Gerakan Bawah Tanah - Mr. GBT

It's that time of the year. School is on! Tomorrow I am going to teach a new course; an Introduction to Information Technology. I am excited ... but ... here's the story. I've just got the information about the class not long ago. The formal information that I am teaching the class was delivered a couple weeks ago. Now, I am struggling to digest the textbook which I've just got a couple weeks ago. I've been working hard on this course for the last two days. Well, I actually looked at this a couple weeks ago but I didn't dig deeper. Today I spent the whole day (and night - in fact, I am still going to) working on the course. [Students, look what I have to go through to prepare a good class. I hope you'll enjoy the class.] This afternoon I went to Starbucks at BIP and read (almost) one chapter from the book. I got the gist of the content, but I still have to prepare the lecture. After I got home, I head straight to my computer and did some internet search. The...

As usual, I went jogging this morning. But this morning was different. Today was quiet. The universe was quiet . ha ha ha. I guess that's because yesterday - 17 August 2008 - was our Independence Day . Everybody was so busy yesterday with their events and competitions that they were tired and perhaps were still sleeping. I took some pictures on my way. Here they are ... My jogging track. Look how quiet it is and how the beautiful the background is. Yeah, I live in a nice place. I can see the mountain and there are still green trees. I hope it's still the same. Indonesian flag waving in front of an empty school. Ah, how lonely it must have been. a house with independence theme... good stuff. I went home charged by the quiet environment. Ahh...

Here's the deal. I have sooo many reports that I have to read. I am still reading them. Last Friday, a book arrived at my office. It was a textbook for a course that I have to teach next term (which is starting in about a month). I have to read this 600-pages textbook in one month. Not only that I have to read it, I have to understand it. Heck, I am teaching the course. Can you imagine if I don't understand what I am saying? And as if that's not enough, a few minutes ago I arrived home from a late meeting. Lo and behold, three thick reports were in my doorstep. I think I was asked to give comments to the report in a week. Ha! What next? Don't tell me that there's another book/report that I have to read ASAP! Aaarrrggghhh

The past ... has been dragging us Let us ... move forward I am not saying that the past is not important, but sometimes it keeps us from moving forward. Bad experience in the past, dark history, and what not, are important. I am not saying that we should forget them. It's just that we have to be brave enough to embrace the future. The (bright) future, ready or not, ... here I come! How about you, folks? Are you ready?

There are two ways to explore the wealth of information; "Breadth First Search (BFS)" or "Depth First Search (DFS)." In BFS, if you find a new branch of information, you jump into it. In DFS, you dig down deeper before you branch out. It seems that older generations tend to explore knowledge in DFS fashion. They concentrate in a subject and explore that particular subject deeper and deeper. They become experts in their particular fields. Younger generations tend to explore things in a horizontal manner or BFS. They explore things in parallel and have no patience to explore deep. They like to open (too) many windows while browsing, jumping from one window to another in an BFS fashion. They become generalists, with a breadth of knowlegde. Are you a DFS or BFS generation? By the way, notice how your "tab" in your browser opening up. Is it BFS or DFS? Related article: " How the Google generation thinks differently "

I am reading a review of a book a few minutes ago. At the end, I came to a conclusion that it was a good book but with too many words. The reviewer was not too excited describing the book. In another place, I found a more raving review of the book. It's a best seller book in Indonesia. (I am not going to give the title. :) ) I've got the book but for some reasons I have not started reading the book. Don't ask me why. There's also another book (different author) that is a best seller. It even became a movie. That, also, did not excite me. I've read a few pages then gave up. Many people said that the story is good. I just couldn't read it. What's wrong with me? I have some possible answers. One, I have to wear glasses when reading now. I hate it. I love reading lying down. And, those glasses are just in the way of reading. This is why I read less books these days. The stack (of books to be read) is getting higher and higher. Next possible answer. I don't w...

I was pretending to be somebody else so that you like me I am so sorry ... Now, if that was said to you, ... would you forgive? and forgotten? There's one thing that I just don't understand. Why would you lie in the first place? You should give me more credits. I am not that shallow. [posting was inspired by the suite life of zack and cody ]

I am looking for a simple MIDI sequencer, something that looks like "Band in a Box" (a product that I had a long time ago). Preferably a free one. The idea is that I can select a rhythm pattern (say, rock, pop, jazz, or variations of them) and then I can enter chords by typing their name (say, "C" or "Dm" or "CM7" and so on). After that I can play the composition. Actually, I need this for my guitar practice. I have melodies in my head that I need to practice. Or I have some ideas (melodies) that I want to try and make modifications of them. To do so I need a rhythm that I can play over and over again. After that, I also need a program that can convert (render) the MIDI sequences to MP3. Any suggestions?

I hate myself for having a slow internet connection. All these new, web 2.0, applications are heavy in network usage. Facebook, plurk, and the like. Perhaps they already use smaller images or objects, but there are plenty (too many) of them. This makes it hard for bandwidth beggars like me. Arrrggghhh ... I am being left out by the world ... Would somebody help and rescue me? (Write apps for slow bandwidth users like me.)

