Building fire safety drive to kick off

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Bangkok officials will next week start inspecting more than 1,000 buildings to boost safety following Saturday’s blaze at the Fico Place building.

The buildings, mainly in Phaya Thai, Pathumwan, Klong Toey and Watthana districts, were built before 1992 and not required to install sprinklers under the 1992 Building Safety Control Act.

Among the buildings in Watthana district is the 13-storey Fico Place, the seventh floor of which caught fire. The blaze spread to upper floors partly because it lacked a sprinkler system.

For other buildings with no sprinklers, Mr Winai said they are “moderately safe” because their owners have to comply with basic safety measures, including having fire exits, smoke detectors and pictures of floor plans to guide people to exits.

During the inspection next week, building owners will be asked to give floor plans to officials who will store them in a database for later reference in case of emergency.

Following the fire at the 33-year-old Fico Place, City Hall hopes to draft a new ordinance demanding that owners of older buildings comply with the 1992 Building Safety Control Act.

However, Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra said the city needs to consider the idea carefully to avoid legal disputes as it seems the act will be used retroactively.

In another legal move, city council chairman Suthichai Weerakulsunthorn said he will ask councillors to consider an amendment of the 1992 act to demand buildings built prior to that year have safety devices such as sprinklers and heat detectors installed.

Meanwhile, an initial inspection of Fico Place by the Engineering Institute of Thailand found the fire did not affect the building’s structure.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/283200/building-fire-safety-drive-to-kick-off

What exactly is Bluetooth? Practical, unfortunately.

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Bluetooth is actually a communications device electrode, two-way radio. Alongside a short radio waves (Short-Range Radio Links) without applying wires or cable connections. Plus never should travel a directly line because infrared. That is more convenient than the infrared. The particular connection between cell phones as well as mobile devices throughout previous versions. And scientific studies. Not merely found on the data alone. However also in order to learn the entire transmission of voice. Headset for use with cell phones.
Recommended for individuals whom are looking for Bluetooth. Alpine KCE-400BT Get full on-screen control and even full hands-free functionality from your own Bluetooth wireless development suitable cellular phone.

Alpine KCE-400BT Bluetooth Excellent BT Product By RC

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I recently received not to mention setup the entire 400BT for my Alpine CDA-9883 and even couldn’t be happier. Sound quality throughout calls is actually great, the auto interrupt functions flawlessly as well as making use of the mobile function alongside within the CDA-9883′s menu you are able to promptly redial and check missed calls.

http://www.alpine-kce-400bt.com/
The entire BT audio works perfect as well, I’ve only streamed Pandora from my HTC thunderbolt thus far yet the entire bluetooth pairing functions seamlessly not to mention detects BT audio output immediately.
Just drawback (particularly minor) is a sequence that must be accomplished throughout purchase that would pair with a particular alpine headunit. For mine as soon as i wired the particular 400-BT i had that would do the entire next plus the two procedures which seem to trip individuals up (my self included) happen to be 2 plus 4. Every one of the in it took about a great hr and in addition a half to be able to cable as well as setup (a lot of that spent finding the particular under sequence).
1) set BLUETOOTH –> in order to Adapter within the CDA-9883′s menu
2) Cycle the entire ignition (turn it off and in return on)
3) Go into the actual menu choose BLUETOOTH > Paired Devices, that should really just about all occur empty
4) Once within the paired device menu, I set my cellphone that would discoverable and additionally it stored it
I’ve read on different forums which there will be slight variations with different headunits, nevertheless as soon as paired everything functions flawlessly. Good decision by Alpine to be able to outsource that would Parrot.

Brother HL-2270DW Printer is good, but be prepared to hack your printer

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The printer is good, if a bit loud. It works as promised, with easy set-up and good speed. This printer, however, is designed to make you send back perfectly good toner when you buy a new cartridge. Some printers continue to print when the toner is low. This one does not. That is not so bad, but there is not an override option. So, when it decides you are out of toner, that is it.

