Attack on Giant Duck

Interestingly, the biggest news in Taiwan now is not economic problems, political issues and government announcements. However, it's about a "giant rubber duck" in the harbor in Kaohsiung city in southern Taiwan.

Last weekend, most of my friends took picture with a giant yellow duck and posted on Facebook and I was interested in it too. According to "Giant Duck conquers Taiwan", there was an 18 meter-tall duck created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman in Kaohsiung and 500,000 people showed up and saw the duck within five days; on the other hand, the local government in Kaohsiung estimated that the duck would draw 3,000,000 participants and generate business worth tens of millions of dollars in it.

Have you saw the Japanese comic, called Attack on Titan, and the Titan is giant humanoid creatures which are 5 to 60 meter-tall. The humanity builds three walls to protect themselves for one hundred years, but a sudden attack by a gigantic sixty-meter tall Titan, the wall is destroyed and the war is stared. I never image the thing that is attacked by giant creatures because humanity is always in the top of food chain, and try to hunt and kill all the other animals, sometimes, it's just for fun. However, what do you think about it if you were a prey, can you escape from the giant creatures whatever it's a Titan or "giant yellow duck".

Yesterday, my wife told me that she wanted to see the giant rubber duck. But it is in Taiwan now and I'm not interested in "seeing" it; however, I'm interested in why the duck draw so many people in the world. In my opinion it's only a "big yellow duck" and made of rubber.

Reference

Hiufu, W. (2013, September 25). 'Giant Duck conquers Taiwan'. CNN News Retrieved September 30, 2013 from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/24/travel/rubber-duck-taiwan/index.html

Attack on Titan, (2013, September 30). Wikipedia. Retrieved September 30, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Titan

Cyber War

Cyber war, I think it is not far from us anymore, because there are many cyber-attacks to people or governments and it is rising in every year. Anonymous groups are group of activists that aim to fight against governments via cyber space; in other words, they often attack government’s web sites for stealing confidential data or taking web sites down. These lead governments to prepare themselves for the cyber defence and counter back.

According to “UK to create new cyber defence force” The UK defence secretary announces that The UK creates a new unit to help defend national cyber securities as cyber defence force. The ministry of Defence states that the recruitment will allow it to qualify on individual talent, skills and expertise gained from their civilian experience to meet cyber-attack.

When I read this article it makes me think of Thai government, I am not sure about its cyber space policy that cyber defence force should be under ministry of defense or ministry of information and communication of technology - ICT. Thai government has many problems about cyber security; for example, Web site of ministry of ICT took down by unknown hacker. Web site of office of prime minister was hacked and modified data. I imagined that when hacker got into weapon launching system and launched it. I think Thai government should invest more in cyber security because from the article that I have read the cyber is the fifth domain of five defence domain (land, sea, air and space).

I think this is time to think about cyber security because cyber technology is involving our daily life and we cannot refuse it.  The basic of personal security is the password; you must keep your password secretly and must not write out. Every time when you use public’s computer do not forget to log out and clear browser data, you should to avoid to use public’s computer or network to access your internet banking because we never know there is a malicious program on the computer or the network, that waiting for capture your password.

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Reference

UK to create new cyber defence force (2013, September 29). BBC NEWS UK. Retrieved September 30 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24321717

Education Campaigns as Solutions: Put them to Sleep

People and governments seem to love education campaigns to solve social and personal problems. Cigarettes are killing people: we need to educate them about the dangers. There are too many car accidents: run a campaign to educate people to drive better. Obesity is a growing health and social problem: people need to be educated about the healthy eating. But can you think of a single such campaign where educating people about risks and safe practice has actually solved a problem?

In " 'Sleep - Key to Tackling Obesity'," Neil Stanley argues that since the various government education campaigns to persuade UK citizens to change their eating habits have failed, a different type of solution is needed (2013). Unlike education, which Stanley thinks unlikely to be successful, he presents evidence of a strong correlation between getting less sleep and weight gain, a result supported by fMRI studies of the brain, which together lead him to argue that more sleep is likely to prove a more effective way to control obesity.

First, I like the straight forward way that Stanley uses the evidence to counter what I think is the common idea that more or better education can solve such problems. That idea, however attractive and easy, just seems wrong to me. If it were true, all social and other problems could easily be solved. They have not been. The safe-driving campaigns before every Songkran do not reduce traffic deaths and accidents. The constant anti-drug education campaigns are not reducing drug use in Thai society. The warnings to educate about unhealthy dietary habits are not reducing people's waistlines or heart disease. All such campaigns seem to me a repeated story of failure after failure after failure. I wonder why the same faith in education campaigns is so religiously repeated without any evidence of success? Is it just because its an easy solution for officials and parents too lazy to think critically, or do they have some worse motivation?

