Schuimpge

Looking at the 'police-officer' in the picture, they still have a way to go explaining what a microphone is and how to use it.

Extremely well thought out plan... For the private sector to install wifi and everything for free, chances are that the BiB might actually switch on the automatic system again because they are too busy with facebook and online gambling.

I see major improvements in traffic-flow with this new technology..

Went through the airport last Thursday and Friday.

A breeze, walk in (internet checked in), get the boarding pass, changed money, carry on luggage check, immigration all in the span of 30 minutes.

On the way back...same thing...fast, efficient and easy. Walked outside, had a smoke, in the taxi, all within 30 minutes again.

Seems plenty of people here only experience or ridicule Suvarnabhumi airport in/over the peak holiday season and with the extra passengers of AirAsia and the likes.

They are all gone. Also gone are the waiting lines and all other trouble.

I used to be in favor of the old Don Muaeng Airport, but over the last 9 months, I've seen a lot, really a lot of improvements at Suvarnabhumi.

Many things you can do yourself to improve the experience there. Internet check-in for one.. Prepare yourself before you go through luggage check (pockets empty before you get at the X-ray machines...etc) With the new setup of carry-on luggage and customs after that, they made very good progress in the speed and flow of people. Customs is maybe not the fastest, but with the single waiting line and assigning passengers to the next free counter, the average time waiting came down a lot as well.

As I said, my experience has gone from quite negative to optimistic in about 10 months...

Lets compare apples to apples shall we...

2012: "Statistics show that rainfall in Bangkok this month alone has been the highest in 50 years, with more than 130mm recorded in some parts of the city in one day."

2011: up to 50% more rainfall north/central Thailand

Results:

2012: BMA, 3-4 hours of flooded roads....

2011: Government 3-4 months of flooded provinces....

The government failed miserably last year when the rest of Thailand had that much extra rainfall.

Mr. Plodprasob should have a serious look at how badly the government failed to handle a bit of extra rain last year before commenting on the BMA.

Aside from last year...how did those floodwalls in Sukhothai hold up again Mr. Plodprasob?....

RogueExpat, to be fair, I do agree 100% with you that these machines in the Chao Praya river would have zero effect.

However, upstream, there might be locations where it does work, but we're talking about Bangkok canals here.

Canals are ideal for this. Straight, narrow and mostly dammed/sluiced at both ends with pumps/gates regulating the water-level.

the only critical thing in this is...water at the end of the canal has to be pumped out at the same rate or higher, or the pushing machine will be useless (or inefficient) because of backflow...

Bingo!

If the water can't escape any quicker, all that happens is the water pushing machine, whatever size from outboard engine to 200,000 SHP nuclear oil tanker, creates a big circular eddy, or a raised area of water level in front of the bottleneck.

I can't believe some people are gullible enough to think there is a water pushing machine that can accelerate the draining of the Jao Praya River effectively. You'de need a low tide and a motor propellor combination in the millions of megawatts range.

Where you get the Chao Praya river in this picture?

They are talking about canals in Bangkok.

1. Canals in Bangkok are below sealevel...There's a couple of monstrous pumping stations south of Bangkok to empty them. These pumps are running with high-tide and with low-tide, natural flow empties the canals meaning that they canal water level is above low-tide sea-level and below high-tide sea-level.

If at low tide you can increase the speed of waterflow...then you are able to drain more in a fixed amount of time.

2. You confirm I'm right with my earlier posts (I think) with the 'bottle-neck'-remark...These bottle-necks (like bends/shallow parts) cause friction, slowing down the speed of water (and causing it to backup and overflow before the bottleneck. So a water-pushing machine would increase the flow in these spots and reduce the chance of higher water-levels upstream.

water-pushing machines

Still going on about this stupid waste of money are they. Some useless poo yai, or government minister certainly doesn't want to lose his face, or maybe emergency disaster relief money is too easy to graft from with the lack of bidding process and non political checks and balances.

The only large scale water puching machine available to man is gravity. So, you either have to raise the landmass or lower the sea level, which no matter how many promises that fool of a science minister makes, it aint gonna happen, pal.

Nonsense. Water-pushing machines work. They are also used in other countries. It is a fact that they increase the flow of water. So maybe you shoudl check your facts before you go spouting off about things you know nothing about.

Sorry: NOT TRUE... They do no work!!!

Maybe easier with an example.

I put a waterpump in a round bathtub...(fix it to the side with water outlet along the side of the tub.)

Switch it on and in a couple of minutes you will see that all the water in the tub is moving around...

That's (as far as I know) a waterpushing machine working....

