• The Planet's Most Moronic Hacker, from Slashdot. For those of you that don't know, 127.0.0.1 is the IP address for your own PC. Even I, the self-proclaimed hacker-wannabe-neverwillbe, know that. Sheesh.
• And yet another massacre blamed on video-games. From Salon.com
• Kottke does an essay about the current state of the Web and the Internet in general. To over-generalize, he's saying that net-innovation is happening and stagnating at the same time. Or something like that.
• Rice that eats pesticides. From Rebecca's Pocket.
• Zebra Gives Birth to Foal Sired by Donkey. From the Associated Press.
• The Chimera Dilemma Manifested in Sheep. From Slashdot. A chimera is a mythical beast with parts from several diferent animals, including humans. Geneticists are heading that way.
• Of course if you're really looking for these sort of links... from Tony Pierce.
• BTW I've never managed to visit Fark. Or at least add its RSS feed to my Thunderbird. I should do that sometime.
• So if I'm not that good why do I keep making these random links? Cuz I don't feel like flooding Lur's, Nick's, and Rulez's mailboxes anymore. And cuz I'm too lazy to create original content sometimes. Okay, a lot of times :p

Not to mention all the work I owe here and there. For which I am paid with peanuts. Okay, okay: I also gain experience /:)

• A call to action in OASIS. Found while visiting Bruce Perens' site by whim, about a very disturbing software patent paradigm.
• The economics of Open Source. Also from Perens. He seems to be updating it with the changing of times.
  
• JWZ does sacrament math. JWZ is one of the founding members of Netscape corp. He now runs a nightclub in downtown LA fulltime. From Boing Boing.
• Opera CEO swims across the Atlantic, fulfilling his end of a bet he made that Opera 8 would surpass 1 million downloads within four days of its release. From CNet.
• Just for the record, Firefox 1.0 surpassed 1 million within its first day. From Spread Firefox (check the article for other sources).
• More IE7 details emerge. From Ars Technica.
  
• SGI to produce GNU/Linux-based multiprocessor Itanium workstations. Glad to hear SGI's still alive (here's hoping they push GNU/Linux computer graphic technologies to levels comparable to their legendary Indigo systems in their heyday). From CNet.
• Windows XP Pro x64, a 64-bit version of Windows, ships. Commentary from Ars Technica.
• But somehow it falls somewhat short. An x64 review by CNet. BTW both links courtesy of /.
• That Japanese train wreck is looking worse each day...
• Why US$100 computers are on the way. A CNet interview with Advanced Micro Devices CEO Hector Ruiz. There was a time when I wanted to blog about his '50x15 initiative'...
  
• Live after Darth. A very cool interview with Wired Magazine. George Lucas contemplates making 'indy-style,' avant-garde movies again. I certainly hope he decides to do so. Big time.

Okay... after much contemplating I figure I might as well post these; since by the time I can conjure up something worthwhile to read these links would most likely have gone stale so... enjoy! :) Oh, BTW Mei please remind me to link you; and how 'bout you making me a bracelet?

• Hope for alternative energies. An article in WoCN
• French government bans DRM on DVDs. A Boing Boing post.
• Happy birthday Freeculture.org. I'm echoing the Lessig blog.
• My condolences to Tony. Don't give up yet, Sir; you're only beginning (and that was a English Lit Ph.D poetry graduate program he was rejected from... and the program never said Tony's stuff was bad... so...)
• Saving lives with design. From /.
• A great illustrator shows stuffs. From Boing Boing. And word has it Kozyndan is working with American McGee (of 'Alice' fame) on a game (which I can't wait to get my hands on).
• Oh! And I guest-blogged at my buddy's blog. To Chaos Team, if you're wondering who this guy is, he's the one who brought the bottle of Absolut at my graduation.

During the not-so old days of Counter-Strike popularity, I used to use the 'handle' (also known as 'user name', 'nickname', or 'nick') "Megaloman," that is until I was informed that "Megaloman" was the name of some Ultr4 L33t CS clan from Bandung. Since I do have a little sense of humility (back then at least), I decided to create a new handle and call myself "Lemi4." I'll get back to how I came up with that nick, but I must say that I've grown attached to that nick because its so unique; just like how PGL worldwide Quake champion Dennis "Thresh" Fong came to using his handle.

