onebir

Where would the OP find a reasonable choice of language schools: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, Phuket?

(Pretty sure about the first two, but not the latter two.)

On 1/11/2021 at 12:59 AM, webfact said:

Trump may turn to Giuliani again to defend against impeachment

One liability deserves another

Downside: the Trumps for quarantine-mates

3 hours ago, Oldie said:

If you have no money you still have to obey laws. 

If you have no money you have to obey more laws.

FTFY

27 minutes ago, webfact said:

People arriving in Phuket placed under a mandatory 14-day quarantine are allowed to roam the hotel where they are staying, and are not confined to their room, the Phuket health chief has confirmed.

Phuket ASuperspreaderQ

4 hours ago, madmen said:

I think it's fair to assume he is not going to rent a place on the outskirts of town or in a village because he does not speak Thai. 

OP mentions in a later post that he does speak Thai

5 hours ago, chrisbangkok said:

Brazilian studies today apparently show the Sinovac efficacy to be around 50% which will be the vaccine of choice from Thailand's biggest target tourist group China for instance. 

That's... terrible.

Under the SIR model, that vaccine couldn't deliver herd immunity even in a 100% vaccinated population. See "Imperfect Immunity". (Here R0 ~3, so 1-1/R0 = 0.67 > E, the vaccine effectiveness, in which case "it would be impossible to eliminate an infection even by vaccinating the whole population". For E=50%, R0 needs to be <2.)

11 minutes ago, habuspasha said:

I just got first shot of Moderna yesterday in NYC. 

Maybe you should start a 'co-vaxxed' thread, where people can report any reactions etc.

3 hours ago, hioctane said:

95% efficacy means if 100 people took the vaccine, 5 still got infected. 

I think 95% efficacy means:

1000 people take the vaccine, 1 still gets infected

1000 don't & 20 get infected.

(1 - (1/20) = 0.95)

12 hours ago, kotsak said:

They keep forgetting that the vaccine is to protect you from getting sick, not to stop the spread.

Actually the Pfizer vaccine is turning out to reduce transmission pretty quickly (rising to 33% on 14th day after vaccination). That's based on data for over 60s. Given how age-dependent the severity of this virus is, I wouldn't be surprised if it attenuates infections in younger groups more strongly. Israel should be rolling out vaccines for under 60 age groups soon, so there should be data on that soon.

(I'm hoping they investigate delayed second doses; data on that could really help get the most of the vaccines worldwide.)

On 1/11/2021 at 2:14 AM, Phillip9 said:

Yep, a volunteer visa is the easiest.  They start at around 40k baht for one year.  ED visas are available from many language schools but will cost the same or more after all the fees and tuition,

This one is(/was?) 20k/year (last school listed here); several others in Chiang Mai are <30k.

1 hour ago, snoop1130 said:

The Karen border guard force is a Myanmar military-backed armed group led by Colonel Chit Thu, a local ethnic Karen warlord. Chit Thu made peace with the Myanmar’s military and converted his armed units into an officially recognized border guard force. The Myanmar military has also made similar arrangement with some other ethnic groups.

Sounds like a pretty tenuous arrangement...

5 minutes ago, KhaoYai said:

Your calculation was based on deaths in 2019.  That figure is 1752 - somewhat different to 28,000.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-annual-report-2019

Odd, I got 28k from somewhere. Fair enough.

8 minutes ago, Kaoboi Bebobp said:

Generally, you should be protected about 14 days after you receive your second dose of the vaccine. 

It turns out that:

Quote

preliminary data shows that after two weeks, 50% of the first 100 people who were vaccinated two weeks ago have developed strong antibodies against the virus. This is up from only between 1% and 2% after one week.

Based on that, the doc in this article recommends delaying the 2nd dose by up to a month. (Still a far cry from the year mentioned in the OP though.)

#machinebumgun is trending!

6 hours ago, KhaoYai said:

28,000 in the UK?  I don't think so.

Then check

K powdered milk = "ketamine, methamphetamine, heroin and a sedative" apparently. What are they thinking...?

5 hours ago, CG1 Blue said:

Also all those people who died from other causes because they didn't receive the care they needed will have added to the excess death rate.

All the people who didn't die from various activities that were reduced due to Covid/ lockdowns will have reduced excess deaths.

Two obvious categories are traffic accidents (~28k in 2019) & deaths after surgeries (20-25k). Call that 50k. If say 60% of road travel & surgeries were delayed/cancelled, that's a -30k contribution to excess deaths. That probably (at least) offsets deaths due to people not getting necessary medical care; ie there are still unexplained excess deaths that are likely Covid related. 

6 hours ago, ThaiNotes said:

Anyway, I did find a workaround and now my alphabet/vowel/diphthong flashcards have sound (at least on Android devices).

If reproducing the activethai table wouldn't be difficult, it could be improved in several ways:
- customizable sounds*

- ability to randomize character positions**

- ability to show only a subset of characters

- (ability to) display an indication of character class (by color coding?)

- ability to show a message for each character (eg a mnemonic?)

This would transform it into a flashcard-like game (the other characters acting as distractors). I'm using it like a game now, but the options are limited (eg clicking through the tiles in various orders). I can remember most of them, but I think the process could have been quicker (eg I spent several hours coming up with my own mnemonic.)

* now it plays consonant + consonant object. It'd be nice to be able to play any subset of  consonant as initial, consonant as final & consonant object.

** either chosen individually, or configured as subsets (by high/mid/low, or perhaps groups of easily confused characters)

Does anyone know it it's actually legal?

Floor levelling compound + turkey baster?

3 hours ago, G Rex said:

No alcohol, no spicy food - but how long after vaccine can you start eating Pangolin again?

As soon as you can run fast enough to catch your pangolin!

On 1/9/2021 at 11:23 AM, ChouDoufu said:

afterwards no alcohol or spicy foods for three days

Lol typical Chinese medicine recommendation to prevent 'shang huo' (上火).