Diary in another world
I have lots of thoughts and opinions to anything I saw, watched, read or dreamed everyday, unrelated to my official life.
2024-11-03
Critical minds are naturally incompatible with racism. Those scientists who are also racists are just thinking they are doing science, or they are not real racists.
Why people don’t like working in office? I think long-commuting is just an excuse.
2024-11-05
LinkedIn is a nice place to figure out why the world goes to a mess.
2024-11-07
Two things in interpersonal skills: 1. Some people try to be respected by being intimidating. This is a trap, and almost all successful people are approachable. 2. If you support people who shouldn’t be supported for personal safety or benefit, gradually you will be surrounded by people who have opposite values to yours, and you will create a world that you don’t like with your own hands.
2024-11-09
There is a saying in Chinese that goes “You haven’t got started yet”, which means that a person has not mastered a subject. Now I find that not getting started is a very good state. Once you have fully mastered a subject, you will fully understand its limitations and will have no interest in continuing to study it.
2024-11-10
Any space you leave out of kindness may become a place for others to take advantage of. But if they didn’t, they are your friends.
People may not live in groups as much as imagined, so many people prefer to work remotely and do not like to go back to the office. This requires rethinking all shared spaces. Starbucks created a popular third shared space because it is stress-free, and people may need private space when they are stressed. Perhaps offices need to be converted into a large number of single rooms, public transportation needs to be equipped with single seat partitions, etc. Privacy in public spaces needs to be improved.
2024-11-12
Feel fortunate that I haven’t met any strange things in paper submission, the reviewers are all quite decent.
2024-11-16
Even in a good coffee shop, not every cup of coffee is perfect. Being able to do a simple thing consistently well is not easy.
2024-11-24
Met a professor from Japan at the FMLDS conference, he had also a mechanical engineering background, then converted to information science, and then lots of algebra appeared in his presentation. I seem to see myself in 10 years.
2024-12-01
According to John Stuart Mill, moral courage is a product of freedom. I think this freedom may be more of a learned spiritual freedom.
2024-12-14
I don’t understand why women can be racist or don’t care about animal rights. Strengthening a form of hierarchy will only hurt us in the end, because women have never been at the top of any hierarchy.
2025-3-22
I feel like I need someone to help me read and select research papers - I simply don’t have the patience for it myself. I’ll read a few lines, and as soon as I sense the author is just filling space without substance, or purposely hiding critical information, I lose all interest. Maybe I’m fundamentally unsuited for applied research.
2025-6-16
Thesis submitted. Writing a diary book in Chinese. Building an app for job-hunting. Watching movies of the 1920s, such as ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’ by Dreyer. I also wish to do sth with my old expertise in mechanical engineering, but not sure how. Enjoying the wet Summer days in Shanghai.
2025-10-26
Officially, Dr.Xu.