farangnahrak

thanks, missed that little detail . . .

I'm looking at the online rail booking site:

http://www.thairailticket.com/esrt/Default.aspx

but I do not see Nong Khai on the list . . . is the train to Nong Khai currently not available?

I need to translate this phrase below. The only context I've been given is that it's something a girl said to a boy.

"ร้องให้ ซึ้งมากรึไง"

I can translate it word for word, but I'm really not sure of the meaning of ซึ้ง

It almost sounds like "I cried. Are you that stupid or what?"

or maybe "I cried. Is it that hard to see?"

But . . . I'm actually not even sure if the speaker is crying, or implying something entirely different . . .

I've been learning some basic Burmese . . . I've searched everywhere, but can't seem to find an audio example of creaky voice. This may not be the right place to post, but not sure where else to ask . . .

Supposedly, the Burmese language has two tones: low and high. Except some people say it's mid and high.

And then there are two other 'tones' called creaky voice and checked. Except some say these are not tones, and it's actually called creaky voice and breathy voice.

Supposedly the 'breathy voice' can be combined with the high tone, so it's probably not a real tone as we think of Thai tones.

I tried listening to Burmese videos to hear these creaky, checked, breathy sounds but I just can't recognize it. The written descriptions aren't helping . . .

Anyone can help?

Another is ไปบาย, pronounced 'bye bye'.

But its really saying 'go to the city of Bai'.

คุณค่า is used to describe the value of abstract matters such as feelings or nutritious while (monetary) value of tangibles is just ค่า.

คุ้มค่า means good value as in reasonable priced.

มีค่า means it's valuable

I've seen ค่า used to describe the 'value' of life.

Maybe it was something like 'ไปสาย?' which is Isaan for 'go where?' . . .

I'm in Bangkok, and I need ~$500 US dollars for trips to Burma and Cambodia.

I really don't want to get Thai baht from an ATM (on my US credit card) and then exchange that back into USD again.

I've heard of ATMs in Thailand that disperse US dollars . . . anyone know where I can find one?

I just went to Chaengwattana today. Everything was open. The entire visa extension process was about an hour . . . I was in at 9am and out by 10am . . . usually it takes 4-5 hours for me.

Apparently extending a tourist visa for 28 days is now 1900 baht . . . sigh . . .

What is the best way to say 'the planet Earth' in Thai?

To say โลก just doesn't quite feel right when all the other planets are called ดาว . . .

The associate professor (the one who claimed the EM balls were effective) just emailed me back. I had requested a second time, as clearly as possible, for just one scientific paper to back up her claim. Her full response is below.

The basic gist because I'm too lazy to translate word for word: "I don't have any papers on it. Such and such people used it and the water didn't smell any more. Therefore EM balls work."

My opinion: In science, you need to have a control experiment, and all conditions need to be carefully monitored - neither of which she has. She didn't say which bacteria was affected, nor mentioned what the specific chemistry make-up of the EM balls were (or should be). And frankly, the subjective observation of smell is not a good scientific metric for clean water. This to me sounds like a subjective load of EM balls.

ขณะนี้มีผลการใช้ จุลินทรีย์อีเอ็มของมหาวิทยาลัยศรีนครินทรวิโรฒ บำบัดนำ้ท่วมหลายแห่ง ได้ผลดี เช่น ที่หมู่บ้านสวนเกษตร คลอง 5 ใช้อีเอ็มในพื้นที่ 40 ไร่ที่ถูกนำ้ท่วม ก่อนใส่อีเอ็ม นำ้เน่าเหม็นมาก วัดปริมาณออกซิเจนที่ละลายในนำ้ได้ 1 มิลลิกรัมต่อลิตร หลังจากใส่จุลินทรีย์ ภายใน 5 วัน ปรากฎผลว่า นำ้ใส กลิ่นเหม็นหมดไป วัดปริมาณออกซิเจนในนำ้ได้ 4 มิลลิกรัมต่อลิตร ซึ่งเป็นค่าที่เป็นมาตรฐานของนำ้ดี และชุมชนกำลังดำเนินการบำบัดในพื้นที่ใกล้เคียงต่อไป. นอกจากนี้ ผู้ประสบภัยที่มาขอรับจุลินทรีย์อีเอ็มของมหาวิทยาลัยก็รายง่นกลับมาว่าได้ผลดีมาก

