First, the author is actually wrong. The date is not 5 years before you submit, but is 5 years before the form is received by the home office! So there are a few days of uncertainty, depending on how fast Royal Mail was with the physical documents.

Additionally, I did a request for my information from the home office prior to filling in my form. After all, you have the right to request the information they have on you that will be used to verify your form. Kafka would be proud.

Let me tell you, Home Office doesn't have a clue where you were 5 years ago. It had approximately 50% of my trips, and frequently only had only one leg of the journey. Plane, ferry, train, sailboat, ... it didn't matter. It seems like they have not been keeping the information very well.

As someone that is about 50, we also had it this way in Europe.

Newer generations don't get how lucky they are to have been born into EU, appreciate it while it lasts.

>I had no idea travel was this difficult for people who aren't EU citizens.

Most people can't afford to travel to the Schengen Area for more than the visa-free limit of 90 days within a 180 day period.

Those that can are "digital nomads" and are almost certainly working illegally while travelling.

> I called the app Residency and you can get it here. No subscriptions, costs less than an airport martini, and you'll likely regret it less a few hours later.

The article is content marketing, so I wouldn't be surprised if the pain points are being talked up somewhat (but who knows?)

It's not even hard really, I did it lastyear. I book a visit to the city hall, they look into the address db and see when I registered the first time. I see exactlt the same thing myself when I login into the thing.

The official agrees with me on the appointment date to actually submit the application, that is after cutoff date.

I put a signature on one sheet of paper, pay a thousand and go my way. The thing takes 15 min tops.

But it's continental Europe, not UK

My guess is that if you need to have been there for 5y, you need to have a way to tell when that 5y starts. I presume it only matters if you apply the day after 5y. When I applied I had been in the UK for over 10y, provided 10y worth of proof of address, and the issue never came up.

> To apply for British citizenship, you need to prove you were physically in the UK on your application date but five years ago.

I am confused whats British citizenship application to do with his, or any travel at all? That's not what you do regularly, I mean most people do not apply for citizenship in other countries ever in their lives? Or am I missing something?

Guessing it stems from "we need something dead-simple to evaluate that yields a definite yes-or-no answer, with no annoying variables."

I'm trying to think of some other reason they might want a specific moment rather than "pick your own instant within this span", but I can't think of anything. Even if it was to "make sure you aren't claiming the same time on two applications to different places", the person could have simply staggered the applications.

The point is not to produce a system where a software engineer can loophole the system. The point is to try to prevent people who aren't committed to the UK apply for citizenship.

It depends on where you're going and what you're doing.

A lot of this faff isn't relevant if you're not applying for any visas or citizenship. Which is most people, most of the time.

The obvious solution to most of these problems for most people is "don't cut it close to any of the limits". If you enjoy traveling a lot, that's definitely a problem, but most people don't cross borders often enough to run into this many corner cases.

This is only a small peek into the awful bureaucracy that will hit Europe if extreme right wing parties keep gaining popularity across the EU. The extra calculations Brexit imposes, but not for every country you travel through!

> I had no idea travel was this difficult for people who aren't EU citizens.

I traveled before and I traveled after Schengen and the only thing that changed was not having to wait a bit at border control. What the article describe concerns a very small number of people, and exist only because of cheap air travel and internet

I'll tell you a secret, UK gov has no clue where you were 5 years ago :-)

It’s just as difficult for EU citizens when traveling to most of the world.

This is actually standard for other countries too

Do you think applying on February 29 is allowed?

Note also that this isn't a travel requirement.

The Life in the UK test certainly needs updating.

claude is nothing if not sensitive to cultural differences

I think it's a reference to those "You wouldn't download a car" memes on anti-piracy campaigns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Wouldn%27t_Steal_a_Car

I think the title works.

> You can't cURL a border. But you can track your own state carefully enough that when the governments know the answer, so do you.

Maybe API would be a better term, but it's a clever.

This is such a common thing and tolerated you have to wonder whether it's actually immoral. I've met many people on my travels who went to Europe on tourist visas, got work and then got to stay legally later. No one was deported.

