Archive for the ‘Essay’ Category
Uberman Sleep Schedule
(my “HW001 English Proficiency” oral test preparation)
Good afternoon everyone. Today, I’m going to talk about a unique sleeping schedule named Uberman sleep schedule. It’s a kind of polyphasic sleep. Polyphasic sleep is a practice of sleeping multiple times in a 24-hour-period. Usually more than two, on contrast to normal biphasic sleep that we usually do. Uberman sleep schedule, which is named by Dr. Claudio Stampi, a chronobiology researcher, is adopted by many animals sleep behaviour. Instead of sleeping in long chunks of time, such as the eight hours a night recommended to humans, certain animals sleep for short periods of time throughout the day and night.
Uberman itself propose 6 times of sleep in a day of 24-hour-period. Each of them is 20 minutes long and separated 4 hours after another. In total, people doing Uberman schedule only sleep 2 hours in a day. If you do a searching on google about it, you will find that todays more people doing this sleep schedule. Anyway, every type of sleep schedule has its own pros and cons.
There are at least four pros why people doing Uberman sleep schedule. First, you have a lot of time to do everything you want. With 22 hours a day you may feel like superman since more things can be done compare to normal people who only have 15 up to 17 hours. Secondly, you will not lose every phase of your day, because you will be ready every time. You willl see the morning, the afternoon, the evening, and even the dawn. Thirdly, for those who want to have a diet, this kind of sleep schedule perhaps will help you much. Lastly, some resources say that many geniuses have this type of sleep. For instance, Leonardo Da Vinci and Thomas Alva Edison are said to be success having Uberman sleep schedule. So, maybe you will also become genius, if you do so.
Do cell phones make our lives better?
1Cell phones have made our lives worse, not better. 2Remember when you could eat in a restaurant without hearing the obnoxious ring of someone’s cell phone? 3From restaurants to movie theaters, cell phones violate peace and quiet. 4And not only do they disturb others, but they also distract the people using them. 5Have you ever driven behind someone talking on a cell phone? 6You can tell that the driver is on the phone because of the changing speed and swerving. 7The crazy thing is that people think cell phones have made their lives easier. 8The truth is, they have not. 9My sister, for example, uses her cell phone to call her office for messages. 10She works twenty-four hours a day now, thanks to her cell phone. 11Then there are all the mental burdens of figuring out how to carry the phone (belt clip or phone bag?), remembering to take it along, keeping it charged, and finding a place with good reception. 12How do I know these things? 13I was once a cell phone user, but I saw the light and broke free from cell phone bondage. 14You know, it’s not called a cell phone without good reason.
(taken from http://www.mywritinglab.com/)
What Olympian Means To Indonesia
Looking back at some recent cases, I still wonder why Indonesia’s government still do not care about its science achievers. A lot of science medalists face a complicated and bureaucratic system to enter the national university. As a matter of fact, this mid-year, about 10-15 students from Indonesian Computing Olympiad Team (TOKI) took Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) entrance test for informatics faculty (where they have specialty), but guess how many of them pass the test? Only 3 of them. It’s really strange, one more time I say it’s really strange. What is ITB looking for? Without any doubt, I can say that they are the best students in computing field for this year. I think somehow it is better to give a special track to enter the university for the best students, like them. This case occurs not only in computing field, students in physics, mathematics, or other field of science also face some difficulties to enter the national university. If the national universities can say “if they are really smart students they can easily pass the test”, I can answer “it is not that easy”; because mostly science achievers who compete for the olympiad do not have enough time to fully concentrate on their academic studies, so I think it is relevant if they don’t achieve an outstanding academic result.
Moreover, next term, one of four students who have represented Indonesia in International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) 2007 will take a university degree, but until today he still can’t find a better way to enter the national university, especially ITB and University of Indonesia (UI), whereas to enter Nanyang Technological University (NTU) who ranked far higher than both ITB and UI, he is exempted from the entrance test and will most probably get the scholarship. What does it tell you?
There is also a funny conversation when someone who got International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) 2005 medal asked about this problem to someone whom I believe has some authority in Indonesia and received a reply like this “Well, we can’t always care about this case, still there are a lot of urgent problems in Indonesia educational system, you’re still lucky cause there were a lot of poor children who can’t get education”. What’s so funny? I think the reply didn’t answer his question at all, did it? It’s a totally different problem and also, is it so hard to just give a letter of recommendation to all national universities for tak care science achievers? So far I don’t know how to solve it. I think there is no other way than to give it back to the government itself. But I know something for sure, if the government keeps on ignoring it, Indonesia will always lose their best resources as it has always been.
(thanks for Mr. Chriswan Sungkono’s corrections)
Human-Robot in 22th Century
One day, I have imagined how the future will be. Now we are living in the 21st century. From the development of modern world nowadays, I imagine in the 22nd century people will become more accustomed to digital life; in other words, we can say that everything will be computerized. People will be used to have a smart chip on their vehicles, houses and even clothes. They will have cars that automatically move and doors that automatically open when the owners are back home. Besides that, the development of one form of computing and electrical invention will also grow fast, namely the robotic technology. Those days, robots will be mass produced. People will call them “human-robot”. Why? Because they will be able to do human housework as well as we do. In houses, they can clean the dishes, wash clothes, and everything a housewife or maid usually does. Moreover, they will also able to do worker and laborer tasks. As we know that many work and labor tasks in many sectors are too risky for human, those days we will not face these problems again, because we can substitute the workers and laborers with human-robots. In simple words we can say that human-robots will be able to substitute all human works as long as the tasks are clearly stated and require no deep-thinking, because however smart they are, they are still robots; they will not have human brain and intuition, they can’t learn or invent something new, they will only remember and do tasks which the owners set. By only imagining it, you may figure out how comfortable life will be, but don’t forget to consider the bad side too. Everything that has a good side has a bad one too. In this case, you may figure out how people will be lazy if every hard and boring task can be performed by robots. Besides that, it will make a great impact to the economic sector, because people who do not possess a good skill will not get employment and will be substituted by robots, which are more profitable to the employer. Maybe the only solution is the ethics on technology, when technology grows that fast, human have to develop not only the technology but also the ethics for it.
(thanks for Mr. Chriswan Sungkono’s corrections)
English Now!
Hmm, in order to improve my english skill, I think it will be better for me to start writing in English, including in this blog. So, welcome to my “new languaged” blog. Enjoy it!
(Thanks also for Mr.Chriswan Sungkono who have encouraged me to do this, glad to learn English from you)