jazripper

Why do we add 's' to verbs in the third person singular (he/she/it)?

2012-01-05T10:51:00.003Z

Why do we add 's' to verbs in the third person singular (he/she/it)? "I speak" vs. "She speaks" I know we do this to make it grammatically correct but what is the reason behind this rule? And if one redundant information is gained, why only do this in present tense? "He spoke" not "He spokes"? Redundant in the sense that subjects like (he/she/it ...) are never omitted when use with s-conjugated verbs anyway.

In French verbs conjugation is even more complicated but there is a reason. Ex. je parle (i speak), tu parles (you speak), il parle (he speaks), nouns parlons (we speak), ... Because in the past the Romans omitted subjects so extra information is added to verbs. But does this or any kind of similar reason apply to a language of a different family like English?

Travelling around the world

2011-11-06T21:24:00.002Z

I moved to Dublin

2011-11-06T20:55:00.000Z

I moved to Dublin in September 2011. I now work for Google in the european headquarters. It's my first time to land in Europe and I'm very excited to explore the rich culture of the western society and the marvelous architecture!

Third International Conference of Information and Communication Technology for Embedded Systems (IC-ICTES 2012)

2011-08-02T07:59:00.003+01:00

The Third International Conference of Information and Communication Technology for Embedded Systems (IC-ICTES 2012) is established to provide an international forum for researchers and industry practitioners to share their new ideas, original research results and practical development experiences from all embedded system-related areas including ubiquitous computing, pervasive computing, embedded system design, development of new HW/SW-related theories and techniques in embedded systems, information and communication technology for supporting development of embedded systems, and information and communication technology used in embedded systems.

http://itpe.siit.tu.ac.th/icictes2012/

เมื่อสมาร์ทโฟนคืออาหาร

2011-04-13T16:47:00.001+01:00

แอนดรอย เปรียบเสมือนข้าวราดแกงที่คุณสามารถใส่นู่นนี่ ปรุงรสตามชอบ ชาวบ้านถูกใจ
ไอโฟน เปรียบเสมือนอาหารฝรั่งเศสของคนในคุกที่ปรุงโดยเชฟมีรสนิยมชื่อสตีฟ จอบส์
แบลคเบอรี่ คืออาหารที่กำลังจะหมดอายุ ต้องรีบกินและแบ่งให้เพื่อนๆ กินด้วย
โนเกีย คืออาหารข้างคืนที่เสียแล้วลืมเอาไปทิ้ง...

Cooking a Fried Rice (Kaopad)

2010-09-23T16:48:00.003+01:00

Kaopad is a popular Thai dish. It's easy to cook and tastes good too!
Ingredients
1. Rice
2. Onion
3. Any vegetable you like
5. Any meat you like (here I use Chicken)
6. Egg
7. Seasoning (soy sauce, salt and pepper)

Instructions
1. Beat the eggs, not too hard.

2. Fried it in a pan with a vegetable oil. Cook it just like an omelette.

3. Take it out of the pan. Leave it in a bowl we'll use it in a moment.

4. Fried the chicken with a vegetable oil.

5. Put in the chopped onions.

6. Put in the rest of vegetables.

7. When the onions and chicken turns brown put in a rice.

8. Stir them together.

7. Put in the cooked eggs and mix it with the rice.

8. Add seasonings and stir well.

9. Done! Ready to serve.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Breaking News Detection and Tracking in Twitter (WI:IWI'10)

2010-09-01T17:05:00.015+01:00

On August 30, 2010, I delivered a presentation at the International Workshop on Intelligent Web Interaction (WI: IWI) in Toronto Canada.

Twitter has been used as one of the communication channels for spreading breaking news. We propose a method to collect, group, rank and track breaking news in Twitter. Since short length messages make similarity comparison difficult, we boost scores on proper nouns to improve the grouping results. Each group is ranked based on popularity and reliability factors. Current detection method is limited to facts part of messages. We developed an application called “Hotstream” based on the proposed method. Users can discover breaking news from the Twitter timeline. Each story is provided with the information of message originator, story development and activity chart. This provides a convenient way for people to follow breaking news and stay informed with real-time updates.

