How Do I Keep Myself Updated

At first, I want to write ‘How Do I Keep Myself Well Updated Despite The Fact That I Live Twelve Time Zones Away From Many Things That Are Dear To Me Without Wasting Too Much Time and Being Perceived as Stalker’. However, two years in Singapore Management University had taught me two important lessons (among many others):

1. keep it simple (read: do not bulls*it too much)
2. Stop at #1 and if possible, make it simpler

So there goes the wonderfully long title… read more

Social Science Student

It has been two weeks since I first land in this land of democracy. I could not say the journey was all enjoyable. Many high and lows. I might write about that here, I might not. In any case, I am now officially a Carnegie Mellon student with no clear plan ahead of me… :p

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Plagiarism? you judge

This song, titled Aspalela, is a recent hit in Malaysia. Though I have taken Malay class back then in Sec 3 and Sec4, I barely able to decypher the lyrics. Some people said the tone is very similar to Indonesia’s children song of ‘Abang Tukang Bakso‘ (‘Meatballs Seller’). I have no nothing to say. You hear it for yourself. Ignore the lyrics. read more

No More ‘FISKAL’… Yay

At last, no more dreadful ‘Fiskal’ fee for Indonesians… with a catch of course. I got this lead from some forum and SMSes before cross checked it with some mailing lists and of course the mainstream media. Indeed, as per 2009, all Indonesians who are travelling overseas will be exempted from paying ‘Fiskal’ IF (yes IF) they can show their tax identification number.

More info can be read here (its in Bahasa Indonesian btw) http://cetak.kompas.com/read/xml/2008/06/23/01061076/pemilik.npwp.bebas.bea.fiskal

Originally meant to limit people from flying (or in some cases sailing and driving) overseas and thus spending countries hard earned foreign reserves, ‘Fiskal’ is one of the lucrative source of income for Indonesian government. The Fiskal rate varies from Rp. 250000 (on land) to Rp. 1000000 (on plane) PER PERSON. You can do your own calculation on how much the country’s earn per outbound flight. Of course you need to assume there is no corruption – yeah rite.

Fiskal in my opinion has failed miserably to limit people from travelling overseas. After all, in this globalised age, people DO travel. In fact, other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore have stopped imposing this ludicrous tax.

On the other hand, the fact that Indonesian government still imposing ‘Fiskal’ to people who cannot show their tax ID (NPWP) is another telltale sign of ‘the country is desperate for money since people seldom pay tax properly’. I do not know whom to blame in this case. Cunning citizens, corrupt officials or simply government who WERE never bothered with the problem thanks to Indonesia’s past OIL export galore.

According to the media, out of 222 million population (year 2006 estimation), only 6 million taxpayers have been identified. Out of those 6 millions, only 1.3 million corporate taxpayers and 1.1 million private taxpayers have really paid the tax.

With the declining export, maybe its time to tap on  poor people’s money…

Bandwidth test…

Not that impressive but definitely much faster than my Singnet broadband. Yes I am interning now.

I will try again from my room tonight