Illusion

In my Indonesian blog, I have posted an article about an illusion (an object that deceives your eyes), but in that posting I connect it to a more absctract and broader meaning in the definition of the illusion itself, especially the illusions that happen in your life. But here in the posting, I would only like to present the illusive pictures that might entertain you in some way.



Here we go, like in the first picture below. In the picture, there are two groups of dots are displayed. The right group seems to have a bigger dot at the centre. Nope you are wrong, both central dots have the same diameter! This pic is playing tricks on your eyes!


Here in the second picture, all you have to do is to keep staring at the black dot at the centre. After a while you will see that the grey haze that surrounds the dot will start to shrink until it almost completely disappears. That's because as you focus on the central dot, your brain starts to ignore the surrounding objects! But as your focus is away from the dot, the shade begins to reappear!

In the picture below, you see yellowish green arrows on the blue background. All you have to do is to stare at them for a few seconds. You will see as if the arrows are moving very slowly.

Illusions like those above are everywhere to be found on the web. You can find them easily. I would just like to show you those illusions could be very fun and enjoyable. Feel free to look for more of them!

(Written by: Yari NK. Pictures taken from the Web)

Wimbledon!

Wimbledon is drawing near! Each year I can't wait for another Wimbledon to come. This is because Wimbledon is considered the best amongst the other Grand Slams and it is considered as the pinnacle of all tennis tournaments. The oldest grand slam classed-tournament that goes back as early as 1877 now offers equal prizes for both men and women for the very first time this year. The Centre Court's roof for the 2007 tournament is being remodelled, so for the time being there will be no roofs in the centre court. But in 2008, Wimbledon's Centre Court will be equipped with a modern retractable roof that will prevent the rain from interrupting the matches in the Centre Court.

For this year's Wimbledon, In the gentlemen's section I predict that Roger Federer will seize the fifth title in a row. While Andy Roddick and the Spaniard, Rafael Nadal will vie for the other spot in the final. In the ladies' section, the title is still open equally for Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova and Amélie Mauresmo, with the Williams sisters and several Russian top-notch players are looking for a spot in the semifinal.

Ok. I don't want to write a prolix posting on Wimbledon. If you want to know more about Wimbledon there are loads of sources on the Web for you to look for. In this posting I'd just like to welcome the annual Wimbledon. Now and for the next two weeks I want to stick my butt on the couch to enjoy the full live coverage of Wimbledon and let's see who will lift the trophies!

(Written by: Yari NK)

Maybe because I am a fool......

Scenes from OB (upper) and Bajaj Bajuri (lower)

in the course of the Indonesian television history, as far as I remember, there are only two Indonesian sitcoms that can make me as dumb as a couch potato. They are OB (Office Boy) and Bajaj Bajuri. Bajaj Bajuri, unfortunately, are no longer on any stations to be watched, the TV station which aired the sitcom cut off the programme with no distict reasons, but OB is still aired regularly in the late afternoon on weekdays.

If you ask me why do I like those coms, I don't think I have the right answer for you since up to now I still search for the most logical answer for it. Are they so funny that I pay special attention to them? Not necessarily! if we speak about the term 'funny', the ones of Srimulat or Extravaganza can also make me crack up as well as those two coms can. But those Srimulat or even something that is considered higher like Extravaganza have fed me up, while those two coms are still much of an entertaining horseplay.

What about their acts? So far I admit that they do it more than just good, but their act is not the best I have seen even though in the Indonesian scope! And the characters therein are inconsistent sometimes. Take a look at Oneng, Oneng is depicted as a woman with a double digit IQ, so foolish that she cannot digest the simplest information that is fed to her. But at times, Oneng is doing better than an average uneducated does! In some occasions, I found that Oneng spoke English (a foreign language) better than a newby does, with a good grammar though with an impaired pronunciation. Also Sascha in OB, she is supposed to be a forgetful girl with an inferior intelligence, yet in some occasions, her memory is surprisingly photographic!

Then why do I like them?? The best answer I can get is maybe because the scenes in both coms are very dynamic, it means the scenes are never trapped in a dragging dialogue! That's as close as the best answer I can get. Or maybe because I am a fool to like those coms! As foolish as the reason of why I wrote this posting with this topic!

(Written by: Yari NK)

A Counterfeit Watch (Intermissive Jocular Posting)

One day, a man took his timepiece to a watch shop to have it repaired. When he arrived at the shop, he handed over the watch to the shop owner and flowed a conversation like this:

The Shop Owner (SO) : What's happened with this watch, sir?
The Man (M) : I have no idea, it's kaput! It cost me $3000
SO : Pardon me, sir?
M : The watch cost me $3000
SO : But sir, this watch is counterfeit, it's not a genuine one! You were duped sir! Where did you buy this piece of junk???
M : I bought it at yours, moron! Almost a year ago! Where else could it be????

Thanks to sis Aisha from Malaysia, on whose blog I read this comical story! The original posting is in Malay.

(Retold in English by Yari NK)

The cheapest way of travelling à la Cyrano de Bergerac

An illustration of Bergerac's illogical way of cheap travelling

Low cost travelling is everyone's dream, it does not only belong to us who witness the magic of aerodynamic engineering today but it also belonged to everyone who lived in the past. Cyrano de Bergerac, a homosexual-suspected French writer who lived in the 17th century also had a dream of zapping himself to any places in this world at a low cost. Unfortunately de Bergerac was born two centuries before an actual air balloon flew for the first time carrying a pessenger within. His proposed way of cheap travelling was only on the text he wrote, and it is a laughing stock for everyone of us who reads his proposal today. Here is what he proposed to make a cheap far-off travelling:

De Bergerac was imagining that he had a balloon, large enough to bring him within up into the air. After he reached a noticeable height, all he had to do was to stay suspended in the air without having to move any inches. As he stayed suspended in the air, he would witness the earth rotating below, and after several hours he would land in a totally different place! De Bergerac was sure that he would be able to go to Canada from France without having to go by sea if he had a balloon he imagined!