Breaking News Detection and Tracking in Twitter (WI:IW'10)

Japan's toilets are fascinating

2010-06-13T06:59:00.005+01:00

Japan, the gadget loving nation treats you (and your ass) well in the toilet. Look at these buttons and what they can do to ensure the cleanliness before leaving the toilet. The orange button is for stopping. You need it when things get out of control. The button with w-shape and spraying water is for cleaning your thing. The one next to it is the soft mode. (For non-hardcore) The pink one is for lady. The location of water being sprayed is different. Guys get the strange feeling (perhaps kinky) when hitting that button. The last one is for air drying. Below these buttons are more buttons and LCD display. You can adjust the heating of the seat, the deodorizer, etc. You might be able to play some puzzles to kill some time there.

If you happened to be in Japan, be sure to check them out. Go try every buttons. [WARNING] If there's a button that will change a sanitary pad for you then, that's gotta' hurt a lot for guys.

Bangkok subway's prohibited items

2010-06-13T06:34:00.005+01:00

There are so many rules in Bangkok's subway (MRT, formally). I have attached what's written as 'Restriction' in this post. And at least I broke one rule! (No photos) Anyway it's not hurting anybody, I think :) You can see that the rules are pretty strict. You cannot shopping too much. You cannot even sit! No eating and drinking illustration don't seem to match with the Thai culture. People like eating grilled pork with sticky rice more than hamburgers, I think. And the drink is often served in a plastic bag hanging to your finger comfortably using a rubber band. But the most interesting thing here is that 'no durian is allowed'. And to illustrate that well, it deserves some colours! (others don't) Now you ask, do Thai people really like to carry durian around, especially to the subway? My answer is No! They are heavy and stinks. I think they tried to warn foreigners. Coz' they like to buy exotic stuff, right?

Thai Students in Tokyo Tech

2010-06-12T19:37:00.002+01:00

A new Facebook group for Thai students in Tokyo tech has been opened. I designed this logo :)

Thai Tokodai
The social network group for information sharing, news, events and more.
Est. June 12, 2010

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=135544986458927

Thai Keyboard Layout

2010-05-28T06:03:00.001+01:00

Recently I bought a new laptop in Japan. The problem is, I type in Thai frequently (cause I'm Thai) but I couldn't remember all the characters' locations on keyboard. I should have paid more attention when I was in the Typing class. Though, I can do touch typing in English :p I tried to Google the Thai language keyboard layout, but they all look ugly, so I made my own version of Thai keyboard layout. As you can see from the image, it is indeed a Mac keyboard.

For people who are learning Thai, feel free to use it, distribute it, however you like. :)

ASEAN Students Career Fair 2011

2009-11-16T14:58:00.005Z

東南アジア留学生就職フェア

日付：２０１０年２月２０日（日）
場所：東京都立浜松町産業貿易センター５階第2展示室（アクセス）
時間：１０：００〜１６：００

ASEAN Students Career Fair 2011

Date: 20 February 2010 (Saturday)
Venue: 2nd Exhibition Hall 5th Floor Tokyo Industrial Trade Centre Hamamatsu-cho （Access）
Time: 10:00hrs to 16:00hrs

http://www.aynjapan.com/careerfair2011

Work opportunities in Japan and Southeast Asia.

Contact: careerfair2011@aynjapan.com

อธิบาย Push-Email

2009-09-16T06:25:00.003+01:00

อะไรคือ Push-Email?

การรับส่่ง Email ประกอบด้วยตัวการหลักสองฝ่ายคือ Client และ Server

ในกรณีของระบบโทรศัพท์มือถือ Client คือ โทรศัพท์ Server คือ ระบบเครือข่าย

โดยปรกติ การรับส่งอีเมลล์จะเป็น Pull-service คือ Client เป็นคนติดต่อ Server

เพื่อร้องขอตรวจสอบอีเมลล์ เช่นเดียวกับการที่เราเข้าเวบ Hotmail, Gmail เพื่อ

เชคว่ามีอีีเมลล์ใหม่เข้ามาหรือไม่ ดังนั้นเพื่อให้รับอีเมลล์ใหม่ได้ตลอดเวลา Client

