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Zach Lipton

00:11

@phoog I agree

I also think that people desperately want signs of normalcy and are looking for patterns in the noise that would indicate a coherent strategy, because that would be far more reassuring than "a sense of persecution bordering on faith," per anonymous sources

mts

01:33

Are there even Skype interviews for Italian/Schengen visa? Smells a tiny bit of scam?!? travel.stackexchange.com/q/90192/32134

chx

02:27

yes there are

Unless vfs-gr-in.com this whole site is a scam and really doesn't look like it is

the whois record whois.domaintools.com/vfs-gr-in.com looks legit

vfs-gr-in.com/how_to_apply.html so then here's Skype mentioned

vfsglobal.com/greece/srilanka/short_term_visa.html here's the same information on vfsglobal.com itself

well this is not Italian but i guess the same happens now

could be a scam, worths a comment i guess

Zach Lipton

05:05

so the new question about the electronics ban raises an important issue

What the heck do they do with you if you bring your laptop in your carry-on from, say, Delhi to Dubai, then go to board a connecting flight to the US?

You're standing there with a laptop and may not have any checked luggage, or if you checked your luggage, you did that hours ago.

chx

05:16

1

Q: Does the laptop ban in cabin luggage from middle eastern airports impact connecting flights

This is a follow up to this question which discusses the ban on medium to large size portable electronic devices. If I'm flying an itinerary into the US where I need to transit via one of the airports which are under the purview of the recent ban, then does it apply to me? As an example, if I w...

The answer was given by the BBC ages ago, like half a day :P

I wrote an answer travel.stackexchange.com/a/90276/4188 and I have restrained myself but my opinion still leaks ;)

chx

05:44

dhs.gov/news/2017/03/21/… this does NOT speak of airlines, only airports

Zach Lipton

@chx presumably they could also arrange to let you gate check a bag, if they have the staff to do that

chx

is it possible that they included the US airlines as well? wow

@ZachLipton right. I will add that option. You are right. If you have a separate bag.

Zach Lipton

yeah it's still a problem, but I guess you could gate check a laptop box and dump any non-electronics you need in there into a shopping bag or something

gate checking a laptop bag sounds like a horrible idea of course, between theft and the chance of it being crushed

chx

yeah they likely will introduce thick corrugated boxes for these electronics

Zach Lipton

For a low, low fee of $150/box

chx

05:51

well, you need to be reasonable, these boxes are expensive!

not to mention the personnel who needs to be deal with them

IF they want to do something nifty they will install some sort of packaging producing machine, you know the ones that inflate an air bag like thing or fills the bag with packing peanuts -- like Amazon does

This is all doable of course

but really, who wants to sit on a 12-14 hour flight without an ereader, a tablet or a laptop?

Zach Lipton

indeed

chx

the related BBC article for parents is pathetic

seriously, coloring books? these days?

JonathanReez

06:10

@chx what about 5) - they transfer you to a connecting flight through Europe instead so you don't have to deal with the ban

doable for business passengers

chx

that's going to be rare as hen's teeth

especially because I would bet you anything that the EU ban can't be far behind

JonathanReez

also could be a nice piece of strategy to show the ban is silly

the EU won't do it, I think

@ZachLipton well right now I'm thinking it's a move designed to distract people from the FBI investigation

Flyertalk thinks it's a deliberate move against MENA airlines

Zach Lipton

I don't think it's a remotely effective distraction from the FBI investigation. The vast majority of the US population doesn't care and isn't flying through Dubai anytime in their lives anyway

JonathanReez

of. course Occam's razor says it's just stupidity...

chx

06:28

they want to screw with Muslims

chx

06:40

@JonathanReez added that

I think my first eReader was an Astak EzReader Pro so long ago. Can't even imagine travelling without one!

and honestly, this is a major bummer, I really liked that Amman-JFK-Vancouver route :(

It is so easy to get an AA award ticket for it because noone has the slightest idea that you can!

