I. “Thailand Decides 2006″
II. Classic Geek Games

I. “Thailand Decides 2006″

My uncle had an interview at CNBC’s Squawk Box earlier today regarding Thailand’s political crisis. You may watch it at YouTube or download a copy with higher resolution from my box.

This took me some time to prepare and upload since all my VirtualDub settings have been wiped out. Video and audio wasn’t synched but I found a work around. There were no dropped frames though (but ate ~15GB for ~10 minutes).

II. Classic Geek Games

Ugh. Still lazy. Anyway, I was looking for some games for FC5 a few minutes ago. Bumped into some cool stuff.

First off, DOSBox 0.65 was just released. I’m hoping for full functionality of Constructor. The previous released version allowed the game to run but crashed somewhere in the middle.

Another one is OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon Deluxe). I was expecting added vehicles but it looks like an improved version of the original one (by Chris Sawyer), specifically with the multiplayer mode. They did add a couple of gameplay features though, you could now build canals. I didn’t get to use this before so this is new to me. Two new airport types have been added too. Also, there’s a Multistop feature where two or more bus stations/truck depots have the same name, similar to Locomotion.

I just wish that the features and flow of the UI in Locomotion, Transport Giant and OpenTTD be combined to one super kickass transport management simulation game. Yeah baby!

Pillow fights and podcasting. I know it’s not that entertaining but this draws a lot of attention to Apple’s line of products …and it’s soft porn.

There’s got to be a reason behind this. Are they linked to the French and American Red Cross? It would be great if it’s for a good cause.

I want a hi-res version!

I. For Dan Michael
II. Boss dito, mura lang oh!

I. For Dan Michael

Nothing beats play time at COMSYLA.

I managed to fit myself in one of those too, considering that I have a large ass.

II. Boss dito, mura lang oh!

Good news from Ma’am Peachy Herrin (Re: Web 2.0 Summit):

due to interested parties’ requests, we have special rates for educators, government employees and students - 5k. im sure you fall under one of those categories. yep, you do.

Now I have two choices, have fun and learn or have fun and get wasted with my friends. Tough decision, both valuable and too good to pass on. Another point, practicum starts at the last week of April. Can someone please invent a time machine? Oh wait, maybe I can compress my schedule.

I was going to blog this yesterday and kept telling myself, “this is too good to not blog”. But I always ended up doing something else. Actually, I think my brain ran out of the juice to think straight. I’m working at a very slow pace since last week, nice timing.

My musical tastes are shifting again. I just downloaded two symphonic albums, a bunch from this string quartet that does tributes. I still managed to get some from Pink Floyd, Thelonius Monk, et. al and Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.

I’ve got to hand it to these Japs, they rock! Most of the titles are written in English and the scores are usually instrumental.

I’m annoyed at yesterday’s results of work. I barely accomplished anything. The only notable thing that I accomplished yesterday is fixed the DNS for my domain. mirror.jploh.com now points to my dev server. If you’re on PLDT myDSL, their DNS servers haven’t updated yet (way to go!) so you’ll get some kind of error page.

I had a bunch of files open but barely touched them. I was browsing around doing non-related stuff. I actually have a DIFFCAL exam later and papers to submit for INFOSYS.

More on the playlist thing, I did a tally of the MP3s that I have. This was based from yesterday, without the new records that I just acquired.

By number of tracks

1. Victor Wooten (109)
2. Incubus (88)
3. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (71)
4. Lee Ritenour (67)
5. Jaco Pastorius (66)
6. Red Hot Chili Peppers (63)
7. Acoustic Alchemy (62)
8. Joe Satriani and Marcus Miller (58)
9. 311 (52)
10. Reel Big Fish (49)
11. Dave Matthews Band (45)

* Yngwie J. Malmsteen (117)
** Sade (79)

By number of albums

• Lee Ritenour (7)
• Incubus (6)
• Bela Fleck and The Flecktones, Acoustic Alchemy, Victor Wooten, Joe Satriani and Jaco Pastorius (5)
• Steve Vai, 311 and Red Hot Chili Peppers (4)
• Dave Matthews Band, Rivermaya, Dream Theater, Marcus Miller, Carlos Santana, No Doubt, Reel Big Fish and Weather Report (3)

* Yngwie J. Malmsteen (10)
** Sade (8)

* I had to rule out Malmsteen because I haven’t listened to all his songs yet and I only got the albums from Jet, a punk-ass poser and die-hard fan of hard rock.

** Sade had to be ruled out to0. I downloaded all those eight records in one transfer session because I wanted a high-quality copy of “Smooth Operator”.

I don’t listen to Malmsteen and Sade that much. Both are still good artists too. I included DMB in the top 10 because, I also got 311 from Fred (I don’t listen to 311 as much as I listen to DMB either).

This is also not a good way of measuring how much I like one artist. I should have used a ‘Most Played’ type but it’s pretty hard to do that since I play MP3s on different computers also on different players (Ack! So unorganized). This was based (yesterday) from 3096 tracks, approximately 19.03GB in total size. I downloaded about one and a half Gigs of audio yesterday.

