I have to resolve this issue within me as soon as possible. After my chat with KHV two days ago, now I am confused. Am I a reductionist? or non-reductionist? Until now, I cannot define my beliefs on this matter. My thoughts are marred and it seems that I cannot converge them into one point of belief. Hmmmm... I guess I believe that there is an ultimate reality outside of me (outside us) and this reality can be described into a single equation (or set of theories). But I am not sure about this.
Gaahhh... am I reductionist or not?
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The King's Rook
Your result for The Chess Mess Test...
The King's Rook
The King’s Rook is the epitome of the word ‘clever’. They are the professor who juggles ideas for papers and grants while joking with a highly entertaining lecture. They are stand-up comedians who are accurate with truths. They are quick with their brains and can love to argue if only to play devils advocate. Others should be aware that this can result in hurt feelings or confusion if you can’t handle debate for debates sake. This Rook is wonderful at finding short-cuts and performing mental gymnastics. They are fond of physical or intellectual toys – the more sophisticated the puzzle – the better. Tetris anyone?
The King’s Rook is an optimist in addition to being clever. This can lead to them flying off the handle when inconveniences and setbacks occur (because they shouldn’t have.) They don’t have much patience for those who may come across as ‘wrong’ or even ‘unintelligent’. But in light of this they are genuinely friendly if not charming when life doesn’t harass them. They are experts in their own field – it is hard to win any debate they are passionate about – they most likely know the weaknesses and have that covered.
When the Rook behind the throne is appreciated, they offer the King a large amount of flexibility and problem solving. If someone says 'it can't be done," rest assured this King's Prince is figuring out the solution to that challenge. They may have a problem with starting projects and never seeing them through. They may also be competitive and unappreciative of others contribution. Regardless, they are great at generating team spirit and using confrontation to their advantage.
Check out my other tests!
Changeling Type | Mage SorterTuesday, August 19, 2008
Of Durian Coffee
Just few more sips and I am close to heaven. I told myself while drawing the warm mug of Durian Coffee to my lips. I was with KHV in Likha Diwa and that very event sent a tremor, created a ripple in my intellectual spacetime. After a year, I got to see KHV again. After four years, it’s good to feel this kind of disturbance again in my prosaic spacetime.
Few hours before we had that coffee klatsch, it took me 18 missed calls, 3 text messages and 3 rounds of the area before I could find KHV’s boarding house in KNL. That day I made sure that I could meet him. It had been a year since he went back to Davao for LOA and it had been almost four years that we hadn’t talked about our ideas and perceptions on various topics. Oh! I missed the days of our youthful idealisms!
I had to see him. If not, I would miss the chance of bringing back my ardor for scientific discussions. I would miss the opportunity to remind myself that I am, somehow, a man of science and mathematics. If this happened, I might be insane by now. I am already bored with the usual things in life and I need to find my old self somewhere in the deep recesses of my memory and only one man can do that and that’s KHV.
He is Feynman for me.
We met four years ago in Molave Residence Hall. It all started with a stick of cigarette and some chit chat about smoking. I never expected that that simple chit chat would become daily intellectual discussions, exchange of physics and philosophical ideas, sharing of happy moments, green jokes, and some other things two close friends would do.
Upon seeing each other, we exchanged short lines of “how are you? and how’s your life?” He did not change much. He is still the same KHV I met four years ago. We did not talk much about ourselves. I, on one hand, told him about my future plans, my drastic change of priorities and the inevitable course of my choices.
Out of nowhere, our talk shifted to more deeper and technical. It seemed that we sailed on the sea of science, surfing through different waves of topics: from the usual exploration of quantum mechanics, such as entanglement and quantum equations; to the life of different physicists, particularly Richard Feynman; to the emerging fields of mathematics and physics such as Neural Networks, Statistical Mechanics, BioPhysics, Cosmology, Information Technology, Category Theory, Condensed Matter, and many other bizarre world of equations and phenomena; to philosophical understanding from reductionist point of view to non-reductionist, to works of Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky; to the personalities of our friends, the never dying idealism and activism of Midz, to the ever jovial disposition of Aldrin; and lastly to the future of our lives.
In just three hours we were able to talk on a bulk of the topics encompassing a wide range of time frame. This is the kind of discussion I missed.
After sipping the last drop of my Durian Coffee, I felt the tingling soul of contentment within me. At last, I have the courage now to reconnect again to all of my friends. I am ready to face things. KHV, supported me with my decisions and I believe that he believes I can do more from what I have now. I could sense his support and that empowered me to look at the brighter side of life. I know, I have been living a life with full of regrets lately. The more I think about the opportunities I let to slip away from my hands, the more that I am trapped within my day dreams. Hopefully, this chit chat with him will spark a new hope in my heart, a new life.
