Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Be Part of the Action at Universal Studios Tours


Have you ever dreamed of being on a reality show?
Here is your chance! Universal Studios Tours now
has Fear Factor Live, which is a stunt show that
uses audience volunteers. With three to five shows
each day, the chances of getting on the show are
pretty good!

Are you ready to face your fears? There are some
important things to know about Fear Factor Live at
Universal Studios Tours before you sign up. First,
this is for real. This is not a cheesy attempt to
replicate Fear Factor and please a studio audience.
The stunts are very real, and they are performed by
audience members just like you. There is no
coddling here!

If you still want to participate, simply visit the casting
office, which is located near the Terminator ride in
the theme park. You must meet certain physical
requirements to ensure that you can handle what
is about to be asked of you. You must also
complete and sign a liability form, holding Universal
Studios and Fear Factor harmless of any injuries or
damages you may incur.

Before the show begins, some audience members
who were not selected to participate are called on
stage to face smaller challenges, such as eating
various bugs. The winner of the pre-show contest
wins great prizes, such as an annual pass to the
theme park. This is followed by an audience warm
up with the hosts of the show.

The show consists of six contestants that were
chosen from the casting office – if your lucky, you
might be one of these! They are dressed just as the
contestants on the original Fear Factor dress – in
tight uniforms. A series of challenges, much like the
challenges on Fear Factor are presented to the
contestants. Falls from high places, skill tests, and
of course, the famous gross-out challenge. During
the show, a random audience member is picked
for yet another challenge – such as sticking their
head in a tank full of scorpions.

If you’ve ever watched Fear Factor, and told all of
your friends that you could handle everything that
was thrown at those contestants, be careful. Here is
your big chance to prove yourself – or your friends’
chance to prove you wrong! Win or lose, Fear
Factor Live at Universal Studios Tours could be the
highlight of your visit! If you want to be on the show,
visit the casting office as soon as you get to the
park to make sure that you meet the physical
requirements – and if you don’t meet the
requirements, ask about being in the audience.


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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Albert Einstein


The Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, March 14, 1879. Six weeks later, the family pulled in Munich, where he started his education at the last-Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, he moved to Italy and continued his studies Albert and Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896, he joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich to be trained as a teacher of physics and mathematics. In 1901, when she got her diploma, which acquired Swiss nationality and the right, when he was able, a doctrine of the post, he took a position as technical assistant to the Swiss Patent Office. During the year 1905, he graduated doctor.

During his stay in the Patent Office and leisure, which generates most of its valuable work and in 1908, lectured at Berne. In 1909, he was an associate professor in Zurich, in 1911 a professor of theoretical physics in Prague, return flight back to Zurich in the coming years to fill a similar position. During the year 1914, he was appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics and professor at the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 1933, when he renounces citizenship, for political reasons, and emigrated to the Americas, with the position of professor of theoretical physics at Princeton *. He became a United States citizen in 1940 at the age of retirement relieved of his duties in 1945.

After World War II, Einstein was a key dimension of the movement of global governance, which he offered the chairmanship of the State of Israel, who went and worked with Dr. Chaim Weizmann and the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Einstein always have a clear vision of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy for its own account and was able to assume the main steps on the road to his goal. He followed his most success as a simple Stepping stones to the next.

At the start of the scientific work, Einstein recognized the shortcomings of Newtonian mechanics and the theory of relativity was the outcome of the process, the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. It looked like the problems of classical statistical mechanics and problems, as well as quantum theory: This led to a statement from Brown motion of the molecules. He studied the thermal properties of light with low density of radiation and its observations, the keystone of the photon theory of light.

In the early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the theory of relativity must also provide a theory of gravitation in 1916, "published by the paper on the theory of general relativity. During this period, but focused on the problems of radiation theory and statistical mechanics.

In 1920, started the construction of Einstein theories of single material, although it continues to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, who was involved in this kind of work in America. It contributed to the statistical mechanics and the development of quantum theory monatomic gas, and also has done work in the context of atomic transition opportunities and relativistic cosmology.

After his retirement, he continued, with the standardization of basic concepts of physics, on the other hand, geometrisation, for the majority of individuals.

Einstein, of course, research is very well, and particularly the most important projects special theory of relativity (1905), Relativity (in English translation, 1920 and 1950), The General Theory of Relativity (1916), with the perspective of the theory of motion Brown (1926) and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among the scientific work and not on Zionism (1930), Why war? (1933), My Philosophy (1934) and Out of My Years Later (1950) is perhaps the most important.

Albert Einstein was awarded an honorary doctorate from the An science, medicine and philosophy in many European and American universities. During 1920 - has held conferences in Europe, the Americas and the Far East, who received scholarships or participation in all major scientific academies of the world. He has received numerous awards and recognition for his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925 and the Medal of the Franklin Franklin Institute, 1935.

