Merry Christmas!

Merry Chrismas!
Selamat Hari Natal!
Vrolijke Kerstdagen!
Frohe Weinachten!
メリークリスマス！
Feliz Navidad!
Buon Natale!
Békés Karácsonyt!
Bonan Kristnaskon!
Joyeux Noël!
Natale Hilare!

My blog isn't worth jack...

...and I don't care. I'm not in it for the money anyway. If I were, I'd put some ads here. :p

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

It is forbidden to have accidents.

On a recent trip to Surabaya with my friend, we noticed two peculiar banners. One says "Anda memasuki jalur dilarang kecelakaan", and the other "Dilarang mati karena kecelakaan".

I already can hear you (who speak Indonesian) laughing.

For you who don't know Indonesian, the translations would be: "You are entering an 'accidents forbidden' zone", and "It is forbidden to die because of an accident".

And to make things worse, those are official banners put out by the police (the latter was put right outside the police guard post). Well, it gave us quite a chuckle on our 7+ hours trip.

And judging by this picture, it seems those aren't the only ones... :)

Well, lookie here...

No, that's not my car.

Back home in cozy Yogyakarta.

It's been a year since I last went to Jakarta, and boy, does that city remind me why I love Yogyakarta so much. It just happened that there was a meeting that I had to attend in Jakarta a few weeks ago. And because I've been to the place of meeting so many times before, I'm confident enough that I know my way around there. Riiiiiiiiight... Well, guess what? In Jakarta, you can never be sure... At least, not in my case.

So there I was, in Jakarta. Borrowed my cousin's car, got on my way at 8 o'clock, stopped by at my uncle's office, and left the office to the place of meeting (which took place at 10 o'clock) at 8:45. And surely, at 9:30 I was already near the place of meeting. Sort of... Got the right exit from the highway, turned the car around in the right direction, and remembering the road to go (after exiting the highway, turn around, go straight at the first intersection, take the turn in front of the mall, and I'm there).

And then came the first intersection where I should go straight. Only, I can't go straight. I can only go up, or left. WTF? Going up would, I presume, get me back on the highway. I don't want to do that, I'm almost there. So I turned left, and then made a U turn, and then... WTF? Where am I? OK, stay calm. I know where North is, I know where I need to go (NE), so since I can't go North, I should go East first, and then find a road that goes North. All's well, right? Riiiiight... Welcome to Jakarta. Since my best bet is to go back to the place where I started, I turned back South, and turned left at the first intersection. WTF? Taking the leftmost lane didn't get me eastwards, it got me on a flyover ramp that turns back south. @#$%^&!!!

Needless to say, I spent the next 40 minutes cruising the roads less than 3 kilometres away from my destination, without actually getting to it. I finally called my aunt who lives nearby to ask for directions.

It's good to be back in Yogyakarta, where you can't get lost (as long as you know where North is). There's no place like home...

Heisei Fuuzoku Daiginjo: Fantasia in Japanese style.

Shiina Ringo - Heisei Fuuzoku Daiginjo.
A collection of animation videos for Shiina Ringo's songs. Highly recommended. This is high quality dope. :)

A few clips from the DVD:















I won't post any links to illegal stuff here, but in case anyone is interested to download it, it's available on the web. Just google for it. [Hint: Shiina Ringo - Heisei Fuzoku Daiginjo (First Press Limited Edition)].

Students 'Hijack' KLM Airbus.

Last night, a KLM Airbus A320-200 was 'hijacked' by students. The airplane was 'hijacked' from the miniature Schiphol in Madurodam. The students apparently broke in the night before, 'hijacked' the plane, and landed it in the Q-Music radio station studio in Hilversum. Somehow, they also succeeded in 'destroying' the plane to some degree during landing (the wings were taken off, the rudder was broken, etc.).

Needless to say, a lot of people were upset about this stunt. Personally, I was surprised at those students. They brought the 'hijacked' plane to the studio, talked on the radio about how they did the stunt, and were proud of it. WTF? Proud of stealing something? Are they on pot or crack or something? What's even more surprising is that the Madurodam Security didn't knew anything was wrong until the radio station confirmed the 'hijack' to Madurodam.

You can read the original news (in Dutch) here and here.

This is sick...

While usually I find the pictures at the English Fail Blog rather amusing (and some even hilarious), this one is just sick. Apparently some sick f*** decides to write a children's book where daddys (sic) marry their little girls and have babies with them. That alone deserves an epic "WTF"? The writer and whoever agrees with him (I think it's highly unprobable the writer is a she) should be shot on sight and the books incinerated.

It's all about attitude.

