Silk Phuk Siew Festival and Red Cross Fair



November 29, 2011 - December 10, 2011 (12.00 - 12.00)

Phuk Siew or Friendship Making, an ancient and beautiful event for the people of I-san has been practiced for over a century. As it is considered a very important event, Phuk Siew has therefore been organised together with the silk festival. As a result, this has become an annual ceremony of the people of Khon Kaen since 1980. “Siew” (a word for “friend” in Northeastern dialect) refers to 2 people who are full of great loyalty, sincerity and share a close relationship with one another. Nothing, even death, will put them apart. This relationship is not only supposed to happen among those 2 “friends”, but also that true relationship will be shared with others in their families, among relatives and siblings of the “friend”. During this festival, visitors will enjoy the opening ceremony procession, local silk weaving exhibitions, Red Cross Fair, silk pavilion, sales of OTOP products, join the friendship making ritual and Northeastern style dinner, beauty contest, local folk performances, etc. The outstanding and unforgotten spot of the event is an “arts and cultural corner” that will be full of various kinds of activities and

It's iPad or nothing, survey says

The tablet market continues to be summed up like this: the iPadand everything else. And everything else doesn't amount to much.

That's according to a recent survey conducted by Robert W. Baird. The study found that out of more than 1,100 potential tablet purchasers, an overwhelming 94.5 percent cited the iPad as a device of interest. Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad was the second most-cited device, garnering just 10.3 percent of the people surveyed, while Research in Motion's PlayBook was a laggard.

The study suggests that despite a number of new entrants jumping into the tablet fray, few have made a dent in either market share or consumer awareness. That doesn't bode well for the wave of consumer electronic and handset manufacturers who spent have millions of dollars on research and development, marketing, and in HP's case, a multibillion-dollar acquisition, all in the search for a new source of growth.

Analyst William Power said the response to the TouchPad was "somewhat surprising." HP recently cut the price of the device by $100, and AllThingsD reported that retailer Best Buy is sitting on a large stockpile of untouched TouchPads. HP is set to report its third-quarter results tomorrow, likely providing some additional details on the tablet's performance.

Related stories:
• Android tablets grab 20 percent share
• ZDNet: HP's TouchPad launch, inventory under the microscope
• Moving beyond the PC, iPad in hand
• Is Apple's case against Samsung based on shaky evidence?

On the flip side of the iPad, only 3.8 percent of people surveyed cited the PlayBook as a device of interest.

"Consistent with recent checks, our survey found minimal interest in RIM's PlayBook tablet," Power said.

The tablet stumbled out of the gate, missing key features such as e-mail and calendar access without the aid of a separate BlackBerry. While CNET gave it a decent review, the device faced harsh criticism for the lack of those key features, as well as a continued weak stable of applications.

The PlayBook was just below the HTC Flyer, a standalone tablet sold without carrier support (a Sprint version is sold as the Evo View) and above Barnes & Noble's Nook Color e-reader.

At No. 3 was the Motorola Xoom. The Xoom got a major push early in the year as the first device running a version of Android specifically designed for tablets. But it didn't fare well against the iPad on price, and didn't see much adoption until after a price cut.

Motorola Chief Executive Sanjay Jha told CNET recently that the Xoom has been "a mixed story" for the company, with margins on the product lower because of the price cuts. He said the sell-through, or rate that a product gets snapped up by the consumer, was good following the cut.

The Xoom was neck and neck with Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Tab 10.1. Samsung's tablet has been seen as one of the closer competitors to the iPad, with its similar size and thinner design. Apple and Samsung are embroiled in multiple lawsuits around the world regarding the similarities of the iPad and the Galaxy Tab, resulting in thetemporary ban on sales of the Galaxy Tab in some regions.

Samsung was also the first to launch a 4G LTE tablet with Verizon Wireless with its4G-enabled Galaxy Tab, something the company believes has fueled momentum in the product.

A great majority of the people asked were in the U.S., with a large segment coming from the central region of the country, with smaller chunks in the west and south. The survey skewed more male, and asked more affluent individuals who were more likely to pick up a high-end device.

With the iPad so dominant, other tablets aren't the only products feeling the heat. The survey found that 53 percent of the people would have bought a new PC if the tablet wasn't an option.

"We found that tablets appear to be taking incremental dollars away from PCs, with Apple the dominant beneficiary," Power said.

Should Cell Phones be Allowed in Schools?

It was inevitable that technological increases will clash with the rules of the traditional classroom, and no example is more pertinent than whether cell phones should be permitted in schools. Without historical precedent to determine a course or action, the only recourse is to weigh the pros and cons against each other and logically determine a reasonable conclusion.