ต้องคอยติดต่อ Server อยู่ตลอดเวลาเป็นระยะ (Fetching, Polling)

ในกรณีของ Push-service เมื่อมีอีเมลล์ใหม่เข้ามา Server จะเป็นคนส่งสัญญาณ

ไปยัง Client ให้ทำการดึงข้อมูลโดยอัตโนมัติ ด้วยเหตุนี้จึงเรียกว่า Push

ข้อดีของ Push คือ Client ไม่ต้องคอยติดต่อ Server เพื่อร้องขอตรวจสอบอีเมลล์

อยู่ตลอดเวลา สำหรับโทรศัพท์หรืออุปกรณ์พกพาถือว่าสำคัญ

ถ้าโทรศัพท์ต้องคอยติดต่ออยู่ตลอดเวลานอกจากจะต้องใช้พลังงานสำหรับส่ง

ซึ่งสิ้นเปลืองแบตเตอรี่แล้วยังสิ้นเปลืองช่องสัญญาณอีกด้วย

นอกจากนี้ยังได้ความรวดเร็ว ณ. เวลาที่อีเมลล์เข้า จะมีสัญญาณส่งไปที่โทรศัพท์

โดยทันที (Real-time)

Touch screen, it seems some don't get it right.

2009-08-27T06:18:00.010+01:00

This article was a part of my assignments to analyze the aspects of human interface which needs improvements.

A touch screen is a display that can detect the presence of touch within the display area. The use of touch screen improves productivity as it enhance the navigation of user interface elements. While traditional user interface requires users to activate control elements by using buttons, switches or movable objects, touch screen enabled users to directly manipulate control elements from the display. However the implementation touch screen to achieve the best results in terms of usability, and responsiveness is challenging. Wrong implementation of touch screen, will not only effect the usability, but make the device unpleasant to use.

In this section I’ll describe the case where touch screen made user interface, difficult to use rather than what it should be. Recently the trend of touch interface become a wide spread phenomena. We see cameras, cellphones, computers, gaming devices, etc. equipped with touch screen. Although we see successful cases for example the portable gaming device, Nintendo DS, which enable new ways of gaming experience through a touch screen. An iPhone which utilizes a mu

lti-touch technology, enabled a better way of navigation through scrolling, finger gestures. Now come to the area where the implementation of touch screen is not quite right.

1.1 Touch screen interface for tasks that require precision

Tasks that require precision like volume control, zooming control are better to implement with an interface that users can grab easily and receive p

hysical feedback for corrections. Figure 1 show an example when we overuse the touch screen. Notice that a zoom button is implemented as a UI element in the touch screen. The problem with this design is that users cannot get the feel of how much force requires to move the zoom level into a desired position. Often time users find the touch screen is too sensitive or too irresponsive. In a regular zoom button case, there is a distance between a pressed and unpressed state, which made it easy for one to operate with high level of precision. To improve this, we have to provide physical buttons for task which require precision and not overuse the touch screen. Many manufactures seems to understand this problem, and provide dedicate controls for this function. Figure 2. shows a proper combination of controls having a touch screen for selection with high degree of freedom and physical buttons for selection with fixed functionalities.

1.2 Touch screen interface with improper hardware technology

There are many types of touch screen technologies: resistive, surface acoustic wave, capacitive, infrared, etc. Each of these technology has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example resistive technology requires the use of force and works well with stylus. On the other hand, capacitive technology is highly sensitive and only accept finger touches. Figure 3 shows a phone that tries to combine both finger touches and stylus. The result is a torture user experience. Often times user will find that the system is irresponsive. Since the resistive type of touch screen require the use of force, when use with finger, one has to apply appropriate force to register a click. When a finger is place on top of the UI there is no feedback. Only when you really press it, the action is made. Also there is no way to avoid an unintended click since the action is already carried out. In the case of capacitive technology, we can detect the finger the moment it hits the screen surface. With this we can display a proper feedback.

