I watched a lot of movies/TV series lately and had some writing materials. For now this suffices.

This Theme
I made a wordpress theme some years back. Well, actually, not me (japran did mostly). It is nowhere to be found now. You can find the release note here. To prevent that, I decided to put this blog theme publicly available. Get it here. I actually wanted to host it on github (just for learning git in the process), but they dont allow write access via http, and I cant connect to them via ssh from my machine.

Emacs Rant
It has been a few months since I started using emacs. I am getting familiar with a new habit but still having difficulty since I also use vi and regular editor. It is quite annoying and funny to misuse key bindings on a different environment. The version control integration is nice but I still have some problems. Kill ring and system clipboard separation is unusual, GNU coding convention is rarely used outside GNU project, and many more. Actually they are not much of troubles, we can customize everything on Emacs. I am just too lazy to fix those things.

Anyway there is a kit around to help emacs newbie (WARNING: it is HUGE and makes you feel comfortable). I also put my emacs setup under version control, just in case.

Yesterday, I got the opportunity to meet rms. He was scheduled to give a speech here. Thanks to the organizer.

He brought a small black netbook with him. I immediately guessed that it must be the portable dragon. I sneaked to confirm it while he was busy doing photos. This hardware is going to be the first complete 100% free software compatible (yes, that includes the bios). There is a heavy effort to port gnewsense into that machine. I wonder if he got next release of gnewsense on that.

His talked about the free software movement, its history and so on. Most software enthusiasts already know this stuff via this page but still can get a few new things from it. The beginning of GNU project, recursive acronyms, Swindle (LOL, he mentioned 1984 too) and open source practical approach are part of his talk about software freedom.

Funnily, that’s not what he supposed to talk about. It supposed to be “copyright vs community”. Well, in my opinion, this is a difficult topic to cover. Most Indonesians confuse the copyright (hak cipta), patent, and maybe even trademark (merk dagang), all thanks to the term ‘kekayaan intelektual’. Yes, that term helps us to combine those mumbo jumbo into one single word. But just like removing GNU from GNU/linux, people won’t get to know that ‘kekayaan intelektual’ consists of many totally different things. rms apologized for talking about the wrong topic and took some extra minutes to talk about copyright issue (mainly how copyright nowadays tends to prevent inventions).

He talked about copyright in the middle of QA session. I got my questions answered too. I asked about pirate parties (I actually understood his stance and solution on this, but forgot LOL) and AGPL. I asked about the AGPL question cause his unending hatred towards ’software as service’. I didnt really get his answer, but I think despite AGPL or whatever license, ’software as services’ makes him uncomfortable (ethically not right). I would love to hear his answer again (video from the organizer?). Pak Ibam also ask some interesting questions (after having a few words in Bahasa Indonesia with rms. ‘tidak boleh’ LOL), one of them is why Linus refuse GPL3.

Just before QA session, he transformed himself for a moment into his alter ego, St Ignucius form the church of emacs. Too bad, not much of emacs user in this country. One thing I forgot, rms speaks a little Bahasa Indonesia. He’s pretty good at it and without his american tongue (it’s really clear, most foreigners have difficulties with pronunciation). His fluency in our language is really great, the crowd really liked when he used any local words, or even talked in it for some sentences. After QA, there was a photo session and everyone went home happy.

It seems that next version of gnewsense will be based on Debian. This means we’ll get some interesting stuff. Things like debian installer (lean and mean, yay), eglibc, and even FreeBSD kernel. This news really surprised me (in a good way) since it was just told casually on the list without any formal announcement whatsoever. They probably announced it on the channel.

I kinda think that the new Debian release policy played an important part on switching base from Ubuntu to Debian (there is no certainty on this. Purely my presumption). Well let us hope that with this new Debian release policy, the packages will be as latest as possible (not as latest as Ubuntu but still). And of course, I also hope that my favorite mirror will host this.

