Gerakan Bawah Tanah - Mr. GBT

I was asked to give an opinion on an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Research Center at Institut Teknologi Bandung. So, I went ahead and created a presentation material. It's available at http://budi.insan.co.id/presentations/PP-ICT.ppt I'll make it open to the public so that I get feedback / suggestions. If you have a comment or suggestions, drop me an email. I'll incorporate them in future version(s). If you notice, I kind of have a slant toward MIT Media Lab , with multimedia implementations in the real meaning of "multi" and "media". My reason is that Indonesia is famous for its arts. Now, how do we put it in digital format. Not just video. Hologram, maybe? I tried to put notes on each slide to provide more explanation. So have a look at the notes. I should write a more elaborate report, but, I don't have the time to do it right now. So, for now it's in presentation format only.

Moderating Richard Stallman (RMS) from Free Software Foundation when he gave a talk at ITB on 23rd October 2004. (Photo by Jay )  

Pada hari ini, 22 Oktober 2004, telah meninggal Prof. Kudrat Soemintapura. Beliau adalah salah satu dosen di Teknik Elektro dan Profesor dari Teknik Informatika ITB. Saya tidak terlalu jauh mengenal pak Kudrat karena tidak pernah mengambil kuliah darinya, dan bukan dari labnya. Akan tetapi banyak kegiatan dimana kami bertemu. Banyak orang yang menghindari pak Kudrat karena kalau beliau bicara sering berkesan tidak "nyambung". Banyak orang yang merasa terintimidasi. Not me. Dalam diskusi dengan beliau justru saya mendapat pemikiran-pemikiran yang luar biasa, yang sering membuat saya berpikir ... "hmmm, iya ya, betul juga. jadi bagaimana ya?", atau "kok tadi nggak kepikir sampai segitu ya", things that make you think . You can always tell a great mind when you see one! Ini yang membuat saya tahan ngobrol dengan beliau. You'll always learn something. Sambil bicara dan merokok (beliau terkenal dengan merokoknya), tiba-tiba beliau melontarkan pertany...

I can't remember when was the first time I heard the name Leonardo da Vinci. I think it was sometime around junior high-school when I heard the name Monalisa and Leonardo da Vinci. Ever since then, I am facinated with Leonardo da Vinci. One of the things that amazes me is that this man is truly a genius. He is an artist, scientist, and engineer. On top of that, he is also a futurist. I always facinated with arts, science, and technology. Well, Leonard is the man who is able to combine all of them. I never had a chance to read his biography though. Recently, I was just finished reading " The Da Vinci Code ," by Dan Brown . It's an interesting book that sparks my interest in Leonardo. Apparently, he is also a cryptographer(?). (The novel is not about Leonardo himself, though.) So, I bought a VCD (video CD) of BBC/Discovery Channel programme on Leonardo: the most imaginative mind in human history . Interesting. I googled the Internet to find more about Leonardo...

Many students asked me about studying abroad; how to pick the university, how to find scholarship in Indonesia, how to live there, and so on. I usually answered the questions verbally. But, I am getting tired of the same questions over and over again. Finally, I decided to write a guide of studying abroad (in Bahasa Indonesia, of course). It's available in http://budi.insan.co.id/articles/sekolah-di-luar-negeri.pdf http://budi.insan.co.id/articles/sekolah-di-luar-negeri.sxw (this one in Open Office format) Enjoy. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.

Music is one of my passions. During my gradschool years, I had the opportunity to take computer music classes and also played in computer music lab. At that time, MIDI was at its infancy. MPU was the hottest thing. Soundblaster was just starting up. For my research, I had to wirewrap an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) on a board that could be plugged in into an IBM PC clone (Intel 80286!). I loved to tinker electronics stuff. Haven't done anything for ages, though. I had played with some computer music related software, sound synthesis, voice analysis and the like. (My masters thesis was about analysis of diseases through voice.) My workstation was a NeXT computer. So I had a chance to played with CSound as well. Anyway, it's been a while since I played with computer music. Well, the September issue of IEEE " The Institute " features Bob Moog - yes, that Moog keyboard. My interest in computer / electronic music is suddenly back! I have a dream (or perhaps,...

Here is a picture of students in my programming class ("dasar pemrograman berorientasi obyek"). The picture was taken in the morning (7 AM). They