OneMoreFarang

I was still young at that time. But I was old enough to understand the significance of what Gorbachev did and the fall of the Berlin wall. At that time many of us were optimistic that the cold war was over. No two opposing powers anymore with lots of nuclear weapons pointing at each other - and all those little countries in between. The future looked bright. Yeah, that was a long time ago. And then the powerful in this world found enough reasons to continue to fight each other, wage war in some other peoples' countries, produce and sell lots of weapons, .... I don't know if we were stupid at that time to be optimistic or if there was a real change for a better world at that time. RIP

Welcome to Thailand!

I guess she was frustrated. Weeks of holiday in Thailand and no bloke even looked at her. All those guys were only interested in those little brown bar girls. Yes, it must be frustrating for some women. ????

Again, such a stupid number. Will the drug lords now miss 29 billion in their bank accounts? Is that the wholesale price for tons of drugs? Or did someone take the street price for a gram and multiply that amount by a lot?

What's the going rate in the villages in the moment? Another rice scam?

Written by "Red Forever". Are you living in one of those red villages? No more questions your honor.

I would love to see that moment.

The Pheu Thai party will not name Thaksin as the candidate for head of government in the next general election. But they will still ask him for "advice". And maybe they will name his daughter as their candidate, another clone. And then there are still people in Thailand who are somehow surprised that they don't have a decent government. TiT

If you absolutely insist that the earth is flat, then I won't try to convince you with logic.

And then there are those people who are 100% sure that humans are 100% responsible. And they also know exactly what to do, like eating no meet anymore and no oil and gas and all those things. There must be millions of top experts out there. Or maybe not? Do they also believe something that so called experts tell them is true? It's almost like a religion... Just to be sure that there is no misunderstanding: I think we have enough evidence that humans are in part responsible for changes in this world. But to which extend are humans responsible? Nobody really knows. And all these things which are presented as "solutions". Why are you so sure that those solutions work on a global scale? How do you know that there are not many other important factors involved? And maybe many other factors which you didn't even know about?

I think it's always fascinating when some people are so 100% sure that they know exactly what is going on - even if they talk about very complicated systems which nobody completely understands.

You wrote: " It's 100% down to human activity" I don't think that is for all those governments and scientific and academic institution in the world say. There is an enormous difference between human involvement and "100% down to human activity"

Let me guess. Now your fried is smarter and he invest his money in crypto. ????

Climate change reminds me of all those food experts. Wine is good for you, wine is bad for you. No, only red wine is good. And eggs are bad, and suddenly eggs are good. I am sure by now there are several studies of about anything we eat with some studies showing it's good and another showing it's bad. Are humans in part responsible for changes in the atmosphere? I am sure: yes. By how much are humans responsible? Now that is a good question. Personally I am all about doing something for the environment. I.e. all those vehicles which pollute the air should be retired. But even if there would be no vehicle at all on the streets, for maybe a year or more, does that mean weather like yesterday morning won't happen again? Weather is complex, very complex. And climate is even more complex. It's an illusion when we think we can easily say A is responsible for B and at the same time we ignore C to Z and a lot more.

How do you know? And how about the last ice-age? Did humas do that as well? Or maybe mammoth?

What do you expect from Lazada? Should they look in every package which will be delivered? Lazada is a service for bringing buyers together with sellers. And they handle the payment. Box is sent, box is received. That is about as far as what Lazada can initially do. If there was any fraud going on then go to the police - as you did. And before any of this: Look at the seller. Does he have a good rating? Does he have a rating at all? How many people bought that item already? Any good or bad reviews? And last but not least: Is the price too good to be true? If you want to buy a phone which cost normally i.e. 10k then don't expect to buy to for 8k. Until now I bought likely more than 100 things on Lazada, probably more. I think I only got one time delivery of a wrong item, and that issue was solved quickly. IMHO Lazada does in general a good job.

I guess that's what they call Thai logic.

The question should be: Why did they buy it at all and for so much money? Maybe 30% commission for someone?

Had it ever a value above 0?

Not everybody will be disappointed. When I first read the headline I though probably he prefers to be rich and not dead. Because I imagine, without evidence, that it is a dangerous job to fight corruption in this country. Too many rich and powerful people are the enemies.

There is a reason why those where sold:

Thanks, I ordered the big box a couple of days ago. I have already the DIN rails and terminal blocks and some sample currency transformers and breakers. Let's look how it all fits into the box. I played with Arduinos and ESP32 etc. before and I am sure I will be able to put things together with Home Assistant. At the beginning I will just make sure that all works and is secure. Then, probably months in the future, I will work on measuring the current. In the moment it is important for me to prepare as much as possible for home automation. I will work on the details later. Computer programming is part of my job, and I am confident I will get it running at some time.

Obviously it's good to use the same language to understand each other. But IMHO even if my Thai would be perfect I would have trouble having a meaning conversation with a local official or a laborer. Because their frame of mind and type of thinking is very different from my kind of thinking. That reminds me of a farang who (pre covid) I saw regularly reading the Thai newspaper. I asked him about it and how difficult it is. He told me the difficult part was not only the language but all the nickname and phrases, etc.. At least my motivation is not high enough to learn all this without a good reason.

Is it bad to be a chocolate man? Some people call me "wan", the guy with glasses. Fair enough, I wear glasses. And if I would be green then probably they would call me green man, or maybe apple or something like that. No problem!

It has nothing to do with the IQ. I think mostly it has to do with having a reason to learn Thai. I live here since over two decades and my Thai is far away from good. But it's good enough for what I need it. I.e. I can order food in Thai, tell the taxi driver where to go, and I can say a few polite words to Thai people. I am not able to have a proper business conversation in Thai. Why not? Because I don't need that. Because option one I do business with farangs or option two I do business with educated Thais who often studied outside of Thailand. My Thai will never be as good as their English. So we will anyhow talk in English. I knew a foreigner who only lived about 3 years in Thailand. His Thai was very good, and he could read and write Thai. Why? Because he lived up country with Thais all around him and no foreigners. He needed to be able to speak Thai to communicate. So he had a good reason to learn it.