I found this interesting interview with Katherine Ellison, the author of a new book titled “The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter.” I’ve yet to read the book (oh right, I’ve to buy it first! :)), but it surely got me intrigued. Me, smarter? Now that’s something you don’t hear everyday.

When I became a mom, I wasn’t so much concerned about being smarter than I was about being less productive at work. I knew that I had to make sacrifices as I try to juggle career and parenting. Before I had Aya, I used to stay as long as my colleagues at work. When Aya was born, I had to rush home earlier than everyone else. But since I know that I had to go home earlier, I found myself carefully planning in advance how exactly I will spend the day so that I will be able to maximize my time at work. The result is that my efficiency at work has also drastically improved. Gone are the idle moments spent at the PC surfing the web, taking 15-30 minutes of coffee breaks, or friendly chitchats with friends. I got smarter in the sense that I learned how to manage my time more efficiently. I may not be 100% objective here, but the way I look at it, in terms of productivity, I certainly wasn’t performing any worse than when I didn’t have a baby to look after!

When Aya was born, I felt as helpless and inexperienced as any first-time mother – but I learned fast. There is a little life depending on me and if I didn’t smart up, she will suffer the consequences. So yes, I agree, motherhood does make you smarter. Surprisingly, we find ways to cope with the challenges and how we can best care for our children. We learn and grow.

There is another important thing that I learned from motherhood: setting your priorities straight. I can always be replaced by someone else at work, but I will always be Mom to my daughter.

To the mothers out there – how did having a baby change your lives? Do you think you’ve become smarter because of it?

Here’s the link to the article

This is a popular trick to lure users to a malicious site. Personally, I seldom make typos when entering words into my favorite search engines; but as they say, there’s always a first time for everything! Better check your inputs before hitting that search button!

More details can be found in this article from Websense:

“This lure relies upon the eventuality that a user will make a typo while entering a term into a search engine. There are an endless number of possible typographical errors for any given term, but with a few algorithms and statistics you can significantly narrow down the number of possibilities. Attackers have been doing this for years and have become very good at predicting the most common typos for each keyword.

(snip)

Someone out there is always trying to get you to visit their website and sometimes the simplest tricks work wonders. The next time you are making a search on the Internet, take an extra second to make sure you got the results you expected before you start following links. One letter can mean the difference between arriving at your online banking site or ending up with a desktop of Spyware. ”

Detail and screenshots can be found here.

By now, every Pinoy has probably heard of Manny Pacquaio’s latest victory. I browsed through several Pinoy blogs online and found different versions of how they were awed by this humble man, who has been reaping victories left and right and making our countrymen proud. And I do share their sentiments.

I don’t have to look very far when it comes to boxing. I have an uncle who used to be trained by Flash Elorde himself. He even went to Japan several times on various matches. Once I saw his photo in the newspaper when I was a child, and that made me very proud of him. I heard that he is now a boxing trainer himself.

My dad was an avid boxing fan; because he couldn’t fight himself, he trained many aspiring young men (mostly hailing from Antique, his hometown) in our own backyard. Those young men were out-of-school youths who came from very poor families. Indeed, boxing is the poor man’s sport, and for many of those young men, it was a way to lift themselves out of poverty. I think Manny Pacquiao has become immensely popular not only because he is a great boxer; the more important reason is that he is now filthy rich. He is getting richer not just from his boxing bouts, but from the numerous commercial endorsements as well. And Pinoys simply have a soft spot for rags-to-riches success stories.

It is no wonder, then, that boxing is a popular sport in the country. I have no qualms about it. The only problem I see with boxing is that it is, like billiards and bowling, an individual sport. Now why don’t we see the same brilliance when it comes to team sports? I pondered about this for a long time, until I realized that one probable reason is because Pinoys have no concept of “teamwork.” We don’t have a grasp of the concept of self-sacrifice for the common good. We would rather step on other people’s toes in order to get ahead. We emphasize individual successes instead of team victories; we are so in love with the concept of “bida” (hero). And it doesn’t even have to be confined within the field of sports. Put a group of a Filipinos together to work for any kind of project, and guess what they will end up doing. Fighting, of course. Mostly about who’s on top and who’s not on top, who’s working and who’s not working, who’s making sipsip and who’s not. In the end the project remains unfinished because of all the squabbling. We excel as individuals but we suck as a team. Need proof? Just look at how our government system works. From my point of view, it’s every man for himself; they are not working effectively as a team to solve the problems besetting the country. We want to be a rich country, but we are endlessly waiting for heroes to lift us out of our quagmire instead of us working together as a team. And thus we remain poor.

