Google’s driverless cars

Although, a concept of driverless cars has been known for many decades, it has never been come true until now.  

According to ‘Where Google trains its drivers not to drive’, today Google announced plans to start building its own self-driving cars with a cute smiling look.

I like that Google decided to put a steering wheel and pedals in its cars because of a safety reason. In an emergency, technology may not be able to figure out a right move as good as humans.

Many old movies about future have scenes that cars speak with passenger and automatically drive. For example, in The 6^th day, a movie from year 2000 about human clones starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, there are many scenes that show the auto drive car.  

There are many supports that technologies in movies and TV series have led to technologies in the real world. Star Trek is an obvious example. In 1960s, mobile phones are used in the Star Trek 30 years before they were well known. In addition, a universal translator and video conference technologies are presented in the series before someone

invented them. Google glass, which is first released in the market last month, also has the same concept as a glass that Star Trek introduced decades ago. For more examples, let’s look at Back to the future II, a movie in 1989 telling a story of its main characters traveled in time to October 2015. There were many technologies in the film that became real such as digital camera focusing on subject, making payment and unlocking a door with finger print screening, and using voice order to control devices.   

It is reasonable that when the technologies were presented on screen, a lot of people wanted them to be real and tried to invent them. I believe that in the near future, I will see a computer showing results in the air which can be controlled by touching the unreal screen in the air, as there were in Iron man and Minority report.

What technology do you want it to become a reality?       

__________

Reference

Stewart, Jack (2014, May 28). Where Google trains its drivers not to drive. BBC Future. Retrieved May 30, 2014 from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140527-inside-googles-robot-car-lab

Let's sleep in the dark.

As we know that women always care about beauty and health. sleeping is one of the beauty choices for girls who have enough free time, But do you know that where you sleep may affect on your shape too.

According to "Light bedrooms 'link to obesity'", it states that sleeping in the room with light in average level (enough to see across) will cause obesity in women. This research also found that women with obesity are those who sleep in lighter room because sleeping in the light room may interrupt body clock cycle, Anyway, the research needs to be further studied.

I was surprised when I read this news, because I've never thought that the light level in the bedroom will affect our shape, I always sleep in the dark room because I've heard that growth hormones grow in the dark, but I don't have much sleep so it won't grow anyway. So It's very essential for teenagers to sleep earlier to produce growth hormone.

I think that sleeping in the dark room is not enough if I still sleep less like nowadays, I sleep at 1 AM. for everyday because of doing homework and watching movies as usual, I can't sleep early except the day I do exercise. Or else I'm insomnia; sleep late everyday and try hard to sleep. As a teenager I should go to bed earlier like 11 PM. unless I'll be this short forever.

__________

Reference

Gallagher J. (2014, May 29). Light bedroom link to 'obesity' . BBC health news. Retrieved May 31,2014 from http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27617615

Concerns grow over farm drugs used like 'sweets'

Concerns grow over farm drugs used like 'sweets'

Thursday, May 29, 2014

The widespread use of antibiotics on farms without medical supervision has been condemned at a meeting of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). There are particular concerns about the US where authorities say it contributes significantly to resistance. The drugs are given as prophylactics to livestock to help them avoid illnesses that are transmitted easily between beasts confined in large-scale feed lots.

According to the wide spread of the drug usage in farming by the incompetent farmers, it’s essential for everyone to know the effect of using any drugs in agriculture, especially in farming because farming’s products are the main factors for living and doing any activities. Therefore, the government must concern and have some strict regulations to control the usage of dangerous drugs for our health.

The drugs are also used to boost the animal's weight. But the large-scale use has prompted concerns that microbes will develop resistance. Earlier this year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said this abuse of the drugs led to 23,000 deaths from infections resistant to treatment.

Moreover, the usage of dangerous drugs was spread around the world so why it’s the serious problem that want to be solved promptly. In Europe, the drugs on farms are more tightly controlled and their use as a growth aid is banned. The scale of the threat from both human and animal was underlined at this meeting by the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO).

