Nedelja #7 / Week #7 - No Big Deal

Veliko kasnjenje, rupa u pamcenju, ali se ionako nista nije desilo :) U ponedeljak je bio vatromet (4. juli) koji nije nesto inspirativan za pisanje. Bostonski je duzi i lepsi tako da sam blago razocarana. Imam negde klipove koje sam mislila da okacim na youtube, ali me mrzi :) U svakom slucaju, ja tog vikenda bila preumorna za bilo sta, tako da mislim da nisam dobacila dalje od supermarketa. Nedelja je dobila poseban entry cisto radi konzistentnosti :)

Late big time, hole in my memory, but nothing happened anyway :) There was fireworks on Monday (July 4th) which isn't very inspirational for writing. Boston fireworks is longer and prettier so I'm mildly disappointed. I have videos somewhere which I thought about posting on YouTube, but I'm too lazy :) Anyway, I was too tired for anything that weekend, so I don't think I went further than supermarket. The week got entry just for the consistency.

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Nedelja #6 / Week #6 - July 4th Weekend

Zbog epskog fejla sa objavljivanjem poslednjeg posta, ove nedelje ima vise materijala za citanje i bonus slika :)

Because of the epic fail with publishing last post, this week there will be more reading material and bonus photos :)


Javno mnjenje od jedne osobe je htelo da cuje o atmosferi u Facebooku i sta FB misli o Google+. Mislim da sam nesto pisala o tome, ali u sustini, atmosfera je skroz opustena. Radno vreme kao koncept ne postoji, moze da se radi od kuce, ili kako bilo, samo da se posao zavrsi. Ja sam na back-endu doduse, pretpostavljam da je na front endu malo stresnije, posebno kad se TechCrunch nakaci. Timovi su jako mali tako da svako ukljucujuci i interne ima odgovorne zadatke koji dosta uticu na finalni produkt. Svuda po firmi su (de)motivacione poruke tipa "Move fast and break things" ili "Done is better than perfect" sto dovoljno govori o filozofiji firme. Kolege u timu su uvek tu da pomognu kad se negde zaglavim. Moj primarni kontakt je uglavnom mentor + jos neko u zavisnosti od zadatka na kome radim. Cak i back end searcha ima dovoljno veliki codebase da ni svako u timu ne zna sve.

Juce smo, kako Zuck rece, poceli sezonu launchova. Radimo na dosta novih featurea, od kojih su neki bas veliki i skroz kul. Juce smo lansirali video chat u saradnji sa Skajpom, grupni chat i chat je generalno redizajniran.

Sto se Google+ tice, stav je manje vise ono sto je Zuck juce rekao na konferenciji za stampu. Socijalni aspekt weba je trenutno hot tema i za ocekivati je da svako ima neku varijaciju na temu, ukljucujuci i firme koje to primarno ne rade. On je za primer naveo Netflix koji totalno nema veze sa socijalnim do sada. Realno, od Google-a se ocekivalo da izbaci normalnu mrezu, a i TechCrunch je odavno o tome pisao. U sustini, zdrava konkurencija je dobra, ali u FB-u nista nece posebno da se promeni zbog toga. Google ce da radi svoj posao, FB svoj i to je to. Just for the record, Zuckov profil ima najveci broj followera na Google+. Ja iskukala invite drugog dana zvanicnog postojanja i u sustini, fin je + kao koncept, ja cu licno da ga koristim za neke stvari, fejsbuk za neke druge i to je to. Ako se isprate naslovi po novinama, Google ce morati dosta da se potrudi da + zazivi. Facebook ima jako veliku inerciju sa 750 miliona korisnika, a Google losu reputaciju sa orkutom, buzzom i wave-om. Kad je + izasao, naslovi su bili skroz pozitivni, a iz dana u dan se menjaju u "Pronadjite razlike izmedju Gugla i Fejsbuka", "Zasto Gugl nece da zazivi" i milion klipova i stripova. Ja se svakako radujem Circleovima zbog lakse distribucije Picasa linkova, a za ostalo cemo da vidimo.