You need to search on Quantas (...) for both legs separately and then call AA

and now that i know of the Jordan Pass, really, the Eilat crossing is easy

chx

07:07

Honestly, I should post that ...

yeah, let's do it

JonathanReez

@chx add one more option - you throw away your laptop at the gate :)

or donate it to charity or something

chx

LOL

JonathanReez

btw it should be easy to hide a laptop inside the traditional Arab dress

if they do manual luggage searches

or inside the turban

chx

0

A: Is there a way to cross into Jordan from Israel if I do not have a visa?

The Jordan Pass entitles you to a visa-on-arrival and it also gives you entrance to Petra. You need to print it, though, in my experience electronic copies were not accepted. It is still way less hassle than mailing your passport at home to the consulate.

here.

Let's hope others find this useful, i searched and this info is not available on the site

gosh, indiegogo.com/projects/… they are inventing useful phones again!

JonathanReez

washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/21/…

chx

07:18

Maybe

but I will call my MP tomorrow to ask whether they are already negotiating with the ME3 to get more traffic into Toronto and Vancouver finally

this opportunity is huge for Canada

Rory Alsop

@chx excellent answer you gave. I do think, though, that colouring books are still a perfect thing for kids when flying, especially long haul, as no batteries

chx

12 hours?

without a tablet?

with today's kids?

Rory Alsop

Yeah - I make sure mine have colouring books, books for reading, and something like sudoku

chx

sure, those coloring books might occupy them for a little while

then they will ask for their favorite cartoon

what then?

Rory Alsop

I do see what you are getting at, but kids don't need access to the internet. When we go camping in the wilds We often have no signal for days. They cope just fine.

chx

07:28

sure, they have a tablet stuffed with their favorite cartoons, don't need Internet indeed ;)

Rory Alsop

Nah - they just do without devices, as do I. (I still upvoted your answer, as it is spot on)

chx

07:40

I wish there was a way to award comments. Because this travel.stackexchange.com/questions/76807/… is , without a doubt, the best comment on the entire SE network.

" I think we can rule out the possibility that OPs girlfriend is the Queen of England"

4

Rory Alsop

07:55

Hahahaha - I also like "Sorry for calling you 'beethoven'; my phone made me do it."

JonathanReez

@chx how about 6) all passengers are served with sleeping pills so they can skip the horrors of a 12 hour laptopless flight

chx

well

you still need to put that laptop somewhere

JonathanReez

08:20

it's funny that the US didn't use proper measures to attract more passengers. E.g. allow visa-free sterile transit flights

JonathanReez

08:34

or a complete shutdown of TSA along with allowing liquids on all flights

or allowing foreign airlines to have hubs in the US

JoErNanO

09:59

@GayotFow I don't know if I can lock the post for vandalism. That reason doesn't show up on the lock reason list. I'll warn the user in the meantime.

@Moo Let's discuss this here, shall we? :)

Indeed we are stuck on a conundrum: quote information that might be out-of date tomorrow, or post a link to a site that might disappear tomorrow.

This is something we deal with constantly on Travel.SE.

One way to solve the problem is to do regular housekeeping on answers ensuring the information is up to date.

IMHO the question is low-quality.

0

Q: Legal Minimum Third Party Liability Insurance for Rental Car - USA

What is the legal minimum third party liability insurance for rental car for every US state?

car-rentals insurance

However, as you say, the answer is easy to find so it might make sense reopening it.

Zach Lipton

IMHO, quoting information is generally useful, but not when the information is a long specialized table that will become up to date

if the link rots, it can be replaced with a link to the same information on another website somewhere

Mark Mayo

10:15

I wonder if SE could automate a link rot test

I mean, it wouldn't pick up the default 'not found' server pages, but pure 404 responses? totally detectable

and then it could appear on a review list for people to address

or at least flag it some how

Zach Lipton

That would be nice

Mark Mayo

this is the best someone's come up with:

9

Q: How to handle link rot and broken links?

