big mango

The Very Sad State of Manila Zoo (Mirror)

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:46:00 +0000

By Karen Ang

Editor's note: this is a mirror of the article by Karen Ang, which was published on ProPinoy. I am publishing it here because our servers are overwhelmed with traffic.

When I was in grade school, we used to have field trips at Manila Zoo (http://www.manilazoo.org/). The zoo was in a sad state back then but after reading my friend Nix de Pano’s blog post, I became upset at how neglected the zoo is now. I will repost photos and some excerpts here.

The Manila Zoo is a 5.5-hectare zoo located in Manila, Philippines. It opened on July 25th, 1959. This zoo is almost 50 years old. The problem? It really does look 50 years old. Another problem? It receives millions of visitors every year, local and foreign. What a shameful tourist destination it is.

Dirt-cheap entrance fees. Probably one of the reasons for the zoo’s poor maintenance. Sadly they have no right to charge more either, based from the condition of the zoo.
Map of the zoo. Looks small and simple enough. But “small” is one of the zoo’s biggest problems.
Old, rusty cages. Hardly any animal in sight.
This is Mali, the zoo’s biggest attraction. He is an Asian elephant that arrived at the zoo as an orphaned calf donated from Sri Lanka. He is the biggest attraction but what kind of an enclosure is that? It’s sad, small, tight and boring.
Yes there is a tiger in this photo. Yes those are dead leaves from who knows how many days or weeks. Why isn’t anyone cleaning up the mess?
An even worse mess–literal trash? What is wrong with this zoo’s maintenance?
You can almost see its bones. Sick and not in the cool way.
How could it possibly get worse than that?
How about this rabbit’s untreated wound?
Or this ostrich with a dead eye?
I also found some more stories from visitors. A visitor from the US went to the zoo because his wife said it would be a good experience. He was able to watch in horror as a zookeeper punished an alligator by stabbing its head with a nail attached to a stick. (source) Another visitor claimed to have spotted a Philippine Eagle lying down dead on the pathway. The same person said a Palawan bear cat suddenly dropped dead in his cage in front of their 7-year-old nephew. (source)
It seems that there are also issues with the people who visit the zoo. A reviewer who used to love the zoo visited again recently and complained about people throwing things at the animals. (source) Another reviewer reported a man who fed a bird to the crocodiles, but was only answered with “that is no longer our concern.” (source)
Some people even called it “The Worst Zoo I’ve Ever Visited”, and said “Needs to be closed.” Another suggested, “Do not support this zoo. Go to the Philippine Avilon Zoo instead!”.
Sad, isn’t it? Our capital’s namesake zoo, a complete and utter shame. This zoo was once a good one. But poor maintenance ruined and destroyed it. Because of this, animals are suffering. I’d say they would be better off elsewhere, because this zoo is no shelter.
Unless things change.
According to the PETA Asia Pacific website, there were reports of Thailand planning to send a new elephant to Manila Zoo at the request of Mayor Alfredo Lim. But fortunately for them, it was found that Thailand had no such plan.
PETA Asia has apparently been campaigning against the zoo for years now. They sent the Mayor many requests to visit the zoo and see for himself the suffering the animals had to endure. The requests were ignored.
How are things supposed to change when our officials ignore these calls for change?
I guess all we can do is keep trying. Spread awareness, and pray that somehow, something will happen for the good of the zoo.
In fact, the zoo is reportedly attempting to improve their facilities.
Let’s see how that will turn out.
Edit: PETA Asia-Pacific has a petition you can sign to Stop More Animals from Suffering at the Manila Zoo. See it here.

How many times have we heard that Manila Zoo is trying to improve their facilities yet nothing changes. In fact, it has become so deplorable and inhumane that I would rather see it closed for good and the animals transferred to another country with better zoos.

Who is answerable to this? The Manila Zoo authorities? The City of Manila? Or us because we allowed this to happen? Certainly it is not the animals’ fault but they are the ones suffering the consequences.

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. ~William Ralph Inge, Outspoken Essays, 1922

We're Moving!

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:44:00 +0000

Hey, glad you could find me here. I'm keeping this site running but it will no longer be updated. You can find new stuff from me on tumblr and twitter.

I'd like to thank you for reading all these years. It has been a blast! See you at the new place, all right?

Cheers!

My Twitter Stream Right after Pacquiao Versus Hatton

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Sun, 03 May 2009 03:59:00 +0000

The Continuous End-to-End Missed Opportunity of Desktop Linux

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:43:00 +0000

A recent PC World post asked, if Desktop Linux has missed its opportunity. Oh, boy. Did it ever.

Understand that I've been using Linux more years than I've been using Macs, and I'm sold at how solid Linux is. I rely on Linux everyday to run my back-end stuff and my network. Apple fan boy that I am, know that this isn't any religious bias when I say, Desktop Linux sucks. Let me tell you why.

The kernel aspect of it--- the schedulers, the memory management they're all good as it is. This underlying technology can handle Desktop Linux no doubt.

