perax

Cellphones and SMS seem to be working, a colleague just called me from there.

Apparently the area close to the Sadao border is now ok, the roads are mostly ok. The area of tambol patong is still flooded (~15 km from Hat Yai, on the way to Sadao), with about 1 meter of water on the main road.

There's not much going on in the news today, let's pass this to Reuters, CNN, BBC, etc. Just to make the kingdom look as ridicolous as it really is....

This is most likely not related to the afghan papers, as this site was blocked before these document were released. If you look under the 'Thailand' section on that site you will find an obvious reason for it being blocked.

Did you see the latest packages from TRUE?

30M/2M @ 120 USD/month

50M/3M @ 180 USD/month.

Of course, if they sell this sort of packages they are expected to have enough capacity on their backbone to carry it. P2P traffic is nothign new, any half decent telco will know very well what to expect, and how to QOS it out to preserve service levels.

BTW, if you want a 3M/3M SDSL, youre looking at about 40K THB per month.

TOT seems to work (as bad as always) for us in Bangkok. The usual trackers are accessible, DHT & PEX working as usual.

Let's stop feeding the trolls, please. Always the some crap over and over.

Tweets from the Nation that Central World might be collapsing.

So far all pics I have seen are of a fire on the Zen side of CW (next to the BTS tracks). Does anybody know if the fire is extending to the central portion of the front building, or to the new atrium between the Zen department store and the office building?

...about 3 months ago farangs taxes increased 5 times the previous amount. We ARE voting with our money and resources.

Can you explain this statement? I do not recall any significant recent changes to the tax code.

Would that be the same Central World (that used to be called The World Trades Center) which, when I afforded it my one and only disappointed visit, had become scruffy, old, tired and with half of the retail outlets empty and unlettable because so many newer, more prestigious shopping malls have been developed since it waved bye-bye to it's glory-days?

Just a thought

...Mis-informed thought. It was recently renovated, at great expense, and is (was) a very pleasant mall to stroll in. Very nice place indeed.

Who underwrites the insurance of Central World? I'd be interested to know in reality who's pocket just took a caning...

Read the small print on any building insurance and you will see that "riot and war" are excluded.

...unless a specific rider is added to the policy in question. I have it on my house policy, it adds very little to the cost of the policy.

http://www.ireport.com/ir-topic-stories.jspa?topicId=420484

CNN Ireports still available, maybe your IP followed by Thai authorities, but mine is hidden, foreign, while in BKK no problems here

For these that cannot avoid the government filters, the link above points to a CNN website where people can submit their own picture or video. 58 pages of very much the same images & type of comments you can find all over thaivisa... anti-red, pro-red, armed/unarmed, terrorist/peaceful protesters, etc. etc. You can avoid bothering going there, just more of the same.

The ones that I am concerned about are those who only read and don't post...the silent ones.

Why, don't you think enough bullshit has been spewed on this forum?

Amazing how Photoshop is used by sympathizers .....

Are you dumb? Two pics of same scene, one taken while firing is still goign on, the other after the ones that are alive have buggered off. No Photoschop.

I live close to the PM's home (baan nayok). Can hear helicopters circling around, exactly like on april 10. Maybe some clean-up is going to happen tonight. Wouldn't mind, either way.

I miss the Philippines.. remember the last protest, when a senator and some soldiers took over the lobby of the peninsula hotel in Makati? That's a classy war.

I imagine the kid woluld have had at least some long tricky questioning by the authorities and kids dont hold up to well under interogation so their must have been a case that was at least beyond reasonable doubt to arrest the man, at least one would hope so

the problem with childern of that age is that they can be made to say whatever the questioner want. After a little while they'll start to make up stories, and convince themselves they're right. Takes a lot of care to get something 'true' out of them, and 'careful questioning' is not something that springs to mind talking about police in Phuket.

before we hang & quarter the guy, you migth want to consider how children that young might not be very reliable witnesses, particularly in the case of something that might have happened a few months in the past.

How can one determine if the electrical system in a condo is "earthed" If it isn't can metal water plumbing be used as "earth" as it would not be easy to run a wire to the ground floor.

Absolutely Not!!

In the UK this is a failure

And if that steel water pipe is not earthed, how many neighbours in the condo will be killed?

There are also other reasons. Regardless of the quality of the earth connection and of the equipment, there is always some residual current leaking through the earthing system. Over the medium period this typically causes corrosion in the junctions (copper cable - water pipe, pipe segment-segment, etc.) leading to a deterioration in quality of the grounding system and/or possibly to a leaking pipe. It's just not a good idea.

Just for reference, at 220V, a 50mA discharge that crosses the body could induce fibrillation if lasting over 200ms. It depends on the path the current takes through the body.

For example, in an hand-hand path, people would 'normally' perceive a 0.5mA current, might lose muscular control from 6mA up, and start having respiratory problems from 20mA up. For a person of average weight, fibrillation starts with currents in the range from 75 to 400 mA.

So, if you buy a shower heater with a differential safety switch (you should), make sure it's set to trip at 30mA/100milliseconds or better.

"Using proxy servers and trying to circumvent government blocked websites is a criminal offense in Thailand."

can someone help with this?

is it a criminal offense to use an overseas vpn etc, reason not to avoid thai but to get uk web pages?

I don't see this in the CCA. That document specifies requirments for ISPs and penalities for people (regardless of nationality or location) that commit acts that fall under the scope of the CCA. I do not see anything that says that using a web proxy somewhre else is in itself illegal.

The government was supposed to issue a regulation describing how the act should be applied, but I do not know if that ever happened.

