Trying out Live Writer

Chookette is looking over my shoulder, and we're just trying to check out how useful it is to use a standalone blog editor.

For one, you can keep your browser window open next to the Live Writer window. That makes plagiarism and other common activities easier. Who said Blog This! ?

I'll just take a moment to cuss the website: www.worldbest.com.

It's bad. Now I need to ask chookette what she thinks. Any comments?

Chookette : "I like it when you  type."

Thanks Babe :)

Forlorn blog... no more!

This blog has been asleep for far too long. What with disconnected places and an accumulation of photos and experiences, procrastination won the day (months?).

Enough!

Flex

If you're looking for a way to create RIAs, you should consider Flex.

Soon, I'll provide a link to a site (still a work in progress) using this (fantastic) Adobe technology

Maybe I'll post a few tutorials or extra info at a later point (uh, when I'm an expert :) ). In the meantime and a spirit of fairness, here are links to competitors:

• Microsoft Silverlight


• Sun JavaFX

Girls, my advice to you

Mai Chau

Mai Chau is just under 150km South of Hanoi, Vietnam, where we have spent 2 blissful days doing just about nothing apart from gawking at the scenery and eating good food. Elgee brings you the view from guesthouse 26, where we were staying.

This is the view from the edge of the village, which is surrounded first by rice paddies then by the mountains. Of course, it is impossible to accurately describe rice paddies in rainy monsoon mornings. All shades from leaf green to buttercup yellow, undulating under a quiet breeze. Aaaaaah.

The Lion

 
Khun Thong has persuaded yours truly to start yoga, at least minimally, in order to alleviate the loss of eyesight associated with fooling around with computers. This picture I absolutely wanted to show you, yours truly in The Lion posture. So yeah, I actually do this thing every morning. Tadaaaaaam!

Felicia

 

Felicia is our housepet. She's sitting on a sac of offspring (see if you can spot it in the picture), has been sitting on it for the past few days, and we all hope to be around when the little kiddies come out. Will they eat mama? Will mama eat them? She's got to be hungry, hardly moving at all and definitely not enough for pizza!

Awwwwwwwwwwww! Isn't it sweet?

The King Smiles Sometimes?

Some of you may have heard of a book called The King Never Smiles, the first published on the subject of King HRM Bhumibol Adhulyadej of Thailand. Released in 2006, and is highly sensitive material here of course.

Now for the surprise. This post isn't really about the book. Sorry. Lots of people have written about it, and I plan to read it before I comment on it. This post really is about tonight's successful drinking session with some friends, that ever so lightly touched upon politics.

A quick disclaimer. My level of Thai is inadequate for proper understanding, let alone analysis when words such as rattatammanoon are bandied about.

My fetish question here - after or before a few beers - is « What do you reckon will happen when the King passes away? ». The answers vary in scope or depth, but all betray serious angst. The son lacks charisma. Morals. Stature. There will be big problems for Thailand then.

The answer I got tonight was revolution. Great. We old democrats (heehee) are used to having the royals killed in the course of revolutions. Of course, my company consisted of 2 human rights activists, 1 labour activist, 1 art teacher, 1 slightly inebriated Lao (my personal favourite). Revolution would be the solution, as long as it is bloodless. A classic.

The conversation then branched upon freedom of expression (the constitution that is being drafted doesn't seem to make provisions for such luxuries), privatisation of the education (that seems to be happening right now) and that book I mentioned. Does he ever smile? It's true, on the gorgeous portraits, surrounded by his beautiful wife and dutiful children, he is the essence of virtuous seriousness.

Since it is so difficult to find out what goes on inside the palace, the one of the human rights people pointed out that HRM BA must smile at home, this contention sparked a huge debate, some of our lot seriously doubting the possibility. My hypothesis that he probably smiles when he plays music was, I believe, mistaken for « gimme more beer please » (that's what I got), so my contribution to the issue was minimal.

At this point, of course, WE were all smiling. I learnt that the political spectrum in Thailand is indeed more vast than the Thai Rak Thai. There is a Maoist party, a Marxist/Leninist party. The labour guy kindly volunteered that the former wants to kill the state and the latter just replace it. To date, it is still unclear how Mao can still have a following, pressing the point in Thai was a biiit difficult. Please feel free to comment, however.

The plan is to meet again in order to give more depth to these perspectives, so stay in touch for more if you like posts without head, tail, structure or sense!

Cheerio!

Be warned

If you think there is something wrong, deeply wrong about the world... If you don't believe in chance... Some people are chipping away at the web of lies, and share their answers with us. This is a tribute to excellent journalism at The Canadian National Newspaper.

Ban Phai

Ban Phai is a small village, 50 or so km South of Khong Khaen, in Thailand (duh). Apart from the otherwise charming scenery and debonnaire lifestyle, it is also the home of sawangboran, a project to conserve and revive natural dye Ikat and supplementary weft.

