There are a lot of stories about Raul's wedding. Maybe some time I could write them down. But it was fun. This was the wedding they've been planning for the past several years. I have no idea how long it was in the planning stage, but Raul and Doy started dating in College. And he's now 36 years old.
There were several things they didn't want to do. The bride did not want to walk down the aisle. No extra expenses for the bridal entourage. Nothing fancy, just a church wedding. The wedding was scheduled for a Saturday. On the Friday before the wedding, I received a text message that it was moved forward by half-an-hour. A big-shot died during the week and he was going to be buried on Saturday, and the wedding was moved earlier so that the deceased would be taken to church and mass by 10:00am. 9:40 came along and the bride and her party wasn't there yet. Almost 10:00 when we were informed by the Church aides/ladies that the ceremony was to be done at the sacristy. If you noticed the pictures, these were taken at the sacristy of the Concepcion Church, in Marikina. Doy came along around 9:45 or 9:50 and she was not in a good mood. She was blaming her family for being late. And to make matters worse, she left the wedding give-aways in the taxi. Notice the pictures, she couldn't smile because she was thinking of how bad the day was going along. Notice that Raul was smiling very widely, he knew he can rile her and have fun about the wedding even before the wedding began. That's how they love one another.
Tatay was mad, and he so wanted to write the Catholic Church Hierarchy about being bumped in schedule by a rich dead guy. But at least the priest saved the day. It was very intimate, and he had a target audience which was listening to every word he said. It may not have been the most solemn, but the priest had fun, and he was joking at times, the whole wedding party enjoyed the ceremony. Everybody was standing around the bride and groom. Literally. Tatay came to enjoy the wedding and he didn't push through with his plan to write to the Bishops.
Too bad that I took the videos. It was horrible because I wasn't able to keep it steady. Everyone who saw the video had only one reaction: seasick because of the movement.
The wedding reception was also a matter of the newly-weds putting their foot down. No doves, no garters, no bouquet throwing. It was really a family affair. And to think that the real joke about the reception was done by Auntie Pinang. They did the catering. But they had a lot pinakbet for their consumption. Ha! Unfortunately, they
gave some to Naneng's table, and I was able to ask for more. And by the time we were wrapping up, I was able to ask for the rest of the pot. That was some good pinakbet. Not too salty, nothing fancy, just good vegetables.
Raul and Doy now live with my parents. They occupy the room me and my family had before we got an apartment last April. I guess they should be having a good time, since they've had more almost twenty years to decide about this. Okay, at least fifteen then.
--andoy
7 September 2005
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Friday, September 02, 2005
Seated from the left: Roselle, Darwi, Kris, Adora, Renato, Mitch and Naomi. Standing at the back are Doy and Raul.
Posted by Picasa
Monday, August 29, 2005
Optional Holiday!
Sunday, August 28, being the last Sunday of the month, is National Heroes Day. And in line with this, Press Secretary Bunye clarified last Friday that Monday August 29 (today) would not be a holiday. Along came Saturday, and Executive Secretary Ermita announces that the President has decided that Monday would be a holiday. This statement in itself was not a pronouncement as the official announcement would come later. Sunday, the Office of the President decides to release the announcement that there would be no classes in public and private schools, as well as government offices. There would be work in private companies. Monday morning and I think they did this just to muddy, perplex and confuse an already confused citizenry, they qualify that it is optional. And the morning hasn't fully started yet, and they have a rejoinder that if it isn't too late to announce, then the private companies can call it a holiday.
Now I ask, is the President just PMSing or does she have Alzheimer's?
--andoy
29 August 2005
Now I ask, is the President just PMSing or does she have Alzheimer's?
--andoy
29 August 2005
Monday, August 22, 2005
Mag'irgo Tamoyna Nin Binubolinao
Mag'irgo Tamoyna Nin Binubolinao
And the Bolinao website has its own blog site, too!
--andoy
22 August 2005
And the Bolinao website has its own blog site, too!
--andoy
22 August 2005
A Bolinao Website
This website is still under construction and is being created and maintained by Josue Castellano.
If all goes well and if the support is there, this should become a great resource for the Bolinao language.
--andoy
22 August 2005
If all goes well and if the support is there, this should become a great resource for the Bolinao language.
--andoy
22 August 2005
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
[SHARE] the day you said goodnight, by Hale
The Day You Said Goodnight
by Hale
Take me as you are
Push me off the road
The sadness, I need this time to be with you
I'm freezing in the sun
I'm burning in the rain
The silence I'm screaming
Calling out your name
And I do
Reside in your light
Put out the fire with me and find
Yeah, you lose the side of your circles
That's what I'll do if we say goodbye
To be is all I got to be
And all that I see
And all that I need this time
To me the life you gave me
The day you said goodnight
The calmness in your face
That I see through the night
The warmth of your light is pressing onto us
You didn't ask me why
I never would have known
Oblivion is falling down
If you could only know me like your prayers at night
Then everything between you and me will be alright
She's already taken
She's already taken
She's already taken me
The day you said goodnight
-=0=-
This is quite popular these days. And I catch myself humming or singing snippets of the song. Keeps on running round and round my head. Must be the blue skies and dark rain type of weather that we're having. Downer.
Good song though.
--andoy
9 August 2005
by Hale
Take me as you are
Push me off the road
The sadness, I need this time to be with you
I'm freezing in the sun
I'm burning in the rain
The silence I'm screaming
Calling out your name
And I do
Reside in your light
Put out the fire with me and find
Yeah, you lose the side of your circles
That's what I'll do if we say goodbye
To be is all I got to be
And all that I see
And all that I need this time
To me the life you gave me
The day you said goodnight
The calmness in your face
That I see through the night
The warmth of your light is pressing onto us
You didn't ask me why
I never would have known
Oblivion is falling down
If you could only know me like your prayers at night
Then everything between you and me will be alright
She's already taken
She's already taken
She's already taken me
The day you said goodnight
-=0=-
This is quite popular these days. And I catch myself humming or singing snippets of the song. Keeps on running round and round my head. Must be the blue skies and dark rain type of weather that we're having. Downer.
Good song though.
--andoy
9 August 2005
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Sick Leave
I was absent yesterday. Several times I woke up in the middle of the night, coughing hard because I couldn't breath. And when morning came, my body hurt, I had sore throat, no voice, thick phlegm in my throat. I could have gone to work, but since we'll be very busy the next month or so, I thought, WTF, I'd go on a one-day leave, get some rest, get better, and hopefully don't get a relapse when I go back Wednesday.
Maybe I need to move my things to another location, the airconditioner always goes full blast pointing at my back. And the thick (anorak) jacket doesn't help. I think I'm going to have the flu.
--andoy
3 August 2005
Maybe I need to move my things to another location, the airconditioner always goes full blast pointing at my back. And the thick (anorak) jacket doesn't help. I think I'm going to have the flu.
--andoy
3 August 2005
Thursday, July 28, 2005
PGMA and SONA
Last Monday, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivered her State of the Nation Address (SONA). It's now Thursday and I still haven't decided what the speech was all about.
On the one hand, I felt it was another pre-emptive strike to keep her in power. By saying that she is pushing for a constitutional change, she is asking congress to debate on how it is to be done, then have congress cease function and to act as the constituent assembly, and then after the constitutional change, a referendum to accept the changes. That already takes more than a year, all in all. A year where she would still be in power. If Congress decides to push through with her impeachment, then she can also have her people hammer the opposition and stop it altogether. She is trying to get all the support she can get including a multi-awarded TV and movie director to direct her public appearances, and a political analyst from the academe who wrote portions of her SONA.
She's really working hard at keeping her Presidency.
And the speech itself. A whole lot of nothing. No real report on progress and economy. And no assault on the opposition. Just a promise for change and the same Ten-point Agenda she had last year.
--andoy
28 July 2005
On the one hand, I felt it was another pre-emptive strike to keep her in power. By saying that she is pushing for a constitutional change, she is asking congress to debate on how it is to be done, then have congress cease function and to act as the constituent assembly, and then after the constitutional change, a referendum to accept the changes. That already takes more than a year, all in all. A year where she would still be in power. If Congress decides to push through with her impeachment, then she can also have her people hammer the opposition and stop it altogether. She is trying to get all the support she can get including a multi-awarded TV and movie director to direct her public appearances, and a political analyst from the academe who wrote portions of her SONA.
She's really working hard at keeping her Presidency.
And the speech itself. A whole lot of nothing. No real report on progress and economy. And no assault on the opposition. Just a promise for change and the same Ten-point Agenda she had last year.
--andoy
28 July 2005
Lola Trining
My grandmother died last Friday, July 22, at 2:00pm at Bolinao, Pangasinan. Tatay was there and had been there for the past few weeks. Mama went there also, to visit, came back to Manila, and then went back to Bolinao last Sunday. Among us siblings, Raul, Irene and Dong went to Bolinao with Mama for the wake.
She's a small woman. Always had been, I would imagine. I was small when I was a kid, but she didn't look any taller even then. She walked to church every day, went to the market afterwards and walked back home to cook lunch, that's about a kilometer each way, the market being just beside the church. Up to a few years ago, if there was any community prayer in the barrio, she led the rosary.
Lola was born and grew up in San Fernando, La Union, where she met Lolo Santiago. After World War II, they lived in Bolinao, Lolo's hometown, where they raised their brood of ten children. With Tiong Emong, Auntie Ely, and Auntie Rose in Bolinao and Auntie Mila in La Union, all the rest are in Manila.
Lola was laid to rest yesterday, Wednesday July 27.
I was saddened by the news and I wanted to cry. I felt like crying, but the tears were dry. There was an emptiness. I couldn't scream. I couldn't get angry. I just felt hollow and empty.
I was on an emotional roller-coaster this past weekend.
--andoy
28 July 2005
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
another long day
This is another of those nights when I work late waiting for some development while the server is being setup. We are uploading the program to the server and some little things give these big problems. The images don't load, the location is not found, the files are there but not being accessed, the generated text has the wrong address, etc. Small things which makes the program look like a race car with the turbocharger installed backwards. It has all the functionanlities, but these are not showing (i.e. not functional). The old argument goes like this: "it's working on the local machine, and on the local server, and we only need to fix something on the production server. Though we have no idea what that might be."
It's a long process. And to think that I was looking forward to coffee and a relaxing chat before I go home. No go.
Well, that's life.
--andoy
19 July 2005
It's a long process. And to think that I was looking forward to coffee and a relaxing chat before I go home. No go.
Well, that's life.
--andoy
19 July 2005
Friday, July 15, 2005
Politics
There is a political storm brewing and I don't think anyone is thinking properly about how it will affect the country within the next five years or ten years or fifty years.
The long and short of it is that Pres. Arroyo was haunted by intrigues since her run for Senator. This, however, is not a rant about the past ten years or so. This is about the past few weeks, so limiting ourselves to the events at hand, she is now reaping the fruits of the intrigues. She took the offensive by pre-emotive strikes at her opponents and opposition. She wanted to out-balance whatever plans other people had. I think that these pre-emptive strikes backfired. The wire-tapping issue would not have been general knowledge if Malacanang had not divulged to the public that the tapes existed and would be used against the current administration. This now led ultimately to a muddling of the issues.
Her second pre-emptive strike was when she dissolved the cabinet to make way for reshuffling the bureaucracy. This backfired because it was widely known that the economic team was resigning, and these cabinet members said so in a press conference after the cabinet secretaries handed their resignation.
Even before, there was already a negative perception about her. Even if the economy was doing relatively okay, she was perceived to be not doing her job well. Now with all these things her administration started (to prevent further problems, which created bigger problems) the perception or image has gone further negative.
I want to see this "crisis" end in a constitutional manner. Because this will be a precedent for future event resolution. The old models are passe, people power is not a viable alternative any longer because the people are tired, and there is no power anyway. People Power has become a value meal joke. You get two jokes for the price of one.
This will be fun. The old chinese curse comes to mind: "may you live in interesting times." It's been too damn interesting for as long as I can remember! Since before 1972, in fact.
--andoy
15 July 2005
The long and short of it is that Pres. Arroyo was haunted by intrigues since her run for Senator. This, however, is not a rant about the past ten years or so. This is about the past few weeks, so limiting ourselves to the events at hand, she is now reaping the fruits of the intrigues. She took the offensive by pre-emotive strikes at her opponents and opposition. She wanted to out-balance whatever plans other people had. I think that these pre-emptive strikes backfired. The wire-tapping issue would not have been general knowledge if Malacanang had not divulged to the public that the tapes existed and would be used against the current administration. This now led ultimately to a muddling of the issues.
Her second pre-emptive strike was when she dissolved the cabinet to make way for reshuffling the bureaucracy. This backfired because it was widely known that the economic team was resigning, and these cabinet members said so in a press conference after the cabinet secretaries handed their resignation.
Even before, there was already a negative perception about her. Even if the economy was doing relatively okay, she was perceived to be not doing her job well. Now with all these things her administration started (to prevent further problems, which created bigger problems) the perception or image has gone further negative.
I want to see this "crisis" end in a constitutional manner. Because this will be a precedent for future event resolution. The old models are passe, people power is not a viable alternative any longer because the people are tired, and there is no power anyway. People Power has become a value meal joke. You get two jokes for the price of one.
This will be fun. The old chinese curse comes to mind: "may you live in interesting times." It's been too damn interesting for as long as I can remember! Since before 1972, in fact.
--andoy
15 July 2005
a terminal trick
Forwarded message:
i hope this isnt too far off topic for this group but i thought i
should share this
goto the terminal with an internet connection and type
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
then watch star wars episode 4 (the original) in ascii text ;)
have fun
`km
Yuk, what kind of dumb menu system is that? Oh, so that is Windows!
-=0=-
I picked this up on the MacOSX Yahoo groups courtesy of Kris Murray. Enjoy.
