3STTW

Calm down. My original post indicated that they were quite expensive in TH at Bht800/kg. You then posted a source charging 1250/kg. There ya go. QED. Artichokes are effing expensive in TH. If my post upset you to such an extent, maybe you should engage with the debate rather than blowing off like an old carthorse at every latest post.

There ya go - Bht1250/kg and no guarantee of size or quality. Still, I might order some so that I can whine about them later. ????

Villa and Friendship used to sell them pre-pandemic (usually (Oct - Nov) but I haven't seen them since. Even then, they were the size of a tennis ball and about Bht800/kg - definitely B stock. If only we could get the plump French varieties. I miss artichokes a lot!

My tag is made by a Norwegian company called Norbit and the datasheet is on their site. https://norbit.com/media/PS-130003-5U_Norbit_ITS_VTR850-R_datasheet-1.pdf I've seen a few blogs saying that the transmitters don't work after changing the battery, which probably means the data is held in volatile memory. When I changed mine, I applied an external voltage to maintain the memory and that's where is gets a bit tricky. You also need to get the right battery with the right chemistry (Lithium thionyl chloride) otherwise it will cook-off when the unit is attached to your windshield in sunlight. Basically it takes about a half hour to replace if you know what your doing. A month in the burns unit if you don't.

I have an MPass tag and last month the battery ran out. I called the toll-free number (1586) and was told that MPass tags are only available now from KTB main branch in Chonburi - even if you live in BKK you still have to go to Chonburi! I was also told that I couldn't change the battery myself - so I did! Saved myself a 3 hour round trip and a lot of messing about.

Couple of things, firstly, I have no interest in eating them - either for food or 'medicinal' purposes. I am interested in having a mycelium under my lawn because it makes the couch grass grow strong and healthy without chucking chemicals at it. All the same, we do have family & friends with kids and pets who visit and I'd prefer to keep them safe.

Chatroom software is simple and you can literally download code to do it from all over the net. The difficultly is managing the scale, call it 'backroom' or whatever, handling 100's of millions of messages per day and cross referencing them according to tags, users and other data is a monumental challenge. One of EM's complaints was that the Twitter model had been made unnecessarily complex by software engineers who wanted their talents to become indispensable. And he is almost certainly correct because every dick in the software universe knew what was happening at Twitter - except for EM - who didn't realize until it was too late and tried to blame it on bots, or unknown quantities thereof. All Zuck had to do was create a nominal chatroom front-end and plug it into his existing Insta model. Which explains why every Insta user got a preregistered account. Essentially, Threads wasn't an effort for Meta because they had all the backroom infrastructure in place already.

We have a lawn in the back yard and we've always had a few puff-ball mushrooms pop up when the rains start. The wife is allergic to them so she always destroys them before they spore. We've had a couple this year but now we've got these little doodahs popping up everywhere. Any ideas what they are and if they're poisonous?

Cockpit, southbound on Sukhumvit between Pattaya Central and Pattaya Tai junctions ( 12°55'27.82"N 100°53'55.48"E). Excellent service, I went in for two fronts and they checked all five, the spare was flat so they reseated it, all at no extra charge. My go-to tire spot.

Get a lawyer. Usually it only takes one phone call. I've had a couple of instances like this. Once they know you mean business, their attitude undergoes a remarkable change.

Yeah, I guessed so. I found a YT video showing a guy opening one up and the battery looks like one of those coin cell stacks that they make in you-know-where. I'm kind of worried about having it in my car now!

My M-Pass unit is barely 2 years old and has stopped working. One of the guys at a toll reckoned I have a flat battery. Do you prize it open and change the battery yourself or do you have to get a new one?

I feel for the OP, when I bought my place the pool had apparently been cared for by a 'professional' maintenance company. When we moved in, we decided to keep them on but it didn't take long to realize that the pool had serious problems. First problem was the water was always misty - never quite clear. The pool guys said I need to speak to the PWA. The first time I swam in it my eyes were stinging like hell so I went and bought my own pH meter and, like UWEB, the pH was through the roof. Second, the pump was running but hardly moving any water so they had adjusted the timer to run 20 hours/day. Long story short; I terminated the maintenance contract. Over the next few weeks, I discovered that just about everything in the pump room was phukt. The filtration sand hadn't been changed since new (10+ years), the chlorinator was dead, and they had rebuilt the pump without the internal seals - so that was a goner too. @Bagwain will also tell you about my pool leak which was, at it's worst, using 100 tonnes of water per month! Yep, it went from 145m3 to 27m3 just by fixing the gutter. After a brief learning curve and Bht120k in new kit, I now take care of the pool myself. It only takes an hour per week and it definitely worth the effort. In line with @JBChiangRai's advice, I upgraded the chlorinator to cope with the actual volume of water, the original was about 25% under specified. At the same time we changed to glass filtration media and the outcome was astonishing, super crystal clear water UV filters are a non-starter - they only kill bacteria when they're in sight of the UV emitter, ergo the rest of the pool is free to grow uninhibited clusters of bacteria anywhere else. Chlorine kills them wherever they might be hiding. And, in my experience, don't use liquid acid to lower the pH. The pH Minus powder does a great job and it doesn't dissolve your pool grout.

