The Armorer's HellForge

Hello Wor[l]dPress!

2005-11-26T16:05:00.000+08:00

It has been a long time since I last tried WordPress at my Linux box, the same time I had tried Mambo too. Maybe it will take a week or two before I get used to its new configurations or setups. I still don’t know what will happen to the case of my Blogger account. Try it!

Track-ed List

2005-11-15T22:08:00.000+08:00

A week without a single post #includes event.s LIKE:

- UPOffice 2.0 for Linux being released to the wild (finally, I had successfully recompiled it in my Ubuntu 5.10!);
- Sleep-hours;
- Experimentations on my Ubuntu;
- Semestral organizing of stuffs;
- Enrollment;
- Some stuffs++;

More to go! (or lesser posts?)

ApacheMySQLPHP

2005-11-06T06:55:00.000+08:00

I tend to setup such environments during midnights of chatting, testing scripts, and reading articles, but 2 nights ago, I had that nerve to setup Apache, MySQL, and PHP on Ubuntu 5.10. Since I was an old RedHat user, I had this Fedora LAMP guide with me as reference and comparison. I had searched for some guides and had found the French Ubuntu Wiki and the official/English Ubuntu Wiki as great guides to the installation. Some search queries resulted to sites such as the ISP Server Setup and the Ubuntu Starter Guide. The only problem that I had encountered was for the choice of PHP version; I had chosen PHP5. After all the Synaptic stuff, I had only modified the apache2.conf to enable the UserDir part and had also set the mysqladmin password for MySQL. Afterwards, I copied and tested my improvised LAMP setup (the one that I had presented in one of my LAMP lectures in my college) and everything had worked well! Everything was really a breeze!

UP up, Google down!

2005-11-04T14:28:00.000+08:00

At last UP was up yesterday, but unfortunately, Google was down due to some 502/503 server error. This event then makes my preference of emails as stated on my previous post, an irony. I was even shocked to know that the laboratories on my college were already converted from Fedora to Ubuntu 5.04. I was the one that installed FC4 for my LAMP lecture and is now suggesting Ubuntu 5.10 after the immediate experience. AFAIK, the setup is not dualboot (with Wind0ze) anymore. I hope that it will be upgraded to Breezy version plus my own build of OpenOffice 2.0 as well.

Mailer-Daemon?

2005-11-01T23:57:00.000+08:00

It has been a very long time since I last encountered the demon, Mailer-Daemon! Why? Usually, I got all my contacts with their Gmail accounts for convenience in e-mail sending which eliminates the "User over quota" problem. My team has been working on rebuilding/recompiling (with some customizations) OpenOffice for our university and for this reason, we had managed to set up a single thread on Gmail for our logs, suggestions, problems, and build/bug fixes. Maybe about 10-15 minutes ago, I had received a Delivery Status Notification (Failure) indicating "Technical details of permanent failure: TEMP_FAILURE: DNS Error: Timeout while contacting DNS servers" for the third time. What? After some inspections, I had realized that someone in the team added a non-Gmail address (specifically, UP Webmail) in the recipients list which I had only noticed after receiving the mailer-daemon multiple times. That made me check my account as well but unfortunately, I couldn't log-on to the webmail and couldn't even go to the main site of U.P..

Is U.P. DOWN ?

Film Production via Open Source

2005-10-23T20:13:00.000+08:00

The recent episode on YSpeak talked about digital vs mainstream on Filipino movie production. There were 2 things that I have noticed in that episode: those who were in favor of digital as an alternative or main medium were still considered as part of the youth and the ones in favor of mainstream were already seniors. It has always been a conflict on change - old people didn't like it because they didn't know how to use it whereas the youth takes the opportunity as an advantage to be a master in an early age at a shorter timeframe. On the technical side (which was not so discussed in the episode, or maybe they didn't really bothered to), using digital medium in film production is cheaper in the long run. In fact, one can even start by just borrowing from a friend that has a digital videorecorder then start recording and earning from it (which one can already use to buy his/her own digital medium). But this is not the point, this is. Open Source Software is obviously cheaper than getting proprietary movie editing softwares such as Adobe's. In fact, Hollywood had already embraced OSS just like in the creation of the Last Samurai. Go Open!

But still, choosing over digital/mainstream as a medium is not the problem. The quality is still the main factor that distinguishes a film from another. How about if Filipino films have some trailers over the web just like this one? Will there be a difference?

CC: Chaos and Convenience

2005-10-22T12:34:00.000+08:00

Chaos? Yes.. I had felt this yesterday before and after going to the school where I had experienced my high school life. Our task was yesterday was to install Linux in their internet cafe. I just can't believe that on my way to Philcoa, I was stuck in a traffic jam that had its head somewhere in Central Avenue and the tail somewhere in the Elliptical Road (No, It's a circle!). Rallyists were almost ubiquitous that we had encountered them creating the heavy traffic in the Elliptical Road. Anyway, enough of this chaotic stuffs first and I will tell you the convenience and customer satisfaction I my team had experienced yesterday.

Installing Ubuntu 5.10 requires only a single CD to run and we had 10 installers composed of 8CDRs and 2 CDRW (the 2 CDRs and 2CDRWs were mine - all placed in a Red Hat cd case). Imagine the convenience of installing the distro at the division or rate of 2-3 CDs per person that did not even took more than an hour to finish. Having the internet connection available, we had managed to get the necessary package updates via Synaptic or apt-get. Even the flash plugin was also included in the package list and the plugin worked like a breeze! One doesn't need to make symlinks or copy plugins in every browser. Everything just works! After the installation, I was amazed to see the senior high school students enjoying the default screensaver on Breezy Badger while listening to our Linux introduction tutorial.

All in all, we had deployed Ubuntu on 20 PCs in a matter of 3-5 hours, complete with the necessary configurations (an informal tutorial included). I had gone home with a friend and had experienced chaos and a feeling of rush hour from the trip. The vehicle that we had primarily taken even bumped another vehicle that made us took another jeepney. I remembered that it was Friday and I shouldn't have wondered why the feeling was like a rush.

As I sniff over the ubuntuforums, I was fascinated about this thread: Why is Ubuntu better than your previous distro?. You may also look at the image below that shows a poll where most of the shifters or converts were former Fedora users.

Ubuntu 5.10

2005-10-16T21:56:00.000+08:00

My old setup (FC3) was running great and was stable until I noticed some errors in one of my system logs - it reflected that i had some bad sectors on my HD. For this reason, I terribly needed to backup my bulk amount of disorganized files to CDRs and USB disks and got myself a new HD. Since I will be having a fresh install, the linux distro that comes into my mind (as a reserve) is Fedora Core 3 again and maybe another distribution, Ubuntu and/or SuSe. I didn't had the SuSe 10.0 OSS isos yet so I had started downloading them while chatting with some co-SAs. Unfortunately, I had already burned the CD1 after knowing from a friend that the OSS is incomplete. Since it is better to have a complete _new_ system and not an _evaluation_ version, Ubuntu is the key. Ubuntu 5.10 can already be downloaded since the official announcement of their release. People can request here for shipping.

Installation is easy for it takes only a single CD for the whole process (not 4 or 7 CDs). After setting the necessary configs, the stuff indeed was a desktop setup which is the default configuration. Everything just works, it was quite impressive for the devices such as USB HD and printers were automatically detected. I didn't even notice the shift because the usual stuffs that I do on Fedora Core 3 can also be done (obviously) on Ubuntu Breezy Badger. The thing that was cool (or hot) here was the enormous supply of repositories which enabled me to see more applications. Would you believe that it has an Avantgo utility for Palm? Knowing this, I had realized that even my Palm Vx was supported by Ubuntu! Finally, I had left Fedora (as well as Wind0ze) without even pain except for the moving or mirroring of my disorganized files again in my new organized set of folders. Fedora is good if a user doesn't have a good internet connection and if the packages are also in the 4/5CD installers. Ubuntu has the edge if a user has a constant internet connection.

Ubuntu is definitely a breeze. I had tried starting OpenOffice and it loaded in just 5-7 seconds. I had tried burning on k3b (kubuntu-install) and it had ended after only 5-7 minutes, complete with the verification thing. The CD covers were attractive as well. I can't wait to have my requested packages in hand! Go Breezy Badger!

And the fight goes on..

2005-10-13T05:31:00.000+08:00

"For Ballmer, however, the typical corporation offers more than just innovative products. "Our brand means there is someone you can call if there is a problem, and some of these things don't come out of the non-paid volunteer format."

Well, if he's pertaining to customer support on communities, he's definitely very untrue. After all, Wind0ze isn't that user-friendly to me. One needs to adjust to it - by being friendlier to the system to be able to get over with the bugs and the old problems associated with the system. So where's customer satisfaction, on the OS or the games that run on this problematic OS? How about the price or cost of installation and maintenance?

And now, Grisoft predicts linux virus plague as a major threat to the linux community. But if there will be existing viruses/virii (on Linux or even Mac), I still don't know if those stuffs will really have a chance to inflict that massive damage as compared to the chaotic effects and hopeless problems on Wind0ze.

Yesterday, I just can't believe that I had spent a lot of time fixing numerous 'mushrooming' package dependencies on Mandriva. I really wish that it has good package managers that can simply download the stuffs in the Internet and easily autofix the dependencies just like in Ubuntu's APT-GET and Fedora's YUMex. Just imagine that I need to go to RPM search engines just to get the package required and the bad thing is that the problem is like a recursion. Oh well.. I hope that they had already solved that problem and if such an application exists that I didn't knew yet, Mandriva users, tell me, right here right now.

Mandriva 2006 Hits The 'Net, Can it hit me?

2005-10-11T22:24:00.000+08:00

Quoted from this news article: "Out of three distributions comes one. Mandriva 2006, the convergence of the former Mandrake, Connectiva and Lycoris Linux distributions was released today. Mandrake acquired Brazilian Linux vendor Conectiva in February for $2.3 million. In April, the combined entity changed its name to Mandriva. In June Mandriva acquired desktop Linux vendor Lycoris. And now it's all together in Mandriva 2006, which is being offered to its "club" members, who pay fees ranging from $66 to $1,320 a year for membership."

In my view, the club membership thing creates boundaries due to having different types of editions and support as well. Unlike Fedora, as far as I know, Mandriva assures the customer support or maintenance as well as the upgrades _only_ on club membership subscriptions. It doesn't have demo versions like in the old SuSe and the Open Source Leader, Red Hat, which has RH Enterprise Linux and Fedora - the latter having clear definitions that it offers _full support_ on their 2 release versions. The Fedora Forum has been indeed very successful and it has also been established as an official forum board for Fedora. Right now, I'm thinking if Mandriva could still be deployed on Internet cafes after knowing that club members can share Mandriva Powerpacks as long as it is not for commercial use.

On the lighter side, choosing over Fedora/Ubuntu/Mandriva on a new machine, I would rather save money, get a Mac Mini someday and try developing applications on it as well. What makes Apple unique is its strategy as far as customer satisfaction is concerned.

Quoted from another news article: "What are your experiences with the Mandriva Club and Mandriva Linux 2006? Are they worth the investment? Is there room for improvement? Are the complaints on the Club's forums just some noise by never-happy eternal "moaners" or are they legitimate gripes about poor customer service? Why is it that SUSE has moved from being a mostly closed and somewhat proprietary distribution to a completely free and open project, while Mandriva has shifted in the opposite direction?" - I hope that Mandriva advocates shall notice this issue as well.

Absolute and Relative Reality

2005-10-10T04:12:00.000+08:00

There always comes a time where a clash of ideas end somewhere else or nowhere at all. Such a case is like the recent topic of YSpeak: Pinoy Big Brother. IMO, PBB is not educational at all. If it really is, I should expect that it will be fully endorsed by the Dept of Education. For goodness sake, their eyes should be enlightened as well as the definition of the term 'reality' should be established even before the start of argument throwing. There are many kinds of realities out there in the wild. They range from the absolute to the relative type but I might be wrong here, besides, everyone has always something to say. Absolute reality might be the case of them as humans and _not as robots_ deployed in the scene. If they are just mascots or dummies, then its sense of reality is gone for the actors aren't real at all. In the case of having reality reality, seeing them deployed in the _unreal environment_ it is not sufficient to say that it is already reality. For me, the reality would be the thing or situation that is hard to accept. For instance, the reality that people especially children, watch PBB instead of studying is very shocking to see in a world where technological development is faster than the natural or ideal development of a child's brain. The reality that most of the television viewers are children who easily believe everything that the TV shows tell them especially during noon-time. And for this reason, everyone tends to be a showbiz superstar than be a doctor. Besides, in the Philippines, anyone can run for elections even at the presidential level without having the necessary equips (such as the graduate degrees and educational background). Philippines is indeed the place where actors make rules and the politicians entertain. Do you want to watch an educational and reality TV? Watch the sessions of the Congress.

Reality or Fantasy?

2005-10-02T20:08:00.000+08:00

Finally, YSpeak returned to its informative state (unlike the past 2 episodes where I was confused if the show was really or is still endorsed by the DepEd) by talking about the controversial show, Pinoy Big Brother.

I almost ROFL upon hearing this statement from a 'resident psychologist': "...if you watch the show, huwag ka na lang magcriticize..." Yada-yada, so where's the point of critical thinking on the first place? The participants even said that they learned 'values' upon joining the 'reality' show...which only mean that they don't know those basic values yet before joining the show? Oh, for goodness sake! I really kinda liked the people composing the panel that is somewhat in the opposing side, just like how the newspaper columnist said that PBB was indeed meaningless and pointless to watch.

On the lighter side, the PBB song is great but the PBB show doesn't reflect its true meaning and reality after all. I would rather watch Final Fantasy Advent Child. Haha.

Toxicity III

2005-09-29T20:31:00.000+08:00

What to do.. what to do..

Span 10-11: I need to review right from the start just like when learning a programming language. Sheesh.
Pol Sci 14: My class has tons of reports to listen to, we don't know yet if we'll be exempted in the finals exam (how i really wish) and that will only be answered during the 3-4 day extensions (Yes, during the finals week! Ouch!)
Nat Sci 1: I have just taken my 2nd exam and I hope that it had gone well.
LIS 62: Projects and Finals! All due next week!
LIS 160: Let's see.. I still don't know the results of my job. After all, it's my first time to lecture and deploy such a tutorial all by myself, including the installation and configuration of the environment. Unfortunately, some PCs (yes, it is dual booted with Wind0ze) get bonkers maybe at the rate of 1-2 machines every 2 weeks. Oh well.. if only the lab wasn't located in such a very high place..

Others? These are the stuffs due for the semestral break:

Learn More Java Stuff!
Continue building OpenOffice 1.9X (I hope that OOo shall have their stable version released by that time.)
A plan to backup and make a fresh reinstall of my Fedora Core.
Learn JSP and other related components.
Continue being a technical support in the helpdesk.
Watch a lot of TV series episodes.
Get a life. (life == girlfriend?) Nope, just kidding! But who knows?
break; /*Yes, I need a break.*/

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt

2005-09-24T06:07:00.000+08:00

FUD? Nah.. the week has passed and I'm still confused on the tasks to do for next week. But at least, I don't have the trouble which the usual local Internet-rental shops have nowadays. Reading this article from INQ7.net, I noticed a humorous part which was: "Why have they not informed us of these raids? Do we need to get a new license of Microsoft Windows 98? We don't know what they require from us to comply. We heard that the BSA, with the OMB and NBI, has been conducting raids this week. They said that they are requiring shops to only buy from PC Express [a local PC distribution shop] and Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2," the Internet shop owner said." -> this was like.. "Duh, you should have known this (software ethics) beforehand especially when establishing such kind of business."

Chikka on Gaim!

2005-09-18T20:31:00.000+08:00

New discovery? I was only notified of its existence in my eBNC forum when a thread about Chikka on Linux was started. Javalite will still work but the port number can not be set. So Chix was suggested by one of our moderators. After a few readings of the manual and the normal ./config, make, and make install, i restarted my Gaim, and poof! The accounts settings had already included the Chix modules/libraries as a plugin! I had tested and it really worked. The feature that I'll be looking for in the future is the presence of PC to PC mode (and that's why the version is around 0.99-1.0). This one's really HOT! WD!

Y4IT Days

2005-09-17T22:04:00.000+08:00

[root@Tifa:~] tail /var/log/y4it

At last, Y4IT ended today! The event was great for it was similar to the Sun Tech Day event where I had volunteered with the Dilnet SAs before. The venue was heavily jam-packed and both the participants and staffs were sort of mixed up due to the confusion or inconvenience that the rain has made. For me, it was very memorable because I considered it as a geek day and is unforgettable for some 'mysterious reason'. Obviously, it is unforgettable because I met a lot of friends and sort of increased my network. Just like the required time for the volunteers in the Sun Tech Day event, the Y4IT 2005 Congress needs staffs by 6am because the registration starts at 7am. I learned some potential tactics on lecturing although the gist of the topics are already in the event guide. It was great to be assigned (sort of) in the UP JEDI booth because it is the first booth at the entrance and it is where participants claim their prizes or drop their raffle tickets.

