reader

From The Nation A 61-year-old Belgian man, who goes by the name Willie, has been earning a living in Singburi by collecting empty bottles. Willie lives with his 32-year-old boyfriend Cherdsak (surname withheld) and the boyfriend’s parents in Khai Bang Rachan district. Apart from collecting bottles, the family also earns a living from gathering raintree leaves to be sold to fertiliser factories for 35 baht per bag. Cherdsak said he met Willie three years ago in Pattaya, adding that the Belgian man left his country after being fed up with life as a family man. He had been forced to marry a woman in his younger years and their son is now managing the family tour agency. "Willie never returned to Belgium after leaving it six years ago," Cherdsak said. Meanwhile, Cherdchai’s father Ping said Willie is a good son-in-law as he works hard and helps with household chores. He added that Willie earns about 1,000 baht a month from collecting bottles, and this covers the family’s power and water bills. “My son asked Willie to stop collecting bottles, but he does not listen,” Ping said.

From Thai PBS World Japanese Prime minister Fumio Kishida pledged on Monday to take urgent steps to tackle the country’s declining birth rate, saying it was “now or never” for one of the world’s oldest societies. Japan has in recent years been trying to encourage its people to have more children with promises of cash bonuses and better benefits, but it remains one of the most expensive places in the world to raise a child, according to surveys. Births plunged to a new record low last year, according to official estimates, dropping below 800,000 for the first time – a watershed moment that came eight years earlier than the government had expected. That most likely precipitated a further population decline in a country where the median age is 49, the highest in the world behind only the tiny city-state of Monaco. “Our nation is on the cusp of whether it can maintain its societal functions,” Kishida said in a policy speech at the opening of this year’s parliamentary session. Japan is the third-most-expensive country globally to raise a child, according to YuWa Population Research, behind only China and South Korea, countries also seeing shrinking populations in worrying signs for the global economy. Other countries are also coming to grips with ageing and shrinking populations. Last week, China reported that its population dropped in 2022 for the first time in 60 years.

This is a case for Hercule Poirot. After all, a good affair was put to death for reasons as yet undetermined.

