Another harebrained scheme that will be overly complex to administer and will cost the state (ie the taxpayer) billions. They're already spending billions (USD not baht) to keep electricity and LPG prices artificially low.

It doesn't say if open-ended but that's the implication. BTS at many hours of the day is already literally creaking at the seams so how this will work out if it encourages large numbers of people to commute in from the 'burbs is anyone's guess.

18 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

In a bold move to restore international confidence and safeguard local livelihoods, the Thai Coconut Industry Group has joined forces with the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT). This partnership aims to tackle longstanding concerns over the use of monkey labour in coconut harvesting—a pressing issue affecting Thailand's significant coconut export market.

Another thing - what they don't say here is that confidence in Thai coconut water exports has been much more heavily damaged by claims of 'organic certification': it's been well documented that Thailand exports far more coconut water than could possibly be produced by the plantation area that has been formally certified as 'organic' to the stringent standards this requires in the West.

That is one area where large-scale producers have an edge: supply chain traceability and accountability is much easier than when sourcing from "300,000 farming households", many of whom are probably using chemical insecticides and fertilisers left right and centre.

18 hours ago, GarryP said:

Yeah I forgot the EV market. The second hand price tanks, but that is not the case with ICE cars. 

Not sure it isn't also now the case. Prices of both are dropping because banks are much more reluctant to lend, which does affect secondhand market if buying from a tent. It's a buyer's market now.

I recently bought a 5 year old Volvo XC40 (2L turbo AWD) for under 900K - cost new was something like 2.3 million.

8 hours ago, TroubleandGrumpy said:

BYD make batteries - cheaply and well - to Japanese car manufacturer's specs.

But they dont make cars to those specs or know how to develop the specs.

They are very 'early days' at making cars - if they are still here in Thailand in 5-10 years then they will be viable.

 

Actually BYD has been making vehicles for 10+ years (buses and cars). One of the reasons i went for BYD is because they produced the EV taxis that came into service at Suvarnabhumi around 10 years ago - and were going strong for many years, and which I took from time to time.

7 hours ago, Nacho Libre said:

Thanks for all that useful info. A tyre inflator is definitively something I'll have a look at. Hopefully it doesn't come with lots of safety features that can't be switched off. I'm not a fan of those, especially the noisy variety.

I did look at the spec of the Sealion 7 and the manufacturer claims you can charge from 20 to 80% in 25 minutes at an EV charging station. I'd rather not spend an hour waiting for it to charge. 

Having said that I don't see me needing to go farther than the 450-500 km I supposedly can get when fully charged anyway.

I think the Atto claims 20-80% in something like 30 minutes. That's probably not far off real life.

The max rate the Atto will charge at is just under 90 kW/h. I don't know about Sealion. But thing to bear in mind is that it doesn't really matter at the moment, in Thailand, what your max charge rate is because at a typical PTT station the chargers run I think at 150 kW max output. They can charge two cars at the same time ... but the total capacity is 150 so you often end up with much less as it's split between the two cars.

DC fast charging is also not supposed to be great for battery longevity if it's the way you intend to charge on a regular basis (as opposed to home AC).

Range is very variable: basically the faster you go, the quicker the battery drains. If I go to Jomtien at 100 kmh it's much better for range than going at 120 kmh. Atto is supposed to be 480 km and I think that's quite possible with car in Eco mode and driving at 80-90 kmh and avoiding any heavy acceleration. But that's really tedious and one of the pleasures of EVs is instant torque. The Atto is supposed to do 0-100 kmh in about 7 seconds; it will do it in nearer 6.5. In the 1980s that was hot hatch performance.

Of course it's a lardy SUV so its general handling can politely be described as cumbersome. But for overtaking that torque is very handy. 

Tyre inflator - I have a heavy duty Makita one, but in part because the battery can be used with other Makita power tools. Wasn't very expensive - i think 1500 baht or something like that. 

Customs or ONCB must have been tipped off, hence the photos of him checking in ... taking bag to the oversize scanner ... all part of the evidentiary trail showing that it was his bag and he checked it in, when he would have been asked 'did you pack it yourself / are you carrying anything for anyone else', to which he would have answered 'no'. So can't argue "someone must have put it in my bag after I checked it in" ...

