Salah pilih caleg...

"Kemarin nyontreng apa, mas?"

Begitulah pertanyaan yang kudapat berkali2 dari beberapa teman, setelah pemilu kemarin...

Dan kalau boleh jujur, sebenarnya dalam hati ini saya golput, tapi meskipun keyakinan hati ini golput, tindakan ku berbicara lain... Sebagai warga jogja yang baik (halah :D), TPS di perumahan pun kudatangi bareng Ibu dan adikku tanggal 9 April kemarin (which supposed to be a very-long-week-end but wasn't)...

Dan seperti biasa, pagi sebelum berangkat kita rembug-an dulu... sebaiknya pilih apa (sekarang pertanyaan nya ganti, jadi pilih siapa)...

Walhasil,

Bapak ngasih list nama:

1. DPR RI: ??????
2. Propinsi: Dr. ......
3. Kota: (inisial T)
4. DPD : ????, ST

Nah, mengingat selama tahun 2009 ini saya lebih sering 'error' (intensitasnya rada meningkat sejak Maret), yang seharusnya caleg utk DPRD kota saya milihnya adalah caleg berinisial T, malah itu kupakai untuk memilih caleg DPR RI (kebetulan nama depannya sama, inisial T juga)... i mean, i mixed the two names...I was utterly confused at that time... :-[

Dan belakangan, setelah bapak dan ibu tahu kalau aku 'salah contreng' caleg lain, saya dikasih tahu begini,

"Oh, itu kan yang kena kasus KORUPSI dulu itu bukan?"

("sh*t", pikirku... what a waste of vote, salah pilih deh...)

Kemudian, utk caleg Kota, saya pilih kandidat yang direkomendasikan temen sendiri, dan kebetulan adik kelas SMA (yang kemudian setelah temenku separtai dgn ybs tahu, malah saya dimarahi kok asal pilih cuma krn rekomendasi satu temen).

In short, aku merasa kemarin salah pilih dua caleg, yaitu yang utk DPR RI dan KOTA.

Yang caleg utk kota ga masalah, krn kayaknya ga lolos (eh, apa lolos ya ga ngerti ding). Tapi untuk DPR RI, menurut KR sepertinya beliau bakal bertugas (lagi)...

Tapi ya wis lah, I don't really care anyway... I'm actually golput, karena merasa ga ada pilihan sreg... (patokanku sederhana sih, yang kulihat adalah apakah partai itu sudah punya calon Menteri Keuangan, dan siapa kah dia, dan apa visi+programnya... jadi menteri keuangan bagiku lebih penting dibandingkan wapres...)

Five basic electronics components

Electronics can sometimes look like magic. If there was anyone who jumped right into the current time from say, a century ago, that person would definitely be amazed of today's common electronics products.

But no matter how wonderful it can get, electronics is not rocket science. It is still easily understandable by anyone (anyone willing to, that is :D). 

As I was preparing my first lecture in the Electronics class this semester, it came to my consciousness that actually any physical objects, as far as electronics circuit is concerned, can be modeled into five basic components.

These five basic components are:

1. voltage source (including the controlled type)

2. current source

3. resistor

4. capacitor

5. inductor.

By this I do not mean that there's only five electronics components that exists. They're actually dozens of types, or even limitless. But all of those can arguably be represented by an equivalent model consisting a combination of those five basic components.

I found a term used for this idea, called "Lumped Element Model" (Anant Argawal, 2005), which is a type of circuit abstraction, made to simplify calculations, analysis, design, and probably optimization methods. 

I'm just wondering whether my understanding (about there's only five elementary components) is correct. Can anyone comment on this? I would really appreciate that...

"Because you're Chinese"

Saya ini orang Indonesia dan bersuku Jawa, tapi tampaknya ada saja beberapa teman ku semasa kecil dulu di Primary School ku (di Sydney) yang benar-benar mengira semua Asian itu adalah Chinese. Dan sebagai seorang anak Asia yang pernah tinggal dan besar di kota "bule" itu (dan jujur sebetulnya Sydney itu juga Yunani dan Arab sekali kadang), ada lah kejadian-kejadian yang sangat SARA, misalnya ketika waktu itu ada teman (bukan temen deket sih, bahkan aku lupa namanya sekarang) membagi2kan makanan snack nya ke temen2 yang lain... TAPI TIDAK KE AKU... dan aku ga bisa lupa apa yang dia katakan waktu itu, "because you're Chinese"....

Seandainya saya memang Chinese (ada juga lho bbrp temen sampai SMA pun yang mengira saya Chinese), what's the problem with that???#%!

