I've thought the same thing. There shouldn't be a first grade, second grade, etc. but rather several classes that for each topic that a student can progress through individually. Maybe Johnny can't read so good and needs to repeat the first sequence in reading, but is fine in all other aspects or perhaps little Suzy is a math prodigy and can jump ahead a sequence or two but isn't excelling in her other topics so she should just stay put in those.

Such a system sounds far more preferable as it affords students the opportunity to excel in one area while being behind in another without being drug or forced to sit through material that's not at their level. Such a system is going to be more of a logistical problem for teachers and administrators than the current set up, but I think it's a least worth testing out.

Worse still, it's more work that won't improve outcomes as there's a lack of good evidence to support that individualizing learning styles does any good. There are studies that have found negative results.

This is just like the programs to give students a laptop, a tablet, or something else that's supposed to be great for education but won't result in any significant changes. It's made to sound nice and fancy so that schools will spend millions of dollars on it and who would want to question funding something to improve education?

I was a little curious about that as well and one of the linked articles from TFA says that this kid was at MIT at 13. I'll go ahead guess that he's really into and good at microprocessor design. The article I've linked also talks about some of the design decisions for the chip he's making, on which I'd be interested in hearing from someone with a background in the field.

You're probably thinking of Instragram. Facebook is the thing where people send out short-length messages to the rest of the world.

Obviously you can't get it exactly the same unless it were a system where everyone learned via video tutorials prepared in advance. Anyone who's been through any amount of schooling had some teachers that were really great and some that were plain shit.

100% perfect isn't going to exist and realistically if you get to 95% it's likely good enough because the remaining 5% is so expensive that it's no longer feasible to try as there's something else that the money could be better spent on.

The Finnish school system is regularly lauded as one of the best and it's done away with much of the pointless crap that the U.S. system indulges, such as constant standardized testing. Obviously it's not as simple as adopting their system exactly as it is without accounting for cultural, geographical, or other differences that might cause issues or skew the results in their favor, but what we're doing now isn't working.

Also, I realize that not everyone is equal and that you can't realistically give everyone an equal start. As you point out, some parents will devote more resources to their children's success than others. The government can't practically enforce mommy and daddy reading a set amount of time to their children every night nor can it control for individuals who have been more successful passing that on to their children, either genetically or in terms of physical assets.

My argument is that it's better to spend the extra money on improving education and the situations of the least fortunate that it is to jail them or deal with the consequences of having an underclass. A few people can still rise from that, and to some degree that'a s great part of the U.S., but most will just be a net drain on society when there's an opportunity for them to be valuable contributors. Just because it's impossible to get everyone to be a net positive, doesn't mean that there isn't a point along the cost-benefit scale where investing more into education and the poor doesn't yield a better outcome for the country as a whole.

Perhaps it's been going on for a lot longer than I would have realized, but I don't think it was always that way. Watch the trailer for something like Alien and tell me that it gives anything about the movie away other than it's set in space and is probably going to be kind of creepy.

Then again, there are examples (NSFW) that prove your point.

The government has no real interest in legislating for privacy because even if they stopped snooping on everyone (which they shouldn't be doing to start with, even though that hasn't stopped them) it would simply be a matter of filing legal paperwork to get any information that they wanted from the corporations who are collecting and storing that data for their own reasons.

If the FCC tried to do this of their own initiative, Congress would shut them down for "overstepping their bounds".

Knowledge is power, especially knowledge of a person's secrets.

I think that the entertainment industry has found out that people don't care about spoilers or that spoiling just enough will actually drive viewership. The Simpsons has become pretty notorious for making advanced announcements of exactly what's going to happen and movie trailers have been giving away practically everything for a while now, but it doesn't seem to have hurt business. I've heard some people suggest that trailers that essentially give away the entire movie are more effective at attracting viewers than those which merely introduce the movie in a more broad manner, but I haven't read any studies to suggest that one approach is more effective than the other, but if it were detrimental to business I have a hard time believing that so many studios would be doing it.

