Career Test Results

I decided to take pigeonhole's test. What she took, anyway. Check it out here.

This is what I got:

You would be very happy in a career that utilised your level-headedness, and allowed you to work mainly on your own. You want a career that allows you to stimulate your senses and your mind, without having to be involved with lots of people. Some careers that would be perfect for you are:

• Novelist
  
• Photographer
  
• Vet
  
• Medical Technician
  
• Paralegal
  
• Geologist
  
• Marine Biologist
  
• Graphic Designer
  
• Online Content Developer
  
• Webmaster
  
• Computer Security
  
• Producer
  
• Computer Programmer
  
• Technical Writer
  
• Systems Analyst
  
• Meteorologist
  
• Artist

You like working and being alone. You like to avoid attention at all costs. You tend to keep to yourself, and not interact much with the people around you. You enjoy spending time with a few a close friends. You like to listen to others, but don't like sharing much about yourself. You are very quiet and private.

You are very practical, and only act after thinking things through. You don't like being forced to answer quickly. You have to evaluate the situation completely. You make decisions based on what you can verify with your senses.

You like to be involved deeply in one or two special projects. You like to be behind the scenes. You are very logical and fair. You feel you should be honest with others at all costs.

You trust what is certain. You only like new ideas if they can be practically applied to the situation. You value what is real. You use your common sense. You like to utilise the skills you have instead of learning new ones. You are very specific and detailed when writing or talking to others. You follow directions well. You like things to be laid out for you to do instead of working them out for yourself. You like decisions to be made. You don't like things to be left in limbo. You like to know what you are getting into before you commit to something.

You like to focus on the here and now. You enjoy completing projects. It is important for you to achieve and succeed. Therefore, you believe in working hard and playing later. You like to set goals and work towards them.

I'm sad that there is no mention there of a career that involved making a lot of money with the least amount of effort. That would be my career choice.

If you ever want a machine to do the decisions for you (think magic 8-ball + personality test). Hunch is for you.

Tmax Is New Project David

A Korean company called TmaxCore just announced a project called Tmax Window 9. It's supposed to be an entirely new OS written from scratch. For now, it runs MS Office applications and the replay mode Starcraft. Starcraft was probably the first milestone test, this being Korea. Some dude who understands Korean has translated and compiled information about TMax Window 9.

A new OS in 4 years with 100% windows ABI compatibility. Really now. I've heard this song before from somewhere.

Remember a few years back when a little known company in the Philippines called SpecOpsLabs unveiled with much splash their baby called Project David? If you have no recollection of what it was, it's supposed to be a layer on top of Linux that will enable Linux to run Windows applications. It was met with a huge amount of criticism particularly because the Project David screen shots all indicated that it was running Wine (since it exhibited all of wine's GUI bugs). All of that and they failed to acknowledge that it was running wine. Not that it has to. But these kinds of disclosure is important if you are trying to sell your company to MS.

And now this new OS comes along. I won't be surprised that this is running on top of ReactOS or Linux + Wine. For those not in the know, ReactOS is basically a non-unix based operating system built entirely around wine. Tmax Window 9 has been met with a lot of enthusiasm from the Korean media as much as Project David has been met with a lot of enthusiasm from the Philippine media. It's not a bad thing. I have nothing against Korean programmers and a new OS is not a bad thing. But prior experience tells me that this is a lot of hot air. The wine project has been around for 16 YEARS. Really.

North Carolina Sewer Monster

I'll be sure to have nightmares about this one. More evidence of the impending apocalypse!

DO NOT WATCH if you have a heart condition or slightly squeamish.

You have been warned.

From the bowels of io9:

[The] city of Raleigh, North Carolina, is responding as the viral video of a seething blob in the city sewers made its way across the internet yesterday. Marti Gibson is the Environmental/EMS Coordinator for Public Utilities in the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, and she has been as confused as the rest of us. When she first looked at the video, she emailed our anonymous source to say it was a slime mold that was in the phase of its lifecycle where it looks like a throbbing, breathing animal (see io9's report on slime molds from a few weeks ago where we talked about this exact thing).

She assured our tipster that any water passing by this slime would pass through a treatment plant and be thoroughly cleansed. But then, a few hours later, Gibson retracted her statement in an email...

A Hearty Meal Of Stupid

I know Microsoft has a lot on its hands just trying to promote IE8. But this is stupid.
The large letters up front says 8 meals for every download. The fine print says this:

Only complete downloads of Windows^® Internet Explorer^® 8 through browserforthebetter.com from June 8, 2009 through August 8, 2009 qualify for the charitable donation to Feeding America^®. Microsoft^® is donating $1.15 per download to Feeding America^® up to a maximum of $1,000,000. Meals are used for illustrative purposes only. Meal conversion is effective until June 30th, 2010.

Seriously, where can I get 8 meals for $1.15?

Gadgets Galore

These are all my gadgets here.



As you can quite clearly see, there are quite a lot of them. In order left to right:
Macbook, Sony PSP, Sony Ericsson T650i, Samsung U4 mp3 player mounted on a Belkin 4 port usb hub, HP Compaq laptop and a Western Digital MyBook Essential 1TB. Those are a lot of gadgets. That's not including the camera I used to take the pictures.

So I decided to clean up my act (along with my table). I sold the HP Compaq laptop (goodbye Ubuntu) and replaced the U4 media player with something more robust (iPod Nano). I've yet to sell the U4.

It was going fine until I realized that my extension cord was out of place on the table. I bought some office trays from Ikea but it wasn't working out. I tried putting the extension cord at the floor under the desk but it was very troublesome to go under the desk to shut off the power. In the end, I decided to screw some holes at the side of the awesome maple table and fasten the extension cord there. I wasn't kidding about the awesome part. I now literally have blisters on my fingers just trying to screw holes on it's side. Now, it's on the side of the table but I am still able to turn the power on and off selectively.

This is how the extension cord is now mounted:


And this is the finished setup:


Setup: Macbook, cheap China-made 7-port hub, iPod Nano, Sony Ericsson T650i on a stand, Western Digital MyBook Essential 1TB. PSP is not in the picture. I still have it though. And of course, the camera I am holding. The white thing there is an Apple remote for on the bed viewing.

Yes. That is Stephen Colbert from The Colbert Report.

Introspection 001: Unfair

Along with other false starts, I now hereby decide to start introspecting my life with the use of other people's parodies of it through the medium of poorly drawn comics about geeks

Introspection 001

More Evidence Of The Impending Zombie Apocalypse

I have enough nightmares to keep me awake at night. This one will keep me awake till the zombie apocalypse comes true.

I need to arm myself.

Old Photos

I've just noticed that mousechaser has added a few old photo sets to his flickr account.
The memories... I barely remember them. :p

Links:
AOTS First Day
AOTS Field Work Day
Tokyo Edo Museum

Why did you ever let this go?

Lost Teddy Bear

My girlfriend lost a teddy bear in Batanes Resort's Itbayat Cottage Room B. Her name is Mirella. If you know anyone who works there, or knows anyone who knows someone else, please help me find her...

I know it's cheesy but it means a lot.

This is Mirella and she's a product of Blue Magic.

[Update] As per the comment below, she has been found and she is safe. :)