Sci&Tech History

Several months ago, I was involved in a project to observe relation between energy access and poverty. In my presentation, my closing question is should we reduce energy price so poor families can buy energy or we choose to use other programs to increase their welfare and as the consequence increase their ability to buy [...]

One day me and my friends was talking about bio energy. I said it is very easy to use bio energy, all you have to do is eating rice and then you can use ‘becak’ as your transportation vehicle. Human body can transform the food you eat into energy. As simple as that. So what [...]

How do we prevent our nature from destruction? Who own the nature? According to Gooetz and Jenkins (2004) whenever power is delegated by the many to the few in the interest of governability, a perpetual struggle emerge. To these perennial problems, globalization and political liberalization have added new ones. Powerful non-state actors capable of influencing [...]

What do we need for a better life? Do we need reminder in our hand phone to warn us on several appointment, FoodPhone (helping to fight obesity), the HygieneGuard (motivating people to wash their hands after using the toilet), and the EconoMeter (helping people to drive their cars more economically)? If we do that, do [...]

Does scientist has nationality? The Numb3rs serial I watched yesterday, triggered this question. In the episode, a colleague of Charlie Eppes (professor in Math) has been arrested since he sent a formula that can be used to alleviate poverty to Pakistan university. The conflict occur when the US federal agency arrest him with accusation sent [...]

This morning I received an email on Indonesian president and vice president candidate polling. How the survey agency interpret the numbers is quite interesting. Using multistage random sampling covered 3000 respondents, the survey analyzed that from the respondents answers Indonesian most crucial issue is economic crisis. While questions that directly related with the candidate shows [...]

Why people always care about ranking? In one side, ranking can stimulate competitiveness, but in the other hand, how can something different be treated equally? In university ranking case for example, people always debating on how Indonesian universities can enter the top 100. Almost all of the resources was dedicated to improve the rankings, but [...]

Which one do you belief more, ctrl+c and ctrl+v or a typed paper based on what you have listened? I guess, everyone will choose the first choice. Along with neutrality, technology become tools that we trust more than human. Does our humanity also imply betrayal? Why technology is more reliable than human? In controlling, in [...]

What do I actually hope from ICT? The question suddenly shocked me, I lost my orientation on ICT and development. I can show calculation on how open source software development can reduce national cost on ICT spending, but further, how can this development make change as stated over and over in ICT policy documents: to [...]

What is Information and Communication Technology (ICT), really? The Millennium Declaration of the United Nations (UN) sees ICT as a tool having the potential to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the historic UN 2000 Summit (Zhao, 2008). Further, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) stated that unlike most other technologies, ICT [...]