Few hours before we had that coffee klatsch, it took me 18 missed calls, 3 text messages and 3 rounds of the area before I could find KHV’s boarding house in KNL. That day I made sure that I could meet him. It had been a year since he went back to Davao for LOA and it had been almost four years that we hadn’t talked about our ideas and perceptions on various topics. Oh! I missed the days of our youthful idealisms!
I had to see him. If not, I would miss the chance of bringing back my ardor for scientific discussions. I would miss the opportunity to remind myself that I am, somehow, a man of science and mathematics. If this happened, I might be insane by now. I am already bored with the usual things in life and I need to find my old self somewhere in the deep recesses of my memory and only one man can do that and that’s KHV.
He is Feynman for me.
We met four years ago in Molave Residence Hall. It all started with a stick of cigarette and some chit chat about smoking. I never expected that that simple chit chat would become daily intellectual discussions, exchange of physics and philosophical ideas, sharing of happy moments, green jokes, and some other things two close friends would do.
Upon seeing each other, we exchanged short lines of “how are you? and how’s your life?” He did not change much. He is still the same KHV I met four years ago. We did not talk much about ourselves. I, on one hand, told him about my future plans, my drastic change of priorities and the inevitable course of my choices.
Out of nowhere, our talk shifted to more deeper and technical. It seemed that we sailed on the sea of science, surfing through different waves of topics: from the usual exploration of quantum mechanics, such as entanglement and quantum equations; to the life of different physicists, particularly Richard Feynman; to the emerging fields of mathematics and physics such as Neural Networks, Statistical Mechanics, BioPhysics, Cosmology, Information Technology, Category Theory, Condensed Matter, and many other bizarre world of equations and phenomena; to philosophical understanding from reductionist point of view to non-reductionist, to works of Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky; to the personalities of our friends, the never dying idealism and activism of Midz, to the ever jovial disposition of Aldrin; and lastly to the future of our lives.
In just three hours we were able to talk on a bulk of the topics encompassing a wide range of time frame. This is the kind of discussion I missed.
After sipping the last drop of my Durian Coffee, I felt the tingling soul of contentment within me. At last, I have the courage now to reconnect again to all of my friends. I am ready to face things. KHV, supported me with my decisions and I believe that he believes I can do more from what I have now. I could sense his support and that empowered me to look at the brighter side of life. I know, I have been living a life with full of regrets lately. The more I think about the opportunities I let to slip away from my hands, the more that I am trapped within my day dreams. Hopefully, this chit chat with him will spark a new hope in my heart, a new life.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Slices of Manga
For almost a year, Bleach and Naruto characters never fail to excite and amuse me. I always watch out for the new chapters of these mangas in OneManga.com every Friday, or every weekend. I have them not because I am an avid fan of Ichigo or Naruto. I have them because they punch a light humor to my life, they kick some lessons in my day to day dealings, as well they blow some insights to my understanding of things. Most of all, they provide me the humor I need to keep my life rolling. :D
Of all the fight scenes in all mangas, these chapters of Bleach is the most hilarious and the funniest for me.
The fight between Beauty and Beauty.
Chapter 320: Beauty Is So Solitary
... check OneManga to see details of the fight scenes.
... and because of the hair...
... and the fight continues (see Chapter 321)
Just visit OneManga, or download the chapters from other websites to see more of this funny actions.
I am looking forward to see more hilarious but witty fight scenes from both Bleach and Naruto.
Of all the fight scenes in all mangas, these chapters of Bleach is the most hilarious and the funniest for me.
The fight between Beauty and Beauty.
Chapter 320: Beauty Is So Solitary
... check OneManga to see details of the fight scenes.
... and because of the hair...
... and the fight continues (see Chapter 321)
Just visit OneManga, or download the chapters from other websites to see more of this funny actions.
I am looking forward to see more hilarious but witty fight scenes from both Bleach and Naruto.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Fun Day 2
The Sublime Philosophical Crap Test
Your result for The Sublime Philosophical Crap Test by Saint_Gasoline ...
N-A-R
You scored 56% Non-Reductionism, 78% Epistemological Absolutism, and 22% Moral Objectivism!
