Post-Grad Study in Europe

You just have to read this first:

Master’s program in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) offered by Lund University, Sweden. No tuition fees.

The program is a collaboration with the E-GIS project of the European Commission’s Leonardo da Vinci program.

Backgrounder:

• 2 years, distance learning. You just need Internet connection, a fast PC processor, etc.
• Books and software will be sent to qualified applicants, again, for free.
•  All classes will either be done online or offline, on your own. Basically research-based learning.
• Thesis/dissertation has to be presented in Lund University, Sweden. The student, of course, will shoulder the travel and other expenses.
• For details, check their site: LUMA-GIS.

If you are not familiar with Geographic Information Systems, well, it’s not just about maps. If you’ve watched Enemy of the State (Will Smith, Gene Hackman), I think the movie fairly exhibited what GIS can do. Well, most spy movies have GIS-applications/software part in the story. Telecommunications are using this in their services (when you are trying to locate the nearest ATM, resto, gas station, or simply spying on the location of another number). (Or visit here if you want more info)

I have been planning since about two or three months ago on taking this opportunity. Unfortunately, because of a very busy life (yeah!), I forgot their deadline — October 15. The classes for this term will start on January. I cannot complete the requirements to meet that deadline because there are a lot of things/document/certification to secure. Sayang! The next round of application is next year, April. I hope I can make it next time.

By the way, in case any of you, my loyal readers (hundreds to thousands, I guess), are interested in taking this, well, please do. First two years will cost you nothing but time and effort. As for the defense of the thesis, well, if you can finish two years, and create a nice thesis, I am almost, almost positive you wouldn’t have a hard time looking for sponsors. My plan is to draft a really good paper, and present it to either the government for funding or one of the telcos around. I’m quite certain they’ll be happy to sponsor my defense travel expenses… or anyone’s studies for that matter. (Not that this is something to look forward to, but once you are in Sweden, you can easliy go to The Netherlands. *wink*)

I am still seriously, seriously considering taking ICT courses — locally or abroad.

PS: …and take up dance lessons here. Hehehe. Hahaha! Good times.

Career Change

I once had this conversation with a friend of mine where we tried to quantify how much we love our work. Suppose our [respective] companies offer us a month-long paid leave but the condition is, we have to stay at home and do nothing but rest. Are we hoing to accept it or not? She’s going to accept it, and so do I. Then, we called her surfing instructor-friend and asked him the same question — his answer was no. Well, I know it’s not really that perfect a measure of our love for work, but our yes and his no really mean something, right?

[Here’s 60 seconds for you to think about that.]

Anyway, I just want to share that I am seriously considering pursuing a career in medicine — I want to specialize in nephrology and infectious diseases ala House MD. Hehehe. Seriously though, I am thinking of starting a new career in ICT, specifically, in software development and engineering. I don’t know if I can do this anytime soon, but I hope this happens sooner and not later.

There is this certificate/diploma course in UP (google UP ITTC if you are interested) where they’ll be covering the fundamentals of ICT management. Problem is, the fee is around 100K.  Haayyy… Any good soul out there? I need some sponsors.

:-)

End of US Hegemony?

A quick thought on what is happening in the United States right now: 5 (?) major investment houses in the US crashing down – and I really mean crashing as in crash-and-burn. The US Federal Bank has spent billions if not trillions of dollars already. I don’t know if it’s just me, but maybe, just maybe, their treasure vault has its limits also. Could this mean a realignment of the balance of power?

The BSP is quite confident that we won’t be affected. (See relevant news here.) Some people consider this is a great opportunity; some don’t.

For now, I don’t think I should be worried about these stuff. Hayyy… I still have 3 days left here in paradise, and no bad news can ever spoil this vacation.

Good times.

CE Error

I am re-posting some excerpts from KMU website (I don’t want to post their URL here  — I don’t want to contribute to an increase in their page rank. Hehehe.) where they are accusing the government of so many things based on (in my opinion) a copyediting error. You guys read the statement from KMU first, then, at the bottom, you’ll see what their basis was.

