Sci&Tech History

Lately, numbers of transportation accident in Indonesia increase, one of them is train. Maybe we can blame age of the railways, or standard operating system which doesn’t qualify the safety standard, or maybe because the operator which fall asleep during operating hours. What/who ever we choose to blame, won’t change the condition unless serious attention and change is made.

In U.K, train accidents also occur. Two major rail crashes happened, the one near Paddington in 1999 and the one in Hatfield in 2000. The public blame the crash is caused by the British railways privatization which triggered in 1993, by published the green paper New Opportunities for the Railways: the Privatization of British Railways. Since British Railways was privatized, some resistance occur from staff which influence the quality of service, and passengers which felt to be treat rather as an “users” than “customers.” In a survey which conducted by the Guardian in 1999, it is showed that 70% of those interviewed felt that Railtrack should returned to public ownership.

As an answer for this resistance, Network Rail was formed in October 2002. The Network Train is a not-for-dividend organization taking over Railtrack’s assets and tasks. Beside that, the government also hires the facilities of “Special Purpose Vehicles” which finance, deliver and manage the facilities. Based on The Strategic Rail Authority(2002), things that caused the accident is, “experience and skills have been lost as companies have downsized.”

The privatization of British Railways maybe can be seen not only as a mistake, but also as a learning process. The failure which occur was always be evaluated, and significant change was made to avoid the same mistake.

What about Indonesia?

Popularity: 32%

Thomas Alfa Edison and Henry Ford are few examples of technopreuneurs. They became well known, not only because their innovations but also by their abilities to promote and sell their product. From the consumer side, there are three types of product innovations(Consumer Behavior, 2004):

1. A continuous innovation has the least disruptive influence on established patterns. It involves the introduction of a modified product rather than a totally new product. Examples for this type are the new design of Toyota Camry, the latest version of Microsoft Powerpoint.
2. A dynamically continuous innovation is somewhat more disruptive than a continuous innovation but still does not alter established behavior patterns. Examples: compact disk player, antilock automobile brakes, erasable-ink pens, etc.
3. A discontinuous innovation requires consumers to adopt new behavior patterns. Examples include airplanes, telephones, TVs, computers, etc.

A continuous innovation is easier to accept than a dynamically continuous, and dynamically continuous innovation is easier to accept than discontinuous innovation. Using the market system, an innovation can only survive if it requires the market demand and also cover its production cost.

Popularity: 30%

How can someone became an idol? Or how can we know that a song will became a hit song? The answer is almost impossible, although there are some patterns which occur on an idol, and hit songs. In his research with Hasker, Duncan Watts recommend five strategies:

1. Increase the number of bets, and decrease their size.
2. Focus on detection, measurement, and feedback.
3. Follow through with flexible marketing budgets.
4. Exploit naturally emerging social influence.
5. Build flexibility into supply chains and contracts.

The strategies above help us to decrease the unpredictable space which may occur. For example, if we play poker, we can count our probability to get a pair, full house, or even flush, but what is important for the gamblers is not the number but the 0/1 option, win or lose. By increasing the number of bet, our chance to win will be increase, but as a consequence we have to put a small nominal for each bet. The next step is to identify our field, back to the example before, the more we know our rival habbit, the more we have the chance to win. In a bigger scale, our achievement to promote a new product and be accepted by other people depends on how we anticipate emerging social influence. By the end, the acceptance in a loader area will influence the way we life. If it pass the crittical mass, than the new product will survive, but if it doesn’t than it will be over.

Popularity: 34%

Policy to develop biofuels, is started with the National Energy Policy to achieve 5% biofuel utilization of the total energy mix. Through Presidential Instruction No. 1 Year 2006 on Biofuels Supply and Utilization as an Alternative Energy to thirteen governmental Institutions and Regional Governments, and supported by Presidential Decree No. 10 Year 2006 on National Team of Biofuels Development has strengthened the biofuels development in Indonesia. The National Team’s main task to set out Blueprint and Road Map of Biofuels Development in Indonesia will fulfill the goal of National Energy Mix on Biofuel Supply and Utilization. The Blueprint itself that refers to Presidential Instruction will give guidance for the implementation of Biofuel Development.

Long time before policy to develop biofuels was conducted; discourse about biofuel development has already risen in a group of researchers in the 1970s. The discourse was continued by making a prototype in laboratory scale in the 1980s. Production scale was pioneered by Pertamina and Lemigas which launched B30 in 1994-1997. B30 is a fuel which consists of 30% palm oil and 70% non-renewable oil. Unfortunately, the production can’t sustain due to its uncompetitive ness compare with solar price. In 2001, the researchers start to campaign biofuel prospect to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral resources.

Nowadays, biofuel development in Indonesia is still blocked with incentive policy. This policy influences the industry orientation to export their product rather than process raw material in Indonesia, and by the end, implicate to resources which used to research and develop biofuel infrastructure.

Popularity: 44%

One of the sub-topics of this blog was labeled STS. An acronym for Science and Technology Studies, or sometimes also refer to Science, technology and Society. STS label was introduced around 1960s which in viewing relation between science, technology, and society, and how each of them influences the others, while its themes has been anticipated long time before, such as in book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions(1962) by Thomas Khun or in The Genesis and Development of Scientific Fact(1935) by Ludwig Fleck.

Although science and technology have already been used by the ancient people to get fire, move something using wheel etc, the industrial revolutions of the 17^th and 18^th century has translate our perception about technology. Technology is not just a tool to make our life easier, but also make our life more complicated.

