I share your regret of not focusing on a foreign language earlier in life; I wasted the opportunities in high school and beyond, including living abroad. Some people have a real knack for foreign language; I do not, and I agree it gets harder after the early years.

I had an old boss that when you'd bring him a complex problem, he'd hand you a book off of his shelf and say "your answer is in here". He didn't want to deny you the chance of learning all the other lessons and concepts by him cherry-picking what you needed from his understanding of the material. That approach took time and effort on the learner, but definitely pays off.

I want to answer you on 2 & 4; I just don't have much to contribute on 1 & 3 that isn't ground already well-covered.

2. The idea of "mandatory national service" is intriguing to me. My concerns are that it will not be "mandatory", not be "national", and not be "service". Not mandatory in the sense that the elite/connected are not going to allow their offspring to take a 2-4 year delay on their road to greatness. They'll somehow find a loophole/exemption, or design a "service" program is basically a finishing school/networking opportunity for elites. I could picture "Harvard Charities", a 2 year "intensive program of service" that also provides college credit. Harvard picked arbitrarily; you'd have an arms race of universities trying to do the same. Not "national" in that every pet interest will insist that they should qualify for free young labor. And not "service" in the sense that some of it could be thinly-veiled political activtiy with "free" labor. And I add scare quotes to "free" because you know its gonna get a supplment from USG at everyone's expense.

If we could actually do what you want to do -- magically assign you, personally, unfettered control to run the program right -- I think it could be a good thing. I really like the ideals and the character / skin-in-the-game the experience could provide. I also like the "melting pot" dynamic that the military brings -- I know people from all over the states/globe from wildly different worldviews as well. I'd hope to replicate it. I just don't know how we do a "national service program" that doesn't get abused to no end to further advantage those who don't need advantage while not asking them to truly serve. I'm open to ideas / thoughts on that.

4. I'm honestly not familiar with that area -- my career has tacked a different direction for now. I'm happy to hear, though I'm almost certainly not in a position to act on anything. I'm curious.

BTW, I rarely engage on Slashdot though I often read it. Thanks for the discussion.

That's interesting. While teaching physics, we would make the test problems different enough from homework/previous years' tests/etc where trying to memorize problems would be a waste of time compared to mastering the course content and problem-solving method. And we graded in a similar way. Let's say we were doing a Newton's 2nd Law block/ramp/friction/pulley problem. We may have the problem in a different configuration than the homework problems or a different force causing acceleration. But if a student identied that they needed N2L and some of the force equations for the solution, they got 60%+ of the points. If they attempted to break the problem out into x/y components they were at 70-80%; if they linked the equations and got most of the terms right, they were close to 90%. You could flip a sign, get the problem wrong by 10000%, and still get a 98% score if you showed the work. "This isn't a calculator class, and you'd have time to check your algebra in the real world."

Also, we'd have a reference card for them with the common equations. It also isn't a memorization class!

Shanen,

I graduated/commissioned just before 9/11. So that event clearly shaped my career, including multiple deployments overseas. I've done well, serving in artillery, aviation, signal, logistics, and an infantry division HQ, but I'm not a superstar/future general/anything like that. I have a few years left, and have found a decent balance between work and family.

9/11 definitely changed the nature of who joined/stayed in the military for at least a few years following. Not many joined the Army or Marines at least without being prepared to deploy in harm's way. Now, during the drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we see a bit of a gap between more senior folks with multiple deployments and "slick sleeve" younger servicemembers who haven't deployed due to lack of opportunity, but I still feel that most younger enlisted/officers are joining for the right reasons and have a strong desire to serve, learn, and grow. Of course, 22 year olds are 22 year olds, and all the usual shenigans are going on. The uniforms, mission, etc. change, but people don't. You'd probably feel at home listening the gossip in the back of a platoon formation!

We are starting to see "military families" in a different sense -- a good number of servicemembers had parent(s) who served. While certainly not a bad thing, we also don't want to start a military caste, either. Recruiters do some difficult and thankless work.

I usually said "thanks for your support" when thanked for my service. I've seen a lot of genuine support -- not just pleasantries -- in my time. Volunteers at USOs at airports, people sending care packages to "any Soldier", etc. Admittedly, there is often a greater desire to support than easy opportunities. One promising area has been employers actively seeking out and developing enlisted veterans after their tours. Helping those who gave some of the best years of the life find a civilian job they can thrive at is great support!

SpankiMonki,
Good deal! I'm glad you got to see the graduation; I felt terrible for the cadets who had their week marred by COVID. It is a very special time. That being said, on the scale of COVID impact, that's a small thing.

West Point is a bit insulated from society writ large -- not many folks personally know someone who has been there. So I'd certainly take the opportunity to share my experiences both as a cadet (quite dated) and faculty member (not quite as dated). I don't expect shanen to take my word as gospel (forgive the religious pun); I'm certainly biased in favor of USMA in my own right. Based on his follow-up comments, I think the engagement was productive.

Thanks for your support.

Shanen,
I was on the faculty from about 2011-2014. There were certainly religious organizations on campus with good participation, but none of them were "Bible thumpers" and I cannot think of a time that someone brought up religion inappropriately in the classroom. But I also realize that as military faculty many conservations would not be held in front of me. (It's amazing how many fewer problems you hear about as you increase in rank. You have to proactively ask subordinates about issues around them and then go look for yourself.)

I agree -- we can try to make honor and integrity positive things, as opposed to a "gotcha!" system. We talk to people about establishing guardrails of ethical behavior -- "does this give me an unfair advantage?" and "would I be happy if I were on the other end of this action?" as thoughts to consider when making a decision.