As you can see, you can’t prove what are inside the foods which were eaten by us every day by yourself and it’s necessary to be sure that what you eat must be good for health ,and the basic for this case is to concern and choose what you eat carefully. Moreover, there must be the measures for decreasing the effect and spreading of poisonous drug usage.

Reference

Concerns grow over farm drugs used like 'sweets'. (2014, May 29). BBC Science News.  Retrieved May 29 , 2014 from http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27541663

Is flossing teeth good way for dental care?

As I remenberd, I was reminded to brush my teeth 2 times a day because human have one set of teeth - they cannot be recovered again . My dentist suggested me to used a dental floss to my teeth for reducing any hidden pladge between my teeth.

According to Does Flossing your teeth prevent tooth decay?, this article says that, in some case, flossing teeth can lead to be risk of gum and tooth decay because some people use automatic flossing in a wrong way.

In my opinion, flossing is one way to clean up my teeth after using toothbrush. Normally, I also use it softy on my teeth to avoid to get my gum hurt. I believe that it can make my teeth more clean because I can get rid of any hidden plaque between my teeth, that can lead to inflamed gum and tooth decay. That is a way to check my teeth everyday, but I concern that it cannot protect my teeth certainly, so I still go to see a dentist for checking  every six month as well.

In the article that i read, it is found that some adults, who use flossing plus toothbrush, have damaged their gums, especially, some have used floss in a wrong way. As this point, I think that all people should concern about how to used it more suitable. However, I do not agree that it can be a main part of cleaning bacteria in a mouth, but it can be additional way to reduce a little waste on teeth.

Teeth are a part of organ that make people to be self-confident when they smile and talk to someone. In addition, to get healthy teeth can make you be happy for eating as well so, if you have any good maintainance for teeth, please kindly suggest me.  

________

Reference

Hammond C.(2014, May 27),Dose flossing your teeth prevent tooth decay?, BBC Future, retrieved May 29,2014 from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140527-does-flossing-protect-your-teeth

Quest 2. p. 52, x. D. Discussion, 1.

Hartmann suggests that we discuss the three questions in exercise D. on page 52 in small groups (2007), but I think it might give more varied, and retrievable, ideas if we do some quick response writing. So, what are your responses to question 1:

• What is the economic system in the country you live in? If it is a mixed economy, does it tend to more command or more market? What does the government regulate?

__________

Reference

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

Quest 2. p. 52, x. D. Discussion, 2.

Hartmann suggests that we discuss the three questions in exercise D. on page 52 in small groups (2007), but I think it might give more varied, and retrievable, ideas if we do some quick response writing. So, what are your responses to question 2:

•  What is the effect of religious beliefs and values on the economy where you live? What effect does religion have on the economy of other countries?

__________

Reference

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

Quest 2. p. 52, x. D. Discussion, 3.

Hartmann suggests that we discuss the three questions in exercise D. on page 52 in small groups (2007), but I think it might give more varied, and retrievable, ideas if we do some quick response writing. So, what are your responses to question 2:

• What are some rules for gift exchange in your culture? For example, what is a typical gift to bring to a dinner party? Do government officials sometimes accept gifts in exchange for their influence? Do people discuss the difference between "gifts" and "bribes"? 

__________

Reference

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

Democracy Vs. Autocracy

 

Among economists and political scientists, the importance of democracy on economic growth is very arguable; some think that democracy is good for only developed countries, and it is neutral, perhaps negative, to economic growth in impoverished countries compared to other autocratic countries which have proficient governments such as China, while the others are of opinion that democracy leads to significant increase of economic growth, even developing countries. However, nowadays, there are much more researches supporting support the second view that actually democracy is able to help countries develop its economic effectively.

From the research of Daron Acemoglu, Suresh Naidu, James A Robinson and Pascual Restrepo “Democracy causes economicdevelopment?” which is published on VOX website, not only autocracy countries with good governments can make a positive growth on GDP per capita, but also democratic countries. This argument is supported by certain evidences, provided in their work, of non-democratic countries which have changed their regimes to democracy, and they succeeded in bringing about considerable rise of GDP per capita.

