Neatorama outlines the interesting history of photography. It’s also interesting to note that the first ever photograph was a grainy one taken with an exposure time of 8 hours. The most expensive photograph, taken in 1904, was priced at US$2.9 million in 2006.
Awaiting WordPress 2.5
This site is proudly powered by WordPress (WP).
With lots of updates going on into the core of wordpress install, particularly with the upcoming WordPress 2.5, a lot of features are being introduced. I’m afraid there will come a time that WordPress would not be as lightweight but functional as it used to be. WordPress users are asking for features left and right specific to their needs. The WordPress team, it appears to me, are moving towards satisfying all those requests by the various users in one package, that is WordPress.
Bear Stearns at 2.4% of Book Value
Could this be how bad the recession in the US is right now?
Bear Stearns Cos., one of the largest global investment banks and securities trading and and brokerage firms in the world, entered into a deal to sell its business to JP Morgan Chase & Co., another investment banking company, for 236 million dollars or equivalent to $2 per share, which translates to only around 2.4% of its book value.
Bloomberg and other business news magazines and websites are all over the issue.
To illustrate how bad this deal is, the deal was sealed last Sunday (March 16, 2008) at $2, Bear Stearns stock last Friday (March 14) was trading at $30, more than $60 last week, and more than $150 last year. Moreover, the Company reported a book value of $84.09 in the fourth quarter of 2007.
CIA Exam November 2007
The official results of the November 2007 Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) Exams for Philippines candidates are out, although the news are not yet included in the News and Events section of the IIA Philippines website as of this post. Results are also available for CFSA (Certified Financial Services Auditor) and CCSA (Certification for Control Self-Assessment) examinations.
The Gold Medal Award (Top 1), two of the Certificate of Excellence awards (Top 5), and nine of the Certificate of Honor awards (Top 25) were garnered by Filipinos. This means that aside from the Top 1, 40% of the Top 5 and 36% of the Top 25 were Filipinos!
Click PDF icon to download the results in PDF format.
Now that’s what you call Filipino excellence!
Deuts.NET on Food Photography
You were in a classy restaurant, freshly served with the hot food you ordered, whipped out your camera and started shooting the elegantly presented food in the plate in front of you. But then you wondered why you can’t really come up with a superb picture, not even just duplicate the photo of the food in the menu.
Maybe you’re missing something. Or maybe a lot of things. Maybe you missed taking into account the use of motor oil, spray deodorant and brown shoe polish.
Yeah, you don’t want to eat food with these things applied in them. But these are the dirty tricks of food photographers. Read more to learn more.
Into The Viewfinder
ZPDee Sucks Bigtime
Here I am agonizing over another crappy internet service from Smart 3G because Skycable‘s ZPDee sucks bigtime! At least with the former I have connection.
According to ZPDee’s contact page, you can contact them 24/7 using their hotline 631-0000. But try calling them at night, and you’ll get into an answering machine telling you to wait for the next available agent. I would rather have preferred to have been told to leave at once. For me, this is just bloody misrepresentation!
They also have an SMS contact number at 0917-631-0000 (i.e., if you’re using Globe), but don’t bother texting them, you’ll just put your credits into waste.
Sigabong XX and Pabarock Posters
The UP Hamili Brotherhood and UP Hamilia Sisterhood sponsored events in Iloilo, the Sigabong and Pabarock. See their posters below:
It’s Gmail Vs. Spam
One major factor why I prefer gmail over other email services (especially Yahoo! Mail) is how it fights spam.
41 Tax Haven Countries
The four criteria for a country to be considered as tax haven are: insignificant or non-existent tax levels, absence of transparency in tax matters, absence of fiscal data exchange with other countries and attractiveness for straw companies with fictitious activities. The only criteria that’s clear to me is the last one, and I highlight: “attractiveness for straw companies with fictitious activities“. :LOL: Check out the list of 41 countries considered by OECD as tax haven countries in inquirer.net.