simon43

Absolutely! I topped up DTAC this morning with 300 baht - easy as pie 🙂

[quote] ... That's BS, if talking about shooting a round straight up, and bullet simply falling back at gravity. ''' [/quote] Thai gravity not same as farang gravity......

Well, I'm almost ready to 'hangup my hat' with teaching mostly primary grade science 'online'. I've been doing this successfully for many years, but as I grow older, I assume that the number of young students who want to learn from an eccentric old man will diminish.... For that reason, I have been creating learning videos of the complete primary/elementary science school curriculum, from grade 1 to grade 6, covering every single science topic in the curriculum. Typically, one school year of teaching science will have about 30 science topics to learn, and I have mimicked this with my own videos about each topic. Thus, a student can use my video to revise a science topic that they have learned at school, or can watch the video prior to their in-class lesson about this topic. So there are about 30 videos per grade - that makes 180 videos, each about 55 minutes long 🙂 I hope to create a residual income from marketing these videos. But where to promote them? My friend Mr Google suggests the Udemy website. Hmm, that website has a huge range of content, but almost all of the content videos target adults. My videos are aimed at young students. YouTube? Well, I would have to get my videos monetised first, and then I'm not sure that the pay-out would justify the effort. A major problem is that my popularity as a primary grades science teacher is mostly in China and Russia, not in the USA/EU (this is because of timezone differences). YouTube is blocked in China unless a VPN is used, and the payment methods on Udemy and other learning websites favour the western world (Google Pay etc). Perhaps I should 'go it alone'. I can host my videos on my own website (onlinescienceteacher.com I own the domain but have suspended the website for the moment). Then I would have to pay for a large amount of web-space to store my hundreds of videos. I do have a suitable payment method (WeChat, Alipay, CC) set up with Stripe. But I would still have to make potential end-users aware of my products.... Any suggestions? I think my videos would definitely sell at the correct price (parents pay about $25 for a 'live' online lesson on a topic, so a video sale price of perhaps $10 would be attractive no?)

... Or perhaps some sausage-seeker was outraged when they didn't get a sausage......

It's not just the foreign/western kids that suffer. The informal school for the children of Burmese workers on KP was raided and 4 Burmese teachers arrested (this is the school where I previously taught English and Thai as an 'illegal' volunteer). These Burmese kids can't attend the government school because many of them don't understand enough Thai language. They all want to improve their Thai language skills. The informal school can't become legally 'formal' because they will have to employ 4 Thais for every non-Thai worker, which doesn't really work when you need to speak Burmese to do your job! I can't become a legal volunteer because the volunteer visa is only available for those working for a registered NGO. Ho hum.... stupid catch-22.

Absolutely! Although I think they are a dying breed nowadays...

Suspenders????

My understanding is this: Healthy lungs and the bronchi airways are lined with mucus that is produced by the body to 'catch' particles and unwelcome bacteria, and coughing is a natural process to remove some of this mucus, which is then replaced by more mucus in a thin layer. But with Bronchiectasis, the bronchi airways are wider than normal, due to some original issue, such as pneumonia, (which I had several times 25 years ago). Therefore, the body naturally produces too much mucus to try to line these wider airways. In my case, if there is no irritant breathed in, my excess mucus stays stuck to my widened airways. I can feel it, but it doesn't cause me a major problem. But if I have some irritant, then the mucus starts to do its job, except rather than needing to cough up a small amount of mucus, there is a large amount to cough up, and it sticks to the bronchi walls like superglue! So special hugging coughs or even slapping the chest area (as is done with cystic fibrosis patients), is needed, or medication to thin this thick mucus so that it can be more easily coughed up. As for cigarette smokers, I guess that the smoke is inhaled and then exhaled - it doesn't remain in the airways.

The only men who should have beards are Santa Claus and nautical folk. I regard anyone else with facial hair either as too lazy to shave), and that laziness probably carries across into other aspects of their life). Or they are trying to make up for the fact that they are bald, but said beard simply makes them look silly, as if their head is upside down!

