Tuesday, March 6, 2012

參與一個網路連署需要多少時間?

How about four seconds?  四秒!

假定你使用 Google Chrome, 或者 Firefox with add-on such as LastPass, 軟體會記得你以前填表用的資料, 而在你寫下你的名字的第一個字後, 就自動幫你把整個表填完.  At this point, you have used half a second.

剩下的 3.5 秒是用來做  CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test 來証明你是人, 不是程式) test.

這裹有兩個連署湏要你 8 秒鐘的時間:
讓陽光照穿蔡衍明濫用傳媒公器的陰霾──呼籲 (demand) NCC舉行正式聽證會 (338 as of now)
連署聲援成功大學零貳社同學二二八行動 (282 as of now)




Monday, August 8, 2011

Salman Khan: youTube 上的 Salman 比真的 Salman 好

 
不管你多年輕或多老, 你可以從 Salman Khan 學到東西.  Watch this 18 minute TED video.  Start your life-long learning from this video, here and now.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Smartphone ownership: Japan 4%, US 35%,
Taiwan 50% says Ma II

This is a follow-up of my post yesterday
Smartphone ownership: Japan 4%, US 35%,
Taiwan 50% says Ma [1]


First, let me summarize three pieces of data from [1] and add a new piece of data from Tae Matsumoto to show that there is a phenomenal surge of smartphone ownership in Japan:
  1.  Global Smartphone Penetration by Region 2009-2014  (2010-06-20) predicted a 5% Japanese smartphone ownership in 2011.
  2. Tae Matsumoto (松本多恵) of Nara Women's University (奈良女子大學) in a survey of 125 students in the first two months of 2011, found only five owning smartphones.  This suggests a ownership rate of 4%, similar to the above forecast.
  3. iPhone drives Japan smartphone penetration to over 20% (2010-09-09) observed that
    smartphone penetration jumped to 22.6% in July from 12% a year ago, according to market research company BCN.
  4. Tae Matsumoto did another survey in Nara Women's University on 2011-04-30 with 300 students participating, and found the ownership number jumped from the 4% of two months ago to 13%.
Peter Ro wrote
台灣人很愛使用智慧型手機
Taiwanese love to use smartphones
presumably responding to the 30% IDC number or the 50% Ma Ying-Jeou number for Taiwan in my previous post.

To this, I have two comments:
  1. Ma stated  on 2011-02-10, without justification, that the smartphone penetration rate in Taiwan was expected to reach nearly 50% this year.  Less than a month ago, in  Taiwan smartphone penetration set to hit record high: IDC, an IDC senior analyst said
    Smartphone shipments in Taiwan, which accounted for between 21 percent and 22 percent of total mobile phone shipments last year, will increase to between 29 percent and 30 percent this year
    That implied that smartphone ownership is less than 30%.  Ma should tell us why his number 50% is so at odds with IDC's number, and completely out of line with any other prevailing forecasts. 
  2. All the numbers we quoted are about smartphone ownership and market penetration, not about usage. Ownership and market penetration are different from usage.  For example, many Taiwanese own iPhones, but they use them as expensive cell phones to feel good, to show off, or to make a statement about their social status.  Few understands how a smartphone differs from dumb phones and few realizes that a smartphone is a powerful computer.  It is a rare Taiwanese smartphone owner who knows how to tether or even what it means.  I have even helped many to turn on their GPS.   See Two things to do in 2011: Use smartphone and dump Microsoft for more.  Taiwanese leave their smartphones' tremendous power untapped just as they leave their computers' tremendous power untapped.  This is as if I own the empire state building, but decide to use just one room on the first floor, and nowhere else.  Why?  Because I don't want to learn to use other rooms.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Smartphone ownership: Japan 4%, US 35%,
Taiwan 50% says Ma

I saw a very surprising 2011 survey result from Ms Tae Matsumoto of Nara Women's University (奈良女子大學), as follows:


Thus, less than four out of 100 (or one out of twenty five) Nara Women's University students have smartphones.  Can the number be this low in a Japan university?

This 4% is in line with Global Smartphone Penetration by Region 2009-2014, but is a far cry from the 23% given in iPhone drives Japan smartphone penetration to over 20%.
 
