MOVED

This is my old blog, it wasn't updated for ages already and I have no plans of posting anything new. :D

My new blog: http:/www.gamerdrive.blogspot.com

Peace out.

Starcraft 2

"Entaro Adun"
- Zeratul, Starcraft

I can't wait to play this game. I love the graphics! The player micromanaged well the units (or programmed that way?) which created some humor, forming the word "GG". :D

Robotics Camp Day 3

"I love the time and in between
the calm inside me in the space where I can breathe"
- Elsewhere (song)


I've passed last night to create this post, after three days of facilitating in the robotics camp, I was too exhausted to write at all. The camp was very educating and fun. The campers were divided into four teams since day one, and yesterday, each of these teams had to be at their best in order to win the competition, and get home with something to be proud of including a mobot (mobile robot) as their reward.

But for me, as a facilitator, what matters is the whole camp itself, not the competition. The campers learned something about robotics, made new friends and the enthusiasm and cooperation they had with their teammates and campmates in their whole stay. I love the experience, most of the campers were young incoming college students, and being with those people somehow makes you feel you are an incoming college student as well. And those standing right by me right now knows, how great that feeling is - what would college be? How different is it than highschool? What awaits me? Those are the questions that they have yet to answer.

I know everyone enjoyed the camp, and eventhough it's over, this experience will always be something in part of everyone that joined the camp - the trainers, facilitators and campers. Hope to see you guys sometime in the future. Congratulations to the winners!

Robotics Camp Day 2

"Fall seven times, stand up eight"
- Japanese Proverb


Another tiring day! I missed our game today against orange, the game which I really wanted to play, but I can't just walk out from dlsu and go home to play the game - the robotics camp and the campers I'm facilitating obviously is of higher priority. Anyway, we won the game today. We are ranked first and ended up with a standing of 7-1. Just waiting for the schedule for the playoffs.

Our schedule in the robotics camp is just like "highschool", two snacks with one in the morning and another in the afternoon, and a lunch. In the morning, time is spent on listening to the trainers on modules like Robotics Physics, Kinematics, Programming, and others. During the afternoon, they experience hands-on with the mobots (mobile robots) and program them based on the conditions of the problem. Earlier this day, they had a lab with the mobot following a dark line, or by traversing a maze all by itself - configuring the robot to move either forward, reverse, rotating to the right, turning left and a few more other actions.

Good luck to the team I'm facilitating, tomorrow!

Robotics Camp Day 1

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power."
- Lao Tzu


It's a very, very tiresome yet a very fulfilling day. I had been assigned to facilitate three participants in the robotics camp today and for the two more days to come. It wasn't that good enough at the start, introducing yourself to the participants, making the conversation thorough and continuous, and to be confident to make the participants you handle very much comfortable with their stay. But as the day went on, it went better and better.

I think I fell short today as a facilitator, I'm really not that good at socializing with people and add to that the gaze of Sir Joel together with a sarcastic smile seeing the "quiet student" as a facilitator!

I really don't want to be a facilitator at first, because you know, I'm not good at talking with people. I'm good at guiding them with the robots, programs and stuffs and I know I can help them in a way, that's why I accepted the proposal of being a facilitator. But when it comes to talking outside of the academic realm, it's worst case scenario. LOL. LMAO. ROFL Rai.

Well, best of luck tomorrow though.

I missed the basketball game today because of the robotics camp, but as confident as I was about the game, we won. My teammates are really good. We are already clinched in the playoffs with a twice to beat advantage, we have one more game to go before playoffs which is tomorrow.

And yeah, just a side note about the NBA. Spurs won today, but they just woke up a sleeping giant, it's impossible for them to win the next two games against Phoenix. Poor officiating and unreasonable decisions, it doesn't matter anymore to Phoenix for Game 6 and 7 of the NBA West Conference Semi-finals.

