kweks

The 'trick' back then, which I understand is still up to date is to request a transit visa, as opposed to a tourist visa, which requires/required a paid government guide at all times.

When you visited the embassy, if you were nice enough, had a chat with the consular staff, showed enthusiasm and had a cup of tea, they would issue a 7 day transit visa which you could pick up at the border of your choice.

If not, you'd get a 3 day, pre-dated visa stuck in your passport, which meant organizing a X-month trip around a three day window - tricky to say the least!

I visited this in 2012 while motorbiking to the Pamir Highway.

At the time, it was less known, and certainly hadn't attracted the "tourist destination" classification that it now has.

I had a vague GPS point, and we spent a good 4-5 hours riding around getting the bikes stuck in the 5km of deep, soft sand that lies between the North/South road of Turkmenistan and the 'Gates of Hell'.

To our frustration, night fell without locating the spot, and we started the arduous task of heading back to the road.

As defeat settled in, I turned to see a patch of clouds in the sky cloaked in a deep umber glow, projected from the fire below.

We followed the glow in the sky, and came upon the pit. It was completely mesmerising, two hours passed before we spoke a word.

Pictures for the interested:

https://travel.ninjito.com/images/2012-06-01-StanTour/SLR/qx...

https://travel.ninjito.com/images/2012-06-01-StanTour/SLR/qx...

https://travel.ninjito.com/images/2012-06-01-StanTour/SLR/qx...

Also, the infamous 'camel spiders' live here, and are particularly scary: I got chased a solid 200m by one. When I thought I'd shaken it, it appeared 10 seconds later on the nape of my neck.

For clarity, we are not a publicly held company, the EU corp is owned by two entities 50/50.

The business accounts of the shareholder companies (in unrelated industries) were frozen, the personal accounts of the owners of the shareholder's companies were frozen, and any other account related (via email, name, passport, credit card, bank account, domain or corp name) were frozen.

We woke up to 6 "you can no longer do business with PayPal" emails, sent over the space of 30 minutes. You can clearly see the trail: corp one, shareholders of corp one. Corps of each shareholder. Accounts with the same email domain. Accounts of permutations above.

I have (almost) no issue with accounts being frozen. At the end of the day, it's a private company, they can chose if they want to do business with you or not. Likewise, holding for 180 days is aligned with most credit card chargeback limits, so they protect themselves. (There are other ways to go about this, which most other processors handle in a frictionless fashion, ie Stripe).

Having an account frozen is more than annoying, but it's their choice.

However seizing (stealing) funds is completely unacceptable, no matter how it's dressed up. Hell, even if they gave seized funds to charity it'd be slightly more palatable than lining their pockets from proceeds they deemed as "risky".

We have Shopify's "Pay" and Apple Pay, crypto and regular Visa / MC gateways (Stripe). We haven't tried Amazon pay - I'll try it as an experiment to see what happens.

However, the fact remains that removing PayPal means losing business. Consumers are shielded from (most) PayPal's horrors, and just see the advantages: ease of use, ubiquity and "guaranteed win" claims against the merchant.

Based on the advice given from our French, Hong Kong and Luxembourg lawyers, it's not legal. But the barrier for _proving_ that it's not legal is very high.

PayPal don't reply to account holders, and they don't reply in any tangible form to lawyers. PayPal forced us (and our lawyers) to sign three rounds of paperwork before they would even acknowledge correspondence from our lawyers, despite the fact that our lawyers were obviously retained and representing us.

Likewise, the delay between each step averaged 1.5 months.

At the end of all of the hoops, they gave a copy-pasted letter that said _exactly_ the same thing that their initial "You can no longer do business with PayPal" emails said.

They know that legal representation is expensive. They know that you'll have to get representation (at least in the EU) in multiple jurisdictions. They know that by drawing out the affair over months, you'll bleed money, and at some point, you'll end up saying: We've lost more money on lawyers than PayPal seized, and you'll give up.

The only recourse that appears to remain for us is actually going to court (and our claims won't fit in the small claims court). At which point, while they'll possibly return the stolen money, they won't re-open the accounts, so we still lose.

In any case, I feel we have a moral obligation to force them to court, with the hopes of establishing some case law for other merchants.

I definitely appreciate the arm-chair assistance: I'm unfamiliar with the Luxembourg jurisdiction, so your pointers are great - we will discuss with our lawyers.

From what I understood, Luxembourg's consumer laws are more loosely defined than that of other EU jurisdictions - which makes the type of T&C that PP has established easier to maintain.

See my comment below: they just seized (not frozen, seized) 50k EU from us in a targetted attack against our company and shareholders because we took legal counsel when they froze the accounts.

We are Europe's largest site for RFID and pentesting hardware (lab401.com)

We are in the exactly the same situation. PayPal has conducted a personalised, manually executed war of attrition against our company and shareholders.

