Sunday, January 28, 2007
Getting Rid of the Old
Its been long known that the QWERTY layout for keyboards is highly inefficient. The most frequently used letters are spaced out so that type bars in typewriters don't get tangled. Since we no longer mechanically hammer letters into pieces of paper, the format really no longer serves it purpose. But we still use it. Cause we're all basically whinny little kids inside. "I have to learn to type all over again?! Awww!" Honestly, I wouldn't be too excited going through the process myself. That means reverting to the chopstick style of typing again until I get a hang of it. It just bothers me in the way a painting hanging unevenly on a wall bothers me. You know, you're just aching to fix it. I'm a bit OC that way. A lot of layouts have been introduced that are supposedly more efficient. One of them is the Colemak layout, apparently better than Dvorak. Here's a link to a document discussing QWERTY and the alternatives. I didn't bother to read it, but you might :P
Who Killed the Electric Car is a documentary that shows another situation where something better is not being adapted. But in this situation, there's a little more sinister influence repressing it: Big Oil. Here's a link to the official website. Why was the EV1 discontinued in 1999 when they received such good feedback from the owners? Here's a trailer for the documentary. I've been looking for a copy in the local video stores but they're not really big on stocking documentaries. If anyone can lend me a copy, that would be awesome.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Quite Random Things
Nope, it's no Korean pop idol concert, but it might be close. Congratulations to my good friend Kendy! It was a beautiful wedding! Although I wish I could have gotten smashed like in any good wedding. But it was a Sunday night and coming to work with a hangover is never a good thing. It was the Kim - Lee nuptial in The Penn. I just have one advice, if you ever decide to put up a restaurant together, don't use your surnames in naming it - it's a copyright minefield. Best wishes!
Blog Matters
This blog has reached a couple of milestones this week. First, it is now 4 months old. Second, we're now at over 1,000 visits. Yey! Never mind that probably half of those visits is just me checking how many visits I've had. Yup, it's a pretty vain exercise. Just like the way McDonald's kept count of burgers. Of course, I intend to stop way before I reach a billion :P
Check it out, I'm the primary resource for "Pulis Oysters" in Google. Ha! At least this blog is good for something.
Quite Interesting
I discovered a new show through YouTube. It airs on BBC2 and the name of the show is QI: Quite Interesting. It's a combination of my two favorite things: trivia and comedians. As the English would say - fantastic! Since almost nobody gets the right answer every time, they just give out points depending on how interesting your answer is, whether or not it directly relates to the question is irrelevant. An interesting answer gets higher points than the right answer :P It's funny watching comedians try to make-up something interesting on the spot. Here a clip from the show.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Read or Die!
Okay, I myself think reading is important. I think that if our government worked to improve our educational system, we can be a great nation. People are our greatest resource; help them help themselves. Also, it doesn't seem like we're going to run out of people anytime soon. Oh yeah, back to my point - reading is important. Yep. But read or die? That's a bit extreme. Well, I guess there are situations where that can apply. If you miss a 'bridge under construction' or 'trespassers will be shot' sign for example. Anyway, it's a good cause and I'm passing the word. Remember, read or die! Here's a little something from their website:
RodCon 2007 is a two-day literary convention organized by Read or Die Inc. in partnership with Powerbooks. The convention seeks to bring together readers, writers, publishers, government and school organizations and book dealers to highlight the importance of reading and literacy in building an open world for every Filipino through books. All proceeds of the event will be donated to AHON Foundation. The event is supported by the National Book Development Board, the Department of Education and UNICEF. Find out more about the convention.
The event will take place on February 3 and February 4, 2007 at the Hotel Intercon (Ayala Avenue, Makati City). The convention will be open from 9AM to 8PM daily. For information about ticket prices and hotel reservations, please visit REGISTRATION.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Mystery of the Pink Oyster
A monument to a memory until the tide
For a couple of weeks now I've noticed that some metro aid workers around Manila have swapped their bright yellow and red shirts for a black shirt with bold MMDA pink letters saying "PULIS OYSTER". First of all, I saw the wisdom in bright yellow and red shirts; they're easy to see by motorist when they're working on the road. But I guess that MMDA pink is just as hard to miss. You certainly notice those urinals they installed all over the place. I've been wondering for a while now what police oysters were. A few ideas have popped into my head, primarily circling around the fact that oysters are considered aphrodisiacs. So I finally remembered to google it and apparently I was pretty far off. It is a government project and oyster is an acronym: Out-of-School Youth Serving Towards Economic Recovery. Probably a good government program but really, a little more time spent brain storming and they could have come-up with a better name than that. Here's a document from the PNP website that has something about the OYSTER Program (search for 'oyster'). It's apparently for the youth, so why do some of them look old?
UPDATE: Letter of Instruction OYSTER Program from the PNP website.
It’s amazing that after Apple announced the new iPhone, their stocks went up and Palm, BlackBerry, and Motorola's stocks slid. Just shows how much a revolution the thing is. Desktop class Email and web browser, so you don't get that text version of a website. You see it like how you would in your computer browser. It's a fully functioning iPod. Oh yeah, it's also camera phone. That multi-touch technology is great. I completely agree with the guy who saw one of the first demos's of iPhone and said "you had me at scrolling". Watching the full Mac World presentation of the iPhone made me all giddy about what it meant. Other companies will have to follow their lead or come up with something to compete. This must be how those Japanese schoolgirls feel when they see Brad Pitt. Maybe if I blog about it enough they'll send me one? An iPhone I mean, not a Japanese girl. Well, just in case, let’s put in a few phrases in this blog that will make for interesting search results for Apple to see:
- iPhone is cool!
- iPhone is kickass!
- Zune sucks!
- Apple kicks Microsoft ass!
- iPhone's the best!
I'll probably be last in the search results, but hey, it doesn't hurt to try. For those hoping to actually purchase an iPod, it isn't available in Asia until 2008. And by that time it might not be named iPhone.
Speaking of phones, everybody put this in their to do list: get listed in public directories. Wait, scratch that. Everybody don't get listed. You'll only hurt my chances of getting the money.
I must have read more than a couple of articles from local news websites that have said that local internet is recovering from the slow internet caused by the December earthquake. I wonder what ISP these writers are using. My supposedly broadband PLDT DSL connection is still at dial-up speeds. It just hurts to think that they will be charging the same fee no matter what. But really who expects customer service from our local utilities.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Blog Neglected
Well there are a few things to blog about, but first of - I WANT ONE!
The missus and I went to see the World Pyro Olympics last Sunday. Apparently, thousands of people had the same idea. Families on jeeps, pick-up trucks, vans, motorbikes, and on foot. When I say families on motorbikes, I don’t mean Mom, Dad, Ate, and Kuya had their own individual motorbike. They would be in one two-seater bike with the kids usually squeezed in between Dad who's driving and Mom who's clinging for dear life in the rear. Looking from the back, you would only know there's a kid between them because their arms would be sticking out. Apparently this is the standard configuration for putting a whole family in a bike. The fireworks were magnificent. According to the website, Sunday's show was the United Kingdom and Germany. I loved the second set, which was apparently Germany. And as always during these shows, there were a lot of collective ooohhhs and aaahhhs. We didn't make it all the way to the back of SM Mall of Asia where they were setup. We stopped when we got to Blue Wave cause there were just too many cars, motorbikes, and people trying to get there and the Blue Wave area was near enough to enjoy the show.