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Your Health & Happiness

Agony Column

Camera Class by Snapshot

Life in the Laugh Lane

Your Health & Happiness:Lack of condom use spurs AIDS increase in young people

Nopniwat Krailerg

A presentation to promote the use of Nira-nam Clinic, a project organized by the Thai Red Cross Chiang Mai branch to check HIV infections, was staged on September 15 at Lotus Pang Suan Kaew Hotel.

Dr Prakhong Wittayasai from Kuadaroon Foundation giving information about AIDS.

Red Cross assistant Surangrat na Lampang said that many did not know the existence of the clinic, which is located beside Chiang Mai municipality market, near the Nakornping Bridge. Others knew it was there but were afraid to be checked. Surangrat said the clinic keeps all data confidential and also advises those who test positive on how to continue living a normal life.

The clinic provides two kinds of HIV checking, a three-day service that costs 80 baht and an instant results service for 200 baht. There are 100 persons being checked each month, most of them young and the majority female. The youngest to be checked so far was age 14, while the oldest was 73. Most of the females being checked said that their boyfriends had died from AIDS.

Dr Prakhong Wittayasai from the Kuadaroon Foundation said that official figures indicate that 80,000 youths are infected with HIV, but the actual figure is undoubtedly far higher. Surveys have shown that in the past only 25-30 percent of youngsters had used condoms, but that has since dwindled to nine percent.

“Recommendations have been made to install condom vending machines in educational institutes but this was resisted for the reason it was likely to encourage students to have sex,” she said. Dr Prakhong added that since condoms helped prevent the spread of HIV infection it would be much better to hand them out free.

Chiang Mai Provincial Public Health Office has reported that between 1999 and March 31 this year, 18,972 AIDS victims have been confirmed in Chiang Mai. Causes are sexual contact, contaminated needles, and mother-to-child infection.

Agony Column

Camera Class: Auto-Focus does not guarantee sharpness

by Harry Flashman

For many senior citizens, the advent of Auto-Focus (AF) was heralded as being the ideal compromise for them. No longer would they have to rely on their own eyes to get sharp photographs, the magic brain in the camera would do it for them. Well, that was the theory.

For these people, they were quite sure that all their shots would be pin-sharp from then on. It came as a great shock however, when they found they could have even more out of focus shots than they ever had before!

There are unfortunately many situations where the magic brain just cannot work properly. For example, if there is no contrast in the scene, then the AF will not work. If you are trying to focus in a “low light” situation then the AF will “hunt” constantly looking for a bright area. When trying to shoot through glass or wire mesh in the zoo, the AF can become totally confused, and give you a sharp photograph of the mesh, instead of the animal in the cage. No, while AF may be a great relatively new development, it still is not 100 percent foolproof.

One of the reasons for this is quite simple. The camera’s magic eye doesn’t know exactly what subject(s) you want to be in focus and picked the wrong one in the viewfinder! You see, the focussing area for the AF system is a small circle in the middle of the viewfinder, so if you are taking a picture of two people 2 meters away, the camera may just focus on the trees it can see between your two subjects. Those trees are 2 kilometres away, so you get back a print with the background sharp and the two people in the foreground as soft fuzzy blobs.

What you have to do is use the “hold-focus” (sometimes called “focus lock”) facility in your camera (and 99 percent of all AF cameras have it!) To use this facility, compose the people the way you want them, but then turn the camera so that one person is now directly in the middle of the viewfinder. Gently push the shutter release half way down and the AF will “fix” on the person. Generally you will get a “beep” or a green light in the viewfinder to let you know that the camera has fixed its focus. It will now hold that focus until you either fully depress the shutter release, or you take your finger off the button. So, keeping your finger on the button, now recompose the picture in the viewfinder and shoot. The people are now in focus, and the background soft and fuzzy, instead of the other way round.

So what should you do in the other situations when the AF is in trouble? Simple answer is to turn it off, and focus manually! Sometimes, in the poor light it is possible to shine a torch on the subject, get the AF fixed on the subject and then turn off your torch and go from there. But this is only when you cannot turn the AF off! It is amazing, here we have all these new “automatic” developments, and I am suggesting you turn them off!

