Comments for Ynglinga Saga

Comment on There Will Be War: The Billung Vendetta by kingofmen

kingofmen — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:42:27 +0000

Nu, but you got your revenge eventually, in the First Diaspora. And even now you occupy southern Sweden.

Comment on There Will Be War: The Billung Vendetta by carillon

carillon — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:42:39 +0000

Yup, pretty much my worst session in CK. It was a total disaster.

Comment on Education by kingofmen

kingofmen — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:30:54 +0000

Yes, but hang on; other countries apparently do manage to give people jobs without requiring a college degree. Taking the example of Norway again, I believe the vocational-track people are required to pass some sort of practical test plus some theoretical exams; say, something in the direction of “Install wires on this test setup” for an electrician.

It does seem possible that there’s no easy way to get from the current equilibrium, with a bachelor’s degree as the only accepted signal of competence, to the European equilibrium where a vocational-school diploma will do. (That’s a bit odd, actually – you’d expect that the Europeans, with their much more byzantine regulations about when and why you can fire someone incompetent, would be the ones with the stronger need for a signal.) But the other equilibrium does *exist*. What’s more, an employer who managed to find the competent people with no diploma could make a killing, since nobody else is hiring them and he can pay less.

Comment on Education by Richard Campbell

Richard Campbell — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:18:04 +0000

I feel that you have unfairly maligned English education in your missive (English literature being at least as useful a study as French or Spanish literature, and proper English composition and writing being a pearl beyond price in our society and not something that Sociology can pick up [see any number of posters on various fora]).

Nonetheless, I think you are wandering around a valid point: not everyone should go to college, and a split between university and vocational tracks makes intuitive sense.

However, there are 2 things working against you:

1) Unlike other countries (especially Germany, I am given to understand), the top end jobs available without a bachelor’s degree are woefully inferior to the top end jobs that require a bachelor’s degree (barring elected positions, such as Governor of Alaska).

2) The reason for 1) is that employers generally are only interested in two qualities:
a) Smart
b) Gets Things Done.
See generally:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html
http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp/1590598385
There is no proven test for a) and b). The best proxy an employer can find is to see that someone has been through a number of selective tests and passed. Being admitted to a college, although not perfect, is one step down the funnel. Actually finishing a degree is another. And so it goes.

Unless you can find a way to validate people who went down the vocational track, I’m afraid it will always be ignored.

Comment on Hedges by Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:02:37 +0000

At a yardsale last week, I paid for some clothing but was able to barter the rest. Trading my clothing excess for someone else’s excess gave me some very good deals. Viva la barter economy!

Oh, and this ( http://www.theonion.com/content/news/thousands_of_abandoned_foreclosed ) reminded me of one of your posts about the economy, albeit not one I can find at the moment.

Comment on Great Game XVIII: First Polish War by The Great Game: Our Father « Ynglinga Saga

The Great Game: Our Father « Ynglinga Saga — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:28:54 +0000

[...] apart kingdoms and families both. Kings of Norway had quarreled with the Pope before now, had even refused to send heretics for trial by the Inquisition, but those had been small matters. To break with Rome [...]

Comment on Quantum ‘weirdness’ by Eliz. Lasky

Eliz. Lasky — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:35:47 +0000

This is my favorite post on your blog.

Have you ever considered doing a separate blog entirely of non-game posts like this?

Comment on Entropy of star formation I by kingofmen

kingofmen — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:12:34 +0000

Yes, yes, obviously you need gravity to form the stars out of local clusters; but a perfectly even initial distribution would give you one huge black hole, not the clusters-of-clusters distribution that we actually see.

Comment on Entropy of star formation I by Panos

Panos — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:54:27 +0000

Nice try but your calculations are wrong. That is because you ignore the gravity law which gathers all the particles together. The matter particles in physics are not static “bomb hits” but dynamic ones that keep approaching one another. So the reason that our universe has stars is not because of the statistical probability of this state but because of the gravity law.

Comment on There Will Be War: Truth, and some Consequences Thereof by There Will Be War: The Big Picture IV « Ynglinga Saga and other stories

There Will Be War: The Big Picture IV « Ynglinga Saga and other stories — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 21:36:31 +0000

[...] Nothing much happens. Some internal discussions among the Ynglings. Brittany joins the Roman Commonwealth, then leaves again. The Mongols make an [...]