the(new)mediaslut

Smartbrain was in the heat of the protest in Bangkok the whole day and survived to emailed this blog photos of the day’s event.

 Latest photo at 9pm: The Thai Army on the streets of Bangkok

 Smartbrain saw the aftermath of a car bomb at about 5.30pm.

Smartbrain finds it odd that the vehicle used as a bomb is an imported and expensive jeep.

 Police with teargas canon getting ready for the protestors.

Protestors getting ready for their march!

Smoke and gun shots can heard from afar..

Check out Smartbrain’s latest update at his Twitter at www.twitter.com/smartbrain

Technorati Tags: thailand,protest

Smartbrain is offering a “live” tweet of the current protests in Bangkok, Thailand. Follow him at twitter.com/smartbrain

Twitter / smartbrain via kwout

Derek Brown, Microsoft Marketing Director for Thailand, bid the tech publishing industry goodbye today with a farewell letter to selected peers.

Wrote Derek in his farewell email,

Microsoft has been a love of my live, and while I’ll admit that at times it seems an unrequited one, it has been on measure a truly remarkable experience.  And at the core of that remarkableness is the amazing people I’ve had the good fortune to work with all these years - in and out of the company.   Microsoft has attracted a remarkable bunch and it’s been my honor and at times humbling experience to work with all of you.  The level of intellectual curiosity, the intense passion coupled with an environment that that challenges us with the freedom to do our best work is indeed special - and I’ll remember it that way.

Brown’s departure marks the end of an era with a complete change of top management at Microsoft Thailand starting with the departure of Andrew McBean, country manager, last year.

Recycling is all the rage in today’s eco-conscious world. One of the easiest ways to recycle and save the environment is to print on both sides of the paper and re-use old print for internal documents.

Because of this, Smartbrain has just been reading the whys and wherefores of bio-fuel compatibility with various Volvo engines.

Did you know that Volvo has sold over 20,000 cars that are capable of running on E85 (85% Ethanol, 15% petrol)?

It has three engines that can run on E85: a 1.8 for its C30, S40 and V50, and a pair of 2.0 and 2.5 engines for its V70 and S80 cars.

Its plants in Sweden and Belgium also use 100% electricity from hydro electric power plants rather than fossil fuels.

Volvo S80: Crash & burn but totally recyclable
(Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2007_Volvo_S80.jpg)

The new Volvo S80 is 85% recyclable. Smartbrain thinks that is a nice feeling to have when the driver smashes it into a pickup truck. Yes, I may have wrecked my car but at least I’m not damaging the environment.

Most interesting. Now, if only Smartbrain can concentrate on finding the details of the notebook on the other side of the paper.

Chipzilla (a.k.a. Intel Microelectronics, a company that has been doing Nano Electronics and really needs a name-change) has gone PR 2.0 and conducted a regional launch of a super-secret embargoed, hush-hush something secret using an Akamai-based web conferencing platform.

Smartbrain loves the ability to “go” to a conference in his pyjamas and eat messy Pistachio nuts while the presentation is going on. Plus, he saves on the 100 km commute to the CBD (central business district) from his home too.

It was not perfect, with four or five blips in the video / audio stream over the half hour presentation and the framerate was so slow as to make the first Intel Extreme Graphics integrated graphics seem almost half-decent. Not a major problem except from the fact that most of the captions were missed, blurred out or otherwise unreadable.

90 percent of the wholesome goodness of a real-world press conference with one percent of the effort. Good one, Intel.

Smartbrain likes PR 2.0.

Smartbrain has not broken any condition of the embargo on the super secret something as no details of that super secret something has been leaked.