So the creators of the game Strategic Domination needed a way to tell people about it, but didn't have the budget for a billboard. Then they noticed all the homeless people downtown and came up with an idea: Staple a mini-billboard to the hobo's own cardboard sign, making both more noticeable.
They call this concept "Bumvertising." (A note on dialect differences: "Bum" in American English is a homeless person, but in British English is a butt. We mean the first kind here. A "bumvertisement" in the UK sense would probably violate several of their laws about public nudity. All further "bum" references in this article are in the US sense.)
I love the win-win aspect of this project. The advertiser gets something about a quarter as effective as a billboard for less than 1/100th the price. The bum gets additional income for something he or she was doing anyway. While the added income isn't quite enough to lift the bum into a studio-apartment, it is enough for clothing-replacement, and maybe a better meal. Maybe that's enough to finally go out and find a real job, but probably not. People don't live in the street for fun, mostly.
The only downsides I can think of are: 1, enforcement. How does the advertiser know that the bum stayed on his corner, and 2, chance that another bum will mug the bum that accepts the advertising. (I don't want the advertising sign to mean "Hey, I've got money, feel free to rob me.")
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
A Use For Mercury
When I study why people come to this blog using Google Analytics, I find out some odd things about my readership. For one, something like 3/4ths of the searches are for things I specifically wrote about. Perhaps these people half-remember something they read here and wanted to see it again. Or perhaps my reputation somehow proceeds me, and they've somehow heard of me through non-internet means. Or perhaps they think strange thoughts like I do.
I also learn interesting things about where they are. Most of my readers are American like I am, and the most common hits are New York and California, the two most populous states, and Texas, where I'm physically located. (Some of those Texan hits may have been me, up to all of them.) And then there's the weird parts. One person in Trondheim, Norway, reads my blog 7 times a month. It does not tell me what he or she is looking for, other than the read time is very very fast and that it's one distinct person. I hope he or she finds whatever it is that he or she wanted to read here. I also have hits elsewhere in Europe, Asia and Australia, but they've mostly seemed to have left quickly after a few seconds. Not quite what they wanted, I suppose. But I'm getting off topic.
One person apparently read my article about terraforming Mars and Venus, and was trying to find a plan to terraform Mercury. It was a very interesting idea, and I've thought it over, and I regret to say that no, Mercury cannot be terraformed. For several reasons. There is one bright spot, but first the reasons why it cannot happen.
The first reason is that Mercury is too close to the sun. Powerful solar winds strike mercury at all times, and any atmosphere brought to it would quickly be blasted into outer space. Also, any humans brought to the surface would be dead of skin cancer within a year's time even if the atmosphere was continuously magically replenished.
Two, mercury is semi-tidally-locked. It orbits the sun in a 3:2 resonance, such that 1.5 mercurial days make up a mercurial year. Any plants brought along would die during the 44 day long night. Unlike Venus, if spun up, it would spin back down due to the gravitational effects.
Three, even if we somehow magically solve the first two problems, mercury is smaller than mars. It would have difficulty retaining the atmosphere even without the solar wind, and gravity would be incredibly low, which would have unpredictable results on human health.
And lastly, the vastly closer sun provides 10 times the sunlight that the earth receives, resulting in temperatures about 20 times higher. If you think the desert is hot, wait until you see weather that can melt aluminum. Oh, and if you don't bake to death, you'll dehydrate to death sweating.
However, Mercury is not completely useless for us. In the early 1900s, Nikola Tesla discovered that power could be wirelessly beamed about. So we send in a probe to work on the cold, night side, and have it endlessly construct solar panels that wire together to a beaming station. We have it continuously move along the axis of rotation, staying perpetually on the night side where it is cold enough to operate. On the poles, we build the beaming station that receives all the energy from the panels.
When the panels are rotated into the day side by Mercury's natural rotation, they produce lots of power. Mercury gets 1370 watts per square meter, of which we can hope to capture about 10%. The station changes it into a wireless form that we can pick up elsewhere in the solar system. We can pick this up on Mars for heating, on the ISS for powering scientific tools, or hypothetically even on earth to power our cities. The panels should be replaced every 20 or so years.
