On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:48:33 -0700, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:

>Do other european countries have this, either as a stereotype or a fact? 
>Would it be reasonable for a chinese person with awful French to immigrate 
>to France and find work to do? 


In London's China Town there are a lot of people, in low level jobs, who only
speak Cantonese.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 26-9-2009 19:43, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> - make sure that someone with knowledge or skills earns more than a 
>> lawyer (i.e. fix the juridical system)
> 
> What makes you think lawyers don't have knowledge and skills?  
> Admittedly, it's "stamp collecting" knowledge rather than "fact finding" 
> knowledge, but it's still a whole bunch of study as well as a fairly 
> brutal test at the end.

In case it was not clear, I was mocking a bit. But I was also a bit 
serious. I could do a lengthy explanation, but perhaps it is enough to 
say that I think most of the best earning lawyers belong in ship B of 
the Golgafrincham Ark Fleet. Many of them have a good set of brains that 
might have been more productive elsewhere, but then they would not earn 
as much. There are also lawyers that are important to society but these 
earn not nearly as much.
Second, my own experience with the study of law and its students. In the 
Netherlands these law students are the ones that are most visible to the 
general public and the main reason students are associated with lazy, 
drinking, right wing party goers. There are students that study it 
because they are interested in it, but a large proportion simply does it 
to get a job in whatever the old boys network provides (and until about 
the 80s, women often did it to find a husband). There may be a 'brutal' 
test at the end, but in physics we studied a lot more and still the 
percentage that graduates is way lower than in law.

Somebody once said: 'why would I study hard to be a physicist for 5 
years, while I can also do law and be the manager of a group of 
physicist, earn more, and have 4 years of partying at uni instead?'
In the US you might add to that: why would I study hard to be a doctor, 
while I can also do law and sue them?

Ok, this lacks some some subtleties, and yes, IANAL.

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andrel wrote:
> Ok, this lacks some some subtleties, and yes, IANAL.

No doubt there are careers that take more study than lawyering does and 
which are of a bigger general benefit to people, yes.  I just wouldn't say 
they're "without knowledge or skills". Indeed, in the US, I'm not sure you 
can graduate from undergraduate college and actually be a lawyer without 
additional study. Maybe you can, but I don't know anyone who didn't go back 
to school for it.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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On 26-9-2009 21:04, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> Ok, this lacks some some subtleties, and yes, IANAL.
> 
> No doubt there are careers that take more study than lawyering does and 
> which are of a bigger general benefit to people, yes. 

And earn significantly less money, which was sort of the point.

> I just wouldn't 
> say they're "without knowledge or skills". Indeed, in the US, I'm not 
> sure you can graduate from undergraduate college and actually be a 
> lawyer without additional study. Maybe you can, but I don't know anyone 
> who didn't go back to school for it.

I know what you mean. I am just simply a bit annoyed that there are so 
much jobs that earn more than a real craftsman. In general I lament the 
loss of skills that is going on here right now. Which makes me sad. At 
the same time having to witness some very skilled craftsmen that really 
know their materials to get laid off or pestered into a desk job makes 
me angry. Add to that that the persons that did it made more money, 
didn't know anything about what these craftsmen were doing and simply 
decided that anything they made could be bought on the internet. Then 
you know why I will make some unflattering remarks about some people for 
the coming years.

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On 09/26/09 13:46, andrel wrote:
> the 80s, women often did it to find a husband). There may be a 'brutal'
> test at the end, but in physics we studied a lot more and still the
> percentage that graduates is way lower than in law.

	The reason there are more lawyers than physicists is that society needs 
more lawyers than they do physicists.

> Somebody once said: 'why would I study hard to be a physicist for 5
> years, while I can also do law and be the manager of a group of
> physicist, earn more, and have 4 years of partying at uni instead?'
> In the US you might add to that: why would I study hard to be a doctor,
> while I can also do law and sue them?

	Lawyers managing physicists? How'd that happen. What kind of job do the 
physicists have?

	BTW, over here law school is graduate school, and you need to have some 
degree prior to entering law school. It's fairly competitive (although I 
won't try to equate it to physics in any way). And while they perhaps do 
party (don't really know), law school is fairly demanding here.

-- 
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright 
until you hear them speak.

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Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> http://fe79.myftp.org/misc/google_se.png
> 
> Too bad our kids are so stupid...

I have to wonder just what, exactly, those results mean.

Are there really 35,000,000 web sites that ask the question, "Why are 
Swedish people so good looking?"

Or is it that there are 35,000,000 web sites use each of those words 
somewhere on their page?

Or is it inflated to boost someone's ego?

...Chambers

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andrel wrote:
>  From my personal experience I know that also the writing skills are far 
> below what was thought in my days.

I actually saw an article recently about how writing skills are better 
today than they were 20 years ago.  Specifically, the ability of a 
writer to adapt their work for their target audience.

Unfortunately, I can't remember where I read it, and google is giving me 
too many unrelated links.

...Chambers

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Invisible wrote:
> Somewhere somebody probably has all sorts of interesting statistics. 
> Damned if I know how to find them though...

http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/internetstats/

...Chambers

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news:4abee0c2$1@news.povray.org...
>I actually saw an article recently about how writing skills are better 
>today than they were 20 years ago.  Specifically, the ability of a writer 
>to adapt their work for their target audience.
> Unfortunately, I can't remember where I read it, and google is giving me 
> too many unrelated links.

It's about the Standford Study of Writing
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson
http://ssw.stanford.edu/
The obvious criticism of the study is that it's based on the writings of 
Standford students, who are not the most illiterate bunch. The writing 
skills of Standford students may be better, but what does it say on the 
writing skills of the rest of the population? What rings true, however, is 
that people write more, and that just having more venues to write (even if 
it's just inane Youtube/4chan/fark comments) is better than not writing at 
all.

G.

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Gilles Tran wrote:
> It's about the Standford Study of Writing
> http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson
> http://ssw.stanford.edu/
> The obvious criticism of the study is that it's based on the writings of 
> Standford students, who are not the most illiterate bunch. The writing 
> skills of Standford students may be better, but what does it say on the 
> writing skills of the rest of the population? What rings true, however, 
> is that people write more, and that just having more venues to write 
> (even if it's just inane Youtube/4chan/fark comments) is better than not 
> writing at all.

Thanks, that's exactly the one I was thinking of :)

...Chambers

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