The Pond Moonlight

The Pond—Moonlight by Edward Steichen, 1904

The Pond—Moonlight is a pictorialist photograph by Edward Steichen. The photograph was taken in 1904 in Mamaroneck, New York, and features a forest across a pond, with part of the moon appearing over the horizon in a gap in the trees. The Pond—Moonlight is one of the first color photographs ever taken, and was created using the autochrome
process. Only three copies are known to exist. In February 2006, a
print of the photograph was sold for US$2.9 million, the highest price
ever paid for a photograph at auction.

知足

台湾的一个组合“五月天”有一首(曾经)很火的歌，叫"知足"。因为旋律简单，是我唯一会唱的几首歌之一。
昨天看到一幅对联，写的也是"知足"：事到知足心常惬，人到无求品自高。

这样自己平凡的一天天过来，才能体会，知足是福。

People in bio-science are more stubborn?

I just realize why people in bio-science tend to be more stubborn. Because bio-science experiments are so complex and there is a large factor of luck in the outcome of most experiments. The bio-scientists are trained to have very strong nerves to firmly believe in their methodology and not to be waved by the pitfalls during their experiments.

Boston City Hall

The plan is developed by I. M. Pei. And it was built by Gerhardt Kallmann and N. Michael McKinnell, 1969.

The influence of late Le Corbusier (the convent at La Tourette) is evident in the monumentality and sculptural form of the building. The mayor's office and council chambers are located above the entrance. The smaller windows, recalling Le Corbusier's sun screens, are in smaller offices above.

It is quoted as one of the examplar for Brutalism. 

Brutalism is related and similar to (and often confused with) the modernist, minimalist and internationalist styles of architecture. All of these styles make heavy use of repetition and regularity in their features, but brutalist designs also often incorporate striking, blatant irregularities as well.

Another common theme in brutalist designs is the exposition of the building's functions -- ranging from their structure and services to their actual human use -- in the exterior of the building. In other words, Brutalist style is "the celebration of concrete." In the Boston City Hall (illustration left), designed in 1962, strikingly different and projected portions of the building indicate the special nature of the rooms behind those walls, such as the mayor's office or the city council chambers.

Google about to sell ebook?

Google Working To Make 'iPod/iTunes for Books'

an initiative by Google to take the library online. The end result of the Google Book Search, the company hopes to see a future where they are not mearly referring customers to Amazon, but instead offering them the ability to download books directly. According to the Times Online, Google hopes to 'do for books what the iPod did for music'. From the article: "One of Google's partners, Evan Schnittman of Oxford University Press, said he foresaw a number of categories becoming popular downloads: 'Do you really want to go on holiday carrying four novels and a guide book?' The book initiative would be part of Google's Book Search service and its partnership with publishers, which will make books searchable online with publishers' approval. At present, only a sample of each book is available online."

先入之见

每个人都有自己的经历，它们帮助塑造的一个人的价值观。这个可以说是他的第一层先入之见。

在判断一件事之前，又会有种种的传言，形成了他的第二层先入之见。

隔着这两层先入之见, 而做出的判断，又怎能要求他客观公正呢？

 

所以与不相干的人争辩对一件事的看法，是徒劳无益的。

Web 2.0 Mashups

http://hinchcliffeandcompany.com/screencasts/qedwiki.html

 

has a demo of "self-service" software. The software allows users to create their own mashups from canned widgets, turning data into simple applications with fairly straightforward functionality.

 

Dion Hinchcliffe, in a blog post over at ZDNet, talks about the increasing business value of 'Mashup' projects.

 

浅野忠信 interview

With the exception perhaps of Koji Yakusho, no actor has come to
characterise recent Japanese cinema the way Tadanobu Asano has.

How was the experience of working on Ichi the Killer? Did the violent nature of the story trouble you in any way?

Miike really is such a prolific director, he is so
relaxed on set and everything went so smoothly, that it made me feel
very comfortable. I realize that it looks very bloody on the screen and
even with the original manga you want to close your eyes in several
places. But actually the set was very much of a world apart. I sensed
something very special and unique, and something that never felt
unsettling to me when making that film, so I was very comfortable with
portraying the violence. It was a very easygoing atmosphere on set and
we really had a fabulous time making the film.

And how would that experience compare with making Distance with Hirokazu Kore-eda?

Distance took the very unusual approach that each of
the five actors only had a script that was pertinent to our own part.
So it was a very different experience on set, with the director trying
to give birth to something through that process. It was very different
altogether and a little bit slower. Generally I would know the
questions I was supposed to ask the others, but had no idea as to how
they would react. We each had our own lines and sometimes on purpose
those would be the wrong lines, with the intention to trip us up in our
performances.

Georges Canguilhem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canguilhem

 

In his definition of history of science, he strengthen the importance of disruptive changes. It is incorrect to consider all the knowledge today as static. Instead what we discovered today constantly changes history.

I think this view can be applied to history in general. Every time we discover something new, our view of the past will change.  

