"That, I think, is actually the biggest problem with the idea; it would promote an Apollo-style rush to the Moon without developing any really new technology which would allow sustained flights."
Make a provision that the prize should be expended on space exploration on way or the other. Since they will have to expend it that way, they'll better do it on profitable ways.
"I don't concur with that. The Apollo program was implemented under chemical rockets."
You did lost the "meaningful" part.
Using an ubercomplex behemoth like the Saturn V to put two men on the Moon for some hours is good enough for the record but not a proper way for "meaninful human space flight".
"Extensions are oft-maligned, but underrated in my opinion."
Extensions are oft-maligned in Windows-world, and overrated in my opinion.
"They're part of the filename"
They are a constant on the file name, thus if you can get rid of it the more significative the name gets to *you*, the user.
"hiding the extensions by default is a stupid, stupid move IMHO"
Why? I bet you meant it's a stupid, stupid move *on Windows*.
It is the computer the one that needs to know what to do with a storage format (be it related to a disk partition or a file) so it's better not to throw such uneeded information at the user, unless he needs/wants to deal with it for their own reasons, so it really makes sense to either hint what the file is by its header (Unix' magic tests), by its MIME/type (Internet downloads) or by some other usually hidden metadata. Then you are right that once the computer knows about what kind of data is stored it is up to the computer (in lieu of its human user -that still should be able to overrule the default choice) to decide what's the best way to deal with it, not the producer.
"My point was that it can take quite a while for an invention to recover any of its associated R&D costs; if at all."
Ask yourself what patents are meant for. Start with this: if you need hugh R&D capitals we are already not talking about "protect genious against tycoons"
Do you really use it? Do you use it for contacts, notes and calendars on mobile devices? Which devices? How many users? Which desktop software (if any) have you tested against Scalix?
Can you effortlessly sync calendars (yes, calendar*s*), notes and addressboks seemlessly to your mobile devices as Exchange plus Activesync? While your main data is not duplicated and stays at an LDAP server easy accesible by a ton of other apps? With document routing for approval?
Seriously, I don't think open source deliver just fine on this field.
But, hey, I would be very glad if you can show us *your* opensource solution (not the one that you heard it should work but the one you already have in place and in production for more than six months) for a typical ~200 people company with two or three locations.
Of course not. The example was just there in order to show that there are situations where the honest curse of action is to say "no".
"Your job is to facilitate what they do, not to do what you think is right, you don't generate any revenue, they do."
Not exactly. CIO's job -and even mid management's on a not so large company, is to look forward for the best for the company as is everybody else's in that ranges. And regarding revenue, that's a tough question. On the extreme only direct sellers gerenate revenue, not the case of a, i.e. CEO; and revenue is not all and everything, even if we only consider direct economic implications; operation and capital expenses are other very important elements on that equation.
"but in the end, while you might be the custodian, it's their data"
And then again who is "they"? high management? sales? A company is like a ship and being an employee, company's data is mine/not mine as much as is "Joe's from marketing".
"and you've got to do what they ask you to do wherever possible."
Not at all. My knowledge and responsibility is not that of the sales director; I don't go to sales to tell them how to sell because it's neither my duty nor my knowledge field; they don't come to me to tell how to govern IT because it's neither their job nor their knowledge field. Instead we work *together* to find the best path and tools to reach our strategy goals coupling all our strengths and abilities in that commonal effort.
"Being a dick and thinking you have the right to control what they do with their data is probably one of the reasons you don't get asked until the end in the first place."
That might be the case. Or it might be that they see data and tools as "their" data and "their" tools instead of our data and our tools. Or it migth be that because "they get the revenue" they see themselves as the all and everything in the company and as such they are pretty capable of completly "driving the boat" by themselves so they need no help from anyone else in the company except to do as they say.
"the role of IT is to make the business work better"
Absolutly true and then even more: being managing information an strategic asset of any modern company, IT is in the position of not only "make the bussiness work better" but even open new more profitable ways of doing bussiness within the company. But then, it is not IT the only which has the role to make the bussiness work better; that's the role of everyone else too (and that's against your notion of "I've seen more than my share of absolutely idiotic [requests]": it's their duty to know their bussiness as *not* to ask for idiotic requests as it's our duty not to let them pass through just to avoid confrontation).
