Umm. Allow cookies from google. Go to Search Settings. Set your language preferences. They stick. That's how I haven't seen Finnish version of Google except when browser sometimes decides to delete all cookies.
Sure it sticks for the search page, unless your go to it from an iPhone, and it doesn't stick for some of their other pages...like the dashboard. I have had it set for a long time, but it really isn't used sometimes.
-- Pete.
Belgium must be a particularly strange example...do the Walloons get Dutch too?
I have no idea what the Walloons get, but I actually live in Brussels, which is as multi-lingual as it gets, with both French and Dutch as official languages, but with a population that is statistically more likely to understand someone speaking English than any other language. And still Google thinks that Dutch (the minority language) is the best choice to use.
-- Pete.
Well that's annoying...one thing Google doesn't do intelligently is languages. I am logged into my account, they KNOW I speak English as a preferred language, but when I go to my iGoogle page on my iPhone whilst I'm in Belgium it insists on displaying everything in Dutch.
That was annoying enough...but now the dashboard is doing the same, even when I visit the page from my laptop.
Google, you KNOW I speak English, stop overriding my account setting for my language with demographic data based on my IP address. When I'm traveling it doesn't make me fluent in the local language...
*slaps the company on the nose with a rolled up newspaper* Bad Google, bad bad portal!
-- Pete.
...asks the guy who's clearly never been to Israel.
Well in my original post I mentioned I've penciled in Israel for next year, so that's something I can look forward to...
-- Pete.
I'm not judging the whole country by their border controls, but I am judging the border controls.
I don't agree with the process, and there is no way to enter the country without submitting to it.
Sure, the luggage restrictions can be annoying, but it does not require providing personal details and biometrics for permanent government records.
For similar reasons, I am against the DNA collection by the police on all arrests in the UK (but so far I have managed to visit the UK without being arrested), and the ID proposals in the UK (which I expect to be shelved with a change or government, or killed due to budget concerns). I watch all developments on both of these issues carefully and hope for change.
If I could visit USA without the oppressive border controls then I would happily do so! Not visiting is the only viable protest I have against those border controls, and as small a gesture as it is, it's the only one I can make.
-- Pete.
NB: Cameras don't scare me, because they're collecting so much information that can never be used - I sat in on a magistrate court a couple of times (when I was living in the UK I was planning to apply to become a magistrate) and I saw the frustrations there are in making CCTV records for court use, let alone any potential misuse. That's not to say that certain recent news doesn't disturb me though.
By immigration rules, I mean the hoops and jumps I need to go through just to go there to visit, not to stay - maybe I should have said "border control" rather than immigration.
How many Schengen countries demand travel itineraries from airlines well in advance do they can carefully screen the passenger list? How many fingerprint and photograph everyone on entry? How many have border security anywhere near as obnoxious as the USA?
I found it quite amusing to read news stories about Americans getting irate about the process when they visited Brazil. Brazil has a reciprocation agreement, they'll treat you as you treat them - so USA visitors need a visa, get photographed and fingerprinted, and think it's brutally unfair. One USA visitor thought it would be great to raise his middle finger to the camera when being photographed and got jailed for it. Heh.
I have been the USA before (pre-9-11), but I'll not be going back.
-- Pete.
Heh - good point. Although to be fair I covered a lot of those countries very briefly in a rally from Budapest to Bamako...except I started in Brussels and needed to get to Budapest, and I didn't really stop in Bamako, but went on to Burkina Faso.
The rest of the European trips were done at weekends or long weekends, as was Brazil.
Financing? Well, let's just say that freelance contracting can be a good thing to be into, as long as you can stomach the risks. I've taken a small hit in the downturn, but it's far from the end of the world.
-- Pete.
British here, but I live abroad...
Countries visited so far this year (including my country of residence):
Next year I've so far penciled in Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Greece - but we'll have to see how that goes.
Traveling is cool, do it!
-- Pete.
NB: Not visiting the USA on principle, boycotting them due to their ridiculous immigration rules and procedures.
You can get them in Europe, and they cost about EU 950.
I think you'll find they're significantly less...
-- Pete.
You don't use 600 SMS messages in 3 mos. I can hit 500 (mostly incoming from friends, calendar reminders, etc...) in 1/2 month and I consider my usage low.
It's worth noting that in Europe we don't count incoming SMS messages, only outgoing messages are paid for/deducted from our message allowance.
-- Pete.
Also, banks should be on the lookout for things like "he used his ATM card at home yesterday, he's in Eastern Europe today" and react accordingly.
This is what my bank does, and it annoys the hell out of me. I do a lot of foreign travel, and I also mainly live outside the country where my bank is based.
If my bank sees overseas transactions (including internet transactions with a source IP outside the bank's country), then they block the transaction and the card, until I call them to have the block removed. The block is then removed for all transactions for 30 days.
This is quite embarrassing as almost (unless within the 30 days) every time I try to use my card to pay a hotel bill, book a flight, or buy something moderately expensive then I need to call the bank because the transaction fails.
Due to my situation I asked the bank to remove this "security feature" from my account, but they refuse. The inconvenience reached such a level that I now have a credit card with another bank that I use when possible instead...
-- Pete.
Five weeks "built up" over how many years? Can you actually take all of that 5 weeks in one year?
There's a difference between "5 weeks built up over the last 4" and "5 weeks off per year"
Wow, I never realised that vacation time in the US was so bad as to make 25 paid leave days per year sound so incredulous...
It's really not uncommon in Europe to have that much annual leave...and yes, every year.
-- Pete.
Hmm, I am from the UK but I spend almost all my time living in Brussels. I maintain a UK cellphone for the times when I am back though. If possible it might be cool to get one of these and plug into my Belgian broadband. A local access point without the international roaming charges.
That could be sweet!
-- Pete.
If this were the case, the entire moon's surface-particles floating above the planet 6 days each month, we would have already seen it. If not with naked eyes then with telescopes. We can see localized dust storms on Mars, I can only imagine what a planet-wide de-surfacing would look like. Ridiculous.
Not only that - but moon-dust would be worn against itself, and would not be so abrasive, friction would have done it's work on the particles...
-- Pete.
"The most important thing in a man is not what he knows, but what he is." -- Narciso Yepes