I must say that I loved CS. I wasn't particularly good, but I do manage to survive for more than the initial thirty seconds once in a while. Occasionally I even manage to make it to the end of the round; sometimes by defusing/planting the bomb at de_ maps, which annoys quite a lot of other players as I recall, since so many has this deathmatch mentality. At that era some would probably say, "Y00 L4m3rs! Y d0n'ch4 play Quake Arena 0r 5umt1n, D0rk5!" But my take is that its okay, since practically nobody save for the somewhat 'ultra-rich' can afford to play actual multiplayer CS anywhere else but at the cheap game stations and warnets located around campuses. Besides, because of how easy it is to die/kill in CS the savagery makes for excellent poetic battles; especially if you can survive the first thirty seconds. Until the AWP whores start roaming, that is. But even then, imagine a coordinated, tactical, stealthy assault on the whores' positions. With perfect execution. Sw33t.

There was a time even when we had this clan named 'Dungu' (it means dumb in literary Indonesian). At first it was an in joke because the members were rank amateurs from mostly my faculty (and also so that we could have an easy excuse when our collective butts were being kicked); but we actually got somewhat quite good (I think) to the point that our clan name was recognized by some of the other players. Perhaps because we were the only ones playing with a 'somewhat' team mentality, with formations and support. [Dungu]Lemi4, now that was a cool nick. And then if I remember correctly there was [Dungu]Sarge (he's our main strategist), [Dungu]Batman Saint, [Dungu]Angga, and (occasionally) [Dungu]Mahe and [Dunggu]Saint(whatever-his-name-was). Now these last ones were veterans who happened to be from our faculty, and they joined up sometime after the original formation. They were good. Yeah, those were the days.

Of course the CS craze has somewhat died down in this corner of the world, the trend currently being RYL, after a longish love affair with Ragnarok and Gunbound (I don't play any of these). And I can't help but think that it was, at least partially, because CS became somewhat 'closed'. There was a time when CS was actually free (at least in beer), and there was even a period when CS's maps, chars, and models were available in source (although without a specific license attached to them aside from the creators' declaration that they were free as in beer) But ever since Team CS got bought by Valve, well.... Nevertheless it makes me think of an excellent article made by ESR analyzing the weaknesses of closed-source Quake, which was made sometime shortly after John Carmack decided to release the original Quake engine under GPL. The FOSS-Quake community is alive and (somewhat) well, but I can't help imagining what would happen if Team CS gave full support to these teams. Support in the form of CS infrastructure based upon these open-source engines. And then they manage to release working, secure and playable code running on GNU/Linux (not just proof-of-concepts but actually fun to play). Think about the motivation to deploy GNU/Linux desktops at warnets and game stations. Think about how it would spur OpenGL and 3D video-driver debugging in GNU/Linux. At the very least it would make it possible to play LAN-multiplayer FPSes legally in Indonesia.

Time moves, trends change. And so though I've stopped playing CS, over the years I've used the nick Lemi4 for various online presences. It used to be that I planned on signing my messages as Lemi4 while talking to strangers, and as fERDI:) for those persons that I consider (at least in my imagination) to be somewhat close. I don't think it works that way anymore since I've been rather inconsistent in maintaining that policy. Oh! And I also came up with fERDI:) when I was first beginning to play with email. It first started as a typo when I left my caps lock on, but I guess it looks kinda cool so I decided to keep it.

And to wrap it up here's a little snippet I wrote from when I signed up for the Ars forums.

It began as a chant for a former love interest (spelled backward), but since she's rejected me, it becomes a pure memetic symbol of my cyber-identity. It has lost its original meaning and now it becomes me.

And that's why I refer to myself as fERDI:) aka. Lemi4. If you want me to stop using my nick, then you'd better talk to me.

---

I've slowed down with tracking back lately. What with the number of links I'm throwing around, and the fact that I have to ping each and every trackback url manually (and to the number of times my pings were rejected by big-name blogs)....

Maybe later when I've upgraded to Wordpress, since it (and MT, too) has automatic trackback pingback... (yeah right)

Addendum 8-5-2005: 'No, si Hesley nick-nya apaan yah?

• The former Kardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) made Bush jr's 2nd term possible. From Tony's Busblog
• Owner of BenedictXVI.com tells all from Wired News.
• A review of Opera 8 by Asa Dotzler, prominent member of Team Firefox and Mozzila.org employee.
• Superboy comicbooks as surreal visual art. From Boing Boing. More here.
• We Come in Peace. Now who would've expected something like this from Harpers magazine (Smart and erotic at the same time)?
• An interesting /. discussion on the Linux Standard Base (LSB), with lots of interesting points about why LSB is needed and why widespread Linux adoption is still not achieved (yet)
• AMD comes out with their dual core processors; and beats the living crap out of Intel's. From AnandTech. Anjiiir.... me wants, me wants... :drool:
• A possible hybrid replacement for Humvee. From Wired.
  