Speaking of size, I have to get a new HD soon to move all my MP3s and documents in one safe spot. When we had our JAD session here at the house last Saturday, my laptop went to some sort of cardiac arrest. The screen blacked out and the optical drive kept checking if there was media in it (even if the tray was open). It scared the beheebee jibees out of me and right where I needed it most.

Is it time to get a new laptop?

I took an extra 512MB stick from an unused laptop for temporary use with mine while I wait for mine and so, I had the chance to multitask again and played around with Winamp.

I found this Predixis MusicMagic Mixer at the bottom of the Media Library. I tested how good it was with mixing songs of the same genre and mood. A little inspiration since my work involves intelligent systems (although I haven’t contributed to that much to that part …yet).

First test was from the jazz oldies, Dizzy Gilespie’s ‘Dizzy the Duck’. The results were pretty impresive, similar artists that showed up were Stan Getz, Charles Mingus, Sergio Mendes, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Johny Hodges. My guess on the keywords are ‘brass’, ‘trumpet’, ’sax’ and ‘jazz’.

Second test, easy/smooth jazz, Acoustic Alchemy’s ‘Say Yeah’. Wow, this is great. Very close, results included Fourplay, Marcus Miller, Sade, Lee Ritenour and D’Sound. Since Acoustic Alchemy was guitar instrumentals, Satch came out probably tagged with ‘rock’ and ‘guitar’ which caused Blink 182 and Finch to show up too.

Predixis said it will work anywhere in the world in whatever language. I tried Razorback’s ‘Payaso’. Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Satch, Dream Theater, Guns N’ Roses and Jimi Hendrix showed up. Very accurate, with all rock titles and considering that this is an OPM title except that no other OPM titles showed up.

Here’s the surprise, they support open source. Where they stand with the linked page’s title, “Open Source, Open Data”. Yes, the data used for analysis is submitted by the community that’s why it’ll work in any country. Amazing!

Also, at the bottom of the generated playlist (back to Winamp), there are links to free tracks, most of them by indie artists if I’m not mistaken. Sweet!

I’m waiting for the upgrade of the FC5 installation of my laptop to complete. I think this will take 3-4 hours. Then yesterday, Windows managed to lock everyone out of the computer and somebody had to ruin my Knoppix Live CD. So I had to wipeout all the data on this computer that I’m using, including my NFS:MW and GTA:SA saved games where I’m at Blacklist #2 and running San Andreas like the Godfather.

It sucks really. There are a couple of files there that are work related that I don’t have on my laptop. I can’t work because the files are on the laptop which is accessible at the moment and it doesn’t stop there, I had to reinstall and configure everything again. I’m starting to think of getting another HD for all my data. Currently, there’s not enough space on my file/test server.

They changed the Fedora logo by the way. Wow, it’s all bubbly and fancy but still blue.

Do you use Firefox? Upgraded to 1.5? Get this annoying unresponsive script pop-up that caused the whole program to halt when uploading files? Your troubles are over, check this out. Ah, now I’m happy again.

Oh wait, I still have sentiments on the lab computers and our amazing connection to the information highway. I want a) Firefox on the Windows installations, b) Mandriva Linux ditched for another distro and c) a faster connection. Come on, four computer labs, a couple of offices, and two public access points sharing a 2mbps E1 line will not suffice. Do the math. I know the school can afford it, we pay too much to get access slower than dial-up and where did the Science and Technology campus idea go?

Another, the Dans Guardian filter is too strict, we need a longer leash. My blog is considered to be explicit content and I can’t log in at LJ. I’d be happier if they blocked Friendster instead, most of today’s generation of Pinoy Internet surfers do nothing but chat on Y! IM and collect stalkers at Friendster. One more, how could a ZIP (and TGZ) file be a banned extension? Can’t the admin set a limit for a maximum transfer time or limit the size? I know that there’s this registry key in Windows that would erase changes to a configuration after the user logs out. Right-clicks disabled in the desktop decreases our efficiency to work with the said OS and we even need a password to reboot.

Accessing the Internet in school is like being in a maximum-security prison with a tiny window. Seriously, you only have port 80 and 443 to talk and listen to. Maybe the next Student Council can do something about this.

On the other hand, students should be tamed if the leash is lengthened. I’d be willing to volunteer to smack the heads of those who abuse the privileges given.

Let me leave you with pictures of Shorty’s first day of driving (for documentation’s sake) and his new car (inside).

Images courtesy of JCV. You may ask him about royalties and copyright information about the photographs.

Oops, the ranting hijacked the post.

I. I’m Going to Believe in Birthdays This Year
II. Pinoy Sapot Bersyon Dos

I. I’m Going to Believe in Birthdays This Year

Vance just posted his birthday wishlist. I know this is so uncreative, I’m posting mine too since I’m turning 20 in a couple of weeks. <panics, runs around in circles and pulls hair in frustration>

• an iPod (or iPod clone) of any generation as long as it’s 40GB, a 60GB would work too <grins>
• a PDA, to organize myself [hint: Sharp Zarius or any of the last Palm handhelds](I just want it for fun actually)
• three to four Go-Karts
• a mansion on top of a hill filled with Playboy playmates
• a jet plane
• anti-aging potion

That’s it. Nothing too much to ask <big puppy eyes> (except for the last three). Should I treat everyone on my birthday? Let’s see whatever comes up.

