spode

3 hours ago, mr mr said:

this vexes me. who on earth would want to cause harm to our great leader ? 

I did not see anything in that article indicating they were trying to harm anyone - just bother them and express anger or dissatisfaction.

Been voting by absent ballot overseas for over 20 years. Just received a new ballot today by e-mail. Yes sir in 1776 the USA did the correct thing and toss you hooligans out.

Off topic, but personally I would rather give up the right to vote in my home country than be subject to taxation on my worldwide income by that country. I rather like not having to pay a single centime in tax on investment income (or capital gains) anywhere in the world. After all, I really don't understand why politicians and unelected bureaucrats think they know better than me how best to spend my money.

So perhaps the US of A makes voting easier for expats, but it's one of only two countries in the world that taxes expats on their overseas income, the other being Eritrea. Perhaps, on balance, things would have been better for you colonial types if we hooligans hasn't been tossed.

The first 90,000 USD is not taxable.

It's up to 100,000 now (for the 2015 tax year).

reference: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i2555.pdf

... I am happy with my debit cards

... until you try and use one to pay for a hotel room in Singapore, or pay for a rental car in Houston.

I would pay with cash as usual :-) and try to pay with a CC in here, you will have to pay 5% more

The hotel may take your folding stuff but good luck with the car rental. Even Avis at Suvarnabhumi don't take cash any more.

And last year in the US (Connecticut) I had to use a credit card for a car rental. It was booked by my sister, but they refused her debit card. They also refused cash from her.

No change. It will just slow the government from spending money and passing too many laws. Not a bad thing. The American people need little help from the government though 47% like the handouts.

Quite the opposite. After finally beginning to recover from the fiscal crises and cut the deficit by somewhere between 1/3-1/2, the US will return to the ballooning budget deficits and wasteful fiscal policies of the Republican party. And it's probably time to spend another trillion dollars on a new or expanded war or two.

Joy.

Yes and no.

According to Apple Hong Kong last month, the default worldwide global warranty still exists for all computer products, but no longer for iDevices (iPhones and iPads, specifically discussed).

I was purchasing a new iPad Mini. I was told very clearly that its warranty is only good in Hong Kong. I was specifically asked if I was buying this for use in Hong Kong, or for elsewhere or as a gift for someone elsewhere (I had previously bought some things for my Mother who lives in the U.S.).

As it is for me, I continued with the purchase. I specifically asked if this would be the case if I bought my Mother a new Aple laptop, and was told that the global warranty would be in place for that product.

So YES, the global warranty still exists for computers.

And NO, it does not exist for iPhones and iPads (at least those purchased in Hong Kong).

-Spode

Truly awesome news! All the best to their majesties -- Long Live the King!

When Tienaman Square in Beijing hosted the big protest (11 years ago?) the Chinese politburo brought in troops from far away provinces to restore order.

Just a quick note to point out that was about 21 years ago (4 June 1989), although it still seems more recent to me.

-Spode

It is a little late for APRIL FOOL joke isn't it.

You kidnap people using van, car or even pickup truck. How do you kidnap a grown man on a motobike?

Actually it is quite easy, so long as the person feels that if they do not cooperate then violence will be done to themself, or to other persons or offices. I would probably cooperate fully if I thought the alternative would be violence against my loved ones or against staff I felt responsible for.

Note - I am NOT saying that is what happened. I do not have enough information on which to base an opinion of what actually went on. I just want to clarify that you do not need to tie someone up and shove them in the trunk of a car for it to be a case of kidnapping / involuntary detention.

-Spode

Grandpops what a sad little man you are. I live in a pleasant town house outside of Bangkok, I am married to a Surin farmers daughter.We have invested in the farm to improve the in laws lifestyle we support the village school and have organised a village co-operative to strengthen the farmers buying and selling powers. Oh we don't have maid either .That's the advantage of being an elitist isn't it.

I presume you are indeed leading the same lifestyle as us thus enabling you to pass valid comments on my presumed lifestyl

We have three children who go to Thai government schools. We are not into shopping or eating out neither my wife or I are a drinkers.

We happen to live near the airport and were well aware of the P.A.D. occupation as well .Apart from my salary which 46,000 baht a month (Like yours no doubt as you wouldn't be here) The luxury car, actually a four door pick-up which we pay for monthly, far to low class for you no doubt

I am in receipt of an occupational pension from my previous occupation and have been so for the last 10 years, in 6 months time I qualify for my state retirement pension from the U.K which I paid for the same as my occupational pension.