Metaphysics: Non-Reductionism (Idealism or Realism) In metaphysics, my test measures your tendency towards Reductionism or Non-Reductionism. As a Non-Reductionist, you recognize that reality is not necessarily simple or unified, and you thus tend to produce a robust ontology instead of carelessly shaving away hypothetical entities that reflect our philosophical experiences. My test recognizes two types of Non-Reductionists: Idealists and Realists.
1. Idealists believe that reality is fundamentally unknowable. All we can ever know is the world of sense experience, thought, and other phenomena which are only distorted reflections of an ultimate (or noumenal) reality. Kant, one of the most significant philosophers in history, theorized that human beings perceive reality in such a way that they impose their own mental frameworks and categories upon reality, fully distorting it. Reality for Kant is unconceptualized and not subject to any of the categories our minds apply to it. Idealists are non-reductionists because they recognize that the distinction between phenomenal reality and ultimate reality cannot be so easily discarded or unified into a single reality. They are separate and distinct, and there is no reason to suppose the one mirrors the other. Major philosophical idealists include Kant and Fichte.
If your views are different from the above, then you may be a Realist. 2. Realists deny the validity of sloppy metaphysical reductions, because they feel that there is no reason to suspect that reality reflects principles of parsimony or simplicity. Realism is the most common-sensical of the metaphysical views. It doesn't see reality as a unity or as reducible to matter or mind, nor does it see reality as divided into a phenomenal world of experience and an unknowable noumenal world of things-in-themselves. Realist metaphysics emphasizes that reality is for the most part composed of the things we observe and think. On the question of the existence of universals, for instance, a realist will assert that while universals do not physically exist, the relations they describe in particulars are as real as the particular things themselves, giving universals a type of reality. Thus, no reduction is made. On the mind-body problem, realists tend to believe that minds and bodies both exist, and the philosophical problems involved in reducing mind to matter or matter to mind are too great to warrant such a reduction. Finally, realists deny that reality is ultimately a Unity or Absolute, though they recognize that reality can be viewed as a Unity when we consider the real relations between the parts as constituting this unity--but it doesn't mean that the world isn't also made up of particular things. Aristotle and Popper are famous realists.
*****
Epistemology: Absolutism (Rationalism or Pragmatism) My test measures one's tendency towards Absolutism or Skepticism in regards to epistemology. As an Absolutist, you believe that objective knowledge is possible given the right approach, and you deny the claims of skeptical philosophers who insist that we can never have knowledge of ultimate reality. The two types of Absolutists recognized by my test are Rationalists and Pragmatists.
1. Rationalists believe that the use of reason ultimately provides the best route to truth. A rationalist usually defines truth as a correspondence between propositions and reality, taking the common-sense route. Also, rationalists tend to believe that knowledge of reality is made possible through certain foundational beliefs. This stance is known as foundationalism. A foundationalist believes that, because we cannot justify the truth of every statement in an infinite regress, we ultimately reach a foundation of knowledge. This foundation is composed of a priori truths, like mathematics and logic, as well as undoubtable truths like one's belief in his or her own existence. The belief that experiences and memories are veridical is also part of the foundation. Thus, for a rationalist knowledge of reality is made possible through our foundational beliefs, which we do not need to justify because we find them to be undoubtable and self-evident. In regards to science, a rationalist will tend to emphasize the foundational assumptions of scientific inquiry as prior to and more important than scientific inquiry itself. If science does lead to truth, it is only because it is based upon the assumption of certain rational principles such as "Every event is caused" and "The future will resemble the past". Philosophy has a wide representation of philosophical rationalists--Descartes, Spinoza, Liebniz, and many others.
If that didn't sound like your own views, then you are most likely the other type of Absolutist: the Pragmatist. Epistemological Pragmatists are fundamentally identified by their definition of truth. Truth is, on this view, merely a measure of a proposition's success in inquiry. This view is a strictly scientific notion of truth. A proposition can be called true if it leads to successful predictions or coheres best with the observed facts about the world. Thus, for the pragmatist, knowledge of reality is possible through scientific reasoning. A pragmatist emphasizes man's fallibility, and hence takes baby-steps towards knowledge through scientific methodology. Any truth claim for a pragmatist is open to revision and subject to change--if empirical observations lead us to call even logical rules into question (like quantum physics has done for the law of the excluded middle), then we can and should abandon even these supposed a priori and "absolutely certain" logical rules if they do not accord with our testing and refuting of our various propositions. As a consequence of this, a pragmatist doesn't feel that scientific knowledge is based upon unfounded assumptions that are taken to be true without any sort of justification--rather, they believe that the successes of scientific inquiry have proved that its assumptions are well-founded. For instance, the assumption of science that the future will be like the past is adequately shown by the amazing success of scientific theories in predicting future events--how else could this be possible unless the assumption were true? Pragmatism borrows elements from realism and yet attempts to account for the critiques made by skeptics and relativists. It is essentially a type of philosophical opportunism--it borrows the best stances from a large number of philosophical systems and attempts to discard the problems of these systems by combining them with others. Famous pragmatists of this type are Peirce and Dewey.
