The Vent and Rant Thread

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

My SO has a facility for language. At one point, she could overhear people speaking, and if she listened long enough, get a feel for what they were talking about, whether or not she knew the language.

I can do that as well for western European languages. For others? Not so much...

A few days ago I was in a store, and there were three non-Dutch couples there. One Chinese, one from Poland, and one from some African country. An impression of the languages would be as follows:

"Ktching chow njow... how wa tsjang hi hao nja wheng, nje tskjang ga wohong."
"Kazarprasnitsj skrwretsjl wrstakrrtls? Eeeh... brzwarrkllitsjzsw rstrkritssjz."
"Galamelelalealle elalaa leneelae... lelelalellealalena alalelela lanwelalalenela."

I could listen for hours and not even BEGIN to make heads or tails of what they were saying.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I can do that as well for western European languages. For others? Not so much...

A few days ago I was in a store, and there were three non-Dutch couples there. One Chinese, one from Poland, and one from some African country. An impression of the languages would be as follows:

"Ktching chow njow... how wa tsjang hi hao nja wheng, nje tskjang ga wohong."
"Kazarprasnitsj skrwretsjl wrstakrrtls? Eeeh... brzwarrkllitsjzsw rstrkritssjz."
"Galamelelalealle elalaa leneelae... lelelalellealalena alalelela lanwelalalenela."

I could listen for hours and not even BEGIN to make heads or tails of what they were saying.

Quick translation.
"Look dear, it's on sale. Let's get it."
Or something very similar.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I have to ask was she convicted or just accused?
If convicted good chance no one got the money.
Also, the beneficiary can do whatever they want with the life insurance money.
My aunt thinks I was horrible for not giving my brother half. Even though the aunt knows my brother didn't want a dang thing from our father. My brother made that very clear.

No nothing could be proven. She stood by and did nothing while he choked to death. His son was the one who found him with her just standing there doing nothing or even acting upset. He pulled the food out of my uncle throat. It took the EMTs 11 minutes to get there. They said he would never recover. He later aspirated into his lungs at the hospital and passed.

No autopsy was done but she had hinted over and over that he would be gone by Christmas. She had met someone we all knew this. I was in Tennessee so I didn't get to say goodbye. My uncle was a diabetic on dialysis. He became too much of a burden to her and she wanted her freedom.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Why would you tell that to a random stranger?

I know, I'm regularly bitching about my father here, and it must seem I really dislike him. That's not the case,

Why do you share stories about your life so that everyone and Google can see?

It's because we can. As in this case with the random girl, the hostess was playing principal or maybe therapist and wanted us to share with each other so we could relate with each other's difficult circumstances. I didn't want to share because my family is really nuts and the stories will make your hair stand on end...but since we were supposed to be swapping sob stories and she brought up the inheritance. I shared the only loss of my life. My uncle who was like a second father to me.

Sent from my XT1528

[Freeshadow]

@ Katsunami
And rather Russian than Polish

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It looks like manufacturing is moving to Indonesia for some types of products. China is getting too expensive it seems.

China bootstrapped itself from Third World agrarian nation to first world industrial power by exploiting low labor costs. They did it the same way Russia did after the Bolshevik Revolution - move the peasants off the farms to the cities to become an industrial workforce. But unlike Russia, China didn't have to force the move. A job in one of the urban factories had better hours, better working conditions, and paid better than being a peasant on the farm, and workers flocked to the cities in droves, with side effects of urban sprawl, pollution, and highly inadequate transport infrastructure. Those Chinese workers got paid a tiny fraction of what Western workers would get for the same work, but it costs a lot less to live in China. Those factory jobs were a step up.

Now China is running out of peasants on the farm (in part due to a draconian one child per family policy to reduce the population,) and manufacturers must compete for labor, with rising labor costs. (One large Chinese manufacturing outfit announced a full court press into robotics in consequence.) China is no longer the low cost producer. I believe Mexico currently holds the overall title.

That's having interesting side effects here. One of the hot buttons in the US has been illegal immigration from Mexico as Mexicans come to the US to earn money which they send back home. There are some indications that trend is reversing, as the Mexican economy is becoming more robust, Mexicans feel less need to come to the US to earn money, and some who did emigrate illegally are returning home.

China, meanwhile, faces the challenge of growing its economy by serving the demands of its growing middle class rather than through export, and the Chinese Communist Party is trying to figure out how to stay in control when the nature of the economy and society they have been moving toward is contrary to the sort of centralized control they favor.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

And then they wonder why (young) adults have no interest in reading. I was lucky to grow up with a mother who reads a lot for fun and always let me choose whatever I wanted to read (it really upset the librarians that she allowed me to read Stephen King's It in English when I was only 13). If you never get in contact with books you like the ones the schools want you to read are not exactly encouraging.

