Confessions of a researchaholic

2025-03-28

Ocean view – imagined story upon seeing a painting

Filed under: Imaginary — liyiwei @ 3:37 pm
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This imagined story came to my mind while looking at a house-like structure built over an ocean in this exhibition on March 16 2025.

The following is the imagined story, accompanied by visuals generated from Reve, a new AI-powered image generation tool built by two former Adobe colleagues.

When I woke up I found myself in this dwelling.
There is nothing inside, and from the two open ends I could see endless blue sky and ocean.

A voice came out asking if I need anything.
I replied that I am thirsty and hungry.
I asked where I am and how I got here, but got no reply.

The food and drink came out of nowhere, and I slowly consumed them while contemplating my situation.

Eventually, I realized that my consumption came from the sacrifice of my loved one(s), who were drained slowly to death.

2025-03-26

A big guy in a small airplane

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 3:31 pm
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Being a big guy like you must have many evolutionary advantages, such as sports, dating, and even fighting for survival (when the need arises). But on this small airplane with tiny seats, you are at a disadvantage. And trying to sweet talking to me won’t change the fact that you have to overflow your body mass towards my side, and your babbling is distracting me from napping and reviewing a paper assigned to me right before the flight.

Next time, buy a bigger seat or multiple seats. You never know if your next neighbor is a big guy like you.

2025-03-22

Trend following II

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 1:21 pm
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Joining a hot research trend is like buying a stock when the price is high.

These neural network pioneers (like Hinton, LeCun, etc.) started their works not when the field was hot, but when it was considered a dead end. And they stuck with it for decades until the right circumstances (e.g., GPU compute finally became feasible). Now, every time a new idea (about generative X or whatever) pops in the head, there might already be 10 arXiv papers on it.

It is important to know any significant new advancements, but it is even more important to figure out what and how to apply these into our own research and be able to formulate our own (unique) vision.

2025-03-16

Clipping mask for watercoloring

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 8:08 pm
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I haven’t figured out how to control the spread and mixing of watercolor painting (physically or digitally), and thus conducted this experiment to use clipping masks for regional control using a mushroom that I spotted in the neighborhood.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Vs3G2c5770I

2025-03-13

Pleasant surprise by a party companion

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 8:28 pm
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I have been to three main types of parties serving food: buffets, small bites, and sit-down meals.
Buffets offer maximum flexibility as I can walk around eating whatever and talking to whomever.
I usually have difficulty with small bites as I don’t know what, when, and where will be carried by the waiters.
Sit-down meals tend to have the best quality, but also be most time-consuming and least flexible.

However, in a recent sit-down party, I was seated next to someone who has an unexpectedly interesting background as program managers working for several major tech companies. I learned about stuff that I wouldn’t usually hear from other researchers/engineers.

I guess this is one example benefit of stochastic sampling in social events.

2025-02-18

Holiday time for exploratory fun

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 3:29 pm
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Monday the 17th is a holiday and I was pondering whether I should start a work task that I aimed to finish by the end of the week or spend time on more exploratory research. I decided to go for the latter as I realized that during my usual workdays I often feel enough obligation towards my collaborators for the former and I am the only one who can push myself for the latter.

My decision turned out to be correct for this particular one, as on Monday I had some fun tinkering with \href{https://glicol.org/}{computer music language} (that I have zero background with) and on Tuesday I immediately hit on issues that required responses from my colleagues upon starting the work task.

And I also spent some time doing some silly doodling:


2025-02-16

Sports-themed Sunday

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 5:42 pm
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While walking to visit this sports-themed exhibition at SFMOMA today before its closing, I noticed some black-chauffeured cars in the neighborhood and realized that the NBA All-Star weekend was happening around.

2025-02-10

Scam Inc

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 6:21 pm
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Fascinating podcast series of the scam industry located in the Thailand-Myanmar border, from the victims (whose psychological weak spots are exploited), the scammers (who often deceived job seekers), to the crime syndicate behind.

This BBC report provides a good visual on the ground.

2025-02-01

Sticky rice ball

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 9:29 pm
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A sticky rice ball with a fried dough stick and sweet or salty filling is a traditional breakfast in Taiwan.


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