Lacessit

Jetstar has form in defrauding customers. I have been issued a travel voucher in place of the refund I wanted after cancellation. In a message that is supposed to make me happy, they will be extending the validity of the voucher until 2023, after which it becomes void. They are in for a bit of a surprise, I have kept and printed every bit of correspondence I have had with them since the Bangkok floods of 2011, when they also dudded me on another voucher. It's going to the ACCC when the timing is right.

They gave you a freebie on STD's? Sorry, couldn't resist.

If you read under my nom-de-plume, you can work out where I renewed my five year scooter and car licences about two months ago. I am not sure I would pass a peripheral vision test. However, as I do not drive at night, and also drive defensively, it does not seem to be a problem.

I'm talking about people of our age who decide to give up driving because they know their reflexes and vision are not good enough anymore. I've been driving for over 60 years. I have never had a front-on accident, just T-boning and rear-ending by drunks and incompetents. Can't do much about such situations. I already have put restrictions on myself. I won't drive at night, and I won't drive any vehicle if I have consumed any alcohol at all. I will have to give up driving eventually, unless I cark it first. However, as I consider I am more competent than 95% of drivers on Thai roads, and have an accident-free record for over ten years here to prove it, not yet.

What reaction test? On my third Thai licence, the only thing I have had to do is identify colors. I would have thought sensible people here determine their own fitness to drive a vehicle.

You have a statistical sample of one, of which I was not aware. Given mass shootings in America seem to happen a couple of times a month, sometimes in schools, I doubt the two countries are comparable.

4 million years ago Homo Sapiens did not exist. Nothing is a disaster for the planet, it can get along fine with or without us. OTOH, it's not just people with a sea view. The conservative consensus is the Himalayan glaciers that feed the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Mekong rivers will be 50% of their current ice mass by 2050. The billion people with an increasing population that live on those rivers and depend on their waters will have to make do with half the current flows, even less if the Chinese keep building more dams.

A Beurer digital thermometer is based on infra-red sensing. It is intended for contact-less clinical measurement of body temperature. Thermocouple type digital thermometers have other functions, such as measuring the internal temperature of cooked meat. Or radiator coolant temperature in a vehicle. It depends on what the OP intends to use the thermometer for. QC means quality control, implying the device has been checked for accuracy against a reference temperature.

Let's see what he looks like at age 79, not 45. Honey is 40% fructose, 30% glucose. Fruit is mainly fructose. IMO it's a pretty good diet for developing Type 2 diabetes. And constipation, if his only source of fibre is fruit.

I get it. Climate deniers are rational people relying on facts and statistics against a tide of scientists who are all getting funding to spread fear of something that 1/ Isn't going to happen 2/ Is part of a natural cycle 3/ Will be beneficial as the extra CO2 is plant food. Please explain to me how that is not a religion of its own.

Ah, the plant food argument. I was wondering when that would come along. The world's vegetation has done quite well for itself on 280 ppm of carbon dioxide for 10,000 years, what makes you think it will turn up its toes in the unlikely event we managed to get back to that level? AFAIK no-one is proposing an atmosphere with zero CO2.

Since the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels have increased from 280 ppm to 421 ppm currently. That's about a 50% increase, your "96% is natural" does not stand up. The 280 ppm level has been around for about 10,000 years prior to the mid-18th century. Where else do you think the extra CO2 is coming from, if not from us?

I don't deny there will be advances in technology, even the smartphones we have were inconceivable 100 years ago. Whether those advances will be good enough, and how many will be stymied by political inertia, is a different question. In Australia, the CSIRO has already established the technology for converting hydrogen generated by solar power into ammonia for transportation, and reconstituting the hydrogen at the point of delivery. Proven at pilot plant stage. None of the politicians in Australia have the scientific background to realize we are sitting on a gold mine, all that is needed is the capital for mass production. They are all focused on how many staffing cutbacks they can make short of destroying CSIRO. Same same but different with Bangkok, when the Dutch came knocking with solutions to Bangkok's flooding, Thai politicians did not want to know. Face.

