EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

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SavageGentleman: Feb 28, 2010; When she finds love may it always stay true.
This I beg for the second wish I made too.; Fallen Rib

Preparing for "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda: Europe Edition" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEIwNzJczw4

# ? Jul 31, 2020 15:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 25, 2024 19:32

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

AndreTheGiantBoned posted:

Berli�o

# ? Jul 31, 2020 16:14

MMania: May 7, 2008

V. Illych L. posted:

you do still have some of the old elite reproduction at certain very select institutions (oxbridge, the sorbonne, idk but maybe humboldt in germany?, a couple of top american unis), but for the most part there's awfully little light between polytechnical colleges and universities these days

I realize this is just an anecdote, but I once taught a biology postdoc from HARVARD how PCR worked. Her project utilized cutting edge techniques and she didn't even understand the protocol on which modern biology was built. So nepotism or whatever the hell got her into that program is alive and well in Cambridge.

# ? Jul 31, 2020 19:36

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

MMania posted:

I realize this is just an anecdote, but I once taught a biology postdoc from HARVARD how PCR worked. Her project utilized cutting edge techniques and she didn't even understand the protocol on which modern biology was built. So nepotism or whatever the hell got her into that program is alive and well in Cambridge.

That's the lovely knockoff Cambridge, which is full of idiots. Not that the original Cambridge isn't also full of idiots.

Part of the problem (at least in Cambridge, UK) is that instead of just teaching along the general outline of a textbook and adding bits where relevant, the undergrad science courses have mostly independent blocks taught by different academics who are all tempted to spend too much time talking about their personal hobby horses. That generally leads to less hammering the fundamentals into people, and if the course organisers don't notice that no lecturer specifically put in a lecture on PCR, several years of students may have no clue beyond "press button on machine".

# ? Jul 31, 2020 22:12

Haramstufe Rot: Jun 24, 2016

WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:

More integration? NEIN
debt Relief for PIGS? NEIN
Austerity EU wide? JAVHOL

you should write this in dutch or danish imo

# ? Aug 1, 2020 09:19

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Haramstufe Rot posted:

you should write this in dutch or danish imo

Or start by doing actual German.

Either way, these are all the same!

# ? Aug 1, 2020 10:32

Cat Mattress: Jul 14, 2012; by Cyrano4747

Euro-wide austerity
Euro-wide austerity
Destroying the economy
Euro-wide austerity
Discovered by Heinrich Br�ning
Euro-wide austerity
Human lives matter less than money
Euro-wide austerity
Destroying the economy

Euro-wide austerity
Destroying the economy
Euro-wide austerity
Discovered by Heinrich Br�ning
Euro-wide austerity
Human lives matter less than money

Europaausterit�t
Fur dich und mich in All entsteht
Europaausterit�t
Strahlt Wellen zum Empfangsgerat

Europaausterit�t
Wenn's um unsere zukunft geht
Europaausterit�t
Fur dich und mich in All entsteht

# ? Aug 1, 2020 11:20

Angry Lobster: May 16, 2011; Served with honor
and some clarified butter.

Lately I've been feeling like I have somehow wandered into a classic episode of the Twilight Zone, except there has been no corny intro and no ending in sight. What the gently caress is happening :iiam:

# ? Aug 1, 2020 16:48

Dawncloack: Nov 26, 2007; ECKS DEE!; Nap Ghost

Humanity should have killed itself with nuclear fire during the cold war.

Quantum physics, however, absolutely demands a conscious observer.

Thus, we are thrust into the increasingly weirder and more absurd timeline where we haven't nuked ourselves.
Mankind has no mouth, and it must scream, basically.

Not my argument, tho, it's from some webcomic but I can't find it.

# ? Aug 1, 2020 16:57

Kassad: Nov 12, 2005; It's about time.

Mankind does scream though

# ? Aug 1, 2020 17:13

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Dawncloack posted:

Humanity should have killed itself with nuclear fire during the cold war.

Quantum physics, however, absolutely demands a conscious observer.

Thus, we are thrust into the increasingly weirder and more absurd timeline where we haven't nuked ourselves.
Mankind has no mouth, and it must scream, basically.

