Innovation

Preface

This session I am taking a class related to technological innovation, and it prompts me to think about the role of innovation in country building and capacity building. First of all, I would like to say that I am not an expert at all. It is just something which came across my mind, and if someone who has more experience and knowledge can point me, I am more than happy. 

As everyone knows, Myanmar (Burma) is one of the least developed countries in the world. Recently, its political situation has become better and it is now heading towards the better future. However, the obstacles are ridiculously big especially for social-economic situations.

Strategically speaking, Myanmar (Burma) is located in the key position – between China and India. Since social-economic situation is related to many factors, including political stability, education, welfare, laws and judicial system, corruptions, and most importantly international relations, it is, actually, hard to pin-point which can turn around the situation.

However, since more or less my course work is related to the technological innovation, I would like to write something as far as I can think of.  Actually, I really like to see the country to enjoy the innovation driven economy instead of relying on natural resources and unsustainable economy.

Innovation

As far as I concern, innovation is the philosophy. The root of innovation comes from the desire and ability to make things better. Therefore, innovation can come from individuals, organizations, governments, firms and networks of organizations, globally or locally.

In fact, to make things better is not at all very difficult. It does not need to be impressive nor well-known. As long as something has become better than it used to be, it is the worthy innovation.

Therefore, I believe that in order to build the innovative driven economy, it is essential to have the widespread philosophy of making things better throughout the country.

Importance of Innovation

Only innovation can guide the society to step further – it is not the political system; it is not the foreign investment; it is not the international aid; which can actually develop the country. It is the innovation only which can make the country better.

However, the political system, foreign investment, international aid are essential for the innovation because they can create the environment which innovation can happen.

Obstacles for Innovation

The most fundamental ingredient of innovation is Freedom – the freedom to express well, the freedom to communicate well and the freedom to compete well. Therefore, needless to say, innovation is highly intertwined with democratic values. The more innovations will make the country more democratic and more democratic country will make more innovations.

Lack of diversity, excessive attention to the traditional norms, and lack of tolerance to competing ideas are the huge obstacles for creating the innovative environment.

Moreover, innovation requires acknowledgement – the acknowledgement has very little to do with monetary rewards. It is just the recognition from the community and society which can encourage and foster the innovation.

Being different is a bonus. However, it is also important that the differentness lead to better situation. If something is different from the norm, it can go either way: good or bad. Therefore, it is very important to foster the differentness into something good.

Finally, the absolute obedience can also be the huge obstacle for the Innovation. Being an Asian society, the country pays the great attention to elderly and filialness. Although it is really great to respect elderly, in the rapidly changing environment, it is highly questionable if the elderly can catch up with the speed of the change to guide to the right direction. Therefore, it could be a better solution to encourage the development of the better decision making for younger generations by themselves. It can not only encourage innovation, but also build the mutual respect between younger and older generation.

Driving Factors for Innovation

Actually, the need for innovation is intrinsic, rather than extrinsic. “Innovate or Die” is indeed the natural phenomenon. We don’t have to look further – Darwin’s Natural Selection Theory strongly suggests that only innovative individual or society can survive. That’s why we need to innovate to survive.

Technically speaking, the world is totally flat nowadays. Now that the country is open to the global market and economy, the country has to compete with competitors around the world. Therefore, if we do not have what others cannot offer or imitate, there is very little chance that we can survive.

In addition, as far as I concern, the country economy is more or less relying on small and medium businesses. However, without innovation, small and medium businesses will suffer more and will become less competitive against global competitors.

Therefore, in my humble opinion, although the foreign investments is essential to drive the economy forward, it is also important that there should be a breeding ground for small and medium businesses to enjoy the technological spillovers and can thrive and become strong enough for the global market.

Towards Innovative Society

Last few years, it could have been unimaginable for US President visiting Myanmar (Burma). However, the situation has become better and it is really grateful to the President Obama to encourage moving forward.

