I just felt like drawing something like this.
October 31, 2020
Epistemic dependence
I found this article a nice read, which highlights the much faster growth of our collective knowledge (accelerated by computers and algorithms) than our individual brain capacities (constrained by biology and evolution). Each one of us knows a shrinking slice of the world, and this has profound implications on our society and civilization.
One, as mentioned in the article, is the increasing need of collaboration among researchers, especially for experimental science. (At this moment of writing, it is still feasible to single author a computer science paper.)
Even though the numbers of co-authors of my papers have not increased too much, I do find it increasingly harder to know exactly what is going on in every aspect of a project, notably detailed implementations and user studies.
Another timely topic is about politics.
The policies can become so complex that nobody really understands what is going on.
Thus, each voter knows only a tiny aspect of each political topic or candidate, and thus can form drastically different opinions from one another. This can be a scientific factor driving political polarization, even without other factors like social media. Fortunately, Monte Carlo sampling indicates that with enough (sufficiently independent) samples, the aggregate estimation can still be robust (low bias/variance).
For example, the US essentially has 100+ million votes for the presidency, which should give us confidence on the outcome, no matter how ridiculous it may look.
October 28, 2020
Prison cell visit dream
I visited a man in a prison cell
The man sat on a chair
With a noose hung next to him
I was supposed to talk to him
But instead started to draw him
October 26, 2020
Crow with acorns
I used to think the acorns were dropped on the roof by the squirrels, until this afternoon when I spotted these crows, which I didn’t manage to photograph on spot but drew one later based on visual memory and online photos.
Research goal post
In my personal experience, there are two ways to guide a research project: solving a specific problem with whatever solutions that work the best (based on a variety of criteria such as quality, speed, cost, etc.), and devising a novel idea that can span different problems, domains, and applications.
The problem-oriented approach happens more in engineering (which aims to solve practical problems) while the idea-oriented approach happens more in science (especially more theoretical fields like math which aim to formulate fundamental ideas behind a plethora of phenomena).
Solving a specific problem provides a clear goal and reduces the tendency to derail, while aiming for ideas is more likely to work after one has already worked on related problems so as to condense the experiences into the core forms.
October 25, 2020
October 23, 2020
Lemons on a tree
I didn’t notice, until today, this lemon tree near where I have lived for almost 20 years.
October 21, 2020
What can be quantified can also be automated
If the productivity of certain types of works can be quantified, it can also be optimized and thus automated.
Instead of performance evaluation, such measures are better used for identifying repetitive tasks potential for automation.
To achieve human-level intelligence, we probably need an AI framework very different from existing rule-based (e.g., Minsky) and data-driven (e.g., current ML) approaches.
October 18, 2020
Little painter
I drew this fun exercise with reference photo(s).
I found FB an excellent venue for virtual drawing archive: unlimited storage, albums for organization, “memories” for reminding/checking progress, social sharing (or peer pressure, depending on how you look at it) for motivation, and no known privacy issue (how to target ads based on drawings, aside from generic Adobe CC subscription?).