Broadband gaining popularity in RP

Bayantel is offering DSL for PHP 899/mo -- that is around $16/mo -- for a 192 kbps plan. This is kinda slow compared to DSL speeds here in the states which is around 336 kbps (upload) and 1800 kbps (download).

PLDT also offers a 386 kbps plan for PHP 1,995/mo ($36/mo).

10th planet!

Astronomers are saying that we have another planet (10th) in our solar system. I have read about this in 2001 -- they are calling it planet X then -- but they are not sure whether or not it can be categorized as a planet since their initial estimate of its size was less than that of pluto. Their recent estimate however indicates that the size of the planet could be close to the size of mars.

Story is here.

bowing out in yellow

Lance Armstrong clinched his 7th consecutive Tour de France cup! He was 4 minutes and 40 seconds ahead of Ivan Basso of Italy. Jan Ullrich was 3rd.

Full story here.

blues of eagles

After four games, the Ateneo blue eagles are 2-2 (tied at 4th place with DLSU archers and Adamson Falcons). They were beaten by De la Salle archers and FEU tamaraws. The only teams that the eagles have beaten are UST tigers and NU bulldogs. Both teams are currently winless.

The eagles will face UP maroons on 30 July, UE warriors on 4 August, and Adamson Falcons on 7 August.

TEAM STANDINGS
- - - - - - - - - - -
Team............W - L
- - - - - - - - - - -
FEU Tamaraws....4 - 0
UE Warriors.....3 - 1
UP Maroons......3 - 1
DLSU Archers....2 - 2
ADU Falcons.....2 - 2
ADMU Eagles.....2 - 2
UST Tigers......0 - 4
NU Bulldogs.....0 - 4

Goodbye Scotty

James Doohan played Montgomery Scott in the original Star Trek TV series. He died last wednesday. He was 85.

Wonka and Potter

I enjoyed children's stories this week.

Charlie and the chocolate factory is good. I thought it I might be disappointed -- however, the wumpa-lumpas are crazy and Wonka is -- oh well -- weird! Imagine having lots of wumpa-lumpas in your backyard.

Got my HPHBP last sunday. I thought of reading 5 chapters a day -- but what the heck, I finished reading it last night. I liked the book. It is a good read and I look forward to the last installment of JKR. According to rumors, the 7th book would probably be published in 2007-2009.

Break

Spending this weekend at NOVA...

UPDATE: Pictures are here.

Too early for football ...

7 ACC teams are in the top 25 of CollegeFootballNews.com!

#4 Miami Hurricanes
#10 Virginia Tech Hokies
#11 Florida State Seminoles
#14 Boston College Eagles
#19 Virginia Cavaliers
#20 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
#24 Clemson Tigers

Hmmnnn 3 months to go.

Hello?

PGMA finally admits that she's the voice in the infamous wiretapped telephone conversation with an elections official. I guess that's for the better. I hope people would now focus on rebuilding from the mess that stemmed from the issue.

It seems that the "hello garci" cellphone ringtones are popular back home...

Cardinal Sin, 76

Reverend Jaime Cardinal Sin died 6:15am, tuesday -- Manila time. He is one of the prominent figures in the People Power revolution in 1986 and 2001.

Best Batman film ever!

Christopher Nolan did it! The new batman film is awesome! And when you thought Ra's Al Ghul is dead...

Original paper on Google

It is amazing how far Google have gone starting from this 1998 school paper of Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page. The paper is entitled 'the anatomy of large-scale hypertextual web search engine'. It is interesting to know the basic ideas used to implement the original version of Google.

Mathomatic

While installing cygwin in my laptop, I noticed one computer algebra system included in the installation package -- it is called mathomatic. I was curious and googled the term 'mathomatic'. I found the webpage of this computer aided algebra system (here). It seems that the author, George J. Gesslein II, of New York is actively developing this program since 1987! The most recent update to this system is just three days ago.

I tried doing some algebra and calculus stuff with it and I find it easy to use.

Illustrador ng kabataan (INK)

INK is a group of pinoy illustrators of children's books. It is great to know that their tribe is increasing in number.

An essay describing a history of children's literature in the Philippines can be read here.

Cal Sobrepeña

Cal Sobrepeña is one my favorite illustrators in komiks --I love his clean illustrations in Funny komiks! He also illustrated for Aliwan, Silangan, and Lovelife komiks. I didn't know he already passed away last year.

I found this website dedicated to him.

R.I.P. Teddy Benigno

Teddy Benigno, 79, of Philippines Star died of cancer. Story is here.

Backups

I bought a XiMeta Netdisk today at OfficeMax. I have been thinking of having a backup system for a while. This 120GB netdisk should be enough. :)

DRM on new Intel chip

Intel launched last thursday a new DRM-enabled chip. The chip would presumably allow copyright holders to prevent unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted materials. (This makes the big companies happy.) Read the story here.

I will not be surprised if people starts buying computers equipped with AMD chips or IBM PPC instead.

Kindergarten

My son will start kindergarten this coming school year. I'm very happy for him.

Rutter won over Jennings

Ken Jenning bow out to Brad Rutter in the 3 day Jeopardy! tournament of champions. CNN.com has the story.