Raindrops will keep falling on our heads this season of the year, and yet this rainy season’s starter already induced headaches for our new administration with regard to its disaster management tactics. First was the alleged erroneous forecasting by PAGASA, and the most heartbreaking of all is the lack of calamity fund for the rest of the year. Seriously? We only had like one or two series of rains, not even storms, these past few months and the past administration already spent 70 percent of our calamity funds? Talk about disasters!

Read full article at thepoc.net: Tech for disaster coordination and management

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Nope, this is not about your regular detergent company. This is about 2008 and how loopy it was for me, the way the zeros and the 8’s drove me to a roller coaster ride.

Gambles

I made a ton of “professional” stunts myself last year. I resigned from Xackup Inc. (thus leaving Bandwagon hanging, and am still hurting for leaving Bandwagon just like that), started a freelancing gig (and from there I met a lot of contacts), tried to look for more jobs (which opened my eyes about the employment process here in our country), hooked up with a very elite IT team (Stratpoint Solutions Inc., that is), and fell face-down with my financial and emotional struggles.

Almost three months I spent thinking and wallowing, and thinking more. And maybe just like casinos, I had beginner’s luck with Xackup Inc. Bandwagon was a big hit. Then I got distracted with personal issues, same way people get distracted with their first lost coin in that slot machine.

I wanted to learn how to not get distracted. I wanted to be productive but I just can’t.

Proctors

I met a lot of great people. There’s AJ Batac, Joseph Ross Lee, Diwa del Mundo, Marte Soliza (kid wonder of the CS Department), Waldemar Bautista, and Sir Bob Uy (My Software Applications Lab Mentor / Proctor). Then came Sir Paco (Sandejas), Sir Mon (Dalde), and Sir Ernie (Tarroza). I just realized that I’m being connected to awesome people, and I guess the one person (exactly how I described him while I was talking to him) who exudes this awesome kind of awesomeness, it would be Gramps (Terence Pua).

I have so many cool mentors (and colleagues) but last year, I was still as sucky as a racing horse who delays the conclusion of the race because he crawls from start to finish. “What’s wrong then?” you would ask.

The thing about proctors is that they are there to watch over you. Tell you what seemingly wrong stuff you might be doing. But like normal exam proctors, they just give you comments, prying eyes, or perhaps that slight kicking-your-ass gesture. Proctors give us direction. We take hold of the reins. We decide how fast our paces should be. We decide if we crawl from start to finish. We make that imaginary burden weigh 10 tons.

Back on the Loop

2009 is a great year for me, and for every one of us, not because optimism is the *it* mentality nowadays (with all the recession crap we hear on CNN and BBC World News), but because we, being intelligent beings, after a big blow of recession, depression, and confusion, we manage to keep things going. We still breathe air even if it’s polluted. We still manage to blog about things considering the crumbling world we’re currently in. We still persist. I persist.

Now I’m back in the loop, fixing tangles, starting to become less greedy, calculating every step of my way, without compromising my ability to dream. I can even write long articles now. I’m back on the loop, back to where I’m supposed to be.

I see “Gramps” smiling now. (Haha!)

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I had a previous post about Firefox’s performance versus Safari, and of course, that wasn’t official and conclusive. I thought before that I just have this love for underdogs, but Firefox as of now is one of those applications I tend to use on an everyday basis, without ever looking away from it (there’s Camino, Safari, Flock and Opera, to name a few).

Almost all people felt like Firefox was bloated back then, and I too share their sentiments. Putting emphasis on “back then”, Firefox 3 promises to be more sleek, less bloated and more OS-friendly, and with the current beta version I’m using, I guess Firefox is doing the right strides on making itself the best browser there is.

Of course, other blog posts may say that Firefox has been so bloated and only have bugfix releases as major improvements, asking whether there is a reason to update. First off, the concept of being “bloated” and having releases the same as Opera’s is pretty much contradicting. Opera may be quick, ACID-compliant, and could also do torrent files, but the reason I don’t use it is because it’s too shiny for me. There are a lot of features to consider that I don’t even use (like mouse gestures, automatic “everything”, shortcuts, and even thumbnail views). Other people think that an application is bloated because it does stuff in a very slow way, with footprint ranging to the hundred megabytes. I, in my opinion, say that a bloated app is something that has a bunch of things put in it, but doesn’t really feel like one of those features most people would usually use. It just happens that Microsoft Office is both bloated and under-optimized, reason enough why people are confused about apps being bloated.

