Abad 21 begini, masih ngurusi begituan??

Ingat pelajaran elektronika SMA tidak? Ingat kan ya soal resistor, kapasitor, kuat arus, daya, dll?

Itu pelajaran dasar elektronika. Dasar sekali. Sudah jaman dulu banget orang nemu itu.

Tapi silakan kaget. Di depan saya skrg ada paper berjudul "Resistive Power in CMOS Circuits" yang dipublish tahun 2004. Heh? Setelat itukah paper ini harus keluar? Atau mungkin hal sepele semacam ini masih bisa dijadikan perdebatan sampai sekarang?

Ternyata bisa.

Salah satu kalimat di paper itu berbunyi begini:

"Confusion, however, exists as to whether and how to consider resistive I square R power losses within the interconnect line."

Haha... tahu aja ni orang. I am one of those confused, to tell you the truth...

Lalu, ada tulisan begini:

"Greater line resistance can also increase the short-circuit power dissipation of the driver and the load gate."

Baruuu tadi siang diskusi dengan dosen. Beliau berpendapat bahwa line resistance tidak akan ngefek ke driver.

Oke, yang kedua ini mungkin bukan pelajaran SMA, tapi seharusnya hal-hal sepele seperti ini sudah ada kepastian nya dulu sekali, ketika teknologi CMOS mulai diperkenalkan awal 60-an dan booming awal 90-an... atau ... kapan ya CMOS mulai booming? Hmm... mungkin memang teknologi CMOS masih agak muda ya pancen e... bukti nya di pelajaran SMA tidak disinggung dulu itu? Sekarang sudah masuk belum ya?

Anyway, beberapa journal paper yang membahas teori dasar sederhana semacam ini banyak yang masih dipublish akhir2 ini... di abad 21 bayangkan... di jaman orang sudah sangat melesat jauh nemu cloning, nanotubes, micromachines, quantum computing, dll...

Moral of the story: publish yuk? :D

Membedakan karena kulit, rambut, dan mata nya beda...

Sudah sering buanget kita dengar cerita perlakuan buruk orang lain di luar negeri terhadap TKI kita misalnya, atau pandangan sinis bule terhadap saudari2 kita yang berjilbab, atau gerutuan nenek2 kulit putih ke orang kulit putih cenderung kuning yang terkesan suka nyelonong, misalnya...

Sikap rasis begini, memang memalukan. Tapi, sadarkah kita, di alam bawah sadar, sebenarnya kita tidak kalah rasis? (yg kumaksud dgn kita adalah kita warga Indonesia sebangsa dan setanah air)

Contoh. Banyak saudara kita yang beragama Islam di tanah air tercinta kita, ternyata punya kebencian berlebih ke orang Yahudi. Memang kupikir alasan kita untuk itu cukup kuat, tapi kebencian kita cenderung menutup mata bahwa sebenarnya tidak semua orang Yahudi itu jahat. Pernahkah kita ketemu dan kenal langsung dengan orang Yahudi? Kalau di Indonesia pasti akan sangat jarang. Kenyataannya, mereka biasa2 saja kok orangnya. Prejudice kita saja yang membuat kita seolah buta. Dan sikap ini memang dipanas2i oleh media di negeri kita yang secara kasat mata memang anti-israel (untungnya sih ;D tapi entah di lubuk hati mereka gimana). Perlukah kuingatkan bahwa kita masih sama2 mengimani nabi Ibrahim?

Kedua. Kita sendiri sering berlaku rasis terhadap bule. Setiap bule yang kita lihat pasti kita asosiasikan dengan budaya barat yang buebas, pergaulan kumpul kebo, budaya minum, dll. Belakangan ini, kita juga punya praduga bersalah bahwa mereka benci Islam. Well, mungkin ini memang benar adanya... tapi tidak berarti kita harus punya jarak dengan mereka. Just take it easy, anggap ga ada apa2? Temani dan pergauli sewajarnya lah mereka, kalau perlu disahabati... Kita juga, jangan sok suci. Di Indonesia mungkin keadaannya sama parahnya walaupun ga seterbuka di sini...

