Zack Mahdavi's Blog

So school is now over.. what a relief! I’m off to California for my 3 month long Apple internship. It’s weird.. I’m nervous, yet excited at the same time. Hopefully it will live up to my expectations.

I hope everyone has a good summer. I plan on posting more than usual, since I should have a lot of spare time (or so I think).

In other news, the Playstation 3, XBox 360, and Nintendo Revolution have been announced. What do you think of them? My initial impressions: the XBox 360 and Nintendo Revolution will be the number 1 and 2 systems. Sony is shooting themselves in the foot by releasing what is expected to be an extremely expensive gaming machine. We’ll see how things play out… (no pun intended).
Oh, and my research project is complete! Check it out.Click on the “?” in the search box for help.

MCATS ARE OVER!!!! : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : )

That’s all there is to say.
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Wow, what a great 21st birthday! Thanks to everyone who made it feel special!

Oh, I really don’t like the MCATs. It’s a test out to get you. It really is. Oh well, maybe the “M.D.” will allow me to get me one of these one of these days. I really can’t wait for that car to be introduced! It’s going to be amazing. Heck, I can’t believe I used to despise BMWs. I mean, their quality rating sucks…. all European cars have reliability ratings that are WORSE than American cars. Oh well, they’re just so fun to drive!

Okay, enough drooling.. back to studying.
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Several months since my last entry, so it’s time to catch up.

I don’t like the MCATs. That’s all I have to say about them.

So I’m sure you’ve read by now all of these “iPod Killers” that have been introduced over the past two years. Every time a new model is introduced, it’s supposedly deemed as the device that will kill the iPod. Well, that hasn’t happened. Why? I think it’s for a number of reasons. The iPod has an incredibly intuitive interface, an incredibly synchronization engine so you don’t have to think about moving your music from computer to device, an frankly, it’s small and hip. No other device so far has come close… except for one.

This device is small. About the size of a stick of gum. It can hold 120 songs, and it costs only $99. What’s the iPod Killer? Well, it’s an iPod as well.. the new iPod Shuffle. It’s a small flash-based player that syncs with iTunes just like a regular device. It has no screen, and the truth is, the player is better that way. It makes operating this device so easy. And I never have time to listen to 120 songs, so the space isn’t an issue. Oh, and it has a 20 hour battery, more than 30% that of the iPod. All for $99. This thing is going to be huge.

I just got one for my birthday from my parents (thank you parents! And yes, my birthday isn’t for another 2 weeks). I must say I love it. My regular iPod is hardly being used anymore. I take this thing to the gym.. I take it while I walk around campus. The player fits perfectly in the coin pocket of my jeans. Oh, and the sounds is INCREDIBLE.. as good as an iPod.

So what’s the iPod Killer? Well, just the iPod Shuffle!

Two exams down, two more to go.

Neural networks was on Wednesday. I studied like crazy in hopes to make an A. We’ll see if that happens. Maybe this time the TAs will like my answers…. uggh

Next up. Vertebrate physiology. This the second class I was most worried about. The exam went decent. I need an A to do well in class. Hopefully I pulled that off. One thing I don’t understand is why professors like to ask the most useless, detailed questions. Do they get pleasure out of seeing us stress? “*Muahahaha* He’s suffering like how I suffered in Alaska!!” I don’t know, but it gets annoying. After all, we’re supposed to learn, but we shouldn’t be walking encyclopedias, right?

In the meantime, if you’re ever thinking, “gee, i want to do something with Zack right now. Where is he?”, then check out my new calendar that is actively updated from my computer calendar.

Man, I can’t wait to get home! Saturday is the CompUSA one day sale, so I might try to find somebody with a car (*ahem* ED!) to take me there. Wanna come along?

Back in Plano for a bit. Gotta love Thanksgiving! The time to rest and relax before finals kill you. : ) That’s what happens to me at least.

So two weeks ago, I interviewed with Apple. The guy I interviewed with was the head of Apple’s OS X Server team, which is basically Apple’s operating system for servers. At my BME job (where I am a sysadmin), I manage an Apple server running OS X Server. I think he was interested in me because of my experience with OS X Server. Nevertheless, I was interested in being an intern with Apple!

