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China Dominates In NSA-Backed Coding Contest

The Narrative Fallacy writes "With about 4,200 people participating in a US National Security Agency-supported international competition on everything from writing algorithms to designing components, 20 of the 70 finalists were from China, 10 from Russia, and 2 from the US. China's showing in the finals was helped by its large number of entrants, 894. India followed at 705, but none of its programmers was a finalist. Russia had 380 participants; the United States, 234; Poland, 214; Egypt, 145; and Ukraine, 128. Participants in the TopCoder Open was open to anyone, from student to professional; the contest proceeded through rounds of elimination that finished this month in Las Vegas. Rob Hughes, president and COO of TopCoder, says the strong finish by programmers from China, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere is indicative of the importance those countries put on mathematics and science education. 'We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there.'"

316 comments

  1. Damn by Xs1t0ry · · Score: 5, Funny
    "We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there...."

    Apparently I was born on the wrong continent.

    1. Re:Damn by pluther · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What's worse, the quote isn't even true.

      We don't do the same thing with athletics here as they do with math and science over there. In fact, they do the same thing with athletics as they do with math and science.

      That is, they consider athletics to be important and encourage every child to participate in at least one sport.

      We, on the other hand, idolize a very small number of top achievers and encourage every child to watch them on TV.

      --
      If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
    2. Re:Damn by JeanBaptiste · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, the Chinese Professional Math League (YDVF) is quite a sight to watch. Arenas filled with cheering fans watching a bunch of guys doing math and science. I still don't like the free agency rule implemented last year, but it has provided more parity between teams. The 'player' salaries are quite a bit higher actually than some of the top athletes in sports like football in other places around the globe. They truly treat mathematics like we treat athletics.

    3. Re:Damn by emkyooess · · Score: 5, Informative

      You must not be too familiar with schools. Time and time again the schools around where I grew up, real educational funds were slashed in favor of building a new gymnasium, funding an entirely new sport, sending the teams to beach trips, and all other sorts of athletics pandering. Meanwhile, it took decades of tooth-and-nail fighting to get a renovation (not even new) auditorium and stage for music and drama, the arts were always scrounging for supplies, science events were always short-changed and trips cut, and math texts were so ragged they were useless.

    4. Re:Damn by Knave75 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there....

      The problem is that we are overpaying our teachers.

      (but, seriously, we give math and science teachers a starvation wage and provide them with little respect. Meanwhile, we pay football coaches 6 figure salaries and revere them as Gods. Are we really that surprised that we fail at math?)

    5. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I am a Chinese and I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never heard of "the Chinese Professional Math League".

    6. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoosh!!! :-D

    7. Re:Damn by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Not only do they not treat mathematicians like we treat athletes, they also treat athletes like we treat them! I was reading through the profiles of the workers in our China branch, and several of them mentioned they like AI. That's not Artificial Intelligence, folks, that's Allen Iverson!

      --
      Qxe4
    8. Re:Damn by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This was true at my college in the late 1980's to early 1990's.

      We built a new spiffy apartment complex for students-- and then filled it with atheletes.

      They cut library publication subscriptions-- and gave more money to the athletic program.

      They were desperate to break into the national scene and failed.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    9. Re:Damn by hedwards · · Score: 1

      Either that or they look the other way when their crackers attack US based computers.

      As far as math and science goes, their education system sucks in most ways compared to that of the US, with the exception of there being an identifiable relationship between effort and outcome. We could do the same thing if we fired the sophists currently working in education and replaced them with actual competent educators. If their education system were better than ours, then they wouldn't be coming here in droves to get degrees and head home.

    10. Re:Damn by hedwards · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, but even a change of policy to make it less anti-education would be a step in the right direction. Expecting people to work for peanuts, fighting the school district's typically laughable curriculum hoping for a few students to win out over incompetent testing standards, isn't something that's likely to draw in the best possible teachers.

      High stress, low relation between success and effort low wages; gee I wonder why it's so hard to get men into education. If only there were similar fields that paid better and offered a lot of the same rewards, like say coaching.

    11. Re:Damn by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      Our higher education system rocks the world over, but our primary and secondary education blows donkey balls. We focus too much on silly things like yearly high stakes testing and not enough on education.... there is also a severe lack of the idea that repetition of certain things (like basic facts in mathematics) leads to better performance.

      Oh... and the idea that every child should be in the exact same room setting, and the lack of parents who give a shit, and the lack of motivation from most students.... there are lots of problems in US primary and secondary education.... teachers are not it for the most part.

    12. Re:Damn by Wingman+5 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not that I support coaches getting 6 figure salaries. But the reason they get it is because they made a good team, and that good team generates 7-8 figure income for the school in ticket sales. so if you reword it as a coach gets 1-10% of ticket sales in salaries it does not sound so bad.

      All you need to do is ask yourself how much income does the art department generate in grant money per year to see why there is a disparity.

    13. Re:Damn by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      if High school coached had to get their players ready for a standardized test every season to compare their athletes ability to do something completely unrelated to their ability to play better ball, how soon do you think it will be before people bitch and moan about the crapy athletics in this country?

    14. Re:Damn by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      Wait... you mean that in Russia and China, the mathmeticians and scientists get all the hot chicks, and they constantly tease the jocks for having "little girly minds"??? I am SO there!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    15. Re:Damn by amilo100 · · Score: 1

      The problem is that we are overpaying our teachers.

      That is the problem with unions. If there is only one employer (the state) strong unions can lobby parties to give them more money (if I recall correctly, unions donated quite a bit to the Obama campaign). Luckily the USA is not as bad as France.

      A good model is to pay top performing teachers and teachers in scarce subject areas (math and science) more than other teachers. Teachers should also be evaluated (a good model is the school inspector). Unfortunately teachers resist all of the good measures in favour of more money.

    16. Re:Damn by cortesoft · · Score: 4, Informative

      They spend money on Athletics because Athletics makes money... at least football and basketball do, and at least at big sport schools. I went to UCLA, and while they spend millions on coaches and facilities, they make back WAY more than that in ticket sales, paraphernalia, and broadcast rights. Those profits add millions to the general school budget.

      Of course, many schools (and it sounds like yours was one) see these huge profits and want a part of it... so they spend money to build up an athletics program, but fail to realize it is nearly impossible to break into the elite ranks these days.

      Another sad but true fact is that a successful sports program brings in a LOT of money from alumni donors... the better a sports team does, the more the alumni will donate to the school.

    17. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And used the kids as fodder for the cock mongering assholes.

    18. Re:Damn by Untimely+Meme+Guy · · Score: 1

      So Americans are getting owned in relevant areas of technology because they are better, OK, did you read the headline? the hell with education they maybe learned C in a chalkboard classroom but yet they own you, it's not about education. And yes, they come here because your boss knows they are better and cheaper and after making a few grand they get back with all the know how. Oh oh but thats crazy talk because you're better... ohai kool aid mascot!

    19. Re:Damn by Untimely+Meme+Guy · · Score: 1

      i liek owning youl selvels while you wach youl fulbol. Plz support the amelican fulbol leagues, dun try to stop them, they're fulbol team. You go and see fulbol long time jut dun waste too muchl muney, it's mole our money nao.

    20. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We are over http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos069.htmpaying http://www.aft.org/salary/our http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/Salary teachers!?

      I don't think so... Mods can clean up my html...

    21. Re:Damn by BitHive · · Score: 3, Insightful

      All you need to do is ask yourself how much income does a department generate in grant money and you've missed the point of education entirely.

    22. Re:Damn by ojustgiveitup · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe we should stop running schools like businesses and start running them like schools.

    23. Re:Damn by cortesoft · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That would work if we started funding them like schools... it's not as if the money they make from athletics goes into the chancellor's pocket... it goes to fund the school.. whether better facilities, more classes, or what not. Universities (especially public ones) are underfunded a huge amount... and they have requirements that they MUST accept a certain percentage of students (at least for the University of California and the California State Universities).. so they have to find funding somewhere... I would rather they have a school football team than an increased tuition...

    24. Re:Damn by ojustgiveitup · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would rather we start funding them like schools. I would also suggest that we suffer from a quantity vs. quality problem that the quotas in places like California, while good-intentioned, are worsening. Higher education needs to be cheap and available, but highly selective. While I'm being idealistic, I might as well also mention that we need to stop requiring college degrees for basically any middle class job. We've saturated the job market with highly educated people, while simultaneously diminishing the quality of that education. So now, as a society, we're paying inordinate sums for lowest common denominator education, that a large proportion of people don't need and won't ever use.

    25. Re:Damn by pthreadunixman · · Score: 1

      BS. Very few college Division 1 athletics programs make any money at all. Far more often they're a major budget hemorrhage justified only by the supposed prestige they bring the school.

    26. Re:Damn by Knitebane · · Score: 2, Informative
      Median annual earnings of kindergarten, elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers ranged from $43,580 to $48,690 in May 2006

      Source: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos069.htm

      Hardly a starvation wage.

      --
      "...history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." --Ghandi
    27. Re:Damn by ishobo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Our higher education system rocks the world over

      Based on what data do make that conclusion?

      Also, why doesn't the U.S. fully fund tertiary education? Why is it not seen as a right?

      Frankly, I think the U.S. tertiary system is a piss poor excuse for higher learning. I would rather stay in the EU and not worry about how I am going to send my children to college. We have many fine institutions here in the EU, including the top tier Oxford and Cambridge, which are funded around 90% for all EU residents. Saying the U.S. has the best universities is like saying the U.S. has the best healthcare. True, if you are rich.

      --
      Slashdot - The great and glorious cluster fuck of Internet wisdom.
    28. Re:Damn by JumpDrive · · Score: 2, Interesting

      maybe we should just convince the asians that they should run there schools like businesses.
      Anyway, I have worked with a lot of Chinese and Indians that were educated in their home country. They are not that impressive. The ones that I work with that were educated here are consistently impressive. So I don't think it's the schools. Although they did come from some of our top ranked Academic schools.

      I'd look elsewhere for a reason for their high achievement in this coding competition.

      Worst part is that the NSA will probably hire them.

    29. Re:Damn by uncqual · · Score: 1

      If you are implying that standardized testing in High Schools is "totally unrelated" to knowledge and skills students are expected to have upon graduation, do you have any examples?

      If the tests are testing the wrong thing, the tests should be fixed. Large swaths of core academic areas lend themselves well to standardized testing at the High School level - esp. those that are closely related to math/science. Such testing isn't going to be very good at differentiating between the superstar from the super-superstar, but that's not what they are for and those students will ace the tests anyway and can be exposed to a more challenging and expansive education environment/track that doesn't worry about the standardized tests. If the tests can't be fixed, then it seems obvious that ALL testing should be eliminated even at the classroom level -- if carefully developed, vetted, and tested standardized tests can't effectively measure knowledge and skills, then surely something a random teacher tosses together the night before the weekly test doesn't have a chance.

      --
      Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
    30. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yet they don't do it because they know they have to do real stuff or else hunger. How many points of GDP it's worth a gold medal?? huh?? do the 9 gold medals from that guy will revive GM from br? huh? eat your gold medals, while real talented and professional warriors own your jobs. For Chinese gold medals were the demonstration feat to let the world know who is the new boss. Now shut up and consume Chinese goods, or else go to south America and be a raped king or to Europe and be bitter about your new home land. ha! being one, sucks to be American.. troll? yeah! flamebait? yeah reality dose? fuck yeah!

    31. Re:Damn by dr_dank · · Score: 2, Informative

      Beer and Circus details this phenomenon quite well. The sports program is a fundraising avenue, recruitment tool, and publicity machine all rolled up into one. Trouble is, the quality of the education suffers for the sake of the almighty sports program. The portion of Beer & Circus detailing the veto power that Bobby Knight had over the university president at Indiana is especially telling of this fact of life at Division I schools.

      --
      Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
    32. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not correct. We pay big-time football coaches 7 figure salaries.

    33. Re:Damn by story645 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also, why doesn't the U.S. fully fund tertiary education? Why is it not seen as a right?

      Because it would be prohibitively expensive? I go to a dirt cheap uni (~4000 a year, 5000 after next years tuition hikes, and it's a public school so it's only that low 'cause of the massive tax funding the school gets, though it's getting hit with budget cuts right and left) and even that kind of tuition would be a massive funding issue for everyone who wanted to go to college here in the states, mostly because it's so standard/expected that a person gets a degree. (though there's tons of financial aid available for anyone below middle class. Being middle class, I lucked out and got a good merit scholarship.) There's also the long standing idea, not limited to the US, that a college education should be limited to a select few who are actually suited for it.(A person used to go to college 'cause they were smart enough, and high school's had college and vocational tracks.) This idea is changing 'cause the global economy is now so skills based, but policy takes longer (and again, coming up the money for it would be difficult.)
       

      --
      open source modern art: laser taggi
    34. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But what about the money?

    35. Re:Damn by JumpDrive · · Score: 1

      The unfortunate thing about this is that it has been going on for more than 40 years and they still haven't fixed it.

      So basically we can bitch and moan about it all we want and it just isn't going to get fixed. They don't want it fixed or changed.

      A case in point is the recent political fight over vouchers. I as a tax payer without children saw no problem with vouchers, but the teachers unions did.
      If they want to take whatever it cost to educate a kid and use the parents discretion to get them into a different school more power to them. I'd rather the kid get educated now than wait for them to fix the system.

      Minimum requirement should be to teach kids how to wear a baseball cap. If they show up wearing gangster outfits, security should be allowed to fire 45's at them.

      Just tell them it's said "They weren't wearing the correct colors".

    36. Re:Damn by acidkillUSF · · Score: 1, Funny

      Our higher education system rocks the world over Based on what data do make that conclusion?

      Basically anyone who has anything to say about quality of University level education will say the US leads far and away in number and quality.


      A recent Newsweek ranking showed that 80% of the world's Top Ten universities were American and over half the top 50 were American. The Times Higher Education Supplement, arguably one of the world's most respected education comparisons of universities from all around the globe, listed 13 American universities in the Top 20, including 6 in the Top 10. The quality of American university education is second to none.


      Also check: http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/worlds-best-colleges/2008/11/20/worlds-best-colleges-and-universities-top-200.html


      Where would the increase in public funding for higher education come from? You would be cutting athletics and merchandising income and replacing that with public funds as well...


      The current system might not be the best, but a ton of money gets put into the system as it is.

    37. Re:Damn by ahabswhale · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe we should stop running schools like businesses and start running them like schools.

      But that would be un-American!

      --
      Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
    38. Re:Damn by Amiga+Trombone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, you might want to consider there are 1.3 billion Chinese to 300 million Americans. If you're going to consider representation as a percentage of population, Russia's performance, with a population of only 140 million, was a hell of a lot more impressive than China's.

    39. Re:Damn by Wingman+5 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Private collages are not there to educate, its to make the board of regents money. It is a business after all, it really is the defining factor between a state school and a private school.

    40. Re:Damn by bogjobber · · Score: 1

      They spend money on Athletics because Athletics makes money... at least football and basketball do, and at least at big sport schools.

      This is definitely not the norm. At most schools, none of the sports make money, even at a high level of competition. At places with big-time football or men's basketball (occasionally some other sport), those sports *may* break even. I don't have the numbers at hand, but I think there are only 20-30 Division I football programs that bring in more money than they spend, and even then it is variable from season to season depending on which bowl games you and other conference members are invited to.

      But athletics can have a positive effect on academics, too. Schools like Gonzaga and Duke have actually become better schools because of their basketball programs. Young people (men in particular) love sports, and a great sports team is a way to get your name out there. I don't know if you can quantify this, but schools like Texas, Alabama, Florida, Ohio State, etc. surely have more loyal and involved alumni than state schools of comparable size without elite sports programs.

    41. Re:Damn by testadicazzo · · Score: 1

      I see a lot of criticism of our nations fascination with sports, particularly the American athletics model, which doesn't focus on teaching kids good health and physical fitness lessons that will benefit them in later life. Rather it seems to be aimed at teaching them primitive tribalism and in-group/out-group mentality.

      That reminds me of another harmful aspect of American culture, which not only fosters tribalism and in-group/out-group thinking, but goes further and teaches kids not to think. I am of course talking about religion, which teaches children that faith (believing your belief despite the evidence) is good, and science and rational thought (questioning your beliefs when presented new evidence) is bad.

      Jesus Christ! We live in a country where 45% of the population denies evolution and believes that the earth is less than 9000 years old! That's like believing New York is a foot away from San Francisco. Why do they believe this in the face of so much contrary evidence? Because the Bible tells them so. What about all the contradictions in the bible? Who knows, they are probably there to test our faith, just like fossil record.

