Fat is a type of crazy

6 minutes ago, HighPriority said:

Tell me about it, I’m a Carlton supporter… ????

I don't follow it much but as a former Collingwood supporter who has a vague memory of 1970 and strong memories of 79 and 81 when Carlton kicked our ass it kind of hit the spot. Sorry about that and go Doggies. 

11 hours ago, The Hammer2021 said:

Scam waste of time. The only people who benefit  financially from  CCs are the credit  card companies. Every single  cent you claw back or redeem (buying things you didn't  need) you could have bought cheaper with cash or debit card. Points! LOL

You'd be surprised. 

My HSBC card has no annual fee and I get a $100 voucher for $20,000 spent. Not amazing but free. Citibank has an annual fee of AUD $150 but they are constantly giving offers where you can get $50 or $100 vouchers. They are doing it hoping you'll take on additional credit. You just need to be disciplined in paying amounts back each month. I never buy things I don't need as the points can be used for cash back and supermarkets and similar. 

Throw in free product and travel insurance. 

I agree on American Express. They have big annual fees and many businesses charge extra to use them as there fees to businesses are much higher.  Got rid of it years ago but I suppose you can make that work too if you find businesses willing to take it and you can get enough points. 

On 8/20/2022 at 10:21 PM, KIngsofisaan said:

We kept all our US cards and we use them all the time for everything.

 

Keep zero balance at the end of the month on all cards

 

At the end of the year have enough points for 2 flights back to the US

 

US Thai bank for ATM, VISA Money, operating cash, although bulk of cash is in US banks

 

 

Strange thumb or weird photo. 

17 minutes ago, connda said:

I was in Japan in the 80s.  It rocked.

I can relate to that. Went in the early nineties. Unique and different country. 

3 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

Here CNN is one of news channels in Thailand. I click on it to see what's new. Just like I catch the Gutfeld show for a laugh. Always funny stuff.

Watched 5 minutes today. I accept it is a small sample but had to turn it off. Firstly, I get that not every individual decision that democrats make at all levels of government, are good and correct. To me though he is simply using cherry picked examples, not looking at context, adding some obvious weak humour, and then worst of all, concluding  with some childish statement like  'Democrats are going to take away your rights and freedom'.

No subtlety. No humility or sense of being fair.  Bill Maher he is not. 

Good post but I just note a few counter points:

Inflation already levelling off in United States. Rising interest rates are doing their job stifling demand. 

Government support payments are probably decreasing as unemployment is low around the world.

Covid issues that affected supply chains are reducing all the time. Most governments have stopped lockdowns or extreme measures. Now we have good vaccines it is up to the individual to take responsibility for themselves.  

The biggest driver of inflation is fuel cost which has been reducing and will reduce further if the Ukraine war can ever be finalised. Fuel of course feeds into all sorts of other costs. 

The argument that increased wages leads to a spiralling inflation is inflated itself. It has some effect but there are many factors and, as much as corporations would like to stop higher wages, fairness has to be a factor and it will only lead to minor subsequent inflation i.e. it is only one input in the cost of a good or service.

In terms of older people government payments is a concern but compulsory superannuation was introduced in many countries including Australia resulting in less eligibility for payments on retirement and more self funded retirees.

A problem for governments was payouts to retiring public servants. Government workers such as myself are still on defined benefit superannuation whereas anyone who joined after 2003 has super based on their own savings rather than a defined benefit meaning less government liability in the future. This was a huge problem in countries like Greece.

Climate change could be a big issue for particular localised areas though more broadly markets may work it out i.e. move production to new low cost areas. Depends how bad it gets though.  

42 minutes ago, Kenny202 said:

I don't think I made generalizations so much as generalization's of a particular type of person. I think it is ok to make generalizations about certain things if it is generally the case...Isn't it? 

Your comments, which I thought were interesting,  were looking at what happened in some of your relationships and you seemed to wonder if it applies more generally. I was not criticising you for attempting to do this. 

I was making my own broader theory, noted that my theory is a generalisation, and .. well .. that's that. 

I went back and looked at my post and one bit is supposed to say they don't really care as long as they get what THEY want. 

