today we had a small gathering at citos. i was the first one arrived at thai express, around 01.10 pm, after attending bukrie’s marriage ceremony. opened my ibook, and found two hotspots, one belongs to indosat m2, the other is biznet, starbucks’ provider. tried the indosat m2 connection, and i was greeted with a login screen, and a helpful information on how to purchase a prepaid voucher via sms for the internet connection. the strange thing is, that information wasn’t easy to find except you’re connected to indosat m2 hotspot, i can’t even find it on google. oh well, since the connection speed is very fast and cheap, i might do some good to relay that info here.

to purchase an indosat m2 prepaid voucher, and if you use matrix or mentari GSM service, you can send an SMS to the number 6789 with the message (case insensitive):
im2pre 10000
or
im2pre 25000
and then wait for the reply. the reply is 3 messages long, containing your username and password and extra information on how you can use your prepaid voucher you just bought.

i bought the 25.000 nomination, and it still can be used after 5 hours of usage! the speed is awesome, downstream can reach 35 KBps, and 73 KBps upstream. that is FAST, in indonesian condition anyway, when you are so used to dial-ups and the (s)lowly GPRS connection.

oh yeah there is also cbn hotspot in the ground floor, and it is free for cbn subscribers.

anyway, not too long after i arrived, dicky arrived, and then amen, followed by edwin, and the last one to arrive was iip. after having lunch, the fun begins!

the G4 ibooks had an internal USB connection, made to connect with apple’s internal bluetooth module. amen was successful installing an ordinary USB Bluetooth internally in his G4 ibook. now, disassembling an ibook is not a small feat. i’ve already done that, and i prefer not to do it again. fortunately amen is so eager in cracking open ibooks, so we had this arrangement, he’ll help me and dicky install the USB Bluetooth in our G4 ibooks.

well, my ibook was the first one to undergo amen’s cool hands. i was a little embarrased when we found out that the metal sheet inside my ibook was wrinkled, no doubt it was done by me when i was installing a new harddrive in my ibook. the USB Bluetooth installed without a hitch, and it worked just like it should. i had a brief moment of panic though, when i found out that i can’t find any network on my airport. dicky nailed the problem, the internal airport antenna was not properly connected, a little nudge and everything worked perfectly.

dicky’s ibook was not so fortunate though. after minutes of soldering, even until the internal plastic connector burnt by the heat, dicky’s USB Bluetooth just won’t turn on. turned out dicky’s USB Bluetooth needs a 5v voltage, when the internal USB only provides a 3.2v voltage. probably it needs a higher voltage because it has a longer range, about 100m. mine is only 10m.

well, all is not lost, amen still could reassemble dicky’s USB Bluetooth, and we learn to check the needed voltage first before disassembling anything. :)

oh yeah, you can see for yourself how a disassembled ibook looks like.

got this firefly opening theme song lyrics:

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don’t care, I’m still free
You can’t take the sky from me
Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain’t comin’ back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can’t take the sky from me
There’s no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can’t take the sky from me…

or you can listen to it for yourself. i still can’t help but shed a tear everytime i listened to it.

pretty much it describes the whole main theme of the series. which i couldn’t say the same with startrek enterprise opening theme song, it just didn’t capture the whole feeling of startrek enterprise.

i first heard about firefly from avi, but it didn’t immediately interested me. then one day i read a comment from the web (i can’t recall exactly where) praising firefly as the only good science fiction series. intrigued and feeling a tad impulsive, i decided to buy the dvd from amazon.

nevertheless, i am deeply impressed. it is the best science fiction series i ever saw on TV screen.

it is 500 years from now. the earth-that-was can no longer sustain life, so the humans went to the sky and colonized other planets on other solar systems. the last remaining power from earth-that-was is america and china, and they formed the anglo-sino alliance. the colonies that didn’t want to join the alliance, formed the independent forces, and fought the unification war, and lost. the independent forces (the browncoats) last stand was the battle of serenity hill.

the central character, captain malcolm reynolds, was one of the browncoats abandoned by his superiors at the battle of serenity hill. although he still hates the alliance, he decided to go on with his life, bought a firefly class ship, and named her after the hill of his last battle, serenity, and became a privateer.

