@Gelderland
Nope, in fact I usually try to keep things short, I just fail at it, lol. I'm verbose, it's just who I am...
Oh, nothing upset me, I was trying to say that you hadn't, not that you had. Sorry if I didn't say it clearly. I thought from your choice of words that you might be worried that you had upset me, and you definitely didn't. I just have found it interesting, so I've had much to say, and in so in the sense of making me interested in the conversation, you did "stir me up," but in the sense of making me at all upset, you didn't in the slightest. The phrase is ambiguous, and I was tyring to be clear, that's all.
The languages I most want to practice are Norwegian, Russian, and Hungarian in that order. They are my first, third, and fifth best foreign languages, but I'm less interested in practicing Swedish and German. Swedish, of course, is almost the same as Norwegian, but it's nearly impossible to keep them straight on a regular basis, so I picked Norwegian. I am much better at German than Hungarian, but it's frustrating, as I used to be so much better at it, so if I've already gotten this rusty, I'd rather practice the languages that I have lost less of (even if I never had as much proficiency, in the case of Hungarian, where I've never known more than a smattering).
Yeah, I agree. I get musicians more, as they've at least produced lasting pieces of art, at least if they wrote the song, and music is something I love enough to value fairly highly. Performing, while certainly not easy, is at least more within the realm of ordinary people. I have performed music at the level of professional musicians, so I'm not so much in awe of that. But writing a great song is impressive. Not a flavor of the month song, but a truly great song. And they have far more value than mere entertainment, they speak to the soul, like any great art. But no matter how valuable or not valuable someone's contribution to society (and I agree that many things are more useful than entertainment), I don't understand the fascination with celebrity, even deserved celebrity. Why do we care about the details of someone's life that we've never met? A little is natural curiosity, so it's not an absolute. But dissecting famous people's lives to inordinate levels, just seems crazy to me.
I doubt it's big there, it's not even all that big here, although it is growing. It's much bigger in Canada, although even there, it's nowhere near the level of hockey. But I would still guess that it's played there, at least some. And if not, you can always organize it. The equipment requirements are not all that onerous.
Yeah, the highway is almost certainly much more dangerous than driving on the track, where it's at least a somewhat controlled environment. And yes, an accident, even a minor one, is very scary. I had a fender bender a couple months ago, although nobody was going fast enough that there even was any risk of serious injury to people, and it still completely freaked me out. I'm usually very, very good at avoiding accidents, I've managed to dodge some in cases where even I'm completely mind-boggled that I managed to do it, I did, and I have no idea how, other than insanely good reflexes. For example, one person flew through a red light at an intersection where I couldn't see them at about 70-80 mph (110-130 kph), at a time I normally would have been right in the middle of it, but somehow I knew not to go. No idea how, I couldn't see them. Or another time, when a truck came flying at the side of my car across a slippery, snowy highway at maybe 40-50 mph, perpendicular to me, who was going maybe 60-70 mph, and I probably had 10 feet (3 meters) from where they started heading towards me to react, and yet I managed to avoid them (they wound up going off the highway, and being stopped by a pile of snow mostly, and a road sign to a lesser extent, they were very lucky to have minimal damage, although I didn't stop to check, but saw them come to a stop). There are two of many, many examples (I have driven quite a bit in my life, but from almost the beginning, had these abilities).
No, I suppose I can't. I'm not sure if it'd be boring, one can be good at everything and still have lots to learn. But yes, everyone would be jealous, so there would still be some definite disadvantages.
I'm not sure if you said "only," or if I read in something that wasn't there. Sorry for the confusion, but it sounds like we're trying to say pretty much the same thing :P.
