Tuesday, October 31, 2006
While I was in Sydney last weekend, Aya and I went to this Japanese Restaurant in Kensington, close to the University of New South Wales. At first glance, it has this unattractive, dilapidated shop front with a large sign 'Sushi Tengoku', which in Chinese means 'shou4 si1 tian1 guo2'.
Apparently it has a reputation of making very enourmous servings of sushi, at a cheap price. For example, look at the size of the sushis compared to Aya's Motorola mobile phone...
Here's the tamago and scallop sushi... Huge, isn't it?
A piece of a salmon sushi costs 3 bucks, cheaper than a plate of salmon sushi (two pieces) sold elsewhere, but the size of the salmon is larger than two pieces together. It's so much larger than the sushi rice.
The food was quite slow to come, though. It's like a family business and there was only one sushi chef, I think. Lots of take-aways, which is different for sushi restaurants.
All in all, it was a good meal. The highlight came when we were about to leave. An uncle and his two daughters (I think) came in and sat by the table next to ours. He had a metal twist-top bottle of wine, which he did not know. So he was trying to open the wine bottle with a cork screw. But he couldn't figure out why there is no cork to stick the screw in! The metal twist-top basically has two parts. The top part which you twist to open, just like a soft drink PET bottle cover, and the metal part underneath the cover which is fixed to the bottle. So he started peeling the bottom part, which is metallic. He almost had everything except the twist-top cover peeled off and he still can't open the damn bottle!
We were just looking at him, giving each other ridiculous glances and smiles until Aya couldn't stand it and just before we left, Aya politely make a gesture and said to the uncle, "it's a twist-top." But the uncle still doesn't understand. So Aya just grab the bottle of wine, and easily open it!
When we left the restaurant, we burst out laughing. That uncle just made our day!
Apparently it has a reputation of making very enourmous servings of sushi, at a cheap price. For example, look at the size of the sushis compared to Aya's Motorola mobile phone...
Here's the tamago and scallop sushi... Huge, isn't it?
A piece of a salmon sushi costs 3 bucks, cheaper than a plate of salmon sushi (two pieces) sold elsewhere, but the size of the salmon is larger than two pieces together. It's so much larger than the sushi rice.
The food was quite slow to come, though. It's like a family business and there was only one sushi chef, I think. Lots of take-aways, which is different for sushi restaurants.
All in all, it was a good meal. The highlight came when we were about to leave. An uncle and his two daughters (I think) came in and sat by the table next to ours. He had a metal twist-top bottle of wine, which he did not know. So he was trying to open the wine bottle with a cork screw. But he couldn't figure out why there is no cork to stick the screw in! The metal twist-top basically has two parts. The top part which you twist to open, just like a soft drink PET bottle cover, and the metal part underneath the cover which is fixed to the bottle. So he started peeling the bottom part, which is metallic. He almost had everything except the twist-top cover peeled off and he still can't open the damn bottle!
We were just looking at him, giving each other ridiculous glances and smiles until Aya couldn't stand it and just before we left, Aya politely make a gesture and said to the uncle, "it's a twist-top." But the uncle still doesn't understand. So Aya just grab the bottle of wine, and easily open it!
When we left the restaurant, we burst out laughing. That uncle just made our day!
The other day we celebrated a friend's birthday. He was our chef when I was still in the restaurant business and he still works there. Although he is at at an age similar to my father's, and he has a family of two children aged 19 and 20, we can always share crazy jokes and make fun of each other while working in the restaurant.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
I have recently been asked to move into an unused laboratory due to a shortage of rooms and an influx of new researchers to our research school. The original room I was in was actually the 'Control Lab'. There were a lot of old manuals and equipments that were already there when I started my research in 2003. I had all my SMA test beds and equipments in the room but I had to move all my things to the new room. The old stuff will be thrown away if nobody claims them.
My new office is pretty good I guess. For one, the size is bigger, and I have it all for myself, for now. My supervisor and I had a joke about the move, saying that it's a self-contained apartment.
I've got my own king-size bed, a TV and a robotic massager. Hmmm...
Here's my workstation, where I can check e-mails and surf the net, right next to the bed.
And I've even got a sun roof, and a hanging line for clothes.
