台式川味牛肉面

名字个拗口，不知是台式还是川味，原来只是牛肉面上泼些辣椒酱 -.-!

太精辟了

一个明星，忽然成为热议话题，那一定是因为他出事儿了。
一国政治，一直成为热议话题，那一定是因为它持续出事儿着。

in reference to:

"“我告诉你说啊，你爱写啥写啥，我不管着，不过你给我记住一点，别写政治” “知道知道，您是一朝被蛇咬 十年怕井绳的路数” “你少给我不当回事儿，你看看这都什么时代了，谁还用井绳，你看着像井绳的那些个，都是蛇。”"
- http://qixiaoguai2009.blogbus.com/logs/54045002.html (view on Google Sidewiki)

windows 7 favorite link grey out

电脑突发症状：Favorite那个星星变成灰色的了，然后在左边的navigation栏里面原来会自动扩张开的几个小文件夹都不见了。点Favorite之后nav栏依然是空的，虽然右边可以显示正常的文件夹。于是原来可以直接点存的文件夹，现在需要先点Favorite然后再点文件夹，多了一次点击很不方便。

解决方案：

1. 打开注册表（这个地球人都知道了吧：开始->regedit->回车）。
2. 找到hkey_classes_root/lnkfile，这里首字母是L的小写不是123的1。
3. 在相应目录下添加一个string的key，名字就叫IsShortcut。
4. 注销重新登录，或者重启。

PS：Google搜这个解决方案还挺麻烦的，答案是在这个网页找到的： http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/147638-favorite-links-empty.html。我至少做了10个refinement才搞清楚到底要搜什么，而且结果还是从搜到的一篇帖子连过去的……

囧：原来UP是based on true story啊

看图，著名钉子户Edith Macefield的房子。Yelp上说地址是：1748 NW 46th St & 15th Ave Seattle, WA 98107，可惜我在Google Map的street view上没有找到。

屏蔽门：这个世道太乱了

中国移动屏蔽google和百度，这个世道太乱了——美名其曰：扫黄。

Update：号称是误杀……乱啊……

in reference to:

"多名网友向网易科技反映，他们使用中国移动号码的手机无法访问百度及谷歌的手机WAP网站。"
- http://media.ifeng.com/news/newmedia/web/200912/1205_4266_1462947.shtml (view on Google Sidewiki)

少儿不宜：西安街上的一家店

声明：和某公司木有关系……

Tip: google calendar显示农历

一直觉得没有农历很不方便，最近才发现这个选项已经存在很久了，这年头不做宣传的功能不好找啊……给大家普及一下：

登陆google calendar，选择setting，在那个general的tab下面找一个叫做alternative calendar的下拉菜单，选择中国日历，简体或者繁体，保存。然后你的日历就会变成这个样子：

可悲

利益熏天，少林寺即将消失……

in reference to:

"遥想当年，我炎黄子孙被叫做东亚病夫。可那时，概览我中华上下，也委实积贫积弱。 再看此时，我中华武术被称为花拳绣腿。但当下，纵观我武坛内外，还的确乏善可陈。"
- http://qixiaoguai2009.blogbus.com/logs/52838815.html (view on Google Sidewiki)

Simpson's Paradox on WSJ

Interesting article. Copied Andrew's comments here:

Simpson's Paradox not always such a paradox

By Andrew Gelman on December 3, 2009 9:10 AM | 3 Comments

I'm on an email list of media experts for the American Statistical Association: from time to time a reporter contacts the ASA, and their questions are forwarded to us. Last week we got a question from Cari Tuna about the following pattern she had noticed:

Measured by unemployment, the answer appears to be no, or at least not yet. The jobless rate was 10.2% in October, compared with a peak of 10.8% in November and December of 1982.

But viewed another way, the current recession looks worse, not better. The unemployment rate among college graduates is higher than during the 1980s recession. Ditto for workers with some college, high-school graduates and high-school dropouts.

So how can the overall unemployment rate be lower today but higher among each group?

