I think the hall of mirrors concept was that if you place a few lights in a room full of mirrors, you get the illusion of a significantly complex and varied system. However, it seems that they're mostly talking about some very distant edges, so that all we can see of the universe from such "edges" is faint and sporadic background noise.
I'm a bit confused. The going rate for Google stock is currently 500 dollars. You're saying an option with a strike price 100 dollars over that is worth nearly 70? Am I missing something, like the options expire two years from today?
You'd think someone asking for community participation would go to the effort of including a link to the community in question. Somehow, I think you'll get out of this request what you put into it.
My head hurts here. You think that copying a file between drives should affect the likelyhood of a program being pushed out of memory? A simple cp shouldn't be using tons of RAM; just enough to buffer the input while the destination drive is catching up. Of course, we're comparing a command line tool to a GUI drag and drop; it might be more fair to see how nautilus handles the action.
What you're describing is mostly solved by hibernate; save the entire state to disk, and when you start up again, some mini bootloader restores the state. Doesn't mean others haven't tried different stuff. WinXP took some steps to make a first boot go faster. Put files accessed on boot somewhere special for faster access, etc. Cut boot down to.
But the basic problem is one of disk throughput and memory usage. There's a hell of a lot of stuff used on boot. CPU usage is secondary to pulling things off of disk. Unlike other computer systems, your desktop isn't intended to run programs directly off of ROM. It's intended to run a variety of applications, and accept a variety of underlying hardware. Since neither nor the hardware is designed to run a specific application from ROM, you can't just start with an assumed operating system or program.
Also, to bring up a nit, your TV only starts up instantly because it's halfway started most of the time. Turn it off for a long time or unplug it and you'll see it take a while to "warm up". This uses quite a bit of power. If you felt like it, you could pay extra to build a motherboard etc that supports suspend for desktops, but it takes a lot of effort to get the software right, so its primarily done for laptops. It'd be a nice comprimise between booting/hibernating and "instant on" that you want.
If you'd seen the talk at google by last year's winner, you'd know that it's not as simple as you've made it. They're given GPS coordinates only shortly before the contest begins, in an effort to make sure nobody tries to precalculate the entire path etc (not sure what the input will be this time around). Not that it matters, as it would be hard to determine navigability with a simple 2d overhead satellite image. And they still need collision prediction & avoidance to avoid pedestrians and traffic (not that I'd be planning to drive in that town the day of the event). As far as speed limits based on GPS, that won't work out so well; regular GPS has an error of something like ten meters; that enough to confuse a highway with it's frontage road. But speed limits themselves raise an interesting question, if an autonomous system calculates that it can safely travel higher than the speed limit under current conditions, traffic, quantum states of nearby objects etc, what does that say about the limit?
Really, I somewhat suspect that recognizing roadsigns wouldn't be terribly hard. They're always placed with high visibility as an intention, and many are common among the states. But given the existence of road maps and map nagivgation databases, the only reason to include the feature is as a double check on your data; sometimes it's just wrong, but sometimes construction fucks up the map systems. I'd rather have both, frankly. You're definitely right that path finding over a map is a fairly solved problem in AI.
But most of all, I'd be fairly impressed if you made it to Manhattan without any knowledge of maps whatsoever, human or not. I live in Kansas, about halfway between those two points and neither Manhattan or Sacramento are on any roadsigns here.
Sure, it costs them money. There's evidence that they do decide how much money each spot they take is worth rather than simply take the first slot- gmail is the second sponsored link for "email" currently. And I see no reason why they shouldn't do it. But it is a bit unfair -- I imagine that unlike their competitors, they can know all the bids out there and their competitor's effectiveness.
Although I do wonder, what's the marginal cost of an ad on a google search result? How much does it cost google to serve up one more advert? For websense clients (or whatever they call it when they pay you to put their ads on your website), I can imagine that the cost would be primarily enrollment rates. The more invasive your system the less people want to submit their readers to that. So they err on the side of little, I imagine. But currently, their search results page seems to cut off the Sponsored Links sidebar before the "page" is over. For searches like Windows, there's more campaigns than there is space to list them all as currently laid out. Would they really lose search results for something as unobtrusive as extending the side bar one more entry? I don't even want to think about the complexities involved with deciding how many results per page should be served.