And as long as Filipinos remain poor, boxing will be the most popular sport. Pacquiao and the others who will come after him will continue to make us proud, take us on thrill rides, and make us dream of neverending wealth and fame, if only for a few euphoric moments.

After that, it’s back to gritting our teeth through our own miseries.

While I was bathing Aya one day, out of the blue she asked me, “Nanay, totoo ba yung obake (Are monsters real)?” Obake is pronounced as o-ba-ke, which means “monster” in Japanese. “Syempre naman, hindi totoo yung obake. Panakot lang yun sa mga bata. Nakakita ka na ba ng obake? (Of course, monsters are not real. They’re used only to scare kids. Have you ever seen one?),” was my reply. Aya shook her head.

What does it mean when we say something is real or not? I asked her this time. We have to see something for ourselves to know whether they are real or not, I further explained. For example, am I real? To which Aya replied, “Yes!” Are you real? I asked. Again she said, “Yes!” Eh yung obake? She then answered, “No!”

I pressed further, “Eh si Santa Claus?” Without missing a beat, she gleefully answered, “Totoo!” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I let her go at that; the reality of Santa Claus will have to wait until the next bathtime, or next Christmas perhaps. Aya has already told me what she wants Santa Claus to give her this Christmas. She didn’t ask for a new DVD, new clothes, or toys. No. All she wants is a “rake.” Not the toy rake, but a real rake, which she will use in a “hatake” (hatake means field in Japanese). Oh boy. The crazy things they put into your child’s mind at the daycare. Every year the class goes to a kamote (sweet potato) field trip, where they dig up kamoteand each child gets to take home a ration. I’ve never dug any kamote in my life; at four years of age, Aya has experienced doing that at least twice already. No wonder she wants to do farming…hehehe. 🙂

Back to Santa. Well, when I was a kid, I too believed that Santa Claus was for real. I hung up socks at our door every Christmas eve, and my parents dutifully placed goodies in them before I woke up the following morning. And I really thought that those goodies came from him!

When I grew up I eventually learned about the truth, and I really wondered why parents have to make their children believe in the fat, old man delivering presents to good kids every Christmas. And I wondered whether in my time, I would also get into the same adult conspiracy against my kid.

I find myself now in that situation. As much as I would like to tell her that there is no Santa Claus, I found her belief to be so empowering that I feel helpless. I couldn’t find the heart to break it to her – in a way, I wanted her to keep believing simply for the heck of it. Why? Because to believe is to be naive. Because she has a right to believe in something delightful as getting a free present as long as she remained good. Because one day she will grow up and find herself disbelieving and cynical of the good things in life. And most of all, because she’s a kid. She reminded me of those Christmases of long ago when I believed anything and everything.

So for now, for her sake Santa Claus will remain real. But I better find a way to make her change her Christmas wish!

The first time I encountered this problem was two weeks ago. I was using my PC when an instant message from my niece suddenly popped up. To my surprise, the message with some clickable link in it was written in Thai! Right there, I knew it didn’t come from my niece. Ignoring the message, I closed the YM window. After a few minutes, another message popped up. Then followed by another, and another, and another… Annoyed, I removed my niece from my YM’s contact list.

After a week, I received a similar instant message from my sister-in-law. This time, the message was an invitation to view some photos in some website by clicking the provided link. Since there was no other note included, I suspected that the message was not from her. My suspicion was confirmed when after a few seconds, another message was sent. Hmm, another compromised messenger account, I thought. I sent a message back and advised her to change her messenger password ASAP.

I initially thought that this was some kind of an instant messaging spam. After running a search in google, I realized that it is even worse. There seems to be two forms of attack, one is an actual virus/worm that spreads via instant messaging and the other is a phishing attack launched against YM users. For the latter, the attack usually starts with an instant message from the user’s contact list. The message usually includes a link to a Yahoo-looking site requiring visitors to login and thus revealing their yahoo id and password. The phisher then uses this information to trick other YM users in the contact list of the compromised account. Worse, the phisher also gains access to all personal information in the user’s other Yahoo accounts such as emails, photos, groups, etc.

The virus/worm version is reported to take control of your messenger, and send messages with website links to your contact list without your knowledge. When the link is clicked, the virus downloads a copy of itself to the user’s PC, disables the registry editor and task manager, hijacks Internet Explorer homepage, and leads users to sites that automatically install malicious softwares on their PCs. Moreover, there seems to be several variants of this virus/worm out there: Yh032.explr, w32.KMeth, Worm_Sohanad.B, etc.

