Bay 12 Games Forum

Hokay. Definitely got confirmation I'll be able to run it through online as necessary (though it looks like with GOG you can't buy a gift without saying who it's for beforehand?), so I'm figuring tomorrow around CST 6 PM (GMT -6) I'll do the drawing for Eador. Seems I'll need an email address to send th'thing to, but that can wait until someone actually gets it

I'll leave entry open 'till an hour beforehand (11 PM GMT) so if anyone wants to get in on it at the last minute, that's your window of opportunity.

I spent more than an ordinate amount of time thinking about what Pokemon the characters from the Metal Gear Solid series would use, for no apparent reason other than that a Pokemon/MGS crossover would be pretty awesome. I still haven't come up with anything, other than Decoy Octopus using a team of Dittoes.

I wonder...

S'only three, though, and they all look pretty terrible just going by the summaries. One's over 40k words, though!

Might be more on sites besides FFN. There's some pretty awesome stuff that never manages to get on that thing, really.

I blame the "everyone should go to college" mentality that we've had for the last 50 years. Not only did it dilute the value of a Bachelor's Degree, but it produced a glut of people who mortgaged their future on their education (myself included), because that's what we've all been told since we were kids -- study hard, get a good education, and there will be a good job waiting on the other side.

Thing is, what they're telling us now (at least that I've been hearing) isn't necessarily that college == good job, it's just not!college == worse job (or chance for job versus (much) worse chance, anyway.). E: I want to say the common figure I keep hearing is that a high school grad makes, on average, something like 15-20% less than someone with just a bachelor's. Obviously doesn't detail all the variables involved and there's likely some spin on it, but that's what I keep hearing. Also that demographic (non-degree folks) apparently have drastically higher unemployment rates. So... yeah.

If it's bad for th'college educated, it's pretty much exponentially worse for those not (though there's wiggle room in there for technical training et al.). Experience, from everything I've seen, can offset that only somewhat. From what I hear, if you don't have a degree a lot of folks just won't even look at you.

As I understand it, those without a degree that went to work are being hit even worse than those that "mortgaged their future on their education". I'd posit it has much less to do with degrees becoming devalued (though that's definitely happened and is becoming worse) than it does with non-degree work just... going away. We just don't have as many of those jobs anymore. E2: At least on a population relative scale. Maybe more jobs on the net, but less per person, so the amount's gone up but the fraction of the population able to be employed by that has gone down. Note that that is a WAG and I don't actually have the numbers on it -- it's entirely likely we just have flat less -- but it'd make a sort of sense.

But that... whole thing. Is a multivariant problem like a who-knows-what. Degrees devaluing, jobs going away, efficiency getting better (lower worker demand), social norms changing, etc., so forth, so on. S'not just one thing to blame here, unfortunately. That'd make fixing so much easier

it doesn't help that Afterwords sounds like a real word... isn't it?

Afterword (no s) is a real word. S'kinda' like a postscript or somethin'. Presumably afterwords would be the plural form of afterword.

Afterwords is apparently an album title, too. Huh.

Driving around with the windows down at ~50F is just... blissful. Feels so good~

That is all. Other than it looks like we might finally get a full week under 60F. Frumple is in Frumple's happy temperature place. For a week anyway. Maybe even two! Christmas come late, that.

If only it were this possible to entertain EVERYONE with something so simple.

It... kinda' is. It's more mindset than anything else. If you want to be entertained by simple things, you will be.

Lot of (somewhat engineered) cultural pressure to go in the other direction, though. The more complex stuff makes people richer, and it's hard(er) to make money off a 20+ year old that's still entertained by climbing trees instead of... whatever the malls are trying to foist on folks nowadays, I'unno. What was fun is fun. Fun is fun. Aging or more complex things does not change the nature of earlier or simpler fun things.

'Course, complex things can be fun, too. It's really not a mutually exclusive thing!

Yeah... DW can have a lot of fighting involved, but it depends on a buncha' stuff, from what I've seen. You can go largely peaceful and/or defensive and still pull out a victory, at least for some of the species.

More than that, one of the gimmicks, so to speak, of DW is that you can automate pretty much everything. If you don't want to bother with the military aspect and want to focus on everything else, well... you can just let the computer handle that part. Not so sure how impressive the diplomacy is, though... I haven't actually played the game much. Just a little bit a long ways back and recently read through a let's play, and the latter looked to have a lot of options (comparatively, anyway) for the player.

Quote from: Zrk2 on December 26, 2012, 02:21:45 am

Quote from: Slayerhero90 on December 26, 2012, 01:52:19 am

Cinnamon buns. With cream cheese icing.

Ooooohhhhhhh, yuuuuuuusssssssssss.

Cream cheese improves everything.

The scientist in me refuses to agree with that, but admits that so far he hasn't encountered an exception.

Cream cheese. Cream cheese is the exception.

... and probably a mixture of hot chocolate and green tea, but I'm just guessing, there. I've never actually had a drink that had cream cheese melted into it. Which is an interesting concept, hrm...

Also, I don't really like cream cheese by itself As part of other things occasionally, though, yes. Cheesecake <3 I could eat nothing but cheesecake for days and days. There's been a couple of times when that was all I did eat for a day.