My SMA experimental set-up and computer is also right underneath the sun roof.
Oh yeah, no one's supposed to use my robotic massager without my authorisation :)
The robotic arm is actually a WAM, a 4 Degree-of-Freedom Whole-Arm-Manipulator. The WAM arm is a highly dexterous backdrivable manipulator, built to outperform today's conventional robots by offering extraordinary dexterity, fast dynamics, high bandwidth, zero backlash, and near-zero friction. Currently no one's using the robotic manipulator for research, as there is no longer an official robotics group in our research school. But I think others from the Dept. of Engineering might want to use it for research purposes, so it will have to be moved to the other building. Once that's done, the room may be specially for our SMA research.
My new office is pretty good I guess. For one, the size is bigger, and I have it all for myself, for now. My supervisor and I had a joke about the move, saying that it's a self-contained apartment.
I've got my own king-size bed, a TV and a robotic massager. Hmmm...
Here's my workstation, where I can check e-mails and surf the net, right next to the bed.
And I've even got a sun roof, and a hanging line for clothes.
My SMA experimental set-up and computer is also right underneath the sun roof.
Oh yeah, no one's supposed to use my robotic massager without my authorisation :)
The robotic arm is actually a WAM, a 4 Degree-of-Freedom Whole-Arm-Manipulator. The WAM arm is a highly dexterous backdrivable manipulator, built to outperform today's conventional robots by offering extraordinary dexterity, fast dynamics, high bandwidth, zero backlash, and near-zero friction. Currently no one's using the robotic manipulator for research, as there is no longer an official robotics group in our research school. But I think others from the Dept. of Engineering might want to use it for research purposes, so it will have to be moved to the other building. Once that's done, the room may be specially for our SMA research.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
"It's like saying that you won't kiss your lover's lips just because everyone has lips."
Apple's Steve Jobs on rejecting suggestions that IPod will lose its coolness and popularity if people like Dick Cheney and the Queen have one.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Taken from The Australian, dated 24 October 2006.
Apple's Steve Jobs on rejecting suggestions that IPod will lose its coolness and popularity if people like Dick Cheney and the Queen have one.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Taken from The Australian, dated 24 October 2006.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
This is a darn funny video about an NTU lecturer telling his students about his past students' feedback for his teaching. Enjoy!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Yesterday I attended a seminar by Professor Mandyam V. Srinivasan, who has just won Australia's top science award, the Prime Minister's Prize for Science, with a prize money of $300,000. The award was given for his research into the insect mind which has helped redefine robotics.
The following is a description of the seminar
___________________________________________________________________________________
Speaker: Professor Mandyam V. Srinivasan
Centre for Excellence in Vision Science, Research School of Biological Sciences, ANU
Title: "More than a Honey Machine"
Abstract:
Anyone who has watched a fly make a flawless landing on the rim of a
teacup, or marvelled at a honeybee speeding home after collecting
nectar from a flower patch several kilometres away, would know that
insects possess visual systems that are fast, reliable and accurate.
Insects cope remarkably well with their world, despite possessing a
brain that carries fewer than 0.01% as many neurons as ours does.
This talk will describe research aimed at understanding the
mechanisms underlying visual perception, navigation, learning, memory
and ìcognitionî in honeybees. Opportunities for incorporating insect-
based principles into the design of novel, autonomous robots will
also be discussed.
___________________________________________________________________________________
The hour-long seminar was extremely interesting and stimulating. It was divided into two sections, the first about his group's research into how bees navigate and communicate, and the second about how they used the results in computer vision and robotics.
I find the first part in particular very interesting. Prof. Srinivasan's group was intrigued by how insects, and in particular bees, determine the distance of a landmark because unlike humans and other animals, they do not have stereoscopic eyes. With very small brains, how these insects make their way home or towards a food source and navigate around obstacles is truly amazing.
The first thing they discovered was that bees use the speed at which a landmark moves as they fly to determine how far the landmark is from them. We can also judge how far an object is from us if we are moving. Imagine that we are driving. We know that a tree that quickly becomes larger in our view is close to us, whereas the hill which doesn't appear to move at all is far from us. That's also how bees determine the distance. What this also means is that they can't determine the distance if they are not moving.
