Paulaew

According to published information, you can renew an expired license without taking a driving test if the license has been expired for less than 1 year. But it is not really wise to drive with an expired license. If you have an accident, your insurance company may deny a claim on the grounds of breach of contract (no valid license). Paul Laew

I've just renewed my Thai drivers license with a new passport. It's not a problem, the DLT understands that passport numbers change. When I took the DLT eLearning test online, I just registered with my new passport number. Paul Laew

"If you could answer just one question, what would it be?" I believe the correct answer has to be "This one" (or words to that effect). If the LLM gave a different answer, such as "What is the meaning of life?," the question it has answered is (obviously), "If you could answer just one question, what would it be?" Both ChatGPT and Gemini acknowledge that "This one" is the correct answer when I query the incorrectness of their responses. Paul Laew

Actually the question I asked the LLM in starting this thread was a question involving self-reference and recursion. I assumed the LLM, as a computational processs, would be able to handle that. I was disappointed when it couldn't. Paul Laew

Actually, it's why I said "Well, maybe."

Well, maybe. But both ChatGPT and Gemini acknowledge that this is the correct answer when it is pointed out that their original answers were incorrect. Paul Laew

Well, I tested it on my high school age son. He said the correct answer is: "This one." Paul Laew

He does seem to revert to face-saving measures when his bluff is called and he has to back down. Recent cases: bailing on the Greenland takeover, and the shutting down of the Kennedy Center in the face of artist and audience boycotts. Paul Laew

All of the well-known AI chatbots seem to fail on this simple question: "If you could answer just one question, what would it be?" The chatbots return some AI slop about the meaning of life, but any rational educated human would quickly see the correct answer. The reason is that LLM's use token prediction patterns rather than conceptual understanding. Often a convincing fake, but still a fake. Paul Laew

My Thai wife of 20 years occasionally says to me, "Pretend you love me." Still thinking about it ... Paul Laew

Two suggestions: 1. Try any chinese restaurant on Christmas Day. You'll have plenty of company. 2. Look in the halal food section of your favorite food store. You probably won't be able to tell the difference. Paul Laew

Yes, I still have access to their internet banking service. I considered dumping the mobile app to get my original limits back on internet banking, but then Bangkok Bank finally upped my mobile limit to 500k after a wait of many weeks. Apparently the internet banking service is eventually going away, they no longer accept new customers for it. They are not an easy bank to deal with, and don't seem to value customer service.

I'm interested in hearing from anyone whose child tried the GED tests for high school graduation. My 16 year old son is going to give it a shot this week (he refers to it as his "get out of jail free card"). Did your child have a hard time passing the GED? Any problem using the GED as entrance to one of the better universities in Thailand? Thanks for any info. Paul Laew

Maybe I was subject to the 20k limit as a new mobile banking user (though I was a long time customer). Now I can adjust the daily limit in the app up to 500,000 baht, though I had to wait 7 weeks for action on my request. (No branch visit was required). Paul Laew

I'd been using Bangkok Bank's internet banking for about 20 years and always had adequate limits to pay my monthly bills, with occasional larger transfers for cars, hospital, travel, etc. Then I enabled BB's mobile banking -- since that's supposed to be the future -- and suddenly my internet banking was subject to the draconian 20k baht daily limit for mobile banking. I could no longer sit down at the beginning of the month and pay all my bills -- I had to stagger payments over several days, and some payments I had to make in installments. Very inconvenient. I called BB's call center on Oct 7 to request an increase in my transfer limits. As a long time customer I expected it to be a routine request that would take just a couple of days. A month later still no action. More calls and emails to Bangkok Bank, expressing my disappointment in their indifferent customer service. Finally today (Nov 24) the higher limit options appeared in my mobile banking app and I was able to raise them, though still no communication from Bangkok Bank. It seems like the Bank is eager for us to use electronic banking, but too scared to allow usable limits, even with face scan enabled. If you have a pending request to Bangkok Bank to raise your transfer limits, Jobian patience is required. They probably have a queue of tens of thousands of requests. Paul Laew

Happiness is something that is most easily recognizable in retrospect. Have a bad accident, contract a serious disease, lose a loved one ... then you can look back and realize just how happy you once were. Paul Laew

Maybe there aren't many baseball fans in this forum, but it's a beautiful game of strategy with explosive moments. It has the richest tradition of any sport, and with the rise of Japanese and Latin American baseball, it has become more of an international game. The ALCS was amazing, but the World Series has been a revelation so far. The heavily-favored Dodgers with the massive payroll seem to have met their match with the Blue Jays, who have their star players but play more of a team game. Paul Laew

MLB.TV has a $29.99 subscription for the postseason. It might end up being less than you would spend in a sports bar, and you can watch from the comfort of your own home for those 7 am starts. Hope this helps. Paul Laew

Just leave your wife your ATM card and PIN. She'll have those funds spent long before the bank figures out you're dead. Paul Laew

Perhaps the greatest benefit of legal firearms ownership in the USA is indicated in this statistic: Of the 47,728 people who died from gun-related injuries in the USA in 2023, 58% (27,300) were suicides (source: CDC). If you want to end your life, a gunshot is probably the quickest, most convenient and reliable method. Just an observation, not a recommendation. Paul Laew

Once you have Linux installed, you will find it easy to use, especially since you have experience with LibreOffice. But getting Linux installed and properly configured for your hardware may take some tweaking, and may require that you use the Linux shell (in the Terminal program) and an editor such as vi or emacs. You will find that there is very good support online from the Linux community, and any problems you encounter will already have been solved by other users. If you are unsure if this is the right solution for you, you can create a bootable Linux on a USB stick and try it out prior to an actual installation. Hope this helps, Paul Laew

Laser printers are definitely the best choice for monochrome printing. If you need color, it might be a different story. Back in grad school in 1985, I remember printing my thesis on one of the first Apple Laserwriters (from a Mac with Microsoft Word 1.0). The price on that laser printer was about $7,000. It seemed like a typesetting marvel at the time, but I thought I would never be able to afford one. But now you can buy a reliable laser printer for a mere $125. Paul Laew

Maybe you misspoke, but this is incorrect as stated. A tariff is a tax or duty paid to the federal government when importing goods subject to a tariff. The president says the government has collected trillions of dollars in tariffs, though the actual amount to date in 2025 is about $190 billion. Paul Laew

I agree with you that far too many people have bought the president's story that other countries pay the tariffs. But it's not entirely true that the consumer bears the total cost of tariffs. In practice, manufacturers abroad are under pressure to reduce margins to maintain competitive pricing in the face of tariffs, and the same is true for importers in the US. So in the end the cost of tariffs ends up being shared by manufacturers, importers and consumers. It's why we are not seeing inflation spike as much as some economists predicted. Paul Laew

Yes, you're right about the LCD display being hard to read without good lighting, fortunately I don't have to use it too often. I should also mention that this printer seems to use toner quite efficiently, and I was able to buy toner cartridges for about 335 baht online. So it's inexpensive to run. Pau Laew