Nothing about Everything

I just finished watching an episode titled "Ibuku Tukang Kawin" (meaning "My mother is a person who loves to get married repeatedly") of the series "Pintu Hidayah" (meaning "Door of guidance"). Today episode is very interesting. This series is what I call an Islamic series. The typical story begin by showing how sinful the antagonist is. We will see him/her doing extremely cruel things, sometimes so cruel as if (s)he does it simply because (s)he is evil. At least one pious person will try to make him/her repent with no result. Only after (s)he suffered many bad events because of his/her sin, or after (s)he saw how pious other people despite of everything that happen to them, (s)he will repent. At the end of the story, a person will give a short Islamic preach on the relevant sin. I find the choice of title a bit.. brave. Some audiences might randomly think of a title "Bapakku Tukang Kawin" (meaning "My father is a person who loves ...

Friday is slow work day for business in certain field in Indonesia.. I have been visited twice by a representative of Yayasan Jantung Indonesia , a supposedly non-profit organization that promote healthy life to fight heart disease. I refused to contribute to their cause twice simply because they asked me to fill in my credit card number on a form. Based on my families bad experience in claiming unauthorized charges, I don't think I will ever write my credit card number on a form without guarantee who have access to that form. They didn't even willing to send receipt copy of the problematic transaction, without us promising to pay regardless of condition of receipt.. I digress.. I did ask the "sales" person for alternative way to contribute, but they said there is no other way. I, being a sceptical creature, do not believe him. I googled for Yayasan Jantung Indonesia and found their contact number . I called the number up and, as expected, they have a bank account tha...

The results of most studies about origin of preference tend to bias towards biological origin. This doesn't necessarily mean that people behind the studies are not neutral. Most of the successfully identified origin are biological because good research design on identifying biological origin may yield conclusive evidences, where as identification of non-biological origin requires complicated disentanglement of confounding factors. The difficulty is worse when the non-biological origin is too abstract or not well defined such as "free will", culture or even seemingly simple things such as personality, comfortability, etc. It is worth to mention of an approach to identify the origin of preference, which is using evolutionary psychology framework. It basically states that natural selection makes surviving humans have a certain kind of preference. For such case, it's arguable that origin of that particular preference is biological since evolution mostly change biological ...

Commenting on The Future of Voting from Dilbert Blog, I'd like to talk about Scott's suggestion for making voters more informed. He suggested a website that summarized arguments of issues. The summarization is structured so that points and counterpoints can be added easily with links to proper sources or evidences. He also suggested a ranking system so that the better arguments are more visible. I have thought about creating a website implementing such tool ever since I have difficulty following arguments in a mailing list about evolution . Too bad I don't have that much leisure time anymore to play with various projects. But I did find some things I'd like to share: 1. Many people already thought about such tool, one even show a prototype on issue of abortion. But I cannot find it anymore, sorry.. 2. One major problem with the existing tools is how to assimilate all existing information in a glance, or even assimilating only relevant information in a glance. 3. Presen...

In a mailing list I joined (subcription is by other member's reference only, sorry), there is an article about meatless day . The poster persuades readers to observe this day, while offering them a reminder service. In short, she asked people's cell phone number and email address so she can remind them of meatless day. You probably ask, "who would give away his email address or cell number to such a stupid request? Don't people have any common sense?". The answer is "it depends on the community's culture". In community with high collectivism, giving away such information still fit the so called common sense. On the other hand, in a more individualistic community there is more concern on "why you need to know" and "mind your own business" thus such request is unlikely to be responded. Regardless of whether she had any bad intention, such as to sell contact numbers to spammer and telemarketers, this is an example of social engineer...

