Thank you. I opened up the comments to ask how their predictions for the last 5 years went. Something I always look for in an article about someone's predictions for the future is how did they do in the past at predicting the future. Unfortunately, most such articles never bother to tell you that the "prophet" they are quoting is not better than random at predictiing the future. If the source they are got one big thing right, they will tout that, but never mention that that one thing was one out of 100 and the other 99 weren't even close.
Maybe opening up the article would have served you better than opening up the comments. From the article...
New predictions aside, IBM’s track record of predictions over the past five years has been somewhat mixed. Let’s take a step back to 2006 and look at its predictions:...
They then go on to assess the prediction that the commenter made above but with a more generous tone than that being applied above. In general they treat them as though they were general business predictions (e.g. smartphones get smart...not that they literally read our thoughts) rather than acting like IBM is claiming to be a group of religious prophets.
It's shouldn't matter whether we're good or bad at it or any overly broad number of the people killed or anecdotal evidence of why it doesn't apply to me or you. The question is all things considered how much does it raise the risk of death or serious injury to the average citizen and is that risk acceptable for the value they get from talking on the phone.
Additionally, if they outlaw it you'll have to ask your self the same question though the risk will likely include imprisonment int he event of the death or serious injury of another.
The weeping and gnashing of teeth on both sides gets old. We should just focus on making rational decisions both in public policy and personal actions and move on.
Actually, a degree does not make you a professional. Being paid for work in a specific field makes you a professional in that field strictly speaking. There is some connotation to the word implying a certain level of competency which a degree can point to but it's only an indication not something that makes you a professional. Also honorary degrees don't count.;)
Working as a professional FX dude doesn't make you a professional scientist which is what would be relevant when claiming that you are performing professional experiments. They have some very good mechanic/engineering skills and they have put them to use in a professional context but at the end of the day they're not super scientific with some of their tests and they usually end up just blowing stuff up for fun which is professional entertainment. Top Gear is very similar in that the main profession on that show is entertainment and not driving.
This is a ridiculous response that basically says "we're not interested given that our donors like patents". That said the way you respond to a ridiculous response is by continuing to hound them until it becomes a major issue. Here is one I created to end all patents as I believe the system itself is corrupt and needs to be replaced by open competition.
I encourage everyone to sign it or create your own and post them here. Slashdot has shown the ability to nuke major sites due to the size of it's audience/community...let's make it clear we feel strongly about the issue. At the very least maybe they will take down their fake petition site which is offensive due to the fact they don't pay any attention to it. =)
Like all things it's relative. Specifically it depends on what you're grading. Does it intrinsically help your understanding of a subject like say "Social Studies". Probably not as it's only a tool like you point out. Does it increase your proficiency with computers and make your more likely to spend your time in the future learning a subject rather than learning the tool? Probably.
The other thing that it might do is make your more efficient in your learning over time. If it takes x amount of time to become an expert due to practice does a tool that lets you perform practice iterations faster shorten the road to expertise? I don't know, it's possible that the limit is the human mind and is hardwired to the amount of time to rewire it and not just the number of iterations.
The point however is that grades may or may not be the correct measure to determine if these programs are beneficial. You have to ask the right question before you get a meaningful answer. Someone more familiar than I with what measures translate to successful intellectual development needs to look at this and determine if technology in the classroom is a worthwhile use of financial resources.
The idea that current management is broken is correct. It's broken because it's not focused on managing companies it's focused on managing stock prices. Unfortunately, IMO, there is so much value in the equity market that major businesses no longer care what they produce or how they produce it as long as they produce stock value along side it. This attitude is a result of a couple of things. First the short term value from investments is worth many times the actual value of the company can produce from real assets/production/sales/fees/etc. Second we've tied executive compensation to stock price through options, grants, incentives, etc. It's not a problem of who is managing the companies it's a problem of incentives and motivations.
