Coloured

When I born, I am black
When I grow up, I am black
When I go in sun, I am black
When I scared, I am black
When I sick, I am black
and when I die, I am still black

and you White fella
When you born, you're pink
When you grow up, you're white
When you go in sun, you're red
When you cold, you're blue
When you scared, you're yellow
When you sick, you're green
and when you die, you're grey

and you calling me coloured??

--------
This poem was nominated for the best poem of 2005,
written by an African kid. What an amazing thought from a little kid!
Thanks for sis sebeningdoamalam who has communicated this poem to me.

Ozone layer and Ozone hole

Largest Ever Ozone Layer (Picture courtesy of NASA)

In recent decades, media tell about a 'hole' in the ozone layer have appeared with regularity. And each year the 'hole' is getting bigger and bigger until it reaches the biggest ever like the one displayed in the photo above. The true fact is maybe around 75% of the ozone over the South Pole (the picture above shows the ozone hole over the South Pole) disappears in the south polar spring when the hole develops but it returns to near normal levels in the autumn.

Now what is exactly ozone? Ozone (O₃) is toxic to all life forms at high concentrations, but it is an unavoidable fact that this Oh-Three gas is important in the atmosphere because it acts as a shield to protect the earth from relentless solar radiation. If more ozone layer was depleted, more solar radiation will batter the earth causing a dramatic increase in the incidence of various skin tumours and eye cataracts.

The most contributors of the ozone depletion is the excessive use of chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs, this is familiar to many as the Freons used widely in (old) air-conditioners and (old) fridges. Why those CFCs are very popular in use? The asnwer is simple: because they are inexpensive and very stable, yet not toxic, flammable nor corrosive. CFCs are ideal for many applications. They are used in aerosol cans as propellants, as solvents, as refrigerants (like the ones used in old air-conditioners and old fridges), as fire extinguishers and even they are ideal for blowing bubbles into fomaed plastic insulation.

But alas, the stability of the CFCs itself that takes the toll! CFCs do persist in the environment or in the atmosphere, it makes the chemical to slowly find the way to the upper atmosphere where they go through a series of reactions that eventually result in ozone depletion. These series of reactions involve ultraviolet light from the sun which strikes a CFC moelcule. The carbon-chlorine bond is broken, producing a very reactive free radical Cl^.. The chlorine free radical then reacts with ozone to produce oxygen and ClO. The chemical reactions that take place is depicted below:

UV light
CFCl₃ ---------------> CFCl₂ + Cl^.

Cl^. + O₃ -----------> ClO^. + O₂

Recognition of the problem led governments in the world to take action before it's gone too late. And worldwide efforts to reduce the use of CFC began with an international agreement reached in 1987. A total ban of CFCs was reached in 1996 worldwide including in our country, Indonesia.

(Written by Yari NK, simplified from various sources)

A Taliban soldier and his commander (jocular posting)

A Taliban soldier with a rocket launcher and his commander were in full alert. They were ordered to shoot down any unidentified foreign planes. Minutes later, came an America's F-16 overhead. The Taliban commander ordered the soldier to shoot down the plane. In no time a rocket was launched from the launcher and hit the American plane asunder. After they shot down the American plane, minutes later came a Russia's Sukhoi in the sky. Again, the commander ordered the soldier to shoot down the plane. The soldier aimed the launcher at the plane and successfully shoot the Russian plane down. After a few minutes came France's Rafale fighter overhead, like in the previous cases, the commander ordered the soldier to bring it down. Again, the soldier did the task very well in shooting down the plane. After finishing off the French plane, soon after came Indonesia's CN-235 in the sky, but unlike in the previous cases, the commander now remained silent and did not give any orders to the soldier. The soldier was amazed and eventually he asked his commander:

"Sir, shall we shoot down that plane too?" asked the soldier
"Save the rocket for the next plane son!" replied the commander
"But why??" wondered the soldier
"Don't worry son! The plane will hit the ground sooner or later without having to be shot down!" replied the commander calmly.

Retold in English by Yari NK

Indonesia 1, Saudi Arabia 2 aaaargh!