A couple of days ago, a small young cat entered my work place. Since my work place is disorganized and very dirty, noone really think that the cat should be removed. In addition, since I set an example of not bothering the cat, my subordinates did not really dare to do anything to this cat. Thus it can freely roam at all over the place, meowing pitifully with its weak sounds. It seemed to be looking for it's mother, which was another reason I let it stay. After a couple of days, the cat start becoming a nuisance with it's constant meowing. I hinted to my subordinates that the cat should be removed. They started aggresively hunt the cat, but alas, the cat is already familiar to this area thus can always escape. Yesterday evening, while closing the place I work at, a cat pass in front of me while meowing. It seems to be looking for something. Such behavior is unusual for cats living around this place. I put two and two together, and speculate that this new cat must be it's m...

I just read "On the origin of preference" which extended the arguments in comment section of Econ101: Preference , questioning the origin of preference. Check out their blogs! His writing about Indonesia is consistently of high quality. Using the question of "what is the origin of preference", I will show you how Scott Adams preference influences his approach to this question. :-) Due to his obsession with occam's razor, he will try to find the simplest explanation on the origin of preference. The wittier it is, the more likely he will choose that explanation. He will also use evolution argument if possible since "survival of the fittest" is arguably a robust and flexible argument, that is evolution argument can support anything as long as you can explain how this anything gives human more chance to successfully reproduce. If the explanation is mocking humanity, it will be considered better. Also consider that "What is the origin of preferenc...

As an example of my previous post on driving tips , I'll talk about a intersection I go through daily. This intersection is big and crowded. The one way road I usually ride to reach this intersection has 3 lanes. Next to this road is a 2 lanes road that become a bridge when reaching the intersection. Next to it is another one way road with 2 lanes, going the opposite direction from the first road. Since the second road described above become a bridge when reaching the intersection, it's possible to do a U turn from the first road, going under the second road, to the third road. So there are 3 roads next to each other at one side of the intersection, out of 4 sides. The roads position on the opposite side of the intersection mirrors the 3 roads position above. The left and right side of the intersection (from the orientation when I reach this intersection) each has 2 one way roads, with 3 lanes each. Now, the road I ride to reach this intersection has two traffic lights. The fir...

The reason I stop using excessive coloring in my blog is to ensure it is still readable and navigable by color blind people of all type. Since in the worst case color blind people can only see brightness differences, I set my background to a darker color and writing to a lighter color. And then I use this site to see how is my blog viewed by people with various type of color blindness. And here is the new coloring of my blog. Note: All the fonts are sizable to accomodate visually impaired people. But I'm not sure whether blogspot is optimized for the hearing impaired..

One of the few persons whose blog I subscribed to is Scott Adams' . He is the creator of Dilbert comic which is a satirical comic on corporate management. His view of corporate management can be summarized in 2 books: The Dilbert Principle and Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook . His blog made me realize that Scott's mind is very similar to one of my best friend. Both of them able to entertain possible but extremely satirical yet simple hypothesis. Their view on issues such as free will, religion, democracy, morality, ethics, and human relationships, are very similar, both in their arguments and sarcastic tone. Their differences are only what they choose to believe. For example let's look what I can infer from his latest blog "The Stuff in My Head" alone. They are both believer of indoctrination effectiveness, not necessarily by the government, but also by institution and corporation. Therefore they believe democracy is only an illusion. And if I may ...

I try to find an effective but scalable category/label for my blogs. I expect my blogs to have many overlapping categories thus too many ad hoc categories will create way too many labels with questionable effectiveness. Therefore I must plan the category/label-ing a bit before commiting myself to a category scheme. Another problem is my insistment on making labels a consistent characteristic of posts. In other words posts of the same label should have similar topic, depth, tone, prerequisites knowledge, etc. The purpose is obvious, to maximize readers experience such that they can read only what they want and like by reading/feeding from labels they choose.

First I will talk about cross-cultural psychology. Understanding other culture is very very difficult. The following story will illustrate it. Back in university, I took a course in cross-cultural psychology. After around 3 months, we had a cultural sensitivity training. We role-played into being 2 groups, a country of collectivist and individualist. Each of our group were given a purpose we must negotiate on, given each of our country condition. We may negotiate in any way we like. However, our behavior while negotiating must follow the cultural characteristic of our assigned country. The students were disproportionaly American, so playing individualist roles are easy. But we (well, most of us.. :-p) really sucks in playing collectivist roles. The students who are into collectivist roles do not establish enough rapport, communicate too directly without using available context, always monetize the negotiation terms, too confrontative, etc. In short, they fail in almost every aspects, e...

