Reza Behforooz

Bikes, Cars, and the Human Psyche

2008-03-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

Last week, there was a tragic accident in the Bay Area. [Bikers] were struck and killed last Sunday morning by a sheriff's deputy who crossed the center line in his patrol car... Witnesses at the scene said there were no skid marks and that the officer said he had fallen asleep at the wheel [source SFGate]. This is a very sad tragedy for the bikers and their families. Yesterday, there was a short memorial ride to the location of the accident. Sadly, I wasn't caught up on my emails and only found out in the evening. I was really sad to miss it. Here is a video of the memorial ride. But that's not the topic of my blog post. As I was reading articles, comments, and blogs about the accident I was puzzled by two things related to the human phyche:

1) This online test shows how easy it is to no see cyclists on the road. I recommend taking it. I failed it like most people.

2) I am appalled by the comments that people wrote about a memorial bike ride. They show no respect to the families. I think it's fine for some people to be unhappy that cars need to share the road with bikers and that bikers have the right to take up an entire lane (just like a horse, tractor, or other vehicle that may move slower than cars). Debates are good. But the place for such discussion is not in the comments about a memorial ride. Here are a few comments that made me angry:

Most people hate bicyclists.
Everyone who doesn't bike hates bicyclists. that says a lot about bicyclists.
A thousand militant cyclists? These Critical Mass freaks sicken me.
One thousand cyclists. Don't people learn from what happen. What a dumb thing to do. If they want to bid farewell to the fallen comrades do in a park.
Yup..and pi$$ed-of even more people who were actually trying to get somewhere on a Sunday. Here's a hint....bicyclists don't own the road. They shouldn't even be ON the road, but I guess if you put on Spandex and some $100 sunglasses, it just makes you better than the rest of us.

Interestingly, there was a related article today about the most dangerous bike roads in the bay area, and the comments for this article did NOT have hate messages about bikers.

Why is it so easy for humans to hate each other (bikers vs drivers, drivers vs pedestrians, religion X vs religion Y, country X vs country Y, ethnicity X vs ethnicity Y, people on different sides of a river, etc)? What wiring in our neocortex promotes this?

I saw a documentary that showed that some types of monkeys have a similar trait. In the experiment, they found that neighboring communities of monkeys had different ways of breaking hard-shell fruits like coconuts. One group used rocks, while the other group used sharp objects like a stick of wood. They did a study where they took a monkey from one community and put it in the other community. The results were amazing. The displaced monkey would get mocked! It was just like a kindergarten where a kid with a different habit showed up in school.

I enjoyed reading these couple of pages of a Book on this topic called 'Why we hate?'. Here is a related article on Psychology Today. Sadly, we never teach these things in schools and openly talk about why we have biases/hatred (let's put our semantic differences aside). Maybe it's not politically correct to admit that all of us have some biases/hatred?

iPhone vs Blackberry Curve

2008-02-26T22:22:00.000-08:00

Recently I was in the fortunate spot to decide between a Blackberry 8320 and an iPhone. After a few days of talking to people and getting my hands on both devices, I decided to get the Blackberry Curve.

Why I use a device:

My primary use is email and phone in that order. That's at least 80% of my use. Granted, I spend most of my time on email, but the device is a phone first.
I also want basic web access. I do searches and maybe read an article or a wikipedia page.
I love Google Maps on the go
Camera, Music, Calendar, etc are bonus features for me. I don't really care about them.

Things I like about the BB over the iPhone:

It's smaller and lighter than the iPhone. It's almost as small as my Razr.
It has a real keyboard that allows me to type faster and often without looking (The touch screen doesn't allow me to feel my way between keys).
I didn't like the native iPhone mail client, but I love the native BB Gmail Client
The Google Maps client shows my current location -- priceless on bike rides

Things I liked about the iPhone that I wish I had:

iPhone has a coolness factor and it's fun to demo it to friends.
It would have been nice to always have an iPod with me. I can put 2Gb of MP3s on my BB. The interface is awful. But that may be enough for me as I know that I would never treat my iPhone as an iPod.

I've been very happy with my Blackberry Curve. I like a lot more than my previous Blackberry 8700.

Ithaca, NY

2008-02-21T10:28:00.000-08:00

Ithaca was always different from the rest of the NY state. The picture speaks for itself about Ithaca (home of Cornell). It was the only county in NY that voted for Obama instead of Clinton!

