RocketDog

Ah. Looks like somebody pushed your hot buttons. No emotion, right?

Common ground between morons and reasonable people? There is none and shouldn't be any. Idiots are idiots and that won't change.

What problem?

So you've read the art of war I presume? Otherwise I get nothing from your reply.

The two most powerful weapons in china's arsenal: Western Social media and propaganda bots. War is deception. Convince the enemy you are strong when you are weak, convince them you are weak when you are strong. So which side are you helping with your post? And make no mistake. China is the sworn enemy of every country on the planet including Russia and north Korea.

A misunderstanding of Darwinism. The truth is that the adaptable species survive, not the strongest. But your version appeals to a lot of people to justify their actions. Misinformation.

Inevitable. Easy script: Go to another country as an immigrants or refugee. Find a Muslim enclave to live in. Take whatever financial or support means the host country offers you for as long as possible including citizenship. In the meantime pump out kids faster than the nationals in your host country. In a generation or so you have enough Muslim candidates and voters to put people in office. Rinse and repeat until you control the government. It works too. Look at France and England, both well down the road at this point with never a shot fired. To paraphrase: Death by a thousand children and their children and their children.

Good for you. I approve of foreigners being sequestered in compounds for their own safety and that of others near them. Personally I avoid groups or gatherings of farang. I just don't feel safe around them. I feel much safer in Thai crowds who tend to ignore me as if I'm invisible.

Why were these terms a joke 'back then'? Well, because they were understood to be derogatory but used in a kidding way. So without other body language cues they would rightfully be taken as derogatory. When I was in junior high school we would playfully call each other queer and faggot. Was that OK then? Of course gay/lesbian people existed even then. Some of them may have been my friends but certainly never came out of the closet in 1955. They of course laughed along with everybody else but how did that make them feel? Bottom line: if one stops using such terms misunderstandings would never occur. Seems like a simple change to make that avoids a lot of drama especially in a foreign country. Just find other ways to kid your buddies. Is Red ok for the redhead kid? Shortie for the short or tall kid? Fatso or bean pole? Even in high school my friends called me 'brainiac" because my language and math skills were obviously better than theirs. But it was exclusionary and I certainly got that part and it didn't feel good. The problem is that when using such terms you reveal what you see as their shortcomings compared to yourself. That is almost always offensive or demeaning whether the person in question admits it or not. In the end it's just bad social skills. So I don't buy your glib rationalization. The truth is such jokes are never truly appreciated by anybody and weren't even 'back then'. Even if you think you can take a joke just soberly consider if you ever enjoyed being referred to in negative ways. It's always just a way to demonstrate that someone is different from you in a way offensive or amusing to you. We're all different is some way, and that's wonderful. So why muddy the water for the sake of low grade humor and the possibility of being offensive/hurtful? We're not in gradeschool anymore. I'm not a snowflake but just don't see the point of or reward for being offensive. Learning a Thai person's name (or more often their nickname) nevers fails to get a positive reaction from the Thai people I know as well as any Thai person overhearing it even if I get the pronunciation wrong. Smiles instead of frowns, scowls or questioning gazes; I'll take that win every time. My Thai wife is from a large family and has several generations of in-laws and friends. If I am around any of them very often I make it a point of learning their names. It takes an effort to be sure but is ALWAYS rewarding. I allow them all considerable leeway is using my name because it doesn't transliterate easily for native Thai speakers. They don't use 'farang' in a negative way either and I understand that but it still demonstrates exclusion in some degree or another. A few of the more enlightened ones have learned to mangle my name and I give them credit for being more empathetic than the others. I feel immediately that we've formed a relationship and they do too. Is that not a significant gain? Funny how enlightenment is contagious isn't it? If I hear "man" (it) I am offended and immediately let them know even if they aren't speaking to me. From my in-laws I never hear it and they readily acknowledge that it is offensive. People are given names for a reason and are never offended by their use. Give up the puerile humor and learn to use names to make everybody's life easier.