--andoy
15 July 2005
UK TV Licensing
I sent a message to Mark, the host/producer of tartanpodcast (of which I wrote about in an earlier blog). I had a listen to the tartanpodcast #10 and he was ranting about TV licensing. Me not having gone out of Philippine borders, I told him that I think that TV licensing, as he explained it, was crazy. And he sent me a link to the UK TV Licensing bureau which explains why in the UK every TV set which receives broadcast has to pay a license fee.
Maybe I'm really from a Third World country, or maybe I just like commercials more than some TV shows, but all along I had this concept that TV viewing was free. I guess in some countries it does not appear so. And looking at the PDF document from the TV Licensing bureau, it seems to me that the whole thing was borne out of an outdated concept, whose spirit was lost when it was revised and updated in the 1990's.
Imagine, I buy a car and I need to have it licensed. That I understand. I would be using the vehicle on roads made by the government. I might injure someone and the government has to know who owns the vehicle. But if I buy a TV, I don't need to pay the government for the use of the ether through which radio signals are being transmitted. Makes as much sense as licensing windmills for the use of the wind.
--andoy
15 July 2005
Maybe I'm really from a Third World country, or maybe I just like commercials more than some TV shows, but all along I had this concept that TV viewing was free. I guess in some countries it does not appear so. And looking at the PDF document from the TV Licensing bureau, it seems to me that the whole thing was borne out of an outdated concept, whose spirit was lost when it was revised and updated in the 1990's.
Imagine, I buy a car and I need to have it licensed. That I understand. I would be using the vehicle on roads made by the government. I might injure someone and the government has to know who owns the vehicle. But if I buy a TV, I don't need to pay the government for the use of the ether through which radio signals are being transmitted. Makes as much sense as licensing windmills for the use of the wind.
--andoy
15 July 2005
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Bad Luck!
This is just to ask a stupid question: may balat ba sa puwet si "Brenda"?
This is not a frivolous question because she is now supporting President Arroyo. And historically, everytime she supports anyone for President, the guy loses (of course, that includes Her Brain-damagedness.) She supported President Estrada, and the only truth which came out of her was the famous line: "I lied." How many times has she tried to run for President? I lost count, but I do know how many times she won: ZERO. Now she's a stalwart on defense for Pres. Arroyo. Another thought comes to mind: With friends like her, who needs enemies?
--andoy
13 July 2005
This is not a frivolous question because she is now supporting President Arroyo. And historically, everytime she supports anyone for President, the guy loses (of course, that includes Her Brain-damagedness.) She supported President Estrada, and the only truth which came out of her was the famous line: "I lied." How many times has she tried to run for President? I lost count, but I do know how many times she won: ZERO. Now she's a stalwart on defense for Pres. Arroyo. Another thought comes to mind: With friends like her, who needs enemies?
--andoy
13 July 2005
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
French Podcasts
I'm downloading episodes of a french podcast, I'm not sure if I can understand any of this but I'll try to have a blast.
--andoy
12 July 2005
--andoy
12 July 2005
Monday, July 11, 2005
The Morning Commute
This morning's commute was kinda weird. The van I was riding sounded different. A different noise is heard from the floor of the van sounding mechanical and appears after the van has revved up a bit, about 5 to 10 KPH. The driver inspected the bottom of the vehicle several times but couldn't see anything outwardly wrong with the vehicle. At some point when the van was running relatively fast, around 40 KPH, the engine's torque would translate to a wiggling of the van's body. We reached Makati safely enough, without any mechanical breakdowns. And once on Paseo de Roxas, the sound totally disappeared.
Personally, I think it may have been the parking brake (hand brake). It may have been disengaged, but still connected in some way.
Nice start to a week.
--andoy
11 July 2005
Personally, I think it may have been the parking brake (hand brake). It may have been disengaged, but still connected in some way.
Nice start to a week.
--andoy
11 July 2005
Lola Trining
Tatay went to Bolinao last Friday. My grandmother, Lola Trining, had asked for her children as she is now very weak. The consensus is that she's on her deathbed and would want to see her family before she leaves. There was some good news when Tatay arrived. Lola was feeling better and showing some strength. By Friday evening, Tatay sent word to Mama that Lola might not make it over the weekend. Mama left for Bolinao last Saturday.
Lola's health has not been good for the past year. A strong and wiry woman, she goes to church and to market every day walking the odd kilometer to the Town Plaza back and forth. And, I guess, if you've been doing that everyday since before World War II, then a slow down is something else altogether.
I've been praying for her.
--andoy
11 July 2005
Lola's health has not been good for the past year. A strong and wiry woman, she goes to church and to market every day walking the odd kilometer to the Town Plaza back and forth. And, I guess, if you've been doing that everyday since before World War II, then a slow down is something else altogether.
I've been praying for her.
--andoy
11 July 2005
Friday, July 08, 2005
tartanpodcast
I just started listening to podcasts and one of the first channels I listened to is tartanpodcast which is a podcast from Glasgow, Scotland. I've always enjoyed listening to Scot brogue accents.
I once had a chat with a scot -- at a wake, for crying out loud -- and he did mention that there are differences in accents and that this is so pronounced that it is possible to situate where you are from the accent. It does change from town to town. And is so different sometime that it is possible to live in one town and almost not understand people living in the next town. Imagine this in a country of 5 million people. Contrast this with the Philippines with 83 million, 8 million of which live in Metro Manila.
The podcast I listened to was #15. It included "Twisted Melons" and some other bands. But really, the main reason I wanted to check this out is the accent. Great accent! Here in the Philippines, there is a current impetus to use "American English" and the DJ's brogue is totally different. I worked on a call center before and every so often we had callers from Scotland, and some callers do have very thick accents. I've been entranced with the scottish brogue since I first noticed the difference between American and British accents. And whenever we see a movie with scottish characters, it's fun to emulate them. Well as best I can, along with my son and daughter. I once read some chapters of "Harry Potter" to them in as best an imitation that I can. We were particularly enamored with the Hagrid-type accent. And it would be fair to note that in the movies, the Weasley family talk in different accents. The only accents which are alike are the twins (logically so I would think.)
Even before podcasting, I've been trying to get an internet radio broadcast from Scotland, with no success. The closest I can get are the gaellic mp3's from Ireland. hahaha
Maybe if I can have my own website, I'd try podcasting myself. I would think that I can do this around one hour a day, max. Plus processing and uploading, this could easily translate to about four hours of work. Anyway, that would be something to look forward to, more as an activity for me and the kids.
--andoy
8 July 2005
I once had a chat with a scot -- at a wake, for crying out loud -- and he did mention that there are differences in accents and that this is so pronounced that it is possible to situate where you are from the accent. It does change from town to town. And is so different sometime that it is possible to live in one town and almost not understand people living in the next town. Imagine this in a country of 5 million people. Contrast this with the Philippines with 83 million, 8 million of which live in Metro Manila.
The podcast I listened to was #15. It included "Twisted Melons" and some other bands. But really, the main reason I wanted to check this out is the accent. Great accent! Here in the Philippines, there is a current impetus to use "American English" and the DJ's brogue is totally different. I worked on a call center before and every so often we had callers from Scotland, and some callers do have very thick accents. I've been entranced with the scottish brogue since I first noticed the difference between American and British accents. And whenever we see a movie with scottish characters, it's fun to emulate them. Well as best I can, along with my son and daughter. I once read some chapters of "Harry Potter" to them in as best an imitation that I can. We were particularly enamored with the Hagrid-type accent. And it would be fair to note that in the movies, the Weasley family talk in different accents. The only accents which are alike are the twins (logically so I would think.)
Even before podcasting, I've been trying to get an internet radio broadcast from Scotland, with no success. The closest I can get are the gaellic mp3's from Ireland. hahaha
Maybe if I can have my own website, I'd try podcasting myself. I would think that I can do this around one hour a day, max. Plus processing and uploading, this could easily translate to about four hours of work. Anyway, that would be something to look forward to, more as an activity for me and the kids.
--andoy
8 July 2005
Monday, July 04, 2005
Old Body
Since we moved to the new apartment, I've been playing basketball with Kenneth on an almost regular basis. We wake up, or rather my wife wakes us up, at 5:00am, dress up, go across the street to the (covered) basketball court. We do some stretching. I sometimes jog around the court to warm up, and we shoot some hoops. And we go back home by 6:00am. Normally, we're the only ones using the court at that time. We played one-on-one the first time we played on the court. I was in no shape to speak of, whatsoever. Got myself panting and gasping for air. I guess I'm in better shape now after almost two months. But I need to be playing him one-on-one again soon, because if I defer it, he'd be taller than me without anyone noticing.
Played Saturday morning and then again Sunday morning. Saturday morning, I over extended myself and was several heartbeats away from collapsing. We had no water bottles with us, so we had to go back home. Anyway, it was already 6:00am, so it was just in time.
Not being much of a basketball player (I can't even do a decent layup) I give Kenneth drills instead: "give and go", "pick and roll", shooting drills (free throws, three-pointers, side of the key, quarter-court), kick-out and screens. Nothing special, just drills he wouldn't be doing if he were just playing three-on-three half-court pickup games.
And now, it's a Monday, and my body hurts.
--andoy
4 July 2005
Played Saturday morning and then again Sunday morning. Saturday morning, I over extended myself and was several heartbeats away from collapsing. We had no water bottles with us, so we had to go back home. Anyway, it was already 6:00am, so it was just in time.
Not being much of a basketball player (I can't even do a decent layup) I give Kenneth drills instead: "give and go", "pick and roll", shooting drills (free throws, three-pointers, side of the key, quarter-court), kick-out and screens. Nothing special, just drills he wouldn't be doing if he were just playing three-on-three half-court pickup games.
And now, it's a Monday, and my body hurts.
--andoy
4 July 2005
Thursday, June 30, 2005
PP Anniversary by Ergoe
Therefore I Am
Ergoe Tinio wrote this in her blog, about the Pinoy Poets Anniversary gig at Conspiracy. Great poem she had, which was read to a loud round of applause. Now, if I can only find a copy of it...
--andoy
30 June 2005
Ergoe Tinio wrote this in her blog, about the Pinoy Poets Anniversary gig at Conspiracy. Great poem she had, which was read to a loud round of applause. Now, if I can only find a copy of it...
--andoy
30 June 2005
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Pinoy Poets Anniversary at conspiracy
I attended the Pinoy Poets anniversary celebration last night at the Conspiracy Bar at Visayas Ave. It was a raucous affair with poetry readings, songs and an open mic (for poems). Sadly, I had to leave early, just past 10:00pm. A whole lot of the people I've met in the GA's were there: Jheric, Jeff, Rhodge, Rommel, Medel, Kiko, Kramer, Jonar, Rosvie, Dave, Andrea, Van, Ergoe, Kath, Emong, Steph, Mitz, Edz, Kai, Ani, Nanoy, Jojo, Claire and some new members and new faces which included Anavi and Bambina.
Steph already posted on her blog how the evening went.
Was just happy to have been there. It was great.
--andoy
29 June 2005
Steph already posted on her blog how the evening went.
Was just happy to have been there. It was great.
--andoy
29 June 2005
Thursday, June 23, 2005
INSIDE PCIJ: Stories behind our stories
INSIDE PCIJ: Stories behind our stories: "INSIDE PCIJ: Stories behind our stories"
This is a great blog. Written by news reporters telling stories behind the headlines.
--andoy
23 June 2005
This is a great blog. Written by news reporters telling stories behind the headlines.
--andoy
23 June 2005
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Ambigram: Literati
An ambigram is a design or lettering which is legible both ways. Both ways meaning it can be read right-side up and upside down. And there are some ambigrams which are legible from both sides of a glass door, for instance.
I saw an ambigram this morning and of all places it was near the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina. It read "literati". At first glance, you'd think it was just a different design. But upon closer inspection, you'd see that it is an ambigram.
If only I had a camera. Damn!
--andoy
22 June 2005
I saw an ambigram this morning and of all places it was near the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina. It read "literati". At first glance, you'd think it was just a different design. But upon closer inspection, you'd see that it is an ambigram.
If only I had a camera. Damn!
--andoy
22 June 2005
Friday, June 17, 2005
Ryan Cayabyab's commencement speech at UP
This was forwarded to me.
-=0=-
In case ( unlikely) this has not reached you yet--I heard it has created quire a stir...
Enjoy it , including ( in your imagination ) the full-blown-orchestra-and-chorale-backed rendition of a tribute to UP (an original composition) at the end.
How many among us would ever have a dream assignment like this? But we can all relate to his touching reminiscences ( the DDT chase is very real to me...I do recall the enchantment with the cloud-like fume... which explains--so that was it !-- my crazy tinge). And a consuelo de bobo to know he is an Accounting dropout.
O, pa'no...sige.
-=0=-
"Pitong bagay sa buhay na natutunan ko sa U.P."
by PROF. RYAN CAYABYAB
Commencement speech given on April 24, 2005 before the Class of 2005, UP Diliman, Quezon City
Maraming salamat po, magandang hapon po sa inyong lahat. UP President Emerlinda Roman, former presidents Jose Abueva and Noel Soriano, UP Diliman Chancellor Dr. Sergio Cao, the Board of Regents, U.P. faculty and administrative staff, co-professors from the College of Music, classmates from UP High 1970, fellow alumni, graduates, and friends:
Malugod kong binabati kayong mga nagsisipagtapos ngayong taong 2005. Isang karangalan ang pagtayo ko dito upang maghatid ng isang talumpati para sa inyo. Huwag kayong mag-alala, maiksi lamang ang aking sasabihin.
Kinikilala kong ako ay isang mamamayan ng UP. Unang nasilayan ng aking mga mata ang sinag ng araw sa Area 1, UP Campus, sa may likuran ng Infirmary, kung saan din nanirahan sina Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero, si NVM Gonzales, si Jovita Fuentes, si Jose Maceda, at ang mga Lansang, mga Manalang, mga Daza, Cailao, Lesaca, Estrada at marami pang ibang mga pioneering faculty members ng UP Diliman.
