Rebirth 08: Equipment God

Chapter 419 Little Wooden Head's Gift
After the video was posted, everyone in Utopia gave feedback.

Some, like Chu Xiang and Xiang You, directly promised: "Boss, wait for us! Let's take off together in Dongyang!"

There are also people like Lin Shuyao and Li Dongdong who feel warmth in their hearts but worry that they do not yet have enough ability to keep their promise to their hometown and companions.

Then my heart tightened even more.

Even Wu Xiaomei, who rarely speaks out, regretfully messaged Zhai Da privately, saying that she and her boyfriend planned to get married and buy a house in Zhengzhou, and that returning to Dongyang was probably unrealistic.

But that's life. Zhai Da has no regrets. He simply gave everyone a positive response and even some life advice, telling them to relax and not be impatient.

However, if "Yueda Catering", "Chu Xiangwang Information Technology", and Ao Wen's "Ju Neng Environment" all become subsidiaries, then "Utopia Group" will already have taken shape.

This will be a group independent of the "Mechanical Core Research Institute," but it will likely be responsible for implementing the institute's technologies in the future.

Wu Yue took this very seriously and had already begun to think about how to plan the equity and structure, while also ensuring that his brothers' businesses could be carried over without any loss. Since the equity was already mixed up (Zhai Da was the major shareholder of Chu Xiangwang and Wu Yue was the shareholder of Juneng), things were quite complicated.

Zhai Da handed over this part of the work to Wu Yue and temporarily stopped interfering.

Because he won't have time.

On December 17th, Zhai Da and Lu Wei entered their exam week ahead of other students.

No, this year is different. To be precise, a large number of members of π have chosen to follow the same path as Zhai Da. With the school's permission, they have all chosen many cross-grade subjects to work hard for the "half-year agreement".

They already possessed abilities far exceeding those of ordinary students, and with clear and aspirational mid-term goals, they demonstrated strong execution skills.

The knowledge gained at work, combined with the supplementary information from books, makes the subject matter within my field no difficult at all, and in some areas, I may even surpass my teachers' knowledge.

The members of "π" traveled throughout the campus, facing one individual exam after another, and then quickly immersed themselves in new reviews to complete the certification of "strict standards and thorough skills".

Zhai Da has seen everyone's hard work and is increasingly looking forward to everything next year.

That would certainly be a great start to a story.

With two or three exams every day, Zhai Da himself was no exception, so busy that he didn't even have time to pay attention to the second and third episodes of "Magic Talent Show". He only knew that his "miracle believers" had skyrocketed to more than 30.

Of the more than 200,000 new believers, only a very small portion are from domestic audiences, judging from the broadcast time. The majority are due to delayed broadcasts by overseas streaming media, and the speed is still increasing.

However, 90% of the effects of "psychokinesis" are concentrated in the fourth phase. At the current pace, it will probably be before the Spring Festival for overseas audiences to see these effects.

Another thing is that Samsung's Galaxy series, after a lot of Samsung employees sacrificed their loyalty and livers, finally held a press conference at the end of December to announce that this flagship model, which is called the "next generation smartphone", will be launched globally, which greatly exceeded Zhai Da and Li's expectations during the chat.

Global distribution is not yet fast, but small-scale distribution has gradually been activated, and Hongtu OS has seen an influx of overseas users. With the support of Samsung, some overseas internet companies have also begun to develop their own software for mobile devices.

In terms of ecosystem, there is still a long way to go to achieve "comprehensiveness," but fortunately, not many people had eaten good pork in 09. Even though there were not many overseas application software, the superiority of Hongtu OS itself was enough for them to play with for a while.

Sensing the turbulent market, other mobile phone manufacturers were forced to respond. Nokia and BlackBerry announced that they would bring major updates to their own systems in the next version. Since the release of the Hongtu, they have indeed learned a lot of experience. However, this kind of clinging to the old ways, which seems to be a change but is actually just a business response, will probably be difficult to change the fate of being devoured.

However, another piece of news caught Zhai Da's attention: Apple, in response to pressure, announced that it will release a "phone that redefines the phone" in March of next year, 2010, and stated that it will have a level comparable to "Hongtu OS".

Yes, the company used the word "on par with," which is tantamount to acknowledging that Hongtu OS is more advanced than theirs and is striving to catch up.

Although the iPhone 3 received a good response, it is still considered a "child's desk" among mobile devices. The product to be released next year should be the iPhone 4, which will mark the beginning of the "Apple legend".

It must be said that in the game of operating systems, its closed-source ecosystem is quite unique, which means that the market naturally leaves a differentiated "space". Moreover, Steve Jobs is still alive and may continue the pace of his predecessor, becoming a starting point.

