Shiver

I sometimes find myself cursing people with blacked out windows when I'm behind them on my scooter and the vehicle in front is forced to stop/start or at least go very slowly because of other obstacles that would cause a responsible driver to go slow, but are not an issue for the scooter (which is why I use the scooter around town and have gone months without using the truck. Reason being is I can't see through the car to know what the issue is I'm dealing with.

When I was in UK the front windscreen had some kind of tint built into the front windscreen which looked 'sort of' like iridium or something to that effect. It was great for keeping heat and glare out, and stop people from staring in, but didn't compromise vision at all from the inside. Never seen it here though, and don't know the name to ask for it. They we're however a lot more expensive than standard screens.

So- can any of you stone-age guys convert that into kilograms?

1 Stone =14 lbs

1 Kg = approximately 2.2 lbs

So 13 stone would be (13 x 14)/2.2 = about 82.7Kg (182 lbs in old money).

Can we get on to discussing the differences between Centigrade and Celsius now? (we can retro fit Fahrenheit later).

Being a Merchant, I can tell you that this is a constant pain in the a**. What we do is say put your real shipping address on our site, and put the address that makes PP happy on their checkout screen.

I would say use Bitcoin and avoid all this kind of thing, but that would be opening pandoras box.

Our current PP base is Hong Kong, so we have much the same issue regarding location, but in reverse, even though our products are physically shipped from US/EU.

Oh Golly !

w o g??

I think the word 'black' should be banned from society.

"Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat and his Afro Caribbean and white cat...." Kind of ruins the song really.

A google translate of the word "Black" shows in Latin as "Nigrum", and also an adjective of the very same word (single 'g') that shall not be spoken unless whispered in hushed tones. I guess it doesn't take too many leaps to get to the offensive word in question (which was never even broadcast on the television episode <deleted>).

I don't particularly like being called a Farang, more for the stereotype buffalo thing than it's linguistic inaccuracy, but it's not big deal, and people generally just accept it and move along rather than writing newspaper space filling articles about it.

I never understood this 'PC' thing even when it first started, with people saying "you can't say that!". "Why?", "It's not PC!", "So?". There are greater injustices in the world a newspaper could report on.

If he wants to name his dog after a sports player, what's the guys skin colour got to do with it? Trash reporting at its worst.

If the husband and mother are colluding, perhaps say "I will pay sin sot $30K when we marry, and then you will have your money, but in order to marry, we need her current husband to consent to divorce" (whether you intend to marry or not).  Bear in mind that in Thailand, and I want to say this delicately, she's 'previously owned', which to many of us would be of no concern whatsoever - an advantage even, but look at it through their eyes.  They're trying to sell her as owners with property rights, rather than a valued human being as a core part of their family for which tradition might see as compensation for all the devotion and effort the family has invested in her (if this was a first time around the block, which is not the case here).

If you want to look at it in legal terms, the husband is informally asking for "Right to Remedy", but the person causing damage to him (if even true) is not you - it all happened prior, since there is the ability to demonstrate that she went online looking in order for you to find her, so it would be another party in this situation. So...my 2 cents is if you really really want this girl, then at least for the time being put heart aside and do the analytics and due diligence first.

The Thai govt's deposit insurance protection is currently 50 million baht, slated to fall to 25 million baht in Aug. 2015 and then to 1 million ($31,000+) baht in Aug. 2016. That's per account holder per bank, regardless of the number of branches involved.

If they stick to that plan and schedule, anyone ought to carefully consider whether they'd want to keep more than $31,000 U.S. (or its equivalent in other currencies) with any single Thai banking company.

http://www.dpa.or.th/ewt_news.php?nid=320&filename=index___EN

That's a bit scary. Almost sounds like they're planning the collapse.

I've been wondering also whether it would be safe to hold money in Thailand. I can bring it in easily enough, but not sure if I'd get it out of the country if I chose or was asked to leave. My current thinking is to keep enough here for any unexpected events, and keep the rest elsewhere... or convert any excess to gold and hide it under the proverbial pillow.

