Native Chicken is Beaten to Death

A famous delicacy in the Cordilleras is known as Pinikpikan. What makes the food preparation bizarre is that the native chicken is being beaten to death. To remove its feathers, the whole Beaten to Death Chicken was burned instead of dipping it into boiling water. It was then cooked in the traditional method known as “tinola” or "adobo".

Did Robert James Fischer a.k.a. Bobby Fischer Killed Himself?

When I heard the news that the former World Chess Champion died at the age of 64, inside my brain I have the speculation that Robert James Fischer a.k.a. Bobby Fischer killed himself.
Maybe he would like to immortalize himself inside the 64-square (8x8) chessboard.
Russian chess players immortalized their chess games through the Russian chess magazine named “64”.

"Eating Dangerously" and “The Test of Loyalty”

In Japan, you can eat a slice of blowfish and hope that the chef skillfully removed the poison.

But that is nothing compared to the delicacies being served in Baguio City, Philippines.

In Baguio, you can order dog meat in restaurant and then pray that the unfortunate dog does not have any rabies.

Eating dog meat is a culture in Baguio. However, the commercialization of dog meat destroy the old culture because dogs are now illegally coming from Southern Luzon to be butchered in Baguio.

In this bizarre culture, man should eat his own dog with his family members or with his friends. And while eating, they talk about the loyalty of his dog to him. This may sounds like a bizarre funeral service.

To my mind (inside the brain of Engr Alex Valdez), I call this “The Test of Loyalty” between the man and his dog. If the man eat his favorite dog and if the dog has the rabies, then together they will IMMEDIATELY be united in eternal life, forever.

A Typical Filipino Lifestyle

A typical lifestyle of a Filipino is this - We eat seven (7) times a day.
1. Agahan or Almusal in the morning.
2. Merienda at 9:00 AM. (Ilocanos prefer Kilabban than merienda.)
3. Tanghalian at high noon.
4. Merienda at 3:00 PM. (Ilocanos prefer Kilabban than merienda.)
5. Pulutan and Toma at 7:00 PM (for Men while singing with friends)
Junk Foods (for Women and Kids while watching telenovelas)
6. Hapunan or Panggabi at 8:30 PM
7. Midnight Snack while watching the evening news.
. . . and not yet included in the above lists are those we eat regularly such as green mango, balut, penoy, one day old, adidas (not rubber shoes), IUD (not contraceptive), and other weird sounding and health threatening street foods.
Finally, a typical Filipino will not starve to death, but change in lifestyle can kill.

Our Aggressive Filipino Food Culture

We, Filipinos, can't wait for a mango to become ripe and sweet. We eat them while they are sour and green.

We, Filipinos, eat duck while still an embryo. We call it balut. We also eat duck before it become embryo. We call it penoy.

Chicks are more luckier than ducks. We wait them to get hatch then after one day, we eat them. We call this food a one day old.

We roast pig while it is a few months old and still drinking milk. We call it lechon de leche.

If you are a foreign missionary staying in the Philippines and you claim that you are already a Filipino by heart, then you must undergo initiation by eating these Filipino foods in front of your congregation.

Is My Credit Card No Longer Safe?

I received my credit card billings today (Friday, January 4, 2008) and to my surprise, a company in Italy is claiming 130.50 Euros (193.41 US Dollars) from my account. The company's name is "TRENITALIA - VENDITA ON L". They claimed that the transaction was made December 13, 2007 and posted to my account on December 15, 2007.

I immediately reported this to my bank (Friday, January 4, 2008). Signed a dispute form. And my bank sent it to the credit card company.

I search the Internet and discovered that Trenitalia was a railway train service in Italy. I am in the Philippines while my double is in Italy.

Now, We have to test the jurisprudence of the Philippines and Italy regarding e-commerce law.

Whatever is the result, I will post it here in the future.

No Traffic? Are These Pictures Real? Fake? or Taken 30 Years Ago?

What Do We Celebrate Every December 25?

This could surprise you. Visit this site and post your opinions.

http://religious-opinion.blogspot.com

What is an Engineer?

An engineer is a person who can makes the most with of his 1,000 pesos that an ordinary persons in the street with their 2,000 pesos. An engineer is an economist.

If You Want to Save, Don't Go to Bank.

