momosan

A bit all too mystic for me. My version of karma is summed up pretty nicely in the first paragraphs of the wikipedia entry for it:

Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म Karma.ogg kárma (help·info), kárman- "act, action, performance"[1]; Pali: kamma) is the concept of "action" or "deed" in Indian religions understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect (i.e., the cycle called saṃsāra) originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies.

In these systems, the effects of all deeds are viewed as actively shaping past, present, and future experiences. The results or 'fruits' of actions are called karma-phala.

I don't believe in the reincarnation and past lives stuff. Our actions and the actions of those around us and their resulting influence is the core of what I believe to be karma. And it's all in this life baby

Buddhism is pretty much a pick and choose religion for those that are not already indoctrinated on all of the old dogmas. All the items of belief are on the shelves for you to walk in and choose which to take home with you. And as such no two Sangha and their rules will ever be the same.

My own version: basically the core teachings of Buddha (the Three Jewels) and when I mean the teachings I mean the very essence of HIS teachings not the ones which have been morphed and transmogrified by different Buddhist councils after his death. Of those core items should there be something that goes against what I feel is right I will adjust them to become something to which I would feel more comfortable in practicing in my own life. And into that mix I put in my own items of belief and wisdom garnered from my own existence.

So at the end of the day I have a belief system that I can believe in and can change to my daily needs and one in which I am not tied to any of the old dogmas. That's true enlightenment and that's what I feel Buddha was trying to get through at the end of the day. All the petty little rules can just be left by the wayside (unless of course I choose not to, again all up to the individual). Whatever you choose to pick and match and end up with you will most certainly find a Buddhist community out there whose views can be very closely matched to yours.

If it were me I'd get on a plane myself and go over there to 'sort' it out. Tickets are cheap as chips these days as well thus makes it pretty feasible.

So you rode past a copper and you were doing so without a license? Gotta say you aren't the sharpest tool in the shed.

Golden rule with the Thai coppers: if you have done nothing wrong, sit there patiently and wait for them to wave you on. Time is money for them.

But in your case, no license, so you were screwed from the get go.

Okay thanks for the personal insult that just came from no where at all. What should I have done after I brought the bike? Left it at the DMV and waited until I actually got my license, come back and ride it back home then?

These bastards do not stop people to keep the roads safe. They do it for one reason and one reason only and they will use any reason they can find to get what they want. If they see someone who they think they can squeeze without any pain they'll do it. The other ones are let through for another day.

Another story: two weeks ago in the car this time WITH license, waved over. Said I went through red lights. Asked for license, handed it over (no money included). Takes my license and gives me a ticket to which I had to go to station to pay (400B) along with license being suspended 15 days after which I have to go back to get it. Six people in the car, all would testify there was NO red light to which I could have gone through within the last 2km and the last being where I just did a U-Turn. So excuse me if I was wary of pulling off the side with my new bike WITHOUT a license.

Yesterday I was down at the Land transportation office (Sukhumvit branch) to transfer ownership of a CBR150. I got there at about 9am so I figured I would go for the motorcycle license as well. Turns out I would have to do the VDO/written exam that day but the actual driving exam the next day. Since the head office (Mo Chit) is closer to where I live I figured I'd just go to the Mo Chit office another day and do it all in the same day the following morning (the ride back to the Sukhumvit branch is not a pleasant one during morning rush traffic).

After everything was finished with the transfer I headed back home going up Sukhumvit towards Ekkamai BTS I had only gone past about 5 sois when one of the shites waved me over. I was having none of that and just rode right past him. But because he was so close he actually hit me on the helmet with the ticket book he was holding. Next soi up there's a little police box, bastard steps out and stands in the middle of the road with not a very friendly face. Yanks my keys out and asks for my license. I pull out 200 in plain view but he says no I want to see your license. At which point I say I don't have one So he tells me to go into the police box with him. We have a very pleasant chat about me speeding past the other pig and blah blah blah and how I would have to go down to the station to pay a 1,500 fine. Then he asks to see my ID card followed on by: Do you have enough for the fine? Oh you don't? Then how are you going to pay it? Go to ATM huh? How much do you have on you at the moment? (Only had about 400 all up in the wallet luckily and I made sure he could see into it as I was counting). It's a lot of money and a waste of time huh? How about you just pay 200 here to save yourself any hassles? No, no just put it down on that chair. Okay have a nice day. Bye, bye.

