During the last 1-1 with a direct report who will transfer to another team, I found I prefer talking to him as a friend than as a manager.
I wonder if this reflects my style of influencing.
2020-10-12
Vertical versus horizontal colleague
2020-09-24
OKR 2020
For OKR 2019, I rated myself 80 percent:
- Published 4 top papers with 4 student first authors.
- Transferred a research into a product for future release, and have 1 granted and 2 filed patents.
- Maintain regular drawing and animation exercises with steady progress.
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I read the Book of Change as part of my drawing exercises, and have resumed the Baroque Cycles.
By avoiding a brand of low-quality chocolate, I have restored my biometrics to the previous non-normal-human level.
I have learned all 3 basic forms of the physical art I have started learning for about 4 years ago.
The default period is from July 2020 to June 2021 unless stated otherwise.
Publish top papers
Publish at least 4 papers in top graphics/HCI/vision/ML venues, such as ToG (including SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia), CHI/UIST, NIPS/ICML, CVPR/ICCV.
Build top products
Ship at least one product as a manager/researcher and file at least two patents.
Develop top talents
Help at least 4 students publish in top graphics/HCI/vision/ML venues individually.
Recruit at least 2 top job candidates.
Lead top impacts
This year marked so many remarkable events, such as a global pandemic, environment degradation, and social injustice, which are more worthwhile to address than the above 3 categories, which I no longer feel the kind of urge to prove after SIGGRAPH 2011.
I (belatedly) created this new category for the coming years.
Have fun, be awesome
Practice sketching and animation to a professional level.
Continue learning a Middle Eastern language to elementary school level, complementing the one Asian and one European language I already know.
Practice meditation to the level that I can enter the God mode immediately, anywhere and anytime.
Finish the book of change, to renew my (now rusty) Chinese and crack the only Chinese classics that my grandfather did not during his life time.
Finish the baroque cycle, which I have resumed in the middle of the first volume (quicksilver).
Recover from an acute physical incidence that threw me off balance, and fix a chronical one.
2020-08-05
Popularity contest
A group of interns posted their projects on an internal expo and solicited popular votes with ferocity last seen in the 2016 Republican party presidential primaries.
Meanwhile, one intern submitted a paper to a top venue even before the start of the internship, and is now spending time revising the conditionally accepted paper, filing a patent, and collaborating with a product team, instead of campaigning for popularity among other interns.
Our time is very limited. As a research mentor, it is my responsibility to guide you towards what is important and steer you away from what is less so.
2020-08-04
Marc Levoy joining Adobe
It was great to (virtually) meet with my PhD adviser after all these years. I was trying to discuss collaboration and he told me that he just wanted to catch up.
I have been bumping into the same group of people throughout my career; maybe we are a small community.
2020-06-23
Anniversary dinner
The appetizers (corn mezzaluna, Spanish mackerel) and entrees (striped bass, duck breast) were pretty light until the chocolate souffle, which was much more fulfilling than the size would suggest and continued to roll in my stomach until deep into the night.
Drawing helped me to not only remember the experience (than, say, photography) but (counter-intuitively) also better engage in conversation.
This is my last celebratory meal before I manage to regenerate a losing body part considered to be irreversible by all doctors I have consulted so far.
2020-05-26
A school bully
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.
2020-05-08
Deep journey and genuine experience
There are these tourists who just want to visit as many places as possible to take (or even fake) photos without spending enough time experiencing the local life and culture with sufficient depth.
Researchers who abuse authorships are like such tourists.
They pretend having all the fun without actual experiencing much.
Life is a deep journey, and genuine experience is what matters the most.
2020-05-03
Impact
A few days ago I read an article about an open-source ventilator that can be built with $400 in readily-available parts.
Today I saw a Facebook post discussing an article titled “Do top conferences contain well cited papers or junk?”.
Our impact is measured more about what we do for others (e.g., solving a social issue, curing a disease, saving the environment) than for ourselves (e.g., ego or career).
I would care much more about developing useful products or services than counting the number of papers or citations.
2020-04-21
Mimetic desire
It takes intelligent and independent minds to desire what are really wanted.