Author: admin

4. Earn a living, but not by writing.David Seidler: A trust fund is a valuable writing tool, but if you do have to earn a living, try not to do it by using up your writing energy. Avoid at all costs working in advertising, journalism, teaching, reading other people’s dreadful scripts. You only have so much creative energy in your soul each day, and if you use it up earning a living, when you get home and say, “Right, after dinner, I’m going to do my two hours on my script,” you’re not going to work two hours on your script. You’re going to watch television and drink a beer. Learn a craft. Become a plumber. Make a shoe. You’ll be so bored doing it, you’ll go the extra mile to get your writing done and become successful.

Source: Indiewire Screenwriting Tips | Indiewire
 
Good Advice. Special mention no 4.

Magsaysay Credo

I believe that government starts at the bottom and moves upward, for government exists for the welfare of the masses of the nation.

I believe that he who has less in life should have more in law.

I believe that the little man is fundamentally entitled to a little bit more food in his stomach, a little more cloth in his back and a little more roof over his head.

I believe that this nation is endowed with a vibrant and stout heart, and possesses untapped capabilities and incredible resiliency.

I believe that a high and unwavering sense of morality should pervade all spheres of governmental activity.

I believe that the pulse of government should be strong and steady, and the men at the helm imbued with missionary zeal.

I believe in the majesty of constitutional and legal processes, in the inviolability of human rights.

I believe that the free world is collectively strong, and that there is neither need or reason to compromise the dignity of man.I believe that communism is iniquity, as is the violence it does to the principles of Christianity.I believe that the President should set the example of a big heart, an honest mind, sound instincts, the virtue of healthy impatience and an abiding love for the common man.

Source: Ramon Magsaysay

We would like to clarify some news reports that came out today that might have caused panic among our members, especially where the stability of the health insurance funds is concerned.PhilHealth’s finances are as robust, healthy and substantial as ever. Proof of this is our ability to pay for the benefit claims of our members at an amount that has been steadily growing over the last five years. In 2011, we paid about P34B; about P44B in 2012; up to P55B in 2013, P77B in 2014 and about P97B in 2015.While we paid P1B more than what we collected in premium contributions in 2015, we gained about P7B from investment income, resulting in positive numbers still. Thus, there is no reason for our members and other stakeholders to worry about our capacity to meet our obligations.At the same time, our reserve funds have been growing steadily too, from about P112B in 2012 to P128B in 2015. We are mandated to maintain a reserve fund level equivalent to two years so that we can readily address our members’ needs should any eventuality happen. While other social protection programs maintain probably higher levels of reserve funds, we operate on a pay-as-you-go system where we immediately translate what we collect into benefit payments for our members.We appeal to our media partners to carefully understand how the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP) works so that our members are constantly assured of PhilHealth’s capability to keep up with its commitment to the 93 million-strong Filipinos who rely on the NHIP for their health coverage.(Sgd.) ALEXANDER A. PADILLAPresident and CEO

Source: PhilHealth finances as robust, healthy, substantial as ever | Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines

March 2, 2016

Ms. NINEZ CACHO-OLIVAREZ

Editor-in-Chief

The Daily Tribune

Port Area, Manila

Dear Ms. Cacho-Olivarez:

We are writing to clarify the issue raised in your newspaper editorial, “Dinky’s LP streak shows”, which was published on February 29.The editorial mentioned that the Commission on Audit (COA) report on the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) covering 2014 and early 2015 showed several alarms raised over Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.Thank you for your concern in the implementation of the Pantawid Pamilya.However, we would like to clarify that the Department has already responded to the COA issues mentioned in the editorial. The explanations and justifications have been accepted by COA, and subsequently included in their final audit report.The first issue raised was that COA said that 3,649 families that were covered by the audit received cash grants even if they were found non-compliant with the 4Ps criteria. It added that a total of P4.9 million was released to the beneficiaries even if they are not meeting the health and education requirements of the program. The COA report went on to say that the payment of grants to beneficiaries not compliant on the conditionalities of the program is contrary to 4Ps Operations Manual, which should be immediately recovered from the beneficiaries.Per DSWD’s Management response to the issue, it explained that the beneficiaries were paid grants accordingly either because they had registered new eligible members for compliance monitoring, or they were compliant with at least one conditionality in the latter periods of 2014.One of the major reasons, based on our assessment and validation, is that they have no eligible members for compliance monitoring, but they subsequently registered 15-18 year-old children beneficiaries in the latter periods because of the new Extended Age Coverage policy, therefore they were monitored again and paid accordingly.The other major reason was that they have transferred school or health facilities and have been complying but there were delays in knowing where to monitor them.  Thus, it is not correct to state that grants were paid to non-compliant beneficiaries.On the issue that auditors also discovered 1,872 duplicate beneficiaries, only 395 have been so far found to be duplicates, and the Department has corrective and recovery measures in place if indeed these duplicates were confirmed to have received excess payments.Please note, too, that the observations made by the COA in the audit report are not conclusive statements confirming that irregularities had been actually committed. These were made as part of the government routine to provide a check-and-balance mechanism and enhance operations.Aside from the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) issues, the editorial also mentioned that the camp of Vice-President Binay insinuated that Liberal Party has been using CCT funds to recruit “volunteers’ or poll watchers for the May elections.There is no truth to this allegation. DSWD is not in anyway involved in the recruitment of volunteers for the May polls. Beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilya are free to decide if they want to be involved in political activities or not. That is their right as citizens, and it is on their own free will.As implementer of the program, DSWD conducts the Family Development Sessions (FDS) where the beneficiaries are taught about active citizenship and their role in nation building.We hope this clarification finds space in your newspaper.

