Well, I set up a Linux box to be a firewall, and I'll admit, I felt pretty powerful after doing so. I have no illusions that this qualifies me to administer a network. No, wait, fuck that. I could run a network of 200 computers with ease.
That's beside the point, though. I work at an internet helpdesk, or as I like to call it, the McDonalds of the computer industry. Two of my cow-orkers are MCSEs. They have their little certificate sitting framed on their desk, and regularly come to me asking questions like, "How can I get the 'Remember Password' checkbox enabled?" One of them, an Indian woman who can barely speak English asked me what the Metric meant in a route print.
I don't bash MCSEs because it's the cool thing to do. I bash MCSEs because of the 50 or so MCSEs I've encountered, at least 10 of them couldn't configure their way out of a corrupt registry. Granted, the other 40 were extremely smart people, and at least 20 of them could make Windows do things I've never heard of, but the fact that those 10 idiots were allowed to slip through tells me that an MCSE isn't worth the virus-ridden Outlook Express message the news is sent to their families on.
Welcome to RedHat Linux. Press 'I' to enter interactive startup. Press 'P' to learn how to increase your penis length by 2 inches in 2 weeks. Press 'B' for barely legal teens getting stovepiped by a mammoth dildo.
Like WHEEEE! Chineese girls and links to places I don't want to go and things I don't want to do taking up 80% of my screen space in an Explorer window! Wheeee!
MS the lesser evil? I wouldn't say that at all. MS may be the more capable evil, the less expensive evil, the more familiar evil, but they are definately not the lesser evil. Don't get me wrong, I don't go home and froth at the mouth over how much I hate MS, and even run Windows XP as my desktop machine at home. After 2 weeks of trying to get Counter-Strike running under Wine I gave up. I am irritated that I have to devote a $1500 box to running the occasional game that I pass an idle hour here and there with, while I wait for my 500Mhz pig to compile my work, which I can spend anywhere from 6-16 hours a day doing.
I have no problem whatsoever with MS having a monopoly on the OS and Office product lines, other than the fact that I don't like Windows. MS Office is an excellent peice of software, there's still nothing that even matches it. The problem is that they use the leverage these monopolies provide them to snuff out competition in other areas, like the browser. MS has no interest in providing a good browser. They still can't support PNGs! I, and the US government have no problems with a responsible monopoly. If they're the only people that make decent Office software, then that's where I'll get it. When they start using their Office software to decide how I cook my eggs in the morning, there's a problem.
Your theory that if MS disappeared (star light, star bright...) another monopoly would take over is almost 100% correct. Myself, I believe that in an open market, it would become a monopoly of standards instead of a company. Many different OSes be made by many different vendors and still supply a standard ABI/API that would allow developers to write their software once and make it available to everyone. Linux in particular and the POSIX standard in general are examples of a start to this, but it's sloppy and three-quarter-assed. As much as I like getting my OS for free, I think that the organization and funding that a corporation that charged for its product could bring would accomplish much more, much faster, with higher quality. With the prices that Apple charges I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what happened if MS was to bite the dust. While MS is around and allowed to abuse their power as they are, there's only a slim chance that a standard computing platform will ever happen.
I hate MS because they are restricting my freedom to choose. They may not be putting a gun to my head and forcing me to run Windows, but in effect they are doing this to every software and hardware company they can, which amounts to basically the same thing for someone who doesn't want to take the final step into Linux zealotry and give up gaming to concentrate on growing my beard.
Stop bitching, start thinking for yourself instead of crying because some site told you to think the wrong thing. Stop reading that site. Start learing how to interpret the stats if you don't want to get screwed.
As for the fortune teller demo, it was the first thing I ran on my GF3 the day after the card hit the shelves. It looked sweet, and ran fast. What the hell are you complaining about on this one? The demo shows very clearly that the card is capable of those graphics. Don't blame NVIDIA because game developers haven't taken advantage of every neat little effect the card can do.
So what if they're hyping their new creation? I'd be proud of this card too, and I'd also try to get people to not buy my competitor's card if it meant they weren't going to buy mine. I'm glad they put these press releases out before the card was done. I was on the verge of buying a 9700, but now I'll just wait and buy this. They saved me from buying a card that's going to be inferior in 2-3 months. Then again, that's just my opinion, the same as these other sites you're reading. If you don't like it, make your own opinion instead of crying that the one you're being spoon-fed doesn't taste good. It's nobody's fault but your own that you can't separate the wheat from the chaff.