For years, Desktop Linux--- Gnome or KDE has had the look and feel of Windows. And it sucked. Have you seen the standard Ubuntu color?

Linux for years has offered little to differentiate itself from the market. In fact, a few years ago, no decent distro would install mp3 support natively. None. nada. You'd have to hack it to get decent mp3 playback. And the slow support by Intel, NVidia, and ATI for their graphics cards have long been an issue too (which has changed considerably in the last two years or so)! Hell, Flash Player couldn't run properly on a 64-bit Linux machine up until quite recently. Then there is the eye-candy of Compiz and Fusion are only now being integrated into the whole shebang. With technologies like XMBC Media Center, and with projects like Gnome 3.0, things are getting better right?

When Red Hat ($RHT) walked away from the consumer market, it was a punch in the stomach for Desktop Linux. No one wanted to buy it. And for good reason, you can't even play games that your friends were playing on it. And like I said, you were still expected to hack most of the media stuff yourself. Yes there were games like Tux Racer, but haven't you been a kid before? People were using windows because they liked to play PC Games too. With their friends. Wine for all its power took too long to get to market.

It wasn't so much as a developer problem writing linux native windows drivers, because TransGaming has succeeded in that. Have you seen Cider? You can run spore today on Macs and Windows using cider technology, which is based on wine. Yes, it is imperfect for hard core gamers but the casual gamer wouldn't be arguing that much, right?

So the question is, why haven't Dell ($DELL) or HP ($HPQ) jumped into integrating Linux more into their machines? Think about it: an Ubuntu base, with a customized Dell User Interface and User Experience with properly licensed mp3, dvd playback technologies that can run native windows applications like Photoshop, Office suites, Chrome, Halo, Left4Dead, and Fallout 3, why hasn't anybody done it?

Is it because they'd have to answer to Microsoft's wrath?

All this world needs is one huge PC manufacturer that has the clout to integrate Transgaming technologies, an innovative User Interface and decent User Experience and a Linux foundation and you have not just serious competition to Windows, but Desktop Linux. The real deal.

How much did Apple ($APPL) spend to initially develop OS X? Surely, Dell or a similar company can do it. Surely, other material that are not open sourced can be licensed.

If you look at Apple's success even during this recession, it is a shout in the bow that PCs and, specifically Windows--- sucks. People are tired of viruses and trojans and reboots. And while Windows 7 addresses most of the issues of Vista, have you seen how it arranges Control Panel? Seriously, the damn thing is so complicated, it takes a rocket scientist just to decipher what it all means, much less to get it to work right.

The problem of Desktop Linux has been too many cooks. Desktop Linux suffers from the Windows mentality of mediocrity. There is no focus. It looks and feels like Frankenstein on top, when in fact under the hood, the kernel and the infrastructure around it is ready. Avahi technology on linux is like Apple's bonjour for instance and it works right out of the box.

The other truth is, the best unix desktop for the consumer right now is Apple's Mac OS X and boy, it could have been Linux. Still could really. No one just has the balls to try to do it right.

Don't get me wrong, the building blocks to making a true and ultimate desktop linux experience that challenges the status quo of Microsoft's dominance is here or getting here and like Lego bricks, someone just needs to put it all together and polish it. The continuous missed opportunity is that Linux distos are following the Microsoft formula of we're software only. No one dares enough to combine in one single polished product both the PC and Linux in an end-to-end solution and tell the customer, yes, we're responsible for all of it. In the words of Alan Kay, "people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware". It's also true isn't it that people who are serious about hardware should write software as awesome as their hardware.

The Oracle and The Sun

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:34:00 +0000

This changes things. Australia and the rest of Asia woke up to this startling news that Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corp have tied the knot.

Sun Microsystems owns the company known as MySQL AB. It provided sponsorship and support for the free open source database called, MySQL which is used the world over from Wordpress blogs to flickr, facebook and enterprises. Oracle is a world leading database company. You can imagine that both are in competition and both are development philosophies are opposite.

Yep, Oracle's market share just shot up.

The beauty of this Open Source license under which MySQL is licensed is that it remains free. Oracle doesn't own it. It owns the proprietary stuff that is coupled with MySQL and it may very well halt support and sponsorship for the project--- but the code can live on in someone else's backyard or developers the world over who are not satisfied with this latest development can invoke their right to fork. Which somewhat has happened with MariaDB.

It isn't to say that on the database market there isn't any competition at all. PostgreSQL is right up there. IBM and Microsoft have their offerings too.

There are other more interesting things here too. Oracle just got themselves an Operating System. OpenSolaris coupled with ZFS or Oracle's Cluster File System--- hello shot in the bow, not just at Microsoft and IBM but Red Hat too! For years, Oracle has been trying to get their own operating system. And that's exactly what it is, as per how Larry Ellison, big fish over at Oracle was saying about the deal.

OpenSolaris with a former Debain Linux guy (Ian Murdock) running the show is certainly moving Solaris towards a more-linux like feel, with Gnome and userland tools familiar to Linux users. Coupled with ZFS and Oracle's software assets, most certainly this is a threat to Linux and Microsoft.

