Third World Geek

MIT Offers Free Online Course

3WG — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:18 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I read in Techmeme that MIT or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is offering a free online course for interested folks all over the world. I thought oh well, just another marketing stunt from a big university until I read that much coveted word– credential. Yep, MIT’s short course on Circuits and Electronics will have an MIT credential. Well not directly MIT per se but the credential certificate will state that an MIT body will say that a student who successfully hurdles the course has gained mastery of the short course.

This means that there will be online exams that the MITX student will have to go through to gain that credential. There will however be some sort of cost associated with the credentialing. That cost however will not be significant. Of course there will be eyebrows raised as students can resort to all sorts of chicanery to gain that credential as MITx only relies on an ‘honor code’ to keep students in check. Unfortunately, for some, an honor code does not hold a lot of water. Sigh.

Anyway, for those who can’t afford to go to MIT or even gain entrance to this world-class institution can see for themselves how different an MIT course is taught (even if its online) compared to a run of the mill (or should I dare say diploma mill) university.

I am no engineering major or has a high affinity for complex maths that this course will surely require, but I enrolled anyway and will probably be taking that remedial course (for those who need it) to properly equip myself to take the Circuits and Electronics course.

I think this is a superb opportunity for us third world folks to experience this kind of education and even get an MIT-ish credential for free.

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Unbelievable!

3WG — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:53:11 +0000

I’ve been going the rounds of appliance stores the past few days to help the significant other in fulfilling some orders from our province. It’s a chore sometimes but what we won’t do for love right? Heh. Anyway, I’m just amazed at how much the price of flat screen TVs has fallen! 43inch plasma TVs are now being sold for around $650 bucks! What the buck! And these are not cheap imitations either. I once purchased a Panasonic Viera Plasma TV a few years buck for around $2,500 so imagine my surprise when I saw the current selling price.

The way technology is progressing never ceases to amaze me. Of course this applies to all my other gadgets as well. I once asked an iPhone vendor how much I would get if I were to sell my iPhone 3G to him. Without batting an eyelash, he said $125. Wow. That’s just, oh well.

Before I get sidetracked, here’s a list of the cheapest flat screen TVs on the market today. Of course I got these figures from the ever reliable Google search engine so sit back, relax, and have a hanky ready for your drool.

From Amazon.com

40 – 49 inches

Coby TFTV4025 40-Inch 1080p LCD TV – Black
Buy new: $499.99 $329.99

Westinghouse 40″ Class 1080p 60hz LCD HDTV – Black (VR-4025)
1 Used & new from $330.23

TCL L40FHDF12TA 40-Inch 1080p 60 Hz LCD HDTV with 2-Year Warranty
Buy new: $649.99 $349.99

Coby 40in ATSC LCD TV/Monitor 1080P 60HZ With HDMI Input – Coby TFTV4025
Buy new: $494.58 $379.00

Toshiba 40E210 40-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV, Black
Buy new: $699.99 $399.99

50inches and up

Panasonic VIERA TC-P50X3 50-Inch 720p 600 Hz Plasma HDTV
Buy new from $527.49

LG 50PA4500 50-Inch 720p 600 Hz Plasma HDTV
Buy new: $679.99

LG 50PT350 50-Inch 720p 600 Hz Plasma HDTV
Buy new: $698.72

Samsung PN51D490 51-Inch 720p 600Hz 3D Plasma HDTV (Black)
Buy new: from $678.55

LG Electronics 50PA6500 50-Inches 1080p
Buy new: $899.99 $799.99

From Overstocked.com (I didn’t include the refurbished units because, well, you know)

40 – 49 Inches

Coby TFTV4025 40″ 1080p LCD TV – 16:9 – HDTV 1080p
Today: PHP 24200.00

Haier L42C1180 42-inch 1080p LCD TV
Today: PHP 27198.00

Toshiba 40E210U 40-inch 1080p LCD TV
Today: PHP 30602.00

Sharp AQUOS LC40D78UN 40-inch 1080p LCD TV (Refurbished)
Today: PHP 32475.00

Sceptre E420BV-F120 42″ LCD TV
Today: PHP 34876.00

50inches and above

LG 50PV450C 50″ Plasma TV – 16:9 – HDTV 1080p – 1080p – 600 Hz
Today: PHP 55583.00

