WaveHunter

So, laptops ALWAYS are duty-free (VAT payable), but peripheral stuff is taxed? Like I said before, it's not so much the money since these old sata drives are dirt cheap right now, but having to drive an hour to the nearest post office that handles Customs-payable items is such a pain in the butt!

Yes that's true, but I've also read many reports (some on this forum) of carriers finding all sorts of ways to make sure you don't get any of the refund back, and some of those ways sound a little suspicious at best. Anyway, as I mentioned in my post right before this one, I think I'm going with a local source for the MacBook pro I want since I'm sure Customs will find a way to ruin my day if I try to get it from the US..

Well, even though your reply was quite sardonic regarding Customs Officer's moods and there being no straight answers here in the Magic KIngdom, from my own experiences I have to agree with you ???? I started looking on Facebook Marketplace (Thailand) and surprisingly I have found a few computer stores who are also selling the 2021 MacBook Pro that I want at those same discounted prices as I saw on Amazon. In fact one store was even selling one with a larger SSD for the same price! I'm real uncomfortable dealing with someone who's language I don't understand but I did buy my latest iPhone that way and it had a happy ending, plus the Macbook Pro's are brand new in sealed box with a full one year Apple Warranty...so, that may be the course I take. Just want to thank everyone for a lot of helpful replies. I really appreciate it ????

I did not miss anything in your posts. I take you seriously and read everything you write. We are talking about a distinction between dietary fat and carbohydrates. You originally referred to bad foods as "fatty junk foods" but have amended it now to "fatty carb junk". My point is simply that dietary fats pose no inherent danger to good health even in large quantities, but science has proven that carbohydrates absolutely do. Without even looking at the biochemistry behind all of this, one only needs to look at the public's massive increase in carbohydrate consumption in the last few decades once the low-fat craze started and see that it correlates almost perfectly with the rise in obesity rates and diagnosed diabetes type-2 cases. If a low-fat diet was actually good for you and carbohydrates were not a big factor, then you would expect to see rates dropping not increasing to epidemic levels in the last few decades, ya know? I mean, the writing is on the wall for anyone who cares to take an objective look at it. In simplest terms, it's not fat that makes you fat, it's carbohydrates.

My whole point in replying to BigStar was how easy it is to be fooled these days by errant FRAUDULENT posts, especially when they pose as legitimate news sources like CNN. When it comes to stuff I am researching on nutrition, my sources are not fraudulent unless you consider sources like research labs of Nobel Prize winning researchers, or peer-reviewed medical/science journals like The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, or JAMA to be fake sources. What are your sources for the belief that dietary fat is the cause of obesity, besides certain YouTube Gurus with a financial interest in promoting low-fat lifestyles, or processed food companies trying to sell the public on low fat foods by pumping them full of high fructose corn syrup (super concentrated carbs) to replace the flavor robbed by making the natural foods low-fat? I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. I'm just saying there's a lot of misinformation out there on the internet (some of it quite intentional), If you don't really research topics objectively and in-depth, you will not know the truth.

Just trying to figure out if I should expect Customs to charge me when I ship some 4tB har drives from the US to Thailand. They are 8 year old backup hard drives of some of my media files that I need for a project. They could hardly be considered a new purchase since they have thousands of hours of run time on them and the cases have older stickers and labels all over them, So is there any way to document this to Customs so I don't get charged Duty and VAT on the shipment? It's not so much about the money since these drives are pretty cheap brand new, but the closest post office that handles duty-payable items is an hour's drive from where I live so if any Customs payment is due, it just a waste of the better part of a day which is why I want them to come in duty free / VAT free, so they will just be delivered to my doorstep. Worst case scenario, if I do get charged, it would only be for VAT, correct? Am I correct that computer stuff is exempt from customs duty?

I'll check with consolidator but i thought sales tax rates are state-wide and did not vary by region within a state.

Nothing IMO, nothing at all wrong with a diet containing all macronutrients, even the occasional taboo items like potato chips, candy, etc. The challenge for most people is defining "occasional". I don't care how strict somebody says their diet is. The truth is that we all indulge every once in a while in something we know is not good for us but life would be pretty unpleasant if we were that strict. Anyone who follows a "strict" OMAD protocol, or some guru-inspired diet is just not well versed on nutrition. Your body is the best guide to what you should or should not consume IF you haven't blunted its' natural hormonal cues for hunger and satiety. If you have a craving for ice cream, I mean a REAL craving, it's probably a good idea to give in to it. I believe too many people try and follow some rigid diet plan when they feel like they are overweight or feeling out of sorts, when the real problem is they are just grazing on food from the moment they wake up until the moment they are in bed for the night, and most people who graze on food usually selects highly processed foods with loads of carbs. When your metabolic state is in homeostasis, it knows what it needs and when it needs it far better than you do. I think the key to good health and avoiding obesity is simply paying attention to your body's natural signals; it wont let you down if you do.

