Last week, Don, my brother-in-law, picked up his metallic deep-blue Tesla Model 3 from one of the company’s showrooms –they sell their cars direct and not through a dealership– in Fremont, California.
A year ago, he had put up a US$ 1,000 deposit for the promised US$35, 000 Model 3 unit that had just gotten off Tesla’s designers’ drawing boards and into production mode then.
The Tesla Model 3 was supposed to catapult the fledgling company into the mainstream car market.
All their previous models, the Roadster, the Model S as well as the Model X (an SUV – sports utility vehicle) are relatively expensive, and only a few middle-income American consumers could afford them.
Tesla had been at the forefront in the rebirth of the all-electric vehicle boom that had seen the release of competing models from the big Japanese and European carmakers -notably Nissan (the ‘Leaf‘) and BMW (the i3 – with the latest release, a 2-cylinder ‘range extender’ engine is now just optional )- as well as from the top 2 American car firms — General Motors (the Chevy ‘Bolt‘) and Ford (coming up with its ‘CUV‘).
The Model 3’s simple interior and almost bare dashboard are both a boon and a bane
As it turned out, Tesla’s promised consumer-friendly price tag of US$35,000 for the Model 3 ‘base model’ ballooned to almost US$57,000 after the company failed in its promise to offer one with the ‘standard batteries‘ during the consumer rollout.
Eager to drive home with his Model 3, Don was compelled to buy a more expensive unit with long-range (up to 310 miles) batteries + a premium exterior with rear-wheel drive. His choice of color, deep blue metallic (extra $1500), and alloy sports wheels (extra $1500) set him back another $3,000 plus all the taxes and fees.
The price would have gone even higher had he opted for one with an all-wheel-drive (extra $6,000 for the ‘basic’ all-wheel drive and an extra $15,000 for the ‘performance’ all-wheel drive) & enhanced Autopilot (extra $5,000).
After all the extras, a fully loaded, top-of-the-line Model 3 goes for about $75,500 before all the taxes and fees –and that’s not a price for the average consumer. For all that money, you could buy four (4) brand-new (latest model) Toyota Corollas and still have a few thousand left in your pocket.
Charging the car at home via a dedicated 240V outlet.
So for the US$57K price, he shelled out -before Federal & State tax incentives- Don’s Model 3 car should, at least, be impressive. It is but not without some drawbacks.
Most electric cars have impressive torques, and the rear-wheel-drive Model 3 can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in about 5.1 seconds. The car’s handling was impressive as the 19″ wheels were big enough to mitigate some road imperfections.
You can’t say enough praise for all the tech goodies inside and outside the car with its gaggle of radars, sensors, cameras, software updates for the touchscreen control panel as well as the very impressive all-glass roof. All of the Model 3’s glass parts, including the windows, were made by Saint-Gobain Sekurit, which traces its roots all the way back to 1665 in France as the Royal Glass Works.
The Model 3’s all-glass, UV protective roof is very impressive. Those 2 micro-LED pin lights provide just enough illumination for the passengers at the back
And, as this is an all-electric vehicle, you tend to rely less on the brakes to slow down the car —just release your foot on the accelerator, and you accomplish two things: 1). slows the car down to a halt, and 2). you charge the batteries (regenerative braking).
Let’s get to the things that I didn’t like about the Tesla Model 3:
Firstly, the door handles. Opening a door is a two-handed affair. What??? You have the push the recessed handle with one hand and grab the handle’s end once it pops out with your other hand —yes, just to open a door.
If you’re quick, you can grab & open Tesla’s Model 3 doors with one hand. For most others, opening a door is a two-handed affair.
Second, there is no manual override to open the glove box compartment. To open it, you must turn on the touchscreen tablet (which acts as the sole instrument panel and controls everything inside the car) and push the ‘open glove box‘ button. Too cool but also too dumb. Any determined thief can simply use a screwdriver and force it open.
Third, and as mentioned above, the car relied too much on the 15″ touchscreen tablet in the dashboard’s center. I honestly believe that Tesla did it to cut costs in the guise of the ‘cool’ factor.
This 15″ touchscreen tablet is the only instrument panel inside the Tesla Model 3.
This is especially too distracting when driving around the city as you have to deal with all the functionalities of the car on a touchscreen panel. As if texting while driving is just not bad enough.
Fourth, for the steep price tag on any premium variants of the Tesla Model 3, real leather seats should be standard. As it is, the ‘premium interior’ model could only boast of faux leather in black.
Lastly, except for topping off the windshield washer fluid, there’s nothing a Tesla Model 3 owner who’s keen on maintaining the car himself can do. Most of the other end-user replaceable parts & fluids are either hidden underneath the car’s chassis –where the engine sits in your typical internal combustion vehicle is now a front luggage compartment- or, not that easily accessible.
This means that if ever the car needs even the most simple maintenance, you may have to take it back to a Tesla dealership. Bottom line: costlier upkeep.
Other minor flaws need no mentioning and can be ignored, but the ones above are simply too obvious to be overlooked.
After all, Tesla’s mass-production model cars -starting with the 2012 Model S- had only been around for a few years. Improvements should come in the next iterations of those models.
That is, if -with their massive debt and government subsidies in the form of tax incentives ending soon- they will remain viable and, most importantly, become profitable, as a company in the coming years.
Old habits die hard and R/C flying is one of them.
Since I caught the aerial remote-control bug during my almost four-year stint in Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s, I have never forgotten this sometimes expensive hobby. They say that the hearts of adventurous people lie in the extreme desire to fly like birds.
R/C flying has come a long way since the days of gas-powered COX engines and radio controllers with telescopic antennas—-with small banners attached to them that denoted the radio frequencies.
In today’s world dominated by computers, software, cell phones, and other Internet-connected devices, it comes as no surprise that the hobby of R/C flying has also evolved to take advantage of them.
Today, you no longer need a dedicated controller to operate an R/C device—a smartphone and the appropriate app will do it for you. Changing crystals (to change radio frequency transmission) inside the transmitters is so passé—almost all new R/C these days have Wi-Fi built-in (mostly at 2.4 GHz) and utilize that same wireless frequency to connect to the smartphone. Bluetooth is also built-in to pair with a dedicated remote controller for easier flying.
A Wi-Fi extender (shown here attached to a battery pack) and a Bluetooth controller for extra fun.
More sophisticated but expensive models incorporate GPS, 1080p, or 4K cameras propped on small but high-end gimbals, as well as a gaggle of extras for easy maneuvering even at long-range distances. Not to mention longer flight times and apps with sophisticated features.
Currently, a Chinese company called DJI dominates the aerial R/C market and has relegated the term ‘R/C’ to something more futuristic—’drone‘.
The drone market has exploded in the last six or so years after amateur and professional photographers alike made them an essential part of their toolkits for taking visually stunning aerial photos and video footage.
This unedited photo was taken with the DJI-Ryze Tello at 15 meters up in the air.
DJI not only makes a variety of off-the-shelf hobbyist drones that cater to everyone’s budget but also custom-made ones depending on the application—be it in the military, science, agriculture, engineering, or, of course, the movie industry.
To capture the lowest end of the hobbyist drone market, DJI partnered with Intel and Shenzhen, China-based Ryze Tech and introduced the Ryze Tello.
