Joy of Life: Volume 1 Chapter 1

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Volume One: The City by the Sea
-- written by Maoni

Chapter 1: Story Gathering^[1]

Port Danzhou was located at the east end of the Qing Empire. Although a city by the sea, due to the fact that the several ports further south had already been developed and the sea route to the western world had also been opened, the empire’s trade center had moved to the south, and the port city gradually showed more and more decline. The once bustling harbor had quieted down over the last few years.

Seagulls flew about the city freely and no longer had to worry about harassment from those loathsome sailors.

The original residents of the city, however, didn’t feel too big of a change in their everyday lives. It was true that their income had declined, but the emperor, His Majesty, had exempted the city from taxes several years ago. Therefore, life wasn’t bad. Besides, this seaport city was so beautiful. Now that it had become quiet once again, it naturally became even more livable. That was why occasionally some influential people would choose to build their manors here.

Because it was too far from the Capital City, very few officials stayed. The only one that somewhat qualified had to be the Old Madam living in the west part of the town.

It was said that the Old Madam was the mother of the Count of Southernland in the Capital City, and chose to live out her life in retirement in the city by the sea. The residents of Port Danzhou all knew that the Count of Southernland was in great favor with His Majesty. That was the reason why he wasn’t assigned a position outside of the Capital City like usual, and instead, stayed in the Capital City and got a job in the Ministry of Finance. That was why everyone showed plenty of manners and respect to the residents of the manor.

But kids are ignorant of such things.

It was a fine and warm day. Adults mostly found themselves sitting inside a wine-house, enjoying the salty humidity blown in by the sea winds, together with the preserved plums and wine in their cups.

In the western part of the town, just outside the backdoor of Count of Southernland’s manor, a group of teenagers surrounded the stone steps. Shoulder to shoulder, they filled the entire opening. What could they be doing there?

If one got closer, he would find a very interesting scene. It turned out that all these lads were listening to a four or five-year old kid speaking. The little boy had a pretty face. His well trimmed eyebrows and his crystal-clear eyes looked as though they came out of a beautiful painting. Although his young voice was that of a little kid, the tone of his words clearly showed the arrogance of a senior. With a sigh, he gestured with his little arms.

“Truman walked up to the wall, and saw a staircase, so he walked up the staircase step after step. Then he found the door. Pushing the door open, he walked out…”

“What happened then?”

“Then? Then…he naturally went back to the real world.” The little boy pouted, as though he was quite weary of such a retarded question coming out of someone much older than him.

“It can’t be! Shouldn’t he go seek out that Hanny…something…?”

“Harris,” another teen picked it up.

“Right! Shouldn’t Truman find that Harris guy and kick his butt to vent his anger? He was locked in for so many years.”

“Nope.” The little boy shrugged.

“That was no fun! Young Master Fan Xian, today’s story is certainly not as good as the ones in the last few days.”

“Which ones did you like?”

“A Dreamy Journey to the Far, Far Away^[1]!”

“The Story of a Charming Wanderer^[2]!"

“Bah!” the little boy named Fan Xian stuck his middle finger out at the older kids around him. “Fighting, killing everywhere is bad for your health! Digging everywhere for treasure is bad for the environment!”

A loud, angry voice arose from inside the manor all of the sudden, “Young Master, where did you go again?”

The older kids surrounding him also stuck their middle fingers out in imitation and shouted in unison, “Bah!” Because of the large number of people involved, it was a much grander effect. Grinning triumphantly, they quickly scattered and disappeared into the nearby alleys.

The little boy stood up from the stone steps and swiftly whisked the dust off the underside of his pants. Then he turned and dashed into the courtyard. Before he closed the door, he shot a quick glance toward the young, blind shopkeeper in the small grocery store across the street with his shrewd eyes, while a complex emotion, something completely inappropriate for his age, flashed across his face, before he tenderly shut the door tight.

This was the fourth year after Fan Shen first came to this world. Throughout these years, he finally realized it was not a dream. He had indeed arrived at an unknown world. This world appeared to be identical to the world in his memory, but seemed to also have many differences.

By eavesdropping on conversations among servants in the Count’s Manor, he eventually figured out his status: he was the baseborn son of the Count of Southernland. Just like any TV series about powerful and rich families, the status of a baseborn son made him an easy target for all kinds of evil schemes from people such as First-Aunt^[3], Second-Aunt^[4], and others. He happened to be the only son of his “supposed” father. For the sake of extending the Count’s bloodline, he was sent to the city Port Danzhou far away from the Capital City.

After so many years, he gradually grew accustomed to his new identity. Trapping an adult’s soul in the body of a child was certainly a very different experience both biologically and spiritually. If he were any other normal person, he probably would have gone mad – however, conveniently, Fan Shen happened to be a patient with non-functional muscles and lived in a sick bed for many years. His difficulty in mobility during this life was nothing compared to the miserable state in his prior life. As a result he found himself without much discomfort living inside the body of an infant.

The most discomfort was actually his name nowadays. When he had been about one-year old, His Excellency, the Count in the Capital City, sent a letter and bestowed a name upon him: Fan Xian^[5], with a middle name Anzhi.

This was not a good name because it sounded just like the cuss word in his original hometown – “Fan Xian”, which meant having nothing better to do.

Since his outside form was just an infant, it was impossible for him to voice his objection.

In his prior life when he had been treated in the hospital, especially in the early days, he could at least still turn his head around. So he frequently begged that lovely little nurse to buy pirated DVDs and books for him.

After living in the Count’s Manor for an extended period, he could tell that the Old Madam only appeared to be cold in manner, but inside, she doted on him very much. The slave girls and servants also didn’t regard him with any special treatment because of his status as a baseborn son. Though, the pain of not being able to communicate with others bothered him very much.

Could he have discussed with the slave girls that he was actually from another world? Could he have told the home teacher that he actually already knew all the characters in the books?

Therefore, he often snuck out of the Count’s Manor from the side door and played with those children of the poor on the streets. His favorite activity was to tell stories to them, stories from movies and novels in his own world.

It was as though he wanted to keep reminding himself about something, that he did not belong to this world. The world he truly belonged to had movies, the Internet, and YY novels^[6].