Well, I'm sure you still have campuses, as that's whatever buildings or open space belongs to the college, so the buildings where the faculty offices are, the classes are held, etc. would still count. But it is a difference from most of our colleges. We do have some here that aren't residential, that don't have dorms, but more colleges do. When I studied in Oslo, though, they didn't really have dorms, although there were "student villages" that were somewhere between dorms and apartment buildings. They were off-campus, though, so still a difference from a college with dorms. Even studying here, I did live off-campus one year and rented an apartment. But in the context of this conversation, it's different, as the parties at my college were on-campus, while I'm sure any that there they mostly would be off-campus. Obviously, that would mean that the college's rules (or enforcement) don't make a difference. And yes, I know that it's 18 there, I've been there, remember? lol. I was over 18, and under 21 when I was there, so it directly applied to me (although by then I was used to it, as I had been in Europe for most of a year, so, while I took advantage of the laws, it wasn't a big deal, just enjoyed a couple drinks while hanging out with people I had just met). But yes, we've had more problems with underaged drinking since they raised the limit to 21 (although that was before I was old enough to be impacted - other than LA's shenanigans, all states were 21 by the time I was 12). I definitely thing the "forbidden fruit" temptation, combined with the secrecy mandates, combine to make it deadly when it's illegal for people in their late teens, but legal for adults.
I'll have to listen to his accent next to a Dutch one, I never noticed the similarity and now I'm curious. I have no idea who those two people are, though :P.
I'm jealous, I'd love to go to Australia. Ok, I'd love to go anywhere, lol.
Yup, I still have five of the seven continents left. And about 90% of the countries. Only just over 40% of the US counties, though, about 28% of the micropolitan/metropolitan areas (both of which are defined by counties, though, so it's not really a separate goal), just under 9% of the cities that are either over 100K people or a state capital (or both), and 2% of the states, lol. I never had a "place" to put my passport, which normally wasn't an issue. I just had a cover to protect it, and then I kept it with me. For carrying it around, it's not an issue. I misplaced mine somewhere in the loading of the car to leave, or else I put it somewhere dumb, where it fell out or got left behind on the first week or two of the trip. If I took it out of the car in between, it was unintentionally. The problem was I was too worried about other things, and just was careless. Oh well.
Well, I have never read a full book in any language other than Norwegian and English, so probably not, unless they are big enough to be translated into English. The name sounds familiar, but I've never read anything he wrote. That he was wrote in the 50's and 60's means he's actually more recent than much of the stuff I read. I've read more stuff written in the 1700s than written in the last 10 years, I'd guess. But I read stuff from all time periods, just not necessarily what is popular now. If I liked the author, or had good reason to believe it was a great book, it wouldn't matter whether it was popular or not. But for the past 10 years, very little of what I've read has been new. Mostly that's because for about 3 or 4 years I've been working through 8 lists of "top 100 classics" (although each defines that differently, some are novels only, etc), and before that I was focused on other things in reading. That list comprises 483 distinct titles (although some are series of books), of which I had read 70 when I started it. I'm almost done, though, I'm guessing I'll be done next May, give or take a month. Lord of the Flies was on the list. I read pretty fast. Quite a few of the books on that list were thousands of pages long. At least three of them were over 1 million words, each of those three was more than 2 (or in one case more than 3) times longer than War and Peace. I don't have much information about the length of the first couple hundred books, but in the rest, there was about 30 that were 1K pages or more, and that's despite the fact that I tried to tackle the longer ones first (although not entirely, I'd mix long ones with short ones to keep it from being too daunting). Now I only have one book left that's even 300 pages long. Anyway, I guess the point is, I read fast, since I have been very busy during that time, and still got all those super long books done. I don't "speed read," but about as fast as anyone that doesn't (not including fictional characters like Spencer Reid).
Well, if I do watch it, I'll let you know. From past experience, the quantity of dialogue doesn't have much to do with how much I like a film or book. The quality definitely does, but not the quantity. I can like one that is entirely dialogue, or none at all, and have liked ones at both ends (or at least darn close) of the spectrum. I can't remember ever disliking one because it had too much or too little, although I definitely have disliked a book or movie if the dialogue that is there seems stilted.
Oh, yeah, knowing about the real history definitely adds to a book if there is any real history associated. It's just a matter of whether I'm already familiar enough with the history that it's not worth looking up, and how difficult it is to look it up (since I read many books before the internet was a thing, remember, I'm older than you; and even since the internet made it easy, I've read many books where I had no access to a computer while reading, and remembering everything to look up later when you read as much as I do is sometimes impossible). But when I can, I try to look up at least enough to know something about it.