Another focussing problem is when photographing a moving subject. When say, for example, you are attempting to shoot a subject coming rapidly towards you, the AF is unable to “keep up” with the constantly moving target. The answer here is to manually focus at the point where you want to get the photograph and then wait for the subject to reach that point. As it gets level with the predetermined point, trip the shutter and you have it. A sharply focussed action photograph.

Another super tip from the photographic studios of the glamour photographers - when making a portrait shot, focus on the eyes, nowhere else. I know it is easier to focus on the collar for example, but you run the risk of the shot going “soft” around the eyes. Very, very carefully focus on the eyelid margins and you will have a super shot, no matter how shallow your depth of field may be. Try it one day.

Money Matters: The Investment Regulations (Part 1)

What does the Market have to say?

Alan Hall
MBMG International Ltd.

As we’ve discussed many times before, many of the investment regulations around the world are anachronisms. Vestiges of former times that have somehow survived. In the USA, many of the rules dictating what investors can and can’t invest in date back to arch poacher turned gamekeeper Joseph P Kennedy who was the first regulator of the markets in the 1920s and haven’t been updated since. If the car industry were governed by the same rules, then we’d all have to drive black Ford Model Ts today.

Admittedly we shouldn’t complain - from our offshore vantage point it doesn’t affect us and arguably if Alpha is a zero-sum game then having the world’s regulators forcing the majority of people to make inefficient investments simply serves to create opportunities that our offshore clients can exploit.

However, being the caring, sharing, democratic, socialistic types that we are, it does bother us. The fact that South Carolina and Indiana were prohibited by law from investing in equities until 1998, because they literally followed conventions going back 70 years, to an era when the bulk of a pension plan’s capital was deployed in government, steel, and railroad bonds, cost their pensioners 97.4% of their potential return (according to Ibbotson Associates, for the period 1925-1998, corporate bonds returned 61 times their original value, while large-capitalization stocks returned 2,351 times their original value).

Ron Sandler and his regulators reviewed the UK investment industry at the end of the 20th century and came out with regulations for the new millennium that would have looked outmoded in the previous one. Deciding that fees were the easiest part to regulate they chose a certain level of flat, non-performance-based fee as being acceptable, and created CAT standards. The problem that we see with this is that the better fund managers choose not to comply with CAT standards and they promote themselves on the basis of their performance - quite understandably the better that they do their job, the better they get paid for doing it. The ones who choose to comply therefore tend to be the mediocre who suddenly have a license to charge a particular amount for their mediocrity whether that is fair in relation to their abilities or whether it’s actually too much. The practical effect of regulations like this is to encourage overcharging by the worse performers - clearly not what was in mind.

Going back to the zero-sum argument, we have some issues with this. Arguably all trade is zero-sum (i.e., if someone sells you a product or service at a profit, then you, the consumer, are paying extra for that so that the manufacturer, service provider and/or distributor can make a profit). The extent of this generally gets mitigated by competition - although history is replete with examples of price-fixing, like Standard Oil - so that profit levels tend to be fair and reasonable. As long as someone is selling something that someone wants, as opposed to providing a basic essential service, and all parties are happy with the deal then a regulator’s place should be on the sidelines. Split-strike conversion provides a perfect opportunity of how this can work. Arbitrageurs seek option pricing opportunities that allow them to exploit typical situations like the following:

buy a particular stock,

buy an option for a price of 1% to sell that stock for 100% of the purchase price if the stock falls below that

sell an option for a price of 1% to sell the stock for 101% of the purchase price if the stock increases above that level

All parties are happy - if the stock increases our arbitrageur makes up to 1% on the trade and if it falls he makes no loss and no gain.

The party that sells the option to the arbitrageur would usually be in the market to buy the stock but at a price marginally lower than today’s price - if the price falls they can exercise that, and they’ve made 1% for doing nothing other than entering into a contract to do something that they’re seeking to do anyway.

