Posts by Paul Campbell
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that's the thing our passport is worth something - we're trusted because we carry it - when people like the Mossad screw with it we all lose from that
My 10 year non-ePassport has another year to run on it, I got one of the last ones, one downside of the new 5 (really 4.5) year ones is that you don't get to collect a lot of stamps anymore
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BTW I suspect that evidence in their file on you that you reliably leave before your visa is up probably counts for a lot once they see that you're in, the rest is all pro-forma
One of the downsides of having no exit immigration formalities has been that historically the US got it wrong a lot - that green thing stapled in your passport that the airport checkin people would take from you was supposed to do it - but the airlines apparently sometimes lost them - without a stamp in your passport you have no proof that you'd actually left (and NZ don't stamp NZ passports when you get home) - there's way too many stories of people being detained as they arrived in the US in transit or for a while because the US records say they're still there as over stayers - for about 6 months they replaced that system with kiosks and now I guess they figure they're watching you way too well to miss you leaving. If you do leave the US over a land border DO make sure you get your passport stamped, don't just speed through that closed border checkpoint at 2am
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(having said that I'm not trying to justify the crappy way we're treated there, just trying to explain some of the why)
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I think you need to understand the US immigration agent's world view - they get lied to all the time, their job is to figure out which of us are trying to pull one over, these days they work for DHS, they're told they're soldiers on the front line. And they're probably paid crappily, and expect to be blamed if they were the one who let the next 911 crew through.
No matter how crappy I feel I make sure I have a smile, a "good morning", a little joke (the same lame joke every time, I figure they'll never remember it they see so many people), in my case I always mention that Oakland is home for me too (it is after spending 20 years there).
(the same is true coming through Auckland at 5am - be nice to the person who had to get up at 2am to meet you)
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Remember that in the US (unlike the rest of the planet) there are no real international departure lounges - or international transit lounges - everyone has to go through immigration when they arrive, even if you're on the next flight out of there - the (small) upside - no immigration going the other way. In fact most US airports don't have ANY immigration facilities - it's why you go through US immigration in Canada BEFORE you get on the plane to fly to the US (remember to get to the airport early).
If you've been stuck in rush hour at HKL (late afternoon) you'll appreciate the importance of international transit as a good idea
That LAX departure lounge with that Mexican restaurant isn't anything special, it's not even in the 'international terminal' - it's a domestic departure lounge too.
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Oh I've been there, never had to fly all the way to Europe with kids luckily - I do remember deciding to stop over in Rarotonga for a day on the way back home to NZ, my son slept that dead sleep, we tried to wake him to go to the beach the next day - he got up but there was no one there, quite scary.
When they were young we tried time after time for one of those bulkhead seats with the bassinet, airline booking systems were not up to the challenge, or maybe bulkheads move of their own accord - we never ever got one ... except that time on Continental when we got a bulkhead but a bassinet with fitting for another aircraft - that was the time we promised to never ever fly Continental
Then there was the time, before direct flights over the Pacific when we flew out to Hawaii in the morning to spend the day at the beach, got to the airport at midnight (3am body clock time) with not-happy kids to find the plane had been canceled ("didn't they tell you the ongoing plane was canceled when you left California?" we'd flown out on United, but the week before United had rebooked us on the hated Continental)
Mostly though our kids were OK on planes, at some point I promised myself I'd never ever get annoyed about other people's kids on planes, and it works, I just let it flow over me, travel is annoying enough as it is
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so these 'permits' you have received they weren't issued by, um, some local government outfit in Christchurch were they, are they all ( and I mean ALL, for the entire city) eventually going to need to be done again
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One of the things about the NSA revelations is the agonizing the 'merkins are going through about whether they're being spied on ... while being told "we only spy on foreigners" ... in other words us ...
This article hits some of the hot buttons that I feel at the moment
Lots of our web traffic still goes through the US whether we like it or not, and we have no real control on who reads what we write and say - Orwell would be proud - big brother is watching.
I think it's time to take our on line security into our own hands - seems we can't trust Google, nor the phone company, not Microsoft, not Facebook, nor the government - https everywhere is a start - we need more like cry[to everywhere - probably we need an open source genuinely peer-to-peer skype replacement, one without Microsoft's backdoors - while you're at it Microsoft's (and probably Apple's and Google's) software updates need some independent peer review - given that they're cooperating with the watchers who knows what they're pushing at you in the name of security fixes - who needs found software bugs to exploit when you can just install your own.
I hate this whole paranoia thing - the saying is that it's not really paranoia when they really are watching you ... but it doesn't really feel any different
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We were talking about this issue in general tonight - not just football or rugby but Game of throne, Dr Who, you know all that stuff....
So what happens is that one company sells MY right to choose where to buy something to someone else, they even got paid for my rights ..... seems there's someone missing from this equation - don't I get a say? or a cut? these are my rights that are being bought and sold after all, surely it's ME who should be selling them
Maybe some legal eagle can comment on whether one could take these companies to court to turn this into a 3-party negotiation - perhaps I want to pay for my soccer free and clear? maybe I'll agree to watch some ads? maybe I want some competition in providers so I can choose the lowest cost one or the highest def one - I do want a say, I don't want to be stuck with monopolies quietly selling my rights between them
Personally I want a Sky without the sports channels or the religious channels or the home shopping network, I don't just want not to pay for them, I want them gone from my channel lineup, (as some of you know I used to build settop boxes - this was SO easy to implement), I want the 5 second immediate back skip on my mysky (the "what did he say" button, also trivial), I want to be able to create my own channel line up, in my own preferred order - these are all easy customer centered user interface things that one gets on settops in places with real competition, my mysky's UI hasn't changed since I bought it, it sucks, and sky wont let me buy a better one from a 3rd party provider, or build my own