I have noted before I think Thai people , as a massive generalisation, can be a bit faint or weak hearted. It can  show itself in a kind of shallowness, a limited desire to do be active in intellect or action, a kind of blankness. Could be a downside of buddhism or could be due to a history of poverty where being to aware of yourself and your place in the world was not so pleasant. 

An upside is that they often let you do your thing - but is that because they are strong and understand you or because they don't really care as long as they get what you want. 

The downside of western women has been discussed, and I think men can be entranced by the upside of thai ladies, while not taking into account that they may lack the strength of character and strong heartedness of western women. So they are confused by the kind of blankness. This doesn't apply to all thai women of course but is just an observation of others outside my inner circle. The more the lady has had to sell her body in different ways the more she may be afflicted. 

4 minutes ago, heybruce said:

 

Did you two accidentally post in the wrong topic?

He quoted someone who I guess made some sort of comparison of abuse of leadership and here we are. I thought I'd set Thaibeachlovers straight but I make a habit of replying to off topic posters and then getting deleted so all good. 

Lily Serna from the Australian copy of the show 'Letters and Numbers' was a beauty at the shows peak. You have to see her in action to do her justice.

4 hours ago, Emdog said:

Part of being a "salary man" is going drinking with your workmates after normal work hours. I worked in Japan in the 1980's. Tokyo gas had their own bar in office so not to worry about "trade secrets" leaking out. Another guy wanted to go to gym "after work" but was told in no uncertain terms he was to go drinking.

Maybe things have changed enough so company does not own your soul and body during all waking hours.

We were reminiscing today at a work lunch about how different it was in the past. Long lunches, everyone went out on a Friday night, etc. Now not many people do including the young ones. Those that do drink a lot less in general. I was never a big drinker so it suits me but I think maybe computerisation of the office work force has dimmed sociability. 

Get on a train everyone's looking at their phone. In the work place if not working people probably like to look at the internet rather than get up to the water cooler and <deleted> on about football. 

Thanks to ongoing covid stuff workers are even more separated working from home. I love working from home though.  Going to work is a drag.

Freedom of Choice (2009 Remaster) - YouTube

7 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

It was a simple multiple choice question.  It can't be that difficult to pick the one you believe in.

My opinion

Freedom of choice is there but limited by our capacity to think, our life experience, and what it takes to get through the day.

What we can actually do and what we are likely to do.

I could do anything right now. No god to stop me. But I don't do stuff - why. 

Freedom of choice by Devo has the lines:

Freedom of choice is what we got

Freedom from choice is what we want

I think the feeling of too much freedom can be difficult and upsetting. 20 choices of Muesli and soap powder at the supermarket. Starting a day of work right now rather than sitting on a beach in Thailand. For peace of mind many, if not all of us, limit our freedom so we don't think too much - we put blinkers on ourself, like for a horse,  so we can stay somewhat focused.

It's the same with politics - I see it in your Trump posts and you see it in the democrat posts. A self imposed internal bias and limitation. 

There is what we are too that explains that bias.

Freedom to take action is limited by our bodies and circumstance e.g. physical attributes, ability, appearance, financial situation. Some can be altered some cannot.   

In the longer term our freedom and ability to think becomes limited.  Our place in society, perception of our self that develops over time, having been hurt in relationships etc - they have an effect on us, make our shoulders slump or sit back confidently, our heart be a bit tired or full of spark, how 'open' our face is, and over time in reality this limits our likely decisions and options. Limits our ability to communicate and limits our actual thoughts and feelings. Hard to overcome this. 

So freedom becomes limited to avoid pain and maximise pleasure available to us. Different for different people.

So we have absolute freedom in terms of thoughts but not actions. But even our thoughts and feelings become limited as we close off some parts and open up others so the sense of freedom becomes distorted.  

6 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

It's good to see that you understand that chance, accident, and luck are human conceptual constructs.

Now, allow me to throw you a curve ball, Fat is a type of crazy, with a simple question.  Or a boomerang in your case.  Do you believe in freedom?  More to the point, absolute freedom?  I doubt anyone would be in disagreement with the idea that freedom exists.  The only debatable question is the extent of freedom we possess.  None, some, or full - full meaning 100%.  Three choices.

The correct answer to that question would answer the question of the existence of chance.  Whether chance exists outright as a determative force in life or whether chance merely has the appearance of reality. 

