Posted by Skrud at Sunday, June 17th 2007 at 1:40pm
This has been an incredible week. Starting with landing down on Sunday, and meeting my team for the first time: Jay, Scott and Chris, from varying corners of the U.S. We sat down and fleshed out a project idea for a Virtual Classroom system. The idea is to recreate the classroom experience, add new forms of interaction to it, and extend the reach of world-class professors. People could take courses over the internet, by attending lectures, in real-time, from classrooms around the world. They could interact with the class by asking questions (and eventually, by real-time chat with TAs or other classmates). We had powerpoint slides being synched up from the teacher’s podium to each student client, and we had the ability for whatever the teacher would draw on the slides to be redrawn on each student’s screen. We also had streaming audio of the lecture being send to each student. I’d love to give you guys more detail on the project, so ask me about it over a pint sometime.
The bulk of the week was spent in our hotel room office, coding, testing fixing and coding. We didn’t have time for any fancy development practices or anything formal; we went for the iterative/last-minute model: get stuff working fast. We got a lot of input from our Microsoft mentors: Jaime, Mike and Justin who came by the hotel nearly every day (and got free dinner ;)), helped us organize ideas and practice our presentation. These guys volunteered plenty of their own time to helping us out, and it was much appreciated.
Yesterday was the big presentation day, where we had to show off what we’ve done to a panel of judges, which included Microsoft researchers, with backgrounds in physics, and engineering… It was kind of brutal. The picked apart every presentation to the point where we had no idea whom would win. Obviously, given the limited timeframe, a lot of the projects were in the same relative state of hastily-written code. There was one project that stood out, which was polished and clean, and had a great idea. This was ObjectSpace, which presented a 3D, interactive coding environment that would teach people how to program. We were sure they were going to take first place. Our presentation was pretty good, and we were confident that we’d be in the top 3.
When it came time to present the awards, however, ObjectSpace came in third. At this point my heart was pounding. We knew we were getting something for sure — because they brutally singled out the two teams that didn’t win anything before announcing the winners. And if ObjectSpace came in third, that meant we had a damn good shot at first place, and Korea. Then we called up for second place, or — as it says my trophy — “1st Runner Up”. (I think “2nd place” sounds better). This was more than we could’ve hoped for, and not bad for a weeks’ worth of work. ;)
I’m really glad I got the time to meet up with my friends who’ve moved out here to work at Microsoft, too. I took the time on Tuesday to check out Taphouse Grill with Vivian, and I went over to Nadia’s apartment to play some pool with her, Ahmed, Eric, and their friend Rosh. Vivian came back out to drink and eat sushi with us last night, too. Who knows when I’ll get to see these friends again — hopefully sooner rather than later. I kind of regret not being able to see much of downtown Seattle (we had one afternoon where we went to an arcade/bar and Scott and I defeated House of the Dead 4), but this week has been a blast nonetheless. You can bet I’ll register for Imagine Cup again next year.
And finally, I’d like to give a huge THANK YOU to all the organizers. Especially Stephanie, who had the stressful job of being a temporary Mom to some 24 geeks throughout the entire week. She made sure we got fed, met our mentors, had time to practice, and enjoyed ourselves throughout the week.
That’s it for now — I’ve got a plane to catch. :)
Tags: 2007, code, events, imaginecup, microsoft, travel | no comments
Posted by Skrud at Wednesday, June 13th 2007 at 2:02am
Our schedules at this Finals competition basically consists of:
10 BREAKFAST
20 CODE
30 LUNCH
40 CODE
50 DINNER
60 CODE
70 SLEEP
80 GOTO 10
Now, it’s not so bad. I think my team is pretty cool and we’ve gelled pretty well. This morning we got a visit to the Microsoft Company Store, where you can buy copies of Vista Ultimate for $40 or Office Student and Home 2007 for $35. I bought a copy of Office, a hoodie, a t-shirt, and a luggage tag (because I didn’t have one). We also went down to the Microsoft Visitor Center, which I would describe as a “Museum of Microsoft History”. There were even demos of Surface to play around with.
Aside from being perfectly happy to sit around and geek out all day, I love beer. The Seattle are happens to be a hotspot for microbrews and beers of all kinds. The hotel itself has four taps that I’ve never even heard of: Alaskan Amber Ale, Pyramid Hefe-Weizen, Manny’s Pale Ale and Mac & Jack’s American Amber:
The previously mentioned Rock Bottom Brewery is but one example of a brewpub. Right next-door to it is the Taphouse Grill, a restaurant which boasts having over 160 beers on tap. One hundred and sixty!!!! I met up with Vivian, who just started as a Project Manager at Microsoft (and whom I already missed from Montreal) and we checked it out.
Beers I’ve tried at Taphouse:
- Fish Tale Organic Amber: Delicious. Vivian thought it was the best of the bunch. It was very tasty, and just sweet enough.
- LazyBoy Hefe: Not as good as some other Hefe-Weizens I’ve had. I thought this one was too fruity, but still pretty good.
- Rogue Chipotle Ale: A hint of smokiness and smooth flavour. It was damn good.
- Skagit Valley IPA: An excellent, extremely hoppy and bitter IPA. Just the way I likes it. This was my favourite of the “Northwest Sampler” (which included this beer and the others above it).
- Franziskaner Hefe-Weizen: A German Hefe-weizen that Harley highly recommended. I thought it was okay, and I prefer Paulaner.
- Alaskan Oatmeal Stout: I was a little disappointed with this beer. I think the McAuslan St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout is much better.
- Diamond Knot IPA: Recommended by the waitress when I asked for a good IPA. This one was fantastically bitter and utterly delicious.