Well this got all out of hand. I was worried that I might have a dangerous predator in my garden and here are you lot trying to eat each other!

Thanks for all the useful replies. Right now, I'm going to be upgrading an existing wired system. I'm in two minds whether to go DIY or get an installer to do it. I can do it myself - it's just time vs. money, as always. WiFi and other radio security systems are easily jammed/scrambled with cheap 'black boxes' available on the internet, so I won't be going down that route. Waste of money. On reflection, what I should have asked is "Where can I buy quality cameras and NVR without getting ripped off?"! And I guess some of you guys have answered that question already. Cheers.

Our system is pretty old and the NVR has started overheating. Some of the cameras aren't working well either. The system could do with an upgrade so I'm looking for a reliable installer.

Interesting replies! I've always regarded geckos as useful friends outside the house. Yeah, they're a pest inside but they're not as bad a mice. We had one feral cat which used to sh!t all over the yard but we haven't seen the arrogant f***er for a while now, but he had a taste for snails and birds, never bothered the geckos. I was worried that we might have a pit viper or suchlike in the vicinity.

We've always had a healthy population of geckos outside the house, usually a dozen or so in the patio area and many more around the house. Tonight I counted two - one juvenile in the patio area and an adult near an outside porch light. We also had two 'Tukows' which have disappeared. Is this a seasonal thing or sign of a predator?

My recommendation is Koson Air, speak to Katiie Kay on 091-580-5310. Bht500/wall unit, 1000 for cassettes. We've used other companies in the past who were always in and out within an hour or thereabouts. When Koson first did our big cassette unit in the living area, they were on it for 3 hours. Bejeezus did it make a difference and huge saving on the electricity bill to boot.

To the OP, the crab shells works quite well. We chuck the carapace, 'dead-mens-fingers' etc in a take-away box with a few drops of that thick stinky fish sauce they use for som-tam, then place an electric racket over the top with some tape holding the ON button. The little f*****s can't resist it, they keep coming like Wagner mercenaries until, as @Grusa said, you exhaust the local population.

Not sure whether this still applies, but expulsion used to mean you're barred from re-entry for 3 months upwards depending on length of overstay. Leaving your stuff in Thailand is always precarious; I have a 10 year visa but I still have a contingency plan in case I get chucked out for some trumped-up reason.

There's Container Kings in BKK but there used to be another place in Sri Racha which was much cheaper but I can't find the details right now. All the same, Bht32k is WAY too much to pay for a 20' sea tin - probably because it comes with all the lifting/slinging certs and registered brokerage ID's. You need to make sure the ID's have been cancelled - you can check this at sites like www.container-xchange.com, otherwise you might be buying stolen goods. There are gazillions of tins out there which have had their day, but are still perfectly usable as utility units/workshops/storage. Bht6 - 10k is par for a 20' tin with good locks, no dings and a solid base. Delivery is always negotiable. The reason why they're cheap is they're so expensive to recycle - the chop-shop and paint removal costs go way beyond the value of the scrap steel. Also, bear in mind that there are between 14 - 23 MILLLION unused containers on the planet which have been de-registered (or 'ex-service'), so they're not exactly a scarce commodity. It's also possible that most dealers have been paid to get rid of them, so don't be scared of haggling a decent price.

All this duty of care nonsense makes me puke, it's not like Thailand is hiding the fact that drug offenses carry significant penalties. Just like that Brit loon who set fire to a hotel last week - what are they expecting - free and benevolent counseling for their imploding mental health? I was at a restaurant last year and some chick had a complete meltdown because she found a prawn in her pad thai. Once she realized nobody gave a sh!t, she had to escalate the issue by breaking a few plant pots etc. Meanwhile, the boyfriend, replete with his nativity-play beard, was filming the whole episode on his phone. I know, boomers are to blame. They're responsible for raising a generation of narcissistic, entitled idiots. Yet the notion that the Thai police should pander to their tantrums and soothe them with a nice warm cocoa is, frankly, absurd.

1. Fire your accountants. They're giving you bad advice to keep your custom. 2. Relocate your business to Singapore using one of the many online services. They will provide local directorship and get you a bank account. 3. Operate your SGP business as a consultancy and invoice your clients accordingly. Your max company tax will be 10%, less if the income is from overseas. 4. Pay your local Thailand expenses from your SGP business account and deduct them as necessary.

If you purchase a house under a company name with the appropriate share allocations, is it legal to use that company to purchase additional private property?