Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Linus Torvalds became US citizen

thread.gmane.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–179 of 179 posts

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#171

Post by doe88 »

kiuyhjk wrote: post #110
kiuyhjk wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Wow, who put the more money initially in ESA and ITER? It's France, beside one of the 4 fields medal this year was a Vietnamese that had worked in France many years (then was recently naturalized) it's maybe not too bad to work in France when you're a foreigner. And frankly I've traveled in almost all EU and the two countries with the more immigration IMO are France and UK. "France is notorious for obeying only those EU laws which benefit it" a great thing of EU it's when one of its member does not respect the laws and treaties there are sanctions so the law is the same for every EU nations. Stop spreading FUD, please.

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#172

Post by aamar »

jerf wrote: post #109
kiuyhjk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One more thing to consider for any other europeans thinking of moving to America: 1, they don't understand irony 2, they carry guns

Ah, I think I see the problem. We call that "sarcasm". Quite a lot of us get that just fine, though of course the internet can always turn up at least one person who doesn't. "Irony" is reserved for events that are only ironic in the light of other events; death by drowning isn't "ironic" until it happens to a swimming instructor, for instance. You can't really say something ironic, it has to happen . (And if you say…

This is, in part, incorrect. "Irony" is in its original (from Ancient Greek) and primary usage a rhetorical form -- in other words, something intentionally used by a speaker. Experts disagree on whether "verbal irony" and "sarcasm" are the same thing -- sarcasm might require a kind of sharp, biting tone. But the original comment is certainly ironic.

A situation like your drowning example is also irony; sometimes to be explicitly this is called "situational irony" as opposed to "verbal irony."

I apologize for being pedantic; mostly I just wanted a justified link to Silva Rhetoricae: http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/I/irony.htm (but see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony).

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#173

Post by kloncks »

unwind wrote: post #4

A quick check of Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_nationality_law#Dual_ci... ) seems to indicate that he's still a Finn, since Finland permits dual citizenship. The USA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_nationality_law#D... ) seems to permit it, too. Of course I can't know if Mr Torvalds has done anything in particular to only be a US citizen, but at least that doesn't seem to be the defaul…

That totally depends on the country. I'm a dual citizen of the United States and Egypt.

Most countries allow dual citizens. Also, I do know that some people have triple citizenships.

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#174

Post by SkyMarshal »

kiuyhjk wrote: post #14
philwelch wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you ask, you've been downvoted for failing to grasp irony.

One more thing to consider for any other europeans thinking of moving to America: 1, they don't understand irony 2, they carry guns

And most importantly, we use periods where you guys use commas. ;p

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#175

Post by billmcneale »

nkassis wrote: post #12
unwind wrote: post #4

A quick check of Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_nationality_law#Dual_ci... ) seems to indicate that he's still a Finn, since Finland permits dual citizenship. The USA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_nationality_law#D... ) seems to permit it, too. Of course I can't know if Mr Torvalds has done anything in particular to only be a US citizen, but at least that doesn't seem to be the defaul…

That's interesting. I've heard that dual citizenship wasn't exactly liked by the US government. I was under the impression that US citizens that move to other countries had to renounce their US citizenship before becoming citizen of the other country.

> I've heard that dual citizenship wasn't exactly liked by the US government. I was under the impression that US citizens that move to other countries had to renounce their US citizenship before becoming citizen of the other country.

Definitely not true, or at least not mandated by the US (the other country might require it, though).

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#176

Post by jerf »

aamar wrote: post #172
jerf wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I think I see the problem. We call that "sarcasm". Quite a lot of us get that just fine, though of course the internet can always turn up at least one person who doesn't. "Irony" is reserved for events that are only ironic in the light of other events; death by drowning isn't "ironic" until it happens to a swimming instructor, for instance. You can't really say something ironic, it has to happen . (And if you say…

This is, in part, incorrect. "Irony" is in its original (from Ancient Greek) and primary usage a rhetorical form -- in other words, something intentionally used by a speaker. Experts disagree on whether "verbal irony" and "sarcasm" are the same thing -- sarcasm might require a kind of sharp, biting tone. But the original comment is certainly ironic. A situation like your drowning example is also irony; sometimes to b…

Allow me to be pedantic right back. I did not say "sarcasm is". I said "we call that sarcasm". It's not really to label a description of how a word is used as "incorrect" and use a proscription as evidence. My fourth sentence was a bit regrettably absolutely phrased but the context of my statement should be set by then.

