While we are young, we seldom think about death except that it imparts some fear in us. When time goes by & we age gradually. We start to see or hear some of our role models like teachers, movie stars or some celebrities died one after the other. Suddenly, we feel a sense of loss. We no longer feel invincible & understand some day it will be our turns & nobody is exempt from this destiny.
We lost Mark Yang last year & this year professor Ma and KY Cheng, our classmate. Per AJ, KY suffered from oral cavity cancer last year and was cured later. Unfortunately, the cancer spread to become Lymphoma & he just couldn't make it this time. I have to admit I know very little about KY. He was a good table tennis player & was talkative sometime. However, he kept low profile most of the time. The last time I saw him was in a Taipei city bus returning from the airport after seeing someone off. It has been 46 years since but felt just happened not too long ago. I still remember the way he talks, smiles & makes jokes. I have never seen him since and he seemed never wrote anything or appeared in any of our reunion trips. Recently I visited his website and learned a little bit about him. Here is the information of his career:
中央研究院資訊科學研究所
台北市南港區 11529 研究院路二段一二八號
博士, 應用數學研究所, 紐約州立大學(石溪), 美國 (1967/9–1972/6)
碩士, 電子工程研究所, 北達科達州立大學, 美國 (1966/9–1967/6)
學士, 電機工程學系, 國立台灣大學, 中華民國 (1960/9–1964/6)
副研究員, 中央研究院資訊科學研究所, 中華民國 (1978/07-1979/06)
副教授, 清華大學資訊/應數所, 中華民國 (1975/07-1978/06)
客座副研究員, 中央研究院數學研究所, 中華民國 (1972/09-1974/09)
Research Interests:
Chinese Processing
Computer Graphics
鄭博士的研究工作包括電腦圖學和數位幾何處理。負責視覺化環境實驗室，主要工作為發展一套實用之臉部動畫系統。
KY published several papers in some professional journals. The descriptions & contents of the papers look impressive. His research is in the image processing using digital techniques & algorithms. His research interest includes Chinese Processing though I didn't see any of his papers related to this discipline. I am surprised why he didn't participate in the discussion of Chinese language in the past few years as we did in our blog or forum. As far as I can remember, he never showed up in our email communication even after MarkYang urged him once to say something. Instead, MarkYang & a few of us were quite vocal arguing the pros & cons of Mandarin as a language comparing to the Western Language System. Perhaps he considered our discussion not professional enough for him. However, I think he should have said something no matter it is positive or negative.
We hear someone dies almost everyday but life keeps going on. We feel a sense of loss if the person passed away is close to us or somehow influenced us one way or the other. I think this sense of loss is inevitable. The positive attitude is trying to learn something from the dead and keeps our head high and straight. The future is always awaiting us and we should embrace it joyfully.
PS: Notable people died in 2011:
Steve Jobs (age 56) and Elizabeth Taylor (age 79), two completely different personalities and careers.
Elizabeth Taylor was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery of Glendale with other celebrities like Michael Jackson, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow and Nat King Cole.
Steve Jobs was buried in Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto, right across Gunn High School with other famous people like David Packard (HP's founder) and Frederick Emmons Terman (Father of Silicon Valley). Terman was the author of "Electronic and Radio Engineering", a famous book (1,078 pages) we referred to at least a few times in our school years. I bought this book (Fourth Edition, 1955) a few years ago in a Palo Alto Library book sale at $1.00. This is one of the most nostalgic bargains in my life.
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