So you're relating "id" to "a record." I assume that the record in question is a blob of potentially binary data that your program parses however it wants. So you want to relate unique identifiers to blobs. You can do that quite easily with SQL. Looking up a given unique identifier quickly is something your average relational database is very good at. And writing the wrapper function to implement your hypothetical get() function is trivial in most languages. I'm completely at a loss for what your SQL-free database is offering me in this case. It's saving you from the horror of writing 10 lines of code, once, to implement get(in)? 60 minutes with a good SQL tutorial will teach you everything you need to know. Sure, there is a lot more you can learn, but for the simple case you're describing you can understand SQL at only the most simple level.
Or are you handwaving the "a record" is actually automatically squeezed into one or more variables or objects in your code? You say get("ChaosDiscord") and out pops the UserObject populated with the relevant information. Of course, at this point you need to start teaching you database, or at least your database wrapper, how your objects are structured, and how to serialize them. This is admittedly a bit of a nuisance, but an SQL-free database doesn't magically make the problem go away. Sure, an SQL-free database can provide a layer to simplify or automate it, but so can a layer on an SQL database (Ruby on Rails is perhaps the best known). Sure, you'll need to tell it that username is a string, userid is an integer, and so on, but you only have to say it once in SQL instead of in your program. The total work hasn't gone up.
Ultimately, you appear to be complaining that SQL is too powerful (and thus complex) for your needs. But you can easily learn and use a subset of SQL that corresponds to what you claim you're looking for in an SQL-free database! You might as well complain that Java is too powerful it has thousands of classes you don't need. The time to learn the relatively minor amount of SQL you need is insignificant compared to the time to develop any non-trivial application. If even that hour is too much, you can outsource the work to a geeky college student for some pizza and soda.
There are some compelling reasons to look at SQL-free databases, but "SQL is too powerful" isn't one.
I am reminded that the bar is a bit higher for people who don't otherwise contribute. In particular, you need 10 edits. This sucks, but it does help cut down on the flood of copyright infringement that Wikipedia is constantly fighting. And if you try to contribute through someone else, the road is really complex. But the road is complex not because Wikipedia doesn't want professional photographs, but because Wikipedia is deathly afraid of copyright infringement.
I submitted several of the great shots of Travis Tritt I took last year when I was on stage with him as photographer for one event, with a release terms they requested and they said no thank you.
Could you please elaborate? Who said no thank you? What were the details of the offer and refusal? I expect there was a misunderstanding, because what you describe doesn't make any sense. Why would Wikipedia refuse a high quality, relevant, useful image? You don't need to seek permission up front, you can just create a Wikipedia account, select an acceptable license (CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, GFDL, or public domain, your choice!), and upload your photo, you should be good to go. Assuming the photo is relevant, add it to an article. (You don't need to add it to an article, but people may not notice your generous contribution if you don't.)
That would be true, if they were an idiot. Fortunately I don't think the grandparent poster is an idiot.
Hacking into a wifi signal goes beyond decrypting a data stream. You are at that point sending data with the intention of having a remote computer (for the access point is indeed a little computer) and having it do work for you. You are now making use of someone else's property without their permission. Worse, if they're using even a lame 64-bit WEP, they have clearly indicated that you are not welcome to us it, a sort of digital "No Trespassing" sign, so you can't claim it was accidental.
Cell phones are similar, although with an interesting twist: you're not going to be able to make a phone call without some phone's identity. And whoever paid for that phone's identity is going to get hit with the charges for your calls. In essence, you're engaging in fraud against someone else, making charges in their name. We don't need special phone crime laws to deal with this, basic fraud (specifically identity "theft") covers it fine.
Now, this does suggest that you're free to quietly snoop on other people's wifi and cell phones. One can take an ethical stand that puts the onus of securing one's wireless communications on the transmitter and receiver, not the government and third parties. Or put another way, one might say, "Feel free to snoop on my wifi. I use a secure VPN."