Moving on, even better is how Stanley backs up the surprising claim that more sleep is what we need. This certainly surprised me. In fact, I thought exactly the opposite, that more sleep would mean less energy use, and therefore greater weight gain from unused calories. But just because I think something is reasonable doesn't make it true, and it looks like I was wrong again. The only way to find out how the world actually works, whether the planets above us or the complexities of human behaviour, is to actually look at the world, get facts, and then try to explain the results.

Finally, eating and sleeping are two things I enjoy, but it seems there is some conflict here: if I sleep more, I might be inclined to eat less, or at least less of the unhealthy food. But perhaps there is no conflict: why eat sickly muck when you can enjoy more yummy oysters and blue cheese? I guess now I need to put the theory to the test and start sleeping more.

Tonight? Or tomorrow? I like putting things off until tomorrow. Maybe I need a government sponsored education campaign to persuade me sleep more?

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Reference

Stanley, N. (2013, September 27). 'Sleep - key to tackling obesity'. BBC News Health. Retrieved September 28, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24162508

Working at home works if...

Telecommuting (working from home) sounds a good idea to balance between career and personal life since we can establish our own schedule that when we prefer to work and when we need to stop to spend time with our families. In contrast, there is a study finding that telework can worsen feeling of exhaustion among employees.

Regarding “Why working from home could be bad for you health”, teleworkers may struggle to separate workspaces and personal responsibilities because They have to get the jobs done on time while personal times are needed. Nevertheless, some companies choose trainings for both managers and employees in an attempt to help workers prepare for new independence and ensure employers good productivites. 

As my father runs his own company, he spends a lot of times at home to work and handle his employees. He seems happy and not exhausted at all. It is probably due to being a boss and scheduling work time by his demand. However, I believe that there must be some other factors which help him equalize between work time and family time. He doesn’t set up his formal workspace in home because everyone knows what to do while he is working. For that example, self-discipline seems to be the first thing that a person who work at home must have, whereas giving space is a thing in which other family members are supposed to do. Besides, for someone who is employee, making agreements must be done before start working independently. Companies should provide you enough flexible work time but still frame your work appropriately. Meanwhile, you should manage your time and keep being productive. However, there is no a definite answer for everyone that which one is good. It depends on what type you are, what kind of work you do and how company treats you. Sometimes we should try both of them in order to realize by ourselves.


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Reference
Ronald Alsop, "Why working from home could be bad for your health", (2013, September 26). BBC News Capital, Retrieve September 27, 2013 from http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20130925-the-stress-of-working-from-home

The World Is Not Enough

World population is increased tremendously every year and making humans harder and harder to thrive or even survive. A lot of researches and innovations are made to improve our quality of lives. China is also one big country that play an important role in the world development. Besides launching a space station for significant experiments that might not be able to do on earth, have you guys ever thought about bigger goal like preparing the habitats for the next generation when “The World Is Not Enough” ?

Although it is just 10 years after China, a dark horse in outer space exploration, has firstly sent their astronaut to outer space, this powerful country currently established a mega project to launch a space station to low-earth orbit by 2023. With two laboratories as core modules attached to three capsules and a cargo vessel to transport supplies, this high technology space station will be able to accommodate six astronauts for short-term missions and the other three for long-term missions.

This BBC article reminds me of my high school years when I was very crazy of astronomy. I joined my school astronomy club for three years and was also appointed as the vice president of the club. In my perspective, the universe is so wonderful. It arouses my desire to explore deeper and deeper to find out how was our universe originated, what is the mechanism underlying its complex structure that is like miracle, and what will happen to this magical system in the future. Like many kids, I was attracted by the beauty of stars shining brightly at nights. I even made my own telescopes from plastic tubes and cheap lens that an ordinary high school student could afford. By the way, it is still not good enough to give a clear picture of the moon. However, I was very proud of this invention that I made it by myself.

As time passed by, a lot of experiences changed me from a very logical person to the one that strongly believes in astrology. I have believed that our lives are 100% under our control. If we behave well, we will get good things in return. On the other hand, it we behave badly, we have to compensate our lives for these awful actions. My logical belief is shaken when a monk has predicted my life 2 years in advance and it turned out to be absolutely true. Actually, I have a splendid student’s life from my primary school to my university. My road seems to be sprinkled with rose petals. However, my life was destined to struggle for a couple years after I have graduated. One of the most deeply affected events occurred when I worked in an organization under the supervision of the government. That event still imprints in my mind. I think I may not be able to forget it for the rest of my life. I had to run out of the meeting room and went downstairs on foot via fire escape from the 5^th floor to the ground floor in order not to let anyone see tears pouring from my eyes incessantly. As a consequence, I decided to deactivate my Facebook account and also changed my mobile phone number in order to escape from this nightmare. This event taught me a lot of thing both scientifically and astrologically. Our lives partially depend on the destiny, a result from our actions that may be performed before our current lives’ time.