Vizio M550NV 55″ 1080P 120HZ LED Television with Internet Apps
Today: PHP 68698.00

Sharp LC52LE810UN 52-inch 1080p 120Hz LED TV (Refurbished)
Today: PHP 72446.00

Sharp AQUOS LC-60LE633U 60″ 1080p LED-LCD TV – 16:9 – HDTV 1080p – 24
Today: PHP 73695.00

Toshiba 55TL515U – 55-inch 1080p 240Hz 3D LED HDTV (Refurbished)
Today: PHP 78691.00

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Waddup!

3WG — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:11:45 +0000

It’s been ages since I posted something here in this much neglected blog. I could blame a lot of things for this but I’ll attribute it to laziness primarily. Since the new year started I’ve been doing nothing but chilling out. That and the fact that almost every week a member of my extended family died, including my grandma. Quite morbid I know but that’s the way life goes. We have to take the bad along with the good. And living, well, it ultimately leads to dying. That’s just the way it is.

Well it’s a new year, and hopefully I will find motivation somewhere to keep updating my blogs, as well as provide entertaining posts that people, random, lost, and eager followers will appreciate. This is a very special year after all. The Mayans have predicted that the world will end this year. Their argument was so compelling that a movie was made to celebrate that prediction. I still have to see that movie but I heard that it was good. I hope it won’t happen of course, but if it does, well I’ve lived a great life so far, so bring it!

I won’t take too long with this post as I’ve only been spouting nonsense so far. Maybe in my next posts I’ll spend a little more time writing and refining what I publish here. Until then, have a nice year everyone!

By the way, the May 2012 CPA Board Exams is almost upon us again so if that won’t motivate me to start blogging, nothing else will. Ciao!

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October 2011 CPA Board Exams

3WG — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:32:33 +0000

It’s that week again. The week when my favorite board exams will either lift somebody’s spirits up in the clouds or tear down somebody’s hopes and dreams and plunge them in the bottomless pit of despair. Quite dramatic don’t you think? Not that I revel in the misfortune of others, but alas, a 100% passing rate for the October 2011 CPA Board Exams is just not possible. Which means a lot of hearts are gonna be broken this week. But why focus on the negative? With all the bad news and drama that we read in the papers and friends’ Facebook statuses, we really should look at the more positive things more!

For the lucky 20%++ passers (I think this is the average percentage of passers) a whole new world opens for them. For the rest, well it’s not that bad. The world can always use people who knows the difference between a debit and a credit. Jobwise, it shouldn’t be that tough of a problem. I work in the BPO industry and I can say with confidence that there will always be a need for accounting graduates (not necessarily CPAs) in this exciting new industry.

If there’s one industry that I would try to downplay for those future jobseekers, especially those who are thinking of staying in the province, it’s the banking industry. Unless you’re part of the marketing group, or those in charge of bringing in clients, provided of course that you have the requisite competency for that sort of work, you’ll find banking to be one of those plodding companies where promotions and salary increases take years and years. An example is a friend who’s been working for a unibank for years and years and yet the last time I heard(2 weeks ago), when he was persuaded by his employer to stay after he was offered a job by a rival bank, the carrot given him was a P50K salary. Tch. Sure that’s a decent enough amount but considering his experience, talents and his smarts, he should be making at least 3x that amount by now had he been working in the BPO industry. Yep it’s that dynamic.

For sure job hunting will be the farthest thing in the minds of those who will be part of the lucky group to pass this week but it’s a good thing to think about these things even if only for a little bit.

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Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

3WG — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 02:23:56 +0000

Steve Jobs passing woke me up from my blogging slumber and had me running to the nearest internet cafe. True, I have my own internet connection at home but somehow, for the past few weeks, sloth has gotten the better of me and I always end up watching old episodes of either The Big Bang Theory or Two And A Half Men. I had to make sure that I stay in point for this one given that Steve’s death marks the end of an era for nerds worldwide.