So true! People need to stop believing that obesity and associated metabolic diseases are simply the result of too many calories. Science over the last decade has clearly proven that diets based only on caloric restriction do not work in the long run. I mean, caloric restriction diets have been around for over 100 years. If they actually worked we would not have an obesity epidemic today. People need to think about that. The basis for obesity and associated metabolic diseases like Diabetes type 2 is due to a hormonal imbalances caused by insulin insensitivity, not simply too many calories. Too many carbohydrates lead to insulin resistance, which in turn leads to overeating. Excessive caloric consumption is a "symptom" of obesity, not the cause. Excessive carbohydrates are the root cause. All of the credible scientific research of the last decade makes that crystal clear, and yet many people (even many doctors) still cling to unfounded and outdated nutritional myths to the contrary. People should just consider that today there is not only an epidemic of obesity, but also one of Diabetes type 2, and even more shocking, for the first time in history there is now an epidemic of Diabetes type 2 in children, when only a few decades ago, Diabetes type 2 was almost unheard of in children! The writing is on the wall! It's time to rethink things.

Good point! Actually CA's sales tax is not that much higher than most states, but what it got me to realize is that going through the Consolidator will result in me being DOUBLE-TAXED on this purchase; once by CA sales tax at 7%, and then again by Thailand's VAT, also at 7%.. Even worse, it's not just 14% tax, but even more since Thailand's VAT will be based on the CA tax being included inthe valuation! Just to make it even worse. I don't even have the option of having it shipped directly from Amazon since they will not deliver this item directly to Thailand. DAMN!!!!! Perhaps there is some tax-savvy forum member has a suggestion ???

That is such a horrible myth that eating fat cause you to be fat. Again, show some credible scientific proof of that if you're going to make such a claim. The simple truth is that there is none; only unfounded beliefs that such a link exists. Dietary fats are an essential macronutrient. Without fats in your diet, you will die. Same is true of dietary proteins. The only macronutrient that is not considered essential is carbohydrates, and carbohydrates are the only macronutrient for which there is a STRONG AND COMPELLING link with metabolic diseases such as Diabetes Type 2. No such credible links exists between dietary fats and metabolic diseases...only the seemingly logical but totally unfounded myth that "eating fat makes you fat"

...and plenty of people are diagnosed with Diabetes-type 2 a a result of excessive carbs. What you are saying is like saying that plenty of people smoke cigarettes all of their lives and don't get lung cancer (which is true). That does not prove that cigarettes are not strongly related to lung cancer.

What really kills me is that the standard treatment by doctors for diabetics type 2 is still insulin injections! The American Diabetes Association still advises that Diabetes type 2 is an incurable disease and that insulin injections is the only viable treatment. When the head of the Association was queried in an televised interview several years back about the possible connection between carbs and Diabetes, and the research that showed improvement by drastically cutting carbs, he became indignant and walked off set refusing to address the question.

Show me some credible PEER-REVIEWED science-based information that proves dietary fats have anything to do with insulin resistance! That notion is without any science to back it up. All of the credible research over the last decade CLEARLY proves a link between excessive carbohydrate consumption and insulin resistance, not dietary fats. You really need to join the 21st century of science instead of relying on misinformation, half truths and outright nutritional myths.

Damn! It seem you are correct! I saw a report of his passing from what I thought was a very credible source...CNN! Now that I google further it turns out that was a fake post with a CNN logo appearing on it. It's pretty appalling how much misinformation and trickery goes on in the internet these days! Still though, the fact he is still alive at 92 lends some credence to my belief about keeping carbs low. The lst time I saw him in an interview, he may have looked his age, but his demeanor and mental clarity was a sharp as a tack!

If it were not for the extreme-performance softwares that I have to work with, I would be perfectly happy with an basic M1 Air with 8gB ram and a 256 SSD. It is an amazing machine, beautifully designed and so light, and the AIr's are probably better than any other laptop made right now for general use....but it is not really designed for all-day power applications like video editing and color grading. The tough part of buying a computer from Apple these days is that you must be real careful to get one that meets your needs since critical components like RAM, VRAM, processors, and storage can not be changed once you buy them. Programs like Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve really require extreme specs from a computer that the Airs can not provide if you are working with them all day long. It pays to do your homework BEFORE you buy ????. Like I said, I'm not making disparaging remarks about the Macbook Airs. I would actually love to own both!

