Archives for category: Technology

I used to complain about how crappy it is being a December boy.

People tend to sort of gloss over your birthday in favor of the usual Christmas shebang. They tend to give you one merged gift for your birthday AND Christmas.

This year, I got something that totally rocked though.

I thought it would be impossible  to top last year’s combined birthday/Christmas present (an electric headshaver), but got something even more rocking-er this time around.

Check this out:

Pretty, huh? It’s a Wacom Intuos tablet. The very same model I’ve been drooling over for the last year-and-a-half (even more so lately, now that I finally have a MacBook Pro), but never had the cash to purchase on my own.

It’s the bestest gift a frustrated Creative like me could have. You guys have no idea how painful it was drawing all my old artworks using the trackpad on my laptop.

Ceremonial first drawings..

I have invented one of the greatest devices man will ever know.

It’s called “The Borange”.

Its raison d’etre: to eliminate rush hour traffic on the Philippine highways.

(As a corollary cause, the English language will also finally have a word to rhyme with “orange”.)

To anyone who has ever attempted to drive down any of our major highways during rush hour, I’m sure this is a familiar sight – the lane you happen to be in is crawling with tons and tons worth of cars bearing humans with unbearably full bladders, whereas the opposing lane is practically empty. (See Figure 1a)


Why does this happen? I have drilled it down to one thing – the concrete divider separating north- from south-bound lanes. (See Figure 2a)

What if we could somehow reduce the space occupied by these concrete dividers – bring it down to a matter of inches, rather than the current 5-6 feet? Rope is too impermanent, steel too expensive. We need something more modern, more snazzy, more resistant against the forces of nature and errant SUV drivers.

What about… a laser beam?

Let’s take the argument one step further. Imagine if the Robo-Pods firing out these highly-destrucitve laser beams were adjustable? It would allow us to actually adjust the width of a particular lane depending on traffic conditions! (See Figure 4a)

I think it’s positively brilliant, this Borange system of mine. I’ll call it a “Variable Lane-Adjusting Destructo Laser Beam” system.

I got so excited, I’ve already mocked it up for my patent application.


I’m also currently working on a more basic version for developing nations. It involves carabaos instead of laser beams, but there are still a few kinks I need to work out.

But in the meantime, does anyone know the way to the IPO?

P.S. And why is it called the Borange? So that there will finally be something to rhyme with the word “orange,” fools! Bow down! Bow down and pay tribute!

 

So I was trotting off to the bathroom yesterday, desperate to (a) take a massive two-cups-worth-of-coffee pee, and (b) pick out the corn tinga from between my teeth. But fellow techosexual Oli stopped me and said, “Dude, I have to show you something really cool!”

He always has good stuff to show off (PSP, new Air Force 1′s, the iTunes 7 update, etc.) so I pinched my bladder shut and dropped by his desk.

It was the most amazing thing… 

A brand  new black iPod nano 8GB with the Nike+ kit!

It’s the coolest thing, I swear – and coming from a non-jogger like me, that’s high praise. He hooked it up to his laptop and showed me how it interfaces with the Nike+ website – how you can set goals in terms of time, rate, or frequency of running, visual graphs to show how your last 1,000 runs went, your performance boosts everytime you activate your PowerSong (his was OK GO!, naturally), etc.

I want one. I’m seriously thinking of handing down my year-old 30GB video so I have an excuse to indulge in new toys. I’d need four things:

(1) A black 8GB iPod nano (Php12,000)
(2) The Nike+ kit (Php1,700)
(3) A new pair of real running shoes – Nike? Adidas? Otto? Mighty Kid? Still dunno…
(4) A sports bra to support my massive man-breasts while I run

My boyfriend / roommate / alleged twin brother Michael and I have been sucked immensely and comprehensively into this lovely little online riddle thing called Dracula’s Riddle.

It’s a quest of over 80 separate riddles that take you through this intricate, slightly nauseous storyline featuring some really beautifully-painted, haunting backgrounds.

The riddles themselves are neat. Some are typical brainteasers of the logic/mathematics sort. Others require you to dip into literature/arts/music history. The rest are completely out of the box – you need to Google or Wikipedia some, you need to engage the amateur cryptologist in you for others to break their codes, you download mp3′s or MPEG files for vital clues or storyline progression, you have to check the source code for hidden Easter Eggs, you need to bust out Photoshop, etc.

We’re going insane! So much fun.

We’re stuck on riddle number sixteen, and are helplessly attempting to find a word that begins with the prefix “re-” and ends in a word that describes much activity.

*sits on my thinking chair and thiiiiiinks…*

Nakakatawa lang. As resident IT Champion for Marketing, I get to see a lot of juicy behind-the-scenes stuff on top of the cool hardware I’m assigned, i.e. DVD burner, 80GB portable hard drive, etc. 

Below is a notice our IT department sent someone for violating the Internet policy. Too funny.

Meron palang “yahoofs.com”?

Pero at least matitino ang mga sites na pinupuntahan niya – catholic-forum.com? Wild!

=====

Dear XXXXX,

Below is a summary of your January Internet usage.  It shows that there has been excessive accessing of non-business related sites which is a violation of Unilever’s Internet, Intranet and Email policy.  As a result, your Internet access will be immediately revoked.  Should you need access for your job, please send a justification endorsed by your functional director and for approval by the VPs for Finance and HR.  Note that usage will continue to be monitored and any future violations will be subject to graver consequences.

host / target request hit-% Byte

11,757,334

*.yahoofs.com 3649 0.25 345,960,000
other: 638 requested urlhosts 14512 23.9 83,013,061
*.pinoyexchange.com 4572 31.7 51,503,229
*.yahoo.com 10210 0.75 23,567,296
*.friendster.com 2001 12
*.typepad.com 226 0 10,153,485
<error> 4681 20.2 9,909,876
*.yimg.com 913 73.7 6,776,640
*.googlesyndication.com 992 0.5 4,526,747
*.unilever.com 295 67.1 4,427,361
*.2mdn.net 295 42 4,359,054
*.photobucket.com 177 27.7 3,707,816
*.flypeterpan.com 7 57.1 3,329,557
*.catholic-forum.com 303 7.92 3,194,536
*.adinterax.com 49 6.12 3,096,836
*.missouri.edu 56 3.57 2,892,967
*.biz-lib.com 178 0 2,495,031
*.usda.gov 48 0 2,457,950
*.economicswebinstitute.org 7 0 2,393,185
*.answers.com 493 52.5 2,072,621
*.blogger.com 182 59.9 1,909,118
TOTAL: 43846 583,503,700

 

Regards,

Asia IT Philippines

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