The first article places DJ Station in Soi 4. Obviously "ChatGPT" has never been to Silom. From National Public Radio (USA) This 22-year-old is trying to save us from ChatGPT before it changes writing forever While many Americans were nursing hangovers on New Year's Day, 22-year-old Edward Tian was working feverishly on a new app to combat misuse of a powerful, new artificial intelligence tool called ChatGPT. Given the buzz it's created, there's a good chance you've heard about ChatGPT. It's an interactive chatbot powered by machine learning. The technology has basically devoured the entire Internet, reading the collective works of humanity and learning patterns in language that it can recreate. All you have to do is give it a prompt, and ChatGPT can do an endless array of things: write a story in a particular style, answer a question, explain a concept, compose an email — write a college essay — and it will spit out coherent, seemingly human-written text in seconds. The technology is both awesome — and terrifying. "I think we're absolutely at an inflection point," Tian says. "This technology is incredible. I do believe it's the future. But, at the same time, it's like we're opening Pandora's Box. And we need safeguards to adopt it responsibly." Tian is a senior at Princeton University, where he majors in computer science and minors in journalism. Before his recent foray into the limelight, Tian's biggest plans were graduating college and getting his wisdom teeth pulled. Now he's fielding calls from venture capital firms, education leaders, and global media outlets. Over the last couple years, Tian has been studying an AI system called GPT-3, a predecessor to ChatGPT that was less user-friendly and largely inaccessible to the general public because it was behind a paywall. As part of his studies this fall semester, Tian researched how to detect text written by the AI system while working at Princeton's Natural Language Processing Lab. Then, as the semester was coming to a close, OpenAI, the company behind GPT-3 and other AI tools, released ChatGPT to the public for free. For the millions of people around the world who have used it since, interacting with the technology has been like getting a peek into the future; a future that not too long ago would have seemed like science fiction. Despite having studied AI, Tian, like the rest of us, was gobsmacked by the power of ChatGPT. He and his friends used it to write poems and raps about each other. "And it was like: 'Wow, these results are pretty good,'" Tian says. It seemed like everyone on campus was talking about how remarkable this new technology was. Sure, the text it generates is pretty formulaic and not always accurate. But it also feels like the beginning of a revolution. For many users of the new technology, wonderment quickly turned to alarm. How many jobs will this kill? Will this empower nefarious actors and further corrupt our public discourse? How will this disrupt our education system? What is the point of learning to write essays at school when AI — which is expected to get exponentially better in the near future — can do that for us? Stephen Marche, writing in The Atlantic last month, declared "The College Essay Is Dead." He paints ChatGPT and the AI revolution as part of an existential crisis for the humanities. "The essay, in particular the undergraduate essay, has been the center of humanistic pedagogy for generations," Marche writes. "It is the way we teach children how to research, think, and write. That entire tradition is about to be disrupted from the ground up." Edward vs The Machine After the fall semester ended, Tian traveled home to Toronto for the holidays. He hung out with his family. He watched Netflix. But he couldn't shake thoughts about the monumental challenges confronting humanity due to rapidly advancing AI. And then he had an idea. What if he applied what he had learned at school over the last couple years to help the public identify whether something has been written by a machine? Tian already had the know-how and even the software on his laptop to create such a program. Ironically, this software, called GitHub Co-Pilot, is powered by GPT-3. With its assistance, Tian was able to create a new app within three days. It's a testament to the power of this technology to make us more productive. On January 2nd, Tian released his app. He named it GPTZero. It basically uses ChatGPT against itself, checking whether "there's zero involvement or a lot of involvement" of the AI system in creating a given text. When Tian went to bed that night, he didn't expect much for his app. "When I put this out there, I just thought maybe a few dozen people at best might try it," Tian says. "I was not expecting what happened." When Tian woke up, his phone had blown up. He saw countless texts and DMs from journalists, principals, teachers, you name it, from places as far away as France and Switzerland. His app, which is hosted by a free platform, became so popular it crashed. Excited by the popularity and purpose of his app, the hosting platform has since granted Tian the resources needed to scale the app's services to a mass audience. Fighting The Hallmarkization Of Everything Tian says he has a couple primary motivations for creating GPTZero. The first is transparency. "Humans deserve to know when something is written by a human or written by a machine," he says. Along these lines, one obvious application for GPTZero is to help teachers identify whether their students are plagiarizing their essays from ChatGPT. "Teachers from all over the world are worried about this," Tian says. Some in the technology world, however, are not quite sold that copying and pasting what ChatGPT spits out is even a problem. "'ChatGPT plagiarism,' is a complete non-issue," tweeted Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist and Internet pioneer, earlier this month. "If you can't out-write a machine, what are you doing writing?" Elon Musk, one of the original co-founders of OpenAI, recently tweeted, "It's a new world. Goodbye homework!" in response to reports that schools were imposing strict new measures against ChatGPT plagiarism. Of course, these are just flippant tweets. But it really does feel like we've entered a new world where we're being forced to re-evaluate our education system and even the value — or at least the method — of teaching kids how to write. Many of us lost our will — even our ability — to remember phone numbers when cell phones came along. By outsourcing memorization to a machine, we've become dependent on it to call our friends and family. You might say it's been for the best, and it's freed our minds to concentrate on other matters. Or you might consider it a kind of de-evolution, a dumbing down of our mental abilities. Don't lose your cell phone! Now humanity faces the prospect of an even greater dependence on machines. It's possible we're heading towards a world where an even larger swath of the populace loses their ability to write well. It's a world in which all of our written communication might become like a Hallmark card, written without our own creativity, personality, ideas, emotions, or idiosyncrasies. Call it the Hallmarkization of everything. But at least when we give people Hallmark cards, people know we're giving them Hallmark cards. If you use ChatGPT to write your friend a congratulations or an apology, they might not even know it was written by a machine. Which brings us to the other purpose that Tian envisions for his app: to identify and incentivize originality in human writing. "We're losing that individuality if we stop teaching writing at schools," Tian says. "Human writing can be so beautiful, and there are aspects of it that computers should never co-opt. And it feels like that might be at risk if everybody is using ChatGPT to write." Tian is no Luddite. He isn't trying to stop AI in its tracks. He believes that's impossible, and, he says, he opposes blanket bans against use of ChatGPT, like the one recently announced by New York City public schools. Students, he believes, will use the technology anyway. And, he says, it's important they're able to learn how to use it. They need to be aware of the technological changes that are sweeping our world. "It doesn't make sense that we go into that future blindly," he says. "Instead, you need to build the safeguards to enter that future." As for his plans after college, Tian says, the excitement — and clear demand — for his new app has convinced him that he should concentrate on making it a better, more accurate product. "If you're a teacher or an educator, our team — which right now is just me and my best friend from college, who just joined yesterday — we would love to talk to you," Tian says. So if you encounter some text that you suspect may be written by a machine, maybe run it through Tian's new app? You can find it at GPTZero.me.

