joekicker

Malicious OR tracking? Aren't those two things very different? Cookies are MEANT to "track your activity online". That is their purpose. Now I can see why you might say "malicious" if they called your mother and reported you for looking at too many naughty sites, but they don't do that. What they report is "that guy, who we don't know his name or address but we know his IP number, has already been here 23 times and he has looked at all the lesbian pictures and all the Asian ladyboy pictures and all the fat-girl pictures so we'd better show him the threesomes this time". If you're using a machine that belongs to someone else AND isn't supposed to be surfing porn, then that's bad FOR YOU even though it's still not malicious. In fact, I can't figure how a cookie could be malicious. But they do track, yes. Some find that offensive, I find it helpful. On the other hand, your "expert" you quoted is really wrong - a cookie can certainly compromise YOUR security, to your boss, say, or your wife/GF who looks in your cookie cache - something like that. And my security is a heckuva lot more important than my computer's security. That's why I recommended never to touch properly functioning cookies on a computer that is used by you and only by you. Family computer, office computer.... different recommendations. And there ARE cookies being developed (not text files) that might maybe be able to track you from site to site, instead of only within one site as now. So the whole subject may have to be revisited. Adobe already has Flash cookies that I think are very creepy because they are big and no one is quite sure just what they might be able to do later on.

Jacko good to see you back. Your absence without signing out first caused a slight concern that you were okay. Yes. TOT sends out most telephone bills in Thailand for fixed-line phones. (I think it's "all" phone bills actually but never say "never" eh?). The other companies that offer landlines, True and TTT, are operating as concessions, and TOT is a monopoly that skims their money from the bill payment and forwards the rest. You can ONLY have DSL service through the company that actually gives you the phone line. In Pattaya, this is usually TT&T these days, but for older lines will be TOT. If you want the (new) True DSL service, you'll have to get a True phone line. But the thing is, check for YOUR phone. Companies do cross deals for various reasons, and True may be able to do a deal that puts their DSL on a TTT line, say, and True may be able to handle the necessary TT&T paperwork - for an example. You may also find the biggest problem is your landlord.

I'll be darned. That's an actual surprise. Good for BA, far from my favourite, but credit where credit's due. Their American cousins United do, and SCREAM ABOUT IT on their website and emailings: GOLF CLUBS. EACH SET IN EXCESS OF FREE ALLOWANCE USD 80.0 Although that's a lie, and from Thailand at least it's $100, maybe $80 from somewhere. I happen to know that United treats a regular golf bag/clubs as one regular suitcase, so that's the "in excess of free allowance" warning.

Up to you. I LIKE cookies, because they let the sites keep me logged on or take me to the page I left off at, or remember what I bought last time or give me Thailand news instead of India, etc. If it is your computer, and yours alone, there is nothing negative cookies can do except take up a pretty small amount of disk space. Remember, they are text files and not programs. But many people like to clean them out, even every time they close the machine. I think that's paranoid - others might think it's not paranoid enough. Every "sweeper" I use (including browsers to delete the Internet cache) I tell it NOT to delete cookies. MM is exactly right that a corrupted cookie can hold you up and needs to be deleted. Other than that: Up to you.

I know, it's nasty and it's insensitive and all and maybe I shouldn't pick on YOU but really, why can't you just take this stuff as an exotic difference and an experience and FUCKING LIVE WITH IT during your holiday?

Get a Bualuang Premier ATM card, works anywhere in the world, pretty well any machine. Any bank will transfer funds in any (reasonable) currency - that's what banks do.

The Penthouse you can (could?) get all of this and more, but it is really a xhithole unless they've cleaned it up in the last few weeks. Shame, really. There have been some FINE parties of all sizes over the years.

Jeezus. Tell me you meant this to go into the satire section, where people make fun of idio.... people who constantly write the "why do the goddamn Thais always...." xrap. I mean, this really, REALLY is a great example of "if you don't like the way they do it, the airport has lots of departing flights". This waiter thing that annoys you so much is an integral part of Thailand as it is. It is a teensy weensy part, but tied to all kinds of important, big parts. YOUR problem seems to be that you are so tied up in a mono-language, "my way or the highway", oh-those-yucky-foreigners mindset you can't even figure out how to find out to tell the guy what you want. Okay, here's my hints to your specific question. Thai waiters speak Thai. Thai people speak Thai. Many of the Thai people you speak English to speak Thai. They all know about ten... oh, maybe 90 ways to tell the waiter. If you don't get the "what comes next" from that quiz, here is a four-word acronym-hint: GIYF I hope you fail. I like Thailand the way it was, and frankly there are too many of the "let's all be a McDonald's" people around already. You just want to put another nail in the project to build Thailand into some xhithole county in the xhithole California. Fuxk that and the horse it rides on. I know, it's nasty and it's insensitive and all and maybe I shouldn't pick on YOU but really, why can't you just take this stuff as an exotic difference and an experience and FUCKING LIVE WITH IT during your holiday? Or stay in whatever place it is where the waiters are already trained to YOUR culture. [/rant of the year]

Actually, I was slightly embarrassed when you told me this. I get my posts via "new posts" and rarely look at the section they're in. The saving grace (he said punnily) is that there were no rants to speak of. I wonder if that would have been true if it were in the "pol/rel" section. But you are right about WHY it's here, no doubt about that. "Ain't nothin' so quare..." etc

Sorry to hear that, on both levels of the tours but also your personal property and (thank goodness only) cost and convenience. At least you can replace property, small but real blessing. Get well again, car. Get touring again!