Project that idea on a canal. Water-pushing machine...(and don't forget the pump at the end of the canal)...

The COMBINATION will make for a larger drainage capacity of the canal.

Oh and don't tell me the pump at the end will do...

If the pump is large enough, the waterflow alone could be in-sufficient to keep up with it, causing the pump to run dry or working at intervals only.

That's where you help the water moving faster by installing water-pushing machines further upstream to get it to the pump-area faster.

Subsequently, water moves into the canal faster as well...(given that there is enough water upstream to keep up with the demand. Which would be the case with wide-spread flooding).

water-pushing machines

Still going on about this stupid waste of money are they. Some useless poo yai, or government minister certainly doesn't want to lose his face, or maybe emergency disaster relief money is too easy to graft from with the lack of bidding process and non political checks and balances.

The only large scale water puching machine available to man is gravity. So, you either have to raise the landmass or lower the sea level, which no matter how many promises that fool of a science minister makes, it aint gonna happen, pal.

Nonsense. Water-pushing machines work. They are also used in other countries. It is a fact that they increase the flow of water. So maybe you shoudl check your facts before you go spouting off about things you know nothing about.

Sorry: NOT TRUE... They do no work!!!

Please provide some substantial reasons for it. Quite impossible to argue with it except maybe: Sorry: You are not correct.... They do work!!!

water-pushing machines

Still going on about this stupid waste of money are they. Some useless poo yai, or government minister certainly doesn't want to lose his face, or maybe emergency disaster relief money is too easy to graft from with the lack of bidding process and non political checks and balances.

The only large scale water puching machine available to man is gravity. So, you either have to raise the landmass or lower the sea level, which no matter how many promises that fool of a science minister makes, it aint gonna happen, pal.

Nonsense. Water-pushing machines work. They are also used in other countries. It is a fact that they increase the flow of water. So maybe you shoudl check your facts before you go spouting off about things you know nothing about.

Agree, people forget they are anchored. By any physics laws that I know, if you put a propellor in the water, driven by an engine, than something will move... the machines are anchored, something has to move, so that will be the water then.

the only critical thing in this is...water at the end of the canal has to be pumped out at the same rate or higher, or the pushing machine will be useless (or inefficient) because of backflow...

To protect Bangkok, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has prepared 40 water-pushing machines to drain water in city canals while the Royal Thai Navy Dockyard has prepared another 40 water-pushing machines.

Does anyone have a link to any information on these water pushing machines (not joking)? I would like to know the design and operation of these criters.

I've seen countless people laughing about these machines and how it's impossible.

Have seen some demonstrated during Navanakorn's testing of its floodwalls.

Not sure if most people realize, but the basic principle is a pontoon/boat with a large engine driving a propellor of course.

This boat is anchored to the side or a bridge over the canal.

So by any logic I can think of, the propellor creates movement of water that would normally move the boat in the water.

In this case, the boat is anchored, so instead, the water is moving, it has to.

Of course this will only work if at the end of the canal, the water is pumped out at least as fast as flow generated by the boat.

So, by creating this movement, water in a canal upstream of the boat gets slightly lower and downstream after the boat it will be slightly higher as it is pushed away towards a drainage pump that lifts it over the levee's out to sea.

This all means that the capacity of the canal increases, so does the inflow capacity of water because that boat pushes water faster downstream.

As long as the capacity of the pumps at the end of the canal is large enough, you could add more boats to move water even faster, thus creating more speed in which water is moving from start of canal to end of canal...

"80 degrees" means 40%, so any alcoholic drink under 40% alcohol content is going to increase by 120 B/liter. On a 660 mL bottle of domestic beer, that's 79.2 baht per bottle. So if you're paying, say 50 baht per bottle now, you'll be paying 129 baht per bottle when this goes into effect.

And we know that there are many bottles of imported alcohol that are already more than 400 baht per liter, so this is clearly a raise "by" 400 baht on imported alcohol, not "to" 400 baht.

Maybe it'll be a good thing, as I think some of my fellow contributors on this site have burned a few too many brain cells for any serious critical thinking, LOL. Just taking the piss, guys. Keep on chugging.

Only pissing yourself, already confirmed on a very english Thai newspaper that it's based on percentage of alcohol...meaning an average 5-10 baht increase for most local drinks

Just out, it's confirmed based on content...nothing to worry... So likely a 5-10 baht increase on beer.

Come on people. Where and when did you learn math? I saw someone saying that an increase of 120 baht on a 500 baht bottle would be 140%. What?

I have no memory of what a beer or a bottle or whisky costs but whatever.

Let's say a domestic 1 litre bottle 40% ABV whisky is 500 baht.