He didn’t know why he told the story of the movie: The Truman Show. The plot of the movie was plain to start with; besides, there was no Jim Carrey to make people laugh. He should have clearly known that these teenagers of Port Danzhou would have no way of liking it.

But he told it anyway, because he always felt that absurdity deep inside his heart. He was on a dying course. What made him reincarnate inside this body? He couldn’t help but to remember that movie…. Maybe, all these people, the streets in front of him, even the seagulls flying in the sky, are just props intentionally arranged by someone, just like in Truman’s world.

Truman eventually discovered the falsity of the world he lived in, so he resolutely took the ship and found the exit.

But Fan Shen, no, he should be called Fan Xian now … knew that he was no Truman, and this world truly existed. It was not just a huge soundstage. Therefore his act of telling stories every day, to remind himself that he was from a different world, was something truly absurd by itself.

---

[1] A popular Internet novel.

[2] Another popular Internet novel.

[3] First wife of the Count.

[4] Second wife of the Count.

[5] Here “Fan” is the last name, and “Xian” is the first name. In Chinese, “Xian” means leisure, idle and unoccupied. “Anzhi” means relax and be content and came from the verse, “Once here, then relax and be content,” which originally came from the book “The Analects of Confucius.”

[6] YY stands for Yi Ying, which means being as ridiculous and impudent as your mind will let you. The main character in such YY novels would always have the best fortune in the entire universe and eventually have all the fame, money, and power and become epic heroes, kings or gods in this ridiculous and non-logical world the author created. This novel itself could be classified under this genre.

Now support the author Maoni by clicking this link, and support the translator Lanny by following my blog! :)

Video of the Day:

This has nothing to do with robots or translations. But isn't this kid simply amazing?

AI and Robots: Researchers Hack Facial Recognition Authentication

Yesterday we talked about fingerprints. These days, another form of biometric identifier has gained more attention -- facial recognition. In fact, several laptop manufactures have included facial recognition as authentication caveats to attract more consumers. The selling pitch was that facial recognition is more convenient for the user than entering user name/password pair. The video below is a fun commercial by Lanovo promoting such technology.

Similarly, Toshiba also included such technology with their latest product lines.

However, several Vietnamese researchers have demonstrated at BlackHat DC 2009 how these facial recognition authentications can easily be cracked using photos of the user or multiple phony facial images in kind of "brute-force" attacks. The key lies in how the facial recognition algorithms work. They only treat the user's face as digital images, therefore, by manipulating lighting conditions and view angles of photos, such authentication systems can be easily fooled even though the security level is set to high. The researchers also wrote a paper describing their work. Too bad they didn't make a video of the presentation at the conference. There is, however, an interview with Duc Nguyen, the main researcher.

Here's also a link to an article with more details.

These Windows XP and Vista laptops come with built-in webcams that work with the facial-recognition technology. This form of authentication is considered more convenient than fingerprint scans and more secure than traditional passwords. The software scans the user's face and stores the images and facial characteristics. Then the user can log in by scanning his or her face, which is then matched against the image data.

Don't get me wrong here. Facial recognition is a great technology. However, we have to be very careful about how we apply new technologies to real world problems. Using facial recognition to customize/personalize things (such as seat positions in cars) is great. But using it for security authentication might not be that good of an idea just like RFID tags (see my other post for a discussion on that).





Don't let stupid reviewers ruin your joyful life. There's always another conference out there, waiting for you!

Paper Review: A User Interface Using Fingerprint Recognition - Holding Commands and Data Objects on Fingers

This paper by Atsushi Sugiura and Yoshiyuki Koseki from NEC was published at UIST '98.

The main idea of the paper is that by using a fingerprint scanner, the unique fingerprint of each finger can be identified, and commands or objects can then be associated with each finger as though each finger was carrying things with it.

The authors specifically compared their FUI (Fingerprint User Interface) with that of the Pick-and-Drop, a pen-based direct manipulation technique that allowed a user to virtually hold a data object in a pen. The advantages of FUI are that there is no special tools required (the fingers themselves would suffice), and there is no ID management since each finger already has a name. Also because a normal person has 10 fingers, it is possible to hold 10 objects/command, which is only achievable by 10 pens in the Pick-and-Drop system.

When associating fingers with commands, FUI can be great for operations where the user cannot look at the operation panel, for example, operating machines in darkness or manipulate them in a bag/pocket, because the user would not need to visually identify different buttons for different functions. FUI is also good when the user wants to conceal commands from others, such as opening the cash register when being robbed: one finger would simply open it while another finger would open it and also send a signal to the police.

Fingers can also be used as containers to store information. For example, text strings can be stored with multiple fingers, and when scanning the finger on another machine or in another application, the strings can be retrieved and pasted into the new machine/app. To the user, it felt just like that each finger is carrying very specific information.

It is important to note the drawbacks of such an interface. Firstly, scanning and identifying fingerprints can be very slow (about 2 seconds). The paper was written in 1998. At that time, it took 1.7 seconds to identify one fingerprint. More than 10 years later, technology today is not much better. The Dell XPS m1530 laptops have fingerprint scanner built in, which allows the user to associate different commands with different fingers. However, it still takes about 1.5 second for the application to identify the fingerprint. This delay can be very annoying to the end user.


Secondly, many times, the end user would forget or get confused about which finger carries what information/command. Thirdly, FUI would not work well for one hand operations when that hand has to hold the device (such as a mobile phone for a user who is driving). Fourthly, the fingerprint identification algorithm can make mistakes. And when that happens, it is important that the user can invoke undo operations to recover. And for things that cannot be undone (such as the lunch of a nuclear missile), this technology better not be used.

Some of the example applications presented in the paper are: operating a CD player where a finger could be "play" while another finger be "fast forward"; using fingers to store bookmarks for web browsing. An interesting application suggested by the authors is that a phone number can be stored with a finger at home, and then at public phones, the number can be retrieved from the finger to automatically dial that number. While this idea is cool, I personally wouldn't think it's a good idea because that would have to allow the public phone to have access to people's fingerprint data together with access to user's data repository (whether the home computer or an online storage), which exposes the user's private information to possible unauthorized accesses.

The main advantages of fingerprints are: they are unique to each user, and the user normally don't lose them (as opposed to keys). However, they are also unchangeable, so once others get hold such information, they can impersonate the user for the rest of his life.