Downsides: How to build the power-transmitting station such that it doesn't melt down when in the day side. How to deal with rotation, as Mercury is not perpendicular to the solar system plane, but slightly tilted. (About 6 degrees.) Oh, and getting thousands of square miles of solar panels and hundreds of thousands of feet of power transmitting cable not only into space, but onto Mercury's surface without being damaged. Also, the robot probably needs to be able to build everything without human intervention, which could take up to 12 minutes depending on the distance of our planets at the time. (Speed of light limitations are a bitch, aren't they?)
I also learn interesting things about where they are. Most of my readers are American like I am, and the most common hits are New York and California, the two most populous states, and Texas, where I'm physically located. (Some of those Texan hits may have been me, up to all of them.) And then there's the weird parts. One person in Trondheim, Norway, reads my blog 7 times a month. It does not tell me what he or she is looking for, other than the read time is very very fast and that it's one distinct person. I hope he or she finds whatever it is that he or she wanted to read here. I also have hits elsewhere in Europe, Asia and Australia, but they've mostly seemed to have left quickly after a few seconds. Not quite what they wanted, I suppose. But I'm getting off topic.
One person apparently read my article about terraforming Mars and Venus, and was trying to find a plan to terraform Mercury. It was a very interesting idea, and I've thought it over, and I regret to say that no, Mercury cannot be terraformed. For several reasons. There is one bright spot, but first the reasons why it cannot happen.
The first reason is that Mercury is too close to the sun. Powerful solar winds strike mercury at all times, and any atmosphere brought to it would quickly be blasted into outer space. Also, any humans brought to the surface would be dead of skin cancer within a year's time even if the atmosphere was continuously magically replenished.
Two, mercury is semi-tidally-locked. It orbits the sun in a 3:2 resonance, such that 1.5 mercurial days make up a mercurial year. Any plants brought along would die during the 44 day long night. Unlike Venus, if spun up, it would spin back down due to the gravitational effects.
Three, even if we somehow magically solve the first two problems, mercury is smaller than mars. It would have difficulty retaining the atmosphere even without the solar wind, and gravity would be incredibly low, which would have unpredictable results on human health.
And lastly, the vastly closer sun provides 10 times the sunlight that the earth receives, resulting in temperatures about 20 times higher. If you think the desert is hot, wait until you see weather that can melt aluminum. Oh, and if you don't bake to death, you'll dehydrate to death sweating.
However, Mercury is not completely useless for us. In the early 1900s, Nikola Tesla discovered that power could be wirelessly beamed about. So we send in a probe to work on the cold, night side, and have it endlessly construct solar panels that wire together to a beaming station. We have it continuously move along the axis of rotation, staying perpetually on the night side where it is cold enough to operate. On the poles, we build the beaming station that receives all the energy from the panels.
When the panels are rotated into the day side by Mercury's natural rotation, they produce lots of power. Mercury gets 1370 watts per square meter, of which we can hope to capture about 10%. The station changes it into a wireless form that we can pick up elsewhere in the solar system. We can pick this up on Mars for heating, on the ISS for powering scientific tools, or hypothetically even on earth to power our cities. The panels should be replaced every 20 or so years.
Downsides: How to build the power-transmitting station such that it doesn't melt down when in the day side. How to deal with rotation, as Mercury is not perpendicular to the solar system plane, but slightly tilted. (About 6 degrees.) Oh, and getting thousands of square miles of solar panels and hundreds of thousands of feet of power transmitting cable not only into space, but onto Mercury's surface without being damaged. Also, the robot probably needs to be able to build everything without human intervention, which could take up to 12 minutes depending on the distance of our planets at the time. (Speed of light limitations are a bitch, aren't they?)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Shanxi Automated Brickworks
Fact #1: Bricks sell in China's Shanxi province for 3000 yuan per pack. (~$438?)
Fact #2: The Chinese government has shut down numerous slavery rings in Shanxi, in which people were imported to produce bricks. There is apparently a labor shortage in Shanxi.
Fact #3: Steel and machine tools are now quite common in China.
Hm, hypothetically there's money to be made on this.
Step #1: Enter China on business visa.
Step #2: Fill out Foreign Owned Corporation paperwork. (Machine translation of the company name is "山西自动化砖砌."
Step #3: Rent cheap land. (In a nod to the official communist policy, one may not buy land in China, merely lease it for 99 years, with possible renewal.)
