July 7th, 2008
Following the last post I made regarding Indonesia’s energy crisis, and the fact that I read in Kompas today that we’re going to have random power outages from July 11 to 25 (each power outages can last up to 8PM), I can only conclude that PLN, is a nut case and they really suck monkey balls. In this case, maybe they are gorilla balls instead. I simply cannot understand the logic that they cannot provide us the same amount of energy that we paid off the previous month. Unless there are resources corruption (which we all know that it is at least 90% real), there is just no way that this could happen.
To PLN’s management, take a look at this. That is an article about a Danish island, called Samsø that runs entirely, yes, ENTIRELY on renewable energy. So is it possible that in a macro scale, a country runs on renewable energy? Unless we don’t want to, yes, it’s absolutely possible, and the people living in Samsø actually REALLY CARE about their future. We just need no corruption and 100% responsibility and commitment. Is this something we can have? No. Why? Because we are simply to dumb to realize that ELECTRICITY CAN BE GENERATED WITH OTHER THAN FOSSIL FUEL and most of the ones involved in making decisions are busy making themselves rich.
Crazy? If you live in Europe, maybe. But if you live in Indonesia, it’s just something that happens daily.
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June 20th, 2008
If I have to vote, I would probably vote PLN for the crappiest company in Indonesia (along with Bakrie Telecom and Lippo following it). Why? Because nowadays we often get those blackouts without any prior announcement. The reason? Well, that’s easy, they simply don’t have enough power to light up Jakarta from 00.00 back to 00.00. As a good electric bill payer, I found this disgusting, and before anyone yells back at me on how I should be concerned with our country’s energy crisis, I have my own reasons to justify that.
First of all, in a small scale, I pay for the electricity that I use, and oh do believe that I use electricity with great concern. I turn off things that I don’t use, unplugged things that I don’t use for months, upgraded the office monitors to LCDs, and the list goes on. And when I do use a lot of power out of the meter, I am perfectly aware of the costs that I have to bear each month. So, in a sense, I do pay for what I use, so I could care less if PLN is unable to provide that to my house’s power grid.
Second, where the heck is the industry on building power plants? How come from the day I stepped on the elementary grade, the number of power plants available in Indonesia is nowhere near plenty. Answer? Let’s just say, we don’t have to ask where the money went to.
Third, if the government is really that concern about the energy crisis, they should take approximate steps to develop greener energy. Take wind power for example, we have plenty of wind down here. If the government put some effort to install residential-grade turbines on every few blocks or so in the city, I’m sure some of that power consumption need could be taken care of. But no, we’re not going there, are we?
Fourth, is of course back to the fuel drama. We have lots of alternative energy sources out there, and yet, some power plants still rely on oil to run. This is just plain stupid.
FIfth, the idea of building a nuclear power plant. Well this just sucks monkey balls. If our country can’t even take care of simple matters such as garbage or traffic, I don’t see why we SHOULD build a nuclear power plant. I can envision the comeback of Chernobyl, or the second coming of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Without the bombs, of course. We won’t need them as it would probably explode on its own. Even developed countries are now moving away from nuclear power plants.
So, until the government and every bit of Indonesians that have no conscious of what lies 30 years ahead can pull their minds together, I’m as sure as hell that the blackouts are going to be more often. I’m going to invest on a generator. Something that is perhaps more reliable than our trusty ol’ power company.
Posted in life | 3 Comments »
June 10th, 2008
What? Did you just misread the headline? No, you didn’t. We do have an Indonesian version of Macworld, which I will review it side-by-side with the US version in this post. I happened to have the US version that carries the untranslated content. But, first things first. In order to save you from reading a jumble of error-based reviews below, bottom line, the Indonesian Macworld sucks. Yes, the editors might want to punch me in the face, but the truth is the truth, it sucks. And the following are the reasons why our version of Macworld sucks.
Right from the beginning, I already have my doubts since the Indonesian version’s cover is nowhere near good. It looks like something that came out from a first-year student’s PC, who just learned how to do magazine covers in Photoshop. Designs can be simple, but this is plain wrong. A magazine cover is where people should be able to read the inside’s main articles spot on. Not like this. Look how dull it is compared side-by-side with the US version.
And what’s with the bevels? I feel like I’m back in the 90s with Photoshop 5.
The next big mistake is the lack of baseline grid in the magazine. What kind of a good editorial designer is one, when he/she doesn’t know anything about baseline grid. Why do I make this into such a big deal?
Because in the US version, the baseline grid exists. And that what makes the whole magazine layout and grid coherent. This is why more than half of Indonesian magazines or translated magazines are crappy. Indonesian designers don’t know shit on how to treat typefaces and body texts properly.