Nowadays our earth seems to be no longer able to tolerate the cruelty of humans. We exploit too much natural resource to serve our greediness without suitably replenish them. As a result, our earth may soon turn into a dessert with no life on. If this is the destiny of our planet, the Earth, we may need to find alternative places to live like Mars. Mars has quite similar geographical properties as the earth and it might not be too difficult for our current experts to turn Mars into lively planet again. Perhaps “The World Is not Enough”.

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Reference

Simpson, C. (2013, September 26). China to launch space station by 2023. BBC News Science & Environment. Retrieved September 27 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24282060

PUT IT DOWN. NOW!

 

 Please see original source of picture

As everyone know, our cost to live is go higher every years. Nowadays, thinking about personal financial management is important for every single person. One technique of money management is controling your expense.

According to "Should I buy it?" Many people feel regret an impulse buy, which means buying without planing to do so in advance or buying without thinking of it carefully. So, the writer wants to help us in deciding whether to buy a things.

Actually, i laugh at it at the fist time i see it because of word using in that diagram. For example, If readers want to buy an expensive one but they can not afford it, the writer ask "THEN WHY ARE YOU ASKING." That question make me laugh because i do agree with the writer.

The next one is "OH BOY..." The writer use is decision box to say that readers is seem to make ridiculous dicision like situation that readers going to spend money in order to find love.

Another point is that one box have a question "ARE YOU A LEMMING?" Actually i do not know what does that sentence means. So, I find the meaning of that sentence by searching on internet and the answer make me laugh again. If readers want to buy a things and they can afford it but they just buy it because everyone else has one, the writer will judge such readers can not thinking for themself. So, please put it down. Now!

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Reference

Julio Rivera(2013,Sep 16) "Should I buy it?" BBC News Capital Retrieved September 26, 2013 from http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20130913-should-i-buy-it

Finding some meal?

The high competitive lifestyle lead a hectic life for many people in which cause them to forget about their health. Although, fast food has have an important role for many people, but there are also the health-conscious groups all over the world whose refuse to consume fast food.

According to "Burger King launches lower-fat chips called Satisfries", one of the most popular fast food restaurant in the US, called Burger King, launches the french fries that contains 40% less fat and 30% fewer calories than those sold by McDonalds to appeal health-conscious consumers. Another reason is from the US society that encouraging their population to eat more healthy food to help reduce the number of obesity.

Nowadays, some group of people are concentrate about their health. Not only they just want to keep their weight down, but also maintain their healthy. However, not everyone can do that. More than one third of Americans suffer from the obese. As you can see in America, most people tend to buying the ready meal instead of cook some fresh meal. Some of them always buying a processing food such as canned food or frozen food. Those are the main causes of obese. On the other hand, if they are spend a bit of time buying fresh products and cooking for their meal, the number of over weight people will largely decrease. For me, I appreciated that Burger King think of something a little healthier than before. Because today, the greasy fast food restuarant can easily found all over the world, not just in the US. If I can choose, I prefer to cook my own meal instead of buying fast food for cheaper and healthier. But if I have no choice, I do prefer to eat the lower-fat chips rather than the greasy one.

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Reference

Burger King launches lower-fat chips called Satisfries.(2013,September 24).BBC News Business Retrieved September 26,2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24225739

Mozart effect

The song of Mozart is very famous in the world. Most of people believes that if they open Mozart's song to their children, the children will be more intelligent but are you sure, is it true?

According to "Does listening to Mozart really boost your brainpower?", regarding the Mozart effect, a lot of people believe that Mozart's song can help them be more intelligent, many people want to prove this effect. Finally, they can prove that this effect is not true, because there is no evidence to show that people will get more intelligent.

I have heard about the benefit of listening Mozart' song for a long time. Even if the article of BBC News show that Mozart's song does not help your brain be more intelligent, I still think that Mozart's song have many benefit for peoples. Actually, it is not only Mozart's song but also other music in the word. There are a lot of benefit of music and melodies. First, music help peoples feel more relaxant. Second, music fulfill peoples life. Sometime, music represent feeling of human and when peoples listen to the music, it is like the music answer that what they are. Third, music help peoples have more concentration. In this case, especially, playing the music, because when peoples learn to play a music instrument, they have to concentrate in their song too much and if they lose their conscious, the song might be stop. Fourth, music reduce Sadness. Many people listen to the music when they sad. The melody and lyrics can help their feel better.

