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Berwyn

00:03

Heh

hippietrail

02:37

@motoDrizzt You don't bribe people in China. Like in developed western countries that's something only for rich businessmen and politicians.

@ZachLipton plenty of people are paranoid of things they don't really understand. a person who is not paranoid about clean water may be paranoid about hitchhiking. And vice versa. Not a few people are paranoid about overseas travel no matter which destination.

hippietrail

04:05

I asked a question on expats!

0

Q: What's the procedure for somebody who has lost their US passport while living in Taiwan?

I'm travelling in Taiwan, currently in a little village on the east coast with quite a few expats. I just ran into one acquaintance from the US who tells me he things he's lost his passport. Given that the US has good relations with Taiwan but does not have true embassies or consulates here, I'...

Berwyn

congrats!

pnuts

04:32

@hippietrail May be of interest: acs.ait.org.tw/lost.html

Johan Gronberg

05:58

@pnuts I did post the answer now. Guess I will have to see how it is recieved :)

pnuts

Good enough for me! Thank you for posting - and I apologise if you receive downvotes just because it is not what the OP was hoping to hear.

RoflcoptrException

07:15

@Fiksdal I know, @hippietrail has a history of trolling :)

JonathanReez

07:27

@Berwyn it seems that we have two kinds of people on this site. The 1st are what I would call the 'Flyertalk mentality' - all hands are off when it comes to flight tickets, as long as the best value is obtained for the traveler, even if numerous contracts are violated

the 2nd are the kind of people who wait for a green light at 3am in the middle of a suburb - contracts have to be strictly adhered to and the punishment for violating them include prison with a possible death penalty

I still don't understand why the 'NO' answer is the highest upvoted one right now, even after @Berwyn posted a screenshot of an APIS change screen for a second leg

it literally shows that it's possible to pull it off, with no other proof except vague references to contracts of carriage and threats of penalties by the government

/rant over

Johan Gronberg

I mean. In the case posted it seems like they have nothing to lose even if the ticket gets voided.

Which is a very slight, might be only theoretical posibility.

JonathanReez

I hope OP comes back with his own answer later on, as it's hard for most people out there to test

Zach Lipton

07:49

as interesting as the debate inspired by the question may be, I still don't understand why this is a thing somebody wants to do except under pretty contrived circumstances.

there are a lot of people in the world, so I don't doubt that someone is bound to have a situation where doing it would make sense for them, but just how often do you have two people with the same name who need to swap places and neither of them needs a return ticket ever apparently?

JonathanReez

A direct return flight from El Salvador to NYC is $550. The same flight but one-way? Also $550

although admittedly there are one-way flights with a single stop for half that price

so it makes sense if OP and his father prefer to fly direct

direct is 4.5 hours, layover through Mexico takes 16

a lot of the air-travel ticket "tricks" are really just ways of avoiding the financial burden airlines try to impose on business travelers, this one being no exception

Zach Lipton

but that still requires a situation where the OP's brother and father don't want to come back (at least not within the time period for which the round trip fare is valid) or they could just buy two round-trip tickets, one for the father and one for the brother

maybe they truly are both moving in the opposite directions permanently or semi-permanently, but again, not a common scenario

JonathanReez

08:05

agreed, that part is a bit confusing

1 possible scenario: OP's father is visiting the US and OP wants to go as well, but doesn't want to have fixed dates

so OP flies in, his father flies out, and the son then gets a return ticket whenever he's done traveling

an unusual combination, but so is having the same name as your father

for US immigration he could just get a cheap bus ticket to Mexico, as proof of further travel

Fiksdal

10:14

@RoflcoptrException Thanks, it doesn't surprise me. He should be banned IMO.

RoflcoptrException

We will see :) First I have to check the huge amount of comments on the father/son using the same ticket question

Fiksdal

Haha.

Gotta love controversy.