My friend use to call me an internet addict. Although I always argue him with a free choice to turn off the computer that connect me to the web every time I want it to, it still doesn’t reduce the time I spent in front of the computer. Does the computer start to influence me? This question is one of example that studied in STS, beside how its cultural constructed.

Popularity: 36%

On Long Island, New York, the bridges over the parkways are extraordinarily low, having as little as nine feet of clearance at the curb. As an implication, cars that can past the parkways are private car with certain kind of height. Robert Moses, the bridge builder that works from 1920s to the 1970s in New York, had these overpasses built to specification that would discourage the presence of buses on the parkways.

According to Robert A. Caro in his biography of Moses, the reason why Moses built an extraordinarily low bridges is influenced by his social-class and racial bias. Private car owner was dominated by the white of upper and high class, while public transportation, such as bus was dominated by poor people and black.

History of building, architecture, city planning, and public works can’t separated by it creator, and by the end, influence the people who using it.

Popularity: 23%

A friend of mine sent me the image above. An image that is constructed by our watching television culture.

Popularity: 38%

In Uganda, living with HIV/AIDS is become an every day experience. From UNAIDS report at the end of 1999, it is estimated that out of 24.5 million adults and children living with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa from its total 34.3 million. In Uganda itself, the number was estimated 820,000 adults and children living with HIV/AIDS and 1.7 million AIDS orphans.

How the people of Uganda deal with the HIV/AIDS as a part of every day experience, is an expressions of denial, hopelessness, and suffering. Expressions which also mystified by numbers and stories that convince them as a hopeless community. This condition, made people with HIV/AIDS have to deal not only with the virus and its effect, but also deal with mental construction that people gave to them and at the end, that they gave to their self.

To cut this circle, several researchers have found a critical need to find ways to represent the reality as it is. They are currently experimenting with the use of genograms—a clinical tool typically used in family medicine and family based therapy to depict(primarily genealogical) relationship between family. As a graphic research and educational tool, genograms have been found to complement ethnographic data, usually in the form of narratives and stories, and epidemiological data that report HIV/AIDS incidence and prevalence in statistical and numerical formats.

Genograms innovation helps the people of Uganda and international community to see the real condition clearer. But its impact can only happened, if some pre-condition fulfilled. This pre-condition needs knowledge translations, which involve stakeholders from parents, youth, service providers, and international community. The success of knowledge translations will influence the success of genograms innovation, and at the end how people of Uganda see their self with hope and dignity.

Popularity: 25%

In the first half of the nineteenth century, Charles Babbage applied binary numbers to a calculating machine. In 1890, the binary system was developed by Hermann Hollerith which invented punch card, going back to an invention by the early nineteenth-century Frenchman J-M. Jacquard. The invention makes conversion from numbers into instructions possible. Several years later, Lee de Forest invented the audio tube, and with it created electronics. Then between 1910 and 1913, Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead, in their book Principia Mathematica, created symbolic logic which enables us to express all logical concept as numbers. Finally, during World War I, the concepts of programming and feedback were developed, primarily for the purposes of anti-aircraft gunnery. The concepts are used as the basic knowledge for computer development in the early stages.

Relation between technology development and military can be found not only in computer. In 1950s, the SAGE(Semiautomatic Ground Environment) air defense system was developed at the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Universities as one of the technology producer receive a huge fund for military purposes. According to Melman, in 1968 the Pentagon awarded MIT $119 million, John Hopkins University $57 million, University of California $17 million, and many more.

Does technology driven by military purposes? Are military purposes bad? By using materialism perspective, a gun made someone became bad. But by using humanism perspective, human is the one who decide rather a gun is good or bad. The case study above show us how military influence technology direction, especially its correlation with funding, but how it rise in public area is another issue.

Popularity: 33%

Diesel start his invention with an idea to built a perfect engine working according Carnot’s thermodynamic principles and could occur without an increase in temperature by inventing new ways of injecting and burning fuel. What Diesel did is not as simple as turning paper and patent into a prototype, but also convinces other actors to support his invention. As an allies, Diesel associated with Maschinenfabrik Augusburg-Nurnberg, known as MAN, and Krupp, which interested because of the hope of increased efficiency and versatility of a perfect Carnot machine, the efficiency of the steam engine in the 1890s being pitifully low(Latour, 1987).

For four years, Diesel tried to get one engine working, building it with the help of MAN engineers and tools. A solution of the engine was found, but this made the engine became more expensive and large. Modification has been conducted several times which made the engine drifted away from its original patent.

In June 1897, the engine is presented to the public. In Diesel thought, the engine spread is as simple as buy the licence, pay the royalty, and you will get the blueprints, a few engineers to help you, a few mechanics to tend the engine, and if you are not satisfied you can get your money back. What Diesel thought was different with the buyers’ interest; the buyers want the engine unproblematic. As the result, the licensees returned the prototype to Diesel and asked their money back. Diesel went bankrupts and had a serious breakdown.

In around 1908, Diesel’s patent falls into the public domain. This opportunity was taken by MAN to offer a diesel engine for sale. An engine that was modified from Diesel prototype and offers as an unproblematic, albeit new, item of equipment and incorporated as one piece of industry. When German Society of Naval Architect held a meeting in 1912, Diesel claimed that the new engine is based on his idea, only with some simply modifications from others. This claim was rejected by Diesel colleagues; it is true that Diesel is the one who initiate the engine process production, but the engine final form was based on several modifications from Diesel design.

Diesel committed suicide by jumping from a ship on the way to England just before diesel engine finally spread. He maybe doesn’t get the royalty, but until now, people know him as the father of  diesel engine, a father that have to release his ‘kid’ much faster than he want it to.

Popularity: 37%