Busy, Not Really

I haven’t been updating this blog because I’m running my own domain. You might want to check it out.

Hiatus, Not Really

I am transitioning to my own site. That’s where I’ll be posting most of the time although I will still keep this wordpress.com blog up and running. I have a feeling my site’s DNS has problems.

Oh, my site: http://bryanvincentking.com

Merry Christmas … and Physics

Again, Merry Christmas!

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I was (and am) working on my web project and stumbled on this guide on How to Study Physics and I found it to be quite useful not only to a teacher but also to a student. It answers a lot of basic questions such as WHY we study physics and WHY we go to college in the first place. It also mentions how to find the right questions to ask and how to write down notes–real notes.

Grandma Helen (93 years old)

Gmail is NOT Secure?

Today, I got this message from my Gmail account.

It reads, “Thousands of online accounts are hijacked every day. Enable 2-step verification to protect your account.“

I know Gmail wants me to use my phone number to verify and completely secure my Gmail account but does this also mean Gmail is very NOT secure since “thousands of online accounts are hijacked every day”?

NOTE: Tagged as sarcasm

“Unlimited” Texting & Calling

The Philippines is a well-known texting country. Most text… a lot.

The government has recently given the telcos a memo of sorts to guarantee the availability and usage of the “unlimited text promos they’re giving. For example, Globe has the SuperUnli 25. Sun has its own Winner10 for one day. All these are promos and to avail of these promos, you have to load up, text those code words and send to their respective providers. What irritates me the most is how the telcos are unable to give the consumer an automated way to get into the promo. I previously mentioned only one promo per carrier but there are actually multiple promos for EACH carrier–unlimited text only, unlimited call only, a combination of unlimited text and some amount of calls, unlimited text+internet+few minutes free call, unlimited text+unlimited call… the list goes on! I do not believe they’re incapable of doing this–they are simply unwilling mainly because of the money. As the government does its job to ensure the availability of these promos when their usage will peak during the holidays, the carriers seem to merely keep the status quo.

The plethora of promos by the carriers may be due to microfinancing (please correct me if I’m using this word wrong). Each person can load at least P5.00 or P10.00 and avail of the offers for unlimited texting and calling. The amount may seem quite small but add up to millions who may top up every single day and that amounts to a much much bigger amount. However, I was hoping for them to have something like an auto-enroll: if you exceed, say P10.00 worth of texting, they automatically put you into an unlimited texting plan for the day. Recently, Sun has offered what they call the “anti-shock” plan where if you go beyond your internet usage by the hour you pay, it floors at P900.00 and you can use all you want without paying extra. Applying this to texting and calling on the other hand will seem impossible. I do not think carriers spend a lot on texting. It doesn’t consume much in the spectrum (I believe) yet they earn P1.00/text (and by the way, this is taxable).

When will we ever have a truly perceptive carrier that can work with the consumers and still earn a profit for themselves? Having promos and a whole list of keywords are not real solutions.

“Old School”, They Call It

I admit it: I played a lot of video games when I was young. I was, however, limited to what I had like my Sega Megadrive 2. I had no Playstation at the time. And when I say “old school”, I’m not talking about Quake II or Counterstrike.

Last November 1 or November 11 (I’m too lazy to check the actual date), Sega released Sega Generations–a sort of revival yet a new take on Sega. I’m not the best person to review that game as I’ve been detached to gaming and very particularly SEGA for that matter. However, while browsing YouTube for some videos, I encountered some game OSTs and with a modern twist to them! AWESOME! Take a listen.

If you did play Sonic, you would most likely remember this soundtrack. Don’t you just love it!?! Meh. Some people might think I’m crazy listening to music without any vocals. They just don’t understand.

=))

Rainbows

Rainbows are beautiful. Even children can appreciate rainbows. I took the photo below upon seeing a rainbow on the 31st of October and the amazing thing is I never saw it at first glance.

Many of us have seen rainbows. Some of us know that light and water droplets cause rainbows to form provided the light shines through at a fairly correct angle. Few know the angles necessary to produce a rainbow. Rarely do people realize rainbows are polarized. While wearing my sunglasses, I never saw the rainbow until some children in the park mentioned seeing a gorgeous-looking rainbow up in the sky. I looked up and saw nothing through my sunglasses. And then I realized, my glasses were polarized!

