The Geek Brewery

It is the time for the year again for the annual UP Fair! For six consecutive nights, different bands will performing at the Sunken Garden of UP Diliman.

If you are interested to buy a ticket, use the form below.

Here’s the list of events together with their schedule, ticket prices and performing bands.

Sisfire 7: Juan, Vote!

February 9, 2010
Ticket Price: P90.00 (Order Now)

Performing bands:

1. Kamikazee
2. 6cyclemind
3. Kjwan
4. Sandwich
5. Sugarfree
6. Itchyworms
7. Moonstar88
8. Silent Sanctuary
9. Typecast
10. Paraluman
11. Pedicab
12. DeLara
13. Soapdish
14. Markus Hiway
15. Protein Shake
16. Franco
17. Paramita
18. Giniling Festival

Warfair: Alert the Armory

February 10, 2010
Ticket Price: P80.00 (Order Now)

Performing bands:

1. Urbandub
2. Chicosci
3. Greyhoundz
4. Slapshock
5. Kjwan
6. Sandwich
7. Giniling Festival
8. Imago
9. Even
10. Salamin
11. Blueboybitesback
12. COG
13. Valley of Chrome
14. April Morning Skies
15. Imbuenokudos
16. Peryodiko
17. Markus Hiway
18. December Avenue
19. The Ambassadors
20. Duster
21. Subscapular
22. Eternal Now
23. Arcadia
24. Inday Bote
25. Lick with Courage
26. Made for Midnight Movies
27. Paraluman
28. Feedback
29. BBS
30. Machine Gun Poetry

Yesthursday

February 11, 2010
Ticket Price: P90.00 (Order Now)

Performing bands:

1. Parokya nI Edgar
2. Kamikazee
3. Typecast
4. Sandwich
5. Itchyworms
6. Sugarfree
7. Silent Sanctuary
8. Moonstar88
9. Chicosci
10. Spongecola
11. Hilera
12. Stonefree
13. 6cyclemind
14. Mayonnaise

Rakestra: Harmony against Chaos

February 12, 2010
Ticket Price: P90.00 (Order Now)

Performing bands:

1. Sugarfree
2. Silent Sanctuary accompanied by Manila Symphony Orchestra
3. Kamikazee
4. Slapshock
5. Spongecola
6. Typecast
7. Chicosci
8. Valley of Chrome
9. 6cyclemind
10. Queso
11. Sandwich
12. Zelle
13. Mayonnaise
14. Moonstar88
15. Itchyworms
16. Soapdish
17. Rocksteddy
18. Up Dharma Down
19. Boy Elroy
20. Franco
21. Pitik
22. April Morning Skies
23. Danita
24. Imbue No Kudos
25. Imago
26. Syato
27. Bloodsheed
28. Cog
29. Pink Painted Sky
30. Sin

Youthstock: Rock, Role, Rights!

February 13, 2010
Ticket Price: P80.00 (Order Now)

Performing bands:

1. Sandwitch
2. Gloc-9
3. 6cyclemind
4. Chicosci
5. Pedicab
6. Imago
7. Itchyworms
8. Soapdish

Loverage4: Illumine Nation

February 14, 2010
Ticket Price: P90.00 (Order Now)

Performing bands:

1. Rico Blanco
2. Sugarfree
3. Sandwich
4. 6cyclemind
5. Imago
6. Itchyworms
7. Callalily
8. Silent Sanctuary
9. DeLara
10. Paraluman
11. Pedicab
12. Blue Ketchup
13. Soapdish
14. Markus Highway
15. Ciudad
16. Aurora
17. Tanya
18. Ernville
19. Up Dharma Down
20. Chicosci
21. Kjwan
22. Giniling Festival
23. Moonstar88
24. Zelle
25. Stonefree
26. Top Junk
27. Brownman Revival
28. Rocksteddy

Order

Please fill in the following information. You will be contacted for confirmation.

Last January 29 to 31, 2010, the first batch of CWTS2 MMME campers went to Boy Scout Jamboree Site in Mount Makiling to have our CWTS camping. The camping was a venue to apply the skills we’ve acquired during our CWTS1 and CWTS2.