40% of 1 litre = 40cl.

It means that there is 40cl of alcohol in that bottle.

40% of 120baht is 48 baht. (120*0,40)

So that's a whopping 8 baht increase. That bottle would now cost 508 baht. Slow down people.

Or you could just multiply 120 baht by the beverages amount of alcohol. A 5,4% beer would increase by 6,48 baht.

I hope so, except for the article in the Nation (for what that is worth)...states very clearly: 120b per liter of local drinks...REGARDLESS OF ALCOHOL CONTENT...

That last sentence was left out of the TV copy..

We'll find out tomorrow I guess, but 1 bottle of Singha now at 55b would then cost about 110b...

Amazing, but to give another example: feb this year, a drunk guy without a license who has been taken of the road multiple times before, loses control of the car he is driving, kills a 16 year old girl.

The judgement:

- he is partially mentally disabled (who's not?)

- he is not allowed to drive for 5 years...? (He wasn't at all in the first place!!)

- sentenced to 15 months in jail (that's 10 real months as you only serve 2/3rd of yr sentence)

- minus off the jail time served before sentencing...he probably is free by end of this year...

That's in the Netherlands...considered a real democracy with a functional and developed justice system....

Count

Just professionally interested. Anyone here who has details on the HW/SSW/ASW used in the Central Server environment, the network infrastructure and the Client stations in the District Offices?

Count on it that it's an all windows environment. Never seen anything else but windows stations in government offices. Always running XP on the client side. Given the 'more than 10 years old' remark, my best guess would be windows server from 2000 period.

HW side is mostly Dell for clients.

do not know if its been said yet, but have seen different sizes for sale in Amorn(Tuk Com) Pattaya.

they might have some technicians able to install

For Amorn in Zeer Rangsit, the shop is dedicated to Solar Power equipment only. From Lights, inverters and batteries to panels, pumps and charge-controllers...Everything you might need.

I'm looking around for as much info I can get, renovating a new house next to my old one.

Since we are exactly at the East West axis, I'm planning to install panels on the roof.

Just a steel frame, horizontal, to lay down all the panels that can fit.

Electric will be 100% replaced with "proper European standards' work.

Main cost: batteries.

Good thing: My company recycles electronics, so lots of UPS's and other things that we get in.

Recently dismantled a Server Room including a large Battery backup room with 48 pieces of 2v batteries.

Each of them about 75kg, so no little ones that where used to backup around 50 racks of servers and other equipment.

Panels are getting cheaper. Or maybe I should say: you get more Wattage for the same price!

Cost-effective? Well, I'm running a lot of pumps and lights for my fish-tanks and due to the fact that I replaced and properly installed electric in my old one as well, it will be very easy to change groups from 220V to 12V or 24 V from the PV-installation or put an inverter in to supply 220V to all PV-connected outlets.

Aircons will be a different matter. I went to Amorn in Zeer Rangsit (Basement), where they have indeed every bit and piece of equipment you'd need. One of the guys (they are quite good on the technical / installation details), told me that at least 7 panels at 220W are necessary to power 1 aircon-unit. Batteries will be a monster, but it can be done.

Now, last...to calculate your requirements and to get estimates on the cost, try this website:

http://www.leonics.com/support/article2_12j/articles2_12j_en.php

Incredible detailed information to use for your first idea on cost and viability of your project.

Look forward to read more replies from other people on TV.

Once again, what I'd the point in the point in the main factory being underwater if even one of the suppliers and the roads are under.

For guarantee they ALL have to move to eastern seaboard.

If the factory is not flooded they can get back to work as soon as the flooding subsides. Also, the idea would be that suppliers don't get flooded either.

Sent from my shoe phone

It's an improvement. But it still sucks.

SSD took a big leap forward when the HDD supply was cattle trucked - and a lot of PC makers are now using 128GB SSD as the base now. That means companies like Western Digital and Seagate lost business that will never be recovered

HDD market was constrained for sure, but to say no recovery / reversal for HDD's is a bit much for me to accept.

Fact is that Toshiba is heavily investing and expanding its HDD-production by moving everything to Philippines, WD expanding in Navanakorn by buying over Toshiba's factories there and Seagate having had the luck of picking up a lot of production from the other 2 due to their factories not being flooded at all. There's no decline in capacity. There's expansion, big time...

Dykes are 50cm higher than the flood waters of last year? That seems a little overly confident.

They must be having dietary supplements

They calculated that more than 50cm would save it here but flood Bangkok's HiSo Burberry boots.

So they've kept it at only 50cm...

