Jon's Theory on Relationship

It was a very lazy week. Again, I didn't do anything useful this week, not even writing a little bit more on this blog. I haven't spent Saturday night watching TV for long. As I just get the TV license renewed, I 'd abuse it a little bit. So Saturday night, I was lying on the bed, holding the remote in my hand, watching TV and getting fatter. The programs were surprisingly good though.

Today, Jon and I were talking about how come gay relationship is always harder than straight couple. He made some very sensible comments.

“I have a theory (i have a lot of theories, many of which are wrong) that the reason so many gay people do not find partners is because they have high standards about how things should be and find it hard to compromise. It's easier for men and women because women are very accepting of how men are and have other means of working things out. whereas, when you get two guys together, they are much more similar and so it's harder to work things out i have this theory because i find myself being like that. ”

I never doubt that one has to compromise in a relationship. I never agreed with the statement of “I am whom I am and don't expect me to change”. But this also means that one has to give up seeking the unrealistic idea of things in one's mind. The question is then that: do I have the courage to give up and is it the right time to do so?

Robots from RO-MAN 06

The last few weeks have been very busy. Finally I managed to have a short break before I dive into more geeky research. Funny thing is that I've had lots of things in my mind during these days that i though I might write them down in my blog later when I have time. Now, I have the time but I don't know what to write.So maybe I should leave the writing for another time. I attended the RO-MAN 06 conference last weekend, which is an IEEE conference on social robotics. I uploaded some pictures of me, my new friends and some robots on the exhibition. They are in my gallery. In case you are curious about how the real robot research is going, I will just briefly explain what the robot in the exhibition can do.

This is a humanoid robot. It can have some basic human emotion expressions and some basic behaviours. But so far, it is still in the early developing stage.

This is a guiding robot. The job of the robot is leading the visitors to each post in the exhibition. You can input the location you want to go on the touch screen. There is a human face on the screen that will interaction with you (very simple interaction at the moment). There are two cameras on the robot and the robot can identify different human face so that in the future, if the followers are falling behind, the robot will wait for them or go back to look for the followers.

These little things are called I-Swam. They are animate ants. The work they can do is very impressive. As you can image that each of them can do actually very limited things because you can't build such a little thing with a very complex system. But, they cooperate as the ants society. They share information and communicate so that when are work in a group, they become very powerful.

This is a robot build on the basis of Pioneer PeopleBot (TM). It is a project from COGNIRON. This robot is currently used to analyse how people react toward social robot, such as a home service robot. It can do some impressive things like serving food, hand shaking etc. But I think at the moment, its actions are mainly under human supervision.

This worm-looking robot is developed on the real structure of the neuron system and muscle structure. It can swim in similar way that animals do. It is impressive not in the way of the job it can do but rather the way of how it does it.

Selfishness

"It was like a slap on my face last night, waking me up from the delusion I was in for many years. Of course, i stayed awake thinking about it till late night.It was his fault. My friend suggested that human genes were programmed to be selfish. Whatever we do are actually founded by our own selfishness. Even contributing to charity monthly is just a deed of self-indulgency. Because I think making others life better makes me happy, and there, I have a motive --- I want to be happy. It simply doesn't matter how you spend your money, charity or drugs, you just want fulfilment out of it. Just because the way that I choose to fulfil myself fall on the righteous side, it is just me being lucky.Suddenly, the values and principles I've hold up to all this while have collapsed. The world seems so pathetic. It seems like everything I do everyday, there's always something in it for me. And I was taught that when I give, I shall do it without asking for reward.Certainly what he said make sense. But something is not right, what is it?"

That was Yu's post on OUT and unfortunately I was the friend which he was blaming. There was a episode in Friends, where Phebie and Joey were arguing about whether there is something as selfishless good deed. There is none as I told Yu. Being selfish is one of the basic instinct for human to survive. The term selfish, however, does not merely refer to the actions that people actively behave for their own benefits sacrificing others'. It is rather a phenomenon or a fact that human and any other creatures are behaving for one principle selfish reason, not surviving as we normally think of but spreading our genes; if we need to die for that at some point, many of us will do. Jyri told me before of where this theory came from but I forget the qutation and the person's name (Jyri told me later that it was from Richard Dawkins). Such selfish behaviours do not need to involve any damage of others'. In fact, when the selfish behaviours of a person match the current moral standard of the society, it becomes a good deed and we call such person a kind generous gentleman/lady. Well this does look like just a matter of terminology at some aspect. If we call some selfish behaviours that benefit others to be good selfishness, there is a quotation that give a conclusion of the bad selfishness we are talking about:

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes – Oscar Wilde

So, don't do that!

