Automatic Visa for second home owners - 20 December 2023 news

Ave Christmus Bonus. :wink:

(Hope I’m not the only one to read Asterix occasionally).

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Indeed.

Though Saturnalia was a week long celebration.

True. Rather shorter than the 3 month orgy of consumption that seems the norm these days.

Certainly not and I have a new character to add, Glycocalyx :joy: upgraded druid status.

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Always wears a fur wrap, presumably…

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Probably the first time a thread has drifted to cell membranes, and not food :poultry_leg::cut_of_meat::rofl:

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Which is another reason why Christmas is so much better! Imagine a week at home with family :joy_cat:

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I don’t know much about Catholicism, but none of my Catholic friends would think that.

Maybe another misunderstanding created by Christians, to be fair.

Christmas is 12 days, surely? And is anyone thinking of the baby Mithras? Mind you Merry Mithrasmas would be v difficult for me to say with my cheveu sur la langue and inability to say Rs in English :wink:

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Perhaps rooted in Saturnalia - as the Romans, in adopting Christianity, mostly left existing celebrations intact.

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Duodecimal systems seem illogical, at least in mathematicalt terms but I was surprised by the spread of examples at this link - don’t really like citing Wikip but OTOH…

Nooooo! There are many mathematical and arithmetic advantages to a base 12 number system.

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Well, I use duodecimal if I’m measuring and need to divide by three, but that’s as far as it goes.

So what else is going for XII based systems ?

So much to discuss…

I’d start by suggesting that counting in base 10 only makes sense if you happen to have 10 easily countable digits. I believe that this biological accident has probably hindered mathematical understanding and development

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Almost everything.

12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6.

The next number with so many divisors is 20: 2, 4, 5 and 10.

It’s no coincidence that the UK used bases 12 and 20 for its currency!

I worked on computers that had 12 bit words instead of 8 bit bytes. Easy once you get used to it.

Microcontrollers can have odd word lengths , for example PIC10/12 have a 12 bit wide instruction memory (they are non Von Neumann architecture devices with split I/D space) PIC16’s actually have a 14bit wide instruction and PIC 24 is 24 bits wide.

We had a Honeywell Multics system at Uni which was 36 bit words (GEC 645).

Multics is an interesting and influential OS - one defining feature was that it was built around the idea of a ā€œsingle level storeā€ - that is there was no distinction between memory and disk at the OS level, simply persistent objects (called segments) that were mapped into virtual memory as required.

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Not so sure. When Britain voted to leave EU it was effectively relinquishing all rights of membership. That placed it on an equal footing with other third country nationals, and apart from those with already negotiated residency agreements. Leave means leave. Not, well I was in before so should retain some special advantage.

Having once withdrawn from the EU club doesn’t and shouldn’t give UK ā€˜rights’ over and above other foreign nationals. Many may not have voted in favour of leaving but they remain citizens of UK and that democratic process includes them.

To some it may appear somewhat self-entitled expecting preferential treatment for UK citizens over house owners and resident citizens from Australian, America, SA, New Zealand etc. All are paying local property taxes, and many do not burden the French healthcare system, having private health cover. For some time these other nationals have been applying the paperwork required, purchasing visas or applying for annual CdS, happy to do what is required in order to enjoy the French experience.

France is being very tolerant, patient and compassionate towards British residents and house owners. Let’s hope no one’s heard the expression ā€œGive an inch…,ā€

Now, I must go and let my whining dogs out in the garden to pee.

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In fact we have less rights than them, not more. At least in the case of Americans, and possibly Australians and New Zealanders too (I was allowed to vote in Australia in the golden days when they thought I was Australian merely by being a Brit and being there :astonished:) still have a vote, somewhere. Those of us who are citizens of Blighty have for the time being no vote of any kind anywhere in the world, including in the daft decision which landed us in this situation in the first place.

True. But, equally, having voted to leave the EU does not automatically mean that EU nations treat us as pariahs - it is perfectly within the gift of France to grant any form of new visa to any group that it wishes (as @Porridge pointed out).

Though if they are going to grant fuss free 6 month stays to Brits with 2nd homes it does seem rather unfair to exclude other groups of 2nd home owners.