New Lappy!
After four (4) dreary months of going home to a dwelling devoid of a computer, I finally purchased a laptop. Its an Acer Aspire 4520-301G12. At Php 39,900 with 0% 12 months installment, free 2gb flash drive and HP photo printer, I think I got a really good deal! Bought it from Silicon Valley at Parksquare 1 in Makati. Prior to that, I went to Megamall but the model was out of stock in all of the stores. Even Villman didn't have it in any of their branches (and with only 1gb flashdrive as freebie). It seems that this gemstone series is a real seller.
Thanks to dad for "lending" me his credit card. Hahaha. Thanks to Ron for seeking out this laptop and helping me get a great deal.
With the nVidia 7000m video card (shared memory), this baby can play Warcraft III at all high video settings with no problem at all.
Taylor’s Law of Programming Probability
I was trying to read up on permutations, probability and combinatronics when I came upon this link - Taylor's Law of Programming Probability.
The theoretical possibility of a catastrophic occurrence in your program can be ignored if it's less likely than the entire installation being wiped out by meteor strike.
The important number here seems to be 100000000x365x24x60x60 = 3153600000000000, which we called c - the average number of seconds per mass extinction of life on earth. The reciprocal of this number, 1/c is the probability that all higher life on Earth will be wiped out by meteor strike in any given second. (The name c stands for the catastrophe number.)
There is just no point in worrying about anything that happens with a probability of less than one in c, because you're more likely to be killed (along with the rest of humanity and most of the mammals, birds, etc.) during this exact second than you are to be bitten by your putative problem.
Bad kernel 2.6.22 and autofs
The new kernel 2.6.22.1-33.fc7 in Fedora 7 repo has an auto mount bug. Also reported back in 2.6.22.1-27.fc7, USB flash drives won't automatically mount. Reverted back to 2.6.21-1.3228.fc7 and all is well.
Also, update autofs package. Earlier version that came with the Fedora DVD shows automount hogging up CPU! On top command, it shows up to 25% CPU even when it's supposedly not doing anything. That is very high!
5 Weeks of Condo Living
The past 5 weeks seemed an eternity. Days seem to go by longer, time seems to go by too slow. So many things have happened! I should be excited by all of this, as I was before this whole thing blew up in my face. But now its all been drummed down, reality has crept in, and things have become mundane.
I’ve fairly adjusted well to the routine of living away from home. Lame as it may seem, this is the first time I’ll be living away from my family. All my schools have been very near where I live so I never had to dorm. I worked in Makati right after graduation and it was horrible. I was used to getting home in less than 30 minutes, so getting home in 2 hours never really registered in my brain as something rational. Two whole hours sitting or standing in obscure ways and in undesirable environments was not just a waste of time for me, it was torture. Millions of people endure this everyday and just like everyone else, I got used to it. But its not in my nature to let things go this way, and naturally, I would desire a more optimal process of living.
When I told my parents I’d be working again in Makati and that I’ll be getting a place there to live by myself, they said NO. I predicted that would happen but I also knew that sooner or later it would sink in to them that they have to let me go. This is the next step in a person’s life wherein she should learn how to take care of herself. Now they’re telling everyone how their daughter is now living in her own condominium unit. Pah!
My brother was the first one who saw the condo unit when he drove me there with all my stuff. He thought it was crappy, old and cheap looking. My mother’s thoughts were not far off, she said it was messy and the old furniture looked weird. Hey this is the best thing I could find with the budget!
Since I have no computer, no internet and no cable-tv, I just watch DVDs most of the time. Usually I come home late from work so I just watch movies until I feel sleepy. I would seriously like to get rid of some of the old furniture, particularly the faded couches that’s eating up space! And if I can afford a more energy efficient air-con, that’d be great too. I just have my clothes laundered weekly amounting to just P50. They seem ok so I don’t bother to have them ironed anymore hehehe.
Now I have to save money so I can buy my own computer or laptop and have intrenet access. And then it will all be too perfect!
No More Vacation
3 weeks ago, I started on another adventure. I ended 1 year and 2 months of vacation and went back to work for my old master. Working in Ateneo was like a wonderful vacation, except that I was getting paid haha. With wide open spaces, fields, trees, flexible working hours, and snack food in the pantry, I was working in luxury. I had my own spacious cubicle, LCD monitor, fairly fast computer, my own 12" laptop, and the fact that I can walk home after work, it'd take a lot to convince me to leave.