Seen companies here in Navanakorn building their own flood walls. Giffarine is pretty much finished at about 1 meter above last year's flood, but Belton's wall is impressive.

I Estimate at about 4 meters above the ground, which is 2 meters above last years flood level on that road with Tostem on the other side.

They are using concrete injection for the foundation, I guess because of sensitive machinery that can't stand the piling-earthquakes.

Above the ground it's all rebar and poored concrete. Fortress no less...

if they can afford to run a profitable company at only 10 or 9 months operation, they must have a pretty amazing company.

They probably can't afford to do that every year, or probably every 5 years, but they would look at the risks of it happening to that extent again (or within a time frame), and the costs of relocating and make a financial decision.

As for Canon, they had a plant in Korat already, started couple of years ago after deciding that Hanoi could not produce fast enough.

So what Canon has been doing is:

1. Flood Barriers around the Hi-Tech plant, keep producing there with a calculated risk.

2. Have the Nakornratchima, Korat plant as emergency backup if Hi-Tech would get isolated due to floods.

3. Have a contingency plan for critical equipment to move it to Korat and keep using them if it would come to flood again.

4. Renting extra warehouse-space in Korat for supplies and finished goods.

5. I've not heard anything about 304 to be honest.

My factory is located in Navanakorn. To me, it does not make sense to move because:

1. The floods of last year where (in my opinion) caused largely by gross mismanagement of Dams.

2. The subsequent flooding of Industrial Estates where largely caused by totally inadequate Earth Dams that where only capable of withstanding short-term flood-waters (Flash Floods if you wish). Anything longer than a couple of days undermined each of these dike's foundations and simply blew through it.

3. As for Navanakorn, the North and West side are largely done for the sheet-piling and will sure be finished in time. Main road (Tesco-BigC-Hospital is under construction, as is the south side). This sheet-piling dam will stop easily anything like last years flood and more.

4. Given that the main road was hardly flooded more than a few days, access to Navanakorn is no issue.

Overall, I don't expect anything serious happening this year or even next year. After that, we'll have to get more cautious as we all know how short-lived most Thai memories are.

why did he need google maps? does he not have a pair of eyes just to walk around.

It clearly makes the whole scam a lot more high tech and romantic with google map init?

Still I wonder how this scam works as the PIN used to withdraw cash is unique to the Credit Card number and checked against a database for each transaction (at least that's how I see it).

I was watching a shitty movie this week called "The Rise & Fall of a White Collar Hooligan" which deals with this exact same scam (apparently from a True Story) and I was in the impression that these guys wer eable to collect PIN codes with fake Credit Card Point of Sales which they swaped from time to time at various location wher ethey have accomplice.

If there is a way to create a fake credit card with the PIN code alongside. I certainly would like to know how (from a pure technical curiosity standpoint obviously).

A long time ago, I read a story in the papers in Holland on this.

Appears that what they do is:

1. dig up a transmission (telephone) line that sends and receives information between the ATM and the Bank's Servers.

2. Install a box that stores all information going between the ATM and the servers.

3. After a month or so, dig up the box and use the information to create fake cards with the details and pin-codes that where intercepted by the box.

Another way:

1. install a small camera above the ATM keyboard and slot

2. install a reader on the ATM card-slot

3. film people's card and their pin-code, as well as storing the card-information with the reader

4. remove the camera and the reader

5. create fake cards with that information.

So if either such thing was the case, then the article was right to say fake credit cards with victims in France as their originals where copied and their funds taken out.

And no, I'm no expert doing this kind of things nor do I intend to ever do anything that's not within the laws.

Cheers

[As for general expenses, Thailand is no longer cheap (if you actually want to 'live' and not exist that is) I cannot get by on less than 120k a month.

Oh no....here we go again...do you realise what you have done my son ?.....20 hail marys and wash your mouth out with soap right now

One has to wonder your requirements for living at 120K. OK only 2 of us, but my wife and I do fine on 30K. Bills/food/drink/truck and her fags.

Agree with the original poster on 120k. Depending on your level of comfort and living of course, but with 1 or 2 kids, cost go through the roof like a missile.

Something seems amiss with somebody's numbers?

That is perfectly normal, so don't worry about it..... it never bothers them.

What was the latest panic again? 45 million passengers currently per year?

At 80000 p/day, that's only 29 million, the 100,000 p/day only 36 million...

Nothing to worry about, but did I miss out on another 'season' outside of low-season and high-season?

LGBT

What does that stand for.

Lesbian

Gay

Bi

Tomboy...Well, did see the previous post with Trans-Sexual just after posting this...makes more sense indeed, but where does that leave the Tomboy?