Several of us sent in answers. Call us media chasers or educators of the populace; whatever. Luckily I wasn't the only one to respond: I sent in a pretty lame example that I'd recalled from an old statistics textbook; whereas Xiao-Li Meng, Jeff Witmer, and others sent in more up-to-date items that Ms. Tuna had the good sense to use in her article.

There's something about this whole story that bothers me, though, and that is the implication that the within-group comparisons are real and the aggregate is misleading. As Tuna puts it:

The Simpson's Paradox in unemployment rates by education level is but the latest example. At a glance, the unemployment rate suggests that U.S. workers are faring better in this recession than during the recession of the early 1980s. But workers at each education level are worse off . . .

This discussion follows several examples where, as the experts put it, "The aggregate number really is meaningless. . . . You can't just look at the overall rate. . . ."

Here's the problem. Education categories now do not represent the same slices of the population that they did in 1976. A larger proportion of the population are college graduates (as is noted in the linked news article), and thus the comparison of college grads (or any other education category) from 1982 to the college grads today is not quite an apples-to-apples comparison. Being a college grad today is less exclusive than it was back then.

In this sense, the unemployment example is different in a key way from the other Simpson's paradox examples in the news article. In those other examples, the within-group comparison is clean, while the aggregate comparison is misleading. In the unemployment example, it's the aggregate that has a cleaner interpretation, while the within-group comparisons are a bit of a mess.

As a statistician and statistical educator, I think we have to be very careful about implying that the complicated analysis is always better. In this example, the complicated analysis can mislead! It's still good to know about Simpson's paradox, to understand how the within-group and aggregate comparisons can differ--but I think it's highly misleading in this case to imply that the aggregate comparison is wrong in some way. It's more of a problem of groups changing their meaning over time.

in reference to:

"When Combined Data Reveal the Flaw of Averages In a Statistical Anomaly Dubbed Simpson's Paradox, Aggregated Numbers Obscure Trends in Job Market, Medicine and Baseball"
- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125970744553071829.html (view on Google Sidewiki)

Cool way to create bokeh

with floating hearts :)

in reference to: DIY - Create your own Bokeh | DIYPhotography.net (view on Google Sidewiki)

Bokeh is an adaptation from a a Japanese word meaning blur. In photography this term is used to describe the quality of the areas in the picture which are not in focus.

When referring to Bokeh, we can distinguish some of it characteristics:

- Is the light/dark gradient smooth or sharp?

- What shape will a small dot of light take what it is in the Bokeh area? (mirror lenses for example, create a bagel like Bokeh)

We can play with those two variants to create a special Bokeh.

You will need :

• One large aperture lens (a Canon 50mm F1.8 is used here, but Nikon 50mm 1.8 will also do, and the superb Nikon 50mm 1.4 will work even better)
• One sheet of black paperboard

1. Cut and shape the sheet to make a fake lens hood. The Diameter is made so that it snugly fits on the lens.

2. In the middle of the filter the wanted bokeh shape is cut out - in out example a heart is used. I’m not sure how big a hole the shape can be. But you can check it right away by just looking through the viewfinder. On the 50mm lens @ F1.8 a 15mm heart gives a metering value equal to F3.2, so it can probably be a little bigger (you can use a puncher or cut it by hand).

3. Set your camera to its lowest aperture value (completely open).

Here are two shots to demonstrate this technique - one with a bare lens and the other with the hearted hood. see more shots here and here (I leave it as an exercise to tell which is which :)

Here are the parameters for the example shown above:

• Lens - Canon 50mm F1.8
• "Lens hood" Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inch)
• Hole diameter: 15mm (0.6inch)

Here are two more great examples for this technique from RottieLover (note - there only one "real" heart in each picture):

Do you have a cool bokeh? show off on the comments or on the flickr group.

This article was contributed by Karsten Stroemvig (aka Lullaby), see his other great photograph projects, or browse through our readers projects section.

Make sure you don't miss out on the next article - Register to the RSS feed or the newsletter.

家门口卡几张

好久没有动过相机了，有点对不过去，就随便在家门口卡了几张：

邻居门上的稻草人：

破破的墙壁居然有些texture的感觉：

广而告之

这个创意不错，从带三个表那儿看到的。

董卓欲试手下忠心，
召众臣会于室，
使貂婵裸胸涂墨舞于室中。
忽，灯灭，目不及物。
倾尔，灯亮。
卓视众臣手皆黑，唯吕布手白。
卓欣然曰：布忠臣也。
布笑，露黑齿！
卓大愕，欲杀之。
布曰：“南方黑芝麻糊，口感真好！”

in reference to:

"你瞧瞧人家广告做的，再瞧瞧侯耀华广告做的"
- » 你瞧瞧人家广告做的，再瞧瞧侯耀华广告做的 (view on Google Sidewiki)

R trick to get column max

Learned from an email thread. This is the kind of problem you'll never think about if you are a student using R. Suppose you have a k by n matrix, say x, where k is small but n is huge (say 1,000,000), and you want to get the maximum in each column, that is, n different values.

The naive way of apply(x, 2, max) takes forever to complete.

The new trick I learned is:

# transpose x and convert to a data.frame
t.x <- as.data.frame(t(x))
# use do.call with "pmax" and the input matrix
x.max <- do.call("pmax", t.x)

经济危机真的已经结束了吗

大众媒体年中的时候就开始报道说经济危机最糟糕的时候已经过去，虽然不知道恢复速度会有多快，但至少形势不会恶化。可怎么最近的新闻和去年这个时候差不多糟糕呢？该裁员的接着裁员：著名游戏公司EA要裁掉1500，新的AOL也要裁掉1/3，索爱也要裁员，好些分部包括RTP都要关掉。

More in this New York Times Article: Jobless Rate Up in 29 States, Hitting Records in 4 of Them

山寨品牌

中国人真能折腾啊。

in reference to:

"某西方国家的商务部长在世界经济论坛上咬牙切齿的说：“与中国的竞争，就是场血淋淋的战争” 你看看下面这些个图，就知道这爷们为啥如此的怒向刀丛觅小诗了。"
- 真能整 - 奇 小 怪 - 博客大巴 (view on Google Sidewiki)

How to Make a Space Photo

Detailed steps, very interesting.

in reference to: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/making-space-photo/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

500 Days of Summer

Love this movie, the tunes and those wisdom lines.

Partygoer: So Tom, what is it that you do?
Tom: I uh, I write greeting cards.
Summer: Tom could be a really great architect if he wanted to be.
Partygoer: That's unusual, I mean, what made you go from one to the other?
Tom: I guess I just figured, why make something disposable like a building when you can make something that last forever, like a greeting card.

Tom: What happens when you fall in love?
Summer: You believe in that?
Tom: It's love, it's not Santa Claus.

Rachel Hansen: You know, all my friends love you and think you're great. It's like they say, there's plenty of fish in the sea.
Tom: [Looks at a group of twelve year old girls who wave at him and giggle] Those aren't fish. They're guppies.

Rachel Hansen: Better that you find this out now before you come home and find her in bed with Lars from Norway.
Tom: Who's Lars from Norway?
Rachel Hansen: He's some guy she met at the gym with Brad Pitt's face and Jesus' abs.

Narrator: Most days of the year are unremarkable. They begin, and they end, with no lasting memories made in between. Most days have no impact on the course of a life. May 23rd was a Wednesday.

教主这张相片实在比较ws

Drag the Shutter

Nice explanation: using flash to make shutter speed and exposure independent. Good examples on what the effects look like under different shutter speeds.

A very impressive example adding motion using zoom and dragging the shutter at the end of the article.

in reference to: 03 – dragging the shutter « planet neil – tangents (view on Google Sidewiki)

Free wifi this holiday

Free wifi at many airports and Virgin America provided by Google, free wifi at Delta provided by eBay, free wifi at New York Time Square provided by Yahoo and free wifi in lots of other airports/hotels provided by Microsoft.

in reference to:

"Google announced Tuesday that it would provide free Wi-Fi access in 47 airports across the country — including Boston, Houston and Seattle — through Jan. 15."
- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/technology/companies/11wifi.html?_r=1 (view on Google Sidewiki)

