I Don't Want to be a Teacher Any More - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/26/950079/-I-Dont-Want-to-be-a-Teacher-Any-More <comment><USER2> There is a serious moral hazard faced by most administrators of the so called "heroic professions" (doctors, nurses, teachers, fire-fighters etc). The trouble is that their jobs involve taking care of people and a significant portion of their personal identity is wrapped up in this. Doctors will work extra unpaid hours "off the books" so patients won't suffer, teachers will buy classroom materials with their own money, fire-fighters will still respond to fires, even with inadequate safety gear etc.

Bureaucrats are more or less free to make whatever cuts they want in these professions because they know that those on the front lines will quietly mutter "I will work harder" and pick up the slack until the stress finally drives them from the profession entirely.

I've never once seen an employee of the DMV run out to kinkos and spend their own money because the copier was broken.

<comment><USER3> These "heroic professions" also share another common characteristic: they can do no wrong.

Doctors? They self-regulate the size of labor supply in their fields, inflating their salaries. Why do you think we have a doctor shortage? You really think there aren't enough smart people to do the job? No, the AMA controls the number of med school graduates each year by limiting the number of accredited medical schools. They also lobby governments to legislate that nurses can't perform medical procedures (all towards the not-so-discrete goal of preserving their six-figure salaries).

Teachers? They can't be fired thanks to tenure policies. This was the biggest issue with public schooling when I grew up, and [continues to be]([http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/nyregion/16rubber.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/nyregion/16rubber.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print)). Survive three years and you have job security for life. If my workplace hired and fired based on seniority, we would have gone bankrupt years ago.

Firefighters and policemen also can do no wrong--aside from amazing pensions they have great job security and the power to help those they know more than others in the event of disaster (e.g. Katrina).

For every example of those in the "heroic professions" doing the right thing, you have the same careerism and self-preservation that those in private industry strive for. But in many people's eyes, they can do no wrong.

<comment><USER4> In part I agree with you. Tenure (which here in Spain is different: all public workers that got their job through examination can't be fired!) is a big problem. There are a lot of amazing teachers (I've had a lot in my life, since school through university), but there is a lot of lousy teachers (also had a lot of these) that do nothing and can't be fired. And the ones who love teaching (a few of my friends are math teachers) have to suffer more or less what the article says. Education always takes the blame, regardless of the quality of the teacher. Also, they have an increasing responsibility: parents no longer "educate" children (how to behave well, be quite, listen, be respective), it is something that now school teachers and HS teachers have to do, without any level of help from a lot of parents. A simple example, is that when a child gets some kind of "fine" (bad grade, a written note to her parents, whatever), most parents blame the teacher and don't believe "their little child" misbehaved.

<comment><USER5> Are you sure that's "most parents"? The ones that have a good yell at their kids in the bedroom for their behaviour are the ones you won't hear about, and I suspect they're the majority. I know _I_ don't expect schools to rear my children.

<comment><USER6> I don't know of a study that has quantified the "most" allegation. But what I have heard from relatives who teach (or resigned from teaching) in public schools is that _a large enough number_ of parents take this approach and seem to come to the parent-teacher conference with the "my great kid is entitled to grade X" attitude... that teachers' authority/professionalism gets undermined.

Even worse when administrative does not have your (teacher's) back.

If you doubt that the Peter Principle still applies, spend some time in faculty meetings and check out the admins. There are exceptions, of course. But IMHO (observation) the "No more A-holes" rule is more honored in the breach than the observance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think there's two sides to the story.

Actually, no, there's more than two sides to the story, and the idiots who think there are two sides to the story and making everything worse:

* Some teachers are awful, and the unions protect them. They also manipulate educational policy, both to improve teacher conditions (which is fair enough - that's their job), and to push the pet beliefs of a couple of batty union leaders.

* Most teaching "methods" (fads) suck, and are cooked up by the kind of people who get PhDs in "education" - ivory tower researchers who can't do, and can't teach, but can publish in a naval-gazing journal.

* Most "methods" (fads) require mounds of paperwork, so the teachers can prove they are complying.

* Direct Instruction (DI) was found to be the best teaching method by far, the last time they did any serious research. However, it does cramp creative teachers, and it's quite possible that more serious research will find better methods (possibly based on DI, but not as anal), but the opponents of DI don't want serious research (as their pet "methods" suck, compared to DI, and they know it) and DI fans think the problem is solved.

* Some kids are "special needs". Some kids are dumb. Some kids are smart. Some kids just look dumb because they aren't motivated, and some kids just look smart because they are being pushed hard, and nobody can agree what "smart" and "dumb" means. Mixed classes are good in some ways, but they can't be too big (or the teacher can't help the outlying kids). Big classes are good for the better kids, but only if they are streamed.