I also tried Manny’s Pale Ale, the Humpback IPA (from Rock Bottom) and Rock Bottom’s Wheat Beer.
The IPAs that I’ve had here have been king thus far. I love bitter, hoppy IPAs, and I’ve been extremely impressed with the quality of IPAs that I can get out here in Bellevue, WA. Seriously, these are some of the best beers I’ve had. The Skalit Valley IPA reminded of Benelux’s Imperial IPA, only it was smoother, yet just as flavourful. It’s like heaven.
Tags: 2007, beer, events, imaginecup, travel | no comments
Posted by Skrud at Monday, June 11th 2007 at 7:22pm
Microsoft’s Zune is not available in Canada yet. In fact, it’s not available anywhere but the United States. Which is a damn shame, because it’s a pretty sweet little device. I used to think they were ugly and useless, but I’ve been playing with mine all morning. It supports mp4 videos out of the box, and picked up the original Transformers Movie and Ghost In The Shell that were lying around on my hard drive. I will need to convert my AVI and MKV files, though. The Zune also has a built-in radio receiver, pretty cool. :)
The fun part was when the installer was asking me to fill out the form with personal info to register for Urge or Zune Marketplace or whatever the hell it’s called … The “Country” field is required. But it only has one possible value: “United States”…. :-O I haven’t decided which state to pretend to be from.
My favourite feature of the Zune is the preloaded content. There are music videos and songs form Indie bands that I would never have heard of if they weren’t on this thing. Way to go Microsoft!
I can’t wait until I get home so that I can wirelessly squirt songs to no-one. (Don’t even bother. All the jokes have been said already. Seriously. Because my plane arrived so late, by the time I got here any attempt at poking humour at the silly Zune marketing was met with “yeah, that’s old news.” :()
Tags: 2007, events, gadgets, imaginecup, zune | no comments
Posted by Skrud at Monday, June 11th 2007 at 1:49pm
Getting from Montreal to NYC wasn’t the problem — even though our plane was put into a holding pattern around JFK airport for an extra 40 minutes or so, and once we landed at 4:25pm I noticed my boarding pass for my connecting flight to Seattle was at 4:55pm. In a different terminal. The map they had in the American Airlines magazine did not do the distance justice. I must’ve ran for about 5km, going through security again, reaching the departure gate, before realizing that 4:55pm was the boarding time, not the departure time. I managed to eat half a crappy airport-depanneur sandwich before boarding the plane.
It’s a good thing I ate that crappy airport-depanneur sandwich, because the seven-hour flight from NYC to Seattle had no food except for crappy airline snacks and crappy airline sandwiches, of which I believe they had four of. Obviously, not enough to feed a 757 of hungry passengers. It didn’t help that the plane was grounded for about an hour after the intended departure time, either. I more or less finished the book I was reading (the Ghost in the Shell manga by Masamune Shirow) before we took off. Having finished that, I watched the movie on my laptop. Yes, it makes much more sense now. (And there’s a lot that was left out of the movie, though the movie certainly does the manga justice).
Then I played some Moeru Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2, the sequel to the greatest video game ever, which was happily waiting for me at home when I got there. I beat it on Normal during the flight, and it was one of the most satisfying video game experiences of my life.
Early on in the flight, I befriended the woman sitting next to me. (Seriously, when you’re sitting next to the same person for 7 hours, and when you’re spending an entire 10 hours communicating with no one but security personnel telling you to take your shoes off, you need to talk to a real person). She’s a Seattleite that was returning from a vacation in NYC with her friend (in the next seat). They were nice enough to chat a bit and point out some interesting things out the window: Mount Saint-Helen poking up through the clouds, Bill Gates’ house, etc. I asked for some restaurants that might be open this late and she told me some places I could walk to.
When we finally landed, at 9:00pm Seattle time (midnight), I caught my shuttle to the hotel and finally met my teammates.
I was hungry. Famished. The Starbucks in the hotel was closed. (Although the hotel bar has some beer taps that I’d never seen before and I will try them all before I leave. Especially the Pyramid Hefe-Weizen.)
We started wandering around outside. Then I remembered that the lady on the airplane told me about a place next door to Barnes & Noble. As one teammate was plugging it into Google Maps on his wi-fi phone, we saw Barnes & Noble. Kept walking, and came across the Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery. I love how the first place I end up as soon as I get into the city is a brewpub!!!
I order a Thai Chicken Pizza (their late-night menu wasn’t so extensive), and an American Wheat Beer. The beer was decent, but not particularly tangy or tasty. It tasted pretty bland for a wheat beer, actually. I know American Wheats aren’t supposed to have much fruity flavouring, but they usually have a decent hoppiness. This one didn’t. Then I tried the Pale Ale, which was exquisite. Fantastic hoppiness and extra-bitter, just howI like it. As we were leaving I noticed they had another beer called the \”Hop Bomb IPA\”, made with 5 different kinds of choice hops and won all kinds of awards. I announced to my team that we’re going back there. They agreed. :)
Things to do today:
* Plan our attack so that we can rock the competition to its core.
* Get my welcome package (includes Zune).
* Meet all the Microsofties involved with ImagineCup
This is shaping up to be an awesome-fun trip!
Tags: 2007, beer, events, imaginecup, travel | no comments
Posted by Skrud at Sunday, April 1st 2007 at 10:29am
A whole bunch of things were amazing this weekend. I had a blast!
But one thing stands out above all others:
The Snakes property of the Flight class.
Tags: 2007, events, funny, imaginecup, movies, snakes | 2 comments