RoflcoptrException

sure, but the comments are getting a little bit out of hand

these kind of discussions should happen in the chat

JonathanReez

I think the main issue is that the "move comments to chat" button doesn't actually move the comments, it merely copies them

if it nuked the whole thread into Chat, threads would look a lot cleaner

RoflcoptrException

actually that's possible

recently there has been an update so that you can now move the comments and at the same time delete them

the problem however is that sometimes you want to move a discussion to the chat, but leave 1 or two comments that are not part of the discussion but, for instance, provide a link to a related question

JonathanReez

10:24

oh really? Does it do so by default?

for non-mods

RoflcoptrException

no, you have to click a checkbox

the default option is to copy the comments, but not delete them

I think the wording is also a little bit strange there. Imho, moving means taking the comments from one place and put it into another place, the chat

however, it's more a copying thing and moving

Gayot Fow

10:53

9

Q: UK visitor visa refused due to length of prior stay

I was issued a 6-months UK visa in 2014 and I stayed for 3 months. When I applied again for a visa to the UK, it was refused based on the fact that I stayed for 3 months. They also said in the refusal letter that I should state why I asked for 3 months and to provide evidence that my employer was...

visas uk visa-refusal

perfect example of why we should see the refusal notice

the op has the wrong end of the stick

please reopen this

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton It's all gone to waste! My "being trolled" message has now got two stars. All my genius messages of the past will now need two stars.

I've asked the mods to ban @hippietrail and @CMaster for trolling, I don't know why Mark hasn't responded yet.

CMaster

I think what you're seeing is known as the Streissand Effect

RoflcoptrException

@GayotFow done!

JonathanReez

11:39

@GayotFow I strongly feel like I've seen a dupe refusal notice before

with an answer of yours

Gayot Fow

12:07

@JonathanReez do they begin to blur after a while?

hippietrail

12:39

@Fiksdal I believe Mark banned himself as a very clever way to troll you.

chx

lol

Fiksdal

12:57

@CMaster lol, yeah, Streisand effect indeed

@hippietrail Wow, I didn't know it was possible for mods to ban themselves?

Johan Gronberg

What else are you supposed to do when you realize you did something wrong?

Fiksdal

@JohanGronberg Hmmm... True. So Mark is abusing the feature as a way to troll me further... This is abuse of the system, and the other mods should therefore clearly extend his ban.

JoErNanO

14:16

The Presidential Debate: Hillary Clinton And Donald Trump (Full Debate) | NBC News

►

Why not?

CMaster

15:13

2

Q: How can I meet the world's most jovial taxi driver?

I'm a fan of Anthony Bourdain's TV shows and twice he's been to Turkey he was driven and shown around by the tirelessly cheerful and voluble taxi driver/entertainer Issam (Ihsan ? Isham ? can't figure out what his name actually is). Where and how can I meet this guy ? Was his appearance only ...

turkey taxis guides

well that was quick

Fiksdal

16:51

@JoErNanO Summary:

SOUTH PARK GIANT DOUCHE vs TURD SANDWICH

►

Zach Lipton

17:33

eh, I'm tired of the "both sides are terrible" routine. That's not at all what we saw last night

Berwyn

Who "won"?

Zach Lipton

by any reasonable measure, I would say that the pundits who allegedly decide such things, along with the polls, have agreed that the human cheeto did very badly indeed.

Berwyn

human cheeto?

I did listen to a bit of it on the radio

chx

look

this whole thing is a pointless circus

2

you could have had the election from a month ago already at any time with the same results as waiting till November

most of Trump voters would vote for anyone who is not establishment and a white man

who is not perceived , i must add

Berwyn

not perceived to be a white man? :)

chx

17:48

really the only question is whether the Clinton believers stay at home or not

Zach Lipton

the human cheeto is the one who is orange :)

chx

who is not perceived as establishment.

it's debatable whether a self proclaimed billionare is establishment or not

but Ms Clinton is seen as one that's for sure

and she is a woman and for these Trump voters it was already against normal world order to elect a non-white person continuing with a non-man that's just unthinkable

if you could get a straight answer out of them you'd find most of them still thinks that putting Ota Benga in a zoo is perfectly accetable

Zach Lipton

absolutely, but the question is how what percentage of voters are the true Trump believers. Because it's alarmingly high, but not over 50%. Which means that to win, he actually needs some percentage of non-white, non-male people to vote for him, and if he acts like he did last night, that's going to scare off a lot of people who like tax cuts but aren't on board with the rest

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton Dude. Both sides are seriously terrible. IMO it's like having to chose whether you want AIDS or cancer.