Last week I saw a matchmaking show on TV. Mind you, it's not that I enjoy watching such shows. I usually abhor reality shows (so much for their "reality"), but this time, one of the guys really got me stunned (and please, don't jump into conclusions yet; I'm perfectly normal).

In the show, the guys and girls get matched in any combination possible and they have to push a button if they want to choose the guy/girl. With only 2 girls left (he apparently wasn't chosen by the other girls), he begins to look desperate. When he got rejected (again), the girl was asked why she didn't push the button. She said, "Who would want to go out with such a selfish and self-centered guy?" And then he made a comment that really made me think "What the *beeep*?". His particular comment (to the girl) was, "You're gonna regret not choosing me. I'm the perfect guy. You won't find another guy like me." Well, needless to say, I do agree with his last sentence. You're not likely to find another guy like that... Thank goodness...

When finally he got rejected by the last girl (which at this point comes to no surprise to me), he made another comment that once again stunned me (and even more so), "Why didn't any of them choose me? What am I lacking? I'm handsome, tall, perfect... I just don't understand what's wrong with these girls." Get a grip, dude. It's all about attitude. I thought the other girl was clear enough with the "selfish" and "self-centered". And he wonders why he can't score... Apparently, this guy needs "dense" and "emotional control difficulty" added to those traits.

OK, enough bashing. My principle about bashing is if you can bash other people about something, make sure you don't do the same thing. So what about me? Well, I certainly won't EVER say I'm a perfect guy. Sometimes my ego comes in and I can look like being selfish and self-centered myself, but most of the time, I try my hardest to be considerate and think about others. It doesn't always come out the way I imagined, but at least I don't try to put myself as the centre of the universe. About being dense, I'd leave it to others to decide, because if I'm dense, I probably wouldn't notice it anyway. As for emotional control, I've learned over the years that letting your emotions go unchecked will cause more harm than good, and I can say that I've learned to suppress my emotions when needed. Not to the point of suppression like the Vulcans, but adequate (I think)...

Bored sick.

It's Saturday, you're bored sick at home, no good places to hang out in your town. What would you do? I called a friend of mine who happens to be also bored to death at home with another friend. And then? The three of us went out all the way to Kaliurang (about 20km from my place) and back just to get a cup of warm drink. That must be the farthest place I've went just to get a drink. I must be out of my mind...

Back to everyday life routine.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
-C. S. Lewis

After being busy with students from Leeuwarden, Holland for a month, it's finally over yesterday, and I have to get back to the ordinary everyday life routine. In the last month, I've become accustomed to going out with quite a large group (23 of them, and around 8 of us) almost every single day, so I really start to feel bored being home...

And like C. S. Lewis said, although friendship has no survival value, it is one of the things that gives value to survival, so once again I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone (in no particular order: Aida, Sheilah, Ninah, Caroline, Piet, Maaike, Ineke, Orne, Sandra, Frank, Beeuwkje, Sanne, Richard, Liese, Anita, Monica, Joan, Mirna, Renske, Hennie, Robin, Daphne, and Jetty) for all the friendship and the experience. We had a good time that won't be forgotten so easily, and I also had a good chance to practice my (rusty) Dutch again. For the ones that go back, have a nice trip back; for the ones going on vacation, have a nice vacation! I sincerely hope we can meet again some day. In the meantime, we will surely miss you. Well, at least, I surely will... :)

More Mac Intro Movies...

Just found more Mac intro movies.


Music featured:
10.0 to 10.2 (Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar): Kruder & Dorfmeister - Sofa Rockets
10.3 (Panther): Röyksopp - Eple
10.4 (Tiger): Weevil - Bytecry
10.5 (Leopard): Honeycut - Exodus Honey

Looks like Apple has an ear for electronic music.
Couldn't find (legal) download links to the songs from 10.0 to 10.4, so just remember that Google is your best friend...

Leopard's Intro Theme, Exodus Honey

After you install Leopard, the first thing you will see is its opening movie. I found the opening theme catchy enough, and with a little Googling, I found the full track. It was from a song titled "Exodus Honey" by Honeycut, a small band from San Fransisco's Bay Area. If you're a fan of electronic music, just like I am, you may be delighted to know that it's available for download.

And don't worry about illegal mp3 downloads. Although at the iTunes Store and Amazon.com it's priced at $0.99, it's totally legal and free to download here.

Aaah, nothing beats quality music, especially when it's free... :)

One more thing, the original intro movie and sound is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Setup Assistant.app/Contents/Resources/TransitionSection.bundle/Contents/Resources/ on your Mac (Tiger and Leopard), named intro.mov and intro-sound.mp3.

