12 ms·
This makes me proud :)
by roadnottaken 16y ago
This makes me proud :)
- mike-cardwell 16y agoWhat of exactly?
- sp332 16y agoThe USA, for being appealing enough to make Linus want to (first) move here and (now) take on citizenship, instead of just telnetting from Finland - or anywhere else on the planet he might have liked better.
- pinksoda 16y agoSSH
- borism 16y agoanother excellent product originating in Finland not sure why you got downvoted...
- kiuyhjk 16y agoOr being so inflexible with regard to immigration that the only way to work there without facing immediate deportation if you change jobs is to become a citizen. I can live and work permanently in 27 countries (including Finland) without having to change nationality.
- avar 16y agoI'm pretty sure it's 30. I have an Icelandic citizenship (Iceland is one of the 30 in the EEA), and I'm working freely in one of the 27 EU countries currently. All I had to do after I moves was to register with the local city authorities to indicate that I had moved there, and provide documentation proving that I had a job so that they knew they didn't have to put me on social security. One might also make the counterpoint that while we can move between 30 states in the EEA US citizens can move between 50 states in their union, and their superstate comprises almost twice the surface area of the EU.
- fortes 16y agoUS is almost twice the size (1/6 of which is Alaska), but the EEA has 60% more people, which is probably a better measure of jobs.
- kiuyhjk 16y agoThere are some differences, a US friend of mine did law in the UK which meant she could work anywhere from Finland to Greece. But when she passed the New York bar she couldn't work in New Jersey.
- roel_v 16y agoNo. She could 'work in law' in the same way in New Jersey as she could in Greece - as a 'jurist' or 'company lawyer', but not initiate court proceeding. Being admitted to the bar in one Member State does not automatically mean admittance to the bar in another Member State, nor does it even mean that one is eligible to just take the bar exam in that other Member State (although this last part is under proceedings before the European Court for restricting movement of persons within the Union. In contrast, one doesn't even need a law school degree to be able to take the bar exam in any US state. (admittedly it's almost impossible to pass without one).
- dctoedt 16y ago> one doesn't even need a law school degree to be able to take the bar exam in any US state Not quite: In a number of US states, a prerequisite to taking the bar exam is either graduation from an ABA-accredited law school, or a foreign law degree with additional training in a U.S. school. See Chart III at http://www.ncbex.org/fileadmin/mediafiles/downloads/Comp_Guide/CompGuide_2010.pdf#page=22 http://www.ncbex.org/fileadmin/mediafiles/downloads/Comp_Gui... and the supplemental remarks afterwards, also Chart X.
- roel_v 16y agoI stand corrected, thank you.
- 16y ago
- apgwoz 16y ago> I can live and work permanently in 27 countries (including Finland) without having to change nationality. How? I'd love to be able to do that.
- mike-cardwell 16y agoBy living in a European country.
- apgwoz 16y agoI'm not sure why we're both getting downvoted for this. It was a valid question, and a valid response. Thanks for the answer. I did not realize the EU had this privilege.
- mike-cardwell 16y agoI suspect in my case it is because I said "European country" rather than "European Union country." Not all European countries are in the EU. The Wikipedia article on the EU has all sorts of interesting information: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/European_Union https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/European_Unio...
- apgwoz 16y agoSure--but, if that's the case, you'd think someone would reply and correct you, instead of just blatantly down voting an otherwise "get the point across answer", and forcing you to speculate. :)
- ugh 16y agoHe is a EU Citizen. That’s not that much better than the freedom to work or live wherever you want within the US. It only sounds so impressive because those 27 nations are all substantially smaller than the US. It’s nonetheless one of those achievements of European integration I most certainly don’t want to give up.
- borism 16y agogood for you, too bad the same flexibility does not apply to non-EU/EEA citizens like me who work legally in one of those countries but moving between them is nonetheless quite PIA.
- jbarham 16y agoIncorrect. Green card holders (i.e., US permanent residents, but non-citizens) do not face "immediate deportation" if they change jobs.
- kiuyhjk 16y agoNo but it's still a hassle not being a citizen - especially if you travel a lot. By contrast Canadian permanent residents are treated exactly the same as citizens - except you can't vote in federal elections. Although with the choices on offer that's probably a blessing !
- _delirium 16y agoThat's not the case with my family, at least. My mom was a green-card holder for almost 40 years until she finally got her citizenship a few years ago, and there was never any real hassle. She eventually got her citizenship mostly to simplify retirement planning (if she and my dad, who's a U.S.-born citizen, had different citizenships, apparently things get complicated with things like pensions and survivorship). I guess that's a kind of hassle, but a very cerebral one; she didn't get hassled at customs or anything, at least any more than I do. Probably being a middle-aged woman with an American family made her fit a low-risk profile anyway, but becoming a citizen has basically made no difference for her on that side of things.
- jasonlotito 16y agoI think that's the kind of hassle he was referring to. =)
- kiuyhjk 16y agoNever had a green card - but going in and out of the USA on a european country passport with an H1-B was always a hassle. Especially one return from a conference where the minimum-wage-moron on passport control didn't understand the concept of visas (to be fair he had a limited understanding of the concept of passports or even other countries) and allowed me in for 24 hours which I spent queuing at LA's delightful immigration office downtown. Still, well done to him for protecting the USA from another foreign Caltech physics prof.
- philwelch 16y agoTo be fair, that's like saying I can live in and work permanently in 50 states and a handful of territories, protectorates, and possessions without having to change nationality.
- nandemo 16y agoThe funny thing is that in practice US must be the most flexible developed country regarding immigration. There are more than 12 millions illegal immigrants in US. Illegal immigrants owns houses, driver cars and go to college. I find it amazing. In Japan, if you're an illegal immigrant you're pretty much relegated to the underworld.
- mike-cardwell 16y agoYou think he obtained American citizenship because he likes the USA more than any other country, including his home one? You don't know his motives. Maybe he just did it because it's more convenient for him to currently work there, and constantly having to organise visas was a pain in the arse? For all we know he hates the USA...?
- sp332 16y agoIt's gotta be really, really "convenient" to be worth the hassle of arranging visas over the last 14 years (since he started working at Transmeta in California in 1996). Citizenship might be less paperwork, but there are other downsides he's taking on as a citizen.
- gojomo 16y agoFor all we know he hates the USA...? For all we know, he's the first in a series of genetically-engineered Finnish super-programmers, part of a growing sleeper cell of infiltrators hell(sinki)-bent on Finlandizing the USA via secret trapdoors in their code, all waiting for the flip of a single bit to instantly erase all memory of the Constitution and replace it with a Scandinavian welfare-state, then killing our leaders and converting us all to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland -- their state religion! Or maybe he just likes living with his family in the Pacific Northwest. It's hard to tell, for all we know!
- mike-cardwell 16y agoExactly!
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- gojomo 16y agoAnd to bring it all back around: that an exceptional person who could easily choose to live in comfort in dozens of countries, chooses to live in the USA, is a legitimate source of pride for the locals. The number one product of a legal jurisdiction is providing a desirable place to live. The political system is designed to make citizens feel like the local jurisdiction is 'their' product. When your target market embraces your product, pride is natural and healthy. An immigrant doesn't have to 'love' the USA more than the mother country; indeed the freedom to still love the ancestral land but build cool stuff here is one of the USA's greatest hacks. (Brain drain FTW!) The immigrant's children will 'love' their new land; that's more like a chick imprinting than any rational choice.