Randy Lubin's Blog

Just got back from a long day of exploring Scotland. We rented a car and drove west to explore a few different lochs and castles.

Driving west:

Loch Lomond

The very cool ruins of Castle Kilchurn

I’ve grown a bit of a travel beard… probably should shave.

View from atop the castle in Sterling:

London Continued

With the highly programmed, Ungrounded portion of the trip behind me, I’ve been free to explore at my own pace.

On Saturday I walked around East London during the day, checked out Broadway Market, and saw a little amateur cricket played at London Fields. At night, a bunch of went to Nightjar - a very cool speakeasy near the Old Street tube stop. They had a great jazz / swing band playing all night and mixed up some great cocktails served in unusual containers.

Here’s one drink they served to us in an Owl Pitcher - that’s dry ice coming out the beak:

On Sunday a group of us went for a hike and picnic in Richmond Park. I never made it to Richmond when I lived in London but it’s definitely worth the trek. We saw several wild deer and a few swans.

I spent most of Monday walking around London. I lived here for six months in 2008 and it’s hard to believe five years have passed without returning. The streets, shops, and tube stops all came flooding back, along with great memories. I walked about eight miles through the City of London and then back west along the Thames.

Here’s a picture of St. James Park

I caught up with Mark Edridge, one of my camp counselors. It was great catching up with him - (he’s now engaged!) - and reconnecting after not seeing each other in a few years.

Here’s a bonus photo in front of Big Ben (taken Thursday as part of the visit to the House of Lords:

Edinburgh, Scotland

This morning (Tuesday) I flew up to Edinburgh, Scotland. For this segment of the trip, I’m travelling around with Nick Punt - a friend from SF.

After throwing our bags down, we walked to a nearby pub for a traditional Scotch meal: haggis. Haggis is made from the heart, lungs, and liver of a sheep, mixed with some veggies and spices. It was served with “neeps and tatties” - mashed turnip and potato. Haggis has a rough reputation with tourists but I actually liked it. I’d definitely have it again.

After lunch we went straight for Edinburgh Castle. The castle is situated right in the center of town and there are great views of it from everywhere. I didn’t take a photo from outside the castle but here’s a view from the top:

The castle was cool but didn’t seem too different from other castles I’ve visited (seemed a lot like Dover Castle). Next up we walked through Edinburgh which had a nice quad (dating back to the early 1600s:

After grabbing a quick curry, we climbed Arthur’s Seat - an old volcano in the center of Edinburgh. The climb was short but invigorating and the views were incredible. The following photos are all from the peak or from the surrounding Holyrood Park.

That’s all for now - not sure what the plans are for tomorrow but I’m sure we’ll find something fun!

It’s been a crazy few days.

The Ungrounded flight was fun but exhausting. Everyone on the flight was incredible - brilliant, accomplished, and really nice. It was a bit tough doing a hackathon in flight but IDEO did a good job facilitating. You can see a full writeup of the flight by Chrissy: http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/14/brainstorming-at-30k-feet-reflections-from-the-hackathon-in-the-sky/

After arriving at the hotel we had some free time. I grabbed a pint with some friends and then walked through Regent’s Park - an old favorite from when I lived in London. At 6pm we went over to the House of Lords where Baroness Scotland of Asthal greeted us; she was a great host and treated us to a tour of Parliament and a great cocktail reception.

We were still hungry around 11pm so a few of us went on an adventure around SOHO to find some food - we ended up grabbing some delicious dishes in Chinatown.

Today we had back to back summits. First was a G8 Innovation Conference with some nice TED style talks. The morning was capped off with an appearance by Prime Minister David Cameron. It was great to see him in such a small venue and he gave a nice speech on Britain’s efforts to foster innovation.

The afternoon switched to the DNA Summit and we got to hear from several of our fellow Ungrounded participants - also lots of fun. We were then brought to a gala at the Royal Academy of Arts - a great way to finish the official segment of the trip.

We’re on our own now - I’m spending the next few days catching up with friends in London before spending a couple days in Edinburgh mid-week. I’ll then return to London for another few days before heading out on the 23rd.

Great start to what I’m sure will be an awesome trip!

I’m heading to London this week as part of ungroundedthinking.com

You can read more about the trip through that link but the short of it: British Airways is flying out 100 entrepreneurs from the Bay Area to brainstorm ways to change the world.

I’ll be staying through the 23rd and taking a mid-week trip to Edinburgh for fun. I’ll try to blog about it while in country but probably won’t make time for the daily posts, like my last few trips.

I’m incredibly excited for this - it’ll be my first time back in London since I lived there in 2008.

Following up on last week’s post:

Though the fourth season got off to a strange start - I thoroughly enjoyed it. As the season went on, some of the quirks faded (e.g. less narration) and the plotting improved. There were also a few story arcs (Tobias and G.O.B.) that turned excellent.

Part of why my enjoyment improved was that by mid-season we started to see payoffs on jokes that were set up in the first few episodes. The pace of jokes picked up and returned to the density of the earlier seasons.

I rewatched a few of the early season four episodes this weekend with my family and found I enjoyed them much more - there were inside jokes you don’t get until you’ve seen the whole season. This show is definitely better upon rewatching and I’m looking forward to marathoning it again some time in the future (probably before season five / the movie).

The biggest downside of the show is that it ends too quickly. Almost none of the plots reach any resolution. I’ve heard the season is set up “Act 1” for the movie. It definitely accomplishes that but I definitely felt unsatisfied at the end of the last episode (though the final scene with Michael and George Michael is pretty great).

Ah well… just have to hope the next release isn’t seven years away.

