You Tube in Trouble: Hulu had just Arrived

YouTube is perhaps the most popular site when it comes to free videos. There are millions of clips/videos that YouTube can offer. It gives amateurs and professionals alike an equal opportunity to show off their creativity and share to everyone their creations. The downside of which is it makes it easier for users to upload videos that are copyrighted. This is the reason YouTube had been under fire for copyright issues for showing clips from MTV and other major channels.

This is where Hulu (http://www.hulu.com/) comes in. Hulu had just recently been open to the public but months before the website had been tested by select people. Looks like everything went well because the site is really good.

There are a wide variety of TV series and Movies available. The video quality is exceptional (you can put the video to full screen and the video would still look good) and the buffering is fast so no need to wait long to load the movie.

There are also options to embed the videos to your site or blog, email the video to someone or share the videos through MySpace, Digg, Facebook, etc.

The limitations for these?

1. You can not upload your own videos for this site. So the choices are a bit limited. But give it time since its just starting. More videos will be available in the future for sure.

2. Most TV shows have excerpts only except for full episodes. And some series contains 1 or 2 episodes only. But I like I said in item 1 hopefully more videos will be available in the future

2. Very dissapointing: Its only available in the US :(

Hulu is very good delivering their goal which is "...help you find and enjoy the world's premium content when, where and how you want it. " but I think more people would still turn into youtube if they want to search for videos.

Pacquio - Marquez II: And the winner is...

MANNY PACQUIAO -- Winner by Split Decision

The official scores were:
Jerry Roth: 115-112 (Marquez)
Duane Ford: 115-112 (Pacquiao)
Tom Miller: 114-113 (Pacquiao)

Pacquiao - Marquez II

Could not watch it in TV. So I looked for the next best thing: Internet. No free live streaming videos though but found a round by round analysis. Check it at: http://www.fighthype.com/pages/roundbyround2211.html

Found a video in youtube. But this is only for round 1.

Atlanta Storm Video

This is the best video I could find showing the damage in downtown Atlanta.

I would probably take pictures when I get back to office on Tuesday but I think everything would be cleaned up by that time.

And another news I got, there was a hailstorm somewhere in Atlanta just this midafternoon. Pretty scary.

Update: Atlanta Storm

So they stopped calling it a tornado and the cause is now determined as a storm.

The Equitable Building (our office) will be closed on Monday, so everyone (including me :) ) will be working remotely at home on Monday.

Looks like there were a lot of damage on the building with windows being shattered in the upper floors. The telephone and internet connections were undamaged however so it wouldn't be long before we can start working on the office again.

The good news here is that no one was hurt, even the people who were inside the building during the storm were unharmed so thanks God for that.

Tornado hits Atlanta!

A strong tornado hit Atlanta last night. And where was I when all of these were happening? -- In my bed sleeping soundly.

In the morning my manager called and woke me up. He wanted to make sure I was ok. And I said, "I didnt even know there was a tornado."

All I remembered last night was before I slept, there were loud crashes of thunder that at first I mistakenly thought to be the train that always passes by near my apartment. But I made no big deal out of it.

I opened my laptop and googled the atlanta tornado. And there it was. The latest news I have is from CNN. Seems that no one had been reported dead but lots of injuries. Our office building though received a lot of damage; the office windows were shattered as reported by my manager. I would still have check my email to see the extent of the damage and see if we can go to office on Monday (...hehehe)

Other news items on this:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jJef9x8MoNwhcKq4psD-GUJZwkQAD8VDQEUG0
http://www.sunherald.com/414/gallery/432973.html
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/weather/orl-tornado1508mar15,0,1145262.story
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ivvSd1KGPyOup5KyMhNQASC1xCIQ

Reading along, they said it was "possibly" a tornado. So they are not sure yet if it was indeed a tornado that hit downtown Atlanta, but whatever it was it sure did a lot of damage.

Race Car? Look again...

Awesome Police Cars - The funniest home videos are here

These are really awesome police cars!

If your police in your area have that kind of car wouldn't you feel safer? Criminals would certainly think twice before doing anything, especially if they're planning to steal a car. In a matter of seconds police would have already caught up with them. The hummer certainly looks powerful enough to ram into troublesome getaway vehicles...but I wonder though where did they get that much money to buy that very expensive cars. Their government must be really rich...

Online Game: Miniclip

I found this site about 3 years ago. At that time work was slow and there is nothing else better to do than surf the internet.

Miniclip contains a wide variety of games with game titles literally starting from A-Z (well except Q :D ) and they are constantly adding new ones into their list.

