The Construct

Google first. Ask later.

Someone else’s got the answers to your stupid questions. We can’t be bothered.

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Yup. Maybe we should start offering this as a basic course in college. Better yet, teach Googling as early as basic education.

I remember that our teachers use to discuss the Dewey Decimal System to locate books in a library. Forget that. How about teaching effective use of keywords when using search engines.

Business sure know how to sucker punch you. I just noticed that Globelines is offering much cheaper rates for new broadband subscribers. My Php 1995 2 Mbps plan and landline is now only Php 1295.

Thinking it’s unfair, I called up Globelines to see what they plan to do for existing subscribers. Continuing to charge Php 1995 for a Php 1295 is just plain robbery. Thing is, no automatic billing downgrades will be made for existing customers.

If you want to avail of the lower rates, you need to pay Php 550 if you’re still within a lock-in period and a new 1-year lock-in period will be made in addition to the documents you need to sign at their business center.

In my opinion, that Php 550 is still plain robbery. But that Php 550 and lock-in period reset is surely better than paying Php 700 more a month. Especially since I’ve renewed my lease contract for another year. The deal would still bring in Php 7850 in savings for the year. Still, damn them for the Php 550 charge for the downgrade!

Note: This is just according to a Globelines customer support agent. But you can visit your Globelines business center for more details.

Just a quickie. I just noticed that I get 180 prefix when I connect recently. Maybe starting around a week ago. I used to get the dreaded 203 or 222 prefix which meant that I’m on their oftentimes shared public IP.

I used to have such bad luck with Globe’s shared public IP addresses. That meant I can’t use file sharing sites Rapidshare and sometimes when some dolt Globelines user had been idiotic enough to get banned (by IP) in some sites, I’m locked out as well.

Those times, I had to reconnect for several times before I get a more decent IP address. But now that I’m getting the new 180 prefix. Still dynamic but it appears that I don’t have the shared IP problem with most sites. And my uTorrent is still getting that green notification meaning that my port forwarding settings are still good.

Looks like things are looking great.

I feel so old in saying “How I wish we had the learning resources kids have these days.” The Internet and the availability of information has, I think, has pretty much the same effect as, say the photocopying machine or the word processor. I just can’t imagine writing a 100-page thesis

Just last night, my younger university colleague, Raymond and I were sharing a few of the ideas that are quite interesting research areas for us language scholars. Then we came to the issue of access to the latest ideas and resources. How can one do relevant research when we’re still quoting 20 year-old materials.

Wikipedia is up-to-date but still questionable for most as a “citable” resource. But who needs Wikipedia if you can get the actual ebooks and book scans online for free? Sites like Gigapedia (which has been online for more than a year now, wonder why only very few UP people know about it) have a better catalog for recent books than local libraries.

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Overexposed in the Blogosphere was a really interesting post about from a few years back. Are we really that overexposed online? Should we fear overexposure? Have we thrown our Miranda rights out of the window because of this? That everything we say or do online will be used against us?

I do believe that one of the reasons why blogging is so huge here in the Philippines is because of our culture of gossip. We love to be in other people’s personal business. I still stand by my theory that among the reasons why serial killers aren’t commonplace here in the Philippines is that everyone wants to know your personal business – nosy neighbors, colleagues, taxi drivers, etc… And for some reason I do think that we do find a degree of satisfaction sharing our own personal gossip as well.

Some warn that a distasteful online persona would affect career prospects and such efforts. Or maybe there’s truth in the government monitoring you through your blogs and Facebook pages. All this Big Brother bullshit thanks to Google. I guess there’s little to no more room for wanton exhibitionism on the Web. Unless, of course, you’re an online “entertainer.” The Internet is still largely for adult entertainment anyway.

It’s a bit disturbing, really that some people don’t differentiate between a person and his/her online persona. Has the line between reality and virtual become so blurred that the attitudes you project online are what’s considered your true self? Two words for you people – online dating. Let’s see if you won’t exercise the benefit of doubt.

Here are a series very interesting academic articles on the topic on the Psychology of Cyberspace.

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Perhaps a bit of a change on this blog for the year. I’ve actually transferred all of my personal posts to a private journal to which only I have access. I guess there’s value in not having that much dirt aired online.