All of these were people in low-paying services industries, jobs Europeans don't usually want (waiters, cleaners, etc).

The only ones that had issues with immigration were my qualified worker friends who got a work visa and then the company had layoffs while they were there, losing their sponsorship. People with masters degrees who had to scramble to find new work in 30 days or face deportation.

It's hard not to think that's intentional.

I have a nuanced opinion because it's a rather complex subject but it's just a weird thing to have seen happen. As a tourist I had to prove up and down I wasn't going to stay there only to see no one else cares outside the airports. There's obvious wage suppression going on with these policies but these waiters and cleaners also had college degrees from good institutions, probably more qualified than some citizens.

What do you mean by valid legal grounds? For many countries all you need is to get a local job paying above a threshold, that’s enough to get a work permit.

How does this happen? Is there a law which just gives you a citizenship if you stayed for N years?

Now I'm curious what countries we're talking about and what's the process of "legalisation"

I tend to find that for things like this that are really math heavy, it's usually better to create a DSL (or create easily readable function calls, etc) that you can easily write yourself instead of relying on AI to understand math heavy rules. Bonus points, if the rules are in an easily editable format, you can change them easily when they need to. It seems that was the path the author took...

And yes this kind of use-case is exactly where unit tests shine...

When I’ve worked on complex scheduling problems like that I use copious unit tests, they’re perfect for this kind of input->algo->output problem where algo has tons of edge cases.

Indeed, not using unit tests and instead trying to manually test all the cases sounds crazy to me!

I'm not sure I’m reading this right but are you saying that an AI made you dumber and then you complain that the AI is too dumb? That sounds like a lose-lose deal tbh.

> that was hard work

I'm sorry. I don't want to fight here, but you have literally just said you paid Claude to do the thinking for you (except for some math), yet you're talking about this like you're some kind of scientist; or that you've done this extensive, in-depth work.

You made an AI vibe-code an app in a week and now you're impressed someone else was able to do it better?

Am I missing something? Is it maybe just your writing style that makes it come across so "from your high horse"?

My guess is that it's because of emergencies. If you get injured and can't or shouldn't fly home then you need more time on your passport. It is also much easier to send you home if you over stay your visa if your passport is still valid. Also the system is setup to give you a visa of a specific length (eg 30 days), they can't just give you a 2 day visa.

Also if your passport lasts for 10 years you've known when it's going to expire for quite a while, they're just expecting you to be responsible.

Regarding the writing, I'm the opposite.. but I can't point out why I don't like it.

Maybe because the author is trying to sound sleek and sexy, "look at me, jetset international traveller", although the topic is so nerdy and dull, and the bragging feels off-putting to me.

(My opinion. Did I need to share it? probably not. Flag away if you think so)

I'm a PureGym member. I just memorised the 8 digit number that never changes and I input it manually. It takes seconds. I agree that the official app is garbage. I just don't want or need to get my phone out at all.

At the rate things are going, even EU and Schengen, areas in which their citizens are blissfully unaware how nice they have it compared to outsiders, are going to come to an end. Far-right nationalists are on the rise over Europe.

There's hundreds of millions of starving people ready to move to the first country that does it.

Do you dislike copyright also when it protects your intellectual property, and makes things like software licenses possible?

No, it sounds like the author is well aware of that, and is instead just trying to get a read on what the gov's various systems are saying about him, so he can stay well within buffers of that.

He explicitly says that none of his data on the app would convince an official.

He's not trying to engineer loopholes. He's trying to comply precisely. You are right that there are some genuinely squishy things, but not all of them are. Tax residency is not a judgement call. Overstaying visas or visa waivers is not a judgement call. Residency requirements for immigration applications. etc

Unless you're rich, of course.

"curl it" has been a common (tech) term for at least 15 years: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=5&prefix=true&que...

You're correct. They're assuming that they might be served with a subpoena or warrant or something, but US Customs officials can and will demand the passwords to your personal devices or coerce you into giving your biometrics

https://www.eff.org/issues/border-searches

It's absolutely not best effort that counts.