Thank you.

Very truly yours,

[Sgd.] CEZARIO JOEL C. ESPEJO

Director

Social Marketing Service

Source: Letter to Daily Tribune | Department of Social Welfare and Development

https://vimeo.com/blog/post/fund-your-film-how-to-make-a-successful-crowdfundi

Prior to 2008, if you had a film that you wanted to fund, you either needed to sell your soul to a rich person or descend into the 10th circle of hell known as debt. First came Indiegogo (who we’ve teamed up with), then came Kickstarter, and then GoFundMe and Tilt, and so on and so on. These services enable people from all around the world to empty the contents of their wallets directly into the dreams of others. It’s like taking candy from a baby, if babies could use the Internet and candy was cold, hard c

Found this nice sql.
I needed to randomize a date for the random data I was using to test a batch job I was fixing.  I would have used several excellent random data generators available online except my internet sucks so have to do this on my own.

This works perfectly even for leap years:select from_unixtime( unix_timestamp(‘2000-1-1’) + floor( rand() * ( unix_timestamp(‘2010-12-31’) – unix_timestamp(‘2000-1-1’) + 1 ) ))The idea is simple: Just take a random timestamp between the two timestamps, then convert it to a datetime using from_unixtime. This way you can ensure that each option has equal probability.

Source: sql – Mysql insert random datetime in a given datetime range – Stack Overflow

When Magsaysay ran for president, the barrio-to-barrio campaigns only opened his eyes even more to the issues of the rural folk that had been neglected by previous presidents.He realized that the Philippine government shouldn’t be a government of the elites, but an entity fully dedicated to the welfare of all its people–especially the peasant farmers long considered to be the “backbone of the nation.”Magsaysay believed that insurgency would continue to exist as long as the government stays deaf to the calls of the rural folk. “To  be really secure,” he once said, “a country must assure for its citizens the social and economic conditions that would enable them to live in decency, free from ignorance, disease, and want.” Magsaysay became the voice of the voiceless, and his impressive rural development programs only proved that he’s sincere in uplifting the lives of the oppressed.

Source: 6 Reasons Why Ramon Magsaysay Was The Best President Ever

William Briggs, an adjunct professor of statistics at Cornell, provides an overview of the flawed design and statistical analysis of this study. He first criticizes the indicator used to quantify “altruism,” and then ridicules the “moral sensitivity test” that children completed, which suggests a serious “abuse of regression on the pseudo-quantified answers … this model has no real predictive value.” Briggs concludes that “nearly everything is wrong with it, start to finish,” and is especially dismissive of the “wild, over-reaching theorizing about cause.” Suggesting that “altruism was not measured, but kids sticking stickers in envelopes was,” and he asks: “How much influence did the researcher have, especially with the younger kids? Did kids stick stickers because they wanted to prove to the whitecoat that they were compliant or because they wanted to be liked or because they wanted to share? Altruism forsooth!”

Source: Are Religious Children “Meaner than Secular Children?”

The problem with Agile’s two-week iterations (or “sprints”) and user stories is that there is no exit strategy. There’s no “We won’t have to do this once we achieve [X]” clause. It’s designed to be there forever: the business-driven engineering and status meetings will never go away. Architecture and R&D and product development aren’t part of the programmer’s job, because those things don’t fit into atomized “user stories” or two-week sprints. As a result, the sorts of projects that programmers want to take on, once they master the basics of the craft, are often ignored, because it’s annoying to justify them in terms of short-term business value. Technical excellence matters, but it’s painful to try to sell people on this fact if they want, badly, not to be convinced of it.

Source: Michael O. Church – Why “Agile” and especially Scrum are terrible

An avenue is traditionally a straight road with a line of trees or shrubs running along each side, which emphasize arrival at a landscape or architectural feature.*A boulevard is usually a widened, multi-lane arterial street with a median and landscaping between the curbs and sidewalks on either side.*A court is a short street that ends as a cul de sac.

Source: What’s the Difference Between a Street and a Road? | Mental Floss