Summer vacation is on again. My biggest fear about it is that it would be off then on again two days before. Ack!

II. Pinoy Sapot Bersyon Dos

I want to should attend Pandora Squared’s Web 2.0 Training and Innovation Summit. Unfortunately, registration fee is at PhP8,000 for groups of four and more. Topics range from Ruby on Rails to AJAX, just checkout training.pandorasquared.com for the complete details.

There’ll be a Pinoy Web 2.0 BBQ Party Chikahan after the last training session. I hope I won’t be on vacation on that day. Check it out and join the club while you’re at it.

Updated: 2006.03.27 21.43

I. Not Enough Software Diplomacy?
II. When Things Don’t Go as Planned
III. Guide to Easy Money, Guide #20938457

I. Not Enough Software Diplomacy?

Since I graduated from Micorosoft Ambassadorship a few days ago, I want to know what’s next. I just sent my CV to Rose for Phase III. Is there anything else besides waiting?

I just found out about Fedora Ambassadors and there’s only one guy in SE Asia. “Fedora Core Ambassador” sounds better though.

I think this is better because the open-source community is somewhere I belong more than the MS developer community. I can’t even develop for shit with any MS language. I had second thoughts on enrolling in .NET courses and sell my soul to the proprietary (this is such an overused word) world.

In other FC news, Fedora Core 5, code-named “Bordeaux”, has been released. On another note, Playboy.com shows support to the open-source community by mirroring FC5, check out http://mirrors.playboy.com/fedora/5 (SFW, I promise).

II. When Things Don’t Go as Planned

They must be running out of money. I just got this in my mail.

Your Streamload account now has 25 GBs of free online storage.

We upgraded your Streamload account, free of charge, to give
you more storage and more freedom to manage your digital lifestyle.

We encourage you to sign in and use your free 25 GBs. That’s 2.5 times
larger than the free 10 GB you received when you signed up! You can
now share, send, organize, and backup your files like never before.

We’d like to invite you back to Streamload.

Why? I already have unlimited storage and anybody can see my clips without any limit on my side or my viewers on YouTube and other similar sites. To the pricks behind this “service”, I suggest that you think of a better business model. In this world filled with freeloaders like me (like in your “free” plan), I will never settle for something that I have to pay for when there’s a free and better alternative. I won’t be surprised if they close down in a few months.

It’s 25GB of space with a limited bandwidth of 100MB/month. Funny, I thought it was junkmail before I opened it.

III. Guide to Easy Money, Guide #20938457

If I were an American, I’d visit Enchanted Kingdom then rush to the courts and sue them for damages, and I’d like a large lump of cash for that. Sir Pat writes an interestring entry about the “threats” on the fireworks display at the said theme park, read here.

I was at this banquet with the Microsoft people last night, FSAP graduation. There were more people than I expected and the press were there too. It sucks that I didn’t get to appreciate the food or even tell if the wine was good because I had diarhea and it felt like World War III was stuffed into my stomach. There was a good jazz band that performed though, the Five-Piece Quartet. The venue was at the Nicotina Garden along Roxas Blvd. Got to take some shots.

The host, Roma something something. She’s one of the finalists of MTV’s VJ Wannabe contest thing. Now I know why she didn’t win.

Mr. Lopez, President of the University of Makati. His speech was about the future of eductaion, distance learning and why drop off of college.

Stanley Tan again. He gave a talk on the IT industry, industry myths, facts, blah-blah this and that IT. Lots of stuff I could agree with about the industry.

JV and Rose, People Ignite people.

Joyce, Mpoy and RJ (Ambassador Band?). Joyce should’ve been the host instead of Roma.

That’s all I took until I couldn’t move my arms around because my disgruntled stomach goes to an explosive situation every ten seconds. We even had to leave when the fun part was about to start.

Sir Xerxes got an Ambassador Icon award! Also, all the participating universities/colleges recieved plaques, where I dropped the one for our school. Luckily, it just split in two pieces (the base and the plaque itself).

I could say that FSAP was one of the best things that happened to me. Lots of freebies and invites to MS events. Also, the priceless acquaintances with other universities/colleges (it was like the round table). It’s cool that Stanley assures us of a job as a .NET developer too.

Wow, I just slept twelve hours straight. Good morning folks!

I just found out that you could install a Linux-based OS on an iPod or iPod Nano. Now it makes me think of buying one. I’m looking for a high-capacity portable MP3 player and the ipod used to be the last candidate but now it looks like it went up a few notches.

iPodLinux is currently safe to install on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation iPods. Development is currently on-going on later generations of iPod, including the fourth generation click wheel, mini, U2, Photo/Color, Nano, and Video.

It’s amazing, you can make your iPod Nano play videos.

Heck, they even ported Doom!

Don’t forget FTP! I wonder if they also ported OpenSSH and Vi.

Even if it’s overpriced, I’m seriously considering it now. With Linux on it, it has more functionality. Does anybody know where I could get a fourth generation 40GB or 60GB iPod?