quadrant

luckily for all of us Your waffle was short and to the point! well done. thank you sir.

i recently watched a video on youtube from a guy named barnacules, in his video he gives a step by step turorial about privacy settings on windows 10.

might be interesting to you or some other viewers concerned about their privacy.

he used to work for microsoft so i think he knows what he's talking about.

here is the link:

hope it's useful to someone.

cheers

as an alternative, you could try airbnb -google it

The so-called London fixings in gold, silver, platinum and palladium are not conspiracies but actual auction markets. The mechanism of the fixings is to find by successive trials the single price for spot (that is, physical for 2-day settlement) at which all orders of buyers and all orders of sellers (primarily bullion dealers and their largest customers) are matched and balanced. The single fixing prices of each metal are used as benchmarks for pricing metals contracts between dealers, mining companies, refineries and fabricators throughout the world.

Gold is fixed twice daily starting at 10:30am and 3pm London time by the five members of the London Gold Market Fixing, who act as brokers for their customers. Silver is fixed daily at noon by the three members of the London Silver Market Fixing.

Platinum and palladium are fixed daily at 9:45am and 2pm by the four fixing members of the London Platinum & Palladium Market.

The price of Gold can be manipulated just like any other commodity behind closed doors. The only one who truly gains is the traders and assayers.

Did everyone forget the LIBOR scandal? It was a series of fraudulent actions connected to the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) and also the resulting investigation and reaction. The LIBOR is an average interest rate calculated through submissions of interest rates by major banks in London. The scandal arose when it was discovered that banks were falsely inflating or deflating their rates so as to profit from trades, or to give the impression that they were more creditworthy than they were. LIBOR underpins approximately $350 Trillion in derivatives, which will eventually Bankrupt the ENTIRE Global Economy. The LIBOR is now administered by the NYSE Euronext, which took over running the LIBOR in January 2014. However, that only changes the location of the 3 Card Monti game and does not guarantee any increased safety.

If investing in Gold was that Great and Safe, the Voters in Switzerland would have passed their recent referendum overwhelmingly, however they realized the risks involved and trounced down the referendum.

I'll Pass.

allow me to comment on your last paragraph about the swiss referendum:

in my opinion, the referendum was not shot down because holding gold is a good or bad investment. it's rather the stipulations in the referendum, which the voters did not agree, mainly:

1. the referendum stipulated that the snb(swiss national bank) has to hold at least 20% of their assets in gold.

now, for the last few years, the snb had to support the exchange rate of the swiss fr. against the euro, resulting in a massively inflated balance sheet. the snb is now sitting on i don't know how many billions of euros.

if this referendum would have passed, the snb would have to have bought another ca. 1500 tons of gold, more than doubling their current reserves, which are already the 8th highest in the world. according to wikipedia, they would end up then right behind the IMF and become no. 4 on the list worldwide.

2. the real kicker however -again in my own opinion- was the stipulation that all that gold which the national bank then holds, cannot be sold for all eternity. this idea alone plus the fact that such a stipulation is massivley obstructing the freedom of action of the national bank, is, what finally sent it downhill, and rightly so.

try foodland

there are actually 2 brands if i remember correctly, one from "healthy mate" - organic too. and there is one from the usa i think.

happy shopping

how about opening a thai baht bank account, get an atm card and withdraw money this way? in general costs about 15 baht per withdrawal(or something like that)

or if that is not possible/feasible, make it count = withdraw 1x20 instead of 4x5

cheers

I have been hearing the last nail in the coffin rants since 1990.

They must have run out of room for any more by now.

no problem, you can always get a new coffin.

some people don't read the post properly. result=misunderstanding - and then start shooting from the hip.

some instances are probably grudges toward other posters because they have been attacked by them earlier = pay back time!

and some probably get a kick out of winding others up just for the fun of it.

cheers

the cannot read a post properly and/or start interpreting things which are not there brigade

at least an epidemic most of us can live with.

slowly, i start to beleive albert einstein.

dusit thani hotel seems to have good deals at the moment. reduced from approx. 9000 baht down to approx. 4000-4500

check it out.

