The Country of Hypocrites

With increasing consumer and household debts over the last few years, the PM stated that it is important to control credit card lending and proposed increased scrunity on credit card approval procedures. On a hindsight, quick cash loans from other services were not mentioned at all.

With increased debt and inflation partly due to rising oil prices, there has been mention about tightening our belts on spending, yet on a hindsight, just for a mobile cabinent meeting, a 2 million baht meeting room was created just for the sake of one single meeting, before being demolished.

A few days before that, a certain minister came out explaining that it is important that our country must conserve energy and sets up a target to lower energy consumption by 20%. Yet on the day the mobile cabinent meeting was setup, the temporarily meeting room required a power generator that could supply electricity to a 10 story apartment to aircon the whole facility.

The country started to talk about moral issues, including the development of a moral center, yet it is so ironic that certain vices such as gambling has been long practiced by our members - in which new forms of lottery have been immensely popular.

No matter how successful the lottery was, the strange hindsight is that the same old government is not going to create a casino based on moral ground.

Yet when we look back on moral grounds, it is funny to see certain TV shows such as BigBrother and the Miss Universe show being arranged straight in the backyards of that country. Isn't showing women in skimpy outfit unmoral?

Though this is a moral country, it is like a slap in the face to see local politicians taking money from the lottery funds to donate to charity, yet siphoning it off to other causes - in which there has been little backlash from the PM as they belong to the same party. An even worse offense, was when a relief fund was completely stolen by some diabolic parties who decided enriching themselves is better than helping the life of thousands of people.

Also when there is huge campaign against smoking, somehow its funny to note that one of the largest tobacco company is actually state owned.

Corruption is a huge sin, which is practiced by new and inventive forms by the government, but it just pains to see many younger people so indifferent to this idea.

When people talk about privatization to improve performance of state enterprises, somehow it makes me wonder why not the unprofitable enterprises so that they can finally profitable, and not the profitable ones - unless the motive was for money?

When we talk about media openness in the country, somehow it is ironic to see so many shows - both radio, TV, and newspaper being pressured for being critical. We see foreign jounalists been deported from the country. Also to drive the final blow is that our community radios are being closed down - yet the PM goes on talking on his radio show about freedom.

In our country, talk is plenty, and it is cheap as usually little action proceeds from the talk. Pledges for disaters have only been pledges, and it ends there when the media attention is long gone.

Somehow its funny to think about all of this. Its a country of hypocrites, and somehow it just irks me to know that I'm closer to it than I can imagine.

All Because of StarWars Ep III

With the release of StarWars episode III just a short while ago, its hard not to hear about all the PR and buzz about the final installment of the movie. On related note, sometimes you can see people who try to find all conjuctions between what is in trend with practically anything they can get their hands on, like the following article from WeeklyStandard.com.

The Case for the Empire
From the May 16, 2002 Daily Standard: Everything you think you know about Star Wars is wrong.
by Jonathan V. Last, online editor
12/26/2002 12:00:00 AM

STAR WARS RETURNS today with its fifth installment, "Attack of the Clones." There will be talk of the Force and the Dark Side and the epic morality of George Lucas's series. But the truth is that from the beginning, Lucas confused the good guys with the bad. The deep lesson of Star Wars is that the Empire is good.

It's a difficult leap to make--embracing Darth Vader and the Emperor over the plucky and attractive Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia--but a careful examination of the facts, sorted apart from Lucas's off-the-shelf moral cues, makes a quite convincing case.

First, an aside: For the sake of this discussion, I've considered only the history gleaned from the actual Star Wars films, not the Expanded Universe. If you know what the Expanded Universe is and want to argue that no discussion of Star Wars can be complete without considering material outside the canon, that's fine. However, it's always been my view that the comic books and novels largely serve to clean up Lucas's narrative and philosophical messes. Therefore, discussions of intrinsic intent must necessarily revolve around the movies alone. You may disagree, but please don't e-mail me about it.

If you don't know what the Expanded Universe is, well, uh, neither do I.

I. The Problems with the Galactic Republic

At the beginning of the Star Wars saga, the known universe is governed by the Galactic Republic. The Republic is controlled by a Senate, which is, in turn, run by an elected chancellor who's in charge of procedure, but
has little real power.

Scores of thousands of planets are represented in the Galactic Senate, and as we first encounter it, it is sclerotic and ineffectual. The Republic has grown over many millennia to the point where there are so many factions and disparate interests, that it is simply too big to be governable. Even the Republic's staunchest supporters recognize this failing: In "The Phantom Menace," Queen Amidala admits, "It is clear to me now that the Republic no longer functions." In "Attack of the Clones," young Anakin Skywalker observes that it simply "doesn't work."

The Senate moves so slowly that it is powerless to stop aggression between member states. In "The Phantom Menace" a supra-planetary alliance, the Trade Federation (think of it as OPEC to the Galactic Republic's United Nations), invades a planet and all the Senate can agree to do is call for an investigation.

Like the United Nations, the Republic has no armed forces of its own, but instead relies on a group of warriors, the Jedi knights, to "keep the peace." The Jedi, while autonomous, often work in tandem with the Senate, trying to smooth over quarrels and avoid conflicts. But the Jedi number only in the thousands--they cannot protect everyone.

What's more, it's not clear that they should be "protecting" anyone. The Jedi are Lucas's great heroes, full of Zen wisdom and righteous power. They encourage people to "use the Force"--the mystical energy which is the source of their power--but the truth, revealed in "The Phantom Menace," is that the Force isn't available to the rabble. The Force comes from midi-chlorians, tiny symbiotic organisms in people's blood, like mitochondria. The Force, it turns out, is an inherited, genetic trait. If you don't have the blood, you don't get the Force. Which makes the Jedi not a democratic militia, but a royalist Swiss guard.

And an arrogant royalist Swiss guard, at that. With one or two notable exceptions, the Jedi we meet in Star Wars are full of themselves. They ignore the counsel of others (often with terrible consequences), and seem honestly to believe that they are at the center of the universe. When the chief Jedi record-keeper is asked in "Attack of the Clones" about a planet she has never heard of, she replies that if it's not in the Jedi archives, it doesn't exist. (The planet in question does exist, again, with terrible consequences.)

In "Attack of the Clones," a mysterious figure, Count Dooku, leads a separatist movement of planets that want to secede from the Republic. Dooku promises these confederates smaller government, unlimited free trade, and an "absolute commitment to capitalism." Dooku's motives are suspect--it's not clear whether or not he believes in these causes. However, there's no reason to doubt the motives of the other separatists--they seem genuinely to want to make a fresh start with a government that isn't bloated and dysfunctional.

The Republic, of course, is eager to quash these separatists, but they never make a compelling case--or any case, for that matter--as to why, if they are such a freedom-loving regime, these planets should not be allowed to check out of the Republic and take control of their own destinies.

II. The Empire

We do not yet know the exact how's and why's, but we do know this: At some point between the end of Episode II and the beginning of
Episode IV, the Republic is replaced by an Empire. The first hint comes in "Attack of the Clones," when the Senate's Chancellor Palpatine is granted emergency powers to deal with the separatists. It spoils very little to tell you that Palpatine eventually becomes the Emperor. For a time, he keeps the Senate in place, functioning as a rubber-stamp, much like the Roman imperial senate, but a few minutes into Episode IV, we are informed that the he has dissolved the Senate, and that "the last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away."

Lucas wants the Empire to stand for evil, so he tells us that the Emperor and Darth Vader have gone over to the Dark Side and dresses them in black.

But look closer. When Palpatine is still a senator, he says, "The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good." At one point he laments that "the bureaucrats are in charge now."

Palpatine believes that the political order must be manipulated to produce peace and stability. When he mutters, "There is no civility, there is only politics," we see that at heart, he's an esoteric Straussian.

Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet. It's a dictatorship people can do business with. They collect taxes and patrol the skies. They try to stop organized crime (in the form of the smuggling rings run by the Hutts). The Empire has virtually no effect on the daily life of the average, law-abiding citizen.

Also, unlike the divine-right Jedi, the Empire is a meritocracy. The Empire runs academies throughout the galaxy (Han Solo begins his career at an Imperial academy), and those who show promise are promoted, often rapidly. In "The Empire Strikes Back" Captain Piett is quickly promoted to admiral when his predecessor "falls down on the job."

And while it's a small point, the Empire's manners and decorum speak well of it. When Darth Vader is forced to employ bounty hunters to track down Han Solo, he refuses to address them by name. Even Boba Fett, the greatest of all trackers, is referred to icily as "bounty hunter." And yet Fett understands the protocol. When he captures Solo, he calls him "Captain Solo." (Whether this is in deference to Han's former rank in the Imperial starfleet, or simply because Han owns and pilots his own ship, we don't know. I suspect it's the former.)

But the most compelling evidence that the Empire isn't evil comes in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Darth Vader is battling Luke Skywalker. After an exhausting fight, Vader is poised to finish Luke off, but he stays his hand. He tries to convert Luke to the Dark Side with this simple plea: "There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you. . . . Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." It is here we find the real controlling impulse for the Dark Side and the Empire. The Empire doesn't want slaves or destruction or "evil." It wants order.

None of which is to say that the Empire isn't sometimes brutal. In Episode IV, Imperial stormtroopers kill Luke's aunt and uncle and Grand Moff Tarkin orders the destruction of an entire planet, Alderaan. But viewed in context, these acts are less brutal than they initially appear. Poor Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen reach a grisly end, but only after they aid the rebellion by hiding Luke and harboring two fugitive droids. They aren't given due process, but they are traitors.

The destruction of Alderaan is often cited as ipso facto proof of the Empire's "evilness" because it seems like mass murder--planeticide, even. As Tarkin prepares to fire the Death Star, Princess Leia implores him to spare the planet, saying, "Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons." Her plea is important, if true.