Ketiga. Dan yang ini tidak perlu melihat keadaan di negara lain. Cukup melihat ke dalam kita sendiri, di Indonesia. Ingat kerusuhan '98? Siapakah dari saudara kita yang terpaksa meninggalkan rumahnya? I need not mention it kan? Saudara kita yang kebetulan dilahirkan sipit (me myself is sipit, so i'm allowed to make such comments huahaha) banyak yang diuber2 our so called 'pribumi', entah itu karena iri cemburu atau apa entahlah... Kuakui saja, memang ini memilukan banget. Jadi malu rasanya. I'm not chinese, but at one point in my life (when i was a kid), pernah mengalami diskriminasi dengan alasan begini: "because you are chinese...", kata 'temanku' waktu itu.

Damai yuk damai damai... saling pengertian po' o... :D

So you want to take a research degree...

That's good. There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing a PhD or a master's degree with research. But if you decide to do so, just make sure:
1. You believe that the 2-5 years time you spend is really worth it.
2. You have a strong interest in the research topic you're about to take.
3. Some supporting background, may that be experience or knowledge, in you research topic would definitely help.
4. Better get a really good supervisor for your thesis work. By saying good, i mean that he/she should at least have followed the latest development on the subject. Or even better, she/he had actually worked with significant experience in the topic you are about to dive in.
5. Being idealistic is a good thing. But sooner or later you will inevitably learn that being realistic helps more often ;-)

So good luck to all. And to myself... :-(

Kabut pagi...

Ini seri foto kabut pagi yang melanda Sydney kemarin. Peristiwa ini cukup mendadak dan aneh. Pukul 5.30 pagi (msh gelap) kusaksikan sendiri langit nya cerah dengan gemerlap bintang2. Pukul 6.30, ketika sudah agak terang di luar, baru kusadari ada kabut. Aneh kan?

Anyway, begitu tahu ada kabut, i quickly grab my gears and head to the city. Dalam benakku, aku pengin ambil foto mirip punya Peter Lik, yang foto harbour bridge berkabut dan ada kapal lewat kalau tidak salah dan ada matahari terbit, keren deh pokoknya walaupun BW. Ini foto2 gagal yang kudapat... selamat menikmati kalau bisa :-(

On Global Warming...

Dari tumpukan file lama, entah kenapa sampai nulis beginian, tentang global warming...

A few moments ago I watched on television, a speech by a prominent economist from England. His name was Sir something Stern. Shoot, I’m terrible at remembering names.

The main point of his talk was that global climate change is a real thing, and it would cost much more to us if we don’t do anything about it than if we start to do something to reduce the effect as soon as possible. He described that the effect of global climate change will differ in many countries: in Australia it would be a severe drought, in China it would be the melting of the himalayas. Most of these effects are water related, and also not less important is the temperature change itself. By 2000 something, there will be an increase of 5 degrees celcius on average. As you might remember a few months ago there was a heat wave which striked Europe and killed several hundreds of people, mainly the elderly. This might become an ordinary phenomenon in the near future.

To tackle this global problem, each nation must cooperate and collaborate in a joint effort with the same commitment and goal to reduce gas house effects. There has been an increasing concern not only among the rich countries, but also the poor and developing countries regarding this issue. For example, Indonesia which is now number three in emiting carbondioxide in the world after the US and china due to its severe deforestation has raised concerns to fix this problem.

Global climate change is a serious problem, and it would cost less to us if we act now to stop it. Very important our “green policies” and actions and investments might seem now, but the effect will not be felt in at least 30, 50, or even 150 years. Yet this is the only viable option to do, and it can be done. Hence, in addition to efforts in reducing gas emmision, adaptation to the global climate change in the future is also equally important.

That’s a brief summary of what I can remember of his speech. This reminds me of a discussion broadcast on ABC a few weeks back, about global climate change and how it can affect Australia. As we all know, Australia has a rich source of coal, and they are exporting it to the world. This coal mining industry contributes largely in the Australian economy. It may also be a common knowledge that coal is not a clean source of energy, despite its still dominant use in the world as source of electrical power. This poses a difficult question to Australia: knowing that Australia will suffer from worse droughts in the future due to climatic change, can Australia discard coal technologies and use other energy source alternatives to make a cleaner air? And is this economically feasible?