Eight months ago, PayPal froze our account, seizing 15kEU. They refused to give any justification for the action, despite discussions with C-level staff.

After the 180-day "withholding" period, we were informed that they would not release the funds, for undisclosed reasons.

We immediately engaged legal counsel. PayPal refused to interact with our counsel, and so a C&D was issued. Within one week of the C&D, PayPal did the following:

- Froze the account of our sister company (in Hong Kong), seizing 35k EU

- Froze the personal accounts of all shareholders of the EU and HK corps (~1,5k EU)

- Froze the business accounts of all shareholders by name search (different corporate entities, different businesses) - 5kEU

- Froze the business accounts that the shareholders held (again, different corps, different businesses) - another 5kEU

Our policy is to empty accounts on the 28th of each month. PayPal froze and seized funds in all accounts on the 27th of the month. Based on the time-stamps of the emails, and the order in which the accounts we closed, it's obvious that it was a targeted, manual process (2 - 3 minutes between closing each personal account, 15 minutes to find the next company account, 3 - 5 to close the personal accounts, and then 10 - 15 minutes for the next company accounts).

We engaged secondary legal counsel in Luxembourg (PayPal's EU headquarters). Again, PayPal refused to disclose any reason, justification or proof, replying with typo-ridden copy-pasted document from a low-level legal peon, concluding that no funds would be returned, the businesses and personal accounts were deemed 'illegal', and as such, PayPal would confiscate all funds.

All KYC was performed. All accounts had been "audited" by PayPal (when you reach the 5k, 50k, 100k+ processing tiers).

Needless to say, operationally - we have shipped 50kEU of hardware to customers, and face losses of the hardware, and costs of replacing stock. I agree with the standpoint: this is purely racketeering - an online equivalent of Civil Forfeiture.

For extra context, as the points have been raised in other comments:

- In a perfect world, no merchant would use PayPal. In our experiments, disabling PayPal cuts revenue by ~30% in our industries.

- Pentesting products could include illegal products: keyloggers, etc. We sell no such products for obvious legal and compliance reasons. All the products we sell are sold by countless other resellers that use PayPal. We have processed Visa/MC with Stripe for over 6 years with no problems (legal, chargeback, etc)

- We empty accounts regularly, to minimize fallout. However, you have to keep a healthy minimum in accounts when dealing with large volume, or accounts get limited automatically (presumably to avoid merchants pulling cash to avoid chargebacks / refunds)

- We have already 'invested' over 20k in legal fees. I justify this cost in (perhaps falsely) believing that we could establish some case law that could benefit other merchants.

It's unfortunate that we cannot join the class action in the US, or we'd be into it. With that said, if anyone merchant in the EU has similar issues, it could be interesting to investigate if a similar action can be mounted in the EU. Feel free to reach out: simon at sn dot cm (not a typo).

User and avocate of the rm2 here; it completely replaced my notepad/s in and out of the office.

Worth mentioning that they have given lifetime access to existing customers, but I had been planning on giving devices to staff at the end of the year, this announcement has significantly cooled my enthusiasm.

If Remarkable staff are reading and are willing to extend the lifetime offer to existing clients for new purchases, feel free to speak up..

Happy paid user of MobaXTerm for years. I've found even with WSL advancements it's actually become more useful.

Compared to other tools like PuTTY, it's an incredibly well thought out piece of software.

Well worth the licence fees, at least for my firm.

Can you elaborate on the "secret store" ?

I postulate there are two categories of people: those who assume that if the activity was minimum, the service would continue, and others that assume the service will end, so will pump as much as possible.

I'd found it to be invaluable solving the after-landing-before-you-have-a-local-SIM conundrum.

I can't even begin to imagine the bills that were racked up via this and others (like the Lime SIMs)..

For the Lime SIMs, there was a day when the pipe was turned off - I can imagine it was the day someone looked into their twillio billing in detail..

Now that it's closing, it seems safe to reveal - the SIM cards from these kindles made for the best emergency data SIM that money could (not) buy.

Everything passed via an http proxy, with a key that could be easily extracted from the Kindle via SSH.

The SIM worked globally - I'd used it in China, Iran, Iraq, etc - all sorts of places that normally are not covered by providers.

At some point others must have abused the system, because the unlimited data got capped to 150MB a month, but in a pinch, it was an incredible tool.

Ditto with first generation Lime scooters that had unlocked global twillio SIMs ...

The Airbus HQ is in Toulouse, France. The runway of TLS runs roughly perpendicular to the ring road, and it's common to see the Belugas at very low altitudes crossing above.

The first time I saw one cross, I nearly drove off the road - the scale and form of these things is quite spectacular.

The first time I had my motorbike.

Second time just hired a car. Car hire from the airport is quick and easy (it's Hertz).