If you are sleepy but want to stay awake, do push-ups. At least you'll be stronger.

Robot of the Day: Winebot, the Wine Tasting Robot

Researchers at NEC and Mie University, both in Japan, came up with a robot, the Winebot, that is capable of distinguishing good wine from bad wine, tell you the brand, and also suggest side dishes that will go well alongside the wine. It is also capable of identifying different cheeses and hors d'oeuvres.

Wait a second. What are hors d'oeuvres? I've never heard of this word before. So I did a google search, and there is actually a wikipedia entry of it (including a sound file for pronunciation). Basically, it means appetizer.

Cold Hors d'œuvre

When presented with three apples, without actually taking a bite, the robot was able to separate the sweet one from the two sour ones. So how does the robot do it? There is actually an infrared spectrometer at the end of the robot's left arm. When objects are placed up against the sensor, the robot fires off a beam of infrared light and then analyze the reflected light in real time. It takes advantage of the fact that different food would have different reflection ratio of light per wavelength for water, protein, etc., kind of like unique "fingerprints", in order to distinguish them.

Just to add a bit more fun, because it is analyzing the chemical composition of the wine or food placed before it, it can also alert its owner to possible health issues, gently warning against fatty or salty products. However, it is not capable of detecting drunkenness, which could have been another great feature.

However, when the Winebot makes mistakes, the consequences could be dramatic. When a reporter’s hand was placed against the robot’s taste sensor, it was identified as prosciutto. A cameraman was mistaken for bacon.

This cute robot is about 2 feet tall, can slightly swivel its head, and when it speaks in a child-like voice, lights flash around its mouth. If you think this makes a great birthday or Christmas present, think again! It cost as much as a new car. With that amount of money, I would have expected the robot to

• cook for me
• wash the dishes
• make beds
• clean the house
• take out the garbage
  
• mow the lawn
• rake the leaves
• shovel the snow
• and the list goes on and on and on ...
  

Take a short break from your busy life so you can appreciate the beautiful things you might be ignoring.

Paper Review: Bridging Physical and Virtual Worlds with Electronic Tags

This paper is written by Roy Want, Kenneth P. Fishkin, Anuj Gujar, and Bevely L. Harrison from Xerox PARC that was published in CHI 1999.

This paper is an extension from previous work that attempts to connect physical objects with virtual representations or computational functionality by using RFID (Radio Frequency ID) tags. The problem this paper is trying to solve here is how to leverage strengths and intuitiveness of the physical world to provide users additional ways to interact with applications and information in virtual worlds by following physical objects’ natural affordances. This problem is important because it enriches interfaces that enable the users to interact with information and computational devices naturally. It is important to both interface designers and general users.

The main insight of this paper is that RFID tags should be used instead of bar codes or glyphs, because they allow seamless augmentation with unobtrusive tagging. They are very small (easy to hide), inexpensive, and required no precise alignment and registration. The RFID tags themselves do not need on-board power, last a long time, and can be easily added to physical objects. The authors also pointed out two disadvantages: the administrator will need to associate functionalities to the tags and maintain it; because of the unobtrusiveness, the users might not know what are tagged and with what semantics.

The authors experimented with several prototype applications, such as tagging a French dictionary; so when sensed, it will invoke a language translation program to translate the currently displayed document. Another example is a tagged bookmark that will bind the current page to the tag and use it later to retrieve the page. Other examples include tagged books/documents, business cards, photo cube, and wristwatch. The power of this idea is that a tag can be associated with any semantics such as functionality associated, or context based services.

The evaluations used in this paper are the prototyping applications. Since this paper discusses the general idea of using RFID tags with physical objects, such an evaluation is proficient. For papers that might propose using RFID tags for a very specific problem under specific context (such as using RFID tags for an intelligent walker for eldercare), more extensive evaluation under that context would have been very necessary.

Since we are talking about RFID technology here, I'll extend on this topic some more. The kind of tags discussed in the paper look like the one shown in the image on the right. Another type that is more commonly used with merchandises nowadays look like the picture below that. What makes the technology so attractive is that these tags are passively powered. So the tags themselves do not include batteries. And when we point a RFID reader to the tag, it gets powered by the reader and then send radio signals back. That's why the more powerful the reader (and the antenna length and sensitivity), the longer range we have in sensing. These tags are also super cheap and very durable and can last a long time. These two educational videos below explain what RFID is and how it works.

Currently, the most widely usage of RFID technolgoy is in the manufacturing and retailing industry. The technology enables quick and easy way to identify products. However, they also arouse very severe security and privacy concerns. For example, I have read news articles that thieves equipped with powerful RFID readers could scan semi-trucks at truck stops to identify what kind of goods are transported and were able to successfully identify a truck load of brand new Dell computers, which they stole later. Extending from that, someone could also easily identify what kind of appliances or furniture you have at your home. The following videos demonstrate how hackers could easily start your car or duplicate your passport information when the technology was applied carelessly.

A few years back, one government lab in California (I cannot remember which one now) wanted to require all employees to be implanted with RFID tags for security reasons, because unlike badges, implanted tags cannot be stolen or lost (in fact, this actually makes it less secure because tag IDs can be easily duplicated). This ultimately resulted in a new law being signed into effect by Governor Schwarzenegger making it illegal in California to track employees by implanted RFID chips.

Public detectability and ease for duplicability are the two culprits to be blamed. However, what I want to point out is the RFID technology can still be applied to many areas as long as we go through careful design. And also the usefulness and feasibility really depend on the context. Like for example, with the French Dictionary example shown in the paper, security and privacy are not really the concerns, and RFID tagging can indeed be used creatively and with lots of fun.





Don't wait till the last day to submit your conference paper. The power supply of your computer might die and you might not be able to get to your files in time.

Paper Review: Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces between People, Bits and Atoms

This is a paper by Hiroshi Ishii and Brygg Ullmer from the MIT Media Lab published at CHI 1997 Conference. Note that it's a paper over 10 years old. However, some of the ideas proposed in this paper are still fun, exciting and powerful even today.

The main idea is that people should not be restricted to standard GUI (Graphical User Interface) when interacting with computer systems, or more accurately, interacting with information. Instead, the authors suggested using physical objects in the real world, because we have developed rich languages and cultrues with valued haptic interaction with real physical objects.