The only way you can design a system of metrics that is difficult to game is to base it around some kind of economy-like system whereby participants have to bid or buy such that value can be honestly established. No surgeon wants to operate on a patient that they think is unlikely to survive, but someone still has to do that. If there are fewer surgeons who believe that the outcome is success, then having a successful outcome with that patient should be viewed more favorably than a successful outcome with a patient that everyone felt that they could have achieved a similar outcome with.

If you have a patient that only five surgeons in the world are capable of operating on successfully, then they should be the ones doing that operation and should be recognized for that fact. Not everyone needs to be the premiere expert in their field and it's better if the milk runs can be handled by the average Joe or Jane so that the top dogs can tackle the tricky cases instead of them being handed over to whatever poor bastard is stuck holding the short straw or can take the hit to their numbers.

The only way you can make a metric that can't be gamed is to make a metric that responds to any attempts to game it, but perhaps I've missed an obvious, less-complex alternative, so if anyone has something that they think would work well I'm interested.

While it's impractical to build a system of government that redistributes wealth constantly so that everyone has the same amount, there is something to be said for creating a system that ensures everyone, no matter how rich or poor, the same quality of education, medical care, and other opportunities in early life so that they can become the best person that they possibly can. There comes a certain point where a person has to become responsible for their own self and situation in life, but it's a lot more difficult to blame someone for being a homeless drug addict when they grew up in a broken home and what little education they received was in a defective school system.

Give everyone a good opportunity to be successful, and even though many will fall short, society will likely be better off collectively. When you look at the amount of money that it takes to imprison one individual per year or deal with the other societal consequences (burglary, etc.) that must be handled, it seems a lot more worthwhile to invest in solving those issues before they become expensive problems, especially when you consider the potential value that everyone committing crime and floating through life in some kind of drug induced haze could be adding to society instead.

Some people are going to do better in life than others. That can't be helped and trying to stop it is even worse. However, what can be done is to ensure that everyone has a reasonably good chance to make something of themselves. While it's still possible to go from rags to riches in the U.S., it's certainly the exception and we could be doing a lot better as a society to move towards that point.

Wouldn't it be better to call herself a producer/manager then? I'm not saying that's any more or less legitimate, but it seems like that's what her job entails. A lot of modern games have dozens to hundreds of people involved and getting everyone to work together is just as important as creating the sound assets, coding the enemy AI routines, or tightening up the graphics on level 3.

That's the problem with using metrics as incentive. You'll find people caring more about the metrics rather than the outcomes that are actually important.

I think that this Dilbert comic captures the idea quite well.

Which is why patents need clear duration limitations rather than outright removal so that even if someone does discover some new invention and prevents anyone else from using it, eventually it becomes completely fair game. I think that most people would agree that the original duration of patents is much too long in the modern world where the rate of advancement has accelerated greatly.

Without patents at all, the market would quickly devolve into a small group of large players that can use economy of scale to stomp out all other competition. None will be particularly keen on spending large amounts of money on research into new drugs as those could be immediately copied by their competitors. Rather, research would be focused on reducing costs to manufacture current drugs, because those techniques, if kept secret, produce a competitive advantage. New businesses are a non-starter as no matter how good their new drug is, the established players will be able to duplicate it and stop any new entrant from gaining momentum.

For anyone who wants to read the whole article, just copy the title and search for it in Google. The first link will take you to the full-text story without having to subscribe.

Summary:
Costs are about the same whether robots are used or not, but cyst remove is somewhat less expensive when using robots (~$4,100 vs. ~$4,900) but the complication rates when using robots are higher for both ovary remove (7.1% vs 6%) and cyst removal (3.7% vs 2.7%) when compared to regular laparoscopic surgery.

That's why revenue from these sources should be given out only after the base level funding is in place. Ideally, they should also be spent on related programs such as dealing with gambling addiction, which is more prevalent than one might expect. I have no problem with leftover money going to other areas, especially schools, but the school system should not depend on funding from gambling or other types of vice taxes.