Splicing into the cable companies lines is a different case. If the cable doesn't enter your property, you've engaged in trespass and tampering with someone else's property. But we'll be generous and assume the cable crosses your property; it's common enough. While the land is yours, the physical cable itself is not. In much the same way that if I park in my local grocery store's lot, they have no right to siphon some gas out of my tank, you have no right to cut or otherwise modify their cable.
Now, if you were to engage in some cleverness to read the signal off the cable without harming the cable, I think you'd see some support from those arguing the "tough tits" case.
(In all of these cases I'm ignoring what is actually legal, since I believe the point is to argue what is ethical, and thus what the law should be, not what it is today.)
For those people who found my previous analogy too complex, who insist that because he's playing by the formal rules it's okay, I recommend trying a related social experiment: Head on out to public park where people play pickup games of basketball, or, heck, chess. Once you're welcomed in, start engaging in the most foul insults you can to distract your opponent. Might I suggest racial epithets? Since you're playing by the rules trying to win, no one will mind or get angry. Anyone who does get angry is blowing it out of proportion, since it's just a game. Now keep coming back day-after-day to do this; since it's a public park and you are obeying the law.
If you end up ostracized, I trust your moral superiority keep you company. And if you get your nose broken, you can take pride in knowing that you didn't break the law, so you're as pure morally as fresh snow.
So, a researcher enters a foreign land. He obeys the strict letter of the law, but ignores the customs and rules of polite behavior. Even more, he specifically sets out to break those customs and rules of polite society. The natives push back, telling him that he is being rude. He continues to break the customs and rules of polite society, offending large numbers of people on a regular basis. The natives seek every legal avenue and socially acceptable method to drive him away. He continues to offend. Some natives start pushing what is social acceptable, and skirting the edges of legality.
Wow, color me surprised. Those nasty natives! How dare they try to keep you down!
Perhaps as followup research he can start referring to people of other ethnicity using racial slurs.
What a bunch of whiners. If you're innocent, you have nothing to hide. Your so-called "privacy" is just an excuse for lawlessness.
I'd say more, but I need to go. I have a report that several senior cheerleaders at my school may be concealing... erm... something... something really bad. Yes, that's it. Something really bad. They require strip searching immediately, for the safety of everyone!
Anonymous cowards trolling doesn't really bother me. However, the people who modded you up, please stop. Two clues, free of charge:
1. Slashdot posters are a wide variety of people with different opinions. Different people having different opinions is not hypocrisy, and you're not clever for pointing out that Slashdot isn't a hivemind.
2. There are some subtle differences between this and the Thomas case. For the dense: Thomas did not infringe for profit. Thomas did not claim to have created the songs. If Thomas had distributed GPLed works (or works under a similar Creative Commons license), depending on the specifics there would likely be no crime at all.
The entire point of the GPL is that if you have software running on a device, you should be able to modify the software and run it on the same device. Since the signing key is necessary to run on the device in question, it should be provided. Now GPL2 had a loophole allowing you to keep the signing key, but it's still against the spirit. For the immediate term Atari is safe; ScummVM is using GPL2. GPL3 closes the loophole.
Things like Wikipedia, you'd have to refer to a page in the history; the content is always being changed.
Books change too, just more slowly. If I refer to a print encyclopedia, I better at least refer to a specific year, the article may be updated next year. It can even be a problem for fiction. If you don't cite publisher and publication location, and you cite that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire contains references to "pudding" and "biscuits" anyone checking your citation in the US release will be unable to confirm it. Rowling made changes after the books were published, a good reminder to the importance of publication year and edition number.
By "correctly" do you mean, "Does not inconvenience any legal use of the work, while simultaneously providing a non-trivial barrier to illegal reproduction?" Because if so, it is not possible to correctly implement DRM. You can either allow me to take arbitrary excerpts for commentary, to format shift to any format or device I like in full quality, and to make full quality backup copies or you can stop some relatively small number of copyright infringers.
The article is suggesting that the teacher should somehow do a magic act that will get the students to magically work hard and become good programmers.
My point was that a competent teacher would suffice if the student is motivated.
