Monday, June 27, 2005

Just saw the LifeDrive

It's finally released in here Taiwan.

I tested it today in a store and here's what I think.
The casing is absolutly good looking. The sturdy and cool feel of aluminum is just great. And somehow the design makes you think that the screen is very very big. I had to take out my NX73 to convince myself that it's the same size as my clie's.

The notorious 5sec lags are nonexistant. Everything jumps out almost instantly. (Maybe the complaining guys are comparing it to a palm Vx?) The longest lag I've seen is from pocket tunes, which took 3~4secs indexing just 2 songs. But pocket tunes is a known to have some bugs on the lifedrive, and would have an update soon. And besides, my clie audioplayer also lags sometimes when indexing songs, no big deal here. And you know what, pocket tunes on the lifedrive still loads faster then sony's vaio pocket music player(which is a piece of crap).

Everything is so suprisingly smooth that at one point I was considering to buy it as my next PDA... until I came apon blazer. The sells told me that the lifedrive is that fastest web browsing PDA he had ever seen, and asked me if I ever seen pocket IE on PPCs. I said no, and proceeded my test. He said that he was always a PPC guy, but this thing made him consider switching to palm.(good one here, palmOne)
WIFI connection is slightly faster then my clie, and blazer loads palmOne's moble portal site instantly. But then, I decided to see if it renders normal sites as good as Netfront3.1. I was expecting the same result because Access said on their site that palmOne used their rendering engine in the newest version of Blazer. So I tried the slowest, bulkiest site that I would read with my clie~ www.1src.com . At first I has problems with grafiti anywhere, I don't know how to tell it whether I'm selecting or writing. But eventually, I wrote in the URL. (with grafiti 2, which is also difficult for me) And now, Blazer suffers, slowly rendering the site, with text only, and a window popped up saying "not enough memory" a minute later. Hay man, didn't you have a harddrive built in? And you are telling me you can only show me pure text? I tried to see if I could force it to show not only text but also images, to no avill. Maybe I'm not familer with Blazer, but it's menu is sure confusing. Sorry, Netfront still rules, both on palm and PPC.

That's it, Blazer is that thing that brought me back to reality. The lifedrive lacks 3 essentials: Netfront, Decuma and Picsel viewer. Now, maybe I should get a TH55 as a backup instead.

Class list for next semester

3分子生物學 molecular biology
3動物生理學 animal physiology
1動物生理學實驗 animal physiology experiment
2生物統計學 biological statistics

2計算機程式設計 computer programing
2心理學 psychology
2拓撲學 topology
2体育 PE

共17學分
adding more in the future...
天阿7個重課!!

Friday, June 24, 2005

My NX73 in a comic?


Isn't this my clie? Posted by Hello
今天在死亡筆記本第64話中看到的, 夜神總一郎用sony clie NX73掌上型電腦傳訊息給兒子
天阿, 這個作者實在是畫得太棒了, 跟我的NX73長得一模一樣, 一眼就認得出來

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Systematics Ch10text book notes

Evolutionary classification
Criteria
1.genealogy/common descent
2.different degrees of modification which descendants have undergone.

Steps
1.sort into provisional classification by overall similarity.
2.test for monophyly, usually by cladistic analysis.

Recognition of taxa
1. Distinctness(size of gap)
2. Degree of difference(more charactors better)
3. Evolutionary role
4. Grade characteristics (groups of animals similar in general level of organization as distinct from groups of common genetic origin are called grades.)
5. Size of taxon
6. Equivalence of ranking in related taxa(balance)
7. Stability

Monday, June 20, 2005

Article link: PDA obsession

PDA24/7 - The PDA ruined my Life?

In this article, by Shaun, who runs one of the biggest PDA related sites, he talks about his obession with PDAs and his site.
He said "the PDA starts to dictate how you spend your leisure time and stops you from thinking reactively" that's an intresting point. However, I guess what really matters is how much of your life do you organise with your PDA. In my case, I have chunks of free time that I don't know what to do with exactly, while I only have 2 goals in mind: 1)study, 2)look for fun. You could organise every bit of your life, however, as I'm a guy that always do stuff on impluse and who seldom work according to timelines. I'm a "goal-orinted guy", so for some stuff, I prefer to use the To-Do list instead of the Datebook. Besides, I've tried severel times to completely organise my day, comming out with a datebook view with numerous chunks of "study time", which is quite boring just to look at. And besides, I never succesed to use time precisely according to that kind of organisation. I usually end up using "study time" reading novels :) Actually, I use Datebook for appointments that have time limits, such as classes, speechs I need to go to, or appointments I have with others. Other stuff goto the todo list. I like flexibility.

