bkkguy

in many countries if you are buying a "line" from a service provider that provides both voice and ADSL then they will often provide the option of paying for voice only, ADSL only or both voice and ADSL on the "line" but I am not currently aware of TOT or anyone offering this choice in Thailand but they may be. either way if you do not intend to use voice on your ADSL line you do not need to plug a phone handset in absolutely, and this is an example of where you may want to use a load balancing router services offered via cable modem are also shared, though the concept of "shared" is different, and using a load balancing router cannot reverse the service decline that results from this "sharing"

this type of setup does not require an expensive load balancing router, it could be done simply with two modems, and your setup does not provide protection against failure for either user but it does at least use both bandwidth allocations at the same time GT in the original post said the router "always uses the best connection. It does not combine the speeds" so I repeat my question - what is the point of having a "balancing" router if it does not utilise the speed available on both lines? the documentation for the router says it "allows two connections to the Internet at the same time, provides you double-bandwidth access ... with fail-over and automatic load balancing" while four wires is required for two ADSL connections, it is not enough to have those four wires running just through your house, they need to run all the way back to the exchange - that is you need to have and pay for two telephone lines running into the house before you can get two ADSL connections and GT or his friend in the original post is similarly confused - "the phone line has 4 wires and each Internet Company only needs 2" - actually a phone line has two wires as a twisted pair, his house wiring may have 4, 8, 16 or 2048 wires but that is just to make it ease for the phone company to connect additional phone lines without having to do new wiring inside the building

I am sure the two techos from the two ISPs will not be arguing about it being a switch or a router, they will be too busy arguing about who gets which 2 of the 4 wires in the phone line as they both try to plug their ADSL modems into the one phone jack and what is the point of having a "balancing" router if it does not utilise the speed available on both lines only falling back to one of the lines when the other is down? perhaps we should stick to how much to tip the ISP techo for a blow job rather than look for technical info here!

so one of the new moderators is a supporter of targeted killings - where does this leave him on the scale of Palestinian to "bunch of nuts"? bkkguy

where are you from? where is GB from? GB said in his original post re taking out Seh Daeng it "seems likely that it will be called murder" - he also claimed not to know the term "targeted killing" which surprised me as it is used so often by common news sources that I would have thought were accessible by even isolationist and uninformed Americans, and now that I have quoted some of these sources I must be a Palestinian? and Americans wonder why the rest of the world thinks they are fucked^H^H^H^H^H^Hout of touch with reality! bkkguy

Wikipedia "The United States views targeted killing during an armed conflict as the lawful right to use force "consistent with its inherent right to self-defense" under international law in response to the 9/11 attacks. Under domestic law, American targeted killings against 9/11-related entities is authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists" New York Times "The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki" and even back to 2004 on the BBC "Israel's 'targeted killings' Israel has been killing those it considers a threat to its security for decades but, in the past few years, the policy has been stepped up as part of the government's attempts to stop suicide attacks. " bkkguy

reports seem to indicate that the SOE has been extended into other provinces where authorities think problems may develop now that the crackdown has started in BKK there is also an (untimed) earlier report on the Nation web site: "The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) will advise the government to declare a state of emergency in 15 more provinces to block more red shirts from joining anti-government protests at the Rajprasong shopping area. CRES spokesman Colonel Sansern Kaewkamnerd said the new provinces were Chon Buri, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan, Pathum Thani, Ayutthaya, Udon Thani, Chaiyaphum, Khon Kaen, Nakhon Ratchasima, Si Sa Ket, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Nan, Lampang and Nakhon Sawan. The state of emergency was earlier declared in Bangkok and parts of Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan, Pathum Thani, Nakhon Pathom and Ayutthaya. Sansern said the emergency was aimed at allowing the authorities to prevent red shirts in those provinces from travelling to Bangkok. He also said that the commanders of the Second and Third Army Regions were assigned by the CRES to work with the governors of those provinces to maintain peace there. The decision was reached yesterday at a CRES meeting that was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, according to the spokesman." Nation the TAN report may have been confirming this is now in effect or badly worded implying it is already in effect bkkguy

by who - I thought " targeted killings" was the PC term preferred by the Americans, the Israelis and others? bkkguy

from TAN Network: Apart from BKK, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakarn, Nakhon Pathom, Pathum Thani and Ayutthaya, state of emergency now announced for Chon Buri, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Lampang, Nan, Khon Kaen, Chaiyaphum, Nakhon Ratchasima and Si Sa Ket bkkguy

When the army started the crackdown on April 10 the first thing the black shirt snipers did was take out the key army leaders, it looks like someone has learned a lesson from this! bkkguy

as the backpackers in Khao San Road on April 10 will tell you, a "normal" looking street situation can change very rapidly as the official focus has changed from "show of force to stop the red shirts trying to occupy Silom" to "holding pattern" to now "isolate and force out of Rajprasong" the visible presence in Silom has changed but the army and police are still there and as last Friday shows the risk of spill-over and related violence in Silom is still very real and the situation is still very far from "normal" - both the Skytrain and subway operators have publicly announced they are continuing to monitoring the situation carefully over the next few days and will cancel/change services if the situation deteriorates or if requested by the authorities I am not trying to be chicken little here but the fat lady is a long way from singing so I think you still need to be checking the breaking news reports before rushing out to DJ Station each night - but I will see you on the dance floor when you get there! bkkguy

The New Mandala blog is usually infested with conspiracy theorist with brains addled by university years spent taking drugs rather than lectures but sometimes they come up with some classics such as today's post trying to lay claim to the term "Sufficiency Democracy" the original 2006 New Mandela post said