I despise these leeches so much

Find a good repair shop and they will take care of it pretty well. Also, do a search on the TV forum and you will find a very long and informative thread on the CBR150. Get rid of the IRC tires as soon as you can.

What on earth are IRC tires? Other than that some very good information. Thanks!

Just got myself a 2003 model and I have absolutely zero idea how to look after it. I'll just be mainly using it to commute to work. So I've lots to ask and please keep in mind that what I said about knowing nothing

1. What kind of petrol should I be filling the tank with?

2. When cleaning the thing myself is using one of those car wash solutions and a sponge and going over everything okay?

3. What are some of the things that I should be checking myself day to day and watching out for?

4. Any sort of basic maintenance that I can or should be performing myself?

5. When/how often should I take it in to be serviced and what kind of things should be done and when?

6. The bike is in a very reasonably decent condition (about 80-85%) but what are some things that can be done to make it look spiffy and emasculate again?

Any help with any of these would be GREATLY appreciated since I've got no idea where to even start

Awesome program! I can even watch HD clips on youtube without any buffering at all

Thanks for the heads up on this little gem.

It's pretty clear what is possible and what's not from the pooled experience of all the people here. If you enter Thailand with a valid Thai passport they cannot refuse you entry, period. If in the course of trying to refuse in any way all you have to do is be firm but polite and not give an inch and you'll get your way... eventually but surely.

Just had them put in myself (townhouse). Nice design though with butterflies and flowers painted gold and the bars themselves a light blue. We have one back facing bedroom that's adjacent to another village. I opted to knock out the window and brick it up and put in some of those glass blocks to let some light in. Since we'll never need to use it as another bedroom it's become our closet/storage. The recently finished kitchen that is directly under said room also has security bars all through the construction to prevent climb-ins.

Do I need them? I'll never know but it does give me good piece of mind when going out.

When I got my 1 year I asked one of the staff there about renewal to get the 5 year and was told it could be done 3 months before the 1 year was expired.

Occasionally when trying to visit a site I'm redirected to welcome.truelife.com even though the link is valid and the site/page is up and working confirmed by the fact that if I click the link or enter the address again it'll load fine. I thought it must be them tampering with the DNS in some way so I switched to using the OpenDNS servers but it didn't work.

Anyone know what the frack is giong on?

I upped mine to 4mb first before I tried the 8mb even though it was available. The actual modem is saying it's connected at 5mb. The fastest I've been able to actually download has been 3mb (300Kbps) so I'll probably downgrade it again soon if it doesn't seem to be able to actually handle faster speeds.

Heh. Here's my story, yesterday went on a trip with wifey and the extended family. Borrowed a ute from an aunt and had about 4 people packed in the back. Anyways it seemed I put the wrong address into the GPS nav system. Ended up going to a factory with the same name as the place that I actually wanted to go to. Spent 2 hours getting there only to be sorely disppointed and embarrassed. Only then did it start to get very bad. The battery on the thing died and without the GPS we were totally lost. So while going around in circles for about an hour, one of the shatholes pulls me over and say I ran a red light. Um yea okay, I did go through some lights.... about 2kms back, and they could not have been any greener. So the guy asks if I had a license. I pull it out and hand it to him. I have to mention by the time all of this was going down I was already pretty freakin' stressed out of my mind having gone around and around feeling totally helpless trying to get everyone back home. If I hadn't been in that state I would have remembered to hand some red along with my license. But since I didn't the shathole wrote me up a ticket and took my license. So now I have to go across Bangkok in my free time to get it back.

An utter nightmare of a trip that couldn't have gotten any worse. Seiously makes me want to vomit thinking of the way these morons waste the time of and cheat people of so much money day after day.

