The Return of Testing Chat Thread

[adr]

I haven't asked, but I'm guessing numbers weren't on his mind at all. One time I remember being asked if I was going to college, and without putting in a single second's thought, replied "yes", thinking "of course, what do you think I am, some kind of loser?"

Money did play into my decision, but it isn't hard to imagine someone not running numbers when he's looking at the expectations and the dream job aspect.

[Count Chocula]

Universities charge 20k a year?

WTF?

Ohhh yeah. Price out a private college, some place like Duke, or a specialty school like Embry-Riddle if you want to keel over from the horror. My $20k was to finish out two years, so I got off lucky.

P.S. Don't even think about what it costs to become a dentist or medical doctor or lawyer. It's not uncommon for a dentist to graduate with $100k in student loans due for payment. Which makes accepting variable rate student loans even more foolhardy than normal. Think about the balloon on a $100k total education where you signed for a 6% payoff only to discover, four years later, that half of the borrowed amount is due at 14%.

Ow.

[adr]

Universities charge 20k a year?

Yeah, and this is a relative cheap state college too. take a gander:

http://www.oswego.edu/admissions/costs/ ... duate.html

That includes the room and board.... which is required for the first year, and not necessarily easy to avoid in subsequent years either. Commuting or getting your own place in the college town are both costly too.

Even ignoring that though, the minimum tuition and fees are still $8,000 ($17,000 if you're an out of state student!).

The private schools are even worse.


There's grants and scholarships which you might be able to get - but again, not necessarily - but it doesn't often cover enough.

The average American who goes to a four year school graduates with some $25,000 in student loan debt.

[Glass Fort MacLeod]

I haven't asked, but I'm guessing numbers weren't on his mind at all. One time I remember being asked if I was going to college, and without putting in a single second's thought, replied "yes", thinking "of course, what do you think I am, some kind of loser?"

Money did play into my decision, but it isn't hard to imagine someone not running numbers when he's looking at the expectations and the dream job aspect.

There's alot of culturla pressure to go to 'college' and make something of yourself, by which usually is meant 'go some place prestigous and expensive, spend alot of money and try ot become soemthing worthwhile, like a doctor.' College has become something of a money making institution in and of itself, and it seems that the more time goes the more they find ways to squeeze even more money out of people, and a whole slew of businesses have cropped up.

I think my favorite scam of the whole education thing is in the books. They charge you ludicrous amounts for a book which may or may not be new (or if it is new, its probably 80% recycled materials) and then when you turn them in at the end of the semester you might be lucky to get a fraction of what you put into them back, if anything at all.

But there's such pressure to go to college because its viewed as the way to make something of yourself and succeed in life (nevermind that, as far as I can tell, success in the business world depends on who you know and the connections you make as much or more than what you know) that its almost second nature.

Funny enough, this never includes something practical like plumbing or electrician something unglamorous but equally vital.

I've been looking at going back to school for nursing, and I've been looking at a local technical college rather than the state one, and its hilarious just how different (and betteR) the technical one is, despite being smaller overall and generally costing less (it is alot more focused and regimented.. the state college seems to be more 'well we'll take your money but getting the education is largely up to you.')

[Zod]

What happened to your old job, Zod?

I quit to get the fuck out of Denver.

Zod, one of my uncles lives in Littleton, and a couple of my mom's neighbors moved from Lakeland to the Denver mountains to live. What didn't you like about the place? Not criticizing, just curious as I've never been outside the airport there.

The public transportation was a mess, and there wasn't anything for me to really do since I don't like to ski and I don't have a license. Denver is one of those places that likes to think it's a "big city" when it's really just a small town pretending it's a big city.

[xon]

Universities charge 20k a year?

WTF?

Crazy. I graduated with $21K total HECS debt(only took 8 years to get my 3 year degree!), but that is indexed by cost of living and I only payback when I'm above an income threshold.

[evilsoup]

amerika lol

[Bounty]

amerika lol

$650 in yearly tuition, fully refunded. 'Student loans'... hehe.