Motorola E6 Flash

Unlike my first Motorola phone, which I have already flashed 5 times within the first week of ownership, I went easier with my current phone. But after more than a half year, I just couldn't resist the temptation. So, last week I finally flashed my Motorola ROKR E6 for the first time, and upgraded the firmware to a newer version. And I don't have any regrets, because the phone became more responsive, faster, and sounds better, too.

I guess that the main reason why it took me so long to finally flash it is Motorola's EZX. As you might already know, it is Motorola's version of Linux for their mobile phones. The first thing I did after getting the phone was get a console app for it, and of course, you could already do a lot of modifications and customising with the console app, without the need to upgrade to another firmware. So, I guess I was content with meddling with the phone's settings through the console for a half year.

I don't think that's something you can get with any Symbian phone, so a big thank you to Motorola for bringing Linux to the world of mobile phones...

Now, if Motorola would somehow release their SDK to the masses, that would just be... superb...

Grooooowwwl... GMA900 and Leopard

Far and wide I have searched in vain for intel GMA900 drivers for Leopard. Until last week, when I found a thread on InsanelyMac, where user Andy4Life found a simple but effective way to enable support for GMA900 on Leopard.

I finally got Leopard up and running with full hardware acceleration on my trusty old Acer TravelMac 2423NWXMi. A few months ago, when I first installed Leopard, I was appaled by the lack of support for the GMA900, which means that I can't run applications that require Core Image and Quartz Extreme (that's like 50% of apps on the Mac), thus rendering it almost totally useless. Since I'm already limited by the CPU only doing SSE2, while SSE3 emulation isn't 100% perfect, having more apps rendered useless is a big no-no. That's why I've reverted to the old, trusted, aging Tiger, where I was only limited by the lack of SSE3.

Well, back to the topic. Andy's fix was to edit your drivers to include intel's GMA900 Vendor and Device ID (which is 8086-2592 in my case).

To make things short, you just have to open /System/Library/Extensions/AppleIntelGMA950.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleIntelGMA950 file with your favorite HEX Editor application, and replace all occurences of "86 80 A2 27" with "86 80 92 25". Once you've done that, delete the /System/Library/Extensions.mkext file, and restart. Done!

One thing to note is that there are some artifacts, but they are minor, and I can live with that.

Almost forgot to mention. If editing the AppleIntelGMA950.kext file wasn't enough, try replacing AppleIntelIntegratedFramebuffer.kext with the one attached it the forum thread mentioned above.

Grampa Aragones is yay!

Last night's final match of the 2008 UEFA Euro Championship was great! Congrats to Spain for their victory after a long 44 years of waiting. And good luck to grampa Aragones who will be coaching Fenerbahce.

What the *beep* is that?

Ever wondered how people who don't pass their English tests do at work?

After my sister found the infamous Valentina Hasan and her hit single, "Ken Lee", a friend of mine showed me this page, where you can see masterpieces of English failures in full glory.

So, if you're easily annoyed and at the same time amused by bad English (as in "they don't speak english", not the band, which I actually like), then by all means, please take a look.

And please, if you can't use English properly, then don't (unless you live in an English-speaking country, of course), and save yourself from embarrasment by means of worldwide humiliation. Yes, that includes you kids, who try to act cool with your bad@** english.

This can't be healthy...

The European Championship of 2008 really messed up with my sleeping hours...
While I usually sleep around 1 or 2 a.m. to around 8 a.m., my sleeping hours for these 2 weeks have shifted to around 6 or 7 a.m. to 12 p.m., just to be able to watch all the matches. This can't be healthy...

Fortunately, it's only until the 30th, and hopefully, I can get my sleeping hours back to the right time again.

OK, that was horrible.

I don't know what happened last night, but it seems that the team that was so brilliant during the qualifications is just gone. They played horribly during last night's match against Russia.
Well, what's done is done, so congrats to Mr. Guus Hiddink. His team was excellent last night. As for Mr. van Basten, I hope you have more luck in your new career training Ajax Amsterdam. I'd love to see Ajax take some titles again after so long.
And last, but certainly not least, I'd like to offer my condolences to Mr. Khalid Boulahrouz for the loss of his daughter.
(In case you didn't know yet, that's why the team wore a black band around their arm during last night's match).

Violent society.

If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.
-Epicurus

It seems that despite all the technological advancements, society hasn't evolved even a little bit. We are still as savage and barbaric as society was in the dark ages. When will we learn from the past, and learn that violence is an endless loop, unless one is willing to stop the circle.

Caller: I want to talk about spanking.
Lazlow: Oh, God, not another one...
Caller: I think spanking kids is the only way to teach them right from wrong.
Lazlow: So, you think that teaching kids at an early age that violence is the solution to problems will make them valuable members of the society?
Caller: Exactly!
-Lazlow Jones and unknown caller in Chatterbox, one of GTA3's radio stations.