But can we go travelling around the world as the way described by de Bergerac? Unfortunately things are not as simple as the theory that ran into de Bergerac's mind. If you are floating in the air, you don't really separate yourself from the planet earth! You are still tied together, because you are floating in the envelope of atmosphere which also participates in the earth's rotation. And the atmosphere spins together with the planet along with everything in it: clouds, airplanes, birds, insects, dusts or even viruses! Logically if the atmosphere does not rotate together with the earth, we would be always battered by a superstrong wind more terrible than the strongest hurricane we've ever witnessed in normal condition. We would take an analogy like this: suppose that you are on a motor cycle dashing at a speed of 100 kph in a very calm wind, what would you feel? Of course you would feel a strong wind coming towards you! The same case is also true for the spinning earth with the still atmosphere.

Now we understand why we can't benefit from the cheap (travelling) idea described by de Bergerac. Besides if de Bergerac's idea is applicable to actual physics, all of the commercial airlines would have already long gone, out of business!

(Written by Yari NK)

Do you really want to be an invisible man?

David McCallum

For those who were born before 1970s, do you still remember 'The Invisible Man' the series? The American series was starred by a prolific British actor, David McCallum. The series is about a scientist who experienced a terrible accident during his scientific expemeriments, resulting in his invisibleness. But fortunately this invisible man came with a good intension despite of the advantage he gained from the accident. He combatted the evil-doers along the series!

But what will you do if you become like him, an invisible man? Do you want to take the advantage to do otherwise? Imagine if you become an invisible man, you can do various malefactions for your own benefits and for your own pleasures. You can slink comfortably into a movie theatre to watch your favourite new released movies without having to be in the ticket line first! Or, you can steal cash from the cashier's registers at any stores you like, or take this one, you can sneak in the ladies' restroom stealthily to feed your blue imagination! You name your own malefaction! You will do them all with impunity and no one seems to be able to stop you.

Ok. let's drop the word fiction from the phrase science-fiction. We now resort to pure science. Do you know that if an invisible does really exist or in the future if we can create invisible men due to our future high technology, he will have the most critical downside?? What is it?? If you become an invisible man, surely you will become BLIND! It means that you cannot see at all!! How come?? Simple! Our eyes are like a camera, we can see things clearly because there is light to penetrate our eyes! This light will be stopped and will be refracted within our retina and create an image from the object we see in the back of the retina! Thus we can see the object clearly!! Now in the case of invisible man, the eyes are transparent and the retina will fail to refract the light to make an image in the retina because the invisible eyes fail to stop the light! So there will be no image created in the back of our retina thus we will see nothing!! The detail of this mechanism is quite complicated and it is beyond the scope of this posting and beyond the blogger's knowledge! Hehehehe.... But now you know that if you are an invisible man, I'm sure that you will benefit nothing from the advantage of being invisible! Ok?

(Written by: Yari NK)

Tallest Buildings in the World

Do you subscribe to pay-TV (Whether it's satellite or cable?) If you do, then you know that one channel in the line-up is National Geographic Channel (NGC). One of my favourite programmes is Mega Structures which tells us about massive (and tallest) buildings, how they are built, and what technologies are invloved in the buildings themtselves. So it was no surprise for me to find out that every tallest structure in this world involves multinational companies to combine their resources to build the structure! Here below are some of the tallest buildings (and the future tallest buildings):

THE PETRONAS TOWER

The Petronas Towers are the past tallest building in the world (1998-2004) before it was surpassed by Taipei 101. Yet the towers are still considered as the tallest TWIN towers in the world. Located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the building which is designed by a Norwegian architect, Dawid Tadeusz Mauno, has the original height of 375 meters. That height figure is actually not enough to make the towers the tallest building in the world. To make these towers the tallest building in the world, they added an antenna on the top of the building to make it as high as 452 meters. That's the world record at that time! The Building which began to be built in 1995 has 88 floors and 78 elevators within.

TAIPEI 101 (臺北101)
By the time this article was written, Taipei 101 (Located in Taipei, Taiwan of course!) was the tallest building in the world. It surpassed the Petronas Towers in height in 2004. The building who is designed by C. J. Lee & Associates has 101 floors, that's why the building is named Taipei 101. The height of the main building itself is of 449 meters, with the antenna added on the top of it the height becomes 509 meters. The building is equipped with a very high speed Internet connection which comes at the rate of 1 gigabit per second on fibre optic or satellite connection.

BURJ DUBAI برج دبي
In English it is simply translated as Tower of Dubai, is still under construction. The construction itself has begun in 2004 and will be finished circa 2009. The tower will be the tallest building in the world and it will surpass Taipei 101 by a very wide and record-breaking margin! Located in Dubai, The United Arab Emirates, the height of the tower will be estimated as 818 meters with the antenna installed on the top. The number of the floors will be estimated around 160 but I still have no idea who exactly desgined this building, perhaps you can come with the information I need.

Burj Mubarak al-Kabir

Also known as Mubarak Tower in English. Located in the future urban area in Subiya, Kuwait, this tower will also be the the future tallest building in the world. The building will have the height of 1001 meters, the only building on the planet that hits the mark of kilometer. This building is still proposed, and the construction has not yet begun. The other facts about this building are still little known.

(Written by: Yari NK)