Marikina Hills Children's Library

From Troy of Aklatang Pambata and UPLSAA.

Anyone want to volunteer? 
 

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Marikina Hills Children's Library 
 
Support UPLSAA and Eduk, Inc/ Aklatang Pambata as they help the Rotary Marikina put up their own children's library at their new Community Center in Daang Bakal, Marikina. 
 
How you can help:

1. Be a full time volunteer librarian or be part of the pool of volunteer librarians. 
Ideally, the volunteers should be from the community. If you meet the criteria, pasok ka: He/She should: a) have at least college units, b) willing to be trained, c) love kids, d) book lover, and e) service oriented. 
2. Donate needed materials such as books, shelves, tables and chairs. Needed books are children's books, storybooks, activity books, reference books such as encyclopedias, dictionaries and the like. The library will primarily cater to grade school students from the community. 
3. Volunteer your time to train the volunteers. Topics included are the ff: a) Community organizing, b) Organizing Storytelling Events, c) Library Organization and Management and d) Sustaining the Library 
4. Help promote the library by doing storytelling sessions for kids. 
Volunteer training and storytelling session will start on the 1st week of September. This will be held on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Volunteer hours usually last 3-4 hours. 

If interested, kindly email any officers from the UPLSAA. Thank you. 
 
Youtube video link: http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=psgypuDE8NE 
 
UPLSAA website article link: http://www.uplsaa. org/joomla/ content/view/ 105/1/ 
 
http://www.aklatang pambata.org/ joomla 
Para sa bata. Para magbasa. 
 
http://www.qcpublic library.org/ 
Your local gateway to information. 
 
http://www.uplsaa. org/

A Different Way of Doing Things Inside an SLIS Classroom: CDisplay, PSP, PSPComic and Bookr

Semi-geek time. I wanted to do things differently this semester. That being said, I started using different things in the classroom.
 
One of the things I am using is David Ayton's CDisplay for Windows as presentation software for my lectures rather than Powerpoint, Impress or Slideshare. I used to just use plain HTML years ago.
 

Sample lecture slide

CDisplay is a free sequential image viewing utility and is widely used to view digitized comic files. Digitized comics are usually in PDF or in CDisplay readable CBR or CBZ formats (which essentially are ZIPs or RARs of sequential images like JPGs). In the CBR or CBZ file, page 1 would be 001.jpg and so one, depending on your naming convention. Renaming to ZIP or RAR yields the original archive and the images can be extracted individually. I was thinking that since I use this for viewing / distibuting some of the comics lettering work I've done then why not use it for class?
 
Pros: Very fast.
Cons: Since they're already flat images, there's no way to extract text except for running the extracted images through OCR software. And the CDisplay software has to be installed on the computer you're using.
 
CDisplay is no longer maintained but there's CDisplayEx, an open source version as well as other MacOS and Linux versions. (CDisplay wikipedia link with similar software here.)
  
Another thing I started using was a PSP (Sony Playstation Portable). Yes, I indulged on my birthday in the guise of academic computing. The last of my birthday purchases, the PSP, I now use to while the time away when waiting for people or when traffic is really bad (I watch my DVDrips in really bad traffic). The predecessor? I used to watch matchbook-size video on my ASUS V80 but it's proving quite a strain on the eyes. Now it's just an audio player.
 
*GASP!* A PSP in the classroom? Am I out of my mind? Nope. One of my students, Jay Layson, always lugs a PSP around and he was lamenting on the fact that he was the only with a PSP in SLIS at the start of the sem. He plays games on it, listens to music, watches vids and reads ebooks on it too. Now, including me, I think there are 3 PSPs in the hallways.
 
You see, I can view the CBRs and CBZs of my lectures and class reports on the PSP with PSPComic. If the document or report is in PDF, I can view it with Bookr. It saves me from neck stress having to look behind me at the projection screen all the time. Plus now I can read my ebooks, pdfs and plain text files wherever I go (no Harry Potters just yet, it's still Stoker, Mary Shelley and J Sheridan Le Fanu for me). And just to demonstrate the possibilities, I googled and followed the instructions I found in several old webpages like Matan Gillon's "Windows and Linux on the Sony PSP", Chris Mulhearn's "uLinux on the PSP" and "The Bochs IA-32 Emulator Project" and eventually got DLXlinux and Freedos / mulinux13r2 disk images to boot (had no success with TinyLinux, though). Of course all I need now is to get a keyboard (Pikey?) for basic text entry (nevertheless, I probably still have to get a laptop upgrade to replace my old second-hand Sony Vaio PCG-505SX).
 

