Weighty words: What is an occurrence? An event?

Although it is now a full decade ago, I think everyone still remembers, or is aware of, the attack by Islamist terrorists against the United States, when, out of four hijacked planes full of passengers, two were deliberately flown into the two towers of New York's World Trade Centre, reducing those buildings to piles of rubble, and killing almost 3,000 people ("September 11 Attacks", 2012).

After that attack, the meaning of the word event became a matter of great legal and financial importance, being the subject of court cases and intense discussion, with witnesses from various academic fields being called upon by lawyers to testify about the meaning of the related words event and occurrence.

The question that needed to be answered was:

• Were the attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre on September 9, 2001 one event or two? Was there one occurrence, or two?

What do you think? Please feel welcome to let us know which side you support in this multi-billion dollar question, which was definitely not a purely academic question for several large insurance companies and New York property owners. I am sure that we all use the words event and occurrence on a regular basis, and have been happily using them for years, but is that confident use also clear and well-founded? Can you give a definition that is solid and will allow the difficult question to be settled one way or the other? Was the attack on two towers one event, or two? $3.5 billion dollars depends on your answer.

If you do a little research, it's easy enough to discover what the US courts and Courts of Appeal finally decided, after 5 years of heated argument, but that doesn't mean the  courts made the right decision about the definition of the controversial words occurrence and event.

This real world example, like the essay questions you are currently working on, neatly demonstrates that words and their definitions matter a lot in every area of life, not just in academic fields. As well as the lawyers, the expert witnesses for both sides included professors of English, philosophers and other academics, all of whom are the sorts of people that the US Supreme Court regularly hears opinions from when it is considering a case. US Supreme Court decisions are commonly about what a word or phrase means, and if you are answering the question about Bush's election or abortion, you will probably want to learn a few important details of some famous cases decided by the US Supreme Court. The nine justices of the Court write excellent, but not easy, academic English, and I sometimes use their opinions as readings in higher classes.

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Reference

September 11 attacks. (2013, March 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:33, March 27, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=September_11_attacks&oldid=543513648

Not Easy to Be Multi-Millionaire

How much money did you earn when you were 17 years old?

When I was seventeen, I had earned a little money from my part time job that I was hired to do an easy job such as wash my father car. I got 20 baht a time after I finish washed my father car.

According to “Yahoo spends 'millions' on UK teen Nick D'Aloisio's Summly app” article, the British teenager who can earn dozens of millions pound from selling his mobile app named Summly to a gigantic web company named Yahoo in which he and his colleagues created it when he was fifteen years old just want to buy new pair of Nike training shoe and a new computer, but before that he want to save and bank it at the moment.

In recent years, I have seen super-rich people who are rich from selling their mobile application, for example, Draw something application. I believe that creating a popular mobile application will be a good shortcut to be a wealthy; however, this shortcut is not an easy way to do, for instance, the creator of Drawing Somethings game had to create a hundred of games before he archived his success. It seems like many inventors in the part which they had to invent many things before he found the best one, for example Sir. Thomas Edison, the inventors of the light bulb, he had to test thousands kinds of material before he found Tungsten. Therefore, the ways usually open and wait for enthusiastic people who never give up.

What do you think? Should young people learn how to code program which they might be multi-millionaires in the future, If their application were very popular?

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Reference

Yahoo spends 'millions' on UK teen Nick D'Aloisio's Summly app. (2013, March 25) BBC News Technology retrieved March 26, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21924243

New Belief of Body Image in Children

Nowadays, soap opera, drama and movies are increasingly popular in many countries. One of reasons that people enjoy watching the play is that they focus on actors and actresses' performance. It is obvious that they attempt to imitate all of performance, especially body image and gesture. However, the behavior does not only lead to changing  in adults, but it also threaten the children and teenager's notion.

According to Katherine Sellgren's article in "Boys Suffer Poor Body Image, Say Teachers", many pupils try to imitate the body image from popular movie stars,and models that instill the body performance through media. As the results, boys continuously  have low self-esteem and enormous pressure about their body image.

These days, the media is an important channel that influences all kinds of social activities. Especially movie stars, and celebrities have more influence to spectators than other careers in terms of dressing, gesture, performance, and rumors. Many people also believe that if they would like to be a famous person, they must do everything to make them good looking and attractive. It is clear that perfect body image is the first reason that people have to change themselves as actors or actresses' body image. This belief is extended to the children in UK that most of them change their eating routine and exercise in order to keep fit as popular performers' performance. The survey shows that there is an increasing percentage of boys who suffers and worries  from poor body image, compared with girls. That's why, this is the teachers' responsibility to alleviate children's anxiety by convincing them to participate in compulsory body image and self-esteem lessons.