The fun-to-fly Ryze Tello drone (shown here with a packet of some unique ‘skins’)
It’s a vision positioning system-equipped US$99 toy-hobbyist drone with a programmable Intel processor and a 5-megapixel 720p camera (at 30 fps)—I’m not sure, though, if some Hasselblad technologies were incorporated after DJI bought into the Swedish camera company in 2015—as well as some other tech goodies packed in 80 grams—battery included—of good-quality plastic and miniature circuit boards.
It’s basically a very, very small home computer with a nice webcam that flies.
What makes this little toy drone so fun is that it won’t hurt your pocketbook if you crash or lose it. It’s so stable to fly that the only way you can lose or damage it is to fly it in very windy conditions.
In actual use, the Ryze Tello flies for a good 10 minutes—specs say 13 minutes —on a full charge with a range of about 100 meters. But hacks like using a US$10 Wi-Fi repeater or range extender improve not only the range but also the video quality transmission.
Also, software hacks like TALS (free) and Altitude Limit for Tello (US$0.99)—but both are available only for iOS devices—can extend this little drone’s 10-meter height limit to 10x or 100 meters. Be careful, though, as the drone’s vision positioning system gets compromised at over 10 meters.
Accessories for the Tello are also inexpensive,, like the US$29 GameSir T1d Bluetooth controller and about US$15 to $25 for a 3 to 4 battery-charging hub. Extra original batteries—made by FullyMax—are about US$19.
These prices might be even lower if you get the Ryze Tello in ‘bundle deals‘. I once saw a DJI stall inside a very popular shopping mall in downtown San Francisco selling the Ryze Tello with an extra battery for as low as US$ 89.
Inexpensive Ryze Tello accessories: GameSir T1d Bluetooth controller, Wi-Fi extender (on the right of the silver packet), extra original battery, and Tello battery charging hub
All in all, for about US$ 200, you can truly enjoy the thrills of R/C flying -or, shall I say, drone flying- without the nasty additional expenses associated with the learning experience alone.
Once you have mastered it—it’s so easy flying this tiny toy drone—or if you have grown tired of it but truly enjoy aerial photography, you could upgrade to a DJI Spark…and then to a Mavic Air, Mavic 2, or Pro.
April 2019 update:
In late 2018, a German hobbyist named Volate!lo released a new app—available only for Android—called Tello FPV + RTH. Priced at $5.49, the feature-rich app made the Ryze Tello drone much more capable, particularly the return-to-home feature, despite the unit’s lack of a GPS.
Last November 2018, Ryze sold their Tello Boost Combo at a discounted price of only $99 (plus tax) from the current/regular price of $149 (plus tax) on DJI’s website.
The package includes the Tello drone, two (2) sets of spare propellers, three (3) original FullyMax flight batteries, a 3-battery charging hub, and a USB cable.
If purchased individually, all the contents in the Boost Combo set would easily cost between $150 and $170.
It was such a steal that I couldn’t resist but get one as a spare unit.
Ryze Tech ‘Boost Combo’ package includes the Tello aircraft, two (2) sets of spare propellers, three (3) original FullyMax aircraft batteries, a 3-battery charging hub & the USB cable — all for US$ 99 during their 2018 November sale
Also, early this year, Ryze Tech released an Iron Man Edition of their best-selling beginner drone for die-hard Marvel fans, which currently sells for US$ 129 (plus tax).
It is essentially the same Tello unit except for the Iron Man-themed protective shell, colors, and trims of predominantly metallic red and gold. This special edition Tello also comes with its own app, Tello Hero.
Note that you can use the standard Tello app to fly the Iron Man Edition Tello aircraft, but you can’t use the special Tello Hero app to fly the $99 ‘ordinary edition’ Tello.
But, of course, you can also use the much better Tello FPV +RTH app by VolaTe!lo on the Iron Man Edition unit.
A must-buy for all Marvel fans and avid Tello flyers!
Sorting out my tech stuff in the attic for spring cleaning, I discovered a cache of old MP3 players. Among them were five (5) Rio 500 made by Diamond Multimedia in the late 1990s. They all came complete with odd-looking (smaller than a standard 5-pin Mini B) USB cables and some old batteries.
Why I had 5 of them, I had forgotten. Excitedly, I put a fresh Duracell AA battery into one of the units and slid the power switch on. The unit’s small, rectangular (1.5″ x 0.57″) screen glowed a warm blue hue, and the first track in the playlist appeared.
This thing still works!
The Diamond Rio 500 MP3 Player and its unusual USB cable
The Diamond Rio 500 Digital Audio Player was one of the early MP3 players that tried vainly to simplify the intricate and sometimes confusing domain of digital music transfer and rights management until Apple’s iTunes hit the jackpot in 2001.
Released in 1999 for about US$270, the sleek 3.5″ x 2.75″ x 0.6″ gizmo (just slightly thicker than a deck of playing cards) had 64MB of memory built-in, a SmartMedia card slot for expansion, a minimalistic design, RioPort Audio Manager software, and, most importantly, a USB interface.
Note that RioPort Audio Manager was a Windows-only interface when it was released. It would take three (3), ex-Apple software engineers, to port it for the Mac (worked well under Mac OS 7. x to 9. x) that same year and called it SoundJam MP.
SoundJam, the company, was eventually bought by Apple in 2000, whose codes eventually resulted in—you guessed it right—iTunes 1.0.
Today, there are still a slew of digital audio players that eschew iTunes yet are still so easy to use because of the USB cable and the fact that computer OSes have become so much better—just drag and drop your audio files!
So, the Rio 500 has a USB interface, and I have the original USB cable, so transferring a few MP3s using the latest versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, or even Chrome should be easy, right?
The trouble with goodbye is hello. Or, should that be, “Hello again”?
The trouble with using old technologies and modern tools is the accompanying hassles that naturally come with them.
No, the Rio 500 won’t appear as just another USB device after I connect the unique USB cable to any of my latest computers.
It only worked—I transferred a few more MP3s—after I got hold of an ancient Dell Latitude (with a vintage Pentium 233 MMX CPU) laptop—luckily, with a solitary USB port—that operated under Windows ME (Millennium Edition).
An ancient Dell Latitude CPi (with a Pentium MMX processor) laptop running Windows ME
Thanks to software called RIOsitude (v3.12) provided by the open-source community, I could transfer a few MP3s to the vintage player via USB. In 1999, an MP3 player holding about 20 songs (at 128 Kbps bit rate) in its internal memory was impressive.
The Open-Source community delivered once more to make this MP3 player usable; it runs on one (1) AA battery!
For folks on the Apple eco-system, you need a vintage PowerPC-based Mac with a USB port and, at least, System 8.1.
If you have a G3, G4, or G5-powered Mac running OS X, ensure it is loaded with Mac OS X Tiger (10.4.x ) or lower torun in Classic Mode (typically, System 9. x).
Apple discontinued the ability to run Classic Mode in subsequent revisions of Mac OS X — 10.5.x (Leopard) and later.
Then utilize –what else?– iTunes precursor, SoundJam MP, to transfer your MP3 files to the Diamond Rio 500 MP.
Before iTunes and the iPod, there was SoundJam MP and the Diamond Rio 500 MP3 Player.
Today, most portable gadgets are designed for ‘planned obsolescence, which is why it’s always nice and fun to rediscover technologies of yesteryears.