However, as the President stated, it is just the beginning. However, US set the best example to follow for any country: within 200 years, US has changed from the wild land into the world’s leading country.

To build innovative society cannot happen overnight; it will take a lot of resources, knowledge, capacity and so on. However, the first step of innovative society is the philosophical attitude – to make things better than they are.

Therefore, if we can make things better than yesterday, needless to say, we will be able to reach the innovative society, in which innovative and democratic values are ubiquitous.

Source: http://www.globalinnovationindex.org/gii/main/fullreport/files/Global%20Innovation%20Index%202012.pdf

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Grandpa and Grandma

Today is the 7th Anniversary of Grandpa's Death. It has been 7 years already; however it was just like yesterday to me.

Although both grandma and grandpa are caring people not only to the family but also all the people around them, they do have different personalities.

Grandpa is quiet, really patient, not business-minded, caring and supportive. But grandma is outgoing, short-tempered, strong-minded, and a little bit talkative.

Although Grandpa was really patient and not easy to be angry, when he was really angry, I couldn't find a place to hide :). I still remember one incident. Grandpa never hit me or even scolded me for more than 5 times in my whole life. But at that time, he was really angry. One day, I had something to do in school and had to go to school early. So, Grandpa woke up early in the morning and prepared a breakfast for me, and he woke me up. But well I retook a short nap after grandpa woke me up, and I was late for school. But grandpa was not angry yet. He asked me to eat some breakfast not to be hungry later. But I refused and headed for school. And then, grandpa yelled at me and threw the plate to me. If I hadn't learned some Karate Moves, I would not have been able to avoid that flying saucer. It took the whole family's persuasion and 3 days for grandpa to talk to me again.

Grandma is really healthy and she also know how to take care of health. I still remember, during the flu season, she woke up early in the morning and boiled some herbal medicines and (honestly, they really are bitter :) I had to hold my breath to drink) asked us to drink them.

Actually, grandma is strong both physically and mentally, although she is a little bit short and slim. Even in face of difficulties, she is always high-spirited, and always try to find a way to overcome.

Although both grandma and grandpa are different in personality, they really are a nice couple. Although they sometimes argue (well, as far as I can tell, it was usually the grandma who did the scolding :D, grandpa was just nodding the head), they really care for each other. I still remember when grandma had an operation for her eyes, grandpa was staying beside her all the time. Also when grandpa was fighting against his cancer, it was grandma who lent her strong spirit to grandpa.

Now, it has been 7 years grandpa passed away. Grandma is now 79 but she is still strong and healthy. She told me her goal is to stay strong until 90s. Please stay strong grandma. I love you and miss you a lot.

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မ်က္ဝန္း

I really love this song...

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Portrait

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Mind, Body and Soul

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Why do we play games?

By nature, mammals, including human beings, are playful creatures. Most of our childhood life is spent by playing games. Playing, in fact, is the most efficient form of active learning.

In essence, we live in the world, where we do not know what the actual reality is. In fact, we can only know the world, through our experiences and build these experiences to model our reflections of the world in our mind.

Our experiences, in fact, is our reality. Our experiences have become parts of our memories and which will be later used to make decisions. Therefore, we live in 2 parallel worlds, one of which is our mental projection of the reality and the other is the actual reality, which we do not know. According to our experiences everyday, we are constantly changing our mental model to understand the real world. Whenever there is a difference between our mental model and the real world or whenever there is something new which doesn't exist in our mental model, we adjust our mental model to fit for the reality; this is what we call the 'learning'.

Learning is not easy effort. It involves identifications, classifications, connections, associations and recognitions. Whenever we come across new things, we need to identify them by using our existing mental model. To put it simply, we need definitions for our new things. Then, we need to categorize them, and put them under some categories. Then, we need to connect them to other similar or different things. Then, we associate them with something vivid. (For example, when we hear a word 'Apple', it is interesting to see what has appeared in our mind: the mental image in the shape of apple or the word itself. And if we are bilingual, what we first describe the apple, the mother language or the second language.) And finally, we will be able to recognize them and they have become part of our mental model. At this point, the learning is complete.