So, what is your belief as to the extent of our (and every other living thing's) freedom?

Freedom to me is a bit like accidents and luck - it is a subjective experience or feeling. I don't label what I am after. I  keep life simple and do what needs to be done and take it easy and see what's next.

1 hour ago, Tippaporn said:

When science uses "chance" or "accident" in their explanations - theories or hypotheses  - they either 1) believe in the existence of these concepts and thus use the correct terminology or 2) they are entirely sloppy in their choice of verbiage thereby creating unnecessary confusion.  You are arguing 2).  I'm arguing that they indeed intend 1); they do believe in the existence of "chance" and "accident."

Again, I reject your argument that you were using the wrong terminology.  I believe you are trying to walk back what you truly believe, which would be that "chance" and "accident" are actual mechanisms that are determinative forces in life.  That you truly believe in some invisible God of Chance.  I rely on the evidence of your response to Nemises in which you clearly jokingly and sarcastically stated, with emoticon for emphasis, "Don't you know that nothing occurs by chance or accident?" ????

"We all know that life is like a roll of the dice."  Shear nonsense, which I reject wholeheartedly . . . and with plenty of solid reasoning and logic to back up my stance.  Again, faith in a creator is to be laughed at and ridiculed but the creator being "chance" is to be "scientifically" accepted.  Also on pure faith.  Now this is to @Fat is a type of crazy:  do you now see the plain, in-your-face hypocrisy?

New Scientist

New Scientist, the world's leading science & technology weekly magazine, was launched in 1956 "for all those men and women who are interested in scientific discovery, and in its industrial, commercial and social consequences".
 

The title of the book is "Chance" but the image is too large to post.  Here's the back cover.

 

 

You know this, but the science and secrets of  chance is based on statistics, using the base of science and mathematics. On Australian 60 minutes this week they had a story about a guy in a small town in the United States who noted a flaw in a lottery, and how prizes were paid, and was able to make a small fortune. It's going to be a movie with Bryan Cranston. No luck which is a human construct. Accident is a human construct too i.e. it is based on our expectations. He couldn't be sure he'd win but increased his chances. Chance not being a mechanism or thing but simply a construct with a margin of error  based on scientific and mathematical knowledge.

29 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

And there it is.....

------------------------------------

The Big Bang didn't happen

What do the James Webb images really show?

"The truth that these papers don’t report is that the hypothesis that the JWST’s images are blatantly and repeatedly contradicting is the Big Bang Hypothesis that the universe began 14 billion years ago in an incredibly hot, dense state and has been expanding ever since. Since that hypothesis has been defended for decades as unquestionable truth by the vast majority of cosmological theorists, the new data is causing these theorists to panic. “Right now I find myself lying awake at three in the morning,” says Alison Kirkpatrick, an astronomer at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, “and wondering if everything I’ve done is wrong.”
[...]

"Too old and too many galaxies mean the same thing. The JWST uses many different filters to take its images in the infrared part of the spectrum. Thus, it can see the colors of the distant galaxies. This in turn allows astronomers to estimate the age of the stars in these galaxies because young, hot stars are blue in color and older, cooler stars, like our sun, are yellow or red in color. According to Big Bang theory, the most distant galaxies in the JWST images are seen as they were only 400-500 million years after the origin of the universe. Yet already some of the galaxies have shown stellar populations that are over a billion years old. Since nothing could have originated before the Big Bang, the existence of these galaxies demonstrates that the Big Bang did not occur."

[...]

"While Big Bang theorists were shocked and panicked by these new results, Riccardo and I (and a few others) were not. In fact, a week before the JWST images were released we published online a paper that detailed accurately what the images would show. We could do this with confidence because more and more data of all kinds has been contradicting the Big Bang hypothesis for years."

[...]
"Readers may well be wondering at this point why they have not read of this collapse of the Big Bang hypothesis in major media outlets by now and why the authors of so many recent papers have not pointed to this collapse themselves. The answer lies in what I term the “Emperor’s New Clothes Effect”—if anyone questions the Big Bang, they are labeled stupid and unfit for their jobs. Unfortunately, funding for cosmology comes from a very few government sources controlled by a handful of committees that are dominated by Big Bang theorists. These theorists have spent their lives building the Big Bang theory. Those who openly question the theory simply don’t get funded."

source: https://iai.tv/articles/the-big-bang-didnt-happen-auid-2215?fbclid=IwAR34Oe_RTJjCNA8_Mgs5z_pj188NrQzkGWGECRpBnbMyak7Q08sMvDjwz_0

You have shown the wonder of science but also shown your bias or the bias of those you read. This is new news and no one is hiding or dismissing the issues you raise. NASA are telling the same story as you.

