Lambrtz’ Blog

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TAPI CSS DI WP GA BISA DIUBAH!!!!

Waktu saya masih SMP, selera musik saya selera anak gaul. Apa yang ada di MTV, saya embat. Waktu itu saya paling suka Backstreet Boys, dan ngefans sama Nick Carter. Ya, selain namanya mirip, tampangnya juga ga jauh beda. Ternyata eh ternyata, waktu SMU trend-nya berubah; saya malah cenderung lebih suka ndengerin lagu jadul atau ga umum, misalnya hair rock dan soundtrack anime.

Omong-omong soal lagu anime jadul, saya ngefans banget sama lagu ini. Runner, dinyanyikan oleh Fujiwara Makoto untuk anime The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, disiarkan di TV di Jepang tahun 1982-1983, dan pernah disiarkan di Indosiar tahun 90-an, kalo ga salah. Rasanya gimanaaaaa gitu, ndengerin lagu anime jadul yang mendayu-dayu kaya gini. Serasa nostalgia kembali ke masa kanak-kanak. Serasa masuk ke alam utopia selama 4 menit. Membayangkan diri ada di tepi sebuah tebing pada suatu hari yang cerah, bermain gitar, menyanyikan lagu ini. Hal yang tidak mungkin saya lakukan, karena takut ketinggian. Ah, apalagi sang penyanyi sudah meninggal tahun 2002, dalam usia yang tidak terlalu tua untuk ukuran orang Jepang, 55 tahun. Waktu itu, 27 tahun yang lalu, beliau masih berusia 35 tahun, masih dalam masa kejayaannya sebagai penyanyi. Eh, sekarang kok sudah 7 tahun meninggal. Waktu memang cepat berlalu. Rasanya semakin murung…

(Ga punya gitar, jadi cuma bisa air-guitar ngikutin lagu ini sambil umik-umik )

Ada juga yang versi Mari Iijima, seiyuu-nya Lynn Minmay, tapi pendek.

Dibandingkan lagu anime zaman sekarang (karena ga banyak tahu juga –> rasanya seperti orang mengaku ateis hanya karena malas melakukan eksplorasi spiritual ), saya lebih suka lagu anime jadul, dalam artian anime abad 20. White Reflection, Pegasus Fantasy, Zankoku na Tenshi no Teeze, Kimi ni Fureru Dake De, Tottemo Uma Nami, Kimi ga Suki da to Sakebitai, Mienai Chikara, Sunao de Itai, Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku, Ano Hi Ni, dll.

…standar ya? Biar deh…

Anyway, enjoy!

Lyric is taken from here: [link]
——————————————————————————
Fujiwara Makoto - Runner

Boku wa moo oikake wa shinai
Kimi no hashiru kage no ato
Hito wa dare mo hashiritsuzukeru
Goru wa mada mienai
Kyoo no tsugi ni nani ga aru
Asu no saki ni nani ga aru
Haruka kanata no hikari ni mukete
Boku wa ima mo hashiritsuzukeru

Boku wa moo mayoi wa shinai
Jibun no michi o ayumu dake
Hito wa dare mo hashiritsuzukeru
Goal wa tooi keredo
Kyoo o sugisaru hibi no naka
Asu to iu hi ga kureba ii
Haruka kanata no hikari ni mukete
Boku wa ima mo hashiritsuzukeru

Boku wa moo tomari wa shinai
Itsuka deau toki mo aru
Hito wa dare mo hashiritsuzukeru
Goal wa mienai kedo
Asu to iu na no kiboo no hi
Mirai to iu na no kagayaki ga
Haruka kanata no hikari ni mukete
Boku wa ima mo hashiritsuzukeru

This song really gives me chill whenever I listen to it. I feel like crouching at the room corner, leaning on the wall, bending down my head and crying. I don’t know why. The lyric itself is quite nostalgic, but the aura of the song is like an…emotion-manipulating horror. Fortunately, the next song in Magical Mystery Tour is Penny Lane, a rather happy and truly nostalgic song. Psychedelic rock rules.