Fixing the problem doesn't necessarily mean putting a geek in charge but instead means altering incentives so they favor long-term profit and sustainable growth (20, 30, 50 years or more) beyond short-term stock bumps. Often engineer personalities get in the way and make them harder to incentivize than the bean counter personalities. Too often the geek only cares about the purity of a solution or the optimization of a process and that makes it difficult to incentivize him to put long-term profit first. Additionally, if the geek you select is flexible enough to not be stuck in the optimization mode then he is going to game the system just like the MBA in favor of stock indicators for his personal compensation. It's not dishonest or wrong it's human nature. You tell your manager what you care about by how you pay them. They in turn work to maximize those items to which their variable compensation is tied.
The best thing you can do is find good managers (MBAs or Geeks not withstanding) and incentivize them to run the company with the primary goal being long-term sustainable profits. I think more often than not you're going to find this is an MBA type with a compensation package not tied to stock but a smart board will look for the right personality traits, coupled with the right skills, coupled with the right compensation package. The answer is definitely not "just give it to the engineers" however.
I was "streaming only" for about 2 and a half years. I supplemented my streaming with AppleTV (the old white one) purchases and Netflix via Wii. While this worked great for most entertainment in the end the convenience factor of having to manage storage for a bunch of shows I would likely never watch again (AppleTV), the lack of live sporting events (primarily college football in my case), and wanted access to premium channel series without resorting to BitTorrent which were coming out (Shameless and Game of Thrones) caused me to revert and get UVerse TV when I went to them for internet about 6 months ago. Living off of streaming only is completely doable I just got tired of some of the inconveniences and decided to pay to get rid of them.
They would be the same since the laws dealing with online casinos giving out cash also cover it by including products or anything of value.
Otherwise you could just create an on-line site and allow people to exchange thier in-game money for anything where the casino would purchase it for you.
Actually this is not true in the US. It varies wildly from state to state. Gambling laws are not federal and in many states gambling for prizes is perfectly legal where as gambling for money is not. You see charity poker tournaments that give out prizes in many locations precisely because of this. In other places it's ok to gamble in private places but only if the house doesn't take a rake and all participants have an equal chance of winning. In other places it's ok to gamble up to certain monetary limits. Don't assume that just because logically it's the same the law treats it the same.
Siffy or Syffie, or Syfy or whatever they want to be called cancelled this prequel recently but here's a spoiler...when they form unions it doesn't end well.;)
I'm looking forward to the Blue Skin of Death feature when a person core dumps all their genetic codes...granted it will have to be encrypted because they won't be allowed to use their own genes.
To avoid government scrutiny of my actions when not aligned with the 's beliefs.
In all seriousness, for private transactions between private citizens in private homes but for most things your point is valid. The problem is it's the exceptions that are important to preserving personal freedom not the normal cases. It's analogous to why it's important that we defend free speech for Nazi's and hate mongers despite the fact that we (or at least I) detest them and their beliefs. If a given right or principle isn't universally defended then someday someone will take it from you as well.
That said in this case even if they do make monetary notes completely traceable and unforgeable (unlikely) some stand in for value and/or a barter system will likely evolve for private transactions so despite my semi-tongue-in-cheek paranoia this is unlikely to be a serious issue long-term.
First let me say that this is all just my opinion and it's going to be a bit self-contradictory because I don't think we've found a good balance in how to educate people in a way that is relevant in the modern context but....
I agree that Liberal Arts used to be about this notion of a broad education but I think it largely fails that test today. While it is probably closer than many majors, it teaches what would be a well rounded education a 100-200 years ago but fails to provide broad based thinking that is applicable to a modern and changing world. It largely eschews mathematics and and reason based thinking which is a huge part of our modern society. When I say "classical education" I don't really mean just the classics, I mean teaching one to think and be well-rounded. Unfortunately Liberal Arts has largely become a self-sustaining training program to feed kids into academia these days or to produce artistic works rather than taking the core values of a well-rounded education and producing the renaissance men and women of today.
