simon43

Yes I know the guidelines. However in practice (if you peruse the various post topics), they are absolutely no different from those in the general Community Pub area. Perhaps you could require posters in The Lounge only to post controversial, racist or misogynistic content? ???? Anything that is 'tame' should be moved to the general Pub area.

This post is a general comment and obviously not a criticism of the Mods (because it has nothing to do with moderation) Honestly, I don't get it! The topics are no more 'hard-core' than those in the general Community Pub. An access requirement of just 100 posts is laughable. If there is meant to be some kind of VIP alure then the entry requirement should be 10,000 posts. Now if I want to browse through light-hearted posts I have to browse two different but identical sub-forums. I just don't get it!

When I worked as a volunteer police officer in Bangkok/Pattaya/Phuket some time around 2004 I was required to purchase and carry a tazer. That's the type that you have to press against the skin and then it 'zaps' between the 2 electrodes. I never had to use it except on my mad ex-wife (joke there BTW...)

Why on earth are you quoting from Black's Law Dictionary? We are in Thailand! You need to cite the relevant para in the Thai Criminal or Civil Code ????

So the one in the middle of the photo is a cross-dresser?

Well-spotted! Although this fledgling company has high ambitions, it does seem to have missed it's publicised project targets by a few years.... Nevertheless, it's certainly the best opportunity for a home-built small satellite but probably little to do with a SMART visa (I can't see this company paying 200,000 baht/month salary to its engineers.

Sorry - screwed up editing my previous post! Perhaps it's because one is required to work for a Thai company, and there really are not any Thai space companies to work for!

Bearing in mind the recent government announcement about building a spaceport etc, I find it curious that Thailand is not seeking foreign space/rocket experts. Knowing what Thailand currently does in the space sector (builds the occasional Cubesat under the direction of Japanese engineers in Japan), there is no way that Thailand has homegrown skills to build a spaceport.

Why an anaconda? Was the woman walking in South America? Update - Oops - beat me to it!

Ride a horse from the Atlantic side of the Pyrenees mountains to the Mediterranean side following the GR10 High Pyrenees trail. (Many years ago I had a holiday home in these mountains and loved climbing/walking there. Once my pension kicks in I hope to have available time to fulfill this wish).

I just tell them that it's a large island close to China and which is claimed by China. The people have slitty eyes and haven't yet learnt to eat using knives and forks.....

A skilled chef could probably expertly dismember a human corpse with a small penknife. (Don't ask how I know, but I'm not a skilled chef!)

Hey troll, go research aspergillosis. It might help you to avoid sounding like an ignorant (edited out to avoid suspension!)

Yep! If you follow this link to a BBC article from 2004 (some years after I wrote the software): BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Has text-porn finally made computers 'human'? their comment is: " But the best candidate for passing the Turing test is the Natachata program that conducts smutty conversations via text messages. Regular users of pornographic SMS chat may be shocked to find out that they are swapping dirty talk with machines rather than young women and men. But it's a fair bet that they are because the Natachata chatbot, written by former rocket scientist Simon Luttrell, is so widely used by porn chat merchants. " I wrote this AI chat application which (at the time) was rather good ????. Granted that it was rather limited in subject matter. Apart from smutty chat (which was the money-maker), it was also able to discuss sport, geography, maths and would remember user's names and likes/dislikes etc. Anyway, others also thought it was rather good because I sold the AI program for $2.2M...

I was living on the island of Mauritius for a short while after leaving Laos because at that time it was too difficult to enter Thailand. when Thailand eased it's Covid entry rules I returned ????

Yes a backpacker ghetto on the west side of town near to the river but relatively 'normal' on the east side of town and near to the railway line. LP is a wonderful place to live but my hobby (amateur radio) does not sit well (that's an understatement!!) with the local police chief and my garden just by the peninsula is too small for all my antennas. In VV I can rent a rural house on the edge of town with a bigger garden.