An Early Night

I opened my blog and found it strange to have a ugly photo of mine staring at me. Then I decided to take that photo away and put on something more interesting. In case there are folks curious about how funny I look like, there are lots of them in my gallery. FINALLY, the HTML design feature is ready in the new beta version but it is saying that the tags will be totally different. I will have to work it out before I offically switch my blog to the new template version.

I went to gym finally for this first time in a month. I felt that I couldn't follow the weight of strength I was on. I will certainly have to go more otherwise it will make it a big waste of the gym member fee. Yu and I were talking about the body shape again over lunch. He has got better built body and I really wonder where did he get it from. He said it was because he swim often. I kind of agree with it. I haven't been swimming for like three years now. I am not even sure about if I still remember how to do it. But I did take his point anyway and we went to get me a swimming trunk. I am going to rejoin the pool tomorrow. Well, at least, that is the plan.

The weather was totally terrible here in Hatfield. It was not simply because that it was windy and dark all day. The worst thing was that you never got the rain down. Then here is the thing. The sky looked ready for a heavy shower all day. If you didn't get rain falling down, you would have to keep suspecting that the next minute you step out of your house, it would rain. That would be how I end up stay at home for all day and regret for not going out to pick up the grocery in ASDA in the evening. OK, this sounds a little bit of strange but I am such kind of man who will worry things like that.

But to be fair, I did go out today, the gym, lunch and then ASDA. So I guess I am still not in a hopeless situation of worrying stupid things. I was going to cook something really but I had Forest came over tonight and he cooked. He is a really nice kiddo and I never let any advantages going away. So I just enjoyed another lazy evening. We didn't go to Yu's place as we thought we might do earlier because it was 9:00 pm already when we finish dinner and no one felt like going outside after eating. So I sat on my old chair again. I managed to use a pillow to make this chair a little more comfortable.

I didn't get any headache from the drink last night and I did get the call, which I wasn't really expecting. I feel an intention to cool down and reorganise myself. I am a greedy person, though not in a material way. There are times that I could lost my mind totally simply because a case like a girl can't get the doll she wants. But I do feel tired of being in this way. I have lots of heavy baggages on my should and I don't know if I can get another one on. The phone rang, I picked up and I opened my mouth. There were lots of things in my mind, questions, statements, expressions and many more, none of which came out. I think I really should call it a early night. Maybe just for tonight, no MSN before sleep.

Good night. Fluffy Dreams and just a small quotation poped to my head before bed.

Life is a city. Those who are inside want to get out; those who are outside want to get in. from Wei Cheng by Qian Zhongshu

"城里的人想出来，城外的人想进去。" <围城>:钱钟书

After Two Glasses of Wine

I have been busy for a few days. I was doing the preparation for a conference, RO-MAN'06, which is an IEEE annual conference held in my university this time. I showed my boss the presentation I am going to do and he appeared to be happy with it. Then I tried to talk to him about my funding and he appeared hopeless. Lucky me.

We, Yu and I, have got a friend visiting today. Actually, he is a friend of Yu's. They were just kind enough to ask me out with them. It was nice. We watched another DVD borrowed from Jyri. The film was a nice once, Latter Days. But Yu claimed that it was too good to be true in the film and ranked it as a trash. I liked it though. We also watched a documentary on channel Five, Austin Stevens Adventures, which was a very good one on wild animal, snakes to be precise.

Then we sent our friend to the train station and said good bye to him. Then I went home. Now here I am, half past eleven on Friday night, sitting in front my old laptop, expecting a phone call that won't ring up and staring at my helpless MSN. The only good thing is that Jyri is on-line so I get to throw him all my complains. I like to complain a lot and I complain anything because I always expect too much and of course realities never fails to disappoint me. So I complain and it makes me feel much better if I can find someone who really understands it. Jyri said that I am just too analytical in things. Maybe it is a bad habit I get from my research. I think stuff and I think way too much. Sometime, I don't know whether I am just going after an illusion or not. It is so funny that I always mark myself as a mature person but I always trap myself into naïve situations. Maybe I am not what I thought. Do I ever know who I am and what I want? Interesting...

I went downstairs and couple of my house mates were having a night chat. I got myself two glasses of wine from them and now I feel a little drunk. Actually, I am much deeper than two glasses of wine but maybe I just want to giving out all the emotions inside of me with an excuse. I was talking non-sense to someone, which I shouldn't. But I did anyway. Now, maybe it is a time to sleep and cool down, or maybe I will do a few pages of reading. I am reading TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. It is a nice book and I have to finish it soon as I always find some book in Waterstone, a book store, which I want to buy. But I can't do it until I finish this one. Anyway I should stop boring my dear visitors now.

Meeting the right person at the right time is a happiness; meeting the wrong person at the right time is a sadness; meeting the wrong person at the wrong time is a ridiculousness; and meeting the right person at the wrong time is a sigh.