In my country, Thai adolescent also have the same trend with above-mentioned trend. They strongly believe that people who have perfect body image also receive much opportunity for prosperity. For example, a good-shaped and slender movie star earns a lot of money from the advertisement, modeling the dress, presenter of elegant merchandise brand. In contrast, people who are overweight are not usually accepted from others. However, this belief can lead to severe problems, such as people are diffident in their body image, or people accept and admire only slim and beautiful-shaped people. The examples clearly show that they will be classified and discriminated as social level. Therefore, teachers should change adolescent's idea of this problem and provide understanding and awareness of real good-looking people which come from internal behaviors ,not only slim and slender appearance.

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Reference
Sellgren, K. (2013, March 23). Boys suffer poor body image, say teachers. BBC News Education & Family. Retrieved March 25, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21864312 

Has Anyone Ever Gone Shopping?

When is the last time you go shopping? Which type of shopping do you prefer? Online shopping? Eye shopping? Or hanging around variety of shopping centres? 

According to Denise Winterman's article in “Shopping: The New Tactics to Get You Spending”, retailers have design marketing strategies to promote their products and services and focus on awareness of customers’ behaviors. Shoppers should become concerned about stores’s tactics to keep their wallets or purses safe.

A massive number of retailers today use Social media – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to connect with customers – from small businesses like Khokowmunkais (rice steamed with chicken restaurant opposite Charmsquare) to global brands like MUJI and Adidas. These websites influence buyers who go online and see them. The more we know about the products, the more likely we spend money on them. I read from the magazine that social media users who see stuffs from retail shops are more likely to visit retail sites. Because they can bring people closer to products and also directly provide a broad range of information to customers.

I remember the days when I was in school, staying offline more than online. I wandered around a department store near my school for many hours with friends and easily buy nothing but a scoop of icecream and Sanrio stationaries. I hardly have feeling like this today since I rather check everything I can before I buy something. Price, profile and review, for example, help me to decide which one I should buy or which one I should not. With access to internet, I can also buy everything from home or by smartphone. Technology brings the shops to us wherever and whenever we are. The options are unlimited. I sometimes buy books and dvd box sets online since the prices are cheaper than shops. Normally, online shops I buy offer lower prices because they don't have to pay rent and sales people. Nevertheless, I think retail shopping is the best way to go for clothes because I am able to touch them and try them on. I'll usually just go pick it up at stores.

Recently, I have addicted to buy stickers in Line - free texts and voice call application for smartphone. Since they are so attractive and sometimes precisely create emotional cartoons, which I love to send to my friends instead of typing. Again, I can simply buy it from app store online. I admit that I get an addiction to shop online on things that looks cool such as iphone case and plugy.

However, there are some ugly truths of shopping online. Some online shops promote elegant pictures of their products which are disguised by photo retouching program. This is not on the spot but the advertising industry always has been a exquisite lure for people. Occasionally, Instagram - an application that transforms a photo by filter, turns the picture of my simple river-view from my backyard into Lonely planet shot of Tropical Holiday in Thailand. I guess it is also true in some photos of products or hotels' rooms advertising.

Should we read novels in AEP?

Although I do not in level 7, and normally don't in level 6, AEP reading and writing classes do usually read a novel as part of the course.

What do you think about this?

• Is it a good idea or not? 
• What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages? 
• What are the relevant factors to consider? 
• And any other comment you might like to make. 

Not a surprising reason to drink coffee

What a pleasant surprise it was as I'm enjoying my morning coffee to learn that there is yet another reason to enjoy this wonderful mix of drugs.

Whilst cautioning that sleep is the best solution for a lack of sleep, Michelle Roberts reports in "Lorry drivers who drink coffee 'cut their crash risk' " that drinking coffee correlates with a significant reduction in the risk of a traffic accident amongst truck drivers according to research by an Australian group.

The findings of this research did not surprise me. I suspect that most people already know that coffee contains stimulants amongst its heady mix of tasty and refreshing drugs, and it makes sense that more alert brains will have less accidents than those half asleep. Still, the research could have discovered the opposite. The only way to know with any confidence is to actually do the necessary research. There is no lack of commonly held beliefs that are false, and good academics are in the habit of questioning everything. If you haven't checked it, how can you have a good reason to belief or think anything? You can't!

Now, if only someone would do some research which proved my strong suspicion that the cream I enjoy in my coffee is also very good for me for some reason, in addition to being very good in coffee, and a lot of other things.

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Reference

Roberts, M. (2013, March 20). Lorry drivers who drink coffee 'cut their crash risk'. BBC News Health. Retrieved March 21, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21841825

Do we know what we know?

As Bas notes in his post "Not only in the movie world, but also be true in the real world", some people "know" that when they have a cold, antibiotics are the appropriate course of action (Gu Mai Bok, 2013). Unfortunately, they are wrong: they know no such thing. Our knowledge of the world is often much less certain, far more error prone and subject to correction than we would like it to be.

