autonomous_unit

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My argument is simply this:

1. Metaphysical speculation is a waste of time

2. Take a “leap in the dark”, preferably in something close to your own traditions – but this is not important – if you look hard enough you will find the right one.

3. Within these parameters work hard at learning to live with yourself and relating to others as equals.

4. Through these actions and often because of them we will slowly become aware of essential truths rarely available in the cold, rationality of “atheistic knowledge”.

5. These truths cannot be measured or weighed, but only demonstrated by the quality of our actions as observed by others.

6. In the final analysis though, only our intentions are of any value.

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Yes, I think we agree on most of these. I am not sure metaphysical speculation is always a waste of time, in as much as it can help hone critical thinking and show us our limits (just as with the "sound of one hand" exercise did for its recipient). But it is probably ineffective to repeat Descarte's attempt to deduce the nature of reality from his own belly-button.

I only would add that it is useful to remember which way you leapt in the dark, so you can fumble back to the starting point if you seem to be hitting a wall. One thing though: I am not advocating atheistic knowledge (just another form of faith) but rather agnostic uncertainty. Also, you might be discounting some interesting essential truths found in cold rationality, just as I may discount some found in ritual and tradition. Do you have any opinions on whether our preferences come from different experiences, upbringing, or fundamental natures?

Also, intention is important but probably not the only value? Is a father rushing home to help his child less at fault if he happens to be drunk, and kills someone on the way? Hmm, perhaps I should have spent the time trying to fold that around into some timeless, Zen koan.

Despite what you are concluding, it is not belief or knowledge that separates us:

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But it is the treatment of belief and knowledge that seems to divide us, though I am of course more interested in trying to find clarifying statements in this whole discussion than in learning specifically what your worldview contains... maybe I missed your whole point, because I found the sanzen story to be less than profound, and bordering on non sequitur. The value of those lessons is not in how some student gained insight, but that the student did so. This is what makes them "personal guidance", afterall, and why they require a master teacher's touch...

I think for most people in this discussion, "knowledge" or "knowing" represents a category of thoughts which are axiomatic: we use them in our reasoning without any concern that they are wrong, perhaps because we trust the source of the information (an external authority or our senses) or perhaps because we can derive it from other knowledge using reasoning methods we believe are sound. Conversely, I think "beliefs" or "believing" represents thoughts which are conjectures: we choose to adopt them but recognize that this was a choice of ours rather than an attempt at deduction from our existing knowledge.

I think you are using the terms in a compatible way, in claiming that adopting (by faith) an existing religious practice, you "know" that you become "aware of what is real and is unreal." I believe that this process of converting belief into knowledge, through faith, is very much at the center of the discussion. Those of us who are skeptics of religion do not claim to be right or wrong---we consider the problem to be unresolvable and question the soundness of "your" methods.

I disclaim the ability to have knowledge that is anything other than beliefs... beliefs which I, out of pragmatic necessity, choose not to question for some duration. I do not entirely trust my own senses or observations, and I certainly cannot trust another party as much as I do myself. I have no faith; I cannot trust! And to be clear, this is not because I somehow suspect myself of being sub-par, but rather because of my overall assessment of the human condition. I think knoweldge is a fool's game.

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I know (as compared to “I believe”) that having once taken this step, slowly but slowly, one becomes aware of what is real and what is unreal. ...

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Perhaps you already know this, but the above statement is exactly the dividing point between a "rational" philosophy and a "faith-based" one. I come down on the other side of the fence, believing that I can only believe some things _more_ than other things, but never truly know anything. Science develops a system of theories that are interconnected, but no honest scientist would ever assert that any of them are absolute, hard fact. The most we can say is that they are not demonstrably inconsistent with observations so far. If I ever pretend to know something, it is understood as a practical assumption to simplify life decisions until I assume a new set of "facts".

My next comment treads dangerously close to sounding offensive, but for the sake of discussion let me try: I feel that people who willingly convert belief into knowledge are essentially deluding themselves for comfort's sake. If you were to share this view, you would strive to recognize and _counteract_ leaps of faith in your thinking, rather than embrace them! They distort our view of reality... I distrust all organized religions because I cannot draw the line between them and "cults", where the same sorts of self-reinforcing group-think and brain-washing techniques are applied to suppress individual, critical thought.

I am not suggesting that you are wrong and I am right, but to me this is the interesting kernel of difference. What makes some people go for one mental discipline or the other? Is it specific life experiences? Differences in physiological structure? Some combination of the two? I see the metaphysical question as: we must understand the nature of our mental existence before we can even bother with the existence that might surround it...

