jomtienbob

Wow... That pretty much ends my plan to visit that part of Thailand.

What a mess. What a pointless and senseless end of life.

I cannot imagine what the family is going threw.

Really is Amazing Thailand. Amazingly corrupt.

Try not to confuse blinding incompetence and 'couldn't give a clap' attitudes with corruption. Corruption takes some intelligence, effort and planning. There is no sign of anything nearing that in this case yet. The parents of the 2 girls are already accusing the police of cover-ups but it's no doubt just covering up their incompetence I would guess.

Jeez who did the subtitles? Someone needs to edit them especially around 3:48min. I don't think they are talking about pumpkins!!

I'm using Tippmanee (TMN) at the moment.

Quality is similar compared to Sophon

TMN has 92 channels and Sophon 63

Rate: TMN THB 350-THB 400 against Sophon THB 300-THB 350

Installation fee: TMN THB 1500 against Sophon THB ?

The owners of TMN are the son and daughter of the Sophon owners.

Won't be surprised if the hardware is one and the same company.

If TMN covers yoiur area, it's always a better deal

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Can any reader confirm or deny posters assumption that TMN has the "History" channel.

I agree that is a very worthwhile aspect if true.

It has a channel called Bio which is a part of the History channel but it doesn't have all the good History stuff.

Just the same TMN cable will do deals, we paid 1,800 for 6 months and they gave us 1 month & installation free, so we got 7 months for 1,800 installed. Quite good really. It has a few more english channels than Sophon and doesn't seem to go down as much as Sophon used to but maybe that's just because Sophon was a very theme oriented business ;-)

Phuket=turning into Pattaya

Nah Pattaya is much much better, less expensive and no unprovoked murders of elderly lady tourists by thugs on motorbikes. I guess that's why 7 million people visited Pattaya last year as opposed to Phuket's 3.7...

Good chance the culprits have already negotiated a deal with the plod for more lenient treatment (standard Thai practice) and the obligatory confessions,,.

I was at the Katathani Beach Resort last weekend with friends from Australia, They left last night at 6pm. I was telling them (on their 1st visit to Thailand) how safe it was here and Thai people rarely ever threaten your life to steal your money. I guess I was wrong about all that eh. Times are changing. However Thailand is still generally one of the safest friendliest tourist destinations, but having a 60 year old female travel agent murdered is possibly one of the worst case scenarios I would think. The problem is of course that the Keystone cops here are sure to make a horrid mess of it all. I wonder if they will try and put some of the blame on the travel agent some how? Condolences to the relatives and Thai Tourism in Phuket.

How many times have you seen a vehicle displaying a "Learner Driver" plate in Thailand? Where would I buy a copy of the Thai Highway Code? The driving mentality here to get in front of the car in front at ANY cost. Normally then to slow and turn off the road. Flash your lights to force your way through and Buddha will sort everything out. In most other countries that would provoke road-rage! Not here where it would perceived as disrespectful to admonish someone for bad driving, particularly if he/she has a better can than you. Road craft is not taught here, a driving licence is not important as being caught without one is sorted out with 200 baht bribe. Combine this normal bad mannered driving with copious amounts of alcohol and the holiday spirit and this is the result. Year after year over every holiday, Songkran, New Year and Loy Kratong. I love Thailand and rarely diss the place but is something they need to look at and quickly.

As i have said before. Its about time that the Thai govt started issuing visa/work permits for English trained driving instructors.

How many times have you seen a vehicle displaying a "Learner Driver" plate in Thailand? Where would I buy a copy of the Thai Highway Code? The driving mentality here to get in front of the car in front at ANY cost. Normally then to slow and turn off the road. Flash your lights to force your way through and Buddha will sort everything out. In most other countries that would provoke road-rage! Not here where it would perceived as disrespectful to admonish someone for bad driving, particularly if he/she has a better can than you. Road craft is not taught here, a driving licence is not important as being caught without one is sorted out with 200 baht bribe. Combine this normal bad mannered driving with copious amounts of alcohol and the holiday spirit and this is the result. Year after year over every holiday, Songkran, New Year and Loy Kratong. I love Thailand and rarely diss the place but is something they need to look at and quickly.

As i have said before. Its about time that the Thai govt started issuing visa/work permits for English trained driving instructors.

Wow where will you find the instructors that fluent in Thai? i tried to teach my GF and gave up because of comprehension and she speaks good English I speak read and write Thai...

A question, rhetoriacal as it may be, When the hell is Thailand going to wake up and stop this stupidity? Killing 320 people over a one week period is madness. To put his in a bit of a different perspective, this is the same as killing 320 people in the UK (population wise) in 7 days. Would this insanity be condoned there? I venture to say that the defication would contact the rotating oscillator, and some police and politicians a$$es would be in a sling. Why is it condoned here? I know TiT - This is Thailand....that bullshit answer no longer has any validity.

