----------------------------------- Dragan Sun Apr 13, 2008 3:27 pm Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- Hi, did you all here people came from Canada? I came form Serbia, do you know where is that country (Serbia)? :) ----------------------------------- Nick Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:49 pm RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- I believe south of Russia, and yes I am Canadian ----------------------------------- Dragan Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:06 pm RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- @nick, no, guess again. :) ----------------------------------- btiffin Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:13 pm Re: Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- Georgian Bay; part of Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes. Dragan; For a good view of how well North Americans know geography, check out this awesome video, [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww]Miss Teen South Carolina. So sad it's hilarious. I was once involved with interviewing a lady from Bosnia for a COBOL position. She still appreciates getting the job and we chat on a semi-regular basis. (She was the only candidate that could answer my "What is PIC 88 used for?" question.) Cheers ----------------------------------- Mackie Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:28 pm RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- I live near Toronto. ----------------------------------- Dragan Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:29 pm RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- I saw that video and it is hilarious, why you don't learn geography in your schools? In my country I was learnig where are all countries of world and its capital cities. Question is still here where are you came from and do you know where is Serbia? :) ps. @btffin , did she get that job? ----------------------------------- btiffin Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:36 pm Re: Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- And Nick; no personal offence intended. I'm old and I would have responded "yeah, kinda" to the South of Russia answer. Few North Americans have a fair grasp of the world map. imho. So sad it's hilarious. ;) Only adding this, as when I reread the thread it sounded like I was picking on Nick. Not the intent. I thought he was right (kinda). Sorry Nick. ----------------------------------- CodeMonkey2000 Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:40 pm Re: Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- Dragan; For a good view of how well North Americans know geography, check out this awesome video, The worst part was the she went on to the top 5. If I were the judge I would have disqualified her for intellectual incompetence. By the way, I'm from India. ----------------------------------- btiffin Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:43 pm Re: RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- I saw that video and it is hilarious, why you don't learn geography in your schools? In my country I was learnig where are all countries of world and its capital cities. Question is still here where are you came from and do you know where is Serbia? :) ps. @btffin , did she get that job? Yes she did; going on 10 years ago now. Good coder too. And she takes no guff; part of being a good programmer, in my humble opinion. And as I've said; North Americans (I'm Canadian, so I'll say we do a better job than out neighbours to the south, but I'm biased by pride) do a fairly poor job of teaching ourselves world history and geography. Cheers ----------------------------------- Dan Sun Apr 13, 2008 6:04 pm RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- It should be noted that Canada, the Uninted States and Mexcio are all very diffrent conuntrys and lumping them in to one catgory does not make much sence epstaly if you are crtizing there eudcation systems all together. There is no north amrican union and realy the only collective agrrment btween the conutrys is NAFTA (free trade), the goverments, cluters and education system are very diffrent. Canada is much more socilasit then the Uninted States and has an education system in canada is more hevealy fundend by the goverment and results in a very diffrent educational experince and cirulem. Mexico is even more radicaly diffrent then the two and is even more reduiceless to put in the same group in terms of education. The video btiffin links to is from some one from the unitned states and is of a person who is not exctaely repersentive of the avaerge person there. Also the magorty of the users from this site are from canada (a diffrent country tho on the same content) so using that as proof that we don't learn geogrpahy in our schools is even more invaild. Simpley studing the polictal divdions that defined the boundrys of countrys and there capitals is not that usefull if you totaly ignore the diffrence in scoicities and culters that define them witch you seem to be as if you did you might have know the canadaians easly take offence to being compared the uninted states, epstaly in terms of education, intengelce, goverment or clutercher. Grouping all of north amrica together and saying why don't you learn