Hopefully, I will have my bag (and freebies!) on the party this coming Saturday.

import *

2005-09-14T21:22:00.000+08:00

From the Apple training, I learned some of the basics of AppleScript. Some sample codes include:
display dialog "OPTIONS:" buttons {"say", 2, 3}
set x to result
if button returned of x = "2" then
display dialog "you pushed 2!"
else
display dialog "not pushing 1"
end if

AND
display dialog "key in text" buttons {"Cancel", "Say", "Display"} default answer ""
set x to result
if button returned of x = "Say" then
say text returned of x as string
else
display dialog text returned of x
end if

which are compiled and executed in the script editor. The script editor even includes a recorder of sessions and even writes/shows the codes as you move the window/s or browse menus throughout the desktop. Xcode was also introduced in the presentation. Some sample scripts are found here.

In my work as linux help support, I managed to fix almost everything except a bug in OpenOffice.org 2.0 on Mandriva. I had just assumed that the package is not yet upgraded atlhough I had not researched about it yet.

Gmail: Mga Bagong Katangian!

2005-09-11T16:44:00.000+08:00

Gmail has added a new set of features which include a language support for Tagalog.

Picture on the right is captured by using KSnapshot on Fedora Core 3 and enhanced using GIMP.

Every geek indeed has its day++.

2005-09-09T06:05:00.000+08:00

It is a day++ where there is political stability and a great freedom day++ for geeks. Software Freedom Day is on the loose as well as a lot of fantastic events in the coming weeks.

while(day == geekday) {
print:
1. Software Freedom Day Philippines. You may register here.
2. Philippine Youth Congress in Information Technology 2005. For more info on the schedule of events, visit this.
3. Developing Apps using Open Source tools on the Mac.
4. LinuxWorld Conference and Expo Philippines
}

So.. where do you want to go for tomorrow?

Memories..

2005-09-05T22:25:00.000+08:00

Finally, I managed to get back my bugged 512 MB RAM and it is now in the state of testing/observation mode. From XFCE I returned again to my usual theme which is Gnome with MAC OS X interfaces.

[root@Morpheus:~] ps -ax | grep -i entertainment > Lower House

At this time, I'm wondering if Rep. Cayetano used Wind0ze in his presentation and if it's licensed/legal as well. I got strucked by one of its flashes: "Kung naayos na ang butu-buto, bakit pa tumawag kay Garci?" I would really like to ask the same question to him and see his reaction about it. The question seems to be contradicting itself. (Isuntok na lang niya ito sa buwan)

Another thing, how could a letter be simply authenticated and be used as an evidence? It is actually one of the easiest ways to create false truths. I just can't help but drink a glass of water after laughing for minutes although being pissed too simultaneously. There was also an issue that was pointed out - the Senate is already unfair if it would be considered as a judicial body.

Panic? Yes! Mr. Paras was like having tantrums, screaming "Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, MR. SPEAKER (shouting), Why don't you recognize me?!?!" For goodness sake, there might be some people that increased their blood pressure in the process.

Well, the people might be afraid of what the President could do because of her power as the chief of the army, but I'm more afraid of people that I do not know and just interfere with other people's lives, and destroy it for no reason at all.

And lastly, for the funniest part: "Chug, chug chug chug chug.." Guess who? Secret.

Ang Pikon ay Talo!

2005-09-04T20:23:00.000+08:00

Napanood ko ang YSpeak kanina at hindi na ako nagtaka kung bakit ganoon na lang kagulo ang mga usapin. Andun ang astig na si "Way Kurat", Miles, Guingona, isang ADMU student at isa naman PLM. Nakakatawa lang na pagmasdan ang debate dahil sa aking pananaw, kitang-kita na pikon ang mga nasa oposisyon o mga pro-impeachment. Kahit mga simpleng batas ay hindi masundan ng mga nasa pro-impeachment sa YSpeak. Sumasabat sila kahit wala na sa kanila ang 'focus' o ang 'mikropono' at sa halip, nagmistulang kabastusan, katangahan at pagkapikon ang naroon. Ang mga nasa 'anti-impeachment' (mahirap sabihin na anti) ay pinagbibigyan lamang ang mga nasa oposisyon na sumabat kahit hindi 'turn' nila na magsalita. Kapag ang atensyon naman ay nasa oposisyon, nananatiling tahimik ang mga nasa 'anti-impeachment' na side ng YSpeak - ipinakikita lamang nila sa isang simpleng maayos na paraan na hindi sila pikon. Sabi naman sa panig ng 'pro': "Ganito, ganito ang nangyari sa amin noong Martes. Hindi na nagkakaliwanagan at parang ganito rin na nakatayo si Way Kurat. Siguro rin naman ay magwwalkout rin kayo (ang panig ng 'anti-impeachment') kapag hindi kayo napakinggan." Syempre, may sumabat na isa "Hindi ah, hindi kami magwwalkout (dito sa YSpeak)". Sa aking palagay, 2 lang siguro ang pwede kong maisip sa pagwalkout ng minorya: (1) Talunan sila at sila'y napahiya. (2) Pikon sila na ayaw pa rin magpatalo.

Si Way Kurat naman ay astig; napatalbog niya ang mga pinagsasasabi sa 'pro' side ng YSpeak. Paano ba naman kasi, sabihin ba naman daw ng minorya na "ang pipirma sa impeachment ay pipirma sa katotohanan"?!?! Aba! Sabi nga ni Way Kurat, "Ibig sabihin pala nun, kapag hindi pipirma ay hindi na para sa katotohanan, falsehood kumbaga. Paano mangyayari yun eh iba ang katotohanan ng admin sa oposisyon?" Sumabat si Guingona: "Hindi ata pwede yan, isa lang ang katotohanan, black or white lang". (Ewan ko ba kung ano ang pinagsasasabi ni Guingona at waring wala siya sa tunay na kalawakan at hindi siya nabubuhay sa panahong ito.) Malamang naman kasi siguro na iba-iba ang katotohanan na pinapaniwalaan ng bawat panig. Tama rin bang sabihin ng oposisyon: "Ang pipirma sa impeachment ay simbolo rin ng isang malinis na konsensya." Aba! Kalokohan na pala ito e! Sinabi naman ng isang estudyante ng ADMU, "Tama lang na magdabog ang oposisyon, blablabla" na kinontra ni "Way Kurat": "Teka, wala naman nagdabog ah? Marahil siguro ay nasa eskuwelahan ka at parang hindi mo alam ang tunay na nangyari. Walang nagdabog pero tama bang magkalat/magtapon sila ng papel sa kung saan?" (Tahimik, hehe)

Kung iisipin, lumalabas na dapat ay madali lang para sa minorya ang makakuha ng 79 na lagda. Ngunit bakit kaya hindi nila makuha ang kailangan? Nakakatawa rin na hindi tuluy-tuloy na tumataas ang bilang dahil meron rin mga bumabawi ng lagda dahil marahil sa pagkatuklas ng mga kahinaan talaga sa oposisyon. Ang oposisyon rin ay wala noong Miyerkules kung kailan ay meron silang pagkakataon na magsalita, ngunit nasan sila noong oras na yaon?

Sinabi nga na ang bise presidente ang siyang papalit kung sakali sa presidente. Pero paano kung ang bise presidente ay ayaw rin ng oposisyon? Ibang usapan na yan..

Monopoly, Business Tactics, and Digital Imperialism at its best

2005-09-04T07:09:00.000+08:00

This is an example of a corporation implementing and expanding its monopoly throughout the Philippine market through this business strategy of increasing the bulk of digital imperialism throughout the country.

Some will say that the consumer/customer is being cheated in the process, but why let oneself be cheated if there are hell a lot of alternatives out there?

There's also a news that some State may drop Office software and use a new document standard called OpenDocument format that is used in OpenOffice and StarOffice.

Another controversy out there in the wild is that Ballmer vowed to 'kill' Google. Some sneakpeeks:

In a sworn statement made public Friday, Mark Lucovsky, another Microsoft senior engineer who left for Google in November 2004, recounted Ballmer's angry reaction when Lucovsky told Ballmer he was going to work for the search engine company.

"At some point in the conversation, Mr. Ballmer said: 'Just tell me it's not Google,'" Lucovosky said in his statement. Lucovosky replied that he was joining Google.

"At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office," Lucovosky recounted, adding that Ballmer then launched into a tirade about Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google." Schmidt previously worked for Sun Microsystems and was the CEO of Novell.

Oh shucks, what a pity!

BasketBRAWLING 101

2005-09-03T18:18:00.000+08:00

Do you want to learn BasketBrawling 101? I had heard that DLSU basketball players were good at this and it was obviously seen at the latter part of the recent UP-DLSU match. That skill was enhanced by some weird and/or suspicious calls of the referee. Oh shucks.

Aray[].

2005-08-30T21:03:00.000+08:00

At the end of this day, I realized that I should have set the permissions for the PCs in our ILS lab and tested it first before letting its users experiment on it. It's kinda weird that the permissions for the MySQL client got flushed because it's supposed to work already without any necessary configurations to repair. But at least, I had already rechecked all of the computers in just an hour while installing Fedora Core 4 to two computers that previously run on Mandrake.

*toxicity++*

I heard someone say that M$ Access is better or maybe easier to learn than MySQL. But that's good, if the user owns a licensed/authentic version of the program and is really proud (like Hell) in using it. Forget about the price *wink* and the problems bundled with it as well. It's just that I would rather share FOSS with my fellow classmates than to advocate proprietary ones.

When I got home, I was surprised or maybe devastated to watch the results of the impeachment proceedings. The oppositions walked out of the debate. Is this a delaying tactic? They were the ones that argued before that the suspension yesterday was a political move by the administration to delay everything. But from my view, it favors the opposition more time to get that stupid 79 votes or signatures. The thing is that the requirement is just 1/3 (and not even 50%!), how come they weren't able to get such a number? Gheez. The weird part? Yes! Dinky ignited some stuff (out of nowhere - without any basis at all) to the press interviews before the proceedings started. Obviously, everything was planned but it wasn't flawless. If Dinky really knew that stuff, why only now?

In an interview on the ANC, she said that it's up to the people to judge.. blablabla.. to see "our truths". Or maybe she was really referring to the people that didn't know anything at all with regards to the political controversies everywhere. It's obviously easier to brainwash such communities if they do not know the real issue in the first place.

Now, I really believe that Philippines is a place where actors make rules and politicians entertain. Why? Read on (the words are somewhat close to the real version..it's the humor that counts!):

1. (quoted from a recent ANC interview w/ Korina) - "..because that was only the time I make BABAD in Congress.." -> oh.. talaga? Telebabad ba yan? Nag-i-soak?

2. (from the opposition) - "Isang boto lang talaga ang hindi nabibili, at yun ay ang boto ng Panginoon" -> malamang naman siguro alam ng bawat tao yun ano? Ano ka ba, hilo? hello?? Pero teka, sino ba Panginoon mo?

3. It's very funny to see how "future leaders" like Susan Power violate some simple rules in the impeachment proceedings such as clapping, etc.

Oh well..

< strong > and < weak >

2005-08-29T06:20:00.000+08:00

Nah, I don't wanna receive an award for saying that "..kung hindi strong ang lalaki, weak siya.." just like in the episode of YSpeak last night. Judging the entire series from that single episode, I couldn't figure out why DECS would be endorsing it.. or maybe as always, it's up to the viewers to be critical to everything they percept. IMHO, the episode didn't had any content at all. I would rather read Virginia Woolfs writings and be refreshed to her ideas that I had once learned in English 12 from last semester.

Anyway, classes are suspended today as well as government offices. Nothing new in this society except the chaos and skepticism that ruled the political actors and viewers. (From the second time once more?) Bad representation of the Filipino people is still observed on the hearts of rallyists specifically the Anti-GMA group. All I can say is that everyone cheat, it's just that some are good in hiding it and some are not.

The ACM Turing Lecture 2005 Live Webcast

2005-08-23T07:20:00.000+08:00

Pioneers of the Internet: Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn were the recipients of the ACM Turing Award 2004. At about 6 am early in the morning, they had already started lecturing on "Assessing the Internet: Lessons Learned, Strategies for Evolution, and Future Possibilities" via a live webcast.

It was cool because the speakers were like geek duos. Unfortunately, I can't finish it because I still have a Spanish class to attend to. *sigh*

To see the live webcast, click this link and this one is for archived viewing.

The Filipino is worth dying for..

2005-08-22T00:18:00.000+08:00

From an interview of a student in the recent YSpeak episode: "Kung buhay pa si Ninoy, wala siya ngayon sa P500." (What?!?!) Here's another one: "Kung buhay pa si Ninoy, ano kaya ang magiging stand niya sa issue ngayon kay PGMA?" Okay, enough of these stuffs.. I'm sick of hearing such weird and not-so-formulated statements.

See the difference?

2005-08-20T22:17:00.000+08:00

What OS are these browsers running into?

Where Actors Make Rules and Politicians Entertain...

2005-08-15T05:41:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I came across an article in the Philippine Star that talked about what is the Philippines and its distinction with other countries. Well, I hate to admit but some of the statements listed were indeed true but I will point out the ones that made me laugh. The Philippines is... (35) Where the personal computer is mainly used for games and Friendster. (17) Where UP is where all the weird people go. (Really? I disagree). Ateneo is where all the nerds go. La Salle is where all the Chinese go. College of Saint Benilde is where all the irrelevantly rich people go. (nah, the writer is a La Sallite and obviously biased). (6) Where soap operas tell the realities of life and where the news provides the drama. (5) Where actors make the rules and where politicians provide the entertainmeny. (Kung gusto mo mapikon, watch the news). --> Definitely true! (3) Where people can get away with stealing trillions of pesos, but not for a thousand. (2) Where being an hour late is still considered punctual.

Waa..

Kernel Panic!

2005-08-12T21:47:00.000+08:00

How surprising to see the "oppositions" in the government still hold their positions under PGMA's administration. It was very ironic. I was even devastated when the host asked a question somehow in this form: "How come one so powerful become a victim?" Nah.. Obviously, anyone can be a victim even of oneself. Typical panelists on common debates - being off-topic (OT). The interesting stuff on that episode was how the side of the oppositions protect their political dynasties. And lastly, I hate bad comparison and representation, again and again..

[root@Morpheus:~] tail /var/log/messages

Kernel Panic? Nah.. Yesterday morning's situation kinda disturbed me. Why? While I was browsing via Opera, I was surprised to see that my system crashed! Obviously, after rebooting, I still managed to get back and look into the logs to find the thing. But after some time, it crashed again! Nah.. Obviously it's not a Wind0ze problem because it's not M$. And for that reason, I will never ever say what Wind0ze users used to declare that if such a situation happens, there might be an antivirus, blablabla, and a never ending chain of issues.

A reboot again, and I had still come up to the point of checking filesystem and it generated a kernel panic error. Weird though because I hadn't messed or compiled kernel sources yet or something. So I rebooted again, and there I was, staring at a blank screen with my CPU starting to run and even continued without beeping. The red led starts to blink at first but turns off afterwards.

Now what do you think is the problem. No, it's not a Wind0ze problem (for the second time). After coming back from school/work, I finally managed resolving the hardware thing - a 512 RAM. *sigh* Despite of having the remaining memory, I still wanted to have the speed I used to work with before...or maybe the same as the one used at "Apple Technology and Education" at the UP Diliman - School of Economics, which was yesterday in the afternoon (I had also attended the ICT Roadshow last Wednesday). The Apple Seminar was really fantastic and it showed almost every aspect of Apple in it. It was great that most of us, including my SA friends were convinced to get one. If I will be buying a new machine, I would rather get a MAC than a PC. But if I already have an existing desktop/laptop, it's better to have Linux running on it.

If I was convinced to get MAC, I was able to convinced (yesterday too) a friend that I hadn't seen or contacted for months already that Linux is powerful enough for her not-so-strong machine. She was wondering why her PCs busted (running on Wind0ze 98) and for that reason, someone recommended to her a PC repairman (it was really a 'PC' repairman). The repairman told or advised her to reformat the system because it was hopeless (as usual). But since she was somehow familiar with the advantages of Linux, she asked the repairman if it's better to install it. Wanna know what the repairman said? He told her that the system can't support it since it needs a Mac motherboard/hardware. Whoah! He was definitely a 'PC' repairman. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now I hope she will be getting her own copy of Linux by going to our helpdesk.

System Recovery

2005-08-06T07:45:00.000+08:00

Finally, the week's over after a chain of massive resource-hungry tasks. I had achieved a body system recovery by sleeping at 9pm last night and waking up at 7am for a change. Power-naps were indeed helpful too at times. Recovery is indeed very important to regain a system's power. Last week was the crucial one.. Wanna know why? Here it is:

1.) After submitting my blogposts (the 2 previous posts), I deleted the file containing the copy of my text by "rm Untitled\ 1" since it's just a temporary container, and I'm more inclined to using consoles. Since my text editor makes a backup file appended with '~', I had mistakenly assumed that by doing "rm Untitled\ *" will also catch that file. I had realized my mistake when the konsole reflected "rm: cannot remove directory `folder_name/': Is a directory" where folder_name are the names of the folders in that location. For short, i had deleted all of the non-folder stuffs in that location which includes scripts, bloggable texts, backups, configs, pics, etc. Good thing I had already categorized some files. I had STFW, but the usual returns were for ext2 formats, some requiring to unmount the partition, and so on. Those were like recovery by bruteforce. So I tried consulting my fedora community and in less than 4 hours, I had received immediately the support I was looking for although I still didn't do the concrete ways they had defined due to lack of time and for the month of August is a midsem - projects, term papers, etc. where released consecutively. At least, I know now what to do and NOT to do next time. I will move files first to Trash and modify the aliases defined at my terminal. It's just that I really hate doing stuffs with guis - it is mostly a waste of time.