Actually they try to band-aid the problem as best they can from year to year etc. However it's so easy to criticize from the outside looking in. 2010 saw over 99,000 deaths in USA from drug resistant nosocomial infections and the EU topped 25k! yet the doctors nurses and hospitals aren't in the headlines and you really have to be on the inside to know how big this preventable problem really is and yet here some are pointing the fingers at a statistic that pales into insignificance by comparison in any way you wish to look at it.

My insight is that 85% of the deaths last week are motorbike riders, so it would seem a sure fire "don't drive a bike over songkran" to lessen your chances of mortality significantly, and hey, I am guessing that many were trying to get to a happier place anyhow ;-) (ie drinking)

Sure they need much more comprehensive and affordable driver training (even having course in schools) and testing but if u think that is going to happen in your lifetime you'd be either pretty young or naive.

I guess it's symptomatic of the general inattention to detail that an attorney submitted a document to the government with so many errors. Troubling beyond the content. Makes you think twice about trusting attorneys (like you need yet another reason).

I don't think the author is an attorney. Manages a law office, but not an attorney himself IIRC.

Which I guess is equally as troubling that he can easily have an attorney check it, but I guess they already did ;-D

I think the Freed should be destroyed as its an abomination anyway... But this action is a huge waste of perfectly re-usable spare parts.

I would have bought an accord at scrap value and have it running within a month. Does Honda think they are being clever making this announcement? All I see is a wasteful mentality that is all to prevalent these days.

It's a publicity stunt so that the uneducated masses don't think that there is a swathe of defective cars (hondas) on the market which there no doubt will be of every type from the dealers that were flood affected.

if it keeps them off the streets and gives them a decent income then it's a big improvement for all, especially them.

We had to pay the government officers almost 1/4 the amount of a house purchase to get product approved with the Thai FDA. They stonewalled us for 4 years until we had no other choice. If only they had told us that in advance, it wouldn't have been so bad...

I was told directly by an adviser to "his primeminister" that Yingluck is simply the media puppet and Taksin is and will continue to be the 1 and only person that every politician on the red side reports to directly.

I am sure Yingluck is a nice person but everything going on is actually being channeled from her brother

No surprises there i suppose but what is the media doing????

I say "DO IT."

And a big THANK YOU for the lady Prime Minister who is holding up and doing remarkably well. I believe in you and I support you. You are dealing with an unprecedented situation in Thailand.

May the blessing of the Triple Gem be with you!!!

Government is not the answer to any problem anywhere

Thai Airways are about 60-75% of that and people will do absolutely ANYTHING to get those jobs. I know a mid size public company in BKK that pays their COO about the same as that.

Meaningless twaddle. No mention of sample sizes or standard errors on the figures. And no authority has an IQ of 130 being at genius level. Hollingworth, for example, uses an IQ of 180 and above for genius.

As for not more than 2% having IQs of less than 70, also wrong. IQ is defined as having a standard deviation of 15 (or 16 in some versions of the test). 70 is two standard deviations away from 100, so approximately 2.5% of subjects will have an IQ of less than 70 (and 2.5% have an IQ above 130).

Of Course you are correct and 180+ is Genius for foreigners however that does also explain why 130 is genius for the locals, indeed there would be so few genuinely at that level they probably should lower it a bit more !! 55555

At this point you should probably just get a new SIM and subscribe to the unlimited plan.

I think there may have been an initial billing issue, which was complicated by your call, and even further complicated by your subsequent *138 request. Your account may be to far gone to recover. I guess you could go to a AIS/One-2-Call or Telewiz shop and try to recover your account but this can be challenging.

2G data (EDGE/GPRS) performance varies greatly based on location, time of day and capacity. 2G data bandwidth is not guaranteed. Voice calls have priority, while 2G data gets to use left-over bandwidth. If many people make voice calls in your area they will use bandwidth that you might have been using for data. With a lot of calls the data connection will drop.

With One-2-Call you can check your balance and expiration date by dialling *121#, you can check 2G usage by dialling *139#.

For my AIS/One-2-Call 2G data plan (25 hours/107 baht per month) I receive an SMS 3 days before it will expire advising that it will be renewed. This gives you a chance to insure sufficient balance. Then I get another SMS when it actually renews.

You may want to set up some reminders if you are not getting these service messages from One-2-Call, check your balance frequently.

Thanks for the suggestion!

I believe I am on a 3G and the reason I have chosen an unlimited package is because I do not want to be bothered by DATA USAGE. So Unlimited plan which is kinda PRICEY and by its package name Unlimited I was confident that I can use the service as often as I want regardless of data transfers.

I have just requested ONCE by *138 ( I just did request because the operator UNSUBSCRIBED in contrast to what she promised that she would immediately activate my monthly subscription after I topped up)

Yeah you're right I should be ready with sufficient funds when I know my subscription is close to expiring to prevent hassles like this

Thanks!