      America is a country where it is more likely to have a statue of the ten commandments put in a courhouse, or to have intelligent design taught in a high school, than it is likely to get "in god we trust" removed from our money. Every single politician has to pay lip service to believing in some kind of a higher power. We place a high moral value on faith

      If you look at the messages floating out there in the American meme pool, you have the fundamentalist christian thought, which tells you you're going to hell unless you accept jesus christ as your personal savior, and then you have the much more mainstream mantra: It doesn't matter what you believe, but you must believe in something. Doing good science on the other hand requires you to question your beliefs. So let's stop deifying religion and faith, and make this the secular country the founding fathers intended!

    42. Re:Damn by bhiestand · · Score: 1

      I would rather we start funding them like schools. I would also suggest that we suffer from a quantity vs. quality problem that the quotas in places like California, while good-intentioned, are worsening. Higher education needs to be cheap and available, but highly selective. While I'm being idealistic, I might as well also mention that we need to stop requiring college degrees for basically any middle class job. We've saturated the job market with highly educated people, while simultaneously diminishing the quality of that education. So now, as a society, we're paying inordinate sums for lowest common denominator education, that a large proportion of people don't need and won't ever use.

      Thank you for getting it. Now how the hell do we get the people who attended Beer U for 6 years to get it?

      --
      SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
    43. Re:Damn by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 1

      Much less than I could earn straight out of college.

    44. Re:Damn by ishobo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Odd you bring up the US News list since it supports my argument. Four of the top ten are public schools that will cost an EU resident 90% less in tuition.

      1 Harvard University - United States
      2 Yale University - United States
      3 University of Cambridge - United Kingdom
      4 University of Oxford - United Kingdom
      5 California Institute of Technology - United States
      6 Imperial College London - United Kingdom
      7 University College London - United Kingdom
      8 University of Chicago - United States
      9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology - United States
      10 Columbia University - United States

      US leads far and away in number and quality.

      Number is meaningless, and you should know that. With a population of 300 million, one should expect more schools. The above list proves you wrong in the quality department.

      Where would the increase in public funding for higher education come from?

      The same place it comes from in the rest of the world, taxes. Undergrad tuition for a university in France runs about $1000. Not per year, for the whole program.

      The United States does indeed have some of the best schools, if you are rich.

      --
      Slashdot - The great and glorious cluster fuck of Internet wisdom.
    45. Re:Damn by mcvos · · Score: 1

      You must not be too familiar with schools. Time and time again the schools around where I grew up, real educational funds were slashed in favor of building a new gymnasium, funding an entirely new sport, sending the teams to beach trips, and all other sorts of athletics pandering.

      But are all these sports facilities (including breach trips apparantely) used by all students or by a select few top athletes?

      Because that's what he says: the US idolizes a select few rather than encouraging everybody to paticipate.

    46. Re:Damn by mcvos · · Score: 1

      Basically anyone who has anything to say about quality of University level education will say the US leads far and away in number and quality.

      Isn't it mostly Boston that leads in number and quality?

      My impression as a European is that the Ivy League universities are really amazingly good (but also amazingly expensive and amazingly hard to get into), whereas "average" universities tend to be sub-par.

    47. Re:Damn by PingPongBoy · · Score: 1

      I would rather we start funding them like schools. ... we need to stop requiring college degrees for basically any middle class job. We've saturated the job market with highly educated people, while simultaneously diminishing the quality of that education. So now, as a society, we're paying inordinate sums for lowest common denominator education, that a large proportion of people don't need and won't ever use

      And I would rather replace all these employees with ... software!

      --
      Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
    48. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And there was I thinking that AFRICA would dominate...
      You know, what with Africans being "just as intelligent" as all the other races on Earth...

      What do you think your country is going to be like when fifty percent of the population are BLACK?

    49. Re:Damn by Jarik_Tentsu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ticket sales? Broadcast rights? Paraphernalia?

      I'm from Melbourne, Australia - and that just sound *nuts*.

      Most schools here just have some Maths teacher or something coaching the teams after school (even the Firsts/top teams of the school)...the only people who come and spectate are parents, maybe a girlfriend or mate. In higher schools, you may see more specific coaches brought in - almost always school alumni - and usually just amateur coaches nonetheless.

      I dunno, is it just me, or is it only America where school sport is treated and followed like a professional league?

      ~Jarik

    50. Re:Damn by ojustgiveitup · · Score: 1

      Geez you've got me there. I haven't even been able to convince a few of my closest friends who are part and parcel to this mindset. They just think I'm weird.

    51. Re:Damn by ojustgiveitup · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Have you ever thought about how as software engineers, if we are completely replaced by software then that means we have hit the singularity and the whole world will be in upheaval one way or another? Because once computers can completely program themselves, nothing will be the same.

    52. Re:Damn by Dripdry · · Score: 1

      Very good point.

      Perhaps we should take it a step further and ask what percentage of each of those countries has access to higher eduction. Maybe a better questions is "What percentage is 'middle class' or has access to public education?"

      Then apply your method once again to see how well each country is doing.

      --
      -
    53. Re:Damn by Rycross · · Score: 1

      Its probably because a student that goes through the effort of going to college in another country is probably more intelligent and motivated on average than his peers.

    54. Re:Damn by junglee_iitk · · Score: 1

      I have completed my MSc in University of Stuttgart, Germany, and currently I am doing my PhD.

      Higher education system of USA rocks the world over.

      The best students in my class left for MIT, Houstan, Austin, Pennsylvania, Harvard, Stanford etc. (Yeah, I was not the best.) And an important part of best education is competing and sharing with best colleagues.

      Not to mention the grand difference in work culture. Plus the rigidity of the system which won't bend for it is the "original system" - you know, "western education started from Europe". EU has made progress in this regard from year to year, but the general academia stills needs to catch up (to EU directives, that is).

      Also, Oxford and Cambridge exist in UK, known to every English speaking technocrat. Giving them as examples is disingenuous. They are probably the best in EU (heh - UK as EU), but I don't know many people who left MIT or Harvard for Oxford.

    55. Re:Damn by BitHive · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, the many non-profit private colleges

    56. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes! Surely what we need are more idiots! Absolutely!

    57. Re:Damn by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      Saying the U.S. has the best universities is like saying the U.S. has the best healthcare. True, if you are rich.

      I fail to agree. I attended an Ivy League school with Nobel Prize winners and everything and my parents were a school teacher and a social worker, respectively.

      I might not have been poor, but I was far from rich. I went to the Financial Aid office and explained to them that I would like to attend their school, but I needed a bit more money so my parents and I could afford it. They told me that anyone they accepted they would insure that money was not the thing keeping them away.

      Sure enough, they made up the difference with a grant and I was able to attend the school of my choice.

      'm not saying that it's easy or guaranteed that this policy exists everywhere, but in my case I got to go to one of the best schools in the world and money didn't keep me out.

      Many of the best schools in the US are also public schools, like the UC system. They are not free, but they are quite affordable. Obviously, I didn't go the public school route, but it was also an option.

      This is not to say that the EU has bad schools, there are definitely good ones, but being free doesn't make them better nor does having to pay for them make them worse.

    58. Re:Damn by zippyspringboard · · Score: 1

      While I'm being idealistic, I might as well also mention that we need to stop requiring college degrees for basically any middle class job. We've saturated the job market with highly educated people, while simultaneously diminishing the quality of that education. So now, as a society, we're paying inordinate sums for lowest common denominator education, that a large proportion of people don't need and won't ever use.

      On the plus side, by keeping people out of the workforce for an extra 4-5 years, it helps keep un-employment down.

    59. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our higher education system rocks the world over

      Saying the U.S. has the best universities is like saying the U.S. has the best healthcare. True, if you are rich.

      The healthcare analogy doesn't stand up, at least not for secondary or tertiary education.

      Many of the elite private high schools, including almost all of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Schools_Admissions_Organization) provide need-based scholarships that cover most, if not all of the cost of a qualified student.

      Furthermore, many states have elite public schools with good education for qualified students.

      Generally, a "qualified student" at this level implies a student who has scored well on standardized tests.

      Likewise, many of the elite private colleges and universities (including the Ivy League, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Olin, Northwestern, Duke, the University of Chicago and many smaller schools) provide need-based scholarships that cover most, if not all the costs of an admitted student. They also have need-blind admissions.

      The U.S. has the best universities if you are "qualified" or smart enough to get into one, not if you are rich.

    60. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They spend money on Athletics because Athletics makes money...

      Another sad but true fact is that a successful sports program brings in a LOT of money from alumni donors... the better a sports team does, the more the alumni will donate to the school.

      This is a perfect example of "common sense" that is completely wrong.

      How about a real study that examines the issue?

      "We continue to conclude that over the medium term (ten years), increases in operating expenditures on football or men's basketball are not associated with any change, on average, in operating net revenue."

      In other words, it pays for itself, but does not provide surplus revenue.

      "We continue to conclude that increased operating expenditures on football or basketball are not associated with medium-term increases in winning percentages, and higher winning percentages are not associated with medium-term increases in operating revenue or operating net revenue."

      Spending more does not help you win or help you make more money (in the medium term).

      "We continue to conclude that the hypothesis that increased operating expenditures on sports affect other measurable indicators, including alumni giving, is not proven."

      Alumi are *not* donating because of athletics.

    61. Re:Damn by Cormacus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well how about we change some of those requirements. Instead of forcing them to accept a certain percentage of students, allow them to only take the top N% of students. The rest of the applicants can go work on pig farms in the country. Isn't that what happens in China?

      The point I'm trying to make is that maybe if we stopped making it so easy for under-achieving students to use state funds to participate in higher education, maybe we could solve a budget problem while at the same time providing some encouragement for kids to do better in school. I mean, what better encouragement is there than the smell of a pig farm???

      --
      Mon chien, il n'a pas du nez. Comment scent-il? TrÃs mauvais!
    62. Re:Damn by Cormacus · · Score: 1

      I'm curious - in places where tertiary education is 100% (or close) funded by the state (ie, where it is a "right"), what are the entrance requirements for those institutions?

      --
      Mon chien, il n'a pas du nez. Comment scent-il? TrÃs mauvais!
    63. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... it's not as if the money they make from athletics goes into the chancellor's pocket... it goes to fund the school.. whether better facilities, more classes, or what not.

      Wrong. Try doing some research first.

      "We continue to conclude that over the medium term (ten years), increases in operating expenditures on football or men's basketball are not associated with any change, on average, in operating net revenue."

      Athletic spending breaks even, it doesn't increase school revenue. The money made in athletics goes toward covering the cost of athletics, not adding classes or funding the school in general.

    64. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China is not that impressive considered their population. What is eye opening is India result. 705 ppl with no finalist! What are they doing there? Are they supposed to be IT SUPERPOWERrrrr ?
      I suggest they should go home, lock the door and cry. What a joke, what a shame!

    65. Re:Damn by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      No... Not knowledge... ability. They are related but completely different things. Yearly standardized testing forces teachers to fill kids' heads with information to prep them to regurgitate it onto paper. Education is not about the ability to regurgitate facts, it is about taking learned facts and applying them in life.

      I can cram a kidâ(TM)s head full of all the information I want, but unless I work on their ability to do something with that information, they haven't learned a damn thing.

    66. Re:Damn by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      To add to what I said before, this is not about testing for a teacher's ability to track their students' progress in the classroom. This is about the high stakes testing that takes place thanks to No Child Left Behind. Tying the life of the school to how well the kids retain information necessitates that the teachers focus on the information retention more than the information usage. The reason is not because they are crappy at teaching, but because our culture is not supportive of the educational process for a large proportion of the students. Many of the most difficult to teach students are clumped together geographically so you end up with schools that have a much higher percentage of these kids than other schools, making AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) very difficult to achieve.

    67. Re:Damn by uncqual · · Score: 1

      If standardized tests in math and science, for example, are testing only for knowledge, that's wrong -- skills (as I said) or ability (as you said) are important.

      A standardized test in math shouldn't ask for the formula for computing the area of a triangle, it should ask the test taker to compute it given a triangle. In your view, is just "knowledge" required to solve this problem? Seems to me that it requires both knowledge and (admittedly simple in this case) skill/ability.

      Similarly, a standardized test in math should require actual computation of compounded interest given a real world example -- not just regurgitation of the formula.

      --
      Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
    68. Re:Damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hallelujah.

    69. Re:Damn by The+Warlock · · Score: 1

      You realize you need to go to college and then to a graduate school to get a teaching certificate in most states, right? I made almost double that with nothing but a bachelor's degree.

      --
      I've upped my standards, so up yours.
    70. Re:Damn by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      But see... even knowing how to apply a formula is not really applying mathematics. If a math teacher had the time to educate the kids, they could do a lot more interesting things such as semester long projects that interact with the things they are learning in other subjects that require the kids to not only use math, but find the problems, discover which mathematical tools are best to use, etc. Then they would be learning HOW to use math.

    71. Re:Damn by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      That should be "how to calculate using a formula"

      To add to that, directed projects have their place, but a free form project where the students don't know what type of mathematical skills will be required or where to apply those skills is where real learning happens and that lack of free form application of knowledge is why our students lack competitiveness out of high school.

    72. Re:Damn by uncqual · · Score: 1

      So, this implies that this is how they teach Elementary and High School Math in China and India? My impression, albeit a few years out of date that they are both much more oriented towards "Drill and Kill" than the US system has been for many years. Of course, by doing this from an early age, those that have natural talent then have the materials necessary to move on to the next stage.

      If a classroom of eighth graders can't figure out how long each piece would be if you took a rope 12 feet long and cut it into three equal length pieces, they are not yet ready for "free form" and "semester long projects" in math the next year (and, sadly, probably never will be as their counterparts in India likely could easily solve this problem instinctively in third grade as probably virtually everyone reading this could have).

      You may have a Utopian view of what the typical student in the US has learned by the time they enter High School :)

      I suspect the greatest difference between our failing education system and the best of China and India are that in those cultures from an early age, those who are pursuing academic pursuits are pretty much told that they must achieve to succeed and don't really have a lot of input into how to accomplish that. They also probably don't spend a whole lot of time "hanging out at the mall" or "just chilling" -- instead spending that time studying. This focus on education is not immediately lost when families arrive on our shores - but American parents and teachers have, by and large, have gotten soft - this is an interesting read...

      --
      Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
    73. Re:Damn by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      I am a fan of drill and kill for the basic facts of a subject. I am also a fan of project oriented learning.

      Trust me... I have no Utopian views of what students know by the time they enter High School.

      I agree about the culture being the difference. Our culture is failing our kids in education. Everyone wants to blame the teachers when in 80% or more of the cases, it is the students and parents (many of which have to work too many hours)who fail to uphold their end of the bargain.

  2. Excellent by Seriousity · · Score: 3, Informative

    Given the percentage of Chinese coders in comparison to US, they still did roughly twice as good. (Cue the math pedants)

    --
    This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
    1. Re:Excellent by jgtg32a · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think you need to be more concerned with the grammar pedants

    2. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      English pedants. "Twice as well" is correct.

    3. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, No, NO!

      You know all those government break-ins over the last couple of years? Well, that was the Chinese coding team practicing!

      They're not better. They just practiced with the real thing.

    4. Re:Excellent by Seriousity · · Score: 1

      I think you need to be more concerned with the grammar pedants . --- Goodness gracious folks, it's a period!

      I'm not sure if you were talking to me or about me.

      --
      This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
    5. Re:Excellent by johnsonav · · Score: 1

      Given the percentage of Chinese coders in comparison to US, they still did roughly twice as good.

      That might be true, if the coders participating in the competition were a representative sampling of the whole population of coders from each country. But, I don't think there's any reason to think that is the case.

      It's like arguing that South Korea, as a nation, is better at baseball than the US, just because they won the gold in Beijing.

      --
      ... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
    6. Re:Excellent by Mikkeles · · Score: 1

      they still did roughly twice as well . (Cue the math pedants)
      and grammar Nazis.

      --
      Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
    7. Re:Excellent by matt20 · · Score: 1

      Actually, the Russians were the winners based on percent of finalists/entries:

      China 2.2% -- Russia 2.6% -- US 0.6%

    8. Re:Excellent by syousef · · Score: 1

      Given the percentage of Chinese coders in comparison to US, they still did roughly twice as good. (Cue the math pedants)

      You mean cue those of us that can do basic math.

