wprime

I had the same experience at the supermarket when I tried to buy some Smirnoff branded "hand sanitiser". Just wait until 5pm.

I believe Jesus existed but wasn't anyone special. His mother was probably shagging some other guy and didn't have the heart to admit it to poor Joseph so she invented the story of the virgin birth and with it, a religion.

Villa has some.

44 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

 

It does nto sound like they were measured infections, would have needed a vastly larger sample to do that (and such has already been done ,with tens of thousands of subjects).

 

It sounds like what they did was measure the presence of circulating antibodies in opeopek with the vaccine and peopelk recovering from COVID.

 

Of course antibody response was already extensively tested and documented in the earlier phase of vaccine development. Why they felt the need to do a small study here, I don't know.

You're probably right, I hadn't thought of it that way.

4 minutes ago, WhiteBuffaloATM said:

very small sample size / composition and no peer review paper but consistent with final USA FDA AZ trials giving in fact 100% protection from Death & Hospitalization......plus UK Approved ..... that’ll do for me ...... but only if my dose made in western country.... now where is my private hospital notice to attend for AZ ( Europe)  Vax ?

Not consistent with existing research. The claim in the article is 96.7% immunity after 1 dose. See here:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00432-3/fulltext

This larger study only found 76% immunity after 1 dose.

5 minutes ago, connda said:

Somebody set me straight as my hardware knowledge is rusty considering the last hardware I personally worked on were made by Sperry-Univac and were based on TTL logic and brand-spanking new chip tech to replace the transistors and the tubes, and we're good for shooting stuff out of the sky from a moving ship. 

A 2.5 inch drive is only giving one dimension. 
The physical dimensions of the Seagate HDD that is in my Laptop as three dimensions: 100mm by 70mm by 7mm without rubber spacers. 
A 2.5 inch drive (length? width?  is about 65mm) what are the other two dimensions?  Cause I don't know???

Ahhh!  There it is by golly.  Ok, finally a site that gives detailed specs.  Groovy.  Now I "get it."  So I guess that a "Form Factor" of 2.5 inch has the dimensions of

DIMENSION (WxHxD)  100 X 69.85 X 6.8 (mm).  Is that universal?  I need to understand that before I buy.  I really do not what to ship an SSD back because it's the wrong size.
Is that correct.  2.5FF = 100 X 69.85 X 6.8 (mm)?

2.5" drives have a standard width and depth. The height can range from 7mm-15mm.

I'm pretty sure all consumer 2.5" ssds are 7mm and most laptops that still take 2.5" drives these days only support 7mm.

I would question the validity of this research. For n=61 when you constrain that all people counts have to be whole numbers, the only possible results he could get if he did his study properly (as in used a control group to estimate expected infections in the vaccinated group had they not been vaccinated) are:

Vaccinated group=60

Unvaccinated control group=1

Number infected in control group=1

Expected number of infected in vaccinated group=60

Infected number in vaccinated group=2

Immunity=96.7%

and

Vaccinated group=30

Unvaccinated control group=31

Number infected in control group=31

Expected number of infected in vaccinated group=30

Infected number in vaccinated group=1

Immunity=96.7%

Both are trivial cases where everyone in the control group got infected.

Damn, it's so unfortunate when motorbikes develop a mind of their own and decide to rear end pickup trucks. Hope he is okay.

Haha, I suppose eating spicy food makes you less likely to rub your eyes and nose giving you a trivial degree of protection.

+1 for invaideIT.

The Samsung 870 EVO should suit you fine.

They have some slightly cheaper options which aren't too bad too. As someone said above, don't buy those unbranded things from eBay/lazada.

Yes it's branded as Norgesic or Paradine (500mg paracetemol/35mg orphenadrine citrate).

Note it does not contain caffeine like similarly branded products in the US so you might get drowsy on it.

Younger people tend to be dying from their own immune response so they can be readily treated with steroids with a very high survival rate. It only becomes an issue if you can't access treatment (e.g. if hospitals are overloaded).

In Chonburi they were also asking for proof of your need for the certificate (in my case a contract to buy a car).

In BKK I believe they also want your last 90 day report receipt in your passport too.

Also if they're demanding a certificate of residence to open a bank account they don't really want you as a customer, try another bank.

50 minutes ago, aussienam said:

 

"This is your big problem, if you're a non-resident this would be fully taxable with no CGT concession. Get rid of it and invest in equities if you become a non-resident.

 

 

Another reason to get rid of the investment property. Stick your wealth in assets that can easily be managed from abroad like equities not tied to Australian property. As a non-resident, equity investments with fully franked dividends make your tax returns very simple."

 

I did not want to invest in shares only and have always been told to diversify my investments, hence why I chose both property and shares.  I am not comfortable with investing nearly everything I have into shares/equities.  My risk tolerance has reduced, albeit needing risk for higher returns to offset the lower tier of wealth I have managed to accumulate. 

 

The non-resident capital gains tax rate really sux as there's no CGT discount of 50% and no tax-free threshold. But at least I would have rental income (albeit taxed at non-resident resident rate again with no tax-free threshold) and depreciation to offset tax liability. 