I'm tired of the "you have to choose the lesser evil" argument.

chx

you have no idea about percentages

many of these people are completely unvisible

or to use the word from morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat this harrowing excellent post, unnecessariat

also, many will vote for Trump not for themselves (because they consider themselves a lost cause anyways) but for their children

which is also a major cause of the migrant crisis on the other end of the world

and yes they are related and intervowen, the believers of the staunchly anti-refugee Hungarian PM began to use the Skittles analogy

as for both being equally bad, that's also bullshit

There's only of them who genuinely might bring the end of the world by triggering a nuclear apocalypse

so no, not by any meaningful yardstick can you measure them both and say they are equally bad

newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/…

Zach Lipton

18:10

yeah. I have plenty of policy disagreements with Clinton, but they are nowhere in the same league. But yes, even if you somehow think they are both terrible, you have to choose one, and picking the one you think is better is the logical move.

Fiksdal

I don't agree.

I don't think the people have to put up with having such terrible candidates shoved down their throat

The best option is to boycott the whole election. At least if the turnout was 20% or something they'd have a problem selling the US as a democracy If people go to vote for the "least terrible" candidate, then "yes, this corrupt warmonger has been elected by the people".

Zach Lipton

I think that most change has to come from the bottom up. It's doing the incredibly unsexy and uninteresting work of getting everyone from city councilmen to state representatives to congressional representatives and senators elected who believe in what you believe and want to improve the system. If you show up every 4 years and tick a box, you're not building a base to change anything

Fiksdal

The next time one of these guys is bailing out big banks with taxpayer money or bombing brown people, I'd rather not they were able to say "I'm democratically elected with the people behind me" while doing it.

Zach Lipton

and boycotting the election is the same as saying: meh, let someone else pick

the same people are getting bombed, you just get to feel morally pure about staying home

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton People voting is a huge problem

The strongest political message you can send in this sort of election is to stay home.

Or vote blank. It's a message.

Imagine if 90% of voters did it.

Zach Lipton

18:21

voter turnout is pathetically low for off-year elections in the US already. The only message that sends is: "hey, we can do whatever the hell we want because people obviously don't care and aren't paying attention," as they sign another contract to privatize a prison or whatever

Berwyn

vote trump. it's going to be so much fun watching what happens for the next 5 years

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton I think it depends on just how terrible you consider the two candidates. For example, hypothetically: Let's say one candidate was a confirmed war criminal who had passed 1 million women and children to death without reason, gotten away with it, and is now running for president. The other candidate is paedophile who has raped a bunch of kids and is still doing it. In this bizarre, hypothetical scenario, would you advocate voting for any of the candidates?

What I'm trying to illustrate here is that our disagreement lies not in the principle, but just how terrible we consider the candidates.

You clearly consider Trump terrible (I do too) and Hillary kinda bad but better than Trump.

I consider Hillary pretty much as bad as Trump.

Berwyn

my cat would make a better president than trump

Fiksdal

If I agreed with your assesment of Hillary, I would probablya agree with you that it would be better to vote for her.

@Berwyn Yeah, probably;.

Berwyn

Didn't know you knew my cat

Fiksdal

18:24

@Berwyn I don't. And I rest my case.