      China: 20/894 = 0.02237

      USA: 2/234 = 0.00854

      If you are claiming that 0.00854 is greater than 0.02237, you needn't look far at why the US isn't doing so well. On a board like slashdot, your poor math just got moderated informative. Who exactly is moderating? Mathematically challenged Monkeys?

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    9. Re:Excellent by daveime · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, it's a full stop. A period is what a girl gets once a month.

      You say erbs, and we say herbs ... because there's a fucking 'h' in it !

    10. Re:Excellent by Seriousity · · Score: 1

      A period is what a girl gets once a month

      Hence the exclamation "goodness gracious"... And we say herbs in New Zealand, you insensitive clod!

      --
      This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
    11. Re:Excellent by daveime · · Score: 1

      Given the percentage of Chinese coders in comparison to US, they still did roughly twice as good

      In that sentence, it is obvious (at least to me and the OP, but not to you), that "they" are the Chinese, NOT the US.

      In which case 0.02237 is (very) roughly twice as good as 0.00854. In actual fact it's closer to three times as good, but let's not split hairs.

      Math : 10/10 (for the division to 5 decimal places)
      English : 0/10 (for the comprehension fail)

    12. Re:Excellent by syousef · · Score: 1

      In which case 0.02237 is (very) roughly twice as good as 0.00854. In actual fact it's closer to three times as good, but let's not split hairs.

      Yeah, double, triple, who needs precision?

      Math : 10/10 (for the division to 5 decimal places)
      English : 0/10 (for the comprehension fail)
      ...Says the man who doesn't comprehend the term double.

      Did I ask you for a grade you arrogant twit?

      His English was imprecise. His meaning ambiguous, and his math was terrible, but you have time to defend him and put me down? Since we're handing out grades here are yours

      Social skills: 0/10
      Precision: 0/10
      Fairness: 0/10
      Pendantry: 10/10

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  3. You can say it all you want by 0racle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there.'

    Thats nice, and I believe it's disgusting how athletics are held here, but the public has made it abundantly clear that's they way they want it. I, for one, would like to welcome our new Chinese overlords.

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    1. Re:You can say it all you want by DeadDecoy · · Score: 1

      I, for one, would like to welcome our new Chinese overlords.

      Maybe when that happens, we'll get a better education system in place.

    2. Re:You can say it all you want by siddesu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Also, spooks could be more motivated to win a competition run by NSA compared to the people who have the citizenship and background to compete for a job instead.

    3. Re:You can say it all you want by JCSoRocks · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oh, sure, like drunken sports fans and tubby couch coaches aren't going to be important in the digital age. Those other countries just don't know what they're doing. Just wait, in a post-apocalyptic world we Americans will be ready to drink and fight with the best of them!

      --
      You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
    4. Re:You can say it all you want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I, for one, would like to welcome our new Chinese overlords.

      Ha! I will fight them off with my magic phone number: (444) 444-4444.

    5. Re:You can say it all you want by Ogi_UnixNut · · Score: 5, Informative

      IMO (having spent about half my life the "West" and the other half in "Eastern Europe") the primary difference seems to be one of respect for knowledge.

      In the West while I was at school it was "cool" to be stupid. Kids who smoked, did drugs, didn't do any work, rejected knowledge/lessons, skipped school etc... were by far the most popular, with many followers. The hard working kids that did well on the other hand, were mocked as "teachers pets", "dorks" etc... and were generally social outcasts.

      On the other hand when I was in Eastern Europe, if you were knowledgeable in a subject (especially something seen as hard, like Maths/physics etc...) you ended up being popular, while those that smoked/did drugs/skipped school etc... as above were seen as troublemakers to be avoided. People there seemed to appreciate your knowledge. I guess it's because it's seen as a reliably useful skill (i.e. employable), as opposed to just looking pretty, which only works for the top 1% that manage to become celebrities, the rest usually ending up as whores/gold diggers or thugs/bouncers.

      That's not to say athletics was discouraged, on the contrary you were expected to take part in at least one physical activity, but it wasn't a case of athletics being the be-all-end-all of life

    6. Re:You can say it all you want by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I, for one, would like to welcome our new Chinese overlords.

      So as to not welcome them as your overlords tomorrow, you should rather welcome them as citizens and well-paid, highly skilled professionals today, and make sure their children speak English first and Chinese second (but still get education of the same standard as their parents).

    7. Re:You can say it all you want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd go as far as to look at American society as a whole, what does it say about a culture where physical skills, strength etc and still idolized while art, science etc are given much less importance. The OJ simpson trial was another example of how America couldn't believe an all american hero had murdered someone, Yet at the same time, it's perfectly logical that 'punks' or 'drug addicts' decided to shoot people in a school.

      I suspect, due to the chinese culture of supression, it's much more natural for individuals to resort to 'taking control' in the only anonymous way available, this is their way to rage against the machine.

    8. Re:You can say it all you want by tychver · · Score: 1

      No they don't. They identify potential. What we do in athletics is celebrate success and ignore the athletes with potential.

    9. Re:You can say it all you want by pasha2891 · · Score: 1

      I can second that, intelligence is not regarded as a negative like it is in the US. I don't think there's even a concept of nerd.

    10. Re:You can say it all you want by megaditto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's just a question of priorities. I believe this is evolution at work. With some huge generalizations, here is what I think happens:

      In China/SU people will suffer or even starve to death unless they get a skilled/high-tech job. Therefore, one's intelligence is highly valued (by parents, wifes, society in general, etc.)

      In America, there is no danger of starvation. Even the unemployed get to have a house, a car, a TV, 5 meals a day, and a dimebag. Therefore, the people focus on more relevant (at this time) things such as personal appearance and personality.

      The good news is that us humans are highly adaptable, and our priorities will be adjusted as needed (when the circumstances change).

      --
      Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
    11. Re:You can say it all you want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, "financial instruments" and profit worship has ensured they own the US, so I'm glad they are smarter.

    12. Re:You can say it all you want by Reservoir+Penguin · · Score: 2, Informative

      But the respect is almost gone now, now (almost) everyone wants to be a "manager" aka "office plankton". Working hard and earning a degree in math would land you a $200/month job at a research institute with no prospect of ever owning your own apartment, or even a nice used car. And there are negative words in Russian analogous to nerd - "bot" or "zaukan".

      --
      US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
    13. Re:You can say it all you want by BuddyJesus · · Score: 1

      I find this comment facetious. It's not like the Chinese don't value their athletes in the same way, just look at people like Yao Ming or Liu Xiang, two huge household names in China who make hundreds of millions off of sponsorships. Hell, they treat OUR NBA athletes like we do. Kobe is probably the most popular person in China. They only got more people because more people entered, and because it's very likely many more of them had the time to do this because they were unemployed.

  4. Or is it due to time and money? by kbob88 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe programmers in China, Russia, and Eastern Europe have more time on their hands, less money, and would derive more benefit from participating in the contest (prestige and recognition for instance). I'm sure there are a great many US coders who would do very well in this contest, but are too busy.

    1. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by Seakip18 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Better yet, was the opening of said contest even announced on US top tech sites?

      Second, did US employers, who hire our best programmers, tell them to give it a go with time off?

      --
      import system.cool.Sig;
    2. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by ThePlague · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Or don't want to get on an NSA list.

    3. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >I'm sure there are a great many US coders who would do very well in this contest, but are too busy.

      Yea right. Too busy blogging on their iphones.

      America doesn't value a good scientific education. That's why you didn't do very well.

    4. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by newcastlejon · · Score: 1

      You already are; the question is how many?

      --
      If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
    5. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by tbischel · · Score: 1

      Many of the competitions were short (90 minutes per round, one round per week), and timed to have rounds on the weekends.

    6. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

      Its not as funny as it sounds, i know personally when i had more free time to waste, i was a better coder.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    7. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by CodeBuster · · Score: 1

      I'm sure there are a great many US coders who would do very well in this contest, but are too busy.

      There is some truth in that I think. I know that when I get home at the end of a day of programming the last thing I want to do is sit down in front of an editor and work on a personal project. I would say that another difference between the United States and other countries is more direct state sponsorship of research and development activities so that qualified people have the time and resources to continue their studies and R&D activities after they have completed their degrees instead of diving right into the commercial business software job market which generally involves well known coding areas with less active research and development (although there are exceptions, Google for instance, which allows and encourages employees to spend some time working on personal software development interests).

    8. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better yet, was the opening of said contest even announced on US top tech sites?

      Second, did US employers, who hire our best programmers, tell them to give it a go with time off?

      You hit the nail on the head. I work for the government in IT and didn't even hear about this event, which is really amazing, because I was in DC very recently with the folks running it. Zero visibility.

    9. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, cause it was so widely advertised in Eastern Europe, and everyone got a month long vacations just to participate.

    10. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is precisely why I had no interest in it. Now, Netflix Prize == $1M. Hmmm... Yeah, I'll put some time into that...

    11. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because it wasn't an NSA recruitment strategy, it was an NSA intelligence gathering strategy. Now they know who all of the top programmers in China and Russia are!

    12. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by FishOuttaWater · · Score: 1

      Define "better." My code is a heck of a lot less clever and a lot easier to maintain than it was 20 years ago. ...until it *needs* to be clever. ...or am I just rationalizing?

    13. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by Vexorian · · Score: 4, Interesting
      It is always by this time of the year that the results of programming contests like the ICPC and the TCO get announced and the lame US excuses parade begins...

      Russia, Poland and China are better at programming contests, live with it. Really, it is sort of annoying to see Americans making up all sorts of excuses when the results are announced. During the ICPC one guy in slashdot was actually saying that as Russians and Chinese guys are obviously inherently corrupt, they probably stole the answers. Last year, a christian nationalist site said that Russia always wins because the Russian students practice and the US ones obviously don't... What's worse is that Americans assume they are the only country making software, and that they are full of greatly competent programmers that all happen to be busy during these contests.

      Guess what? Programmers in other countries are also very busy. There are also companies in other countries that hire their best programmers, and no, they wouldn't let them go with time off... US participation was not low, in fact it was one of the highest, as this is an American company hosted contest...

      At least you are not down the bottom in these things, US is probably 5th or something, there are hundreds of countries that do much worse, but at least they don't keep making up these lame excuses...

      --

      Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
    14. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by PeeShootr · · Score: 1

      Is it possible (or likely) that the governments of China and Russia subsidized the contestants from their respective countries?? I consider myself a pretty good coder. I work 60 hour weeks and do side development work as well. Do I have time to devote to something like this?? No. If my government said that they would pay my salaray for a month while I took part in this, I would surely do it.

    15. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by prjames · · Score: 0

      ...too busy fighting off hoards of Chinese, Russian and Eastern European hackers and their "products" perhaps.

    16. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by Seakip18 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Umm....These weren't excuses. They were questions. I think what you want is this "These contest are biased against Americans anyway. The other countries can simply out compete us cause they cheat..waaaaaah!" I'm not buying any excuses like that, I assure you. America by and far lost, plain and simple.

      Every year, as GSOC rolls around, Slashdot throws a few articles up. One of these is always about a week before the deadline, highlighting the main projects for the summer and reminding students to participate.

      Why would slashdot not bring up this or any other contest before the start?

      I believe another poster also pointed out the cash prize is $5k. While nothing to sneeze at here in the US, that maybe an entire year's salary to some of the participants. Lot more motivation for them to compete and even less for the top talent here.

      I'm not saying the US has some divine right to win and no where in there did I say the US should. I'm simply questioning whether there was any effort to drum up any American programmers. It appears not, so the US got what the US deserved. A piss poor showing and a slashdot article questioning why the US did so poorly.

      --
      import system.cool.Sig;
    17. Re:Or is it due to time and money? by ThePlague · · Score: 0

      Well, the "talented programmer who isn't working for us" list probably isn't a good one to be on.

  5. We do the same thing with athletics here that they by overshoot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Which reminds me -- how is the USA doing in the World Cup?

    --
    Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
  6. Other factors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Our good programmers are gainfully employed.

  7. whatever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I don't have time for those things. I'm too busy. Working. As a programmer.

  8. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I assume they mean sports we give a crap about.

  9. Hah by EkriirkE · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I'm not surprised about India.
    Of the people I've dealt with over there when I was being replaced by them, they were very incompetent. They didn't even understand basic principals of computers and/or programming. Their primary titles were as developers/coders, so good luck to the idiots who sought to save a penny.

    --
    from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
    1. Re:Hah by N1AK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Given that your willing to write off the population of an entire country on your limited anecdotal evidence, I have to wonder whether the people outsourcing the role knew they'd get incompetents, but at least the new incompetents would be cheaper.

    2. Re:Hah by EkriirkE · · Score: 1

      I'm assuming "the best" applied for the contest.

      --
      from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
      to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
    3. Re:Hah by Seriousity · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hah, I recall phoning Hewlett Packard's tech support line some years ago... After tediously explaining my problem to the indian bloke on the other end, he said "I'm sorry, I do not know very much about computers"

      Apparently, HP's buzzword for outsourcing is 'innovation'.

      --
      This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
    4. Re:Hah by EkriirkE · · Score: 1

      How dare you ask something off-script!

      --
      from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
      to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
    5. Re:Hah by oldspewey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Several of the Indians I work with are among the most talented, knowledgeable architects I've ever met.

      What's your point?

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
    6. Re:Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And apparently you've not worked with anyone educated by India's "educational" system.

      I know some very smart India born programmers, engineers, etc. The biggest difference, they moved to the good 'ol U.S. of A or England and got a real education.

      Those who have stuck around in India;
      1) do not know how to say 'no', so they can always do what you're asking of them and they've done it before (even if they haven't) and
      2) aren't very good at what they do, except taking your money and doing shoddy work.

      While I'm not willing to write off an entire population, I am willing to write off an entire country.

    7. Re:Hah by hansraj · · Score: 1

      Ignoring your bitterness about losing your job to an Indian, I believe the-indian-mindset is at least partly responsible for very good Indian programmers not being in the contest.

      India has very recently seen an economic boom and with a huge populations things have been pretty tough till quite recently. Something as basic as getting a job (any job) used to be a lot tougher and a large chunk of Indians grow up focusing on *making a career*. Now why would that result in a lack of good programmers competing here? I believe that quite a few good brains get pushed into climbing the social and economic ladder - I mean why try to prepare for a job that will only fetch you 50000 Rupees a month in the best case if you can aim for much more?

      You just don't have a culture of taking a break and doing something just for the fun of it. Sure many people end up doing the things that they enjoy (I do research and quite enjoy it) but if there is a risk that your "hobby" might not result in a successful career, you change your track early on!

      I suppose things will change as more and more Indians get rich and assuming Indians are as capable as any other group of humans (a reasonable assumption, wouldn't you say?) you should see a lot more guru-coders from India in future just due to the fact that there are a *lot* of Indians (China had it's own economic boom quite before India and you see that reflected here already).

      By the way, it might not be any consolation to you but I think the reason you were replaced with inferior programmers was because the better ones probably are heading up higher than "programmer"; the Indian psyche is fiercely ambitious and competitive.

    8. Re:Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it never ceases to amaze me how incompetent gringos are writing their own language.

      you do know that principal and principle are two different words with two completely different meanings, right?

      maybe you should try reading a book some day.

    9. Re:Hah by Facegarden · · Score: 1

      Given that your willing to write off the population of an entire country on your limited anecdotal evidence, I have to wonder whether the people outsourcing the role knew they'd get incompetents, but at least the new incompetents would be cheaper.

      Hey, how do you know his evidence is limited and anecdotal?

      Maybe he knows everyone in India and just isn't very impressed with them!

      -Taylor

      --
      Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
    10. Re:Hah by aralin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You might be onto something here. My typical experience with Indian programmers is that I just cannot make them to take up any project outside of work no matter how much I suggest it would be a good idea and for most of them 100% of their experience comes from past work projects. Extracurricular activities seem to not be very popular in India from my experience. On the other hand, if I talk with my Easter European friends, more than 50% of their experience will come from projects done outside of work. So they would be more likely to replace some of that extracurricular activity with participation in a contest like this. I cannot say about the Chinese, never had much experience with them though.

      --
      If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
    11. Re:Hah by Leafheart · · Score: 1

      What's your point?

      Bitterness

      --
      --- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
    12. Re:Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And apparently you've not worked with anyone educated by India's "educational" system.

      I know some very smart India born programmers, engineers, etc. The biggest difference, they moved to the good 'ol U.S. of A or England and got a real education.

      Those who have stuck around in India;
      1) do not know how to say 'no', so they can always do what you're asking of them and they've done it before (even if they haven't) and
      2) aren't very good at what they do, except taking your money and doing shoddy work.