The BBC News story "Abbey painting 'is Rembrandt self portrait' " reports that, based on more recent physical and circumstantial evidence, leading experts on the Dutch painter Rembrandt are again changing their minds and attributing a portrait of the himself to the artist, thereby making "this portrait ... one of [the] most important works of art ... in the National Trust's collection" ("Abbey Painting", 2013, 'Most Important Works' sect.).

As we notice in the very first sentence of the BBC's report, the modal verb may plays a crucial role. The experts have very strong evidence to support their attribution of the painting to Rembrandt, but that evidence is not so strong as to support the claim that it is a Rembrandt. So, do we now know it's a Rembrandt? Last month,  the experts thought that they knew it was by a pupil of the master, but now they don't know that. And as that crucially important may tells us, they are less than certain about the new opinion that has made Britain's National Gallery so very happy, and greatly increased the value of the painting. So, do we, do they, now know that it is in fact a Rembrandt? I think that we do know this, but that we might be wrong. And the experts are sensibly having even more sophisticated tests done to help decrease the doubt, but I don't think it's possible to remove it: we can probably (hedging, hedging) never be certain as to who painted this great work of art.

But I am sure it's a great painting, however uncertain we might be as to it's actual creator. I used to spend hours poring over and copying Rembrandt self-portraits when I was trying to learn to draw and paint. Unfortunately, drawing and painting, like most skills, reading and writing for example, require lots of regular practice to develop, and this set of skills lost out to other demands on my time, so that my artistic ability is about on a par with my handwriting. Perhaps one day I'll work on those again, but not today. However, the effort I made for a couple of years did help me to see and appreciate paintings and drawings much better than I previously had. It's a bit like my flute playing - I was never going to make a concert flautist, but the hours of practise in my much younger days did a lot to enable me to better enjoy music, although these days I rarely listen to any, preferring to spend my time reading: I've loved a good argument ever since primary school.

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References

Abbey painting 'is Rembrandt self portrait'. (2013, March 19). BBC News Entertainment & Arts. Retrieved March 20 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21827478

Gu Mai Bok (2013, March 19). Not only in the movie world, but also be true in the real world. Class Blog - AEP at AUA. Retrieved March 20, 2013 from http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2013/03/not-only-in-movie-world-but-also-true.html

Not only in the movie world, but also be true in the real world.

I was surprised when I read this news at the first time. This looks like it comes from ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’ movie in which Alice was injected the viruses that disable Alice’s supernatural power, whereas the viruses do not have any side-effects on her.

According to Damien, M. and Deborah, C in “Phages may be keyin bacteria battle” article, the researchers at the Eliava Institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, use phages, specific viruses that can kill some bacteria, to treat patients who were infected some kinds of bacteria and they believe that phages would be a next-generation weapon in the fight against infectious diseases.

If you had seen some Chinese traditional movies which they usually assume they were in hundreds years ago, you might have seen that the doctor, in the movie, use some poisons to cure poison effects even though this method might be truth only in the movie world. In fact, the movie might be created their pilots from the truth in the real world which we already have using serums to cure the effects of snake poisons.

Although I am not a doctor, I had known that you don’t need some antibiotic medicine when you get a cold. Some people believe that when they get a cold, they need some antibiotic medicine which the medicine cannot cure the root cause. In fact, the cause of cold is made by some viruses and the antibiotic medicine will not affect to viruses. Moreover, using antibiotic medicine in many time and lack of discipline for taking the medicine can cause some bacterial getting stronger. The result is that the same antibiotic medicine could not work effectively and the patients will need more powerful antibiotic medicine to cure their infection. Therefore, you should use antibiotic medicine when you have to take it.

Reference

Damien, M. and Deborah, C. (2013, March, 16) Phages may be key in bacteria battle. BBC News Health. Retrieved March 18, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21799534

"literally" iconic player?

If we talk about a prisoner, we would imagine a grubby man wearing a black and white stripped shirt. However, there has to have an exception-the prominent charming political prisoner,Aung San Suu Kyi.

In "Aung San Suu Kyi: From icon to political player", Jonathan Head shows his sentiment that Suu Kyi has now turned from an icon of Burmese politics into a normal politician. He suggests watching her acts on copper mine project that the president Thein Sein has given this "hot potato" to her.

When I was young, I watched the news about her, and I wondered who she was. My mom introduced her as political prisoner who was detained for her obvious victory in an election. I was so young that I could not understand why a democratically elected winner was remained in a house arrest. Later, when I have grown up, it became understandable for me. Suu Kyi once was a symbol of  struggle of Burmese people to be free. She had been speaking everything that needed to be said- to protect her people's rights. She was the only hope of Burmese people that she would shine her light trough the era of militarily darkness. However, after her silence on the anti-Rohingya riots, she has been criticized that she has lost her sparkle. As the author says, she has now turned from an prominent symbol of Burmese politics into a normal politician.

