Okay, here‘s a compromise for him: he shuts down his company and refunds everything that was paid with tax money (with interest) and he can keep his head.

It (usually) does not, at least not for websites. Reading the screen would require a lot of computing power and be prone to mistakes, especially with unusual fonts and noisy backgrounds.

Instead, screen readers read a website‘s HTML source code which also gives the developer the chance to annotate how certain elements should be read. Accessibility on the web has been a huge topic for years and serving obfuscated HTML that only works for seeing users goes against everything we have been fighting for.

Yeah, because fuck accessibility, right?

Since 2022, it has been at least weekly on average: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(2020s)

I have a decades old fridge that literally freezes my veggie drawer every two weeks. I‘m so close to throwing it out.

I’d argue that shortened names aren’t pronouns. Like, “Bob” isn’t a pronoun after all. But that’s a cool idea nonetheless.

Counter-argument: the only two reasons why “Bob” isn’t a pronoun are a) because English has other pronouns and b) because not every name has a form that’s short enough to use in place of pronouns.

I would say it’s fully plausible that a language develops proper pronouns (with case markings and everything else you would expect) based on a rule that works with any name. As an arbitrary example, a Robert, Robin, Ronald and Rocinante might all use roki for the nominative case, ros for the genitive case and ron for the accusative case. In the absence of other pronoun systems, that would be indistinguishable from what you imagine as pronouns. Add a few centuries of sound shifts and you get something really interesting.

I assume we are talking about third person pronouns, mostly singular, possibly plural (like in French which has gendered ils/elles). First and second person (I, you, we) aren’t gendered in (most?) western languages anyway.

It could go multiple ways:

• Just one set of third person pronouns for everyone, equivalent to English they/them. The fewer different pronouns you have, the harder it is to talk about multiple people at once but in principle, it works. After all, nobody keeps you from talking about five men who all use he/him in English, you just have to add more specifiers or names to differentiate.
• A distinction based on proximity. One set of pronouns for a person near the speaker, one for a person near the listener and one for a person somewhere else. Japanese does something similar for things (これ kore, それ sore, あれ are) but as far as I know, not for people. For an example in English, imagine equivalents to this and that which are personal pronouns instead of demonstratives.
• A distinction based on age. Different pronouns for children, adults, elderly or relative to the speaker’s age.
• A distinction based on familiarity. One set of pronouns to refer to close friends and family, one for acquaintances, one for strangers.
• A distinction based on status and respect. A bit similar to what Japanese does with honorific name suffixes but in pronoun form.
• One of the conlangs I’m occasionally working on has pronouns based on the shortened form of names: the first syllable of the person’s name plus a suffix. Plus one set of pronouns for if you don’t know (or don’t want to mention) a person’s name.

Disclaimer to others: the comment I’m replying to has been almost completely rewritten while I was typing my reply so I’m quoting things that are no longer there. I will still leave my reply as it is.

In Germany, every EU citizen pays next to nothing. Doesn’t matter which university or what grades. As long as you qualify for university (i.e. you have finished high school), you are able to get a degree if you want. No “if”, no “I wouldn’t have to worry”, no “top student”, no “cheap”. There is no tuition, period. Most universities ask for a small administrative fee of less than 200€, most of which finances additional benefits that cannot legally be paid with taxes, such as a student council.

As mentioned, for non-EU students, there is a fixed tuition of at most 1050€ per semester. Again, no “if”, no “you wouldn’t have to worry”, no “top student”.

Also note, that I never, not even once complained about American tuition fees. If you re-read my comments, you will only find the stated fact that the tuition for non-EU students is lower than “most US tuition fees”. Which, by your own admission, is true. I never claimed that it is lower than the lowest possible US tuition, I never said anything about this being good or bad.

So please stop projecting your own rage onto something I have never said and stop insulting people. You are entitled to your opinion and I will gladly fight for your right to state it. What you are not entitled to is being rude to strangers. For that, I will downvote and possibly report you.

the real cost of college for most students is closer to $10K a year.

So you agree that the 650 to 1050€ figure in my post is lower than your $10K? Yes? Good.

did you even go to college? or are you just ragebaiting yourself over sticker prices?

I have a BSc and MSc in computer science from one of the top universities in Germany. I paid about 4000€ in total because I was unlucky to have my first few semesters fall into the time that had the 500€ per semester tuition. Someone who started a bit after me would come out under 2000€. Again, not per year but in total for two degrees.

Sometimes I think the internet was a mistake.

More like the careful phrasing of someone who didn’t want someone to jump out of the bushes with “Well aaaaactually, if you live in my state, go to a university three states over, are born on February 29th and promise to give the dean a blowjob every Friday, you only pay 1200 USD which, by today’s exchange rate is a few cents lower than your upper bound.”

We believe that education is a basic human right. The human rights are equal for all humans (listen, Usamericans: humans, not just “citizens”), therefore it must not happen that low income can hinder it. And that’s also the reason why German universities regularly accept a good number of students from all over the world.

For full transparency, Germany does have tuition fees for non-EU students. Though at 650-1050€ per semester, they are still lower than most US tuition fees. The reasoning is basically that universities are financed with taxes and if you are likely to never pay German income tax, you have to make up for that. In an ideal world we wouldn’t need that and I don’t really like it but I can somewhat understand that the state wants to prevent people from coming over for free education and then immediately leaving.

One problem seems to be that Americans treat education as a for-profit business. Universities must make money, text book publishers ask for horrendous amounts because they know the students have no other chance than to comply and there are probably many more places where money gets funneled away.

Many European countries on the other hand treat education as a service to society and an investment into everyone’s future. We already have a shortage of well-educated professionals so we want to reduce the number of roadblocks that smart people have to overcome to reach their full potential.

In Germany, most universities have an administrative fee of about 100-200€ per semester that may pay for things like mandatory insurances, a students union and in the case of my old university, a psychological help service. For a couple of years, we had a 500€ per semester fee on top of that but it turned out that wasn’t very popular. I think the first state to get rid of it was Baden-Württemberg when the Greens won the state election.

Please note rule 5: this is not a support community.

Germany.

If I had to leave (not that unrealistic, considering predictions for the next federal election), it would probably be New Zealand. Seems to be one of the few English-speaking countries that hasn’t gone crazy yet and cold enough that I might survive climate change for a few years longer than here.

Probably not an outcome I would want for the world but out of scientific curiosity I would be interested in what happens if Ögedei Khan dies of old age instead of drinking himself to death in December 1241, just before his army has the chance to completely steamroll Europe. That might be one of the most extreme butterfly effects in history.

From the fine print it looks like this is based on the US price. Can we get one that is adjusted for regional pricing?

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It isn’t very funny. (Sorry if my German is showing)

Celsius. That would be 86°F.