Linus Torvalds - creator of Linux

"So start small, and think about the details. Don’t think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn’t solve some fairly immediate need, it’s almost certainly over-designed. And don’t expect people to jump in and help you. That’s not how these things work. You need to get something half-way _useful_ first, and then others will say "hey, that _almost_ works for me", and they’ll get involved in the project."

Anders Hejlsberg - chief architect of Delphi and C#

"If you ask beginning programmers to write a calendar control, they often think to themselves, They need to ship a calendar application in two months. They put all this infrastructure into place in the control, and then spend two days writing a crappy calendar application on top of it. They’ll think, "In the next version of the application, I’m going to do so much more. Once they start thinking about how they’re actually going to implement all of these other concretizations of their abstract design, however, it turns out that their design is completely wrong. And now they’ve painted themself into a corner, and they have to throw the whole thing out. I have seen that over and over. I’m a strong believer in being minimalistic. Unless you actually are going to solve the general problem, don’t try and put in place a framework for solving a specific one, because you don’t know what that framework should look like."

Try to follow DRY and KISS principle at the same time a little YAGNI.

Saw this from a forum…

Lesson One

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, “Can I also sit on my as s like you and do nothing?” the eagle answered, “Sure why not?” So the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Management Lesson: To be sitting on your as s and doing nothing, you must be sitting very high up.

Lesson Two

A turkey was chatting with a bull. “I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree,” sighed the turkey, “but I haven’t got the energy.” “Well, why don’t you nibble on some of my manure droppings?” replied the bull. “They’re packed with nutrients.” The turkey pecked at a lump of manure and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after the fourth night, he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree.

Management Lesson: Bullsh** might get you to the top, but it won’t keep you there.

Lesson Three

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of dung, it began to realize how warm it was. The dung was actually thawing him out. He lay there all warm and happy and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Management Lessons: (1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy; (2) Not everyone who gets you out of s hit is your friend; and (3) When you’re in deep s hit, it’s best to keep your mouth shut.

Are you? Do you do these…

1. Play PSP <or insert favorite portable gaming system> while walking along with your friends on a MALL!

2. Listen to your iPod <or insert favorite portable music gadget> doing headbangs, singing loudly, and turning the volume to skyhigh with that white earbuds fully knowing that it’s a shitty earbud, just so others will say, omg! he has the ipods!

3. Having very loud ring or message tone? Just so others can recognize your spanking brand new cellphone err smartphone err iPhone err everything but the kitchen sink gadget?

4. Wear a brand new shoes and always - for the love of God - pretend that it is from your brother? Or you just brushed it over the weekend to look slick?

5. Open up your car windows and pretend your music is the coolest shit there is?

6. Walk along a corridor, smiling, while embracing your gf/bf and waiting for someone to say, "oh is that the one?" and proudly saying, yes pare this is MY gf/bf! Wow, what a beautiful trophy! 

7. Posts in multiply, friendster, myspace, facebook, flickr all the cool places that you have been with the following caption - "conquered <place> next stop <place>" 

8. Talks about "cool" movies, "cool" books and "cool" music that you alone have heard, well some of your friends.

If you do then congratulations! You are a freaking show off - just like me and everyone else. We all are guilty of some if not all of these things one way or another. As a human being, hell as a Filipino we want others to recognize us not by who we are - well others will debate on that - but by the persons, things and places we associate ourselves with. And for as long as we live we will always be show off. Always. Whether that’s a good thing or not, depends on the crowd we are trying to please.

Wow! It has been almost 2 months since I last blogged here. What the f*** happened to me? Well, I just got bored, plain and simple. And since I’m not monetizing on this endeavour - in fact i’m losing countless brain cells and neurons just to come up with a decent blog.

And thanks to my friend that we will be naming Ruel for anonymity, I have a new entry for my blog, this entry is aptly entitle FUHA. What is FUHA? Well I have to share a little ‘backgrounder’ on that infamous term.