"Anything you do which doesn't result in improvements for the business is waste"
As it is waste anything coming from any other corner of the company which doesn't result in such improvements (your "idiotic requests"). We all share that load.
"would have been great, except for the incorrect spelling of synergy."
So what? I never write down "synergy": it's a yellow star with some chrome rays coming out of it on a shiny most convincing powerpoint presentation.
Now, you are not being a team guy and clearly lack the vision needed to push forward for best market opportunities. No wonder you are a minion instead of a buzzword-compliant pointy haired boss like me.
"When the CIO and the rest of IT keep saying "no way", the users start to find ways to route around the problem."
That's a common problem and one better dealt with in theory than in practice. Theory is easy: instead of say "no" find ways to empower their pursues an offer even a better deal. In practice, you are their data custodians and sometimes, like any parent can attest saying "no" is the proper path of action, even if that points to an ungry son. Specially when IT is not seen by high management as an strategic asset but as an expenditure so you enter in the loop too late, when "no" is the only reasonable answer where being involved sooner IT would have be able to find the proper way to say "yes: that's the way".
Of course, for the real cynical/BOFH characters, there's always the option to say yes, give them the rope they ask for hanging themselves on and start moving to jump the boat a minute before it crashes the iceberg (and with the aura of being a resolver and a team guy -if that worked for the shark-like CEOs of the 80's why it shouldn't work for the CIOs of the XXI century?).
"We write SaaS, and almost all our customers ask us where we store the data, and if it we don't guarantee them it is in the country they are from they back off."
That's *today*. Those were the same people that asked where their electricity would come from once they wouldn't have their own power produced in place (still some companies still do) or those that asked, not so many years ago, about the data uplinks with third party countries (still some companies still do).
The fact is the vast majority of company needs, even critical ones, are already outsourced. With time, computer power and data storage will be outsourced too. And as with everything else, this will be good for cleverly managed companies that will make a good deal and bad for badly managed companies which will be sacked up by vendors, consultants and PHBs. Well, just like now.
"Bigger clients want the software and the data stored in their own datacenter. They will not trust the "cloud" for that (and I wouldn't either). Not in the near future at least."
Most of those companies *already* outsource the management and maintenance of that data and datacenters to third parties the likes of EDS, IBM or Accenture. Once you've gone that path, the datacenter being yours or from a third party is not quite as important or interesting.
"Converting from 1.5 to 15, and 0.8 to 8 is multiplication (by 10)."
It is not. It's an operational convention.
"I'm only disputing the more abstract assertion that addition is shorthand for multiplication. (ie that multiplication can be defined in terms of addition.)"
Not. What you are doing is throwing in the hard part (the mechanical process that indeed gives you a result) over the basic logical part (that X*Y, or X times Y, is "just" sum X to itself Y times) to hide it.
Then you "cheat" going from the "easy part" (operations on entires) to a more "dificult" one (rational numbers); indeed the surprise is that once to went this path why you didn't ask over an example about multiplying, say matrixes or trascendentals to see how the "mulitiplication is an abrevaition for summing in some special cases" holds water.
"Make sense?"
All in all I think you had a real point, but not the one you thought and not one valid for this thread (while *very* valid for the whole history): that abstractions sum up; that by using such abstractions as building blocks you can go orders of magnitude more far away; and that since we have been building such abstractions from at least the days of Ancient Greeks there's neither no point nor no way to find a path for a child to resemble the whole evolution of Humankind knowledge on the top of his daily experiencies but we need "shortcuts" like memorizing and asking kids the act of faith of sometimes learning the end result (and the tricks and shortcuts) *first* and after that, sometimes, let them know where they came from.
In this case we went from Ancient Greeks learning about "easy" natural number concepts (basic geometry, cardinality, suming, basic arithmetic as shortcuts for suming, and some neat tricks associated to all of this); then you have another set of abstractions (again both the "easy part", rational numbers and a slighty more difficult and by itself more abstract as are "decimal numbers" as an abstraction of both rational numbers and base notation); then you take the two sets and because you can build directly from the abstractions you get astounding things as being able to take the notional concept of multiplication as an abreviated sum of entires to apply it to an abstraction of an abstraction as multiplying decimals.
