tomazbodner

Correction - foreigners with PR cannot get a blue Thai ID card, only PinkID.

Same for Bangkok insurance.. they helped file claim to insurance covering party at fault (but that insurance also had approval process and only covered. minimum number of days fastest garage could do the job and not actual time car was out of action/at repair center)

THB isn't sliding as much as Indian Rupees. Exchanged 2 THB to 5 INR a week back, didn't spend any, exchanged back and made a profit.

But something is different. In the past years, we'd have violent storms in April and early May. This year - nothing.

Bus might be safer than a tired taxi driver dozing off while having his foot heavily on the gas pedal... I guess you don't follow the road carnage in Thailand news much... Even that 2 hours between Ubon and Yasothon is badly lit and marked in many sections. You would not want to be driving on it at night when tired. The "easiest" way to get a ride to Yasothon from Swampy would be going to ground floor of the airport terminal and leave building at exit 4, walk straight to Grab booth/pickup location (big green box with Grab logo just after airport taxis). Open their app and enter Yasothon address where you want to go. If you don't have Grab app, there's QR code on the wall of their booth with links to app store/play store. Make sure you have internet package with data as they don't provide it. Depending on time of day, expect anywhere between 8500 and 11500 baht for trip in a regular taxi, or around 20k for SUV if you have luggage that doesn't fit into Altis with a gas tank at the back, making storage at the back unusable. Just beware that the cabbie might have been driving around for whole day before he picks you up. Make sure to keep conversation going entire time so he doesn't fall asleep.

Cyanide capsules... Novichok candies... Plutonium tea bags...

Oh, yeah? All lies then? All thermometers rigged?

It is! All you need is power, closed windows, decent air conditioner and HEPA air filter.

https://status.digitalocean.com/incidents/21gg18q1ddmv Cable from SG to Europe cut...

I'm amazed so far nobody jumped out to suggest OP bakes his own, and how easy it is...

True and AIS same issues. Sires in US load fast. So it is likely some outage on cabling between Asia and Europe... There was undersea cable between Asia and Europe cut in red sea, next to Yemen, but that's nearly a month ago. That cut the data throughput capacity by about 25%. No idea if there was any further damage which could explain further deterioration.

As I can't edit it anymore, I wanted to add screenshots of this: This is what sensor actually read at noon, when it got a beep from IQAir to fetch the data: And this is what AirVisual by IQAir actually showed a few minutes later: That's quite a discrepancy... Or is it that it doesn't use all data? No idea. But makes me curious about trusting AirVisual numbers now.

In the old days, rice fields were burned down. Since rice pledging scheme fiasco, many turned to corn, cassava, sugarcane fields. What's left on fields after harvest varies a lot, depending on what was harvested, so fields now have a lot more to burn, hence causing a lot more pollution. Then you have rising temperatures, which are an accelerant for chemical reactions, which make pollution even worse. This isn't new, it's more than 10 years on a steady decline, both in quality of air as well as duration. Going back to 2012, smog in Bangkok lasted only about 2 months in Feb and Mar, where it was over AQI 75, which was from my reader in the middle of the city. Now it's getting close to 6 months that readings are over 100 at least 20 days in a calendar month. The reason for the HEPA filters and sensors for me was intense headaches that started when I moved to Pratunam. Had no idea why. A friend stayed over and brought this black box from China. Headaches stopped. Asked what that was and learned it was HEPA filter. Had one in each room since then, that's 20 years ago. A few years later I saw first pm2.5 sensors for sale. Had one mounted outside ever since. Which now also leads me to something else - that IQAir is downplaying actual numbers. I'm contributor to them. My sensor is weekly checked against others, but it consistently reads higher than the same sensor appearing in AirVisual app. Sometimes double that. IQAir states "data calibrated by IQAir"... Yesterday's numbers were 158 from my sensor and 91 from same sensor at AirVisual at the same time. Don't understand why they are doing that. As I'm quite high up, I can actually tell the approximate pollution figures by looking out the window, which buildings I can see. Another one is that my indoor air filters have sensors and show figures on their displays, which are in 5-10% of outside pollution range. So 10 inside would be 100-200 outside. And if they start making jet take off sounds, which happens at 75 inside, I'm not leaving the room. It sometimes does just that at 4-4.30 am. Loud enough to wake me up. That didn't happen much in the past but it is getting more frequent, especially in February.

What's the use, if then they just spend a few months in hospital and get released...