If you are already infected, the easiest way to remove the virus/worm is to use system restore if you are using Windows XP. See Microsoft Help for details. Be sure to choose a restore point before you got the virus/worm and then scan your system for any signs of the virus/worm after the restore.  Update your PC regularly and use an up-to-date antivirus program. If this doesn’t work, you can also check this site (http://de.trendmicro-europe.com/enterprise/…) for instructions on how to remove the Sohanad.B variant.

So, the next time a friend of yours sends you an instant message with suspicious links, beware! By clicking those links, you could be opening your PC to a lot of troubles. 🙂

While browsing through copies of old Nature volumes in the library, I happened to read an article titled, “What makes a good PhD student?” I was intrigued.

I am way past that point, having graduated about 7 years ago (my, has it been that long?). Honestly, I am not at all sure that I’ve gotten the most out of my PhD experience – for sure, half of the time I was struggling with the language barrier and trying my best to fast-track my learning of all the new tools at my disposal. The other half, well, I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do with my life (I had musings like, do I really need a PhD? Why do I punish myself like this?).

In retrospect, I think that I had closely followed most of the pointers given by Chenevix-Trench. Working hard and long is a tried-and-tested formula, and arguably an unwritten rule for most university labs in Japan. I learned by observing how the other students in my laboratory worked – I didn’t know the full meaning of the word “workaholic” until I came to Japan. I didn’t want to lag and I surely didn’t want them to get the impression that Filipinos are lazy.

So I survived and produced a number of publications (more than I was hoping for, in fact) within the ideal timeframe. I made it a point to graduate in three years’ time, because I didn’t think that I would get any extension for my scholarship. It was make-it-or-break-it deal, no other way. Working long days all week surely was part of the strategy – but it was easy to do because I was not married yet, nor did I have any children then. Otherwise, things would have been entirely different.

But admittedly, the long hours only managed to help me maintain a virtually “constant” presence at the lab. I didn’t necessarily get more creative insights because I stayed longer at the lab. Interaction was minimal, so was the supervision. Still, I was working like crazy. Everyday I hit the sack exhausted and spent. From time to time, I asked myself, is this the way it’s supposed to be? And what exactly do I get from all of these? Times like that I really had trouble finding the right motivation and inspiration.

There is another article, also posted at Nature.com, which responded to Chenevix-Trench’s article. I am posting the whole article below. I found myself agreeing with most of what the authors wrote. The anecdote about Rutherford asking the student, “But when do you think?” hits the nail on the head. It’s an appropriate question not only for PhD students, but for researchers and postdocs as well. How much time do we really spend thinking as opposed to working? Somebody should have given me this article years ago. If I realized that there is more than one route to PhD, I probably would have taken a different path. But then again, it is still very much relevant to my current post-doc experience. It is very appropriate to my current situation now, because unlike when I was still a student, I now have a family of my own. Time is not a luxury I can afford anymore. I don’t own my weekends anymore; my family does.

More than one route to PhD success

Two researchers offer their take on how to succeed as a PhD student.
Sarah Bekessy1 & Brendan Wintle2

The idea of a one-size-fits-all model for PhD study is simplistic, patronizing and bad for science. A recipe such as Georgia Chenevix-Trench’s, detailed in “What Makes a Good PhD Student?” (Nature 441, 252; 2006) is just one model for PhD success.

It is a mistake to promote a corporate culture of bulging briefcases, long hours and working weekends as signs of good research practice. PhD students should be judged on their insight and the outcome of their work, not by the number of hours they spend working.

Ernest Rutherford once asked a student who was working one evening whether he also worked in the mornings. The student proudly answered yes. “But when do you think?” Rutherford replied. He was convinced that the creative scientists spent evenings and holidays relaxing with their families, and imposed strict limits on the hours his students worked. A high proportion of them went on to win Nobel prizes.

Chenevix-Trench’s model ignores calls from employers and graduates for PhD programmes that build transferable skills. In 2000, a survey by the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students found that most graduates believe that there are few research-only academic positions. Those surveyed wanted more interdisciplinary PhD programmes that encourage teaching experience and provide a meaningful entrée into faculty life. A survey by Bettina Nyquist and Jody Woodford of 365 individuals, including PhD students and people working in education, academia and government, also found graduate education to be too narrow (Reenvisioning the PhD: what are our concerns? Centre for Instructional Development and Research, University of Washington, Seattle; 2000).

Chenevix-Trench errantly blames high PhD attrition rates on poor academic standards and lack of passion or hard work. A study by Barbara Lovitts and Cary Nelson (Academe 6, 44–50; 2001) found no meaningful difference in academic performance between completers and non-completers. Graduate students who don’t finish their degrees are typically less integrated into the department, suffer intimidating, hostile or laissez-faire departmental culture, and have poor relationships with supervisors.

Academics must heed the serious consequences of poor supervision if they are to strive for the best outcomes for students and society.

1 Sarah Bekessy is a senior lecturer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Australia2 Brendan Wintle is a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne.

I was searching for add-ons to our internet explorer 7 installation when I came across Windows Live Writer.  It is a free downloadable program provided by Windows Live. According to its description, it provides WYSIWYG editing capability allowing bloggers to know exactly how their blog items will look like before even publishing them to the web. Curious, I checked if it is compatible with Serendipity, our blogging software. Fortunately, Serendipity supports XML-RPC, a remote procedure calling protocol using HTTP (the one you use to access most websites) as the transport and XML (an extension of HTML commonly used in webpages) as the encoding. After setting up a couple of configuration, I had WLW running! And this is my first entry to check if it will work!

Windows Live Writer also allows offline editing. You can compose your blog offline using WLW and when you’re done, upload the entry to your website. No need to be online all the time. This is a very useful feature especially for those who are always on the go!

Adding a photo is also easy. Simply drag and drop your photo into the editor and WLW will automatically resize the image. Selecting the photo will give you several options as to the size, layout, and effects. You can also set the margins of the image. See our photo on the left. However, the first time I published this entry with the image gave an error. After searching the web, I discovered that I have to create a folder named WindowsLiveWriter in uploads directory (/uploads/WindowsLiveWriter) of s9y before the uploads will work.  Also, until now I still don’t know where to put the description of the image.

Ooppss, time to sign off. By the way, this is also my first blog entry.

At long last, our house is finally finished. It was turned over to us “bare,” and we waited for a year before starting on the renovations. Work on the house commenced as early as May this year; due to some unexpected delays, the completion of the house took almost half a year.

Casa mia!!!

Tunay na katas ng Japan yan (hehe). Talagang pinagplanuhan, pinaghirapan, pinag-ipunan. Years ago it was almost unthinkable that we would have a house like this. But we challenged ourselves; we worked hard and prayed hard. Through it all God has been faithful and blessed our plans. Poverty has also taught us very important lessons in life, and these lessons have been instrumental in helping us realize our goals. Well ladies and gentlemen, hard work, persistence, and patience finally paid off. My Dad would have been proud.

It is not the biggest house in the neighborhood, nor will it be the most beautiful one. But it is OURS. Rightfully, deservedly so.

Aya has actually performed a number of experiments this year; obviously, I haven’t had enough time to update the experiment blogs. But we have been continuously working on our experiments and having fun discovering new things together. It is such a joy to teach science to a kid – the wonders in their eyes would surely be worth the effort. And besides, it doesn’t really take that long to do one experiment. To parents out there, try devoting half an hour or so a week to sit down with your children and do these stuffs together. Promise, enjoy yan!

This is an experiment to teach children about magnetism. You will need the following:

1. 2 bar magnets and/or horseshoe magnets
2. Objects to test, e.g., objects made of plastic, spoon, coins, pencil, paper clips

*Bar magnets can be purchased at 100-yen Daiso stores.

First, Aya tested how the bar magnets behaved by making the north and south poles face each other.

Uy, nagdikit!

Aya then tried picking up the objects laid before her using the bar magnet.

The spoon sticked to the magnet! Amazing!

Uhm, it doesn’t seem to work here…

Nope, not even on the pen…

Aha, it worked on the can’s lid.

Variation: I made Aya rub the bar magnet on the hair pin.

Magnetized, the hair pin now picked up the screw.

Aya rubbed the hair pin with the bar magnet again, and this time tried picking up the paper clip. It worked again!

This experiment demonstrates a simple way for kids to learn about sounds, particularly, how sound makes movements. For this experiment, you will need the following:

1. Bowl
2. Plastic wrap (e.g., Saran wrap)
3. Rice
4. Metal tray
5. Metal spoon
It may be rather difficult to do this experiment alone for little kids, so it is recommended that adults take part in the performance of this experiment. Aya has to enlist the help of her Tita Lai to do this experiment.

Stretch the plastic wrap over the bowl as tightly as possible.

Next, scatter grains of rice across the top of the plastic wrap.

Then, hold the metal tray as close as possible to the bowl. Hit the tray with the spoon to make a loud noise. And I mean really loud! Observe what happens to the rice.

Explanation: Hitting the tray with the spoon makes the air around it vibrate; when the sound waves reach the plastic wrap, they make it vibrate. This makes the rice grains move.