And all of this "only" to be able to do something as 1.5*0.8 which we have for granted by the age of eigth. There's simply no time to let a kid "rediscover" by himself 2500 years of math and phylosophy (to name "just" the two usual "pure mind" knowledge subsets) and on top of that instrumental knowledge to make defend himself on our current society. We either "cheat" or accept most people will only be able to rise to a knowledge level comparable to that of a late Cromagnon: how I'll hunt today's dinner? (of course "hunt" and "dinner" and "today" having quite a different meaning, including plasma. TV sets, two cars and a house).
"I've never been a math whiz, but aren't you impliedly multiplying by ten here?"
Of course yes. But in this case is just another (different) shortcut. The parent poster "cheated" in that he went from diophantic into decimal, and I cheated saving me the time to explain how basic decimal algebra derives from entires (he could ask for even a more complex example: how about 0.8x(-7.4)?). In the end (for our example) using dots here and there is a notational trick and I used other to make the sum up example easier (there are other: the typical "in columns" multiplication procedure always use entires and never needs to multiply by anything higher that 9x9 wich is trivially reduced into a sum -it's only arranging columns is hard in the edit window, or we could express the the number as a fraction instead of a decimal, but you take the point).
"We are saying "the smart kids already have advantages. they don't need further help." that's a huge difference."
That seems as intelligent as saying "faster kids already run faster. they don't need further training" and then somehow being surprised that Olympics are won by any other country.
"An informed electorate that would have been forced to understand just the basics of civics would never have elected our current President."
You are absolutly right. But an informed electorate that would have been forced to understand just the basics of civics would never have elected your former President either.
"No, the purpose of the educational system in the U.S. is to create dumbed down people that will vote for Democrats *and* Republicans that promise to "give them more stuff"!"
And he got divorced and was known as a bad father and husband.
"If you think he didn't have to do some dishes, change some diapers, and try to fix a toilet now and then, you have a very distorted idea of married life with children."
Still, the fact is that he didn't do some dishes, changed some diapers, and tried to fix a toilet now and then, please do some research. Einstein was a true genious and we are lucky we have a true genious now and then. But we are lucky we have not true geniouses all around too.
"And as a Jew living in Berlin, before the war, you'd better believe he learned some harsh lessons in when to shut up and do what he was told."
He went out from Berlin by 1932. And here you see exactly why there's the need for all that menial memorizing work. If we can judge you knowledge of your sorrunding world based on you ignorance about Einstein's biography (but still you find yourself apt to talk about the issue) we'd -as society, better find ways to insure a minimal knowledge is instilled to you to avoid being at the mercy of the first demagoge that happens to apear. A republic needs wise citizens, you know.
"What would have happened to you if you didn't memorize where the major cities in your country are?"
That he wouldn't understand why in hell somebody pays so much attention about this or that frontier being this or that side of this or that river. Not being able to comprehend that opens the door for others making your mind for you. The next you know is that you are dressed on a uniform going for Poland out of other peoples' demagogy.
"Good to know doesn't mean need-to-know."
The whole history of civilizations is about people going beyond the "need-to-know" (which basically limits itself to being able to hunt today's dinner).
"is that most education is quite useless and a waste of time for most people."
I partially concede you that. But it is not a waste of time "for most people"; it's only a waste of time for the few people that certainly prefer you to know the bare minimal to be a good wheel on the machine that gives them their 'statu quo' without revolting. After all why do you nead even the ability to read when the landlord can tell you whatever you need to know to be a good servant?
"And I guess you expect the child to have the patience to perform 33x33 by addition?"
Not that I share his opinion, but the point is that he do *not* expect the child to have the patience, thus he will try to find a shortcut (then leaning to learn the tables by himself instead of by imposition).
"Memorization of tables does nothing for your understanding."
That would be true only if you were a real Turing Machine. But you are not a Turing Machine, so both your "RAM" and your time are limited; memorization of tables then becomes a shortcut that makes you able to take better advantage of your limited immediate memory and attention time span.
"It's just a highly simple case of pattern memorization."