^^^ I got my Thai reciprocal ham licence about 20 years ago, based on my UK ham licence. I had obtained that when I was about 18 years old, but I rarely used it in the UK. Anyway, being in Thailand, I found my radio signal to be somewhat sought after by other radio hams across the world. Nowadays I mostly spend my time designing and testing short wave wire antennas for this hobby, and mostly send and receive SSTV images, receive satellite signals, or occasionally send signals via the ISS.

I missed this thread for a long time, so not sure if the OP is still in the forum. Anyway, my comments might be of interest to the OP and others: "Short wave radio" could involve the following: - listening to short wave radio broadcasts, music etc from different stations across the world - build up a collection of the confirmation of their reception 'QSL' postcards (either hard copy or e-QSL cards) - listen to domestic radio stations on the medium wave band, but from far-flung countries - receive interesting shortwave signals, such as weatherfax maps (there is a maritime weatherfax broadcast station in Bangkok) - receive SSTV (slow scan TV) images from radio amateurs or from CB stations across the world - receive data signals and images from the ISS (international Space Station) or various small 'Cubesat' satellites from mostly Russia, but also Japan - receive weather map images from USA and Russian satellites - Transmit and receive signals as a licenced radio amateur in Thailand. All in this list except the final one require no special permission or licence to receive the signals, and usually the required equipment is cheap and physically small. You often can use a simple length of wire as the receiving antenna, or a specific length of wire to provide enhanced reception. For example, you no longer need a bulky radio receiver. You can use an SDR (software defined radio) 'dongle plugged into your laptop, plus some free software. I use this to receive the various satellite images from the NOAA weather satellites, ISS and Russian technical college satellites. Attached are images that I've received from weather satellites, the ISS, shortwave weatherfax and Russian cubesats. To transmit signals, you need a radio ham licence, and that is a difficult route to follow, unless you already hold a ham licence from your home country, and then again only if it's one out of a very limited list of countries. If anyone wants to know more, please do comment!

That must have hurt a bit..... Reminder to self: Don't get p*ssed as a fart.

double-post.....

We Brits could use Pitcairn Island, St Helena, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha, even St Kilda that's closer to home. The UK government should follow Trump's lead and incarcerate criminals and illegal immigrants on some cold, wind-swept island in the middle of nowhere and throw away the .. er .. key to that island!

How can he charge more when you have less hair due to aging? 🙂

For musical entertainment, I play 'Reggae Do Maranhao' in the background. This is a series of reggae music channels from Brazil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVMxsORwntE There is some personal sadness in this music. A couple of years ago, my young Thai niece was dying of TB. I rented a little wooden cabin to stay and care for her (her mother had to work to earn money for the other family members). It was near to the hospital, but the doctors wouldn't admit her because they said she was beyond help. Every day for a couple of weeks, we would stay in this little room and she listened to this soothing music all day. If I stopped playing it, she would motion for me to play it again 🙂

I've found that the intelligence level of 'Dr Google' seems to depend upon that of the person asking the question. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. But ask a specific question, based upon your own scientific research etc, and Dr Google can certainly help to identify possible causes, diagnoses etc.

Yes, that's one of my daily channels to watch - Simon speaks the truth. Another factual channel that I often watch is: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkFeltonProductions a factual history channel

I think some of us are more sensitive to air pollution than others, but however you look at it, smoky air cannot be a health benefit in any way! He heeds to move south... I would have almost continual bronchitis and explosive, uncontrolled coughing (I travelled on a plane from London to BKK during the SARS epidemic and scared the whole plane with my explosive coughing fits lol!!)

Thanks - I plan to order one asap - I'm just changing my shipping address in Thailand. Sheryl, I certainly haven't noticed any degradation in my lung health over the past 25 years. The 'flare-ups' (chronic bronchitis, excess mucus etc), were reduced in number since I left the UK climate to south-east Asia, but are definitely exacerbated by smoky air. I have no plans to consult any medical doctors about this because a:my condition has not degraded in 25 years and b) I have little confidence nowadays in the medical profession and c) use of huff coughing, avoidance of smoky air, use of mucus thinners and use of other mucus-clearing aids seems to be enough for me to maintain reasonable lung health. Were my illness due to COPD, I think that the narrowing of my bronchi would (by now) have resulted in shortness of breath etc. My lung function seems almost normal, except for the excess mucus and throat infections created by the bacteria in this excess mucus.