5 star hotel in good location

cheers

I see commentators here throwing in the corruption card (this is a problem in its' own, dealt with in a different card game), playing with the numbers that suit your opinions, and a lot of other unsubstantiated information. How many times do I need to hear "Thailand is the laughing stock of the whole world". You have one of the strongest economies in the world that has a growth rate greater than most. That comment is the height of stupidity spat out by the idiots with the biggest egos. I love this country because most people do not have big egos here. I find it extremely dissapointing to see you dorks spreading your poison.

Here are a couple of facts: Yingluck and her brother have had considerably more success in business than any of us so if I was going to trust the business acumen of anyone it certainly would be none of you.

I am happy the farmers are getting enough money for their products. You whinners probably are eating better than most people on this planet.

"Don't speak with your mouth full!"

thaksin was not successful because he was smart. he was successful because he had the right connections!

Hi Tim 207

While we are on the subject of spinel, I have been looking to buy some black spinel gems as an alternative to black onyx.

I bought several cut Burmese? stones in Mae Sai which are black to look at but translucent one is blue one is red (200 baht a carat).

I have also bought some Thai black spinel from Bo Ploy, Kanchantaburi which is black opaque. (30 baht a carat)

Are these the same 'spinel'? The lady in the shop mentioned a hardness of 7.1 which seems a bit low for spinel.

This is complicated by the Thai use of the word Nin, which I believe is the Thai name for black spinel, but seems to be applied to black onyx as well.

Any ideas on what is real Thai black spinel?

I don't know much about black spinel but I do know there are not a lot of sources. One is kanchanaburi and I don't believe any comes from Burma but I could be wrong on that. If I understand you, you seem to have purchased some very dark red and blue spinel from Burma. Those would be the same stone as the black just different colors.

I have found that many/most small Thai dealers tend to call many different stones of the same color by the same name so your problem with nin is that the dealer may not know the difference between onyx and black spinel or even care that there is a difference.

There is a short discussion here http://gemologyonlin...php?f=37&t=4343 about differentiating onyx from spinel. As I am not very familiar with either you can check that out but in essence they say there is a slightly different luster. Onyx has a hardness of about 7 which seems to match up with what you were told. Specific gravity is very different if you have the means to check that.

Opaque stones are difficult to check without instruments. Sorry I don't have a trick for you to try.

This thread has got me interested in this again. I am curious how your experiment with viewing the spectral signatures went.

Just to confirm that your spelling of kanchanaburi is correct. I tend to find it dificult to speak out Kanchanaburi and Chantaburi in the same sentence witout getting them mixed up. Chantaburi is of course a major gem trading town south of Chonburi (Pattaya).

Regarding the Hodgkinson method, I have tried it on Ruby and Spinel and there is a huge difference in spectra to be seen. I couldn't find a cheap zircon gemstone yesterday as I would really like to 'calibrate' my eye as described. Seems I wasted spending 6000 baht on a spectroscope after all ( but I can check to see if my light sources are 'white" though).

The black opaque spinel I bought in Bangkok is from a shop solely selling gems and jewellrey from Bo Ploy - Kanchanburi so I think it is not black onyx. I will have to buy some black onyx now and do some comparisons.

since spinel is harder than onyx, you might get a hint on what you are looking at, at observing the sharpness of the facets (i assume they are already cut). if they are sharp it would suggest spinel. if the corners are rather roundish it is possibly onyx.

cheers

I too have been there twice, the first time was a novelty but fine, on the second visit my gf (who is a lawyer) told me when we were at home, that the chef removed some of the vegetables from the plate which she handed for stir frying,(strange as buffets usually mean eat what you want) then looked her up and down obviously thinking that she was from the dubious side of Pattayas' life, making her feel very uncomfortable.