One night, while traversing along a major throughway we talked about sex. Yes that 3 letter word that guys love to talk all day and all night long. Somewhere along our conversation the word FUBU came up. Ruel, that innocent looking maniac guy, asked, what is ‘FUBU’. We told him it means ‘gwapo’ or handsome. But he didn’t fall for it - he is freaking learning. So we told him the truth, FUBU stands for F*** ____, he quipped aha! fucking bubuyog, what a guy, so we said, it’s F*** Buddy. Oh, smirking, do you guys have fubu before? Silence settled in the car and he quickly blurted the now infamous term (well within the confines of our office), I only tried FUHA. We jolted, what the hell is FUHA? Fuha you know, laughing at his own words, Fucking hand! And chaotic laughter dawned upon us.

For non-nihonggo speakers (that includes me, oh the irony!) it means ‘long time no see’ and yes it’s been a very long time since I last blogged. Many things that connived to stop me (temporarily) from blogging.

1. Smartbro acted quite funny for a week. Seems like a little movement of the antenna causes significant drop in internet access. I learned it the hardway. Someone hardwired his Smartbro antenna on top of my antenna and accidentally mis-aligned my poor antenna from Smart’s base station and we thought Smartbro was the problem (whew!).

2. My poor hard disk drive died on me (RIP). Two weeks ago my trusty information ‘holder’ stopped working and frankly I panicked because all my data, I mean all, was in there and it just died, I could not even access it with my again trusty Ubuntu Live CD.

3. Busy at work. Times have changed. I could no longer browse Digg at the office and not because it was block but because I could not put surfing in my time record (grins).

4. LBM. Yes. I had that for four days and the friggin* doctor wanted me to undergo ‘labatiba’, endoscopy and colonoscopy. Well fortunately he checked my stomach (tummy) and diagnosed that I have plenty of air inside. F*** kabag lang pala at dinaan pa ako sa takot.

But here I am alive and well again. 

I almost had a WTF day and WTF vacation. Late in the afternoon I went to Landmark to look for an ATM and lo and behold there she was on the ground floor. I inserted my card, check for the current balance, and then withdraw some hefty money (ok I’m lying) and then the unthinkable happened. The whole damn thing stopped responding and my card was still inside the freaking machine. I reminded myself that patience is a virtue but it has been 5 minutes already and that thing was stuck. I immediately went to the customer service and reported the whole shebang. And what did they offer? The trunkline of the bank. Great just great. After that I went back to the ATM only to find out that my card was gone, WTF, is this some kind of a gag show? Good thing a stranger told me that a guy went to the customer service center to drop my card and thankfully my card was there! I almost fainted on that one, and oh no money was dispensed, and that thing just stop responding. WTH.

Before anything else, a disclaimer, yes I am a poor guy, I was born into this world with only the land err dirt on my fingernails as proof of being a haciendero. But that didn’t stop me from buying signature clothes. I knew a poor guy like me who shares the same passion albeit his was to collect all the world’s shoes. You may wonder, why oh why do these guys waste their money on things that are considered luxury? Why won’t they just imitate the really rich guys who likes to keep their appearance at common as possible to avoid hassles? The simple answer to that question is, poor guys have long been deprived of these things that an onslaught of false richness will be treated as living above poverty line. Any cash will be spent without hesitations and shopping will be equated into a hobby. See, when I was young all I had was a perfect imitation of Airwalk shoes with OGAN as its brand name, a shirt so worn out that you could use it as a rag (but aha! it was Hanes! very big deal back in those days), a khaki pants that could pass as my grandfather’s beloved disco outfit, a multi colored bikini briefs (well I had a maroon one, a dark blue one, a gray one and i think a green one), and when I finally earned my first salary, I wasted it all to buy things that could satisfy me, or at least the extravagant in me. So the next time you bump into a well dressed ‘poor guy’ or used to be a ‘poor guy’, say hi to him, be kind to him, because he is fighting a very hard battle, the battle of overspending.

