Qball's Mindbox

"Does anyone have an idea of what we might be doing in Heaven?"

One girl answered, "RELAXING, like on vacation."

A boy answered, " Snowmobiling."

Another boy answered, " Football."

Craig, apparently, gave this answer, "Drawing."

 

As if the teacher was struck dumb by the answer Craig gave to her, she explained with a faint smile that the new live in Heaven will be devoted to praising and worshiping God: bowing to him; singing Him Songs; and exclaiming His name for all eternity; we will have a beautiful voice in heaven so that we can sing to him for every moment we have there.

 

Unsatisfied by her answer Craig continued to say, almost barely followed what the teacher were trying to explain to her, "…..draw His CREATION…like trees and stuff…"

 

The teacher gave him the last explanation, "But Craig….He's already drawn it for us."

 

As I've finished reading Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson, I believe the conversation above was the turning point of Craig's faith in Christianity. He was obviously unsatisfied with that explanation. Why we are not allowed to draw His creation as an expression of admiration? Why would He only allow us to sing, bow, and praise for Him in the heaven for eternity?

 

Unfortunately, I am not a Christian. Thus, I don't have the right to judge anything that is related to this issue. However, I can give you a brief review about the book itself. The story followed the fortune of remarkable character of the author, in the search of the faith in Christian. Ever since a child, Craig had been trying to understand Christian. At first, he believed that this was his way of life and his passion: to be able to understand the Bible and apply it in everyday life. Yet, as he grew up, he found that there were too many things that did not fit with the Bible. He also found that the Bible itself could not give him the answer to his doubts in this life, especially when it clashed with his other passion in life: drawing.

 

I'm not a fan of graphic novel and yet, I find that Blankets gives me the same thrill with novel. Craig is able to give every meaning in his drawing. You can see the intense feeling and emotional shock in his drawing. In addition, his drawing can give us the same feeling that he had at that time: guiltiness, confusion, fear, and a feeling of fed up to the back teeth. Perhaps, this book can give us another perception about why some people choose to change the religion, why some people choose to be agnostics, and why some people choose to be atheists.

 

I suddenly remembered a conversation with my friend recently. He said to me:

"I think the whole point of us to believe in our own religion is because we are used to it. Ever since we were born, we are forced to have faith in the same religion of our parents. And perhaps, we have stayed too long in the comfort zone that we will almost agree that changing the religion is an act of heresy."

 

I was not offended by his statement. Yet, I was questioned myself, " Does this mean that actually any religion might have the same value of truth towards the God? If we were raised as a person without religion in the first place, what would we think about all the religions in this world? Would we see all of them as the same, thus there is no point of fighting?" Perhaps in that way we could bring more peace in some parts of the world which have shattered and devastated by the war in faith.

Picture from topshelfcomix.

Sometimes....I really hate when people make fun at my expense.

Try to impress everyone by making fool out of me.

Gosh, I believe it's not something a grown up will do.

Confront that kind of people? No use man, just gonna embarrass yourself more and more.

What to do? Just remember how it feels so that you will respect other people and not doing the same mistake.

It's just hard to be wise...

Picture from isopixel.

Gw sebenernya udah pernah mengalami masalah ini beberapa minggu yang lalu. Cuman, berhubung bukan masalah yang cukup besar dan gak terlalu berpengaruh dengan account Friendster gw jadinya gak gw pikirin lebih lanjut. Sampe hari ini gw melihat account FS temen gw dan masalah itu muncul lagi. Jadi penasaran juga akhirnya.

 

Diantara anda pengguna FS, sebagian pasti dibuat pusing dengan keanehan FS yang seolah-olah menghilangkan halaman FS anda atau teman anda dan menggantinya dengan tulisan "Saviour of the Soul" lengkap dengan smiley yang (seharusnya) imut di pojok kanan bawah. Itu bukanlah gangguan atau error dari admin FS-nya, melainkan dari serangan worm yang nge-deface halaman FS tersebut. Untungnya, ini bukan serangan dari hacker yang pro, cuman nerd amatiran yang nampak pengen eksis.

 

Cara untuk mengatasi masalah ini juga gak rumit, cukup ikuti langkah berikut (from Yahoo!Answer):

 

Goto My Profile -> Edit Profile -> Customise -> Scroll down to Add Media.

Delete this script:

#x3c;script defer type='text/javascript' src='http://www.cebusale.biz/community/i...

 

OR,

 

At times the script may take different forms. Simply delete everything and you can always add in your bgmusics or whatever later.

 

OR,

 

1. Go to your “Media Box” (Edit profile -> Customize, near the bottom). Get rid of all the crap there.

2. Go back to “Home” (not your profile) and click “Post Shoutout”, and delete it.

 

Mudah kan? Kayanya worm ini memiliki feature self-infected dan beberapa ter-attached dengan feature tambahan dalam media box FS. So, hati- hati saat akan mengaktifkan feature ini dan pastikan gak ada script aneh yang ikut nyempil disitu.

