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PHSS: Law that will help our student-athletes

by Melody Claire, on Mon, May 14 2012 | No Comments

courtesy of sports.inquirer.netA bill which aims to establish our nation’s first “sports” high school that will serve as a venue for young sports talents for the National Olympic team to hone them in achieving the country’s first Olympic gold medal.

 

Currently, we have the National Games and the Batang Pinoy that in some way serves the equivalent goal but the establishment of the said athletic high school can provide young athletes the chance to avail specialized education and training in becoming one of the best sportsmen in the future.

 

The Philippine High School for Sports Act of 2011 which is authored by Aurora Rep. Edgardo “Sonny” Angara together with other 28 lawmakers has reached the 3rd reading. If this bill is enacted, PHSS will offer scholarship to student-athletes for secondary school education.

 

The school will be given a seed fund of P50 Million which will come from the earnings of PAGCOR (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation) and aided by PCSO (Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office). That is 10% of all unclaimed and forfeited sweepstakes and lotto prizes.

 

PHSS will still be under the guidance of the Department of Education, several sport associations and the private sector.

 

I do hope that all the funds will be aimed directly for the benefit of our prospective young people and not just another way to seek out a means of pilfering our country’s money.

 

If this bill passes, many young Filipinos will be encouraged to take the road to sportsmanship. Opportunities to train and learn for other sports (where we never excel) will soon be a foreseeable possibility.

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Cyberwar between PH and China may be related to shoal standoff

by xarki, on Mon, May 14 2012 | No Comments

courtesy of frenchtribune.comOur country is still set into reconciling with our Chinese brothers as the events that happened over a month ago at the Scarborough shoal is awaiting progress.

 

The arrest of Chinese fishing vessels that were captured by our Navy forces after illegally amassing a huge number of endangered marine resources from the shoal has brought us a month-long maritime dispute with China. Overtime, China has shown their firm regard over their right to claim the shoal and even insists that there was no intrusion done on their side.

 

Though the diplomatic settlement seems a bit dawdling, several attacks have already been made through each nation’s computer networks; as websites from each country are hacked through various means leaving several government agencies with a defaced website and totally inaccessible to the unwary public.

 

Last May 10, PAGASA’s (Philippines Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Agency) website was hacked. The main page was replaced with the message: “Hacked by Net user!Just fun a fun !!Team :X-f**k! E-mail:794399786@qq.com!”

 

Despite the inconvenience, an alternate website http://kidlat.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/ will serve as an alternate online portal for the public. The agency’s ICT team is currently restoring the website to its original imagery and contents.

 

Almost a month ago, UP (University of the Philippines) website in Diliman, Quezon City was also hacked. A message written in Chinese and English characters was posted on the university website motioning the Philippines to leave Panatag shoal. UP students retaliated by hacking several Chinese websites.

 

Government websites such as the Official Gazette, the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office, the Presidential Museum and Library, and the Department of Budget and Management were also briefly hacked after the attack on the UP website.

 

Our nation’s government should make haste in resolving this issue before matters get worse.

 

How long will we wait for each side to finally conclude their seemingly unending furore? Many will suffer if both nations plan to go to war. I hope we will not be victims of a battle that we cannot win. I do not dream to live a life in a battle ground.

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Jogging: Adding a few more years on our life span

by Melody Claire, on Fri, May 11 2012 | No Comments

courtesy of allforlife.wordpress.comMany of us (especially the middle aged people) aims to get more years in our lives to enjoy life as it is and to see our kids grow as we continue to age. Right diet and exercise has always been the usual answer to sustain our natural process of aging.

 

For more than a month, I began observing a healthy lifestyle as I started to feel weak and easily tired doing even light house chores. I even bought an exercise machine to aid me in burning more calories after eating some fatty foods. But nothing really beats getting out of the house and jogging a mile while you breathe some morning fresh air.

 

A new research presented last week in Dublin (Denmark) at a heart and health symposium showed significant data in helping people to prevent heart disease and stroke. Men who regularly jog can add 6.2 years to their life while women can increase at least 5.6 years.

 

The study also intends to prove whether jogging is healthy or not, for some people believe that it is too exhausting particularly for the middle-aged groups as part of the investigative works of Dr. Peter Schnor (cardiologist).

 

Dr. Schnor states that we don’t actually need to do that much to take in the benefits. A two and a half hours a week jog (broken down in to two or three sessions) can deliver optimum results. He also suggests having it done in a slow or average pace.

