|
Post by Registrar on Jun 16, 2021 18:46:17 GMT 8
I've been reluctant to include some of the big files in the Reference Reading feature, because of the sheer size of some of them. The original size of this file, for example, was 151 MB until I located the concept of "compression." I haven't the foggiest how compression and optimization works, but in this instance, it worked a treat and reduced the 151 MB pdf file size to 11 MB. Running it through FlippingPage then increases the size, as it creates additional thumbnail and medium size files, as well as the original (ie reduced size) pdf file. But overall, it's tolerable. What of this document? It is a collection of the daily bulletins from the headquarters of the Harbor Defenses between Jan and May 1942. A cursory read paints a picture that the main efforts of the Army appear to be the generation of paperwork about minutiae. It's a bit like an impressionist painting, where a picture is painted with hundreds and hundreds of relatively small, thin yet visible brush strokes describing ordinary subject matter. What else comes from paperwork about missing laundry and lost highschool class rings? Bigger things, such as a missing Ford Jeep (W-2018096)?No, even bigger things - the recording of life on the Rock and an oncoming death of a society. Along the way, though, a masterpiece of Historic Pointillism has been created. A close reading of this document will reveal a great many treasures.
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Mar 11, 2021 10:32:11 GMT 8
Some time ago, in 2008 I recall, some friends of mine, seeing what I had done with Corregidor Proboards, asked me to create a board for their motorcycle club. They asked me to make a few design suggestions and a few posts, as well. I did. Hidden in a bunch of images of early Honda 750's (still my favorite bike) are other great designs ( Honda Motosport 250), and even a page of fake Harley Davidson patriotic pin-ups I tried to get the site "on the road". But by 2011, the board had run its course. It never got to that "critical mass" - the point at which a sufficient number of members exists so that the rate of use becomes self-sustaining and creates further growth. So, I ceased operating it for them. Dead end. I didn't discontinue it, as I felt that would have been churlish. Besides, I felt that it was a social curiosity, and I could look at a collection of my favorite motorcycle photos. I haven't visited it a for a while, but the other night I was on Netflix and got caught in a series called "Abandoned". That reminded me of the other 'abandonments' I have left behind as the years passed. What's the relevance to Corregidor Proboards? Well, we haven't reached the point in time that we drop below the critical mass threshold, though I feel it is coming. I wonder whether we are achieving the purpose for which it was started? Who are the active new members? Where, or rather, who is the new "spark plug" to re-enliven our Forum?
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Jan 7, 2021 17:55:06 GMT 8
Copied from Facebook: Known as the “Last Bastion of the Philippines during World War 2,” Corregidor Island is one of our nation’s well-known historical shrines. To preserve and support the immense historical value, cultural importance, and viability for further development of the former battlefield, the “Corregidor Comprehensive Tourism Master Plan Containing a Conceptual Development Plan of Corregidor Island including the Surrounding Islands” was developed in collaboration with the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority and other stakeholders like the Department of National Defense-Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, Corregidor Foundation Inc.; Department of Tourism, Department of Tourism Calabarzon, and the city of Cavite. The tourism master plan highlights a balance between historical preservation and commercial expansion to maintain Corregidor Island’s and its surrounding islands’ unique identity and to promote their sustainability. It also aims to establish Corregidor Island as a tourism enterprise zone (TEZ) to spur development within the area, its adjacent islands, and eventually, within the city of Cavite and nearby tourist spots. For environmental protection, the master plan preserves a large area of the island’s forest reserve and proposes the following infrastructure projects to sustain existing and future development in Corregidor: 1) providing alternative renewable sources of energy, 2) establishing water and wastewater facilities, and 3) developing a solid waste management system. The master plan includes three focal areas — the Military Park, the Island Center, and the Leisure and Recreation Area — to highlight each area’s existing and proposed development features. Taking into account the aspirations and visions of different stakeholders, the master plan envisions Corregidor Island to be the “primary sustainable national military shrine and sociocultural heritage tourism destination in the Philippines” by 2030. Restoration of the Mile Long Barracks Architectural design for the passengers' welcome pavilion and intermodal transport terminal Revival of Bario San Jose featuring pre-war architecture Elevated walkway in Treetop Adventure in the Topside area Rock Point camp site Corregidor Beach Complex Architectural design for the Cliffside Hotel Architectural design for a boutique hotel
