To know more about data centers, see Wikipedia.

“A datacenter is a facility that centralizes an organization’s IT operations and equipment, and where it stores, manages, and disseminates its data. Data centers house a network’s most critical systems and are vital to the continuity of daily operations. Consequentially, the security and reliability of data centers and their information is a top priority for organizations”

Yes, social networks are now part of our daily lives. We can connect to someone on the other side of the world, or to our loved ones who are miles away from us. But I want to inform you: even if you go incognito or erase your history, once you upload a single piece of data — text, pictures, videos, anything — once you press the upload button, there is no turning back, even if you delete it. Your file or data is now circulating around the world. You really don’t know what happens when you enter data into the World Wide Web; there is no such thing as “PRIVATE” on the WWW. Even your smartphone is collecting data for Apple and Google. Apple transmits your location data back to central servers once every 12 hours, and it also stores a copy of your locations on the iPhone. Android phones transmit your location data continuously. Apple’s files on the iPhone device can be stored for many months. Both Apple and Google say they do not share this information with third parties (at least not now), deny the information can identify individuals, and claim the information is used only to identify the location of cell phones for Wi-Fi-connected phones and to improve the customer experience of location-based services.

I believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate — but a place to connect, create, and celebrate life.

I believe

1. You have the right to privacy.

   Data about you should not be collected, bought, or sold to third parties.

2. You have the right not to be tracked.

   You should be able to turn off tracking when you use a social network.

3. You have the right to control what you see.

   You should never be forced to see ads or boosted posts from people and companies that you haven’t chosen to follow.

4. Your followers have the right to see everything you post publicly.

   What you see should not be controlled by algorithms that favor paid posts by advertisers over friends. Everyone that follows you should see everything you post for free.

5. You have the right to own what you post.

   You should not give up ownership of the things that you create when you post them on a social network.

6. You have the right to be anyone you want.

   You’re safest when you control what you disclose on a social network. You should not be required to give your real name, age, gender, race, marital status, religion, education, home address, or any other personal information which could be sold to third parties.

7. You have the right to relationships that won’t be exploited.

   When a social network uses your network of friends to sell things, they violate your trust.

8. You have the right to clear and transparent terms & conditions.

   Terms should be written in simple language that you can understand.

9. You have the right to see all the data collected about you.

   When a social network builds a secret dossier that you don’t have access to, it violates your privacy and threatens civil rights. Downloading your data should be as easy as clicking a button.

10. You have the right to permanently delete your account.

    Leaving your social network should be simple, hassle-free, and permanent.

Always remember, you are not a product!

I saw a lot of people in Marby (a famous computer shop in Bacolod City in 2004) enjoying their favorite games such as Ragnarok Online and MU Philippines. As an 8-year-old kid I was amazed and also curious about their excitement. I asked myself: why are they enjoying this? Is it more fun than playing Counter-Strike with your known friends? Also in the same year, a newly opened small computer shop appeared in front of my house (it became my second home for almost a decade, and it still exists). I was elated because I no longer needed to walk 936 steps (yes, I counted) from my house to the downtown area (sorry mama nga naga pa downtown ko nga wala ko ga lisensya) just to play PC games.

Here’s when my IGN was created. I asked our “kuya” in that shop to help me sign up for a game named Gunbound, so I filled out a registration form in Mobius. As I typed my information, such as first name and last name, there was a field labeled USERNAME. I asked my friend sitting beside me what “username” means, and he answered, “It’s USER + your name” — like USERJERWIN. But I wasn’t satisfied with that kind of answer, so I asked our “kuya” again what a username means and for some tips on how to create one. He gave an example: use the name of your idol. That year there was a famous action TV series, 24, and the name of the protagonist was JACK BAUER. Because I loved playing Counter-Strike and counter-terrorist games, JACK BAUER was to me, that year, just like ALL MIGHT is to DEKU in My Hero Academia. So the username I wanted was JACKBAUER, and I started to input it. I typed JACK — then I stopped, because I didn’t know the spelling of BAUER at the time. My friends asked why I didn’t completely enter the JACK BAUER name. I didn’t want to humiliate myself for not knowing the spelling of BAUER, so I gave them an alibi: “I should change it so that it will become unique.” At that time, the Banaue Rice Terraces was called the Eighth Wonder of the World, so I decided to put WONDER after JACK — but the result was still a misspelled word, because I typed WANDER and not WONDER. A stray, not an admiration. But I proceeded — I submitted the form and played the game. Since 2004 until now, I’ve been using JACKWANDER in every game I’ve played, and it eventually became my nickname in our computer shop and my real name to my close friends. I have no regrets about creating it, even though it always reminds me how poor I was at correctly spelling some words in the past. And now, I’m using it as my professional handle. I also created my website named jackwander.pro.