The room was empty and quite, save for the towering pillars and arches and high ceiling that made it looked vast and endless. No doors attached. I was there and tried not to look conspicuous, for I was the only person there save for two janitors and their mobs and buckets. The air seemed to lay still. The waned light of sun thrust gently amidst it. The surrounding objects seemed to respect the quiet and calm atmosphere, made this place of great holiness feel more attractive than usual. I was in the mosque. My campus mosque, to be exact.

 

I used to enter this place on Friday, when there is no excuse to avoid sitting in there and praying. It felt different when I was in there on Tuesday, though. It's like God appeared himself on Tuesday rather than on Friday. Nonetheless, I was doing nothing except praying, save for reading the novel instead of the Holy Quran. It might be inappropriate, but I couldn't help myself to use the chance to delve into my deepest mind. I was like inhaled all the words in the book, in the slowest possible pace, bit by bit of their meanings. I remained there for about two hours, almost being heedless about the late hour and the approaching night. People can be skeptical and cynical about my rather impolite behavior, although I believed that at that time I felt as if I've gathered little knowledge that I was looking for. A clarity.

The name of the book is After Dark, written by Haruki Murakami. Being one of the most influential Japanese writer in this age, Murakami is renowned for his surrealist style (literary). Never he hadn't used metaphor to depict the story undergone by the character inside the book. Anyone who reads it will get stunned for sure. He is able to create fantasy inside the reality, reality inside the fantasy. These layers and depths of the story is always fascinating.

 

Still portraying about life and its complexity in Tokyo, the book tells us about the life of Mari Asai and Eri Asai, two sisters with distinct characters. Somehow, Eri had been sleeping for the past two months, a deep sleep. On the other hand, Mari had a trouble sleeping, forced her to spent the night outside her home. Tokyo in its after midnight appeared to be asymmetrically different. As if it has been made by two different creator, Tokyo in the after dark is filled with different people, different life, different stranger. On that night, something was happened in Eri's sleep, something odd, something peculiar.

 

As I've mentioned before, there is a layer on the story, one linked through another. Between Takahashi and Mari; Shirakawa and the Chinese prostitute and the Chinese big man; between Mari and the Chinese prostitute and Kaoru; Kaoru and the Chinese big man; they were linked each other within the night. It is very interesting to note that Murakami can create a story where we, as the audience, somehow can involve indirectly in the story as if we can touch the character by our hands. You will get thrilled until the end of the story.

Mosque picture from travelblog.

The creators of virus and trojan have been hinting on the growth of movie streaming and video uploading site recently. They spot these sites as new places to prove that they have genius in making us miserable by having our computer infected. My notebook got infected two weeks ago, when I was streaming one video. Apparently, there was a notification window suggested that the video is best viewed with blabla codec.msc. There I was, so foolishly and heedlessly agreed to download the codec. It was peculiar though, for in a split second the codec has successfully downloaded. I believe that my mind was not on the right place at that time, because without any hesitation I double clicked the suspicious file. What happened next was really shocked me to death. My wallpaper changed suddenly into bright blue (not blue screen though) with quite big yellow head box stated:

 

Warning! your computer has been infected by virus/spyware!

Please install an antivirus!

 

Damn! I was in the middle of finishing my last paper for this semester and suddenly my notebook was lagged because of the trojan. Apparently, this new trojan was able to use more than 70 percent of my CPU and RAM in less than one minute after it has successfully penetrated my notebook. To tell you the truth, I was really panicked. I ran the newest AVG 8 (free version) for more than three hours and the trojan was still there. After spending some time searching for any information, I found out that this trojan was recognized as trojan zlob. AVG 8 (free) can detect and remove them but somehow some of the trojans (yup, more than one. I think they could also cloned themselves once they were inside the system) could not removed and stay hacking the system.

 

I almost gave up and threw away the notebook to the trash, when my friend suggested me to try Kaspersky 7. He said it works even better than AVG Pro 8. It turned out he was right! With less time required to perform complete system scan than AVG 8 (Free), Kaspersky 7 was able to identify all the trojan and swept them away.

 

Only one problem remained, since the trojan was also smart enough to disable my windows task manager (the ctrl-alt-del feature) I had to fix it manually. It was fortunate that I still remembered how to access the registry editor, for I had been troubled before by a virus with the similar ability. Here is the way to access registry editor and enable the windows task manager (for XP) again (from amahdy):

 

-Open the windows registry [Run, type "regedit" then press enter]

-Open "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\" (HKCU is HKEY_CURRENT_USER)

-If there isn't a subkey called "System" then you don't have any configured administrative operation on the system section ... ok let's open the "gpedit.msc" again and disable the "Remove Task Manger" option ... after a refresh you'll be able to see this subkey "System" and contains a DWORD value called "DisableTaskMgr" , and its value is set to "0" ...

