Sachin Agarwal: April 2004

his name is sachin, he talks to folks... they like eggs, but not the yolks... the break the shells, eat them up... the remaining egg goo, goes in a cup... but forget the parents, forget the eggs.. this rap's about sachin and his vegas legs.. they ran on escalators, going the wrong way.. he dropped his pentax, and the film flew away.. he said no problem, lets eat some frys... but he was rreally angry, and his mood was all lies... vegas sob story ya'll

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I have been to vegas countless times, but this was a very different trip than the others. First of all, it was a full week in Vegas, when usually I go for 2 to 3 days. I thought a week would be too much, but it definitely wasn't. I had six nights of partying, and in the end I changed my flight so I could stay even longer.

Some Vegas firsts: I went to places in Vegas I didn't even know existed. I gambled only two nights I was there. I saw two Las Vegas shows. First time I unpacked in a hotel. Four hours of sleep per night average, for 6 nights.

Before I get into what we did in Vegas, here's a few gambling realizations (these might seem obvious, but think about if you actually follow them).

When gambling in Vegas, you HAVE to start with a lot of money. Take a game like craps where betting on the line is very close to 50/50 odds. So why does the casino win? Because they have unlimited funds. People walk up to craps and blackjack tables, put down $40 or $60, lose, and go home. If a casino loses $60 to a player, that player stays around and loses it back.

So, you have to play with as much money as you can play with, all at once. The longer you play, the greater the chances of at least breaking even. I didn't gamble until the third and sixth nights I was there, so I could put down a good chunk of money at once. DO NOT PLAY $40 PER NIGHT.

Also, I have always played blackjack because I felt like I had some control over the game. Of course you really don't. 90% of the people playing blackjack just follow "the book". So that's when I discovered roulette. This is the first time I played because I never liked how you are at the mercy of the wheel.

The great thing about roulette is the odds are very obvious, and you can control how aggressive you want to play. If you cover most of the board, you will win quite often and stay relatively even (and get free drinks the whole time). If you selectively bet on a few numbers, you are going all or nothing. You can control the speed of the game.

Here's the break down for NAB 2004 partying:

Saturday:
Rain night club. Awesome, awesome place. We had to pay the bouncer $25 to skip the 3 hour line, but it was totally worth it. Inside I randomly ran into John Chao, my old manager at Stanford residential computing. We had a couple drinks together.

We went to Barbary Coast to go to Drai's but there was a long line, so we headed to Denny's.

Sunday:
After sleeping for 1 hour I went to the Venetian for the Apple product announcements. Very cool show. Afterwards there was a reception with lots of champagne.

That night we saw The Second City, a sketch comedy act that has started the careers of many SNL stars. It was HILARIOUS. Great surprise. They should cancel SNL and put this show on.

That night was the Motion launch party at the Voodoo Lounge. Everyone at Apple was getting trashed. This place is great. Good music, amazing view.

Monday:
Monday night was the all Apple dinner. I don't remember what the restaurant was called but it included all you can drink house wine, always a recipe for a good time. At some point I started telling people to spill red wine on my stain free shirt. Brian took a full carafe and started pouring. The shirt came out perfect.

After dinner I told a few people to come by my room to grab some drinks. Al and I had stocked a fridge the previous day. People started rolling in until the room was completely packed! eventually security came by and we left.

Then it was off to the Rum Jungle. We had a big Apple group there. Cool place. After a while I went out to get some air. . Then the bouncer wouldn't let me back in with the beer that I bought INSIDE the Rum Jungle. I guess I wasn't very nice to him and he wouldn't let me back in.

Back to the room with some others for an "early" night. I had to demo at 8am.

Tuesday:
Tuesday was the real-time dinner at Lowry's. We all had Prime Rib except Gary the vegetarian. It was good.

Then I went to the hard Rock and met up with my cousin who was also there for NAB. We played blackjack for a few hours. The hard rock is great. Good music and good beer. They are one of few places that has Newcastle and other dark beer.

Wednesday:
Apple took over the V Bar in the Venetian.

At some point we started racing down the moving escalators in the wrong direction. Unfortunately my camera flew out of my pocket and got pretty dented up. It still works though. Luckily Amex will replace it with their protection policy.