*****
Ethics: Relativism (Subjectivism or Emotivism) My test measures one's tendency towards moral Objectivism or moral Relativism in regards to ethics. As a moral Relativist, you tend to see moral choices as describing a subject's reaction to a moral object or situation, and not as a property of the moral object itself. You may also feel that moral words are meaningless because they do not address any empirical fact about the world. My test recognizes two types of moral relativists--Subjectivists and Emotivists.
1. Subjectivists see individual or collective desires as defining a situation's or object's moral worth. Thus, the subject, not the object itself, determines the value. Subjectivists recognize that social rules, customs, and morality have been wide-ranging and quite varied throughout history among various cultures. As a result, Subjectivism doesn't attempt to issue hard and fast rules for judging the moral worth of things. Instead, it recognizes that what we consider "good" and "right" is not bound by any discernable rule. There is no one trait that makes an act good or right, because so many different kinds of things have been called good and right. In regards to the definition of "good" or "right", a Subjectivist will tend to define it as whatever a particular person or group of people desire. They do not define it merely as "happiness" or "pleasure", for instance, because sometimes we desire to do things that do not produce pleasure, and because we don't consider all pleasurable things good. Furthermore, Subjectivists recognize the validity of consequentialism in that sometimes we refer to consequences as good and bad--but they also recognize that our intentions behind an action, or the means to the end, can also determine an act's moral worth. Again, there is no one rule to determine these things. Hence the relativism of moral Subjectivism. The most well-known of the subjectivists is Nietzsche.
If that didn't sound like your position, then you are probably the other variety of moral Relativist--the Emotivist. Emotivists are moral Relativists only in a very slanted sense, because they actually deny that words about morality have any meaning at all. An Emotivist would probably accept Hume's argument that it is impossible to derive an "ought" from an "is"--no factual state of affairs can logically entail any sort of moral action. Furthermore, a emotivist's emphasis on scientific (and hence empirical) verification and testing quickly leads to the conclusion that concepts such as "good" and "right" don't really describe any real qualities or relations. Science is never concerned with whether a particular state of affairs is moral or right or good--and an emotivist feels much the same way. Morality is thus neither objective or subjective for the emotivist--it is without any meaning at all, a sort of vague ontological fiction that is merely a symbol for our emotional responses to certain events. Famous emotivists include Ayer and other positivists associated with the Vienna Circle.
*****
As you can see, when your philosophical position is narrowed down there are so many potential categories that an OKCupid test cannot account for them all. But, taken as very broad categories or philosophical styles, you are best characterized as an N-A-R. Your exact philosophical opposite would be an R-S-O.
About the Author
Saint_gasoline is a crazed madman who spends all of his time writing OKCupid tests and ranting about philosophy and science. If you are interested in reading more of his insane ramblings, or seeing his deliciously trite webcomic, go to SaintGasoline.com.
From HelloQuizy
Fun Day
Nothing much to do today... so here I go, answering some online tests...
Personality Defect Test
Your result for The Personality Defect Test ...
Personality Defect Test
Your result for The Personality Defect Test ...
Hand-Raiser
You are 86% Rational, 57% Extroverted, 14% Brutal, and 29% Arrogant.
To put it less negatively:
1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.
2. You are more EXTROVERTED than introverted.
3. You are more GENTLE than brutal.
4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant.
Compatibility:
Your exact opposite is the Brute.
Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Braggart, the Haughty Intellectual, and the Robot.
*
*
If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.
The other personality types:
The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.
The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.
The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.
The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.
The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.
Be sure to take my Sublime Philosophical Crap Test if you are interested in taking a slightly more intellectual test that has just as many insane ramblings as this one does!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Warp Drive and Cloaking Devices: Not Just Science Fiction Anymore?
Written by Nancy Atkinson
Distortion of spacetime that may enable warp speed. Credit: Michael Alcubierre
Standard in almost every Star Trek episode are warp drives and cloaking devices. But in reality these science fiction gadgets defy the laws of physics. Or do they? Different scientists have been working on developing these two devices and they say they are getting closer to actually creating working prototypes. While warp drive won't be available anytime soon, scientists are gaining a better understanding of how faster-than-light speed could possibly be achieved. And as for cloaking devices, don't look now, but researchers recently cloaked three-dimensional objects using specially engineered materials that redirects light around objects.
