October 9, 2008
I don’t know what to do…speechless, hopeless… I just saw the bus run and leaving me. And… oh.. I lost my 5310. It was October 9th, 2008. (08.45 am), someone picked my handset. I called my wife and XL centre to block my number.
I realize that it is God’s destiny.
Yeah.. I should have a brand new handset…
Good Bye my 5310… you’ve been 9 months belong to me..
September 4, 2008
Saya telah lebih dari 7 tahun mempercayakan jaringan komunikasi seluler menggunakan layanan XL. Namun belakangan ini mutu layanan dari waktu ke waktu semakin berkurang (malah memburuk). Yang terakhir pada tanggal 2 September 2008 dari sore sampai tanggal 3 September 2008 pagi saya SAMA SEKALI tidak bisa melakukan penggilan keluar (outgoing call). Ini membuat saya sangat kecewa.
Saya pun coba tanya ke rekan-rekan saya pengguna XL, mereka mengatakan hal yang sama. Kalau begini terus JARGON MURAH yang sering XL promosikan tidak akan begitu pengaruh, karena OPERATOR LAIN pun menawarkan TARIF MURAH.
Sekali lagi mohon perbaiki kualitas layanan, atau secara perlahan XL ditinggalkan pelanggan yang beralih ke operator lain.
Terima kasih
Iwan Hernawan, SE
Jalan Kolonel Achmad Syam No. 158, Jatinangor
Sumedang
May 16, 2008
Inu Kencana protest and complained for his promotion to IX Commission, He seeks House support against the government decisions. Inu said his promotion to a post at the Home Ministry amounted to a dismissal… It’s Ok… and here’s another story of IPDN, taken from The Jakarta Post:
A student from the Public Administration Institute (IPDN) was expelled Thursday for stabbing a classmate.
The student has been identified as Muzian Beli, 21, from South Sumatra.
Witnesses said Muzian became angry and stabbed Vevi Akike Yandra of West Sumatra in the thigh.
The reason behind Muzian’s bizarre behavior is still unclear.
IPDN, formerly known as STPDN, is publicly known for campus violence with several student deaths recorded in the past
May 16, 2008
I take this from The Jakarta Post….
A student died at the Advent Hospital on Sunday in Bandung, West Java, reportedly due to organ failure following a drinking binge.
Chris Benard, 23, from the Institute for Public Administration, IPDN, was initially admitted to AMC Hospital in Cileunyi, some 2 km from the IPDN campus in Jatinangor, Sumedang, on May 2.
“He was admitted in a critical condition due to a severe drop in consciousness,” Norman, a doctor attending Chris’ at Advent Hospital’s intensive care unit, said.
“According to his friends, they went out on a drinking spree two days earlier,” he said.
Chris’ pulse and breathing rate was rapid, Norman said. Chris had no medical history of acute illnesses and no physical wounds on his body, he said.
Norman was unable to determine conclusively whether alcohol was the cause of death.
IPDN reported the case to the Jatinangor Police and Sumedang Police on Sunday, completely handing the case over to them.
Chris had passed his comprehensive test at IPDN on April 30 and, according to plans, would sit his final examination on June 2 before graduating on June 7.
The Sumedang Police have refused to issue a permit allowing Chris’ family take home his remains — currently laying at rest at Borromeus Hospital in Bandung — to Central Kalimantan. Chris’ family have objected to an autopsy being carried out on the body.
Urbanus Siram, said Chris, the youngest of his two children, was a representative from Pulau Pisau regency, Central Kalimantan, sent to study at IPDN in 2004.
“I was shocked when I discovered he was admitted to hospital because he had never complained of any illness in his life,” Urbanus said.
Urbanus did not say why the family had rejected an autopsy.
Urbanus, a civil servant at the industry, trade and cooperatives office in Pulau Pisau, arrived in Bandung with his wife Dewi on Monday.
Sumedang Police chief of detectives Adj. Comr. Hotben Gultom said police would ask that an autopsy be performed to determine the cause of death.
“An autopsy must be conducted. We will persuade the family of the deceased,” Gultom said.
