Resources to Learn English

I have been researching English learning resources lately, as I have some Thai friends who need some help. I have consolidated what I have learned so far here:

http://www.ebooks-international.com/Languages/LearnEnglish.html

The Thai people I know fall into two categories, as far as education goes: those with a university or college education, and those who quit school at age 10 or so and had to work.

Some of the brightest people I have ever met have only 4 years of schooling. They can add and subtract but cannot multiply or divide and do not understand fractions, decimals, and percentages. One lady (age 29 with two children and two ex-husbands) that I know well was a waitress a year ago. In the past year, she has taught herself English, how to use a computer, and how to run a business with several employees and a half a dozen major customers.

Another lady took 2 years at a technical college, financed by a government student loan. She created a multi-page web site using Notepad to code raw HTML. That's not something I would do, it's too difficult. When I asked her why, she said she wanted to understand exactly how HTML worked.

However, none of these people speak English very well. The university-educated can read better than the others, but they invariably write poorly and often speak poorly.

Hence my research. Hopefully it will benefit you or someone you know. Sphere: Related Content

I found this article very interesting, as I have done some research on car auctions:

Most Expensive Ferrari Ever Sold

by Mike Bartley

The popularity of the Ferrari is known the world over. The Italian carmaker is known not only for building good looking cars with high performance but also for the price that these vehicles fetch. In fact the company's cheapest model has a base price of $150,000. When it comes to expensive cars, Ferrari just set a record for the most expensive Ferrari ever sold.

The sale came at an auction held in the marque's Italian assembly facility. Hosting the auction are the Canada-based RM Auctions Inc. and the trusted Sotheby's. The auction saw 33 classic Ferraris being auctioned off. The most expensive of the lot is the 1962 TRI/LM Testa Rossa Spyder. The said classic race car fetched a price of 6,875,000 euros or about $9.275 million. While the car became the most expensive Ferrari ever sold, it is not the most expensive car sold in an auction. That distinction belongs to a 1931 Bugatti Type 41 Royal Sports Coupe which was sold for $11 million.

The Testa Rossa Spyder is said to be the world's most famous race car since it was used by Ferrari in the 24-hour Le Mans. The dominance of the car of the said prestigious racing event spanned from the late 1950s to the early 60s. The car sold at the auction for the record price is the last of its kind which is one reason why the price reached more than $9 million. The particular model is the last Ferrari race car to have its engine in the front and it was driven by Phil Hil and Oliver Glendebien at the Le Mans in 1962. Aside from that particular car, the auction also sold classic Ferrari cars which earned the Italian car manufacturer more than $46 million.

Other Ferrari cars sold during the auction, which would put to shame any production vehicle even if equipped with Kleen Wheels accessories, includes a 1953 Ferrari 340/375 MM Berlinetta Competizione which fetched a price of 4,235,000 euros. The said classic Ferrari is the second most expensive Ferrari sold during the auction. Another classic car sold at the public sale is a 1970 Ferrari 512 S which was sold for 2,640,000 euros. A 1953 Ferrari 340 MM Competition Spyder was sold at the auction for the price of 2,310,000 euros. Another Ferrari classic which was sold at the auction is a 1966 Ferrari Dino 206 SP which was sold for a whopping 2,420,000 euros. Another expensive Ferrari car sold is the 2003 Ferrari F2003-GA Formula 1 Grand Prix Car which was driven by Michael Schumacher during his stint with Scuderia Ferrari. The car was sold for 1,540,000 euros or almost $2 million.

Of the 33 cars that were auctioned, only one car was not sold and it was a 1987 Ferrari F40 Prototipo.

Aside from the mentioned cars, Ferrari also auctioned off different car-related merchandise like a 2005 Ferrari steering wheel which was sold for $85,000. Compare that to a brand new Chevy Aveo which has a starting price of $9,455 and you will see how expensive Ferraris are. The Italian car manufacturer also auctioned off a 2004 V10 engine which was sold at $62,000. A matching 2004 engine cover was also sold at the auction which fetched a price of $12,500. An autographed Schumacher helmet was sold for $30,000 while a racing suit worn by the German Formula One driver fetched a price of $28,000. Current Ferrari Formula One driver Kimi Raikkonen's racing suit was also auctioned off and was sold for $8,500. And perhaps the oddest things auctioned off were a set of Felipe Massa's under-clothes which was sold for $775.

About the Author
Mike Bartley, 49, is a professional automotive journalist domiciled in Irvine, CA. He travels from one state to another to cover the hottest auto shows, racing events and automotive revelations. His penned compositions cover press releases, reviews, and suggestions. Where the auto action is, that's exactly where you can find Mike.