Now I am going hiatus due to duty calls. Relax, I will still leave comments here, there, and everywhere, although in lesser frequency. See ya!

Oh, don’t forget to check my previous post out.

N. Intro

When did I start to be familiar with the term “Elitism”? Ah, that must be because of the post about Wee Shu Min scandal, even though I somehow have a characteristic as a natural-born elitist to certain extent. Too bad for me. I wish I could get rid of it. My wishful thinking says that all good people, whatever his/her job, are equal and in some way contribute to development of civilization.

OK, let’s start.

I. Professors in Top Research-intensive Universities

When I was a kid, I have always thought that a job in academia or scientific fields is really cool. I mean, imagine this situation: people from many countries in the world, with various educational backgrounds, united in the name of science to invent new things. However, now that I am making my path there, or maybe I can say that I have already been there (because it is the research students that do the researches anyway), I see something weird.

Some of you may be aware of world university rank systems. ARWU, THE-QS, HEEACT, and then national ranks such as in USA, UK, Australia, etc etc. Some of them also have field-specific ranks, for example, for the field of Engineering and Computer Science, ARWU, HEEACT, US News, Times for UK, etc. Then, let’s talk about big universities, which are highly-ranked in the aforementioned rank systems, and which have leading research groups. Then take a look at the professors vitae or resumes in, for example, two leading Computer Graphics labs, Stanford’s and UC Berkeley’s. Why Computer Graphics? D’oh, it’s ma feild, d00d. I have little or no competence to write about other fields. In Stanford’s Computer Graphics laboratory, the five professors got their PhDs in UCLA, Stanford, Tel Aviv, UNC, and Wisconsin-Madison, while professors in UC Berkeley’s Computer Graphics Lab are PhDs graduate of Stanford, McGill, MIT, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, and Basel. Most of them took their PhD in universities that enjoy high positions in recent university rank systems.

II. Survival of The Elites?

This is the weird thing. Where are smaller universities graduates? Why nobody is there? I took a look in other labs, but it was the same thing. Of no surprise, I found out that this also occurs in the field of Economics. Top 20 universities tend to occupy professors from top 20 universities as well. For further info, please refer to this paper: [link]. When I showed this paper to my friend, a scholarship hunter who wants to be economic researcher, he said, “Still thinking about that? Welcome to the club of academic vicious circle!” . I would rather name this as pyramid of academia. Due to gravity, people from higher position can go down easily, but it is not easy for people from lower position to go up.

Now, imagine 2 PhDs, one from Ivy League university and one from a lesser known university, both possess about the same qualifications in term of number and quality of publications, applying to be an assistant professor in a university. What I don’t want to happen is if just because of the background of the first applicant (i.e. the university this applicant got PhD), s/he will be given more preference/mark/whatever than the latter. If this what really happens in top universities, isn’t this a kind of elitism, in the sense that only PhD graduates from big universities can assume academic positions in big universities too?

To think positively, I suggest that this maybe because of the quality of research groups in the university. The more popular a research group is, the better the quality of publications. But how is it possible? I mean, for research-intensive universities which have no financial problem, their outputs must not differ very much! And I always consider Computer Science as a relatively inexpensive field. In Computer Graphics, for example, you just need to buy a decent computer with a good commercially-available graphics hardware, install Visual Studio Express 2008 and the update, download GLUT, OpenGL or any other libraries, design and implement a new ray tracing variance, submit it to conference. It was an oversimplification though. The design and implementation are the hardest and the most important parts. The point is: what else do you need?

Of course there are several exceptions, like Paul Erdős, who got his PhD from University of Pázmány Péter, Hungary but got employed in Princeton. I am quite sure that is because he came from outer space. Not to mention that Central-European universities have a long bright history in Mathematics.

Then the most evil elitist question was born. If only top universities can produce noteworthy publications, why should one apply to smaller university if s/he wants to have a career as an academic staff? Small universities should either produce more good publications ASAP, or not exist!