Firefox is a simple app. The only thing that makes it bloated is its plugins architecture, wherein people could customize Firefox for their needed functionalities. And with the next version coming, all those memory and CPU utilization issues should be ironed out, more than what I really want for my preferred browser.

Technorati Tags: firefox, google

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Saw this article just now (yup, 5:48 and I’m still awake): From Florian A. Alburo (via e-mail), University of the Philippines

This is the reason why the Philippine Inquirer Group (consisting of inquirer.net, broadsheet Philippine Daily Inquirer and a few more media outfits) is still the most reliable source of balanced news in this country. They don’t “promote” themselves, they just do the right thing, which is questioning the questionable, exposing the truth.

Imagine, for a 66-minute of primetime news, when you should be gathering info to be aware of what’s happening and what’s relevant, you only get 24 minutes out of it (and the very huge advertising block!). Basically, news here is all about ratings, and I guess it’s pretty awkward in this country to compare news ratings with soap operas (sometimes people tend to go to “real drama” than to fiction).

I guess the only good TV-based news you could find is RJ-TV’s Interactive News, ANC, and Bandila.

Technorati Tags: 24-oras, cmma, news, philippine daily inquirer, philippines

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I really love Kirei to the point that I would want to be the guy who makes one iPhone app a day. I also like the way UI was handled in a screen as “small” (it’s the biggest and highest-res screen for a phone, though) as that of the iPhone’s. The only problem I have with the iPhone SDK is that its SDK wasn’t even available even a few weeks after it was launch.

It was really a shame when Steve Jobs presented how to make applications in the iPhone by using AJAX in Safari. I was even expecting downloadable stuff from the Apple Developer’s Connection site to get me starting!

And then came Project Android. It was the coolest thing that happened to the mobile industry because the SDK is open source (bearing the Apache License), and promises to provide the best mobile experience for free! It will also open doors for brooding software companies like ours to compete with only creativity as the main tool to succeed. Google has always set the standard for anything.

But wait! Where are the Android-compatible phones? It was really disappointing to hear that these phones will only be available next year, not even on its first quarter (what I read from Engadget was that “the first Android-powered devices are expected in the second half of 2008.” It’s like practicing basketball in the middle of the road. I hope they could show documentation how to run the OS on existing smartphones so we could immediately play on it even before Android-enabled phones flood the stores).

And how would Apple treat this then? In an article I read in iPhoneMatters.com, Apple seems to be “Superman, Google clearly is Bizarro.” In my most humble opinion, this doesn’t even make sense. What’s clear is the Android Project not only aims to make better handsets, but also enable all vendors to collaborate freely and exchange ideas to make the better handsets even way better, thus making hardware even irrelevant in the game. Apple on the other hand wants to make things better their own way, which, given Apple’s reputation, works especially for the customers. So in this case, Project Android is the campus’s Computers Club, while Apple is the lone geek in the corner, surely convincing the rest of the class that he’s smart and knows what he’s doing.

I’ve been a Linux user for years (and I still am) and the good thing I liked in Linux is that I can get to share ideas and receive suggestions from the community with regards to building software. It doesn’t even matter if I run Apache or MySQL in Linux on different platforms (say my old iBook or the clunky Pentium III I have at home) as long as they all behave the same way in them. On the other hand, Apple has provided me the best experience as end user, and never went back (I will always use Linux as a developer). The problem with open alliances is they tend to concentrate on sharing ideas and implementing them rather than concentrating on what the customers really need. In a way, Apple might win this game, and having a bunch of (proprietary-designed and varied) hardware for the same software could be the losing “feature” of the Android Project.

But like those who predicted Apple’s downfall in the late 90’s, I might be wrong with my analysis. For starters, I would want my phone running Android in it. Trying to sell my software to these phones would be really breezy for me. But what about the buttons in the handset itself? Should I consider all phones then? Should I write it for specific phones? Will Android be standards-based, to the point that if I make something really good, it might not push through because I need to follow rules (like how the Linux kernel is)? A double-edged sword if you ask me.