The moment Neugent asked me to come back and work for them again, I thought it was a joke. My last day in Neugent was one of the happiest days in my entire life. Really. I felt elated, like a big burden was off my back, that I was free at last! Free from the burden of waking up dead early in the morning to face more than an hour's worth of Manila traffic. It's not really the traffic. Its the hoards of people going the same direction as you are. No more insane unpaid overtimes. In short, I got my life back.
For more than a year, I was happy and content. I was doing fine in Ateneo. The pay was okay, and they give in to my requests almost all the time. The microwave, refridgerator, LCD monitor, and even the oven toaster! We're far from Google workplace but we're getting there.
Then suddenly one of the team leads in Neugent is leaving to work abroad and they need someone to fill in quickly, someone who doesn't need any training, who will come in and just start working like nothing happened. Me. 
Of course I made my demands. They also pointed out that things have changed for the better in Neugent and it's not the same hell place I left more than a year ago. Why would I just suddenly leave comfort for this other work that's more challenging, more demanding, and just plain insane?!
Well here I am. I'm back to the work I've loathed before. I still can't believe it but here I am. I miss my old work terribly, but I have to face back reality. That if I want to succeed in my field, then I have to be hard core.
Camphone
To be honest with you, I don't really need a camera phone. I just want a small enough phone for sending and receiving sms, occasional voice calls, calculator, alarm clock, and of course has an intuitive user interface that won't annoy me. For me, camphones don't output photos at good enough quality for anything but wallpaper on the phone itself.
So I got a new ericsson phone for a relatively cheap price of P8,000 (a nice chunk off my savings). It has this 3G thing, a 2MP camera, and some oodles. Also an mp3 player that my brother just used to listen to classical music for his name-that-tune exam in school.
I discovered there's some fun with having a camera phone. Taking pictures of interesting things you encounter in your day to day lives, namely:
A big-ass woman butt-hogging the post in a jam-packed MRT. Don't you hate these people?
Bored customer support people playing video games at the smart wireless center
PAASE Poster Presentation
Poster presentation last Feb 15-17 for the Philippine American Academy of Science and Engineering (PAASE) Annual PAASE Meeting and Symposium (APAMS) held at Century Park Hotel in Manila. The event was hosted by De La Salle University, with most of the research presented coming from that school. I was disappointed to see almost no posters from Ateneo. I saw a lot from UP and Mapua. The more interesting ones come for UP.
My research's title is "Using the Border Gateway Protocol as Routing Data for Global Load Balancing". It is a remake of my BS CS thesis with Clifford Ian G. Lim. I'm lucky to have work with talented and dedicated people such as Clifford, and our thesis adviser William Yu. Even after two (2) years this thesis was apparently still conference worthy, and still being used by Bitstop for eradioportal.com.
The weird part is, nobody wanted to continue this research. Sigh. Maybe a reason is that students want to create something new, and something to call their own. 
Thanks to Ron for the photograph!
Gadgets
I got my Canon ixus camera back. At last! PAid a hefty 5k to the blasted Canon Service Center.
I also got a new phone now. Finally got fed up with the almost 4-year old XDA!
Guitar Adrenaline
Last tuesday, Sisig gigged at Chaquico's in Makati for Ernie's Guitar Adrenaline event. It's been 1.5 years since we last played there.
As expected, everyone who was there were either musicians, luthiers, guitar enthusiasts or roadies. I hated the feeling knowing that people are observing you, listening to every note, waiting for you to make a mistake. That's why they call it Guitar Adrenaline. Sheesh.
The pressure of playing perfectly. Gah. We did the 3 guitar attack. Ernie, Ced and Nathan taking turns shredding, or blues shredding. I had a short bass solo during the last song. Wouldn't want to hog the limelight from the guitarists haha. The place was awesome, the amps are boutique! Priceless guitars and autographed photos adorn the walls. This is a place for serious musicians.
I didn't expect to see some bass people there since it's supposed to be an event for guitar shredding. However, I bumped into Roger Alcantara of Eternal Now, AC or Cean, Jon dela Cruz of Elegee guitars, and saw Empi Katindig. Met up with some familiar faces, Karen of Massacridia and Paolo of Jutch whom we play with every Thursdays at Freedom bar.
So many people, so many bands and solo artists. I later learned that some bands got pissed because the show went on really late at almost 4am. Eeep! Luckily, we played second.
Of course Ron was there with me and helped carry my bass 
Thank You PCTrends!
PCTrends replaced my 1.3 year old 6600GT (that conked out), with a 6800GS!!! :p
At first I was told that I'd get 7300GT. Thank God they gave me a 6800GS instead! I'll install The Sims 2 again to see how this baby goes.
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