I think what makes human beings different from other mammals or humanoids, such as Chimpanzee,  is not our intelligence; it is our ability to learn. As far as I can tell, the ability of human to learn is boundless. We can learn languages, mathematics, arts, music, cooking, dancing, fishing, swimming, flying, martial arts, sports, and well, what not. It is not because we, human beings, are more intelligent than other mammals, it is more likely because we can more quickly change our mental model to adapt the new situation. As far as I can feel, it is the greatest gift given by the evolution and natural selection.

Playing is, in fact, a part of process of building mental model by simulating the reality. Playing, however, has some limits; it is the simplified version of reality by predefined rules and goals. It is in fact the learning tool which allows us to learn more actively.

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October 7

October 7. On this October 7, the death anniversary of Grandpa will be 7th year. When looking back, I think most of my childhood life had been with Grandpa. I think he was the only person who can understand me almost completely.

It is hard to explain but there is chasm of understanding between one person and another. Normally, we can share ideas and thoughts between one person and another, but how can we actually express our deepest thoughts to another person sincerely? Can we actually know our deepest thoughts? Well, it is hard, believe it or not? Most of us think we know who we are, but we don't actually know. Maybe 90% of our thoughts and ideas come from projection of others.

Well, it is really hard to find someone who can understand you deeply; it is simply because in order to understand someone else, we need to understand ourselves deeply. It would be kind of difficult to think why we need to understand ourselves in order to understand other people. It is simply because we normally understand others by putting ourselves in their situations. For example, if we don't like something, it is hard to understand other people who like it.

When I was young, I was really curious as far as I can remember. I wanted to ask questions. Being close to Grandpa, I kept questioning him a lot things, most of which would be probably non-sense in the eyes of an adult. For example, who filled the water in the coconut ? But Grandpa never joked around or laughed at me, however silly the question was. He tried his best to answer. Well, of course, there were times he could not answer my questions at all. But he never beat around the bush whenever he could not answer. He just simply said he could not answer my question, and he always pointed to the Encyclopedia and said to me that answers to my questions would be probably inside that book. I didn't realize that it was his trick to teach me reading quicker. Honestly, at that time, my biggest ambition was to be able to read the Encyclopedia, and whenever I had a chance, I looked at that book and view the pictures, and felt happy when I could find some words which I could understand.

When I was young, I had a hard time with spelling English words. I felt really bored with learning things by heart which I did not understand. Of course, I made a lot of spelling mistakes. Grandpa rarely scolded me for the mistakes. He asked me why I was not interested in spelling correctly, and I simply replied I never saw such words in the real-world. From that day onwards, Grandpa took me with him whenever he went for a walk. Along the way, he pointed to the different things and asked me to spell. I started to enjoy the English spellings.

When I was young, I loved Geometry, but I really hated Arithmetic. I felt really frustrated to memorize the multiplication table. My school teacher told me if I didn't learn the multiplication table by heart, I could not do well in Arithmetic. Although nodded, I asked myself what was the point. Of course, I asked Grandpa too. He asked me to bring a handful of grains of rice from the kitchen. He asked me to count the grains one by one. I counted, counted and counted. After a while, I felt really bored, and asked him if there was any other way to count them faster. Grandpa smiled at me, and said to me, "Yes, Of course." He asked me to group the grains of rice into rows and columns, and he asked me to count the rows of grains and he also asked me to count the columns, and he asked me the total. Of course, I could not answer. Then, Grandpa brought the multiplication table and asked me to look for the answer.

When I first heard the Earth was round, I could not believe it. I asked myself how I could stand up on the round Earth, and I asked Grandpa too. He told me to bring a soccer ball and a glass of water. He asked me to drip some water drops on the soccer ball, and asked me to see if the water drops fell off from the ball. To my surprise, they did not fall off. And he explained me that the size of the ball was a lot bigger and it pulled the water droplets. I couldn't help imagining myself that I was being pulled by the Earth. I dreamed about falling into the sky from the Earth at that night.

