dundas

Oppo A91, 3 months old, now running on their version of Android 10. No problems so far. 

You could join iTalki or similar and not accept any students from Thailand. 

Then it might be more of a technical transgression than flagrantly breaking the law. 

Man the smoke machine, man the smoke machine!

Bangkok Found, by Alex Kerr, if you can get hold of a copy. Written around 2010, but still relevant today. 

I think Pelosi's description of Trump is fair enough, given that his behaviour is that of a schoolyard bully. 

I have a four year old Macbook Air which has had a hard life accompanying me around Asia. I bought a basic iPad recently to see if it would be a suitable and lightweight replacement for the laptop. For me, the one advantage of the iPad is the touch screen and the ability to use a pen, but apart from that it offers very little. Especially if you use Apple products, adding a proper keyboard, cover and pen can bring the price up to near that of a laptop and you're still left with a glorified phone. Buy an iPad Pro and the price is way more. I sent my iPad back within the 30 day refund limit, I'll wait until this machine is on its absolute last legs and then I'll  buy a new Macbook Air. 

One of my memories is as a 12 year old riding my father's BSA (manual gears) into a fence (I can't remember the reason I lost control). It and I survived pretty well unblemished. 

I like the suggestion of putting the bike on the centre-stand with the front wheel up against the wall and practising going up and down the gears -- just make sure you don't sit back on the seat or the rear wheel might gain traction. Then I'd try practising starting and stopping, as has also been suggested here, getting used in particular to the take up point of the clutch, and co-ordinating the clutch and throttle. The empty car park idea sounds good. What else? You need to work out how the brakes on a motorcycle work. Jam on the front brake while you're turning and you may well come off. On the other hand, relying on the back brake alone won't stop you very well. I also like the idea of wearing full clothing (long pants etc, not shorts) and proper shoes. You might save yourself some skin, that way. Allow yourself some time, and have lots of practice. And consult youtube. There's a million tutorials out there. 

For what it's worth, I ride a Honda CB500X and compared to something like a Wave it's a lot safer on the road -- it has more power,  better handling, better brakes, is a lot more comfortable and is just as easy to ride (once you've mastered the manual gearbox). 

14 hours ago, lannarebirth said:

 

For the same reason they will support a 78/9 year old who speaks imcomprehensably, who also has temper tantrums; because they hate their neighbors and they will listen to or read anything that gives them a justification for hating their neighbors. It makes them feel superior to others, when in fact they are laughingstocks. In fairness some people support a given candidate because they will make more money under one or the other, but mostly it's just mass stupidity.

Agree. In my country and in the US, we suffer from the Murdoch Press, which a former politician in my country described as 'the politics of intolerance.' Trump has been aided, abetted and force-fed by Fox News. I hope that there'll be successful law suits for the misinformation that Fox spread in the early days of the virus. 

On 4/15/2020 at 5:09 PM, timendres said:

Interestingly, when I showed the Pattachote keyboard to my Thai employee, his response was "That is unusable". 555

Yep, I can understand that totally. It's what you're used to and what you're used to is probably what you've learnt on and forgotten about -- until confronted with a different layout. 

On 4/15/2020 at 6:34 PM, digbeth said:

Can you confirm that you have a physical Pattachote keyboard on your macbook, not just the key mapping in software? has the previous owner stuck on the thai stickers or get it lasered on themselves? cause if they just swap the keys around the roman lettering would be in the wrong place too.

For iOs device, you can search for Thai keyboard app with Pattachote layout 

It's the standard laptop's keyboard so it's what came with the computer when I bought it in Chiang Mai. No stickers on the keys.  It doesn't show the Thai characters on the keyboard, just the English ones. I think I was given the choice of whether I wanted an English or Thai keys when I bought it and I went for English.  It's virtual software, but it's exactly what Apple supplied. I've searched for Pattachote layout for the iPad, but didn't get very far. Buying a new MacBook Air or a new iPad was a difficult decision for me when I went for the iPad; now that I've played with it a bit, I'm happy to send it back and get another MacBook Air. 

11 hours ago, recom273 said:

Just clutching at straws, I noticed there are two different Thai keyboards available on my MacBook Pro. kedmanee and pattachote.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Kedmanee_keyboard_layout

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Pattachote_keyboard_layout

 

Take a look, your keyboard mapping shows pattachote, there doesn’t seem to be a function to set the iPad keyboard, it’s just “Thai”

 

 

Thanks for this. I looked up Pattachote and received an education. Pattachote is the newer keyboard, developed  in the interests of time/motion efficiency  and Kedmanee is the older version – supposedly more time consuming to use but still the more popular one. Once I knew that there was no easy solution to this, I called Apple, who are refunding me the purchase price of the iPad. I'll buy a new MacBook Air when this one finally expires, and I'll make sure it has Pattachote as the keyboard layout. Thanks again.  