I have always dreamed of working at Apple, but alas, my chosen career path seems destined to never cross the garden where that particular apple tree is planted. I don’t think I’m the only one dreaming that dream though, moths from all around the globe must have also wanted to get closer to Steve’s light if only to get nearer to the man who inspires a fanatical following from geeks worldwide. Which is why I’ve always harbored a little grain of envy for a friend who works for Apple. Lucky bastard.

Once You Go Mac, You Never Go Back

My first Apple product is a white iBook which I purchased on installment way back in 2007. Is because the bloody thing still works even to this day. I’ve never had to bother with all that anti-virus crap, and any OS upgrade I just download over the iStore for $29. I had the reckless misfortune though of plugging that particular Mac 24/7 for so many weeks that its battery expanded rendering it useless. But instead of purchasing a replacement battery, I decided to just remove it and convert it to a pseudo-desktop. I purchased a 21-inch Samsung LED, a separate Mac keyboard, a Belkin USB hub, an optical mouse and voila– I got myself a set-up that has never disappointed me even until now. With the way things are going, that rig may well live for another 5 years or 10. And they say an Apple computer is expensive.

My next Apple device is an iPhone 3G. It has gone through several iOS iterations, jailbreaks, unlocks, years of use, and yet it has remained as my main phone until now. Somehow getting another non-apple phone seems a significant step down and since getting it, I’ve never considered buying another phone, not even once.

I think what Steve Jobs’ Apple has done is that they’ve set the bar so high that once you’ve experienced using one of their products, everything else seems so pedestrian.

RIP Steve Jobs

And now Steve has gone and we can only wonder whether the folks he left in his beloved company would be able to fill the humongous he’s left behind. For sure I will miss the bespectacled man in black turtleneck and jeans and rubber shoes smiling in unabashed delight as he presents yet another product that blows the competition out of the water. But I feel really blessed to have lived in the era that Steve Jobs existed. Truly a man worth telling my future grandchildren about.

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Checking Out The Pinoy Bloggers Community Down Memory Lane

3WG — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:09:52 +0000

I just joined the Pinoy Bloggers group in Facebook. It’s just out of curiousity really. I’m such a bad group member that I dare not raise my head in any group I join lest I be hammered down so I won’t stand out too much. Heh. Of course I know about this group from waaay before. If you’ve been blogging for as long as I have and you’re a Filipino, chances are you’d want to seek out like minded individuals to, you know, talk about same stuff.

Unfortunately for me, I have the attention span of a gnat. Less than an hour into a conversation, I get bored and couldn’t wait to get the hell out of wherever or whatever I am currently in.

I had my brief fling with blogging groups before and while talks revolved around PRs and traffic and Alexa rankings, I was more interested in the alcohol and how to drink myself to a stupor from zero to sixty seconds. It’s much, much more acceptable to be a smiling drunk than to be honest and piss people off. Especially if those people are bloggers who can’t hold their keyboards. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself getting eviscerated online for being such a tool.

It was interesting reading the posts in that group. Some posts/comments reminded me when I was such a newbie blogger that I couldn’t comprehend the idea of monetizing a blog.

‘But your blog is your soul!’
‘How can you sell your soul!?’
‘Heh, here’s $200, now shut up and give me 2 backlinks from your homepage.’
‘$200?? (thinks about Havaianas and a Gap shirt)’
‘OK. Done (gap-toothed smile)!’

And the contests! Free domain name for a year! Free hosting for a year! Free suka from Aling Juaning! lol.

Good times..

photo credit : filipinobiography.com

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Harnessing Wind Energy

3WG — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:53:37 +0000

For a country that has typhoons in abundance almost all year long, it’s a damn shame that the Philippines does not have a lot of wind farms in its shores. The one shining example that we have of anything resembling a wind farm is the Bangui Wind Mills up north in Ilocos. And considering that the set-up of these windmills that supply a significant portion of that area’s electricity barely took two months, one has to wonder why we don’t replicate what’s done in Bangui in some other parts of the country.