And just to take a probably unfair shot at your school. While it once did Vassar of today doesn't qualify as elite in my opinion, at least not in the way we were discussing earlier. It is an extremely good school historically but when I think of thought leaders, innovation, research, idea incubation, and places that change the world Vassar is not among those institutions. So while I see your general point that the goal of Liberal Arts colleges is what I talked about I think they fall short in a modern context. Given that and Vassar's reputation as primarily a LIberal Arts school, albeit a very good one, it doesn't surprise me that over 50% are on financial aid. I think this too is probably a by product of our push toward extreme specialization as a society coupled with the fact that Liberal Arts is no longer the path to the renaissance man of the modern world.
Perhaps in a perfect world the college student needs to do 3 years of Liberal Arts (Arts and Histories) + Math + Basic Sciences to get a general degree then 3 more years of training in a specialized field to get advanced training degree, I don't know. I'm pretty sure the current system is broken and I'm pretty sure that what we're doing now fails to educate and make people more than just a cog in the system. Maybe that's ok though or even unavoidable and it's up to the over achievers to drive society through whatever avenues offer the ability to educate oneself be it an official institution or not. Either way good stuff to discuss.
Interesting. And just for the record I prefer to ask people with no obvious qualifications on random message boards. That way I don't have to invest my various anthropological theories with any effort but can instead cite only my general reasoning and anecdotal evidence from a stranger. It's called being lazy...er efficient...I am American after all.;)
On the original subject I find the US to be similar. We may have a bit more of a holdover because it is a bit of a boon in hiring early on in ones career but in general it's an early door opener and a tie-breaker situation where a prestigious degree is helpful here. Since I'm citing anecdotal evidence today, I work with a guy from MIT who has my same job is at the same level is me and gets paid approximately the same as I do. I was a state university drop out who went to work during dot com and finished later after I was my current company (who incidentally paid for me to finish) so as always there are many paths to the same place in our cubical infested reality over here.
Americans ideals tend to favor the individual over the group. This is likely due to the fact that the US was founded (or at least developed) by rugged individualists who favored ideas like self-reliance, free will, self-determination, upward mobility within as single generation, and at least the perception of a meritocracy. Wrong, right or in between a highly structured system where a kid must move down a specific track for his educational career largely runs counter to those ideas and is seen as removing opportunity from those who make mistakes early in life or who do not have the opportunities due to socio-economic or other constraints. Hence things like tracks which allow you to get educated versus tracks where you get vocational training is looked down upon as anathema to the American ideals of equality and opportunity here. As a result it's unlikely you'll see something like you're proposing over here anytime soon though it is often discussed in educational circles.
To answer your question about the SAT it's just a standardized test to see what a kid has learned. It's a way of comparing kids from vastly different backgrounds and educational experiences on a standard scale. It doesn't take into account things like experiences or whether the kid performed community service or played a leadership role in school just his or her knowledge. We send in what amounts to a resume (i.e. CV) along with our test scores and high school transcripts to cover that other stuff when we apply to college.
The part about deep specialization is true for Holland too
I would assume that this is one of the reasons you have elite subjects but not elite schools. I don't know about there but here even in high school we've already started the specialization process to a large degree. We don't really have a good classical education available here anymore. We get the basics but it largely focuses on exposure to different subjects and is more about figuring out what you want to specialize at the college level rather than teaching folks how to think and explore for themselves. Those folks here who develop the intellectual skills associated with classical educations largely do it on their own using our education system as more of a jumping off point.
To answer your question, we have a couple of levels but it's not standard across the country. I think this is largely due to the size of the US, the large number of local populations with diverse cultures, and the fact that this drove us for much of our history to favor local government and restrict federal influence (well that and our historical dislike of the British system of a strong central government). Regardless, high school levels really depends on your state and local municipality. Hence from the University perspective all high schools are more or less treated the same and you can go to college from any level of high school. There are some elite boarding schools that act as a feeder system to some of our more prestigious colleges (n.b. college and university are largely used as interchangeable words over here as opposed to the stricter European definitions).
I'm curious if in Holland you have a history of elite schools that are no longer considered elite as you moved into the age of modern specialization and we just have a historical conceptual hangover that you didn't hold onto or if you've always had subject elitism and not institution based elitism. I'm not an anthropologist but it's always interesting how cultural history evolves differently in different places.
