ben2talk

5 hours ago, JustAnotherHun said:

Wearing chin masks seems to be a new fashion item.

Sadly not cool without swimming goggles... 
Maybe we should send him an email.

Not really on topic, but I'm encouraged by these statistics relating to age/numbers and fatalities...

Children 0-9 are lauging - no fatalities, then the masses of cases from 9 up to 49 show 0.9% fatality. We start worrying at 50-60 with 1.3 fatalities, and over 60 it's getting ugly at 3.6%, over 70 8.8%.

The fatalities are also split 2.8% men and 1.7% for women - with 60% of Chinese men smoking I'm sure that's a huge factor. Not sure how much it helps if you quit smoking a year or two back...

22 hours ago, owl sees all said:

It has just been announced that you can catch the dastardly virus more

than once.

 

If the fatality rate is 3% and it can get around the world in 12 months,,,, we are all doomed it seems.

 

Partying might be a good approach to the end of civilization as we know it. Moving to Nth Korea might not seem so bad. Some nice bits of stuff there.

Ridiculous - even going from underestimated official numbers of over 60k cases it's only 2% - but given that the Chinese have admitted they don't have much idea- the real number can be ten or twenty times that, so the fatality rate could be well under 0.2% overall.

10 hours ago, saengd said:

Just setting aside for a moment the theory that the WHO and every country in the world where the virus has been found are working together to cover up a large scale pandemic and the numbers are being substantially under reported....some observations:

 

Looking at the WHO daily SITREP it seems as though there is a distinct slowing in the total number of new cases and new deaths.

 

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200215-sitrep-26-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=a4cc6787_2

 

It appears that all the deaths thus far have been Chinese people.

 

In a video interview, a Professor from Queens College London suggested that the epidemic in China would go into decline and that epidemics in other countries such as the UK would start to show an increase in the number of cases, similar to the pattern in China. It will be extremely interesting to see if this theory proves to be correct.

 

The good professor also went on to say that only something like only 10% of the total number of cases has been captured and reported, based on past experience. That does not imply however that the number of deaths has also been unreported since unreported cases will include those where there are no symptoms etc. and death is very clearly a symptom!!! My take on all of that is that the true fatality rate is far lower than than currently stated since the true number of cases would be 665,670 rather than 66,567 but the death rate would remain at 1,524.

 

Yes, avoid advice from WHO at all costs. The Chinese have said that they are just guessing - there could well be ten or twenty times the number of confirmed and even suspected infected people in total.

That's actually good news, as current figures suggest 2% fatality, but if it's underreported by 10 times, that figure falls to 0.2%.

That's a rough deal. I had a woman run across the road in front of me, I stopped and she ran into me and fell down. She was 71, and cracked a hip.

Took 2 years to get to court, in the end I had a 4000 baht fine, I'd already forked out 40k to help with medical expenses over the 50k insurance payout... the worst part was the 2 years of overstay - as you're banned from leaving the country and there's no way to do your visa or extension during that time (I did contact Immigration, and also asked the Courts and lawyers what to do...). I was lucky and got away with a 2 day overstay... another story (and a whole lot of luck).

Depends on where you are whether you're liable - nothing to do with it being your fault or not. In a soi, it's always you that's liable.

8 hours ago, sometime said:

Todays Daily Express

CORONAVIRUS spread from a science laboratory in Wuhan and not a ‘wet market', a group of Chinese scientists have sensationally claimed.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1242801/coronavirus-lab-leak-chinese-pathogen-laboratory-scientists-wuhan-wet-market-bioweapon

Yes, only the most educated members of TVC will be familiar with the Daily Express.

1 hour ago, nrasmussen said:

If it is this one:

http://sescimande.net/Self-Screening/

then it is in Thai, English, and Chinese.

It's comical.

Most carriers are asymptomatic.

9 hours ago, bangkokfrog said:

How long before the Thai government tells people that the masks most people use are totally ineffective against the virus? Does someone up there own shares in a mask company?

 

Also, the "screening form" developed by these four government bodies can be easily simplified: "Do you have a fever? If so, see doctor!"

 

Why would they do that? or advise people that they're far more likely to pick up a virus on their hands riding the escalator, pressing lift buttons, opening the door leaving the toilet after washing hands... or remind them that this COVID virus is airborne and will go into their eyes if they don't wear swimming goggles when they go to a crowded Mall on Saturday???

I prefer downloading to streaming - so best set up qbittorrent and Plex. No need for a VPN to do that here... 

On 2/8/2020 at 5:47 PM, bkk6060 said:

So many ridiculous uneducated waste of time and money posts on this subject.

Wasting 2000 b a month on these <deleted> TV services.

Buy an MXQ pro or similar android box.

Connects to your internet and TV.

I get live TV, every movie, TV series, Netflix, HBO, Showtime, blah blah.

All for free just the cost of the box which was 1700 b.

Basic TV is free in my building. Fast modern internet 550 b a month.

550 a month for everything in the world.

 

Weird - when I search for MXQ Pro I see prices of 455baht and 599 for the 4K box... however, I already have the PC connected upstairs and PLEX app in the living room, so no need for that. 

Fantastic. I remember a friend of mine working in a school with about 12 teachers, averaging between 38 and 42k.