Step #4: Build rail-furnace, calibrate belt speed such that bricks emerge fully fired.
Step #5: Clay harvesting machine. (Probably involves clay-knife, scoop, and storage bin.)
Step #6: Brick shaping machine. (Say, 5 or 6 plates that squeeze the clay into a rectangular shape.)
Step #7: Hire some workers to operate the clay harvesting machine and to move the hot bricks into containers using tongs.
Step #8: Sino-fy the company by selling shares until you own none of it.
If you are Chinese, you can skip steps 1, 2, and 8.
Fact #2: The Chinese government has shut down numerous slavery rings in Shanxi, in which people were imported to produce bricks. There is apparently a labor shortage in Shanxi.
Fact #3: Steel and machine tools are now quite common in China.
Hm, hypothetically there's money to be made on this.
Step #1: Enter China on business visa.
Step #2: Fill out Foreign Owned Corporation paperwork. (Machine translation of the company name is "山西自动化砖砌."
Step #3: Rent cheap land. (In a nod to the official communist policy, one may not buy land in China, merely lease it for 99 years, with possible renewal.)
Step #4: Build rail-furnace, calibrate belt speed such that bricks emerge fully fired.
Step #5: Clay harvesting machine. (Probably involves clay-knife, scoop, and storage bin.)
Step #6: Brick shaping machine. (Say, 5 or 6 plates that squeeze the clay into a rectangular shape.)
Step #7: Hire some workers to operate the clay harvesting machine and to move the hot bricks into containers using tongs.
Step #8: Sino-fy the company by selling shares until you own none of it.
If you are Chinese, you can skip steps 1, 2, and 8.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Email Access
In order to further communication without compromising my privacy, I have opened a new email address: madengineering@gawab.com. It has cost me nothing, and allows me to send mail as "The Mad Engineer," rather than my legal name.
Feel free to comment on my stories, or suggest new ones, or complain about how my themes aren't perfect, or whatever it is that you want to tell me.
Feel free to comment on my stories, or suggest new ones, or complain about how my themes aren't perfect, or whatever it is that you want to tell me.
The Rules of innovation
Over in White African, the author, a Kenyan who is Caucasian (yes, they exist), describes principles that drive innovation in Africa in general. The "White African" is his personal blog, he has another one, AfriGadget about African inventions in general. Technically, this is a reposting of Ethan Zuckerman's expose on the innovation that he routinely sees.
Africa is rather different from much of the rest of the world. It has been bled white of resources in a series of wars, after a long history of colonial rule, often kleptocratic. Many of its natural resources have grotesquely deteriorated. The northern part was, in ancient history, a lush forest, but is today the Saraha desert, a burning wasteland of sand and little else. The Savannah to the south is likewise difficult for human habitation.
Africans have generally been described as hungry for education and jobs to pull themselves out of desperate poverty. These things are not readily available, as the people are poor, the government is poor, the infrastructure was all destroyed in the last war, and even if the resources were available, many people are afraid to help out because the wars could restart at any minute now. (The less stable countries tend to abruptly collapse into a coup, which then decides that a border war would be an excellent idea.)
That said, apparently lots of Africans own cell phones, which they buy from Latin American companies. (Land lines? Long destroyed.) When there's no schooling to be had, Africans feel that owning a cell phone is prestigious. You can make calls, transfer money, even make some money. Apparently Africans will forgo eating for a week to afford a good phone.
Anwyay, I see these rules as relevant not only to Africa, but to me, here, in wealthy America. Innovation proceeded poorly in many of the wealthier eras, which had a remarkable lust for snake-oil, Veblen goods, and the most comedicly wrong thinking of all time. It was during the poorer and more threatened times that the real innovation shines through. Incidentally, my home state was initially populated with a gold rush, but guess who actually made the money? It wasn't the gold miners, it was the people who sold them things. (Forgot a pickaxe? Want eggs for breakfast instead of those iron rations? Need a pair of jeans that doesn't have a huge hole in the knees? I accept gold nuggets!) This is a wealthy time currently, so much of the discourse is bitching about how expensive everything is and wondering how to offshore more of it.
Working with culture is important because it's the basic framework of people's lives. It defines their sense of time, space, good and evil. Working against culture will make people find your work pointless, stupid, evil, or some combination of the three.
