Re: [gentoo-user] OT: top quotes, html mail, and binary jokes
On Mon, 31 Oct 2005, kashani wrote: usefulness for the inarticulate), and top posting (I blame Pine). Why? -- Jorge Almeida -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: top quotes, html mail, and binary jokes
Jorge Almeida wrote: On Mon, 31 Oct 2005, kashani wrote: usefulness for the inarticulate), and top posting (I blame Pine). Why? The semi-factual answer is because bottom posting was the norm until Pine appeared on the scene or at least that's the story according to apocryphal Internet legend... it might even be true. However I thought the contrast of the simple and unexplained I blame Pine against the flowery a crutch of dubious usefulness for the inarticulate worked well and added a light tone calculated (in my mind at least) to invite discussion rather than flames. Also the Pine story has been brought up on this list before IIRC so it served the dual purpose of letting those who have been around for the past year know that I actually read these tired, boring discussions. All that packed into a simple statement, who knew? And while I'm being talkative I'd like to second what Holly and a few others have hinted at. Command of language is essential. As someone who stumbled into the admin/network business nine years ago I can say that my writing and language skills, specifically the lack of either, did far more to hold my career back than any missing technical skills. kashani, still trying to get his German, Spanish, and Farsi up to speed -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: top quotes, html mail, and binary jokes
On Mon, 31 Oct 2005, kashani wrote: Jorge Almeida wrote: On Mon, 31 Oct 2005, kashani wrote: usefulness for the inarticulate), and top posting (I blame Pine). Why? The semi-factual answer is because bottom posting was the norm until Pine appeared on the scene or at least that's the story according to apocryphal Internet legend... it might even be true. However I thought the contrast of the simple and unexplained I blame Pine against the flowery a crutch of dubious usefulness for the inarticulate worked well and added a light tone calculated (in my mind at least) to invite discussion rather than flames. Also the Pine story has been brought up on this list before IIRC so it served the dual purpose of letting those who have been around for the past year know that I actually read these tired, boring discussions. All that packed into a simple statement, who knew? Maybe many pine users don't realize they can use their favorite editor to compose mail. I hated pine until I found I can use vim as editor instead of pico. With vim it's easy to navigate through the message and trim it. No excuse for top posting---I wouldn't be surprised if some top posters did it due to their editor's clumsiness. And while I'm being talkative I'd like to second what Holly and a few others have hinted at. Command of language is essential. As someone who stumbled into the admin/network business nine years ago I can say that my writing and language skills, specifically the lack of either, did far more to hold my career back than any missing technical skills. Indeed, life is harder for those of us who don't have English as first language. kashani, still trying to get his German, Spanish, and Farsi up to speed Good luck. -- Jorge Almeida -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: top quotes, html mail, and binary jokes
And while I'm being talkative I'd like to second what Holly and a few others have hinted at. Command of language is essential. As someone who stumbled into the admin/network business nine years ago I can say that my writing and language skills, specifically the lack of either, did far more to hold my career back than any missing technical skills. Indeed, life is harder for those of us who don't have English as first language. kashani, still trying to get his German, Spanish, and Farsi up to speed In a way I am glad to have English as a native language but in others most decidedly not. Can you imagine how hard it is to learn another language when everyone wants to speak English to you? I even speak a bastard dialect (linguisticly one of the purest but where have the standards gone!) and that doesn't help... I speak a few languages and am pretty good at accents (by far the best way to get people to forget you are a foreigner) but still get frustrated with the eagerness with which people switch to English with me. My philosophy has always been when in Rome but anyway... I guess Rome is now the internet. Salem, Antoine ps. I have just started Arabic - Sabah lkhair! It's not morning but unfortunately the Al-Jazeerah website seems to only stream... wma! (Haven't got to evening yet!) argh! and gentoo+mplayer/xine doesn't like it... and I thought it was a libre thinking news source! pps. any hints on getting al-jazeera (audio of their news channel) to work? -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: top quotes, html mail, and binary jokes
Antoine schreef: Indeed, life is harder for those of us who don't have English as first language. kashani, still trying to get his German, Spanish, and Farsi up to speed Can you imagine how hard it is to learn another language when everyone wants to speak English to you? We used to complain about this *all the time* at Taalschool (the year-long Dutch as A Second Language course that is required by the government as part of the conditions for granting a Permit of Stay). Many of us lived with Dutch people (certainly those of us who were in the country because we were married to one), and of course that means family and neighbors and other contacts who were native Dutch speakers... but we found it universally difficult to get said native speakers to help us by speaking Dutch (preferably slowly), or (heaven forfend) helping us with our homework and the like, because they all wanted to improve or show off their English/Russian/French. Of course it's tiring for everyone, trying to have a conversation and having the subject under discussion interrupted by constant grammatical correction, and it's not really helpful to hold said conversations in the other language for purposes of clarity, but often necessary when new to the second language. But it was clear to us that the amount of practice time we were getting from our 'aces in the hole' was far less than could be explained by those excuses. We all found it very frustrating. Of course, now that I have a fair working knowledge of Dutch, my personal Dutchman helps me a lot more. Can't say I don't appreciate it, but I could have used the help more two years ago. I suspect that this expectation of (to my mind, rather excessive) self-reliance is common across Europe, though the Dutch may be a bit stricter about it than other European cutural groups. So once you get over the 'novelty hump', it should get better :-) . Holly -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