I've heard many stories of people overstaying their visa in the US by e.g. one day, by way of a mishap or honest mistake, and subsequentially being denied visas or turned away at border control. The effects of this can go on for years and years... it's basically zero tolerance

Overstaying a visa is a big deal. You should not be counting days or nights because you should not let yourself be in the country anywhere near the expiry of a visa.

>Like, if you overstayed Schengen visa for one day because you messed up with counting entry and exit days, but used it otherwise for its intended purpose, the border officer likely won't even notice.

When that wasn't automated that might have been the case (not that its a good thing).

It's certainly not the case now that there is literally an API that tracks that.

That's all true until there's a dispute. Being relaxed about these things is a very bad idea if the consequences are potentially severe.

Enforcement is arbitrary and vibes based, but only if you broke a rule. If you didn't break a rule they find it much harder to punish you, no matter what the vibes are. But also if you have good vibes you might not get punished no matter what rules you broke.

I’d say that’s pretty good behavior. It used to be common that images would expand in ways that would not allow you to zoom in mobile devices but also not allow you to open the image directly

Working at a company in Norway hiring lots of internationals, I've heard so many stories. I'm myself born here, but to foreign (EU) parents. Getting a citizenship for me was quite "easy" (in the sense that I didn't have to do anything or be at someone's mercy, just had to apply), but still lots of bureaucracy. For instance, I had to order a transcript from the police saying that I hadn't committed certain crimes. This document I would have to bring to my appointment for citizenship at the police station. But the document had a short expiration date, and didn't know how long it would take to obtain or not when my appointment would be. So it's a gamble if you hit the timing, shrugs. I think however they now just pull up the records themselves instead of doing this weird dance.

One coworker had lived her for many years on a string of temporary working visas. He was then eligible for a permanent one, and applied. However, while that was processing, he kinda was in limbo. Still legal to live and work here, but somehow wasn't guaranteed entry if he were to leave for a vacation / visit his home country/family. I don't know the exact details, but so weird how he suddenly was stuck here for months, with many delays. In the end he needed to travel for work, and our company sent a letter and his application got fast tracked.

Now try international taxation rules (particularly if you come from one of the handful of countries with world-wide taxation, like the USA!)

It grows exponentially the more countries are involved. I am a citizen of country A but live and work in country B, and I have to satisfy country B's visa requirements, which involves quite a bit of paperwork. I also have to pay taxes to country A, which involves more paperwork. It gets complicated.

But I'm only dealing with the requirements of two countries. The author mentioned five or six countries; I'm glad I'm only dealing with two.

The more you travel (or immigrate) the more you realise the government probably needs less money than it gets, just better spent.

You've been lucky in that the countries you've travelled to all stamped your passport.

This gets much murkier in the EU, or being a non-citizen with Global Entry traveling to the US, etc.

To get a driving license in Japan without having to retake the exam, I had to prove that I lived in the country that issued my license for at least 90 days after I got it (presumably because they had some issues with people getting licenses in jurisdictions that are... easier to get the licenses in.).

This was a _very_ non-trivial thing to do for a document I first got over ten years ago, in a country that is part of the Schengen zone.

Dont spoil the fun pls

> Airlines sometimes check for things during boarding. Those things are never rules outside the context of the airline.

Nope. Plenty of countries still require 6 months' passport validity to enter.

> I had an airline require once that I complete a form before boarding that, by the terms printed on the form, expired before the plane landed. That didn't matter to them.

> Airlines are clueless. I don't know why they do their imaginary checks.

The airline doesn't give a shit about whether you can legally or practically enter the country they're flying you to. They care about whether they're going to be held liable to repatriate you at their own expense, and their processes are set up to ensure they avoid that. If the requirement on them is that they check your document before you board, they'll check your document before you board.

Are you always this cynical? The article is interesting on its own merits, that the author is also selling the app (outright, I might add, not subscription-based!) is neither here nor there

What late stage capitalism? This is literally some guy hacking some stuff together.

Europe in a nutshell