Ang nanay ko ay nagturo sa UP College of Music. Apat kaming magkakapatid na lumaki sa sariwang
hangin ng Area 1, nanghuhuli ng tutubi at kuliglig sa araw, kulisap naman sa gabi. Diyes ang Coca-cola, singko ang Cosmos. Minsan sa isa o makalawang linggo, may dumaraang truck ng DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) na nag-bubuga ng makapal na usok pampatay ng lamok na nagdudulot ng malaria. Lahat ng bata sa Area 1, at sa buong campus ay sinasalubong itong truck, at kung kaya lang naming magsiawit ng Haleluya noon ay ginawa na namin dahil para kami lahat nasa ulap, nagtatakbuhan, hinahabol at nilalanghap ang maputi at mabangong usok ng DDT truck. Napakasaya namin. Walang nagsabi sa amin na hindi lamang lamok ang pinapatay ng DDT. Ngayong malalaki na kami at nagbibiruan ang aming egroup na Area 1, napagkasunduan namin na dahil sa DDT na yan, bawat isa sa amin ay may bahid ng kabaliwan, depende sa dami ng nalanghap na DDT.
Marami kaming laro noon sa Area 1 "patintero, tumbang preso, siyato, lastiko, gagamba, luksong tinik, step-no, habulan, taguan, teks at holen, na sa palagay ko ay sasabihin ninyong napakalow-tech kumpara sa mga laro ninyo nung kayo ây mga bata. Meron kaming mga sikretong tawagan, sipol at huni. Ang dami kong nais ikuwento tungkol sa aking pagkabata ngunit mauubos ang ating oras.
Nag-aral ako sa UP Elementary School at sa UP High School. Matagal na panahon ding diyes lamang ang bayad sa IKOT.
Saan pa ba ako magkokolehiyo kundi sa UP rin. Una akong pumasok bilang accounting major sa UP College of Business Administration. Sa kabutihang palad, nauntog ako at na-realize ko na ako ay hindi pala maalam sa pagbibilang ng pera.
Tinanggap ako at lumipat sa UP College of Music bilang isang piano major. Nauntog na naman ako at natanto ko na ako ay nagpapanggap lamang na isang Cecil Licad. Mabuti naman at tinanggap ako ng Department of Composition and Theory. Sa maniwala kayo ât hindi, tinapos ko itong kurso, Bachelor of Music Major in Composition "summa" suma-sampong taon bago ko nakuha ang aking diploma. Aba! Naniwala pa sila sa akin at kinuha akong guro. Dito ko nakilala ang isa kong estudiyanteng napakaganda na una kong naging barkada sa kainan at kantahan, nauwi rin sa simbahan. Halos dalawampung taon din ako nagturo sa UP College of Music.
Wala pang tatlong taon na ako ay nagbitiw bilang isang assistant professor; akala ko ây doon na ang katapusan ng aking koneksyon sa UP. Hindi pala, dahil ngayon ang aking panganay ay kasalukuyang isang university scholar sa College of Music.
Mababaw at maikling kasaysayan lamang ito. Gayon pa man, kasaysayan pa rin. Para sa akin, napakahalaga ng aking nakalipas at ito ay lagi kong babalik-balikan. Habang ako ay papalayo ng papalayo sa aking pinanggalingan, palalim nang palalim ang mga ugat na aking tinatanim, sinisiguro ko lamang na hindi ako maitutumba ng kahit ano mang malakas na bagyo o delubyo na sa buhay ko ay sasapit.
Ngayon, nakita nyo kung bakit napaka-halaga ng UP sa aking buhay, sana ay maging sa inyo rin. Kahit hindi nyo na nasisilayan ang oblation, at hindi na naririnig ang karilyon, nawa ây nasa puso at isipan lagi ang paaralang kumupkop at nagpalawak ng isip ng bawat isa sa inyo.
Naituro na lahat ng maituturo sa inyo ng inyong mga guro. Alam naman natin na ang bawat isa sa atin ay may natatanging angking galing. Walang halaga ito kung hindi ninyo gagamitin para sa ikabubuti at ikauunlad ng inyong komunidad, ng inyong pamilya at ng buong sambayanan. Itanghal ninyo ang inyong pagiging Pilipino na nag-aral sa U.P. kahit saan kayo mapadpad.
Meron lang akong dagdag na pabaon sa inyo para lalong di nyo malimutan, ang UP nating mahal. Ito ang pitong mga bagay-bagay tungkol sa buhay na natutunan ko sa U.P.:
1. Ang buhay ay parang IKOT jeep. Ang iyong patutunguhan ay siya ring iyong pinanggalingan.
2. U.P. lang ang may TOKI, sa buhay wala nito. Pero nasasaiyo na yon kung nais mong pabaligtad ang takbo ng buhay mo.
3. Sa IKOT, puede kang magkamali ng baba kahit ilang beses, sasakay ka lang uli. Sa buhay, kapag paikot-ikot ka na at laging mali pa rin ang iyong baba, naku, may sayad ka.
4. Sa U.P., lahat tayo magaling. Aminin nating lahat na tayo ây magagaling. Ang problema dun, lahat tayo magaling!
5. Kung sa U.P. ay sipsip ka na, siguradong paglabas mo, sipsip ka pa rin.
6. Sa U.P., tulad sa buhay, ang babae at ang lalake, at lahat ng nasa gitna, ay patas, walang pinagkaiba sa dunong, sa talino, sa pagmamalasakit, sa kalawakan ng isipan, sa pag-iibigan; at kahit na rin sa kabaliwan, sa kalokohan at sa katarantaduhan.
At ang panghuli:
7. Sa U.P. tulad sa buhay, bawal ang overstaying.
Maraming salamat po!
Mayroon pa akong isang huling pabaon, galing sa puso ko - para rin sa mga puso ninyo, ito ang napili kong paraan upang maisalarawan ang tema ngayong hapon: "Angking Galing Para sa Sambayanan." Ito ay isang awiting nilikha ko at ng aking kaklase sa high school na nagtapos din ng kolehiyo sa U.P., aking musika sa titik ni Ome Candazo, sa tulong ng mga kaibigan ko sa San Miguel Master Chorale at San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra na pawang mga alumni ng U.P.
Hala ginawang concert ang speech!
GO UP!!!
-=0=-
In case ( unlikely) this has not reached you yet--I heard it has created quire a stir...
Enjoy it , including ( in your imagination ) the full-blown-orchestra-and-chorale-backed rendition of a tribute to UP (an original composition) at the end.
How many among us would ever have a dream assignment like this? But we can all relate to his touching reminiscences ( the DDT chase is very real to me...I do recall the enchantment with the cloud-like fume... which explains--so that was it !-- my crazy tinge). And a consuelo de bobo to know he is an Accounting dropout.
O, pa'no...sige.
-=0=-
"Pitong bagay sa buhay na natutunan ko sa U.P."
by PROF. RYAN CAYABYAB
Commencement speech given on April 24, 2005 before the Class of 2005, UP Diliman, Quezon City
Maraming salamat po, magandang hapon po sa inyong lahat. UP President Emerlinda Roman, former presidents Jose Abueva and Noel Soriano, UP Diliman Chancellor Dr. Sergio Cao, the Board of Regents, U.P. faculty and administrative staff, co-professors from the College of Music, classmates from UP High 1970, fellow alumni, graduates, and friends:
Malugod kong binabati kayong mga nagsisipagtapos ngayong taong 2005. Isang karangalan ang pagtayo ko dito upang maghatid ng isang talumpati para sa inyo. Huwag kayong mag-alala, maiksi lamang ang aking sasabihin.
Kinikilala kong ako ay isang mamamayan ng UP. Unang nasilayan ng aking mga mata ang sinag ng araw sa Area 1, UP Campus, sa may likuran ng Infirmary, kung saan din nanirahan sina Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero, si NVM Gonzales, si Jovita Fuentes, si Jose Maceda, at ang mga Lansang, mga Manalang, mga Daza, Cailao, Lesaca, Estrada at marami pang ibang mga pioneering faculty members ng UP Diliman.
Ang nanay ko ay nagturo sa UP College of Music. Apat kaming magkakapatid na lumaki sa sariwang
hangin ng Area 1, nanghuhuli ng tutubi at kuliglig sa araw, kulisap naman sa gabi. Diyes ang Coca-cola, singko ang Cosmos. Minsan sa isa o makalawang linggo, may dumaraang truck ng DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) na nag-bubuga ng makapal na usok pampatay ng lamok na nagdudulot ng malaria. Lahat ng bata sa Area 1, at sa buong campus ay sinasalubong itong truck, at kung kaya lang naming magsiawit ng Haleluya noon ay ginawa na namin dahil para kami lahat nasa ulap, nagtatakbuhan, hinahabol at nilalanghap ang maputi at mabangong usok ng DDT truck. Napakasaya namin. Walang nagsabi sa amin na hindi lamang lamok ang pinapatay ng DDT. Ngayong malalaki na kami at nagbibiruan ang aming egroup na Area 1, napagkasunduan namin na dahil sa DDT na yan, bawat isa sa amin ay may bahid ng kabaliwan, depende sa dami ng nalanghap na DDT.
Marami kaming laro noon sa Area 1 "patintero, tumbang preso, siyato, lastiko, gagamba, luksong tinik, step-no, habulan, taguan, teks at holen, na sa palagay ko ay sasabihin ninyong napakalow-tech kumpara sa mga laro ninyo nung kayo ây mga bata. Meron kaming mga sikretong tawagan, sipol at huni. Ang dami kong nais ikuwento tungkol sa aking pagkabata ngunit mauubos ang ating oras.
Nag-aral ako sa UP Elementary School at sa UP High School. Matagal na panahon ding diyes lamang ang bayad sa IKOT.
Saan pa ba ako magkokolehiyo kundi sa UP rin. Una akong pumasok bilang accounting major sa UP College of Business Administration. Sa kabutihang palad, nauntog ako at na-realize ko na ako ay hindi pala maalam sa pagbibilang ng pera.
Tinanggap ako at lumipat sa UP College of Music bilang isang piano major. Nauntog na naman ako at natanto ko na ako ay nagpapanggap lamang na isang Cecil Licad. Mabuti naman at tinanggap ako ng Department of Composition and Theory. Sa maniwala kayo ât hindi, tinapos ko itong kurso, Bachelor of Music Major in Composition "summa" suma-sampong taon bago ko nakuha ang aking diploma. Aba! Naniwala pa sila sa akin at kinuha akong guro. Dito ko nakilala ang isa kong estudiyanteng napakaganda na una kong naging barkada sa kainan at kantahan, nauwi rin sa simbahan. Halos dalawampung taon din ako nagturo sa UP College of Music.
Wala pang tatlong taon na ako ay nagbitiw bilang isang assistant professor; akala ko ây doon na ang katapusan ng aking koneksyon sa UP. Hindi pala, dahil ngayon ang aking panganay ay kasalukuyang isang university scholar sa College of Music.
Mababaw at maikling kasaysayan lamang ito. Gayon pa man, kasaysayan pa rin. Para sa akin, napakahalaga ng aking nakalipas at ito ay lagi kong babalik-balikan. Habang ako ay papalayo ng papalayo sa aking pinanggalingan, palalim nang palalim ang mga ugat na aking tinatanim, sinisiguro ko lamang na hindi ako maitutumba ng kahit ano mang malakas na bagyo o delubyo na sa buhay ko ay sasapit.
Ngayon, nakita nyo kung bakit napaka-halaga ng UP sa aking buhay, sana ay maging sa inyo rin. Kahit hindi nyo na nasisilayan ang oblation, at hindi na naririnig ang karilyon, nawa ây nasa puso at isipan lagi ang paaralang kumupkop at nagpalawak ng isip ng bawat isa sa inyo.
Naituro na lahat ng maituturo sa inyo ng inyong mga guro. Alam naman natin na ang bawat isa sa atin ay may natatanging angking galing. Walang halaga ito kung hindi ninyo gagamitin para sa ikabubuti at ikauunlad ng inyong komunidad, ng inyong pamilya at ng buong sambayanan. Itanghal ninyo ang inyong pagiging Pilipino na nag-aral sa U.P. kahit saan kayo mapadpad.
Meron lang akong dagdag na pabaon sa inyo para lalong di nyo malimutan, ang UP nating mahal. Ito ang pitong mga bagay-bagay tungkol sa buhay na natutunan ko sa U.P.:
1. Ang buhay ay parang IKOT jeep. Ang iyong patutunguhan ay siya ring iyong pinanggalingan.
2. U.P. lang ang may TOKI, sa buhay wala nito. Pero nasasaiyo na yon kung nais mong pabaligtad ang takbo ng buhay mo.
3. Sa IKOT, puede kang magkamali ng baba kahit ilang beses, sasakay ka lang uli. Sa buhay, kapag paikot-ikot ka na at laging mali pa rin ang iyong baba, naku, may sayad ka.
4. Sa U.P., lahat tayo magaling. Aminin nating lahat na tayo ây magagaling. Ang problema dun, lahat tayo magaling!
5. Kung sa U.P. ay sipsip ka na, siguradong paglabas mo, sipsip ka pa rin.
6. Sa U.P., tulad sa buhay, ang babae at ang lalake, at lahat ng nasa gitna, ay patas, walang pinagkaiba sa dunong, sa talino, sa pagmamalasakit, sa kalawakan ng isipan, sa pag-iibigan; at kahit na rin sa kabaliwan, sa kalokohan at sa katarantaduhan.
At ang panghuli:
7. Sa U.P. tulad sa buhay, bawal ang overstaying.
Maraming salamat po!
