Jangan Lupa! Anda Spesial!

Tentu ini bukan jawaban seorang pembeli atas pertanyaan tukang martabak, yang biasa atau spesial? Arti spesial di sini menyangkut diri Anda sebagai manusia.

Suatu hari seorang penceramah terkenal membuka seminarnya dengan cara unik. Sambil memegang uang pecahan AS $ 100, ia bertanya kepada hadirin, “Siapa yang mau uang ini?” Tampak banyak tangan diacungkan. Pertanda banyak minat.

“Saya akan memberikan ini kepada salah satu dari Anda sekalian, tapi sebelumnya perkenankanlah saya melakukan ini.” Ia berdiri  mendekati hadirin. Uang itu diremas-remas dengan tangannya sampai berlipat-lipat. Lalu bertanya lagi,” Siapa yang masih mau ini?” Jumlah tangan yang teracung tak berkurang.

“Baiklah,” jawabnya, “apa jadinya bila saya melakukan ini?” ujarnya sambil menjatuhkan uang itu ke lantai dan menginjak-injaknya dengan sepatunya. Meski masih  utuh, kini uang itu jadi amat kotor dan tak mulus lagi. “Nah, apakah sekarang masih ada yang berminat?” Tangan-tangan yang mengacung masih tetap banyak.

“Hadirin sekalian, Anda baru saja menghadapi sebuah pelajaran penting. Apa pun yang terjadi dengan uang ini, Anda masih berminat karena apa yang saya lakukan tidak akan mengurangi nilainya. Biarpun lecek dan kotor, uang itu tetap bernilai 100 dolar.”

Dalam kehidupan ini kita pernah beberapa kali terjatuh, terkoyak, dan berlepotan kotoran akibat keputusan yang kita buat dan situasi yang menerpa kita. Dalam kondisi seperti itu, kita merasa tak berharga, tak berarti. Padahal apa pun yang telah dan akan terjadi, Anda tidak pernah akan kehilangan nilai di mata mereka yang mencintai Anda. Jangan pernah lupa – Anda spesial. (Intisari)

Ekspresi Positif dalam Pergaulan Remaja

     Bebas; adalah lepas;tidak terhalang,terganggu dan bisa berbuat,bertindak dengan leluasa.Ekspresi adalah proses pengungkapan yang berupa tindakan atau gagasan.

  Ungkapan pemasungan kebebasan ekspresi umumnya hanya dikaitkan dengan intervensi penguasa. Padahal, jika kita jujur, banyak hal yang mempengaruhi kebebasan berekspresi: konvensi bahasa, konvensi sastra, nilai-nilai, pemilik modal, selera pasar, pembaca dll.. Selain itu, seseorang  juga perlu mendengarkan bisikan hati nuraninya pada saat mencipta. Bisikan nurani itulah yang membimbing  untuk menghasilkan karya - karya dalam kehidupan. Hal itu bisa berwujud karya sastra,maupun ilmu penegetahuan dan teknologi.

   Jaman sekarang kita dapat mudah berekspresi dengan adanya internet terutama adanya situs jejaring sosial,kita dapat menyampaikan hal yang kita lakukan dan megetahui apa yang dilakukan oleh orang lain melalui situs jejaring sosial.Kita juga dapat menuliskan hasil - hasil karya kita melalui internet dengan adanya situs yang menyediakan kita untuk ngeblog secara gratis

        Dewasa ini, remaja cenderung ekspresif dalam mengungkapkan keinginannya dan dalam meluapkan emosinya. Remaja sekarang cenderung susah untuk mengendalikan emosinya. Berbagai ekspresi negatif mereka keluarkan demi membela harga diri dan jati diri muda mereka. Espresi-ekspresi itu misalnya tawuran, kebut-kebutan, narkoba, minuman keras, serta seks bebas. Mereka menganggap dengan melakukan hal-hal seperti itu, mereka telah berekspresi. Padahal dengan ekspresi-ekspresi semacam itu,mereka telah menyia-nyiakan masa muda mereka yang berharga, yang semestinya dimanfaatkan untuk berprestasi.

 

        Bentuk ekspresi positif yang dapat dilakukan oleh remaja, seperti misalnya mengikuti kegiatan ekstrakurikuler, mengikuti kursus-kursus/ketrampilan dan menyalurkan hobi. Adapun bentuk lain ekspresi positif adalah dengan berprestasi di bidang akademik, seperti mengikuti perlombaan mata pelajaran, olimpiade sains, perlombaan olahraga dan sebagainya. Kebebasan remaja dalam memilih ekspresi haruslah yang bermanfaat dan menunjang masa depan mereka, dengan begitu remaja telah mempergunakan masa mudanya dengan sebaik-baiknya.

 

        Ekspresi remaja umumnya di bentuk oleh watak dan kepribadian remaja tersebut serta lingkungan sekitarnya. Ekspresi juga di bentuk oleh keimanan dan ketaqwaan dari remaja terrsebut. Jika iman dan taqwanya kuat, niscaya dia akan berekspresi yang positif, sehingga tidak mudah terpengaruh oleh lingkungan yang tidak baik.. Selain itu, peran  penting dalam pembentukan ekspresi remaja juga dari faktor keluarga. Seberapa jauh dan seberapa besar perhatian keluarga terhadap perkembangan anak-anaknya akan menentukan bagaimana ekspresi anak..

Fast Five is 'top pirated film of 2011'

Action movie Fast Five was the most pirated film of 2011, according to file-sharing blog, Torrent Freak.

The fifth instalment in the Fast and the Furious film series was downloaded 9.2 million times, figures have shown.

In second place was The Hangover II with 8.8 million downloads followed by Thor, thriller Source Code and I Am Number Four was in fifth place.