I don't think that was his point at all. I think he is suggesting that the current system crushes motivation by taking a genuinely interest subject and turning it into mindless drudgery. Sure, some students will be motivated enough to see past the crap and go on to shine anyway. But some will be motivated, but not enough to survive the system. They'll end up with the idea, "I'm bad at math," when in fact they problem is that they're bad at rote memorization and robotic manipulation that aren't actually the core of math.
Besides, isn't part of the job of a competant teacher to motivate students who aren't? No, they can't work miracles, but they can help students on the edge.
"What happens to [students] if they can't function inside a creative mathematical atmosphere?"
What happens to students that can't function inside a rote memorization atmosphere? They learn that they're "bad at math" and we end up with a country that, as a whole, views math as hard and themselves as dumb. Maybe the original author is wrong, but he's essentially putting forth that the current system fails for far more students than his proposed system. No, it might not work for everyone, but he claims it will work for more people than the current system.
Nope, he's directly addressing both of your goals. He claims that the current system fails at both. Rote memorization and robotic application of cryptic rules doesn't stick with people. So we'll give someone 12 years of math education, but after a few years in the real world they'll only remember maybe the first 5. So what was the point of all that time? Secondly, because math is presented so poorly, many people who might love math are turned off. Worse, some people who enjoy and are good at rote memorization and robotic application might erroneously think they want to be math majors, only to discover that upper level math is a very different beast. As he notes, it's like teaching students musical notation without actually listening to music as a way to discover who might have a love of music. He believes that his proposal may cover less material, but students will actually understand it better and will retain it and will be better able to learn whatever else they need to know. And because they're learning "real" math, the people with a predisposition to loving math have a better chance to discover it.
I don't understand why education is seen the way it is in the US. What does the teacher have to do with the quality of education? Does anyone think their teacher helped them become a good programmer.
An interesting insight. We could probably save a lot of money by hiring people willing to work for minimum wage to do our teaching.
However, yes, I've had professors and lecturers who helped me become a good programmer. (Sadly my high school didn't have any programming courses.) I've had professors whose explanations were clearer than the book's, or in some cases covered material not in a book. When I and other students didn't understand something, they could react to our questions and complaints in a way a book couldn't. They reviewed our code and provided guidance on what was good and bad. One in particular demanded a brief oral design proposal for a major project before you started on it and would ruthlessly critique it. (This would show me the value of designing before coding, even if the "design" is just a brief plan, getting at least a second opinion on your design, and analyzing a design for flaws. My teachers taught me useful techniques applicable to a wide variety of situations. They taught me to formalize problems and identify existing solutions instead of viewing every problem as a completely unique situation. They introduced me to types of development tools I hadn't realized existed. While I question the value of some of my college courses, most of my computer science courses were taught by skilled, inspiring people and I am confident that they made me a better programmer today.
Part of his argument is that by focusing on "math as tool" via "math as rote memorization", you fail even at that. Math at higher levels becomes cryptic symbols that you manipulate according to cryptic rules to make your teacher happy. And a few years out of school you promptly forget the whole thing. If they forget most of it, and for the overwhelming majority it never hurts them to have forgotten it, what was the point in having "taught" it in the first place? He argues that it's such a waste of time that we might simply drop some math courses entirely and we would be better off. (Indeed, I suspect that if you replace your average American's high school senior math courses with Spanish that society on the whole would benefit. They're more likely to make use of the Spanish.)
The author believes that his proposal will lead to more students discovering that they actually like math, and more students as a whole actually retaining what they learned. While they might learn less, they'll actually retain more in the long run, and be better armed to figure out things for themselves.
Original author: The current curriculum sucks and standardized testing sucks. We should replace them with something better.
You: But we need to teach the curriculum, and we need to pass the standardized tests!
That's not a counter argument. That's a sad affirmation of what he's saying.
He has realistic and implementable ideas. While he paints in broad strokes, that's an appropriate level for an essay of that length. In short: teach math like you teach english, or art. Sure, teach some basics, but rote memorization is usually counterproductive. Instead hand the child some tools and an unsolved problem and ask them to solve it. An art teacher puts a chair at the front of the class and asks the kids to draw it. Yeah, they'll suck, but they'll learn. When he provides suggestions for improvements, it's grounded in their own experimentation. An english teacher says, "Read this book, then write an essay on the themes." The english teacher (hopefully) doesn't just say, "The themes of this this chapter are X, Y, and Z," but instead asks the class, "What are the themes? You think X? Okay, what in the chapter says X to you? Sure, that makes sense. What about when the main character did A? Did that support the theme X?" Ask the children to think and reason, not just apply cryptic rules in a sad implementation of the Chinese Room.