On a recent visit to the UIK (Blackpool), I was pleasantly surprised by the local gym (just down the road from Sainsbury if you know the city). Access into the foyer was free of course but then there were a pair of electronic revolving doors. To enter/exit the gym area you had to punch in your access PIN which was automatically disabled if your payment had not been received for that month. You could sign up in the foyer by mobile phone or using their touchscreen system. Access to the changing rooms also required the PIN code. Lockers were free (bring your own padlock) and there was always 1 staff on duty (only 1 was required because of the automatic system). Plenty of machines, saw no roid nuts, mostly 'normal' people of all ages. I paid about 15 UK pounds per month for access to all equipment.

Hi Sid, after I returned back from hospital tests in the UK (see post above), I planned to return to Burma to continue my in-class teaching. However for the second time the military junta refused to issue me with a visa. So with that situation and bearing in mind my cancer 'scare', I decided to retire from in-class teaching and only teach online (which I have mostly been doing for the past few years anyway). After recovering from the UK climate on Phangan Island for a couple of months I moved back to Luang Prabang in north Laos where I was once the Principal of the international school. When I start to draw my UK pension (in only 22 months from now yippee), I will probably move down to live in Vang Vieng because with the new railway and motorway it's only an hour or 2 from Vientiane and the only decent private hospital in the country (although exercise/good diet keeps me healthy, I am mindful of my age and assume that other medical ailments may arise). My small but adequate pension will also enable me to spend more time doing voluntary teaching in the community ????

Yep, he definitely has a reading problem! BTW, when I returned to the UK in early February for prostate cancer investigations, I almost abandoned my stay in the UK because my lung problems returned rapidly in that cold climate. It took me about 2 months back in a hot/humid climate to recover.

I was happily working in the UK as CTO of a mobile technology company that had just purchased my one-man-band AI/mobile internet company. Their new office was in an unheated and damp basement that had been empty for years. A few months after starting work in that office I developed a cough that got worse and worse until I was unable to hold a conversation without having explosive coughing fits. This was suspected Aspergillosis (fungal spores in my lungs) that were present in the damp office air. This is a chronic disease which can't be cured but can be managed with the right medication and living environment. My doctor suggested that living in a hot and humid climate may well help to minimise my symptoms. So I took a trip to Thailand and my coughing stopped! I returned to the UK climate and my coughing came back with a vengeance. I did several trips to/from Thailand and each time that I stayed in Thailand my symptoms were minimal and they always returned when I came back to the UK. So I had to make the life-changing decision to move to Thailand (or a similar hot/humid climate). At that time I had funds to start up a new business in Thailand, but my wife was having none of it. Understandably, she was unwilling to move to Thailand with our 3 young kids who were well-settled in the village school. So we agreed to separate and I moved to Thailand, but vowed to keep in touch with my kids. Unfortunately, that takes 2 to tango and my wife (soon to be ex) cut me off from my kids and (according to my brother) told them that I had left her for a Thai women...) I still send e-cards on their birthdays and at Xmas, but they never reply, even going so far as to block my email address on the e-card website ????. My UK kids are now in their early twenties and I guess they will never know the truth about why their dad left them to live in Thailand. It's more than 20 years since I left the UK. I have moved around a bit in south-east Asia and some locations had 'cool' climates which caused me problems. But in general, as long as I walk or jog 4-5 Km per day AND eat healthy food AND gargle with salt water AND take ani-histamine and anti-congestants - my lungs are great!!

Neeranam is Thai (he acquired citizenship). So he doesn't need a visa and unless he makes a public rant against HM King I doubt that his citizenship will be revoked.... As for me, I no longer worry about 800,00 baht and agents. I live in Laos and my agent visa costs just $500 per year with no money in the bank required ????

I almost died in Chaloklam earlier this year - stung by a box jellyfish...

Whatever happened to their plan yonks ago to turn Phuket into an IT hub to rival Singapore? (Rhetorical question...)

Well I certainly wish the UK police/border force would do the same with all the illegal immigrants and so-called asylum seekers. (Whoops - off topic!)

You have not commented on the usual requirement for a credit check, plus the high cost of energy bills, council tax etc. Well done if those are not hurdles for you. For me, it makes zero economic sense to return to the UK when my cost of living is so much cheaper in south-east Asia.