Elem, nedelja je imala jos par highlight eventova. Skrenula sam s uma i placam sadistu koji ce da me maltretira dva sata nedeljno. U prevodu, pocela sam da idem ozbiljno u "teretanu". Teretana ide pod navodnike jer je Daniel mnogo kreativniji od pumpanja tegova od jutra do sutra. Najepski deo je bio kad mi je dao ogromni cekic i rekao da udaram po gumi od 150 kila (guma od monster trucka, ja u zivotu nisam videla toliku). Otkrila sam par novih misica kad su se upalili, tako da kapiram da je investicija dobra.

Osim toga, poslednji dug vikend mog internshipa je proveden na Taho jezeru. Jezero je prepolovljeno granicom izmedju Nevade i Kalifornije (koju smo presli jedno 20 puta tako da sada mogu da se hvalim da sam bila u Nevadi :D) i prilicno je popularna turisticka atrakcija. Priroda je presavrsena - videti slike ispod. S jedne strane je plaza s ljudima u kupacima, a s druge planine pokrivene snegom u sred jula. Sneg dolazi uz cenu da je voda ledena pa nije bilo puno kupanja. Elem, nasa strana jezera je imala savrseno vreme za hiking, tako da smo odabrali neku dugacku stazu. Predvidjeno vreme od 5 sati nije predvidelo maratonsko slikanje na svakom koraku i to sto smo zalutali u shumi :) Osim prirode, mesto u kome smo bili povremeno lici na ostatke socijalizma u Srbiji s onim odvratnim sivim zgradetinama koje nisu restaurirane 30 godina. Zbog toga sto je praznik, ulice uvece su bile pune
ljudi pred 20-om s laznim ID-evima, koji su pijani kao guzice i otisli u kazino da izigravaju ne znam ni ja sta. Drug je opravdao MIT reputaciju u kazinu i uzeo 50-ak dolara na blekdzeku :) Ja sam prokockala dolar na slot masini i tu se moje kockarsko iskustvo zavrsilo :)

Osim Tahoa, desio se i 4. juli i vatromet, ali to je bilo u ponedeljak, tako da se tehnicki racuna u 7. nedelju :) Cuvam materijal za tad, a i mrzi me vise da kucam :)



By popular demand constituted by one person, here is the story on atmosphere in Facebook and what FB thinks about Google+. I think I wrote something about, but shortly, it is pretty chill. Hours as a concept don't exist, you can work from home, or whatever as long as the job gets done. To be honest, I'm on back end, I assume front end is a bit more stressful, especially when TechCrunch gets to us. Teams are very small so everyone including interns has responsible tasks that significantly affect the final product. There are (de)motivational messages everywhere around the company like "Move fast and break things" or "Done is better than perfect" which says enough about the philosophy of the company. Colleagues on the team are always there to help when I get stuck. My primary contact is mostly my mentor + someone else depending on the task I'm working on. Even back end of search has large enough codebase so not everyone on the team knows everything.

As Zuck said, we started launching season yesterday. We are working on lots of new features, some which are very big and very cool. Yesterday we launched video chat with Skype, group chat and chat is redesigned.

As far as Google+ is concerned, the opinion is more or less what Zuck said yesterday for the press. Social aspect of the web is currently hot topic and it is expected that everyone has a take on it, including companies who are not primarily concerned with it. He gave the example of Netflix which is totally not related with social up until now. It was expected that Google launches a social network, and TechCrunch wrote about it a while ago. Healthy competition is good, but in Facebook, nothing special will change. Google will work their own thing, Facebook theirs and that's it. Just for the record, Zuck's profile has the largest number of followers on Google+. I got the invite of the second day of official existence, and basically, + is nice as a concept, I will use it for some things, Facebook for something else and that's it. If you follow the press headlines, Google will have to try really hard to keep + alive. Facebook has a huge momentum with 750 million users, and Google bad reputation with orkut, buzz and wave. When + came out, the headlines were absolutely positive, but they change day-by-day into "Find differences between Google and Facebook" or "Why will Google fail" and million clips and comics. I am definitely happy about Circles because of easier distribution of Picasa links and we'll see about the rest.

