First of all, thank you for taking the time to write this post and I don't mind the generalization, I can always just browse the internet if there's a specific viewpoint I'd like to see.

I assume you're talking about Bush senior, right? Because the roots of this problem are probably deep enough... I'll probably watch the video you linked to later on, but still I can comment from now that testing around here isn't at all standardized -in elementary schools, everyone goes automatically to the next grade, and in gymnasiums and lyceums (roughly the equivalent of american middle and high schools before college/university) people sit final exams to pass to the next grade the papers of which are made by the school themselves -only in order to go to the university people sit in an examination that's the same for everyone and state-made (presumably the rough equivalent of SATs). Thus the grades aren't that important to the state (they are to parents however, who sometime pressure teachers into giving their child a better grade) until the entrance-to-uni exam after which newspapers publish stuff like e.g. "Students went slightly better in Maths" (because the paper was easier this year duh!) "but slightly worse in Modern Greek" (because e.g. the subject of the essay exercise seemed complicated to the students or something). At any rate, some areas of the world (southeast Europe included) "lag" behind the US in terms of education systems, so I'd expect this stuff you have to come around here in 10-15 years...

That's a really important point you have right there. I hadn't really thought that because a Republican government instated this stuff everybody against could be thought as belonging to the left and vice versa (that is, everybody who belongs to the left would automatically oppose this system). Around here, both the center-left and the center-right goverments that switch every 4 years talk about educational reforms, but nobody ends up doing anything substantial, but if something substantial changed, the change would be the same whether it'd be instated by the "left" or the "right"...

So, if I understood correctly, the "right" thinks that education will get better if children get better grades at tests. This imo isn't very logical because, well, they could totally make a test with super easy questions and then say "Look, everybody got A/ 90-100 % !" (at least that's what happens a lot around here- teachers actually have to dumb down the questions -especially in STEM- in order for many students to get a better grade, so that their parents won't go against the teachers). On the contrary the situation in the USA looks more complicated than that -from what I've seen there's both the easy questions but also some dumb/outlandish ones (the Hare and the Pineapple the dev mentioned a while ago in this thread was a slight "lol, what?" to me -especially that moral- I mean the pineapple didn't have sleeves, but neither did everybody else...) and some needlessly comlpicated ones (when I saw the links to the Math questions of the common core via the relevant gog thread I was like "how would I be able to solve this thing??? It looks more complicated thatn it is!", which of course leads some people to say that they did this on purpose to discourage people from learning even regular, everyday math... (I personally don't know what to think about this).
As for the private education, because where I live used to be a British colony until half a century ago, the vast majority of private schools teach with the British model and in freaking English! So if someone wants his kid to be educated in Greek (which is well what the maternal language of people actually is), he pretty much has to take his kid to a public school... So the state around here doesn't really occupy itself with the private sector, because of both the different language in which stuff is being taught and the wholly different education and examination system used in these schools, contrarily to the public ones...

Ah yes the scourge of Creationism and absence of a proper biology lesson. Around here people are taught in the public schools, in the gymnasium/middle school grade (12-15 yrs old), in the biology class, how the genitals of both sexes look from the inside and how they work, the sexual and other diseases one could contract at these parts of the body (including the diseases that can affect pregnant women) and some basic prevention advice. So even if the system here is lacking in some other aspects, in that one it was pretty good, as I still remember the basics of this stuff, about 9-10 years later... As for the Religion lesson (yes, the basics of orthodoxy are taught in public schools), we were told about the basic contents of the book of Genesis amongst other stuff (mainly New Testament), but the teachers of that lesson (a priest initially, later on a graduate of Theology) didn't really insist on it being the way the world was created -the priest was admittedly more reticent to darwinism, but still, I didn't feel forced to admit his opinions... (As for my own views, I'm of the opinion that God created the Big Bang -well, it does sound plausible...)

Well, I actually agree with this stuff, does that make me a part of the left (I wonder)? We don't have quite as many after-school programs and the special lunches system started getting organised just recently from what I've heard, but still this could help improve some conditions, although I'm also of the opinion stuff should be taught better somehow so that students can have some more knowledge in diverse educational areas - how this sould be implemented is the problem...

