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38th Chaos Communication Congress

events.ccc.de

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Re: 38th Chaos Communication Congress

#91

Post by davrosthedalek »

Y_Y wrote: post #9

I love watching CCC every years though I rarely catch it live. Since we have a couple of days to wait for this year's talk, I'll ask. Does it bother anyone else that some talks are in German, or does it bother anyone else that they find themselves bothered that the talks are in German? I love all languages great and small, natural and formal and so I'm conflicted on subjects like this. I find young German speakers to…

As a native German speaker living in the US, I have mixed feelings:

- Talks in German feel slightly less, hmm, professional? Maybe it's the field I grow up in (physics). Like, ok, in your studies you speak German, but when you grow up and go to big-boy conferences, it's English. The Congress should be big-boy league.

- Also, realistically, many technical terms are English, so the a German talk might have to make hard choices. CPU, not "zentrale Recheneinheit"

- At the same time, I like that it lowers the barriers for entry. Speakers and visitors who are not fluent in English can participate.

- Personally, though, I prefer a good fluent German presentation from a cringy English one. As a German native speaker, typical German mistakes in English irritate me more than others, I think, so I found some talks given in English hard to follow. Pet peeve: Technology. I think that's a better Shibboleth than Flash-Thunder-Welcome.

- Realistically though, the congress is a worldwide phenomenon, and important, and as English is the current lingua franca (hah), I think they should encourage English presentations, or at least English slides. (Because they provide translated audio in the recordings!)

- Lastly, I can only encourage everyone to learn more languages, at a young age. I kick myself I didn't. But even in languages which are relatively close, like English and German (compared to, say, Japanese), I found that one language has concepts the other one doesn't, and that changes how you think about things. For example, English has accuracy and precision, with, at least in physics, different meanings. In German, it's both "Genauigkeit".

(Edited: Formatting)

Re: 38th Chaos Communication Congress

#92

Post by mr_mitm »

HeckFeck wrote: post #61
sourcepluck wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's great. I've good passable German, not enough to really follow the details of a fast-paced, complicated talk, so I'm practically shut off from German media (at this level, anyway). But still, diversity is good, and the American-Anglification of all things cultural and linguistical is not necessarily a net positive. As in, I'm aware there's good points to it, but it's not an entirely clear picture, and som…

Some thoughts are too complex for English. Three genders means they are always one step ahead of the French. Shunning Latin root words means you can be more efficient. German persists for good reasons.

Can you give an example of a thought that cannot be expressed in English? That sounds like quite the claim without anything backing it up. I speak fluent German for what it's worth.

Re: 38th Chaos Communication Congress

#93

Post by wkat4242 »

namibj wrote: post #70
wkat4242 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the price of accommodation is pretty prohibitive. It's one of the most expensive times of the year and Germany is also one of the most expensive countries in Europe. I've looked at it once but the hotels were too expensive for me (I think it was in Hamburg then). But it's ok, I can watch it online. I don't like travelling during this busy period anyway.

There is affordable accomodation: nearby gymnasiums where you bring a "bed" and "duvet" and "towel+shampoo" and get by with like 5 bucks a night.

Oh yeah I'm too old for that though :)

Re: 38th Chaos Communication Congress

#94

Post by davrosthedalek »

usr1106 wrote: post #56
Scarblac wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand, communication is easiest if everybody uses the same language. On the other, the dominance of English is one thing that gives US too much cultural power. I think I'm happy that there is still content in other languages out there.

Communication is not good if everybody speaks the same language at a different level. I have worked in English for close to 30 years and been at many international conferences, presented myself a couple of times. Still I feel handicapped in some presentations/discussions that are dominated by native speakers not using offshore English.

Hmm, not sure, I'm non-native English speaker as well. I have a lot more problems understanding/being understood by non-native English speakers from a different language background than I or they have with a native (American) English speaker. Or do you mean America with offshore?

Re: 38th Chaos Communication Congress

#95

Post by blacklion »

Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #55

[flagged]

There are a lot of "Red" (Ethics, Society & Politics) talks. And a lot of "Yellow" (Art & Beauty) too.

I don't say it is bad thing, as all "our" tries to be "be out-of-politic" and "don't bring politic to our beloved technology" is why we are where we are now (in rather sad world, IMHO).

Re: 38th Chaos Communication Congress

#96

Post by wkat4242 »

croes wrote: post #77
wkat4242 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the price of accommodation is pretty prohibitive. It's one of the most expensive times of the year and Germany is also one of the most expensive countries in Europe. I've looked at it once but the hotels were too expensive for me (I think it was in Hamburg then). But it's ok, I can watch it online. I don't like travelling during this busy period anyway.

Most expensive? https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.js... Some things are pretty cheap compared to other countries, meat for instance

True but I'm in Spain. Last time I looked a hotel or guesthouse was around 200€ a night which is really a lot for me. Of course this is a time when lots of people travel.

But I didn't mean to complain, just to say it's not only the ticket availability that's a factor.

And this is not something the organisation can help of course. It's a German event so of course it's in Germany. And the tickets themselves are well priced.

And like I said, I really appreciate them making everything available online.

I do tend to go to the Dutch hacker camps that are being held once every 4 years.

Re: 38th Chaos Communication Congress

#99

Post by lispm »

Y_Y wrote: post #9

I love watching CCC every years though I rarely catch it live. Since we have a couple of days to wait for this year's talk, I'll ask. Does it bother anyone else that some talks are in German, or does it bother anyone else that they find themselves bothered that the talks are in German? I love all languages great and small, natural and formal and so I'm conflicted on subjects like this. I find young German speakers to…

I live in Hamburg/Germany, where the CCC is hosted. It would feel strange to go to a German hacker congress in a German city and people would expect that everything is in English, first. It's organized by volunteers from various CCC groups from all over Germany and not by a commercial congress provider. The result may look like a "professional" congress, but that's the result by countless hours of volunteers enabling it. Generally there is much more to the congress, then the talks you can see online. It's a large gathering (> 14k participants with >2500k volunteer organizers) of people from all kinds of German grassroots hacker domains... with a lot of groups meeting there and presenting themselves. The Hamburg congress center, where it takes place, is not the largest location possible, but it currently seems to be the best mix of a congress center in the middle of a large German city with lots of rooms and space for all the groups.

Having CCC talks translated to and from English/... is fine, as it's actually done.

https://events.ccc.de/en/2024/11/26/call-for-interpreters-tr...

says:

> We interpret ALL talks in the three main halls and the two community stages live and in real-time. German talks are interpreted into English, and vice versa. Our work is transmitted live in the lecture halls, streamed to the Internet, and recordings are published on CCC sites and YouTube. We have another channel where we interpret into more languages, this is transmitted and published in the same way.

Re: 38th Chaos Communication Congress

#100

Post by seb1204 »

jdndene wrote: post #42
Zolomon wrote: post #5

The ticketing system was horrible, it really was not fair this year around.

How was it not fair? While I would prefer limiting the attendence by price and not by come first, get first, I understand their reasoning But getting a ticket this year was very easy, I got three on two separate occasions.

By price? So only the rich kids can go? Sounds really the opposite attitude than what I hear from CCC folks
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