Climbing Mount Hamilton

2008-02-20T22:51:00.000-08:00

Today, I went up Mount Hamilton (4300 ft) for Stage 3 of Tour of California. Here are some pictures and videos I took. Here are more pictures taken by others pictures. It's amazing how fast the riders go. It was very cold on top of the mountain and the descent was freezing. I also have a whole new appreciation for the motorcycle riders who bring the races to TV. They were literally bouncing up and down.

Prologue and running into Cancellara

2008-02-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

I had a great time at the Prolgue yesterday. There were fans lined up all the way from downtown Palo Alto to the Oval at Stanford. And unlike a regular stage, time trials are fun to watch because riders go one at a time so the event lasts longer. All the teams had their big vans with trainers for riders to warm up. Enjoy the pictures.

After the ride, we went to look for bathrooms at the GSB (Stanford's business school). We heard some noise and ended up entering the media room where Fabian Cancellara, the winner for the day and two time world champion, was being interviewed. I also ran into him at the start when I nearly ran into him when he was killing time before the start line. I've seen Fabian win a lot of time trials on TV.

Reputation and DUI

2008-02-14T11:02:00.000-08:00

Washington state recently passed a bill that requires DUI drivers to have a yellow license plate (news article). It's a bit like the Scarlet Letter. I like to see how effective this becomes. I think the bill has a problem. Some people share cars with other drivers. But DUI is a major problem in the US, and I'm happy to see experimentation by local governments.

I love reputation based systems like eBay and wikipedia. It's a good way to build trust and fight spam. I personally wish there was an easy way for people to have a publicly visible reputation that was influenced by anyone. Imagine a world where people could easily point their cell phone at you and give you a plus or a minus vote. If you let someone merge in, the other driver can give you a small star. If you stop and help someone with a flat tire, you might get lots of stars. If you cut people off or cheat on the carpool lane, you get bad karma. That's similar to PageRank. We all look at reviews for movies, restaurants, books, hotels, etc. And we look at the star rating on youtube, netflix, etc. Why not have it for people? There are now web sites that do this for professors and classes at universities. An open reputation based system is so much more effective than the usual student reviews for university faculty. Now imagine we did that in the office for everyone.

Why not have a rating on this very blog post?

Summer in the Winter

2008-02-11T22:11:00.000-08:00

In the midst of organizing my move back to California, I've been working on a blog post about SF vs. Seattle for a while now. I hope to finish it one day along with the rest of the items in my draft. But for now, here is one thing loved about California -- winters. At first it was the joy of not needing a winter coat. Last Sunday, I rode a short charity ride for a good cause. George Hincape --12 time Tour de France veteran -- had organized the ride (picture) and rode slow for mortals like me to have a chance to draft behind greatness. After the ride, I headed north to the Golden Gate Bridge (route). Seeing the ocean and the GG Bridge was a treat after 70 miles.

The bike trails, road, and polite drivers in Seattle are more conducive for biking than here. But my bike used to gather dust in the rainy winters of the Northwest or I used to freeze on the annual Chilly Hilly. Nothing is perfect. C'est la vie.

Lessig 4 Barack

2008-02-05T16:10:00.000-08:00

Lawrence Lessig made a great video for why he's 4Barack. The video also demonstrates Lessig's masterful presentation skills.

See the comments on the blog if you want to see some debates among viewers.

Some videos from Brazil

2007-12-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

Football: one, two, three

Forro (a type of music/dance): one, two

Last thoughts about Brazil

2007-12-05T07:34:00.001-08:00

I’m not sure if I can put what I saw about the culture into words. You really have to experience it. The thing about Brazil that really jumped out for me was the people and how they live life. People just seem happy, not happy because of being contempt, but happy from having fun. Brazilians know how to have fun. They are also laid back and fluid. Little planning happens, but things somehow manage to work out at the end. Things are not organized. And it’s not rude to back out from earlier ideas just because you no longer feel like doing something. Maybe they’ve found the right balance. It’s silly that we send out emails days before, make dinner reservations at such exact times with an exact headcount, and do things we don’t feel like because we committed to them days before.

