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

Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

b92.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 117 posts

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#61

Post by sgt »

ZiiS wrote: post #44
andsoitis wrote: post #9

What a weird thing to say: "It is the greatest honor for us that I believe that the Government of Serbia will grant the creator of the global IT industry a Serbian passport. I congratulate Wozniak and his wife, who will become citizens of Serbia today or tomorrow," said Vučić. "We can boast that the computer genius is a citizen of Serbia," he said. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić met in Belgrade with computer engi…

"creator of the global IT industry" might have been a miss-translation of "founder of largest global IT company"? Either way it is indisputable that he is a computer genius and it is a worthy boast that he chose to become their citizen.

One could interpret it as the creator of the PC, which is true. There was really no "Personal Computer" before Jobs and Wozniak came along.

Not to say they also didn't stand on the shoulders of giants.

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#62

Post by [deleted] »

keiferski wrote: post #22

I obviously don't know why Wozniak personally wants Serbian citizenship, but it is worth noting that Serbia is a good second passport for anyone that already has a US/EU/CA/UK citizenship. This is because Serbians have visa-free access to China, Russia, and a few other places that Western citizens tend to have more difficulties with. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Serbian_...

[deleted]

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#63

Post by medo-bear »

ahoka wrote: post #8
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Is there any context to this?

Why would Woz want Serbian citizenship? It’s not an EU country and let’s say it’s not exactly Monaco either.

It's one of few remaining militarily non-aligned countries. If Big War breaks out it is unlikely Serbia will be enacting conscription. It is also not a likely nuke target.

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#64

Post by gambiting »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #23
jgilias wrote: post #14

Why though? Did they just figure they’d grant one, and he just went ahead and accepted? Or is there a reason he needs one that wasn’t explained? I know that people sometimes shop around for a passport from whatever EU country for reasons, but Serbia isn’t one. (With all due respect to Serbia)

This is neither here nor there, but Serbia is an EU Candidate, likely to get membership in the coming years.

All stars point to that likelihood being pretty much zero. There is no apettite from either side to push the process along, other than from few outspoken politicians.

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#66

Post by yreg »

layer8 wrote: post #46
jgilias wrote: post #14

Why though? Did they just figure they’d grant one, and he just went ahead and accepted? Or is there a reason he needs one that wasn’t explained? I know that people sometimes shop around for a passport from whatever EU country for reasons, but Serbia isn’t one. (With all due respect to Serbia)

Given the current situation in Serbia (e.g. [0]), it doesn’t exactly shed a good light on Wozniak. [0] https://intellinews.com/interview-media-expert-says-no-limit...

What? You are saying it as if Woz was somehow responsible or endorsed it.

Edit: read reply for more context

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#67

Post by razakel »

KolmogorovComp wrote: post #25

Tangential question: Could a country force its citizenship to any person on the planet like that? ‘From now on, Mr X is now one of our citizen, with all the taxes/restrictions it entails’

Yes. Iran does it. You can only apply to renounce it in person in Tehran.

This obviously causes problems for critics of the regime.

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#68

Post by dsego »

orbital-decay wrote: post #55
dsego wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because in Croatia we don't do that, but it's an almost identical language. I still remember reading old ex-yu comic books with New York spelled as Njujork and so on. The problem is that you can't really capture the pronunciation since english has more sounds and serbian and croatian are phonetic limited to 30 letters, Stiv Voznijak doesn't capture it correctly, that's how you get the harsh slavic/russian…

> The problem is that you can't really capture the pronunciation Can you do that in general if you don't know the actual language, though? Even native English speakers sometimes have issues with certain borrowed French words, despite those being in English.

Fair point, I think it just looks silly to me because I'm not used to it and in this modern age it seems a bit quaint. The other thing is that sometimes it might not be immediately obvious that Matthew Perry is the same person as Metju Peri. And since today everyone is exposed to english and other big languages, knowing the original spelling can be considered a part of basic literacy.

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#69

Post by jacquesm »

medo-bear wrote: post #63
ahoka wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Woz want Serbian citizenship? It’s not an EU country and let’s say it’s not exactly Monaco either.

It's one of few remaining militarily non-aligned countries. If Big War breaks out it is unlikely Serbia will be enacting conscription. It is also not a likely nuke target.

Serbia non-aligned militarily?

I'm not sure that is accurate.

Re: Serbia grants citizenship to Steve Wozniak

#70

Post by jacquesm »

fossilemob wrote: post #26
ahoka wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“They seem to be one of the least xenophobic places out there nowadays.” Have you ever been to Serbia?

Have you?

I have. And it's a preposterous statement. And the Serbs that I consider my friends would readily agree with that.
Post reply on HN