14th October 2008 (San Francisco)

Finally, the 14th October 2008 in the U.S.A.

2 and a half hours to the Mac Event we all have been waiting for :)

Mac Event 14th October 2008

According to this website: http://macenstein.com/default/archives/1721

The Mac event invitation might actually be the picture of the glass trackpad :) Go to that website for more details

Day 4

Hi guys, sorry about this late update about day 4.

Today was the day that we went to Barclays Global Investors. Given the fact that this company manages 2 trillion dollars in assets management, it is no wonder that they have to use infocomm technology to their advantage over other asset management companies.

So firstly, we started off the day with a short introduction to the company. All the coporate stuff, like how much it is worth, what they do, how the work is split up into the different sections in the company. Mostly not really interesting stuff, until we got to the part where we role-played as traders in a mock trading game.

In this mock trading game, we had to manage the trading of 2 stocks, namely Barclays and Apple Inc.. Through buying and selling, we attempted to make a profit from the stocks, with prices fluctuating during the entire game. But the most important part of the game was not the profits, but whether we managed to record accurately the amount of stocks traded, together with the profits or losses.

Apparently, that was what decided the winner of the game and it was also supposedly really difficult to get the exact amount stated by the traders and the back office (the person keeping the books on all the trades). However, my team (Mr. Soon, Mrs. Chor, Me, Jiahui, Shuwen, Zewei) managed to get the exact amount of about $500,000++. This showed us how trading in the past (without technology) is completely different from today. With a click of a mouse today, we can sell millions of shares without having to keep tabs on it. The software will do it for us.

We won, winning ourselves a lovely BGI bag with lots of souvenirs from San Francisco each. The other groups also got the bag, without the souvenirs :)

With 2 trillion in assets, BGI played a good host, hosting us lunch and inviting one of their managers to speak to us during the lunch break.

After lunch, we had about 2/3 hours to burn cause the people from Stanford were hosting us at only 4pm. To do so, we made a trip to the NASA visitor centre :) It was really interesting and educational, letting us have a peek into the lives of astronauts in space, and also allowing us to see the current development of space technology.

Onward to Stanford University!!! Quite a short tour by two Singaporean students, however, since Mr. Soon knew the place rather well (he studied there!!!), we got a short tour from him too. We saw the library, the fountains (fountain hopping whee!!!), the church, the open field (forgot the actual name) and of course, the bookstore which apparently sells more of other stuff than books. It's a huge bookstore, but only half of the bottom floor sells books. The second floor sells stuff like shirts, sweatshirts, electronics (including Apple stuff), has a cafe, but NO BOOKS! Really expensive, unless you have a student's discount...

Oh and that day we went there was their graduation night, so there were shirts for the CLASS OF 2008!!! All the sec 4s bought one each, going to wear it on Mufti day! (correct class, wrong school XD)

After dinner, back to hotel. Sleep!!!

And backlog of other days will be fulfilled in the days to come. Right now, I am unable to sleep due to jet lag, therefore posting at 5.47am on the 19th of June.

Day 2

Today started off with a spontaneous waking up of all the people in my room at 6 am exactly. No idea why, but we all started waking up past 5.59 am although we set an alarm for 7 am.

In true Infocomm Club member/EXCO style, we all started using our laptops, attempting to use the internet through the free wireless that we have in all our rooms. But to our dismay and utter horror, we connected to the router but no connection to the internet! We had to wait till after breakfast, which took place at 7 am to 8 am, before getting back on the internet.

Breakfast today was toast, waffles, cereal and egg. Beverages included orange juice, milk, coffee and tea. No idea if we will get anything different tomorrow... Even not, I don't really mind eating the stuff listed above.

So we left the Comfort Inn at 9.30 am, leaving for HP Labs. Cameras were not allowed inside, so this is the only picture that I can post up on this blog:
What I can say is that HP Labs was quite a let down for myself personally. I thought we would be able to experience or at least see some of the new technologies that come out of the Labs. However, we were merely introduced to all the older stuff that have come out of the Labs, did not even get to see the memristor...

Having lunch in their canteen, I must say that I have consumed one of the most oily lunches in my life. It was a grilled double cheese, double bacon burger, with oil lining the plate. Tasted not too bad, but I really cannot say that it agrees with my stomach cause I have not been eating oily food for a long long time.

After lunch, we made a trip down to the Intel Museum. Really beautiful Intel sign just outside the museum. We spent about 20 min taking pictures around there:

Sign outside the museum

Sign on the glass door of the museum

Sign inside the museum

Inside the museum, we got to see the history of the company Intel, with us learning the processes behind the making of your Intel chips that power your computer. Also, we saw how the chips have changed over the years.

I bought an Intel stress ball!!!


After that, we went to the Great Mall for dinner. Yes, the Great Mall, not the Great Wall. Super large mall, that me and the rest of the Infocomm EXCO walked around 3 times over. Reason for this? We missed the stores we wanted to go to: missed RadioShack by walking past it because Zewei wanted to get scammed by a Tetris style game, missed Claire's cause we did not see it when walking past it by looking at only the centre aisle.

Uneventful time after that, including the fact that we had to wait 15 min for Zewei to buy stuff from a certain store.

MacDonald's for dinner, so nothing much to talk about that.

Back to the hotel room at about 7.30 pm.

Day 1

My first blog post from the Silicon Valley, United States of America!

Day 1 was a slack one :) Traveling for a grand total of 1 hour (from 7.15 am to 8.30 am, the 9th of June), arriving in Silicon Valley on the same day that we left Singapore although the actual traveling time was about 12 to 13 hours :)

First day visit was to the Tech Museum. Lots of cool exhibits in that museum, interactive exhibits (you can make your own roller coaster ride then ride it, choose a team and then start sleighing with it). Quite suitable for young children in the primary levels, but still was a 2x Singapore Science Centre experience.

After that visit, we took a trip down to GGB, the Golden Gate Bridge, icon of San Francisco. You know the bridge that everyone has a picture of in their mind when they think of San Francisco. Here, a reminder:

I took this myself :) Have more in my drive, but it takes way too long to upload...

Dinner at 5.30pm, then back to hotel room. Passed by the WWDC 2008 centre, saw that everyone was leaving cause it was ending. Due to the fact that it is still summer here, the sun only started setting at about 9pm US time...

Free wireless internet in the room!!! I will update daily on whatever is happening in the Silicon Valley.