I haven't formed a proper opinion on it yet, hence the reason this thread caught my attention.

I don't know the legal definition of gambling vs investing (maybe a Latin entomology site could clear that one up - haven't looked), but I'd take a wild stab at it being both a time based thing, and also putting your resources into a company you believe could thrive, rather than a high/low outcome of a card game or dice roll. The pack of cards is not something that can be 'invested' in.

The 60 second mode of binary options is a "gamble" yes. But not in legal terms I´d say. Most "brokers" also offer 30/60 minutes and 1 day or 1 week/month as a timeframe. And then it´s not more or less of a gamble than any other investments available from "normal" banks. I also invest in stocks, FX and knock out certificates for the DAX or Dow Jones. Some products offered by banks may also lose all their value if a certain price or date is reached, could also be called "binary" All or nothing, so where´s the difference to "investing" then? I think investing used to mean you buy stocks from a company, but it has become a a much wider field with complicated and risky products.

Whenever my wife asks me why I bought this or that and I show her the chart full of drawings, lines and indicators, she always said: Ah, so you´re trying to figure out if it´s going up or down, you bet on high or low. It´s always a game somehow, you just call yourself investor or trader instead of gambling addict.

Legal status? Greyzone maybe, investing is ok in Thailand, so why to worry. Work permit? Why? You´re not taking away any Thai job, you don´t have a shop, you don´t do it in public, you don´t register a company, you don´t hire anyone, you´re not in competition to someone, you´re not selling anything, you´re not creating anything. Wouldn´t call this work.

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I see what you're getting at, but since he's neither investing, buying shares, or benefiting anyone as a share seller or buyer, or a company issuing shares (esp for a currency pair, which could notionally impact country fiat values of that 'country corporation' rather than what would be usually considered as a PLC...just... slightly... maybe - eek don't take THB out of the country doing this!), it's a "Binary Bet" whether it's 0-100, a delta or other variant. If it's a 60 second bet then it'll be a tough sell trying to call it an investment rather than a gamble. In all likelyhood it probably wouldn't be flagged up in Thailand if done in moderate amounts (and there are tech solutions around that anyhow), but if you absolutely definitely want to be sure, then have someone make a bot for you that follows your rules and operates independently on a server outside of this country, preferably one that doesn't tax gambling on players winnings, and if you bring money 'into' this country, they'll be more than happy for you to spend it here.

To me it looks the same as someone betting on the underground lottery that Thailand has on the last few digits of the SET - no company on the SET index benefits 'directly'. Then again, if people 'bet' on the SET in Thailand, do any companies in that index benefit directly from that 'investment'.

For the record, a 'work' permit, if strictly enforced in its purest sense, would include breathing, since that takes work, so it's an ambiguous input looking for a boolean output. It probably falls under the category of "this is our legal system (legal being different than lawful), the former of which would beg the question "in what capacity are you asking me to 'act' in order to answer you?", but the officer in charge has full discretion to do whatever he/she decides". Just make sure that it's not the week that the painters are in.

Binary trading is not classified as gambling. Sitting around a table playing cards for money is. You are trading (investing) through a registered broker. If I walked into Kasikorn bank and purchased some kind of financial instrument for investment, would this be classified as work. Would I need a WP. Of course not.

01010011 01101111 01110010 01110010 01111001 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01100010 01110101 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110110 01100101 01110011 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101001 01100100 01100101 01100001 00101110 00100000 01001001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100010 01110101 01111001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01100001 01101110 01111001 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101111 01110000 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110110 01100101 01110011 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01100001 01101110 01111001 00101110 00100000 01001001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100010 01110101 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110110 01101001 01101111 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01110111 01101110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01100001 01101110 01111001 00100000 01101001 01110100 01110011 01100101 01101100 01100110 00100000 01100100 01101111 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101110 01100101 01100110 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100001 01100100 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110110 01100101 01110011 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01100001 01101110 01111001 00101110 00100000 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100111 01100001 01101101 01100010 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 01100011 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111

Make an appearance and drop the wife off with a wad of cash.