Mayroon pa akong isang huling pabaon, galing sa puso ko - para rin sa mga puso ninyo, ito ang napili kong paraan upang maisalarawan ang tema ngayong hapon: "Angking Galing Para sa Sambayanan." Ito ay isang awiting nilikha ko at ng aking kaklase sa high school na nagtapos din ng kolehiyo sa U.P., aking musika sa titik ni Ome Candazo, sa tulong ng mga kaibigan ko sa San Miguel Master Chorale at San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra na pawang mga alumni ng U.P.
Hala ginawang concert ang speech!
GO UP!!!
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Ghost In You by the Psychedelic Furs
Psychedelic Furs: "Ghost in you"
Ghost in you
A man in my shoes runs a light
All the papers lie tonight
but falling over you
is the news of the day
Angels fall like rain
and love , is all of heaven way
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade away
The race is on, IM on your side
but hearing you my engines died
I'm in the mood for you
or for running away
All the stars come down in you
but love, love, love you cant give it away
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade
inside you the time moves and she don't fade away
don't you know she don't fade
don't you go it makes no sense
and all these talking superman
just take away the time just to get it away
aint it just like the rain
cause love,love,love,love is only heaven away
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade away
inside you the time moves and she don't fade away
the ghost in you she don't fade
A man in my shoes runs a light
but all the papers lie tonight
falling over you is the news of the day
and love will not fade away
and love love love will not fade away
-=0=-
Friday type of Music.
--andoy
17 June 2005
Ghost in you
A man in my shoes runs a light
All the papers lie tonight
but falling over you
is the news of the day
Angels fall like rain
and love , is all of heaven way
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade away
The race is on, IM on your side
but hearing you my engines died
I'm in the mood for you
or for running away
All the stars come down in you
but love, love, love you cant give it away
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade
inside you the time moves and she don't fade away
don't you know she don't fade
don't you go it makes no sense
and all these talking superman
just take away the time just to get it away
aint it just like the rain
cause love,love,love,love is only heaven away
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade away
inside you the time moves and she don't fade away
the ghost in you she don't fade
A man in my shoes runs a light
but all the papers lie tonight
falling over you is the news of the day
and love will not fade away
and love love love will not fade away
-=0=-
Friday type of Music.
--andoy
17 June 2005
Friday
It's Friday and I'm doing some work. Put it another way, I'm working. That's an improvement, from the past few days, when I didn't know what I'm doing. I'm trying to have fun here, working on my desk. Without any supervision, and creating a test script, or checklist for testing the programs.
It's not much, I agree. But at least I get to write things. It's a table of screens and menus, actions, results and comments, etc. This should have been the job of a QA. But we don't have a QA. So there, something to do.
Friday, and then the weekend. Tomorrow the Pixela people will have a reunion at one of the agents' house. Since leaving the company, I have changed my opinion about that agent. I don't like her much anymore. Much like some people here in the office who keep on showing signs of violence and belligerency because that is their normal behaviour. (Shouts of "pagsasampalin kaya kita?" over the phone has a way of carrying over to real life.) I don't like to be around people who keep on shouting expletives. It riles me. I've been trying to rid myself of that habit since I left the Call Center job. It is not healthy. Not for me or the people around me. I don't like to be cussing at home either. That one, I try very hard not to cuss at home, in front of my kids and my wife.
But I digress. Some of the people in the group would be interesting to see again. But I'd like to say here and now, I don't look forward to seeing about six of my former co-workers. Not that I hate them, but I just don't like to see them. I don't want to work with them again, and I will be perfectly happy if I don't ever talk to them. Ever.
Another rant on a perfectly nice day. Now that that's done, I can go on enjoying my work.
--andoy
17 June 2005
It's not much, I agree. But at least I get to write things. It's a table of screens and menus, actions, results and comments, etc. This should have been the job of a QA. But we don't have a QA. So there, something to do.
Friday, and then the weekend. Tomorrow the Pixela people will have a reunion at one of the agents' house. Since leaving the company, I have changed my opinion about that agent. I don't like her much anymore. Much like some people here in the office who keep on showing signs of violence and belligerency because that is their normal behaviour. (Shouts of "pagsasampalin kaya kita?" over the phone has a way of carrying over to real life.) I don't like to be around people who keep on shouting expletives. It riles me. I've been trying to rid myself of that habit since I left the Call Center job. It is not healthy. Not for me or the people around me. I don't like to be cussing at home either. That one, I try very hard not to cuss at home, in front of my kids and my wife.
But I digress. Some of the people in the group would be interesting to see again. But I'd like to say here and now, I don't look forward to seeing about six of my former co-workers. Not that I hate them, but I just don't like to see them. I don't want to work with them again, and I will be perfectly happy if I don't ever talk to them. Ever.
Another rant on a perfectly nice day. Now that that's done, I can go on enjoying my work.
--andoy
17 June 2005
Macworld: Editors' Notes: The Jobs Amendment
Macworld: Editors' Notes: The Jobs Amendment
By Dan Miller
Back in 1965, Intel founder Gordon Moore famously opined that ongoing advances in chip design would allow engineers to cram ever-greater numbers of transistors onto computer chips—the observation that became known as Moore’s Law. But there’s another passage in his 1965 paper (which you can download here) that isn’t remembered so well.
After describing the marvels of ever-greater transistor densities, Moore asked, “Will it be possible to remove the heat generated by tens of thousands of components in a single silicon chip?” His not-so-surprising answer: You betcha.
If we could shrink the volume of a standard high-speed digital computer to that required for the components themselves, we would expect it to glow brightly with present power dissipation. But it won’t happen with integrated circuits.
OK, so computer chips aren’t glowing—yet. But heat dissipation may still turn out to be as important to the next 40 years of computer design as Moore’s Law has been since 1965.
That’s what Steve Jobs seems to be thinking in making the switch from IBM to Intel. In explaining that switch, he put up the now-famous Keynote chart comparing the Power PC with Intel’s chips for “performance per watt.” Forget that he failed to define exactly how he was measuring performance. His point was that, no matter how many transistors it’s got, even the speediest chip isn’t much good if it sucks more juice than a daycare center in August.
“As soon as I heard Steve say that the factor where Intel’s road map was superior was processing power per [watt],” Steve Wozniak wrote the New York Times, “I knew right away that it was exactly what I have been reading and saying and so have many others, that this is the real key to the future of high performance computers.”
Sure, switching to Intel means Steve can put “3GHz” and “Power Mac” in the same sentence without looking like he’s getting a migraine. But the main reason for the switch is heat. Faster, more powerful chips mean more power consumption. More power consumption means more heat. More heat means Apple can’t produce ever smaller, ever cooler products. And that makes Steve mad.
Sales of desktop computers are already flattening while laptops are booming. Meanwhile, the iPod is contributing increasingly to Apple revenues.
Five to ten years from now, where will those revenues come from? A tablet Mac? A living room Mac that’s some combination of home entertainment center, video jukebox, personal video recorder? Newton II? Whatever Apple comes up with, chances are it’ll be small and demand cool-running chips of all sorts—which Intel can provide in droves.
So maybe it’s time Moore’s Law got a slight rewrite—call it the Jobs Amendment: Transistor densities will continue to increase, but their temperatures can’t. Power management, as much as megahertz, will be the new frontier of CPU design. And, whatever the other reasons may have been for the switch, Apple’s betting that Intel’s going to beat IBM at that game.
By Dan Miller
Back in 1965, Intel founder Gordon Moore famously opined that ongoing advances in chip design would allow engineers to cram ever-greater numbers of transistors onto computer chips—the observation that became known as Moore’s Law. But there’s another passage in his 1965 paper (which you can download here) that isn’t remembered so well.
After describing the marvels of ever-greater transistor densities, Moore asked, “Will it be possible to remove the heat generated by tens of thousands of components in a single silicon chip?” His not-so-surprising answer: You betcha.
If we could shrink the volume of a standard high-speed digital computer to that required for the components themselves, we would expect it to glow brightly with present power dissipation. But it won’t happen with integrated circuits.
OK, so computer chips aren’t glowing—yet. But heat dissipation may still turn out to be as important to the next 40 years of computer design as Moore’s Law has been since 1965.
That’s what Steve Jobs seems to be thinking in making the switch from IBM to Intel. In explaining that switch, he put up the now-famous Keynote chart comparing the Power PC with Intel’s chips for “performance per watt.” Forget that he failed to define exactly how he was measuring performance. His point was that, no matter how many transistors it’s got, even the speediest chip isn’t much good if it sucks more juice than a daycare center in August.
“As soon as I heard Steve say that the factor where Intel’s road map was superior was processing power per [watt],” Steve Wozniak wrote the New York Times, “I knew right away that it was exactly what I have been reading and saying and so have many others, that this is the real key to the future of high performance computers.”
Sure, switching to Intel means Steve can put “3GHz” and “Power Mac” in the same sentence without looking like he’s getting a migraine. But the main reason for the switch is heat. Faster, more powerful chips mean more power consumption. More power consumption means more heat. More heat means Apple can’t produce ever smaller, ever cooler products. And that makes Steve mad.
Sales of desktop computers are already flattening while laptops are booming. Meanwhile, the iPod is contributing increasingly to Apple revenues.
Five to ten years from now, where will those revenues come from? A tablet Mac? A living room Mac that’s some combination of home entertainment center, video jukebox, personal video recorder? Newton II? Whatever Apple comes up with, chances are it’ll be small and demand cool-running chips of all sorts—which Intel can provide in droves.
So maybe it’s time Moore’s Law got a slight rewrite—call it the Jobs Amendment: Transistor densities will continue to increase, but their temperatures can’t. Power management, as much as megahertz, will be the new frontier of CPU design. And, whatever the other reasons may have been for the switch, Apple’s betting that Intel’s going to beat IBM at that game.
A Pro Camera That Amateurs Can Afford - New York Times
A Pro Camera That Amateurs Can Afford - New York Times
By DAVID POGUE
Published: June 16, 2005
PREDICTING the future just by extrapolating from current trends can be risky business. One megabyte of memory in 1985, for example, would have cost you about $400. By 1995, the same amount cost about $35. You might conclude that memory makers will eventually have to start paying you.
Still, watching prices of popular technologies crash to earth is always exciting while it lasts. Take the highly regarded digital single-lens reflex cameras from Nikon, for example. Over the years, prices for Nikon S.L.R.'s hit $5,000 (the D1 in 1999), $4,000 (the D1H in 2001), $2,000 (the D100 in 2002), $1,000 (last year's D70) and $900 (last month's slightly upgraded D70S).
Nikon's latest data point represents a delicious addition to the line: the D50, due next week. It takes the same spectacular photos as the bestselling D70S - for a list price of $750.
(These prices are for the body only - bring your own lens. With a great starter lens, the D50 will be priced at $900. Prices online will be even lower once the camera has been on sale for a few weeks.)
Now, $900 may still sound like a lot, but these are professional cameras - or were, until amateur shutterbugs started snapping them up. And that price frees you from the teeth-grinding annoyances of everyday consumer cams.
For example, the D50 powers up in two-tenths of a second, so you don't miss shots because your camera's not ready. You don't worry about running out of battery power by lunchtime at Six Flags, either; the D50's battery lasts for weeks on a charge. (It has a 2,000-shot capacity, compared with 200 to 400 on a pocket-size consumer cam.) And a digital S.L.R. reduces shutter lag - the half-second delay after you press the shutter button - to zero.
But a digital S.L.R.'s most important advantage is that it takes infinitely better pictures than those little pocket cams. These are big, bright, sharp, professional-looking photos, with ultra-sharp subjects and gently blurred backgrounds. You can freeze motion, making a pool splash look like crystallized ice; you can shoot in the dark, leaving the shutter open to record the orange trails of car taillights; and you can fire off several shots a second, improving your odds of catching the bat meeting the ball, the cork exiting the Champagne bottle or the 5-year-old sitting still.
What you can't do with a digital S.L.R., though, is capture digital movies, compose shots using the back-panel screen (you must look through the viewfinder) or put the camera in your pocket; a digital S.L.R. is bulky. Harsh trade-offs, yes, but that's the ballgame.
Still, the explosive success of Nikon's D70 and Canon's Digital Rebel proves that millions of consumers will overlook those cons to gain the pros - and to shoot like pros. So Nikon was smart to design, in the D50, a camera that offers the same stunning photographic quality as the D70 in a more family-friendly package. (You can see some examples at here.)
What does "family friendly" mean? It would be easy to say that the D50 is just a stripped-down D70, but that wouldn't be accurate. The D50 is certainly a modified D70, but it adds as many new features as it takes away.
The lower price is a key feature. But so is the reduction of size and weight, made possible in part by a switch in memory format (from Compact Flash to SD card). In conjunction with its new, compact 18- to 55-millimeter starter lens (a 3X zoom, the equivalent of a 28- to 80-millimeter zoom lens on a film-based S.L.R.), the fully assembled D50 makes a much less intimidating-looking package than its predecessor. (It's 5.2 by 4 by 3 inches, vs. 5.5 by 4.4 by 3.1 on the D70.)
If you can afford a second lens, Nikon's new, equally compact 55- to 200-millimeter telephoto lens (equivalent to an 80- to 300-millimeter lens on a film camera) makes a great choice at $250. Its zoom picks up where the starter lens leaves off, bringing you 11 times closer to soccer goals, school plays and shuttle launchings.
The D50 also features an improved autofocus system; in sports mode (one of its six scene presets), for example, it can track a subject as it moves. The D50's rubber eyepiece is larger and more comfortable than the D70's.
The displays have been rewritten for better clarity; the confirmation message when you delete a photo, for example, now tells you not only which button to press to proceed, but also which button cancels the operation. And the scene dial's new child mode is supposed to offer a magical combination of vivid clothing colors and natural flesh tones, although the pictures are generally indistinguishable from those of the auto setting.