While my 6th-generation iPod nano -released 2010-had been out of service for almost 3 years after the tiny built-in lithium-ion battery inside gave up & trying to open it up required the skill set of a world-class surgeon; this 20-year-old music player still works.
As long as you have the right tools, there’s a good chance that gadgets made 20-30 years ago—or even older—will still be operational today.
Notes: You can download the English version of RIOsitude (v 3.12) and the USB drivers for the Diamond RIO 500 MP3 player as a zipped package here. Please note that these will work only under Windows 98, ME, and 2000.
For vintage Mac OS users, you can download the version of SoundJam that will suit your needs- zipped or bin file version- on this page.
In the last week of January of this year, I was reunited with my vintage Toshiba Aurex System 10 hi-fi stereo set, which I had been using in Manila since 1984.
I purchased the micro hi-fi system in 1982 in the commercial district of Al-Batha, Saudi Arabia. It was the height of the oil kingdom’s industrial phase, and I actually worked in the district of Al-Hair—about 20 minutes from the capital city of Riyadh—for a business conglomerate owned by a sheik.
Life was not only lonely but also very boring in a country whose religion is Sunni Islam and where Sharia laws are strictly enforced. Moreover, I was there to make a living and not as a tourist on a short visit to explore and enjoy the desert kingdom.
The Toshiba Aurex System 10 appeared in a German hi-fi catalog layout in 1979, with dimensions shown. Top to bottom: SB-A10 amplifier, ST-T10 hi-fi AM/FM tuner, and PC-D10 dual-head stereo cassette tape deck.
On the weekends -Friday and Saturday—we usually go to the big city to window shop, meet friends or relatives of friends, hang around in a park where most ex-pats congregate or do just about anything to keep our sanity until we finish the terms of our work contracts.
Typically, after working hours, we enjoyed listening to music on our stereo systems. At the same time, we watched the sun transition from a fiery ball of yellow to a magnificent mélange of orange hues as it hid behind the dunes.
The late 1970s to the mid-80s were the peak of hi-fi’s golden years as digital music began its slow but sure march to take over the entire musical landscape. I can still recall those early models of CD players being priced as high as US$1,000 plus in the few electronics and audio shops that showcased them.
Back then, Sony had been dominating the music scene after the huge success of the Walkman. Because of its portability and affordability, it also made the compact cassette tape the de facto standard.
In the 1980s, the average price of an original music cassette at a shop in Riyadh was about 10 riyals (about US$3), while the bootleg version was about 3 riyals (US$0.90). Like any marketing ploy, the so-called ‘metal tapes’ (type 4), of course, provided the best sound if you had the appropriate cassette tape deck/player.
I bought the Toshiba Aurex System 10 after I had saved enough money and had grown tired of listening to my growing collection of music cassette tapes on my portable cassette player.
I emphasized music cassette tapes since plain audio cassettes were also the very popular media ex-pats used to record and send messages to their loved ones back home as the Internet was still reserved for a few people in the academe and government back then.
Via the AUX (auxiliary) jack, this vintage Toshiba Aurex System 10 can still play today’s digital devices –iPods, CDs, and, yes, MiniDiscs as well as DAT (digital audio tape) players.
Before my purchase, I had watched with envy as my coworkers—especially the senior ones with much fatter paychecks—unloaded and unboxed their expensive, high-end stereo systems with huge speaker sets inside their villas.
Sansui, Denon, NAD, McIntosh, Nakamichi, Tannoy, Pioneer, Marantz, Bang & Olufsen, JBL, Teac, Grundig, Kenwood, and other leading Japanese, American, and European hi-fi brands were the buzzwords those days. And those systems were manufactured in Japan, the U.S., and Europe.
I visited several audio shops in downtown Riyadh before I decided on the micro-sized Toshiba Aurex System 10 because of its uniqueness, design, and almost magical impression.
I bought it discounted but complete with a pair of black Aurex (S12W) 80-watt bookshelf speakers for about US$800. It has a more sophisticated—and expensive—sibling in System 15 (about US$1,200 without speakers), but it was just way beyond my budget at that time.
The PC-D10 cassette tape deck needs the replacement of a few rubber belts inside. The DC motor & tape heads still function well. This unit has manual tape controls.
Both models were spectacularly designed and housed in high-grade aluminum chassis that made them withstand the elements as well as high-quality internal electronic components.
As a bonus, the Aurex models sold in the Middle East had power supply voltage selector switches so that AC power input can be set to either 115V or 230V—depending on where you are or what country you’ll plug them in.
So what are the differences?
System 15 has a beautiful main amplifier (SC-M15) housed in one-piece diecast aluminum. Its all-DC toroidal transformer drives 40 watts per channel into 8 ohms (or 100 watts in ‘BTL’ mode). The back of the amp has professional-grade connectors (screw-on and ‘banana’ plug) for two sets of speakers.
The separate pre-amp (SY-C15) had 2 phono inputs, various switches typically found in bigger, high-end stereo systems, andgold-plated contacts for all the RCA jacks at the back.
The FM-only tuner (ST-F15) has a VFD (vacuum fluorescent) digital display with a 10-button direct/up-down push-button tuning with memory preset capability.
Finally, a better metal-capable tape deck (PC-D15) that utilized two (2) separate DC motors to drive the reels. A touch-key tape operation control pad perfectly complemented the elegant unit.
The very elegant Toshiba Aurex System 15. Including a pair of speakers would have cost me a month of my salary back in 1982! Top to bottom: SC-M15 main power amplifier, SY-C15 pre-amp, ST-F15 FM-only digital tuner, and the PC-D15 stereo cassette deck with 2-motors plus IC-logic control.
System 10 was a much simpler set with just 3 pieces. An integrated amplifier (SB-A10) that’s also encased in extruded aluminum with a much smaller DC toroidal power transformer that drives 20 watts per channel into 8 ohms, an FM/AM tuner (ST-T10) with an old-school knob & scale tuning, and a tape deck (PC-D10) with a single servo motor to drive the flywheel & reels plus manual tape operation controls.
You could mix and match decks or components from either system and even use two (2) SC-M15 amplifiers in monaural mode via the BTL (bridge-tied load/ bridged transformerless) feature to drive a massive 100 watts per channel.
There were cheaper mid-sized/micro component options during those days, like Sony’s FH-7 or Technics’ Concise series, but most used plastic or sheet metal housing. They did not look as elegant as Toshiba’s Aurex System 15 and 10.
After 36 years, I am still amazed how this vintage hi-fi system can remain as beautiful and elegant as some of today’s latest digital audio decks and still sound so impressive– after I hooked up either my FiiO(X2 and X3 Mark III) high-resolution audio players, the iPod Classic or, yes, a Sony Discman via the amp’s auxiliary input.
Sometime in May of this year, my six years old (purchased in January 2011) Sony Dash Personal Internet Viewer (HID-C10) received a control panel update to inform me that service for the device would end in July.
The last firmware update (from version 1.7.1461 to 1.7.1526) was done on April 08, 2016, after the device had issues “downloading the main control panel” and rendered it useless.
Over the 6+ years that I had owned the unit, there were intermittent issues with Sony’s backend servers that kept it inactive. But Sony was always able to come up with firmware updates to keep the service going — until July of this year.