+1

That would be my solution also. Btw, does anybody have an EMP device to shut the noise down from a truck 'DJ' that decided to park outside my shack instead of their own? Between being handler for a farang friend and also fitting in with local time behaviour, I'm starting to lose it. A couple of hours sleep in between might make a big difference in my behaviour. The gods smiled on me mid afternoon yesterday and the rain came, so instead of people bleaching my eyes with buckets of surfactant, the umbrellas came out and it all went quiet for a while. Maybe in 24 hours I can act like a responsible guest once again.

Signed, Grumpy old man syndrome.

You guys are all spending to much time. You must be homesteading. Kap Chong Immigration 5 minuets max.

Lol. Udon Thani the last 3 reports for me around 2-3 mins if you have your ducks in a row (a bit longer after holidays), so it looks like immigration across the country are getting their act very sharp.

I did my 90 in Udon yesterday, and despite it being after a weekend and a holiday which made the place rather full, it was still a fast and efficient service handled perfectly. Just needed my passport and write down my address/telephone number on a plain piece of paper (which I do prior to going).

Just wanted to be able to write something positive and progressive about the way Thailand is handling some areas of management. I get the feeling that there are some people in gov't actually do want to clean up things and make it more efficient (not a joke, really I think there are a couple out there, maybe even a few). I know that flies in the face of what most conversations on the forum are about, but credit where credit is due. Well done Thai immigration, hats off to you.

Now about the other gazillion issues.....

One step at a time I guess.

On women, I like to see something like a subtle necklace, with quality workmanship, draped delicately around her gentle soft skin, that hugs the shape and form around the nape of her neck, and falls enticingly towards where the imagination goes. Preferably made of silver or platinum rather than value attributed to gold or any other metal that it is made from.

10 baht of clunky engine hoist chains doesn't really shout appeal to me, even if it's near pure gold.

On the other hand bars of gold securely stored might not be a bad store of wealth against Ferns and other fiat. Preservation of wealth rather than speculation/growth.

As the saying goes "real beauty has no need to attract attention to itself".

I've been told that in times past, they used to have gold chains for more practical uses, and that a link taken from the visible chain would be a unit of value exchange.

Citronella as mentioned above works well, and personally would prefer it over deet. I did an experiment on myself using DMSO with an alkaline additive (mineral salts like potassium chloride) which neutralised the acid for 'after the event' bites.

I have two observations. One was a long while ago back in the UK when at a horse racing track with a friend in a union job, and I was looking for a bin to put my empty plastic 'glass' of beer, and he said "throw it on the floor. If you don't you're doing someone out of a job".

Another is the "broken windows" project, which in a nutshell is about if the people have an investment in the area then they take care of it, if they don't, then it's not their problem. I saw it in the property business in UK a couple of decades back when the council houses were offered for sale. Suddenly people took their neighborhood seriously. I haven't been back there in quite a few years, so can't comment on their current predicament.

I live in a rental in Thailand, but I still feel dismay when people throw rubbish away opposite their residence when the bins on either side of the street are no more than 30 seconds walk. I keep dreaming of cleaning up the street and fixing the potholes at my own expense, but then back off, thinking that there's still more that I don't understand about the mentality of my neighbours. They are cordial and good with me, and don't want to undermine that, or find out what the real truth of what they really think of 'that farang' in their street (I'm the only one in the street now, used to be about 50/50, but people die and things move on...).

I'm a smoker. I am very aware of non smokers around me and don't impose my habit on others. Apart from courtesy of not imposing my habit, I think second hand smoke may be at least as damaging as smoking, since a smoker will have an immune system (think of phlegm), fighting against it, whereas non smokers inflicted with the same smoke would not have lungs prepared for it. For comparison, if you think of someone who doesn't use alcohol and then drinking something, it affects them a lot more (a lot!) more than someone who is a regular drinker.

I'm not defending either practice - each to their own, but feel it is unlawful (in a universe sense, not a legal sense) to trespass upon others.

