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The Japanese/American Tech Deficit

Why do the Japanese get all the coolest gadgets, while the U.S. is left with the second-tier, less-innovative ones? The San Francisco Chronicle delves into this age-old mystery and provides a few explanations for those of us who don't live near Akihabara.

2 of 787 comments (clear)

  1. Re:First things by realdpk · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    "This is in the way that they don't really like learning"

    s/learning/teaching/

    Teaching here is almost all memorization and regurgitation. Teachers don't care, though -- no reason to. Their jobs are safe. The worse they do the more money their school gets. A great system, American public education...

  2. Chicken or the egg? by fireboy1919 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I don't know anybody that actually believes that saying overly much. To some degree, I buy it simply because it's so easy to be a teacher since the payrate is so low.

    It all comes down to why they became teachers.

    I also say "Radio Shack: you have questions. We have blank stares." This is a similar thing: they stopped paying electricians enough to work at Radio Shack and replaced them by barely trained cell phone salesman monkeys. Anyone capable of actually answering my questions who is working at Radio Shack isn't doing it for the money.

    I'll stop thinking that no one with a marginally good grasp of engineering works at Radio Shack when they start making a decent wage. I'll start thinking that teachers have as good a grasp as working professionals in the fields when they pay them a decent wage.

    Oh, except any history teacher who prefers to be called "Coach." Those, I think, don't really know anything about history, and never will.

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