pete_r

To remove the need to go to the tax office every year, can you ask the company to deduct the tax from your salary and pay the rest to your Thai bank account?

Edit: This is what my employers in Thailand do, although they don't deduct enough so I still have to visit the tax office.

Thanks all for taking the time to answer a rather mundane question. Quite clearly the white box policy is pretty consistent across the board... I'll start thinking of other uses for my old boxes.

The monkey was shot dead today, according to the news on television.

The last few times I went to the post office to send a parcel back home, I was told my parcel was not packed properly and asked to use one of the official white cardboard boxes provided by the post office, for a few Bahts... I don't necessarily mind the price, but I like to re-use the boxes lying around my house (reduce-reuse-recycle and all).

So, is the white box really compulsory, or is there a way around it?

To be fair I reckon the vast majority of people in the world including the west do not even know about it never mind read it.

I never saw it at school and came across it while studying politics at Uni.

Here goes another of my illusions! I see this text as one of the key accomplishments of Western culture, and thought it was widely taught at least across Europe and the USA (given that the declaration was "invented" in Europe and that the UN headquarters are in New-York).

How about other texts like the habeas corpus? I would think UK schools teach it for historical reasons, but is there also a lack of awareness in other English speaking countries (USA, Australia...)?

"...a work force of educated Thais who can enter the 21st century..."

It is actually quite difficult to see what that 'work force' will be, and what their needs are in the way of specialised education and training.

My conclusion is that curriculum doesn't matter much. That 'creation of the middle class', and the encouraging of its future members to have lively, enquiring minds but also the manners to get along smoothly with their fellow citizens in all walks of life, are the main matters.

(And, as a down-to-earth Yorkshireman in that same university staffroom used to say: "So long as we learn 'em to learn".

I'm a bit less optimistic and would say that the Thai system "fails 'em to learn" on some basic but essential skills that are needed if Thailand is to transition to a knowledge-based economy, similar to what Korea and Taiwan are doing now. Based on my work with university students, skills that should be taught better during secondary and high school include the habit to read, the ability to locate relevant information, and the ability to digest different sources to build one's own understanding of a subject. I was going to add the ability to express oneself orally and in writing, but that can be taught at university level (although it would be nice if students could arrive at university with some skills in that area already).

Another weak point I see is the ability to take initiatives, but that's more a cultural problem than an educational one.

How many voters can you buy for 60 millions Bahts anyway? At 200 Bahts a head, that's 300,000 votes, less than 2% of the voting population (using a ballpark figure of 20 millions voters).

That alone would be 300,000 infractions. No small potatoes.

If it's between a party suspected of buying 300,000 votes and a party suspected of favoring (and/or being favored by) a military junta, I think I'll go for the former then.

Here we go, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Thai: http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/thj.htm

I would suggest that the esteemed board members print it and give it to read to their Thai friends. Reactions may be enlightening.

According to my wife, this text was never taught all through her studies in the Thai education system. She read it first in English.

Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood...

PM's minister: I have proof of voting money

(BangkokPost.com) – Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office Thirapat Serirangsan claims to have solid evidence to prove that 60 million baht in cash, which authorities believe will be used in the election, had made its way into Thailand from Hong Kong.

From the Post: http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/b...s.php?id=124359 for rest of story

Thirapat seems very confident although little is given in details in the report. He does comment something about letting the result of the investigation do the talking.

The way things are leaking on the ex-TRT bag of tricks right now it seems that the CNS may not be the only group with a mole. Certainly the leadership reactions to what is coming out shows they are very sensitive to say the least.

Am I missing something here? The only thing that he seems certain of is that the money has come into Thailand- legally. The real story is that the authorities believe the money will be used in the election.

Which authorities? Does Thirapat have solid evidence that the money is to be used in the election? Do 'the authorities'? On what basis is this transaction being investigated by the EC? Did it occur to the reporter to ask?

How many voters can you buy for 60 millions Bahts anyway? At 200 Bahts a head, that's 300,000 votes, less than 2% of the voting population (using a ballpark figure of 20 millions voters).

Regarding the resistance of PVC pipes, I'm fairly confident they can last at least a few years. I see 2 risks, the UV radiations and the heat.

The resistance to UV seems ok, based on experience with some pipes connecting a pump in my garden, still holding after 3 years of daily exposure to the sun. Although I guess they will become brittle and break eventually.

For the resistance to heat, I think the PVC melting point is above 100 deg Celsius (maybe around 120 C), while the temperature of the pipes would remain below 100C in a non-pressurized solar heater (I don't expect water to reach boiling point!). So temperature should not be an issue either.