Use market measures. Giving stuff away encourages people to just take all they can until your resources are exhausted. People better respect what they have to pay for.
Start with what you've got. To build a train, you'd need rail, fuel, trainyards, train station, and a train engineer, but a bicycle fleet can be put together with what you've got.
Problems are not obvious from afar. The framework that applies to me does not apply to the various frameworks of Africa, nor would any of their frameworks apply to me. Tanzanian children love stationary bicycles and can use them for power generation because it's a fun novelty. American children probably have their own bike, yawn, boring. Many Africans are surviving on $1/day, an amount at which I would be homeless and on a starvation diet.
Infrastructure can produce more infrastructure. If trains are really important to you, you will find a way to build the rails. Cars are important to America, since we like the idea of a vehicle that obeys our personal individual will, so roads and highways are built up at great expense. In Africa, cell phones are quite common, so a network of solar powered car batteries have been developed to recharge them, and a young genius has a system to use cell phones to prevent grand theft auto. (Note to self: Find way to fund this.)
Most importantly, I want to see how running lean might work out. Anything of which I can reduce the expenses is a thing that can sell for cheaper, and hence more. Muhahaha.
Africa is rather different from much of the rest of the world. It has been bled white of resources in a series of wars, after a long history of colonial rule, often kleptocratic. Many of its natural resources have grotesquely deteriorated. The northern part was, in ancient history, a lush forest, but is today the Saraha desert, a burning wasteland of sand and little else. The Savannah to the south is likewise difficult for human habitation.
Africans have generally been described as hungry for education and jobs to pull themselves out of desperate poverty. These things are not readily available, as the people are poor, the government is poor, the infrastructure was all destroyed in the last war, and even if the resources were available, many people are afraid to help out because the wars could restart at any minute now. (The less stable countries tend to abruptly collapse into a coup, which then decides that a border war would be an excellent idea.)
That said, apparently lots of Africans own cell phones, which they buy from Latin American companies. (Land lines? Long destroyed.) When there's no schooling to be had, Africans feel that owning a cell phone is prestigious. You can make calls, transfer money, even make some money. Apparently Africans will forgo eating for a week to afford a good phone.
Anwyay, I see these rules as relevant not only to Africa, but to me, here, in wealthy America. Innovation proceeded poorly in many of the wealthier eras, which had a remarkable lust for snake-oil, Veblen goods, and the most comedicly wrong thinking of all time. It was during the poorer and more threatened times that the real innovation shines through. Incidentally, my home state was initially populated with a gold rush, but guess who actually made the money? It wasn't the gold miners, it was the people who sold them things. (Forgot a pickaxe? Want eggs for breakfast instead of those iron rations? Need a pair of jeans that doesn't have a huge hole in the knees? I accept gold nuggets!) This is a wealthy time currently, so much of the discourse is bitching about how expensive everything is and wondering how to offshore more of it.
Working with culture is important because it's the basic framework of people's lives. It defines their sense of time, space, good and evil. Working against culture will make people find your work pointless, stupid, evil, or some combination of the three.
Use market measures. Giving stuff away encourages people to just take all they can until your resources are exhausted. People better respect what they have to pay for.
Start with what you've got. To build a train, you'd need rail, fuel, trainyards, train station, and a train engineer, but a bicycle fleet can be put together with what you've got.
Problems are not obvious from afar. The framework that applies to me does not apply to the various frameworks of Africa, nor would any of their frameworks apply to me. Tanzanian children love stationary bicycles and can use them for power generation because it's a fun novelty. American children probably have their own bike, yawn, boring. Many Africans are surviving on $1/day, an amount at which I would be homeless and on a starvation diet.
Infrastructure can produce more infrastructure. If trains are really important to you, you will find a way to build the rails. Cars are important to America, since we like the idea of a vehicle that obeys our personal individual will, so roads and highways are built up at great expense. In Africa, cell phones are quite common, so a network of solar powered car batteries have been developed to recharge them, and a young genius has a system to use cell phones to prevent grand theft auto. (Note to self: Find way to fund this.)
