gk10002000

There is a reason why many small scale farmers would crush up the chicken egg shells and put them in their compost or in the soil

Coincidentally or not, zombieland movie was on tv last night.  The  beginning was kind of funny as the kid talks about how he survived.  1:  Cardio.  The slow fatties got run down in the first week by the zombies.

  But with a little seriousness, taking care of oneself and trying to stay healthy is not to be under estimated.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Better health, no smoking, no vaping, greatly helps prevent lung cancer, and helps with flu and other respiratory issues.

  I believe you will find that so many people that die in the end, while their heart may have given out, it is because of stress from their horribly degraded lungs.  They can not oxygenate.  The heart tries to compensate and push more of the low oxygen content blood.  My dad was miserable the last 3 years of his life, a consequence of his 40 years of chain smoking.  Dying is one thing, not being able to do things is one thing, but not being able to even walk up two steps, that's two steps, not two flights of steps, always having an oxygen concentrator in your nose is not the way to go out

similar here in the USA so many small businesses are crushed or will be crushed.  So few people can whither many months of no income.  And even if they do, they probably laid off people that may not come back.  Going to be a real mess.

I don't want nor expect free bags.  In the USA several states charge a fee like 10 cents for each plastic bag that are available right there at checkout.  I am fine with paying on the spot for convenience.  In the future I may start using a re-use type bag as it does make sense, athough sometimes they often get dirty, things leaked a bit and over time they get a bit off

I hope this whole situation points out the greatness of the old Boy Scouts Motto "Be Prepared".  Statistically speaking it is better to be fit, not obese, not smoke, not eat MacDonald's every day, etc.  Mild exercise, light weigh training, all are more likely to make your later years better.

  So many elderly people are just out of luck being old, a bit weak, etc.  Sad but that is how humans evolved.  Smoking never helps a flue, or a lung condition.  Being HIV positive is probably not helpful as that has always shown people to be more susceptible to pneumonia and other diseases.  

  158,000 people in the USA will die from lung cancer each year, and 80% of them were svoluntary smokers.  So many similar bad habits are out there. 

  Straighten up folks.  Remember the old saying  "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"?  Compassion and empathy and sympathy are nice, but can not help when things go bad

On 3/26/2020 at 6:49 AM, GregTN said:

I have not filed taxes since 2017 due to not meeting the threshold required and only collecting a company pension, no social security yet.  This morning I got on line and E-filed a 2019 tax return for zero tax refund/payment, included a US mailing address plus direct deposit information to my US bank.  It took about an hour to complete and might be an easy answer to receive it.  Time will tell.

yes and that has always been my recommendation.  File closes things out, and it documents your income level.  If collecting state benefits, or things from other agencies, they always ask for income.   Went through this with my Mom and oldest sister who said Mom doesn't need to file, she only gets SSA..  True but had all sorts of issues proving she gets no income without an official tax return. And the darn form is so short there is nothing to do!  Showing little income is good. 

On 3/27/2020 at 11:03 PM, marin said:

So he managed to go in and out of Thailand smuggling ice to Japan with a 9 year old visa. More telling of how poor Thai Immigration officers are than anything else..

Almost certainly used some other passport. Would be interesting to know how many trips, when the "original" fingerprints entered the database if at all.

and even if the Thais are wearing masks, I am sure they just re use them, which is bad. 

some Thai people were also not wearing masks,.  Some?  Looks like the majority do not wear it based on videos I see posted on youtube.  Not to mention the fact that most foreigners have been in Thailand for weeks now and would NOT be the source of the virus.  But as I said before, be prepared for some herd or crowd mentality and foreigners may be a bit of a target as more ignorant people panic and lash out. Officials may bow to any complaint and single out foreigners

4 hours ago, Mung said:

Why do Thai prisons still practice absolute squalid conditions that breach human rights? It's almost a death sentence to be in some of those prisons for any length of time. This country has a lot of growing pains to go through 

Yeah but it won't happen.  The Thai economy is being raided by the regime.  The overall good of the average person is not a government priority, especially since the government is not elected by the people

What is bad is they do not release many details on the deaths.  Today in NY a young doctor died.  He looked like a young healthy guy.  But researching on line, one finds out he was HIV positive.  No AIDs symptoms so he had things under control, but obviously he was in a Virus risk group.  So many elderly of course have been reported as the most vulnerable and affected.  But many people in Louisiana, while not on the headline news, were obese, not in generally good health, were smokers, had horrible diets, little proper medical care leading up to the virus.