Previously, scientists at the University of California, Berkley were only able to cloak very thin, two dimensional objects. But now, using meta-materials, which are mixtures of metal and circuit board materials such as ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite, scientists have deflected light waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream. Objects are visible because they scatter the light that strikes them, reflecting some of it back to the eye. But the meta-materials would ward off light, radar or other waves. In effect, it would be a type of optical camouflage.
The research group, led by Xiang Zhang say they are a step closer to being able to render people and objects invisible. Their findings will be released later this week in the journals Nature and Science.
The path that light rays would take through a theoretical cloaking device. Credit: John Pendry
Another scientist and one of the leaders in cloaking research is John Pendry, a theoretical physicist at Imperial College, London. It was he who first worked out how a cloak could be built in theory, and then he helped build the first working cloak. Pendry recently submitted an abstract that discusses what he says is a new type of cloak, one that gives all cloaked objects the appearance of a flat conducting sheet. Pendry says this type of cloak has the advantage in that nothing remarkable is required to create the cloak. Pendry said the device could be "made isotropic. It makes broadband cloaking in the optical frequencies one step closer." This type of cloak seemingly creates a mirage to render an object invisible to the eye. Pendry's own website says information on his new cloak will be available soon.
While cloaking devices would have military applications, a group of scientists researching warp drives say they just want to have the ability to travel to Earth-like exoplanets, like Gliese 581c to better understand the origin and development of life. "The only way we could realistically visit these worlds in time-frames on the order of a human lifespan would be to develop what has been popularly termed a `warp drive,'" said researchers Gerald Cleaver and Richard Obousy from Baylor University in Texas.
Their work expands on research done by theoretical physicist Michael Alcubierre from the University of Mexico, who in 1994 demonstrated space could be made to move around a spacecraft by `stretching' space so that space itself would expand behind a hypothetical spacecraft, while contracting in front of the craft, creating the effect of motion. So, the ship itself doesn't move, but space moves around it.
Their new research tries to take advantage of advances in understanding dark energy and why our universe is ever-expanding in every direction. Comprehending that might give us a leg up in being able to generate an asymmetric bubble around a spacecraft. "If we can understand why spacetime is already expanding, we may be able to use this knowledge to artificially generate an expansion (and contraction) of spacetime," said Cleaver and Obousy in their abstract.
They propose manipulating the 11th dimension, a special theoretical part of an offshoot of string theory called the "m-theory" to create a bubble of dark energy by shrinking the 11th dimension in front of the ship and expanding it behind.
Obviously, this is highly theoretical, but if it leads researchers to a better understanding of dark energy, so much the better.
There’s one hitch, however. Cleaver and Obousy calculated that the energy needed to distort the space around a spacecraft-sized object is about 10^45 Joules or the total energy of an object the size of Jupiter if all its mass were converted into energy.
This creates a chicken and the egg type of conundrum. Which comes first: understanding dark energy or having the ability to create huge amounts of energy?
But Cleaver and Obousy are upbeat about it all. "This is a hypothetical propulsion device that could theoretically circumvent the traditional limitations of special relativity which restricts spacecraft to sub-light velocities. Any breakthrough in this field would revolutionize space exploration and open the doorway to interstellar travel."
News Sources: ArXiv (warp drive), ArXiv (cloaking), ArXiv blog, AP
From: http://www.universetoday.com/2008/08/11/warp-drive-and-cloaking-devices-not-just-science-fiction-anymore/Tuesday, August 12, 2008
My Romance with the Microchips: (Part 2 of My Romance with the 21st Technologies)
From Iloilo, I brought my laptop I bought from my cousin (of course in easy installment payment), with me. It’s MSI VR 340, Intel Dou Core, 2 GB, and 80 GB. I started to tinker it, as a normal response for someone who has a new gadget, and exploring its capabilities. Originally, it had a Windows XP OS Service Pack 1. It was working fine, the audios, the videos (with all the codecs I need), and the internet, both wireless and regular connection. I was quite satisfied by its capabilities, fast in terms of the response time I need.