Oh, maybe. Certainly they particpate. Most of them including that "Scottish" guy are in business (if not show business, heh) and some of them are quite strong in the red-yellow camps already. Country like Thailand, I don't think it would line up along those lines. Thailand is way more like the US than anything in Europe. But who knows? Don't forget the Thai-Chinese example already. It has often threatened, never really happened. I don't think the Thais would let it. "If you don't want to be like us, get out", the difference being they really, really mean it. And they let foreign schools and radio and newspapers exist (for Thai citizens and immigrants/migrants) only to a certain limit and all of them are heavily policed/monitored.

There's a whole thread on this. http://www.pattayatalk.com/forums/index.ph...c=42614&hl= Basically, the problem with Jomtien is that it is inconvenient from the main Pattaya nightlife.

In my opinion, this is the bargain of the year, from the pics and description. Unless it's next door to the leather works or has a disco one floor down, I think this is terrific value all around. I see the air con (an absolute necessity in that kind of place) so my only question would be - does that include utilities?

Any real hotel on Jomtien and 90 per cent of the hotels along the beach have excellent and secure parking. "Guest houses" probably won't have any at all.

Go to a hardware shop on the back streets and get one of the big ugly 1960s-style blue-grey boxes - 600 watts should run you around 1,000 baht give or take. That 2,500 baht is a decent price for a pretty one in the mall. The old ones are REALLY heavy, too but good as gold (pun intended). Something like this:

There are places where only TOT is available. You should ask your neighbours, actually, since location is part of what will determine what's best. In Bangkok, True is VERY popular and pretty good, but they are just now expanding up-country and it's too early for reliable reports. But they ARE a solid company, and constantly upgrading.

And got the chubby lovers covered too. I'm starting to think there are no places that do NOT have that niche well taken care of.

I'm not following, I think. I mean, I agree with what you're obviously saying: Members of most cultures who are conquered don't have a "choice" except in the sense of dying on their feet or on their knees. But I suspect that's not what you're actually thinking?

No, that is what is IRrelevant and BS is the statements about the beliefs of Muslims. What do you want to know? Islam is a monotheistic religion with the same God and prophets as the other two major monotheistic religions that emerged from that part of the world - Christianity and the Jewish religion. It is the last of the three and considers it is the true faith, in the same way as the others do. The Koran repeats almost every story you know from the Bible, including the birth of Christ and the story of Mary, Job, Abraham and his coat, Adam and Eve, and on and on. Muslims (as a tenet of the religion) believe that the Koran is literally the word of God. So do a huge number of Christians, Jews, Hindus and so on think that their sacred book is literally passed down, but Muslims MUST accept this. Its chief difference with Christianity is that it considers Christ the most important prophet up to his time and for the next 700 years, and not the literal son of God. So if you don't believe that Mary was literally impregnated by God, that's another thing you agree with Muslims about. Muslims consider that Mohammad was the last (most recent) prophet and for that reason hold him above Jesus in the losses and prophets columns. All founding cultures have been "taken over" throughout history. Every one of them. You belong to a culture or cultures, whatever it/they might be, that stomped and repressed and basically wiped out the founding culture, almost certainly very murderously but in any case without much thought other than the survival-thought of spreading your culture at the cost of the other (obviously weaker) one. I'm not suggesting you need tarring and feathering, but don't suggest your culture is lily-white. In a HUGE number of cases, conquering cultures were religiously inspired. Conquerors marching to God's orders are ever so righteous. Was yours? Mine weren't especially religious, but they weren't irreligious either, any of them. But they were winners. Maybe, just possibly maybe, it's your culture's turn to be taken down a notch and become the stompee.

You haven't seen deodorant in Thailand? In spray, mist, rollon, stick....?? That's sort of like saying you haven't seen a 7-Eleven. Or cars. Or are you saying Spray is a brand (which I've never heard of)? Otherwise get someone to lead you over to the deo aisle, and just reach up with whatever hand that's not holding your white stick.

Quite a bargain. Soidawg.net is available for even less - 250 baht from GoDaddy.

Weird. I'm not, and I'm not, but I see them fine. It is a poor way to show pix though.

I'm so scared I am never going to fly to Pattaya again!!! I don't know why anyone would even try to get up enough nerve to fly. It's so icky and scary and stuff. Me, I'm just going to drive to Pattaya in my own car from now on.

Looks a heck of a lot better than it used to!!!

It is being changed from a .GIF, probably because some geek somewhere saw that Compuserve patented Gifs, and everybody should change. I'll bet quite a lot it's an animated .gif on the OP's machine exactly like he says.