Being a fatherless child himself (Grandpa's dad died when he was 12), I think Grandpa saw himself in me. As for me, I see myself in Grandpa too. In Gone With the Wind, Rhett Butler said third generation is more or less similar to the first generation. I would not be surprised much about that.

I still remember that on rainy days, both Grandpa and me looking at the sky and talked and discussed about different things from Buddhism to the Fall Of the Rome, from Johnathan Swift to Oscar Wilde. At that time, I did not realize that these are the happy and most valuable moments which I will never be able to get back.

Grandpa did not believe in life after death, on which I had discussed a lot with him. Although he knew a lot about Buddhism, he was not convinced that life after death actually existed. At that time, I was not able to convince him or prove it either. However, during his last days, this very idea gave him very uneasy thought; he felt that he would not be able to see his beloved family ever again.

After Grandpa passed away, I was really curious about life after death. Although it made me very uneasy, it also make me ask myself if there were no life after death, how I would spend my life? It is very much similar to if we only had 10,000 dollars to spend for the rest of our life, what would we buy?

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Zero

If someone were to ask me, ' what is my favorite number', I would have replied 'zero'. Although it seems insignificant at first, I think zero is the most phenomenal number.

In the first place, zero represents the nothingness, which in fact does not exist in the real world at all. Actually, the mind of human can only understand the existence of something, but not the non-existence of something.

According to the Pythagorean Philosophy, there are four fundamental concepts of Mathematics: harmony, astronomy, geometry and arithmetic.

Arithmetic is primarily concerned with addition and subtraction, or more precisely counting. The entities of the same category can be added together endlessly, until the group becomes infinitely large. This is the basic concept of addition. Similarly, subtraction is the reverse process. From a group of entities, each entity is taken away until there is nothing left. In fact, the subtraction introduces a problem - the empty group.

Geometry is primarily concerned with size, location and shape. It was Thales who first introduced a point to the Geometry, which has no size nor shape but just location.

Harmony is primarily concerned with relative comparison: how large an entity is compared to the others. In fact, most arts and musics are based on harmony, which defines the ratios between different and similar entities. For example, musical notes are defined in relative ratios and the geometry of drawings are defined in certain ratios. The most famous ratios are the golden ratio and PI.

Astronomy is primarily concerned with relative location and motion. The first astronomers were the merchants who used the location and motion of stars to calculate their location in the sea or in the desert.

Although the basic concepts of mathematics are defined in 4 aspects: harmony, astronomy, geometry and arithmetic, the idea of nothingness or emptiness was not well defined in Greek Mathematics. There were school of philosophers who agreed with nothingness while others strongly argued. For example, those who opposed the idea of nothingness argued that a stick could be divided into 2 pieces, 4 pieces and so on until it became infinitely small.

The idea of nothingness or emptiness (Śūnyatā) comes from Indian Philosophy. Some ideas of emptiness can be seen in Taoism as well. Through the Arabic Philosophers, the ideas of emptiness was imported to the Western World, until it became successfully integrated with the existing Greek Mathematical Philosophy.

It is in fact the idea of Zero which laid the foundation of Modern Mathematics and Physics. Calculus had not been invented until after the idea of zero was well defined in Mathematics, although the basic concepts of Limit and Continuity, such as Zeno's Paradoxes were already introduced. Therefore, zero is the most phenomenal number at least I believe.

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Heroes of Bagan

Today, I received a book called Heroes of Bagan  by Thaw Dar Swe (Originally written by Daw Khin Myo Chit as Anawrahta of Burma) from Grandma. I am really happy to read it again :). I first read this book when I was 14 year old or so. It was Grandpa who bought me this book. Maybe it is one of the reason why I am fascinated about the Bagan (Pagan) Dynasty.

