Gerakan Bawah Tanah - Mr. GBT

Apparently it is difficult to make jokes in two culture at the same time. Here's the situation. I am giving presentation in Indonesia but the language is in English. The audience is a mix of Indonesians and non-Indonesians, who don't speak Bahasa Indonesia. The majority of the audience is Indonesians. Now, the question is should I make Indonesians jokes or English jokes? They are different. I watch stand-up commedy on TV when I have the time. There's not that many stand-up commedy (commedians) in Indonesia. Usually I watch them on Tonight's Show with Jay Leno. Sometimes he commedians as the guest. Most of their jokes are American jokes. Sometimes I don't understand the joke because they are so tight to events that happened in the US (which I don't know - I don't watch CNN that often), or to characteristics of places and people in certain region in the US. Any suggestion of jokes that cross cultural boundaries? (Gotta be in English though.) Commedian handbook...

Finally, I made a change of my blog at blogsome ( rahard.blogsome.com ). I took the time to customize its CSS to make it closer to slashdot . Apparently, CSS is fun and addictive! And, darn..., Blogsome is so cool. It's going to take a good portion of my time. I have just realized that it is so configurable. I wish I can do the same thing with this. (I know I can, it's just time that I don't have right now.) I've got things to do right now. A lot of preparation for my next gig ; presentations and becoming a presenter in English! It's going to be a challenge, but I am game for it. Bring 'em on.

Have you ever had a situation where you have decided to do something and then something better comes along? For example, you decided to buy a notebook (or a car, house, whatever). After you bought the notebook then a newer and better notebook (which cost the same or even cheaper) is available. You hate yourself. I have had many occasions in which I have decided to make a " gig " (presentation, training, workshop, teaching, etc.) on a certain date. Then, a better offer (bigger audience, better pay, bigger impact) comes along on exactly the same time. What to do? I have made a committment. Well, I have no option but to decline the latter offer. I hate myself for that, but promise is a promise. I just have to do the best gig ever! This is also a common theme in a song. Boy meets girl. (They think) they fall in love. They make committment to each other. Then, the boy meets another girl (or the girl meets another boy). She or he is better (prettier, more handsome, funnier, more un...

Want to know how I feel today? Have a look at this: http://budi.efx2.com/view/45746/Churning-Graduate-Students/ ... typing in this rocking chair ... ... i am feeling great ...

Have you ever noticed that if you want to get something done, you have to do it yourself? I don't know whether this is just me or it is a common thing. (Pointers? Hints?) There are some small things that could be done. Many times I think that these things could be done by my students, workers, peers, fellows, employees, but nooo... I have to do them myself. For example, I still have to manage and maintain mailinglists myself. (Add subscribers, remove bounced subscribers manually, modify and configure systems and so on.) I still have to tinker with operating systems and applications. Another example, I still have to design and edit some web sites for community services. This things actually could be done by my students. (BTW, there are other examples that are not IT related. There are other things such as community services, business deals, academic experiments, and so on. You get the idea.) It is not that I don't want to delegate tasks. I did and still do delegate things. But, ...

Do you believe in coincidence? Here's the deal. In a few hours I was confronted with stories of successful people and companies. First, I was wandering around in a bookstore while waiting for my kids. I found this interesting book about Oprah Winfrey written by Amelita Lusia. I was intrigue by this book because it is not a translation. It is written by an Indonesian. Here's Oprah, an American black woman. What's her relation to us (Indonesian)? I don't know. But I know this, many Indonesians know who Oprah is. She's an amazing successful person! I am not an avid the Oprah Winfrey Show, but whenever I watch it, it is superb. The thing is ... her success was an an instant. It was not an accident. It was hard work. The second thing. I arrived at home and turned on the TV. It was about Simon Cowell. Yes, that American Idol notorius judge. Again, this is about sucessful person (and TV show). I didn't know how it started, but now I know. Again, the same theme emerges,...

