Lannig

Cancel your subscription and move to another operator. That's the best way to complain.

Sounds like a lot of "friendly" advice but I can't help finding this a bit suspicious. Hope that's not the first stage of some kind of setup to offer you some extra "protection" from fake or corrupt "low ranking police officers" at a price.

Maybe I'm just paranoid.

I'd go with that if it weren't for the 10 years I spent in China where the indoor temperature wasn't very well controlled and neither was the power grid. Yet I lose a lot more HD's here than I ever did in China.

It could still be the environment or the fact that typical HD's were in the 100-500GB sizes (mostly brought from the USA because I didn't trust the local quality) when I lived there and now I'm buying 2TB drives.

My main job was sourcing, QA, and failure analysis in China, and they absolutely have different local and export quality goods in many arenas. It would make sense that they do the same in Thailand. Maybe not in HD's. but I'm naturally cynical after what I saw in China.

I had many contracts that forbade steel from China or India.

Well, this kind of goes against Impulse's point which was that the good stuff is exported

You are stretching it thin. Coincidentally I have gone through more hard drives since living over here than I ever have in my life.

I believe Thailand makes most of the hard drives everywhere in the world doesn't it?

Maybe they do, but I'm convinced that the Thailand HD market gets to keep the ones that don't pass the tests for export quality.

Consumer-grade hard disks get very limited real quality testing at the end of the chain. That would take quite some time and thus be too costly. Therefore I kind of doubt that they are sorted like this.

Anyway, the only easily obtainable objective measure of a new drive's "quality" would be the number of bad blocks detected and redirected at the end of the manufacturing chain. This is an information easily pulled from the disk using any of the disk health utilities (some are free). Then you may want to compare the figures you get with what people buying the same disk model in the west get.

I do agree that disks fail more often in Thailand. However this can be easily explained by the more adverse conditions in which they operate: temperature and poor electrical current quality (spikes etc.)

Sorry for the candid question, but "GFE" stands for?

its not about electronics, you should worry, but more the food you eat here....

A funny story, once i forgot some yogurts and they expired for 2 weeks already. I opened the yogurt pot, and it was completely fine. Not rotten as i would expected.

I was curious so ... i ate them. I didnt fall sick.

In a second though, i wonder what the thai company put in the yogurt to stay fresh for one month...

Nothing. If you keep them in the fridge there's absolutely no risk eating a yogurt 2 weeks past its expiration date. I have a vet in my family, presumably knowledgeable about these things and she always tells me that her 3 children have been fed with expired yogurts (here in Europe) because she was working too hard to go buy food so they were having what was left in the fridge.

OTOH expiration date on anything that contains eggs or egg products (pudding etc.) should be taken very seriously, she says.

(...) Many of us pay for sex regardless. One way or another. There is something so honest about prostitution. Just tell me up front what it is going to take. In the west, it is often about an undetermined number of dinners, gifts, and prizes, to get to the final outcome.

Married good old friend inevitably keeps telling me when the discussion comes to Thailand "prostitution is, by far, the cheapest way to get laid. Even here in Europe".

Cynical? maybe, but sounds true.

mobile phones and TVs cheaper and same quality as the UK

They must be expensive in the UK then.

I can find much better bargains in France for TVs and more marginally better ones for smartphones.

I once knowingly bought a copy as it had good ratings and was quite dissapointed with the quality until I found out it was a copy of a copy. I an not joking.

It's happening a lot in the smartphone market right now.

The successful Chinese brands which have managed to build kind of a reputation like Xiaomi, Meizu etc. and whose models usually are close copies of popular designs from Apple or Samsung are now being extensively copied and fakes of these brands abound in online shops (especially Aliexpress). Quite fun to watch, really.

That's not blackmailing IMHO. That's commanding or summoning and I see no reason why this wouldn't be legal even in the context of the weird Thai laws.

Blackmailing would be threatening of some physical action or defamation (as in "I'm going to tell everyone that you're a thief"). A very different thing.

I really can't see how "Pay me or I'll sue you" could be illegal.

Am I the only one who's noticed that the immigration officers at the airport don't staple the departure card to the passport's relevant page anymore?

At least that's what has happened at my last two arrivals in Suwa. I've almost lost the arrival card once, so now I staple it myself (last time I asked a counter clerk to do it for me at my bank when exchanging my euros).

Is this a cost-saving measure?

I have to admit that he makes Prayuth almost look like a nice person. Well, almost.

The French government definitely doesn't pay for this on a general basis.

He might have been sent to Thailand by a company or even a government agency, and part of the deal might have been that the French international school is paid for. Such things do happen.

It's my understanding that if he's left the country before March 20th this year, he's not blacklisted since banning rules took effect on that date.

