• Intel's Changing of the Guard [from Dan Gillmor (he has moved)]
  
• Nintendo Joins Battle of New Game Systems (AP) [from Yahoo!News RSS]
  
• Porn Valley Goes Blogging [from Wired]
• The Beeb Shall Inherit the Earth [from Wired]
  
• Developer claims Netscape 8 release imminent [from CNet]
• The Making of Episode 3 [from Tom's Hardware]
• Demystifying Depression - Part II [from Kuro5hin]
• ccSpread [from Lessig]
• Star Wars Republic Commando [from Ars]
• Penggerebekan Squat di Kota Blora [dari Jakarta IMC]
• it's not the greatest but it is a new photo essay [from Busblog]

Oh and did I mention that I have a Deviant Art account? Its at lemi4.deviantart.com.

Anyway inspired by Mei's post on the seventh year anniversary of Former President Soeharto's resignation, I've (semi-) randomly decided to post this letter I made some years ago. With a little bit of proofreading. Yes, its in Indonesian. No, I won't translate it. Yes, I'll put it in my Indonesian language blog (someday). (And how many of you would protest anyway?)

From: "ferdikom98" <ferdi@p...>
To: fisip@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sun Jan 26, 2003 1:00 am
Subject: 'Nostalgia' 'gerakan' mahasiswa

Dulu pas gue baru masuk tahun '98, gue inget waktu itu lagi anget-angetnya gerakan mahasiswa di UI. Suharto baru turun, Wiranto lagi sering-seringnya disetan-setanin, Habibie makin menjadi-jadi tampang anehnya (bahkan memulai tren berpelukan jauh sebelum Teletubbies masuk Indonesia), dan Keluarga Besar UI alias KBUI lagi banyak-banyaknya kegiatan dan anggotanya. Belum lagi FAM-UI, Forkot, Famred, LMND, dan apa lagi lah.

Waktu gue ikut PPKBM FISIP begitu banyak 'pengetahuan' baru yang gue dapet, soal 'kehidupan buruh', soal Senat Mahasiswa UI dan 'ulah' si Rama (ketua Senat waktu itu), soal kehidupan mahasiswa FISIP, soal Neo-Liberalisme, soal Marxisme / Leninisme, soal Sosialisme, soal 'mahasiswa adalah rakyat'. Gue begitu 'kagum' dan 'terpesona' sampe-sampe gue hampir bisa disuruh 'perang' buat apa aja (hampir), asal ada embel-embel 'rakyat'-nya.

Gue inget 'kerusuhan' OPT pusat 1998. Gue inget yang di dalam Balairung bilang nyebut yang di luar Balairung adalah 'perusuh-perusuh kacau tanpa kendali', gue inget yang di luar Balairung ngomong yang di dalem 'tidak melakukan apapun tapi mengambil kredit'. Dan abis upacara wisuda beberapa hari kemudian, gue lupa diajak siapa tapi tau-tau udah nongkrong di lantai satu kost-an Ripi, di Barel Hukum, ngomongin soal apaan gue udah lupa sama sekali.

Gue inget long-march dari Salemba menuju DPR/MPR Senayan, sehari sesudah si Anas nabrakin mobilnya ke sejumlah tentara di Jalan Diponegoro. Dari jam 12 siang sampe enam sore, berdiri, duduk, ngedengerin orasi sampai mulai sepi jam 2 malam. Gue inget ketemu seorang senior, dan berbicara dengan dia dengan 'suara kecil', karena hukuman beberapa hari sebelumnya, entah karena kesalahan apa, yang jelas ada hubungannya dengan PraSar Kom. Gue inget tidur di lapangan parkir Atma Jaya sampe jam 2 malam, pas tiba-tiba anak-anak bilang ada beberapa bis gratisan yang menuju Depok.

Gue inget nongkrong di sebuah rumah yang katanya rumah Ratna Sarumpaet, ngobrol dengan orang-orang yang katanya dari beberapa universitas di Jabotabek, beberapa seniman, dan anak-anak PRD. Gue inget balik ke kampus jam 2 atau 3 malem, rame-rame nyarter Mikrolet ampe Depok.

Gue inget nyokap gue nangis pas gue nyampe rumah, berulang kali nanya 'kamu nggak apa-apa nak?' Gue inget ngerasa bingung, kok nyokap gue ngerasa kayak gue abis selamat dari bencana apaan 'dah?