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Reference
Does listening to Mozart really boost your brainpower?(2013, January 8).BBC News Future. Retrieved September 25,2013 from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130107-can-mozart-boost-brainpower.

Diplomatic animal

Pandas can easily attract people around the world by their cuteness; as a consequence, for the last few decades Chinese government uses them to signify their diplomacy and pandas can smoothly strengthen the relation between China and other countries.

According to “China's new phase of panda diplomacy” in the BBC News science & environment (2013), in the first phase of diplomatic pandas, they were used to encourage and strengthen relationships with other counties, and then the issue was changed when China desired to recover the relationships with others so pandas were a part of China’s open-door policy. At present, the new stage of diplomatic panda has launched and there is an interesting hidden agenda in this stage since panda loans coincided with the enormous trade deal between Chinese government and others.

I think using pandas for make and strengthen relationships is very sharp idea because Chinese receives the benefit both direct and indirect ways. They can directly receive knowledge and research of pandas from other countries that is very useful for the panda conservation. Apart from receiving the knowledge and research, they smoothly get the trade agreements which bring a lot of natural resources to the country.

Thailand has also received the pandas from China. When I glance on this situation, I think that China gave us their treasure because they just want to strengthen our relation. However, when I’ve profound considered I think there is some hidden agenda in this deal. Thailand is located in the middle of South East Asia which should be the important region in the future because there are a lot of resources in this region. We have played in important role in this region for long time that why Chinese government should strengthen the relation with us.           

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Reference

Melissa Hogenboom.(2013,September 24).China's new phase of panda diplomacy.BBC New science & environment.Retrieved September 24,2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24161385

Why do people buy diamonds?

Diamond is one thing people wear to show how wealthy they are because it is the most expensive gem on earth. But can you imagine how much dose  it cost for the most valuable diamond?

According to "Diamond to be sold by Sotheby's at record price of $60m", the "Pink Star", which is a flawless 59.6-carat oval-cut pink diamond and is one of the earth's greatest natural treasures, is going to be auction in Geneva at a record of asking price of $60.

When I read this article, I think of the movie "Titanic" which the main actress wear a beautiful blue diamond (I think it's name is heart of the ocean). This diamond is very expensive because it is very rare. However, it make me afraid of crime. If someone keep this kind of thing in their house, the thieves will try to come into the house and steal it. Or if someone wears it in public and thieves see her, I think they might kill her in order to take her diamond. Why do people want to take that risk? Being rich is not that easy because many people when the get rich they try to show how wealthy they are and this will make many poorer people to be thieves because they just want to be as rich as other. This might be one reason why poor people commit the crime.

I think rich people might want to buy the "Pink Star" but why don't they spend their money to help others who really want their helps instead of buying a stone which they can use only to hang around their neck.

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Reference

Diamond to be sold by Sotheby's at record price of $60m.(2013, September 25). BBC News Europe.
Retrieved September 25, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24239268

Thinking Ahead: Eating Meat

I've already posted a reply to a comment that Yui posted at "Stirring the Pot" (Sujichantararat, 2013); however, since it is such a useful introductory exercise for a class reading we will start today, I'm republishing it here for you to comment on.

1. Should Buddhists normally be vegetarian, choosing not to eat meat?
   Since buying meat in a supermarket or ordering it at a restaurant does cause new animals to be killed, it seems to me that the First Precept of Buddhism does mean that Buddhists today, although perhaps less so in the past, should not normally eat meat and thereby cause the killing of animals. 
2. Irrespective of any religious teaching, should we all be vegetarian on either moral or health grounds? Why or why not? 

What are your views on these questions, which I suspect are relevant to most, if not all, of our daily lives?

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Reference

Sujichantararat, S. (2013, September 24, 8:45 PM). Re: Stirring up the pot [Web log comment]. Retrieved from Class Blog - AEP at AUA: http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2013/09/stirring-up-pot.html

Quest 2, "What Is Abnormal?", Discussion. 5: stigma today

In exercise C following the general interest reading "What Is Abnormal?", Quest asks us to discuss this question, which is number 5 of 5:

• Do you think that there are fewer stigmas against people with psychological disorders than in the past? Among whom? Why? (Hartmann, 2007, p. 176)

Write your response to this question in a comment below. 

If you like, you can also reply to a classmate's previous comment. 

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Reference

Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Quest 2, "What Is Abnormal?", Discussion. 4: the disordered famous

In exercise C following the general interest reading "What Is Abnormal?", Quest asks us to discuss this question, which is number 4 of 5:

• Do you know of any famous people who suffered from a psychological disorder? If so, who were they? Do you know what disorder they had?  (Hartmann, 2007, p. 176)

Write your response to this question in a comment below. 