The Bangui Windmills are located in Bangui, Ilocos Norte, Philippines. The windmills, officially referred to as the NorthWind Bangui Bay Project, were a project by the NorthWind Development Corporation as a practice renewable energy sources and to help reduce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. The project is the first “Wind Farm” in the Philippines consisting of wind turbines on-shore facing the South China Sea and considered to be the biggest in Southeast Asia. The project sells electricity to the Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative (INEC) and provides 40% of the power requirements of Ilocos Norte via Transco Laoag. — WikiPilipinas

The good thing about harnessing wind energy however is that even if the Philippine government is slow to adapt this technology in a more widespread manner, individual households in areas where wind is in abundance can actually install their own homemade wind turbines! I checked in the internet if there are already DIY wind mills for sale in the country and found a few being advertised in Sulit.com. This is very good news for those who are very conscious about their carbon footprint, and even for those who just want to reduce their electricity bills by looking at alternative methods of generating energy for their homes.

Here’s the page that shows some of these wind turbines being advertised in Sulit.

http://www.sulit.com.ph/index.php/classifieds+directory/q/wind+turbine

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Water-powered Machine

3WG — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 05:07:51 +0000

Here’s a Philippine invention that is not getting enough buzz in the third world. This invention is called the tubig-powered machine or water-powered machine. The machine is attached to a flourescent or light and powered only by whisking a few drops of water into it. It is tremendously simple but has far reaching implications. The great thing about this invention is that it is not in a laboratory somewhere gathering dust, unproven, or just another figment of a crazy scientist’s imagination. It’s actually being produced commercially albeit at a small scale. It is already in use in Lagro, Fairview, Manila to light up their streets so it does have commercial potential.

Imagine if this invention is fully developed commercially. People would no longer have astronomical energy bills, zero electricity, less dependence on oil! The only thing now is who will pick it up and develop it at a much larger scale. Imagine using that invention to develop something bigger for use in a ship. That ship will sail everywhere until it breaks down without any need for refuelling.

Here’s the video clip.

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June 2011 Dentists Board Exams Results

3WG — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:59:24 +0000

The practical application portion of the June 2011 Dentists Board Exams will start today June 1, 2011 and end tomorrow June 2, 2011. Hopefully the results of the June 2011 Dentists Board Exams will be released by the end of this week. Soon there will be a few more additions to the number of scariest people on earth. I don’t think there are a lot of people who love going to the dentists unless they’re there to flatter themselves for taking really good care of their teeth.

Anyway, check out this space to see the latest additions to the Dentistry profession when the June 2011 Dentists Board Exams Results will be released later this week. To all the examinees, good luck and I hope everyone will pass with flying colors!

Listed below are the successful examinees of the recently concluded June 2011 Dentists Board Exams.

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Celebrating The Pinoy Apple Fanboy

3WG — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:13:56 +0000

I was mindlessly scrolling down my Facebook profile when I saw a little ad to the right of the page showing a silly iphone attached with some sort of a telephoto lens. I thought it was one of those gag ads that take you to some break.com’ish sites. Since I was bored and it doesn’t cost a thing, I clicked on the Facebook ad anyway and was pleasantly surprised. The ad took me to a website called Gizmotherapy. It’s a very neat looking site, not much in there but great typography and some very interesting gadget accessories. The accessories however were one of a kind and most were tailored towards Apple products.

I checked out the telephoto lens pic and indeed it’s a telephoto lens made specifically for the iPhone! I know, how silly is that? I don’t even have a telephoto lens for my Canon 7D yet, but I think if you have cash to spare just for laughs, this is something that you might want to throw your money into. After all, who in their right mind would want to walk around with wads of cash in their pockets right?

Anyway, even if you’re not buying, Gizmotherapy is worth checking out if only to oggle at their site’s simplicity. I wish one of my websites look like theirs. I also like the photo feature. I’m sure it’s one of those nifty programming codes or scripts that you incorporate in your website and it looks great! Moreover, the site is an online store so if there’s anything there that you fancy, you can always put it in your cart and have a go at it. They also accept Paypal which is super cool. And did I mention that it’s a Philippine website? Yep, free shipping too so it’s definitely worth checking out in the future. I say this because they don’t have much to offer at the moment. I checked out their categories but the items shown were practically the same thingamajigs. I’d definitely come back to this site in the future when they have more to offer. And because I’m the first to talk about their site, maybe I get a nice discount too! :)

Check out Gizmotherapy at http://gizmotherapy.com.

photocredit ~mello245 of deviantart