1.3 Touch screen interface that lacks proper feedback

This one also concern issues in 1.2 but also discuss the design aspects of UI from the software point of view. In order to provide a good user experience, we always need to give a user the feedback so that he/she knows if the selection is correct or not. Figure 4. shows example of a typical selection screen found in ticket vending machine where many buttons are placed next to each other. In some places, machines do not provide visual feedback. For example (a) a user wish to choose D but accidentally press in the area in between D and E. With no visual feedback, the result can be ambiguous. Then (b), A user will then doubt about his selection which causes confusion. Since a touch screen provide no physical feedbacks like real objects, we have to provide visual feedbacks, sound feedbacks, or shake feedbacks to confirm the user. For example when press the button, the button has to change the look as if it is pressed as in (c) so that the user know right away which button was clicked.

関西弁単語リスト1

2009-08-06T16:37:00.005+01:00

〜で　（〜だよ）

〜や（〜だ）

〜やで（〜だよ）

〜やろ（〜でしょ）

〜やんな、〜やな　（〜だよね）

〜やねん（〜だよ）

〜やんか（〜じゃん）

ちゃう（違う）

ほんま（本当）

アカン（ダメ）

ほな、ほんなら　（じゃあ・それじゃあ）

ええ（いい）

うち・わし（私・僕）

おおきに（ありがとう）

知らん（知らない）

〜ん（ない）

えらい（すごい）

Thanks to Ayako who provided this list.

Cooking Oyakodon

2009-02-09T13:43:00.005Z

Oyakodon 「親子丼」, a bowl of light fluffy egg with chicken and onions on top of a hot rice, is perhaps one of the easiest Japanese meal to cook. To cook this simple menu you will need eggs, chicken, onion, rice, and some Japanese cooking sauces like Shoyu, Mirin and Sake. In Youtube there's a video on how to cook it, fun to watch :)

Oyakodon

Oyakodon, dressed with seaweed

Cook with dog!

Cooking show on YouTube

DesignSpree 2 : Unimplemented designs

2009-02-08T09:31:00.009Z

During 2005, around the 2nd year of my undergrad, a friend asked me to design university notebook covers. At that time I was new to this design industry, so I took a chance in the cultivation process of a college notebook. University students like to come up with their own notebooks which go for sell during the start of a new semester. These notebooks were meant to be sold for fund-raising. We targeted freshmen and those who want to have collectable items with their university's pride. Unfortunately we never did sell these notebooks. I think we invest on something else. just ran into the Adobe illustrator files of these cover designs and grab three of them here.

another day in thammasat

Each box randomly shows a typical life style, thoughts, etc.

"Hazard station, too many winning 11?"

"Asian games village, TU Hometown, get electrified by the electric bill"

"Dog is a man's best friend, WHY EAT IT".

Write Thammasat

Inspired by the Japanese language, and culture.

That samurai stuff was what in my mind when I first studied Japanese.

If you are interested in implemented any of that, feel free to contact me but it's going to cost a lot :)

みなさん、ゾウを見たことがある？

2009-01-27T07:07:00.027Z

タイの代表的な動物と言えばゾウである。毎年、世界中からツーリストがタイで有名なゾウのショーを見に来る。何がそんなにすごいのか。理由はゾウがいろいろなことができるからだ。たとえば、サッカーやバスケットボールができるし、きれいな絵が書けるし、旅行の案内のための乗り物にもなる。

また、２００５年　タイのゾウのキャンプはギネスから「ゾウのグループにより書かれた世界中で一番大きい絵画」として、ワールドレコードを与えられた。この絵画は横２．４０メートル、縦１２メートルのサイズである。http://www.maesaelep hantcamp.com/jp/records.html

絵が書けるゾウ／サッカーもできる／ピカゾウ／白ゾウ

タイの歴史によると昔から国とゾウは深い関係がある。特に王様以外持てない「白ゾウ」は一番大切である。多くのタイ人は王様の見つけた白ゾウは多ければ多いほどいいと思っている。また、平和になると信じられている。一方、昔の戦争では、王様はゾウに乗って戦争に向かった。ゾウは王様と国の象徴となった。