It's a bit idealistic, but if I cannot trust you while taking a physics test with personal consquences, how can I trust your word when you tell me your platoon is short on ammunition and in need of immediate support (at the expense of other platoons and to the risk of the people bringing supplies forward to you?)

West Point grad and former faculty here (in their Physics/Nuclear Engineering department):
1. I doubt any POTUS has any meangingful influence on who decided to apply to a military academy. The application process take months if not more than a year, requires congressional nomination in most cases, etc. The incoming class to West Point is a reflection of those who desire to serve in the larger society. The students/cadets bring their values with them; most of them are solid and aspire to do the right thing. There are exceptions. There are extensive efforts at character education/development in general and honor specifically, but you are not going to change someone overnight, if ever.
2. I saw no correlation between honor cases and "religious loons". To be honest, I saw very, very few "religious loons" in the student population while on the faculty. Anecdotally, those being found on honor often had "co-morbidities" of discipline/breaking regulations issues where they were in trouble to begin with, but anecdotes are not data.
3. I think the "because they could" / temptation due to the virtual environment may be a factor. In a normal testing environment at USMA, there are other students in the room, though the desks are staggered to make it more difficult to accidentally see another's work. (The self-reporting sense of honor is strong -- cadets will turn themselves in because they mindlessly gazed at another's work while staring off into space during a test). But there is also the unspoken peer pressure to not cheat and the higher chance of being caught. (Interesting, faculty will often leave the room completely during an exam; our presumption is that cadets are honorable and do not need to be watched like a hawk.)

I tended to see more issues with honor in non-testing environments -- lab reports for instance. A single student has to make up a lab that he missed; he gets a copy from a friend "just to see how he laid out the report" and before you know it, they are misspelling "Newton" the same way in the same places in the report. Often there is a time pressure associated, and of course the grade pressure -- the cadet who gives in and cheats is often failing a class, close to failing another, and is already late on the report. They are human (as is the faculty and all of us).

The honor and character systems are designed to mentor those who can benefit from it and separate (expel) those who are too far along, are too grevious in offense, or have multiple offeneses. The mentoring process is no joke - it takes significant faculty time to do for any given cadet, not to mention the extra work placed on the cadet themselves.

The honor case, while run by cadet (seniors) with special training and experience in the Honor Code, is also facilitated by no-crud attorneys, and there are plenty of protections for the accused.

I do not know the specifics of how the cadets cheated and have no inside information about this particular event. I am curious.

My goodness that was funny. I wish I had mod points, even though you posted AC.

So, I pulled up slashdot for some dinner reading in my hotel room... got out some good chips and chunky salsa... then I read this story. I hate wasting salsa, but I just can't eat it now. I wonder if it is young salsa...

Hmm... I was focused more on the idea of not teaching it in high school. I can see your point. My counterargument is that a Bachelor's of Arts/Science should connote some base level of proficiency in all basic fields, as well as deeper study in the area of concentration. I concede that my viewpoint is not universally accepted, though.

I completely agree -- in fact, I currently teach a calculus-based Physics course. I was trying to get the author the benefit of the doubt -- I understand that other institutions offer algebra-based Physics for pre-med students and the like. It is simply comical to think of doing any real science without algebra.

If we stop teaching algebra to all students at the high school or early college level, we are closing certain doors to them. You simply cannot master an entry-level, algebra-based Physics course without geometry and a lot of algebra work. If you can't do that, you cannot major in physics, most engineering subjects, nor math itself. I think economics would be a stretch as well.

If students (or parents) can choose to not take algebra at the 9th grade level, they are making a de facto decision that they will not study nor work in a STEM field later in life. Age 13 is awfully early to make that choice. They have not even attempted the challenge yet -- they do not know their abilities.

Even if they do continue in their studies and gain admittance to college, it will almost be a moot point. Their opportunities will have long since been limited.

When I moved recently, I decided to make the jump to an HTPC setup. Therefore, I was suddenly in the market for 3-4 Xbox 360's to act at Media Center extenders.

The going rate for a used Xbox at a retail store was around $179 at the time. However, searching in my local area on Craigslist, there were plenty listed in the $70 range, and I was able to negotiate down to an average price of $40 per Xbox 360.

Unless the Xbox 360 were a gift, you could save a ton of money going this route. I was even able to make sellers show me the Xbox plugged in, working, and able to login to Xbox live.

I did observe that most of the folks that were selling their Xbox 360's for pennies on the dollar were folks that probably shouldn't have bought them in the first place. In at least one case, I didn't drive nearly as hard of a bargain as I could have.

My military unit moved into a newly renovated building a couple years ago. In order to save energy, it had one of them new-fangled centralized-controlled HVAC systems.
Each office had a temperature sensor but no thermostat that could be set. The usual 'heat on way too early in the fall' stuff, as well as the 'indoor temp set to 80F in the summer' applied.
As the commo guy for the unit, I took it upon myself to open up one of these sensor, and found it contained a simple, exposed thermal resistor. I figured out that hotter temperatures lowered the resistance, and quickly tested my theory by shorting the circuit to kick on the AC.
But, a long term solution needed to be non-obvious, and a 100% temperature reading was going to be obvious. So I did the math, and added a small resistor in parallel to the circuit, basically convincing the central computer that it was always 10 deg F hotter in my office than it really was.
I had the coolest office in the building, until my bosses figured out that I had done something; I then I had to replicate my efforts in their offices.
This would make an excellent bonus question on an EE101 exam.