Lannig

And I'll add, 15 years ago I stated to my Thai colleges that the only way Thailand will achieve harmony, due the divide among 2 groups, is for a civil war to make people realise the hardship of losses and then finally realise there are better ways for the country to move forward.

On a few occassions since, the foundations were laid but you know what, even civil war will never happen because they could not even get it right. It's all talk, false actions, false bravado, we will stand up for what we believe, and then when it all gets too hard, everyone backs down, retreats to the villages and bows to the Baht.

Agree to this, but disagree on the reason why it hasn't happened yet.

As my old Thai teacher was telling me almost 20 years ago, when an event we're not allowed to discuss will eventually take place, all bets are off. He added "if you get to live in Thailand by this time, pack and get ready to leave. Anything, including the worst, can happen"

Agree with LivinLOS above.

You can't stop him using the law anyway. No laws prohibit smoking in open places.

If that's again the rules in your condo, then try speaking to his landlord if that worries you that much.

As far as I know it's only the private schools that made my kids buy the bags from the school.

Hum, I beg to differ. Where I used to live, the local Matayom Public School has this requirement that all students use the school's official bag.

It's of poor quality and ridiculously expensive.

Of course, all students extensively customise it to make it recognisable. White correction fluid markings, all kinds of keyring puppets etc.

As a previous poster mentioned, roaming probably needs to be activated before you leave the country and the SIM must have been properly registered with your ID first to allow this. Not sure someone else can do it in your name.

At least this is what I had to do for my DTAC SIM which I keep active at all time when in my home country so that I can get my text messages.

Another hint: DTAC has this nice feature that your can buy lifetime for your SIM. It's incredibly cheap, like 6 baths for 3 months.

Don't know if AIS has the same offering. It's done using an USSD code from the phone and the prince for this is taken from your current credit.

Thanks for the update. Glad to have been of any help.

Having used the the i-Mobile IQ II for seven weeks now I agree that it's GPS function is close to useless.

Unfortunately that's a common trait of many cheap Mediatek-based devices.

The Mediatek chip (...)

The IQII uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 64 bit 410. Well regarded. I have none of the described problems.

You certainly have a point. My bad. All of the I-Mobile headsets I've had in my hands used to be Mediatek-based cheap stuff, I guess that things have changed and I need a refresher on their line of products. Thanks.

Sorry to intrude... I have a basic but usable control of the Thai language, however this expression "khun dang chat" is unknown to me.

"khun" of course I know, but "dang chat"? Anyone care to explain or write it in Thai so that I can look it up?

I have a question for you long-time stayers: do you, like I do, feel that this standing up motionless during the NA is something fairly new? or at least gaining much over the past year or so?

I mean, I first came to Thailand ca. 1988, I have lived 7 years in the country across Y2K, I'm now back living in my home country and visiting about twice a year. So I've lived many, many of these NA times over the past 20++ years (actually close to 30 now).

During my recents stays, I've noticed that in my former "base camp" place in the central/north region, people more and more tend to freeze when the NA is played in the evening. Much less in the morning, because many are hurrying to get to work or school in time

I can compare because I've known this small town for a long time.

To me, this really seems like a significant change. I can't recall in the past, especially not when I was living there some 10 years ago, or not as much, by far. I'd assume this is linked to the nationalism pushed by the junta making its way into the people's mind... or just fear of being regarded or even reported as a bad citizen... possibly having some sympathy to the red color?

Beware, grey market is the least of your worries. Many, many Chinese imitiations of Samsung phones being sold at bargain prices.

These are entry-level Mediatek-based no-name phones dressed as Samsung devices.

Some of them are bloody well done, it's pretty hard to tell them apart from the real thing if you're not technically sound.

The main problem rest the with companies that refuse to buy bandwidth on the international gateway. Domestic Thai internet is always OK. BBB, TOT and all the others refuse to increase their international gateway band width. Very few Thais use international internet.

Instagram & Facebook are the two most popular sites for Thai's.

Please engage brain before you post

Both sites massively use coordinated caches placed at strategic locations (like internet exchanges between ISPs in a given country) to make sure that most of the traffic remains local.

Believe me, only a fraction of what you see on Facebook or Instagram comes from their US servers.

Were you having to leave the country every 90 days ? If not you did not have a one year "B" visa.

The "rules" have not changed.

No, I certainly did not.

My only "visa run" took place right after I signed my contract. They had me go to Vientiane to apply for my new visa, I met a representative from the university there who did the paperwork for me.

After this, they were taking care of the renewal every year. I just had to be physically present, sitting on a chair at immigration and stand up showing my face to the officer when called. That's it.

Well, that was quite a few years ago, maybe rules have changed or I had been misinformed.

I was on a 1-year 'B' visa, don't know if that's the kind of visa we're talking about here.

I certainly recall that I did not have to pay anything and I had left the country a couple of weeks later.

Sorry if I posted nonsense.

I'd advise being very careful with this.

I've been told by a doctor in Thailand that codeine is a very touchy subject due to extensive abuse in the past.

I wouldn't feel safe with medicine containing codeine in my luggage when going through the customs on arrival.