If you like, you can also reply to a classmate's previous comment. 

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Reference

Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Quest 2, "What Is Abnormal?", Discussion. 3: Who is phobic?

In exercise C following the general interest reading "What Is Abnormal?", Quest asks us to discuss this question, which is number 3 of 5:

• Do you know anyone who is phobic? How does this phobia affect his or her life?  (Hartmann, 2007, p. 176)

Write your response to this question in a comment below. 

If you like, you can also reply to a classmate's previous comment. 

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Reference

Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Quest 2, "What Is Abnormal?", Discussion. 2: our phobias

In exercise C following the general interest reading "What Is Abnormal?", Quest asks us to discuss this question, which is number 2 of 5:

• What are you afraid of? (High places? Crowds? Snakes? etc.) Can you think of when you first had this fear, and why? How do you deal with this fear? (Hartmann, 2007, p. 176)

Write your response to this question in a comment below. 

If you like, you can also reply to a classmate's previous comment. 

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Reference

Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Let's travel to Antarctica.

Nowadays the world's temperature has been increasing drastically and becoming global warming; as a consequence, everyone feels hot and some of them can't stand living in a tropical area. Some people escape to travel in ice place which its constant sub-zero temperature, and quests want to touch the cold to refresh their mind and health.

According to "Camp with penguins in Antarctica" in the BBC News Travel (2013), Antarctica is very attractive place for travelers and it has luxurious accommodation, eco-friendly Whichaway Camp which is fully star-and wind-powered, and there has a professional South African chef for our meal in different styles. Additionally, travelers can participate in various activities such as exploring ice cape, skiing or touring a group of penguins

In Thailand, many Thai people have never touched snow during winter session and Thailand is located on the tropical which has high humidity and hot temperature. Some of them have touched snow in other countries and they get a lot of experience in their travels. My classmates at AUA complain that they want to take some vocation days to travel around the world. We had better visit Antarctica to see penguins ourselves. Let us schedule for this trip and keep money to spend some stuffs.

In other word, we should maintain and protect our environment. For example, protecting from cutting forests can help the world avoid rising global warmer, planing trees can absorb carbon-dioxide and protect from Sun's ray which damages our skins. In these examples, we don't want to see ice melting to the ocean very quickly. If we help, many penguins and polar bears can be sustainable to live the ice place.

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Reference

Lindsey Galloway.(2013, September 24). Camp with penguins in Antarctica. BBC News Travel. Retrieved September 24,2013 from http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20130924-camp-with-penguins-in-antarctica

Good news for the hardest healing

What is the first things that comes up to your mind when we talking about HIV. Most ideas of people might be the negative sides of this disease situation; however, there are some good news that are surprised me.

According to “Dramatic drop in global HIV infections” in the BBC News Health (2013) which reports the figures of the new AIDS infection and the death have declined dramatically in the last decade. Moreover, the HIV treatment can be access for more people with affordable prices; therefore, the researcher states that the world will stop the AIDS epidemic in a few years ahead.

AIDS is the severe contagious disease which is embedded in my head that it cannot be healed and the patients are going to die. Therefore, we can see the successful development of medical care that can save more people life. Maybe in the next decade, AIDS would heal by only one injection. However, are our life secured from the sickness? Recently, the Syria uses chemical weapon during civil war and cause a lot of damage in life. It is the one to illustrate that while someone create the healing, someone create the damaging. Another example is a few years ago, the recently bird flu name H5N1 had vital damage the domestic poultry across Asia including serious damage to people life who infected. I can remember the panic feeling of this disease among Thai people.

There are a lot of diseases in this world and numerous of new coming. Is the medical care innovation the only way to solve those problems? How can we protect our life from virus by ourselves? Someone said that the best doctor in the world is yourself. I agree with that and I also think the good protector from disease is ourselves responsibility. For example, we can choose what to eat and what time to go to sleep , or while you have got a flu, you should have a responsibility to others people by wearing a mask. Maybe a marathon like Alston’s article “The running of madness” can be a good choice to make you body stronger.

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Reference

Tulip Mazumdar.(2013,September 23). 'Dramatic' drop in global HIV infections.BBC New Healths. Retrieved September 24,2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24208972

Alston. (2013,September 23). The running for madness.Class Blog - AEP at AUA. Retrieved September 24,2013 from http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-running-for-madness_23.html

Smarter by daytime napping.

