Digital Nocturne

This is an excerpt of the picture book from the manga and animé Monster. I don’t even know if this book really exists. It’s probably fictional. You may want to watch the video clip. You think it is weird? Scary? Monster has one of the best mature story and plot I have watched in an animé, like it’s a real drama. The animé follows the manga closely and the flow of story is well preserved. It’s very dark and mysterious. It’s not for faint of heart.

Credit goes to Anime-Keep for the translation.

Links:
Wikipedia: Monster (manga)
YouTube: A Monster Without a Name
monster, anime, johan, johann

It fascinates me that after a seemingly losing battle with the panels of our thesis and our beloved school research coordinator, our thesis turned out to be really successful. Except that it has only gone through private alpha testing. I don’t know if my groupmates are willing to pursue the commercial implementation of our web application. I have a business contact who shared interest on the possibility of creating a fork application using our thesis. I’m still considering if that really is viable here in the Philippines. I’m not even sure if our school would shell out money to BUY our software. Now, that’s a different story all together.

Right now, my future lies ahead of me. I have the potential to create a bright future but I’m still waiting for the best job offer. I can opt to start a new business but I think that the talent I have invested in IT may go to waste if I do not gain industry experience for at least 3 years. What I have learned in business so far, especially in IT, is that there are many companies out there that could eat you alive. In IT business, it’s hard to stay afloat if you can’t keep up with the skills needed. What more if you come from the bottom and just starting to climb up the corporate ladder? It’s scary.

I decided to gain more experience from experts. I do not want to learn the hard way if there would be easier way. It’s just impractical to beat myself up. This is the same reason why I do not hastily accept any job offer. I want the best possible option I can get and grow my career in one company steadily. I do not want to shift from one job to another. My father worked in one of the largest consumer goods company in the Philippines. He stayed there more than 15 years and as a result, his salary ballooned that it could even surpass the salary of an average senior manager in a medium-size company. Sadly, he had to retire early because of downsizing initiatives of the executive management.

After analyzing the problem my father had during his working days, I decided that the best possible option is to become a manager so that I am not directly affected by the management. I want to be the one making decisions, not the one taking orders. Well, of course I have to start somewhere at the bottom, as a prerequisite, to climb up.

I also thought that being a freelance consultant might be wiser than being a manager because even if you jump from one company to another, you can bid your price. Being a consultant can really take a long time though. It takes years to become one.

I have also considered being a professor or trainer but I have learned that having industry experience is priceless. Yes, teaching can be fun and it’s a very reputable job. However, putting into another perspective, an industry practitioner can be trained to become a teacher through workshops and seminars; a teacher cannot be easily trained to become a practitioner, IMHO. Given that a UNIX professor has 3 years experience versus a UNIX administrator with 2 years experience and knowledge in system implementations; both are certified. If I am a recruiter for Project Manager Trainee position, I would choose the UNIX admin without a doubt even though both are certified professionals. Think about it.

To be fair enough, some professors I know had part-time jobs in their respective industries. Some had shifted from IT to full-time teaching. It really depends on personal preference. I know that professors in DLSU have to take doctorate degree before they can be full-time professors. I guess the hard work really pays off if one pursues the career he desires.

Call centers have tried to hire me countless times even before graduation. They have offered job positions like technical support representative (TSR) and the like but I did not take any of their offers not that I am boasting about it. In fact, I nearly  accepted one offer after passing a screening exam but I was not able to appear in the final interview because I had tonsillitis and high fever, which is not my entirely fault. I was somewhat thankful that I did not accept it is because I really wanted to start my career on the right track.  I have no problem being a call center agent but I am just not designed for that job and I know that I won’t enjoy it. I want to do something that I really enjoy so that it won’t feel like work because when you really enjoy what you are doing, work doesn’t feel like a chore.

Ok, I guess I already made my point clear. To all the fresh grads out there, especially in the technical field like IT and Engineering, I hope you already have a good lead in the industry you want to pursue. It’s a long way to go.

Good luck to all of us!

I’ve been watching Ghost in The Shell: Stand Alone Complex (GITS: SAC 1st Gig) for several weeks now and I am enjoying it. For several years I’ve been yearning to watch the animé series of GITS but I could not a get a copy of that series. I also failed to watch GITS: SAC 1st Gig ang GITS: SAC 2nd Gig in Animax because my family is not subscribed to that cable channel.

I’m a fan of the original movie “Ghost in the Shell.” Originally filmed in 1995, it’s one of those classic animé film that every collectors should have… well at least to all science fiction fans.

GITS inspired the producers of Matrix trilogy. Read the transcript of an interview. It’s so damn obvious. Whether or not the Wachowski Brothers ripped the whole idea from GITS is already an old debate and I don’t want to fuel another debate here. You can watch the YouTube video: A Matrix and Ghost in the Shell Comparison. Watch it carefully and decide for yourself. If you can’t watch the video, just go here. I’d prefer that The Matrix crew gave proper credit to Masamune Shirow, the author of the GITS manga, anime and films. If you’re a Matrix fan, you might as well watch Ghost in the Shell. I’m a fan of Matrix too so there’s no problem. ^_^

Trivia: after reading several Wikipedia entries, I learned that San Miguel Pale Pilsen was shown in the first movie of GITS. It’s the scene in the yacht after Motoko Kusanagi and Batou had captured the Ghost-hacked agent of the Puppet Master. I didn’t notice it at first. Here’s a screenshot.

I’m looking forward for the 3rd GITS movie in the last quarter of 2006. I don’t know if that will wrap up the epic story of GITS. I’m trying to avoid all the spoilers available in the web so I’ll just have to wait until it’s available in DVD.