No sales tax? I did not know that. Are you sure? I mean if Amazon has a presence in their state, are you sure it does not get added? I'll have to look into that since that would be a nice bonus if true. My Consolidator also documents everything with photos which is a huge upside to me since it prevents the possibility of a seller scamming you with something different from what you thought you were buying, or just a simple mistake of shipping the wrong item. I mean, it would be a real shock to pay for the item, shipping and customs only to find out once it got to you here in Thailand that they shipped the wrong item, and then be faced with returning it to the merchant for replacement or refund from Thailand! Just another reason to favor a consolidator over Amazon for shipping. My consolidator makes no issue of me changing values on the Customs form if I want. Based on experience though, that's a bad idea since if Customs questions your valuation and you have no invoices included to back it up, they will ream you on their own arbitrary assessment, so I always play it safe and include the invoiced amount.

Actually that was my initial choice but after reading numerus reviews of the M2 version of the Air, it sounded like the M1 version was actually better in a lot of ways. What's more, for my needs I require 16gB. The MacBook Pro comes standard with 16gB RAM and 512gB SSD (which I also need). Now that 2021 M1 MacBook Pro is on sale, the price for it is the same price of the 2022 M2 Air configured similarly (16gb Ram / 512gB SSD), and the MacBook Pro has MASSIVE performance over the Airs, not to mention more ports, better cooling (so no throttling issues that the Airs seem to have under a heavy load), and a lot more besides...I mean it is designed for professional power users. To be honest, I have been pouring over reviews that compare the M2 Airs with the M1 Macbook Pros, and for performance applications that I use like Adobe Premiere, the latest AI neural filters in Photoshop, and DaVinci Resolve Studio, the 2021 M1 Macbook Pro blows the M2 Air right out of the water in terms of performance! Honestly I think the M2 chip is being overly touted compared to the M1. If you look at reviews that favor the M2, you notice that the benchmark scores they refer to are very carefully cherry-picked to make it sound more impressive than it really is in real world use. In reality, the differences between the M1 and M2 chip is marginal for most real world applications. Don't get me wrong. The Macbook Airs are amazing for more casual use where extreme performance is not a critical factor. The design and lightweight are particularly impressive over the Macbook Pro, but if you really need a work-horse, nothing right now can beat the M1 version of the MacBook Pro, not even the M2 version except in very marginal ways that can't justify the price difference now that the M1 is so heavily discounted that it is basically the same price of an Air that is similarly configured! The M3 version is the one that will probably be the game-changer.

This is Thailand; nothing's for certain LOL! I'm just saying the chances of it working lately seem to have improved greatly. The design of the site is up to 21st century standards now instead of how it was as recently as last year when it still functioned like sites from the early days of the internet.

I agree! Amazon give you no good deals on international shipping. That's why I use a package consolidation company in the US. Anything I buy from the States is shipped to the Consolidator's warehouse in California and stored until I request they ship it to me. Due to the high volume of shipping they do, they have unbelievably low shipping costs from a number of shipping companies that you can select, and pass the savings onto their customers. For example, for this this computer, Amazon would charge me $324.50 Shipping & Import Fees. My Consolidator charges $195.39 for the exact same thing! So, Amazon is charging about 40% MORE than my consolidator! When I thought of using a consolidator I seriously researched the companies that do this. Some are not so good or trustworthy but I found one that was consistently ranked as one of the best! I have used them about 10 times and they handled the shipments flawlessly. One of the really nice things I like about them is they will warehouse your purchases from different stores you purchase from for free up to up to a month and even longer for a very nominal fee, and then when you are ready to ship, they will consolidate all your different purchases, removing the shipping packaging of individual shipments, and putting everything into one very secure shipping box so that the shipping cost per item is dramatically less, and they prepare the Customs documents for you in a professional way. Their fees are very reasonable too. If anyone else is interested in looking into this, the company I use is called Planet Express and I highly recommend them!