SMS language-Chatspeak-Txt Typing

"People will change their habits quickly when they have a strong reason to do so"
- Marc Andreessen (inventor of Netscape), The World is Flat (book)

The phrases "see ya 2m", "cnu-cno ba ppnta?", "ayt", "aq lng ba?", "wag nmn!" are very familliar nowadays. I was browsing the internet yesterday when I stumbled in a Filipino community forum applying the rule - "No text typing allowed". And the moderators are actually very strict about it, zero percent tolerance. Almost every post where violations of text typing can be seen has warnings telling the user/violator to read the rules of the forum. And not only that, they have a note just below their banner visible in every page - "No text typing allowed".

Text typing became popular for the mere reason to shorten long messages because an SMS (Short Message Service) can only allow 160 characters per message to be sent. The trend just came out from no where and people start adapting it.

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Did You Know?
SMS language (also known as chatspeak, txt, txtspk, texting language or txt talk) is the English language slang used in mobile phone SMS. It is an abbreviated form of English known as a rebus.

So what's a rebus? A rebus (Latin: "by things") is a kind of word puzzle which uses pictures to represent words or parts of words; for example: H + (picture of an ear) = Hear, or Here. (taken from www.wikipedia.com)

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Countless number of debates had already been established regarding the said topic, whether it's not right to use it because it damages the standards, the proper use of our language. Although, some say it is more practical and much more convenient to use and so they say "why not?". Either way, just as I had said in one of my previous posts - "use it if only there is a need to use it". I'll consider some major points.

1. If you don't need to use "SMS language", don't. If it's not SMS, don't. This includes e-mails, forum messages, and even chatrooms.

2. Don't use it too much, try spelling the proper words and use the proper language some time. It might become a habit.

3. It's tolerable to use SMS language when texting or for cases like example in in-game chats where fast typing is needed. In chatrooms, I think you don't have to type your messages and send it rightaway.

I'm really impressed with that forum that applied the said rule, this will help in preserving the standards and the proper use of our language. This way, people will become aware that txt typing is only for the purpose of shortening messages, and not a standard of language. Because who knows, what a mere trend can just become our culture, with dictionary containg the words "2m", "aq", "wag". And these words are hard to understand without learning the proper use of the language first. Be conscious.

Summer Jab

"Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things."
- Miyamoto Musashi


Summer's nearly over, and school is getting nearer and nearer. I never really felt bored this whole summer since I've invested my time on things I love doing - computers, basketball, games, movies and watching tv series (one tree hill, heroes and prisonbreak). Add to that our family's overnight in crowne plaza hotel last weekend.

Random thoughts ---- Normally, when I enjoy, I feel guilty as I had always been. It feels like some people are mocking me in my head that I don't have the right to have fun. But I'll shout as a reply to those voices - "wala naman masamang maging masaya paminsan minsan" There's just a part of me that feels caged behind bars of countless rules I try to abide. Off-balanced.

Anyway, a few days ago my friends asked me - "ano naman ginagawa mo sa bahay?". They are taking summer classes and I just go to school and have the chance to meet with them because of the meetings of the "volunteers" of the upcoming robotics camp to be held this May 17 to 19 (thursday to saturday). Knowing that a lot of people feels bored during summer by just staying at home, it may have looked sarcastic when I replied - "marami."

But I'm really into a couple of things this summer, normally about computer stuffs.

Organize
I organized my pc files, renamed each of the thousand music files I have in the PC, deleted some old programs, and sorted out our documents into folders. And now, it looks so clean and organized, less stressful everytime I use the PC.

Maintenance
I also installed a few programs for security and maintenance purposes - CCleaner (registry cleaner), Registry Mechanic (much like CCleaner but find problems not detected by CCleaner), Ad-Aware SE (anti-spyware and anti-adware) and AVG antivirus (our Mcafee subscription has already expired).

Bookmarks
I also feel more powerful (is that the right term!?) by browsing a couple of sites and adding those that I find interesting to my collection of bookmarks sorted into different categories (tech, religion and inspiring, literature, health and fitness, knowledgebase, etc.). Below is the picture of my bookmarks in Opera.



Cool? Try this one out, http://ebooksbay.org/, a great source of many free and good quality e-books in the net. And a flexible search engine - www.sputtr.com.

