Sunday, April 29, 2007

Got Google Maps working on my Clie!!!


Here's a screen shot.

Previously Google Maps didn't work on Japanese Palm OS, yet, thanks to Mini's tip on 1src, I edited the prc file with HexEdit (not to take credit for the fix, please check out Mini's site for details), and the error message was gone!

Although it's a shame the maps of Taiwan are empty, I'll have mobile G Maps for my Hokkaido cycling trip this summer :)

Mac software for bio-scientists!!!

I was recently reading MacNN on my Clie with Avantgo, and came over a report on a new software called Papers, which is a software to organize scientific paper pdf files in a database, just like in iTunes. Just what I was looking for! Just downloaded it and will be giving it a try :)

By the way, the site it self is amazing. I was really happy to see another bio-scientist who is also a Mac lover. Best of all, there were many other software other then Papers, such as 4peaks, which analyzes DNA sequences; EnzymeX, that helps you plan restriction endonucleus digestions (complete with the buffer requirements, reaction setup calculator and everything you could imagine needed); and even an RNAi designer. Other then that, there's many interesting wallpapers avaliable for download, pictures of pipettes, tips, tubes and confocal pictures of cells.

It's always exciting to know someone with multiple interests that complies with your own. I wonder if I'll ever get to know someone who likes viruses, mobile gadgets, Mac computers, business stories, cycling, traveling, Japanese culture, coffee and web designing. If that person ever shows up in my life, I guess we'll be really close friends :)

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Google maps now covers Taiwan!!!

Example: 台大門口
Google Maps終於有台灣的地圖資料,而不用對著空空的衛星照完猜猜樂了。終於,在Urmap之外,台灣的網路地圖又多了一個選擇。

不過,目前似乎資料還不夠完整。地圖查詢資料不像美國、日本的那麼完整,台灣的幾乎都是網路使用者自行上傳的資料。而道路導航查詢目前對於台灣還是不能用了。需要開車指南的,還是要求助於本土的Urmap。

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Junk food

Got a pack of m&m's and a bottle of Coke zero.
m&m's are too sweet, not very tasty.
Coke zero, which is said to contain zero suger and zero calories, tastes like water with a touch of pepermint chewing gum... simpily disgusting. Real suger is much better.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Game Over

With a phone call, I finally confirmed that I am officially rejected by all programs, so much for the nice day dreams.

I now finally have no excuses to postpone finding a lab technician / research assistant slot. Application competition is said to be at a record high this year, and I shall try again next year. If the 2nd try doesn't work, I might as well find a real job, or leave the biomed field for good.

Arrrgggg......

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

衝突

終於了解心中長期的茅盾有一部分是因為心中追求自由的唯心主意和社會主流的唯物論的衝突

...

上課時希望趕快下課,上午希望趕快中午,下午希望趕快回家,傍晚對著電腦銀幕發呆希望時間趕快過去.
日復一日,什麼事也不想做,懶洋洋的,不知道這樣度日有何意義?

申請不到學校來找研究助理工作,大部分都要博士,不然就要有特殊技能. 越看越慌不知該如何是好.

封B耍自閉,發現人間蒸發可以做的很徹底.

...

And then you come to a sad realization that all roles that you play in this world are highly replaceable. Halelujeh!

Monday, April 16, 2007

Apple enters NTU campus

News link on Apple Taiwan

So the first campus Apple store in Taiwan opened today in NTU, yet I didn't know until I got a news letter from Apple in my email, just now. Oh well, just happened that I didn't walk pass that corner of the campus today.

Apple has been a strong presence in American campuses. Maybe that may also happen soon in NTU, with the help of this new store. But here's the big question: Does this store offer educational prices to faculty and students as the campus stores in the US do? From what I see in that news letter, not a word regarding this is present. So I assume, no.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Sad intelligence

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
US author & journalist (1899 - 1961)
From Quotations page

Okey... Someone tell me how to turn stupid.

Foxy: 惡質P2P 還是無知使用者?

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxy
剛剛收到學校寄來的信:

Subject: 「校內訊息發送」請勿使用foxy點對點傳輸軟體
Date: April 14, 2007 5:16:39 PM GMT+08:00

foxy是天使還是惡魔?