21 minutes ago, wombat said:

The back story according to old mate down the pub was the insurance company wouldn't pay out on a renter being stolen.

Must have been something like that. He says in vid they decided not to claim because they needed policies on the other 30 cars. Huh?? Sure the premiums might go up a bit but theft insurance is there to protect in case of, er, theft. Unless they weren't insuring for rental use, in which case anyone driving wouldn't be insured.

And then 'Mo' does some ducking and diving, rustles up a stack of cash which he can't bank for obvious reasons - but then then the local rozzers give him a bit of paper saying "we hereby declare this phat stack isn't POC"?? Makes no sense given that presumably the only explanation of where he got the money was "my mate sold some things here and there and gave it to me".

32 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

He may refuse help at the moment, but a time will come when it will be taken out of his hands.

Soon he won't have a leg to stand on ...

18 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

Was it brown?

The interior was some sort of dark brown velour. The exterior was a sort of weird orangey brown.

36 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

I was a teenager back then, I would have loved the 1750HL model.

 

I loved the AllAgro.

Allegro was the first car I drove (my dad bought it). Appalling piece of junk. Back in the days when head restraints and passenger door mirrors were optional extras. And power steering? Pah! 

That's one way to make a splash when you visit Thailand.

17 hours ago, Red Forever said:

The far right climate change deniers must have got a collective boner when reading (what they thought was a critique of wind farms) in the Torygraph when in fact the problem is with the National Grid.

Given time we will reach net zero.

Far right climate change boners to one side, the main problem with Milliband's crusade for Net Zero is his stubborn refusal to just slow down a bit. 2030 is a wholly unrealistic target. As you note, we will reach net zero given time.

If UK hadn't decided to close our last remaining coal-fired plants (the Tories did for Drax in 2023, Labour did for Ratcliffe - two 2GW of capacity - last year) we would have more spare south of the border base load. Sure, it's not green, but it's all particularly galling given that UK didn't build any more coal stations after mid 1980's yet  China added 30GW of coal power last year (70% of the global total of new coal power).

China has 1,000+ coal stations, India around 300, the USA around 200 and Indonesia around 100 - yet UK policy makers driven by Milliband cleave to an unrealistic virtue signalling time frame for UK to go Net Zero.

Maybe he should go and live in his constituency (Doncaster North). for a while and see what normal people really think about it all, especially given Doncaster is one of the more deprived local authorities.

2 hours ago, mahjongguy said:

Just this advice:  Do all the reading you can about patients who bought into the hype regarding multi-focus lenses.   

I think this is sound advice.

My optometrist in UK said that simplest is best ie monofocal lens and just use reading glasses. Since no surgery has guaranteed results, he also said people who have it and understand that they may still need glasses for all distances post-surgery are less likely to be disappointed. This is a guy I've seen for 30+ years (and is well-respected within the London community of opthalmologists) so I trust his opinion.

Basically go for improved clarity of vision as the goal, not 20/20 acuity at all focal distances. There's a diopter range for the surgery outcome  (i.e. target 0.0 but may end up +0.5 or - 0.5 or whatever). For some people ending up slightly short-sighted works better than slightly long-sighted post surgery, particularly for near / intermediate vision. But ultimately all really depends on what is important to you / what you do in daily life.

On 5/29/2025 at 3:59 AM, Georgealbert said:

According to the investigation, the crash occurred when the helicopter’s main rotor malfunctioned, resulting in one of the blades severing the tail rotor. This caused the aircraft to lose stability and spin out of control, ultimately leading to a violent crash. Officials stressed that the incident was not the result of pilot error or negligence.

Rotor striking the tail boom sounds like possible low-G mast bump / blade flap; maybe instinctive input of hard aft cyclic to counter sudden nose down pitch caused by wind shear or other strong turbulence? The weather last week or so has not been great.

3 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

There's been research that shows lower Vitamin D levels being found in people with severe COVID and even Long COVID.

 

But last time I checked, the U.S. National Institutes of Health had reviewed available evidence for Vitamin D either as a preventive or treatment for COVID, and concluded to NOT recommend either for or against it's use in connection with COVID, because the available evidence was not sufficiently conclusive, even though some studies had findings suggesting it helped.

 

NIH hasn’t recommended supplements as new COVID-19 strategy

"CLAIM: The NIH now recommends vitamin C, vitamin D3 and zinc for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

 

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The National Institutes of Health does not currently recommend, or advise against, those supplements for fighting COVID-19.

 

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-038944486790

 

The above report was from 2021, but NIH made its final COVID treatment protocols update at the end of 2023 with the same conclusion.

 

This below was from a somewhat earlier report:

Vitamin D doesn't prevent COVID-19, other respiratory infections, studies find

September 8, 2022

 

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/vitamin-d-doesnt-prevent-covid-19-other-respiratory-infections-studies-find

 

3 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

 

"One study from October 2020 calculated that the virus had stolen 2.5 million years of potential life in the US. Just under half of these years were taken from people younger than 65 years. As the paper’s author, Dr. Stephen J. Elledge said, “COVID-19 has wiped out millions of years of productive, active, and happy existence.”

 

Another study from May 2022 calculated the virus had stolen 3.9 million years of life away from Americans and the average COVID victim lost over 9 years of life. Not all COVID victims were 90-year-olds with advanced cancer, only days away from dying, when they happened to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 as some doctors implied. In the words of Dr. Utibe Essien:

These are everyday people who are dying. They’re losing time with their kids, their grandkids, their opportunities to build their futures."

 

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/this-thing-has-killed-less-than-or-about-as-many-as-flu-would-kill-in-a-normal-year-in-kids-i-say-hardly-any-80-year-olds-their-time-to-death-in-general-is-not-that-long/

 

3 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

For my UK friends here, not to be entirely U.S.-centric:

 

One year on: Three myths about COVID-19 that the data proved wrong

23 March 2021

...

Myth 1: ‘Those who die from COVID-19 would have died soon anyway’

• In the first year of COVID-19 (5 March 2020 to 5 March 2021), 1.5 million potential years of life were lost in the UK as a result of people dying with the virus. In England and Wales alone this figure is 1.4 million.
• On average, each of the 146,000 people who died with COVID-19 lost 10.2 years of life. [emphasis added]

https://www.health.org.uk/reports-and-analysis/analysis/one-year-on-three-myths-about-covid-19-that-the-data-proved-wrong

 

Come on, surely you can do better than citing studies published in 2020/2021/2022 - effectively from the 'Dark Ages' of scientific understanding about the disease, risk factors, treatments etc. Or have things moved on such that it's harder nowadays to find such alarmist material, hence the need to resort to ancient history?

I really don't understand your apparent obsession with all this stuff - do you feel you're on a one-man mission to 'educate' the unbelievers or something like that?

As is usually the case in Thailand we'll probably never know what actually happened.

Bell 212 main rotor has a lot of inertia and is semi-rigid, so even with a dual engine failure rotor RPM won't decay as fast as say an eggbeater light training helo like a Robinso R22. 

But reports of parts of the aircraft detaching could suggest a rotor separation.

In 2021 a 212 crashed in Canada after a retaining pin failure on the main rotor hub. That led to Bell issuing service bulletins and various aviation agencies worldwide (FAA, EASA etc) issuing Emergency ADs mandating compliance with the service bulletins.

On 05 July 2021, Bell Textron Inc. (Bell) issued 4 alert service bulletins covering model 204B, 205, 205B, and 212 helicopter fleets. The alerts required the review of the aircraft’s technical record to determine if any main rotor hub strap retaining pins with the serial number prefix FNFS were installed. If pins with the affected prefix were installed, they were to be replaced with pins of a different serial prefix before further flight.

https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/2021/a21w0045/a21w0045.html

9 hours ago, webfact said:

Sanguan Jungsakul from Krungthai Bank highlights the baht's unique position, appreciating rapidly due to short-term speculative flows rather than solid economic fundamentals.

"Short-term speculative flows" I guess meaning international investment in Thai government debt. Strong baht also helps those here who want to/need to buy dollars for overseas investment or purchases. Thailand still buying a lot of LNG on the spot markets.