白ゾウ／ゾウの戦争／昔の国旗／ゾウに乗って虫を探す

さらに、１８１７年　タイの最初の国旗は赤地の真ん中に白ゾウを描いた。現在はその国旗を使っていないが、ほとんどのタイ人はこのことを知っている。

また、タイ語にはゾウについてのことわざがたくさんある。たとえば、

「ゾウに乗って虫を探す」は無理をするという意味である。
「死んだゾウは葉っぱで隠せない」は悪いことをするとすぐわかるという意味である。
「男性はゾウの前足、女性はゾウの後足のようだ」は男性はリーダーになるべき、女性はフォローすべきだという意味である。

しかし、最近、人の考え方が変わって来たので、ほとんどの人はゾウの前足ようになりたがっているだろう。

最後に、タイのゾウの飼育は、今世界的に絶賛されている。みなさん、タイに行くなら、ぜひ、ゾウをご覧ください。

DesignSpree 1 : Vibrant Colors

2009-01-25T08:57:00.014Z

DesignSpree is a series of collected thoughts along my graphic design experiences. I'll begin the series with "Vibrant Colors". Perhaps the most important aspect of design is how you choose the colors, set the mood for your overall work. Color is the fundamental beauty. Most of my past works are described as bright and vivid. Here I give you some examples of such works.

Colors made arrows visible

A music competition website layout

The project is called Acoustic Party which is organized in 2007

Singing through time

Add some colors to the photo

Playful login

xQuiz, website layout for login page

Playful blue to attract users. Users are like cats, if you want to attract them you need lure them with playful colors!

I often play with colors by making many geometric shapes and run then together, see how they play with each other. It all began with basic shapes, [bright] colors, highlights and intermediates.

In the example below the basic shapes are simply alphabet letters 'gx'. Bright colors are saturated pink, blue, yellow, green and other tones in between. Highlights are areas in black that stretch from tails of each letter. Intermediates are shades of grey, to bring more dynamism to the overall structure, alleviate the differences between two dominant colors.

Colors made possible for design to take shape

In conclusion, you can collect ideas through colors. Colors are elements that exist everywhere. You just pick one, two or more, define the tones to go together or simply select them from the pre-defined color palette. Once the colors are right, the rest will started to come along. It's perhaps the easiest way for idea to take shape.

New Year's Resolution

2009-01-08T14:09:00.008Z

Finally it's 2009. This year there is the year of the Ox according to the Chinese calendar. I happened to born on this year so this year is best for me to show my cow pride. Here are this year resolution.

Stop spending time reading craps off the Internet, read more research-related articles.　
Save some more money (so that I can spend a big time later-- put it this way as an incentive).　
Satisfy 'her' more. She said that I ignored her too often. Perhaps my heart is not reaching to her deep enough.　
Study more Japanese.
Blog more! Share it before it is lost.

That's all I can think of for now.

Adding a nice TeX equations to your Keynote

2009-01-06T13:07:00.001Z

I just found a way to put TeX equations to my Keynote presentation. Before that I have to rely on either Beamer (writing slides purely in TeX, obviously I'm not geeky enough for this) or using Microsoft Equation with PowerPoint. Since I love how Keynote produce professional high quality slides, I seek a solution to bring the goodness of TeX and the stunning quality of Keynote.

The solution is to use the tool called LaTeXiT, which allows you to compose your equation and drag it down to any desired location of your application.

http://ktd.club.fr/programmation/latexit_en.php

Compose the equation and paste it any where you like.

However there's an issue with the latest version (at this moment) 1.16. It rendered extra "pxpxpx..." text on your equation! After searching Google, I found someone was having the same problem as me. http://d.hatena.ne.jp/takashyx/20081209/p1 (explanation in Japanese)

Apparently there is an issue with version 1.16 when LaTeX is installed via MacPort. However the older version 1.15 does not have a problem so I use the 1.15 and it works just fine.

It appears that the link for 1.15 on the maker site is dead, so this site above (in Japanese) suggests to download 1.15 from this link:

http://www.kerodownload.com/index.php?show=fx_info&id=17338&class=3

Thai Student Ski Trip 2009

2009-01-06T08:34:00.000Z

Ski resort in Nagano (-3C)

On 1-4 January, 2009. TSAJ, Thai Student Association in Japan held a ski trip at Nagano prefecture 「長野県」. The trip was packed with fun! It is the first time for me to ski.