INDONESIA 1 SAUDI ARABIA 2

This is not about political stuff, this is not about war whatsoever. It is just about soccer or football. It is in AFC Asian Cup 2007, the Saudis beat us in our own homeland! A goal from a header in injury time is really a cruel especially if you've been playing a draw for 90 minutes! The goal resulted from a free kick just outside a penalty box. The high ball landed on a Saudi player's (I forgot his name, instead heck who cares??) head whose will net it to make a score! What a disastrous result! Ok enough! I can't say anything more!

How much heat can one stand?

How much heat do you think a man can stand? In the tropics (and in some parts of the subtropics as well) a temperature can rise up to a noticeable 45^oC in the room or in the shade. Even in some cases or in some places a temperature can soar up as high as 55^oC in the shade. In the region of "Death Valley" in California, if I'm not mistaken, the temperature of 57^oC had been recorded.

Ok now you might guess that above-mentioned temperatures are given as temperatures in the room or in the shade. Ok I'm telling you this, that's because the temperatures recorded in the room or in the shade is the best representation of the right air temperatures anywhere. If the thermometer you are using for measuring the temperature is exposed to the sun directly, it will be heated up to a much greater temperature than that of the surrounding air. In short, it is pointless in referring to readings of a thermometer exposed to the sun, speaking of heat waves!

Ok, now let's go back to our main topic above, how much heat can a man stand? Two British scientists in 1940s, Blagden and Chentry had proved that we can bear a temperature even above boiling point, as high as 160^oC by gradually warming up in a very dry air! Those two British scientists spent hours on end in a heated bakery furnace.

So Where does the explanation lie? In that our body actually repels the high temperature by producing excessive sweat to keep down the temperature close to normal. This abundant sweat absorbs much of the heat from the air layer directly envelopping the body, thus adequately lowering the temperature. The only essentials that need to be observed are for the body not to come into contact with the source of heat directly and for the air itself to be near absolute dry! A wet or humid air will impede the body to produce excessive sweat.

In daily case we understand how it can happen in the case of dry air. if you've travelled to many places in the world, it is easier to stand a heat of 37^oC in dry air than that of 24^oC in humid air.

(Adapted by Yari NK from a Russian entertainment physics book by Y. Perelman and A. Shkarovsky)

The callus begins to heal

It all began in January this year when I felt a bump on my right foot at the sole, and I started to feel pain when I stepped upon flat and hard surface. At first I didn't know what exactly it was, I tried to feel it, it was hard and thickened. It could be a coming pus that was ready to ooze or it could be a wart caused by a virus, I was not so sure. After I leafed through a Medical handbook to seek information on dermal diseases, I narrowed my suspicion on only two cases: wart or callus. Then I looked for more information on these two dermal problems on the Web and I found the whole answer. And the answer was backed by the abundant pictures that confirmed that it was a callus that was emerging from my ball on the sole of my right foot. It couldn't be a wart because a wart is highly contagious and easily widespread either by direct contact or indirect contact. So because there are no other 'warts' develop on the other parts of my body especially on my foot so I concluded that it was a callus, and it really was! Ok, callus is a thickening and hardening skin, especially on the feet. It is caused by constant pressures that work on our feet, especially when the elasticity of the footwear is poor. Callus is actually a natural mechanism of the skin to protect the inner tissues from deforming and injury.

Ok now let's get back to my own callus. The pain escalated and reached its peak in February when I had to curve my foot whenever I walked on a hard and flat surface. But in March the hardened skin started to peel off and left a small ugly pit on my foot, but after the hardened skin peeled off the pain was almost gone! No bleeding wound was produced from the peel-off. But soon after I noticed that the pit began to develop another hardened skin. I thought at first it was a normal skin developping to seal the pit. But I was wrong it was another callus since it's overgrown the normal level of the skin. But this time the bumpy callus caused less pain. Until two weeks ago I noticed that the hardened skin began to flake off again, and it left no pit as left by the previous peel-off. And the pain is getting less and less. And I hope in the near future the callus will be completely gone! Pray for me!

