29 March 2005
tonite at around 11.30 pm, we're in Duri, Central Sumatera, surprised by an earthquake....
it's quite big for us here because almost everybody run out from their rooms/houses. after spending about an hour outside our building, i came back to my room and check Indonesian' geophysics and meterology agency website or the report in Bahasa Indonesia here.
from its report, i found that the epicentrum of the earthquake is near Aceh, with magnitude of 8.2 richter scale, occured at 11.09.37 pm.
guys, let's pray that everybody is safe at home or any other safe location....
27 March 2005
according to Stephen Hawking (quoted from "The Theory of Everything" p.160), there are three possibilities regarding the unified theory of everything:
a) there really is a complete unified theory, which we will someday discover if we are smart enough.
b) there is no ultimate theory of the universe, just an infinite sequence of theories that describe the universe more and more accurately.
c) there is no theory of the universe. events cannot be predicted beyond a certainty extent but occur in a random and arbitrary manner.
ps. i don't know why i posted this on this beautiful sunday morning...:-D
25 March 2005
i've just created another blog at my friendster account.
its blog tools & template is really easy and looks/feels good; i don't really know html, scripting, layout,etc... so, for me, friendster's blog is much better than this blogger's blog (which is google's).
as a person who admires google so much and not very impressed with friendster's weird performance, it's really really a big BIG surprise for me that friendster could offer something better than google.
i think that's the result of a good competition.
21 March 2005
If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that's something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can't live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organizations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time.
- Noam Chomsky-
20 March 2005
this is the first time something strange happened to me regarding internet security.
I checked my yahoo account, and I found some emails have been read by someone/something; Is it just a random system error or someone really wants to read my emails? If that is the case, I don't know what he/she/it expects from reading my emails...:)
I am not a celebrity nor someone important....beside, most of my emails are digest of so many mailing lists. Anyway, even though I am a little bit curious but I am cool about it. If someone/something wants to check my emails again in the future, I really want him/her/it to delete also my bulk or spam mails. From about 50 emails (in average) that I got everyday, 35 of them are spams (from " getting your manhood bigger" to "free ipod" to "cheap softwares packages")
Oh... by the way, it reminds me of something.
When people and myself wrote about the Anne Ahira topic and the discussion that her business may relate to spam emails; yesterday, incidentally I visited one of their website...interestingly, I read this website put a big logo that say "NO SPAM TOLERANCES" or something like that. So, I think if this policy is really enforced within Anne Ahira's teams, I think my concern that there could be many spam mails because of their business model is not too relevant anymore. In fact, I haven't got any spam related to their internet marketing...except an email that one of their member sent to pearl Jam Indonesia mailing list; the email wrote a story about "chainsaw vs. axe" as an analogy to conventional business ("axe") and their "internet marketing business" ("chainsaw"). The mailing list moderator replied right away using the same analogy that he preferred "axe"...(pretty polite refusal) while one or two members were really upset because of that email. So, this thing may be around for a while...maybe their business would be good someday, I don't know...I am just not in to it...I am just an "axe" person...
Ok, that's my week end story...I had a good time playing basketball this afternoon; my shooting still sucks and I cannot run more than 5 minutes...I am really a lame player (but still feel good about it, fortunately).
ps. I am trying to use TrackBack (and Commenting) tools from Haloscan, I don't know if it worked or not...one thing for sure, I lost my old comments....this makes me realize again and again... my skill sucks...especially in html, lay out, color, and worst of all..in writing (but again, fortunately, I still feel good about it). Man, I like sunday afternoon....:-D
17 March 2005
this is my favourite poem...by Thomas Moore.
I read it from a book about all the funny poems. If I'm not mistaken this poem is taken from "A Joke Versified"..I don't know if it's a title of a book by Moore or it's the title of the poem. Anyway, here it is:
"Come, come" said Tom's father, "at your time of life,
There's no longer excuse for thus playing the rake—
It is time you should think, boy, of taking a wife."
"Why, so it is, father—whose wife shall I take?""