You overlooked the absolute core of his argument: a lot of high school students think they don't like math because they've been presented with a pale shadow of math for the previous eight years. Of course a high school student couldn't handle what he's describing; all of their previous schooling has emphasized rote memorization, blind pattern matching, and robotic application of rules. He thinks we need to rethink things all the way back to first grade.
By odd coincidence, I had an english literature teacher in high school who taught english the same way math is frequently taught. You read the book, and during class he lectured on the details of the story, the author's background, and the context of the world in which the story was written. While this might sound interesting, it was presented as a serious facts. Indeed, a few days before a test, he helpfully gave a study session that amounted to listing 100 or so facts from the book and his lectures. You memorized them, then regurgitated 20 or so back on the multiple choice test. It was mindless. It was admittedly very easy, at least if you could memorize a list of 100 or so facts, but it did crap all for my appreciation for literature in the english language. (At the time I liked his class. I found it trivially easy. But looking back on it in hindsight, especially after reading that essay, what a massive waste of time. What a terrible teacher.)
In english class in high school you can ask students to read a work, then write an essay on the themes. In the process they will have to learn to actually pay attention to what they're reading, to consider it on a level beyond a simple telling of events. Maybe the student will hate reading, writing, or both, but the overwhelming majority can manage to write that essay. The original author argues that the same model can work for mathematics and that the idea that it will be too hard for many students is a false one created a system that already fails.
The police force does not protect you or your property,...
The risk of apprehension decreases the benefit of committing a crime. As a result, some people decide the risk is too high and don't commit the crime in the first place. Absent police, the risk decreases, the benefit increases, and some people will decide to commit crimes.
Furthermore, I've got better things to do with my life than hide in my house armed with a shotgun defending my property. I lack the money to hire someone to do the job for me. (And even if I could, what if the person I hire decides today he's going to rob his client and skip town?) There is, unfortunately, always a risk of having stuff stolen or damaged. The existence of law enforcement increases the likelihood of apprehension of the criminal. There is a chance they'll spend some time in prison, which should at least make one happy from a revenge standpoint. There is also a chance they can recover some of your stolen property, which is nice. And having police track the criminal down makes it easier to sue them for the damage and theft and potentially get some reimbursement.
And I and my insurance company certainly appreciated having a police officer to act as a neutral third party observer to document the aftermath of the fender bender I was involved in today.
A terrorist is a person who engages in actions which cause a feeling of terror.
By that standard the serial muggers who had many people in my home town running around scared were "terrorists." As such, it's a useless definition.
Intent matters. A terrorists intends to terrorize people with a goal of changing something about the world beyond their immediate crimes. (You need the last clause, otherwise our serial mugger is back on the list, since he very much wants his victims terrorizes so they they cooperate. I've phrased it badly, but I hope the gist is there.) (Come to think of it, we probably need to add something about "by causing or threatening bodily harm." Because I'm not sure that "economic terrorism" or "emotional terrorism" are really useful additions.)
Measuring intent can be tricky (and thus special anti-terror laws are probably more trouble than they're worth). Did the Tiller's killer intend to terrorize other abortion providers? I wasn't convinced he wasn't just a single crazy would-be vigilante, but now that he's warning that there are other people who will do what he did, yeah, his goal is to terrorize. As for the Holocaust Museum guard's killer? So far I think he's just a deeply disturbed who lashed out at a symbol of his perceived persecution.
For your major terrorists, there isn't much doubt. When you bomb some innocents, then issue a press release demanding things, yeah, you're a terrorist. When you kill some people of another ethnicity, belief system, sexuality, or whatever, then put up fliers warning "You're next," I'm thinking you're a terrorist.
