horsewell

Everyone should be old that the passport is the property of their government and is not collateral for renting anything. Any organisation or person that demands someone to hand over their passport should be looked at with great suspicion!

However, Jet Skis are another thing entirely. It's required by Thai law that individuals to ride them have a marine licence. The pressure should be put on the operators to required. It's probably why those operators, other than being cheap don't / can't get proper insurance allowing the renter pay the excess and other nominal damages.

This probably just means that the less popular schools have more places. Hardly seems news worthy, really.

It's a hell of a change. Would take at least a generation to change the attitudes of both sexes, the important task.

The problem will be, if the government is dedicated to the change, the law will go too far to "protect" and in fact create another perceived inequity, real or imagined. Equal has to be equal but nothing is ever really that "fair". Why? Because now there are probably a lot of laws in place that already "protect" both sexes but are rarely invoked because people generally want to sort things out themselves, one way or another. Probably, a lot better than having the police involved, or entering the legal system, that is perceived as unfair, expensive and bias by many, if not most.

(extended single stay) I changed schools a few years ago. It was an issue getting the information required from the first school. Even with the second school helping me ask the first school, what they gave me was a joke and it was lucky that the second school could get it sorted, from what they told me. They seemed to be able to sort the problems out and I was able to extend the stay for another two years without a problem.

Can I ask, is there a time limit on the number years learning Thai? If using multi-entry visas and changing to single entry visas does one negate the other? After 3 years of extended stay, does it nullify the right to ask for this visa to learn more? I have an (semi) advanced knowledge of Thai but don't think I am good enough yet and am told, by my school, I have exhausted the visa category already.

[... ]Every Thai banknote ever made is still valid as of this day.

OK, I'll try this one for my next coffee break!

Seen as though I saw that one in a "museum" recently (not to mention it's issued April 1st) would think that it's value would be purely novelty.

You have to wonder how many years that was. She lost teeth over her addiction and had the shakes when she ran out! Are we sure it was coca-cola?

It's funny a spokes person for Coke said that they were disappointed that their product was signed out but it would it was definitely a determining factor.

Is this the high value tourist group that TAT is always talking about? 555+

I can't see this changing things much. Chances are deals will be made, between the various parties involved, and things will continue on, more or less, the same as before. The funny thing is how obviously these things seems to go on: completely legal, illegal players move in, things get so bad that something has to be done, amnesty, crack-down, rinse and repeat.

It's a sad story. A pity couldn't get someone else to get the passport. It's a pretty horrible situation when the killers get off so lightly. Feel sorry for the guy's families both in Australia and Thailand.

A 5000฿ fine seems almost laughable... mind you, out of over 8000 people they could only come up with 12 people (so far), and none of them where Russians. It seems like there should be more oversight with the current laws rather than stricter criteria. It's hard not be cynical with these sorts of things. It seems that the locals, that are complaining, have started pricing themselves out of the market, you wouldn't think a "laundry person" wouldn't be profitable enough for it to be an attractive occupation.

Isn't there a lot of cultural reasons for communication to be... less than ideal? Even in western nations employers who don't want to pay higher (most probably deserving) wages use emotional blackmail to placate the workers. In Thailand there is graengjai (a sense of owing) to their employers and unwilling to say anything being afraid of losing work.

All these English speakers that can't spell 'foreigner' haha...

Any foreign business owner worth their salt will have the business set up in such a way that it's "apparently" Thai owned or completely legitimate. Like the "Russian" massage parlours in Kata / Karon Beach last month.

The fact that the language barrier is something that needs to be addressed one way or another. I'm sure the larger hotels and resorts pay top dollar for Thai nationals that can speak a foreign language other than English. Maybe the tour operators and taxi services should be looking to also reward nationals with these language skills. It's probably a problem because those that do make an effort will not stick around... they would be off to greener pasture$ as soon as possible. It's not like the Russians or any other nationality have just arrived. This has been growing for the last generation! (all be it, only just really taken off in the last decade).

Thailand's losing the race to the bottom... 555+

So this is the final 70 provinces. Probably see a lot of stories like this. I'm sure that prices have been already pushed up around the country and over the next few weeks they will go up some more. That said Phuket hasn't increased in price that much, but then it depends on your knowledge and expectations.

Poor guy but unless the airport has gone down hill in a major way over the last few months there should be a mini bus. "They" will tell you it takes forever but I've never waited more than a 10 - 20 minutes. Mind you, depends on the fight time in the early morning and at night the buses don't run.

It's important to do a little research. Not having a print out of the location of the hotel (assuming it was out of the way a little) without a map or not being able to point it out on a map is a bad move. Falling asleep in a taxi that has already started doing dodgy things is also not a good move. Not getting the guys name and number once this started so that he could report the incident (or did he?).

