World Chess Championship 2008 in Germany

The match will be a best of 12 games. Players score 1 point for a win and half a point for a draw. Time control will be 120 minutes, with 60 minutes added after move 40, 15 minutes added after move 60, and additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61. The match will end as soon as any player scores 6.5 points.

If, after 12 games, the score is equal, a tie-break of four rapid games will be played. Time control for these games will be 25 minutes plus 10 seconds per move. In case of equal scores two additional blitz games will be played (5 minutes plus 10 seconds per move). If these games do not decide the winner, a decisive Armageddon game will be played (6 minutes for white, 5 minutes for black, black declared champion in case of a draw). There will be a new drawing of colours before rapid games, as well as before blitz games and an Armageddon game.

World Chess Championship 2008
Official Website

I find a head-to-head match-up like this more exciting than a round-robin (e.g., the World Chess Championship 2007) for a world chess championship. In the former, you’ll have the opportunity to witness the rush of blood as players hammer each other on a round per round mental combat. Get yourself marveled at how each player switch strategy in the middle of the match to accommodate the outpouring pressure. In the latter, oftentimes you’ll just wait and see till the last round who has the nearest reach to the crown.

A round-robin world championship will be just like a boxing match, with eight players inside a ring at the same time. The last man standing will be the world champion. In chess, most likely you’ll just wait and see by the end of the show who will come out victorious. But in boxing, hey, this is pretty exciting!

The Back-End Story

It has been a gruelling experience. Deuts.NET even has been down for sometimes.

I hate that Hotlink Protection feature in Bluehost’s cpanel. It almost drove me crazy figuring out how can I salvage all my posts and files in the webserver.

I just hope everything’s fine now. If someone finds irregularities and bugs, please help me and bring them to my attention immediately.

Creating and Maintaining a Personal Website

As a response to Suon Dondi‘s query here:

Personal Websites and Blogs

Most people maintain personal websites through blogs. A blog is what makes a personal website pertinent by posting updates every now and then.

When it comes to blogs, the first thing that should come to mind is WordPress. This is so far, in my opinion (and I’m sure a lot of bloggers will share my opinion), the best blogging platform.

A .com, .net, or .org domain name usually costs around $10 per year. That’s around P470 a year — cheap!:D

Blogger/blogspot actually permits mapping of domain names into your blogger blog. Say, you have a domain name at example.com, you can make it map to your existing blog at blogger.com so all your posts will appear within your domain name (example.com) and all your former permalinks (e.g., example.blogspot.com) will automatically redirect to your new domain name. This service is called Custom Domains. Refer to this documentation to set-up a custom domain at blogger.com.

But blogger.com alone does not offer that much flexibility as compared to when you host your own website. Hosting puts you in total control of your website. But hosting entails additional cost on top of what you paid for the domain name.
Continue reading Creating and Maintaining a Personal Website

Friendster Introduces a New Blogging Platform

Hello deuts,

We’d like to introduce you to your new blog on Friendster! We’ve been very busy building out Friendster Blogs 2.0 and your blog has been moved to the new blogging platform. It’s ready for you to customize, edit, and add even more content to it!

Some things you should know about your new blog:

  • Your blog has been moved to the new platform.
  • It is likely that your blog layout or colors may not appear exactly as they were on your old blog, you can edit or add new customizations to your blog by clicking the ‘Design’ tab or ‘Change Theme’ button when you access your blog from your home page.
  • All of the photos you’ve uploaded to your old blog will soon be moved to your new blog. When they are moved, they will be in your Blogs Media Library (Manage –> Media Library). Don’t worry, we’ll move all your photos for you! We plan to have this complete by September 17th.
  • If you experience any inconsistencies with your blog during the next few weeks, please bear with us and please do let us know what you find so we can build a better product!

To get started with your new blog, please go to:

http://jotuvillo.blog.friendster.com/

We look forward to your participation and your feedback on our new blogs property. We value our global community and members like you who make Friendster the success that it is!

If you have questions or need additional assistance, please contact Customer Support by clicking “Send us a Question” from our Help page.

Thanks!
The Friendster Blogs Team

The message from my inbox the other day. After some time, Friendster eventually migrated the blogs it used to offer from Typepad to WordPress Mu. Could it be another proof that WordPress is winning the blogging platform market against its closest rival, Movable Type?

Continue reading Friendster Introduces a New Blogging Platform

Heavy Rains and Flash Floods

On my way back to the office right after lunch, I was greeted by this scene just in front of our office building.

“Disaster!”, was the first thing in my mind, but on second thought, I believe I have to condition myself already with this scene in the area during heavy rains.

Continue reading Heavy Rains and Flash Floods

Pertinent Articles on RA 9504

There are pertinent articles regarding RA 9504 over at Punongbayan & Araullo’s Press Room. They describe the issues surrounding the law.

You can read the articles here, here, and here.

Many concerns have been raised, and my favorite:

Is this really what RA 9504 intended — to create and encourage absurd situations? Can’t the BIR, at least, read the real intent of RA 9504 and help promote social justice by saying that any income received by a worker over and above the minimum wage, to the extent that the tax distortion is eliminated and the take home pay is equalized, be still exempt from taxes as a MWE?

It may be difficult to justify such move, considering that the flaw is in the law itself. But the BIR was able to do it in certain instances in the past.

With these good, pertinent, and timely articles from an accounting firm website, P&A would have better hosted a discussion by offering comments or provided a forum. It would have been a good discussion, instead of just a lone standing article.

Eraserheads reunion concert cut short

Ely Buendia rushed to hospital; Eraserheads reunion concert cut short

No, I wasn’t in the event. And this is the sad news that broke when I arrived home.

The Eraserheads reunion concert on Saturday night at the Bonifacio Global City Open Field was cut short after lead singer Ely Buendia suffered “emotional and physical stress.”

There should really be a part 2…or maybe a reunion for good. Whatchathink?

Jayvee of abuggedlife.com shares a video of the concert: Eraserheads Reunion Opens with Alapaap.

Philippines is 3rd in the Youth Under-16 Chess Olympiad

Chessdom – India wins the Chess U16 Olympiad 2008 ahead of Russia.

With GM Wesley So steering the board 1 for the Philippines, he won 8 games and drew 2 to grab the gold medal at board 1. Not a bad performance for the Philippines, considering So’s teammates are way below his high ELO rating of 2577.

Actually, Wesley So was the highest rated player in the tournament.