Some questions and answers on stackoverfow have broken links. And sometimes it is important links in accepted or most upvoted answers. If the question is old, and I have no idea of what the link should be pointing to, how can I tell the author to try to fix it? In my case, I am refering to thi...

support hyperlinks broken-link

link to archive.org, if it exists for the page

Zach Lipton

that's a good idea for programing information, probably not so great for car insurance info

since the information is likely to change

Mark Mayo

indeed, I was thinking more embassy links that I've seen broken

Interesting profile content: travel.stackexchange.com/users/57836/sagar-v?tab=profile

Zach Lipton

but yeah I think quoting the information is a good general rule, but this is a perfect example of an exception

Moo

10:24

@MarkMayo any server worth its salt should be returning a 404 status code, even if its returning a custom HTML "page not found" page 😀

Mark Mayo

@Moo you'd hope so, but I assure you they don't all ;)

(QA here, I've had arguments with devs over that)

Moo

@MarkMayo then they breach the http standards and should be ignored anyway ;)

Mark Mayo

well the RFC (2616?) the dev was trying to argue is 'ambiguous' for when a server end point exists but no data exists (sigh) ;)

should return 200 empty response, but I think they were retuning 404 for nothing found (facepalm)

Moo

I agree with both stances here - if the question has an element of timelessness to it, I quote the relevant info in the answer, stuff like developer docs etc, but when the question is more immediate, or lacks a context in terms of a fixed point in time, quoting becomes next to useless and indeed can lower the quality of an answer later on, especially if there is a decent external source...

@MarkMayo I'm struggling to see how a URI which doesn't return the data it promises would be an ambiguous situation - even if the endpoint exists, if there is no content then it shouldn't be a 200 code imho, but some devs will argue anything :)

JonathanReez

10:41

http://travel.stackexchange.com/a/88887/9009

Answer improved. Let's clear this one out of the queue ;)

Mark Mayo

10:56

migth be worth making it more clear how it answers the question @JonathanReez

still kinda sorta addresses the lantern festivals in general, rather than how to see the last day of new year one?

JonathanReez

done

29

Q: SO should notify users of broken links in their posts

It would be really nice if SO scanned posted content and checked detected links, and then notified the user of bad or redirected links so they could verify links are still valid and/or fix them.

feature-request hyperlinks broken-link

Mark Mayo

16

Q: Add 404-detecting bot for internal links?

I've noticed that a lot of (especially older) content on Meta (and other places) which links directly to other content on the same site, following the link results in a 404 error. Especially since the link target and destination are both on the same site, it seems like it would be especially pos...

feature-request hyperlinks

the answerer's data query is impressive

JonathanReez

11:27

what SO should do is expose an "External Links" table

on their Data Queries page

then it's a matter of exporting the links and running a python script

we could clear up Travel.SE within a week or so then

Moo

@JonathanReez the Travel data dump is only 70MB zipped, I might give it a go at some point :)

JonathanReez

where can you download it?

Moo

archive.org/details/stackexchange

JonathanReez

someone should create a Github project for it

input: .7z dump

and your profile password

output: flags for broken links

or a simple list

Mark Mayo

why do you need a password?

JonathanReez

11:38

to raise flags

Moo

i like that idea, but dont want to do the work if someone else is going to beat me to it :D

throw it up as a docker container as well

JonathanReez

for simplicity sake it could even run as a webpage

list all the broken links

allow users to tick off fixed ones

check again once a new dump appears

if it works other SEs could use it

Moo

@JonathanReez hosting costs would be high, plus theres a risk in abuse reports since you would be making a lot of http calls out in a flurry, so this tool is probably best left to a user-based query tool. You also dont want 100 people grabbing it and running it, automatically reporting via comments, thus flooding comments with reports.