Admittedly, if the stock falls 10% they still have to buy for 99% of the price but with limit order purchasing set at 99% of the current price they would have done just that anyway. If the stock doesn’t fall they wouldn’t have bought but at least this way they have the 1% option premium for their inaction.

The party that buys the option gets the chance to buy a stock whose value may have increased to say 103% for a total cost of 102% (the 1% option cost and the 101% exercise price) hence a 1% gain without the risk of owning the stock. With the different motivations of different institutions and investors the odds of finding counterparties whose aims match these scenarios is high. In this situation no party needs protecting from themselves - they’re doing what they would have done anyway but in a more efficient way.

The above data and research was compiled from sources believed to be reliable. However, neither MBMG International Ltd nor its officers can accept any liability for any errors or omissions in the above article nor bear any responsibility for any losses achieved as a result of any actions taken or not taken as a consequence of reading the above article. For more information please contact Alan Hall on alan@mbmg-international.com

Life in the Laugh Lane: Life in the Sad Lane

by Scott Jones

I’m not sure what to think or to say over here in America. Katrina stampeded across the south, destroyed countless homes, cities and a couple thousand people, leaving 100,000 homeless. The hurricane hit after a week of highly-publicized media warnings, after years of research revealing New Orleans would be devastated in this situation and when most of our National Guard Military Home Security Farces were wreaking havoc in foreign lands. I feel compassion for the destitute, for people wading knee-deep through deadly, contaminated water in their yards, for those who lost everything and everyone. Caring folks across the country have opened their hearts, their homes and their wallets to help.

Lamp Shade Lady, no caption needed

I want to say this to Uncle Sam: One beautiful morning, a monster tsunami suddenly leaped out of the sea and killed 300,000 people. Entire islands with mothers, fathers and children were scraped into oblivion. There were no warnings. There were no eight mile convoys of supplies in a few days. Yes, you’re suffering through a natural disaster but it’s all relative. Maybe your relative Mother Nature has had it with you. You could have taken a bit of the billions you spend on war and preserved the peace of your own people. You could direct just one percent of your budget and prevent 10 million children from becoming AIDS orphans, help get 104 million children into grade school, provide water for 900 people around the globe, etcetera. (Check out www.one.org.) What’s America doing with its dollars?

Sitting high above the clouds with the Upper Class, I’m reading a magazine in the pouch of each seat: Sky Mall, a catalogue of decadent luxury items from 1,500 baht pink dog shoes to the 80,000 baht “Human Touch iJoy Turbo 2 Robotic Massage Chair” to the 800,000 baht “Endless Pool”, a stunted 2.5 by 4 meter tank with tremendous current and waves built-in so you can swim without going anywhere or demonstrate the power of Katrina by dropping in your pink-shoed poodle. 14,000 baht buys the “Mademoiselle Haute Couture Floor Lamp - glamorously 6 feet tall with her black fabric shade, chic knee-high boots, trendy cocktail dress and accentuated curves that make her an always-in-style fashion statement. Cast in quality designer resin with sumptuous, black, faux-leather finish, her provocative presence demands attention anywhere she strikes a pose.” Fine print: “Accepts your 60 watt bulb” meaning “Bulb not included, sucker.” What’s the message here? It’s the mindless drunk at the party who wears the lamp shade. Bullies and sadomasochists wear black leather. Women have hot bods but no heads, should be seen and not heard, and don’t even come with a dim bulb. It’s a grim statement about where Mr. and Mrs. Have spend their excess.

I’ve come to the Land of Everything to raise money for Orphans with Nothing. If I can convince one person to forgo one Endless Pool, together we can build six schools in Thailand with their endless pool of money. One pair of pink puppy booties could be a year-long scholarship for an orphan. When I find this person, I’m going to duct tape them to their Robotic Massage Chair and turn it on the highest Nirvana setting until their western stress melts, their brain melds with Buddha and their heart beats for someone other than me, myself and I. They’ll be happier and healthier and one more cell in Uncle Sam’s body will be heading in the right direction.

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