Including our adopted groupmates, there were 23 of us in our group. Our group’s first activity for Day 1 was navigation in which we were tasked to find the stations using Azimuth coordinates and a compass and apply the different skills we’ve learned (ropesmanship, bandaging, Tyrolean and two-rope traverse, UP Naming Mahal, etc). On the last legs of our adventure, we climbed up to a steep slope. It was longer than the usual uphill paths we’ve taken and after several minutes of ascending, we saw a road. There we realized that we’re lost. We decided to kill our time there for a while to rest and play card games. There were no signs of civilization there except for the road.

Our Day 1 afternoon activity was swimming. We were asked to swim 50m non-stop in a pool. Since some of us can’t swim that long, we were allowed to “save” other people by swimming their 50m. Since we wanted all of us to have a decent grade, we decided to “save” everyone who can’t swim. I swam three 50m, one for myself and two for two highschool batchmates.

On our second day, we had our trekking and rappelling. The rappelling was quite disappointing because the previous batches rappelled in a cliff, not in a rappel tower. The trekking part was fun although haggard. During the last legs of our trekking, we passed by the road where we got lost the day before. Upon seeing the road, our group yelled for joy. From the road, we knew how to get back to the camp. That’s where we realized that that part of the trek was for descends, not ascends as we did the day before. Here’s us after the trekking.

I guess we were also the group with the most food. Instead of Milo, we had Swiss Miss as our chocolate drink. We had lots of ham, hotdogs, tocino and not to forget the flock of canned goods.

Here’s some for pictures of our group and some random pics with highschool batchmates studying UPLB who visited us up.

UPCAT 2010 Results (University of the Philippines College Admission Test) were released earlier today, January 18, 2010 both online and offline.

The new official results page is now non-searchable, I wonder why. But that’s not a problem because I made a searchable version of the one’s in the UP website.

I also made a super lightweight web app that checks if your 2010 counterpart passed UPCAT or not. In my case, 201041437 either didn’t pass, still has deficiences or a pending case. His or her name was not on the list.

Aside from this, I also made another one last night which is not related to UPCAT. It’s a searchable database of UP student numbers. I got those student numbers from various sources from the Internet, including past UPCAT results. Hahaha.

I really missed scripting. All those stuff above are hosted on my laptop therefore they’ll be down whenever my laptop is sleeping. LOL.

Hello guys.

Since my last post, many things changed. The year incremented. We finally had our 32″ Samsung Series 4 LCD TV and 250GB PS3 here in our studio-type room in Katipunan. I’d like to post of a picture of it but sadly I don’t have any decent camera anymore. The new and improved Jollibee Katipunan is up with more space and better architecture.

I’ve been busy keeping myself busy even with a lot of stuff I don’t usually do such as doing reflection papers, studying for exams and helping my groupmates in group works. To keep myself from burning out, I find myself amused playing my favorite PS3 demo game, Mushroom Wars and my only full game Call of Duty 5 courtesy of kuya Jehz.

I don’t really know what’s in store for me for the next few months. I’m thinking of quitting something time-consuming I’ve started last year but I’m still unconvinced of my lame reasons (to have more time to enjoy my life). I really don’t want to quit but I’m in a way unsure if I can devote enough time for it. Waaaaaaaaaaa.

UPCAT 2010 results will most likely be released on January 15, 2010. This fearless forecast based on the previous years’ release (January 16, 2009 and January 11, 2008).

I can predict that inbound network traffic to the Diliman Network (DilNet) will be congested as a result of concurrent search queries. As a result, some may experience hard times accessing the website. Mirror sites are usually provided and they will be posted here as soon as they become available. (more…)

Last Monday to Tuesday, our highschool batch had our outing in the Island Garden City of Samal. Despite all our efforts to contact everyone (thru Facebook, SMS, word-of-mouth), only less than a third (around 20+ out of 91) made it. Some batchmates were not allowed by their parents (we’re scattered all over Mindanao so they have to travel) whilst a few were uninformed.

Even with relatively low turnout, it was FUN! We’ve decided to do it every break (except Summer break since a huge number of us attend summer classes).

Here’s us!

I never believed in the power of coffee as an effective stimulant.

Ever since I started to drink coffee, it always failed its “purpose”, to wake me up. Yes it wakes me up but for a very short period of time only, after which I feel sleepy or depressed.