Yes, it is not so much that this is a bad topic for beers but for beers with unknown personalities.

I enjoy hearing what other people think, and particularly if they are the type who can explain why they think what they do... it's equally interesting to see HOW people view their own learning (or conditioning, if we want to bring in the Dogs Thinking Or Not topic) as much as WHAT they learned.

But as a kid watching adult political debates in the barbershop etc., I soon realized I did not have the patience or interest to get into discussions with people who cannot be satisfied with lingering differences of opinion. I think it is odd how people can sometimes get enraged by the mere presence of conflicting beliefs and need to snuff them out.

The irony, I suppose, is that while I think my viewpoint is rational, I disapprove of missionary sentiments since I cannot be sure I am right; so people with my views will remain a silent minority while others go around trying to spread their "truths". Acceptance of the unknowable pretty much leads to ambivalance, I guess.

...

Just the idea of going to the long black sleep makes me a uncomfortable while I'm awake 

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Otherwise... all of this is just a big waste of time  (and space) 

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I am drawn to the idea that our discomfort with the Big Bang is the same perspective problem as with Death. The very idea of "the other side" comes from our unwillingness to conceive of "me" no longer being there to observe it and delimit it. Grief is kind of like that too... people disappear but we ache with this person-shaped hole in our worldview until it slowly collapses into abstraction.

I try to steer clear of such topics over drinks, because too many people get riled up by my belief that there is no purpose, nor soul, nor consciousness other than the flickering patterns cooking in our little self-absorbed brains. They want to cure me, or save me, or assure me of life's meaning, assuming I must be distraught to have such ideas.

Similarly, I cannot fathom how life could be a "waste of time" just because there might not be some guy writing the script, or keeping score, or handing out prizes at the end... it seems pretty cool all on its own, if you ask me.

This topic does get all mixed up with different views on racism etc. I share the idea above that I don't feel any special fondness for people just because their freckles match mine. Sometimes I wonder if I might overcompensate and acknowledge them less than I would in the west, but then I've always had people thinking I am grumpy until they know me.

There are also many minor variations in the west, depending on whether you spent more time in cities, suburbs, or rural areas. The East Bay Area around San Francisco had a lot more friendly, almost rural, attitude towards greeting people when I was growing up. You'd give and expect a friendly hello or at least "hey" or "'lo" from people passing on a quit street, and maybe a pause and some smalltalk if neither was in a hurry. But get into a more crowded space and it starts shifting to just a nod and then finally an attempt to not make "rude" eye contact unless you know the person. I've noticed people seem more insular there now too.

I was in Boston recently and could not help noticing that people had the most "rude" tendancy to make eye contact with every stranger passing by, including me glancing out a pub window as they passed. I thought for a moment I was back in Bangkok being stared at for being a big&tall farang!

Going back to the original post - you could try the true2m 25 baht/hour temporary upgrade. - if you know when you're going to be using VOIP during the times of day when True's regular performance is bad. (I would say ######ing crap but that will probably get blanked out...)

From posts last year, it seems to get guaranteed bandwidth so that people switching to it from nominally faster packages noticed a big improvement.

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Thanks for the reminder! I don't know why I forgot about that upgraded login option. I managed to find some of those threads via google, but for one last stupid question, does anyone have comparative experience of the true2m 25 baht/hr login versus the SME service? Staying logged into true2m all the time would add up to about 18k baht a month, so SME would sure be more convenient than having to modify the router settings all the time.

...

BTW Is it me or is this subject discussed over and over again, leading to the same talk?

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Yeah, I think it is. I was reluctant to post but I couldn't find something directly going at the angle that is my main concern... consistent middle-of-the-road service at consumer prices. I think the frequent questions about ADSL and GPRS are just evidence that there are gaps in the available services here.

You almost need a FAQ list to cover the status of broadband here, but the problem is that in the end it is like reporting the weather. Is it hot, or is it ###### hot? There are lots of subjective concerns about QoS for different types of users that are not captured in X/Y Kb/s and Z baht/month. For example, I tried to emphasize VOIP applications because that is what is hurting me; I agree that home ADSL works OK for batch downloads that can run all day or night. I just don't care about that use case.

I think there are a group of us IT types who have seen so much better service around the world that we just want to get back some small fraction of it here. I've been spoiled by connections in the U.S. where the local link is the bottleneck, rather than the backbone to the world... even when the local link was gigabit over fiber.