This is a review for a movie called Merantau. I got the chance to watch its workshop not so long ago and got free tickets to Press Screening from it. My friend is even luckier (is he?), he got free tickets to the Gala Premier. I’m still waiting to hear from him. Lucky bastard hung out with celebrities (his take on the movie).

Okay, if you uninformed readers never heard about this movie, I suggest to take a look at that link above. I will jump right to the review without any introduction.

Plot/Story
The story is simple. I can’t talk much about it. It simply reminded me the story of my late grandfather (I don’t think he had the luxury of an address and money when he started his journey before his teens). What I really like is they really show the whole merantau tradition. They told it with his mother’s monologue, stories from his brother and Eric, and the scene where the whole village sends him off. They also told the audience a bit of silat philosophy. I think I should thank Bapak Bule again for not just picking the martial arts. Is it just me, or the last scene was really great. It made me accept the movie as it is.

Directing
Landscape exploited. They really took the advantage of Bukittinggi. Most outdoor scenes showed how beautiful the landscape is. My favorite was the Bukittinggi bus stop scene, when the camera slowly zooms out. The chasing scenes were pretty good. And I really respect the decision to take the fighting scenes wide-angle (and in one take IIRC). It’s definitely harder to pull off but this is the best approach if the fighters are numerous (IMO close up fighting is only applicable if it’s only a duel). I was quite surprised when they used a long take (the camera was a bit shaky though) on a scene where Eric walks to ‘malamar karajo‘ (that was the best line, caught me out of the blue).

Casts
Iko and Yayan were not actors before but did pretty good aside from the accent (but that’s okay, it is hard). Yusuf had the curious and innocent looks needed. Sisca was a bit loud and annoying, I guess that means her act was pretty convincing. Mats Koudal was perfect for the insensitive European clod. Laurent Buson still got his Shaolin moves. Alex was doing well as a pimp-wannabe. Donny didn’t have enough screen time. Christine Hakim got less scene time but still delivered great (my fave were Iko’s departure and the last scene).

Fight
It’s less flashy and more practical. You won’t see a somersault kick here. There were still choreographed maneuvers showed, but thankfully, not much (and for the observant, there are some ‘waiting times’). Overall, I’m pretty satisfied.

Music
I was too distracted. I only remembered opening music, the guitar and the violin(?), and some upbeat percussion during the action scene (it’s pretty much upbeat during the action scenes, but not limited to percussion).

Conclusion
For Indonesians, this is a must watch. We didn’t have action movie for so long (this one is drama-action). Thanks to the management who served me. For once, I thought I lost it for good.

Changing our habit is considered to be one of the unwanted things. Even if it will be better, we still cling to our old habit which is placed perfectly in our comfort zone. I guess I don’t need to give some examples here because we rarely see new habits, ours or other people’s, emerging. Why is that? That’s right. What’s the point of leaving our comfort zone to pursue bewilderment, some might say.

Currently, I try to give Editor for Most Adorable Computer Scientists a chance (since it’s installed by default in my OS). The consequence is pretty hard, changing my keyboard habit. I don’t have any idea which one is worse, getting yourself familiar with Emacs key binding or changing from qwerty to dvorak/colemak/whatever.

First, put your left control key into the caps-lock key (replace or swap, your choice). This is easy on Gnome. In Windows, you have to do some registry hacks. “Why?” you might ask. Emacs use control keys heavily. You have to put it in a more accessible place or your wrist will go bad like Stallman or Gosling. I’d rather recommend getting rid of your caps-lock key than swapping it with left control. In most cases, your muscle memory will make your left pinky immediately go to the bottom-left of your keyboard as soon as you think ‘Ctrl’. Try your best to change that while using Emacs. Love your wrist.

Second, the key bindings and the environment. This is not easier than the former. I am really familiar with normal key bindings. Cut, copy, paste, save, undo, redo and find have different key bindings on Emacs, or worse, different mechanism. Well, mechanism aside (that’s the one you must learn), you can customize Emacs to your liking, so that’s not much of a problem except that you have to write some lisp code.

