Sometimes, I am disappointed with myself...
...because I sometimes dumb myself down. Case in point; a bunch of us (my office mates and I) went for lunch the other day at the local shopping mall. While we were in the elevator, a friend was surprised that she could get reception from her cellular network. I commented that somewhere there must be an indoor repeater/antenna for her to get that strong a signal. And she, along with the other two friends just smiled at me with a look of disbelief. Mind you, 2 of them specialises in networks and data comms while the other one is an expert in systems science. Lo and behold, when we got out of the elevator there was an indoor antenna. To prove my point, I quickly pointed to the device and happily said "See? I told ya!" You know what they did? All of them laughed at me. "Hoi Sleepyhead, pepandai jek kau ni. Tu bukan ke fire extinguisher? Yang mcm smoke detector tu..." they said. Dengan lagaknya. And I just laughed sheepishly; implicitly indicating that I was mistaken.
Erm....I regret to say my dears that you are the ones who were mistaken. But, alas I just kept it inside my heart. Ye tuan-tuan dan puan-puan, kalau nampak benda putih macam penutup botol susu seperti di bawah berada di atas ceiling in public buildings; they are indoor cellular/wi-fi networks antennas.
They are called ceiling-mounted antenna for either cellular networks or wi-fi. Haish sia-sia sajor belajar jauh-jauh kalau tatau! Ini belum cerita antennas and propagation lagi. Radiation patterns, directivity, power gain, reciprocity, path loss calculation, link budgets, fading. Eheh. Sajor dropping terms. Saya tahu anda rasa device itu looks close to this....ini barulah smoke detector ya tuan-tuan dan puan-puan.
This disappointment comes not just for this one case but I think I have done this a lot of time. Kalau orang lain, pantang ada benda yang dia rasa dia sorang tau mesti lah akan dicanangkan satu kampung. Terutamanya di hadapan boss. And I sometimes berate myself for not being more outspoken. Sebab saya ini adalah seorang perendah diri. Hiks. Tahun ini saya berazam (even though we're close to the end of the first quarter of the year already) untuk tidak men-dumb myself down lagi. Saya mahu kepochi! Kepochi..I tell ya!
Oklah bai...saya mahu revise cellular networks untuk di ajar esok.
Posted in: on March 17, 2008 at at 6:50:00 PM
sleepyhead, ada orang tau teori saje tapi practice hampeh. i think i would immediately know the difference between the smoke detectors and those 'other' things even though i only got degrees in law and know almost zero about ngok ngek like the devices you showed. and i would say, "maybe u r right coz i myself never seen such things". admission of ignorance is much more noble than insistence of knowledge. itulah 2 sen auntie hari ini.