KittenKong

On 8/15/2019 at 7:41 PM, moonseeker said:

How safe is this area.

I live in a Jomtien condo by the sea. One of my main reasons for doing this is because I can lock my front door, turn off my water and go away for a day or a week or a month or a year without having to give a second thought to anything at all.

If have a friend who has a nice house in a gated village on the darkside, and he also goes away for 6 months without any problems.

But I dont think there is any stand-alone house in Thailand that I would be happy to leave empty for more than a hour or two, and even for just an hour I would not be relaxed about it. I like living alone and have no desire at all to have dogs or wives or servants or anyone else around me, so Thai houses outside of a gated village are pretty much out of the question for me.

46 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

thank you for making my point.

Chinese don't go anywhere near those places and they never will.

they are at 5 star hotels on the beach.

But that just means that some areas are busy with Chinese. In that respect it's like Pattaya: drive past the entrance to Walking Street at 11pm and it is heaving with Chinese, Indians, Arabs etc., but elsewhere it is quieter, with only westerners to be seen.

5 hours ago, NCC1701A said:

next time go to bluport mall and just sit there for a few hours.

can you tell the difference between Chinese and Thais? sometimes they are hard to spot.

go to gourmet market in the middle of the day and buy something and look around you in the check out line. almost all Chinese.

 

Personally I hardly ever go to shopping malls and would never sit in one. I dont use Gourmet Market either as the prices are silly. But I can easily tell the difference between independent Chinese tourists and Thais: we have plenty of both here and they speak entirely different languages for a start. Maybe in Hua Hin they all stay in malls all the time.

8 hours ago, NCC1701A said:

yes there will be a high season. but not for so much for business that cater to western tourists. that is over.

Hua Hin is very busy right now.

I wonder who is it busy with if there are no western tourists? Cant say I have noticed many Indians or Arabs or Chinese when I have been there.

4 hours ago, tjo o tjim said:

 

@KittenKong are your filters clean?  Try keeping your fan on high and never open the windows during the day. 

Filters are cleaned fortnightly and are spotless. Fan is always on medium (I dont like strong fans). Windows are rarely opened.

I think it is just because my air-con is on all the time and the mould seems to like it. It isnt a problem at all though as a good spray every four months takes care of it in minutes.

2 hours ago, evilebxxx said:

 condenser fins are black and unclogged - non-restriction at all of my air intake, cover and air filter are gone

Sure. My condenser fins are clean too. I was talking about the cage fan only. That is the only indoor part on mine that gets dirty.

52 minutes ago, meand said:

Do you have a general thought on the unit price increase, of the actual ac? Double, a little more, triple? 

I haven't studied it but I would guess perhaps 20-30% more. You will save the extra cost very quickly if you use the unit at all often.

39 minutes ago, brucegoniners said:

If there was a top flight chiropractor in town would you be likely to do business with them?

Personally I’ve been frustrated by the lack of a quality chiropractor in town. In Bangkok there are many.

I’ve only found one crusty old guy who I didn’t like at all. 

Isn't that the sort of thing they do in hospitals here?

I have never had anything to do with a chiropractor so the question doesn't really concern me personally (yet).

9 hours ago, evilebxxx said:

My Samsung AC bedroom unit has never been cleaned manually in 5 years - only self-cleaning option has been activated frequently 

I wonder how that can work to prevent the build-up of cruddy black mould on the cage fan? My unit needs that mould removing every 4 months or so, and if it isn't done the thing just stops working completely.

But maybe your unit is not in use 24/7 like mine is. Units that are only used for a few hours a day probably dont get that mould build-up.

9 hours ago, meand said:

The inverters are quieter and more efficient?

Yes. They provide a more stable temperature also.

1 hour ago, Brunolem said:

Here is what I am looking for:

I want cameras that are usually in sleeping mode and start recording only when there is movement in their field of vision.

I also want these cameras to immediately send to my phone an alert message when such a movement occur, while letting me see what is happening.

Finally I want these cameras to be easy to install and set up. 

It really all boils down to how much you want to spend, how many cameras you want and over how big an area you need to install them.

So you need to be much more specific about the details of your installation. (How many cameras, whether you want some sort of centralised viewing position or whether you only need to view on your phone or PC, how easy it would be to run cables to the cameras, how long duration for recordings you want, how good your wifi coverage is over that area, and how fast your internet connection is generally.)

Motion detection for recording is available on all systems and so is not an issue at all. Warnings to other devices are also standard features.

I cant remember having a button/switch fail but with most mice the rubberised finish on the wheel seems to disintegrate after a few years rendering it useless.

For about 8 years I have been using Microsoft Comfort keyboard/mouse combos with the wave-shaped keyboard and have only been replacing them when the rubber dies as mentioned.

I replaced my third a couple of months ago but as the price of the Comfort model had gone from about £30 to about £60+, this time I bought a cheaper Microsoft 900 combo for £20 which seems to be fine so far.