Indeed to start learning something new is a painful process, but with help of TSAJ staff, the process become enjoyful. For me I'm not very good at it right now. I can dive down the hill and just that, often uncontrollable.

The fun part of this trip is to get to know everyone and to enjoy the activities being nicely arranged by the staff. We created a Snow Voodoo! At first we were going to craft a Doraemon but later turned into Wall-E and Yoda, ended up in thin we called Snow Voodoo.

I thought that it was going to be very cold. But in fact it is quite hot when you snow, just like you when you are doing an excercise. That's why I slammed into thick snow very often. It actually felt great when slamming to that snow, but to retreat was no easy.

I'm looking forward to the next ski trip and hope to learn some more trick.

一緒に滑る？

アルプスみたいな

New life in Japan

2008-10-03T07:30:00.000+01:00

I received a Japanese Government Scholarship (MEXT) to become a Research Student at Tokyo Institute of Technology. I arrived to Japan on October 2, 2008. This is my second time to visit Tokyo. My first trip was in 2005, where I came here with my friend to see the Tokyo Motor show. One I place that I visited last time was Odaiba. I remembered the statue of liberty, Fuji TV bldg., Telecom Center, etc. Now I get to live there! My dormitory is called "Tokyo International Exchange Center". The place is very nice and modern.

My Room

TIEC Dormitory Corridor

Inside the dorm, there are many facilities, study room, kitchen, activity room, seminar room, convenience stores, etc. I was attracted by a smell of food so I ran to the kitchen and found out people who live in the same floor as mine. They were having a meal! I went in the room and greeted them. They welcomed me and invited me to join the meal. And so I tried out the food, which is very nice. People here are very friendly.

At the floor kitchen

After setting things up at the dorm, I went around the area just to get myself familiar with the place. I got to the train at Tokyo Teleport Station, the name is very interesting indeed. To go to the campus I need to change a train at Oimachi then go to Ookayama.

Kippu

I want to drive this thing!

Japan is a very interesting country indeed where everything are well-planned in a cute way. I really enjoy being here.

Taxi in Thailand, the service to whom?

2008-08-23T20:28:00.001+01:00

Well, we all use taxi in time where we need to go somewhere without our own transportation. And of course taxi is a good option to take you from point A to B. Especially when you are drunk and you don't want to kill yourself, others and get in trouble with the police. It supposed to be a nice service for most cases. But, in Thailand the things work the opposite way.

In the normal way, we call the taxi and tell them where to go and simply the taxi get you to the desired destination at an expense that is measurable with standard metrics.

In Thailand's way. Taxis get to choose their customers. Not you to choose where to go! They do not have a service mind unless you offer him extra money. They would reject you if your destination is not in their favors. And definitely they want farangs, or foreigners as they believed these farangs are easier to trick with an unfair game, and that they will get a lot of tips and that farangs would likely go to airports, and from their taxis would easily get another customer right away back and forth. Simply taxis want to optimize their own benefit at every possible ways. Their greedy algorithm is as follows:

Plan the circular path. He will travel along the path where he can get back to the origin. For example: Siam Paragon -> Central World -> Pratunam -> Pantip Plaza ->Phaya thai -> Siam -> Siam Paragon.
Whenever the passenger call him, he will make a unwelcome look and deny you if your destination is not in his planed path. Their ways of denial are either by making a death face and drive away without saying anything (how rude!) or simply say "no" shortly and drive away. Some time they will look at you as if you had done something terribly wrong. In deed the taxi thought that you had waste his time as he is in search of a customer that would come on his planned path.
If possible, choose foreigners over local people for the reasons stated in the previous paragraph.
Get to the destination with attitude. Taxi might make comments regarding politics and want to get you in the conversation, this apply for Thai citizens of course. Sometime taxis listen to the radio channels belong to the extreme activists and protestors. In that case taxis would be quite aggressive. You can tell from the style of driving and his manner.
Drop you off anywhere near your destination. You would simply want to get out of this taxi and this torture.
Get the next customer along his planned path.