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Oct 4, 2020 9:16:35 GMT 8
Recently, the entirety of our websites disappeared, and instead of the landing pages, there was a message from an unidentified party to ring a telephone number. I rang the number and found it was GoDaddy. Rather than be on the hold on an international line, I rang their Australian help line. The websites had all been working without problems for a matter of months, I explained. So what could it be? My immediate thought was whether I had paid their account. "No, all your accounts are in credit and your credit card is good." So therefore there was a technical issue which had occurred to dislocate every domain, preventing them from pointing to the place where corregidor.org (and its children) are hosted. "So I will put you through to Tech Support." After some hours of technical support across two days, GoDaddy finally got things partially working again. I had to enlist the assistance of my son, an IT professional. He determined, after some investigation, that GoDaddy had moved the server on which the site was hosted, and had not correctly updated the links broken by the change of servers. In the course of our discussions, he told me that there was a very thin line of competence/incompetence within technical support circles. One one side, there is honest incompetence (tech people can't know everything) and on the other side of the line, well, we have bullshit artists and liars. He had concluded that GoDaddy knew that they had stuffed up my sites, and had concealed it. (If you don't admit there is a problem, then the blame isn't yours, is it?) Moving House (again) So he decided that, in all the circumstances, we should move house to AWS (Amazon Web Service). One third of the internetis on AWS and it is very standardised. The peculiarities of AWS are well known and documented: this is different to webhosts like GoDaddy where problems are difficult to troubleshoot and require support assistance. We would place our six domains with AWS CloudFront. We would do a bulk data transfer from GoDaddy to the AWS S3 (Simple Storage Service) and hold the data there. He then acquainted me with the AWS utility command structure. The website was transferred overnight - all 15GB of it. It was like looking at Formula 1! Talk about fast!! We are still using CloudFlare to protect the websites. It provides encryption (HTTPS) and DDoS (distributed denial of service) protection. There is still a lot to do. I have been using Expression Web for years, and want to stay with it, but it is old technology. We are continuing to work on a solution that enables the FTP upload from Expression Web. For now, I have been told to use the AWS sync commands about which I know nothing. Can't be too hard, can it? Quick! Memorize this map, there will be a pop quiz after! So minor updates may be a bit thin on the ground for a while. And you guys think having a website is easy, heh?
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on May 17, 2020 9:02:49 GMT 8
Dateline MANILA, 16 May 2020.
Information, a mix of both news and commentary, is reaching me from a number of sources to the effect that SUN CRUISES/CORREGIDOR has ceased operations.
Sun Cruises operates the Tour Boat, the Transvia bus system and the Corregidor Inn. Locking the doors at Sun Cruises effectively closes down easy access to Corregidor. The status of general access to Corregidor is not known to me.
The "Sun Cruises" operation on Corregidor is but a small aspect of the operations of the Magsaysay Group of Companies. The Magsaysay Group is predominantly involved with shipping, logistics and the deployment of Filipino OFW's for international ship crewing purposes. The "Wuhan Effect" has resulted in an estimated 45,000 maritime OFW's becoming jobless, and being repatriated to the Philippines. Thousands of these are ship crews repatriated home by Magsaysay at its cost. Upon arrival in the Philippines, they have been placed under quarantine for 14 days in hotels and the athlete accommodation areas within Clark Economic Zone. A number of cruise liners, said to be about 25, are presently parked in Manila Bay, "under maintenance."
From Source JMR, I have as follows:
"... received a news that SCI businesses on the island shall permanently stop operations effective today May 16, 2020. Its a very challenging year for them.. First when the Taal Volcano erupted last January and the 2nd one, this pandemic that may suspend tourism for a longer period of time.."
From "C", I have this report:
"Sun Cruises, called me up this morning that the company is closing."
Doris Ho had been believed to be supporting the Corregidor aspect of the business, which has not been a profit source, for love of country and its history. Her advisers took the view that cold-blooded accountants and bean counters could be expected to take. "The pandemic was the final nail."