These topics are discussed at length so I encourage you to do a more diligent search of the posts. Before you do, however, ask yourself whether you're paying more for air fare than you have in the past and how much more you're paying for food and accommodations in your home country. These expenses have also risen in SE Asia so don't be surprised if tip expectations have likewise risen.

There you've gone and done it. I won't be able to sleep tonight. Fresh Boys in my favorite bar and I'll l be fantasizing about all the way out fantasies that I always hoped I'd have with a Fresh Boys boy but didn't.

From Pattaya Mail By Barry Kenyon A random survey of 100 Pattaya expats has thrown up suggestions to reduce overcrowding at immigration offices and transportation offices. The questionnaire survey was conducted publicly in Jomtien, and also with members of local expat clubs, during the period January 18-20. The research arose after many expats complained about the surge in international tourist arrivals, partly due to increased flights landing at neighboring U-tapao airport, which has resulted in complaints about the ability of local bureaucracies to handle the tourist boom. Almost all those surveyed were dismayed by the ongoing queues at local immigration every workday, and especially on Mondays. They claimed that the majority of those queuing were new arrivals reporting their local address on the infamous TM30 forms which require proof of residence such as a hotel receipt, a rental agreement and even a ‘tabean bahn’ or property ownership booklet. Alan Greene, a long term Pattaya resident, said, “The paperwork and inconvenience far outweighs any advantages and I very much doubt if foreign criminals or undesirables would give their real address anyway.” In response, immigration officers said the TM30 reporting could indeed be done online by hotels or condominiums, but some hosts were not conscientious about their duty or failed to tell customers they had done so, or did not give them the official receipt to place in their passport. They also stressed that the separate 90 days reporting by expats was now done in the carpark booth rather than in the immigration building to reduce queuing pressures. A scheme to allow online registration and online payment for some visa extensions of stay or renewals was currently being piloted in the Bangkok area with results and recommendations expected later in the year. Expats also complained that they were being fined for not having earlier reported on the TM30 form when they wanted a further service such as a visa extension or a certificate of residence to open a bank account or to apply for a driving licence. To these points, immigration responded that the land transportation office and the banks require recent proof of residence with supporting documentary evidence. A general finding of the expat survey was that there is need for an online reporting system for all, with the initial address remaining correct until the foreigner changes it electronically. Some well-informed expats referred to the Foreigners in Cambodia Database which allegedly has these merits across the border. Those questioned in the survey also referred to the long queues for driving licence renewals at the land transportation office. Appointments can be made online, but a waiting period of several weeks is allegedly the norm. Staff at the bureau said some testing and training functions had been delegated to approved and registered driving schools, but it was still necessary for all applicants physically to appear at the center. This was to enable any checks, if thought necessary, and to take a head and shoulders photo which was then embossed onto the plastic driving licence card. Under the current national rules, a Thai driving licence or renewal cannot be issued without the candidate being present at the final stage of authorization.

