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gently caress me
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Dec 29, 2014 07:49
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 23:13 |
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You're gonna have to post pics if you want that to happen.
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Dec 29, 2014 12:30
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They found the tail section today. MH17 was a total fluke. Yeah, there's been some noise that other carriers weren't flying that route because of the conflict, but they got shot out of the sky by a crazy rebel group with an RPG - that's just out of left field. MH370 is still a complete and total mystery, but it's clear from the extended flight path that was discovered by Inmarsat that something more than just straight up mechanical problems or pilot error happened there. They just found the tail section of QZ8510 and there's no real idea what the Hell happened there yet, just tons of speculation about weather and airworthiness directives and what not. Ideally this will mean the FDR and CVR are recovered and they can figure it out. What didn't make the news as highly was the AirAsia runway excursion in the Philippines the next day and a return to the airport as well. They're really testing my "Safest time to fly is after a crash!" logic here, heh. It will be interesting to see how much of this is down to the distributed nature of the carriers. Air Asia has no choice but to incorporate in each country due to local laws, which is why there's Thai Air Asia (FD), Air Asia Indonesia (QZ) and so on. I always assumed they were tightly controlled by the HQ in KL, but maybe the disease of historically horrible aviation safety in Indonesia and The Philippines can't be stopped.
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Jan 7, 2015 10:02
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It doesn't hurt that the plane went down in far shallower, better-mapped waters than 370 did. Finding the recorder becomes a matter of time more than luck. And yeah, my understanding is that MH17's path wasn't really considered negligent at the time--nobody expected the guys crewing the SAM sites there to have such itchy trigger fingers. The equipment they used isn't some point-and-click insurgent gear, you need a whole team of trained people for it.
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Jan 7, 2015 10:48
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I was on an AirAsia X flight home to Perth two days ago when the captain came on the intercom and said something like "and the weather ... we expect ... is ... to be clear over the Java Sea ... and then the ... Indian Ocean ... maybe a few bumps ... and on all the way to Adelaide" and everyone looked at each other. Dude sounded sleepy as hell, rambling on and pausing every few words. For those not up to date on their Australian geography Adelaide is a city about 2,500 km from Perth. I get that English is a second language for many pilots and they fly to different cities all the time but it wasn't confidence-inspiring. At least he tried I guess, it must get annoying having to spruik in flight duty free all the time.
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Jan 7, 2015 11:34
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Chantilly Say posted:It doesn't hurt that the plane went down in far shallower, better-mapped waters than 370 did. Finding the recorder becomes a matter of time more than luck. This is a few months old from PBS Nova, but it's still fairly up to date since nothing new has come out about MH370. It's a good, quick primer on what they know, what they think they know and the various technologies used to track and recover (and planned upgrades): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHnrJ_ExVts ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Jan 7, 2015 |
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Jan 7, 2015 12:00
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Negligent posted:I was on an AirAsia X flight home to Perth two days ago when the captain came on the intercom and said something like "and the weather ... we expect ... is ... to be clear over the Java Sea ... and then the ... Indian Ocean ... maybe a few bumps ... and on all the way to Adelaide" and everyone looked at each other. Dude sounded sleepy as hell, rambling on and pausing every few words. For those not up to date on their Australian geography Adelaide is a city about 2,500 km from Perth. The latest gossip around here is that Air Asia have a higher percentage of shabu using pilots.
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Jan 7, 2015 13:57
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My understanding has been that plane crews are overworked pretty much everywhere and often fly after being awake for way too drat long.