People in democratic countries do not really believe in democracy. They also misunderstand  its meaning and even abuse it. Like in Thailand, when one candidate won an election, the supporters of the opposite candidate will protest for dissolution of the government. Another example is North Korea, which is a literally democratic country, but has only one candidate in the election. I think democracy has begun for a very long time, but, people do not really understand it, if they understand, still, they do not believe in it.

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Reference

Head, J. (2013, March 17). Aung San Suu Kyi: From icon to political player.  BBC News Magazine. Retrieved March 17, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21802811

Veils of Ignorance for Worthless Opinions

Features column, BBC News
March 18, 2013 at 9:06 PM

When I saw the title "Fool's Gold" in the number three position on the BBC News' home page, I might have skipped it except that the picture caught my eye - it looked a bit more interesting. And there were those quotation marks. The writer, Peter Taylor, clearly wasn't writing about fool's gold in his article. In fact, following the link, the title of the article is something very different: "Iraq: The Spies Who Fooled the World".

In this story, Taylor discusses the intelligence from the CIA and British which Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush used as the excuse for their invasion of Iraq, which led to the end of Saddam Hussein's rule. Whilst conceding that Blair might have believed the false claims that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Taylor presents evidence from British and US intelligence experts that even at the time there was good reason not to believe any such thing, and that neither Blair nor Bush were justified in believing what they did "based on fabrication, wishful thinking and lies".

The "fool's gold" from the homepage heading is in the Intelligence Failure section, where Taylor quotes army General Sir Mike Jackson and Lord Butler, who led an inquiry into false WMD excuse for the war afterwards, as saying that both the British prime minister and the president of the United States deliberately deceived themselves. We presume they did this because they were both keen to go to war and looking for any excuse that would work.

Taylor is a bit more generous than I would be. I think that Bush at least told an outright lie to the American nation to get his longed for war against Saddam. He should have been impeached for that. The Iraq war was a very good re-election strategy, and before the ugly truths started to come out, Bush had already been elected for his second term in office. Thankfully, he could not get a third, and had he run, I'm sure that the American people would still have given Obama the convincing majority that elected America's first black president.

I'm actually in two minds about the war in Iraq. I do think that Saddam was a monster and that his removal and subsequent execution no bad thing (I'm not a Buddhist, so it's OK for me to think that execution can be an acceptable option), although the cost was very high diplomatically since it opened the US to charges of unjust, and even illegal, interference in the domestic affairs of another country. If it was right to attack Iraq to get rid of Saddam, then the same honest reasons would also have justified a war to oust the brutally despotic leaders of Burma and other nations where dictators suppress their citizens. But I'm not in two minds at all about the lying by those two leaders of the Western world: it was wrong.

The more interesting aspect of this messy story though is that it seems to me a good example of the evils that can so easily flow from censorship, however well intentioned that suppression of free speech might be. Censorship is always done with intent to create ignorance about the topic censored, that is, to make knowledge and a well-founded opinion impossible. This is why pornography is censored on public television - people don't want children, or even adults, to know about sex. This is why Apple censors information about its new products - it does not want them to be known before the launch, especially not by business rivals. This is also why military intelligence (OALD definition 2,, not 1.) is often censored - it would harmful were ignorance of plans and means replaced by knowledge or well-founded opinion. In at least two of these cases, I agree with the censors that ignorance is better than knowledge for most people, whose opinions on the topics where open speech is not permitted should be kept ignorant and worthless.

But in the case of WMDs in Iraq, it seems that Blair and Bush deliberately kept themselves ignorant and their opinion on an important matter worthless, and then used that wilful ignorance to deceitfully lead their nations into a very messy war, the consequences of which are still being felt. Whilst I'm sure it is often appropriate for ordinary citizens to be ignorant of military matters, it is certainly not appropriate for the leaders of a country to be so ignorant, especially not when they are deciding to go to war or not.

A little more generally, I'm also sure that knowledge is generally better than ignorance, and that an opinion of some worth is better than a worthless one, which is why citizens should always be very suspicious of censorship by their government. If free speech is being suppressed on some topic, such as a national leader, we need to ask whether it is really a good thing for citizens to be ignorant on that topic and their opinions on it rendered worthless by oppressive laws, such as blocking internet sites, or even by social sanction, which can be just as unjust and irrational as any despotic law. On the whole, I think that people's opinion's on matters of public concern should not be veiled in ignorance that must make opinion worthless.

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Reference

Taylor, P. (2013, March 18). Iraq: The spies who fooled the world. BBC News UK. Retrieved March 18, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21786506

Inequality of white and black in US

When people were born, they cannot choose whose parents or where they would like to be born. The status is always with them until they pass away. On the other hand, some people use this difference in negative ways, to look down upon them when others have different characters.

