Category — quotes and thoughts

การศึกษาเรื่องที่ถือกันว่าเป็นองค์ประกอบของความเป็นไทย ความเป็นตัวตนของเราเองจะยิ่งเห็นความแตกต่างชัดเจน อย่างเช่นเรื่องพุทธศาสนาในสังคมไทย เรื่องชาตินิยมไทย เรื่องสถาบันพระมหากษัตริย์ เป็นต้น หลายคนชอบพูดว่าฝรั่งจะมาเข้าใจเรื่องพวกนี้ได้ดีกว่าคนไทยได้ยังไงกัน คำกล่าวพรรค์นี้ก็มีส่วนถูกต้องอยู่ คือเหมือนเราเป็นปลาว่ายอยู่ในอ่างใบหนึ่ง คนที่ไม่ได้เป็นปลาอยู่ในอ่างใบเดียวกัน จะมารู้จักชีวิตในอ่างของเราได้ดีกว่าเราคงเป็นไปได้ยาก แต่ความอ่อนแอของความรู้ของเราก็อยู่ตรงที่ความเข้มแข็งนั่นแหละ คือรู้จักชีวิตในอ่างแบบปลาอยู่ในอ่างแค่นั้นแหละ เราจึงมักไม่ค่อยเข้าใจชาตินิยมของตัวเอง การศึกษาเรื่องพุทธศาสนาในสังคมไทยจึงติดกรอบที่ค่อนข้างจำกัด คนไทยเขียนถึงพระมหากษัตริย์เหมือนปลาที่ไม่เคยรู้จักชีวิตแบบอื่น ที่ไม่จำเป็นต้องอยู่ในน้ำ และเห็นว่าชีวิตท่ามกลางน้ำในอ่างใบนั้นวิเศษที่สุด

[ฟ้าเดียวกัน] คุยกับ ธงชัย วินิจจะกูล : “การคุยเรื่องสถาบันกษัตริย์ต่อสาธารณชนเป็นสิ่งที่เป็นไปได้” « www.prachatai.com เวบหนังสือพิมพ์ออนไลน์

ระยะนี้ดูรายการถ้าคุณแน่อย่าแพ้ ป.สี่ แทบทุกวัน ตอบได้บ้างไม่ได้บ้าง
แต่การดูรายการนี้ทำให้เอะใจอะไรบางอย่าง ที่เอะใจก็คือว่า สิ่งที่เรียนมาตั้งแต่ ป.1 จนถึง ป.4 หรือแม้กระทั่ง ม.6 ก็ตาม มีคุณค่าแค่ไหน จำเป็นสำหรับชีวิตประจำวันแค่ไหน?
ถ้าทุกสิ่งทุกอย่างที่เรียนตั้งแต่เด็ก เป็นสิ่งที่จำเป็นสำหรับชีวิตประจำวันจริงๆ ทำไมผู้ใหญ่ถึงจำกันไม่ได้ ทำไมตอบคำถาม ป.4 ไม่ได้?
ตัวอย่างคำถาม

• กระจับปี่เป็นเครื่องดนตรีประเภทใด?
• กรุงธนบุรีเกิดก่อนกรุงรัตนโกสินกี่ปี?
• …

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I stole these clips from fringer.org. They are too good to pass. Download the clip to your computer if you can. Email it to 10 more friends and your love life will blossom.
Thai State Crimes Part1 and Thai State Crimes Part2

I found myself loving to read reviews more than the content itself. Check out Youtube for example, you will find a lot of entertaining clips, of course, but the reviews are sometimes more entertaining than the clips itself. It’s amazing when people can hide behind their avatar, screen name, and speak their mind without fear of consequences. I’m saying it’s good. I’d just say it’s entertaining to read.
Where would you find a place like that out of the internet? A place where people can just speak up, bash one another, but not end up in a physical fight? Amazing… just amazing.

Corruption is what Thai people hate the most, unless the act is done by one of their own.

1. Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible
2. Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
3. Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
4. Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
5. Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
6. Be the first to recognise a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
7. Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
8. Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
9. Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
10. Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.

I believe the rules destroy almost every books on good (old) business practice. The general idea from these rules is that in this time of information that goes faster than speed of light, preparation, research, and professionalism are still good to have, but nothing is more valuable than real life experience.

I was reluctant to talk about my idea to my friends at first, but then the #2 suggested otherwise. Talking about your idea is like teaching. The more you teach, the more you know about that subject.

According to a research funded by Industry Canada, P2P downloaders buy more CDs.

There are two comments about the research I really like.

Why does it have to be that downloading INCREASES music sales, and not just:

People who download music LIKE MUSIC, and therefore are prone to buy more in general regardless of torrents.

Why does downloading and buying have to be directly linked in the behaviours of my mind, they are cousins (similar trends) and not twins (where one only gains if the other looses).

and

These statistics do not apply to me. Ever since I began file sharing, I have stopped buying cds. I support the artists by going to concerts and buying merchandise.