Yes, satire is something all political parties can do obviously.
All in all, my question is apparently a cultural one. Where I live, the left behaves pretty much the same as the right, but in Greece (which is close to where I live) they look as if they're trying to bring a communist regime to Greece/ ressurect a system that was extensively proved inefficient and destructive, so I thought of myself as non-left because I'm against this ambition of theirs. Maybe if I grew up and lived in America I'd consider myself thusly part of the "left" as well. So yeah, apparently these guys just used the wrong term (they should have used "anti-corporational games" instead or something). Thanks again for taking the time to address this cultural misunderstanding I had...

P.S. Heh, while I was writing all this the developer showed up again and then went offline again. Hopefully he''ll read what I said just now and see it was just me having a different definition of the term...

The stated reason for rejection that GOG has sent to developers in the past is "too niche."

thanks for the reply and the screenshots.

As long as its static and doesnt move its okay but when it starts moving the problems begin.
its hard to explain since the number of people who have it are few.
After playing games for 40 years and having the motionsickness for 40 years, i found out after some testing (took me 3 years) what kind of games i can and cant play, so the last 36 years i am buying only those games i am 100% certain i can play. Every game i have i can play.

Pillars for one is a game that after playing a few times does not seem to be the thing i can get used to but its only 1 game so that is not bad.
I thought it would play more like a kind of bitmap engine game but pillars uses other engine, like i said its very hard to explain what i can and can't play, and why i am not able to play it.
You cant imagine how a broken leg feels until you had one broken, or had a similar bone broken.
I never broke anything ( and i tend to keep it that way by being very careful) so i dont know the feeling.

I’ve tried running it in a window at 1366 x 768 (my Mac’s native resolution) in addition to windowed, as well as 1280 x 720 and 1152 x 720, in fullscreen as well as windowed, with no change.

I’m still a little baffled by it though, as again, I’ve never encountered this in any of the other Unity games I have. Is there a workaround you or I could try out to address this? I’m not averse to doing some terminal or .plist file hacking, if need be.

Cheers!

Edit: I do have an external 21" 4:3 monitor attached to one of the Macs I used, so I'll try and see how the game behaves on that...

That's the stated reason. Do you really think that the only criterion they decide their choices on is 'nicheness'?

"It's too niche" could be an easy answer to give if it was part of the reason for reaching the decision. It could be possible that there are other factors as well that are less easy to put into words, e.g. if there was difficulty in negotiations with the dev, which typically neither party is allowed to discuss with anyone else, and would be unprofessional to mention publicly.

I wonder if this is the right place to mention that I actually have professional experience as a standardized-test essay scorer.

No, it actually Bush Jr., as the No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2001.

It's interesting hearing you describe what I can only assume to be the Cypriot education system. It's pretty much how the Canadian system used to operate (except that most universities used to take just your final term marks for your subjects over your last two years in high school and generally didn't have an entrance exam). At least before the "reforms" that hit in the early-2000's turned it into something very much like what's seen in the US (and arguably depicted in the game).

And this is more of a personal rant, but that's not too far off the mark (IMHO) when it comes to describing the political discourse in the US and (a somewhat lesser extent in Canada). The mainstream left (IMHO) in the Democratic Party isn't so much "Left" (in the Political/Socially Progressive sense) but is more "opposite-of-Right". In the case of this game I'd make the argument that it's "Leftist" because it's clearly criticizing very clear Right-wing policies and ideologies (see the game's gamecard screenshot where you have to destroy the Teacher's Union). It's not "Leftist" in that the game isn't espousing Marxist-Leninist philosophies. (As far as I can see, at any rate.)

Yes, because NCLB was set up in part to address the gap in achievement scores between the US and other industrialized nations like Canada, and those in Europe and Asia. It was also inteded to try to address the gap between students in affluent areas and areas with low social/economic status.

The problem (again, IMHO) is that education is far, far more than just test scores. Formal test scores only are just only a small part of evaluating the whole picture of a student's learning -- any educator will tell you that. Student performance can be influenced by many other factors, including specific learning styles, nutrition, family life, and mental/emotional health.

