Confessions of a researchaholic

For OKR 2018, I rated myself 40 percent:

• Published 4 top papers (with 3 student first authors).
• Have helped shipping Fresco, a flagship Adobe digital painting product.
• Have continued regular sketching exercise.
• I read the book of change as part of my drawing exercises, but have yet to resume the Baroque cycles.

The default period is from July 2019 to June 2020 unless stated otherwise.

Publish top papers

Publish at least 4 papers in top graphics/HCI/vision/ML venues: ToG (including SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia), CHI/UIST, NIPS/ICML, CVPR/ICCV.

Build top products

Ship at least one product as a manager/developer and file at least two patents.

Develop top talents

Help at least 4 students publish in top graphics/HCI/vision/ML venues individually.

Be a better manager by helping the team not only ship at least one product (above) but also publish at least 4 papers in top venues with at least 4 student first authors (without double counting with my own above).

Have fun, be awesome

Practice sketching to a professional level, and expand into animation.

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 lost focus in the middle of the first volume (quicksilver).

Restore a common biometric, which suddenly deteriorated, to the previous excellent level, and continue improving the art I have started learning for about 3 years to the stage of practical applications.

I captured this great view from SF-MOMA, in which the wall says:

So you’ve gotten very close, you’ve shared a complete experience.
And the idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting anyway.
Never getting in is the most exciting, but after that, waiting to get in is the most exciting.

Don’t we all tend to be obsessed with what we cannot get in life: the dream job, the dream lover, the dream trip, which pop into reality when we finally have a chance to get in.

A guy sat at the cafe table next to mine, wearing a red MAGA (make America great again) hat.
I was thinking if he was looking for a fight or something. After taking off his hat and put it on the table, I saw a lonely old face. He was completely left alone before slowly walking off.

The dinner conversation with a bunch of former NVIDIA employees reminded me of many top folks I have closely worked with there, such as Erik Lindholm, Walt Donovan, Henry Moreton, Alex Minkin, and John Danskin.
Only one of them was a manager at that time, and they wielded power through their knowledge in GPU architecture instead of corporate hierarchy.

I aspire to have their style in mentoring future generations of graphics researchers.

A few years back I was having a hard time deciding between two job offers from institutions X and Y. After joining Y, I found out that the hiring manager in X left, which, if I had joined, might have succeeded the position. I kept on thinking this is the first (and only) career mistake I have made, until I heard recently that the positions in X are funded temporarily and are being slashed.