Four weeks left! My Outlook calender for the final week has been filling itself with intern events. Of the many available intern events I did attend a presentation by, the Head of Microsoft Studios, Phil Spencer. In general I avoid the intern events unless they sound like something worth doing for their own merit.

Work wise I rewrote my second project’s core into C++.  When I wrote the same core in C# it also took a week but I got a few extra features implemented. In all I would guess C++ is about half as fast to develop. This is balanced by the fact the C++ program runs several times faster.

Day 50

Seatltle/Redmond decided to give us real rain.

Snapshot of my walk to work.

The Microsoft cafeterias are not cheap. A typical meal costs ~7$. The food is high quality so it  is not a bad deal per say. Many coworkers, especially the married ones, bring a launch. Since my launches are a chance to escape from the dearth of selection at the apartment I have been buying Max Sized salads. Past a certain weight the salad bar caps out at $7.99. Since the salad bar has much more than lettuce I can buy 1.5 meals and save the extra for a mid afternoon meal.

Typical “salad”. There is in fact lettuce underneath that fried tofu.

Day 51

Nothing of note beyond a productive day of coding. I did snap a photo of the floater laptop I’ve borrowed from my team lead. I leave it on the second desk to make my office look less sad and empty. The laptop itself is not an official intern thing, just a spare laptop they had handy when I asked to borrow one. I do use it every so often.

Vista era desktop replacement which means it packs a 17 inch screen, external battery, and outlook takes a minute to launch.

Day 52

Our team got the final allotment of the financial year’s morale budget. This being the last day to spend it we went Go-Karting! I cannot drive and my only other go-karting experience was kid-safe go-karts on a family trip. Thus this was a new experience and incredible fun! The thrill of acceleration! I can see why people might buy sports cars.

View from my kart in the last charging station. About half the other racers are my coworkers.

The track was indoors which is good since it rained earlier in the morning.

Later that night was a Spotlight Intern event where company executives give presentations every few weeks. I did not attend the earlier presentations but I made an effort to attend Phil Spencer’s presentation since I love video games. I was not alone in curiosity and the event hall was filled beyond capacity. Walking through the door’s you felt the temperature difference. I spent the event in the back next to the open doors where I could walk outside into the hallway for fresh air. Of the event itself Phil Spencer knew how to handle our demographic. I get the impression that he understands video games. Which makes it odd in how mis-targeted the Xbox One was.

Food was in the room’s rear so the other half of the room is even more crowded.

Day 53

In celebration of Windows 8.1’s preview launch every floor of building 28 got frozen yogurt. Me and Eric, my mentor, got first in line so I had room to take this photo. By first I mean we were at the line’s front. The distinction is important because there was no line when we arrived. Some other engineer must have seen me and Eric standing close together decided to stand behind me. Thus creating a “line” of three people. Others who had been randomly standing around soon decided to get a spot in the line before more people came. Before I realized it there was a massive queue snaking from me and Eric down a hallway, a corner, and through another hallway!

Update 2013-10: If you are still interested please consider reading through the overview of my internship.

At the beginning of the internship my mentor and manager created a set of commitments. If I think standard process is for interns to write the commitments with assistance from their mentors and managers. In my case the suggested commitments were feasible and interesting so I did not ask for any changes. We did meet with the Windows Printing group to consider other projects but nothing came of that.

My commitments include two projects and various tasks related to Windows and Sustained Engineering. Then half way through the internship my manager and me do a mid point review where we evaluate my progress towards the commitments.

This Tuesday was my mid point review. As hoped it was uneventful, and I am progressing at full pace toward meeting my commitments. The fun portion of the review is knowing I am on track for a job offer. I skyped my parents that night and my mother had fun teasing me about life plans. Or guilt tripping.

Last week’s post lacked proper photos so one sunny day walking to work I got this:

Sun, in Seattle.

Update 2013-10: If you are still interested please consider reading through the overview of my internship.