 

If I sold the property now I'd still face a loss due to extensive very expensive renovations/repairs I had to pay when I bought the property. 

And right in the middle of a property boom too.  And in an undetermined resident status too. I may flip from a resident to non-resident to resident again.  

 

At the least  I would still potentially make a Capital Gain of whatever profit I made from a future sale with possibly the deduction from that of a full non-resident rate capital gains tax @ 33-50%?

If you have a lot of depreciation to claim on that property then you want to keep your capital gains discount for as long as possible so I can see the appeal of staying as a taxable resident.

In such a case, another option would be to treat the property as your principle place of residence, basing yourself out of it (even if you spend most of your time o/s) for 1 year out of 6. This will be enough to both maintain taxable residency and also as a bonus, get you the full capital gains discount for being your PPOR (note if you've held it longer and rented it out without ever having lived in it  yet you might still be up for some capital gains tax for gains to date).

Obviously work out if the cost of not having it rented out for 1/6 years is worth getting the 100% capital gains tax exemption but considering how expensive Australian property has become, I would be very surprised if it didn't.

The real beauty of this is you can claim depreciation for 5/6 years, which ordinarily you'd have to pay back (at 50%) because it reduces the book value of your property increasing the CGT, but since you don't have to pay CGT on your PPOR, you pocket that amount.

On 4/27/2021 at 9:46 AM, Ventenio said:

This is one of the RARE instances where I'm not going to immediately blame the driver.  The rain was crazy, it's hard to really "test" your brakes beforehand, and when your brakes go..........well, it's too late.  

 

I could ask for service records, etc......but let's not get crazy now.  

 

i'm sure we'll blame him later, maybe going too fast for conditions, etc....but I've had brakes go before in a western country......not an accident, but scary.  

Rubbish, this is not a steep hill. A loaded truck in low gear would not even need brakes for this hill. Plenty of visibility too so if cars were stopped up ahead he would've seen it a km in advance.

Like every other truck on this hill, he was probably trying to use the slope to build up speed while looking only 10m in front of him and so only began to brake 10m before impact.

3 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

According to data coming out of Australia, about 30% of unvaccinated infected patients are having to deal with long-term lung damage, requiring months of rehabilitation.

OTOH, data from around the world is saying even when a vaccinated person becomes infected with the less efficacious vaccines such as Astra Zeneca, their recovery is no worse than a mild flu.

<deleted>. It's 30% of infected Australians who went into the ICU who have long-term lung damage.

6 hours ago, Phuketshrew said:

Poor guy. But he has not been forced to stay in Thailand. There have been many flights in and out since last March and I have many friends that have flown both ways.

If he goes back his travel insurance won't cover his treatment and nor does the NHS.

Anyways it sounds a bit like spending a fortune trying to keep a broken car running that should've been written off years ago. 88,000 pounds could save a lot more lives other ways.

2 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Have you been in the USA? Most service establishments pay minimum wage or less. Tipping 10 -20% is expected practice. It's a significant part of income. Even hotel room cleaners expect something.

True, it's not mandatory. But as a waiter there once said to me, if you don't leave a tip, don't come back. Because it's very likely if they remember, nasty things will happen.

So what you're saying is tipping is only mandatory if you plan to visit the establishment again.

17 hours ago, expatjustice said:

 

 

 

Do you seriously believe that a Mercedes S-Class with 60,000km can have those many issues?  

 

That car has at least 250,000 real km. The odometer had just been rolled back.

It wasn't rolled back, I checked with the service history with Mercedes. The previous owner might however have installed a device to stop/slow the km increasing. The cosmetic condition of the interior and pedals looked practically unused though.

Either way, as I said, save the hassle and buy a new/demo, they just don't take care of their cars here (or maybe blame the road or weather).

S560e demos should be cheap enough once the W223 is released here.

I have a 2013 S400h (V222) with 60,000km and a 2011 CLS250 with 110,000km.

The S class I bought used and has needed many fixes and some things I've just given up on because the cost didn't justify the fix (memory seats don't work on front and back passenger, back passenger side headrest doesn't go forward). The massage pump failed, front pinions failed (had 4 replaced), memory seat control unit failed (replaced 1, didn't bother with the others), the backlighting behind the buttons on the centre console don't work anymore, and many other small things. Probably spent about 300,000 on unexpected fixes all up.

The CLS I had from new (UK import), other than needing to round out my rims as they were causing uneven tyre wear, nothing out of the ordinary (usual stuff given the kms, engine mount replacements, etc).

My advice is buy new or demo. It will cost you less in the long run. The W223 is coming out soon in Thailand so you should be able to get the W222 cheap soon enough.

14 minutes ago, gargamon said:

You probably shouldn't be in control of a vehicle...

He wasn't. ????

9 hours ago, GreasyFingers said:

I don't know how they do it but have seen many times crashing to the inside of the curve. My wife could not explain how she did it either (minor accident)

Rear wheel drive, hit the accelerator when losing front traction around a corner and the car will oversteer and go into the curve.