* Text books are often terrible.

* School work can be assessed (extrinsically motivated) or un-assessed (intrinsically motivated). Extrinsic motivation drives out intrinsic motivation, but some assessment is necessary. The current trend is to pile on more assessment (both tests and formally assessed homework) under the assumption that kids have already been jaded by the existing assessment, and no longer care about learning for learning's sake.

* We are spending too much, and not enough.

* Finally, there's rarely any end goal in mind. Or there are several end goals, and everyone forgets which ones are important. Feeding universities, creating a skilled workforce, providing opportunities for poor kids, getting good numbers in international tests, and most importantly convincing parents (voters) that something needs to be done, and we are already doing all that is humanly possible to help YOUR child beat the kid sitting next to them.

<comment><USER8> >Direct Instruction (DI) was found to be the best teaching method by far, the last time they did any serious research.

Do you have any good links that describe what this is? All I seem to be able to find is pages talking about how good it is, but none with a description of it that made any sense to me.

<comment><USER7> It's a faddy method, but one that works. It puts a lot of emphasis on fundamentals, but students who focus on fundamentals (in class) are found to be able to do creative stuff with the material out of class. "Wax on, wax off, now go kick ass".

It's very anal, like I said.

The teachers get a DI textbook (made up by the inventor of DI). The teacher reads from the text book, and asks the whole class to respond on cue.

The whole class responding on cue is an important point, as it keeps the students thinking. "Everybody, what's 12 * 8?"

It uses lots of repetition, and a few standardised instructions to the class.

"Everybody open your books, to page 23. One two three. Everybody should have their books open. Put your finger on the word "MY". One two three ... Now everybody read out load ..."

Interesting factoid - "The Pet Goat" (think 911, George W. Bush in a classroom) was a DI book.

<comment><USER9> This is similar to the Japanese pedagogical style at my university, and our grads ROFLstomp peer schools' grads at speaking ability. "Class, you are going to the cinema this afternoon at five. Where are you going? Everyone." "I am going to the cinema at five.". "Good. Patrick, you." "I am going to the cinema at five.". "Good. Patrick, ask Tom. Tom, you are going to the restaurant at seven."

Repeat an hour a day every day for three years and you get _really effing good_. (Conversations in the third year are, obviously, more elaborate.)

<comment><USER10> This is very close to how they taught me English long ago in a Soviet school! I have to say I can't complain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The United States spends more money on education per student than just about any other country in the world[1], and it has been growing quite rapidly over time[2]. America is not a penny pincher when it comes to education. One graph beats many paragraphs of anecdote by someone with an axe to grind. Anyway, I flagged this article because I'm hoping to see less politics on Hacker News.

[1][http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite- chart.h...](http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-chart.html)

[2][http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite- chart.h...](http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-chart.html#3)

<comment><USER8> Do you have any stats that break down where the money goes? That's probably the most interesting statistic.

<comment><USER12> Here are some stats on teacher pay: [http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snap...](http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20080402/)

[http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/teacher-pay- aro...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/teacher-pay-around-the- world/)

So while we may spend more on education, the delta is not going to teachers.

I suspect admin is a big part. There's a big controversy here in Seattle, the second in recent years where there was either large corruption or tens of millions of dollars that disappeared (the last ended up in the super of the school district losing his job -- the Seattle Times has asked for the current super to either resign or be fired).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Canada has demographics comparable to the US's, but pays its teachers much more. The results are evident in OECD's "Programme for International Student Assessment" (PISA) <http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/60/46619703.pdf>

A rewarding job with decent compensation and time off makes teaching jobs pretty competitive.

<comment><USER11> Do you have any statistics that compare the teacher pay of the US and Canada? The US spends more on education per pupil than almost every country in the world (some years I believe it is number one). I would be shocked if the US didn't pay more than Canada, on average.

<comment><USER5> It might not be so helpful to compare salaries alone (although I've heard they're actually higher in Canada, but don't have hard statistics). Remember , Canadians do have to pay for health insurance, so even if they have smaller salaries, they could still end up with more disposable income.

<comment><USER5> AAARGH! Of course, I meant _DON'T_ have to pay for health insurance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I liked the spirit of where this was going -- the personal story of how a job as a public school teacher got more and more frustrating, eventually leading the author to want to hang it all up.

I'm worried that we're overloading the word "teacher", however. I'm a teacher, and I'm a learner, and I'll never stop doing those things. It's very important that we realize that the acts of teaching and learning should be important to all of us whether we are public school teachers or not. The subject is bigger than that. Much bigger.