Thanks, I'll take a closer look at the SME packages. Do you know if individuals can subscribe or whether we should plan to use our LLC for that? We plan to reregister the LLC at the new location, and I am only worried about that causing delays in getting new Internet service going without unbounded disruptions. I was on GPRS for several months while we sorted out the last True line...

As for the daily connection severing, I noticed that was 24 hrs after the last time my router got a new WAN address on the home service (or more frequently if connections idled too long). I thought someone said the SME plans have a static address; but these connection resets happen anyway? I shouldn't be surprised but that sure is silly.

I've seen lots of related topics but nothing particularly current or practical. We've been using True ADSL 1024/512 service for the past 6 months or so in Bangkoknoi. It has proven to have pretty good outbound service, often approaching 500 Kb/s for transfers. However, the inbound remains highly variable, meaning realtime uses like VOIP/conferencing are not feasible most of the time. I do see 1000 Kb/s once in a while for transfers, but often it goes below 200 and it varies over short periods as if they are queueing traffice too much. Quite often, if I try H.323 or other VOIP solutions, I get good sound quality from me to the international person but unusable sound coming back in.

We may be moving house to Nonthaburi in the next few months and I am trying to understand what our options are for a new connection. I think our True service is very cheap at around 900 baht a month or less, so I am not afraid to pay a bit more to remedy the performance problems. However, I do pause at the thought of paying ten times as much for 1024/512 that "works right"... I would want some pretty terrific multi-megabit service for 10k baht/month! I also am interested in symmetric performance so it is no good to me to get more inbound but start reducing the outbound below what I have now.

Does anyone have practical experience to compare, say, True 1024 and higher rate services? Does the international performance improve at all, i.e. do they prioritize your traffic any better as the service plan goes up? Or do you get the same crappy sub-512 performance variations w/ 1024, 2048, and 4096 services?

What about these "SME" services? Are there any that will give something in the range of 512-2048 in both directions without breaking the bank? Again, I am concerned with practical international performance and not local link or Thai-only internet speeds. I'm not limiting myself to True, but I am hoping we can find something in this performance range for 1-4k baht/month (the lower the better).

The problem is you need something (someone) intelligent to categorize the different pieces of information. The PDF format is not a structured data format like XML, but rather a procedural drawing format like Postscript.

The apparent table format of the document is not because of an underlying table, but because of a list of commands to draw a bunch of outlines and then a bunch of commands to place text at certain coordinates on the page. We see a table because we are visually parsing the page in two dimensions.

Partial output of ps2ascii on your linked PDF (records 2-5 of first page):

2

1X40' LCL CONTAINER 16 PALLETS STC: 430 BAGS, 50 CARS, 4 CTNS AND 2 DRUM OF (FEED GRADE) SINGAPORE 12.6 16 PALLETS 001X40FT ASIA POULTRY FEEDS

PVT LIMITED ADISEEO ASIA PACIFIC PTE LTD

3 1X20' LCL CONTAINER STC: 1 PALLET OF LABEL SINGAPORE 0.586 1 PALLETS 001X20FT AHMED LACE WORKS (PVT) LTD PRESTIGE LABEL PTE LTD 4

1X40' LCL CONTAINER STC: 9 PACKAGES (9 CASE) OF CANON PRODUCTS SINGAPORE 2.38 9 PACKAGES 001X40FT GEMCO CANON SINGAPORE PTE LTD

5

1X40' LCL CONTAINER 7 PACKAGES STC: 1 CARTON, 6 CASE OF CANON PRODUCTS SINGAPORE 0.927 7 PACKAGES 001X40FT GEMCO CANON SINGAPORE PTE LTD

To give an idea of what you're up against, here is the Postscript representation of the first row. Note that the text commands are not even whole fields, but rather smaller pieces having to do with layout on the page. You would really need some sort of visual parsing strategy to try to group together text items that live in one "cell outline" that is drawn on the page, attempting to reconstruct the text field by concatenating fragments left-to-right and top-to-bottom within that bounding box. Not fun at all...

