williamgeorgeallen

13 minutes ago, 12DrinkMore said:

 

Tourists are here for 1 to 2 weeks. Shop loyalty is not built up with motorcycle hire.

 

Haven't heard from the jetsky scammers recently. Wonder why they are no longer in the news?

my policy of 'rent everything' includes motorbikes and i would only rent from her for 6 months a year when i retire back to thailand. 

4 minutes ago, 12DrinkMore said:

 

Tourists are here for 1 to 2 weeks. Shop loyalty is not built up with motorcycle hire.

 

Haven't heard from the jetsky scammers recently. Wonder why they are no longer in the news?

so the lady i know with the motor bike rental shop has a very successful business. people rent from her mostly by the month. guys like me who now spend a month two in pattaya each year.  she keeps buying more bikes and so many times she has them all rented out. not sure what is going on with the jet ski guys, have they been put out of business? water is so dirty i am surprised anyone will go in it.

40 minutes ago, johnmcc6 said:

Only that many things have been improved since then. Like California roll out of filling stations. Toyota and others would not be planning to build them without filling stations. A long way to go yet but it will be the future. It will never replace the need for oil which has thousands of other uses. In lab tests they have cracked fusion for the first time. Cost enormous $$$ to make one tiny bit of more power out than put in but proves it is ultimately possible. They scoffed when Kennedy said they would put a man on the moon. In this incredible frenzy of innovation and scientific progress it would be remiss to bog down arguing about the present when the future has so many exciting possibilities. 

i have put a bit of time into looking at electric cars as i would like to get one along with solar power for my house. i tried to look into hydrogen powered cars but i cant really find anything recent about them. if anything i think electric will win out just based on the fact that everyone who buys an electric car has a fueling station in their own house.

petrol cars will die out in my lifetime. even the CEO of shell just announced he is getting a plug in hybrid and rolling out fast charging in his petrol stations across europe. now that is progress.

14 minutes ago, jenifer d said:

have NEVER seen ANY rental outfit pre-checking competence; here on our island the tourists often aren't even warned to stay ALL the way to the left (oncoming cars pass in the center w/NO regard for oncoming bikes),

nor are they advised w/non-gear bikes to hit BOTH brakes evenly and slowly (on the automatics, if only one brake

is applied, chances are one is going down, especially due to the sand and gravel always on the sides of our roads

the 'mai pang' motorbikes on the north end of jomtien beach gets anyone renting a bike to ride to the end of the dead end street and back. it is enough for the lady owner to see if the rider is ok to rent. when i lived in thailand i would always send my friends and customers to get a bike off her. problem was her business was so busy even in low season she often had no bikes left to rent. she was running an excellent business by doing the right thing by her customers. many of the other companies renting bikes hope you damage them and over charge to have them fixed. short term gain over long term building a strong business. 

7 minutes ago, johnmcc6 said:

Google top gear hydrogen car for one of several stories...

can only find a few clips from 2008. is there anything more recent?

6 minutes ago, steven100 said:

no one is above the law and Khun Prayuth will jail her if she is found to be guilty.

yes like they jailed the red bull brat that killed the cop. the rich in thailand pay 'fines' they dont go to jail. she has already been found guilty and a 1 billion dollar fine imposed. i am guessing your response was a joke. 

remember iraq when they showed a bunch of drawings of WMDs that then did not actually exist? well it seems in this case the WMDs are real. hope they are putting together a game plan with japan and south korea to sort this out. americas battle carrier groups dont look like they are even in position. 

1 hour ago, yellowboat said:

Why don't they just keep monitoring them then?  There must not be a Thai word for "stakeout" .   

 

It does not sound like they have any basis for criminal intent even in today's oppressive Thailand. 

they are putting pressure on the reds. cant actually arrest them as it will lead to unrest before the announcement. need to keep it as calm as possible then try to hand down the biggest fine or jail time that they can that wont lead to civil unrest. it is 1145am at OK corral and there is a gunfight at high noon.

11 hours ago, MarkusAUST said:

If there was ever any doubt about the ruling of the court, which should be kept secret, and even Prayut shouldn't know, there isn't now. Only if it is a guaranteed guilty verdict and a very heavy sentence, would there be this much anxiety about people attending the court. I can see Yingluck getting 50 years, just so Prayut can get at Thaksin. I can also see the place going up in flames shortly thereafter. Prayut may be pushing his luck with this farce of a trial, that singled out one individual out of many in Government. Funniest is she is accused of not stopping corruption on the rice pledging scheme. Well, here's a thought, How about going after those who actually committed the corruption? I don't see the Chief of Police going to jail because he didn't catch every criminal in the country! Utterly political move, that anyone with half a brain sees through.

I hope the World loudly condemns what comes next.

i hope the general is not stupid enough to jail yingluck. he must know the trouble it will cause. i might be wrong, i hope not for the good of thailand. 