On previous Brother printers there was a hack to fool the printer. It involved putting electrical tape over an optical sensor. Those who did this said they got another 1000 pages from the cartridge. Of course, longer cartridge life does not make Brother any money, so this model was designed to prevent that hack. There is no optical sensor. There is a toner flag that you will have to reset.

This printer was designed to make you waste toner, Brother figuring that it can sell the printer itself for cheap so long as they make up the difference in frequent replacement cartridge sales. No one will buy a low-volume cartridge, so Brother designed the cartridges so that you cannot use all of them; they get to claim that they give you a lot of toner, and you buy cartridges as though they had not. This printer’s design was dictated by Brother’s desire to prevent a work-around that people had discovered for previous models. So, if you buy this printer, know that you will have to hack the printer cartridge to get the toner that you pay for. It is a different hack from previous models, this one increasing the chances that you will spill toner on yourself.

Of course, there is no flag to set on your starter-cartridge, so there is no way to hack that. When they say it is half full, know that you will only be able to use about half of that half-cartridge.

Brother HL-2270DW Review

Pay policy driving local bodies to wall

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The government’s policy of raising the salaries of bachelor’s degree holders is driving some local administration organisations to bankruptcy, the Municipality Assembly of Thailand said.

Sombat Chanasit, an executive member of the assembly, said about 80% of local administration staff nationwide will not be paid this month, if the government does not inject more money to cover their pay.

Some organisations’ coffers were running dry because government subsidy makes up 10% of their budget.

Up to 10 billion baht, which should have been allocated to the local organisations, has been diverted as a development fund overseen by MPs.

The government policy of increasing the minimum salary for bachelor degree holders to 15,000 baht a month was also placing a heavy burden on the organisations.

Mr Sombat said each small local administration organisation is spending about 200,000 baht a month on salaries. For larger organisations, salaries account for up to 3 million baht a month in spending.

“Some of the organisations are going bankrupt,” said Mr Sombat, also chairman of the tambon Mae Kree municipality in Phatthalung.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday awarded local administrations with outstanding work and management for last year. The ceremony was held at Government House.

Ms Yingluck said local administrations played a key role in conveying government policy to local people.

Mae Hong Son Provincial Administrative Organisation (PAO) received the first place award for PAO.

The first place municipal administration was awarded to Phra Ngam Tambon Municipality in Lop Buri province.

The first place Tambon Administrative Organisation (TAO) was awarded jointly to Ban Moh TAO in Phetchaburi, Kud Chompu TAO in Ubon Ratchathani, Don Kaeo TAO in Chiang Mai, Chong TAO in Trang and Laem Klad TAO in Trat.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/279106/pay-policy-driving-local-bodies-to-wall

Tiny primate ‘talks’ in ultrasound

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No bigger than a man’s hand, Tarsius syrichta can hear and emit sounds at a frequency that effectively gives it a private channel for issuing warnings or ferreting out crickets for a nighttime snack, the study found.

Only a handful of mammals are known to be able to send and receive vocal signals in the ultrasound range, above 20 kilohertz (kHz), including some whales, domestic cats and a few of the many species of bats.

And few of these can squeal, screech or squawk at the same sonic altitudes as the saucer-eyed tarsier, which up to now had been mistakenly described as being “ordinarily silent,” researchers found.

Its finely-tuned ears are capable of picking up frequencies above 90 kHz, and it can vocalise in a range around 70 kHz.

By comparison, humans generally can’t hear anything above 20 kHz, and a dog whistle is pitched to between 22 and 23 kHz.

A team of scientists from the United States and the Philippines led by Marissa Ramsier of Humboldt State University in California gathered their inaudible results in two ways.

First they captured six of the docile nocturnal creatures and placed them inside custom-build sound chambers to test their sensitivity to high-pitched sounds.

After the experiments, the rare and endangered animals were returned unharmed to their natural habitat, on the Philippine island of Mindanao.

To measure the frequency of the tarsier’s ultrasound chatter, the researchers recorded another 35 specimens in the wild.

“The minimum frequency of the call — 67 kHz — is the highest value of any terrestrial mammal, excluding bats and some rodents,” said the study, published in the British Royal Society’s Biology Letters.

What advantages do the tarsier’s high-end vocal acrobatics confer? There are several, the researchers suggest.

