.
I remember doing a similar trip when I was sixteen with my high school Latin club. Yes, we went out every night and got drunk. But a bar in Italy is a much healthier environment for teenagers to drink in than from a keg in the woods which we were used to doing at home! But my memories of visiting ancient sites, enjoying authentic Italian cuisine and viewing art treasures are what are important to me now. Travelling to Europe at that age was a growth experience unlike anything else I had ever experienced up to that time in the sterile suburbs of America, and it started a fascination with travel that continues 15 years later unabated. Cheers to Linda for providing that experience to 27 more!
I can't believe how blasé everyone is being about teen drinking! As a high school Spanish teacher, I am SHOCKED that permission was granted for these KIDS to drink! What kind of messge is this sending??
May I suggest that getting you over being SHOCKED is part of what travel is all about? In many parts of the world, they are SHOCKED that people of ANY age consume ANY amount of alcohol, that women let their ENTIRE face "show", that "freedom of the press" - - including the internet - - is "tolerated".
In other parts of the world, alcoholic beverages are an enjoyable part of eating and dining - - during travel, on special occasions, and even in everyday life - - and adolescents and young adults are welcomed into responsible, adult patterns of enjoying these and other adult-appropriate "partaking".
I went on a school trip in 1999 with a fifth-grade teacher who was SHOCKED that French schoolkids have KNIVES for spreading butter on bread RIGHT IN THE SCHOOL LUNCHROOM! Totally inconceivable in America, said she, with a straight face. I was so embarrassed to think that this is true - - let alone that she would mention it to our French hosts.
Great post, Rex. I agree with having the students live by the laws of the countries they are visiting, rather that setting a different standard. It is difficult for many Americans to see the counterproductiveness of our "forbidden fruit" treatment of alcohol in this country. There is no particular morality in the drinking age of 21 years. In Europe, there is a much more healthy attitude and my observation is that young people are far less inclined to think of drinking as some kind of a stand-alone activity. The 21-year-old drinking age is a poor social policy and its zealous enforcement is a lousy priority. Trying to export it on a trip? I wouldn't think so! We ought to re-think this area carefully.
I hope for Linda's sake she is joking about the drinking. While I do agree that it is part of the culture, unfortunatly we live in a society where the teacher could easily find herself in a very bad legal situation if one of her students was injured or did something while under the influence. Her positon would be difficult since it appears she "approved" of the actions.
Also, while this is interesting. I took a group of 16 year olds out to a club in Europe in March (NO THEY DID NOT DRINK and YES I would have known!) The owners of two clubs actually did not want to let them in since they were too young! So while a bar might be OK the club owners appear to want an older client!
The debut Daughter album, ‘If You Leave’ was probably the one album I was most excited about at the start of the year. I saw them at Green Man in August 2012, and have loved their EPs. If you like the EPs you’ll probably like the album. It’s 90% new material, with only Youth being a previously released track. And whilst a lot of the new songs are great, Youth is by far and away my favourite track on their album, and probably my favourite track from any album over the past year. The album as a whole is the Daughter from the EPs, with hauntingly beautiful songs that have great lyrics, and music and vocals that compliment each other perfectly to create a spine-tingling sound. I think they’ve found a more rounded sound since the EPs, which is evident in the new version of Youth, which whilst being pretty much the same song, has had some small changes which just make it a more complete sound.
I love the melancholic tone to the songs, partially from the music, and partially from the some of the lyrics like “And if you’re in love, then you are the lucky one, ‘Cause most of us are bitter over someone” or “It’s spiralling down, Biting words like a wolf howling”. Now maybe this is because I’m a depressed person who loves sad and brooding music, but personally I think the song writing on this record is as good as anything in recent years, and I’m glad that they’re starting to get some more widespread recognition.
So if anyone out there actually thinks my opinion is worth a damn, then get up now, go out to the shops and buy this album, also the EPs ‘His Young Heart’ and ‘The Wild Youth’ is you can cause they’re brilliant.
So how HAVE you been making a living lately?
1. Youtube isn't paying for ads on mobile devices like tablets or smartphones, even if they display there. This accounts for about 40% of my video views, according to Machinima. The ratio can be more like 60% for a lot of videos I've been told. This sounds like fraud to me, but I imagine Google lawyers have some impressive stuff backing this.
2. Youtube has changed how they pay users based on ads. In some ways this isn't completely unreasonable, but it hurts a lot of viewers. As I've been told, Freeman's Mind is not directly monetizeable because it doesn't tie into a product. No one is advertising to sell copies of Half-Life. If I was doing this in a brand new game, like Bioshock Infinite, those would be much more monetizeable, because that's a game that's trying to get sales right now. Alternately, if I was doing an unboxing of a mouse or something, that would also be much more monetizeable. This means that targeted advertising is flowing more towards people who can easily have tie-in advertising rather than advertise based on general trends the way Amazon recommends things for you. This means less money for video makers who aren't doing tie-in stuff.
Even if money wasn't involved, this is just evil, because it means you as a viewer won't see the videos that most pertain to what you're interested in, they're trying to mainstream everything as much as possible.
4. Some black magic voodoo going on. I have a friend who makes a little bit of money from Minecraft videos, and he's told me that Youtube is actually SUBTRACTING money he's already earned, often overnight, he'll simply "lose" $6 or so from his total with no explanation. I also follow an economic video blog who updates every day, has been running it for over a year, and in one video he claimed that he just "lost" 600,000 total views (out of about 1.8 million) overnight, again no explanation.
Whatever Youtube is doing, they're clearly violating Google's "Don't be evil" mantra.
Basically living off my savings. I've applied for multiple jobs with no luck, although I did get a little bit from voice acting for various freelance projects to soften the blow. If nothing changes (although I'm doing a lot to try and change things) then I can survive financially for about 3 months before I'm in deep shit.
I get some interesting auto-completes when I type in 'Google is' into google search.
Maybe you could do a Booker's Mind for Bioshock then to raise some capital!
It'd be easy, since the character already talks anyway, meaning you won't have to do any voice work!
Either that, or you could just have Freeman shill more products.
I mean, we already know the guy likes Doritos. Maybe some Taco Bell tie-ins as well?
At any rate, frig, good luck. Maybe it will help if you try to get us to spread the word about FM and CP?
Also, if people use AdBlock, does that screw you out of money?
So YouTube dose not pay for mobile views? Then I'm sorry that all I can use is my phone. And if they don't pay why do they even have adds on them?
And I'm sort of sorry for using adblock, but not fully sorry.
I hated the Doom Guy's Mind. Very crude unfunny "humor". You can do better Scott.
Love the FM and Civil Protection! Can't wait for new stuff. Thanks for your work, Ross.
You can spread the word that the videos may end up in a new home and everything is in a state of flux. Plus there's other stuff I'm working on that I'll hope for help with publicity from you guys later on (it's all good stuff).
As for adblock, that's a dichotomy for me since I hate intrusive ads, but that's how I've depended on my income. Individual views mean less than ever in financial terms, especially with Youtube's changes. You could take the most avid fan of the show and it's unlikely he or she would watch the videos enough times over the course of a few years for it to add up to a dollar. I don't see any sane way I can tell people to leave adblock off when I have it installed myself. Even though