Dignity of a nation

Terrible news storm Indonesia about execution by beheading of a domestic migrant worker in Saudi Arabia(KSA). Public anger sparks and then soon our cripple government issued illogical excuse on how it could happen. Government irresponsibility even so apparent when the officers blame each other just to secure their position. Marty the foreign minister even gave a totally lie statement that KSA apologized for not informing the beheading. This claim immediately denied by KSA. What a shame! I wonder how dare Marty was to lie about other country formal statement.

The shame story did not stop there. Government gave very slow response, that instead of real action to give immediate protection to other workers, the president formed a commission of taskforce and a decree to halt migran workers export starting on August. A faster reaction was given by KSA, they stop issuing working visa starting from July.

Where's our dignity as a nation? It is really a pity to have cowards as our representatives.

Weak leaders may affect many aspects of citizen life. Mostly in negative sense, particularly when engage with foreign interest. A terrible example occured in WW2 where French navy was slaughtered by British one. They actually were friends, but due German occupation of France, and Britain must secure their land from sea invasion, Britain must compromise strong French navy. Unfortunately French admiral did not react immediately. They engaged in northern africa sea and thousand French navy died. If french admiral were a confident man, he would order his men to surrender so then they could fight back Germany, side by side with British.

Si, somos indignados!

Kintse Eme

This movement started on May 15 as a continuation of other smaller movements initiated by young people in response to their bleak future due to unemployment. They named themselves as young people without future who have no job, no house and no fear.

Even though so far I didn't see any clear objective of this movement, clearly we can observe many positive impact of this movement. The best of it is it raised young people conscience. Conscience about future, hard work and struggle. Unlike previous generation, these young people were grown in booming wealth easy life society, following this country joining EU.

Personally I was quite amazed with their effort to manage this movement, meanwhile often their life is about party, alcohol and even drugs. These youngs successfully gain support and inspire other across the country and even abroad. Apparently their peaceful and sympatic actions give positive impression to the people.

Particular to the nucleon of the movement in Sol, I observed an interesting development of a social system. On the first days, people were unorganized, as it was a spontaneous action. Then it becomes more organized by the establishment of assemblies, commissions and more structured 'command center'. Afterward some social norms were also established. For example the assembly suggested the prohibition of alcohol, that followed by beverages street vendors. They also gave critiques to the society, news services, bankers and politicians.

Nowdays the movement has been translated to neighbourhoods, and the regular meeting is called "people's assembly". Their sound and propaganda is not as loud as in pta Sol, but their voice has arrived in the congress and government.

Future

Unemployment rate among young people in this country is really scary, 42 percent. I wonder how the future of this country will be. Education is quite good, but vacancy is too low.

I think this is a picture of an unsynchronous connection between education and industry. This case somehow negate my claim that education should neglect market demand. But I'm sincerely sure that I'm not wrong, that's how education should be, the system in this country just has not met requirements to reach that point. Apparently they havent woke up from euphoria of economic blooming just after this country join european union. Maybe I should agree with my professor statement that it is not about the education, it's about economics. But somehow the system is correllated right?

Today I went to a going to be liquidated computer shop, which tries to sell whatever they have. Even though I never like this shop, somehow I feel sorry to them. How will the future of the employees be? I could feel their sadness, but they tried to be as professional as usual.

The view on second hand shop also depicts the same thing. A lot of professional production tools sold. Guess it is a sign of what. Even they sold their working equipment, how can they work?

Last week there was a demonstration of young people for a demand of certain future. A crowd of young 20-30 year tried to raise people conscience about what really happen and what it will be.

Revolusi dunia arab

Saya turut bangga atas kebangkitan negeri-negeri arab melawan pemimpinnya yang dzalim. Anehnya ada saja pandangan yang mengatakan kalau aksi mereka adalah provokasi atau ditunggangi oleh yahudi dan amerika. Anehnya lagi pandangan ini disampaikan oleh sesama muslim yang cukup berilmu.
Tega-teganya sesama muslim berprasangka buruk kepada saudaranya yang sedang menyabung nyawa berjuang melawan penguasa yang dzalim.

Masih teringat dua minggu yang lalu ketika jumatan di masjid Estrecho, seruan doa untuk Libya yang disambut dengan "amin" yang mampu membuat saya merinding, menggetarkan sanubari.