2.) I have a problem regarding the receiving of my Ubuntu packages. I had the packages addressed at the building of my institute/college but unfortunately, it was delivered to the wrong floor (basement) of UP Diliman Main Library. Actually, I had indicated the floor (3rd floor) correctly at the address form, but the problem is since the ones who had received the notice/package didn't knew what to do, they had it returned to sender. They didn't even consulted the other offices of the building. I had just knew this after making a library request from the media services and the person that attended my request was surprised after seeing my name on the library request slip I made. Somehow I was glad I had a friend with me who insisted that my name should be placed at the slip instead of her name. *wink*

I asked them to know what post office they had it returned to. I had gone to it as well but the personnels at the UP - Post Office said that they weren't the ones handling it. Argh. Thus, I tried sending an email to the Ubuntu info list and was glad to receive 24 hours later, a message saying that they will resend another package to me. Now this is what you call effective customer service/support! Tell that to M________ !~

3.) I didn't have Span 10 for the last 2 days since my prof was an instructor for the UPCAT examination - more time for projects and papers and sleep?.

4.) PolSci 14 term paper deadline was re-extended, and I finally had my schedule of my report after the Quezon City day. The week of the KSS P^3 ACM-UnPLUG event which will talk about Python/Perl/PHP or for short - a FREE FOR ALL tutorial.

5.) I had assisted some employees in shifting or making a copy of their files to Fedoras instead of Wind0ze, at the same time advocating and enlightening them to the advantages of Free and Open Source Softwares. One even asked about the bootup time since it was irritating for her to wait for the Wind0ze 9X to bootup completely, so I told her that with Linux, you can do anything, anything at all (the only limit is yourself) - even reducing the bootup process of Fedora to 25 seconds. Obviously I told her that it requires some skills in tinkering with the kernel.

So.. need I say more? I need some fsck!

Mythical Creature

2005-08-01T00:07:00.000+08:00

You are the most universal mythical beast ever. Sightings of the unicorn have been reported from all over the world, even in modern times. Unicorns are pure and incorruptible. In China, unicorns symbolized gentleness, good will, and wisdom. Christianity links the unicorn with Christ. It is said that unicorns would only allow virgin girls to see them, let alone touch them. They were easily lured into fatal ambushes by a virgin with some poachers waiting for the unicorn in nearby bushes. A unicorn's horn was a highly prized possession, which was reputed to have great healing capabilities. With the touch of its horn, a unicorn could bring back a person who had been dead for several hours. But when separated from the unicorn's body, the magic was significantly reduced. The unicorn had the body of a horse, a unique spiraling horn, and a lion's tail. They were pure white in color.

What mythical beast best represents you? Take the quiz!

Weighing ChaCha and Impeachment

2005-07-31T23:19:00.000+08:00

I was very entertained at the recent episode of YSpeak - it made me laugh so hard due to some sappy arguments from some panelists and even students from the interviews! Nah.. at times, I become too disappointed at what most students prioritize nowadays.. Well, as usual the 'judges' were still the same.. I wonder why they're not tired of seeing the same faces saying the same arguments again and again..

Funny how a congressman directly explained why CHA-CHA will really have a hard time passing the Senate since the senators wouldn't like it at all - their positions would be removed like magic. From what I had learnt from my pol sci class, in order to be successful, Filipinos should do one task and do it well (just like the linux way). The task is to follow the rules of the game, simply by being a morally disciplined law-abiding citizen.

Sometimes, it's more of an excuse to say that students of today are having a hard time finding jobs, blablabla. But in fact, there would always be a percentage of unemployment rate due to competition. Add to this was the competition among applicants based from the schools where they had graduated from. There were even applicants that had not graduated but were still accepted due to the skills they had built from experience. Think of this reality! Sometimes it's a combination of being street-smart and intelligent.

If one can't look for a job, one should make his or her own job and not depend on other people.. worst, blame officials for not releasing jobs.

If we do the first-things-first.. or FIFO with regards to such questions or cases in the Philippines regarding the so-called "Philippine debt", we must start from the time or regime of its existence. Unfortunately, most of time there was no really closure to any controversial issue in the Philippine society especially politics. Ninoy assassination was still not resolved, as well as other mysteries that had passed and had been forgotten already by most people.

When will people ever learn? What do you think?

If Only..

2005-07-25T21:23:00.000+08:00

If only I can control and extend time..

If only I can create a "Punisher" that will punish criminals and liars in this kind of society..

It always pisses me off hearing pointless rallyists shouting out their voices without really knowing what they're talking about. The noise from the anti-GMA rallyists even reached the place of my workstation. Getting irritated as the noise grew larger, I still managed to sleep despite of the noisy environment that was approximately 50-100 meters away from my bedroom. Would you believe that even my pet was so irritated to the clamor on Commonwealth Avenue? Have a look at my shot at about 1pm in the afternoon after my dog had her lunch:

This was like cruelty to animals! Just look at her ears and tail and you'll see the effect of the pointless noise. Tsk tsk.. From the news, the videos also show how violent the people were in the Anti-GMA rally. There was someone who threw a stone and unfortunately hit some of the people in the opposite side of the fence. Even the fences were moved by those not-so-disciplined rallyists! Tsk tsk.. If they could only see how an Anti-GMA showbiz actor was peacefully accepted by the Pro-GMA group as compared to what they're doing to the police guards.

At last, PGMA's SONA was delivered at about 4pm. The news reports say that there was PGMA's SONA, 'TSONA' from Ping Lacson, and even 'SOBA'. I just couldn't believe how the 2 latter terms came into existence. Those terms sounded like being conceptualized from streets or "salitang kalye".

After the SONA, there were interviews of politicians on the Congress and also from the opposition's side, most of which were very pathetic. Some of the reactions in the oppositions side were too personal or they were already in "Personalan" mode. Add to that the 'showbiz-tic' comments even from the politcians themselves! I also heard someone (outside my house) shouted "Tulungan niyo ako dito, mga walang hiya kayo!", and I guess that piece by piece, their (the antiGMA group) supporters were already leaving their stands or posts. Too bad, that's what they get for chasing the wind (Har har).

Perhaps, students especially scholars will already be enlightened on the reality of the Philippines' political, economic, social, and moral status. Everyone should not just accept the words of politicians but should also criticize it if it's a derivative of personal interest. The issue is that a group or groups of people can't easily represent a big class especially those in the student's sector. Most of the time, the problem is bad representation of classes especially the term 'mass/masses'. They always say that they're the masses but from what I had learnt from my political science classes, the mass is the most intelligent class of the nation and they don't just pick a side right away. At times, the mass is always on the same side as the Church. We can see this fact from history - Edsa I.

No one is perfect. It sucks to hear politicians judge other people before judging themselves first or examine their consciences.

Oh well..

If only I can turn back the hands of time..

Showbiz Politics

2005-07-24T22:38:00.000+08:00

I had just watched another episode of YSpeak but was somehow disappointed because it was also the worst I had watched so far with regards to the series. The theme was about the coming SONA and as usual the panel was filled with politicians some of which are biasez, showbiz people, and students. It was sort of a very entertaining episode (insert sarcasm and exaggeration here): John Lapuz was there impersonating Kris Anino, and even Imee Marcos was there too! I just couldn't believe that right on target, she had faced some issues and controversies regarding her family's political dynasty in the government which were attempted to put on the light by some YSpeakers. From history, we know that it was the time of former presidebt FM that the Philippine debt came to existence. Master Hypocrites!

Honestly, I was also disappointed on students that joined the rallies against the government even though they themselves were heavily aided thru government-subsidized tuition fees. The noisy 'oppositions' just kept on shouting here and there. They even say that the administration is faulty, corrupt, blablabla.. But in reality, they're still part of the 'administration'! Oh c'mon.. Are their allegations directed against them as well?

Good thing there was this UP Law student that is a positive thinker as compared to those other student panelists that have ideas not even supported by facts. Another representative had also recited some improvements in macroeconomic terms. As far as I can remember from my Economics class, my country's facing a microeconomic problem.

It isn't right also to have some biased 'judges' in a debate at the very first place. In this episode, there was an instance of this problem. Tsk tsk. Oh well.

As I'm writing this blog entry, I'm also watching Veronica Guerin on Star Movies. It is a true story about a journalist who was brave enough to expose crimes through writing but she ended up being assassinated. Her assassination has a multiplier effect - it triggerred the end of drug trafficking, etc.. I just wonder if there's still an honest journalist out there in my country, craving to expose the truth and not being bought by underground criminals or even politicians.

Well, don't wonder anymore if this becomes my last post. Harhar. After Veronica Guerin's death, there were about 196 and more journalists worldwide that had been killed due to the same cause. Shucks.. Hmm..

One Last Teenage Year of the Inspired

2005-07-23T20:20:00.000+08:00

At last, I just had my birthday celebration (by food obviously) 2 to 3 hours ago. And today would be the start of my final year of being a teenager. It's time to start being serious (maybe) on my part, although some people really think that I'm serious most of the time. Comparing these days to last year's, there was nothing new although in a political sense, these months were very chaotic and confusion-inducing. In 2 days, Pres. GMA will deliver her SONA (as usual there are no classes on that day). Academic life is still the same: lots of sleepless endless nights while being a student assistant (finally). Good thing I had ended my INC before the deadliest deadline. I can say now that I had developed and learned - by being more sociable to people, that was also enhanced by the nature of my work on being a helpdesk assistant. I had also joined orgs like UnPLUG and UP ACM but I don't have any college-based org. It's just that I couldn't pick any of the choices of orgs (or if i'm fit enough to the group). Is love life still a big issue to consider? I'll rather think about it first..

*listening to Himig Heswita's - Your Dwelling Place: Songs For Healing album*

Direct Hit

2005-07-18T03:11:00.000+08:00

Last night I had watched another episode of YSpeak! and it talked about the views and issues on party politics and loyalty. Congressman Zubiri was great in explaining his arguments and even cited effective examples to support his ideas. He was arguing in the talks to the point that one of the persons on the opposite panel turned out to be very defensive. A hint on who 'she' is? She was once a department secretary but had just resigned recently along with other people. The show was like "Bato bato sa langit, ang tamaan huwag magagalit..". And as usual, it's very common that such debates were inefficient due to irrelevant concepts being discussed and not getting to answer the real question of the topic. They should've defined the terms used first and foremost before discussing it thoroughly. Overall, the show was very fascinating for it reflected how some people were very firm on their stand such as Congressman Zubiri and others such as students, react and lay out their arguments about the issue.

...

Go Open Source!

2005-07-16T21:14:00.000+08:00

Woot! Right now, I'm still watching the Go Open Source TV Series I had downloaded only for a duration of 2 hours! I had finished watching the first half and was so enlightened and enriched about the features and/or impacts of Open Source in the different parts of the world! It talks about Freedom Toaster, an automation to burning Linux CDs and a lot more! Usually, I enjoy some parts that feature links to cool websites. You can visit my sourceforge site for a newsletter announcement of this. More to go!

On the political side, I wish that the Philippine Government also Opens their Source of everything... I was shocked after knowing that Chavit Singson exposed another wiretap derivative that was somehow conversing about a destabilization of a leader. Oh well..

War of the Worlds

2005-07-14T05:10:00.000+08:00

I'm just too tired of hearing those Ayala rallyists.. Listening to them was like watching a noon-time TV show, but most of the time it was like chasing the wind. I just can't imagine what will happen to the Philippines if a disaster or something like the tragedy in the War of the Worlds would occur. We will clearly see the ultimate power and judgment of the leaders of the elites group and might even see them collaborating just for the heck of saving their Mother country although they have conflicts with one another. Plastics! And now, ladies and gentlemen, lo and behold! The Ayala opposition's Best Actress Award goes to... Susan Roces! (applause)...Best Actor Award goes to... (it's a tie! isn't it?) FPJ, Tatad, Lacson... oh well. And now, the Best Supporting Actor and Actress awards goes to.. supporters of Susan Roces! (shouting "Kay Susan Tayo!")... Yadda..yadda. It's a shame to see educated politicians let or appoint someone who is not legitimate enough to lead their group.. The worst thing was.. hell, i didn't even know from what university that proposed leader graduated. Need I say more? The opposition wasn't even really united. Nah..nah.. Enough of this politics.. at times, it is like chasing the wind.

In spite of the political issues, I had already made some stuffs to work. I had tested Open Kiosk although the only thing I didn't like about it was its requirement of a KDE environment. I would rather XFCE or Fluxbox than a KDE environment. Well, anyway... the code is hackable.. *grin*

One More GIF?

2005-07-08T22:56:00.000+08:00

"Grant me serenity, within... For the confusions around are mere reflections of...What's within, what's within me?" - This was the most peaceful statement I had ever read after the past chaotic and confusion-inducing days of political turmoil and decay.

What I still don't get was how people were still patient after numerous problems with their Wind0ze machines. After watching the Revolution OS, and having read some of Eric Raymond's articles, I was so enlightened on the real power of Free and Open Source and its origins when technology was young. Fixing stuffs on FOSS is a lot easier than troubleshooting proprietary ones where the usual solution is to contact the company that owns that specific software. I believe that viruses (or virii), spywares, trojans, and all of the stuffs that can be conceptualized as far as security is concerned will not stop especially the world's target OS: Wind0ze. Last week, I had heard a problem on Wind0ze 95: Dancing Icons! A virus/worm problem that makes the user to chase the icons with the mouse cursor in which the icons seem to avoid the mouse cursor on clicking them. I wonder if there's a script that does this 'feature' on Linux desktops.

I was also enlightened by Eric Raymond's articles about forums especially M$ bashing, HOWTOs on Asking Questions, and the Hacker concept. The funny thing was I have this forum wherein this forumer's objective or goal was to irritate me by posting off-topic and flame-inducing statements especially negative craps on Linux. Beware! (May his Wind0ze PC be blessed with children and grandchildren of viruses and multiply like gremlins!) He/She might have the time to irritate me but I don't have the time to reply to such pointless posts or bunch of bulls*. (Screenshots at the end of this post)

There was this new feature of Yahoo!, PhotoMail.. but I don't think it is "yahoo!" for me. LOL. Wanna know why? Look at the screenshots below. Beside it is a screenshot of an article with a very ironic ad. Tsk tsk.

On the "bright side?", this week was the most toxic one I had ever encountered since the start of classes. Even though it was sort of a hassle sleepless week, I had even found time to watch some series of videos such as Point Pleasant episodes 10 to 11, and such episodes remind me of Revelations, a related TV series too in which I don't know or have no idea yet on when their next episode is going to be released. Some situations in Point Pleasant is like the relationship between Buffy and Angel in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

I had just discovered a weird thing in one of my classes after several sessions or meetings.. Why? My prof seemed like she can read the stuff that's going on with my mind and I noticed it because she always calls me to recite in class.. Or were those just plain coincidences? I don't think so.. The thing is she somewhat knows what my heart desires. *insert exaggeration here*

Rants and more Ramblings!

2005-07-03T22:43:00.000+08:00

At this time, I was so very fascinated and some sort of shocked after the turn of events that had happened just last week. President GMA admitted that she really had a conversation with a COMELEC official but never mentioned its name. She also denied that she had influenced the results of the election. From my opinion, the only mistake that she had done in her speech was the failure to pick the original 'wiretap derivative' or product copy from the fake or modified versions. Funny thing was I had heard this breaking news before making my reaction paper for the Marcos Regime to be submitted on the next day (which was Tuesday morning) and it had really affected the stuff that I was about to make earlier before GMA's speech. What's even funnier and some sort of irritating was to hear the comments and reactions that had followed GMA's speech from the news programs on TV. (I always watch 24 Oras if time permits.) I wouldn't want to hear an argument just like Lacson's.. Why? He concluded that "since GMA had admitted that she had a conversation blablabla, she had also admitted that she was also a factor in cheating in the elections." Very lame indeed. But earlier, some students already consider that GMA should resign without knowing who will replace her position if in case GMA resigned due to personal jugdment or due to people's reaction towards her. Who knows? Even I cannot tell if she had cheated in the elections. The wiretap derivative is not a valid evidence for me.. Why? Hours ago, I have just knew that the officials or those people handling the wiretap case refuse to let the whole wiretap conversation to be played to that forum or to the public. Why wouldn't they do that? Maybe they're also included in the original and complete taped coversation? Good thing I had not downloaded any derivatives of that wiretap conversation even though I had heard some of its modified versions through ringtones and even some versions with remixed dance numbers. Thus, having that copy of the modified wiretap derivative is really NONSENSE. It isn't sufficient to release only the edited/cropped product to the public. Who would also know that the other candidates or political persons did/didn't called the COMELEC? Even the opposition was also divided regarding their preferences on the person that will replace GMA if in case GMA steps down peacefully (personal judgment) or by bruteforce of the opposition. It seemed so interesting yet to irritating to hear again the ideas just like the ones regarding ERAP to be brought back as the president. GMA might have answered part of the questions of the people, but to me, it had also created a flame of numerous mystery, questions, and wonders. Why would some of the Arroyos leave the Philippines? Everything is still in chaos, but there is still hope and we must not lose it.