She had also told them when she booked that it was my birthday, and coud they arrange a small cake, which they did for my pal on the first visit, needless to say, No Cake,

The next day when I looked at the bill 10% service charge added, and 7% tax

As nice as the restaurant is, I doubt that we will be hurrying back

big hotel chains like this always add 10+7 %. nothing new here and not a reason not to go there anymore in my opinion. you just have to know they do it.

cheers

if you want to find out whether the gems are real(natural), you have to bring them to a gemmological institute to have them tested, for example the asian gemmological inst. or the american gemmological inst. (they have offices in bangkok)

even an expert with gemstones can many times not tell you if the stone is naturally grown or is a manmade synthetic grown in a laboratory if he does not have the lab equipment at his disposal.

however, testing is quite expensive, i estimate that a test nowadays would cost you well over 1000 baht/piece. so the first question would be, how big are those stones and are they eyeclean? gemstones with noticeable inclusions have mostly low value and are not worth much. size would also be important.

since the stones originate from burma, which ist famous for their rubies and sapphires, the stones MIGHT be pink sapphires. could be something else too, however.

a cut sapphire of about 5mm round or 7x5 oval is approx. 1 carat (0,2g). colored gems smaller than that are usually not worth testing.

call up one of the institutes and find out how much they charge for testing and then select the biggest and cleanest to test if you think it might be worthwile. if the result is favourable, you might consider testing more.

hope that helps some.

cheers

BTS to Saphan Taksin and then a ferry if my memory serves is about a 20 minute journey down stream. Many boats every hour; just turn up, buy a ticket and away you go

it's upstream!!

the station is called wang lang pier or pran nok i think.

OP you have one more month. just keep reading the pattaya forum. that should give you already a good idea what to expect.

cheers

me and my travelling buddy were in khaw thong in april. we also wanted to look around the place but unfortunately, we were not allowed to move beyond a radius of 5km only from town. so there was not really much we could do there - the town is not very large. since it is also rainy season a lot of the holiday resorts are also closed until october.

the only thing worthwile is going to the andaman club. this is a casino with hotel and they also have a nice swimming pool and a duty free shop. i don't really remember how much we had to pay for the hotel, but it must have been above US$ 50.-, maybe closer to 100.-

the honeybear hotel at the harbor is not really good and expensive for what you get. plus, they cut electricity from 9 a.m. until about 6 p.m. there is another hotel higher up the hill, it's called garden hotel and cost about 1'000 baht per night and has electricty 24 hours.

one good thing is that as long as you stay in town, you can pay everything with thai baht, so no need to exchange burmese currency.

hope it helps and cheers

The extra downside as a US citizen is the "Internal Revenue Service" our taxman. One of the great "priviledges" of being a US citizen is having to report any and all business activities around the globe and usually being liable to pay US taxes on money earned overseas. I have enough headaches now with US taxes just because I work in different US states. I am an engineer and I hate arbitrary inefficiency and stupid reporting. Thanks again all.

apparently, there are quite a number of people returning their US citizenship because of those new regulations. maybe you should consider that. i heard montenegro is accepting new citizens. if you are lucky, you even might end up becoming the neighbor of someone who knows a lot about thailand and doing business here. i'm sure he could give you some useful tips.

cheers

according to the article in one of the newspapers, it says that beer and wine are not to be increased because they are already at the taxable maximum.

therefore, it should only affect the likes of whisky, vodka, tequila, cognac and the likes, no?

cheers

Operation on private parts is also popular in Thailand.

Many Thai female go for enlargement.

Many Thai male go for reduction.

really? well..sounds like problems ahead. one side enlarging, the other reducing you end up with something like throwing a wiener into the national stadium.

...and how do the guys downsize??? - ghastly thought - definitely not for me!

cheers

first & foremost i would check whether it is actually legal to buy loose gems in burma. as far as i know, a few years back, all gems had to be auctioned off in rangoon.

it used to be circumvented by setting a gem in a worthless brass setting and then bring it out of burma. i'm not even sure that this was legal but that's how they brought them out.

second, kawthoung(the name of the town) has almost nothing to sell, not even a t-shirt with a myanmar print on it. i was there about 4 months ago and i did not notice any shop selling jewellery, much less gemstones. but then again, i also did not look for one.

i think best is to stick to dLock's advice. wait until you come to bangkok and go to the jewelry trade center and see some gems dealers there. at least you have a much better chance not to end up with a synthetic gemstone, which is worthless (and looks the same).

probably an even better opportunity would be to visit the gems & jewelry fair at the impact center in chaeng wattana area (bangkok). the fair is twice annually, used to be in feb/march and september. i think you can find the exact date yourself in the internet. the last day (or two) of the fair used to be open for anyone. hundreds of gemdealers in one place.

good luck