      While I'm not willing to write off an entire population, I am willing to write off an entire country.

      Being unable to say "No" is a cultural difference. In many non-Western cultures, saying "No" is equated with loosing face. Unfortunately, when one is working with engineering, saying "No" can easily be just as important as saying "Yes".

      The correlations between culture's which adopted a Hellenistic mindset and said culture's overall level of advancement are not statistical anomalies to be disregarded at your leisure (I'm looking at you, postmodernism; see {1}, {2}, and {3} for reference).

    13. Re:Hah by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      My experience was that they were extremely good in 2001-2002 and have declined steadily since then.

      I think the good ones must have either left the big indian contracting houses or been promoted.

      The new guys say they can do anything and then fail to deliver.

      The code they do deliver usually works- but would be hard to maintain and doesn't follow existing standards.

      They used to be a lot better- so I assume demand outstripped supply. Or perhaps the really good ones are being billed out elsewhere at a higher rate.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    14. Re:Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how the hell is this modded insightful?

    15. Re:Hah by TwoToeWilly · · Score: 1

      "You don't have to be rich, just smart."

    16. Re:Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given that your willing to write off the population of an entire country on your limited anecdotal evidence,

      Grammer fail! Everything you say is discredited!

    17. Re:Hah by AceofSpades19 · · Score: 1

      I have to agree with the grandparent, most programmers from India I have met are, to say the least, not the best. I'm sure there are some awesome programmers from India, but the majority are usually worse then the average coder from North America, in my experience

    18. Re:Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      graduated from????

    19. Re:Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I call BS on several parts of your reply:

      I mean why try to prepare for a job that will only fetch you 50000 Rupees a month in the best case if you can aim for much more?

      So you claim that only 50,000 rupees a month is a small amount? That translates to 6 lakhs a year - for one thing, that is much more than 90 percent of the population make. And it is in no way the maximum salary. As a graduate of one of the top colleges in India, I know that the best tech salaries went to programming jobs - electronics/hardware design was less (on average). Management/financial positions do pay higher, but the courses/institutions for getting an MBA are considered graduate school programs back in India.

      You just don't have a culture of taking a break and doing something just for the fun of it. Sure many people end up doing the things that they enjoy (I do research and quite enjoy it) but if there is a risk that your "hobby" might not result in a successful career, you change your track early on!

      Again, my experience has been different. I've seen lots of people (myself included) who could have become programmers/studied computer science - we chose not to, even though we knew that when we graduate their pay would be much higher than ours. There are many people who took mechanical, civil or electrical engineering by choice - unfortunately, at least 70 percent of the graduates in those fields wound up working for software/software related companies (Microsoft - 10 lakhs, Google - 13 lakhs, Cisco - 7 lakhs etc) because that is where the better pay is and more openings are. There aren't really weren't many good positions for electrical engineers with just an undergraduate degree - you'd wind up doing testing or validation unless you are exceptionally good. Or you go to graduate school (which I and many of my mathematically inclined non-programming friends) did.

      In fact, the fields where it is tough to find Indians are fundamental sciences (surprised?) - mathematics, physics, chemistry etc. And these can be easily considered to be the most challenging fields. In fact, look at the number of Indians who come to graduate school in the US - a staggering majority are in engineering and computer science.

      So no, it isn't that programming is considered inferior - in fact, if you are a graduate of a tier 1 (IITs, NITs) undergraduate college, which is where the brightest land up, computer science is a very attractive proposition. However, even the lowest rung college likes to churn out programmers partly because it boosts their employment statistics. So you get a very small percentage of smart programmers, but programming is not considered inferior.

    20. Re:Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm assuming "the best" applied for the contest.

      Judging by the number of participants, given the open nature - no age barrier, professionals/students etc - I am surprised at the low turnout. 800-odd tops?? I guess the prizes weren't too much of an incentive.

    21. Re:Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And where did they get their college degree?

    22. Re:Hah by anarche · · Score: 1

      Yes and in cultures that adopted a Hellenistic mindset, we learnt vey quickly that wikipedia is a terrible source of authenticated information.

      --
      Wait! Whats a sig?
  10. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by jgtg32a · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's that?

  11. The next war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    'We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there.'

    So long as the next war is fought with rubber balls on a carefully leveled surface, the US will do fine.

    1. Re:The next war by CorporateSuit · · Score: 1

      We challenge China...



      To Space Jam

      --
      I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
  12. US Educational System by mordors9 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who knew that teaching kids that 1+1 can equal 3 as long as they feel good about themselves would turn out bad for us...

    1. Re:US Educational System by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do you mean, 1+1 does equal 3 for large values of 1.

    2. Re:US Educational System by EkriirkE · · Score: 1

      Red ink and being told you're wrong are very traumatizing events in a child's life.
      Will someone PLEASE just think of the children!

      --
      from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
      to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
    3. Re:US Educational System by JCSoRocks · · Score: 1

      OMG, please, no, don't remind me. I remember someone told me I was wrong once. It was dreadful. We should outlaw that sort of hate speech in America before it gets out of hand.

      --
      You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
    4. Re:US Educational System by iluvcapra · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Who knew that teaching kids that 1+1 can equal 3 as long as they feel good about themselves would turn out bad for us...

      Or that two billion years is only about 5000 God-years, and that "fact" is really a question of whose parents have a bigger voting block on the school board. And that canceling the band program in order to pay for the football stadium is really quite reasonable if you think about it.

      Sputnik all over again...

      PS. I know it's funny to crack about the whole self-esteem thing, but (1) I didn't pass thru the school system yesterday, but through the 90s I never knew anyone in school get an attaboy for getting a factual point wrong, wether it was English Lit or Calculus; and (2) there's nothing more useless than an engineer who never offers ideas because he always thinks he's wrong. People gotta have a minimal sense of entitlement otherwise they're sheep. I would hope the US produces engineers who are smart enough to do anything Chinese engineers can, and have enough independence and sense of their own rights to not just do what their "authorities" tell them unquestioningly, which is an unpleasant side-effect of certain kinds of top-down pedagogy.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    5. Re:US Educational System by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      It's a trade off.

      a) Happy and ignorant but alive.

      b) Happy and educated if you make the cut, otherwise unhappy but dead. (a lot of indians and japanese commit suicide each year ).

      I think the days of America getting away with Happy and Ignorant but Alive are coming to an end.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    6. Re:US Educational System by hedwards · · Score: 3, Funny

      Spoken as somebody who has clearly never worked in education.

      Classroom related anxieties are a genuine problem and this sort of blame the victim ideology has no place in schools. Trivializing this sort of thing just makes it more difficult on the students and teachers and unnecessarily drains talent which could otherwise be out looking for the cure to cancer or fixing other pressing concerns.

    7. Re:US Educational System by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can easily define a set and a homomorphism where 1+1=3

    8. Re:US Educational System by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you're serious: You're right, we should never tell children when they're wrong. That would never create preening, self-entitled idiots that never learned any actual hard facts and have no idea how to cope with a real world that doesn't care how "traumatic" being told "you're wrong" is.

      If you're joking: God, don't scare me like that!

    9. Re:US Educational System by Omestes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Your trolling, right?

      Please tell me your trolling.

      I'm dating a person working on their major in education (its free, and mostly for giggles),who has to interact with actual k-12 teachers. Reading some of the pop-psych drivel that teachers cough up, I sadly wouldn't doubt it you were serious.

      Primary and secondary educations exists to make kids LEARN, not to make them feel good about themselves. When it comes to schooling, I actually don't care how they feel about it, as long as they leave being able to read at a 12th grade level, and know at least some math. Actually, I would like it if they knew something about history as well. If they leave feeling good about themselves, that is great, IF (and only if) they earned it through achievement.

      People who do mediocre work should feel mediocre about it. Feeling bad about it forces them to do something about it. Telling them that being a moron is fine, isn't making them want to stop being a moron. Kids should be under some pressure to... you know... better themselves.

      As for self-esteem... its a load of new-age crap. Self respect, like all other forms of respect, must be earned. Being proud of yourself for nothing but existing is rather stupid, it motivates nothing but egotism and some idiotic sense of entitlement. Being proud of yourself for doing something, that gives incentive to continue to achieve.

      Also, no, they are not innately special. No one is. You are nothing but part of the faceless masses that will be completely forgotten within one generation of your death, this is the definition of not being special. Just because you like yourself, doesn't change this. If you feel good about this, there is something wrong. You only become special when you DO something that the vast majority of anonymous strangers in the world can't do. You don't get to the point where this is possible by sitting on your ass, staring into a mirror, and chanting a mantra about how awesome you are just because you are you.

      A quick question; should I be proud of myself for sitting at my desk eating cheetos? Or should I be proud of myself for getting off my ass and doing something interesting? Children are no different.

      Really, we need more hard-ass eduction. We should just flunk everyone who can't actually read at their grade level, or perform basic mathematical operations, no questions asked. Continue to flunk them until they pass, turn twenty-one, or realize they should just get their GED and do something that befits their temperament.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    10. Re:US Educational System by bogjobber · · Score: 1

      Primary and secondary educations exists to make kids LEARN, not to make them feel good about themselves. When it comes to schooling, I actually don't care how they feel about it, as long as they leave being able to read at a 12th grade level, and know at least some math.

      If only it were that simple. Yes, schools should exist primarily to pass on knowledge, but obviously there is more to it than that. Schools are also around to give children confidence, physical fitness, social skills, discipline, etc. If a seventh grade kid is bad at math, it might be for 1,000 reasons, and usually *never* that they are just too stupid to do the work.

      People who do mediocre work should feel mediocre about it. Feeling bad about it forces them to do something about it...

      As for self-esteem... its a load of new-age crap. Self respect, like all other forms of respect, must be earned. Being proud of yourself for nothing but existing is rather stupid, it motivates nothing but egotism and some idiotic sense of entitlement. Being proud of yourself for doing something, that gives incentive to continue to achieve.

      You have obviously never tried to teach a smart child who lacks confidence in their ability because they've never been encouraged. Apparently, you have never known anyone who has withdrawn from school and social life because they were having trouble at home. You seem to have no understanding about how developmental psychology or education actually work. For some reason, you seem to think that our schools should teach average students to feel terrible about themselves because they are average, as if that would somehow motivate them to learn more.

      These are children! They barely understand anything! What kind of person tells a twelve year old kid, "Well, Jimmy, the reason you feel bad is because you just aren't as successful as Mary and Tommy over there. You see, Mary and Tommy are good at math. I bet if you tried as hard as Mary and Tommy, you would feel a whole lot better. Maybe if you got better grades, daddy would respect you more, and wouldn't have gotten drunk and beat the shit out of you." You, sir, are a fucking asshole.

    11. Re:US Educational System by Omestes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      t. Schools are also around to give children confidence, physical fitness, social skills, discipline, etc.

      I can see how some of these are important for schools. But we should still never sacrifice pure learning for any of them. Actually, the only one that has an overt place in schools is phys-ed. The rest of them should arise naturally from a learning environment. Confidence is covered the second a kid does an "impossible" problem, or reasons out a consequence on their own. Social skills arise from being stuck in a class room full of children trying to fit in and rise to the top of the social heap. Discipline is, and has, always been integral to ALL hard tasks. You can't tell me that those kids in the 1800's before modern "social education" didn't have it. You teach discipline by being a hard-ass, "you do it until you get it right, if you don't do it bad things happen".

      You have obviously never tried to teach a smart child who lacks confidence in their ability because they've never been encouraged.

      Not as a profession, though I've had to deal with them, and was one. You lead a child to confidence, you don't teach it. As stated, it comes from that first moment you make them find water on their own (as opposed to leading them to it). I was diagnosed as a "troubled" child as a kid, because of this 90% of my teachers decided they had to hold my hand, and thus I learned nothing, even if I was smart. Then I had a teacher that made me read a ton of books, synthesize the knowledge into a coherent plan (not contained in any of the books), and then design an application for it. It was hard, it was challenging, but I did it. I got an A, and a nice "atta boy!" from my teacher, after that my confidence issues were solved. Again, this is anecdotal, so... But the premise remains, self confidence is earned, all a teacher can do is make a child realize that they deserve it. For characteristics beyond the droll "you exist, and are special!" crap.

      The secret to confidence is forcing kids to be surprised with their own abilities, not preaching it at them.

      Apparently, you have never known anyone who has withdrawn from school and social life because they were having trouble at home.

      This does happen, I agree. But this is not the majority of cases, nor enough of the population to force changes on general curriculum. Smart teachers can pick these kids out, and give them special attention, or call social services if it is bad enough.

      This highlights a major problem with the system; aiming for the lowest common denominator. We can help the kids with real problems, AND help the best and brightest excel and become something special. We don't have to drag everyone down to the most level of the most wretched example.

      You seem to have no understanding about how developmental psychology or education actually work

      Have some understanding, did an undergrad in psychology. Granted my emphasis was pure research, but I did get stuck with some developmental classes (not claiming I'm an expert, just not unfamiliar). Developmental psych is probably one of the weakest areas in psych at the moment, though.

      For some reason, you seem to think that our schools should teach average students to feel terrible about themselves because they are average, as if that would somehow motivate them to learn more.

      Never said that. Well, if average kids can't read at their grade level, and don't know math at a comparable, then well yes, they should be judged by their higher level peers, and should feel that they can do better. I accept average as the high C to low A level of grades, and this is fine, though there should still be at least some pressure to do better. A percentage of average kids are capable of more, given proper goading.

      We should try to make every kid rise to the maximum of their ability. We also, must accept that this level varies.

      If you are truly an average student you shouldn't be made to feel bad about it, but y

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    12. Re:US Educational System by bogjobber · · Score: 1

      "For some reason, you seem to think that our schools should teach average students to feel terrible about themselves because they are average, as if that would somehow motivate them to learn more."

      Never said that

      Actually, you did:

      People who do mediocre work should feel mediocre about it. Feeling bad about it forces them to do something about it.

      And another one:

      Also, no, they are not innately special. No one is. You are nothing but part of the faceless masses that will be completely forgotten within one generation of your death, this is the definition of not being special. Just because you like yourself, doesn't change this. If you feel good about this, there is something wrong. You only become special when you DO something that the vast majority of anonymous strangers in the world can't do.(emphasis mine of course)

      What is wrong with being an average, ordinary person? Do you really think it's a good education plan to tell 90% (or 99.99999% by the tone of your second statement) that they are completely worthless and can only become happy if they accomplish some great deed worthy of history books? What have you done that's so great? Why do you feel this elitism when you will be just as faceless and unnoticed as pretty much every other person in the history of humanity?

    13. Re:US Educational System by hedwards · · Score: 1

      I've spent years cleaning up after incompetent teaching. So yes, I'm dead serious. The kind of methodology that you're putting forward is probably the greatest threat to the students outside of a toxic home environment.

      I have to say that I'm deeply disturbed at how far this blame the victim bull shit has gone. The main source of problems here is that we're expecting kids to learn without any instruction really at all.

      If we were providing instruction and it were genuinely a matter of sloth or incompetence that would be different, although even then the sort of tactics you're suggesting would be dangerous and incompetent.

      To sort of cap it off, I've lived in the educational community for most of my life, and have worked for a few years cleaning up the sort of mess that your SO is going to be involved in causing.

      Ultimately it comes down to results and what you're proposing just doesn't work in that formula.

    14. Re:US Educational System by Bat+Country · · Score: 1

      What's wrong with being an average, ordinary person? Assholes like you have lowered that average to below what were the developmentally disabled students when I was in school.

      I've seen the students at the freshman level at universities that your "education" is producing and I have this to say: do the human race a favor and stop trying to be a teacher. These students are lazy, have an enormous sense of self-entitlement, can't write a simple paper (using the same low criteria which freshmen have been held to for decades) and when they get pisspoor grades, complain that they're "really used to getting better grades" (yes, someone actually said that) and don't seem to care or understand when you tell them that to get better grades, they have to show some sign of having improved in the 4 months you've been making them write and giving them constructive criticism and instruction.

      They then write snotty reviews in their teaching evaluations, call the teacher a horrible person on the various "rate your professor" sites, and continue performing below mediocre for the remainder of their C-college-student career until they sink to the bottom of the barrel in some LCD major.

      Just to let you know, I'm not a college instructor, but I've done plenty of grading in a variety of subjects, and I've got to say, your teaching method doesn't work. These kids don't deserve self esteem - they're extremely intellectually lazy regardless of their potential (IQ, SAT scores, creativity, whatever metric you choose to weigh it by) - and we've got a word for that outside of education: stupid.

