Sachin Agarwal: December 2005

Last Saturday I had an awesome going away party. It included all my favorite food, drinks, and people from the Bay Area! We had food from Taqueria Cancun, Happy Donuts, and Mitchell's Ice Cream. Drinks included Anchor Steam (SF) and assorted Mendocino County beers. We also polished off 3 small bottles of Patron. That stuff is amazing.

Click here for the pictures

Thanks to everyone for coming out. I will miss you all.

Becca and Nikhil's Tree Trimming part

The final SF Wednesday at World Sausage Grill

For a while now I've been a huge supporter for the complete ban of cell phones in cars. Ok, I haven't actually done anything about it, but people know how much cell phone use while driving pisses me off. I already feel there are too many bad drivers on the road, and it's almost a guarantee that the driver next to me doing something dangerous will be on the phone.

Arstechnica talks about an study which shows that cell phone use is a problem even if you use an earpiece. It's when the other person on the phone asks a question or switches topics that problems arise. The driver is forced to think of a response, and this increases response time.

So handsfree headsets do nothing. We need to completely ban cell phones while driving. It's pretty amazing that a person can be driving a 2 ton automobile at 70mph on a public road full of other cars and drivers, and be distracted by cell phone use. It definitely seems like a case where we are given too much liberty. There's a law that we must wear a seatbelt, which only protects the person wearing it, and no law saying you shouldn't talk and drive, which endangers *other* people on the road. Unfortunately legistlation to stop this didn't come soon enough, and stopping people now might be impossible.

Just had dinner with Aki, then we hung out at Starbucks. We've spent so much time at Starbucks the past couple of years, working on Meepster and other projects.

Very sad. *sniffle*

This was a very last minute trip Paul, Avi, Al and I went on after we got Thanksgiving week off. We spent a few days in London, did some sightseeing, I saw my grandmother, and then a few days in Amsterdam. We went to a few design museums and design showrooms.

The rail system in London is incredible. The Underground can get you anywhere in the city, and there are lots of trains to leave London and go anywhere else you want. I took a train to see my Grandmother and it was a lot of fun! The trains are incredibly smooth and fast. It's amazing that they're built on top of the same rail infrastructure that was installed so long ago.

The train I took from London to Chattam had a great sense of efficiency. It cost only a few dollars each way for a one hour trip, and leaving exactly on time to the minute. It was an express train so we passed through lots of train stations without stopping. It's a great feeling to pass people waiting on the train tracks. It's hard to describe but it just makes you realize how good the rail system is when it doesn't have to stop at every station. Another cool thing was the train I took had 8 cars on it. About 2 hours into the trip the train was going to split and 4 cars would go to one city, and the other 4 to another. So you had to make sure to sit in the right part of the train. This is so cool! That makes so much more sense than two trains leaving London at the same time, following the same route.

Europe 2005

Another great concert. These "old" guys work hard and put on an amazing show. They are had some great video effects with 6 giant screens moving around and displaying a mix of live and pre-shot footage. Everyone was switching live to the music. There were 3 or 4 guys there just controlling the video. Al's right: video is the next step in music performances.

Depeche Mode

In less than two weeks I'll be leaving for India, and then three weeks later my whole world changes. It's really scary. I haven't had a change in my life like this since I left for Stanford. Basically every single part of my life except my job will be different.

It's the ultimate New Year's resolution, and a dream come true.

New York got snow this weekend!!!