Slashdot Mirror
"a record, calling get(id)"
So you're relating "id" to "a record." I assume that the record in question is a blob of potentially binary data that your program parses however it wants. So you want to relate unique identifiers to blobs. You can do that quite easily with SQL. Looking up a given unique identifier quickly is something your average relational database is very good at. And writing the wrapper function to implement your hypothetical get() function is trivial in most languages. I'm completely at a loss for what your SQL-free database is offering me in this case. It's saving you from the horror of writing 10 lines of code, once, to implement get(in)? 60 minutes with a good SQL tutorial will teach you everything you need to know. Sure, there is a lot more you can learn, but for the simple case you're describing you can understand SQL at only the most simple level.
Or are you handwaving the "a record" is actually automatically squeezed into one or more variables or objects in your code? You say get("ChaosDiscord") and out pops the UserObject populated with the relevant information. Of course, at this point you need to start teaching you database, or at least your database wrapper, how your objects are structured, and how to serialize them. This is admittedly a bit of a nuisance, but an SQL-free database doesn't magically make the problem go away. Sure, an SQL-free database can provide a layer to simplify or automate it, but so can a layer on an SQL database (Ruby on Rails is perhaps the best known). Sure, you'll need to tell it that username is a string, userid is an integer, and so on, but you only have to say it once in SQL instead of in your program. The total work hasn't gone up.
Ultimately, you appear to be complaining that SQL is too powerful (and thus complex) for your needs. But you can easily learn and use a subset of SQL that corresponds to what you claim you're looking for in an SQL-free database! You might as well complain that Java is too powerful it has thousands of classes you don't need. The time to learn the relatively minor amount of SQL you need is insignificant compared to the time to develop any non-trivial application. If even that hour is too much, you can outsource the work to a geeky college student for some pizza and soda.
There are some compelling reasons to look at SQL-free databases, but "SQL is too powerful" isn't one.
I am reminded that the bar is a bit higher for people who don't otherwise contribute. In particular, you need 10 edits. This sucks, but it does help cut down on the flood of copyright infringement that Wikipedia is constantly fighting. And if you try to contribute through someone else, the road is really complex. But the road is complex not because Wikipedia doesn't want professional photographs, but because Wikipedia is deathly afraid of copyright infringement.
Could you please elaborate? Who said no thank you? What were the details of the offer and refusal? I expect there was a misunderstanding, because what you describe doesn't make any sense. Why would Wikipedia refuse a high quality, relevant, useful image? You don't need to seek permission up front, you can just create a Wikipedia account, select an acceptable license (CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, GFDL, or public domain, your choice!), and upload your photo, you should be good to go. Assuming the photo is relevant, add it to an article. (You don't need to add it to an article, but people may not notice your generous contribution if you don't.)
That would be true, if they were an idiot. Fortunately I don't think the grandparent poster is an idiot.
Hacking into a wifi signal goes beyond decrypting a data stream. You are at that point sending data with the intention of having a remote computer (for the access point is indeed a little computer) and having it do work for you. You are now making use of someone else's property without their permission. Worse, if they're using even a lame 64-bit WEP, they have clearly indicated that you are not welcome to us it, a sort of digital "No Trespassing" sign, so you can't claim it was accidental.
Cell phones are similar, although with an interesting twist: you're not going to be able to make a phone call without some phone's identity. And whoever paid for that phone's identity is going to get hit with the charges for your calls. In essence, you're engaging in fraud against someone else, making charges in their name. We don't need special phone crime laws to deal with this, basic fraud (specifically identity "theft") covers it fine.
Now, this does suggest that you're free to quietly snoop on other people's wifi and cell phones. One can take an ethical stand that puts the onus of securing one's wireless communications on the transmitter and receiver, not the government and third parties. Or put another way, one might say, "Feel free to snoop on my wifi. I use a secure VPN."
Splicing into the cable companies lines is a different case. If the cable doesn't enter your property, you've engaged in trespass and tampering with someone else's property. But we'll be generous and assume the cable crosses your property; it's common enough. While the land is yours, the physical cable itself is not. In much the same way that if I park in my local grocery store's lot, they have no right to siphon some gas out of my tank, you have no right to cut or otherwise modify their cable.
