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Much of the original quoted article gives me the impression that the original author has a bone to pick or a lack of understanding of keeping non-domesticated animals or the behavior of large predators. I will consider it FUD unless there are others who can corroborate, and given the number of western volunteers at the Temple I'm extremely surprised there have been no affirmations or denials from first hand sources.

- I'm particularly curious as to how there where apparently two baby *lion* cubs there. They don't run around wild in Thailand and cubs would be two valuable to a zoo, circus or private collector to just donate to a temple.

- Tigers lie around and sleep. That is what they, and most big predators, do most of the time. You even see this behavior in your domesticated cat. You don't need to drug them.

- What good would letting a hawk *with a broken wing* out of its cage? Do you want it to get hurt further? Maybe it would have been kinder to kill it, like sometimes done with horses with broken legs, but that wouldn't be very buddhist. Stick it in a huge aviary and it is still stuck on its perch.

- How would you rather discipline a Tiger? If an animal needs to interact with humans, it needs to be controlled. Tiger urine and tiger balm seem like perfectly acceptable sticks to use when you don't want to use a real stick. And if you are a fan of western conservation methods, letting them run free without human interaction is exactly what the fund raising is about. Last time I was down there, the new enclosures where scheduled to open this year so the fund raising seems to have been working.

- The tigers are shaded with umbrellas. And the hard to see pool of water at the back is not there for the tourists.

- When asked about the scratches on their arms, western volunteers have told me that it is just a result of the animals being playful. They certainly do get to deal with the tigers when they can be trusted to do so. Given the size of a baby tiger is larger than the larger feral cats in Australia which have been known to take down sheep, it is hardly surprising that they are treated as dangerous and kept away from the newbies.

- The first item raised might be a point of concern, but no mention is made of *why* cubs where taken from the mother. Indeed, the amount of breeding going on at the temple is an indicator that things are being done right.

So far I have been three times over about 4 years. First time I saw the larger tigers kept in those small cages described. Second time only the babies where there, along with a baby Asiatic bear being hand reared on soy milk by the western volunteers, with the adult tigers having been moved to new larger accommodation. Third time those cages where gone with signs up announcing the imminent opening of the newer facilities with plenty of Thai workers doing whatever it is they spend all day doing. From what I have scene, the monks and the business people they have enlisted to help raise money are doing the best they can for these animals (both in the huge cost of keeping and feeding them and improving and extending the facilities) and articles like the original just hurt the fund raising efforts slowing down efforts to make things better and hurting the existing animals at the sanctuary and the new orphans that keep coming in. If there are indeed problems like painted in the article, I hope that someone in the know can corroborate this with a statement that sounds less dubious.

And, unlike Auschwitz, there *is* nowhere for the tigers to go. And yes, you wouldn't close Auschwitz if the alternative was to turf the residents out to starve or freeze to death. Even the residents would agree with that. What a wonderfully pointless comment. If it was decided to close the temple, some of the tigers might be lucky enough to find a home in a zoo or a circus but the majority of them would end up with a bullet in their brain or in a black market Chinese medicine farm. And, at least the side of the temple I have seen, the tigers there are better off there than any circus I've seen and all but the top tier zoos.

My rent for a condo in Bangkok is 75% of what my apartment in Melbourne is being rented out for. My Melbourne apartment is inner-city Melbourne, about a 10 min train ride or 20 min tram ride to the CBD. My condo in Bangkok is smaller, but high up the tallest building in probably the most expensive part of the city (lower Suk), and I know people renting 3 or 4 bedroom houses in Ratchada 10 mins walk from the subway for less than I pay for this one bedroom condo. I could never afford this in Melbourne - I imagine for a similar place in Melbourne I would be looking at paying 2x or 3x the Bangkok price.

Western food in lower suk is a little cheaper than Melbourne prices. Beer is cheaper across the board. Wine more expensive. However, I couldn't imagine eating western food in lower suk restaurants 2 meals a day - I would explode! Ingredients for cooking at home range from similar to Melbourne prices to ridiculously cheap, but if you like Thai food you don't need to cook yourself because you get a great normal day's lunch or dinner for between $AU 1.50 and $AU 11, again in one of the most expensive parts of the city. You can even get normal sized western food portions in that price range if you know where too look (most western main courses in lower suk are large enough to do both me and my wife).

