luis is a co-founder and social software architect at SyndeoLabs, and a director at Exist Global. he likes building small web toys a whole lot. More ...

quick links to the good stuff

• 25 First Dates 25 May 2009
• True Crime: Confessions of a Criminal Mastermind 17 Feb 2009
• Finding Your Soul Mate: A Statistical Analysis 27 Jan 2009
• Sex and Schrodinger's Cat 07 January 2009
• An Extended Rant on Heroes 26 September 2008
• Zero Barrier 05 May 2008
• Sweatshop Blogging Economics 08 April 2008
• The Doomsday Singularity 25 February 2008
• Piracy and Its Impact on Philippine Music 21 January 2008
• The Manila Pen-etration by the Hotelier Antonio Trillanes 29 November 2007
• Journey of a Thousand Heroes 17 December 2006
• Shake, Rattle & LOL 30 December 2005

elsewhere online

• Last.FM
• Del.icio.us
• Flickr
• Plurk
• Multiply
• Stumbleupon

• 2

  Web 2.0 Conference

  20 Apr 2006

  I was at the Web 2.0 Conference’s "after-party" last night at the National Defense College in Camp Aguinaldo (of all places), and met a bunch of really interesting people. The event had been organized by the good folks at PandoraSquared, and Peachy, their marketing person, had invited me to come and visit. (I had, unfortunately, not been able to afford to go to the conference itself; it was either that, or not pay for the server this month and I didn’t want to be selfish.) One of the Pandora guys, Hunter, spent a bit of time pimping Rails to me, and I got excited enough about it that I’ve decided to try to build my next project with Ruby. Unfortunately, that means there’ll be a fairly long lag between FilmCrowd and whatever new abomination I pull out of my ass, but I guess nobody will really mind.

  As expected, I spent most of the evening whining about the difficulties of getting your work noticed online. I feel really strongly about this issue because it’s not something I can defeat by becoming a better designer or programmer. Being a purely "social" problem, it is (for now) something that I cannot seem to grasp yet. But yeah, I spent the whole night ranting about this already, so I don’t have to repeat it here I think.

  PandoraSquared’s goal is to help encourage the Web 2.0 revolution here in the Philippines, and the last day of the conference saw the participants breaking up into teams and coming up with ideas for a Web 2.0 application, with the winning team getting support in terms of resources and advice from PS. I was able to sit in for their respective presentations and thought their ideas had potential, particularly the cuisine community (unfortunately dubbed "Foodster" though. Ah me.)

  I would have loved to have joined at least that part of the conference, but I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be working with a team of strangers. I’ve gotten so used to pitching ideas to my bedroom ceiling that I’m not even sure I still know how to do it with people who may or may not think I’m full of shit.

  I already have a pretty solid idea of the next project I’ll be building, but since I’ll be writing it with Ruby, it may be awhile before it comes to fruition (or "beta" fruition, I should say). Without giving away too much, I can say that one of my main motivations to building this is because it was a parody of Web2.0, although it’s a very subtle kind of parody. I’d say "stay tuned," but I’m sure all you guys have better things to do than visit this site every day.

  Posted in Randomness | 2 Comments »

• 0

  Capsule Review: Primer

  16 Apr 2006

  

  Just saw "Primer," an indie time-travel sci-fi, this afternoon after seeing it reviewed at FilmCrowd. My own review is below:

  i thought this movie’s approach to the time-travel genre wasinteresting in the level of detail it goes in to, to explain its"science." two engineers inadvertently build a time machine in theirgarage, allowing them to effectively exist in two places at the sametime, with one version of themselves experiencing life several hoursbehind. it’s an interesting concept, particularly when they begin tohave problems with their doubles. however, i don’t think it was quiteas groundbreaking as it could or should have been. the problem with it,i think, is that apart from its concept and treatment, it’s a veryhollow film. like Donnie Darko, another left-field time-travel sci-fi,it’s creative and original without actually being substantial.

  Check out the Primer page at FilmCrowd here. (I also wrote a bunch of Star Trek reviews here, in case there are any Trekkers among you.)

  Posted in Movies | No Comments »

• 3

  Number Four

  14 Apr 2006

  
  I’ve been working on my 4th community site over the past week, in an effort to cram as much productivity out of the Holy Week as humanly possible. It’s essentially just a refurbished implementation of gibbity, except that it’s focused on movies instead of games. Eventually, I hope to have a family of user-review sites that each focus on a different medium, and FilmCrowd is the second such effort. It’s far from perfect, but I’m plugging it early so I can see a trickle of traffic before I actually release it on Monday.

  Posted in Randomness | 3 Comments »

• 4

  Moving Out (Some Details)

  11 Apr 2006

  When I decided to start writing about the small adventure I’m about to embark on, I wasn’t sure if that meant including actual prices and fees that I’d be paying. Not because I was embarassed to mention them or anything, but because I didn’t know how appropriate it was to do so. Eventually though, I decided that more people would be aided by seeing the actual numbers, and that it might even have help some of you plan your own little adventures in the future (if you haven’t already, that is).

  So here we go:

  The 46-sqm, one-bedroom unit I’m getting is midway up the third tower of Olympic Heights, which is the mid-range building in Eastwood City (the high-end one is the Excelsior, which I didn’t even bother canvassing, to be honest). I was able to haggle the rent down to PhP14,000/month, but there are association dues that amount to just over PhP1500 to deal with as well. That puts your bare minimum monthly spend at PhP15,500, excluding your parking space.

  At the moment my parking is courtesy of my overzealous broker, who wanted me to close the deal so badly that he offered his own parking-space for free while we looked for a proper space to rent. (For those of you who don’t know how this works, condo units are usually sold along with a parking space, which can cost anywhere from an additional 80k, to half a million, depending on where you are. Unfortunately, the unit I’m renting didn’t have a parking space associated with it, so I am forced to rent a space from someone else. In Eastwood, condo parking spaces can cost anywhere from 2k to 3k per month.)

  Most landlords will ask you to pay a 2-month deposit and a 2-month advance at the onset, and sign a contract that commits you to the unit for 6 months to a year (the contract I’ll be signing will be for a full year). They will usually ask you to sign a number of post-dated checks corresponding to those 8 months, so that they don’t have to worry about billing you every few weeks. That means that I’m looking at an initial outlay of about PhP56,000, which of course doesn’t include all the additional crap I have to buy since I’m getting the condo absolutely bare.

  As you can imagine, Eastwood City isn’t the cheapest place I could’ve rented, but it does (imho) get you a very decent bang for your buck. Unless you commute 100% of the time, it’s fairly close to the Ortigas Business Center and its cache of malls, and does have its own grocery, cinema and minimall (not to mention its own shuttle service, oh wow!). Also, it has more coffee bars per square kilometer than Makati, which is really saying something (2 seattle’s bests, 1 starbucks, 1 coffee bean, 1 gloria jean’s and 1 figaro’s; there’s also a san francisco coffee across the road, and a second starbucks outside).

  As a comparison, I was looking at a similarly-sized unit in the Malayan Plaza, which is right in the middle of Ortigas Business Center and costs about PhP28,000/mo to rent, parking included. (Malayan Plaza has, btw, the nicest little rooftop lounge area I’ve yet seen in a condominium.) The cost pretty much killed the notion that I’d be able to live in the middle of Ortigas though … at least until I can figure out a way to raise my average monthly income.

  Speaking of income, one of the soft rules of moving-out is that your rent should account for 25% or less of your monthly income. That gives you a decent amount of leeway for food and utilities and the occassional shopping binge. I can’t accurately predict how much I’ll be spending on food, but I’ve been paying our electricity and gas bills here at home long enough to know how much I’m looking at in those areas. Roughly speaking, I expect to spend PhP100/day on gas, and another PhP75 on electricity. That’s about PhP6k together, so we add that to the current monthly spend of 15.5k, add another 1000 for entry-level DSL, and end up with a total of PhP22,500, exclusive of food. I figure this is the absolute minimum that I can expect to spend each month, even if I root around in the trash bins outside McDonald’s every night for food.

  Of course, being the spoiled brat that I am, what I’m really worried about is my exceedingly loose manner with money. My big concern should really be to find a way to curb my recreational spending, which usually include such things as expensive dinners, new e-books and the occassional fancy gadget. (Interestingly, very little of my spending goes to stuff like clothes or shoes.) The good thing about moving-out (apart from finally being able to streak my workspace) is that I’ll finally be forced to stop spending so much … although honestly, I think I may just end up working harder, in an effort to maintain my tech-brat lifestyle. That’s not necessarily a bad thing either, but it doesn’t exactly do wonders for my character.

   

  Posted in Randomness | 4 Comments »

• 2

  Moving Out, Finally

  9 Apr 2006

  Earlier this year I wrote that one of my four major resolutions for 2006 was to finally move into my own place. I’ve been shopping around for the past two weeks and have my heart set on a 46-sqm, one-bedroom unit in Olympic Heights, Eastwood City. Ideally this will hit two of the four resolutions I originally made (i.e., 1) moving out, and 2) finally getting an office … I know, I know, I’m a shameless two-bit cheater, but seeing as I was never specific on the actual physical location of my office-to-be, this seemed like a good way to exploit the loophole). If all goes well, I should be closing the deal this week and starting the move the week after.

  Incidentally, I made a promise to myself four years ago to move out before I turned 25, but seeing as my birthday is this Wednesday (right smack in the middle of Holy Week again, yahoo), it looks like I’ll be a touch late.

  To be honest, I can just barely afford this unit right now, but I figure it’s time I stopped leeching off my parents. It’s been time for two years now, and it’s taken me this long to get off my lazy ass and actually do something about it. Also, I tend to judge the quality of my life by the number of new experiences I have, and living by yourself –paying all your own bills and (shock!) cleaning up after yourself– will bring these new experiences in by the boatload, I think.

  I did have the foresight to prepare myself financially for all this though. Even if I don’t get any new work for the rest of the year, I’ll still manage to keep the place (albeit, in a very modest fashion). Following that pessimistic train of thought, I willof course be completely bankrupt by April of 2007, which means I will very likely be moving back in with my parents shortly thereafter.

  The thought of moving out has been keeping me up the past couple of nights, and I’m sure I still have a lot more worrying to do once I’m actually there. So consider this your warning: guttervomit will be almost totally about my moving in to the condo over the next few weeks … and will very likely continue over the next few months as well, as I come to grips with what it means to live by yourself, in my own confused, mostly-clueless way. You will discover things about me that will surprise, disgust or titillate you, including my total lack of knowledge about cooking, my infantile, 10-hour sleeping binges, my idiotic notions of interior decorating, and my penchant for working absolutely naked.

  And if this turns out to be the biggest mistake I ever make … hell, I’m only 25, right?

  Posted in Randomness | 2 Comments »

• 0

  Windows XP on Intel Macs

  5 Apr 2006

  From InformationWeek, and practically every other news agency on Earth:

  Apple is making it possible to run a copy of Windows XP on anIntel-based Apple Macintosh. But most home and business users will haveto buy more copies of Windows XP in order to do so.

  [...]

  Home and small business users who want to run Windows on Mac machineswill have to pay about $200 to buy a copy off store shelves and thenload it under the installer supplied by Apple beta software, Boot Camp,downloadable from the Apple site. Apple isn’t supporting the software,but plans to build it into the next release of the Macintosh operatingsystem.

