CNN article on 50 best jobs -- #1 is software

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 11:00:48 -0700, John Larkin

On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 08:57:50 -0700, Jim Thompson


Cajuns live mostly in southwest Louisiana and a bit over the line into
Texas. They are certainly not hillbillies, who live in east-central
USA, like Tennessee and West Virginia.

[snip]

Montani Semper Liberi!

What does that mean? I don't speak hillbilly.

John


It's Latin... "Mountaineers Are Always Free"... the WV state motto.

Hillbillys aren't from West Virginia, they're from Arkansas.

...Jim Thompson

If I can't understand their accent, they're hillbillies to me. I guess
that includes New Hampshire.

Do you still have your accent? I somehow escaped from New Orleans
without much evidence... people think I'm from New Yawk or something.

John

Four years in Massachusetts killed my southern accent.

...Jim Thompson

My wife's from Boston, or actually a bit down the coast. She's usually
speaks intelligibly (she is a Speech Pathologist, after all) but
whenever she goes back there for a week or two she comes back saying
"cawh" and "ment-al" and weird stuff like that for a while.

Going from the hoots and hollers to MIT must have been a strange
transition. I have a book, "Up The Infinite Corridor" that talks about
MIT, how kids that were the smartest student in the history of Cedar
Rapids go there and find themselves cold, lonely, and at the bottom of
the intellectual heap, and too often commit suicide as a result.

I went to Tulane, where they honor the "Gentlemen's C"...pay your
tuition, show up for finals, don't get the Dean's daughter pregnant,
and you'll pass.

John

 

[Chris Hills]

The James Herriot books are based in the Yorkshire Dales IIRC.
The word dales is from the Norse word for valley.
That area is green and largely agricultural.

The Black Country is exactly the opposite: it was so named because it was
blackened by the pollution of heavy industry. It was a heavy coal consuming
area in the industrial revolution.

It isn't really black anymore, as industry became less heavy and polluting,
but the name stuck.

The Back country still has a very strong regional accent. BTW Virgil
Earp, Wyatt Earp and Morgan Earp of the Gunfight at the OK Corral fame
were from Dudley. Now imagine that famous scene in the film in a Black
Country accent....

 

[Chris Hills]

[snip]

Well he [Bill Clinton] appears a lot less of a hillbilly than
the idiot in the White House at the moment.

This is one time I can agree with Mr. Hill's opinion regarding
U.S. government...

Naaah! That's just west Texas. You just don't appreciate his humor
;-)

He appears to have the intelligence to be a fence post
on the Staked Plain.

Well the general opinion in the UK of GW Bush is that he his a moron and
a puppet president who does as he is told. This is especially true of
people who have met him (other than politicians who have to keep up the
pretence)....

This is not a matter of political bias. Several people with no
political interests have met him and said he was clue less. This is
apart from his public displays of ineptitude.

 

[CBFalconer]

[snip]

Well he [Bill Clinton] appears a lot less of a hillbilly than
the idiot in the White House at the moment.

This is one time I can agree with Mr. Hill's opinion regarding
U.S. government...

Naaah! That's just west Texas. You just don't appreciate his
humor ;-)

He appears to have the intelligence to be a fence post
on the Staked Plain.

He created a brand new sig for me yesterday!

 

[Grant Edwards]

Well the general opinion in the UK of GW Bush is that he his a
moron and a puppet president who does as he is told. This is
especially true of people who have met him (other than
politicians who have to keep up the pretence)....

This is not a matter of political bias. Several people with
no political interests have met him and said he was clue less.
This is apart from his public displays of ineptitude.

AFAICT, that seems to be the consensus in Australia as well --
even among conservatives.

 

[Dave Hansen]

On Wed, 19 Apr 2006 09:17:37 +0100 in comp.arch.embedded, Chris Hills

[...]

The Back country still has a very strong regional accent. BTW Virgil
Earp, Wyatt Earp and Morgan Earp of the Gunfight at the OK Corral fame
were from Dudley. Now imagine that famous scene in the film in a Black
Country accent....

Huh?