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Jan 7, 2015 17:01
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I don't think it's possible to generalize everywhere. Some of my pilot acquaintances discuss how seriously safety is taken in their jobs in Asia compared to America and Europe, where the focus is much more on arrival times and keeping costs as low as possible. That said, it's certainly a really major concern not just due to scheduling, but due to human beings being fallible and having biological clocks that might not match up with flight schedules. Since you bring it up, one thing I've seen a lot of discussion of on the avaiation forums is the schedule of this particular crew, which required them to rise at something like 04:00 on a pretty stacked schedule. Another interesting wrinkle I haven't seen verified is that QZ wasn't permitted to fly this route on the specific day they flew, only four other days a week, but that they flew it as a matter of course in the lax aviation environment of Indonesia (it's hard to overstate what a wild west ID has been historically for aviation - check the number of banned ID carriers in the EU, for example). That's probably not a contributing issue to any incident, but it would be a contributing issue to the insurance company not being liable for paying out claims for a flight that wasn't legally permitted to fly, which would leave QZ financially liable for everything except probably whatever legal insurance they have to cover litigation costs. I think Fernandes is acting in good faith, but he's probably also trying to stave off as many inevitable legal claims as possible in light of this concern.
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Jan 7, 2015 20:18
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ReindeerF posted:MH17 was a total fluke. Yeah, there's been some noise that other carriers weren't flying that route because of the conflict, but they got shot out of the sky by a crazy rebel group with an RPG - that's just out of left field.
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Jan 7, 2015 21:09
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Alrighty, it was a fluke that was shot down by a considerably more advanced system - didn't know the particulars. On the note of insurance payouts I mentioned earlier, after some grumbling AirAsia has offered even more compensation per dead passenger: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/airasia-flight-qz8501-airline-offer-133k-payout-each-victim-20150107 quote:AirAsia will offer compensation of about US$100,000 (S$133,000) for each passenger of the ill-fated Flight QZ8501, in addition to the initial payment of US$24,000 that was offered earlier to family members, CNN has reported.
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Jan 8, 2015 09:53
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This is just too loving  http://www.khaosodenglish.com/detail.php?newsid=1420782999&typecate=06§ion= quote:Govt Wants To Raise Fares of 'Low-Cost' Airlines
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Jan 9, 2015 14:23
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That could make sense if the airlines are doing something sneaky like running loss-making low-cost flights to drive bus operators out of business so they can jack up fares in a future environment of less competition. But there's no indication from that article that that's what's happening.
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Jan 11, 2015 08:55
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Does it make any sense that plane tickets would be cheaper than bus fares if they weren't loss-makers? I don't know much at all about the economics of travel in the area so I am genuinely curious, as it seems like flying should always be way more expensive, if much faster and more pleasant.
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Jan 11, 2015 19:01
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Alereon posted:Does it make any sense that plane tickets would be cheaper than bus fares if they weren't loss-makers? I don't know much at all about the economics of travel in the area so I am genuinely curious, as it seems like flying should always be way more expensive, if much faster and more pleasant. If there's a high rate of failure for buses (breakdowns, lovely roads, abduction by bandits, etc) then conceivably plane travel would be cheaper.
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Jan 11, 2015 19:20
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I can all but guarantee this isn't about AirAsia and NokAir running at a loss. They definitely run loss leaders, no doubt about that, but revenue management is a pretty proven field at this point and managing price at the capacities you need to make a profit is how a company like AirAsia does as well as it does. Fernandes is no fluke CEO, he cut his teeth in the LCC wars in Europe and knows what he's doing. This is about lazy people trying to take advantage of connections to keep their pockets lined, which is what keeps our little feudal never never land running, heh. These transport company owners are lazy fuckers who underpay their employees, put nothing into improving their fleet or safety and spent decades pocketing the cash. Now that someone's showed up and modernized their field they're paying the price. There are some bus services that have worked to make the bus experience better and much of the country is served by trains (free in third class for citizens) and vans and sawngtaews at the dispersal points, so it's not like there will be no affordable travel if Somchai's bus company folds. The flip side of this story, of course, is that more and more of the country can afford to fly. Google up bus accidents in Thailand and let the sympathy drain from your veins.