Blech. Infants like you are the reason my cigarettes cost $5.00 a pack now.
So, basically... If they charge more on a product (Say $300 instead of $130 for Mac OS X) they're evil. And if they charge less, they're evil. And if they charged exactly the same amount, they'd be copying, and thus... Evil.
I hope I'm not getting trolled my an MS fan(boy|girl)...
The problem isn't necessarily what they are charging. The problem is that their prices and placement are tailored to prevent other companies from competing.
Windows and Office, MS's cash cows, are priced far, far above what they would be priced if there was any competition in those two markets. The lack of competition is not due to their products being superior (in which case I wouldn't have a problem with them charging whatever they felt like charging), but special mob-style deals that they have made with the OEMs. At first, before the computer manufacturers were tied hand and foot to Windows, MS charged next to nothing to bundle their OS with the computers. As Windows became the one-and-only consumer OS out there, MS has raised the price because the OEMs had no choice but to pay. They have done the same thing with Office and will do the same thing with any product they have the opportunity to do it with.
Then you come to the products that MS uses as nothing more than a hammer to crush their competition. No company in the world that was not a monopoly would have been able to give away IE for free like they did. They used the money generated by Windows to crush Netscape. MS was never in the browser business until it began to threaten their OS business. Their OS business was threatened because Netscape was becoming a platform for other applications, and if Netscape became the dominant platform and decided to be available on another OS, then MS would have lost (their monopoly). So, they bundled IE with Windows for free, while Netscape was charging. Most people went with the free browser, and the threat was eliminated.
That is what is wrong with MS's pricing. It is used to choke out companies that are making a better product. Once the threat is gone, MS raises its prices. We, the consumers, end up paying more for an inferior product. Although at the end IE ended up being superior to Netscape, this is only because MS choked the living shit out of them and forced them to give away their product for free. It's kind of hard to pay developers when you're not making any money. Just look at what Netscape has done now that AOL/TW is pumping money back into the project. Mozilla is already on par with IE, and will soon pass them up. Unless MS has grown too fat and stupid to see what's coming, they are going to attack Mozilla in the near future. They should have done it sooner.
When MS wants to break into a new market, all it has to do is choke out the competition and walk in unopposed. If it was not a monopoly, it would not be able to do this. A company that needs to make money on its product to stay alive cannot afford to give it away for free. A company that does not give its product away for free or nearly free cannot choke out the competition. A company that does not choke out the competition cannot overcharge for its product. A company that does not overcharge for its product cannot afford to repeat this over and over again, muscling its way into whatever market it wants, ad infinitum.
Although there is a lot of mindless MS-hating here on Slashdot, there are tons of valid reasons to hate them. I guess I should congratulate you for being able to think for yourself and not hate MS just because everyone else here does, but I'll save that for when you're more than a dumb animal that can't tell when it's getting screwed.
Ah, yes, the classic blame-the-user rationale: "If he can't figure out my interface, then he's a damn moron."
What in God's name are you talking about? I said nothing about being a moron, I said brain damage. Moving a mouse is no harder to understand than the principle of the lever. You need to put down the pipe, guy.
The most usable and intuitive information kiosks I've seen -- in department stores, supplying directory information, etc. -- always use a touchscreen interface combined with a simple menu system -- no more than five items is ideal.
Well, you've changed the subject on me here, but that's OK, overuse of mind-altering drugs can do that to a person. But first, let's address how you didn't address the original context of the question. You stated that a person can't hold the mouse steady between double-clicks. Can you wiggle your index finger while keeping your hand within a 3mm radius of its original position? Then you can double-click a mouse. Unless you're dealing with the elderly or an MS (that's Multiple Sclerosis for all you Slashbots;) victim, just tell them they don't have to put all of their might into a mouse click and they'll be clicking like a pro.
As for your argument that computers should be replaced by touch screens with 5 menu selections, yes, I agree 95%. Most people don't want a computer, they want an e-mail/web/game box. Unfortunately, they don't know it yet and it's currently popular fashion to have a computer. For the other 5% of us though, we need a little bit more than what you are describing to build the things that most people want.