-Actually the value "DisableTaskMgr" should not exists if "Remove Task Manger" is set to "Not Configured" ... or if it has a value so "0" means "Disabled" and "1" means "Enabled" .

 

Make sure you don't touch anything that you are not familiar with, for some registry entries are related to the core activity of the Windows.

 

Phew! What a day, spending about more than eight hours to figure out and fix the trouble. However, in the end I had to uninstall Kaspersky 7 since it crashed with Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary 2 (CALD 2). Apparently, it could not recognized the database in CALD 2 and thus, labeled it as a virus (every dictionary program under the SECURE-ROM database will experience the same problem with Kaspersky 7 as CALD 2 had).

Picture from istockphoto.

"It was all for the greater good"

 

I'd like to start this post with the above well-known quote. I believe that every one of you have read or heard it somewhere. Either in some novels or perhaps movies. And this is what suddenly appeared in my mind after I've done watching "Gone Baby Gone" (2007). I was speechless, awed, and amazed at the same time. I mean, the complexity of the story, the morale issues against the idealism of rules and laws, the strong characters, all of them was mixed perfectly with almost no flaw. Somehow I felt like I was involved in that movie, had to help Patrick, had to convince him that it is okay to do something wrong for the greater good of that child. I somehow realized (again) that idealism sometimes will bring you nowhere, that it might do you harm rather than having a good expected result.

 

Imagine this situation: Would you help saving one kid's life if you find out in the future that he turns out to be a serial killer? Would you help bring back a kidnapped child if only you've known that her mother will only ignore her and perhaps even worse, abuse her again? Would you or would you not, kill a child molester, in order to prevent him to kidnap and abduct another under age child? The last one might be an extreme example. Yet, sometimes we just don't realize that our good deeds backfire us.

 

Perhaps we just have to follow Occam's Razor theory, that everything in the world by its nature does not have to be as complex as what it seems. Just put aside unnecessary assumptions and make it simple: wrong doing is okay as long as it is for the greater good.

 

entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

 

(entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity)

 

                                                            -Franciscan friar William of Ockham-

 

Unfortunately, it is always not as simple as it looks like. Our concept of morality always force us to see what we want to see, not the underlying problem. We want to see that saving someone's life is more important than thinking the possibility of that person becoming a threat for our own life in the future.

 

How about you? Where do you put yourself in such situation?

Picture from drockdamian.

Gila ya! Ternyata kalo dipikir- pikir gw tuh sebenernya lagi bosen banget ama kondisi lingkungan sekitar. Cuman karena gak nyadar aja gw biarin tanpa berpikir lebih lanjut. Klimaksnya pas blok hostel gw mengalami mati air gara- gara tangki air ada yang pecah. Plus, kondisi internet yang lagi naik turun bikin emosi jiwa jadi gak stabil. Tanpa pikir panjang, langsung dah gw bertandang ke tempat si abud di damansara perdana.

I'm being in the exile now. And gosh! I am really enjoying this one. It is really the time to fill up my energy, get over with unimportant thoughts in my head. I guess I was really don't realize how utterly bored I was at that time.

Damn! It is really great to be alive again.

I'm ready to prepare for my exam and defense my thesis on the 5th May. Hope I'm not gonna get scolded to death by the examiners, hehehehe.

Picture from photobucket.com

Duh, gw rasa kebanyakan baca buku ekonomi dan bisnis gak baik juga buat kesehatan otak. Selain bikin gw jauh dari lingkungan sosial, ini makin membuat aura pheromon gw menurun dalam menarik perhatian wanita- wanita diluar sana. Taiah, macam ada yang mau aja ama perjaka ting-ting yang belom (bukan TIDAK ya) berduit gara- gara masih kuliah ini (moga-moga bentar lagi lulus dah!)

Anyway, gw menemukan satu joke yang menurut gw aneh. Aneh soalnya menurut gw hanya yang menjadikan buku ekonomi sebagai pengganti kekasihnya karena ditolak terus- terusan ataupun menderita cinta bertepuk sebelah tangan yang bisa memahami lucunya cerita ini. Just wanna share this with all of you. From Managerial Economics: A problem solving approach by Luke M. Froeb and Brian T. McCam. (Picture from boston.com)

One time, an economist and his fiancee were planning to get married. The two were receiving premarital counseling from a priest. The priest’s first question to them was “Why do you want to get married?” The economist’s fiancee answered, “Because I love him and want to spend the rest of my life with him.” The economist had somewhat different answer: “Because long-term contracts induce higher levels relationship-specific investment.” A year later, trying hard to find the right words to express how he felt about his wife, he wrote an anniversary e-mail-using a nice cursive fonts-declaring that his “relationship-specific investment was earning an abnormally high rate of return.”