The discussion went into a sort of a debate, one side still holding on the idea that alternative sources of energy cannot replace the conventional sources like coal, gas and petroleum to meet energy demands.

Now back to my thesis. About low power interconnects. Hang on. If you like to connect one matter to another, actually global climate change and interconnects are related in some way and another. First, heat is a common enemy in both cases. Excess heat trapped in the atmosphere is what causes trouble on earth. Similarly, excess heat caused by extremely fast clocking in integrated circuits can potentially limit chip performances, and power dissipation (you might consider this a more polite way of saying “heat”).

Secondly, both problems can be aleviated by using power more efficiently.

Because I am more interested in chips rather than the global warming of the earth (well, at least in the time being, because I’m almost dead meat here racing with time to finish up my bloody thesis), let us discuss more on this topic.

...

Maag, perih, mual, walhasil... muntah

(WARNING: the following content might not be suitable for people who are easily offenced by talks about some abnormal human physiological process)

"Semuuut semut kecil, sayaaa mau tanya... apakah kamu, di dalam tanah, tidak kegelapan??"

Sori, baru saja iTunes ku nyetel lagu ini... krn lucu, kuketik saja di sini... sbg pembukaan, hehe. Pembukaan yang ngawur :D

Anyway, kemarin sore adalah sore paling menderita yang kualami sepanjang 2007 ini.

To make it short, this is what happened:
- 1.00pm: started to get hungry
- 1.30pm: had indian chicken with salad for lunch
- 2.15pm: felt worsening stomach pain
- 4.00pm: stomach pain got pretty severe, went home to take obat maag, went straight to bed
- couldnt remember: vomiting
- soon afterwards: vomiting again
- maybe 1 hour after: last vomit (i think that was the last chunk of chicken that went out...)
- 2.00am: woke up, feeling much better
- 3.00am: had late dinner at McD Kingsford

Kejadian ini cukup mengherankan, mengingat betapa mendadaknya 'serangan'. Sebenarnya, apakah penyebab sakitku ini? Apakah ayam yang kumakan? Maag? Atau masuk angin? Atau kurang tidur?

Mari kita tela'ah satu-satu:
1. Ayam yg kumakan
Ayam yang kumakan adalah ayam yg dimasak ala india. Lupa namanya. Bumbu nya kemerahan. Baru kali ini si memang, makan menu itu. Dulu beberapa kali makan di tempat itu tdk ada masalah. Pernah sekali makan nasi yang agak pedas, perut lantas mual. Tapi itu satu kejadian di antara mungkin 5 kali aku makan di situ. Di jewels of india, kantin badabagan UNSW. Mengenai kehalalan mereka, dulu pernah tanya apakah daging mereka halal, mbak nya bilang iya. Hafiz juga, bilang halal dan pernah mengajak aku makan di sana. Regardless, i think i might not come back to them in the near future. Sebenarnya ga terlalu doyan india.

Dulu sekali pernah juga mengalami sakit perut perih setelah makan ayam Oporto dan minum pepsi saat perutku kosong. Tapi tidak sampai muntah waktu itu.

2. Maag
Jarang sekali aku kena maag. Biasanya kena kalau skip makan. Pagi kemarin sarapan nasi cukup byk dgn telur. Perut ku tidak kosong jadi mungkin bukan ini penyebabnya.

3. Masuk angin
Gejala masuk angin kan biasanya pusing2 kan? Ini tidak ada pusing2. Pusingnya setelah menahan rasa sakit perut ga ketulungan, selama berjam2 di kasur rumah. Tapi mungkin juga sih ga nyadar kalau masuk angin, apalagi di musim gugur skrg ini suhu udara turun naik seenaknya...

4. Kurang tidur
Dua malam terakhir memang tidurku cuma 5 jam per malam, kira2, dengan jam tidur menyerupai Adhika (mulai tidur saat subuh). Rata2. Mungkin ini ngepek juga? Entahlah.

Aya, kalau km baca ini, kira2 diagnosismu gimana? :D Kenapa si orang bisa muntah?