และมาขอเพิ่มเติมอีกจำนวนมาก. แม้ว่าบางคนก็เหมือนคุณ ที่ไม่เชื่อ แต่เราให้ลองเอาไปใช้ดูด้วยตนเอง ของฟรีไม่ได้ขายเหมือนคนอื่น เราวิจัยแล้วนำมาใช้ประโยชน์ต่อสังคม ไม่มีผลประโยชน์ส่วนตนมาเกี่ยวข้อง

I decided to research this so called Dr Teruo Higa. He has plenty of self-promotion papers where he talks about how great EM is:

http://scholar.google.co.th/scholar?start=20&q=%22teruo+higa%22+microorganism&hl=en&as_sdt=1,5

However, I failed to find a single paper documenting a single scientific experiment or single quantifiable result wrt cleaning water.

I found this interesting quote from him, too:

"Thus a health drink EMx, which contains a

high proportion of natural antioxidants, extracted from ingredients such as sea weed

fermented with EM is sold in many regions. The benefits of EMx are being tested with

HIV positive patients to improve their health conditions, in pilot studies conducted by

qualified doctors in many parts of the world."

reference: http://www.infrc.or.jp/english/KNF_Data_Base_Web/PDF%20KNF%20Conf%20Data/C7-KP-304.pdf

Here is the inventors website. Lot of information, but hardly any evidence supporting that EM really works on a large-scale scenario.

Actually, the company website claims EM can clean up oceans (despite the entirely different water chemistry). Although it may take several seasons 'until results are seen'.

• Use one EM™Mudball for each square meter of surface area.
• Use EM™ Mudballs once each season until results are seen.
• Cleaning up oceans,

[cough cough bs cough]

" Claims are fine" - if you do a little looking round (not just one person's opinion) you'll find there are a lot of conflicting claims and that is the main problem - there have been a few tests but as yet it has not been possible to reliably REPEAT any positive claims - the results seem to vary wildly and are inconsistet.

Agreed. I've seen claims that a single EM ball is enough to treat water ranging from '1 meter squared' to '5 cubic meters'. Some claim the ball needs to be perfectly packed and not fall apart so it has a timed release, and others claim the ball must be broken up into a fine powder before being thrown onto the water . . .

The associate professor emailed me back. I had asked her for scientific papers backing up her claims. I apologize that it's in Thai:

ตามปกติ ธรรมชาติก็จะมีการฟอกตัวเองอยู่แล้ว นำ้เสียถ้าทิ้งไว้นานๆก็จะมีการตกตะกอน มีการย่อยสลายตามธรรมชาติ แต่จะใช้เวลานานมากๆ เพราะของเสียที่เข้าไปในนำ้มีมากกว่าที่เกิดขึ้นตามธรรมชาติ ดังนั้น จึงต้องเติมจุลินทรีย์ที่มีประสิทธิภาพในการย่อยสลายเพิ่มเข้าไปเพื่อทำงานในการย่อยสลายได้เร็วขึ้นกว่าการฟอกตนเองของระบบนิเวศตามธรรมชาติ. ตำราเกี่ยวกับระบบนิเวศของนำ้ มีค่ะ แต่ต้องหาก่อน

เราพูดตามหลักวิชาการ ตามผลการทดลองที่เคยทำ ตามประสบการณ์ที่สอนและวิจัยด้านจุลชีววิทยามาเกือบสี่สิบปี ใคไม่เชื่อก็ไม่ว่าอะไร เพราะไม่มีผลประโยชน์อันใด ไม่มีเชื้อที่จะขาย มีแต่ให้ฟรี ไม่สามารถบังคับให้ใครเชื่อได้

I'm too lazy to translate it word for word, but for those who can't read it basically says:

"EM technology is the natural way to clean up bacterial scum. I don't have any research papers to back up the claims, only 40 years of personal experience with environmental science. If people do not want to believe me, that is ok, I am not selling my reputation. There is no benefit in convincing people who do not want to believe in it."

(emphasis on it's my lazy translation, in that my summary doesn't quite capture what she said - but it's good enough)

So . . . why doesn't she have any papers backing up the claims after 40 years of experience? Should I email her back, explaining that the scientific community needs to see experimental data to believe in it? I'm debating if she even realizes this and is worth further probing . . .

I looked up this associate professor and sent her an email. Claims are fine, but I'd like to see the scientific paper.

To those implying anyone who voted for the current government were bought, here is some evidence to the contrary . . .