On the other side, I've seen a friend with his datebook completely blank. I'd ask: "then why buy a PDA in the first place?" seem that some people buy them not to organise, but just as another expensive toy. Now, in that case, the PDA is wasting a lot of his time while saving none.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

intresting news: A Wireless World, Bound To Sockets

A Wireless World, Bound To Sockets
Washington Post (Link may need free registration)
Sunday, June 19, 2005; Page A01

Intresting article.
It said that an average modern person brings about 5.5 power eating gadgets... How much do you bring around?
Let me see what I have with me...
PDA
Camara... built into my PDA
Computer... just what my PDA is used for
MP3 player... also built into my PDA
Electionic dictionary... also covered by my PDA
And mobile phone.

Hm...
That means that if I buy everything seperately, I would have 5 seperate gadgets with 5 heavy chargers. However, I only need to bring one for my PDA, while my phone has a battery life of a month. Sometimes it's good to have a convergence device :)

And yeah, I did sit on the airport floor next to a socket last summer for a quick battery charge. And I did notice that at Osaka airport, there was and army of guys with Apple powerbooks, forming a whole line along the wall, one or two next to each socket.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Cell biology exam info

These are from my notes, if I missed anything, please comment.(BX板上也有小球的必考題整理)

Ch1
-Search: What is "Yeast-Two Hybrid system"?
-Important: Temperature sensitive mutatent~ a mutant gene product is only defective in function under unnormal tempratures
-one cell is about 10 microns in diameter

Ch12
-Important: tables 12-2&12-3
-Important: patch clamping research

Ch16
-Search: What steroid hormone other than progestrone has a membrane receptor?
-Important: FRET~Floresence resonance energy transfer
(Check here for more info on Wikipedia)
-Give an example of the "dominant negative" receptor techneque. (Which is flooding the membrane surface with over expressed truncated receptor.)

By the way, Scirus is much better than NCBI's search engine, it shows abstarcts and searches more databases.

Friday, June 17, 2005

New skin for SkinUI: Concept C1


New skin for SkinUI: Concept C1 Posted by Hello

Studying for the final exams sure is boring, and I really want a new skin to liven up my day, so...
Partly inspired by sony japan's beautiful website (If only their walkmans are as cool as their website...)
Finally done it :) Enjoy.

Comments, anyone?

t-storms; with thunderstorms; a t-storm or two...


Something I really hate to see on my clie Posted by Hello
(From the weather panel of Avantgo travel)

Seats at the library are hard to find

First, of course, you want one with a desk, because you want to study, not just read.

Next, you avoid those next to the library offices to avoid the noise.

Then you want one next to a power outlet so you can listen to music without using the battery; leaving you with about 30% of choices.

Sometime you want a spot with a strong WIFI signal for web access. However, this is not important.

Last, you want to avoid the noisily chating, hugging and kissing couples. But avoiding these couples leaves you only 10% of choices.

With the power outlet & kissing couple avoidance rules, I get about 10*30=3% of the seats to choice from~ and most of those are usually taken.

Mood: Oh, man, not again...

(Warning, do not read if you don't like crap talk)

Damn, I'm day dreaming again. Hormones overwhelming, can't concentrate on studying. In the mode which half of my mind is going irrational, or just going haywire. When that half takes over, stupid things I will do...

Quit it! I need a logical, rational mind right now. To hell with the hormones and neurotransmitters. Once again, I'm wishing that some kind of antagonist exists as a pill...

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Great places to get wallpapers

Some of my friends like my wallpapers on my clie or my desktop, so here's where I usually get my wallpapers:

  1. JAL壁紙コレクション:
    Japan Airlines has a great colection, renewed monthly usually comes with a calender.
  2. deviantart.com :
    A great site to get art, photograph, GC, skins and much more.
  3. National Geographic:
    I guess everyone knows this is a great destination if you're into photographs.
As for anime, some are great, but I don't like them to be my wallpaper, they usually make it look messy, expecially if you have a desktop full of shortcuts/icons. As a rule for a clean look, I stick with photos and keep the number of icons on my desktop under 5.

