On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 13:34:25 -0000
"tim..." wrote:
wrote in message news
On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 11:55:46 -0000
"tim..." wrote:
Political ideal - and I didn't believe that they would be prepared to
spend
the effort to give me the information if I asked them (I actually had this
conversation with one of the canvassers in the town centre, and he agreed
with me - that they wouldn't find it worth their while to translate all
their literate into English for the small number of voters in the
constituency)

If you're living in a foreign country you should learn the language and
not
expect the locals to translate their literature into your language because
you're too lazy to learn theirs.

Some people are just no good at learning foreign languages

after 200 hours (and that is a lot) of lessons I was still finding spoken
German incomprehensible

To be fair I found german hard too. French was a lot easier and I managed to
get myself up to a basic conversational level just by teaching myself on the
tube ride in the mornings. Perhaps you should have picked a different country
to live in?

--
Spud

On 2017\01\11 15:24, d wrote:
On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 13:34:25 -0000
"tim..." wrote:
wrote in message news
On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 11:55:46 -0000
"tim..." wrote:
Political ideal - and I didn't believe that they would be prepared to
spend
the effort to give me the information if I asked them (I actually had this
conversation with one of the canvassers in the town centre, and he agreed
with me - that they wouldn't find it worth their while to translate all
their literate into English for the small number of voters in the
constituency)

If you're living in a foreign country you should learn the language and
not
expect the locals to translate their literature into your language because
you're too lazy to learn theirs.

Some people are just no good at learning foreign languages

after 200 hours (and that is a lot) of lessons I was still finding spoken
German incomprehensible

To be fair I found german hard too. French was a lot easier and I managed to
get myself up to a basic conversational level just by teaching myself on the
tube ride in the mornings. Perhaps you should have picked a different country
to live in?

Amazing. I loved German but hated French. French isn't even a language,
its just a load of nasal sounds blurred into each other. French
keyboards have a big apostrophe bar where the space bar should be.

wrote in message news
On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 14:31:59 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:31:59 on Wed, 11 Jan
2017, tim... remarked:
An industry that can "afford" to "throw way" people who are less than
50% through their useful career cannot be short of suitable workers.

I agree that there's ageism, but some of that is justified if you want
fresh minds to address new problems.

That works in a small percentage of cases. However what usually happens is
the "fresh minds" make the same old mistakes of previous generations and
just
end up re-inventing the wheel. Often poorly.

and either way, you don't need a whole team of 20 to be under 25.

(unless you are a 30 year old manager who scared he might have his technical
capabilities "shown up" - heard stories of that, never personally
experienced it)

tim

In message , at 15:24:11 on Wed, 11 Jan
2017, d remarked:

Some people are just no good at learning foreign languages

after 200 hours (and that is a lot) of lessons I was still finding spoken
German incomprehensible

To be fair I found german hard too. French was a lot easier and I managed to
get myself up to a basic conversational level just by teaching myself on the
tube ride in the mornings. Perhaps you should have picked a different country
to live in?

Difficulty in picking up foreign languages (or even English when an
infant) is one of the classic symptoms of even high-functioning autism
sufferers.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 15:20:35 on Wed, 11 Jan
2017, d remarked:

An industry that can "afford" to "throw way" people who are less than
50% through their useful career cannot be short of suitable workers.

I agree that there's ageism, but some of that is justified if you want
fresh minds to address new problems.

That works in a small percentage of cases. However what usually happens is
the "fresh minds" make the same old mistakes of previous generations and just
end up re-inventing the wheel. Often poorly.

I'm not sure how that would apply to something like Blockchain. No wheel
to re-invent, there.
--
Roland Perry

In article , d () wrote:

On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 13:22:25 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
You would clearly be surprised how many naturalised foreigners there are
in the country.

Unless people start speaking a language as a child then they always retain
at least some of the accent of their mother tonque so are fairly easy to
spot.

Commonly, yes but not always. You'd be surprised, especially by a lot of
Danes.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 15:19:19 on Wed, 11 Jan
2017, d remarked:

You would clearly be surprised how many naturalised foreigners there are
in the country.

Unless people start speaking a language as a child then they always retain
at least some of the accent of their mother tonque so are fairly easy to spot.

Some are much better than that. I knew what we might call a barrister in
Germany who was German but had spent some time in the USA. His accent
was indistinguishable from a mother tongue USA-ian.

The reverse is sometimes true - if someone has been born and brought up
in the USA from german parents, speaking bilingually in the home,
there's every possibility of being able to detect a residual German
accent.
--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 15:50:46 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 15:24:11 on Wed, 11 Jan
2017, d remarked:

Some people are just no good at learning foreign languages

after 200 hours (and that is a lot) of lessons I was still finding spoken
German incomprehensible

To be fair I found german hard too. French was a lot easier and I managed to
get myself up to a basic conversational level just by teaching myself on the
tube ride in the mornings. Perhaps you should have picked a different country
to live in?

Difficulty in picking up foreign languages (or even English when an
infant) is one of the classic symptoms of even high-functioning autism
sufferers.

I think thats a bit unfair. Some people are just bad at languages in the way
that others just don't get maths no matter how much effort they put in.

--
Spud

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 15:20:35 on Wed, 11 Jan
2017, d remarked:

An industry that can "afford" to "throw way" people who are less than
50% through their useful career cannot be short of suitable workers.

I agree that there's ageism, but some of that is justified if you want
fresh minds to address new problems.

That works in a small percentage of cases. However what usually happens is
the "fresh minds" make the same old mistakes of previous generations and
just
end up re-inventing the wheel. Often poorly.

I'm not sure how that would apply to something like Blockchain. No wheel
to re-invent, there.

and how many "engineering" IT project use that

I have never even heard of it (and having Googled it, I can see why)

tim


--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 15:51:51 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 15:20:35 on Wed, 11 Jan
2017, d remarked:

An industry that can "afford" to "throw way" people who are less than
50% through their useful career cannot be short of suitable workers.

I agree that there's ageism, but some of that is justified if you want
fresh minds to address new problems.

That works in a small percentage of cases. However what usually happens is
the "fresh minds" make the same old mistakes of previous generations and just
end up re-inventing the wheel. Often poorly.

I'm not sure how that would apply to something like Blockchain. No wheel
to re-invent, there.

Since no one has any idea who invented blockchain and bitcoin there's no way
of knowing if they're a young genius or an ageing professor. Or a government
agency. My money is on one of the latter since no one young who invents
something like that off their own bat is going to remain anonymous when they
could shout it to the world and make a fortune on the back of it.

--
Spud