Yes, that was an abrupt change, especially since they are all females. Four sisters is way more drama than two brothers. In fact, of any combination of 2-4 siblings, four girls is the least peaceful combination. I know this only because a study came out that I happened to see, right about the time they moved in.
Well, thirteen hours gets one a good ways across the US, we need to go through at least four other states to get to his house, and in many areas of the US, there would be many more states one would go through in that time. European countries are more like the size of states. In fact, from Amsterdam, you could get all the way to Milan in less than 13 hours, even if one takes a path that goes through Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein on the way (although three of those would take an intentional detour, two of them a blatantly out of the way one, to go through - but even going through the fewest number of countries possible, you'd still need to go through 3 countries).
I get that, most people stick with one piece, and dislike changing. And sure, the shoe makes sense, but I prefer pieces that don't make sense, I like the whimsy. I don't even remember why I wanted the horse, I may not have even wanted it at first, but eventually, it was the one that I identified with, so I stuck with it. Or maybe I moved around, but the horse was the first one I won with, I don't know, it was so long ago. But the extra players when I played on my own didn't really make it much more difficult, but it did change things up, and give some variety. When I played board games as a kid, length was a plus, not a minus. Monopoly's problem was that it was too short, not too long. When playing alone, though, extra players don't really slow things down much at all. When the other players are real people, it does, but not when they are automated (either via computer as an adult, or following a script when playing alone). It's the decision time that slows things down in real opponents, not the roll of the dice or moves.
Yes, the one last week had an Englishman, although I didn't know the name. It was the first one with him (well, that you knew he was British), so you're up to date. I haven't seen last night's yet, though. Yeah, I can definitely see what you're saying, but we'll see what happens, I'm not going to speculate, at least yet :P. I actually am on the spectrum, so I get what you're saying, although I actually think in more ways I'm like Leonard than Sheldon. But my gf thinks I'm Sheldon, so who knows? More of the others that know me agree with me, but she knows me best, and many agree with her, so...
Actually, I don't think that's weird. The look up to, but criticize, is common in individual relationships, so why wouldn't it be true of national ones? There is much about the US to look up to, but there is also much to criticize as stupid. So I completely understand why other countries would do both. We're like that celebrity that you love to hate and hate to love. Many Americans have those same mixed feelings, although there are probably more that are unapologetically patriotic, even to the level of jingoism. Considering that one of America's biggest faults, at least compared to Europe (which isn't immune, but is one of the few places where it's at least significantly less pronounced) is the tendency of us to see things in black and white. So yeah, the conflicted opinions, while not unusual here, are not the majority.
You're also much younger. I was older when I took this job than you are now. So it's not a surprise that you haven't had any this long. This is my longest job, and the only ones that came even close were just part-time jobs (delivering newspapers and delivering pizzas - and the latter only if you count that I worked for the same company, even as I moved through a bunch of specific stores). Well, true IT jobs are still a relatively small part of employment, but it's very rare that anyone has a job that doesn't use a computer at all. And the percentage that are in IT is definitely growing. I did a very small amount of traveling for work, although I don't think there is anywhere I've been for work that I haven't been for other pleasure, my goals, for bettering myself as a human being (I find great personal growth in travel), or for some other reasons (for example, traveling to perform with a music group, which was my first trip to Europe - HS band).
Yeah, that's rough. I had a similar experience, I studied computer programming and finished right about the time of the dot-com crash. To make things worse, I had actually decided (certainly not because of the crash) to start a business in computers, and my business partner and I wound up needing start-up capital. The idea he had, and I made workable, was one that could have been very successful. But it was a terrible time to try to get money for a company like ours, so we wound up failing, badly. If we had started it a year or two earlier, we might have made it really big, especially since our business model would not have been impacted by the crash (or possibly would have been boosted), if we had gotten past the initial hump before it happened. Oh well. I wish you luck, though. Breaking into that first "real" job is the hardest part, I think.