The other problem is that instead of trying to take a holisitic approach to improving education, NCLB reduced it entirely to the teacher...Oliver explains it well in his video posted earlier, but it's the idea that the teachers are themselves graded based on their students' performance on the standardized test...and the teacher's salaries or employment depends on that grade. Which is total BS seeing as how (a) the test questions are ridiculous, and (b) a student's learning and academic perfomance/achievement can not be reduced entirely to their standardized test score.

The idea may be good on paper, but in practice it's ridiculous. It would be like saying to an Oncologist, "We're now only going to pay you based on how many cancer patients you can successfully treat."

The problem with private education at least in North America is (a) the danger of corporate interference (e.g. how comfortable would you be with a technical high school that gets funding and materials from Apple? Or Electronic Arts?), and (b) inequality in quality of education. This is just IMHO, but it's an injustice for a student to not have the opportunity to get an excellent quality education just because they're not wealthy.


No, it just makes you someone who actually understands what needs to be done to help students and their communities. :) Again, IMHO, the whole "Left" vs. "Right" labelling is just noise, and doesn't really mean all that much any more. For example, in South Korea, the Right-wing Conservative party tried to push an ambitious (and arguably very progressive!) standardized test for English education that heavily stressed performance-based evaluation. Meaning that students had to actually use and practically apply the language for their grades -- which is how second language learning should be evaluated -- instead of purely answering test questions. Vocal opposition from the Left-wing party killed it because the Teachers' Union was afraid that the test scores would be used to unjustly hire or fire teachers (despite government assurances to the contrary).

Again, I personally think the whole "Left" vs. "Right" distinctions only serve to further polarize and divide people, instead of fostering mutal understanding, cooperation, and reasoned, balanced discussion.
I'm really curious to know (because I want to genuinly hear your experience), what was it like, vs. the test-scorers on John Oliver's segment? I actually applied to be one myself during my teacher's college days, if only to get a little extra change for coffee in my pocket.

I've already emailed Seth about this, but could these links help shed further light on this issue?

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/full-screen-stretching.290117/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/webplayer-wrong-aspect-ratio-when-in-fullscreen.248829/

So, in this context, it makes you a pineapple slicer, right?

So, how was it? I, too, would be most interested to know.

No, it isn't. No Child Left Behind had near-unanimous bipartisan support.

Two of the bills four co-authors were Democrats, and two were Republicans.

In the House of Representatives, 197 Democrats and 186 Republicans voted "yes", while 10 Democrats and 34 Republicans voted "no".

In the Senate, the bill passed 91 to 8. Democrats and Republicans again nearly unanimously supported the bill, with only 2 Democrats and 6 Republicans voting "no".

Also, support for No Child Left Behind has declined for the better part of a decade. With strong bipartisan support (in the House, 359 yes - 64 no; in the Senate, 85 yes - 12 no), President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act into law on December 10, 2015, returning some power to the States (but retaining standardized testing requirements).

Libertarians warned from the start that No Child Left Behind was a terrible idea. Democrats and Republicans, socialism and facism, are two sides of the same authoritarian coin (see The Road to Serfdom; read the pdf version for free at mises.org).

Read more about NCLB and ESSA at Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Student_Succeeds_Act

Also:

http://reason.com/tags/education

Hey - get out of here with your "facts"! This isn't the place for you.

MASSIVE RIGHT-WING AGENDA CONSPIRACY. You know.

Lol. :)

just because someone is a democrat doesn't mean they're not conservative/serving a conservative agenda

NCLB needs to be done away with already, holy shit, the madness

we'd seriously be better off with anarchy and self-governing, but, yeahhhhh *sigh* the future is fucked unless people get a clue and that is not really happening in schools because the powers that be don't want things to change because they'd lose all their sheep...errr, pineapples!

Thanks.

Have you read "The Hare and The Pineapple" and its six questions (http://usny.nysed.gov/docs/the-hare-and-the-pineapple.pdf; takes a while to load, but does eventually)? What do you think about it?