Sony Dash (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Sony Dash is a small tabletop alarm clock-radio-weather/gadget with a 7″ touchscreen that sold for $199 when initially released in April 2010. Its functionality relied 100% on the Internet, hence, Wi-Fi (a/g) is built in.
Aside from the beautiful design, the main attraction of the gadget, just like a smartphone, is its capability to load additional “widgets” (or, apps) via its built-in memory. It enabled owners to stream videos and music from content providers like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Slacker, Sony Music, etc. There are also thousands of other useful widgets that range from the arts to zoology.
And so, one day in July this year, I saw the dreaded firmware update – 1.7.1604– that would turn an otherwise very useful device into a door stopper.
Don’t hit the OK button!!! The dreaded Dash firmware update -1.7.1604- would stop all functionality of the unit
Of course, I did not do the firmware update but, instead, called Sony’s customer service (in the U.S., it’s: 1-800-222-7669) to ask them what to do with a useless unit.
To the company’s credit, it promptly replaced a product that had reached its ‘end-of-life’(aka, planned obsolescence), with a choice of either an alarm clock/AM-FM radio(ICF-C1) or a Bluetooth speaker (XB10) after I e-mailed the image of the unit’s serial number.
When the replacement ICF-C1 clock radio arrived a week later via FedEx (shipping also paid by Sony), I grabbed the Dash that sat atop one of my stereo speakers – still with the ‘Update available’ screen- and yanked out its power supply.
Sony sent this free ICF-C1 clock-AM-FM radio (or, the XB-10 Bluetooth speaker) as a way of recompensing owners of bricked Dash units
Meanwhile, somewhere in the coastal city of San Diego, California, a guy had been very busy writing code to port the Dash (running firmware 1.7.1526) to make it work with Chumby.com’s server(s) after Sony’s May software update alert.
Chumby (now, operated by Blue Octy, LLC) is a small company behind a line of very affordable “Internet viewers” similar to the Dash. The Dash runs on an OS modified from the Chumby OS.
Finally, in early August, Blue Octy released the software patch (but only for the Dash HID-C10 model) that resurrected some Dash units. The patch is Chumby-HIDC10-1.0.0.zip. It could also be downloaded here.
So, if you have an HID-C10 Sony Dash, just ensure that your unit is running firmware 1.7.1526. If you had accidentally installed firmware 1.7.1604 and bricked the unit, simply revert to firmware 1.7.1526 via the instructions here before applying the patch.
All set to install the patch to the Sony Dash (for model HID-C10 only) to enable it to run off Chumby.com’s server
If you applied the patch correctly, you should have restored some usefulness to your Dash such as the clock, weather, and a few radio stations. A $3 monthly subscription fee would enable one to get numerous apps as well as multiple channels on this gadget that — simply, refuses to go away.
Sony Dash is back in business with a new Blue Octy channel/control panel interface!!!
In Manila, it is not uncommon to see mothers spending countless hours playing bingo, ‘tong-its’ (local version of poker), or mahjong while neglecting household chores.
Mothers are mindless of their children crying and unaware that they are burning hard-earned money their husbands had brought home from scavenging or construction work. Look around; there would always be dirty kids running and playing and not giving a damn if they have taken a bath. There would also be kids who, instead of being in school, must work daily to help their parents make ends meet.
Their jobs vary, from digging the muddy and heavily-polluted seabed of Manila Bay to getting pieces of metals, which they call ‘kalakal’ (merchandise) to sell at opportunistic junk shops, to carrying heavy loads of fruits and vegetables in the early hours of the day.
In the streets, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see jobless but non-disabled men on drinking sprees in front of ‘sari-sari’(a small family-operated shop typically attached to the house) stores. They laugh heartily at their senseless conversations because they don’t even know whether they’ll have something to feed their family the next day. They flaunt their big bellies, their tattooed arms, and worst of all; they brazenly display unproductiveness.
On the next block, it is also hard not to notice a group of teenagers, most thin as bamboo and nutritionally deficient like dying carnations. A few of them are playing ‘Cara y Cruz (heads or tails), some would be smoking weed, others are snorting ‘shabu‘ (crystal meth), and some would be sniffing ‘rugby (contact cement) –filled‘ plastic bags to get their highs to mask out their miseries temporarily. These youngsters are not few. Like a vicious cycle, they spawn like rabbits and would join similar ill-fated, innocent souls in sordid existence. But is it all about fate?
Take a casual walk on the streets, and you will notice how informal settlers -squatters- have mushroomed throughout the country, whether in urban or rural areas. The streets are where we would realize that we have not seen and experienced the worst. Scrap materials made into shanties occupied by many as fifteen. They try to fit themselves in a ramshackle abode as small as a bathroom of a typical middle-class family. Here, “houses” are contraptions of recycled wood, flattened biscuit containers, plastic rice sacks, damaged tires, tarpaulins of stupid politicians or B-movie ads, and an assortment of junk. No architectural plans, no concrete, no hollow blocks, no metal trusses, no hope.
A common sight in the urban areas of the Philippines due to overpopulation
There will be mixed emotions on seeing the appalling living conditions of the increasing number of Filipinos. Some would feel sorry because of the plight of the children. Their parents could barely provide them with toys. There’s just one meal in a day, Education good only until the 8th grade, A house comparable to those made for pigeons, and a whopping PHP 150 (about US$ 3) a day take-home pay by the breadwinner. What a fucking way to live a short life.
To observant eyes, how some parents managed to have too many children -without any means of providing them a good foundation in childhood like regular meals, decent shelter, education, clothing, toys, playtime, etc. – clearly borders on ignorance. But, regardless of how we come up with why these people are wallowing in poverty, there is only one thing clear to everyone: the Philippines has swiftly become an overpopulated hell.
The problems that stem from overpopulation are beyond count. One frustration is that locally-produced agricultural products would always be insufficient to feed the entire population because there is a mismatch between the producer and the consumer. The people -as well as consumption- overpower production. Surely and steadily, more and more Filipinos are filling their pie holes with imported products, which is a bane to the economy.
Another hassle presented by population sprawl is job opportunities. Millions would compete against each other over a few job openings; it would be a dog eats dog situation. Small companies tend to hire only seasoned workers and don’t prioritize new graduates. College degrees would be useless; diplomas would be senseless. Only a handful with the skills (and the right connections & recommendations) would be lucky enough to secure employment, and the rest would be jobless, unable to support their families.
Overpopulation is a bane for any government. Three or more patients would share a filthy bed, one with tuberculosis and others with dengue fever. In the ER, people needing immediate care will have to wait. Victims of vehicular accidents would have a very slim chance of survival because only three exhausted doctors are attending to twenty emergency cases.
Inside the maternity ward of an overcrowded hospital in the Philippines
The educational system is another government service that would suffer greatly due to overpopulation. How can we have quality education if one classroom holds one hundred-plus pupil? How can these students focus on learning if classrooms are like a can of sardines?
Can senior high school students comprehend solid measurement or even the basics of Algebra if their classroom is as hot as an oven toaster? How can grade ten students appreciate the epics of Homer and Ovid or the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky? They do not even have a decent chair to sit in or a hygienic restroom to relieve themselves. Or even a comfortable library where they could read books and write poems?
What about the teachers? Can we expect them to be effective? By holding a class in a jam-packed room, the precious time allotted to teaching would be wasted calling attention and reprimanding the foolish ones. With a ballooning population, schools would turn into a chaotic mecca.
