Upgrading Street Views and Street Slides

Deriving from Microsoft Research's Street Slide, I'm thinking:

Wouldn't it be great to have each photos vectorized? This would create clean and infinitely zoom-able street views, no, Street Slides. It will display building shapes and signs without all the fuzziness. This data could also be used to create a complete 3D representations of streets.

Of course, the challenge is how to have this automated, but I'm sure there are plenty of bright people to handle this.

Hey, this could be a good business, don't you think?

My Dream Company

Sometime ago, a friend of mine who actually seems wanting to see me working for a game company asked which company I would die to work for.

I couldn't answer.

It's not because I didn't have any favorite game company, and certainly not because I didn't want to jump into game industry. But it was rather because I was tired of corporate, dull work life.

Many would think that's why people join game industry, to live the exhilarating development life, but most development studios that people know are already a part of big companies, and are tied down by their own processes and procedures.

Of course, to produce quality work, there has to be some kind of process to manage the development. But when a parent company forces a studio to do something it's not willing to do, I see no point of working there (see Activision and Infinity Ward fiasco).

There were some names that floated in my head at the moment of asking: Valve Software, EA, Ubisoft Montreal... But each of those didn't seem good enough for me to say it outright.

Yeah, as if I can work for any of those, if I just wanted, right? Maybe it's best for me to accept that there will never be the dream job that I think about all the time.

*sigh*

Asians... :P

An Asian joke passed by my coworker today:

There is this barber in the US. One day a Caucasian florist goes to him for a haircut. After the cut, he goes to pay the barber. The barber replies: "No charge today. I am doing community service." The florist is happy and leaves. The next morning the barber finds a "thank you" card and a dozen roses waiting at his shop door.

An African American cop goes for a haircut and gets the same "community service treatment." The cop is happy and leaves. The next morning the barber finds a "thank you" card and a dozen donuts waiting at his shop door.

An Asian software egineer goes for a haircut and he also gets the "community service treatment." The next morning when the barber goes to open his shop, guess what he finds there. A dozen Asians waiting for a free Haircut.

Why Me?

Recently, I was reminded of a childhood friend from all the way back in a Korean elementary school, by meeting a person with the same name. She wasn't really a close friend to be remembered. But I remember her existence anyways and will probably never forget.

It's not that she was gorgeous in any ways; she wasn't. She may have been prettier than the norm, but at my age, I was more interested in horsing around and creating trouble than in girls.

Instead, I remember her for what she did; she nominated me for that year's classroom president. (This is not the regular class president that you may think of. In Korean school structure, each grade is divided into several "rooms", where each room acts as a tight organization. They study in same classroom for the most of the time, share same assigned teacher, and, of course, elect a president and officers of that room to take care of itself.)

It was totally out of the blue. I was, and still am, very uninterested when it comes to taking up responsibility of a social organization and the power that comes from taking a position such as a president. I was never interested in any school-related issues, nor of us students. Heck, I never even cared for a good grade. As long as I had some friends to wreck havoc with, I was golden. Even at the moment she nominated me, I was buy chit-chatting with a nearby friend and not paying attention. On top of that, she wasn't even one of my close friend as I've mentioned before. The only thing I remember her is studying piano under the same teacher.

After all these years, I am still curious the reason behind her decision to nominate me. Why? What was she thinking? And what did she see in me (if she did at all)?

PS. The election result? Do I even need to tell you? I never held such position until I was forced to take such position in college. Let's leave it at that.

Life without Life

As all of you might have noticed (I say "all" since there are only a handful who visit here), I haven't been updating this blog for a long, long time. 'Tis not because of my intentional decision, but rather of the lack of inspiration. I haven't been able to think straight or feel something in me to talk about. My mind is hazy and out of focus, and I live as if I've lost my purpose in this life.

...

Now that I've said that, I really feel like I've lost the purpose. I have lost the source of inspiration. I no longer feel the calling. What has happened, I do not know.

One thing I do know, however, is that this is not where I belong. This mundane and senseless daily life of an office worker is not something I asked for. I hope someone can do something to me, so I can get up and start walking again.

Would you kindly?