Gift of Einstein led inevitably to his flat in a large intellectual loneliness and, for relaxation, music played an important role in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903, and had a daughter and two sons, the marriage was dissolved in 1919 and that same year he married his cousin Elsa Louvain Thal, death, in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey.


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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

An Experience In Empowering A Bottom-Up InterNet Infrastructure in Indonesia


Beginning in 1986-1987, a few Indonesian amateur radio buffs communicated on a slow 1200bps TCP/IP radio network (similar to the technology currently being implemented in rural schools). Similar technology is being used in 1992-1993, to build Indonesian early Internet led by the University of Indonesia & Ministry of Technology. In 1994, IndoNet was the first commercial ISP established. Currently, 160+ ISP licenses have been granted with about 60+ ISP operational. In reality, 60-70% Indonesian Internet users are served by various form of Internet cafes (known as warnet), but none of these activities has been driven by the Indonesian government; they are mostly private & community driven. Thus, Internet is actually accessible to a much wider range of people than simply those who can afford a personal computer. It costs US$0.5/hour in most warnets. Warnet technology at schools reduces the cost to US$0.5/month/student. Having 25.000 high schools with 2-3 million students, it would a strategic move increase the Internet penetration by Interneting schools (currently only 1200+ schools & 200+ universities are on the Internet). The use of Linux Terminal Server Program (LTSP) enables us to use old 486 machines as high speed Internet terminals. The warnets are virtually organized at asosiasi-warnet@yahoogroups.com. Instead of Telco, wireless infrastructure at 2.4GHz (soon on 5 & 5.8GHz) is used by the good Internet Cafés.

Bottom up processes enable through technical literature publications in various printed media and books, as well as many Internet mailing lists, mostly, hosted at yahoogroups.com. In the end, the whole infrastructure a self-finance & driven by the people with no World Bank, ADB, IMF specially not the government.
Dr Onno W. Purbo: is a well-known media columnist and author of more than 20 books on Internet technology. He is active in over 70 Indonesian Internet mailing lists. One of Indonesia's leading experts on Internet technologies and education, he has taught at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), and now dedicates his life to educating the Indonesian community on the Internet and Computer technologies, spending many hours in giving talks & workshops in public, schools & universities. His goal is to open the Indonesian mind and to double the number of Indonesian Internet users every year. In this way, he hopes to see an Indonesian knowledge-based society established .

original link:http://onno.vlsm.org


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Saturday, January 12, 2008

20 Million Indonesians on the Internet by 2004?

Onno W. Purbo

Is it only a hype or reality? At the moment, an estimated of 1.5 million Indonesians on the Internet with 130+ ISP licenses issued by the government. All IT & cyber activities are supported by 2+ million PCs with approximately 10 million telephone lines in Indonesia. To make it more difficult, only 3-4 million Indonesians received their higher education degree that render the Indonesian ability to play a major role in cyberspace. Thus, it would be a real challenge to hook 20 million Indonesians into the Internet especially with minimal support from the World Bank & IMF.


Behind the formal activities performed by the government, an underground movement is currently underway to integrate Indonesians into cyberspace. The total Indonesian Internet Café (WARNET) is currently 1000+ units & increasing rapidly due to massive IT educational processes & activities in terms of roadshows, talkshows & seminars organized by many IT players. 4-5 IT seminars, workshop & talkshow per week would currently be the normal rate. Most of these young cyberpreneurs are hanging out at the Indonesian Internet Café mailing list at asosiasi-warnet@egroups.com that hosts the daily discussion of its 800+ members. Thus, it is not too surprising to know that 60-70% of Indonesian Internet access is done thru these WARNETs as reported by Mark Plus in SWA Magazine in June 2000.

All of these activities are self-financed by the Indonesian WARNET & IT community with practically no support from the World Bank / IMF / ADB and formally from the Government. Thus, no mortgage & credit have to be paid by our child & grand children in building the Indonesian knowledge based society unlike the old regime.

An aggressive technological approach has to be taken by these WARNETs to overcome the well-known high telecommunication costs in Indonesia. For WARNET’s applications, it is currently a bit difficult to get phone lines especially high-speed (>128Kbps) digital dedicated lines from our Indonesian Telco company due to various reasons. Unfortunately, business cannot wait & technological solution must be sought. KabelVision and LinkNet have taken an extra ordinary step by installing Internet into their cable TV infrastructure. An ordinary person can access Internet at approx. Rp. 330.000 / month 24 hour, which is a good deal for most of us. Some WARNETs have the luxury to be able to access this cable TV infrastructure. Some months ago, LinkNet offers to put their cable if the WARNETs community can organize a certain number of WARNETs to be connected. Cable TV seems to be the most preferred infrastructure for broadband network. Unfortunately, most of their infrastructures are currently located only in Jakarta, Surabaya & couple of big cities. High-speed wireless & satellite technology merge with PC based technology seems to be the consensus adopted.

