Welcome to my home on the Wiki. Here's some information about myself in no particular order:
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I'm a UCD graduate, and I majored in Physics and Mathematics.
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I currently work full-time as a "Junior Specialist" at Crocker Nuclear Lab and the
![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png)
Deep Lens Survey group.
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I'm interested in many different things including, but not limited to, music, languages, math, physics, and various nerdy enterprises such as video games, computers, programming and electronics.
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I was born in Israel, though I've lived in the United States for over 18 years.
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My hometown is San Jose, but I currently live in North Davis near Safeway and The Drake.
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I enjoy listening to the sound of rain hitting the roof of my house or taking a nap after a long day of classes and work.
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I enjoy good beer.
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I try to play guitar, but sometimes I wonder if I'm kidding myself.
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I speak English, עברית, j'ai étudié le français, 和我學中文.
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My Wiki friends include (in alphabetical order) TomAbeles, YawenChen, NatalieKitchiner, PhilipNeustrom, and JesseSingh
I can be reached by email at asvain at SCHOOL dot edu, where SCHOOL is probably ucdavis. I also use AIM under the handle amitv0.
If you're a visual person, here's a photograph of myself playfully attacking a certain canine that goes by the name Foxy (circa 2004):
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"Amit smells!! :P" - NatalieKitchiner
Is there any way you could get pictures of the *inside* of the Crocker Lab for the Wiki? I want to see that cyclotron! - MattJurach
Most of the interesting parts are embedded in concrete, but I'll see what I can do. :) - AV
2006-04-14 13:59:47 Thanks for fixing the capitalization on my cat's page. I'm a noob. :) —TiffanySnell
2006-04-14 14:00:05 Apparent by my comment... —TiffanySnell
2006-05-18 15:38:15 The server setup on System Info is out of date. —ArlenAbraham
2006-08-21 18:34:19 you are suck. —JessicaYang
2006-10-21 08:25:10 Purely in the interests of keeping people informed (and for historical reasons down the road), it might be a good idea to do a one paragraph update somewhere (System Info?) on the why and where (SR -> SF) of the server move. —JabberWokky
2006-10-22 05:59:32 JW: I'm too tired to really do this justice, but here's a semi-coherent rambling summary of what, why, and where: Cernio is a co-op, which means its interests are directly aligned with those of its member/customers. We've been ecstatically happy with the customer service at Sonic.net, but we found that we would get better pricing, network connectivity, logistical arrangements, and pricing if we moved from the half-cab in SR to a full cabinet at the 200 Paul datacenter in San Francisco. This was no small undertaking, and has been in the works since mid-2006. (We finally reached an agreement with the new vendor and started moving equipment in early October '06.)
We've already seen a 50% reduction in costs, and will likely see even greater efficiency gains in the next 90 days. I've been subsidizing the costs of colocating Davis Wiki, and now the actual expenses are closer to (but still a little higher than) the $50/mo that DWiki pays. Since Davis Wiki gets member pricing (thanks to Philiip), when Cernio's costs on Davis Wiki's colocation drops below $50/mo Davis Wiki will end up paying that lesser amount.
The server that handles Davis Wiki was one of the last to move, and Amit and I worked within our limited resources to ensure that the negative impact of the move was minimal. For example, even though we changed DNS records (and had already set a low TTL), we implemented an HTTP proxy from the old IP to the new one to ensure that users of low-quality yet popular ISPs like Comcast and ATT/SBC/Yahoo could still see the site before their DNS caches finally expire. However, we didn't have a good way to ensure that the site contents stayed up while the server was in the back of Amit's Volvo during the drive from SR to SF. We would have preferred to mirror the site (even read-only) at the new location to smooth this transition, but we found that doing so was going to take at least 4 hours longer than expected. We have ideas on how to implement that for future events - Amit can explain further.
All in all, it was an important and worthwhile transition, and overall it went very well. As usual, Amit and Philip were great to work with - thanks, guys! —GrahamFreeman
2007-03-01 22:49:34 I met you once a long time ago. We established we are both goons. You probably established that I am an annoying drunk, but I did not figure that out until a couple months ago. —BradBenedict
2007-03-24 03:45:19 you should update this page. —JessicaYang
2007-05-22 15:45:01 default focus to search bar? —MichaelAWoods
2007-05-29 14:51:41 How do I add my name to the index? —PeterFuszard
2007-07-17 21:42:01 Hi, Amit! How do I add my name to the "People" list? My user name is RichLindvall. Thanks for your help! Rich —RichLindvall
2009-03-18 14:06:45 This and this are starting to worry me a bit. (cc: Amit and Philip) —JabberWokky
2009-08-26 12:34:23 omg, it's a cyborg cat sent from the future! —EdWins