Part of the issue is that many folks never learn to view reading as pleasurable. It's a chore they do because they have to, and dropped as soon as it's not necessary.

My SO's nephews are an example. Her late older brother was a ferocious reader. His wife was not. And dad would come home from work and plunk himself down in front of the TV while he waited for dinner to be ready. Guess what habits his sons picked up? (I watched the older one go into an alpha trance when the TV went on.)

I've always read anything that didn't read me first, and some that did. I know where I got it. My mother was a voracious reader, and read to me when I was a small child. She toild me when I was older that I had the basic idea before I could do it myself - she'd fast forward through what she was reading to me before bedtime to get on to other chores, and I'd say "No, mommy! You skipped this part!", and point unerringly at the section she'd skipped.

At a literary SF convention years back, a group us us at dinner were discussing declining standards of literacy. I asked "How many of you had parents who read to you when you were small children?" Every hand at the table was raised. I've been telling people for years "Want your kids to read for pleasure? Set an example. Read to them before they are able to do it themselves, and demonstrate that it's fun"

(And elsewhere here a while back there was the question of when to get a kid an eBook reader. My response was "First, you want them to read. Start by reading to them to demonstrate it's desirable. Do so using a reader, to show it's a tool that can be used, and let them learn to use it under supervision. When the kid starts asking about getting one of their own, then you can think about which to get.)

I got force fed stuff in school, and still can't deal with some of it. While I understand why it's considered classic English literature, for example, I still can't stomach Dickens. But I'd already formed the habit of reading for pleasure, so my dislikes were specific, not a general disinclination formed by poor reading choices made by schools.
______
Dennis

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Part of the issue is that many folks never learn to view reading as pleasurable. It's a chore they do because they have to, and dropped as soon as it's not necessary.

My SO's nephews are an example. Her late older brother was a ferocious reader. His wife was not. And dad would come home from work and plunk himself down in front of the TV while he waited for dinner to be ready. Guess what habits his sons picked up? (I watched the older one go into an alpha trance when the TV went on.)

I've always read anything that didn't read me first, and some that did. I know where I got it. My mother was a voracious reader, and read to me when I was a small child. She toild me when I was older that I had the basic idea before I could do it myself - she'd fast forward through what she was reading to me before bedtime to get on to other chores, and I'd say "No, mommy! You skipped this part!", and point unerringly at the section she'd skipped.

At a literary SF convention years back, a group us us at dinner were discussing declining standards of literacy. I asked "How many of you had parents who read to you when you were small children?" Every hand at the table was raised. I've been telling people for years "Want your kids to read for pleasure? Set an example. Read to them before they are able to do it themselves, and demonstrate that it's fun"

(And elsewhere here a while back there was the question of when to get a kid an eBook reader. My response was "First, you want them to read. Start by reading to them to demonstrate it's desirable. Do so using a reader, to show it's a tool that can be used, and let them learn to use it under supervision. When the kid starts asking about getting one of their own, then you can think about which to get.)

I got force fed stuff in school, and still can't deal with some of it. While I understand why it's considered classic English literature, for example, I still can't stomach Dickens. But I'd already formed the habit of reading for pleasure, so my dislikes were specific, not a general disinclination formed by poor reading choices made by schools.
______
Dennis

Ok mom I am through with this stack of books. Let's go back to the library.
First time she gave me a quiz to make sure I had read all the books.
Then in high school in order to check out enough books to last me a weekend, I had to write 7 book reports to prove I was reading the books. Those were the only book reports I liked writing. Yes I got to check out as many books as I wanted.

[Blossom]

I was denied books as a child and didn't get my own books to read till I was 17. A few people smuggled some books for me to read after mom pulled me from 4th grade when she had a mental break down. While in public school I took advantage of the school library but you could only check out one book at a time. After I was pulled out I would go a long time till I could get my hands on more books to read.

Sent from my XT1528

[Rumpelteazer]

Today my favourite English teacher in secondary school visited our store. Even after 18 years he still recognised me. He was the only teacher who himself showed his enthusiasm of reading for fun. He was always telling us about the books he'd read. He was also the one teacher who didn't mind it if you wanted to read a book that wasn't on the school's reading list as long as he had read it himself or was interested in reading it. He was the one who motivated me to read in English.