Progress on both of my intern projects has slowed waiting on feedback and approval so productivity-wise this week was a slowdown compared to last.

E3 2013 occurred on Monday (day 35) and it was fun to watch the xbox one fail yet even schadenfreude can get boring. Fallout 4 did not get announced nor did valve give details on the streambox. I expect to buy a PS4 and I am impressed at Sony’s engineer’s squeezing the console’s guts into such a tight box.

Even my personal projects did not receive much labour. PPSSPP is no closer to working key mapping and other projects have been on the back burner for months now.  Of life’s chores only next year’s courses got completed. My last school year will have some interesting courses matching my preference for coding over essays. So this week’s achievement is perhaps setting up next year for awesomeness.

Looking back on this uneventful week makes me want to aceive more, for that I need to focus. As always I am writing this on a Saturday (day 40) so this weekend may or may not result in productivity.

Update 2013-10: If you are still interested please consider reading through the overview of my internship.

I am much happier about my productivity over the past two weeks. My first intern project is waiting on another developer to come back from holidays and my second project is letting me program up a storm.

I have no confidence in the day counts now. Not being zero based and combining with variable month lengths I am not even attempting for accuracy. Day 24 if my math is correct denotes the fourth Friday of my internship.

Day 24

Every developer in Windows Sustained Engineering went curling!

No one had curled before! We except me and some others since Microsoft has held morale events at the curling rink before. My curling experience dates back to childhood when my parents attempted to have me participate with some friends in after school curling. The rink was cold and I remember hating it.

It turns out curling is a fun game. We split up into four groups and each group split into two teams apiece. Before we started a staff member took 40 minutes and introduced us to the game’s basics.

A full curling game consists of 8 ends. After each end all the curling rocks have migrated to the other rink end so things reset. The most interesting and confusing aspect of curling is the scoring. The target is bull’s eye shaped but the scoring is all relative unlike darts. The team with the rock closest to the centre will get a point for every one of their rocks between the centre and the closest opposing team rock. Thus getting a rock in the perfect centre can turn an end from 4 points in the opposing team’s favour to one point in your favour.

Our first of only two scores =(

In the end my team lost 2 points against 5! We had won the first two ends by one point apiece but then the other team flipped the entire game with 3 points in the third end. The fourth end almost gave them an extra 4 points until Ramesh landed one rock and invalidated three of their rocks! It does not sound like much but the curling scoring rules create a dramatic dynamic.

Despite the physical sores a sport like curling inflicts on my lazy physic I went to intern apphack event that night. I intended to work with someone else but as I sat down in the back of the crowded food court all I cared to do was play Pikmin with my new xbox controller. Ten minutes into the presentation and half a pikmin day later someone pulled the fire alarm. I thus not only got to go home early but also got to take photos of cool fire engines!

The rear cap houses the rear wheal’s driver. It is not attached to the ladder.

Apple sells the clip in their company store which is accessible without a company badge. This makes it accessible to freed geeks’ odd sense of humour.  Photo of a co-worker’s badge after a trip to Silicon Valley.

Day 25

My mother came to visit! For atleast half a year after I got the internship my mother has been plotting to visit Seattle while attending a linguistic’s conference in Victoria. We spent the day visiting Seatle’s downtown’s sights. Beyond anything it was nice to see my mother again. I still have two more months so I better make a note to video chat again before much time passes. It is amazing how long a month is. I remember arriving but it feels like a distant past.

We took a monorail to the Seattle Needle. I paid full price but my mentor later mentioned that there are discounts from Microsoft employees which I forgot to use.

Top of the Seattle Needle viewing south over the downtown.

Day 27 to 32

Lots of work! Lots of fun work! I wrote parser and interpreter, gave a presentation on printing, got a new bug assigned to me, watched my first bug getting marked fixed. A full week and good representation of what I hope my next two months will be filled with.

Update 2013-10: If you are still interested please consider reading through the overview of my internship.