After Rain

Books as Objects of Desire

Will you buy a book for its cover? I know I will (not this one). To me, book cover is an art form that's often ignored by people.

Though I rarely read historical novels, the printing and binding of this book delight me. I also like the smell of the papers used. After seeing it on display for 4 weeks, I finally brought it home. (Oh, forget to mention the writing is actually quite good.)

Such a delightful book to read and such a charming cover!

HDR and Perception

Interesting video about HDR and how our brains perceive things. The weather had been bad in the past two weekends. Ah, how I miss going out taking photos!

Happy Hunger Games

I was having lunch with an ex-coworker yesterday. "Happy Hunger Game", he said when he saw me. "Yeah, I watched the movie, it's quite good", I said. "Did you read the book?" He asked. "No, is it good?" I heard the book was popular among teenage girls, I was a bit worried it would read like the Twilight saga (aka, definitely not for me). My friend was about mid-30 and mostly read Sci-fi stories, I wondered if he liked it. "Are you kidding me, it's on my top 3. You should definitely read it. There are so many details missing in the movie. I can't believe you go to the movie without reading the book first!" OK, if he said so, I am in. I ordered my copy yesterday and it arrived today (Amazon prime is wonderful). OK, I am going to the reaping now. Happy hunger games. And may the odds be ever in your favor.

At Netflix

I attended a Cassandra User Group meetup last night. The event was hosted at Netflix. It's the first time I ever visited this company (though I had been their customer for a long time) so I was quite curious. Netflix's main building was designed like a movie theater and there was a real popcorn machine in the lobby (you could get unlimited popcorn supply). The auditorium also functioned as a movie show room (see above picture). There were more than 100 people attending the event. Some people were even put on the waiting list. (I arrived early so you didn't see that many people in the picture.) Judging from the response, I think the NoSQL movement is really getting hot.

A Blue Morning

As usual, my cat Miti woke me up at the moment I was most sound asleep and demanded her breakfast. I stumbled toward the kitchen and noticed the predawn sky was blue. So blue that I managed to wake up, found my X100, and took a snap (no composition at all). Then I thought, sigh, it's yet another rainy day.

Imagine by Jonah Lehrer

IMAGINE: How Creativity Works from Flash Rosenberg on Vimeo.

Spent most of my weekend on this book. It's one of the best books on creativity I had read lately (and finally, a book which tries to explain why so many writers have bipolar). The promotion video is quite imaginative, an excellent companion to the book.

In Movie Theater

Yes, Titanic 3D is coming. The movie looks really spectacular on big screen. It's interesting that Kate Winslet looks much better in her 30s while Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't age that well.

 What happens before Alien? I have yet to find out.

Jim Brandenburg on D800

Click here if your browser has problem loading this video.

It's interesting how a camera can actually change your shooting style. (Like Brandenburg, I love the amazing quality of photos from a 4x5 camera, especially with Velvia.) I was struggling with getting a D800 or a D800E (the moire effect from the sample image looked a bit too much to me). After watching this interview, I decided to go with D800E. After all, I don't shoot fashion and I still have my D3X (though maybe not for long).

So You Want to Work for Google...

I heard this story from my friend Jerry over the weekend. Jerry has a friend working at Google. His friend is about 40. Last month, his friend proposed a project to his manager and asked for one month to do it. Jerry's friend thought he was good and 30 days was actually quite a short time for the project. His boss would be impressed. A young colleague, fresh out of college, stopped by, asked about it, then said "30 days is too long, I can do it in 3 days". Jerry's friend couldn't believe his ears. "No way, you are bluffing." He told the young guy.

Of course, no young engineer would like to be called "bluffing" from his elder colleague. After 3 days, he announced to Jerry's friend that it was done. Jerry's friend couldn't believe it, but the work was indeed done. "How can you do it in such a short time?" He asked his young colleague and found that he just worked 3 days consecutively without much sleep. Jerry's friend was really depressed. How could he compete with those people who didn't even need sleep. How could he even win any respect? Jerry's friend seriously considered if he should leave Google...