Berwyn

:)

Zach Lipton

and I don't get, by any stretch of the imagination, how you can consider them pretty much as bad as each other. One candidate seems to not know the effects of using nuclear weapons. One candidate doesn't believe that systemic racism exists and thinks the police are the most mistreated people in the country today. One candidate wants to ban 1.6 billion people from the country on the basis of their religion. One candidate wants to forcibly deport 10 million people from the country

chx

the problem with not voting is that now is simply not the time to do it

Zach Lipton

these things are a lot worse than the business-as-usual foreign and military affairs of the US, which yes, I do not like

chx

it's a pretty strong gambit : there are enough non-voters to make this invalid -- the likely outcome is Trump if many abstains.

even flouting the chance of the US not fulfilling its promises towards its NATO allies should be enough to disqualify a candidate

Fiksdal

18:29

"Trump may be a (loose-cannon) unpredictable evil. But then, based on her long track record, Clinton is a very predictable evil. In fact, Trump is left of Clinton on such things as legal marijuana, NATO aggression, and trade policy. His crazy proposals (e.g. Mexican wall, banning Muslims) are just bluster with zero chance of becoming reality. If Congress can stop Obama, it can stop Trump.

But Clinton has a predictable pro-war track record (Iraq, Libya, Syria) and a predictable track record of changing positions for political expediency (e.g. Iraq war, NAFTA, Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2000, immigration, gun control, the Keystone XL pipeline, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, same-sex marriage). How can you be sure she won’t conveniently change her current progressive positions as president?"

counterpunch.org/2016/05/13/…

chx

that's just ... what, FUD?

Fiksdal

@chx What is FUD?

chx

what you pasted

Fiksdal

Yeah, what does FUD stand for

chx

it diverts from the most important claim of all: the man who knows Trump most have said "I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization"

Fiksdal

18:32

Alright, yeah I get what you're saying. And I understand where @ZachLipton is coming from too.

chx

and, while it is not impossible that if Clinton had been the president in 2012 or 2013 she would've went to war in Syria

But

with Trump's maybe on NATO, Putin might try to reconquer the Baltics

one thing for sure: that won't happen under Clinton

this is what i am trying to say: yes, Clinton is not a great choice but Trump leads to World War III and let's not do that , mkay?

which is not to say that a blunder of Clinton can't trigger the same!

but at least that'll be a blunder and not a stated policy or known personality

Fiksdal

I just think it's just so incredibly sad that people have to go wait in line to put the name of a confirmed corrupt, lying, deceitful warmonger into a box as literally a permission to go piss away more of their tax money on more illegal bombings, spying, wars, corruption bail-outs, etc, under the threat that if you don't we're gonna have some other warmonger in office who's also, by the way, a crazy egomaniac who might start wars and concentration camps or whatever and use nukes.

chx

it's a game of chances and the chances of a nuclear war under Trump is uncomfortably high

sure

noone said you need to like the hand of cards you are dealt

but these are the cards

Fiksdal

It's just so incredibly sad. I just couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I did it. I would have voted blank or stayed home. If Trump gets elected, sure, it's terrible, but at least there will be Congress and the Senate to hold him back.

chx

Maybe the good people of the United States should've taken to the streets when Citizens United happened

it's too late now.

Zach Lipton

18:36

I don't buy the idea that Congress and the Senate can or will hold him back. He can do plenty of damage all on his own. Just look at what he's already done in foreign affairs without holding any office

Berwyn

What's he done?

Zach Lipton

and sadly, plenty of folks in Congress would be perfectly happy to see Muslims banned from the country too

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton I'm not denying it would be absolutely disatrous to have him in office.

At least HC is a known, stable, predictable evil that we already know.

It will be the slow, painful, discriminate corruption we're already used to.

Trump is sort of like an evil mad cannon that can do a bunch of crazy stuff that we can't predict.

Zach Lipton

he's called for Putin to hack into emails, called the US's support of every ally into question unless they pay protection money, set back our relations with Muslims around the world by calling for them to be banned, and last night said that "China should go into North Korea." People around the world hear this stuff

Fiksdal

So yeah, I understand why you want Clinton over Trump, of course.

@ZachLipton I get what you're saying. It's just so incredibly sad that they're getting you to support a pretty terrible, corrupt candidate by scaring you with the prosect of an absolutely disastrous candidate.

Zach Lipton

18:42

to be clear, it's not just that I want Clinton because Trump is a maniac. She also supports versions of social welfare policies that might help more people get child care or health care or college. I wish she went further on some of them, but how they're getting through Congress in any form is enough of a battle

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton Oh, ok, so you sort of like Clinton?

Anyway, yeah, whatever. I

I'm just disgusted by the whole thing. They can do whatever they want. I'm glad I don't live anywhere near the place.

chx

I live just north of the border

but I trust the CBSA to keep away the desperate hordes after Trump is elected.

Zach Lipton

@chx you're a citizen now, any strings you can pull? ;)

Fiksdal

@chx Ehm.. Congratulations on not having a part of lots of trillions of dollars of national debt that is there due to pointless wars that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents.

@chx Are you CA or US citizen or both?

chx

@ZachLipton not really, the federal election is not for another three years

Canadian

Fiksdal

18:46

@chx Congratulations.

chx

youtube.com/watch?v=sCyzdD0vYOw this is still very good

Fiksdal

I'll also admit that I'm not being very rational. It's almost a feeling thing for me. Whenever I see Hillary or even hear her voice, I get the massive creeps. As if I have this feeling like I'm looking at something evil or something. I feel this sick sensation in my body. Seriousy. I realize this is not based on reason, just a feeling and probably unfair and not a logical argument. It's just biased personal feeling. But nevertheless, she scares the hell out of me on an emotional level.

I can't even help it.

Zach Lipton

I mean, hey, that's brutally honest

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton Regarding Trump, I can recognize on a more logical, reasonable level that he's very dangerous and could do terrible things. My "feeling" on him is "Wow, he's a total doucebag, lol. Would be hilarious if it wasn't so serious"

Anyway, yeah, these are feelings and are not that relevant in a politcal debate with someone else, where the rules are based on reason and logic.

Yeah, just trying to be honest yeah. Feeling and bias plays a part for me.

Zach Lipton

feelings matter one way or another, whether it's fair or not

Fiksdal

18:58

Trump doesn't creep me out in the same way in that instincive way. But based on reason he does come off as very scary.

Zach Lipton

Part of the problem I think is that there really has been a 25+ year effort to smear and attack the Clintons, with conservatives and the government spending millions on investigation after investigation and endless rumors about how many people they've killed and whatnot. And after decades of that, it sinks in subconsciously

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton Sure. Look at the voters. People are very emotional

Zach Lipton

And then it becomes hard to distinguish between what's decades of conspiracy mongering, what's a legitimate thing she's messed up in her life, and what's something I disagree with her about

Trump creeps me out in more of an instinctive way, because he comes across as a bully who rips people off, and I've dealt with both of those types of people too many times

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton Well, I'm not even American, and I was just a kid during most of that, so I didn't pay much attention. But yeah, lots of people really hate HC.

Anyway. Good luck to them. Let's see if they go for the loose cannon or predictable corruption. Up to them.

Meh, it looks like we have different assesments.

Whatever.

You're British, right?

Zach Lipton

me? I'm American :)

Fiksdal

19:02

Oh, wow.

Didn't know that.

Zach Lipton

heh

Fiksdal

In that case, it must be much worse for you.

Did you support Bernie when he was still running?

Zach Lipton

41 days, 12 hours until this circus is over with

I did. There were things from him I liked, and things from Clinton I liked

Fiksdal

It would actually be nice to have the circus over with.

Maybe consider moving to Canda to stay with @chx if things get too bad.

Zach Lipton

by international standards, both Clinton and Sanders would likely both fit comfortably in an European center-left party

yeah, turns out Canada has immigration laws of their own :)

chx

19:05

lol nope

nothing in the US is left

Fiksdal

Haha, yeah. I see HC and Tony Blair together.

chx

people complain about real estate prices in Vancouver now, just watch what happens if Trump gets elected

2

Fiksdal

@chx Exactly.

lol

chx

The only house US politicians would fit into in Europe is one with padded walls

Fiksdal

Ok so I've starred a bunch of messages from @chx and the evidence of me being pwned/trolled are now gone from the sidebar. Awesome. And that wasn't even my motive, I legitimately agreed with the messages by @chx .

