10/21   What Americans truly loathe about dealing with Europeans: Alan Turing
        on American efforts to break Enigma:
        "Generally speaking, their attitude is so purely mechanical and
         mathematical that they often fail to see the wood for the trees and
         do not like to admit that experience and a knowledge of immediately
         prior developments, combined with a little manual work, may often
         produce the answer more quickly than machinery."
        I say, old chap, could you possibly be a bit more condescending?
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3758276.stm
        \_ Yes, but you wouldn't understand it.  -John
        \_ Here's my perspective as a scientist who's dealt with western
           europeans: they'd rather spend a day blathering and writing on the
           chalkboard than an hour in the machine shop to just build the
           damn experiment.  I'm excluding the English and the Swiss from
                That's because all the good scientists from here _/
                have moved to the US.
                \_ Interesting.  Why do you think that is?
                   \_ Because govt. & corporate grant money here is about
                      nonexistent, universities/colleges aren't as
                      prevalent as in the US (hence fewer research jobs),
                      US salaries are higher, innovation generally isn't
                      as culturally ingrained, and the academic community
                      here seems pretty small and inbred, wasting a lot of
                      energy going at each others' throats, to name a few
                      reasons.
                        \_ </troll>
                      \_ Every foreign scientists I work with is either
                         here already or trying desperately to come here
                         (USA). The few who were here and had to leave are
                         miserable. They do say that Japan is not too bad.
                         A small handful of foreign scientists have a
                         monopoly on the research in Europe and so for
                         those few they are better off there.
                         \_  Uh, so you're saying that you work in the U.S.,
                             and the people you've met while working in the
                             U.S. all work in the U.S.? wow.
                             \_ I work in the US with many foreign
                                scientists and agencies. Some are here for
                                a short time only and some are in Europe
                                and Japan. Just because I work with them
                                doesn't mean they are in the USA.
                         \_ Japan's great for research so long as you're
                            completely willing to give up all rights to the
                            fruit of your research. Cf.:
                            http://optics.org/articles/news/10/2/1/1
                            \_ This link doesn't work for me.
           this, but in my opinion western European physicists are all talk
           and no action, and I would avoid working with them in the future
           if at all possible.
           \_ The ones I've met pride themselves on their theoretical work
              and describe Americans as merely applying the practical to the
              more deeply intellectual concepts they've originated.  They
              meant it in the same way we used to talk about the Japanese
              when they were doing nothing but cloning American technology
              and making shittier cheaper versions of it.
        \_ WARNING!  None of the above posters has a clue.
           \_ Said warning applies to any motd post, so it is redundant.
            \_ the tone is condescending, self-righteous, and feeling
               of superiority... ilyas, is that you?
               \_ No, see the above sounds like something tom would say --
                  insulting but uninformative.  If I wanted to be
                  condescending to people in this thread I would
                  wonder outloud how many posters actually worked
                  with European scientists, and whether they are
                  aware of differences between europeans working here
                  in the US vs europeans working in europe, etc.
                  Actually, what they said doesn't sound wrong
                  to me.  In conclusion, you are an anonymous twit,
                  and if you think feelings of superiority are at
                  my personal core you REALLY REALLY don't know me.
                    -- ilyas
                  \_ If you don't know me by now
                     You will never never ever know me
                        -- h melvin and the bluetones