Anyway, this week had a few more highlight events. I've gone crazy and I'm paying for sadist to torture me two hours a week. This translates to I started going seriously to the "gym". Gym is quoted because Daniel is so much more creative than just weightlifting all day long. The most epic part was when he gave me humongous hammer and told me to hit the 300lb tire (monster truck tire, I've never seen that large). I discovered a few new muscles when they got sore so I guess the investment is good.

Besides that, the last long weekend of my internship was spent at Lake Tahoe. The lake is dividied in half by the state border between Nevada and California (which we crossed like 20 times so now I can brag I was in Nevada :D) and it is fairly popular tourist destination. Nature is super-perfect - check the photos below. On one side, there is a beach with people in their swimsuits and on the other snow covered mountains in July. Snow comes with the price so water was ice cold and we didn't swim much. Anyway, our side of the lake had perfect weather for hiking so we picked a long route. Estimated time of 5 hours didn't account for taking (vanity? :P) photos at every step and that we got lost in the forest :) Beside nature, the place we stayed at occasionally looks like Serbian socialism remainders with those gross gray buildings that weren't renovated for the last 30 years. Because it was the holiday, streets were full of people right before their twenties with fake IDs, who went smashed to the casino to pretend they are whatever. A friend of mine justified MIT reputation and won ~50 bucks on blackjack. I wasted a dollar on a slot machine and that's where my gambling experience ended :)

Except Tahoe, we had July 4th and fireworks, but that was on Monday, so it's technically 7th week :) I'm saving material for than and I'm too lazy to keep typing :)

Najepskija kombinacija prodavnica / The most epic store combination

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Nedelja #5 / Week #5 - Believe It or Not!

[Note: I wrote this on time and forgot to publish... fail...]
[Napomena: Napisala sam ovo na vreme, ali zaboravila da objavim... fejl...]

Believe it or not, there is two-digit number of people reading this blog and first digit is greater than 2. But, there are exactly zero comments. Come on, creepers, write something down there :)

Verovali ili ne, dvocifren broj ljudi cita ovaj blog i prva cifra je veca od 2. Ali, ima ravno nula komentara. Ajmo, creeperi, napisite nesto dole :)

Anyway, bike accident epilogue - I had neck/spine x-ray, everything is fine, so I can continue acting stupid and still have my body operating :) Thanks to everyone for the concerns.

The one-blog-per-week thing is harder than I thought. I'm starting to feel a bit repetitive with this whole "my-internship-is-super-awesome" thing, but yeah, my internship is still rockingly awesome and you should be jealous :P It's so sad it's almost halfway done. So many weekend plans, such a small number of weekends left. I feel some of the travels will be cut off, but oh well, next summer :)

The schedule for the weekend was surfing in Santa Cruz, but because of my neck, I had to give up on it. Not a bad thing - Lekha drove down from Seattle. Driving over Golden Gate is so different experience from biking over it. Driving up and down steep streets is so much more scary than walking... and much less exercise. Other than that, Ghirardelli still rocks, and I played pinball! Like, real pinball, where you insert coins. We checked out Musée Mécanique and you know you are old when you recognize things from your childhood in museums... Last, but not the least to mention, Ripley's Believe it or not museum! Where else would you see a wedding dress made of toilet paper?

If I weren't too tired, I would elaborate on Ripley's and how Lekha's my idol for driving 14.5 hours one way to see me, but I really want to sleep now. With a bit of luck, I'll be more inspired for week #6 :)



Epilog nezgode s biciklom - imala sam rendgen vrata/kicme, sve je u redu tako da mogu da nastavim da se glupiram i da mi telo funkcionise :) Hvala svima na brigi (brizi? moj srpski pocinje zesce da fejluje...)