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born on March 19, 1848, in Monmouth,
Illinois and grew up on a farm in Iowa. In 1864 he moved with his
parents to California. After working as a stagecoach driver and
buffalo hunter, he served as deputy marshal in Wichita, Kansas and
Dodge City, Kansas, where he became friends with Bat Masterson and Doc
Holliday.

Virgil was born in Kentucky, where the Earp family had lived for three
generations. Morgan was born in Pella, Iowa.

Where's Dudley?
-=Dave

 

[Chris Hills]

AFAICT, that seems to be the consensus in Australia as well --
even among conservatives.

I thought Australia was solidly behind the Bush invasion of Iraq?

As it happens I am usually considered to be right of centre also Ex
military. So I am not exactly a bleeding heart liberal ;-)

Ironically the two more right wing countries in Europe, Germany and
Austria would not even let US transport planes over fly on the way to
the Gulf.

 

[Grant Edwards]

I thought Australia was solidly behind the Bush invasion of Iraq?

The government was. I got the impression that the majority of
the population wasn't.

But, even people I talked to who agreed with
Rove/Cheney/Rumsfeld policies still seemd to think that Bush
was dumb as post.

 

[Chris Hills]

The Back country still has a very strong regional accent. BTW Virgil
Earp, Wyatt Earp and Morgan Earp of the Gunfight at the OK Corral fame
were from Dudley. Now imagine that famous scene in the film in a Black
Country accent....

I stand corrected

Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth, Illinois in 1848. Virgil Earp was
born in Hartford, Kentucky in 1843, and Morgan Earp was born in Pella,
Iowa in 1851. In fact, all of the Earp siblings were born in either
Kentucky, Illinois, or Iowa. None were, as far as I can figure, ever
outside the US, much less "from Dudley" in any meaningful sense.
-=Eric

I was told they were from Dudley by a "historian" and I must admit I
took it at face value without checking.

However it is an amusing picture for those who know the Dudley accent!

 

[Roberto Waltman]

I thought Australia was solidly behind the Bush invasion of Iraq?

<OT>
My understanding (I am not Australian and I have seen Kangaroos only
in pictures,) is that the government supported the invasion, the
Australian people did not.

In any case Australia, as one of the small contributors to the
military apparatus, would be lumped together with one of the four main
members of the so called "coalition":
The United States, Great Britain, England and The United Kingdom.
</OT>

 

[Paul Burke]

Where's Dudley?

Near Brummagem. Not far from Brierley Hill.

Dudley's best claim to fame is that it was the site of the world's first
practical steam engine, back in 1712.

Paul Burke

 

[Steve at fivetrees]

The Back country still has a very strong regional accent. BTW Virgil
Earp, Wyatt Earp and Morgan Earp of the Gunfight at the OK Corral fame
were from Dudley. Now imagine that famous scene in the film in a Black
Country accent....

I mentioned this to a friend from that neck of the woods just now. He
responded:
And re the accent, he added:


Steve
http://www.fivetrees.com

 

[Steve at fivetrees]

I mentioned this to a friend from that neck of the woods just now. He
responded:

He adds:
Perhaps your historian friend is connected to my historian friend?

Steve
http://www.fivetrees.com

 

[Chris Hills]

He adds:

Perhaps your historian friend is connected to my historian friend?

I got sent this......

Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth, Illinois in 1848. Virgil Earp was
born in Hartford, Kentucky in 1843, and Morgan Earp was born in Pella,
Iowa in 1851. In fact, all of the Earp siblings were born in either
Kentucky, Illinois, or Iowa. None were, as far as I can figure, ever
outside the US, much less "from Dudley" in any meaningful sense.
-=Eric

SO where was he born? Black country UK or Illinois


Re U571..... Not saying it is false (other than wrong year, wrong ocean
and wrong navy) but the makers of the film had to donate a LOT of money
to a UK ex-services charity and paid for the Colin Grazer memorial in
Tamworth. Who is Colin? the RN AB Seaman who died retrieving the enigma
code book. U571 will never be shown in Tamworth out of respect for the
people who really did get the code book.