James Cameron's sci-fi epic Avatar was last year's top-pirated film, downloaded 16.6 million times.

Cameron had previously suggested that making movies in 3D would help put people off from downloading films illegally.

Only two of this year's top ten, Thor and Harry Potter, were released in 3D - which could be attributed as much to a decline in the popularity of the format as to the difficulty in pirating the material.
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Figures for the entire top 10 this year have dropped in comparison with last year.

Torrent Freak said this might be explained by an increase in file sharing and streaming sites - which don't count towards download figures.

Thor, based on the comic book character of the same name, was downloaded 8.3 million times and Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, 7.9 million times.

Sucker Punch was at number six, followed by 127 Hours and Rango at number 7 and 8 respectively.

Top grossing Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Transformers: Dark of the Moon did not feature on the pirated film list.

And The King's Speech and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 were both hugely popular at the box office, but their downloading figures remained fairly modest, appearing in ninth and tenth place on the list.

The data for the list is collected from several sources, including reports from thousands of BitTorrent trackers. (BBC London)

Robot wars ‘still a long way off’

Despite the US Department of Defense once predicting that a third of US fighting strength would be composed of robots by 2015, experts warn that the machine wars seen in the movies will remain science fiction for quite some time yet.

"I'll be back" said Arnold Schwarzenegger as cyborg-assassin the Terminator, back from the year 2029 to carry out a murder in 1984. But it seems that, when it comes to science fact rather than science fiction, it is unlikely that anything like him - or should he be an it? - will ever "be" at all.

Robots in the home have been promised for a while and though - as the BBC's Jon Stewart has discovered - technology is slowly allowing robots closer to domestic use, some of the most practical applications so far have been in military operations.

Cybermen (Cyberman) in a scene from the 'Dr Who' adventure 'The Tomb of the Cybermen'
Robots so far are not quite up to the images depicted in science fiction

What robots are doing in modern warfare is no small feat. Machines undertake bomb disposal, mine detection and entering unknown places of interest before sending in soldiers - a practice that the military believes is saving lives.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones have already carried out military operations carrying "lethal payloads" without having a soldier on board. It was called "the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al Qaeda leadership [in Pakistan]" by CIA director Leon Panetta in 2009.

Despite it being called a "drone war" by some commentators, the Department of Defense is keen to point towards its key goals of "intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance" when it is using robotics.

In a document setting out an unmanned military vehicle roadmap between 2005 and 2030, it stated that around a third of US fighting strength would be composed of robots in a $127bn (£80bn) project.

This was scrapped in 2009.

But some of the latest prototypes could still make robots in military operations on the ground a regular occurrence.

The LS3 - known as "Alphadog" to its developers - will be able to carry up to 400lbs (180kg) of equipment over a distance of up to 20 miles (32km) over a 24-hour period.

In practical terms, this means that it could replace the use of a mule or donkey to carry heavy loads.

Boston Dynamics demo of the AlphaDog
Newest prototypes move a lot more like organic animals than previously

Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and the US Marine Corps, it can withstand being kicked and maintains its balance when pushed.

"For years, I did work on one-legged hopping machines - funny contraptions in the lab," Marc Raibert, of Boston Dynamics told an audience at Stanford University.

"The number of remaining problems that need to be solved is a small but manageable list. In the next couple of years, I can imagine getting legged robot technology… out there and into use."

The way it is able to right itself when toppled and the noise it makes when moving is more than a little like the Terminator and many reacting to the clips have been amazed at just how realistically the robot moves.

Tech site Gizmodo called it the "creepiest and most awesome quadruped robot of all time".

Life and death

But despite the occasional YouTube comment saying this development will lead to the end of the world, this is where robotics experts are keen to see the comparisons with sci-fi stop.

"With today's technology, there has to a person in the loop with regard to a decision that would have the gravity of life and death," says Joe Dyer, chief operating officer of robotics firm iRobot.

   
The world will begin to change drastically when robots have the manipulation capability of a five or six-year-old child
Joe Dyer, iRobot

"Will we ever have machines that would truly challenge Asimov's laws? Maybe, but it's going to be a long time coming."

The real stumbling block for robotics engineers is that where a robot fails - and a human excels - is context and recognition. People can tell things apart quickly, effectively and from a very early age.

While handling rough terrain is now generally considered to be at the later stages of development for robots, actual intelligence and recognition about what it finds when it reaches its destination is a lot more complicated.

"We're starting to nibble at the edges of it," says Dyer.

"The world will begin to change drastically when robots have the manipulation capability of a five or six-year-old child. That means you can start to do the basics."

Brain power
At the moment, "stupid" robots serve a purpose. Their main function is to go into places where it would be dangerous or impossible for a human to tread. High intelligence is not required so much as brute strength and the ability to keep humans away from potentially harmful situations.

The Panasonic Evolta run robot created by Tomotaka Takahashi
Some robots are a lot less frightening to people than others

The first major mass practical use for these type of robots came in the aftermath of 9/11 as a search and rescue tool when emergency personnel were unable to carry out an operation. They were operated by human controllers in a similar way to how they are today.

But if futurist and author Ray Kurzweil is right, by 2019 a $1,000 (£650) computer will at least match the processing power of the human brain.

And this could lead to "intelligent" robots with an autonomy that many find uncomfortable. But what many see this as frightening at the moment, some experts think that it is only a matter of time before it becomes an idea that people will get used to and eventually consider normal.

"We [humans] don't like to give up our special-ness," robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks said in a Ted talk.

"Having the idea that robots could really have emotions, or that robots could be living creatures - I think is going to be hard for us to accept. But we're going to come to accept it over the next 50 years or so."(BBC London)