Sounds like a beautiful and interesting title, doesn't it? The title is indeed interesting but unfortunately not in the beautiful way. In fact, it has a negative and decadent connotation. A zero narrative culture is a situation in one society where its people don't give respect to books, information, and the activity of reading as pleasure. Instead, as some analysts argue, it is a society where people prefer video toys and internet hits to real reading.

 

To give more understanding about this issue, let me put it this way, in an interesting question: How many of your friends and colleagues (this could include yourself) claim reading as one of their life-style, not just merely another hobby? Compare the answer with this question: How many of your friends and colleagues enjoy watching movies and tv series rather than reading a book or news paper (be it printed or online)? The answer might vary but in general I believe that the answer for the second question will be much more than the first one.

 

Okay, I now that this issue might be a little old and has been discussed over and over again. However, I believe that this is still interesting and important to discuss because of the impacts that it might give to our society. Bear in mind that such situation not only occurs in our beloved Indonesia, but also in the mighty America. Check out the quotation from Playboy Magazine US April Edition 2008(You don't think that Playboy is all about naked ladies, do you?):

 

"The United States Today is not an illiterate nation. It is an increasingly an aliterate nation, in which books, magazines, and newspaper are being killed not by censors but by an indifferent public………..2007 report by National Endowment for The Arts, 40 percent of adults from the ages 25 to 44 and nearly half of Americans from the ages 18 to 24 never-I repeat, never-read books for pleasure. Not literary classics, not bodice-ripper romances, not mysteries, not poetry, not biographies or histories, not self-help books-not even the Bible. More than half of adults, in what is supposedly the most religious nation in the Western world, cannot name the four Gospels. It seems neither the good book nor naughty books can turn nonreaders into readers."

 

If reading is being stereotyped as the main activity of geek and nerd people, I wouldn't mind being into a part of that kind of society because I could not imagine what my life is gonna be without those thick-paper kind of things. In fact, I believe that being able to read as much information as you can will attract your opposite sex friend. Nobody wants a hunk or bootylicious chick with an airhead for sure (except if what you're looking for is sex, perhaps).

 

Reading is boring and I sometimes feel that too. But why such tedious activity is important? Reading can be considered as the indicators for the society to retain certain knowledge and information about the world outside them. Indeed, it may not contribute to the real benefit of one life. It also may not increase your salary, but such ability is important in the long term. How somebody can pay your salary if he or she doesn't have the knowledge to run the business. How you can enjoy (or make sure your child) can enjoy watching movie and tv series if nobody has the knowledge in the art of making movie. How then, you can have a good design and well-built of house and car if nobody is interested in reading engineering or architecture book?

 

Get my point?

 

Source: Jacoby, S. 2008. Zero Narrative Nation. Playboy Magazine US April Edition 2008.

Picture from nftsfilm.com

I woke up with bleary eyes this morning. Gosh! I must be dog-tired from the events yesterday. Well, I guess forcing yourself to exercise in the gym right after standing for over four hours was not a good idea. But it was fun though. Such a joy that I had…..

 

 

At first, I was very reluctant to be participated in this kind of event. Not that I'm an anti-social or introvert (hehehe, I am actually, but that was back in junior high). It's just that at the same time I was having a lot of assignments and thesis which the due are getting closer and closer. But hey! I have already promised my friends and I believe that I'll feel more guilty if I disappoint them. And then there I was, well- clad in traditional javanese dress. Nonetheless, it turned that the international food festival was a huge success. And it seemed that my dress had attracted attention from the visitors. Some of them were very eager to take the picture with me. What's more, apparently my lecturer was also in charged in the event and accompanied the vice chancellor.

 

Hahahaha! Taelah, kapan lagi gw bisa jadi model dadakan kaya gini? Cape, tapi puas dah!

 

Hmmmm….need to review new music I've been listening lately. Let's see…..Chris Scott (the trumpet is overwhelm me), Colbie Caillat (soft voice!), Pet Metheny Trio, New Gnarls Barkley album, and Bic Runga (this one is quite old, but worth to listen).

 

One by one then…...

Picture from abcnews.com.

Picture

Sampe saat ini, yang namanya perdagangan organ manusia dilarang keras di Amerika. Alasannya sangat jelas: memperdagangkan organ manusia dilarang dalam sebagian besar agama dan secara moral dan etika merendahkan manusia itu sendiri. Pertanyaannya: apa bener kaya gitu?

Ambil contoh kasus organ ginjal. Dalam majalah Forbers edisi 5 Juni 2006, 66.000 orang Amerika merupakan pasien gagal ginjal dalam daftar tunggu transplantasi organ. 40.000 dari total jumlah tersebut sudah menunggu lebih dari satu tahun. Andai ginjal bisa diperdagangkan, maka dari total jumlah tersebut sebagian mungkin bisa terselamatkan (dengan asumsi mereka memiliki dana atau pun asuransi yang bisa mendanai pembelian dan operasi transplantasi ginjal). Cara paling cepat untuk bisa keluar dari list? Agak satir, tapi memang cuma kematian yang bisa melakukannya. Masalah ini dihadapi baik oleh orang kaya ataupun orang miskin di US, karena larangan perdagangan ginjal berlaku buat semua pihak dan enforcement law yang cukup kuat membuat semua orang gak punya pilihan selain menunggu dengan sabar.