Every parents want their kids smart than others. They try to put them in a lot of studies even they're just a baby - age under 1 year old - such as swimming class, developing class, language class, and so on. Parents give their children do every activity that they believe it can help their children smarter even other thinks it's overwhelm to young children. For example, After finished daytime classes, these kids are going to take a English class, math class and singing class before get back home in every single day. These activities sound like too much for children, but now scientists found a new useful report which is the afternoon naps can them smarter and sound more relax than those extra studies.

from BBC news, health section, "Afternoon naps aids children's learning" article. The university of Massachusetts researchers reported that studying of 40 youngsters who are age between three to five years old, and took an hour nap after lunch have more critical memory consolidation and early learning than the children who kept awake all day.

Afternoon Napping helps children more excellent. 

In my opinion, I totally agree with this research even this research subject still be a hypothesis because I experienced this situation by myself, and although I'm not a youngster! When I was high school student. At the lunch time I went to cafeteria early and quickly had a lunch; next, I went to library and avoided religious activities before afternoon class to took a nap. I apparently saw that my grades were better and better in each semesters. Moreover, at first year in university my grades were terrible because there were a lot of activities; next semester, I avoided to chose class that start at 1 pm. because I had to sleep after a lunch 1 or more hour. and again my grades were improve. Not only when I study but also when we are stress or can't get a new idea of something, sleeping is a considerable choice.

I've known that our brain remember every information while deep sleep, so I think If I take a nap in daytime it mean I save data twice a day.

Sleeping can rest our brain, and when we get up we can make a wise decision. Surely, It help my life error free or less than it should be.

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Reference

 Afternoon Naps Aids Children's Learning. (2013, September 24), BBC News Health, Retrieved 2013, September 24, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24202591

2°C changing the world

Nowadays everybody knows that we are seriously encountering with the global warming and its effect are rising temperature and making the ice at the pole melt, rising the level of sea water but there are some things we have not noticed if the temperature is higher, you can find out in the article "'Dramatic decline' warning for plants and animals"

The new research, published in the journal "Nature Climate Change", suggests that biodiversity on the earth will be significantly impacted if temperature is higher than 2C from now however this action can be reduced by curbing greenhouse gases whereas if there were no efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions, The global temperature would be 4C, 34% of animal species and 57% of plants would lose more than half in 2100.

Im really worried about that we can not stop or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, every countries need to develop their own countries so that they are able to do without the industrial sector and this

part has released a lot of CO2 to atmosphere and that is the one of reasons of global warming.

The theory of Charles Darwin "Natural Selection" that explains about the natural will choose the living thing by evolution of its self that I make me think about if one day the temperature would be rising more than 2C, the living thing had to adapt to be alive and reproduce its species not to be extinct. 

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Reference

Matt McGrath. 'Dramatic decline' warning for plants and animals. (12 May 2013). BBC News Science & Environment. Retrieved September 23, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22500673

The running for madness

After I saw the report "Marathon Man:The Colour Run's 5K" this afternoon from national post that made me confused to this topic of the artist, I have attended over 30 marathon games in Taiwan, but I have not hear that before.

 In this report, the writer reports us a happiest running in the world which name is "The Color Run", it's a five kilometers with a paint-blasting station in each K. It started in 2012 by Travis Snyder and grew faster than the other sports last year,there will be over 100 events and over a million participants in 2013, because five kilometers is easy for everyone, even you are not habit of doing exercise, the most importance is you should wear white at starting line and then plaster with color in the end.

Have you saw the TV series "The Walking Death" before? Do you want to run with zombies? It's a good opportunity to experience this in "Zombie Run" in Taiwan. If you choose to be a zombie, please make up like a freak on that day. When you choose to be a human, you will get a T-shirt with three red flags, the flag is such as your life. If all of your flags have been taken, you will transform into zombie automatically, but you have no right to tear human's flag because you look like human and without making up. Finally, there is only one winner in zombielike team, the "zombie" who is best at amount of belt. There are also several interesting rules in this running, such as no weapon, no mock weapon and do not attack zombies.


I think it will be funny if I keep running in the rest of my life, because there are more and more different kinds of running nowadays. You can run with paints or zombies and even in the mud to get yourself dirty. That's all for fun and relax your mind. Do you "want" to join us? It's not enough, like the slogan of NIKE, Just Do It!

Reference
Ben Kaplan, Marathon Man: These colours run 5K(April, 4, 2013), National Post. Retrieved September 23, 2013 fromhttp://life.nationalpost.com/2013/04/08/marathon-man-these-colours-run-5k/

The Fall of Giant

BlackBerry was famous in enterprise solutions and best in hard type keyboard for smartphone, which produced by Canadian company - RIM (Research in Motion). In the past, everyone who loves chatting or typing via smartphone might loves to have BlackBerry, but now everything changes and smartphone users tend to love to use touch screen keyboard than hard type keyboard. If the company has not make big move, is it lead to fall?