The scarcity of space they control can lead to a strong competitive advantage. They know what bid it takes to make the front page, they know what bid it takes to make the top 3 links, etc. If I were for some reason trying to compete with Google and advertising using Google (which itself seems counter-productive), I do think I'd call it somewhat unfair. But that's life.
I believe this is the line of thinking that prompted the government of Japan to subsidize the production of solar cells. Not sure how soon till they've solved their chicken and egg problem however.
40 percent is impressive, but the cost is likely still damn high, and not an incredible improvement over the previous record. In short if solar wasn't close to making since yesterday, it still won't today. It might some time in the future, but probably not tomorrow.
It's only immoral if you honestly think that these are a "bad" investment. They've already stated a technological preference, so absolute return on investment is not the number one priority. I would imagine the biggest priority is for students to learn to research a sector, and make informed investing decisions. Otherwise, they should just all be investing in high yield junk bonds or boring index funds. If you have evidence that companies are likely to do better than average, and that the market doesn't value things this way (yet), you should be able to weight your investment towards companies that write or use open source technologies.
I've no idea why you feel that open source and profits are intrinsically misaligned.
There's a canyon here between what you two view as "old persons". The Camry does have an image problem: it's been somewhat pigeon-holed as the car for a salaried middle manager with a wife and two children. A fantastic family car. The scion, you've no doubt seen ads for, is pushing their brand to a much younger, doesn't-know-it-looks-like-shit first time drivers. I agree with the grandparent; Toyota's aren't stereotypically "for senior citizens" the way Buicks and Lincoln Town cars are. I imagine in twenty years time, the Camry will inherit the same status the Town Car does now, by virtue of their current owners simply getting older.
I think his point was both about quality and quantity, although I agree his soap box is primarily intended to attract developers to his company's software.
Suspending to RAM is far faster, but requires some additional power. Suspend to disk saves to long term storage that will survive a complete power failure. Joel's suggestion was for the power management system to choose between them based on the knowledge it has. This would of course require more than a week's effort to write and test, but it would probably be better than what they have now. Knowing when to switch from ram to disk suspend I think would be a tricky business, potentially requiring accelerometers not all laptops have.
It was kinda tacky to insinuate that they weren't dedicated to Free software any more, and such. If Mark felt there were individual developers dissatisfied with Novell's recent activities, it would have been smarter to target them personally rather than post on the openSUSE mailing list to promote Ubuntu.
It's never too late to start exercising. And the Asker indicated that he was only facing hand arthritis, which DDR may not trigger very much, if at all. There's been a ton of suggestions on the Wii, but I can't imagine being able to hold something while swinging it madly, or lightly but rapidly, would cooperate with arthritis.
"And that's also why they're getting hit with a few 9-figure verdicts already. But they still play the game and pretend they're legitimate, because they somehow think they'll benefit, in the end, using them to crush current and potential competition with multi-million legal actions and the threat thereof."
No, they're getting hit with a few painful verdicts because not only do they ignore patent law, but they enter bad faith negotiations to acquire patent licenses and attempt to screw businesses like Burst after the fact. In this sort of scenario, they should rightfully be subject to treble damages, being fully aware of the patent they're violating. This isn't just the slings and arrows of software patent fate, this is the direct result of unscrupulous business practices at Microsoft in particular.
Microsoft has access to the GPL'd code, we have access to patent descriptions. Anyone can investigate whether there's Microsoft patents in GPL software. And if there is actual MS code lying out there GPL'd illegally, the community can fix that just as soon as they inform people. Businesses that sell Linux may face lawsuits, but that's a risk Microsoft is equally exposed to. Look at the list of acknowledgments in IE sometime. The amount of software Microsoft finds, borrows and buys compared to initiates and develops in house is incredible.
"Some have called on Microsoft to come clear on what the infringements are... That would certainly be interesting but there's no reason for Microsoft to do this. It would dismiss the speculations about the claim being FUD, but it wouldn't achieve anything else."
It would do something: it would promptly stop the distribution and unfair appropriation of MS developed and disclosed technology, as is their right under the law. Patent law exists to protect investments in technology and innovation, not to place landmines in the way of development. Doing nothing, when you're aware of infringements undermines the purpose and intent of disclosure in patents, and silently endorses the use of your technology. It seems to me the author thinks Microsoft can use the courts to negotiate a license on terms they'd be unable to receive under a normal business relationship.