According to Wesley Stephenson's Article in "Are There More US Black Men in Prison or College?", the statistical result shows that nowadays, there are more black male college and university students than black male prisoners. However, the result is still unclear that what is the equality of white and black students in terms of attendance at top-rated universities and educational success.

This problem of racial discrimination between white and black men in US has appeared for long time. Some states in US, such as Texas, New Mexico, and Florida, have more severe than others,  In history, the white commanded the black to work, as low-costed slaves, in order to build their new land which was occupied in the colony period. The white also provided the unequal hierarchy that made them civilized, but made the black inferior. Moreover, the white also blocked those people in order to receive the social basic structure. That was one of the probable points which forced the black inferior and caused violent racial discrimination.

For me, I heard the similar circumstances in India. In India, it is called "caste", social levels that are ranked by priority, and could not be changed from lower to higher position. Furthermore, there is a general vision from both hierarchy, the US and India, that people in inferior class are always belittled and oppressed by people who is looked like superior. However, nowadays, this situation has changed in positive way. The obvious example is that Barack Obama was voted to be the US president, and the number of black prisoners has decreased continuously when compared this years and the previous five to ten years. This means that common people accept the black to be at the same level, and the black's criminal rate has decreased steadily. Nevertheless, I am not sure in India now.

From the article, when the black have accepted to be the same level, they also have the opportunity to use and receive the infrastructure as the white obtain. In terms of education, headmasters or directors of colleges or universities should give the equal and similar chance for both types of students,for instance to attend in the top-rated universities or receive scholarships if they are able. In addition, in typical, people should not judge others because of  their skin color, but they should determine from gesture, action, and perspective.
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Reference

Stephenson, W. (2013, March 17). Are there more US black men in prison or college?. BBC News Magazine. Retrieved March 18, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21791038 

Another advantage of DOGS

Dog is a honest friend for human, it can play with us, helping disabled people, helping police to sniff out criminal and so on. Dog has earned the unique nickname as "man's best friend", and also in other languages.

According to "Medical Detection Dogs train animals to 'sniff out' breast cancer", Medical Detection Dogs chief executive Dr Claire Guest is training dog to recognize cancer because her dog was warning her that she has early stage breast tumor. The scientist and cancer experts found out that breast cancer can be 'sniff out', this research might save a thousands of lives.

It's good news for women that the number of women who have cancer might be reduce. Dogs can smell some abnormality that causing the big problems with our body. I know a little bit about cancer, but it's very scary disease. As I have known, cancer has 4 stage; stage 1 which can be cure, stage 2 can be cure, but it takes time, stage 3 hard to be cure, stage 4- there is no cure. People who got stage 3 and 4, the number of survivor are very little. I know some of people who have cancer are very suffer and pain with this disease. They have to be treated by chemo, radiation, and surgery. Cancer is very dangerous and the cause of the disease is around us. Environment, weather, foods are the main factors that pull the trigger of this disease. Some people might cured from disease, some people might not. The process of this is slowly suffered and slowly died. It will be great if my dogs can sniff the sign of cancer.

I have two dogs that are never listening to my order at all, Golden retriever and the combination of Pomeranian and something. I ordered them to get out off my house, they never did. I wonder that how people training their dogs and hoe can they do to these dogs to listen to them. My dogs were trained with dog trainer. They listen to the dog trainer, but never for my family and me. I was pay for trainer about 4-5 month, but my dogs get very little progress. I stop training them, and use the food to lure them to get out of my house instead of order them.

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Reference


Medical Detection Dogs train animals to 'sniff out' breast cancer. BBC News Beds, Herts & Bucks Retrieved March 17, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-21769807 

Helpful or helpless

My father and I used to go Blockbuster at Friday night and buy some cokes and popcorns on the way we back home ten years ago. I am so in love being a coach potato, eat junk foods and watch movies at the same time. As time goes by, the science and technology changes with each new day, we never stop by at Blockbuster nowadays.

According to "TiVo Goes Wandering, on the Road and at Home" article, you don't have to switch the dvds or standby in front of the TV to watch sports game at the middle night. TiVo is smart and can records shows automatically without ads by only just press the skip button and it can watch from any room in the house, or out of the house on smart phones, iPad whenever you want. But still have shortcomings that Wi-Fi isn’t reliable enough to ensure stutter-proof high-definition video and need to pay more if you want records shows to a different room, however, it is still save a lot of money and diversity of channels.

I am still a coach potato on weekends, but different way, on Internet or TiVo. I can watch my favorite TV shows and series all day long rather than hang out with friends. I think it can helps to improve my English listening skills and some common spoken language. It also can download the apps from the smart phone. I usually watch movies or series on iPhone when I out of the house. My favorite American series are "How I met your mother", "Revenges", "Game of Thrones" etc., how about you guys? I think it is so worth it , I pay less and watch more, and I can not help it and keep watching and watching.