At around 6am someone called me and asked for my room number, which I gave to them. Then they came by and I opened the door, of course. I don't want to let them in so Daniel says he has to go to the bathroom. he goes in, grabs the hair dryer, goes over to Sean sleeping on the bed, plugs in the hair dryer, and lets it rip.

It was funny at the time.

Thursday:
I went to the Bellagio and checked out the Monet exhibit. I also took some cool black and white pictures of the Bellagio garden with my 35mm SLR.

That night we saw Penn & Teller. Those guys are hilarious. I just wish they rotated their act more. Most of us had seen some or all of their show on TV or elsewhere.

After that we went to Bikini's at the Rio. It was a cool club, but it was all guys that night. So we left and started gambling all night. Slots, roulette, blackjack.

At 7am I realized I would be dead if I tried to take my 1pm flight, so I got a 2pm checkout time, and a 9pm flight.

Friday:
Mostly relaxed. Saw Kill Bill 2.

Click here for all 400 pictures
Use the slideshow link to view them quickly

Here are the highlights:
http://gallery.isachin.com/gallery/nab2004/IMGP0283
http://gallery.isachin.com/gallery/nab2004/IMGP0849
http://gallery.isachin.com/gallery/nab2004/IMGP0854
http://gallery.isachin.com/gallery/nab2004/IMGP0310
http://gallery.isachin.com/gallery/nab2004/IMGP0864
http://gallery.isachin.com/gallery/nab2004/IMGP0884
http://gallery.isachin.com/gallery/nab2004/IMGP0936
http://gallery.isachin.com/gallery/nab2004/IMGP0987
http://gallery.isachin.com/gallery/nab2004/IMGP0962
http://gallery.isachin.com/gallery/nab2004/IMGP0469

355 days until NAB 2005.

If anyone has any stories from NAB that i missed or "can't remember" post them in the comments below.

What an incredible week! Since I work on Final Cut Pro (a non linear editor for TV and film), NAB is the big show we work towards. Last year we released 4.0 with RT Extreme, and this year we released Final Cut Pro HD. For the past 8 months I have been working on this version, counting the days to NAB and the release.

Last Sunday was the product announcement in a convention hall in the Venetian, full of people from the industry, media, etc. Apple announced 5 new products.

1. Final Cut Pro HD: Native HD editing on any desktop or laptop
Final Cut Pro HD lets you edit HD using your computer over the firewire connection you already have. You get real time effects (no rendering required) without any additional hardware. So basically you can edit HD for about $1000. Our competitors charge $60,000-$100,000 for the same functionality! And to top it all off, this version is a FREE upgrade to 4.0 users.

2. Motion: Very cool motion graphics in real time
I can't explain in words how cool this application is. If you are working in motion graphics, you will be blown away. At the show people were amazed. After the first part of the demo, the audience was so loud the presenter said something like "You can stop clapping, you haven't seen anything yet"

3. Xsan: Storage Area Network
Let's a group of computers share the same data stored on a central server. Priced at 1/3 the competition.

4. DVD Studio Pro 3: New features to create professional DVDs

5. Shake 3.5: Update to the high end compositing app used to make every movie that has won the special effects academy award in the past 7 years.

At the end of the presentation, Rob Schoeben, Apple's vice president of applications marketing, asked all the engineers in the audience to stand. That was the biggest applause of the presentation.

The following day, Apple updated the entire line of iBooks and Powerbooks!

I was in Vegas for the entire week, but it wasn't all partying. I was demoing Final Cut Pro HD for about 5 hours each day. I had so much fun demoing that the days I was signed up to be a floater (give people bathroom breaks), I switched so I could demo the entire 5 hours! This is the first year that I know enough about Final Cut and about movie editing that I can talk for hours to people.

It's great to be able to talk to people who already use your product, get their feedback, hear their stories. And it's even better to talk to people switching away from the competition. I talked to many people who were ready to switch and just needed some more info.

The reaction from the people I talked to was incredible. Some good quotes:
"Awesome"
"That's sick"
"How much does HD cost? It's free!?"
Someone I was talking to got a call from his partner. "We are switching to Final Cut Pro. All we need is a G5 and the software and we can do this TOMORROW."