Whine cellar would be a series of posts about tech stuff as these two unaided eyes of mine see them. More to come on a separate blog, I guess.

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Aside from being noisy and ultra-annoying, it relays the worst and dumbest impression of how Linux really works. But before I dissect this SWF file’s a$$, lemme show you what I’m talking about.

(I removed the flash video here because the music, or whatever you call it, is really annoying. I dont want to lose traffic, basically. Anyway, here’s a link to the flash movie)

1. Remove all file extensions
Seriously. Linux do also need file extensions. One question that comes in mind is will removing or altering the extension f*** up your system? As far as I can tell, my mac and my linux box still knows a zip file if it’s a zip file, and they could still index or preview files with their needed programs.

2. Export the entire registry into 56000 text files
Because if you don’t, you’ll experience tough scraping of your hard drive, not to mention a higher probability of having your system files be corrupted all at the same time. Also, only 1 file will be target for possible attacks, and that would be losing without a single flick on the enemy’s lashes.

3. Scatter these files all over your hard drive and give them short and meaningless names
I personally disagree with this. I was a Windows user before I got into using linux, and what I can say is nothing in a normal Linux system could you see weird names. Even hardware is named accordingly, like hda or hdb1. Have you guys tried digging inside the dreaded C:/Windows/System32 folder? It’s like being the most typical blonde girl looking for burger in Ethiopia.

4. Make sure some of them end in d and begin with a dot
… which contradicts #3. Files that “weirdly” ends with d are “daemon” tools. They could start up a server or begin a normal computer chore. Files with a dot means they are invisible. How do I know in Windows if a file is hidden or not? Only God knows… or the system administrator, or whoever made that file invisible in the first place (I used to hide my collection of mature content in a hidden folder… I was young then and impulsive).

5. Downgrade to Windows 3.1 to get that “square windows, jaggedy font” feel
This is the normal impression of a Linux machine. Maybe this guy made this flash movie some ten years ago, so I’ll spare him the spits.

6. Remember to type in all lowercase, pretending that your file system is case sensitive
The first best thing that I saw in most Linux systems is Bash, which is the command line thingy that lets you send text commands to your Linux box. What’s good about it is that I can do autocomplete of paths and commands, making file capitalization the least issue and file cloning easier (I just capitalize a letter and I have a copy of the file retaining the filename-as-description idea).

7. Create DOS batch files for common commands, only with smaller names
So? I think I heard tech guys talking about the “e” word… EFFICIENCY.

8. Uninstall your printer drivers and use only “Generic Printer Driver”
This, I have to agree. It was never easy for Linux to setup an unsupported printer. But, if a printer is indeed supported by the kernel itself, there’s no need to dig through that disc-hole just to find and install its driver.

9. Buy a stuffed penguin
I don’t have one which doesn’t make me a non-Linux user.

10. Talk about BSD, NFS, EXT2, GNU, GPL, FSF, and Open Source Software
I guess it’s better than going through the same bull**t of trying to learn the same tool every two years (and having such sessions costs a leg), like, say, Microsoft Office? Besides, we talk about them because we love them.

Wait…

Do I hear Windows people screaming now? I suggest you guys “talk” about a better strategy instead of screaming… it’s bad for your windpipe.

11. Become a communist
This is the dumbest “step” ever. As far as I know, communism calls for this single resource where everyone equally gets a chance to get stuff from it, but has everyone forced to contribute back to it. Sounds like GPL right?

Wrong. All people might have equal opportunities for getting Linux, and we may be required to share that privilege with other people. What’s wrong with sharing?

Open Source, in general, encourages competition, of getting the same kind of technology or resource from different sources. It’s not a battle of communism vs. democracy here, because in the first place, though software could be political, we’re not left with two sides only. FOSS can even represent democracy (like pure democracy that I learned from my Social Studies class, much like Sparta and Athens) where the entire community decides which is good, necessary, or criminal. The question is, do we prefer to live in a bazaar-type of world, or a dictator kind of living where only one body decides what we could do to technology and business?

12. Remember the $ sign in Micro$oft.
Though I may agree with this (I get easily annoyed to people who do this in emails and forums), the reason why geeks like to put it “there” is because there is this reflex to antagonize Microsoft. People, this is not a soap opera, for Pete’s sake! All we geeks (I even dunno if I deserve to be called a geek) have to do is to DEAL WITH IT, and using remarks like this won’t capture the other side’s attention. Explain why things got bad with Microsoft. Make people understand what we are advocating. Make us look smart. The only thing we show with that dollar sign is a barrel of whining.

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Yeah, yeah, I already saw the Desperate Housewives premiere pertaining to med schools in the Philippines. The first thing that came to my mind was, “Where the hell did that come from?” Of course, being a proud Filipino, the initial reaction was why are these people writing such harsh lines for a race they don’t even know about? I was even supposed to blog about it, but I calmed myself and thought, why would these uneducated people (about Filipinos, that is) think badly about our med schools? Maybe there was something we really did big that started this “vista” of how we produce doctors and health care professionals.

It was no big deal, actually.

Until I saw ABS-CBN News’s top-of-the-hour-news.

The Hard Truth

A friend of mine told me it could’ve been caused by the Nursing Licensure Examination Leakage Controversy. If you’re a Filipino, you might remember the month-long drama about the issue. It could be *the reason*. We do give diplomas for doctors here in the Philippines, and even the ones with top honors go abroad to be nurses. Was it because the doctors really need money or was it really because doctors here were big-ass experts in nursing? I really dunno the difference between the two courses, except for the fact that the other one spans more years than the other.

Honestly.

Do we really have a competitive edge when it comes to medicine? Can we really face these Americans and prove to them that we don’t only do appendectomy and circumcisions?

I heard we really have good doctors here in the Philippines. If we do, stand up to those writer-slash-bastards who wrote that bit. But if I see even a single hospital who doesn’t know what to do to a patient who has dengue, and if I stop hearing Filipino politicians or elite boxers going to the US to fix a dislocated kneecap or a sore throat, then I suggest our med community (and attention-grabbing politicians) to stop bitching and start improving on stitching patients.

The Soft Spot

But really, what does it make to be a good doctor? Is having that “much coveted” license like a badge to be boasted to those who don’t have it, or a gift which always concerns matters of the heart? I remember a few episodes in Grey’s Anatomy with Cristina Yang discriminating vets and dentists. Is Cristina or Gregory House the epitome of US doctors? Doing heart transplants, while being heartless at the same time? Of course, there is a saying that establishing ties with patients is a bad thing, and we shouldn’t be caring if they are bitter doses for their “clients”. It is a necessity that they keep the patients alive. At all costs.

Did I say “cost”?

There was this recent documentary by Michael Moore called “Sicko“, which exposes the sick personality of US Health Care. It was really disheartening to hear that the interviewees dies after a few days. And the cause is not a big-ass tumor or a spreading virus. It’s the hospitals tolerating their patients in exchange for big greens.

Here in the Philippines, you’ll see very dedicated doctors and health practitioners climbing mountains just to reach sick people from every corner of the archipelago. I even have a friend who does outreach programs to places with island tip-to-tip locations. We’re not jungle-ish. We do have jungles here in our country and we’re proud of them. Go to remote places and you’ll see a doctor passing from one mountain or typhoon to another, to treat ill natives. Their knowledge may be limited, but at least, they stay with the Hippocratic Oath.

Try that to hypocrite Harvard Med Graduates who depend on insurance company money.

And the chart says…

I know our doctors may be lacking skills, and those who have competitive resumes may be replacing their brown straw hats for green cards. I say, I’m even glad that those bastards are there in the States. American doctors may have good guts. We have the healthiest of hearts. (Talk about the number one killer disease in the US)

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Tonight will be the twenty-first night of September. I must’ve heard that phrase somewhere…

Oh yeah, it was from Earth, Wind and Fire’s hit song, “September.” And then suddenly, it came to me that it’s the nth anniversary of ex-President Marcos’ announcement of him signing Proclamation No. 1081, more popularly known here in the Philippines as Martial Law. And like Samo Hung, Marcos made Martial Law a career. A good one. A lucrative one.

Ever wondered how a small-town boy went to becoming an instant billionaire (dollar-billionaire, perhaps)? OK, fine, I wasn’t born during these rough and tough times, but knowing that fewer people die today (as the press say) than before was a relief that I was born to live in a freer environment.

Oh, I forgot! I was born during the year Ninoy Aquino was assassinated. Same year when Michael Jackson released his single “Thriller.” No wonder it became popular among Pinoys! They see monsters everywhere during those times.

I remember my Gramps’ sister told me it was way better off before, during Marcos’ regime, than now, when officials tend to be more corrupt and more aggressive than before. She told me, it was better back then because you know who was corrupt, and everything just felt simpler. Yes, the prices of fish and rice might’ve increased dramatically during those times, but she told me, everything was simpler, in order. She didn’t mention anything about freedom. But now, it seems that every other official in the country, from the Barangays to the Malacanang Palace, are little Marcoses. I understand what she was saying, but what I can’t understand is why can’t she see that we are at an advantage today than before?

OK, people who say stuff against these powerful people might be “silenced” or “salvaged,” (“salvage” is a Filipino term for being gunned down and sent to a dark, and deserted place, and letting the corpse rot down memory lane) but don’t we think we could speak more at ease today than before? Didn’t we just convict a President for being corrupt? Why not do it now if we really feel that it’s time for a revolution? Do we consider ourselves mobsters if we become Barbaric towards corruption?

Oh, I forgot. I’m a hypocrite. I don’t say these stuff normally. I also don’t like being a “Political Afficionado.” Well, I guess there’s still something inside me left by the Marcos Regime. Can the Marcoses pay for damages because of me not being provocative enough? Surely Imelda would just dance this thing away…

To the sound of “Septmeber.”

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(Don’t worry, this is not a trackback…)

It’s funny how people see me in this site, that “I’m a political afficionado” (didn’t even dig the phrase), or a “racist pig”. OK. I may find Americans a bit peculiar to me, but tell me, don’t Americans look at us the same way? So it’s not a racist thing. Racism calls for inability to be your own self (be it a business manager, an actor, or an artist) because of your skin color or “breed” (if you’re a pig), just like what Isaiah Washington was bitching about when he got fired by Grey’s Anatomy execs.

Neither am I “a political” afficionado. I even think myself as “apolitical”, considering that I don’t even read news about them (they’re like trying hard entertainment celebrities, ‘y know?).

Why is it nowadays that when you mention about race, or me being Filipino, or other guys being Chinese, they tend to overreact and not think within the context first before badmouthing? When you mention about a guy being Chinese or being Asian, or Mexican, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just defining who they are physically. Those guys who think maliciously about their own color are the ones who should be called racists. They tend to deny who they really are, instead of accepting what his culture / country has really given him. Marie Digby is proud to be of Japanese descent. The Chinese people should also be proud about “rice patties”. They are delicious!

With this post, am I getting political? Because in my opinion, being political is filling this entire blog with rantings how our country is being run (oh, I’d have lots of content if I did!). I just blog about culture an’ me-self. There are times when I can’t escape commenting about, I guess, Loren Legarda or Mar Roxas, but come on! I don’t think they’re THAT political.

(*Sigh*)

This is one of those BAM-BAM blog posts.

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Rihanna should be proud now, because I’ve been seeing covers of her song “Umbrella” all over YouTube. The most famous of those “cover-ers” is Marie Digby, who even got herself presented in the “Last Call with Darson Daly”. Here is her phenomenal video.

I personally like her cover of Maroon 5’s “Makes Me Wonder.” Somehow, this song “makes me wonder” where “wonderwoman” is (*sigh*).

Although she’s *that* cute, her being “amature” wasn’t. Apparently, she made herself look like an amateur singer in YouTube, but in fact, she already got a contract with Hollywood Records even before all these whirlwind fame of hers happened. I still like her, ‘coz she’s cute (and part-Asian).

Anyway, I did a “Rihanna’s Umbrella Cover Contest” on my own (of course no prizes), and the rule was to disqualify the already famous Chris Brown and Marie Digby. I searched the entire YouTube pile of videos, some of them not-so-good, some of them so much forgettable, but this one stood up. Pretty weird that the winner is a guy:

Before I flood this post with YouTube videos, lemme say that my category for judging was for the cover to sound a little more, if not totally, different than that of Marie’s or Rihanna’s. I still think that the original sounds the best.

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