Ideja jedan-blog-nedeljno je teza nego sto sam mislila. Pocinjem da se ponavljam sa moja-praksa-je-super-mega-giga-kul, ali jeste, moja praksa i dalje sabija i treba da budete ljubomorni :P Steta sto je skoro na pola. Toliko planova za vikend, a tako malo preostalih vikenda (Koja bese reklama sa "tako puno ukusa, a tako malo vremena"? Neke zvake?). Mislim da ce neka od planiranih putovanja da otpadnu, ali dobro sad, sledece leto :)

Raspored za vikend je bio surfovanje u Santa Kruzu, ali zbog mog vrata sam morala da odustanem od toga. Nije bilo lose - Lekha se dovezla iz Sijetla. Voznja preko Golden Gejta je potpuno drugacije iskustvo od voznje bicikle preko. Voznja uz i niz strme ulice (izuzetno strme) je mnogo strasnija nego setanje... i mnogo manje fizicki naporna. Sem toga, Ghirardelli i dalje sabija, i igrala sam fliper! Onaj pravi, gde se ubacuju zetoni/novcici. Svratile smo i do Musée Mécanique i shvatila sam da sam matora kad sam videla da su stvari iz mog detinjstva sada u muzeju... I na kraju, Riplijev Verovali ili ne muzej! Gde inace moze da se vidi vencanica od toalet papira?

Da nisam toliko umorna, elaborirala bih na Ripliju i kako je Lekha moj idol jer je vozila 14.5 sati u jednom smeru da se vidimo, ali sada zaista zelim da spavam. Uz malo srece, bicu vise inspirisana za nedelju #6 :)

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Nedelja #4 / Week #4 - Headbutting the Signs

Time to blog again. I'm late... with a reason. I had a bike accident and avoided staring at the screen this weekend in case I had a concussion. More details to follow :)

Vreme je da se opet bloguje. Kasnim... s razlogom. Imala sam nezgodu s biciklom i izbegavala da gledam u ekran ovog vikenda za slucaj da sam imala potres mozga. Detalji slede :)


I can't believe a third of my internship has passed! Time flies superfast. I'm enjoying my time in Facebook and California to its fullest, working hard during the week, having loads of fun during the weekend. With every day going by I'm more and more certain that my decision of going to the industry and not do PhD/research is the right one. I have doubts about staying at east coast, though. It's still more likely, but I can bear with SF/Palo Alto. We'll see, there is plenty of time :)

First paycheck! California taxes are ridiculous so April is going to be a good month :) Poor student life is over... temporarily. Another reason not to go into academia :P

The highlight of the week - weekend! To continue tradition of exciting stuff every weekend, we went biking. It was supposed to be a 40 mile route, from the train to Golden Gate, over Golden Gate, to Muir Beach, and back. We got lost after Golden Gate and road was often uphill so it was too tiring to go all the way to Muir, but even the beach we reached was cool enough. Golden Gate Park is awesome and totally worth renting a car to go there and hike. We saw just a beginning of it, so I assume it's even more amazing once you are further from the city. View from the Golden Gate is spectacular. I want to go again when there is not much fog. To end the day, we visited Ghirardelli square. See details below :)

I've told this story trillion times already, so if I have it written, I can just refer people to the blog :) The dramatic part of the weekend was my accident on the way back from the beach. We were going downhill (i.e. pretty fast) through a tunnel. Once you exit the tunnel, there is a gentle left turn. When I saw it, I started gently breaking so I can turn without flying off the road. I am not quite sure what happened (I might have hit something on the road, or my wheels slipped, no idea), but at one point of the curve, I flew off the bike and hit the fluorescent sign with my head. Luckily, those things are designed to be safe to hit so it bent all the way down and I flew through it. The impact left a nice dent on my helmet, but it seems there is no permanent damage on my body. My neck and back are a bit sore, but no concussion or any other serious injuries. I ended up with a bit of a swelling on my lower leg, and a few scratches on my forearm and hips, but other than that, I'm fine. Sad part is I have to miss surfing lessons Facebook organized this weekend, to make sure my neck is ok, but oh well. Quote of the week award goes to my brother: "I'm not afraid, it's certain you don't have a concussion. I mean, if you have no brain, how can you have a concussion?".