Use your head.

Just something I found. Click on the image to enlarge.

My Dutch is dwindling to the Nether(land)s...

Lately, I've found it increasingly difficult to write in Dutch. How come? Dutch has been my second language for more than 10 years. But it seems that in the 15 years since I left the Netherlands, English has slowly but surely replaced Dutch as my second language. Don't get me wrong, I can still read Dutch without any difficulty. It's just the writing that's been hard. It seems to take an eternity to find the right word or term when I'm writing in Dutch.

Ik denk dat ik opnieuw Nederlands moet leren...

Absolutely brilliant!

Hats off for Mr. Marco van Basten. It seems that he kept his word from back in 2002, when he started training the Dutch national team. At the time he claimed that we would see the results of his training in 4 years time. For you who have seen the first 2 matches of the Dutch, you would have seen how brilliant their game was. They played absolutely impressive (if not outstanding) against the two finalist of the 2006 World Cup, and netted a win of 3-0 and 4-1 against Italy and France respectively. It looks like they are on a whole different level. If they can keep this up, we could expect to see the Dutch winning this year's UEFA Euro Championship.

Once again, it's absolutely brilliant!

OMG, I can't stop laughing...

OMG, I can't stop laughing...

For you, english speaking folks:
Sorry, but you're out of luck, since that site is only available in Indonesian.

A little test of (in)sanity.

Yesterday I stumbled upon a page called elgooG, and I thought, what good would such a website be for. For what (in)sane purpose would one create such a website? After thinking it over for some time, it seems that apparently, it could be useful in some cases. Some probable uses for it includes (but is not limited to):

1. to see how much of a nerd/geek you really are.
2. to be used by conspiracy theorists to find secret messages and codes hidden throughout the internet.
3. to help you on that secret language you've been working on with your friends.
4. to circumvent government-controlled internet filters.
5. to get past your college's/office's internet filter.
6. to help kids fool the internet filter that their parents put up.
7. to drive you insane.

Moral of the story? To all parents, administrators, and governments, I hope your lists of keywords to be filtered are spelled both ways.

BTW, the site should have come with some kind of warning:
".ytinasni ot dael nac etis siht fo esu evisnetxE :gninraW"

What Colour Are You?

White
You value law, order, community and light. You love to protect the social order and the rule of law. At your best, you are just and protective. At your worst, you are authoritarian and dogmatic. Your symbol is a sunburst. Your enemies are black and red.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/playmagic/whatcolorareyou.asp

Musical Voltage

Just found some fun stuff while reading some info about Tesla Coils. Who knew that Tesla Coils could be used as musical instruments... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1O2jcfOylU

Cheers.

Finally, a Blog...

So, after contemplating for some time whether I'd want to create my own blog, I've come to the conclusion that it might be fun to do so. Thus, the journey begins. I've been searching far and wide for a place to put my blog in, but couldn't find a nice place to settle.

First journey was looking for nice hosts. Setting up my own host would be out of the question, so I searched for good blog providers, and came across some page called wordpress. Since some of my friends have already settled there, I thought it would be nice to do the same. After some registration procedures, I found that to date, I haven't recieved their confirmation e-mail in my inbox (which is conveniently hosted at Gmail), although it was stated that it would be delivered at most 30 minutes after registering. So, the journey continues, and I found this page. Registration was simple, and I could create my blog within minutes after registering (or so they claim).

Fine then, on to the second journey of finding a name. I have always liked the letter Q. Don't know why. Maybe it's because it's the rarest letter that you can find in a name (the only modern name with the letter Q is, according to my very limited knowledge, Quentin and its derivatives). Since as child I've always been fascinated by archaeology (and space travel, but that's another story), I decided to get a nickname from the forgotten realms of history that started with a Q. I came up with Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent from the Aztec Pantheon, during my college days. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who had a fascination for Quetzalcoatl, as I found out that it was already used in most fora, webmails, and instant messaging apps (although it seems that http://quetzalcoatl.wordpress.com/ and http://quetzalcoatl.blogspot.com/ haven't been active since 2001. Can I use it instead? Pleeease?). OK, maybe just Q would do, although it was already used by Mr. Bond's gadgetman. Guess what? Wrong choice, because it seems that many people are also fascinated by Mr. Bond's gadgetman. No Q's available...

What to do, what to do... Then I came to the ingenious idea of using my Student ID Number after the nickname. That ought to do it, I thought. And surely, there was no one in the entire world who had used the name Quetzalcoatl2435.

Hence, welcome to Quetzalcoatl's Random (and sometimes incoherent) mumblings. Enjoy your stay.