, I don't work at a park), for those who don't know... is the place where the mouse and the concept of GUI originated. Apparently a whole bunch of stuff come from this lab. It was originally Xerox's 'legendary' research arm until in 1992, it was incorporated (more of this can be found in the PARC website...). PARC is now a fully owned subsidiary of Xerox.

Now I thought PARC was like a Bell Labs for telecom (you know, the once famous, now not so spectacular labs), but boy was I wrong! Apparently the people who worked at PARC invented some of the coolest innovations that revolutionize our world. And if you knew what I knew and the various inventions tied to previous recent PARC employees, PARC will seem like Canada in hockey...
Though I don't want to publicly post (since they might be confidential), one upcoming invention or product that could revolutionzie the concept of paper is the 'epaper'. So what is epaper you ask? Well, you can google that, but in short, 'reusable paper'!.. More info on PARC's website...

But very cool stuff they are doing it seems; it will be interesting to sit in to all the talks and see what the lab is up to. Of course I have to be hush hush.. but even the non hush hush stuff is pretty amazing and people not in the field may not here about them till they blossom into another invetion comparable to the mouse!

Oh and on this PARC note, I have created my first invention there. It is called the 'sweetened iced tea'. In case you don't know, U.S.'s 'iced tea' is REALLY 'iced' 'tea'. I swear what they do is they brew a big pot of tea, then put some ice in it, and serve it. So you can imagine what it taste like.. cold tea, too 'bleh' for my semi-Canadian blood

I might be infringing on Nestea here, but hey, not like I am selling this stuff; and I am sure Nestea probably sticks in some glucose, fructose, sucrose and sugarose etc. in it. Here's mson's 'prototype' below (will be improved over the term):
1) 16 oz. cup, fill a quarter of it w/ ice
2) put in the 'U.S. iced tea'
3) put in 3 packs of sugar (white fine grain sugar) and mix vigorously
4) put in 3 packs of sugar (white fine grain sugar) and mix vigorously
5) put in 2 packs of sugar (white fine grain sugar) and mix vigorously

Now, don't put all 8 packs in, cuz if you do, you are in for one hell of a vigorous mix!

My task also seems pretty cool... not quite sure what it is yet. Something to do with sensor networks and collabarative computing. But I think I will be eventually working out of a real lab... hahaha. But just reading tons and tons of code right now... eventually I think i will have to start writing some stuff, but until then, more reading and reading...

Oh, so PARC has these like things called 'atriums'.. and my office faces the atrium. I share an office w/ one other person, and lucky guy has the desk facing the window. Directly across is where my supervisor is.... so if my supervisor ever turns his head, he would be able to see what I am doing.. Now who thinks this is a pure coincidence?...

oh and btw, went to downtwon mountainview today, lots of chinese stores... had mongolian grill tonite!!! ahhh the memories.. hehehehe... this was a smaller scale one though. On the way back, there were these lamps w/ fire in it. Will post a pic later once I get it.

So tomorrow I will be waking up to return my beloved Corolla rental car. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my 'CS mentor - aka young grasshopper' who sits adjacent to me who will be picking me up. Now if he'd only move his monitor a couple inches over, then my office setup will be complete!

and here's a link for my pics:
mson's pics
I am not sure if this will be a permanent thing yet, still thinking of checking out other pic sharing sites... but for now, enjoy!