Basically, investing isn't zero sum because someone is taking that money with the intent of creating more wealth than interest plus inflation. For example, issuing corporate bonds to build a new factory in Dayton, Ohio. If all goes as planned, the company makes their money back, pays off their creditors, and consumers are happy to have a new product to purchase. What obscures all this basic workings is risk. There's tons of risks in business: Your suppliers may corner the market and raise prices, your consumers may hate your design, your government might tax your product, your competitors might beat you to market. If I own stock and the company pays a dividend, it came from consumers buying the company's goods and services.
Investment markets like the NYSE and the Chicago board of trade arise from the desire to mitigate risk on investments. Rather than buying a lot of one company's bonds or stocks, buy several. You increase the potential that some of your bonds may fail, but hopefully decrease the chances that they all fail. There's tons more ideas like this out there, but I hope you get the idea. Trading involves two investors adjusting their holdings to match their risk preferences. Some people, especially young people, may prefer riskier investments, because they have a long time left to save for and can outwait a 10 year slump in the market. There does exist a class of traders that buy and sell stock looking to make a profit off of other investors, but generally profits come from the creation of wealth, ie firms paying people to make something and selling it to the public.
I think we already value education plenty. Its reflected everywhere: tuition prices, high paying jobs that require degrees, etc. The question is, when the price of education is going up so rapidly, why isn't there a rapid growth in supply, to help alleviate and partake in that money? Because while a degree from MIT is valuable, even the ridiculous tuition they charge is a drop in the bucket compared to research grants from the NSF etc. Universities with a research arm have nearly no incentive to teach; rather than expand in areas that suggest growth, they raise price and continue to rake in grant money. It's also partly because the very people who attempt to are seen as profiteers merely pushing paper, who's students see a diploma as a key to get rich quick scheme. DeVry, IIT, American University are all growing nationally to grab some of that tuition, but the sad truth is that students don't have the same perspective as hiring managers. Education is the most valuable investment a young person can make, but they're woefully undereducated on future trends, and the markets do not serve them well. The problem is one of renown. It takes time to build a reputation, no matter how selective or expensive your school is. You can't build MIT overnight, which is yet another part of the problem.
As far as this Human Race advancement crap, in Galileo's time, there was a lot less to know. A doctorate involves doing new research and broading the scope of human knowledge (and then encrypting it in papers and journal articles). It was much easier to learn everything we knew, and get working on new ideas. In Galileo's time a Renaissance man could quite possibly know most subjects. Today, physics alone requires perhaps 10 years time to go from a high school diploma to contributing to the field. Your analogy to the health care system is incredibly flawed: the cost of health care is caused by disease, and the high price reflects society's value for it. Both health care and education are valuable and should be carried forward. There's no reason they both can't be profitable, and thus self-sustaining. Even the premise of your argument is flawed. I promise you, health care generates the most valuable kind of wealth for America: longer life expectancy.
The much stronger argument to be had here is equal access to education. The current school system is serving students from poor districts.. poorly. But there's no reason to expect privatizing the system to do any better. The only benefit is that those most able to afford a quality education will be able to get it directly rather than turning to subterfuge like raising county property taxes to subsidize local public schools. A genius child with a single uneducated working mother will still be disadvantaged in either scenario. But giving out grants and loans like we do now leads in part to rapidly rising tuition prices. By the same token, should we as a society accept that some people will not be able to afford to live? Purely rational actors should take out loans for as much money as they need to cure themselves, but the amount society will lend is going to be based on how much they can earn. Especially for the elderly, this is a grim calculus.
Well, I'm rambling here, but my point is that value plays a significant role in the education system we have. Your basis is a touchy feely "we must strive to be better than the dark ages;" I simply pointed out that gifted children are mostly capable of the best kind of learning: learning on their own. This skill is the most valuable skill any school can teach, that gifted students are allowed to practice it in public schools is not only a win for the people in charge of the budget, but for the students, and society which will reap their talent and discoveries.