As it is your read abilities. But your reading comprehension heavily depends on your read abilities. If you need to go letter by letter, you end up reading the same text but you won't understand it the same: again, immediate memory and attention time span.
"1.5 x 0.8 Describe that strictly in terms of addition."
15+15+15+15+15+15+15+15=120 1 decimal place + 1 decimal place = 2 decimal places
120+2 decimal places=1.20
1.5 x 0.8 = 1.2
In other words, 2 times 1.5 equals 3; not even one times 1.5 sums up not even 1.5 (to be exact, 8 parts out of ten from 1.5 sums up 1.2).
"Its harder than you think."
It isn't. It just takes longer and it's more boring. But that's the very essence of having rules for multiplication (and division and factorization): to strip appart the costing and boring parts of an easy process to make it faster (at a cost: the cost of memorizing the appropiate rules).
"Why bother to do that on a box which 100% works already (and still has security patches available for years)?"
Because I don't manage a single box and all of a sudden you find that LDAP client from "current -2" doesn't play well with LDAP server from "current", and the same happens with Samba, and Java, and Amanda, and OO.org on the desktop and a dozen of others, so being able to easily upgrade so all (or at least most of) your machines are at the same OS release suddenly becomes a great win even if at the cost (much less than you seem to think, and obviously taken from your experience with Linux distributions that make their day each time you reinstall but that earn nothing from you "just upgrading") of a less than perfect upgrade from time to time (just to show you I'm not just trying to cover the problems, Etch->Lenny upgrade for WikiWiki is one of those "less than perfect" cases -it took me about three ours to tame it on our test environment; and the one for OpenLDAP was too slightly less than perfect -in that it took me about a quarter of an hour to build a proper config file for the new version).
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"That, I think, is actually the biggest problem with the idea; it would promote an Apollo-style rush to the Moon without developing any really new technology which would allow sustained flights."
Make a provision that the prize should be expended on space exploration on way or the other. Since they will have to expend it that way, they'll better do it on profitable ways.
"I don't concur with that. The Apollo program was implemented under chemical rockets."
You did lost the "meaningful" part.
Using an ubercomplex behemoth like the Saturn V to put two men on the Moon for some hours is good enough for the record but not a proper way for "meaninful human space flight".
"Extensions are oft-maligned, but underrated in my opinion."
Extensions are oft-maligned in Windows-world, and overrated in my opinion.
"They're part of the filename"
They are a constant on the file name, thus if you can get rid of it the more significative the name gets to *you*, the user.
"hiding the extensions by default is a stupid, stupid move IMHO"
Why? I bet you meant it's a stupid, stupid move *on Windows*.
It is the computer the one that needs to know what to do with a storage format (be it related to a disk partition or a file) so it's better not to throw such uneeded information at the user, unless he needs/wants to deal with it for their own reasons, so it really makes sense to either hint what the file is by its header (Unix' magic tests), by its MIME/type (Internet downloads) or by some other usually hidden metadata. Then you are right that once the computer knows about what kind of data is stored it is up to the computer (in lieu of its human user -that still should be able to overrule the default choice) to decide what's the best way to deal with it, not the producer.
"My point was that it can take quite a while for an invention to recover any of its associated R&D costs; if at all."
Ask yourself what patents are meant for. Start with this: if you need hugh R&D capitals we are already not talking about "protect genious against tycoons"
"Scalix does all this."
Do you really use it? Do you use it for contacts, notes and calendars on mobile devices? Which devices? How many users? Which desktop software (if any) have you tested against Scalix?
"Open source can deliver just fine."
Can you effortlessly sync calendars (yes, calendar*s*), notes and addressboks seemlessly to your mobile devices as Exchange plus Activesync? While your main data is not duplicated and stays at an LDAP server easy accesible by a ton of other apps? With document routing for approval?
Seriously, I don't think open source deliver just fine on this field.
But, hey, I would be very glad if you can show us *your* opensource solution (not the one that you heard it should work but the one you already have in place and in production for more than six months) for a typical ~200 people company with two or three locations.
I wait.
"The thing is, you're not their parents."
Of course not. The example was just there in order to show that there are situations where the honest curse of action is to say "no".
