Phoons

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Phooning! Makes me want to phoon too. (Link via BWG via Krisalis.)

Ah. I’ve finished all my banking chores, and I was fortunate enough to catch our currency exchange rate on a strong day. Now I’m blogging from a cafe in Makati, moderating my forums on PEX. After all the dial-up trouble I’ve been having at home, it’s nice to browse at a moderately fast speed without regular timeouts, disconnections, and unrefreshed ISP-caching.

Madrigal History Tour

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I’m currently listening to The King’s Singers Madrigal History Tour. What a delightful little collection! The French and English madrigals are especially exquisite, and these guys sing Janequin’s La Guerre even better than the Janequin Ensemble themselves. Their La, la, la, la, je ne l’ose dire is also a pleasant listen, even at only 42 seconds long. If you’re a fan of madrigals or the King’s Singers, I highly recommend this CD. Excellent purchase.

MT: No turning back.

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I’ve deleted my how now, brownpau? blog from Blogger. Now, there is no turning back.

(But I’m not leaving Blogger completely; I do have a few other blogs there, after all.)

Bible Wines

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I was introduced to another new Baptist controversy today: “Unfermented Bible Wines”. I’ve always taken it as given that the Eucharist used normal wine by default, and that the churches I’ve been attending at used grape juice as a mere concession to those who had to abstain from alchohol. It’s only now that I’ve become aware of the silliness seriousness of the Grape Juice Debate. The prevailing prohibitionist hermeneutic seems to be: if wine is called “bad” in the bible, it’s wine, otherwise it’s grape juice. Ha.

Anyway, I started Googling for research, and guess whose page I came across… ;) (Update: Okay, it’s not that Rich Clark.)

Wayback Machine is the Matrix

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“The idea is to build a library of everything, and the opportunity is to build a great library that offers universal access to all of human knowledge. That may sound laughable, but I’d suggest that the Internet is going exactly in that direction, so if we shoot directly for it, we should be able to get to universal access to human knowledge.”

I therefore conclude that the Wayback Machine is, in reality, The Matrix.

Think of it: a giant computer system with hundreds of terabytes, holding the collected knowledge of all mankind? How long before you start needing the energy from human bodies to run such a huge system? How long before the computer becomes intelligent enough… to use that knowledge against us? To turn us into mere battery cells, and immerse our minds in a computer-generated dreamworld… built to keep us under control?

Keep your eyes on that Wayback Machine. Soon it will be everywhere. Even in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window. Or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work. When you go to church. When you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes… to blind you from the truth.

Where am I? I think I got a bit carried away. Anyway, can you believe my site once looked like that? (Not that I need the Wayback Machine; I already have my Brief History for archiving purposes.)

Sol 3

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Want to see San Francisco via the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission? How about Los Angeles? The rest of the Left Coast?

I really loved this text:

Target Name: Earth

Satellite of: Sol

Doesn’t it make you feel all cosmic and stuff? When do we get to see the satellites of 42 Eridani, I wonder? And Uranus?

Anyway, while we’re on the topic of orbital photos, check out this picture of the Himalayas, snapped from the International Space Station with a simple 35mm camera. (link via camworld) And of course, an early 90’s shuttle photo of the Manila-Laguna-Batangas area, with captions by yours truly.

Moral Snares Ahead

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Caution: Moral Snares Ahead: An LA Times Commentary recalling the last time US troops landed on Southern Philippine soil to combat Moro separatists — in 1903.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for getting rid of the Abu Sayyaf, and American help is more than welcome in light of our military’s inability to deal with the problem. (Especially with these allegations of corruption and bribery between Filipino soldiers and Abu Sayyaf rebels!)

Extreme nationalists and local communist groups, however, refuse to accept the return of any American influence to the Philippines. Whether this is military aid or simple combat training, whether it’s the war on terror or ulterior motives, whether it’s constitutional or not; this is a hot point of contention which affects the stability of an already unstable government. The US government would do well to remember that it treads on eggshells here in the Philippines, and its actions will strongly affect the destiny of this troubled people for years to come.

Now, about those US statehood talks… ;)