Windows XP is fine with me because I did not encounter any major issues or bugs while using it for almost 6 years (excluding the times when I have to install several updates from different service packs). However, I was reminded by the news of Microsoft that they already stopped manufacturing XP OS installers as well as beginning to eradicate its presence in the market. It means that they are slowly replacing the XP OS with Vista OS. This brought certain indecisiveness in me and I was not sure if I would maintain the XP OS of my notebook or replace it with new one. As I learned from several programmer friends, Vista OS has several bugs and issues when it comes to the operability of other softwares. It has also high security measures and it’s difficult for the users to install unregistered or uncertified softwares. Well, of course these are programmer points of view. It means they are having difficulty in cracking and getting through the mainframes of the OS. On one hand, I considered the experience of common users with Vista OS.
I had a discussion with Pow and he mentioned that Vista was working fine. One of our friends, Jay was using Vista OS in his notebook (same model as mine) and it was working perfectly. I decided to visit them to borrow the bootleg installer and would run it in my notebook also. But before I went to their apartment, I borrowed an XP Service Pack 3 installer from the IT Department as a back-up if in case the Vista thing wouldn’t work in my machine.
When I arrived in their apartment, as a usual routine we did not start to work on the OS replacement, but instead we had coffee first and some chit chat on things we know about this topic. Pow offered me to try Ubuntu first and if I wouldn’t like it I would have the Vista installed in my machine.
So, we installed Ubuntu. It was a short process and in around 20-30 minutes I had a dual OS in my notebook. I could work on both Windows XP OS (my original OS) and Linux Ubuntu OS. Upon completion of the installment, I explored the capabilities of Ubuntu. I started with the internet connection. At first, it worked fine. The wireless connection worked well and could perfectly browse through the net. Then, I checked its programs and I was quite satisfied. I already had an experience with Ubuntu from my previous housemate. Ren Gabas, a computer science major, would rather use Ubuntu than any OS manufactured by Microsoft because it’s an open source OS and you could do several tinkering its main codings/mainframes. Sometimes I would borrow his machine and I had no choice but to live with the Ubuntu OS. Now, that I had it in my machine, I was pretty satisfied.
Yes I was already satisfied because I have both OS’s in my machine. If I needed to work on things for the office I can easily switch to XP. However, while we were in the middle of exploring it the wireless connection suddenly malfunctioned. We worked on restoring the connection, uninstalling and re-installing the 802.11g driver (6877 WLAN Driver), checking the connection point/router, and some other tech checks. We already did everything. We speculated that there was something wrong with my driver. We had to try it outside or on any other wireless access point as to test if it was really my driver or it was the configuration of Pow’s wireless router.
Unsettled, I asked Pow to clear everything and we had to install Vista. And let’s see if the wireless would work. So cleared both partitions of the hard drive, removed both Windows XP and Ubuntu and installed Windows Vista. It was a long process, so we decided to eat outside while waiting for the completion of the installment process. So we had fried chicken in Tropical Hut Shaw Boulevard. When we returned the process was almost complete. After few minutes I already had the Vista in machine. We re-installed the drivers and some other needed codecs for the whole thing to work perfectly. We immediately tried the wireless and it was not working. There was something wrong with everything. We scoured to internet, using Jay’s laptop, for any available tip or procedure that would fix our problem. We tried everything but still the wireless internet connection wouldn’t function. We gave up and it was already early in the morning. Before I went home to Makati, Pow and I had breakfast in their apartment delivered by Jollibee.
When I got to my aunt’s house in Makati, I proceeded directly on my desktop machine. I had to fix it because it was infected by a certain scandal virus. My cousin is the culprit of this virus. For 5 years my desktop machine was not infected by any virus (even though it doesn’t have any anti-virus) when it was still under my helm. But when I handed it over to my cousin, in two weeks it was infected. Sometimes, people just simply don’t know how to get through their way to new technology. I considered my desktop machine as my partner for years and I always made sure that it would be free of any bugs or virus.
With my Windows XP SP 3 from the office, clean state (after reformatting), I installed the new OS in my desktop machine. After several hours, my desktop machine is working perfectly well again. As a last leg of troubleshooting, I installed the DSL internet connection.
Then, I started to work back on my notebook. I uninstalled the Vista OS and started, on clean state, replacing it XP SP3. I also removed the partition of the hard drive and reinstated the space as one drive (instead of two partitioned drive as it appears in the system). I thought everything would be okay, that would not encounter any issue until I checked the audio. It was not working. I can’t hear any sound from the notebook, not a minute decibel of sound. That was something weird. So I went online again through my desktop machine checking on how to troubleshoot the problem from the internet. Dismayed, I learned that Windows XP SP3 has several issues with the audio. There are missing supports for Realtek HD driver. Kb888111xpsp3 component is missing and it would be difficult for me to fix it.