Then there is Saving Private Ryan which forgets to mention that the
first people ashore were the Royal Navy Beach Masters.... Now you might
wonder what they were doing on US navy ships. Well they weren't. The US
troops were put ashore by the British Navy. The US Navy were not there.
Though one lot of US navy ships did manage to sink the British Navy
MTB's that were there to protect them...

Originally the film about Bletchly Park (in the UK where the worlds
first electronic computers were used and Enigma was broken) was going to
be made sighting Bletchly Park in the US of A until Mick Jagger (of the
Rolling Stones) got involved. He was so incensed that they wanted to
make out it all happened in the US and that the US (after recovering the
Enigma book from U571) invented computers and broke the codes that he
financed the film so it was made in it correct location in the UK with a
more accurate screen play.

I also understand that the families of the British Officers portrayed in
Patriot were so upset by the incorrect portrayal of their family members
and the rose tinted picture of the character played by Mel Gibson that
they sued for defamation of character and an injunction on the film. I
think it was settled (for a large sum) out of court.

Amusingly given the US attitude to the French and the middle east I am
informed from a very good source that one of the films about the US
Delta force commandos is actually a reasonably accurate representation
of a French operation in the Middle East....

Finally Blackhawk down is so far removed from the truth that about the
only accurate parts are that a helicopter came down and a lot of people
were killed. In reality most of the casualties were unarmed civilians.
Much like Iraq now.

So Hollywood is very good at re-writing history. There are two that I
know of it did not make. One was the Colditz story showing how the US
men there ran the escape system and showing all their escapes. In fact
there were very few Americans there and they took not part in escape
activities much less attempted any escapes.

The other film that might have been was the Michael Jackson Story.
Apparently he wanted a white child to play him in his younger years....
Strange!

 

[Steve at fivetrees]

I got sent this......

Yes, I saw. I quoted my Black Country friend not to add to the argument, but
to show that our Black Country historian friends agreed with one another,
rightly or wrongly . Also couldn't resist posting the Dudley-accented
quote - it tickled me...

SO where was he born? Black country UK or Illinois

No idea .

Re U571..... Not saying it is false (other than wrong year, wrong ocean
and wrong navy) but the makers of the film had to donate a LOT of money
to a UK ex-services charity and paid for the Colin Grazer memorial in
Tamworth. Who is Colin? the RN AB Seaman who died retrieving the enigma
code book. U571 will never be shown in Tamworth out of respect for the
people who really did get the code book.

I'm a Station X history nut. I've read probably every book there is on the
subject. So: nice to hear about the donations.

Then there is Saving Private Ryan which forgets to mention that the
first people ashore were the Royal Navy Beach Masters.... Now you might
wonder what they were doing on US navy ships. Well they weren't. The US
troops were put ashore by the British Navy. The US Navy were not there.
Though one lot of US navy ships did manage to sink the British Navy
MTB's that were there to protect them...

I'm also a Battle of Britain and D-Day nut. To be fair, Omaha Beach was the
toughest one. The Brits and the Canadians had a far easier time, although
the US leaders disdained the use of the "funnies" which proved so successful
at clearing beach obstacles elsewhere...

Originally the film about Bletchly Park (in the UK where the worlds
first electronic computers were used and Enigma was broken) was going to
be made sighting Bletchly Park in the US of A until Mick Jagger (of the
Rolling Stones) got involved. He was so incensed that they wanted to
make out it all happened in the US and that the US (after recovering the
Enigma book from U571) invented computers and broke the codes that he
financed the film so it was made in it correct location in the UK with a
more accurate screen play.

Small correction: it's "Bletchley Park" (with an 'e'). The film was fairly
decent and fairly accurate - simplified (understandably) in part, but not
too revisionist. (Jagger bought the film rights, and was executive
producer.)

So Hollywood is very good at re-writing history. There are two that I
know of it did not make. One was the Colditz story showing how the US
men there ran the escape system and showing all their escapes. In fact
there were very few Americans there and they took not part in escape
activities much less attempted any escapes.

Indeed. Colditz was primarily for RAF officers.

The other film that might have been was the Michael Jackson Story.
Apparently he wanted a white child to play him in his younger years....
Strange!

"Michael Jackson" and "strange" - you don't see those words together often,
do you?

Steve
http://www.fivetrees.com