Time to go to bed... 8 more Facebook entries to go...

Ne mogu da verujem da mi je vec prosla trecina prakse! Vreme leti superbrzo. Maksimalno uzivam u vremenu u Facebook-u i Kaliforniji, razbijam se od posla preko nedelje i provodim preko vikenda. Sa svakim danom sam sve sigurnija da je odluka da idem u industriju, a ne radim PhD/istrazivanje dobra. Imam dileme oko ostajanja na istocnojo obali. I dalje je verovatnije, ali mogu da se nosim s SF-om/Palo Altom. Videcemo, ima jos dosta vremena :)

Prva plata! Kalifornijske takse su ocajne, pa ce april da bude dobar mesec :) Siromasni studenski zivot je gotov... privremeno. Jos jedan razlog da se ne ide u akademski zivot :P

Najbolji deo nedelje - vikend! Da bi nastavili tradiciju uzbudljivih stvari svakog vikenda, isli smo okolo biciklma. Trebalo je da vozimo ~65km, od voza do Golden Gate-a, preko Golden Gate-a do Muir plaze i nazad. Izgubili smo se posle Golden Gate-a i put je cesto isao uzbrdo pa je bilo prenaporno da se ide skroz do Muir-a, ali je i plaza do koje smo stigli bila dovoljno kul. Golden Gate Park je prelep i vredan iznajmljivanja auta da se ode tamo na pesacenje. Mi smo videli samo pocetak, tako da pretpostavljam da je jos bolje kad se ode jos malo dalje od grada. Pogled s Golden Gate-a je spektakularan. Hocu da odem opet kada nema puno magle. Za kraj dana, otisli smo na Ghirardelli square. Detalji ispod :)

Ovu pricu sam ispricala trilion puta do sada, pa ako je imam zapisanu, mogu samo da posaljem ljude na blog :) Dramaticni deo vikenda je bila moja nezgoda na povratku s plaze. Isli smo nizbrdo (drugim recima, prilicno brzo) kroz tunel. Na izlasku iz tunela je blago skretanje u levo. Kad sam ga videla, pocela sam polako da kocim, da mogu da skrenem bez da sletim s puta. Nisam sigurna sta se tacno desilo (mozda sam udarila u nesto na putu, ili su mi tockovi proklizali, nemam pojma), ali sam u jednom delu krivine sletela s bicikle i udarila u fluorescentni znak glavom. Na svu srecu, te stvari su dizajnirane da budu bezbedne da se udare tako da se znak skroz savio i ja sam proletela kroz njega. Udar je ostavio fino udubljenje na kacigi, ali se cini da nema trajnih ostecenja na mom telu. Vrat i ledja me malo bole, ali nemam potres mozga ili druge ozbiljne povrede. Imala sam mali otok na potkolenici i nekoliko ogrebotina na podlakticama i kukovima, ali sam osim toga dobro. Tuzno je sto moram da propustim casove surfovanja koje Facebook organizuje ovog vikenda, da budem sigurna da mi je vrat u redu, ali ajde. Nagrada za citat nedelje ide mom bratu: "Ne plasim se ja, sigurno nemas potres mozga. Mislim, kad nemas mozak, kako mozes da ga potreses?".

Vreme je za spavanje... Jos 8 Facebook blogovanja...

The promised details / Obecani detalji

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Nedelja #3 / Week #3 - Flying Deck of Awesomeness

It's just week 3 and I'm falling behind my blogging... For a change, English goes first this time.

Tek je treca nedelja, a ja vec zaostajem s blogovanjem... Za promenu, engleski ovog puta ide prvi.

Anyway, it sucks that I cannot talk about all the awesome stuff going on at work, but it is super-cool. I got my summer projects and they are pretty sweet. My mentor is ridiculously awesome so nothing to complain there.