At the end of the day, Oracle's "stewardship" of the software assets that it has just acquired from Sun may determine if the 7.4 billion dollars it has spent for it is good money. There can be no denying that an IBM buy of Sun was the better deal for developers, and for customers but this move by Oracle does shake things. In a down market as we have right now, it will be most interesting how this plays out.

The other thing is... "owning" things these days isn't the same as owning the software. Certainly, IBM buying say, Red Hat wouldn't do much to "own" linux. More like throwing money at something they don't really need to. It would just solidify their commitment to that platform, think more public relations than any practical result. IBM also gets JBoss. And the chess game of mine is bigger than yours will ensure. Maybe we'll even see a new operating system war.

At the end of the day, the market just got interesting.

Is IQ all there is to it?

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:54:00 +0000

Sam Knight of Financial Times wrote about Marilyn vos Savant, who has a recorded IQ of 228:

There is only one question that seems the wrong thing to ask Savant, and that is what else she is supposed to have done with her life, with her glimmering brain. To ask it is to miss the point. I told her when we met that I had always imagined intelligence to be nothing more than a tool. On that foggy afternoon, before we said goodbye, she wanted to correct me. “I suppose it could be and it should be,” she said. “But it also seems to be an attribute or a quality or an aspect of one’s humanity that one need not use to get something that you want … It can just simply be part of you. And I think that’s fine too.”

There's wisdom in that.

Faith and Science on a Good Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 04:48:00 +0000

I haven't seen this since I was a little boy: an Ocean of People flocking at the courtyard that sat around a Cathedral and statues of Saints, of the Virgin Mary and of Jesus are like islands atop crashing waves. To move you got to rub shoulder to shoulder. One can hardly breathe. Don't get me wrong, I go through this Good Friday ritual procession in Manila but the crowd isn't like this. At all.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate crowds?

If I mentioned that as I pan my eyes around, one can notice that there were loads of pretty young women around. That's digressing, right?

Anyway, so it took awhile but we made our way inside this massive Cathedral, the lights blaze bright. At the end of the massive hall, there stood the Altar, bare. To its side, lines have formed as Men, Women and Children kiss a small statue of the Crucified Jesus.

It isn't idol worship. Is it?

The status around this massive Cathedral are used as teaching aide. It gives people something tangible to hold on to. It helps a religious people to visualize history like their saints, and the abstract concept of their God.

Some part of me thinks... there are Catholics who don't see it that way because there is so much more to the Catholic faith than this. There is the lesson and wisdom of service in the washing of the feet, for one.

And another is this NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory snap of a very young and powerful pulsar, (PSR B1509-58):

Faith need not be at odds with Science; the latter is a quest to describe and discover this Universe of myriad possibilities and beauty. This is a universe that Faith believes was made by the hand of God and can be a celebration of that belief. If you happen not to believe, the universe is still a beautiful place, isn't it? And yet I can not help but wonder that a lot of people will spend this Easter missing that point too.

image credit is:

Credit	NASA/CXC/SAO/P.Slane, et al.
Scale	Image is 19.6 arcmin across
Category	Supernovas & Supernova Remnants, Neutron Stars/X-ray Binaries
Coordinates (J2000)	RA 15h 13m 55.52s \| Dec -59° 08' 08.8
Constellation	Circinus
Observation Date	12/28/2004-10/18/2005
Observation Time	52 hours
Obs. ID	5534, 5535, 6116, 6117
Color Code	Red (0.5-1.7 keV); Green (1.7-3.0 keV) ; Blue (3.0-8.0 keV)
Instrument	ACIS
Distance Estimate	About 17,000 light years
Release Date	April 3, 2009

originally posted at Filipino Voices

Google's First Container Based Data Center

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:02:00 +0000

Sweet.

via Blogscoped

Philippine Government Sites Defaced, Linux blamed

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:25:00 +0000

the journal online:

"government offices hit by hackers during the period were the Department of Education, PNP, National Power Corporation, Commission on Audit, DOJ and the National Computer Center. But majority were local government units in the countryside. The last time the Congress website was defaced was in 2007.

Hackers used the Linux Operating System (OS) to deface 507 of the websites, WIN2000 71 times; and WIN2003, FREEBSD and WINNT9X 13 times each.

Of the 667 government websites defaced during the period, 507 or 76 percent were using Linux as their OS. Sosa said this is because the latter is the most common operating system being used by government offices since it is a free software and openly available."

Please spare me from people who don't know technology?

So from where i stand they were able to determine that the hackers used linux to deface the sites.
It isn't the operating system that was hacked but websites ergo, webservers. i'm guessing, apache was not secured/patched.
The article didn't state if the machines were root hacked.

This is FUD:

“Further, these top hackers have targeted the national and local websites of the PIDS, DOST, DOLE, Napolcom, Supreme Court and Department of Education which are using the Linux Operating System, a free and openly available software which makes them highly vulnerable to hacking,” he said.

