We’ve all said things we don’t really mean in text messages. But when a retired Thai truck driver sent an SMS that insulted his king, he got more than he bargained for. Twenty years more, in fact. More »
I don’t want to make light of a tragedy because the floods in Thailand have been worse than imaginable. The flooding has killed over 500 people, caused $US5 billion in damage and has been ongoing since mid-year. It’s a sad, sad state of life. But instead of giving up, the people of Thailand are adapting. And it’s awesome to see. More »
This isn’t the teeth of a machine, the chainmail shirt your cousin uses for larping, nor the DNA sequence of Justin Bieber’s love child. More »
Last week, Japanese earthquake victims began settling into a neighbourhood of new temporary housing complexes in Miyagi. The clean, compact yet spacious modular homes made from shipping containers proclaim the virtues of prefabrication and adaptive reuse and demonstrate, once again, architect Shigeru Ban’s ability to synthesise contemporary sustainable building practices with a historically rooted Japanese sensibility. More »
How close is too close when selling fruit and veg beside a train line? A foot away from the tracks? For these Asian market-sellers, the tracks themselves are valuable store-shelves for their wares. Make sure you watch until the end to see them spring back into business like nothing actually happened! More »
So what do you do when you’re a sovereign government that’s short on fighter jets and cash, but flush with frozen chicken? Call up Lockheed Martin! According to a WikiLeaked cable, the US State Department helped broker such a deal between the Thais and Lockheed Martin. It almost happened, were it not for a coup that ousted the poultry-pushing buyers. Oh well. [Atlantic Wire] More »
Although the government’s proposed internet filter has effectively been delayed until 2013 at the earliest, it still hasn’t been scrapped completely. Adding fuel to the fire that would burn the policy to ash is the revelation that Thailand’s IT minister has recently admitted to ZDNet that blacklist filtering doesn’t work, and that he believes Thailand should scrap their own internet filter. More »
Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto died in a hospital after being shot in a Bangkok protest Saturday. His legacy, beyond his two children, will most likely be the seven minutes of footage found in his camera, turned in by protesters. More »