(Yari NK)

Venus Williams and Roger Federer Lift the Trophies

Venus Williams and Roger Federer seized the titles at Wimbledon 2007

After watching 2-week-action of tennis from Wimbledon through the television, we witnessed Roger Federer and Venus Williams seized the singles titles for this year's Wimbledon. Roger Federer, the first seeded in the tournament, had been predicted to grab the title long before the tournament began, and he eventually confirmed the prediction to seize the title for the fifth time in a row. This achievement equals the achievement of the Swede, Björn Borg, who took the most honourable title five times in a row in 1976-1980.

Meanwhile, Venus Williams grabbed the ladies' singles title for the fourth time (though not in a row). Venus Williams, only seeded 23th, came from the back door to beat the higher seeds including the second seed Russia's Maria Sharapova in the last eight. Venus is the lowest seed to capture the title ever since the turnover of the millennium.

Congratulation for Roger and Venus. I can't wait for another Wimbledon next year!

(Yari NK)

Reading an Indonesian address

ARIEF KEMALUDIN
PT RAJA MAS
JL. RAJAMANTRI KULON III/15
RT 003/05
KEL. TURANGGA
KEC. BANDUNG SELATAN
BANDUNG 40265



In this posting I'd like to take you to read an Indonesian address. It might be very useful for those who want to visit the country (It happens to be my country!). That imaginary address above is a typical Indonesian address. Like an address in any countries, an Indonesian address also has its uniqueness though it is not hard to understand it. Now let's examine each line of the address above:

ARIEF KEMALUDIN, is a name of the addressee. In Indonesia the last name is not necessarily a family name or a surname. There are lots of Indonesian names that don't bear a surname. So in this case, Kemaludin is not necessarily a surname. To identify whether the last name is a given name or a surname in an Indonesian name is very tricky, and there are no specific ways to identify it.

PT RAJA MAS, is signifying a corporation. PT is more or less identical to Co., or Ltd. in English. Some smaller businesses may bear the acronym Fa (Firma) or CV (Commanditaire Vennootschap). But the use of CV has become obsolete since it is derived from Dutch acronym. Alongside with PT, some company's names also bear an acronym 'Tbk." on the tail. It signifies that the company is a public company.

JL. RAJAMANTRI KULON III/15,
JL. is an abbreviation of 'Jalan' which in English is translated as 'street' or 'road'
RAJAMANTRI KULON III, is the name of the street. The roman numeral III on the name signifies that there are other streets which are called RAJAMANTRI KULON. There are RAJAMANTRI KULON I and RAJAMANTRI KULON II somewhere in the vicinity. And the number 15 signifies the number of the building. It is very common to separate the numeral III and the number 15 with a slash (/) in Indonesian address. But the using of 'No.' in place of the slash has become increasingly popular in Indonesia. So, JL. RAJAMANTRI KULON III No. 15 is identical to JL. RAJAMANTRI KULON III/15.

RT 003/05
KEL. TURANGGA
KEC. BANDUNG SELATAN
Those three lines above are the names of the localities in Indonesia. In personal or business letters, since the introduction of post code in Indonesia, the using of these localities in the letters has become obsolete. But if you come to Indonesia and if you would like to find a building, this information containing these localities' names are very helpful.

BANDUNG 40265
Bandung is the name of the city while 40265 is the post code. The post code in Indonesia always consists of 5 digits. If you find the number 1, 4, 5 and 6 in the first digit of the post code. It signifies that the address in the island of Java, the most populous island in the archipelago.

(Written by: Yari NK)

Sugar Substitute

When I had to stay the nights in the Tebet hospital about four months ago because we had to send our dad to the hospital since he fell and suffered from an intertrochanteric hip fracture, the doctor who examined my dad said that his glucose level in the blood was high and they needed to lower it down to minimize aftereffects that might come after the surgery. Well, alhmadulillah, the surgery itself went very smoothly after the doctor successfully controlled the glucose level in my dad's blood. And no negative aftereffects arose after the surgery. But it doesn't stop me from thinking to myself, because after he went out of the hospital yet we have to manage to control our dad's diet, that will help a lot to speed up my dad's recovery. Actually it is easy to find a sugar substitute in the market. High and low you will find saccahrine, cyclamate or aspartam to sweeten your beverages and food. But as I did the exhaustive searches in the Web, I found out that each individual of the substitutes above has never been a perfect replacement for sugar. Here I would like to highlight some of them from the various articles found in the Net.

Saccharine: This is the oldest sugar substitute. This artificial sweetener is approximately 300 times sweeter than sugar though often it leaves a bitter aftertaste. The upside of saccahrine is the stability of the molecular structure in high temperature and it does not react with other food's ingredients biochemically. So at the first place I think this will be the perfect substitute for sugar, at least before I read the next article about saccharine indicating that this artificial sweetener if used over a long period of time may give rise to malignant growth. At least the results in the labs on certain animal support such hypothesis. And the United States banned the use of saccharine in 1977. But later experiments from the labs show that no correlation between the malignant growth and the normal usage of saccharine! Scientists said that the malignant growth caused by saccharine on the labs' animal might be induced by ridiculously high dosage of saccharine given to the animal. The dosage of saccharine given in the experiments was hundreds of times higher than normal dose of human consumption. In 1991, the United States had lifted the ban over saccharine.

Cyclamate: Cyclamate is another artificial sweetener. Its sweetness is 30 - 50 times than that of sugar though it is not necessarily linear since for some people cyclamate leaves strong unpleasant or bitter aftertaste make cyclamate less favourite choice as the sugar substitute. The United States banned the use of cyclamate until today but in some 50 countries in the world including Canada, cyclamate is still approved as the sweetener. Some bacteria in the digestive system are suspected to produce cyclohexylamine from cyclamate to give rise to chronic toxicity in some experiments with animals. In the lab, the increase usage of cyclamate also results in the increased incidence of cancer. But later studies in both the UK and the US found that they could not reproduce the same result from such experiments done earlier! However, cyclamate is nowhere to be found here in the Indonesian market and it is enough for me to strike out cyclamate from the list! As simple as that!

Aspartame: The most popular artificial sweetener in Indonesian market. We will find easily products that come with this sweetener in diet products! According to an article I read, in our body, aspartame will be broken down into aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol (this one is highly toxic!). And further breakdown will produce formaldehyde (I remember some time ago in Indonesia there were products of noodles and meatballs or bakso containing this toxic ingredient!). For those who were born with phenylketonuria, aspartame can be a serious hazard to their health! In some experiments there is an indication that there is a relationship between the higher dosage of aspartame and the higher incidence of cancer. However up to now, there are no countries in the world are reported to ban aspartame from the market!

Xylitol: This is considered to be the 'safest' artificial sweetener. The reason is simple, that's because xylitol naturally occurs in the nature especially in some eucalyptic plants and in some berries! Yet more researches still need to be done to ensure the safety of xylitol over a long period of consumption! But for those of you who live in Indonesia and want to get this sweetener, it means you have to pay extra money since the nearest drugstore who sells this kind of sweetener is in Singapore!! Wait a minute! I thought I saw that Xylitol in a local supermarket! Yeah! Don't be fooled, it is Xylitol the gum from Lotte, not the sweetener itself! You get it??

Well, out of four artificial sweeteners outlined above I think I have to stick to aspartame because so far it is the best alternative especially when the availability comes in the first point of the list. It leaves me no choice. What about you people? Do you think it otherwise? Or do you have a better suggestion?

