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crazygringo11/04/20252 repliesview on HN

It's a great article... but a strange title?

This is about all the country-specific requirements for tax residency, visas, citizenship, etc.

But I don't know what downloading a border means. The title makes it sound like this is going to be about downloading national mapping data... If the author was looking for an evocative metaphor, I don't think this one works. Maybe it's supposed to refer to:

> It would be alright with a single source of truth, but all these facts are scattered across (semi)official websites and PDFs, and you're supposed to figure it out yourself.

But they got those all through... downloading. I.e. cURL.


Replies

cruano11/04/2025

I think it's a reference to those "You wouldn't download a car" memes on anti-piracy campaigns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Wouldn%27t_Steal_a_Car

show 1 reply
8organicbits11/04/2025

I think the title works.

> You can't cURL a border. But you can track your own state carefully enough that when the governments know the answer, so do you.

Maybe API would be a better term, but it's a clever.