For over a year now, non-us citizens travelling into the US are requested to pre-register electronically.
This can be done on ESTA website. ESTA apparently stands for the Electronic System for Travel Authorization.
On the ESTA website it says:
International travelers who are seeking to travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program are now subject to enhanced security requirements. All eligible travelers who wish to travel under the Visa Waiver Program must apply for authorization
The procedure is relatively simple. But while applying for authorization I had to enter my date of birth. In doing so I was interested in finding out what was the oldest year one could enter.
As you can see, according to the US Department of Homeland Security one can get pretty old and still wanting to travel into the US.
By the way according to Wikipedia the currently oldest living person is a woman of 114 years and 283 days old. (she was born in 1895).
So it will probably remain a mystery why 1883 is the max (or is it min) one can enter…
Anyhow, I completed my form and forgot to readjust my birthyear.
The registration passed without any problem.
Which makes me officially the oldest registered and approved traveller into the US.
Here is the proof:
Quiz question: does anybody know my real year of birth?
Members Only
14 users commented on " The oldest traveler "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback> a woman of 114 years and 283 days old. (she was born in 1985).
How can someone who’s born in 1985 be 114 years old? Shouldn’t that be 1895?
[Bart: you are right, edited text]
> So it will probably remain a mystery why 1883 is the max (or is it min) one can enter…
Not so much to me. 1883 is exactly 127 years ago. That’s the largest number you can store in 7 bits. Can’t be coincidence…
Hmm, 7 bits, could be but I doubt it. Why not go all the way and use an 8 bit number, this would allow for 256 year old travellers
Actually this post is actually a test. So far I have announced all the blog entries I have written on the XyUG listserv. So I’m a bit curious on how many Users will actually find this entry?
I fear it will be very few.
The ones who do find it, are probably using RSS feeds so they get alerted when something new pops up.
So Geert, tell me: how did you find this entry?
Yes, I subscribed to the RSS feed of this blog (and many other blogs, news sites and the like). I’m a happy user of Google Reader.
Oh, and you don’t need the 8th bit. Nobody older than 127 still travels internationally, I suppose. And expanding the list all the way to 1755 (2010 – 255) would look a bit silly.
I have added a posts RSS icon to the top of the site to hopefully increase the number of people who use this feature.
Strangely, I see that since your original post the ESTA web page now shows birth years only going back to 1885 instead 1883.
BTW, I came across your post when I saw a topic I hadn’t noticed before in the Recent Comments section of the sidebar navigation.
When I visit the website home page there is nothing immediately obvious to tell me that there is something new in the Blog area. I see the “Looking forward” article but cannot tell how old that is. On the sidebar navigation, the bits that that would tell me about new content (Recent Posts and Recent Comments) have to be scrolled to on my screen.
However I have just used the new RSS feed links on the website. So now, like Geert, I am being automatically updated about new Posts and Comments (there is a feed for each) via Google Reader.
Ah Paul,
Well this page was a bit of an experiment. I posted it and did not announce it on the listserv. And what I had expected did actually happen, nobody knew that it was up (except the few people who were using Google Reader – which I think was up to now only 2 – Geert and myself).
So my point is made: the front page should mention very clearly what is new. Personally I think it should be part of the main text on the home page and not somewhere hidden in a small corner….now I only have to convince the rest of the board. (that should be easy)
I feel a new blog entry coming: using Google Reader to keep up with all the XyUser news…with screenshots…all I have to do is find the time.
I do agree and think that the website would benefit if new content was given more prominence, and that higher visibility might itself help to generate more posts/comments.
I think that even the current home page article of “Looking forward” (or maybe ‘Benefits of attending a XyUser Coneference’) might be better if it was submitted as a blog post and then we would be able to add comments that I’m sure would back up those benefits with perhaps real-world examples that members have experienced.
Hedley,
The RSS icons seem to have dropped from the front page.
(all the pages actually)
Any reason?
How about a webinar for the community on how to get more from the web site — you can demonstrate how to set up the RSS feeds / use Google Reader. Even when it’s something easy, sometimes seeing it encourages you to do it.
Seems like an excellent idea.
Could we use the SDL Structured Content’s account to host it.?
I have also been playing with the idea of showing people how to search the listserv archives.
Even thought that it could be a subject for a presentation at the conference.
As you say: seeing is believing!.
But there should be a written follow-up so people can actually read things back or click on the links provided…
We can use the SDL Webex account to set this up a session. I’d use a more cost effective audio bridge than webex but that’s a detail at this point. We should discuss it more off line to work out the details of who presents, when it’s offered, etc.
Time to answer the quiz question: 1956