Yesterday afternoon, I had three doses of Grande White Choco Mocha – one during a meeting with a company and the other two during my free time. I’m really not used to drinking coffee as I always preferred cream-based Frappuccinos whenever I am in Starbucks. (more…)

Tomorrow is the start of classes for the second semester in UP Diliman. Students will be confronted with new class schedules. Yikes!

Fortunately for those who are lazy enough to take a peek on their form 5 from time to time, there’s this Google Calendar SMS notification for you. Google will text you your next class minutes or hours before your class, based on your preference.

You just need a Google account (which is free) to enjoy this free service! (more…)

Ubuntu 9.10 alpha and beta release users may have noticed something very wrong with its NetworkManager. On those releases, NetworkManager won’t let the user edit default network settings through the NetworkManager applet even with sufficient privileges. Instead, NetworkManager will just revert the settings. Thus, deeming it impossible to set a static IP address using NetworkManager applet.

This bug has now been fixed on the version of NetworkManager preinstalled in Ubuntu 9.10 release candidate. This means users won’t have to worry about the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 release.

NetworkManager is not maintained and developed by Ubuntu.

Get your potbellied pig to mate

Several hours ago was the 2009 ACM-ICPC Asia Regionals Manila Site hosted by the Ateneo de Manila University. ACM-ICPC is a programming contests in which college students are to solve a certain number of problems in a limited number of time, in yesterday’s contest ten problems in five hours.

UP Diliman had ten teams in total, seven SOGO teams from the University of the Philippines Programming Guild and three teams from the UPD Department of Computer Science. I was a member of one of the SOGO teams, the SOGO Virgins.

Results, results and results!!

Our team only ranked 26th out of the 55 teams, which was quite disappointing. Among the 10 problems given, we only had three accepted solutions out of the five problems we attempted.

The champion was from our guild (UPPG), the Mga SOGO ni E.T.. They solved all 10 problems in 1 hour and 59 minutes. They will be competing for the World Finals this February 1 to 6, 2009 at Harbin University in China. Other teams who solved all 10 problems sorted by time were teams from Ho Chi Minh City University of Science, National University of Singapore, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and another team from UP Programming Guild, SOGOng Long Ong Moy Poso. The freshie team (2 Young 2 SOGO) from our guild beat us as they solved 5 problems in all. Woot! For more detailed results, you may check out the contest director’s blog.

Problems encountered!

Experience is the best teacher. We encountered problems on some problems.

Problem A. Given three points on a parabola, get the maximum height of the parabola. Since we don’t have a mathematician in the team, we had a hard time finding an equation with degree one for all variables. We had to force one of our teammate (out of 3) to squeeze all his knowledge on parabolas. When he found one, I immediately coded Gaussian Elimination Method for two variables and two equations. Gladly, our solution was correct thus accepted by the judges.

On the summation problem, we got correct answers for the sample inputs but it was too slow that testing it on borderline cases (worst case scenarios) won’t yield a result in a reasonable amount of time. Since no one in our team was a mathematician, we had trouble limiting our search space. Our program was so inefficient but right that we were not able to have our solution accepted.

The other problem we attempted was the A(H1N1) problem. Given a set of N people in a community with their locations and radius of contact and a person infected by A(H1N1), we had to compute the number of levels of transmission until the virus is contained. We recognized that it was a graph problem; people as nodes then connect an edge to nodes within the radius of contact of an infected person. We just have to perform a BFS (Breadth-First Search) on the graph and find the  level distance from the root to find the maximum level of transmission.

The algorithm above was correct but I made a mistake in coding BFS. I colored the node after dequeuing it from the queue instead of coloring it while putting it on the queue as seen in my code below.

Damn. I admit that it was my fault, not anyone else’s. Hmmmmf. Waaaaaa. What a shame. On the other side, it still yielded the correct answer for the sample input.

Lessons Learned

• Never spend too much time on a single problem. We spent too much time debugging the A(H1N1) problem.
• A team needs a mathematician. There were quite a number of Math problems. We were only able to solve one out of all the Math problems.

Random Stuff

Even though we did not rank well, I was still happy of the outcome. Because of this contest, I will never forget BFS anymore! Hahahaha.

I am looking forward to joining the same contest for the next years if fate will permit.