Thai cooking in Spanish

Recently inspired to find more simple solutions to making a video, finally got into editing on iMovie, and cut a DVD earlier produced into 4 minute shorts to upload to YouTube....



There's also more (cooking vdos in Spanish) to come at my YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/netnapitasakorn?feature=mhum

IPad moves us forward

I was skeptical, at the beginning, whether I could adapt and actually enjoy reading on a touch screen tablet...until the iPad officially hit the Mexican market. My family and I turned out to be among the first to check it out at Reforma 222's iShop. The main reason for scuttling across the city to hunt for and happily dishing out 8,000 pesos for the smallest 16G-wifi iPad, which was selling like hot cakes that first week, was justified with the thought of all the savings I would receive from not having to pay the average 20 dollars for shipping that always topped each order of books I made with Amazon. (English language bookshops being a rarity in Mexico.) The various Mexican stores that were carrying the iPads all offered the increased incentive of long-term payments, interest free, from 6-18 months. 

It's been about three weeks now and I'm still being surprised on a daily basis, by how I can adapt the iPad to helping me better enjoy the things I like.  Primarily, the adjustment to reading ebooks came pretty easily. Not only do I agree with a Macworld's writer account of "How the IPad changed my reading habits": yes, to the liberating experience of being able to control font size; yes, to the mobility of carrying several 'books' with you in one package; YES, to going back to reading comics again, and finally-yes, to a totally new way of reading magazines and news. I managed to read a novel more leisurely with the bookmark function, and the temptation to look at the final pages is somehow removed by this less physcial format. While reading Chris Kuzneki's The Lost Throne, his descriptions of fabulous places like   Meteora and Mt. Athos, had me checking them out immediately online, just a click away on the iPad.

I also discovered the pleasures of being rewarded by the creative powers of application makers. By asking google to deliver the lastest news related to the iPad, I caught Flipboard on its launching day. What a novel way of experiencing Facebook and Twitter it was! I'm actually using my Twitter account more because of Flipboard. I even like the way Wired is presented on Flipboard more than on its original, too fancy, Wired app. It's a genius of having many options put into one place. I deleted some newspaper apps that I felt were cluttering my opening screen and opted for Flipnews instead. The coolest is being able to use the iPad as a really expensive photo frame that I can switch on as I listen to music from iTunes (which never really caught up with me until now). Apart from the app Photo Frame Lite which delivers me interesting and recently loaded photos from Flickr, I can watch stream of photos shared by my social groups from Facebook, Twitter, and other Flip items I've chosen on Flipboard in its 'unopened' flip screen. Just these photo streams alone make me feel more connected with the world, and with absolutely no regrets that I didn't hesitate to buy this new tech gadget. I am offered glimpses into the beautiful lives, the so talented eyes of a larger bit of humanity than I could possibly experience personally.

The iPad is much more than an oversized iPod, and much more than a common e-reader. The apps Virtuoso, Note Goal Lite, and Etude is encouraging me to try learning how to play the piano again. I doodle on Draw Free when I'm bored. I'm expecting the acquisition of my Spanish vocabulary to speed up with Spanish Dict's word game, my grammar to improve with free spanish lessons podcasts, my ability to manage the complexity of the language by internalizing the downloaded audiobook, Don Quixote.

All in all, I can't help sympathizing with the angst of the publishing industry in their scramble to figure out how to keep in the game in a digitized world. However, at the same time, I can't help cheering all these new game changing paradigm, when I read articles about learning disabled kids and old people coming out enchanted and having a richer learning experience, all thanks to the iPad, ....and all the industrious people creating fabulous apps!

Ira Glass: Building blocks of storytelling

Web hosting for idiots: How do websites work?

We visit numerous website each day but do we know how they operate? Probably not, and in reality there is a huge amount that goes on behind the scenes when you visit any website. Here's some basic ideas about what is actually happening.