[adr]

meanwhile the saliemae ceo "earned" some quarter billion dollars

http://www.consumerwarningnetwork.com/2 ... rd-losses/


the money kids paid for school that went into this individual's pocket could have covered 3,000 students 100% even paying the obscene full price for school + room and board

or about 25,000 kids through full-priced community college or technical school

[Shroom Man 777]

second pic, ugh

[Shroom Man 777]

seriously, lets kill hitler totally ruined it for me. gods. it was just so... yuck.

i hope dw got better

[evilsoup]

50th anniversary of DW is coming up next year
let's see if they do something interesting with the show
or

[adr]

have you guys ever tried to play a newer first person shooter game? they're fucking impossible

I was just tring to do killzone 3 at a friends house and 1) there's no two player and 2) there's no good controls scheme

like goldeneye and perfect dark had good controls and 4 player

halo had optional good controls (bad controls by default) and 4 player

killzone has obligiatory bad controls and 1 player except online which sucks b/c u can be siting with someone and cant even pwn him



I was called a n00blar cuz u was getting pwned

but really I think the problem si that im the anti-noob. maybe if the formative years of my brain were shaped by these new idiotic controls I could do it but instead I formed elsewhere and now my nuerosdn just aren't wired for this and it is too late to change that now

[Oxymoron]

This was tonight's episode of "ADR has a learning deficiency".

[Agent Bert Macklin]

That's what happens when you play FPS on consoles.

[Oxymoron]

Yeah, the console Vs. PC debate is a bit old and meaningless now, but I have to admit that I still find FPS hard to play on consoles compared to PC where you have a mouse.

Controllers are pretty cool for a lot things, but I find they are still a bit annoying to use sometime.

Not a dealbreaker, but eh...

[Zod]

That's what happens when you play FPS on consoles.

or killzone is just a bad game

[adr]

I have to admit that I still find FPS hard to play on consoles compared to PC where you have a mouse.

This was tonight's episode of "Oxymoron has a learning deficiency".

[adr]

but I couldn't play halo with the default controls either. i'd always have to change it to legacy/southpaw/invert y or whatever. but there were three things to change to get the right experience

the first fps I played was goldeneye and then I did perfect dark for years. playing pd is like riding a bike. I just do it, no thought at all

playing killzone is like riding a trike. it is kinda similar so my muscles want to act one way, but it is totally different so it feels like it is fighting me

[Oxymoron]

I have to admit that I still find FPS hard to play on consoles compared to PC where you have a mouse.

This was tonight's episode of "Oxymoron has a learning deficiency".

1 - 1, ball in the center

[Oxymoron]

I always have to invert the Y axis myself. Can't get the "normal" way.

Played too much flight sim to think that it's normal to look upward if you push the thingy up.

[adr]

I think what I do is to actually un-invert y. When playing flight sims, pull down to pull up. But when doing shooters, push up to look up.

My brother plays the other way... and that's just weird to me.

[Infinity Biscuit]

The N64 trained me to prefer having left stick for aim and right for movement, and it's indeed bullshit when games don't let you customise controls to your liking, but it isn't really that hard at all to get used to the sticks being reversed or stuff like that.

I honestly can't remember which way I have the Y axis set. Even when I'm messing with controls it ends up with both feeling wrong somehow.

[Darksi4190]

So me and my friends got together and watched Acts of Valor at Richard's house last night.

This is literally a production team taking a Tom Clancy/Call of Duty video game and turning it into a movie. Right up to the scene at the end where the main character is downed by gunfire and drawing his pistol to shoot the main bad guy that they literally ripped off from the end of Modern Warfare. We were all shouting "Kill an enemy to revive."

[Jung]

The CONTINUING SAGA OF MY FANFICTION

Its actually turning out to be a somewhat interesting experience artistically to write from a place of increasingly seething contempt for my audience.

Like I find myself taking the story in new and more interesting directions I think I wouldn't have otherwise cause I want to distance myself from and confound the audience expectations.

Like thinking about how the fattynerds are missing the point clarifies to me what the point actually is and that I actually haven't been doing all that great a job in grappling with it either, thus making the story move in new directions away from an emphasis on physically gross and scary things and toward emphasis on what alienation feels like.

Edit: I'm actually contemplating doing a "Take 2" when I finish it, with less wandering around without really connecting with the core theme, and definitely with the guilty pleasure infodump chapter excised.