Agronesia

There hasn’t been much update here lately. Well, lately I only have time to update my blog about learning Japanese, Yumeko. You can also read my blog about learning Indonesian language written in Japanese here.

However perhaps I’ll start updating this blog again, in a few months perhaps…

Windows XP doesn’t come with a build in command to hibernate the computer. Therefore, you can’t for example use the command prompt or start - run menu to do it.

However, a handy program called Wizmo by Steve Gibson (an assembly programmer) can do it. Just use this command:

wizmo hibernate

And all will be set! Wizmo can do some other power management related stuffs too so check it out.

There will be a seminar on UNSOED on November 7-8, 2009. More info below…

Read the rest of this entry »

During my 4 and so years in university, I’ve developed quite some programs whether for fun, for Omah TI research project, or others.

I think it would be nice if I could upload them so that I can put URLs on CVs and such…

So stay tuned…

One of my blogs was actually featured on a newspaper! It’s kinda cool, so go see it :).

L. Frank Baum on his preface for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz wrote:

Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as “historical” in the children’s library; for the time has come for a series of newer “wonder tales” in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.

Having this thought in mind, the story of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.

Reading it, I smiled and really thought that there would be no blood whatsoever on the Wizard of Oz. However, from the very beginning Dorothy accidentally “killed” an evil witch:

… Dorothy said, with hesitation, “You are very kind, but there must be some mistake. I have not killed anything.”

“Your house did, anyway,” replied the little old woman, with a laugh, “and that is the same thing. See!” she continued, pointing to the corner of the house. “There are her two feet, still sticking out from under a block of wood.”

Two feet of a squashed person. Now that’s quite some graphic depiction…

And the story of the Tin Woodman is even more gruesome:

Read the rest of this entry »

In Slashdot, one of the biggest software/computer news site, one popular kind of joke in the comments is the Soviet Russian joke. The premise is simple: The majority of readers on sites like Slashdot are American. Russia is of course a country with a supposedly very different culture, so everything there must be different! Therefore, to make this kind of joke comment the news or reply the last comment with “In Soviet Russia …” and insert something very absurd there.

Let me teach you. I’m a Slashdot lurker so I feel I’ve got some expertise in this area…

A: In Thailand, one Indonesian student threw a trash on the road and got fined!
B: Well, in Indonesia, even the police throws trash anywhere.
C: In Soviet Russia, the trash throws you!!!

The key is just to make some absurd statement

Read the rest of this entry »

When I opened the drawers on the kitchen today to search for some random foods, how surprised I was when I found a green grasshopper inside! Only God knows how that poor little insect got caught there.

What was more surprising is the fact that she (yes, a female!) has lost one of her back limbs! She only had one of those large legs for jumping! Well, that’s if she could jump at all in that state.

Of course the only sane thing to do was to pick her up and release her back into the wild. But she wouldn’t let me take her that easily! She hopped and hopped as I tried to catch her. With one jumping leg!

It took some effort before I could finally get hold of her. I just put her near the door and in a few moment she hopped skilfully outside.

Just think of how great that creature was. Losing one important organ but still being able to do so much, still being able to jump that high! Nature does indeed teach us humans a lot…

My friend Nightmarest has been kind enough to make a new banner for this blog! It’s still blue overall, but now with jazz :).

Anyway, go visit his blog. He has great articles like How to Draw a Girl tutorial which might be of interest if you like to draw or appreciate drawings.

Here’s a command for a set of questions from my brother’s elementary school math workbook (original language is Indonesian):

“Enter the most correct answer!”

And here’s one of the questions:

(1) “A fraction which is equal to 3/5 is …”

OK. So, 6/10 is obviously a correct answer to (1). 12/20 is also correct. Even 24/40 is correct.

Here’s the million dollar question: Which is the most correct?

Of course it’s a silly question. The answer to (1), mathematically, is either “correct” or “incorrect”. And among those many correct answers, neither is more correct than the others.

So, the wisest path is for the book writers to change to command to

“Enter a correct answer!” or even more simple and beautiful “Answer these questions!”

Or perhaps not answer anything at all, since we cannot find the most correct answer :).