The Geek Brewery

In 30 days, my age will once again increment by one. I will be turning 18. It means I will have to memorize my new age again – and based on experience it takes me around three months to master my new age. Seriously.

18 (eighteen) is the natural number following 17 and preceding 19. It equals ten and eight, twice nine, nine times two or three times six. -Wikipedia, 18

Age of Majority

18 is the age of majority in the Philippines. All my adult rights will be granted and I will have to assume responsibility over my actions and decisions. I will be permitted to (as listed in Wikipedia):

• Bind to contracts. Does this mean all the other contracts I’ve signed myself (not represented by someone of legal age) won’t be honored by the court? Woot! I’ve also heard that legal age in the Philippines is 21, but I’m not sure about it.
• Buy stocks. I can be rich by buying stocks. I’ve started playing the stock market (Neopets’ stock market) at age of 12.
• Buying or consuming alcoholic beverage. I am now legally permitted to buy alcoholic beverages above 60 proof. Just a trivia: did you know that Presidential Decree 1619 only prohibits minors to buy alcoholic beverages above 60 proof? Fortunately or unfortunately, most local beers are below 60 proof.
• Drive motor vehicles on public roads. Sadly, I don’t have a car. Donations are welcome.

Things I want to do before turning 18

There are several things I want to do before the police can legally arrest me and put me on jail. Here’s an overview:

• Reach (18*3) kilograms. My weight is currently pegged at 49 to 50 kilograms. Yesterday, someone told me to gain some weight. I’ve been eating much lately but I still don’t gain weight.
• Reduce transportation costs. The cost of going (from/to) school (to/from) home is 22 pesos. I’m thinking of walking to school daily (drat, I have to wake up earlier).
• Eat more.
• Swim at least once a week. For the past four Saturday or Sunday excluding yesterday, I’ve been swimming at a community Olympic-sized pool.
• [your suggestion here]

Waaaa, I’m turning 18. This can’t be.

Free PLUG: I’ve seen this ad in Plurk.

I’ve learned about this website, Surviving the World, after a friend posted a link to one of their entries in Plurk.

Surviving the World is a webcomic focusing on all shades of life, from science to literature, politics to sports, romance to religion, and everything else in between. –Surviving the World FAQ

The website is updated daily so you don’t have to worry not having a daily dose of STW.

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Short rant. Wow, I am busy that I can hardly update this blog.

Did you know that most Globe Broadband packages comes with WiFi minutes?

These WiFi minutes can be used in any WiZ hotspot (Wireless Internet Zones) around the country, including most Starbucks coffee shops.

Instead of paying a hundred bucks an hour for Internet on your next visit to Starbucks, just don’t forget to copy your Globe Broadband username and password and redeem your two free hours per month. The format of the username is [alias]@globelines.com.ph where alias is the username you gave when you applied. The default password is your account number which is reflected on your bill.

If you are quite unsure of your username or password, you may call their hotlines @ (02) 9198888. The number is toll-free if you dial the number from a Globelines landline, local landline or Globe Telecom mobile number.

According to the Google AdSense website, Google AdSense PINs arrive within two to three weeks after it is shipped.

Last July 31, 2009, Google sent my Google AdSense PIN to the shipping company. The other day, I received my PIN (as seen above with the most significant piece of my address concealed)!

In my case here in Quezon City, Philippines, I received my PIN just a day after the lower bound of the expected time of arrival (15 days). I’ve heard that delivery time is highly variable from place to place.

Can you share how long it took your Google AdSense PIN to arrive home?

In some Linux distributions that uses GNOME Desktop Manager such as Ubuntu, an icon of a volume or partition appears on the Desktop whenever you mount them as seen on the screenshot on the left.

Although it was made that way for the easy access of the volume, other people just want to get of rid. At the top of the list are the people who have minimalistic desktops, those who are obsessive-compulsive about their icon arrangements, etc.

Gladly, there’s a very quick hack to do it without the use of any third-party software such as Ubuntu Tweak. To do it, press Alt+F2 to open the Run Application window. Then paste this command:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/nautilus/desktop/volumes_visible false

That’s it. No restart required! To undo its effect, just negate the false on the command to true.

If you enjoyed this post, you might considering running into my other Linux posts.

Globe Telecom recently launched Free Apps, a “portal” where subscribers can download free applications from Globe Labs developers and third-parties. Free Apps website can be accessed online thru your computer or mobile phone. There already have a handful of free apps available for download including my personal favorite, Globe Calls!

Globe Calls is a free app that keeps prefixes of Globe call promos. This means you don’t have to memorize all those prefixes as they are stored on the app itself. You just have to open the app and dial the number from there. As of now, the following promos are in the Globe Calls list:

• Sakto Calls (10 centavos per second, 5 centavos per second on Sundays)
• P10/3 min
• Tawag 236 (P20/20min)
• Unlicalls Nyt

The only problem I see in this app is that it doesn’t have an update option. Once all of those promos terminate, the application becomes useless. New promos are not added on the fly, too. It’s too hassle for end-users to download a version of the app manually everytime new promos are released.

Globe Calls has a Touch Mobile counterpart, TM Calls.