      No Child Left Behind? Fuck that, some children NEED to be left behind to get the message that they might actually have to TRY to accomplish something once in a while. They certainly aren't going to get the message if you keep telling them it's OK to be average, all the while watching the average slide below international levels.

      --
      The land shall stone them with the bread of his son.
    15. Re:US Educational System by EkriirkE · · Score: 1

      Add to your sig "than and then"

      --
      from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
      to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
    16. Re:US Educational System by bogjobber · · Score: 1

      What's wrong with being an average, ordinary person? Assholes like you have lowered that average to below what were the developmentally disabled students when I was in school.

      Mmmm.....hyperbole much? I'm glad you seem to think I have control over the education system in the US, and that somehow I represent some abstract concept of everything wrong with modern education. Not only that, but you completely changed the conversation. Your entire post is about college students and we were *very specifically* talking about primary and secondary schools.

      But let's return to the conversation that was happening outside your head. I wasn't defending the culture of "no judgement," social progression, NCLB or anything of the sort. I was simply critiquing the parent poster for trying to say that children should be shamed into trying harder, and the idea that you should be unhappy if you are not in the top whatever percentage of your class. That is a terrible idea, and completely removed from anything resembling proper child psychology and education. That is *not* how you motivate children, and anybody with even a cursory understanding of the subject knows that.

      Just to let you know, I'm not a college instructor, but I've done plenty of grading in a variety of subjects, and I've got to say, your teaching method doesn't work.

      So, just to clarify, you graded some papers and are now an expert on teaching, even though you admit that you are not a teacher? Here I thought that required training and practice, but apparently all you have to do is TA a freshmen level writing class for a semester and you move straight from novice to expert.

      Why do intelligent people think they are an expert on everything, even when they admit upfront that they have no experience with the subject? I certainly understand having some half-baked ideas and uncertain opinions on something, but coming out with such forceful language, calling me an asshole, when you so obviously have no idea what the fuck you are talking about? You need to learn a few lessons about humility and the limits of your own knowledge (reading comprehension, logic, and rhetoric as well, but I digress). Throwing around insults and writing like spittle is flying out of the corner of you mouth in no way improves the (poor) quality of your argument.

      do the human race a favor and stop trying to be a teacher.

      Truer words were never spoken. Fuck off, you ignorant cunt.

    17. Re:US Educational System by JCSoRocks · · Score: 1

      I wish we had more signature space. I'd also like to add "its and it's" but there's no room.

      --
      You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
    18. Re:US Educational System by Omestes · · Score: 1

      Actually, you did:

      You can be a genius and still do mediocre work. You can judge this both by individual ability, and by a group aggregate. You can be completely average in ability, and do below average work. You shouldn't feel good about that. No matter how smart you are, you can do badly. You shouldn't be proud of being intelligent, you should be proud of APPLYING it.

      What is wrong with being an average, ordinary person? Do you really think it's a good education plan to tell 90% (or 99.99999% by the tone of your second statement) that they are completely worthless and can only become happy if they accomplish some great deed worthy of history books?

      Actually, it would be the bottom 50% that I would goad. People can be average, but they shouldn't feel special about it, they should WANT to be better. Sure, we shouldn't drive them to suicide, but we should have some pressure for them to be better. A significant portion of these "average" kids have the potential to be more than average.

      By my second statement I was overstating the fact that no one is special. So telling everyone that they are is a lie, and a lie that can have adverse consequences. There is NOTHING good about being average. To tell children otherwise is nothing but encouraging complacence.

      To person below me has a point too, our idea of average is much lower than it used to be. Hell, in my state (Arizona) our idea of average is so low that it precludes the ability to get out of high school reading above a 5th grade level. Yes, these kids should be shamed... I mean, they can't even READ, if you feel good about that (or think they should) there is something terribly wrong with the system.

      I guess part of the problem is that I really don't give a crap about individuals feeling good about themselves, I care more about having to live with them.

      What have you done that's so great? Why do you feel this elitism when you will be just as faceless and unnoticed as pretty much every other person in the history of humanity?

      I haven't done a damn thing that makes me special, neither have you, neither probably has anyone either of us knows. This is fine.

      What elitism? I never claimed I was special. Though it is ironic they we should make everyone feel special, but I shouldn't. I'm a man with an opinion, your also a person with one. We're just debating the merits of our opinions. No where is elitism implied here.

      I just never understood why people should feel good about merely existing. It's like "white pride" (or other racist ideals), what the hell is there to be proud of? I didn't have a hand in being Caucasian, so its rather nonsensical. You can only be proud of deeds, not passive phenomena that you have no control over. Same thing with being special, unless your some form of mutation, or you've actually done something, your not special.

      I also HATE people with a sense of entitlement for no reason. This type of person is what our education system has decided to put value on, and churn out.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    19. Re:US Educational System by Omestes · · Score: 1

      So our system churning out happy idiots with stellar "self esteem" is how things should work? Because that's all it does.

      The main source of problems here is that we're expecting kids to learn without any instruction really at all.

      This obviously is a problem too. My whole rant takes for granted that kids are actually being educated. If they aren't, then the whole thing is a rather mute point, since we don't even have an educational system.

      I'd put some of the blame in the fact that we're teaching a lot of this "self esteem" crap INSTEAD of actually teaching them the stuff that counts, like how to read. We lack focus.

      Actually, part of my argument was that these feelings of self worth would naturally arise from actual academic achievement (as they used to), and thus focusing on them is nothing but a distraction for the only thing that really matters; learning.

      Yes, I am prone to hyperbole.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
  13. Science Backgrounds by Niris · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Reminds me of an episode of Sliders where they treated the people who are good at math/science like athletic gods.

    Anywho, I was just at a university graduation a couple weeks ago, and I swear there were about 150 graduates for Social Services and Psychology, and seven engineers/computer scientists/math majors graduating. Of course we're going to get our asses handed to us when we just aren't pushing those sort of programs here in the States.

    1. Re:Science Backgrounds by Sinbios · · Score: 1

      What university do you go to that has engineering, CS, and math departments which produce a total of seven graduates a year?

      --
      Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
    2. Re:Science Backgrounds by Niris · · Score: 1

      It was a masters graduation for Fresno State University in California

  14. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by NickyGotz22 · · Score: 1

    Is this World Cup half full or half empty? And why does it say made in China on the bottom?

    --
    Test me and I will chronicle your pain - The Archivist (Diablo 3)
  15. athletes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i thought it should read:

    'We do the same thing with MacDonalds here that they do with mathematics and science there.'

  16. the lesson: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Turn your back on learning and embrace anti-intellectualism? Enjoy falling behind.

    Unfortunately America is getting screwed from both sides... the Republicans actively oppose education that isn't Jesus-centered, while the Democrats and their "Oh, everyone's a winner" crap make what education we do have a joke and create a disgusting sense of entitlement. I figure once China launches a manned moon mission it'll probably be the kick in the ass America needs to get back in gear, same as when the USSR launched Sputnik. Right now America's stalled but there's still time to reignite the engines.

    Most nations don't have long once they stagnate, but America's got a hell of a lot of inertia behind it... I hope we don't throw the chance away.

    1. Re:the lesson: by sznupi · · Score: 1

      In that light it would actually be worth it for China to stall its landing as long as its practical...

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    2. Re:the lesson: by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      America is getting screwed from both sides... the Republicans actively oppose education that isn't Jesus-centered, while the Democrats and their "Oh, everyone's a winner" crap

      Combine both: give every student an "A" in Intelligent Design.

      same as when the USSR launched Sputnik.

      USSR was able to launch such before we were because they *needed* big rockets because their missiles were so inaccurate that they launched bigger nukes to compensate, meaning their rockets were beefy enough to reach space. Same reason they hold the record for the biggest test nuke ever set off. Thus, Sputnik was actually because their tech was *worse* than ours in electronics. The "real story" is not always what it seems.

    3. Re:the lesson: by Reservoir+Penguin · · Score: 1

      Well, for what it's worth I think the other explanation is more realistic. SU lacked the fleet of nuclear submarines and carriers and thus needed the long-range ballistic technology to ensure the delivery of it's a-bombs.

      --
      US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
    4. Re:the lesson: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I figure once China launches a manned moon mission it'll probably be the kick in the ass America needs to get back in gear, same as when the USSR launched Sputnik.

      why a moon mission? That's been done before.

      Why not something new like high energy physics? You know, learn something new that we didn't know before.

      The US scuttled their plans for the next high energy lab (SSC ) leaving Europe to take the lead with the LHC. I don't see that spurring any particular interest in the US. I suppose that is because high energy physics does not have the brand recognition of a mission to another planet.

      Perhaps something like new ways of producing energy would fit that bill. Where does that fall in the US public consciousness?

    5. Re:the lesson: by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Could be a combo of both.

  17. Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Err.. I mean,,, The Code!

  18. Oh really? by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there.

    Oh really? What fraction of A-rod's salary is the top coder in China being paid?

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
    1. Re:Oh really? by caluml · · Score: 1

      I, being English, had no idea who A-rod is, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. I'd always considered an athlete to refer to people that do the sports that are played at Athletics Championships - you know, track and field, javelin, high jump, that sort of thing.

      It seems that other people in the world have a different idea of that to me - who knew? :)

    2. Re:Oh really? by tychver · · Score: 1

      Probably less than one percent. A-Rod was on 20 million a year :|

    3. Re:Oh really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because you English don't speak proper English like we do here in America!

    4. Re:Oh really? by anarche · · Score: 1

      Damn, I'd put my bet on A-rod being Andy Roddick, an actual internationally reknowned US sport's star.

      --
      Wait! Whats a sig?
  19. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by Seriousity · · Score: 1

    I don't know, but they left a pile of crap on the world plate for everybody else to eat up.

    --
    This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
  20. Gentlemen, it's time by Red+Flayer · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's time for nerds to rise up yet again. Throughout modern history in the US, celebration of the nerd has resulted in unprecedented economic prosperity and global economic domination.

    From the idolization of Einstein, Feynman, and other physicists, arose the economic superpower that dominated much of the world in the 1950s and 60s.

    In the 80s, we were captivated by the message of Revenge of the Nerds, and on the shoulders of this movie we came to dominate the new era of Information.

    Ladies, gentlemen: Now is the time. Now is the time to rise up from our comfy chairs, to rise up from our futons, to rise up from the depths of our basements! We must rise up as one united voice of nerd-dom, and speak to the mouthbreathers who have ground us beneath their bootheels since time immemorial. We must tell them:

    ENOUGH! Take your stupid sports and shove them. Take your stupid pop music TV shows and shove them. Take your idolization of stupidity and sacrifice it on the altar of curiosity, the altar of edification, and the altar of neckbeards and cheetos!

    WE MUST DEFEAT THE...

    What's that mom? Yeah... OK... I'll be up for dinner as soon as I finish this level. Did you get some Mountain Dew?

    Sorry, gotta go AFK.

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    1. Re:Gentlemen, it's time by PoliticalGamer · · Score: 1

      I thought that was why we were all on slashdot to begin with.

    2. Re:Gentlemen, it's time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Einstein? Great bagels! But WTF does that have to do with science?

      Why yes, I did attend public school.

    3. Re:Gentlemen, it's time by Shooter28 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, and until that image of nerds/geeks is changed, we will continue to lag behind.

      It's not "cool" to be smart, and so each generation grows up caring more about popularity than tackling the hard subjects and learning something worthwhile.

      Far too many people cannot even function in society with the education they receive in high school, and we still give them diplomas.

    4. Re:Gentlemen, it's time by jdgeorge · · Score: 1

      Yes, and until that image of nerds/geeks is changed, we will continue to lag behind.

      It's not "cool" to be smart, and so each generation grows up caring more about popularity than tackling the hard subjects and learning something worthwhile.

      Mmmm... I don't think the perception of "coolness" has anything to do with it. I think we're simply getting what we pay for. If the incentives of our schools are primarily based on producing high-quality athletes, then we will continue to get great athletes. If the incentives for our schools were to produce high quality mathematicians, engineers, and scientists, then we would get great mathematicians, engineers, and scientists.

      What kind of compensation does a high school's football coach receive compared to the pay of it's academic teachers?
      How do scholarships compare for Athletic Merit vs. Academic Merit?

    5. Re:Gentlemen, it's time by bertoelcon · · Score: 1

      Whats interesting is in the high tech based society we have today, it really seems like nerds have the power just not any good use for it, and as such most do not go into a career into what they are really good at because of the negative undertones it has brought since we were kids.

      --
      Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
    6. Re:Gentlemen, it's time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What you said reminded me of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8VTmy5clHk

      See 3:35.

    7. Re:Gentlemen, it's time by Shooter28 · · Score: 1

      You really believe our school system focuses on high quality athletes? That goes against the growing trend of obesity in our country (America).

  21. Another thing by anonymousNR · · Score: 1

    for over simplifying idiots who would draw conclusions and make stereotypes out of anything.

    --
    -- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
  22. And it's not really true... by sznupi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IMHO it's not that we (yeah, I'm from so called "Eastern Europe") focus on mathematics and hard science, it's just that, from what I see, athletes/etc. are put on a smaller pedestal

    (perhaps partly because of economic considerations...celebrities here simply aren't worth that much as a product; means also that for larger percentage of "would-be celebrities" the only future is as a bouncer or whore, etc.)

    But they are still put on a pedestal...

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
    1. Re:And it's not really true... by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Dude... if Angelina Jolie's only decent future was as a whore... she would be a freaking rich one.

    2. Re:And it's not really true... by amilo100 · · Score: 1

      "Eastern Europe") focus on mathematics and hard science, it's just that, from what I see, athletes/etc. are put on a smaller pedestal

      Dude, I would happily put up Eastern European gymnasts on a pedestal.

    3. Re:And it's not really true... by BitHive · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      And Brad Pitt would be broke

  23. Question 1 by InsertWittyNameHere · · Score: 4, Funny

    Outline one method to gain access to NSA networks and provide code implementing the method. Bonus points for commented code.

    Begin.

  24. Athletics in America = ... by dave562 · · Score: 1

    ... steroids and "performance enhancing" supplements. So by that line of logic, mathematics education outside of America = ???

    Lots of meth and piracetium?

    1. Re:Athletics in America = ... by CorporateSuit · · Score: 2, Funny

      ... steroids and "performance enhancing" supplements. So by that line of logic, mathematics education outside of America = Lots of meth and piracetium?

      Caffeine and artificial cheese flavoring.

      --
      I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
  25. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by Seriousity · · Score: 1

    Who is this 'we' you speak of?

    --
    This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
  26. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by QuantumRiff · · Score: 1

    I didn't know we had a national sailboat racing team!

    --

    What are we going to do tonight Brain?
  27. India had no finalists? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's because they had to drop out after getting jobs in the call center where the US has outsourced the unemployment hotline.

  28. how of the people from china are gov backed? by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 0, Troll

    how of the people from china are gov backed? and are just doing it to say they beat the nsa?

  29. Putting it on equal footing? by nEoN+nOoDlE · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Saying 'We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there.' is trying to put it all on a somewhat equal footing - "well, they're good at math, but we're as good at sports as they are at math!" Given that the Olympics were just a few months ago, it seems they also do the same thing with athletics as we do with athletics, but they also treat math and science with that highly competitive regard as well. It's all about competition, and we just don't treat math and science as competitively as we treat sports. Just look at what happens when we do treat education competitively - we get spelling bees with 5th and 6th graders who can out-spell 99% of English speakers of any age.

    --
    Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
    1. Re:Putting it on equal footing? by Pandrake · · Score: 1

      It's all about competition

      Among the comments and concepts here, I find that precept to be the most damaging to education. Sports is clearly a competition and is given a higher (some would say artificial) value than, say, philosophy or fine art - both in the school and in society. In my own experience, I achieved greater understanding and had more inspiration (even in non-art venues like ditch digging) when I wasn't gunning for a prize, however all schooling and essentially all of society seems to be motivating people to greatness with the carrot on a stick or be punished by losing method. With whom was Einstein competing? How about the Curries, or Franklin? Maybe a "competition" sense can be assigned to people like Luther or Gutenberg, but I'm still dubious that beating out the Catholics or the Monks was really their motivation for invention and making advances in their fields. Why is it only that commercial values are judged as valuable?

  30. Difference between good coding and development by Twillerror · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I often find that the applications coming from China and India to be poor. They are often ugly and hard to use.

    I think we need to differentiate between being able to write an Algorithm and being able to produce something like ITunes.