An elementary classroom crowded with students is typical in the Philippines.
As stated earlier, overpopulation will bring infinite aggravation. As this currently troubles us, most Filipinos are unaware of the inconvenience it brings to our economy and our future.
It is also worth noting that overextended families come from the poorest sector of the population. A friend of mine told me about a friend who has nine children, the eldest being twenty-two and unable to finish high school. The youngest is in the first grade, barely bringing a meal to school because of abject poverty. The bold, or should I say, the stupid father has no other source of income but through driving a tricycle which he does not even own. The head of the family brings home PHP 150 a day, and it is up to the readers to imagine how the family gets through with the daily expenses.
How can a financially-strapped couple summon the courage (or have the common sense) to have such a big family? Could this be attributed to the Filipinos’ penchant for the “Bahala-na-ang-Diyos” (God will provide) mentality?
What could be the culprit in this vicious cycle of boundless reproduction? Is it the administration? I’m sure the government is doing all it can to educate people about family planning. For today’s youth, is it easy to access pornographic and lustful websites? Perhaps, it could be a factor, but it is controllable. Working or not, some countries censor the Internet to filter the materials its people can see. Is it the people themselves? The root causes of overpopulation depend on many factors. But, in the Philippines, the Catholic Church is both a powerful and unstoppable force regarding the pyramiding population.
The church is opposed to artificial contraception, and this belief dates back to the first centuries of Christianity. Such acts are intrinsically disordered because of the view that all sexual acts must be open to procreation. There was even a point when the church allowed birth control – but only through abstinence. The Vatican even released a document entitled “Vademecum for Confessors,” which stated, “the Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception.”
Furthermore, the church had always pointed to the Holy Bible as it lies in Genesis 1:28, which states, “God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and the animals that scurry along the ground“. The fanatics and the Bible warriors do have a point, though. Who else is to govern all the blessings this world has to give but the people? Who else is to harvest the products of the fruit-bearing trees and cut the wood afterward, not minding landslides and pollution, but the people? Who else is to fish the sea in a greedy manner using dynamite and toxic chemicals but the people? Who else would carve the beautiful and natural shapes of mountains and hills to get precious stones but the people? Who else is to hunt the rare and exotic animals for money’s sake but the people?
We, the people, are commissioned by the Creator to be the stewards of nature. And, as the logic goes, we should multiply. Even if reproducing is limitless. Even if multiplying equates to self-destruction, isn’t it more sinful to bear when future generations have to suffer?
Who can contest the church’s uptake and exposition of inscriptions when, for a thousand years, they have been used to punish those who dare to question, to subject them to inquisitions, to tell everyone that the Creator’s grace and mercy are exclusive to those who kneel before man-made images purchased in the streets of Tayuman, and to baptize an innocent infant before he even gets a chance to choose the faith he prefers.
The Manila Cathedral in Intramuros serves as the Episcopal See of the Archbishop of Manila.
It has become our habit to follow and believe whatever the man in the white suit, whose car displays the Veritas sticker, tells us. “We follow without question. ” “We follow with the highest reverence.” “We follow with the fear of hell if we do not follow.” It is funny that after the priest chants a Latin phrase, of which the significance or meaning is unknown to many of us, we instinctively chant ‘amen.’ It is funny that the Filipinos, the majority of whom are Catholics, abstain from eating pork during Lent to shun extravagance, only to fill their dining tables with more expensive seafood fares like lobsters, grilled blue marlin, and giant prawns. These make me want to fry hotdogs using floor wax.
Church crusaders should be more realistic in taking a stand regarding the increasing population and traditional faith. While priests are busy preaching ‘multiplication’ and procreation, overpopulation is markedly taking its toll on the Filipinos – hospitals becoming smaller, schools becoming canned sardines, job opportunities becoming elusive, farmlands turning into subdivisions virtually overnight. While the gross domestic product (GDP) grows, our per capita income becomes smaller. And, as always, the rich become richer and the poor. Whatever!
Is this what the Creator planned our country to be? I doubt He wants most of us to live in dire poverty and disorder. I also suspect that the church accurately amplifies the Creator’s orders based on how He wants things to be. A little coherence and correction would not destroy the credibility of the church. The church should also review its stand on procreation’ in light of the changing world.
The price of enlightenment is just too expensive for the country and the people that have long been under the grip of a compelling and untouchable force.
If you’re a hard-core music enthusiast but still listen to your collections on your phone, then you’re missing out a lot.
And if you’re an Apple fanboy still buying songs through the iTunes Store and listening to them on your iPhone or iPad, you’re simply paying a hefty premium for the brand.
Songs bought from the Apple store are encoded in Apple’s version of the venerated (especially during the Napster years) MP3 format, AAC (Apple Audio Codec). It is streamed at 128 kbps bit rate with a sample rate of 44.100 kHz. AAC (and MP3) is a ‘lossy’ format but is very popular due to its small file size due to compression.
Although you can rip all your CDs to a lossless format within iTunes using ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), the resulting files are huge and playable only on Apple devices.
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an open-source musical format that gives you bit-perfect copies of CDs. It also supports ‘tags’ that enable you to retain artists, album covers, lyrics, etc., on the format.
With FLAC, you’re not only getting half the space occupied by a CD with no loss in quality, but you’re also going to be able to get up to 24-bit at 192 kHz of music. That’s studio-master quality. MP3 and AAC are no match for FLAC.
Rare is the true high-definition audio enthusiast who listens to his FLAC collection on a smartphone. For Android phone users, even with the rock-bottom prices of microSD cards these days, it’s obvious that smartphone makers are too focused on improving camera features.
For iPhone users, it’s going to look ugly if you want to stick in a Lightning-capable microSD card adapter to expand the memory capacity of the unit, as there’s no memory expansion slot on those phones. And, the saddest part of all, you can only transfer pictures and videos using the adapter—no music files. Apple simply wants you to pay $970 for their top-of-the-line unit with 256 GB built-in.
Picture of a MicroSD Card with its Adapter. Frontal and Back. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But even most high-end smartphones from Samsung and Apple don’t have the top-tier, audiophile-grade chips to support FLAC at 192 kHz/24-bit, nor do they offer native DSD (direct stream digital) decoding, which is the best way to listen to streaming music.
While high-quality audio always comes with a price, this doesn’t mean you’ll have to break your piggy bank. So, what are the cheaper options?
For content, there’s nothing that will beat allflac.com. The U.K.-founded but now Chinese-owned music website has one of the cheapest rates around, and you’ll be surprised to find some of the songs you can’t find elsewhere, including the iTunes Music Store.
ALLFLAC contends to have the world’s largest lossless music collection
What’s more, not only do they have albums for as low as $1.99, but you can also download them in either FLAC, M4A, or MP3 (or all) format. There is no membership fee, and you can fund your account for as little as $10 with no balance expiration.
A handful of high-definition audio players are available, especially in Asia, Europe, and the North American markets. These include the Kickstarter-funded, Neil Young-backed PonoPlayer and players from well-known companies like Sony, Onkyo, Pioneer, and others.
But one company stands out because of its low price without sacrificing quality: FiiO.
The FiiO X1 (2nd generation) model is highly recommended to budding audio enthusiasts with limited budgets. It retails for US$120 but could be had for as low as US$80, discounted if you shop around.