So when you’re with me and someone approaches me and calls me JACK, don’t WONDER — it’s not a hidden name on my birth certificate but my In-Game Name, JACKWANDER.

I decided to share this because I saw a post on Facebook titled “Anong kwento ng IGN mo?” (English: “What’s the story of your In-Game Name?”).

Photo grabbed from Facebook.

Having godly compassion means seeing the needs of people before seeing the differences in people.

Jesus’ compassion always leads to action.

What would it look like if we too were moved with compassion?

God, break our hearts for what breaks yours!

- (1 Corinthians 12:14-18)

In most scenarios, the larger an organization gets, the less significant you become. You sit in increasingly smaller cubicles. You receive more and more specific job descriptions. Their reliance on you shrinks and, in turn, your passion for the job decreases. It is easy to feel like another face in the crowd. Another easily replaced cog in the machine. But this isn’t so in Jesus’ kingdom.

In the kingdom of God, the sum of all the parts is what makes the whole so beautiful. The one who designed you and built you puts you in a specific place in his organization. And the mystery is this: no matter how large and complicated his movement gets, your significance never shrinks.

God never does anything without purpose. Without a destiny in mind. He hasn’t placed you haphazardly into the church you serve. He has carefully and deliberately placed you where He wants you. He has carefully and purposefully filled your church with the people He intended to.

And beyond this, each church carries great significance. The church of fifty-five people meeting in a small, steepled building carries the same significance as the megachurch in a major city. In the body of Christ, each community of believers is unique and built for a specific purpose in the greater movement of Jesus. And in God’s economy, the hierarchy of significance is leveled. Not every church makes the same impact when it comes to numbers, but every church carries the same significance when dealing with individual lives.

Counting the cost with Jesus is not just about following him, but about joining his body. Committing to work with the imperfect carriers of a perfect grace. The commitment must be counted before you can build. But you have to know at the start that it is worth it. The heart and maturity forged in a person who commits to a community, through the good and the bad, is something that is unsurpassed.

Those who stick it out find a treasure on the other side they didn’t expect. God created an imperfect church for a reason. The trials of commitment refine you and create strength and wisdom.

Unrealistic expectations lead to churches where people aren’t committed and leaders are constantly worn out and insecure.

I prefer writing most of my code in a terminal for a few reasons:

1. GUI tools cause me to forget things I want to remember.
2. I prefer a functional programming style that keeps code chunks small, and a GUI doesn’t add that much value.
3. I prefer to have a lot of terminal windows open — not just tabs in one window. Multiple windows of an IDE are resource expensive. A terminal multiplexer like tmux is free.
4. Using a terminal forces me to keep code relationships and abstractions in my head, which I like. GUIs do that for you and weaken that muscle.
5. I like my hands on a keyboard more than a mouse.

I still occasionally use an IDE, and I currently have Sublime Text 3 installed. I used Sublime Text 3 again today. And I think it’s okay.

A study in the Journal of Human Stress indicates that blood pressure and heart rate shoot up drastically during video games, which can more likely cause minor illnesses.

Headache is another malady brought about by playing video games. More seriously, the stress of playing video games can raise blood pressure and heart rate to the point of blowout that leads to heart attack or stroke.

Video games can be an exciting, exhilarating, joy-filled experience that can develop eye-hand coordination skills to an awesome degree, but the radiation emanating from the screen during these games can make us ill.

Physical exercise is much better, healthier, and rehabilitative.