使用foxy非常容易造成個人電腦中的所有資料供人分享,可能原因包括P2P軟體本身的漏洞、使用者設定不當,或是P2P軟體本身或相關程式遭有心人士加入惡意程式。

帳號密碼、機密資料、企劃案、研究報告、試卷、論文等,都可能被他人透過foxy從網路上搜尋到,資訊安全受到威脅。

報載今年二月底台北縣某位警員因使用foxy,造成國家元首車隊路線的道路警衛資料外洩;4月13日刑事局發現警方9個單位的筆錄資料,因為警員使用foxy造成資料外洩。這些事例都反應使用foxy的高度危險性。

計資中心提醒全校使用者立刻將foxy軟體與相關資料夾移除,並將於一週後開始進行流量過濾,如果仍發現使用foxy,將以公文通知所屬系所或單位。
感覺還頗嚴重的,全民用P2P違法抓檔,大家一起資料外洩?
雖然我沒用過Foxy, 不過以一般P2P的使用方式,應該是一開始要指定一個「共享資料夾」,然後要分享的東西才擺資料夾。我想應該是某個沒概念的員警把機密文件放在「共享資料夾」裡了。

不過學校本來就已經有鎖P2P常用的port了,只是現在特別針對Foxy發出警告。而Foxy跟其他P2P的最大不同就是不限流量,因此犧牲掉所有可佔用頻寬來達到最快抓檔速度。若這次學校禁用Foxy而使學校網路變快,我想也是功德一件吧。

Photo webalbum switch to Picasa

So Zoto has closed their free accounts, including mine.
I originally went to Zoto because they provide a free 1Gig photo space. Now they say that they are giving better functionality, unlimited space, but no more free accounts. Thus, good bye Zoto.

Luckily, Google's Picasa web albums came just in time. Originally, Picasa only has 200MB, which I could fill up in 2 biking trips, thus I didn't use it. Just as Zoto started charging, Picasa bumped up to 1gig, turning into the perfect substitute to Zoto, just in the right time :)

Thus, here's my new web photo site at Picasa!
But, still, I am keeping my free account at Flickr. I will use Picasa whenever I exceed my 200MB/month upload limit. A loose rule is that cycling trip photos goto Flickr, while non-cycling multi day trips goto Picasa because these trips easily produce batches larger then 200MB.

BBS

最近完全不想上B。

開始以 Mobile011Src 為我上網的重心。
很有趣的,Mobile01上關於單車的討論竟然比單車社社版多很多。

剪頭髮

頭髮又長了,長髮+自然卷=爆炸頭。

聽說家附近新開了一家剪頭髮的,新開幕特價,就去試試看。
招牌上寫著「費絲髮型設計」,雖然被兩家髒亂的店家夾著,店面本身還算時髦。看起來有點像專剪女髮的,有點猶豫要不要進去,不過都過來了,就硬著頭皮進去。

哇咧,剪髮的都是打扮時髦的正妹... 都是那種流行打扮的,還有不錯的眼影... 雖然口味重了點,純欣賞也不錯XD
結果,正妹叫我坐下之後叫了個男的過來,我你咧,這一個是型男... orz
忽然有種整家店裡我最土的感覺。

不過,給一個年紀相近的男的剪,似乎不錯,感覺這樣應該比較會知道我適合甚麼髮型吧。

剪到一半,型男試著開話題:「你讀甚麼學校?」(為甚麼每次剪髮都是這個老梗?)
「台大。」
「海大?」
「恩...」(算了,懶得糾正了,反正畢業後失業,那個學校都一樣)
「你在這附近租房子嗎?」
「沒有,我家住這裡。」(這倒是實話)
「喔,那樣很方便耶,你很多同學都要租房子;我有聽說很多住高雄的說。」(囧,我同學?)
「你今天要補課嗎?」
「不用。」
「這樣啊,聽說有些人要補課耶...(疑惑貌)」
(傻笑)(此時忽然想到,老爸的學生,海大的似乎要補課耶,囧。)

剪完沒有特別感覺如何,只覺得我穿著土土的 T-shirt,然後一臉希巴爛的皮膚,不管配甚麼髮型都很醜。等臉上的表皮細胞有一天吃夠類固醇,開始高興的生長後,再決定剪的如何好了。

不過根據經驗,若我自己心情沒有特別輕鬆愉快,似乎類固醇再多都沒有用... 爛皮膚啊...

Friday, April 13, 2007

Not going with the flow

I hate "me too" products, period.

When I buy something, I want something that's cool, different, a pleasure to use, something that makes me feel good holding it. Thus I don't like to use what everyone else does.

Let's see...
I use a Mac while everyone uses Windows PCs (Computer OS).
Mac OS is elegant and productive. You get to get your work done, instead of dealing with errors, crashes, viruses, worms, flaws, lags and all the crap that normal people encounter with computing. In this case, viruses and adware mostly target the most popular platform: Windows, so using a less popular platform keeps me away from those hassles.

Firefox instead of Internet Explorer (Web browser).
Similar to the first one, I avoid the popular yet less stable solution. Firefox also provides extra functionality, such as easily manageable extensions & skins, instant in-page search, and customizable search box (which I default to PubMed for research paper search). Many small options, such as tabbed browsing, restoring the last opened pages, searching with google and Wikipedia from the address box... all though little things add up to a great experience. Best of all, it's cross platform, I can use it on a Mac.