Although capitalism and democracy are economic system and regime which are mostly used throughout the world, there still are many economists and social scientists believe that autocracy are better for economic growth, if those autocratic countries have good governments. For example, China under the leading of Deng Xiaoping had a great growth in GDP as well as modern China’s economic which has grown continually under Xi Jinping. However, as I mentioned above, with today’s knowledge, aside from autocracy, democracy can enhance economic growth as well. Therefore, to answer which regime are the most useful for countries we should concern about further factors besides increase of GDP.

A number of researches show that, on the one hand, economic growths of countries under autocracy fluctuate wildly over the time; in other words, if autocratic countries are under the control of good leader, they will considerably benefit from appropriate policies, but, reversely, their economic will extremely be hindered in case they get a bad leader. On the other hand, the growths of democratic countries are more stable, but in the average term growths of the both regimes are nearly equal. This means that regarding risk in economic growth, democracy is better than autocracy to people who are risk avoiders – and most behavioral economic researches prove that the majority of people are risk avoiders, whereas just some people are risk takers.

Moreover, though autocracy can accelerate economic growth, there is something lost by this regime. For Instance, Germany under tenure of Adolf Hitler, Fascism dictator, was very powerful, but this great had to trade-off with invaluable things like lives of Jews. This World War II tragedy occurred because no one knew what Hitler did to bring German to power. It is very easy to control people, so there is nobody can act against Dictators, and sometimes it leads to miserable disaster. Note that under autocracy the effect “polarisation”, which I commented in Pop’s blogpost “Really? Can you explain it to me?” can take place easily.

 

Therefore, to me, on a regular basis, democracy is better than autocracy due to all reasons taken. However, all of my arguments base on today’s knowledge, so if in the future new breakthrough knowledge take place, my opinion may change.

__________

Reference

Acemoglu, D. Naidu, S. Restrepo, P. Robinson, J. (2014, May 19). Democracy causes economic development?. Retrieved May 28, 2014 from VOX website : http://www.voxeu.org/article/democracy-and-growth-new-evidence

Visuthisakchai S. (2014, May 23). Really? Can you explain it to me?. Peter AEP Blogspot. Retrived May 28, 2014 from http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2014/05/pollution-absorbing-poster.html

Doctor vs. Wikipedia

Internet is a great source of knowledge; there is massive amount of data that you can reach out and acknowledge them yourself without buying books or consulting other people. But, since there’re a lot of people on the Internet; you don’t know that they’re expert, or just some teenagers that want to show off, so you have to beware that knowledge on the Internet, most of them, cannot be trusted.

According to “Trust your doctor, not Wikipedia, say scientists”, scientists compared Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, which anyone can edit the article, with peer-reviewed medical research, and found that 9 out of 10 of its health entries contain errors, so it should be acknowledge with caution.

Some people, when they’re sick, they search the Internet to find what disease is the cause of their symptoms, and how to cure it. Then they go to see a doctor, if unfortunately, a doctor doesn’t have the same opinion as the Internet, they would put up a fight. Do they really think that someone on the Internet is more trustworthy than their doctor? Or maybe just individuals ego?

I think the Internet has a lot of knowledge, and it’s still a good idea to look up something that you want to know. However, you have to discriminate which data can be, or cannot be trust. The easiest way to find out is to look at some information about that website. Is it a social community? Is it administrated by government or others? Does the writer is the expert in this field? You should not trust most of things that come from social community. Facebook, for example. Furthermore, the website might be administrated by government, but sometimes writers aren't the expert ones, they're just normal employees. As a result, it can cause misunderstandings to a lot of people, and 'true' expert have to do more work to correct that. This case is rare in some countries, but it does happens a lot in Thailand.

My teacher once told me that there are a lot of people who trust internet too much, and when they come for treatments at the hospital, their disease progressed too much and it was harder to cure. Sometimes I think if they went to consult the doctor in the first place, their situation might not end up like this. For these reasons, I want you to be cautious with data you get from the internet. And if you have a problem about your health ,or something related to this, consult experts first.

