Another reason why I hate DOI

EDIT 3 March 2011 - Ben Goldacre's just tweeted a link to CrossRef which seems to go one step further than resolving DOIs to a clickable link and resolves a citation to a clickable link. Useful.
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A friend on Twitter wondered if anyone could get a particular article for them, and it seems I might. If only I could find it quickly.

Clicking on the link given takes me to this page
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2133.2010.09954.x/abstract
(Edit 3 March - the page now gives details of which journal and issue the article's published in).

but I need to log in using my account, which means that I'm working in a different tab with a different URL across the top and will have to drill into the different volumes to find it. Pasting that URL in doesn't work (tried it) as the fact that I'm logged in doesn't seem to transfer to that page even when opened within the tab that I'd been previously logged into. So drilling it is...

The information I need, now that I'm logged in to the journal's site, is which copy of the journal I'll find it in such as year, month and in some cases the volume and issue number.

The information given tells me that the article was first published online in July 2010, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's in the July issue.

I have absolutely no idea how to extract any useful information from the bit where it tells you how to cite this:

Tsang, M. and Guy, R. , Effect of Aqueous Cream BP on human stratum corneum in vivo. British Journal of Dermatology, no. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2133.2010.09954.x

I have never yet found an article using its doi.

There are other ways of finding the article - I can 'search within this journal' for the article's title or authors but I'm afraid that the purpose of the DOI system eludes me. It seems to present users with an unpleasantly alphanumeric string to type in (if reading something in print and wanting to investigate electronic versions) and doing so in Google doesn't (yet) take you straight to the article (why? WHY?), but if you paste it into a DOI resolver all will be well.

As a touch typist I can handle typing in pretty much anything, but you do have to attend a great deal more to something that complex, compared to a string of words.

I quite enjoy a search challenge and I'm 98% confident that I'll find it within minutes - obviously I'll have to stop bleating on blog posts first - but DOI SCHMEOI...

To be fair it may not yet have been published in the print version, making my bleat a little less relevant, although from looking on the site usually online first articles are print-published within two months.

Anyway... yes, I've found a PDF copy. Mutter mutter grumble.

My brilliant idea to improve the buttons you press to get off a bus

1. The "I want to alight at the next bus stop please" buttons on buses should be capable of lighting up when one is pressed (in case people can't easily see the lit up "Stopping" sign at the front and middle of the bus, from where they're sitting or standing).

2. Once a button has been pressed then the button sounds should be silenced until the bus has moved from the stop. It's pretty annoying when people keep pressing the button and it beeps, it seems redundant, particularly if it can be made clear to everyone (by being lit up) that the bus will stop at the next bus stop.

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Supplemental for @mariawolters who asked about the various beeps etc on buses

Button press 'dings'
London buses do seem to vary in how much noise they make, and probably most of it is for the benefit of visually impaired people. Whenever someone presses the button to get off the action of pressing makes a 'ding' sound. But if someone else presses another / same button on the bus, as often happens when lots of people are getting off at the same stop, then each button press 'dings' too. Sometimes when people are impatient they repeatedly press the button to indicate their annoyance - fortunately not too often.

My argument is that this 'ding' need only happen once, as once the button's been pressed the driver is going to stop the bus at the next stop and further button-pressing is redundant. There's a bit sign that lights up at the front of the bus to say it's stopping, and there's usually another one halfway along the bus, and I think there's one on the upper floor too. If the buttons themselves were able to light up once pressed (how difficult would it be?) then everyone could see that the bus was stopping.

Door closing warning
The next noise that the bus makes is when the doors are about to close. I've not heard this sound for a while so either I've acclimatised or enough people complained - it was a needlessly unpleasant sound, warning people that it's too late to get off. I can see that it's important for people who can't see to be kept informed of the doors' activities but it could have been a lot more pleasant.

GPS voice alerts
Finally, many buses - not all - are equipped with a GPS-voice alert system that tells you when you're coming up to a particular bit of London, eg the buses going along Hampstead Road towards Camden say something like "Drummond Road" when you're near that stop. Quite often they say the number of the bus and its destination too. I don't mind this at all, in fact I find it really useful. I quite often hop on one of several buses which are going more or less in my direction - I can't be the only Londoner to forget precisely which bus I'm on ;)