I told him this and that he's the reason I now have a 100+ book a year reading habit. He really liked hearing this and he told me that was the reason he was always telling us about the books he read and the fact that it made me a reader was worth the effort.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

China bootstrapped itself from Third World agrarian nation to first world industrial power by exploiting low labor costs. They did it the same way Russia did after the Bolshevik Revolution - move the peasants off the farms to the cities to become an industrial workforce...

While I agree with most of what you wrote, I don't know if China is a 1st world country yet; Russia isn't, in my book. I think they're 2nd world, to be honest, at least major parts of them. I know there are some very rich parts/cities in there (as there are in some third world countries as well), but I don't think the general population has caught up to Western European/American/Japanese (etc) standards yet.

China is fast approaching though, or companies wouldn't be moving production to Indonesia, India, Malaysia and the Philippines.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

Today my favourite English teacher in secondary school visited our store. Even after 18 years he still recognised me. He was the only teacher who himself showed his enthusiasm of reading for fun. He was always telling us about the books he'd read. He was also the one teacher who didn't mind it if you wanted to read a book that wasn't on the school's reading list as long as he had read it himself or was interested in reading it. He was the one who motivated me to read in English.

I told him this and that he's the reason I now have a 100+ book a year reading habit. He really liked hearing this and he told me that was the reason he was always telling us about the books he read and the fact that it made me a reader was worth the effort.

I've had one such an English teacher as well.

He let me read whatever I wanted, even Lord of the Rings, which was despised by all other English teachers, along with all other fantasy and science fiction... or anything that wasn't Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, or works from the Victorian era, for that matter.

"As long as you're not going to tell me: This happened, and then that happened, and then they did such and such, and then.... That's crap. I know the stories. I want to hear character descriptions, weak points they have, strong points, plot devices, what you liked about the book and what you didn't and why, what sources the book is based on, if any.... that sort of thing."

He was the one who was my inspiration of studying as an English teacher. I've met him in my home town a few years ago, about 10 years after I left high school, and I had to tell him I became a software engineer because 'they' kicked me out of English university.

He: "Idiots. You were one of only a handful of students I ever had who had a fair shot at a 10 out of 10 in the final exams. Why did they kick you out?" (Ended up at 9.3, so 9 out of 10.)
Me: "My pronunciation was too Dutch for them."
He: "Fools!" (And at this point he got really angry.) "Your pronunciation is fine, and whatever is wrong, can be fixed by having a few vacations to the UK. I'm sure there was some sort of other reason.... What education did you finish?"
Me: "Computer Science / Software Engineer."
He: *sigh* "Maybe it's just as well. I'm glad I won't be teaching much longer. I look forward to retirement."

If *THAT* man was looking forward to retirement, teaching must have become really, really bad after 2000 at that school.

[Katsunami]

There has been some cause for ranting today.

First, Google Maps directed me right through a train station. Hey, Google. Since about 18 months, you need a public transport check-in/check-out card to actually get into and out of a train station (at least, the bigger ones). You can't assume anyone can walk through them when giving directions. A month ago, Maps tried to direct me *through* a church. I though it was a glitch, so I walked around the block. Now it looks like it really meant it.

Second: had to do a math/language IQ-like test thing today. Didn't finish it; time was up at around 80-85% or so. Each and every question I did fill out is most probably correct, apart from the two I skipped because I felt they'd take way too long to solve. Solving one question while you can solve five others in the same time frame would not be economical. (Same number of points per question.)

I've had this problem before, especially with math and logic: I always obtain the correct answer, but I seem to be too slow to finish the tests on time.

Sometimes I feel like *** Computron. Never making mistakes, but always taking too long.

In IQ-tests, I always end up in the 132-138 range (135 +/- 3, when people actually tell me the results). The strange thing is that, while doing 'normal' programming/software work (such as bug fixing and straightening out architecture), I'm much slower than most of my colleagues; I sometimes take twice the time, and it makes me feel like *REALLY* dumb. Sometimes I even have a hard time trying to understand a simple problem.

As the difficulty of a problem increases however, the gap becomes smaller, until at a certain point, I can still solve the problem where my colleagues can't (or won't, or just give up or something, I don't know).

So I'm guessing that I'm indeed slow as molasses, and the test wasn't too long (but it did contain quite some economy-based math, which I've not used for like.... AGES).