(Written by: Yari NK)

Ein schwieriger Gast ( A wearisome guest)

der Gast (G): Haben Sie Käse? (Guest (G) : Do you have cheese?)
der Kellner (K) : Ja. (The Waiter (W): Yes.)
G : Dann bitte ein Glas Käse (G : Then please a glass of cheese)
K : Ein Glas Käse? (W: a glass of cheese?)
G : Ja. (G: Yes.)
K : Sie meinen : ein Stück Käse?? (W : you mean a slice of cheese??)
G : Nein, ich meine ein Glas Käse! (G: No I mean a glass of cheese!)
K : Entschuldigung, ein Glas Käse haben wir nicht. (W: I'm sorry, we don't have a glass of cheese.)
G : Was haben Sie denn? (G : Then what do you have?)
K : Kartoffelsalat, Würtschen, Kotelett, Schinken..... (W: potato salad, sausage, pork chop, ham....)
G : Gut, dann bitte ein Stück Kartoffelsalat! (G: Good, then please a slice of potato salad!)
K: Ein Stück Kartoffelsalat?? (W: A slice of potato salad??)
G: Ja. (G: Yes)
K: Sie meinen einen Teller Kartoffelsalat? (W: You mean a plate of potato salad?)
G: Nein, ich meine ein Stück Kartoffelsalat (G: No, I mean a slice of potato salad)
K: tut mir leid, ein Stück Kartoffelsalat haben wir nicht! (W: I'm sorry, we don't have a slice of potato salad either!)
G: Dann nicht - Haben Sie was zu trinken? (G: you don't? - Do you have something to drink?)
K : Bier, Limonade, Wein, Sekt..... (W: Beer, Lemonade, Wine, Champagne......)
G: Gut, dann bitte ein Teller Bier! (G: Good, then please a plate of beer!)
K : Einen Teller Bier?? (W: A plate of beer??)
G: Ja. (G: Yes.)
K: Sie meinen ein Glas Bier? (W: You mean a glass of beer?)
G: Nein, ich meine einen Teller Bier (G: No, I mean a plate of beer)
K: Verzeihung, einen Teller Bier haben wir nicht. (W: I'm sorry, we don't have a plate of beer.)
G: Was haben Sie deen überhaupt? (G: What do you really have then?)
K: Nun, wir haben zum Beispiel Käse, Omelett.... (W: Well, we have something like cheese, Omelette...)
G: Gut, dann bitte ein Glas Käse... (G: Cool, then please a glass of cheese....)
K: ... (W: ...)

(Retold from: Themen 1, Kursbuch, Lehrwerk für Deutsch als Frendsprache)

The Richter Scale

A picture of a tsunami sweeping over a coast

Do you remember the Sumatran earthquake that gave rise to a giant tidal wave or a tsunami that swept over the coasts of the Indian ocean back in December 2004? The massive earthquake was recorded at 9.1 on the Richter scale according to a US seismologic station. In comparison, the earthquake that destroyed San Francisco in 1906 has the magnitude of 8.3 on the Richter scale. In this posting I would not like to bring you to look into the earthquakes since I'm not a geologist nor a seismologist, but I would like you to compare the magnitudes between two earthquakes.

Ok. Now let's go back to the Sumatran earthquake that has the magnitude of 9.1 on the Richter scale, how powerful is it in comparison with an earthquake that has a magnitude of 2 (of the Richter scale, of course!)? Let's round off the figure 9.1 to 9 to make it simpler, how much more powerful is it than the one meausring 2? Does it give you 4.5 times? The right answer is 10,000,000 times !!! How can I come up with such 'horrid' answer? This is how the calculation goes:

First of all, you have to know that the Richter scale (named after a US seismologist, Charles Richter) is a logarithmic scale and not an arithmetic scale. Since it is a logarithmic scale, the correct way to calculate the comparison between two earthquakes is like this:

The Sumatran earthquake is on 9 as I mentioned it above, then bring the figure 9 to power figure 10, thus it gives you 1,000,000,000 (10 powered by 9 or 10⁹). The other earthquake is on 2, and let's bring the figure to power figure 10 as well, thus it gives you 100 (10 powered by 2 or 10²). From those two new figures above (1,000,000,000 and 100) we can figure out how stronger is the Sumatran quake than the one on the scale 2! It gives the result 10,000,000 or 10⁷(1,000,000,000 divided by 100)! Thus, the Sumatran quake is 10 million times stronger than the one measuring 2! From here, we can also compare between the magnitude of the Sumatran quake and the one of San Fransisco quake in 1906. After rounding off the exact magnitude of the San Fransisco quake to 8, we can figure out that the Sumatran quake is about 10 times stronger than that of the Frisco quake! Easy! isn't it?