I think that's because university/college (at least in the states) has become less about classical education and more about future job training. Now it's largely aimed at making you useful to the market rather than teaching you how to think and exposing you to a broad variety of ideas and concepts. Hence those subjects which can make you immediately profitable are given more status. I think the elite university ideas go back to when education was more about education and less about training. Then the university that was turning out all the great thinkers across fields became "elite". I'm not saying one is better or worse but I think the elitism and what it focuses on are just a product of the times and what is key to success in those times. Today it's about deep specialization and training but we still have memes around elitism that are hold overs from when it was about general intellectual abilities and knowledge.
Maybe we can just give the watchers machines that randomly download porn...I mean a laptop with some porn downloading scripts have to be much cheaper than a scanner that doesn't work and angers a bunch of people.
I believe the term you're looking for is "Keeper of the Trolls" or "Troll Brother". It's kinda like those wildlife loons who live with the bears and talk about how they're dangerous they are then somehow get eaten anyway. We're a sad lot.;)
The etymology of the phrase "pedantic troll" comes from a combination of the word pedantic which means asshole who wants to argue subtleties as though they were core precepts to show that he is smart and understands how dumb others are and the word troll which means asshole who posts just to get a reaction. There are many of these double asshole creatures in the multi-verse though they are more common in some universes than others. In most universes they tend to congregate on an internet site (or local universe equivalent) which aggregates various articles of news and opinions for the technically inclined and socially inept members of society.
Agreed...you can probably only legitimately run this algorithm for periods for which we have sufficient volume of records and that determination is likely a subjective one. I mean technically the most boring day is probably a tie for the ones all before modern man existed but now we're getting silly and arguing nothing. It (at least to me) was an interesting line of inquiry in the sense that it is an interesting data mining and analysis problem. Quibbling over how the problem should have been structured different is less interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you. I opened up the comments to ask how their predictions for the last 5 years went. Something I always look for in an article about someone's predictions for the future is how did they do in the past at predicting the future. Unfortunately, most such articles never bother to tell you that the "prophet" they are quoting is not better than random at predictiing the future. If the source they are got one big thing right, they will tout that, but never mention that that one thing was one out of 100 and the other 99 weren't even close.
Maybe opening up the article would have served you better than opening up the comments. From the article...
New predictions aside, IBM’s track record of predictions over the past five years has been somewhat mixed. Let’s take a step back to 2006 and look at its predictions:...
They then go on to assess the prediction that the commenter made above but with a more generous tone than that being applied above. In general they treat them as though they were general business predictions (e.g. smartphones get smart...not that they literally read our thoughts) rather than acting like IBM is claiming to be a group of religious prophets.
It's shouldn't matter whether we're good or bad at it or any overly broad number of the people killed or anecdotal evidence of why it doesn't apply to me or you. The question is all things considered how much does it raise the risk of death or serious injury to the average citizen and is that risk acceptable for the value they get from talking on the phone.
Additionally, if they outlaw it you'll have to ask your self the same question though the risk will likely include imprisonment int he event of the death or serious injury of another.
The weeping and gnashing of teeth on both sides gets old. We should just focus on making rational decisions both in public policy and personal actions and move on.
Actually, a degree does not make you a professional. Being paid for work in a specific field makes you a professional in that field strictly speaking. There is some connotation to the word implying a certain level of competency which a degree can point to but it's only an indication not something that makes you a professional. Also honorary degrees don't count. ;)
Working as a professional FX dude doesn't make you a professional scientist which is what would be relevant when claiming that you are performing professional experiments. They have some very good mechanic/engineering skills and they have put them to use in a professional context but at the end of the day they're not super scientific with some of their tests and they usually end up just blowing stuff up for fun which is professional entertainment. Top Gear is very similar in that the main profession on that show is entertainment and not driving.
Love that this was modded as insightful. Really slashdot?
