To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. -- George Orwell


Essay

Categories

8888, America, Asean, book review, Burma, Burmese dictionary, China, Constitution Referendum, culture, Cyber attacks, Dr. Kyaw Thet, Dunwoody, Famous Burmese, Harry Shorto, Karen, Kayan, Khmer, laos, McNeil Tech, migrants, milk powder, minorities, Mon, Nargis, Natural Resources, Nay Phone Latt, Nelson Mandela, Obama, Padaung, photos, politics, prison, Rangoon University, sex industry, Shan, Thailand, unicode

Reflections

A Burmese student running after his death To the Future


Burmese unicode converter

I thought I would share this Perl script I have written to convert Burmese unicode from version 4.1 to 5.1. If any of you find it useful, please feel free to use it with GPL license. If you find any bugs, please let me know.

Download it here.

Posted at 08:00 Aug 02, 2008 | Tagged as: | WriteBacks (0) | permalink

Hope

From New York Times regarding Barack Obama's victory for the Democratic nomination:

"We as black people now have hope that we have never, ever had," Mr. Sam-Brew [an immigrant from Ghana] said. "I have new goals for my little girl. She can't give me any excuses because she's black."

Posted at 08:00 Jun 05, 2008 | Tagged as: | WriteBacks (0) | permalink

Emma Lazarus's The New Colossus

Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American poet. She wrote "The New Colossus" in 1883, that is now engraved on a bronze plaque on a wall in the base of the Statue of Liberty.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Paul Auster wrote that "Bartholdi's gigantic effigy was originally intended as a monument to the principles of international republicanism, but 'The New Colossus' reinvented the statue's purpose, turning Liberty into a welcoming mother, a symbol of hope to the outcasts and downtrodden of the world".

At the Statue of Liberty in New York

Posted at 08:00 May 02, 2008 | Tagged as: | WriteBacks (0) | permalink

Burmese-English dictionary

I have been busy working with the visual input system for our dictionaries. Check out the beta version for Burmese.

Go to http://burmese.sealang.net

Click on the keyboard icon (on your left panel) as shown in the following picture.

Click on the input characters so you can see the prediction. Please wait for a fraction of a second (because of the server delay) after you click on the characters. You will see the predicted Burmese words based on the dictionary order as in the following picture.

Warning about fonts


Ludu Daw Amar's Funeral

Ko Hla has pictures of Ludu Daw Amar's funeral.
Posted at 08:00 Apr 10, 2008 | Tagged as: | WriteBacks (0) | permalink