I work with a nonprofit organization that helps one of the ethnic communities in Los Angeles. I built and maintain their website, including setting up email accounts and email forwarding. Recently I sent an email to the organization’s founder and it bounced. Seems that Earthlink is blocking emails from the server that hosts the nonprofit’s website.

This is yet another example of a company’s overzealous and incompetent approach to spam control that leads to collateral damage. In this case it is a nonprofit organization that is suffering because they made the unfortunate choice of using Earthlink and now they are partially cutoff from supporters because Earthlink has started blocking emails from some IP addresses. Sure, you can block any and all suspected sources of spam. But that kind of approach to spam makes you worthless… Earthlink.

So I’m working with the nonprofit to get away from Earthlink and use an ISP with a less hysterical approach to spam control.

The newest phase of the project still has a few plots left. I think the developer got smart with how he is dividing the land, making smaller plots of one rai that are easier for middle income buyers to purchase. I have somewhat mixed feelings about that – I don’t want to see high density neighborhoods springing up all over the Khao Yai area. I think one rai is the absolute minimum and as long as people don’t cover the entire plot with a building and concrete then maybe it is ok.

I’m not in Bangkok during all of this, although I still have a house there that has remained dry so far. I’m at my home in the Khao Yai area which is one of the places a lot of evacuees have fled to. It hasn’t been people’s first choice because the main road to get here was cut off by the flooding, requiring a lengthy detour and drive time of six hours or more when it normally takes two or so from Bangkok.

Something I’ve been wondering about is how this disaster will affect property markets in Thailand, and Khao Yai in particular. I’ve heard a couple of relatives already say they are going to sell their house/condo and get out of Bangkok after all this flooding is over. I’m thinking a lot of people have that idea now but most will forget about it after it’s all over and the rest won’t be able to get a decent price if their home was hit by the flood waters. It seems like property prices in Bangkok will be depressed as a result.

Pattaya was a major destination for people fleeing the Bangkok floods. News reports said it was jammed and many hotels were offering special deals. I wonder if any Bangkokians would be considering a getaway home in Pattaya as a result of the floods. Perhaps, but it seems like the effect on property prices there would be minimal as it is already so overbuilt and overpriced in response to targeting foreign buyers.

Living in Khao Yai I do like to see news on the local market but I don’t find much online about so when I saw this chart of Khao Yai land prices from early last year I thought it was interesting to note the apparent exponential rise that was occurring. When you start seeing graphs that look like that you wonder if a bubble might be forming. The question is whether there is some unsustainable factor that is driving up prices, like easy lending ala the sub-prime mortgage debacle in the U.S., or if there is some change in fundamentals that may be sustainable. I don’t see easy lending as a factor here because the banks are typically quite unwilling to loan money on empty land. The buyers tend to be people with money who pay cash. And there are a lot of people in Bangkok with money.

That chart is a year and a half old and I haven’t seen any updates to it so I’ve been wondering what the next data point will be and how the flood disaster may affect the shape of that curve. I think the site has a new data point that sets a new standard. It is mentioned in this post about Khao Yai Dreamland which immediately sold out 18 new plots at 3.6 million baht per rai. That’s interesting because it sets a new high for land prices in that area at the present time in the midst of the flood crisis. The question is, should this be considered one data point or 18? Because that is a bunch of plots that sold quickly at a new price point. Another question which I won’t be able to answer is what motivated those buyers – were they thinking the time had come for a safe place away from the giant flood plain known as greater Bangkok? There was some of that effect in past years when the riots hit Bangkok, and there are always people who discover Khao Yai for the first time and decide they need a vacation or retirement home here. So it will be interesting to see if there is increased buying demand in the area after this disaster.

It’s because of my personal story that goes like this. When I graduated from high school my family did not have money to send me to college so I went to school on a student loan. I chose a major that was marketable, electrical engineering, so that I had a good chance of getting a job when I graduated. I would have rather majored in something more fun but obviously there is a difference between a hobby and a career. After I graduated I worked hard and paid off my loan. Of course I enjoyed some splurges now and then but I exercised enough self discipline to save a little every month and after a while it started to add up – funny how that works. As I advanced in my career I was able to save more and start to invest. I made the most of tax advantaged investments such as IRAs and 401(k)s. I didn’t make any risky bets, mostly just boring but regular investments. I didn’t blow all my money on the latest gadgets, cars and partying, just enough to be happy. I ended up underwater on my second house but stuck it out for 12 years and ended up selling at a gain, no big windfall just a decent profit. And then I retired at age 45 with zero debt and enough cash and investments to never have to work again.