Not my argument, tho, it's from some webcomic but I can't find it.

I suspect it�s not from a webcomic originally.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/human-existence-will-look-more-miraculous-the-longer-we-survive/554513/

Bonus doomsday scenario at the end.

# ? Aug 1, 2020 17:36

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

ooops, cutting the eu-budget for r&d is detrimental for dutch universities. But I'm sure the dutch government will compensate for the shortfall. It sucks for the dutch students & universities, but that's a magnificent own-goal, lol.

https://twitter.com/alexandreafonso/status/1290752652767301632

https://twitter.com/alexandreafonso/status/1290752654772244483

double nine fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Aug 5, 2020

# ? Aug 5, 2020 11:25

Cat Mattress: Jul 14, 2012; by Cyrano4747

If only it were only the self-styled "frugal"'s universities that suffered...

# ? Aug 5, 2020 12:06

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

Cat Mattress posted:

If only it were only the self-styled "frugal"'s universities that suffered...

then they would very quickly no longer be frugal though.

oh.

ooooh.

# ? Aug 5, 2020 12:24

Pluskut Tukker: May 20, 2012

double nine posted:

ooops, cutting the eu-budget for r&d is detrimental for dutch universities. But I'm sure the dutch government will compensate for the shortfall. It sucks for the dutch students & universities, but that's a magnificent own-goal, lol.

It would be a magnificent own-goal if you assumed that the Dutch government gave a drat about its universities in the first place, but judging by the past decade or so there's absolutely no reason to believe that's true.

# ? Aug 6, 2020 17:40

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Knowledge Economy! Working hard! Thank You!

# ? Aug 7, 2020 08:44

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

Orange Devil posted:

Knowledge Economy! Working hard! Thank You!

Appropriately, I'm pretty sure their universities have mostly switched to English during the past two decades, further cementing their status as the 51st state.

Although I don't think we're that far behind.

# ? Aug 7, 2020 13:32

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

the role of the academy in modern society is so loving funny

with the twin punches of neoliberalism and globalisation, the universities find themselves without any of the big roles they once had. hell, find themselves actively working towards hollowing themselves out because they keep pushing for everything to be in english and compliant with international regulations, which means that for most small countries students might as well just go abroad!

so they're never going to be as good at science as the big guys and the job of reproducing elites has moved elsewhere, either to serious unis abroad or to non-academic institutions. all they've got left is generating the new middle class, but for that you don't need all the hallowed academia nonsense, you need polytechnical schools, so you see the universities just desperately getting as close as they can to polytechnicals while pretending that they're still important and imagining that they retain their old prestige

# ? Aug 7, 2020 13:55

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

Yeah, that's the problem I have with that new direction, other than the obvious :ironicat:

in the Flemish case specifically, of rejecting French and then enthusiastically embracing English as the new 'proper' language.

It's the 21st century! English is the true international language, and we have to keep up! Reality is, you're just putting yourself in direct global competition with top-ranking Anglo universities, and you can never win. Why would exceptional international students come to the Netherlands or Flanders so they can hear someone lecture in questionable English, when they can just go to Oxford or Harvard (the real thing) and get an even better education in the process?

# ? Aug 7, 2020 14:17

Antifa Poltergeist: Jun 3, 2004; "We're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you"

Because us and uk universities are mindbogling expensive.
I cant say much about the humanities, but for bio med, ai and mathemathics the best universities are not in the us or uk.the netherlands have some of the best art and restauration programs in the world.MIT is still good , but holy hell the quote "the best minds of my generation are working on convincing you to click things on the internet" is very true.
Having a de facto lingua franca made international cooperation very easy.the thing is we are devoting imense amounts of knowledge and study to the dumbest things, and subsumming everything to capital.

People want to go to the ivy's or stanford or mit or duke or oxford not because the curriculum is so much better, but because the networking oportunities and acess to capital is.the dude your hitting bong rips with turns out to be one of the failsons of the cfo of blackrock, or the gently caress up you drag home completely wasted is the nephew of steve balmer or some poo poo.