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@Gelderland
Nope, in fact I usually try to keep things short, I just fail at it, lol. I'm verbose, it's just who I am...
Oh, nothing upset me, I was trying to say that you hadn't, not that you had. Sorry if I didn't say it clearly. I thought from your choice of words that you might be worried that you had upset me, and you definitely didn't. I just have found it interesting, so I've had much to say, and in so in the sense of making me interested in the conversation, you did "stir me up," but in the sense of making me at all upset, you didn't in the slightest. The phrase is ambiguous, and I was tyring to be clear, that's all.
The languages I most want to practice are Norwegian, Russian, and Hungarian in that order. They are my first, third, and fifth best foreign languages, but I'm less interested in practicing Swedish and German. Swedish, of course, is almost the same as Norwegian, but it's nearly impossible to keep them straight on a regular basis, so I picked Norwegian. I am much better at German than Hungarian, but it's frustrating, as I used to be so much better at it, so if I've already gotten this rusty, I'd rather practice the languages that I have lost less of (even if I never had as much proficiency, in the case of Hungarian, where I've never known more than a smattering).
Yeah, I agree. I get musicians more, as they've at least produced lasting pieces of art, at least if they wrote the song, and music is something I love enough to value fairly highly. Performing, while certainly not easy, is at least more within the realm of ordinary people. I have performed music at the level of professional musicians, so I'm not so much in awe of that. But writing a great song is impressive. Not a flavor of the month song, but a truly great song. And they have far more value than mere entertainment, they speak to the soul, like any great art. But no matter how valuable or not valuable someone's contribution to society (and I agree that many things are more useful than entertainment), I don't understand the fascination with celebrity, even deserved celebrity. Why do we care about the details of someone's life that we've never met? A little is natural curiosity, so it's not an absolute. But dissecting famous people's lives to inordinate levels, just seems crazy to me.
I doubt it's big there, it's not even all that big here, although it is growing. It's much bigger in Canada, although even there, it's nowhere near the level of hockey. But I would still guess that it's played there, at least some. And if not, you can always organize it. The equipment requirements are not all that onerous.
Yeah, the highway is almost certainly much more dangerous than driving on the track, where it's at least a somewhat controlled environment. And yes, an accident, even a minor one, is very scary. I had a fender bender a couple months ago, although nobody was going fast enough that there even was any risk of serious injury to people, and it still completely freaked me out. I'm usually very, very good at avoiding accidents, I've managed to dodge some in cases where even I'm completely mind-boggled that I managed to do it, I did, and I have no idea how, other than insanely good reflexes. For example, one person flew through a red light at an intersection where I couldn't see them at about 70-80 mph (110-130 kph), at a time I normally would have been right in the middle of it, but somehow I knew not to go. No idea how, I couldn't see them. Or another time, when a truck came flying at the side of my car across a slippery, snowy highway at maybe 40-50 mph, perpendicular to me, who was going maybe 60-70 mph, and I probably had 10 feet (3 meters) from where they started heading towards me to react, and yet I managed to avoid them (they wound up going off the highway, and being stopped by a pile of snow mostly, and a road sign to a lesser extent, they were very lucky to have minimal damage, although I didn't stop to check, but saw them come to a stop). There are two of many, many examples (I have driven quite a bit in my life, but from almost the beginning, had these abilities).
No, I suppose I can't. I'm not sure if it'd be boring, one can be good at everything and still have lots to learn. But yes, everyone would be jealous, so there would still be some definite disadvantages.
I'm not sure if you said "only," or if I read in something that wasn't there. Sorry for the confusion, but it sounds like we're trying to say pretty much the same thing :P.
