Dangerous games

       The public showed what a down-market daily newspaper called "a distaste for games" to say the least; according to the Abac Poll of Assumption University, 86 per cent of Thais want the government to continue and better enforce the ban on under-18s playing games in cyber cafes for more than three hours a day; the reason, said those polled - all adults - is that if children play games for more than three hours they get hopelessly addicted. Just look at the all the adults who played hopscotch and jump-rope when they were kids and can't get those monkeys off their backs; 97 per cent of the adults believed that; they also were not asked about children with parents well-off enough to have a computer at home.
       North Korea’s news agency has joined Twitter, allowing people worldwide to get in on the latest news from the DPRK Weather Bureau, and the meddling of Hillary Clinton in Southeast Asia, not to mention the daily activities of the Dear Leader. Or is it a hoax?
       Two weeks after the army announced that terrorists in the South are switching from mobile phones to other types of remote controls (model airplanes, for example) to set off their bombs, that the military is to purchase new, updated and quite a bit more expensive equipment to jam mobile phones; this time, the jammers come from Japan at a cost of (cough) 1.5 million baht (cough) apiece; you should be ashamed for what you're thinking right now, the leaders of the armed forces have absolutely no motive but pure national security and the idea of a kickback on such equipment is hateful thought.
       No 3 hard-drive maker Hitachi Global Store Technologies of the US and Thailand announced it will hire another 1,000 workers quickly, and bring its Thai work force above 10,000 - even higher than last year; the firm is fighting Seagate and Western Digital by producing drives in its factory at Prachin Buri; "The global HDD industry has really recovered," said HGST deputy managing director for Thailand Nakorn Tangsujaritpun.
       No 2 hard-drive maker Western Digital of the US and Thailand announced it will hire 5,000 Thai workers as orders pick up for data-storage products; Sampan Silapanad, president for vice at the Thai firm, said most of the new or re-hired staff will work at the Bang Pa-in plant in Ayutthaya, which had already gone on overtime shifts to meet the rising demand. It now seems only a matter of time before No 1 Seagate will also be rehiring their laid-off staff.
       Srithai Superware, which makes those stools for squatting and many market-restaurant chairs for sitting, announced that the outlook is bright for recovery of its hard-plastics products in the near future, because it has "received new orders from the Sony Group to produce CD, VCD and DVD holders for Michael Jackson albums."
       Cloistered NGOs and "activists" gathered for an air-conditioned and well-fed meeting in Chiang Rai to complain about those horrid Internet providers and mobile phone firms abusing consumers so badly; the Southeast Asian gathering brought up the right problems - lousy Internet services at unfriendly prices, yuppiephone spam and the like; then they spoiled it by whining that Big Business was probably giving them inoperable brain tumours from the telephones, and even worse that only Southeast Asians get horrible service and price ripoffs, not like consumers in the industrialised countries; meanwhile New York Times technology writer David Pogue tried to start a mass write-in campaign to mobile phone companies to stop using up 15 seconds of air time ($620 million/21 billion baht a year, he figured) telling subscribers how to speak after they hear the tone; the difference? The whingeing Bangkok meeting demanded that the government protect them, because consumers are dumb, powerless victims.
       The Metropolitan Electricity Authority estimated that the recession will convince folks in and near Bangkok to cut back on electricity use by at least 4 per cent this year, compared to an average rise of more than 5 per cent in recent, better years; MEA governor Pornthape Thunyapongchai said that in fact, power use was down around 10 per cent in the first six months of the year, but then "improved" - the opposite of what climate change advocates might say.
       Your CAT Telecom, for the second century in a row, announced it will spend mere billions of baht to build an optical fibre network for nationwide Internet traffic; in the 1900s, CAT built the fibre-optic network along the railways and then into your homes, remember that? No? Well, this time, director Thaneerat Siripachana said, CAT will invest six billion baht in what he called "the last mile project," a three-year programme that will give Cattelecom a great revenue source, but more importantly will allow everyone to have much better Internet service.