Dreams Come True

The title is not exactly what's happening to my life, but I'd like to quote some lines from the wacky Remix by Star Salzman over at OverClocked Remix:

Remember it's not the end of the world when
You lose all your continues
You can start all over again

Of course an incident happened in my life which makes these lines more meaningful than it was intended. Something in the line of "you'll find pattern everywhere if you look hard enough."
I don't really feel like telling it, so I'll stop here.

Check the remix (music and lyrics) here: http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01149/

Quotations

If you go to my LibraryThing catalog, you'll see that I read a lot (too much?) of comic books. A recent read is a hard cover compilation volume titled "The World's Greatest Super-Heroes". Probably not an inviting title for people who read classics and technical books, but you should see the artwork. It's done by Alex Ross (remember this name). He always render his pages in gouache painting and make these victional characters look alive. (Perhaps he tries too hard to preserve the conventional look of the characters, but his rendering more than makes up for it, I think.)
But it is not the only strength of this volume.

Let me introduce another name: Paul Dini. He did the text; and this entry is a list of quotations from the text. The book is a compilation of a number of stories:

• Superman: Peace on Earth
• The Batman: War on Crime
• Shazam: Power of Hope
• Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth
• Justice League of America: Secret Origins
• Liberty and Justice

Again, probably the titles of individual stories turn off people even more. Admittedly, they do sound so typically ignorant and cheesy. So I'd better get into the good stuff--the quotations.
They come up slowly to take the food and then move back, pale and silent as ghosts.
Only one little boy speaks. He looks at what I've given him, then at me, and asks, "Will you come back tomorrow?"
I look away.
This is a narration by the superhero who started it all: Superman. Even with his god-like powers, he cannot solve all problems in the world on his own. I think this is an important realization for every person toward maturity. As Stephen Covey puts it, first we become independent. The next step is realizing that we are all inter-dependent and embrace this concept.
Similar narrations:

• I can't overcome their generations of fear any more than I can force them to accept what I've brought.
• In other countries I am reviled as a political activist, a usurper, or a fraud. They don't want me there regardless of what I'm bringing or whom it could help.
• It was never my intention to turn human beings into a desperate, unthinking mob.
• My mission ends here, incomplete and in failure.

Next is the Batman.

• What kind of man would I have become if things had been different?If, instead of using my fortune as a means to fight crime, I allowed myself to be ruled by it and all its temptations.
  If I truly became what I appeared to be to others [as Bruce Wayne]?
• I try to imagine what my life would have been like as a poor child on the street, my family gone, no one to look after me.
  Stripped of those sources, would I still have tried to fight crime however Icould, or would I have turned my anger back on society as so many others have done?

I'm no billionaire, but there are times that I think of these questions myself. "What if I were born on 'the other side'?" I think it is crucial to understand our "self" better than anyone else can tell/teach us.

Finally, there is this quotation that I really like. It was written at the beginning of Superman's story and repeated at the end. The important point is that in the beginning, it was his Pa's belief; in the end, it was his.

• He knew not every seed would make it, but Pa wanted to give each one the chance to grow.
• I tell them not every seed will make it--
  --but all of them deserve the chance to grow.

I grew up in a society in which a definition of success is more or less dictated from parents to children. Further, kids are expected to succeed. Any less, it is a shame for your parents. Of course I'm lucky enough that my parents are understanding, but undeniably there was a time in which I felt the most worthlessest kid because I found myself to at the long tail of kids. That I didn't deserve a good life because I failed.
But somehow I slowly figured that because I'm alive, I deserve to live and am responsible to live.
The "seed" in that last quotation symbolizes so many things in life that I strangely attracted to it even though it is probably so straightforward and meaningless to others.
Anyway, I'm not good at explaining things and right now I'm not sure if I understand why I like this quotation, so I'll stop here. Let me finish with a wish.
Often times, I overhear people saying more-or-less in the tone of "super hero stories are for kids". Even the word "super hero" itself seems to be... "not for grown-ups". Well, this is true for the older versions of super hero stories. But writings always blow up a theme, a concept larger than life. Recent super hero stories do this to individuals. They blow up individuals to tell our struggle to fit in, our conflict (internal and external).
Well, there are stories that really are for kids; but it's unfair to label a large class using a label of a smaller subclass.
Guess what I wish is like anyone else's wish in this ever niche-going society: please show a little more appreciation to my little niche interest.

Kamen Rider for Computer Science

I just thought of a crazy idea. To begin, let us trace back to why it crossed my mind in the first place.

