Nyepi: The Sounds Of Silence

As I stood on a junction in Kerobokan street, a monster passing me by. The crowd cheers, there were more monsters to come, and I've just joined the crowd to cheer at them.

No, I wasn't in horror movie. I was in Bali on the eve of the annual Nyepi day ritual, the Day Of Silence according to Hindu-Balinese's custom, to watch the Ogoh-ogoh, the Monsters Parade, which was a complementary ritual of the former. The monsters made of mixed materials of papers, Styrofoams and fiberglass by each village in one precinct and paraded over the precinct's junctions and main roads. Some monsters were 35 feet tall, while others were small enough to be carried by the local children.

The parade symbolizes the cast-off  of evil spirit before entering the holy state of Nyepi, during which Hindu-Balinese spend 24 hours indoor, practicing silence, restraining themselves from daily activities by fasting and meditating.

The Future Of Internet

Apparently, a lot of Internet experts have agreed that the future of the internet lies in the cloud computing technology. The easiest way to describe cloud computing is to juxtapose it to electricity grid: end-users (that means you and me) don't need to know where it sources from nor how it delivered or how to configure it. As long as you pay, it'll be there. We've seen some of its implementation already. Remote servers on which our blogs ran, online games where people all around the world, not necessarily knowing each other, joint in a single gun-toting futuristic slaughter or teeth bashing medieval blood-bath are some example.

A full implemented cloud computing though, will be as far stretch as to not require you to buy any software installment whatsoever. Because you see, everything happen in your Mac/PC will be done in the network grid in the cloud, hence, the name.

Cool, huh?

How To Change The Fonts On Your Blog Using Google Webfonts

Just recently, Google launched the Google Webfonts (beta).

Google Web Fonts lets you browse all the fonts available via the Google Web Fonts API. All fonts in the directory are available for use on your website under an open source license and are served by Google servers.

Get it? That means you can use them to beautify your blog. It's pretty easy. Here's how.

First go to Google Webfonts. There you will find lists of fonts. Click whichever you want to use. You will be brought to the font's page. Before you do anything else, please read the License of each font to avoid the violation of its corresponding TOS.

There are several tabs about the font in that page. You can check them out by yourself.

To start using it to your blog, click the Use This Font tab. Check the variant of the font you intend to use (Regular/Bold etc). And copy the code beneath it. For example (I use the Droid Sans):

Next, go to your HTML editor in Blogspot, (dont forget to backup it first before you proceed), paste that code somewhere between the head and /head tag. Save it. Note: Don't forget to add the "/" (without quotes) in the closing tag "'/" (without the quotes) (after the type='text/css'>) so that it looks like this: type=text/css'/> or else you won't be able to save your change.. Next, copy the other code, in my case it looks like this:

You only need to copy the font-family part. Next, still in HTML editor, decide on which part you want this font to be (the header, headlines, body etc) search (ctrl+f  in Firefox) that part and look for the default font-family of that part. Replace that default font-family with the one generated in the Google Webfonts. Save your change and voila. You just change the font on your blog.

Middle East Demonstration: What's Going On?

Wave after wave after wave of demonstrations swept Middle East. First it hit Tunisia, then Egypt. Now countries like Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya follow suit.

Death toll rises too, as the military/pro-government militias seem too trigger-happy to not shoot the protesters. These "shoot first, ask later" attitude reached the worst in Libya where 200 more people reported killed by the armed pro-government. Zoo-wee, mama!

What's going, on? Well, to me, it's just a matter of time, really. People get bored over their leaders, their government and its policies. Individuals like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Ghaddafi of Libya to whom the protesters are against has been in 30 years plus in power. It's not the case of freedom like many would suggest. It is simply a case where enough is enough.

Inflation and high-unemployment are also contributing factors to the crisis.

In fact, the combination of a long-reign in power and economy crisis in the same time frame is a death sentence for any government. We've seen government toppled this way, as happened in Indonesia, 1998. The 30 years old regime toppled by the people following the worst economy crisis that hit the country in 1997.

Obviously,  in such recent global economy, more countries will follow.

But the real question would be what will happen next in those protesters-festered countries? Who'll lead them after the status quo step down, and whether it will be an overall better government or in the contrary, a gate-way to never ending chaos? No one knows, not even the protester. We can only hope for the best.

Philippine's Mount Bulusan Erupts

Photo Taken from Posterous

The eruption took place Monday 21 February 2011 morning local time, sending kilo-tons of ash and volcanic materials 2 Km high. Approximately 2000 people evacuated after the eruption.

Mount Bulusan's eruption is the third major volcanic eruption in the South East Asia in the last 6 months, after Mount Merapi in Central Java, Indonesia and the ongoing eruption of East Java's Bromo Mountains, Indonesia.

Adrianne Palicki, The "New" Wonder Woman

Meet the new Wonder Woman, Adrianne Palicki! After much delay: confusing casts (Sophia Bush to Megan Fox), bail out producers and change of writers (Joss Whedon is among them), NBC finally move on with the production of Wonder Woman. Spear-headed by David E. Kelley as writer and directed by Jeffrey Reiner. Continue ►

King Of Limbs, Radiohead's 8th Album

King Of Limbs by Radiohead, is touted to be the World's First Newspaper Album. Sound strange? Maybe. But that's also how these guys' sound, too, right? (Curiously, it is because it offers art sheet of newspaper arts with the album).

Here is what they wrote in the King Of Limbs website:

Newspaper Album - PRESALE

Radiohead's new record, The King Of Limbs, is presented here as the world's first* Newspaper Album, comprising:

• Two clear 10" vinyl records in a purpose-built record sleeve.
• A compact disc.
• Many large sheets of newspaper artwork, 625 tiny pieces of artwork and a full-colour piece of oxo-degradable plastic to hold it all together.
• The Newspaper Album comes with a digital download that is compatible with all good digital media players.
• The Newspaper Album will be shipped on Monday 9th May 2011 you can, however, enjoy the download on Saturday 19th February 2011.
• Shipping is included in the prices shown.
• One lucky owner of the digital version of The King Of Limbs, purchased from this website, will receive a signed 2 track 12" vinyl.

*perhaps

While for the digital version they offer:

• MP3 version is a 320K constant bit rate file.
• WAV version is a full CD quality uncompressed digital audio file.
• This digital download is compatible with all good digital media players.
• One lucky owner of the digital version of The King Of Limbs, purchased from this website, will receive a signed 2 track 12" vinyl.

For unknown reason, the band have abandoned the "pay what you want" method they used in their previous album, In Rainbows. But that's hardly nothing. Can't wait to download it next Saturday (19th February 2011). Continue ►

Machine Of Death

Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die

Machine Of Death, a joint-work of several individuals, head-mastered by Ryan North et al, which is also Amazon’s best seller book is given for free.

Continue ►