Antifa Poltergeist fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Aug 7, 2020

# ? Aug 7, 2020 14:56

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

The best minds of our generation are developing HFT algorithms.

# ? Aug 7, 2020 15:22

AlexanderCA: Jul 21, 2010; by Cyrano4747

My university gets poo poo from media and politics for emphasizing english. And it's consistently dumb poo poo by people who don't know engineering, university or both. Half my departement doesnt even speak Dutch and any worthwhile resource after your bachelor is going to be too niche to be available in Dutch anyways. Not too mention the large international undergrad population is one of the best aspects IMO.

I don't recognize the link between English language instruction and students just there to get the paper at all. In fact I suspect it's the students who commute in from their local hometown everyday and havr no other involvement who are most likely to dislike the English instruction.

# ? Aug 7, 2020 15:45

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

Orange Devil posted:

The best minds of our generation are developing HFT algorithms.

Yep. The bloated financial sector is a parasite on society in a ton of ways, and the opportunity cost of highly-educated people being lured into finance jobs by ridiculous wages is just one of the less-obvious ones.

# ? Aug 7, 2020 15:45

AlexanderCA: Jul 21, 2010; by Cyrano4747

Basically I recognize nothing of the above posts from my experience.

# ? Aug 7, 2020 15:49

Antifa Poltergeist: Jun 3, 2004; "We're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you"

Orange Devil posted:

The best minds of our generation are developing HFT algorithms.

Oh my god, this. Some of the math, it is absolutely beautiful, but people are doing this because they are locked in a arms race with other HFT people.and the only application I've have seen it beyond that is in logistics and AI, and only incidentally.meanwhile Nobel prize winners are publishing economic papers with undergrad math mistakes in their modelling.

AlexanderCA posted:

Basically I recognize nothing of the above posts from my experience.

Well, I'm sure there some nationalist sentiment there too. But the only disciplines I think it's absolutely necessary to have curricula in your native tongue is the purely academic ones.literature or history. I was gonna say archeology but even then the stuff learned from examining the European neolithic is being used in fleshing out meso-america history.

# ? Aug 7, 2020 16:11

Private Speech: Mar 30, 2011; I HAVE EVEN MORE WORTHLESS BEANIE BABIES IN MY COLLECTION THAN I HAVE WORTHLESS POSTS IN THE BEANIE BABY THREAD YET I STILL HAVE THE TEMERITY TO CRITICIZE OTHERS' COLLECTIONS

IF YOU SEE ME TALKING ABOUT BEANIE BABIES, PLEASE TELL ME TO

EAT. SHIT.

I've been reading about BAE on wikipedia and it's such a perfect example of rising British nationalism and euroscepticism:

Part1-YayEurope posted:

The 1997 merger of American corporations Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, which followed the forming of Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defence contractor in 1995, increased the pressure on European defence companies to consolidate. In June 1997 British Aerospace Defence managing director John Weston commented "Europe... is supporting three times the number of contractors on less than half the budget of the U.S.".[21] European governments wished to see the merger of their defence manufacturers into a single entity, a European Aerospace and Defence Company.[22]

As early as 1995 British Aerospace and the German aerospace and defence company DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (DASA) were said to be keen to create a transnational aerospace and defence company.[23] The two companies envisaged including A�rospatiale, the other major European aerospace company, but only after its privatisation.[24] The first stage of this integration was seen as the transformation of Airbus from a consortium of British Aerospace, DASA, A�rospatiale and Construcciones Aeron�uticas SA into an integrated company; in this aim British Aerospace and DASA were united against the various objections of A�rospatiale.[25] As well as Airbus, British Aerospace and DASA were partners in the Panavia Tornado and Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft projects. Merger discussions began between British Aerospace and DASA in July 1998, just as French participation became more likely with the announcement that A�rospatiale was to merge with Matra and emerge with a diluted French government shareholding.[26] A merger was agreed between British Aerospace chairman Richard Evans and DASA CEO J�rgen Schrempp in December 1998.[27]

Part2-BritanniaRulesTheWaves posted:

Meanwhile, GEC was also under pressure to participate in defence industry consolidation. Reporting the appointment of George Simpson as GEC managing director in 1996, The Independent had said "some analysts believe that Mr Simpson's inside knowledge of BAe, a long-rumoured GEC bid target, was a key to his appointment. GEC favours forging a national 'champion' defence group with BAe to compete with the giant US organisations."[28] When GEC put MES up for sale on 22 December 1998, British Aerospace abandoned the DASA merger in favour of purchasing its British rival. The merger of British Aerospace and MES was announced on 19 January 1999.[29] Evans stated that in 2004 that his fear was that an American defence contractor would acquire MES and challenge both British Aerospace and DASA.[27] The merger created a vertically integrated company which The Scotsman described as "[a combination of British Aerospace's] contracting and platform-building skills with Marconi's coveted electronics systems capability",[30] for example combining the manufacturer of the Eurofighter with the company that provided many of the aircraft's electronic systems; British Aerospace was MES' largest customer.[31] In contrast, DASA's response to the breakdown of the merger discussion was to merge with A�rospatiale to create the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), a horizontal integration.[32]

Seventeen undertakings were given by BAE Systems to the Department of Trade and Industry which prevented a reference of the merger to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. These were largely to ensure that the integrated company would tender sub-contracts to external companies on an equal basis with its subsidiaries. Another condition was the "firewalling" of former British Aerospace and MES teams on defence projects such as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). In 2007 the government, on advice from the Office of Fair Trading, announced it had agreed to release BAE Systems from ten of the undertakings due to "a change in circumstances".[33]

BAE Systems inherited the UK government owned "golden" share that was established when British Aerospace was privatised. This unique share prevents amendments of certain parts of the company's Articles of Association without the permission of the Secretary of State.[12] These Articles require that no foreign person or persons acting together may hold more than 15% of the company's shares.[34]

# ? Aug 7, 2020 16:24

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Phlegmish posted:

Yeah, that's the problem I have with that new direction, other than the obvious in the Flemish case specifically, of rejecting French and then enthusiastically embracing English as the new 'proper' language.

It's the 21st century! English is the true international language, and we have to keep up! Reality is, you're just putting yourself in direct global competition with top-ranking Anglo universities, and you can never win. Why would exceptional international students come to the Netherlands or Flanders so they can hear someone lecture in questionable English, when they can just go to Oxford or Harvard (the real thing) and get an even better education in the process?

This might be different for humanities, but English language teaching in maths, sciences, and enginerding will increase the pool of applicants. Anyone who wanted to network at Oxbridge or the Ivy league and could afford the fees has already been doing that for a very long time, and people going to lower ranked universities in the UK and US have increasingly been turned off the idea by rising fees. On the other hand, Brits and Americans who didn't get into the top institutions (and Americans who did but didn't get a full ride scholarship) are now able to run the gently caress away and get a decent quality degree in Europe for rock bottom prices.

# ? Aug 8, 2020 12:03

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

it'll increase the pool of applicants, but that's not really a win for the societies where those institutions are based, nor is it a win for random scandi uni number five that the occasional anglo comes over to get a cheap education. foreign students at those universities where i've seen the numbers generally do worse just out of social stresses and difficulty adjusting

there's a bit of an ongoing call for tuition fees for foreigners for this reason. it's not really a good investment for a university desperate to increase their pass rates

really, there's not much point in most of western europe having their own unis anymore. we could just do polytechnicals in the language of the land. the humanities are dying anyway, anything not within the umbrella of a big power is living on borrowed time as it is, we might as well learn american historiography straight from the source

# ? Aug 8, 2020 12:26

Antifa Poltergeist: Jun 3, 2004; "We're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you"

gently caress no, the americans cant even agree on their own history, and their country is barely 250 years old.

# ? Aug 8, 2020 17:55

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Antifa Poltergeist posted:

gently caress no, the americans cant even agree on their own history, and their country is barely 250 years old.

Well as was covered on the latest episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, certain people from the Southern States after the Civil War set out to prove that history doesn't always have to get written by the winners - and by the way people are taught in American schools nowadays, it seems they were right. :mad: