Tikno Viewpoint

What is Ph.D.? Yes, I know it is a prestigious academic degree. Only that? Hmm... I think NO . It's hard to describe it in words. You better focus on the illustration below: And... the things that made me fall silent is what was said by Matt, below: "If you zoom in on the boundary of human knowledge in the direction of genetics, there's something just outside humanity's reach. My wife and I chose to start funding these graduate students after we learned that our son has a rare, fatal genetic disorder. It may be too late for my son, but it's not too late for other children. Even one child suffering is one child too many. The only way to end this kind of suffering is science. And, the best way to do science is through graduate students." What a beautiful thought that touched my heart. Note: This work was originally from The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D. by Matt Might.

Indonesia will celebrates 65th Independence Day on August 17, 2010. Various events like game competition, ceremonial, decorations, and excitement happening on all over the country to welcome this special day, making the atmosphere felt more patriotic. I do not know why current atmosphere triggers my thought to ponder a simple question like this: "What is the meaning of independence?" This question is in the context of a country. It is also possible to reflect the meaning of independence for a country out there, not only for Indonesia. In popular sense, the meaning of independence is being free from colonialism. That sense was popular at the time of World War I and II, but for present century I tend to use a different approach. So to ponder the question, I take an example of a smallest entity of a state, namely a family. A family (assuming a father as the head of a family) can be said to have been independent if : Independent to give love, peace, and harmony equitably to a...

Starting on 7 August until 14 September 2010 (Indonesia time) the night entertainment venues (such as pubs, bars, cafes, discotheques, karaoke), massage parlors and whorehouses (brothel) must be closed temporarily almost in most regions in Indonesia. The reason of this closure is to respect and to provide serenity for the Muslims during the fasting month (Indonesian: Bulan puasa). Generally, each city government use the formula: From H-3 to H+3 . Means three days before the first day of fasting until three days after Eid ul-Fitr (Indonesian: Idul Fitri). This is approximately equal to one month plus one week of no activity for such business. This maybe a consequence because Muslim is majority in this country. The circumstance is definitely different in the countries with majority non-Muslim. Last year in some cities like Jakarta, Manado and the cities in the province of Bali and Irian Jaya, the night entertainment venue were not closed totally but the city authority limiting their op...

A user of www.Zimbio.com with the initials "Pinoy" has stolen my articles titled " Long Journey for Alcoholic Beverage in Indonesia " without my permission nor mentioning the source of original post (my article). I call this plagiarism or cheating . He/She has completely copying (stole) my article into his/her blog and then submit that article to www.Zimbio.com using his/her blog as the source with user name "Pinoy". Firstly I found my article was published at www.Zimbio.com with the URL: http://www.zimbio.com/member/pinoy/articles/Lz8BZTf7gh9/%20Long+journey+alcoholic+beverage+Indonesia And below is the captured image from Zimbio page, where my article has been stolen by Pinoy. Click the image to enlarge and look at the red arrow or visit its link to dig more. You can see that the source of article was mentioned from "global-ids.blogspot.com" (plagiarist blog). Out of curiosity then I clicked on the link and found my article are also stolen an...

As I have mentioned in previous post titled "Oil spills and its impact - what you think" that we should not only focus on the incident, its causes or its impacts, in association with the use of unfriendly energy to environment. I also mentioned that scientists and the government involvement through regulations and international agreement can play a role and necessary. So, in this post I want to share the good news for those who care about clean energy. Good news on July 19-20, 2010 quoted from the website of Clean Energy Ministerial : The first-ever Clean Energy Ministerial will bring together ministers and stakeholders from more than 20 countries to collaborate on policies and programs that accelerate the world's transition to clean energy technologies. The meeting will provide an opportunity for groups of governments and other participants to announce actions to accelerate deployment of clean energy technologies. The agenda of the Clean Energy Ministerial will focus on...

Who can ensure that oil spills, like BP oil spill , will not happen again. The oil companies certainly will takes responsibility when oil spills happen and promise to increase safety on production and distribution process. Yeah that's good. But how about its impact to our environment? In the future let's not focus too much to just discuss the causes of the incident, its impact, and how to handle it. Better focus on the use of alternative energy such as solar energy or electrical energy that derived (generated) from geothermal heat, hydro power or sunlight. Maybe I'm just easy to say but that's what I think after watching these video. How with you? Post Update. Comment from Looney to this post has sparked my attention, so I think it's good to copy his comment and my reply to him below: Looney: I am all for alternate energy, but not not if the government picks the technology and then pours billions of taxpayer money into it, or forces people to buy products through re...

Lately, I feel very worried by unscrupulous users of Facebook who already out of the spirit of Facebook motto namely "Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life". Some of Facebook users who use this site only for uploading pornographic images and shared it using private setting to certain people (not shared to everyone) and the other using it for spreading the hatred feelings, like a Facebook Group calling for Obama's death . Although a very controversial Pages on Facebook namely " Everybody Draw Mohammed Day " which it created by Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris has been closed by Facebook after receiving protests from various parties including protests from the Indonesian government , the most recent controversy is the two opposing group on Facebook who mocked each other namely: "Everybody Draw Mohammed day (Indonesian version)" and the other one is "Everybody Draw Jesus day (Indonesian version)" . As I observed on i...