Look at every single election polling - both before and after the election - and see who they predicted will win. They all said PTP, even the ones directly funded by the Democrat Party. You will have a hard time convincing me people were paid to vote PTP in the pre and especially after-election polls.

Was PTP populist policies a form of vote buying? If you look at the election promises as written on the Democrat Party website, you'll see very similar populist policies promised. So clearly it wasn't the populist policies that made the difference.

I don't think the anti-Dems posting here were paid for their commentary, either.

In other news, this article shows that the proposed Printing Act amendments aren't needed for the police to control the media:

http://www.prachatai3.info/english/node/2038

You'll see the DSI was clearly involved, and so was the Cultural Ministry, and that "the penalty is imprisonment for up to 6 months." I'd be willing to bet the person(s) who made the proposed amendments were still in office during the Democrat administration.

There's lots of peer reviewed scientific literature analyzing the use of bacteria to bioremediate wastewater. I've read a lot of it. The conclusions are mixed, but recent developments in the field have indicated the science behind bioremediation to be effective at managing wastewater. Google Scholar it if you have a lot of hours to kill.

As mentioned above, throwing it in fast moving water is a waste. HowEffectiveareEM.pdf

I've searched Google Scholar and found no articles supporting the efficacy of EM for waste-water treatment during flooding. Your linked article has no experiments, no references, no peer review, and no real conclusions as to the effectiveness of EM.

The attached paper concludes that adding molasses stunts growth of a particular photosynthetic bacteria by 25% - however it was done in a 10mL test tube in very controlled laboratory settings (ie it doesn't match the flood water environment nor chemistry). Is this particular bacteria even the cause of putrid water here in Thailand?

They are also written by academics who's primary purpose is to disprove a hypothesis. That's what scientists do, and it's not always a bad thing.

Only a bad scientist would ignore results that don't favor his hypothesis.

If they worked, there would be scientific literature to support it. I'm not a bio-chemist, but I haven't been able to find a single article stating EM balls can clean waste water. Anyone find any?

Clearly the writer intended cubic meters, but bad translation ensued.

I'm not so sure about that . . . if it only treats the photosynthesizing bacteria type, then it only matters for surface level bacteria (ie the depth doesn't matter). I browsed the website of a company selling these balls, and they claim it can treat 1 square meter (with also no mention of depth).

However, the paper I linked above clearly showed the balls have no effect on surface level cyanobacteria blooms. So go fig . . . This makes me think that scientists had no actual part in making these things . . .

I wonder if it's made by the same company that produces GT200 bomb detectors?

I just ran into this:

"กล่าวได้ว่าการเติม EM นอกจากจะไม่ช่วยสร้างออกซิเ จนแล้ว ยังส่งผลทำให้เกิดปัญหาน้ำเ น่าเสียที่รุนแรงขึ้นกว่าเด ิมจากการลดลงของปริมาณออกซิ เจนในน้ำ รวมถึงเพิ่มสูงขึ้นของปริมา ณสารอินทรีย์

It can be said that not only does EM not increase [water] oxygen levels, but worsens water pollution by reducing water oxygen levels and increasing water micro-organism levels."

http://www.eng.chula...h%2Fnode%2F3915

I don't think EM Balls actually work, and instead waste volunteer resources when they could be better used for packing sand bags and relief supplies. For example, these two papers say EM balls have almost zero effect for cleaning water:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/ku342v2820237404/

http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/8556

I'd like to apply for a Tourist Visa (60 days) to Thailand from Hong Kong.

I'm a US citizen. Is this a good idea, or am I likely to waste my time?

The only information I can find is this, dated on Friday, 15 December 2006:

http://www.thaivisa.com/319.0.html

which states

"Avoid Hong Kong. Hong Kong savagely and capriciously rejects most everyone. The Hong Kong consulate staff likes to loudly shout to the rejected applicants that they should have gone to Penang to get their visas."

Anyone have an updated status? Maybe if I sweet-talk them in Thai?

geez no one read the last sentence of my post, eh? =P

Anyway, thanks, the tap sap was right after all.

In addition, I just heard of yet another called เลทิเวติ้ง (levitating). I've even seen pics where they combine the various styles . . .

The 'planking' fad has made it to Thailand . . . I had to look twice to believe it lol . . . even the OfficialPlanking facebook channel has tons of Thais posting pics of themselves doing it . . .

Anyway, what is 'planking' called in Thai? At the moment I'm using tap-sap . . .