No offense, saya ga menuduh Australia itu rasis. Alasan saya menulis ini adalah karena kelihatannya masalah ini tidak hanya dialami orang luar seperti saya... tapi juga orang Australia sendiri yang kebetulan berketurunan Asia seperti Vietnam, atau Cina, dan Indonesia bahkan...

(hihihi alasan sebenarnya kenapa saya kepikiran nulis ini adalah karena nonton video Youtube si Natalie Tran yang sempat bilang, "I've copped a lot of s**t being an Asian kid in Australia..." ya kira2 begitulah yang dia katakan, padahal dia orang Australia lho... :p)

Orang Australia secara umum baik kok dalam menerapkan sikap tidak rasis... Mereka kelihatan kok berusaha untuk tidak rasis, mungkin kalian yang pernah ke sana bisa mengerti apa yang kukatakan ini...

Di tempat lain mungkin keadaannya jauh lebih parah tanpa kita sadari,, dan kalaupun kita sadar, mungkin kita ga mau mengakui... :(

Karena alasan inilah, saya mengajak kita "Say No to Racism"...
^_^

ps: pertanyaan: apakah Yahudi bisa dikaitkan dengan sebuah 'ras' tertentu? :-?

Film-film keren

(ini adalah terjemahan tulisan yang sebelum ini persis ^_^)

Semester ganjil berakhir sudah! Pekerjaanku juga.... finish :p (ga ding, bercanda... berkhayal)

Eniwei, aku merasa beberapa minggu terakhir ini koq sangat berkesan ya? Sangat berkesan karena beberapa film super keren yang kutonton di minggu-minggu kemarin ini...

1. My Sassy Girl

Saya mulai dari film terakhir yang saya tonton aja ya? "My Sassy Girl". Ini adalah film komedi romantis yang aslinya dibikin di Korea, dan belakangan dibuat versi Hollywoodnya tahun kemarin. Yang kutonton justru versi Baratnya dulu sih... (yang dibintangi Elisha Cuthbert yang cute :D). Dan saat itu aku malah belum tahu e kalau ada versi aslinya yang Korea... Baru beberapa hari berikutnya lah yang Korea kutonton...

DUA-DUA-NYA SANGAT KEREN ! LIMA BINTANG ***** (SANGAT DIREKOMENDASIKAN)

Kisahnya sangat sulit untuk ditebak. Dan bagusnya lagi, banyak kata-kata mutiara di film ini. Kalimat favoritku dari yang versi Hollywood itu adalah ketika Jordan Roark bilang ini ke tentara yang mau bunuh diri, "We have to stay alive... because we have to know how the story ends". Nah di versi Korea aslinya, ada juga kalimat yang mirip itu... "Jika ingin belajar (cinta), kita harus tetap hidup." (hehe, iya sayangnya cuma bisa ngerti lewat teks terjemahannya)

Soundtrack-nya keren-an yang asli (judul lagunya "I Believe"). Tapi di versi bule nya, ada juga tuh lagu bagus, yang dimainkan sewaktu mereka berdua menari semalam suntuk? Judulnya apa ya, adakah yang tahu??


2. Red Cliff (part 1 dan part 2)

Saya juga sudah menonton "Red Cliff", dua-duanya, part 1 dan part 2. Yang part 2 masih diputar di bioskop di Jogja lho, jadi bagi kalian yang haus darah dan perang, buruan saja ke Amplaz (itupun kalau kalian di Jogja tentunya), terus tontonlah film ini. Film ini berkisah tentang awal-awal cerita legendaris "Romance of Three Kingdoms". Kalau kalian tidak asing dengan nama-nama tokoh: Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Kong Rong, Zhou Yu, Sun Quan, nah Anda WAJIB nonton film ini. (peringatan: menurut wikipedia, ada beberapa perbedaan penting antara kisah di film ini dengan sumber aslinya)

Pada dasarnya ini kan film tentang perang. Jadi bersiaplah untuk melihat darah muncrat di mana-mana. Film ini juga ada humornya, dan kisah cinta nya juga (percaya nggak, ada yang berfikir bahwa penyebab perang di film itu adalah karena wanita? dan perang di film itu gagal menang juga karena wanita itu??)

Yang paling kusukai dari film ini adalah, selain adanya pemain cute Lin Chi-Ling yang berperan sebagai istri Zhou Yu, adalah bahwa perangnya sendiri sangat "nyeni". Bayangkan, ini cerita di abad 3 masehi, dan mereka sudah punya panah yang bisa diisi ulang, dan armada kapal mereka sangat sangat besar.

Dan iya, soundtrack film ini juga enak untuk didengar...

