Compute This!

Today was a great day for computers. Went to the school with Mike after eating a light breakfast. Spent most of the morning and a bit of the afternoon on the computer. Did a lot of organizing e-mail and whatnot and worked on a programming project which I started helping out with this summer. I probably spent about an hour writing some new code and when I proceeded to try it out, I of course ran into some problems. As always, it turned out to be something completely simple and stupid. In my code I had called a function that set a couple of variables to what I wanted them to be, then, like the idiot that I am, I had placed my initializers after the function so that the variables I needed were empty. So, instead of this:

$this->helps = array();
$this->numHelps = 0;
$this->load($filename); //Sets $this->helps and $this->numHelps to useful values

I had this:

$this->load($filename); //Sets $this->helps and $this->numHelps to useful values
$this->helps = array();
$this->numHelps = 0;

It took me a while to figure out why the variables I needed were empty...

So, fortunately, I figured all that out just in time for going to Pantip. Pantip, as I am sure most if not all of the readers of this fantastic blog will not know, is one of the awesomest places in Bangkok. It is a 6-story building packed full of computer hardware, computer software, mp3 players and accessories, and any other sort of electronic item one could possibly want. Also, since it is in Thailand, the prices are good as marked and on top of that, if the price doesn't seem right, it's always an option to barter. Also, since it is a huge conglomerate of little shops there is plenty of competition and selection at the different shops. In summary, it is pretty much a computer-geek's heaven, but I am getting ahead of myself.

To get to Pantip we took a songtaew to the river taxi. While we were waiting on the dock for the river taxi, we decided to get drinks from a street vendor there (which were very well priced at 10 baht for about a 20oz glass bottle of Fanta). Mike got his and the vendor put it in a bag with ice (as in poured the bottle into a plastic bag with ice). This is a popular way to drink stuff in Bangkok apparently. When I was about to pay for mine, the river taxi pulled up so I wanted to hurry and tried to communicate to her (the vendor) that I did not want it in a bag with ice - I would simply drink it out of the bottle. She seemed to understand at first, but then kept saying something in Thai and gesturing at the bags and the ice. I had no idea what she was saying and both Mike and I tried to get her to understand that I just wanted the bottle. Finally, after some laughter on both sides and still having no idea why she wanted to pour my drink into a bag so badly, I gave in and let her do it. However, she did not put any ice in the bag which left me completely confused... After this whole ordeal we had missed the river taxi, but at least I had something cool and refreshing to sip on while we waited for the next one.

When we got to the stop that people at the school had told Mike to get off at, we were fortunate to find Pantip with almost no difficulty at all (since neither of us really knew where we were going). The main reason we were going there is that Mike's laptop power supply completely died yesterday and he needed a new one. We were doubtful whether or not we would be able to find a replacement, but in the second shop we walked into we found some power supplies, so that upped our spirits. When the shopkeeper came up, trying to help us, I told her we needed a 19.5V power supply and she just said "950 baht." I thought she was talking about the ones that we were looking at and had not understood me at all, but a little while later she handed Mike a 19.5V Dell power supply which had 950 baht written on the wrapping. She even let him try it out with his computer right there in the shop before he bought it. We found out later that the current was different than his old one, but looking online, the power supply he got is listed as being compatible with his computer. Also, he was able to get the shop keeper to sell it to him for 900 baht (I think he could've gotten it for less but there was some confusion because of the language barrier). After that, we simply looked around for a while - I was pretty much geeking out. I'm hoping there are some plazas like this one in Bangalore.

After returning from our journey to electronics paradise, we got together with some of the teachers and went to an awesome soup place called MK's (awesome name, I know - it's a chain). The format for food is that each table gets a pot with broth and then different things are ordered to go into the broth (we got vegetables, tofu, and an egg). Then, you put the ingredients in the soup yourself, cook it, and serve. It was pretty tasty indeed.

For a complete gallery of pictures from this episode, simply check out my picasa web album.