But the audience has no reason to believe that Leia is telling the truth. In Episode IV, every bit of information she gives the Empire is willfully untrue. In the opening, she tells Darth Vader that she is on a diplomatic mission of mercy, when in fact she is on a spy mission, trying to deliver schematics of the Death Star to the Rebel Alliance. When asked where the Alliance is headquartered, she lies again.

Leia's lies are perfectly defensible--she thinks she's serving the greater good--but they make her wholly unreliable on the question of whether or not Alderaan really is peaceful and defenseless. If anything, since Leia is a high-ranking member of the rebellion and the princess of Alderaan, it would be reasonable to suspect that Alderaan is a front for Rebel activity or at least home to many more spies and insurgents like Leia.

Whatever the case, the important thing to recognize is that the Empire is not committing random acts of terror. It is engaged in a fight for the survival of its regime against a violent group of rebels who are committed to its destruction.

III. After the Rebellion

As we all know from the final Star Wars installment, "Return of the Jedi," the rebellion is eventually successful. The Emperor is assassinated, Darth Vader abdicates his post and dies, the central governing apparatus of the Empire is destroyed in a spectacular space battle, and the rebels rejoice with their small, annoying Ewok friends. But what happens next?

(There is a raft of literature on this point, but, as I said at the beginning, I'm going to ignore it because it doesn't speak to Lucas's original intent.)

In Episode IV, after Grand Moff Tarkin announces that the Imperial Senate has been abolished, he's asked how the Emperor can possibly hope to keep control of the galaxy. "The regional governors now have direct control over territories," he says. "Fear will keep the local systems in line."

So under Imperial rule, a large group of regional potentates, each with access to a sizable army and star destroyers, runs local affairs. These governors owe their fealty to the Emperor. And once the Emperor is dead, the galaxy will be plunged into chaos.

In all of the time we spend observing the Rebel Alliance, we never hear of their governing strategy or their plans for a post-Imperial universe. All we see are plots and fighting. Their victory over the Empire doesn't liberate the galaxy--it turns the galaxy into Somalia writ large: dominated by local warlords who are answerable to no one.

Which makes the rebels--Lucas's heroes--an unimpressive crew of anarchic royals who wreck the galaxy so that Princess Leia can have her tiara back.

I'll take the Empire.

Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard.

Recommended Jazz/New Age CDs

During the last few months, I've been in a Jazz/New Age buying spree, and I've bought myself a total of about a dozen or so CDs on this theme. I just thought about recommending a few of them:

Artist: Jaja
Album: Jaja
Genre: Fusion Jazz

Description: The first album of Jaja, this album is a simple example of smooth fusion jazz that is easy and simple to listen to, and quite melodic also. Many people said it reminds them of Kenny G during the earlier years before he became alittle too pop.

Artist: Jeanette Alexander
Album: Open Skies
Genre: New Age/Meditation Music

Description: A rather strange album due to its instrumental simplicity but profound meolody. I don't really know how to classify it, but it seems to be a crossover between new age, meditational, and spiritual music. A recommended buy for those who want to take some time off their hectic schedules.

PacMan Turns 25

Its strange. After browsing through CNN.COM I've noticed a very interesting article that brought me back memory lane. No its not a thing about a place or a tradition or someone that I know well, but its about a game that I've been playing rather often in my earlier years - a simple game of PacMan.

Its an interesting sidenote on how the designer who came up with the idea of PacMan after eating part of his pizza and made it a worldwide phenomenon as one of the most loved arcade games of history. I've just heard PacMan turned 25 today, and somehow it just felt like yesterday. How time does flies doesn't it?

Tribute to Pacman at CNN.COM

Planning for a VISA to the US?

If you are in BKK Thailand, and planning to apply for a VISA to the US, it might be interesting to read about one of my friend's struggle to get one, and what you should know if you go there:

http://xtercy.blogspot.com/2005/05/apply-for-visa-to-us.html

Why Do We Drive in the Left Side of the Road but Walk on the Right?

Why Do We Drive in the Left Side of the Road but Walk on the Right?

Have you ever noticed that we drive on the left side of the road, but when you go up the elevated walkway, they ask people to stay to the right? Notice the disrepency? What do you think the reason why it is so? Take a few minutes, think about it. Once you are done, feel free to scroll down and compare your answers with mines.










































Here are the list of possible theories:
1) When people go up the stairs, it is likely that most people especially older people who need to grabble the stairs. Since most people are right handed, it is likely why we walk up the elevated walkway on the right side.
2) It is noted that it is safer if a person on the footpath on the opposite direction that the car is traveling. This is safer as it allows you to avoid cars in cases of accidents when it veers out of direction into the footpath. That extends to the elevated walkway theory.

Any more theories? Free free to comment!

Fingers Crossed on Simulator

I used to remember writing fractal programs when I was younger and practicing programming. If you don't know what fractal graphics are, let me just show you some pictures of fractal graphics (note - pictures were taken from http://www.cosmiclight.com/)





Basically Fractal graphics is a complex mathematical formula in which can be used to generate intricate, interesting, and repeating fashions. It is often used as a programming exercise to practice programming, and also to test your hardware. As fractal graphics do take excessive amounts of computation most people usually write the program and leave it to render the whole night, and see the results the next day.

Now when doing this process, there are a number of problems that can occur. The major problem that could happen is that the program was coded wrong, and the results turn out to be rubbage. Another common problem that could occur is that the computer could simply hang on you and you waste the whole day's work.

Talking about it, I'm running a few intense simulators that I wrote, and I just have to keep my fingers crossed that my 24 hours of rendering won't go to waste :P

MEEEEELLLLLLLLTTTTTTIIIIINNNNG

Today's rant is simple. I'm MEEEEELLLLLLLLTTTTTTIIIIINNNNG. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


The weather is simply just too hot, I feel that I'm in a sauna every single day. Now how can one person find an ounce of creativity in a time like this?

Thinking about it, having some time off, like going to meet old friends is a good idea, and that is what we just did at the Nasty Gang Reunion at Pond's House. Since a picture tells a thousand words, I guess I'll let the picture do the talking and I can safely smirk from my own duty of doing so :P

Oishi Not!

Today's rambling would be a rambling based on my not so experience from dining at a well known group of japanese restaurant called Oishi.





Oishi is a popular group of japanese restaurant which has marketed itself into a number of different brands as follows:

Oishi - The main flagbearer is a japanese food buffet restaurant offering a wide variety of food
Oishi Express - A scaled down version of Oishi, this brand is cheaper as it offers fewer buffet items, moderately priced for your everyday family
Oishi Sabushi - In this brand, customers eat a buffet variation of the popular sabu sabu (similar to the Thai style sukiyaki) and has some scaled down side dishes.
Oishi Ramen - A fastfood outlet for selling ramen dishes at a economic price.

If you looked at the list above, you can notice that Oishi has done a great job in marketing their products by segmenting the market between different income groups in a distinct way allowing many different franchises to be created with reasonable success. During the early days of the Oishi franchise, everyone was inviting me to eat at their restaurant, and that is where I would like to start today's rambling.

The first time I stepped into an Oishi restaurant was when I was forced by a group of my friends to join them off for dinner. Though reluctant to spend a hefty sum on a japanese buffet as I don't eat sushi, I agreed to follow my friends along just for old times sake. During my time there, I just wanted to say I was rather unimpressed by the lineup of food. Most of the food is typical or bland tasting. The variety may be huge, but I was rather taken back by the horrible table manners of some of the other patrons. All in all, I just wanted to say the buffet was adequate, though I didn't enjoyed it that much.

A few weeks later, one of my other friend who went to Oishi came to vent his frustration with me. He claimed that he saw a hidden camera at the food counter in Oishi. Though I haven't got the chance to go back to double check it, the thought that high paying patrons should be subjected to eavesdropping just because they are afraid of us packing food back home is a big big let down. Without much thought I promised never to step in another Oishi again.

I kept my promise for a number of months, until I was cornered again at a local department store. After huge deliberation, our group of friends decided to try Oishi Sabushi. Though relunctant to eat at Oishi, I noticed that the price range here is alot cheaper than the Oishi restaurant which allowed tempted me to allow Oishi another try. I didn't particularly find anything interesting in Sabushi, though the pricing is rather adequate. It was only at the end of the buffet when I ordered my favorite snack - Zenzai(?) red beans with mochi - that is when my woes with Oishi return. What I got was essentially red bean soup (hardly any red beans) and a number rock hard piece of grilled rice. That bowl of zenzai was a complete let down, and after finishing that dish, I coined the term - Spirit of the Red Bean for the dish as I gave the dish a wai. I promised again, never to step in another Oishi.

Forward another year, I was stuck in a department store with my little bro and a friend, and it was raining pretty hard in the afternoon. All of the people in our clique agreed Oishi was crab, but since we had nothing to do for hours, we decided to go to the only buffet in the department store - which was Oishi Express. Since it was priced less than the Oishi which we didn't liked to much, we still were willing to give it a try. Just a weeks ago before this day, there was a story about an aide of an MP that got badly burnt in an Oishi Express shop, so naturally our curiousity only served as incentive to try out Oishi Express to see how in the world can someone burnt themselves badly by eating a sabu sabu. During the first half hour of the buffet, things were nice in Oishi Express. The problem started when we started to eat our main dishes. Most of the main dishes were bland or either awful.