Well, I'm sure you still have campuses, as that's whatever buildings or open space belongs to the college, so the buildings where the faculty offices are, the classes are held, etc. would still count. But it is a difference from most of our colleges. We do have some here that aren't residential, that don't have dorms, but more colleges do. When I studied in Oslo, though, they didn't really have dorms, although there were "student villages" that were somewhere between dorms and apartment buildings. They were off-campus, though, so still a difference from a college with dorms. Even studying here, I did live off-campus one year and rented an apartment. But in the context of this conversation, it's different, as the parties at my college were on-campus, while I'm sure any that there they mostly would be off-campus. Obviously, that would mean that the college's rules (or enforcement) don't make a difference. And yes, I know that it's 18 there, I've been there, remember? lol. I was over 18, and under 21 when I was there, so it directly applied to me (although by then I was used to it, as I had been in Europe for most of a year, so, while I took advantage of the laws, it wasn't a big deal, just enjoyed a couple drinks while hanging out with people I had just met). But yes, we've had more problems with underaged drinking since they raised the limit to 21 (although that was before I was old enough to be impacted - other than LA's shenanigans, all states were 21 by the time I was 12). I definitely thing the "forbidden fruit" temptation, combined with the secrecy mandates, combine to make it deadly when it's illegal for people in their late teens, but legal for adults.
I'll have to listen to his accent next to a Dutch one, I never noticed the similarity and now I'm curious. I have no idea who those two people are, though :P.
I'm jealous, I'd love to go to Australia. Ok, I'd love to go anywhere, lol.
Yup, I still have five of the seven continents left. And about 90% of the countries. Only just over 40% of the US counties, though, about 28% of the micropolitan/metropolitan areas (both of which are defined by counties, though, so it's not really a separate goal), just under 9% of the cities that are either over 100K people or a state capital (or both), and 2% of the states, lol. I never had a "place" to put my passport, which normally wasn't an issue. I just had a cover to protect it, and then I kept it with me. For carrying it around, it's not an issue. I misplaced mine somewhere in the loading of the car to leave, or else I put it somewhere dumb, where it fell out or got left behind on the first week or two of the trip. If I took it out of the car in between, it was unintentionally. The problem was I was too worried about other things, and just was careless. Oh well.
Well, I have never read a full book in any language other than Norwegian and English, so probably not, unless they are big enough to be translated into English. The name sounds familiar, but I've never read anything he wrote. That he was wrote in the 50's and 60's means he's actually more recent than much of the stuff I read. I've read more stuff written in the 1700s than written in the last 10 years, I'd guess. But I read stuff from all time periods, just not necessarily what is popular now. If I liked the author, or had good reason to believe it was a great book, it wouldn't matter whether it was popular or not. But for the past 10 years, very little of what I've read has been new. Mostly that's because for about 3 or 4 years I've been working through 8 lists of "top 100 classics" (although each defines that differently, some are novels only, etc), and before that I was focused on other things in reading. That list comprises 483 distinct titles (although some are series of books), of which I had read 70 when I started it. I'm almost done, though, I'm guessing I'll be done next May, give or take a month. Lord of the Flies was on the list. I read pretty fast. Quite a few of the books on that list were thousands of pages long. At least three of them were over 1 million words, each of those three was more than 2 (or in one case more than 3) times longer than War and Peace. I don't have much information about the length of the first couple hundred books, but in the rest, there was about 30 that were 1K pages or more, and that's despite the fact that I tried to tackle the longer ones first (although not entirely, I'd mix long ones with short ones to keep it from being too daunting). Now I only have one book left that's even 300 pages long. Anyway, I guess the point is, I read fast, since I have been very busy during that time, and still got all those super long books done. I don't "speed read," but about as fast as anyone that doesn't (not including fictional characters like Spencer Reid).
Well, if I do watch it, I'll let you know. From past experience, the quantity of dialogue doesn't have much to do with how much I like a film or book. The quality definitely does, but not the quantity. I can like one that is entirely dialogue, or none at all, and have liked ones at both ends (or at least darn close) of the spectrum. I can't remember ever disliking one because it had too much or too little, although I definitely have disliked a book or movie if the dialogue that is there seems stilted.
Oh, yeah, knowing about the real history definitely adds to a book if there is any real history associated. It's just a matter of whether I'm already familiar enough with the history that it's not worth looking up, and how difficult it is to look it up (since I read many books before the internet was a thing, remember, I'm older than you; and even since the internet made it easy, I've read many books where I had no access to a computer while reading, and remembering everything to look up later when you read as much as I do is sometimes impossible). But when I can, I try to look up at least enough to know something about it.