The culture in Brazil is also different from Asian cultures that I’m used to in a big way. Most of those places have a strong sense of obligation, various kinds of formality, and many implicit forms of expectations from others, all of which can often result in stress and unhappiness. I didn’t find those in Brazil. People are warm and friendly, yet relaxed like Europeans when it comes to social situations. People are friendly and help you, but they are not overly hospitable to make themselves or you uncomfortable. I have never seen such warm friendly people with relaxed space between them. I think it’s the best of both worlds.

People generally love to dance and party. My favorite was a woman in her 40’s who told me that she goes dancing 3 times a week: once with her husband, once with her girlfriends, and once alone. Of course, this is only possible since people have maids at home who take care of kids. Not everyone is a party animal. I met my fair share of people who like to go home early and just chill. But unlike here, it’s a choice they make and not one made for them by some silly rule that close down places.

Finally, Brazil – like the US – is a country full of immigrants with a sad history of slavery. But unlike the US, there are no racial boundaries today (there is still a class division based on money and education, but that is universal). Brazil is a real melting pot. And most people share the same culture, food, and music. It’s not like the US where different groups of people watch different TV shows and often live in segregated neighborhoods. I can’t describe what a typical Brazilian looks like. They have a lot of diversity in their features and color, mainly because so many have mixed heritage.

Enough from me. Go visit and see for yourself.

Futbol Pilgrimage and Pictures

2007-12-04T21:29:00.000-08:00

I had a chance to watch one football game in Brazil. The game was originally scheduled to be in the Maracana (the largest stadium in the world). But the Police had a concert so the game was moved to a smaller stadium. I reached the stadium an hour before. The ticket was about $7 for the best seats. There was live samba music outside and inside the stadium. And people were singing samba songs throughout the entire game. About a third of the people were dancing. The game was an exciting 3-0 victory. The experience was amazing. The energy level was unbelievable. There was a trophy museum for the team. Some of them went as far back as 1915. I’ve not seen so many trophies in my life. This is their sport. That's why they are the king of Football.

I met a girl from Belgium at the game. She is a 767 pilot at the age of 26! She started taking flying lessons at the age of 17 before she was able to drive. So her mom had to drive her to the airport for her to fly. Irony! The two of us visited the Maracana the next day. We got a little lost, went around the stadium, jumped over a construction site, went down a fence, and found ourselves on the field! A few people were preparing for the Police concert. Finally, somebody approached us and told us that we should not be here on the field and asked us to leave. He tried to sell us VIP tickets to the concert with a backstage pass. We later found the Futbol Museum.

See the photo gallery below. There are a few short videos to give you a sense of what it was like.

First impressions

2007-11-21T17:59:00.000-08:00

I love Brazil so far. Belo Horizonte is the 3rd largest city in Brazil with a population of 2M. It's called the Bar Capital of Brazil by the NY Times. I'm here to work with Googlers in our engineering office on a couple of projects. Last night, I enjoyed getting stuffed at a great churrascaria and later went out for caipirinhas and a jazz club.

Tonight, there was a football game between Brazil and Uruguay, rivals after the heart breaking loss in the 1950 World Cup final. Fans were paying less technical attention to the game than fans I've seen in other countries. But they for sure had a better time as the drinks kept flowing all night and the conversation between people was often louder than the announcers screaming 'Gooool'. I guess that's what happens when you have the most talented players in the world.

I had borrowed a couple of Portugese languages tapes from the library but never had a chance to listen to them. It's hopeless to try to learn a language in a week. It's certainly not as easy as understanding Spanish. Lucky for me, people think I'm a local until I have to open my mouth to speak! :)

Finally, as usual, my bag of jokes translate well after doing a s/{tork|norwegian|santa-singh|blond}/portugese (this is an inside joke for some and a puzzle for the rest of you)!

Brazil and a Blog Post

2007-11-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

Read the Google Blog post about my project and how things get done at Google.

In other news, I'm going to Brazil in a week. I'm really looking forward it to. And it looks like I'm going to get a chance to watch a football game at the Maracana (largest stadium in the world)!

Busy week at work

2007-10-31T00:08:00.000-07:00

I was involved in three independent launches this week:

My 20% Farsi keyboard launched on Monday. It's now listed in the Gadget directory. I've also embedded the gadget below.
We finished up a project that made some backend changes to Gmail. Nothing user visible, but some invisible things are now better.
OpenSocial is finally announced. It's launching on Thursday!

