“Its a soup that can stare back at you”, thats my answer.

Tengkleng - In The Beginning

Did you see that? Staring back at you?

Its a dish of lamb head. We just got a whole lamb from our butcher, and the head is an extra delicacy. I was debating on what should I make with that head.

In the end I settle with the Tengkleng recipe I found on the net. Tengkleng is a traditional dish from the central part of Java.

Its my big lunch that made me skip dinner, with a bit of left over for breakfast.

Tengkleng - The Last Frontier

Again, I am not joking with the title. There is such a thing as a Muslim urinal. I knew it many years ago when I work with the interior designers at Matahari Dept. Stores on toilet stuff, and they said we usually choose Muslim urinals for our stores.

Say what? Up till that time I have not heard such a term. Of course I have seen such urinals, but I have no idea that they were actually called a muslim urinal.

If you have not seen one, here is one example (a product of TOTO, located in one of the toilets at Batam Airport).

See that little hook-like metal sticking out under the flush pipe? Supposedly, that is what makes this urinal “muslim”. As discussed in the previous article, water is very important element of a muslim toilet.

The reason that I did not realize that this is a muslim urinal is because I do not use the water coming out of that hook to clean myself after urinating, EVER. Not before I know that it is a muslim urinal, not even after I know what it is.

The main reason is that the hook is usually installed as the picture above. It can be rotated, but most of the times, it is exactly like that. Which means that the water coming out of that hook will flow away from anybody using that urinal.

With water flowing away from you, trying to wash your genital with the water involves a lot of circus of trying to peek where the water actually is, and at the same time trying to reach further away (deeper) into the urinal. Which of course will make you look weird if there is somebody else in the toilet.

Well, the the hook can be rotated of course. If you rotate it 90 degrees, then the same problem happens, only that you either have to move to the left or to the right end of the urinal to be able to catch the water from the hook.

All this circus, of course, assume that you are in the right height. If you are higher or shorter than the assumption of whoever designed the toilet, then the circus will involve some body movement to make yourself shorter or higher. And you will certainly look pathetic.

My solution is simply to forget about the hook. This is of course too bad. Somebody has tried to accommodate the need of muslim consumers. And this somebody is not just anybody, but a leading manufacturer like TOTO.

But then, nobody has ever understand how to use the hook in muslim urinals. Is it supposed to be a hands-free sprayer to the genitals? Or is it just providing additional water “on site” for whatever the user will use it for? [NOTE: that this is certainly my own ignorance. If you know how to use it, please use the comments to enlighten myself and other readers].

For further information, check the product description from TOTO Indonesia. Note that there may be other products from other brands, please let me know in the comment section below.

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Other than the above, is there any other solution?

Yes, of course. Here is one example from a mosque in Singapore.

This is a typical urinal with automatic flush. The difference is the hand-sprayer on the side. I have to warn you though, that the water pressure varies depending on the building. To avoid any surprise, try to spray some water away from you, just to test the water pressure and spraying pattern. I found one case that the pressure is so high that I cannot use it without getting myself wet.

Another, much simpler solution is from a mosque in Pasar Baru, Bandung, Indonesia.

[note: I have to find the picture]

Just a long gutter/drain with one water tap each, with a knee-high barrier as a splash protection. If you need to clean up or to flush, just open the tap.

Of course, there are many other solutions, and I will add along the way. If you happen to know other solutions, please send the link in the comment section.

Some facts about memorizing the Quran

Fact 1: As a Malay saying says, “Apal kaji karena diulang”, something is memorized because you repeat it.

Fact 2: Memorizing itself is easy. To continue memorizing new materials while retaining old materials is extremely difficult.

Fact 3: Something that we have memorized will eventually be forgotten, except if we repeat the material before it is forgotten.

Fact 4: The more repetition, the stronger our memory for the material, even if we initially memorized the material years ago. The obvious example is surah Al-Fatihah, that we have memorized years ago. It will never be forgotten because we repeat it at least seventeen times a day. On the other hand, a newly memorized surah will be easily forgotten because we never repeat it.

Fact 5: because the time allocated to the tahfiz program is limited (especially for us who are doing tahfiz on a part-time basis), we need a strategic repetition, i.e. we repeat the parts that has the biggest risk to be forgotten.