6 hours ago, timendres said:

I have used MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Macbook, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 11, iPad 3, iPad Air, iPad mini.

None of them has a keyboard that looks like the one above.

That's what came with the product when I bought it from an Apple shop in Chiang Mai! Thanks for letting me know. 

I have a MacBook Air bought in Thailand three years ago, with a Thai language keyboard. More recently I've bought an iPad7 but the Thai keyboard that Apple supplies (or any other I can see in the App store) has a totally different configuration. 

Over the last year I have used the MacBook Air to teach myself how to touch type in Thai. Now that I've reached the stage of having muscle memory embedded in the hands (I no longer have to think about where characters are on the keyboard),  If I start to use the Thai keyboard on the iPad I will have to unlearn where everything is, and start from the beginning, and if I move between the two, it's going to be on-going confusion. 

Does anyone have a solution for this? What I would like is a Thai keyboard on the iPad that most closely resembles the keyboard on my MacBook Air. The attachment is an image of my MacBook keyboard.  

Thanks!

If you use the search term 'airasia' and 'fly though' in your browser you should find the info you need. 

Basically, if you have two point to point tickets, good luck. Assuming these are both international flights, you will almost certainly have to clear immigration/customs from your inbound flight, and check in landslide.  

If you have a 'fly-thru' ticket (both flights on the one ticket, made in the one booking), it's going to be a lot easier. 

In Australia, the Captiva is a most unloved vehicle, called 'Craptiva' by most people who were foolish enough to buy one (sold as a Holden, but from the same factories).

Holden in Australia/NZ, a brand that had 50% of the Australian new vehicle market in the 1960s, is being closed down simply because after decades of GM mismanagement no-one would be foolish enough to buy it.  It has zero value, or worse. 

The Thai factories have apparently been sold to Great Wall Motors of China. 

In sending airmail packages from Thailand to US/Canada I once calculated a failure rate (ie, truly excessive delivery times of more than 35 days or the parcel goes missing altogether) of around 2%. The tracking goes off line after it leaves Thailand, and can stay off line for an awfully long time (four weeks isn't all that unusual). Then as someone body else mentioned, once it gets through customs it's possible to see progress again. I have since learned to tell customers in US/Canada to expect that, so there's less need to hold hands nowadays than what there was in the past. 

About six years ago, I paid more than THB60,000 for an implant (ie, extraction of old tooth, fitting of implant and fitting of crown) in Chiang Mai, the work was done over a period of about 12 months. I wasn't happy with the pricing which started out sounding very reasonable and then kept shifting upwards, plus the continued upselling pressure from the dentist, for, eg, bone grafts, which in my case at least weren't necessary. I paid for the most expensive implant offered, but to this day don't know whether or not that or the cheapest possible was provided (in fairness, so far it's been trouble-free). In addition I noticed some concerning practices, such as the dental assistants staying in the room when x-rays were being taken. If they were that careless with their own health and safety, what risks were they taking with mine? Since then I've had two implants done in Australia for not much more than THB60,000 each (fixed price: implant: $A1500; crown: $A1350, variable extra for extraction of old tooth, and x-ray), and for which I get health insurance reimbursement of just under THB40,000 per tooth. My Australian dentist sees Thailand as his competition and so prices accordingly; he guarantees his work (ie, refund or re-work) if the implant fails, and what's also reassuring (because I am in Australia more than I am in Thailand) is the ability to time visits (extraction of the old tooth, placement of implant, fitting of crown) sufficiently apart to ensure maximum chance of success. In other words, I don't think it's just about the price; other factors I would consider are whether or not the dentist guarantees their work; whether the quoted cost is fixed or variable; whether there's a reasonable time available to have the work done (and not incur expensive travel costs), whether I can trust the dentist to run a professional practice (eg, health and safety), and whether I can trust them to actually fit the implant they promote to me. 

I was harassed by lady boys when I went to KL on a visa run in 2010, if that's what you mean ... 

Official letters don't carry much weight, it seems. I wonder what does?

I'm a regular visitor to Thailand and have spent four months this year on visa waiver entries. March, then July, followed by a week in Japan, August, and then November (entry from Japan again, although I am Australian). I don't think I'm in breach of any published rule, but I've started bringing the equivalent of THB20.000 with me. I haven't been asked to show the money -- yet. All arrivals so far have been in BKK. Next time, instead of flying THAI, I'm thinking I'll fly SG/Silkair and clear immigration in Chiang Mai. And yes, maybe I should get a tourist visa, but that is such a PIA. I don't even want to check in a bag when I go on holiday, let alone go through any visa getting process. 

Hello, OP, what's happening with you? 

The only visa run I've done was from Chiang Mai  to KL, but even then I had an overnight stop.

Not sure how returning on the same day would look to Immigration, or if it makes no difference.