I'm also concerned that this is beginning to sound like on of those issues where there isn't another side -- after all, who would be in favor of continuing to increase classroom size, demonizing teachers, and the constant screwing around with the rules teachers work by?

Nobody, of course. And whenever somebody describes a situation to me that is so obviously one-sided, I start becoming concerned that there are critical players or issues that are not being addressed in the essay. Even if our author is a hero and the entire universe is against him, those other forces in the universe probably work through some system of logic that should as well be considered by the reader when looking at the subject.

Finally, instead of a he-said, she-said kind of story, or even a woe-am-I kind of story, this would work much better as a systemic story. The simple sad fact of broken systems is that they are usually filled with honest people doing the best they can at all levels. Of course, that kind of story doesn't make for much of a personal essay, but it reminds us that for every essay by a school administrator talking about how bad his situation is, there's another one from a teacher, and another one from a school board member, and another one from a parent, and so on. Each of these people have an important story to tell. Personal essays by definition are very narrowly constructed items. We enjoy the emotional insight and understanding they provide and then move on, making sure that we read the dozens of other stories which are equally as valid so that we can have a bit of much-needed context.

</comment><comment><USER15> When you make it big, never forget your teachers... a phone call, a text, an email, a visit means a lot

</comment><comment><USER16> A prime example of work that you can't measure with numbers: the value of teaching isn't a scalar. Pretty much like measuring a programmer's output by lines written.

However, if we think we can't afford to have a decent funding for schools then nobody has apparently been heard speaking up about not affording to _not_ have that funding. If we keep merely chasing test scores for a couple of decades, what kind of an education will we have at that point?

</comment><comment><USER17> It's sad how common these feelings are and how nearly all of them trace back to the government's (arguably) well-intentioned insistence on running schools itself.

<comment><USER18> I though Singapore, Japan, etc. have government managed schools that seem to be doing rather well...I can't even argue the locality issue because Switzerland seems to be doing rather well also. I think one of the difficulties in US schools is brought up by the author--we try to teach everyone and we believe in 2nd and 3rd chances. Many countries begin tracking rather early, so their teachers don't have some of the same special needs issues (I'm not arguing right or wrong here, just fact) that teachers here face.

Then, there is the family component. In a number of industrialized countries, education is highly prized and parents are deeply involved in their kids' education. Here, that is again not necessarily the case in many schools--and there is a limit to how much teachers can do to overcome that.

Also, I think that in many other industrialized countries, teachers are respected and paid reasonably compared to other professions. This draws talented people into the field (passion is important, but so is economics).

<comment><USER5> Most Japanese kids end up going to cram schools to make up for what the school system (both public and private) lacks. The system sucks---long hours, Saturday classes are being reintroduced this spring, and the cram schools are usually at least 2 hours long---sometimes as much as 4 or 5 hours.

And Japan still can't get into the top 10 of the Education Index.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This isn't meant to be a rhetorical question so please feel free to show me the light. A constant drumbeat from teachers seems to be complaints about standardized testing. Are there really any better ways to measure progress across the board? All of us here should be fans and encouragers of standards, right?

<comment><USER20> The problem with standardized testing is not that they don't measure the progress well but that they measure all other sorts of confounding variables. Each standardized test has a small number question templates, and if the students familiarize themselves with the question templates they will do better on the tests, for example. Another important factor is timing: some standardized tests have a fixed amount of time allocated to a student, and hence there are many different ways of pacing yourself that lead to better or worse scores. Yet another important factor is the choice between open-ended and multiple-choice questions, and even the balance between these can be learned.

So every standardized test has some confounding variables, and effort spent teaching the students to do better on the tests by dealing well with these variables is effort that does not go towards helping the students learn the material. If the standardized tests are known and used to evaluate the teachers the incentives suddenly get really strong to teach to the test by focusing on the idiossincrasies of specific testing schemes over teaching the actual subject.

Standardized tests are a great way to measure performance and improvement but only if the results won't be used for decision-making, otherwise it creates an instant incentive to game the system.

<comment><USER21> It's quite possible to write tests that fairly accurately measure the basic material to be taught in the third grade. Well written tests cannot be 'gamed' to any significant degree. People have known how to write good tests for over 50 years and have often done so.

Heck, when I was teaching in college, I passed out copies of tests from earlier semesters. Then the students could study just to the tests and try to 'game' them. Still, had to know the material at least to some degree to do even that. Net, the students had every opportunity to study just to the tests and I was in effect teaching just to my own tests and still the students had basically to learn the material.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Essentially I guess the government are trying to remove the downside of bad teachers by destroying the upside of good ones, as well as standardizing the teaching process, making it easier to run on a tight budget.

You have to wonder how much long term impact these cuts have, I'm sure in the short term they can keep parents happy by producing decent test scores as they are only focusing on the tests.

