Confessions of a researchaholic

October 31, 2016

References for MS/PhD applications

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 9:15 pm
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Overall, I like to help you as much as possible.

If you are applying for a MS/course program, the reference letters probably are not very important, as the top US schools (to my knowledge) mainly look at your statistics, like GPA, ranking, GRE, etc.
To put it more bluntly, MS program is a source of revenue for them.
For this, all you need is to have obtained top grades in the courses I have taught.
However, I can only comment your specific course performance but not extrapolate, e.g. from basic programming (a class you took with me) to machine learning (a class you did not take with me).

If you are applying for a PhD/research program, you need to have at least some good publications. Any decent professors/researchers know that good grades do not imply good research potential. (I am not aware of any rigorous study, but I think the two are weakly positively correlated at best). Thus, I will write letters only for those who have published top research papers or built good industry products with me, as otherwise the recommendation is likely moot.

October 30, 2016

US election 2016

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 8:13 pm
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All people are not equal across all space and time in human history.

Such inequality used to be determined by hereditary traits such as race and sex, but more by merits such as character and capability nowadays.

This election has been driven by a large negative force from those who want to revert to the old days of hereditary discrimination and protectionism.
But doing so is only going to make everyone much worse off.

I have cast my vote that can (albeit very slightly) reduce the chance of this disastrous outcome.

[after the election]

Like many people, I was initially very surprised by the upset.
But surprises are part of my day jobs: failed experiments, rejected grants, negative reviews, etc.
I am excited to see convention wisdom turned upside down.
A fully functional democracy can work things out even with a non-conventional president.
Maybe history will show that is exactly what we need.

October 27, 2016

Halloween costume

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 9:43 pm



I decided to be Elliot Alderson, so that I do not have to do anything extra.
πŸ™‚

OK Hong Kong is too warm for a hoodie, but I wear that while in the bay area.

October 21, 2016

Research riddle

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 6:45 pm
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Identify the common relationships between the following pairs of papers.
πŸ™‚

Discrete element textures, SIGGRAPH 2011
Vignette: interactive texture design and manipulation with freeform gestures for pen-and-ink illustration, CHI 2012

Dynamic element textures, SIGGRAPH 2013
Draco: bringing life to illustrations with kinetic textures, CHI 2014

Motion field texture synthesis, SIGGRAPH Asia 2009
Energy Brushes: interactive tools for illustrating stylized elemental dynamics, UIST 2016

October 11, 2016

Loop example

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 7:45 pm

From a tutorial of our computer programming class
πŸ™‚

char a = ‘N’;

while (a != ‘Y’)
{
cout << “Love me?” << endl; cin >> a;
}

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