Now, if you were to engage in some cleverness to read the signal off the cable without harming the cable, I think you'd see some support from those arguing the "tough tits" case.
(In all of these cases I'm ignoring what is actually legal, since I believe the point is to argue what is ethical, and thus what the law should be, not what it is today.)
Yes, can you imagine the madness of Apple shipping GPLed software? The thought of Apple shipping GPLed software like GCC is laughable? Or developing a printing system and licensing it under the GPL. I think not. An entire suite of GPLed software? Never!
For those people who found my previous analogy too complex, who insist that because he's playing by the formal rules it's okay, I recommend trying a related social experiment: Head on out to public park where people play pickup games of basketball, or, heck, chess. Once you're welcomed in, start engaging in the most foul insults you can to distract your opponent. Might I suggest racial epithets? Since you're playing by the rules trying to win, no one will mind or get angry. Anyone who does get angry is blowing it out of proportion, since it's just a game. Now keep coming back day-after-day to do this; since it's a public park and you are obeying the law.
If you end up ostracized, I trust your moral superiority keep you company. And if you get your nose broken, you can take pride in knowing that you didn't break the law, so you're as pure morally as fresh snow.
You know what game you have played? Social discourse. Regrettably today you lose. Best luck next time!
So, a researcher enters a foreign land. He obeys the strict letter of the law, but ignores the customs and rules of polite behavior. Even more, he specifically sets out to break those customs and rules of polite society. The natives push back, telling him that he is being rude. He continues to break the customs and rules of polite society, offending large numbers of people on a regular basis. The natives seek every legal avenue and socially acceptable method to drive him away. He continues to offend. Some natives start pushing what is social acceptable, and skirting the edges of legality.
Wow, color me surprised. Those nasty natives! How dare they try to keep you down!
Perhaps as followup research he can start referring to people of other ethnicity using racial slurs.
How do you reconcile that SlySoft can provide high quality rips of all but 19 Blu-Ray disks with the statement "Blu-Ray has not been cracked?"
What a bunch of whiners. If you're innocent, you have nothing to hide. Your so-called "privacy" is just an excuse for lawlessness.
I'd say more, but I need to go. I have a report that several senior cheerleaders at my school may be concealing... erm... something... something really bad. Yes, that's it. Something really bad. They require strip searching immediately, for the safety of everyone!
Anonymous cowards trolling doesn't really bother me. However, the people who modded you up, please stop. Two clues, free of charge:
1. Slashdot posters are a wide variety of people with different opinions. Different people having different opinions is not hypocrisy, and you're not clever for pointing out that Slashdot isn't a hivemind.
2. There are some subtle differences between this and the Thomas case. For the dense: Thomas did not infringe for profit. Thomas did not claim to have created the songs. If Thomas had distributed GPLed works (or works under a similar Creative Commons license), depending on the specifics there would likely be no crime at all.
The entire point of the GPL is that if you have software running on a device, you should be able to modify the software and run it on the same device. Since the signing key is necessary to run on the device in question, it should be provided. Now GPL2 had a loophole allowing you to keep the signing key, but it's still against the spirit. For the immediate term Atari is safe; ScummVM is using GPL2. GPL3 closes the loophole.
Books change too, just more slowly. If I refer to a print encyclopedia, I better at least refer to a specific year, the article may be updated next year. It can even be a problem for fiction. If you don't cite publisher and publication location, and you cite that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire contains references to "pudding" and "biscuits" anyone checking your citation in the US release will be unable to confirm it. Rowling made changes after the books were published, a good reminder to the importance of publication year and edition number.
Isn't educating the public about why DRM is bad through publicizing cases where people got screwed by DRM a key step is organizing a boycott?
By "correctly" do you mean, "Does not inconvenience any legal use of the work, while simultaneously providing a non-trivial barrier to illegal reproduction?" Because if so, it is not possible to correctly implement DRM. You can either allow me to take arbitrary excerpts for commentary, to format shift to any format or device I like in full quality, and to make full quality backup copies or you can stop some relatively small number of copyright infringers.