I assure you that the depth of anti Thaksin and Red Shirt Brigade feeling in the village and the surrounding villages is indeed strong, that was as of last Sunday when we were in Surin.Perhaps you would like to come and work alongside me on the farm when we next go to Surin? Oh I must mention I am a farmers son so I do understand hard work and farming.

Now little inverted snob you go and try to to find another way to malign someone who you don't know and their presumed lifestyle which you are indeed very wrong about.

Sadly it seems as if you are indeed the born again jealous loser type that gravitates to this country for all the wrong reasons as you accuse me of . Twenty years here and still loving it.

I've seen Thaksins corrupt ways and the way the ordinary man suffered whilst Thaksin amassed an obscene fortune on their backs , happily the administration the country has now is indeed a big improvement on any I have seen in the last twenty years here.

Thank you for your very interesting and informative post. I appreciate it both for its relevance to the discussion here, and also for its insight into your life and choices, as I am occasionally thinking about life changes. Anyway, thank you and congratulations on what sounds like a satisfying and enoyable life/style.

-Spode

you guys must be all nuts or something, the fault of these guys that they are PILOTS and CREW of a plane, I don't think it's their fault, they are just working for a cargo company and will take the plane from point A to point B .

I see your point, but that would be a notable double-standard.

Examples:

- I am responsible for the contents of my own luggage. If someone else slips something in there without my knowledge, I can go to prison for it -- It's hard to prove you did not do it yourself.

- And if I choose to bring something which I do not realize violates a law, then I can go to prison for it -- Ignorance of the law is rarely a valid excuse.

- And if my boss orders me to do something illegal, then I can still go to prison for it. Of course the boss could get a worse sentence, but 'just following orders' is not a good enough excuse.

-Spode

Since admin still has not answered the questions about links directly may I try an experiment:

What will happen if I make the following post (an example only!):

-------------------

Today I saw an interesting article in the BKK Post about the security act being used again.

The headline and link is here:

Govt to use security act during summit

--------------------

would a post of this kind still be possible?

opalhort

What doesn't appear to have been mentioned in this thread is that, once the BKK Post has published the content on their website, it is then in the Public Domain (unless of course you need to be a member of the BKK Post's website to read it.)

Umm - that is not correct in most countries. The rights to the content are still retained by the publisher or writer or whoever holds them. Just as photocopying a book in a public library is illegal in most places, so too is reproducing the entire content of a news article.

However, in most jurisdictions, it *is* legal to quote a small portion of an article and/or title optionally along with a link to where to find that article.

I do know of at least one jurisdiction where this is *not* legal if the site owner says it is not legal. But that is incredibly rare. Some places, such as the Education Department of the Hong Kong Government several years ago, tried to deny other sites permission to even link to their web site without written permission, but this was found to be an unlawful restriction (not to mention incredibly stupid).

Separately from that, an online discussion forum can have whatever restrictions and enforcements that owners/operators/admins/whatever establish. So even if such linking is legal, it may be outside the permissible realm for TV forums, depending on how the admins clarify this.

I do not know what the law in Thailand has to say about any of this.

-Spode

What is an RSS feed?

It's a kind of technology that sends you links to the latest news articles. You can see the headline and perhaps one sentence explaining what it is about.

It is a way of distrbuting web site content via an XML file which can be read by computer programs and processed using standardized tools. Basically it will include the title of a web post, a link to the web post, and date/time stamp of the web post, and optionally some or all of the content of the web post. That content can include just about everything you see on the web page, if they set it up that way - images, sound files, flash video links, and yes - advertisements as well.

Put another way:

RSS is an XML protocol designed for "syndicating and aggregating" Web content, such as headlines, what's new lists, etc.

However, what the end-user actually sees depends more on what tools they use to read/view the content of the RSS feed, rather than the feed content itself. For example, a feed reader might just show the title and first line of the article by default, even if more is available - the user usually needs to configure it to display more, and the advettisements may be much less noticeable.

Examples:

1 - http://library.ust.hk/info/notes/notesrss.xml - A simple feed for our newsletter, with just title, link, and first sentence or so.

2 - http://library.ust.hk/blog/feed/ - A more complex feed to the full text of our blog posts.

If you go to those in your web browser, they will look very different from a specialized rss feed program.

Hope this help.

-Spode

2) I don't want to switch to new tab when opened... I can do that now by just clicking on the link.... so that switch is already turned on... I want to stay on the page I'm reading, "Right Click" on "Open in New Tab" and go to that page later at my leisure, which is what happens now.... The PEEVE is that it doesn't open BESIDE it's parent page, but at the end of the Tab row... again.. this is the peeve.... Is this correctable easily, without adding on another plug-in, or is this BASIC feature missing from Firefox???