This is a ridiculous response that basically says "we're not interested given that our donors like patents". That said the way you respond to a ridiculous response is by continuing to hound them until it becomes a major issue. Here is one I created to end all patents as I believe the system itself is corrupt and needs to be replaced by open competition.
http://wh.gov/bjZ
I encourage everyone to sign it or create your own and post them here. Slashdot has shown the ability to nuke major sites due to the size of it's audience/community...let's make it clear we feel strongly about the issue. At the very least maybe they will take down their fake petition site which is offensive due to the fact they don't pay any attention to it. =)
Because then the mice would be bald and we'd have to develop a drug for them...come on, think!
Like all things it's relative. Specifically it depends on what you're grading. Does it intrinsically help your understanding of a subject like say "Social Studies". Probably not as it's only a tool like you point out. Does it increase your proficiency with computers and make your more likely to spend your time in the future learning a subject rather than learning the tool? Probably.
The other thing that it might do is make your more efficient in your learning over time. If it takes x amount of time to become an expert due to practice does a tool that lets you perform practice iterations faster shorten the road to expertise? I don't know, it's possible that the limit is the human mind and is hardwired to the amount of time to rewire it and not just the number of iterations.
The point however is that grades may or may not be the correct measure to determine if these programs are beneficial. You have to ask the right question before you get a meaningful answer. Someone more familiar than I with what measures translate to successful intellectual development needs to look at this and determine if technology in the classroom is a worthwhile use of financial resources.
The idea that current management is broken is correct. It's broken because it's not focused on managing companies it's focused on managing stock prices. Unfortunately, IMO, there is so much value in the equity market that major businesses no longer care what they produce or how they produce it as long as they produce stock value along side it. This attitude is a result of a couple of things. First the short term value from investments is worth many times the actual value of the company can produce from real assets/production/sales/fees/etc. Second we've tied executive compensation to stock price through options, grants, incentives, etc. It's not a problem of who is managing the companies it's a problem of incentives and motivations.
Fixing the problem doesn't necessarily mean putting a geek in charge but instead means altering incentives so they favor long-term profit and sustainable growth (20, 30, 50 years or more) beyond short-term stock bumps. Often engineer personalities get in the way and make them harder to incentivize than the bean counter personalities. Too often the geek only cares about the purity of a solution or the optimization of a process and that makes it difficult to incentivize him to put long-term profit first. Additionally, if the geek you select is flexible enough to not be stuck in the optimization mode then he is going to game the system just like the MBA in favor of stock indicators for his personal compensation. It's not dishonest or wrong it's human nature. You tell your manager what you care about by how you pay them. They in turn work to maximize those items to which their variable compensation is tied.
The best thing you can do is find good managers (MBAs or Geeks not withstanding) and incentivize them to run the company with the primary goal being long-term sustainable profits. I think more often than not you're going to find this is an MBA type with a compensation package not tied to stock but a smart board will look for the right personality traits, coupled with the right skills, coupled with the right compensation package. The answer is definitely not "just give it to the engineers" however.
I was "streaming only" for about 2 and a half years. I supplemented my streaming with AppleTV (the old white one) purchases and Netflix via Wii. While this worked great for most entertainment in the end the convenience factor of having to manage storage for a bunch of shows I would likely never watch again (AppleTV), the lack of live sporting events (primarily college football in my case), and wanted access to premium channel series without resorting to BitTorrent which were coming out (Shameless and Game of Thrones) caused me to revert and get UVerse TV when I went to them for internet about 6 months ago. Living off of streaming only is completely doable I just got tired of some of the inconveniences and decided to pay to get rid of them.
They would be the same since the laws dealing with online casinos giving out cash also cover it by including products or anything of value. Otherwise you could just create an on-line site and allow people to exchange thier in-game money for anything where the casino would purchase it for you.
Actually this is not true in the US. It varies wildly from state to state. Gambling laws are not federal and in many states gambling for prizes is perfectly legal where as gambling for money is not. You see charity poker tournaments that give out prizes in many locations precisely because of this. In other places it's ok to gamble in private places but only if the house doesn't take a rake and all participants have an equal chance of winning. In other places it's ok to gamble up to certain monetary limits. Don't assume that just because logically it's the same the law treats it the same.
