While I can agree on the surface the expense and time spent teaching many people who may never use it seems wasteful, I propose that the value of the handful of real genius we see evolve from that exposure who otherwise wouldn't makes it worth it. And as from the rest of us, in the end we do not suffer from knowing too much, but too little.

As well, arguing to limit exposure seems contrary to the discipline being able to grow in the future. The more people you expose to a degree beyond the mundane, the more chances you have of inspiring someone to pursue the field. With more people in the field rather then just those who had set their hearts on math, the more breakthroughs are likely.

I find it disheartening that a math professor would express such ideas, and can't help but suspect that perhaps he might feel his own career has been a waste of time rather then his opinion on the field of math instruction as a whole.

This seems the best explanation - certainly more plausible. Someone attending a film opening event then would most likely have the means to acquire and use such a device.

Last week I bought my parents a Toshiba pre-paid cell phone with 60 minutes that has all the standard cell phone features minus a camera and web browsing. The package included the phone, battery, programmable sim, wall charger, car charger, and a hands free mic/ear piece. They're going on a vacation and don't have a cell so it was an amazing deal for a little road-side security at only 10 dollars. I was pretty amazed, it made me wonder just how marked up all our higher end phones are when they can practically give this one away.

Or perhaps, like subscription plans, they hope that people will just buy more minutes on it and pay it off, but I suspect they're not losing any money if you choose not to.

A8's are the perfect secondhand car. They depreciate insanely fast (at least 2-3 times other German luxo-barges) which is crazy for such a high end suite of features.