Well, it's time to take a test again. This time I took PersonalDNA test. The result is I am an Encouraging Idealist . Unfortunately, blogger does not allow javascript embedded into my posting. Click here instead to see my complete result.

One book on the table. Read me , she says. I'll give you surprises you'll never find elsewhere. Ten books. Stacked on top of each other. They don't really care whether you read them or not. One of them whispers. Please, don't read me. I am ashamed of what's written inside of me. These books are just part of a quota that must be met. Publishers must publish books. If good writers don't come along, they just publish whatever they can lay their hands on. It's your fault!

We all know that UNIX is an Operating System, but UNIX is also Music? Don't believe me? Have a look at the picture on the left. This picture was taken Mei 2006 at Grand Preanger Hotel, Bandung. Apparently their fun place is called " UNiX's: The House of Music ". Whoa. That is new and news to me. This place was used to be called something else (I forgot). I have not had a chance to enter this house of music . Don't know if I ever be. The name is interesting, though. I wonder if they serve "login:"? ha ha ha. Maybe the menu is in command line ?

I wanted to write about the Yogyakarta Earthquake, but decided to wait. For some reasons, I felt that I am exploiting the victims by generating traffic to my blogs. I know that it is not the case, but that's how I felt. But, on the other hand, I wanted to say my condolence to all the victims and their families. So, this post. The heck with traffic. Our research center ( Microelectronic Center ) the university was shocked by a news that one of our researcher - Waris, who is doing his doctorate, passed away during the quake. He went to Bantul for a holiday with his family. Our deepest sympathy and condolence to his family. We will miss him. I was born in Yogyakarta. I even make jokes about Yogya, its people, and technology. It is a special city for me. I am sad to see what happened to Yogyakarta and its people. I hope they can get through this as soon as possible and as painless as possible. Hang on. May God be with you.

I've been searching for the meaning of " security architecture ." Various references point to different directions, depending on the source of the reference. For example, security architecture according to network companies is network security. Database people think that security architecture is access control, IT consultants think that security architecture is a working framework and activities, and so on. In anycase, I decided to define my own security architecture. A presentation material is available at my presentation's page . Unfortunately, it is in Bahasa Indonesia. Although, the terminologies are in English. Go there (to the presentation page) and read the "security architecture" presentation, which I presented a few days ago (24 May 2006) in Jakarta. Comments and feedback are needed.

The Rule of Four is a novel written by two authors; Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. The back cover has a comment from Nelson DeMille; " If Scott Fitzgerald, Umberto Eco, and Dan Brown teamed up to write a novel, the result would be The Rule of Four. " Having read Dan Brown's books, I was intrigue by the comment. Also, I saw this book was featured in a couple of bookstores. I decided to buy the book. It took me a while to read and finish it. The story in the book is about a mysterious Renaissance text called Hypnerotomachia Poliphili . This text has seduced many people. Marriage went cold. Friendship was broken. Even murder! Messages were coded in the text by using steganography and cryptography at the same time. To get the actual message(s) you have to solve some riddles. A student took this text as his thesis at Princeton. Needless to say, there were problems and fiasco. Can he finished his thesis and solve the mystery behind the text? I love reading books with code an...

I have just finished watching numb3rs at AXN. In it there was a talk mentioning about " quantum entanglement ." Whoa. It's not everyday you hear this in a conversation. I heard it long time ago, didn't understand then and still don't understand it now. Hah. The funny thing is ... I come in contact with the word "quantum" quite often lately. One in email from Singapore (which forced me to browse some websites). One in relation to 4G telecommunication security (don't ask - it's about the future of 3G). And, just a few minutes ago in a TV series. What's with this? Coincidence? I think not. Quantum entanglement?