I don't think that was his point at all. I think he is suggesting that the current system crushes motivation by taking a genuinely interest subject and turning it into mindless drudgery. Sure, some students will be motivated enough to see past the crap and go on to shine anyway. But some will be motivated, but not enough to survive the system. They'll end up with the idea, "I'm bad at math," when in fact they problem is that they're bad at rote memorization and robotic manipulation that aren't actually the core of math.
Besides, isn't part of the job of a competant teacher to motivate students who aren't? No, they can't work miracles, but they can help students on the edge.
"What happens to [students] if they can't function inside a creative mathematical atmosphere?"
What happens to students that can't function inside a rote memorization atmosphere? They learn that they're "bad at math" and we end up with a country that, as a whole, views math as hard and themselves as dumb. Maybe the original author is wrong, but he's essentially putting forth that the current system fails for far more students than his proposed system. No, it might not work for everyone, but he claims it will work for more people than the current system.
Nope, he's directly addressing both of your goals. He claims that the current system fails at both. Rote memorization and robotic application of cryptic rules doesn't stick with people. So we'll give someone 12 years of math education, but after a few years in the real world they'll only remember maybe the first 5. So what was the point of all that time? Secondly, because math is presented so poorly, many people who might love math are turned off. Worse, some people who enjoy and are good at rote memorization and robotic application might erroneously think they want to be math majors, only to discover that upper level math is a very different beast. As he notes, it's like teaching students musical notation without actually listening to music as a way to discover who might have a love of music. He believes that his proposal may cover less material, but students will actually understand it better and will retain it and will be better able to learn whatever else they need to know. And because they're learning "real" math, the people with a predisposition to loving math have a better chance to discover it.
"Here's a cookie. Tomorrow I'll give you twice as many as I did today. How many will you have in a week?"
Zero? Because I ate them all?
An interesting insight. We could probably save a lot of money by hiring people willing to work for minimum wage to do our teaching.
However, yes, I've had professors and lecturers who helped me become a good programmer. (Sadly my high school didn't have any programming courses.) I've had professors whose explanations were clearer than the book's, or in some cases covered material not in a book. When I and other students didn't understand something, they could react to our questions and complaints in a way a book couldn't. They reviewed our code and provided guidance on what was good and bad. One in particular demanded a brief oral design proposal for a major project before you started on it and would ruthlessly critique it. (This would show me the value of designing before coding, even if the "design" is just a brief plan, getting at least a second opinion on your design, and analyzing a design for flaws. My teachers taught me useful techniques applicable to a wide variety of situations. They taught me to formalize problems and identify existing solutions instead of viewing every problem as a completely unique situation. They introduced me to types of development tools I hadn't realized existed. While I question the value of some of my college courses, most of my computer science courses were taught by skilled, inspiring people and I am confident that they made me a better programmer today.
Part of his argument is that by focusing on "math as tool" via "math as rote memorization", you fail even at that. Math at higher levels becomes cryptic symbols that you manipulate according to cryptic rules to make your teacher happy. And a few years out of school you promptly forget the whole thing. If they forget most of it, and for the overwhelming majority it never hurts them to have forgotten it, what was the point in having "taught" it in the first place? He argues that it's such a waste of time that we might simply drop some math courses entirely and we would be better off. (Indeed, I suspect that if you replace your average American's high school senior math courses with Spanish that society on the whole would benefit. They're more likely to make use of the Spanish.)
The author believes that his proposal will lead to more students discovering that they actually like math, and more students as a whole actually retaining what they learned. While they might learn less, they'll actually retain more in the long run, and be better armed to figure out things for themselves.
Original author: The current curriculum sucks and standardized testing sucks. We should replace them with something better.
You: But we need to teach the curriculum, and we need to pass the standardized tests!
That's not a counter argument. That's a sad affirmation of what he's saying.
