Synthesis Studios

It’s just not enough to simply be challenged by your work — ideally, you’ll also like it! We try to do the most possible to ensure our workplace is fun. Once a week, we have recess; on sunny days we walk down to a nearby playground, and on the rainy ones we plug in the Wii. We also have lunch together every Friday, a time we set aside to catch up with each other — and oftentimes we go off on some really ridiculous tangents, which for some reason frequently include topics like zombies.

A healthy work environment is so important, and it’s about more than Rock Band breaks. That’s why we signed up with Boston Organics to have fruit delivered to our office on a weekly basis. Each Wednesday we receive a goody bag of sorts, which contains a mix of apples, oranges, bananas, several different types of pears, berries and kiwis. (We put in a request for fruit we could eat with one hand, so we could work and snack; otherwise we would be knee-deep in watermelons, cantaloupe, pineapples and honeydew.)

One of the nice things about Boston Organics — aside from the bonded door-to-door service — is that each piece of fruit in our weekly box has been approved as being organic by autonomous groups like the North East Organic Food Association. In addition to that, not only are we getting truly delicious fruit but also really fresh fruit. The turnover on Boston Organics’ produce is incredible; frequently the fruit is in the company’s hands for less than a day, delivered from their participating growers on the same day as distribution. Whatever hasn’t been shipped out to clients is donated to Food For Free, so our contribution goes towards fighting local hunger issues.

Having fresh fruit in the office is wonderful, and makes it easy to maintain a healthy work environment as well as a healthy lifestyle. Of course, it would be better we took the extra step to eliminate the candy tray, but we’re not extremists. Not to mention it’s hard to kick a daily banana-and-peanut-butter-cup habit.

Write enough code and you get hungry, which points out one of the benefits of our Porter Square location: all the great places to eat and drink nearby.  Here are some of my favorites.

Simon’s Coffee Shop
1736 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
617.497.7766

Simon’s serves the best espresso I’ve had in Boston.  (It comes a close second to Intelligentsia in Chicago for my favorite in the country.)  The place is small, but the staff is friendly and the coffee is great.  It’s almost enough to stop me day-dreaming about my two years in Italy.

Japonaise Bakery
1815 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
617.547.5531

This small store is hidden in the back of the Porter Exchange (which also houses Citibank, City Sports, and part of Lesley University).  Their scones are amazing, whether fruit or chocolate (my favorites are the white chocolate and the wild berry).  Everyone raves about the Azuki Cream pastry, so you might want to try one of those too.  Don’t be fooled by the 9:30 posted opening hour, though - you usually can’t get any pastry until 10 am.

Anna’s Taqueria
822 Somerville Avenue, Cambridge
617.661.8500

If you live in Cambridge, you probably already know about Anna’s, but I wanted to point out that there’s one right across the street from our office.  The tacos al pastor are my favorite by far: not only do they taste amazing, but you also don’t have to answer any questions about what you want on them.

Random Asian Places in the Porter Exchange
1815 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

There are a bunch of small, fast, and friendly Asian restaurants lined up inside the Porter Exchange.  I buy lunch from them two or three times a week.  The lunch specials are all good choices, and here are a few specific recommendations.  I’ve never been to Japan, but I think the curry at Cafe Mami would still seem good if I had.  The hot and sour soup at Chocho’s (Korean) restaurant is great.  The cold noodles from Sapporo Ramen are tasty, too.  If you get the sushi from Kotobukiya, I’d stick to the rolls and be wary of the pouty waitress.

Hi-Rise Bread Company
208 Concord Avenue, Cambridge
617.876.8766

This is a bit longer of a walk, but it’s worth it.  They make the best bread in the city.  The sandwiches are good but expensive.

Rosie’s Bakery
1796 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
617.902.2029

They make great pastries: the raspberry bars, brownies, sweet croissants, and scones are all excellent.  The soups and sandwiches are good if you’re in the mood for something simple (but tasty).

Cafe Zing
25 White Street, Cambridge
617.497.9464

This place gets a special mention for the super-friendly staff.  It’s a good choice if you’re looking for a wide range of drink options.  Try the Aztec hot chocolate or the Thai iced tea.

I’ll bet most people do not consider knitting and crocheting to be nerdy hobbies. Given that their main proponents tend to be grandmothers and trendy celebrities, I can see why that would be. However, these arts and crafts projects can have enough math and problem solving to make them into full blown engineering endeavors.

First, there’s the calibration. If you want your clothing to fit as promised, you’ll need to knit a gauge square to proportionally compare it to the dimensions in the pattern. If they differ, you will need to change your materials to get your work to the appropriate scale. Then, you’ll face something like this:

Row 1 [RS]: K2tog, yo, [ssk, k2, yo] to last st, k1.
Row 2 [WS]: P1, [yo, p2, PSP] to last 2 sts, yo, p2tog.
Rows 3-4: Work as for Rows 1-2.

his example only gets you a few millimeters of a knitted object - such patterns can go on for pages. If you thought Ikea furniture directions were difficult, deciphering such a cryptic arrangement of text (often with accompanying charts) can make you long for that Allen wrench. And, that doesn’t even touch on the problem solving skills needed to debug errors! Knitting patterns are enough of a puzzle to solve that the kids over at the MIT Mystery Hunt this year had a puzzle that required you to knit (or simulate knitting) the answer.

It’s no wonder that a healthy contingent of scientists and engineers are drawn to the craft — often taking their subject matter deep into the depths of their respective fields. From DNA to one-sided surfaces, from D&D dice to Space Invaders socks – people have found a multitude of ways to immortalize their nerdiest interests in yarn.

I want to play! For my first foray into such geeky knitting projects, I decided to crochet a Sierpinski Carpet blanket. The self-repeating squares of the fractal seemed to lend itself to being well to being assembled from a collection of granny squares.

Here’s what it looks like in my head:

Here’s what it looks like in reality (so far):

If I ever finish, perhaps I could convince eight other people to make the appropriate blankets to combine to be the next level of complexity. And, then…

We here at Synthesis are, on the whole, an active bunch of people. This past Saturday, two of us (Raffi and myself/Jeremy) participated in the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s “Ride the Vineyard 2008” event, a 100k bike ride around Martha’s Vineyard. Raffi and I got up at 4AM (before the crack of dawn, let’s just call it “at the crack of crazy”), made the drive from north of Boston down to the ferry terminal at Woods Hole, and caught the 7AM ferry out to Martha’s Vineyard.

Based upon the forecast from the previous day, we were expecting a cool but tolerable temperature with partly cloudy skies and only a slight breeze. What we got was much worse. First, it was cold. The temperature was around 40 degrees when the ride started at 9AM. Expecting warmer weather, I decided to wear my biking shorts instead of biking pants, which was a big mistake (most people did not make that mistake, including Raffi). Fortunately, I did have a long sleeve jersey. Beyond being just cold, it rained for most of the ride. Additionally the wind really picked up in spots, particularly when near the beach with total exposure to ocean winds.

To paint the picture, imagine sitting on a bike, in 40 degree weather, soaking wet, with a cold ocean breeze stinging your skin, muscles aching from the cold, mud from the bike in front of you spraying up into your eyes (biking glasses are often a liability in the rain), for 3 and half hours. In the end, the ride will go down in my book as “epic”. It was one of those experiences where you endure hours of pain and misery because you know you are helping a good cause, and it will feel like it was worth it, once the pain and numbness wear off. I hope that is soon.