    Part of this is actually having talented designers and people who can come up with good specifications and use cases and everything else that goes into it.

    These code tests rarely talk about coming up with a good application architecture or good design. Sure we need people writing device drivers, but we also need the higher level tasks done as well. I don't think they are represented well.

    I often try the Google code challenge only to feel bored. I guess I don't really like solving "shortest path" type problems. I'm more about creating a data model, interface, and ultimately a tool with a good user expeirence. Something that solves a day to day task.

    Maybe we should have application challenges where we say "write the easiest to use calculator" :)

    1. Re:Difference between good coding and development by semiotec · · Score: 1

      of course that's the case!

      I feel so much better now. Do you feel better? Let's all feel good!

      Who cares if we need quad-core CPU with 16 Gb just to watch movie, just give me a big shiny button to click on! Yeah, I just want one button, I don't care if all those stupid choices and selection and boxes to click. JUST ONE BIG BUTTON!

      oohh... pretty button... don't you think it's so pretty? It makes me feel happy!

    2. Re:Difference between good coding and development by Leafheart · · Score: 1

      I think we need to differentiate between being able to write an Algorithm and being able to produce something like ITunes.

      You really think the code for iTunes is good? I seriously doubt it. Their design is clean and beautiful as for the code we cannot know. And really it doesn't matter how pretty it is. It most work, and work well for what it has to do (security, performance, etc)

      --
      --- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
    3. Re:Difference between good coding and development by n30na · · Score: 1

      Isn't that what an interface design competition is for? They're different things.

      The NSA's job isnt to make pretty looking software, its security.

    4. Re:Difference between good coding and development by JMZero · · Score: 1

      Maybe we should have application challenges where we say "write the easiest to use calculator" :)

      There is. TopCoder holds contests for application design, development, architecture, specification, and graphic design. These contests are used to develop real applications (rather than just for contest sake, like the algorithm competitions) so they actually pay reasonably well too.

      --
      Let's not stir that bag of worms...
    5. Re:Difference between good coding and development by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Top coder also have design contests, Chinese are also winning that.

    6. Re:Difference between good coding and development by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't even think iTunes design is good. Perhaps it's better on the Mac, but on Windows it's a pretty god awful application. The interface is inconsistent for the OS, it's hard to tell what it's actually doing sometimes (the status window at the top doesn't always tell you what it's doing correctly) and it's not exactly the greatest all time application for managing media. As you say even at the back end it doesn't necessarily seem very good - using that bonjour DNS service when Windows already has perfectly good DNS services built in for example? In fact, Bonjour was the source of vulnerabilities which didn't need to exist on Windows in the first place if Apple had any clue about writing cross-platform applications in a decent manner:

      http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2990

      There are far better examples of good application interfaces and applications in general, if anything, I'd hold iTunes as a bad example of an application. Safari for Windows was even worse. Apple make great hardware, they have a nice OS, some Mac OS specific apps are nice, but anything outside of that and they're pretty incompetent.

    7. Re:Difference between good coding and development by simaolation · · Score: 1

      What you are saying is inherently racist. I read an article on Yahoo a few months back along similar lines: "them asians are too good at math and number crunching, but don't worry, us Americans are still inherently superior because while they produce better grunt engineers, we produce entrepreneurs and artists like Madonna and Michael Jackson! We need to be focused on creativity rather than brute force and logic so we can make the big bucks while China gets stuck with the boring mediocre-paid, long-houred engineering jobs!" The quote is paraphrased but that was roughly what the article was saying. This argument is racist on so many levels..and pathetic too. Implying that somehow caucasians, and even more specifically, white Americans (since eastern european are also good at math and programming and they're technically white too), are somehow inherently more creatively than the rest of the world is completely nonsense. Your whole "device driver" vs "itune" analogy precisely shows my point; you do realize that Google's success is based on its innovative page ranking algorithm right? The minimalist interface is secondary....else Microsoft could search their whole search-engine dilemma real easily...cut off all javascript and images except for the search engine. Microsoft's problem isn't with interface, it's the fact that its search engines are shit and gives random marketing product links.

  31. This happens in Toronto too by selven · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At one of the major youth mathematics competitions, Tournament of Towns, the award ceremony is 80% Chinese, 80% of the non-Chinese are Russian, and 80% of the remainder are Indian. It seems like a general pattern around here - look at any math competition top score list and you see Chinese names at the top.

    1. Re:This happens in Toronto too by gardyloo · · Score: 1

      For that 80% to be strictly true, one would have to have at least 125 finalists. This is because f*(8/10)^3 = n must have f (the total number of finalists) return an integer number (n) of Indian award-winners. Technically, if there are non-Indian award-winners, then (2/10)*n must also be an integer, leading to the first number of finalists which satisfies the criteria as being 625.

          No, I'm not Chinese, Russian, or Indian. At least not *technically*. :)

    2. Re:This happens in Toronto too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The award ceremony is 80% Chinese, 80% of the non-Chinese are Russian, and 80% of the remainder are Indian.

      I see what you did there...

    3. Re:This happens in Toronto too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At one of the major youth mathematics competitions, Tournament of Towns, the award ceremony is 80% Chinese, 80% of the non-Chinese are Russian, and 80% of the remainder are Indian. It seems like a general pattern around here - look at any math competition top score list and you see Chinese names at the top.

      Indians win spelling contests (hard memorization), they do not win math contests (at IMO level).

    4. Re:This happens in Toronto too by daveime · · Score: 1

      Nope, 125 finalists still works, but heck, you probably come from US which merely emphasises the irony.

      Finalists = 125
      80% of the finalists are Chinese = 100 Chinese
      80% of the non-Chinese (25) are Russian = 20 Russian
      80% of the remainder (5) are Indian = 4 Indians
      There is still 1 finalist unaccouted for, and that is your non-Indian.

    5. Re:This happens in Toronto too by selven · · Score: 1

      You are correct, there were about 125 finalists. More like 250, actually.

  32. Alternative hypothesis by TheSync · · Score: 0

    The best American coders were busy working and making money, while Russian and Chinese coders had nothing better to do and were looking for better paying work due to the limits of economic freedom in both countries.

    (Russia's economic freedom score is 50.8, China's is 53.2, US is 80.7).

    1. Re:Alternative hypothesis by n30na · · Score: 2

      Economic freedom based on what? Not questioning your logic, just wondering where those numbers are coming from.

    2. Re:Alternative hypothesis by evil_aar0n · · Score: 2

      Certainly plausible. There's also the "give a shit" factor. As in, "Do I give a shit about this that I'd bother to enter?" What's the payback for this? If it isn't immediate, towering fame, I can see a lot of talented might give contests like this a pass.

      It also doesn't reflect on the _quality_ of the winning entries. Yeah, maybe X number of Chinese won, but was their work that good compared to standard practice, or some other objective criteria? It's like they say: Even if you take first in Special Olympics, you're still a retard. (Apologies to all actual mentally handicapped folks and their supporters; I had more than one brother who was, in fact, retarded, and they were the coolest guys I knew.)

      --
      Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
    3. Re:Alternative hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree, though I think it's not just about pay, at least not directly.

      The vast majority of big-name programming projects are based in the US (even if they are executed elsewhere). This puts non-US residents at a huge disadvantage -- the greater the cultural difference between an applicant and hiring manager, the more outstanding the applicant needs to be to get the job. And winning programming contests is a great way to put some relevant-to-US-culture lines into your resume. Otherwise it's just full of schools and employers that the manager can't pronounce, let alone identify, and you've got no chance of getting hired.

    4. Re:Alternative hypothesis by TheSync · · Score: 1
  33. Next contest ... by ozbird · · Score: 2

    ... fix Slashdot's stylesheets. Seriously, WTF? First it was invisible titles on comments, now it's floating blocks.

    1. Re:Next contest ... by PCM2 · · Score: 2

      I think this is mainly a problem for people who like to use the "old" /. layout but who still use the new, "dynamic" homepage index.

      The pages with the style sheet problems appear to be the ones with human-readable URLs. If you turn off the dynamic homepage, the links to stories will still be the old-style, numeric URLs. Those URLs still give you the non-broken style sheet.

      Alternatively, you can use the dynamic homepage, then click on a story link, then find a link on that page that uses the numeric URL for the same story. Usually, one of the links right below the summary will have the right one. Because that's a PITA, however, I've decided to opt out of the new homepage.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    2. Re:Next contest ... by evil_aar0n · · Score: 1

      I didn't opt for anything - I've been hitting F5 for months without making changes to my profile - and I see exactly what the GP is talking about. I just haven't bothered to bitch. For a free service, it's hard to beat, even it it's acting stupid, lately.

      --
      Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
    3. Re:Next contest ... by PCM2 · · Score: 1

      They "switched" everyone to the new homepage a month or two ago, without asking. You need to opt OUT if you want to see the article layout without all the bugs.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
  34. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I suspect he means the 'we' that comprise the ratings (TV, attendance and otherwise) of MLB, the NFL and NBA, vs. that of say, the MLS? NCAA sports too. They have larger crowds than MLS. Typically, Americans don't care about soccer. It's ok if you like it. Just in general Americans don't. It isn't a personal attack against you.

  35. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  36. Another possible reason by ZorbaTHut · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It could just be that the US coders are no longer interested.

    I used to compete in Topcoder. I made it to #2, I was in the top ten for over a year solid. Then I got a job at Google thanks to my Topcoder ranking. I joined a team that had a bunch of other ex-Topcoders in it and, as with them, determined pretty quickly that Topcoder just wasn't worth my time anymore.

    Now, I don't know how many Chinese programmers got jobs through Topcoder, but I do know that the vast majority of the best Topcoder competitors in the US were hired by a surprisingly small set of companies. And, well, as cool as Topcoder is, if you sit down and look at dollars-per-hour . . . it's pretty crummy compared to a real job. Especially since they lowered all the prizes.

    So, US coders do Topcoder, do well, get job, quit Topcoder because we get paid well. Chinese coders do Topcoder, do well, don't get job, don't quit Topcoder. Or they do Topcoder, do well, get job, don't quit Topcoder because they're not yet being paid well enough.

    Doesn't surprise me in the least.

    --
    Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
    1. Re:Another possible reason by Kumiorava · · Score: 1

      Or the Chinese coders do Topcoder, do well, get a job, quit Topcoder. The talent pool just might be larger than in the US and there are capable peers who are willing to invest their time and get a job in the future. Why would you automatically assume the life would be different over there than it's in here? Chinese top coders are not that poorly paid.

    2. Re:Another possible reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given an equal reward for both competitors, it makes more sense financially for the Chinese to compete. A US job will pay more per hour than Topcoder prizes. A Chinese job, paying 1/10th as much, probably won't. Why wouldn't their top coders keep competing?

    3. Re:Another possible reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Congratulations for translating what is a hobby for many of us into a job. I have fond memories of competing there back in high school and college, but I have been able to make less and less of the competitions as I got a job, among other things.

    4. Re:Another possible reason by JMZero · · Score: 1

      It could just be that the US coders are no longer interested.

      It's certainly likely that there's a lot of US coders who could do well, but who have jobs and aren't interested. Even more so than when you were competing, there's almost no direct financial motivation to compete in TopCoder algorithm competitions. And, at some point I understand the competition subject matter would become less interesting (over time you're going to see less and less novelty). Fair enough.

      However, it's not like the winners are 30 year old Chinese workers who are spending 80 hrs a week practicing so they can make money in programming competitions - it's mostly students from Poland, Russia, and China. There's no reason North American students shouldn't share these students' love of programming or (as your case and so many other cases demonstrate) desire to distinguish themselves to potential employers.

      So I'll admit I find it odd, and a tiny bit distressing, that so few North American students are doing well in TopCoder (or in the Google Code Jam). That's not to say there's none, but there's not a lot.

      --
      Let's not stir that bag of worms...
    5. Re:Another possible reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Russian and Polish topcoders do well, get a job at google and they keep winning tournaments...

    6. Re:Another possible reason by Reservoir+Penguin · · Score: 1

      Wow, a great way to rationalize your failures! Why do Americans no longer produce great cars. They are no longer interested! Nothing to do with inferior schooling and work ethics.

      --
      US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
    7. Re:Another possible reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You were only at the top at the time where other countries doesn't have much participation yet. Just look at the current rankings, I'm sure many of them are not jobless or low-paying. Some of them are even Googlers like you. They are that passionate about it that they don't quit.

      Also, look at the results of the ACM ICPC. For the past decade, where the participation from other countries boomed, the champions were either from Russia, Poland, or China. Note that the skills being compared here are theoretical computer science and math (and not software engineering, usability, etc.), and competitions like these show that they are really ahead in these areas. For general programming that involves software engineering, usability, etc., I think the US is still at the top.

      Sure, you can speculate for reasons, but that doesn't prove anything. Actual competition results, at least, prove something. You don't need to look for reasons/excuses of how the US lags behind these countries, and just accept it. Instead, look at it as a wake-up call that the US are already being overtaken in these areas.

    8. Re:Another possible reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, US coders do Topcoder, do well, get job, quit Topcoder because we get paid well. Chinese coders do Topcoder, do well, don't get job, don't quit Topcoder. Or they do Topcoder, do well, get job, don't quit Topcoder because they're not yet being paid well enough.

      Or, Chinese coders do well, get job, quit Topcoder, but there are more Chinese coders who, on average, do better than our top coders, on average, and pick up the slack. I'm just saying there's more positions on your Pascal's wager board.

  37. NSA Honeypot Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I bet the NSA has advanced algorithms that compare a programmer's style of coding with the code used in previous attacks on US electronic infrastructure. Now they have a nice "fingerprint" database of other nations' cyber-warriors.

    Ahhhh, too much Tom Clancy!

    1. Re:NSA Honeypot Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nah, you simply got owned again.

  38. BULLSHIT!! MOD THE FUCK DOWN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This typical bullshit is usually uttered by America-bashing pseudo-intellectuals at every opportunity when the United States doesn't dominate in one particular instance.

    All you need to do is take a look at the best universities in the US to know this tripe isn't even close to being true. Chinese and Indian students basically would kill for a chance to attend a school here, and the ones that do make it, do their best to stay here.

    Now that I've utterly and completely demolished your nonsense, could the moderators do their jobs and mod that crap to oblivion? Thanks.

    1. Re:BULLSHIT!! MOD THE FUCK DOWN by Omestes · · Score: 1

      Yes, the top 5% of our university system is very good. This leaves 95%. Then add to it that most people go to Universities for "practical" degrees (read high priced trade school), and very few go for degrees with long term benefit to society.

      The problem isn't so much higher education, but k-12.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    2. Re:BULLSHIT!! MOD THE FUCK DOWN by Reservoir+Penguin · · Score: 1

      An American graduate school is a place where Russian professors teach Chinese students.

      --
      US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
  39. Well this should save us a lot of spying by gringofrijolero · · Score: 1

    Neat way to find out what they know. Stay away from those surveys kids. Loose lips sink ships.

    --
    Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
  40. Who knew about it? by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    My guess is that the competition simply wasn't advertised in North America. It is no use hearing about it for the first time after the competition closed.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  41. Cost of Living? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Fixed prizes are certainly worth more in countries with a lower cost of living. US $5,000 doesn't go very far in the US, but is almost the average yearly income for some of the countries listed. One would have to pay on an adjusted curve to make the incentives roughly equal.

    And as you hinted, one may be more likely to "get the pretty girl" for winning such in those countries. Not so much in the US.

    These kinds of factors should be checked before labeling US participants.
         

  42. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by cortesoft · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think it is like the Superbowl, but instead of playing a sport they kick around a little ball and occasionally fall to the ground and roll around pretending they were shot.

  43. Spam-A-Thon? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    The top countries are also the source of a lot of spam largely because it's cheaper to pay spamming hackers there. Coincidence? The skills listed are right up a spammer's ally.

  44. Nope. Your system is fundamentally flawed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nope. Your higher level of education is pretty bad too.

    Where I live only one thing matters in where you get to study: How good your high school grades are. If you did well in high school, you'll get to study where ever and what ever you want.

    In USA the education costs. It means that many potentially very smart people can't afford to get into or finish their universities. That leaves room for people with money, contacts, etc. to take the place that would otherwise have gone to the most competent people.

    I am aware there are stipend programs and such that try to ease the problem but they won't fix it.

    A place in which the most competent get to study produces better results than place in which some mixture of the most competent and wealthy get to study. It's a design flaw. In addition, institution that has purpose of making profit will sacrifice some quality if they deem it more profitable in the long term. And in some cases it is.