Gue inget 'kafe tenda' KBUI, di samping stasiun UI. Gue inget nongkrong abis kuliah, ngobrol sembarang ngobrol mengenai apa aja: TimTim, Golkar, buruh, komunisme, gerakan mahasiswa, Beatles, BoyBand, VW Combi, Bali, model jins BootCut, apa aja. Gue inget 'kumpul tani '98.' Gue inget hujan deras di lapangan bola FISIP, di mana ada tenda yang di bawahnya berteduh puluhan petani dari 'berbagai penjuru Indonesia'.

Gue inget di akhir semester itu IP gue 0,8. Gue inget perasaan lemes gue pas untuk pertama kalinya dalam hidup gue ngeliat apa itu yang namanya DNS alias Daftar Nilai Siswa. Sekarang IPS gue 0,43 aja gue nggak bergeming, malahan jadi bahan candaan (IPK gue masih 2,12 sih, dan SKS gue udah 120, jadi nggak di-DO :)

Gue inget jalan sore, pas tahun '99 atau 2000 yah? Naik Feroza-nya Nicolo, niatnya pengen ke Atma tapi karena terblokir akhirnya nongkrong di YLBHI Salemba sampe jam 12 malam. Padahal gue sendiri niatnya waktu itu sekedar nebeng pulang, gara-gara cuma sedikit bis umum yang beroperasi. Gue inget besoknya nonton berita di RCTI si Yun Hap mati ditembak. Gue inget abang gue ngomong kalo dulu dia tuh temen SMA-nya.

Gue inget berita-berita di media. Gerakan mahasiswa ditunggangi. Gue inget paman gue, abangnya bokap gue, berulang kali ngomong, 'Jangan Demo! Mahasiswa sudah nggak murni!' Gue inget merasa panas waktu itu, entah kenapa. Padahal gue udah nggak pernah ikutan lagi.

Sekarang hampir lima tahun udah lewat. Sejak itu presiden udah tiga kali ganti. Harga masih terus melambung (walaupun harus diakui masih sedikit agak lebih pelan), persentase rakyat miskin bertambah. Elit politik berebutan kursi dan saling menjatuhkan. Isu Indosat, surat R&D, Ali Imron & Anshori. Sementara banyak EsMud bilang, Indonesia mulai pulih, pekerjaan bergaji tinggi mulai banyak, kesempatan-kesempatan mulai kelihatan. Pemerintahan Megawati mulai berkurang legitimasinya, kepercayaan rakyat akan kemampuannya memperbaiki keadaan negara menurun, dan kayaknya kemungkinan dia dijatuhin lagi ala Gus Dur udah mulai keliatan. Paling abis ini siapa gitu, mungkin Amien Rais ngecalonin dirinya, mungkin menang, dan kalaupun begitu paling yang lain juga bakal ikut-ikutan ngegoyang dia, and the cycle goes on.

Cak Nur pernah bilang di Kompas, gue lupa Kompas kapan tapi yah sama ajalah kapan dia ngomong dan dalam acara apa, konteksnya tetap dalam keadaan Indonesia pasca Orba, bahwa negara kita terlalu banyak politisi dan kekurangan negarawan. Gue sih belum pernah merasa ketemu sama yang namanya negarawan Indonesia, kalo pengertiannya seseorang yang peduli sama negara dan melakukan sesuatu yang konkrit dan berdampak sosial-politis yang konkrit pula.

Pas gue ikut demo-demo '98, kayaknya bukan Indonesia seperti ini deh yang gue bayangin. Bahkan kalo gue pikirin lebih dalem lagi, gue kayaknya nggak terlalu kebayang juga Indonesia seperti apa yang gue pengenin, apalai bagaimana cara ngewujudinnya. Gue inget dulu gue sebel banget-banget sama temen-temen gue yang selalu ngomong "ngapain demo, emang ngefek?" Seolah merasa bahwa mereka 'nggak melakukan apapun' sedangkan gue 'melakukan sesuatu'. Gue ngeliat ke belakang, terus ngeliat ke sekarang, dan gue mikir, apa sih yang udah dikerjain mahasiswa? Apa sih yang udah gue kerjain? Apa sih hasilnya? Indonesia seperti sekarang ini?