India

This country is really incredible! Behind a such kind of a country there must be incredible people.
Anywhere you go visiting education or research center, very probably you'll find Indian. This achievement is impossible unless they have a top notch education system.
Amid the very diverse culture, religion and civilization, India steadily grows and overcomes her problem. Having billions of population, one can argue this number of smart people might be merely a matter of probability. Moreover there are uncountable problems there. However this statistics is somewhat too good to be compared against other developing countries.
India has many good universities, which are scattered in various states. Then each year many of their alum go to university abroad, and some of them are the best university. Still this is not the picture of India education in general, which is pretty bleak actually. However they already have many university graduates as locomotives.
Despite bleak education quality, India succesfully educate her people about equality, and merit system. The result can be seen on goverment cabinet composition, which is full of professional with various race and religion background. Apparently these people are the ones who drive India to the bright path. Unlike the case of less mature developing countries, India elites succesfully ditch their personal greedy interest and put their people and future interest on the first place. I argue that this implies the people who vote them as well. Instead of vote and install political clowns, they pick up professionals graduated from famous major university around the world. Democracy and education must go in parallel to get this effect. Without education, democracy will only be a stimulator for destruction, because it will only give opportunity to cunning politician to represent and rule people who do not have any idea how important their votes are.

veronica guerin

I don't know exactly when this speech was delivered, but in the same year, 1996, she
was shot to death somewhere outside Dublin.

economy stimulus

Building infrastructure is believed to be one of economic stimulus, especially in this crisis time. Sometimes this infrastructure is built with less consideration what the functionality of infrastructure suppose to be. The infrastructure is built just to make the economy moves or even run.

The sample of this is Japan, and now Obama seems aware of it.

HAMADA, Japan: The Hamada Marine Bridge soars majestic over this small fishing harbor, so much larger than the squid boats anchored below that it seems out of place....

The fruits of that obsession are apparent across Shimane, a rural prefecture about the size of Delaware, where Hamada is located. Each town seems to have its own art museum, domed athletic center and government-built tourist attraction like the Nima Sand Museum, a giant hourglass in a glass pyramid. The prefecture, with 740,000 residents, even has three commercial airports able to handle jets, including the $250 million Hagi-Iwami Airport, which sits eerily empty with just two flights per day.

I suspect the assignment of many(many) state employee in Indonesia is falling into this class of case, they were recruited and paid for making the economy moves.

another hidden in america

COSTA MESA, California: Greg Hayworth, 44, graduated from Syracuse University and made a good living in his home state, California, from real estate and mortgage finance.

Itulah tulisan koran IHT hari ini.

I wonder how about Indonesia?

"El crisis afecta todo el mundo", my friend said.

gaza

Software Developer Outsourcing Fees

It's been so long I tried to find an exact fee of software development. Usually I use IDR50,000.00 for programmer manhour. Finally I found an exact one from an international outsourcing company:

Resource	Cost
Web/Backend Developers	from $18/hr or €11.50/hr
Architects	from $24/hr or €15/hr
Front End Developers	from $15/hr or €9.50/hr
QA	from $12/hr or €7.50/hr

Read carefully the word from.

symphony warna

a tribute to america, land of dreams

hanya

Kelelahan, Nova/Liliyana Hanya Raih Perak. Layakkah mereka mendapatkan kata hanya? Ingat hanya orang yang bisa sampai final yang bisa dapat perak! Hanya orang yang berhasil menang dalam semifinal, perempat final, perdelapan final dan sesi2 sebelumnya yang bisa mendapat perak. Dimana penghargaan itu?

Sangat berbeda dengan atlit negara lain ketika mereka mendapat perak, perunggu atau bahkan tidak mendapat medali sekalipun. Mereka benar-benar dihargai, memang berbeda dengan yang dapat emas, tapi tidak ada kata "hanya". Apapun yang dicapai itu adalah hasil kerja keras.. sangat keras bahkan. Lihat bagaimana team basket yang dapat perak ketika mereka naik podium, atau team renang sinkronisasi yang dapat perunggu, mereka bangga dan media negerinya membanggakannya.

Bayangkan ketika penghargaan itu disebarkan ke seluruh negeri, anak2 muda juga akan ikut menghargai, ingin jadi mereka, bekerja keras berharap mencapai prestasi mereka orang-orang yang belum berhasil dapat emas itu, berharap suatu hari bisa berprestasi lebih baik. Kita punya 200 juta orang setengah persen saja yang terinspirasi oleh penghargaan atas mereka yang dapat perak itu kita akan punya 1 juta pekerja keras yang bakal menjadi penerus mereka.
Masih ada kesempatan untuk menghargai mereka, semoga terwujud.