Our intention is to take advantage of natural physical affordances to achieve a heightened legibility and seamlessness of interaction between people and information.

So how exactly would one go about doing this? The authors focused on graspable objects, which they called phicons (stands for physical icons), and associated them with functions using metaphors. Three prototypes were presented as demonstrations: metaDesk, transBoard and ambientRoom.
metaDESK

This design included a nearly horizontal back-projected graphical surface (the desk), an arm-mounted LCD screen, and a passive optically transparent "lens". Here a phicon could be a small model of the famous Great Dome building at MIT. Once it is placed on the desk, the display will show a 2D map with the location of the Great Dome building right underneath the phicon. Then as the user moves or rotate the phicon, the map will move and rotate accordingly. A second phicon (model of the Media Lab building) can also be placed on the map, and then they can be used simutaneously to scale the map. The arm-mounted LCD can be used to display 3D model of the map and let the user traverse the 3D model as the arm is moved. The transparent "lens" can be used kind of like a magnifying glass on the desktop display to review hidden information about each building.

The video below is a demonstration of the metaDESK system.

ambientROOM

The idea behind this system is that while we get information from what we are focusing on, such as the person we are having a dialog with, we also get information from ambient sources, such as passing by traffic, the lighting and weather condition. Therefore, if we could present information as ambient background and then allow users to manipulate information with phicons, we can let the user mostly focus on his main tasks, such as reading emails, and still be able to monitor other information flow inactively, and also be alerted of abnormal situations from background information sources. The example given in the paper was about displaying a web site traffic as ambient background. First, the authors tried using sound of raindrops to simulate web page hits. Eventually they settled for ripples on the surface of water by light projecting onto a water tank.

The video below is a demonstration of this sytem.

transBOARD

This was implemented on a SoftBoard product that monitors the activity of tagged physical pens and erasers with a scanning infrared laser. "hyperCARDs" (barcode-tagged paper cards) are used as container of digital strokes and broadcast live to remote users who might be monitoring the session with an identical hyperCARD. Then this hyperCARD can be brought home or office like index cards.

What makes this paper exciting to me is the idea of using real world physical objects and their natural affordances as metaphors to interact with information, especially, to interact with a robot. In the past research of our lab, a model airplane was also used as a phicon to command a UAV (Unmanned Air Vehicle). The operator could simply hold and turn the model airplane, and the UAV would perform the same maneuver in mid-air. The metaphor is very intuitive and mapped very well with the information we need to manipulate.

At the end of the paper, there is also a fun discussion about optical metaphors, and how they can be coupled with digital information. It is an overall interesting read. But to get a better understanding of how the prototype systems work, the videos are better.



Librate your mind. Inspirations can be found from the many everday objects around you.

Joy of Life: Volume 1 Prologue

[I know, I know. I should have spent more time on SPW. But this is such a good story and it helps me to get into the translation mood. SPW will come shortly after.]

[The direct translation of the book title would have been “Celebrating the Remaining Life.” I decided to use the name “Joy of Life” because throughout the life of the protagonist when he was given a second chance, he slowly discovered the true joy of life in himself which is really something that transcends life – The Translator]

Prologue: Black Cloth
-- written by Maoni

Fan Shen worked hard to keep his eyelids open, so he could look at his fingers and count how many meaningful things he had done in his life. But before he even finished counting the five fingers on his right hand, which were so thin that they looked like chopsticks, he sadly gave it up with a deep sigh.

As always, the hospital room was filled with the stinking smell of medicine. The old man in the next bed had been gone for two days, reporting for his duty to the lord of the underworld. It might not be long for his turn.

He was very sick. It was some kind of a strange disease that completely weakened all his muscles, the kind that was perfect for a typical male lead in romantic fiction novels. The disease was also terminal, and during his last moments, he would not even be able to move a finger, except to let tears stream down his extremely pale cheeks.

“But I am not the main character of a romantic fiction!” Fan Shen murmured, which turned into a stream of incoherent groans due to the non-functioning muscles around his jaw. Staring at his middle-finger, he felt great sympathy for himself. “I am still a virgin!”

……

……

He hadn’t really done any meaningful things in his entire life, except for things such as helping senior citizens cross busy streets, offering his seat to the needy on buses, getting along well with neighbors, and helping classmates cheat during exams……

Fan Shen was a good man in the traditional sense: good, but useless.

His parents had passed away a long time ago, leaving him alone in this world, in this hospital, waiting for the end of his life.

“Good men don’t have good endings,” he thought.

During one lonesome and cold night, Fan Shen could almost feel the slow slackening of his muscles in his throat and chest, like an old rubber band that had lost all of its stretch and no longer tightened. That clean, young nurse caring for him was nowhere to be found. The only companion was an old woman, who seemed to be in the middle of an incessant chatter.

“Is this the moment of death?”

A mixture of fear for death and the deep yearning for a further taste of life created a complex feeling he had never felt before. Sharing his last few minutes with the old woman, instead of the lovely little nurse he had long hoped for, only added more sorrow to his heart.

Wretched and miserable, he glanced with drooping eyes at the black cloth blocking the sunlight over the window. “Life is as lonely as dog shit!” he thought.

Wretched and miserable, he felt a drop of liquid sliding down from the corner of his eye. Downheartedly, Fan Shen licked at it. To his surprise, it not only tasted salty, but also a bit pungent – did his tears begin to stink because he seldom showered at the hospital?

“Weeping like a girl, did you really think you are the main character of a romantic fiction?” He couldn’t help but scold himself angrily in his mind.

But he immediately noticed that something was not right. How was he able to stick his tongue out to lick his tears? Didn’t the doctor say that his tongue had lost all mobility? The only function left for it was to easily fall into his gullet and block his breathing canal and make him the kind of rare genius who could commit suicide by swallowing his own tongue.

Then he noticed that opening his eyes also became easier. He could see a wide angle and his eyesight was also greatly superior compared to before he became sick. The world in front of him was bright and something made out of bamboo lay right before his eyes.

……

……

Fan Shen stared blankly at the bamboo strips. Suddenly, through the cracks of the bamboo strips, he made out a shocking scene: men in black robes, each with a murderous look, were swinging their deadly weapons right toward him!