He has realistic and implementable ideas. While he paints in broad strokes, that's an appropriate level for an essay of that length. In short: teach math like you teach english, or art. Sure, teach some basics, but rote memorization is usually counterproductive. Instead hand the child some tools and an unsolved problem and ask them to solve it. An art teacher puts a chair at the front of the class and asks the kids to draw it. Yeah, they'll suck, but they'll learn. When he provides suggestions for improvements, it's grounded in their own experimentation. An english teacher says, "Read this book, then write an essay on the themes." The english teacher (hopefully) doesn't just say, "The themes of this this chapter are X, Y, and Z," but instead asks the class, "What are the themes? You think X? Okay, what in the chapter says X to you? Sure, that makes sense. What about when the main character did A? Did that support the theme X?" Ask the children to think and reason, not just apply cryptic rules in a sad implementation of the Chinese Room.
You overlooked the absolute core of his argument: a lot of high school students think they don't like math because they've been presented with a pale shadow of math for the previous eight years. Of course a high school student couldn't handle what he's describing; all of their previous schooling has emphasized rote memorization, blind pattern matching, and robotic application of rules. He thinks we need to rethink things all the way back to first grade.
By odd coincidence, I had an english literature teacher in high school who taught english the same way math is frequently taught. You read the book, and during class he lectured on the details of the story, the author's background, and the context of the world in which the story was written. While this might sound interesting, it was presented as a serious facts. Indeed, a few days before a test, he helpfully gave a study session that amounted to listing 100 or so facts from the book and his lectures. You memorized them, then regurgitated 20 or so back on the multiple choice test. It was mindless. It was admittedly very easy, at least if you could memorize a list of 100 or so facts, but it did crap all for my appreciation for literature in the english language. (At the time I liked his class. I found it trivially easy. But looking back on it in hindsight, especially after reading that essay, what a massive waste of time. What a terrible teacher.)
In english class in high school you can ask students to read a work, then write an essay on the themes. In the process they will have to learn to actually pay attention to what they're reading, to consider it on a level beyond a simple telling of events. Maybe the student will hate reading, writing, or both, but the overwhelming majority can manage to write that essay. The original author argues that the same model can work for mathematics and that the idea that it will be too hard for many students is a false one created a system that already fails.
The risk of apprehension decreases the benefit of committing a crime. As a result, some people decide the risk is too high and don't commit the crime in the first place. Absent police, the risk decreases, the benefit increases, and some people will decide to commit crimes.
Furthermore, I've got better things to do with my life than hide in my house armed with a shotgun defending my property. I lack the money to hire someone to do the job for me. (And even if I could, what if the person I hire decides today he's going to rob his client and skip town?) There is, unfortunately, always a risk of having stuff stolen or damaged. The existence of law enforcement increases the likelihood of apprehension of the criminal. There is a chance they'll spend some time in prison, which should at least make one happy from a revenge standpoint. There is also a chance they can recover some of your stolen property, which is nice. And having police track the criminal down makes it easier to sue them for the damage and theft and potentially get some reimbursement.
And I and my insurance company certainly appreciated having a police officer to act as a neutral third party observer to document the aftermath of the fender bender I was involved in today.
By that standard the serial muggers who had many people in my home town running around scared were "terrorists." As such, it's a useless definition.
Intent matters. A terrorists intends to terrorize people with a goal of changing something about the world beyond their immediate crimes. (You need the last clause, otherwise our serial mugger is back on the list, since he very much wants his victims terrorizes so they they cooperate. I've phrased it badly, but I hope the gist is there.) (Come to think of it, we probably need to add something about "by causing or threatening bodily harm." Because I'm not sure that "economic terrorism" or "emotional terrorism" are really useful additions.)
Measuring intent can be tricky (and thus special anti-terror laws are probably more trouble than they're worth). Did the Tiller's killer intend to terrorize other abortion providers? I wasn't convinced he wasn't just a single crazy would-be vigilante, but now that he's warning that there are other people who will do what he did, yeah, his goal is to terrorize. As for the Holocaust Museum guard's killer? So far I think he's just a deeply disturbed who lashed out at a symbol of his perceived persecution.
For your major terrorists, there isn't much doubt. When you bomb some innocents, then issue a press release demanding things, yeah, you're a terrorist. When you kill some people of another ethnicity, belief system, sexuality, or whatever, then put up fliers warning "You're next," I'm thinking you're a terrorist.