The four-way controller's left and right arrow buttons now summon the previous and next photos. (On the D70, it was the up and down arrows, which always felt wrong.) Zooming in on a photo is still an awkward two-handed procedure that should send Nikon back to the drawing board - but at least on the D50, you can scroll through your pictures at the same magnification level, without having to rezoom each one.
So Nikon giveth, but it also taketh away - in this case, a bunch of tweaky features that nonprofessionals, it believes, won't miss. The D50's fastest shutter speed is 1/4000th of a second (slower than the 1/8000th of the D70). You can't choose any I.S.O. (light sensitivity) settings between 800 and 1600. The D50 can't drive a wireless flash attachment, as the D70 can. And the D50 lacks its predecessor's compositional grid option for the viewfinder, clip-on plastic screen protector and depth-of-field preview button. (The D.O.F. preview button closes down the lens aperture before shooting to give you an accurate view of what foreground and background elements will be in or out of focus at the selected aperture setting.)
In most cases, Nikon was right; for the amateur, most of these omissions are of advanced, fussy or obscure features. But in two cases, Nikon slipped with its scalpel, hacking off features that you may indeed miss in everyday shooting.
First, the burst mode captures only 2.5 frames per second, down from 3. That may not seem like a radical difference. But when you're trying to snap just the right instant in a skydiver's flight, the dog's trick or the children's ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl, every little frame helps.
Second, the L.C.D. status window on the top of the camera is no longer illuminated, which means you can't read it in dim light. To change flash, ISO or white-balance settings, for example, you're supposed to turn a dial - but without being able to see the status display, you have no idea how far you've cycled through the choices. (Note to D50 buyers: keep a keychain flashlight in your camera case. Note to Nikon: O.K., fine. Put the backlight back in, and raise the price 85 cents.)
Sold on the idea of a digital S.L.R. but not sure which one to buy? If you already own lenses for a certain brand, well, then, your decision is made. (Technical note: Remember though, that because a digital S.L.R.'s sensor is smaller than a frame of 35-millimeter film, traditional lenses act as though they are 1.5 times as long when they are mounted on a digital camera body. A 200-millimeter lens, for example, will give you an effective focal length of 300 millimeters.) )
Here are the D50 and the two current market leaders in a nutshell. (Pentax and Olympus also make sub-$1,000 digital S.L.R.'s.)
NIKON D50 Smaller, lighter and easier to use than the D70. The status-panel back light is the most serious missing frill. Price, with lens: under $900. (Discounting online hasn't yet begun.)
NIKON D70S Greatest photographic flexibility. Loaded with features that come in handy, if only occasionally. Best battery life (2,500 shots per charge). Wireless flash option. Awkward playback controls, slow U.S.B. transfer. Online price, with lens: $1,120.
CANON DIGITAL REBEL XT Highest photo resolution (8 megapixels, vs. 6.1 on the Nikons), yet least expensive. Shortest battery life (600 shots) and smallest screen (1.8 inches vs. 2.0 on the Nikons). Inferior starter lens. Awkwardly shrunken handgrip. Online price, with lens: $835. (The older, slower, larger original digital Rebel is still available, too, for as little as $660 online.)
The prices of digital S.L.R.'s haven't finished their long, slow descent from the stratosphere. He who waits longest, pays least - but misses out on a lot of spectacular photo ops. In the meantime, the Nikon D50 is a great camera, a mouth-watering option for the family amateur who wants to take professional pictures.
E-mail: Pogue@nytimes.com
By DAVID POGUE
Published: June 16, 2005
PREDICTING the future just by extrapolating from current trends can be risky business. One megabyte of memory in 1985, for example, would have cost you about $400. By 1995, the same amount cost about $35. You might conclude that memory makers will eventually have to start paying you.
Still, watching prices of popular technologies crash to earth is always exciting while it lasts. Take the highly regarded digital single-lens reflex cameras from Nikon, for example. Over the years, prices for Nikon S.L.R.'s hit $5,000 (the D1 in 1999), $4,000 (the D1H in 2001), $2,000 (the D100 in 2002), $1,000 (last year's D70) and $900 (last month's slightly upgraded D70S).
Nikon's latest data point represents a delicious addition to the line: the D50, due next week. It takes the same spectacular photos as the bestselling D70S - for a list price of $750.
(These prices are for the body only - bring your own lens. With a great starter lens, the D50 will be priced at $900. Prices online will be even lower once the camera has been on sale for a few weeks.)
Now, $900 may still sound like a lot, but these are professional cameras - or were, until amateur shutterbugs started snapping them up. And that price frees you from the teeth-grinding annoyances of everyday consumer cams.
For example, the D50 powers up in two-tenths of a second, so you don't miss shots because your camera's not ready. You don't worry about running out of battery power by lunchtime at Six Flags, either; the D50's battery lasts for weeks on a charge. (It has a 2,000-shot capacity, compared with 200 to 400 on a pocket-size consumer cam.) And a digital S.L.R. reduces shutter lag - the half-second delay after you press the shutter button - to zero.
But a digital S.L.R.'s most important advantage is that it takes infinitely better pictures than those little pocket cams. These are big, bright, sharp, professional-looking photos, with ultra-sharp subjects and gently blurred backgrounds. You can freeze motion, making a pool splash look like crystallized ice; you can shoot in the dark, leaving the shutter open to record the orange trails of car taillights; and you can fire off several shots a second, improving your odds of catching the bat meeting the ball, the cork exiting the Champagne bottle or the 5-year-old sitting still.
What you can't do with a digital S.L.R., though, is capture digital movies, compose shots using the back-panel screen (you must look through the viewfinder) or put the camera in your pocket; a digital S.L.R. is bulky. Harsh trade-offs, yes, but that's the ballgame.
Still, the explosive success of Nikon's D70 and Canon's Digital Rebel proves that millions of consumers will overlook those cons to gain the pros - and to shoot like pros. So Nikon was smart to design, in the D50, a camera that offers the same stunning photographic quality as the D70 in a more family-friendly package. (You can see some examples at here.)
What does "family friendly" mean? It would be easy to say that the D50 is just a stripped-down D70, but that wouldn't be accurate. The D50 is certainly a modified D70, but it adds as many new features as it takes away.
The lower price is a key feature. But so is the reduction of size and weight, made possible in part by a switch in memory format (from Compact Flash to SD card). In conjunction with its new, compact 18- to 55-millimeter starter lens (a 3X zoom, the equivalent of a 28- to 80-millimeter zoom lens on a film-based S.L.R.), the fully assembled D50 makes a much less intimidating-looking package than its predecessor. (It's 5.2 by 4 by 3 inches, vs. 5.5 by 4.4 by 3.1 on the D70.)
If you can afford a second lens, Nikon's new, equally compact 55- to 200-millimeter telephoto lens (equivalent to an 80- to 300-millimeter lens on a film camera) makes a great choice at $250. Its zoom picks up where the starter lens leaves off, bringing you 11 times closer to soccer goals, school plays and shuttle launchings.
The D50 also features an improved autofocus system; in sports mode (one of its six scene presets), for example, it can track a subject as it moves. The D50's rubber eyepiece is larger and more comfortable than the D70's.
The displays have been rewritten for better clarity; the confirmation message when you delete a photo, for example, now tells you not only which button to press to proceed, but also which button cancels the operation. And the scene dial's new child mode is supposed to offer a magical combination of vivid clothing colors and natural flesh tones, although the pictures are generally indistinguishable from those of the auto setting.
The four-way controller's left and right arrow buttons now summon the previous and next photos. (On the D70, it was the up and down arrows, which always felt wrong.) Zooming in on a photo is still an awkward two-handed procedure that should send Nikon back to the drawing board - but at least on the D50, you can scroll through your pictures at the same magnification level, without having to rezoom each one.
So Nikon giveth, but it also taketh away - in this case, a bunch of tweaky features that nonprofessionals, it believes, won't miss. The D50's fastest shutter speed is 1/4000th of a second (slower than the 1/8000th of the D70). You can't choose any I.S.O. (light sensitivity) settings between 800 and 1600. The D50 can't drive a wireless flash attachment, as the D70 can. And the D50 lacks its predecessor's compositional grid option for the viewfinder, clip-on plastic screen protector and depth-of-field preview button. (The D.O.F. preview button closes down the lens aperture before shooting to give you an accurate view of what foreground and background elements will be in or out of focus at the selected aperture setting.)
In most cases, Nikon was right; for the amateur, most of these omissions are of advanced, fussy or obscure features. But in two cases, Nikon slipped with its scalpel, hacking off features that you may indeed miss in everyday shooting.
First, the burst mode captures only 2.5 frames per second, down from 3. That may not seem like a radical difference. But when you're trying to snap just the right instant in a skydiver's flight, the dog's trick or the children's ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl, every little frame helps.
Second, the L.C.D. status window on the top of the camera is no longer illuminated, which means you can't read it in dim light. To change flash, ISO or white-balance settings, for example, you're supposed to turn a dial - but without being able to see the status display, you have no idea how far you've cycled through the choices. (Note to D50 buyers: keep a keychain flashlight in your camera case. Note to Nikon: O.K., fine. Put the backlight back in, and raise the price 85 cents.)
Sold on the idea of a digital S.L.R. but not sure which one to buy? If you already own lenses for a certain brand, well, then, your decision is made. (Technical note: Remember though, that because a digital S.L.R.'s sensor is smaller than a frame of 35-millimeter film, traditional lenses act as though they are 1.5 times as long when they are mounted on a digital camera body. A 200-millimeter lens, for example, will give you an effective focal length of 300 millimeters.) )
Here are the D50 and the two current market leaders in a nutshell. (Pentax and Olympus also make sub-$1,000 digital S.L.R.'s.)
NIKON D50 Smaller, lighter and easier to use than the D70. The status-panel back light is the most serious missing frill. Price, with lens: under $900. (Discounting online hasn't yet begun.)
NIKON D70S Greatest photographic flexibility. Loaded with features that come in handy, if only occasionally. Best battery life (2,500 shots per charge). Wireless flash option. Awkward playback controls, slow U.S.B. transfer. Online price, with lens: $1,120.
CANON DIGITAL REBEL XT Highest photo resolution (8 megapixels, vs. 6.1 on the Nikons), yet least expensive. Shortest battery life (600 shots) and smallest screen (1.8 inches vs. 2.0 on the Nikons). Inferior starter lens. Awkwardly shrunken handgrip. Online price, with lens: $835. (The older, slower, larger original digital Rebel is still available, too, for as little as $660 online.)
The prices of digital S.L.R.'s haven't finished their long, slow descent from the stratosphere. He who waits longest, pays least - but misses out on a lot of spectacular photo ops. In the meantime, the Nikon D50 is a great camera, a mouth-watering option for the family amateur who wants to take professional pictures.
E-mail: Pogue@nytimes.com
What's Really Behind the Apple-Intel Alliance - New York Times
What's Really Behind the Apple-Intel Alliance - New York Times
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: June 11, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO, June 10 - Nearly a quarter-century ago, Apple Computer ran a snarky ad after its onetime rival encroached on its territory: "Welcome, I.B.M. Seriously." This week, however, Steven P. Jobs had a different message for Big Blue, which had since become a chief ally: "Goodbye. Seriously."
Mr. Jobs, 50, a co-founder of Apple, is famously brash and mercurial. Even so, the Apple faithful - not to mention I.B.M. itself - were caught by surprise by Apple's decision to end its 14-year relationship with I.B.M. and team with Intel for its computer chip needs.
The buzz that began Monday among developers, bloggers, analysts and Apple followers trying to guess Mr. Jobs' true designs has not let up. After all, Mr. Jobs is a legend in no small part because he defied the monster combination that is Wintel - as the digerati call the Windows and Intel alliance - and lived to talk about it.
Apple's decision in the 1980's to use a different chip from the one put in most personal computers "fit in with the idea of Think Different," Stephen G. Wozniak, who founded Apple with Mr. Jobs in 1976, said in an e-mail exchange. "So it's hard for some people to accept this switch."
So what could a Macintel possibly hope to accomplish?
Potentially, quite a lot. In striking the deal, Mr. Jobs, Apple's chief executive, has opened a range of tantalizing new options for his quirky company.
Many people in the industry believe that Mr. Jobs is racing quietly toward a direct challenge to Microsoft and Sony in the market for digital entertainment gear for the living room. Indeed, Sony's top executives had tried to persuade Mr. Jobs to adopt a chip that I.B.M. has been developing for the next-generation Sony PlayStation.
An Intel processor inside a Macintosh could put the vast library of Windows-based games and software programs within the reach of Mac users - at least those who are willing to run a second operating system on their computers.
Moreover, having Intel Inside might solve an important perception problem that has long plagued Apple in its effort to convert consumers who are attracted to the company's industrial design, but who have stayed away because the computers do not run Windows programs.
There is an immediate risk in the tie-up with Intel, however: Mr. Jobs could soon find himself trapped if his best customers stop buying I.B.M.-based Macintoshes while they wait for more powerful Intel-based systems, which are likely to begin arriving in January 2006.
"There is going to be a long wait," said Mark D. Stahlman, a Wall Street analyst at Caris & Company. The power-conserving 64-bit Intel chips that Apple is counting on to rejuvenate its laptop products will not be available until early 2007, he pointed out.
In an interview, Mr. Jobs rejected the notion that Apple might suffer from what is known as the "Osborne Effect," a term that describes the fate of the computer pioneer Adam Osborne whose firm went bankrupt when he announced a successor to his pioneering portable computer before it was available.
At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Mr. Jobs talked of a transition that would appear almost seamless to customers. "As we look ahead we can envision some amazing products we want to build for you and we don't know how to build them with the future PowerPC road map," he said.
Nothing was seamless about how the deal with Intel came together.