Having no time to distinguish whether this was just a bizarre dream or maybe the standard experience for people on the brink of death, Fan Shen cringed spontaneously, covering his eyes with his two hands, the ostrich kind of behavior any normal person would have chosen.

“Whoosh…!” Sounds of objects tearing through air suddenly arose, followed by stifling groans and then ultimate silence.

Hands still covering his eyes, Fan Shen waited for a moment and tried to make some sense out of it. Gingerly spreading two fingers slightly open, he eventually built up enough courage to look out sneakily from behind the crack. The bamboo strips that made up the basket sliced the view in front of him into countless diamond-shaped windows, and looking through these windows, he could clearly construct the shapes of over a dozen corpses lying motionless on the ground; blood streamed everywhere and started to build up a strong smell of death.

Fan Shen was stupefied. All of this in front of his eyes appeared so real that he simply couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Suddenly he remembered the hands that were still covering his face.

“Did I just move my hands? Can I move my hands now? Have I recovered? But what on earth just happened out there? Am I in the middle of a dream? Once I wake up, will I still be that good-for-nothing, lying on the sick bed, not able to move a muscle, and simply waiting for the approach of death? If that were true, then I’d rather remain in the dream and never wake up. At least my hands can still move and my eyes can still blink.” Immersed in these mournful thoughts, he rubbed his wet face with his hand.

When he withdrew his hand, he found his hand covered with blood. The drop of liquid that had rolled down from the corner of his eye was no tear. It was blood – blood splashed onto his face from someone.

Fan Shen stared at his hands, thunderstruck, while a scream reverberated fiercely in his head, “These are not my hands!”

Extending in front of him was a pair of extremely fair-complexioned and lovable small hands. Covered by blood stains, they looked almost like a white lotus blossoming in the underworld, with an eerie kind of beauty. However, they were absolutely not the kind of hands that would have belonged to an adult!

Waves of mixed feeling surged into Fan Shen’s head and dumbfounded him. Myriad questions and incomparable terror soon completely consumed his mind and his heart.

……

……

That year was the 57^th year of the Qing Calendar. The conquering army led by His Majesty was still in the middle of a war against the western barbarians. The Count of Southernland was also at His Majesty’s service in the army, and the capital was governed by the Great Empress and the High Councils.

On that day, the Villa of Serenity outside of the capital by the riverside of the Flowing-Crystal Creek caught fire. A group of assassins, under the cover of the night sky and the fire, attacked the villa, began killing everyone in sight, and committed the most atrocious massacre.

A young servant of the villa carried the young master with him and fought his way out. The murderers in night suits chased after him and they fought all the way to the road entrance leading south outside of the capital.

The attackers had no idea that the handicapped youngster turned out to be an expert fighter of fathomless kills. Besides, there were also reinforcement behind the small hills – and the identity of the reinforcement was even more horrifying!

“The Dark Riders!” moaned the assassins who were mowed down by the crossbows. Lying in a pool of blood, they were already on their last breaths.

All the riders wore the standard black suit of armor, which radiated a faint, soul-stirring shine under the illumination of the moon. Each rider carried a strong crossbow, the kind only authorized for the military. The first barrage of the crossbows had wiped out most of the assassins.

Surrounded by the Dark Riders was a middle-aged man sitting inside a horse-drawn wagon. He had a wan face and very sparse beard under his chin. Fixing his glance on the young servant carrying the child on his back, he nodded slightly, and then gently clapped his hands.

The clapping was the signal to strike!

A section of the riders began to separate from the main formation and charged toward the badly beaten assassins, as swift and merciless as the reaping scythe of Death himself under the dark sky.

A wizard among the assassins raised his wand high and began chanting some secret spell, and people in the field felt some kind of unknown energy gathering alongside the small hills.

The middle-aged man frowned slightly, but did not move. A dark shadow suddenly leapt out from beside him and shot forward swiftly like a night hawk. The wizard’s voice halted abruptly after a crisp snap, and his head flew high into the air, splashing blood along the way.

The middle-aged man on the wagon shook his head. “These wizards from the far west never get it. When confronted with true might, wizardry is just like the pen of the Prime Minister, useless.”

 Dozens of the solemn Dark Riders combed the surrounding areas and signaled safety with closed right fists. All the assassins had been eliminated. The troop split up. The horse-drawn wagon inside moved forward slowly until it arrived in front of the young servant. With the help of his subordinates, the middle-aged man sat in a wheelchair. Rolling the wheels himself, he slowly approached the young servant who remained in an upright position in the middle of the field, as sharp as a spear.

The middle-aged man on wheelchair glanced at the bamboo basket on the young servant’s back. A faint redness finally appeared on his pale face.

“It’s very fortunate!”

A black cloth covered the face of the young man carrying the basket. Inside the tight grip of his hand was a long black iron chisel that looked almost like a sword and fresh blood dripped slowly from the tip. Around him lay many dead bodies, all top-notch ambushers. On the throat of each body was a small red clot. Apparently it only took the youngster one strike to stop each of the assassins.

“I need an explanation,” the man with the black cloth around his eyes said in a chilling voice. The voice didn’t have the slightest tremble and neither carried the slightest emotion.

“Of course, you shall have it. I also need to give my lord an explanation.” A faint softness flashed past the middle-aged man’s face so quickly as though it never happened.

The young servant wearing the black cloth nodded and made to leave.

“Where are you taking the child?” the middle-aged man on wheelchair said coldly. “You are blind. Did you want the young lord to wander about the world with you?”

“This is Her Ladyship’s flesh and blood.”

“This is also His Lordship’s flesh and blood!” the middle-aged man in the wheelchair exclaimed in a gloomy tone. “I promise you I can find a safe harbor for the young lord in the capital.”

The young man shook his head and straightened the black cloth on his face.

The middle-aged man on wheelchair knew very well that the young man was loyal only to her Ladyship. Even his own lord could not have commanded the blind servant. So he heaved a sigh and persuaded, “Once His Lordship is back, everything in the capital will quiet down for sure. Why do you insist on taking him with you?”

“I don’t trust your lord.”

The middle-aged man frowned as though he really detested these words. After a short pause, he said, “Nursing the child, teaching him to read and write; are you capable of any?” He let out a sneer. “Blind, what do you know besides killing people?”

