December 13, 2004

メニューファイルで、新規作成を選択してください。
メニューファイルで、しんきさくせいをせんたくしてください。

選択してください。| Please choose.
新規作成を選択してください。| Please choose “New…”.
メニューファイルで、新規作成を選択してください。| Please choose “New…” from the File menu.

IBMの代表者によると、９日、IBMのコンユーターの事業は中国最大手のコンピューターメーカーに買収されました。
IBMのだいひょうしゃによると、ここのか、IBMのコンピューターのじぎょうはちゅうごくおおてのコンピューターメーカーにばいしゅうされました。

ばいしゅうされました。| [It] was bought.

中国最大手のコンピューターメーカーに買収されました。| [It] was bought by China’s (big hand?) computer maker.
事業は中国最大手のコンピューターメーカーに買収されました。| The business was bought by China’s (big hand?) computer maker.
コンユーターの事業は中国最大手のコンピューターメーカーに買収されました。| The computer business was bought by China’s (big hand?) computer maker.
IBMのコンユーターの事業は中国最大手のコンピューターメーカーに買収されました。| IBM’s computer business was bought by China’s (big hand?) computer maker.
９日、IBMのコンユーターの事業は中国最大手のコンピューターメーカーに買収されました。| IBM’s computer business was bought by China’s (big hand?) computer maker on the 9th.

From Levi Guerrero:

While I must say that ePerformax’s contract does indeed reek of bull crap, I know for a fact that not all call centers in the Philippines operate that way. I’m a senior geek in what could be called a call center (though not in the usual sense of the term, in that our sales guys don’t sell stuff for other companies, but rather sell *our* stuff on behalf of *our* company — I otoh, maintain and enhance our internal web apps), my problems so far have been of the software-entropy-kind (and the occassional noisy-environment-kind), rather than the stupid-binding-contract-kind. Neither do the few friends I have in sales have any such problems — all they have to worry about is just doing what they were hired to do, and that’s selling. Their jobs don’t require them to be rocket scientists, but they most certainly don’t work under oppressive contracts such as that described by your friend Nix. What the “Philippines is getting into” is showing them Indians and Chinese that we Pinoys can be just as good or even better at what we do, whether it be selling or programming. Well, at least in my neck of the woods it is. Of course, as always, when wandering the various call centers in Ortigas and Makati, you’ll find that YMMV. :)

E-Mail from Richi’s server

From Sean Uy:

I’m thinking that maybe the graduates should be warned
about going to work in the local call centers. It’s
good money, I suppose, but unless one’s a very
studious person, one’s technical skills are very
likely to stagnate.

That said, though, one of my blockmates ended up
sticking with his call center, and now he’s a
high-ranked manager with money to burn…

E-Mail from Sean Uy

http://www.apple.com/trailers/dreamworks/madagascar/md_qt_lrg.html

Penguins rock.

“…it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets
tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness,
but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance,
in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially
enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not
absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality,
because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want
things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and
the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead.”