geogrpahy would be like grouping all of europe together and asking why you all speak with british acentes. Also it is unrealstic to think that every person should know exctaly where every country in the world is off the top of there head. A much more imporent geogrpahy realted skill whould be being able to use a map of atalist to find any place on the erath. Obvesly some countyrs and dvidions like contenets are large enought that every one should know, however asking exctaly exctaly where serbia is with out using a map would be like me asking you exctaly where the Yukon (an area almost 5.5 time bigger then serbia) or New Brunswick (an area about the same size of serbia) is with out being fimualr with canada. Any how thats my rant about it. Edit: Also Serbia is tehcnaily south of russia if you ignore the west/east compoent..... Tho saying in southeastern europe would be more acurrite. ----------------------------------- btiffin Sun Apr 13, 2008 7:11 pm Re: RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- Grouping all of north amrica together and saying why don't you learn geogrpahy would be like grouping all of europe together and asking why you all speak with british acentes. Also it is unrealstic to think that every person should know exctaly where every country in the world is off the top of there head. A much more imporent geogrpahy realted skill whould be being able to use a map of atalist to find any place on the erath. Obvesly some countyrs and dvidions like contenets are large enought that every one should know, however asking exctaly exctaly where serbia is with out using a map would be like me asking you exctaly where the Yukon (an area almost 5.5 time bigger then serbia) or New Brunswick (an area about the same size of serbia) is with out being fimualr with canada. Any how thats my rant about it. Not that I'm a huge fan of diss'ing entire cultures, but being part of the target of disrespect seems to make it a little more ok. Not to offend Dan, but yeah I lump all of North America in as a group re World Geography. Like this snippet (limited, probably a little biased but I found it quickly) from a National Geographic Survey from 6 years ago (similar to the more recent poll, but didn't have the same oommph of quote). Quoted from Americans ages 18 to 24 came in next to last among nine countries in the National Geographic-Roper 2002 Global Geographic Literacy Survey, which quizzed more than 3,000 young adults in Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, and the United States. Top scorers were young adults in Sweden, Germany, and Italy. Out of 56 questions that were asked across all countries surveyed, on average young Americans answered 23 questions correctly. Others outside the U.S., most notably young adults in Mexico, also struggled with basic geography facts. Young people in Canada and Great Britain fared almost as poorly as those in the U.S. We have work to do, imho. And this is partly due to our being blessed with so much fun stuff to do, that we don't rate world History or Geography high on the list. And the Miss Teen video, excuse the reference; it is the very tip of an iceberg, perhaps not fair ... but still hilarious. Asked today, I'm sure she'd beat most test scores quite soundly as I can only assume the event prompted her to study up a little. :) And to be fair to Dragan's thread and hopefully not derail its direction. It's a good question ... where we come from. Cheers ----------------------------------- Sean Sun Apr 13, 2008 7:20 pm Re: Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- Sadly, I live in the same town as Mackie. :roll: Naw, joking. It's all in good fun. Mackie, you can tell Gillard that there is a Geocache that she can look for. It's located across the street in the park. ----------------------------------- Dan Sun Apr 13, 2008 7:24 pm RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- Your not dissing an entire culture but an entiere content of the world that has many cultures and being part of that content dose not make any better. So peoleop that come from smaller comuntrys that are srowuned by more countrys know more about there local georgrphy then ones that come from larger countrys that are soruned by one or two countrys? What a shock. As i mentioned befor i wonder if thess students from eurpoe know where the provices of canada or states of amarica are as most are larger in size then the countrys they are being tested on. This comprason is as vaild as me saying peoleop not from north amarica don't know english. Aren't you guys taught english in school? (And yes i see the irony in me saying this.) Tho to get back on topic as you sugest i currently live in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. ----------------------------------- OneOffDriveByPoster Sun Apr 13, 2008 9:09 pm Re: Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- I am from Scarborough, part of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I was born in Hong Kong. I am currently living elsewhere (attending University). ----------------------------------- md Sun Apr 13, 2008 9:45 pm Re: RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- @nick, no, guess again. :) Actual, right. It IS south of Russia, and a bit to the west. Situated between Bosnia and Romania. But then, I did the