Would love to know how the Australian system compares for teachers currently if anyone is involved there?

<comment><USER16> By focusing on the efficiency of scoring well in tests, they can ignore the costs of the work left undone. These social, curricular and work environmental costs don't have numbers now but they will manifest in concrete money years later. So effectively the school is borrowing from the wellbeing of the pupils and teachers at the current cost of zero, and moving it to gains in current productivity meters.

<comment><USER21> Yup, broad problem in society, done wherever people can find an opportunity -- visible, short-term, small gain at hard to see long-term, large cost.

But the solution is at hand: In the US, local schools are run by the local school boards, and tough to keep reality from the school board members, including in the "wellbeing" of the students.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am what I am today because (a) I was fortunate to be exposed to a minicomputer in 1971 and (b) I had a great teacher for 10th grade chemistry. The former was a product of a forward-thinking school trustee and the fact that nobody knew what to do it it so they let the kids play. The latter was luck.

Computers are now part of the background, and I worry there's less of the magic needed to create a proper hacker/developer. Luck is still luck.

</comment><comment><USER24> His problem is his employer, not the work. When your boss(es) get too stupid for too long, creating a failing business, LEAVE. There are other much better employers to join - or start your own.

</comment><comment><USER25> I went to school in Oregon. Things I remember:

* Three or four really great teachers, who taught me a _lot_.

* Lots of teachers blathering on about personal and rather inappropriate stuff. In retrospect, many seem emotionally desperate and treated the classroom as a captive audience to their personal drama.

* Being singled out and harassed by at least four teachers.

* The school administrator plucking a brand new IBM 386sx off the cart that was headed to the desperately underpowered computer lab. He did this so he could run Windows. So he could launch a DOS-based menu system. So he could switch between two DOS-based applications he used.

Fire the administrators first.

<comment><USER26> And the cycle continues. Fire the teachers! The students aren't learning - they're the problem! Fire the administrators! Fire the teachers! The students aren't trying! Fire the administrators!...

Perhaps the system itself is the problem. Change the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So, once again it's 'education'. And for more detail, there are two themes: (1) Send more money. (2) It is just crucial for us to have the money so that we can do lots of really, really important things that can't be measured.

So, is the article really just about (A) important issues in education or is it just (B) partisan politics fighting over money with some of the usual techniques of politics -- some truths, half-truths, deception, distortion, emotion, etc.?

So, to pick between (A) and (B), let's see:

(a) Source. The article is in 'The Daily Kos', and I believe I've heard that this site is essentially propaganda by the more liberal wing of the Democrats and paid for at least heavily by Soros who apparently believes that US politics should be something like some of the traditions of old Central and Eastern European socialism.

(b) Subject. The article is to grab people by the heart and the gut to have them open up below the belt, this time their wallet in their hip pocket. It's a big sales pitch leading to "Send more money".

(c) Timing. At present one of the hottest political stories in the news is the fighting in several states and especially in Wisconsin trying to reduce expenditures by state governments so that the states can have balanced budgets without raising taxes and to reduce these expenditures by fighting with unionized state employees, especially the teachers' unions.

(d) Unions. Now we come full circle: The unions are heavily in the Democrat party with propaganda site 'The Daily Kos'.

So, it seems to me that article really is about (B) partisan politics and not (A) education.

<comment><USER5> Except that what seems to be the most biting issue for her is being forced to teach for test scores. Throwing money at that won't make the classes any more engaging. Try actually RingTFA next time.

<comment><USER21> What's this sudden big deal against "test scores" from the K-12 teachers' organizations? Looks like an excuse to get paid the big bucks without any measurable results. Some good results are difficult to measure, but the basic results are easy enough to measure and should be measured. A serious practical problem is that K-12 is not doing well even on those basic results.

For "engaging", that's mostly nonsense.

You sound like a hired propaganda spammer paid for by the AFT or the NEA.

Test scores are important: SAT, CEEB, GRE, LSAT, MCAT. Board Certification in medicine. Qualifying exams for a Ph.D. Just what is it about test scores you and our K-12 teachers do not understand?

<comment><USER5> You talk as if there were never test scores to think about before. There always have been. You can take that strawman and smoke it.

"Engaging" is far, far more important than you realize. Kids who are bored will absorb less and be distracted more easily. Of course, "engaging" must be a means, not an end. A teacher's not an entertainer. What do you think the word "engaging" means, anyways? Or did you not bother to learn that one because it wasn't necessary for a test?

The problem is not the taking of tests. The problem is focusing on tests at the expense of everything else.

<comment><USER21> This discussion is so far from reality in the present it has already violated the limit on the speed of light.