Well, I interviewed with him, and things went really well. He seemed to be impressed with me during the interview, so I thought I had a chance for a second interview. Well, two days later, I receive an email from him saying he would like to schedule a second interview! I couldn’t have been any happier. So his nice intern scheduled me for a round of four interviews on a Friday (each interview was a half hour). I never realized how awkward it is to interview over a phone. Maybe it’s because you can only hear who you’re talking to? Either way, it was weird to be interviewing for 2 hours straight.

So what happened after that? Remember, it’s been about a week since I first interviewed with Apple. I was offered the job. It was surreal. Absolutely surreal.

So now I am going to be a 2005 Apple Intern. I better learn how to program Cocoa before I start. : ) I hope it will be a fun experience!

Sorry guys, my site was down for a good week. The hard drive that my site is hosted on crashed, and I lost everything on my site since last February. Luckily, I had a recent database backup and most of my pictures, so all isn’t too bad. Unfortunately, all zDisk users have lost their files. I’m really sorry for not making a more complete backup. I will make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Guess who I saw on Thursday? No, not Bill Clinton! Not John Kerry! And definitely not George Bush! I saw Jerry Seinfeld at the Bass Concert Hall! He was absolutely hilarious. I went with Maria, and the two of us were cracking up like crazy during his whole hour and a half performance. We spent a lot of money for our tickets, but he is one of those comedians that I have always wanted to see perform. Thank you Jerry for coming down to Austin!

Today I’m going to rant about a thing called expensive software. Why do software companies make their software so expensive these days? I mean, it’s not like they put a lot of time into these programs. Just look at how buggy the programs are. I had to buy Macromedia Studio MX 2004 today for the research I’m doing for a lab, so I ended up “plopping” down $181 for it. $181 for a CD, no manuals, and a box. $181 for a CD at the ACADEMIC price; the regular price is $999!!! Of course, the programs are just worth that kind of money, but I just don’t understand how software companies can get away with selling their software at such a high cost. Now I understand why people pirate software so much.

That’s the end of my Monthly Journal Entry. Hope you enjoyed it.

I watched Air Force One again tonight.. awesome special effects, with a not-so-great plot. The one special effect I definitely don’t like is the very last scene where the plane crashes into the ocean. You can so tell it was computer generated and horribly done. Oh well…

Instead of going to Blockbuster or using Bittorrent, I decided to get the movie from www.movielink.com. It’s basically an online rental service for movies. You “rent” a movie and then you download it. You then have 24 hours to watch it from the time you hit the play button. It worked out really well, and the quality is quite nice. I had a coupon, so the movie only cost me 60 cents.. lol. I highly recommend you try it out.

That’s it for now.. will update later.

And the Fall 2004 session begins (well, now I’m in my third week into it). I’ve decided that my semester this year has a theme. It’s the nervous system theme! Here’s why.

I’m taking the following:
SPN 506 – you can speak in spanish about the theme
Organic Chemistry II – you learn about the molecules that work your nervous system
Organic Chem Lab – here, you get to play with those molecules.
Vertebrete Physiology – you learn about every single thing you ever needed to know about the nervous system.
Neural Networks – what could be more fun then to model the nervous system? : )

Yeah, so this semester is going to be really hard, yet really fun in my opinion. However, intro spanish will be dull and boring, and so will o-chem lab.

My summer session went well. I went home for about 8 days, and in that time, I played Warcraft III and watched TV. For some reason, I couldn’t give up the addiction, so I bought Rise of Nations and a TV tuner to take to Austin.

I haven’t played Rise of Nations much here in Austin, but I’ve become a Seinfeld fanatic again. I think all of this is very bad for me. Oh well.. : )

I started doing research in the summer for Dr. Artzt in the molecular biology department. The research is interesting, but it’s beginning to take up a lot of time that I don’t have….. I need to build a machine that lengthens the 24 hour day to something like 30 hours. I’d be happy if the day was 30 hours… wouldn’t you?

And let me end this with a funny quote:

(customer): “My hard disc has just crashed, and I need to get the data off it.”
“What does it say on page 4 of the manual?”
(reading) “If you do not have a good backup, you will be sorry.”
“Do you have a backup?”
“No”
“Are you sorry?”
“Yes!”
“There you are, then. Works as advertised!”