Running Linux in PSP

Generated by Flickr Album Maker

Notes:
 
CDisplay
http://www.geocities.com/davidayton/CDisplay
CDisplay is a free sequential image viewing utility used in viewing images one at a time, or two at a time just like comic pages.
 
PSPComic version 0.9.6 Beta
http://dl.qj.net/PSPComic-v0.9.9-Beta-PSP-Homebrew-Applications/pg/12/fid/14312/catid/140
A Comic Book Reader for the PSP! Copyright (C) 2007 Jeffrey P. (AKA Archaemic) & Christophe Rudyj (AKA Kip)
 
Bookr
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bookr/
A document reader for the Sony PSP with native PDF rendering.
 
CDisplayEx
CDisplay on wikipedia
Matan Gillon's "Windows and Linux on the Sony PSP"
Chris Mulhearn's "uLinux on the PSP"
"The Bochs IA-32 Emulator Project"

Crossposted: http://gokitomo.com, http://gorilla.multiply.com and http://gorilla.vox.com.

Troy Burning: Portrait of an Artist as Filipino

Got to watch Nick Joaquin's "Portrait of an Artist as Filipino" last Sunday, August 26, 2007 at the SM City Manila. Directed by Mel Magno for Se7enth Stage and starring Dimples Romana, Paw Diaz, AJ Dee and Francis Cruz III.


Mel's an old family friend. We've worked with him in theater many times. We'll probably work with him again this second semester. We've worked with Francis too many times over.

"Portrait of an Artist as Filipino" is a long play, it will probably run 3:45 to 4 hours if done without cuts. That's what makes it so hard to stage (heck, Titanic was only 3:14).

What I love about this work by Nick Joaquin is the use of the "fourth wall". In other plays the audience "is" the fourth wall, they are outside looking in through a one-way mirror. Here that is also true but the wall takes on the form of a painting of Aeneas carrying his aged father from the smoking ruins of Troy. Now, it is up to you to view the play through the eyes of Aeneas or his aging father.

War-time Manila is probably Troy, or Lorenzo Marasigan, whose leap from the balcony was probably Helen's abduction. Nevertheless, both are about to burn. Helen in the form of Candida and Paola, the Marasigan sisters? Paris complete with seduction as Tony Javier (The judgment of Paris with him being beaten up)? Are the rampaging Greeks the Japanese Imperial forces? Or are they Manolo and Pepang Marasigan? The painting as the Apple of Discord ("for the fairest")? Bitoy Camacho as Ulysses ("son of pain")? Or is everyone just trying to be Aeneas and carry the aging elder Marasigan out of Troy?

Nick Joaquin was a genius.

Just my interpretation. Much like how I believe that "Godot is God, and everyone else is waiting for salvation," in one of my previous posts. 

Crossposted: http://gokitomo.com, http://gorilla.multiply.com and http://gorilla.vox.com.

UFC 74: RANDY COUTURE DEFEATS LEGEND KILLER GABRIEL GONZAGA

RANDY COUTURE WINS AGAIN - KEEPS UFC TITLE! Good GOD! Randy has put a stop to the legend killer Gabriel Gonzaga. Gonzaga took on Mirko Crocop in his UFC debut where everyone was expecting a massacre at the hands of the K1 and Pride superstar. They were wrong. Gonzaga proved the better with hard-hitting knockout kicks and punches. He took out Crocop with a high kick to the head, a stunning upset in the history books of the UFC.

In his fight with Couture, Gonzaga made use of those hard-hitting knockout kicks and punches. But Randy's battle plan was to avoid those barrages as well as avoid being taken to the ground by the braziian jiu-jitsu mixed martial artist. Randy instead  took him to the mat where the ground and pound began. Third round stoppage on strikes. Chalk up another win for Couture. Gonzaga on the other hand walks away with a badly bleeding broken nose and the heart of a warrior and future champion. Hats off to him too. But damn, Randy Couture in MMA makes me proud to be old. :D  

It was also nice to see Georges "Rush" St-Pierre right back on track with a unanimous decision win over Ultimate Fighter alumnus Josh Koscheck.

Copy con talumpati.txt

Von of Filipinolibrarian.blogspot.com found speeches which he translated and posted in his blog reproduced in a book entitled "Talumpati! Talumpati! Talumpati! Book One: Pantulong sa mga Guro't Mag-aaral". He has posted an Open Letter to Ms. Christina S. Canonigo, the author.