We're talking nonsense.

E.g., you wrote:

"You talk as if there were never test scores to think about before. There always have been."

Nonsense. We're in full agreement here.

Instead of some false disagreement, we need to move on to something constructive.

You wrote:

"'Engaging' is far, far more important than you realize."

Nonsense. In simple terms, you can't know what I "realize". For more, of COURSE 'engaging' is important.

My father was something of an expert in educational theory and practiced it as the educational theorist for a military technical school (electronics, welding, hydraulics, mechanicals, etc.) for years with over 40,000 students at once.

His main 'guidance' of my education was that I be 'engaged', and in some subjects I really was. I was engaged enough, but where I wasn't he didn't push; he likely thought that such pushing would be pointless and may have been correct. In the end I did well in school, went "all the way". Far and away, the best things I did in school were from my being 'engaged', although that's a bit too mild.

So, what about 'engaged' in the article by the third grade teacher?

(a) No teacher in K-12 'engaged' me in anything. Not once. Ever. Where I was most engaged, in plane geometry, more fun than eating caramel popcorn, the teacher was the ugliest person I've ever met, and I slept in class and refused to admit doing any of her assigned homework. So, she would have turned off many students but did not affect my level of 'engagement' at all.

Actually, I made sure to work every non-trivial problem in the book including the more challenging ones in the back. I was fully "engaged".

I got 'engaged' for the usual reasons: A desire to achieve the security of adult competence. The content of the media that emphasized science got me 'engaged' in science.

(b) As I outlined, there's not a lot taught in K-8. Given that, a lot of being 'engaged' is not necessary to that learning. So, it's a bit empty for her to say that she got her students 'engaged' in learning the standard stuff in the third grade.

(c) More directly, if she can get her students 'engaged', then let's see the results in student accomplishments:

So, maybe she gets some student engaged in math and they rush ahead and pass the AP calculus exam at the end of the third grade. If then she wants to say that she got the student 'engaged', then I can believe her and chalk up some credit for her getting a student 'engaged'.

Maybe she plays some music for the students and then has as a class guest the first chair violinist of the local symphony orchestra. The violinist gives a concert in class with everything from 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' to various pieces really easy to like to some dance pieces even easier to like like to various classic showpieces to some 'video backed show and tell', say, motifs from 'The Ring', with images as in, say,

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7prUFflX0_E>

where the climax should get much of the class 'engaged', to something really 'engaging', the D major section of the Bach 'Chaconne':

Castelnuovo-Tedesco: "The Bach 'Chaconne' is the greatest piece of music ever written."

The central D major section is the easiest to like and has the climax of the piece. The Heifetz performance of the climax is especially 'engaging'.

A violin is such a magnificent piece of 'woodworking' that it is 'engaging' just to see one for the first time. Being just close to a violin being played for some of the best music by a good violinist is really 'engaging'.

I did that once: At Christmas at the farm I retired to an upstairs bedroom for some violin practice. Soon a niece about 8 came up to watch and listen. So, sure, soon I put my violin under her left chin, stood behind her, showed her how to hold the bow, and the next day her father asked me, "How much is a violin going to cost me?". Her mother had been trying to get the girl 'engaged' in music for years with no effect. I was successful in a few minutes. Part of the reason is that it is much easier to get a child engaged in something an adult is doing instead of something they are just saying. Having a really good musician in class will get a lot of students 'engaged'.

Next day, have a good concert pianist do much the same. Sure, start with some famous pieces some students in the class may be able to play already, e.g., the Bach C major "Prelude" from 'The Well Tempered Clavier', let the student get acknowledged, maybe get a 'master class' on this piece from the guest pianist, sitting beside him on the piano bench, get status in the class, and then get the rest of the class more eager to 'follow along' and be 'engaged'. Yes, the piece is in the movie 'Samantha: An American Girl Holiday' and there played very well. Net, Hollywood knows that third grade or so girls can like that piece.

Next day, a cellist. Sure, play something really easy to like, the 'Prelude' to the Bach first unaccompanied -- easy enough to like to be used in ad music, but the ascending chromatic scale climax near the end is one of the better moments in all of music.

Next day, have a guest outlining the math for satellite orbit determination as needed by GPS. So, get students 'engaged' in math and physics.

So, some student gets really 'engaged', checks out a violin, spends about half of each day in a back storeroom practicing, and by the end of the third grade plays the D major section of the Bach 'Chaconne'.

Now I'll give her credit for getting her students 'engaged'.

Some of the students like writing. Okay, have them start some blogs, write the initial posts, moderate the other posts, and respond, i.e., have them play the role of Fred Wilson at AVC.com. The teacher will get some chances to supervise the work and help with the writing, content, handling contentious issues, computer usage, grammar and spelling. At the end of the year, finally tell the world that the blog moderators were all of eight years old!