JonathanReez

If it's a webpage it won't report anything

users would have to do the flagging on their own

probably useful for everyone except the Big League (SuperUser/Stackoverflow)

Mark Mayo

just link to the question with the broken link, then they could go in and flag

JonathanReez

11:48

yep

Mark Mayo

arguably still useful for the big league if you only ran it on questions with more than x views, say

JonathanReez

hosting costs would not be high... I'd be surprised if it had over 100 visits per day

and the number of links to crunch can be limited reasonably (stop once 100 broken links found)

let's add this as a TODO ;)

Mark Mayo

indeed, even like my suggestion above, run it in order of views, say, so that it targets the most common ones first

but then what?

1) a user flags it for a mod

2) one of us look at it and confirms that indeed, the link is broken

3) ???

Moo

@JonathanReez was going by your earlier suggestion of auto flagging

Mark Mayo

4) everything is awesome

JonathanReez

11:51

Even simpler - you don't flag, you go in and fix the link

Mark Mayo

but if you can't find a replacement link?

JonathanReez

try archive.org/google the keywords

Moo

@MarkMayo open a q in meta with the list of questions and broken links :)

JonathanReez

if nothing works you remove the link

Mark Mayo

sometimes it's easy to fix, but somethings a chart has gone

@Moo not bad

@JonathanReez yeah, worst case remove the answer as it's no longer useful, I guess

and it can be reanswered

we only have 40 unanswered questions, after all ;)

JonathanReez

11:53

the code could generate Markdown code for posting to Meta

you copy-paste it and voila

people get to work

Mark Mayo

right, you build it, I'ma getting back to watching 24 Legacy ;)

Moo

so, something to do tomorrow then...?

Mark Mayo

mebbe. depends how long I have to sit at home waiting for my ISP technician to turn up

JonathanReez

like I said, someone get this on Github...

we'll create Issues

someone does the initial setup

like any OS project

Moo

github.com/richardprice/se-link-checker

JonathanReez

11:56

github.com/SokolskyNikita/stackexchange-broken-links-bot

oops

...

Moo

heh

JonathanReez

lemme delete

github.com/richardprice/se-link-checker/issues/1 - get to work ;)

Moo

:D

we dont need the data dump to do this, can do it all via the api

JonathanReez

data dump is faster, no?

api won't return the links anyway

only the post body

Moo

ahh k

what do you mean, it wont return the links? the api has a field for markdown body on answers, that should be parsable for links

JonathanReez

12:04

yes but it won't give you just the links

you get the post body

and then you parse it

IMO parsing it locally would be faster then

Moo

the only difference is going to be accessing the data, parsings going to take the same time - using the api means there wont be any dependency on timeliness of the data dump, its the live data.

JonathanReez

the API doesn't provide live data

data.stackexchange.com

if you're reffering to this

Moo

api.stackexchange.com/docs

JonathanReez

oooh, okay

it is instant api.stackexchange.com/docs/…

Moo

its cached, sure, but its live

Mark Mayo

12:10

not that you need 100% live data anyway, 24 hours old would be good enough

for 99.9% of the site

JonathanReez

we could do it in MVC .NET. I have some Azure credits

Moo

@MarkMayo yup, but I meant it in terms of I think the data dump is annual or at least not frequent

Mark Mayo

ah ok

so good enough for ..... 50-70% of the site ;)

Moo

@JonathanReez ok, have you ever used Nancy and dotnetcore?

@MarkMayo if this is worth doing, then its worth catching link rot quickly, otherwise why bother? :)

JonathanReez

nope

Mark Mayo

12:13

thus the wink ;) It'd be great for getting old link rot, but obviously not the more recent stuff

so we do it properly

JonathanReez

@Moo create a template nancy/core/whatever project

Moo

@JonathanReez you are going to love Nancy, if you are coming from an ASP.Net MVC background. All the hardship evapourates :)

Mark Mayo

This isn't going to run from my mac, is it? ;)

JonathanReez

it will ;)

Moo

ok, will do once Im back at my desk

JonathanReez

12:16

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/tutorials/…

Moo

@MarkMayo I only dev from my mac these days, so yes.