Another experiment that they did was to determine how bees can fly exactly in the middle of a tunnel. The way they do this is basically by balancing the image flow rate from both sets of eye (remember bees, flies, insects have groups of tiny eyes on each side). To test this hypothesis, they purposely move one side of the tunnel wall at a certain speed while keeping the other side of the tunnel fixed. If they move one wall, say wall A, at a certain speed in the direction opposite to the motion of the bee, they would find the bee flying closer to the other wall, wall B. Vice versa, if they move wall A in the same direction of the bee motion, they find that the bee will fly closer to wall A. The reason is that in the first situation, the opposite motion of wall A causes the bee to think that wall A is closer to it, due to the higher image flow rate. Therefore it steers away from wall A and fly closer to wall B. Whereas in the second situation, wall A moves in the same direction as the bee, so the bee thinks that wall A is farther away, therefore it moves closer to wall A as it flies through the tunnel.
They also find that bees like to maintain a certain speed while flying based on the image flow rate. In the same tunnel where they did the above experiments, the researchers first determine the speed of the bee using cameras. They then move both sides of the wall at a certain speed in the opposite direction of the bee motion. And guess what? The bee slows down. When they move the walls in the same direction as the bee, the bee speeds up. They discovered that the relative speed betwen the bee and the motion of the wall is approximately the same.
The bees' sense of direction is extremely good. You've probably heard of the saying 'to make a bee line', which is quite true. Once the bees find a food source, they can head straight to their hive. They also find that these bees communicate with the others using a 'wiggle dance', where they do a certain 'dance' motion. The duration of the dance determines how far the food source is from the hive. This relationship is fairly linear. And they can also communicate the direction of the food source in this dance.
The main reason why I enjoyed this seminar was that the experiments and ideas that they come up with were very simple, yet very effective. But of course, Prof. Srinivasan has been working in this area for about twenty years. But this sort of applied research is what I prefer, making a new invention or an application based on what you have discovered in your research.
The following is a description of the seminar
___________________________________________________________________________________
Speaker: Professor Mandyam V. Srinivasan
Centre for Excellence in Vision Science, Research School of Biological Sciences, ANU
Title: "More than a Honey Machine"
Abstract:
Anyone who has watched a fly make a flawless landing on the rim of a
teacup, or marvelled at a honeybee speeding home after collecting
nectar from a flower patch several kilometres away, would know that
insects possess visual systems that are fast, reliable and accurate.
Insects cope remarkably well with their world, despite possessing a
brain that carries fewer than 0.01% as many neurons as ours does.
This talk will describe research aimed at understanding the
mechanisms underlying visual perception, navigation, learning, memory
and ìcognitionî in honeybees. Opportunities for incorporating insect-
based principles into the design of novel, autonomous robots will
also be discussed.
___________________________________________________________________________________
The hour-long seminar was extremely interesting and stimulating. It was divided into two sections, the first about his group's research into how bees navigate and communicate, and the second about how they used the results in computer vision and robotics.
I find the first part in particular very interesting. Prof. Srinivasan's group was intrigued by how insects, and in particular bees, determine the distance of a landmark because unlike humans and other animals, they do not have stereoscopic eyes. With very small brains, how these insects make their way home or towards a food source and navigate around obstacles is truly amazing.
The first thing they discovered was that bees use the speed at which a landmark moves as they fly to determine how far the landmark is from them. We can also judge how far an object is from us if we are moving. Imagine that we are driving. We know that a tree that quickly becomes larger in our view is close to us, whereas the hill which doesn't appear to move at all is far from us. That's also how bees determine the distance. What this also means is that they can't determine the distance if they are not moving.
Another experiment that they did was to determine how bees can fly exactly in the middle of a tunnel. The way they do this is basically by balancing the image flow rate from both sets of eye (remember bees, flies, insects have groups of tiny eyes on each side). To test this hypothesis, they purposely move one side of the tunnel wall at a certain speed while keeping the other side of the tunnel fixed. If they move one wall, say wall A, at a certain speed in the direction opposite to the motion of the bee, they would find the bee flying closer to the other wall, wall B. Vice versa, if they move wall A in the same direction of the bee motion, they find that the bee will fly closer to wall A. The reason is that in the first situation, the opposite motion of wall A causes the bee to think that wall A is closer to it, due to the higher image flow rate. Therefore it steers away from wall A and fly closer to wall B. Whereas in the second situation, wall A moves in the same direction as the bee, so the bee thinks that wall A is farther away, therefore it moves closer to wall A as it flies through the tunnel.
