Category — Personal rant

เมื่ออาทิตย์ที่แล้วผมมีโอกาสได้ฟังการแถลงนโยบายของรัฐบาลใหม่ ต้องบอกตรงๆว่า ไม่ว่ารัฐบาลหรือฝ่ายค้านก็ตาม ไม่ได้มีความเข้าใจถึงศักยภาพของ IT และ Internet เลยแม้แต่น้อย หรือเข้าใจแต่ไม่รู้ว่าจะใช้ประโยชน์กับมันอย่างไร
คอมพิวเตอร์หนึ่งเครื่อง(รวม OS และ browsers) กับ Internet connection มีประโยชน์มากกว่า คอมพิวเตอร์หนึ่งเครื่องที่ลงโปรแกรมสำเร็จรูปที่ต้องเสียเงินซื้อ ไม่รู้กี่เท่า (MS office, encyclopedia, games, photoshop, mathlab, accounting software,…etc.)
ทำไมเหรอครับ คำตอบง่ายๆคือ โปรแกรมทุกอย่างที่ต้องซื้อนั้นมีแจกหรือให้ใช้ฟรี (อย่างถูกกฏหมาย) อยู่แล้วในอินเตอร์เนท

โปรแกรมใช้ฟรีสำหรับ Windows > www.opensourcewindows.org
สำหรับ OS X > www.opensourcemac.org

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According to the interview with 101 EAST (AlJazeera.net), it shows how dated his ideas are. Discriminating against age, sex…etc. I can’t believe we have him as a prime minister of Thailand. He makes George W. Bush looked hell of a lot better to me now. At least GWB is not this stupid and doesn’t underestimate the power of the internet, media, and everyone outside Thailand.

Watch it on Youtube: part 1 and part 2. Or sukiflix.com if you’re from Thailand.

I’m about to kill myself trying to get the website I’m working on to look good on IE browsers. (especially IE6)
Maybe I should do like felixnyc.com, huh?

This site best viewed in a javascript-enabled browser at 1024 x 768 resolution. Internet Explorer not recommended for optimal viewing.

On the left is a picture of a bridge over Payathai road in front of Chulalongkorn University. The white letters read “stay on the right (lane)”.
We all know that Thai people drive on the left lane like in the UK. Slower cars stay on the left while the right lane is for passing cars. Until this bridge in front of the most prestigious university in Thailand caught my eyes…
I don’t recall I ever see a pedestrian overpass anywhere in the States. I see it almost everywhere in Thailand, not only big cities. I really wonder if it is necessary to spend that kind of money to build it. And if the money is better spent elsewhere… only in Thailand.
“stay on the right”?… only in Thailand as well. We are so confused. We just can’t stick to any rule at all. There’s always an exception to everything in Thailand. Don’t like the existing rules? no problem, write a new one.

Only in Thailand…

There are a lot of things needed to be done in Thailand. But first, the idea of sending your kids to engineering school, medical school, or law school has to end now!
That is one of the big reason that Thailand cannot grow more than it is now. Not everybody has a potential to be an engineer or a doctor. If your kid is so good at drawing and love doing it, you just can’t force him/her to become a doctor. That’s a reason on a personal level.
On a bigger level, Thailand needs to be more open to other jobs. Be more diverse and open to a new business even though it seems like a child’s play. (look at anime and game industry in Japan) Whatever your kids love to do, tell them they have your full support. (There’s a catch though. You not only give them full support, but you need to force them a bit as well.)
If you ask 100 high school students in Thailand what they want to “study” in college, about 80% would give you one of those set answers, engineering, medical, law, accounting…etc. anything that (their parents told them) makes a lot of money.
That’s alright, but it doesn’t help this country grow. We don’t want all of our brightest kids to grow up to be an engineer, a doctor or a lawyer. And those who failed to be one of those, be something else less in everybody’s eyes.
I’ll be proud if my daughter wants to become a gardener as long as she knows what she’s doing. She’ll become one of the best gardener you can ever think of. And that’s enough for Thailand.

I’m still shocked at the news about the death of Heath Ledger.
I watched one of his movies over and over and over for more than 8 times, so many so that I could almost remember every moves and every memorable words in the movie.
His acting convinced me that he was a very genuine and true to his feeling kind of guy. This lost made me immensely sad.

We were too lazy and too busy to unpack our books since we moved back to Thailand 5-6 months ago. We didn’t know our house was infested with termites until this happened. I took a lot of pictures and even a few video clip on the feed. It was just disgusting…

I observed flying termites around my house tonight for the first time, too. metamorphosis, huh?

Having your own opinion is forbidden in Thailand. That’s a fact.
I was thinking about creating a user review web site in Thailand, but I now realized that I would face a lot of problems, the biggest one being the one I mentioned above.
That and a “that’s OK” attitude.

If I say something bad about one of the Thai pop icon (or any beloved anything), half of the Thais would just turn away from me, the other half would condemn me to the end of the world. Maybe there’re a few who agree with me, but that’s about it. I can’t really expect them to speak up and support my idea, because they don’t want any trouble.

I just have to suck it up and say, “That’s OK.”