As the original author, Daw Khin Myo Chit, said, the book may not be historically correct; however, we can see the bond between the king and his dependable subjects and how they took part in the country building tasks. We can see loyalty, betrayal, love, hatred, sacrifices, war, peace, conquerors, losers, sufferings, passions, and above all else, the unity of strength in this book.

The story is, actually, more than 1000 year old. However, the characters of the story are so vivid that they seem still alive until today. Actually, there are many stories about the origins of nations or countries, for example, the Romance of Three Kingdoms in Chinese History,  Ivanhoe and King Richard in English History, and Iliads and Odyssey in Greek History. We are not sure how accurate are these stories, but more importantly they are still alive until today.

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Education = Exploration + Experiment + Experience

"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it; and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living"

-Henri Poincare

This is the quote from the preface of my physics book. This quote not only reflects the passion of a great scientist, but it also points out the meaning of education.

Education, as I believe, is the integration of exploration, experiment and experience.

The first purpose of education is to open our mind, and to see the world more openly and widely. To put it shortly, the first purpose of education is to explore. Every branch of knowledge known to the humanity is not complete yet. There are more to explore, more to see and more to discover. That is why it is very important to encourage  to explore more without limiting the potential. Since we were born, we in fact have a huge curiosity to learn and explore. We felt delight to see new things; we felt happy to see the vast sky; we felt enjoyable to see the butterflies flying. In fact, when we truly ask ourselves about the world around us, how many levels of 'why' we can actually ask. For example, if we ask ourselves why the Earth is rotating around the Sun, the answer is the pull of Gravity. But if we continue to ask why the gravity pulls, then we have reached the dead-end because we still don't know why the gravity pulls. Therefore, every exploration starts with a question. The more we ask, the more we can explore.

The second purpose of education is to experiment, and to try. In fact, trying is always associated with both failures and successes. However, the education is to encourage experiments even though there are risks of failures. In fact, the second purpose of education is to teach that failures are as important as successes in experiments. According to the Quantum Mechanics, we have a one millionth chance to be able push through a brick wall, which means if we keep trying until one million and one times, we can successfully pass through the wall. By the way, it is a joke though :) 

And the final purpose of education is to experience, and to learn from both exploration and experiment. There is a world of difference between knowing the England and actually having been to the England. Therefore, the more experience we have, the more we are closer to the meaning of education. In fact, the experienced society is the educated society. After all, the leading societies are the societies which have enough experience to build rockets and robots, to explore outer space, to venture into deep water and so on. But these experiences did not come without a price; all experiences come from exploration and experimentation.

I think the educated society cannot be measured by the number of university graduates it produces, but by the number of explorers, inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists, artists, writers, politicians and so forth.

And the last, but not the least. Education is a life-long learning; it is almost impossible to teach everything in school. However, it is possible to teach the spirit of life-long learning: to explore, to experiment and to experience.

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Courage

It has been a while since I last wrote the blog, and kinda busy a little bit. The word 'Courage' has come to my mind these days. Well, it is not because I am so courageous. Maybe I might be a little bit scared. However, I strongly believe that a society will not advance a single inch if there are not people who want to build a glider and jump off the cliff to test if he can fly or not.

In fact, we owe our facilities, equipments, and many other things to those who did sacrifice for these things.  When we look back to the history of aviation, it took a lot to accomplish this ridiculous idea of flying. Different people tried different ways to fly. When we see them trying, we might think they are just crazy people who are working hard for something impossible. However, history has proved that although the first person who tried flying failed and died, his action has not been wasted. Without his endeavor, we could not have been able to travel with ease and comfort.

Some arduous tasks, in fact, take more than just one generation. The first generation failed, but the second generation picked up the ideas and improved, but still failed. But the third generation will succeed.

Now that the world's resources are depleting, we cannot pass the resources to the future generation. The resources will be depleted anyway; however, we can pass our ideas, and knowledge and adventures so that the future generation will pick up, improve and thrive. 