It's always sad to hear stories like this but it seems to me that the whole experience was a little overwhelming and people are always going to take advantage. From the sound of the story he was ripe for the picking. Many of these taxi drivers and tour companies are worse than sharks, sad to say. It's important to keep your wits about your when dealing with them.

I've always paid 3rd party insurance on my motorcycle registration in Thailand, it's only a few hundred baht. It's separate from the registration. I can't remember what it covers now. Mind you I could assume that sometimes the law is probably enforced and other times not.

I think Apple is very pro-active in trying to keep the OS simple and secure. People should understand to be careful when an application asks for their password when installing software they should trust the publisher. Now with Gate Keeper and the new application sandbox Apple is continuing to keep users safe from attackers. There have been attacks and there are exploits out there but virus makers and malware creators have a hard time replicating the virus once installed on one machine.

Most viruses are socially engineered: install this video codec, install this app, go to this URL. It's important to be mindful.

I don't think the virus threat for the Mac OS X is anymore than it's ever been. Windows is still the most common and easiest vector. Especially with the number of non genuine installs in circulation that aren't patched with the latest security updates.

I never had a Hotmail address (for any length of time). I used Yahoo back in the day, before Gmail. Accessing Gmail by my mail client and redirecting Yahoo and Gmail where compelling features, before hotmail opened it up to non paying accounts. Google also offered a lot more space, even though I never use more than 5-10% of it.

Hotmail is like a throw back like myspace and it's good that Microsoft is leaving it behind. There is the possibility that it could be better as outlook.com, however, I'm a sceptic. If it's compelling enough I am always willing to change.

Like everything with Microsoft no matter what you hear and read you always have to wait and see.

Jeffrey Dahmer used some sort of acid to dissolved the bodies in acid. It seems to be pretty compelling evidence seen as though the body had been found locked in the basement but who really knows. Let's hope justice is served one way or another (maybe karma is the best justice).

All the independent stores will be selling alcohol. Many of the smaller bars will be working under the table and the bigger places will either close for a day or serve only "soft drinks". Some of the bigger establishments may either pay for the right to sell (as long as there are no "random checks" by more powerful powers that be, it's ok) and the discos will serve alcohol after 12 midnight as usual.

I think this alcohol ban was thought up by some well meaning person but it's just not effective in any practical way. If they wanted to incentivise voting they should figure out some other more positive thing: money to everyone who votes, discount on taxes, some sort of free house hold good or whatever.

Probably the biggest apathy would be people that have to work and can't get time off to go and vote without risking loosing their job or a day's pay, or they are hung over (for those who work in the entertainment industry). Not people being drunk and voting. Probably the same good intentioned individual has passed a law where if you are obviously intoxicated you will not be able to cast a vote.

Everyone gets all up in arms over something that isn't actually such a big deal. I think that it will be a disruption but only in the most minor terms. They could ban alcohol sales to Thai's during this period (like they ban the sale of alcohol to certain religious denominations in airports) not that it would make any difference. The odd (very strange) occurrence of a foreign looking person being allowed to vote wouldn't even be a statistical blip. It's just another example of government being out of touch with reality of the common person.

I've avoided owning Windows based PCs all my life, however, I have owned them and worked with them all my working life. I see that most people use a very small fraction of the power of the MS Office and those that do often find little bugs and quirks in the software (have you ever tried to write a manual of 100s of pages using sub documents?) There are a lot of good alternatives out there. Some simple like Abiword and others, with most if not all the features, such as Open Office or Libre Office. Personally, I use Libre Office but I believe in freedom and those that choose to use MS Office, I would not say a bad word.

I think the "cloud" fad that is happening will burn a few people in the end. Can you trust the company, law enforcement and your government not snooping. I'm not talking about doing illegal things. Far from it. It's just that lots of things could be misinterpreted or misconstrued. The "cloud" can be hacked. The "cloud" can have a denial of service attack or be shut down without notice. The cost of keeping data in the "cloud" could increase dramatically overnight. Better to keep documents on a local drive, backed up on a local drive. Maybe there is a use when collaborating with others but do we really need to use it all the time? I think it's probably a pretty rare situation when multiple people need to simultaneously work on the same document at the same time (however, prove me wrong).

The worst thing about it is that all those people have to contend with higher prices because of the wage hike that they didn't get. 5000 odd people is also probably the tip of the ice burg. Probably the only people that get the full wage promised would be government workers that would mean the cost of the government would have to rise as well.

It seems a common story: someone buys a ticket randomly. Relatives of mine have bought tickets for years with only small wins. A little envious to tell the truth but very happy to hear stories like this. I hope that she can use the money in ways that can have a positive impact on her life.