[Cialug] SysAdmin FYI

[Don Ellis]

[Addendum: I have to hope that many of the younger generation make at least
some effort at bilingualism. Note that Shakespeare wrote many of his works
addressed to two audiences simultaneously, mixing Norman and Saxon phrases
freely.]


On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 4:00 PM, Don Ellis <don.ellis at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 3:42 PM, Dave Hala <dave at 58ghz.net> wrote:
>
> ...
>
> The difference between an old man and a young man, is that the old man
>> has already done all the stupid things that the young man is about to
>> do. He is powerless (because of the inability to effectively
>> communicate with the kid)  to prevent the kid from making the same
>> mistakes he did, so he just sits back and watches it unfold
>
>
> Or, the old fart makes an effort to learn the language and participate
> with the young folks. Most of the attendees at local user groups are 40+,
> but I've found at least one group, the St Louis hacker space (Arch Reactor)
> that seems to be much more weighted toward 30 somethings. I'm hoping they
> bring in <30s as well.
>
> [Digression: I have heard stories of people graduating from college now
> complaining about how the incoming freshman had so much earlier intro to
> computing and software stuff that the old farts graduating now are at a
> disadvantage.]
>
> I try to make acquaintance of younger people, much like how I behave when
> I go into the local Mercado: I inflict my broken Spanish on them, often
> apologizing that "Su Ingles es mejor de my Español, pero I need the
> practice." Similarly when I have contact with German speakers (but much
> more primitive on my part. When I learned that the man digging up my front
> yard to repair the sewer system last year spoke Albanian, I brought out my
> iPod and communicated with the translation software, allowing some pretty
> good interchanges and gathering mutual social context. (I haven't tried the
> Bosnian translation, since most of the 70,000 Bosnians here seem to speak
> tolerable English, or have interpreters nearby.) Unfortunately, I don't
> know how good the 133t translators are, and semantics comes more into play
> (what kinds of things are appropriate to say in the context?).
>
> All the same, I believe I am more respectful and able to connect with
> younger people than some examples I remember from my own youth (although
> many older people looked to me for guidance then as well).
>
> --Don Ellis
>