The blind man was not annoyed and only gently gave an upper push to the basket on his back. “Cripple, isn’t killing people the only thing you know as well?”

The middle-aged man let out an insidious smile. “It was only some nobles in the capital who started this. Once His Lordship is back, of course I’ll clean them up.”

The blind youngster shook his head again.

The middle-aged man gently rubbed his fingers against the wheelchair, as though he was guessing what the other party might be afraid of. A short moment later, he said with a frown.

“I know what you are afraid of. But in this mundane world, who else is capable of protecting him against that kind of unknown danger besides the child’s father?”

The blind youngster suddenly opened his mouth again, his voice still emotionless. “A new identity and an uninterrupted life.”

The middle-aged man gave it a thought, and then nodded.

“Where?”

“Port Danzhou. His Lordship’s nanny lives there.”

The blind youngster remained silent for a while but eventually accepted the arrangement.

With a relaxed smile, the middle-aged man rolled the wheelchair behind the blind youngster and picked the child up from the basket. Looking at the child’s pretty and lovely little face, he couldn’t help but sigh. “He looks almost identical to his mother. So pretty!”

He suddenly burst into a string of loud laughter. “I am sure he’ll grow into a great man!”

In the distance, his subordinates stood silently. Although they kept their faces blank, deep inside, they were astounded by the joyous laughter from their boss. What kind of important figure could the child be? They couldn’t help but wonder.

“Oh?” The blind youngster leaned his head slightly and took the child back into his own arms. Although he was simpler than any normal person, he didn’t want the child’s face to be too close to the hands of that venomous snake. In the meantime, he used a one syllable word to express his pure politeness-prone question.

The middle-aged man kept his smile as he stared at the child’s face. However, the smile seemed to also contain an indescribable flavor of horror. “A child only two months old, yet he was able to wipe the blood off his face with his own hands. And after such dreadful terror tonight, he could still sleep so soundly. He is certainly worthy of…”

He suddenly lowered his voice, making sure none of his subordinates could hear the next few words, “…being the child of the Heavenly Vessel.”

This middle-aged man was a powerful man in the capital with a reputation for his cruelty and brutality. No official falling into his hands could withhold anything from him for more than two days. Needless to say, he was a man with sharp eyes. But even such an extraordinary man failed to recognize that the child was not in a sweet sleep but had been scared senseless.

……

……

In the name “Heavenly Vessel,” heavenly indicates the divine connections, and vessel means container for the blood. Putting them together, it means vessel of divine blood descended to the human world. In the legends of this world, every couple hundred years, one of the Heavenly Vessels left in this world by the divine would awaken.

Being a Heavenly Vessel could mean they possess mighty and invincible fighting power, for example, the great general in the Nasgu Kingdom far, far away. At the brink of the complete destruction of their kingdom by the barbarians, with shear personal valor and fighting power, he killed the majority of the barbarian elder assembly and made history.

Some “Heavenly Vessels” would show extreme genius in art or intellectual development, for example the Great Wizard Poore in the western world, who only passed away three hundred years ago, and his wife, playwright Fubo.

Of course, no one could prove that they were true Heavenly Vessels left by divine creatures to overcome the many tribulations of the world. But these people did, in fact, bring peace to the world along with many other things.

In the end all of the “Heavenly Vessels” vanished. No one, not even any country could find any trace of them. They would appear all of a sudden and then disappear out of the blue. Other than some obscure records, they didn’t leave anything that could have proven their existence.

The middle-aged man on wheelchair happened to be one of the very few who knew for sure that such “Heavenly Vessel” phenomenon did indeed exist.

For some unknown reason, after Fan Shen died, his soul came to this world. And just like that……was miraculously reincarnated into an infant’s body, and the infant’s father or mother happened to be the mysterious “Heavenly Vessel” bloodline on this continent.

By daybreak, the battlefield had been cleaned up. The horse-drawn wagon slowly followed the stone slab road eastbound. Right behind the horse-drawn wagon, a troop of dark riders and a pale-faced middle-aged man in a wheelchair made up an eerie scene.

A small rock on the road gave the horse-drawn wagon a bump, which woke the infant lying flatly on the soft silky mat.

The infant’s stare dispiritedly wandered about, skipping the faces of the men who had saved his life, and instead, fixed upon the direction the wagon was heading. The stare was totally different from a normal infant’s stare, which would constantly wobble but remain clear yet unfocused. The stare now contained something more, something beyond words.

No one knew that such a fragile, small body actually contained a soul from a different world.

At the end of his stare, the curtain flapped in the coming wind and exposed a corner of the green hills outside the wagon and the long stone slab road that rapidly moved backward as though there were countless frames in a continuous rewind.

In front of the wagon, the blind youngster held the iron chisel tightly in his grip. A black cloth covered not only his two eyes, but also the entire world.

Now support the author Maoni by clicking this link, and support the translator Lanny by following my blog! :)

Give yourself a pad on the back once a while. You deserve it somehow! And if you can't reach behind to your back, you can always use a robotic arm.

 

Picture of the Day:

 

The Happy Duo

AI and Robots: The Dark Side of Human-Robot Interaction

After three days of struggle, I finally restored my email server back to working state successfully and had all mailboxes working (except my own, which didn't matter much). I have to admit that it was quite some frustration I had to go through. Now for those of you admins out there, had your server ever blown up on you? And did you ever feel like you want to blow up your server?

Well, the admins at ShopperMagic not only felt so, they actually did so.

We decided to give a web server early retirement in a manner that allowed us to "feel good" because it had kept support staff up for many nights trying to sort it out. The server gets a reprogramming it will never forget by stuffing it with fireworks, lighting the blue touch paper, and retiring to a safe distance...

More exploding servers Videos Here

And if you prefer no fire/smoke for potential fire hazard, you could also just let nature (gravity) take its course.

Or use a tractor like people at Tritech

When machines don't deliver the performances they are expected to provide, the frustration can really build up for the user. And when the level of frustration exceeds a threshold, sometimes it turns into violent behaviors. Many of you probably remember this famous video below from several years back:

And of course, who could ever forget this classic scene from the movie "Office Space":

Suppose this machine you are frustrated with is not a computer or printer, but a robot. With the current state of robotic technology and the complexity of tasks, end users are probably more likely to get frustrated with "intelligent" machines/robots such as this one:

Here's another example of someone getting really frustrated with a robot:

By the way, the robot can be just as frustrated.