This is not new to me, yet I hope it stops. Art from my friend Aldin's comics "Dreamwinder" found their way on shirts sold in shops merely a couple of weeks after we printed it in Questor. And speaking of that old anime mag, we found knockoffs of posters which we originally printed mass produced and distributed in Recto, Quiapo and Divisoria. Bebert knows this all too well, manga which we lettered in english are redistributed in digital format. Sad part is the scanners removed the names of the letterers and placed their own names as those responsible for lettering. And quite recently, Hazel, an old acquaintance, found one of her deviantart works printed on t-shirts sold in shops in Divisoria. And get this, the shirts came all the way from Bangkok. Before that she found pirated cds with her artwork as album covers. Gee, maybe the net really is bad. O_o;;

Crossposted: http://gokitomo.com, http://gorilla.multiply.com and http://gorilla.vox.com.

dreaming. and still. - UP AME Gakuensai

Link, from Frances' Multiply  - UP AME Gakuensai, 

After the rain - fire poi and firechucks

http://freestyleforum.net.
It had been raining hard for the past week. When the rain stopped I took out the fire toys (fire poi and firechucks) and practiced a bit. Tried single and double firechucks as well as fire poi and three-headed fire poi (all homemade). My uncle died while I was editing this, so this vid is for him.

After the rain - fire poi and firechucks

My uncle, Gaudencio Paguia, former Dean of the College of Dentistry of MCU and past president of the Philippine Dental Association, passed away while I was making this vid. This one's for him.

When "Haterz" Meet Parents

A storm is brewing in http://kidsahoy.multiply.com.
No, it's not a typhoon of the 'Egay' variety, it's probably worse.

Youtube.com is full of them. People come in and post hateful, insulting and degrading comments on an item even if they can't measure up to nor understand the talents or capabilities of those in the video. Same goes for anything on the net with a commenting feature. People come in and post hateful and degrading comments even though they don't have a full grasp of the subject matter or the situation at hand. These netizens are usually called "Haterz". As opposed to "Trolls" and "Baiters" (wikipedia.org definitions), haterz contribute nothing to the original discussion and comments really just radiate of negativity (at least in some circles trolls take on the form of a devil's advocate and make you think despite the discord they sow).

The Urban Dictionary definitions of haterz describe them as "...those jealous of success" and "Someone who dislikes others and thinks they're better than them.".

A You-tube vid defining haterz entitled "The Definition of a Hater" describes them as those who:

"...DON'T WANT TO GET ALONG and they hate because they have nothing better to do, then they call (you) stupid or idiot because you express your opinion!"

I really don't know if angst, age, anonymity and wide reach of the internet are major factors in haterz culture. Some pinpoint teenagers as the main component of the haterz population. But then again there are some haterz who are way beyond their teens. Maybe it's really just the person behind the post. That I believe.

Anyway, kidsahoy has an ongoing photo contest. Along came two college QC "katips" college students who were trying to dissipate the boredom of a long, rainy weekend by taking the role of haterz. They started on a mini-rampage of "that kid's going to grow up to be a camwhore", "such a loser" and "so stupid" -like comments on member-posted photos. Okay, so it's just a couple of comments compared to spamming, but HECK! The response those few comments generated (this post is proof of that) is widespread! It's tantamount to saying "JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE SUCKS" on JT's official myspace and on his own website.

Net Lesson learned No. 1:
Thou shalt not diss kids to their parents' faces.
Else thou shalt face the wrath of mommies and daddies.

Wytbloke and deniseyoggie's posts drew the ire of the community (see links below for comments, responses, and reactions, note: some have been removed already and new ones are being posted since it's a very active topic). Repartee like this may be okay for generally unmoderated and loose community postings like those on youtube or yahoo videos, but to post something like this within a community site of parents, who are teaching their children the importance of good values, is definitely a death wish. One of the posters' schoolmates gave them a dressing down. I guess other than pissed-off parents, it also takes one of your own to put things in perspective for you (common environment, good intentions and all. Kudos to you, btw).

A common reaction would be a flood of flaming on the offenders' multiply accounts, but that didn't happen since everyone agreed it would be tantamount to lowering themselves to the haterz' levels. And these are parents so you really wouldn't expect them to stoop low.

Net Lesson learned No. 2
(to paraphrase the common sentiment
of those who follow the issue):
Thou shalt think first before posting.
Then thou shalt think again before posting just to be sure.

Anyway, the posters' multiply accounts have already been blocked (from posting at kidsahoy) and their actions even reported to their school authorities (conduct unbecoming of a student of the institution, I bet they didn't see that one coming). They have since posted apologies, though some community members deem it too late.

Net Lesson learned No. 3:
Hell hath no fury like a parent pissed off.