The problem with that is this particular laptop is so heavily discounted in price right now, that it is already at a level that used ones are selling for. What's more, I would then not have an invoice to prove the price that I paid, and Customs would be more likely to look it up in their valuation database, and might even possibly assess a valuation of the list price ($2,000 USD). I had something similar happen once before with Thai Customs. I bought some used items from a Japanese site that's similar to eBay. The items were shipped to me with invoices included but Thai Customs arbitrarily re-assessed them as new. Not only that but they used the wrong product category and valued them at 10 times their retail value! It took over a month of sending appeal letters, and snapshots of each auction listing before Thai Customs agreed to the original invoices which totalled under 1500 THB (so they should have actually bypassed Customs entirely). And then the real kicker...Even though the total value made the shipment duty free, they charged me a fee for re-assessing them which made the valuation just a few baht over 1500 THB, forcing me to go to the post office to pay the fee, instead of just delivering the package to my doorstep! No big deal, you might think, except that the nearest post office that handles packages with Duty payable is one hour from where I live, so I had to spend half a day to pick up the package when it should have just been delivered to my doorstep! Thai Customs, I'm sorry to say, is inept and perhaps even corrupt! I really try and avoid anything that give them the opportunity to screw up, but saving over $500 on a new computer makes it necessary this time.!

Of the three macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates), the human body actually can function fine without ANY carbohydrates. I'm not saying that would be pleasant, but my point is that carbohydrates are completely unnecessary for good health. My definition of "excessive" carbohydrates are the amount that will cause insulin levels to be elevated throughout the day to an extent that, as a result, glycogen also remains so high that the body has no need to tap into fat stores. That is unnatural and leads to a maladapted fat metabolism. In other words, the body becomes inefficient at using fat as a fuel source. What eating only once a day does is that it allows glycogen levels to get low enough that the body readily transitions to burning fat as fuel. It is referred to as "fat adaptation" or "keto adaptation". Ketones are what are responsible for unlocking the body's ability to a) provide an immediate fuel source, and b) to facilitate the breakdown of stored body fat as an indirect fuel source. I'm not trying to get overly technical, but what I'm talking about is actually a very complex biochemical process. My point is simply that if you are always in a fed state (i.e.: plenty of glycogen), the body will prefer to use it as fuel, and like anything that is not used regularly, will become very efficient at using stored fat as fuel. So, eating only once a day prevents that from happening. Eating a meal over a period of hours is NOT binging. It is simply a matter of eating leisurely until you are satiated.

In the end, A CARB IS A CARB. Heavily processed carbs like junk food simply contain concentrated amounts of carbohydrates, but excessive carbohydrates in the diet, no matter whether they are natural or processed are still going to cause long-term health issues.

What you say is so true! The problem is that in today's world of highly processed foods, many people adapt to them as well, and sadly most of them are horrible for your health, and most of them are super high in carbs. The body adapts to that but that doesn't make it a good thing. I see nothing wrong with carbs in moderation but the problem is that food manufactures and fast food chains create these foods with the intention of making them more or less addictive simply to increase sales, and it doesn't take long before your metabolism is so screwed up that you crave them over healthier alternatives...and the food companies know it!. If you ever saw the potato chip company that used the advertising slogan "Betcha can't eat just one" made that pretty clear.

You are making a fairly unfounded assumption that one chews food less when only eating once a day. I don't think of how I eat as being "OMAD" and most who choose to only eat once a day don't either. Those that use the term "OMAD" usually are fairly uninformed about nutrition because eating once a day is not a rigid doctrine or protocol. It really just comes down to giving the body what it needs, and nothing more. For me, I do not eat food during the day simply because I have no urge to. My energy level and mental state are high throughout the day because I am adapted to eating that way. I find that eating during the day actually blunts my energy and mental state. When you feel a lift from consuming food when your body doesn't truly need it, that's because your body is reacting to false hunger signals that are more mental and emotional than physical. I eat after all of my day's work and exercise are done and I can sit down and just relax. I might start eating around 5 or 6 pm and just leisurely consume food until I no longer want to eat. It might be over several hours. When you really let your body talk to you, it's pretty easy to know when you've met its' true nutritional needs, whereas if you eat on a regimented schedule, you lose that ability. It's just an entirely natural way of eating. I mean, look at the animal kingdom as a whole. There are no dinner bells, no prescribed breakfast, lunch and dinner routines. All of that stuff is just social conditioning and nothing more. I'm fairly sure I produce just as much saliva in a 24 hour period as anyone eating 3 meals a day. I also make apoint of staying well hydrated throughout the day with water mixed with home-made electrolytes (calcium, potassium citrate, and magnesium). Gut health has never been an issue with me that I know of. Again, I just do things that there is a science-based reason for doing, and it is a very natural and comfortable way to live IMHO.