Since there will be a dedicated website for the project, there is little need to elaborate at this time, especially since Khun Thong, my mother and soul of the enterprise, will be much more suited to the task. Since yours truly spent 3 days at the start of this 12 day blogging absence, this post has disappointingly little info apart from that. And maybe a few photos, that will be posted as soon as time meets will.

No Moderation Now

Moderation is now turned off on this blog, comments will appear immediately.

Thatchozy? bouncing you to IPS Weekly

This article is okay, a few things put into perspective, nothing most of us didn't already know...

PARIS - « Nicolas Sarkozy's triumph in the French presidential elections could open the way for deep political and social changes, not unlike those that began with the era of Margaret Thatcher in Britain in the 1980s. »

From IPS Weekly

Yours truly voted Bayrou then Royal, and will stay along those lines for the législatives

Censorship in Thailand

Just a quick rant this is, a rant on internet censorship in general and Thai censorship in particular.

It's just frustrating for a geek like yours truly, to have to jump through hoops to get a tool like tor.

Fair enough, anonymity software sort of helps people who want to do bad stuff, but censorship doesn't actually prevent anyone sufficiently dedicated to get what they want, it's just a mild deterrent.

Check out this article for a good laugh on the subject: Sitthichai gets no kick from the Net. A quick stolen quote: « I once visited pantip.com and was confused by its many rooms. »

The recent events with youtube and His Majesty King Bhumibol are unfortunate, but do they justify this? Feel free to share your feelings on the matter.

Bogs united (no, not blogs, BOGS!)

May I use your watsan facilities please? Are they culturally mature? Oh, and did you celebrate World Toilet Day this year?

Difficult not to chuckle when presented with the fierce competition between the WTA and the (other) WTO. If I weren't environmentally conscious I'd tell you to print it out and enjoy the read ... on the loo!

sawasdeechowlok!

Back in Bangkok. From the airport to the Chao Praya, so many familiar sights!

The new Suvarnabhumi airport is unfortunately not the greatest achievement since the matchstick. It's larger, but it seems to have preserved the same bottlenecks as Donmueang. Maybe it gets better with time and habit, which is a pity since they built it on a swamp. According to Khun Thong, some of the glass panes are already cracking, no doubt as the whole edifice sinks to its boggy grave. How sad.

The old centre is beautifully lit up as the city prepares for The Royal Plowing Ceremony. The tensions caused by the inefficiency and controversial legitimity of the current regime aren't apparent through the window of a taxi, so more on that later.

Plans to go to Kasakhstan aren't materialising, so the near future holds a brief trip to Isan where Khun Thong's project is taking shape, then straight up to Nong Khai province for a stint of relaxing on the banks of the Mekong. Dates aren't yet absolutely clear, of course, but keep in touch!

Blogging over the Arabian Sea

Heehee, Emirates've installed power outlets on the seats in economy class. Actually, this makes it embarrassing, how is one supposed to choose amongst the various forms of entertainment? The next step will probably be cheap (free?) broadband internet. Coding on the run indeed ^^. The Arabian Sea is, of course, quite invisible from here, so the title of this entry is just plain yuccy romantic.

Transit in Dubai

This is yours truly from Dubai airport, it is (supposedly) 7h30 a.m., and the 5$ Capuccino Massimo from Costa Coffee is a fine preparation for the coming anti jetlag wake.

As usual, people of various origins and destinations grab a nap all over the terminal, this never fails to remind me of a high class refugee camp, all in transit; does anybody like transit? The diversity is refreshing, and the fun trying to guess nationalities, eavesdropping to catch a language, puzzling over accents, it just never fades.

Getting here is a bit of a challenge. With a 90 day stay and a 60 day visa, they just won't let you go without phoning three managers and finally deciding that it's your problem if you overstay. It always gives one a bit of a sweat, wondering whether they'll let you board, or keep your return ticket without needing to pay a huge (100€) fine. Not so long ago, it seemed easier :). Hardly any queue though, one should count one's blessings!

The first leg of the flight went fine. Decent red wine, Excellent chicken Tikka, bresaola for starters and metal cutlery. Small concession to comfort in a travel world ruled by security... Someone recently got through with a laptop concealing an ammunition clip, the X-Ray doesn't get through 0_o !! There's a future for USB rocket launchers.

I have a nagging feeling that I should be boarding about now. Emirates flight EK 386... Here I come.

Way to go, furball!

Lady Chookette de Belleville, my sweet babechen is onto the blogosphere and quite serious about it, too!

Streetwars.net

Thanks to Stickman, yours truly has become aware of streetwars, a killer game city-wide involving water guns and apparently some cash for the winner. There can be only One! :D.

Go check it out on the official site…

Opening Yet Another Feed

Without further ado, Yet Another Feed opens a window on my meanderings; keep in touch !