  This is news I’ve been expecting for a long time now, not because I’m some kind of tech Nostradamus, but because I’m a huge John C. Dvorak fan. Everyone’s favorite tech pundit predicted this months ago, although his prediction was slightly more aggressive: he said that Apple was eventually going to ditch OSX and switch to Windows. At the time, he got , but it seems like a whole lot of people will be eating their words pretty soon. Although his total-conversion prediction hasn’t come to pass yet, the spirit of the argument –that Apple can only increase market-share by running Windows on their machines– is wonderfully intact.

  I was ruminating on all this today and realized that I’d found a way around my Photoshop problem (i.e., not being able to make use of the MacBook’s horsepower because Photoshop CS2 didn’t directly support them). Now all I have to do is use Windows XP to run Photoshop and other Adobe software, until such time as a proper Mac-Intel version comes out.

  Looks like I may be switching after all :)

  Posted in Software | No Comments »

• 0

  Tonight’s the Night

  4 Apr 2006

  From The Daily Dish:

  on Wednesday [...] at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. It will not happen again for a thousand years.

  Man, the poetry of the cosmos. And later this year, we’ll also be hitting 06/06/06, which is your big day if your name happens to be Damian. And if you happen to be a unix geek, and measure time in seconds, you’ll be pleased to know that you still have about 3 years left before system-time will read 1234567890 (which in puny-human terms is 14 Feb 2009, 7:31am).

  Pretty breathtaking huh?

  Posted in Randomness | No Comments »

• 4

  Hello, World.

  3 Apr 2006

  Over the weekend (rather fittingly on April 1st, Philippine Time), Gibbity was mentioned on GawkerMedia blog Lifehacker (here). Within about 48 hours, we had received several hundred new visitors, and over 80 bookmarks on del.icio.us. I wasn’t around for most of it (I had taken to drinking again during the weekend) but according to Technorati, Gibbity actually made a brief debut on del.icio.us/popular at one point, the first time any of my work has ever appeared on that vaunted list. And just an hour ago, another GawkerMedia blog Kotaku picked up the Gibbity link as well.

  So to everyone visiting Gibbity from any of the links above, or who just happened to stumble upon the site through some opportune twist of fate, welcome and thanks for coming. We’ve been expecting you :) 

  Posted in Randomness | 4 Comments »

• 0

  The Kooks: Inside In, Inside Out

  3 Apr 2006

  Hey look kids, it’s my new favorite band. The Brighton-based Kooks have been around for a little less than a year (their very first single was released in July of 2005), and their most notable live performance thus far has been an appearance on Top of the Pops, a music show on BBC2. (So if you haven’t heard of them yet, don’t worry. You will, soon enough.)

  If there’s one thing really outstanding about these guys is how they infuse their brand of post-punk/britpop with reggae. The result is a tremendously catchy mix of The Libertines, Hot Hot Heat and Hail Social. Their current single "Naive," from their debut album , is a real toe-tapper and is available right here.

  Posted in Music | No Comments »

• 0

  From Blog to Book

  3 Apr 2006

  A 32-year-old New Yorker who spent a year trying to master every recipe
  in a book of French cookery has become the inaugural winner of a prize
  devoted to books born of blogs.

  Julie Powell, a frustrated unpublished author approaching 30 in a dead
  end office job, came up with the idea of attempting to cook all 524
  recipes in Julia Child’s 1961 cookbook Mastering the Art of French
  Cooking. Her husband suggested chronicling her efforts online, where
  her musings on life, love and cooking drew an ever-larger cult
  following. The blog led to a publishing deal, and the resulting tome -
  Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Kitchen Apartment - sold
  more than 100,000 copies.

  (from The Guardian) 

  If I ever got published, I’d like to first hold the record for Most Number of Community Websites Developed by an Independent Third-worlder (I am currently at 3, with a 4th one on the way quite soon). I’d call it "Hurling Shit Against a Wall and Seeing What Sticks," or something equally erudite.

  Posted in Randomness | No Comments »

  Next Entries »