Hanging in the Silicon Valley

Today we decided to feast on Udipi food courtesy place called Madras Cafe in Sunnyvale neighborhood of Silicon Valley. The growing plethora of people from regions south in India along with slow and sure education of the locals about cuisine from parts of the world where half their colleagues come from is adding to the demand for Dosas and Idlis.

Dosa being a lentil batter fried crepe and Idli being a lentil and rice slurry that is steamed to yield fluffy, savory, edible pillows.

This was the nourishment prior to exploring some architectural landmarks in the tech hub of the world. Apple recently finished building their new office campus courtesy of Norman Foster Designs - a British architect and it is marvelous to behold. The Visitor Center located outside the main campus in Cupertino, CA provides an Augmented Reality tour to visitors allowing to see inside the building while pointing an ipad at a 1:92 scale model laid out in the center. It is quite something to behold.

Below are some pictures of the center and surrounding area.

Light fixtures and outdoor signage also carry the simple but elegant theme

Affectionately labeled the Spaceship - the HQ is a large circular building with a park and a pond in the inner sanctum

Tunnels below the structure guide employees to the parking spots for their vehicles

Marble stairwells in the visitor center have a smooth and continuous finish and showcase very clean lines

View of a portion of the Main Building's outer circumference off Homestead Ave
seen from the roof of the center

After Apple we went to walk around the other Goliath's campus - that of Google. Although much older and showing signs of wear there is now a new Google Cloud campus being erected not far from the original site.

Spring heralds the arrival of blooming flowers - here the national flower - Poppy

Comments

Charges attract

It is said that opposites attract meaning people with contrary viewpoint sometimes find chemistry to be together. But I'm referring to a modern twist where people are merely attracted towards a common place because their uber communication device aka smart phone is about to die. The charging station. From airports to hotel lobbies or even bathrooms, when in need they are attracted to this power outlet like moths to a flame or a junkie to a needle. A whole new business of supplying these hyper connected folks is now born whose lifesaver product is a backup charge. Asian tourists perpetually carry a phone sized battery pack stuck to their latest Apple phone updating their status to folks in Hong Kong or Shanghai or Bangalore as they pose for selfies with weird facial expressions and fingers pointed out in a letter V. Vain? PS: I dis'charged' my blogger duties making this insightful observation as my phone is about to breathe it's last and my flight gets call...

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...

Costa Rica

Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry. Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while. Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...

Brown Motion

Search This Blog