Mom is a Google Fan

Typical conversations between me and Mom go as follows (though the actual ones are in Chinese):

Mom: Could you check the price of 褪黑激素 [melatonin] in the U.S. for me?
Me: How do you say 褪黑激素 in English?
Mom: Google it.
...

Mom: Don't sit in front of the computer for too long, or you'll get 五十肩 [literal translation: "a 50-year-old's shoulder"].
Me: What's 五十肩?
Mom: Google it.
...

Mom: Have you eaten any mooncakes?
Me: What's a mooncake?
Mom: Google it.
...

(Okay, so I made the last one up. I know what a mooncake is.) Almost sound like conversations between a computer guru (Mom) and a noob (me), don't they? ;-)

Why We Shouldn't Get Angry About Spams

Why we shouldn't get angry about spams (caution: the linked audio contains foul language):

• Spams accelerate technology advancement
• Spams inspire arts
• Spams inspire serious arts
• You cannot be eviler than evil itself
• At least we know our e-mail client is still connected

No. Seriously, I hate spams.

Happy Father's Day

It's Father's Day in Taiwan today. 爸，祝您父親節快樂！當天稍晚(Later that day...)

What the Little Pocket in the Pocket is For

Without:

With:

(Inspired by DER's ms-paintings, and my worn-out pockets.)

Life is about Journey, Not Destination

Have you seen Cars or Click lately? I think they are both trying to tell us the same thing: that life is about the journey, not the destination. As the character Morty says in Click when he warns the main character Michael about skipping his life to enjoy only the parts where he celebrates his achievements with a story about a man who's after what he thinks is treasure:

Android 207 Short Film

This short film from Undergroundfilm.org is really awesome.

Synopsis on Undergroundfilm.org's website:

A short film about an android trapped inside of a large maze and has no idea how to find its way out. The maze is vast and filled with many surprises.

To be able to create a real robot like this is perhaps every A.I./machine-learning researcher's dream.

Fremont Fair - Park the Car across the Bridge!

It was Saturday afternoon, and I was as bored as a graduate student waiting for the results from his computer program. Oh wait, I really was. My college classmate proposed to go to the Fremont Fair, and I gladly agreed.

Finding a parking spot in Fremont is already hard on usual weekends, and with an event like this, it was almost impossible to find one nearby without paying a premium. A personnel from one of the parking lots was asking for $15, but we decided to look for free spots.