That’s the purpose of Emacs, you get to learn functional programming naturally. Being able to use the editor operating system front end is just a bonus.

ADD : A band used Katy Perry’s “I kissed a girl” on Emacs

This is not much but the only thing I can do

I dont have much credibility on this, so here’s my friends’ blogs. Happy reading.

http://cacianqalbukunderemp.blogspot.com/ (a lot of articles and references)
http://staff.blog.ui.ac.id/jp/2009/06/04/an-act-of-solidarity/ (nice summary and insight)

I had the chance to watch Merantau movie workshop. It was on short notice as I read the promotion one day before (and I thought it was some kinda secret exclusive movie premiere). It was basically just meet and greet, trailer and confidential promo viewing.

I got to see the director (Mr Evans), the producer (Ario Sagantoro), main actors – I saw Iko, Yayan(the actor not the character) and the legendary Christine Hakim (so funny my friend didnt notice Iko and Christine Hakim by her side). This show was hosted by a popular host (I dont remember his name since I dont watch television) and he did a good job. They started of by showing some demo of silek harimau (Iko) and , this was the best part, they brought a silat expert (Ade) and the movie choreographer (Edwel Datuk Rajo Gampo Alam)!! Mr Ade explained the current exposure of silat worldwide including the rise of Vietnam di dunia persilatan. Mr Edwel gave a lot of info about silek harimau, how they were exclusively taught (originally silek harimau was the weapon of the king’s special guards).

Next, meet and greet. Iko was too shy (I feel sorry for the fan girls). Yayan told about his inability to smile (and the host cleverly made joke about this when a girl was about to get a souvenir from him). Mr Evans told about his interest in silat and how he finally decided to make this movie with the producer and Christine Hakim (and she ranted about current movie trends in this country and our appreciation for our own culture for a long time, mostly I agree with). Funny thing when the host asked Mr Evans to do some silat.

Mr Evans told us that most actors has martial background (like Iko with silat betawi, or Laurent Buson with shaolin!!). Aside from initial performance by Iko, we also got to watch silek demonstration in pair, Yayan with Iko and Mr Edwel with Iko (funny act by Iko at the end of demonstration).

I give an early thanks to Mr Evans for showing much interest in our culture. Hopefully this will make our current generation do the same and look for an exotic material of our own rather than foreign-made one. Maybe I should pick my saluang up again.

Well, to complete the experience. I got a lot of movie souvenirs and a ticket-for-two Merantau premiere. Now I need to find a date…

EDIT : I forgot to mention that Edwel Datuk Rajo Gampo Alam was the choreographer on Sengsara Membawa Nikmat. He made Sandy Nayoan cry.

gNewSense 2.2 is now available.

And add these lines into your source list if you want to try IceCat.
deb http://gnuzilla.gnu.org/download/debian deltah-icecat universe main
deb-src http://gnuzilla.gnu.org/download/debian deltah-icecat universe main


I need a new hard drive…

I like digging through Slashdot’s comments. You can get a very good information and knowledge beyond the original article, or simply fall off your seat laughing so hard at witty one-liner. But sometimes you can get what is needed to reaffirm your faith. This comment was done by #777677. Big wall of text coming right up (you’ve been warned).

That’s not really paranoia. In fact marketers have a word for it; they call it “mindshare”. There are related concepts. For example, what is advertising other than the manipulation of behavior (convincing you to do something you may not have done had you not seen the ad) brought about by “planting a message in everyone’s head”? Advertisers will use humor, half-truths, small children, etc. to get you to associate laughter, an inaccurate but convenient worldview, or paternalistic/maternalistic feelings and instincts with their products. Absolutely nothing is sacred to them; nothing is so good or wholesome or precious or innocent or sacred that they won’t use it as a tool to create an emotional association that allows them to implant a suggestion. They don’t see you as a human being who is equal to them and worthy of respect. They can’t, because if they saw you that way, they would be disinclined to manipulate you. They see you as a dehumanized resource to be mined just like so much coal or metallic ore. This is a good fit with the nature of a corporation and the way it calls on human beings to become interchangable parts in its machinery. Beings who are individuals and worthy of love and respect are not interchangable parts in a faceless machine.