as he doesn’t accept unification under alliance, he operates his ship on the outer rim, where the alliance has less control. he is accompanied by his four main crew: firstmate and also a woman warrior zoe; the comical pilot wash (whose also zoe’s husband); the tough mercenary jayne which loyalty is money; and the ship mechanic kaylee. and there are four others who are really passengers, but ultimately joined the rest of the crew. first is inara, she is a registered companion (to put it bluntly, she is a legal prostitute in alliance term), she rented one of the two serenity’s shuttles. then there is shepherd book, a christian preacher, but in my opinion he’s the future modern day shaolin monk as he is well adept in both unarmed fighting and weapon handling (the actor is also a buddhist). and the last two are siblings, the older brother is simon tam, a highly skilled surgeon; the younger sister is river tam, a hyper intelligent kid who escaped the academy with her brother help. by escaping the academy, simon and river become fugitives of the alliance, or the blue sun corporation to be exact.

the series has this retro feel, as the outer rim planets are under developed and still use horse as means of transportation. although the civilization already invented laser guns, the most common weapon still uses ordinary ammunition and long barreled revolvers! it is indeed the wild wild west feel. it is also faithful to science in outer space scenes, you can’t hear spaceship engines swooshing when it comes near, and explosions in the vacuum are silent. very few scifi renders the silence in outer space. there is also one outstanding characteristic of this series: it has no aliens!

sadly the series is cut short by fox, but because of that it became a cult series. the good news is universal is making a movie called serenity, and the story takes place six months after the last episode “objects in space”. more good news is universal made a contract with the cast for three movies, so we can expect two more of firefly movies on the silver screen. i must admit, although i’m a starwars fan, i feel more anticipation to watch serenity than starwars episode 3. for my friends, if you want to watch firefly, we could make arrangements to make an informal gathering, watching the whole firefly episodes.

the notorious roy suryo has returned, this time in a form of a fax he sent to the local medias, the soft copy being distributed by satrio arismunandar to lots of mailing lists. he protested a reality tv show named JMI, Joe Millionaire Indonesia. and i quote:

Mulai dari sosok Joe yang digambarkan sebelumnya sebagai seorang milyuner beraset 50M, datang ke lokasi villanya naik helikopter, sebenarnya bernama asli Marlon dan profesi sehari-harinya seorang peselancar, ini sudah merupakan kepalsuan prinsipal. Sangat berbeda dengan kondisi aslinya di Amerika dimana memang Joe (baca: asli) adalah seorang milyuner sebenarnya dan berniat untuk memilih pasangan dengan membeli acara JM tersebut, bahkan (maaf) bisa mengajak kencan para wanita kontestan sebelumnya. Jadi kapasitas dan kompetensi Marlon di JMI ini pantas diragukan, karena dia bisa seenak-enaknya memilih secara subyektif tanpa memperhatikan ribuan bahkan jutaan SMS pemirsa yang terbuang percuma, karena apapun yang diketik oleh para pengirim SMS tersebut sebenarnya hanya digunakan untuk undian, alias tidak mempengaruhi penilaian JMI oleh Marlon.

roughly translated into english, he claims that:

1. the original reality tv show in america featured a real guy named Joe, and he actually had the 50 million dollars, and the original show was practically bought by Joe for his own leisure.
2. the sms sent by viewers are practically wasted because it doesn’t affect which female contestant who will win.

the blatant ignorance showed by roy suryo just made him more ridiculous. we all know that evan marriott, the first joe millionaire featured by Fox, barely made US$ 19.000 a year as a construction worker. worst, he was broke and to earn some money he worked as a skimpy swimsuit model.

i still can figure out how he messed up that claim, quite probably he doesn’t understand english very well. what i can’t figure out is how he messed up the claim of the wasted sms sent by the viewers? it was clearly stated in indonesian language (bahasa indonesia) that the sms are not for polling, it’s just a quiz to guess who’s the next contestant that will be eliminated!

it’s quite baffling how his mind works. probably too much tv and satellite dish on his house.

[UPDATE]

it seems the fax link had been heavily edited, i suspect it had been done to avoid further embarrassment. anyway here’s the original softcopy of the fax.