(1) 4.71911 Tj

128.5 409.5 Td

-0.2821 Tc

0.3191 Tw

(1X20' LCL CONTAINER STC: 4 ) 122.841 Tj

128.5 399 Td

-0.3554 Tc

0.3257 Tw

(PALLETS OF FERROUS ) 97.6329 Tj

128.5 388.5 Td

-0.3842 Tc

0.5212 Tw

(FUMARATE USP) 66.4919 Tj

261.5 388.5 Td

-0.4256 Tc

0 Tw

(ROTTERDAM) 53.752 Tj

326.5 388.5 Td

-0.1534 Tc

(3.448) 21.236 Tj

451.5 388.5 Td

-0.226 Tc

(4) 4.71911 Tj

459.5 388.5 Td

-0.3319 Tc

(PALLETS) 37.2691 Tj

516 388.5 Td

-0.2108 Tc

(001X20FT) 39.6286 Tj

563 399 Td

-0.2921 Tc

0.1791 Tw

(BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB ) 106.12 Tj

563 388.5 Td

-0.2682 Tc

0.4052 Tw

(PAKISTAN \(PVT\) LTD) 84.893 Tj

675.5 399 Td

-0.2526 Tc

0.1396 Tw

(M/S. MALLINCKRODE ) 89.1368 Tj

675.5 388.5 Td

-0.2089 Tc

0.3459 Tw

(BAKER B.V.) 47.1741 Tj

95.5 343.5 Td

-0.226 Tc

I would not be surprised if someone here thinks they have the answer, but I would be surprised if they actually did.

As Sir Burr and mgnewman said, the theoretical models around the Big Bang describe how space itself started out as a singularity and expanded. These models try to explain the peculiar physical observations we've accumulated, looking from the inside outward. It does not say that the Big Bang started in a vacuum, but rather that the Big Bang started the universe itself. We have no observations from outside this bubble of space-time, so we cannot have any scientific theories about some context beyond it.

Whether the Big Bang happened in some kid's chemistry set, or some solipsist's imagination, or in a big block of cheese, we cannot know without some breakthrough in our observational methods... One explanation for the presence and commonality of religious thought about origins is indeed that human nature has a deep discomfort when confronted with such an absolute wall of uncertainty or unknowing. We like to put labels and stories on everything!

[which distribution?

will any ftp server sufice for storage?

i would like a folder on the server to be mapped as a drive in my system....is it possible?

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Assuming you have windows or OSX clients, the important bit is getting "samba" configured on the Linux storage server to export filesystems so that the windows clients can mount them. I've never used this myself, but have heard good things about it in general. See www.samba.org for more documentation than you can shake a stick at. Just browse the FAQs etc. You do not need to download it, as it comes standard in most Linux distributions.

Mind you, I would guess there is an equivalent easy way to do this with a Windows PC as the server, if that is more comfortable to you; I mentioned Linux because it is free and it is what I am familar with on PCs.

The real point of my post was that these SOHO storage appliances are not really worth their value in hardware; they're selling the convenience of the appliance and a web-configuration interface for low-volume use. You'll pay several hundred dollars for a tiny box w/ maybe an 80 or 100 GB disk. If you need more space over time, it is definitely cheaper to buy a small PC and be able to add several big 160, 320 GB etc. drives as the need arises.

Choosing a Linux distirbution is easy, in that there are so many good ones out there. The best advice is to try to use one that is used by some friends so that it is easier to pressure them into helping you later.

...

even anything to connect the usb hard disk to the network as a network disk would be gr8(i dunno if its possible) the same like how a print server connect a usb printer to the network...

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There are SOHO storage servers that resemble a "broadband" router with one IDE disk and/or a USB2 port in them to act as a little fileserver. However, outside their niche "storage for dummies" market, they are not very cost effective. For the $200-500 they seem to cost, you could build up a capable, headless PC server and have the ability to add multiple large drives over time. Linux can make a cheap storage server and is probably what is running in the SOHOstorage appliances anyway.

Thanks for the replies. I do not want to do any work in Thailand if it is not legal. But as was mentioned, the area is gray. I've done my consulting in a number of countries and in some it's considered work, in others not. When I can't even a reply from the embassy I suppose it is a gray zone even for the authorities.

...

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I do not think you will get any legal advice that suggests it is OK. The letter of the law is that you need a work permit, and to do that you need a Thai employer and sufficient reason for the Labor Dep't to approve your permit for the kind of professional work you plan to do. The spirit of the law varies depending on who is looking at your case and perhaps on whether you are liked or not.

In practice, going the legal route will get you lots of gov't officers looking at you funny and telling you that you didn't need to do any of this. But that is not legally binding advice, and you would need to evaluate your own risks as well as the risks to your overseas employer, should you work unofficially and somehow get hassled.