华山

Amazing photo

Google Maps Navigation works great on android phones

Really love this app! Search with English words not specific addresses; speak out loud for the road names!

in reference to: Official Google Blog: Announcing Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 (view on Google Sidewiki)

嗡嗡头顶飞机过

偷窥其牌号：H946CP

印度万灯节

Diwali，wikipedia上翻译为“屠妖节”，又称为万灯节或者印度新年。以下说明抄自wiki

相傳世界被妖魔所侵擾，天神下凡降魔。降魔後，大地女神為天神誕下一名兒子－「Naraka Suran」。身為大地女神之子的他卻與邪惡為伍，並強迫百姓不准點燈。天神應百姓所求，與Naraka Suran展開正邪大戰。Naraka Suran死後，人民點燈慶祝。

照到蜡烛几个：

超赞的一组摄影图片

我最喜欢企鹅这张

in reference to:

"国际最佳自然摄影奖于日前揭晓，来自世界各地的著名摄影师、自然主义者和探险家提交了大量参赛作品"
- 转帖 - 开心网 (view on Google Sidewiki)

First Verizon Droid Commertial

Love it!

有点意思

水果蔬菜做的小屋
in reference to:

"你有没有曾经想像或是梦到过建筑物或是你的家变成随手可以拿来吃的食物做的？像是姜饼屋一样"
- 用食物来创造艺术！——老婆，咱搬家吧？ - 有意思吧 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Kaifu's new office

is quite empty now, but they have lots of tea!

in reference to:

"There’s so much tea, in fact, he insisted on my taking a tin."
- Why Kai-Fu Lee Turned Down Steve Jobs (And Is Still Cool with That) (view on Google Sidewiki)

Éclair is out

Now I know why android is so fat/round.

电线杆和叶子

Love this quote

As long as you know the limitations of your equipment, and how to overcome them, it is possible to take gorgeous photographs, even if you don’t have a fortune to spend on your gear.

in reference to:

"Saying a camera takes nice pictures is like saying a guitar plays nice melodies."
- Saying a Camera takes Nice Pictures is like Saying a Guitar Plays Nice Melodies (view on Google Sidewiki)

这个解说绝对是神！

搞到最后才发现这是某广告，偶滴神啊！

in reference to: 狂晕！比掉下来还惨！看一次笑一次！！叫兽教你泡妞-蠢爸爸作品 - 视频 - 优酷视频 - 在线观看 - 超搞笑 唐僧 [小品] 泡妞 (view on Google Sidewiki)

非死不可

这句话太狠了，我怎么就没有反应过来呢？还是中国人民对语言的理解力牛啊……

in reference to:

"Facebook怎么读怎么像“非死不可”"
- 转帖 - 开心网 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Excellent thread on 50mm prime shots

Lots of great example shots with 50mm prime lens. Strongly recommend reading (images sourced from this dps post).

 

 
in reference to: 50mm Prime only challenge thread (view on Google Sidewiki)

Found a nice stone wall

Shot on SF street. The middle thing looks like a beard old man :p

p.s. Thought side wiki is easier than copy and paste to post on blogger.
in reference to: Stone Wall on Flickr - Photo Sharing! (view on Google Sidewiki)

I thought wave is more difficult to understand

and turned out that people are more confused about Obama's nobel prize...

in reference to: Google Wave Is Easier To Understand Than… (view on Google Sidewiki)

长见识了

和谐—>河蟹—>水产—>兲艹
zomg的进化相当于“惊”变到—>“雷”。

in reference to:

"zomg的进化相当于“惊”变到—>“雷”。"
- 网络英文，难念的经 | 可能吧 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Pictures of PKU

Strongly recommend (image source from 王放)

in reference to:

"之后这一组都不是传统常见的北大照片，作者在夜深人静的时候拍，或者经常去北面的园子里拍。那些游客罕至的未名湖北的园子，其实别有风味。"
- 北大的秘密 - Windows Live (view on Google Sidewiki)

