Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (64941)	3/20/2004 10:30:00 AM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 71178

Hi Rambi.....My 17 year old son is an absolute math whiz....calculus and all.....I am totally lost when it comes to any sort of math .....even with a calculator....whereas he thinks its fun!!!! Makes you wonder how your kids can have remarkable abilities you never possessed....

To: Rambi who wrote (64941)	3/20/2004 4:45:50 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

Math? What's that? Math is that stuff you use to figure out what's going on. :-) Actually, it wasn't a high school competition, it was statewide. It was open to any high school student in the state, although obviously only a small number in any school entered. Most had no chance and knew it. It was rare at the time. Only a few states had them. Seems to be much commoner now. google.com Music? What's that? :-) I took NO music classes in either HS or college. However, I love classical, so apparently something stuck. In fact, I got in in SPITE of my math scores (which CW beat by many many points when he was only in the 7th grade and took that Duke TIP SAT test. It was humiliating.) That's OK. I got in in spite of knowing zilch about music. :-) Except that the band played during the football games. :-) Duke TIP SAT test? Whazzat? All I ever took was the SAT. I don't remember my scores, but I'm sure they were the lowest on record in music. :-) VMI WAIT A MINUTE! That's a military school, isn't it? Somehow I have trouble picturing you charge a machine gun nest at the top of a hill. JLA, this is no problem, and we won't get into what happens to those poor slobs manning the gun. :-) This was in 1966 when men were men and women were dangerous aliens barely allowed the grounds. And God was in his Heaven and all was right with the world. :-) I was the only girl in a class of zillions of young military male types. Yes. The definition of heaven. :-) Mr. Chappell. THis guy needed a SERIOUS appointment with an opthomologist! I;ve been thinking a lot about education these days what with the outsourcing issues, and the poor rankings of our kids on international math and science tests. In spite of all the claims to the contrary, Americans have NEVER put a high value on scholarship, have they? The absent-minded professor is a stock joke. In Europe and many other countries they are respected. Americans value the "practical man" and the business sharpie. You get what you wish for. CW has said that American students were nowhere nearly as well-prepared as Asian and Indian ones at Rice. Yep. THis nation has been supported for the last several decades at least by the foreign talent it could attract. This could change. May have, with the collapse of the bubble. EXCEPT: They were coming here decades before that bubble. They came here from European autocracies and dictatorships for a breath of freedom. Einstein, Bohr, Szilard, many of the scientist on the Manhattan Project were here because of Hitler. They come here for opportunity and openess of the society. Indians come here because there IS no "caste" system in this country to hold them back. You were lower caste in India? So what? It matters not a whit here. In the 60s, it wasn't exactly touted loudly, but everyone knew that the brightest kids had certain teachers who really pushed them. You would think now with all our Honors and AP classes, we would have moved ahead some. So where are we failing? See above. About what Americans value. Brains and smarts they value only if they make the possessor rich. We dissected NOTHING. Now THAT was a bad HS biology class. you obviously were the kind of boy I wasn't allowed to date but secretly wanted to. YOU SHOULD HAVE CALLED ME! I don't know though. I didn't discover girls until college. And GAWD what a distraction they were from theose physics and engineering classes! WHY wouldn't your parents let you date nerds? Hadn't they ever heard of Bill Gates? :-)

To: Rambi who wrote (64941)	3/20/2004 5:31:35 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 71178

Math? What's that? When you go into the store and your bill comes to $6.39 and you give the clerk a $20 bill and he gives you back $3.61 in change, math is what enables you to suspect that something isn't quite right here.

To: Rambi who wrote (64941)	3/20/2004 5:36:44 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

I got into college based solely on my English scores and my musical accomplishments. Good thing you weren't trying to get in to college a hundred and fifty years (or so) earlier. Here's the standard for entrance to the University of Virginia in 1819: "It should be scrupulously insisted on that no youth can be admitted to the university unless he can read with facility Virgil, Horace, Zenophon, and Homer [it was unnecessary to add "in their original Latin and Greek"]: unless he is able to convert a page of English at sight into Latin: unless he can demonstrate any proposition at sight in the first six books of Euclid, and show an acquaintance with cubic and quadratic equations."