I fail to see the point of having Message Center Policies if neither you or GT "owe [me or anybody] an explanation about a damned thing" when such obviously conflicting messages are being sent by the owner and one of the moderators - how else are we supposed to understand the forum rules? bkkguy

This thread is starting to look like the admins are taking lessons from the disjointed red shirts leaders - GB:"Let's just drop any further posts about the monarchy", GT:"Please feel free to post about the Monarchy in any positive way you desire" - GB:"from my end I can see that none of the moderators deleted anything", GT:"I deleted the first post" but I am sure GB can pull some explanatory pithy quote from his dictionary of quotations that someone must have given him for Christmas! bkkguy

Soliders On Patpong Distracted By Shirtless Movement not the Nation PATPONG – Infantrymen assigned to Patpong were reported to be fatigued and on edge after spending much of last night keeping a close eye on the shirtless movement that took over the soi. The shirtless movement began slowly around 8pm and then peaked around 11pm with many taking off and putting on their shirts in rotating 20-minute shifts, a tactic that appeared to frustrate the soldiers. Around midnight, the situation grew even more tense when soldiers were alerted of a panty-less gathering halfway down the street. but the "pillars of thai society" are being protected: Army Vows To Protect King’s Castle, King’s Castle II not the Nation PATPONG – As many as 1,000 soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division were stationed on the Silom area including Patpong Road yesterday, as the army made good on its vow to protect the business district and the King’s Castle institution from a planned invasion by red-shirt protesters. bkkguy

I have answered the question at least twice already - I pay the fine and move on, but my pragmatism does not blind me to the morality of my actions and does not negate my right to raise the moral issue here I am just expressing my opinion here same as you and everyone else, but you seem to react very strongly - "[he] doth protest too much, me thinks" and for an example of something that could work quite well here perhaps an NGO here could copy Fifth Pillar in India and start distributing 0 Baht notes to give to corrupt officials: Fighting corruption in India - Economist.com bkkguy

OK, and as I said in the other thread usually so would I here in Thailand, but as I also said at least have the guts to admit that what you are doing is wrong and that by paying you are ensuring that corruption will continue. if you now seriously believe what you have written here then I think this is a significantly different position than your original cop-out comment that you are "a victim", and are "not contributing to corruption" - and the sooner more people start to admit that both parties in a corrupt transaction are in the wrong then the sooner people might be more willing to do something about it! there are moral issues and there is the reality of our actions and I am not trying to claim that I am morally superior to you in what I do - I just think that it is important to acknowledge the moral issues regardless of what our actions are but you will probably now just accuse me now of not being willing to accept "yes" as an answer as you did in the copyright threads - but the issues are the same, I find comments like "I don't know or care what is right or wrong, I will now do it your way because it is easier" and "I am a victim, I am not contributing to corruption" unacceptable cop-outs and people need to be challenged to think about what they do and why, and if you think that is just me on my moral high horse then that's your option! bkkguy

OK - what do other people think? bkkguy

I am a realist and I understand the realities of life in Thailand and faced with the scenario you presented I too would usually take the easy way out and pay and move on but I at least have the guts to admit that my actions are morally wrong and will ensure the continuation of corruption here but I think your attitude of waving your hands in the air and claiming you are an innocent victim of corruption is wrong and is a cop out! in India a group started printing 0 Rupee notes to give to officials who demanded corrupt payments - it could be on interesting experiment here! bkkguy

whilst I agree you are a "victim" I don't agree that you are "not contributing to the corruption" - by taking the easy way out and paying you are refusing to face up to your responsibility and leaving it to everyone else to fight corruption and you are actively encouraging corruption because you have confirmed again that their will be no consequences for their corrupt practices! bkkguy

so you obviously consider your friend's wishes are reasonable and worth respecting. is this just because the boyfriend is a sex worker? if the boyfriend was a chef and your friend said he would be upset if you ate at his restaurant would you just as happily eat at one of the many other restaurants available? bkkguy

Last Saturday 21 people were killed and 800+ injured in street violence and there was outrage, after the first two days of Songkran the road toll stands at 114 dead and 1,536 people injured and this happens every year but there is no outrage - what am I missing here? bkkguy

so every time I want to off a boy from a bar I need to quiz him on which falung may consider him to be their "boyfriend" (whatever that may mean to each specific falung) and evaluate what level of friendship I may have with those falung before deciding what the risk of causing offense may be before paying the off fee - the guy is a sex worker, any falung who thinks this guy is his "boyfriend" and wants to start laying down rules like this I think has a serious lack of understanding of concepts like "boyfriend", "sex worker" and probably "friend"! and where do you draw the line - if we have had friendly chats on the forum but never met can I still off your "boyfriend"? or if I meet you on the beach one day after offing your boyfriend the night before can we ever be friends? if I know a Thai guy is in a serious "non-open" relationship with a falung and I try to have sex with him while the falung is away (whether or not the falung is a friend) then I am a cad but if he is a sex worker then I really don't get the what the issue is - unless I sneaked in and took him off on a night when I knew you wanted to off him! bkkguy

a google search on "crack down on foreign bar owners pattaya" answers most of those questions bkkguy

I couldn't care less whether you, GT or this forum where sued for infringement of copyright or not - I was trying to make you aware of the issues philosophically I believe that what you have been doing is depriving the legitimate copyright holders of the ability to make profit from the material they have invested good money in developing - you and fountainhall seem more interested in just trivializing the issue and GT seems more concerned with avoiding law suites so I really will just shut up and go away on this issue because in talking with fools you only get dragged down to their level! bkkguy