The intended readers of this post are liberals. You have been warned. I had just turned on my tv and saw the last minutes of the movie "Virgin" (2004), made in Indonesia. It's the first time I see this movie. The movie title's alone is enough to cause controversy in Indonesia, a country with the largest moslem population in the world. The content is said to be even more controversial ( http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/buletin-studia@yahoogroups.com/293663.html) due to it's vulgar depiction of sex and ..cursing. Many groups deemed it immoral enough that it was pulled from circulation within 2 weeks (correct me if I'm wrong). Anyway, I'm particularly interested in the last scenes of this movie. A high school girl is standing on a platform talking about something (I didn't pay attention). Many people such as fellow students and some adults watch her. After she finish talking, she pause. But everybody seems waiting her to say something. Finally...

These tips are indentified from my experience of driving in Jakarta. They may or may not apply in you area of residence, so adopt accordingly. For driving guidelines, see this . Tips: 1. When in doubt whether you can ignore a red light, ask a police officer if present, or people on the street. Do not be pressured to violate the red light by honks behind you. 2. If your machine die in the middle of road, do not panic. Ignore all the honking. You can handle your problem faster if you're calm. 3. If the car in front of you has manual transmission and the driver almost never step on brake in a traffic jam, then she is a good driver. Stay behind her since her car is less likely to suddenly stop without warning. 4. Before turning or changing lane, try to remember the position and movement of other cars behind you. Because once you change your orientation, some cars will enter your blindspot area. 5. If you're not sure when to do the dreaded U turn with all those cars moving so fast, ...

The last couple of days I have been tutoring my brother on the art of driving. Since I failed to find any decent tips of driving in the internet, I was forced to make the tips up and create guideline along the way. Now I want to share those. In this post, I'll talk about guideline first. Without further ado, here it is: There are 3 components of driving environment: static, dynamic, and context dependent components. Static components is road. Dynamic components are everything that can change such as cars and pedestrians. Context dependent components are everything that depends on the situation.. If you are not familiar with the static component of an area, be cautious. You may assume that the static components always follow certain guidelines, such as a dead end will be marked however rudiment the mark is. But remember that some guidelines may not be reliable, for example a lack of continuous line in a wide road of a road pairs, do not imply a one way road. So again, be cautious. A...

I pity the job a security officer not because of his low salary or long hours, but because of the constant self-humiliation he often inflicts on himself. Allow me to elaborate what I mean by self-humiliation. Greeting exchanges between people and security officers are common. To ensure a flawless exchange of greeting, a security officer must first watch the other party's body language indicating an intention to greet. Since his reaction may not be fast enough, he must do the motion of greeting in advance to easily coincide his own greeting with the other's greeting. Everybody won't feel awkward and continue their life.. The problem is not everybody want to greet a security officer. Even if they want, they might be too busy or tired to greet. Additionally, their distance and position might be too far or restricted. Another possibility is that they thought the security officer does not want to greet thus they don't want to risk greeting without reciprocation. Consequently...

There maybe sometime in your life where a jock type guy brag to you about his physical prowess. He might say that he can do 200 push-ups, 500 sit-ups, or 800 squat-jumps. I hate to break the news but such "achievement" is not yet something to ga-ga (oooh, aaaah) over. The difficulty of those exercise depends on the time used to finish them. 200 push-ups in half hour is easier than 50 push-ups in 1 minute. ..well, it's actually not that simple. You might say that the bottle neck of 60 push-ups in 1 minute is the performance of anerobic metabolism , which is the metabolism able to generate large amount of energy in little time. For more push-ups with longer time such as 1000 push-ups in 30 minutes, what matter is the performance of both anerobic metabolism and aerobic metabolism , where the aerobic metabolism will burn waste of anerobic metabolism. If anerobic metabolism cannot keep up with the cleaning anerobic metabolism's waste, it will be the limit. For, let say 5...