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Jan 11, 2015 19:35
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ReindeerF posted:I can all but guarantee this isn't about AirAsia and NokAir running at a loss. They definitely run loss leaders, no doubt about that, but revenue management is a pretty proven field at this point and managing price at the capacities you need to make a profit is how a company like AirAsia does as well as it does. Fernandes is no fluke CEO, he cut his teeth in the LCC wars in Europe and knows what he's doing. This is about lazy people trying to take advantage of connections to keep their pockets lined, which is what keeps our little feudal never never land running, heh. I think that last bit is an important part of this. Without going and price-checking myself, I imagine that lower airfares plus higher income at least make it an option, if not necessarily cheaper than bus fare... but when you have the choice of a 45 minute flight versus a packed bus ride on dangerous roads in a shitheap trundling along at night, planes are just a better choice and the bus CEO doesn't like that more and more Thais actually have that choice now.
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Jan 11, 2015 21:56
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I'd say it's AirAsia and to a lesser extent Lion. Nok is 39% owned by Thai airways with the rest held by Thai investors who understand not to rock the boat. But conversely Thai AirAsia is already pivoting to the international market whereas Nok is expanding domestic routes.
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Jan 12, 2015 05:09
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more detailed overview of the Thai airline market http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/thai-airways-bangkok-airways-nok-air--thai-airasia-incur-3q-losses-as-thailand-slowly-recovers-196670 tl;dr everyone except Bangkok Airways is losing money hand over fist as the market is saturated with LCCs and it will get worse before it gets better with new players entering combined with less overseas arrivals. however for consumers it's great, more 0 baht promo fares
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Jan 12, 2015 11:14
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Negligent posted:more detailed overview of the Thai airline market If they're operating at a loss, it doesn't seem totally unreasonable for bus companies to ask for some price controls just from the perspective of antitrust regulation.
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Jan 12, 2015 18:31
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Is anyone able to explain the sequence of events that made Cambodia a Kingdom? I had been under the impression that Cambodia was firmly under the control of Vietnamese aligned communist forces, and was pretty surprised to find out the country became a Kingdom again in 1993. I understand this was part of a compromise to end the civil war with remnants of the Khmer Rouge and other exiled factions, but how bringing back the monarchy was supposed to be a part of this is beyond me.
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Jan 19, 2015 17:32
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I may have this off, Chrono will correct me, but I believe that when UNTAC had the first elections and (there are two narratives here - one that FUNCINPEC [royal party] tried to roll Hun Sen and got rolled back and the other that CPP [Hun Sen's party] successfully rolled everyone) Hun Sen came out on top, he needed to legitimize his not-really-a-coalition government by bringing the still-beloved-by-many Sihanouk into the fold, and so he put a huge focus in PR terms on elevating the royal family the way Phibulsongkram, Sarit and later dictators eventually did (with the CIA's help!) in Thailand back in the day. It's very much a Potemkin Village monarchy from my understanding especially with the current Prince, but still holds importance in the hearts of many rural people. On an unrelated note, after reading about and seeing films of Norodom Sihanouk, he was a loving amazing populist and would easily have been the most successful reigning figure in Southeast Asia if he'd been in a different position. He could've taught certain other monarchs lessons and ran circles around them in terms of political talent.
