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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.'"
Apparently I was born on the wrong continent.
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.
'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."
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.
Which reminds me -- how is the USA doing in the World Cup?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Our good programmers are gainfully employed.
I don't have time for those things. I'm too busy. Working. As a programmer.
What's that?
'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.
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...
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.
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.
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)
I'm assuming "the best" applied for the contest.
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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.
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!
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.
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
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
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
Outline one method to gain access to NSA networks and provide code implementing the method. Bonus points for commented code.
Begin.
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.
... steroids and "performance enhancing" supplements. So by that line of logic, mathematics education outside of America = ???
Lots of meth and piracetium?
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.
How dare you ask something off-script!
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I didn't know we had a national sailboat racing team!
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
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?
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.
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.
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" :)
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.
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?
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.
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.
What's your point?
Bitterness
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
... fix Slashdot's stylesheets. Seriously, WTF? First it was invisible titles on comments, now it's floating blocks.
Economic freedom based on what? Not questioning your logic, just wondering where those numbers are coming from.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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.
"You don't have to be rich, just smart."
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
Neat way to find out what they know. Stay away from those surveys kids. Loose lips sink ships.
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
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!
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.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
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.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This isn't anomalous. There are many more Chinese, after all.
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.
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....
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
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
Uh, hello! We let Canada in some of the time. Geez, you act as if we're all insular and stuff. Canada!
Comment of the year
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
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.
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.
Actually, he's making much, much more than A-Rod.
http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-03/13/content_533988.htm
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?
Something for the reading list. The Essential Sternberg:Essays on Intelligence, Psychology, and Education
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
An American graduate school is a place where Russian professors teach Chinese students.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
"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"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_economic_freedom Which is based on http://www.heritage.org/Index/
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.
Isn't that Eurpean American Football league called "World League"? Of course it's nowhere near the level of the National Football League.
"...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.
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
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.
>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
Economic Freedom of the World Index