The next would be the main article. The US version on the left, and the Indonesian version on the right. Look how dull the green is. And I’m not sure about you, but I don’t think we needed the copy’s typeface to be enlarged. Why? Because it’s good as it is and Megindo (the magazine’s publisher) just keeps messing things up.
Here’s another main article called “Weighing the MacBook Air”, laid out perfectly in the US version, with good typography.
And here’s the Indonesian version of the article, laid out badly, with crappy typography treatment. Why can’t they just do what the US version did? Is it that hard just to copy the same set of style? Look at the ferocious margins and paddings on this one, and all of those unnecessary hyphenations. Crappy. Just crappy.
Here’s the “Backlit Keyboard” picture in the US version.
And this is the Indonesian version. Now wait a second… “Logic Board”? Oh yes, they mistakenly put the wrong caption there, because, in the US version, the logic board picture is supposed to be this:
From what we see above, this is only a handful of mistakes that the Indonesian Macworld has managed to show me. There are still numerous errors, such as low-resolution photos, crappy printouts, inconsistent layouts, dull colors, and crappy translations. Oh yes, I never did liked the idea of having “proper Indonesian” translations on magazines, simply because the often turned out to be “norak”, since the writing style was not intended to be rewritten in Indonesian.
In the end, why do we even bother having a translated Macworld anyway, if this is what we’re gonna get. With all those ridiculous mistakes on details and design, with regards that this is supposed to be a complement to a set of Apple’s premium products, I can roughly consider Macworld Indonesia as one of the results of Indonesian editorial designers’ ignorance. I think I’ll stick with subscribing to the US version. At $3,75 for each edition (if you subscribe directly), it’s only Rp. 5000 more expensive than this badly translated version. It’s at least ten times better, and at least, it saves me from having sudden heart attacks.
Congratulations, Megindo, on turning one of the best Mac magazines into something that is not even worth reading. I sarcastically can’t wait to see what they would do to their website. Oh, I know! How about Flash intros?
Posted in apple, art and design, books and reads | No Comments »
May 30th, 2008
I finally got my Alkitab hosted graciously at modmyifone. So if any of you want to install it to your iPhone or iPod Touch, things have just got much more easier. Just open up Installer, install Books.app, and then install the Alkitab.
Posted in apple, softwares, works | No Comments »
May 24th, 2008
I don’t usually buy business magazines, unless I was featured there 
or if something caught my eye. Such as a large Apple logo on the cover. But there’s more to it than just Apple as a cover feature. It’s the redesign of BusinessWeek. It’s been a while since they have their magazine and website redesigned, but I never really pay attention to it. I like the way they maintain the superbly readable body text with a nice leading and all, but the main punch for me is that they managed to switch from a classic to a modern look, and they did it. The layout is consistent and by far it bests most of Indonesian’s typical business magazine (I don’t have to name them here, as most real designers know that most of them are designed poorly, and they obviously look crappy).
But in all good things, there’s always a flaw:
Yes, that one came from Amazon’s Search Inside!™ feature. The least they can do is buy the book and scan off the cover, or they could simply Google the image. I found a few even bigger than the image they’re using. But I wouldn’t take this as BusinessWeek’s entire mistake. This is Indonesia, even franchises can afford to suck.
Posted in art and design, news | No Comments »
May 24th, 2008
Wow, it only took two days for the workshop to get my bumper fixed. And along with that, no more stupid grill chromes.
Posted in auto | No Comments »
May 22nd, 2008
Due to an unfortunate event, I had to have my car’s bumper claimed and fixed. Right now, my car is bumperless. And no, I’m not switching to any crappy fiberglass custom bumpers. I am not a riceboy.
Posted in auto, life | No Comments »
May 17th, 2008
Oh yes, our country is exceptionally known for making high stake dramas, from the Fitna drama, the YouTube blocking drama, Roy Suryo dramas (He’s been making dramas all his life. He could be an actor after all, you know), and the latest… The fuel price drama.
Okay, the issue is that the price for fuel is going up. Why? Because fuel is not a renewable source of energy, and non-renewable energies cannot be reproduced. So the less supply we have, the more expensive it gets. And why does this really matter that people, especially college students, had to go marching for protest and jumped into the bandwagon? In my opinion, it’s because of Indonesia’s lack of knowledge that in the future, FOSSIL FUEL WILL RUN OUT!
