frankness

When everybody tends to be javanese, saying yes for maybe, saying maybe for no, and saying no when you were already backstabbed, these conversations will refresh our manner of frankness. I found something nice about frankness while reading a series of opinions on Kompas about Tan Malaka which was presented in this chronology:
1. Tan Malaka dan Kebangkitan Nasional by Zulhasrul Nasir
2. Tentang Tan Malaka by Sabam Siagian
3. Darurat Perang Jenderal Sudirman by Zulhasrul Nasir

Read these phrases which are written by Sabam Siagian as corrections for Zulhasrul Nasir's opinion:
"Pertama, kutipan berikut mencerminkan bias penulis dan juga kurang menguasai fakta."
"Dalam konteks uraian historis ini, kalimat '... Maka amat disayangkan TKR saat itu lalu membunuhnya
(!? SSg) di sebuah desa di Kediri...' amat tendensius." [SSg=Sabam Siagian]
"Agaknya penulis mendukung sikap politik demikian tanpa meneliti lebih dulu pemikiran geopolitik ..."

SSg's counter opinion is truly nice, depicting his vast knowledge and understanding about the topic. It was undenied on second Zulhasri Nasir's writing, he merely wrote "ada hal-hal yang ingin dikesankan mantan Dubes RI untuk Australia itu".

To be frankly . . . On the beginning I planned to wrote something about Tan Malaka, but I felt unconfident after reading SSg's opinion ;^(, maybe next time after I read my Harry A. Poze books, which are Indonesian version obviously. I think it is necessary to learn dutch for deciphering Indonesian history.

inflasi

Konser Paduan Suara Stuttgart "Kammerchor Stuttgart" di aula barat ternyata sudah gak murah lagi,
Harga Tiket :
Umum 40.000
Mahasiswa 20.000

Terakhir(2004?) lihat konser resital vokal di tempat yang sama masih 10.000 untuk umum (dan pengangguran), dan 5.000 untuk mahasiswa(dan pengangguran yang masih punya kartu tanda mahasiswa), amazing... bagus bener emang bangunan belanda ini. Tanpa sound system apapun suaranya mantap dan jernih..

Kembali ke harga, inflasi 400% dalam waktu 4 tahun? Apakah mahasiswa sekarang sudah sekaya2 ini ya, ataukah memang 20.000 itu sekarang harga dua kali makan? wah kalo ini harga yang wajar berat juga sekarang kuliah di bandung. Rasanya dulu beruntung sekali, pas mulai kuliah, Gus Dur jadi presiden, gaji orang tua dinaikkan dan sepertinya gak naik-naik lagi tuh sampai sekarang.. pastinya sekarang jadi lebih berat tentunya. Masih ada Malang sih yang murah meriah, 2.500 masih bisa dapat ayam di bilangan Semanggi dekat Poltek. Ya tapi rasanya nggak fair kalo subsidi yg dulu 30 jutaan (harusnya ini lebih tinggi sekarang, kan inflasi) per tahun per mahasiswa itu lagi-lagi jatuh ke yang kaya-kaya. Sayang juga kalo gara-gara uang beberapa ratus ribu perbulan (eh mungkin sekarang satu jutaan ya) buat uang saku dan SPP 2-3 juta per semester, trus jadinya takut ndaftar ITB dan akhirnya gak dapat subsidi 30 juta itu.

Ayo adik-adik, sekolahlah ke ITB berhadiah subsidi 30 jutaan per tahun... (eh lupa harusnya lebih ding, kan inflasi :^)

bg

One of beautiful chapters of my life was written at this place. The people of this place taught me many thing, life, love, anger, sad, disappointment, care, affection, game, responsibility, management, math, programming, sports, and many more things. Sometimes I feel it was a pity that my sports skills wasn't improved, meanwhile there are a nice facility of basketball, football, pingpong, volley ball, or badminton.
I lived there for a quite long time, this place became a nice sanctuary for many of my friend who need more time to finish their study as well as me, meanwhile most of other friends already leave Bandung. Last year of study was a really fragile time, meanwhile you felt alone being left by your friends. Without friends around you simple things became hard, and laziness would struck your sanity. Trapped in such condition, it was truly an advantage of living in a dormitory. I felt there are many friends, that always encourage me to finish my final project. It wouldn't happen if I lived in a rent room.
Living for a long time in such society make me always miss this dormitory, the people, the atmosphere... and tend to make such kind of condition anywhere I live.