More clones? this time with PPCs

Pocket LOOX v70 特長へ
Do these 2 look alike? These are the Fujitsu pocket Loox v70 and Asus Mypal A730W
Specs look the same, and the casing is defenently the same. My guess is that Asus made this as an OEM for Fujitsu, but also sold it under the Asus brand in Taiwan. I recall the 2 already did this kind of thing with some notebook before.

Looks good, was one of the only 2 PPC I'd be intrested to play with (the other is the iPaq with the touch pad) and is the only PPC I'd consider "nearly as good" as my clie. However, I still see no reason to switch to the darkside. Start menus just downright suck.

Yes, I stick with PalmOS unless palm screwed-up badly.

Ultimate skinning tool for PalmOS5~skinUI

skinUIlogo

In case you are a Palm user and haven't known about it, check out skinUI by dmitrygr at palmpowerups.com

It skins title bars buttons menus and much more. Although it's still in beta, it's nearly done, with some minor bugs left, and it already seem like the coolist new app of the palm comunity lately, being mentioned on most major palm related sites :)

And don't forget a skin I modified from the original Cobalt skin:

CobaltDark, with new command bar icons!

And of course, thank
dmitrygr for this great app.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Just got a new pair of headphones


My new sony Q36 Posted by Hello

Sadly, my old Q33 somehow got it's cord badly bent, and it won't play a note unless I kept it bent with a wire or tape or press it hard with my fingers. The wires sort of broke, I guess. It's such a waste. My old Q33 headphone was the first "clip-on" style headphone I know of, can change color by switching "shells" and has very very good sound quality. I've used it for about 2 years, I guess.

Oh well, here I am with my new Q36 I got today. It looks cool, matches the color of my black clie (PDA) and the cord is soft and comfortable, covered with cloth. Best of all, it has a built-in cord coiler, with the press of a button, the cord will be pulled in, out of sight.

However, I was disapointed with my first experience with it. Sony said that the cord roller is "quite". But, when I pressed that button, the cord rolled in with CLICKS so loud that it would only be "quite" if you're at some noisy place like Disneyland. The sponge is harder because it's still new. And, this thing is made in China, while my old Q33 is made in Japan. But most of all, sound is sort of dull and muffled; not as clear as my old Q33, now sound quality is what I really care about, and this preformence makes me think that this thing is a waste of money. However, they don't accept returns unless it's defective. Also, I've heard that all new headphones need some "molding in", and it takes time for it to do it's best sound quality.

Well, I guess I'll have to wait and see. Wish it'll get as good as my old one.

Friday, June 10, 2005

流行病學info from ptt PH-92版

1)流行病學期末考:
6/27 @基醫201R

2)轉鄭老師來電通知:

下週一(6/13)的流行病學課程,原則上正常上課,

可能會上到 PM6:30 或 PM7:00。

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

After reading the chapter of Cladistics in Systematics

A few thoughts...

The conflict: the words "Holophyly" and "Monophyly".
Originally, taxas of which all are from the same ancestor are "monophylitic groups", and out-groups are considerd another monophyly. Then came Henning with his Cladistics methods. In order to get his method to make sense, he took the word "monophyly" and applied a new defenition, meaning taxas that are composed of ALL the offspring of a common ancertor, including out-groups. Now with one word, two meanings, we have a confusion. Then along came Ashlock. In an attempt to clear things up, he tryed to replace Henning's "monophyly" with a new word, "holophyly". But, people started to use both words in cladistics; and we now have 2 overlaping words with 2 definitions, and a total of 3 combinations of word:definitions pairs.
Thanks a lot for messing stuff up, folks.

Notes: to find apomorphic charactors.
1.Out group comparison
If one of two homologous characters that occur as variants within a single holophyletic or monophyletie group is also found in the sister group, it is the plesiomorphic character.Any character that is restricted to the monophyletic group is apomorphic. A paraphyletic group is a monophyletic taxon which does not include all the derived ex-groups.

2. Ontogenetic sequence~ development.

3. Stratigraphic sequence~ fossil record.
---
Autapomorpeic characters evolved in only one of two sister groups.~ignored in cladistics.

How did Mayr wrote this chapter?
Introduced the Cladistics method with detail with 10 pages; told the advantages and usages of cladistics in half a page; then used up a total of 20 pages bashing the method and the supporters of cladistics altogether as if they are all useless unreasonable junk.
He even used emotional phrases such as "..., so be it."

