As a potential sign that patents are even more important for the company than I thought, the best corporate party I have ever attended so far turns out to be a patent banquet, with excellent food, place, service, and participation by the top executives.
November 19, 2024
November 18, 2024
Bluesky
The UI of bsk.app, by none other than Jack Dorsey, looks exactly like Twitter.
November 17, 2024
Fallen leaves
Animated some leaves over a photo I took of a package of fallen leaves collected by a worker whose process I observed while having lunch on a high floor balcony the other day.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/212799231/FallenLeaves
November 11, 2024
Acorns
Process: paint one acorn in Adobe Fresco from which create custom brush in Adobe Capture and paint back many acorns in Adobe Fresco.
Inspiration: witnessed the prodigious quantity of acorns on the ground and wondered about its potential as a food source (edible by humans after leaching out the tannins).
November 10, 2024
Chewie visit weekend 1 of 2
The dog slept a lot and thus remained stationary for a good drawing subject. I would like to capture his waking moments as well but still drawing live instead of from photos.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/212212201/Chewie10Nov2024
November 4, 2024
Sapiens: a brief history of humankind
Just (belatedly) finished this book, which I found to be very easy and enjoyable to read, and full of interesting insights and perspectives.
The humans are essentially programmable and thus can advance faster than biological evolution which constrains other kinds of life forms on earth.
Our language and writing systems facilitate the preservation and transmission of knowledge across space and time beyond our individual brain capacity, and our ability to cooperate in large numbers allows us to build complex societies and technologies as well as to wield great damages to our environments.
November 3, 2024
Bing concert hall
25 years ago when Sergei Brin and I were in the same piano class I wouldn’t have predicted that one day there will be a concert hall named after him.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/PLMBHRJeHauxvjjq5
I like the circular setup of the Bing concert hall, with the stage in the middle and the audience surrounding it, which makes the performance more intimate and engaging, and the sound effect is great. It also doesn’t hurt that Stanford is much closer to where I live than San Francisco (with performance venues that I have attended).
November 1, 2024
Purposes of different social medias
Do you use different social medias for different purposes?
For example, I (mostly) use Instagram/Behance for art, LinkedIn for work, Facebook for life, Twitter for news, and blog for thoughts.
I see others use social medias in a mixed way which seems suboptimal to me because people are on different social medias for potentially different purposes under different moods.
For example, when I am on Facebook I am usually looking more for travel photos than research papers or technical presentations, but tend to see the reverse in my social feed.
I could think of a few reasons for this mixed use: some people might be (active) on one or two social medias only, some people might have a different interpretation of the usages (e.g., their work might be a main part of their life), and some people might not care about the differences.
October 29, 2024
Two sides of a scam
A 60+ years old ordinary joe is divorcing his wife and moving to a different part of the world after meeting a 35 years old beautiful woman claiming to be a millionaire living in a posh house.
I can picture you rolling your eyes now, but this is actually happening right now with an acquaintance of mine.
For that scam to work, he has to be stupid enough to believe it and cruel enough to ditch his wife. Would she have the kindness and generosity to take him back in the end?