Imagine if we combine a couple of different communities in Bandung in a single activity. Haha, but that was what we exactly did today.

Batagor (Bandung bloggers community) once more carried out its monthly gathering. Like previous months, they would choose a public park, where they could meet, chat cheerfully, and collect trashes. Yeah, in our country, it is very very easy to find trashes on public area. This biggest muslim country doesn’t ever understand the importance of clean environment. And Batagor started to educate the society by making trash collecting a routine activity.

This month I coined an idea to ask other societies to join the promotion. First I contacted Starbucks. I know they had also community programmes & environment caring promotion. Kiki, the district manager accepted it with great enthusiasm. Then I discussed the detail with Nanda, the store manager of Starbucks BIP.

Meanwhile, I also contacted Flexter, the settlers on Flexi-lovers social network, via Deby. A meeting was then held between Batagor (led by Debe) and Flexter (led by Asroel) to finalise the program (location, time, etc). For the location, I chose Taman Lansia (lit: the park for senior people). Then we decided to ask more communities to join. Via Wisnu, I asked Bandung’s Linux user group (KLuB) to join. And via Deniar to Adham, Debe asked id-Apple too. Debe also asked some prominent bloggers to pay a visit.

So, here’s the day. I saw today the communities with social care gather on a cheerful activity. Flexters activists, Batagor bloggers, Starbucks barristas (from BIP, PvJ, Ciwalk, and BSM), KLuB hackers, id-Apple Mac lovers, and some prominent bloggers. Budi Putra, Yulian Jay Firdaus, Diki Andeas, Indra KH, among others. Uncle Tyo was absent with apology :).

Reports on the event:

• M Jaka Prawira
  
• Herry Constadi
• Catur Nengsusmoyo
• Flexter Asroel
• Irvan Tambunan
• Donny Reza
• Flexter Alfis
• Petra Novandi Barus
• Diki Andeas
• Ricky Andrian
• Puti Karina Puar
• Indra KH
• Gilang Ramadhan
• Trihadiyanti
• Fajar GM
• Flexter Koen
• Flexter Hook
• Adham Somantrie
• etc :p

Warning: since we tend to join more than 1 community, the representation mentioned above could be approached differently. For example, Jay could be seen as a celebrity blogger, a senior KLuB activist, an id-Apple member, etc.

Today, the IEEE Indonesia Comsoc Chapter has conducted its first chapter meeting this year. This chapter is a part of IEEE, the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology, and also a part of IEEE Communications Society. Oh, as written on its site, the IEEE name was originally an acronym for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; but today, the organization’s scope of interest has expanded into so many related fields, that it is simply referred to by the letters pronounced as eye-triple-e :).

The chapter meeting was prepared almost 1 month ago, when Mr Ary Murti (chapter’s chairman) reviewed with me about a possibility to arrange a formal meeting in Bandung. I made sure that it is possible: we could use one of many Telkom’s facilities in Bandung, and start collecting members’ addresses. At first I assumed that we would use the hall of Telkom Divre-3 building. But then I thought that the first meeting should be carried out in a proper place; so I investigated the possibility to use Telkom RDC’s (Research & Development Center) facility. I contacted Mr Johannes of RDC; and he accepted in no time.

So the chapter meeting was carried out at Telkom RDC Tower. It started with closed officer meeting for about two hours: finalising action plans for 2008, and planning branches development. Meanwhile other members arrived, registered, and started networking. Beep beep beep. UI, ITT, Pelita Harapan University, Trisakti University, LIPI, Tritronik, Telkom, etc.

After lunch, the member meeting started with an opening speech by Telkom’s representative, Mr Wiseto of RDC. He shared information on current development in Telkom’s network & service, inclung the INSYNC2014 (Telkom’s NGN plan). Then Ary, as the chapter chairman, read and discussed the Comsoc chapter report. Mr Arief Hamdani, the IEEE Indonesian Section chairman, continued with discussion about the facilities & development opportunities for IEEE members. Some senior members (Prof Dadang Gunawan, Prof John Batubara, and many others) discussed about the ways members’ activities could be synergyzed. These include internal training and knowledge sharing, professional communications, better arrangement of distinguished lecture programmes, etc.

The meeting was closed with a bakso party. And other networkings :p.

