

That’s what YOU get since you’re neither in China nor Japan. They only get to see their relative government’s name. China in fact gets to see nothing since they block Google, but it you happen to be in Hong Kong or Macau, you would.
That’s what YOU get since you’re neither in China nor Japan. They only get to see their relative government’s name. China in fact gets to see nothing since they block Google, but it you happen to be in Hong Kong or Macau, you would.
Nah. I’ll start boycotting google when there are useful alternatives. Amazon, facebook, reddit - no problem.
Google search - fine, I can get by with DDG or Yandex. Gmail - sure, whatever. Maps? Organic Maps (and other openstreetmaps front-ends) works alright for getting your bearings, but it’s a far cry from useful for finding businesses, and terrible for navigation. Waze used to be the only viable alternative, but ever since Google bought them, it’s hard to justify a full boycott without massively inconveniencing myself.
Same for meta as a whole. Facebook and Instagram, sure, no need. But living without whatsapp is simply impossible in some countries, where it’s the de-facto standard for communication, and even used as the only means of contact with government agencies.
Didn’t actually know about Aqua Panna, that’s the only one I occasionally consume when going to a fancy Italian place where this is the default when ordering still water.
I’d say a good 90% of the rest is completely unknown to me. All the rest that I do know seems to be overprocessed junk food that’s easily avoided by buying fresh ingredients exclusively.
What screens are you talking about?
My pleasure :-)
Triggered me to do a quick check:
Their privacy policy looks alright; and while I don’t like ads, they are gone in the minimum donation package of just 1 EUR, I think I did that just shortly after I started using them. https://www.lonelycatgames.com/docs/xplore/privacy - all the other parts seem privacy respecting, and the company is based in Slovakia, so has to respect GDPR by default. Website looks very dated and some of the other software has been abandoned a while ago, but they clearly state that and offer it as-is. Funny enough, I’ve also been using Disk Map for ages and never realized it’s from the same developer.
Because it hasn’t been update in half a year, or is there something else I’m not aware of?
X-Plore file manager, been using it for a solid decade. Can start an ftp server locally as well as connect to outside servers, really versatile.
Alternatively: Google pushes a totally innocent app with full access to all current and future photos amidst a digital arms-race of a fascist technocracy.
S.K.O.R. from Luxembourg, they had a brief episode of fame locally some 15 years ago, and then more or less disappeared.
What exactly do you think happened with slaves too old to fulfill their duties?
Yeah I wouldn’t want to live here again anymore, it’s not fun long term. I could imagine Taiwan on the other hand side, it’s pretty awesome. Though I could imagine the constant threat from China looming over you isn’t particularly nice.
Japan is also lovely, friend of mine just moved over last year. He married a Japanese woman he met in China though, that made it rather easy.
Personally I would consider Vietnam or Thailand and maybe Philippines long term (especially after retirement), mid term we are headed for Scandinavia first.
Anytime! You could also check some blogs like nomad capitalist and others, they offer solutions like incorporating a ltd. company in Georgia (the country) or Belize and stuff, but that also comes with a host of other requirements, reporting and otherwise.
Depending on your assets, there are also some countries like Grenada for example that come with a citizenship by investment program, where you get a passport if you invest either into government bonds or buy a property that you must hold for a certain number of years. If you’d be a citizen from there and casually forget to tick the box for US citizenship when opening your Hong Kong account, you might just get away with it. (Strictly not legal, though).
Outside of the immediate reach requires you to open an offshore brokerage account; however thanks to FATCA reporting requirements, most banks don’t want to deal with you unless you have significant assets under management.
Back when FATCA was first introduced I was working in private wealth management for a bank in Luxembourg, and we decided to terminate all but 3 accounts held by US citizens, all of whom had assets above 700k USD. I believe 500k was the internally communicated cutoff.
Banks in Switzerland now typically require 1M CHF to open new accounts for anyone who isn’t onshore (Swiss citizen or resident), Hong Kong, Singapore and Panama also require minimum amounts between 500k to 1M USD. I think Bahamas, Bermudas, Virgin Islands, Caymans and all the other money islands ask for even higher deposits now.
One thing you could consider are the British channel islands (Jersey and Guernsey in particular), since Brexit they’ve had a bit of an offshore renaissance. HSBC Jersey for example only requires 100k GBP to open offshore accounts (though I didn’t check about FATCA requirements since I’m not a US citizen myself).
If all you want is keep smaller amounts outside of the US, you could look into wise.com, revolut and other money transfer services, they allow you to hold different currencies in physical accounts domiciled in other jurisdictions. Read: If you deposit USD and convert it to GBP, AUD or EUR, those funds will be physically stored in UK, Australia and Belgium respectively. Since wise is a British company (revolut as well btw), the US government at least won’t have immediate access.
If there are any online brokers that accept US customers with casual portfolio sizes, no idea.
Crypto of course is also an option, but I don’t trust it enough as long term asset storage solution.
Native German, fluent English, conversational Norwegian (and by extension passable Swedish; and I read 100% Danish but suck at speaking/listening comprehension), passable Dutch, Luxembourgish and French, and basic Chinese (mandarin).
Edit: And I passed Latin in high school (grades 5 through 10), so I do manage to read inscriptions in old buildings and churches, and pick up written Italian and Spanish because of it.
The company might be terrible, but most of their buyers are normal people who either don’t know what brands belong to them, or don’t care enough to carefully investigate everything they buy. And those normal people are the ones the ads need to reach. If they leave twitter, what’s the point of advertising there?
I’ve been living in China for 7 years and am currently here for the New Year celebrations, and yeah those things are everywhere and they are quite versatile. Best thing is, if they block the road you can push it away single handedly, or even carry it over obstacles with 2-3 people.
They are roadworthy, but wouldn’t ever survive an actual crash; but that’s not what they are meant for. With top speeds of maybe 35 kmh (22 mph) they are really just intended for short commutes, and may even drive in bike lanes. So there’s next to no risk of them getting involved into anything serious.
LOL. Next they start burning books?
Oh we lived in Suzhou, so not close to Wuhan at all. Just traveling to the village over CNY, year round nobody really lives here.
Covid was still terrible, Suzhou had the strictest measures in all China since they are a hotbed of the medical industry and absolutely wanted to avoid any slowdowns, so we spent a collective total of 3 months in home isolation, experienced food shortages, had alarms taped to our doors that would trigger text messages to the nearest police station if we opened it outside of mandatory testing windows, the whole nine yards. That’s also mostly what motivated us to gtfo, made us realize we live there like cattle without free will or rights.
In Malaysia we live in Seremban, capital city of the neighboring state to KL, and actually closer to KL airport since that’s so far out of town. I need to travel quite a bit for work, so that comes in handy.
Not walkable either, so had to get a car first thing after arriving; relying on grab was a bit cumbersome. Now I work from home 99% of the time when I’m not visiting suppliers. We have a small representative office in KL that acts as my formal employer, but I’m functionally fully attached to the Chinese/HK company. Thanks to covid we had missed some mandatory supplier audits, and ultimately decided that to counter this in the future, someone qualified/certified needs to live in a third country jurisdiction, and I was the lucky choice.
What does magic the gathering have to do with this photo?