Most importantly, I want to see how running lean might work out. Anything of which I can reduce the expenses is a thing that can sell for cheaper, and hence more. Muhahaha.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
My own cranky beliefs
I've been enjoying Crank.net and the wacky people profiled within. Except that yesterday I noticed that I have a cranky belief myself. Ooh, the hypocrisy, it burns.
I reject Euler's equation, which I will explain below.
So if you take Euler's own constant, e, and raise it to a power involving "i," which is the square root of negative one, you get a complex number based on the variable "x." This of course gives you every mathematician's favorite equation ever:
Since this equation connects five important mathematical constants, so many mathematicians proclaim this the most beautiful equation ever invented.
Mathematical beauty is another idea that I reject. To be rude about it, it's pretty much jerking off over numbers. Oh god, yes, pi and e, so beautiful! Wank, wank, wank. My interest in math is mostly about correct measurements. Poets may claim that beauty is truth, but I expect my numbers to represent something in the physical world, and base my assumptions of their correctness on the correspondence to fact. And besides, the truth is often hideous. People are inhumanly cruel to each other, the universe doesn't care if you live or die, people have done monstrous things to each other for no good reason, and everything in the universe, you included, will eventually die. The universe itself will eventually die.
The "Beautiful equation" revolves around the cosine and sine functions. Cosine and sine are trigonometric ratios first found in triangles. In a right triangle, cosine is the ratio of the side adjacent to the angle to the hypotenuse (the long side). Sine is the ratio of the side opposite to the angle to the hypotenuse. The ratios are the same for any particular angle. Later, the metaphor was extended to circles, allowing for angles greater than 90 degrees.
In high end math, radians are used instead of degrees. In radians, the circle is divided into 2*pi sections. So 2*pi is the entire circle, pi is half the circle, and 1/2 pi is one quarter of the circle. Radians are dimensionless.
Remember Euler's equation?
Plugging in pi would result in the complex number -1 + 0i. Anything times 0 is 0, removing the imaginary part.
However, from goofing off with a calculator, I know that without the imaginary part, e to the power pi is slightly greater than 23. (It's irrational.) Throwing in imaginary numbers seems to be causing an abrupt, inexplicable change.
In fact, raising numbers to an imaginary exponent is so poorly defined that neither calculator nor amateur mathematician can explain how to do it. Natural numbered exponents are "Multiplying a number by itself that many times." a^2 = a*a, a^3 = a*a*a, and so on. Fractional exponents involve roots. a^1.5 is a times the square root of a.
So if "i" is the square root of -1, what would a^i indicate? Would it's result be real, like a, imaginary like i, complex, or something completely different?
Also, I would expect "e^xi" to be linear as x. As x increases, larger and larger results should return. If not larger along the real axis, than in total distance from the origin. However, Euler's equation is cyclical. Sine and Cosine go around in a circle, first increasing, then decreasing, then increasing again, back and forth forever. There should be a reason for this discrepancy.
Mathematicians often have a strange relationship with their numbers, and grow quite attached. When a Greek mathematician discovered irrational numbers, he was thrown off a boat for ruining their sense of mathematical order. That the other mathematicians could not disprove the existence of irrational numbers drove them absolutely crazy. It was proof that mathematics was not the pure orderly truth that they thought it was, and that it also involved messy generalities, just like real life.
I likewise suspect that Euler put together his equation on the grounds that he liked its structure, not because it actually corresponded to anything. Moreso, modern mathematicians love the idea that many of their fundamental constants are closely related. I kind of hope that I'm the one who's wrong about this, because I could take being wrong way more than they could.
I would like any commentators to describe what I got wrong, or describe a proof. A graphical proof would be the easiest to understand, but those are the hardest to construct in the first place. If someone does prove me wrong, I will add the "Stupid" tag to this post and describe their proof.
EDIT: Dr. Phillip Spencer of the university of Toronto's math department proves Euler's equation based on the Taylor series, and therefore this entire post is wrong. Having proved Euler's equation, all else follows. Well done, Dr. Spencer.
I reject Euler's equation, which I will explain below.
So if you take Euler's own constant, e, and raise it to a power involving "i," which is the square root of negative one, you get a complex number based on the variable "x." This of course gives you every mathematician's favorite equation ever:
Since this equation connects five important mathematical constants, so many mathematicians proclaim this the most beautiful equation ever invented.