Last Friday night, Chester invited me for a night out. I was hesitant at first because the place is in QC which WTF a million miles away from Makati. But I still went along because I was in Trinoma that time. Earlier that evening, I had dinner with Rheena and Shelie, err call that a despidida for Rheena (she will be working in Singapore) and destressing activity for Shelie (she hasn’t slept for 3 days because of her masteral). So after dinner we went to Starbucks to -obviously- drink beers, err coffee and tea. There I met up with Chester. After, we went to Guillys Island which is right besides ABS-CBN building. It was my first time there, it was actually a nice place, reminiscent of the Embassy bar, and the music was cool too, a lot of house and lots of R&Beh midway. After a drink or two or three or four or hell I forgot to count, we decided to dropped by Barrakz to have one last drink for the road. Ironic as it may seems but it will be our last drink at that fateful place. You see, Chester parked his car right besides the establishment, and after that one last drinking spree, we found out that one of tires were deflated and teared. Like WTF! No single guard ever noticed it happened. Good thing a gas station was nearby and we temporarily fixed it, and off we go. When we were almost halfway from his place the tire simply gave up, it was like a scene straight from the movies only this time we weren’t chased by either cops or hoodlums. Everyone in the street was looking at the car and some were concerned while others were laughing, hell, we didn’t even have a choice that time, we can stop and let the car be towed but that would be a HUGE hassle so Chester decided to let it ‘crawl’ up to the vulcanizing shop. Fortunately the tire wasn’t completely busted when we arrived there or else that would be another HUGE problem. Imagine driving around EDSA with a busted tire and screeching mag! Whooah (in Keanu Reeves style). Anyway, after that I rode a taxi and went home, but just before I called out one I step on this HUGE dog poopoo. Like ecky thump! Did we just opened a pandora of misfortunes?

This is a WTF question I have been asking lately. Ever since that incident that transpired at National Bookstore in Davao City during my -ugly- years, this question has been bugging my mind. You see when I was in high school, just before someone really loved me, my hair was semi-afro, with a moustache and goatie to boot, and let’s throw the very brown skincolor in the mix and just picture how messy and fugly I looked like. Picture it already? -This was btw around 1999- Ok let’s keep moving. And so I went inside National Bookstore just to look at magazines and then proceeded towards the exit door. Just right before I am about to go out, a security guard approached me, stopped me and began body searching me. Like WTF, I told myself. Do I look like a snatcher? Look mr guard, don’t you recognize my high school uniform! I am from Ateneo for pete’s sake. Well that didn’t bother mr guard and after a minute or two I was set free. That began a long hatred for the famous bookstore. Geez.

Then today, I rode a jeepney going home. I was seated right beside a guy. When I was about to put the coins in my pocket, this guy immediately grabbed his pocket to check his belongings. Like WTF mate, I know I am ugly, but you are darker than me and fuglier than me! Why in heaven’s name would I be interested in your things, I said to myself. So in retaliation, I looked at him and threw out a sarcastic smile and moved. I hope he got the message. But I was thinking, is it the constant paranoia that people always check their belongings while in the jeepney or is it just the way I look like?

This is both a curse and a blessing. Blessing because potential snatchers might think I am one of their comrade and curse because ladies and guys alike tend to be wary of me. Either way I will choose the former, but I am afraid that one day I will be the fall-out guy (fall guy, my bad).

 

Well, over the weekend I decided to shave. It is - was - my goal to be a bearded guy before going back to Davao, the reason? I don’t know I just wanted to experience how to be Santa Claus. But eversince playing basketball last week the beard, the moustache and the goatie proved to be a liability. See, when you are doing strenuous activity you need to keep all the sweat away from your face but my moustache was really wet and I could taste all the salty flavored sweat dripping down from my moustache and into my liquid-deprived mouth. That image again makes me want to puke.

And while I was shaving, I remembered an article stating that girls err women love guys sporting a 3 day old facial hair. Hmmm since this is already the 3rd day (after shaving) would girls come swooning me around?