If a company sees an increase in sales immediately following an advertising campaign, something has happened other than customers proactively considering all available options and choosing the best solution for their needs based on objective criteria. If the customers were doing that, no advertisement of any kind would change their minds because the dialog of a TV commercial does not change their needs or the facts of their situation. That something that has happened is manipulation by suggestion.

What you call paranoia is the realization that anyone willing to treat people in such an alienated, dehumanized fashion does this because he fancies himself to be their master. As mindless, sheeplike, obsessed with conformity, and unfamiliar with critical thinking as most people have become (yes I do level this charge; do you doubt it?), such a person is unfortunately correct in many cases. I realize that our current economy depends on this system and that the people participating in it are mostly well-meaning and ignorant of the damage that it does because it is difficult to quantify. You can’t really assign a numer or an equation to it and our culture is terrible at handling anything for which this is the case because we celebrate cleverness but not wisdom.

Lots of people seem like they want to believe that there are no downsides to our current way of life. I am merely saying that we hear about the benefits of this system all the time; what so few are willing to discuss are its costs. No one is fully informed without a solid understanding of both the benefits and the costs. You were right, in a way, that it was being taken “out on an emotional limb”, but that’s because the manipulation upon which much of the modern economy is based is primarily accomplished by emotional impact. Contrast that with persuasion, which is done dispassionately with facts and reasoning, and you can then discern the motivation with ease.

This entry is about the book, not the movie.

Well I finally had the chance to read one of the most popular books in twentieth century. This book is ranked number one by the British librarians on “Which book should every adult read before they die?”. This is my first attempt to review a book, so please be gentle on critics. And as usual, my reviews are always spoiler free.

Theme
It’s very clear that this book talks about racial injustice. However I feel some kind of reluctance to give that as an answer if I were ever asked about this book’s theme. It is injustice to describe the book in a couple words. And it won’t cover all of good things in this book. So I add “family”, “coming out of age” and even “children education” just to make it broader. You will never know, maybe there is still a person who uses grep to choose his books.

Plot
I think the first half of the book focused on developing the characters and their backgrounds. I took a long time reading this part. It contains a pretty good amount of Middle English words so paying Merriem-Webster a visit was a must (or not). Added to that a history lesson about America and some Christians stuff I didn’t get. As soon as the main conflict started, it’s a downhill run.

Characters
The character were well developed throughout the book. Seeing the character interactions really gave you a warm feeling. Seriously. I guess I have to put some characters explanation here. First, our racial hero, Atticus Finch. This single father is a self-claimed bad parent. So he decided to teach his children by example. I don’t think there is a father in the history of fiction that can beat him (please forgive my melodramatic mood). Second, Jean Louise Finch (or Scout). This is a bright kid. At first I am kinda confused why a girl smart enough to deduct his brother motive by his sentence can not understand a simple matter. If you look at the start of the book, it is clear that the main character narrates the story as a flashback. So in the book, you will see two kind of her sentences of thought. One as a child (innocent), and one as a grown woman (omniscient).

Why (not) read this?
First, this book has a lot of moral lessons on a lot of subjects. And they are all well put. You will not feel like being preached. I frequently found myself smiling when finding a good lesson in the book. Second, it really moves your heart. Well this one is amazing. It did not move my heart by a descriptive sad scene spanned for pages. It simply tells you a story.

Conclusion
I must watch the movie now, there is no other way. It is simply a book every adult should read before they die.