Is this because there is a pending open source bill at the house of representatives?

updated: a webserver, for you uninitiated into the world of server technology is like Microsoft Office or Yahoo Messenger. It runs on top of the Operating System (Windows). So in this case, the Webserver runs on top of Linux. The breach, so far as the article described it wasn't a breach of Linux--- but the webserver. There are myriad ways how a website may be defaced. It could also be the webserver wasn't patched or secured.

IBM + Sun Marriage Talks Collapse

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:44:00 +0000

Seriously, Sun ($JAVA), it was a bloody no brainer! IBM ($IBM)'s offer of US$9.40 per share was overpriced! All Sun had to do was to dot the I's and cross out the T's.

ZDNet: 10 reasons why Linux will oust Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 06:07:00 +0000

I can give two reasons why it wont (at least not in the foreseeable future):

1) User Interface and 2) User Experience

...are still way behind Windows. For example, highlight a word on any app or part of a linux desktop, whether or not it is KDE, or Gnome, and a context menu should pop that says, search in google or look up in dictionary... etc. Click it and the default browser must go to google or the machine fires up the dictionary.

On OS X this very thing makes life easy for the user:

That's just one example.

That isn't to say Linux hasn't improved over the years, and after retrying Sabayon Linux 4 the other day, I must say, it has improved a lot. It is much more useable now.

Can Design Save Newspapers?

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 06:01:00 +0000

wow. just awesome. made me think about some webpages like FV.

Colbert Report with Biz Stone, Twitter Co-Founder

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 00:39:00 +0000

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Biz Stone

comedycentral.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

Hilarious.

TechCruch (rumour): Google in talks to buy Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:49:00 +0000

This is great. I hope the marriage happens. I also hope Google doesn't turn Twitter into another Jaiku.

The Financial Crisis: An Inside View

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:10:00 +0000

Click here for the PDF. Good read via Calculated Risk.

Microsoft Buys Transgaming, will move Windows to Open Source

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:06:00 +0000

In a startling announcement, Microsoft's Steve Balmer announced that the Redmond company has purchased Transgaming Inc., for an undisclosed amount. Microsoft also announced that it will be moving its basic code base to Darwin, shocking the global computer industry.

"Today marks a new era for Windows. We have purchased Transgaming Inc., and will use their Cidar technology to power legacy and future Windows applications as we migrate to an Open Source code base for Windows. This code base will be shared across everything from Windows Mobile to Windows 8 and Windows Servers." Mr. Balmer said.

Mr. Balmer when asked why the sudden change, "Frankly, this has nothing to do with the Internet Reboot scheduled for today as some of you have speculated. I'm tried of being compared Apples to Oranges with our friends from Cupertino. For Windows 8, we will be moving our basic code base to Darwin, which is open source and which coincidently is the foundation for OS X. Make no mistake that the entire User Interface and User Experience stack will be familiar to Windows users everywhere."

Michael Dell when asked how this will affect Dell Computers, simply said, "We asked Apple once before if they will licensed OS X to us. Now, Microsoft has anted up. Windows 8 will look great on future Adamo notebooks!"

Industry pundits point out that this too is a shot across the bow for Linux. Now that the world has gone Unix, industry insiders said that it will be an interesting few years.

Apple declined to comment. Microsoft stock rose 5% in after hours trading on news of this purchase.

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Every journey has to start from somewhere. This could have began like many mornings at Figaro’s along Emerald Avenue. I’m at my favorite spot, by the window, right under the air conditioner, sipping my latte and eating a sandwich. Every morning, 32 oz of latte. Five years back, there was hardly any pedestrian walking at six thirty in the morning. I’d meet my friends for breakfast here. There were likewise countless morning meetings held here. The office after all was just across the street. Those were good days. Today, it is constantly alive. People come off nightshift and people check in for the morning. Strange how home doesn't feel like home anymore.

I glanced on the display before me. Safari pointed to Curfew imposed by Government, regarding Red Cross.

I mumbled to no one, “Here we go again.” Then a sip of Latte.

People have been kidnapped down south before. Still, the government wouldn’t crush these terrorists or at least mount an unrelenting campaign against them. Yes, I understand that there is an economic component associated with this problem. That poverty plays a role but indecision is the bigger problem. They kidnap, we send in troops. Sometimes people die. And things are forgotten, buried under the next news cycle.

“Damn.”

The past few days has been this unknown, Chip Tsao. So is the guy a school yard bully and does it hit a raw nerve? Chips’ publisher has apologized, sort of. Should we close the book on racial slur? Of course the government is onion skinned, and over the top when it shouldn’t: HK journalist on RP immigration blacklist. Another Claire Danes, I thought bitterly.

Seriously, should we be Outraged?

Ricky Carandang wrote:

And now we’re all outraged when some wise ass in Hong Kong claims that Spratlys are theirs? What the fuck did you expect? Everything we’ve done these past few years has served to undermine our claim to the Spratlys. Maybe not legally, but certainly politically. So isn’t this guy just calling it like he sees it? And now we’re going to get ourselves into a huff and I can bet you some politician is going to write the HK Magazine to demand a retraction and/or an apology. And I can bet you some other politician is going to make noise about filing a formal protest.

