Under Republic Act 9492, most holidays would be moved to Monday. Of course the rationale, as usual, is to prolong weekends in favor of non productivity. Aside from deemphasizing the spirit of some holidays, this act also shows the Philippine government's lack of priority to the educational sector. In the University of the Philippines, and many other universities as well, for example, some classes are scheduled on Mondays. Some Monday classes are even scheduled once a week. What this act means is that Monday classes will definitely lag behind by an amount roughly equivalent to the number of declared non-working holidays. This is far more worse than the fairly distributed suspension of classes into different days of the week. At least with the past scheme, different classes will be delayed by a more or less equal amount. As if delays are not bad enough already.
Further reading...
I was finally annoyed enough to figure out which file was causing that annoying sound on errors on KDE. On Mandriva 2007, the file is located on:
/usr/share/sounds/KDE_Glass_Break.ogg
I renamed it.
I really did not like that noise. Especially when I am wearing a head set, the broken glass effect is just too sudden (very high rate of change derivative). It sorts of hurts my ears.
To add to that, customizing sound schemes does not look simple (if not possible). So I was forced to rename the file to hide it from the system.
I remember a strip in MAD comics saying that Japanese students are ahead of American students because they don't have to spend extra time for praying in class. (btw, I think routine prayers are hypocrisy, and are nothing more than memory exercises). The bottom line is, time spent on study or work contributes to progress. And here I am, in a country whose government extends weekends when there (is a) are holiday(s) for the week. As if the 2 day weekend had not been enough rest and boredom. So you'll have to wait till Tuesday to continue a project or till Monday to continue Thursday's unfinished tasks. Moving holidays also imply that the exact day of the event is no longer important, making them easier to forget. Sometimes, even not so popular annual events are suddenly promoted to non working holidays, making you wonder why the library is suddenly closed.
American students may be loosing minutes. Filipinos waste days.
It's either I'm lying to the quiz, or I guess good on multiple choice, or I rank as high ianalis.
This is the comic strip I created around 3 years ago (2004) when I was still the graphics editor of Scientia. Back then I was just experimenting with Photoshop (although I was ahead enough to volunteer for graphics editor). I started with version 6. I still remember when I was frustrated with layers. I eventually appreciated layers when I enjoyed altering photographs, putting people in places, faces in clouds, creating ghosts etc... And then came GIMP. It lacks some features of photoshop such as layer blending options, but it had filters that allowed me to do more things. For a time I tried 3d graphics with POVRay, but I immediately lost interest. And now, the latest addition to my list is vector graphics. I started out with Corel Draw (version 9), when Sr VRD had a copy of it installed on my work station to assist on making my SPP 2006 papers and posters. What I like about vector graphics, is the option to save images with embedded text (such as wmf format). This makes the text 'readable' (in a software sense) when the images are inserted to documents which eventually are converted to pdf format. It is also much easier to use when the images are not photo-realistic in nature; examples include: diagrams, experimental setups, flow charts ... figures that usually appear in geek texts.
...
Ok. Enough mental wandering.
Five long BS* years
95 thesis pages
1,351,965 bytes of source code
60++ GB of data
32 computing nodes
16 former computing nodes
633 nanometers of wavelength
3 years in the lab
3 SPP publications
3 mugs at the kitchen
3 class card markings
3 tubes of Alaxan gel to replace dozens of missed breakfasts
Countless sachets of instant coffee
Countless overnights
Countless sleepless overnights
Liters of sweat and blood
Several dozens of black shirts
Thousands of friends
Millions of enemies
One glorified Sunday
*The acronym BS may stand for other more appropriate words I'd rather not spell out.
As a reader of djvu ebooks, I got curious how I could make my own djvu documents. Making pdfs is quite trivial nowadays with many free pdf printers (PDFCreator, PrimoPDF, CutePDF). Using a printable document (created with Open Office or M$ Office), here's how I converted my .odt's to .djvu's with readable/searchable text (text not treated as graphics).
Materials & Equipment
Just when I thought my crammed fine arts paper is almost done, I suddenly realized that the SD Card's folder containing the photos (/DCIM/100CAMEA) is inaccesible to Windows and unseen to Linux. However, the photos are still browable through the camera's display. I tried both plugging the camera's interface cable and a third party card reader (by CD-R King) only to get the same ubfavorable results. I suspect this was due to recent proliferation of viruses targetting removable media (those that exploit autorun.inf) (I should had been more selfish!).
After failing to read the JPEG files from my SD card, I eventually remembered the night when Vera asked me for help on her unreadable USB flash drive. I used Drive Rescue to recover her files (downloadable here).
There must be a Windows counterpart for Konqueror. In addition to its web browser, what I like about Konqueror is its tabbed file browser. Unlike with Window$ explorer where you have to open many explorer windows when working with different directories. It's a mess.
ExplorerXP is a nice Windowze software that can do that. (Just leave the tabbed web browsing to Firefox)
...Back to thesis writing...
Waiting for the right words to come out
But not out of my mouth
Not from my pen either
Or this glorified typewriter
But out of nothing
Just wasting my time writing
Typing typing typing...
Ideas extracted out of emptyness
Ususually end up as a mess
Hanging exhausted before the next line
Juggling thoughts to make it rhyme
Maybe not this time
The opportunity is not mine
Hanging hanging hanging
Waiting waiting waiting
The world just keeps revolving
As my timid blood keeps flowing
Preventing me from dying
As if I am living
Figuratively said
I'm dead
Dead
My alarm clock/phone is gone. I don't use its phone part anyway.
back to thesis work...
Tomorrow supposedly will be my examination day in Music Literature. Part of that exam would be a name that tune type. In addition to their non intuitive foreign titles, I could not distinguish some tracks from the others. Not now, I need more time to familiarize with the music.
...
Back to thesis work...
My Linux box didn't start in gui mode:
When I run startx from the console, I see this part of the message:
...
(EE) Failed to load module "bitmap" (module does not exist, 0)
...
Luckily I remember installing an updated (apparently buggy) version of x11-server-common. That was the last stupid thing I did with my box while attempting to install vncserver so that I can work else where in the lab.
I reverted back to the older version using x11-server-common-1.1.1-11.2mdv2007.0.i586.rpm with --nodeps and --force options in addition to the usual -Uvih option of rpm.
Back to thesis work...
Cluster Report for Sat, 3 Feb 2007 10:31:59 +0800
| CPUs Total: | 19 |
| Hosts up: | 18 |
| Hosts down: | 0 |
| Avg Load (15, 5, 1m): 362%, 362%, 363% | |
| Localtime: 2007-02-03 11:02 | |
1) Getting an interview from Toshiba despite the fact that my DOST debts will prevent me from going outside the Philippines.
2) Seeing Glenn of theory lab in MRT on his way home from Ayala (around 3pm).
3) Seeing my brother also on the same train cab for a Magallanes-Cubao trip with pet stuff from Cartimar Pasay, just in the side opposite Glenn's.
4) Wearing a lite colored formal attire.
 |
