The Geek Brewery

Last Sunday, I took the Mensa IQ Challenge at Fully Booked in Bonifacio High Street, Taguig City. The first 30 items of the exam were super easy that missing out a point for a problem was a big deal. The next items (I won’t say how many) were moderate. The only enemy I had was the SUPER limited time.

The only criterion for membership in Mensa, is to score within the top 2 percent (98th percentile and up) on an accepted and properly supervised qualifying test. -Mensa Philippines website

Earlier today, the unofficial result of the 2.22 exam was released via web. Mensa posted the good and bad news. To maintain a level of privacy, they posted the codenames we picked from a fishbowl before the exam. My lucky word was MAGELLAN. Waaaaaaaa.

After checking the super cool good and bad news, I found out that I belong to the world’s top 3% IQ-wise. Hahahaha. Yes, I am a genius.

Yes I am a genius.

I am a genius.

Yeah, right!

Anyway, proceeding to the next item I’ll be sharing. I’ve recently shared to you that I have a hunger for knowledge and today, I was fortunate enough to learn something new. I love learning new things! It was a file transfer thru SSH crash course.

My orgmates asked me to generate reports of the recently concluded Computerized University Elections here in UP Diliman. All they gave me were the login credentials of the server where the database was stored and the I.P. address.

The account they gave me did not have any write access to the www folder so uploading the script thru FTP and dumping the results thru HTTP was not an option. I asked for more options and one of them suggested that I use SSH. What the heck?! I’ve never used SSH for uploading and downloading files, seriously. I never thought it was possible.

Since the only thing I knew was to login to the server thru SSH, I had to ask for help. Gladly, kuya Prem extended his help despite his busy schedule. I was also able to apply my newly acquired (last year) Linux shell skills like dumping something to a file. It was so much fun.

Yey, I am a genius. Yes I am a genius! I AM A GENIUS!! Mikko is a GENIUS!

In several days is the Nursing Licensure Exam in the Philippines. It will be administered by the Professional Regulation Commission.

For sure, it will be taken by thousands of nursing graduates and retakers around the Philippines. Some of them, with their eagerness to pass the exam, are looking for leakage. In result, other people have become very vigilant to maintain the integrity of the board exam. If you are looking for leaked questions, you can browse around and check websites that offer them.

A message to all takers of June 2009 NLE, do good in the examination. Review, review and review. You can also check out my tips for taking standardized multiple choice exams.

Woot!

Yesterday, I took the Mensa IQ Challenge at Fully Booked, Bonifacio High Street. And guess what, I took it on Mensa Day (2.22).

According to the Mensa Philippines website, Mensa is an international society in which the sole criterion for membership is a score at or above the 98th percentile on any of a number of standardized IQ tests. Cool, isn’t it?

I have a bad feeling that I’ll fail the exam. Waaaaaaa!! A number of bloggers already took the exam, and they passed. I want to be a part of the very exclusive secret society. Waaaaaaa!!

The official results are expected to be mailed to us three weeks after the exam. But there will be an earlier unofficial results release on the web thru their website, just check on the Good News and Bad News section.

Want to take it, too? Check Mensa Philippines for exam schedules.

(from XKCD)

Offtopic: In line with the comics above, I always find my self in the same situation. I love to do this with plate numbers.

These past few months were the most dormant periods of my geekiness. I badly need to expand my knowledge.

I have hunger for knowledge. Some people may find it weird but it’s actually true. It’s fun to have passion for learning stuff you’re interested to. Don’t think of me as a college nerd reading all those Bio, Chem and Physics books. I’m not interested on those stuff  except those rare moments when I felt geek enough to make simulation of scientific concepts (so far, I’ve made a simulation for freefall and projectile, road traffic and matrix multiplication).

The latest bit of geekiness I got was from my Computer Science class. It’s only this semester when I got a pretty good picture of real Object Oriented Programming. I knew about it before but I only had the chance to get a clearer picture of it on our class.

Currently, I’m interested on studying Python, Ruby on Rails and JSP. I’m tired of PHP, seriously. I’ve been obsessed with the language since I learned it three or four years ago. I’m also interested on making an application using any API. I’m thinking of making a web application that has something to do with geographical information (so that I can use Google Maps) like generating a map, like a Map of Misfortune [I'll discuss this later].

The BIG problem now is where to start. Do I start with Ruby on Rails or what? That I still do not know. I need help.

To the other geeks, feeling geeks (like me), aspiring geeks, retired geeks and non-geeks out there, I need your suggestions. It could be a programming language or an API to explore. Please respond thru the comments section. I am THIS pathetic to expand my knowledge. Waaaaaaaaaaaaa.

When I logged on Google earlier this morning, I saw a super weird variation of the Google logo. I thought Google was hacked or something; which was next to impossible – it was a bit late when I realized that it was actually another Google doodle (Google doodles can be seen on special occassions and historic events).

The first thing that came into my mind was a Japan Day or something. Next thing in mind was a Red Cross Day. But guess what? It read “Maligayang Araw ng mga Puso” (Happy Hearts’ Day or Happy Valentine’s Day) when I hovered my mouse over it. Whew, I nearly forgot that it’s Valentine’s Day.

Then, I’ve realized that I booked my Valentine’s Day with a very geek appointment (something to do with programming). Wahahahaha. But sadly, it got cancelled a few minutes ago.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you.

Slacking pulled my blog down.

For my loyal and not-so-loyal (shall I include bypassers?) readers, you may have noticed that this blog was offline. My web host suspended my account after NOT paying the bills three days after the due date.

So what happened?

• Actually, I was expecting that there’s still enough money in my PayPal account, which happens to be the latter.
• I’ve prepared for the situation above. I’ve linked a debit card to my PayPal account so that it automagically debits funds from the card whenever my PayPal funds go low.
• So why did it still happen? Wahahaha. Still, my bank account (linked to my debit card), also, did not have enough funds to fund it up.

It’s hilarious. And guess what? How much do I lack in my PayPal account to have it paid? Less than $0.50! Wahahahaha. $0.50 costed this blog around two-digit dollars of earnings.

The moral of the story? Check PayPal and bank accounts at least once every 15 days.

I still can’t believe it happened to me. Amf.