The issue is that these are new findings that have not been peer reviewed. To rewrite history give it time. Science and scientists are on your side in terms of finding the truth. There is probably some out there who will be peeved if it's proven wrong but too bad for them.

20 minutes ago, Tippaporn said:

Chance, accident, luck, happenstance, fluke, quirk, coincidence, and providence are all terms invented to provide an answer that the rationale mind could accept for the occurrence of events that otherwise cannot not be explained.  Science uses many of these terms in their "explanations" of how reality works.  Science most surely believes in the invisible God of Chance which they've been unable to prove the existence of.

How about science does the tough work of coming up with real answers instead of faux theories with holes so large that you can easily drive an universe through them?

It's funny that science loves to poke holes in "non-fact" based ideas by positing questions that no one promoting those "non-fact" based ideas have answers for.  And then heap ridicule on these stupid pagans.  Yet science is just as guilty as so many of their theories have huge unexplained gaps where the thread from point A to point Z is cut again and again.  So what to do about those missing links?  Well, let's just paper over them all over with "chance" and "accident."  That should suffice.

The hypocrisy is so overwhelming that it's laughable.

No hypocrisy in science itself. How many times does it have to be said. They have a theory. Test it. Some theories close to proven. Some lesser so but extremely likely. Some lesser so still so just a theory that can be debated but still much more likely than theories of control by a god. Some individuals go beyond science and call it science. Criticise them - no problem. 

Dreams. Luck. I think we all think, from time to time, that maybe there is some outside influence. This is more likely explained by human nature rather than reality. Until there's proof dreams and luck are just dreams and luck. 

To comment on some of the above.

Australia is a good place to live. No pollution. Best beaches and forests and outdoors.

Long winter where I am but not like the UK and lots of options for better weather. Australians generally fun and friendly and believe in the fair go.

Lot's of opportunities to succeed right now. Heaps of good paying jobs. It is expensive but wages are high. Property is over priced, drooping now,  but that's good for many older Australians who worked through their lives. If you were unlucky or lazy don't blame Australia. 

Covid rules gave Australia a bad name. The tough rules did have some excellent outcomes such as low death rates, and not so excellent outcomes, for some  individuals. The Australia as nanny state thing though is over the top.

Yes there is oversight of business and government, but this has the outcome of little corruption, and little likelihood of Mountain B night club type situations, and fair treatment of workers in general and fair pay. 

Covid payments paid to businesses who didn't need it was bad. Not corruption as such. I put it down to ineptitude, a pro government business, and a big concern of recession at the time. Think back to March 2020. The government wanted money out there fast, so for the first payments they said 'If you think sales are going to drop then you can get it'. Of course everyone said they thought sales would drop and got the payment. Should have had stricter criteria. Second payments were better controlled. Other government handouts like for the NDIS have been plagued by abuse too. 

The downside of Australia is also an upside - the people are pretty similar 1000's of kilometres apart.  Can make it seem a bit boring for older people - shopping malls, pubs, pokies etc. But you have freedom of speech and freedom to live how you want. 

CNN had an interesting point noting that Trump has the warrant used. The warrant provides some detail on why they did what they did and it is  interesting that Trump hasn't released it. Turned on Fox News for the first time in months just to see Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have a hissy fit and they didn't disappoint. Or they did disappoint. Hannity compared Trump's treatment to the treatment of such luminaries as General Flynn and Paul Manafort. He was interviewing the latter though I had had enough by then. 

*Deleted post edited out*

and yet .. he's the president of the United States.. this is a big win  .. 

I went to Ko Chang in June and made the mistake of going on a public holiday. Miles long lines to get to the boat and then for Thais returning they got the same thing on the Sunday. For thais 3 day holiday with 2 days stuck in car. Note to Bob: Don't go to Koh Chang on a public holiday.