3. Perempuan Berkalung Surban

(to be continued)

Movies movies movies

As the semester ended, so has my work. (no, this is just a wish, it's totally not true)

Nevertheless, I felt that these past few weeks was very... memorable. Memorable because of some very good movies I've watched during those weeks.

1. My Sassy Girl

I'll start from the last movie I watched on DVD. "My Sassy Girl". It's a romantic comedy, originally a Korean movie (2001) and then adapted to an American remake in 2008. I watched the remake first (starred by the super cute Elisha Cuthbert ^_^), without knowing there was actually a Korean version one (which in fact was the original one). A couple of days later, I watched the original one.

THEY WERE AWESOME ! FIVE STARS ***** (TOTALLY RECOMMENDED)

A totally unpredictable story. Yet it contains many words of wisdom. My favourite quote is "We have to stay alive... because we have to know how the story ends" --from the american remake. A comparable sentence actually existed in the original Korean movie, which unfortunately I can only understand through Indonesian subtitles... "Jika ingin belajar (cinta), kita harus tetap hidup." :D

Soundtrack-wise, the original is better ("I Believe"). But there's a song in the remake that I really liked, you know near the end when both danced all night? What song was it during that scene??

2. Red Cliff (part 1 and part 2)

I've also watched "Red Cliff", both part 1 and part 2. Part 2 is still on the cinemas here in Jogja right now, so for you who loves blood and war, quick go to Amplaz (if you're in Jogja, that is :D), and go watch Red Cliff 2. It's a movie about the early part of the famous Chinese Romance of Three Kingdoms. If you're familiar with these names: Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Kong Rong, Zhou Yu, Sun Quan, then you'll definitely should watch this. (caution though, wikipedia says the movie has substantial differences then the original Romance of Three Kingdoms)

Basically it's a movie about war. So get prepared to see blood everywhere. It also has some humour in it, and some love stories (can you believe that the motivation for war in this movie was because of a woman, and that battle was lost also because of that same woman?)

What I like most about this movie, apart from the cute Lin Chi-Ling acting as Zhou Yu's wife, is that the wars themselves were very artistic, or "nyeni", as we Javanese like to say it. Just imagine, it's the 3rd century, and they already have those portable harpoons (what's the correct word for this weapon?) and the fleets were HUGE.

And yes, its soundtrack is also a very good listen.

3. Perempuan Berkalung Surban

The other VERY interesting movie I watched recently is "Perempuan Berkalung Surban.", starring Revalina S. Temat. She's actually very adorable, but in this movie, you might not see her laugh, or even smile often. The whole movie is dominated by scenes of her sufferings. Any tortures that you can think of, any tragedies that can be ever imagined, have been experienced by this very strong (and don't forget, cute) lady. Okay, I may be exagerating, but I feel it necessary to warn you: this movie is not a 'hiburan', it's not very entertaining (despite the very cute face of Revalina). But it does not mean that the movie isn't good. It's actually one of the best quality Indonesian movie that I've ever watched. It's a long film (more than 2 hours long), and has many words of wisdom in it as well. And for the whole 2 hours, it's either sufferings that we're watching, or great wisdom and philosophy...

And there's Jogja in it! :D

So, if you're into women's rights, justice, and freedom, (and cute Revalina), this is the right movie for you =D

(ps: this movie is based on a novel. To my astonishment, I found out that the story in the novel is actually shorter than the one in the movie. The novel is also rather 'explicit' in portraying Anisa's (Revalina) experiences as a wife. Might not be suitable for minors :D)

4. Transporter 3

Transporter 3 might still be on the movies here in Jogja now. Car-driving-wise, this movie is actually comparable (or maybe even better) than Taxi (Queen Latifa), Fast and Furious, Italian Job, or Dukes of Hazard. I don't really care about the story line... okay the story is not bad, well, okay maybe it is bad. But the driving and car chasing scenes are the best! CMIIW, was it an Audi that he was driving in the movie?

The best scene in the movie: bicycle chasing car scene... :D

5. Artificial Intelligence

This is not a new movie. Yup, I'm very late. It's a story about a robot kid that is programmed to have an unconditional love to 'his mother'. It has a future setting, where the Earth is no longer like the way we know it (sea water surface has risen, drowning many big cities in the world).

The best scene of the movie that I liked most is a scene towards the end, where the kid (David) had the chance to meet his mother for the last time. It was so touching, I really think anyone watching this scene would not be able to stop their tears dropping.

Now that the new semester hasn't started yet, I plan to watch the following movies:
- Bedtime Stories
- Australia (does anyone know when will they play this in Jogja? Amplaz has a poster of this movie, saying "Coming Soon")
- any other suggestions?