Several executives close to the last-minute dealings between Apple and I.B.M. said that Mr. Jobs waited until the last moment - 3 p.m. on Friday, June 4 - to inform Big Blue. Those executives said that I.B.M. had learned about Apple's negotiations with Intel from news reports and that Apple had not returned phone calls in recent weeks.
Each side disputes what led to the breakup. People close to I.B.M. said pricing was a central issue, while Mr. Jobs insisted on stage Monday that I.B.M. had failed to meet promised performance measures.
On stage, Mr. Jobs noted that he had promised both a 3-gigahertz Macintosh as well as a more powerful PowerPC-based portable computer, promises that he had not been able to deliver.
In the end, Mr. Jobs was given no choice but to move his business to Intel, when I.B.M. executives said that without additional Apple investment they were unwilling to pursue the faster and lower-power chips he badly needs for his laptop business.
"Technical issues were secondary to the business issues," said an executive close to the I.B.M. side of the negotiations. Because the business was not profitable, I.B.M. "decided not to continue to go ahead with the product road map."
But Mr. Jobs disputed this assessment, simply stating that I.B.M. had failed to meet its technology road map. The issues in the end, he said, came down to speed and the absence of a chip that consumed less electricity than traditional processors designed for PC's.
"As soon as I heard Steve say that the factor where Intel's road map was superior was processing power per [watt] I knew right away that it was exactly what I have been reading and saying and so have many others, that this is the real key to the future of high performance computers," Mr. Wozniak wrote.
As it happens, Intel's was not the only alternative chip design that Apple had explored for the Mac. An executive close to Sony said that last year Mr. Jobs met in California with both Nobuyuki Idei, then the chairman and chief executive of the Japanese consumer electronics firm, and with Kenichi Kutaragi, the creator of the Sony PlayStation.
Mr. Kutaragi tried to interest Mr. Jobs in adopting the Cell chip, which is being developed by I.B.M. for use in the coming PlayStation 3, in exchange for access to certain Sony technologies. Mr. Jobs rejected the idea, telling Mr. Kutaragi that he was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believes will be even less effective than the PowerPC.
Now that Mr. Jobs has broken with I.B.M., however, Apple is free to pursue a potentially intriguing consumer electronics strategy with Intel.
Intel has been looking for ways to get its chips into devices that can compete with game consoles as living-room entertainment hubs. In fact, all three next-generation video game machines made by Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are based on I.B.M. chips. And analysts say that both Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3, scheduled to arrive next spring, will be positioned as home media hubs in addition to being video game machines - and priced far lower than the Intel-powered, Windows Media Center PC's that are also aimed at the living room.
Should the new consoles find wide acceptance as broad-based entertainment engines, Intel will need to respond - and one attractive alternative would be an inexpensive Macintosh Mini based on an Intel processor, able to run the vast library of PC games.
Before he can set his sights on that new market, Mr. Jobs faces the task of shoring up his base, his customers and developers. On Monday, he made the case to the software designers who must be willing to rewrite their software for the new Macintel world.
Early indications are that he made a convincing presentation.
"The reason people buy Mac is the software, and I think the real fun is yet to come," said Scott Love, the president of AquaMinds, a software concern in Palo Alto that sells a Macintosh program called NoteTaker used by writers, researchers and students. "We'll be able to develop a program that will just work on both I.B.M. and Intel-based computers."
Even more important will be Mr. Jobs' ability to persuade the Macintosh faithful to join him in his journey from I.B.M. to Intel. That is where he has an advantage over virtually every other executive.
"He is still committed to the idea of an Apple culture," said Peter Schwartz, the co-founder and chairman of the Global Business Network, a consulting firm in Emeryville, Calif. "It is the counterculture to the dominant Windows culture."
Indeed, Mr. Jobs has always set himself apart from other corporate executives. After all, which other American business executive would have thought to name the holding company for his executive jet airplane "Marmalade Skies"?
Steve Lohr contributed reporting from New York for this article..
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: June 11, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO, June 10 - Nearly a quarter-century ago, Apple Computer ran a snarky ad after its onetime rival encroached on its territory: "Welcome, I.B.M. Seriously." This week, however, Steven P. Jobs had a different message for Big Blue, which had since become a chief ally: "Goodbye. Seriously."
Mr. Jobs, 50, a co-founder of Apple, is famously brash and mercurial. Even so, the Apple faithful - not to mention I.B.M. itself - were caught by surprise by Apple's decision to end its 14-year relationship with I.B.M. and team with Intel for its computer chip needs.
The buzz that began Monday among developers, bloggers, analysts and Apple followers trying to guess Mr. Jobs' true designs has not let up. After all, Mr. Jobs is a legend in no small part because he defied the monster combination that is Wintel - as the digerati call the Windows and Intel alliance - and lived to talk about it.
Apple's decision in the 1980's to use a different chip from the one put in most personal computers "fit in with the idea of Think Different," Stephen G. Wozniak, who founded Apple with Mr. Jobs in 1976, said in an e-mail exchange. "So it's hard for some people to accept this switch."
So what could a Macintel possibly hope to accomplish?
Potentially, quite a lot. In striking the deal, Mr. Jobs, Apple's chief executive, has opened a range of tantalizing new options for his quirky company.
Many people in the industry believe that Mr. Jobs is racing quietly toward a direct challenge to Microsoft and Sony in the market for digital entertainment gear for the living room. Indeed, Sony's top executives had tried to persuade Mr. Jobs to adopt a chip that I.B.M. has been developing for the next-generation Sony PlayStation.
An Intel processor inside a Macintosh could put the vast library of Windows-based games and software programs within the reach of Mac users - at least those who are willing to run a second operating system on their computers.
Moreover, having Intel Inside might solve an important perception problem that has long plagued Apple in its effort to convert consumers who are attracted to the company's industrial design, but who have stayed away because the computers do not run Windows programs.
There is an immediate risk in the tie-up with Intel, however: Mr. Jobs could soon find himself trapped if his best customers stop buying I.B.M.-based Macintoshes while they wait for more powerful Intel-based systems, which are likely to begin arriving in January 2006.
"There is going to be a long wait," said Mark D. Stahlman, a Wall Street analyst at Caris & Company. The power-conserving 64-bit Intel chips that Apple is counting on to rejuvenate its laptop products will not be available until early 2007, he pointed out.
In an interview, Mr. Jobs rejected the notion that Apple might suffer from what is known as the "Osborne Effect," a term that describes the fate of the computer pioneer Adam Osborne whose firm went bankrupt when he announced a successor to his pioneering portable computer before it was available.
At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Mr. Jobs talked of a transition that would appear almost seamless to customers. "As we look ahead we can envision some amazing products we want to build for you and we don't know how to build them with the future PowerPC road map," he said.
Nothing was seamless about how the deal with Intel came together.
Several executives close to the last-minute dealings between Apple and I.B.M. said that Mr. Jobs waited until the last moment - 3 p.m. on Friday, June 4 - to inform Big Blue. Those executives said that I.B.M. had learned about Apple's negotiations with Intel from news reports and that Apple had not returned phone calls in recent weeks.
Each side disputes what led to the breakup. People close to I.B.M. said pricing was a central issue, while Mr. Jobs insisted on stage Monday that I.B.M. had failed to meet promised performance measures.
On stage, Mr. Jobs noted that he had promised both a 3-gigahertz Macintosh as well as a more powerful PowerPC-based portable computer, promises that he had not been able to deliver.
In the end, Mr. Jobs was given no choice but to move his business to Intel, when I.B.M. executives said that without additional Apple investment they were unwilling to pursue the faster and lower-power chips he badly needs for his laptop business.
"Technical issues were secondary to the business issues," said an executive close to the I.B.M. side of the negotiations. Because the business was not profitable, I.B.M. "decided not to continue to go ahead with the product road map."
But Mr. Jobs disputed this assessment, simply stating that I.B.M. had failed to meet its technology road map. The issues in the end, he said, came down to speed and the absence of a chip that consumed less electricity than traditional processors designed for PC's.
"As soon as I heard Steve say that the factor where Intel's road map was superior was processing power per [watt] I knew right away that it was exactly what I have been reading and saying and so have many others, that this is the real key to the future of high performance computers," Mr. Wozniak wrote.
As it happens, Intel's was not the only alternative chip design that Apple had explored for the Mac. An executive close to Sony said that last year Mr. Jobs met in California with both Nobuyuki Idei, then the chairman and chief executive of the Japanese consumer electronics firm, and with Kenichi Kutaragi, the creator of the Sony PlayStation.
Mr. Kutaragi tried to interest Mr. Jobs in adopting the Cell chip, which is being developed by I.B.M. for use in the coming PlayStation 3, in exchange for access to certain Sony technologies. Mr. Jobs rejected the idea, telling Mr. Kutaragi that he was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believes will be even less effective than the PowerPC.
Now that Mr. Jobs has broken with I.B.M., however, Apple is free to pursue a potentially intriguing consumer electronics strategy with Intel.
Intel has been looking for ways to get its chips into devices that can compete with game consoles as living-room entertainment hubs. In fact, all three next-generation video game machines made by Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are based on I.B.M. chips. And analysts say that both Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3, scheduled to arrive next spring, will be positioned as home media hubs in addition to being video game machines - and priced far lower than the Intel-powered, Windows Media Center PC's that are also aimed at the living room.
Should the new consoles find wide acceptance as broad-based entertainment engines, Intel will need to respond - and one attractive alternative would be an inexpensive Macintosh Mini based on an Intel processor, able to run the vast library of PC games.
Before he can set his sights on that new market, Mr. Jobs faces the task of shoring up his base, his customers and developers. On Monday, he made the case to the software designers who must be willing to rewrite their software for the new Macintel world.
Early indications are that he made a convincing presentation.
"The reason people buy Mac is the software, and I think the real fun is yet to come," said Scott Love, the president of AquaMinds, a software concern in Palo Alto that sells a Macintosh program called NoteTaker used by writers, researchers and students. "We'll be able to develop a program that will just work on both I.B.M. and Intel-based computers."
Even more important will be Mr. Jobs' ability to persuade the Macintosh faithful to join him in his journey from I.B.M. to Intel. That is where he has an advantage over virtually every other executive.
"He is still committed to the idea of an Apple culture," said Peter Schwartz, the co-founder and chairman of the Global Business Network, a consulting firm in Emeryville, Calif. "It is the counterculture to the dominant Windows culture."
Indeed, Mr. Jobs has always set himself apart from other corporate executives. After all, which other American business executive would have thought to name the holding company for his executive jet airplane "Marmalade Skies"?
Steve Lohr contributed reporting from New York for this article..
Thursday, June 16, 2005
An "I don't really care" kind of day
This is one of those days when I woke up and I sut my eyes again. It's Thursday, the sun is shining, not too brightly with all the clouds in the sky. The alarm went off at 5:15 (or 5:30) and I set it to snooze. It went off again, and I turned it off. And I closed my eyes. After a while I looked at the clock, and it's past 6:00 in the morning. Again, I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, it was 6:30. No hurry. Just got up and out of bed. The kids had already finished eating and were already in their uniforms.
I got up, showered, dressed and ate. And out of the house by 7:10. I knew that when I went to the shuttle terminal, there would be a long line and I'd have to wait past 7:30 to get a ride. I got a ride past 8:00.
There was a girl ahead of me -- maybe fifteen "slots" ahead, which means she'd be riding one vehicle ahead of me -- she saw an acquaintance about thirty persons behind me. She dragged this second person to her slot in the line, and I don't care. What's the worst that can happen, I arrive late at the office? I was already running late. Funny part about it was that, the second lady got dragged to up the line, and when the vans came along, they rode in separate vans.
I arrived at the office around 9:15.
Late. Second day in a row.
Who cares?
--andoy
16 June 2005
I got up, showered, dressed and ate. And out of the house by 7:10. I knew that when I went to the shuttle terminal, there would be a long line and I'd have to wait past 7:30 to get a ride. I got a ride past 8:00.
There was a girl ahead of me -- maybe fifteen "slots" ahead, which means she'd be riding one vehicle ahead of me -- she saw an acquaintance about thirty persons behind me. She dragged this second person to her slot in the line, and I don't care. What's the worst that can happen, I arrive late at the office? I was already running late. Funny part about it was that, the second lady got dragged to up the line, and when the vans came along, they rode in separate vans.
I arrived at the office around 9:15.
Late. Second day in a row.
Who cares?
--andoy
16 June 2005
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Pinoypoets' Anniversary Night at Conspiracy
If you're a writer, a poet, an artist or simply a lover of literature, better block off Tuesday, June 28 on your social calendar. Pinoypoets (PP), an online community of literary enthusiasts, will be holding its first anniversary bash at Conspiracy Bar in Quezon City.
The event, dubbed PP 'to!(The Pinoypoets' First Anniversary), promises to be an evening filled with laughter, music, and of course, excellent poetry. Prominent social, academic, and literary figures Makati Rep. Teddy Locsin Jr, Conchitina Cruz, Vin and Kris Dancel, Noel Del Prado, Joyce Burton Titular, Enrico John Torralba, Hannah Romawac, Roli Inocencio, Monica Llamas and Gary Granada, are but a few of our guest readers.
The celebration will also be highlighted by performances from G-Strings, 10kpp, Rubberband, Johnoy Danao of Bridge, Paramita, and Hanna Romawac of Session Road.
Pinoypoets is a community of poets, writers and literary enthusiasts who share their works, thoughts and insights on poetry. Formed by less than 50 members in June 2004, Pinoypoets has grown to 250 members based in different regions of the archipelago---and even abroad.
Its primary objective is to facilitate a creative forum and enrich its members' knowledge and craft. Michael Coroza, Edgar Samar, Santiago Villafania, Louie John Sanchez, Eileen Tabios, Bino Realuyo and Jema Pamintuan, some of the most respected names in Philippine poetry today, are the group's consultants and critics.