(Yari NK)

Internet, the 'best' thing we've got today at home?

In the late 1970s, when I was a kid, I used to think what would life in the future be like? Inspired by loads of sci-fis like 'Lost in Space' and 'Star Trek' and fostered by the 1970s atmosphere when the US and the Soviet Union were in the space race, I imagined that life in the year 2000 would be totally different from the one we had in 1970s. I envisioned that robots in the year 2000 would be ubiquitously available in the market to help us doing all kinds of works, from the most laborious works down to the trivial ones. But that's not all, space travels would be very common in the year 2000, and we would fly within a modern flying saucer to make interplanetary tours. And the clothes we wear would be something like the astronouts' outfits, metallic and lustrous!

But now, 7 years after the turnover of the millennium, what is the 'best' or the 'most advanced' technology that we've got at home? Internet? PCs and laptops? Cellphones? DVD Players? Digital (Video) cameras? Plasma/LCD screens? What else do you think that we did not see in the 1970s but we do have it today? Can you think of something else? Never mind! It is of no importance, besides this is also only a frivolous posting!

(Yari NK)

How far Neptune is?

Neptune from the eyes of Voyager 2

Do you know what is the farthest planet currently in our solar system? Pluto? No! Pluto is no longer the farthest planet in the solar system. Scientists and astronomers have eventually agreed that Pluto must be excluded from its status as a planet! Now since Pluto has been demoted from its status, Neptune takes the honour as the farthest planet in the solar system.

Does it mean that our solar system has 'shrunk'? Not exactly, the outermost limit of the solar system is not marked by the farthest planet, but by the farthest object that still revolves around the sun. Even though Pluto is no longer classed as a planet, it is still considered as the part of our solar system.

Even if Neptune is our outermost object in the system, our universe is still vast! Now let's see how far Neptue is from the earth! Supposedly that someone wants to 'waste' his time to go to the planet in a rocket with the available current technology, and with the current technology you can travel with the speed of 50 kilometers per second (kps) through the space. First let's see how fast is 50 kps. Actually it gives the figure of 180,000 kilometer per hour (kph) or 112,000 miles per hour (mph), it means that the rocket travels 1,800 times faster than your car dashing at the speed of 100 kph (62 mph)! But don't be too happy so soon, that speed is very slow in the term of vast distance in space! Now let's check the distance between the earth and Neptune, according to the data given in Wikipedia, the average distance between the sun and the planet is 30 Astronomical Unit (AU) approximating ( 4.5 billion kilometers / 2.8 billion miles), meanwhile the distance between the sun and the earth is 1 AU or 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles. Ok, now let's skip the arithmetical headache, it represents the fact enough that the distance between our blue planet and the gas giant Neptune is about 29 AU (4.35 billion kilometers / 2.7 billion miles). Now giving all the data above we can simply calculate that our rocket will reach Neptune from Earth in about 3 years!!

It still doesn't impress you? Ok now wait! We take another example! You know that if you communicate with your friend through your cellphone, you can hear your friend's voice almost instantly as he speaks! That's because the signal between the cells travels almost at the speed of light. But if you (on earth) communicate with someone in Neptune (provided with the most advanced communication technology available today), you might be surprised to find a long delay! Suppose that the communication signal travels at the speed of light or 300,000 kps or 1,080,000,000 kph (the actual speed of the signal of course is slightly less than the speed of light). Now think again that the distance between the earth and Neptune is 4.35 billion kilometers meaning that the signal will reach the earth from Neptune (and vice versa) in about 4 hours! What does it exactly mean? It means that you will hear your friend's voice on your set 4 hours after your friend in Neptune speaks on his set !!! What a delay!!

Well now we can imagine how vast is our solar system. Let alone the whole galaxy or the whole universe considering that our solar system is just a tiny tiny tiny speck in the universe!

(Written by: Yari NK)