16 March 2005
I've just understood recently how to explain the differences between Knowing That and Knowing How...:)
Thanks to this book titled "Batas Nalar" a translation of a book by Donald Calne titled Within Reason. While from Google I could not find an information about the success of this book both comercially and academically, but in Indonesia, its publisher had made this book quite popular by conducting a seminar that presenting many well-known people as the speakers. I put my review of the book here (in Bahasa Indonesia).
Just take myself as an example. I know and understand the concept behind a car's machine; I know the concept of combustion engine, I know what parts are there in a car's machine. This is what Gilbert Ryle called as Knowing That. But if you ask me, can I tune up or repair that machine? My answer is...NO. With capital letters. I wish I could, but I have not been able to do it despite I have a quite experiences to touch machine in lab when watching my friend did his thesis. In short, I don't have (or have not had YET) the ability of Knowing How.
I think Knowing That and Knowing How are both equally important. Very rare people have the ability to have both of them; and for they who have them both we will call them masters or guru.
And there is also a more funny thing.... as we all know that most successful businessmen are not highly educated, the richest man (and his friends in 10 richest people) most of them are dropped out from school. But we have this title called MBA which should be a master in business; but do they know how to run a businesss? Well, most of MBAs work for consulting firms or other corporations, which might make us draw a conclusion that most of them know that running business or make a strategic decision or develop a business plan is like this like that bla bla bla...but when come to how to do it in real life, MBAs will prefer to be consultants or just employees. There is no sour apple here, I am an MBA too...;) and this is more a reflection rather than an insult, buddies. Beside, I have heard so many times many people said MBA stands for Master of Barely Anything, so this should make all business students work harder and try to harness all the concepts with more applications. Does it mean you MBA should reduce the allocation time for happy hours? Hell, NO! hahaha...:) *that is the best part, right?*
So, I think many of us may acknowledge that Knowing That does not necessary we "know" how to do that. Knowing notes and guitar does not make us know how to play it. It needs another set of skill to make us really can play it!
Inilah bedanya komentator dan praktisi; paling top emang praktisi yang juga ngerti konsep..hahaha susah kalo di bahasa inggrisin :)
I read recently that Sri Mulyani, one of our minister, confessed how hard to do the job that previously she criticized when she was an economic commentator. Many leaders in Indonesia, most of them are bright scholars, have proven failed in the field which they should be mastered. We have so many economic experts/professors, political experts/professors, law experts, and others but when we gave them chances to hold the high level position in their expertise, only few of them were successful.
Does this picture show us that Indonesia has too many experts that only Knowing That without Knowing How?
13 March 2005
while listening Bob Marley on this easy sunday morning...I chatted via messenger with my friend Goli (a cool Kellog student + the future leader of Indonesia, ya ngga?) and read some news I got from quicklinks at Enda Nasution's blog.
Suddenly I realized that Enda's blog has become a critically important source of information for me!
Many aspects of his blog provide me better NEW information compare to other [conventional] information sources in Indonesia such as detik.com or liputan6.com. It does not mean Enda's blog is a substitute to the like of detik.com and others, but what I mean is that his blog is a perfect complement of conventional information sources such as newspapers, tv, or online news site.
It simply put that blog is a truly alternative infomation media!
It is true for me and maybe for many people in Indonesia. In the case of Enda's blog, I knew these things from his blog: BLOG (itself), friendster, gmail, firefox, ambalat's case..and many more...well I forgot most of them :)
I think older generations might still have difficulties to understand this. "Why in the world, we want to read and believe a personal opinion as a news? It could be misleading," maybe they thought so. Well, it's hard to teach a new trick to an old dog....unless the old dog is smart enough or it keeps the young spirit is flaming...
