Lately we’ve had several whistleblowers risking their lives so that Filipinos may know the truth. Those who are outraged have upgraded their means of communication from texting to blogging; they’ve even come up with a backronym for it: Electronic Data Swarm Against Arroyo (EDSA).
But that addresses only the current political crisis, and not the greater illness plaguing the whole government. How do you moderate greed and corruption? Could it be through a specialized wiki-turned-watchdog like Wikileaks?
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Watch Orosman at Zafira. It’s beautiful, powerful, moving, inspiring. And it shows how a classic by the great Francisco Baltazar can remain so vibrant with today’s modern sensibilities. It’s perhaps the best play I’ve ever seen, considering every single play performed by the Dulaang UP is spectacular. More importantly, you will enjoy it. You will be struck by it.
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The story so far: Yahoo! is in a rut, Microsoft wants to buy it for $44.6 billion, and Google is worried that the Internet’s “openness and innovation” may cease to exist if the two make a deal. Scary times.
Update (08/13/09): Yahoo! and Microsoft have agreed to join forces in search.
Update (05/04/08): Microsoft gives up on its bid. Here’s a good coverage and a timeline of the whole thing.
Update (02/09/08): Yahoo! seems to have rejected Microsoft’s offer. Ars Technica has more for those who aren’t subscribed to the Wall Street Journal.
But I’m not here to look at the deep ramifications of quite possibly the most influential tech story we’ve ever had—even if we haven’t stopped to catch our breath since the last ones. I’m going to look at how Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! announced their latest thoughts. It’s pretty revealing:
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Yesterday marked the beginning of the UP Centennial celebrations, and it was a blast.
No, it was crazy! If you don’t have enough heart—and I mean both the love of UP and the will to wade through the crowd—you wouldn’t enjoy it as much. It’s easy for students and alumni who have been harassed by the pressures of college life to undervalue UP, but as someone who has lived and breathed the UP culture and excellence even before I officially studied there, UP will always be one of the most important things in my life.
No other university deserves the grandest and most meaningful of celebrations except the University of the Philippines. Happy Centennial UP! Let’s celebrate with some pictures!
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It’s amazing how many old, backward methods can be eradicated by the Web. Months ago a friend invited me to attend a business networking chapter meeting. I knew not too many details about it, only that it was a very prestigious organization, it would help grow my roster of contacts as a budding entrepreneur, and it would be better to experience firsthand how it worked.
MLM?
Despite how suspicious it sounded—MLM recruiters don’t divulge anything before the “meeting” and they flatter you—I gave my friend the benefit of the doubt. So what do you do in business networking meetings?
- Mingle. (Note: I don’t know about you but I think it’s common courtesy to introduce your guest to other people since you invited her and she took time out of her
busy schedule just to be there. Don’t leave her on her own especially since you did not brief her beforehand.)
- Have breakfast. (Note: I also think it’s common courtesy to inform her that she’s supposed to pay for the breakfast even though she’s a guest. Please don’t ambush her like that again.)
- Learn what the organization is all about.
- Formally introduce yourself by indicating your line of work and the specific type of clients you are looking for this week.
- Mention whose services you’d be interested in acquiring as well.
Pay to Enjoy Restricting Privileges
Oh, and since this was all done in an organized manner, restrictions applied. Only one person from each professional specialty is permitted to join a chapter.
Seriously? The Middle Ages comes to mind, or maybe Kid Nation, where you only have the upper class, the merchant class, the cooks, and the laborers.
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Everyone, I hope you’re enjoying your Christmas. Last year I mentioned our furry Belen, and if you were still wondering about that one, here’s a look.
Maligayang Pasko! Maligayang Kaarawan ni Hesus!
Correct me if I’m wrong when I say putting Yahoo!-powered advertisements inside Adobe PDF files stinks a bit like the ad-ridden Opera browser. Except that since 2005, Opera has thrown out the pay-for-an-ad-free-version.
So is Adobe going backwards and doing what Opera has done ages ago? Not quite.
These pay-per-click ads will be contextual, like Google Adsense and Yahoo! Publisher Network. Publishers also stand a chance to earn from this, not just the advertisers and Yahoo! itself.
Since contextual ads are much more profitable from a certain viewpoint compared to the distracting banner ads once found inside Opera, this is supposedly better, right? I guess so, but why go backwards and put ads on software that was previously ad-free?
Because technically, you’re putting ads on the content of the PDF, not the software itself. Still, it reminds me of ad-infested programs—99% of which are spyware.
You might have heard PayPal has arrived in the Philippines both for sending and receiving funds, and that the ideal way of receiving your funds would be through a debit card—rather than a credit card—which is provided solely by UnionBank.
Setting up the link between the Philippine bank and the online payment site was hardly troublesome, however I’ve tried withdrawing funds from PayPal over to my UnionBank account since November 14, but even after 11 business days (the maximum period for funds to appear, apart from the quicker 3-5 days) nothing has arrived since.
UnionBank says they have no control over the matter and that I had better contact PayPal about it. Well, right now PayPal is taking forever to load its pages. I can only hope the amount I withdrew has not yet disappeared, and that both parties won’t start pointing fingers leaving their customer a sorry victim from all of this.
Actually, UnionBank already has. There goes my hope.
Update (12/14/2007): After two support messages sent to PayPal all I got was this: “Due to an increase in seasonal email volumes, we may not have been able to answer your email.”
Update (12/15/2007): The PayPal funds seem to have arrived on December 14 according to the transaction log. So it took “exactly” one month to make it to the Philippines.