Last Life in the Universe

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0345549/

Kenji is trying to kill himself from the very beginning, but a Thai girl saved him from his mundane life.
It's interesting to see how they have to use a third language to communicate with each other.

One interesting shot in the film is a glimpse of the library where Kenji works at. The camera stayed on a movie poster for 1 second. The poster was "Ichi The Killer", the picture was Asano Tadanobu as Kakihara.
 

论悲剧

鲁迅先生说，“悲剧就是把世间最美丽的东西撕碎了给人看。” 悲剧的主人公，往往都令人同情。凄凉的结局，令人不禁扼腕叹息：为什么要制造这样的悲剧？

然而人性又有阴暗的一面，很多人，一定要看到别人的悲剧，才能把自己的种种不愉快的记忆暂时忘记，从某种意义上讲，这样的悲剧，给了他们畸形的"快感"。这种本能的情绪，使得他们在平凡的生活中，时时搜寻一切机会，制造别人的悲剧。他们齐心合力，搜寻世间所有美丽的高尚的东西，然后撕碎了给人看，给自己看，在一次次罪恶的快感中，得到满足。

另一种人对待别人的悲剧的态度则如同休谟所说，"人们在悲剧里看到的是自己的影子，是把自己跟悲剧里发生的事情做类比，从而产生了悲悯的情绪。"
换句话说，悲剧就是人因为他人的遭遇而可怜自己，因为观者跟主人公有某种相似性。所谓兔死狐悲，物伤其类。这样的人，更容易不顾(甚至歪曲)别人经历的事实，一味用想象来制造一个"别人的悲剧", 借以宣泄自己过去的不幸经历中未能被化解的悲伤。

误解与怀疑

这个世界太小，把人的物理距离压缩的太近，但是人的心理距离还是一样的遥远。于是就难免有误解。误解的根源是怀疑，而误解本身又会加大怀疑。如此往复，只会进入一个极端。

小时候一直很崇拜爷爷的一个老同学，艾教授，和他成了忘年交，可是有一天，爷爷突然告诉我，艾爷爷文革的时候受了刺激，精神有问题，他的观点，你不要全盘接受。我当时立刻就傻眼了，爷爷和艾爷爷， 都是我最崇拜的人，为什么他们的观点会不一样呢？  之后收到艾爷爷的信，每读一句，就会想，这是可以接受的思想吗？他说的是偏激的吗？这样久了，我就有了很多顾忌，和艾爷爷的联系就少了。

信任一旦失去，就很难再换回来，这对怀疑者和被怀疑者都是一种损失，因为这个世界上任何两个人相知相识，都是很难的缘分。用佛经的话说，“同船过渡，五百年修。”

Compressive Imaging: A New Single Pixel Camera

Digital Signal Processing Group
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Rice University
Compressive Sensing Group
Kelly Lab

Compressive Sensing is an emerging field based on the
revelation that a small group of non-adaptive linear projections
of a compressible signal contains enough information for
reconstruction and processing. We have developed
algorithms and hardware to support a new theory of
Compressive Imaging. Our approach is based on a new digital
image/video camera that directly acquires random projections of
the signal without first collecting the pixels/voxels. Our camera
architecture employs a digital micromirror array to perform
optical calculations of linear projections of an image onto
pseudorandom binary patterns. Its hallmarks include the ability to
obtain an image with a single detection element while measuring
the image/video fewer times than the number of pixels --- this can
significantly reduce the computation required for video
acquisition/encoding. Because our system relies on a single photon
detector, it can also be adapted to image at wavelengths that are
currently impossible with conventional CCD and CMOS imagers.

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Camera Prototype

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Results

Original	16384 Pixels 1600 Measurements (10%)	16384 Pixels 3300 Measurements (20%)

65536 Pixels 1300 Measurements (2%)	65536 Pixels 3300 Measurements (5%)

Original	4096 Pixels 800 Measurements (20%)	4096 Pixels 1600 Measurements (40%)

Original Object	4096 Pixels 800 Measurements (20%)	4096 Pixels 1600 Measurements (40%)

Original Object	4096 Pixels 800 Measurements (20%)	4096 Pixels 1600 Measurements (40%)

Original Object	4096 Pixels 800 Measurements (20%)	4096 Pixels 1600 Measurements (40%)

• All pictures reconstructed using Total Variation Minimization (TV)
  
• Special thanks to Justin Romberg for help with TV reconstructions.
  

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In the News...

• CS camera in the news
  

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Camera Data

Data from the CS camera is provided so that researchers can evaluate their reconstruction algorithms.