I challenge you to come up with an everything-box that the computer is that the average person can sit down at and do whatever they think of. The computer is not the place to do what you are proposing. Stupid-simple intuitiveness belongs in DVD players and web browsing devices, not a machine that can simulate any purely logical thought process you can imagine. There is absolutely no way to provide a person with nearly endless possibilities and make it easy to use at the same time.
Also, not one single thing that I mentioned is in the slightest way unintuitive. You move the mouse up, and the arrow goes up. You press the left mouse button and it does it's normal thing. You press the right mouse button and it does something special. Maybe it would make more sense if they made the right mouse button smaller... well, I never said it was perfect, I just said it was easy. Anyway, it's no more difficult than turning a steering wheel to make a car move in a different direction. I have met some incredibly stupid people that have understood both actions quite well. The last person I met that couldn't figure out a mouse was senile. Not just old and out of touch, diagnosed, by a doctor no less, senile.
I'm not contemptous of users. I'm contemptous of people that believe in magic.
Also, allow me to correct your last sentence.
Computers are toys for everyone, not just tools for techies. I'll clarify. An e-mail application is a communications tool for everyone. A word processing application is a tool for everyone. A computer by itself does nothing for everyone, but in the hands of a techie can do anything for anyone.
Let me guess, you wipe people's asses for a living, right?
None of the objections you had were even close to the level of skill and ability it takes to be a productive member of society. These issues absolutely should NOT be addressed in the baseline computer system, and if you wonder why, ask yourself, is every staircase in your house replaced by a wheelchair ramp?
Every single one of the skills you have outlined here are also required for another even more common activity... driving! If you can't move one object and recognize that it moves another object in proportion, you have brain damage and need special care. If you can't hold a mouse steady, or can't see the mouse cursor, you are handicapped and need special care. If you can't tell the difference between left and right, you are handicapped and need special care. If you can't understand a simple concept like opening a program to do something, even if you only see the word "program" as a synonym for the word "action", you are mentally retarded. Don't get on the road and endanger my life, and don't get on my computer and endanger my productivity.
The interface you propose has almost the exact same problems as the one you want to replace. If you can't hold a mouse steady, what's to stop you from pressing the wrong place on the touchscreen? Perhaps you meant touchhugefuckingwall. How are you going to tell the computer to perform different actions without having some way of activating it? You want to take away icons? What are we supposed to replace them with? Words? We already have that, it's called a menu. Should we speak at it? Ooh, but then I have to remember that blasted word "e-mail". Maybe we should just think real hard at them and hope something happens.
Special people need special support, and sometimes, they don't get to do what they want to do. A man with no legs is never going to win the gold medal in the 400-meter dash. There is no one magical paradigm that works for everyone and trying to achieve that is just going to screw everyone over... just look at Windows. It tries to be everything to everyone, and in the end it's just a mediocre tool for me and a confusing mess for the non-techie.
AAAAARGH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE SCHOOLS?
I've only managed to get just under half way down this page, and the examples of crap educations that you people are receiving is blowing my fucking mind. Where in God's name are you managing to find these places? I've gone to public schools in lower-middle class neighborhoods for my entire life and I was just there 5 years ago. I find it impossible to believe that schools have become that bad so quickly. Faugh! Not only did we learn multiplication and the tables up to 12, but we also learned 3 different ways of doing multiplication and how one way led to another way and how each of them worked. Yes, we learned how to do square roots, we learned 2 different ways, one that was accurate and another that was fast. (I've forgotten by now, but that's beside the point.) Do your teachers hate both you and the subject that they're teaching? For the love of Danny DeVito, if this is what your schools are like, just quit now, you'll be better off at least learning street smarts instead of vegetating in front of a chalkboard.
Slashdot Mirror
Sense of humor, aisle 12.
Well, I set up a Linux box to be a firewall, and I'll admit, I felt pretty powerful after doing so. I have no illusions that this qualifies me to administer a network. No, wait, fuck that. I could run a network of 200 computers with ease.
That's beside the point, though. I work at an internet helpdesk, or as I like to call it, the McDonalds of the computer industry. Two of my cow-orkers are MCSEs. They have their little certificate sitting framed on their desk, and regularly come to me asking questions like, "How can I get the 'Remember Password' checkbox enabled?" One of them, an Indian woman who can barely speak English asked me what the Metric meant in a route print.
