Thanks to a not-yet-ready for pick-up dinner order, I finally got a chance/excuse to draw this back-building view that I found intriguing during my morning train station waits but without enough time to draw.
It was a serene drawing process, accompanied by sounds from train horns and chats of nearby street folks.
I skipped most of my art classes in school because I considered it a soft skill less useful than math and science.
Decades later I realized that art can be a good complement to my research and help me relax and create.
Fortunately, unlike languages, I have found drawing quite learnable as an adult, if one is willing to spend enough time practice and experiment.
For beginners, I recommend Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards as a starting guide book.
Practice the exercises as much as you can, and treat the cognitive aspect (e.g., left versus right brain) more from the art than the science side.
I am still learning, and will update this post along the way.
You can see my progress under my blog (which links to Instagram), Pinterest (which links to Behance), and Facebook.
Just a few weeks ago the US was suffering from a shortage of consumer toilet papers, so I was a bit surprised to see a pack of unopened toilet papers marked as free on top of a garbage pile while walking in the neighborhood on Sunday evening.
I wonder if that is a sign that the toilet paper production has finally ramped up?
The spot around this bench offers good views from several angles.
Question from someone about to graduate with a PhD:
Do you think I can reach out with our paper draft and videos to profs for postdocs? It’s still under review, but I kinda need to send the paper to make my case, and can’t wait any longer.
This is always a yes and no question and we have to make our own judgement. On one hand, we don’t want to let potential reviewers and recruiters feel that we are compromising review anonymity, which can hurt our paper submissions and job applications. On the other hand, we do want to present ourselves in the best possible way.
I never have this problem personally, as during my job hunts so far I have shared only public domain information.
However, if I have to add confidential materials (e.g., under peer reviews or patent applications), I will share vague information, such as an alternative paper titles with high level descriptions and a disclaimer that the work is under evaluation, and let the recruiters decide whether they want to ask for more.
I took a reference photo of this view which caught my eye on Tue May 26 early morning at the start of a heat wave.
I came back for on-spot drawing at Wed May 27 evening when the weather cooled down a bit, and finished the drawing indoor with the reference photo after night fall.
A few days ago I read two articles about AI and art:
Computers do not make art, people do
A philosopher argues that an AI can’t be an artist
I cannot predict the future, including the possibility for AI to create art.
However, at the current stage of technology, AI can automate only a very tiny portion of creative tasks.
So just like all existing automation tools, I see AI as an assistant to elevate humans to higher mental tasks rather as a replacement.
Human perception is very sensitive to human faces, and thus small variations in a portrait sketch can cause large perceived differences.
A student greeted members of her PhD defense committee via an email, and got scorched by one of the examiners for trying to schedule her own oral defense, using a “buddy” tone (including the use of emojis), sending from a non-school email account, and not addressing the examiner with a professor salute.
I like to tell this student that (1) a person is measured by the size of things that matter to him/her, (2) do not become such a person in the future.
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