"Your job is to facilitate what they do, not to do what you think is right, you don't generate any revenue, they do."
Not exactly. CIO's job -and even mid management's on a not so large company, is to look forward for the best for the company as is everybody else's in that ranges. And regarding revenue, that's a tough question. On the extreme only direct sellers gerenate revenue, not the case of a, i.e. CEO; and revenue is not all and everything, even if we only consider direct economic implications; operation and capital expenses are other very important elements on that equation.
"but in the end, while you might be the custodian, it's their data"
And then again who is "they"? high management? sales? A company is like a ship and being an employee, company's data is mine/not mine as much as is "Joe's from marketing".
"and you've got to do what they ask you to do wherever possible."
Not at all. My knowledge and responsibility is not that of the sales director; I don't go to sales to tell them how to sell because it's neither my duty nor my knowledge field; they don't come to me to tell how to govern IT because it's neither their job nor their knowledge field. Instead we work *together* to find the best path and tools to reach our strategy goals coupling all our strengths and abilities in that commonal effort.
"Being a dick and thinking you have the right to control what they do with their data is probably one of the reasons you don't get asked until the end in the first place."
That might be the case. Or it might be that they see data and tools as "their" data and "their" tools instead of our data and our tools. Or it migth be that because "they get the revenue" they see themselves as the all and everything in the company and as such they are pretty capable of completly "driving the boat" by themselves so they need no help from anyone else in the company except to do as they say.
"the role of IT is to make the business work better"
Absolutly true and then even more: being managing information an strategic asset of any modern company, IT is in the position of not only "make the bussiness work better" but even open new more profitable ways of doing bussiness within the company. But then, it is not IT the only which has the role to make the bussiness work better; that's the role of everyone else too (and that's against your notion of "I've seen more than my share of absolutely idiotic [requests]": it's their duty to know their bussiness as *not* to ask for idiotic requests as it's our duty not to let them pass through just to avoid confrontation).
"Anything you do which doesn't result in improvements for the business is waste"
As it is waste anything coming from any other corner of the company which doesn't result in such improvements (your "idiotic requests"). We all share that load.
"would have been great, except for the incorrect spelling of synergy."
So what? I never write down "synergy": it's a yellow star with some chrome rays coming out of it on a shiny most convincing powerpoint presentation.
Now, you are not being a team guy and clearly lack the vision needed to push forward for best market opportunities. No wonder you are a minion instead of a buzzword-compliant pointy haired boss like me.
"When the CIO and the rest of IT keep saying "no way", the users start to find ways to route around the problem."
That's a common problem and one better dealt with in theory than in practice. Theory is easy: instead of say "no" find ways to empower their pursues an offer even a better deal. In practice, you are their data custodians and sometimes, like any parent can attest saying "no" is the proper path of action, even if that points to an ungry son. Specially when IT is not seen by high management as an strategic asset but as an expenditure so you enter in the loop too late, when "no" is the only reasonable answer where being involved sooner IT would have be able to find the proper way to say "yes: that's the way".
Of course, for the real cynical/BOFH characters, there's always the option to say yes, give them the rope they ask for hanging themselves on and start moving to jump the boat a minute before it crashes the iceberg (and with the aura of being a resolver and a team guy -if that worked for the shark-like CEOs of the 80's why it shouldn't work for the CIOs of the XXI century?).
"We write SaaS, and almost all our customers ask us where we store the data, and if it we don't guarantee them it is in the country they are from they back off."
That's *today*. Those were the same people that asked where their electricity would come from once they wouldn't have their own power produced in place (still some companies still do) or those that asked, not so many years ago, about the data uplinks with third party countries (still some companies still do).
The fact is the vast majority of company needs, even critical ones, are already outsourced. With time, computer power and data storage will be outsourced too. And as with everything else, this will be good for cleverly managed companies that will make a good deal and bad for badly managed companies which will be sacked up by vendors, consultants and PHBs. Well, just like now.
"Bigger clients want the software and the data stored in their own datacenter. They will not trust the "cloud" for that (and I wouldn't either). Not in the near future at least."
Most of those companies *already* outsource the management and maintenance of that data and datacenters to third parties the likes of EDS, IBM or Accenture. Once you've gone that path, the datacenter being yours or from a third party is not quite as important or interesting.