Hardware Fixes
I also fixed the positions of my pc peripherals in the corner-cabinet of my room (tambayan ni Rai, XD). I removed all the peripherals first then positioned and attached them all over again. I placed our printer at my bed side table, so we can easily get the printed papers. I placed the router and modem above, in the open-space, second-level of the cabinet, to provide better air flow and cooling. I also fixed the position of the CPU itself and the AVRs, my feet aren't comfortable before because I can't extend it, the CPU is blocking. I also fixed the cables and made them more hidden to the naked eye for a less stressful looking environment. I've thought a few days how to fix the positions of the peripherals, and now, it's just how I wanted it to be.

I also fixed our old pc, disassembled everything and assembled it all over again (to know how to assemble the pc.. =_=) and it worked! The hard drive isn't working though but it's good that we have a spare internal 200 GB hard drive my ninong sent to us via a door-to-door box a couple of months ago. I'm planning to make it a network storage device, a place where we can store our video, music and files. I'll try to install the Linux Ubuntu Server OS. I'm curious for months now about Ubuntu, Linux and open-source, since a few articles have been featured in tech news of Manila Bulletin. I'm an avid reader and collector of that section of the said newspaper. But in order to connect the cpu to the router (it actually runs without a monitor and other peripherals like mouse/keyboard as set it can be set in the BIOS), I need to have a hand of an ethernet wireless adapter whether it would be wireless-b (transfers 10 MBps) or wireless-g (5 times faster than wireless-b). I canvassed for a while now and it seems that wireless-b is out of the market, every shop I asked presented me with the wireless-g ethernet adapter. I'll go to "gilmore" in one of these days (as I read in the forums and suggested by a pc shop vendor in galleria) to canvass and take a look at the place.

LCD Monitor Craving
I have this want of buying an LCD monitor. One, because it saves a lot of space. Two, because it provides less heat and as I have read in the forums, it provides cheaper electricity than CRT monitors. Three, eye-candy. And four, it's less strenuous to the eyes.

I'll try to collect some money and try to get a hand by the end of the year of this very stylish LCD monitor (with great specs too like 5 ms response), the samsung 932b plus. Surprisingly as well, when I was browsing this one PC-related forum, one actually was hunting for the same LCD monitor. It looks like I wasn't the only one attracted to this gorgeous.







And somehow, those organize kind of things is a good starting point for me to learn and apply a few things in the PC - Apache, PHP, MySQL, Flash, basic video editing, etc. And somehow apply those things I learn to build a site 5% closer to the greatness of KirkyWirky.net. Haha, peace out kirk!

I hope the election counts finish soon and hopefully, those elected will do their job well. Let's just hope they do, this country badly needs hope - not critiques.

When Royalty is Not Royal

"Royalty!"
- A Knight's Tale

I'm trying to be positive with the things happening around me as always, but sometimes it's better to say and shout out it out - the sentiments, the anger, the madness.

When you have nothing, it's hard for people to trust you but you can trust everyone. But when you have something, you are trusting enough but it's harder for you to trust people, they might just be playing with you to have a piece of that something that you have. So you end up hoping they aren't, but prudent enough to know that the possibility can happen. Life's a game, so you play as well.

Respect is earned not asked.

I read the book the Alchemist of Paolo Coelho once, and there's an event there where the boy asked the man, "why do you bring a revolver (gun)?". The man replied, "it makes me trusting". It's not exactly the narration, but the point is clearly there - the gun is a symbol of power, when you are feared, it's harder for people to try and fool you. But it could also be a sign of "in-case" scenarios, in-case you fool me, I'll bring out this gun and make sure it won't happen again - sort of a test.

And somehow, I don't have the gun.

Sometimes you'll just feel like as if you aren't treated with the same level like the others, you are like royalty without earning the right of the word royalty itself, you were borned to be seen by people as it. And even if you weren't anyway, you are treated like so and.. that sucks.

But on the brighter side, life's really like that. And I know I have to earn it myself. I had but lost it. I'm torned between two worlds, it's either I choose the one I'm more comfortable of and let the other follor or I have to learn to accustom myself in both worlds.

Either way, it's nothing to take seriously. Just some thoughts, and now I feel better having those things off my mind.