Website for all the new products
Final Cut Pro HD press release

This is what it's all about: After working so hard on a product, to be able to see it in people's hands, talk to the users, get feedback, and see that the industry is happy with what you're doing.

Overall it was a great show. The crowd at the Apple booth was unbelievable. At times there wasn't enough room to walk. There was a classroom that was always full. And we had a theater doing demos that was always overflowing. At one point there were people sitting in another company's booth, turned around so they could watch the Apple demo.

Come back Monday for the other side of NAB, with pictures.

We're all heading off to Vegas on Saturday for NAB but we couldn't wait until then to start drinking.

Thursday we went drinking in Sunnyvale. Then on Friday I got a case of Firestone Walker for my own Friday Beer Bash at 5:30. At 5 I saw people drinking beer in the hall. Then I saw it was Firestone. Then I realized it was MY Firestone. Bitches owe me beer in Vegas.

Saturday we went to SF. Evan I went to the SFMOMA to check out the Pop art exhibit. It was pretty cool. But on the 5th floor they had an exhibit called Supernova that was really awesome. We also saw some B&W photography (studying for our class) and the exhibit on product design (which included the 15" powerbook).

Saturday night we drank around Union Square, then the Starlight Lounge, then the Marina. We had dinner at the Naan N Curry in the Tenderloin. Great food, good service, and it was cheap! Overall a very awesome weekend.

Click here for pictures

In the past couple of years gadgets have gotten rediculously small. This is important since you want to be able to carry these devices with you everywhere. Some reviews:

Sony Ericsson T610 Phone, 3.3oz
I've talked about this before. Small, light, color screen, shitty camera, bluetooth so I can sync with my computer, wireless headset, etc etc.

Pentax Optio S4, 4.1oz
Badass camera. Fits INSIDE an Altoid's tin. 4 megapixel, 3X optical zoom, great battery life, and more manual functions than any other camera I've ever had (which is great since I will know how to use them after my photography class).

I compared pictures of this camera and the Canon S400 and I blindly picked the Pentax as the better picture 100% of the time. Plus this camera is CHEAPER than all the other cameras, I think because not many people know about it.

iPod mini, 3.6oz
I traded in my iPod for an iPod mini. I passed 20gb of music so an iPod couldn't hold it all anyway. This thing is amazing! It's so tiny. I carry it around with me everywhere (I didn't do that with my iPod). Forget a case. Just wrap the headphones around the iPod and stick it in your pocket.

The controls and interface are much nicer than the big iPod. And it holds enough music for my car or most trips. I would take size over capacity any day. This thing is so much more portable. Everyone I know who traded in their iPod for a mini is very happy.

And if you think the iPod is a better deal for $50 more and 4X the capacity, remember that you have to pay a premium for size. Smaller cell phones, cameras, smaller (in depth) TVs, always cost more.

If you think the iPod mini is overpriced, think about this: the hard drive inside the iPod mini costs $300 by itself. The hard drive inside the iPod costs less than $150. There is very little profit margins on the mini. This is how it was when the iPod first came out too: the hard drive alone cost as much as the iPod.


The beauty with these tiny gadgets is I can be carrying all of them at once and not even feel it. I can have any 2 in the same pocket. I can have any 1 in my top shirt pocket. The key with gadgets is carrying them around enough so you actually use them, and for that size really makes a big difference.

(Lizard is not to scale)

Saturday night was Phi Psi's Battle of the Bands. This year they really jacked up the quality of the event. It was full by 9:30pm!

The event was run partly using Macs. Some of the lighting and sound was done on Powerbooks. There was a camera that was recording the show, and projecting it on a wall. There was also a live web stream!

And, as always, we had free Gordon Biersch. No shitty beer at Phi Phi events.

Click here for pictures

I re-organized and uploaded all my pictures! Almost every digital picture I have taken is online at Sachin's pictures gallery.

Huge thanks to Aki for setting up Gallery for me. Gallery is great because it does all the pages dynamically. At any point I can rearrange any albums or pictures, add albums or pictures, comment stuff, etc. Plus you can click for full quality, order prints, and the slideshow function is very useful.

There's a plugin for iPhoto that just uploads my pictures directly to my gallery. I don't have to touch html, ftp, or any other tech stuff. It's all automatic, and it sends up the comments I already entered in iPhoto.

Check it out here.