During my morning Caltrain rides I often see a guy waltzing across the train fist-bumping and chatting with passengers. Today I came to meet him again, and I took the chance asking him why he is so cheerful.
“I am suicidal” was his reply.
The conversation was overheard by a nearby train conductor who later brought another conductor towards me and asked me to repeat what I heard. Turned out that they need to report such cases to the police to prevent suicide attempts.
Professor Yen was one of my favorite teachers in NTU EE. I really enjoyed his discrete mathematics class and a special project on reading computational theory papers. In my eyes he was a very smart and caring professor. He even went to the same junior high school as I did.
I learned that he has passed away from a recent department newsletter. I couldn’t get a chance to say goodbye to him but I will always remember his kindness and appreciate his teaching and guidance.
There are all these artworks that are interesting in some ways, but few can make lasting impressions and distinctions. Truly groundbreaking artworks often have some fundamental proposals relative to the prevailing styles, such as the impressionism (capture not the details but the essence), cubism (break down the subject into multiple views), and abstraction/surrealism (depict the internal mind not the external world).
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1uYdhNwsqWJADPNK6
After a calm night at the hotel without having much else to do in the morning after exercise (great pool!) and breakfast, I headed to the airport earlier than usual. This turned out to be a good decision as the immigration lines were very long and only a few agents were present. It took me an hour to get through while witnessing all sorts of complaints and line cutting (from passengers and flight crews), the sheer incompetence of the airport staff, and the indifference of the immigration officers.
A bunch of Indian folks behind me said that they have encountered similar situations in other airports in Europe.
If this is a sign of Europe, I am not sure if anyone wants to visit again.
[This post was typed directly into my WordPress site on an iPad, so bear with me for potential typos.]
Upon arrival at FRA from BCN I was notified that my flight to SFO has been canceled. Walking around the airport check-in area for about 40 minutes without being able to find any opening UAL counters, I finally bumped into a guy who told me to stay around for hotel arrangements (and all the UAL counters have been closed for the day). As you can imagine, there are hundreds if not more such stranded passengers all throwing questions and complaints to the guy.
Finally he led us to the hotel shuttle bus area, and I walked by him chatting him up. I told him that we were like a bunch of kindergarten kids following a teacher and he had to deal with all these unhappy faces. Turned out that he is an airport hotel relationship manager and doesn’t work for the airlines. He seemed happy enough that he put me into the hotel for business class passengers even though I booked only an economy class ticket.
When checking in at the hotel the receptionist only asked me to write down my name and the airline without checking any identification or flight ticket, so in theory anyone can just walk in and claim to be a passenger with cancelled flight (at least during the days with cancellations informed by these relationship managers)?
I was put into an executive suite and there is a nice indoor swimming pool that I can finally put my swimsuit to use (the outdoor pool in my Barcelona hotel wasn’t that warm so I just used the gym during my stay for CHI 2026).
Later I bumped into him again in the hotel lobby and asked for his business card.
Calmness during ordeals pays off.
Visiting the Picasso museum near the end of the day in Barcelona I was struck by the sheer number of drawings and paintings that he has created. This is probably another evidence that excellence is not just about talent but also a lot of practice.
After having caesar salad, two balls of mushroom truffle arancini, and a piece of salmon with mashed potatoes, he should have taken out that large piece of chocolate cake instead of eating it which causes some physiological reactions later in the night.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DWesEPtgQDv/
https://youtube.com/shorts/lSYh0pO4j9k
After having a meeting with the patent attorneys, usually you will receive two documents to review – a Word document with texts and a PDF document with drawings.
Aside from using LLM to summarize the former, a good strategy to review the documents (without falling asleep) is to look at the drawings for a visual overview, and then read the high-level sections, like the abstract, the background, and the claims, before the detailed description when necessary.
You might find the legalese hard to understand even though they are supposed to describe your invention. This is expected, as the the patent is often worded as a defense against infringement, so just make sure that the claims are broad enough to cover your invention but not too broad as to be non-patentable.
With SIGGRAPH, TVCG, NSF, and CHI I ended up reviewing 30+ submissions this month. It was quite some extra work, especially for an industry researcher who doesn’t have to serve on academic review committees. But I am glad that I would get (forced) to read topics that I usually would not, and really appreciate those who accepted my review invitations.
I am also surprised by the reluctance of some to review papers, especially for those who are in the academia whose careers depend on getting their own papers accepted and grants funded. If you are too busy to review other people’s submissions, you probably shouldn’t submit to begin with. Who should review yours then?
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