Stream of Ry

Here’s a concatenated screencap of the site:

Page 1:

Page 2:

And here are dig and whois returns: TESDA.txt

Well, securing the server is really supposed to be the job of the webhost (in this case, Bitstop Inc. or Ikoula judging from the whois records) and if this was on a shared hosting, oh boy, they’re in real big trouble with their other clients if they made some changes with the system files. Tsk tsk.

Important lesson from all of this: Do not use IIS.

Although I will not claim that Apache is bulletproof, I’m pretty sure it’s far more secure than IIS.

Edit: Tesda Women’s Center website is the one hosted at Bitstop.

The teaser video of the Durian Open Movie project used quite an epic accompanying music by Denny Schneidemesser. A lil’ searching should bring you either to his website or his newgrounds account which hosts his other music scores.

And the best part is, majority (or all?) of his music is licensed a CC-BY-NC-SA license which means it is perfectly legal to use his music scores in your personal, non-profit YouTube videos as long as you give him credit. You can also alter the work as long as it should come with the same CC-derivative license. :3

Right now, I’m listening to the said epic music titled “Entering the Stronghold” over at his NG page.

I am probably the only person who ever replied like this to such assignments.

It’s just that, in my opinion, an instructor who asks his/her students to use a particular software is compelled to provide for them a copy of the software or at least a source where they can get a copy. Furthermore, being in education, the copy should be legitimate or else risk being a bad influence to his/her constituents.

Piracy is not an alternative and I do not want to be an educated pirate.

How can we, as academics, condemn plagiarism and not piracy? In essence, they are the same — making use of a legal intellectual property without credit — only that in software, credit is in the form of currency.

Seriously, if I don’t get an alternative or a legitimate copy, I will not do the Machine Problem.

Feel free to comment.

After 6 days with grueling Internet connection, I am finally back home to a fast enough Internet.

What is Asia Source 3?
From the site itself, it says:

Building Capacities and Empowering Humanity through the use of Free and Open Source Software to connect, cooperate, and collaborate – the FOSS way.

And true to their word, it is an event where the participants gets the final word  to what we will get to learn in the end. It also fosters and environment where everyone is encouraged to ask questions and share what they know. For anyone dealing with FOSS, Asia Source 3 is a good way to make connections with other FOSS advocates as well as a breath of fresh air as new ideas flow in from the conversations and from the track topics.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ondoy (Ketsana) and Pepeng (Parma) came.
They saw.
Ondoy (Ketsana) conquered.
Pepeng (Parma) is still conquering.
They left hundreds dead, thousands homeless and millions and billions worth of properties lost.

Global warming made these typhoons the monsters that they are. I’m not so keen with the details but I suspect that the slight increase of water temperatures fueled these typhoons and while you may be thinking that “what’s a slight increase of temperature makes as a difference”, I suggest you review some chemistry and do some math and then come back with the numbers. (hint: Specific heat capacity)

You’re done? Yes, that’s a very large amount of heat energy and that’s what fueled these typhoons. I may be wrong here, but that’s what happened with the Hurricane Katrina. I don’t think it’s far off.

So, what should we do about it? What can we do about it? A lot thinks that the elections this coming 2010 will be a turning point for our country’s environmental policies. After all, the government plays a very big role in affecting a lot of things. Should they have environmental policies in place, I would very much appreciate supporting the solar panel market in a way that they can make it cheaper for the consumers. With these, maybe MERALCO may find a way to “buy back” any electricity produced by consumers’ panels whether as a bill-deduction or a rebate. These panels may help during calamities too. By providing that little bit of energy to be able to charge up your phone to call for help and heat water to drink or cook makes a lot of difference.

Also, electric cars and docking stations are well appreciated. They already started with the jeepneys, might as well go to the private sector. To boost up the sales, maybe they could provide tax discounts or any other merits for owners of these cars.

If both are a bit too far out to implement just yet, why not start with our garbage disposal? Have a policy for collection such that people will be forced to segregate their trash. What’s the use of segregating your trash when you see the trash collectors just dump ‘em all together?

(In Norway, if the garbage collectors see that your trash is not segregated properly, they will leave your trash bag on your doorstep. Yes, even if your doorstep is some 50 meters away from your trash bin, they will take it there.)

Then again, these are things that is a little bit beyond our reaches and the only thing we can do to affect change for the coming elections is to vote wisely. And I don’t like not being able to do anything else than that.

We can all help out. Trash is a very big problem. We should start reducing our own trash and dispose of them responsibly. At least, don’t throw them anywhere. A little plastic wrapping does not hurt your pockets when you put ‘em there, does it?

I think a lot of us have forgotten that whatever we do and whatever we fail to do has an effect on everyone. After all, no man is an island. Even if you did live in an island, whatever happens in that island affects everyone else in the whole world.

We all made the world change. We might as well change it again.