What does it mean when something is polarized? Put it this way: human beings, on average, walk in-line and not sideways unless you’re playing defense in a basketball game. If there’s a door at the end of the room which is oriented upright, you can go through it easy but if there’s another door oriented sideways, there’s absolutely no way you can fit through that next door the same way you did through the first door by simply walking through it. This is ‘polarization’–letting something like light just go in one, say, direction and if it encounters an obstacle where it only allows light to enter in another direction, it might not go all the way through. You can brush up on it by watching this video here.

My glasses were polarized and a rainbow is polarized.  That’s why you can’t see rainbows if you’re wearing polarized sunglasses. Light from the rainbow goes through only one direction and your glasses can only receive the light in another direction and makes it difficult for light to enter thus hindering your ability to see the rainbow.

This makes a rainbow that more awesome than normal.

So science-y, I know. I think this blog deserves some sort of science-y post (even at the super-simplest level).

Dedicated to my Apple Fanboy Stalker

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Don’t forget! This month is “Eyes Appreciation Month”.

Trying to Write

“The universe, an immeasurable idea conceived by the human mind, was broken in the mind of Sergio. All had lost time and space breaking what seemed to be the dimensions he knew or had simply stopped expanding like the darkness one sees in the eye at night before being dead to the world. When he was in the darkness, everything was dry, completely wanting a touch of the slightest color. He could only reminisce on light—that which he could investigate for it had existence, something he misplaced, lost. Maybe it was the demise of the stars, which he couldn’t stop, for they were so intense, so colorful, so powerful. If he stood still watching Death wade through empty space, the birth of a dwarf star would have been magnificent to observe and him being so weak, would succumb to the lights, energies, and Death coming his way but Sergio understood this was not the end of nothing.    Having an intimate relationship with nobody made him see and cheat his way in the conception of something marvellous and impressive. And he found a way to do it from nothing.”

So far, I realized… I’m an awful writer.

Coffee

A few years back, my friends always ask me the question: “Why don’t you like coffee?” Recently, others are asking the same.

Staying in a dormitory for about a semester made my try out different things like waking up 6am in the morning to eat breakfast because if you don’t, most likely you won’t have food if you wake up at 7am. I saved a lot of time too being in a dormitory since there was a curfew which made you somehow study even if you disliked it. Later on, I craved for that ‘freedom’ the others were all talking about. (Long story short, I wanted to get a bicycle I could use to travel in campus but… well, you get it.) But what I remember most about dormitory life was the coffee experience.

A regular Sunday. Took breakfast at 6am. Slept right after breakfast. When I woke up, my friend started talking to me. He was amazed that I just slept right after breakfast. (It wasn’t ‘normal’ seeing me sleep right after breakfast. I was just too tired that day.) I stood up, stretched, and asked him why. He said he couldn’t believe someone like myself sleeping right after drinking coffee. WHAT? That drink I had this morning which tasted like a choco drink with too much ‘cream’ was COFFEE?

Well, that’s that. I late realized I’ve been drinking coffee for a couple of weeks now because from time to time, the cafeteria would serve us that drink and I never recognized it was really coffee. (It must have been the 3-in-1 kind or the one with too much creamer.)

I experimented with different kinds of coffee, none of  the names I remember well but I did find something I like — frappe (yes, the cold one). If I had to drink coffee, I would prefer this. Sadly, I don’t really ‘enjoy’ coffee that much than the next person. What do I enjoy then? A drink that makes one look ‘social’? I feel as if people drink coffee for the social attraction–the need to feel connected to other people. Then there are people who need coffee because they physically need it as their working hours are different. I am neither (sorry to disappoint). I don’t drink coffee because it will make me look ‘sociable’ or ‘cool’. I don’t drink it because I need it especially in the morning. I don’t hate coffee, just to be clear. I LIKE the taste of coffee but not to the point of having it everyday in my body. Am I afraid of being dependent on coffee? Yes. I am. Is that the real reason? No, of course not.

I love shakes. Fruit shakes, specifically watermelon-banana shake and mango shake. Sprite. Oh, MOUNTAIN DEW. I love mountain dew! (It was the ‘recognized’ drink in the dormitory back then.) I wish I could say iced tea, but I don’t want to go through THAT painful ordeal again at a pizza place in Dgte.

All this for coffee. I can’t believe it… and I don’t even drink it often.