Any meteorologist worth their salt will tell you the warmer the ocean surface temperature is, the more intense a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone will be. It's a perfect example of the First Law of Thermodynamics in action.

The ozone holes over both poles did not go away on their own. They shrank and disappeared after 197 nations signed off on eliminating the production and use of chlorofluorocarbons ( CFC's ), which were proven ozone-depleting compounds. The 1987 Montreal Protocol, perhaps the only effective environmental treaty mankind has managed to develop.

Every food we eat is subject to cellular destruction, starting with salivary enzymes, then hydrolysis with strong hydrochloric acid in the stomach, finished off by gut bacteria. The phrase "My dear friend and better start asking you some question" in your response tells me all I need to know, goodbye.

I am not disputing your statement proteins and fats can be molecularly damaged in a microwave, anyone who has heard the crackling that goes on in a microwave when operating on said substances would know something unusual is occurring. Having said that, I'd like to see evidence the damage generates harmful compounds. Acroleins from fats, maybe. Where's the evidence? One can generate acroleins just as easily if a frying pan is too hot. Sensible people operate microwave ovens as intended, with water-based foods.

Prediction of the future is based on models. They are only as good as the input data. When peak oil was talked about in the 70's, no-one knew the US was sitting on a bonanza of shale oil, or that Australia would become one of the world's biggest gas producers. Focus on what is happening NOW, verified by measurement. The Larsen Ice Shelf is melting at unprecedented rates. Australia has had record interior heat cells over the past decade. Greenland has lost a significant amount of its ice cover. Iceland lost 7% of its glaciers in the last two decades. You think those trends are going to magically reverse?

It's generally agreed global warming is the result of anthropomorphic emissions of carbon dioxide. The trend upwards since the Industrial Revolution is unmistakable. You can dismiss the statement 95% of scientists agree. That ignores the fact only 1% of the world's population has scientific training at the tertiary level. We have far more politicians and lawyers.

While I agree with the substance of your post, I would point out laws change, usually to the detriment of males. I've yet to see one that reduces women's entitlements, except in Muslim countries. I'm just wondering when that will happen in Thailand. To the OP: If getting married has the objective of saving yourself 400K baht on deposit, IMO it is not a very good reason.

What you say about ice is quite true. Unfortunately for your argument, most ice in Antarctica is land-based. The accepted calculation is if all the ice in Antarctica, Greenland etc. was to melt, sea levels would rise by 70 metres. 95% of scientists agree climate change and global warming are real. The 5% who don't are mostly linked to the fossil fuel industry, which has a vested interest in politicizing the issue with whatever venal politicians it can find. Which is probably the vast majority of them. My standard approach with climate deniers is to ask them to explain the meaning of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, which applies to climate change, which applies to global warming. 99% of the time, I get blank looks. I would then ask them to explain what albedo and clathrates are, and how they could trigger a black swan event. So far, I haven't got one person who had the foggiest clue what I am talking about. You could go away and Google all the terms I have used. However, knowing what they are and actually understanding what they mean are two different things. Your post is a good example of a little knowledge being dangerous.

I know governments make up the rules as they go along. Having said that, how does the UK government justify having different pension rules for different countries? AFAIK US and Australian age pensions are the same wherever their citizens are on the planet.

I do not know what other outcome is expected when Bangkok is one metre above the Gulf of Thailand. All it will take is a black swan event, such as the collapse of the Larsen Ice Shelf, for one metre above to become one metre below.

Personally, I like the Thai passbooks. Scamming a passbook is virtually impossible, when one has to provide passport ID and signatures to operate the account. Two of my accounts are linked to debit cards. Another two I don't touch, they are my 800K and medical emergency reserve. I might be a dinosaur, but the systems they have now of having banking apps on a smartphone for payment seem to me to be a big juicy target for hackers.

Try the big secondhand shops.