So in cases like these, as the frustration builds up, would you still beat up the robot?

Or kick it?

Or blow it up?

With the first few videos, most people probably would find them hilarious despite the violence involved. However, with the last two videos, don't you feel something is not quite right here? Something...well...maybe something immoral that makes you uncomfortable? If so, why is that?

Maybe it's the human form that bothered you? Maybe it's the animal kind of behavior? Or the level of intelligence displayed? This reminds me of something I read a long, long time ago. I don't remember who said it, when, and where. It was a conversation about what kind of animals one would eat. And the answer was, "If it talks back to me, then I won't eat it." Here a simple metric of language and communication capability is used to classify whether an animal is intelligent enough. And if it is intelligent enough to talk back, then it would feel immoral to treat it as food. Of course, there are many metrics we can use to judge intelligence. So once we classify a robot as intelligent, would you feel immoral to hit it, or treat it like a mere lifeless machine?

See more details about this experiment here.

This sounds like a very dangerous territory in robotic research, but it is a problem we'll eventually have to face (maybe even not very far from now). So is there something we can do as a designer (not a lawyer or legislator) to address such issues? Should we make the robot appear/sound very machine-like or appear/act dumb to alleviate our moral guilt? Or maybe make them more human-like to amplify it, instead? I don't have the answer. Do you?




If you have a hard time falling asleep, try reading a Bayesian statistics textbook.

Paper Review: Astronauts Must Program Robots

This is a position paper presented at the To Boldly Go Where No Human-Robot Team has Gone Before AAAI Spring Symposium by Dr. Yim from University of Pennsylvania. A lab mate of mine had the privilege of attending this. I only get to read the paper.

Now, don’t let the title fool you. This is not a paper talking about having astronauts sitting in space coding C++. The main idea of this paper is that given the complexity and many possible unexpected events of Mars and Lunar operations, the astronauts need to construct tools (“programming robots”) from a rich set of modules to complete various tasks. Therefore, a new programming model to fit such needs is necessary. The paper defines a robot as “a machine or device that operates automatically or by remote control” and program as “to provide (a machine) with a set of coded working instructions.” Note that these are very broad definitions. We could even define a copier as a robot and specifying how many copies to create as programming.

The paper argues that in addition to robot controlled autonomy, user interfaces and data filtering also required programming, and the context for programming these should be a system modular in both hardware and software. Divide and conquer is a common approach that works well, however, the tradeoff is the granularity of modules. Astronauts are highly skilled/intelligent people. The question becomes: would sending the programming tools to them be an effective and efficient use of resources? And the problem now falls under the Human-Robot Interaction domain.

The paper also presented and effectively argued against some of the common counter arguments:

- Local teleoperation is all that is required
Paper: Some forms of autonomy are likely to be incorporated as part of the user-interface.
Lanny: Yep! I step on gas, and the car goes.

- Programming can occur remotely from ground-based engineers
Paper: Terrain interaction on Mars cannot be duplicated exactly on earth.
Lanny: Don’t forget the 20+ minutes of communication delay.

- We can send highly capable robots that can handle any contingency circumstance
Paper: that’s impossible.
Lanny: “Good morning, Dave!” (See 2001, A Space Odyssey)

- Adding programmability and versatility will reduce efficiency and robustness.
Paper: The cost of not having flexibility and versatility will likely overweigh the loss of efficiency
Lanny: Depending on the context.

The solution proposed in this paper is to use a robot system composed of mostly identical modules such as the PolyBot G2 robot shown below.

When putting multiple of these together, they can form a 4-legged robot, or a bipedal one.

During a IROS 2003 workshop, participants were challenged to make the robot using these modules that can gamble using a slot machine, and you can see the winning configuration in this video:

Gambler Robot Movie (5.4MB mpeg)

The paper concludes that assuming the complexity of Mars and Lunar habitation, maybe the level of sophistication in programming needs to be extended to a similar level of complexity.

This type of robots is also called Shape-changing or Reconfigurable Robots. And here’s a video demonstrating the rich set of functions one can create with such robots:

This paper is certainly a fun read, however, I’d also like to point out some of the drawbacks of such modular systems and other possible solutions.

One major drawback of such modular systems is that it is a homogenous system without any specialized sensors, actuators or processors, and there is either no need or too expensive to have these components on each of the modules. A heterogeneous system with small groups of homogenous components might be a better idea under most contexts. However, that also adds multiple levels of complexities to the configuration and programming.

Identifying and configuring a workable solution using these modular systems also adds more complexity to the problem and adds more workload to the astronauts (taking away time and effort from other tasks). For example, what would be a good shape of the robot for a specific task and how can such a shape be built? The configuration of modules might not be intuitive to the astronauts and while in space, it is also difficult/expensive/dangerous for them to evaluate/test the configurations with possibly unexpected consequences.

If the modular system uses a multi-agent approach for decision making, the decision process can be very difficult for the astronauts to understand. If the decision making is centralized, then extra effort is required to generate and understand communications from each individual module.

Depending on the context, a specialized robot might be more desirable (for example, a transformer robot that can turn into a Roomba vacuum cleaner and a car is cool but unnecessary). Therefore, adding a bit more flexibility to the specialized robot might be better than going completely modular.

Therefore, I think a good solution for astronauts should be a combination of human, specialized robots with added flexibility, and highly flexible robots (modular ones) as additional tools to deal with the unexpected.




"HAL: I am sorry Dave, I am afraid I can't do that."

Picture of the Day:

Random Thoughts: How to lose $200 in Vegas in 2 minutes

[A few words first:]

On the first day of the year, the hard drive of the email server I am administering failed and I could no longer start the server. If you look at today's picture of the day, you'll see that lovely Blue Screen of Death. So I had to rebuild the server from scratch and try to restore a 20GB information store. Although NT Backup said that my backup was very successful at the time of the backup, now at the time of restore, it found inconsistencies and would not let me restore!!! What a great way to start a new year!! All I can say is that I know the rest of the year is going to be wonderful!