Google cloud products are dangerous if you are processing proprietary data. Read the EULA. They 'own' anything you upload. Just as they own anything you send/receive on Gmail. I ditched that for ProtonMail years ago and now use Proton for my VPN, password manager, cloud storage, and calendar. The calendar sucks but the others work brilliantly. When I was doing Intrinsic Safety certifications as a consultant I refused to use it and warned my clients that they were essentially giving away intellectual property. What Google may or may not do with that data is irrelevant to the issue.

If you are an excel hound like I am for engineering purposes you would see the point. Libre calc is just no comparison. I tried it and kept it installed but seldom use it. That said, if you're not a power user and it works for you that's great! Full disclaimer: I hate MS with a passion and do all I can to avoid their products, especially the OS. However, the truth is that Visio and excel are indispensable to me and have no real competitors for power users. I stayed with Win7 until I had to buy a new laptop 9 years ago when win10 was forced on me. Now I'll have to swallow win11 until I finally make the break to Linux.

StackSocial sells these lifetime licenses and they come as a download with a one time key. I bought Visio and it performs perfectly except: 1. The lifetime mentioned is that of the machine it is installed on. Cannot be transferred. 2. No online help available as it has been disabled for these discount versions. 3 templates are also not available from MS but many are available from third party sources I am quite pleased with the price I paid and plan to buy office 365 when I buy a new computer. I think it's the office 2021 version, not the latest. These prices are definitely for real. I did searched before buying too. https://www.stacksocial.com/collections/apps-software/productivity

Agree. Like most of the countries on the planet have for far too long. That has been slowly changing the last few years though thankfully.

True enough. No nutritional value in sewage.

Yes. I have experience with Chinese goods of many types. Shoddy, inferior, crap junk.

I guess not. I bought with blood in the street and made 21% gain in two days in technology stocks.

No. It was all a bad dream. A very bad dream. Can you imagine the havoc he would wreak if he were president again? He could sow destruction and chaos within weeks of being elected. Like stoke global tension or even crash the stock market! 🫤

Or not. I tried both ways but you can't polish a turd.

Another topic degenerating into bickering from a couple of members. Harrisfan is generally always one of the two. Moderators should just close a thread when it gets to this point

Sadly the beat reply I can give you is this: Pretty much all forms of social media have succumbed to decay into dumpster fires washing into a swirling sewar. Humans want to be heard and, against all evidence and feedback to the contrary, believe that they have something to contribute that the world must hear, comprehend, and agree with RIGHT NOW! Social media is the pitiful distillation of that common misapprehension and a painful reminder of humanity's likely fatal disability: near utter failure to communicate even the simplest concepts to each other. I've never indulged in any of it save this forum. I joined when I first came to the Kingdom and it was a source of cultural information that was valuable to me. It was called Thaivisa then. Now, it's clear that the only cultural insights I can gain on AN are related to some of the worst traits of human nature, particularly western cultures. I already know more than I want of those. I still post occasionally but generally don't read replies because I have no reason to believe anybody cares what I think and I don't want to take the bait of some malcontent looking for a 30 reply bicker-fest.

Clearly you have a weak grasp of geopolitical strategy. 'Large piles of ice' immediately adjacent to oceans that were previously filled with more ice become strategic naval control points. The islands the chinese created in the middle of the pacific ocean were previously large piles of coral. But now they are naval bases with landing strips, rockets, and guns. Get it now?

Interesting. I 'am told' the opposite. [Well, maybe not interesting at all since I just made that up. Did you too?]

It sounds a bit like you are whistling past the graveyard. If you are sure your stance is correct (for you) there is no need to point it out repetitively. Is there? BTW I agree with you and I keep scrupulous records of proof that I owe nothing and thus have not filed. If I determine that I owe taxes some year then I will file. I refuse to risk my wife and life in the Kingdom over a few hundred dollars tax. I live here and use the roads and infrastructure too. Every expat should make their own assessment themselves. Probably some of them do owe taxes, "fair" or not.

Oh crap! Does that mean FB will be scraping data and selling advertisements to people even after they are dead? A fate worse than death.

Very helpful. Comments like your are what makes AN a leading forum.