That said, I do wish there was an open ledger that showed taxes acquired from such practices could demonstrably be proven to be spent on the consequences of such actions. Another example would be road tax (I'm talking about UK here - not sure of other countries). How much of road tax goes on roads? How much of fuel tax goes on resolving the issues it causes?

Tea money in another form.

An independent hard worker who doesn't gamble, and isn't a "crystal methodist". The details I'd figure out after that.

I'm single btw

Not sure if it will help in this case, but just this morning I was given this link: www.transferwise.com

I'm no doctor, but it sounds highly probable to me that it was a very early miscarriage. I don't have the stats, but I read years ago that there are many many more pregnancies that abort in the first week or two, and nobody ever knew it happened other than period irregularity. It suggested that there were possibly as many as 9 out of 10 pregnancies terminate in this way. It's too many years ago to have any idea where to start searching for the links that suggested that.

I wouldn't be too concerned at this point hardly at all personally. You can escalate your actions at a later date if warranted.

I was refused a BKK account as I was on Tourist visa at the time, the exception was if I brought with me a government work or similar to vouch for me. I went to KK and they opened one no problem, but I asked for a debit card and they couldn't understand me. They said words to the effect of "you have the ATM card and you can shop with it", but that's no use if I want to buy on the internet. Eventually they set up a 'virtual number' (don't have a physical card. After getting skimmed for about $2000 at an ATM machine locally in a shop near by, I decided not to use that account for a while. KK took no responsibility for it, and said I could go to the Police, but if it turned out that what I was claiming was untrue then I'd have to pay for their time. The patterns of use just didn't match mine, it would be 1000 baht, then 2000 baht, then 5000baht. I always just go and get 20K and be done with it. I figured Police would want their tea money so dropped the case.

I then tried to open a BKK account again (This time on a business visa) and no problem at all and got a Visa Debit card with it (chip and pin). That limits me to BKK ATM machines though, and it's hit and miss whether it works in online stores.

Bottom line is I don't leave a lot of money in Thailand. I'm currently exploring Singapore, HK, Denmark to see what's involved in having a foreigner open a safer account for holding larger amounts of cash. I specifically don't want USD/GBP/Euro account. I'm done with the western banking for the foreseeable future.

To me one of the issues is the variety of vehicle types, and their required driving styles/speeds. Rickshaws, sidecar scooters, Tuk Tuk (3 wheel variety), regular scooters, cars, trucks, buses. If I want to nip across the city in a timely manner then I'm on a scooter, and look for gaps where I can. When in a car I adopt a very different style of driving, and I just don't make any sharp moves, instead letting the scooters make their decisions nipping in, out and around, while I relax at a responsible speed.

Also surprised nobody mentioned dogs in the streets. Either they're on xanax, or one runs out of a side street at full tilt being chased by another pack of dogs - just no way to predict that. Vehicles coming out of side roads looking where they want to go rather than what's coming is one of the bigger issues. I won't mention much about baht buses and their ownership of the road, as there'd be too many expletives to edit out.

I had a scooter accident about 1 month ago on a highway. There was a car waiting in a U-turn section waiting to join the flow, which I spotted about 10 seconds before reaching it. I slowed to a modest speed as I had nowhere else to move, then about 3 seconds before reaching it, the car pulled out. I slammed on hard as I could, and by the time I hit it was probably only doing 10km/h, but that's still a lot of negative G's to come to an insant halt as I slid across the tarmac. The helmet saved me from a lot of damage.

The amazing thing is that the driver stopped, and had insurance. When the police arrived the other party admitted full liability and offered hospital treatment. Next day we met at the police station to file the incident, and the couple in the car couldn't be nicer, with the wife helping me up the steps as I was obviously damaged. I didn't ask for compensation, but then I was never asked for 1 baht. The scooter repair was a botch job though and steering/geometry clearly wasn't right. They also kept it for 2 weeks and emptied the fuel tank. So in the end I took it to the Honda garage that I bought it from to get fixed properly and paid out of my own pocket (which amazingly was only 2000 baht). Drives sweet as new now thankfully, as otherwise I couldn't in all good conscience have sold it to anybody otherwise, even as a trade in. Happy enough to keep and use myself now though.

