Avianto's Journal

I am a part of a cult. A cult that happened to have small amount of number but very loyal and dedicated to the cult. A cult that defy the majority of lemmings and proud to be part of the not-common society. A cult that only want to get its job done instead of scratching their head wondering why some evil things happened to them while doing their job.

People ask me why I joined this cult. Well, the answer is easy, I want to get my job done. Period. I don’t want to get bothered by other external things that had no connection with my job. The other answer is probably, it looks cool (I always into coolness).

Yes, I am a part of a cult famously known as “Cult of Mac“. And today is one of those big day for the Cult. It’s Tiger‘s launching day.

It’s been almost two weeks since the last official birthday announcement of mine ;). Been busy with lots of stuff, something what I usually called “Real Life™”. Here are some recap, in case you want to know, well… even if you don’t want to know, I’ll write it anyway.

Thesis’ News

Not much. Just finished writing three of my supposed to be five chapters. Those two missing chapters are “Introduction” and “Conclusion”. Yeah, I know it’s kinda strange to work from the middle (I was starting with chapter III) but it worked, at least for me. So yeah, the ‘soft’ dateline will be sometime mid-May. Wish me luck on that.

New Apartment

So I found a new place, finally. It’s a nice medium-size single room apartment, around 35m², with a nice small kitchen and medium size bathroom (shower only, no bathtub, unfortunately). The only catch was it has no furnitures and fridge… Right now, I am collecting used furniture and still looking for a fridge. But at least, it is my own place and I am quite happy with it. Oh yeah, it had a small balcony too.

Podcasting

Looks like I inspire some people to create their own podcasting. No, I am not taking any credits, I am just glad some (Indonesian) people really give podcasting a shot. Here they are (for now):

• Priyadi : Priyadi’s First Podcast

• Imponk : Imponk’s Trial

• Adinoto aka. Macnoto : MacnotoCasting and MamboCasting

And of course my own Podcast at “Apa Saja Podcast! is still alive and well. Some interesting subjects are on the way, keep on tuning.

Everything else

Not much, really. Writing thesis, filling up the new place, writing blog and create some interesting podcasts are the things that I do currently. And of course some occasionally mailing list activity. Keep on living!.

• … is the atomic number of zinc.

• … is the number of days in the months April, June, September and November.

• … is in years of marriage, the pearl wedding anniversary.

• … is the code for international direct dial phone calls to Greece.

• … is the suggested year of Crucifixion of Jesus.

• … is the biggest size of Apple Cinema Display now.

• … is the designation of Interstate 30, a freeway that runs from Texas to Arkansas.

• … is the number of tracks on The Beatles’ eponymous album, usually known as The White Album.

• … is the number of cars in the Nintendo 64 game F-Zero X.

• … is a primorial#A sphenic number is a positive integer that is the product of three distinct prime factors. ([source][s1])</small”>2 and the first Giuga number.

• … is the largest number such that coprimes#is an integer that is divisible by the sum of its digits in a given number base. ([source][s4])</small”>4 number.

… is also happened to be my age today.

“As through the calendar I delve

I pause to rejoice in April twelve.

Yea, be I in sickness or be I in health

My favorite date is April twealth.

…”

From “Lines in Praise of a Date Made Praiseworthy Solely by Something Very Nice That Happened to It”,

by Ogden Nash

Writing thesis, one chapter each week. Yeah, right. That was the idea until last week. I was about to send one chapter to my advisor when I thought it would be better if I read it once again. Big mistake.

As I read it again, I thought “Wait a minute… This is not what I want to say. What was I thinking? Why did I wrote this non-sense?” Gnah! Anyway, to make the long story short, I’ve to spent the entire last week to rewrite that chapter again. Nice week, indeed.

But just writing thesis with no play will make me a very dull boy. So, as a mind distraction and to keep in touch with the Universe, I was playing around with Podcast. After being mocked, in the best mailing list about… nothing – greeting to id-gmailers, about my interview with Tempo magazine about Podcast, I’ve decided to dig deep into this podcasting scene. While it is fun listening to podcast (I recommend the word “podcatching” for podcast listening action), creating podcast is way more fun.

If you follow my link to Wikipedia’s article above about podcast, you probably get the basic idea about what is podcast. If not, well, just give it a try, learning by doing is the best way to learn. Some guide to help you get started:

• How-To: Podcasting from Engadget

• What is podcasting? from iPodder.org

I was toying with the idea of creating another weblog in Indonesian language when I decided to do podcasting in Indonesian language instead. So without further ado, go ahead and listen to Apa Saja Podcast!.

Enjoy the “trend” . Now I have to get back to my thesis’ trance again. Until then.