Article downloads trends on PubMed Central

From: Nature news

I wondered why the available articles in the bottom graph is a steady increase, while the download counts in the top graph is a periodic zigzag. To explore the cause of the periodic fluctuations in the download counts, I matched the peak and valley points down to the time scale and found a trend. The low points of downloads repeatedly correlates with Augusts and Decembers, suggesting an association with summer and Christmas vacations. We thus hypothesize that the majority of paper downloads are from students who download for class use.

(Oh no, the grant proposal writing style is sneaking into my blogging, too...... I guess I'm having a little prelim overdosage)

HP buys Palm

Wow, just wow.

And guess who's the head of personal systems group at HP?

Todd Bradley, previous Palm CEO.

I guess everyone's a family now

Subaru Impreza

硬皮鯊是個開過就令人念念不忘的車。

真的是，去年到黃石租一台來相伴一週之後，一直很懷念那感覺

雖然組裝上有些小毛病（某塑膠飾條鬆鬆的）、雖然四速自排變速箱很鳥、雖然比較吃油

開起來就是好順，對油門、方向盤的操控，每一個動作都有迅速直接的反應

尤其過山路彎道時，車子重心貼住地面的穩定感，真的會令人上癮

這就是有個性的車啊！

還好還沒開過更高級的好車，不然口味越來越重XDD

不過說起來，在這之前我似乎常常開爛車啊
以前的車是台二手福特escort跑車版，老車有種隨時會熄火的驚險感；開高速更有種引擎要死要死的哀號聲orz
第一次租車租了台Pontiac Montana minivan。號稱七人坐旅行車，引擎看起來比Corolla還小。果然油門踩到底，過了20秒之後，引擎才回過神「啊，該加速了！」。正當你想說終於有反應了，才發現怎麼... 好弱... = = 那小引擎配大車的感覺簡直就是叫一頭驢子拖砂石車一樣的感覺。

Thoughts on mobile device user interface designs

There are several user interface elements that I hate to see on mobile devices, I simply hate them with a passion because they are a pain to use.

1. A "Start menu" should not be on anything, not just mobile devices
   Microsoft used to put a start menu on everything. The idea is that everything is in one place, thus everything is easier to find. Nope, that idea does not fly. Let's say you want everything in your home to be easy to find, so you throw your cups, toothbrushes, pens, shoes, towels, pots, pans and underwear all in the same box. Right, enjoy digging through that huge box everytime you need something. To Fix this, Microsoft came up with the idea of folders in folders. Back to the "everything in one box" analogy, you put boxes within boxes to categorize your stuff, each box only has a label that tells you a vague category. So, to get a toothbrush, you open box after box after box, then, OOPS, wrong box... Close all the boxes and start again, arrg, messy night mare.
   That's why I hate Windows mobile, good thing they are trashing it.
2. Widgets are designed to waste screen space
   Android & Nokia's Symbian are mainly Widget platforms. Widgets are tiny apps that show snippets of info in a eye candy package. But mobile devices have tiny screens. Do you want a Widget that shows a huge "CNN" logo next to a box so small that you can only see two words of the headlines at a time? Or do you want the actual headlines?
   Nokia's Widgets are much worse offenders then Android's. Nokia took the great and mighty EPOC OS and turned it into the abomination that is Symbian. Now they see a threat from the new generation of platforms, what do they do? Bring out Symbian^3, ^4, ^5... ad infinitum, all of them are more of the same widget crap. Big FAIL.
   
3. A bar of "dynamic keys" under the screen
   Remember Nokia invented on phones the concept of a bar of text on the bottom of the screen that tells you what the top most two buttons do? That was a huge waste of screen. They are still keeping that crap on touchscreen UIs. With touchscreens, the beauty is that you can put buttons anywhere on the screen that would make sense to the user, and only show them when needed. Why do I always need the "OK" and "cancel" buttons on the bottom of the screen?

Yup, this is all to vent on Nokia's new N8 phone with Symbian^3 OS. It's great hardware with rubbish software.

有質感的牙膏

莫名其妙的喜歡有質感的東西

為什麼這個新款的牙膏
http://www.aquafresh.com/IsoActive.aspx
只因為是裝在加壓鋼瓶裡，我就會莫名其妙的願意花3倍的價格去買回來玩。

又因為是加壓鋼瓶，按一顆按鈕就會自己流出來，感覺特別好玩，又會有「哇，真好玩，再擠多一點出來吧」的衝動...... = =|||

這個商品包裝的設計者一定有研究過人類心理，讓我忍不住要「買貴」又「多用」orz

Trial and error

The whole point of trial and error is to try several times, learning something new each time you fail, while aplying the newly learned to the next try.

What if every time you try, despite the different approaches, you get the same out come and learn nothing new?

Then what's the point of further trying?

......There, I said it. Maybe I'm ready to try again XDD

不怕死的單車女孩

早上通車時，在胡桃街的橋上看到了一個女孩，長髮、亞洲人、休閒服裝，一副就研究生的樣子

沒帶安全帽，穿休閒皮鞋，騎量販店牌Y型管雙避震車，還踩高轉速一路晃阿晃

喂，這裡是一堆人開車不長眼睛、到處都是路面坑洞的費城耶！

這麼瀟灑...... = =

好吧，我輸了，妳比較不怕死

（好險不是認識的人，不然會小小擔心呢XD）

小白...orz

我就是人太好，花了一個晚上幫一個陌生人提供網頁設計意見（只能說待過同社團吧，不認識）花了半天時間在他身上，念書、睡眠時間也都犧牲了一些。

最後在說清楚我因為資格考而只能當顧問無法實際幫忙設計時，他翻臉了......
「你們老人都知道我的狀況卻看著讓我死......」

喂，是誰在deadline一個禮拜前才忽然來求救的阿？我已經畢業很久了，為什麼要犧牲資格考去幫你？哪裡欠你了？

真的是，同情心需要看對象給，好心卻被反咬一口 = =

iPhone OS 4

It's announced, and it has "limited" multitasking.

But hay, how can they make the UI so UGLY?! (No, it is so ugly, I'm not posting pictures here, to protect your quality of vision) The previous iPhone OS UI was clean and decent, now they took that and layered on ugly stuff. What's up with that studded metal background for picking background apps? More of the same crap for the so-called "app folder" popup.

And how to close a running app? Tap and hold the icon until the little close button shows up. Right, imagine doing that for 5 apps for a row... Seems easier to just throw the iPhone at a wall.

And I thought Android 1.0 was ugly enough, Apple just snitched the title for king-of-no-taste-design from Google. Android 2.0, on the other hand looks decent now.

How had times changed? Microsoft made the ugly Win 95, which looks like a night mare; then Apple came out OS X, the pioneer of polished modern UI looks. Now Microsoft's Windows phone 7 actually is a looker; while iPhone OS 4 is a downright disaster.

Palm's webOS is looking all the more fabulous......, and functional, too.

Cannondale

唉，過去心目中的理想單車品牌 Cannondale 被賣掉給加拿大的財團了，新東家把賓州的車架廠關了，以後會在台中的GT工廠生產。

以後的 Cannondale 不再特立獨行，不知會不會變得跟GT一樣索然無味。真要買台灣單車，我寧願省錢買美利達，幹嘛給美國人跟加拿大人多抽一筆？

看來要買純正 Cannondale 要趁今年去搶庫存了。若搶不到，那要買好車就回台灣搬美利達就好了。

（我絕不在這邊買捷安特，因為巨大機械台中廠的車沒有賣美國市場；美國的捷安特我只找得到中國貨。而美利達，嘿嘿美國買不到 :P）