Zach Lipton

19:07

splendid! sorry I started that :/

Fiksdal

Haha, you're on a roll of good comments.

No worries, it was pretty funny lol

Zach Lipton

@chx yeah, that's the vertical dimension of the political orientation scale: batshit insane vs grounded in reality

chx

Regarding real estate, some Vancouver students apparently have flipped an awful lot of burgers i.imgur.com/ij1q5uU.jpg

and then houses...

Zach Lipton

see, you guys charge students so much less in tuition that they can afford multi-million dollar houses :)

Zach Lipton

20:41

So now the water filter guy finds filters that would do the job, but doesn't like them because he doesn't trust the sellers and thinks that a two year old model is unacceptable (as if they come out with new models every six months or something)

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton Yeah I know. He's lucky he even found something.

That machine is pretty perfect for his already very peculiar needs. He's lucky it's even available. Now he's worried about the seller, even though he'll have Amazon as a middle man.

I VTC but retracted (don't ask why, please). I can't VTC again. I suggest you guys VTC as dupe of the other question.

Or off-topic if you so desire, I don't care.

Zach Lipton

it sort of feels like the whole site is water filters and changing DOBs on airline tickets now

Fiksdal

Hahaha.

You know, maybe we do need the travel tag after all?

I mean, to distinguish questions from all the questions about water filters?

Zach Lipton

hah!

it would be a meta tag, but perhaps refuses-to-accept-any-reasonable-solution would help

Fiksdal

There are these two guys asking water filter questions. The other guy has like 1200 rep or something.

hahahah, that's a good tag.

Zach Lipton

20:52

or are-we-sure-this-is-even-a-problem

there's two? they all blur together for me I guess

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton It started with this question about a filter straw. The question was popular and hit the HNQ and got thousands of views. Then, a few days later, this guy with 1200 rep comes and asks a question and another. The reason he asked two questions was because there was one for electric ones and one for non-electric. Yeah. (Continued.)

Now we have this third guy. He's not a totally new guy here, he actually earned like 100 rep from posting (no association bonus)

And he actually joined two months ago. Anyway, he first asked one about how to find a filter that would fit his weird taps. Then when I told him, he's asking us to use Google UK on behalf of him. Now that I did, he's complaining about the results.

Zach Lipton

ok. So guy #2 wants filters both with and without electricity for Hong Kong, North America, and Western Europe, while guy #3 was worried about radioactive contamination in UK tap water

Fiksdal

That was the whole saga. Great fun, huh? Why is all this happening now? Did these guys get inspired by each other or something? Anyway, perhaps this should be called "Travel & Water Filters SE".

@ZachLipton Hahhaha. Yeah, that's also a good summary.

Zach Lipton

to be fair, radon can be an actual problem, but usually only if you're drinking out of a private well in a high-concentration area for decades

Fiksdal

Either that, or he just copied that list of substances from somewhere on the web without reading it and realizing what he was even asking to remove from the water.

@ZachLipton Wow. So what causes there to be radon in the water in certain areas?

pnuts

21:06

Some details here

Zach Lipton

radon is naturally produced in areas with certain rocks as I understand it. Some people in parts of the US need radon pumps in their basements for the same reason

Fiksdal

I see.

Zach Lipton

the problem is usually more like "living like this for 30 years puts you at higher risk of cancer" rather than "your house is radioactive get out now"

Fiksdal

Yeah, that's what I figured.

I don't think RO would help with radioactive water anyway, right?

I mean, is the water itself radioactive, or is there some sort of dissolved solid in the water that is radioactive?

pnuts

Radon is a gas.