下午瞎照两张

第一张，最近被和谐了的霸王龙。

第二张，飞行中的鸭子们。

蜜汁凉瓜

推荐一夏日清爽凉菜，在三藩中国城吃到的，赞厨师的创意。

将新鲜苦瓜去皮后用削皮器削成很薄的片片，如果室温太热可以考虑放冰箱凉快一下。食用的时候沾上蜂蜜，可以抵消掉一些生苦瓜的气味，十分爽口。

之前也吃过不少生苦瓜的做法，一直都嫌太苦和味道太生，唯有这次觉得菜谱值得学习，特博客记之。个人认为，店里要是不放生的红蔬菜椒配色，用枸杞替代效果和味道会更好。

国庆阅兵 （7D, 5DmkII, D700)

Awesome pictures and video, check it out!
in reference to: Shooting China’s 60th anniversary parade with the 7D, 5DmkII and Nikon D700 « DSLR News Shooter (view on Google Sidewiki)

Crop the pictures

最简单对图片的处理就是crop了。

画画是一笔一笔把白纸变复杂，而照相却经常会有太多的内容需要去一点点切割。当然，一开始就计划好构图自然是好，不过有时候却由于种种原因不得不切割。譬如，照个花花草草，没钱淘个macro镜头，也没有折腾reverse ring，就用普通镜头照的总是范围太大，crop一下就好了。

碰见一个采花大盗

蜘蛛网：

这张也剪过，纯粹是一开始没有够好图

Some good photography resources

Just to keep a bookmark of a good photography resource list.
in reference to:

"National Geographic – Photo Tips
Popular Photo – How To
Shutterbug – Techniques If you pick up a copy of the August issue you’ll find an advertisement I’m in.
Rangerfinder – RFTV
Digital Photo Pro – Techniques
Photofles Lighting School
Nikon
Kodak
Canon Learning Center
Olympus – Photo Lessons
Adoram Photo Learning Center"
- 10 (+1) Great Online Resources for Great Photography Advice | Gizmotastic (view on Google Sidewiki)

Inspiring article of shooting in the day

Traditional tips say: never shoot in the middle of the day, and even if you do, shoot in the shade. Then I saw a interesting article on how mid-day shadows emphasis texture on DPS, and later, I saw this great article.

It's about shooting portrait using natural light, with lots of great examples. Key summaries:

1. Be creative and look for interesting shadows and shapes, practice and shoot tons of them.
2. Put light in the back of the object to prevent blinks, and make it more natural.
3. Use silver reflectors to reclaim some details in the background (well, prob this tip is not for me right now).
in reference to: Shooting with Available Light - Lifestyle Portraiture (view on Google Sidewiki)

So complicated

The relationship between ISO and sensitivity is so complicated, that I totally don't know what the author is talking about. Key points from the article:

1. Digital sensors convert light into electrical charge in a linear fashion (I thought it was log before), which is different from human eye.

2. ISO is a combination of the sensor's physical sensitivity and the tone function to convert the signal, and maybe the metering.

3. There are many ways to define ISO, and it is possible each camera manufacture has its own definition.
in reference to: Sense and Sensitivity: dpreview.com Editorial blog: Digital Photography Review (view on Google Sidewiki)

Random Shots of San Francisco

上周搬出了三藩，贴几张最近照的相片。

雾大，城里总是雾气朦胧。这是一天迷路莫名其妙上了80之后干脆就跑到垃圾岛上照的夜景。很可惜没有三脚架，只能凑活着用极高的ISO靠着栏杆照了。一片灯火辉煌，其实米国城里看起来也不算那么冷清。

换一张日落时候的相片。这是在九曲花街拍的。黄昏的颜色很漂亮，可惜直接照的那些相片都觉得很普通，就贴这个楼梯照了。

接着贴几家店：Macy

苹果店

LV门口匆忙走过的行人：

再来：某小学墙上的图画，在铁栅栏之外拍的。

芝士学校，不知道是教做芝士呢，还是教品芝士？

有人知道这是哪里么？居然在大马路上发现了一个旋转木马（左下角这个东东）。

别在这家人门口乱趴车……

最后，路边摊卖的面具。