Several satellite providers such as Melesat (infokom.net), PalapaNet (Satelindo) and TurboNet (Telkom) are adopting one (1) way high-speed (approx. 1.5Mbps) satellite access fairly similar Direct Video Broadcasting (DVB) via satellite. These Indonesian companies must compete with their International competitors in providing DVB service as satellite footprint doesn’t recognize national border. A landing right from Ministry of Transportation is the only permit needed by the International operator’s prior to providing the service.

Connected to a US$100 receive only parabolic antenna, a low cost DVB card on PC can be used to capture the broadcasted 1.5Mbps data transmitted via the Satellite mostly on C Band (4-6GHz). The DVB card will cost US$200-300 each. Major difficulty in adopting the DVB technology is in getting our request up to the ISP. Most of these services are using the ordinary phone channel (33.6Kbps) to transmit data into the Internet. TurboNet is experimenting with possible use of 9600bps packet radio technology to transmit the data to the Internet. Unfortunately, either too expensive or too slow on the transmit (uplink) channel.

To overcome the low speed transmit channel via an ordinary phone line, ISPs such as PesatNet (Pacific Satellite Nusantara) and Rainbow2u.com are now offering two (2) way satellite link. These ISPs are currently using high bandwidth (512Kbps-1.5Mbps) in downlink traffic and (64-384Kbps) in uplink traffic. Thus, it is much faster than an ordinary phone line. PesatNet is using either a Single Channel Per Carrier (SCPC) technology or its advance version of it. While rainbow2u.com is using a DVB based technology similar to the three (3) earlier ISP mentioned for its downlink channel on the L-band Telkom-1 satellite. Rainbow2u.com is using 384Kbps SCPC transmission for its uplink channel via the satellite.

In the upcoming years, these ISPs both the one way satellite as well as the two way satellite services are planning to open their satellite transponder for more bandwidth (> 5Mbps). In heavy traffic, such as in WARNET, we are currently looking at approx. US$5000-6000 / month for full 1.5Mbps access. Some sort of bandwidth sharing scheme must be implemented to lower the access cost.

A community of 15-30 WARNETs in several cities are currently working to share the satellite bandwidth. A good example is the WARNET Cooperative in Bandung lead by Kang Aday located at awaba@egroups.com. Other cities, such as, Jogyakarta (warnetyogya@egroups.com), Malang & Surabaya are the next WARNET communities working on bandwidth sharing scheme, which in the end builds their own wireless network without having to rely on the slow Telco cables. Most WARNETs prefer to use Wireless LAN IEE 802.11 technology for sharing the bandwidth. These wireless LAN IEEE 802.11 equipment normally based on PCMCIA card can run at least 2Mbps topped at 11Mbps while the latest version will be released next year will run at 50+ Mbps much faster than the technology offered by the Telco. To lower the cost, most of us are using PC based router equipment running a FreeBSD / Linux operating system. A parabolic antenna on 2.4GHz is used to extend the distance coverage up to 7-10 km between WARNETs. Thus, conceptually these WARNETs are building their own high speed metropolitan area network (MAN).

An investment of approx. Rp. 20 million per MicrowaveLAN 2-11Mbps pair with additional approx. Rp. 2 million / year for getting the permission to use the frequency is basically the cost needed to run such high speed microwave system. These WARNETs practically pays approx. Rp. 1.5-2 million / month for getting these 2-11Mbps dedicated lines. It is much cheaper than renting xDSL technology from our Telco that costs Rp. 10 million a month (Rp. 120 million / year) for a dedicated 2Mbps line. Having the ability to build low cost high speed MAN, it is currently well known among WARNET communities - Bandung as the sea of MicrowaveLAN - with 50+ WARNETs connected at 2-11Mbps. Not to mentioned the breakthrough by Pointer WARNET in Bandung, namely, the Indonesian first & only mobile WARNET on VW Combi at 2Mbps.

Having 200-300 member / WARNET is normal. Thus, if carefully implemented these WARNET may offer a flat rate Rp. 20-40.000 / month / person for full service Internet access including the notorious Internet Telephony (VoIP). Can we imagine? Rp. 20-40.000 / month / person flat rate for Internet access including all long distance charges via internet telephony?

In high density cyber community, such as, schools & universities, the access rate can be pinned down to about Rp. 5000 / month / student. Using IntraNet & WARNET technology, several universities, such as, University of Parahyangan (UNPAR) Bandung, charge their students approx. Rp. 5000 / month / student for unlimited Internet access. At SMKN 1 (a vocational school) in Ciamis, the students only pay Rp. 1000 / month / student for their e-mail access. Thus, Internet is affordable especially at most Indonesian educational institutions.

Based on today’s condition, there is 150.000 WARTELs with potentially 3-6 million e-mail users; 1000+ WARNETs with potentially 200-400.000 users; 1300 higher education institutions with potentially 3-5 million users; 4000 vocational schools with potentially 3-4 million users and 10.000 high schools with 5-7 million potential users. Thus, 20 million Indonesian Internet users is a really in most dense community as well as affordable for most Indonesian. Technological education process would be the key.

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