Anyway, I did a poll a few months back asking people which book they'd like me to translate first. The answer was very clear. Therefore, my new year resolution is: I'll put more effort into finishing the translation of SPW as most people requested. So look for small segments of translations, as some wise man once said, "Good things come in small packages!".

Since today is the New Year Day, I wish all of you a great new year! I wish your hard drives will last forever! More importantly, I wish you all to think positively and try to learn from your bad experiences, just like the story I am going to share with you today about my bad luck in Las Vegas a few years back.

[Now here's the story:]

Since we live only 5.5 hours from Las Vegas, I have to say, we are no strangers to the casinos. My wife and I are no gamblers, and we are smart enough to never bet our financial future on gambling, so we always followed a simple rule: lose no more than 200 dollars. As soon as our total loss hits that limit, we play no more games for the rest of the trip. The casinos have many games to offer, however, I'd always spend the majority of my budget on Blackjack ($1 tables), the reasons been: first, I know the rules well; second, the dealer only has very slight advantage over my odds of winning. This means that a good number of times I can actually walk away with handsome winnings with respect to my limited budget, and the budget will always last me a long time, so I get my money's worth of play time.

The dealer would always follow the same rule when dealing for himself/herself: if the current sum is less than 18, then deal another card to self, otherwise, no more card

. So if you are discipline enough to follow the same rule, your chance of winning is almos t as good as the dealer except one scenario where the dealer gets a blackjack, and you automati c ally lose (unless you buy insurance, which I am not going to go into details). So that means, your true odds of winning is only slightly less than the dealer if you followed the same rule. Another interesting thing about the game of Blackjack is that you could always double your bet after you lose a round, and double every time if you continue to lose. Then as soon as you win a round, you make up for all the loss in one game. That's why the dealer always pose limits on the table so you can't indefinitely double your bets. Due to the small amount of bet involved ($1 minimum/bet), using this trick, $200 can actually allow me to lose up to 6 games:

1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 = 127

So that day when I walked in the casino and sat in front of the Blackjack table with $200 in my pocket, I was ready to rumble for a few hours. Putting one dollar on the table, I got my cards: the total was 18 and the dealer got 20. No big deal, I'll just double my bet to two dollars. This time I got 19 and the dealer got 20. Fine, I'll bet $4. Then I got 19 and the dealer got 21.... By the sixth game, I was already betting $32, because I have been losing every single time. And guess what? This time the dealer got a Blackjack and automatically won the game!

At this critical moment (since if I bet $64, I would only have $200-$127=$73 left, which wouldn't allow me to easily make up all my losses if I lose the next round), I started thinking: What's the probability that one would lose 7 games of Blackjack in a row? Let's just say the dealer's winning odds is 0.6 and mine is 0.4, meaning the dealer should win 6 games out of 10, then the probability of me losing 7 games straight in a row would be:

0.4 x 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.4 = 0.0016384

Of course my brain isn't capable of such precision, one thing that I was pretty sure was that the probability of me losing 7 games straight in a row is VERY, VERY low. With that in mind, I placed all of the rest of the $200 on the table, $200 - $63 = $137, like any rational person would have done, and was ready to MAKE SOME PROFIT! The dealer mechanically dealt the cards, as precise and dull as a robot, and my jaw almost dropped. I couldn't believe my eyes! I had 18 and the dealer had 20: I lost again! And I've lost all my $200, in just a little bit over 2 minutes. Hey! What's going on here? How could this have happened??!! Even Clark Griswold could do a better job than me!!

Naturally, that marked the end of it, and we spent the rest of the vacation walking, touring, buffeting, and shopping, never played another game of gambling. However, for many months, I still couldn't believe how bad my luck was in that last game. I made the most logical decision I could think of, but I still failed miserably.

Then it came the time when I took a class about Bayesian Theories, and it finally made sense! Have you figured it out yet?

To better explain this, let's just use the example of a coin flip. With a known fair coin, we know that the probability of the coin landing on head is 0.5, which is exactly identical to the probability of it landing on tail. Now let's flip it and suppose it landed on tail. What is the probability of it landing on tail again in the next flip? "Half and half, of course!", you probably would reply, which is perfectly right. But what if you have already flipped the coin 20 times and it all landed on tail. Now what is the probability that it will land on tail AGAIN in the next flip? You'd probably think the probability of it landing on head is much greater than the probability of it landing on tail now, wouldn't you? If so, you've just made the same mistake I made at the Blackjack table. The correct answer is: the probability of it landing on tail is still 0.5.

So the key idea here is that every flip is an individual trial and the probability is fixed for each trail. It doesn't matter how many times you have flipped it before and how the results turn out. As long as the coin is a fair coin, the probability for head or tail for the next trail is fixed at 0.5. Period. All these trails are independent of each other, so even though the probability of getting 21 tails in a row is VERY, VERY small, with respect to the next trail, the probability is still the same.

You might say, wait a minute, now I don't think the coin is fair. Otherwise how could I get 21 tails in a row? And my answer to that is: either you are just really lucky (or unlucky), or maybe the coin isn't fair at all. And now we tread into the field of Bayesian theories: probability of head at 0.5 is your prior belief before you observed any data. After observing 21 tails in a row, you naturally think your prior belief should be corrected and the real probability of head probably should be much lower than 0.5. So observed data allows us to generate a posterior belief which MIGHT be close to the truth.

Let's go back to the Blackjack case and analyze what really happened that day. If the probability values are what I had expected and are fixed (which I strongly believe was the case), because each round is independent of each other, my probability of winning the last game was still 0.4 (vs. the dealer's 0.6), despite of the fact that I had already lost 6 games in a row. Therefore, betting $137 in this one game was indeed a very risky decision, and I paid dearly for that. At the mean time, me losing 7 games in a row was still a clear indication that luck was not with me on that day.

So what have you learned from this? You shall not gamble? Nah! I think it is okay if you treat it as a game and limit the amount of money involved. What I got out of this is that before relying on your intuition, figure out the dependence (or independence) and conditional dependence (or independence) of things first, then you can make more logical decisions!





Swallow a live frog first thing in the morning, and the rest of the day will be wonderful!!

 

Picture of the Day:

Blue Screen of Death from a failed hard drive, the best way to start a new year!