Thursday, January 21, 2016

Win $100 in Blog Naming Competition


Goodblogs.com, the guys I have been working with for the last 5 to 7 years, is holding a blog naming contest. Find a name for their blog, get it upvoted, and if your entry is chosen - YOU WIN $100!

Here's a copy of the email that I got.

Are you creative? Want to score 100 bucks?
View this email in your browser

Greetings,

We are launching a blog all about alpacas and need your help with a name for the site.

In return, we want to give away $100 to the person who comes up with the winning site name. Here's how it works:
To submit your domain name, click the "SUBMIT" button below.

Once we select the finalists, you will have the opportunity to vote for your favorites by signing up here.

Best wishes,
The GoodBlogs Crew
SUBMIT IDEA

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Matters of Great Import



Yesterday ruminated
Of the great war contemplated
Dread filled the firmament
Fueled by the fury of the malcontent
With raised arm a salute was outstretched
The outcomes truly were wretched
For they saw them who were ill
Didn’t even have graves - they kept still
Horrors unspeakable
The quest for justice unshakable
Liberation led to vindication
Ending the world’s second great conflagration
And now we are
With our mind ajar
New horrors emerged
In desert skies long submerged
Through disjointed emotions
Twisted notions
Transformed into actions
Bringing new conflagrations
Default is constance in distraction
Most minds in liquefaction
They have not assimilated
Dissimilar paradigms resisted
The future’s unchanged
Revelations estranged
With broadcast improvement
Thus was cemented the discontentment
Pandora’s box unclosed
Reality’s failure juxtaposed
To twisted demons
Unfurled after eons
But after all the dire
There will be a shire
A tiny enclave of hope
A shimmer unseen in scope
There is good report
In matters of great import


Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Daily Scripture: "The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right"


Daily Scripture for January 13, 2016

"The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right."
Psalm 84:11b

Daily inspiration from Calendar Back to the Bible Ministries
Image credit: Frances Gunn

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Chapter VI – “Presyong Kamag-Anak”


“Magkano ba ang presyong kamag anak?”, 
ika nung taong aking kausap.

 
Sa gitna ng kabukiran, minamasdan namin ang mga pinya na tinanim ng aming mga volunteer galing sa ibang bansa.  

Simpleng mga kataga, paulit-ulit na umaalingawngaw sa aking kamalayan. Sa pagdalisay ng hangin sa aking mukha, pumasok sa aking kaisipan ang lahat ng pinaghirapan ko dito sa lupaing aming minana. Naranasan kong muli ang mga bagyong aming dinanas at nalampasan. Naalala ko ang pagmamahal ng aking ama sa mga puno, - Oo nga, ang mga puno, na siyang pinatanim ng aking ama ay nagwasiwas sa pag-ihip ng hangin. Ang mga gumuho naming gusali na hindi ko na kayang ipagawa ay tumambad din sa aking kamalayan. Ang pagtabas ko ng damo gamit ang aking sariling mga kamay at ang mga kating matitindi dulot ng aking mga sugat sa pagsalay ng mga matitinik na halaman.

Sunday, January 03, 2016

Genesis


Like a stream flowing from the ever glades sprinkling its life giving magic, I endeavored to refresh my own writing. For reasons that I'm keeping to myself, I went “dark” in the last few months of my work leading up to Christmas. In the process of wallowing in the darkness and obsessing about certain ideas, personalities and trivialities, I've neglected the things that are most important. But now, I realized that I needed to focus outside that tremulous volcano of sadness, gloom and despair. Life begins anew as we cogitate the circumnavigation of the planet that brings us back to the point of genesis.

I wish I could say happy new year and may good tidings last for the following...

I buried my dog the day before the year ended. There was a slight drizzle and I had to cut through the grass with a sickle that's broken. The remnants of the dead bougainvillea's pierced as I trod barefoot on the caked mud. Meanwhile, the rain continued to pour as I struggled to wrap Brownie's body inside a plastic bag. It was more difficult than I thought, as I had to go through the entire process myself oftentimes getting exposed to the after effects of death's workers.

That's the curious thing about burying the dead. It's not as easy as removing clumps of soil from the ground, dumping the body and then putting back that which you dislodged. It's more than that. Soil has many components just like our skin. The key in digging is stability. This would also be more important in the latter parts.

Factor in the soil composition, the environment and the movement of organisms of decay. I'm not aware of any such rules in this third world country, but if there were, they are mostly immaterial. I have scarcely heard of any nearby pet cemetaries, and if there was one, the cost could be prohibitive.

So I buried brownie and above him I laid the grass that I've cut along with some flowers. Above that, I put the mound that would cover him. I planted a tree in his stead. A one year old mahogany tree that's about 2 meters tall already plus some of those purple plants. To help me locate his body should his grave be overrun by weeds, I planted a kakawate (madre cacao) branch that would later on grow into a tree nearby.

R.I.P Ian Murdock
Long ago, I had a certain bout of admiration for everything that Debian and Ubuntu stood for. This extended to their founders, “visionaries” in my mind who were out to change the world. And they did, to a certain extent, change the world. I visited Ian Murdock's blog a couple of times before, hoping to see something and maybe touch a little upon his genius. That's what we do, that's what blogs are for. While Facebook is for the masa and the narcissistic, blogs are for the intelligentsia. A small glimpse into the minds of geniuses.

After hearing of this news, I remember a vague moment a few days before the news of Ian's death that I visited his blog. The feeling of nostalgia, you visit a blog you visited before some 5? 7? years before and see what's up, what's going on. He's moved on to other projects I saw. Business technology stuff. Okay.

Then the news broke out. The circumstances and details of which are highly questionable and sketchy.

What really happened to Ian Murdock?

From the bits and pieces I was able to glean online, it may be a sad case of a variety of factors that lead to his untimely and unfortunate demise.

His twitter account was a scream for help. An outward scream directed for anyone who could hear. A scream for someone who knows and understands what it's like to be like him. It's sad that nobody got to him, before it was too late.

For what it's worth, I do hope that his family gets closure on the matter, that the Linux and Debian community as a whole also reach that. Debian's influence is vast and we partly have Ian to thank for that.

Certain geniuses have to be kept apart from the general population as they have their own ways of thinking, their own methods and their own manner of internal processing.

Yes, it may be hypocritical and contrary to some views, but these types of people could offer more if this is preserved and maintained.

EventId's in Nostr - from CGPT4

The mathematical operation used to derive the event.id in your getSignedEvent function is the SHA-256 hash function, applied to a string rep...