It’s a mid-entry model, but it surely does not lack features found in their more expensive ones. Most importantly, it supports microSD cards up to 256 GB, or approximately 8,700+ FLAC songs (at 30 MB per song). That’s a lot of studio-master-quality tunes to keep you in the groove.
The FiiO X1 (2nd generation) high-def audio player in action
The company’s catchphrase is “Born for Music and Happy,” and, indeed, you’ll be more than happy once you have listened to some of your music collections – in the FLAC format. Of course, using one of their portable high-definition players.
Who would not want a new car or an SUV? In a poverty-stricken country like the Philippines, it is sardonic to see that while most people still complain about having inconsiderable money to make ends meet, the majority still quench their insatiable thirst for imported cars, be it through installment or cash.
Go to the nearest highway, and you will see a fleet of Fortuner, Montero, Impreza, Accent, and many more Japanese, American, or European cars passing by the ramshackle jeepney—pure mockery at its very best.
For the coffee lovers and those pretending to be such, who can resist a posh place like Gloria Jean’s or Seattle’s Best to get a tall and expensive frap, frape, prafe?? Well, whatever the spelling is, and a small and costly blueberry cheesecake.
After all, nobody wants to miss the complicated bar counter behind which all the blenders and grinders are displayed as if to remind you they are processing your cappuccino. Have you noticed how foreign coffee shops have sprouted all over the archipelago and slowly but surely replaced malls, parks, fast food chains, and cockpit arenas?
Well, that is just coffee. Let us switch to technology. When it comes to cellular phones or other gadgets, Filipinos will never be the last human race to use the latest Apple-manufactured communication device, despite the fact that it is really expensive.
A phone is a necessity these days, but it makes me wonder why an average Pinoy worker, despite the daily earning of the minimum wage, which just suits his payment for house rental, electricity, water bill, and food, opts to purchase this product of the late Steve Jobs over the cheaper phone. A forty-five thousand iPhone over a three thousand locally made phones? Come on, it’s no longer a matter of freedom or choice —it’s already wanton frolic.
English: La Loma Cemetery in Manila (1900) used as a fort by the Filipinos, shelled by Dewey. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Apart from purchasing imported cars, brewed coffee, and sophisticated phones, other things violate our sense of nationalism. A perfect example is those Filipinos who spend their life savings just to set their feet in foreign countries for vacation. Filipino travelers often blurt out, “There is a promo for a one-week stay at the Venetian in Macau; let’s grab it,” or “I will never get to visit Singapore again, so why don’t we grab the Cebu Pacific promo?”.
Visiting foreign countries and cities more than touring local places like Dingalan, Pagudpud, Puerto Princesa, or even the overly abused Boracay gives everyone the impression that there is no decent place to visit in the Philippines at all. It’s no wonder why travel agencies promote scenic areas in other countries like The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Sao Paulo Beach, and others. They know how to flatter Filipinos because they can see through us.
There is no accurate rationale for why we are into anything external or foreign. The closest thing to support the notion of colonial mentality among Filipinos is that a handful of colonizers have conquered us. In Teodoro Agoncillo’s book History of the Filipino People (1960), the author stated that long before the arrival of the Spaniards in 1521, we had been in constant trade with the Chinese people. The trade, which was then called the “Porcelain Trade,” probably started centuries before the advent of the Sung Dynasty. The Chinese exchanged silk, porcelain, colored glass, beads, and ironware for the Filipinos’ hemp cloth, tortoise shells, pearls, and yellow wax. The exchange of goods started as early as 960 AD before the accidental arrival of the Spaniards in 1521. And so it happened.
Original caption (cropped out): Native boats and outriggers Description: (cropped out): Boats of the upper type were used to land the U.S. troops at Manila. One of those in which the Astor Battery landed sank in the surf just before reaching shore. The natives carried the men ashore on their shoulders. The lower boat is a fisherman’s craft used by the Negritos, who shoot fish in the clear water with bows and arrows. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The arrival of the European conquistadores brought a new phase and meaning to the lives and mindset of the Filipinos. We learned to integrate the Spanish language into our own, even naming the Philippines in honor of the Spanish king. Provinces in the Philippines were renamed with Spanish names such as Nueva Ecija and Vizcaya, Laguna, Isabela, La Union, Antique, Marinduque, Negros Occidental, and Oriental and Valle de Compostela. More than this naming of places, the greatest influence the Spaniards have left us is faith in Roman Catholicism. Filipinos at home set up an altar in the Hispanic tradition, adorned with Catholic images, flowers, and candles as they have internalized observation of fiestas, devotion, rosary, baptism, and many more.
Along came the Americans. After the Spaniards were defeated by the Americans led by General George Dewey in the war dubbed the “Battle of Manila” in 1899, the Americans took the liberty of controlling and influencing the Filipinos. During the first years, there were some conflicts between the US and the Philippines, but during World War I, they came together, and the Filipinos fought alongside the Americans, and their relationship became much friendlier.
As we solidified our pact with the land of the free and the home of the brave, we became more attached to their customs and traditions. Nobody can deny that the greatest contributions of Americans are democracy and education. It is impossible to cite all the things we inherited from Uncle Joe because they are innumerable. American influence on Filipino clothing is apparent these days.
We often see wearing belts, suspenders, tennis shoes, bonnets, high heels, and cosmetics. For food, Filipinos are accustomed to U.S.-based staples like hamburgers, sandwiches, oatmeal, ketchup, apple pie, mayonnaise, hotdogs, steak, ice cream, cornflakes, and many more.
Seventy-one years have passed since the Philippines tasted true freedom and democracy, yet its beloved citizens are still, or should I say, intentionally glued to anything international in concept.
Our colonial mentality should no longer be attributed to the colonizers because, for a long period of time, they are gone. After the Second World War ended in 1945, the US declared that we were an independent nation and that we would, from that moment, stand on our own, build our nation, govern our people, and make ourselves proud of what we could make of our country.
Yes, we have been standing on our own. For quite some time, we have been electing our leaders, drafting our constitution dedicated to democracy, being blessed with job opportunities, and seeing the ingenuity of many of our fellow countrymen in business, arts, academia, and even sports. These things, when accumulated, would entail national pride and patriotism. But the “accumulation” never happened in the Philippines.
English: Depiction of the flag of the Philippines, as conceived by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo. Created with Inkscape. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Nationalism and patriotism are things that are not difficult to conceive. It is just a matter of self-worth, confidence in the citizens’ competence, and pride. Just take a look at Japan, its people may be ridiculed for being awful English speakers but nobody can take away the fact that it is a land with citizens deeply attached to their flag, to their country, and to their identity. For despising imported goods, Japan could produce products of their own in the fields of automotive, heavy industries, and gadgets.
Everyone is familiar with brands such as Toyota, Mitsubishi, Honda, Nissan, Subaru, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Sony, Sanyo, and so on. The same principle of nationalism applies to countries like Germany, Italy, France, and even China.
While more and more countries are gradually realizing the essence and beauty of selfhood, the story is different here in the Philippines. Here, the culture of the bandwagon is a cliche: We have been deeply in love with anything Western in concept. We always want to exclude ourselves from the bondage of traditionalism, and although it does not manifest verbally, we always deny our being Filipinos because we love imported goods.
