Prolonging Your Laptop’s Battery Life

I’ve had this presario for over 5 years now and I can still remember when it’s battery life lasted more than two hours. Over the years, it steadily decreased. First down to 1 hour 30 minutes and so on. To cut it short, these past few months, I’ve been working with less than 30 minutes of battery life.

What made me write about this is that this morning, when I started working on my lecture, I saw that I only had 12 minutes of battery life left from a full charge.

 After a couple of minutes googling, I came across an article that had tips about how to save your battery (forgot the link). One of it was how the chemicals in your battery would be revived when you empty your battery every once in a while. That’s what I did, and to my surprise, it took about 20 minutes after the indicator said that it had zero percent remaining, before the PC finally died down.

 So when it was all drained, I plugged it in and after a full charge, I was back to 35 minutes of battery life. I did the cycle one more time; draining it and full charging just to squeeze out some more minutes out of my battery. 

 Now the difference might probably be felt more if your battery was still good. Well with that 30 minutes of battery, at least I’d be able to send an email, copy a file or print remotely without the need for an outlet. But yeah, I do need new batteries….

baybayin ng infanta

Infanta, Quezon. Kuha mula sa Club Manila East.

Hindi tulad ng Boracay o Puerto Galera, ang baybayin ng Infanta ay mabato. Hindi tulad ng Siargao at Pagudpod, ang bato-bato nilang baybayin ay may halong pirapirasong kahoy mula sa nagdaang pag-guho ng lupa dahil na rin sa walang tigil na pagto-troso.

Pagto-trosong pinagmumulan ng makakain ng mga taga-infanta.

Pagto-trosong pinagmumulan ng mga tinitinda sa Tiendesitas.

Sa pagbabaybay ng National Highway, madadaan ang mga gumagawa ng “root furnitures”

Maligayang Kaarawan

 

Ano daw ang wish ko?

 

Aba! Bat mo naman gusto malaman, lalaking hindi ko alam ang pangalan! Mabuti nga kung gusto mo talaga malaman diba. Kasama lang naman yan sa palabas mo.

 

Siyempre hindi ako ganun kabastos – sa isip ko lang siya nakawawa.

 

“I love you from Nanay at Dada.”

 

Wish ba yon?

 

O eh ano… interesado ba naman talaga ang mga tao sa paligid? Pareparehas lang din naman talaga ang sinasabi ng mga tao. Dahil yung mga bagay na dapat nilang sinasabi, kinikimkim na lang nila. Parang dighay na hindi mo mailabas dahil ini-interbyu ka para sa isang call center.

 

Ano naman daw ang sasabihin ko sa mga bisita?

 

“Thank you sa pagdalo!”

 

Totoo naman. Eh pero bat tila inaantabayan ninyong ipamahagi ko ang kakapiranggot na nalalaman ko tungkol sa Sikolohiya? O kaya’y naghahanap kayo ng manipis na papel na kasing haba ng resibo ni Gretchen sa Rustan’s? Ano bang iniisip ninyong sasabihin ko sa kaarawan ni Kubli?

 

Marami-rami pang kidlat ng kamera ang lumipas,

at sa wakas, ang walang kamatayang pagkanta ng Happy Birthday.

 

Tila ngayon lang nangyari na tanging mag-ama ang nakaupo sa harap ng cake.

 

Dati nagkakagulo ang mga bata. Tatawagin lahat, tapos pakakantahin. Tapos hihingi ng wish. Pero ngayon, lahat ng tao ay pawang mga panauhin sa isang praktisadong pag-ihip ng kandilang makulit. Yung klase na nabubuhay ulit kahit nahipan mo na.

 

Sa sandaling yon, kami ang bida. Tila nabalutan kami ng kristal na nagsilbing pananggalang sa mga titig ng tao. Ni hindi namin namalayan na walang ibang pumunta sa harap kundi kaming dalawa.

 

Siyempre nagbalik kami sa realidad. Tatlong ulit ba naman yung Happy Birthday, tapos ayaw mamatay nung kandila eh.

 

“Phone patch galing Canada!”, sabi nung taong walang pangalan.

 

Muli nanamang tumigil ang mundo ng mga tao. Siyempre bakas nanaman sa mga mukha nila ang pagkabighani.

 

At bakit hindi? Kanina’y nakita nila kung paano muling pinagkabit ng Globe ang koneksiyong pinaghiwalay ng embahada ng mga puti. Dalawang tao na dati’y iisa. Siyam na buwang magkahati sa dugo, magkahati sa pagkain, sa hininga, iisa ang laman. Kulang na lang yung blue na ribbon na nakapaikot sa kamay at ubudan ng haba.