While there are any number of commentaries and talking heads making pronouncements and prognostications along the lines of "TOURISM DEAD IN THE PHILIPPINES", I prefer to consider that "TOURISM IS NOT DEAD IN THE PHILIPPINES, ITS JUST RESTING."
CORREGIDOR FOUNDATION INC, which as the island's administrative and governance authority is ultimately responsible for the island, is caught on the spot. CFI does not consider Corregidor Historic Society of sufficient relevance to issue any statements, keeping its approach "commercial in confidence." CFI has never been a customer-centric authority.
I have fears for the future of Corregidor due, in part, to the overwhelming presence in the Philippines of POGO's, Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators, which operate online gambling within the country for Chinese backed syndicates. Gambling in China is illegal under Chinese law and has been officially outlawed since the Communist Party took power in 1949. Any form of gambling by Chinese citizens, including online-gambling, gambling overseas, opening casinos overseas to attract citizens of China as primary customers, is considered illegal. As a consequence, humongously huge amounts of capital is being invested by Chinese-based enterprises in countries within China's sphere of economic influence, of which the Philippines is now one. These investments are not always to the economic and social benefit of the general populations of those countries, but are certainly to the benefit of those friendly to the Chinese elite. That there is a significant money laundering industry is played down officially, local authorities seeming to take their cue from the “soft stance” of President Duterte on issues involving China.
In early March 2020, the Filipino media carried reports by prominent Senator Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the committee on national defense and security, that "some 3,000 members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) may have entered the country as tourists or as workers in Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs)." China may have already begun taking advantage of what they considered the growing security void caused by President Duterte’s termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the US.
In 2018, more than a million Chinese tourists visited the Philippines, up from just 163,689 a decade ago. By way of interest, among 180 unruly foreigners barred from entry into the Philippines in 2019, Chinese nationals were dubbed as the rudest to arrive at Philippine airports, based on statistics from the Bureau of Immigration (BI). Sixty-three Chinese Nationals, or 35%, were the most represented unwanted arrivals. Given the total number of Chinese arrivals, that they sourced the most significant number of refusals is hardly surprising. Other refusals included 23 Koreans, 10 Americans, nine Japanese, eight Australians and five Britons. My advice - when arriving in the Philippines, STFU, say "Good Morning" or "Good Afternoon" or "Good Evening" as the case may be, and smile at everybody, no matter how the flight might have been.
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Apr 24, 2020 14:00:42 GMT 8
Thanks John, I was intending to contact you about this, so your recommendation is timely. I have had a look at their site, contacted their tech support about whether they can deal with Expression Web (they say they can) and pricing seems reasonable. They are a little expensive to transfer my existing sites, but I suppose $150US is worthwhile if it stops me putting my fist through another monitor screen. Still thinking.
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Mar 15, 2020 12:12:00 GMT 8
John, Karl, Chad
These predatory so-called "hosting" companies are out to destroy the very markets that created them. Bastardry is too good a description for their conduct.
We are all having issues with the way that these predatory technocracies are changing the face of the internet. Lately we have suffered Adobe's withdrawal of support for Flash, a code language that is the basis of numerous features I have placed throughout my websites - Over the years, I have created in excess of two hundred features which depend on Flash, and which do not now operate. The program I would need to acquire to fix these is approximately US$1000.
Then there is the issue of the retirement of the HTML language, and its replacement by HTML5. Well, not so much a retirement, but a shooting in the back. Websites created using it this have lost their ranking on google search, which now gives priority to sites which have a security certificate. Initially it used to be that we didn't need a security certification, because we did not utilize cookies, we did not sell products from our site, we did not store private information, and we did not accept outside advertising being embedded in the pages we were providing. Security Certification is required for each domain, otherwise they are relegated to the "plague and pestilential" areas of anonymity, and though all my sites are hosted on a master corregidor account, each of the five domains I have used would all require separate certifications.