__________

Reference

Trust your doctor, not Wikipedia, say scientists. (2014, May 27). BBC News Health. Retrieved May 27, 2014 from http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27586356

Academic writing v. blog comments: Pearson = 0.458

For the latest blogging report, I thought it would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between academic writing and number of blog comments. These are the results to midnight, May 27:

GPA	comments
9	54
9	24
9	6
8	38
8	30
8	29
8	21
8	11
8	10
7	26
7	22
6	18
5	19
5	17
5	6
4	0
3	17
P. Correl:	0.458

GPA = the Grade Point Average (explanation here) for your academic assignments so far.
comments = the total number of blog comments to date.

P. Correl: = the Pearson coeffecient. It's a measure of the correlation between two sets of data. The data sets here are very small, so we should not put too much importance on this statistic; however, it does show a positive correlation between quality of academic writing and number of blog comments. 

Of course, whether and in what direction there is any causation requires a more sophisticated statistical analysis to establish. I have some guesses, but like my belief discussed on Leo's latest post, I don't have any solid support for those guesses: they seem very reasonable to me, but might be completely wrong. I suspect that P and perhaps a couple of others can tell you more about that the statistic here means, and does not mean. Bank and Pueng probably also have some constructive comments here. 

Do children spend too much screen time?

In the past, people lived simply without technology. But now, it seems to be the important factor that affect human life, and the technology becomes a part of us. I can’t deny that a lot of people around the world use technology, even the children do, and it is followed by the problem.

According to “Computers can impact on Children’s ability to learn, says union”, the Association of Teacher and Lecturers is worried that some children can’t concentrate to learn, and socialise suitably with other students in school because they spend too much times on their digital games or social media.

This article reminds me to think of my niece who is only 9 years old. She has her own tablet, and brings them everywhere with her. She always concentrate on her tablet while other people are taking to her. One day, my cousin who is my niece's father asked me to pick up his daughter at school. I waited her in the coffee shop, then she came into the shop with her friends. After that, all of them picked up their own tablets, and they just paid attention on screen. There is only one sentence from my niece, just said “send this video’s link to me now, I want to see it,” and they don’t have conversation anymore. 

Nowadays, the world is changed in the better way. The digital technology is more developed than in the past. It is free for everyone to use. Because of this freedom, children can do anything without controlled by their parents. It will be a big problem if they play the games that have to fight each other to win. This kind of games can make children think that it is not wrong to use violence solving any problem. Moreover, I am worried that why their parents allow them to bring valuable items, such as smartphone or tablet, to school, because they are still too young. They might not have enough responsibility to take care of something well.

Using digital gadgets too much also affects to their health because if they look at the screen for a long time without resting their eyes, it can be the risk of vision impairment in the future. Furthermore, if children play with the wrong position, such as their necks are bent for a long time, it can affect the physical growth.

However, if their parents control them with limit, digital technology will do the good things more than harmful things. That's why I think that the parents should look forward to children while they are using it, and suggest them what they should or should not do. For me, I think that children can relax themselves by playing a game that does not have violent content. The logic game is an example kind of games in which children should try, because they can play it for fun, and they also can practice their logic skill.

__________

Reference

Computers can impact on Children’s ability to learn, says union. (2014, May 22). BBC News Northern Ireland. Retrieved May 26, 2014 from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-27513174

Ancient Tongue

Languages is dynamics because it change and evolve a lot. You may shock if you use a time machine travel back to the Sukhothai era. You will not able to communicate with anyone with your Standard Thai. Owing to the changes of the words and pronunciation. Some Popular Languages fell into disuse like Aramaic, the language that Benjamin Nethanyahu said  that were spoken by Jesus but the Pope who support Hebrew does not quite agree with him.