We are so easily offended by the most casual insult towards our country by outsiders and yet we cultivate a blind indifference towards the daily rape of our country by our own citizens. There’s nothing wrong about being a maid in Hong Kong. Its honest and dignified work. What’s sad is that the only reason they have to be there is because they can’t find decent well paying work here at home. And who’s fault is that? Is it the same people who are so angry about this latest slur to our dignity?

Its much easier to pretend to be a nationalist then it is to actually be one.

I agree.

Scrolling down Google Reader, I saw @mlq3’s post on Problematic “Nicole” which was still unread. So I clicked on it. On Nicole, he wrote:

“From the start and to the bitter end, the whole case has revealed to us, much more about ourselves, individually and collectively, than perhaps we’re prepared to accept.”

Indeed.

I glanced at the onboard clock and it was nearly 8 o'clock and the remains of my sandwich and half empty latte sat on the table. Time for the Explainer?

Interesting conversation on Darwin, right?

I click back to Google Reader and browse through The Warrior Lawyer's Will Murder Raps Against Senator Lacson, stick? Perhaps, I'm turning into a cynic to think, that all this is just drama.

Then I see Smoke who says, "we topped eh". It reminds me of benign0's post, "Earth Hour is bullshit." Both reminded me of Batman & Son. In chapter two of that book by Grant Morrison, Jezebel Jet says to Bruce Wayne, "It's easy to wear a t-shirt that says, 'Make poverty History', until it fades in the wash" Bruce Wayne responds "I'm all for it. And while we're at it, let's make wealth compulsory. It would solve so many of the world's problems if everyone were a millionaire, don't you think?"

Same banana, don't you think?

Earth Hour, I joined but let's all do our bit for Planet Earth: be more energy efficient. Also, let's get cleaner technology out the door and support it! That's one bit we can do for tomorrow.

On the table were the remains of breakfast. That meant, time to go. Makati was next on my list to do. I packed my things and started to walk. MRT time. I'd be lying if I said that MRT is my favorite means of transportation. I echo Arbet's most apt description of the whole MRT experience:

Pero sa totoo lang, walang tatalo sa mga babae pagdating sa singitan. Pagdating sa MRT, ang mga babae nagiging Amasona. Pramis.

Tulad nung nangyari kahapon. Madalas akong naka iPod pag nasa MRT kasi naiirita ako sa nakakairitang paalala na palagi mo na lang maririnig sa mga istasyon ng MRT. Wala namang sumusunod. Tulad ng “huwag umapak sa dilaw na lines.” Goodluck. Ako lang yata ang di umaapak sa dilaw na lines eh.

Anyway, so kahapon maswerte ako at nakapwesto agad ako sa platform, pero syempre di ako nakatapak sa dilaw na lines. Makakapasok agad ako ng tren, sabi ko sa sarili. Pero ilang segundo lang, may nakatayo nang babae sa harap ko. (doh)

Isang example pa lang yan. Dapat yata magsuot ako ng sumbrero na may video camera, para marecord ko lahat ng mga pagsingit na ginagawa ng mga babae sa MRT. Hay naku, dapat wala nang segregation scheme kung ganyan din lang naman mangyayari.

Ayala station and as I walk out of the train, phone in hand, I start to send out a text message. Driver responds that he is waiting for me as scheduled by Glorietta 4. Brisk walking, I see a familiar black Expedition, heavily tinted. I climbed onboard and at the backseat, my change of clothing is there, all pressed.

Transformation time.

I exchanged my plain clothes for a deep-blue necktie and my favorite red, long sleeved shirt. Fifteen minutes later, I sat at Makati Shangri-la's lobby lounge. I was always early for a meeting.

Of course, I'm not doomed to leisure as Sparks is. Not when I'm reading Rochelle's Bloggers Night Out by Playboy Philippines then Atheista's The Twelve Best Pinoy Bands of All Time According to S Magazine before I came across @momblogger advertising her daughter's new enterprise. We need more enterpreneurs, imho even as I'm reading How a Modern Depression Might Look -- If the U.S. Gets There.

I put the machine to sleep. Meeting time.

This is how it used to go down, after all the preliminary talk is set aside. I give my song and dance. Numbers are solid. I know it by heart. The guy sitting across me is 30 years my senior and in a barong tagalog (formal Filipino suit). I never meet people my age.

There were always two lines of script that they follow. If the guy sitting across me is a fellow contractor, he'd lament at how much for the boys commission needs to get out. He'll give you a sob story about how he funds this trip to some Gentlemen's club for the boys. It's the same old story you hear everyday that common people lament and suspect but there is never any proof. The second line is if it is some official of the government that is right in front of me. His speech starts off like "You need to give a more formal presentation and send in some paper work. Make sure it is received at the office. Paper work matters so when we deliberate, we can back it up with paper work." This is followed most certainly by, "Yes, we need to have your gear, but you know how it is. We need funding. Can you get Cong to finance this equipment purchase? "

In other words, what strings can you pull? Real or not, that's up to you to decide. Of course that is a different world.