Maybe some of the posters here should look up the word "anthropomorphism".

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Yes, I did that but then I started to doubt that all these people around me are really self-aware individuals.

Hmm, I've just realized that my sig can relate to cultures as well as people!

Coming from California, I also think a Mexican restaurant would be difficult to run profitably here. It would have to be a pure marketing thing, i.e. some Mexican imagery while more or less remaining Thai food. (In other words, exactly what Taco Bell is to Americans). It's hard enough finding Americans who agree on what Mexican food is, ranging from Baja style or Southwestern grilled items to greasy mush made from various combinations of cheese and beans. A fair number of people think they like salsa and guacamole, but don't even try to get them to eat interesting chiles or real took-two-days mole.

I have noticed many Thais take a very schematic approach to food, for example considering some stir-fried noodles and ketchup to be the same as spaghetti bolognese. Perhaps because they expect this, they will not bother tasting it before trying to manufacture a new flavor out of a cupboard full of spices and additives... so I guess a richly developed sauce in some authentic Mexican food might go underappreciated. I would imagine a family-style, fajitas type of presentation with lots of different salsas, chilis, and fresh herbs might go over better. The general distaste for cheese in Asia also trims out a number of Mexican dishes.

It's taken me some time to understand it, but despite the presence of certain strong flavors, Thai food can be very simple and even bland! I finally understand what was meant when some Thais told me that Thai people in general do not like Indian food because "it is too spicy." I think Mexican food falls somewhere in between.

If dogs could communicate in human languages, I wonder what they would say about their owners who left them in the street.

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Sadly, they would probably try to explain to you how their owners had not _really_ left them on the street, but rather had to go take care of their sick mother. The owners would be back any minute now, for romps in the park and a nice rub behind the ears. After all, they and their owners have a special bond.

Again, I cannot really tell whether this answers the original question of whether dogs are aware or not...

There is a particular species of bird in Scotland, the name escape's me ,annualy it burie,s over 30,000 seed's in designated location,s ,when winter come's they retrieve no more than 80% of that stash ,a large amount of cogitative process must take place to undertake such a task .

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So, do they build little grain silos and try to keep other birds away, or do they scatter it everywhere and then spend the winter randomly pecking for seeds? I've seen people with about the same organizational skills, so I am still not sure what this says about cognition.

...after all the deaf use languag that has no utterance's but it is sill a form of communication ,and most of them have a sense of being

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Nice point! I always have my doubts when someone repeats the claim that we "think in our language." What a sadly limited view to have of ones own mind! That's the kind of circular statement I expect to hear from a computer some day when they are a lot more user-friendly than now. I assume your thread wasn't really supposed to be about soi dogs, and so I continue rambling.

I've had dreams "in" my native or foreign languages, but that was clearly about using, or struggling to use, the language to communicate my thoughts. It's kind of like having dreams using one mode of transportation or another; you may be struggling with the ignition key or the steering wheel, but the presence of the car is not necessary in wanting to go somewhere.

I think the core of our thoughts and self-image is rooted in these much older systems which are shared (partially) with many different animals. The ability to look an animal in the eye and empathize comes from recognizing these commonalities and assuming they go deeper. Obviously, there is a lot more room for error when trying to empathize with an animal with vastly different physiology, sense capabilities, or social structures. There's a standard philosophy question of whether a man can ever appreciate what it is like to be a bat (the little flying mammal), what with its echo-location and flight capabilities. Perhaps it would be easier for a dolphin to appreciate the bat, or for a jet fighter pilot who has learned to navigate in 3-space and to comingle his personal boundaries with the airplane and its avionics, radar, etc.? But do they have joy in flight, as many people do, and as stallions seem to have in "flying" low over their own landscapes?

Relating to other humans is a much simpler, yet still tricky problem. The ability to functionally communicate about life's necessitites in a brand new culture, using gestures, eye contact, and so on is similarly rooted in something much deeper than language! Here's a brain teaser to chew on over drinks with your multi-lingual friends: what percentage of your (their) thoughts do you (they) feel able to communicate in different languages? I've heard some start at 100% for their native tongue, and other relative values for seconds and thirds. But some, like me, will say something more like 20-40% for our native tongues. Order another round, and ask why...

Of course they think, although one wonders whether they entertain such abstract thoughts as "do humans actually think, or only learn to respond to my commands for food and respect?"