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Jan 19, 2015 21:59
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As far as the original question goes, the Vietnamese kicked out the KR and occupied from 79 until 89. They portrayed it as a "liberation", but there was still a good deal of fighting going on between occupiers and Khmer Rouge remnants, who pressured locals to fight alongside them. A lot of people continued to die. The Vietnamese were pressured to pull out, and along with international sanctions, this eventually persuaded them to abandon the effort to keep a presence in the country. Hun Sen was a willing lackey, since he was able to make out like a bandit as the new head of state, and so the Vietnamese and the UN Transitional Authority on Cambodia and other newly-turned ex-KR folks all backed him. As Reindeer pointed out, Sihanouk was an immensely charismatic populist in the 50s and 60s, and I think he was looked upon as a touchstone to an era when Cambodia had thrown off the colonial shackles but before they descended into civil war, so people adored him as this kind of father figure. I've read that he wasn't eager to come back as King and actually wanted to run for president instead, but this was bad news for Hun Sen and for the Vietnamese who had helped him to power and worried about what a new nationalistic president would mean for an unstable SE Asia. So when they put up resistance to him coming in as a president, he settled for the constitutional monarchy position that he got (although he continued to wield more power through sheer adoration of the people than Hun Sen was comfortable with, I think). As far as the fight with FUNCINPEC, most of what I've heard was that it wasn't a failed move by Ranariddh but just Hun Sen doin' Hun Sen kinda things. The head of my program here on SE Asia studies was actually in country at the time with some students and they had to book it to Pochentong to get the gently caress out of there when things got dicey. It's possible that it was a failed attempt to undercut Hun Sen but I tend to expect the worst from that guy and that sounds too much like the narrative Suharto and his lackeys put forward after they "defended" Sukarno from the communist takeover in Indonesia in 1965. But either way, having Sihanouk in place as King was definitely a boon for Hun Sen because it took him off of the political chessboard. The subsequent years showed the CPP strangling any autonomy of the Palace and by the time Sihanouk abdicated, his son took on a throne that was faded symbol and won't last past his reign (since he will not be having any legitimate heirs). It's a shame, too. I actually got to meet Sihamoni, shake his hand and speak with him. Really nice, very well-educated guy, but he gives an overwhelming impression of... softness, I guess? He's not going to be the one to do any challenging of Hun Sen, that's for sure.
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Jan 19, 2015 23:20
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Uh-oh: https://twitter.com/191Thailand/status/561897026363719680
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Feb 1, 2015 16:06
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Transformer?
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Feb 1, 2015 16:11
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Kurtofan posted:Transformer?
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Feb 1, 2015 16:16
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I know the electrics are dodgy as gently caress here, and I've even been sitting on a street where a transformer exploded - but that damage looks far too extensive and widespread to be one.
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Feb 1, 2015 16:37
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It was a transformer and anyway no need for you worry because Optimus Prayuth is in charge.
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Feb 1, 2015 17:03
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Turns out everyone's right. Police confirmed two IEDs were stashed in a transformer.
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Feb 1, 2015 17:23
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Any casualties?
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Feb 1, 2015 17:26
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No. Which is lucky, since they were reportedly pipe bombs stuffed with nails.
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Feb 1, 2015 17:27
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But why aren't the people following orders like good feudal peasants? I mean there's a happiness song and a returning happiness to the people TV show and concerts and everything.
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Feb 1, 2015 18:30
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Truly this is Obama's Thailand.
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Feb 2, 2015 03:06
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MothraAttack posted:No. Which is lucky, since they were reportedly pipe bombs stuffed with nails.
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Feb 2, 2015 03:18
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Gail Wynand posted:Also reportedly, a "red shirt" "accidentally" dropped his ID card on the scene. This is all a little bit too convenient. Welp , call off those elections! Obviously the Junta has more work to do, it would be irresponsible to just give up now. :paranoid: Also is the happiness song those kids that interrupt the TV at 6pm every day? I'm struggling to think of something that would make Thais less happy than interrupting their precious Lakorns.
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Feb 2, 2015 04:24
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Gail Wynand posted:Also reportedly, a "red shirt" "accidentally" dropped his ID card on the scene. This is all a little bit too convenient.
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Feb 2, 2015 09:36
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Prayuthayah (as a sarcastic name for present-day Thailand) wins for the best portmanteau of 2015 so far.
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Feb 10, 2015 09:04
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The other day the Bangkok post had consecutive headlines, "protest banners not banned" and then "Officials seize protest banners" http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/469002/satirical-tu-banners-seized http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/468502/junta-uni-mockery-not-banned
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Feb 10, 2015 13:35
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You have to admire the lockstep consistency of Thai propaganda, heh.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:55
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So I read that two playwrights have been given two years' jail time for lèse-majesté. (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/two-thais-await-sentence-insulting-royals-play-213145030.html) As an adult, I tsked and and grumbled about violations of freedom of expression. Then I saw one playwright is named Porntip Mankong. As an immature child, I giggled like an addled hen. 
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Feb 24, 2015 05:52
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