The highlight of our evening to forget was highlighted by the Sabu sabu dish. We were planning to get a sabu sabu dish (the same dish that got the aide of the MP burnt), and we proceeded to the counter to get the dish. However when we were about to pick the pot, the staff informed us that we cannot operate this dish by ourselves, and they were going to serve us the dish and asked us to select what we want in the sabu sabu. After some deliberation, we pointed at a number of meat dishes and vegatables and went back to our table. After a brief wait, the waitress got us the sabu sabu dish and then left promptly. To our surprise, we saw all the meat and vegetables were dumped in the pot - and to compound things, the water wasn't even boiling. If you have cooked food before, you will know that if raw meat is dropped in unboiled water, it lets off a strange aftertaste. To make mattters worse, the only thing that was heating the dish was this alcohol based candle burning underneath the pot. We were waiting for 10 minutes, and then the fire went out before the water was boiling. Wonderful, now we had to ask them to replace the candle and wait for it to boil again. So after waiting half an hour for a stupid sabu sabu, the taste verdict of all the three tasters were damning - 2 thumbs down - awful!

To cap things off, we decided to have our zenzai again. Once again, I made another wai at the Spirit of the Red Bean. To sum it all up, it was another awful dining experience except the side dishes.

If you have been reading this rambling to this moment, yes, you would not be surprised to hear that I promised myself not to eat at another Oishi restaurant again. I kept my promise for another year, and until I was forced to make a choice between two restaurants when I was supposed to treat my nephew. The first was a spagetthi shop and the second was Oishi Ramen. It turned out that my choice, the spagetthi shop was closed, and I was forced to go to another Oishi shop - this time the last in the franchise called Oishi Ramen. In this sitting, I was adamant that the food will suck as the price is priced in the low range. I wasn't disappointed. It really sucked. Let me talk about two dishes. The first dish that I ordered was curry ramen. When I got my dish, I just have to say I was completely aghasted at the taste and appearance. If you have eaten real curry ramen, you would know that the curry must be normal curry sauce, but diluted so that it could eaten as a soup. In Oishi ramen, what they did was to make ramen from their old brooth, and pour some curry on top, thinking about it - at least they could have stirred the curry and the soup together. The taste was rather bad. What I noticed is that the curry in Oishi Ramen seems to be rather artificial. After tasting the carrots and the potatoes, the vegetables seem rather flaky, which is a attribute of preprocessed food. This flaky taste also extended to the pork - which doubles my hunch that food in Oishi Ramen - like curry was preprocessed by a food factory and not made in the shop.

The second dish that I got was a Yakisoba dish. Though intially it was adequate in taste(better than Sky Lark), after reaching the bottom of the dish, I found that the yakisoba was completely drenched in oil! Its a basic cooking knowledge that it is vital to drain excess oil from dishes. Somehow the shop didn't do that, and added to my doubt about the quality of food.

To conclude things off, after tasting food at every Oishi Franchise,here is my verdict for Oishi. Oishi is excellent in Marketing, but horrible in Food Quality. Its just perflexing to see that so many people partronize Oishi on a daily basis, but I guess at times its another excellent case study of how marketing is more important than product. Sad indeed!

Argh!!!

During the last week or so, Blogger has been acting a little strange, and my posts keep on disappearing. I read through the logs in Blogger and it seems there were some major problems with the system which causes posts to disappear. So much about it. Imagine writing up a huge long rambling, and the whole post disappears. THAT IS A BAD FEELING!

If I draw a modern analogy, it would be similar to writing a report in M$Word and the app just crashed when you reached the tenth page of the report. Now in most cases, alot of people in my field would usually laugh it off and just say that you simply saved it on regular intervals, the agony would have never happened. Thinking about the previous lesson, it makes me think whether I should copy the posts everytime I post in Blogger into a notepad before I press the Publish button. Oh well, considering my upbringing, it seems that I'm getting a new habit. Its always better to be safe than sorry.

Oh well, that is all to today's rant. Once I get in a better mood, maybe I'll get to tell another tale.

Songkhran on a Hindsight

As I'm writing this blog technically on the first Day of our Thai New Year - Songkhran, I've decided that I want to reflect on a few issues and remind our readers on a few things before they think about going all out and enjoy themselves.

First of all, this year's drought has been the worst in decades. As a result of that, the lives of numerous farming families have severely been affected. Due to that, before going out splashing excessive amounts of water just for enjoyment, I do want to remind all of us about the farmers and their plight and conserve water if possible.

The second issue that has been troubling me is the massive exodus of holiday seekers going to exotic destinations or simply back home at this period. I was wondering how much energy could be saved if people actually had the choice actually travel during other periods of the year? As the massive exodus from Bangkok starts, we can notice that the huge traffic jam that accumulates from choke points from the main highways resulting to huge lost of money on fuel and transportation cost due to ineffiency usage.

The last issue that really troubles me is the amount of alcohol consumed by this country. To compound that, it just makes me wonder the lack of restraints from the drinkers especially when it comes with drunk driving. It seems alot of drivers show little restraint, and many of the designated drivers actually grab many a drink especially during the holidays. This adds significantly to the carnage and the excessive amount of road accidents during this period.

Oh well, after all of this, I just want to wish all of us a Happy Songkhran holiday :P

Food Woes

On April 8, 2005, I was invited to speak at Rajamangala University of Technology by one of my collegues who was teaching the subject Seminars on Technology there. He told me he wanted me to talk for 3 hours on the topic Computer Game Development Technology, Trends, and the Industry. If you happen to follow along my random blog, during the last few months, I've been invited to a number of different campuses to talk about this area, and having another university to visit is indeed a fun experience.

On a strange note, I've always wondered why food on campus is hardly edible? Though its easy to argue that the quality of food depends on the cost, there are notable exceptions such as the army canteen that serves good food at really dirt cheap price. Hmm...

PS2 On PC

I just can't stop laughing at this rather stupid joke:

PS2 On PC

เนื่องจากเห็นเพื่อนๆ ถามกันเข้ามามากว่าจะเล่นเกมPS2บนPCได้อย่างไรจึงนำวิธีง่ายๆมาบอกต่อๆกันนะครับ (ผมลองแล้วworkมั่กๆ)
1.เตรียมคอม หาคอมสเปกไม่ต้องสูงมากนัก พิมเวิร์ดได้ เล่นเนตได้จะได้เล่นออนไลน์ได้
2.ไปสะพานเหล็ก หาเครื่องPS2สภาพดีๆสักเครื่อง อาจดูร้านเฮียตี๋ก็ได้ แล้วซื้อกลับมาบ้าน
3.นำPS2มาวางบนคอม ขั้นตอนนี้สำคัญมาก หากวางไม่ดีอาจพังทั้งคู่ได้ ถ้าคอมเป็นแบบdesktopให้วางทับเลย ถ้าเป็นแบบtowerให้จับนอนก่อน
4.เสียบสายให้ครบแล้วเล่นเลย ไม่ต้องกลัวคอมแฮงค์ สามารถเล่นเกมPS2พร้อมทำงานไปด้วยได้เลยไม่ต้องกังวล เล่นออนไลน์ก็ได้สบายมาก เล่นเว็บ,MSN,pirch ก็ได้สบายมาก

หวังว่าคงมีประโยชน์กับเพื่อนๆนะครับ

Behind Every Great Fortune...

I just thought this makes perfect sense, so I decided to post this quote here.

Behind every great fortune is a crime.

Honore De Balzac

Shopping Spree at Book Fair

Once or twice every year or so, I usually go off in a happy shopping spree when a Book Fair comes to town. In Thailand, where the majority of peeps hardly read any books, its nice to know that so many people are actually interested in visiting a book fair, though I suspect a huge majority of them go buy Mangas. I don't blame them though. To be exact, I'm also a really heavy manga reader myself, and this fair has the best discounts in town.

Yesterday I just had the chance to visit the book fair, and I just went on another typical shopping spree. As usual the first target are the manga stalls, and I got a sizeable number of manga to add to my collection. This year, I haven't got anything really significant. It was a far cry from the last year when I and my bro practically got a huge collection of Doraemon, Arale, Slam Dunk, and an assortment of other mangas from the fair.

After that usual stop at the manga publishers, the next stops are in the International Book Section. I usually have a strange taste for books. I like reading detailed history, and it just kind of irks me that there aren't many books on that topic in the fair. To be exact, this fair is geared more for casual readers, and the majority of books on display are usually novels and graphic books. Anyway, after rummaging through the fair, I've got myself a few good books on steep discounts, up to 70% on books (even new Books on good coding practice and design documentation seems to be low in Thai buyer's mind) that I used to want to buy, but procastinated until the fair.

Though my life has been pretty down in the dumps, all I can say, a good book does help keep a peace of mind :)

Ultimate Ownage

I just can't help but laugh at the following blog about how a student got cheated by a person who happens to help her plagarize works from the internet:

http://www.aweekofkindness.com/blog/archives/2005/03/laura_k_pahl_is.html

On a hindsight, I do think the author should have taken her name out.

TSA Lied About Protecting Passenger Data

I just noticed a very interesting blog that in a nutshell are as follows:

TSA Lied About Protecting Passenger Data


The Transportation Security Administration (aftermath of 9/11) misled the public about its role in obtaining personal information about 12 million airline passengers to test a new computerized system that screens for terrorists, according to a government investigation.

The report, released Friday by Homeland Security Department Acting Inspector General Richard Skinner, said the agency misinformed individuals, the press and Congress in 2003 and 2004. It stopped short of saying TSA lied.

Slang

As being down in the weather both physically and mentally the last week, I happen to make a fool of myself by using slangs in the wrong language. In other words, I was using Thai Slangs by speaking it in English, and it didn't make any sense at all.

When I reflected back on it, somehow it makes me laugh at the absurbity of some of the slangs when literally translated. Here are some of my favorites:

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Snake snake, fish fish - the Thai idiom should mean the person doesn't know dittly squat!

Sleep Eat Home Eat City - the Thai idiom should mean sleep all day, being unproductive

Fuk - in Thai its actually a plant that you can eat, but in English, well I better not mention what phrase suggests

Kirei - a Japanese phrase that means cute, but the Thai word of the same name means the exact opposite!