Just how badly have we opposed our being Filipinos? Instead of settling for a more affordable and locally made brand of leather shoes, a typical Filipino would hand his ever-hidden credit card to the ethical staff at the counter in exchange for the expensive and imported Kickers, Hush Puppies, Timberland, or Oleg Cassini. I’m sure the reason is unrelated to durability and longevity issues.
What about the means of transportation, particularly cars? Try going to EDSA and anyone would notice that many billboards post inviting marketing strategies like Vios, 20K Downpayment, No Hidden Charges.
Car manufacturers know that the Philippines is and will forever be a third-world country, yet they still thrive on selling cars to us. The business is so good that everywhere you turn, there will always be car casas regularly visited by an average businessman, a call center agent, a teacher, and even a college student whose dad is a seafarer.
The funny thing is that people purchase cars for reasons beyond practicality – that they work near their residence and don’t need cars at all, that they know that the streets of Manila are just like a huge parking space during rush hours, that they know that sooner or later they would have their car pulled out by the bank because they could no longer afford to pay for it. Pathetic as it may seem, Filipinos buy imported cars, not for a reasonable cause but to delight their ego.
Gadgets are undeniably a necessity nowadays. Living in a fast-paced world, people need smartphones for easy access to emails, messages, and important and unimportant calls.
We are not Amish people whose contentment is based on how they shrug off what is contemporary. But while it is clear to Filipinos the vitality of possessing gadgets, particularly cell phones, it is still an enigma as to why we settle for expensive and imported brands. Is it the speed?
I bet locally made phones are equally fast to process. Is the phone user-friendly? Writing text messages on My Phone, Torque, and Cherry Mobile is also easy. Is it the design? The size? The weight? The color? Or is it the brand?
To realize just how strong our attachment is to Apple, Samsung, Asus, and other foreign brands, just look at the students, people in the BPO industry, people in the corporate world, service crew in a fast-food chain, construction workers, and even the jobless and the bystanders. They all have this phone with an apple with a bite at the back. Parents would give their kikay daughters an imported phone on the latter’s birthday, saying, “You deserve nothing less, anak.”
A service crew could afford an iPhone 7 even if it meant paying a staggering thirty percent interest for twelve months. It’s truly amazing. What is funnier is that the same things provided by these imported phones can also be bought from locally made ones…for a cheaper and reasonable price.
Then we have our fellow kababayans who love to travel, as discussed earlier. They go to France to see the tall, metal structure of Paris. They travel to Hong Kong to get a seat at the Disneyland roller coaster and take a picture with Mickey and Donald.
They travel to Cambodia to see the largest religious monument in the world, to see the lovely bones of the victims of Pol Pot, and to see where the film “The Killing Fields” was taken.
They travel to London to ride The Eye, take a selfie with Big Ben in the background, walk-in Trafalgar Square, watch Ed Sheeran’s concert at Hyde Park, and experience the bloody English weather.
They travel to Kenya to pose with African children, ride a Land Rover, see the animals at the Serengeti Plain, and hunt and shoot poor antelopes for their antlers.
The farther they travel, the happier they become. As the number of countries they visit increases, they become more satisfied and proud.
Ancient Filipinos utilized terrace farming to grow crops in the steep mountainous regions of the northern Philippines. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The author sees no problem with these explorations and escapades for travel, which equates to education. When one travels, he has first-hand experience and account of what is happening worldwide. After all, it is the money they are spending.
What is bothering me is that while these Filipinos crave the elegance of international tourist spots, they fail to notice the grandeur of the Philippines. What about visiting Camarines Norte for surfing, Baguio for the cold weather and upland fruits and vegetables, Puerto Princesa for an underground river tour, Ilocos Norte for sand surfing, Quezon province for a series of pilgrimage, and even Intramuros for a look back at how our beloved Rizal spent his last few hours.
It is painful to see Filipinos flock to distant lands for a leisurely visit and neglect the scenic places of our realm. It is as atrocious as not wanting mom’s homemade adobo and preferring to eat at a swanky restaurant.
Why Filipinos are suckers of anything Western in the concept remains a riddle. Youngsters who play basketball in the streets of Manila are often seen wearing Nike. Yes, Nike is a company that employs minors in China. Ask them why such brand is chosen and not MSE or Natasha and you will be bombarded with answers like “It’s light, it’s durable, it’s classy, it unleashes the athleticism in me, blah, blah, blah”.
True enough, the aspect of toughness is unquestionable. The catch is that why do some kiddos and teenagers wear imitation Jordans and Kobes? I’m sure it is not a matter of the reliability of the shoes because class A’s are made with substandard materials.
The painful truth is that we are only after the brand—to be noticed, seen as prosperous, to join the bandwagon, to wear what the wealthy people wear, and, worst of all, to be accepted.
For automotive enthusiasts, purchasing a Cavite-manufactured owner-type jeep is almost taboo. A typical dad could never force his teenage daughter to be taken to school riding in a filthy owner-type jeep because, for the poor girl, it is baduy. A typical white-collar guy would not want to go to Starbucks, parking his stainless owner jeep next to Foresters and Ecosports. For sure, it will be photographed by the Conyos and it will be ridiculed for being a “fly in a glass of milk”.
Nowadays, what is cool should be the possession of pickup trucks ridden by the tough guys in Texas (even though pickup trucks are built for farms or ranches and not for urban areas like Manila), possession of a muscle car that is a prototype of what Vin Diesel used in his famous movies about racing, possession of Maserati, Ferrari, and Lamborghini even if these cars were designed only for wide freeways, something which we do not have.
Can you imagine what it is like driving a Lambo in Manila’s chaotic and narrow streets? The Philippine-made owner-type jeep is the perfect toy to roam our dilapidated streets. Again, when it comes to cars, the concept of colonial mentality overpowers our sanity.
Readers might question the author’s dislike for buying imported stuff. Critics would say, “It is our hard-earned money after all, and we have all the liberty this world has to offer when it comes to purchasing whatever we want to buy”. True enough, we are entitled to our decisions, and nobody has a right to tell us to buy this and not that, to do this and not that.
But, the underlying dangers and drawbacks of colonial mentality are as bad as self-destruction. Naïve are people who love to sport their Jordans, Ford Everest, Fire Floss from Le Couer de France, and Sperry Top-Sider without directly realizing its effect on our economy and our morality as Filipinos. By buying Jordans, we strip our local shoemakers of their chance to show their creativity, their brilliance, and their chance to earn. By buying iPhones, not Cherries and Torques, we backhandedly tell our homegrown electronics engineers, technicians, and IT experts that their toil does not merit our applause and support.
We always degrade locally made gadgets and often complain about them being difficult to use. But we should also realize that the very reason local companies could not manufacture better versions is that they lack the support of Filipinos. Should we buy their Cherries, the company would generate enough funds to upgrade their phones and tablets. Moreover, by buying Fortuners and Monteros, we are closing the doors to possibly producing our automotive brand.
If you visit the Sarao Jeep Company factory in Las Pinas, you will see how grubby and sordid the place is. Workers are without sophisticated machinery, without definite buyers, and worst, without hope. But just as dirty and blackened the hands of these patriotic workers are, Filipinos’ hands are also dirty. We can never wash our hands off the dirt of our distrust in the capability and competence of our local car makers. I wish that in my lifetime, I can drive a vehicle made in the Philippines and manufactured by Filipinos.
