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 Tang—all 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 →

Posted on by tychay 5

Certain faddishness

People are all in a huff about Ballmer being, as far as I can tell, Ballmer.

“I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people.”
—Steve Ballmer, Times Online

Now, I think Ballmer is an idiot as much as any man (or, at least, Mac fanboi)…

But am I wrong in thinking the whole idea of him saying this is so that they can purchase Facebook at a price that’s not astronomical, especially now that Yahoo! has dropped out of the running? Whether social networking is a fad or not, it’s seems good business to claim it is when you hold the money but not a product. Shit, isn’t that the first thing a VC does when they talk to a startup—try to make you and your business feel like shit? Sounds to me the same thing on a much bigger playing field.

Also is it really that bad of a quote?

“The Internet? We are not interested in it”
—Bill Gates, 1993

(For reference, this was said a year after I called home and said, “Dad, I want to quit Caltech. You know this thing Mom and I use called the Internet? It’s going to be big!” So, basically, any of the “younger people” who wasn’t a complete moron at the time had figured out that the Internet is definitely something a company like Microsoft should be interested in.)

Marc Andreessen points out, the true beauty of the Ballmer quote is it applies to nearly everything. In fact, I think I’ll be saying that as an reverse “not into pokémon”. Any time someone dismisses something I’m really into, I’ll say:

really into digital photography

I.
Love.
This.
Quote.

I don’t think I could be screaming monkey Ballmer very well, but this, this I can do.

(By the way, if any of you are wondering why I’m behind on my photography, read Jim Goldstein’s post on digital photography: “Digital Photography: So Good, It’s Bad.” So true! Applies also to blogging about photography.)

[Thanks and thoughts.]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 3

Adobe’s AIR MAX

Ever since Ed Finkler found out I use twitter a few months ago, he has been bugging me to install Spaz. Then, when Spaz became Spaz.AIR, he did it again.

But so far I’ve been able to resist his sexy advances.

Then one day, Adobe hosted a Lunch 2.0 with an Adobe AIR contest. I suggested to Ed that he submit that app of his that is so good that I don’t use it.

He did.

The problem was Ed and I were going to be at php|works. Whoops!

What to do if he won?

So I checked the RSVP and sent an e-mail to the two people who most remind me of Ed: Morgan and Karen asking if one of them would be West-Coast Ed.

2007-0097 57

2007-0097 57
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, 16mm (24mm)

Morgan (center) introduced me to Karen (right). Those of you who know Ed, can already see the similarity.

Karen was up to the challenge.

The strange thing is, he did win. Andrew Mager was on hand to record Ed accepting his prize:

Ed, it’s her stripey socks that does it for me. Consider getting a few pairs.

All I have to say is, Ed you’re looking a lot hotter. (Maybe I should install Spaz.)

[AIR, Funkatron, Karenism, etc. after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 10

CNET Open House on Tuesday: Under the Hood

CNET is hosting an open house on October 2nd (Tuesday). Given that every PHP Meetup in SF has been cancelled the night before, I suggest you go to this. 😀

GameSpot, TV.com, MP3.com and FilmSpot.com will be having a panel discussion on using PHP/MySQL framework to share code between multiple sites that support 49 million unique visitors and over 1 billion page views each month? Attendees will be registered to win a Nintendo Wii!

Hosts: CNET Networks HQ
Address: 235 2nd Street, San Francisco
Date: Tuesday October 2, 6PM-7:30PM
RSVP:here

Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 1

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 →

Posted on by tychay 15

Battle wounds

A lot of people at work were asking me about this bright red cut I had on my nose today. The truth of the matter is, I was showering and the shampoo bottle slipped out of my hand and I cut myself across my nose. But nobody was believing that story.

Battle wounds

Battle wounds
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/500sec, iso 320, 35mm (47mm)

I thought about it on the way home and I realized they were right—I should tell people that I got into an alley fight with some pissed-off Ruby developers, and one of them nicked me before I was able to fend them off with my mad ninja coding skills.

That’ll be much more believable.

(Now I’m hoping the cut stays visible for a while.)

[My Harrison Ford Scar after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 7

Why PHP triumphs over Ruby

“I’m really low on my scatological count here…I’m sorry I didn’t crack enough jokes or use enough [cuss words], but I’m sure people will forgive me. They can just attend one of my talks and get their cuss quota for the year. And if not, coding these web apps themselves involves a lot of swearing—a lot of blood, sweat and swear.”
—me on Pro PHP Podcast

I’m not posting my talk yet because I have to give it again at ZendCon. So here is a bit of a teaser.

A simple architecture

A simple architecture
College Park, Atlanta, Georgia

Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/45sec, iso 320, 35mm (47mm)

The Internet is an Ogre and this architecture is really quite simple.

[Do not hit the jump if you are easily offended. I really mean it!]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 44

Jobs in PHP at CNET

This is actually another one of my infamous PHP job postings. But because the people of CNET are so cool, I thought I’d preface it with a couple of CNET stories first.

(I honestly don’t know if I should blog this. I have a standing invite to visit CNET networks next week and, knowing Mager and Potter, they’ll probably use this to embarrass me when I do. But I promised for weeks that I’d blog the jobs.)

CNET needs to host a Lunch 2.0

CNET needs to host a Lunch 2.0
CNET Networks, SOMA, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX
1/100sec @ f/16, iso250, 16mm (24mm)

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a coworker who for some reason or another had been to CNET’s headquarters recently: “The women at CNET are hot.”

“Really?”

He laughed, “Didn’t you just have a Lunch 2.0 there?”

Ahh, here follows my explanation on why I depend on others to tell me who is hot or not. (You’ll have to read to the end of the article :-D)

[PHP jobs and CNET hotties after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 9

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 →

Posted on by tychay 16