According to “Blackberry to cut 4,500 jobs amid earningsplunge” states that its CEO tries to lay off 4,500 jobs, due to recently interviewing one of RIM’s board members, company would change its strategy after loss their customers and unsuccessful in selling amount of new BlackBerry product—Z10.

Does BlackBerry new model help RIM to survive?

After I read “Blackberry to cut 4,500 jobs amid earningsplunge”, I thought of Nokia that was the most popular phone selling company, but now it has a deal to selling its phone department with Microsoft. Nokia losses its market shares to Apple and Samsung. Nokia was successful in phone market, its phones came with Symbian OS and well-known in durability. After Apple entered to phone market and developed phone to smartphone, Nokia has not change its business strategy and proud of its past reputation. Finally 2 or 3 years later, Nokia was losing its market share to apple and it is going to worst situation when Google entered to phone market too. For this reason, in technology industry you should make fast decision and move as fast as you can because technology changes every day.

Another company I thought of is Samsung, which is great adapting company. Samsung entered to market by using Symbian OS with its phone. After Apple introduced its smartphone and its iOS, Samsung made change by using Window mobile OS instead of Symbian OS but it was not working, and then Google released Android OS, Samsung made change again. Now, Samsung is the first ranked in phone selling market. This why I think that, fast moving and hardworking are help you to be number one in technology industry such as mobile phone industry.

Finally, I did not think BlackBerry can come back, may be the company will sell its patents or its smartphone department to some potential companies like Nokia. This article shows me that, whatever you are, if you do not adapt to the world, you will falling. 

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Reference

Blackberry to cut 4,500 jobs amid earnings plungeday (2013, September 20), BBC NEWS Business. Retrieved September 23 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24182038

Double Standard

Double Standard

I have ever read the news of judgement in China for many times; however, “Could Bo Xilai be housed in China's 'luxury' prison?”(2013, BBC News) is the most remarkable article because it demonstrates the another perspective of neutrality in this country.

The sentence of former shining star politician, Bo Xilai who was charged in corruption, embezzlement and abuse of power, is on processing and he probably will be imprisoned in Qincheng prison where political and official prisoners are immured. For ordinary prisoners, ‘Scary and depressing’ is definition of Qincheng; nevertheless, the meaning of this prison is different for high-level party official prisoners who are treated better than ordinary inmates because they receive better conditions such as enjoying luxury meals, wearing their own clothes, and having more leisure.

I trust the standard of judgement in China because I heard the sentential news for many times in the past and many cases are the sentence of abusive politicians so I was surprising when I read this article. I think that it is good to treat prisoners in the appropriate ways. They should have a clean room, enough food, and leisure. However, it seems strange that the prisoners who were in high-raking party before they were imprisoned can enjoy meals from luxury restaurant or wear clothes which their families give them in stead of a prison uniform. Moreover, they can watch TV for long time and spend a time in the prison grounds by themselves without custodian for six times a week. I think is not good to have double standard for the prisoners because they are all broke a law. Although, some people argue that they have the different mistakes so they should also be treated in the different way. I do not agree with them because I think the judge sentence on each prisoner mistake. Therefore, I think prisoners got the sentences that depend on their mistake. This is the season why should not have double standard in the prison.

In addition, I think double standard is a bad thing not only in the prison case, but for almost case also. You can consider many examples of double standard case in this country and you will realize that it is so disgusting. It causes a lot of problem in Thailand when the government and official use double standard idea for manage the country. They treat and give a lot of budget to the area where they got the deputy and leave the people in other area. The people who are rich or related with the official can escape from the sentence when they violent while the other that do the same violence were arrested. This is the cause of the weakness in law because people believe that when you have a lot of money and strong relation with the official you can do everything you want thought it is illegal.

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Hatton, C. (2013, September 2o). Could Bo Xilai be housed in China's 'luxury' prison?. BBC News China. Retrieved September 21, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-24142558

Stirring up the pot

Although it is not nearly so controversial and socially divisive as in the US, where Christianity remains to strong that almost half of Americans believe the Bible's creation myth as being true  in preference to the scientific accounts of cosmology and Darwinian evolution, abortion still stirs some controversy and heated opinion in the UK. I was, nevertheless, a bit surprised to read the opinion piece on this topic by Sarah Ditum in The Guardian newspaper a few days ago.