So try for yourself. Finding a taxi could be challenging, like finding your soulmate. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE WHAT I SAY, please go try calling them at the following places.

Taxi stand in front of Siam Paragon, here the taxi would be the one to choose his own passenger not you.
RCA (Royal City Avenue, Rama IX), here most taxis would deny your offer. You have to ask where he wants to go and sometime you have to offer him more money!

The solution is to give them a lot of money. Money talks, bullshit walks. As Thais believe it is according to your karma, you are deserved to have this kind of "service" for your bad deeds in the past. Sometime you get a good taxi, that means you are lucky and so the karma paid off.

Start do something good today. Next time your taxi might behave nice to you.

Why we should not give seats to children

2008-08-01T20:16:00.001+01:00

One of the discussion I found interesting and want to share with everyone is concerning the issue of seat priority in public transportation. It began when my Japanese teacher asked to whom do Thai people offer seat to. We answer her: to women, children, handicaps, monks. One of these options now bring a contrast view, the children. My Japanese teacher said in Japan, we do not give seats to children for the following reasons:

"They are younger than us and stronger than us. In the future they have to become adults, strong adults. So they should stand and be strong. Keep fighting."

Now she asked us what is the reason for giving seats to children. One of my friend said, because they are cute. I think her answer is more cute. No one was giving a good reason for this. For me I think because the loving and caring nature of Thais as part of the spoiling process were the answer.

Instead of having a future generation that is strong and can think for themselves we ended up having a generation that is strong, strongly need others to take care for them. In programming we would say that this piece of code is highly coupled, meaning that they have high dependencies of other codes. Should this be a sensible reason to stop spoiling the kids? Now think carefully, to whom you should offer seats to.

Toward less self-service

2008-08-01T19:12:00.000+01:00

While the western people loves to do things by themselves, Thais on the other hand depends people to give them services for almost everything. This time I will justify this issue just from the way we eat.

A new dining concept

One of the new dining concept introduced in Thailand is the post-paid coupon card system. Perhaps not very new but different compare to others. Unlike most food centers where you first pay for a coupon before selecting your dish. FoodLoft managed by Central uses a card given on your entry to buy any food from various booths of various kinds, Japanese, Indian, Italian, Thai, Chinese, Koean, etc. After you finish the meal, the card is read for items you purchased and you pay for what you eat. This was the beginning of this concept.

Self service become less self service. The process of ordering food is self-service. You get to walk around and pick a dish from the booth you like. It used to be that you have to collect the food by yourself after order. Now FoodLoft has managed to upgrade their services with waiters that collect your order receipt and serve the order directly to you. Not only that you have to pay for the food first but also you can order as many food you like without having to carry them.

With this, it encourage people to buy more items with the illusion of not loosing money at the moment just like the credit card. More waiter on duty gives the place a more classy place to eat. Thais love services very much and would regard these as "hi-so", a word used by Thai that stands for High Society.

Fast food is adapted

Most famous fast food chain in Thailand ranging from McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Subway, etc. learned from Thai cultures that people love services very much. Originally, fast foods were designed to be fast and customers have to service themselves. But in Thailand, right from ordering, you get a waitress to deliver your meal. You can enjoy eating as if the place was your home. A tutorial session can even be conducted after a bottle of coke and french fries were ordered. You can observe this at fast food around Siam. You can make any mess you want because there will always be someone to clean up the table and take care the rest for you. You don't even have to trash anything.

Having others doing something for you and take care the stuff you should care instead of you perhaps shaped Thai people into a kind of people who are less confident, having to depend on others. Thais rather do something with friends, afraid of doing things alone. Foreigners sometime regard Thais as being too shy. In education, we can see people copying work of others without feeling guilty because they cannot do it by themselve. They blame teachers of not teaching them everything they needed to know in time where interests happen-- assignments, exams, and everything with score. In society, we depend on government to pour the money in and let us take care of spending.

In order to progress, we need to start doing something for ourselve instead of waiting for someone to come. Start from children, we need to let them help themselves more. God won't help you if you don't help yourself first.