Tony writes about another side of the Philippines:

What do the Alabang, Paranaque and Quezon City incidents, the Kuratong Baleleng rubout, the suspicious slays of crusading journalists and the murders of nearly a thousand activists have in common?
They are all arguably extrajudicial or extralegal killings — deliberate murders of individuals by elements or agents of the state, with approval or sanction by superiors, without due process or outside of the law, and most of them are politically-motivated.

So, is the Philippines, ‘poster child of impunity’?

The drive back Greenhills would rarely take a long time. The sight of course is typical. There are bridges in Manila where people live in shanty houses at top a stagnant creak or river. The urban poor, with their feces, their garbage and their food mixing. The sight of children, half naked and playing outside can be heart wrenching. We're used to it, right?

Still, sometimes, don't you wish it could make you sick in the stomach?

Have you ever seen Manila high above and at night? Have you taken the time to admire the points of light that look like jewels sparkling in the dark? I do that at night watching cars zip past my office window. Even at midnight you could hear them zoom at EDSA. Between midnight and six o' clock in the morning it takes about fifteen minutes from Quezon City to Makati. That's about an hour, to two hours, on a regular rush hour day.

At night, Manila hides all the grime and dirt the city has. Everything is the stuff of legend and myth. There are no shanty town eyesores. There is no hodgepodge architecture. There is no sense of corruption. There are no mindless trivialities about the most minute aspect of daily life. There are no gun carrying husbands shooting their tired, abused wives nor of children digging in the dump, eating fast food leftovers. Don't you sometimes wish we were fighting Magiks and Demons, Monsters and Aliens, psychopaths and megalomanic dictators just to keep life interesting?

Then there was this time, I remember nurturing a half empty glass of white wine as I looked out an RCBC tower looking out the city. It was one of those social events that I used to go to. OK, more like required to go. It was business and I hated it because, I'd be the youngest person in the room and everyone was a good 40 years my senior. So there I was thinking how breathtaking the city was. I knew no matter where I was in the world that this was my home town.

I think about the the Arithmetic Problem of Partylist and how in a comment to my post, "The Folly of Good Intensions," DJB had ask me to read John Rawls' A Theory of Justice:

the two principles that would be reached through an agreement in an original position of fairness and equality are 1) each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others and 2) social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage; and b) attached to positions and offices open to all

How I wish that those who want to craft a New Constitution or those who would seek to amend the current one would put Rawls' idea on their head as they write. Maybe they'll design and paint the future brighter. A man can dream, can't he?

That's how all this started, right? Someone dreamed.

About a year ago, Nick sent this email. "We cordially invite you to contribute for Filipino Voices." Of course, Nick's invite wasn't exactly constructed that way. Nick's not that formal. That was the gist of invite. No one says "no" when something like that comes along.

A collaborative, political blog was an experiment. The people I've met over the past year have all been awesome and no words are enough to describe the phenomenal effort put out by Nick, by our tech team and our contributors to get FilipinoVoices online. In a larger sense, Filipino Voices is a more than an idea to raise discussion to a higher level. It is more than a collaboration of myriad opinion and diverse thinking. It is more than a community, it should grow beyond crowdsourcing and "Ask Not What Your Community Can Do For You — Ask What You Can Do For Your Community." Filipino Voices is an ideal that should surpass us all.

[April 1st is Filipino Voices' 1st year. Happy 1st Anniversary to my fellow contributors, to our tech crew, our editors, to Nick. Here's to many more years! This post was first published on Filipino Voices.]

Lauren is a PC

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:01:00 +0000

Macs are not for the price conscious. Macs are for people who look beyond the price and see the value what they're buying. I mean, how much are you going to spend on viruses and system crashes vis-a-vis getting a Mac? How much is the price of headaches when things don't work on the PC?

Apple prices the Mac at a certain price point for a reason. It helps built the Elite feeling, that Cult of the Mac brand. Microsoft needs to understand that it should build better software to entice users and to build a better user experience. Less geek on Windows and more simplicity.

Why I love App-less Browsers

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:40:00 +0000

People love Firefox for the applications that it brings. Yes, I occasionally use Firefox for that purpose--- tor integration, but those days number to at least once a month now.

To be honest, there is a liberating feeling in just running a browser for browsing the Internet. No apps. That's why I love browsers like Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome.

Simplicity is liberating.

Raw Data Now!

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 06:35:00 +0000

During his 2009 TED Talk, Tim Berners-Lee, father of the World Wide Web talked about the importance of Linked Data and getting Raw Data out of silos (governments and private enterprises) and unto the Internet.

Recession: Nation in Peril

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:56:00 +0000

via @ReptiJ

Is Sun worth US$6 Billion?