Mark Mayo

ok, sweet

JonathanReez

MS has upped the ante with .NET Core

Moo

for true portability, we could use Go - doesnt even need a runtime :D

Mark Mayo

My PC is like 3m behind me, and ... effort

Moo

12:17

I'm loving dotnetcore atm

JonathanReez

does Go have libraries for stuff like JSON calls?

Moo

yup

its built for microservice development

Mark Mayo

Wow, look at that. .NET Core. I'm so out of touch with MS stuff

Moo

and calling services

Mark Mayo

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/tutorials/…

JonathanReez

12:19

what about web output? Isn't it a back end language?

Moo

what do you mean by "web output"?

JonathanReez

stuff like HTML templates

the View part of MVC

Moo

ok, you havent made the switch then :)

JonathanReez

I did a project on AngularJS which had a backend in Go

but I didn't touch the backend

Moo

but it can still do that, its just pushing web files out

yeah, a lot of devs these days are decoupling the client side and the backend projects - my backdnd these days only talks json or xml, the client stuff is served as a separate site, typically using angular or react

JonathanReez

12:22

well I guess the "app" is an HTML table with one button in each row

I'd go with the .NET

anyway it's not a rush

Moo

popping out for lunch now with the missus, but when I get back I will setup a template project and do some prototyping

JonathanReez

I'll keep my eye open on the Github and contribute when I can

JoErNanO

13:58

Can we salvage this:

1

Q: Which areas of Los Angeles are unsafe (violent crime) as of 2017?

I will be travelling to L.A. soon and I am wondering which areas should be avoided to stay safe. Are there official no go zones? Do you maybe know of any maps?

usa safety security california los-angeles

phoog

@JoErNanO why would you migrate to expatriates a question that boils down to "do I need a visa for a three-day trip to Romania"?

travel.stackexchange.com/posts/90306/revisions

The analogous question has been asked and answered on this site for other countries, as I discovered when looking for a duplicate. I didn't look very thoroughly, either; I suspect that a duplicate is present.

JoErNanO

@phoog My reasoning was that not having the permit yet might make a difference. And it looked like an Expat question since the person lives in Germany.

JonathanReez

14:48

@JoErNanO I think the guy watched way too many movies: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodCalifornia

otherwise it looks perfectly fine to me

we've had a similar question about Paris

29

Q: What is the most dangerous area of Paris (or its suburbs) according to police statistics?

When I travel I like to visit areas which are deemed 'dangerous' by tourist guides. Often they turn out to be a little rough but not at all dangerous and interesting to see. So the question is: what is the most 'dangerous' area I can visit in Paris? In order to make the question non-subjective, ...

safety paris urban-exploration

Dorothy

@JonathanReez @JoErNanO I answered a question the other day, in which the OP noted that he holds a Cypriot passport. There is no tag, other than Cyprus. Should we have one and, if so, two for the distinction between Greek and Turkey (or does it not exist for those who are Turkish)?

JonathanReez

which question?

Dorothy

@JonathanReez ooops, sorry, it was my edit

2

Q: Dual passports in Saudi Arabia

I'm Yemeni, living in Saudi Arabia, where I have permanent residency. I have passport from two countries, Yemen and Cyprus. The information used in the Saudi immigration system is from my Yemeni passport. The Yemeni passport, unlike the Cypriot one, does not allow me to travel to many countries ...

dual-nationality saudi-arabia cyprus yemeni-citizens

JonathanReez

tag created

northern cypriot citizens can be added if needed

Dorothy

@JonathanReez excellent !! Who knew it was so easy; thank you.

JoErNanO

15:00

@Dorothy There is a northen-cyprus tag no?

JonathanReez

but no northern-cyprus-citizens

JoErNanO

The -citizen tag might not exist though.

@Dorothy Feel free to add whichever tag you deem necessary. Don't forget wiki and excerpt.