Well, I'm sorry to inform you that we're in similar boats. Both the states of Kansas and Georgia recognized me as a "gifted" student. The entire Kansas public school system provides for gifted children: at the elementary level students attend a class twice weekly, at the junior high level a class is offered, same as the high school level. You set an "IEP" (Individualized Education Program) and set your own educational goals. Sometimes this means taking courses at the high school next door, sometimes it means studying a mock trial. Generally, the QUEST (gifted) classes seemed like a waste of an hour, with many students using it as a study hall for other coursework rather than their IEP. The thing is, gifted students are often capable of setting their own goals and achieving them. I recall the gifted teacher promoting her "Peace Studies", a small focus group that studied non-war histories because history was centered too much around war. Me and a couple friends decided to start up our own "War Studies" class focused on the classics: Machivelli, the communist manifesto, etc. If our teachers hadn't been so adversarial to the concept they might have looked at the recommended reading lists for Officer Colleges rather than substitute Art of War for some boy's version of "Reviving Ophelia" (Dereliction of Duty comes to mind). Despite this ability to craft my own class I often chose not to participate in that but rather used the IEP for access to advanced courses, etc. This gifted program helps alleviate already overworked teachers and the pressure on private schooling, by recognizing that gifted children are capable of learning on their own, which was my original point.
Of course, parents often want their children to have access to these resources, and rightfully so. Sometimes borderline children will be given the opportunity to retest, because there is a margin of error on IQ tests and other admission criteria. Most programs encourage parents not to disclose a number to students, for a number of reasons. Those same reasons might also prompt your parents to lie to you rather than hurt your feelings. Hopefully you're old enough now to stomach the truth: you were given a second chance, I hope you put it to good use.
No, I'm saying the sports program's budget is irrelevent in that IT PAYS FOR ITSELF. Whether varsity sports belongs within an education system, is unimportant to the question of whether they're drawing money away from other student services, because they aren't!
Slashdot Mirror
I think the hall of mirrors concept was that if you place a few lights in a room full of mirrors, you get the illusion of a significantly complex and varied system. However, it seems that they're mostly talking about some very distant edges, so that all we can see of the universe from such "edges" is faint and sporadic background noise.
I'd imagine they wouldn't turn away money. Whether you two can agree to how much is another question altogether.
I can't say for sure whether it's the same level of support, but there's always Canonical for Ubuntu and Progeny for Debian support.
I'm a bit confused. The going rate for Google stock is currently 500 dollars. You're saying an option with a strike price 100 dollars over that is worth nearly 70? Am I missing something, like the options expire two years from today?
You'd think someone asking for community participation would go to the effort of including a link to the community in question. Somehow, I think you'll get out of this request what you put into it.
My head hurts here. You think that copying a file between drives should affect the likelyhood of a program being pushed out of memory? A simple cp shouldn't be using tons of RAM; just enough to buffer the input while the destination drive is catching up. Of course, we're comparing a command line tool to a GUI drag and drop; it might be more fair to see how nautilus handles the action.
What you're describing is mostly solved by hibernate; save the entire state to disk, and when you start up again, some mini bootloader restores the state. Doesn't mean others haven't tried different stuff. WinXP took some steps to make a first boot go faster. Put files accessed on boot somewhere special for faster access, etc. Cut boot down to.
But the basic problem is one of disk throughput and memory usage. There's a hell of a lot of stuff used on boot. CPU usage is secondary to pulling things off of disk. Unlike other computer systems, your desktop isn't intended to run programs directly off of ROM. It's intended to run a variety of applications, and accept a variety of underlying hardware. Since neither nor the hardware is designed to run a specific application from ROM, you can't just start with an assumed operating system or program.
Also, to bring up a nit, your TV only starts up instantly because it's halfway started most of the time. Turn it off for a long time or unplug it and you'll see it take a while to "warm up". This uses quite a bit of power. If you felt like it, you could pay extra to build a motherboard etc that supports suspend for desktops, but it takes a lot of effort to get the software right, so its primarily done for laptops. It'd be a nice comprimise between booting/hibernating and "instant on" that you want.
