Convert SSA to SRT Subtitle in Ubuntu

Watching downloaded movie is my new hobby, yeah I know it’s kinda illegal but sometimes there are movies that you couldn’t found in the store. One of the problem is the subtitle, sometimes it’s only available in SSA format which Totem Movie Player couldn’t play. One of the solution is download VLC Media Player but the buffering process is slow (in my laptop especially) and sometimes hang. I need to watch it without troubles and I don’t understand Japanese yet.

So I need to convert the subtitles and watch it at Totem. I’ve tried to convert it manually but takes a long time even just for 30 minutes movie. And I found Gaupol an subtitle editor :

1. Install Gaupol with :

   sudo apt-get install gaupol

2. Open the SSA subtitle
3. Save As… (Not ‘Save Translation As…’)
4. Select ‘SubRip’ at the ‘Format’ selection
5. Don’t forget to put it under the same name as the movie and in the same folder

Then you have a SRT subtitle and you could watch the movie in Totem. Have a nice watch!

–
Anton Hermansyah

Batik Motifs

Batik as a trational textile of Java atually has a lot of motifs, several of those, especially that originated from Keraton (Javanese Kingdom) have a sacred rule and deep meaning. Generally Batik motifs are classified into nine, Lereng, Semen, Parang, Truntum, Kawung, Gringsing, Ceplok, Nitik, Pinggiran, and Terang Bulan

Lereng Motif

‘Lereng’ (literally means ‘Cliff’) history began at the escape of royal family from Surakarta, they had to hide in the mountains area for their safety, and the Sultan look at the cliff, which became the inspiration to make Lereng motif.

Fundamentally, the deisgn of Lereng is the same with Parang, some says that Jogjanese called it parang and Surakartanese called it Lereng. It’s one of Motif Larangan (Prohibited Motifs) that only royal families could wear. But nowadays, some of Lereng/Parang motif, could be wear by people outside the Keraton, except for some sacred motifs.

Semen Motif

‘Semen’ word originated from ‘Semi’ that literally means bloom, the motif reflects prosperity and and fertility. The history is originated from Hindu mythology, that tells the story of Sri Rama giving the advice to his son, Gunawan Wibisana, when Wibisana was about to be crowned as the king. The advice is known as Hasta Brata (Eight Bratas) that a leader should have.

1. Indrabrata
   Means a dedication to give the prosperity and protect the earth, symbolized by plants.
2. Yamabrata
   Means fair and honest to the others, symbolized by mountains or cloud that reflects a high position
3. Suyabrata
   Means courage not half hearted, symbolized by Garuda
4. Sasibrata
   Means give the light and cheer to whom that feel sad, symbolized by animals
5. Bayubrata
   Means the high position that doesn’t expose its authority, symbolized by bird
6. Danababrata/Kuwerabrata
   Means give respect or appreciation to the people, symbolized by relic
7. Barunabrata/Pasabrata
   Means a forgiving, symbolized by dragon or something related with water
8. Agnibrata
   Means a power to fight against evil and protect the weak, symbolized by fire or flame

These symbols are base for the pattern of Semen motif. There’s a hope that the wearer could always communicated with God.

Parang Motif

‘Parang’ literally means sword or knife, this motif reflects alertness, guard and sharp. By wearing Parang motif, the person could be alert, have a sharp think, and gifted with glory. The bigger Parang means bigger authority, this motif is one of Motif Larangan (Prohibited Motifs) that only royal families could wear. The King, as the highest authority in the kingdom wears the biggest parang motif. Parang design is usually alternated with narrower bands in a darker contrasting color in which another motif called ‘Mlinjon’ is located which differentiated Parang from Kawung Motive.

Truntum Motif

Truntum motif is worn by the parents in their children’s wedding, it’s a symbol that parents can guide or give model to their children to accomplish their own peace in time of entering family life. There’s some verisons that the word ‘truntum’ originated from. First, it derives from ‘tumaruntum’, which means guiding or often is connected to ‘tentrem’, literally means peaceful. Second, it derives from word ‘tuntun’ literlally meaning guidance.

It was believed that this motif was created by Ratu Beruk, the consort of Sunan Pakubuwono II (King of Surakarta, 1749 – 1788). She was upset because her husband ignored her. For a long time, her husband did not visit the queen. Only stars in the sky accompanying her patiently.

Every second she spent her time attaching chanting to batik wax. One day Sunan was home from hunting, coming to her dwelling. He found the queen diligently making batik, drawing animals. Seeing the king arrived, Ratu Beruk’s love sprouted again. The king then was very patient accompanying her making batik.

Gringsing Motif

‘Gringsing’ word originated from words ‘Gering’ that means sick and ‘Sing’ that means not. So Gringsing means not sick or against illness. This motif believed to be able to cure the illness. This is one of ancient motif inspired by Patola clothes that originated from India. The motif resembling the snake skin and generally used in backgrounds.

Kawung Motif

Some say that Kawung is a kind of palm tree having ellipse-shaped fruit, with color of white called “Kolang-Kaling”. Others say that kawung comes from a name of insect ‘Kwangwung’. It believed that this motif created by Sultan Agung of Mataram.

The ornaments consist of four symmetric circles surrounding a little circle in the middle that symbolizes ‘Kiblat Papat-Kelimo Pancer‘ (four sources of energy that surrounding the centre of power, God that rules every direction). East is a direction of sunrise, the symbol of life source. North is a direction of mountain, symbol of gods’ dwelling, place of spirit/death. West is a direction of sunset, the coming of luck. South is a direction of zenith, peak of everything.

This motif brings hope that the user is given strength to rule well and have a meaningful life, like the palm tree that useful for everyone from the root to leaf.

Ceplok Motif

‘Ceplok’ originated from ‘Seceplok’ that means ‘A Bud’. This motif is a modification from Kawung Motif, with ‘Kiblat Papat-Kelimo Pancer’. Although fundamentally geometric, ceplok can also represent abstractions and stylization of flowers, buds, seeds, and even animals. It’s an ancient motif that can be found at the Hindu Temple. Variations in color intensity can create illusions of depth and the overall effect is not unlike medallion patterns seen on turkish tribal rugs. But in Moslem’s rule forbids the portrayal of animal and human forms in a realistic manner. To get around this prohibition, the batik worker does not attempt to express this matter in a realistic form. A single element of the form is chosen and then that element is repeated again and again in the pattern.

Nitik Motif

This motif is believed to be influenced by Indian cloth named ‘Patola’, that brought to Indonesia by Indian trader. This motive was developed from coast cities in the north of Java, like Cirebon and Pekalongan before it arrived in Keraton. The pattern consist of square and rectangle form and dots as ornaments. There’s a differences in the color used in every place, in Pekalongan the dominant colors are red, green, blue and yellow as the consumer of this cloth are from India and China. Jogja’s Nitik are using indigo, brown and white color.

Pinggiran Motif

‘Pinggiran’ literally means ‘Edge’. This is actually a motif located at the edge of the batik cloth.

Terang Bulan Motif

‘Terang Bulan’ literally means ‘Moonshine’, basically it’s a motif consist of triangle pattern ascending vertically in a simple backgrounds. The ornaments are only in the bottom part of Batik.

(From many sources)

–
Anton Hermansyah

Add Indonesian Dictionary in OpenOffice 3

in this new OpenOffice 3, the dictionary system is different than the previous one. So I couldn’t use the old dictionary format, unfortunately there’s no Indonesian dictionary at the repository. There’s a spellchecker uploaded by Rossano Rossi, but it doesn’t worked. I search for the alternative way and arrived at this page. Seems like not just me who have this problem in my Ubuntu.

There’s a reply from Tom, that I followed, and it worked!! So i rewrite again in my blog

1. Download the Indonesian dictionary (you can download it here)
2. Unzipped it and copy the id_ID.dic; id_ID.aff; and hyph_id_ID.dic to

   /usr/share/myspell/dicts

3. Locate for ‘Linguistic.xcu’ file in ~/.openoffice.org/3/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/ open it in text editor
4. Look for ‘HyphenatorList’ node and add this below the node :

   <prop oor:name="id-ID" oor:op="replace" oor:type="oor:string-list">
   <value>org.openoffice.lingu.LibHnjHyphenator</value>
   </prop>

5. Look for ‘SpellCheckerList’ node and add this below the node :

   <prop oor:name="id-ID" oor:op="replace" oor:type="oor:string-list">
   <value>org.openoffice.lingu.MySpellSpellChecker</value>
   </prop>

6. Save the ‘Linguistic.xcu’ file

When you check the OpenOffice 3, you could select Indonesian language at Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Languages. Have a try!!

Credits to :
Tom Crewford and Gombang

–
Anton Hermansyah

A Tribute Car for The Managements

You must have heard a lot of times about cars that specially made in order to tribute someone. The special cars are usually used to make a tribute to their legendary racer, just mentions SLR Stirling Moss (pays tribute to Sir Stirling Moss) and Subaru Imprezza RB320 (pays tribute to Richard Burns).

But this year two other tribute cars are launched to public, the difference from other tribute cars is the cars made to tribute the management person. They are not a legendary racer, not a celebrity too, the one is a great automobile maker CEO and the other one is a loyal employee of the automobile maker.

Lee Iacocca

Iacocca is famous for his effort to revive Chrysler at 1980’s, but before that, he had worked at Ford Motor Company from 1946-1978 and involved at the birth of some Ford successful models, including the legendary Mustang before he was dumped out after clash with Henry Ford II the CEO at the time also the grandson of Henry Ford.

This year, Mustang has reached it’s 45^th anniversary. and they celebrate it with the Mustang Iacocca Silver 45^th Anniversary Edition, a limited edition that only 45 units exist in the world.

The car is based on the 2009 Mustang platform, costumer could choose between naturally aspirated 4.6-l V8 generating 320hp, or supercharged motor delivering 400hp. The special car is marked by “Iacocca” emblem at the trunk and “I” logo replacing the Ford logo at the rims and tail. It gets an upgraded suspension, Ford Racing Handling Package, and moves on 20-inch aluminum wheels.

Valentino Balboni

Balboni is the former chief test driver of Lamborghini, at 1968 he began his careers at the Italian car maker as a mechanic apprentice, after that he was asked by the founder, Ferruccio Lamborghini to test drive the newly build cars together with Bob Wallace as the test driver. Since then every single brand new model were tested by him, approximately 80% of ever built Lambo has been driven by him.

After serving the company for 40 years, he retired due to Italian Government Regulations. in order to pay a tribute to his dedication, the company make a special model named Gallardo LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni.

Limited to only 250 units, this brand new Lambo offers a unique character of driving as the test driver chief suggested about, instead of using four wheel drive, this car is using rear wheel drive, so the costumer could easily drift this car, which could catch more enthusiast driver to buy. The engine power is reduced to 550 HP instead of 560 HP of ordinary Gallardo, but compensated with the weight reduction of the using of rear wheel drive instead of all wheel drive.

The appearance is marked with white stripe from the nose to the back of the body, you could also find the white stripe in the interior. Combined with the scorpion wheel, it’s a Lambo that need skillful driver to handle it.

A good way to tribute the managements, it’s because of them the company reach it’s success.

–
Anton Hermansyah

Takaful, an Introduction

Brief Explanation

Takaful means a scheme based on brotherhood, solidarity and mutual assistance which provides for mutual financial aid and assistance to the participants in case of need whereby the participants mutually agree to contribute for that purpose (Takaful Act 1984, article 2), for short it is an Islamic Insurance, which still bring sharia principles within which are the main differences with the conventional insurance. It’s been practiced for about 1400 years, historians believe that Muslim of Mecca and Medina has started a kind of mutual insurance, and it developed again with trade between Arabs and Asians which require a great time and length that increase the risk of robbery and loss.

Hybrid Car, Does It Still Far-Far Away from Indonesia?

The next step of the automobile is the hybrid car, well I won’t talk about the specification or which hybrid you should use, but how long we should wait for a Prius, Insight or FCX park in our garage in Indonesia.

There some borders that Indonesian citizens have in order to have a hybrid car, mostly about the price and cost, and mostly it come from the government, here’s some that I got :

The Lebaran Effects?

At the half of the month (September), my friend, Fajar told me that Dow Jones and Han Seng Index are fall by more than 10%, and I asked him, “how about Indonesia?”. He answered “We can still relax at this time, it’s still stable”.

I asked him back “Why?”, “I have no idea”, He replied. I answered my own question (with joking) “Maybe there’s a Lebaran effect, so demands are increasing and hold the economics from falling down”. “Just maybe”, Fajar replied.

I look at the newspaper and everybody said “The Black Monday“, because Lehman Brothers was filed for bankruptcy.

I would have a review about the Index movement at this month, unfortunately I couldn’t get the closing price data until the end of the month (my data end at 19^th of September), but I hope it’s enough to give a brief picture about the market at three countries (United States, Hong Kong and Indonesia)

Create Filter at Yahoo! Mail

Joining so many communities and network such as mailing list or social networking could make your network expand, but along with that your email’s inbox must be full with the messages that sometimes not important for you. Many friends of mine overcome that with making a special email account for joining or subscribing. But actually you could handle the messages with folder and filters, so the messages are automatically placed in special folder and won’t make your inbox full.

Here’s the step to do that in Yahoo! Mail

Downloading Via Torrent

I have tried to download many files using torrent, but I’m usually pissed off with the download process and canceled it because the status bar seems not moving up or showing any progress. I’ve tried to use all torrent client in my OpenSuSe 10.3 and Kubuntu 8.04, but “seems” didn’t worked because the download speed still at 0 (zero), I removed the download and pledged not to download via torrent anymore.

But yesterday I was forced to use the torrent, because there’s a file that I need to complete my comic book collection and there’s no download source except via torrent. This time I’m using Ubuntu 8.04 from my desktop and I’m using “Transmission BitTorrent Client” as the Client program. Because this is my last hope I decided to wait for a longer time, and be more patient, and it worked

Joker's Game Theory in The Dark Knight

In The Dark Knight movie, there is a scene where Joker traps two ferries that carrying people out of Gotham. Each boat has different passengers :

• Boat 1 = Contains the prisoners, several policemen and jail guardian
• Boat 2 = Contains civilians, they are free and look more educated than most people at the first boat

Each of the boat has a bomb placed inside and the detonator to detonate the other bomb, so Boat 1 could detonate the bomb in Boat 2 and vice versa.

With time limit given, they have to choose between to detonate or not, and both of the boat can’t communicate to each other. Yes, this is could be a prisoner’s dilemma or game of chicken because they faced morality problem, they could be a murderer.