So... yeah. I'm smart, the test results say. And persistent, seeing that I always solve shit at work that otherwise doesn't get solved. I also think at a glacial speed while doing it when compared to others, apparently. **** that. When you get paid by the hour, being faster earns you more than being a few points smarter with some problems.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Ok mom I am through with this stack of books. Let's go back to the library.
First time she gave me a quiz to make sure I had read all the books.
Then in high school in order to check out enough books to last me a weekend, I had to write 7 book reports to prove I was reading the books. Those were the only book reports I liked writing. Yes I got to check out as many books as I wanted.

I got an adult card at the local library while still a kid. I blitzed through the stuff in the Children's department, and the sorts of things I wanted to read were upstairs in the Adult sections. (I read beyond my grade level from the beginning.) I do recall having to get a signed form from my parents saying it was okay by them.

And I recall getting accused of having a book report I did for school ghost written by mom or dad. No, sorry, but I really do have that vocabulary and write at that level...

In later years, I was introduced to Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings by an English teacher who decided that if I was going to read books not part of the assigned curriculum in her class, they should at least be good, and handed me the Ballantime PB editions of LoTR.. It took about 100 pages for the story to kick in and grab me, but once it had I finished the trilogy over a weekend. (And became one of the folks who spent more time in the Appendices piecing out the back story of the earlier Ages, and reached a point of doing passable Quenya calligraphy.)

A chap elsewhere described getting praise for how hard he must have worked to achieve his grade level and academic accomplishments in school, and looking at those praising him with blank incomprehension. He hadn't worked at all. He was simply one of those bright kids who got it, immediately, and remembered it. I understood, because that had been me, if I was interested in the topic. If I wasn't, it was a very different story. I spent time and effort in later years finding ways to get myself interested in various things and find mental hooks on which to hang my attention in consequence.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

While I agree with most of what you wrote, I don't know if China is a 1st world country yet; Russia isn't, in my book. I think they're 2nd world, to be honest, at least major parts of them. I know there are some very rich parts/cities in there (as there are in some third world countries as well), but I don't think the general population has caught up to Western European/American/Japanese (etc) standards yet.

I don't think any country that size can be an entirely First World country. There is simply far too much to be developed, and nowhere near enough time since the effort began to do it.

China is a First World industrial power to its trading partners, since what they deal with is the developed regions, like Shenzen. There will be large masses elsewhere that will be Terra Incognita.

And Russia is handicapped by xenophobia. Back before the Soviet Union imploded, there was an article in Fortune magazine about future demographic woes for the Soviets. The Communist Party was in dictatorial control with a centrally planned economy, but there simply weren't enough ethnic white Russian Slavs to fill all of the managerial positions, and they were being forced to give at least some power to members of various other ethnic groups that had become absorbed into the Soviet hegemony. The politburo and Central Committee weren't happy, but had no choice. I think there's still a fair bit of that. (Paranoia and xenophobia aren't a surprise, since a good deal of history since the days the area was still Rus consisted of attempts to invade and pillage by folks from elsewhere. I don't especially blame Russians for being less than trusting of other peoples.)

The problem with any such polity is how you assimilate new folks into the dominant culture, and it's made harder when neither side wants them to be assimilated.

A chap I did business with years ago was an Irishman who emigrated to the US via Scandinavia (and came here because he couldn't make money in Scandinavia.) He described studying history in school back in Ireland, with the lessons stopping at the point before Bismark largely redrew the political maps of Europe. Looking at what was going on then (the early 90's), with the reappearance of various countries that had been absorbed by something else and were now independent again, he commented that things were starting to look like the Pre-WWI maps again. I thought he had a point.

China is fast approaching though, or companies wouldn't be moving production to Indonesia, India, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Work flows to where it can be done cheapest, and really always has. Government efforts to prevent it and preserve local industries and jobs are ultimately doomed to failure. (A good bit of the problems in the Euro-zone can be analyzed as side-effects of government efforts to do that. Institute a common currency and common accounting standards, and it becomes quite obvious who is actually competitive and who has been cooking to books to cover up the fact that they aren't...)

Stuff is shifting to Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the like because it's cheaper to do it there than it is to do it in China.
______
Dennis

[Hemmi]

My parents always read to me as a child. My Kindergarten teacher had to tell them that I could read, they didn't believe it because they were still reading to me every night. Dad was a college professor so they understood the love of books. Always taking me to the library where I'd check out a backpack full of books every week.

I still occasionally run into my 5th grade teacher. They always read out loud to us in elementary school. I still remember her reading us "Where The Red Fern Grows" and sobbing so hard one of the kids had to come up and read for a while.

I always wanted to be a librarian but, sadly, that never worked out for me. I would have been quite happy there, surrounded by books all the time.