Fab - A rather popular detergent which also is a Thai slang for a woman with little cleavage :P

Sick Politically - one of the few thai idioms that make sense after translation. Pretty nifty considering that politicians are generally slimey in a Universal sense ;)

Strange isn't it?

Sprained Fingers

Yesterday night, I've decided ro turn back the clock and went for a late night grueling session of competitive basketball. The lesson I learnt was that I was no longer fit enough for that and return home with a few sprained fingers.

Fallout from that? I won't be updating my blogs for a while to wait for my finger to heal :-/

Fenris Alliance Banner

I just finished making a new banner for the Fenris Alliance Banner, which is one of the oldest and long running alliances in a text based online game called StarKingdoms. Below is the copy of it:

Life Imitates Art

One of my favorite syndicated comic is Dilbert. If you don't know what Dilbert is, Dilbert is one of the world's most popular 4 column comic about all the oddities of things you would face in the cubicle - or what you could say your office life.





In one of the columns that I distinguishly remembered well after all these years go by the following:

On Management Genius

If your organization has much red tape, you should decentralize what is centralized to improve organizational efficiency.

If your organization has too little control, you should centralized what is decentralized to put back the sense of direction in the organization.

If you notice the above quotes, you can notice that its similar to the Chicken and Egg question. In addition to that, one additional quote that is very prominent in Dilbert theme books goes as the following:

Organizations reengineer to hide their glaring mistakes and improve shareholder value without any actual work done

By adding all of this together, you can notice one of the huge paradoxes about huge organizations and the way they work. Though these notes are writen in cartoon form, its highly interesting to see how life imitates art.

A very good example would be our government in Thailand. Four years ago, the government hatched an ambition Reengineering project to update the bureacracy by creating many new ministries to take care of issues closer than the previous organization. With much fanfare from many quarters of the society, there were numerous new ministries - which is a boon for politicians (as they get ministrial appointments), the civil service (more positions so many got promotions and increase bloat), and the public (who feels that changes have been done for the better). If you notice, that by adding more Ministries, it is like Decentralizing what is Centralized.

Fast forward four years, after the previous election, one of the news that really took me by surprise, is the PM has stated that he would be combining an number of different ministries together to help improve efficiency due to overlapping duties (if you didn't get it, you can notice that 4 years earlier he added so many ministries that many of the roles were overlapped!). As alot of Thai people have short memories, many of the public greeted this with enthusiam. Though many people look it that way, I have the reason to be skeptical and view it with the second quote in Dilbert - the reorganization process was done to cover the mistakes that have been done earlier. To my understanding, I do believe that in the Thaksin I government, the expanding ministries were used to pacify different factions in the party at the expense of organizational issues. However with Thaksin already gaining control over the various factions and it is deemed no longer necessary to keep as many ministries running with overlapping duties. Also another secondary goal of this reorganization is to provide a smokescreen against the opposition and the check and balance system by changing the system often to hide traces of irregularity - which is something I'm certain this government is full of.

In conclusion to this ramble, I just wanted to point out how strange it is - in how Life Just Imitates Art.

Chain Mail #2

Oh well, another chain mail, so I decided just to do it for the heck of it. Here are the answers to it. Feel free to copy it and make your own version just for the heck of it :P

1.หนังสือเล่มล่าสุดที่อ่าน?

- Khrushchev - The man and his era

2.ภาพยนตร์เรื่องล่าสุดที่ดู? ไปดูกับใคร? ที่ไหน?

- The Phantom - at home with my brothers

3.รายการวิทยุที่กำลังฟังอยู่หรือเพลงที่กำลังฟังอยู่ตอนนี้

- FM 98.5, Best of Cuba Jazz

4. ชอบฟังเพลงแนวไหนมากที่สุด?

- Fusion Jazz, New Age, Easy Listening

5. พูดคำว่า รัก ครั้งสุดท้ายเมื่อไหร่จำได้ป่าว?

- จำไม่ได้เหมือนกัน มันนานมากแล้ว

6. ข้อดีของคุณ ?

- ตรงไปตรงมา (ทุกเรื่องยกเว็นความรัก)

7. แล้วข้อเสียล่ะ ?

- ไม่ค่อยจะเห็นใจคนอื่น

8. แล้วมองคนอื่นยังไง?

- What is important is what you think about yourself, not what others think of you

9. Wallpaper ที่คอมพิวเตอร์เป็นรูปอะไร?

- Abstract Art

10. สถานที่ที่อยากไปมากที่สุด?

- Tibet

11. คำพูดติดปาก ที่พูดประจำเลย?

- Hmm.., I'm hungry

12. ตอนนี้คิดถึงใครอยู่หรือเปล่า?

- ...

13. เวลามองเห็นทะเลแล้วรู้สึกอะไร?

- อยากนอน

14. ผลไม้สุดโปรด?

- Peach, Chestnuts, Dates

15. มีโทรศัพทถึงคุณกี่ครั้งใน 1 วัน ?

- 2-3 ครั้ง

16. คติประจำใจในการดำเนินชีวิต ?

- I dream my dream, and I walk my walk.

17. ตั้งเป้าหมายในชีวิตว่าจะเรียนถึงระดับไหน?

- Post Graduate

18. ถ้าถามเรื่องความรัก คิดยังไงกับประโยคที่ว่า "รักคนที่เค้ารักเรา"

- มันเป็นเรื่องที่ยากที่จะหาคนที่เค้ารักเราที่เรารัก

19. เพื่อนเราแอบชอบแฟนเราจะทำยังไง?

- ต้องพูดให้ clear กันก่อนเสียเพื่อนและ/หรือแฟน

20. อกหักรู้สึกอย่างไร? แล้วจะทำยังไง?

- ...

22. เป็นคนขี้หึงไหม?

- ไม่

23. ถ้าขอพรได้ 1 ข้อจะขออะไร?

- ขอให้ขอพรได้อีกเท่าไรก็ได้

24. คุณคิดว่าคนเราเกิดมาเพื่ออะไร?

- เราก็จะรู้อีกไม่นาน

25. เลี้ยงรุ่นครั้งต่อไปเมื่อไหร่?

- ม. ปลาย ครั้งสุดท้ายนี่ 2 ปีแล้ว

26. คิดไงกับเพื่อนที่มหาลัยเหรอ ?

- ก็ดีนะ

Before Shaking Another Person's Hand

Here is one experiment that I think would be interesting and easy to conduct, and a food for thought before you shake another person's hand. Try going to any public toilet, and stay there for a few minutes. Try counting how many people after finishing their business actually wash their hands. You'll be surprised with the results.

Say I didn't warn you :P

The Traits/Accomplishments of Exceptional Leaders

Last week, my father dropped a book in my room. The book was entitled: "What the Best Ceos Know" which was written by Jeffrey A. Krames, and it was another book that the Thai PM has told civil servants to read. He dropped me the copy and told me what I thought about it. The next day I finished the book, though rather unimpressed. I have to admit the book is easy and fun to read and the author had the knack of summarizing key issues in short bullet points. However as being an avid reader, I do want to point out I do prefer business history books that offer more indepth details in the lifes of great CEOs than a collection of notes from the list. However for busy managers, I guess this book does cater the market well. Anyway, before I sign off this post, I just wanted to leave one of the key points from the book which I think would nicely sum up the 200 so pages of the whole book:

The Traits/Accomplishments of Exceptional Leaders

1) An "Outside-in" Perspective
2) An evangelical leadership gene
3) Understands the critical role of culture
4) Creates next generation products, processes, or solutions
5) Implements the best ideas, regardless of origin
6) Advances the leadership body of knowledge

Game Development Seminar at Srinakharinwirot University - February 18, 2005

On February 18, 2005, I was invited as a guest speaker to speak at Srinakharinwirot University on the topic "Game Development in a CS Perspective", which was part of the seminar "Game Development as a Academic/Career Field". The seminar was conducted for CS students in the 3rd and 4th year, who are interested in game development topics as a graduating topic, and/or interested in working in the game development field.





The seminar started off with Pisal Setthawong (myself) with the topic of "Game Development in a CS Perspective". In this topic, I reiterated some of the key CS subjects and topics and how they are usefulness in the Game Development process. Later I wrapped up the discussion by talking how can game development meet with the academic requirements of the degree by pointing out common misconceptions and solutions on both the lecturer and student side on making game development as a senior project.

Later Mr. Suphot (PromptNow) spoke upon his experiences as a student in a CS field and about how to approach a senior project on a game related topic. He went on lengths to discuss about common mistakes he made, which many students in the seminar enjoyed due to details which are all to familiar - such as doing late rush jobs.





After a brief coffee break the seminar continued with me and Suphot starting things off by talking about some quick pointers and introductory material for students who are interested in the game development. This talk touched about the major game types and about related development tools, books, and websites that could help cover the introductionary material.

The last part of the seminar was conducted by Mr. Honda (PromptNow) who concluded a quick overview of "Career Opportunities in the Game Development Field", which was informative and provides a quick overview of the Industry in Thailand.

The seminar was concluded a little later, though a little later than scheduled due to a high number of inquiries and questions from the audience.

Concert Rant

Yesterday I went to the Frances Yip concert. If you don't know who is Frances Yip and from the younger generation, its not strange because Frances Yip belongs to the generation before us. If I'm not mistaken during the concert Ms. Frances Yip used to quip that she was singing for over 30 years, which makes her in the age group as most our parents and maybe grandparents for our younger members. Her most famous recording was the title track to the Shanghai Beach, or in Thailand we usually call Jao Por Shanghai (Shanghai Godfather), in which anyone in the 80s and 90s in Thailand should be very well acquianted as it is one of the most famous Hongkong drama series that was imported into Thailand.





