life's like this - avianto's journal

I am back in Germany now, safe and sound. Just arrived this morning in Hannover and still suffered a jetlag. Germany still cold and damp but not as cold as Canada, of course. It was -9°C and thin covered snow street when I’m arrive.

Will write more after I get my rest. I already missed Canada =(.

I finished my research here in Canada, so even though this is a hard thing to do, I have to leave Canada. I have to finish my Master thesis back in Germany soon. S o o n. I’ve only stay in Canada for 4 months but I kinda like it here. Other than the Canadian winter weather which is insanely cold and windy, I have nothing to complain. My research went very well, the place where I did my research was a really great place with lots of great talented people around, most of the people I’ve met are nice / Read more …

… is actually a name for fossil mythicmyiid (that’s another word for moth) from Dominican amber. When it comes to the Latin name of the species, scientist could be fun and wacky too. There are lots of Latin scientific name that actually doesn’t sound so “scientific” at all. Some are funny, wacky or just plain weird. Some noteworthy are: Dissup irae, hard-to-see fossil eremochaetid fly. Vampyroteuthis infernalis, squid, translated to “Vampire squid from Hell”. Draculoides bramstokeri, spider, from Dracula’s author Bram Stoker. Metallichneumon neurospatarchus, ichneumonid wasp, “Neurospatarchus” translates as “Master of Puppets”. Dicrotendipes thanatogratus, chironomid aka. midge, “Thanatos” means death / Read more …

January 24 is the crappiest day of the year, some experts says. According to Toronto Star and Ottawa Citizen today, a British scientist has devised a mathematical formula for today’s condition: [W +(D-d)] x TQ divided by M x NA. W is the weather, D is debt minus the money (d) you earned in January. T is the time since Christmas and Q, the time since you lapsed back into your bad habits. Divide that by M, your low motivational level, and NA, the need to take action. I believe this condition only applied to the 4 season countries. So / Read more …

For those who keep the score: Freedom: 27 Liberty: 15 Full transcript or the very best segment. Sigh. / Read more …

Small announcement, it’s a little bit techie but don’t worry, it won’t bite. Honest. I provide Full Entries RSS 1.0/2.0 and Atom Feeds now. For those who don’t care what it means but want to take advantage of them, you can use these webtools: Bloglines Kinja For those who do care and want to know what are they, these readings should help: What is RSS? Introduction to RSS / Read more …

to leave your bike outside in the winter? The answer is: Especially when it was -30°C like today. / Read more …

I always enjoyed good argument. The one that have a good atmosphere, good audiences and good understanding about the topic. To have a good argument the participant must understand the possibility of fallacies. Fallacies is a term in the philosophical world that explain some common errors in reasoning. Fallacies has a lot of categories so I will try to write the most common fallacies as a simple guidelines for those who want to conduct a discussion or to give an argument or just want to evaluate something. These fallacies could be specifically called “Fallacies of Relevance”. Here they are: Argumentum / Read more …

Since the canal was closed and just reopened after noon, the “Blogs on Ice” event was cancelled, hopefully rescheduled, and we had the “Blogs on Bridgehead” instead. Blogs on Bridgehead featured: Me, Lana, Robyn, Ben, Anatole, Lia and Emilie. Except for Lana, I never meet any of them before and quoting from Lana: “but it is kind of interesting to meet people and then read their blog for a change!”. Could not agree more. Nice meeting you all! A couple of interesting quotes, not truly exact quotes tho - sorry if I misquoted but you get the idea, from the / Read more …

I am losing it This website was started as a personal journal and still is, occasionally. It started to loose its charmed, as if it was charming before. I just don’t know where to go right now. Should I keep it just documenting daily life? Or should I just write more entries about my opinion about “life, the universe and everything else™”? Or… I am open for suggestion. Honestly, I’m kinda frustrated right now. Lack of originality and witty pun. Or maybe I should just take another break? / Read more …

Just to keep the spirit up for this weblog since the last couple of miserable days. Overheard today at Carleton University Centre: It’s not sumani, dumbass, it’s tsunami! Geez Sure made me grinned for a couple of good minutes. / Read more …

Today is a dream come true for most Apple/Mac enthusiasts who couldn’t afford to own any Apple products because of the high price. Affordable Mac and iPod! Steve Jobs just announced 3 Apple products: Mac mini, a stripped down lower cost Mac. Go get it if you want to own a Mac but always complained about the price. Now it’s the time to own a Mac! iPod Shuffle, don’t have enough money to buy an iPod mini? Get iPod Shuffle instead! Available with two flavors: 512MB and 1GB. iWork. Say goodbye to crappy Microsoft Office. ‘nuff said! Yes! Finally. Note: / Read more …

Been thinking about writing this for some time. Try to avoid any controversial issue or even flammatory subject, but whatever I have to write my thought about this issue. Fueled by Rani’s post about basically the same issue, now I will try to give my humble opinion about disaster and faith. / Read more …

Following news about the tsunami disaster after effect is a terrible experience. Reading the death toll rising up each day, looking at the horrible photos and watching how difficult is to get the aid to the most needed people. As if that were not enough, there are some disturbing writing, most of them are in Indonesian language, circulating around the web, e-mail and mailing list. Why I called them ‘disturbance’? Because they are more like noises than signals. / Read more …

It’s been more than a week since the disaster, the relief are still pouring in to the needed country. Coming from the most devastated country, Indonesia, I was troubled with the amount of death toll and destruction. The current estimation of the death toll is about 400.000 since there are many places that had not been explored yet. / Read more …

Sorry for the lack of updates and thanks for those who were looking for me considering the catastrophy, my family and friends are fine, as far as I know but I might know some people that lost their friends and families and I offered my condolences and sorry for not helping much. It was such a gigantic proportion tragedy and my mind is still trying to comprehend it. If you want to help those people who are in need, I believe there are many organizations that will accept your help and donation. As a reminder tho, I will not recommend / Read more …