alister

> Some languages even discriminate different types of hole, distinguishing e.g. between superficial hollows, inner cavities, and see-through perforations.

This blew me away when learning Portuguese. You have to use different words depending on the kind of hole: for a hole in the ground or in your tooth, it's buraco, and for hole to pass a shoelace, it's furo. A hole that is closed at one end is different than one that's pass-through. I never thought about the distinction before learning another language. "Hole" is more general a word than exists in Portuguese.

Similarly, the word "bump" in English is far more general than any equivalent word in Portuguese. There is no single word in Portuguese that covers all the cases of "bump":

- For bumpy road, you would use esburacada (eg., estrada esburacada)

- For a bump on a table (a surface), you would say solavanco (eg., solavancos na mesa)

- For a bump under a carpet, the best word is caroço (eg., caroço embaixo do tapete)

Using any of the above Portuguese words for a different kind of "bump" would be confusing and may or may not be understood.

I wanted to copy and paste the name of the park from the Times of India article so I could see the location in Google Maps, but the Times of India injects their URL into anything you try to copy. Such antisocial behavior. And I can't believe that browsers (Firefox in my case) even permit this. Is there ever a legitimate web-design reason to override copy or Ctrl^C?

> Disabling alerts is the second thing I do to a new handset

Except you can't in Canada. The Canadian government has made the alerts mandatory. The option to disable alerts in not present in settings menu (at least on iPhones).

You can disable alerts in Brazil. So in one sense, Brazil is more free than Canada.

What was the large-scale commercial procedure for making electrodes that pass through the glass without letting air in? I assume that electronics manufacturers must have been making millions of such vacuum tubes in the past. Is the knowledge lost (or not practical for hobby use)?

> "Get in line" vs "you are already rebooked". (my Air Canada experince.)

Which of the two was the Air Canada experience?

In Brazil, people get so much SMS spam and phone call spam that many people turn off notifications for all text messages and phone calls and use only Whatsapp (even for voice calls).

But once in a while my iPhone in Brazil will get spam as a unblockable "system message". I'm not sure if I'm using the correct term. I'm mean that it looks just like an Apple system notification and it disappears without a trace afterward, but the content is obviously spam.

I wonder how they are able to do this.

At least in Brazil, it was very rare. In the last 3-4 years, it's almost every time you pay. And you have to grab and hold the payment terminal (especially if you're using tap / contactless payment) so the cashier or waiter, trying to be helpful, doesn't click the wrong button and cost you 15%.

Thank you for telling me what it's called!

On the positive side, it seems that Wise must block it because I never see the DCC "choice" when using a Wise card.

As a negative point, I've noticed that AirBnB, which used to use reasonable conversion rates, has just recently started to use exorbitant currency conversion and not allow you to pay in the local currency of the country you're traveling to (so you can let your own credit card do the conversion at a lower rate). I.e., if you try to book a property in Brazil in BRL (literally clicking on the price to pay in BRL), the charge will nevertheless go through in USD (or whatever currency is your own) with AirBnb doing the conversion at the rate they choose.

I want to mention another infection happening at payment terminals and ATMs if you're using your credit card in a foreign country: You get a message saying "Would you like to pay in your own currency? Click [Accept] or [Decline]", and there's fine print that says there's a 12-15% currency conversion markup.

To give a concrete example, if you're an American traveling in Brazil withdrawing cash from an ATM or buying something for BRL 500, you'll be presented with an option to pay BRL 500 or pay just US$110.58 in your own currency (with text saying conversion includes 15%).

But the typical American (and Canadian) credit card adds at most 2.5% to the Visa or Mastercard exchange rate, which is at most 0.5% higher than the interbank rate. So basically by clicking the wrong button, you're paying an extra 12% to the payment processor. In the example above, your credit card would have charged you about US$99.04 had you declined the conversion, and saved you $10.

I can't imagine a situation where it's to your benefit to accept the "conversion service" they're offering. I wonder if the payment processor is kicking back some of the profit back to the merchant because this swindle is spreading everywhere.

The worst part is that a couple of people that I've tried to warn don't get it. They still think that they should pick US$ (or whatever their own currency is) because that's what their credit card uses.

> Nowhere appropriate to rest without noise, terrible lighting and hard surfaces.

Compared to every railway station I've seen, airports are 5-star resorts. Bus terminals are even worse than railway stations.

Remember blogs on the old web when the author would plaster his name in a huge font on every page along with his photo, and have an extensive bio about himself and perhaps even his resume?

Well this author has gone to the opposite extreme: There isn't one shred of info that I can find about him. I liked his writings and was curious who he was in real life, but there's nothing. Stands on its own merits like Death Note, Bitcoin, or Truecrypt.