I don't bash MCSEs because it's the cool thing to do. I bash MCSEs because of the 50 or so MCSEs I've encountered, at least 10 of them couldn't configure their way out of a corrupt registry. Granted, the other 40 were extremely smart people, and at least 20 of them could make Windows do things I've never heard of, but the fact that those 10 idiots were allowed to slip through tells me that an MCSE isn't worth the virus-ridden Outlook Express message the news is sent to their families on.
Oh, I hope I see this mod in my metamod list...
Don't forget C. They're prepared to quit.
Sweet!
DAMNIT SON OF A BITCH I JUST WASTED ANOTHER 30 SECONDS LOOKING AT THE PREVIEW SOMEBODY PLEASE MAKE IT STOP NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo......
*runs screaming into the dark*
... and as the final insult, Slashdot wouldn't let me post twice within a minute. I just can't win, can I?
Total life wasted: 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
Sorry doesn't get my 2.25 seconds back, now does it buddy.
While you're at it, why don't you give me back the 20 seconds it took to write this post complaining about it?
Make that 45 seconds.
Er, 53 seconds.
No, 59 seconds.
Wait, now it's 1:09
Damnit, now it's 1:17
AAAAARGH WILL IT NEVER END? 1:29
You rat bastard, how could you do this to me? 1:44
Please kill me. But first, give me back the 2 minutes of my life that you cost me.
Here, try this for a start!
God damn cheaters.
Maxim?
Oh, you meant Maxis .
There is no way to express the terror your sig makes me feel.
ROFL...
*dry-washing hands* I can hardly wait hehehe...
Like WHEEEE! Chineese girls and links to places I don't want to go and things I don't want to do taking up 80% of my screen space in an Explorer window! Wheeee!
Fuck Longhorn. I hope MS dies.
Daaahhhhh... Linux?
Nope, Wal-Mart is in fact, the largest ogre.
MS the lesser evil? I wouldn't say that at all. MS may be the more capable evil, the less expensive evil, the more familiar evil, but they are definately not the lesser evil. Don't get me wrong, I don't go home and froth at the mouth over how much I hate MS, and even run Windows XP as my desktop machine at home. After 2 weeks of trying to get Counter-Strike running under Wine I gave up. I am irritated that I have to devote a $1500 box to running the occasional game that I pass an idle hour here and there with, while I wait for my 500Mhz pig to compile my work, which I can spend anywhere from 6-16 hours a day doing.
I have no problem whatsoever with MS having a monopoly on the OS and Office product lines, other than the fact that I don't like Windows. MS Office is an excellent peice of software, there's still nothing that even matches it. The problem is that they use the leverage these monopolies provide them to snuff out competition in other areas, like the browser. MS has no interest in providing a good browser. They still can't support PNGs! I, and the US government have no problems with a responsible monopoly. If they're the only people that make decent Office software, then that's where I'll get it. When they start using their Office software to decide how I cook my eggs in the morning, there's a problem.
Your theory that if MS disappeared (star light, star bright...) another monopoly would take over is almost 100% correct. Myself, I believe that in an open market, it would become a monopoly of standards instead of a company. Many different OSes be made by many different vendors and still supply a standard ABI/API that would allow developers to write their software once and make it available to everyone. Linux in particular and the POSIX standard in general are examples of a start to this, but it's sloppy and three-quarter-assed. As much as I like getting my OS for free, I think that the organization and funding that a corporation that charged for its product could bring would accomplish much more, much faster, with higher quality. With the prices that Apple charges I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what happened if MS was to bite the dust. While MS is around and allowed to abuse their power as they are, there's only a slim chance that a standard computing platform will ever happen.
I hate MS because they are restricting my freedom to choose. They may not be putting a gun to my head and forcing me to run Windows, but in effect they are doing this to every software and hardware company they can, which amounts to basically the same thing for someone who doesn't want to take the final step into Linux zealotry and give up gaming to concentrate on growing my beard.
Well, you asked for flamage, so here goes...
You're an idiot.
Stop bitching, start thinking for yourself instead of crying because some site told you to think the wrong thing. Stop reading that site. Start learing how to interpret the stats if you don't want to get screwed.
As for the fortune teller demo, it was the first thing I ran on my GF3 the day after the card hit the shelves. It looked sweet, and ran fast. What the hell are you complaining about on this one? The demo shows very clearly that the card is capable of those graphics. Don't blame NVIDIA because game developers haven't taken advantage of every neat little effect the card can do.
