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The optimal solution then is to get an infinite number of people on the internet to solve it for you for free!

Whats the quote?

Other languages borrow foreign words - English lures them into dark alleys and goes through their pockets for any grammer they might have.

Never 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.

Llanfair.... is a famous (for very small values of famous) welsh railway station with the longest name in the world. People go there to take pictures of the sign.

However having a name longer than a tweet is likely to limit your fame in the internet age!

Windscale renamed itself Sellafield after a little tiny, nothing to worry about, nothing to see here, reactor explosion.

Plan B, after the next incident, is to rename it Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

No - the Indian government claimed that the tablet was possible because of their world lead in IT and the involvement of Indian universities. It did this for it's own political purposes and to the embarrassment of the university involved.

As everyone on here knows, like OLPC, it would end up actually costing more than and doing less than a commercially produced model - like every other government initiative.

It seems that in this case they simply got caught cheating.

That's true - should have said sarcasm, but I can't change it because of the guns = irony joke. Now that's ironic.

Google makes £1.25 billion/year in the UK but doesn't pay any tax because it's HQ is in Ireland, in Australia it makes a loss on $1Bn sales because it's all charged back to Dublin.

MSFT, Dell and HP both apparently lose money on all sales in Europe except those in Ireland.

But only since about 1880. Before that 'France' was only about 20% of the country and only about 20% spoke French.

There was a huge effort to create a single nation, similar to the unification of Germany and Italy around the same time.

Their attitude to the language rather shows that - nobody in England thinks English needs 'protecting'.

I thought the "High Fructose" was an earlier attempt to make it sound good to the consumer.

Fructose = fruit, fruit = good, therefore "High Fructose" = good

A lot of US companies put their HQ in Ireland because, they speak English (mostly), they have very low corporation tax and lots of golf courses - the Irish government also did an excellent job of marketing Irish-American links.

Unfortunately as soon as the EU cracked down on the corporation tax scams, eastern europe became cheaper and US companies cut back on golfing holidays they realized they didn't actually have an economy. But it was a great place to work for 10years - as long as you didn't buy a house!

Sorry - can't link to the replies.

It was 'irony' - France is notorious for obeying only those EU laws which benefit it. In particular there are lots of unofficial barriers to other EU individuals/companies working in France - even though they are legally allowed to. Is't common for various levels of government to delay required licencing for years.

It's an issue even with international collaborations - the European Space agency is in the Netherlands and CERN is officially HQed in Switzerland - there was a lot of concern over ITER before it was built in France, the French 'promised' to play nicely with people working there.

Ideally the EU will allow more micro-countries.

50 years ago it was difficult to be a city-state, Monaco couldn't have it's own currency, army , foreign embassies.

Now it would be much easier for eg. Scotland/ Bavaria/ Flemish-Belgium to become a country again - they would have a euroepean central bank/currency/etc but could handle everything else locally instead of in a capital city 100mi away that is only the same 'country' because of a battle 500years ago.

Thats the big advantage - imagine having a choice of bread or cheese that actually tastes different!

Apart from a few of the more 'third world' european countries (like France) if you speak english and work in high tech it's not a big problem to work in Scandanavia/Germany/Netherlands. The main difficulty is they drive on the wrong side of the road - but as consolation the coffee and women are much better.

No 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 !

There 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.

Welcome to Europe. 500 years ago it was mostly principalities and city states, tried empires for a while, then we had countries for a few 100 years - now we are trying to abolish them again. It's very much a British (actually English) idea that countries are eternal and inviolate.

IIRC Singapore and a bunch of other high tech SE Asian countries essentially did the same thing. Anybody with a high tech qualification, eg a CS degree, could live and work in any of the club no questions asked.

Some countries don't allow dual citizenship. My German friends had to renounce their German citizenship when they became Americans (again for the green card). It made it very tricky tax-wise when their parents died and they suddenly became foreigners (to Germany) owning a lot of German assets.

Or 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.

Perhaps because those in it are unaware that there are any countries out of it?

When good americans die - they go to Paris

One more thing to consider for any other europeans thinking of moving to America:

1, they don't understand irony

2, they carry guns

Pity Sun didn't think of that one !

No problem. My copy of Autocad is owned by XYZ-software installation inc. A wholly owned subsidiary whose only asset is a copy of Autocad, I can sell the company to anyone I want - the license is never transferred.