Netflix released the new season of Arrested Development today and I’ve made it through seven episodes. I’m going to share my initial reaction but try to keep things spoiler free.

I’ve been watching it with one of my roommates and we can’t get over how bizarre the show feels. It’s not bad, just very strange. It think some of the weirdness comes from:

• A focus of one character per episode. The characters are all very idiosyncratic and each adds a different type of humor to the show. With an emphasis on just one character, each episode can feel a bit monotone.
• Due to the one character structure, there is a ton of overlap between scenes of episodes. Often this is used to great comedic effect (reshowing a scene with some new information). Sometimes, though, I’ve noticed something odd in a scene and realized it’s just setup for something several episodes away; it’s just distracting.
• Cutaways / recaps as if there were comercial breaks. Each episode has scenes which feel like they were supposed to break for commercial. This is very odd as the season was made for Netflix; perhaps their preparing for syndication? This is usually exacerbated by the next scene having a narration recap as if we’d been away for four minutes and need to be reminded what just happened.
• The abundance of narration. It feels like there’s more voice over than in the old seasons. It could be that the narration is less necessary because each episode has a more linear plot. Also, see previous point.
• Michael Bluth is much quirkier than in earlier seasons in which he’s usually the Straight Man.
• The actors are older which is a little jarring. Most of the actors look similar but there there might be a bit of uncanny valley going on as the actors aren’t quite as they used to be… it doesn’t help that I finished rewatching the original series this morning.

So yeah… pretty weird so far. I’m not loving it but I am looking forward to watching the rest (probably tomorrow).

Day three of our trip to Mexico City, following Day 2

We woke up early this morning to beat the rush to Teotihuacan. The ancient city is about an hour north of Mexico City and we arrived by 9am.

The three of us at the Pyramid of the Sun

The ruins of Teotihuacan were ancient even at the time of the Aztecs. Most impressive are the two large Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. It’s interesting to imagine what it would have been like for pre-columbian peoples to have stumbled upon the massive structures.

A small building near the Temple of the Feathered Serpent

Looking up at the Pyramid of the Sun

View of Teotihuacan from atop the Pyramid of the Moon

After thoroughly exploring the complex and museum we grabbed lunch at La Gruta - a mexican restaurant in a cave near the ruins. The meal was delicious; we ate lamb barbacoa and nopales (cactus).

Upon returning to Mexico City, we had a beer tasting at a local bar and found some tasty new brews.

We rounded out the day with dinner at Koi - a Japanse-Mexican fusion restaurant. Like all our other meals this trip, it was great.

Tomorrow morning, we catch an early flight back to SF. This was an excellent trip - we toured amazing museums, ate excellent food, and got a good sense of Mexico City. Travelling with Adam and Sara was a blast and we’re already scheming about future trips!

Picking up where last post left off:

The Argentina steak last night lived up to our expectations; it was amazing and sent us right to sleep.

This morning we checked out Zocalo - the 3rd largest plaza in the world. First we toured the Temple Mayor which was the main Aztec temple. The ruins were very cool - each Aztec emperor rebuilt the temple on a larger scale so the ruins were an interesting cross section of all past versions of the temple.

Next we looked in on the massive Mexico City Cathedral - the largest cathedral in the Americas; the scale was impressive though different from the european cathedral (little stained glass).

The Temlpo and Cathedral:

Afterwards we grabbed some delicious enchiladas in mole sauce. From there we went to La Merced - the largest market in Mexico City. They had tons of food, clothing, and appliances and every other stall was playing Gangnam Style.

Next we took the subway (which was nicer than BART) to Garibaldi Square. Garibaldi is where Mariachi Bands wait between gigs but, more importantly, is home to the Museum of Tequila and Mezcal; the museum was decent but the tasting was great.

The rest of the day was nice and calm - an early dinner of tacos followed by a later dinner of posole (a soup) and quesadillas.

I’m taking a short trip to Mexico City and aim to do daily blog posts; I really enjoyed blogging my Japan trip last fall.

This trip is a last minute with my roommate Adam and his friend Sara. We have almost no plans and are making it up on the fly.

After arriving at 6am on the red eye from SF and immediately fell asleep for a few hours at the hotel. Once awake we walked down to Chapultepec, a large park in central Mexico City. The park is full of museums and we spent many hours at the Museum of Anthropology; the museum has fantastic exhibits on the indigenous civilizations that have inhabited Mexico.

Here’s a shot of a reconstructed Mayan temple:

From the museum we walked through the nearby Botanical Gardens and then around the Zona Rosa neighborhood. We then went to a local bar and watched the America vs Pumas playoff game (Liga MX professional soccer) - it was a great game and America won, advancing to the semi-finals.

We’re hanging at the hotel now and gathering the energy to go to an Argentinian Steakhouse.

Tomorrow we’re planning to explore the city some more but I’m especially excited for Monday when we go to Teotihuacan - temple ruins.

After a few lazy weeks, I had a very productive day on Nation Building! It feels really good to be coding again. I’ll provide a brief overview of my updates. You can check out the latest version here.

Keyboard Controls

I added a module that monitors keyboard inputs and acts on them when appropriate. The two current uses are:

1. You can issue movement orders to your band
2. You can resolve a decision by hitting the number of the choice

The movement keys map to the neighboring territories like this:

If you don’t want to use the keyboard, you also still click to both select movement and choices.

The module was a little tricky to create but I can now easily extend it to encompass any other actions.

Win Conditions

I now have a game loop checking for win conditions. The only way to win right now is by selecting ‘Win the Game’ during a random ‘Decision’ event, but it’ll be easy to extend the conditions to something much more interesting.

That’s all for today but I hope to get a few more hours in tomorrow night.