Froeb and McCann (2008) dalam bukunya yang berjudul Managerial Economics: A Problem Solving Approach memberikan tiga pilihan jawaban buat pertanyaan di atas. Pilihan anda akan menentukan pendapat dan pandangan anda mengenai perdagangan organ manusia:

1. Perdagangan organ manusia sangat amoral dan tidak etis. Hanya kaum kapitalis yang berpikiran bahwa organ manusia bisa diperjual belikan

2. Orang- orang yang mengatasnamakan agama, moral, dan etis tidak menyadari bahwa larangan itu justru menyebabkan suplai organ menjadi terbatas. Mereka justru menjadi penyebab utama kematian pasien yang menunggu ginjal yang tak kunjung datang

3. Kalo itu memang ilegal, pebisnis Amerika yang pinter bisa mengakalinya dengan meminjam US$ 100 juta dari bank dengan bunga 20 persen per tahun, membangun rumah sakit terapung di atas kapal, berlayar di zona laut internasional (dimana hukum US dan negara lain tidak berlaku), dan memulai bisnis jual- beli ginjal. Asumsikan bahwa dia bisa mematok US$ 200 ribu per ginjal dan mendapatkan keuntungan 10 persen tiap transaksi, sang pebisnis menyadari bahwa dia membutuhkan hanya 1.000 ginjal buat balik modal. Menurut Froeb and McCann, jumlah ini hanya 1 persen dari total demand di US sendiri.

Perdagangan organ manusia memang terkesan negatif dan bikin bulu kuduk berdiri kalo mendengarnya. Dan memang, melegalkannya belum tentu menyelesaikan masalah. Malahan, perdagangan yang legal malah mungkin dapat menyebabkan human trafficking (perdagangan ilegal manusia) dengan tujuan perbudakan (percayalah, masih ada didunia ini), prostitusi, atau pun untuk dibunuh kemudian di ambil organnya menjadi meningkat.

Tapi, seandainya adanya dukungan dari hukum dan sistem yang benar, secara ekonomi (teorinya ya) perdagangan organ dapat menyelamatkan banyak nyawa karena suplai organ akan dengan alami tersedia di pasar, pasar gelap organ pun menjadi surut (ngapain beli di pasar gelap yang beresiko masuk penjara dan lagian harganya sama dengan yang legal?!), aktivitas human trafficking pun menurun. Dan dengan adanya insentif khusus buat yang tidak mampu dari pemerintah, the free market system of organ trade will benefit all.

All in all, ini semua cuman teori dengan sudut pandang Free Market System dan Capitalism. Tentu banyak yang skeptis dengan pandangan ini. Tapi, mengutip kata kata Raymond W. Baker dalam bukunya Capitalism's Achilles Heel:

"When you operate it properly, with respect and fairness and shared benefits, the system works."

Picture from howstuffworks.com

Ada yang bisa memecahkan kode disamping?

Clue: for those who understand programming, use the ASCII-based coding

Hehehe, selamat mencoba. Well, kalo udah mentok bisa refer ke site ini kok.

The hours in the dawn has passed, with pale sun light is now thrusting into my room, seems to ignore the shade that I put to block it. Downstairs the street is crowded with people walk to and fro, indicates the new activity in Monday morning after the weekend. The long weekend has ended, although it didn't affect me that much since I still had to cramp my brain with thesis material and assignments. Barely passed the long suffering boredom yesterday, I give up mind and stop thinking for a while, afraid that it might hurt the morning that had tried to cheer me up.

News in the net are practically the same as ever, talking about fear of economic downturn, US election, US recession; summing up the neverending grievances in the world. Well, I still can enjoy my morning coffee, so I guess the world is still fine for now.

Lots of stuff and materials that I've read, but none has inspired me to write about something. This is probably the result of sticking into the same book for more than four months (damn you LOTR! When can I finish reading you?).

Digging new movies I got from my friend. Some are good, some are tedious, some are disturbing, some are confusing.

Got to end this dead circle of boredom somehow. Hmm, i have to think to travel somewhere else again.

Nevertheless, I think today would be a great day, as I am now writing my first post since two weeks ago. Thoughts, lots of them that have weighed on me, seem to flow bit by bit. It makes my nerve cells to empty their chemical compounds in which my thoughts are stored, leaving empty space to be filled up again ( but not this morning for sure.Give me a break will ya!?). Paris Match, John Mayer, and Joss Stone make the cells to jump and become excited. Nice!

Picture from in photos.