In other news, I moved to Mountain View... finally. My commute is now half as long and there are actually things going around now. I was walking around today, got sunburnt, but it was worth it. The neighborhood where I'm now is nice, residential area. There are lots of Mexicans, so I hear Spanish more than English. I walked into a Spanish store without English labels so I have no idea what are the awesome pastries I ate today. Oh, just for the record, they were 60c a piece! I found a nice park for my after-work jogs. The best thing I found - a Yugoslavian flag (along with the five-pointed star!) completely randomly in Mountain View.

Cool destination of the week: Santa Clara Great America Amusement Park. I've never been on a real roller coaster before and I have had a fear of heights, but I tried hard. I epically succeeded not to pee my pants in fear... and not to be afraid most of the time. The Flying Deck scared the crap out of me when we were in the first line. The first left turn is so sharp and that's where the metal platform underneath the feet stop, so for a split of second you think something went wrong and you are going to fling off, straight to the ground. Seriously, for that moment, I was so convinced something went wrong. But, besides that, the ride was amusingly uncomfortable... unlike ride on a stupid pirate ship which I don't even want to think about. People are not meant to hang upside-down at those heights... There is a fine line between amusing fear and sheer terror. Anyway, these are the two highlight rides, but there were many others, super-fun. Oh... and cotton candy! I didn't eat cotton candy in all eternity and this was quite good one.

OK, I need to go to work tomorrow so I'll end the blog here. I was too lazy to sort out the photos... again, but I will get to do it soon.


Bezveze je sto ne mogu da pricam o svim fantasticnim stvarima na poslu, ali su super-kul. Dobila sam svoje projekte za leto i prilicno su kul. Moj mentor je fantastican, tako da nemam na sta da se zalim.

Preselila sam se u Mountain View... konacno. Sada mi treba upola manje vremena do posla i nesto se desava oko mene. Danas sam setala okolo, izgorela na suncu, ali je vredelo. Kraj gde sam sada je lep, stambeni. Nije bogataski, ali je lep. Ima dosta Meksikanaca tako da cesce cujem spanski nego engleski. Usla sam u spansku prodavnicu koja nema ni natpise na engleskom, tako da nemam pojma sta je odlicno pecivo koje sam jela danas. I da, kostaju 60c komad. Nasla sam fin park za trcanje posle posla. Najbolja stvar koju sam nasla - jugoslovenska zastava (sa sve petokrakom!) potpuno random u Mountain View-u.

Kul destinacija nedelje: Santa Clara Great America Amusement Park. Do sada se nisam vozila na pravom rollercoasteru i imam imala sam strah od visine, ali sam se potrudila. Uspela sam da se ne upiskim od straha... i da se ne plasim vecinom vremena. The Flying Deck me je super-isprepadao kad smo sedeli u prvom redu. Prvo skretanje levo je naglo i to je mesto gde prestaje da se vidi metalna platforma pod nogama, takoda sam za delic sekunde mislila da je nesto krenulo naopako i da samo ima da izletimo i zakucamo se u zemlju. Ozbiljno, tog trenutka sam bila potpuno ubedjena da je nesto krenulo naopako. Inace, osim toga, voznja je bila zabavno neprijatna... za razliku od glupog piratskog broda o kome ne zelim ni da razmisljam. Ljudi nisu stvoreni da vise naopacke na tim visinama... Postoji granica gde zabavni strah prestaje. U svakom slucaju, ovo su dve najupecatljivije voznje, ali i ostale su bile super-zabavne. I... secerna vuna! Nisam jela secernu vunu sto godina, a ova je bila prilicno dobra.

OK, moram da idem na posao sutra, tako da ovde prestajem s blogom. Mrzelo me da sortiram slike... opet... ali trebalo bi da to uradim uskoro. Dvojezicni blogovi su epski fejlovi... Skapiram da ne znam na kom jeziku gore pricam...

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