    Technically you could argue that while our system produces better students, your system produces better teachers (more competition between schools and such). While that argument would hardly hold (we have competent teachers here, there can be and is a lot competition even between government funded schools) I have some second hand knowledge that it doesn't work in practice either.

    My brother studied abroad in the USA when he was in high school. Three of my friends (two of which study CS and the last one studies industrial management) have studied in different (and pretty "average" as far as I have understood) universities the USA and all four have said the same. It is much easier to get good grades there. People who have been somewhat average students here become top of their class in most subjects...

    Honestly, the level of education that USA offers isn't really known for being excellent on worldwide standards. I am aware there are some really good universities too and am confident that MIT or Berkley would be better than where I study now. But saying that your higher education system rocks the world is just plain wrong.

    1. Re:Nope. Your system is fundamentally flawed. by ojustgiveitup · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Correct - as long as they are for-profit businesses, we are doomed to mediocrity.

  45. This is silly by cortesoft · · Score: 1

    So given the percentage of total participants who were from china, the expected number of finalists if they were randomly selected would be about 15 out of 70... and it ends up being 20. This is hardly statistically significant, and given the countless ways this could be affected, to come to this strong conclusion about the support of math and science is just silly.

    Although maybe making such a dubious conclusion with little statistically significant evidence actually supports the thesis that the US struggles with math... or at least slashdot submitters do

  46. Proportions by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Interesting

    20 of the 70 finalists were from China, 10 from Russia, and 2 from the US. China's showing in the finals was helped by its large number of entrants, 894. India followed at 705, but none of its programmers was a finalist. Russia had 380 participants; the United States, 234

    So let's calculate proportional representation then (since it would make more sense as a comparison point):

    Russia: 380/10 = 1 finalist per 38 participants
    China: 894/20 = 1 finalist per 45 participants
    USA: 234/2 = 1 finalist per 117 participants

    So, out of three, Russia seems to top the list. It's a pity they don't give the numbers for finalists from other countries - I would be curious to see how other Eastern European countries fared, and I have a strong suspicion that, if those numbers were included, top 3 would be entirely Eastern Europe.

    1. Re:Proportions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the proportion of the population participating in the contest should also play a role there.

    2. Re:Proportions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could it be that...

      USA: 2 finalists - 1 Russian immigrant and 1 Chinese immigrant?

      It wouldn't surprise me if it was.

  47. Is Fast == Good? by CodeBuster · · Score: 1

    Does it strike anyone else as ironic that a competition sponsored by the NSA which encourages participants to hack together a solution quickly is presented as a test of 'good coders' when, at least historically, the drive to get something to market quickly has been a factor or at least contributed substantially to many security holes and other software quality issues? There is something to be said, IMHO, for quality software that is developed incrementally and carefully without undue time pressure. Speed is sometimes, frequently perhaps, the enemy of the good in software development.

  48. Re:Human nature? by bnenning · · Score: 1

    But if you're good at, say, chess, you're screwed no matter what your personality is like.

    I suspect the causation runs the other way. If you're socially skilled and thus have the choice of getting laid or poring over the Karo-Cann Defense, which are you going to choose?

    --
    How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
  49. State Sponsored Bribery? by evil_aar0n · · Score: 1

    Is this a way of keeping potential crackers busy for a while, to stem the tide of spam / cracks / malware / etc? If they're working on TopCoder, they're not cranking out less desirable stuff. At least not as much.

    --
    Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
  50. drunk college student by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hahha! i read this, im drunkat college and dont care about anything about doing anything hahahah AMERICA FUCK YEA!~

  51. not surprised by robinesque · · Score: 1

    This isn't anomalous. There are many more Chinese, after all.

  52. Let the facts speak for themselves, dood by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

    Well, of course they do, Seriousity, after all, the US corporations have invested mightily in tech and manufacturing jobs in China, and R & D jobs in all areas in China (and these remarks include Euro and Japanese corps also). In 2007 or 2008, the wage increase in the 20-year-old to 29-year-old working group decreased in the EXACT SAME PERCENTAGE it increased in that group in China - no mystery there.

    1. Re:Let the facts speak for themselves, dood by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In 2007 or 2008, the wage increase in the 20-year-old to 29-year-old working group decreased in the EXACT SAME PERCENTAGE it increased in that group in China - no mystery there.

      What does this mean in English, man?

  53. High tech based society??????? by sgt_doom · · Score: 1
    Huuuuh...high tech-based society? Gee, I could have sworth America has been in a state of free fall regression and retrogression the past thirty years.

    Sure, we've had incremental advancement from the PURE R&D generated from the NASA space program, thanks to those Sputnik guys and gals. But this country has been seriously coasting while the banksters regained full control - overturning Roosevelt's New Deal via the Monetary Control Act of 1980, the Telecommunications of 1996, the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

    Wall Street's New Math: an unlimited number of Credit Default Swaps can be written against a single borrower (reverse insurance pool Ponzi scheme to the nth power). And now with the Obama Administration hellbent on doint the exact opposite of what Roosevelt did with the New Deal (re-securitizing the securitization of securitization - which was killed during FDR's administration) we are in all probability doomed to serfdom....

  54. Teachers... by uncqual · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think that teachers are a significant part of the problem (somewhere after parents).

    The teacher's unions have for many years rejected almost all attempts to reward the objectively successful (rather than the most senior and/or most willing to collect various paper credentials) practitioners of the art while pushing out those that are not successful. They are historically opposed to all standardized student testing - esp. if they are fearful that these results may be used in teacher evaluation. If students testing at the X percentile on a standardized Algebra test at the end of Algebra I end up at the end of Geometry testing at 1.1X in one teacher's class and at 0.9X in another teacher's class in the next classroom, it seems we have a pretty good hint which teacher is better.

    The standardized testing should be a significant factor in students' grades to discourage students from "punishing" a teacher they don't like by doing poorly on the standardized tests.

    I don't find the arguments about how "teaching to tests" is bad very compelling - esp. in Math and Science. If "teaching to the tests" results in different teaching than "teaching to excel in the material", obviously the tests need to be fixed -- they are testing for something other than that which competence is desired in. Sure, there are some subject areas that don't lend themselves to standardized testing (for example, various performing arts), but these don't seem to be the areas that are resulting in American High School graduates being non-competitive.

    Annecdotally, in my personal experience most smart and competent people who flee from the teaching field (usually after having entered it somewhat idealistically) would be excellent teachers but end up being frustrated by not being rewarded for their performance, frustrated by lack of support from parents ("My little Susie would never talk back"), and lack of support from administrators ("If there's a problem with classroom discipline it must be the teacher's problem as Susie's mother has assured me she's an angel").

    --
    Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
    1. Re:Teachers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realize that not everyone takes tests well. Tests are a cop out for a multitude of people beyond the student and teacher. Its a cop out for the government to say "well we have a ruler to go by now so use it". Not everyone fits on a straight line. This line of thinking is asinine and only breeds retards, which is why this country is in the position it is now.

      Its a cop out for parents to say "well little johnny should have studied harder", when in fact Mom or Dad were too busy with their own lives to care about their kids education and subsequently their future to actually put the time into helping their student study or make sure they studied.

      Its a cop out for lazy teachers who only teach the bare minimums for the tests and leave the rest for the student to figure out. At the same time it harms those teachers that actually have a brain and are creative because now they're stuck in some mold they have to follow in order to cover all of the SOLs or whatever is on the tests.

    2. Re:Teachers... by GerTheDwarf · · Score: 1

      If students testing at the X percentile on a standardized Algebra test at the end of Algebra I end up at the end of Geometry testing at 1.1X in one teacher's class and at 0.9X in another teacher's class in the next classroom, it seems we have a pretty good hint which teacher is better.

      I strongly disagree. Students can understand different subjects better than others. They can become different (better or worse) students from one year to another, for instance, because of home(less) and family situation, have friends in this class but not that class, or like the hot teacher but don't like the old, ugly hippy.

      Sure, there are some subject areas that don't lend themselves to standardized testing (for example, various performing arts), but these don't seem to be the areas that are resulting in American High School graduates being non-competitive.

      So what you're saying is, those subjects in which there aren't standardized tests are areas where we are competetive. Hmm... sounds like you made the opposite argument here. Feeling and intuition are just as important in "rigorous" fields such as math as in liberal arts. Can you point me to a computer that can solve all our number theory or mathematical logic problems?

      ... end up being frustrated by not being rewarded for their performance...

      I agree. However, using standardized tests is most commonly seen as a method for punishing poor performance, so why would they be supportive of that?

    3. Re:Teachers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realize that not everyone takes tests well.

      Yeah, some people are stupid.

    4. Re:Teachers... by electrosoccertux · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Or, they go to private schools.

      That's the real solution here, in my opinion. This way you can vote with your dollars whether or not the athletic program gets funding. We never had a football team, never needed it.

    5. Re:Teachers... by jimbolauski · · Score: 1

      Standardized test are simply they only way that the US can attempt to educate EVERY child, by getting rid of the tests I assume you are going back to our old system which is throwing money at a problem no matter how little progress. With the amount of money that is spent on education the US should be at the top but we are not because we hold the top and middle back for the sake of the bottom. The intelligent kids are the ones we should be spending our money on not the ones that don't want to be there.

      --
      Knowledge = Power
      P= W/t
      t=Money
      Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
    6. Re:Teachers... by uncqual · · Score: 1

      Students can understand different subjects better than others. They can become different (better or worse) students from one year to another, for instance, because of home(less) and family situation, have friends in this class but not that class, or like the hot teacher but don't like the old, ugly hippy.

      But a teacher's performance measured by the results of their students' standardized tests are across a large sample (multiple students per class, multiple classes, multiple years) and should be compared to other teachers similarly situated - in a large school, even within the same school and the same student pool. Each teacher will have some students who are newly homeless that year if the school demographics are such that that happens with any regularity (and if it doesn't, that's only one student out of hundreds that contribute to the teacher's score). I really don't care why a teacher that works for me (as a taxpayer) and is supposed to be teaching their math students isn't accomplishing that (the "why" is for the teacher to figure out with help if needed), I just want it fixed.

      This is no different than software development, programmers who are unable to perform the most basic of programming tasks efficiently should find another field of work. A teacher has far more potential to have a destructive impact on a vulnerable individual with no practical alternatives than a programmer does. A bad teacher who fails to teach Algebra I adequately screws their students because the students may have to play catchup the rest of their high school career and perhaps later as well -- a single bad programmer's work should get caught in code review or QA.

      I'm curious -- how would you evaluate, for example, high school teachers? Ask the students to rank them and fire the ones that rank low (in schools where academic excellence is not demanded at home or the culture doesn't encourage it, this will result in teachers minimizing student effort in order to get good rankings)? Ask the parents to rank them and fire the ones that rank low (parents often know that much about an individual high school teacher except what they hear through their children - hearsay in other words)? Ask the principal to rank them based on some subjective measure (which often leads to teachers being ranked based on politics and personal bias - and even low level corruption)?

      So what you're saying is, those subjects in which there aren't standardized tests are areas where we are competetive. Hmm... sounds like you made the opposite argument here. Feeling and intuition are just as important in "rigorous" fields such as math as in liberal arts. Can you point me to a computer that can solve all our number theory or mathematical logic problems?

      No, can you point me to someone who can solve all our number theory or mathematical logic problems who couldn't at least "pass" a standardized math test in high school?

      I didn't mean to imply that US high school students are competitive in liberal arts - I don't know (and it depends on the scope of "liberal arts"). However, certainly some liberal arts (such as the visual arts) are much harder to "test" students for -- two teachers in the same school may differ substantially on if a particular sketch done by a student is "creative" or just "junk". Also, this thread is not really about liberal arts.

      The primary purpose of teaching, for example, Algebra to most students in high school is to help them build a toolkit they can use in future studies - not, usually, in pure math. A student's understanding of Math and Science curriculum at the high school level can be tested by questions that have concrete answers - for example, we are not expecting or teaching high school physics students to surmise, by personal insight and creativity, that there must be an elementary particle that has no one has realized before that "improves" the standard model. There is no reason that some percentage of the questions on the standardized tests should either require creativity or be more quickly solved with creativity. Indeed, I think some of the problems should be of this form.

      --
      Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
    7. Re:Teachers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [Citation-Needed]

    8. Re:Teachers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      s/slashdot.org/wikipedia.org/g

    9. Re:Teachers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The teacher's unions have for many years rejected almost all attempts to reward the objectively successful (rather than the most senior and/or most willing to collect various paper credentials) practitioners of the art while pushing out those that are not successful. They are historically opposed to all standardized student testing - esp. if they are fearful that these results may be used in teacher evaluation. If students testing at the X percentile on a standardized Algebra test at the end of Algebra I end up at the end of Geometry testing at 1.1X in one teacher's class and at 0.9X in another teacher's class in the next classroom, it seems we have a pretty good hint which teacher is better.

      /snip

      Annecdotally, in my personal experience most smart and competent people who flee from the teaching field (usually after having entered it somewhat idealistically) would be excellent teachers but end up being frustrated by not being rewarded for their performance, frustrated by lack of support from parents ("My little Susie would never talk back"), and lack of support from administrators ("If there's a problem with classroom discipline it must be the teacher's problem as Susie's mother has assured me she's an angel").

      Alright - first, you point out that you believe that teachers should be accountable for the capabilities that their students possess when they take tests, but then you turn around and anecdotally acknowledge that teachers have very little power in resolving class distractions. I'm sure being powerless to resolve distractions can have a large effect on how well they can educate the other students, no? I suppose once you solve the second portion (parents not acknowledge and thus not helping in disciplinary issues, other staff not backing the teachers on disciplinary issues), I'll more agree with you on the first portion.

    10. Re:Teachers... by uncqual · · Score: 1

      The teachers are not the only ones being evaluated by standardized testing - administrators all the way up the line are as well. If test scores for students at an entire school or in an entire department show poor progress, it's pretty hard to blame the teachers solely or even mostly. However, when standardized test scores show students in one teacher's classes progress slower than those in another teacher's classes when those classes are the same or similar and the students are drawn from substantially the same student population, it's time to look at the under performing teacher more closely.

      It's not possible to solve all the problems (esp. the "parent problem"). However, without data, how can you tell if progress is being made on solving any problem? Standardized testing is just one tool that gives us data to figure out how to fix the problems that can be fixed.

      --
      Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
    11. Re:Teachers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My mother starting teaching once all of her kids were raised. She genuinely wants the kids in her class to succeed and prides herself in having high expectations of her students, and more often than not they meet or exceed those expectations. Her first year the kids test scores came back and they were much lower than all the other teachers. She was disappointed and vowed to try harder. This went on for a few years and she was very discouraged. She asked for help and someone finally fessed up. The teachers all cheat. The tests are all administered by the teachers themselves, and they can subtly direct the kids choices or even outright give them the answers. She was pretty upset by this and went to the principle and said that from now on they should test all together in the gym, with all the teachers present so that no one could help their own kids without everyone knowing. The principal said no way. He knew the test scores would tank and the state would be on his ass about it. She went up the chain of command demanding something be done about it. Finally she got her way and sure enough, the test scores tanked. They were so low the school was on probation and everyone blamed her. So she gave up and just accepts that her test scores may be a little lower than the other classes because she refuses to give them the answers. She is now considered one of the best teachers the school ever had and has won the Milken Teacher of the Year and a lot of other awards. But her school still lets all the teachers cheat on the standardized tests. The kids that show the best scores are often in the worst teacher's classes. The administration doesn't want to do anything about it if it jeopardizes their careers.

    12. Re:Teachers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I don't find the arguments about how "teaching to tests" is bad very compelling - esp. in Math and Science. If "teaching to the tests" results in different teaching than "teaching to excel in the material", obviously the tests need to be fixed -- they are testing for something other than that which competence is desired in.

      Experience from the UK where we do have much standardized testing, is that the teachers teach the kids how to pass the test since the teacher and their department and their school will be assessed (and funded!) based on the test results. This creates the situation where education is turned into a box-ticking exercise to ensure the kids pass the tests, but don't actually learn, leading many companies to put new employees on courses to ensure they have an adequate grasp of language and mathematics for the job.
      The qualifications, these kids have worked so hard for, are not fit for almost any purpose other than to say they can learn to pass the exam.
      A science exam paper taken by 15/16 year olds, recently, asked the question "what would you use to look at a distant star?" it was a multiple choice question with answers like microscope, thermometer, ruler, telescope. my 7year old thought it was too easy!
      Teachers hands have become tied by the system so they have no freedom to *really* teach the subject and inspire the kids so they actualy learn.

