French takeover?

[selden]

Fridger,

Many people have very strong emotional responses when they become involved in discussions of religious or political topics, both of which are forbidden on the Celestia Forum. (See the Forum Guidelines at the top of the Users Forum.)

People holding opposing viewpoints always feel compelled to write empassioned rebuttals to each other's postings. No matter how reasoned and calmly such discussions start, they invariably degenerate into namecalling and other ad hominem attacks. Neither side ever convinces the other. All such "discussions" do is result in bad feelings among all involved.

Blaming a situation on a particular religious or political viewpoint is a traditional way to start such a flamewar.

Such discussions are not welcome here.

[chris]

I don't think that there's any need to edit the existing posts. Things have stayed relatively polite in this thread so far. Let's keep it that way, and ideally drop the topic of religion and return to discussing Bordeaux and Armagnac

--Chris

[Cham]

Well, I must agree with Selden, despite the fact that I hate "politically correctness". "Emotionnal responses" (Selden's words) and "entropic tendency" (mine) are the key words here.

[buggs_moran]

I think the bigger issue here is that I have never tried Armagnac. Any moderately priced suggestions? In the past 10 years the selection of overseas wines and brandies available here in America has grown considerably. My parents are vacationing in France (digging up our ancestry, heh) so perhaps they could find some too.

[t00fri]

Fridger,

Many people have very strong emotional responses when they become involved in discussions of religious or political topics, both of which are forbidden on the Celestia Forum. (See the Forum Guidelines at the top of the Users Forum.)

People holding opposing viewpoints always feel compelled to write empassioned rebuttals to each other's postings. No matter how reasoned and calmly such discussions start, they invariably degenerate into namecalling and other ad hominem attacks. Neither side ever convinces the other. All such "discussions" do is result in bad feelings among all involved.

Blaming a situation on a particular religious or political viewpoint is a traditional way to start such a flamewar.

Such discussions are not welcome here.

Yes, Selden,

I am fully aware of this standard wording. You wrote precisely what I expected you to write!

What I find a pity is that you introduce all these measures which are just not appropriate for intellectually appealing exchanges among "educated people" that all participants of this round are beyond doubt!

I think you are mixing up behaviours that might be expected in other forum circles. Apart from the chronical mutual problem that Malenfant and I are having, virtually all the rest in this forum is behaving pretty well, ALSO WITHOUT all your quotations of "the rules".

Most of the people involved in this discussion were experienced and dedicated teachers. The exchange of their different points of view in relation to Cosmology, religion and business I found refreshing and interesting.

I think this sort of intervention of yours merely creates an uninspiring "bookkeeping mentality" rather than the feeling of being among friends!

Bye Fridger

[Christophe]

My saying: NO business without cosmology!

Explaining the concept of those "Grande ?‰coles" to foreigners is always difficult. While they are largely unkown abroad, they are as revered in France as the MIT, Harvard or Yale. They are very selective public institutions taking only a couple hundred students per year.

I must say, that even among those very fine students, except for those interested in the field, knowledge of cosmology is verging on non-existant. They may have learned a thing or two about the solar system while in high school, but the brain wash of the "classes pr?©paratoires" seems to have clear that from their minds. While in one of those schools I was a member of the astronomy club, which at the time had a grand total of five members, and we organized public observation nights on the campus for special events -- moon eclipses and the like. Some of the question we were getting could just have well come from 5 year olds; "no, it's not made of cheese". The good side of it is that at least we did attract a little crowd.

[t00fri]

Explaining the concept of those "Grande ?‰coles" to foreigners is always difficult.
...

Yes..., (remember, I once carried a French passport, yet then I was too small "pour une application ?  l'?‰cole Normale." )

But tell me, how did you manage after going through l'?‰cole Normale, to speak such an exceptionally good English? . I know I asked you this question already, but I forgot your answer....

Cheers,
Fridger

[Christophe]

Sadly, I'm not good enough to have gone to ?‰cole Normale, mine was Centrale. Anyways, I had to make an internship abroad to get my diploma, I left for Australia for four months and ended up staying there for two years. I also had the chance to have family friends in the Seattle area who kindly hosted me during my summer vacations when I was in high school.

While on the subject of education, one thing is for sure: I didn't learn much English at school. Language classes are pathetic in France, I can't utter much German after 11 years of german courses if I'm counting right. Das ist nicht gut!

[t00fri]

Sadly, I'm not good enough to have gone to ?‰cole Normale, mine was Centrale. Anyways, I had to make an internship abroad to get my diploma, I left for Australia for four months and ended up staying there for two years. I also had the chance to have family friends in the Seattle area who kindly hosted me during my summer vacations when I was in high school.

Ah yes, that was it. You had told me about Australia once.

While on the subject of education, one thing is for sure: I didn't learn much English at school. Language classes are pathetic in France,

That was precisely the reason why I had asked about your English .

I can't utter much German after 11 years of german courses if I'm counting right. Das ist nicht gut!

11 years!? Wow.

I had 13 years of French by French teachers. They did a pretty good job with my /French/, though ...

Yet, after not speaking a word of French for > 20 years, one just forgets. Despite living for 7 years in Geneva/Ch, it didn't really come back to my liking. We spoke English all the time, anyway. Only on parties I had a chance and when watching movies, of course.

Cheers,
Fridger

[Christophe]

11 years!? Wow.

I had 13 years of French by French teachers. They did a pretty good job with my /French/, though ;-) ...

My mistake, it's "only" 10 years, of which I skipped 2. German was my so-called "second foreign language", starting in 8th grade:
- 2 years in junior high (1hr/week)
- 3 years in high school (1hr/week)
- 2 years in classes pr?©paratoires (1hr every other week, due to schedule incompatibilities, over 30 students in a 20 seat room, at which point I just gave up).
- 3 years in Centrale (1hr/week with a native speaker).

[t00fri]

11 years!? Wow.

I had 13 years of French by French teachers. They did a pretty good job with my /French/, though ...

My mistake, it's "only" 10 years, of which I skipped 2. German was my so-called "second foreign language", starting in 8th grade:
- 2 years in junior high (1hr/week)
- 3 years in high school (1hr/week)
- 2 years in classes pr?©paratoires (1hr every other week, due to schedule incompatibilities, over 30 students in a 20 seat room, at which point I just gave up).
- 3 years in Centrale (1hr/week with a native speaker).

That indeed sounds more like "symbolic" courses. To get back to our controversial subject: we even had RELIGION at a 2 hours/week rate !

Incidentally, I am quite amazed how effectively our postdocs are reaching an impressive level of speaking a new language, /before/ moving on to their next 2-year job in another country. They usually combine a modern language course in town with practicing the new language with our local postdocs from precisely the country in question.

This tends to work excellently for Italian, Spanish or some Scandinavian flavors.

Bye Fridger

[Vincent]

To get back to our controversial subject: we even had RELIGION at a 2 hours/week rate !

Religion seems to be a far less controversial subject on the Stellarium forum...
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php? ... _id=278769

Selden, my intention is really not to discuss about religion again.
Just found that post really funny...