Over a couple of years the holidays were mostly revised - apparently it's best for them to sit in school rewriting their curriculum (basically copied from the contents page of whatever books the school provided).

Some five years later they were all replaced with English teachers from agencies earning around 21 to 24k per month....

So apparently this kind of publicity is an excellent way of bringing in excellent teachers to teach English at lower prices.

I guess by now the salary should be down to about 10k per month with a free sleeping bag thrown in and bus fare home at the end of term...

So maybe there will be generals and colonels who will go jobless… Sacking underlings is one thing. Attacking the toxic culture of a feudal military requires much more than this.

The answers they're giving are entirely aimed to keep a tight reign on political power.

I loved the way he tries to separate the act of the shooter from the Army. We have a soldier who ceased to be a soldier because he was shooting at civilians whilst not under orders, as opposed to the ones that do it under orders.

Prayuth now ordered the Fine Arts Department to produce shows about 'war history' to bolster patriotism among Thais. Strengthen “unity” and promote “awareness of the roles of key institutions — the nation, religion and monarchy — in helping overcome crises…”. Given that most of the propaganda will be about the military, their “reputation” will also be bolstered.

I never bought it online - I got it first from the private hospital, the doctor directed me to a pharmacy in Sukumvit 71 (saved a ton of cash buying the Brilinta pills to go with them).

Very cheap - I'd just go to the pharmacy instead of searching online.

On 2/10/2020 at 11:00 AM, Peterw42 said:

That security scenario would fail if the general shot dead the guard, which is what happen at the armory

Funny they didn't think to post a guard without giving him a key to the padlock.

This is quite stunning. Whilst this was on TV at my father-in-law's house, they agreed with me that we shouldn't just sit blaming the soldier - have some understanding that it's probably the Army that drove him to it. Not a justification by any means, but it's better to understand his motivation for this crazy and inevitably devastating outburst than just condemn like a moron.

17 minutes ago, SiSePuede419 said:

Shot his commander, an old lady, shot at a Wat, killed 10 people on the way to the mall.

 

But the only thing I have read is he "stole" the weapons needed to do all that.

 

What. We have here. Is an.

 

Inventory management problem. ????

Lolz no, what they do is put a padlock on the shed, then they tie the big brass key around the neck of a conscript and tell him to sit outside on a plastic chair to guard the shed.

Wow - long thread.

Simpler solution - don't use Windows at all, then you don't need to become so incredibly expert and find such complicated methods of making the software do anything you want without doing tons of stuff you don't want.

I tested Ubuntu out in 2007, now I'm using Mint - and I find it very hard to use a Windows machine. Mac's are good too, but I find the one button mouse thing a bit of a headache.

22 minutes ago, Gecko123 said:

There are some striking similarities between this case and Charles Whitman, the University of Texas Austin shooter who back in 1966 became one of America's first mass murderers. Both had sniper training and both began their rampages by killing personal associates before going on to kill indiscriminately. Link to a documentary on Whitman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy1B5mfzCBA

 

Myself, I refuse to believe that the Khorat shooter was an otherwise well-adjusted guy who went on this shooting spree over a brokerage fee dispute. There had to be some underlying anger at society in general for someone to have done this. His Facebook postings suggest to me a possible strong need for recognition, that he may have seen himself as an avenger of wrongs, and enjoyed a feeling of holding the power of life and death over people.

 

My theory is that this guy may have had narcissistic tendencies, felt under appreciated and under recognized (perhaps feeling special resentment towards the wealthy), and his rampage was a frenzy of narcissistic rage. I think his psychological motives for the shooting need to be delved into fully, and I suspect that there is much more to this story than just a business dispute.

 

We see a lot of 'narcissistic tendencies' - watching Prayuth deal with people, turning up at the site of mass murder and waving, smiling, and doing mini-heart signs at the cameras to entertain his fans... We see it also with a great many number of Thai drivers who would rather shoot someone than admit that they shouldn't really be pushing to get ahead of people already exceeding speed limits in busy traffic.

This behaviour is a mirror of some common issues with Thai culture.

With a complete absence of police on the roads, every factory in my area has ancient busses, mostly reconstructed with scrap metal and polyfiller, that pump out huge clouds from their exhausts even at idling speeds. 

They're obviously too busy getting their hair clipped every two days and practising the new (extremely comical if you've seen it) salutes with the chest puff and head twitch.

30 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

I live in rural western central Thailand and it's the same here. My mother in law think I'm crazy to have bought 6 months of food for all the (extended) familly. She said the virus cannot come here. Maybe she forgot one of her friend is a taxi driver in Bangkok and he come back every week.

The main fear comes from what they call 'superspreaders'. Just one person with no symptoms... and these spreaders are probably going to be working in a hospital or taxi - or 7-11.

11 hours ago, connda said:

Seeing that they seem to only sell Ethyl alcohol instead of isopropyl alcohol, you end up smelling like you've taken a bath in booze.

I got a litre of isopropyl locally online last week, so it seems that they do seem to sell it.

12 hours ago, rech said:

Speed cameras are all located on Waze, why is it so complicated for most of you to use the only one useful application to know where are cameras ? are you all so old fashioned ?

Waze sucks for coming up with stupid routes - it's faster and better to use Google Maps and not speed.