 

“Aim to feel a little breathless but not very breathless,” he adds.

 

Aside from the possibility of expanding years of age, jogging can help reduce belly fat which is a serious pose to our health.

 

It doesn’t matter if you run slower than your “jogging peers” for the pace may vary depending on your capacity. What is important is that you felt good after that aerobic training.

 

Yep! It even does some de-stressing on the side.

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AMD’s APUs delivers cost-effective computing solutions

by xarki, on Fri, May 11 2012 | No Comments

courtesy of laptop-computer-planet.comAs a PC hardware enthusiast, I always have the itch to find new technologies that I can have my hands work on, evidently to learn more and make use of it anytime in the future. A slight inconvenience is that I always have to put up a few cash for this new PC building project but then that is what makes me happy.

 

The demand for another PC in the house is slowly rising for my 7 year old kid began to take his share in using the family PC and his younger brother is being mildly influenced in the process.

 

I revived one of the stocked computers at the storage, yet its antiquity suffers in low performance issues and high power consumption. More or less, the question of buying a newer machine is now raised.

 

Low power consuming and high performing computers are now abundant in the market but a few will stand out depending on the consumer’s choice, needs and purchasing power.

 

As for me, I dream of building a system enough to provide power for gaming, graphics and some basic office productivity. To say the least, I only have few available resources to conjure another digital appliance as of now.

 

Digging in the recent technology and current prices of computer products in the market, I came across AMD’s Fusion CPUs.

 

AMD (world recognized producer of computer processors and close rival of Intel) has introduced a new series of processors in their line of products which boasts high performance computer chips competitive to the likes of Intel’s “Sandy Bridge” processors. Their subsequent purchase of ATI (a famous graphic chip manufacturing arm) has led them in the development of yet another competitive product in the market.

 

APUs (accelerated processing units) is a hybrid combination of the CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (graphics processing unit). With this technology, computer users (and builders like me) can create a low power consuming system while hauling powerful graphics for gaming and digital imaging platforms.

 

Needless to say, the AMD APUs was priced lower than building Intel –based computer systems. Something that AMD has offered for several years in their brand of products.

 

Though most of the APUs is currently built into laptops, notebooks and mobile devices, the introduction of A8 series APUs for desktop PCs will greatly affect how we will build the next generation PC systems.

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Avengers 3D: An epic movie worth your time and money

by xarki, on Wed, May 9 2012 | No Comments

courtesy of guysnation.comIt took me about a week before finally getting a good seat at the nearest 3D Cinema to watch one of the highly anticipated superhero movies of the year and possibly of all time by far.

 

I decided to go to a movie date with my wife after getting worn off of doing household chores on a Saturday weekend. Watching a movie with her was the best thing that I had done so far – something that we did not have the leisure of doing for almost a year or so. Finally, we got at a couple of hours to spare to be together and enjoy a blockbuster film on a 3D format.

 

Honestly, I waited for a few days for other people to take a good view of the film so that I could get some reactions so I can properly decide on watching the film or not. And if I would, should it be in standard format or in the expensive 3D?

 

In order to showcase a seamless link between various superheroes that will try to overpower their comrades on each shot of this one big flick, doing a film as big as the Avengers will necessitate clever craftsmanship.  It is an immense challenge for its creator(s) to satisfy the insistent critics of a breath-taking motion picture such as this.

 

Fairly, I am not a hard-core follower of any of the Marvel comics. I only heard about the Avengers upon reading a borrowed copy from my peers way back in high school and consequently getting hold of a copy of the video game “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance” for PC, thus making me aware of the existence of this Marvel’s superhero dream-team.

 

I can no longer share so much of the details of the film to prevent spoiling the excitement for other people and mostly friends (who are yet to read this article) who have not engaged yet in viewing the film.

 

All I can say is that it is one great movie worth of your time and money. The people behind this film did their job in showcasing a good storyline and bringing out the special features of each of the marvel super hero and essentially pointing out the significance of forming the Avengers team.

 

If you plan to watch this film, it would be best to watch it in full 3D. Surely, each explosive scene will definitely blow you away. My wife and I had a blast watching this flick!

 

Many people are wondering why Spidey did not make it in the team when most of us knew he is also a member of the Avengers initiative. Could it be due to filmmaking cost or because Toby Maguire does not fit as a super hero compared to the others? One can only guess why.

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