Although I know it, until recently I had never really appreciated that pressures of work and life can inhibit relationships building. The pressure may be inevitable due to certain facts of life or it may be that you choose to take that pressure. Choosing to take that pressure may be motivated by your ambition, or other people ambitions and interest. Either way, there might be some times in our life where relationship is simply not a priority. Since many relationships - such as ordinary hang out friends - require maintainance (periodic phone call, short messages, or visit), we might lost relationships we built due to pressure of work and life. Consequently by the time we begin to pay attention to relationship, you might need to start from almost zero. It sucks. Luckily, not all relationships require periodic maintainance. Some relationships, once established, can be left for years and invoked when needed with little time/effort. Therefore a person who, for example, are planning to pursu...

Some people are more comfortable to establish a friend relationship before dating someone. Usually they want to know the partner more before starting to invest big amount of time and heart. Other reason is to identify possible freaks and perverts before their life become interlinked. Yet another reason is that they consider dating as a privilege that must be earned by someone who is worthy. On the other side, some people are comfortable to date a complete stranger, ..well not a complete stranger, but you got the idea. If it works out, then they can start working to progress into a more intimate relationship. It if doesn't work that well, they can just be friends. If it really doesn't work out, you ignore him/her or even avoid him/her if necessary. Slap in a court order if it's really necessary :-) If you want to approach someone, it is important to know in what category does your interest believe in, ie: dating before friendship or friendship before dating. Failure to know ...

This is an old post of mine, defending the virtue of HP 12C over TI BA II Plus. Hewlett Packard 12C and Texas Instrument BA II Plus are both the only type of calculator allowed in CFA exam . One of the most significant differences between those two is the procedure to enter operation such as addition, substraction, multiplication, and division. HP 12C use what mathematician call postfix notation , where TI BA II Plus use infix notation . The following example will illustrate both notations. Example of problem to be solved: 2 x ( 3 + 5 ) = The buttons to be pressed on infix calculator (TI BA II Plus) are: "2","X","(","3","+","5",")","=". For a total of 8 buttons pressed. Note that the button pressed are buttons pressed in so called "normal" calculator. The buttons to be pressed on postfix calculator (HP 12C) are: "2","Enter","3","Enter","5","+...

Since I was requested to write the proceeding of a wedding, I thought I should just blog it so many people can benefit. The ceremony was held on 7 pm at a place where traffic jam is almost non-existent. On other consideration, almost no public transportation reached this place. Since it was dark, I can't estimated the size of the building where the wedding is held. One thing for sure, there were plenty of parking lots. There were 2 wedding receptions at the same time, each share half of the main hall inside a building. The reception I attended occupied space around 50 metres x 40 metres (Disclaimer: I am very likely to be waaay off since I suck at estimating distance), but I believed the decoration and lighting makes the room look smaller than it was. The ambience is quite cozy. I think I was late for around 15 minutes. But as expected, many people were late too. Even the groom and bride were late for around 30 minutes. Although the entrance of both groom and bride into a wedding h...

A picture worth a thousand words. But a picture without context will be lost.. This picture was taken from a car, at around 7.15 AM, on 13th October 2006, in Jakarta, Indonesia. (With a Zire 72 if you really want to know why it's so ugly :-)). The road they're on is not exactly a safe neighbourhood, although not necessarily unsafe either since an elite real estate area is located nearby. The traffic is pretty light, unlike usual days. I was there, so I can see things that are uncaptured by this photograph. The person behind the motorcycle was a young boy whose age was at most 10 years. He was reading a handwritten note which is likely to be his or his friend's since the writing style was very childlike. His concentration was so intense such that his eyes never leave the book while I was seeing him. He let the momentum of the motorcycle rocks his body back and forth. It was very dangerous. Yet, his desire to study is very inspiring.

