Thursday, January 20, 2011

PBA Late Trade: Mercado to Bolts, Reyes to Express, Buenafe to ElastoPainters

Image Link: http//:www.pba.com.ph
While San Miguel Beermen and Talk N Text Tropang Texters preparing for their awaited battle in the best of 7 finals of the PBA Philippine Cup, the other 8 teams who vowed out of contention has been very busy preparing for the import laden 2nd conference next month. Three teams made their move early as they are involved in what could be the biggest, blockbuster multi-player trade happened thursday night.

Rain or Shine, Meralco and Air21 participated in a three team multi-player trade which was finalized thursday night GMANews.TV confirmed. As agreed on the trade, ROS  sent Sol "Sol Train" Mercado to Meralco Bolts and Jay-R Reyes to Air21 Express, while acquiring hotshot Ronjay Buenafe and Ronnie Matias from Air21, and Beau Belga from the Bolts. Also included in the trade are the two future first-round draft picks of the Express for the 2011 and 2013 rookie draft. Other players involved in probably the biggest trade of the season are Paolo Bugia of Rain or Shine, Reed Juntilla of Meralco and Eric Rodriguez of Air21.

Rumors about Sol Mercado trade which the ROS fans feared came true, but not on the way everyone expected it to be. Rumors said that Sol will be traded to the Gin Kings in exchange to Willie Miller - the only part of the rumor that never came true. This move of Rain or Shine is also part of the major changes of the team that includes the hiring of the 5-time champion coach Yeng Guiao. Both Mercado and Guiao were not on good terms back when Guiao was still coaching for the Express.

The inclusion of Mercado to the Bolts, teaming up with Mac Cardona will surely help the campaign of the Bolts in the conferences to come. The trade could also help Air21 and ROS for their continuous seeking of their first ever PBA title.

Follow Sol Mercado on twitter @SM3rc3.

Latest: Draft Results Trade Updates and other news for 37th PBA Season. Click Here

Disclaimer: The author does not hold copyrights for the images used in this blogpost. Credits of the image goes to the website link appearing below the image.


Tuesday, January 18, 2011

14 Year Old "Tech Prodigy" Developed IPhone's Number 1 Free Apps

Image Source: http://www.deseretnews.com
Most 14 year old kids spend most of their free time hanging out with friends playing basketball or video games, or simply going to the mall window shopping or just walking around. In simple words, they spend their free time doing "nothing". But this is not the case for a 14 year-old 8th grader from Spanish Folk, Utah named Robert Nay. Being addressed now as a "tech prodigy", Robert Nay has a bit different hobby from other teenagers of his age. His hobby - writing source codes for IPhone applications. Believe it or not, this hobby turned out to be a global success as far as IPhone apps is concerned.

Spending most of his free time at the Spanish Folk Public Library reading programming books and source coding, Robert Nay developed the most downloaded free application for IPhone called "Bubble Ball". Bubble Ball is a very simple and straightforward game: all you have to do is to guide the small ball from one side of the screen to the other by following an obstacle. Nay wrote the application using Corona Tools, a software development kit by Ansca Mobile. Nay first used Objective C and GameSalad in developing the application, but he later shifted to Corona as it provided him the ease of creating, porting and publishing the game both IPhone iOS and Andriod.




Bubble Ball was released last December 29, 2010, and in just a span of three weeks, this free application reached an eye-popping 2 million downloads, thus dethroning former #1 apps Angry Birds by Chillingo. Well just in case you don't have any idea on what this kid has accomplished, Angry Birds was designed and developed by 17 professionals - just to be dethroned by a mere 14 year-old 8th grader. According to reports from Mobilized reports, Bubble Ball even reached over 400,000 downloads on a single day.

If Robert Nay charged $1 per download of Bubble Ball, he would have been a kid millionaire, earning $2 million dollars in just 3 weeks (that's too much for a 14 year old teen). Interviews from ABC news reveled that Robert Nay is currently developing another application after Bubble Ball.


Wished all teens in this world are determined as this "tech prodigy" teen. Click here to watch ABC New's interview with Robert Nay.

Disclaimer: Images used in this blog post are not owned by the author. Credits to the images go to the link in which the images were linked. 