For batteries I always use rechargeables which seem to last about 6 months before needing to be charged. I use rechargeables for my air-mouse also, but those only last a couple of weeks before needing to be charged.

Both work fine for me on CAT, though I don't see what their business model is.

I doubt that I will ever actually watch either site as I don't like live streaming and only use catch-up.

The people I use happily come to Jomtien from the darkside and charge me the same 400B for my one unit. I used to get them out for it every 4 months or so (which is how long it takes the mould to build up on the fan) but now I do it myself twice with a 150B air-con spray and just get the darkside cleaners out once a year to wash the whole thing.

I have an Echo Dot. For me speaker quality is only good enough to listen to speech radio, and for that it is fine. I like that I can ask Alexa to play particular BBC radio podcasts - like the 6pm Radio 4 news - without having to put my glasses on or turn the light on at night. I like the alarm/timer function. I like that it can give me the weather forecast, and traffic information. But apart from that I dont use it much.

I also have Google Assistant on my phone, and I find that about as useful as the Dot except that the BBC has removed their content from Google Assistant and so even that doesn't work. Voice recognition is often quite poor and overall it certainly isn't good enough to entice me into buying a Google Home Mini.

I am annoyed that neither of these devices has proper DLNA support as in theory it should be entirely possible for either device to start particular music tracks playing from my NAS (PC) on my DLNA amp. But that function has been deliberately disabled.

I know that I could use the MyAlexaMedia controller mentioned, but that is an appalling kludge. The function should be built-in.

I am also annoyed that both devices stop responding to voice input very rapidly after just a very short pause. This makes them useless for note making, which is something I would sometimes like to do.

So I would say that both are very much a work in progress.

1 minute ago, jacko45k said:

He (OP) said Bangkok Bank, I said Bangkok Bank. 

Yes, and I was pointing out that it depends entirely on the bank. Not everyone uses Bangkok Bank.

2 hours ago, jacko45k said:

Why do you need to add any money to your account? It is not an immigration requirement. If I put my Bangkok Bank FD account passbook into an update machine, a line is printed out showing current date and balance,

That depends on the bank entirely. Your bank does that: mine doesn't. Only changes are recorded.

On 8/15/2019 at 8:13 AM, banagan said:

Is there a noticable difference?

Yes. 1.5mm is thin. 1.2mm is ridiculously thin.

But it does all depend on the size of the window/door and the number of cross-members (if any). The larger the opening the thicker the aluminium should be. In practice here you only really have a choice of those two sizes, unless you are prepared to pay fantasy prices for imported frames.

6 hours ago, mikesil said:

I have a so called "fixed" account which sits undisturbed and exists for no purpose other than to be shown to TM (Immigration) annually. Well this year, as we all know, there are a couple of new wrinkles. First, the bank letter must be dated on the same day as the visit to TM. Second, a deposit must be made on that same day, presumably to show the account is still alive (totally redundant with the bank letter, IMHO).

Actually neither of these is currently a requirement at Jomtien Immigration. I always get my letter a day or two before going for my extension, and I dont update my bank book because it is a time deposit account. Jomtien Immigration have no problems with that.

Mine came with my home address already given as my work address. I noted that in the options there was no option for being retired or unemployed, only an option for being a pensioner. I am not a pensioner so I left it on "househusband" which is also wrong as I live alone.

I think this some sort of Thai variant on international KYC (know your customer) rules. Perhaps "don't know your customer".

On 8/6/2019 at 11:01 PM, Jingthing said:

Activities like Tai Chi are. This gives me appreciation for when I've seen groups of older Chinese people doing that, but I haven't seen that here.

I've seen Tai Chi (or similar) in a couple of places here: in the park at the top of Pratumnak and under the Bali Hai flyover. I expect that they do it in the park in Naklua also.

It's OK, but everything ends up tasting of the same soup. I always eat alone and as I dont like crowds it's not the sort of place I would choose to go to.

I think Thais would just let the insurance company sort it out.

On 8/12/2019 at 6:54 PM, Hal65 said:

Does thailand make anything like millet, quinoa, or the other grains ? If so I imagine they wouldn't be too expensive made domestically

I expect that all those would be imported and hence expensive.

15 hours ago, gk10002000 said:

so "selling" or transferring a vehicle to somebody that promises to make the payments is common in Thailand eh?  Why doesn't the seller just take the money and pay off the remaining loan balance, especially if they seem to sell the vehicle at 10 cents on the dollar? 

Because neither the seller nor the buyer actually has any money and the only way either of them can afford to own the vehicle is with borrowed money. Many people here have nothing but debts.

If they are only getting 10% of the value of the vehicle that would not be enough to pay off the loan anyway, besides which the whole point (for them) of selling the vehicle is to keep the money (which will probably be used to by another vehicle from someone else in the same situation).

HP is short for hire purchase. A British way of describing a credit/loan purchase where the lender is the owner of the item until the debt is paid off.