PP 'to!(The Pinoypoets' First Anniversary), will start at 8 p.m. Admission is FREE! For more information, please get in touch with Rhodge Fernandez (721 7229, seventhgecko@yahoo.com ), Kathline Tolosa (09175777128, kathline_anne@yahoo.com ) or Romel Samson (09278470212, risingphoenix101@yahoo.com)
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
One of these days...
One of these days, this blog here will move direction, and there will be a real difference in approach between this and the other.
I think I'll move all succeeding poetry contents to the the carabao blog, including all the links to Pinoy Poets members. And this one will be for technology, rants, blog links, and other odds and ends. Random thoughts would be between the two.
Really, really other there entries will have to find a different home.
For now, the planned movement will be content-wise in an evolutionary manner.
--andoy
14 June 2005
I think I'll move all succeeding poetry contents to the the carabao blog, including all the links to Pinoy Poets members. And this one will be for technology, rants, blog links, and other odds and ends. Random thoughts would be between the two.
Really, really other there entries will have to find a different home.
For now, the planned movement will be content-wise in an evolutionary manner.
--andoy
14 June 2005
In My Opinion: Guilty! Jueteng
Guilty! (But then again, who else isn't.)
Let's just get this over and done with. Chavit Singson is guilty. He is a jueteng lord. He was and is, and will always be involved with jueteng. Pampanga Representative Mikey Arroyo is stupid enough to get into politics and he is stupid enough to receive money from jueteng. Iggy Arroyo? He's always been tainted since day one of the GMA Presidency. FG Mike Arroyo? Too many stories from unimpeachable sources about his backroom dealings.
And whoever goes into Malacanang will also be receiving a big sum of money from jueteng.
Which begs two questions: How can a child say that he has washed his hands, just because the right hand is clean? Or how can it be possible that a child can have a perfectly clean right hand, while keeping the left hand dirty?
That's my opinion.
--andoy
14 June 2005
Let's just get this over and done with. Chavit Singson is guilty. He is a jueteng lord. He was and is, and will always be involved with jueteng. Pampanga Representative Mikey Arroyo is stupid enough to get into politics and he is stupid enough to receive money from jueteng. Iggy Arroyo? He's always been tainted since day one of the GMA Presidency. FG Mike Arroyo? Too many stories from unimpeachable sources about his backroom dealings.
And whoever goes into Malacanang will also be receiving a big sum of money from jueteng.
Which begs two questions: How can a child say that he has washed his hands, just because the right hand is clean? Or how can it be possible that a child can have a perfectly clean right hand, while keeping the left hand dirty?
That's my opinion.
--andoy
14 June 2005
In My Opinion: Guilty! GMA Tapes
Why don't she just admit the whole conversation? Why do they need to do a white wash? I have no idea what they want to prove, and I guess, neither do they.
First of all, admit the tapes are true. Second, those tapes are passe. The events are over and done with and the "evidence" is inadmissible in court. And last, whoever did not cheat in the elections, are not in the Senate (or House of Representatives) right now. Last, I don't want Noli de Castro to be the next President.
Forget it, and move on to the next issue...
--andoy
14 June 2005
First of all, admit the tapes are true. Second, those tapes are passe. The events are over and done with and the "evidence" is inadmissible in court. And last, whoever did not cheat in the elections, are not in the Senate (or House of Representatives) right now. Last, I don't want Noli de Castro to be the next President.
Forget it, and move on to the next issue...
--andoy
14 June 2005
In My Opinion: Guilty! Michael Jackson
Hello World!
Just to make it clear, the last time I liked to hear Michael Jackson's music was with the Thriller album. And to think that when he started to record that album, he still had his original nose.
This is the gist of my gripe here: this was not the first time that he has been accused of child molestation. And this will not be the last time he will be accused. And how many more times will he be accused before he is found guilty? How many more stupid parents will allow their kids to play with him?
Michael Jackson is guilty. The parents' are stupid and guilty! And all of them are demented! Crazies!
--andoy
14 June 2005
Just to make it clear, the last time I liked to hear Michael Jackson's music was with the Thriller album. And to think that when he started to record that album, he still had his original nose.
This is the gist of my gripe here: this was not the first time that he has been accused of child molestation. And this will not be the last time he will be accused. And how many more times will he be accused before he is found guilty? How many more stupid parents will allow their kids to play with him?
Michael Jackson is guilty. The parents' are stupid and guilty! And all of them are demented! Crazies!
--andoy
14 June 2005
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Wala Lang
Lonely, dark and downtrodden mood... wala lang.
Our offices are located on the seventeenth floor and I dare not go anywhere near balcony (also called the smoking area) to take a look at the weather. I might jump.
I'm listening to "Somebody," "Both Sides Now," "My Immortal" and other downer songs including "Downtown" (no pun intended) which to me has downer memory connections.
Must be the rain. I don't know.
I am not going to jump! Besides I've already confirmed to join a photo session on Monday next week (13 June). That would be a shame, not attending a free photo session. (Ha! Take that, Lord Vader!)
--andoy
8 June 2005
Our offices are located on the seventeenth floor and I dare not go anywhere near balcony (also called the smoking area) to take a look at the weather. I might jump.
I'm listening to "Somebody," "Both Sides Now," "My Immortal" and other downer songs including "Downtown" (no pun intended) which to me has downer memory connections.
Must be the rain. I don't know.
I am not going to jump! Besides I've already confirmed to join a photo session on Monday next week (13 June). That would be a shame, not attending a free photo session. (Ha! Take that, Lord Vader!)
--andoy
8 June 2005
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Live from WWDC: Steve Jobs keynote - Engadget - www.engadget.com
Live from WWDC: Steve Jobs keynote - Engadget - www.engadget.com
Live from WWDC: Steve Jobs keynote
Posted Jun 6, 2005, 1:00 PM ET by Peter Rojas
Related entries: Desktops, Laptops
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference begins this morning, and you know what we’re waiting for: Stevie J. is expected to drop a bombshell and announce that they’re switching to Intel chips. Engadget bestest buddy Paul Boutin is there and will be live-blogging Jobs’ keynote for us, so stay tuned for all the gory details:
9:59am PDT - Paul says he’s in line to go in, sandwiched between NGerda from Wikinews and John Markoff from the New York Times. Everything should start rolling in a few minutes.
10:06am PDT- “Steve and his bottle of water take the stage. “Today is an important day.” Half a million members in the developer community. 109 Apple stores world wide get 1 million visitors a week. $500M in 3rd part products sold in past 12 months.
10:07am PDT - Steve is showing off the London store again. Those lucky RHD geeks! (RHD = right hand drive)
10:09am PDT - Video promo for Apple stores.
10:11am PDT - iPod update: You know you’re successful when you’re on the cover of The New Yorker (in a goofy cartoon). 76% market share. 430M songs sold thru iTunes. iTunes 82% market share.
10:12am PDT - Steve is explaining Podcasting. “TiVo for radio.” “Wayne’s World for radio.” “We see it as the hottest thing going in radio.” 8,000+ podcasts and growing.
10:14am PDT - “The pros have realized this is huge.” Rush Limbaugh, ABC News NBC News ESPN Disney Proctor & Gamble etc, long list. ot surprisingly, iTunes is adding Podcasting support, including a podcast directory in the iTMS. [Which is old news to us] “You don’t have to type URLs into iTunes, although you can still do that.” Demo: Adam Curry podcast in iTunes.
10:15am PDT - Curry sound bite: “Sixty million dollars worth of airplay strapped to my ass.” KCRW demo.
10:16am PDT - The Treatment KCRW show, with fat-sounding Kruder & Dorfmmeister theme music. The point being a podcast can sound as good as satellite radio. iTunes shows album cover art to go with songs being ‘cast.
10:17am PDT - Mac update. PC units shipped, growth is slowing fromm 10% 5 quarters ago to just above 10%. Mac has gone from less than 10% growth to just over 40% in most recent quarter. Steve showing high points of Tiger. Quicktime with H264 for Windows preview release today.
10:20am PDT - Steve running through gushy quotes about Tiger from the press.
10:21am PDT - 2,000,000 copies of Tiger sold already. 40+ Spotlight plugins, 400+ Dashboard widgets, 550+ Automator programs available in first few weeks.
10:23am PDT - Dashboard demo. Amazon, BusinessWeek, CNN. Calendar (Steve enters far-in-future Longhorn date), package tracker. NPR station finder. Steve is now explaining Wikipedia as “one of the most accurate encyclopedias in the world.”
10:25am PDT - OS 10.5 will be called Leopard. Timed for release near Longhorn.
10:26am PDT - “Now, let’s go to the big topic: Transitions.”
10:27am PDT - 1994-1996 Moto 68K -> PowerPC. “I wasn’t here then, but from everything I hear the team did a great job.” 2001-2003: OS9 - OS X.
10:28am PDT - “It’s time for a third transition. And yes, (puts up slide that says): It’s true.” Next slide is one word: “Why?”
10:29am PDT - “I stood up two years ago and promised this (3.0G PowerMac), and we haven’t been able to deliver.” Steve says it’s bigger than that, though. No roadmap for the future based on PowerPC - they can’t see a future.
10:30am PDT - Intel offers not just increased performance, but reduced power consumption. Transition will be complete by WWDC ‘07.
10:31am PDT - PowerPC - 15 integer perf units (not sure what) per watt. Intel does 70 per watt. “Mac OS X has been living a secret double life” for the past 5 years.
10:32am PDT - Satellite shot with crosshairs shows building where a team has been working on the “Just in Case…” scenario. Every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for Intel for the past 5 years. Here comes the demo!
10:33am PDT - “As a matter of fact, this system I’ve been using here…” the keynote’s been running on a P4 3.6GHz all morning”
10:34am PDT - Steve’s hopping through every app. Performance is snappy. He’s playing an H264 movie trailer for something wtih Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. “Ok, enough of that” he says after a few seconds.
10:35am PDT - Here’s the geekout for developers: Widgets, scripts, Java: they’ll just work. Cocoa - Xcode: small tweak, recompile. Carbon - Xcode - a few weeks of tweaking, recompile. Carbon- Metroworks: Move to XCode.
10:37am PDT - There’s a checkbox for builds: “Intel, PowerPC” that makes a cross-platform single binary.
10:38am PDT - Theo Gray, cofounder of Wolfram Research, comes onstage to talk about porting Mathematica in the past 5 days.
10:39am PDT - “I get the most ridiculous phone calls from Apple sometimes. This was like 9 c’clock at night and he says, ‘I can’t tell you what it is, but …” they flew out a developer with source code to do a demo for today.
10:40am PDT - Theo is hilarious. “I said, ‘I’ll send out our crack team of Mac developers that we keep on standby.’” Turns to guy standing next to computer. “That’s you, Rob.”
10:41am PDT - Theo says it took 2 hours to get it ported: “We had a lot of resources. There’s Rob, there’s Apple … your mileage may vary. But his biggest problem was figuring out what to do with the rest of the weekend.”
10:42am PDT - Mathematica demo. This stuff always makes me wish I’d studied harder at MIT.
10:43am PDT - Theo shows a 3D diagram being built and modified on the fly. “It could be experimental architecture, something you’d see in Vegas, or it could be candidate nanotech architecture.”
10:45am PDT - Steve back onstage: “Not every application will be Universal on Day 1.” A new technology, Rosetta, will run existing PowerPC apps on Intel. Dynamic binary translation, transparent to users. “Fast (enough),” the slide jokes, that most users won’t know.
10:46am PDT - Demo: MS Word PowerPC binary on Intel. Excel spreadsheet. They’re no notably slower than usual. Photoshop still takes forever to load, but all the plugins work. Photoshop Filters seem fast enough.
10:49am PDT - Select and premier ADC member software developers will be getting a build kit.
10:50am PDT - Roz Ho, General Manager of Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit, is onstage to talk about what MS is doing for the Intel platform.
10:51am PDT - Unfortunately her speech seems to have been written by a junior flack at Waggener Edstrom or Edelman. Waiting for her to get to a noun… Here we go: Universal binary versions of Office coming, as we just saw.
10:53am PDT - Bruce Chizen, CEO of Adobe, comes on, jokes that his mom thinks he works for Apple. “The only question I have, Steve, is what took you so long?”
10:55am PDT - Steve is talking about how Intel engineers turn out to be passionate about their products, just like Apple employees.
10:56am PDT - Paul Otellini, President & CEO of Intel, is on. “I suspect there’s a whole bunch of you who never thought you’d see that [Intel] logo on this stage. I was one of them.”
10:58am PDT - Otellini is telling a timeline story that goes back to founding of Intel in 1968, founding of Apple in 1976. Photo of Jobs and Robert Noyce together. As Markoff said to me this morning, people love to see photos of execs with long hair. Otellini says he asked Jobs, “Is that the last time you wore a tie?” Steve’s answer: “No, it’s the last time I wore a moustache.” 1996: “They set fire to our bunny person!”
10:59am PDT - Runs old TV ad: “Apple Computer would like to apologize for toasting the Pentium in public.” Otellini: “Now, we didn’t have a grudge about that…”
11:00am PDT - Here’s the talking point you’ll be hearing over and over: Intel chips run cooler than the PowerPC. More boilerplate about combining our strengths, two legendary companies, relentless advancement (advancement?) of Moore’s Law, etc….
11:01am PDT - More boilerplate: It’s not the end of the story, it’s just the beginning! He was funny about the bunny, though.
11:04am PDT - Steve is back on now, restating the theme of this as Apple’s 3rd big transition. “It’s not gonna happen overnight. We’re making AWESOME machines right now” (Frequent comment in the press line: Will anyone buy one in the next year?) “When we meet again here next year, we will have products with Intel processors entering the market.” Next year he’ll show Leopard. One non-boilerplate truth: “The soul of a Mac is its operating system.” Plus the slick industrial design, of course.
11:05am PDT - That’s it, show’s over!