Although I am fascinated about the American series, I still hang out with friends and had a social life, I go to work, I go study, I got life. But there are more people are so-called hikikomori-it is from Japanese, the abnormal avoidance of social contact, typically by adolescent, they use to describe people who keep themselves at home and stay away from society. It is quite "famous" in Japan and Taiwan who fancy with animation or online games, I think we should more concentrate about the changing of the society, and thinking that the tech in nowadays is really a helpful or helpless to human? Is those series really helpful in my life? Or does animation or online games really fulfillment in life?

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Reference

Pogue D.(2013, March 13) TiVo Goes Wandering, on the Road and at Home. The New York Times Personal Tech. Retrieved March 16,2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/14/technology/personaltech/pogue-tivo-mini-stream-review.html?ref=technology&_r=0

No shortcut to be a successful design engineer

No shortcut to be a successful design engineer

Success is the target that most people desire to experience. Frustration and failure are hard obstacles that drive only strong people to overcome. Some can achieve but not everyone can struggle along the suffering way to meet their achievement.

According to “Frustration and failure fuel Dyson's success”, a design engineer who gets an inspiration from his frustration and failure to find the better way to produce the facilitators to facilitate human, learns that there is no perfection in design since things should be improved to be better and better.

Engineer is an occupation that most people think that he or she is a fixer rather than maker. This is not quite a right idea. Both of these two things should go together since if an engineer knows just only the way to fix things but has no creativity, the new invention will not possible to arise. As Dowling mentions that “observation is important.” ,I think this is an essential skill for a designer to design a prototype to reach the nearest point of perfection. A stage of designing a new innovation is not easy, an engineer need to have a passion for doing their work in order to correct all the plausible mistakes that can happen when the users use and make it be user friendly. This takes time and much effort to do and also costs a high amount of money. Moreover, there is a risk that the product will not succeed and then it is wasteful investment. This is a normal failure that an engineer must admit. In contrast, failure is not just discouragement, yet it can reinforce the potentiality in that engineer to find the best way to make something work better. As we can see from Dyson’s experience that not every of his product is successful, CR01 washing machine is an example of this since it costs too high to produce this product. 

 
Since there is not any shortcut to succeed, the more people try, the nearer the success is. Why don’t u learn from mistakes and make it better?

Reference
Dowling, S. (2013, March 14). Frustration and failure fuel Dyson's success. Retrieved March 15, 2013 from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130312-failure-is-the-best-medicine/3

Starry Night in The Electric City

When we think about beautiful night sceneries of the world’s greatest cities, from Tokyo to New York, we normally conceive of built surrounding pictures which we impressed – glittering cities’ auras from the landmark buildings and the colorful lighting that fills in the dark sky. 

According to Dave Lee, writing in “The Technology That Could 'Revolutionise' How We Light The World”, the technology has introduced us to illuminating culture. However, we need to concern about the downsides which usually go hand in hand when we have a great time.

These days, light has become progressively more used for creating atmosphere. Famous nightlife attractions appear to light the bottoms of clouds to appeal visitors. Particularly, the international festivals in many countries around the world, such as Christmas and New Years Eve are decorated with dazzling light displays. Also, restaurants, hotels, museums or even residences are illuminated with sparking fake stars. It has contributed to new professions, namely lighting designer and technical specialists . Today’s cutting-edge technology combined with well designs can stage the exceptional events more than ever.

Lighting design is one of my favorite subjects when I studied at the university. I like the process of thinking of light in three dimensions (except lighting calculation). I also amazed by how space and place can be influenced by the light presented. Not only is it a natural light but also an artificial light – a fantastic form of an elegant brightness. Moreover, both of them are fundamental components to visualisation, which have impacts on the way people perceive. They allow us to define all things around. In particular, the presence and the absence of light can amazingly change the visibility and the atmosphere.

To illustrate, Chinatown (or Yaowarat Road in Bangkok) is a popular place among local and foreigner tourists, especially foodstuffs. In daylight, there is a centre of gold trading in Thailand alongside many restaurants and gadget shops. Although traffic and commercial cause noise and air pollution, there is still be an attractively vibrant area. At night, there are full of street food. The streets are lightened up with big neon advertisements and signs, mainly red background with yellow Chinese alphabets that direct people to places. They provide the energetical and lively sense of area. The activities between day and night might not so different. But the altering of colors in the sky and the ambience of place can influence one's visual experience and moods.

It’s sound pretty terrific but it’s still hard for me to imagine the cost of electricity that the country has to spend in each month. However, it isn't a serious matter as long as they are not misused and cause light pollution. 

And perhaps, if we switched off all the lights in our city, we would see several phenomenal stars that have always been over our heads.
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Reference

Lee, D. (2013, March 15). The technology that could 'revolutionise' how we light the world. BBC News Business. Retrieved March 15, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21790465

Is there any good thing about smoking cigarettes?