If you have 1,000 pesos today and you intent to use it for food after one year, then don't deposit it on bank. Your money will decrease its purchasing power and the interest given to you by your bank is not enough to compensate its lost.

Today, I just purchased a canned sardines and immediately I ate. While eating I asked myself, "What if I had purchase this canned sardines one year earlier then I should have save a lot."

If I have 1,000 pesos today then I am going to buy canned goods in wholesale price. Of course, taking into consideration the storage life span or expiration of canned goods. Canned goods increases in price every time there is a calamity or a disaster. Their prices goes up and never comes down.

Rich Man. Poor Man.

Why the Rich are Becoming More Richer and the Poor Becoming More Poorer?

A rich man buy in wholesale while the poor buy in retail.

In buying rice, a rich man buy that which is measured in cavan while the poor man buy that which is measured in kilo. Who do you think got the savings in the long term?

Learning by Pattern Recognition

If you study the following figures,

+ 3 6 [first line]
9 [second line]

and

+ 2 4 [first line]
6 [second line]

and if I show you this figure,

+ 5 3 [first line]
_____ [second line]

what do you think should be written in the second line?

if your answer is 8 then congratulations. You have just learn a little of LISP Programming Language. Your brain discovered the answer though pattern recognition.

Philippine History

There is a controversy about the real date that Ferdinand Magellan discovered the Philippines. History books claim that is was March 16, 1521. But what if Magellan timepiece was still set to the Madrid Time Zone. If that was the case, then there was a time and date discrepancy especially if they arrived before the sunrise. Manila Time is +8 GMT while Madrid is +1 GMT. What do you think?

Chess : Mates in 4 Moves

When I was a high school kid at Baguio City High School, a friend show me a chess puzzle. The puzzle it to construct a game that will checkmate Black in 4 moves from the starting position. Black should copy moves made by White. The initial moves in mind was

1. P-K4 P-K4
2. B-B4 B-B4
3. Q-R5 Q-R5
4. QxP check
NOT mate because of 4. . . . K-Q1

After few minutes of taught, I made the following solutions:
1. P-Q4 P-Q4
2. Q-Q3 Q-Q3
3. Q-KR3 Q-KR3
4. QxB checkmate

There are two (2) more solutions.
The idea is to capture the Queen's Bishop on the fourth move.
Can you solve it?

Method of Teaching : Equation

In teaching Algebra, I allow my students to visualize a see-saw whenever they encounter an equation. The word equation comes from the word equal.

Given an equation, “Y + 3 = 7”, we place the “=” sign at the middle of the see-saw where the fulcrum is located. We place “Y + 3” at the left side of the fulcrum and “7” to the right side.

If the problem requires that only “Y” should remain in the left side, then to remove “ 3 ”, we have to subtract “3”. Since we have to maintain the balance or equality, then we have to do the same to the other side. So we subtract “3” in the left and also “3” in the right.

Y + 3 = 7
Subtract 3 on both sides. See below,

Y + 3    =    7
     - 3   =   -3
=========
Y          =    4

Remember the philosophy “If someone hits you on your left cheek, then let him hit your right cheek, too.” Of course, the hit must be of equal pressure to maintain the balance. He, he, he …

Method of Teaching: Software and Hardware

Whenever I teach computer or information technology to my students at Agoo Computer College, I want to be sure that they clearly understood the difference between software and hardware including the symbiotic relationship between them.

SOFTWARE is an idea or opinion. It is abstract. It does not have any physical attribute. It cannot be seen. There is no color, no taste, no odor, no texture, and no sound.

In contrast, HARDWARE has physical attributes. You can touch it physically. Some have color, odor, or texture. Others have taste or audible sound.

In order for any SOFTWARE to become useful, you need a medium. This medium is a HARDWARE.

Example 1: An author who has an idea (software) must print it on paper (hardware) to produce a useful product or a book.

Example 2: A musical composition (software) must be perform through an instrument (hardware) to produce music.

Example 3: A programmer who has an idea (software) of doing task must instruct the computer to produce output such as printed materials (hardware) or visual display (hardware). Printed materials have physical attributes. Visual display or computer monitor displays colored text or graphical images.

Finally, the plural form of software is software NOT softwares. The plural for of hardware is hardware NOT hardwares.

The Mad Genius of Computer Science and Everything