Magha Puja

        Māgha Pūjā, Makha Bucha, or the Full Moon of Tabaung (Khmer: មាឃបូជា; Lao: ມະຄະບູຊາ; Thai: มาฆบูชา(Pronunciation)) is an important Buddhist festival celebrated in Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos on the full moon day of the third lunar month (this usually falls in February). The third lunar month is known in the Thai language as Makha (Pali: Māgha); Bucha is also a Thai word (Pali: Pūjā), meaning "to venerate" or "to honor". As such, Makha Bucha Day is for the veneration of Buddha and his teachings on the full moon day of the third lunar month.

        The spiritual aims of the day are: not to commit any kind of sins; do only good; purify one's mind.

        Māgha Pūjā is a public holiday in Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Laos and Thailand - and is an occasion when Buddhists tend to go to the temple to perform merit-making activities.

Origin

Māgha Pūjā day marks the four auspicious occasions, which happened nine months after the Enlightenment of the Buddha at Veḷuvana Bamboo Grove, near Rājagaha in Northern India. On that occasion, as recorded in the commentary to the Mahāsamayasutta, DN-Comm 20) four marvellous events occurred:

1. There were 1,250 Arahata, that came to see the Buddha that evening without any schedule.
2. All of them were Arhantas, the Enlightened One, and all of them were ordained by the Buddha himself.
3. The Buddha gave those Arhantas principles of Buddhism, called "The ovadhapatimokha". Those principles are: - To cease from all evil,- To do what is good,- To cleanse one's mind;
4. it was the full-moon day.

The Buddha gave an important teaching to the assembled monks on that day 2,500 years ago called the 'Ovādapātimokha' which laid down the principles of the Buddhist teachings. In Thailand, this teaching has been dubbed the 'Heart of Buddhism'.

Thailand

1. In the evening of Magha full-moon day, each temple in Thailand holds a candlelight procession called a wian tian (wian meaning circle; tian meaning candle). Holding flowers, incense and a lighted candle, the monks and congregation members circumambulate clockwise three times around the phra ubosot (ordination hall) - once for each of the Three Jewels – the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
2. Tum Boon: Making merit by going to temples for special observances and join in the other Buddhist activities.
3. Rub Sil': Keeping the Five Precepts. Practise of renunciation: Observe the Eight Precepts, practise of meditation and mental discipline, stay in the temple, wearing white robes, for a number of days.

Reference : http://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%86%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%B9%E0%B8%8A%E0%B8%B2

Dylan Hall: A three-year-old Thai internet sensation

 Thai alphabet YouTube boy Dylan Hall's millions of hits  

Web star Dylan Hall and his parents Passamon and Peter

A video of a three-year-old boy from south Wales reciting the Thai alphabet has clocked up more than two million views in a matter of days on You Tube.

Dylan Hall, who was born in Thailand and now lives in Caerleon, is a particular hit in Thailand and has over 88,000 "likes" on Facebook.

The clip was posted online by his parents, largely for the benefit of far-flung grandparents and friends.

But the YouTube video has gone viral within 10 days of being posted.

Dylan's father Peter worked for more than eight years in Thailand, where he met his wife Passamon, before they moved to Wales.

Mrs Hall, 35, has been been teaching Dylan Thai so he could speak to his grandmother on visits to Thailand.

His parents say they are surprised and delighted by the reaction in his mother's homeland to the video, which is among dozens of Dylan they have put up.

"We've been told that when people arrive home from work they've been watching the video to relieve their stress. It helps them to relax," said Mrs Hall.

"Thai people have been saying: 'You don't forget where you come from' and 'it's good you're teaching your son Thai even though he doesn't live in Thailand'. They're proud.

"It's quite a difficult language to learn, but it's easier than learning Welsh," she joked.

Mrs Hall said a stage show and a modelling agency in Thailand had been keen to recruit Dylan after his YouTube success, but they had refused the approaches because their son was too young.

The video has even prompted a Thai comedian, Bie The Ska, to release an affectionate parody.

Mr Hall, a lecturer at Coleg Gwent in Newport, said a friend initially told them it was quite popular with a few hundred views.

He said: "Then we looked and it was a few thousand and we went to sleep and the next morning we had a text message from his godfather saying it was 100,000, and then we checked and it was considerably higher than that."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOlAhUc-N0Y --->Dylan's video was originally put on YouTube for family and friends in Thailand

Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-21328613

Twitter

         Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140characters, known as "tweets".

         It was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 500 million registeredusers as of 2012, generating over 340 million tweets daily and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day. Since its launch, Twitter has become one of the ten most visited websites on the Internet, and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet." Unregistered users can read tweets, while registered users can post tweets through the website interface, SMS, or a range of apps for mobile devices.

         Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco, with additional servers and offices in New York City, Boston, and San Antonio.

(Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter)

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1G 2G 3G 4G

Understanding 1G vs. 2G vs. 3G vs. 4G

         The nomenclature of the cellular wireless generations (G) generally refers to a change in the fundamental nature of the service, non-backwards compatible transmission technology, and new frequency bands. New generations have appeared about every ten years since the first move from 1981 analog (1G) to digital (2G) transmission in 1992. This was followed, in 2001, by 3G multi-media support, spread spectrum transmission and peak throughputs of 200 kbit/s; and in 2011 by 4G, which refers to all-IP switched networks, mobile ultra-broadband (gigabit speed) access and multi-carrier transmission.

 

What is 1G?

        First generation refers to the analog “brick phones” and “bag phones” as they were first introduced for mobile cellular technology. Cell phones began with 1G and signify first generation wireless analog technology standards that originated in the 1980s. 1G was replaced by 2G wireless digital standards.

  

What is 2G?