The games are generally classified into: Action, Sports, Shoot-em Up, Puzzle, Motorsports and Multiplayer games, so it caters to different type of gamers. The games are mostly created with Flash but there are also 3-D games (but just be sure to have a good connection because it lags in dial-ups and other slow internet connections).

I like the multiplayer games in particular because most maintains player ratings which are based on your game performance against other players. It pushes you to play longer, play better (meaning you get addicted :D ) to have the highest rating.

This is a good site if you like playing mini games. They are all fun to play and will keep you glued to your seat for hours.

*Not recommended if in the office with a lot of work to do, especially if your boss is walking around

Online Game: Ikariam -- Live the Ancient World

Ancient World being played in a Modern Invention -- internet. Very nice isn't it?

I found this game in the internet just recently and I decided to have a go at it. Firstly because its a RPG (Role Playing Game) and secondly because it is free to register.At first I thought the graphics would be of poor quality and the gameplay dull (since it is free), but the first thing I noticed was that the graphics is not really bad. In fact I find it very appealing to my taste. And the gameplay is something I prefer.

The concept is the same as any RPG, it has all the basics:building structures, creating army, gathering resources, upgrading structures, etc. The different thing with this particular game is that the pace is slow, really slow, but that is not a bad thing,for this game at least.

In usual RPG you can build your structure in minutes or so, create armies just as fast, but here building one structure takes hours, researching for new technology even longer but this actually works for this game.

The setting is you are in one world composed of a group of islands. In each island there will be at least 10 cities/towns (corresponding to one online player). The thing is each player might be playing in a different timezone (i.e.one in America, another is Asia etc.). And being a slow paced game, it gives everyone an equal opportunity to build up on their cities and their armies. If for example this was a fast paced game, while one player is sleeping (in the real world that is), another player who is awake can build up his city,create strong armies and march to an unattended, ill-guarded city to conquer, and that would be the end of that sleeping player. Another good thing is before sleeping you can start building or upgrading one structure and the time you wake up, it will be finished. So this game was built to last long, unlike usual RPG that can finish in hours or so.

If you are used to playing fast paced game like Warcraft, Starcraft and the like, this game might bore you but if you can take the long wait then this game is alright!

*If you did decide to play tell me which island you are on and the name of your city so that we can all form a single alliance and conquer the rest of the world. BWAHAHAHA! >:) Choose the Beta World and not Alpha by the way :)

The Most Expensive Book

Since I had written about rich people, let me follow it up with something a rich person might buy.

Codex Leicester is a collection of scientific writings of the famous Leonardo da Vinci. It became the most expensive book in the world when Bill Gates bought it in an auction for $30.8 Million.
Then came Tomas Alexander Hartmann, a German philosopher. The author of a 13-page book called 'The Task' (aka Die Aufgabe). It took him 30 years to finish the book and is only making a single copy. He priced his book at 153 million Euros (approx $235.16) making it the most expensive book to date.

The difference between Codex Leicester and 'The Task'? The Codex got to its current price by bidding in an auction, meaning (rich) people are willing to pay that much money to own the book. While The Task's price was set by the author itself. The reason for the high price being, according to the author, is that it took him 30 years to create the 13 page book plus there will only be one copy.

World's Richest (Forbes List)

Forbes.com recently released their list of World's Billionaires. Guess who's no.1 ?

Although Bill Gates had claimed that honor for the past 13 years, he was not able to hold on to it for this list. He did not even make it to no. 2.

No. 1 is Warren Buffet with a net worth of $62 Billion, mostly from shares of Berkshire Hathaway.
No. 2 is Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico who owns a wireless telephone company America Movil, net worth is $60 Billion.
No. 3 is Bill Gates III who owns Microsoft, net worth $58 Billion

2 Filipinos made it to this list namely:Lucio Tan rank 785 with a net worth of $1.5 Billion and Henry Sy rank 843 with net worth of $1.4 Billion. Sadly though they are not even pure blooded Filipinos.

Other Interesting Facts:
1. Youngest billionaire is Mark Zuckerberg worth $1.5 at no.785 (as rich as Lucio Tan).He is the founder of a very popular social networking site Facebook. His similarity with Bill Gates? Both are Harvard drop outs. He is only 23!!!
2. Oldest billionaire is John Simplot worth $3.8 and ranked at no.284. Business is Food (particulary potatoes -- chips, fries, etc.). He is another dropout (from high school) and is 99 yrs.old.
3. Richest women are Alice Walton and Helen Walton. Both related to Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, both has a net worth of $18 billion

Finally...

...I finished creating my new blog. It took a lot of time and a lot of enhancements still needs to be done. But this will do for now.
Hope everyone likes the new design and I hope this was better than my old blog (www.lifeofadreamer.wordpress.com)
Please do leave your comments or suggestions with the design...

Thanks all