A website is actually a collection of web pages that link here and there depending on what you click. All the web pages contain text and images which is stored in a different place. The place where all the text and images are stored is called the web server. A web server will have access to the internet which is connected to a certain website. When someone clicks on the website address, it will be link to the web server and download the page onto the screen of the monitor.

In other words, web server allows you to see the text and images through your web browser. Among the browsers available in the market is Internet Explorer, Firefox or K-Meleon.

In some cases, the computer could be turn into a server but it must have a fast internet connection speed. A computer turned into a server must be kept running at all times and will need extra care when managing it. Therefore, many people usually do not choose this way of having their server. They will choose a proper company to have their web server with a web hosting company. Web hosting companies will many servers where they can provide services to thousands of website owners. The main priority is to keep the servers working at all times. Reputable companies such as GoDaddy maybe a little more expensive, but there record for ‘uptime’ i.e. how long do they host sites without having any problems is 99.99%.

For a website to run smoothly, a space on the web server with internet connection is required to store web pages. Space in the web server is calculated in MB. The more MB you require, the more it will cost. Besides that, internet connection which is used to connect the website to the internet is known as bandwidth.  Bandwidth will be the key for surfers to access the website and is counted in GB or MB. The bandwidth provided will be different from different companies. Customer support is also another important thing when it comes to good web hosting company. Companies which provides customer help line is definitely a bonus. Besides that, companies today also provide email support. The ability to explain term in a simple manner is very important because not all customers have a great knowledge about computers.

Slideshow: Social Media 101

Social Media 101 For Economic Developers

View more documents from GIS Planning.

What is social media?

We're supposed to trust Google that they can point us to who the experts are, right?

So here's who and what comes up when you ask "what is social media"?

I skipped the wikipedia page, but that's the best source of easy reading on definition of any subject. The next interesting looking reference was by a website who call themselves 'the social media guide', mashable.com's "Just What is Social Media, anyway?" The discussion there seems to be against the mix of 'social' and 'media' and around if the commercialization drive of online media should be supported or not.

Then I quickly clicked through pages 2, 3, 4.... on my google search page, and I noticed quite a lot of pages of Spanish origin referring to said term. It seems that this term doesn't exist in the Spanish language, so the english term is used directly. Here's the first interesting one:"6 mentiras relacionadas al Social Media". Then from (what looks like a great pro site, with lots of goodies for online publishing tips) that offers content in English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, "Social Media Marketing: Guía Para Principiantes".

Being the curious cross cultural person I am, I went to Google Thai and keyed in the same term, and this was one of the interesting results I got: social media images. There is a surprising amount of content in Thai related to social media, most related to 'social media marketing'. No doubt for the Thais, social media's a marketing tool. Thai is a limited language that is really pushed to incorporate changes in the modern world that the language simply cannot keep up with. However, if you're imaginative enough and stick to using simple words rather than having the lofty mentality of those who create Thai dictionaries, one Thai blog re-interpreted social media as 'mouth and sound of society' and 'media's flood', expressing a pretty worried view about its threat to online security. A pretty astute feeling about how our developments for online security is going to be always a step behind the development of new media tools.

BTW, it was only recently that Google made a huge jump in Thai cyberspace when they added Thai as an automatically translatable (really, really bad translations though) under their system. Only six years ago, I was nearly searching in vain for blogs in Thai, and for webpages that had a familiar format to what I was accustomed to in English cyberspace that weren't discussion forum format so popular with the Thais.

Call me geeky or what, but the pace of evolution of the internet never fails to amaze me.

A side note about online security, I've got to commend Canada's determination to be on top of protecting its citizen's privacy (half of Canada's population uses Facebook), as was announced by CNET, "Canadian officials take issue with Facebook privacy". I just hope that it doesn't add to the increasing tits for tats that will push governments and nations into more paranoid and more xenophobic modes. Look at the visas slapped on to the Mexicans for alleged violation of its refugee program. Look at this announced oncoming flu vaccine battle. At the same, how paradoxial can it get? Look at this trend that will push us to more insecurity, despite which some foolish governments looks like they are going for it. Oops, sorry to end up on such a pessimistic mood. Blame it on the late hour, the obsessiveness that blogging creates in a person, or blame it on the nature of media and texts.