November 13, 2007
In early 2000’s you might receive an E-mail that contain the connection of Kennedy and Lincoln, I found a comment from Kevin T. Kilty that unfold the fact:
Alleged Amazing Fact
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
Comment
This is, of course, no more remarkable than two victims of assassination being elected 96 years apart or 104. One hundred is just such a nice, round number that people see extreme significance in it–much like they did the year 2000, for instance. There are many people who have been elected president 100 years apart. And each being assassinated doesn’t deepen this coincidence one iota, because we chose two assassinated leaders and then found that by coincidence they were elected 100 years apart.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Comment
Obviously people might think that both men entering politics 100 years apart, and then being elected president also 100 years apart is a great coincidence. However, when two people are separated by about X years in history, it seems very likely, in fact more likely than not, that major milestones in their lives are separated by roughly the same increment as well. This is entirely expected. At least it is more expected than their being elected to congress 100 years apart, and being elected president 150 years apart, because one of them would have been in congress as long as Strom Thurmond. The parallel in political careers diverges here, for Kennedy won a Senate seat in 1952, while Lincoln lost his Senate bid in 1858.
Alleged Amazing Fact
The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.
Comment
OK, and I might add that their successor’s names also had 7 letters. Perhaps seven letter last names are quite common.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Comment
It would be more amazing if they hadn’t been concerned with civil rights, because civil rights were THE SOCIAL CONCERNS of the day in both instances. During both of these time periods the country was nearly torn to pieces over the issue. In fact, to characterize the Lincoln Presidency as being “particularly concerned with civil rights” seems a comic understatement.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.
Comment
This is a muddied statement that ought to read “Both their wives lost a child while living in the White House.” In fact the Lincoln’s lost three of their four children before the children reached adulthood. The death of children was not uncommon at the time. I am unable to find information regarding the Kennedy child, but I recall this being a miscarriage, which is not only surprisingly common, but makes the two losses not really comparable. Someone recently wrote with information they found on the web to the effect that the Kennedy child died of complications resulting from premature birth. Nonetheless there is less parallel than the myth suggests.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Comment
I originally thought this was a mistake through a mistaken calculation of weekdays. I parodied the coincidence with, “This would be an excellent coincidence if it weren’t for Kennedy being shot on a Thursday.” However, a Mr. Goldman wrote to point out my error and I stand corrected. It’s nice to see that someone reads this stuff. I just wish people would write for reasons other than to point out my errors. Ah, then Mr. Goldman wrote back to explain that Lincoln was actually shot on Thursday and died on Friday, whereas Kennedy was shot and died on Friday. Once again the full story has not quite the parallel that the simple story suggests.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Both Presidents were shot in the head.
Comment
When someone is trying to kill a person, they will likely shoot them in the head. It is more effective than shooting them in the leg, for instance. So this is entirely expected.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln.
Comment
This is quite difficult to analyze. How many secretaries and assistants did each have? Did Kennedy choose Lincoln as secretary from a pool of applicants because of his name? Sometimes coincidence is not all it seems. In fact, Robert Lincoln the eldest son of Abraham Lincoln, was saved from a nasty accident by J. Wilkes Booth’s brother. Yet another cosmic connection? Most recently a Mr. Patrick Vincent wrote to tell me that his research on the web turned up evidence that Lincoln had no secretary named Kennedy. The interesting story of this myth is told at the web site synnergy . Another alleged coincidence dies.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Comment
J. Wilkes Booth was born in Maryland. I suppose that if one were trying to force a cosmic connection, then Maryland might pass muster as a southern state. People have written to me refering to Maryland as a “border state”, although I think of it as in the Union because we refer to Lee as “invading ” MAryland in 1862 at Harper’s Ferry and Antietam. The best a person could argue is that Wilkes was a southern sympathizer maybe.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Both were succeeded by Southerners.
Comment
OK, granted; but it isn’t as though each man having a southerner as Vice President was a random occurence. Each was a northern politician trying to win an election by choosing a southern running mate. Things that people do by design are not coincidences.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Both successors were named Johnson.
Comment
It isn’t as though Johnson is a strange last name.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
Comment
There is that 100 year separation again.
Alleged Amazing Fact
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Comment
They are trying for the 100 year thing again! It didn’t work this time, though. Booth was actually born in 1838. What I found interesting about researching Lee Harvey Oswald’s age is the misinformation regarding it in web documents.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Comment
A biography of Booth that I found on the world wide web suggested that he was known as J. Wilkes Booth. A Mr. Vsevolod Onyshkevych wrote to me and advanced the theory that killers are often known by their full (three) names and that this may be applied to each after the fact. He also provided a list of stunning length of the names of killers found from biographies on the web. Yes, Mr. Onyshkevych, the web is full of stange information.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Both names are comprised of fifteen letters.