And we can have a maid here. I just used the service available in my expensive condo in this expensive part of town with no haggling - $AU 56 per months for 2 maids three hours per week. I would never even dream of picking up the phone back home to see how much that would cost. If I didn't want to eat out I could hire maids-who-can-cook, or just do a deal with a local restaurant I like, and get three meals a day delivered to my door for around the same cost as when I cooked everything at home.

We are right on the Skytrain and close to the subway so I don't need a car (and if don't need to commute out of Bangkok regularly taxi is fine for everything else).

English language books cost the same as they seem to everywhere in the world, maybe a little cheaper than countries with higher VAT. Computer equipment roughly the same as anywhere else they are not locally manufactured when comparing same brands. In cases where the cost is 'what the market can bear', things can cost significantly less.

So I'd say yes - Bangkok is cheap. We can live a pampered lifestyle here we could never dream of back home, and we don't have to budget - I know everything we want we can afford. I know I could live elsewhere cheaper, but Bangkok has everything I want out of a place to call home unlike the cheaper options - it seems ideally placed in the price/facilities range for what we want. I have yet to find a place I could live cheaper where I would actually want to live.

Perhaps offspring changes this - I'll leave costs of good schooling etc. to those who know.

Ex-pat lifestyle is an interesting phrase. I don't think this is an internationally constant standard, but simply what is affordable where you are. Try living the same lifestyle you do in Bangkok in, say, Tokyo, London, New York, Melbourne - you just can't unless you are being subsidized by an incredibly generous company offshore allowance. Yet there are people happily living 'the expat lifestyle' in a shoe box in Tokyo, a 20 min metro ride to the night life scene and an expensive taxi ride home if you miss the midnight train home. I find it absolutely hilarious that some people get paid a hardship allowance for living here instead of there being bidding wars for who gets the Bangkok posting! Also, many of the stories of 'the expat lifestyle' come from the people who have been doing this for the longest time. Senior people. People who have been living 'the expat lifestyle' for 20 years now. Compare your western salary package with someone 20 years your senior back in the west. Now try doing the same with someone here. Of course they can afford a 150sqm apartment, live in maid, rent-a-wife or three, car + driver, weekends in Pattaya, fine wines, fine cigars and a reserved suite at Bumrungrad for when their liver or heart finally gives out. And some people just like to brag.

I am quite happy living here with the same household income as we had back in Melbourne. At first I was surprised at home much money we where going through, but it only took a few moments reflection to realize how much our lifestyle had improved here and that we where still doing better than we would be at home.

ctach 22.

anyone got a solution fot this? I need to pay the owner of my unit his share approx 1.6mill and then the balance to trendy on completion. Im trying to avoid flying from oz to hand over a cheque. they wont post a signed contract as they want the money first. If I transfer the money there is no gaurentee they will sign after? cant think of a way around this one except fly over.

The contract should be signed before handing over money, and the contract should state something along the lines of 'on receipt of 1600000 Baht...' to protect the owner. Shouldn't matter if you are handing over a cheque or transfering money from an offshore account, as cheques can bounce. And you can't even hand over cash (if this is being done in Thailand) as it would make it a pain to prove the money came from offshore and will cause tax headaches.

Not wanting to sign anything until after getting cash sounds really dodgy - this is standard, everyday stuff.

I have two studios (35 m2) in 15. floor. Today I got an e-mail promising that all the common areas would be finished by the end of August. And the ownership transfer should take place in the beginning of September. I hope this time they would keep their promises.

I want to have my condos for rent on long term contracts, but I am not sure if I should have them fully decorated and furnished. Is there a market for renting empty condos? And do anybody have a clue about the prices, and if I should use the administration in The Trendy or choose somebody else to take care of it?

A little further down soi 13 I only see furnished appartments, most with UBC. The smaller units (40m2) have a lower occupancy rate than any of the larger units apart from the way overpriced penthouses, but it still seems decent.

I think a fair rate would be 16-18k per month fully furnished with UBC. They are a little smaller than the corresponding units down the road and probably crappier view, but are new and a few minutes closer to the skytrain.

what do the agents charge as comission on the rental?

The agent I went through for my current rental took one months rent (from the owner, not me).

