jacnl2000

Indeed, Rain and Rain... Once the hot season arrives in Isaan, the outdoor showers are back in business — though “refreshing” might be stretching it. By midday, if the water runs at all, it’s barely cooler than the air itself, and the air feels like someone left the oven door open. Even sitting still, shirts cling and foreheads glisten. In many shops open to the street, a loyal ventilator labours in the corner, bravely circulating the same warm air in slow, determined circles. No wonder the air-conditioned restaurants are packed at lunchtime — it’s less dining, more climate migration. Along the longest table, uniforms lined up shoulder to shoulder; the youngest had claimed a small table for four. On Monday evening, 23 February 2026, I heard the first drops of rain tapping on our metal roof. The metal sheets amplified the noise, making a few hesitant drops sound far more decisive than they were. At first, I was surprised. “Is it raining?” I asked my wife. “Has the rainy season started already?” “No,” she said. “The hot season has started.” It was a cautious little announcement, still nothing compared to the real downpours that will mark the true rainy season. The sound brought to mind passages by Laurens van der Post, describing nights in the Kalahari, when people would lie beneath the vast sky and listen so carefully that even the faintest stir in the darkness became meaningful. There is something about the first hesitant rain that invites that same kind of attention. In our house at night, however, the stars are closer to earth: mice in the ceiling, cats on patrol, and pigeons shifting restlessly under the roof. And spare a thought for our students, especially those looking for rooms next semester. In this climate, air conditioning quickly shifts from luxury to necessity.

A few years ago I missed an international flight at Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) due to a delay on a domestic connection. At that time, Emirates operated a service desk located upstairs in the departures area, near the domestic flights section, above the Thai Airways shop. At this desk, I was able to purchase a ticket in cash for the first available Emirates international flight departing from Bangkok.

Robots 🤔 Watch your headline. I refuse to live in a museum of airborne leftovers. I'm not a parrot and cannot fly but do notice dryness and irritation, so did learn to keep water nearby because of particulate exposure adjusting my interface with the air. Parrots in cages can’t adapt They breathe whatever the space gives them. Just awareness, air… and the small freedoms that actually matter. Harm rarely comes from a single dramatic cause. It comes from unchangeable exposure. No expensive carpets in my house collecting dust. Carpets don’t just collect dust — they store history. Every step re-aerosolizes yesterday, last week, last year. Watch your step...

ต่อ — taught the hard way ( high-level phonetic pattern matching ) This image shows a spider wasp (family Pompilidae), a solitary black wasp commonly found across Thailand and Southeast Asia. At first glance it looks calm, even elegant — large iridescent wings, slow fluttering flight, almost butterfly-like in the air. That gentle flight is often what fools people into underestimating it. In Thai, a wasp is called ต่อ (dtòr), and while many social wasps are familiar (and sometimes edible in their larval stage), this one is a very different creature. Spider wasps do not live in colonies, do not defend nests, and are generally non-aggressive. Their unusual flight style evolved for one specific job: hunting spiders. They move slowly and quietly to avoid disturbing webs, relying on vision rather than speed or noise. Once a spider is located, the wasp delivers a single, highly precise sting that instantly paralyzes its prey — not to kill it, but to keep it fresh for its larvae. That same sting, when delivered defensively to a human, is infamous. Despite their calm behavior, spider wasps possess venom that is extremely effective at triggering pain nerves. Pain researchers regularly rank their sting among the most intense of all insects. The venom is not designed as a warning, but as a surgical tool — fast, decisive, and overwhelming. In engineering terms, it is a classic case of overengineering: a system perfected for a narrow task, with dramatic side effects when applied outside its intended use. Encounters often happen by accident. Hanging laundry, towels, shoes, or T-shirts left out to dry can look like perfect shelter. When the wasp is suddenly trapped against skin — as happened here, under the armpit — it responds with its full defensive capability. The design shown here places ต่อ at the top, the wasp at the center, and “overengineered” below — a quiet tribute to one of nature’s most excessive solutions. Beautiful, precise, calm… and absolutely unforgettable if you meet it the wrong way. Lesson learned in the tropics: always shake your clothes before wearing them — and never judge a wasp by how gently it flies.

Brown rice is nutritionally superior, but only when it is fresh, well-stored, and properly handled. You're supposed to known that when you have a paddy shed nearby. This article nor the people behind it are going to change my opinion. Btw. this article skips what their food-safety auditor might have to say. I'm pretty sure the auditor arrives later in time when the early ambitions are being scaled up.

Allow me to add a picture: Institutionally unsustainable.