    13. Re:Teachers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Couldn't have said it much better myself. My wife is in her fifth year of teaching 8th grade science and is already saying she doesn't know if she can keep it up. Constant battles with clueless parents and administrators who believe everything a 14 year old says while ignoring the input of an adult in a professional capacity, frustration with her coworkers who gave up trying years ago, and kids who just don't care and can't be made to care. Here are a couple more thoughts:

      Her district won't allow tiering-- she has to have kids who can barely read in the same room as kids who should probably be in the next grade and she's expected to effectively teach to both and everything in-between, instead of splitting classes by ability. This is compounded by the fact that she has over 32 kids in every class. That's six classes a day at thirty-plus kids. At a recent parent run-in regarding a child who felt my wife wasn't nice enough to her (literally that was the complaint and the principal pulled her out of teaching a class to discuss it), she was also informed that she is expected to build a bonding, trusting relationship with all of her students. With electives that's something like 270 kids a year. This, from an administrator that hasn't learned all of the teacher's names after a year on the job.

      One of the other big problems that she's run into is that people who have no right getting involved in math and science are dictating the way it should be taught. The teachers, parents, and kids are completely confused by the 'new math' programs. I don't know who came up with this crap or who allowed it in a district, but it takes the kids so far from actual number manipulation that they have no idea what's going on. As far as I can tell it's a collection of shortcuts that remove the requirement of having any actual understanding of mathematic principals to do the work. Classic example from this year: "The rope is 12 feet long and is divided into three equal parts. How long is each part?" Thirty three blank faces. 8th grade.

      I think the root of a lot of this is somewhat subtle and has taken time to come to fruition. Since the 60's and 70's there has been this anti-establishment ideal in our country. People have grown up being told to distrust their teachers and schools (and businesses and cops and...) and when they became adults they passed that along. I saw this firsthand when I went to school (in the 80's mostly). My friends that had a bad attitude about education had parents that basically OK'd them to not like school. And they continued the loser tradition after graduation. Shockingly, the kids that whined about school but were told to suck it up did just fine. How, exactly, is a teacher supposed to effectively teach when the students hear from their parents how stupid teachers are or worse, are told that they don't have to listen?

  55. A does not imply B by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a bunch of crap. Of course people in those countries have an interest in things like TopCoder. It's a way to get noticed; a ticket to a better life, elsewhere. US coders are, by definition, already here. One need also of course norm for population and such. A lot more to this result than the article summary suggests. I do not, however, doubt the basic claim that education might have a greater emphasis in other parts of the world.

  56. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by spandex_panda · · Score: 1

    It's funny. The US calls all their sports the 'world series' and shit. They only involve the US!!! HOW IS THAT THE WORLD??? The world cup soccer involves folks from all continents (even little Australia is in it again!) and world cup rugby most continents. These are sports with competitors from around the World not just all around the United States of America "world".

    --
    like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
  57. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

    Uh, hello! We let Canada in some of the time. Geez, you act as if we're all insular and stuff. Canada!

  58. World Cup, World Series by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's that?

    It's like the World Series, except the entire world actually gets to participate.

  59. Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As someone who is studying to become a middle school math teacher, let me tell you something else they do differently in the rest of the world than they do here in the States: they track students. Do you realize US teachers are expected to teach gifted students, non-English speakers, mentally retarded children, ADHD students, severely disabled kids, and educationally unprepared students all in the SAME class? Do you think China or Russia or India does this? So why does the US do this? Because it makes the less-than-able students feel good about themselves (and their parents happy).

    The most ignored student in a US public school classroom is the on-level, on-task student. Most of the school resources (time and money) are spent on the least capable. This may be exactly where the majority wants those resources applied, but no one should be surprised at the outcome--or expect to compete, in any serious way, with countries that have other priorities.

  60. Open to everyone...not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    While TopCoder may not limit who can participate, I'm betting certain 3 letter US agencies do not let their employees participate.

    If you hold a top secret security clearance you need to get any public works (papers, resumes, etc.) pre-approved for release, so I doubt they would be thrilled with someone flaunting some secret algorithm fu.

    1. Re:Open to everyone...not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From the Eligibility section

      Current employees of TopCoder and any Sponsor and those involved in the development, production (including prize suppliers and sponsors), implementation and distribution of the Tournament or a Competition and their advertising or promotion agencies, parent companies, service providers, agents, officers, subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other persons or entities directly associated with the Tournament and members of their immediate families and/or persons living in the same household as such persons, are ineligible to enter the Tournament or a Competition.

      So anyone working for the NSA, in any capacity (full time/part time/contractor) is not allowed to participate. I think that would include any of the think tanks and some number of the top university researchers.

    2. Re:Open to everyone...not really. by anarche · · Score: 1

      While TopCoder may not limit who can participate, I'm betting certain 3 letter US agencies do not let their employees participate.

      This is just about the only sensible reply, and/or explanation why the US did so badly in these forums.
      Mod this man up please!

      --
      Wait! Whats a sig?
  61. Selection Bias by DarkFyre · · Score: 1

    The article doesn't mention selection bias, which almost certainly colored these results. It seems likely to me that externalities other than programming skill biased the entrant pool.

    In the US, the best programmers I know have jobs in programming that earn them quite a lot of money. When they go home at night, they may not want to write more code. If they do, they may choose to contribute to open-source projects or their own startup ideas. They're certainly not lining up to enter some silly NSA contest.

    If you offered me $1000 to spend my weekend coding some contest, I'd decline. I make enough money programming the other 5 days of the week that I'd rather have my weekend to myself. Or, if I needed some cash, I could make more with those days doing a one-off consulting project.

    For a programmer in India or China, that money is worth a lot more (relative to cost of living), and they're not getting paid nearly as much for their full-time job. So, I'd argue that programming contests like this (and TopCoder) have a stronger attraction for non-American programmers and, in order for the results of this to be at all interesting, that variable needs to be controlled for.

    1. Re:Selection Bias by daveime · · Score: 1

      # 06/10/09 - added DarkFyre correction factor

      if ($nationality eq "us") {
        $lethargy = 1;
      } else {
        $lethargy = 0;
      }

  62. far, far more by saleenS281 · · Score: 1

    Actually, he's making much, much more than A-Rod.

    http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-03/13/content_533988.htm

  63. Damn-Testing. by Ostracus · · Score: 2, Interesting
    --
    Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
  64. Damn-Vocational. by Ostracus · · Score: 1

    "There's also the long standing idea, not limited to the US, that a college education should be limited to a select few who are actually suited for it.(A person used to go to college 'cause they were smart enough, and high school's had college and vocational tracks.) This idea is changing 'cause the global economy is now so skills based, but policy takes longer (and again, coming up the money for it would be difficult.)"

    And that's the way it should be as far as decision time. Should one take the college path or the vocational path? BTW there's a lot of skill involved in vocational jobs. Now as far as funding I believe one can get equal financing for either one.

    --
    Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
    1. Re:Damn-Vocational. by story645 · · Score: 1

      And that's the way it should be as far as decision time. Should one take the college path or the vocational path? BTW there's a lot of skill involved in vocational jobs. Now as far as funding I believe one can get equal financing for either one.

      I know there's a ton of skill involved in vocational stuff, had to do enough of the stuff to know it's better left to someone trained for it. Personally I hate the whole "stick everyone in college" mentality 'cause I think it leads to a whole lot of people going to college who'd be much better off working/learning a trade.

      Now as far as funding I believe one can get equal financing for either one.

      Dunno, maybe if the vocational school is accredited? (and therefore technically a college of sorts.?) Though they are listed on FAFSA's website, so I assume they at best are treated the same as a college, at worst have their own formula.

      --
      open source modern art: laser taggi
    2. Re:Damn-Vocational. by Ostracus · · Score: 1

      "I know there's a ton of skill involved in vocational stuff, had to do enough of the stuff to know it's better left to someone trained for it. Personally I hate the whole "stick everyone in college" mentality 'cause I think it leads to a whole lot of people going to college who'd be much better off working/learning a trade."

      Agreed, but that whole push for college instead of the trades is fueled in part because of outmoded knowledge of what the modern day trades actually are*, and two the perception not only of prestige but the money that goes with a college bound path. It's not fair but that's the way it is.

      *There's also the layoffs to consider. The perception that a collage bound job is more resistant to that kind of thing.

      --
      Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
  65. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by bogjobber · · Score: 1

    The US calls all their sports the 'world series' and shit. They only involve the US!!! HOW IS THAT THE WORLD???

    The US invented baseball. At the time the World Series started (1903) it was the championship between the only two leagues in the world that mattered. In 1903, Latin America had only been playing baseball for 20 years. Japan had been playing for a similar amount of time, but didn't even have a professional league. Even now, foreign leagues are dramatically inferior (think European football compared to the MLS). All the best baseball players in the world who aren't Cuban (and a lot who are) play in MLB. The World Series can rightfully be called that.

  66. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought the Brits called baseball "rounders" ;).

    Seriously though, I doubt baseball was invented in the US.

  67. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by mcvos · · Score: 1

    Isn't that Eurpean American Football league called "World League"? Of course it's nowhere near the level of the National Football League.

  68. Re:Teacher salaries vs software salaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Considering that some non-entry-level TECHNICAL positions at a large software company in Redmond, WA, now pay $30-$35 per hour, I would say that $43K for about 9 months work + nice long breaks for winter and spring is exceedingly competitive. Plus, you pull your overtime when YOU want to, within a day or two of lattitude, unless things have changed since my days in school when teachers sometimes just weren't having a good week and they were slow grading tests and homework. Side note: thank you, recession and unmentionable-under-penalty-of-flame-war-visa-acronym for driving down wages for jobs that don't require the kind of English skills many teaching positions require for adequate teacher-student communication.

    And here in King County, WA, (where Redmond is), teachers earn even more than that. In Bellevue, WA, teachers had a strike last year because they felt the average wage of $58K was too low -- for the usual reason many of us think our salaries are too low, which is that they found other nearby school districts with even higher average wages! I'll bet that many teachers with 10+ years of experience out-earn my friends in those groups at (company name you know anyway omitted), and don't have to work 12 months a year to do it. In this economy, the security of a teaching job in exchange for a salary that doesn't hit the top 5% of salaries offered to recent grads, doesn't look all that bad. I'm tempted to go for a certificate myself, and then consult or open my own specialty boutique computing camp for kids the other 3 months a year.

    So, on teachers' salaries not being adequate... lalalalala, can't hear you, lalalalala....

    (The high salaries also help explain why multiple Bellevue schools consistently appear on the list of the top 100 schools in the US. While they might not attract the VERY best teachers, they likely have their pick of many very good ones who'd like that kind of salary.)

  69. Perpetuating tropes by alakest · · Score: 1

    "...Democrats and their "Oh, everyone's a winner" crap...

    Have you ever seen that? Really?

    I doubt it.

    My guess is that you, and others in this thread, base your comment (or ones like it) on some echo-chamber mythology you've absorbed. Or willingly slurped up.

    I've had teachers, who in retrospect I realize were left of center, that were, with few exceptions, appropriately demanding in constructive ways. I can't ever remember seeing encouragement do damage. On the other hand I've seen (some) teachers, who in retrospect I realize were right of center, devastate kids in front of their peers, and, more importantly, erode that child's self worth. I am acquainted with, and have worked with, people who've never really gotten over either the poisonous assessments, or the twisted kudos, incompetent teachers often use to keep control in the classroom. How do I know? Because I see those people fall for the same bullsh*t at work from their pointy-haired managers. In school I was rarely caught in the crossfire because I'm smarter than the average bear and was fairly well behaved, but it made me feel terrible when I saw it and, if anything, it made me less likely be demonstratively smart where the teacher was liable to pit me against another student. In the workplace it's the sort of thing that tempts me to have a beer right after work.

    Healthy education is not about competition, least not until kids are mature enough to manage their emotions well. Last thing you need is an authority figure such as a teacher sanctioning the pecking order, peck-to-death dynamic of the typical school environment.

    As for this "Everyone's a winner" thing?

    What's the alternative? Announcing losers? Highlighting their failures?

    "Hey kids, let's look at the test scores. Oooooooo! Looook at the Losers! And you Cindy - why do you even bother? Guess you're gonna work in retail."

    Sound helpful? Really? (Then consider what it'd sound like with a light ethnic, racial, gender, or class-based overtone thrown in.)

    Most people when they really think about how life was as a child realize it takes a complete disconnect with reality to not naturally compare oneself to one's peers and notice one's relative ranking, then make an effort to improve or adapt.

    My guess is, rather than education, that sort of disconnect is more likely rooted in one's upbringing or the onset of some religiously based dysfunction.

    I suggest some of you read Alfie Kohn's "No Contest: The Case Against Competition".

    As for a "Chinese moonshot"? Should we give a rat's ass? How well did that last effort go? Seems it blew a lot of money to prove a geopolitcal point and then, once the point proven, left space efforts twisted and barely sustainable for decades as well as a bunch of engineering types burnt on the employment front. (much like with the cancelled collider) Let's go back to the moon when there's a positive expected value in scientific terms. Jingoism is a poor motive for science. But it's an easy (lazy) way to light a competitive fire under some butts.

  70. inch deep and a mile wide by jimbolauski · · Score: 1

    The problem is that the US curriculum is very unfocused, over 25% of an engineer's undergrad coursework is devoted to things outside of their field. Forced indoctrination by requiring students to take philosophy, psychology, sociology,... does not help a student in their career. The 25% should be spent on things the student may use like finance and a further focusing in their field. Students today look to extracurricular activities for the extra knowledge they will need to secede but are forced to take a bunch of entry level classes that they will never use. Colleges are turning out Jacks and Jills (thank you sociology) of all trades but masters of none. A master's degree used to be challenging but now it's simply what the last year of a bachelors should be.

    --
    Knowledge = Power
    P= W/t
    t=Money
    Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
    1. Re:inch deep and a mile wide by ojustgiveitup · · Score: 1

      I don't think universities should end up being glorified trade schools, which is in essence what you are suggesting. I don't like the idea of only learning things that we will "use" in our "careers", because I think that's the road to being very single-faceted and unable to adapt. We'll never be able to teach or learn everything that we will confront outside of school, so learning only one thing will cripple us when the new things come along. Higher education should at its core be about teaching people to think critically, independently, and creatively, and I think many engineering curricula utterly fail at this, largely because they *only* require 25% of those extra classes. The hard part is figuring out what else is worthwhile to teach. You think finance is worthwhile because it will be useful in a career setting - I think finance is bullshit because it's all about memorizing what the system is like so that you can exploit it to your own advantage, and not at all about education. You think things like philosophy and psychology are bullshit, probably because at most schools they aren't taken seriously, particularly by the engineering students, and the expectations of what will be gotten out of those classes are absurdly low. I think that psychology and philosophy could be some of the most useful classes when done properly. What could be better for anyone in any field than a truly deep understanding of human behavior? Wouldn't we write better software if we knew our users better? Most schools take a policy of allowing the students to choose where they spend their extra time, which I think is the right policy, but most students choose to spend their extra time taking easy classes where they won't learn a thing. This is another aspect of our entrenched anti-intellectualism, even those of us who don't reject math and science have a tendency to arrogantly reject everything else. True anti-anti-intellectualism embraces all learning.

    2. Re:inch deep and a mile wide by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      That's because college is supposed to make you into a well rounded human being capable of independent thought.

      It's supposed to make you valuable to the corporations because you have good communication skills as well as good math skills.

      You should have worked on projects with other people many times in a wide variety of disciplines and you should have shown you can work hard on a four year long project and finish it. The main reason my prior company hired college graduates was that grads finished things while non-grads were often a bit more random.

      Also, as the other respondant says- if you want a trade school, then just go to a trade school. There are trade schools for programmers and many other fields. 2 years and you are work-ready.

      The corporations are changing to this model. They don't want a well rounded human being- they just want someone with SQL-2008. Who they very well may dump for another trade school grad or off shore contractors when SQL-2011 comes out.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  71. What a tragic commentary on our time by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    The solution is simple. Start treating geeks like royalty. Elevate them to rock-star status. Pay them humongous signing bonuses. FIRST Robotics is a good place to start.

  72. Re:We do the same thing with athletics here that t by mustafap · · Score: 1

    >Isn't that Eurpean American Football league called "World League"?

    It was for sarcasm.

    We enjoy humor in europe.

    --
    Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
  73. NSA recruiting operation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    America showed "poorly" because the NSA already hired all the good Americans. Who do you think made and judged this?