For the meantime.. I had already the time to watch Batman Begins and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The great thing about H2G2 was.. to me.. there seems to be a similarity between Vogons and the officials in the Philippine government.

Well, nothing new in the Philippines.. where was BF when he was needed? Is it because that he was very affected by the turn of political events? I just couldn't figure out why the problem of traffic is still there (in the Commonwealth-Philcoa road). There was no development indeed, but only a waste of money and time.. (isn't it redundant to say this? time = money) The fare had increased - the UP TOKI/IKOT P 5.00 turned into 6.50. I had only knew this after seeing a passenger paying a 5 peso coin with additional 1 peso and 2 pieces of 25 centavos. After seeing that event, I noticed the fare matrix sticked at the back of the driver's seat and found the announcement regarding the fare increase. Oh well..

One of the most important things to do (according also to the priest in YSpeak) is to pray for peace and stability even though this was sometimes ridiculed or laughed upon by Filipinos, most of which were in the opposition. Tsk tsk. Filipinos must unite one another and to not think of their selfish motives. Not only should we treat the situation as political but treat it also as a moral issue/problem/situation/challenge. This line should also be thrown to them: "Let the one who is STONE, cast the first SIN".. It might be funny (since Filipinos used to make jokes just like the present or newly-released jokes on GMA and elections) but the real connotation of this line from the Bible will/shall have a very deep impact to everyone's hearts and consciences. We could not just judge everybody according to our terms and standards. I had already posted on some Filipino forums especially the real Biblical line, and would you believe what he/she had just said? "..people are using the bible to hide their sins just to stick to power. bring her to me w/o the PSG and i'll be the first one to cast not only one stone..".. I was blown by the wind.. or felt like chasing it. Har-har.

Woot.. I just can't wait how this week's gonna pass.

Five or Six Days Earlier..

2005-06-25T17:44:00.000+08:00

At last, I had finished watching mr & mrs smith 5 or 6 hours earlier. Well, it was a good movie although some scenes in it didn't looked realistic.

Five or six days earlier:

I had tried commuting by riding jeeps and buses. Unfortunately, I was subjected to the rain as I felt the water entering my shoes. I haven't even taken my lunch at that time and dinner was late already because that was about 7:30 to 8 in the evening.

I had also tried installing Fedora Core 4 on a PC on our lab in ILIS and was surprised to see my 4 cd installers passed the media check compared to my experiences with my fedora core 3 installers. In my installation, I had included the required packages for my lecture presentation but I hadn't tested the system yet.. not even the Apache server or PHP config. Why? I haven't even completed the setup of the LAMP system on my machine yet - i'm still stucked at the MySQL part. After shifting from source packages to RPM packages (after upgrading from Red Hat 9 to Fedora Core 3 last December 2004), there were some changes regarding the configurations that I need to review and test first. Working with source packages enables you to customize everything, but the problem I had with that method is configuring it for multiple PCs, the time in compiling the system, and to make the services (such as httpd) to be system wide. RPM-based installation only gave me problems regarding the linking of configs, clients, as opposed to the earlier method that I had tried and tested (both on Mandrake 9 and Red Hat 9). So far, in my machine I had successfully made PHP to work with my server but had not tried synchronizing it with MySQL or PostgreSQL due to lack of time. PostgreSQL was somehow easy as compared to MySQL, but it will still take time for me to learn the real advantages and disadvantages of such languages. Eventually, I would have finished this LAMP thing before the end of July and will install it in the PCs of my lab while my classmates present their reports.

For the meantime, I still have pending projects that needs building and rebuilding; I'm still in the process of figuring out how easy or difficult those FOSS related projects were. I wish that I can easily locate my set of stable packages for my LAMP config and others as well because I'm still having a hard time locating the right set of stable codes and even the dates will not help at all. It's just that I had only learned or do in practice creating versions in the form of betas, v0.9X, etc., after doing some Machine Problems in my CS12. I had even folders in my MPs named unstable and some were even appended with "nightly builds".

Well, the stuff that I have been working on is reducing my long list of bookmarks, but I had noticed something:

It's Too Late XP Baby

(Sung to the tune of "It's Too Late, Baby")

Stayed at the desk all morning just to pass the time
There's something wrong here
There can be no denying
One of us is not changing
and I have just stopped wondering when you will
And it's too late my XP baby, now it's too late
Though I really did try to keep you safe
Something inside has died and I can't hide
And I just can't fake it
It used to be so easy computing here with you
You were light and breezy

And I knew just what to do
Now you look so bloated
And I feel like a noob
And it's too late my XP computer, now it's too late
Though I really did try to make it
Something inside has died
and I can't hide it
And I just can't fake it
There'll be good times now for me and Linux
But I just can't stay with you
Don't you compute it too
Still I'm glad for what I had
And how I once installed you
And it's too late my XP baby, now it's too late
Though I really did try to keep you uninfected
Something inside has died and
I can't hide it I just can't fake it
Don't you know that I...
I just can't fake it
Oh it's too late XP baby
Too late my XP baby
You know
It's too late my XP baby.

Crazy Little Girl?

2005-06-19T23:18:00.000+08:00

12 hours ago, I was very fascinated in seeing a strange young girl about 2-4 years of age that had walked towards us minutes before the mass and sort of chatted or played with my 2 nieces in a very friendly manner.. It's just that.. well.. it might be the first time I had seen such a situation?

Anyway, after some trials and STFW, i managed to get xmame to work on my Fedora Core 3 by getting only xmame and xmame-roms on the Yum DAG repository, after seeing some ROMS that had worked on Stuffinator's machine. I had proven to myself that switching to debian based distros was not yet crucial. I could still handle it.

Some screenshots from my so-called 'experiment':

Chaos and Peace: Reunited?

2005-06-15T22:44:00.000+08:00

Well, Fedora Core 4 (Stentz) was finally released yesterday sometime between 12mn to 1am Philippine Time. As I had seen it, I tried every FTP mirror to see which is fastest to me - that ended me in choosing a Japan mirror. I was downloading the DVD iso by using proz on a terminal and the speed was like 2GB in 2 hours! Unfortunately, the files were messed up and i had known that after getting its md5sum hours after finishing the download: it doesn't match the string on the ftp site. But that's okay since I don't have plans yet of doing a rush upgrade except maybe in the coming semestral break (to avoid jumbling my disorganized stuffs). I can't afford the time to upgrade since I had also a lot of projects to do and I don't wanna lose the LAMP system I was still trying to test. My files were like in chaos but they're living peacefully without the existence or threats of Wind0ze-related problems.

Another chaotic thing was traffic. Where? Everywhere! It was sometime about 730-800 in the morning and the road was so overcrowded. The roads leading northward such as Tandang Sora and even the shortcuts to Katipunan. From my experiences in taking a trip to Manila, there was no development in the time spent for travel. So where are the MMDAs when they're needed? Regarding the laws about the prohibition of "sabit" in jeepneys, i was so irritated about an MMDA officer arguing that people who do it in jeepneys should not treat tardiness as an excuse to attach themselves at the tail of vehicles. For me, the thing was practical.. if i knew, those officers who had those views were the ones used in being late or doing the so-called Filipino time, and i kinda hated it. It just doesn't make sense to me at all. It's like.. throwing the same question to them if they're the ones rushing for their jobs. There was traffic most of the time.. why? Late response from MMDAs, a very lame excuse indeed. Well, I would rather forget this issue for there are more important things to consider such as "WETENG" and "WAYRTAP". WA WENTA na talaga.

But the thing that I'm happy of is finishing a hard task not because it was really hard but because it was hard to go to that task.

Case closed.

The Inside...

2005-06-12T23:31:00.000+08:00

The Inside... (of what?) is a new TV series! It features a female agent recruited for some crime unit to act as a profiler. Well, somehow, I missed the old TV series of "The Profiler"... and I got so addicted to it that I had used it as my username in some web accounts.

Oh well.. definitely a new TV series to watch this time of the semester (after finishing the season finales of Smallville, etc..). In fairness, Rachel Nichols is cute.

Harhar.

No RSS Feed?

2005-06-11T22:37:00.000+08:00

Quoted from No RSS Feed? It's a genetic marker for a "lame site".

OK, a few people have already written in and said that that Xbox site is lame not because it doesn't have an RSS feed but because it doesn't have any content.

Bing, bing, bing! You win $10 million. You're right!

"So, Scoble, if we're right, why are you being such a shmuck about RSS?"

Because not having an RSS feed is a genetic marker for a lame site.

Hear me out.

Look at the Xbox site again. It has no content, right? Well, add an orange XML icon to the site. What changes? A few things:

1) Now the site promises FUTURE content. Bing! Bing! Bing! New stuff gonna come. This site won't stay static. Static sites are lame. Don't believe me? Well, do some Google or MSN or Yahoo searches. Which sites invariably are at the top of the list? Sites that change often. Why is that? Why do sites like Engadget and Gizmodo have more traffic than most corporate home pages? Content changes often is the #1 thing.

2) If you don't have an RSS feed, your site is lame because you've told the connectors (er, superusers, er influentials) that they don't matter. When I see a site that doesn't have an RSS feed I see a site that says "Mr. Scoble you aren't welcome here and we don't ever want you to come back again."

3) Sites, like the Xbox one, that try to get customers to sign up and give an email address to get new content are telling customers "hey, we wanna spam you and we want our spam to be mixed in with all those Viagra spams you get. In fact, if you really are an advanced user we want our content to be shoved into your "junk" folder. Yes, our content is junk." Do you really want to be saying that? An RSS subscription, on the other hand, goes where +I+ want it to go. Hint: that's not into the junk folder.

So, marketers, if you are being compensated for building lame sites, keep on building sites without RSS feeds. My readers might see them as lame for other reasons, but not having an RSS feed is a genetic marker for "lame site."

Oh, and don't think that very well funded and very advanced sites can't be lame. Steve Wynn's is an example. He built a multi-billion-dollar casino in Las Vegas that opened recently. This morning I wanted to find a place to have breakfast. I was lost on his site. It took 60 seconds just to start it up (it's all in Flash). And, once in, I couldn't find a restaurant that would serve breakfast. Even if I could, I wouldn't have been able to link you into the restaurant directly. Lame, lame, lame. Again, what's the genetic marker? No RSS feed.

Inspiration Chronicles: Part IV

2005-06-10T22:55:00.000+08:00

There is always a definite plan for everything in time and space. I just can't stop thinking that everything that happened today were just some sort of simple coincidences. Just like last year on the month of June, there must be a reason that those stuffs came into effect. I saw the goddess Aphrodite from the moment of my first class in the morning until my class after lunch. Very weird but true. Or maybe, those are just encapsulations on the coming burdens from that set of classes?

I got this from: July - describing what each birth month of the person is all about most of the time:

Fun to be with. Secretive. Difficult to fathom and to be understood. Quiet unless excited or tensed. Takes pride in oneself. Has reputation. Easily consoled. Honest. Concerned about people's feelings. Tactful. Friendly. Approachable. Emotional temperamental and unpredictable. Moody and easily hurt. Witty and sparkly. Not revengeful. Forgiving but never forgets. Dislikes nonsensical and unnecessary things. Guides others physically and mentally. Sensitive and forms impressions carefully. Caring and loving. Treats others equally. Strong sense of sympathy. Wary and sharp. Judges people through observations. Hardworking. No difficulties in studying. Loves to be alone. Always broods about the past and the old friends. Likes to be quiet. Homely person. Waits for friends. Never looks for friends. Not aggressive unless provoked. Prone to having stomach and dieting problems. Loves to be loved. Easily hurt but takes long to recover.

...

Lastly, am I the 'weak/weakest link'?... I hope NOT.

For once..

2005-06-07T00:52:00.000+08:00

Once again, I learned or experienced how it feels to be a Wind0ze user - endless whining on crashing problems.. slow bootups/shutdowns/restarts/updates.. driver handling errors.. stupid configs.. dumb applications.. a useless console.. memory shortage.. all of these stuffs turning your expensive PC into a useless junk. It's like.. "when will they ever learn?"... Who would even know that a config in a dial-up adapter in wind0ze 98 also affects another config on another adapter for LAN? Oh well.. I might now be that knowledgeable on wind0ze systems, but for sure I knew how to setup the basic stuffs to make the PC to work - and this is only possible if the system itself is stable just like MACs.

Yesterday, the thought on Bill Gates having no diploma yet was very successful (quoted from YSpeak) caught my attention.. Why? Obviously, I would tend to disagree.. what happened to that long-waited Longhorn? Other M$ products? Are those stuffs really successful? In what way? I would agree that those things are successful in fooling people to buy their products.. and so on.

And so this article explains why I had been so very drowsy last summer.. but it was not due to making diaries (or blogs)! Somehow, that might have been so very exaggerated..

Exaggeration - you can see a lot of this everyday, everywhere, and everytime.

The Last Man in UPM

2005-06-02T04:53:00.000+08:00

Finally, satisfying results were already released beginning Monday. I passed Math even though I really felt effortless in that subject: too lazy to wake up and remain focused to the teacher, almost running out of time for practice, and not even completing homeworks. Well.. i was amazed that I had never taken a Math subject more than once yet... and obviously, saying that I'm only an information specialist that was somehow out of place in that section. Why? Because I'm the only one from my college taking that subject... being handicapped for I had none in my college that can accompany me regarding that subject. Self-study indeed is very effective nowadays.

Also, the Last Man had also accomplished his task of negotiating the problem in UPM. It was really hassle going to argue here and there about the topic. At times, I really could not accept that somehow she believes that college freshies could not write well on their chosen topic just because they're still a freshman. But how would that apply to my current university? I prefer going to classes that are mixed - a larger variety of ideas from different kinds of people: a larger knowledge base as well. The Last Man indeed was full of hope as he walked towards the targeted room and was some sort of happy or contented as he left the vicinity.

Anyway.. I had also tried beautifying my desktop with gDesklets:

and by running a MAC OS X-like theme. I had another wallpaper featuring Star Wars:

and the craziest thing to do - to have 2 Linux distributions (PHLAK on FC3) running simultaneously:

Am I crazy? nerdy? geeky? I'm lucky!

Summer Ender

2005-05-29T20:45:00.000+08:00

I therefore declare this Sunday night to be the end of summer although there were still past unresolved issues. During the last weeks, most of the TV series I had watched were already in their latest season ender/finales. I had watched Navy NCIS..too bad Kate was killed - head shot. But I kinda like Abby's personality -> a geek goth. In Smallville, Clark was finally on the path to becoming Superman - he had collected the stones but i guess it was also the first time that he had not rescued Lana from another meteor shower. Lionel was dead, Chloe and Lex were left inside the caves wondering where Clark is and what he's up to. Lois crawls in a hillside as she watches the town of Smallville destroyed by showers of meteors and fires. Hopefully in its next season, Lex will be the same as Anakin Skywalker in the Episode 3 of Star Wars - turning to the dark side. Another great series was Numb3rs, a CSI-like series that solves crimes by using Math sprinkled with Physics.. I would say that it is enough to change your views on the power of Calculus in our everyday life. Alias was also impressive. Its latest episode featured Von disclosing his true identity to Sydney while he's driving the car with her (after a marriage proposal), and by the time he told Sydney that his real name wasn't Von, the car came to a crash coming from the side of Von smashing towards Sydney. I hope that it is not yet the season ender.

Oh well, tomorrow is the release of some results from my summer classes. Gotta get ready to face it.

A Series of Unfortunate Events I

2005-05-24T23:23:00.000+08:00

Dang.. the past weeks were very troublesome.. lotsa exams, an INC to resolve this week, some unavoidable traumatic circumstances - indeed, history repeats itself.