Today, I was queueing in a bank for almost 3 hours, an unusually long queue. This is caused by a backlog of people who cannot go to the bank for 5 days due to Idul Fitri , and the closing of all branches except some major branches of this bank. Anyway, this one man in front of me was wearing a gold necklace. Considering how he dressed and the unparticularity of the necklace, he seemed to wear the necklace for flaunting his wealth. Too bad that his gold necklace turned out to be an imitation. It was obvious because his skin developed a major rash around the necklace. Since gold is one of the most inert metal in the world, gold cannot cause rash. He was soo busted.

Goal setting is important and I think everybody can agree with that. Milestone setting is as important as goal setting because it keep you on track towards the goal you set and it alerts you on your progress. And most people will agree that the more milestone you create, the more controlled your progress towards the goal. The time to finish goal and milestone are set by human thus they will be based on a time indication considered convenient by human. For example, it's unlikely for me to set 9.37PM past 18 seconds as the time to complete this blog. It's more likely if I set 9.30PM as the time because it's more convenient. As the consequence, the cycle of time we use such as seconds, days, weeks, months, years, can potentially reduce the effectiveness of goal setting because we tend to overcontract or overstretch the time required to finish a goal, or a milestone.

Despite of my posts such as this and this , there is one very important advantage in boosting self-esteem, regardless of whether the self-esteem is well-grounded by any evidences. The advantage is: You will look confidence, and confidence attract people. Although, this phenomenon can be explained from an evolutionary perspective, I won't bother to talk about it for now. What matter is that you can create confidence out of nothing. You don't have to be pretty, or have potention muscle, or have potential body shape, or smart, to be confident. Everybody can be confident. I'm not saying that confidence is a bad characteristic to be attracted to. What I'm saying is that in the matter of confidence, the playing field is somewhat equal. And that's my friend, is a boon for us if we sucks at everything in our life. Now, if you can boost your self-esteem regardless whether you deserve such a high opinion of your self, then you will automatically be confident and it will show...

I have stated that self-esteem is a fragile creature that depends on the stability of it's environment to stay intact . But there is an unusual way to create a high self-esteem that does not depend on environment. The method is what I call a nihilist method . Some people discover the nihilist method because their educational background or mental exploration, lead them to an appreciation that self-esteem might be an arbitrary construct without any intrinsic meaning. They key word here is appreciation , not understanding . Someone might understand or know the diversity of cultures in the world, but (s)he might not appreciate it. Anyway, in short, they will think that it really truely irrelevant what they think about themselves, and they mean it. Education background and mental exploration that lead to such appreciation are: 1. Theoretical physics Explanation: Exploration of high level of abstraction will eventually make you wonder whether there is any intrinsic meaning to.. anything...

A person having a high self-esteem without evidences supporting his/her competence, is a fragile person (as discussed here ). Even if evidences exist, a high self-esteem can still be fragile due to changes in what considered important. Case in point is being good at sport. If you're still in high school, the fact that you can dunk can really boost your self-esteem. But once you enter the working world, your godlike sport skill does not really matter anymore. Therefore a high self-esteem must not become a purpose by itself. Knowing your ownself must be the purpose. What you must achieve in life is an understanding of your ownself, or "knowing your own self". Self-esteem and knowing your own self is related but different. A good progress in knowing your own self does not necessarily lead to higher self-esteem. An honest assessment of your own self might reveal that you suck at certain things thus might lower you self-esteem. "Knowing your own self" is still not fr...

Topic of self-esteem can easily extends to many posts, but for now I will exposed the general idea of self-esteem. Instead of explicitly defining self esteem or self worth, I can explain self-esteem by describing it's relationship with a person's subjective appraisal of herself. It's the factor influencing whether someone subjective appraisal of herself is considered positive or negative. A more concise definition of self-esteem can be found here . Quoting from there: self-esteem includes a person's subjective appraisal of himself or herself as intrinsically positive or negative to some degree (Sedikides & Gregg, 2003). --- Self-esteem is considered very important especially in American culture. The themes of many popular literature/media and popular self-help books evolved around the importance of self-esteem, as indicated from corny phrases such as "You can do it" or "I know you can". People with high self esteem is depicted to be "complet...