Reading back ... wow, I predicted Google Trends (in some way!)

Damn, reading my previous blog entries, I may have predicted Google Trends.... (released today to public).

See below:

Singapore Punches above its weight for many Google Searches
http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/singapore-punches-above-its-weight-for.html

The company which knows EXACTLY what new businesses to venture into
http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/company-which-knows-exactly-what-new.html

Fancy that!

Singapore Punches above its weight for many Google Searches

Google Trends allowing one to sort through several years of Google search queries from around the world to get a general idea of everything from user preferences on ice-cream flavors to the relative popularity of politicians in their respective cities or countries.

It's incredible that a small country like Singapore appears on top for so many search terms... For example, just take `Honda Odyssey' as a search term, and you see Singapore beating the USA in frequency of searches. Just click here: http://www.google.com/trends?q=honda+odyssey

Horrific embarassment too... the answer to `Who searches the word `fuck' most?' turns out to be Iran! http://www.google.com/trends?q=fuck&ctab=1&date=all&geo=all

More revelations! Pakistanis, Egyptians and Iranians seem to be most interested in `SEX', Australians are most interested in `Porn', India, Iran and Singapore are most interested in `nanotechnology', Hong Kong and Singapore are tops with `Nikon', and India and Singapore are neck to neck tops for searching `Microsoft'.

Note that all the above, is not a percentage, but true blue absolute numbers of searches from the countries mentioned. It's crazy how Singapore with merely 4.5 million people can actually reach the top for some terms. For Nikon, I would think that Singapore being one of the few trans-shipment point for cameras in the world, Nikon would arguably be greatly searched for, but the search term `Microsoft' - wow, that boggles the mind.

Possibly, Singaporeans now might be the MOST ONLINE PEOPLE in the world who use English as their search language of choice. Certainly, this phenomenon deserves more study.

EDIT: It's now clear what's happened. After numerous posts in the forums from irate users who were getting confusing results, Google put a footnote in the search results. http://www.google.com/trends/about.html#4

Google Trends calculates the ratio of searches for your term coming from each
city divided by total Google searches coming from the same city.

Means that my statement `Note that all the above, is not a percentage, but true blue absolute numbers of searches from the countries mentioned' is totally wrong. Might be that Google will let us have the absolute numbers thing in the future. So now we know that it IS a ratio, it IS a percentage. And our perceptions have to vary as such.

Seems sensible. Ratios are informative as to the interest of the countries. Now, it merely seems that Singaporeans, each of them, do use Google a lot and hit it with lots of search terms.

Great articles on automotive brakes in June 2006 Sport Compact Car

Among all automotive upgrades, the brake upgrade is among the most misunderstood. There're 2 great articles on the June06 SCC magazine. So happens a discussion on rear brake upgrades appeared in the Carma forum, so a reply was posted here: http://forum.carma.com.sg/showthread.php?p=17539814#post17539814

Excerpts:

Read these 2 articles:
Project Scion tCPart II: Bolt-on Brakes for Geeks

The TruthWe Bust a Dozen Common Street Tuning Myths

OK just a summary:

1) Braking distance is hugely a function of tyre friction. Changing pad helps little, because you can always press the brake harder. Most of the time, tyre friction is the bottleneck and the pad friction is far far greater than tyre friction, so solve the tyre friction first before going to brake.

2) There is only 1 way to shorten brake distance by brake upgrade, is to use the rear brakes a bit more so that the rear tyres' friction can be taken into consideration. But it must be a good balance, because if you up your rear brake torque too much, car will spin (this statement is subject to electronics, below). (edit: Incidentally, a hose upgrade from rubber-only to steel braided, will decrease braking distance by a couple of metres since most of the hose balooning will be eliminated, converting all pedal pressure to servo assisted braking pressure)

3) In order to correct badly off brake balance, many people use brake proportioning valve method. However, this is NOT TRUE for cars with Electronic Brake-Force Distribution systems.

4) For cars with EBD, you DO NOT NEED TO CARE SO MUCH ABOUT BRAKE BALANCE LIAO! All you have to do is to increase braking torque everywhere, starting with the rears, and the rear will NOT lock up in a way which will compromise stability. YOU WILL decrease the braking distance significantly because you will now be using maximum stopping potential of the rear tyres.

5) The major benefit of using big brake upgrade for front, is NOT to lower the braking distance, but rather so that if you brake on track, the heat dissipation will be better and you will not have so much brake fade problem.

So in a brake upgrade, please check whether your car got EBD or not. If not, I think better don't touch because once you go into brake proportioning valve is a nightmare without experienced hands helping you out. If got ABD, just upgrade the rear first for maximum bang for the buck, then do front so that you can go on track to race.