Anton Vredegoor wrote: > Alex Martelli wrote: > > >>I just don't understand, always assuming you're in the Netherlands, how >>attending Europython in Belgium (as opposed to Pycon in the US) could >>have cost hundreds of euros. Conference registration is free to >>speakers, bicycling NL->BE not costly (many were driving from NL, so >>bumming a ride was far from impossible either), many attendants arranged >>to "crash" for free thanks to the hospitality of others, food costs in >>Belgium aren't much different from those in NL. > > > Ah, I see. You're approaching this from a 'speaker' scenario. You > already have a lot of contacts, know where you can sleep, where to eat > and so on. > If you can't afford to go to conferences, don't bitch about it if you are (as you apparently claim to be) impecunious by choice.
I personally expended a lot of effort to reduce the costs of US conference attendance by converting the International Python Conferences (expensive, "professionally" organised) into PyCon (cheap and cheerful, community-oriented). It's my understanding that EuroPython is even more community-oriented than PyCon. Maybe you just weren't prepared to *ask* about how to attend cheaply? > >>I'm not saying a few hundred euros is 'cheap' -- it obviously isn't, if >>your income is low to nonexistent; rather, I'm wondering where that >>"hundreds" amount comes from. You originally mentioned only pycon >>(where the need to fly to the US, for people living in Europe, can >>obviously account for "hundreds of euros" already); Europython is >>specifically held in Europe to be cheaper and more convenient to attend >>for Europeans, and I've always met many people there who fell in the >>"income low to nonexistent" bracket for one reason or another. > > > Now going back to my claim that elitism is bad, I think you are the > perfect proof of my point. You live in luxurious (with respect to > community, education and financial aspects of being a computer scientist > or programmer) conditions and can just not understand why some people > have problems entering that same environment and privileged conditions > as yourself. This attitude is very common and needs only some kind > Blair-alike kind of selfhypnosis in order to effectively not being aware > of lying. > On the available evidence that seems completely untrue. Alex, as I know from personal experience, has no problems accepting the material rewards of a lifetime spent developing expertise, but that doesn't make him elitist. I have seen him helping Python programmers without any monetary reward (and he got precious little for all the time he spent as a technical editor of "Python Web Programming"), and I know him to be quite far from elitist. > What is shunned is any form selfanalysis, because it would immediately > reveal that you yourself are violently keeping all these people out of > opportunities (the backstabbing), in your case for example by requesting > certain degrees, without realizing that what you are selecting for is > not what you think it is. It is selection for socialization and > belonging to some kind of social group, not any mental ability really, > not even the likeliness of being able to grasp Haskell which you somehow > seem to link to having a mathematical education. > Are there *any* mirrors in your life? > Seriously, this is just a fraction of a unit above craniometry and you > would be wiser if you dropped this attitude. > I think the chip on your shoulder is forcing you to stand crooked. How sad the world isn't organised the way *you* think it should be. Of course this naturally means the world needs changing, not you ... or are you just "linear combinations of social peer pressure vectors"? regards Steve -- Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