For almost 24 hours I had been wrestling with these different OS’s. Windows XP SP1, SP3, Ubuntu and Vista. My body could feel the exhaustion already. I guessed it’s better for me to take some rest. So I decided to end my romance with these OS’s. Now, that the desktop machine is working perfectly, I could put off the 100% operability of my notebook for tomorrow. After-all I would be going to the office and would seek the guidance of IT people.
I slept for more than 10 hours.
That’s the romance I had with Windows and Ubuntu.
What’s the fuss with these OS’s? For certain people it doesn’t really matter much. But for me, it was a great experience. At least I got to learn the ins and outs of installing an operating system. As I told Pow, our generation and after us, are actually lucky to have things as user/consumer friendly. You can fix and install things by just clicking the “OK”, “Continue” and “Finish” buttons. We don’t need standard programming routines to install certain program. We don’t need to go through the complicated steps or process before you can have something working, just like they were doing before. We are lucky to have everything by just simply clicking the mouse.
My story doesn’t end here. I have not mentioned yet my thoughts on these OS’s, my perceptions of them, things that we can improve and the future that awaits them.
For now, I have to stop here for I have other work to do.
I still have several thoughts that I need to put in writing and they would be the content of my succeeding write-ups.
Below are the next topics that I am going to write here:
1. My Romance with the Microchips 2: Random Thoughts (Part 3 of My Romance with the 21st Technologies) – I will explore my thoughts on the upcoming OS’s here integrated with the coming of age technologies like Haptic and Nootic.
2. P(f(a)): S --> L; The Mapping of Love to System through French Apple Pie – some of my thoughts during our coffee klatsch in CBTL Tomas Morato.
3. My Romance with Space Propulsions (Part 4 of my Romance with the 21st Technologies) – I will explore my thoughts here on the space age of human beings, and the efforts that are currently invested to come up with new space craft design and propulsion design.
4. Review: Ancestor’s Tales by Richard Dawkins
5. Review: Saga of the Seven Suns by Kevin J Anderson
6. Origin of the First Born (extension of Anderson’s elementals)
7. Of Arrow and Caret (some current thoughts on mathematics)
Windows XP is fine with me because I did not encounter any major issues or bugs while using it for almost 6 years (excluding the times when I have to install several updates from different service packs). However, I was reminded by the news of Microsoft that they already stopped manufacturing XP OS installers as well as beginning to eradicate its presence in the market. It means that they are slowly replacing the XP OS with Vista OS. This brought certain indecisiveness in me and I was not sure if I would maintain the XP OS of my notebook or replace it with new one. As I learned from several programmer friends, Vista OS has several bugs and issues when it comes to the operability of other softwares. It has also high security measures and it’s difficult for the users to install unregistered or uncertified softwares. Well, of course these are programmer points of view. It means they are having difficulty in cracking and getting through the mainframes of the OS. On one hand, I considered the experience of common users with Vista OS.
I had a discussion with Pow and he mentioned that Vista was working fine. One of our friends, Jay was using Vista OS in his notebook (same model as mine) and it was working perfectly. I decided to visit them to borrow the bootleg installer and would run it in my notebook also. But before I went to their apartment, I borrowed an XP Service Pack 3 installer from the IT Department as a back-up if in case the Vista thing wouldn’t work in my machine.
When I arrived in their apartment, as a usual routine we did not start to work on the OS replacement, but instead we had coffee first and some chit chat on things we know about this topic. Pow offered me to try Ubuntu first and if I wouldn’t like it I would have the Vista installed in my machine.
So, we installed Ubuntu. It was a short process and in around 20-30 minutes I had a dual OS in my notebook. I could work on both Windows XP OS (my original OS) and Linux Ubuntu OS. Upon completion of the installment, I explored the capabilities of Ubuntu. I started with the internet connection. At first, it worked fine. The wireless connection worked well and could perfectly browse through the net. Then, I checked its programs and I was quite satisfied. I already had an experience with Ubuntu from my previous housemate. Ren Gabas, a computer science major, would rather use Ubuntu than any OS manufactured by Microsoft because it’s an open source OS and you could do several tinkering its main codings/mainframes. Sometimes I would borrow his machine and I had no choice but to live with the Ubuntu OS. Now, that I had it in my machine, I was pretty satisfied.
Yes I was already satisfied because I have both OS’s in my machine. If I needed to work on things for the office I can easily switch to XP. However, while we were in the middle of exploring it the wireless connection suddenly malfunctioned. We worked on restoring the connection, uninstalling and re-installing the 802.11g driver (6877 WLAN Driver), checking the connection point/router, and some other tech checks. We already did everything. We speculated that there was something wrong with my driver. We had to try it outside or on any other wireless access point as to test if it was really my driver or it was the configuration of Pow’s wireless router.