Besides, most of the artists I listen to are dead. If I bought their CD, I wouldn’t be supporting the artist. My money would go strait to the record executives, and I see no point in doing that.

Technically attacking your opponent and not their argument is an “ad hominem“. Example: You are dumb so I don’t have to listen to your completely valid argument you stinky person.” Straw man-ing is when you take the other person valid point and mutate it into something which is only vaguely similar but much easier to attack.

Two current political examples:

Arguement: I think the war in Iraq is unjustified
Straw Man: So you’d rather have Sadaam in power?
Arguement: We should raise the minimum wage
Straw Man: Why do you hate small business?

This is a game, and while I might not be as offensive as Rainfall (possibly by virtue of being mainly PvE of late), I can understand saying, posting, or doing things with total disregard for how others feel about it. While I don’t support things that directly harm people or their existing efforts (say, account hacking), a Multiplayer game is going to have an intrinsic measure of competitiveness. I don’t know that Rainfall has ever done anything aside from be rude (which I cannot criticize in this environment) or make PvP difficult for others for his own benefit.

Hindering someone’s efforts in a competetive environment strikes me as totally legitimate, and a very common form of human aggression. I think Skywall does have a fair amount of carebearishness to it. While I’m too lazy and low key for the tension of a PvP server, and thus put up with the carebears instead of reroll, I do think its disappointing when people get upset with someone for going all out to achieve a goal, particularly when its a competition based goal.

The ineffectiveness of trying to prevent those who are willing from trying as hard as possible can be seen in the Timesink Era of Horde PvP. While I admire them for finding a way to exploit a system that was terribly flawed, I think that the whole premise was one of “This is very hard to accomplish as intended, can we make it easier?” I don’t think that’s a healthy perspective. It also eventually broke down in the face of those who were willing to achieve the goal faster through harder work.

And for Veiled, since I know you are fond of semantic games, mature is defined as having reached full development. Now I’m not sure how old Rainfall is, but he seems to be at least intelligent enough to play this game well. Even if he’s not a full adult, I don’t think you’re talking about physical maturity as much as emotional maturity. In an emotional sense, the argument for or against Rainfall is subjective at best. You could claim he is emotionally immature due to his unwillingness to cooperate with others (which is nearly definitely false on an absolute scale), or you could claim he is emotionally mature because he does not depend on the approval of others and operates with a self sufficient sense of self. If you meant social maturity, I think that’s rather amusing considering this is a game, and artificial semi-world of limited interactions and possibilities. The society here is substantially different from the one all mankind is bound to for better or worse, and thus cannot be easily subjected to treatment with the same terms in regards to social issues.

Ducleus of SS

“Studies have shown that 85-90% of what people communicate is not with words.”

MSN, Yahoo messenger, ICQ, AIM and such live chat program seem to be archaic to me thinking you can just communicate through such program just by words. I’ll just ignore emoticon for now, although I’ll just say it here that emoticons are very misleading tools.

What’s the difference between instant messengers and a telegram? Well, even telephone seems to be more sophisticated than instant messengers.
In real life conversation between 2 people, you have words, pitch, gesture, rhythm, physical contact, and even environment at your service. All these tools mean a lot in communication. They can add to the words, help clarify the meaning of what you’re trying to say, or they can misleading you completely from your intended context.

People tend to pay more attention to the 10-15% and ignore the more important 85-90%. Of course, when someone yells at you, who would ever pay attention to what he’s trying to say? You just yell back at him, or sometimes, you stay quiet but you’re madder than hell your ears are ringing. You won’t hear a thing…

What if you don’t have the 85-90% to use? Would the 10-15% go straight to the brain?

I’ve just witnessed a misunderstanding between two friends in chatroom a few days ago. One of them was mad about an incident earlier while the other tried to calm him down. The two were not really close, and their scope of experience didn’t really intersect. The calmer tried to calm the mad down. What he thought was soothing words turned out to be viewed as I-don’t-give-a-damn words to the mad. The mad got madder and left the chatroom immediately.

A friend of mine emailed his boss;

“i’m sure you’re pleased with a lot of projects i’ve done for the company. my question to you is that would you consider giving me a raise?”

Maybe I’m a bit too dramatic. Maybe I watched too many movies, but I could read the email above in so many ways.

INT. BOSS OFFICE. LATE AFTERNOON.

Bob strolls in the oval office and sits in one of the chair in front of Mr. P’s table. Mr. P looks up a little stun.

BOB (relax…a little too relax..thinking marlon brando’s quiet talk)

I’m sure you’re pleased with a lot of projects I’ve done for the company. (raise his finger at Mr. P.)
My question to YOU is that would you consider giving me a raise?

———————————-

That was one way to put it. Without knowing Bob, you could couple the words with the 85% any way you want, and the results would turn out differently.

But well… I know a little bit of Bob. I knew he meant every words just as they were, no two ways about it. ;D