In general, when people talk about smoking, they always think that smoking can cause many negative effects to our health and life. Why some people still smoking? Because it looks cool? Or Anything else?

According to “Quitting smoking 'cuts heart risk despite weight gain'" article, a US study says stopping smoking bring about significant weight gain; however, it can cuts the risk of heart diseases such as cardiovascular risk.

As everyone knows smoking is conducive to several negative effects to our health and life. For example, for the appearance, it can cause your lips turn to black and the teeth become too yellow and also make you look older. For the health, nicotine causes many serious problems such as heart attract and stroke, asthma, cancers especially lung cancer. The smoke not only causes bad result for smoker, but cause damage to secondhand smoke as well. As I know the secondhand smokes more dangerous than the firsthand because they are no filter. Moreover, they can get from two ways. The first way is from the smoke exhale by smoker. Another way is smoke from the lighted end of the cigarette. Many non-smoke do not think about it may be because they don’t know.

I do understand quitting smoking is too difficult. They have to make a painstaking effort to stop doing it. However, if you are success in stopping smoking, it is worth to do it right? when compared with the negative effects that will occur. By the way, I sometime don’t understand why some people continue to smoke even though they know that is unhealthy. Moreover, I think people tend to smoke tobacco more, especially adolescences. Why? Perhaps because of peer pressure or the advertisement. How can we help the smoker give up? At present, the government try to encourage people to quit smoking in many ways such as launch campaign to stop smoking, increase the price of cigarette and even have gruesome cigarette images but it still seem does not work. Anyone have any good ideas?


Reference
Quitting smoking 'cuts heart risk despite weight gain'.(2013, March 13). BBC News Health. Retrieved March 15, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21757875

All or none

When I was younger. In the social study subject, it taught me a lot about World and Thai histories. I understand more about that things and it made me know what happened in this world before I was born. Everything happens for reason in every incidents and has two sides, positive and negative way. However, Japanese people don't study their negative history in 20th century that much, in order to understand more about  outside world.

The BBC News article  "What Japanese history lessons leave out" (2013) reports that Japanese people always don't understand what happened exactly between World War II and what made  neighboring countries harbor a rancor over events during those time. Nonetheless, Teaching Japanese history is wanted to alter by Japan's new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, so that their children can be contented with their past and is considering about Japan's 1993 apology over the comfort women topic.

Since I was 15 year-old, history, not only Thai history but also World history, is make me feel interested a lot.So this article catches my attention so much. According to the BBC news, Nowadays Japanese people barely study about their history in 20th century. Only 1 sentence for each incident in the text book. It means that they will hardly in each event that happened such as,comfort women - a prostitute group that controlled by the army of Japan, Rape of Nanjing - the war rape and mass murder in Nanjing. This news also makes me feel a bit worried about Japanese,as well as,Thailand. Studying history also makes us proud about who we are and understands more between countries to countries. For those who don't study this subject or hardly study it, they might feel a bit curious why some countries such as Japan and China don't like each other. As I studied about both history, Thai and World history, I know adequately what really happened in the past.

In remote parts of my country, there aren't enough stuff to study efficiently. So they may not know about their history that much and somehow may not realize how much important it is. Less eagerness to know more about many things. It's one part that make them easier to be convinced by other people who might have more shrewd or wiser. I'm also worried about what will happen next with these people. If they are still not zealous about what they have in their head, they will be under other people forever for 100% sure. Consequently, they will definitely have low life quality and low salary. It's tough enough for their life. This piece of papers also makes me think about having education. Let's compare between people who have high education and low education, who are more success?  I think everyone will answer that mostly are people with high education as same as me. In the other hand, a large number of people with low education are also success such as Steve Jobs - the CEO of Apple inc. , Abraham Lincoln - 16th president of the United states.

Thanks to modern technology that make us know more about little things that we want to know immediately for example Google and Yahoo. History is made us know who we are,what make us be proud in our nation and what actually occured in the past. Also reading is the most important skill that shape our experience to be us today. As Jane Fonda - an actress, writer, activist - said "No pain, no gain"

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Reference

What Japanese history lessons leaves out . (2013, March 14). BBC News Magazine. Retrieved March 14, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21226068

One More Large Coca Cola Please!

One More Large Coca Cola Please!

Who knows, one day Coca Cola may be unavailable in any restaurant in New York? Almost everyone knows that consuming a lot of sugary drinks can cause obesity but the Mayor of New York decided that he was going to do something about it.

According to "New York City Large-Soda Ban Blocked by Judge" a ban on the sale of large sugary drinks including soda in places serving food in New York was blocked by a court. The Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, said he thought the judge was wrong in his decision. The Mayor claims that over half of the adult population in New York are overweight.