I have a Galaxy Tab also and 1st month I used it on my AIS post-paid account I got a bill for 3x my usual bill. Well I bought the Tab from AIS and obviously the extras were for GPRS charges so I complained and the girls told me how to stop the data from automatically logging on to the GPRS system at night and when I wasn't using it. Yes they must make a big load out of the people who go oh gee! and say nothing. So anyhow I am fixed now 'cause I mainly use it on wifi. Gee I wonder why the hotels u work at don't let u log into their wifi for free?? it costs them almost nothing. So how about your battery life on the Tab? can you watch more that 2 hours of video on the battery? I can't. I am not sure if I got a bad battery or if this is normal & I don't know anyone else with one.

they should be focusing on Govt departments like the Thai FDA!! Extortionists in the extreme

The problem is not just in the obvious medical fields by greedy doctors and health professionals, its also in the animal feeds. Antibiotics used sub-therapeutically in all forms of animal feed have bred methicillin resistant microbes for decades and the problem continues to escalate. EU regulators have set limits on traces of antibiotics found in meat however this has only just slowed the habit. Antibiotics are indeed the greatest enabling invention of mankind in millennia and we are rapidly diminishing its benefits by allowing myopic greed and abuse of the drugs in non therapeutic uses to take over from the sensible and IMHO obvious long term benefits. This is not just a local phenomena nor is it only found in Asia, it's just short sighted greed and constant confirmation that 'cash is king' everywhere in our societies. The only real long term answer of course is what is so seldom found here, good education and awareness...

So, what do you normally spend on chlorine in comparison? eg how many m3 to cost of chlorine per month?

Isn't Cu a metal? surely copper ions aren't healthy? Geez the Japanese will tell you now that having metal ions in the water isn't such a cool idea but sure strontium is a touch more nasty than copper, but just the same it's not good...

Purapool is making a lot of publicity about chlorine free swimming pools and its Copper System ...

When you go inside their shop, please have a look what they sell the most : liquid chlore and their pH min product : another chlore combination !!!

I decided to make my pool myself (in Koh Samui), and therefor took information, not only from Purapool or UK companies, but all over the world. I discovered so much possibilities to make chlorine free (or chemical free) swimming pools. Finally I found what I was looking for in Europe.

I imported myself a full automatic (electronic) Copper and Silver Ioniser ... the same machine who is making ions into my swimming pool water (it kill all bacteries, algues, micro-organisms, salmonella, ... better then Chlore) is also detecting permanently the pH level (which is very important with the Cu system) and adjusting automatically the pH level !!!

Important, for private pools you can use this single system, but for public pools and especially here in Thailand with 30 degrees temperature its important to know that you can NOT have a 100 % chlore free pool !!!

Instead of using 100 % chlore this Ioniser will reduce your chlore necessity to about 5 to 10 % (this is an important gain of 90 % chlore) the 10 % that you will use is really NOT longer dangerous and will not make chloramides.

Our system is perfect working and is cheaper ! Also we found out of Samui cheaper pumps, cheaper filters ...

If you are going to make your swimming pool or if you want to convert your water treatment of existing pool into my ionisation system, you can contact me via email [email protected]

We can provide Full Automatic electronic regulated Copper/Silver Ionizators for any pool sizes.

We can install them to European norms.

We also sell and install pool pumps, pool filters aso

We are the cheapest : An example ... (please compare prices with other distributors)

a 20" filter we sell 8.000 baht

a 38" filter we sell 14.000 baht

a 1/2 HP water pump we sell 6.000 baht

a 3 HP water pump for 17.000 baht

Our pH min is no longer Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) but H2SO4 !!!

Finally I bought some inlets and tabs from Purapool and after 2 months I had (already) to replace O-rings ... but they cannot or dont want to sell me spare parts !!! I think they are not really happy that I found a better and cheaper system myself for water treatment.

(I bought 13 Purapool tabs at 1.800 Baht each ... can not longer use them after 2 months ... due to broken O-rings) so I lost 23.000 baht !!!

Other questions ? Please ask me , I will be happy to reply all of them.

There are several bars in Pattaya owned by Americans but it would seem all of them prefer music to the commentary of the game, and most sports type bars aren't open in the wee hours such as Shenanigans on 2nd Road which is a great place to watch the replays that same evening, but if Simon the Manager (a former player himself) isn't there, the staff will not let you listen to the commentary because they prefer the music. This is almost par for the course in Pattaya. Does anyone know if there any air conditioned place in Pattaya that is open and shows the games live with the commentary??

Hooray does that mean we can come out of our little holes now?

That is fantastic, not only for the obvious but also because the test is in English, so the comprehension issues there are noteworthy also.