I never like idol shows. You name it- AFI, Indonesian Idol, Mamamia (eh, bener gak sih?), Dai Cilik, and still many more. In fact, I even hate them so much? Why? First, as a music lover I believe that such shows are never be an objective assessment of one's talent in music. Second, I've always suspected about the sms premium service that we have to incur for participating in such shows. Aren't they too expensive for us?

And now, my doubt has proven to be correct. Behind the promise of being famous and life in a glamorous-rich life style that has lured a lot of people, lies a sad story and unfolded crime. I have received an email from my friend regarding this issue and one blog made by Iman Brotoseno (a director and producer of various commercials and video clips in Indonesia) has confirmed about the problem in idol shows. Here is a part of his post:

" Ajang kontes kontes di berbagai televisi sebenarnya penuh dengan akal akalan dan vested interest antara pihak penyelenggara ( TV dan Bandar SMS ) dengan mereka yang tak sadar ditipu melalui ajang adu bakat untuk mencapai ketenaran dan kekayaan.

Pertama. Bisnis SMS Premium.
Ini bisnis yang sangat menguntungkan dan bisa berkedok mencari bibit artis. Katakanlah sekali kirim sms sebesar Rp 2000,- dengan jatah 60 % untuk provider dan 40 % untuk bandar. Jadi sebagai bandar ia mengantongi Rp 800,-. Jika ada sepuluh juta orang yang mengirim sms maka ia sudah mengantongi 8 milyar. Padahal bisa saja setiap orang mengirim sms berulang kali. Belum juga sms buat kontestan lainnya. Siapapun bisa jadi bandar, asal punya modal untuk menyewa server dan membuat program aplikasinya.

Kedua. Judi terselubung.
Selalu ada hadiah. Masyarakat selalu diminta mengirim berulang kali smsnya agar peserta pilihannya tidak tersisih dan kalau beruntung mendapat hadiah. Jika yang dipertaruhkan pulsa ( berarti uang ) untuk mendapatkan hadiah, maka ini bisa disebut judi.

Ketiga. Peserta atau orang tua yang tertipu
Sebagi contoh manajemen Indosiar mengikat kontrak eksklusif selama beberapa tahun tanpa ada jaminan hidup yang pasti. Mereka hanya dibayar kalau manggung, itupun kecil sekali dan tidak tentu jadwalnya. Dengan begitu banyaknya artis dalam manajemen mereka, jatah manggung tidak pernah merata. Selalu ada yang kelebihan job dan ada yang kekurangan job.

Kontes kontes seperti ini bisa jadi menjadi potret buram gambaran masyarakat kita yang begitu gampang terpikat dengan budaya tenar dan kaya. Jika kita sesekali berjalan disekeliling perkampungan sekitar Indosiar akan terlihat betapa ‘ dasyat ‘ perjuangan mereka dengan tinggal di kos kos yang sempit untuk menggapai sebuah mimpi .

Saya selalu melihatnya seperti laron yang berdatangan karena cahaya lampu, yang akhirnya berjatuhan mati karena panasnya lampu."

If the shows have only contributed in making more people suffer, should we support them? Should we watch them? Should we even cheer the contestants by coming to their live performance? It's yours to decide.

Picture from Iman Brotoseno and fotopages.

Milis angkatan gw lagi seru ngomongin seputar kesehatan. Soalnya temen- temen cewe gw yang udah menikah sedang banyak yang mengandung. That's why, mereka jadi aware banget soal kesehatan bayi, reproduksi, kualitas dokter kandungan mereka, dan obat- obatan. Banyak yang mengeluhkan soal mahalnya harga obat non-generik saat ini meskipun mereka gak punya pilihan lain karena emang versi generik obat yang mereka butuhkan belom ada. Yang lain mengeluhkan dokter kandungan mereka yang terkesan terlalu banyak ngasi obat (ada yang lebih dari tiga bo!) sehingga mereka lebih mirip sales obat daripada dokter.

Achi, sang Pharmacist (inget, gak sama dengan Apoteker biasa!), juga lagi pusing dengan adanya praktek insentif dari perusahaan obat kepada dokter yang mempromosikan obat mereka dalam seminar dan praktek. Gak tanggung- tanggung, insentifnya bisa mobil ato liburan ke luar negeri! Sound like a bribery to you? It's just one bottle of wine away from bribery. Jadinya kadang- kadang pasien sering dijejali obat yang gak mereka butuhkan.

One time, bayinya temen gw demam ketika baru nyampe Jakarta (from New Jersey). Dokter di Jakarta merekomendasikan suntikan antibiotik (buset dah! bayi belom setaun udah dikasi antibiotik!). Sedangkan konfirmasi dari dokter-nya di New Jersey sangaaaat simpel: sang bayi terlalu exicted karena berada di lingkungan baru, cukup kasih suplemen and sang bayi bakal sembuh dalam dua hari. Does this indicate incompentence of our Doctor? Perhaps.

