Once You Go Mac, You'll Never Go Back

Have you always wanted to have your own Macbook? It's a great investment but a very costly asset.  However, there's always the saying that "once you go Mac, you'll never go back!".

Owning a Macbook is one thing but deciding what operating system to use is another thing.  Right now, my laptop is running on Mountain Lion despite the existence of an OSX update named the Mavericks.  

OSX Mavericks introduces a new compressed memory feature built into Mavericks that uses the RAM more efficiently compared to Mountain Lion. This means that improvements on the speed of the start-up, applications usage and web browsing will be observed, as the new compressed memory feature makes sure that apps that have not been used in long time are compressed to ensure that it won't affect battery life and computer performance.  That's a great improvement but I'm still not convince in getting an upgrade. 

OSX Mavericks introduces a feature that makes battery usage more efficient by showing the applications and their respective battery percentage share.  Through this feature, users will be able to cancel applications that take the most battery share to save energy.  This is very important because you wouldn't always get the chance to charge your Mac, especially in places without an outlet source.   Thank goodness Apple has thought of this.  It's about time. 

On the lighter side of things, OSX Mavericks introduced iBooks in laptops and desktops, making it not exclusive to tablets and phones anymore.  Apple also introduced the use of tabs and tags when organizing files in your laptop.  Through this feature, users are no longer limited to creating new folders every time they create new content but makes it easier to categorize same contents.  However, these are just minor improvements.  Nothing I'm really interested in.   

So, why haven't I switched to OSX Mavericks? Money is not a problem because it's free on the Apple Store (to mention that updating to OSX Mountain Lion costed almost $20).  Nor is internet speed a problem because Dilnet runs really fast in campus.  So why haven't I?

I haven't upgraded because updating to Mountain Lion made me skeptical about the OS updates of Apple.  Upgrading made my Mac's battery life decrease to 50%. What if upgrading to Mavericks decrease my battery life further, contrary to reviews provided in the internet? I cannot take that risk.  Upgrading my Mac made things all more confusing (from using a Microsoft OS) because of the new interphase.  I decided to upgrade because internet reviews were all positive so I said to myself, "why not try it?". Bad decision. 

But with these new features being introduced by Apple for OSX Mavericks, I might take a chance at upgrading my Mac. Apple just needs to make things right to make us feel that we are getting the most out of what we pay for. 

Kris Sarah Jeruta 
2011-41018

References:
White, S. 2013. Apple OS X Mavericks Review [online] Available at:
http://www.technologyguide.com/softwarereview/mavericks-osx-review/ [Accessed: 8 Mar 2014].

STORY of SCIENCE

MARIA ANGELICA S. PINON
200927411

The mind museum's visit in the class was a very much appreciated treat. The visit reminded us that learning science is FUN. No matter what age, it seems science can be made interesting with the proper materials. As a Bachelors in Elementary Education Science and Health major, the existence of a science museum is a great thing for us. Meaningful field trips for can be boring topic we have is possible. The experiments they presented are also great ice breakers for several topics that would normally be boring with just paper and pen materials. 

I really liked their approach of teaching science as a story not a branch by branch seemingly unrelated principles. Stories for me are easier to absorbed and process, plus it infinitely more interesting. The ticket sale was also really tempting from P700 to P150, unfortunately it is already hell month, requirements requirements all around. Next time hopefully I would get to visit the Mind Museum with my future students and let them be inspired as I had been when we were visited. 

FOLLIES OF MEN

MARIA ANGELICA S. PINON
200927411

The movie Bride of Frankenstein was very interesting even though I only had the basic idea about Frankenstein's world. The movie shows the result of man trying to play with life. Death would be something man would like to win against and with Frankenstein's life being created they can claim to have beaten death already.

Life and death are not completely understood by us, and what we don't understand as shown in the movie we fear. We designed our fears as monsters, we judge them and try to beat them never to understand them. That is what I observed from the movie, instead of reaching out with the goal to understand they armed themselves to destroy. Destroy what they themselves created because of their fears, and it is easier to destroy if we do not listen. Easier to judge when we do not know nor understand, and easier things are most of the times not the right thing. 

Mind Moving

 Just a side note....It's quite ironic that I lived in taguig for years, and the only time I hear a talk from the Mine Museum is when I move to Quezon City -_-. Anyway moving on....

I really enjoyed the symposium and was amazed about the speakers' views on science and on how it should be tackled in society in this day and age. Even though the experiments done throughout the hour were quite simple, they still managed to bring out the child in me and made me want to learn more about science. It's their advocacy to teach science to the youth of the Philippines that I find very admirable. I believe that our society today fails to advance fast because of people's lack of curiosity, their lack of wanting more improvement to be done. It's because of Mind Movers like the speakers we saw in class last February 18 that really change the shape of society for the better.

As a future doctor or teacher, I hope to follow in the footsteps of these people. Become a Mind Mover myself and teach kids all about the wonders of this world in spectacular story like manners.

A Visit from the Mind Museum

I was so excite about this talk because I have always wanted to visit the Mind Museum in Taguig (by the way, I live in Taguig). 

The talk we had with the people from Mind Museum was fun.  They talked about science (in general) and how the mind museum embodies science by bringing it closer to the people.  

One of the most interesting parts of the talk was the science experiment.  Although experiments are generally awesome, it made the talk even livelier.  Some of it, I have seen; but those that I haven’t seen made me want to go back to my (science) high school and try it in our laboratory. 

Another thing I really appreciate in the talk is how they emphasised that we do not need to use science jargons to understand science – all we have to do is to make these concepts understandable to children and other non-science majors.  Through this, everyone will enjoy science. 

Behind every political science major is a science geek (well, in my case).

State-of-the-art Museum

The development of the Mind Museum is an incredible idea to put up in the metro. Being a really fast growing city exploring new and modern building types is a must. The Mind Museum a state-of-the-art science museum hat runs through the different branches of science and it aims to strengthen and inspire the lifelong science learning.

If in the perspective of a younger version of me, the short program would probably make me so amazed. I always believe in the retaining impact of interactive lectures, talks or symposiums. The Mind Museum's mission of sparking this interest in science should pursue, and definitely much closer to the younger environment. However, despite the fact that I have chosen my own career path already, that program was fantastic and interesting. I did gain a new view in the definition of science – how it really us in the least technical terms; I learned (and I quote) that science is the construct of the human mind. It is behavioral. It is familiar and unfamiliar and in the latter we become curious and learn more. This description of science just sums up that everything is interrelated to science, even in the smallest ways.

Given all this, the genuine meaning of science, when asked, at least I now have the smartest response I could give to anyone. 

Aedriane Celis

Mind Palace

Last Tuesday we hosted people from The Mind Museum. The first Science Museum in the Philippines and apparently they have world class equipments. They performed simple experiments but i guess they were able to get the focus and attention of my fellow students. 

They have a good mission in building the Mind Museum; they want to “spark” the interest of a child to science. They used a lot of method in getting everyone to participate and be active in the discussion as they say that they will “move” minds. The simplicity is great I am sure that would definitely pique interest of people especially kids. Well that is another issue, the museum is targeting kids in general as potential “learners” I think that they can improve in that area. They could probably expand their scope aside from children such as introducing experiments for adults too. Their vision in enflaming the curiosity of children made me smile. I completely agree that this country needs more minds that would excel in the scientific and mathematical field of knowledge and I believe this is the reason why they focused on entertaining and amusing children so that they will form their interest in science.

My interest in science has always been innate, sometimes I think it is really up to the person whether he or she will be a science man. But sparking the interest of youth to science will be an effective move to shift their interests to the science field.