The thing is, when we READ blog, it does not mean we read just A blog...:) we read many of them..and 'worse', we still read CNN, detik.com, liputan6.com, read the magazines, newspapers, watch tv, listening radio (only on the road)....And I knew it's not just me (or am I??). We are a bunch of blokes who are addicted to information...[older] people needs to understand this..I guess....even I could be considered as an old lad compare to the real internet generation (which is called the Y-gen or Z-gen or whatever the marketing dudes want to name it). Ross Blake wrote in his blog about this Understanding Internet Generation and I kinda agree with him completely. Having understood this give me a better feeling since I feel not that old now hahahaha......
Anyway, for me in Indonesia, the Enda factor is a big thing..:) And not just him. There are several blogs that I read frequently and many of us may agree that these blogs are worth the time to spend on...check also Budi Raharjo's blog or Priyadi's blog...or more on my links!
enjoy the week end.
ps. But I knew a whole lotta my friends (they are young, urban, and professionals, of course) who do not read blog or simply don't care about it. This clearly shows us that our information channels are really really stratified into many many groups....each group complement is other, perhaps..I don't know...I just eat them up...all of them...
12 March 2005
well, it's a little bit cloudy...
But, as I mentioned before, I will put pictures when the smoke disappears from my place...yesterday was raining pretty hard..that's why the smoke is gone today. I hope it would stay like today for the rest of the year.....(cross my finger)
06 March 2005
I put two pictures which look like taken from "Sleepy Hollow" scene set or pictures from Mars...
No, they are not. The pictures are taken from my place, a small town named Duri; it's in Riau, Central Sumatera, Indonesia. As I posted before, we are now living in a very unhealthy environment because of forests' fire (the air now is far worse than Jakarta's air...do you believe that?) . The fire is not an accident...some greedy assholes deliberately set the fire to clear the forests for other purposes...it's been more than a month in this situation, and it's a yearly disaster....:(
The pictures were taken at about 4.30 pm, but believe me...the condition is just like that all this day. The worst part is I could not play basketball...
that is the story of the day. thanks for reading...
03 March 2005
I love Bandung.
This is the place that I consider as my second home after spending six good years in the city. A few weeks ago I visited this city for one day (!) after a long absence since 2000. The reason of I wrote the bad sides longer than the good sides is because I'm so sad knowing some incidents because lack of smart thinking from the regulators of Bandung City or West Java.
Good Sides:
1. It is a place with the highest ratio of cute girls per square meters (in Indonesia)
2. I like the style of guyz/girlz in Bandung
3. Bandung has plethora of great bands....even a bunch of kids who pop up from anywhere near your home are great musicians...I'm still wondering "how come?"
4. Nice people
Bad Sides:
1. This city has no waste/disposal system....I don't know why...this is the city which produces so-called high quality engineers (including mechanical/civil/enviromental/geology engineers and planology experts). When I, back in mid 90s, jokingly said that Bandung is more like "Parit van Java" rather than "Paris van Java", a friend of mine who is a natural born Bandungnese angrily pointed me as one obvious source of Bandung's environment degradation. To be exact, he said "you know what, because of we have so many people coming to this city, JUST LIKE YOU (!), that makes our beloved city is not so lovely anymore." With a guilty feeling because of my bad joke ruined his mood, I used my right to remain silent. As time goes by, I read the last edition of Tempo magazine about how the stupidity lead to disaster in Leuwigajah. So, I have to write again: The city has no waste/disposal system. Whoa...this is longer than I wanted to write.
2. The city has no plan to keep its beautiful landscape....the government loves to let fashion outlets (i.e. factory outlets) popping anywhere unregulated...and malls too...so to make it simple...all those sum up into traffic jams.
3. Its government has no will to keep its trees alive in Northern Bandung (Dago Pakar, Ciumbeluit,etc). I knew the spelling of Ciumbeluit is wrong...
Anyway, my good friend, Guntur Gantara, maintains a website of Bandung city...I forgot the URL and too lazy to find out...maybe you could search it thru Google or Yahoo...its under Geocities...or else I put his site as one of my fave in Beranda.net/links
Last thing, these words are still implanted in my head and heart "keep bandung beautiful, euy!" I like the words....but it is better to make it happened