* * * *

For more information on Car Auctions, go to http://www.maximize-income.com/Auctions-Cars/ Sphere: Related Content

Software Testing

For many years before I retired, I was involved in software testing and quality assurance of software applications. Frequently, I was the manager of a test team of 5 to 8 people. I have now put my experiences into a web site, called QA and Software Testing Concepts, which also has basic definitions, as well as some jokes and true stories about failed testing. Sphere: Related Content

Help with Learning Photography

Here is a good place to learn about digital photography: how to take portrait photos of babies, children, old people, etc. How to take killer landscape photos, travel photography, how to sell your pictures, how to take nude photos and glamour photos.

http://www.photography-help.biz/

Sphere: Related Content

Britain is Repossessing the USA

I received the following e-mail today from a friend in Australia; supposedly, the original was written by John Cleese.

Britain is Repossessing the U.S.A.

A Message from John Cleese

To the citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

(You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

1. Then look up "aluminium", and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

-----------------

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix "-ize" will be replaced by the suffix "-ise".

Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

------------------------

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize". You will relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen".

-------------------

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

-----------------

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent.

Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

----------------------

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

----------------------

7. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

Holden Monaro's are also approved.

---------------------

8. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.

Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

--------------------

9. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) -- roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

-------------------

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call "French fries" are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling "potato chips" are properly called "crisps". Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

-------------------

11. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer", and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager". Australian beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also a British Colony, see what it did for them.

American brands will be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnu's Urine", so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

---------------------

12. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters.

Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

---------------------

13. You will cease playing "American" football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it "soccer". Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby; the Aussies and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

---------------------

14. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the "World Series" for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Aussies first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

--------------------

15. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

-----------------

16. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

---------------

17. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season.

God save the Queen.

Only he can.

John Cleese

Sphere: Related Content

One Comment on the Latest US Massacre

One article I read, which mentioned that the issue of gun control may arise yet again, had a quote from a pro-gun organisation saying that if everyone had been armed, the shooter would have been stopped at the beginning of his rampage and fatalities would have been far less. While that's probably true, the guy should not have had a gun in the first place.

In Australia, about 10 years ago, a mentally deranged guy shot and killed more than 30 people at a tourist park in Tasmania. The country was horrified, just like in the US.

Unlike the US, the Australian government immediately implemented a real gun control act, and instituted a gun buy-back scheme. A few farmers and hunters immediately wrapped their oiled AK-47s in plastic and buried them, but thousands and thousands of guns were taken off the street and crushed.

Guns are not outlawed in Australia; they can still be bought, but you need a permit and you have to take a safety test. But it is a fact that crimes involving guns have been reduced.

However, there is a large and growing violent criminal element in Australia, especially in the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. Most of these criminals appear to be young men from SE Asia (principally Vietnam), Arab countries (Lebanon and Syria), and the Balkans. They form gangs of men of the same nationality; these people seem to have no problem whatsoever getting guns and having shootouts.

When my wife and I sold everything and left Canada in 93, one of the eastern US states passed a gun control law just before we left Ottawa. That law prevented anyone from buying more than 5 hand guns in a week. That's the American idea of gun control. Sphere: Related Content

Worth Looking At

Predictions of the Year 2000
from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900

Sphere: Related Content

Busy Lately

I haven't posted much lately, mostly because I am running out of time. I ran out of money many months ago, and have been borrowing money from a bank in Canada to keep me and Thai Culture Publishing afloat. It's a new company and isn't profitable yet. I figured it would take a year.

Things weren't helped by one of the founders deciding her ex-boyfriend needed money more than the company did and embezzling more than 50,000 baht. What hurts is that I treated this girl as a daughter, as she was pregnant, and didn't want to tell her aged father. I gave her free room and board for three months, bought her a baby bed and other baby needs, and generally acted as her substitute father, and she paid me back by stealing money. "No good deed shall remain unpunished" is very true.

She also hurt the start-up of Thai Culture Publishing, as she did this in the first few months after the company was formed last July. We lost three months as well as the money. We started over again in September, with a new partnership, and had to pay the start-up expenses all over again, including new CDs and new packaging.

The good news is that the new Managing Director, Kanokporn Boonjan, has proved to be an excellent choice: highly motivated, eager to make this a success, and good at marketing besides. The company is a limited partnership, owned by three Thai people; I am neither a shareholder nor partner, I am merely their mentor: Ajarn Doug

In any case, I have to return to Canada and get a job somewhere, anywhere, just to make some money to pay down the bank loan and continue supporting the company until it's on its feet. The company is making progress; they have sold more than 500 CDs now, but have only been paid for 60 or 70 because the big book distributors here act like elephants on the sidewalk, treating small suppliers very badly. Thai Culture Publishing is coming close to breaking even this month (April), and may break even or make a small profit in May.

So around May 8 or so, I will be on my way back to Ottawa, a 36 hour trip, which I will probably break up with a couple of hotel stays in Seoul and Vancouver.

In the meantime, I have pretty much abandoned Thai software development, and have been working feverishly, 18 hours a day, on web sites and Internet marketing. The Thai Culture Publishing site now has half a dozen products listed. I have also set up an Alzheimer's site, an eBooks site, and a Windows Stupidities site, all of which will hopefully generate some additional income in the long run.