Benjamin Ryan and Matt Lavietes The only HIV vaccine in a late-stage trial has failed, researchers announced Wednesday, dealing a significant blow to the effort to control the global HIV epidemic and adding to a decadeslong roster of failed attempts. Known as Mosaico, the trial was the product of a public-private partnership including the U.S. government and the pharmaceutical giant Janssen. It was run out of eight nations in Europe and the Americas, including the U.S., starting in 2019. Researchers enrolled nearly 3,900 men who have sex with men and transgender people, all deemed at substantial risk of HIV. The leaders of the study decided to discontinue the mammoth research effort after an independent data and safety monitoring board reviewed the trial’s findings and saw no evidence the vaccine lowered participants’ rate of HIV acquisition. “It’s obviously disappointing,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, who as the long-time head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was an integral partner in the trial, said of the vaccine’s failure. However, he said, “there are a lot of other approaches” early in the HIV-vaccine research pipeline that he finds promising. “I don’t think that people should give up on the field of the HIV vaccine,” Fauci said. Fauci said that a critical limitation of the Mosaico vaccine was that it elicited what are known as non-neutralizing — as opposed to neutralizing — antibodies against HIV. “It is becoming clear,” he said, “that vaccines that do not induce neutralizing antibodies are not effective against HIV.” Up-and-coming HIV vaccine innovations, including efforts that rely upon the cutting-edge mRNA vaccine technology behind some of the coronavirus vaccines, may hold the key, Fauci said. The critical problem that has bedeviled HIV vaccine research for decades, Fauci noted, is a crucial weakness that the virus already successfully exploits: The natural immune response to infection is not sufficient to thwart the virus. In the decades since, there have been nine late-stage clinical trials of HIV vaccines, including Mosaico and Imbokodo, plus one, called PrEPVacc, that is still underway in Africa. However, the vaccine in PrEPVacc is not considered to be on a direct path to licensure if it demonstrates efficacy. Only one of these vaccines has shown any efficacy — and only at a modest level, not considered robust enough for regulatory approval — in a trial conducted in Thailand between 2003 and 2006, the findings of which were published in 2009. In the years since, a phalanx of global researchers has studied the Thai trial in hopes of developing insights to inform further HIV-vaccine development. The yearslong effort to design the Imbokodo and Mosaico vaccines was in part grounded in an attempt to build on the modest success of the Thai trialin hopes of developing insights to inform further HIV-vaccine development. “We had hoped that we would see some signal of efficacy from this vaccine,” said Dr. Susan Buchbinder, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who co-led the Mosaico trial. She added that, promisingly, as in the Imbokodo trial, there were no evident concerns about the vaccine’s safety. Jennifer Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at Kaiser Family Foundation, said the trial’s failure is a “stark reminder of just how elusive an HIV vaccine really is and why this kind of research continues to be important.” “Fortunately, there are a number of highly effective HIV prevention interventions already,” Kates added. “The challenge is to scale them up to reach all at risk.” Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, in which people at risk of HIV take antiretroviral medications in advance of potential exposure to the virus, is highly effective at preventing infection but remains vastly underutilized in the U.S. and around the world. Additionally, research published in the mid-2000s showed that voluntary medical male circumcision lowers the risk of female-to-male HIV acquisition by about 60%. This led to a major effort to promote circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the HIV cases in the world. Globally, an estimated 38.4 million people were living with HIV in 2021, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Some 1.5 million people currently contract the virus annually, a figure that has more than halved since its peak in 1996.

Thank you, Adonis. 🙄

From The Nation Bangkok city officials are negotiating with street vendors in the Silom area to get them to move from their present locations on the pavement to four nearby “hawker centres”. Deputy Bangkok Governor Jakkapan Phiewngam told a press conference at the City Hall on Saturday that the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has prepared the hawker centres on Convent Road, a spot opposite Sri Maha Mariamman Temple (also known as Wat Khaek), inside Soi Sala Daeng, and at Patpong Night Market. Rent is 150 baht per day, Jakkapan said. There are 69 street vendors on sidewalks in the Silom area, most of whom sell food, Jakkapan said. Thirty operate at night while the other 39 start serving customers from 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm. He said that the BMA started “seeking cooperation” from the Silom street vendors to move on January 17. Some have started moving to the new locations provided. “From January 17, the management of street vending in the Silom became stricter. All sides have agreed on the need for that so that the city can be lively and orderly while the vendors can survive,” Jakkapan said. The BMA has cancelled permission for street vendors to operate on the stretch of Silom Road leading to Rama IV Road following complaints that they made it difficult for pedestrians to use the pavement, he said.