You wrote:

"The problem is not the taking of tests. The problem is focusing on tests at the expense of everything else."

The tests are not going to cover playing the Bach 'Chaconne' and, instead, just cover the basics of third grade material. Good students with good instruction can learn enough of the grade 1-8 material in a few months. Asking that the ordinary and normal students know the third grade material by the end of the third grade is asking very little.

For the "teaching to the test", that is presented as some sin but without details about the sinfulness. Go ahead: Teach to the test. Heck, most straight A students study just for the test and just as they perceive the teacher will write it anyway.

If the test is at all well constructed, then passing the test is a quite good indication of the learning. People have known how to write good tests for decades.

As we all know, tests are a central part of education, including via the examples I gave of CEEB, SAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, etc.

Net, these K-12 objections to "testing" with the vague sin of "teaching to the test" look like excuses less good than the classic "My dog ate my homework.".

One way I got back at my plane geometry teacher was what I did on the state test. I got back at all those teachers with my SAT scores, especially my math SAT score.

The SAT score was correct: I had not only a lot of 'engagement' and interest in math, I had some talent as subsequent events have shown: Yes, the grand hero of mathematical economics is K. Arrow. There is a famous paper by Arrow, Hurwicz, and Uzawa. Why poor Uzawa has not gotten his Nobel prize I don't know; maybe they give at most two per paper? There was a problem stated but not solved in the paper. There was also H. Whitney, long at Harvard, of the Whitney extension theorem. So I proved a result comparable with Whitney's, assumed a little less and got a little less, used my result to solve the Arrow, et al., problem, and published.

Net, that third grade teacher should (A) have her students do well on the tests and (B) have her students get fully engaged in much more that is not on tests but quite visible as I outlined.

I'll add one more important point: However much the AFT, NEA, Department of Education, Obama, The Chosen One, Blessed Be He, want all of US K-12 run directly from DC, it is still the case that local school boards run K-12 education. Bluntly, what such a school board wants, such a school board can get. If a teacher, principal, and school really get their students and parents 'engaged', e.g., parents of third grade see their children wanting freshman college texts on math and physics, a violin, piano, or cello, are listening to

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7prUFflX0_E>

etc., then the school board can get 'engaged', provide what is needed for, e.g., getting a concert master into third grade classes, etc., and really go for it.

Net, that's much of just why we have local school boards.

<comment><USER5> You spat out: "So what about 'engaged' in the article by the third grade teacher?" but didn't bother to answer it.

You say you and I are in agreement; I thought I was in agreement (on that point) with the author; you imply you are in disagreement with the author. I must say, I'm confused.

As for the rest, I might be assuming that Canadian and American public school education is more similar than it actually is. Maybe what you have to say about the state of American education is less hyperbolic than I take it to be. I've lived in Japan for the last 13 years, though, and comparing the to-the- test Japanese system with its long hours of rote learning and cram schools, I definitely think the Canadian system produces better results (and the UN seems to agree). The impression left in my mind by the article was of a Canadian- like system shifting towards being more like a Japanese-like one. It may be these assumptions that have us talking at cross purposes.

Although I must assert that, while I think tests are an important _gauge_ , "teaching to the test" is a short-term goal that, in my experience, leads to a lot of cramming and very little long-term learning. (personally, though, I never crammed---I paid attention in class, although it didn't always look like it)

<comment><USER21> Generally the Asians nearly totally fail to 'get it'. There is no chance that US (or Canadian) K-12 will go very far making the mistakes the Asians make.

That tests are fine does not mean that the Asian approach to rote learning is fine.

That some students cram for tests does not mean that tests are useless.

For being 'engaged', I gave a very long list of ways a third grade teacher might get her students engaged. So, I agree that being 'engaged' is important. But in the article the teacher was using being 'engaged' (A) in only a weak sense (my examples were much stronger) and (B) was using her weak results on 'engaged' to excuse paying less attention to good tests on the basic material.

But on being 'engaged' and actually learning well and retaining that knowledge, we've ignored the 2000 pound elephant in the room -- what the student gets at home.

Yes, the US could use some national tests of basic material during K-12: The US already has good tests at the end of K-12 (CEEB, SAT) and end of college (GRE, LSAT, GMAT). But for the rest, keep that local at the level of the family, teacher, school, and school board.

<comment><USER5> You're still bringing up the "tests are useless" thingy as if anyone has ever said anything so ridiculous. All I've seen is the criticism of teaching test- taking skills as opposed to content (and the retention thereof). I'm pretty sure that's what everyone means by "teaching to the test". I'm pretty sure nobody here (or anywhere) has argued against greater students having better comprehension and retention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267731>

I argue that the article is just politics.