They also find that bees like to maintain a certain speed while flying based on the image flow rate. In the same tunnel where they did the above experiments, the researchers first determine the speed of the bee using cameras. They then move both sides of the wall at a certain speed in the opposite direction of the bee motion. And guess what? The bee slows down. When they move the walls in the same direction as the bee, the bee speeds up. They discovered that the relative speed betwen the bee and the motion of the wall is approximately the same.
The bees' sense of direction is extremely good. You've probably heard of the saying 'to make a bee line', which is quite true. Once the bees find a food source, they can head straight to their hive. They also find that these bees communicate with the others using a 'wiggle dance', where they do a certain 'dance' motion. The duration of the dance determines how far the food source is from the hive. This relationship is fairly linear. And they can also communicate the direction of the food source in this dance.
The main reason why I enjoyed this seminar was that the experiments and ideas that they come up with were very simple, yet very effective. But of course, Prof. Srinivasan has been working in this area for about twenty years. But this sort of applied research is what I prefer, making a new invention or an application based on what you have discovered in your research.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
This is so cool!
This is a story about a previously unknown Australian band, Sick Puppies, trying to kickstart their music career in the US. One of the guys from the band stumbled on one man, Juan Mann, who started a one-man campaign in the streets of Sydney on giving 'Free Hugs' to total strangers. So he took videos of Juan's campaign, edited the videos and added their own song in the background. And now it's getting millions of hits around the world on YouTube. And within a week, they've become well-known. Apparently, they even got a call from Oprah.
Here's the description on the video:
___________________________________________________________________________________
Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.
In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.
As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.
In the Spirit of the free hugs campaign, PASS THIS TO A FRIEND and HUG A STRANGER! After all, If you can reach just one person...
Music by Sick Puppies. (Visit http://sickpuppies.net or http://myspace.com/sickpuppies for the music)
------------------------------ -------------------
PS. The response to this video has been nothing short of overwhelming and touching. Hugs to every single one of you who messaged. There has been thousands of emails from all over the world by people seeking to participate in the Free Hugs campaign and asking for permission. You do not need permission. This is the peoples movement, this is *your* movement. With nothing but your bare hands you can make THE difference.
Imagine all the people.
___________________________________________________________________________________
This is a story about a previously unknown Australian band, Sick Puppies, trying to kickstart their music career in the US. One of the guys from the band stumbled on one man, Juan Mann, who started a one-man campaign in the streets of Sydney on giving 'Free Hugs' to total strangers. So he took videos of Juan's campaign, edited the videos and added their own song in the background. And now it's getting millions of hits around the world on YouTube. And within a week, they've become well-known. Apparently, they even got a call from Oprah.
Here's the description on the video:
___________________________________________________________________________________
Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.
In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.
As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.
In the Spirit of the free hugs campaign, PASS THIS TO A FRIEND and HUG A STRANGER! After all, If you can reach just one person...
Music by Sick Puppies. (Visit http://sickpuppies.net or http://myspace.com/sickpuppies for the music)
------------------------------ -------------------
PS. The response to this video has been nothing short of overwhelming and touching. Hugs to every single one of you who messaged. There has been thousands of emails from all over the world by people seeking to participate in the Free Hugs campaign and asking for permission. You do not need permission. This is the peoples movement, this is *your* movement. With nothing but your bare hands you can make THE difference.
Imagine all the people.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Lately I've been spending a lot of time on YouTube looking at Korean professional gamers (Progamers) battling Starcraft in their professional league. This is perhaps the largest, most extensive and lucrative gaming competition in the world! Top players could be earning hundreds of thousands of US dollars, and that doesn't cover competition prize monies, advertisements and endorsements!