Dorothy

18:36

@JoErNanO sorry, back from lunch and a little tootle.... there is a northern-cyprus tag, but as @JonathanReez noted, none for -citizen, whether North or Greek. Tell me what you mean by wkii and excerpt; should I edit to include the descriptors/usage? And, for TSE, purposes, would generic description be most appropriate, to reference both Turkish and Greek and omit the politics of either?

chx

19:14

@ZachLipton remember our discussion from Heathrow? I have an actual, real world use case. There's a macaron seller booth in T5 and I want to get some of that for my sister in law but my plane leaves from T2. I asked Reserve and Collect and Heathrow and they don't do this. Six macarons are certainly not 250 GBP not even at Heathrow. I will ask them whether I could get over there for just the macarons...

Zach Lipton

@chx cool. Curious what they say. They might say that's not expensive enough, but worth asking

chx

it's the same supplier that sells the macarons at the main Harrods

and those are some of the best macarons in the world

oh wait

the official site now that does not find Laduree in T5 either

my info might be outdated :/

oh well

Zach Lipton

Yeah that might be a problem

JonathanReez

What if you get a throwaway ticket from T5?

or fully refundable

Zach Lipton

Your layover is long enough to change terminals but not long enough to make it to Knightsbridge and back?

chx

19:24

mmmmm

passing immigration takes time

also, have you actually been in the Knightsbridge Harrods store?

it's a nightmare getting in and out

not something that can be done in a hurry

Zach Lipton

true, it's an utter zoo in there

and trying to get through the fragrance department makes me physically ill

chx

it testifies to my liking of my SIL that I actually weathered that nightmare several times for her

chx

19:58

mods, comment cleanup in travel.stackexchange.com/q/90275/4188 please, lots of irrelevant chat about shit US airlines -- they are shit, sure, but that's irrelevant here

Zach Lipton

I guess the premise of the electronics travel ban is that even someone willing to die would not voluntarily change planes at Heathrow

Tweeted by Pinboard on March 21, 2017 at 11:17 PM

chx

That's very funny but that was before the UK ban was announced

Zach Lipton

Yeah

chx

Maciej was on a total tear yesterday though

Zach Lipton

Applies equally well to Frankfurt though

chx

20:11

well, Frankfurt is not such a hell to transit through as LHR let's face it

if memory serves, you must pass security at LHR but not at FRA

and to make it worse, it's UK security

JonathanReez

no extra checks in FRA

but the airport is gigantic. If you're unlucky you might spend 15 minutes on the travelators

chx

that's nothing compared to the queues at LHR security....

Zach Lipton

I've just had bad experiences with FRA immigration queues

chx

but you don't need to pass those either when in transit, do you

Zach Lipton

As a replacement for DXB to the US or someplace though, that's not an issue

chx

21:06

yeah, i really dunno, how would Emirates route a biz passenger through FRA to USA? That's like Lufthansa or United and they are not Star Alliance

chx

22:06

travel.stackexchange.com/q/90319/4188 "small charter plane to Asia". That's a new one!

chx

22:34

another comment cleanup at travel.stackexchange.com/a/89073/4188 please

Owen Versteeg

@ZachLipton Hahahaha omg Maciej is so great

Also hey everybody, I've decided to join the crowd of travel.se people cause y'all seem like the most interesting group

What's the initiation procedure? Am I not considered a member until I ask Gayot Fow a badly worded "urgent" question about UK immigration?

"hlelp I am man with family travel to London for work, got a 10 year ban a few weeks ago, I have decided to apply anyway, will I be let through? [urgent as my flight has just landed at heathrow & we are taxiing to gate please advise asap]"

chx

23:18

LOL

there's no initiation really

some of the best answers came out of the blue by completely new people

bringing some personal experience to the table that noone else had

Look at travel.stackexchange.com/a/89729/4188 for example

and thanks for the reminder that i wanted to put a bounty on it!

we had someone who went to the station after some terrorist attack to check whether the luggage hold services operated

someone who took a tape measure with them solely to measure the Ryanair sizers

so many things one can help fellow travelers while out and about

And to answer your hypothetical you can't be on a plane bound for London if you are banned from the UK as the airline checks for travel documentation...

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