Of course theory always looks good... Reality may be different.

You got it right folks and here is the confirmation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_Buri_Province

BURI also means cigarette

So... Etymologically speaking, that makes Singburi the same place as Singapore. Interesting to know.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_Buri_Province

The word Sing originates from the Sanskrit word Singh meaning lion, and the word buri from Sanskrit Puri meaning town or city. Hence the name of the province literally means City of Lion.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore

Singapore's name was derived from the words Simha and Pura, while Simha meaning lion and Pura meaning city, giving Singapore the name "Lion City".

FWIW, the common gas to use is nitrogen (N2). It should be available in Thailand from the suppliers of gas cylinders (O2, CO2, He, etc).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_atmosphere

A good start for prevention of virus spread through USB sticks is to deactivate Autostart. In XP you can either manually edit the registry (forgot where I have stored the link with the details) or much easier install tweakUI from Microsoft, where you can do this easily. Vista has a menu for this, hidden somewhere.

This is not foolproof, but you should be able to avoid most virus transfers this way.

Sunny

Yep, that's the first line of defense.

Go to: Start -> Run... -> gpedit.msc -> User configuration -> Administrative templates -> System -> Turn off Autoplay -> Enabled on All drives

It does help on my personal computer; my problem is with shared computers where other users double click to open their infected USB sticks (instead of right-click -> explore), which activates the virus transfer to the computer.

I'm back online... Thanks for the answers so far. Trying to be less confusing, here is the problem: I plug my USB stick on an infected computer (typically a worm infection), the virus copies itself on the stick, then the next computer I have to work with gets infected, and so on. As I don't have time to clean each computer in the office, I want to prevent the virus from writing itself on my USB stick. But I still want to be able to write my data onto the stick.

From the posts above, I gather the USB stick must be converted to use the NTFS file system, then have some permissions set up for each folder. I haven't found the method to do that, so would appreciate some help or pointers.

Thanks in advance,

Ok.

My handy drive is harvesting all the viruses hanging about on the computers around my workplace, as I need to transfer data between the computers and don't have time to clean up each and every computer before I plug the drive.

I've noticed that viruses tend to copy themselves in the drive root folder only, so I'd like to know if there is a way to make the root non-writable, while keeping another folder writable for my transfers? Or to set some kind of password to protect the drive?

Any input welcome.

- The file system on my handy drive is FAT32, but can be changed to another type if necessary (NTFS?).

- The computers in my office are on Windows XP and, as much as I would like to, switching them to Linux is not an option... yet...

Thanks for that, Jaideeguy. I find your description both straightforward and precise... much appreciated.

Yes, i made one years ago and it was really quite simple.....with copper pipe soldered to T's making up a ladder configuration with the 'legs' being larger diameter than the 'steps', done so to get the 'header effect' [most efficient way to move water by theron syphon. then laid copper pipe assembly onto a 4'x8' piece of plywood with sheet metel and clamped tight and everything painted flat black and a 4'x8' sheet of glass over it. then it has to be placed at due south at an angle the same as our lattitude [18 degrees here] for maximum efficiency. like a ladder on it's side.

plumbing the out [of the header] to the top of the storage tank and the in [of the header] to the bottom of the storage tank, which was a hot tub and kept the water so hot at the end of the day that i had to cool it.

would have been easier to draw the design and will do if anyone is in question of the design.

i have thought about doing it here using the blue pvc pipe [painted black], but have doubts wether it could withstand the heat. copper is quite expensive and hard to obtain here.

If the "winter" stays long enough this year, maybe I will give it a try with PVC pipes and report the outcome here.

Some practical questions:

1. Is there an optimum ratio for the diameters of the "legs" and "steps" of the ladder?

2. How many "step" pipes should be fitted in the 8' length of the ladder? As many as possible, or are there other factors to take into account?

As the various parties start their campaigns for the Dec 23 elections I was wondering who is in the frame, and depending on the result,whats the chances of civil unrest again if the "wrong" side wins?. There seem to be a few of Toxins old mates pulling strings in the background, and if their people win would the Military allow them to rule? I think not.

No matter, the military wins at the end.

I does have a European feeling. UK, Northern France, maybe Belgium.

My wife was about 6 years old when her parents decided she should sleep in her own bed. Until today she remembers it took several nights of crying and of yo-yoing between being re-allowed in the parents bed, then kicked out again.

My nephew slept in a cot in his parents' bedroom after his birth, and was moved to his own room when he was 3 months old, because his parents go to sleep later than him and started to notice that they were disturbing him when they entered the bedroom. I can't read his mind so don't know whether he keeps any bad memory about it or not (although if he does, he hides it well), but at least he won't have the same drama my wife had when she was 6 years old.