A damning consideration against cell phone use in schools is the fact that, with smart phones, students can cheat during tests. It’s not hard to access Wikipedia or text message someone in the class for assistance. However, there is really nothing new here, even if the medium is different. It’s not really harder to glance at a screen than it is a well prepared cheat note. Besides, it’s easy for teachers to collect cell phones on test days, and vigilantly keeping guard against cheating is something teachers have to do anyway.

The strongest and most obvious case against cell phone possession in class is their distracting nature. Even if the ringer is turned off (something students frequently forget to do), text messaging is so ubiquitous and subtle that it’s hard for teachers to control. But teachers have contended against inventive distractions for decades, and even if smart phones are more advanced than passing notes it isn’t fundamentally very different. From the students perspective, they’re motivated by the same urge.

On the positive side, every school has a lockdown procedure in the event of an emergency. While it’s true that varying messages can cause confusion and worry amongst parents and outsiders concern for students, the ability to contact police immediately outweighs this concern. In the tragic event of a school shooting, warnings can be sent from classroom to classroom and a line can be established warning police. Yes, it’s possible for students to give false alarms and mischievously cause delay in the classrooms, but the real possibility of saving lives must be given more prominence than the disadvantages of student nuisance (something they don’t need cell phones to cause anyway).

Cell phones have provided benefits that a couple decades ago would have been considered unimaginable to attain on a wide scale. For years, schools were looking for ways to fund computers in the classroom and people protested the gap between the public and private schools’ ability to do this. Even in inner city schools, it’s not uncommon to have a student in each classroom with the ability to use the internet as a resource on behalf of the class. Even where this isn’t the case, smart phones are going to get cheaper and cheaper.

Cell phones have the ability to amplify historic problems of distraction, nuisance, and cheating. These problems create the need for modified solutions for the old problems. But the positive aspects they can deliver are new and groundbreaking. It would be a shame to allow fear and reservation to prevent us from enjoying such obvious benefits. We need visionaries uninhibited by reactionary attachments to tradition to guide policy concerning the implementation of technical advances in the classroom.

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Internet History

The Internet in the year 2009: we send emails, make calls over the Internet and discuss topics we take an interest in. Even our banking is going virtual. But what we take for granted today was only a vague idea 50 years ago. In order to understand how we got this far lets go back to 1957 when everything began. Before 1957 computers only worked on one task at a time. This is called batch processing. Of course, this was quite ineffective. With computers getting bigger and bigger they had to be stored in special cooled rooms.

But then the developers couldn’t work directly on the computers any more. Specialists had to be called in to connect them. Programming back then meant a lot of manual work and the indirect connection to the computers meant a lot of bugs, wasting time and fraying the developers’ nerves.

The year 1957 marked a big change. A remote connection had to be installed so that the developers could work directly on the computers. At the same time the idea of time-sharing came up. This is the first concept in computer technology: to share the processing power of one computer with multiple users. On October 4th in 1957 during the Cold War, the first unmanned satellite Sputnik 1 was sent into orbit by the Soviet Union. The fear of a missile gap emerged. In order to secure America’s lead in technology the US founded the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency in February 1958. At that time knowledge was only transferred by people. The DARPA planned a large-scale computer network in order to accelerate knowledge transfer and avoid the doubling up of already existing research. This network would become the ARPANET.

Furthermore, three other concepts were to be developed, which are fundamental to the history of the Internet. The concept of a military network by the Rand Corporation in America, the commercial network of the National Physical Laboratory in England, and the scientific network, Cyclades, in France. The scientific, military and commercial approaches of these concepts are the foundations for our modern Internet.

Let’s begin with the ARPANET, the most familiar of these networks. Its development began in 1966. Universities were generally quite cautious about sharing their computers; therefore small computers were put in front of the mainframe. This computer, the Interface Message Processor took over control of the network activities while the mainframe was only in charge of the initialisation of programmes and data files. At the same time the IMP also served as interface for the mainframe. Since only the IMPs were interconnected in the network they were also called IMP subnet.

For the first connections between computers, the Network Working Group developed the Network Control Protocol. Later on the NCP was replaced by the more efficient Transmission Control Protocol. The specific feature of the TCP is the verification of the file transfer.

Let’s take a short detour to England. Since the NPL network was designed on a commercial basis a lot of users and file transfer were expected. In order to avoid congestion of the lines the sent files were divided into smaller packets that were put together again at the receiver. Packet switching was born.

In 1952 American … aircraft discovered middle and long-range missiles in Cuba, which were able to reach the United States. This stoked fear of an atomic conflict. At that time information systems had centralised network architecture. To avoid breakdown in an attack, a decentralised network architecture had to be developed which in case of loss of a node would still be operative. Communication still used to work through radio waves.