Well, I can't answer your question of what makes it so great, since I do not use FF much - I find it more annoying than those I do use, such as Camino and Safari.

But specific to your tab issue above, what you are asking for as a "BASIC" feature is exactly the opposite of what I want. I want to browse through my opened tabs in the order i opened them - either by closing tabs as I go and seeing the next one, or by clicking the next on the bar. Your way seems cumbersome to me.

So what FF needs is a switch in the preferences to allow both options for users. And for all I know, there already is that technical capability in the about:config, but I never bothered looking because I like the way it is now.

I use FF mostly for web development and site testing.

I use other things for my daily browing.

It sounds like FF does not do what you want, so try something else until you find something you are happy with. If that is IE, then stick with IE.

Many rave about Chrome, but I don't find it usable enough for my specific needs. Safari is very good, but I still keep coming back to Camino (which is Mac-only) for my primary machine, and use Safari on my Windows machine.

-Spode

Got to be honest, I don't know what "auto-erotic asphyxiation" means, and I'm going to guess many other members are wondering what this is.

Can someone please explain.

The brief definition from dictionary.com is

Basically, there are a large number of ways to do this - none of them entirely safe. You can also do this with someone else, where they manage the strangling part - but that can be even more unsafe, as they are not as aware of exactly what you are feeling at any given moment.

You can use a rope or a gag, or you can get more creative. I personally saw the results of one person who placed themselves inside a large empty plastic water bed and attached a vacuum cleaner to slowly draw out the air while they pleasured themselves. This person had a pocket knife, ready to slice their way out at the right time, and had even set up a scale model to make sure this would work/be safe. Unfortunately, they waited too long to cut themself out, and were vacuumed in - could not more the arm with the knife enough to cut through the plastic and subsequently died. I was an emergency medical technician in the responding ambulance the next day.

I cannot stress enough how dangerous this is. If you choose to play with autoerotic asphyxiation, fine - but I urge you to have someone there to help or rescue you. Even then, you could crush the trachea or do some other damage which could be permanent - with or without death. And unfortunately the person you chose to be there to help could end up charged with negligent homicide.

-Spode

"The number of inspectors in the area would be boosted and an additional 165"

The only thing I see happening because of this is that theft will increase. There will now be 165 more people with their hands out ready for their portion of the booty.

Oh come on and stop being ridculous. Take the time to reread the quote:

The number of inspectors in the area would be boosted and an additional 165 surveillance cameras would be installed.

That's 165 more cameras, not 165 more people.

-Spode

Don't the Thais have the right to ensure those who come into and stay in the country are ligitimate? Many countries in the world have registration systems to provide information on who is living where and for how long. What's the problem?

It's no hardship for the foreigner, it's the guesthouse or hotel that has to provide the info and like i say many other countries do the same.

Well said! While I do not approve of the general global trend towards more governmental control of individuals and the curtailing of individual liberties, I still do not see a big problem with this. It is no different from when I last visited Europe, and is arguably less invasive than U.S. government attempts to have U.S. universities monitor the movements of foreign students on their campuses.

It's simply not that big a deal. And I hope the government makes it as smooth and easy as possible to avoid checkin delays which would cause annoyance, and to reduce the cost impact on the businesses involved.

-Spode

I was to attend a 5-day workshop in Chiang Mai in early May. Attendees from various Asian countries. Those from several countries dropped out a couple days ago, as their countries had official advisories not to travel to Thailand. Perhaps among other things, their insurance would not cover incidents, or maybe their employers would no longer be able to reimburse them for expenses.

The workshop has now been moved to Shenzhen in southern China, and everyone is coming again.

Sad, but completely understandable.

-Spode

About the bullets fired in the air coming down and killing...If I remember my A Level Physics, F=MA (Force = Mass * Acceleartion).

As acceleartion is gravity, that's about 10m/s/s. What's the mass of a spent bullet (remember its only the lead bit at the end - at worse stell jacketed) - 8g perhaps (that's 9mm at about 100-150 grains). So the maxmum force would be something like 0.8 Newtons.

If it hits point down (which is unlikely as it would be spinning and tumbling) the diameter is 9mm, so the area is about 64mm2.

This all works out to a little under 0.1777875 PSI - it takes at least 1 PSI to break skin, so its doubtful it could realy cause any damage at all.

Feel free to correct my physics - its been a while (like 20 years ).

...

Actually your physics is incomplete, sorry. The relevant factors would be:

1) The pressure of the bullet (force per unit area). a relatively small force exerted over a small area can do considerable damage.