13 hours ago, BEVUP said:

Just carry dog biscuits & then they will know you when you come along

Threatening them will always provoke future attacks 

& for those who say the Thais might not like what you do are wrong  - I watched a man come back with a steel 1 " pipe & started swinging at them, also had to rescue old people

feeding soi dogs is the wrong thing to do. feeding means they will breed more. carrying a stick is your best defence. avoid looking at them. street i was living on had soi dogs barking at night and they would wake up my baby so i would shoot them from my rooftop with a BB gun with plastic BBs. this seemed to work quite well at stopping them from doing it again.

guy is an idiot for renting a bike without being competent in riding one. the motor bike shop is stupid for not testing his riding ability before renting the bike to him. lucky the cops were not involved.

3 hours ago, johnmcc6 said:

Hydrogen is the future. Commercially available in California now. Fill up as fast as a petrol station at similar cost. Currently not enough stations but in the future will replace inefficient battery cars. Station roll out is going on between Baha  California  and British Columbia ,One of the most traveled highways on the west coast . Will eventually link cities in the east like Vegas and beyond . Batteries are going to be like nuke waste trying to get rid of them when worn out. The cost of making plus limited life make them a non starter for the future. Top gear did a big test of all electric cars last year. They weigh too much to corner and handle well and with batteries manufacture and limited life there is no real benefit to current guzzlers. A lot of feel good only. Top gear said the future is definitely hydrogen. 

interesting. i need to watch that top gear episode.  it would seem the investment into batteries worldwide is considerably greater than into hydrogen production and distribution. batteries for cars are a problem but they can be reused in houses as products like the tesla wall when their efficiency drops. they are almost 100% recyclable.

battery capacity is doubling every 3 to 4 years which means you can halve the weight over that time to have the same amount of power. what weight there is sits very low to the road giving electric cars a very low center of gravity and great handling, not that it is so important in your average family car. electric cars are taking record race times from combustion engines from many race tracks due to excellent acceleration. it is the great acceleration that makes electric cars better for start stop commutes. in fact they are more efficient in that role. look up one pedal driving. the re generative breaking with one pedal driving is very impressive. the fact electric cars have almost zero maintenance is a major selling point for me. the less combustible materials we have around the better as well. 

12 hours ago, aslimversgwm said:

Are you referring to hydrogen powered vehicles? I seem to recall that there are already prototype cars running on hydrogen power whose emissions are water only. How is this progressing as compared to electric cars? 

seems hydrogen has lost the battle. the infrastructure needed was always going to be too much. producing , storing, shipping and selling it is a far more expensive option than electricity which is available pretty much every where. you dont even need to drive anywhere to get it. just plug in over night. electric car running costs are about 25% the cost of a  petrol here in new zealand and hydrogen cant compete with that. electric car range is already over 100km which is more than double the average daily commute. range is doubling about every 3 or 4 years and the charging station network is slowly being built up.  there is a lot of talk about charging stations but they seem to be hard on the batteries so most people should trickle charge over night on cheaper off peak electricity. i am hoping to get a nissan leaf. they are quite cheap and come in as used imports from japan and should get even cheaper when the new model come out next year.

7 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

If you actually watch the video, the girl who fell wasn't using a phone.

dont think they have smart phones 30 years ago.

i owned the shop house beside this place for 5 years. for 4 of those years it was under renovation including buying the next 4 shop houses to make it a combined 10 shop houses.  seemed money was just flowing into the place.  it never seemed to have many customers when it opened.  doubt it was even covering its running costs. what a mess.

wonder if it is getting worse with peoples addiction to smart phones.

well that is a sad story and by the time you drag this through the courts there will be very little left for you. has she agreed to sell the house? selling property is very difficult, where is the house? if you can somehow get the house sold and pay out your loan in australia it will be a very good result. 

much of the energy being produced now is being wasted as it is not being used due to the changing demands on the grid. as batteries get better they can be incorporated into the grid and the houses they supply. plug in cars can also be used to store energy and feed back to even out the demand on the grid. look up the battery being installed into the wind farm in south australia.

hope they have stopped the rainmaking efforts. irony is that it would work now as there is moisture in the air.

1 hour ago, champers said:

Beach cleanups are pretty futile. When the tide comes in it brings a fresh load.

and the black water/sewer run off remains.

15 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

blame-shifting and defocusing issues is an art here

agreed, have to say i am surprised the story is still in the main stream media. story is getting enough clicks i suppose. 

thai lives matter but if you run at a cop with a weapon it is probably not going to matter quite as much. just glad there are not riots following police action like this.

Trump seems to have gone off half cocked on this one.

thats why it is better to rent and move to another condo if you are not happy. house i bought was on a street next to a hotel being renovated. it was renovated twice in 4 years. 12 hours of jackhammering  a day sometimes 7 days a week. was horrible when my son was born. it was the same hotel on soi holiday that was confiscated last week due to being used by zero dollar chinese tourists. it was also right beside the reflection development. i wanted to move but it took 4 years to sell at a loss. i have always believed in buying property to live in, thailand changed that.

bit late to start freeze assets now. whats left must just be a token gesture.