“This is clearly a malicious and dangerous propaganda campaign against our organization, and all that the Arroyo government wants to get rid of,” said Elmer Labog, KMU Chairperson.

“The black propaganda against KMU will only reaffirm the government’s repressive attacks on unions and workers.”

Since Arroyo’s term in 2001, 87 workers have been victims of extra-judicial killings, and 16,400 were subjected to many forms of labor rights violations, according to documented cases alone.

In effect, the regime is preaching that to form unions, to fights for just wages, to collectively assert for your rights in the workplace, and all that KMU has been asserting for all these years, are rebellious acts,” Labog commented.

He added that “It also wrecks further the image of our Bangsamoro people, who have been maligned in the national media especially recently that Arroyo and the US are bent to pursue their vested interests in Minadanao.

The statements above were based on an activity in a 1st year textbook from a local publisher (Diwa):

Mga gawain: magsaliksik hinggil sa mga rebeldeng grupo sa bansa: NPA, NDF, MILF, MNLF, KMU.

I don’t personally know the editor of this textbook. And I cannot attest that his or her company is not part of the government’s machinery. But I know that KMU did not even communicate with them before making that fuss over the label, so to speak, given to them. I know that the term rebel has a significant implication but clearly, it is actually KMU who has malicious and dangerous propaganda! Mistakes happen. Some errors sometimes go unnoticed. The best course of action is to talk to the publisher and ask them to explain. Hay naku… talk about malicious and dangerous propaganda.

As far as I am concerned, this is [simply] a case of  CE error (N, S, I, whatever).

CE-Friends out there, always be very careful. Imagine this CE error resulting to combination of ideas like malicious and dangerous propaganda campaign, government’s repressive attacks on unions and workers, and Bangsamoro.

Good times.

Edit:

On second thought, this is how the game is played in politics. It’s dirty, but it’s how it is played. Had KMU approached the publisher, Diwa, first, the issue would have died down easily. But of course, KMU wouldn’t want that. If they have to include the bangsamoro plight here, they will. Hayy.. Politics at its best. Ha!

Wordle

Got this link (wordle.net) from a friend of mine, Lois. The Applet in that web server is supposed to generate a cloud of tags/ideas/etc from your blog or essay. I tried this and here’s my wordle:

Wala lang. You might wanna try it.

Is the Universe Alone?

Some refer to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as the Disneyland of physics experiments. With thousand of scientists and hundreds of universities collaborating, yeah, it probably is Disneyland. And this can also be the realization of the attempt to build a time machine — probably even better than that. Imagine having a machine that can — theoretically — reconstruct a new universe.

[OK, this is the start of the part  where you have to understand that I took up 12 units of foreign language, but attended only 6 sessions/meetings of Fundamentals of Natrural Sciences.]

The LHC fired up its first beam early this morning. As I understand it, the machine aims to charge the particles such that they travel at the speed of the light and contain energy thousands of times more powerful than our sun, and some physics gibberish I don’t understand. What I am excited about is that this program (which has spanned for decades already) might have super awesome findings. A couple of which are the following:

1. Is our universe alone? Or is there a multiverse? Imagine, we are debating earth is the only planet with living organisms, and this LHC will attempt to answer if there are other universe out there?!Isn’t that great?!
2. Creation of a blackhole. And if this happens, I hope the scientists announce the findings early so I can make my last wil, hehehe. (They say that the odds of this happening is 1 in 50 million, so, if you know of someone who won the lottery twice, please let me know, because I think that is a good gauge that this will happen.) People at CERN though say a Doom’s Day Scenario is not likely to happen. (Yes, we hope so.)

Oh well, I just want to babble for a while because my brother talks in a language I do not understand when it comes to stuff like this.  Yo might wanna check out news related to Large Hadron Collider or  particle accelerator. This is the most expensive and ambitious experiment of mankind as of now. I guess.

Good times.