As you noticed, the age group that came to the concert are rather older than most other concerts - in which you would see lots of rows which are filled with white and gray hair. Though you might think this would be an enjoyable concert through memory lane, I have to admit I've grown rather weary of the concert habits of many of the people in the concert. In rock concerts, there aren't many mannerism that you have to follow except to refrain from punching someone in the face. In other pop concerts the norm vary. However as I grew up listening to alot of classical concerts, I've gained a few rather strict listening habits in which I had a huge problem when faced with a rather uncivilized audience, which I'll list things that I was rather irritated by listing out the following grievances:

1) People who wear too little clothes and get sick in the concert. In this example I do want to remind people that most concert halls are cold, and its advisable bring along a jacket or sweater than to stay fashionable.

2) Constant chatter during performance. I really have a short fuse when listening to a concert, and you hear people talking to and forth during the song, not after the song has ended. I suppose alot of people don't understand people pay to go to a concert not to listen to the people talk, but to hear the singer sing.

Anyway, during the concert, I ended up being like a order Nazi, constantly reminding older people around me not to talk during the song but during the intermission. I don't know what impression hit me, but all I know is that alot of people must thought of me to be strange. No matter what, at least having a peace of mind with less chatter around the concert is a good tradeoff, though I might suspect some peeps don't.

Critical

In one forum where I frequent (SK Forums), there are a number of colorful personalities that are divided between the political and religious members who usually debate on a number of random topics. The religious arm of the forums usually have a tendency to use heavy handed tactics in their discussion in religious themes making some quarters of the forums rather uneasy and upset. One of the results of that tirade was a person posting the following picture in the forum as to make fun of the other camp.





The debate that followed, though not as serious as the previous discussion was on whether the picture was really one posted by the church or a work of a vandal. I do agree that this was more of a creative vandal's work but anyway, it just struck to me a critical eloquent quote that sprang up in my head regarding that picture:

All I can say regardless of this is true or false, a reality or a hoax, it is only human tendency to be blind to their own faults but be critical of others.

USB Port Blues

As a regular user of a computer notebook, I've noticed many deficiencies with the design of more notebooks. One of the areas that of the late I've been rather picky on is the placement of the USB ports. My first notebook was an IBM X21 notebook which is considered as one of the best notebooks on the market with its noticable titanum case. For additional note, this notebook series have received several awards in reputable trade and consumer magazines making it one of the best of the smaller and more portable 12" notebooks. Contrary to what many people feel about small notebooks, I had first hand experience in carelessness in which I accidentally dropped my notebook over the desk a couple of times - in which to my surprise and delight, it was working!





After a couple of years using the notebook, after my warrantee was expired, I decided to try a few tricks I usually like to do - and one of them involves the upgrading of the bios. Flashing the bios has not been recommended by experts due to its dangerous consequences in which many computer manufactors will void the warrantee if they found that the user has done that process. However as I was rather proficient in flashing bios on various desktops mainboards, I thought that upgrading the notebook mainboard bios could squeeze some additional power on what is an increasing aged notebook. After a brief few minutes of the bios update, I found out that my notebook just simply "ceased to exist" and it was dead - which was ironic that it survived a number of drop-tests and rough handling by the owner. Its a first hand experience on knowing that flashing the bios is considered to be one of the most dangerous aspect in the computer - what that can't kill a computer from the outside, and be killed in the inside :-/

So after that day, I had to shop for a new notebook. As being a rather technological saavy person, I wanted to find a notebook that fits my image. Though I don't really care much about fashion, I do feel as a technological expert, its certainly worth to pay extra to find a right notebook for myself. After a huge decision making process, I ended up buying a Fujitsu S6120 series notebook after figuring that I best buy one of the better and more established brands in the market. My cause was helped when I found a person who was willing to off-load a brand new notebook a huge fee lower than the official selling price in the local market.





On the initial usage of the S6120, I found that the notebook was adequate, though at a 13" configuration it was a little larger and heavier than my original X-series notebook. After usage for a while, I start to find more and more reasons why the IBM notebooks were considered to be better than Fujitsu if on the same price scale. A very good example would be the placement of USB ports. On the X-Series, the notebook had 2 USB ports. One of them was in the back, the other in the side. The side configuration was used for an external mouse, whereas the back were used for other devices. On the Fujitsu S-series notebook, there are also 2 USB ports and they are located on top of each other on the back of the machine. Though I didn't really thought much about that, after a few weeks of usage I found that the USB configuration of the machine was inadequate. A very good example would be from the fact that I always use an external mouse if possible. Once an external mouse has been fit in one of the USB port, it was hard to place the second device in the port above. Some devices such as thumbdrives are huge, and it requires a lot of vertical space forcing me to take out all USB devices if I wanted to connect that.

As I wanted to point out here, the number of USB ports in the notebook is certainly not a good indicator of how good the notebook is. Sometimes placement and smaller details do make a huge difference - in which I appreciated the IBM X-Series notebook alot of its placement whereas I had a more critical time with the Fujitsu S-Series notebook.

Though I had a huge USB Port Blues with my notebook, I easily solved the problem by having an additional device I bought for my notebook which was a USB hub. My acquisition many months ago was a Targus USB 1.0 Hub. If you wondered why I didn't buy the USB 2.0 Hub, I wanted to point out that the price difference ($10 for a USB 1.0 vs $30 for a USB 2.0) I felt that the extra speed is hardly required for the Hub. Most of the devices I connect to the Hub were mouse/keyboard/joypads. These input devices can serve me well when I only had the 9.6 kbps serial port and certainly that is little reason to upgrade. Anyway, this whole rambling blog is nothing more than a quick reminder to ask ourselves whether we really need the fastest and best accessories. Its easily noted that at times, its more important to figure what you really need and the rest would easily be solved, and that is the lesson I leave here :)

My Perspective on The Thai Government Policy on Zoning in the Troubled Southern Region

It just hit me when I heard on the news report about the PM Thaksin Shinawatra stating out his desire to end all the disturbances and trouble in the southern region of Thailand. After a complete election rout of the TRT party down south, he came up with an idea that since the Military has already created Zone of Influence in which they can allocate military personal adequately to the danger. Our PM decided that the spending of public money on improving villages would also be held with a similar fashion. In other words, zones that are designated as green are areas that are safe, and normal budget allocation would be done. In red zone, it means high rebellious elements exist, in which he said that coupled with higher military presence, a huge cut in villages with bad track record are recommended. He claims that the Government has exhausted all means of peaceful solutions and now is resorting to the stick method in solving the violence as villages will strive to be safer - inorder to be able to ask for budget to support basic infrastructure.

When I heard that, I was completely aghasted to hear such rationale. During my younger years in HighSchool - I happen to have hold of the Anarchy's Handbook. If you haven't heard about it, the Anarchy's Handbook is a collection of things that are usually deemed dangerous by governments. Topics in the handbook include the Bomb Making, Weapon Making, Communist Manifesto, Ways to Cause Rebellion, How to Sow Distress in the General Population, Phone Phreaking, Lock Picking, and other deviant behaviors - which is like a Beginner's Guide to Terrorism and Revolution. It is known that schools in the US backlist any student with that handbook as dangerous and quite able to commit vile acts - which reflects much on its heavy nature. Though the book was a rarity before, after the internet revolution, multiple copies of this handbook can be downloaded from various sites, which makes it much more of a common knowledge - though somewhat outdated.

One of my favorite articles on the handbook were on how to make revolutions in your country. In the articles on revolution, it mentions the scenarios in which it would be ripe for a mass uprising of a large scale. An uprising from the masses can only happen if there are a huge number of dissendents to the regime. Once there is dissent, it is the duty of the revolutionaries to try to create even more dissent by engaging in all forms of misinformation and trying hard to provoke heavy-handed incidents with authority in power. When there is suffering, it is noted in the revolution handbook not to help in aiding the local population if the local authority have slow. The rationale behind it was to show examples of how the local authority have been neglecting the needs of the population - and try to sow up dissent to the point of breaking over. With the cases and incidents to rally around, it would be possible to instigate a uprising from the population of a certain size depending on how ideal the environment around the revolution were. In addition to the Anarchy's Handbook, some of my favorite literature based on revolutions were biographies, history books on popular uprising, in which I find the Ho Chi Minh's struggle to free Vietnam from French Colonial rule to be one of the most fascinating modern history.

In my time as a highschool student, I did a number of uprising against certain school policies with rather mixed results. Though I managed to make the school change certain elements, I have to admit that the highschool students were not quite the right people to sell ideology of a better future to considering their mixed agenda. A very good example would be the question of freedom of religion in school, which my uprising was easily put down to apathy in the student body. Most of the student body were bribed by the religious teachers of high grade in being a sheep and threaten anyone who join my movement with low grades. In other words, with the threat of retailation in grades, the revolution was doomed from the start, though as an individual I managed to gain certain concessions from the school.

Talking about the lessons I learn from my own revolutionary endeavors, I just can imagine myself if I'm a seperatist in Southern Thailand, I would be eyeing with glee with the next mishap that the Thai Goverment has done. The dissolvation of many security organizations in the south has allowed sleeper terrorist cells to be active after decades of inactivity. The Tak Bok incident is a rallying cry and incident in which trouble-makers can rally along - much like the MiddleEast using Palestine as a rallying cry. The new Zoning directive, will further alienate the population. Instead of having one or two terrorist in each village, any village caught in the Red Zone would be denied fundings and support making them even more succeptible to convert enmass to swell the dissendent's rank which would be highly symphatetic to the seperatist cause. I suppose none of this scenarios should be an ideal situation for Thailand at all.

As another committed and worried Thai citizen with no agendas in this conflict, I also join in the long line of academics who have been highly critical of the zoning idea, in asking the government to listen to the voice of reason. I understand that TRT is still smarting from losing big time in the Southern Consititencies, but using this stick as a retailiation to their snub of TRT is certainly a path that will lead to ominous events in the future. To what extend - that is something I don't feel I want to discuss at this moment... Its too depressing...

Pop-up ads invade Department of Homeland Security

I just noticed the article in my favorite technological news update website which I find it worrisome. I've always noticed the huge amount of ironic elements in the current US policy - e.g. No Child Left Behind, Clean Air Act - in which the policy name is actually the opposite of the end result of the policy. Talking about it, it just hit me that the appointees to the US's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee is actually one of the world's largest offender in gaining private information from the net.

Pop-up ads invade Department of Homeland Security
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/02/23/gator/index.html?source=RSS

There's a gator guarding your privacy at the Department of Homeland Security.

Among the appointees to the department's 20 member "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee" is D. Reed Freeman, the "chief privacy officer" of Claria Corporation.

That's the company formerly known as Gator, infamous for its software, a.k.a. GAIN, which stands for Gator Advertising Information Network. It's sadly familiar to many frustrated Web surfers, who have been surprised to discover it mysteriously installed on their desktops serving them extra helpings of ads.

The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Dow Jones Company sued Gator back in 2002 for the way its ads appeared as parasites on their sites. But even though the original Gator software can be considered one of the original plague carriers of the spyware blight -- be careful about calling it that. The company has repeatedly threatened its critics with libel lawsuits for dubbing it "spyware."

The fact that a "privacy officer" for a company that made its name sneaking onto computers all over the word is now helping to determine what should be done with data collected by the Department of Homeland Security might be alarming to some people. But is it really all that shocking? The D.H.S.'s own chief privacy officer is no stranger to the ins and outs of interactive marketing either. She used to work for the online marketing firm, DoubleClick.

The Privacy Advisory Committee will hold its first meeting April 6, 2005 in Washington D.C. Can pop-up ads promoting every fluctuation in the terror alert level be far behind?

-- Katharine Mieszkowski

If you look at the companies involved - Gater and DoubleClick, its a huge shock. Talking about it, DoubleClick was famous for its tracking cookies that are used to gain information about user's browsing patterns and information without asking the users if they were willing to send info. Gator itself is one of the early pioneers of those pesky spyware applictions that routinely send information from your computer to their servers. Not exactly the right people I want in my neighborhood especially if they deal with my privacy and/or data integrity.

Anyway talking about it, would you prefer a goverment that is clueless about issues and do nothing, or either a goverment that allows unscrupulous individual in ranks of power? Hard to say, I prefer neither :P

Bangkok Radio - Recommendations

I just noticed that FM 98.5 Mhz is a radio channel based in Bangkok, Thailand that offers a rather smooth, jazzy selection of songs, and its currently my favorite radio channel. If you like jazz, I would like to pass it on that this is a channel you should turn to :)

Short Updates on Life in a Bullet Point Format

I'm alittle busy at the moment, but decided to post a little about my short updates on life in a bullet proof format.

- Last Saturday I went to talk as a special guest speaker at มสว university on the topic The Relationship between the CS Degree and Game Development along with Khun Honda and Phot from PromptNow.
- Currently I tabling a new revolutionary top secret MMOG Game design and I'm going to table this design in a very short time. I have reason to suspect if this goes ahead, it should be one of the revolutionary game in this Genre, and I'm have high hopes for it :)
- My proposal to the university to set up a new lab is proceeding well. The documents need a little more modification and editing before I will table this final document to the directors waiting for approval.
- Current finishing up my Machine Learning Game Othello/Cross-4 applications after struggling alittle with some of the hard to find bugs in the game. By the rate I'm going, it should be done in a few hours so its a good sign.
- Mercanary is a cool game. Go get this game if you have a PS2.
- Generally, I'm in a bored mood. I'm uninspired but I hope that some time soon, I'll shift into a higher gear.

So there goes another week in a nutshell ;)

Literature of this Week

I just thought it would be interesting to reflect the massive amount of reading that I've went through the last week. I'm pretty surprised to see me reading this much in such a short time that I wonder what hit me. Anyway, here is the list:

Arms and The Man - Dr. Gerald Bull, Iraq and the Super Gun
pg. 335
by William Lowther

An interesting book about Dr. Gerald Bull who was argubly one of the world's premiere gun scientist who was gunned down under mysterious circumstances. He is best known for his work in implementing the super gun which the Iraqi Government has sponsored.

The Teaching of Buddha
pg. 550 (dual language)

The English translation of the Japanese version of the teaching of Lord Buddha.

Blood on the Shores
pg. 287
by Viktor Leonov, translated by James F. Gebhardt

A very interesting memior of the Soviet Union's most famous special operation seal during WWII, Viktor Leonov, which is augmented with additional research by Gebhardt.

After the Gold Rush
pg. 182
by Steve McConnell

This book is an interesting book discussing about the possible future of the Profession of Software Engineering.

In Service

During the last few days, I was on a huge reading spree. One of the books I finished was an English translation of the Buddha's Teaching. I've noticed one topic which I especially liked and decided to post here as it deals alot on in Service, a guide to good goverance:

Buddha's Teaching the BrotherHood - In Service

A wise ruler will temper his verdicts with compassion. He will try to consider each case with clear wisdom and then make his verdict in accord with the five principles.

The five principles are: First he must examine the truthfulness of the facts presented.

Second, he must ascertain that they fall within his jurisdiction. If he renders a judgment with full authority, it is effective, but if he does so without authority, it only causes complication; he should await the correct conditions.

Third, he must judge justly; that is , he must enter into the mind of the defendant. If he finds that the deed was done without criminal intent, he should discharge the man.

Fourth, he should pronouce his verdict with kindness but not harshness; that is, he should apply a proper punishment but should not go beyond that. A good rule will instruct a criminal with kindness and give him time to reflect on his mistakes.

Fifth, he should judge with sympathy but not with anger; that is, he should condemn the crime but not the criminal. He should let his judgement rest upon the foundation of sympathy, and he should use the occasion to try and make the criminal realize his mistakes.

An Alternative Valentines Day

I wrote this poem back over a decade back during a disappointing mood I had over Valentine's Day. I think this is a great poem for those still seeking love but haven't found the right person. All the best wishes, and don't let all those couples get in your nerves, but be grateful on what you are and what you have ;)

Good Evening, Heartache

I feel sorry, I feel angry,
I feel down, and I feel drown,
I feel hopeless, I feel stressed
I feel pested, and I feel distressed
In that Little Heart in my Soul,
But tommorrow the pain might grow -
For who knows what fortune I might rake,
But tonight, Good Evening, Heartache.....



Pisal Setthawong

ZIL TWIN V8 MISSILE LAUNCHER 8x8 TRUCK EX - MILITARY

They said that EBay is the mother of all public autions. Someone told me that there was a very interesting item for sale there, and when I reached the link, I found a very suprising post about the sale of a ZIL TWIN V8 MISSILE LAUNCHER 8x8 TRUCK EX - MILITARY without missiles for sale.



Talking about it, I want that though honestly I don't know in the world would buying that be useful :P

Some Pictures from Dhurakij Bundit Seminar on 04/02/2005

Below is a quick photo diary of the seminar at Dhurakij Bundit 04/02/2005 about MMMOG Game Development - Trends and Technology.

First of all, we reached the seminar place.





I later quickly settled down to make last minute checks on the slides.





During that time, Phot was getting a little uneasy as he has little experience speaking in front of lots of people.





However, when the seminar started, it was all fun and educational at the same time.





That concludes the quick photo diary. If you want to know more about the contents, feel free to invite me over to speak at your local educational unit ;)

p.s. Shameless self-promotion :P

Work Work Work

Oh well, the last week was hectic. I was supposed to arrange 2 seminars - one at BangMod (KMUTT) and another at Assumption University, and the planning took a bulk of the time. Sandwiched between the two seminars, I was also had to make a quick visit as a guest speaker to Dhurakij Bundit University to talk on a special topic titled MMMOG Trends and Technology on February 4, 2005. On the meanwhile, I had to talk on the faculty Major Guidance seminar which added to the hectic week. Not only that, I was also asked to draft my plans for a new Game Development lab in my department after approval by the Deans - something which I have fought for years, and I do have to admit, that really made all the hard work seem like yesterday ;)

If things goes as well as planned, then the lab would be up and running in a few months after approval. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and wish me luck :)

February 3 - Veteran's Memorial Day

Once a year, you will notice along the busy streets of Bangkok, a number of students and armed force personnel selling imitation poppy flowers for 10 baht a piece. This is done only on February 3, which is the Veteran's Memorial Day.

If you don't know yet why the imitation poppies, then I'll explain briefly. The poppy is used to process morphine - which is one of the most potent pain-killers. As you know, the armed forces after being injured are usually treated with morphine and that is why the poppy plays a very significant role in the treatment of injured personnel which has been done over the years. Though it is known that morphine has addictive and dangerous side effects, its medical uses as a painkiller is highly required especially for people severely injured such as veterans that are injured during the line of duty.

February 3 is the day in which the general public can help over the welfare of army personnel that are injured in action, and by buying those imitiation poppies for just a fraction of your loose change is a very small and trivial way that we all as loyal citizens of Thailand could help to alleviate the suffering of the injured personnel that has thrown their life in line defending out country. I want to take this opportunity to remind us of this occasion.