The overall effect is that the internet is being corporatised, and the enthusiastic amateurs are being forced out of it. The number of hobby sites is diminishing at a worrying rate. As unfortunate as the result shall be, I support your decision to withdraw your support from PISSBUCKET. We are all suffering predatory technology, one way or another, and the world is becoming a lesser place. Technology and change are not our friends.
Regards.
Paul Whitman
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Mar 9, 2020 9:06:33 GMT 8
Corregidor has more monkeys now than I have ever seen in my 24 years of visiting the island - Photo by John Moffitt
Here is a collection of articles about marauding monkeys. It's just an extract from a google word search of the term "marauding monkeys." Articles about monkeys becoming pests at tourist destinations aren't difficult to find. Corregidor does not have a major problem at this time, but if island management fails to do something about them, there WILL be problems further down the track. How long it will be until the first tourist is injured is a matter of conjecture. Is there rabies in Corregidor's monkey population?*
Who do you sue? Can the island cope with a monkey attack?
WTF knows! Marauding monkeys take over government office block and ... www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/marauding-monkeys-take-over-government-21643512Monkeys Marauding monkeys take over government office block and force officials to flee Troops of monkeys have raided the offices of India's top cabinet ministers and taken over, leaving ministers too scared to make eye-contact with the animals www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/marauding-monkeys-take-over-government-21643512Marauding Gangs of Monkeys Invade Rio de Janeiro www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/marauding-gangs-of-monkeys-invade-rio-de-janeiro.htmlwww.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/marauding-gangs-of-monkeys-invade-rio-de-janeiro.htmlIn Rio de Janeiro, bold bands of marauding monkeys are turning to a life of looting and mischief. By the dozens, young capuchin monkeys have been descending the nearby hills to sneak into homes ... MARAUDING MONKEYS Waraporn says dozens of monkeys have been marauding around Khao Wang and breaking into shops, temples and schools. Many shop owners have had to cease trading and have moved away. Tourists are also ... Marauding gangs of monkeys are 'taking over' an Indian ... www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7540959/Marauding-gangs-monkeys-taking-Indian-monastery-attack-visitors.htmlwww.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7540959/Marauding-gangs-monkeys-taking-Indian-monastery-attack-visitors.htmlMarauding gangs of hyper-aggressive monkeys are 'taking over' an Indian monastery as they launch daily attacks on visitors. The community living in the ashram in Vrindavan have abandoned their homes * - probably not, but there is rabies in the general monkey population in Palawan, and there is rabies in the general population of Luzon's mammalian pets like dogs, cats, and rodents like rats, mice, bats, monkeys and the like. Rabies is still a huge problem in the Philippines because a lot of pet owners are not informed about the dangers of rabies and how it is spread. Many are hesitant to give their pets rabies vaccines because they feel it is too much of an expense. Corregidor has a growing population of dogs and cats, and they are allowed to stray. To that population, we must now add monkeys. Not all animal bites lead to rabies. But this is not an article about rabies, it is a warning lest the laissez-faire attitude to monkeys, dogs and cats on Corregidor continues, and we end up with all the ills to which an island habitat can become prone.
There is no reason why Corregidor can't be run along the lines of a nature reserve. This is not inconsistent with world's best tourism practice, it is complementary of it.
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Jan 26, 2020 9:21:37 GMT 8
What can we expect from a committee? Not a one of them understands. Some words speak to me, so I will share them with you. Charles H. Bradford in "Combat Over Corregidor." These words underlie why, for me, it has always been about February 16, and not about March 2.
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Jan 26, 2020 8:15:07 GMT 8
For some months now, the Corregidor Foundation Inc has been planning an anniversary ceremony to be held on Corregidor this forthcoming 16 February 2020. It was to be the 75th anniversary of the jump on Corregidor.
In reliance upon these plans, a number of us have arranged to be on Corregidor for the 16th February. This has included Dick Adams, the last of the actual participants alive and able to travel to Corregidor. Our airline tickets have been purchased and paid for. Hotel reservations have been made.
Today, I received through Dick Adams, the news that Corregidor Foundation Inc have advised him as follows:Richard Adams has responded as follows:As those who may know me are aware, I am not one to STFU. I have replied to Dick, with copies to all the usual suspects, as follows:
|
|