This little rage comic sums up how I feel about Occupy Wall Street.

The floods in Thailand are a huge catastrophe for the country. Nevertheless, we do have some entertainment to lighten things up a bit, mostly some of the people in charge running around like Keystone cops or making nonsensical statements. One of the better ones followed the report that a bunch of crocodiles had escaped from a farm north of Ayutthaya. “No problem” said the man in charge. They are farmed crocs so are not dangerous to humans like wild crocs. Shortly after that this photo circulated of a croc entering a home at the water’s edge. I don’t think it is actually a flooded home because if you look closely you see that is a floating ramp attached to the house. Looks like this is water-side home during normal times. Still a great followup to the “crocs are dangerous” comment.

Each new paste has its own unique url. I added a new paste titled BNH Hospital to see it in action. It doesn’t appear there is a rss feed for user pastes – that would be useful if you wanted to keep updated on a user you are following. They have a “follow” function on the site but a feed would be better.

So he did a couple of quick lenses for me and they look ok, pretty thin on content but like I said I will add more. One of the lenses is this one called Thai Airlines. It has a little bit of info about the airlines in Thailand like Thai Airways, Thai Air Asia, Nok Air, etc. There are a couple of photos and a YouTube video embedded to get things started. I am planning to do a little promo work, something easy like buying another low cost service on Fiverr, not expecting the lens to rank very high but give it a little bit of juice that it can pass on to my gignormous network of sites.  But I think I need to be careful that it all looks natural or the big ugly G will slap me. Maybe need to add some more content first and develop “online awareness” slowly at first.

One perfect example is a review of Bumrungrad Hospital over there. It is sort of whip saw review. The reviewer first posted about how wonderful the hospital is, parroting all the usual cliches that first timers use when they see the facilities and hear some stories. Then later that reviewer came back with a complete turn-about, talking about the stories he had heard of mis-diagnoses and poor medical care. He then goes on to speculate about why there have been mis-diagnosed cases and that’s when the bad information really starts to flow.

“There are no medical malpractice lawsuits in Thailand” according to the reviewer.

Of course that is completely wrong as any informed person in Thailand knows. That reviewer probably has no idea because he doesn’t read the Thai news. There are medical malpractice lawsuits in the news sometimes. There isn’t much about it in the English language media which would be expected since the law is practiced in Thai and there is certainly no market for Thai legal case news to be translated to English. So it just isn’t out there where English speakers can find it.

Ok, so the reviewer posts completely bad information based on uninformed speculation. That’s where social media is supposed to be self correcting. But not in the case of TravBuddy. There are a few dumb comments along the lines of “OMG, can’t believe it, thanks so much” and “You get what you pay for”. So along I come and post a comment that no, that is incorrect, there are medical malpractice lawsuits in Thailand, they are in the news now and then. I also pointed out that with the Consumer Case Procedures Act that became law in August 2008 a patient can file a lawsuit anywhere for no cost and without a lawyer. I even gave a reference to one of the very few English language sources online that talks about CCPA in reference to medical malpractice. And do you know what happened? The dolts at TravBuddy deleted the comment and my account.

So, they don’t want any external references at TravBuddy, rather just allow bad information to stand. Well then, be warned, TravBuddy is not your best source for travel information. You’re much better off at forums like Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree where, although the debates get pretty off topic and personal sometimes, there are lots of contributed opinions and plenty of external references so that you can research and corroborate any information.

That Bumrungrad review wasn’t the only one that was disinformation, just one of the more blatant ones. There are others I saw in which obvious newbies exclaim what a great deal they got when a local like me knows they overpaid. My advice is to instead head over to Thorn Tree where expats will tell you what things really cost – and call you a sucker at the same time so be sure you have a thick skin.

So I created a Picasa web album, uploaded some photos, and then used the embed links on a new page of photos of Bumrungrad Hospital. That page isn’t indexed as of the date of this post. The site currently ranks very well for a pretty good keyword but it is stuck behind two other sites I want to beat. Problem is one of them is Wikipedia (super strong authority so tough to beat) and the other a site that has lots of strong backlinks. So I’m going to see if I get any boost from the new photos page.

Update: Just a few hours and that new photo page is indexed. Now I’ll wait and see if there is any movement in the serps.