smart thing and confirmed where I thought it was with a map before posting. Even I can't remember exactly where every country is all the time ;-) ----------------------------------- CodeMonkey2000 Sun Apr 13, 2008 10:08 pm RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- Didn't Canada bomb the crap out of Serbia a while ago? And Kosovo is recognized as a country by Canadians. What does this mean for Quebec now? ----------------------------------- Nick Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:34 pm RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- Well glad to see I was half right. ;) I don't like to look up questions asked, I like to test my knowledge. I thought the origanal question was what contry so I answered Canada, however being specific, I live in the next town north of Mackie's although I lived in the same city for 14 years, was born there too. Also I like the irony in Dan's post, but it's not his fault. ----------------------------------- Dan Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:06 am Re: RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- Didn't Canada bomb the crap out of Serbia a while ago? And Kosovo is recognized as a country by Canadians. What does this mean for Quebec now? Well NATO attacked Yugoslavia and Canada is one of many (about 26) countrys/states that make up NATO, the attack was mostly started and ran by the US but canada did play a minor roll in the conflict (~10% of the acuatal bombing). Also Yugoslavia is now serveral diffrent conutrys/states and serbia is one of them. As for the Kosovo/Quebec comprason it is not realy vaild if you look that the hisotry behind both and the support for it with in each state/country/provience. Yugoslavia tryed to ethincal cleanse Kosovo (witch is why NATO atacked), Kosovo was placed under UN control affter that and the kosovo plarment uanamisesly voted (109 for to 0 against) to sperate from serbia and sent letters to all conutrys to support them. The UN doses not recongize Kosovo due to the seucrity console, where russia and china refuses to recogize it (mostly for there own reasons). As you can obvesly see this bears litte or not reseblence to the Canada/Quebec issue where the magority of quebecers do not want to spereate and there have been referuedeums that failed to sperate. Also Quebec is obvesly not sending letters to countrys asking for regoiention and deftaly not asking the UN for support as there citzensts don't want it and the situtaion is nothing like Kozvo (esptaly since north amarica has yet to ehtical cleasne Quebec and our conflict with them if limited to making frech canadina jokes and some complaints about the amount of tax and reveune they have to give to the feduaral goverment). Note: This post was edited many times as it seemed to insualting the first few trys. ----------------------------------- Dragan Mon Apr 14, 2008 4:15 am Re: RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- If you say Serbia is south of Russia, that is very very unprecisely, like "Argentina is south of Canada". @md gave precisly answer. I wonder if thess students from eurpoe know where the provices of canada or states of amarica are as most are larger in size then the countrys they are being tested on. We learn where are all states of America and provinces of Canada, of Spain, of France, of Germany... We have very strong educational system. Yugoslavia tryed to ethincal cleanse Kosovo You hear that on tv, do you belive in that? And question for all people here still is "Where do you came from?" ----------------------------------- Dan Mon Apr 14, 2008 4:56 am Re: RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- We learn where are all states of America and provinces of Canada, of Spain, of France, of Germany... We have very strong educational system. I would say that is more of a wast of time then education. It would be infentatly better to learn how to use an atlas effectely and how to read all kinds of maps. Also social studys of the aucatal countrys would be infenteatly more imporent then there provicenes. And as i side befor the comprason is like asking you why they don't teach english (witch would aucatly also be more usefull then the location of provicnes). Yugoslavia tryed to ethincal cleanse Kosovo You hear that on tv, do you belive in that? You mean do i blive the UN, NATO, the canadain goverment, the US goverment ( http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/kosovoii/homepage.html ), Belgium, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, kosovo, the peacekeepers involded, every cerdiable (and incrediable) north amraican news sorce (and many 1st world news sorces around the world), the Red Cross ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/781310.stm ), the American Association for the Advancement of Science ( http://shr.aaas.org/kosovo/pk/toc.html ), the Human Rights Watch ( http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/undword-03.htm ), the videos on t.v. of it acuatal happening at the time and the images of pies of dead bodys? Yes.... Do you think NATO attacked Yugoslavia for fun? Weather the bombings where a good idea and if NATO scrwed up the oepration (killing more cilivans then nessary) are diffrent questions, but there deftaly was ethinic cleansing going