Links:
http://kidsahoy.multiply.com/photos/photo/12/18
http://kidsahoy.multiply.com/photos/photo/12/3.jpg
http://kidsahoy.multiply.com/photos/photo/12/17
http://kidsahoy.multiply.com/photos/photo/12/29
http://kidsahoy.multiply.com/photos/photo/12/36
http://kidsahoy.multiply.com/journal/item/23/BLOCK_OFFENDING_POSTERS
THIS_IS_A_KID-FRIENDLY_FAMILY-ORIENTED_ZONE

(Personal Gorilla Note: Had they done that to my pamangkins' photos, I'd have gone to their school, slammed them against every wall in Katipunan and ripped their heads off. Tito-Ninong lang ako, hindi parent. Of course I jest. Or do I? Uh, oh. Am I turning into a haterz? LOL.:D)

Crossposted: http://gokitomo.com, http://gorilla.multiply.com and http://gorilla.vox.com.

The Walk - UP Centennial Project

One of the projects for the UP Centennial will be the conversion of the existing inner sidewalk along the Academic Oval into The Walk. 

"Have your name inscribed in special commemorative tiles surrounding your favorite walkway-the Academic Oval-
and show your support for UP Diliman forever."

Click here to go to the Centennial article
in the What's UP website for more details.

Note: I might be connected with the UP SLIS involvement in this project. 

Four Hours to the SLIS Lecture Series and the UPLSAA T-Shirt

Okay, so the day started really bad for me. I was supposed to be the emcee and forum moderator for the third lecture of the SLIS 2007 Lecture Series entitled "Promoting Research and Scholarship Through Open Access and E-Publishing" by Ma'am Fides Datu-Lawton. I gave myself a 3-hour head start so I could reach UPSLIS before 10:00 am. But... surprise-surprise, it rained and floods and traffic followed. So the usual 1 1/2 to 2-hour trip stretched for an agonizing 4 hours and 15 minutes causing me to miss the opening remarks and introduction of the guest speaker. Thank you, thank you very much to Ms. Christine Timoteo for filling in for me. I'm so, so sorry Pres. Eimee, I didn't make it in time to set up the camera. :(

Anyway, one high point of my day was listening to Ma'am Fides mention solutions we are going to take up in my classes (I've been itching to try out having the LIS 161 guys set up DSpace in the computer lab). Ma'am Fides' talk slides can be accessed at http://www.slideshare.net/plaistrlc/f-lawton, shoutout goes to Von for locating them! :D

Another high point which made me forget all about the looooooooong and frustraaaaaaaating ride was getting the new UPLSAA SHIRT! Carina reserved one for me.

So now I've got mine, where's yours? :D

 

UPLSAA 100% Pinoy Librarian Shirt

So now I've got mine, where's yours? :D

UP SLIS Students General Assembly, 1st sem, 2007

UP SLIS Students General Assembly
August 14, 2007

Generated by Flickr Album Maker

 

Crossposted: http://gokitomo.com, http://gorilla.multiply.com and http://gorilla.vox.com.

Mwehehehehe

Happy birthday to me...
Happy birthday to me...

I was on my way to Kris and Moira's wedding when I saw Puti aka Muning aka Whitey in front of the Main Library. Waiting for a mouse? O_o;;
So anyway, my birthdays are probably getting weirder by the year. I got some useful stuff from my mom, sister and nephews. I also got stuff for myself. Something for the martial artist in me, something for the inner geek in me, and something for the skill freak in me.


I got myself a pair of ball-bearing nunchucks. I bought these the day I bought the stationary bike at Toby's for the house. They had a pile of nunchucks in their martial arts section and I think I surprised the cashier and the manager when I said I'd like to add the two nunchucks. I think I scared them when I said I'd like to test them before they punch it in (hey, I have to be sure the balance is okay and that the swing / rotation is sweet). I think I awed them a bit when I did flips and rotations. I assume they usually see guys only do swings and transfers. Anyway, I love these guys to death.

I also bought an 80Gb hard disk and an enclosure for the increasing number of files I generate. And lastly...

Yup. It's a unicycle. A new skill / circus toy for me to learn. And I know it's gonna hurt really bad trying to learn this one-wheeled wonder. O_o;; I already fell about a dozen times last weekend just trying to balance myself.

Crossposted: http://gokitomo.com, http://gorilla.multiply.com and http://gorilla.vox.com.

Kris and Moira's Wedding

Kris and Moira's Wedding
August 11, 2007
Patio Ibarra, Q.C.

Kris and Moira's Wedding

Kris and Moira's Wedding
August 11, 2007
Patio Ibarra, Q.C.

Generated by Flickr Album Maker

Crossposted: http://gokitomo.com, http://gorilla.multiply.com and http://gorilla.vox.com.
Note: Multiply photo album here. :D