If you'd seen the talk at google by last year's winner, you'd know that it's not as simple as you've made it. They're given GPS coordinates only shortly before the contest begins, in an effort to make sure nobody tries to precalculate the entire path etc (not sure what the input will be this time around). Not that it matters, as it would be hard to determine navigability with a simple 2d overhead satellite image. And they still need collision prediction & avoidance to avoid pedestrians and traffic (not that I'd be planning to drive in that town the day of the event). As far as speed limits based on GPS, that won't work out so well; regular GPS has an error of something like ten meters; that enough to confuse a highway with it's frontage road. But speed limits themselves raise an interesting question, if an autonomous system calculates that it can safely travel higher than the speed limit under current conditions, traffic, quantum states of nearby objects etc, what does that say about the limit?
Really, I somewhat suspect that recognizing roadsigns wouldn't be terribly hard. They're always placed with high visibility as an intention, and many are common among the states. But given the existence of road maps and map nagivgation databases, the only reason to include the feature is as a double check on your data; sometimes it's just wrong, but sometimes construction fucks up the map systems. I'd rather have both, frankly. You're definitely right that path finding over a map is a fairly solved problem in AI.
But most of all, I'd be fairly impressed if you made it to Manhattan without any knowledge of maps whatsoever, human or not. I live in Kansas, about halfway between those two points and neither Manhattan or Sacramento are on any roadsigns here.
Sure, it costs them money. There's evidence that they do decide how much money each spot they take is worth rather than simply take the first slot- gmail is the second sponsored link for "email" currently. And I see no reason why they shouldn't do it. But it is a bit unfair -- I imagine that unlike their competitors, they can know all the bids out there and their competitor's effectiveness.
Although I do wonder, what's the marginal cost of an ad on a google search result? How much does it cost google to serve up one more advert? For websense clients (or whatever they call it when they pay you to put their ads on your website), I can imagine that the cost would be primarily enrollment rates. The more invasive your system the less people want to submit their readers to that. So they err on the side of little, I imagine. But currently, their search results page seems to cut off the Sponsored Links sidebar before the "page" is over. For searches like Windows, there's more campaigns than there is space to list them all as currently laid out. Would they really lose search results for something as unobtrusive as extending the side bar one more entry? I don't even want to think about the complexities involved with deciding how many results per page should be served.
The scarcity of space they control can lead to a strong competitive advantage. They know what bid it takes to make the front page, they know what bid it takes to make the top 3 links, etc. If I were for some reason trying to compete with Google and advertising using Google (which itself seems counter-productive), I do think I'd call it somewhat unfair. But that's life.
Sadly, one of the purposes of the HyperVisor(HV) mode seems to be to lock Linux out of most if not all of those features.
I believe this is the line of thinking that prompted the government of Japan to subsidize the production of solar cells. Not sure how soon till they've solved their chicken and egg problem however.
40 percent is impressive, but the cost is likely still damn high, and not an incredible improvement over the previous record. In short if solar wasn't close to making since yesterday, it still won't today. It might some time in the future, but probably not tomorrow.
It's only immoral if you honestly think that these are a "bad" investment. They've already stated a technological preference, so absolute return on investment is not the number one priority. I would imagine the biggest priority is for students to learn to research a sector, and make informed investing decisions. Otherwise, they should just all be investing in high yield junk bonds or boring index funds. If you have evidence that companies are likely to do better than average, and that the market doesn't value things this way (yet), you should be able to weight your investment towards companies that write or use open source technologies.
I've no idea why you feel that open source and profits are intrinsically misaligned.
There's a canyon here between what you two view as "old persons". The Camry does have an image problem: it's been somewhat pigeon-holed as the car for a salaried middle manager with a wife and two children. A fantastic family car. The scion, you've no doubt seen ads for, is pushing their brand to a much younger, doesn't-know-it-looks-like-shit first time drivers. I agree with the grandparent; Toyota's aren't stereotypically "for senior citizens" the way Buicks and Lincoln Town cars are. I imagine in twenty years time, the Camry will inherit the same status the Town Car does now, by virtue of their current owners simply getting older.
They may not think its invalid so much as refuse to use it the same way some sites refuse mailinator or hotmail accounts.
I think his point was both about quality and quantity, although I agree his soap box is primarily intended to attract developers to his company's software.
The difference between sleep and hibernate primarily matters on laptops. They exist as a tradeoff between power and startup time.