Just to report back in since my connection has been 'upgraded' to the 4mb package. The actual connection information shown from the modem is:

		Downstream	Upstream	 	
SNR Margin	23.7 	                 23.0	db	
Line Attenuation	11.0 	                 6.1 	db	
Data Rate	5120 	                 509 	kbps

After testing for the last two days at various times during the day I can say that the best that I've gotten from it has been almost close to the 3mb average mark. It'll give it a few weeks then if it's still about the same I'll probably downgrade to the 2mb plan. So much for 8mb

Anyone know how to upgrade that service? TRUE live chat is in Thai. And, knowing that they never reply to email written in English, I think I have to go to one of the TRUE shops.

Has anyone done it?

Ye, I called them up on the 02 number and the lady told me to do it through the truecorp website. Here's the magic link: support.truecorp.co.th/ATB3/atb3_fixline_en.jsp

Thanks mate. I sent an email to support and got the reply above. Btw, the magic link seems to be not working anymore. Thanks so much anyway.

Seems the page will load if you open a link to it from one of 'official' links from the truecorp website. First head to www.truecorp.co.th/tha/promotion/promotion_superhispeed8mbps.jsp# then click on the first blue box (the wider one) which should open a pop-up. In the pop-up click the second box and click accept on the agreement box which will be in thai. That'll open the required window with the magic link. Change the 'th' string in the url to 'en' and load again and it should be the english version.

I signed up for the 4mb even though I can get the 8mb. I'll test it for a bit to see if it can get max out at 4mb before I try spending the extra 100 on 8mb

Anyone know how to upgrade that service? TRUE live chat is in Thai. And, knowing that they never reply to email written in English, I think I have to go to one of the TRUE shops.

Has anyone done it?

Ye, I called them up on the 02 number and the lady told me to do it through the truecorp website. Here's the magic link: support.truecorp.co.th/ATB3/atb3_fixline_en.jsp

I got my e-book reader a month ago. Mine is a rebranded version of the Hanlin V3 purchased from BeBook. If you buy the device direct from the manufacturer (Jinke) there is only one payment option which is direct money transfer through bank accounts. With Bebook they've got a lot more options including Paypal which is what I used. During purchase it auto-detected my currency as AUD and at the time the THB was pretty strong against it so I got the thing cheaper than it would have been if it had auto-detected and set it to EURO. They also sent it out using Fedex International Priority which got the the thing into my hands 3 days after I ordered it online. Fedex delivered right to my door and that's also when I had to pay the import tax which was 600ish baht. So all up the device put a hole in my wallet to the tune of about 11,000 baht. Also at the moment they have a referer program that knocks $25 off the price.

On a technical note though. All e-readers use the same screen. The E-Ink display is a patented tech so all the screens are produced by one single company from one single factory. So it doesn't matter if it's a Kindle, Sony Reader, Hanlin V3, Cybook, Iiliad.... The screen is the same. What is different though between the devices can be the screen controller module which is basically the graphics card in these devices. Some will allow more levels of grayscale. The other differences will also be in the other hardware components such as cpu, internal memory...

And here are now the reasons why I went with the BeBook:

Good price/perfomance ratio.

Open source firmware available (openinkpot).

Takes standard SD cards.

User replaceable battery (It's actually the same battery used in a lot of Nokia phones).

Very good construction (Dropped it a few times already myself).

Very good support of different file formats.

I love the dam_n thing, worth every baht I've spent on it.

Was watching this on the news with the wife(Thai) last night. Apparently he was first punched, then got the elbow to the throat and afterward as he was on the ground a couple of kicks to top it off. You know what the response from the wife was? "Oh I feel so sorry for him." For Chuwit not the anchor?!?!!?

After asking from various angles as to why she should feel sorry for Chuwit she came back with something along the lines of: "That anchor is an asshol_e, he's always asking questions that make his guests angry. I hate that guy he deserved what he got. And Chuwit was only being honest with himself and showing his true emotions which is a very good thing...."

I pointed out to her that this man was running for office and that this sort of display in a candidate is just not on. For someone attempting to attain such a position in governance the highest of moral fibre should be shown and nothing less. But she countered back with: "He's just being honest with his emotions I like that in politicians and because he's already so rich he probably isn't going to rob his constituents of too much when he's in office."

I mean seriously <deleted>?!