OT: Algebra is a civil rights issue

It had to be more dangerous than a good compass (with a point the size of a small sewing needle).

As I said, I taught for years. IBM paid really well. IIRC, $35/hour additional when I taught on their time. The assumption was that I prepared on my time (2:1 hours). After teaching a course a couple of times, prep time goes to zero but their pay scale didn't take that into consideration. ;-)

At the time they had a lot of secretaries and production technicians they didn't need anymore and were retraining them to be programmers or engineering technicians. This was before IBM got down with layoff, of course. A lot of engineers wanted to know more about PCs, too. It was a great racket. ;-) My management thought it was great that we were helping the education department.

Reply to
krw
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ntil rather more students passed the course.

ince America needs more educated workers, improving the instruction would p ay off better in the long term.

achers at the school in his school district, and he isn't in the knd of bus iness that would benefit from the better-instructed students.

Luxembourg spends more, and several countries spend more on primary educati on.

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It's not clear that money spent in the US is well-spent.

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Jim has yet to work out that spending extravagantly in well-heeled school d istricts doesn't make the education offered in less well-heeled school dist ricts any better.

The problem with US education is that the quality varies wildly from one sc hool district to the next. Rich kids are educated to the point where fairly dumb kids can get into top notch universities, and squeeze out brighter ki ds who haven't had the benefit of an intensive education.

The average spending per head over all US kids might be the highest in the world, but the median expenditure is going to be quite a lot lower. I've se arched for figures that show median expenditure rather than average, and I can't find any. Since it would show up the notoriously wide inequalitues wi thin the US, this isn't entirely surprising

Jim does comfort hmself with the idea that everybody who disagrees with him has to be mentally ill. It's one more aspect of the Jim-out-of-touch-with- reality-Thompson world-view. If you kill-file people who don't agree with y ou, you don't to spend nearly as much time on mental spring-cleaning.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

The education is better at MIT. Jim managed to avoid the non-technical aspects, which must have taken an effort.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

That's my experience too. Getting digital logic (ECL) to do arithmetic fast does require a clear understanding of exactly what you are trying to do, including overflow, underflow and rounding errors.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

Have you asked a union about that?

They'd love to see extra teachers hired to teach those classes more intensi vely, and they'd be equally happy to see successful teachers paid more for their capacity to get more kids to meet the requirements.

Unions are at least as much about getting better work conditions and better productivity as they are about getting better pay for the rank and file. T hey tend to be less interesed in getting exceptional rewards for the except ionally competent, mainly because the exceptionally competent can usually d o that for themsselves.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

Funny, but I felt more at home in California the week that I arrived, than I ever did in New Orleans. This is a much better place to be weird.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Reply to
John Larkin

My jaw dropped when they did that. "Not enough kids can pass the test

Not necessary. This says it all:

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They usually care very little about the kids being educated. It's mostly about union dues and turf protection.

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Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

I was comparing NOLA to Boston, not SF.

Reply to
krw

ce/

That's what US newspapers say about them. The US as a whole is uniquely ant i-union for an advanced industrial country. When I was marginally involved with my trade union in the UK, one of the things I did learn was that US-ow ned companies were pathologically nervous of unions, and would make all kin ds of concessions to avoid having to negoatiate with unions.

The German system of having trade union representatives on the secondary bo ards of all large companies is not one that Americans can actually comprehe nd.

Real unions are interested in the welfare of the people they represent, and that includes making their jobs as productive as possible, in order to pre serve them.

You should know more about it than most US residents ...

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

My jaw dropped when they did that. "Not enough kids can pass the test

They'd love to see extra teachers hired to teach those classes more

How many decades has it been since you read a US paper? Most are so leftist by now that I just cancelled our morning paper. IMO it took a real nosedive after the last election so I switched to the Wall Street Journal.

Yeah, at the car mfgs they rolled over and played dead. That is why they are barely competitive anymore and had their lunch eaten by Asian and German mfgs.

Exactly, and nobody else. They are not interested in the kids.

It does not. Which is why charter schools are generally more successfully than union-controlled public one. This is also one of the reasons why the manufacturing base in the US has eroded and continues to do so.

I know enough about it.

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Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg
[snip]
[snip]

That's certainly a movement to the right ?>:-} ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson | mens | | Analog Innovations | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

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| 1962 |

I'm looking for work... see my website.

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.

Reply to
Jim Thompson

It sure is pricey but very good. I read for a whole hour after dinner instead of the usual 10-15 minutes. I wouldn't know any US paper that gets close.

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Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

Don't hold your breath. What annoys me is that more and more web 'newspapers' are going to all-video... no text :-( I guess to appeal to the SJW/snowflake crowd who can't read. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Not the WSJ. Supposedly the online offering is not as complete as the paper but they told me it is. I am old-school and prefer a real paper. That is chock-full of text, really good. Surprisingly little advertizing. Some weird stuff, like the Turkish government just bought a full page in all red to justify their recent "dissident" crackdowns. I guess if they pay and there is nothing obscene is in it the WSJ must take it.

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Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

Me too. Unfortunately my favorite local newspaper has essentially died... reduced to innocuous pablum for the masses.

"obscene" is protected speech... much to the consternation of the leftists.

I've never found the WSJ terribly useful for anything but business news and stock info. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Eventually that will happen to most local papers and some mainstream ones. Hardly anyone is willing to sit down and spend 30-60 minutes reading, anything. The attention span of a lot of people these days is three minutes max.

Then there is the ever more hardcore leftist bias which drives people like you and me away from a paper. Meaning the people who actually ... pay for stuff.

Including tweets :-)

They have excellent country and world coverage, much more so than the usual local papers. When have you read it lately?

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

Probably the last time I was in an airport... 2013 ?>:-} ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Well, try a new edition then. IMO it is really worth it. Their distribution hasn't exactly had a great start, they missed the 2nd and

3rd day. Rattled the cage and now seems ok.

Regarding flying, last year was the first year where my number of business-related flights was zero. It was all taken care of by services like Zoom and Go-To-Meeting. This year is shaping up the same way. Those services are not a good thing for the airlines.

I did have quite some road bike and even mountain bike business miles and our IRS does not allow a standard mileage rate for that (in Europe they do). Hurumph! Mountain bikes are an excellent tool to test prototypes for ruggedness. If you know how to handle them, else it could all end on a life flight.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

I actually do more design reviews via Skype than face-to-face. I usually update my customers at least weekly... keeping them firmly in-the-loop.

I just finally passed 40K miles on the 2001 pick-em-up truck ;-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

I don't like Skype because the screen share and such is clumsy. We use that only for personal stuff. The more professional services allow nice document sharing and people can give others or all participants mouse control. That is really handy for layouts. I never do those but I sometimes take over the really nasty RF stuff or high-current switcher nodes. Then I am moving stuff around and the PC sits 2000mi away.

My SUV clocks in at about 1200mi/year. About half of that for business but with a declining trend. Between my bicycles I am now at more than

4000mi/year and I need a constant supply of rear tires, chains, cassettes, brake pads and so on. Last time I had to buy brake pads for the car was ... ahm ... I never had to!
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Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

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