Hey Starmer! Listen up!!

But do those with club toenails also have bronchitis and pneumonia flare-ups, and cough copious amounts of mucus from their lungs for the past 25 years? 🙂

Thanks! I know about this type of device and will soon order one of these from Amazon! I already have the contraption where you have to suck a tube to force 3 balls to rise as high as possible (maybe you know the one). Since returning to Jomtien Beach on Sunday, my bronchitis and excess mucus is much reduced 🙂

Yes indeed! Having suffered from this condition for so many years, and having met with 'blank looks' by every single doctor whom I have consulted in the UK and Thailand, I'm pretty confident (with my scientific hat on), that the diagnosis by Dr Google is correct. (The part that actually convinced me are my clubbed toenails!)

(long post, but maybe useful information for other forum members). No, it's not a case of looking through an online list of diseases and saying "I've got that and I've got that!". I am very sure that I have finally identified what has given me poor lung health for the past 25 years, thanks to the state of my toes! Why haven't the doctors in the UK and Thailand been able to identify this condition? Because (IMHO), they have been totally useless, failing to identify very well-known symptoms of this disease, symptoms that are not hidden away from sight. So what is Bronchiectasis)? It is basically widening of the bronchial airways, such that excess amounts of mucus can build up in these, causing breathing difficulties (in some cases), and especially causing infections such as bronchitis, thanks to the build-up of bacteria in these retained mucus lumps, which would normally be coughed up from the airways. I always wondered why the x-rays and lung function tests that I previously had never showed anything wrong with my lungs' abilities to exchange gases (respiration). That's because there is nothing wrong with my alveoli function, and I don't get short of breath. The problem lies with my lung bronchi, which collect large amounts of very sticky mucus, because these airways are wider than normal and the body's natural function is to coat the airways with sticky mucus to catch bacteria etc. I had sputum tests which never found any bacteria etc. But the doctors failed to pick up my comments about excessive amounts of mucus! "You're fine, no problem" was their comment time and time again 🙂 So I got together with Dr Google to research different kinds of lung illnesses, such as asthma, COPD and so on. My symptoms excluded these illnesses, but Bronchiectasis fitted the bill exactly. In fact, I'm reassured that it's Bronchiectasis and not COPD. COPD leads to progressive narrowing of the bronchi, and that surely can't end well. Bronchiectasis is widening of the airways, and is not progressive if it's controlled by removing the excessive mucus. The final er... 'killer' symptom of Bronchiectasis was 'clubbed toes'. My friendly online doctor flashed up images of normal toes and clubbed toes that Bronchiectasis patients typically have. WTF! My toes are like that and I thought everyone had toes like that........ (I don't go around staring at ugly feet and I assumed that my ugly toes were just normal). The causes of Bronchiectasis could be down to asthma, lung infections etc. In my case, I recall getting very sick after working in a damp, underground, unheated office that had been empty for many years. My UK doctors could find no cause for my ill-health and I assumed that it might be down to aspergillosis fungal spores in the room. But lung x-rays never found any lung shadows etc and my lung function remained relatively normal, apart from regular bronchitis, pneumonia and explosive coughing fits that physically drained me. On the advice of my UK doctor, I moved to the hot/humid climate of Thailand, and that certainly helped, but smoky air pollution would still cause flare-ups, as happened last week when I went to visit smoky Luang Prabang. A forum member suggested that I try N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine tablets to thin the mucus so that it can be coughed up, and I'm very grateful to him because this certainly helps. Now that I'm pretty sure that I've identified the illness, I can concentrate on methods of coughing up this excess mucus, such as by using the thinning medication and 'huff' coughing. (I've been trying that and it helps). I won't bother asking a 'real' doctor to confirm my diagnosis, 'cos me and Dr Google do seem to have identified the culprit 🙂