2) The impulse (change of momentum). When fast-moving objects are brought to rest in a very short time this can also result in great damage.

3) The work (the average force through a distance) required to slow the bullet. The body is responsible for the work involved in decreasing the kinetic energy of the bullet. If this occurs over a short distance the forces can be quite large.

4) You may also remember that in absence of any air resistance a projectile will have the same speed striking the ground as it does when it leaves the muzzle of the gun. Actually it would strike the ground at a slightly higher speed due to the difference in heights of the muzzle and the ground. Of course air resistance cannot be neglected in the case of a bullet, but there it is.

A couple years ago in Macau, a policeman fired five rounds from his pistol in the air, caught on tape. It was later confirmed that one of the bullets struck and injured a passing motorcyclist as it came down.

Sources:

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=4&art_id=44569&sid=13625169&con_type=1&d_str=20070516&fc=4

"The 50-year-old motorcyclist, who was about 300 meters away from the scene at the time, was struck by a bullet from a .38-caliber revolver, which is used by Macau police. A bullet fragment was removed from his chest."

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSHKG98326

-Spode

p.s. Sorry - I don't know how to make those URLs show up better.

Don't forget how much nicer places seem as a tourist when you do not have to deal with anything serious. Kuta Beach is the worst tourist destination that I have ever been to and it is a big part of Bali.

Kuta is a Western-style hotel/beach party zone, and is ideal for those who want that. The rest of Bali is glorious, and thoroughly enjoyable. I have been there several times, and avoided Kuta once I saw it.

Chiang Mai is also glorious, though in a different way (caveat - I have not been there for about 6-7 years). My first visit was unplanned, and I stumbled in the day before a large flower festival at lunar new year, and immediately decided to focus on that instead of 'trekking' in the mountains. I had one of the best times ever. That was in 1992 and I have gone back several times since then.

I will be back in C.M. next month - this time attending a corporate leadership workshop my boss is sending me to (he pays 2/3, I pay 1/3). I would think that the physical environment of and around C.M., along with its distance from BKK, would be good for promoting this kind of function. Perhaps this is an area of tourism which could be more heavily explored? Of course, that is made more difficult from HK as there are almost no direct flights, but I am sure that would change if more such functions were happening.

I also like many other areas in Thailand - of course, traveling from my home in Hong kong is cheaper than coming from more distant destinations.

-Spode

George - excellent post, and very effective for the day!

Crocodilexp - disagree on it being a bad one, I think it was brilliant, given the idea is to get people to eompletely buy into it. Seems to have worked a charm.

As an over-40 myself, I kind of like the idea of being employable.

LOL!

-Spode

On a more serious note, the idea of the Thais actually building and running a Nuclear power station fills me with horror. The Yanks, the Brits and the Russians have all had problems in the past, so the imagination runs riot at the thought of the Thais managing this.

I have to disagree. I am not a proponent of nuclear power - I think it is generally counterproductive, difficult to clean up after (waste materials), and potentially disastrous. But as an earlier poster pointed out, there already is one nuclear plant in Thailand, and it has not blown yet. Newer reactor technology is much safer than the old. But the consequences of an accident are much more severe than other energy options.

Heck, I was more worried about the construction of a nuclear plant in Daya Bay in southern China in the 90s! Residents of an island in HK closest to there (about 70 km?) were issued iodine tablets by the then-colonial HK government as a just-in-case measure. As far as we know, there has not been a significant problem.

But there's one of the issues for me - "as far as we know". Whenever such plants are built, there needs to be a good information dissemination plan for notices and warnings - not just a disaster plan for the worst case scenarios. China does not have a good record for information openness, to put it mildly. Do you think Thailand will be better at that? I hope so.

Sorry for the somewhat rambling nature of the post - for some reason I felt an urge to respond, and now I've written too much to just cancel the post. Hopefully someone will find it interesting or entertaining.

-Spode

This thread has been quite interesting, but I have to agree that in some ways we are comparing apples and bananas.

Of course, from another perspective that does not matter - time to take a holiday, where is a good place to go.

I love both Thailand and Bali. But by bf looks at Bali and says "Waah! After those executions, there will be reprisals! Too dangerous!". Then he looks as the news from Thailand, and says "Waah! First the yellow-shirted mobs, now the red-shirted mobs, next..." He knows neither location is really dangerous. We have friends who live in BKK. We live in HK. Logic and clearheadedness are not the issue - emotions are a large part.

We're now going to the United States next month to visit my parents.

Hopefully I can work a shorter trip back to Thailand (or Bali or Phillipines) into my schedule in Feb or Mar...

-Spode