Mathematical beauty is another idea that I reject. To be rude about it, it's pretty much jerking off over numbers. Oh god, yes, pi and e, so beautiful! Wank, wank, wank. My interest in math is mostly about correct measurements. Poets may claim that beauty is truth, but I expect my numbers to represent something in the physical world, and base my assumptions of their correctness on the correspondence to fact. And besides, the truth is often hideous. People are inhumanly cruel to each other, the universe doesn't care if you live or die, people have done monstrous things to each other for no good reason, and everything in the universe, you included, will eventually die. The universe itself will eventually die.
The "Beautiful equation" revolves around the cosine and sine functions. Cosine and sine are trigonometric ratios first found in triangles. In a right triangle, cosine is the ratio of the side adjacent to the angle to the hypotenuse (the long side). Sine is the ratio of the side opposite to the angle to the hypotenuse. The ratios are the same for any particular angle. Later, the metaphor was extended to circles, allowing for angles greater than 90 degrees.
In high end math, radians are used instead of degrees. In radians, the circle is divided into 2*pi sections. So 2*pi is the entire circle, pi is half the circle, and 1/2 pi is one quarter of the circle. Radians are dimensionless.
Remember Euler's equation?
Plugging in pi would result in the complex number -1 + 0i. Anything times 0 is 0, removing the imaginary part.
However, from goofing off with a calculator, I know that without the imaginary part, e to the power pi is slightly greater than 23. (It's irrational.) Throwing in imaginary numbers seems to be causing an abrupt, inexplicable change.
In fact, raising numbers to an imaginary exponent is so poorly defined that neither calculator nor amateur mathematician can explain how to do it. Natural numbered exponents are "Multiplying a number by itself that many times." a^2 = a*a, a^3 = a*a*a, and so on. Fractional exponents involve roots. a^1.5 is a times the square root of a.
So if "i" is the square root of -1, what would a^i indicate? Would it's result be real, like a, imaginary like i, complex, or something completely different?
Also, I would expect "e^xi" to be linear as x. As x increases, larger and larger results should return. If not larger along the real axis, than in total distance from the origin. However, Euler's equation is cyclical. Sine and Cosine go around in a circle, first increasing, then decreasing, then increasing again, back and forth forever. There should be a reason for this discrepancy.
Mathematicians often have a strange relationship with their numbers, and grow quite attached. When a Greek mathematician discovered irrational numbers, he was thrown off a boat for ruining their sense of mathematical order. That the other mathematicians could not disprove the existence of irrational numbers drove them absolutely crazy. It was proof that mathematics was not the pure orderly truth that they thought it was, and that it also involved messy generalities, just like real life.
I likewise suspect that Euler put together his equation on the grounds that he liked its structure, not because it actually corresponded to anything. Moreso, modern mathematicians love the idea that many of their fundamental constants are closely related. I kind of hope that I'm the one who's wrong about this, because I could take being wrong way more than they could.
I would like any commentators to describe what I got wrong, or describe a proof. A graphical proof would be the easiest to understand, but those are the hardest to construct in the first place. If someone does prove me wrong, I will add the "Stupid" tag to this post and describe their proof.
EDIT: Dr. Phillip Spencer of the university of Toronto's math department proves Euler's equation based on the Taylor series, and therefore this entire post is wrong. Having proved Euler's equation, all else follows. Well done, Dr. Spencer.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Education is Slow and Shoddy
I think we do education all wrong in America.
I remember, as a young boy, getting the same lesson multiple times. I remember being so far ahead that I was in the top 3rd percentile. I remember doing decimal calculations 2 grades before being taught. I remember some teachers were very good indeed, encouraging the students under their tutelage to be the best people they could be. I also remember some teachers were power-tripping morons who apparently took the job because they got immense pleasure out of ordering small children around.
I've been in some kind of schooling since I was 4, and at least half of it was a complete waste of time. Now, the stated purpose of education is to prepare one with the facts and figures that one needs in postgraduate life. There is some liberal-arts that everyone is expected to know, and some specialty knowledge specific to your chosen field. You know the facts, you're ready to go.
Lots of time was lost to "discipline problems." Meaning that someone in the class would not STFU and the teacher had to stop and yell at them. Lots of time was lost to suddenly the professor just had to make a 30 minute rant about whatever was pissing him off that day. Lots of time was lost to circular questions in which neither student nor professor understood each other on any level.