Back to the drug price issue, kenapa perusahaan obat sangat agresif dalam mempromosikan obat mereka?
 
 Harga obat memang mahal karena perusahaan farmasi (terutama yang besar seperti GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer (oh, the viagra!), and Eli Lilly (famous for Prozac) mengeluarkan uang yang mungkin dua kali lebih banyak dari APBN negara kita buat mengembangkan satu jenis obat. Penelitian, pengembangan, tes efektivitas dan efek samping, uji klinik, produksi, dan marketing bisa memakan waktu rata- rata 12,3 tahun dengan budget sebanyak US $802 juta.

Ini beberapa info yang berhubungan dengan riset obat:
1. Hanya 4 dari 100 molekul kandidat (screening compounds) yang bisa digunakan sebagai informasi untuk investigasi obat baru (Investigational New Drugs/IND)
2. Hanya 5 dari 200 uji IND yang menunjukkan efektivitas dalam uji terhadap hewan
3. Rasio kegagalan uji klinis obat baru terhadap manusia adalah 6 kegagalan dari 10 uji (3:5)
4. Hanya setengah dari obat yang diajukan ke FDA mendapatkan pengesahan

So, kalo kita liat berdasarkan info di atas probabilitas penemuan obat baru yang sukses adalah 0,04 x 0,025 x 0,4 x 0,5 = 0,0002 ato 0,02%

Makanya, dalam waktu 20 tahun masa berlaku paten obat tersebut (sebelum versi generiknya diperbolehkan keluar) perusahaan farmasi harus puter otak untuk menentukan harga yang bisa bikin mereka balik modal plus ama profitnya. Kenapa? soalnya setelah 20 taun masa paten-nya abis, obat generik yang keluar bisa membuat pendapatan mereka turun 80 persen.

Beh.......emang bisnis obat itu mahal dah dan beresiko tinggi pula.

Picture from Scott Camazine.

Beberapa minggu lalu saat gw sedang menunggu bis di Stasiun LRT Universiti, gw diajakin ngobrol ama orang tak di kenal. There's nothing wrong with the conversation though. Tapi pas dia tiba2 mulai ceramah soal Islam and dirinya yang baru aja convert ke Islam, something smells fishy. Udah mulai curiga gw pastinya. Ngapain nih orang ngobrol panjang lebar soal indah pengalaman memeluk Islam ke orang asing kaya gw? Dia juga cerita dengan bangga kalo dia udah berhasil ngajak orang lain masuk Islam (that's good, but.....so?)

Blablabla..........ujung-ujungnya dia cerita baru aja kecelakaan and patah tulang. Udah dioperasi cuman perlu biaya lagi buat rehab. And ujung-ujungnya minta bantuan ke gw.

Yeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!! Dasar tukang tipu! Emang di Jakarta gak banyak apa yang kaya gitu?! Langsung aja pas bis gw dateng gw ngeloyor tanpa permisi. Paling males ngadepin tukang tipu kaya gitu.

Nah, hari ini gw ketemu lagi ama tuh orang. Udah panik and males duluan kalo musti ngobrol bullshit lagi ama dia. Sempet dia manggil, cuman gw langsung balik arah dan menunggu di tempat yang lebih jauh dari dia. Untung kali ini bisnya gak lama datengnya!

Capek dah............dasar tukang tipu.

Picture from legaljuice.

Gak gampang buat menemukan album jazz yang bagus. Kalo gak jatuh ke pop, gw sering menemukan band yang meng-claim album terbaru mereka bernuansakan jazz padahal ujung- ujungnya funk. Imbasnya, jadi banyak anak- anak muda yang salah kaprah dalam mendefinisikan jazz itu sendiri. Okay, Maliq and The Essentials and Tompi have some jazz influence in their music. But that was only a little, a tiny bit of it. Or like Bali Lounge project which has more although I would call it a new age music. Tapi gw juga ngerti kalo jazz yang berat banget bakal bikin kepala lo pusing dan malah susah buat nikmatinnya.

 

Gw masih ingat momen- momen Jazz event terbaik yang pernah gw alamin di Bandung dulu. Nope, it was not a huge event. Instead, it's more like an underground concerts. Yang pertama adalah Jazz Statement akhir tahun 2003 yang diadain oleh Common Room di Tobucil jalan Kyai Gede Utama. Ruang tamu yang gak seberapa penuh dengan penonton dan musisi yang jadi satu dalam suasana informal, jadinya bikin akrab kita semua. And the performance? Mantaflah! Puas gw walaupun kok terakhir ya jadi acara clubbing. Event kedua di Hotel Preanger Bandung dan masih oleh Common Room cuman yang ini musisinya lebih banyak dan lebih bervariasi jenis jazz yang ditawarkan oleh para musisinya. Still, acaranya diadain di dalam kafé hotel yang kecil tapi tetep bikin nyaman pas nontonnya. Yang paling mantep pas Syaharani manggung. So close with us that all of us seem chat with her instead of watched her singing.

