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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