Bradytelic nylghau

bradytelic (adj.): of or pertaining to evolution at a rate slower than the standard for a given group of plants or animals.

nylghau (n.): large Indian antelope; male is blue-grey with white markings; female is brownish with no horns

Hmm, I didn't know there were antelope (this is the correct plural, I presume) in India. Antelope are supposed to run around in the savannas of Africa, and then subsequently be eaten by large predatory mammals. But it makes sense that you'd get some in southern regions of eurasia too.

Also, hurray for Mexican traffic laws! If only people were sane to a sufficient degree...
In other news, I got a Khet game. The lasers are pretty cool - I should probably find somebody to play it with though. It's basically the same as laser chess.

Anyway, onto the main point of this post: our (Canada+US) highschools suck.

Although true, that's not a very insightful main point, so I'll follow it up with main point #2: that's a good thing.

Now, some people will probably say that our highschools aren't that bad. But they are. I think I was pretty much always aware of this, but recently it was brought to my immediate attention by my friend from Japan, who showed me the University of Tokyo Math Entrance Examination (Science Stream). Now, the high school I go to is supposed to be pretty good, but I'm aware that there are only about two people (maybe 3) in the entire school who can actually solve any of the questions there. That bodes pretty sadly.

Now, the ducated person might notice that the University of Tokyo is like Japan's elite school - so the science stream exam is undoubtedly going to be hard, especially considering the population applying. But so few people able to solve one question is pretty pathetic. Forget comparing this to like, the SAT, or even AP Calculus. This year's COMC is practically a joke in comparison to that.

Of course, it might be fairer to look at what tests regular people in Japan have to write. And they are here. The first part is basically their 'SAT'. It's quite doable, but the American SAT is really a joke in comparison. Then, if you scroll down, you'll find the entrance examinations for the good universities. The best students in our school would probably have tons of trouble just doing the humanities section.

Now, for some people the above facts might suggest that our education (and particularly, our public education) needs to improve a lot. But really, while it would be good if it improved a bit, it's not that necessary. The reason for this?

Well, if a school improves, that's practically equivalent to: the students will have a harder time at it. And from what I hear about Japan (especially with the cram schools, etc.) all the students basically do is work.

Now, with sucky schools, there's the obvious disadvantage that there are a lot of people that don't learn anything, and are thus relayed to rather menial jobs. Moreover, the general population becomes pretty uneducated, and in a democratic society, that's less than ideal.

But there's also lots of free time - and this gives people, especially those who can breeze through the low level public education, a lot of free time to do whatever they like. And it's that type of environment that fosters creativity, which ultimately leads to the US's wealth.

Of course, it's probably more circular than that - the US's wealth attracts the best people from everywhere else, so after a while, the US high schools don't matter anymore - just the universities, which are good. But everything above is just speculation, after all. Education is a pretty random thing.

-squid out

There once was a buggy AI
Who decided her subject should die.
When the plot was uncovered,
The subjected discovered
That sadly the cake was a lie.

(courtesy of munroe's limerick site)



Also, the xkcd today is really cool (but think hard enough about it first):