My team was asked to do a source code review of a large application. This is actually the third (or probably mode) time we are doing a source code analysis. Our past experience was with smaller code. This time the code is around 2.5 million lines. Now, time for some questions. How many lines can a good programmer/source code reviewer read in a day? Is there a rule of thumb / best practice on this? What is usually the portion of actual code compared to comments (and other non-executing component)? We were joking predicted that the number of actual codes that we have to review is probably only 5oo thousands lines. The 2 million lines were mostly comments and documentation. :D That would be nice. To be frankly I don't like the LOC approach, but that's the only measure we can use. Is there other measurements? We had a discussion before and came up with some ideas, such as as the number of modules or functions. But they still depend on the size of the modules which could vary. Now l...

I am doing many things, just to avoid work (that is inevitable)! I am dancing around ... Next week I am going to do four (4) presentations in five days. There were 5, but one was cancelled yesterday. I have not done anything to prepare that presentation. Well, that is not true. I did some reading and collecting background materials. All I have to do "just" put them down (into a presentation material). Yeah, right. The " I just do it later " sounds familiar, right? The thing is, I am not in a mood. What's this? Yes, you heard me right. I could not make a presentation material until the day before presentation. I've done hundreds of presentations and they are almost the some, done in the last minute. I am not lazy, I am just not in a mood. (Tell that to your boss!) So, what I am doing right now is reading emails, blogs, and web sites. Dancing around. To tell you the truth, I am still thinking about those presentations (what to present, how to deliver them, pu...

I am writing a paper on various Siliconia (Silicon Valley wannabe) in Indonesia, such as the Bandung High Tech Valley ( BHTV ) initiative which I am part of. One of the thing that I am still missing is a reference on " cluster theory ." Could somebody suggest the definitive reference(s) or article(s) on this? My hypothesis is that technological (technology-based) companies have to cluster in a region to survive. While there is a believe (myth?) that computer nerds (IT people) like to work alone, tech companies cannot survive being alone. They have to be surrounded by "friends" (aka competitors). The second thing that I am interested in is references that argue why certain regions in the world are able to attract tech companies (and talented human resources). Why is it difficult to duplicate Silicon Valley, thus the many failed Siliconias ... ? I would like to argue that the city of Bandung has the "ingredients" similar to Silicon Valley, but it still is m...

Do you read a particular book more than once? If you do, what book? I read books just once because I am afraid that I am wasting my time (by re-reading it again) and that I could spend the time on reading other books. I am sure I am wrong on this, but I just could not do that. (I am sure that I have read book[s] more than once, but I just could not recall it at this moment.) Let me quote from Philip Gerard's " Writing a Book that makes a Difference ": One test of a book is whether it stands up to rereading. It's not that books that I have read are not worth re-reading. It's just that I don't want to waste time. I have a stack of books (that's an understatement) that is waiting for me. Read me, please , they plead. We can extend this to blog. Do you read a particular entry of a blog more than once? Which one? I keep a list of URL on del.icio.us , browsers bookmarks, and even I created a special tag on my email mailboxes (so that I could grep -it later on). ...

Carlos mentioned in our mailing list about Guy Kawasaki's "Top 10 Lies of Engineers." It's quite funny. There are truth (not lies) in it! Here's the URL: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/04/the_top_ten_lie.html Read ... (and weep?)

Yesterday, I taught my Engineering Concept class in English. This class is for 1st year EE students in their 2nd term. Most of our textbooks are in English, so I should not be to difficult for students to understand English. At least, they should not have a problem reading English. Listening is another matter though. I don't know how difficult it was for them to understand my lecture. I do speak fast in Bahasa Indonesia and English. When I write and talk in English I don't translate the idea from Bahasa Indonesia to English. It just flows naturally. (My biggest problem with my English is my vocabulary. I don't use it often so that I am losing words. I should spend time with friends from India. Usually their English is good and sometimes it's even better than Americans or Brits. Anyway, back to the topic.) I think most of the students understood what I lectured yesterday. There were students asking questions in English. That's a good sign. In earlier class I told th...

I've just got some debian merchandise ... T-shirt, mug, and cap (got root?) Here is the picture. (ehm, ibook in the background. he he he.) So ... got root?