"มือถือสาก ปากถือศีล"

Its funny, but I just can't help laugh at this message a friend sent to me. Its just to obvious that this is prevalent in our lovely country :P

1. คุณรู้สึกว่า ทำไมนักศึกษาสมัยนี้แต่งตัวกันโป๊จัง ทั้งสั้น ทั้งบาง
ทั้งรัดติ้ว โอ้ว คนโน้นเดินมาเห็นถึงลูกไม้ในเนื้อ
ทำไมคุณต้องเห็นนักศึกษาแต่งตัวสไตล์นี้แทบทุกวัน

2. คุณเป็นคนไม่ชอบเล่นการพนัน ล็อตเตอรี่ ไม่ซื้อ หวยไม่เล่น
เพราะคิดว่าเป็นอบายมุขและเสียเงินเปล่า
แต่คุณแอบอิจฉาหรือเสียดายถ้าได้ยินว่า
มีคนเอาเลขทะเบียนของรถคันใหม่ที่สำนักงานไปแทง หวยแล้วถูกจังๆ

3. คุณรู้สึกว่าในอินเทอร์เน็ตมันเต็มไปด้วยเว็บโป๊ เช่น หลุดโลก
ไทยเซ็กซ์สตอร์รี่ อู้โอ้วดอทคอม ไทยอะเมเจอร์ สคูลเฮเว่น แมกวีซีดี ว้า
...ทำไมเว็บ ลามกมันเยอะนักวะ

4. คุณเป็นคนใจบุญสุนทาน ไปทำบุญที่วัดทุกสัปดาห์
ยึดมั่นในหลักพระธรรมคำสั่งสอนของบวรพุทธศาสนา ว่างๆ
ก็ไปนุ่งขาวห่มขาวถือศีลแปดเพื่อ ทำจิตใจให้ผ่องแผ้ว แต่เสียอย่างเดียว
ทำไมคนอื่นที่วัดถึงไม่เป็นคนปฏิบัติดี ปฏิบัติชอบ อย่างคุณเลย เช่น
นายหนิง..หนอยแน่ มาวัดแค่เนี้ย ต้องเอาบริวาร มาตั้งสี่ห้าคน ชะช้า
ยัยแป๊ดทำเป็นเอาอาหารญี่ปุ่นมาถวายหลวงพ่อ เชอะ นังส้ม
รู้สึกจะปลื้มหลวงพ่อ ออกนอกหน้าเกินไปแล้วนะยะ
เดี๋ยวก็เป็นอย่างสีกานิดหรอก

5. คุณล็อกอินเข้าไปตอบกระทู้ในเว็บบอร์ดด้วยถ้อยคำอันสุภาพ
แฝงด้วยหลักวิชาการ และการ ยอมรับฟังความเห็นของผู้อื่น
รวมทั้งอภัยให้คนที่ใช้ถ้อยคำไม่เหมาะสม
และเรียกร้องให้ทุกคนในเวบบอร์ดใช้สติ จากนั้น คุณล็อกออฟ ลงทุนต่อเน็ต
ด้วย ISP ใหม่ กันคนเช็ก IP จากนั้นเข้ามาโพสต์โรคจิตหยาบๆ
ด่าคนที่ไม่เห็นด้วยกับคุณในกระทู้นั้น

6. คุณสามารถบริจาคเงินให้โรงพยาบาลได้กว่าสิบล้านบาท
จนกระทั่งมีตึกเป็นชื่อนามสกุลคุณเต็มไปหมด แต่คุณรู้สึกหงุดหงิด
ถ้าคนรับใช้ที่บ้านจะขอเบิกเงินเดือนล่วงหน้าเพื่อส่งไปจ่ายค่าเทอมให้น้อง

Players with 100+ Caps and 30+ International Goals

I just noticed a statistic site that lists Football Players with 100+ Caps and 30+ International Goals. I was surprised to see Kitasak Senamuang, in the top listing, and it makes me wonder if the Thai fans have underappreciated his contribution to Thai football considering most of the talk about him was rather negative of the late.

http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/century.html#goals

Random Self Reflection

I just noticed a chain letter in my inbox yesterday. I usually don't reply to chain mails, but since I'm in a dreadfully bored mood today I just thought it would be fun to fill it up for fun and post here. The chainmail has a number of Random Self Reflection questions, so I just thought, might be fun to do :P

Oh well, here it is:

***************** STATISTICS AND OPINIONS *********

START TIME:

FULL NAME: Pisal
ENTERED THE WORLD: Its not good to enter all information due to possible credit card fraud :P
EYES: Black
HAIR COLOUR: Black
WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN: Cancer

*************************** LOVE ******************

GIRLFRIEND/BOYFRIEND: When It comes it will come.
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE: I think so :P
A SONG THAT DESCRIBES YOUR LOVE LIFE: Don't Worry be Happy - Bobby McFerrin

**************** MISCELLANEOUS***************

ARE YOU A RIGHTY OR A LEFTY? : Right-handed
HAVE YOU EVER SAVED YOUR CHAT? I keep logs of things I do
DEADLY OR EXCITING: Exciting
SAY SOMETHING NICE ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU: ...
SAY SOMETHING TO THOSE WHO REFUSE TO RESPOND TO THIS: ...

************THE FUTURE **************

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 10 YEARS? That is the matter of the future to answer
FUTURE SON'S NAME? That is the matter of the future to answer
FUTURE DAUGHTER'S NAME? That is the matter of the future to answer

********************* HAVE YOU EVER ***************

BROKEN THE LAW? I used to be a anarchist, but I'm reformed
AWAY FROM HOME? ???
CHEATED ON A TEST? No
MEDICAL EMERGENCY? Yes

*************** DO YOU BELIEVE ********************

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT? Hard to say
GHOSTS? Not the conventional way
HOROSCOPES? Good for enjoyment

********************* WHICH IS BETTER *************

MUD WRESTLING / JELLY WRESTLING? ...
DEAF / BLIND? Logically Deaf, but if I dont' have to work, Blind is better
BLONDES / BRUNETTES? : Roughly the same

************* WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU..*********

YOU CRIED? I can't remember O_o

*************************** WHAT ****************

IS YOUR MOST PRIZED AND IMPORTANT POSSESSION? Life
WORST SONG YOU'VE EVER HEARD? Modern MTV Crap
IS THE BEST THING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED TO YOU? Buy myself a PS2
IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK WHEN YOU WAKE UP? Roll out of Bed
IS YOUR FAVOURITE NUMBER? : 2,42
IS ON THE WALLS IN YOUR BEDROOM? Plain
YOU WEAR TO BED? : Anything comfortable
IS THE WORST THING YOU'VE EVER DONE IN YOUR LIFE?: broke Dream's heart
FAVE RELATIVE: Brothers
FAVOURITE TV SHOWS? Conquest (History Channel)
BEST FRIEND? USC, the IT/HAM Club, CS Alumni peeps
BOOK? LoTR
DRINK? IceTea - Peach, Water
SOUND? ...
THING TO DO ON THE WEEKEND? Take it easy


*************************** IF *******************

IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANTED, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Filthy Rich Person with no job
IF YOU COULD HAVE A TATTOO, WHAT & WHERE WOULD IT BE? I won't consider that
IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY PIERCING, WHERE WOULD IT BE? I won't consider that
IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOURSELF, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Nothing different

************************ DO YOU ***********************

DO YOU GET MOTION SICKNESS? No
DO YOU GET ALONG WITH YOUR PARENTS? Yes
LIKE TO DRIVE? No
SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? No
TYPE WITH FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? Offcourse
DO YOU SMOKE? : no
DO YOU TAKE DRUGS? : no
WHO DO YOU HATE? Agents/Lawyers
WHO HAS IT EASIER, GUYS OR GIRLS? : ???
GET UNHAPPY? Occasion mood swings
DO YOU LIKE TO DANCE? If I'm in the groove
YOU LIKE TO TALK ON THE PHONE? No, I prefer to meetup for trival talk
WOULD YOU RATHER GO FOR A WALK OR WATCH TV? : Walk when the weather is nice, TV otherwise
HONEYMOON PLACE? First things first...

FINISH TIME: 12 minutes

Anticipation for the (Short) Future

During the last week had been rather busy with work and brushing up a few things. I've got a back log of things that I want to write here, which includes the following:

1) My own recollection of a fire that happened just behind my home
2) A rant about unorganized and careless ways of deploying the election posters
3) A selection of my new photographs of exciting nightshots around the Victory Monument area

I promise I'll get to them once I'm less busy with work, but when thinking about that, I used to remember someone telling me about the following quote:

Live your life as an Exclamation not an Explanation

Never dwell in something that is done that you don't like, but anticipate for what good things the future may bring ;)

Segregration on Buses?

I happen to stumble upon an article saying that "Women on
Buses Face Harassment" in which I want to highlight on the following
quote:

Another way to solve the problem is to have ladies only buses.

Regarding that point, I wanted to point out that we used to have
ladies only buses on rush hours about 5 years ago. One of the bus
routes that had lady buses was bus No.137. This experiment ran for a
year or so, and ended in complete failure.

First of all, there are low level of occupancy in lady buses as
cutting off male passengers will potentially cut off half the amount
of possible customers on the bus. With lower rate of occupancy in the
buses, the BMTA runs at even higher lost. With an already high lost,
BMTA cannot field more buses to compensate for the buses that were
allocated for lady buses. From that, male bus riders end up waiting
longer and longer for a ride. Basing on my own experience I used to

wait for 2 hours at a bus stop along Ramkamhaeng road waiting for a
137 bus, whereas 4 Lady Buses zoom by - in which most of them were
almost empty.

I wanted to point out that segregation of the buses is a completely
wrong approach to solve the problem of harassment on buses. By using
segregation, it is similar to labeling that all male bus passengers
are "sicko" and denying them equal access to mass transport system.
This draws uncanny parallelism with how USA was in the past, when
whites discriminated against the blacks and denied them the chance for
equal access to mass transport system. I wonder why are we following
in this direction?

Gender equality does not begin with segregation, but it begins when
Females manage to break out of their mold on a basic premise that they
are the weaker sex and stand up against these deviants.

