June 11-Day 3

Breakfast :
Once again, we woke up as the alarm clock suddenly rang at its horrible tune. We washed up, picked clothes and rushed down to the lobby to grab ourselves breakfast.It seemed toasts and syrup are still my favorite... Anyway, everybody got used to this kind of fast pace breakfast, with small nice talks now and then.



Autodesk lab :
It took us around one hour or so to reach Autodesk Lab, which locates at San Rafael. Frankly speaking, we were impressed by the sublime views along the way: blue sky sparkling with tiny houses and airplanes flying across our heads. Ms. Amanda Collins, Senior Marketing Manager for Autodesk presented this vital, innovative company to us. Amanda shared with us vision of the company:Technologies to create digital models and workflows that help to visualize, simulate analysis. What's more important, experience ideas before it becomes reality!


It was quite exciting to take a close look of Autodesk's proud Multi-touch wall with our own eyes. And what's more, we even had our hands on this really cool stuff for some time. Watching lava jumping back and forth, we felt our hearts were beating harder and harder. The concept of multi-touching also enlightened us on the way of designing the user interface and making life easier for everybody. It matches the four digital trends clarified by the company itself: Digital Life, Globalization, Industry Boom and Climate Change.


After 5 minutes ride, we went to the other part of Autodesk for lunch. Different from the other times, it was a traditional American meal with stuffed chicken, home-made salad and many more dishes which I couldn't tell the names. When everybody starts eating, designer Jose gave us a vivid presentation on the importance of design and how to corporate design with engineering and marketing departments in a company. As we realized how crucial communication is and he went on to explain that Autodesk Lab is actually meant to research on the new technologies for the future with a time span of more than several years. Interesting!


It matched what HP had suggested days ago, we are doing things for the generation of tomorrow. Oh, gosh, I nearly forgot to say, the lunch was really tasty with all knowledge we absorbed in one hour's time.

Computer History Museum:

Wow! It's museum again! What's new this time? Let's follow the way of our great docent Roy Mize, he tried to reveal all his stories of computers with us.

There are over 600 unique artifacts, from rare slide rules and mechanical calculators to the earliest one of kind computers, vintage PCs and exotic supercomputers. Visible Storage represents just a small portion of objects in the Computer history Museum's collection, which is the largest in the world.

On exploring a-five-decade-long history of computers, we learnt from Mr.Roy along the way of touring as well. He said:" When you step out of the campus, you haven't done your studies yet. It's just your beginning! " With an age of 74 years, he still taking courses now and then to charge himself, so what could stop us from this endless learning journey?

We took a fine group photo with Mr.Roy before we called a day, everything was just like the sunshine in California, delicate and peaceful.

Dinner:
I know that not all of us enjoy the traditional Chinese food as much as I do, but a dinner with six different dishes gave us enough energy to recover from tedious trip back from well-known San Francisco Bay. Short conversations during the dinner time was also a way make us feel close with each other.

Shopping Mall:
Shopping is all about fun! We managed to spend one hour and a half in a shoping mall near Comfort Inn, the motel we are staying. Not everyone of us bought something inside the mall, but we had a good time there, though after which we had some troubles of finding the way back home...


It's another day there waiting for us!Come on!


Regards,
Chen Kun
Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Kiwi bird

Kiwi is pleased to present you with an amusing fact:

If you repeat kiwi over and over again and say it without spaces, it sounds like this:
kiwikiwikiwi
which sounds like:
wikiwikiwiki

A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. For example, the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis. Wikis are used in businesses to provide affordable and effective intranets and for Knowledge Management.

Kiwi today went to Autodesk! There, kiwi got to see a multi-touch wall which costs US $160,000, enough to buy millions of kiwi fruit. The wall must be quite big, because kiwi can't reach the top and must fly. It allows people to grab objects and throw them around the screen using their hands. Kiwi wanted to try, but kiwi cannot reach.



Autodesk gave us autolunch. Kiwi is sad, because his friend chicken is on the plate.


Then kiwi went to the Computer History Museum. Here, kiwi got stuck in an infinite loop. Kiwi think that kiwi think that kiwi think that kiwi think that kiwi think [bzzzzt, kiwi see insect and fly away]

Kiwi! Think!


Kiwi also saw some very old memory. This was one of the earliest implementations of RAM. Nowadays memory comes in sticks, like cigarettes. But memory used to be very big.


This is the CRAY-2, which was the fastest supercomputer around back in 1985. It could do 1 to 2 gigaflops.



Nowadays, supercomputers can do teraflops. But kiwi can still only do 1 flop.




Signing off,
Kiwi!

SMALLL WOMBATTT

THIS…IS…WOMBATTTTTTTTTTT {small}

Wombat woke up. Saw many waffle. Waffle nice. Waffle big. But waffle bigger than wombat. Wombat made friends with waffle. But waffle had to leave so soon. Wombat made friend with egg, toast and milk too. But they all had to leave so soon );

Wombat took big big bus to HP Labs. But different bus, blue bus. HP guy said, “No wombat, no photos.” So wombat hide in bag. Can hear, cannot see );

Wombat heard there was some microchip thingy. Maybe wombat can wear one of those next time. Tell people about wombat. Where wombat come from. And most importantly, WARN PEOPLE OF WOMBATTTTT.

Wombat went to Hewlett and Packard’s office rooms. Very big. Big enough for many many wombats. They have garden too. Good for wombat to run and jump around in. Packard was Secretary of Defense. Maybe he can teach our warrior wombats how to fight.

Then wombat went to Intel. Which stands for Integrated Electronics. Here, wombat took many many photos! Here is a photo of wombat!

Here is many many more wombat photo, because wombat like Intel.

Ow! Pipe small! This crunch!

Okay, wombat make post card. He send to all his friends. If you have post card, you are wombat friend. Otherwise, wombat may make friends with you, if you not leave too soon.



Wombat paws tired of typing. Tomorrow kiwi post.