The Thai agent I used took 10% of the first month rent (from the owner, not me) as payment for leading me to the unit (between Silom and Sathorn)

Taking $35K for such a service seems exhorbiant. Actually, at that rate, I think Im in the wrong business.

I'm quoting the fee to list a property of a fairly high profile property site staffed with farang who take you around the listed properties - the sort of service a property owner uses to find a tenant (and if you get a tenant 1 month sooner than a free listing service, if they exist, it just payed for itself). This is a different service to paying someone to locate interesting properties and take you around, which is the service a customer uses. I imagine estate agents agree to pay the 10% kickback to the property seekers in exchange for them bothering to take potential renters around. And the agent keeps 90% of the 1 months rental (or whatever) they charge the owner.

what do the agents charge as comission on the rental?

The agent I went through for my current rental took one months rent (from the owner, not me).

A month's rent seems to go for around 1/200 of the property's value. So if you spent 6m, it'd be 30K a month minus costs of a real estate agent.

For a brand new place, which is therefore over priced due to the Thai dislike of buying second hand. Apartments with listed price of 5-6m apartments in this older building have a pretty standard rental of 35k and the occupancy rate seems very high.

Jumped the gun a bit now i think of it, it will be at least 4 months before completion. would anyone consider the purchase of a 70m/2 1 bedroom 2 bathroom for 5mill bht a good deal? 11 th floor. also what would you think a fair rental would be. I had a look around a bit and stayed at the s.m grande in their 1 bedroom for 1 month. thay charged 45000 bht non negotiable even for 6 months. and i t was a bit crappy. other places around soi 8 11 etc are asking the same.

A short stroll down the soi (past the ambassador rear entrance), you can get a 60m2 1 bedroom, no balcony in an older building above the 27th floor for the asking price of 2.8million. Rental for an appartment like this is 23-25000 fully furnished with UBC. Rental for a 72m2 2 bedroom with balcony is 35000. Penthouse on the 43rd and 44th floors goes for 21million, I think 144m2.

Any short term rental (less than 12 month lease) will cost you about 30% more I think for similar standard. I think this end of the market is owned by the hotels and wholly owned serviced appartment buildings - lots of rooms, known standard == no hassles for the customer.

(I can't wait for the Trendy and the other one on the corner to open - there are no guards outside the Miami Hotel or whatever it is called so soi 13 should be nicknamed soi hong nam after 10pm.)

Whatever "evil" one could do when logged in as 'root' can also be done by running the command with 'sudo'. I really do not see why 'sudo' is so popular. Maybe it saves users from having to remember their login password and the 'root' password. That might be too much to ask.

Sudo became popular on larger system, where multiple people would need administrative access. Instead of maintaining a shared password, which is an administrative and security problem, sudo made it unnecessary. Other advantages where also there such as being able to limit what commands could be run as what user, allowing delegation of administrative duties such as giving people the ability to clear print queues or start and stop services without needing full superuser access. Even on single user machines it is useful, as it allows you to access root without needing a root password set - an excellent idea if you are running a service that might allow root login such as an ssh or ftp server which may allow direct root access otherewise. sudo also sanitizes the environment when you use it to escalate your privs, blocking various attack vectors such as setting LD_PRELOAD environment variables or similar, making it much harder for an attack to gain full superuser privs. Also sudo lets you run sequences of commands as root, but by default the authentication credentials time out so if you wander away from an unlocked workstation there is less likely hood of someone being able to gain root access on your box. Given these advantages, and the lack of any advantages whatsoever of allowing direct root access, it seems a sane default setup for Unix like systems.

And if you really don't like it or just feel like revisiting the 80s, changing it is as easy as typing 'sudo passwd root'.

The new office is ready to take your order:

Some other random crappy shots from ground level:

Glad to hear of your success. Query, where did you source your CD from, I keep getting failures from a downloaded iso?

Regards

You can get cds shipped to your door for free from http://shipit.ubuntu.com . Mine arrived a few weeks ago and can spare one or two if people can't wait.

As one Issanite said to me one day "just because somebody gives you money,do you think they still just might vote for who they want?do you think we are all thick?"...very good point I thought,although,it might be lost on a few people here.....

If a village was paid for and the election results did not turn out the desired way, do you think they will get any money next election? Do you think the village head man will get his kick back? Do you think some people might try to get their money back or take revenge shooting a few pigs, torching a car, dumping a dead dog into the well. Even if your village results are not identifiable in the official counts, do you trust your election officials enough that the village results won't leak? Do you trust who you give your vote to? Are they getting kick backs to ensure results are as paid for?