Before BB became two letters heavy with meaning, Brigitte Bardot was simply a girl on screen, moving through villages where hierarchy mattered more than sense. The mayor’s chair was higher than the others, the priest’s pause carried authority, and everyone knew exactly when to speak and when to bow their head. It was serious then, though today it looks faintly comic. Brigitte played a young girl with no rank at all, standing in doorways, listening, watching. She obeyed the rules just enough to reveal how fragile they were. Far from those French villages, in a Thai village warmed by dust and afternoon light, there is another woman called BB. Her name carries no legend, only familiarity. It belongs to her as naturally as the house she lives in, a few steps away from the hairdresser’s shop. The hairdresser is an artist who pretends not to be one. He does not rush. He studies. His hands move as if he were shaping something already alive, already true. Sitting in his chair, you are not a customer but a form—balanced, corrected, gently released. For the first time, you understand what it means to be treated like a sculpture. Villages, whether French or Thai, love their hierarchies, but art ignores them. When you leave the shop, nothing official has changed. Your papers say the same age, the world remains in order. Yet somehow you are twenty years younger. Not because time has gone backward, but because something unnecessary has been lifted away. You walk past BB’s house, past familiar faces, carrying that lightness with you. Somewhere between cinema and village life, between old rules and quiet hands, you recognize the same truth Brigitte once hinted at on screen: roles are temporary, authority is fragile, and when someone truly sees you, even briefly, youth returns—not as an illusion, but as a feeling of being exactly where you belong.

Yoosee app is quite popular around here.

The flu is not a single event but a process with stages. Stage 1: the immune system reacts to the virus itself. This varies greatly between individuals and involves learning and adaptation; success is not guaranteed. Stage 2: secondary complications (especially lung-related) may occur, where immunity alone is often not sufficient. Medical interventions (vaccines, injections, lung protection) are primarily aimed at limiting damage in this second phase, rather than “fixing” the immune system Conclusion: the immune system does not always function optimally on its own. Outcomes depend on timing, prior damage, learning capacity, and targeted support — both physical and mental. This is a very short and sharp global summary of a journey I believed had ended many years ago, but which returned unexpectedly and quickly. An important learning point is to relax and consciously control existing bodily reflexes. Don’t wait too long. Visit a local clinic run by an experienced practitioner — for example, one trusted enough that an entire village is willing to travel there on weekends.

Looking for a reliable Notarial Services Attorney in Sakon Nakhon Province (for signing Dutch powers of attorney). Hello everyone, My wife and I are looking for a reliable Notarial Services Attorney somewhere in Sakon Nakhon province. We live in Amphoe Ban Muang, so ideally we would like someone as close to this area as possible, because we must be physically present to sign. The reason is that we need to sign powers of attorney that will be used by a Dutch notary for a property-related transaction in the Netherlands. Therefore, the Dutch notary requires: That the POA forms (prepared by the Dutch notary) are signed in the presence of a Thai Notarial Services Attorney. That the Thai notary verifies our identity (passport check). That the Thai notary legalises/certifies our signatures. We then send the original, legalised documents back to the Netherlands. Just to clarify a common misunderstanding I have seen posts mentioning the cheap “standard Thai Land Office Power-of-Attorney forms” (the ones you can buy in a stationery shop for 20–50 baht). These are valid only for the Thai Land Office, for land transactions within Thailand. However, these forms: are not valid for international use, are not accepted by Dutch notaries, do not contain the required legal wording, and do not meet the legalisation requirements. So unfortunately, those Thai Land Office forms don’t apply in our case. What we actually need A Notarial Services Attorney (as registered with the Lawyers Council of Thailand) who can: witness our signatures on the Dutch POA documents, verify our identity, legalise the signatures, and issue the proper notarial certification. Questions Does anyone know a trustworthy Notarial Services Attorney in Sakon Nakhon province? Preferably near Ban Muang, Sakon Nakhon City, or surrounding areas. Does anyone have experience with a Thai notary who handles international documents (especially for European countries)? Do the POA forms need to be translated into Thai, or can they remain in English? (The Dutch notary says English is fine, but I’m unsure how Thai notaries handle this.) Any recommendations, names, office contacts, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much!

Psychologist Guus van Heck showed in his dissertation that anxiety makes people overestimate danger and generalize fear to unrelated topics. That’s why after reading dramatic claims about privacy, someone may suddenly worry about harmless things like where they met their wife. It’s not a real threat — it’s an anxiety reaction.

I understand why this feels worrying, but the facts are straightforward. Gmail has not been used for ad-based email scanning since 2017, and that policy has not returned. Since 2018, strong privacy laws—like GDPR—set strict limits on what companies may do with personal data, and those rules still apply today. AI does not override these laws, and it doesn’t give companies permission to read your messages for advertising. Automatic checks in Gmail are only for safety features such as spam, malware, and phishing protection. Nothing about the current AI tools changes your legal protections.

MacOS updates are completely free — you never pay for new versions of the operating system. What can get pricey with a Mac is upgrading the hardware, because most parts (like RAM and storage) can’t be swapped out later. With Windows PCs, upgrading components is usually much easier and cheaper. So the cost difference isn’t in the software updates at all, but in how flexible the hardware is.

From what I’ve seen (and what many others in Thailand have reported), banking apps here usually stop working about 2–3 years after your phone stops getting updates. It really depends on the model, but in Thailand the important part isn’t the Android version — it’s the security certificates and integrity checks. If your Google Play Store or Play Services get stuck on an old version, the security certificates can’t update anymore, and sooner or later the banking apps will simply refuse to run. So, the practical “banking lifespan” of a phone in Thailand is pretty short — generally 1–3 years after its last update. That’s a lot less than in Europe, the UK, or the US, where phones often keep working with banking apps for 3–6 years or more. My advice: don’t overspend on a phone just for banking in Thailand. Buy something reasonably priced, and be ready to replace it after about three years once the updates stop.