on grace

you don’t have to be a christian to build homes for the homeless, feed the poor, or donate to charity..
you don’t have to be a christian to try to effect political change or pass social legislation..
there are other traditions and teachers that offer wise moral instruction..
what’s the one thing that the church has to offer that the world cannot get anywhere else?
it’s grace..

(John Ortberg)

what am i doing recently?

fiuhh.. sigh.. ughh..
i hope this won’t change much in the following days/weeks/months..

part 1, the genesis
playing with zigbee, (not bumblebee.. ) and its development module-ZDK.
there are 5 of them, as you can see from figure 1.

Figure 1.

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and I was asked to share it on tele-lecture session (figure 2.), which i was grateful of. and it’s done !!

Figure 2.

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now…
part 2!!  which what I am doing now..
since part 1 ‘looks’ so easy, my supervisor asked me to find something more difficult  > <”

and here it is!! say hello to omnet++ ! (http://www.omnetpp.org)
in short, it is a simultaor for networking application. and to be honest, it’s making my life more difficult. from installing, reading the manual, and trying all by myself..

Figure 3.

and.. last update.. (see figure 3.)
don’t ask me what is this and what is that..

yes, i know there’s a histogram, a nice graph, and the simulation looks working. but, yeah.. it’s just as it is..

and the fun part:
i changed the packet name to ‘KFC’  *can you locate it?* :p

daddy-long-legs

Another classics I’ve just read in addition to The Phantom of The Opera. This one, written by Jean Webster, quite unique. A story about Judy, an orphan, that was offered a sponsorship for continuing her study.
But the deal was, as written in the book, “… you are not to thank him for the money; he doesn’t care to have that mentioned, but you are to write a letter telling of the progress in your studies and the details of your daily life. Just such a letter as you would write to your parents if they were living…”

Interested?
The book itself, simply has 2 chapters. Chapter one, the quick introduction of Judy’s circumstances. Chapter two, the letter from Judy to his donator. And that’s all.
It’s simply a pure one-way letter from Judy, from the beginning of her time in college until she’s graduated.

Is it bored?
Sometimes it is. Can you imagine just reading one-way letter?
But actually, it’s appealing.  You are to driven to imagine the life of Judy just by reading her letter.

And what or who is “Daddy-Long-Legs” ? If you could guess, yes, it’s Judy’s benefactor. But why she call him that?  You find out yourself :p

25 or 10+15 ?

case 1:
excellent chinese dinner buffet steamboat, all-you-can-eat (seafood, veggies, meat) in restaurant: $25

case 2:
watching cinema $10 and having nice italian dinner (baked rice, potato wedges, pizza) in mall, $15

which case would you prefer?
and please tell me why.. *haha..*

to love

to love at all is to be vulnerable. love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. if you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. but in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. it will not e broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. the alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. the only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love, is hell.

C. S. Lewis

officially dead or dying

yes, it is.
or if i say in positive manner, it’s dying..

it keeps on restarting, again and again.
i could not make it stay still for 1 minute, and it’s getting worse i guess.
so i’m sure, now, it’s not the operating system (i thought it was, 3 days ago) – perhaps the hard-drive.

so, what i could think of is, i’ll take the last shot this monday, bring it to its service centre. and let’s hear what would be the (real) problem.
huah.. i hate this, truly do !!

sang pengagum

Satu lagi buku yang (tidak disangka2 ternyata) bagus, dikarang oleh Beverly Barton yang bercerita tentang pembunuhan berantai yang terjadi pada korban wanita dengan ciri2 yang selalu sama: cantik, populer, dan selalu dengan modus operandi yang sama, si korban selalu dimanjakan terlebih dahulu. Tetapi sebaliknya, terlihat mengenaskan melihat korban selalu ditemukan dalam keadaan penuh luka akibat siksaan.

Bisakah kasus ini dipecahkan oleh Bernie, seorang sheriff wanita, dibantu Kapten Jim, mantan atlet. Apalagi calon korban terakhir adalah adik Bernie sendiri. Masih sempatkah karena si pembunuh sekarang semakin cepat dalam bertindak?

Cukup seru juga ternyata, buku dengan judul asli Close Enough To Kill ini. Selain menebak2 siapa pembunuh sebenarnya, ditambah dengan masalah2 yang dialami Bernie dan Jim. Mantan istri yang menikah lagi, anak yang beranjak dewasa, lingkungan baru, dan gaji yang kecil pula. Lalu juga sulitnya Bernie menjadi bayang2 ayahnya sebagai mantan sherif, dan juga desakan keluarganya untuk memulai hubungan serius tentang pernikahan.

Not bad lah, dijamin gak sampe 2 minggu untuk menyelesaikan buku ini. Apalagi udah masuk ke bagian2 akhir. Dan yang penting, happy ending-kah buat semua?

new moon

New Moon? Yes, I watched it two days ago.
Guess I don’t need to tell you what the movie about, do I?
Let’s just move into the review part

Harry Potter is better
Yes, I know it’s just the second book, but (trying to be fair) if I compare it with The Chamber of Secrets, well.. I think, New Moon is far beyond it in terms of creativity.