I don't even care if that's true of all of us Americans, it's true of enough. (The idea that Americans don't get "sarcasm" is very foreign to me; oh, I certainly know people who don't get it but we seem a fairly sarcastic culture to me.)

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#177

Post by aamar »

jerf wrote: post #176
aamar wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is, in part, incorrect. "Irony" is in its original (from Ancient Greek) and primary usage a rhetorical form -- in other words, something intentionally used by a speaker. Experts disagree on whether "verbal irony" and "sarcasm" are the same thing -- sarcasm might require a kind of sharp, biting tone. But the original comment is certainly ironic. A situation like your drowning example is also irony; sometimes to b…

Allow me to be pedantic right back. I did not say "sarcasm is ". I said "we call that sarcasm". It's not really to label a description of how a word is used as "incorrect" and use a proscription as evidence. My fourth sentence was a bit regrettably absolutely phrased but the context of my statement should be set by then. I don't even care if that's true of all of us Americans, it's true of enough. (The idea that Amer…

Okay. I think those sources are descriptive, but to be sure, here is the American Heritage Dictionary (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irony), an explicitly descriptive dictionary about American usage. It seems to agree with the other sources that irony can be and is often used in this case.

On the other hand, one can reasonably believe that every dictionary is, by its nature as a reference book, primarily prescriptive (and proscriptive) and therefore cannot be reliably descriptive. If so, then it seems we do have to go only with personal observations.

In terms of personal observations, I agree with you that many Americans I know would use "sarcasm" in this case and not use "irony." I think I (along with many other Americans, maybe fewer than the other group?) would use "irony" and probably not use "sarcasm" because it doesn't have that particular, hard-to-miss sarcastic tone of voice.

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#178

Post by cookiecaper »

ugh wrote: post #119
cookiecaper wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government should be as local as possible because it gives the most power to individuals to govern themselves. In the US, theoretically, the feds are not really supposed to be able to do much, though obviously that's not how things have worked out.

I don’t think local government contradicts freedom of movement. It seems to me that both is possible, with little federal oversight. The biggest problem is inequality – the EU is perfectly happy to open the borders between its very similar member states but will vigorously protect its outer border.

It's not really about freedom of movement and I guess it's only applicable in representative government. But if you have a federal representative thousands of miles away in DC that has 5 million constituents and a state representative dozens of miles away at the state capitol with 50,000 constituents, you're going to have a lot more impact with the state representative.

The USA is basically the same idea as the EU, it is just supposed to be the international face of our amalgamation of nearby states that have formed an alliance for their mutual protection and simplification. The real laws (i.e. not treaties or other international matters) are supposed to be implemented at the state level or lower.

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#179

Post by mike-cardwell »

philwelch wrote: post #165
mike-cardwell wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the countries in Europe have strong independent governments that were established long before the USA existed. European countries have large complex systems of law that have taken thousands of years to develop and grow. We also have hundreds of millions of people. What was the original population of the USA? How difficult would it be to wipe and rewrite the constitution of the USA today? Imagine something 10…

You could have given the same arguments 50 years ago to say Europe would never have a successful political union, continent-wide military alliance, or currency, and today they have all three. Incidentally, I don't know about "a lot". Many European countries formed as unions of smaller states not that much longer ago than the colonization of America--the UK, Spain, Italy, and Germany all formed this way, Germany after…

I think two World Wars and the collapse of multiple empires might have had something to do with much of what you said above.
Post reply on HN