8-8-2008

Pembukaan Olimpiade Beijing 2008.

hidden in america

I don't remember when I saw this movie, sorry it was a miniseries TV. Got lazy after read the complete review. It was about poverty in america, sure it was better than indonesia's poverty, but it was still a bitter scene. Moreover compared to indonesia, maybe it is better in Indonesia, at least there would be many people live in the same situation, so the feeling less pity might be arise along with the thankful feeling.

It maybe fiction, but maybe it is depicting a real situation with regard to this news, Medical charity helping US poor.

Riots in Lhasa

This riots remind me of Jakarta '98, while rioters were targeting chinese property. So did in Lhasa, recently.
Can you believe, a totaliter government with vast secret agents could not overcome a riots before it was really happened? No one could mastermind and make this riots but the one who has power, the government itself, directly or by-proxy.

This world is not dumb. Wait for us in Beijing Olympics!
Justice and Freedom for All Nations.

oil price

Today news said that oil price hikes until 108USD a barrel, a new record after it was priced around 80USD. Really a painful news for oil importer country. But is this price hike caused by unbalance of demand and supply?
Several months ago OPEC said it was not about supply and demand, it was speculation. Maybe it was right.
Other opinion is about the USD value itself, which is used as oil currency. USD is falling down until less than 0.6EUR each. USD also collapse against other important currency such as YEN. Unfortunately IDR got no advantage of this crisis, there was an easy rule for IDR, if USD is strong, then IDR is weak; if USD is weak, then IDR is also weak. It is a truly.

So, is oil price hike or USD devaluated?

But there is a nice news for Indonesian, surely there won't be fuel price hike until 2009 election. SBY is not stupid enough to face 2009 election in public outcry!

Sometimes I got confused while thinking about this situation, OPEC member, oil exporter country, could not take any advantage of oil price hike. In my stupid opinion, most of Indonesia's oilfield is operated by multinational companies who take the most profit from oil price hike. If I were the owner of multinational companies, it is better to let this situation happens. Why the companies must increase their production, which means more variable cost, when it potentially decrease the oil price. This condition, which is maybe maximizing profit, probably was already calculated using sophisticated OR formula on high end computer sets. So it is nice to keep this situation for the company.
Pertamina is trying to increase its daily production, recruiting many new officer and engineer, but maybe when the production is sufficient, the price will fall down, overproduction happens, and so on. However it is not easy to face the Seven Sister or their descendants, they are controlling all oilfield over the world, even the countries and their politicians. Moreover these whole thing are worsened by corruptions in Pertamina itself.

Beijing Olympics

Many voices call for boycott on the olympics, but I think it is impossible. Instead of boycotts the olympics I saw an opportunity to raise people voice in the event.
Meanwhile thousand or million of eyes around the world keep an eye on China, China authority will not be able to hide their sin anymore, therefore a rally or whatsoever embracing justice and freedom can be held, and if the authority dare, any oppression charged with wrath will lead to international outcry!
we shall overcome!

w e s h a l l o v e r c o m e !

Intel backstabs Negroponte

Intel 'undermined' laptop project

This news is really a sign of intel's cunning business practice. Quoting Negroponte, OLPC founder, "They would go in even after we had signed contracts and try to persuade government officials to scrap their contract and sign a contract with them instead. That's not a partnership.", an example in Peru where Intel sales staff tried to persuade the country's vice minister of education, Oscar Becerra Tresierra, to buy the Intel Classmate PC.

Awful, shame on intel!

I really hope that this project is successful, but seeing this omens, perhaps it would be delayed for a couple years. Perhaps OLPC must switch back to AMD, using geode or some other new processor.

Demokrasi ala Rusia

Tumben-tumben seorang dubes mau nulis, dan mampu nulis sebagus opini kompas ini. Kereeeeen. Ternyata...

Mantan pemimpin redaksi The Jakarta Post. mantap.

The Road to Hell

Bukan, ini bukan film katro Road to Heaven punya nia dinata, itupun kalau layak disebut film.

Ini sebuah judul buku yang disinggung di opini kompas, rasanya bakal lebih baik dari bukunya perkins.

"Dalam buku The Road to Hell (Free Press, 1997), ia membongkar kebohongan politik bantuan lembaga internasional yang memanipulasi kepedulian, rasa kasih, aman, dan damai masyarakat korban untuk kepentingan kemewahan fasilitas dan gaji besar. Masyarakat Afrika tetap teronggok dalam kemiskinan."


target hunting buku selanjutnya!!