In "Why Women Have a Right to Sex-selective Abortion" (2013), Ditum reverses the argument against abortion that it is anti-female because it can lead to abortion of female foetuses more than to abortion of male foetuses. Ditum argues that this means that sex-selective abortion must be accepted as a sufficient reason for an abortion since it is necessary for women to be have the right to make such decisions to counter the sexism that continues to prevail in many societies, if not in Britain, where she asserts that a woman should be able to have legal abortion irrespective of her reason for requesting it.

As you might have guessed from my title, I was very sure that Ditum knew that her ideas would be shocking to many people. They are likely to shock not only those who already oppose abortion but also many who favour legal abortion, who will dislike the idea that a woman might seek an abortion for a reason that seems either trivial or wrong, and many of the 1,425 comments that readers have written responding to her ideas (much as we respond to the ideas of each other on this blog) do show this: a lot of the commentators begin by saying that they agree that women do have a right to seek an abortion, and that safe, professional abortion should be legal on request, but then go on to say that they dislike Ditum's ideas, which take further an argument made Ann Furedi, the head of British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which is Britain's largest provider of abortions. Furedi recently argued in an online forum that even under current British law, abortion for birth control or sex-selection appeared to be legal (Pleasance, 2013). This idea upset many, and the result were calls by outraged politicians and others for an urgent review of the legislation.

But just because people like Furedi and now Ditum present arguments that many find shocking does not make them wrong: unless their arguments can be answered and refuted, rational and moral people must accept those arguments appear to be correct. Similarly, when people first started to suggest that perhaps slavery was wrong, the reaction among conservative traditionalists who wanted the traditional culture to continue was outraged shock: they rightly pointed out that there had always been slavery, that the ancient Greeks and Romans had slaves, that the Christian Bible endorsed slavery and so on. And these conservative supporters of traditional culture were morally wrong. Their ideas were immoral, and they could not rationally or morally support them. So they went to war. Thankfully, they lost and the ugly old tradition of human slavery ended in the US, after which that progressive move was exported to other nations.

And I suspect that Furedi and Ditum are right, but perhaps with some qualifications. Women do have a moral right to abortion for any reason before the foetus becomes a human being, perhaps even beyond that point, and laws against this right must therefore be unjust. However, even though it cannot be justly made illegal, I do think that there is something undesirable about using abortion to select the sex of a child. Or am I just prejudiced and not reasoning clearly?

But I am sure that a bit of pot stirring is a good thing. How else can long inherited errors be corrected?

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Reference

Ditum, S. (2013, September 19). Why women have a right to sex-selective abortion. The Guardian. Retrieved September 22, 2013 from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/19/sex-selective-abortion-womans-right

Pleasance, C. (2013, September 17). 'You CAN abort a baby because of its sex': Outrage at comments by boss of Britain's biggest terminations clinic. Mail Online. Retrieved September 23, 2013 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424111/You-CAN-abort-baby-sex-Outrage-comments-boss-Britains-biggest-terminations-clinic.html

BEER AND YOUR WAIST

Do you love drinking beer? Have you ever heard about the quote that if you take much of beer, you will be potbellied?
After playing around and getting lost in BBC News website, I found some interesting article "What causes a beer belly?"

According to article, beer itself is quite high calorific stuff which one unit of beer contains around 150 calories. To enjoy more with beer,
we ate crisps and other foods which contains calories itself with drinks. Moreover, gender and age are the factor that cause a beer belly espically men who tend to put their weight on bellies mainly .

This article remind me of my senior who love to drink beer and any other alcohol drink. i knew him for many years and his shape is still quite thin even each meeting he drink much of beer. I have though that he maybe the exeption of the beer and bellies theory. I read many article about beer.Some people say beer have adventage espicially for your heart and not effect your waist, while a lot of persons still believe that beer is not good for health.As for me, I still wonder which theory is true because i have seen example from both theory.

Personally, I am not the beer lover but i like the tast of beer and still want try many styles of that. I think the greatness of beer is only when is cool enough and only just first glass to second glass. If someone drinks more than that size he just fullfills his stomach  and wastes up money and beer. Nevertheless, i do not feel this style of drink is too bad. I am the one who enjoy drinks a tower of beer in order to enjoy with my friend and a party.

However, I think some teenagers drink beer or other alcohol stuff just because they think that they are cool men. They drink it to show that they can so that they can be accept by the groups of their friends. Sometimes I wonder that do they know the difference of taste between each beer band.

Anyway, I remember my friend's father statement. He says that i can drink as much as i want but do not let these stuff drink you - do not let yourself get drunk.

Reference

What causes a beer belly? (2013, September 20), BBC News Future, Retrieved 2013, September 21, from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130920-what-causes-a-beer-belly

All Good Things Must Come To An End (2012, October 30) , DIYBeer, Retrieved 2013, September 21, from http://www.diybeer.co.za/