BeastOfBodmin

They may even lose money by running this "revenue raising" operation.

Bitcoin vs Gold USD vs Gold I own gold, silver and bitcoin. None of them to get rich quick. All of them as a partial hedge against governments' mismanagement/ mendacity. None of them are going to zero (I only became certain about that wrt BTC a few years ago). At the moment I choose gold over the others. BTC might "make more mathematical sense", but that's not enough to guarantee that gold won't be a part of any large scale currency revaluation/ dollar devaluation. Gold because of its 5000 year track record as money, on and off. It's not a good hedge against inflation if you compare it to a given CPI (even the manipulated official CPIs that are produced at the national level). While the BRICS might eventually use XRP somehow, it doesn't explain why China and Russia (and lately many other countries) are now building up their reserves of the "pet rock"/ "barbarous relic". Silver because of the current gold:silver ratio. Bitcoin because it has performed very well over the last 10-15 years and solves a lot of problems at the individual level. It is private, cryptographically secure money. It is a form of financial disintermediation. It isn't going to be made illegal (this has been tried a few times but it hasn't caught on) and I don't think it's going to zero. Hell, Trump might order the U.S.A. to buy a million of them (that is about 5% of all the ones mined so far).

Any Vitamix blender (not cheap!). Not sure about large, intact bones. But be careful not to run them too long or the temperature sensor will cut out. That is scary the first few times, but they recover if you leave it alone for an hour or so. My wife burned out a hand blender and a small food processor trying to puree pork to make Thai style sausage. So we plumped for a Vitamix which can handle this.

I am very sensitive to paying the money changers more than I need to. Consequently I have been using Wise (nee Transferwise) for years. Previously I used CurrencyFair. Before that I used xe.com. I have used Revolut on occasion. As far as I know, Wise is the cheapest. Revolut are close, but in practice I found once that I got hit for a fixed bank charge on the Thai side (THB 300 or something [I told you I was sensitive to rates and charges]). Wise don't have this overhead. I suppose Wise have a THB account that they can transfer to internally somehow, else a deal with the target bank. In any case, do your due diligence and try all the services I mentioned as they will usually tell you total charges on their web sites without having to sign up. If you are nervous, use the in-app or website help to ask and they'll respond in good time. I once recommended a friend use them to transfer the profits from his house-sale out of Switzerland to Scotland. It was a six figure sum, so it made sense to ask in advance how to make it go smoothly and to understand any "unusual" charges or roadblocks he might encounter. Just my THB 0.02 🙂

Apparently several minorities, if the slurs are correct, depending on the state.

50.7% of votes cast is hardly a mandate. I am not a USA citizen, so please forgive me for asking: is it unusual for the winning party to simultaneously get majorities in Congress, House and governors? Don't the House and Congress often reverse in the next elections (in this case 2027?), presumably due to lack of performance/ lies told during the election race?

Journos are supposed to be balanced and impartial.

Is it possible to cross-post to this thread?

Internet Connection (Fibre) bill.

I understand he (or his lawyers) have spent a lot of time in courtrooms over the years. I was wondering if any cases found against him before the recent batch where he was convicted on several (all?) counts, yet stayed out of jail.

Which felonies are these?

The bill is in my name and it is a monthly invoice. The updated version in English, with English address, arrived October 18th. Very happy with that. I don't know why I was treated differently than you. I have since used this bill to clear verification with two non-Thailand accounts and hopefully something back at the Swiss OASI. The only complaint I have at present is NT ToT do not seem to support direct Debit (which I am realising is not a thing in Thailand). I prefer not to have to remember to pay bills. Best I could do was set up 12 regular payments via SCB. Is there an equivalent to the good old Direct Debit here? Anyway, I will set a calendar reminder to refresh the payments in a year.