Boy, he really hates the new kids in town...

Monday, June 06, 2005

What the hell...

Threw in my clothes in the dryer, inserted the coin, and waited 45 minutes here in my room.
45 minutes after, went back just to notice that I didn't press the "start" button...
Rats...

To my classmates...

明天6/8起一個禮拜內, 別忘了填教學意見調查
對各個老師的感激或怨念都在這時獲得解放...

On life: Real intrests?

While preparing for the nearing final exams, I started to feel bored and dosed off several times. Then I started to think, "What do I really like?" I choose to major in biology because I felt it intresting in high school. But now, I feel bored, so what am I really intrested in?

Now I come to think of it, I'm actually intrested in all sorts of things. I could walk in a library on a free day, and read all kinds of books, from technology to literiture, you name it. However, I hated to prepare for tests on those kinds of things. Literiture or computer science exams, or something else, whatever, I hate exams. However, when it comes to Biology, I just feel the exams boring, but I don't HATE them.

So now I have a more clear view of my self, I guess. It's the test preperation boring, not the topic boring. So, oh well, I should retreve my intrest of biology after the exams, I guess.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

iPod sells falling...

Saw this on MobileRead.
Looks like the sells of iPods are falling.
I wouldn't say that "it's the end of iPod fads", but rather, I guess it's turning into a mature market, just as PDA. Most of the people who wants one have already got one, so growth is slowing down. That's all.

I wouldn't say that I like iPods since they feel so plastic...
But I should admit that at their recent price, iPods got the best value on the market.
Maybe I'd consider one if they come out with PowerBook styled aluminum iPods :)
In the mean time, the offerings on the market seems to tell me to stick with my beloved Sony Clie for MP3s.

Mood: To my self...

This semester is near it's end, so pull your self back together and kick some ass, man!!
(My progress: Mostly still un-studied, 2 and a half chapters left on cell-biology
Next target: Biochem)

What's that you were puting into your mouth?

A day or two ago, a Taipei city councilor told the press that several food venders were selling food that were recycled from funeral houses, previously used in some funeral ritual. He pointed out several venders (some reported a number of 6, others a number of 11), and since NTU is near a municipal funeral houses(about a mile from my dorm, I guess...), some amoung the list are near our campus, which we, our selves might had eatten some! (eew, sick...)

Overhyped
And so, I did a news search on google, and found some follow up reports. Apperently this councilor wasn't creditible. Of the listed names (the 6-numbered version, I really can't find the 11-numbered version although it was mentioned), as a reporter discovered, one has been closed for over a year, and others were non-existent. Fine with me, since I seldom trust politicians. So, this is an overhyped report, right? I think this is quite apperent. However, I never liked the food those venders near the back of our campus provided, either. Many of them are over priced and contain so much grease and MSG that they make you want to puke. Besides, it's a sticky and oily street with cockroches running about.

"So, just don't eat there..."
Well, I'd think there's much diference in the food in our campus, either. Nearly all the food options that a student could afford on a daily basis are servered over greased, over flavored, and lacks veggies. Sometimes I even prefer skipping meals or just drinking milk as a substitute.

Enter fastfood.
How about the bigger, highly known names?
I just read a book from the library, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
It tells you how these franchises are over charging you with low quality food. Let me point out a few. What you taste of almost every fastfood dish is of flavoring, not the food. For example, real french fries don't taste the way they do at the big M, instead, your tasting beef extract. They undercharge employees, and many of them are teenagers that don't care about your health. You may get a hamburger that has once been dropped on the floor. And the beef paddies. They come from big sloghter houses that care more about production speed then anything else, so your beef may contain shit from raptured guts that are carelessly removed. There are much more, just read the book and you'll know.

So what should we eat?
I don't know. I consider food that you cook a home yourself the only really safe food. However, that is not an option for us dorm dwellers, since cooking is prohibted for fear of fire hazards. So, I guess we are destinied to eat CRAP to get our education done. But is food at home really safer than the food outside? Think again. The "American Beef" you get at supermarkets are also from the same
sloghter houses that provide the hamburger beef paddies, and germs that normally only live in the guts (such as E coli. 0157) are frequently found, according to the book. And we all know that vegtables with high levels of pesticides are also heard of from time to time...

I guess all we can do is avoid the foods that we are sure were unhealthy(like greasy foods), and through the rest out of our minds since there's not much we could do to avoid it.