Still, education is important.

Since we are on 'Hacker News' (HN), there is some considerable irony in this article:

In computing now, the workers in information technology commonly need to understand subjects such as:

algorithms, programming languages, frameworks, development environments, user interface design and development, programming for application installation, operating system administration, networking and network administration, relational database and its administration, code repositories, application instrumentation, system monitoring, many utilities and applications, software as a service, the Cloud, the social graphs and interest graphs on the Internet, how to start a company, how to raise venture capital, how to manage software development, etc.

The content of these subjects changes significantly each 12 months.

To keep up, workers need their own 'computer center' and educational resources and mostly just must teach themselves, that is, without teachers. In particular, formal courses are nearly useless because the teachers are rarely up to date on this material.

This pattern has been rock solid for nearly all parts of the US computer industry going way back to punched cards.

Net, the readers of HN overwhelmingly learn independently and are self-taught using their own time, money, and effort.

So, claims by the formal education community in K-12 and college that their classroom instruction is crucial for education is an ironic, ROFL at HN.

But HN readers are not the only ones: (1) An auto mechanic has to keep up with the new systems on the new cars. (2) Workers in construction of houses and small commercial buildings have to keep up with new materials, construction techniques, and regulations. (3) Recently chefs in high end restaurants had to learn about 'molecular gastronomy', 'tasting menus', and intricate 'wine parings'. (4) CPAs and tax lawyers need to keep up on the tax law changes.

Workers in a huge fraction of the US economy have to keep up in their fields, independently, via self-teaching, and most of this work uses their time, effort, and money.

So, let's return to K-12: Basically what is needed from K-12 is at least, by age 18, to be able to (A) read with understanding materials commonly encountered, (B) write clearly, e.g., as well as on HN, and (C) know basic arithmetic, percentages, areas, and volumes.

Now we come to some simple facts: Joe gets sick and stays home from school for three weeks. His grandmother notices that he can't read so, in those three weeks, teaches him to read. Later she does the same for (B) writing and (C) basic math. This situation is common. Basically, normal kids can pick up the 3Rs with astounding speed. Just how they do it is not clear at all, and research on 'teaching techniques' is not promising but also mostly not needed.

The K-12 system should be able to get this teaching done by the eighth grade. So, to know, sure, give some tests. Simple enough.

But, K-12 does try to do more. Especially important topics include math through analytic geometry and trigonometry, biology, chemistry, physics, and history. For these subjects, sadly, the K-12 teachers rarely know enough of the material to teach it well. Even the K-12 'experts' don't: I understand calculus quite well, thank you (learned it at several levels, taught it, applied it, published peer-reviewed original research based on it), but the people who wrote the AP calculus materials did not. Sad. To learn calculus, just get any edition of the dozen or so college calculus texts famous over the last few decades, dig in, and f'get about AP calculus.

Yes, it would be good to teach some art. Sadly, apparently they don't. There may be more on how art works just in, say,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2246723>

In the article the teacher said:

"I'm used to wild and crazy discussions about amazing novels."

"Amazing novels"? Eventually I had to conclude that, according to the standards of information safety and efficacy well established in the first half of the 20th century, novels are at most for light entertainment so that the set of all "amazing novels" is the empty set and not worth serious effort. She was largely wasting time; it's sad she didn't know that; but I can believe that most readers of 'The Daily Kos' take novels seriously. Those English majors dragged me through six years of their 'belle lettre' nonsense when I wanted to study much more in math and science. Bummer.

So, what K-12 does with these additional subjects is at best mixed.

So, net, our K-12 system is heavily for baby sitting. We shouldn't have to pay a lot for baby sitting.

So, what about education?

HN Style Solution: Put good materials on the Internet. So have careful, detailed text in PDF files. Have some lectures by some good people. And by some experts, have some lectures with some intuitive descriptions that explain the 'forest' so well that the 'trees' become mostly obvious.

With good materials, a good student could knock off grades 7-12 independently in maybe three weeks per grade except that foreign languages typically would extend the time. But, with good materials, can do well with a foreign language surprisingly quickly.

Then for 'more' in fuzzy topics such as art, human behavior, organizational behavior, civics, politics, just have some excellent lectures on the Internet and maybe some fora.

E.g., for a curiously good start on both music and painting, in one stroke, just spend right at 10 minutes with

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7prUFflX0_E>

Likely a good start on art history is the 1969 TV series 'Civilization' by Kenneth Clark. There is also a book, but the video alone is fine.

Actually, for some good material in history, there are some starts: Some of the best material on the history of the 20th century is in some selected movies; it's not common to find better materials in print, and it is nearly impossible to find materials nearly as good in K-12 or the first two years of college.

