I’ve recently been getting really into table tennis, a sport I’ve played for most of my life, but never seriously. My father taught me when I was just tall enough to reach the table, and I was hooked ever since.

As I began to study table tennis (or more casually, ping pong) in depth, I realized it’s one of the best sports for hackers. Here’s why.

1. Table tennis is easy to install in any office

Just order a table, some balls, and few paddles and you’re in business. No complicated setup is necessary.

2. Table tennis exercises the brain

A simple game of table tennis works wonders for the reflexes and brain. The ball moves fast, and studies have shown that the game keeps your brain sharp. It’s also especially refreshing to play a fast reaction after a complex coding session, and can get your mind to drift off of a problem long enough to work out the solution.

3. Table tennis is strategy

Table tennis is one of the few sports that has a wide variety of play styles. Just like programmers have various languages to choose from, there is a multitude of table tennis playing styles. And, just like programming languages, these styles are continuously evolving. Throughout the decades, many styles of play have had their moment in the limelight.

It’s really up to you how you’d like to play. Maybe you’re an aggressive player that uses the handshake grip. Or, maybe you’re an attacker that uses the Japanese penhold grip, utilizing extremely fast footwork. Or, maybe you’re a defensive lobber (a rare type, but perhaps you program in Haskell? Don’t think lobbing works? Witness the power of the lob below.)

There really is an essence of “hacking” in table tennis as well. Each style has particular strengths and weaknesses. Much of the challenge is to discover your opponents’ weaknesses and change the way you play to exploit them.

4. Table tennis doesn’t require you to be in super tip-top shape, but it’ll get you in shape

Table tennis is an easy sport to pick up (but as the cliche goes: very difficult to master). Most importantly, for casual games, you don’t need to be super athletic to play. This encourages everybody in the office to get involved, no matter how fit your are.

On the flip side, the game does offer the rare chance for many hackers to exercise during the day. A game is ideal for any hacker who has been sitting in a chair for the past 4 hours. Get up and move around. A healthy hacker is a productive hacker.

5. Table tennis is social

A game of table tennis encourages conversations, especially if you play doubles. It’s a good way to get the team together and participate in something fun and interactive after a day of staring at a lifeless screen.

6. It’s just damn fun.

Go out there and get a table, review the rules, and start playing. Trust me, it’ll boost productivity.

I’ve gotten very jaded about taking photographs at tech events. It’s the same people, in the same types of rooms, all standing in a similar fashion. Thus, I will no longer just blast all my event photos up, as most of them will have been already taken by numerous people.

On the other hand, there are always those few select gems that end up with at the end of the night. I’ll only be posting those. Armed with my spy lens, I discretely took shots around the crowd. I particularly liked this photo of Ed, senior developer on the Scribd iPaper team.

New York 2008 from James Yu on Vimeo.

On an ice cold night in New York, we headed to Nobu New York for a warming modern Japanese American meal. I had heard many good things, and was excited to taste Nobu Matsuhisa’s fusion cuisine. He is, after all, one of the pioneers of Asian fusion cuisine.

Typically, I’m wary of an kind of fusion cuisine, because a lot of it just not well executed. Many chefs just smear some soy glaze on a typical western creation and call it a day.

Unfortunately, even though there were some interesting highlights, Nobu failed to impress. Many of the dishes simply had poor execution–faltering on basic elements like seasoning and rice preparation.

We decided to go with the omakase, leaving it to the chefs to serve their best dishes. The following was our evening.

Toro Tartar

The toro was served over a rich cold broth of wasabi and soy. The toro tartar was very fresh and delicate, but overpowered by the inordinate amount of wasabi in the broth.

Oysters Kahata with Soy, Citrus, and Oil

The oysters were fresh, but the sauce was overwhelmingly salty. Again, a potentially great dish that was ruined by poor seasoning.

Yellowtail with Yuzu Soy Dressing

Again, the Yellowtail was firm and fresh, but was over-salted. I could barely taste the Yuzu.

Lobster Tempura

This was one of the better dishes of the night. The lobster was nice and tender, and the tempura batter was delicate. However, the rich creamy sauce made the tempura soggy. It would’ve been better if they had served the sauce on the side.

Black Cod Miso and Foi Gois

This is Nobu’s signature dish, and was well executed. The cod was very tender and nicely flavored throughout by the soy and miso. The outside was nicely browned, and the foi gois added an exceptional richness. There is an almost identical dish that is served at the Mayflower Restaurant in San Francisco (at a cheaper price, of course).

Sushi Course

This was probably the worst dish of the night. Of all the dishes, I thought Nobu would be able to execute sushi flawlessly. Instead, the rice was too dried out and not properly seasoned (needed more vinegar). The fish was fresh enough, but not anything extraordinary. Very disappointing.

Chocolate Green Tea Molten Cake with Green Tea Ice Cream

The night finished with a molten chocolate cake. I thought this dish lacked any originality. The addition of the green tea sauce within the cake didn’t add much interest to the usual molten cake dish. The green tea ice cream was made in house, and had a subtle and natural green tea flavor.

Overall, Nobu just didn’t leave me with a good taste in my mouth. The dishes were not well executed, and many lacked any kind of originality. Even though Nobu is hailed as the pioneer of fusion cuisine, it managed to lose its attention to detail, which is very sad indeed.

During my trip to NYC, I decided to focus my attention back onto street photography–something that I’ve always been passionate about, but have had little time to pursue. And, what better place to rekindle the joy of capturing people than in NYC?

Joanne got me the super nifty spy lens from Photojojo, which lets me stealthily take photos of people on the street without them noticing. I’m much more confident when using this lens, and it lets me capture moments that would never take place if the subjects knew the camera was aimed at them.

My first adventure was shooting people in the MoMA. Using the lens takes some getting used to (more on that later), and shooting people who are stationary and staring at art is good practice.

On a funny note, one of the security guards, after watching me shoot for quite some time, noticed that I wasn’t using an ordinary straight lens. He came up to me immediately exclaimed that I was shooting “laterally”. I was stunned that he was such an astute observer, and shared with him some of the shots I made. He was genuinely amused, as he had never seen such a thing before.

I’m hoping to restart my photoblog sometime in the future, but, for now, here are some shots from the MoMA (all using the spy lens).