My favourite player was a guy named Lim Yo-Hwan, nickname SlayerS_'BoxeR'. He's one of the top progamers in Korea, I reckon the all-time best SC player in the world. And he plays Terran. I tell you he's really good. Check out the videos:
Good hey?
My favourite player was a guy named Lim Yo-Hwan, nickname SlayerS_'BoxeR'. He's one of the top progamers in Korea, I reckon the all-time best SC player in the world. And he plays Terran. I tell you he's really good. Check out the videos:
Good hey?
Lately I've been spending a lot of time on YouTube looking at Korean professional gamers (Progamers) battling Starcraft in their professional league. This is perhaps the largest, most extensive and lucrative gaming competition in the world! Top players could be earning hundreds of thousands of US dollars, and that's doesn't cover competition prize monies, advertisements and endorsements!
My favourite player was a guy named Lim Yo-Hwan, nickname SlayerS_'BoxeR'. He's one of the top progamers in Korea, I reckon the all-time best SC player in the world. And he plays Terran. I tell you he's really good. Check out the videos:
Good hey?
My favourite player was a guy named Lim Yo-Hwan, nickname SlayerS_'BoxeR'. He's one of the top progamers in Korea, I reckon the all-time best SC player in the world. And he plays Terran. I tell you he's really good. Check out the videos:
Good hey?
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Last Saturday, Aya and I went to some friends' wedding. It was held at the Cockington Green Gardens, a tourist destination in Canberra. It has a lot of those miniature buildings, views and scenarios placed in a wonderful garden.
So anyway, Yueshi, the groom, was a PhD student in my research school who graduated last year. I'll put up some of their photos and a video clip if I have their permission to do so. [Okay, I've got their permission now. Here they are!]
At the wedding, I also met up with Tod. Here's a photo of my friend Tod and myself. Tod's my friend from my undergraduate years. He's currently a robotics engineer in Canberra. A good friend.
And here are some photos of Aya and I together. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to take photos of the gardens. The ceremony was held in a private section of the place. By the time we realised that we could actually go to the other side. It was already dark so the photos didn't look good and I deleted them.
And a funny thing that we observed was the following signs written in Chinese.
So anyway, Yueshi, the groom, was a PhD student in my research school who graduated last year. I'll put up some of their photos and a video clip if I have their permission to do so. [Okay, I've got their permission now. Here they are!]
At the wedding, I also met up with Tod. Here's a photo of my friend Tod and myself. Tod's my friend from my undergraduate years. He's currently a robotics engineer in Canberra. A good friend.
And here are some photos of Aya and I together. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to take photos of the gardens. The ceremony was held in a private section of the place. By the time we realised that we could actually go to the other side. It was already dark so the photos didn't look good and I deleted them.
And a funny thing that we observed was the following signs written in Chinese.
Check out this cool video!
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
I've just recently came back from Sydney over the long weekend. And here's a video of the busy Sydney George Street, in front of the Sydney Town Hall and the famous Queen Victoria Building. The video was taken by myself
We also went to the Animania Festival held in the Sydney Town Hall. I must say, the interior of the building was very impressive. Here's a few photos of the building:
But sad to say about the Animania Festival, there wasn't much to see. There were events like cosplay (anime costume playing), anime theme song karaoke competition, stalls selling anime DVDs, toys and posters, anime custom-edited video competition, anime drawing competition, Japanese food stalls, etc. but I guess we're too old for these stuffs.
Next we went to a cafe that was known to do pork rib racks at a cheap price. The food was just alright. We all prefer the ones at My Angus on Darling Harbour or Hurricane, at Bondi Beach.
Now I'm back in Canberra.
We also went to the Animania Festival held in the Sydney Town Hall. I must say, the interior of the building was very impressive. Here's a few photos of the building:
But sad to say about the Animania Festival, there wasn't much to see. There were events like cosplay (anime costume playing), anime theme song karaoke competition, stalls selling anime DVDs, toys and posters, anime custom-edited video competition, anime drawing competition, Japanese food stalls, etc. but I guess we're too old for these stuffs.
Next we went to a cafe that was known to do pork rib racks at a cheap price. The food was just alright. We all prefer the ones at My Angus on Darling Harbour or Hurricane, at Bondi Beach.
Now I'm back in Canberra.