Wow. When I compare that to what you can expect from Saphan Kwai shops for minimum 700-800 tip, there's no contest. And at 365 The River, where a 1,000 "B2B" tip gets you full service, I've found it well worth going out of your way a bit. Having said that, you can also find very satisfactory outcomes in Silom area shops (where most shops don't have minimum tip) if you chat with potential masseur before committing.

I'm a bit surprised that Queen seems to be reorganizing the layout that impressed me (on two previous visits) with its great stage and comfortable seating. Unless of course they're thinking of making it more of a night club type of venue. The layout never appeared to be the problem that posters complained about when it was New Twilight. I believe you were wise not to make an issue of it but agree it would effect my decision on a repeat encounter. He may well have had a legitimate reason for leaving early but he also had an obligation to inform you of that the night before while you were negotiating tip. Thanks for great report.

This place appears to be a short walk from the On Nut BTS station on the Sukhumvit line. Could you please let us know if minimum tip included afters.

From Pattaya News China Allows Group Tours to Resume to Thailand After three years of travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, China has dropped a restriction on group tours to Thailand and 19 other countries as of Friday, January 20th, 2023 in a sudden announcement. China had previously dropped overall individual international travel restrictions earlier this month. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism in China made the announcement, which also included countries like Russia and New Zealand. ====================== The Bangkok Post reports that an average of 34 flights from China will arrive daily between Jan. 19 and 25.

The Thaiger repots that opening of Bangkok‘s new central train station Bangkok Aphiwat Central Station did not go so smoothly yesterday with the first service to Chiang Mai departing three hours later than scheduled and many more delayed services. BBC Thai and CH7 report that services were delayed to await the arrival of Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob, who was rather late to an opening ceremony he presided over, according to netizens.

Coconuts Bangkok reports that the new Pathumwananurak Park is now open. The park is fashioned in the form of a Thai numeral “9,” as it was built soon after the death of King Rama IX.

Just one more reason to be cautious with the apps. From Al Jezzera What happens when you fall victim to a cyber scam? And who’s really at fault? In Cambodia, an entire economy of these scams is operating, and the scammers Al Jazeera found in a city called Sihanoukville are often held against their will. Tens of thousands of people are being trafficked, and authorities are alleged to be complicit. Continues with podcast https://www.aljazeera.com/podcasts/2023/1/16/in-cambodia-scammers-are-also-victims

From The Thaiger A new public park in Bangkok is opening soon. The construction of Pathum Wananurak Park was finished five years ago but it has never been opened to the public because two squatting families refused to move off the land. Pathum Wananurak Park is located next to CentralWorld shopping mall. The park took over a residential area called Rong Poon Community where 1,000 houses were situated. According to Khaosod, the 15.8-acre area is a public space but that did not stop a number of residents from building houses on the land with a view to staying there permanently. But, the Crown Property Bureau had other ideas and revealed a plan to turn the space into a public park. Some of the residents living there opposed the project because they had lived there for a long time.After several conflicts, prosecutions, and compensation payouts, most of the Rong Poon residents moved out of the area leaving only two houses on the land. The two families insisted on staying, saying they had a difficult life and could not afford to move. The two houses remained on the land until the park construction was completed in 2018. However, the Facebook page Street Hero V 3 recently announced that the houses had been removed. The details about the removal process and compensation were not reported and neither has the official opening of the park. Many Thai netizens revealed that they were happy to have the chance to enjoy a park after such a long wait, while others were worried about the two families. Netizens demanded to know more details about the eviction, where they are headed, and what support they got from the government but there has been no official announcement.