A Quote for those without Hope

I want to dedicate this quote to many people who have lost their way in life:

If one sees a giant it is recommendable to examine the position of the sun first to see if its not the shadow of a pygmy

Novalis

First Subway Crash in Thailand

There was just word that Thailand just had our first Subway crash, in which the BMCL trains crashed around the Thai Cultural Centre station. On preliminary reports it said that a train tail-gated another train parked at the station causing about 2 dozen injuries - though none of them fatal. Luckily it wasn't a full speed - head on crash so things were less fatal than they are and certainly a wakeup call for the authorities to think more about the safety features.

Anyway, it just makes me curious because I do remember modern train systems have automatic train management systems, and it would automatically stop trains from crashing into each other if they see trains on the collision path. I've even played some of the simulators at the Transport Musuem at Japan nearly 15 years ago in which it allowed children to play with the entire train system in Tokyo and no matter how hard we tried, the train would never crash due to installed safety systems. This makes me believe that either the software managing the train are either faulty or either the train drivers overide the system. Whatever it is, we got to wait for more information.

On a strange note, I was scheduled to leave my home and go on the subway to get a few grocers just a few minutes before the news happen at the exact station where the crash happened. Talk about luck.

Modern Prince

I found an interesting online read that is based on the updating Machiavelli's Prince to modern examples. I would like to recommend our readers to read it at Antonio Gramsci's The Modern Prince.

The Ugly in The Thai Tsumani Disater

After the Asian Tsumani has caused widespread devestation throughout parts of Asian, its only much later when the ugly started to rear its head during the time of extreme bleakness.

After reading reports that the Thai Police are planning to completely redo the DNA identification process, it just drops the credibility of the Police down another few notches from its incredibily dirt like creditily rating to muddy like proportions. If you have been covering the Thai Police scenes, you could notice that the spat between Khunying Pornthip Rojanasunand and the Police Department that dated back to the murder of Golden Sauce Baron - Hangthong Thammawattana in which Pornthip has debunked the Police's first autopsy on the long running feud. The Police Department decided to enter in a war of wording instead of allowing additional autopsy to be done by foreign experts. The second major event that caused a further rift, was the Bak Tok Uprising Investigation in Khunying Pornthip has unearthed facts that army neglience was much to be blamed for the abnormally high rate of deaths after the investigation which was odds at many sections of our government that includes the Police who seem to want to downplay the whole issue. Based on this long running feud, I believe to any casual observations, there is certainly no lost love.





During the early onset of the Asian Tsunami Crisis, we could see that one of the first to appear on the scene unselfishlessly was Khunying Pornthip who lead the DNA identification of victims in the Asian Tsunami disater in Southern Thailand. We have seen her worked over New Year, non-stop to help identify all of the victims here. We have seen the representatives from Police Department come and go, without much comment during the early period. It was just a few days ago, the Police Department decided to rear its ugly head once again and claim that the DNA identification process was flawed and the process has to be done completely again. Though I am not an expert on such matters, the timing of such event conventiently after so much work has been done, it just sounds more likely as an attempt by the Police Department to get back on their biggest detractor over the years disregarding all the work that has been done. Though there may be some merit on redoing the proces, one can't help but question, why didn't the Police Department told something if they think the early DNA identification was faulty? Why didn't they send their own experts to help early on the offset? It seems that by doing it now, it was just an orchestration of power in the later stages of disater which is shocking to know that some parts of our society are willing to stoop so low in times of dire need in order to settle a score.

Talking about another ugly in the disater, I want to point a finger at our PM. Our PM has steadfastedly refused all foreign momentary aid claiming that Thailand doesn't need any money and that we are no backwatered country. Talking about Aid in time of disater, I remember well how much the world did to help the victims of the Kobe devestating earthquake, where people from all over the world sent aid to the world's second largest economy - Japan - even with a number delegates and aid from our country! Now Aid that comes during disater is consider humanatary aid, and we are not subjected to repayment terms like Aid from institutes like WorldBank or IMF which expects the country that receive aid to change certain elements of their country. Now by refusing foreign aid, and using our own funding, one can't wonder how much more tax money an individual Thai must pay? We already have a blugeoning debt account per household - and coupled with our government's increasing high spending public policies, I wonder how much more debt can we run up? Somehow I do feel that the brave face that our PM is putting up is certainly not worth the longterm implications of what will happen. We are in need of aid, and why should we turn away aid?

It doesn't make sense...

How to Remember Stuff

One of my relatives that visited our home today, had pointed out that he remembered the Soi of our house by using the following words:

1 dozen or 2 dozen

Since they find it hard to remember numbers directly, they remember it in figuratively, but using other methods - and 2 dozen translate directly to 24 - which is indeed the Soi Number where our home is located in :)

A Quote for My Students

I find this quote something that should be a good reminder for my Students:

One ought to be ashamed to make use of the wonders of scienced embodied in a radio set, while appreciating them as little as a cow appreciates the botanical marvels in the plant she munches.

Albert Einstein

Update on my Little Coke/No Fries/Little Snacks Diet

Based on my old post at http://pisal.blogspot.com/2004/12/drafting-my-new-year-resolution.html 2 weeks ago, I've mentioned about planning to cut down drastically the amount of Coke, ice cream, snacks, and french fries I consume in my daily diet. I've reasoned that those items were causing my rather inflated weight - from 50kg to 75 kg in a rather short time of 6 years, and thus the rationale why I'm cutting them off in hope for curtailing the spiraling weight.

To make it fair, I'm just normalizing those factors, and keep the rest of my diet and exercise regime the same. This is a diet course in which I'm going to eat normally, do the same amount of exercise per day (which is usually limited to walking), and stay away from weight lost medication. In other words, I'm not going for the medical fads as the Atkin's diet or medication or extreme dieting to get my weight out, but engage in my own easy diet system I've thought up of. Talking about it, I still eat Big Macs(had one today), I still eat pizzas(had one today :P), I go to buffets, and I still managed to lose 4 kgs in 3 weeks ;)

Not bad eh? Maybe if you drink excessive amounts of softdrinks you may want to try this diet out ;)

Hijack A Train

My Struggle with Public Computers

When I go to work, I usually hug around my notebook. As there are severe budget cuts, it happens that one of the most technologically saavy personnel (that happens to be me) in the department has not been given a computer (not if you consider Pentium 133 as a computer) to me based on the fact that I have a rather state of the art notebook.

Anyway, since I have my own notebooks, I'm usually spared the monstrosity of using public computers around my university. Anyway, it happened that today, I decided not to grab along my computer since I thought it would be a good idea to stop hauling along a few kilograms of extra baggage for only a few minutes of usage, I decided to use one of the public computers that were allocated in the public teacher's lounge around my university.

Today I had the chance to use it. I was booting up the machine, and reading the newspaper on the latest news and happening around the world. It happened that multiple minutes later, the computer still have finished booting. So after going through the main headlines, editorial, sports news and later the comics, the computer suddenly finally booted to the first screen, and what I saw was a complete mess.

First of all, there were 3 chat clients that were open and logged on - MSN, AOL, and Yahoo. In all the cases, someone forgot they were using a public computer and stayed logged on. Though I felt it might be a good idea to play pranks with them, I decided due to my own rather "sunny disposition" to log off them all. A few other strange applications such as weather and temperature report were on. I wonder why anyone would bother with such app when we are in an air conditioned room? So I closed that also along with the useless Microsoft Office Toolbar that is dormant on the computer.

Just as I done that, I thought I was ready to fire up the browser and head out to my favorite online news site. The problem happened that the harddisk trashed too much and nothing happened. If you notice the harddisk trashing alot just to boot an app, we can know that the computer has low specs and needed to dump the memory contents to the harddisk many times just to run a certain app. Now with no apps open there is something awfully wrong with the computer. It just hit me that the background used in this computer was a dynamic background! In other words, somebody liked animated backgrounds so they installed a background - which is essentially a flash animation - which pulled alot of resources from the computer! Gah, so I had to change the background from that fancy animated background into a blank screen to conserve more resources.

Finally after that, the browser finally appeared and I could finally fire out the websites I've intially planned to go to. The whole process? That took close to 20 minutes...

Good grief, now I know why I don't want anyone to touch my computers. The reason is just to spare me the headache like this example of struggling with a public computer just to get the browser fired up and ready to go.

Video Game Crossover

Back from the doom and gloom of the Asian Tsunami, I decided its a good time to lighten up things with the following article. I found a very interesting article called video game cross over and you can read it at http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2401

Here is a nice example:



Try visiting the site, and try to figure what games are used in each of the pictures ;)

On a side note, you may enjoy this article - video game photoshop pranks - http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2570.

Interesting Tidbits on Tsunami Crisis Today

After the death toll reaches over 155,000 people and devestation on a scale unheard of in modern history, during the last few days, we've seen an huge increase in International cooperation in helping Tsunami-Affected countries in the region. It warms my heart to know that our world has finally awaken to the face of humanity. At least let this tradegy be a huge wakeup call for all of us out there.

On related news, USA pledges a ten-fold increase from $35 million to $350 million dollars of aid supplemented by a carrier force deployment to aid in the rescue operations a few days ago. The UN is playing a lead role in the humanitary effort which should help restore some credibility to the organization after a number of scandals. Sir Cliff Richard and Boy George leads a number of international pop stars writing a single to raise up funds to aid the Tsunami Aid effort.

The only sad note is that
some of the tourists decided that the tradegy means nothing to them and continues to enjoy their vacation in the midst of all the despair and anguish of people searching for their missing loved ones - which is despicable.

I guess that rounds this blog up. Both the beautiful and the ugly of this crisis.

Happy New Year 2005!

Oh well, since it is finally New Year, I've decided to spam this site to say Happy New Year to all our visitors :)

Search for Missing People Index/Registration in Thailand

For people worried about their friends/relatives in Thailand, you can search the Thai Government's index of missing people from the following urL:
http://missingpersons.or.th/index.en.html

For a generalized information of Tsunami in Thailand, a good site to visit is the Ministry of Public Health website at the following url:
http://www.moph.go.th/ (Thai language)