So what if they're hyping their new creation? I'd be proud of this card too, and I'd also try to get people to not buy my competitor's card if it meant they weren't going to buy mine. I'm glad they put these press releases out before the card was done. I was on the verge of buying a 9700, but now I'll just wait and buy this. They saved me from buying a card that's going to be inferior in 2-3 months. Then again, that's just my opinion, the same as these other sites you're reading. If you don't like it, make your own opinion instead of crying that the one you're being spoon-fed doesn't taste good. It's nobody's fault but your own that you can't separate the wheat from the chaff.
Blech. Infants like you are the reason my cigarettes cost $5.00 a pack now.
ROTFLMFAO
So, basically... If they charge more on a product (Say $300 instead of $130 for Mac OS X) they're evil. And if they charge less, they're evil. And if they charged exactly the same amount, they'd be copying, and thus... Evil.
I hope I'm not getting trolled my an MS fan(boy|girl)...
The problem isn't necessarily what they are charging. The problem is that their prices and placement are tailored to prevent other companies from competing.
Windows and Office, MS's cash cows, are priced far, far above what they would be priced if there was any competition in those two markets. The lack of competition is not due to their products being superior (in which case I wouldn't have a problem with them charging whatever they felt like charging), but special mob-style deals that they have made with the OEMs. At first, before the computer manufacturers were tied hand and foot to Windows, MS charged next to nothing to bundle their OS with the computers. As Windows became the one-and-only consumer OS out there, MS has raised the price because the OEMs had no choice but to pay. They have done the same thing with Office and will do the same thing with any product they have the opportunity to do it with.
Then you come to the products that MS uses as nothing more than a hammer to crush their competition. No company in the world that was not a monopoly would have been able to give away IE for free like they did. They used the money generated by Windows to crush Netscape. MS was never in the browser business until it began to threaten their OS business. Their OS business was threatened because Netscape was becoming a platform for other applications, and if Netscape became the dominant platform and decided to be available on another OS, then MS would have lost (their monopoly). So, they bundled IE with Windows for free, while Netscape was charging. Most people went with the free browser, and the threat was eliminated.
That is what is wrong with MS's pricing. It is used to choke out companies that are making a better product. Once the threat is gone, MS raises its prices. We, the consumers, end up paying more for an inferior product. Although at the end IE ended up being superior to Netscape, this is only because MS choked the living shit out of them and forced them to give away their product for free. It's kind of hard to pay developers when you're not making any money. Just look at what Netscape has done now that AOL/TW is pumping money back into the project. Mozilla is already on par with IE, and will soon pass them up. Unless MS has grown too fat and stupid to see what's coming, they are going to attack Mozilla in the near future. They should have done it sooner.
When MS wants to break into a new market, all it has to do is choke out the competition and walk in unopposed. If it was not a monopoly, it would not be able to do this. A company that needs to make money on its product to stay alive cannot afford to give it away for free. A company that does not give its product away for free or nearly free cannot choke out the competition. A company that does not choke out the competition cannot overcharge for its product. A company that does not overcharge for its product cannot afford to repeat this over and over again, muscling its way into whatever market it wants, ad infinitum.
Although there is a lot of mindless MS-hating here on Slashdot, there are tons of valid reasons to hate them. I guess I should congratulate you for being able to think for yourself and not hate MS just because everyone else here does, but I'll save that for when you're more than a dumb animal that can't tell when it's getting screwed.
2PAC!
Nevermind...
Dude, you still owe us another $.0042 USD.
Pay.
Ah, yes, the classic blame-the-user rationale: "If he can't figure out my interface, then he's a damn moron."
What in God's name are you talking about? I said nothing about being a moron, I said brain damage. Moving a mouse is no harder to understand than the principle of the lever. You need to put down the pipe, guy.
The most usable and intuitive information kiosks I've seen -- in department stores, supplying directory information, etc. -- always use a touchscreen interface combined with a simple menu system -- no more than five items is ideal.
Well, you've changed the subject on me here, but that's OK, overuse of mind-altering drugs can do that to a person. But first, let's address how you didn't address the original context of the question. You stated that a person can't hold the mouse steady between double-clicks. Can you wiggle your index finger while keeping your hand within a 3mm radius of its original position? Then you can double-click a mouse. Unless you're dealing with the elderly or an MS (that's Multiple Sclerosis for all you Slashbots ;) victim, just tell them they don't have to put all of their might into a mouse click and they'll be clicking like a pro.