The damage of colonial mentality does not only extend to the economic aspect. More than currency, colonialism deeply cuts through our sense of national pride, leaving us bleeding until the death of our morality. By buying goods from other countries, the notion that the Philippines cannot produce anything good will boomerang to us, and it will haunt even our posterity.
Colonial mentality is a vulgar display of our dislike for anything Filipino, which reflects our self-hatred. But worse than patronizing anything internationally, we long to be what we are not. We Filipinos, for a long period of time, have done idiotic things to escape our beautiful identity.
We blonde our hair, we apply skin whitening lotion, we imitate the accent of the stupid newscaster from the BBC news, and we indirectly deny our being Filipinos. This reality crushes me in pieces.
We may not possess the wealth of superior countries or have those Ferrari, Aprilia, and Ducati factories regularly featured on the National Geographic Channel.
We may not have the tallest building on earth, the fastest train, or a cable ride overlooking snow-capped mountains like those in the Rockies of Denver, Colorado. We may not have a pointed nose, superior white skin, or the “bloody” British accent.
But Filipinos are superior in a different sense. We are beautiful people whose resiliency has defied and overthrown oppressors in the past.
Our soil is fertile enough to grow delicious fruits and vegetables. Despite the hardships of life, we are beautiful people who flaunt contagious and genuine smiles to encourage others.
And since we are beautiful, we can produce beautiful things in science, arts, economics, technology, and the like.
There is no need for colonial mentality, self-hatred, or distrust of our potential.
We are beautiful.
(Ronald B. Polong is a frustrated writer who removes his dentures before he sleeps and places them in an empty Cheez-Whiz bottle with water. He lives in Nueva Ecija with his wife, twin boys, a brood of roosters and hens, ducks, and an old dog.)
Two days ago, I received an e-mail from Microsoft’s Insider Program about the availability of Windows 10 Creators Update (OS Build 16179)
But, if you’re a music lover who spends a lot of time listening to your collection using iTunes on your PC, specifically one running the 64-bit flavor of Windows 10, here’s a caveat.
Don’t update to the latest version of Windows 10 – Creators Update.
Even if you have the latest version of iTunes (currently, 12.6.0.100) on that PC, the Windows 10 Creators Update will screw up your previously perfectly working iTunes, and you will regret why you updated it in the first place.
Here are some of the frustrations, as well as observations, that you’ll have with iTunes after the Windows 10 Creators Update:
iTunes will not launch, forcing you to restart your PC.
If iTunes launches after the restart, it will hang up in almost every way you use it, forcing you to restart or terminate the program.
Only iTunes seems to be affected by the Windows 10 Creators Update. Is Microsoft forcing you to uninstall iTunes? Is it bullying you into utter frustration and resignation to use its Groove Music app instead? But you don’t want to mess up your iTunes library by uninstalling and reinstalling it, especially if you have thousands or even a million songs in your collection.
Reinstalling or repairing iTunes will not solve the issue. Don’t even bother uninstalling it and dealing with all the hassle that comes with re-installing it. It didn’t work despite several tries.
What if you had installed Windows 10 Creators Update and ruined your day because you can’t listen to your music collection via iTunes anymore?
Make sure that you “Go back to an earlier build” (found under System -> Windows Update -> Update history ->Recovery option). My OS Build before the messy Creators Update was 14393.1066.
But then again, there’s another caveat: You have to do that within 10 days of updating to Windows 10 Creators Update.
The world is constantly changing. More so in the very fast-paced environment of technology.
These days, you have just bought a shiny-new, state-of-the-art phone, tablet, or any gadget today, and tomorrow, it’s already obsolete. So, while you were sleeping, a new feature or model is already being tooled in an unspecified factory in China — waiting to be shipped out to consumers “in just a few more weeks or even days.”
I had been an Apple/Mac head since the days of the Apple II in the late 70s. More so when the original 128K Macintosh came out in 1984. During those days, using them made practical sense (except for the price, of course) since the Mac – with its GUI – was far superior to DOS-based PCs. It took Microsoft a couple of years to develop its first GUI – Windows 1.01 or “Presentation Manager.”
After Windows XP became the global OS standard, the Mac, once again, became the “niche-market” machine – used only by die-hard Apple fans, musicians, video editors, and “me-to-Apple-user-johnny-come-lately“s.
Our attic is full of odds and ends of old Macs, Apple IIs (Plus, IIe, IIc, and IIGS), PowerBooks, and their accessories — external drives, cables, dot-matrix printers, mice, cameras, scanners, add-on cards, and assorted software and manuals.
So, after almost 35 years, while tinkering with some of the units in my vintage Mac collection, I can still recall the good old days when they were state-of-the-art during their heydays. I plan to sell them to new collectors so that I can finance a trip that I had long wanted to do — an overland tour across South America. Ala-Che Guevarra’s “Motorcycle Diaries.” Most probably, without the motorcycle.
Vintage Macs have varying idiosyncrasies: from the batteries that power the clock and retain the System Settings down to how the keyboard connects to the central CPU unit. Only the shape or form factor looks similar.
The original 128K Mac, released in 1984, has a seemingly plain-looking AA battery –1.5V DC. No, it’s 4.5V.
The Mac SE used a 3.6V battery in 1/2 AA battery size, while the Mac LC 575 used a 4.5V batteryshaped like a cube. Good luck if you can still purchase these batteries today. I’ve scoured all the major electronic stores in our area for the 4.5V cubed battery and came up empty-handed. And, even if you chanced upon them online, be prepared to pay an arm and a leg!
An Apple Macintosh SE with the cover removed. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Now, let’s talk about diskette drives. Yes, those electro-mechanical contraptions that gobble up the 3.5″ or the 5.25″ plastic diskettes read the information and pass that to the CPU for processing. The original Mac was among the first PCs to make the 3.5″ disk format a standard.
The late Steve Jobs was a big fan of Japanese companies, notably Sony Corp., that, during those days, Macs came with CRTs and disk drives made by Sony. Even his later venture, NEXT, came up with workstations and servers containing components from Sony, Toshiba, TEAC, Alps, Panasonic, etc.
Again, the original 1984 Mac came with Sony’s 3.5″ disk drives that read/write single-sided 400K diskettes. But during that era, most PCs used the 5.25″ diskette format. To access the PC data, you must use an external Apple 5.25″ diskette drive with a DB-9 port. And even before Apple came up with the ADB (Apple Desktop Bus), the 1984 Mac had a special connector for the keyboard that looked like a telephone jack.
My saga that dealt with the various formats and ports in vintage Macs began when I was trying to load the appropriate OS on the Mac SE and the Mac Color Classic onto their respective hard drives.
While both used 50-pin SCSI drives as storage, they have – you guessed it – different internal diskette drives. The former has a lower capacity 800K drive. At the same time, the latter used a 1.44 MB drive (Apple nicknamed it ‘SuperDrive‘ – for its ability to read/write all the various diskette formats during those days). As expected, Sony made both disk drives.
English: Internal SuperDrive floppy drive on a Macintosh LC II Español: Unidad interna SuperDrive de un Macintosh LC II (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Now, if you don’t have an external SCSI CD-ROM – and the appropriate CDs to load the OSes – you will have to do with loading the OSes via the diskette drives.
And, where to get those 3.5″, 800K & 1.44 MB diskettes these days is just the beginning of my vintage Mac odyssey.
