[Philippines] News of Interest 07.01.08

I'm thinking of starting a new series of blog entries to highlight local or international news pieces of interest that I come across between meetings and everything else that comes with work. I'll try not to go on too long about any particular item - the stories have already been written after all, right?

These are meant as short items that I don't think I'll ever really develop into full-blown blog entries but I just can't resist commenting on to some extent. This may overlap with stories that I tend to Digg or that I make as sites I like through StumbleUpon. Go figure.

Cigarette ad ban in media starts Tuesday

Finally, the government is trying to do something significant about cigarette smoking, the in the form of banning all advertisements for tobacco products from mainstream media - this covers all television, radio and print. They're doing it to combat early adoption of smoking habits in younger folk and I think that the loss of advertising will hurt tobacco sales to some extent but will also save money for them as media outfits suffer a significant drop in revenue.

It's also based on the misguided premise that this will significantly reduce smoking amongst young adults and teenagers. In truth, peer pressure does a better job there and they initially get the idea from parents or older relatives who still smoke.

Sulpicio sues PAGASA for inaccurate weather forecasting

In what I find to be one of the stupidest and most desperate moves yet, Sulpicio Lines, Inc. have decided to file a P3 million lawsuit against the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) for inaccurate weather forecasting which they're saying significantly contributed to the recent naval tragedy. Come on people! Have some balls and take accountability!

This may start a strange rash of lawsuits due to inaccurate weather forecasting - weather girls beware! Who will safeguard those nuns with the egg offerings that are said to provide good weather?

Okay, I'll stop now.

[Ubuntu] Wubi, the Windows Linux Installer

During one of my StumbleUpon sessions, I came across Wubi, the self-proclaimed "Easiest Way to Linux" for Windows users. That was a pretty interesting tag line and given my relative laziness to go about trying to get a copy of the latest Ubuntu distribution (I don't have a CD burner), setting up a partition and all that, I have yet to get onto the Ubuntu bandwagon. This seemed like a promising way to do it.

So I downloaded the decently-sized installer (around 9Mb), ran it, made my selections about the amount of space I wanted to give Ubuntu and other options, rebooted my computer a few times (as instructed) and presto, I can now dual-boot for Ubuntu (7.04 Feisty Fawn)! At least now I can finally get around to writing first-hand experiences about Ubuntu as opposed to just general news about it.

My only challenge so far is getting the screen resolution right - I'm using a wide screen LCD monitor and it never looks quite right no matter how much I play with the settings. More on this in the weeks to come.

So if you're (1) a sad Windows user like me and (2) interested in trying out Ubuntu, this might be the best way for you to do it. It worked pretty easily for me so far and Windows XP still seems to be running decently thus far.

[StumbleUpon] The Greatest Prank Call Made Ever

The title of this particular video is a bit off since it's not actually a prank call made by someone but one man's very intelligent way of dealing with a telemarketing call. The video is really just a transcript of the call so there's not much to see, but it makes it easier to follow along.

My thanks to the wonders of StumbleUpon for helping me find this video, hehe.


The Greatest Prank Call Made Ever - Click here for more free videos

[Videos] Street Fighter: The Later Years

I was killing time on the web using StumbleUpon when I started to notice more and more videos from CollegeHumor, which is a good enough site on its own really and seems to be gaining popularity.

Unlike your run-of-the-mill video hosting / sharing site (which seem to be popping up everywhere these days) that just tries to compete for your attention in exchange for ad revenue or something. One of the best things about CollegeHumor (at least in my opinion) would definitely have to be their original web series features.

One of my current favorites remains to be Street Fighter: The Later Years, which is an unusual look at what might have happened to our favorite characters from the Street Fighter universe.

Of course it helps if you've played at least one of games before in order to recognize the characters but either way it's all good, silly, geeky fun.

Enjoy!

[StumbleUpon] Lunchballz

The internet is a weird yet funny place, there's no questioning that. While the most visible signs of entertainment tend to lie within the world of viral video, there are still a large number of weird sites that exist simply to amuse.

