Mola-mola

Was just reading a friend's e-mail in the Biology mailing list I'm in. She was talking about a recent discovery of dying Mola mola near Thousand Island, Indonesia. I was curious, as I have never heard of this species of fish. Turns out it's also known as Sunfish, the largest bony fish alive. The size and shape is just amazing! In Indonesia, Mola mola often swim around Nusa Penida, Bali. Gee..I would want to see one of those myself! Certainly I need to learn to dive first, then spend a week in Bali, looking for the sight of this animal, in the right time of the year. One more item on my to do list. Here are some websites that cover Sunfish, scientifically and commercially:
http://www.earthwindow.com/mola.html
http://www.fishbase.org/summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=1732
http://www.oceansunfish.org/
http://www.mola-mola-sunfish-bali.com/
http://www.balisunfish.com/
http://www.mola-namibia.com/index.htm

Better management for Trans Jakarta Busway?

I've been regularly taking the Trans Jakarta bus way for over than 10 months now. Many a times I see people go running to get on the bus and the door closes right in front of their face. I also had the opportunity to be squeezed inside the bus because the door opened a little bit too long for the mass of people waiting on the bus stop getting on board (note that I didn't say lining up, coz there isn't usually any line) . So I've been wondering if there should be a timer for the door to open, just to make it fair. In more developed countries, modes of mass public transportation such as MRTs or subways' doors are opened for a certain period of time before a notification such as "door is closing" is given and the doors ultimately close. But in Indonesia, Trans Jakarta bus, the so-called best mode of land public transport in Jakarta for the time being, have no clear guidance on how long the door will be opened and when it will be closed.

This thought had been lingering on my mind for sometime, until yesterday (Friday) afternoon I experience one myself.

First of all, I may need to describe a little about the Karet bus stop. The bus stop stands between two lanes of the road. It is a platform with a ticketing office in front and a gate in front of the platform. You need to buy the plastic ticket and slit it into the small machine next to the gate before you can get onto the platform. Inside the platform there are 4 doors, two on the right and two on the left. The doors are supposed to be automatic, opening only when the bus arrives, but a lot of times the mechanism is broken and the door stays swung open at all times, endangering the waiting lot of passengers-to-be. Inside the bus there is always a doorman, since all industry in Indonesia need to be labor-intensive or because the system still need manual "control". The doorman's tasks are to give signals to the driver when to open or close the door and help some passengers with a pull or a push needed to get on or off the bus. A pull or a push? Ha!

Yesterday, I was still standing in front of the ticketing office when I saw the bus came rushing to the bus stop. I immediately accelerated my pace, pushed the card into the slit on the gate of the bus stop and rushed into the hallway when I saw two people (and only 2 people) who were standing in front of the opened door started to step on to the bus. I immediately ran into the opened door and flung myself into the bus, probably only a splitsecond after the hand of the doorman gave signal to the driver to close the door. I was able to get in safely. But immediately I heard the yelling of the doorman and the driver who believed I was endangering their reputation. They were afraid that I will got hurt and they would be the ones to blame. I yelled back of course, as I remorselessly apologized.

Ok, at some point I agree that I could have hurt myself if instead of successfully jumped onto the bus, I slammed into the closing door. But then again, the door was opened for such a short period of time, since there were only 2 people getting onto the bus. It will be much more efficient if they have this mechanism for opening the door for a clear, known period of time. It won't be difficult, just put a timer on the bus stop door, like the ones put on top of traffic light, so we know that the door is closing and will give reasonable window time for people getting off and on the bus. I hope I'm not having a wishful thinking, because certainly it's not the first time that poor government planning on public facilities endanger people.