Ok. I dreamt about it when I was 4, now, at 26 I built it..my first
robot. Well, it’s not the kind of high tech robot (not even better than
ordinary toys that people sell), but at least it has some sort of
mechanism to avoid the walls/obstacles.
Here’s the beetle bot in action :
The whole idea was grabbed from this site : GoRobot
There’s always been the first time for everyone in love. For me, it was this name that I hardly forget : Evie Farica Gunawan.
It was my first year in junior high, in my first 7-days in new school where I spotted this beautiful girl. It was a rule in old Indonesia to have "Penataran P4" for every new students. Everyday, for a week, they would send you to sit back and listen about how greatful Pancasila is, along with other bullshit and so on. So, I was always sat in the back row (since my class was 1-D), and saw this pretty girl always sat couple row in front of me (she was in 1-B). For almost a week, there was nothing that impressed me more than her. She made the whole boring "Penataran P4" sessions far more interesting.
Anyway, I did what a man supposely did: getting her name, class, and telephone number….at any cost. It was combination of nervous, afraid being rejected and humiliated, and also hope. You know, first time is the hardest time. So, I did it. In the end of the week, there was a sport clothes distribution. Every new students should line up, with their card to get the sport clothes (it was an uniform, to be weared during sport classes). I waited, not to be in the queue, until she came. Then, just a few steps before she joined in, I joined the queue. By that way, I was right in front of her in the queue (Nice trick huh ?). I forgot about what I was saying for the first time, but I remembered that she came with other 3-girls (Ria-bebek, Amelia, …and the other one I forgot). So, I had to wait a bit longer (because the girls was busy chatting each others), before I could say something to her.
The topic that I was talked to her was "how slow the queue was", and "what was her class, so I could help her pick the correct queue line", and later : "What’s your name ?" (It’s called tactics..To make it not to obvious that I want to know her name).
So, that was the good start, but it didn’t work well afterwards. Let’s just say that I had a lot of identity crisis during my teen. So, I never came up to say my feelings to her. But I sent her christmast cards, valentine cards, birthday cards. Also, called her (hey..that was my first telephone to woman that I like). I always found strange reasons to call her. I don’t know whether she knew it or not =)
The most dissapointing part of my first love story was my friend said that she tore up all of my letters/cards, and hated me. I never knew the reason, and I didn’t have courage to ask her personally. So, that’s ended my relationship with her. Eventhough, in the last year in the high school, we’re in the same class, I never have courage to rebuild relationship with her.
But that’s not the end of this story. Around 3-years ago, during the early friendster days, I found out her email address. Thus, using MSN, she contacted me and cleared up the things that was happenned in junior high. I found out that my friend was actually lied to me. She never hated me, and absolutely never ever tore up my letters and cards. She kept it save in her personal box =)
I’m writing this because I heard that she’s going to marry soon, and I’m so jealous with the guy that she choose =) You’re a truly lucky man, bro. I hope both of you live happily ever after.
Moral story for the others : if you’re rejected, ask the reason
Teman kerja gw bertanya pada gw : "Kenapa orang Indonesia begitu benci dengan Malaysia ?", sambil menunjukkan slogan "Ganyang Malaysia" di monitornya..Waktu itu si gw jawab sekedarnya.
Tapi lama-kelamaan gw mikir juga, kayanya bullying orang emang sudah jadi kebiasaan orang Indonesia. Dulu waktu jaman Suharto, yang paling sering di-bullying adalah orang tionghoa. Sekarang, zaman berubah, yang muslim nge-bullying muslim lain, partai yang lain nge-bulliying partai lain, dan, yang paling baru : nge-bullying warga negara lain (Denmark, Australia, US, Malaysia)…Hmmm…emang bener-bener heboh negara kita.
Kayanya kebiasaan itu harus kita ubah. Bullying adalah tipe prejudice, menyamaratakan semua orang berdasarkan apa yang didengar dari orang lain. Contohnya : wanita dengan pakaian seksi adalah pelacur. WN negara X bangsat semua. Orang keturunan ini hobinya merampok kekayaan negara, dsb, dsb..