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:13:00 +0000

With IBM ($IBM) in talks to buy Sun ($JAVA), can the latter finally find a place to rest? The market has been disappointed with Sun. It has failed to invigorate itself. It has failed to capitalize on its amazing potential and awesome technology pedigree. And it seems that this once mighty enterprise is but a shadow of its former self.

The times of course have changed. Competition in server space is tighter than ever and choice is just as aggressive. It may be this is where once and former giants come to rest--- on the graveyard of Mergers and Acquisitions.

Several months back, I wrote a post "Sun Looses 17B, Time for Apple-Sun merger?" The technology that is with Sun ($JAVA) isn't so bad. Its open source stable of technologies: mysql, zfs, just to name two are worth a lot of money. ZFS could in fact be the answer to a future media server or could compliment Apple's Final Cut Studio. But the fact that ZFS is licensed under CDDL effectively means no one needs to own the company that started it. The same goes with mysql.

Since Apple isn't at all interested in higher order enterprise business--- its focus on pro-consumer/consumer space is laser focus makes little sense for them to get to buy Sun. Well, little sense to be willing to pay a hundred percent premium.

Also the threats facing ZFS on the technology horizon is increasing. An alternative to ZFS called Btrfs ("Butter FS") has emerge on Linux space and is under heavy development. And Btrfs is in fact more friendly to Linux because it runs off GPL. This licensing disagreement has, in my humble opinion been most detrimental in getting ZFS technology to become prevalent everywhere.

The marriage of IBM and Sun is perhaps the best fit in the technology business. Sun closed on March 19 with a market cap of US$6.43 Billion. Is Sun worth that much money?

Re-Imagining Capitalism

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:57:00 +0000

"The end is nigh!" Both Capitalists and Socialists everywhere raged (and continues to rage) as more and more banks fail or are nationalized. Each side, of course for their own reason. Naturally, the world continues to ask, "are we socialists now?" If it could be turned into a greeting card, then most certainly, this is the season of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Fear of what tomorrow might bring. Uncertain of our actions, and doubt that the capitalist way is the best way to raise people from poverty, to further human progress, to spur creativity and innovation.

Alan Greenspan in his testimony to the Committee of Government Oversight and Reform on 23 October 2008 said (emphasis mine):

Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder’s equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief. Such counterparty surveillance is a central pillar of our financial markets’ state of balance. If it fails, as occurred this year, market stability is undermined.

What went wrong with global economic policies that had worked so effectively for nearly four decades? The breakdown has been most apparent in the securitization of home mortgages. The evidence strongly suggests that without the excess demand from securitizers, subprime mortgage originations (undeniably the original source of crisis) would have been far smaller and defaults accordingly far fewer. But subprime mortgages pooled and sold as securities became subject to explosive demand from investors around the world. These mortgage backed securities being “subprime” were originally offered at what appeared to be exceptionally high risk-adjusted market interest rates. But with U.S. home prices still rising, delinquency and foreclosure rates were deceptively modest. Losses were minimal. To the most sophisticated investors in the world, they were wrongly viewed as a “steal.”

The consequent surge in global demand for U.S. subprime securities by banks, hedge, and pension funds supported by unrealistically positive rating designations by credit agencies was, in my judgment, the core of the problem. Demand became so aggressive that too many securitizers and lenders believed they were able to create and sell mortgage backed securities so quickly that they never put their shareholders’ capital at risk and hence did not have the incentive to evaluate the credit quality of what they were selling. Pressures on lenders to supply more “paper” collapsed subprime underwriting standards from 2005 forward. Uncritical acceptance of credit ratings by purchasers of these toxic assets has led to huge losses.

It was the failure to properly price such risky assets that precipitated the crisis. In recent decades, a vast risk management and pricing system has evolved, combining the best insights of mathematicians and finance experts supported by major advances in computer and communications technology. A Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of the pricing model that underpins much of the advance in derivates markets. This modern risk management paradigm held sway for decades. The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year because the data inputted into the risk management models generally covered only the past two decades, a period of euphoria. Had instead the models been fitted more appropriately to historic periods of stress, capital requirements would have been much higher and the financial world would be in far better shape today, in my judgment.

"Protect shareholder's equity" is business speak for the compact between a Corporate Executive and investors, creditors and shareholders and by extension, employees that he or she will work for the company that he will put their collective self-interest first above all else. When Managers and Executives screw up--- failure happens. And it so happens that part of shit is Iceland's de facto bankruptcy.

Did Capitalism sow the seeds of its own destruction as Martin Wolf asserted?

As one of many essays in The Nation's Reimagining Socialism series, Tariq Ali points out in Capitalism's Deadly Logic,

"Despite mocking those on the left who, in the past, saw every downturn as an opportunity to proclaim that the end of capitalism was nigh, the authors fall into the same trap. This time, we are told, the "patient may not get up from the table." I don't agree. Capitalism is always faced with crises, which are part of the deadly logic of an economy based on a state-buttressed market system. It has failed many times before but has recovered, including during periods when it confronted real political challenges. Its ability to adapt and survive should not be underestimated, even though it will do so, as before, at the expense of the majority it exploits."