There other things that could go wrong besides what listed above. For example, all large ISP run web cache farms to try to optimize usage over their international links and improve user response time. When you open www.hotmail.com, the page you get most likley did not come from a hotmail server somewhere one the web, but for a local copy cached somewhere by your ISP. It is not terribly uncommon to see some of the servers on a farm to go out of synch.

Also, it could just be that some well-meaning staff tried to add a redirect to a well-wishing page and ended up messing some sites (what happens, for example, when you try to access any website from an hotel and are instead redirected to a page where you need to log-in or pay for your inetrnet access). Might not necessarily have been done with 'malicious' intent.

Anyway, be under no illusions, all internet traffic through Thai ISPs is already proxied, logged and filtered. Some ISP do this better than others, but this is a requirment since 2008. The law (Computer Crimes Act B.E.2550) forces your ISPs need to keep a lot of details about every page you access from Thailand (URL, timestamp, ip source, login ID/phone number/etc.), and retain it for a lot of time.

Maybe we could get Guinnes (brewed in Malaysia) at a decent price... 200 THB for a pint is a bit too much.

Thx for your reply. Sorry, was not clear with

1> I'm living in Thailand since many years & I get visa based on my Thai wife. My yearly visa just finished & have applied for my new yearly visa. As usually it happens with everyone, I have received a months visa initially. Now I need to travel asap. If I were to apply for a Schengen tourist visa, will I get a visa? I intend coming back to Thailand in time to hear the result of my visa. (I will get the balance 11 months then).

Also,

7> What documents are to be shown on visa application? Do I need to give a copy of my wife's ID, house registration, child's birth certificate? Do I have to give my company papers, tax papers?

Thx

Pete.

Hi Pete.

On the first point, the embassy will want to see proof that you have means of transportation (plane ticket) *and* title to return to the country on your ticket. If you are here on a one-month visa and plan to return to Thailand after the expiration of that visa, the embassy might object.

On #7, the documents are listed on the application form, just download it from the internet and have a look. You will need to show means of support. If you own a company in Thailand and that is what pays your salary, then you migth need to show supportign documentation.

Good luck!

dear Jayboy, I really get the impression you can't conceive how somebody migth not always agree with you. You can't convince us, we can't convince you, so let's leave this to rest.

I'll try to reply, based on my past experiences. Others will certainly provide more accurate information.

1> Can anyone (non-Thai on a Thai wife visa) apply for a Schengen tourist visa, if the visa to stay in Thailand is for a month? (Under consideration, will be granted 11 months visa next)?

Not sure I understand this. If you are, let's say, a Chinese national traveling on business in Thailand and you need to go to Spain, you can apply at the Spanish embassy in Bangkok. There might be some delay in case the embassy needs to check documents proving your status (employment/income, usually).

2> If the Schengen tourist visa has been refused, for whatever reason, how long to wait for applying again?

AFAIK, you can apply as soon as you have corrected the issue that caused the refusal. You can also appeal the ruling, normally though a competent court in Europe. They will tipically tell you the reason during the interview, but they do not 'have' to. Sometimes you just hit a moron.

3> After travelling to Schengen countries on a Schengen tourist visa once, is there a waiting period to apply for another Schengen tourist visa? Need to travel again after 1 or 2 months.

Not that I know. No problems, as long as you respect the terms of the original visa (no overstay, etc.).

4> How much bank balance is required to show?

For this you need to check with the embassy, they have a table with the requirements. Something along the lines of 40-50 euro per day, I believe.

5> At which embassy is it easiest to get a visa, with the least waiting period?

In theory you should apply to the embassy of the country where you will be spending most of your time. I have seen approvals within a few days at the Swiss, Italian & German embassy.

"Easy" is subjective. the documents are the same for all embassies, but approval depends on the judgement of the officier that process your application. Some embassy take a dim view of single Thai girls with little income traveling to Europe.

6> Do all embassies take an interview?

All these I tried do, or used to do. It's usually quite painless, much easier than when trying to get a visa to the US.

You will also tipically need to show ticket reservations, proof of income (employment letter), medical (travel) insurance, hotel reservations or letter of invitation if the non-EU citizen is staying with relatives or friends.

[Just gobblededook, I'm afraid although suddenly it's just about "pursuing clarifications".Ignore this advice.

It has always been about that, it's only you that read these posts from a strange perspective.

And, again, unless you know the OP you cannot really assume or say anything about the level of people he/she might have access to. You migth well be, in your words, 'ordinary' and 'nondescript', but the OP might be cut from a better cloth.

[Once again I think this is unsupported and misleading advice based on uninformed guesswork.I doubt whether "special processing" exists or that calls from influential friends (unless say from a Privy Councillor, a current prime minister or someone at that level) help at all - and even then would probably not overrule established procedure.For the umpteenth time there are very clear rules on PR.Follow them and comply with the criteria and you will almost certainly be successful eventually.

As an aside many foreigners don't seem to understand what a genuinely influential Thai is.Why would a leading Thai of the type I describe above want to help an ordinary foreigner bypass established rules and procedures.It doesn't make sense.

I think you are mis-reading what is written above. It's just a suggestion to pursue clarifications starting from the top, instead than slugging it out with the NCO that receives your paperwork. The NCO is just not in a position to help or to make decisions. I also remember cases of people with no tax records being allowed residency for services to the country (Sangha members, etc.), and 'services to the country' is a rather flexible definition.

In Thailand 'inluence' is a currency, and a currency needs to have a market to have value. Powerful people can "trade" face and prestige by, amongst other ways, helping other people 'of influence' getting what they want. Without knowing anything about the OP, I can only suggest him to take this in the same way a Thai "person of influence" might, starting from the top.