Friday, January 14, 2011

Ophiuchus - The 13th Zodiac Sign

Image Link: http://shraddha-mylife.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html
Recent press release from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) dominated the Internet and new programs all around the world over the past 48 hours: and the news is all about the changes in astrology and the 12 zodiac signs. If you haven't read the news yesterday and you read your horoscope for today, I guess you are reading the wrong zodiac sign.

Astronomers from NASA claimed that changes in the earth's movement in the last 3,000 years results into major changes on the astrological symbols. There are two major changes on the astrological symbols we've known since the day you were born: a new astrological symbol Ophiucus - the 13th zodiac was added to the 12 known zodiac signs and second, the addition of the 13th zodiac sign Ophiuchus changed the corresponding dates in which the previous 12 zodiac signs falls. The second change is the main reason people opposed this proposed changes by NASA astronomers. Astrologers from different parts of the world also opposes this move claiming that the changes on the movement of the earth because of the moon's gravitational pull does not affect the constellations.

Ophiuchus is a large constellation found around the celestial equator and is one of the 48 constellations enumerated by Ptolemy  . The word Ophiuchus is a Greek word meaning "serpent-bearer".

Image: http://www.love-astrology.com/13th-sign-of-the-zodiac/13th-sign-of-the-zodiac/

Here are the corresponding changes to the zodiac signs:

Capricorn: Jan. 20 - Feb. 16
Aquarius: Feb. 16 - March 11
Pisces: March 11 - April 18
Aries: April 18 - May 13
Taurus: May 13 - June 21
Gemini: June 21 - July 20
Cancer: July 20 - Aug. 10
Leo: Aug 10 - Sept. 16
Virgo: Sept.16 - Oct. 30
Libra: Oct. 30 - Nov. 23
Scorpio: Nov. 23 - Nov. 29
Ophiuchus: Nov.29 - Dec. 17
Sagittarius: Dec.17 - Jan. 20

There are those who do not accept the changes saying that they will still follow their old zodiac signs as they perfectly fit their personality. In the end, the choice is yours: Will you accept your new zodiac? or stick with your old zodiac sign.

Disclaimer: The author does not own the images used in this blog post. Credit goes to the link in which link appears below the image.

Crossing the River Game Solution

One of the most popular IQ games played is the crossing the river game. The game objective is very simple: the player must transfer all the characters or humans from one side of the river to the other side using a raft. However, this game is subject to many rules making the game more interesting and mind bugging. The characters in the game are a police, a criminal, a mother, a father, 2 daughters and 2 sons. The restrictions of the game are as follows:

  1. The raft can only carry at most 2 passengers at a time.
  2. Only the police, the mother and the father can operate the raft.
  3. The father cannot be on the presence of the daughters without the mother
  4. The mother cannot be on the presence of the sons without the father.
  5. The criminal cannot be left alone with the family without the policeman
Click here to play the game: http://freeweb.siol.net/danej/riverIQGame.swf

Solution to the Crossing the River Game:

Again, this game is one of the most popular IQ games played both online and offline. In fact only about 10% solved this problem. So it'll be great if you solve this IQ problem by your own analysis and logic and not relying on this solution. But if you aren't tough enough to face the challenge, here is the solution to the problem.

  1. Move the Policeman and Criminal to the other side of the river.
  2. Move the Policeman back to the other side.
  3. Move the Policeman and a child (boy/girl) to the other side of the river.
  4. Move the Policeman and criminal back to the other side.
  5. If the child you transferred on step 3 is a boy, move the father and the boy child to the other side, otherwise move the mother and the girl to the other side.
  6. Move the father/mother (based on step 5) to the other side of the river.
  7. Move father and mother to the other side of the river.
  8. If the children on you transferred on step 3 are boys, then transfer the mother back to the other side, otherwise transfer the father.
  9. Move the police and the criminal to the other side.
  10. Move the father/mother to the other side.
  11. Move the father and mother to the other side.
  12. If the children left on the other side are girls, transfer the mother to the other side, otherwise transfer the father.
  13. Move the father/mother and a child to the other side.
  14. Move the policeman and the criminal to the other side.
  15. Move the policeman and the child to the other side. This step must left the criminal alone on the other side of the river.
  16. Move the policeman to the other side.
  17. Move the policeman and the criminal to the other side.
  18. GAME END
That is the algorithm or the steps I made to solve the game. As what I have mentioned earlier, it'll be great if you solve this game on your own without cheating. Happy Playing!