 

Maiksi ang mga ganoong pagkakataon. Minsan masyado mabilis. Sobrang bilis na hindi na namamalayan ng tao. Kadalasan pa nga, hindi kilala ng tao ang ganitong karanasan, hindi abot ng kanilang kamalayan.

 

Ano ang wish ko?

 

Hmmm…

 

Sa tingin ko parehas lang din nung sa inyo.

Resenting the Old Ways

 

A young man sits and ponders on the probable consequences of letting them know how they twist and blur out the illumination he aspires. He has an idea of how it should be done. But he never got the chance to try it out – they were all never given the chance. Sure they were asked, but answers were never really sought. It was all a matter of courtesy, of asking without really waiting for an answer, so that no one could say that they were not interested.

 

Upstairs, they pretend and act upon what they have only come to know by circumstance, without conscious effort to actually understand, without effort to place themselves in the other’s perspective. They act to show, not what they really feel, or think, but only on what they thought was right. They give what they wish, only to the point that would allow. Not because of reason, or love, or care. They give because they only choose to, and when it comes that they no longer see her in focus, when they are preoccupied by their own interests, by their frustration, selfishness and jealousy, they act and treat her, not to address what she wishes, but to distract her. This keeps her away, locked up in her own world, focusing religiously on what is in sight. For them, this is but a temporary remedy to their selfish desire to own what they missed and do not have, to make up for whatever shortcoming they possess. Sadly, it would not be long before they would once again play around with what they see as a mindless creature, held back and restricted by a self-fulfilling chain that is exactly what stunted her old man’s growth. And yet the past generation blames every downfall on his essence.

 

And while all of this is happening, her innocence is slowing being tainted by otherwise unsuspecting perpetrators of cultural norms.

 

He tried so much to contain, what he knows should be set free. If only for the hope that she would at least be different.

Thousands of kilometers away, she struggles for them to reunite in the quickest possible time. A fairly simple wish, but she does not know how sweet it would be, the moment he ascertains that he is free, away from everything that has kept him confined, restricted, immobilized and dumbed.

 

A war is set to settle the differences in opinion. A self-defeating conflict, inflicted by none other than himself. Once again, and for the most part of his life, he struggles to decide. The young man is caught between assertion and his forever circling habit of holding back – for he has kept so much that any attempt to ease out tension is quick to release a sudden, uncontrollable gush of pressure.

Baybayin: A Writing Almost Lost

 

I was trying to learn more about our ancient handwriting, the Alibata (in case you’re wondering, it’s the script on my header). Following the links, I managed to come across a lot of articles about the pre-spanish era. One in particular is about the Laguna Copperplate Inscription that was found at the Laguna bay in 1989. This was according to the article, one of most controversial archaeological finds in our history because it necessitates the backtracking of our history. Apparently, the agreed upon standard for determining a nation’s “historical beginning” is the date of the first or earliest, authenticated document found. For more about this click here.

Now apparently, the Alibata as we know it today (assuming of course that the number of people knowledgeable about the ancient script has increased) was originally called Baybayin for reasons that should be quite obvious to the Filipino reader. But for the benefit of those who are not, Baybayin means “to spell”.

It was not until 1571 that the Spaniards discovered its existence in Manila, 50 years after they had first arrived in our Visayan islands. 20 years later, the Doctrina Christiana was published, the first document ever to be written in the Baybayin script – a document supposedly written in the native handwriting and language to appeal to the natives’ senses.

The original state of the Baybayin script was found to be “inadequate” by the Spaniards due to the limited number of syllabications we used. The original way of writing in Baybayin was to eliminate the consonants that stood alone, or were not attached to a vowel, either before or after (CV, VC, C; where C=consonant). This meant that the end sound of a word ending with a stand alone consonant would be dropped (ex: tubig would be written as “tu bi” tubi). This limitation was however, only felt by the foreigners because our natives were able to decipher the meaning of their sentences using context clues despite the consonants being dropped, without them misunderstand or distorting the meaning of the text.

Since every symbol in the Baybayin had an inherent “a” sound, the Spaniards took the initiative to add a cross kudlit to allow complete words to be written, without having the need to drop the stand alone consonants.

A series of other enhancements were soon to follow, but the basic principle and simplicity of the script remained intact, despite the grave threat of being completely forgotten and wiped out of our culture.

Our postal system back then? It was said that the finished text written on bamboo or leaves were left hanging along the paths waiting for someone scheduled to go the same direction to pass by, so that the person may take it to where it was intended to go.

For a detailed reading about it click here.