-=0=-
Several things. Everyone on the Apple side is harping about the support and compatibility issues. What has been conveniently left out is that if it runs on Intel. It will run on AMD. And most probably, the Mac will be running on 64-bit Intel (or AMD Opteron, for that matter.)
--andoy
7 June 2005
Live from WWDC: Steve Jobs keynote
Posted Jun 6, 2005, 1:00 PM ET by Peter Rojas
Related entries: Desktops, Laptops
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference begins this morning, and you know what we’re waiting for: Stevie J. is expected to drop a bombshell and announce that they’re switching to Intel chips. Engadget bestest buddy Paul Boutin is there and will be live-blogging Jobs’ keynote for us, so stay tuned for all the gory details:
9:59am PDT - Paul says he’s in line to go in, sandwiched between NGerda from Wikinews and John Markoff from the New York Times. Everything should start rolling in a few minutes.
10:06am PDT- “Steve and his bottle of water take the stage. “Today is an important day.” Half a million members in the developer community. 109 Apple stores world wide get 1 million visitors a week. $500M in 3rd part products sold in past 12 months.
10:07am PDT - Steve is showing off the London store again. Those lucky RHD geeks! (RHD = right hand drive)
10:09am PDT - Video promo for Apple stores.
10:11am PDT - iPod update: You know you’re successful when you’re on the cover of The New Yorker (in a goofy cartoon). 76% market share. 430M songs sold thru iTunes. iTunes 82% market share.
10:12am PDT - Steve is explaining Podcasting. “TiVo for radio.” “Wayne’s World for radio.” “We see it as the hottest thing going in radio.” 8,000+ podcasts and growing.
10:14am PDT - “The pros have realized this is huge.” Rush Limbaugh, ABC News NBC News ESPN Disney Proctor & Gamble etc, long list. ot surprisingly, iTunes is adding Podcasting support, including a podcast directory in the iTMS. [Which is old news to us] “You don’t have to type URLs into iTunes, although you can still do that.” Demo: Adam Curry podcast in iTunes.
10:15am PDT - Curry sound bite: “Sixty million dollars worth of airplay strapped to my ass.” KCRW demo.
10:16am PDT - The Treatment KCRW show, with fat-sounding Kruder & Dorfmmeister theme music. The point being a podcast can sound as good as satellite radio. iTunes shows album cover art to go with songs being ‘cast.
10:17am PDT - Mac update. PC units shipped, growth is slowing fromm 10% 5 quarters ago to just above 10%. Mac has gone from less than 10% growth to just over 40% in most recent quarter. Steve showing high points of Tiger. Quicktime with H264 for Windows preview release today.
10:20am PDT - Steve running through gushy quotes about Tiger from the press.
10:21am PDT - 2,000,000 copies of Tiger sold already. 40+ Spotlight plugins, 400+ Dashboard widgets, 550+ Automator programs available in first few weeks.
10:23am PDT - Dashboard demo. Amazon, BusinessWeek, CNN. Calendar (Steve enters far-in-future Longhorn date), package tracker. NPR station finder. Steve is now explaining Wikipedia as “one of the most accurate encyclopedias in the world.”
10:25am PDT - OS 10.5 will be called Leopard. Timed for release near Longhorn.
10:26am PDT - “Now, let’s go to the big topic: Transitions.”
10:27am PDT - 1994-1996 Moto 68K -> PowerPC. “I wasn’t here then, but from everything I hear the team did a great job.” 2001-2003: OS9 - OS X.
10:28am PDT - “It’s time for a third transition. And yes, (puts up slide that says): It’s true.” Next slide is one word: “Why?”
10:29am PDT - “I stood up two years ago and promised this (3.0G PowerMac), and we haven’t been able to deliver.” Steve says it’s bigger than that, though. No roadmap for the future based on PowerPC - they can’t see a future.
10:30am PDT - Intel offers not just increased performance, but reduced power consumption. Transition will be complete by WWDC ‘07.
10:31am PDT - PowerPC - 15 integer perf units (not sure what) per watt. Intel does 70 per watt. “Mac OS X has been living a secret double life” for the past 5 years.
10:32am PDT - Satellite shot with crosshairs shows building where a team has been working on the “Just in Case…” scenario. Every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for Intel for the past 5 years. Here comes the demo!
10:33am PDT - “As a matter of fact, this system I’ve been using here…” the keynote’s been running on a P4 3.6GHz all morning”
10:34am PDT - Steve’s hopping through every app. Performance is snappy. He’s playing an H264 movie trailer for something wtih Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. “Ok, enough of that” he says after a few seconds.
10:35am PDT - Here’s the geekout for developers: Widgets, scripts, Java: they’ll just work. Cocoa - Xcode: small tweak, recompile. Carbon - Xcode - a few weeks of tweaking, recompile. Carbon- Metroworks: Move to XCode.
10:37am PDT - There’s a checkbox for builds: “Intel, PowerPC” that makes a cross-platform single binary.
10:38am PDT - Theo Gray, cofounder of Wolfram Research, comes onstage to talk about porting Mathematica in the past 5 days.
10:39am PDT - “I get the most ridiculous phone calls from Apple sometimes. This was like 9 c’clock at night and he says, ‘I can’t tell you what it is, but …” they flew out a developer with source code to do a demo for today.
10:40am PDT - Theo is hilarious. “I said, ‘I’ll send out our crack team of Mac developers that we keep on standby.’” Turns to guy standing next to computer. “That’s you, Rob.”
10:41am PDT - Theo says it took 2 hours to get it ported: “We had a lot of resources. There’s Rob, there’s Apple … your mileage may vary. But his biggest problem was figuring out what to do with the rest of the weekend.”
10:42am PDT - Mathematica demo. This stuff always makes me wish I’d studied harder at MIT.
10:43am PDT - Theo shows a 3D diagram being built and modified on the fly. “It could be experimental architecture, something you’d see in Vegas, or it could be candidate nanotech architecture.”
10:45am PDT - Steve back onstage: “Not every application will be Universal on Day 1.” A new technology, Rosetta, will run existing PowerPC apps on Intel. Dynamic binary translation, transparent to users. “Fast (enough),” the slide jokes, that most users won’t know.
10:46am PDT - Demo: MS Word PowerPC binary on Intel. Excel spreadsheet. They’re no notably slower than usual. Photoshop still takes forever to load, but all the plugins work. Photoshop Filters seem fast enough.
10:49am PDT - Select and premier ADC member software developers will be getting a build kit.
10:50am PDT - Roz Ho, General Manager of Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit, is onstage to talk about what MS is doing for the Intel platform.
10:51am PDT - Unfortunately her speech seems to have been written by a junior flack at Waggener Edstrom or Edelman. Waiting for her to get to a noun… Here we go: Universal binary versions of Office coming, as we just saw.
10:53am PDT - Bruce Chizen, CEO of Adobe, comes on, jokes that his mom thinks he works for Apple. “The only question I have, Steve, is what took you so long?”
10:55am PDT - Steve is talking about how Intel engineers turn out to be passionate about their products, just like Apple employees.
10:56am PDT - Paul Otellini, President & CEO of Intel, is on. “I suspect there’s a whole bunch of you who never thought you’d see that [Intel] logo on this stage. I was one of them.”
10:58am PDT - Otellini is telling a timeline story that goes back to founding of Intel in 1968, founding of Apple in 1976. Photo of Jobs and Robert Noyce together. As Markoff said to me this morning, people love to see photos of execs with long hair. Otellini says he asked Jobs, “Is that the last time you wore a tie?” Steve’s answer: “No, it’s the last time I wore a moustache.” 1996: “They set fire to our bunny person!”
10:59am PDT - Runs old TV ad: “Apple Computer would like to apologize for toasting the Pentium in public.” Otellini: “Now, we didn’t have a grudge about that…”
11:00am PDT - Here’s the talking point you’ll be hearing over and over: Intel chips run cooler than the PowerPC. More boilerplate about combining our strengths, two legendary companies, relentless advancement (advancement?) of Moore’s Law, etc….
11:01am PDT - More boilerplate: It’s not the end of the story, it’s just the beginning! He was funny about the bunny, though.
11:04am PDT - Steve is back on now, restating the theme of this as Apple’s 3rd big transition. “It’s not gonna happen overnight. We’re making AWESOME machines right now” (Frequent comment in the press line: Will anyone buy one in the next year?) “When we meet again here next year, we will have products with Intel processors entering the market.” Next year he’ll show Leopard. One non-boilerplate truth: “The soul of a Mac is its operating system.” Plus the slick industrial design, of course.
11:05am PDT - That’s it, show’s over!
-=0=-
Several things. Everyone on the Apple side is harping about the support and compatibility issues. What has been conveniently left out is that if it runs on Intel. It will run on AMD. And most probably, the Mac will be running on 64-bit Intel (or AMD Opteron, for that matter.)
--andoy
7 June 2005
Monday, June 06, 2005
Star Wars: Closure
One of the guys here in the office gave a comment that he was disappointed with the latest Star Wars release "Revenge of the Sith." He mentioned that it did not have any twist. I retorted that I knew the story as early as "Empire Strikes Back." The story was no secret.
The movie itself is a wrap up of all the six movies. It answers all the questions. It is closure, and as such, is a fitting end of the saga. No drama is needed. No twist. I only expected it to be a straight-forward story-telling. And it is.
It is not the best episode among the six. But it closes the circle. It was not meant to be the best either. There's "Empire Strikes Back" for that. Or even "Episode IV." That is all there is and that is all that it should be.
Vader Lives! Yoda Rocks!
'nuff said.
--andoy
6 June 2005
Anxiety Attack
One of the guys in the office, Butch, the senior programmer was sick last week and was confined at the hospital. During that time, another of the programmers, Julie was also absent for a day due to tonsillitis. This week, and another friend is not feeling well and she's going to have a check up tomorrow.
Personally, I don't like it when that happens. When friends are sick or not feeling well, I don't like it. I feel anxious about it.
When I'm talking with friends, I can somehow feel their anxiety and concerns. Sometimes, I want to give them a hug, but, within the context of Philippine society, this is not an acceptable behaviour. It is not politically-correct to hug an officemate, or to hug in public for that matter. And not with guys, nor with somebody much younger than you. Society!
I can only wait for news that all these people would get better. And that any feelings of anxiety that they have would all disappear. The (borrowed) anxiety and suspense is killing me.
--andoy
6 June 2005
Other Books
The questionnaire was limiting in a sense that if you read a lot of books, a listing of five books would not be enough.
Follows are some more books, just off the top of my head, which mean a lot to me and I really liked:
- "Psalms," from the Bible.
- Antoine de Ste. Exupery, "The Little Prince."
- Niccolo Macchiavelli, "The Prince."
- Kernighan and Ritchie, "C."
- Hemingway, "The Old Man and the Sea."
- C.S. Lewis, "The Chronicles of Narnia."
- Arthur Clarke, "2001, A Space Odyssey."
-=0=-
--andoy
6 June 2005
Books
I read a friend's blog, and she had a listing about books, I thought to myself: "I can do that. That would be easy."
Total number of books owned:
I have no idea. Lots, would be a starting point. I don't have enough space in one book shelf, the books are arranged three-deep. And I have about a third maybe, in a big box somewhere which got lost (or maybe these were borrowed and never returned.)
The last book I bought:
Tom Clancy? Netscape Development? Mac OS X? I'm not sure, but it must be one of those.
The last book I read:
Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising", for the nth time.
Five books that mean a lot to me that I really liked:
- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Lord of the Rings." The books were borrowed and never returned. I first read them at college, where the library has these big book bound copies. I kept borrowing and borrowing and rereading them over and over again. The first time I bought my own books were Irwin publications with the Eye of Mordor design on the cover.
- Richard Bach, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull." One of the few books which was the number 1 bestseller for two consecutive years. Actually, I don't know of any other book which was the number 1 bestseller for two consecutive years. A simple story wrapped around a very simple truth.
- Khalil Gibran, "The Prophet." The poetry of Gibran is astounding in its simplicity. "Your children are not your children, they are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself."
- "Ecclesiastes." From the Bible. (Have you read it?)
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch." A narrative of a single day in the life of a gulag prisoner. It is a solace when you are alone and you think that everything is an insurmountable problem.
Tag 5 people and have them fill this out in their blogs:
-=0=-
--andoy
6 June 2005
First Day of School
Today, Monday, 6 June is the first day of school. Both my kids are in high school. Darwi is a freshman and Kenneth is a sophomore. We've not really discussed the coming school year, but even before it began, there was a small but very pleasant surprise. Darwi was elevated to the star section. My wife Lilia was informed of this only Friday. Normally, the student is assigned a section upon enrollment. I have no idea why she was transferred to another section just days before start of classes. I don't know and I don't really care. I'm just happy she got "promoted."
Kenneth and Darwi started elementary in star sections. And then the grades caught up with them. When Kenneth started elementary school, my wife and I decided that she resign from work and devote her time instead to being a stay-at-home housewife to take care of the kids. It also gave us the chance to keep a close eye on the children's development. We made sure though, that there was no pressure on them. We wanted them to enjoy their childhood and school as well. No pressure, but we also tried to limit their TV viewing, as well as computer use.
Part of school preparations, Kenneth had a haircut. He let his hair grow during the summer vacation. It looked like a big shock of hair on top of his skinny frame. And, as usual, I also went with him to the barber to have a haircut. During the summer vacation, they also enrolled in summer classes. Darwi attended tae-kwon do, and Kenneth studied guitar. If plans push through, Darwi should be able to continue her tae-kwon do.
Several things I plan to do during the coming school year. I need to have a computer at home. And I need to have a DSL-internet connection. I also want to acquire a digital camera. Afterwards, I can move forward and teach them rudimentary web page development (HTML programming). And also their own web page or web log.
We'll see.
--andoy
6 June 2005
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