Unsettled, I asked Pow to clear everything and we had to install Vista. And let’s see if the wireless would work. So cleared both partitions of the hard drive, removed both Windows XP and Ubuntu and installed Windows Vista. It was a long process, so we decided to eat outside while waiting for the completion of the installment process. So we had fried chicken in Tropical Hut Shaw Boulevard. When we returned the process was almost complete. After few minutes I already had the Vista in machine. We re-installed the drivers and some other needed codecs for the whole thing to work perfectly. We immediately tried the wireless and it was not working. There was something wrong with everything. We scoured to internet, using Jay’s laptop, for any available tip or procedure that would fix our problem. We tried everything but still the wireless internet connection wouldn’t function. We gave up and it was already early in the morning. Before I went home to Makati, Pow and I had breakfast in their apartment delivered by Jollibee.
When I got to my aunt’s house in Makati, I proceeded directly on my desktop machine. I had to fix it because it was infected by a certain scandal virus. My cousin is the culprit of this virus. For 5 years my desktop machine was not infected by any virus (even though it doesn’t have any anti-virus) when it was still under my helm. But when I handed it over to my cousin, in two weeks it was infected. Sometimes, people just simply don’t know how to get through their way to new technology. I considered my desktop machine as my partner for years and I always made sure that it would be free of any bugs or virus.
With my Windows XP SP 3 from the office, clean state (after reformatting), I installed the new OS in my desktop machine. After several hours, my desktop machine is working perfectly well again. As a last leg of troubleshooting, I installed the DSL internet connection.
Then, I started to work back on my notebook. I uninstalled the Vista OS and started, on clean state, replacing it XP SP3. I also removed the partition of the hard drive and reinstated the space as one drive (instead of two partitioned drive as it appears in the system). I thought everything would be okay, that would not encounter any issue until I checked the audio. It was not working. I can’t hear any sound from the notebook, not a minute decibel of sound. That was something weird. So I went online again through my desktop machine checking on how to troubleshoot the problem from the internet. Dismayed, I learned that Windows XP SP3 has several issues with the audio. There are missing supports for Realtek HD driver. Kb888111xpsp3 component is missing and it would be difficult for me to fix it.
For almost 24 hours I had been wrestling with these different OS’s. Windows XP SP1, SP3, Ubuntu and Vista. My body could feel the exhaustion already. I guessed it’s better for me to take some rest. So I decided to end my romance with these OS’s. Now, that the desktop machine is working perfectly, I could put off the 100% operability of my notebook for tomorrow. After-all I would be going to the office and would seek the guidance of IT people.
I slept for more than 10 hours.
That’s the romance I had with Windows and Ubuntu.
What’s the fuss with these OS’s? For certain people it doesn’t really matter much. But for me, it was a great experience. At least I got to learn the ins and outs of installing an operating system. As I told Pow, our generation and after us, are actually lucky to have things as user/consumer friendly. You can fix and install things by just clicking the “OK”, “Continue” and “Finish” buttons. We don’t need standard programming routines to install certain program. We don’t need to go through the complicated steps or process before you can have something working, just like they were doing before. We are lucky to have everything by just simply clicking the mouse.
My story doesn’t end here. I have not mentioned yet my thoughts on these OS’s, my perceptions of them, things that we can improve and the future that awaits them.
For now, I have to stop here for I have other work to do.
I still have several thoughts that I need to put in writing and they would be the content of my succeeding write-ups.
Below are the next topics that I am going to write here:
1. My Romance with the Microchips 2: Random Thoughts (Part 3 of My Romance with the 21st Technologies) – I will explore my thoughts on the upcoming OS’s here integrated with the coming of age technologies like Haptic and Nootic.
2. P(f(a)): S --> L; The Mapping of Love to System through French Apple Pie – some of my thoughts during our coffee klatsch in CBTL Tomas Morato.
3. My Romance with Space Propulsions (Part 4 of my Romance with the 21st Technologies) – I will explore my thoughts here on the space age of human beings, and the efforts that are currently invested to come up with new space craft design and propulsion design.
4. Review: Ancestor’s Tales by Richard Dawkins
5. Review: Saga of the Seven Suns by Kevin J Anderson
6. Origin of the First Born (extension of Anderson’s elementals)
7. Of Arrow and Caret (some current thoughts on mathematics)
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