I've witnessed this also. I've seen piles of dead ants under the desktop screen, and watched them killing themselves in wall electrical sockets. After reading James Surowieki's book on Crowd intelligence (which features a story about ants following each other in the jungle in a multi-kilometre circle, and meeting the start of their own journey, only to walk in a circle until they died, it is my hypothesis (not necessarily fact), that they leave a scent trail, and other ants may follow, and if enough follow the scent trail it may become strong enough that there could be hoards of them all crawling in there and killing themselves. I don't think it's the electricity that attracts them, just their wandering nature and the simple rules that certain ants follow. For example, some species if you smack your hand near them, they run off. Other species seem oblivious to this, even if you are 1mm away from splatting them.

The original computer term of 'a bug in the system' I believe also originated from things getting into old style electronics and screwing up the hardware.

So now we have it........................... for any aspiring countries that want to invade Thailand, here are your top tips :

1.. Invade when it's raining. (all cadet training is cancelled in my school if it's raining)

2. Set up Somtam tables at the side of the battle field, then just pick em off with snipers when they come to buy.

3. Start frying up basil leaves and let the resulting wind drift towards their lines.

4. Don't worry about their fighter jets as they have no guns on them.

5. If you see an airship, don't panic, it doesn't work.

6. Just ask if you can invade (sorry visit) and then get em to sign a pact with you. (please note, you have to be winning, otherwise they will sign for the other team)

Easy, peesy.

Nobody will ever invade Thailand - they won't be able to get a visa or work permit to do so.

Any statement that says ALL ... ARE ... is never correct. I thought you would have known this

Except when Shakespeare says it (end part of Romeo and Juliet).

If you google "calculate area of irregular polygon", it quickly becomes clear that there is no simple way to do that without getting into serious maths. If you don't have access to an app like Acad, then what I would do is get a simple drawing app (like MSPaint that is standard with windows, or even a pencil and paper with grid lines on it) and decide on units for each square, Say a big square = 10ft, and a small square =1ft, you can get an approximate answer.

If you know how to do vertices, then you can do it online as shown here http://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-the-Area-of-a-Polygon

I have two close friends who did body building when they were young. They both won awards. Now they are old grossly overweight and look really ugly. All that muscle has turned into fat

Nonsense, Muscle doesn't turn into fat.

the muscles are replaced by fat.

Muscles can be replaced by fat if you don't properly monitor it. If you just gradually eat less you won't get fat, its not rocket science even you with your limited grasp of things should understand that. (hope your humor still works)

About a decade or so ago, I used to be very serious about my diet and exercise. I was never Arnold, and never roided (I was scared of losing my hair, but that happened anyhow over the following decade). I stopped after a shoulder injury whilst snowboarding, and never resumed, and got fatter as my calorie intake was still high but my energy expenditure was much lower, plus a job that required being either in the car or at a computer, grabbing fast food late at night etc.

I do remember asking on a Body building website at the time "how do you guys manage to eat so much?" (their motto was "I am a warrior, and my fork is my weapon"). I was told not to be such a wimp and just get it down your throat. I got to the point where I could eat a whole chicken as 1 of 6 meals a day. I noticed that when I stretched my stomach I could eat more, and got hungry more. Now I don't eat much at all, and I think about nutrition more than calories (beer gives me way more calories than I need). Nutrition is harder these days, and eating raw is even more difficult. I do remember admiring glances from the girls though (I'm not good looking, never was, but I had a body that was in balance and lean. My ideal would be like a gymnast or professional swimmer, but haven't yet mustered the drive to do anything about it except talk and never act upon it. On thing I do remember though was the vanity and obsession that grew from it. I would weigh myself 3 times a day, and keep a spreadsheet of *everything* I did. When sat in public I would have my biceps tensed, concerned that they were always too small. Now that's all behind me, I'm more concerned about having flexible clean arteries and no blood clots than looking good and having a big unit. In Thailand it's more about being able to provide security for your loved ones, and looks are a bonus rather than a primary.