Bruce Mangosteen

Agree with the consensus. Go for the non-O/retirement and don't tell anyone your affairs. I also don't see how dabbling in the stock market is any more of a "business" than any other online gambling.

Go on! It's not like you have to tell anybody! IMHO Sunday roast and breakfast are two things the Brits have gotten 100% right. God forbid this should devolve into a "Where's the best full English?" thread though!

What sort of shirts? The t-shirts there are often synthetic and don't wick sweat well. Fortunately I have a butt-ton of them I've bought here.

I'd be interested in how the taste of these compares to, say, B&M.

I encourage you to try their version of we think of as baked beans, made by Heinz. The beans are bigger than baked beans, and come in a sweet tomato sauce without the molasses so the flavor is not similar, but they are very nice nonetheless. It sounds funny to American ears, but those beans, on toast, is a really nice snack. I used to buy them at Jules Sportarama Bar and restaurant in View Talay 1A, and he had a large assortment of flavors at the time. What are we payin' for Heinz beans these days?

Looks like the authorities have turned their gaze onto the magic boxes, streaming services, and other extralegal means that expats are getting their TV. https://www.pattayamail.com/latestnews/news/subscribers-to-illegal-streaming-services-warned-after-raids-521702 "Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI) police have warned streaming users in Thailand that they risk punishment if downloading pirated movies or sports events, including premium football. This follows a series of raids in Nonthaburi and Bangkok across six major locations which have closed the notorious INWIPTV network. Eleven staff have been arrested, according to a police source. [...] Sompan Charumilinda, executive vice chairman of True Visions which has campaigning for the raids, said content piracy was costing the country many millions if baht through copyright breaches and unauthorized content copying. Amongst others losing legitimate income were Amazon, Netflix, Apple TV, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros and Discovery." More at link. Not to be too much of a cynic, but I suspect that if the elite families who own services like True Visions were convinced that online piracy was not costing them anything, they wouldn't be losing much sleep about the harm being done to Amazon and Walt Dizzy.

Well hallelujah, the buildings and bridges and airplanes they use will crumble down or fall out of the sky without them having to expend any mental effort. Utopia at last.

Yep, as I said, AI is only as good as the data it's trained on, which in turn is only as good as the people who are feeding it the data. That is, if anybody is responsible for curating what these models are learning, as opposed to them simply scraping the internet without direction. If you "train" "AI" on the "data" from random idiots and lunatics on the internet, the result will be Artificial Idiocy or Artificial Insanity. Which appears to be what you discovered.

But you had to read it first. Not with AI. But the point was to learn the method, which you need to do with your particular example, unless you find an exact duplicate online, the chances of which are nil. Not with AI, you give it your particular example, and it spits out the equations, so you learn nothing. Which is why AI is so dangerous, that and it CAN spit out "solutions" to problems, which might not be correct or even VALID. And why AI must be kept out of schools: So that we're not graduating students who know how to do nothing but feed AI robots their assignments, then turn them in. In my opinion, AI will be dangerous as long as it's an imperfect simulation of human intelligence. After that, it will be even more dangerous. The challenge is and will always be how to harness AI in a way where the dangers can be controlled. Simply turning it loose on a world full of random quarter-wits and evil fucktards doesn't seem to be a good way to do that, at least so far.

Is copying AI "plagiarism"? Whose work are you stealing? Isn't it yours? Are the pics posted on this string "plagiarized"?

Well, first I don't see how that would even be possible, especially if students are rewriting the output from AI sources. The right answer is the answer the teacher is expecting (which is usually but not always the factually correct answer) regardless of the source. It's a problem as old as education itself, but at least in the past teachers had recourse to check. In less fact-driven disciplines, students will be infused with the viewpoints of the people who curated the data used to train the AI model. Unlike with a human teacher, who can be interviewed and questioned, an AI system can't be held responsible for what children "learn" from it. We're having enough trouble with human teachers as it is. https://www.nea.org/resource-library/educator-support-transgender-nonbinary-and-intersex-students-setting-record-straight-k-12-schooling https://www.justiceinschools.org/school-walkouts-civil-disobedience https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/meeting-challenge-teaching-climate-change https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/reproductive-justice-and-our-classrooms/ Whatever your opinion of those topics, you should be able to control and set limits on how they are taught to your children. Teachers already refuse to accept that; if they outsource children's education to robots, that control will become even harder. What computer is going to jail for this? https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/family-teenager-died-suicide-alleges-openais-chatgpt-blame-rcna226147 https://apnews.com/article/chatbot-ai-lawsuit-suicide-teen-artificial-intelligence-9d48adc572100822fdbc3c90d1456bd0 https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/wellbeing/the-ai-chatbot-helped-her-write-a-suicide-note AI needs to be kept far away from kids IMO, in and outside of schools, at least until these and many other questions have been answered.

