2007-10-30 CNET’s Ad Freaks Halloween

I was really burned out from partying. But Patrick IM’d me saying that he was in the city for one night only and extrovert that he is, I knew I had to find a party at the last minute, sans costume.

2007-0144 11.jpg

Patrick
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800, ultimate light box
1/50sec @ f/2.8, iso 640, 16mm (24mm)

Andrew Mager was kind enough to invite me to the party sponsored by CNET business.

Mager, broadcasting for Justin.TV

Mager, broadcasting for Justin.TV
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800, ultimate light box
1/60sec @ f/2.8, iso 500, 16mm (24mm)

It was a lot of fun even though I only knew ten people in the entire place, a couple people actually tried to use my name to get past the bouncer at the door—and it worked!. Can you believe that? 😀

Rock this party!

Rock this party!
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800, ultimate light box
1/50sec @ f/2.8, iso 640, 16mm (24mm)

Also, since this photo got insane viewage as it was uploading, I thought posting it before the jump can’t hurt. I’m putting it really small so you click on it though… 😀

Playgirl

Our favorite bunny
The Holy Cow
SoMa, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800, ultimate light box
1/60sec @ f/2.8, iso 320, 16mm (24mm)

[the jump]Continue reading

Spontaneous Drinking

They say a great idea comes from seeing a need and satisfying it.

In the Web 2.0 world, most of the ideas come from taking what people have been doing and putting an “Un—” in front of it.

So you have BarCamp an un-conference. Then you have Lunch 2.0, the un-power lunch. Heck you’d think this whole Web 2.0 bubble would be powered by 7 Up, the un-cola, but really it’s something more like Red Bull, which as near as I can figure is the un-un-cola.

In case this turns out big, I’m blogging the newest thing in the Web 2.0 social: Spontaneous Drinking Night in SF (join the Facebook group).

It’s an un-event.

After all, what ever happened to kicking it back for a few beers with friends after work and talking about the latest viral video—in this case, the kissy anus face?

Do the kissy-anus-face

Do the kissy-anus-face
Eddie Rickenbacker’s, SoMa, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
3 exposures @ 1/30sec, iso 320, 35mm (47mm)

Here’s the idea: Need an excuse to drink mid-week? Someone sends out a Facebook message with the deets: some bar in SF, most likely with a bunch of geeks, and no set agenda other than to have a few beers after work.

Oh yeah, you’re thinking: Damn that client was a moron, but I’m not in the capital of geekdom and alcoholism (San Francisco) where they have yet to have a first official event but somehow managed to get 269 members.

That’s okay, “like an STD in the 70’s,” we’ve spread virally to Silicon Valley and Vienna. And if there isn’t a chapter near you, what’s preventing you from setting one up and telling us about it?

Hope to catch you at the next event.

[The ur-un-event and the Long Tail after the jump.]Continue reading

Collapsing the female wave-function

The solution to the greatest paradoxes of the twentieth century physics is the realization that the observer cannot be separated from the experimental design.

  • General Relativity? The observer can’t tell the difference between gravity and an accelerating reference frame.
  • Maxwell’s Demon? Even the observer’s computation cannot be separated from the physical system that implements it.
  • Quantum Mechanics? Observation collapses probabilistic wave-functions.

There is a simple irony in the above.

A 21st century paradox, shared among my friends and with constant teasing, is how someone like me could both emphatically claim and successfully test as a heavy introvert.

The solution to this slightly less prestigious paradox is: I carry a camera.

Like quantum mechanics, my data collection device changes the experimental design.

[How a camera collapses the social wave function after the jump]Continue reading

The open office

See our open offices with free food, beer, and t-shirts at Lunch 2.0 today!

Photos of my workstation are like photos of “What’s in my bag”—they seem to draw a voyeur-like fascination just short of a shot of a pretty girl.

Well since we recently tore down the cubes, I finally set up my workstation. You can come to Lunch 2.0 this Friday and see for yourself, but just in case you happen to be in Mexico drinking Corona’s that day:

My new open office setup

My new open office setup
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/16sec, iso 320, 35mm (47mm)

Click on the photo and mouseover the image for some tagging goodness.

[Inventory and open office after the jump]Continue reading

Happy Sputnik Day!

Happy Sputnik Day

Text reads:
Dear person-with-vaguely-Russian-sounding-name,

Fifty years ago today, the Soviet Union threw a beeping metal sphere into low earth orbit scaring the be-jesus out of every American and touching off the Space Race which gave us 100+ TV channels, GPS tracking, orbital mind control lasers, Google Earth, and Tangall of which, by some coincidence, scare the be-jesus out of me.