Finally, I had a UPS installed on my system for stable uptime, and days after, I lost my phone to two suspicious people. How? Hmm.. Luck was not with me, I rushed to MB hoping to grab a copy of the sample final exam released by my prof and placed it in an envelop at his door to have his students photocopy it. Unfortunately, I didn't had the chance to copy it or even a glance to it. Selfish people suck. If only I knew that they (the students who had the sample exam photocopied) won't be returning those samples, I shouldn't have gone to MB by riding a Toki jeep. The jeep that I had taken in going to MB was also the same vehicle that I had ride in leaving MB and I'm also in the same front seat of the jeepney (obviously, after that Toki jeep had completed one route). As I left the jeepney on that same spot where I had left it before and heading towards UPCC, I tried examining my pockets to check that my belongings were still intact but I noticed that my phone was gone! I thought that I left or just dropped it on the jeepney so I rushed to the side of the UP Law hoping to see the same Toki jeep. After maybe 10 minutes of waiting, I didn't noticed any instance of that jeep - this made me assume that I hadn't made it on time to catch it at that point of time. I thought that I could still encounter the jeep by the other side again so I left first my stuff at the UPCC and tried to wait for Toki jeeps on the spot where I usually ride a Toki jeep. Arriving on that spot, I noticed two old people - a man and a woman maybe in their 70s on the other side of the street. No cellphone was found on the ground (as expected), but I noticed something strange on the old man.. why? He picked something at the middle of the street but I was sure that it was not my phone. I tried asking a janitor cleaning the sidewalks but he found nothing. I was desperate so I tried to ask the two old people who looks very guilty of something nasty or naughty, but as usual they denied seeing a phone on that spot. So I was hopeless at that point while having second thoughts of the whereabouts of my phone. Here's the interesting part: after asking the two old strangers and leaving the spot, I tried to look back at them and it's like we're 10-15 meters away and the two strangers were still looking at me!So, I was convinced that my phone's with them and yet I still tried to check MB for the third time to see if the jeepney driver had noticed my phone. I was only sure of one thing: the two strangers (after mysteriously waiting for minutes, they seem so confused as to what jeep they were looking for) rode a UP Philcoa jeep. And I'm expecting that phone in the displays at Philcoa. Well, the thing was my phone is very had to sell.. why? obviously it is not a Nokia model, it looked very worn out..and the process of changing the cases, keypads, etc. is very expensive - almost equal to its selling price in the market. Oh well, enough of this kind of rant..

I had a hard time reviewing for the Math final exam.. stupid sample final exam.. crazy classmates.. oh well.. The final exam was kinda long, and the thing that I hated most about it was the existence of the Taylor series and its forms.. oh well..

The following day at 7am, I had a biology exam. Well, I had not memorized the names of specific people having weird reproductive life and also due to the fact that I was absent at the last session of Biology because of my last long exam in Math 55. Anyway, I guess that everything will turn out just fine after these series of unfortunate events.

Jedi Master!

2005-05-14T23:09:00.000+08:00

You scored as Yoda.

Yoda 69%
General Grievous 69%
R2-D2 67%
Mace Windu 64%
Anakin Skywalker 61%
Darth Vader 61%
Clone Trooper 50%
Obi Wan Kenobi 47%
Padme Amidala 36%
C-3PO 36%
Emperor Palpatine 33%
Chewbacca 19%

Which Revenge of the Sith Character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

I think this was also the time I was given a JEDI (Java Education and Development Initiative) shirt..

Iterated Triple DisIntegrated

2005-05-13T20:45:00.000+08:00

Finally, i had the chance to post again after numerous intoxicating situations. Math 54 seemed to be easier than Math 55..why? since I had taken Math 54 in a normal sem whereas the Math 55 this summer, that is also approaching the last weeks or even days of it. Weird? Yes, it is! Math 55 is only a 3-unit course as compared to the easy Math 53 i had taken last summer. Well, maybe it's just that I feel that the summer session of this year is kinda short. And the challenging one is to take full units (sort of 6) which i'm presently doing. Would you believe that I had just taken my 1st long exam in Biology 1 hour ago?... and also that there's only a week left before Finals? Awww shucks..

I really hate this summer.. kinda hot.. hotter than last year.. Last year seemed to be an enjoyable one. I even used to play Ragnarok during that time. Well, this year's different. It's like that I had only accomplished 40% of my objectives, not to forget my crappy INC at UPM. I find it very hard to go there..too far to reach, traffic and the risks of going there as well (like hold-ups, etc).

Well, the only good thing that I had gained this year (including summer) is Linux tricks, tips, strategies in calculating stuffs by using Calculus, having an OC (obssessive compulsivve) prof, a relatively short session of Biology 1 and other stuffs that I guess need not to be elaborated more.

Sad to say, I lost my UPS.

A Hopeless Fanatic?

2005-05-02T23:52:00.000+08:00

Am I a hopeless Linux fanatic? hopeless Linux advocate? nah.. after initiating good threads on one forum filled mostly with Wind0ze fanatics, I had really found the job of advocating very difficult especially in a forum packed with closed-minded people.

For instance, having the initiative to spread the word through the creation of such threads: Wind0ze-specific hardware on Linux issue, New Firefox version released, A Very Special Thread, and Study Finds Wind0ze more secure than Linux - most of them getting locked by the admin/moderator. The topics seemed to be very controversial and heat/anger generating and not for the ones who have little threshold of anger. They still don't wanna face the reality that they have been using a hopeless, expensive, and not creativity-inducing OS for years! Who cares about viruses? spywares? adwares? malwares? It's about time that the Tiger and the Penguin search for $PATHs instead of Winbloze.

Everything that I had begun was like getting nonsense after all.. I wouldn't wonder.. nothing is new in this world, chaos is everywhere.. there is no free speech in this era anymore. My version of the Inferno is definitely true! The mentality of the people - severely corrupted by such corporations or companies. People still continue to pirate here, there, everywhere! I don't think they would even care if the Philippines notches the top of the list of piracy violators of other countries, specifically the US. National IDs gonna be implemented. How? AFAIK, they'll be having an affiliation with M$!

Oh well..

"And Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? And Where Is The Place Of Understanding?" (Job 28: 12, 13)

Forgive them.. for they do not know what they're doing.

aQEMUlated..

2005-05-01T22:03:00.000+08:00

Finally, I had reinstalled my LAMP environment again.. how? I had removed everything by using the YUM Extender. Synaptic kept on saying i had some packages with different versions installed on my system. So the last step that I had not yet accomplished was to configure my MySQL environment.. Very clueless since i started from PostgreSQL and I had to be oriented again to the PHP-MySQL conventions for the forms and queries as well. I was supposed to explore OpenOffice 2.0 Beta during the summer vacation, but obviously there were lotsa change of plans.

I had successfully changed my desktop themes by using Mac OS X theme taken from the gnome-look.org site. It seemed that it needed enhancements but I still had managed most of its configurations especially the icons. I had also experimented QEMU, an emulator where you can boot some ISOs - a good way or cheap alternative to boot and test LiveCDs before writing them to CDRs.

For now.. well.. i'm still fixing/eliminating my long list of archived articles in Firefox. Oh well.

Numb3rs!

2005-04-26T17:18:00.000+08:00

"We all use math everyday. To forecast weather, to tell time, to handle money. We also use math to analyze crime, reveal patterns, predict behaviors. Using numbers we can solve the biggest mysteries we know."

After I had seen all of its released episodes, I became very motivated in my feelings towards Math.

Tomorrow, Math will use me.

Very Ludicrous..

2005-04-22T23:11:00.000+08:00

Last Wednesday was such a fascinating one. During my free time staying at the UPCC Dilnet Helpdesk, I was assigned a task to install Linux for the UPD PH (or something like that) with 2 other SA applicants.. And what kind of Linux was it? Mandrake!, the distro that I somewhat hated (a view expected from a Fedora-Redhat loyalist). Since it was really my first time to install Mandrake, I was very clueless about it... There was no SA that is going to accompany us.. therefore, I had to take the initiative to lead my highschool-mates (they were a batch lower/younger than me) despite the fact that I didn't knew where the location of the office was.. Finally, we had managed to locate the destination and started to work it out. At first, the Processing Unit had messed up because of Power problems.. We even had the hardware opened to examine if the boards were really working but there was not a sign of flowing electricity.. So I had suggested to try another unit again, and it worked! Next problem was the monitor but it didn't took that long to solve the problem.. The real one was when I had had moved on with Mandrake's installation, after finishing the packages and a reboot, Mandrake showed me a tty or terminal login instead of the graphical boot/login that I expected. I tried running some startx but it won't budge, even the combo keys didn't work too.. After a maximum of 5 trials, I finally realized that I hadn't set the graphical/monitor stuffs properly.. Why? IMO, Mandrake was not that user-friendly.. for if it was, I wouldn't have any problems at all.. But this one really depends on perspective - "A Linux distribution is like a religion." At least, the SA applicants with me already knew what to look forward in case they will encounter some similar problems that we had that time.

Talked about shitty firsts..

2005-04-18T23:49:00.000+08:00

Hmm, pano ko nga ba sisimulan 'to,...

Well, I had a 7 am class in Math 55 that I had rushed to by simple walking since there were no TOKI jeeps roaming the campus some time between 6 to 6:45 in the morning AFAIK. There was nothing new with the scenery - from bored students waiting for their profs and friends by the start of the class to active students hardly waiting for profs to accept them through prerogs. The grading was somewhat cool.. why? the passing is based on the highest score in the class. Passing homeworks were not required too.. (I really hated assignments during summer). The first session was a good one, my prof had refreshed our memories and I could say that he's a lot better than my previous prof in Math 54 for now (obviously). After some short lectures, he dismissed the class sometime about 3-5 minutes before 9am, which was also the start of my Bio 1 class. The thing was.. I was late for the class since there was no faster way to get to that building except by walking for TOKI jeeps were not readily available compared to normal semesters.. Upon entering the room, obviously it was somehow filled already... Not knowing where to sit since I was a newcomer, I preferred to be sitted on the front row on the left side for that row was available and also AFAIK I heard the prof announced that for those students who had no class cards yet, they should sit in front row on the right side. But knowing that the left side was not taken yet and there was no available seat behind the front row of seats on the right side, I had chosen the left side. As I had sit on a chair on that row, the prof began asking me.. "are you a cardinal?".. I was shocked to hear that question.. why? It's like.. why ask that question? Some problem of language game? Then he asked again.. "do you know what a cardinal is?" I recalled that the term 'cardinal' was a term in the conclave or vatican stuff..it was also a term in mathematics..and a term or a name for a species of a bird. So.. what's the big deal? (I asked myself or I should've asked this one to that prof) The prof even wrote 'cardinal' on the board thinking that I really didn't know that word.. Well, obviously he was definitely wrong! After that, he told me to sit somewhere else.. tsk tsk.. That prof was somewhat having an OC behavior..

After recovering from that sucky first session in Bio through a lunch, I had gone to UPCC to continue being an SA volunteer.. I had even made a tech in which the problem was Out of Bounds for the problem or issue was about fibres and backbones in which I and my friend had no idea.. We then resulted to communicating with the office's technician and managed resolve it by instructing him to contact the UPCC if the problem persists.. Arriving at the DILNET headquarters, we knew that the problem was fixed maybe during the time of walking we had upon returning.. It was great indeed.

...and that's why I love and hate Firsts..

Vengeance is near.. [grin]

At last, and so it is..

2005-04-16T14:28:00.000+08:00

And so it is, just like God said it should be..

Finally, my Eng 12 classcard had been released 3 days ago. Getting that very last card was very heart-thumping...Why? Before that time, I had been very clueless if i'll gonna pass or fail. There was even an item in one of his take-home exams that talked about the dilemma or a choice of a professor in passing or failing one of his students, and we should answer the question by picking one from the personalities of the characters in the readings we had discussed during his lectures. The moment I received my sentence, i was so shocked about the result. Neither did I got a 5.0 or even a 3.0! It was a lot higher than what I had expected. It's just that in most of my not-so-lucky experiences, I was always in the worst section, schedule and professor. The returns were great but oftentimes there were some regrets. *Sigh*

Anyway, at least I didn't create another instance of an INC, I had also completed my MP before the end of last week. The result was also a lot higher than what I had expected.

There had been lotsa change of plans.. I'll be trying to get a foreign language this coming first semester (hoping to have an easy one), and there would not be any instance of a subject outside my curriculum like CS12 or Math54. Maybe I'll try to get some of those kinds of subjects again by second semester. I'm also on-training for an internetwork-based helpdesk while taking up summer classes. It's gonna be a very, very exciting challenge for me.

Hmm.. (poses like "The Thinker")

Installing Dilemma 0.9X

2005-04-13T06:15:00.000+08:00

Fantastic! I had just made an upgrade on my system and it was now already running kernel 2.6-11 from its previous 2.6-9, skipping the upgrade of kernel 2.6-10 since the latest kernel was already in the updates-released list of the Red Hat Network, or should I say Fedora Community. Last night, i came across a How-To containing a batch install of LAMP (which i had difficulty compiling it earlier).. and knowing that graphical install version looks kinda hell lot easier, I had a dilemma of removing the present configuration and deleting everything or just to stay with my compiled setup and move on compiling other packages to work with it as well. I had also discovered how to use RSS feeds but I don't have idea yet on how to make one except for the fact that i knew it contained HTML-like tags, etc.. Or maybe I should just grab a RSS creator. I had seen Sage on LXer, which was my present homepage and did some tests and RTFMs, and POOF! I had a feed reader installed! (Very happy)

For the meantime, I am presently developing a new template for my resource site. I'm tired of seeing blogs the usual way and I'm also thinking of using Mambo CMS instead. Well, the system is great only ignoring the setup process that it requires like AFAIK, the LAMP setup which I had a dilemma before. I'm also thinking of making or looking for a random color generator since I want my fonts to be appealing to the eye or somewhat unique instead of redundant ones; obviously, I can't use dark colors on this template.

On the bright side, Fedora Core 4 will be released this June containing the upcoming Open Office 2 which is now on version 1.9X. I wondering how that setup would work plus the fact that it might be easier to upgrade from 1.9X to 2.0 because of easy-reference repositories and a YUM Extender, a graphical version of YUM added with some utilities like listing the latest packages on different repos and fixing dependencies in case of problems with application dependency and it can even install or remove kernel with ease. I hope that my upgrade with FC4 will be painless.

Finding Neverland Closer...

2005-04-11T18:00:00.000+08:00

Finding Neverland was great... i mean, the movie was fantastic - it was magical and it showed the creativity of "Barrie", the creator of Peter Pan. Well, it was fun, but I just hated the ending, the same way with Closer.

But I kinda liked some stuffs in Closer... the song at the very beginning.. and the theme "If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking."

Well, maybe it was true... but it happened in the opposite way yesterday. Was it love? I don't think so. Infatuation? Inspiration!

Anyway, the bottom line was: BE INSPIRED.

And so it is..

2005-04-11T12:33:00.000+08:00

"The Blowers Daughter" (by Damien Rice)

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new

Tired of Weaving Dreams?

2005-04-08T01:06:00.000+08:00

dream (n.) - a series of thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep..

Isang malagim at nakakatakot na panaginip ang aking naranasan kahapon. Sabi sa aking panaginip, ako raw ay na-5.0 sa Geology 1. Ako ay natakot dahil sa iyon ang unang beses na ako'y nagkaroon ng singko. Ang malabo dun, tinignan ko ang aking final exam - at nakita ko na ang test I ay multiple choice kung saan ang pagpipilian lamang ay 1 - true, 2 - false. Ang ipinagtataka ko lamang ay kung bakit ang sagot ko mula 1 hanggang 50, lahat ay 1! Wari'y isang kababalaghan o isang kasinungalingan ang eksamen na yun. Iniisip ko tuloy na meron nagbago ng aking mga sagot dahil lapis lang ang aking ginamit sa pagsusulit na yaon. At dahil nga sa bagsak ako, ang removals ko daw ay kunin na lamang ulet ang final exam bilang removal exam. Sa susunod na araw na lamang ipasa ang sagot. Ako ay nangamba.. bakit? Nakatulog ako at hindi nagawa ang eksamen! Matapos maibigay ang papel ng eksamen na hindi natapos sa propesor ko, ako ay namulat at nagising sa realidad.

Isang malagim na panaginip na kakaiba dahil sa ang aking karanasan sa Geology 1 sa tunay na buhay ay maganda - ako ay naexempt sa final exam. Tapos ang istorya.

Bakit nga ba napanaginipan ko yun? Malalaman naten ngayong araw na ito.

Mga bagong-habing pangarap.. sana'y matupad upang makatulong sa ating bansang naghihirap.

Peace and Holiness

2005-04-03T14:48:00.000+08:00

The Pope died in peace at the age of 84... and i think that was the moment after an early night's sleep when the air of sadness is travelling.. But it wasn't sadness that filled the community, peace and holiness - how the Pope lived his life is a great achievement as well as a model to everyone. May He rest in peace.

"Peace, peace, peace be with you.. as the Father has sent Me, so I'm sending you."
*****

Well, other news... my Gmail is 2GB already! And i am shocked to see that Ragnarok Online is already on the gold list of WINE.. thought about returning to work after retirement from the addictive game that started from buying gametime cards and shifting to free international private servers. For the meantime.. hmm...

Simple Skepticism

2005-03-30T15:59:00.000+08:00

Hesus Ng Aking Buhay

Sikat ng umaga
Buhos ng ulan
Simoy ng dapithapon
Sinag ng buwan
Batis na malinaw
Dagat na bughaw
Gayon ang Panginoon kong
Hesus ng aking buhay

Saan man ako bumaling
Ika'y naroon
Tumalikod man sa 'yo
Dakilang pag-ibig mo
Sa aki'y tatawag at magpapaalalang
Ako'y iyong iniibig
At siyang itatapat sa puso

Tinig ng kaibigan
Oyayi ng ina
Pag-asa ng ulila
Bisig ng dukha
Ilaw ng may takot
Ginhawa ng aba
Gayon ang Panginoon kong
Hesus ng aking buhay

Saan man ako bumaling
Ika'y naroon
Tumalikod man sa 'yo
Dakilang pag-ibig mo
Sa aki'y tatawag at magpapaalalang
Ako'y iyong iniibig
At siyang itatapat sa puso

Yesterday..