"We just need to use a mashup of service enabled architectures to provide a seamlessly semantic experience."
But will it increase our sinergies for best time to market on a win-win proposition?
"Converting from 1.5 to 15, and 0.8 to 8 is multiplication (by 10)."
It is not. It's an operational convention.
"I'm only disputing the more abstract assertion that addition is shorthand for multiplication. (ie that multiplication can be defined in terms of addition.)"
Not. What you are doing is throwing in the hard part (the mechanical process that indeed gives you a result) over the basic logical part (that X*Y, or X times Y, is "just" sum X to itself Y times) to hide it.
Then you "cheat" going from the "easy part" (operations on entires) to a more "dificult" one (rational numbers); indeed the surprise is that once to went this path why you didn't ask over an example about multiplying, say matrixes or trascendentals to see how the "mulitiplication is an abrevaition for summing in some special cases" holds water.
"Make sense?"
All in all I think you had a real point, but not the one you thought and not one valid for this thread (while *very* valid for the whole history): that abstractions sum up; that by using such abstractions as building blocks you can go orders of magnitude more far away; and that since we have been building such abstractions from at least the days of Ancient Greeks there's neither no point nor no way to find a path for a child to resemble the whole evolution of Humankind knowledge on the top of his daily experiencies but we need "shortcuts" like memorizing and asking kids the act of faith of sometimes learning the end result (and the tricks and shortcuts) *first* and after that, sometimes, let them know where they came from.
In this case we went from Ancient Greeks learning about "easy" natural number concepts (basic geometry, cardinality, suming, basic arithmetic as shortcuts for suming, and some neat tricks associated to all of this); then you have another set of abstractions (again both the "easy part", rational numbers and a slighty more difficult and by itself more abstract as are "decimal numbers" as an abstraction of both rational numbers and base notation); then you take the two sets and because you can build directly from the abstractions you get astounding things as being able to take the notional concept of multiplication as an abreviated sum of entires to apply it to an abstraction of an abstraction as multiplying decimals.
And all of this "only" to be able to do something as 1.5*0.8 which we have for granted by the age of eigth. There's simply no time to let a kid "rediscover" by himself 2500 years of math and phylosophy (to name "just" the two usual "pure mind" knowledge subsets) and on top of that instrumental knowledge to make defend himself on our current society. We either "cheat" or accept most people will only be able to rise to a knowledge level comparable to that of a late Cromagnon: how I'll hunt today's dinner? (of course "hunt" and "dinner" and "today" having quite a different meaning, including plasma. TV sets, two cars and a house).
"I've never been a math whiz, but aren't you impliedly multiplying by ten here?"
Of course yes. But in this case is just another (different) shortcut. The parent poster "cheated" in that he went from diophantic into decimal, and I cheated saving me the time to explain how basic decimal algebra derives from entires (he could ask for even a more complex example: how about 0.8x(-7.4)?). In the end (for our example) using dots here and there is a notational trick and I used other to make the sum up example easier (there are other: the typical "in columns" multiplication procedure always use entires and never needs to multiply by anything higher that 9x9 wich is trivially reduced into a sum -it's only arranging columns is hard in the edit window, or we could express the the number as a fraction instead of a decimal, but you take the point).
"We are saying "the smart kids already have advantages. they don't need further help." that's a huge difference."
That seems as intelligent as saying "faster kids already run faster. they don't need further training" and then somehow being surprised that Olympics are won by any other country.
"An informed electorate that would have been forced to understand just the basics of civics would never have elected our current President."
You are absolutly right. But an informed electorate that would have been forced to understand just the basics of civics would never have elected your former President either.
"No, the purpose of the educational system in the U.S. is to create dumbed down people that will vote for Democrats *and* Republicans that promise to "give them more stuff"!"
There; corrected for you.
"you missed the point. Its not that you could have done more for yourself. Its that you might have done more for society."
*You* missed the point. The basis of a capitalist society is that both "doing for yourself" and "doing for society" are made to be the same.
"He was also married and had children."
And he got divorced and was known as a bad father and husband.
"If you think he didn't have to do some dishes, change some diapers, and try to fix a toilet now and then, you have a very distorted idea of married life with children."
