The round bright moon was hard to miss during my evening walk, in sharp contrast to Melon the black neighborhood cat.
2022-10-12
2022-10-09
A pair of shoes with colorful interior
On the doormat rested this pair of shoes bathing in sunlight shining through the door glass.
What is the design intention for their colorful interior and bland exterior, maybe giving the wearer the internal confidence that she doesn’t have to show off to the outside world?
2022-10-04
Your life experience is no less valuable than your career achievement
In a meeting with a collaborator she told me that she is starting her post-doc in Tokyo and plans to work on an additional project during her spare time. I shared my thoughts about exploring Tokyo (and Japan in general) and how I regret for not even visiting the great wall during my 3-year stay in Beijing (I was considered a workaholic in MSR Asia).
If you just relocated for a new job, explore the new city/country/culture/food/people/etc. instead of just your work. As I progress in my life I miss more about not exploring a place than having an extra career achievement.
2022-09-11
I dreamed about making an U-turn on my bike over the side of a school bus
This is a dream I had over a year ago about taking a U-turn on my bike over the side of a school bus in a junction of the University avenue at Stanford university. (The dream might relate to my once getting stopped by a campus police for over-speeding on a bike.)
I have been having difficulty sketching what I saw in my dream, and finally decided to do the best I could with some visual references (bike turn, school bus).
Stable diffusion seems to have difficulty with such out-of-sample case.
2022-09-05
Impression of a sunset
Pink and blue left over
by the hot summer air in
the evening walk
A dried spider found under a heat wave
Dried spider found on
the scorching stone ground baked
by a heat wave
https://youtu.be/MJ35Tm1kb0Q
2022-08-07
Arriving at SIGGRAPH 2022
I didn’t realize how much I missed academic conferences until attending EGSR earlier in the summer, so I look forward to SIGGRAPH this year. And traveling to Vancouver is much easier than to Prague.
I arrived at the flight gate earlier than usual, but fortunately spotted an excellent drawing subject while waiting for boarding.
During the incoming trip I got spotted by several folks, including one MSRA intern from eons ego (who now reports to one of my former direct reports), one Adobe intern from last year (mentored by my former office mate), and one guy who reports to one of my former (and most favorite) collaborators. I didn’t recognize any of them initially as they all wore masks, which begged the question how could they recognize me given that I wore masks as well. Maybe they have better upper facial recognition capabilities than I do?
I wonder if the pandemic would fundamentally shift how evolution shapes human facial recognition.
2022-07-17
Moving around at work
After my turn of presentation in a recent intern seminar about how to write research papers, I took a break mandated by the eye-break program installed in my computer. Instead of moving around elsewhere as I would usually do, I stayed in front of my computer to attend the next presentation, but moved a bit to avoid staring directly into the display. Later I got a message from the meeting host reminding me that everyone can see me stretch in the virtual meeting, which I replied that everyone should do that during a long meeting!
A related thread from Cornell about the importance of moving around during work instead of just standing or sitting (or remaining in any other stationary poses).
I think knowing how to take care of our body is more important than knowing how to write papers.
2022-06-26
Stanford classmate
My wife told me that my Stanford “classmate” (we both worked in the CS building and attended piano lessons together), who later cofounded one of the most successful companies in human history, is going through his second divorce recently.
I didn’t know about this and my wife told me that she learned about that via TechCrunch (instead of some paparazzi source).
Which made me wonder if he is happier than I am. I think it is highly unlikely, but I wish the best for him.