Oh wide eyed fool I am one
wandered barefoot in the desert garden
dreamed a wellspring out of quicksand
driven by thirst into scorpion venom
This is a love that never were
fireflies in jars of clay
poems alight in burnt letters
passion painted on a hidden wall
hearts that beat only in jest
The ruins of delusion lies silently
remnants from vanished a world
as eternal eclipse hid the sun
this grey world stood still
Not a tear was shed, but the pain lingers on
A guy who makes a nice chair doesn't owe money to everyone who has ever built a chair.
This is a line from The Social Network movie, Mark Zuckerberg's retort on the allegation that he stole the idea for Facebook.
The lawsuit by the Winklevoss brothers* against Mark is the subplot from the Social Network movie, providing a comical, if not contrasting background to the major internal struggles in the early days of Facebook. The scenes of the idea theft lawsuit are interwoven with the main narrative through flashbacks - summarily telling a story about a nimble, brilliant but rather nasty programmer who outrun the wealthy Goliathesque twin with an over-reliance on rules of conduct. This movie does not paint Mr. Zuckerberg in an especially unflattering light (some damning report about their conflict are actually missing from the movie), but it does raise the question on the uniqueness of a software, and how much can they borrow from one another's playbook. This fits in nicely as a part of a broader debate on whether or not software should be patentable at all, but for the sake of brevity this essay will only discuss the arguments as spoken by the fictional Mark Zuckerberg in the movie.
The first argument by Mark was the line as quoted in the beginning of the movie: a guy who makes a nice chair does not owe money to everyone who has ever built a chair. However, using the same analogy, certain chair designs which fulfill several criteria may be protected by intellectual property law. A generic chair design is generally considered as public domain, and therefore cannot qualify for protection, therefore, it's not incorrect to say that a chair designer is not liable to pay for the generic concept of chairs. But the intention of intellectual property law is to prevent a design from being ripped off by others - so the guy who made a nice chair which strongly resembles another nice chair is bound to be called a copycat or ripoff - and probably get embroiled in a lawsuit.
The second argument was the fictional Mark Zuckerberg's quip that says if the Winklevosses have invented Facebook, they would have invented Facebook. Facebook might be different than the site that the Winklevosses had envisioned as HarvardConnection, but the former perceivably draws important aspects from the latter. Zuckerberg had collected photographs from all Harvard freshmen before on some prank project called FaceMash, but he had not thought about college freshmen directory being a social network before his encounter with the Winklevosses without which there's small chance the idea will occur to him. Moreover, the early success of Facebook is attributed to its strengths within the college circles and exclusivity pertaining to university networks - something which was a central idea of HarvardConnection. Facebook's inception is undoubtedly linked to that of the twin rower's idea.
Certainly Zuckerberg had done things in a different way on the idea development department - he genuinely believed in the idea, and he worked really hard for it - even so far as to deliberately slowing down his rival project by paying lip service to their project. In the era of online competition where the product can be easily copied, he gave himself a critical advantage of brand recognition by being the pioneer. By contrast, the twins have had two programmers working on this idea for them before Zuckerberg was invited - neither have succeeded in creating a working solution. To the Winklevosses this was just another project to be managed; the only fault to their bureaucratic corporate instincts was the fact that they did not have a legal contract signed. Facebook has made several distinctive technology-oriented choices in its development that contributed heavily to their current success, namely opening its platform to third party developers and embracing the dynamic web interface. With his entrepreneurial spirit, technology savvy and some shrewd financial advice from Shawn Parker, Zuckerberg himself proved to be the most important factor to Facebook's success.
Creativity and ideas may provide the initial spark for a product, but its development and execution form a large part of what makes it successful - if not the largest part in software development contexts. Unlike a physical products whose qualities are visible, software embodies a service that can easily be offered by other similar software. Service, by its very definition, is uniquely tied to its subject and therefore does not require any legal protection from competitors. In the long run, software patents may become irrelevant if not hampering development by giving less incentive to innovate and improve development.
(* their being a twin olympic rower is enough reason for me to pick their picture as the essay's illustration :P
The basic answer is common to many of Indonesia’s problems: For decades, the country’s leaders have been selfish and corrupt, lacking vision and initiative.
This week, our country has been going through a plethora of bad news. With a flashflood in Wasior two weeks ago and forest fires in Sumatra that had choked Singapore with a thick smog last week just receded from the headlines, the worst Jakarta gridlock ever kicked off the week, followed by a tsunami in Mentawai and volcano eruption in Jogjakarta. Adding fuel to the fire are the Cabinet Minister and House Speaker's rather insensitive remarks, and the headlines about parliamentary members on field trips to tourist destinations, allegedly to experience firsthand some pedestrian concerns, such as whether the parliament members in Greece are allowed to smoke during sessions. It seems as if the stream of bad news is endless, and indeed plenty of these searing headlines originated from or aggravated by the corruption and complacency of our self serving government.
It's easy to get cynical about the government and political class when we read the newspapers these days. We are the third biggest democracy in the world, but twelve years of it has made a lot of people so disillusioned that the idea of making our longest serving president a national hero is not considered a political suicide. Plenty are feeling nostalgic over the perceived stability and prosperity during the days of our national hero candidate - and disgusted with the daily bickering, power struggles, and shameless corruption of the politicians. It's a limbo in which the light of hope flickers timidly amidst a hailstorm.
However, power and politics has never been a game for the idealist - no matter which system that we have to govern. Power tends to corrupt, and especially so in systems which does not have transparency the way a real democracy provides. Yes, decades of corruption have happened in Indonesia, it is so common that it practically is a part of our culture. But the pervasiveness, persistence and its scale was only known through the riotous uncensored media of the democratic era. Our government may be a big problem, but should we fall into indifference and apathy, it would be an even bigger problem.
For all its downsides, democracy enables people to be rightfully aware of the political process that concerns them - from the election of Corruption Eradication Committee to the anti pornography laws. The adage of democracy says no one gets their way, but no one should get home empty handed either - it is about checks and balances, in which no party can act without consequences. Right now, these checks and balances embodied in the government and parliament seems to be not working well - but at least the blanks can be partly covered by shortcutting the feedback mechanism using the media - press and social.
Freedom of information and opinion may still be unfamiliar to a young country like us, and it is something that we should learn to treasure. The press brought us the ills and the daily gripes of a modern country, but it should be something we feel grateful for. It is the first ingredient by which we can change the course of government and the country - this time, to the right direction.
This tweet from the Minister of Communication and Information of Indonesia shortly after disaster struck on Merapi and Mentawai can be roughly translated as follows. "Similar to the other verses (on the Koran, we can expect) reward and punishment from Allah swt. If (you have) faith and piety, the country will be awash with blessings, if (we do) evil (we will be given) hardships." The italics are my own additions to improve sentence legibility, albeit with a bit of interpretation on my part.
From the tweet, we can concur that our minister believes that God gives rewards and punishment in form of catastrophes. Disasters may occur due to natural causes or human intervention, in which I agree that we can interpret the man-made disasters as an alarm call to be heeded, but I believe that natural disasters should not be interpreted as a message from God.
The annual floods in Jakarta can be taken as an example of man-made disaster - people agree that waterways and canals in Jakarta are mostly clogged with garbage and mud. The rapid unchecked development of the sprawling metropolis and its uphill satellite cities has decreased open green space, which in turn will reduce its capacity to contain the rainfall. This can be a clarion call to strengthen governmental building and zoning regulations and raise an awareness in public sanitation habits. It can also be a case in which God calls mankind to preserve his creations in a better way.
However, I believe that a natural disaster should not be interpreted as a punishment from God. Based on the tenet common to all faiths that God is benevolent and just, we can conclude that God would not intend harm those who are innocent. Natural disasters strike in an unpredictable manner to sinners and the pious alike. If a disaster is intended as a punishment, then it should happen specifically to those who God meant to punish, which in is the places where the sins are allegedly commited. Statistics should then show that natural disasters correlate to crime rates - something that is unlikely to happen. As an example, no major natural disaster has happened in Las Vegas, which has the highest crime rate in USA.
To say that God punishes the unrighteous through natural disaster amounts up to saying that the people victimized, such as Mentawai and Central Java inhabitants, were deemed sinful in their ways. To argue that the natural disaster victims are not the wayward ones and they bear the burden of other's faults implies that God punish innocents with suffering they did not cause - refuting the principle that God is good and just, one of the basic principles of religion. Natural disasters should therefore not be portrayed as a punishment - however, it can be said that in hard times, God reminds us to always help those in need.
As a conclusion, God's message can be heard in any kind of situations, especially in dire circumstances. In man-made disaster, it can be a reminder to carefully examine our steps - and in natural disasters, that we should help others in need. We should not treat a natural disaster as a punishment from God, because it would violate the principles of a just and benevolent God.
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PS: this is the first essay out of 18. Should have finished by lunchtime but due to long hiatus in writing, it had taken 2 hours to complete this writing.
Well, I know I've mentioned that I am going to write some fiction, but as the turn of events have led me, I have a test going on in less than 3 weeks in Jakarta. The major part is essay writing, so I will be setting my sights on a new project : 18 essays, one for each day before the big test, published daily around lunchtime.
Wish me luck for the GRE test!
Autour de moi / All around me
Je ne vois pas / I could not see
Qui sont des anges / Who are the angels
Surement pas moi / Surely not me
Encore une fois / Once again
Je suis cassée / I am broken
Encore une fois / Once again
Je n'y crois pas / I don't believe it
I have been toiling around with the idea of writing a fiction with angels as the main theme for quite some time. Some rough drafts and sketches were written and lost, but the idea remains alive in the backburner, even years later. Only recently has it begun coalescing into a workable wireframe, with some important pieces of the puzzle falling into place. I have by no means a complete path ahead of me, but I've got enough to start and I am going to wade into the writing just so I will finish this journey one day.
Serialized fiction, of course, is probably as new as the daytime soap opera - I first learnt that it is the way novelists in Japan write - the same way they produce manga magazines. My point in using the blog was just so that I could finish a form of writing still recognizable as a novel. I write mostly for myself, so I will not dedicate efforts to promote it. Anyway, the idea was also to experiment with writing in the dizzying array of media available as a canvas onto which we can write. It is possible that as we move from the paper print into retina displays and our attention spans are getting shorter by the day, our writing and reading experience will shift into these new interconnected mash of hypertext.
Here is the beginning : --- *
Hope you enjoy it.
(* the link is closed for now. will get back with another post later, hopefully.
