Vietnam visa service recommendation

I'm in Vietnam. The visa process is a bit messy if you have an Irish passport (some countries don't need a visa, Ireland does). It's "online" but actually you go online and find one of many travel companies and they apply for you. The Vietnam govt does not have an online service. So actually it takes some time and at the weekend it's worse. Don't be lulled into a false sense of security by "online", you need to do things 3-4 *business* days in advance.

If you're in a country with a Vietnamese embassy, doing it in person there might be best. Otherwise I can recommend

http://www.vietnamvisa.com/

They were quick to respond, even on the weekend and everything was smooth (and they were the cheapest I found for the super-express weekend service).

And then the taxi driver drove like a young Anakin Skywalker in a pod-racer. Brought me close to my hotel and tried to charge me 10x from the airport! He had a meter but he had doctored it to say 1000x instead of 100x! In the end I paid pretty close to the right price but stress on top of an already stressy day. Kept telling me he saw the money in my wallet. I kept telling him to fuck off.

Dude put his cell-phone on the dash, not for Google maps, for youtube!

I sent you a video

I always record videos of my comedy and sometimes I record other people too. If I sent you a link to a Google Photos video or album, here are a couple of hopefully helpful notes.

• Why have you done this? Maybe you asked me, maybe I just left my camera running.
• Can I download it? Yes there's an option to do that.
• Can I not download it? You can also click on the little cloud icon () and it will be copied into your Google Photos account. This means it will take up space in your account but it also means that if I delete it, you'll still have it.
• Will you delete this? If you want me to, I'll delete it any time. Generally I just keep things. I think have unlimited storage (you get it when you buy a Pixel phone) so I probably won't ever delete anything. Best to keep some sort of copy yourself though.
• Why is there an album? If I send you other videos in the future then they're all in one place. Easy to find, easy to delete.
• Why is it all grey? It takes a few minutes for Google Photos to process the video.
• Why does the quality suck? Google Photos puts up a low quality preview first and then after a while it's done processing the full quality version.
• How do I get this onto youtube? If you have the video in your own Google Photos, you can just click "upload" on Youtube's homepage and there's an import from Google Photos button. Videos uploaded to Youtube don't take space in your account (I think) but you can keep them unlisted so only people who know the URL can watch them.
• Can you don't? Yup, just tell me and I will not save any bits of your comedy that I happen to record.
• Do you watch my videos? You wish.

p^4 mod 120

In this video the Numberphile people prove in 2 ways that \(p^2 \equiv 1\ (mod\ 24)\). That is that \(p^2 - 1\) is divisible by 24, for \(p\), a prime greater than 3.

The second proof involves considering the 3 numbers \(p-1, p, p+1\). There are three consecutive numbers, so one of them must be divisible by 3 but it can't be \(p\). Also one of \(p-1, p+1\) is divisible by 4 and the other is divisible by 2. That means that \((p-1)(p+1)\) is divisible by \(2{\times}4{\times}3 = 24\). So, expanding out the product, \(p^2 \equiv 1\ (mod\ 24)\)

So then I wondered what if we look at one number either side of these three. We still have the previous factors but now we must also have a 5 and if we now say \(p > 5\) then the 5 can't be in \(p\) so we know that $$(p-2)(p-1)(p+1)(p+2) \equiv 0\ (mod\ 120)$$

Grouping things in +/- pairs we get $$(p^2-1)(p^2-4) \equiv 0\ (mod\ 120)$$

and multiplying out $$p^4 - 5p^2 + 4 \equiv 0\ (mod\ 120)$$ From the earlier result we know that \(p^2-1 \equiv 0\ (mod\ 24)\) so \(5p^2-5 \equiv 0\ (mod\ 120)\). Adding that into the previous result gives us $$p^4 - 1 \equiv 0\ (mod\ 120)$$

So now we have \(p^4 \equiv 1\ (mod\ 120)\) for prime \(p>5\).

Sadly throwing \(p-3\) and \(p+3\) in too doesn't get us a similar result, like \(p^6 \equiv 1\ (mod\ 840)\). With some fiddling around, we can get $$p^6 + 14p^2-14 \equiv 1\ (mod\ 840)$$ but nothing simpler jumps out.

This is Beijing...

This was written by someone living in China. They do no want their name on it, for obvious reasons but it is powerful. I want more people to read it, so I'm reposting it with permission.

“This is Beijing, so I can’t talk about it.”

That’s what the man in the green shirt says right before he starts talking about it.

He says he is a soldier. Just back from Xinjiang.

“It’s cultural genocide out there. We go into a village. The next day, there’s no village. But we can’t talk about it.”

And yet he keeps talking. He seems to need to say this to someone. Maybe that’s why he came for the foot rub.

I won’t recap here the issues in Xinjiang. Take advantage of the free media and educate yourself from the direct sources. Suffice to say that here on the eve of passover, the contradictions of being a Jew in a country where people are being rounded into camps becomes something between infuriating and unbearable.

I am getting a foot rub two chairs down from a soldier in the Pharaoh’s army.

At Passover we tell the story of the Jews and their exodus from Egypt and bondage. We discuss slavery and ethnic conflict. We like to say, “Never Again,” and feel righteous in our cause.

Yet I am getting a foot rub two chairs down from a soldier in the Pharaoh’s army. How do I enforce “Never Again?” What action do I take?

I feel humiliated and powerless. Every option seems petty and useless. I can’t confront this man. I can’t attack this man.

I don’t feel like there’s any right option.

I have to feel content with composing a note in my phone and trying to sort through a rage of emotion.

I wonder whether making this post will come back to harm me. My career. My life I’ve built as a stranger in a strange land.

I want to message some of my Uighur friends, see if they are ok, if their family is ok. Then I remember a friend of mine who researched in Xinjiang and told me a message from a foreigner can be enough to get people in trouble.

I sit and I do nothing, and every moment of nothing feels worse.

In the background on the TV is one of the biggest comedy shows in the country. Guo Degang is performing Xiangsheng. Nobody is watching is the comedy. The man keeps talking.

“They’re all scared. They’re not having kids. That may be how they all disappear. One missed generation.”

A missed generation. Blood on the lintels. An exodus.

Before the Jews left Egypt, we too were a people aggregated together, not of our own free will. Our exodus has happened. Others’s has not.

I am reminded of the words of William Faulkner: “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”

Perhaps we keep retelling the same story each year because it isn’t over.