This one is taken from blogs.spectrum.ieee.org. And I don’t feel sorry to copy instead of blogging my own brain today, because …

(By Kieron Murphy)

An item in The New York Times (please see In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop) caused a bit of a buzz in the technosphere by pointing out that some of the best known tech bloggers around had experienced severe health problems recently. Out of three exemplars, two had died. Now, that’s how to grab the attention of other bloggers.

In his column in the Times Sunday Technology section, Matt Richtel, who covers the Silicon Valley beat, wrote that the stress bloggers experience trying to keep up with the global news cycle may have had a deleterious impact on the lives of three prominent commentators in the tech sector: Russell Shaw, Marc Orchant, and Om Malik.

Shaw covered technology and politics prolifically from his own site, russellshaw.net, as well as freelancing for some of the top online outlets in both fields, including the Huffington Post and ZDNet. His site’s motto reads: “Explaining technology to non-techs.” Last month, Shaw died suddenly at age 60 of a heart attack in San Jose, Calif.

Orchant blogged about technology and productivity for an equal number of impressive online publications, such as BlogNation and ZDNet. He also passed away from a heart attack, in early December, at age 50 in Albuquerque, N.M. Obituaries relate the sad news of his illness and death here and here.

Then there is the case of Malik, perhaps the best known of the three for founding his GigaOM technology site. Only 41, he experienced cardiac problems in late December but managed to seek care at an emergency room in San Francisco. Malik, a columnist for publications such as Business 2.0 and Red Herring, survived and has posted a blog on his own site about his recovery (Off Topic: What the Past Three Months Have Taught Me).

So, other than being tech bloggers, what did these three gentlemen have in common?

Richtel of the Times thinks that it might be their lifestyle: sitting at a computer all day, eating poorly, and stressing about their status in the online world. He wrote:

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

When asked for a comment for Richtel’s column, Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of the TechCrunch blog site, said: “I haven’t died yet… At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”

“This is not sustainable,” he added.

Richtel notes that blogging may have an allure beyond just trying to break stories first (and the ever-present siren call of earning more money by gaining a reputation): the always-on connection. He wrote that this dynamic might have more of a “downside” than obsessive bloggers care to think about.

But does Richtel’s column stand up to serious scrutiny? Are his three examples significant or just a statistical cluster?

An online colleague of Shaw and Orchant’s thinks Richtel is off-base. After the Times piece appeared online over the weekend, Larry Dignan of ZDNet posted a response in his own Between the Lines blog on Sunday — Anatomy of a ‘Blogging will kill you’ story: Why I didn’t make the cut.

Dignan said he had been approached by Richtel for comment in the Times column but he was hesitant to cooperate. “When I talked to Matt the theme of the story was clear, but I had doubts about the premise,” he wrote. Then he put Richtel in touch with other colleagues who knew Shaw and Orchant better and perhaps could offer more-informed insight into their lives.

Then he offered a contrasting point of view under his own byline:

And that brings me to my point with Matt. Yes, blogging is stressful. Yes, it can be insane. But is it any worse than being a corporate lawyer? How many of those folks dropped in the last six months? How about mortgage brokers? Hedge fund traders? FBI agents? Any job where you gnash your teeth together? We write for a living, yap all day and don’t have to wear suits. You could do worse than blogging.

That is a much clearer picture of the lives of bloggers, as well as everyone else, than we are likely to receive from reading more about the “blogged to death” meme in the echo chamber of the blogosphere this week.

So, thanks to Dignan for calling it like he sees it with a modicum of common sense.

Our belated condolences go out to the families and friends of Shaw and Orchant; and our heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery go out to Malik.

As for bloggers everywhere, we can only suggest that you take this opportunity to push away from the keyboard for a while and do something healthy for yourselves (which I think I will do now).

The Web will still be here tomorrow.

Meeting Between Minister of Infocom with ICT Community
On-Site Report. 07-04-2008. 19:30.

Minister, Mr Mohammad Nuh:

• We need to share resources for ICT development
• It is not recessary to distinct left/right negative/positive
• It is admitted that ITE Law needs to be enhanced (=revised)
• We have approach to overlook minimum resources by eliminating ‘negative’ contents, i.e. pornography etc
• No pretention for total effectiveness of the filter
• Necessity to provide protection for them who feels needing (school, office, etc)
• Fitna: Direct order of the President to remove the film from Indonesian Internet

Wicaksono (a.k.a. Ndoro Kakung):

• Is it necessary to have victims ? For example, Youtube is used for education & work. Can we just block it at the direct page instead of the server?