Siffy or Syffie, or Syfy or whatever they want to be called cancelled this prequel recently but here's a spoiler...when they form unions it doesn't end well. ;)
I'm looking forward to the Blue Skin of Death feature when a person core dumps all their genetic codes...granted it will have to be encrypted because they won't be allowed to use their own genes.
oops...the first sentence should read...
"To avoid government scrutiny of my actions when not aligned with (insert your least favorite ruling party)'s beliefs."
I made the mistake of using tag brackets instead of parentheses. =)
To avoid government scrutiny of my actions when not aligned with the 's beliefs.
In all seriousness, for private transactions between private citizens in private homes but for most things your point is valid. The problem is it's the exceptions that are important to preserving personal freedom not the normal cases. It's analogous to why it's important that we defend free speech for Nazi's and hate mongers despite the fact that we (or at least I) detest them and their beliefs. If a given right or principle isn't universally defended then someday someone will take it from you as well.
That said in this case even if they do make monetary notes completely traceable and unforgeable (unlikely) some stand in for value and/or a barter system will likely evolve for private transactions so despite my semi-tongue-in-cheek paranoia this is unlikely to be a serious issue long-term.
Indeed and perhaps "no obvious qualifications" was a bit harsh or perhaps I was projecting my own lack of qualification. =)
First let me say that this is all just my opinion and it's going to be a bit self-contradictory because I don't think we've found a good balance in how to educate people in a way that is relevant in the modern context but....
I agree that Liberal Arts used to be about this notion of a broad education but I think it largely fails that test today. While it is probably closer than many majors, it teaches what would be a well rounded education a 100-200 years ago but fails to provide broad based thinking that is applicable to a modern and changing world. It largely eschews mathematics and and reason based thinking which is a huge part of our modern society. When I say "classical education" I don't really mean just the classics, I mean teaching one to think and be well-rounded. Unfortunately Liberal Arts has largely become a self-sustaining training program to feed kids into academia these days or to produce artistic works rather than taking the core values of a well-rounded education and producing the renaissance men and women of today.
And just to take a probably unfair shot at your school. While it once did Vassar of today doesn't qualify as elite in my opinion, at least not in the way we were discussing earlier. It is an extremely good school historically but when I think of thought leaders, innovation, research, idea incubation, and places that change the world Vassar is not among those institutions. So while I see your general point that the goal of Liberal Arts colleges is what I talked about I think they fall short in a modern context. Given that and Vassar's reputation as primarily a LIberal Arts school, albeit a very good one, it doesn't surprise me that over 50% are on financial aid. I think this too is probably a by product of our push toward extreme specialization as a society coupled with the fact that Liberal Arts is no longer the path to the renaissance man of the modern world.
Perhaps in a perfect world the college student needs to do 3 years of Liberal Arts (Arts and Histories) + Math + Basic Sciences to get a general degree then 3 more years of training in a specialized field to get advanced training degree, I don't know. I'm pretty sure the current system is broken and I'm pretty sure that what we're doing now fails to educate and make people more than just a cog in the system. Maybe that's ok though or even unavoidable and it's up to the over achievers to drive society through whatever avenues offer the ability to educate oneself be it an official institution or not. Either way good stuff to discuss.
Interesting. And just for the record I prefer to ask people with no obvious qualifications on random message boards. That way I don't have to invest my various anthropological theories with any effort but can instead cite only my general reasoning and anecdotal evidence from a stranger. It's called being lazy...er efficient...I am American after all. ;)
On the original subject I find the US to be similar. We may have a bit more of a holdover because it is a bit of a boon in hiring early on in ones career but in general it's an early door opener and a tie-breaker situation where a prestigious degree is helpful here. Since I'm citing anecdotal evidence today, I work with a guy from MIT who has my same job is at the same level is me and gets paid approximately the same as I do. I was a state university drop out who went to work during dot com and finished later after I was my current company (who incidentally paid for me to finish) so as always there are many paths to the same place in our cubical infested reality over here.
Thanks again... interesting subject.
