Hopeless Pag-asa XI

While Metro Manila folks were waddling trough floods last yesterday, PAGASA declared that today's SONA will be just as wet. Their advise to people to bring umbrellas merited headline news. But as if to spite PAGASA once more, the sun shone so brightly this morning, prompting PAGASA to declare on radio before noon that there will be no repeat of Sunday's torrents. Now we should expect heavy rains.

Update: It had not rained a drop in Manila as of 5:00pm. For the rains to come, we need PAGASA to declare drought, and vice versa. PAGASA may yet offer us hope.

White hair chronicles XVIII - queuing at senior citizen's lane and discounted jeepney fare

Two weeks ago, a cashier at Shopwise grocery store across my office asked for my Senior Citizen's ID. This sent my officemates to a laughing fit and the cashier to an embarrassed smile when told that "kasing tanda lang namin yan!"

Yesterday at breakfast, I lined up at Jollibee counter with the shortest queue. It turned out to be the senior citizen only lane. The crew didn't ask for my ID this time but served me just the same (though no discount was given). An officemate snapped the photo at left.

Jeepney drivers now also start to give me discount without being asked. I give it back saying "sobra sukli mo". Hmm, I'm beginning to see the white hair advantage.

I write like ...

The new site "I Write Like" has gone viral. It analyzes your writing style and tries to compare it with known authors, I pasted a blog post to the analyzer and it said I write like Canadian science fiction writer Cory Doctorow. I pasted another post and it said I write like David Foster Wallace. Another post was written like P.G. Wodehouse. But I got Cory Doctorow mostly.

The site analyzes your text based largely on the words used. Works of just about 50 authors are uploaded to be used for comparison. The results may not be accurate but it's fun to know how you compare to other writers. Now I intend to read a Cory Doctorow book.

CNN tried to punch in some text to the analyzer and found out that an Obama speech was written ala Stephen King and a Supreme Court decision was written like Dan Brown.

And this post was written like Cory Doctorow. 

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Can the police eat 21 million pesos worth of hamburgers?

The new PAGCOR leadership thinks the previous administration's large food orders for the Philippine National Police (PNP) is irregular. The food orders were purportedly for policemen securing rallies and demonstrations for eight dates between January and June.

McDonald's quickly said the food orders were legitimate. It noted that dates indicated in the official receipts reflect the date of payment and not necessarily the date of the food delivery.

Over the radio, a police general belabored the excuse that policemen securing rallies were provided meals for the whole duration of the rally. But can we remember long rallies in the first half of the year? And even assuming that the dates do not reflect the rally dates, it is safe to assume that the rallies were held before those dates. Which means that the rallies were held before the elections. Could they possibly be campaign rallies? For which candidate or political party then? Who controlled PAGCOR during that time?

The 21 million peso bill translates to P2.625 million pesos per rally. Again assuming that they spent 500 pesos per policeman, a princely sum for a day's meal, that means more than 5000 policemen per rally day were fed. Can we remember a big rally that required one third of the police force to secure?

Can the police eat 21 million pesos worth of hamburgers? PNoy said "kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap". Conversely, PAGCOR-rupt, hindi mahirap.

Facebook and Twitter in the PNoy government

With his presidential campaign successfully fueled by social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, PNoy will now try to tap those tools in his good governance campaigns. The first government unit to try to use them was the Supreme Court. It was also the first to deactivate its use. The Supreme Court is not giving up though on Twitter. It says it's still tweaking its account.

The Department of Finance today announced it will soon launch its own social media accounts. The department hopes to receive from the public some leads in its anti-tax evasion and smuggling campaigns.

These departments are definitely not the first to use social networking media to reach out to the public. It has been tried before but the rigid bureaucracy nipped it in the bud. Mid level bureaucrats are unable to explain to their superiors the utility of the social media in disseminating information although many of them use them personally. It is only now in PNoy's time, with new blood being infused in the top, that social media gets a second look. With the mid level bureaucrats' Malabanan mentality, expect many to suddenly like those tools now and suggest their use to management.

Didn't they know resistance is futile?