That would have caused problems in case of an atomic attack. The ionosphere would be affected and the long wave radio waves wouldn’t work any more. Therefore they had to use direct waves which, however, don’t have a long range. A better solution was the model of a distributed network. Thus long distances could be covered with a minimum of interference.

Another milestone followed with the development of the French network Cyclades. Since Cyclades had a much smaller budget than ARPANET, and thus also fewer nodes, the focus was laid on the communication with other networks. In this way the term ‘Internet’ was born. Moreover, Cyclades’ concept went farther than ARPA’s and the NPL’s. During communication between sender and receiver the computers were not to intervene anymore but simply serve as a transfer node. Cyclades protocol went through all machines using a physical layer that was implemented into the hardware providing a direct connection with the receiver and endto-end structure. Inspired by the Cyclades network and driven by the incompatibility between the networks their connection gained in importance everywhere.

The phone companies developed the X.25 protocol, which enabled communication through their servers in exchange for a monthly basic charge of course. DARPA’s transmission control protocol was to connect the computers through gateways. And the international organisation for standardisation designed the OSI reference model. The innovation of OSI was the attempt to standardise the network from its ends and the channel’s division into separate layers, Finally the TCP assimilated the preferences of the OSI reference model and gave way to the TCP-IP protocol a standard which guaranteed the compatibility between networks and finally merged them, creating the Internet By February 8th 1990 the ARPANET hardware was removed but the Internet was up and running.

Social Service Movement

A nationwide thrust to deliver a variety of social, psychological and health services to socioeconomically deprived children in inner-city schools across the United States. Not formally organized as a national program, the movement is actually made up of a variety of independent efforts, with some data-based technical coordination provided by the United States Department of Education.

In 1992, Kentucky mandated establishment of social service centers in every school (a total of more than 300) with more than 20% of its students from families living below the poverty level. New Jersey started a program in 1987, mandating social service centers in at least one school in every county. Iowa did the same two years later. Some cities, such as Denver, St. Louis, Chicago and Miami Beach, have acted independently of the state and established social service centers in their inner-city schools. In California, several foundations set up a partnership with the state to establish school social service centers. New York, borrowing on the California model, established the largest citywide, inschool social service program, in partnership with the CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETY and a number of private foundations and corporations. Called the Beacon Program, it comprises social service centers, each operated by the Children’s Aid Society and funded almost entirely with grants from foundations and businesses, in more than three dozen schools. The programs operate before, during and after school and, in many cases, on weekends, offering comprehensive dental and health care and social and psychological services for abused, neglected, violent, addicted or otherwise needy children. Beacon schools also operate before-and-after-school classes and recreation programs. Offering “everything you need outside your house,” Beacon schools social service programs are far less costly than conventional social service programs available from hospitals and government social welfare agencies. Indeed, costs per child average only $950 a year, with delivery of services absorbing 90 cents of every dollar, compared to only 65 cents for conventional out-of-school social services. The savings accrue largely from the rent-free basis of Children’s Aid Society facilities. Utilizing otherwise idle school space, they pay no rent, utilities, insurance or maintenance, which are all part of the normal costs of operating each school. In-school social service dates back to the 1890s, when the journalist Jacob Riis (1849– 1914) published photographs of the intolerable conditions in New York City’s slum schools. In the 1920s and during the Great Depression of the 1930s, many doctors, dentists and social workers set up offices in schools across the nation to treat economically deprived children. Extended, widespread prosperity saw the social service movement all but disappear after World War II. It did not stage a revival until the mid- 1980s, when a variety of government studies indicated social and medical neglect as a primary cause of low academic achievement and high dropout rates among inner-city school children.

The social service movement has not been free of controversy. In late 1994, the Committee for Economic Development, an organization of executives at some 25 major American corporations, called for an end to social services in public schools. It urged abandonment of efforts to incorporate mentally and physically handicapped children in regular classrooms and called for an end to social services such as pregnancy counseling, AIDS information and even driver education classes. “America’s public schools are being spread too thin,” agreed Richard W. Riley, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION at the time. Presenting a report titled “Putting Learning First,” Riley contended that schools were failing the business sector. Employers “feel that a large majority of their new hires lack adequate writing and problem solving skills.” Even Albert Shanker, then president of the American Federation of Teachers, agreed that “you should not get into college just because you’re breathing and you’re 18.”

The report charged that “communities, states and the national government are asking those who manage our classrooms to be parent, social worker, doctor, psychologist, police officer and, perhaps, if there is time, teacher. It seems that whenever a social crisis, such as AIDS, child abuse or drunk driving is perceived, the government looks to the schools to solve it.” The report urged schools to limit their services to education and force government to shift social services to better equipped agencies. The report had no effect.