According to BBC News Magazine Monitor, Doctor Sebastian Brock; a Academic Form Oxford; say that both The Pope and Israeli Leader is right because, In that time, Aramaic is a language of everyday life in that time and Hebrew is a language of scholars and texts. He also added that Jesus may known some Latin and Greek but He thinks that he cannot write in any language.

Super-Complicated family tree of English form Wikipedia.

My interest in History led me to read about language, especially the history and families of languages, because Studying history of the language help us understand history of ethnic groups that spoke that language (This rule don't apply on ethic group that renounce their own tongue and get new such as the Normans, the French and the Algerians ). Such as Thai, Lao and Shan belong to Tai Language Family so we can infer that Thai, Lao and Shan people were a same group of people in some point of history. Other example is English which can tell us history of England. English has a Germanic root, indicate by many similar common words with Modern German such as "I" in English is " Ich" in German or "You" in English is "Du" in German. This similarities is a evidence of a Germanic Anglo-Saxon's arrival in Britain a thousand year ago. They brought their langauge with them. In 1066, the Normans took over and rule Britannia. Normans are Vikings who speak french, so a lot of French vocabulary come into English such as "Pork" which Anglo-Saxon called it "Swine". Without Normans English would sound more like Dutch or German.

As I says above all Language change when the time pass. Sounds may shift, that is why "Pather" in Latin became "Father" n English or "Heuan" in Isan and Laos became "Reauan" in Thai. Some word maybe borrowed such as "Sathan Tee"  in Thai which mean "Place" or "Location" came form "Stan" in Sanskrit which share same root with "Stand" in English. Why? Because English and Sanskrit are in the same family of Indo-European (I.E) which descant form a same Language which called Proto-Indo European.

I "know about"  several languages but I "know" only two of them , English and Thai, which has many points to improve. Do you know some of any ancient tongue? Please feel free and share.

                      
         

__________

Reference

Who, What, Why: What language would Jesus have spoken?. (2014, May 27). BBC News  Magazine Monitor.  Retrieved May 27 , 2014 from http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27587230

An example of an example of ...

In exercise B on page 51 of Quest, Hartmann has filled in her notes that answer the questions (2007). But the three pieces of information given in the first row of the chart are not complete ideas: they are just notes. As always, we need the full sentence version that answers the question before we can decide whether the writer's idea is actually correct or not: just saying the adjective "traditional" in answer to the system question for the first row of information tells us nothing - someone who says that might have the right idea, and they might also have a seriously wrong idea. Without a full sentence, we don't know, we cannot know. Absent a sentence, the best we can do is guess that a person who says "traditional" might or might not know. In fact, without at least one sentence, we can't even be sure that the speaker has understood the question and is trying to give the right sort of answer.

For example, to answer the question: "What is the first type of economic system that the reading (that Hartmann) discusses"? We could say, "It (She) first discusses traditional economic systems." This is enough for us to be pretty sure that both our question and the important point in the reading has been understood.

Similarly, in response to the question: "What are the characteristics of a traditional economic system?" A useful response that shows understanding would be: "Its characteristics (the characteristics of a traditional economic system) are that economic systems are based on customs, beliefs and religion."
Had the question been: "What is a traditional economic system?" A more direct answer, the one Nan gave this morning, might be: "It (A traditional economic system) is one where economic decisions are based on customs, beliefs and religion.

And now for the point of this blog post.
Everyone is happy that Hartmann had the right idea when she wrote the note "the San people" in the Example column. But following the discussion that our efforts to agree on the example(s) to write in the Example column for market economic systems, perhaps we need to clarify and make our answer a bit more precise.

• What do you think? What is an example of the sort of sentence we could speak, or write in a blog comment, to answer the question: "What example of a traditional economic system does Hartmann give?" 
• Is this even the best question to ask? 
• And then there are the other issues that worried P: what is a system? Is an exchange a system? 

So, what do you think about these complex questions? What examples of market systems does Hartmann give? Does she give any? 

What is your one sentence answer telling us Hartmann's example of a traditional economic system? (Are you even happy with this question?) 

And why do you think what you think in answer to the above question? 

__________

Reference

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