Young Woman and Drugs

Drugs, like alcohol and smoking, connotes more to men bad habit. Particularly in Indonesia, the term ”bad man” stands for a person who has at least these following bad habits: drinking alcohol (including drugs and to a “lesser extend” smoking), gambling, womaniser, etc.

But a survey reveals that such bad habit as taking drugs is no longer dominated by men.

A survey by the Edinburgh-based drugs agency Crew 2000 found that a quarter of women questioned said they had taken amphetamine or ecstasy, while almost half had used cannabis and more than one in five had tried cocaine.

How to Quit Smoking

I, finally and officially, Quit Smoking and today is the seventh day. 21 March 2008 was the starting day.

It’s been a long while that the intention and willingness to call it a day emerged. What I need was a momentum to start afresh the whole thing. Includng to begin leaving the “chain-smoker” label behind.

And when the moment came, I took it with both hand. Now, it’s the seventh day I live without any cigarette smokes filling my lung. Some friends amazed, surprised and shocked. But it’s just natural to go from one extreme to another if you’re determined to do so. Nothing is impossible.
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Free Wordpress Blog with AdSense

Edublogs.org, a free blog services using the latest wordpress blogging platform with 100,000 plus users has just announced a surprising offer: now you can put the juicy AdSense code, indeed any javascript code, into your sidebar widget. One who loves blogging, loves latest wordpress utility with its Google friendly interface, loves free blog services, and loves making money online can just put these many attributes in one words: Edublogs.org. Sign-up, and you’ll just get what you want. I’ve already had an account in edublogs.org but it’s mainly for back-up purposes. But now I may change my mind.

Actually there are already two popular free blog providers that offer javascript-enabled wordpress namely blogsome.com and blogs.ie. Unfortunately, both are never upgrading their wordpress software into the latest version which make them look very “old.”
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Threaded Comment Wordpress Plugins

I have just added the brians’ threaded comment plugins (formerly nested comment plugins) here in this blog. I’ve planned to upload this nice plugins long ago but still couldn’t find the right time to do so or just forgot once I connect to the internet. This plugins is nice in the sense it’ll make disscussion more lively: the third commentator, for example, who wants to comment on the first comment can just easily click the “reply this comment” in the comment #1 precisely like the way mailing list works.

Unfortunately, just like any other wordpress plugins, it can only be done in a self-hosted blog. Wordpress.com, the free blog services owned by Automattic–the wordpress blogging platform company–has yet to include it into its by-default wordpress.com build up.
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London Europe’s Dirtiest City

A survey reveals that
London is the dirtiest and most expensive European city according to a survey of well-travelled tourists.

The UK capital edged Paris into second place for both unwanted titles according to the study from the TripAdvisor company.

Those who want a bargain holiday head first for stag party favourites Prague and Budapest, while visitors looking for a clean environment love Zurich and Copenhagen.

Suppose the survey was conducted around the world, would Jakarta, the Indonesia’s capital, get the ‘honor’ in the top ten slot?
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Steve Jobs and God

What do Steve Jobs and God have in common? Jeremy Wagstaff has this to say (emphasis mine):

What I’m not interested in:
heavily corporate technology or press releases that would only make sense to someone inside the industry
any press release about some new appointment, unless his name is Steve Jobs or God (or both).

An interesting way (good sense of humor too) to express one’s admiration to the ever innovating techno-geek Steve Jobs. One wonders, however, why we rarely find such diehardism to the inventor of personal computer called Bill Gates? Is the latter such a unpleasant personality so much so that people’s dislikeness hinder any admiration to his great achiement?

Mediocrity that Resists Change

Seth Godin as usual has an easy expression for something we feel it floating in mind but is a bit hard to say:

Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths… whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it’s over.

Good thought for those who wants change (towards the better) but don’t have a gut to face resistance and challenge. A leader always opens a new path in which an ordinary passer-by never goes through. Naturally, mediocre forces just avoid to take any potential risk with uncertain result. The few, the leader, will take that path. The result may be unclear. The vision is.

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (81): Marisa Duma

Many Indonesian bloggers are basically not trained in general writing skill, not to say in journalism. It’s understandable given the fact that a blog is, shall we say, citizen journalism. A blogger sometimes just writes whatever he/she wants to write, improperly written notwithstanding. Despite Seth Godin reminds us that ”if you can write what you talk you would be a prolific writer” I believe that writing skill somehow is still needed for a serious blogger to make a blogger’s thought more “shiny”, more easily understood and have a stronger expression.
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Reading Habit and Library: Lesson #5 from India

An Indian professor once was invited to deliver a general lecture in Malang Islamic University (UIN - Universitas Islam Negeri) East Java. From Surabaya airport he went to Malang city by bus. After coming back to India, he told us, Indonesian students in India, his impression thus:

Between Surabaya and Malang, I was so amazed to see so many hypermarkets, great supermalls and big restaurants. I saw a restaurant which is so big that I never see it before in India. What “amazed” me even more was that I did NOT see any public library at all.

He then blasted (with “emphaty”) a question that unable us to answer with pride: “So, what are you people doing other than shopping and eating out?”
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