Confessions of a researchaholic

March 29, 2025

Taking a break at SIGGRAPH 2025 technical papers PC meeting

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 4:21 pm
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Reviewing/handling 20 papers plus attending an intense multi-day program committee meeting is probably a lot of work for some people, but nowadays it is almost like a break to me – reading papers in topics that I might not usually pay attention to, participating in a gathering of about 100 people (like a small conference) to catch up with old friends and get to know new faces, consuming more sweets in 3 days than I would normally do in a year, and temporarily stepping away from my usual product/leadership responsibilities.

March 28, 2025

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.

March 16, 2025

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

February 18, 2025

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:


February 16, 2025

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.

February 1, 2025

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.


January 29, 2025

Pencil-style experiment with structural reference

Filed under: Imaginary,Real — liyiwei @ 4:38 pm
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Pencil-style experiment following this earlier one with structural reference via line-art ControlNet, essentially drawing portraits of one family member via the artistic style of another.

January 25, 2025

Spilling tortilla chips

Filed under: Real — liyiwei @ 10:11 am
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She spilled the bag of tortilla chips all over the place.
He sighed, and later realized that he should have made a humorous comment.


January 22, 2025

Dream earlier this morning

Filed under: Imaginary — liyiwei @ 3:40 pm
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I joined a tour in Japan during SIGGRAPH (Asia?), but had difficulty following the tour guide in winding streets in a canal-like environment. Within the group were Szymon and Matt with whom we talked about old age. I realized that I can’t see clearly due to wearing a wrong pair of glasses with one lens missing, and tried to come back to the hotel by backtracking the original way. I found myself with another tour group which was on their way for returning, sat in front of Hao and Eric and got my head pat by Hao’s girlfriend.

This dream is a reflect of several real-word facts:
* My dry eyes sometimes caused blurry vision.
* I found pair of glasses on the ground near San Jose Diridon station last evening.


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