How are you going to celebrate this greatest day in history?

—Terensandr Mydadovich Chayarov

I was thinking the other day how White Russians may be my favorite ethnic group named after a decent cocktail and it is a shame that they don’t have a cool day like the Irish do—you know to show off their heritage and give the rest of us an excuse to imbibe way too much alcohol.

That is, until Cindy pointed out that today is International Sputnik Day—the 50th anniversary!

[Tell us how you plan on celebrating the possibly greatest day in history of artificially-flavored orange juice after the jump]Continue reading

Our real selves

Twitter has all of the sleaziness of stalking with none of the messy work of having to actually leave my desk. But I found a dark underside to it: it makes stalking way too easy. Sometimes I get caught in my laziness:

Out in the real world, a girl comes up to me. “Hey!”

Me: “Hi. I’m Terry Chay.” Hello, very pretty asian girl I don’t recognize.

“I know that! 😀 It’s me.”

Me: “I’m sorry, we met at a Lunch 2.0?” Oh shit! I must know her. Good thing I’m a banana—I can drop the “All of us yellow people look alike” joke if things get bad.

“It’s me, C—.”

Me: “Oh! You’ve got a new haircut. It looks nice on you, by the way.” Shit, how could I forget you—I totally twitter stalk you! Hope this dodge works.

“I had the same haircut at CNET.”

Me: “Oh, I was so busy there, you know how it is.” Please ignore the fact that I do nothing at Lunch 2.0 other than eat people’s lunch and claim credit for their work.

“Yeah, I do.”

Whew! That was close.

Now somewhere in the conversation, she mentioned that she would have never thought me a physicst until I mentioned it in my blog. On one hand, I’m thinking Whoo hoo! nine readers! On the other hand, I’m now thinking After she reads the above, I’ll be back down to eight.

But the thing is, I could never really picture myself not majoring in physics. Every choice I’ve made, even the f—d up one as majoring in physics, is part of who I am.

Cal wrote:

In other cases, blogs like my friend, Terry Chay, support the character that he is building up around himself. In both cases, with wildly different styles, the same results are achieved, a deeper understanding of the blogger.

But really, is this blog a character I’m building up, or is it my real self?

[A little bit strange after the jump.]Continue reading

Flights of fancy

Flights of fancy

Flights of fancy
somewhere over the Eastern United States

Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/90sec, iso 320, 35mm (47mm)

My tweets make no sense.

This is why nobody follows me and even my friends have turned off updates.

I just can’t seem to explain my experiences in 140 characters. Maybe I should have titled this blog “The Circumlocution.” Oh well, at least two people asked me about this confusing tweet after my plane landed.

But it’s really quite a simple story, even if I can’t tell it right.

Here is a helpful diagram…

Helpful diagram

[More misadventures after the jump.]Continue reading

'tis me fav'rite day o the year

Like last year and the year before

Annual Talk Like A Pirate Day ecARRRRRRRRd

Text reads: Ahoy me mateys and buxom wenches!
The day ’tis ripe fer Talk Like A Pirate.
Ye be talkin’ like a pirate or ye be a scurvy bilge rat!
Arrrrrrr!
—The Dread Pirate Terry

I think the reason I love Pirate Day so much is that I had a horrible speech impediment in grade school where I couldn’t say my r’s (you can still hear it if you listen closely, but please don’t). Now I’m making up for it with some extra Arrrrrr’s. The infamous Meebo Pirate emoticon

[More pirate after the jump]Continue reading

Ruby, Photography, and Women

My second twitterstalk was Andrei at Caffe Trieste in North Beach. Andrei is someone everyone should be nice to for reasons I mentioned before. He’s trying to get me back into photography.

I think it’s because he has a photoblog now…

and probably figures that getting my competitive juices flowing will be the photography equivalent of dollar-nassau. But I hate to compete and the only thing that motivates me is, quite frankly, intense fear. And besides, what chance do I have? As Ed Finkler says, the man’s got scary amounts of kevorka:

This White Russian smiles

This White Russian smiles
CNET Headquarters
SOMA, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX. SB-800
1/60sec @ f/2.8, iso 100, 38mm (47mm)

Go subscribe to his blog now (besides the pictures are good, quite unlike mine).

[cats, coffee, photography, ruby, and women after the jump]Continue reading