Without transport, you'd be severely limited I'd say, but it depends how you like to travel.

You get stamped into Kurdistan. It's unobtrusive. As other posters have said, refreshing your passport before traveling to the US works.

For anyone considering visiting this region, or any regions with potential conflict (or anyone with an interest in 'raw Intel', https://liveuamap.com/ is a vital resource.

Borders and zones are classed green/yellow/orange/red, incidents (ranging from protests to bombings) are in realtime.

It allows for pragmatic decisions relating to movement than the standard news channels.

For what it's worth, Kurdistan, the north of Iraq has been open for tourism for many years.

Kurdistan is the semi-autonomous region of Iraq, whose capital is Erbil.

I've been through twice, the first time at possibly the the 'worst' time - just after the rise of ISIS in Mossul, and when the US was bombing just south of Erbil.

Despite initial concerns, safety was never a problem. I felt safe; did not feel like an unwelcome presence, and moreover, it was an incredible experience.

No visa is required, you get stamped in at the border. The police and Pershmerga were kind, dutiful and not overbearing.

Although it's a sliver of the rest of the country, there are many very interesting things to see (the spiritual centre of the Yzidi, Erbil, the mountains to the North, etc etc).

Kurdistan is secular, with a mix of ethnicities and religions. There is at least one third of women who do not wear the hijab, and the burqua is rare. (You see more burquas in the east of Turkey).

My second visit was during Ramadan, and I was surprised to see people drinking alcohol in the streets and bars.

(Please note, I don't consider a country's "modernity" by its acceptation of alcohol. The point is more that there is a deep culture of tolerance and acceptance within Kurdistan, which can be demonstrated with examples such as the consumption of alcohol).

In regards to losing rights to travel under ESTA, I have visited the US since without issue, even with an Iraqi stamp in the passport. With that said, I imagine that simply replacing your passport after a trip would be a workable solution as well.

Photos for the interested: http://travel.ninjito.com/2014-08-10-Kurdistan http://www.ninjito.com/2019-05-15-Iraq

Nothing has changed.

Typically they will announce to the PCC (central control) that they sighted people in the tunnels. The next train that comes through the sector will roll at walking speed. If you haven't cleared out by that time and get seen, they stop all traffic on the line, and send in rail police from each side of the tunnel to find you.

Every metro has its own smell, I assume from the brake dust.

Likewise the quiet moments between action when you're tucked into side tunnels, feeling the breeze and listening to distant trains rumbling by..

Even looking back at those photos today takes me on a huge nostalgia trip. The article very accurately outlines our trepidation of first plunges into the system, and our original photos shot on film, and finally progressing to a more polished style as we got more experience.

There are very interesting stories in the graffiti, representing generations of visits, and 'following' certain people, noticing where they'd been and not been.

Multiple times, it stayed 'unknown' and pristine for a long time

http://ninjito.com/_2012-04-07

When we turned the corner and saw it, I guess we nearly passed out, we'd been looking for it for years :)

Oh man, the piece on the Buran is simply horrible. We managed to slip in just before COVID lockdown, somewhat lucky to have seen it before it got rinsed..

And sure, les ateliers seemed to be affairs of bras-honneur ..

Likewise from you.. our first jaunt in the Berlin metro led us to a train laid up near the Opera junction with cops and dogs waiting inside for us to paint, and were thoroughly confused when we didn't..

I was referring specifically to the Sprague that was used in the Journée de la Patrimoine (which was sadly banned post 2010 I believe). It was well hidden, but then got trashed a few times with 'low effort' painters (throwing of paint over it, or quick chrome throwups as opposed to decent panels)

Couldn't understand if this specific one was "spared" for so long because it was well hidden, or because most painters considered it "too nice" to paint (or pointless, as it was rarely in service..)

The other ones (Monceau, etc) were obviously well and truly rinsed.

There's a few nice examples of preserved rolling stock in the RATP's "secret warehouse", but they only kept the head and trashed the wagons.

Vaugirard was definitely a nice yard, hard until we found a nicely hidden trapdoor-in-a-wall behind a 03..

It depends on the system. Paris metro tunnels are constantly lit. It's less than station lighting, but more than enough that you don't need a lamp with you.

It's definitely an oddity, most systems are unlit (Barcelona has entrances lit then nothing, Ukraine, Russia, etc all unlit).

Interestingly, unlit tunnels bring the advantage of if you're seen, the lights are turned on, giving you a clear warning sign to leave.

In the Paris system, you need to actively count the delay between trains to ensure traffic isn't cut. We had one or two encounters where we realised that it had been 4 minutes between trains when they we running on 2 minute intervals..

This may be of interest: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Hall_station_(IRT_Lexin...

In the Paris system, the majority of the mentioned stations still have traffic running through them. The architecture is maintained.