I liked Kamen Rider Black. It is a show "for kids" that people probably will say similar to Power Rangers. I think I can accept this in terms of casual public's thinking: action figure tie-ins, heroes fighting monsters with enough time to pose to the camera, etc. But as a fan, I disagree quite strongly. While there are excellent Power Ranger series (Ninja Storm and Space Patrol Delta come to mind), Kamen Rider series usually have a much darker background story, complete with conspiracy theory paranoia (and, of course, Kamen Riders no longer pose that much Edit: this is no longer true with "modern" Kamen Riders. They now pose as often, if not more often, than Power Rangers.).

Well, anyway, note the "Black" sub-title. It was rather long ago (long, long ago, 20th century--if you get the reference, heh). These days, Kamen Riders are getting weirder (and sometimes childish).
Take Kamen Rider 555 for example. A person needs to wear the belt (Kamen Rider trade mark equipment/morpher), dial "555" on a mobile phone, put the mobile onto the belt, and he transforms into Kamen Rider Faiz. Silly, huh? (But I love Faiz, the action sequences and gimmicks somehow got into me.)
Another recent example is Kamen Rider Blade. Of course the main Rider uses a sword.

Now, extrapolating, what if we were to design a Kamen Rider series to get kids into computer science? (As a part of our grand scheme to take over the world peacefully.) Kamen Rider EM came to my mind. EM stands for Expectation Maximization (Google it, there are a lot of tutorials out there). Well, one of the uses of EM algorithm is to estimate Gaussian mixture distribution, so probably we can represent each monster as points on high-dimensional space. The Rider will pose dramatically as he tried to estimate parameters needed to fit the monster's points. Once he can fit the points using a Gaussian distribution, that's when he delivers the final, destructive blow. A punch maybe. Or a kick. Gaussian Kick?
Then, as the series progresses, he will of course meet stronger monsters. Even ones he clearly cannot defeat. So he will need an upgrade. He needs a better mathematical model to defeat the monsters.

Well, a monster does not usually follow the same fighting pattern all the time. So, a better model is to assume that the monster assumes a certain fighting state at a point in time. Each fighting state can be modeled by a Gaussian mixture; while the change from one fighting state to another can be modeled by transition probabilities.
Kamen Rider EM evolves into Kamen Rider HMM. Now he has new weapons: Ergodic shield and, uhm, Left-to-right Sword.

Another Rider to accompany EM in the series can be other classes of computation. Instead of statistical powers, this Rider prefers deterministic powers. Kamen Rider Algo perhaps? Not sure yet how he fights and what weapons he has.

Some thoughts for another day when I re-visit algorithms perhaps.
(Yes, I got this crazy idea while re-reading about EM algorithms.)

And that's enough fantasy for one day.

(Edited on 5 March 2015)

Chinese Restaurant

Channel News Asia currently airs a show called Chinese Restaurant on Sunday afternoons. To explain why it resonated with me, let us start with the premise of the show. At each episode, the host (who we never really see but whose voice we always hear) will travel to a place and look for a Chinese restaurant at the place. He will see the restaurant owner(s) and asks him/her/them how they got there.

At almost every episode I found myself relate to the story surprisingly easily. The story of the people who actually traveled to the new place from China is probably similar in taste as my grandparents'. As bitter-sweet as they are, what touched close to my heart was the question the host asked to their children/grand children: Do they consider themselves Chinese or, say in my case, Indonesian?

In the episode shown today, however, the story was a little different. The restaurant owner this time was "Noisy Jim". He was 16 year-old when his family moved from China to Canada. The difference this time was that we heard the story from him, not his parents.
(Another different aspect was that Jim's restaurant did NOT sell Chinese food. He sold western food like bacon and eggs for breakfast; pork chop for lunch; pie for dinner.)
What Jim had to say when the host asked his question was this: "I am me. (pause) That's how I think of it. I am me. Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, it doesn't matter. That's why my thinking never changes."

I wish I could answer the same question as confidently as Jim did. I cannot. My answer is still a shaky "A part of me thinks I am 100% Chinese, but another part of me is undeniably Indonesian." I see myself as both. And it is tough when both sides "clash". It is never fun to be stuck in the middle.

Sometimes I wonder if I am denying my origin by never bothering to re-learn the Mandarin language (I learnt it when I was in elementary and soon forgot it because I never used it). Sometimes I wonder why I am now more comfortable speaking about things that matter to me in English.

On the one hand, surely this cannot be wrong? After all, this is me.
On the other hand, what about my origin? Doesn't it matter at all to me?

Maybe I'm thinking about this in an improper angle. Maybe I should not see them as clashing or whatever. Now I understand that this apparent contradiction is natural and common in life. I can embrace it instead of fight it.

The episode ended in a rather bitter taste because Jim passed away two months after the host saw him.

All in all, I recommend this show to any fellow overseas Chinese out there. I think it captures our stories well (not too much sugar coating nor simplification).

(Edited on 5 March 2015)