This nation's going down the drain, dan (contohnya) kebanyakan anak-anak SMP-SMA di malesbanget.com pada ngomong 'mari kita beramai-ramai pindah ke luar negeri dan biarkanlah Indonesia mati membusuk'. Gue pengen ngomong apa juga bingung. Gue percaya Indonesia masih bisa diselamatin, dan gue juga berharap masih ada manusia Indonesia yang sependapat dengan gue, DAN punya solusi konkrit untuk ngewujudinnya. Ada nggak sih?

Apalah, terserah. Gue pengen lulus. Gue pengen kerja. Gue pengen cari makan dan hidup kaya.

Sekedar curhat nggak jelas, sorry ngelantur, sorry ngeganggu:)

Kalo ditanya apa perasaan pendapat gue tentang Indonesia masih senegatif ini, gue akan cenderung bilang nggak. Iya, elit politik masih lebih sibuk rebutan kursi daripada ngebangun negeri, tapi paling nggak kiblatnya pemerintah nggak lagi ke arah satu kepentingan tunggal. Iya emang korupsi lebih merajalela, tapi paling nggak kebebasan berbicara udah mulai kita rasa.

Sayangnya masih kurang banyak yang mau bicara, karena sampai sekarang 'kita' masih tetep 'agak males-malesan' untuk mau 'bergerak'. But if I'm not gonna do anything about it then I shouldn't complain, now should I?

Beberapa kali ngobrol-ngobrol sampai pada kesimpulan 'mendingan kita mikirin gimana ngejaga kelakuan masing-masing'. Ada benernya sih, tapi gimana pas orang-orang berkuasa nggak ngejaga kelakuan mereka? Masa sekedar diobrolin doang? Trus kalo pengen ngelakuin sesuatu, apa?

Well until I can figure out what I can do for this great nation of ours, I'm just gonna try to be a decent person. If this is as good as our nation can be then so be it. It's a cool enough hangout place as it is. (I have a feeling things will get better though...)

I'm looking at the man in the mirror,
I'm asking him to change his ways.
You should stop now and take a look in the mirror.
If you wanna make the world a better place
take a look at yourself and make a

change.

- "Man in the Mirror," Michael Jackson

• Manchester United the-business-entity-dash-football-club has been taken over, by a US investor Rob Glaser no less. [from Reuters RSS]
• The Creative Commons - BzzAgent controversy ends, and gives birth to spreadCC. Its a long story, and I had planned on blogging about it but I got tired...
• Meanwhile in other CC news a few ccMixters got some mainstream-media airtime. [both  bullets from the Lessig Blog]
  
• A new projectile gun concept using centrifugal force. Supposedly it will fire more projectiles per second and be much quiter than conventional gunpowder firearms. Appropriately its called DREAD. [via Boing Boing]
• Tony Pierce reviews the new Weezer album and later retracts it. [from Tony's Busblog, of course]
• Darknet: The Installments. [from JOHO the Blog]
  
• Kevin Sites wins 2005 Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism. He later posted the full, unedited Fallujah video which got him in his ethics conundrum (I'll rediscover the link to his blog post of the Fallujah incident Real Soon Now™, but... Here's the link to his post about the Fallujah video. Here's his blog). [from Boing Boing]
• CNet reports IBM's endorsement of Firefox. [from Adot's NotBlog]
• Jenn Shreve, not a "real" journalist? [from Boing Boing]
• Amazon.com's Statistically Improbable Phrases. [from Wired News]
  
• Moment of accidentally anal Brazilian university zen. [from Boing Boing]
• I'd also like to remind Indonesians among you (most likely still the majority audience of this blog) of the excellent recent posts from fellow Indonesian bloggers (in no particular order; except for that one linked to 'Indonesian' which I add to this list somewhat reluctantly...) (and you say you hated chaos?)
• And as a final note to those who may have asked, I got these by surfing too long, made even better (worse?) by my harvested RSS feeds collected using Thunderbird. Oh and a little help from Google News, too. All using a pay-by-the-minute dial-up internet connection (which is too expensive in Indonesia now that we have flatrate GPRS Internet from our local cell operator Indosat)
  

originally posted to [Graphic Design Arena] @ Yahoo!Groups

[snip] wrote:

Hey,

I am going to attend CSUN next year and my major is Graphic Designing. Guys have any tips? I'm not going in cold turkey, i design wallpapers and logos with photoshop, but what else should i learn about to become a GD?

thanks!