Thus this weird discovery I found via StumbleUpon (then again, there's a lot of unusual stuff that people mark as Stumble-worthy, Period) that had me laughing for a fair amount of time.

May I present to you, LUNCHBALLZ, America's Premier Ball-Shaped Product! Man, this was so worth a domain.

Of course I can't help but remember the local restaurant Cafe Bola, which does in fact serve various ground meats in ball form. I never did get the concept - and this is coming from a gay geek! LOL!

Don't you just love the creativity that the internet brings to life?

[StumbleUpon] Imagining the Tenth Dimension

On an off moment, I StumbledUpon this geekily interesting page called Imagining the Tenth Dimension, which features a Flash demonstration of the first chapter of a book of the same name as written by Rob Bryanton.

The site does a pretty great job of explaining and demonstrating how to understand higher dimensions in a format that, at I feel, is largely accessibly to even non-technical audiences. It certainly makes you think. I took the time to read (and subscribe to) his blog, I have to admit I like his way of thinking. His blog is set up more like a forum for ideas and discourse where visitors are encouraged to exchange their views on higher dimensional thinking.

I know, you can't really get much geekier than this, huh? Enjoy!

[Viral Video Chart] Miracle Diet Beer

If I use StumbleUpon primarily to find new and interesting websites, for videos I always turn to the Viral Video Chart to keep a pulse on the latest viral videos that everyone appears to be watching.

It's pretty hard to predict just what might click with the web community at large, but be sure that there's definitely going to be a strange reason for it. Humor always seems to be a good bet, and the really funny videos will always get noticed - like this strange little advertisement for, well, beer as a diet drink:


#3 - Miracle Diet Beer

What did I tell you? Who could have expected this to click? LOL!

[StumbleUpon] Alien Alien Productions

I'm a big fan of StumbleUpon and many a time I've found myself continually "channel surfing" websites using the toolbar and I thought it would be pretty fun to document some of the more interesting sites I find here on the Geeky Guide.

First up is Angry Alien Productions, a strange site that features bunnies re-enacting movies in 30-seconds.

Yes, I said bunnies.

Highly reminiscent of MuffinFilms, Angry Alien Productions hosts a wide array of Flash-based movies which are really funny. MuffinFilms was interesting since it was a collection of original films about, well, muffins. Angry Alien is different in that it tries to satire / parody popular films using bunnies. Yes, why don't you believe me?

So anyway, it's definitely worth the time given each synopsis is only 30-seconds long regardless of how long the original movie was. It's an odd way of getting to know what happened in movies you might not have seen but still they're pretty accurate in their own way. Best of all, this should work despite common work-related internet filters since it's not a streaming video site like YouTube and the movies are short enough for you to catch them in-between reports or conference calls.

[Google] Using the New Notebook

Since it was first launched, I've been a fairly regular user of Google Notebook as a way to collect things of interest from around the web. It used to be that whenever I'd be channel surfing via StumbleUpon I'd have Notebook open on another tab in order to save things I liked but didn't necessarily want to create a permanent bookmark for.

With Google Notebook re-released with a new look and technically as a "graduate" from Google Labs, it was time to give Notebook another look.

I am loving the new interface, which borrows heavily from the Gmail look and loads a lot better because of the AJAX enhancements. I won't necessarily say that the new Notebook is smarter - it's just less dumb than the previous version. The best thing is how they managed to fix the loading issues when creating new notes since more often than not, one would get frustrated trying to click their mouse at the right time in order to trigger the typing box.

I like using Google Notebook primarily to collect links and articles that I might use later on whether for leisure or here on the Geeky Guide so I don't feel pressured to blog about something while I have all the tabs / windows open right now. It also helps me avoid getting caught blogging too much at work, haha. I'm sure you can find other uses for Google Notebook - go try it out and see what works for you.

Related Links:

• Official Google Blog: Google Notebook goes multi-lingual
  
• Googlified: Google Notebook US Update
  
• Google Operating System: Stylish New Design in Google Notebook
  
• Google Blogoscoped: Google Notebook Redesign