Something to mark

Apple's iPhone stirs frenzy in United States

Have a thought about how this may be the turning point from linear typography hybridized with electricity towards a new frontier of non-linear/tactile orality.

Palm Treo vdos

When we went to Hierve el Agua, Oaxaca it was quite an effort to reach that place of beauty shown in my previous post. We took a route recommended to us by a tour guide, and after a lot of winding road that gradually became smaller and smaller. We ended up in a narrow dirt road that was dug out to prevent cars passing. We had to leave our car and trek for about half an hour up the mountain. We learnt that the three villages (San Bartolo, San Isidro Roagui, and San Lorenzo Albarradas) surrounding this unique place quarrelled about rights to collect entrance fee, hence the dug out road.



We also visited Mitla, an archeological site dating back to 500 BC. What was most impressive were these geometric mozaic that still retains its beauty to this day.

I like Richard Barrow's blogs on Thai-Blogs.com and he just wrote a good blog about the Armstrong guns built by Rama V at Phra Chulachomklao Fort: read his blog at Disappearing Armstrong Guns.

Look how fast Thailand is growing in infotech know-how

Only a few years ago, I was admiring how Howard Dean used the new media of bloggers to help his political campaign, even if he wasn't successful, the role of bloggers in politics gained a significant place. Now suddenly, this (Meechai Ruchupan's webpage) pops into my cyberspace, thanks to 2Bangkok.com by the way.

Now that's an activist turning politician who's getting infotech savy. Wow, it blows my mind how places like Thailand adopts so quickly to internet's soft technology. Let's see where this one goes.

Google buys Utube

Boom: Google buys YouTube for $2.2b

Pink Orchid

This was my fourth term lab project. It was great fun to make, wrote the script, directed and edited myself. I had real actors and a complete crew working for me too.

Canada's media control

From FAIR, May/June 2002 Canada's Media Monopoly

from Freedom to read censorship

and from Media Awareness Network Canadian content rules

The participatory edge of meaning making

Yesterday, (Sun, Jan 30) I went to a session of UofT 's Sunday Philosophy Cafe. This session was titled "Mythological Representation of the Person", the speaker was Dr. Jordan Peterson who wrote the book "Maps of Meaning". He told the story of how he got interested in myths as a process to understand his recurring nightmare during his 20s of a nuclear holocaust. In our currently secure environment of post cold war era, it was odd to hear someone's personal experience of a time when we weren't so sure of the future. Dr. Peterson posed some very strong questions about human nature. What is it in us that doesn't stop us from tearing ourselves and each other apart? He recounted a Mesopotamian myth of their God Murdoch who won a battle over Chaos. What was most enlightening was his conclusion that Chaos could not be overcome by primordial archetypal forces such as anger, but could be overcome by voluntarily engaging in its chaotic nature thus transforming it into new "worlds". Participation is the process in which we personally come about making sense or meaning out of that encounter.

Please correct the cliche: The Medium is the Message"

My emerging approach to understanding McLuhan has been to find out what content he consumed to produce the messages he gave us. So I've been discovering guys like Edward T. Hall, and Harold Innis. Especially, H. Innis! Reading him has been like an "Aha!" After a while, I realise, "Hey, there's a lot of valuable things here McLuhan skipped over." A larger framework for understanding media and communication can be found in Innis's work.



Well, as part of that reading and some conversations I've had with friends trying to convince the worth of McLuhan's message, resulted in my looking at the above cliche critically. It's a great cliche, and many people use it to actually cover up the message or to cover up their misunderstanding about media. My complaint about the above cliche, I think, is that it doesn't say anything about the receiver of the message. Did McLuhan assume that the receivers, listeners, readers, watchers, were faceless? What was their role in receiving of the message?