Palm instead of Windows Mobile (PDA OS).
Interestingly, this is yet another against Microsoft option. Yeah, Microsoft tends to commoditize inferior products to the public with strong marketing. Yet, in this case, Windows Mobile (WM) isn't exactly worse then PalmOS. Due to the stagnant development of Palm OS, the lead of Palm over WM is almost gone, with Microsoft constantly adding features. However, I stick to Palm because it has an intuitive user interface, while WM tends to hide all the features in layers of meuns. Palm also is more responsitive, with most applications giving instant feed back to your input.

Clie over iPod (Mobile music).
Find this interesting? I am comparing a PDA against the iPod! Will, as I said, I like cool stuff. The iPod is considered good looking to most people, yet I think the feel of white plastic is too heavy. My first Clie (NX73V) has a magnesium casing, while my recent one (TH55) has a glossy reflective screen cover over a metal screen bezel. I have a great big color touch screen compared to that of the iPod which is half size. My Music player looks better then the simplistic white screen on the iPod. I can also drag me music in and out freely from my memory card on any computer, while the iPod is locked on to iTunes on your own computer only. Best of all, I can edit song info, delete songs, edit playlists on my Clie. A flexibility that the iPod doesn't have. Actually, if I really won't a MP3 player, I would want a Sony Walkman, which is designed beautifully, and not seen in everyone's pocket on the streets. Yet, it's locked on to Sony's equivalent to iTunes: Sonicstage, which is Windows only. If only the Walkman supports Mac OS, I'll get one.

Merida over Giant (Bike).
Giant bikes, iguanas and yukons are everywhere. I don't see how they are better then Meridas, yet their prices are about 20% higher then a comparable Merida with similar graded parts. Thus, getting a Merida MTA510 is a no brainer. I have enjoyed my bike and have never regretted saving that 20% for other add-ons.

PHS over GSM (phone system).
Now this is not an easy choice as the previous ones. At the time of choice (4 years ago), going with PHS means great looking Japanese phones, battery power of 1 month per charge, mobile e-mail and internet, and calling fees of only about 20% of that of others. Yet, now the GSM phones are much more advanced, while recent PHS phones are crapy, and none from Japan. The recent phones even have crappy battery life, and no e-mail nor internet. The only advantage left is calling fees, yet good thing I still holding on to my old phone, retaining most of the advatages...

超強單車重改

這是強悍改車的極致吧!很有殺氣的土炮味,而且一看就知道超重的orz
開站強檔專輯-小蜜蜂傳奇

Monday, April 09, 2007

KDDI going to the US?

Reuters reports that KDDI is planing to set up camp in the US, as KDDI mobile, using the Sprint CDMA network.

Cool! As long as I can afford it, I would really love to use Japanese phones out of Japan. Imagine a reasonably sized clamshell phone with a humongous high-def screen, real HTML web browser with Flash support, usable good quality camera, office doc readers, fully functional music player, built-in e-wallet and more. Oh, and the "push e-mail" that's all the rage in the US was so last century in Japan that it's expected to be part of any basic phone: nothing to write home about. If KDDI really provided all that in the US at a reasonable price, many people will be switching from clumsy "smart phones" to easy-to-use, better functioning Japanese feature phones. That would be a big hit to Palm, Blackberry and many others.

Yet, if they went the route of Helio (partly owned by Koreans), charging high fees that people aren't willing to pay, then they would become a niche player that nobody but uber-geeks (or, in business jargon, "pro-sumers") would care about. It would be the Japanese and Koreans fighting it off in the US for a tiny market no one cares about.

No matter how good the phones are, if the prices aren't affordable, then no one cares, just as what Helio achived.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

騎車暴走化

換了光頭胎之後,我的騎車習慣似乎有點變了。
不過換了1.25的光頭胎後,忘記重設碼表的輪徑,因此現在隨便可以採到時速30km/hr我也是有點懷疑啦。
總之呢,現在在騎平路時比較常掛大盤又踩高轉速,完全是個暴走化
然後睡了一覺之後,第二天早上就腿軟整個虛掉。
午餐之後,又暴走化了...orz

我還在新市到台南的路上(緩上)巴掉機車呢,小有成就感 :P

接下來必須想辦法解決騎長途時會出現的胯下皮膚過度摩擦皮的問題。

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Southern Taiwan and little liuchu island biking trip - Day 1

Apr 5

Planned to get up at 6, alarm changed to 6:30, got up at 7, went out 7:30, and after much procrastination, I've finally packed up my bike and am on the train to Taipei at 8:18. As every years' tumb dusting day, it's a nice cloudy day with slight drops of rain. A look around sure shows a different beat of life today. As this is the begining of a 4 day major holiday, I expected to see lots of people, yet the streets in Keelung are quite clear, and the train station nearly empty. I'd normally see all these places packed on a normal weak day's rush hour. Maybe most of the south going crowd already when last night.