However, it is still a mystery to me what made Columbus to sail west despite the strongly belief at that time that the world was totally flat, what made Neil Armstrong to become the first astronaut to land the moon, which used to be the place only reachable in our dreams, and what made Socrates choose the poison cup instead of abandoning his belief.

Indeed, we need heroes, our country needs heroes, and our world needs heroes.

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Naruto and One Peice

I am a fan of both One Piece and Naruto. It has been almost 7 years since I have been watching Naruto and One Piece, and I have never come across other masterpieces, which are as good as these two series in terms of underlying philosophy and meaning of life, which is why, I think, I like both of them a lot.

Although these two animes have different storylines based on different themes and settings, they are in common in the way they try to reveal the very important aspects of life. From the first look, these animated cartoons seems to be intended for the kids' entertainment; they both, in fact, go beyond that. When we look deeper into these animes, we will see the striking and strong message about life, which the authors are trying to convey to the world.

1. The Reason of Our Existence

Yes, it is the foremost and strongest message from these two animes - the reason of our existence. We are indeed the purposeful beings. Let alone being humans, even the mere existence of a simple life form is a miracle. (Even with the extensive extraterrestrial life search, scientists still cannot find the existence of other life-forms except from our planet Earth.) Being miracles, we are not born to this world just to eat, live and die. Everyone of us has our own reason of existence, and our success in life totally depends on our reason of existence. In fact, success in life has nothing to do with money, fame or power; but it has everything to do with our reason of existence. Sadly enough, only a few people can realize their reason of existence and lead a meaningful life. Most of us are lost in the struggles of life, or the so-called rat-race, following the mirages of fame, money and power. There is nothing wrong about the struggles of life; however, the authors want to point out that we should follow our dreams, not the fame, money and power. In order to live a meaningful life, we must have:

(a) something to live on - our livelihood, but it is not enough
(b) something to live for - our quest of life, but it is not enough yet
(c) something to die for - our most precious thing to protect, even dearer to us than our lives, which will complete our reason of existence.

Until we cannot realize our reason of existence, we are not complete. We will never be truly happy or satisfied with our life. Since our childhood, we have had our dreams which more or less reflect our reason of existence. Some dreams maybe foggy or improminent, yet all dreams are important to live a purposeful and meaningful life. Still, how many of us can answer this question sincerely and honestly? Will you continue to do as you do if you are going to die tomorrow?

2. Lifelong Goal

We may never reach the stars, but they can guide us. Life itself is a journey. Like any other journey, we need a compass to guide us. Yes, it is our lifelong goal which serves as our compass of life. In fact, our lifelong goal should be the projection of our reason of existence. Naruto's dream is to become a Hokage; Luffy's goal is to find one piece. Actually, being a Hokage or getting one piece, is not really important; these are just precious things of their reason of existence; these goals are just the precious things they want to fight for. For example, if someone says I want to be a doctor, it does not just mean that his/her goal is fulfilled after he/she receives the Medical Degree. It just reflects the fact that he/she wants to cure diseases, to help people to be more healthy, and to discover new medical technologies. It is, in fact, the lifelong goal which we need to continuously pursue. With our lifelong goal, we will enjoy trying, not just achieving.

3. Teamwork and Friendship

Since we are not supernatural beings, we cannot live alone. We are interconnected with other people, most importantly family and friends, who have different reasons of existence and abilities. We only exist just because of the known and unknown sacrifices and efforts of others from the past and the present. During our life of journey, we will come across different people with different ideas and views. But more importantly, we will be able find those who share same interests and ideas, and they will become part of our life and pursue the existences of our own.

When we form friendship, the most important thing is to build trust and mutual understanding. First of all, both authors point out that people are different, yet there are common things in them. Being different is not a drawback; it is in fact a bonus. Along the way, there will be fights, arguments, and disagreements, but in face of critical time, it is more important to stick together to go through together. The bond of friendships will become stronger as we go through together.