In Indonesia, futsal (I don't know the definition - a small indoor soccer game?) is sooo populer. Everywhere you see, there's futsal being played. Futsal courts(?) are always booked. I guess, if you want to invest, there's the place to do it. Is this just in Indonesia? Or is futsal a world trend these days? How about in your area? [a picture of our INDO CISC team] Right now, I cannot play futsal because of an injury from previous match (in a local league). I was the goal keeper and somehow feet landed into my right body (ribs). Ouch! Grrr. I cannot play now. I hate it! I want to play again as soon as possible. Let's see if I am able to play next week. I already missed one game.

I've been having a hard time logging into twitter. Does anybody know what's going on with this service? Should I go back to jaiku.com ? Or use Indonesian's kronologger.com ? cannot twit...

How do you measure the strength of an encryption algorithm? So far, I have not found a complete reference on this. There are some references and they refer to different things, such as randomness, avalanche effect, diffusion, or anything that is related to how different the output if the input or key is very similar. Another issue that is important is the key space. The larger the key space and the more complex the algorithm (big Oh?), the more difficult an algorithm is broken by brute force attack. Another lead says that you have to go through cryptanalysis to measure the strength of an encryption algorithm. Anyway, I am still searching. Let me know if you have more references.

Actually I have written a more complete review (including lots of pictures) in my other blog, but unfortunately it's in Bahasa Indonesia. Just in case you're interested, head down to http://rahard.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/toto-live-bandung/ In short ... it was a greaaat... show! My nephew told me about the show around one month before the show. He's a Toto (more specifically Lukather) fan. I am a Toto fan also. I remembered during my undergrad school I had a band and in our first gig, we played "Hold The Line". Ha. I bought two VIP tickets for me and my wife. It was Rp 200 thousands (or US$10) a piece. Very reasonable price! Thank you, thank you, thank you. A week before the day, a friend gave VVIP tickets to me. I took them and gave my tickets to a friend who came from Jakarta with his wife, just to see Toto. (Look guys, that's how popular you are.) On the D-day I went to the venue with my wife. We were supposed to have special seats in the VVIP, in he Telkom...

I am a clean sheet ... ready to be written ... or even torn apart

This is the n-th time I watch "cars" (the movie). Actually, I was just watching "cars" (and the making) in Disney Channel. It was fun. I think that was the second time I watched the same programme (the making of cars, or some sort). I still loved it. When you love something, things can be illogical. he he he. The thing is, they (Pixar) is really searious when making movies. The jokes and moments are excellent. [Maybe I should give some examples. I'll do that later on.] They're really serious about it. At the end of the movie, where they're showing credit, you'll see lots of disney movies but modified for cars. For example, there's "toy car story" (which is a clip of "toy story"-like movie but the actors are ... cars). ha ha ha. On top of that there are messages that inline with my views (on certain topics). They're kinda validating my views. ha ha ha. Anyway, I've got to watch it again. ha ha ha.

Recently, I've been writing many things in my blog(s). I used to write things related to information technology (IT). It is not exclusive on IT, but IT is the main theme. Now, I am writing different things; live, music, poems, business, religion, and much more. (I don't think I will write about politics, though.) When I write about different things, I use category (a feature provided by the blog provider - eg. wordpress.com ) to indicate the type of my articles. I also use tags or labels to add some keywords and also to indicate the content of my articles. This, apparently, is not good enough . There are people who complained that they only want to read (my) articles that are related to IT, for example. Filtering based on category / tag / label is not good enough. On top of that, my blogs are aggregated in many sites. Those (aggregator) sites take all my articles. They don't filter the articles based on the type of the content. So, in an IT aggregator site, they also see...

I wrote it elsewhere, but I think I should post it here too. I just got a new guitar, my 4th guitar. It's a Gibson Les Paul-look like. It's actually a Greg Bennett guitar. In the store I was toying between two guitars. One is a Fender strat-like and the other one is this. Finally, I decided to take this guitar just because I want to experiment with the humbucker pickup. My other guitar, a Yamaha, has single coil pickup. I was told that single coil pickup is good for clean sound and it does. But my playing style (and sound) is more suitable to this guitar. We'll see how it goes. I am going to give it a try in a gig next month. Welcome, my new guitar.

I was trying to buy a CD from a friend. It costs £6 UK sterling plus some shipping cost. So I went to my bank (here in Indonesia) and told them that I wanted to send £10 UK sterling. The teller looked at me in disbelieve. Just £10 UK sterling, sir? Yup. What's the problem? The fee is US$20 Hah? That much? I cancelled the transfer. This sucks! This is how it feels living in a distrust society. I've got to open an PayPal account. Any experience in opening PayPal account from Indonesia?

Things are happening so fast these past few days (weeks?). I have to do too many things. (Right now I have to write three documents in 1 hour!) I am losing my mind. I made too many mistakes. Like last night, I turned on electricity to water pump in our house and forgot to turn it off until the next morning. Usually it runs for 30 minutes or 1 hour. This time I let it run for 6 hours! I hope I didn't break it. This morning, I thought I lost the key to our door (gate to be exact). The whole family was looking for the key. Finally, I found it in the pocket of my jacket! Great! It's official, I am an ass. What's happening to me? Weary ... I think I need a break!

For the last few days, I haven't had a good sleep. I've got 3 hours sleep only. I am not taking any medicine or drugs. It's just my head is full with questions (of life). At the end, I was jaded. Finally, last night I had a good sleep. Phew ... 6 hours of quality sleeping time. Those questions are still in my head, though. I've got to get them out of my head. (Maybe by writing them down in this blog I can ease the burden?)