Last month in a conversation class at AUA, an American teacher told me about the plan for a "sugary drink ban" in New York. At that time I thought it was very funny because I could not believe of such a law in the country which invented these drinks. In my opinion, people should make they own decision about what they want to eat or drink and it is not really the business of the government. Even though I do not agree with the ban on sale, I do not promote the consumption of these drinks. Instead of banning a kind of drink perhaps an educational program would have been more appropriate in attempting to solve the problem. However, there should be control on advertising of sugary drinks on TV, in magazines or any places that are popular with young people because advertising seems to have a huge effect to them. I believe the advertising targets teenagers who are less aware of their health and just want a tasty drink. The American Beverage Association, which is leading the fight against the ban, was pleased with the judgement. I do believe that obesity is a bigger problem in America than in Asian countries; however, there are many causes beyound sugary drinks. For example, consumption of fast food such as KFC, McDonald and Pizza and insufficient exercise. It is a typical controversy between people who want to ban a product and those who want to consume it.

References
New York City large-soda ban blocked by judge.(2013,March11). BBC News. Retrieved March 14, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21747568

An Important of Computer Skills

How long have you been using computers? I expect everyone in this class to say every long time. No matter what purposes you use them for. Some people may be familiar with computers because they play an online games, access social network every day or use to support their working. However, with a surprising information published on the news, there are still some people resided in the western country did not have their own computers.

The BBC News article "Prince's Trust: Poor IT skills Hurt Youth Job Chances" (2013) reports that more than one tenth of people who are between fifteen and twenty-five years old lack IT skills leading to less job opportunities. As a result, the researcher tries to educate the pupils who may lack computer skills at the young age at school by mainly using the donated money from the hip star named Will.i.am.

I am very surprised to know that there are a number of people who have a lack of computer skill. Especially, those are at the very young ages. Since the computer was developed and introduced long time ago at least it's before those young blood were born.

I think that the lack of computer skill leads to a lack of opportunity for an applicant to apply for a job as well as a chance for an employer to access to the applicant's resume. The company normally hires outsource in order to recruit staff at the very first stage before referring to the company. Therefore, if the applicant uploads the data online, the head hunter can easily access and match what the suitable jobs for him or her. It mean a greater chance to get at least one job. But, if the applicant still submit the application in a paper form, he or she might has to walk or mail to every single company. This method is time consuming and inefficient.

However, it reminds me of my cousin who also did not have his own computer at home. It was about ten years ago; therefore, it might not be that weird for others at that time. When he applied for a job, he submitted his application by hand rather than doing online as it was required. He told me that all his friends submitted the applications online except him. As a result, we were very worried that he might not get a job because he missed one requirement that asking to submit the application online. Also, we were afraid that his paper application would lost. Fortunately, as there were others qualifications taking into consideration, he finally got the job. Whereas, all of his friends did not get it.

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Reference

Prince's Trust: Poor IT skills hurt youth job chances. (2013, March 12). BBC News Business. Retrieved March 13, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21747206

We are normal humans - mistakes are unavoidable

Reading a newspaper nowadays, you can normally find a news article about prosecution of doctors. It seems like people are losing their trust on abilities of doctors. Some doctors say that they are only normal humans who sometimes unavoidably make mistakes. However, what if a mistake were preventable, but a doctor carelessly neglected to do that, and finally it destroyed one person's life. Shall the doctor be blamed?

According to Michelle Roberts' article "Pregnancy rhesus disease errors too common", some mothers with rhesus-negative blood type are denied an injection to protect their unborn babies with rhesus-positive blood, so the mothers' immune system can attack their babies. Every pregnant woman should be screened ,and the injection should be given immediately to avoid the disease, but it is not given due to carelessness of doctors or nurses.

As I am going to be a medical student next year, I have read few things about medical ethics- a framework of doctors. One important principle in medical ethics is trustfulness, which has become more and more important since Tuskegee syphilis experiment, which was an experiment, conducted in the U.S. Public Health Service, with a purpose of studying progression of syphilis in black men who thought they were given free health care from the government. It was a disgusting thing that some doctors used people's trust in a terrible way, with no care of medical ethics.

In Thailand, I have never read such serious story, but less serious stories are commonly reported on the newspaper as well, for example, last year there was a story about the woman whom the doctor injected some botox into her nose, unfortunately, the botox was contaminated in her circulation system and she then lost her consciousness forever. It is true that today more and more reports are about medical prosecution. Therefore, people are starting to lose their trust on doctors.

Doctors today should strictly follow medical ethics, any mistake in their work is the worst mistake ever, because it can bring death to one person's life. To be a doctor is not easy, you have to give out many things including your personal time, you even have a risk of being prosecuted. However, you also give people their longer lives, the greatest thing one would ever expected in his life. Maybe it is worth for all the things you lost, for me, I think it is worth.

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Reference

Roberts, M. (2013, March 13). Pregnancy rhesus disease errors too common. BBC News Health. 

Retrieved March 13, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21752761