There are plenty of ways to ensure people vote the way desired, at a community level if not an individual level. Accepting money and not voting the way you were told is asking for trouble, and people know that when putting the X on their paper. Even if it is just a minor fear, enough people will vote as bought when it comes to the crunch beause to them it is just one vote amongst millions. But to the person who paid for them, it is millions of votes.

I can neither confirm nor deny vote buying in rural Thailand, but it is a very believable scenario. Buy villagers, or buy the headman who can sway the villagers to think the desired way. But if you buy votes with cash, you better destroy the institutions designed to keep you in check such as electoral councils, courts and perhaps the police and army, because next election people might not take the cash if they feel their lives have significantly worsened.

I have to say, they'd have an easier time marketing this to non-geeks if they would stop giving the releases stupid names.

Edgy Eft, Gutsy Gibbon, Dapper Drake? Not the same ring as Tiger, Vista, or Leopard.

Do you mean like the real release name - Ubuntu 7.04 ? The Feisty Fawn name is just a code name. I've seen worse (I once installed Victoria Bitter onto a Network Appliance file server).

I'm not sure how useful it actually would be as a learning aid. The format of Peter's book is a slab of conversation in English, a slab of conversation in phonetically spelled Thai, repeat a few times in the longer chapters, and a vocabulary list at the end. It doesn't help you learn, eg. by explaining concepts or offering learning aids. You find yourself having to jump around between the Thai, English and vocabulary sections to try and decode things yourself. I think this may be fine for people used to learning languages, but this is unfamilar territory for me so I will be looking for better resources for home study.

I can't really help with getting the 6.10 install to work, but I can say that the 7.04 release is now in beta and already in a better state than 6.10. If you have the bandwidth, you might want to download and burn a CD. Or if not, wait until the 7.04 CDs are available from shipit.ubuntu.com and wait a few weeks for them to arrive.

To wait for version 7 might be the best option....to download anything here takes far too long...mayhap ver7 will install without problems....shall just have to wait and see....thanks for all the help....and sympathy!!

You can also open a support request on https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ where people who want to help and know the answers hang out.

You can get a green curry chicken pie at the Downunder Sports Bar on Sukhumvit Soi 23 (right side between Sukhumvit and soi Cowboy). Just get there at a normal mean time as might be too dried out or all eaten at other times. Also lamb, beef and port I think.

(And good fish and chips with thin batter - not that cod-fried-in-a-bucket-of-fluffy-beer-batter british style stuff that all the 'best' fish and chipperies in Bangkok serve)

I had the chance to talk with the american owner and among others things he mentioned to me that Thais simply do not like real pizza, reason why it is so hard to keep a western kitchen with no "compromises".

Am I correct in assuming this is another American (New York, Chicago?) style pizza parlour? I miss Melbourne Pizza :-(

I can't really help with getting the 6.10 install to work, but I can say that the 7.04 release is now in beta and already in a better state than 6.10. If you have the bandwidth, you might want to download and burn a CD. Or if not, wait until the 7.04 CDs are available from shipit.ubuntu.com and wait a few weeks for them to arrive.

Is there anyone out there who knows any thai menu for those who want to slim fast. I'm fed up of eating really low-fat products, I mean, all of the food I eat now is really sweet(fruits, muller rice, optivita from kellogs, wheat biscuits) so i get cravings to eat meat. I'd really appreciate it if someone could give me thai menu including ingredients. I need at least 5-7? I don't really know because I don't want to eat the same food over and over because I'll get fed up and then quit.

It sounds like you are in the same situation as many (most?) people trying to lose wait on the traditional low-fat diet. I'd suggest doing research into modern dietary thinking and choose an approach better suited to you. For example, lowering your carbohydrate intake reduces your appetite so you end up eating fewer calories - and the only way of losing weight is to consume fewer calories than you burn. Everything else is just management - keeping the body healthy and stopping cravings. No problems with higher fat diet if the total calories goes down (unless you are also nursing a colestorol problem or similar), and if the sweet stuff you mention has a high calory count that may be your problem; and I don't mean high calory 'per serve', but what you end up eating of it in a day!. It may turn out to be really easy - I find I lose weight if I stick to a normal diet but only eat rice with breakfast or maybe breakfast + lunch. Instead of wanting a full dinner, I find a small snack just fine. Or maybe the 'high GI' approach - buy your kha pow gai or whatever on the street without the rice, and cook brown rice at home (extra points if you cook less rice than you would have got on the street too!).