Before I end this entry, one of my favorite crime scene story in GITS: SAC 1st Gig is the Laughing Man case. If I were the Laughing Man hacker, I would look like this:

Links:
Wikipedia
Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell (film)
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (1st Gig)
MonkeyGoD Presents: Matrix and Ghost in the Shell Comparison
YouTube: A Matrix and Ghost in the Shell Comparison
Ghost in the Shell, GITS, Stand Alone Complex, Matrix, San Miguel Beer

Today is such a big milestone to our thesis. We have finally come to the stage of binding our thesis, thanks to the blessing of our BELOVED school research coordinator.

It feels good to come this far because only around 5% of our remaining batch is ensured to graduate this July. That is 8 out of about 220 students. Some of my friends are still trying to beat the deadline on July 21. Keep on fighting guys!

I have scheduled my group today to come to school by 11 am. To my shame, I came there around 3:30 pm. Let me redeem myself. I was very late due to several reasons: (1) I tried to finish the installation documentation and soft copy of our thesis documentation. I compiled the soft copy of our thesis in PDF with bookmarks. It took sometime to compile them because I have to insert/delete/update the PDF pages from the latest revisions. (2) I was clueless on how to do the installation manual because we are using a script. There’s no program installer so I wrote a step-by-step procedure. The idea of “user manual” didn’t sink in my mind until I was half way typing the document. (3) Moderate to heavy traffic to school(well that is not unusual anyway). So, if I just knew that the soft copy and the installer are not really required today, I might have gone to school earlier. Sorry guys. ^_^

My printer is critically low in ink; same with Maiah. P4’s printer is hopeless. He told me it didn’t even spew a single drop even with a new black ink cartridge. Thanks goodness I did not let him print our documentation; I decided to take my printer at school so that we can print there on-the-spot. We have agreed to contribute for the new ink. I paid 50% of the price, and they give 25% share each. Unfortunately, the expensive Vaio laptop of Maiah didn’t cooperate very soon. It had gone quirky for a while because the dude installed two virus scanners. Bad. Very bad. Never install two anti-virus unless you want to screw your PC. When the laptop was already functioning quite right, my printer won’t work because it could not be detected by Maiah’s laptop. I really don’t know why I left the printer driver at home. I trusted that my printer could be easily detected by Windows XP so my printer not being detected by Windows XP really disappointed me. Our friend saved the day because she brough her printer with the printer driver CD. What’s more surprising is that we have the same printer — HP 3745! Thanks Divine! That was so cool. Then, my printer has Type B power plugs — flat blades with round grounding pin (American 3-pin). Someone actually brought a multi-adaptor power extension but the owner had to go home. Fortunately, the power sockets in our school actually support Type B plugs! We thought that we could not print the second copy of our thesis documentation. That was really close.

To my amazement, I was really surprised that my authentic HP 27 black ink cartridge had printed more than 150 pages even if it already warned me that I need to replace the ink cartridge. That’s the advantage of buying original ink. You get your money’s worth until the last drop of ink.

Tomorrow, we will be binding two copies of our thesis. That is sooooooo sweet!

Right after internship, the company I am “working” right now decided that they would keep me for a while for training along with 3 other interns. Here comes the opportunity for an instant job but I feel that I am just working half-heartedly in the office. Part of me wants to forfeit the job offer and look for other job opportunity that really interests me. I’ve read this many times in career magazines. When you love your job and put your focus in it, you are most likely going to succeed — you’ll reap the rewards later on. However, if you do not like your job and simply work for the sake of the salary, pretty soon you’ll be looking for another job. The latter seems to apply in my current situation. I have not officially started my career in the corporate world yet but I already got this feeling that I have to look for a job that I will truly love and keep for years, or else, I may not be able to reach my goals.

It’s really a matter of choice right now. Beats me…

I don’t know what happened in my optical mouse. It suddenly became quirky. It would suddenly stop responding in the middle of dragging or clicking. It’s too troublesome when I’m trying to navigate the internet or do some meaningful task in my computer. I don’t have a spare mouse right now so I just use my keyboard to navigate menus and links. Pressing tab too many times is really tiring and irritating. I think I have to buy a new mouse really soon. The earliest would be tomorrow if I have some money to spare, which is very unlikely.

I really hope that my mouse would behave properly. However, I think the problems lies inside the circuit board because it automatically clicks randomly sometimes. It’s not as easy as wiping up the accumulated dirt in the mouse ball. Besides, I don’t know how to clean an optical mouse. I’m also afraid to use it now because it may suddenly fire up and click on something I do not intend to click. The result may vary and it could be dangerous if I am working on something important or sensitive.

It’s becoming more and more inconvenient now because I have been depending on mouse for most of my computer works. Who would not use a mouse today anyway? *sigh* Remember the days when there’s no GUI. Who needs a mouse? Classic.

As a youngster, I watched a lot of Transformers cartoons (the original series) and I collected some toys too (LOL). It was still popular in the early 90’s. I was still a kid back then so I’m one of those young boys who believed that cars could turn into walking robots.

Things are different now. At least 12 years had passed since I watched the cartoon series and I was skeptical when I read last year that a Transformer movie is actually being produced — not a cartoon but a hollywood movie filled with CGI and real action. It’s real. Who would have guess we’ll get a movie based on toys and cartoons of the 1980s? The boyish part of me tells me to get excited yet I can’t anticipate that much because I might be dissapointed. I could not remember many details about Transformers so I’m very interested to see the first teaser online.

Interested? Then, watch the teaser here.

Link:
Transfromer movie website: http://www.transformersmovie.com