I wonder if it is possible to complete secondary education (US grades 1 - 12) before one turns 12 years old. Currently, a 12th grade graduate is typically 18 years old. Would a longer day, or more intense instruction get it done faster? Or is brain maturity the bottleneck?
After all, I had classes up to my university sophmore (~14th grade) that were similar to my high school freshman (~9th grade) classes. Complete with the "CHRIST WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE, FIVE?!?!" rants when the students would not STFU and listen.
Mostly I'm disturbed by pundit-articles that claim that the actual purpose of the upper-level of education is to keep teenagers off the street. If they get an actual education out of this, is a secondary concern. It scares me because I think it may have been true. I've spent 1/3rd of my predicted lifespan in school, and much of it was, for no good reason, effectively the same as a prison sentence.
Although on the other hand, these articles also proposed replacing high school with apprenticeships. This would not work in every field. Of my two hypothetical careers, one, system administration, would work well as a master-apprentice relationship. The other, computer programmer, would not. Programmers need more education, and if you handed me a 12 year old, yes, they could write code, but it would hurt my productivity because I would have to rewrite everything my apprentice did. I would have to rewrite it because it would be inefficient and incorrect. My hypothetical apprentice just wouldn't be educated enough to do the job right.
I confirmed this with a psychologist friend of mine. A psychologist would not benefit from an apprentice, who would just lack the education to do anything other than schedule appointments and play secretary. Unless the apprenticeship consisted mostly of the psychologist helping the apprentice with the apprentice's homework, but that doesn't exactly help the psychologist, does it?
I think as a society we should educate faster to increase our productivity, if at all physically possible.
I remember, as a young boy, getting the same lesson multiple times. I remember being so far ahead that I was in the top 3rd percentile. I remember doing decimal calculations 2 grades before being taught. I remember some teachers were very good indeed, encouraging the students under their tutelage to be the best people they could be. I also remember some teachers were power-tripping morons who apparently took the job because they got immense pleasure out of ordering small children around.
I've been in some kind of schooling since I was 4, and at least half of it was a complete waste of time. Now, the stated purpose of education is to prepare one with the facts and figures that one needs in postgraduate life. There is some liberal-arts that everyone is expected to know, and some specialty knowledge specific to your chosen field. You know the facts, you're ready to go.
Lots of time was lost to "discipline problems." Meaning that someone in the class would not STFU and the teacher had to stop and yell at them. Lots of time was lost to suddenly the professor just had to make a 30 minute rant about whatever was pissing him off that day. Lots of time was lost to circular questions in which neither student nor professor understood each other on any level.
I wonder if it is possible to complete secondary education (US grades 1 - 12) before one turns 12 years old. Currently, a 12th grade graduate is typically 18 years old. Would a longer day, or more intense instruction get it done faster? Or is brain maturity the bottleneck?
After all, I had classes up to my university sophmore (~14th grade) that were similar to my high school freshman (~9th grade) classes. Complete with the "CHRIST WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE, FIVE?!?!" rants when the students would not STFU and listen.
Mostly I'm disturbed by pundit-articles that claim that the actual purpose of the upper-level of education is to keep teenagers off the street. If they get an actual education out of this, is a secondary concern. It scares me because I think it may have been true. I've spent 1/3rd of my predicted lifespan in school, and much of it was, for no good reason, effectively the same as a prison sentence.
Although on the other hand, these articles also proposed replacing high school with apprenticeships. This would not work in every field. Of my two hypothetical careers, one, system administration, would work well as a master-apprentice relationship. The other, computer programmer, would not. Programmers need more education, and if you handed me a 12 year old, yes, they could write code, but it would hurt my productivity because I would have to rewrite everything my apprentice did. I would have to rewrite it because it would be inefficient and incorrect. My hypothetical apprentice just wouldn't be educated enough to do the job right.
I confirmed this with a psychologist friend of mine. A psychologist would not benefit from an apprentice, who would just lack the education to do anything other than schedule appointments and play secretary. Unless the apprenticeship consisted mostly of the psychologist helping the apprentice with the apprentice's homework, but that doesn't exactly help the psychologist, does it?
I think as a society we should educate faster to increase our productivity, if at all physically possible.
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