So with the receivers of message in mind, I thought the cliche could be improved if it was expanded to: "The medium is the message which becomes the content of a new media." This actually is nothing new and comes from McLuhan's own words. I'm just inviting you to change the meme a bit here. The emphasis on the expanded cliche is to say, that the receivers actually negotiate with the message, and take action in translating the old message into content, using it in a new medium. Literacy consumed speech or orality, print consumed the alphabet, tv consumed print, etc. The expanded cliche also reflect Innis's concept of balancing the bias of commincation. I find it interesting to note that Innis was actually more oral than McLuhan was, and McLuhan in this sense was more linear than Innis... but that's arguable. Maybe, it's just one balancing the other...



I wonder, what will the new medium that consumes the electric medium (tv, radio, wireless phones and internet) as its content?

Media control, less quality news

Torn and frayed in Manila writes a good post about the demise of two quality English language weekly magazines, Far Eastern Economic Review and Asiaweek that suffered the mismanagement by media monopolies and the region's readers are now deprived of reliable news sources. The other two English language newspaper, my other sources of news about Thailand have also suffered a similar situation. Both newspapers have had to open their shares to foreign ownership and news reporting has changed since then. An article published by The Nation: Ominous paradigm shift in the Thai media.

My paper and blog: "Orality and Literacy in Thailand"

As part of a course, Comparative Orality and Literacy, that I'm auditing at the University of Toronto, I was asked to set up a blog: Orality and Literacy in Thailand as part of my research file for which I am producing a term paper. I will be developing my ideas about Thailand's oral tradition and some aspects of early literacy in that blog, so if anyone is interested, please give me a visit there....

The mistake of western epistemology

Its preoccupation with origins, the need for discovering and proving of the beginning of whatever they wish to classify, seems to come from its logic of linear cause and effect. What if reality actually exists in cycles of creation and recreation? Isn't it foolish to suppose that people who lived 2500 years ago were less advanced than we are? Can't we see that all of this bias in our view of history happens because we've put a beginning point at the year "0"? Separation of a few thousand years seems to excuse our insensitive ignorance and carelessness when we tend to overlook evidence that suggests a contrary picture of our past especially when it threatens our perception of our present.



Why can't we say frankly when we study our artifacts that the discoveries of archeology is based on chance, and by our decision of where we are going to chose to dig? What about all the evidence we haven't been able to dig up yet? Let's also declare clearly that history depends on who's writing it, it is usually written to justify the writer's point of view.



Maybe if we changed this basic and central assumption that there must be a single beginning, we can be released from the heavy burden of there having to be an end. Then we won't need to go into apocalyptic frenzy every a century or millennium ends, and we won't have to spend so much energy trying to prove that true or false beginning and actually start a much more engaging process of discovery.

Knowing and doing

(For the guy with square glasses who spoke about the distinction between knowing and doing)



We’re in a process of writing to speak better,

We used to write to record what we spoke,

Before that we just spoke.

At some point in the future we will revert back to just speaking,

Where speech is an action and not simply an externalized thought.

“Si che dal fatto

il dir non sia diverso”

Dante’s Inferno 32.12

Ann Galloway on "Drexlerian dreams and other politics of science"

Anne Galloway provided some interesting links on"Drexlerian dreams and other politics of science".



Some weeks ago, I subscribed Howard Lovy's Nanobot with Bloglines. Interesting reads, excellent coverage of the nano-world. Just for records, I stumbled on this field because of my son's declaration that he wanted to study nanotechnology when he goes to university in 4 years time. At about the same time, a Thai friend recommended the book "As the Future Catches You: How Genomics & Other Forces Are Changing Your Life, Work, Health & Wealth" by Juan Enriquez showing me his "Thai!" version of the book. Digging in, I found that I had to check out the incredulous things this guy was saying. That took me to "Nanocosm" by William Illsey Atkinson. That was followed by a read of this very interesting: Atkinson-Phoenix Nanotech Debate With that I was convinced that I'd have to follow this microcosm.