Basically,
Suspend-to-disk = hibernate
Suspend-to-ram = sleep/suspend/whatever
Suspending to RAM is far faster, but requires some additional power. Suspend to disk saves to long term storage that will survive a complete power failure. Joel's suggestion was for the power management system to choose between them based on the knowledge it has. This would of course require more than a week's effort to write and test, but it would probably be better than what they have now. Knowing when to switch from ram to disk suspend I think would be a tricky business, potentially requiring accelerometers not all laptops have.
It was kinda tacky to insinuate that they weren't dedicated to Free software any more, and such. If Mark felt there were individual developers dissatisfied with Novell's recent activities, it would have been smarter to target them personally rather than post on the openSUSE mailing list to promote Ubuntu.
It's never too late to start exercising. And the Asker indicated that he was only facing hand arthritis, which DDR may not trigger very much, if at all. There's been a ton of suggestions on the Wii, but I can't imagine being able to hold something while swinging it madly, or lightly but rapidly, would cooperate with arthritis.
"And that's also why they're getting hit with a few 9-figure verdicts already. But they still play the game and pretend they're legitimate, because they somehow think they'll benefit, in the end, using them to crush current and potential competition with multi-million legal actions and the threat thereof."
No, they're getting hit with a few painful verdicts because not only do they ignore patent law, but they enter bad faith negotiations to acquire patent licenses and attempt to screw businesses like Burst after the fact. In this sort of scenario, they should rightfully be subject to treble damages, being fully aware of the patent they're violating. This isn't just the slings and arrows of software patent fate, this is the direct result of unscrupulous business practices at Microsoft in particular.
Microsoft has access to the GPL'd code, we have access to patent descriptions. Anyone can investigate whether there's Microsoft patents in GPL software. And if there is actual MS code lying out there GPL'd illegally, the community can fix that just as soon as they inform people. Businesses that sell Linux may face lawsuits, but that's a risk Microsoft is equally exposed to. Look at the list of acknowledgments in IE sometime. The amount of software Microsoft finds, borrows and buys compared to initiates and develops in house is incredible.
... That would certainly be interesting but there's no reason for Microsoft to do this. It would dismiss the speculations about the claim being FUD, but it wouldn't achieve anything else."
"Some have called on Microsoft to come clear on what the infringements are
It would do something: it would promptly stop the distribution and unfair appropriation of MS developed and disclosed technology, as is their right under the law. Patent law exists to protect investments in technology and innovation, not to place landmines in the way of development. Doing nothing, when you're aware of infringements undermines the purpose and intent of disclosure in patents, and silently endorses the use of your technology. It seems to me the author thinks Microsoft can use the courts to negotiate a license on terms they'd be unable to receive under a normal business relationship.
Basically, investing isn't zero sum because someone is taking that money with the intent of creating more wealth than interest plus inflation. For example, issuing corporate bonds to build a new factory in Dayton, Ohio. If all goes as planned, the company makes their money back, pays off their creditors, and consumers are happy to have a new product to purchase. What obscures all this basic workings is risk. There's tons of risks in business: Your suppliers may corner the market and raise prices, your consumers may hate your design, your government might tax your product, your competitors might beat you to market. If I own stock and the company pays a dividend, it came from consumers buying the company's goods and services.
Investment markets like the NYSE and the Chicago board of trade arise from the desire to mitigate risk on investments. Rather than buying a lot of one company's bonds or stocks, buy several. You increase the potential that some of your bonds may fail, but hopefully decrease the chances that they all fail. There's tons more ideas like this out there, but I hope you get the idea. Trading involves two investors adjusting their holdings to match their risk preferences. Some people, especially young people, may prefer riskier investments, because they have a long time left to save for and can outwait a 10 year slump in the market. There does exist a class of traders that buy and sell stock looking to make a profit off of other investors, but generally profits come from the creation of wealth, ie firms paying people to make something and selling it to the public.
