I don't travel TO work. I'm AT work 24 hrs. a day, 6 days week. I'm getting paid right now to reply to you. Someone would literally have to die to pull me away from replying to you right now. (not a compliment, just fact)

Then I will travel to the scene, pick up the deceased and take it just shy of its "final destination."

If I should happen to get pulled over for going 10 mph over the speed limit, the officer would gladly let me go or give me a police escort depending on the situation.

It is my job and a privilege to do my job which includes driving. As I stated earlier, it is also my right to travel as a licensed driver.

I also have verifiable proof of my pristine driving record.

Post my bail. I'm not falling that old trick again.

Pretty good video. Specific things:

Too many prostitutes: Most of the non-Thai people that complain about this went to the wrong places in Thailand. Pattaya was a tiny fishing village before the Vietnam war. Then, soldiers started getting shipped into the country for R&R. The Thai government didn't really know what to do with them, so they sorta passed the buck and decided to send them to Pattaya to relax. Bunch of stressed out dudes there, nothing to do, high demand for alternate activities ... the market answered.

Fast forward to today, and Pattaya knows exactly what put it on the map. I hate that place -- it is like what would happen if you took the worst/sleaziest elements of Vegas and Tijuana, and then built a "city" around it. Shittiest beach in Thailand, chock full of sleaze, disgusting. However, it is one of the most major tourist destinations. Gee, why could that be? Is it in spite of the nature of the place, or because of it? No false advertising here, you know what you're getting when you book a trip there. And if that is your thing, more power to ya.

Now, I don't want to act like prostitution exists in Pattaya and Soi Cowboy / Patpong in Bangkok, and is absent elsewhere. Far from it. Every town, down on to tiny ones, likely has a red-light district and brothels. The ones you hear about are sex tourism pits like those major ones, but the trade is alive and well pretty much everywhere -- and mostly caters to local Thais.

I've honestly never been to such an establishment or sought those services (in 11 years of being here), but I don't care that they are available. The most significant negative is that they are NOT well-regulated like, say, what I've heard about Amsterdam. Prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand. So the de-facto situation is that brothels have to pay protection money to police in order to avoid getting shut down or "inspected", etc.

Corruption is a major problem -- much worse than prostitution, in my opinion.


Too many ladyboys: It is certainly true that there are more trans people per capita here than pretty much anywhere else that I know of. It took me a while, being a country kid from Kansas, but I see that in pretty much the same light as the German narrator in the video at this point. Acceptance is good. You do you, man.

As a stereotype on the flip side of the coin, I think the ladyboys tend to be great in custom interaction kinds of jobs. Cashiers at 7-11, waitpeople at restaurants, etc. Polite, attentive, helpful. And often the most willing to attempt to use English. A lot of the best students that I've taught English to have been ladyboy leaning.


Freedom: I'm with @Mordhaus here. When your personal liberty is mainly due to the apathy / incompetence of the governing authority, and they may choose to get off their asses and revoke that at any time ... perhaps it isn't something to brag about. Very basic stuff like dissenting speech and protesting is met with being carted off for little re-education chats, etc. Pretty scary shit, actually.


Basically I tend to think that just like anywhere on Earth, there's a lot of good here and plenty of bad too. There's plenty of legitimate gripes with cultural elements and stuff in Thailand, but the most common ones (that the video pretty accurately listed) are pretty insignificant in my opinion.

He is destined to serve another term. He is the greatest distraction for the Military Industrial Complex. Also he is a great source of comedy material. THE DONALD 2020!

So then you DON'T think people trying to stop murder are OK if it means making someone brown your neighbor, only when it means you get to force your quite suspect, legally and scientifically invalid 'values' on someone else with no consequences for yourself.

Many of those countries have taken in more asylum seekers than America, and most have more refugees per capita. Even evil Iran took in more total.....and 4 times as many per capita.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/largest-refugee-populations-country-destination

Often America doesn't make the top ten list....
https://www.immigroup.com/news/refugees-where-do-they-go-top-refugee-destinations

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refugee_population

We are incredibly far from the world's asylum when even China takes in more refugees. We won't even save our international neighbors from certain death.

https://thinkprogress.org/juan-coronilla-guerrero-deportation-92742bd26e01/
Even if they're police.....
https://thinkprogress.org/constantino-morales-warned-he-could-be-killed-if-he-was-deported-then-he-was-edd8ba590298/

Yet you still believe (with zero attempt to verify) we take in more than any other nation, and far more than our share, enough so that we should deny any more even if death is certain, let someone else save them (or not).
You're listening to too much Alex Jones again and believing the insane raving bullshit without question.

By far the best class I took while getting my Computer Science degree was "Software Engineering Project". We got assigned a project and divided up into teams including CS, CIS, and MIS majors. The MIS people managed and divided up assignments, and the CS people handled different aspects of the programming, like data structures / algorithms / UI / whatever.

This looks like an extremely fun and interesting extension of that. There's CS guys programming, EE guys doing hardware / sensors / haptic panels, full-on Engineering guys doing fluid dynamics, etc.

Destin seems like a great "jack of all trades" type that can get in there and ask really smart questions off the cuff. All the guys geeking out and being impressed with his intuitions and yet hesitant to confirm anything is hilarious to watch.

Probably designed and built outside of Calgary, imho. The Daytona 500 is a Michelin Red Book destination compared to the Stampede.

Yes, chapter 5 is the "Lotus Eaters" chapter, with Bloom at the Turkish Baths at the end.

My favorite chapters are 15 "Circe" in the red-light district where Bloom and Daedalus are visited by apparitions, both euphoric and demonic.

And Chapter 17 "Ithaca" the one written entirely in a question and answer format:

What act did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination?
At the housesteps of the 4th Of the equidifferent uneven numbers, number 7
Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket of his
trousers to obtain his latchkey.

Was it there?
It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on
the day but one preceding.

Why was he doubly irritated?
Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded
himself twice not to forget.

Wow, this really is the greatest spreadsheet in the world. This is not a tribute.

I've always wondered how they figured out who got paid what on international mail.

And sometimes those mailmen really do work hard to get the mail where it's supposed to go:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/iceland/articles/letter-no-address-hand-drawn-map-delivered-remote-iceland/

MOD? Bah.

youtube-dl -f 140 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m9OgVkAbE8
[youtube] 3m9OgVkAbE8: Downloading webpage
[youtube] 3m9OgVkAbE8: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] 3m9OgVkAbE8: Extracting video information
WARNING: unable to extract uploader nickname
[youtube] 3m9OgVkAbE8: Downloading MPD manifest
[download] Destination: The Floppotron - Eye of the Tiger-3m9OgVkAbE8.m4a
[download] 100% of 1.89MiB in 00:00
[ffmpeg] Correcting container in "The Floppotron - Eye of the Tiger-3m9OgVkAbE8.m4a"

*quality Destin as always ... love his enthusiasm!

This video Destin does on the structure of the Prince Rupert Drop is really interesting.
https://videosift.com/video/Glass-Exploding-at-130-000-fps-aka-Prince-Ruperts-Drop

That scream - distrubing does not describe it well enough.

<Nerd>
Why would they delete the pattern at the source before it was confirmed that they arrived at the destination successfully? That's 1992 networking technology if you enable reliable network packets

... either that or she's destined to be a plumber *quality fearlessness

No reason at all for a healthy young person to get insurance under this plan, even with the lower 1:5 premium ration allowed. I think this is the plan, make it destined to fail so it can be scrapped entirely in 3 years.