However, Zhai Da's vision has long since expanded beyond individual projects; this difficult problem will now be left for Cheng Mo to deal with.

Amidst the intense and demanding exams, Zhai Da and Lu Wei also had to work on their graduation theses, to the point that they were practically missing for almost half a month. When they were occasionally spotted by acquaintances on campus, they were always in a hurry.

------

At Harbin Institute of Technology, at 8 p.m., Zhai Da stomped his feet to knock the loose snow off the soles of his shoes. In winter, it feels like the soles of your shoes get filled with snow as you walk, and you have to knock them off to regain your grip.

A few minutes later, a tall, slender figure rushed out of the entrance of "Chengyilou" restaurant. Lu Wei said hurriedly, "Sorry to keep you waiting~"

Zhai Da hugged Lu Wei tightly, like a swallow throwing itself into his arms, and then put her down: "Let's go, it's too late to cook at this time, let's go outside and find something to eat."

Lu Wei grabbed Zhai Da's hand and tried to walk forward, saying, "No! Let's go home. We have things we want to do!"

Zhai Da was pulled along, step by step: "What's the matter that's so urgent?"

Lu Wei had a rare, radiant smile on her face; she was rarely seen like this.

This girl, who usually seemed unapproachable except for Zhai Da, turned around and excitedly said:
"During the exam, I suddenly realized a key point about 'convex optimization and non-convex optimization' in my graduation thesis. I need to go back and write it down right now!"

"No. The test you just took wasn't math."

"It was too easy, I got distracted!"

Lu Wei jogged along, her bun at the back of her head becoming a little messy, bouncing like a rabbit's tail, and her down jacket fluttering like a butterfly.

Zhai Da simply stopped talking and followed behind her, reminding her to watch the road from time to time.

Lu Wei ran all the way home, still breathless, changed her shoes and immediately went into Zhai Da's room. She sat on the extra-long desk and began writing furiously on several sheets of draft paper.

Zhai Da leaned against the door for a moment, then shook his head with a smile and turned to go into the kitchen.

Seize any inspiration that comes your way, but you still have to eat.

After a series of clanging sounds, Zhai Da came out carrying two bowls of deluxe instant noodles.

He has unparalleled knife skills, but his seasoning relies entirely on intuition. To sum up his cooking skills in one sentence: a 30-year veteran cooking for the first time.

However, instant noodles perfectly solved the seasoning problem.

Vegetables, poached eggs, ham, and the flatbread should be slightly firm to ensure it's the right consistency for eating.

In just over ten minutes, when she returned, Lu Wei had already filled three A4 pages with writing.

Complex formulas, obscure symbols—those curly braces outlive him.

Zhai Da placed two bowls of noodles on the corner of the table: "No rush. Write down your ideas first, and eat when you don't have any."

Lu Wei nodded and continued working on the calculations.

While I was thinking, I slurped up a few mouthfuls of noodles; the temperature was just right.

After that, Lu Wei fell silent again. After washing the dishes, Zhai Da decided to start working on his graduation thesis. The school assigned him a nominal advisor and gave him the right to choose his own topic; the advisor would only provide guidance on the format and process.

It is well known that undergraduate graduation theses are very well written.

They basically won't ask you to "research anything," as long as you can clearly explain "what you are researching," you'll be very grateful.

Harbin Institute of Technology's undergraduate graduation thesis requirements are slightly strict, but they don't go too far beyond this concept.

Of the many advancements in the silicon carbide project, any one of them would suffice. However, some of his achievements are related to building technological barriers in the future. It would be foolish to use them to show off in an undergraduate thesis.

So Zhai Da chose a more basic one.

His research topic was "Application of silicon carbide thin films in vapor phase/physical deposition technology," which was just a small point in the reverse engineering of the equipment, involving the material application of the reaction chamber.

However, it only scratched the surface; it was basically just touching the outside without going deeper.

So he wrote very quickly, and now there's only a little bit left. He doesn't plan to spend too much time on his graduation thesis.

Let's leave the opportunity for Little Wood to shine in academia.

Time passed by unnoticed, and it was already midnight. The two of them went about their business in silence and efficiency, until Zhai Da leaned back and let out a long sigh.

Looking at the forty-plus pages of paper on the computer, I thought to myself that it was basically finished.

As for heading levels, icon numbers, full-width and half-width characters, and font line spacing...
Go talk to my advisor!
He had already spoken to the teacher, and since he was short on time and probably didn't have time to go over the details, the middle-aged teacher, who had extensive experience in publishing papers, offered to help "correct" the errors.

After compressing and sending the paper to his teacher, Zhai Da turned around and saw that Lu Wei's manuscript paper was getting less and less.

Yes, over the course of several hours, the amount of debris on the desktop increased at first, then decreased, with many eventually being crumpled up and thrown into the trash can. Zhai Da, who was familiar with Xiao Mutou, knew that this meant the problem had been solved and was being simplified.

Xiao Mutou has always been interested in the beauty of mathematics, but unfortunately Zhai Da cannot appreciate it.

Sometimes it's quite frustrating to think about. He considers himself to be good at math, at least at the level expected of an excellent engineer, and he passed all related subjects with a high score of 4.0.

But it's probably not the same kind of mathematics as what mathematicians see.
Just as they consider advanced mathematics to be quite basic...
Just as Zhai Da was about to get up to take a shower, Lu Wei looked up at him almost simultaneously, a natural smile playing on her lips: "I'm done calculating..."

Zhai Da clapped in encouragement: "Congratulations, wanna take a shower together?"

Lu Wei suddenly picked up the five sheets of paper she had left, tapped them on the table to tidy them up, and then pushed them in front of Zhai Da with both hands, saying with a smile, "Here you go, consider it an early New Year's Day gift."

Zhai Da was silent for a moment: "If you're trying to mock me for not understanding, there's no need for that."

Lu Wei quickly shook her head: "No~ I'll explain it to you."

Zhai Da gradually revealed an expression like that of an old man on the subway.

There's really no need for that.

He had only ever heard of Lu Wei by name, never really understanding her, especially since "Sensitivity Conjecture" had already far exceeded his comprehension.

But at Lu Wei's insistence, Zhai Da was pulled back to sit down. Xiao Mutou opened his laptop and found his previous papers:

"What I've been researching for the past six months is convex optimization and non-convex optimization. The former ensures that a local minimum is also the global minimum, while the latter seeks practically usable, high-quality solutions to complex problems."

"Simply put, the former is used to obtain a single solution efficiently and is fast, while the latter is used to process massive amounts of data and is more comprehensive."

Zhai Da nodded seriously: "You continue."

Whether you understand or not, just listen.

Lu Wei tilted her head and thought for a moment, trying to give a simpler explanation.

If one simple step isn't enough, then do it twice, and add some practical applications!
Only in this way could she explain to Zhai Da why she considered it a "gift".

"Let me put it another way. Convex optimization might be suitable for financial models, finding the optimal solution as quickly as possible, while non-convex optimization is suitable for big data processing and deep learning of neural networks. Most problems in reality are non-convex, which can help computers learn about reality through mathematics. Do you understand?"

Zhai Da finally caught the key words.

Neural networks? Deep learning?
Looking at Zhai Da's changing expression, Lu Wei asked with some doubt, "You've heard of it?"

The former is not surprising, having been proposed for decades, while the latter was only defined in the last two or three years.

Zhai Da regained some confidence: "I'm not Wu Yue."

Lu Wei nodded and continued:
“Generally speaking, convex optimization and non-convex optimization cannot be performed in parallel. Although there is 'convex relaxation' as a semidefinite programming link, they are essentially like the two poles of a magnet, each with its own extended domain.”

"This is not a specific, one-off conjecture proof, but a problem of continuous optimization, namely: how to obtain the solutions of each in a more efficient way. My original research was like this, working independently to improve the computational efficiency of each and shorten the logical chain of the neural network. However, I had a bit of inspiration during the exam this afternoon."

The main event is coming.

"I combined the 'matrix tracking tool' from my previous 'Sensitivity Conjecture' with both of them, which allows for dynamic capture of gradient descent during the calculation process. It can switch between convex and non-convex half-processes and automatically analyze the most suitable method, saving 50% of the complexity of bidirectional solution and making it faster, more comprehensive, and closer to the optimal."

Lu Wei pointed to the computer screen: "What's on the computer is still my graduation thesis."

Then, the second time, he handed the manuscripts to Zhai Da: "But I won't publish the contents of these manuscripts; I'm giving them to you as a gift."

Zhai Da held the manuscript paper, his expression shifting slightly.

He roughly understood what Lu Wei meant.

Lu Wei stood with her hands behind her back, leaning slightly forward, her slender waist and graceful curves revealing a face full of happiness.

Zhai Da is happy that his research can help him.

She doesn't pay much attention to anything outside of mathematics and Zhai Da, but she has a concept of everything related to Zhai Da.

"With this, if used properly, your Hongtu OS can perform big data analysis faster and more sophisticatedly, including content push and behavior prediction. With sufficient training, your voice assistant 'TuTu' can also become more intelligent, and perhaps soon be closer to the level you described in 'How Long Will I Love U'."

"Even more accurate climate predictions."

Zhai Da rarely saw Xiao Mutou so radiant; his smile was truly unforgettable.

Lu Wei chuckled: "As a New Year's gift, it's alright, isn't it?"

　Judging from the vote, people still prefer to send it all at once.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)