I think we already value education plenty. Its reflected everywhere: tuition prices, high paying jobs that require degrees, etc. The question is, when the price of education is going up so rapidly, why isn't there a rapid growth in supply, to help alleviate and partake in that money? Because while a degree from MIT is valuable, even the ridiculous tuition they charge is a drop in the bucket compared to research grants from the NSF etc. Universities with a research arm have nearly no incentive to teach; rather than expand in areas that suggest growth, they raise price and continue to rake in grant money. It's also partly because the very people who attempt to are seen as profiteers merely pushing paper, who's students see a diploma as a key to get rich quick scheme. DeVry, IIT, American University are all growing nationally to grab some of that tuition, but the sad truth is that students don't have the same perspective as hiring managers. Education is the most valuable investment a young person can make, but they're woefully undereducated on future trends, and the markets do not serve them well. The problem is one of renown. It takes time to build a reputation, no matter how selective or expensive your school is. You can't build MIT overnight, which is yet another part of the problem.
As far as this Human Race advancement crap, in Galileo's time, there was a lot less to know. A doctorate involves doing new research and broading the scope of human knowledge (and then encrypting it in papers and journal articles). It was much easier to learn everything we knew, and get working on new ideas. In Galileo's time a Renaissance man could quite possibly know most subjects. Today, physics alone requires perhaps 10 years time to go from a high school diploma to contributing to the field. Your analogy to the health care system is incredibly flawed: the cost of health care is caused by disease, and the high price reflects society's value for it. Both health care and education are valuable and should be carried forward. There's no reason they both can't be profitable, and thus self-sustaining. Even the premise of your argument is flawed. I promise you, health care generates the most valuable kind of wealth for America: longer life expectancy.
The much stronger argument to be had here is equal access to education. The current school system is serving students from poor districts.. poorly. But there's no reason to expect privatizing the system to do any better. The only benefit is that those most able to afford a quality education will be able to get it directly rather than turning to subterfuge like raising county property taxes to subsidize local public schools. A genius child with a single uneducated working mother will still be disadvantaged in either scenario. But giving out grants and loans like we do now leads in part to rapidly rising tuition prices. By the same token, should we as a society accept that some people will not be able to afford to live? Purely rational actors should take out loans for as much money as they need to cure themselves, but the amount society will lend is going to be based on how much they can earn. Especially for the elderly, this is a grim calculus.
Well, I'm rambling here, but my point is that value plays a significant role in the education system we have. Your basis is a touchy feely "we must strive to be better than the dark ages;" I simply pointed out that gifted children are mostly capable of the best kind of learning: learning on their own. This skill is the most valuable skill any school can teach, that gifted students are allowed to practice it in public schools is not only a win for the people in charge of the budget, but for the students, and society which will reap their talent and discoveries.
Well, I'm sorry to inform you that we're in similar boats. Both the states of Kansas and Georgia recognized me as a "gifted" student. The entire Kansas public school system provides for gifted children: at the elementary level students attend a class twice weekly, at the junior high level a class is offered, same as the high school level. You set an "IEP" (Individualized Education Program) and set your own educational goals. Sometimes this means taking courses at the high school next door, sometimes it means studying a mock trial. Generally, the QUEST (gifted) classes seemed like a waste of an hour, with many students using it as a study hall for other coursework rather than their IEP. The thing is, gifted students are often capable of setting their own goals and achieving them. I recall the gifted teacher promoting her "Peace Studies", a small focus group that studied non-war histories because history was centered too much around war. Me and a couple friends decided to start up our own "War Studies" class focused on the classics: Machivelli, the communist manifesto, etc. If our teachers hadn't been so adversarial to the concept they might have looked at the recommended reading lists for Officer Colleges rather than substitute Art of War for some boy's version of "Reviving Ophelia" (Dereliction of Duty comes to mind). Despite this ability to craft my own class I often chose not to participate in that but rather used the IEP for access to advanced courses, etc. This gifted program helps alleviate already overworked teachers and the pressure on private schooling, by recognizing that gifted children are capable of learning on their own, which was my original point.
Of course, parents often want their children to have access to these resources, and rightfully so. Sometimes borderline children will be given the opportunity to retest, because there is a margin of error on IQ tests and other admission criteria. Most programs encourage parents not to disclose a number to students, for a number of reasons. Those same reasons might also prompt your parents to lie to you rather than hurt your feelings. Hopefully you're old enough now to stomach the truth: you were given a second chance, I hope you put it to good use.
No, I'm saying the sports program's budget is irrelevent in that IT PAYS FOR ITSELF. Whether varsity sports belongs within an education system, is unimportant to the question of whether they're drawing money away from other student services, because they aren't!