Comment
What a bore I’m going to be here. Let us suppose that the length of a name is a random variable (Poisson perhaps) where the probability of very long or very short names is small and the expected length is about 5 letters. Then, the distribution of the summed lengths of three names is going to be sharply peaked at 15 letters. In other words, this might be common. I can think of 5 members of my immediate family who meet this test also.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Lincoln was shot at the theatre named ‘Kennedy’.
Kennedy was shot in a car called ‘Lincoln’.
Comment
I had trouble believing what I was reading here, because I recalled distinctly from High School or earlier that Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre. Practically any person with high school education would recall this fact. Moreover, this seems to be a corruption of the original list of coicindences in which this one was “Lincoln was shot in a theatre built by Ford. Kennedy was shot in a car built by Ford.”
Alleged Amazing Fact
Booth ran from the theatre and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theatre.
Comment
Well, I could explain this coincidence as resulting from the shear number of theaters and warehouses, but the story of Booth’s escape is so complex that to characterize it as “ran from a theatre and was caught in a warehouse” skirts the suburbs of misrepresentation. Booth was ultimately caught in a tobacco shed on a farm, which hardly qualifies as a warehouse.
Alleged Amazing Fact
Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.
Comment
Booth died in a gunbattle, so reports of his assassination are highly exaggerated.
Alleged Amazing Fact
This is the climactic last alleged fact that the author decribed as “the kicker.”
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.
Comment
I was pretty sure at this point that the whole e-mail was a joke. Nevertheless, I have gone this far, and I may as well finish. Marilyn Monroe died over one year before Kennedy’s assassination. Once again Mr. Onyshkevych has written to tell me that there is no Monroe, Maryland known to the U.S. Post Office at least. Perhaps there was in 1865.
November 13, 2007
A couple days ago, my colleague in Malaysia sent a nice joke to me,
This is a “BEST JOKE” award winner in UK
One Chinese person walks into a bar in America late one night and he saw Steven Spielberg. As he was a great fan of his movies, he rushes over to him, and asks for his autograph.
Instead, Spielberg gives him a slap and says “You Chinese people bombed our Pearl Harbor, get out of here.”
The astonished Chinese man replied “It was not the Chinese who bombed your Pearl Harbor , it was the Japanese”.
“Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, you’re all the same,” replied Spielberg.
In return, the Chinese gives Spielberg a slap and says “You sank the Titanic; my forefathers were on that ship.”
Shocked, Spielberg replies “It was the iceberg that sank the ship, not me.”
The Chinese replies, “Iceberg, Spielberg, Carlsberg, you’re all the same.”
This particular joke won an award for the best joke in a competition in Britain .
July 24, 2007
Wendi (23) a resident of Ciawi, Jatinangor died after fatal beating by a dozen of Students at the Institute of Home Affair Administration (IPDN). On Saturday night, Wendi and his relative were playing billiard at Jatinangor Town Square, his cigarette touched an IPDN student. This incident stirred anger of a dozen of IPDN Students at the location. They were beat wendi until unconscious, then he helped by pool’s security guard. Wendi was taken to Jatinagor Local Hospital at the next morning by his family, then He died at Sumedang district Hospital.
An hour after burial of Wendi at Gajah cemetery, Jatinangor, a hundred of Motorcycle-taxi biker (Ojeg) staged a rally in front of IPDN’s campus demanding to shut down the school. In other location, The chief of House of Representatives (DPR), Agung Laksono, also requested the same petition.
June 23, 2007
I’ve got a nice article from The Jakarta Post about “Street Snapper” in Alun-alun Bandung. I remember about 1980’s, so many street snappers in front of Mesjid Agung (Bandung’s Great Mosque) they offered Instant Photo with Alun-alun or Mesjid Agung as the background. Here is the Article:
Bandung’s ’street snappers return’
Friday, March 16, 2007
For about a month now, Maman, 52, has been relieved and back in business in Bandung’s town square, better known as alun-alun, after three years’ closure of the area.
Working as a street photographer since 1976, Maman relies on a manual camera, a Nikon FM2 with 20-80 mm lenses, to support his wife and five children.
“I’ve got no other skills. I’m not strong enough for manual labor and have no land for farming. Taking pictures has long been my ability,” said the resident of Jl. Mohamad Toha, Bandung, whose youngest child has just graduated high school.