Searching Google in Farsi

2007-10-29T16:09:00.000-07:00

I sometimes need to do searches in Farsi, but I don't know the keyboard bindings. I built out an iGoogle Gadget that is an on-screen Farsi keyboard (see the screen shot). It launched today. Click here to use it. A lot of credit to Googlers in India who built this out for several other Indic languages. I only extended it for Farsi.

Do you have a racial bias?

2007-10-15T20:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a site that tells you about your biases against people. Go to https://implicit.harvard.edu (just click on demo and it takes about 10 minutes). Here is an article about this.

Right vs Left Brain

2007-10-11T17:04:00.001-07:00

This has been going around for a week. There is an article about it. If you see her turn clock-wise, then you use more of your right brain; otherwise, you're a left brain person. Your left brain is in charge of logic, math, analytics, practical, etc. Your right brain is in charge of creativity, art, feeling, fantasy, risk, etc. And most people I know have been able to rotate the direction with some concentration and luck.

On most personality tests, I score right in the middle. So I first thought that I will not see her rotate at all. But I guess I'm more of a right brain person according to this. I wonder if it'll change from week to week.

Pictures from Antarctica

2007-10-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

A couple of friends recently visited Antarctica. Enjoy their album.

Prologue in Palo Alto!

2007-07-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

This year's Tour of California will start at Stanford. Sure it doesn't beat the recent Prologue in London for this years Tour de France, but it will still be fun as the best riders in the world speed on Palm Drive. Two more stages will start or end in the Bay Area. For background, this event has the same teams and cyclists that are currently touring around France.

Bike Maintenance 101

2007-06-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

After nearly 3000 miles and no maintenance except basic lubing, I decided it was finally time to take care of my bike. I bought a can of White Lighting, and it did an amazing job. I didn't recognize my bike. My cranks used to be black and really dirty. I should have taken photos before, but here are pictures after I finished. It really looks new. It's the best $10 you can spend on a bike.

I also bought a new pair of Michelin tires. I was surprised that most road tires are about $40-50. Mid-range car tires cost about $50! I don't get it. I also saw anti-puncture tires that are slower to ride. Maybe I'll switch to them when I move to San Francisco since the roads there are perfect for getting flats.

In the conversation at the bike shop, I also learned that most people replace chains after 1500 miles. Apparently it's the best way to maintain your cranks which are more expensive. I had no idea, and I was long overdue. So I did that too.

Now I'm ready for my ride to Portland in a few weeks.

Cycling Videos

2007-06-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed watching this documentary from Netflix on the Tour. A few clips are on youtube: trailer, clip 1 and clip 2. Although this IMAX clip looks even better.

Google Scalability Conference

2007-06-18T21:56:00.000-07:00

Google is hosting a conference this weekend in Seattle on Scalability (see agenda and info). Marissa Mayer and Jeff Dean will be here. I'll be presenting a session:

Lessons in building scalable systems

Since launching Google Talk in the summer of 2005, we have integrated the service with two large existing products: Gmail and orkut. Each of these integrations provided unique scalability challenges as we had to handle a sudden big increase in the number of users. Today, Google Talk supports millions of users and handles billions of packets per day. I will discuss several practical lessons and key insights from our experience that can be used for any project. These lessons will cover both engineering and operational areas.

Reza Behforooz is a Senior Staff Engineer at Google and is currently the technical lead for the Google Talk servers. He's passionate about building large systems and working on communication products in an attempt to make the world a smaller place. While at Google, he has primarily worked on Google Talk, Gmail, orkut, Google Groups, and shared infrastructure used by several Google applications. Reza holds a BS from Cornell and a MS from Stanford in Computer Science. Prior to Google, he held various engineering and management positions at Microsoft and two startups, Zaplet and Epiphany.

As far as the cake puzzle, see the newly added comment (no horizontal cake cutting please).

Square Cake Puzzle

2007-06-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

Last week, we started doing puzzles in the office. Bruce asked one that I enjoyed. There is a square cake. And there is a square shaped hole in the cake. The hole is in a random place (and at a random angle). You want to evenly divide the cake with only a single cut. Where do you cut?

Life at the Googleplex

2007-05-18T15:17:00.001-07:00

Here is an interesting story about doing massage interviews.