Beyond Research [en/blog/notes_on_interests]

Comedy

I have always been interested in different forms of comedy: stand-up comedy, sketches, comedy films, comics, and Chinese forms such as Xiangsheng and Xiaopin (quite like sketch).

To me, good comedy is not simply about telling jokes. It often comes from a specific conversation in a specific situation, where the context itself makes things funny. (Speaking of jokes, AI may now be good at coding, but it still has a long way to go before it can write truly good comedy.)

Science Fiction

I also like science fiction. Science fiction is, in a sense, people’s imagination of future life, and a good science fiction story describes a possible future in a convincing way. Some of the science fiction writers I like include Liu Cixin, Arthur C. Clarke, and Douglas Adams. My favourite science fiction film series are Back to the Future and The Wandering Earth.

Amateur Radio

My EE training introduced me to communication theory and wireless communications, and I later became interested in amateur radio. In Sichuan, amateur radio is relatively popular. On weekend evenings, you can sometimes hear people chatting in Sichuan dialect on the radio. (Since it is radio communication, everyone on the same frequency can hear one another.) The International Space Station also occasionally holds events in which images are transmitted through audio signals. Communication technology can be fascinating in this way, although I have not succeeded in receiving such an image yet.

Plants

Recently, I have found myself becoming more interested in plants. I would like to learn more about the plants around me.