Suryadi, who lives in the city’s Gegerkalong area, is also a street photographer. Using a manual Crown Quick 715, the 60-year-old carries out his routine with great confidence, offering his photographic services to visitors in the hub of the West Java capital.
“This place is just like our office. We work for a living, have lunch and take a rest here,” Suryadi said, laughing.
Suhendar, 57, another snapper, said around 30 street photographers offered their services in the same square. They have joined clubs such as the Bandung Tourism Amateur Photographers and the Priangan Amateur Photos Association.
The closure of the alun-alun by the city administration three years ago, according to Suryadi, deprived the “street snappers” of their main source of income. Consequently, many of them were forced to go to government offices, police and military stations, universities and also the municipal and provincial legislature, particularly when there were important events, to try their luck.
They could easily claim to be photojournalists in order to convince their customers.
“What most people know is that those carrying cameras are journalists. So we just say we are,” said Suryadi.
When the post-fasting, Idul Fitri Muslim holiday neared, these street snappers joined photojournalists and queued up for holiday allowances at certain institutions to survive.
The amateur photographers have to rely on manual cameras as they cannot afford to buy digital equipment. Based on mutual agreement, the street snappers fix their rate at Rp 7,500 per 6R-sized print. This means a 36-frame film sold at Rp 6,000 per frame plus a printing cost of Rp 1,500.
They earn less when, sometimes, customers want their prints to be sent by mail, which costs Rp 2,000 in postage plus an envelope.
“Well, it’s business, we’ve got to follow what buyers want,” Maman pointed out.
The fountain east of the square used to be the best photo background. Five meters in diameter, the fountain with four ducts gushing water into the air has now disappeared.
It is now replaced by a modern one gushing out over a 20-meter pool, surrounded by waterfalls streaming down from a concrete structure two meters high.
With a broader background area for visitors to pose, the street snappers now have greater freedom to choose locations around the new fountain.
Meanwhile, the renovated Grand Mosque, now expanding to the east with the alun-alun adjacent to its front yard, also offers a beautiful place for posing. In the early 2000s, the front of the mosque was separated from the square by Jl. Dewi Sartika.
With technological advancements, however, the present technology era has brought about major changes with the introduction of digital cameras and camera-equipped cell phones.
Both gadgets are putting street photographers at a disadvantage.
Puput Devia, 16, a Soreang high school student in Bandung, for instance, is unwilling to spend a lot of money on being photographed with her friends as they stroll along the square, which is some 20 kilometers from her house.
“A cell phone is enough to get our pictures and I can print them any time I like,” remarked Puput.
As a result, Maman and his peers are losing their customers.
While in the past they used one to two 36-frame film daily, today they must be satisfied with only a single roll a week.
Their struggle to sell even one film roll of photos is taking even longer this season, as Bandung has been in a downpour since the end of January.
“That’s how we strive to try our luck, otherwise we’ve got no job. What’s now important is to be able to make both ends meet, for which we should be grateful,” Maman concluded.
May 31, 2007
It was a month ago, 23 April 2007. Mud covering whole my floor. It was disgusting and took two days for cleaning up. Cikeruh river was over flow, a small disaster attacted population around the river. It’s about 40 cm, the water level at our house. Fortunately, there were no significant damage to our home appliances.
Hopefully, there will not be any flood to our home and around….
April 7, 2007
It just about four years ago, a student of IPDN (the Civil Administration Institute) named Wahyu Hidayat died due to his senior beating. He was being hit by nine senior in 2003. A number of amateur video showed the violence of senior student to junior student. And nine assailants jailed. Seniority was very dominated at IPDN atmosphere.
Last Monday, 9 April 2007. Cliff Muntu, 20, a 2nd year student from Menado died. Based on Police investigation gathered, he was attacked by his senior. Cliff Muntu’s death raises the toll of violence victim to 37 at IPDN since 1994 and only ten case were published.
Military style education that adopted at IPDN tends to raise the culture of violence. IPDN is not Military Academy. IPDN is a civil institute that will graduate the bureaucrat and public servant. It’s better to learn hardly how to raid the corruption, collusion, and nepotism.
The government must take the best and wise way to solve this problem. It’s not just move and change the name. The curriculum and culture (campus environment) must be reformed; otherwise the other Cliff would be raise at next and different episode.