on. ----------------------------------- haskell Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:33 am RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- Heh... I learned about Serbia when I took Canadian History... One of the places that can be accredited with starting World War 1 is Serbia. I have to say, in my World Geography course we don't learn about all the countries of the world and their cities/sub-sections. We learn about how the geography of the area affects the people, industry, and etc.... In my opinion, learning actual geography and applying your knowledge to solve problems and extrapolate an opinion(which is done through large case studies, which are worth 50% of the final exam. The final exam is worth 50% of the course. Thus, 25% of the course is based on that particular ability), and prove your stance. It's like how in World History you don't learn each date of each major event in history. You learn about a couple dozen events. Sure, you know the dates that are relevent to them, but it's focused on higher-order questions, not memorization. Which can be said of every course I've ever taken in high school. ----------------------------------- Dragan Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:22 am Re: RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- It would be infentatly better to learn how to use an atlas effectely and how to read all kinds of maps What is more usefull to know is another question, if you (people in USA and Canada) don't know to read maps that is your problem, we know to read maps. You mean do i blive the UN, NATO, the canadain goverment, the US goverment... All that goverment and American news said that Iraq have biological weapon (that was reason to start war in Iraq), did they find that weapon? No! Why? Becaose that weapon is not existed, reason for attack Iraq is that USA want cheap oil (as you know Iraque have oil fields). Did I need to tell you how many civilians is killed in Iraq, and killing is still present? Because of that I don't bilive in USA an NATO news. Do you think NATO attacked Yugoslavia for fun? No for fun, they wanted own military base in our teritory (we (serbian people) didn't want that and ethnical cleaning is constucted for that reason), and also Kosovo have coal fields. Bonstil is military base of USA on Kosovo, why after bombing thay didnt go home? USA militari stay on kosovo, UN militari to be on kosovo is OK. but NATO no. NATO isn't UN, NATO is military organisation. Weather the bombings where a good idea and if NATO scrwed up the oepration (killing more cilivans then nessary) are diffrent questions, "MORE THEN NESSARY" how many is nessary?, wich number of civilian is ok. to be killed? ----------------------------------- Nick Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:28 am Re: RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- What is more usefull to know is another question, if you (people in USA and Canada) don't know to read maps that is your problem, we know to read maps. We definatly can use maps and atlases, which is the reason why it's not important learning precise locations on the map, instead our time and money is better used learning what's going on at those places instead, I think that's what dan is trying to get across. ----------------------------------- Dragan Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:35 am Re: RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- What is more usefull to know is another question, if you (people in USA and Canada) don't know to read maps that is your problem, we know to read maps. We definatly can use maps and atlases, which is the reason why it's not important learning precise locations on the map, instead our time and money is better used learning what's going on at those places instead, I think that's what dan is trying to get across. I agree with you and @Dan in that part, but I didn't loose much time to learn where all world coutries are. ----------------------------------- StealthArcher Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:26 am Re: RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- All that goverment and American news said that Iraq have biological weapon (that was reason to start war in Iraq), did they find that weapon? No! That information came from a refugee looking for safe status, turns out he was saying whatever came to mind to get out of Iraq. Why? Becaose that weapon is not existed, reason for attack Iraq is that USA want cheap oil (as you know Iraque have oil fields). Or maybe it's because as you say below, Saddam was killing off civilians by the thousands. By the way, by setting up Iraq for a democratic government, their oil becomes more expensive. Did I need to tell you how many civilians is killed in Iraq, and killing is still present? Because of that I don't bilive in USA an NATO news. Yes, except you seem to confuse those there to prevent it with the murderers. ----------------------------------- Tallguy Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:59 am RE:Where are you came form? ----------------------------------- i'm from east of ottawa, a small town named 'clarence creek' ----------------------------------- jernst Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:16 am Re: Where are you came form? -----------------------------------