Humans seem to have so much trouble accepting the nature of death that they need to come up with all kinds of alternatives like after-life and reincarnation.
“Hell is a place where nothing connects to nothing” – T.S. Elliot
2012-03-20
2012-03-03
Ageism
Recently I read two good articles about ageism in innovation and entrepreneurship.
The first one, from San Francisco magazine titled “Dark side of the boom”, is really about the dark side of the youth entrepreneurship myth in the valley.
The second one, from The Economist, is about the fact that statistically older people are no less innovative or enterprising than the young.
It is actually not just about the valley or the entrepreneurship. Our cultures, especially the American one, seem to have this mysterious but unfortunate tendency to encourage early success. It is as though success at a young age is a certificate of life long achievement. Child prodigy can be a sign of true genius, but can also be a simple consequence of precocity, a premature biological cycle. Perhaps the most harmful situation is when unnatural forces are applied to fake a genius out of an ordinary individual.
Take your time; it is true that life is short and should not be wasted, but a lot of things simply need time to mature and cannot be rushed, no matter how smart you are.
2012-02-26
Terminal ward
I found visiting terminal wards an inspirational experience: I am going to die one day, so better live the life I aspire and do what I desire before it is too late.
2012-02-22
Artificial intelligence
When I was younger I preferred to stay away from people as much as possible, as most of them are not very interesting and it is much more rewarding for me to be alone thinking and reading.
When I get older, I realized that humans are intensively intriguing subjects for study. I started to spend a lot of time observing human behaviors and try guessing what they are thinking and predicting their actions.
This caused certain dilemma for me: on one hand I still want to be as far away as possible from people, but on the other hand, I want to be close enough with them for the purpose of studies and observations.
(The penalty and reward seem to go in tandem; crowd behavior is the most interesting, but also the most annoying to be part of.)
Fortunately, computer science comes into rescue. Far from the common stereotypes (of nerds locking in toilets), computer science, especially the most current and active subjects, are very human centric. One example is user interface, including design for better user experiences, as well as analysis and synthesis for deeper understanding and more advanced interactions.
A more recent example is social networking. Previously, most human daily activities simply dissipated into entropy. Now, with people spending more of their interactions through various social networking sites, we can record their activities in better quality and quantity.
Such data not only enables better computer technologies but more profoundly, more insights into human nature. (Facebook probably knows more about certain individuals than their mothers do.)
Two sci-fi series could provide inspirations for both directions.
Caprica is about how humans create Cylons, a cyber-genetic life form that eventually pushes humans near extinction in the main Battlestar Galactica series (which I found to be much less interesting).
Dollhouse is about how technologies can allow memories and personalities to be extracted from one individual and installed into another, essentially programming human brains.
Both offer insights into computer science and humanity, as well as highly enjoyable entertainments. Unfortunately, both got canceled prematurely due to low ratings, a confirmation of my childhood observation about how ordinary humans would react to deeper materials.
2012-02-13
Jeremy Lin
I am not trying to jump into the bandwagon, but there appears to be a civil-right scale movement happening in the Asian-American community now.
I found a few articles worth reading:
A forbes article about lessons learned from Jeremy Lin.
What I see in Jeremy Lin, an article I found through ESPN. And another good one by J.A. Adande, one of my most favorite ESPN writers. (Yes, you can actually learn something in a sports page.)
Paper tigers, a provocative article about Asian-Americans. I agreed with some of the points, disagreed with others, but found most of them very interesting.
2012-02-01
Shampoo
A few days ago I ran out of shampoo. So I went to a nearby convenience store and bought a bottle. When I came home later that day, I found out that what I bought is hair conditioner instead.
So yesterday, I went to the same store again, determined to buy the right stuff this time. I did not recall exactly what happened, but this morning when I tried to wash my hair, I discovered that I have two bottles of conditioners, and still no shampoo.
I tried to recall what happened, and realized that I have been occupied by a bug and on some kind of auto-pilot the whole time last night.
I am going to give it a third try tonight. I fixed the bug earlier today, so hopefully I can finally get enough focus to buy shampoo.
Meanwhile, I need to figure out what to do with all these conditioners. My hairs grow so fast that I have to cut them like every 3 weeks, so I seriously doubt if they will last long enough to benefit from any conditioners. Nevertheless, I am going to give them a try, and see if they will get shiny.
2011-12-27
Heritage
Yesterday, my family donated to National Central Library of Taiwan the majority of the manuscripts of my late grandfather, a prominent scholar and writer in Chinese literature.
As far as I know, we did not have a chance to talk to my grandfather about how to handle his manuscripts during his life time.
To avoid the same mistake, I plan to discuss with my father, an artist with volumes of work in oil painting, water-coloring, and ceramics, about how to deal with his stuff when the day comes.
Fortunately, such worries stop at my generation, because all my works are digital and thus can be easily accessed and archived. (Though my PhD adviser once wondered whether his digital models of Michelangelo’s sculptures will actually last longer than the physical objects themselves.)
2011-11-30
Breaking point
Have you ever tried so hard to accomplish something that you feel that you are going to break anytime soon?
If not, you are unlikely to be truly successful for anything. The world is a very competitive place, and there are always people who are more talented and harder-working than you. So ask yourself why you deserve to win if you have not given everything you have.
Plus, the *breaking point* is one of the most wonderful life experiences. I and my collaborators have to go through that every year. I am not sure about them, but I truly, absolutely, enjoy the process.
Give it a try. Find something that is really hard and you really want to accomplish, and go for it. You will not regret.
2011-11-26
Emotion
It is pointless to rationalize with people who are trapped in emotions, which, unfortunately, happen all too frequently. Emotion is an evolutionary artifact that would take long for (natural) evolution to fix. Meanwhile, we can only hope for better self-control.