4. Leadership

Both animes point out the importance of transformational leadership. Both Naruto and Luffy are transformational leaders - they transform people around them to become better people. They not only encourage them but also trust their comrades to be able to do their best. Actually, the best form of encouragement is by actions, not by words. Without saying much, both of them set the best examples for others to follow. They never judge their comrades; instead they believe in them.

5. Handling imperfection and Weaknesses

No man is perfect, and do not try to be. Both authors never portray Naruto and Luffy as super-cool guys. There are times they are super stupid and acting like idiots. In fact, both Naruto and Luffy know their weaknesses and just accept them as they are. They never try to proof otherwise. Actually, both authors want to suggest that hiding weaknesses and pretending not to have them is the wrong concept.

Although there will be more points for these two animes, as far as I concerned, these are the most important things of the underlying philosophy of these two animes. Personally, I think both of the animes are worth watching.

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Vector and Raster Graphics

Raster Graphics

Most traditional images such as pictures, drawings, and photos are stored in raster graphics format (bitmap). A bitmap is a 2 Dimensional array, where each element in the array represents a pixel of the image. Depending on the format, a pixel can be represented by 8 bit (256 color palette) or up to 32 bit (RGBA Red, Green, Blue and Alpha for transparency) .

Therefore, when a bitmap picture is rendered on the screen or on the display media, each pixel directly corresponds to the pixels on the display media. In fact, bitmaps have been very popular since they are very easy to be created, stored and displayed.

However, when it comes to processing or manipulating the image, bitmap images are not very easy to be processed. For example, scaling or shearing a bitmap image requires a lot of computational power and complex image processing algorithm. When a 640x480 bitmap image is enlarged to 1280x960 bitmap image, a pretty good interpolation algorithm is necessary to fill space of extra 640x480 pixels. In fact, even with the cutting-edge interpolation algorithm, the result is not very satisfactory; the resulted image is more blurry than the original one.

Vector Graphics

In order to overcome the drawbacks of image processing, raster graphics need to hire the power of vector graphics. In fact, vector graphics has long been used to represent images in computer graphics. In vector graphics, images are seen as mathematical geometric shapes and models, instead of 2D array of pixels, and geometric shapes are defined and represented as vectors (with the magnitude and the direction from the reference frame).

For example, in vector format, a line is represents as (xt + x0, yt + y0) or simply as Rt + R0, where R0 is the origin or point of reference. In this case, a line can be rendered any length by changing the range of t values. Similarly, any other geometrical shapes can be rendered without much difficulty as long as they are defined in vector format.

It all sounds good. However, there are 2 major drawbacks: one is it is sometimes difficult to define arbitrary geometrical shape in vector format; the other is it requires a rendering engine which can interpret the vector format and render the image.

Integration of Vector and Raster Graphics on HTML

Over these few years, world wide web has become an integral part of IT and Computer Industries. Yes, with cloud computing, web technologies are providing more and more desktop like computational environment. Needless to say, in order to be like desktop, the web browser should be able to render images like desktop screen.

Until recently, even with the styling formats with CSS, HTML can only provide Raster Graphics. Yes, there are some interactive vector graphics web applications, also known as RIA- Rich Internet Applications. But they are using embedded client virtual machines, such as Adobe Flash, Java Virtual Machine or Microsoft Silver Light, to render the vector graphics.

With the introduction of HTML 5, HTML is trying to provide both Vector Graphics and Rendering Engine on the Web.

In HTML 5 specification, vector graphics are defined in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format and "Canvas" HTML tag can provide rendering screen where vector graphics are to be rendered and displayed.

Indeed, with the HTML 5 specification, the future web applications will be more and more interactive and desktop-like.

References

(1) http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/
(2) http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html

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7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens

Habit 1 BE PROACTIVE

I am the force. Take responsibility for your life.