 

Gw kangen ama musik jazz yang bisa menggambarkan suasana kafe kecil yang kental bau kopi and rokoknya, perhaps like New York or Chicago in the era of Ray Charles. Makanya pas gw nemuin dua album ini gw suenengnya luaaaaar biasaaaa! For you jazz lover, album mereka wajib didengerin.

 

Jose James: The Dreamer (2008) and Herbie Hancock-River: The Joni Letters (2007) merupakan dua album yang bisa memberikan pemahaman baru buat generasi muda tentang Jazz. Suara Jose yang berat- berat ringan (bariton cuy!) dan musik yang bukan crossover tapi beneran bonafid Jazz. Dijamin begitu lo dengerin musiknya, pikiran lo bakal di bawa melayang- layang! Nuansa piano, double bass, dan drum berasa banget. Herbie Hancock sebagai sang legendaris Jazz pianist kembali lagi dengan album terbarunya setelah lebih dari 8 tahun (album terakhirnya keluar tahun 1998). Masih dengan studio yang terkenal oleh mainstream bisnisnya di bidang Jazz recording, The Verve, Herbie menawarkan suasana yang berbeda dari Jose, lebih kalem, matang, dan slow pace. Kayak Santana, dalam album ini Herbie berkolaborasi dengan banyak artis seperti Corrine Bailey Rae, Norah Jones, Tina Turner, Louciana Souza, and etc. Album ini memang agak lebih berat daripada Jose dan butuh waktu buat membiasakan diri untuk bisa menikmatinya. Tapi sekalinya udah terbiasa, dijamin lo bakal dengerin terus ampe mampus!

 

Dua album ini cocok didengerin pas baru pulang kerja ato kuliah. Tutup pintu kamar, sediakan headphone and minuman favorit lo dan setel musiknya to the maximum level! Cocok juga kalo lagi strees di lab ato di kantor pas deadline lagi menghadang. A suitable music during your rush time and crisis.

Damn! How can I be so stupid for ignoring this simple symptom? Pantesan gw ngerasa aneh sejak balik dari Jakarta and install ulang Windows di notebook gw, kok sering banget kipasnya nyala? Padahal program yang sedang gw jalanin tergolong ringan and gw lagi gak buka banyak window. That's a sign of overload of CPU processing unsupported with sufficient memory (RAM) capacity.

And I don't know why it took me 2 months before I realized to check the CPU performance on Windows Task Manager. Dan bener aja, gw kaget pas liat physical memory gw kok cuman 512 MB. Perasaan gw udah masang ampe 1 GB deh. Wah, pasti ada yang gak bener ama RAM gw. Perkiraan gw gak salah, setelah gw buka casing RAM posisi slot paling atas gak tepat masuk ke dalam. Jadinya ya gak kebaca ama komputernya.

Hadooooh, ini otak perlu dilatih indera kepekaannya terhadap lingkungan sekitar. Such an ignorant attitude that I don't like so much.

Picture from approved memory.

Finally! And oh, I thought I will never find this book (the one with illustrations of course) in Malaysia. I've been searching for a long time and almost ridiculously ordered through Amazon.com (which gonna cost me quite a fortune). Another thing that made me happy: it's cheaper than I expected. It's really a sheer coincidence that I found this book today at The Borders Damansara (inside The Curve), for I only intended to meet with my friend to grab a cup of coffee.

 

Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War is book two of Abarat chronicles which are consisted of five parts. I have read the first one and reviewed it in here. My friend event looked surprised as I insisted to buy only the illustration edition and not the cheaper paper back (this one is quality paper back in art paper). I told him that with buying the illustration edition I'm not only enjoying the story, but also the illustrations made by the author himself, which I found them amusing. Perhaps, it's the same feeling you get when you watch Alice in Wonderland. Yup, a world with queer looks and unusual people in it.

 

Can't wait to finish reading this book! =)

Maaf buat para pengguna MP yang lain apabila anda melihat postingan lagu saya yang memenuhi inbox anda. Seperti yang di beritakan dedee and herlambang, pengguna MP yang ketauan sharing musik kepada semua MP users (everyone) bakal di delete accountnya tanpa ampun oleh pihak admin MP (keeeeeeeejaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmm loe pade!). Terpaksa deh gw pontang-panting mengganti semua settingan music gw dari everyone to contact.

Well, kalo udah kaya gini apalagi dunk yang bisa di banggain dari MP? Kayanya mendingan bikin blog di tempat lain aja deh. buat jaga-jaga, gw udah bikin blog lagi di sini.
Udah lama juga sih pengen bikin blog di tempat lain. Akhirnya karena ada insiden ini jadi juga gw bikin blog baru. Next thing to do: exporting all my postings from MP.