We found out that if we go to the main NT TOT office in Sakon Nakhon, they will issue the bills in English. So we did that yesterday. Might not make it for the November bill, but should be OK for December. I wrote out the address and my name long hand so that they don't mis-spell my name. Should be easier to use than a Thai yellow or blue family book, since Falang firms can be quite rigid in what they accept and as I will get this bill every month I avoid the potential, arbitrary "must be no older than... days" rule. It also turns out that for this specific account application, my bank statement was sufficient. It is just that I uploaded an alias file instead of the file as a PDF which they could not open. So instead of telling me "corrupted file", I got "missing document". Instead of "you need to upload yadda yadda..." (a request) I got "did you know you could upload..." (sounds like FYI). Now that my faith in their processes is in doubt, I am calling their support every couple of days to check if there are any blocks, what is the nature of the block and what can be done to surmount it. At least I avoided the hassle and cost of finding a lawyer to notarise a translation. For now...

That's what it will probably be. It's just such a PITA to organise.

OTT perhaps, but does anyone know if NT TOT will issue a bill in English? I need something that proves my address in English before a couple of non-Thai companies will let me open accounts with them. I just pinged them an e-mail in English, but just in case they don't answer soon (or we misunderstand each other)...

Does anyone have an estimate of how many m^3 water per rai is needed for a crop of, say, jasmine rice? I expect the answer to that would rule out rain water collection and storage as a way to avoid drilling a hole and messing with the water table.

I managed to drag the same info out of my S.O. It was clear to her, but not abundantly clear to me after being put through a Thai-English translator. I am used to the explicit use of the words "holiday" or "vacation". It will all sink in eventually I am sure.

The subject says it all. My SO sent me this link which, after Brave translated it to English, does not seem to reveal the long holidays. I understand there is a long holiday in October. https://www.nfe-pbr.org/home1/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1543&Itemid=186 Mean time I have e-mailed the school (in english) after trying to find the holiday info on their web site. Just in case I don't get a timely reply, I thought I would post the same question here. My lack of Thai literacy prevents me from obtaining very basic information

Maybe a little off topic, but is it possible to get a daily or hourly breakdown of electricity units used from PEA? Short of logging in every day it is difficult to get a handle on how the power is actually comsumed. Thinking about solar, and I am aware most of the power consumption is A/C at night (when the sun don't shine). Above, KannikaP mentioned a WiFi Thingy in the main fusebox that beamed data to a phone app. That might be a solution. Any ideas what that entails? So far I have this from PEA (we moved in permanently early April 2024).

As does mine, but the Thai characters are on the left, not the right.

I like idea of buying a frame and getting the tabletop made out of teak.

I haven't had exactly the same setup as you wrt to Thais getting a UK Visa, but I think in general it will be the same process. The UK Visa online application stuff is quite comprehensive, and I expect it would adjust to the age of the applicant (your niece) accordingly by prompting for the relevant info at form-filling time, and mentioning stuff in the list of documents when it comes to going to the Visa agency. Perhaps. In my case, whenever my daughter left my previous country without me, but with my wife, I would have to provide a signed letter authorising she could leave the country with my wife - this is because we kept our surnames, and my daughter got my surname. This put the passport control on the exit side on alert. This info was not mentioned as a Visa application requirement.

I have had my eye on a desk with motor/s, but my previous one did not have this feature. I am guessing that if the legs are joined by a solid enough crossbar, then sag will not be a problem. The desk I consigned to the skip two weeks ago looked like this (without motors or the third leg, though there were screw holes in the table top that would have corresponded to this third leg). UPLIFT Curved Corner Standing Desk, 3-Leg The "thin side" was good enough for my iMac, keyboard, mouse and me. My printer went onto the "wide side" and there was plenty of rom for bits and pieces, so something around 28"/ 70cm constant depth would be OK. My SO suggests I get something custom made. Tempting, but dangerous...

Case in point?

Hi, I landed in Thailand just under two weeks ago. Most of my stuff is still on a container ship, no doubt dodging Yemeni ordnance. I chucked away my existing computer desk and I need a replacement as the kitchen table is not sustainable ;). I also need a couple of chairs. Can anyone recommend somewhere in the Sakon Nakhon city area and/ or online suppliers of such items? My partner is Thai, so I suppose I can deal with lack of English.