Woman in love with…. vampire and werewolf?
Well, please guys.. Isn’t there any better ’solution’ than that? *haha*
I know it’s just a (romanced?) fiction. But, I guess..  It’s quite silly ?

Appearance
Well, I can not disagree, Jacob has a nice 6-packs thing.
And Edward? Hmm.. don’t mention it.. Embarrassing, right? Skinny, pale, and bone-y 
Bella? I think she’s cute and nice. But unfortunatelly, why she’s in love with those creatures? *huahua*

The story
Hmm.. I dont know what’s the good idea of this movie. But what i can think of is, it’s just about the romance in which Bella has to decide to whom she would give her heart (I repeat it again.. to vampire??? or werewolf???). And nothing else!! Yes!! Nothing else!
Welll, OK OK, there’s another thing.. The werewolf was cool!! It’s much more better than Lupin’s.
I like it, I must admit.
Anything else?
Umm, I don’t get the importance of Edward flying to Italy (or Brazil?) meeting the vampire royalty *what theeee..*  Don’t you think it’s just a not-necessary part ?

Some odd stuffs I found
What’s the purpose of Edward threw Bella out from Jasper, and make her injured ? Why did not they stopping Jasper only instead?

The raining part, when Jacob appeared with nice hair-cut.
If you watch carefully, you will find that the rain doesn’t disrupt Bella and Jacob
It’s like, they have magic umbrella.. *haha*

Why didn’t the werewolves show up in the first sequel?
I mean, if it’s trully exist a war between werewolf and (bad) vampire, why didn’t they show up – even a glimpse?
When Jacob jumped off Bella’s window, he landed so smooth on ground without sound.
And I could not believe this! *haha*
- – - – -

Well, this’s just my review, please don’t be angry (girls) :p
Honestly, I didn’t read the book as well, so I might miss some part.
Please share and illuminate me if you’d like.

strugling with karmic koala

again and again..
maybe this is the 4th or 5th i re-install linux in my laptop.
why?

well..  for some reasons:
1st, im planning to migrate to linux, honestly.. but on the other hand, still feel a bit ‘afraid’. yes you know why, most of our life -you name it- has been dominated by windows. and now you’re leaving it?

2nd, i dont know for sure (yet now). but i feel that, maybe in 5-10 years time, people may use linux on their application. and (you can) trust me (now), the trend is getting there.

3rd, my boss is using it *haha*
yes, it sounds ridiculous though. but the more i observe, the more i’m sure he’s doing the right thing. and know what, he’s been using it for 15 years!! and he survives !! now he might be one of the best linux user in the world – no kidding !!

4th, i installed the latest version of it, ubuntu 9.10, and i experienced some cool stuff.. really !
there are msn version, called kmess.. there is skype in linux as well !
but i dont like the pidgin, yahoo-like messenger, it’s quite..how to say.. un-controllable.
and the software i’m using it now, omnet++, is also running on linux!! cool, isn’t it ?

but now, back to the topic..
what’s the main reason i need to re-install it again???

it started like 2-3weeks ago, since i noticed that my vista keeping my laptop restrart. so annoying! but when i switched to ubuntu, it’s stable (well.. sometimes it also restart with sense-less explanation -that’s what i hate of being an engineer- and i’m totally curious!!
and somehow, i found out that.. maybe.. (yes maybe).. it’s because of the vista?
so yess.. then i decided to delete the vista partition, and totally migrate to linux !

and by the time i’m writing this post, my laptop’s is still upgrading to the latest version, 9.10 (Karmic Koala).
one hour to go.. and i hope it wont bother me much when it’s done..

my sister’s keeper

Huah, what a great acting!! Seriously, it is a great one !!
I knew it’s adapted from a book (with the same title) by Jodie Picoult, I knew it might be a sad movie, but I didn’t expect the movie would be so good. My emotion just simply following the emotion of the movie, no doubt.

The story is quite scary, I would say. About the littlest girl in a family, Anna, who sueing her parents because she feels that she’s been donating her sister, Kate, which has leukemia cancer since she was five years old. And what is surprisingly, Anna went to the lawyear, Campbell, and he agreed to help Anna.

How do Anna parents, Brian and Sara, react ? And how about Kate, knowing this? Or perhaps the problem in this family is more than that ?
Well, just watch the movie. I wont tell anything here. But I tell you, you will shed tears :p

Personally, I do admire the acting of Kate (played perfectly by Sofia Vassilieva), Anna (Abigail Breslin), and Campbell (Alec Baldwin). They are so great!! And of course not mentioning Sara (Cameron Diaz) as well.

Just couple of thing to think about after watching this movie:
1. I think a lawyer must wise and have good conscience, choosing which case.
2. Don’t you ever think being adults give you the right to be mature. Even sometimes, you’re being childish.
3.  There’s nothing beats a loving, care, and tender family. Even if something bad happens, it could turn up well in it.
4. Don’t use others just to fulfil yourself needs.

One of the best movie I watched this year..