III. Why This Came into My Mind: A Personal Note

Scholarship informations are scarce in Indonesia. Most people compete for Chevening, ADS, Fulbright, Erasmus Mundus, Stuned, and Monbukagakusho. It affected me too. Although my knowledge about scholarship hunting was above average, I still did’t know many. I had not noticed that basically all PhD students get financial support, including in USA and Canada, countries whose graduate schools I thought were very hard to enter due to lack of financial support for Indonesians, which is wrong, before I read phdcomics. That time I only knew NTU and NUS that give scholarship to Master by Research students. Applying to NUS was not possible since the deadline was very early and I had not taken English test. I took IELTS in December, got the result and then applied to NTU which turned to be successful (and other universities, whose scholarships I failed to win).

When I had already been in NTU, after knowing that fact, I started to think about moving to another university of higher rank and reputation for my PhD study. However, later I realised that if I considered moving too much, my performance here will not be good, so this can be a bad choice too. Moreover, who can guarantee if my admission in new universities will be successful? Going back to NTU will take time, as I will need to reapply. Waste of time, waste of age. In the other side, I am satisfied with NTU performance.

This is philosophical choice for me. If I worship ranks and elitism, I will start to give more time to learn GRE etc and consider moving. However, if I become a die-hard supporter of science, staying here will be a realistic but still good choice. It is the science that I want to focus in after all. Which one should I choose? Or is middle path the best, for example by narrowing down the number of new university option? For now I choose to stay, although this might be consulted later with my professor.

FYI, I would like to mention here that while it is my career aspiration to assume a position as a professor in a well-known university with strong research groups, I am not targetting like Ivy League or Oxbridge universities in specific, although that will be extraordinary achievement. But if this is the case, doesn’t this mean that the choices of PhD graduates from smaller universities are kind of limited?

BTW, I am quite sure that NTU want to give more focus on the PhD programme since the abolishing of scholarship support for new Master by Research applicants. I am probably in the last batch of Master by Research students who get university scholarships. It’s fine, and in fact I support their decision.

IV. Outro

While this admission criteria still remains a mystery to me until I am ascended from studentship (unless I cheat), deep inside my brain I still believe that the essence of education and research is the science itself. The individual record, including the number and quality of publications, and individual skills, such as language proficiency, should be what really matters during the admission. Nevertheless I still think that, due to the situation, to be a noteworthy researcher and contribute to science advancement better (I know, cliché), one must (?) be employed in a big university. Simple proof. Take a look at this. Most of the times it is correct.

Lastly, I should learn from Luca Toni.

Ah, I think I’ll take numerous postdoc positions first. Moving to Japan, Ireland, or Sweden may be good options. I can continue my career there afterward. Beautiful countries.

I love the whole world, love my imagination…
Boom de yada boom de yada…

(Heyyyy!! Finish your Master and PhD first lah before thinking postdoc…)

PS: Muse’ songs are great for writing this kind of post. They will raise your geekiness significantly ;;)
PS2: Somehow I hope there is a tenured professor or admission committee that reads this post and gives some comments.
PS3: As for the elitism, I really really hope I am wrong. I mean it.
PS4: Thanks to Mr Yayan for his suggestion about mechanical device and Mr Eric for the short interview. As for Mr Yayan, sorry for not using your suggestion. I found out that that was OOT.
PS5: I remember there is a former Professor of Computer Graphics in University of Utah, Michael Ashikhmin, who quit this field, arguing that it had a problem with elitism, especially with the existence of ACM SIGGRAPH, the most adhered prestigitious conference in Computer Graphics. So?

Images are taken from Wikimedia and Despair.

*nyanyikan dengan nada The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill-nya The Beatles*

A…ku cinta kau…
Kau cintaku…
Walau sama…

Ka….u cintaiku…
Ku cintaimu…
Walau sama…

Mungkin hanya kami yang boleh mencintai
Makhluk yang sejenis lewat mitosis
La bagaimana lagi adanya ini………

Ulangi lagi

*ulang sampai bosan*
———————-
Wagu -___-
*joke song*
(don’t take it seriously lah…can can?)
*pesenan Teh Mina*