2005-03-29T21:40:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be,
There’s a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.

Why she had to go I don’t know she woldn’t say.
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

...yesterday was a very happy but terrible day..

..i forgot to ask her number (or shouldn't i?)
..i forgot to get the results of my last Math exam

..and i will.. forget yesterday.

Geektalk II

2005-03-26T16:58:00.000+08:00

During the past days, I was just recovering from the toxifying events by sleeping, eating, watching tv without even worrying about the coming finals, exams, INCs, presentations, enlistment for summer and even for the first sem! Well.. at those times, I tried OpenOffice 2.0 Base and it was running good except that it was only a beta that make it some kind of buggy or still error-prone. But at least, I knew how that program works and it is indeed simple to use it than to make hard codes of databases. For a hard-code programmer like me, automating such kinds of programs sometimes make it more hassle because of the predefined or default settings and sometimes one can't configure entirely the whole system which obviously is a drawback. And this was one of the reasons why i hate WYSIWYG stuffs without really knowing how every part of it works.

And then, I compiled Apache server again without getting the .rpms available in the Yum repositories and i started from source codes. I should have finished setting those libraries so that I can continue the old stuff I worked on last first sem which is Linux-Apache-PostgreSQL-PHP (LAPP) or if MySQL is the database, it is called Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (LAMP). I had tried running BeatriX and Simply MEPIS in the ILS library and both run smooth! I also burned PHLAK and The OpenCD - contains Free and Open Source Software in .exe formats (obviously, it was designed for Wind0ze). The Battle for Wesnoth game was amazing; it is just 80+ MB and it runs great on Wind0ze and Linux (I tested it on both Linux and Wind0ze (unfortunately)).

And I will gonna recommend The Open CD to my friends so that they would know that there were indeed a lot of free and open source softwares out there and those were gonna cost them $ 0.

Right now, I had also changed my monitor to a 17" but maybe in a matter of months only.

Well this half-week vacation was a very satisfying one.. except for the worries on the coming finals.. especially this coming Monday. Damn.

Quagmire!

2005-03-20T22:59:00.000+08:00

Sneakpeeks from my crammed English 12 exams. ha-ha.

Situation 1: The first choice is to clone men and return them to the population (with the risk of returning as well the patriarchal systems created by men). The second choice is to clone male sperm for the purposes of artificial insemination, thus ensuring the extinction of the male gender (all the new babies born will be female).

If Virginia Woolf has a choice in this situation, I believe that she will not hesitate in choosing the second choice which is to clone male sperm for the purposes of artificial insemination that will ensure the extinction of the male gender. She will finally have the dream that women are only weak because of the patriarchal system that had existed before and now it is gone. She will be glad to proclaim throughout the universe that she was really right all the time. Since the extinction of the male gender will be guaranteed through selective cloning, Woolf makes most of her theories to be true just like what she said that “women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size”. In this way, if ever there was a chance of experimenting for the production of a man, Woolf can easily change his ways by teaching him to be feminist too and to completely leave his manhood or patriarchal ways because of the lack of examples for that man to follow to. Woolf will also say that women are indeed more intellectual because they found themselves to be safe from the plague and the men had no chances of surviving the plague for they do not know how to avoid or protect themselves against it. Thus, Woolf lifts up the hierarchical status of women and finds every woman “a room of her own” by changing or reversing the patriarchal system and starting all over again with a different system of her own.

Situation 2: Choices: Pass the student or fail the student.

If Sindbad is going to be the instructor in this situation, it is very likely that he passes the student for he believes based from the challenges he had gone through, that this is the chance of the student to rise up and be even more successful as any highly-paid employee despite of the failed exams and excessive cuts. Sindbad believes that every living human can make his or her own luck and avoid dependency on everything and even everyone for the world is controlled by Fortune. Assuming that Sindbad sees the student as a hardworking scholar who tries everything possible to uplift her status and her family's situation, Sindbad expects that the student will be successful in the future. Just like what Sindbad's experiences are somewhat in a repetitive manner and even become worst, he manages to lift himself up from the poverty he has gone through after spending his father's inheritance before his first voyage. In each of his voyages he practices the value of hope to rise up despite of the problems he encounters just like the cyclical instances of being shipwrecked. “The same kind Providence that had befriended Sindbad on his first voyage is in his service every time in the same guise.” At this situation, Sindbad considers himself to be the student's Providence after eliminating some of the student's academic problems. After all, Sindbad has never been able to resist the pleadings of a woman just like the scene in which he slew a weeping woman wailing for her dead husband and for herself. It is also probable that Sindbad will think of his student as another “Sindbad” because she has 'survived by the wit of her mind and the work of her hands'. She uses her wit in asking Sindbad for consideration on her grades and is able to do it since Sindbad cannot resist the pleadings of a woman. The work of her hands is seen in the effort she made by begging to her instructor. Lastly, Sindbad knows that her student has a strong faith of graduating on time and getting a high-paying job in the future as compared to his experiences of having a strong faith to Allah.

The Inferno!!!

2005-03-19T18:17:00.000+08:00

The Armorer's HellForge of Inferno

“Before the beginning, after the great war between heaven and hell,
God created the earth and gave dominion over it to the crafty ape he called man..
And to each generation was born a creature of life and a creature of darkness..
and great armies clashed by night in the ancient war between good and evil..
There was magic then, nobility, and unimaginable cruelty..
So it was, until the day that a false sun exploded over trinity
and man forever traded away wonder for reason.”

These were the words that trembled my mind
as I bade my friend Juliette a farewell for that night.
Then I found myself in a dream– in the middle of an uninhabited place;
it was a time when hope was still high and life worth living. 4

As I inched my way over the vast, endless desert,
I heard a familiar voice constantly whispering through the wilderness.
Hearing the choppy and monotonous tone, I finally attained Point Pleasant;
Only in that time when I realized that I was not alone in this imaginary world. 8

In our life, there were numerous exceptions– virtual fantasy becomes reality;
from where I stood, I felt the presence of the power of unlimited freedom in my hands.
Everything imaginable seemed to be permissible; no one is there to judge morality.
I therefore concluded that the place where I was– the Inferno I had once imagined. 12

I started to explore and went for the nearest city I could find-
a town with a very unusual environment; it was flooded by traffic signs everywhere.
As i sneaked my way through the scenery, I noticed “No Left/Right turn” signs
that made the entire town a hopeless place for development. 16

The rules made by the mayor of the city were clear;
it was very transparent that the citizens' eyes did not noticed the flaws behind it.
Their eyes were forever frozen with pink irises, everything they saw was pink-
from engines to waiting sheds, it made the city's situation very miserable. 20

Disappointed on the life in the highways, I decided to search for greener pastures;
I was shocked and curious to see a church while it is having a special event.
It was a funeral of an old popular actor, a King,
everyone regarded him as a leader and the recent one as their President. 24

I followed the long lines of the crowd towards the inside of the tabernacle,
the place that was supposed to be a house of prayer turned into a marketplace.
The temple was close enough to a pack of sardines- the building was very populated
and the effects were obvious- all forms of trash and vandalism were scattered everywhere. 28

Feeling dizzy, I raced to the door to breathe for fresh air,
not able to withstand the condition of the happenings inside,
I could not forget how the people look to be misinformed and brainwashed-
everything seemed to be normal for them, but not until the event was over. 32

As soon as the funeral concluded, the people's lives were worsened-
each was forced to clean the garbage around the temple.
The cleaning was good in itself but everything backfired earlier:
all of them suffered leprosy in the process. 36

Phew! Could I had spent more time inside the church,
I might had been a piece of garbage too, and worst, to die as the bacteria consumes me up.
And the church that was supposed to be a house of worship,
turned out to be a house of plagues and the source of terror and chaos. 40

Continuing with my journey, I followed with more curiosity than ever,
a pathway of tiles leading to another establishment,
it looked more like a secular school to me-
an academe with its foundations and designs just like the church beside it. 44

At last, a person approached me from inside the academe-
one that looked like a mad scientist asked me:
“Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?”; I answered, “I don't know”.
And then he left me like I was such a freak- the ones usually bullied in colleges. 48

One thing I could recall from that scientist-like man,
stitches were around his forehead- just like the ones seen on Frankenstein,
hands were tired from hard work, eyes were bulging with eye bags,
and his body looked exhausted; he was like me except for the stitches on the head. 52

Soon after the mad scientist had left, I came across the academe's athletic field,
a wide open field covered with lahar instead of green grasses.
It was more than enough for the field to create a huge tornado which is very usual in open areas-
one that could cause blindness and severe asthma to the entire community of the academe. 56

I decided to trace the mad scientist's way through the corridors,
classrooms were empty and even the canteen was out of customers,
and as I made a turn in one of the corridors,
I came across the noisiest, perhaps the most populated area of the academe- the library. 60

I was right at concluding it was the most crowded place of the academe,
the foulest smell I had ever encountered circulated the place,
I was astonished to see everyone in the library were holding a book
and all eyes were straight down to what they were reading- perhaps a required long reading. 64

Finally, I discovered the source of the foul smell
that haunted me from the moment I met the mad scientist.
The stench came from the foreheads containing the stitches-
those were like fluids that came out from the brain. 68

The greediness of the whole academe- students, teachers and scientists-
hunger for knowledge and wisdom- the probable cause of the Original Sin.
It made their brains to grow abnormally large
which the stitches control on their foreheads. 72

Terrified on what I had watched, I left the academe as quick as I could,
I came across an Internet cafe which offers online gaming.
I chose to play the famous game of all time
and I was surprised to see the specifications of the game. 76

As the list of characters popped up, I noticed something weird,
familiar faces, hairstyles, and body were all over the options.
My friends that were addicted to playing Ragnarok, turned out to be puppets of the entire game-
they got the chance to play it in real life, but of course, there would be a point of no return. 80

There was a waste of money, but indeed that was much better
than consuming it for academic institutions and get themselves tired of studying.
Sleep was still in a gamer's vocabulary unlike for the students of the academe;
Eating was also part of former's habit just like the usual cases in a computer game. 84
As soon as I had finished a level of the computer game, the machine froze.
It was only that time I realized I had just used a tool of the virtual devil.
Unfortunately, I had been tempted and used too but as long as I have faith,
I know my way back to goodness- I still have a choice to make. 88

“Gates” of Hell – the virtual devil, might have failed through me,
but he had actually succeeded earlier, in a lot of ways far more than imaginable;
He had built and conquered more than thousands of corporations
and had captured the minds of the people everywhere. 92

Upon learning that I had survived Gates' hypnotism and core strategies,
it was also the time I clearly heard the voice that was humming from the wilderness,
in a monotonous voice, Juliette echoed: “You had experienced the BSOD. Terminated.”,
and I woke up learning that all of it was just a simple dream of my Inferno- I returned to sleep. 96

And again I had a dream that my life would be
so much different from the Hell I had seen
so different now from what it seemed
but life has killed the dream I dreamed. 100

Severe Trauma..

2005-03-18T17:39:00.000+08:00

"Halika na.. pumikit limutin ang problema...Hihintayin ang umaga
Magpahinga, panaginip ang ikaliligaya...Darating din ang umaga.."

Stupid me. I just can't imagine or maybe I really don't wanna see the sad face of a friend.. Felt so ashamed i had just roamed the perimeter and didn't actually showed myself.. Or was it because of the fear of being feared? the attack of conscience? Right now, my eyes were somehow watery, but I had never wept with real teardrops since my grade school days.. is there a need to shed tears just to show people they care? Happy are they who shed tears, for they think that every feeling of bitterness and sadness go away in permanence, never to return again. And happy are they who never shed tears, just kept on smiling.. trying to cheer up the sad faces of his friends even though deep inside his heart, the feeling is worse.. and I am one of the latter.. looks very emotionless and still, but deep inside is like a stormy weather.

*sigh*

I feel the earth move on top of my head...

2005-03-16T12:13:00.000+08:00

Phew! At last, MP2 was finished (but not entirely).. i waz just hopin for a miracle to happen to get things to work until the very last day of this Pre-Hell Week.. there's still an INC to accomplish at UPM (i wonder if there'll still be time left to go to Manila) Tick-tock..

Things to do? Here it goes:

MATH 54 - i have a take home problem set which is a part of my last long exam this coming Friday. Too bad i forgot to grab a bluebook for it.. I'm hopin that I'll have one in a matter of hours.. without going to UP.

CS12 MP1 - i wonder if i still need to finish this.. kinda pointless

LIS 71 - a final paper.. looks/sounds simple but it's hard to think of topics.. especially the ones i'm not interested to.. PLUS a final exam (some sort of game or whatever)

LIS 61 - nothing? except for the coming finals which includes memorizing some weird stuffs.. and I can't see the point about storing those data into my brain..

ENG 12 - got some readings and a take home exam that will be given to us tomorrow to be passed the next day.. crappy deadline. But at least, i already have copies of most (AFAIK) of the readings listed in its course outline.

So.. these are the earths movin on top of my head.. I can't even think of extra-curricular stuffs (like parties, filmviewings [ although I could do it while munching right in front of my PC ]...

Anyway.. good luck to myself and to everyone..

Hope in finishing everything.. GOD-SPEED powered by the Art of Cramming.

Toxicity II

2005-03-04T23:17:00.000+08:00

Oh well.. as usual, summer was fast approaching again and Holy Week as well.. During the last two weeks, i felt that my life was miserable. I couldn't even believe that I had written my last sentence of the Inferno thirty minutes before the deadline. I was even on time when I got on the half-filled room.. just as usual that students intentionally don't come to class to have an excuse for the late submission of the project. I just hope that my mentor will see me through the poem I had created - it really reflected the academic life I had this second sem. It seemed that everything was messed up - from deleting working Machine Problems, numerous deadlines, some sort of difficult exams, lack of sleep.. or should I say no sleep at all? I just couldn't imagine or even estimate what my chances of having a GWA of 1.XXX .. even though I only had 17 units. This week was awesome but absolutely very tiring indeed. I lost on the very first programming competition in UP and it was a java programming competition for CS12 freshman students. I was included on the team even though I wasn't really a freshie or even a comsci student. But who cares? I felt that I am still rebuilding on my programming skills again because of a semester or two in which I barely make programs or even practice simple C programs..

Oh well.. at least, my mind was exposed to the reality or existence of hardwork... I really felt that I had exhausted every part of my brain and my whole body.. Eye bags were forming unlike the times when I used to sleep very late and there wouldn't be an evidence implicating it the next day I show up to people.

But obviously, there were times that somehow made some of my loneliness to cheer up.. While I and my classmates walked out after realizing that our professor would be late, I roamed over the hallways of that building until I finally made my way heading for the building of my next class. I didn't noticed that I'll be encountering "my past" in the road I chose. As I passed over the people jogging in a some sort of line or sequence, I was really confused.. not all smiles were supposed to be the smile that people used to show happiness.. After that scenery, I couldn't remember how I felt like I had an LSS working on me.. singing "Wherever You Will Go" .. and it really made people to look at the one humming or something like whispering its lyrics.. blablabla.. and I just continued as if nothing had really happened..

I wish that there would still be a time where time can expand over time. But it isn't, knowing the truth hurts. And again, there was another instance of a "sawsaw" in one of my classes.. but at least, he'd be deserving what he really deserves.

I hate 2nd sems. There's nothing we can do to change it. Shit happens.

Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0

2005-02-21T21:44:00.000+08:00

Dear Technical Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 and noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. No mention of this phenomenon was

included in the product brochure.

In addition, Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during system initialization, where it monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Drunken Boys Night 2.5 and Saturday Football 5.0 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected.

I cannot seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run some of my other favorite applications. I am thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but the uninstall does not work on this
program. Can you help me, please!!!

Thanks,
A TROUBLED USER

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear TROUBLED USER:

This is a very common problem men complain about, but is mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 with the idea that Wife 1.0 is merely a UTILITIES &
ENTERTAINMENT program.

Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and designed by its creator to run everything. It is unlikely you would be able to purge Wife 1.0 and still convert back to Girlfriend 7.0. Hidden operating files within your system would cause Girlfriend 7.0 to emulate Wife 1.0 so nothing is gained.

It is impossible to uninstall, delete, or purge the program files from the system once installed. You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is not designed to do this. Some have tried to install Girlfriend 8.0 or Wife 2.0 but end up with more problems than with the original system. Look in your manual under "Warnings-Alimony/Child Support".

I recommend you keep Wife 1.0 and just deal with the situation. I suggest installing background application program C:\YES DEAR to alleviate software augmentation. Having Wife 1.0 installed myself, I might also suggest you read the entire section regarding General Partnership Faults (GPFs).