Minister:

• It is a political decision. But we will be happy if we can find better technique to block only the certain content.

Wicaksono:

• Is it possible to cancel the letter issued by the minister, since it has ‘frightened’ the ISPs?

Minister:

• No. What we will do is to ask Youtube to remove that certain content.

Narpati (a.k.a. Kunderemp):

• About 12 cartoons of Prophet Muhammad @ Wikipedia. Wikipedia has no concern to remove the cartoon. Even it locks the page so it’s possible to edit it. Does it mean we would also block Wikipedia?

Minister:

• See? We have many problems :). Approaches could be moral or technical, and it’s not necessary to have everything under control. But we need to do it as good as possible.

Rane (a.k.a. JaF):

• Have the government considered that blockings will apply to useful sites required for society, while it still fails to block negative content effectively?

Priyadi:

• First, it’s not true that I have defaced the site of Dept. Infocom. Govt position is understandable. But, for example, IOC could force govt of PRC to unblock blocked sites on China, at least the English content. Here in Indonesia, we does not hace proper equipment to filter effectively.
• Anyway, any filter could be hacked. For example, with indirect connection abroad etc.
• Problems like spamming have not be touched by the Law.
• Is it still possible now to revise the Law? And to involve blogger in socializing the Law, BEFORE it is launched?

Minister:

• Thank you for the inputs. As I have said, we need all resource from our society. Now let Mr Edmon tell other aspect of the Law.

Mr Edmon Makarim (Adviser of the Minister):

• ITE Law would support the development of Indonesian IT. It avoids online crimes, and eliminate international reason to blacklist Indonesia from online International forums. Not only pornography, but also racisms.
• We also make the law officers now to act based on valid data & information, which is required by the Law, instead of by suspictions only.

Boy Avianto:

• Don’t underestimate our nation by thinking that people will easily provoked by ‘bad content’.
• We should instead encourage people to make good content. We can challenge the people, in their own levels.

Tri (Blogger & Teacher):

• Blogging is not simply writings. It is also for working. Any concrete steps for the blocking schemes, as any method could be hacked.

Mr Basuki (Dir.Gen. of Post & Telecom):

• Content enhancement, needs more developing positive content, but anso supressing negative content.
• For spamming, we are in progress of developing early warning system, which is now only in early stage.

Yusuf Kurniawan:

• We need support for hackers and IT communities with technical capabilities.

Mr Cahyana (Dir.Gen. of Telematics Application):

• The ITE Law was not discussed only by 10 fraction, but also by balcony fraction, which has given valuable inputs. It is questionable why the media now only focus only on pornography.
• Other efforts were also developed together with international communities, for example Indonesian involvement at Budapest Law of Cybercrime. It is still imperfect, for sure.

Eko Juniarto (a.k.a. Ryosaeba):

• Will we have real action against someone who lately misinformed society with strong defamation against the blogger?
• (Eko played two records as evidences)

Kuncoro (a.k.a. Koen):

• We’re in progress of developing IT-based societies on new frontiers of West Java, incl using Web 2.0 technologies, which surely would include blogging. But some defamation (using name of the Department) has discouraged the society from blogging or even accessing the Internet. Dept should clarify the position of the government. Also we need other support (ideas etc) to empower the society.

Muhammad Triwibowo:

• We could deploy a kind of ever-updated antivirus system to overcome bad contents.

Minister:

• I don’t know why blogger could be shooting target. Since I know the bloggers (27/10/07), I got positive impression with the bloggers. That’s my impression. I don’t know about him (Mr You-Know-Who). Kominfo supports Blogger communities to dynamize the development of all societies. It is the position of Depkominfo.

Ady Permadi (a.k.a. Big):

• We need clarification!

Minister:

• Please trace it, since the first blogger day. We support it as new community to deploy functions of education, empowerment, & enlightening to the development of the society. Blogger is part of our family. We grow together. Please touch (jawil) the other who says against it.
• We will support with technical & ideas as our contribution.
• Yes. Blogger is our family.

Just missing that little town. Sometimes.