• Apparently it was Hitler's birtday two days ago, and a poster at Kuro5hin had some thoughts.
• A Boing Boing feed got me interested in The Saga of Patty Hearst. An interesting read. More from CourtTV's Crime Library and Wikipedia (especially the stuff on the SLA). You might also wanna Google her for good effect.
  

Recently KPU member Mulyana W. Kusumah was indicted with corruption for getting caught while handing off a suitcase filled with Rp 300 million to someone in some café in Jakarta. Mr. Kusumah sits in the advisory board for YLBHI, a prominent local NGO specialising in making available legal councel to as many people as possible, especially the poor. Usually cases of Indonesian activism like these gets blogged by RMS or at least at IndonesiaAlert.org, but I haven't seem to find any mention.

From sources I can't seem to find right now (not just online), he has a long history of activisim dating back to his days as a college student. Maybe you won't believe him nor his family when they say that he doesn't have that kind of money which is why it is so important for me to find those online sources. But I can't.

It makes me think about reputation. And how one earns it. We are all wearing masks. People tell me what I am, I believe it, and then I become it without remembering whatever it was I was before (or still am without realising).

Its so easy to be crooked in this country that to me it seems to be mandatory sometimes. But must everyone beholden by the eye of the media immediately become guilty? (or innocent?)

And what authority do I have to talk about such complex legal-political matters? I am imprisoned by my own ineptitude.

• Opera 8 released. From Ars Technica RSS.
• An introduction to Intel's WiMAX from Ars Technica.
• A possible bacterial HIV cure. From Wired RSS.
• Heightened jury expectations due to CSI phenomenon troubles US courts. From Boing Boing.
• A US Marine charged with murdering a rock star. From Reuters RSS.
• Canadian researcher calls recording industry's bluff. Posted at First Monday. Also from Boing-boing but about a month old. And it is interesting to note that Canada's very real 'private copying levy' is similar to thoughts found on Lessig's Free Culture.
• Choice entries from Dooce: PM Dawn and This Town Needs an Enema. (I wish she would post full entries on her feeds...)
• Oh, and scratch that thought of blogging the Adobe-Macromedia buyout: Kottke has made a great summary.
• But he missed Mezzoblue's.
• And from Mezzoblue, beware the Avalon/XAML.

Ok, so its not my cafë; its a team effort. Okay. I get it. Sorry for being a stonehead.

Let's see... That's no good; I shouldn't be disclosing any confidential details. Darn. Oh well...

On other thoughts I have decided (based on a formula I got from Barbara Ganim's book) that I would like to set my hourly freelancing fee at Rp 30.000. For one day, Rp 200.000, at a maximum of 8 hours per day; for one week Rp 700.000, at a maximum of 5 working days per week; and Rp 3.000.000 per month, for a maximum of 4 working weeks per month. I'm perfectly okay with overtime, but I'll be charging my hourly fee for it. Prices are negotiable but I won't be moved too far from them (unless the direction is upward; and even then I'd consider real hard before taking on something I consider outside of my league). And as you can see, the longer you contract me the cheaper I get. Some (especially Indonesians) might ask why am asking for such a high fee (especially considering that I'm a fresh graduate). I'll answer that it is to compensate for the fact that for all the while that I'm freelancing I will not be getting any other compensation (including health insurance, transport compensation, pension, equipment and consumable expenses, the company paid free lunch etc.) aside from the pay I get. And to make up for that I must factor those needs into my asking price. And that is why freelancers are paid more than office workers.

And I have a feeling that RSS hasn't really helped in alleviating my phone bill situation. This month's report has come in and it still weighs in at over one million (about US$105 at current exchange rates). Perhaps I should just give up on saving up enough to get Speedy and just get myself a CDMA cell and get flatrate internet acces from either Star One or Matrix (both priced at Rp 200.000 per month at about 512kbps). I've tried abstaining, supposedly feeding my hunger only at WarNets, but the temptation is just too strong you know. But perhaps my judgement is too early; I've only used Thunderbird and Gmail for under a month now...

There was an opening posted on the alumni maillist for a freelance DG asking for sample artwork. The email I sent her was almost one whole megabyte. Well, she asked for it :0)

And finally as shown by the prime evidence you now hold in your hands (assuming this text will eventually find its way into print form), you can see that I'm just rambling now.