Imagine a software

From those facts, I imagine a software that:

1. log our progress in memorizing the Quran. For example, this ayat is memorized at this date.
2. log which part (from those that have been memorized) that is repeated on a particular day. The software will also log my self-assessment on the repetition, i.e. whether I still remember the part perfectly, or half remember, or totally forgotten already.
3. Based on the two logs above, I imagine that the software can calculate the probability of forgetting of any particular part. And based on the calculation, the software should tell me every day which part that I should repeat.

So when I am about to do my revision, I will simply press the button, and the program will say read page 100, 105, 130, and 145. Then I revised those pages, and key in some feedback about my memory, and the software keeps it in the log. The same thing happen when I start the revision again in the following day, I will press a button, and the software will suggest another set of pages, based on the calculation of the risk of forgetting.

Note that the above calculation algorithm is not a rocket science. A decent flash card program will have that algorithm. An example for this kind of program is Mnemosyne.

When I ask Uncle Google about such software, I found none. Of course, there are a lot of programs that will claim to help you memorize, for example by providing audio example (from a famous reciter) on how to read a particular verse, or even by repeating one or more verses in many combination of repetition.

But then again, this is not  the most difficult part of memorizing the Quran (see Fact 2 above). What we need is something to help us identify which part of the Quran that we are in the verge of forgetting.

NOTE: I recently found HifzHelper, a website that has the (early) ingredients of my dream.

Why do we need a software?

Deep in my heart, I asked this question: why make it so hard, that I will need a software to memorize the Quran? The people of the past did not use any software, and they became the huffazh (the memorizers of the Quran).

Well, you do not really need a software if you do this (memorizing the Quran) full time. The people of the past did this, and many people in our time still do.

But if you do this on a part-time basis, with the full-time job lurking to take away your time for other things, the challenges are totally different. If you can only allocate so much time to memorize and revise, then you really need to focus you revision to things that really matters: the parts that are nearly forgotten.

The method I describe above is irrelevant if you have so much time dedicated for tahfizh. By “so much” I mean about four to six hours a day. But most people cannot allocate that much time for the tahfizh, and yet they still have every intention to be a hafizh one day, yours truly included. That is why I dream about this software.

Another important note is that I do not dream this to eliminate the need for a teacher. This software is a tool for revision only, to help you focus on the important parts that you need to revise. You still need a teacher, another hafizh, to listen to (and validate) your recitation. This is the tradition that has been going on since the time of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. because this is how the Quran is preserved. The Quran is not preserved by the written text, but by writing it in the memory of the huffazh.

Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments section.

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Sobats sekalian, assalaamu alaikum.

Menyambung posting saya sebelumnya, ketika saya mencoba memulai kembali program tahfiz, ternyata memang ada satu kekurangan (yang sangat penting) ketika memulai program tahfiz tanpa seorang guru, yaitu tidak ada yang memberikan petunjuk bagian mana yang harus diulang. Waktu ngaji bersama Ustaz Alaina, beliau selalu memberikan jatah untuk ”yang lama” dan juga “yang baru”. Beliau punya catatan sendiri tentang kemajuan murid-muridnya, dan dari situ beliau menugaskan kita untuk mengulang bagian tertentu dari yang sudah kita hafal.

Masalahnya: bagaimana kalau menghafal tanpa guru? Berikut sekelumit pemikiran saya.

Fakta 1: Apal kaji karena diulang, begitu pepatah kita. Kalau diulang maka bisa hafal.

Fakta 2: menghafal itu mudah, tapi mengulang supaya tidak lupa itu yang susah

Fakta 3: sesuatu yang kita hafalkan maka suatu saat akan terlupakan, kecuali kalau hafalan itu diulang sebelum lupa.

Fakta 4: semakin banyak ulangan, maka akan semakin kuat hafalan kita, sekalipun hafalannya sudah dihafalkan puluhan tahun yang lalu. Misalnya yang paling gampang adalah surat AlFatihah. Sekalipun ini adalah surat yang pertama kita hafalkan, karena diulang terus maka sekarang ini disuruh lupa pun insya Allah nggak lupa. Sebaliknya, surat Al-Ma’arij yang baru dihafalkan beberapa tahun yang lalu sudah banyak lupanya.

Fakta 5: karena waktu setiap harinya yang dialokasikan untuk tahfiz terbatas, maka kita perlu pengulangan strategik (strategic repetition), i.e. mengulang bagian dari hafalan sesuai dengan prioritas mana bagian yang paling mudah terlupakan.

Dari kelima fakta tadi, saya membayangkan sebuah metoda untuk program tahfiz (bisa jadi software) yang fungsinya:
1. merekam kemajuan hafalan kita (misal: surat sekian ayat sekian dihafal tanggal sekian)
2. merekam juga bagian mana dari hafalan kita yang dibaca ulang.
3. dari rekaman data tadi, sang software akan membuat perhitungan, dan menyimpulkan bahwa pada hari ini bagian yang paling mudah terlupakan adalah surat sekian. Maka pada hari itu kita baca surat itu, dan kita rekam kembali bahwa kita sudah ulang dengan hasil baik.
4. Perhitungan itu bisa dilakukan dengan membuat sebuah model dengan input:
a. daya ingat => kuat, agak kuat, sedang, agak pelupa, pelupa
b. waktu suatu bagian dihafalkan
c. berapa kali sejak dihafalkan sudah diulang.

Dari tiga hal ini saja kita sudah bisa membuat model yang cukup baik untuk me-ranking hafalan kita sesuai dengan potensi terlupakan.

Saya bertanya kepada Wak Google mengenai software untuk membantu program tahfiz, ternyata yang keluar adalah software bacaan AlQuran. Tidak ada satupun software yang bisa digunakan untuk mencatat kemajuan hafalan kita. Padahal kalau dibuat dengan PHP dan MySQL kayaknya gampang sekali. (Any takers?)

Hati kecil saya bertanya sebenarnya: why make it so hard, pakai software segala? Padahal toch orang jaman dulu nggak pakai software udah pada jadi hafizh.

Well, orang jaman dulu (dan juga jaman sekarang) yang bisa full-time ikut program tahfizh tentu saja nggak perlu software-software-an. Tapi kalau kita ingin menjalani program tahfizh part-time sambil bekerja full-time, tentu tantangannya jauh berbeda.

Metoda di atas akan tidak relevan lagi kalau kita punya waktu sekian jam sehari (empat-enam jam) untuk tahfiz. Tapi kebanyakan orang tidak bisa mengalokasikan sekian jam sehari untuk tahfiz, karena itu saya memimpikan metode ini.

Segala macam komentar ingin saya dapatkan dari sobats sekalian. Terutama mereka yang konsisten menjalani program tahfiz.

The reason I remember those cute cartoon is not because of their smurf, but simply how smurf the author was. The characters ask the reader to guess what they mean and by doing so they make the reader intimately interact with them.

Smurf becomes a legend because it asks the reader to constantly change the meaning of the word smurf according to the context. This is a very smart way to be legend.

There is another way to become a legend: be useful enough that everybody use you, and they will make up a (new) word for you. Google is one example. Nobody says “Yahoo the word for me, will you?” even if Yahoo was (already) a big search engine when Google started. As already set in history, Google has become a legend and the word “google” was accepted to be a verb.

The reason of this post is Microsoft’s attempt to legendarize their product Bing. Didn’t you hear their commercial: “bing and decide”?

Seriously: bing and decide? Are they playing smurf with us?

What Microsoft wanted to say with that byline is “go to bing website, type in your key words, and we will help you make decision”. They position their product as decision engine instead of a mere search engine. Its like they wanted to say that anybody can make a search engine, but not just anybody can help people to decide.

Nice positioning, of course, and this may (or may not) lead to a big customer base. Either way, I do not care.

What I am amazed is Microsoft’s approach to sell this product: inventing a word. Historically, new words are attached to a popular product. Think of “jeep” that has become a word to refer to the all-terrain car. What Microsoft is doing is trying to reverse the process: positioning a brand new product by introducing a new word.

Very novel, I have to admit, and very brave too. Personally, if feel that it will not take off. At least, the new word will not get used as popular as people use the word google.

The main reason is the product itself, its a new product. People will need to try the product. Even if the product is popular, it does not mean that people will start to use the word. Not to mention that Google will not do anything to counter-attack any attempt to reduce the market share: they can easily adopt the good features of Bing into their own search engine.

Furthermore, Microsoft is not known to have the wisdom of respecting its users opinion. Rather than listening, they usually choked the customers with ideas. If they can accept it, they will swallow, if they don’t they will throw it up.

This tendency is shown by this new-word-to-sell-product approach. Instead of waiting a popular wisdom to emerge into a new word, Microsoft simply reverse the process. I will not surprise if later Microsoft claims that this is not their own idea, but a Joe User from somewhere sent in his idea.

Of course you would remember the similar claim about many good features of Windows 7. No? Here is one example, if you missed it.

Having said all that, I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and wait a bit longer whether or not people will start to say “bing it will you?”. Sounds like a dirty word to me, but hey, its not my idea.

Akibatnya? Kartun di bawah ini bisa menjelaskan dengan gamblang efeknya setelah puluhan tahun. Gambar roti di situ boleh diganti dengan nasi setumpuk untuk konteks Indonesia.

Kawan-kawan yang kecanduan karbo, any comments?

credit: livinlowcarbman via livinlavidalowcarb

Bukan apa-apa, saya termasuk yang skeptis dengan media elektronik ini. Kesannya kan borju sekali, masak baca buku saja harus beli alat sampai 300 dolar. Kayak kebanyakan uang, gitu loh, masak mau baca buku saja harus keluar uang 300 dolar.

Tapi itu dulu. Sekarang saya paham kenapa banyak orang pakai Kindle untuk baca buku: mereka baca bukunya banyak sekali. Berikut apa yang saya baca dari salah satu blogger yang rutin saya kunjungi:

I’ve probably read less over the past four months than in any four month period of my life.  Instead of five or six books per week, I’m down to about two or three max.

Nggak, kok, nggak salah baca: lima atau enam buku setiap minggu. Dan itu di masa-masa sibuk. Bayangkan kalau dia harus pergi selama dua minggu, artinya dia harus bawa sepuluh sampai dua belas buku.

Untuk orang-orang seperti ini, yaah wajarlah kalau harus beli Kindle untuk baca buku. For the rest of us: back to paper.

Berapa jumlah buku yang sudah anda baca minggu ini?

Ini kejadian yang biasa-biasa saja kelihatannya, tapi ini punya makna mendalam.

Semua orang juga tahu kalau Chrome itu punya Google, dan semua orang juga tahu kalau bisnis utama Google adalah bisnis pencarian. Sekalipun begitu, Google memberi kesempatan bagi semua pemakai Chrome untuk memilih mesin pencari selain Google.

Apa arti penting dari pertanyaan sederhana ini?

Pertama, definisikan dengan jelas siapakah kompetitor anda. Dalam konteks Chrome, saingan Google adalah Firefox dan Internet Explorer, sesama penjelajah web. Dalam konteks ini, saingan Google bukanlah Yahoo ataupun Bing, sesama mesin pencari. Karenanya, Google tidak ragu-ragu dalam memberikan pilihan kepada pengguna untuk memilih mesin pencari kesukaan sang pengguna.

Kedua, jangan takut berkompetisi. Mental “bring it on” itu harus selalu ada. Hanya dengan mental seperti ini kita bisa maju. Dalam kasus ini, Google tidak takut harus diadu dengan siapapun.

Terlebih lagi, ini dengan memberikan pilihan seperti ini, Google akan mendapatkan data yang sangat berharga, yaitu berapa banyak pengguna Chrome yang memilih mesin pencari lain selain Google. Google akan punya data kenapa pengguna itu memilih saingan mereka. Ujung-ujungnya, Google akan punya peluang untuk memperbaiki produk mereka.

Pesan moral: saingan, yuk!

Pesan moral cerita ini: jangan sampai terulang lagi. Buat yang belum pernah: jangan sampai kejadian.

Saya kontan membayangkan pengalaman ketika jaman sekolah dulu ketika ada kunjungan pejabat, semua murid akan dikumpulkan di aula untuk mendengarkan amanat dari sang pejabat. Agak-agaknya inilah yang akan terjadi kepada murid-murid sekolah di seluruh Amerika besok Selasa.

Bedanya adalah sekalipun acara ini akan ditayangkan langsung kepada seluruh siswa, orang tua murid diberikan kesempatan untuk menolak (opt-out) agar anaknya tidak mendengarkan pesan Presiden itu. Berikut kutipan email yang dikirimkan ke seluruh orang tua murid di Boise:

If you would prefer your child(ren) not view the President’s speech, you may contact your school to request your child(ren) opt-out of viewing the address. An appropriate alternative activity will be provided for your student until such time as the President’s address concludes. You may opt-out by simply sending your school a not or email message.

Silakan lihat Pesan Presiden melalui situs Departemen Pendidikan Amerika Serikat (dirilis sekitar 24 jam sebelum acaranya).