Zach Lipton

21:16

my understanding is that charcoal filters can help deal with it in water, but I don't know anything about the standards for the filters or whether there are special ones for radon or what

if you have a well, I presume you hire someone to test your water and deal with such problems

Berwyn

I bet you know a good travel site where you could ask that question

Fiksdal

@Berwyn Which question?

Actually, we're about to rename this site to Travel & Water SE

Berwyn

about where to buy a good radon filter in london

Fiksdal

@Berwyn Yeah, should definitely be asked asap. To make it travel related, ask for a portable one that you'll be able to take around with you to various houses as you travel around London.

Berwyn

with adjustable distance between taps

be good to have one for the shower too. Hate getting irradiated when I take a shower

Fiksdal

21:21

Yeah, and the option to pour in manually using jugs.

Haha, yeah. And it should all be portable.

Berwyn

travel jugs

Zach Lipton

also the filter must be a model introduced within the last year, because obviously there are massive changes in water filter technology every three months

Fiksdal

Actually, the new site name should be Travel, Water & Jugs SE

Zach Lipton

and the store must be owned and operated by the manufacturer of the filter, because the other stores may be up to no good

Fiksdal

And the seller needs to be Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King or one of their descendants.

Berwyn

21:23

must be suitable for countries with clean water supplies

Fiksdal

Yeah, both those criteria, yeah.

Haha. Yeah. Must be suitable for Norwegian glacier water.

Zach Lipton

I'm so environmentally pure I won't ever buy bottled water under any circumstances, but will gladly buy a big plastic machine to filter water in countries that generally have perfectly clean tap water

Fiksdal

Haha.

Berwyn

after all this we're going to learn that the grandparents drink directly from the Ganges at home

5

Fiksdal

@Berwyn Maybe they've brought the Ganges water to the UK, and this is why they need the RO system. This would explain why OP is so concerned about being able to pour it in with jugs.

Berwyn

22:02

could be

Zach Lipton

23:15

ok this has every sign of a giant scam

travel.stackexchange.com/questions/79671/…

Berwyn

indeed

Fiksdal

@ZachLipton The "diplomatic person" is the scammer trying to get money from her?

Zach Lipton

I presume so

sort of a variant on the "family member stranded overseas" scam

consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0204-family-emergency-scams

Fiksdal

So he his telling her a story that her fiance is currently being detained at the airport?

And she can't talk to her husband directly?

Zach Lipton

or, I hate to say it, but the fiance could be in on it. She says "This Diplomat told me that he has been helping him by allowing my fiancee use of his cellphone"

or it could be someone impersonating the fiance

Fiksdal

23:26

Yeah.

Presumably her fiance has actually traveled to Nigeria. Most people would know about it if their significant other travels to Africa.

RoflcoptrException

it sounds definitely very strange

Fiksdal

Wow.

And she'd know when he was returning from Nigeria, etc. And the scammer would have to know that too. It's weird.

Zach Lipton

it's all quite weird

RoflcoptrException

23:42

I hope we will hear the end of the story

Fiksdal

@RoflcoptrException Me too. But unfortunately, many such new users just abandon their question after an hour or so.

Zach Lipton

she posted two follow-up comments, so at least not a user who asks a question that stirs up all kinds of stuff and is never heard from again

like mr. two people one name one ticket

Fiksdal

Haha, yeah.

But some make a few innitial comments, because they're there at the site right after asking the question, then takes off.

Like the 17 year old hitchhiker I responded to.

Berwyn

wonder if she even has a fiance' ;)

Fiksdal

Maybe it's a handsome Nigerian she has met on the net.

Zach Lipton

23:47

she thought she had a fiance :)

Berwyn

it's someone from microsoft who was fixing her computer remotely for her

Zach Lipton

but yeah either he's off doing his job in Nigeria blissfully unaware of any of this, which is not uncommon in these scams as I understand it, or he's in on it

the one interesting detail there is she says the fiance is a US Citizen

Fiksdal

Ah, I missed that.

Who knows. We can only speculate. I really hope OP doesn't abandon this question.

I'll see you guys (and that question) tomorrow, bye.

Zach Lipton

later

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