For US numbers, see Pew research smartphone ownership.  They are 35% overall and 52% for young adults:
Smartphone penetration has reached more than half (52%) of 18-to-29-year-old US adults, according to a July 2011 study from the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project. The study also reveals that 45% of 30-to-49-year-olds own smartphones, and this figure then drops by almost 50% to 24% among 50-to-64-year-olds. Overall, 35% of US adults own smartphones.
The US numbers pale when compared to Taiwan's, according to president Ma Ying-Jeou:
"The smartphone penetration rate in Taiwan is expected to reach nearly 50% this year based on a similar figure in Hong Kong, where smartphones have become very popular," Ma told reporters at a press conference.
For people unfamiliar with Ma Yin-Jeou, he is a man constantly making unsubstantiated statements such as this, and making promises he could not keep (think 6-3-3). 

In Taiwan smartphone penetration set to hit record high: IDC, we read
Smartphone shipments in Taiwan, which accounted for between 21 percent and 22 percent of total mobile phone shipments last year, will increase to between 29 percent and 30 percent this year, higher than the global average of 26 percent, IDC senior analyst Joey Yen (嚴蘭欣) told reporters at a news conference.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Serious problems with Facebook

 
Unlike Google, Facebook's contribution to human knowledge and useful dialog seems to me negligible.

First, you can like someone's post, ignore it, but never dislike it.  This has the effect of distorting reality, and strongly discouraging those dissenting individuals from participating.

We can reference a blog entry and its comments, or a web page trivially using their URLs.  In contrast, it is not obvious how to reference a Facebook comment.  We can conclude that Facebook comments have little reference values.  For example, researchers using  Zotero to collect references will find few if any Facebook comments in their collections.

I found a Facebook public event named 連署要求NCC對《三立》假新聞開罰,勿再縱容惡質媒體!!
I left a comment, encouraging event supporters to provide evidences to garner more support.   My comment was removed within minutes.

An event participant 董倫輝 wrote
馬總統完全在狀況外,被惡質的三立擺了一道。
It would be useful for the society to ask why he knows, given Ma Ying-Jeou's notoriety.  See 我們家沒有人有綠卡; 我有綠卡, 女兒是美國公民.
Another,  杨垂沿 wrote  
这就是国民党永远做不出来的事!偏偏就有一群人会吃这一套!
中國國民黨/共產黨 如何摧毀人性 How KMT/CCP destroy human decency presents facts after facts of such evil-doings and worse.

At this writing, there are 466 event participants in this Facebook public event named 連署要求NCC對《三立》假新聞開罰,勿再縱容惡質媒體!!.    I asked these people to explain why Dr. Jerome Keating was wrong by having a different opinion at Taiwan, the Ma Government Wants the Media to Serve it.  My question was deleted within minutes.

Overall, Facebook is transient and provides little of lasting values.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

臉書找台灣人麻煩嗎? Is Facebook giving Taiwanese trouble? VII

I consider the following sudden disabling of a Facebook event created by 酥餅  a definitive proof that Facebook is collaborating with Chinese KMT/CCP to silence Taiwanese opposition.
From:  酥餅
今天下午網友通知我「要求中華民國紅十字會立刻將募來的錢全數交給日本紅十字會」的連署網站進不去,檢查之後才發現,連署網站被以莫名其妙的理由禁用
了。詳情請看:

http://blog.roodo.com/subing/archives/15526485.html

酥餅
Samuel Hung responded:
我建議採取兩個行動。
一,讓國內媒體知道,塑家報導!
二,通知國際媒體及人權組織!

以上
悠然敬書
I created a petition
Facebook must stop collaborating with Chinese KMT/CCP to silence Taiwanese 臉書不可繼續幫中國國民黨和中圝共產黨迫害台灣人
to get things started. 

Please help by signing or by asking your friends to sign.  Any feedback will be most highly appreciated.

Monday, February 28, 2011

臉書找台灣人麻煩嗎? Is Facebook giving Taiwanese trouble? VI

Now, one of the most celebrated Taiwanese bloggers, 酥餅, lost his Facebook account.  What does it take for Taiwanese to speak up?  See http://www.facebook.com/subing.fb?sk=wall.