Despite the government is also to be blamed because they never give out education on how limited FOSSIL FUEL are to the society, I think I would have to agree with them. If we want to subsidize fuel, until when can we keep subsidizing every single kind of fuel? Until the world ends? We simply can’t afford to subsidize fuel anymore. Look at other countries, it is inevitable that the price for fuel is increasing time after time. Do they accept it? Oh, yes. They have to. Because it’s reality, and you just can’t recycle fossil fuel. Fuel just doesn’t go up to $4 a gallon for no reason. Do you really think that the government has absolute control over this? This is a reality pill that we all just have to swallow.
Now, as a college alumni, one thing came across my mind about these college students that call themselves “college students”, or mahasiswa, as in the highest grade of students, and yet in a stupid act protested the government on how they should not raise the fuel price? You call yourselves intelligent students? Of all kinds of people, college students are supposed to learn and understand things, not going down to the street wearing your colorful jackets and shout “TURUNKAN HARGA BBM!“, while at the same time knowing that reality bites. Get a life, do something useful other than making yourself stupid, and READ THE FACTS THAT FOSSIL FUEL IS NOT RENEWABLE. If you want to make things better, why not switch to a green lifestyle? Ride a bicycle to college, not that idiotic horde of motor kampungs with 2-stroke engines, or wasting fuel for useless car parades on demonstrations, or even hijacking a tanker for that matter. Indonesian college students… I bet half of them are idiots. Just plain idiots. Mahasiswa my ass.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
May 14th, 2008
I got this over from UPH Alumni’s mailing list:
JAWABAN DARI PIHAK AXIS :
Buat teman2 yg mungkin dpt spamming SMS atau email soal AXIS adalah kartu
setan, ini jawaban saya :
Soal issue setan itu, sy udah baca teman, setiap hari ada beberapa email yg
masuk ke correspondence unit sy dan kita jawab dgn baik, kalau boleh saya
jawab secara personal dan sbg karyawan AXIS, ini pendapat pribadi saya sbb
ya :
* AXIS adalah brand PT NATRINDO Telepon Selular, nama AXIS adalah berasal
usul dari MAXIS (inget share holder asing kami yg pertama adalah MAXIS)
sebelum di beli oleh Saudi Telecom Company
* Offer 666 adalah utk kemudahan mengingat dan mohon di cek offer kami di
Bulan Feb 2007 dng brand NTS adalah Rp 1 / detik which is sama dgn Rp 60/
menit. Meeting ttg tariff ini adalah yg sangat menarik dan saya tahu banget
darimana angka 666 tsb berasal. Kalau kami mau semua 666, tentu tidak akan
membuat batas offer limit data 100 Mb tapi 666 Mb donk ? Selain tariff ini,
ada tariff lain yaitu Rp 1,200 utk SLJJ, khan tidak 666 tukh.
* Nomor awalan kami bukan 0866 tapi 0838 XXX XXXX - skali lagi di ulangi
0838 - pls check my number, kalau di spamming ada nomor telpon dengan awalan
08666 426454 coba saja di call dan cek ke Depkominfo - nomor awalan tsb
punya operator siapa ? Di sini GAMPANG skali mengecek bo’ongnya.
* Natrindo sendiri adalah persh netral - tidak berpihak kepada aliran/agama
apapun, tapi sy sendiri masuk dalam Persekutuan Doa Oikumene Natrindo - kami
berkumpul tiap Jumat beserta teman2 segedung Citra Graha, ke sini dech kalau
mau ikutan doa - daripada gossip mending doain saya.
* Kalau kita melihatnya sih ini lebih ke psy war dan in a way bagus buat
propaganda AXIS krn mereka yg ga tahu jadi tahu loch J
Note : Alkitab punya 66 kitab dan Alqur’an punya 6666 ayat serta bagi
Chinese angka 6 adalah berarti maju.
Saya sendiri suka ketawa sakit perut kalo baca spam SMS atau spam email tsb
soal kartu setan ini, ternyata ada saja org termakan hal ini.
Ya, anggap saja kita celebrity dech jadi di gossipin terus.. JJJ
Grace HM
Customer Service
Mobile : +62 838 8000 618
grace.heny@axisworld.co.id
Some of the so-called “True Believer” Christians would obviously think, “Of course they said that, they’re Satan!”. I say, these Christians should suck their own balls. BIKIN MALU ORANG KRISTEN AJA.
Posted in church, life | No Comments »
May 9th, 2008
For 21 years I’ve collected Tomicas, I’ve never seen one regular Tomica with this kind of quality. This is the best by far, and the details are PERFECT down to the “Jeep Wrangler” emblem and the front fascia! I think it’s about time that Takara Tomy upgrade its regular Tomica lineup to this quality.
Posted in toys and hobbies | No Comments »
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