I don't even see what kind of fuss could be done. This obviously is a fixed term contract.

If your employer doesn't want to renew it, so what? It might not be honest to you especially if he had promised to renew it, but the law says he's entitled to do so.

And your non-immigrant 'B' will be canceled on the day your contract finishes. As I can recall, when I resigned from my last job in Thailand, the HR folks told me that I had to leave the country within 30 days. No way to apply for another visa from within Thailand.

Well, I was about to write that I'm among the ones who usually gets depressed at this time of the year and that I especially am these days, looking at the grim future I foresee for Thailand, the country I have spent many years in and I plan to retire to... blah blah blah...

But, suddenly, after reading Colinneil's post, it all seems sooooo futile.

You have my respect too, Sir. And Merry Christmas to you and your beloved ones.

Install a dash cam and walk towards the front of the car to talk to the policeman.

Make sure the cam is noticeable.

I've been told that's one of the reason why people install dash cams in e.g. Russia (I know that there are other reasons as well). These dash cams seem to be gaining popularity in Thailand.

I had to read the article two times to convince myself that this didn't happen in Thailand. It fitted so well.

It`s not like as played out in films, when on planes and spacecraft there is a computer malfunction and the captain says, quick, put her on manual drive, because in real life there is no manual override systems installed.

Not quite true, for Airbus at least. They have three modes called "laws": normal, alternate and direct.

In direct law, pilots have full control over the aircraft.

In alternate law, some protections imposed by the computers (against dangerous pilot actions) are absent.

In normal law, automation decides what to do, which actuators to move and by how much based on the pilot's directions ordered through the various controls (control sticks, altitude and speed selectors...).

It's fairly easy to force the aircraft to alternate law as has been demonstrated in the Air Asia accident. Pulling just two power breakers did it.

I suppose that pulling many of them would eventually be able to bring the aircraft into direct law, with possible other disastrous side effects.

Anyway, there is no (AFAIK) official, documented procedure to change the aircraft from normal law to another one. Only failures of the computers or inconsistent, irreconcilable data being read from sensors can do so. Which is what's is supposed to be IMO.

This is the down side of automatic systems and computer technology. The problem is modern societies have become too dependent on electronic technologies that will probably be our downfall in the future.

Well, agreed 100%. There are just too many accidents taking place demonstrating that pilots seem to have become unable to keep an aircraft in the air without all the automation to rely on.

Do you consider OPPO as a top brand ?

Hum, no, not in my opinion, but that's just me.

...Really, now Europe is going to teach Asia about Flight Safety when one of the German Pilots dived bombed the plane few months back, killing all its passengers and no fine was imposed on luftahnsa and they continue to fly.

What about Ryan Air?

What about the pathetic condition of most of European Airport like Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport voted as one of the worst airports in the world. We know how london airport is

Asian Airports are best. Its Europe that will loose. if they start banning Asian airlines. Chinese are the largest tourist in the world now

Wow... such a misinformed post.

Despite the tragic Germanwings accident, LH still has one of the best safety records in the world. It's all about statistics and demonstrated respect of procedures per country/per airline, you know. Don't focus on one single accident only. Yes, it was avoidable but yes, LH has rules strictly enforced now that should prevent recurrence.

As mentioned by another poster, Ryan Air also has an excellent record. The fact that in aboard one of their aircrafts your seat cushion might be stained, your overhead light maybe not working and the plane's interior maybe in need of a refresh has nothing to do with the maintenance of the vital parts of the airplane. It's not pleasing, but it's unrelated.

The same goes for Roissy-Charles de Gaulle: yes I do agree that it's ugly and uncomfortable, even run-down and dirty in some parts, but that's not what's essential for your safety. At least the runways are not full of cracks, unlike at Suwa.

In the Concorde crash report, absolutely nothing wrong was mentioned about the regular inspections of the runways. They had been done according to international standards. It was just bad luck.

And EASA has no problem with Chinese airlines I've heard of. Don't mix Thai and Chinese airlines. They don't play in the same league.

Believe me there is.

I had the same problem. I tried to uninstall but not all components were removed.

Now I cannot do anything. Can't remove the rest. Can't reinstall.

I have used AVG as long as I can remember and never had problems until now.

I am thinking of doing a clean install of Windows 10 , but apart from AVG I don't have any other problems.

Humm... never had anything like this, maybe running Windows 10 plays a role here.

Have you tried AVG's own remover? http://www.avg.com/ww-en/utilities

I have to agree that it was much slower than usual earlier today.

Several "no data received" errors when opening posts as well.

Getting back to normal right now from where I am.

Avoid contact with the infected? wear mask?

What the heck? Dengue fever isn't transmissible person to person, only by mosquito bites.

Source: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/denguefever/understanding/Pages/Transmission.aspx

He might as well have tried to know a little bit what he's talking about.

What a disgrace...

Nothing complicated in uninstalling all AVG parts and reinstalling the free version, really.

Just don't forget to restart computer between the two phases.

And if you're unhappy with his (I can understand you'd be) just install another free a/v, there are many: Avast, Avira...