Why people hate cherry

2008-07-30T07:35:00.000+01:00

One thing I like to observe when people are eating is the stuff they love and the thing they hate. My friends, not limited to guys or girls, love to go for Ice-creme. They crave for it. My favorite choice is iBerry, where I order Kraton almost every time. My friends' choice is Swensen's, pretty common favorite for most Thais.

Most Swensen's ice-creme will come with cherry toppings. I found that many hated cherry badly. I personally like cherries and have no reasons to ignore it. While observed that cherries being disliked by friends over and over every time we go to Swensen's, I then stared to think of a good reason why they hated cherries.

My assumption is that cherry's flavor is associated with medicine. Perhaps a syrup kind of medicine when kids take at young age. We know how kids hate medication, such a painful process. So at first, from the fact that kids hate medicine doctors have to come with a solution to trick kids in taking them. The solution was to give a medicine a flavor, a flavor which is to be loved by children, something sweet, something fantasy. And there goes a cherry flavor. Till now every medicine for kids come with this lovely flavor.

But, things won't forever work that way coz' we human can learn to evolve and mutate. What kids hate will forever be hated, it's unavoidable. The trick to give a lovely flavor to a medicine now back fires. Not only that kids hate medicine now they hate anything associated with it. And the lovely cherry is an unavoidable culprit. This hatred of cherry essence stemmed from a child through adult age. Now we can take pills without monkeying around coz' we had grown up, and afraid of dying but the fact that as a child we remember taking them was painful, and full of cherry essence, now haunt back the memory of the old day.

So I concluded that, cherry is a victim for its good intention. Cherry, a good girl, is meant to give a nice taste for medicine which kids need to take to fight with diseases, the bad guy. Now it turned out sadly that people hate this good hearted girl, cherry. We disgusted her and ignore her without realizing the benefit she gives for the mankind.

"We should give and forgive. Not to get and forget."

Inside Steve's Brain

2008-07-30T06:59:00.000+01:00

Inside Steve's Brain is a book written by Leander Kahney. While some books like to portray the dark side of Steve especially how his "Reality Distortion Field" works. This book presents Steve in a business view, a more like management lessons. How he got everything right by doing everything in a radical approach, which some said wrong. How to control people and use them to their full potential. How the Apple culture works.

I recommend this book, especially for people who want to start doing something great. Lessons learned from Steve have been explain and listed systematically through series of events, from the making of Macintosh, Steve's departure, NeXT, Pixar, to iPods and iPhone. One of the interesting issue is how Steve's decisions had rescued Apple.

"I want to put a ding in the universe."

-- Steve Jobs

Apple become a very successful company thanks to Steve's return. Now many are worried about Steve's health and the future of Apple. His management style is unique, his charisma is strong. Every time I watch his keynote, I felt like he's a leader of a religion. A leader that loves to amuse the crowds. Steve is irreplaceable.

Teaching in English

2008-07-28T16:55:00.000+01:00

Currently I'm working as a teaching assistance (TA) in the Database lab at Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology (SIIT), the place where I was graduated. Roughly two years ago I attend this lab as a student.

Now being a TA. This gives me the opportunity to see a different view, a teaching view. Teaching is both art and science. Not only that you have to understand the subject matter precisely and clearly but also you need the ability to express the message so that students will understand easily.

Though many people said having a subject taught in English is a major challenging factor for them to understand. In my opinion, English should not made the subject difficult. A treatment to difficult subjects is proper English. English is undoubtedly universal, therefore expressing a message in English, gives senses of smoothness and purity in words.

Imagine explaining something in Thai language and you can't avoid English words. Flipping back and forth between Thai and English destroy the beauty of both languages. English terms are meant to be described in English. As you would dress your sushi with soy sauce not with fish sauce, tomato ketchup or anything else. I would called this approach a purist style.

But who knows, mixing two things could be more meaningful than using one alone, if we can understand perhaps 90% Thai and some 40 % English, by expressing 100 ideas using both maybe we might get more ideas understood than totally expressing them in one language. So this is a fusion approach.

The lesson learned is that language should be made simple, since the subject itself should be the primary actor. Let the subject be the focus, make it big, so big such that one could not see that you are describing them in English or Thai. Make them understand the subject from the essence of itself.