alanis morissette

Sudah 10 tahun lebih tidak ngefans lagi ama penyanyi ini, sejak ada rilis video clipnya yang konon telanjang(saya belum pernah liat versi ini) dan lagunya yang rada mellow dibanding Jagged Little Pills. Melihat lagi di siaran langsung di TV, eh nyanyi lagu-lagu lawas jaman saya SMA ...wah masih tetap bagus suaranya, walau penampilannya udah gak selangsing dulu, normal woman. Ironic, You Learn, Hand in My Pocket, yang lain udah lupa. Sayang penonton di konsernya ini rada sedikit, dibanding konser di JCC dulu, "And isn't it ironic...dont you think. A little too ironic...I really do think..."
Pada jaman Jagged Little Pills lagu-lagunya masih bernuansa sosial, pas banget dengan iklim masa itu, pas lagi demen-demennya ndengerin radio asing berbahasa Indonesia di pagi hari yang membuka wacana tentang kebrobrokan pemerintah. Forum negara Pancasila masih juga didengerin sih, sekedar buat hiburan pengganti Ria Jenaka yang tak lagi tanyang di TVRI.
Salah satu perkembangan wacana musik saya semasa sma yang terbonsai sejak lulus SMP, bersama green day(album insomniac doang).
As always they were borrowed for alooong time from a friend, gobis. namanya juga cute paracyte. Paling ndak bukan bajakan!

pucung

ngelmu iku kelakone kanthi [m]laku[2]

Skype SMS sending functionality on Linux

Somehow skype front end on linux doesn't provide interface for sending sms, it isn't a problem on Skype distribution for Windows. Here a nice explanation about sending sms with skype on linux .
Following the link of necessary tools and library it successfully works. Here are what you need:
1. skype client of course
2. skype credit of course
3. Skype4Py. You need root privilege for installation
4. because Skype4Py uses python, sure you need python. You need ctype as well. you can depend on synaptics for these library(I use debian ;^).
5. Command-line tools for Skype , more info in http://www.oberle.org/skype_linux_tools/

File skype_tools-0.11.tar.gz contains:
change_availability.py
Changelog
chat_send_all.py
find_chat.py
mood_to_twitter.py
README
send_file.py
send_sms.py
show_edited_chats.py
skype_api.py
twitter.py
Hopefully you can learn something from these files.

Ok, it should be done, run ./send_sms.py +62811ESPANA campeone Euro2008
A warning will be popped up from skype client, like this. Yes and it should be done.

For ctype you can use phyton-ctype:
Python package to create and manipulate C data types ctypes is a ffi (Foreign Function Interface) package for Python. ctypes allows you to call functions exposed from dlls/shared libraries and has extensive facilities to create, access and manipulate simple and complicated C data types in Python - in other words: wrap libraries in pure Python. It is even possible to implement C callback functions in pure Python.

beautiful typograph and layout

It is common to see a nasty typograph and layout on an amateur paperwork. Amateurs tend to think that they can do everything, from the content, layout, typograph, even the colour and illustration. I remember when an owner of a software enterprise which was doing project in a state ministerial office insisted to put his own logo design as an opening/welcome screen of the official website of the minister office, my friend commented "Garuda Terbakar/Burned Garuda". The logo was Garuda Pancasila with red background. These smart ass actions became common when WYSIWYG(What You See Is What You Guess) editing tools are widely available. Everybody thinks to be a designer; typographer and layouter. Everybody think that design is simple matter.
Go back to writing paper work. Actually for someone who doesn't know about design matter it would be better to follow given styles or template, no need to be creative, or the result will be a nasty annoying work that can make the reader/audience's eyes turn red.
My suggestion as fellow amateur:
A. Presentation and Blog:
1. Use template
2. Don't do any significant 'creative' vandalism on the template

B. Paper report
1. Use template
2. Use LaTEX, anyhow this tool is still the best typesetting tool, you can compare which one is better among springer published books, Pearson, Prentice-hall and so on. And take a look what is the system they used for typesetting. Hail Donald E. Knuth!

Sample of nice template for report available on springer's site. There are available on several mainstream editor file format.

Little tutorial on llncs using LaTEX:
1. get llncs.cls.tex, it is a class file
2. get typeinst.zip, it contains sample file of llncs class. You can read the .tex file inside to learn llncs usage.