  My point is, hopefully agencies will now push forward a "stay in good health" to help prevent or mitigate ailments.   158,000 Americans a year still die from lung cancer, 80% of which are voluntary smokers is just one example. 

  I grew up with fitness in mind.  The old fashioned Boy Scout Handbook had a fitness section, and maybe growing up watching the Tokyo Olympiad when live international "live via satellilte" was fascinating helped.  Used to watch Jack Lalane on our black and white TV.  Moderate weight training, ran cross country, Tae Kwon Do for so many years, can run five 6 minute miles with a little training and preparation, good fresh foods not MacDonald's diet, non smoker,   very light drinker, etc.  Put on a few pounds the last few years as my desk job while profitable and earned me enough money to retire, I sure got lazy.

Then some exposure to Buddhism (thank you Thailand) Meditation, visits to the Hsilai temple in Los Angeles and frequent peaceful visits to whatever local Thai Temple near wherever I am working.  Good for the mental aspect of positive brain health

  Bottom line:  Boy Scout Motto:  Be Prepared!

6 hours ago, RBOP said:

Health officials say 90% compliance is required to flatten the curve. So we are doomed according to this survey. Curfew tonight?

I am currently working in New Jersey on a defense military contract.  We are deemed an essential part of the Defense Industrial Base so the facility and hundreds or thousand like it are still open around the country.  At work, they encourage work at home, but I work in a classified lab testing electronic systems so we can't take that home.  At work they closed the conference rooms.  In the lab production testing room, it is tight quarters.  6 or 7 of us literally sit in each other's lap throughout the day as we twiddle the scopes, hook up the probes, log in and log out of the classified test computers etc.  Then some of those people get near other workers etc.  The cafeteria is open so hundreds of us at one time or another pass through or near other people.  Now imagine that throughout the USA at all the big defense contractor facilities:  Northrop in Melbourne FL has thousands on site.  Lockheed Orlando, or Fort Worth at the JSF plant, all the military bases and headquarters around the USA, etc.  So probably 100 million are going to and from work every day.  New Jersey and New York shut down so many businesses, restaurants, nail salons etc.  All I think that does is put stress on the blue collar working class.

  Today Fauci the Institute of Health Dr, said he agrees with opening things up if the data shows the "curve" flattening.  However he admits they have no idea what the curve is!  And until you collect and show and plot the data, you would not know where things may stand.

On 3/27/2020 at 10:48 PM, RJRS1301 said:

I am curious why denied entry to the canal, surely the captain has clearance to navigate the canal without a pilot from shore?

Surely restriction regarding discharge of waste etc in canal which no ship would do I presume, would mitigate contamination

 

Where is the risk, can someone explain this to my simple mind please?

 

In general tug trains hook onto and move ships through parts of the canal lock sections.  Precise positioning is important.  Can't have thousand ton ships striking things.  From what I read, The Panama Canal pilots take navigational control of the approximately 40 vessels that transit the Canal every day.

On 3/27/2020 at 2:08 AM, pegman said:

It's going to get plenty worse. I saw on American news a few people   Interviewed who stated that some scripture or rather would save them. This is some kind of Looney Tunes and these people's faith is no match for a virus like this.

sadly, America has millions of people like that. Irrational thinkers, file bankruptcy while tithing to their local fraud ministers, etc

On 3/26/2020 at 3:53 PM, GinBoy2 said:

I guess with total radio silence, nobody in their right minds believes he's making over $100K a year in Thailand.

 

So we're back to my basic premise that there is no underlying tax issue, and the the guy is just a dimwit numbnuts for giving up a first world passport, when for zero cost he could have had both!

I think there was an issue with him having to pay into USA social security.  I do not see any social security type agreement between the USA and Thailand, so even though his earned income exclusion if he qualifies for it, may exclude him from paying Federal Income tax, he may have been liable as a US citizen to pay Social security taxes.

OK.  Is anybody keeping track of all the various apriori predictions that have been made by many people?  Is anybody going to then track how good all those predictions turned out?  How would one know?  In the USA you can't easily even be tested.  They have lists, priorities, etc.  And in other countries, do you think 7 billion or so test kits will be issued or used?

