无题

看到同住的Kwoon lim正在为病怏怏Joshua煮晚餐，我称赞他说，不愧是哥们儿啊。他回答道：没什么嘛，顺手牵羊而已嘛。

Laptop build-in camera distortion problem

If you ever used laptop build-in camera for video conferencing, you will probably notice that your face is a bit distorted and not as pretty as the one inside a mirror. Actually, the same distortion happens for almost any cameras when the subject -- your face positions too close to them. For web cameras, wide-angle lens is used to jam in more environment, your face turns out to be even more funny.

Now that not everyone likes this distortion, and maybe it's an interesting application to flatten it. Assuming computation complexity is not a problem, it is possible to adjust each frame of image to de-distort it according to camera model and parameters before generating the video stream. An even more interesting approach is to build an accurate 3D model of your face, and dynamically manipulate it according to your facial expressions (while leaving less distorted, less important back ground as is). You can ask the software to pre-build your face model (not including hair of course) from several pictures of different angle. Or using a multi camera system, i.g., 3, from the left, center, and right side, to build it dynamically. This link shows a similar application using a single face picture. It's for fun, but surely shows the possibilities.

Poor students in SoC

The whole school of computing has just moved to a new site. Despite of some small inconveniences of the new location (such as transportation, freezing and irregularly shaped office, no cellphone signal coverage, etc), one rule has been posed in every research lab - "NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED". This is because instead of using plastic floor, light colored carpet is now covering every inch of the lab turf. I'm not sure whether the policy maker has also noticed the fact that, dark muddy footprints are already everywhere during the raining season, if so, maybe we will be informed to use our bare feet. On the contrary, I have never seen any food spread or drink spilling in the old lab. But ok then, Singapore has had plenty of places not allowing food/drinks (bus, mrt), just plus one place we're working for more than 8 hours per day, there is no big deal, really. This is not the end, though.

A few days ago, the head of the department disseminated an email clarifying this new policy, he said, he wants to use it to push students to the pantry where they can eat/drink and at the same time talk about their research with one another more. That is good. However, when we headed to the pantry, we all stuck at the entrance:

Face off by Alva

牛就一个字，我只说一次。

Shifting

又是一年搬家时，每年7月，狂风不止，阴雨绵绵，正直搬家的好日子。正所谓每年一搬，年年都住新房子，心情怎能不好。不过呢，新的是我们，倒不一定是房子。吃够了上上次搬家时候用的出租车队的苦，这次请了搬家公司的小货车以及司机小胖，另外高价雇佣了PhD肌肉男民工若干，浩浩荡荡开往心中的那片净土——油池。这次的新家是真的新，看图说话。

Happy wedding!

向MM和Gengpu同学马上就要marry了。除了表达偶衷心的祝愿，还自告奋勇的当了次御用摄影师。同行的还有经验丰富的老年摄影师“耗子”，及影坛新星“光头”。如此华丽的阵容，令同在景点（植物园和圣淘沙）拍婚纱照的其他队伍望而生畏，都尽量和我们拉开距离，避免相形见绌的尴尬。拍摄圆满成功之际，放出此次豪华团队的照片，也算是做个广告，为今后进军专业摄影界做点准备。

主角们，手持自制反光板（poster），表情时而可爱时而呆滞。

本人，扮相极具艺术气质的头号摄影师，以浓密的胡须著称当代马克思。

耗子，老年摄影师，经验丰富，精神恍惚，乘车去目的地时带我坐过2个站头，之后想超近路却误入私人住宅区，差点被狗咬死。

光头，摄影爱好者，以性感的光头从某刚认识的MM那里迅速骗取了专业级的D200相机。虽然学习摄影只有短短2天，而且是网络远程教学，不过在此行中表现出的搞笑和创意，消除了耗子和我差点被狗咬死的阴影。

An international face...

开始说是刘德华（香港人），被班主任起名Andy；胖的时候说像夏添（高中同学，圆圆脸）；后来留了点小胡子变成尼古拉斯凯奇（美国人）和周总理（从前的人）；胡子刮了变成木村拓哉（日本人）；在任何国家的入关口都会被拦下来检查因为有胡子像中东人；在自己国家出关时又被当成日本人；还有人说眼睛颜色浅像越南人。天哪，从小到大，我的变化有那么大吗？像某个明星还可以沾沾自喜一下，可是到出入关的时候就咯儿屁了，难道那些人从来不看电影吗？

Local idioms

HH came to Singapore for a business trip some time ago, and asked a few of us to hang around a bit. While on the taxi, he raised a question about a word he saw a lot on/beside the road -- "ERP" which stands for the business he works in (Enterprise Resource Planning) but certainly was out of context. The taxi driver laughed while we frowned. "It tells you need to pay for driving on that road. It says, Everyday Robbing People!". We all fainted... To continue the stunning effect, he further asked "You know what GST is? You pay more when you buy things, then the Government Say Thank you!".

footnote:
ERP - Electronic Road Pricing
GST - Goods and Service Tax