I'm on a 4 day trip to the south and little liuchu island(小琉球). As I am trying to stay put with being single, I set out on my first biking trip on my own, to get a taste of the freedom and loneliness of traveling solo. A twist to this much anticipated holiday though, I've got about 3 research papers in my backpack, and about 15 more, with over 50 pages, in my memory card waiting for me to study during the holiday.

I reserved a bus seat for 9:30 from Taipei to Tainan (國光客運), yet the bus arrived at 9:45. There were slight traffic jams, yet just slightly, which is bearable. The bus stopped at the bus company's own bus terminal in Taichung for a lunch brake. The terminal is half terminal, half highway rest stop, with a simple make shift conviniant store and some food stands. Passangers have 10 minutes to fetch up lunch and use the bathroom, then everyone comes back on the bus and we start off again. 3 movies were shown on the bus, yet I didn't pay much attention to the movies. In one of them, a guy was dating a secret lover behind his wife, and the lover was forcing him to devorce with his wife. Under high pressure, the bastard murdered his lover and his wife had a new baby. I didn't know what happened in the end as the Anime (Honey & Clover, in fact...) loaded in my PDA was much more interesting. Another movie had a guy with an inuit girl trying to surive after their plane crashed in the middle of nowhere. I ran out of interest when the girl died. Well, after much sleep, some movies and read a paper, the bus finally arrived in Tainan at 2:10 pm. The time it took was quite nice, considering the fact that today is the first day of a national 4 day holiday.

Went to Grandpa's in Tainan before setting off south. Grandpa stuffed me with a copious load of food and I hit the road at 2:45 pm, with a stuffed belly.

The road to Kaoshong was shorter then I expected, about 60 km. The view wasn't estonishing, yet it's typical of this part of Taiwan. As always, there were roadside "betel nut girls" (檳榔西施), selling betel nuts in glass walled stands, wearing bikinis. And many of them have a weird combination of nice bodies with ugily faces. I saw one today who has this face that just looks like my most hated old Chinese teacher from high school, YUCK!

Just entering Kaoshong, there was this bridge, with a curved down hill when you get off the bridge. Right when I was picking up speed and cutting into the down hill ramp, a normal "slow" sign came into sight. Yet, under it, was a black sign with shinning yellow letter of the most common Budda prayer (阿彌陀佛). Damn, those remind me of prayers for the dead. In the shock of reading that sign, I nearly lost control, yet got back in control in a split second. That sign could cause accidents by scaring the ass off drivers, man!

Kaoshong is the southern end and a major train maintainence station of the newly built Taiwan high speed rail, and am I happy to see those beautiful trains.


Went to see my uncle here in Kaoshung, and went to a buffet with steak for dinner (貴族世家). Quite an interesting day.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

批踢踢...

今天的趣事真多...

批踢踢的進版畫面也出現兔子了


另一方面,還出現了新的BBS站:有名大站 orz

Hello, NTU Single club!!!


[台北電訊/綜合報導]
有鑑於單車運動逐漸普及化
據說本屆社團營運團隊決議,台灣的單車運動已經大眾化,不需要再大力推動
因原有的使命已達成,因此將行社團改制,朝向全新的目標前進

目前全球人口以對數成長急速激增
根據Wikipedia記載,2007年的世界人口已經突破66億
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population )
而台灣人口密度 636人/km^2 也已經是世界排名前幾名
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density )
眼看世界食物量供給逐漸失衡,有些人肥到進不了自己家門,有些人卻嚴重營養不足。
根據馬爾薩斯的人口對數成長理論,地球的食物供給將在不久的將來跟不上人口的成長

因此,為了緩和人口爆炸問題對地球環境的負荷
為身在這個太陽系中獨一無二的美麗新球上負起一個房客的基本維護責任。
台大單車社陶社長於四月一日下午1點於位於活大的社辦開辦記者會,
宣示全力推行單身運動,將原有「台大單車社」改制為「台大單身社」
全力推行台灣單身新運動。

另,配合這次社團改制,以進行網站全面更新,網址為:
http://club.ntu.edu.tw/~club20364/
(不負責任記者 台北報導)

Google TiSP: Free WiFi with a flush!

Google TiSPGoogle has just launched a new product that will provide free home Wifi to everyone, hooray!

Google TiSP beta, code named project teaspoon, is aimed to give everybody free wireless internet connection from their own toilet!
Be sure to click on the "get started" link on the page and see how it works! The installation procedure is so cool, I would really like to talk about it, but don't like to spill the beans, go and take a look! (LOL)