Very interesting question. Now since I came from a collegiate communication background (focusing on advertising communications) I've barely gotten any formal graphic design education (aside from a single 3-credit course on GD and visual communications). But I would like to think that this is a question I encounter every day at my work as a freelancer (not necessarily GD, sometimes copy, sometimes something as completely unrelated as live translating). I don't know 'bout the States (I'm assuming you're from the States), but nowadays over at my corner of the world GDs are supposed to be the Masters of the Universe when it comes to digital visual art. Being good with Photoshop is very, very important but you can't survive on Photoshop alone.

The first natural extension to your skill set would obviously be vector graphic tools. Illustrator's the top dog in the States (or so I've heard) but over here in Jakarta most ad agencies use Freehand. You could learn CorelDRAW (and Corel's graphic suite) but a lot of agencies have abandoned using it (them). It seems that getting bought by Microsoft only got them to merely survive as opposed to actually thriving. And if you do go with Illustrator (which is disadvantaged in page layouting capabilities compared to Freehand due to its single-page paradigm) then you should familiarize yourself with a bona-fide page-layout program such as QuarkXpress or Adobe's InDesign.

Next up is any 3D tool; there's 3DS Max and Maya (each with their respective humongous list of supports and add-ons), and then there's also the popular Lightwave 3D and the popular open-source Blender3D tool (there's one more popular FOSS 3D tool, but I can't recall its name right now) [update: I remember it now: POV-Ray!]

And then there's animation. You may not encounter a lot of animation jobs depending on where you work, but its always useful to at least know a little Flash for cartoons and Adobe's Premiere for live video (and often times also for 2D/3D animation post-production tweaking). Even if you work solely with static images, knowing a little about these can help if and when you're asked to create animation-friendly work.

I mentioned Blender3D [blender3d.org] as an open-source alternative 3D tool, but Blender3D is far from being the only thing FOSS has to offer. For vector there's the Inkscape [inkscape.org] and Sodipodi [updated: sodipodi.com] project, and one can hardly mention anything about open-source bitmap/raster graphics (or any sort of FOSS graphics) without mentioning the GIMP [gimp.org]. Some people have made a GIMP animation package to use gimp to create web animations (potentially replacing Flash and Fireworks). And each and every one of these tools are available on multiple platforms, that is they're available (often times, but not always, as native ports) on Windows [this links to the Win32 port of the GIMP], Mac OS-X, various flavor of UNIX such as FreeBSD (and other BSD offshoots), Solaris, AIX, and, of course, GNU/Linux. But I'm just barely scratching the surface of FOSS CGD here.

But with all this talk about computer stuffs, we can't forget that visual art did not start with digital tools, and will not end solely with them, either. No matter how good you are with Photoshop (or Freehand in my case), once you are reasonably used to it, pencil sketching is always a much, much faster way of getting your visions (images in your head) on a tangible medium (ready to be further tweaked/processed later either on paper or digitally). Its faster to sketch with pencil and paper than using a mouse and screen (some places have graphic pen tablets/digitizers, but then we'd be talking 'bout the same skill sets again).

These are useful tools that you should look into, and this does look like a daunting list, but one thing you gotta remember is that these are only suggested skills. Rarely have I encountered anyone with complete mastery of all these tools (but I have met those that are familiar with all of them, and they are demigods), and most everyone just chooses one particular tool and get really, really good at it (some to complete mastery, and they too are demigods). I would suggest you familiarize yourself with as many of these tools as you can and then focus on getting really, really good with one. Though it doesn't hurt to get good with as many as you can manage. Remember that the only purpose served by these tools (digital or otherwise) is as a method of translating your thoughts and visions into something that others can 'see'. What you 'say' and how you 'say' it, I guess.

And finally there's the basic theories. Very important, often forgotten. Balance, color, lines, typography, media, perception, etc. But that's what you're going to GD school for, now isn't it?

Anyway best of luck to you, and I'm sure you'll have lotsa fun studying, and creating, GD.

update 18/05/05: I've made some addendums and corrections. The author regrets the errors :p

Life is...

Discovering, after finally being sure that you're the smartest guy in the world, God crushes your chest in along with your head by showing how you're really the stupidest, most moronic.

And then you learn to start over from there.

Over, and over again.

(well, to me at least)

• 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.