As for your argument that computers should be replaced by touch screens with 5 menu selections, yes, I agree 95%. Most people don't want a computer, they want an e-mail/web/game box. Unfortunately, they don't know it yet and it's currently popular fashion to have a computer. For the other 5% of us though, we need a little bit more than what you are describing to build the things that most people want.
I challenge you to come up with an everything-box that the computer is that the average person can sit down at and do whatever they think of. The computer is not the place to do what you are proposing. Stupid-simple intuitiveness belongs in DVD players and web browsing devices, not a machine that can simulate any purely logical thought process you can imagine. There is absolutely no way to provide a person with nearly endless possibilities and make it easy to use at the same time.
Also, not one single thing that I mentioned is in the slightest way unintuitive. You move the mouse up, and the arrow goes up. You press the left mouse button and it does it's normal thing. You press the right mouse button and it does something special. Maybe it would make more sense if they made the right mouse button smaller... well, I never said it was perfect, I just said it was easy. Anyway, it's no more difficult than turning a steering wheel to make a car move in a different direction. I have met some incredibly stupid people that have understood both actions quite well. The last person I met that couldn't figure out a mouse was senile. Not just old and out of touch, diagnosed, by a doctor no less, senile.
I'm not contemptous of users. I'm contemptous of people that believe in magic.
Also, allow me to correct your last sentence.
Computers are toys for everyone, not just tools for techies. I'll clarify. An e-mail application is a communications tool for everyone. A word processing application is a tool for everyone. A computer by itself does nothing for everyone, but in the hands of a techie can do anything for anyone.
Let me guess, you wipe people's asses for a living, right?
None of the objections you had were even close to the level of skill and ability it takes to be a productive member of society. These issues absolutely should NOT be addressed in the baseline computer system, and if you wonder why, ask yourself, is every staircase in your house replaced by a wheelchair ramp?
Every single one of the skills you have outlined here are also required for another even more common activity... driving! If you can't move one object and recognize that it moves another object in proportion, you have brain damage and need special care. If you can't hold a mouse steady, or can't see the mouse cursor, you are handicapped and need special care. If you can't tell the difference between left and right, you are handicapped and need special care. If you can't understand a simple concept like opening a program to do something, even if you only see the word "program" as a synonym for the word "action", you are mentally retarded. Don't get on the road and endanger my life, and don't get on my computer and endanger my productivity.
The interface you propose has almost the exact same problems as the one you want to replace. If you can't hold a mouse steady, what's to stop you from pressing the wrong place on the touchscreen? Perhaps you meant touchhugefuckingwall. How are you going to tell the computer to perform different actions without having some way of activating it? You want to take away icons? What are we supposed to replace them with? Words? We already have that, it's called a menu. Should we speak at it? Ooh, but then I have to remember that blasted word "e-mail". Maybe we should just think real hard at them and hope something happens.
Special people need special support, and sometimes, they don't get to do what they want to do. A man with no legs is never going to win the gold medal in the 400-meter dash. There is no one magical paradigm that works for everyone and trying to achieve that is just going to screw everyone over... just look at Windows. It tries to be everything to everyone, and in the end it's just a mediocre tool for me and a confusing mess for the non-techie.
I try. ;-)
Hey, at least I have the testicular fortitude to make a post like that logged in... or is it a touch of the madness?
AAAAARGH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE SCHOOLS?
I've only managed to get just under half way down this page, and the examples of crap educations that you people are receiving is blowing my fucking mind. Where in God's name are you managing to find these places? I've gone to public schools in lower-middle class neighborhoods for my entire life and I was just there 5 years ago. I find it impossible to believe that schools have become that bad so quickly. Faugh! Not only did we learn multiplication and the tables up to 12, but we also learned 3 different ways of doing multiplication and how one way led to another way and how each of them worked. Yes, we learned how to do square roots, we learned 2 different ways, one that was accurate and another that was fast. (I've forgotten by now, but that's beside the point.) Do your teachers hate both you and the subject that they're teaching? For the love of Danny DeVito, if this is what your schools are like, just quit now, you'll be better off at least learning street smarts instead of vegetating in front of a chalkboard.