You must assume all responsibility for faults and problems that might occur, regardless of their cause. The best course of action will be to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE. In any case avoid excessive use of YES DEAR because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the operating system will return to normal.

The system will run smoothly as long as you take the blame for all the GPFs. Wife 1.0 is a great program, but very high maintenance. Consider buying additional software to improve the performance of Wife 1.0. I
recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0. Do not, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This is not a supported application for Wife 1.0 and is likely to cause irreversible damage to the operating system.

Best of luck,
Tech Support

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sauce for the gander...author likewise unknown.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Tech Support:

Recently I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed that the new program began making unexpected changes to the accounting software, severely limiting access to wardrobe, flower, and jewelry
applications that operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. No mention of this phenomenon was included in the product brochure.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalls many other valuable programs such as DinnerDancing 7.5, CruiseShip 2.3, and OperaNight 6.1 and installs new, undesirable programs such as PokerNight 1.3, SaturdayFootball
5.0, Golf 2.4, and ClutterEverywhere 4.5. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs and invariably crashes the system. Under no circumstances will it run DiaperChanging 14.1 or HouseCleaning 2.6. I've tried running
Nagging 5.3 to fix Husband 1.0, but this all-purpose utility is of only limited effectiveness.

Can you help, please!!
Sincerely, XXX

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear XXX:

This is a very common problem women complain about, but is mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 with the idea that Husband 1.0 is merely an ENTERTAINMENT package.

However, Husband 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and was designed by its creator to run as few applications as possible. Further, you cannot purge Husband 1.0 and return to Boyfriend 5.0, because Husband 1.0 is not designed to do this. Hidden operating files within your system would cause Boyfriend 5.0 to emulate Husband 1.0, so nothing is gained. It is impossible to uninstall, delete, or purge the program
files from the system, once installed. Any new program files can only be installed once per year, as Husband 1.0 has severely limited memory. Error messages are common, and a normal part of Husband 1.0.

Having Husband 1.0 installed myself, I might also suggest you read the entire section regarding General Partnership Faults [GPFs]. This is a wonderful feature of Husband 1.0, secretly installed by the parent
company as an integral part of the operating system. Husband 1.0 must assume ALL responsibility for ALL faults and problems, regardless of root cause. To activate this great feature enter the command "C:\I
THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME". Sometimes Tears 6.2 must be run simultaneously while entering the command. Husband 1.0 should then run the applications Apologize 12.3 and Flowers/Chocolate 7.8.

TECH TIP!

Avoid excessive use of this feature. Overuse can create additional and more serious GPFs, and ultimately YOU may have to give a C:\I APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal operations.
Overuse can also cause Husband 1.0 to default to GrumpySilence 2.5 or worse yet, to Beer 6.0. Beer 6.0 is a very bad program that causes Husband 1.0 to create FatBelly files and SnoringLoudly wave files that
are very hard to delete. Save yourself some trouble by following this tech tip!

Just remember, the system will run smoothly, and take the blame for all GPFs, but because of this fine feature it can only intermittently run all the applications Boyfriend 5.0 ran. Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. Consider buying additional software to improve performance. I personally recommend HotFood 3.0, Lingerie 5.3, and Patience 10.1. Used in conjunction, these utilities can really keep Husband 1.0 running smoothly.

After several years of use, Husband 1.0 will become familiar and you will find many valuable embedded features such as FixBrokenThings 2.1, Snuggling 4.2, and BestFriend 7.6. A final word of caution! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install MotherinLaw 1.0. This is not a supported application and will cause selective shutdown of the operating system. Husband will run only Fishing 9.4 and Hunting 5.2 until MotherinLaw 1.0 is uninstalled. I hope these notes have helped. Thank you for choosing to install Husband 1.0, and we here at Tech Support wish you luck.

I Dreamed A Dream..

2005-02-16T15:04:00.000+08:00

I dreamed a dream in times gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung
No wine untasted
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame
She slept a summer by my side
She filled my days with endless wonder
She took my childhood in her stride
But she was gone when autumn came
And still I dream she'll come to me
That we'll live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So much different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed.

Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?

2005-02-12T19:33:00.000+08:00

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington engineering mid-term. The answer was so "profound" that the Professor shared it with colleagues, and the sharing obviously hasn't ceased... Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or Endothermic (absorbs heat)? Most of the students wrote Proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law, (gas cools off when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following: "First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let us look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as souls are added. This gives two possibilities: 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 2. Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa Banyan during my Freshman year, "...that it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you.", and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then, #2 cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze." This student received the only A.

How about my kind of Hell?

Yarre, naloko na..

2005-02-08T19:39:00.000+08:00

Yarre talaga.. hindi ko inaasahan ang mga nakaraang resulta ng aking mga paghihirap.. iniisip na sana'y isang panaginip lamang ang malagim na linggo. Waring ako'y nabuhusan ng malamig na yelo sa gitna ng disyerto. Hindi mapakali at hindi malaman kung ano ang gagawin. Isang linggo pa ang natitira kasama ang pagtitimpi. Napapagod na sa pagkaramdam ng kapaguran at pag-aalinlangan. Umaasang may bukas pang darating..o sa panaginip nga lang ba makakamtan? Tama na, ayokong malunod sa kawalan.. Mapapalad ang mga umiibig.. o hindi nga ba?

Kapag nilamon ka ng pag-ibig, masaya?

Hell Spawn

2005-02-02T22:12:00.000+08:00

Well..finally, my dreaded math 54 midterm exam was over. My mind got carried away like it lost its balance on top of my head because of brain overloading.. I still have two weeks to go for my machine problem. Luckily, i have some patches and/or parts working already.. the bad thing is.. the main program isn't finished yet. The week of hearts is fast approaching, i could already smell the aroma of love flowing in the air carried by the winds as the clouds continue to hush on the horizon. ..dreaming i can also have the chance to see my queen of hearts. (as if) indeed, let's say i had just did it.. hours ago.. those were the very moments right after the feeling of watery eyes - lacking enough sleep and/or rest.. staring at the peaceful night sky as the UP Philcoa jeep took its way around the Elliptical (is it really elliptical or circular?) Road.. well.. enough of these math 54 terms.. eccentricity? Nah.. i'd rather stop this. And then, there i was..standing.. stressed-out, tired of standing even just for minutes even though i'm from an exam in which, all the time i'm sitted on a seat doomed with the curse on previous students who had taken the same exam on an earlier schedule. As i took a step, i had not reacted right away.. a voice called me.. and there was this goddess.. and there was i.. somehow stuttered and frozen.. thinking why i had met her..

Or am i just daydreaming? (even though it is sun-down).. haha

Just Another Day

2005-01-25T21:48:00.000+08:00

I could tell from the minute i woke up, it's gonna be a lonely, lonely, lonely day..

At last, a machine exercise had passed..it was kinda easy although the following days would be kinda toxic too..not forgetting the midterms i had just got right after my Calculus class.. I was just kiddin around.. hoping I could see Venus again.. It's been a long long while.. and after this week, a big machine problem's gotta be a real problem + lotsa midterms. Sht. I could hardly breathe..the spirit of February's sure gonna leave me. Who knows?

BEGIN [100] -> LOVE [200] -> END OF FILE [300]

2005-01-18T21:35:00.000+08:00

"LET THE LOVE BEGIN"

Look at us
Ain't it funny
Is it just beginner's luck
Maybe
Ooh, with just a touch
Two different people
From such different worlds apart
Has touched each other's hearts
Like candles in the dark
So if it's time for us
We've gotta take it
Take the chance
The chance to make it

Now
Let the love begin
Let the light come shining in
Who knows where the road will lead us now
Look at what we've found
Make this moment turn our hearts around
It may never come again
Let it end
Let the love begin

Ooh..
Here we are
So close together
I can feel the fire start between us
Ooh...we've come this far
Too far to stop it now
If this is meant to be (it's meant to be)
A chance for you and me (for you and me)
We found our destiny
Now we're lookin' at a new forever
Make this dream come true together

Now
Let the love begin
Let the light come shining in
Who knows where the road will lead us now
Look at what we've found
Make this moment turn our hearts around
It may never come again
Let it end
Let the love begin

Here we are
So close together
I can feel the fire start between us
Ooh...we've come this far
Too far to stop it now
If this is meant to be (it's meant to be)
A chance for you and me (for you and me)
We found our destiny
Now we're lookin' at a new forever
Make this dream come true together

Now
Let the love begin
Let the light come shining in
Who knows where the road will lead us now
Look at what we've found
Make this moment turn our hearts around
It may never come again (never come again)
Let it end
Let the love begin.

Lame.. really

2005-01-15T23:33:00.000+08:00

I hate this day.. crap. PCX told me maybe about 2 days before that they had this specific sound card. I tried to confirm it the next day to see if it can be reserved for me, too bad i failed to contact them. Why? No one answers their phone calls! This kinda s*ck. Since i couldn't contact or verify info then, I did give it a try to go there assuming i can still have my sound for my linux box ready.. When i got into the site, the customer assistant told me that they are already out of supplies, and won't be replenished anymore. Sigh..thinking i was hopeless, i considered going home and making a call again. This time, they said that they have stocks, afterwards, they informed me that it was already reserved. Tsk, Tsk. But at least they had said that they're gonna get some stocks by next week. I hope they can be trusted with their statement.. Or else.. (grin)

Brain Overloading and Overriding

2005-01-14T21:47:00.000+08:00

I wish i have these kinds of stuff..overriding others brains.. blablabla..

Too hassle to have some fun, the coming weekend is like a timebomb set to explode by Monday.

I can't think of a thing..i'm sick of knowing that the average result of the certification exam-like test was 40! Heck! If only i knew that my prof's gonna have those kinds of test, i should've tried the sample mock exams i have here..i really had lotsa them.. too bad, i memorized stuff.. too hassle..i couldn't think.. im hungry.. gotta eat..

*sigh*.

Geektalk

2005-01-08T22:35:00.000+08:00

Oh well.. just finished doing STFW.. i found out that there's an ESD.conf - a file about sound systems becoming choppy.. I should've known this before when i was still into Red Hat 9. I'm finished upgrading my udev package, but still no sound echoes from my speakers. Thus, still having a dilemma on whether to get a new sound card, what kind or brand.. the processes of setting it up..Security and permission issues on drives - these i found out that there's /etc/fstab for the setup. Maybe something to tinker with (again) well.. those are too much. I need a break first..although i have a bunch of hell readings. Oh well, this Saturday night would be a great time to get some crap.

A Visit at the UP Manila CAS Library

2005-01-06T00:30:00.000+08:00

Just last Monday, I went to the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) Library of UP Manila to seek and discover the architecture of its references services. Actually it would only be the first time that I had utilized that library even though I was at that campus before. Last school year, I never attempted to use their on-line services since I really don't know if it really existed, or if it exists, I never expect it to be an updated or current list of its library materials. The environment used to be hot, even though there are electric fans installed at their strategic places, but now they have the whole area in a comfortable room temperature.

As I entered the library, the librarian did not even inspect if I was a resident of their campus or just an outsider. I had asked the librarian for the location of its reference services since in my opinion, it is difficult to look for its section. He just directed me behind his place. If a user or a visitor would want a floor map of its library, it is not even close to the entry of the library which somehow makes it useless not unless a user would waste time in searching for it first.

Since I had once developed a database, I had taken a look first at its On-line Public Access Catalog (OPAC) accessible at http://lib.upm.edu.ph. It was running on IE 5.0 which makes it inefficient because in cases of troubleshooting and queries, it doesn't give you the exact results or errors encountered in the process. Their on-line services offer lots of databases. As I browse through the list, the collections were somehow focused on biomedical informatics. It has Cochrane Reviews which contain abstracts and full text access although it is just linked from the main website of the OPAC. It has EBSCOHOST containing research databases that requires authentication before using it. Journal@Ovid which is a link to the Electronic Journal's On-line of the UP Diliman Main Library. It also contains links to Medline Plus, ProQuest, PubMed and TOXNET, all of which requires authentication before accessing it. Furthermore, the website contains links to medical journals like EMedicine and Free Medical Journals. It has an Articles/Indexes section which contain a list of links to Online Bibliographies, Philippine Index Medicus, Thesis and Dissertations, and Term Papers & Reports, some of which are broken links – a proof in which they don't revise or update their on-line services. Apart from the databases of specific subjects, the OPAC also contain links to libraries of the UP System such as the Main Library even though it is a broken link since when I clicked it, I got the result of a broken module. Even though they have an outdated OPAC, library users prefer it since i think it is more likely that the OPAC is more updated than its card catalog.

From what I remember, I found out that their primary reference services (that has a callno starting with 'A' or something) were like arranged in a confusing circular pattern outside a room containing other references (that has a callno from 'B' and so on). They have Webster's Third New International Dictionary and Random House Dictionary of the English Language which looked old, placed on top of the shelves just beside the library floor map. They also have encyclopedias like the 20th Century Supplement Encyclopedia of World Biography, Encyclopedia of Religion, and Collier's Encyclopedia of 1991. Filipiniana section includes the famous references of the Filipino Heritage. Their almanacs section contain Guinness Books of World Records and the World Almanac of Book of Facts in 1997. I did not noticed if there were geographical services available except for a group of books containing different names of countries in each book.

It was kind of hard for me to look for some of the references services like thesaurus and yearbooks since every shelf on its primary reference service don't even have a collective name or a label to describe the collection. Not only that some encyclopedias seem to be out of place, but also the maintenance of the shelves were not kept. Or maybe because it was a plain afternoon that I visited the library and probably groups of people had used those references, I don't know. I did not attempted to use the OPAC to look for thesaurus and yearbooks since the page is also slow in loading the results and I was also running out of time.

Lastly, the library seemed to contain the latest references about Medicine and Biology in monograph formats, and it is a good thing that they have those resources but the only drawback is their lack of maintenance especially for the on-line services which is very vital for the usage and experience of library users.

..i got a perfect score on this research paper. hee-hee

Say a little prayer...

2005-01-03T22:27:00.000+08:00

"The Prayer"

I pray you'll be our eyes, and watch us where we go.
And help us to be wise in times when we don't know
Let this be our prayer, when we lose our way
Lead us to the place, guide us with your grace
To a place where we'll be safe

La luce che tu hai
I pray we'll find your light
nel cuore restera
and hold it in our hearts.
a ricordarci che
When stars go out each night,
eterna stella sei

The light you have
I pray we'll find your light
will be in the heart
and hold it in our hearts.
to remember us that
When stars go out each night,
you are eternal star
Nella mia preghiera
Let this be our prayer
quanta fede c'e
when shadows fill our day

How much faith there's
Let this be our prayer
in my prayer
when shadows fill our day
Lead us to a place, guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we'll be safe

Sognamo un mondo senza piu violenza
un mondo di giustizia e di speranza
Ognuno dia la mano al suo vicino
Simbolo di pace, di fraternita

We dream a world without violence
a world of justice and faith.
Everyone gives the hand to his neighbours
Symbol of peace, of fraternity
La forza che ci da
We ask that life be kind
e il desiderio che
and watch us from above
ognuno trovi amor
We hope each soul will find
intorno e dentro se
another soul to love

The force his gives us
We ask that life be kind
is wish that
and watch us from above
everyone finds love
We hope each soul will find
around and inside
another soul to love
Let this be our prayer
Let this be our prayer, just like every child

Need to find a place, guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we'll be safe
Need to find a place, guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we'll be safe

E la fede che
hai acceso in noi,
sento che ci salvera

It's the faith
you light in us
I feel it will save us

Woot!

2004-12-26T05:05:00.000+08:00

At last, my installation of my machine was a success! Maybe i was just lucky or maybe i should've known choosing the option of installing the boot loader on the MBR instead of the primary partition. I thought my wind0ze would be removed (as if i care about Wind0ze, LOL) . It was all after a week that I've learned my lesson well and it was really deserving. Somehow, im pissed off because of my hardware errors but the real reason why im so irritated especially last week was the situation that had happened at Sto. Domingo Church. Let FPJ R.I.P as my sign of respect, but how about FPJ's fans? IMO, they're so lame. I couldn't even believe that some of the fans who lived in provinces made it to the city just to see him despite the economic crisis that the country is facing. Oh well...at least those were over, no more lame videos in the news showing chaos in a sacred place. ^^

Humbug!

2004-12-25T13:41:00.000+08:00

I've just eaten "noche buena" food thrice and the last one was at lunch time. The mass last night was somehow cool but it's too hot in the choir loft so i preferred to be at the side near a fan (as usual :D) . 'Tis so very difficult to sing especially at the night time when the sun is down, I can feel the cold feeling crawling up my skin reaching my diaphragm and throat making my nervous system to generate a 'tingling effect' that makes me shiver though it's very rare for me to feel the coldness of the air, only my stomach can feel its presence once it gets pissed off. And that's what i only hate about the cold season...Or maybe...it's just the longing for something..an entity that can give you warmth, easiness or softness feeling. But at least, somehow those experiences were so very unforgettable...clones of goddess Aphrodite were there. *grin* But i hate it when my voice gets stucked.. or simply.. "piyok" just because of lack of 'pitch stretching' before the mass. Besides, it was easy then when i was still a high school student, every year having a competition for christmas chorus..or "Paskorus".. and only in those times my vocal chords were fully stretched and i think i could even do a 'descant' and/or falsetto voice because of so many rehearsals instead of having classes. Those were the good times... i waz thinkin of joining a choral group but i can't focus yet... mind is too tired.. stressed out.. summer time is what im really waiting for to have a non-academic break (despite of having classes..haha).. christmas break is simply the season for love and belonging - family.

