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Comment by cperciva | Hacker News Reader

Seems like a golden opportunity for another country to step up and become the "conference center of the world". I'd LOL extra hard if it turned out to be Mexico.

Can I suggest Canada for this purpose? We're a cheaper conference destination than the USA, Europe, or Japan; have a fluently English-speaking population anywhere conferences would be held (most people in Montreal are bilingual); have good infrastructure; and most international visitors to the USA already fly over Canada anyway.

This would be unfortunate for conference attendees from Central and South America, but they're far outnumbered by the conference attendees from Europe and Asia.

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> already fly over Canada anyway

But holding conferences in Canada would leave many people with few good options, other than to transfer in the USA.

Transiting through an American airport requires a visa, and [1] had her transit visa cancelled last week, leaving her stranded in Costa Rica.

It was policy at my previous employer, which had lots of work in Central America and an international staff, to avoid transiting through Florida, and use Madrid or Panama instead. The hassle wasn't worth at most a minor saving in cost or time.

Southern Europe would be a cheaper location for conferences, with few visa issues, and is also a lot closer to Asia.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-38786119

As I said, Canada is not ideal for people coming from Central or South America. But I can't think of any other starting point where you'd want to transit the USA rather than taking a direct flight to Canada.

I've noticed a lot of flights from Montreal to Asia will transit through the US. So having to avoid the US probably increase some flight expense?

Of course if the US becomes even worse to transit through airlines will probably route around it.

Let the market decide. There are conferences and trade shows for everything and anything all the time, all over the world. Take your favourite programming thing, there may be some meet up in your local town, it may be just a couple of people, not exactly a 'conference'. You might not be able to go to the big conference in Las Vegas (or wherever) but the conference in Berlin (or wherever) might be the one to attend this year anyway.

There is money in conferences and, if the USA wants to make itself as attractive as North Korea for foreign visitors, then the 'second tier' conferences held elsewhere will become the more important events to attend for non-Americans.

I think this is progress in a way, too many industries have some big U.S. trade show event as the focal point of the year and it is a long way to go to get new customers from your own country/town.

> This would be unfortunate for conference attendees from Central and South America, but they're far outnumbered by the conference attendees from Europe and Asia.

Then surely, somewhere in Europe or Asia or perhaps wherever the centre of mass of the conference participants happened to fall would be the cheapest destination? I, for one, do not live in the USA, so Canada would definitely not be cheaper than Europe to visit.

Maybe it's just a matter of which conferences I attend, but my impression is that "conference attendees per capita" is highest for the USA, lower for Europe, and much lower for Asia. If you want to be closest to people in general you'd probably aim for somewhere around Nepal (mind you, it doesn't have very good connectivity for air travel); but being closest to conference attendees is probably going to be between the USA, Europe, and Asia... in other words, Canada.

(As for the cost, when I said "cheaper" I meant in terms of the cost of conference facilities, food, and hotels. Obviously the cost of travel will depend on where someone is starting their trip.)

How much of that is a product of it being much more expensive for someone from Asia to travel to US conferences? I'm in the often forgotten pool of people who can't just expense conference travel with their employer, and that means I don't even consider conferences outside Europe as they'll be prohibitively expensive.

Asia is on the opposite side of the world from the USA. Their cost to attend is highest, when the conference is in the USA.

Check the distances on a globe -- "between the USA, Europe and Asia" is actually the Middle East. If we need to account for additional attendance from North America, then somewhere in Europe is better -- and the south or east cheaper than the north or west.

Check the distances on a globe -- "between the USA, Europe and Asia" is actually the Middle East

You sure about that? Let's take Denver, Frankfurt, and Hong Kong as representatives of USA, Europe, and Asia, since they're somewhat central to the regions and have major airports.

    DEN-YEG: 1019 miles
    FRA-YEG: 4559 miles
    HKG-YEG: 6504 miles
    Total distances to Edmonton: 12531 miles

    DEN-DXB: 7771 miles
    FRA-DXB: 3012 miles
    HKG-DXB: 3684 miles
    Total distances to Dubai: 14467 miles

The most "central" point between the USA, Europe, and Asia is actually pretty close to the North Pole: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=FRA-DEN-HKG-FRA&MS=wls&MP=p&DU=...

LOL @ Edmonton vs Dubai comparison.

A big chunk of Edmonton internatonal connections route through the US airports -- SEA, MSP, DEN, ORD, SFO, etc. Unless Edmonton airport becomes a major global air hub like Dubai, this is just plain laughable. The actual distance in miles is not the primary concern by far. Not to mention the sheer uncompetitiveness of Canadian airline industry and airports in general. Canada is the most expensive air destination in the world.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2931748/international-flights-from...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commen...

> We're a cheaper conference destination than the USA, Europe, or Japan

Errr, our field's major conf is in Vancouver every other year and those hotel rooms are crazy pants expensive.

OK everywhere except Vancouver is cheaper... Vancouver is special.

Then you could say that Houston is cheaper than Toronto. This 'cheaper' argument is meaningless unless we say "cheaper than NYC or San Fran."

Canada can require you to give up your phone password when entering. As far as I heard, the US does not require that (but can confiscate your phone). Is there possibly another country that doesn't require it?

US CBP definitely can ask for your passcode/passwords. There was a post on HN last week about a guy who refused to turn over his passcode: https://vc.gg/blog/so-its-been-a-while.html

Yes, the US can ask for you password, but they can't require you to give up your password. If you don't give your password, they confiscate your device. In Canada, if you don't give your password they can charge you with a crime and you can spend up to a year in jail.

Kidding? Ref please?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/alain-philippon-phone-password-case-p...

For more sources google canada phone password. Tons of results.

There's this show about the Canadian border services and they regularly go through people's phones: 'Border Security'

And computers too, some French guy was caught with "anime porn" on his hard drive at the border, went to prison for a few month.

Canadian customs once searched my brother's laptop at the border, in his presence, and their method was as trivial as doing a Windows file search for "boy" and "girl".

Well, Mexico and Chile also have visa free entry into Canada now, so it would actually be a net improvement for Latin American countries as well (and I see no reason, specially with the current government, that Canada could not eventually negotiate visa-free transit with Argentina and/or Brazil next)

A strong "+1" to this. Plus, there are quite a few strong CS and engineering universities in Canada, so it's not as if the intellectual environment will have to be created from scratch.

Why do you think Canada wouldn't be as good for Central or South Americans? There are flights to Central and South America from almost everywhere in Canada. I speak Spanish in Canada often.

Two reasons. First, flying to Canada is simply a longer flight. Second, the USA has some rules concerning passengers on flights in US airspace; it's possible that people who couldn't attend a conference in the USA wouldn't be allowed to fly over the USA either.

They mostly seem to have issues with flights that transit through the US, which you can avoid.

But the TSA requires airlines to list all passengers on flights travelling over US airspace, and can instruct an airline not to allow specific passengers onto that flight (or, presumably, not allow that airline to fly over its airspace).

That seems grossly excessive.

The TSA are just the goons who search passengers at the airport. They have nothing to do with what you've talking about.

The TSA are not goons. They are just doing their job. If you have a problem with what they do, talk to their boss or vote for the right person.

Most of the TSA people I know are normal people and have families,kids and stressful job with passengers being aggressive at them for no fault of theirs.

They're only following orders? I feel like I've heard that one before, I just can't remember when.

TSA employees are free to quit and find another job that doesn't involve fleecing the public to create security theatre, harassing people for no good reason, etc. They choose not to, and they are responsible for their choices.

> They are just doing their job

The US does not regard this as a valid excuse. Cf. the Nuremberg trials.

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