Americans ideals tend to favor the individual over the group. This is likely due to the fact that the US was founded (or at least developed) by rugged individualists who favored ideas like self-reliance, free will, self-determination, upward mobility within as single generation, and at least the perception of a meritocracy. Wrong, right or in between a highly structured system where a kid must move down a specific track for his educational career largely runs counter to those ideas and is seen as removing opportunity from those who make mistakes early in life or who do not have the opportunities due to socio-economic or other constraints. Hence things like tracks which allow you to get educated versus tracks where you get vocational training is looked down upon as anathema to the American ideals of equality and opportunity here. As a result it's unlikely you'll see something like you're proposing over here anytime soon though it is often discussed in educational circles.
To answer your question about the SAT it's just a standardized test to see what a kid has learned. It's a way of comparing kids from vastly different backgrounds and educational experiences on a standard scale. It doesn't take into account things like experiences or whether the kid performed community service or played a leadership role in school just his or her knowledge. We send in what amounts to a resume (i.e. CV) along with our test scores and high school transcripts to cover that other stuff when we apply to college.
The part about deep specialization is true for Holland too
I would assume that this is one of the reasons you have elite subjects but not elite schools. I don't know about there but here even in high school we've already started the specialization process to a large degree. We don't really have a good classical education available here anymore. We get the basics but it largely focuses on exposure to different subjects and is more about figuring out what you want to specialize at the college level rather than teaching folks how to think and explore for themselves. Those folks here who develop the intellectual skills associated with classical educations largely do it on their own using our education system as more of a jumping off point.
To answer your question, we have a couple of levels but it's not standard across the country. I think this is largely due to the size of the US, the large number of local populations with diverse cultures, and the fact that this drove us for much of our history to favor local government and restrict federal influence (well that and our historical dislike of the British system of a strong central government). Regardless, high school levels really depends on your state and local municipality. Hence from the University perspective all high schools are more or less treated the same and you can go to college from any level of high school. There are some elite boarding schools that act as a feeder system to some of our more prestigious colleges (n.b. college and university are largely used as interchangeable words over here as opposed to the stricter European definitions).
I'm curious if in Holland you have a history of elite schools that are no longer considered elite as you moved into the age of modern specialization and we just have a historical conceptual hangover that you didn't hold onto or if you've always had subject elitism and not institution based elitism. I'm not an anthropologist but it's always interesting how cultural history evolves differently in different places.
I think that's because university/college (at least in the states) has become less about classical education and more about future job training. Now it's largely aimed at making you useful to the market rather than teaching you how to think and exposing you to a broad variety of ideas and concepts. Hence those subjects which can make you immediately profitable are given more status. I think the elite university ideas go back to when education was more about education and less about training. Then the university that was turning out all the great thinkers across fields became "elite". I'm not saying one is better or worse but I think the elitism and what it focuses on are just a product of the times and what is key to success in those times. Today it's about deep specialization and training but we still have memes around elitism that are hold overs from when it was about general intellectual abilities and knowledge.
Just my guess.
Maybe we can just give the watchers machines that randomly download porn...I mean a laptop with some porn downloading scripts have to be much cheaper than a scanner that doesn't work and angers a bunch of people.
I believe the term you're looking for is "Keeper of the Trolls" or "Troll Brother". It's kinda like those wildlife loons who live with the bears and talk about how they're dangerous they are then somehow get eaten anyway. We're a sad lot. ;)
The etymology of the phrase "pedantic troll" comes from a combination of the word pedantic which means asshole who wants to argue subtleties as though they were core precepts to show that he is smart and understands how dumb others are and the word troll which means asshole who posts just to get a reaction. There are many of these double asshole creatures in the multi-verse though they are more common in some universes than others. In most universes they tend to congregate on an internet site (or local universe equivalent) which aggregates various articles of news and opinions for the technically inclined and socially inept members of society.
Agreed...you can probably only legitimately run this algorithm for periods for which we have sufficient volume of records and that determination is likely a subjective one. I mean technically the most boring day is probably a tie for the ones all before modern man existed but now we're getting silly and arguing nothing. It (at least to me) was an interesting line of inquiry in the sense that it is an interesting data mining and analysis problem. Quibbling over how the problem should have been structured different is less interesting.