  Reminds me of those newspaper psychics like Jean Dixon.  Thousands and thousands of predictions.

unfortunately I would be prepared for all sorts of things, prejudice, irrational persecution, unjustified monitoring, etc.  Thai social structure will mean that lower level people will do whatever they think will  make their boss content.  They will not likely be lenient or favorable to a farang, and I would not be surprised to see a great deal of social bad thoughts towards farangs.  Herd mentality has taken stranger forms in the past

6 hours ago, heybruce said:

I'm confused by your confusion.

 

Models assume a certain number of transmissions per infected person.  Obviously this is an assumption based on averages from past history; an infected person may walk through a crowded room and infect no one, or may talk to three people and infect all three.  That's why empirically based averages based on as much data are available are used.

 

Once empirically based averages are determined (or, when data are limited, assumed), large number modeling is used.  A thousand infected people will infect three thousand (the virus spreads rapidly) or a thousand infected people will infect 500 (the virus dies out rapidly). 

 

If social distancing reduces the infection rate from three per infected person to two (with exponential growth the difference between three and two is huge) the infection rate will be greatly reduced.

 

In a later post you used the term "infection rate".  Time dependence adds another variable, but you need only adjust the above explanation by assuming infection rate per time period.  The time from initial infection to recovery would be a logical time period.

 

Obviously given infinite time a slow exponential growth will yield the same results as fast exponential growth, but most of us are thinking about the next one to two years.  With luck we will have a game changing vaccine in that time.

 

Why is this a unclear?  Ok, why is this unclear for a numbers person? (Some people shut their brains down when presented with simple mathematics.)

you are obviously unclear about many things.  If the virus always stays active, and infectious, then given enough time everybody will be infected, unless a person is alone and stays alone forever.  Now if a person gets over the virus and that person no longer carries a contagion that can be transmitted, things are different.  There is little evidence or data about it.  Are infected people now cured and can no longer transmit the disease or can they catch the disease again, or can they carry with no symptoms but still transmit the disease?  Do not attempt to throw out volumes of words you have no nor understanding of

2 minutes ago, candide said:

Quite interesting remark. I did not pay attention to it. Could it be that without social contacts the number of infected people would exceed the percentage that is necessary for herd immunity? Or that some isolated areas would be likely to avoid being infected?

Yeah, I really do have engineering and math degrees and do have some knowledge of modeling  dealing with all sorts of things, so the basic model is not very hard.  There are some time decays, infection probabilities , etc.  But total spread is pretty much inevitable depending on how the model is structured

On 3/26/2020 at 11:49 PM, ivor bigun said:

I never buy the meat left out like that at the best of times ,now with people sneezing and coughing on it ,yuk.

yeah, me neither.   The workers touch and move stuff around like they were stacking cord wood, and that is just what we see,  Who knows how it is handled in the back of the store.  And the smell as you walk through the section is a hint that things are not right

well at least they did not limit it to just tourists as some earlier requests had.  But again, it is just a request.  Will see how many obey it, how many care, how many will bow to maybe social peer pressure, police or military intimidation to obey the request, etc

1 hour ago, bristolboy said:

Fact-challenged much?. He hasn't revised his method. His original estimate was for if nothing was done.

No, a COVID Scientist Didn’t Walk Back His Prediction

The paper actually offered simulations of numerous scenarios. The one resulting in 500,000 deaths was one where Great Britain just carried on life as before. Other scenarios, where the country locked down whenever it was necessary to stop the disease’s spread, put death totals below 20,000. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-pandemic-neil-ferguson-did-not-walk-back-covid-19-predictions/

the thing about these models is while obviously less social contact can flatten the curve and slow down the spread, they do not explain why the total amount infected gets less.  Unless one assumes that the people NEVER come into contact with anybody infected or that people once infected do get better or become non contagious, there is no reason the virus would not just spread slowly,  So I would take these models with a grain of salt

11 hours ago, heybruce said:

Unfortunately states can't close borders with neighboring states, so piecemeal lockdowns won't be as effective without a national strategy.

well Rhode Island and Mass are stopping people with New York license plates at the border.  Not sure that is legal since I 95 seems like a federally funded road and I doubt states have the right to block it. I am sure the lawyers are lining up on both sides

His opinions or desires not withstanding, if individual States order lockdowns and shutdowns to stay in effect, well who wins that tug of war?

Fresh air and sunshine.  Been helping hominids for a few millions years/