As a side note you might want to check out the other essays in the series. Thanks to @mlq3 for the link to The Nation.

Even as AIG discloses counterparties to CDS, GIA and Securities lending transactions (pd), how can we not have doubts when AIG--- a zombie institution that is now 80% owned by US Taxpayers is obligated to giving executives and employees US$165 Million worth of contractual bonuses?

Seriously? A company that needed the help of the US Government to exist will be paying those bonuses? Surely those executives can return the money. People understand that if you do a good job, certainly it wouldn't be terrible to reward this. But when a company goes under and you're still paid a bonus for a job not well done?

Reward a good job done, but punish a terrible one. That's @davetaylor's point was all about yesterday on twitter. That's the point of his blog on "How do you know when CEOs are being paid too much?" And I agree.

In 1949, Albert Einstein wrote, "Why Socialism?" in it he spoke about the real evil in a capitalist society. He said:

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor -- not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production -- that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods -- may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

Sixty years later, the world is faced by a Global Economic Crisis and its ferocity, we haven't seen since ~~1939~~ 1929 (corrected for typo, sorry). Don't get me wrong. We're not in a depression just yet. Bad as it is. A lot has changed since Einstein wrote that piece. In the past sixty years, instead of a community of producers and a separate community of consumers, increasingly the world is moving towards the blurring and the mash-up of the two. The digital and startup culture existing on the Internet will distill. The mantra that should emerge with a Reimagination of Capitalism is: "How can I change the world?"

This is a capitalism that yes, we are driven by profit. Yes, we are protecting shareholder equity. But more than that, we're out here doing this because we want the world to be a better place. "A higher purpose", if you will.

Above video is @GaryVee's #sxsw keynote video via @nicknich3 on friendfeed. Awesome stuff he has there.

The current crisis is precipitated because credit is frozen. That's a problem not just for huge businesses but everyone that needs money to finance some enterprise. The more people are able to borrow money from other than a loan shark, the better they're are, wouldn't you say?

Even as we argue whether or not Obama's and other governments' stimulus is Behind the Curb or not (I think it is behind), arguably, in the here and now, Toxic Assets need to be dealt with. Lenders--- whether bonds, banks or whatnut need the assurance that their clients are solvent to repay them. In other words, get the credit markets flowing again because it is this life blood that keeps people, whether they are from Africa, or Los Angeles, from doing things, from making things, to building innovative new products, to being productive members of society.

Is it a reimagination of socialism that need to take place? I disagree.

Why Capitalism? Money with purpose can responsibly drive the world. It is a Reimagining of Capitalism that need to take place. Capitalism needs to bring back the value of protecting shareholder equity, better corporate governance and then it needs to leverage that money, that profit to go change the world.

MTRCB Cuts Watchmen is a Crime

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:52:00 +0000

Seriously. What's in a Comic Book that warrants cutting it, ripping it off from how it was meant to be read and/or seen such a crime? In the world of comics, nothing comes close to perfection as Watchmen. It is the showcase to what a comic book is, of the unique quality that this genre has to offer.

Watchmen is a deconstruction of the superhero and layering it on the anxieties of the 1980s and everything from murder, rape to nuclear winter is in there (see image for sample panel). It is perhaps Alan Moore's best work, ever. In my humble opinion surpassing his V for Vendetta.

Watchmen isn't Archie.

Watchmen may be a comic book but it is critically acclaimed (Time included Watchmen in its top 100 books), dark and far from campy. This isn't a Family story you give to a 13 year old. Maybe a 15 year old. This isn't a kid's story, ergo it will not be a kid's movie.

Watchmen is a serious piece of work. To bastardize it, to reduce it, to dumb it down for anyone who isn't mature or ready for this kind of book and film is a crime against humanity.

How many Hugo Award (1988) winning novels get a movie? This is literature.

Zack Snyder's Watchmen is an interpretation of this awesome work by Alan Moore. It took years to bring these characters and this story for more people to appreciate. It should be seen as Snyder deems it seen in its purest form. It must sink or swim on its own. It is either an awesome interpretation of Moore's book or it isn't. There is no middle ground. Thus, people--- the public must be given the opportunity to judge it in its entirety.

Is Snyder's Watchmen interpretation awesome or is it crap? That's a Hobson's Choice, isn't it? To get the MTRCB to rate it down, is a mistake. This highlights the irrelevance of a censoring body, or regulatory body. This is like editing the Bible. It shouldn't be done. Ever.

image is via this page and used under fair use of a copyright material.

UPDATED: FilipinoVoices.com is Down

noreply@blogger.com (Cocoy) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:43:00 +0000

If you haven't heard by now, at around 7:20 am Eastern, 8:20 pm Manila, FilipinoVoices (a collaborative blog I contribute to) went fail whale due to technical difficulties made worst by bad weather. We will be back online as soon as possible. We apologize to our readers for the inconvenience.

image is via this flickr.

UPDATE: we will back up by 10 AM Manila at the earliest or 10 PM Manila, latest.