Bay 12 Games Forum

Standard question, you know if there's a transcript of that somewhere? Beyond really not wanting to actually hear someone say what the article connected to that video is mentioning, I don't want to bother th'other folks in the house with the noise.

If not... bleh. Bleh.

Meh, it doesn't actually change much, if anything. Just another day.

There's a reason why I said that "Traveler" is the broadly accepted term of respect for nomadic peoples.  It's not connected to any one ethnic group, it never has been, and it has absolutely zero negative connotations or even additional stereotypes attached.

Yeah, that's why I'd mentioned general use -- I've never actually seen "Traveler" used as a group identifier before (while having ran into that entire sundry list of synonyms, yeah). Maybe/hopefully it's picking up in usage and can stay fairly clean for a while.

Doesn't have much zing to it, though

All I know is that I'm now fairly curious if there's any word in general usage referring to traveling groups that doesn't have and/or quickly garner negative connotations. I can't really think of any.

Then again, gypsy isn't really a word that is used in the area I'm in -- gypped is, but as with Baug most people around here ("around here" being a good 2-300 miles, really, encompassing most of north florida and large chunks of the areas surrounding it) have no idea how the hell it's spelled much less where it came from. I think I most commonly see it spelled as jypped, actually.

Homeless or panhandler is the closest to the stereotypical example of gypsy, used in this area, and both are seen quite negatively. I've seen a few other terms used for traveling groups and people in other areas of the states, but again, they either have or gain negative stereotypes within very short order.

Does an offense-neutral term (that actually gets used, mind) for this type of lifestyle even exist?

1 - all mounts as omni small/medium/large. If I manage to get my hands on some advanced energy weapons, it'd be nice if I had more then one or two ships that even equip the things.

You can mod this in; I did. There are omni mounts (UNIVERSAL, actually, but yeah), but they're quite rare. Weapons loadout is part of the faction fluff-type stuff, from what I've picked up.

Try-tach ships are much more heavily slanted toward energy weapons. There's a mini-mod adding in a TTT station a few pages back, otherwise you'll have to hunt and salvage. Sometimes the hegemony station'll sell some, though. You can usually sell your starter and pick up a wolf right off the bat, if you really feel like it.

4 - Starter ships need more cargo space. While it doesn't matter right now as cargo limits are ignored, some of the destroyers have next to no cargo space and would necessitate frequent returns to space stations to sell the one item they have room to salvage.

Das why you have freighter-type ships! I think the cheapest frigate currently purchasable is one of those, and quite roomy. Which is to say it's probably intentional, and you're going to be expected to have have logistic ships in the full game, if you don't want to be making frequent stops.

Betcha' we could baste and cook some of the politicians.

Though now the mental image of republican candidates with a fine layer of syrup and marinade is trying to insinuate itself into my brain and this is really not going to a happy place really really fast argh.

I'm remembering an old TMNT comic where the turtles got honey poured all over them and now everything is sticky and glistening and it's just bad man it's just bad.

Sorry, as an outsider... what is paygo?

Paygo! Not to be confused with Prego, which is a spaghetti sauce. Or... whatever else sounds or is spelled vaguely similar to it.

Of course people want government funded education loans because it ends up being cheaper for those looking for a loan.

I... I can pretty much stop it right here, actually. That's not it.

People, and the government, want government funded education loans because A.) education (Yes, even the soft stuff) is really, really damn important, especially in a ostensibly democratic society, and B.) education has been proven time and time and time again to be a basically unquestionably good investment -- for the individuals involved, for the society as a whole, for the government as well. There is a lot more going on there than a piece of toilet paper with fancy writing on it.

That is, unfortunately, if we naturally assume that the ideal scenario of it plays out: that everybody who takes a loan out from the government ends up finding a job and paying back the money within a reasonable time-frame.  I am talking about years, not decades.

Neither the loan system nor the people getting into it assume that; most people going in for student loans nowadays fully expect to be paying them back decades later. The system itself largely expects that, from what I understand.

The end result of this is creating a group of people who are too educated for what they are working in, ontop of being saddled with a bad amount of debt.  And these people cannot ever default on that debt because the government will not allow it, so you are always paying for it.

The latter bit of that, from "ontop" [sic] on, I'm down with. [ranton]The first bit... let me be frank. There is no such thing as too educated. There is no social good in ignorance. There is no virtue in "educated enough." There is virtue in "educated" and very little in "not." It can be fiscally non-optimal, yes, and it can definitely be a little silly to spend money on information and training you're not going to use and shortly forget, but there actually is an absolute social good in the spread and integration of good information -- and most accredited college courses fall somewhere in that category. There's definitely room for a greater proliferation of good public-access information (and we're seeing it, by hook and crook!), but calling education in excess of the absolute necessity somehow wasted is... short sighted, is about the best way I can put it.

There's some good beyond money going on here, but [/rantoff] even if you're just going by money, even with the problems we're having, people without college educations are in a hell of a lot worse situation than those that do have them, and their children and children's children are a lot more likely to be in little better situations.

This guy explains it better than me:
http://www.senseoncents.com/2011/04/are-student-loans-an-impending-bubble-is-higher-education-a-scam/

Hey, I've actually seen that before, though the fellow you're linking actually didn't write like, almost any of that. The original article. I vaguely remember n+1 doing some interesting stuff.

And yeah, there's some serious issues with the american school systems right now, that that article highlights. Notice one of the major points it hit on? A lot of what's caused this problem is the introduction of for-profit universities and a shift in college leadership (from educators to CEOs). Seems like the solution there might be making higher education fully government run and a free-ride for citizens Obviously not if they fail out, but if they can make the cut and pass the classes...

It's well agreed tuition is getting out of control, though. That's frankly one of the biggest problems the education sector has right now and just about any damn body actually involved in the education process (Both teachers and students, basically) will tell you that.

Actually on topic: Anyone know if any of the candidates have a position on that? I know there's a lot of people that very much realize that there's a very strong lean toward "degree or shit wages," and that the education sector (especially the for-profit stuff!) is starting to crook folks harder than we can really accept, but is there much voice raising about it in the Republican (or Democrat, really) party?

Anyway, as to this

Of course not, but do you think those who are teaching those classes are going to enlighten you or possible students to what kind of job prospects they may or may not have in that field (or any other sociology field)?

I'm actually between bachelors and masters in a "soft" degree. Almost every teacher I've met, both in my particular field and in related ones, have been absolutely straightforward about the difficulties getting a job in the field. There's also been a definite upswing on the local levels emphasizing information like that. So yeah, I'm pretty certain they're going to enlighten the students as to the job prospects they (probably don't) have in that field.

And... it's 1 AM. Which is probably why this is as long as it is. Aqui, if I see any need to keep going on this subject past whatever responses this ramble garners, I'll start another thread.