Still, the fact is that he didn't do some dishes, changed some diapers, and tried to fix a toilet now and then, please do some research. Einstein was a true genious and we are lucky we have a true genious now and then. But we are lucky we have not true geniouses all around too.
"And as a Jew living in Berlin, before the war, you'd better believe he learned some harsh lessons in when to shut up and do what he was told."
He went out from Berlin by 1932. And here you see exactly why there's the need for all that menial memorizing work. If we can judge you knowledge of your sorrunding world based on you ignorance about Einstein's biography (but still you find yourself apt to talk about the issue) we'd -as society, better find ways to insure a minimal knowledge is instilled to you to avoid being at the mercy of the first demagoge that happens to apear. A republic needs wise citizens, you know.
"You can *never* have enough intelligent people, or even "Einsteins"."
We did the experiment. We populated an island only with A+. They were rioting within a year.
"The very bottom will work at McDonalds and WalMart anyway.
What difference does it make whether they have a high school diploma?"
That they have the ability to cast one vote, exactly like you. And they are much more than you.
"What would have happened to you if you didn't memorize where the major cities in your country are?"
That he wouldn't understand why in hell somebody pays so much attention about this or that frontier being this or that side of this or that river. Not being able to comprehend that opens the door for others making your mind for you. The next you know is that you are dressed on a uniform going for Poland out of other peoples' demagogy.
"Good to know doesn't mean need-to-know."
The whole history of civilizations is about people going beyond the "need-to-know" (which basically limits itself to being able to hunt today's dinner).
"is that most education is quite useless and a waste of time for most people."
I partially concede you that. But it is not a waste of time "for most people"; it's only a waste of time for the few people that certainly prefer you to know the bare minimal to be a good wheel on the machine that gives them their 'statu quo' without revolting. After all why do you nead even the ability to read when the landlord can tell you whatever you need to know to be a good servant?
"And I guess you expect the child to have the patience to perform 33x33 by addition?"
Not that I share his opinion, but the point is that he do *not* expect the child to have the patience, thus he will try to find a shortcut (then leaning to learn the tables by himself instead of by imposition).
"Memorization of tables does nothing for your understanding."
That would be true only if you were a real Turing Machine. But you are not a Turing Machine, so both your "RAM" and your time are limited; memorization of tables then becomes a shortcut that makes you able to take better advantage of your limited immediate memory and attention time span.
"It's just a highly simple case of pattern memorization."
As it is your read abilities. But your reading comprehension heavily depends on your read abilities. If you need to go letter by letter, you end up reading the same text but you won't understand it the same: again, immediate memory and attention time span.
"1.5 x 0.8
Describe that strictly in terms of addition."
15+15+15+15+15+15+15+15=120
1 decimal place + 1 decimal place = 2 decimal places
120+2 decimal places=1.20
1.5 x 0.8 = 1.2
In other words, 2 times 1.5 equals 3; not even one times 1.5 sums up not even 1.5 (to be exact, 8 parts out of ten from 1.5 sums up 1.2).
"Its harder than you think."
It isn't. It just takes longer and it's more boring. But that's the very essence of having rules for multiplication (and division and factorization): to strip appart the costing and boring parts of an easy process to make it faster (at a cost: the cost of memorizing the appropiate rules).
"Why bother to do that on a box which 100% works already (and still has security patches available for years)?"
Because I don't manage a single box and all of a sudden you find that LDAP client from "current -2" doesn't play well with LDAP server from "current", and the same happens with Samba, and Java, and Amanda, and OO.org on the desktop and a dozen of others, so being able to easily upgrade so all (or at least most of) your machines are at the same OS release suddenly becomes a great win even if at the cost (much less than you seem to think, and obviously taken from your experience with Linux distributions that make their day each time you reinstall but that earn nothing from you "just upgrading") of a less than perfect upgrade from time to time (just to show you I'm not just trying to cover the problems, Etch->Lenny upgrade for WikiWiki is one of those "less than perfect" cases -it took me about three ours to tame it on our test environment; and the one for OpenLDAP was too slightly less than perfect -in that it took me about a quarter of an hour to build a proper config file for the new version).