In the short run, I have been experimenting with various advertising and promotional techniques to try and generate some immediate cash, but so far I have spent a lot of money for very little gain. Sigh.

This is a particularly stupid time to leave as we are finishing the development of Speak Easy Isaan Lao and Tricky Dictionary Thingy. The goal is to get these out the door before I go, but I am not sure that's possible. If the book distributors take these up, they will generate money 4 or 5 months from now.

I have repackaged Speak Easy Thai into a subset, about 120MB, that can be downloaded as a free trial. As of today, 68 people have downloaded the trial. One person subsequently unsubscribed from the mailing list. I sent out an e-mail suggesting people donate US$25 to get the bonus files; one person did, and 66 people didn't. So what does that mean?

The program works but is crippled without the extra sound files and images. So either people aren't using it, or found it too complicated, or aren't motivated enough about learning Thai to actually pay money to do it. Sigh. If 20 people had donated, I could have paid the bank this month and would not have had to return to Canada. Such is life. Sphere: Related Content

Alzheimer's

The mother of a friend died recently, quite suddenly, after taking medicine to improve her memory, as she was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. My own mother will be 90 in mid-May, and is becoming forgetful herself.

So these two things suddenly motivated me and I spent 4 or 5 days creating an Alzheimer's web site. You can see it here.

At the moment, it's mostly a framework, with only a small amount of content, but I will add to it over the next year or so. I spent a lot of time researching Alzheimer's drugs, which I knew nothing about a week ago, and compiled a comprehensive chart. However, it was too complicated. So I simplified it down to what you now see on the web site, with links to the manufacturer's or distributor's information. Sphere: Related Content

Thailand Travel Dictionary

I met with a Belgian named Yves Masure yesterday, along with Kanokporn Boonjan, the Managing Director of Thai Culture Publishing. Yves has been working on an encyclopedic reference or guide to Thailand and Thai culture for 9 years, and produced a CD-ROM and web site called THAILEX. It's now in its fourth incarnation.

Yves demonstrated his CD; it's pretty good, very impressive, has lots of stuff I not only didn't know, but have never heard of.

The information is primarily arranged like a dictionary or encyclopedia, in alphabetical order. There are several indexes, including a photo index. There are hundreds of photos.

But here's the kicker: there are actually 3 guides on the same CD, as he has the same information in English, Dutch, and Thai. Yves is fluent in Thai and did all the translation himself. So if you have a Thai partner, both can make use of the CD.

Kanokporn and Yves came to an agreement, so Thai Culture Publishing is now acting as his agent to distribute the CD within Thailand and via the Internet to the world.

You can see it here. Sphere: Related Content

Names can be a problem in Sweden

I read on the BBC news site today about a family who named their child "Metallica", and had the name rejected by government authorities.

"The name Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 - pronounced Albin - was also rejected by authorities in 1996. The boy's parents had chosen the name as a protest against Swedish naming laws."

I dunno, I kind of like the name Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116. But the kid would probably never find his name on one of those name plaques you see in various stores. Our daughter, Inika, used to look for her name and never found hers either.

The article is here.

Sphere: Related Content

Cane Toad Program in my old Neighbourhood in Australia

In Australia, cane toads are a problem. They were originally imported from Brazil and released in the north about 50 or 60 years ago, I think, to combat sugar cane beetle. The problem is, they contain two sacs behind the head which contain a poison deadly to just about everything. If a dog eats the cane toad, that toad dies, but so does the dog. Ditto with snakes, lizards, and most birds. One species of large black crow, however, has figured out that they can flip the cane toad over and rip its guts out and eat them. This is the only bird that can handle a cane toad. To a human, the cane toad poison is not deadly, but can make you very sick.

Cane toads eat smaller toads and frogs, fish, insects, etc. Maybe small snakes, too, I dunno. They tend to wipe out the local frog and normal toad population.

So cane toads have been breeding and breeding and breeding virtually with nothing stopping them. They look like regular warty toads, but much bigger. Recently a huge one weighing several pounds and more than a foot long was caught, so they are getting bigger, too.

They are gradually pushing down from the north, and have now reached Sydney.

Some people play “cane toad golf” when they find one, whacking it with a golf club. Some people douse them with a flammable substance, like BBQ starter, and have a cane toad bonfire. Many people, though, think those methods are too cruel. We just pushed it into a plastic bag, then tied the bag tight and stuck it in the freezer. You leave it overnight. The toad gets lethargic, then goes to sleep, then dies from hypothermia. Just like a Canadian in the wilderness. In the morning, you have a “toadsicle” or “toadcube” which you can toss in the rubbish.

They are in my former neighbourhood of Carindale in Brisbane, but one man there has started a “toad watch” and is doing something about it. Read about it here:
Courier Mail article Sphere: Related Content