To subsidize or not to subsidize... that's NOT the question!

Photo (c) 2012 Tempo.co

So, again we are on the verge of a Gas Price Hike. Rumor has it that "non-subsidized fuel" will see a price increase of almost 150%. As usual, opinions for and against the plan are already flooding the news channels. Those supporting the plan cite increasing state budget burdens and claims of mis-allocated subsidy (that is, the subsidy actually benefits the "haves" (defined by them as those owning a private car) and not the "have nots") as the reason for the price hike. Those against the plan point out that although only "the haves" are supposedly obliged to buy gas at an increased price, the price hike will drive inflation that will affect the "have nots" particularly badly.

Those claims and counter claims (and counter-counter-claims, and so forth...) are to be expected. Those are not something new. What is new is the government's plan to sell the same types of fuel at different prices. If the plans go through, then beginning in May we will see "subsidized fuel" sold at the current price for public transportation vehicles and motorcycles, but we will also see the exact same fuel sold at the new price for private cars. The plan also calls for four types of gas stations: those who sell only fuel at the old price, those who sell only fuel at the new price, those who sell gasoline at the new price but diesel fuel at the old price and finally those who sell diesel fuel at the new price but gasoline at the old price.

If you think that these will lead to chaos in the field, then you are not the only one. People already see several possible scenarios abusing this new system. One scenario has it that owners of public transportation vehicles will stop operating as such. They will only fill up their tanks, park somewhere and sell the fuel to private car owner at a price slightly lower than the new price. Some more enterprising individuals might even modify their vehicles so that they can carry extra fuel tanks, kind of modifying a DC-10 airliner into a KC-10 Extender tanker! The public transportation sector has always complained of minimal profit margins, so this scenario is not that far-fetched. Other scenario is that private car owners will still buy fuel at the old price, after giving a "token of gratitude" to (or "forcefully persuading") the fuel station operator. What will the government do to curb these practices? One possibility already floating around is to use a new RFID-based vehicle identification. Technically it might work, I think. But I doubt it will really work in practice. And the project to implement this system opens the possibilty of some ugly scandals later.

Based on these projections, some people suggest that it would be better that the government ditch "fuel subsidy" altogether. Get rid of the budgetary problems, without introducing new problems. The money that the government can save by ditching fuel subsidy can then be channeled into more productive projects like public transportation infrastructure, health infrastructure, etc. The problem is, in my opinion, that those suggestion is too optimistic and perhaps a bit naive. It is based on the assumption that the money will be well-managed and not abused. This is an assumption that many people are still wary to make. I think the problem is not in whether or not to keep the subsidy, but how to manage the country a bit better. If the country is managed better, then I think subsidizing (or not subsidizing) fuel will not be such a big problem. When all people see and feel that the money saved is indeed being used for their best interest, then they will not oppose the plan too much. Perhaps, if the state is managed better, fuel subsidy will not become such a big burden to the otherwise well-managed state budget.

So, I think to subsidize or not to subsidize is not the question. The question is good or bad management. Innit?

"Pertamax, gan!"

No, the title of this entry is not referring to the "non-subsidized" gasoline in Indonesia. We're not going to talk about the anxiety most car users in Indonesia are having for the possibility that in the near future they might be forced to use this gasoline variant to "ease the burden on the state budget", whatever that means.

The title actually refers to Indonesian internet lingo, that is used by so many people when they are the first to comment on something "commentable". Facebook posts. Instagram uploads. Forum posts. Blog entries. The fact that the comment is not even remotely relevant to anything seems, well, irrelevant. Being the first to comment on something is.

When I write this, it's Easter Sunday. The day when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why is this relevant to the title? 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the core of the Christian faith. Who is the first witnesses of this event? Peter, one of Jesus' staunchest disciples? No. Mary Magdalene? No. According to Matthew 28:4, the first witnesses are the guards paid to watch over Jesus' tomb "... lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away..." They are the first to witness such a great event, but what was their reaction? Did they spread the words? Yes. But bad words. Words that carry with them harmful consequences (cf. Matthew 28:12 - 15).

What is the morale of the story, then? Well, for me it is thus: It is not that important whether or not we are the first to know something. What is important is that we have the correct understanding of the event. What is important is that we give the correct response to the event. Being the first to react  to something --- particularly incorrectly --- can be harmful. Think first, make sure that we understand the matter first. And make sure our reaction is relevant. Let's not be those "Pertamax, gan!" posters.

Happy Easter to you celebrating it. 

"Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." (Romans 5:18-19, NIV)

"Titip": A truly Indonesian phenomenon?

"Titip".

This is a common word in Bahasa Indonesia. I can't seem to find the equivalent word in English that carries both the literal meaning and the spirit behind the word. Therefore, let me illustrate the meaning of the word using some examples:

1. Your buddy is going to the library and you ask him the favour of returning a book you borrowed from the library. That's "titip".
2. Your room mate is going to the grocery store and you ask her the favour of buying you a quart of milk while she was there. You give her the money to buy it, or reimburse her later. That's "titip".
3. Your friend is on his way to some foreign country and you ask him the favour of buying some specific souvenir. Again, you give hm the money or will reimburse him later. That's "titip".

So, perhaps you think that "titip" is something that shows cooperation, close relationship between friends and that it does not involve monetary (or other) gain. You are not wrong. Except that the word "titip" is also an euphemism to other, less savoury variants. Some examples of which follow.

1. You are supposed to attend a plenary meeting, but you prefer to stay at home. So, you ask your friend who is attending the meeting to sign the attendants list on your behalf. Thus you are "physically" absent but you are "administratively" present. That's also "titip."
2. You are supposed to file in some papers or get your vehicle licence renewed. You don't want to go, so you pay someone to do that for you. That's also "titip."

Now, all of these are a fact of life for us Indonesians... and this is not why I'm writing this rambling essay. It's that recently I've got a slightly annoying experience with this "titip" thing. 

You see, a couple of days ago I was at the Tax Office to file in my annual tax report. Doing so some 3 weeks before the deadline usually means that the queue is almost empty. And since the actual process, assuming your papers are in order, takes less than 3 minutes, I was expecting to be in and out of the Tax Office within 15 minutes or so. I was in for some surprises.

The first surprise was that there were already 10 people in the queue ahead of me. That's unusual, but since there were 2 desks serving the queue, I thought that it would still take me less than 20 minutes to finish my business. But then there's the second surprise. The queue was barely moving after more than half an hour. What's happening?

Well, the first problem was that some of the people didn't have their papers in order. The second problem was that some of them were senior citizens unfamiliar with the process. Double trouble, that. 

But the worst problem was one gentleman, who was filing in a stack of some 50 different tax reports. Apparently, lots of people "titip". As efficient as the desk clerk was, it still took quite a long time to process so many reports. And this one gentleman was only counted as one person in the queueing system, naturally.

So you see, this "titip" stuff really mess up my nicely done queueing-theory-based timing! Had the gentleman been assigned 50 (or whatever) queueing numbers, I would not have entered the queue in the first place! But, no! He's just one person. But so many "titip". I ended up spending 45 minutes in the queue, before it's my turn for the 3-minute process.

"Titip", in its original spirit, is perhaps good. But not when it has deviated from it (I believe the gentleman got paid for doing that), or when it is not done in moderation. It ruin somebody else's schedule.

So, next time you see somebody doing something like this, please do me a favour and tell him or her to stop doing that. I, you know, "titip".

Cute trick to try with OS X Mountain Lion

Here's a cute trick to try with OS X Mountain Lion (at least this worked on 10.8.0):

1. Make sure that your Mac, when it wakes up after the screen (or the computer) sleeps, asks for user password.
2. Go to System Preferences -> Users and Groups: change the name of the current user.
3. Close System Preferences and wait until your Mac sleeps.
4. Wake it up... and Voila! You won't be able to get to the desktop since your Mac will ask for the password for the old username, but when it checks whether the password is correct, the old username is no longer there!

When I found out about this problem, the only solution that seemed to work is a hard reset (i.e., turn off the Mac and restart). What I think OS X should have done is to force the user to logout and login again from the system. Or even force the user to reboot the system. But definitely it should not have allowed the user to get into this trouble. Macs should have "just worked", right?

Upgrade when you can... or upgrade when you need to?

It's now March, 2013. In a couple of weeks, April will be upon us. So, what's so significant about it? Well, if you are an Ubuntu user, you know what I mean... 13.04 is coming soon! Is it time for an upgrade, then?

I've been using Ubuntu for almost seven years, now (I've been using Linux for some 12 years). During that time, I have never missed an opportunity to upgrade when the latest Ubuntu version is (officially) released. I want the newest, shiniest version on my box.

Upgrading an OS, no matter how smooth the experience is, is a lot of work (not to mention the fact that when I first started using Linux, I've never put /home on its own partition!) especially if you go the wipe-the-root-partition way . Reinstallation of third party software (well, in my case it's only reinstalling TeX), reconfiguration... you know the drill. 

The other route, of course, is not to install the OS from scratch, but instead upgrade all packages to the newer version. This way, all your installed apps stay intact. No reinstallation. Good choice? Well, not really. My own experience was that after a couple of distro upgrades, my box become an almost Frankenstein-ian disjointed monster that behaves oddly. (I did distro upgrades, IIRC, between Ubuntu 10.xx series up to 11.xx series). So, when I decided to upgrade to 12.04, I decided to wipe the old installation and do some serious housekeeping on my /home.

13.04 is coming, but I'm in no hurry to upgrade. I've been hanging on to 12.04 (an LTS release) and I don't think I need to upgrade to 12.10. Neither do I feel the need for 13.04. So, I think I'll give it a pass. I can upgrade, but I don't need it.

Come to think of it, should I ever feel the need to upgrade, I don't think I'll be continuing the Ubuntu road. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but Unity is the killer app for me (that is, killing my interest in Ubuntu!). If I ever feel the need to upgrade, perhaps I will simply migrate to Mint with its nicely maturing Cinnamon desktop.

Come on in!

Blogging.

For some people, it's a form of self-actualization (whatever that means). For others, it's a source of income. For some, it's a way to help others. Welcome to mine.

I don't have lofty goals with this blog. I might forget about it after just a couple of entries. But I hope what I did write will be slightly useful. (Not this one, naturally).

Once again, welcome. Stay tuned.