It's almost 8 AM, August 23, 2004. Here's my front desk at home. You could (kind of) see part of the garden in front yard. It's nice to be able to work from home. 

Analyzing one's (digital) personality through one's posts

I was reading Larry Wall's State of the Onion talk from this year's Open Source Convention and The Perl Conference when I caught an interesting idea:

The most telling example of that is when Deja first put up all the old Usenet news articles for browsing. My good friend Randal Schwartz went in and discovered that of the hundreds of articles I'd posted over the years, only one article was not a follow-up to some else's article. I don't initiate.

This is an interesting idea. We can go beyond Usenet news to mailng lists. There are many mail-archiving sites, such as mail-archive.com, that we can use to search and analyze one's digital personality. Maybe we can count the number of emails one initiates, the style that s/he quotes (eg. more quotation that the followup), oneliners, smileys, and what else(?).

Analyzing the hierarchy of posts / emails may be not too difficult, but understanding the "tones" of the emails is perhaps more difficult. Maybe we can count the number of smileys, punctuation marks!? Understanding the content is perhaps the most difficult thing. Has somebody done research in this area?

PS: Larry Wall is one of my favourite heroes. He's so funny. (I've never met him, but read a lot of his posts.) And I kind of sense this (funny spirit) in the product (perl), just like I sense Steve Job's spirit in Apple products. That's why I love perl so much. And, if you've listened to my presentations, I tried and try to do the same thing.

Tenggang waktu sebelum domain (.ID) didaur ulang?

Saat ini setelah domain tidak membayar, maka status domain akan berubah menjadi hold. Pada kondisi ini domain tidak dapat diquery/hilang namun domain belum dapat dilepas ke publik kembali. Saat ini belum ada aturan kapan domain yang sudah mati ini dapat digunakan kembali, mungkin oleh orang lain. Sudah saatnya ada kejelasan mengenai daurulang (recycle) nama domain ini.

Ada dua usulan batas waktu ekstrim:

1. Satu (1) tahun setelah domain mati. Kontra: kelamaan
2. Tiga (3) bulan setelah domain mati. Kontra: terlalu cepat
   

Nah mohon masukan, masukan mana yang lebih baik dipilih?
Atau kalau ada usulan lain, mohon diutarakan beserta alasannya.

Restrukturisasi Pusat Penilitian

As one of the directors of ITB research centers, part of my job is to give inputs on the structure of research centers. Currently, we were asked to restructure our research centers. This is not an easy task. We've got established research centers. And you want to change that??? But that's something that I have to do.

There's this (rector?) decree(?) number 34 (don't have it handy so I don't know exactly what it says) and the move to reorganize related fields (or departements in our university) into one unit (faculty-like). The term that they use is, "related sciences in one body of knowledge". Ok, that's so mouthful. Basically we want to re-organize our faculties and research centers. I don't know the reason(s) of such change. I suspect that some people think that our current structure is outdated and ineffective? (That's what I have to find out.)

I've got stack of papers (meeting notes, e-mails, etc.). Three weeks I left my office (as you know, travelling to Middle East and Europe), and this is what I got. Serves me right. Time to digest these information.

I set my computer on, play some music (currently it plays Transatlantic's "All of the Above" which should last around 30 minutes, that should give me enough time), turn the volume up. I hope this doesn't bother my wife and kids too much. I like loud music. I should wear my headphone, but I only have a cheap headphone. The sound is not that great. A tall glass of hot (black) tea is ready. I would love to have coffee, but I had coffee already and I am trying to cut down coffee. I am set. It's time to read...

(Travel and conference) stories must wait. Again!

Here's me on the keyboard. Garin (Praweda, on Guitar), Yulianus (Indosat, on Drums), Andika (Indocisc, on Bass). We didn't have time to practice, jumped on stage, and played Queen's Love of My Life. I wish we have more time to practice. Perhaps we can play some Genesis songs? Firth of Fifth, anybody? 

The emergence of a new discipline?

Yesterday, I read "IBM Research: The evolution of innovation at IBM". This is a small booklet of research at IBM given to me by a friend who works at IBM Indonesia. She knew that I am interested in IT-related research. Well, that is my title at ITB, director of R & D in IT and industry. It's an interesting booklet.

I have no doubt that IBM has done many research in many fields. The thing that I like about IBM is that they're not only a software company, but also a hardware company in the truest sense. Due to my bias EE background, I have respect to people who excel in the software industry but have hardware background. Usually they do better. Again, I am bias though.

One paragraph captures my attention:

"... Just as computer science emerged as a new discipline in the 1960s, we believe an academic discipline focused on computing and information services will soon emerge. It will draw on a variety of existing areas - computer science, management science, oepration research and business administration - and will generate specific academic programs, degrees and refereed journals. It will be at the forefront of business innovation, and will help us find ways to integrate advances in underlying technology (drawing on the physical sciences), mathematics and computer science and apply them to evolving business opportunities. It's a research discipline of the future, one which are committed to help launch, much as we did computer science a few decades ago."

You know, I was thinking along the same line since for some reasons my path has crossed those mentioned fields. But, I didn't think that it would warrant a separate (new) field. I would be interested in knowing more about that field. And perhaps even join them in advancing the field? What is it (the field) going to be called?

Indonesian Internet Conference

Just when I though I would have more time to write about my trip, I had more things to do. Last week I was too busy at NICE, the Indonesian Internet Conference. My company (INDOCISC) gave a one-day security workshop. Meanwhile, I was involved with the Indonesian Domain Name Management (IDNIC).

NICE was nice, as somebody said it. Most Indonesian internet figures were present in the venue. Does anybody have a complete list? And there was a party in the last day. We even had an instant band. We went on stage without preparation and without knowing who will play what instrument, and what song we will play. So it was a mess, but a nice one. Spontaneous. We made a fool of ourselves. Next time we'll play Genesis and those progressive rock songs! Ok, now for those who take pictures (lots of them), please send them to me. I'll collect and make a web site out of it. Or, if somebody wants to do it ... it's even better.

During the conference I announced that the .ID domain management will be done by a formal team, instead of an informal one that I used to lead. There will also be acredited registrars and new (more relax) regulations. I just hope I have more time to put down all of this in a nice document. Again ... I just need more time to do that.

Other things that happened last week: met with Bandung Linuxers in Jakarta (I came in late, the guys have finished their dinner and discussed about Linux certification), gave a presentation at ISACA seminar on understanding hackers' profiles ("hacking: know your enemy"), and met with several clients discussing work progress.

This post just want to give you all readers a headstart. I will write the story. Just don't know whether it's going to be next week or next year. I am just joking. It won't be next year.