At the time of this writing I am a visiting researcher at the
IBM Almaden
Research Lab in San Jose, California. I have seen my share of research labs
and i think i can say reasonably confident that this is probably the most
amazing research lab in the world. I am hard pressed to think of something
i would've done more to make a research place more enjoyable, productive
and no-nonsense.
Workaholic that I am, I have always dreamt to be able to work, have
lunch, work some more, go jogging around 6pm and come back to work again.
This was never possible because of a simple thing as the lack of showers.
Well guess what: we have showers here and there is even soap. I started
jogging the second day I came. Would you like to play ping pong ? No problem
?
I am usually not too picky but I am not exactly eating fast-food. Well,
let me tell you, the cafeteria lunch is great and cheap. There's usually
8-9 different entrees to choose from including vegetarian stuff and all
kinds of sweet goodies. Maybe it is not as varied as Microsoft's in Redmond
but it suits its purpose well. I usually never eat in the lab cafeteria,
but started to do so since i came here. Of course it also helps that the
outside tables are facing a beautiful scenery of hills and blossoming trees.
The fact that we have recycle bins all over the place is a plus and gives
me that great self-image feeling when i stuff that plastic cup in the plastic-recycle
bin.
The lab is located at the top of a hill in the middle of a large park.
Away from city dirt and traffic. Getting here is amazingly beautiful, especially
in a rear-wheel drive bimmer on great curvy roads. Guess what. Another plus:
no cell-phone signal here. Yupieee. As you enter the park, civilization
seems to remain far far behind and a new world full of cows, deer and green
pastures unravells. Yep, cows. Great ones too, although arguably not as beautiful as
the indian, swiss or
swedish ones.
Indeed, cows are important. What would the Almaden computer scientists
do if not offered the view of such beautiful animals. I, for one, would
be very close to understanding the link between universal relativity and
NP. In fact there is a link but I am not going to bring it up here lest some
people might think I am definitely out of my mind and never offer me the
ability to prove them otherwise.
Virtually no traffic (only IBMers) and wide biking lanes make this the
perfect place to bike and jog. It is great to jog down the hill. As you
start going back up towards the lab you start to wonder how old you actually
are. Listening to your gasping sounds one might say you're either smoking
or spending the entire time inside an air-conditioned lab on a rotating chair.
Hmmm. It might be true.
I am not even going to talk about the lunch experiences when i sit at
a table and eat reading some paper, thinking that one of the authors of
whatever i am reading is likely at the next table. There's so many faces
that look very familiar and I intend to simply go online to find out who
those people are. It happened twice already that people stopped me on the
corridor talking to me for a while and i had to somehow infer where they
know me from. Likely conferences.
I end my rambling here. I am listening to some very nice
cuban music now. I am doing a little bit of more research writing and then
I am going to watch a nice documentary about jazz in the cafe here, on the
Arts channel. I wrote this thinking that maybe after
a few months being here, my enthusiasm i felt 30 minutes ago when i came
back from jogging, might fade and i would not be able to see things this
way. Until our next adventure, here goes yet another weight-less moment.