At least she has a degree and background in education. Compare that to the extent of the "qualifications" of the last Transportation Secretary, Pete Butt-I-Gag: Having given blowjobs in the men's toilets of the South Bend IN airport. Personally, I think AI has no place in education, at least for now. In fact, it's causing more harm than good at the moment. https://www.edweek.org/technology/new-data-reveal-how-many-students-are-using-ai-to-cheat/2024/04

Nothing wrong with the occasional splurge. Or the occasional celibate night for that matter.

Generally, I'd prefer if we stuck to the price of things I'd buy, or spend money on, to set up accommodations and live in Pattaya/Thailand. Maybe it would be helpful if a mod were to update the thread title to reflect that? Thanks to all who have contributed so far. Please keep it coming. 😎

Manao isn't quite either IMO. I think most Thais have rarely seen the yellow lemons.

I haven't lived there for most of 10 years, but I will in about 10 months. So, pretty much everything. Staying away from the exotic and illegal would probably be helpful. I have to say that guys seem to get the spirit of what I'm asking, and I'm grateful for the input so far.

Did we all stop buyin' stuff?! 😃

Well, there IS a question mark at the end of my topic title...

https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/transport/thailand-rolls-out-stricter-ride-hailing-rules-from-october Of note: "Grab Thailand country head Chantsuda Thananitayaudom said the company is encouraging drivers to comply by registering their vehicles under the Ror Yor 18 classification in line with ETDA and Department of Land Transport (DLT) regulations. Grab is offering incentives and support, but she admitted there are challenges. 'Only vehicle owners can register, which creates difficulties for those with financed or rented cars.' [...] ...Bolt Thailand reported that it has already supported tens of thousands of drivers in securing public driving licences through dedicated service points and on-the-ground help, reported Bangkok Post."

Thanks for the update. Give him my regards.

When I lived there and before my hip replacement surgery, I had a girl coming to my apartment to cut my hair. Friendly with my wife due to some mutual acquaintances. 200B, wouldn't take a tip. I doubt I'll see that price again although we're still in touch with her.

So, what's the going rate for a Sunday lunch/carvery? We love those, can't get them here. Witherspoons looks quite good. All other pricing data welcome, just trying to get us back on track here.

I just prefer this format for this question. Qualified expats, no douchebags, no shills. As you know, l do almost nothing with FB except post pics of my wife and me drinking beer and relaxing.

OK, I kinda don't want this to become a visa thread, so could we please get back to what you're spending on stuff? Thanks.

Except as a vendor it's their job to get the highest price possible what they're selling, and as a consumer it's my job to get the lowest price possible for the value I need or want in a product. So, while advertising has its purpose, especially documenting what's available in the market I will be working in (as you suggest), I prefer to hear from fellow consumers about the price and value they're getting for the products they're buying. There is certainly more than one way to get the data I'm looking for, this is simply how I see things. Yeah, I've heard these stories too. Clearly too many scam marriages in the past have poisoned the well. I've asked my wife to do some digging into how much help her family and other contacts would be in this effort. For example, she has one cousin who is a military officer in the southern border area; we've met and are on very friendly terms. He might possibly be able to pull a string for us. Also, we've been together for coming on 17 years, and we have no shortage of Thai friends and neighbors who will vouch for us. At the end of the day I'm not married to the idea of the marriage visa, so to speak, but I think it would be preferable to the non-O/retirement if I could pull it off without undue difficulty. Yeah, that's another problem with the marriage visa. I'd probably just switch back to a retirement visa in that case. It's hard to plan for future events regarding visas because the Thais are constantly chopping and changing them, and that shows no sign of letting up. I told this story elsewhere on this board, but in my case the immigration officer simply told me to go see a lady at the bank with an envelope full of money, then bring the envelope to him afterward. I did the retirement visa without the agent and without the cash in the bank for years; only later when they cracked down did I have to use an agent. I have food friends who have been using an agent for donkey's years so I won't have to do much searching.