When cooking, I tend to improvise. Pick a meat, vegetable or tofu as the main. Abritrarily choose herbs or spices (holy basil, or corriander, or the strange one you haven't seen before, or some random curry paste). Do a stir fry with little oil, chilli, garlic and onion to taste. The curry pastes need some sort of creamer, so maybe add soymilk after the meat is braised instead of coconut milk and fresh corriander too for a red or green curry. Brown rice or maybe skip that altogether.

More resources over in the weight loss forum too.

So did that article actually have a conclusion I missed, or is it just the usual 'some people say this' and 'other people say that'?

I coconut milk has been ruled out by the doctor, you can substitute with soy milk. The taste is different but the recipies still work (and some of us prefer the taste).

Maybe get a list of ingrediants he likes and get them explicitly ok'd by the doctor so the wife doesn't worry? Duck and prawns may be out but spices, herbs, most vegetables, lean steak, pork & chicken, fish no probs. Just go easy on the oil and anything borderline like red meat of course until the danger periods are over.

A thai cook with a list of do's and don'ts should be able to adapt things no problems - most likely just means use better quality meat with fat trimmed or a substitute and very little oil.

I picked up a cheap dvd player at tesco maybe 6 months ago, which I've had no problems with until now - it seems it took me a while before I actually found a disc in Thailand that was non-region 3 encoded! It is a Panavox PN-2050, which seems so obscure it appears on none of the DVD unlock sites and I suspect it is a Thai only model; just a rebadge of some generic player churned out in a Chinese factory.

Does anyone know the magic codes to get it to play all regions of discs? Or educated guesses on a model number for a better known rebadge of the same player so I can try its codes?

Any progress news from anyone?

Several full size palm trees went in out the front last week, and the front area seems to have been paved. Last I saw they where slapping concrete on the front and doing stairs. Can't see much of what is going on inside now - it is all glassed. Still got the blue & white insulation stuff covering the outside of the building (or perhaps that will be the final surface and all it needs is to have the plastic wrapper removed?)

Can't say much more than that because it is black outside

What is the rational for removing links from the context where they are useful and putting them in this thread where they will get lost? I can imagine encouraging them to end up in here *as well* could be good, but removing them from context just makes it much more likely information will not be read, people remain ignorant and destroy the value of the conversation (less information available, less informed people commenting).

Muscle burns more calories then fat,this is a fact.If you want evidence,simply type that sentence in on yahoo and you'll find plenty of sites backing this up.

Although i can't link it,In arnold schwarzeneggers 'encycloypedia of modern bodybuilding' there is a section explaining how building more muscle helps greatly with fat loss.He says how many endomorph(basically the fattest of the 3 bodytypes) bodybuilders would find it much easier to burn fat once they had built a significent amount of muscle.

This all seems rather obvious - fat is passive and doesn't burn calories, whereas muscles are active. The more muscle you have, the more calories you can burn before you get tired and the more calories you are physically capable of burning each day.

The very act of developing muscle increases your power to weight ratio, unless you also manage to increase you fat levels in proportion and I expect that would be fairly rare and even difficult to achieve.

A friend of mine insisted it "wasn't balanced," even when I repeatedly explained that you could eat plenty of vegetables and make up some of the deficiencies with vitamins.

This is quite true when you use the traditional definition of balanced. This was why it was quite revolutionary - it started people thinking that what they had been taught about the food pyramid might be quite wrong (which I personally agree with - 'dairy' as a food group is pretty much only there due to the pressure of the dairy industry and has caused no end of grief to the various ethnic groups with a high incidence of lactose intolerance).

It's true that all the meat can be hard on your kidneys, because it means there will be a lot more excess urea to be processed.

I've heard this claim, and counter claims that is is rubbish. Do you have any citations? I think this could be true if you fail to drink enough liquid but can't remember if I heard this somewhere I found reputable or if it is just an educated guess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_Nutritional_Approach gives citations for many pro/anti studies but has no reference to this one