One is being able to sound a silent alarm.

“Ultrasonic calls can be advantageous to both the signaller and receiver as they are potentially difficult for predators to detect and localise,” the researchers explain.

The tarsier’s exceptional hearing may also facilitate acoustic eavesdropping on noises emitted by prey, which range from crickets and cockroaches — their staple diet — to the occasional moth, katydid or hatchling bird.

Finally, the study speculates, being able to communicate in ultrasonic ranges filters out all the low-frequency “noise” and hubbub of a tropical environment.

Tarsier’s have five-digit hands that eerily resemble — in emaciated form — their human counterparts.

Lacking the typical “night vision” of other nocturnal creatures, they also have — in relation to their body size — the largest eyes of any primate on Earth.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/278823/tiny-primate-talks-in-ultrasound

Choosing a school is no child’s play

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I spent nine years in all girls’ school, from primary to middle school. Spending nearly half of my educational life at an old institution known for strict rules and regulations that dictate everything from hairstyle to the colour of the ribbons to be used, I couldn’t say I enjoy such limitation of freedom. But as it’s time my kid started her Grade 1, I didn’t think much before putting her in the very place I grew up in.

When it comes to choosing a school for your children, there’s much more to just teaching excellence, or to be more precise, teaching quality isn’t the only factor you take into account unless you’re the kind of parents who put grades and academic excellence as the ultimate goal for your child’s educational life.

Each school has different strength. Parents who are fed up with the competitiveness of university entrance exam and cram school trauma resolve to give their child alternative education whereas those preferring to put convenience as priority will be happy to just choose any decent school nearest to home so that they could cherish the precious family hours together. My family has recently been preoccupied over the chaotic society where a sense of morality and ethics are disrupted. Most of the youngsters are attending Islamic schools.

My old school is conservative. I cannot say it’s the best place to go if you want supreme freedom of expression or if you’re a natural-born rule-breaker. Not that I like rules, but I believe if you grow up with all the freedom in the world, you’ll end up a frustrated freak in the real world that is the Thai society and can’t live a single day without spitting complaints over stupid law and the failure to enforce it. I believe having some strict regulations _ some silly and some logical _ give you a good testing environ where you can learn what to bend and what to break. It’s a good way to learn that the authority is not always right, but still at times we need to comply, or find a way to rebel without getting in trouble.

But putting my kid into the trauma of strict rules isn’t the reason I’m sending my girl to experience what I had experienced for nine years. I love well-mannered kids. Forgive me but I guess I’m so middle-class I’m obsessed with the word ‘well-bred’ and despite my foul mouth whenever I’m having a good time with my gay friends, I love girls to be well-mannered when needs be. I love kids who can be wild and crazy when they’re with friends, and yet never fail to disappoint once they have to keep composure in front of respectable grown-ups. It’s this little decency of well-adjusted behaviours and mannerism that make one both a great fun to hang out with and an adorable person at work.

What’s more important when it comes to choosing elementary school is the fact that if you choose a school based on some certain quality, chances are likely that you’ll find like-minded parents, who send their kids _ your child’s future friends _ to the same school with quite similar motif. My brother once said that I was more lucky than they were in a way that my parents paid a little more school fee for me and it turned out to be a great investment in giving me a lifelong circle of friends.

I’m still in touch with some of the girls I hung out with during middle school, and we meet up once in a while when any of us who lives abroad returns to Thailand. They are friends whose parents I know, and they all know my parents. I remember the direction to their house by heart, and they all live quite near to this very school where we met. Their parents, I believe, put them in this school 26 years ago for the very reason I’m enrolling my girl in this school just now. It’s close to home. It teaches kids how to be well-mannered when needs be. Its academic ranking is okay.

But I have more reasons than they did. I had great memory there, despite all the rigid regulations. Also, everything I have learned about tweaking the flaw in the rules or bearing with them, I have learned it from those nine years I was there.

I wish my kid would just have the same _ be it the memory, the lifelong friends, and the capability to live with, or just twist, all those rules.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/health/278620/choosing-a-school-is-no-child-play