So... what to do? What to do?.... Oh, of course, the proposal... hmm...

(Hey, at least its not just random links...)

• An interesting discussion about the Adobe-Macromedia buyout at Ars technica, especially if you follow the forums...
• I guess the Adobe-Macromedia thing deserves further exploration; especially with allegations of antitrust... no promises though.
  
• Another Communications Science professor has made a blog. Via Dan Gillmor (if I remembered correctly)
• New to the Internet? Then you might wanna check out this Kuro5hin article.
  

I got an error message from Firefox yesterday morning (the message being the title of this post).

For the record I still love Firefox. (No mere single error message will change that; I'm not that lazy. Especially when the solution is so trivial)

The first thing I did was do a Google query of the message using Mozilla Browser aka. Seamonkey (Thank God I haven't uninstalled that old beasts; it sure comes in handy in situations like these lest I have to actually open IE again...). A couple of usefull link results ensued, among them some forum posts at Neowin.net and Mozillazine. According to the latter it turns out that...

No amount of restarting will fix this problem. The problem is caused by Mozilla not cleaning up after installing an .xpi file, such as jre.xpi, the Java run time environment.

Mozilla leaves a file called xpicleanup.dat in it's home directory. As root, you must remove the file.

It worked for me.

And for me also. Oh for us Windows users the "home directory" of Firefox is the folder located at "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" (assuming a default English-language installation), and 'as root' means logged in with administrator priveleges, meaning almost everybody logging in to their XP-pro machine. If you're using XP-home you should log in as 'Administrator;' you still remember the Administrator password, don't you? Or at least did you jot it down somewhere?

I've never bothered to update my Firefox installation in Mandrake because its just so frickin' big (the 1.0 Linux rpm was 8.6 megs; that one-time installation was a hassle but worth it, but I doubt I'll ever be doing it again until I get cheap broadband).

Apparently the problem is not only caused by installing an .xpi (or a malformed extension), but also caused by upgrading Firefox through its in-browser automatic update mechanism. According to the unofficial microsoft weblog:

You see, if you read the release notes, it says unequivocally that you should uninstall any previous version of Firefox or at least make sure you install the new version into a different directory than the previous version. Trouble is, the automatic update-install routine doesn’t offer to first uninstall the older version or suggest you install to a different directory. So, you end up with two installations of Firefox on your machine.

Or in my case, one unloadable installation. Caused by a single measly xpicleanup.dat file.

This whole mess of mine happened when on a whim last night I decided to try upgrading my Firefox through said mechanism from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3. There's an interesting red sphere, with a white arrow pointing upwards, that appears on the rightmost corner of Firefox's menu bar when an update is available. It invites clicking.

Personally I think Team Firefox should just temporarily disable automatic update for the main browser module (auto-update seems to otherwise work just fine with my extensions and plugins both in Firefox and Thunderbird), and use the mechanism instead to remind users to download the latest update whenever they are available. And do the upgrade manually (download, uninstall, install). Or bother their neighborhood geek again.

Earlier I said that no mere single error message would change my appreciation for Firefox whence the solution is so simple. But I am no mere ordinary 'normal user,' I doubt 'normal users' (those brought up to merely use computers as opposed to maintaining their own system at least to a minimal level) would find the solution to be 'merely trivial.'

This upgrade problem has been around since 1.0, and it still hasn't been fixed. And for a package of only about 4.6 megs I guess its pretty useless to create an incremental upgrade module (aka. patch); though other past shareware projects like GetRight have been doing them for years. The team should spare 'normal users' the trauma (the team has relieved a lot of n00b traumas with Firefox; such as the old, horrid 'preferences' panel in the Seamonkey browser suite). If they want 'normal users' to not bother neighborhood geeks about updating Firefox, then they should create an incremental update system for the browser. Otherwise that enticing red button on the right corner is just one big forbidden fruit to n00bs.

...

Well actually instead of Googling from Seamonkey, the first thing I did was panic because my 'precious' Firefox wouldn't start. Then I tried reinstalling Firefox. Then uninstalling and installing. Then messing around with 'program accesses and defaults' from control panel. After a couple of hours of frustation only then did I remember to Google for help. It helps to stay calm in situations like these.

update 2005-06-12: I encountered this post by Ben since God knows when after I made this post of mine, but software update is a priority feature of Firefox 1.1. Ben has even posted a new screenshot and more details.