台灣之光時尚精品捷安特City Speed

台北購物節展出的台灣精品中，得到精品金質獎的捷安特City Speed是唯一的工業設計作品。

這款城市公路車由英國設計師Michael Yang操刀，極簡的外觀融合科技感及創新性，除了獲得第十七屆的台灣精品金質獎外，它也得到2008年IF EUROBIKE設計獎城市車類金獎的殊榮。

IF EUROBIKE評審團給了這款車款極高的評價：
"The bike is very well designed from start to finish. All the components have been specially coordinated to work together perfectly. The front light, the stem and the handlebars, for example, from a single unit. Great."
（引用來源：捷安特http://www.giant-bicycles.com/zh-tw/news/12809/）

這款車的設計概念是透過仿生的手法，以鯊魚的身體曲線，轉化為管件的外觀流線型曲線，從前端車首整體視覺的簡潔與平順，到車後警示燈視覺延續，增加速度感與流線意象。

整合式前警示燈、整體式後燈免除安裝、收納的麻煩，增加經濟效益。

外觀極簡，前後車燈都整合在龍頭及座管上，鋁合金車架，有2款，City Speed平把20速售價43800元，City Speed i8內變8段變速售價39800元。

在台北購物節新光三越信義店A11展出的是City Speed平把20速。

就外觀上看來，極簡外型確實適合都會雅痞生活模式，設計概念也呼應城市公路族的內在需求。可惜的是，雖然展場得見這款國內外獲獎爭光的台灣作品，卻沒有機會讓觀賞者親自觸摸這台精品的質感。

（本文圖片皆攝自2009台北購物節新光三越信義店A11展場內。）

The Greatest Nobody

As a nobody, I have a special interest in studying other nobody's life stories. Through their stories, I can learn more about the humanity, the society, and the possible endings of a nobody. I am always wondering, what a nobody can do in his/her negligible and pitiful life.

The definition of a nobody is simple:
1. His parents are not rich.
2. His look is not good.  (i.e. no handsome boys)
3. He is not smart.
4. He is located at the bottom of a social hierachy.

The first nobody comes into my mind is Michael Faraday.
His father was a blacksmith. His brother was a blacksmith. So what could he do?


The second nobody is Marie Curi.
Her family lost every property in a historical event. Her country was occupied by Russia. She hardly kept her life going in a nothing-left research facility.

The thrid nobody is Nikola Tesla.
He was too poor to pay tuition fees of the university. As a serbe, surely did he locate in the bottom of the society. In fact, serbes in 19th is equal to slaves. 

The last one is Albert Einstein.
Everyone around him thought he was a nobody. Indeed, he was a nobody. As a PhD, he could not get any teaching positions in universities. Finally, he got a work in a patent office, which is a significant failure in his career.


As a noboby, I feel I am more fortunate than the above nobodies.
My family has some properties. My career is more successful. My country is still alive.
 
Nevertheless, these nobodies are the greatest in human history. They made significant contribution to the human society despite the fact that the society had abandoned them before.

Could I do the same?

The Norns

Shortly after my girl friend went to USA, the Norns started to appear in my mind once in a while. I feel something is going to happen, but I don't know what it is.

They appeared in my mind in this way:

Strange enough, they are not girls, but a Wing Gundam(飛翼零式特裝型).
It didn't take me too much time to find this image on the Internet. It exaclty matched what I saw  in my mind. Wait...I am not a Gundam fan. Where did I see this?

I need a psychologist.

Application matters!應用才重要

In "The Innovator's Dilemma", the arthur thinks when a company encounters a disruptive technology,

在創新的兩難中，作者認為一家公司在面對突破性科技時，最重要的不是改善突破性科技的效果，把突破性科技應用在現有的市場中。而是替突破性科技找到新的市場。

在Pattern Recognition的研究領域裡，研究人員一直在想辦法提升辨識的準確率，使得PR可以有效的被應用在人們的日常生活中。但是「創新的兩難」替我們指引出了另一個新的方向。 也許最重要的不是提升準確率，而是找到一個新的應用，而這個應用就算是準確率不高也沒有關係，因為有自動化的辨識，所以提供了和現有的技術不同的性質。

數位相機的人臉辨識就是一個例子。如果人臉有抓到，很好。但是如果沒抓到呢？也沒關係，反正相片還是拍的出來。

How to minimize the number of logging data

In the last week, I proposed an idea to my boss about minimizing logging data.

The idea is simple. Assume that we have a deterministic system. We want to debug the system, so we need some logging data to analyze the problem. Since the system is deterministic, if we give it the same input, it will respond the same output. So we only need to log the data coming into the system. If we made the system deterministic, we could avoid logging in the internal of the system. It can save a lot of logging bandwidth.

However, my boss thought it is impossible. He said, "It's impossible to log all incoming data of the system, because we cannot log all incoming electromagnetic waves. We can only log the data like the XOR of the electromagnetic waves." I tried to explain to him that we only care about digital systems, therefore we can focus on 0's and 1's, but he still very persisted that electromagnetic waves are impossible to log. It's near the lunch time, so I quickly ended this unpleasant conversation and went for my lunch.

After few days, I started to wonder "what is the XOR of electromagnetic waves?". XOR is a Boolean operation, how to apply it to continuous signals? Another thing I wondered is "what is the maximum input of a 3.5G mobile phone system ?" I thought the answer should be below 15Mb/s, because the maximum data rate of HSDPA is 7.2Mb/s. The HSDPA protocol overhead should not exceed the amount of data. If our system were deterministic, the minimum number of logging data rate should be below 15Mb/s. As a result, the data rate is ok to transfer by merely an USB cable, am I correct?

How to get WHQL certificate for your driver

If you need to get WHQL from Microsoft for your driver, you need to pass Windows Logo Test. First you need a PC with Windows Server 2003 installed.
Then follow the steps in DTMHowTo.

When you pass the logo test ( sometimes you need to the support from Microsoft ), see Winqual Faq to know how to submit your result to Microsoft.

Summary of MediaTek Inc.

todo
What my boss said today
1. Our product is good, because we are successful on the market, and our performance compared to competitors are good

2. We don't do unit test and code review unless we feel painful because of them

3. Unit test scale(on a module or multiple module or a function?)

4. Tools can have its innovation, not just support

The people in MediaTek thinks they can work here because they are superior than others. They think their job is the best in the world. One day, a colleague said to me that "If you leave this company, you will never get a better job. At that time, you have to beg to return."

I hardly agree with what he said. Indeed, thanks to the tax policy in Taiwan, MediaTek's compensation is considered the best in Taiwan. However, I don't think good compensation is the ONLY criteria for a good job. Of course, money is important, but it's more important to consider the money which you get and the money which you will get at the same time. I think it's better to judge a people's value by what he is going to be paid in his next job than what he is paid in his current job. When you are fired by your boss and want to find a new job, you cannot just put the number of your previous compensation on your resume and convince your future boss that you are worth that much. You have to prove it by what you have learned and what you have done in your previous jobs. These are more important than just good compensation.

For myself, I found my current job hardly add any eye-catching acheivements to my resume. I need to do something to differentiate myself from fellow engineers. In a competitive job market, the secret to succeed is not only do your job right, but also choose the right job to do.

Many people think that I quit a high compensation job is unrealistic, but most of time, I found myself very reasonable.

to summarize:
1. This article will become like Code Horror style
2. I am glad to leave