Being proactive is more than taking initiative. It is accepting responsibility for our own behavior (past, present, and future) and making choices based on principles and values rather than on moods or circumstances. Proactive people are agents of change and choose not to be victims, to be reactive, or to blame others. They take an Inside-Outside Approach to creating changes.

Habit 2 BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

Control your own destiny or Someone Else Will.

Define your mission and goals in life.

All things are created twice – first mentally, second physically. Individuals, families, teams, and organizations shape their own future by creating a mental vision and purpose for any project. They don’t just live day to day without a clear purpose in mind. They mentally identify and commit themselves to the principles, values, relationships, and purposes that matter most to them.

Habit 3 PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST

Will and Won’t Power

Prioritize, and do the most important things first.

Putting first things first is the second or physical creation. It is organizing and executing around mental creation (your purpose, vision, values, and most important priorities.) The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Habit 4 THINK WIN-WIN

The stuff that life is made of have an everyone-can-win attitude.

Thinking win-win is a frame of mind and heart that seeks mutual benefit and is based on mutual respect in all interactions. It’s not about thinking selfishly (win-lose) or like a martyr (lose-win). In our work and family life, members think interdependently -- in terms of “we,” not “me.” Thinking win-win encourages conflict resolution and helps individuals seek mutually beneficial solutions. It’s sharing information, power, recognition, and rewards.

Habit 5 SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD

You Have Two Ears and one Mouth. Listen to people sincerely.

When we listen with the intent to understand others, rather than with the intent to reply, we begin true communication and relationship building. Seeking to understand takes kindness; seeking to be understood takes courage. Effectiveness lies in balancing the two.

Habit 6 SYNERGIZE

The “High” Way - Work together to achieve more.

Synergy is about producing a third alternative – not my way, not your way, but a third way that is better than either of us would have come up with individually. Synergistic teams and families thrive on individual strengths. They go for creative cooperation.

Habit 7 SHARPEN THE SAW

It’s “Me Time”
Renew yourself regularly.

Sharpening the saw is about constantly renewing ourselves in the four basic areas of life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. It’s the habit that increases our capacity to live all the other habits
source: http://www.iusd.org/chs/Handbook%20Files/HB_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Efffective_Teens8.pdf

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Open Architecture

This morning, I had a small chat with my friend. We talked about open-source and open-architecture. In fact, our discussion left me some things to think over. I am thinking about the 'openness' in the software development. Needless to say, the rapid widespread of internet is strongly affected by the 'Open-Architecture'. Since there are different machines, architectures, protocols, which are trying to communicate each other over the internet, it is very important to have open-architecture which can make communication easy.

In fact, Roy T. Fielding (I don't think I need to introduce who that guy is) proposed something like open-architecture, and luckily I bumped into that good stuff.
Open Architecture.  It is pretty much interesting.

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Beauty and Harmony

What is beauty? Does beauty exist only in the eyes of the beholder? Is there any common measure all beholders can agree upon?

I think there does exist a common opinion to decide what is beautiful or not. Art is, in fact, to seek (or probably create) beauty in everything (either in nature or in artifacts) around us. Maybe beauty is more objective than what we believe.

Whatever harmonious is beautiful, I believe. Beauty and harmony are strongly intertwined with each other. When things combine and exist harmoniously, they become beautiful. Actually, obvious or not, beauty does exist in everything around us: in the sky, in the world, in the water, in a math equation, in a painting, in music, in a girl, in a bird, in a phone, in a curry dish and what not.

Beauty is, maybe or maybe not, related to the its functional existence; however it is strongly related to its harmonious existence. Although they may contain the same ingredients, there is a world of difference between a mediocre dish and a delightful dish. It all depends on how harmoniously we can combine different things.

Engineering, although it is also another methodology to combine different things, is different from Art. Unlike Art, the primary focus of Engineering has been functional existence of different things. However, 'Mother Nature' shows us that there is a co-existence between functionality and harmony. Through bio-mimicry, there will be, sooner or later, more engineering arts to create functional harmonious existences.

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