The biggest drawback to living in Thailand is accepting that we have all chosen to live in a culture / society where the human brain fails to develop past the mental age of around 14 years of age. Once you can accept this immaturity and playground mentality, living here is a piece of cake as everything has more rationale.

Quite true I'd say. Including the fact that one has to learn living with this and it sometimes is even fun.

However it only applies when one is here on vacation, retired or otherwise living on income from one's assets.

When you start working here, especially in a company, the said mentality and immaturity is an everyday's nightmare to get things done consistently.

Depends entirely on where you work. I have an outstanding Sr Staff and the reports below them are very good. All are well educated and perform as good if not better then many of the US people in the same roles. So Yes if you work for a pastry company or a coffee company I would likely agree but consider the source, the age and the education level. In fairness to some posters here Thailand does seem to shunt the older folks who are wiser and experienced and continue to higher younger inexperienced people. That has its own set of issues.

My comment was made based on my own experience working 3 years in a high-tech company which was part of a major Thai telecoms group.

My coworkers mostly were young graduates from the finest universities in Bangkok.

Very nice people to work with, very friendly and open, willing to work and with an excellent spirit, but most of them terribly immature, inconsistent and very, very difficult to rely on. Unable to grasp the concept of production-grade IT. Many where considering the company's servers and network as a playground. "Mental age 14 years of age" might be a bit tough, but certainly not much over 16. For people in their late 20s or early 30s, that's an issue.

No pastry company of coffee company, then.

Oh yes, that's quite obvious from the weather in Thailand since this March indeed

The biggest drawback to living in Thailand is accepting that we have all chosen to live in a culture / society where the human brain fails to develop past the mental age of around 14 years of age. Once you can accept this immaturity and playground mentality, living here is a piece of cake as everything has more rationale.

Quite true I'd say. Including the fact that one has to learn living with this and it sometimes is even fun.

However it only applies when one is here on vacation, retired or otherwise living on income from one's assets.

When you start working here, especially in a company, the said mentality and immaturity is an everyday's nightmare to get things done consistently.

I'm no visa expert but if the limit were in the computer, it would be consistent. It's really up to the person in front of the computer.

Hummm... are all the links to Agoda with a partner ID a coincidence? My wild guess would be pay per click.

Lannig

-the lack of affordable and good quality healthcare (it's either)

What country did you come from before you became an expat?

France.

I'm no longer an expat. Used to be.

- the hot season that seems to get longer and more unbearable with each passing year

- the noise and the pollution (unless you live in Baan Nowhere, and even so sometimes)

- the total lack of social safety net if you work here. Don't get sick, don't have an accident, don't loose your job.

- the lack of affordable and good quality healthcare (it's either)

- the real possibility for Thailand to fall into Yugoslavia-style complete and utter chaos in the next years

All the rest is wonderful

10 seconds on google

(video on shootings at the Thai-Cambodian border)

The Thai soldiers (and others) who have fallen to bombs in the south have my respect, but these lives lost in shootings over a silly land dispute with Khmers, for this [self-censored] wat is the most absurd and useless waste of human life. Nobody should have ever died there.

Thailand is only ideal for a holiday, or for older people who wish to relax whilst they enjoy their retirement.

Agree with this too, however I wish to stress the ideal word here.

After the end of your honeymoon phase (as phrased accurately by another member) you start realizing that it's not ideal at all. Earthly paradise doesn't exist more in Thailand than anywhere else. Thailand does have a lot of nice things to offer but much trouble can be around the corner too (especially when you're working hard, growing older and you haven't saved that money during your working years!).

Then, you make a choice based on what you value most compared to what "nanny states" offer.

Political uncertainty and the real risk for this country to become wildly unstable after a certain event takes place is something to be considered too.

I remember trying one of these things years ago and I hadn't been convinced at all

Basically useless IMO. Even filing it with icy water direct from the fridge didn't seem to make a perceivable temperature difference in the room.

It was bringing a lot of moisture too, not something bad in the dry season but annoying the rest of the time.

Again, this was quite a few years ago so they may make better ones now.

It sounds like you are saying that Thai women are incapable of love, at least in a way western men understand.

'Easier said than done' is a sure sign of defeatism

Make an effort

Speaking from experience, pal. Over more than 25 years. Again, whomever you love, I'm not limiting this to Thai women (i.e. girlfriends). I used the word love in its broader meaning.

I have made a lot of efforts, believe me. And still do. Communication isn't that much of a problem because I speak Thai reasonably. Still, there are walls I keep hitting, things I can't understand because my brains haven't been programmed in the same way as theirs.

I haven't said that it's impossible, just that it's difficult and sometimes painful, even after many years.

This does not preclude rich and lasting relationships, but they can be really bumpy sometimes due to cultural misunderstandings They are there and can't be completely erased, that's my point.