Any authority who claims otherwise is operating with peculiar notions of what thought is all about, has lived a life completely isolated from animals and their rich and clever antics, or does not offer them the same escape from behaviorist dogma that they afford their human peers. (Note, some folks think their home appliances have personalities and/or vendettas against them, so I'm afraid you may be stuck working this one out yourself.)

I have successfully commanded "Thai" dogs (not soi dogs) using English and my feeling is that the interaction is mostly based on mood/assertiveness. I tested this further by interacting with "English" dogs using a bizarre mishmash of profanity and non-English vocabulary, while maintaining the expected emotional tone for each command. Results are more varied when dealing with human subjects...

Interestingly, rats have apparently been shown to be able to distinguish different human languages, at the level of "Japanese sounds mean food is over there"... nobody is getting rats to chuckle at French puns, except doze doity rats at de bistro. Goofy behaviors surrounding language are easy to mistake for emergence of thought, so I'd pay more attention to basic things like problem solving, route planning, and deceptive play.

This may sound more complicated, but there is no need to consider this an all or nothing decision... I think you need to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations of desired performance, availability, recurring maintenance hassle, cost, etc.

You could get a hosted service for email and even the doorstep of your website, and still run a cheap server for the bulk data you wish to host (it's the web, so link from one server to another!). You might not be bothered by the hiccups of dynamic IP addresses. Also, depending on where and how often you are producing this data, it might be more convenient to be able to walk up and transfer data locally to the server rather than transferring it slowly over your ADSL to a remote server, etc. This all depends, of course, on what you really meant by saying the data might never get accessed. It's all about the bandwidth, in the end.

I don't run websites, but for my peculiar service availability requirements and budget, I have opted for a hosted email service with secure IMAP and SMTP service to retrieve and send email. I run my own personal Linux "server" hanging off residential ADSL/cable modem to actually retrieve email, run spamassassin, and run another IMAP server where I actually point my client. This gives me abundant software RAID storage, and a friendly enough environment to get a host rebooted or hand-held once in a while. At the same time, I worry about my own backup and geographic redundancy so that I am not too upset if the remote server goes south for a few days.

I've actually put one such server with friends in North America, and have plans to keep one at home in BKK. I keep procrastinating because the remote one already has reduced my worries enough that I am taking the risk w/ my laptop here. I've had to work off mirrored data and directly access my hosted email once via laptop, when the remote server somehow wasn't served a gateway router address when it rebooted via DHCP (crappy SOHO routers...). That did take about 36 hours to sort out from 12 timezones away...

I've felt your pain a little...

Here in BKK, we compromise by using a duvet cover without the insulation and keeping the thermostat around 24 C automatic, so aircon doesn't run that much during the night until peak hot season.

Also, I'd guess a large amount of clothing speaks to her overall sense of security or shame! Thai middle/upper class like you've described can have very conservative, almost puritan notions engrained in them, moreso for the girls. It took my wife years to relax some of her prudish upbringing (prudish compared to my, ahem, exposure to naturist practises in California). Be understanding, patient, and encouraging of gradual change if you're serious about marrying...

Thanks, all.

It figures that if I would have know the right sub-forum to post to, I would have seen a long thread on gas bottles before. I completely agree regarding the safety concerns for the bottle, but was confused as to why the Thais we spoke with seemed to think the stove itself was a hazard. Perhaps we just accidentally asked gas-paranoid locals?

I think we figured out a better place to put a laundry machine, so we'd probably build up the current outdoor kitchen to house a stove w/ the bottle removed off 5 meters or so down the outside wall... now we just need to actually buy the house or not!

Most of these router devices only do firewalling and NAT between the WAN and LAN interfaces, which in the case of the DSL-G604T is the DSL link on the WAN side. Their configuration interfaces are just too limited to do anything more exotic, even though the underlying embedded Linux OS most certainly could support more.

I have used combo router/wireless access point/switches as a dumb access point by cross-connecting one of the LAN ports to a LAN and leaving the WAN port disconnected. Of course, this is probably only sensible if you are working with components you already own, since a dumb access point should normally be less expensive than a combo router device.

On the other hand, if the new device has the features you want at the price you like, there is no reason to feel wedded to your old DSL modem. Just switch to using the new one, and keep the old one around as a backup...

An ethernet "uplink" port is nothing but a cross-wired port. You can improvise with a cross-over cable, and many newer ethernet chips actually seem to do auto-sensing to act as either a normal or uplink depending on what the peer on the cable is doing.