Right now, im still trying to upgrade my system..it's been almost a week.. i miss my linux box.. sigh. I think my machine needs a new cd drive and i can't find a way to get bucks for that one.. I also hate going out in the city especially during christmas holidays. Well, wish me luck... it's like over 30 times that i tried installing but my cd drive gets messed up. Oh well...

"Meri KISSmas" and glory to God on high!

Something to think about...

2004-12-21T20:45:00.000+08:00

Ain't that a kick in the head...

2004-12-14T18:37:00.000+08:00

LSS is damn terrible... At last, everything has been finished. 2 Machine Exercises for the whole weekend up to Monday morning before the deadly deadline, a Math 54 long quiz, reading tons of Eng 12 readings, what more can you wish for? Maybe after this night, there'd be no more sleepless nights just like yesterday... i almost fell on my seat because of drowziness.. gheez. 'Twas a good thing the prof dismissed us when i was already at the peak of 'sleepiness'. The week was somewhat like hell...but i treat it as a Christmas gift.. you wouldn't know the rewards waitin for you this season or even next year. I just hope that i can make a 'comeback' for next year.. I really need this xmas break...

I still need to do my INC. F*ck.

For the second time once more...

2004-12-09T02:16:00.000+08:00

It all happened again...like this.

My Online Scrapbook...again

2004-12-07T15:57:00.000+08:00

HOW THE WORLD WAS CREATED... BY COMPUTER
IN THE BEGINING
(To justify God's ways to the 21st century).

In the begining was the computer. And God took a sit in front of it and

this is what happened :

#************************************
#* Welcome to SimUniverse Computers *
#************************************
#Please Enter your login name : God

#password : omniscient

#login or password incorrect , try again

#Login : God

#password : omnipotent

#login ok.. entering system.

And God signed on 12:01 a.m., Sunday, March 1.

$ Let there be light!

# Unrecognizable command. Try again!

$ Create light

# Done.

$ Create heaven

# Done.

$ Create earth

# Please wait... terraforming... calculating... Done.

$ Run heaven and earth

# Done.

And God created Day and Night. An God saw there were 0 errors.

And God signed off at 12:02 a.m., Sunday, March 1.

# Approx. funds remaining: $92.50.

And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Monday, March 2.

$ Let there be firmament in the midstm of the water and

# Unrecognizable command. Try again!

$ Create firmament

# Done.

$ Run firmament

# Done.

And God divided the waters. And God saw there were 0 errors.

And God signed off 12:02 a.m., Monday, March 2.

# Approx. funds remaining: $84.60.

And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Tuesday, March 3.

$ Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear and

# Too many characters in string especification! Try again!

$ Run dryland

# Done.

And God created Earth and Seas. And God saw there were 0 errors.

And God signed off 12:01 a.m., Tuesday, March 3.

# Approx. funds remaining: $65.00.

And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Wednesday, March 4.

$ Create lights in the firmament to divide the day fron the night

# Unspecified type. Try again!

$ Create sunmoonstars

# Done.

And God created Sun, Moon, Stars. And God saw there were 0 errors.

And God signed off 12:01 a.m., Wednesday, March 4.

# Approx. funds remaining: $54.00.

And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Thursday, March 5.

$ Create fish

# Done.

$ Create fowl

# Done.

$ Run fish´nfowl

# Done.

And God created the great seamonsters and every living creature
that creepeth wherewith the waters swarmed after its kind and
every winged fowl after its kind. and He saw there were 0 errors.

And God signed off 12:01 a.m., Thursday, March 5.

# Approx. funds remaining: $45.60.

And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Friday, March 6.

$ Create cattle

# Done.

$ Create creepy things

# Done.

$ Now let us make man in our image

# Unspecified type. Try again!

$ Create man

# Done.

$ Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue
it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl
of the air and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth

# Too many command operands! Try again!

$ Run multiplication

# Execution terminated. 6 errors.

$ Insert breath

# Done.

$ Run multiplication

# Execution terminated. 5 errors.

$ Move man to Garden of Eden

# File ´Garden of Eden´ not found.

$ Create Gard.En

# Done.

$ Move man to Garden of Eden

# Done.

$ Run multiplication

# Execution terminated. 4 errors.

$ Copy woman from man

# Done.

$ Run multiplication

# Execution terminated. 3 errors.

$ Insert woman into man

# Illegal parameters! Try again!

$ Insert man into woman

# Done.

$ Run multiplication

# Execution terminated. 2 errors.

$ Create desire

# Done.

$ Run multiplication

# Done.

And God saw the man'nwoman being fruitful,
and multiplying in the Gard.En

# Execution for Warning: No time limit on this run.

# 1 errors.

$ Create freewill

# Done.

$ Run freewill

# Done.

And God saw the man'nwoman being fruitful,
and multiplying in the Gard.En

# Execution Warning: No time limit on this run.

# 1 errors.

$ Undo desire

# Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created

$ Destroy freewill

# Freewill is an inaccesible file and cannot be destroyed.

# Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.

$ Help!

# Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created.

# Freewill is an inaccesible file and cannot be destroyed.

# Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.

$ Create treeofknowledge

And God saw the man'nwoman being fruitful,
and multiplying in the Gard.En

# Execution Warning: No time limit on this run.

# 1 errors.

$ Create good´nevil

# Done.

$ Activate evil

# Done.

And God saw he had created shame.

# Warning: System error in sector E96. Man'nwoman not in

# the Gard.En.

# 1 errors.

$ show Gard.En

# Not found.

$ Search Gard.En for man'nwoman

# Searching.... Search Failed. Not Found.

$ Delete shame

# Shame cannot be deleted once evil has been activated.

$ Destroy freewill

# Freewill is an inaccesible file and cannot be destroyed.

$ Stop

# Unrecognizable command. Try again!

$ Break

$ Break

$ Break

$^C

# ATTENTION ALL USERS: ATTENTION ALL USERS:

# COMPUTER GOING DOWN FOR REGULAR DAY OF MANTENANCE

# PLEASE SIGN OFF

$ Create new world

# You have exceeded your allocated file space.

# Please delete old files.

$ Destroy earth.

# Destroy earth. Please confirm: (Y/N)

# Confirmation Timed out. Cancelling Action.

COMPUTER DOWN. COMPUTER DOWN

# SERVICES WILL RESUME ON SUNDAY MARCH 8 AT 6:00 A.M

# YOU MUST SIGN OFF NOW!

# You have been disconected from SimUniverse Server.

And God signed off 11:59 p.m., Friday, March 6.

And God saw he had zero funds remaining.

My Aphrodite...

2004-12-06T18:54:00.000+08:00

I just met goddess Aphrodite twice...and that was yesterday... need i say more? *read between the lines* [grin]

Chaotic Mind?

2004-12-04T14:32:00.000+08:00

Personality Disorder Test Results

Paranoid	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Schizoid	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	58%
Schizotypal	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	62%
Antisocial	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Borderline	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%
Narcissistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|	14%
Dependent	\|\|\|\|	14%
Obsessive-Compulsive	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%

Take Free Personality Disorder Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Surviving Christmas

2004-12-02T07:12:00.000+08:00

I'd just finished watching Surviving Christmas 2 nights ago...It was really awesome..very touching indeed..Ben Affleck was funny although he looked pathetic in his roles.. well.. there are still 23 days left before christmas..barely 2 weeks before christmas vacation..2 weeks left to be patient for the preparations of the yuletide season..I wanna experience what had happened in the movie.. sheesh.. i still haven't recovered yet from this tired eye muscles.. oh well.. it was really a good thing that classes were suspended..'coz i really can't take it anymore..it may seem easy to read iliad and the odyssey but not if you need to practice for calculus at the same time having majors where everything seem so irrelevant..or memorizing codes blabla.. trying to find time for a certification exam.. this is really toxic.. but from what i feel.. i still enjoy it rather than having to be exhausted because of the tiresome heavy traffic and stress that I felt a year ago. I still have a back pain.. tired eyes.. no money, very chaotic room... messed PC programs.. no time for backup or even an upgrade.. gheesh.. sigh. I wish that someone or somebody could help me understand the way it is.. OR maybe it's just the effect of not having a girlfriend?? No.. No.. Studies first. Inspirations are enough to motivate me.. Bye! ^_^

Cold

2004-11-20T06:50:00.000+08:00

It was almost a week or two before I finally had the time to post. The past 2 weeks were very intoxicating. It's really hard to wait for nothing just like waiting for professors to come during the 1st days of the classes. Everything was working fine, usual things have had happened. Math is becoming very hard not only of having to bring back the skills last summer, but also having a terrible prof. I guess everything really lies to me. Competition is somehow in a slow pace and it's like that i can't really notice the real competition except to myself. The season is getting cold; more rain pours from heaven. Maybe this is the reason why i've catched colds and it really kinda suck. Toxicity is increasing to the limit of the end of classes before the christmas season (at last). Machine exercises will be given next week, math homeworks worth 50-60+ points were also due next week, reporting is set on tuesday.. oh my, goodness gracious.. LIS 61's somehow very interesting although i really dont like makin those stuffz.. Well.. if and only if..

What a day! Sun Tech Days!

2004-11-05T20:17:00.000+08:00

The week was a blast, I wish that i have been included in the final 21 of the 45 volunteers that helped in the success of the conference. It was really great although it was hard to entertain the delegates as well as to assist them in their needs. Not only a line marshall but i was also called in most of the assigned places with their corresponding roles (registration/kit-giving/and even being an usher!) Although it was somehow chaotic, I think that the delegates were satisfied in the whole conference because of the talks, food, and especially the freebies! I wished that i get to have a USB mouse from the rewards section but it was so limited and i think there were only 100+ in their stocks. The speakers were good in their sessions. There was a time that i heard delegates murmuring in choosing which track to take ('coz there were 2-3 tracks available), and he said that "im choosing between these two tracks, namimili ako, something relevant to my career and projects OR beauty and personality coz the speaker in the 2nd track was cute (the camera alwayz focuses on her face) so i didnt wonder anymore. :D Sigh, i wish i should have finished her talks about j2me.. oh well, maybe i better look forward for the next sun conference next year. ^_^ I got 2 stress balls! , and a non-functional ballpen from oracle..a really weird one. Well, it was fun to be with everyone making new friends, meeting lotsa different people from the different parts of asia (because it was a GLOBAL conference), and the important thing was learning or gaining knowledge. Technology is almost ubiquitous, just like what was said in the commercial presented at the start of the conference, "Java is everywhere." Anyway, toxicity wouldn't be over not until maybe the start of christmas vacation. :D I wish that i would do great in the subjects that i waz enlisted in. And to get rid of this stupid INC as well. Maybe this is all for now. I have a really great week! Fabulous and Fantastic!

Personality?

2004-10-31T20:29:00.000+08:00

You are MakubeX! You are nothing short of a genius,
and yet, once someone betrays you, it takes
more than a little beating to gain back your
loyalty and trust. You fight for what you
believe in, even if it leads you down a dark
path, but you'd do anything for those who are
like you, and stuck in a situation they cannot
change for the better. You have the potential
for being a great leader, as long as you don't
let the power trip get to your head.

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Oohh Lala!

2004-10-29T13:57:00.000+08:00

Oohh Lala! I really can't believed that I've learned PHP.. hahaha.. last night, i've just finished putting up the interfaces of Engg Lib's supposedly OPAC :D and putting up a server for it as well. Thank God, it is so great just like HIM. Well, but that doesn't solve all of my problems which is usual. I still have a dilemma of goin to the 2nd day of the conference instead of doin my enlistment. Hell it is. Well, if only i have a sure slot in a comsci course, i won't have problems at all.. or maybe just the problem of gettin "a GE".. although of course i want my GE to be 'uno-able' and not time-consuming just like majors. Sigh, i've got a grade of 2.25.. tsk tsk, i wish that my EL50 would be at least 1.75 so that i can still make up for the average. Really toxic, i wasn't focusin on the right subject. My KAS2 Prof was only a masquerade of the course's difficulty. But he really is good in disciplining his students.. LOL.. just like me goin to the point of somewhat making his subject my priority which is wrong. "~**~**Time will pass me by...~**~**~" Wish me luck for next week's global conference..

Bittersweet

2004-10-23T23:19:00.000+08:00

Oh well.. weekend at last.. it was fun having a lunch with my fellow SAs yesterday.. but before that.. i was very nervous on what's gonna happen in the assembly for the Sun Tech Day's volunteers.. well.. it was great coz of course it would be my very first time to be in that kind of event as well as having challenge & responsibility.. well.. im thinkin if i waz the youngest of them.. LOL.. coz most of them were already in their 4th and 5th years.. i waz glad coz i know 3 or 4 of them.. out of the whole 30+ volunteers.. im really not OP at all. ^_^ They were nice.. and friendly.. as expected :D But during the assembly.. i waz sort of in a drowzy mood again.. coz i was still workin on OPAC interfaces.. woohoo! i haven't finished it yet.. not even finished my INC... nor started reviewing for Math subjects..still gettin ready for the enrollment.. and woosh! This is a great 'vacation' at all.. LMAO. But im still grateful for the events..coz they seem to be trying to achieve a goal..one of which is not yet discovered in my mind..Well. the assembly was effective.. though, as usual, we're not yet ready to make decisions on assigning roles.. well, i'll wait for the final assigning.. haha..im wishin that ill be able to get my subjects.. while still workin on the said event.. hahaha.. wish me luck... after all.. this saturday was a bad one.. lol.. my nose got tangled with a clothes's wiring.. what the heck... i think the cartilage was disturbed.. tsk tsk.. anyway.. i need to sleep...maybe this one'll take care of my nose. ^_^

Drowzy

2004-10-19T21:04:00.000+08:00

Phew! It's like that im feelin the earth move under my feet. I've been sleepin and eatin in cycles.. haha.. just to have a payback from the sleepness nights and morning that i had. Two days after my RO had been messed up, I waz able to tweak it again. haha.. and it worked! Well, in that experience, i began to understand how private servers (international) really worked.. coz they're all usin the same client released by korea.. thus.. it becomes different in the servers and the launcher/updaters each server is releasin.. hahahaha.. errr.. i think i still need a lot of rest. gheez.. maybe it is not yet the right time to post.. but.. even though i should sleep, i have to make advanced studies and reviews again.. darn it.. i hate this situation... tryin to remember the skills/strategies/tactics.. that was taught last summer.. wth, i cant even remember how to divide... for goodness sake.. may the force be with me... :D

Ang kalamnan ko ay nauuhaw...

2004-10-14T13:22:00.000+08:00

Ang kalamnan ko ay nauuhaw. Huling inom ko siguro bago ako umalis ng bahay matapos maiprint ang aking term paper. Isang masayang nakakaantok na nakakabangag na nakakagutom na pangyayari ang naganap ngayong araw na ito. Biruin mo ba naman kasi, isang beses ko lang binasa o inaral yung mga lectures at notes ko. At tinapos ko kaagad lahat yun upang maumpisahan ko na rin ang aking paggawa ng term paper dahil sa wala pa akong naisusulat bagaman may mga inpormasyon na akong naipon. Nagpadeliver pa nga ako ng pizza at uminom ng isang kape para hindi ako makatulog nang mahimbing, ayun, grabeng nakakabangag. Isang tasa pa lang naiinom ko, parang long-lasting ang effect.. Halos kagigising ko lang ngayon...hehe syempre, natulog ako sa main library, walang katau-tao e.. ano ba pakialam nila.. hehe kaya hayun.. nung umaga nang araw na ito, nakita ko yung kaklase ko sa KAS2 sa dyip na nag-aaral. Hanggang sa ako ay kasabay na rin nag-aaral. Halos parang walang pumapasok sa aking utak nun kahit nabasa ko na siya dati..Hanggang sa andun na kami sa silid, at dumating na rin ang aming propesor. Nagulat na lamang ako nang sinabi niya, "may option kayo kung gusto niyo kunin yung test o hinde.. para 'to sa mga may tsek sa bluebook" .. At syempre, ano nga ba inaasahan ko? akala ko nga ei hindi ako matatawag e.. Laking gulat ko na lang ng natawag ang apelyido ko, sabay tingin sa bluebook, 1.** !! Langya! Ni hindi rin talaga ako makapaniwala. Pano naman kasi bumagsak ako dun sa isang pagsusulit at yung grade na makikita ko na sa class card ay isang 1.** !!! ang inaasahan ko pa naman din ay mga 2.** or 3 lang.. pero heto.. grabe talaga.. Natulala ako dun e.. haay... iniisip ko tuloy kung magiging CS ako.. sana nga, at sana makakuha rin ako ng CS.. sana makalipat na rin ng CS.. ang kalamnan ko ay nauuhaw. ^_^