Please acknowledge the use of this data in
publications via a reference to the "Rice Single-Pixel
Camera Project, http://www.dsp.rice.edu/cscamera

• Camera Data

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Publications

• Michael Wakin, Jason Laska, Marco Duarte, Dror Baron, Shriram Sarvotham, Dharmpal Takhar, Kevin Kelly, and Richard Baraniuk, An Architecture for Compressive Imaging (Proc. International Conference on Image Processing -- ICIP 2006, Atlanta, GA, Oct. 2006)
  
• Michael Wakin, Jason Laska, Marco Duarte, Dror Baron, Shriram Sarvotham, Dharmpal Takhar, Kevin Kelly, and Richard Baraniuk, Compressive Imaging for Video Representation and Coding (Proc. Picture Coding Symposium -- PCS 2006, Beijing, China, Apr. 2006)
  
• Dharmpal Takhar, Jason Laska, Michael Wakin, Marco Duarte, Dror Baron, Shriram Sarvotham, Kevin Kelly and Richard Baraniuk, A New Compressive Imaging Camera Architecture using Optical-Domain Compression (Proc. of Computational Imaging IV at SPIE Electronic Imaging, San Jose, CA, Jan. 2006)
  

largest known twin prime.

"The Twin Internet Prime Search and PrimeGrid have recently discovered the largest known twin prime. A twin prime is a pair of prime numbers separated by the integer two. The pair discovered on January 15th was 2003663613 * 2^195,000 ± 1. The two primes are 58,711 digits long. The discoverer was Eric Vautier, from France."

Glad to be Eric.

Starting over

John Lennon has song called "starting over", and here is the lyrics.

Our life together is so precious together

We have grown, we have grown

Although our love is still special

Let's take a chance and fly away somewhere alone


It's been too long since we took the time

No-one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly

But when I see you darling

It's like we both are falling in love again

It'll be just like starting over, starting over


Everyday we used to make it love

Why can't we be making love nice and easy

It's time to spread our wings and fly

Don't let another day go by my love

It'll be just like starting over, starting over


Why don't we take off alone

Take a trip somewhere far, far away

We'll be together all alone again

Like we used to in the early days

Well, well, well darling


It's been too long since we took the time

No-one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly

But when I see you darling

It's like we both are falling in love again

It'll be just like starting over, starting over


Our life together is so precious together

We have grown, we have grown

Although our love is still special

Let's take a chance and fly away somewhere


Starting over

We're Sorry This Is Late ... We Really Meant To Post It Sooner: Research Into Procrastination Shows Surprising Findings

Science Daily — A University of Calgary professor in the Haskayne School of Business has recently published his magnum opus on the subject of procrastination -- and it's only taken him 10 years.

Joking aside, Dr. Piers Steel is probably the world's foremost expert on the subject of putting off until tomorrow what should be done today. His comprehensive analysis of procrastination research, published in the recent edition of the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin, presents some surprising conclusions on the subject, such as:

• Most people's New Year's resolutions are doomed to failure
  
• Most self-help books have it completely wrong when they say perfectionism is at the root of procrastination, and
  
• Procrastination can be explained by a single mathematical equation

"Essentially, procrastinators have less confidence in themselves, less expectancy that they can actually complete a task," Steel says. "Perfectionism is not the culprit. In fact, perfectionists actually procrastinate less, but they worry about it more."

Other predictors of procrastination include: task aversiveness, impulsiveness, distractibility, and how much a person is motivated to achieve. Not all delays can be considered procrastination; the key is that a person must believe it would be better to start working on given tasks immediately, but still not start.

It's estimated that about 15-20 per cent of the general population are procrastinators. And the costs of procrastinating can add up well beyond poor work performance, especially for those who delay filing their taxes or planning their retirement.

Steel says motivational failures such as difficulty in sticking to diets and exercise regimes -- frequently the focus of New Year's resolutions -- are related to procrastination because impulsiveness is often at the root of the failure. "Temptations that are close at hand are difficult to resist. Addicts often relapse after returning from treatment facilities because drugs and alcohol become easily available and daily habits reassert themselves. Or we load up on bread in the restaurant before the meal is served. Or we check our email 10 times an hour instead of completing a project."

The good news is that willpower has an unusual capacity. "The old saying is true: 'Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're probably right'," Steel says. "And as you get better at self control, your expectancy about whether you can resist goes up and thus improves your ability to resist."

Steel has also come up with the E=mc² of procrastination, a formula he's dubbed Temporal Motivational Theory, which takes into account factors such as the expectancy a person has of succeeding with a given task (E), the value of completing the task (V), the desirability of the task (Utility), its immediacy or availability (Γ) and the person's sensitivity to delay (D).

It looks like this and uses the Greek letter Γ (capital gamma): Utility = E x V / ΓD

It's still unclear why some people may be more prone to developing procrastination behaviour, but some evidence suggests it may be genetic. Steel concludes: "Continued research into procrastination should not be delayed, especially because its prevalence seems to be growing."

The title of the paper is "The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure." The American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin is arguably the top academic journal for the social sciences. Steel's research on the subject is referred to as a meta-analysis, in which he distills and synthesizes the evidence on procrastination from 691 other research sources.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Calgary.

Bumper Sticker Funnies

 

- Herblock's Law: If it's good, they will stop making it.
- History does not repeat itself, historians merely repeat each other.
- It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
- It works better if you plug it in.
- It's not hard to meet expenses, they're everywhere.
- Jury: Twelve people who determine which client has the better lawyer.
- Let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
- Reality is the only obstacle to happiness.