Same story on Channelnews Asia: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp.../313806/1/.html

How are a submarine and fighter jets going to help against the Southern insurgency and suicide bombers, I wonder...

Thai military seeks US$8.8b for weapons: army

Posted: 26 November 2007 1657 hrs

[...]

"In response to changing circumstances we are facing, including the southern insurgency and the rising threat of terrorism in the world, Thailand needs greater capabilities to defend our country," Pichasanu said.

"For example, some of our neighbours already have a submarine. We need to make a decision now so that one will be available to us in the next five to 10 years," he told AFP.

In addition to a submarine, the plan also calls for 10 more fighter jets over a decade starting from 2009, he added.

The military has been on a shopping spree since seizing power in a bloodless coup last year.

Since the takeover, military spending has skyrocketed to 140 billion baht for 2008, up from 29 billion baht the year before the coup.

[...]

The concept of compassion as used in the Buddha's teachings is probably not the same as the run of the mill garden variety compassion as used in western literature and thought. The Buddha never indicated that political activism (or political activity of any kind) was appropriate for monks. So while it sounds good to say that the Buddha taught to have compassion and so being politically active is acceptable as an act of compassion....but....I've never seen anything in the Buddha's teachings that even remotely is like a monk carrying a sign and agitating for political change....on the contrary monks are supposed to be somewhat withdrawn from worldly things in most of what I've read in the Buddha's teachings. This doesn't mean I have an answer on this but I'm just trying to say that your idea as presented so far doesn't seem to be grounded in a direct understanding of the Buddha's teachings.....but maybe I'm wrong as this is only my own view.

Did you know that the Buddha compiled a long long list of rules for monks to follow (more than 200 rules) and was quite explicit on what was acceptable behavior and what was not?

Chownah

I think we are taking different approaches.

You propose to go back to the letter of the law, to the 227 rules of behaviour and other written teachings, and to check if the actions of the Burmese monks are "lawful" or not, according to these rules.

My post merely proposed a personal answer to the opening question, based on my personal inclination for, and interpretation of, the Buddhist teaching of compassion.

In my Isan village the pick up trucks tour 3/4 times a day starting at 6am. Only 1 party is represented, the others presumably not bothering because they know who will win as inevitably money will be handed out during the last 3 days before the election.

The villagers do not care about politics -only money. As previously stated they will watch the soap operas, but will turn off when politics is discussed.

Isan (money) will determine the winner of the election, and that result is already practically guaranteed.

I agree that money is going to play a big role in the election, however I also have this story: Last August the politician father of my friend was asking around his constituency in Korat province which party people would vote for. The answers he got were along the lines, don't bother being a candidate if you're not with the PPP.

Which I take as a sign that voters have their own opinions, before the canvassers come round (unless PPP bought their votes real early, of course).

Based on the Democrats making education a very high priority, I can see they can also see the long term negative effects of high numbers of cheaply bought votes.

I will believe it when I see it!

So far the only thing I see is electoral promises.

I will take the Burmese generals angle: If the monks were asking only for lower fuel prices, would the generals have cracked down on the protests so hard?

I doubt it, therefore my conclusion is that the monks were asking for more, making demands that the generals could not accept, nor even negociate (read: regime change).

Pete_r,

So, is this in line with the Buddha's teachings or not. This topic is about whether actions taken by monks is in accord with the Buddha's teacings. All that you have given us is political analysis. This is not a forum for politics....it is a forum for Buddhism. Can you give us some insight about how the Buddha's teaching relate to this?

Chownah

Another poster earlier was trying to make the point that "we" (well, he at least) don't know what where the monks' exact demands, therefore it was futile to discuss if these demands were in line with the Bhudda's teaching. My post was aimed at defining what were these demands, based on the generals' reaction to them.

Now that this point is out of the way, my view on the monks' actions is that they do follow the Buddha's teaching of compassion for other human beings, by demanding improvements for the Burmese society, but at the same time they contradict the Buddha's teaching of freeing oneself of desires, since by protesting they are expressing a desire for political change. So the answer to the opening question is down to personal interpretation, depending on which teaching one sees as more important: My personal inclination is on the compassion side (which is concerned with others, whereas freedom from desire is more concerned with oneself, to explain briefly), therefore my answer would be yes, the actions of the Burmese monks are in line with one of the more important teachings of Buddha. Conversely, I expect someone who sees freedom from desires as more important, would answer that the monks' actions are mainly not in line with Bhuddha's teaching.

Edit: Spelling