         2G signifies second generation wireless digital technology. Fully digital 2G networks have replaced analog 1G, which originated in the 1980s. 2G networks first commercially began on the Global System for Mobil Communications, or GSM, standard. 2G on GSM standards was first used in commercial practice in 1991 by Radiolinja, a Finnish GSM operator that was founded on September 19, 1988. Radiolinja is now part of Elisa, which was known in the 1990s as the Helsinki Telephone Company. In addition to the GSM protocol, 2G also utilizes various other digital protocols, including CDMA, TDMA, iDEN and PDC. GSM is based on TDMA.

 

What is 2.5G?

             2.5G wireless technology is a stepping stone that bridged 2G to 3G wireless technology and is sometimes used to describe those evolved technologies that were first considered as being 2G. While 2G and 3G have been officially defined as wireless standards by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 2.5G has not been defined and was created only for the purposes of marketing. As an interim step up from 2G, 2.5G has seen some of the advances inherent in 3G networks (including packet-switched systems). The evolution from 2G to 3G has ushered in faster and higher-capacity data transmission. Several technologies that have been considered as the evolutionary step to 3G include EDGE (part of the GSM family) and CDMA 2000 1X; at times these technologies are called 3G as they both meet some of the ITU requirements for 3G standards.

  

What is 3G?

         3G is the third generation of mobile phone standards and technology. 3G supersedes 2G technology and precedes 4G technology. Current 3G systems have been established through ITU’s project on International Mobile Telecommunications 2000 (IMT-2000). 3G technologies have enabled faster data transmission speeds, greater network capacity and more advanced network services. In May 2001, NTT DoCoMo (Japan) launched the first pre-commercial 3G network – branded as FOMA. Following the first pre-commercial launch, NTT DoCoMo again made history on October 1, 2001, with the first commercial launch of 3G in Japan.

 

UMTS-HSPA is the world’s leading 3G technology. By 2015, UMTS-HSPA and LTE 3G technologies are expected to account for 3.9 billion global subscriptions, compared to 569 million CDMA EV-DO subscriptions and 59 million WiMAX subscriptions.

  

What is 3.5G?

             Similar to the 2.5G acronym, the reference to 3.5G is not an officially recognized standard by the ITU. It is an interim or evolutionary step to the next generation of cellular technology that will be known as IMT-Advanced according to definitions by the ITU. IMT-Advanced will comprise the fourth generation of cell phone technology. The acronym 3.5G is also known as “beyond 3G.” 4G Americas does not use the terms 3.5G (or 2.5G) in respect of the official definitions provided by the ITU. The technologies within the GSM family that are considered as beyond 3G include HSPA+ and LTE. These 3.5G technologies are often called pre-4G as well.

  

What is 4G?

           4G is the term used to refer to the fourth generation of mobile wireless services that has been defined by the ITU and its Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) and established as an agreed upon and globally accepted definition in IMT-Advanced.

(Source : http://www.4gamericas.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page&sectionid=361)

New Year's Eve

             In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve, the last day of the year, is on December 31. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated at evening social gatherings, where many people dance, eat, drink alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the New Year. Some people attend a watch night. The celebrations generally go on past midnight into January 1 (New Year's Day).              
              Island nations of Kiribati and Samoa are the first to welcome the New Year while Honolulu, Hawaii is among the last places to welcome the New Year.

                         Thailand       

       Aside from the traditional Thai New Year called Songkran (which falls on April 13 or April 14), people in Thailand also celebrate the arrival of the Gregorian New Year on January 1 with their families, relatives, and friends. They usually celebrate it by a family dinner and following different customs. In most cities and urban areas across the country, celebrations of the New Year is accompanied by countdowns, fireworks, and concerts, notably, the Central World Square at Central World in downtown Bangkok, and the Pattaya Beach in Pattaya, while public places such as hotels, pubs, restaurants and nightclubs, also host New Year's Eve parties by offering food, entertainment and music to the people, and they usually stay open until the early next morning.

(Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year's_Eve , 31-12-2012)

Merry X'mas

Santa Claus History

    1881 illustration by Thomas Nastwho, with Clement Clarke Moore, helped to create the modern image of Santa Claus.

Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas and simply "Santa", is a figure with legendary, mythical, historical and folkloric origins who, in many western cultures, is said to bring gifts to the homes of the good children during the late evening and overnight hours of Christmas Eve, December 24. During the Christianization of Germanic Europe, this figure may have absorbed elements of the god Odin, who was associated with the pre-Christian midwinter event of Yule and led the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession through the sky. The modern figure of Santa Claus was derived from the Dutch figure of Sinterklaas, which, in turn, was part of its basis in hagiographical tales concerning the historical figure of Christian bishop and gift giver Saint Nicholas.

Santa Claus is generally depicted as a portly, joyous, white-bearded man—sometimes with spectacles—wearing a red coat with white collar and cuffs, white-cuffed red trousers, and black leather belt and boots (images of him rarely have a beard with no mustache . This image became popular in the United States and Canada in the 19th century due to the significant influence of Clement Clarke Moore's 1823 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" and of caricaturist and political cartoonist Thomas Nast. This image has been maintained and reinforced through song, radio, television, children's books and films.

According to a tradition which can be traced to the 1820s, Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, with a large number of magical elves, and nine (originally eight) flying reindeer. Since the 20th century, in an idea popularized by the 1934 song "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", Santa Claus has been believed to make a list of children throughout the world, categorizing them according to their behavior ("naughty" or "nice") and to deliver presents, including toys, and candy to all of the well-behaved children in the world, and sometimes coal to the naughty children, on the single night of Christmas Eve. He accomplishes this feat with the aid of the elves who make the toys in the workshop and the reindeer who pull his sleigh.

(Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus)