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.

Funny—I'm pretty sure something is missing in the information above, because my Yellow Tabian Baan actually lists both my father’s and mother’s full names, written in Thai, even though they passed away a long time ago. Those names certainly don’t appear in my passport, so I must have used a different officially accepted document as the source—one that required several signatures and stamps. The translator I used was from Leiden University, and even excellent translators struggle with rendering full Dutch family names phonetically in Thai. If you use three different translators, you’ll usually end up with three different spellings. My advice: stick with the first translation you received; otherwise you may run into unnecessary trouble if someone starts comparing documents later on.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone — may all creatures enjoy natural lives… well, maybe not the commercial turkeys. Courage of 2009 had an exceptional lifespan of 6 years. Typically pardoned commercial turkeys live about 1½–1¾ years after the ceremony. Poor things.

A really smart mopping robot would probably take one look at bamboo slats and uneven surfaces and give up immediately.

I found the following solution: Visit a Samsung Thailand service center Bring the device, the IMEI, and the proof of purchase. At the service center, they can immediately verify: The original network lock status Whether any EFS (Encrypted File System) corruption is present The official MCK (Master Control Key) by querying the European Samsung backend systems Alternatively, contact Samsung Netherlands support Since the device was originally sold in the Netherlands, they can also retrieve and provide the MCK. Once the MCK is obtained The device can be fully unlocked in a single step, permanently resolving the network lock condition. In theory, this should be the correct procedure for resolving cross-border network lock issues. However, in practice this workflow does not function for my situation. Due to the internal policies of Samsung Thailand and Samsung Netherlands, I end up in a procedural deadlock: Samsung Thailand redirects me to the Netherlands because the unit was originally purchased there, while Samsung Netherlands operates under the assumption that I am still residing in the Netherlands. This results in unnecessary delays, and the available chat support channels provide no meaningful escalation path. Consequently, I was unable to progress via official Samsung channels. The only party that was able to resolve the issue was a certified external technician here in Thailand, who successfully performed the unlock within a single day. This procedure incurred additional costs, and in my view Samsung should be responsible for these, but I do not have the capacity to pursue this dispute further. In summary: the issue has been resolved — not through Samsung’s official support processes, but through an external technical service provider.

Antibiotics are more like fire extinguishers — essential even if rarely used. One issue not mentioned in the article is that antibiotics are uniquely unprofitable. This is a major reason why the development pipeline is nearly empty, despite urgent need. Over the past decade, many large pharma companies have shut down their antibiotic divisions, and several small antibiotic-focused biotechs have gone bankrupt shortly after approval because the drugs didn’t sell. This economic reality is also why promising discoveries like Halicin (from 2020) still haven’t reached clinical trials in 2025. The science is exciting — but the incentives are broken. Meanwhile, antimicrobial resistance is projected to cause up to 10 million deaths per year by 2050. Without new economic models, the private sector will continue to avoid antibiotics, no matter how vital they are.

You can’t see what you’re eating, but the taste lives somewhere between chicken and white fish.

Yes, here's a video: Previously, I wrote that the credit-card chargeback process is the strongest and most legally protected option. Fortunately, I used a Dutch credit card instead of my Thai credit card. Please be aware that Thai credit-card chargeback procedures generally don’t offer the same level of protection as those from many other countries. It’s a classic case of “van een koude kermis thuiskomen”—they may give you some peace of mind for minor issues, but when serious problems arise and large amounts of money are involved, the compensation is often limited to only a few thousand baht per year. And to make matters worse, my Dutch credit card isn’t accepted by every online shop in Thailand. Many Thai websites use different payment and security systems, so foreign cards—especially European ones—are often rejected. It almost feels as if they’re taking away the protection I should have. I suppose I just have to get used to the reality of how things work here.

According to this signpost, Sakon Nakhon is the center of the universe 🤔 I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in Sakon Nakhon lately — mostly escaping to Big C whenever I need a break from the stress of having family in the provincial hospital. Sometimes you just need to sit somewhere calm, order some food, and let your brain reboot. For me, that usually means beef and a mu pad krapao spicy enough to make me forget what day it is. Anyway, during one of these little “sanity breaks,” I noticed something I’d somehow walked past for years: a wonderfully old, bright-yellow world-direction signpost stuck in the middle of the Srisakol area like it’s the star of its own travel show. It proudly points to everywhere you aren’t: Berlin 8,545 km, London 9,464 km, Las Vegas 12,170 km, Tokyo 4,067 km, Hanoi 688 km — and at the top it announces “Srisakol – 0 km.” So that’s it: Srisakol Market is officially the center of the universe. Stand next to the post and it genuinely feels as if it puts you at the center of the universe too. Above all, it marks a spot where you can sit down, relax, and eat all kinds of things in an open-air space under a surprisingly large roof. And it makes meeting people easy: “Let’s meet at the signpost.” Which is great, because the food’s cheaper, the parking’s easier, and you can get your car washed and cleaned at the same time. Try doing that in London. The signpost itself looks like it has survived several repaints, a few decades of weather, and at least one motorbike hitting it at low speed. But there’s something comforting about it. When life gets heavy, it feels good to stand at “0 km,” eat your pad krapao, and imagine you’re at the crossroads of the whole world. Here it is in all its yellow, globe-trotting glory: Anyone know when this thing was originally put up? Or is Sakon Nakhon quietly preparing for world domination? A final detail: the sign faces the pedestrian side of the market, not the street. It’s clearly meant for people who are walking, browsing, and shopping — not for drivers. Sakon Nakhon isn’t exactly a tourist hotspot, but this quirky sign shows a bit of global awareness and proudly marks its place on the international map. The top logo (“SRISAKOL 0 KM”) also suggests it was commissioned by the Srisakol business district, not the municipality.

Thank you for your response, but a network lock is not related to malware, spyware, or remote attacks at all. S10+ is stuck in the Israel CSC (“ILO”), but this is unrelated to your comment. ILO often appears because it is alphabetically early in the OXM list. What am I exactly searching for in Udon Thani or Sakon Nakhon for the S10+? A reliable shop capable of handling EFS/CSC rebuilds. Samsung official service points apparently only do "approved" repairs. Even if they have the tools, they are not allowed to fix this phone. Samsung official service points in Thailand cannot repair this — but I hope some 3rd-party technicians (Samsung software specialists) can. This is completely normal in Thailand (and worldwide) for cross-region Samsung models. Professional software repair (EFS + NV + CSC rebuild) This is what most repair shops do with: Octoplus Chimera Z3X SamKey These tools can: ✔ Reset EFS ✔ Fix “Device Freeze” ✔ Remove misleading NCK/MCK prompt ✔ Reassign correct CSC ✔ Repair corrupted NV data ✔ Rebuild modem configuration Takes 5–10 minutes when the technician knows what they’re doing. Since my S10+ issue is a known pattern (wrong CSC, ILO region, NCK/MCK screen), a knowledgeable tech here at AN should recognize it and point me toward the correct “software repair” rather than a normal screen/battery fix 😋 Any recommendations or experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Looking for Help Unlocking Network-Locked Samsung Galaxy S10+ in Sakon Nakhon / Udon Thani I own a Samsung Galaxy S10+ that was originally purchased in the Netherlands. It’s an official SIM-free model from Samsung, and the firmware should normally accept Thai SIM cards. However, this particular phone appears to be network-locked, and it’s asking for an MCK (master control/unfreeze code) and an NCK (network unlock code). I visited an official Samsung service point in city Sakon Nakhon, but they informed me that they can’t assist because the device is an older model and was not purchased in Thailand. Does anyone know a reliable Samsung-authorized repair shop or service center in the Sakon Nakhon or Udon Thani provinces that might be able to help remove the network lock through official channels? All my other Samsung phones work fine with Thai SIM cards, so this issue seems specific to this device. Any recommendations or experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!