Kl gitu caranya, kapan kita bisa menunjukkan bahwa kita adalah bangsa yang bermartabat ? Bangsa yang bermartabat mampu menghargai orang lain, terlepas dari suku / agama /ras / kebangsaan mereka. Selama kita tidak bisa menghargai orang lain, jangan heran kl dunia memandang rendah bangsa kita : bangsa kita masih primordial, primitif, sebangsa manusia gua, dsb dsb.
Kl memang masalahnya adalah paten tempe, kenapa tidak selesaikan dengan hukum ? Kl masalahnya adalah batas wilayah, selesaikan di makamah internasional. Kl masalahnya cuma hak cipta lagu, kenapa tidak kita diskusikan bersama ?
Ada banyak cara untuk menunjukkan bahwa kita adalah bangsa yang hebat, tanpa harus merendahkan bangsa lain.
This is the story of my friend about the my company’s previous CEO games. Currently, I am working in the start-up company in KL, Malaysia. During 4-months in this company, I’ve seen massive changes both in upper management and the working engineers.
In the beginning, the founder of this company invited venture capital to fund the start-up. They (it was two of them that had the idea of this kind of company) were engineers, good one, but with not so good marketing network.
After the company run for several years, they felt that the venture capitalist were taking too much of them. They were the one who was working very hard, but in the end most of the shares was within the venture capitalist. So, they did some tricks to make the things fair for them.
They took the money that belongs to the start-up company (the venture capitalist’s money) to fund new company (Note: I would categorized that as stealing the venture capitalist’s money). The new company was sharing the start-up company’s resource (including the engineers, tools, etc). So, there was two company inside the start-up company. One of them was secretly registered in Singapore (owned by them), while the other one registered in Malaysia and owned by the venture capitalist.
The problem was the Singapore’s company didn’t run very well, and there was nobody that was running the Malaysian company. So, the money was spent for nothing. Then, the venture capitalist found out their game.
As the result, the venture capitalist hold their money. The company stucked, with the engineers’ salary unpaid. They wanted to procede the case to the court, but one of the founder promised that they would pay back the money.
So, for about 3-months, there was no payment for the engineers. Everyone grumbled, but they couldn’t do anything. After 3-months, once they got their salary, they run from the company =)
How about the CEO’s fate ? Well, his friend was kicked out, and he was de-promoted into CTO. The new CEO comes from one of venture capitalist’s friend. But I think, the new CEO push him a lot, until he finally left the company.
This will violate my asian commitment of not talking about one’s bad side. But, this might be an example of how not to be a boss, that’s being hated by your employee.
I was working somewhere in Bali, for an outsourcing company. My boss was the one who got the deal with U.S. based company. So, he led the team, but the contract was not the only thing that my boss got. He built another company, using the money that he got from the contract (which was legal, since it was his own money share).
He’s a good guy. It’s true. But I didn’t like what he did on my team. My boss seemed like being attached too much to the other team. He spent so much effort (time and money) to the team that was built on the money that he got from my team.
He was rarely be on my team as the leader, which was suppose to be his job (he was paid to do that). He’s only job was come in the morning, checked emails, and distributed the jobs to the rest of the team. After that, he was gone until evening. In the evening, he would come to the office to gather my team’s work.
I never mind with that. The thing that bothers me is that he never thought about the team’s future. He was simply didn’t care. I’ve been asking about this several times (and the rest of the team did the same thing too) during my two-years career there.
He’s answer was simple :
I tried to play along with his game. During my years in the company, I proposed several alternatives to move the company. I’ve even contacted his boss in U.S. about my plans. The result was : BIG ZERO..All of my plans rejected, both from U.S. and him.
At the end, I felt like being cheated. I was the one who’s working very hard in the team, but other than salary, I have nothing at all. I did the same boring job years, with excellency, in hope that I can help the team achieve success. Yet, if the contract was terminated, I was the one who sufferred much.
As conclusion, the team was not worth fighthing for. My efforts was gone in vain. It wouldn’t matter whether I could do more than this or not, the fact was my boss (and the upper management) didn’t want to make the team success..So, how could I make the team successful ???