Brene Brown on Shame

One of my favorite TED speakers.
P.S. check out the TED app for android. It works great on kindle fire.

Book Stroll - Brain Awareness Week

My local Book Inc. is doing a promotion on brain related books. I found their drawing quite interesting. 

Sheryl Sandberg on Why Women Should Go to and Stay in Tech Career

I wish somebody had given me these advices 20 years ago. I can't emphasize enough the importance of "believing in yourself". Without it, you don't have a solid ground for any serious ambition.

Book Stroll - Interesting Science and Technology Books

Want to join some interesting book club?

"The Most Human Human" was my favorite technology book last year. I was hooked when I read the Prologue:

"Claude Shannon, artificial intelligence pioneer and founder of information theory, met his wife, Mary Elizabeth, at work. This was Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, the early 1940s. He was an engineer, working on a wartime cryptography and signal transmission.

She was a computer."

Wow, what a beginning!

However, I don't think the Turing test (the book's main topic) makes any sense any more. Now people are talking to their computers (Siri). We adapt, not the other way around.

Gleick's book came out about the same time last year. I only finished the first chapter. He's a bit out of his depth when he tried to explain why everything is information according to some Physics theory. I didn't think he fully grasped it (at least he doesn't sound convincing enough). Soon I stopped reading.

"Moonwalking with Einstein" is another fun ride. I never knew it would require so much discipline to train your memory (that is, if you want to be good). I tried practicing the memory palace technique in the book but now I can't even remember one item on the list.

Why many things in nature have similar designs? Is it pure coincidence? Some may even argue it's the living proof of some higher power. However, the author propose an answer, the construction law. My math is not good enough to see if it does explain those natural phenomena, but the author is convincing enough to make me keep reading. Sometimes I think the author does put a little bit too much his personal belief into his theory, but reading the book is still very rewarding to my curious mind (or whatever is left of it).

Started My Tech Blog

Just started a new blog to talk about software and technology (click here if you are interested). Now I feel like I have split personalities on the internet...

Big Sur

Hard to believe it had been more than ten years since my last visit to Big Sur. Over the years, I drove on HWY 1 numerous times, but always stopped at Point Lobos. I didn't plan it on purpose, but it seemed the driving distance was long enough that once I arrived at Point Lobos I didn't have any urge to go further. But after yesterday's "mid-life crisis" episode, I wanted to take a long drive to clear my head. It was early afternoon, not a good time for photos, and all of the photos I took were bad. I wish I had the D800E and the 50mm Zeiss with me at this moment, but deeply I knew the lagoon would be gone when I came back next time.

Mid-Life Crisis according to Netflix

Netflix recommends movies based on the taste preferences of the movies a viewer had previously watched. I am  always amazed at the accuracy of their prediction and find their ways of categorizing movies quite fascinating. For example, "strong female bonding" is one of my favorite themes. I never told anybody, but the recommendation engine correctly detected it. How smart! How could the recommendation engine know so much about me!

Today I noticed I was recommended a few movies based on "witty, mid-life crisis, comedies". I was shocked. Could it be that I had watched enough movies for the cyber Freud to detect a pattern? Did Netflix dig out something in my subconscious that my conscious mind hadn't even been aware? (I immediately remembered a recent news about how Target's data mining found out some girl in New Jersey was pregnant before her father heard about it.) Or, should I just treat any possible mid-life crisis as part of a witty comedy?

Man with a Falcon in Hand

I had seen many customers bringing their dogs (sometimes even cats) to Book Inc, but it was the first time I saw someone with a falcon. I asked the owner if I could take some photo and he agreed. Inexperienced, I forgot to change the aperture setting on my X100 so the depth of field was too shallow (and why couldn't I wait till the bird turned its head). Sigh, I would not make a good journalist.