From Thai PBS World All passport applicants must now wait for the immigration department to reopen, after the government temporarily suspended operations at the passport office. The announcement came from Myanmar Overseas Employment Agencies Federation, saying that a notice had been received of a temporary cessation of all new passport-related activities. In recent weeks, the internal affairs and labour ministry decreed that only job-related passports were to be issued through a “Green Channel”, with the issuance of all other kinds of passport stopped since the end of December, 2022. A special exception was, however, granted to agencies providing pilgrimage services to Bodh Gaya, but this was also stopped after complaints that some agencies were abusing the special rule. Many netizens believe that this was to address the rampant corruption within the passport office, with officers making massive profits off agencies and individual applicants. They also believe that the decision to block the issuance of any more new passports temporarily is to keep more people in the country for the upcoming elections, in which that the military-led government is seeking retain power. There is yet to be any announcement as to when passport processing will resume.

Most Asian societies raise their children to respect elders. When they use expression "old man" it doesn't carry with it negative intentions and is in no sense a put down. I often refer to myself that way because that's what I am.

Nothing is written. 😉

Vietnam names woman interim president From VN Express Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan has been named the interim president of Vietnam Wednesday afternoon after the National Assembly dismissed President Nguyen Xuan Phuc from his position. The Constitution of Vietnam rules that the president, voted by the National Assembly among the assembly's deputies, is the head of state and represents the country in internal and external affairs. If the president fails to fulfill his jobs over a long time, the vice president will take over as interim president, until an official vote by the assembly.

From The Thaiger The Bank of Thailand (BoT) denied a claim made on social media that a man lost money from his bank account after recharging his phone at a public outlet. BoT believes the theft occurred because the man was a victim of a malware attack. Police also attributed the theft to malware, stating that the user had downloaded an unsafe dating app called “sweet meet.” The central bank issued a statement yesterday regarding the potential for mobile phone users to lose money through modified charging cables, reported Bangkok Post.Wisanusan Sam-pok revealed in a Facebook post on Sunday that 101,560 baht mysteriously disappeared from his bank account. Wisanusan said he did not use the phone other than to charge it in public. A BoT-Thai Bankers’ Association conducted an investigation and found that malware had infiltrated the man’s phone and tricked him into installing an illegal application. This allowed a hacker to remotely access the phone and transfer money from the user’s bank account while the phone was not in use by the owner. BoT issued a warning to mobile phone users to be cautious when opening unknown links, installing unverified apps, and using unsecured phones to make financial transactions. The bank also advised phone users to keep their mobile banking software fully updated in order to increase security. Deputy national police chief Pol Gen Torsak Sukwimol said the phone owner had installed an unsafe dating app named “Sweet meet” and that was the cause of the money theft.

From Pattaya Mail Pattaya police are calling the death of a Chinese tour guide who fell from the roof of a Naklua condominium suspicious. The body of Chen Pu Lin, 33, was found wearing only underwear outside the unnamed condo on Naklua Road Jan. 16. While Chen’s room was not ransacked, there were signs of forcible entry. A blood trail was found leading to the fifth floor and a pool of blood at the entry to the roof. Furthermore, security cameras captured Chen, with a head wound, running. His fall was not recorded, however. Colleagues told police four tour guides had come to Pattaya on Jan. 13 to scout out accommodations and attractions. But, this day, Chen said he felt ill and did not join them. The coworkers said Chen didn’t have any conflicts with anyone in Pattaya. Pattaya police called in Chonburi forensics specialists to collect evidence.

From Coconuts Bangkok Free shuttles linking Bangkok’s downtown rail terminal to the capital’s new main station will commence Thursday. To ease the transition of rail services from the Bangkok Railway Station to the Krung Thep Apiwat Grand Station – located about 10 kilometers away – regular buses will shuttle travelers between them. Thursday is when nearly half of the trains operating out of the former station (aka Hua Lamphong and actually a terminal) will move to the new national “terminal” (actually a station) in Bangkok’s Bang Sue district. Blue NGV buses will travel between the two stations every half hour between 4:30am and 11pm. So, where to find the bus? As of 5pm on Tuesday, a BMTA rep said that they hadn’t figured that out yet. The service will be run jointly by the bus operator Bangkok Mass Transit Authority and the state railway.