Yes, that was an abrupt change, especially since they are all females. Four sisters is way more drama than two brothers. In fact, of any combination of 2-4 siblings, four girls is the least peaceful combination. I know this only because a study came out that I happened to see, right about the time they moved in.
Well, thirteen hours gets one a good ways across the US, we need to go through at least four other states to get to his house, and in many areas of the US, there would be many more states one would go through in that time. European countries are more like the size of states. In fact, from Amsterdam, you could get all the way to Milan in less than 13 hours, even if one takes a path that goes through Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein on the way (although three of those would take an intentional detour, two of them a blatantly out of the way one, to go through - but even going through the fewest number of countries possible, you'd still need to go through 3 countries).
I get that, most people stick with one piece, and dislike changing. And sure, the shoe makes sense, but I prefer pieces that don't make sense, I like the whimsy. I don't even remember why I wanted the horse, I may not have even wanted it at first, but eventually, it was the one that I identified with, so I stuck with it. Or maybe I moved around, but the horse was the first one I won with, I don't know, it was so long ago. But the extra players when I played on my own didn't really make it much more difficult, but it did change things up, and give some variety. When I played board games as a kid, length was a plus, not a minus. Monopoly's problem was that it was too short, not too long. When playing alone, though, extra players don't really slow things down much at all. When the other players are real people, it does, but not when they are automated (either via computer as an adult, or following a script when playing alone). It's the decision time that slows things down in real opponents, not the roll of the dice or moves.
Yes, the one last week had an Englishman, although I didn't know the name. It was the first one with him (well, that you knew he was British), so you're up to date. I haven't seen last night's yet, though. Yeah, I can definitely see what you're saying, but we'll see what happens, I'm not going to speculate, at least yet :P. I actually am on the spectrum, so I get what you're saying, although I actually think in more ways I'm like Leonard than Sheldon. But my gf thinks I'm Sheldon, so who knows? More of the others that know me agree with me, but she knows me best, and many agree with her, so...
Actually, I don't think that's weird. The look up to, but criticize, is common in individual relationships, so why wouldn't it be true of national ones? There is much about the US to look up to, but there is also much to criticize as stupid. So I completely understand why other countries would do both. We're like that celebrity that you love to hate and hate to love. Many Americans have those same mixed feelings, although there are probably more that are unapologetically patriotic, even to the level of jingoism. Considering that one of America's biggest faults, at least compared to Europe (which isn't immune, but is one of the few places where it's at least significantly less pronounced) is the tendency of us to see things in black and white. So yeah, the conflicted opinions, while not unusual here, are not the majority.
You're also much younger. I was older when I took this job than you are now. So it's not a surprise that you haven't had any this long. This is my longest job, and the only ones that came even close were just part-time jobs (delivering newspapers and delivering pizzas - and the latter only if you count that I worked for the same company, even as I moved through a bunch of specific stores). Well, true IT jobs are still a relatively small part of employment, but it's very rare that anyone has a job that doesn't use a computer at all. And the percentage that are in IT is definitely growing. I did a very small amount of traveling for work, although I don't think there is anywhere I've been for work that I haven't been for other pleasure, my goals, for bettering myself as a human being (I find great personal growth in travel), or for some other reasons (for example, traveling to perform with a music group, which was my first trip to Europe - HS band).
Yeah, that's rough. I had a similar experience, I studied computer programming and finished right about the time of the dot-com crash. To make things worse, I had actually decided (certainly not because of the crash) to start a business in computers, and my business partner and I wound up needing start-up capital. The idea he had, and I made workable, was one that could have been very successful. But it was a terrible time to try to get money for a company like ours, so we wound up failing, badly. If we had started it a year or two earlier, we might have made it really big, especially since our business model would not have been impacted by the crash (or possibly would have been boosted), if we had gotten past the initial hump before it happened. Oh well. I wish you luck, though. Breaking into that first "real" job is the hardest part, I think.