E.g., the movie 'The Battle of Britain' is relatively good on its subject. Actual dates, numbers of planes, pilots, and bombs per day along with 'logistics' would help but are generally ignored by all of the history community.

The movie 'Midway' is relatively good on its subject, a turning point in the war in the Pacific and basically for the reasons made clear in the movie. The Charlton Heston character should be cut out. The timing, crucial, of the actual events in the battle should be made more clear. Details on times, distances, and speeds would help, yes, typically ignored by the history community. Still the movie is relatively good.

The series 'Victory at Sea' was a lot of US flag waving but still does provide a good outline of a lot of WWII.

The movie 'The Longest Day' is awash in 'entertainment values' but, still, does cover the essentials of D-Day.

The hugely long:

William L. Shirer, 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition', ISBN 0-671-72868-7, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1981.

actually is surprisingly sparse on important content.

Sadly the biographies of Eisenhower and Patton are so far from the actual details that they are not good. Bradley's biography is better (but nothing like the character Bradley in the movie 'Patton').

Net, what K-12 is teaching in history is below what is readily available just by watching some movies for a few evenings.

Net, for formal education in K-12 and the first two years of college, it's a huge waste of time, money, and effort for all concerned and can mostly be replaced by good materials (mostly not yet available but easily could be) on the Internet, thus, letting students get on with independent learning in areas of their interests and/or more advanced formal education.

People should say, "I want good education, but I'm not going to pay a lot for what's in K-12 and the first two years of college now."

<comment><USER27> >by age 18, to be able to (A) read with understanding materials commonly encountered, (B) write clearly, e.g., as well as on HN, and (C) know basic arithmetic, percentages, areas, and volumes.

Nah -- you aren't being radical enough!

For example, it isn't necessary to know the multiplication tables in order to read mathematics at university.

The argument about basic knowledge (also known as 'gateway knowledge' i.e. stuff you need to know in order to learn most other things), is _back-to- front_.

If there's something you're interested in, you will learn whatever gateway knowledge is necessary to learn it or learn it more fully.

e.g. football -- you will learn to count in order to keep score

e.g. multiplayer games -- you will learn more language in order to communicate with other players

e.g. harry potter -- you will learn more english in order to read the books

e.g. selling goods at market stalls -- you will learn multiplication

In each case the learner will learn more quickly and more efficiently than in the classroom. He will learn whatever it is 'just in time' and he won't be burdened by stuff he doesn't need. And he will remember it, as required, with no testing and no exams.

So, it isn't necessary to force people to learn basic stuff. We're almost certainly wrong about what constitutes the basics, anyway. (Curricula change very slowly, according to fashion, and are shielded from criticism.)

<comment><USER28> >In each case the learner will learn more quickly and more efficiently than in the classroom. He will learn whatever it is 'just in time' and he won't be burdened by stuff he doesn't need.

Part of schooling is becoming a member of a country's workforce. One must learn some things to be a benefit to society - it is not just about self- directed "hedonistic" learning (ie learning only to meet ones own perceived desires).

Indeed with some forced learning one can come to understand that one's previous desires were short-sighted and wouldn't ultimately lead to the pleasure one imagined.

For example, some who watch Harry Potter movies might not apply themselves to learning to read in order to enjoy the books; even if ultimately this lead them to greater enjoyment of more varied literature and indeed more fulfilment.</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter is forcing us to drop ability to flattr creators by favoriting tweets - <AUTHOR> http://blog.flattr.net/2013/04/twitter-is-forcing-us-to-drop-users-ability-to-flattr-creators-by-favoriting-their-tweets/

<comment><USER3> It's extremely clear that Twitter is turning its back on the developer community who helped the company reach success. We were the first adopters of Twitter, encouraged our friends to join, and made it mainstream. Now, when we want to build apps on their platform, Twitter tells us they're closed - <USER2> they don't want to return the favor.

So, yeah, I can see how Flattr, a service that revolves completely around a community of people who actually appreciate others for their work, is upset at the company whose notion of "thanks" is a Cease and Desist.

As developers, we should be alarmed - we shouldn't be blaming people for 'not reading the terms of service' or saying that 'Twitter has the right to do what it wants'. These answers might be technically right, but they don't capture the true feeling of what is right, which is that developers should build apps that enhance Twitter's ecosystem.

So, that's it for Twitter for me. I only expect Twitter to get worse about their developer policies in the future, and I don't want to be a part of a community that treats developers poorly.

<comment><USER4> Is it worse if Twitter lets flattr do this and then shuts them down later?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In another era, maybe 5+ years ago, any API provider that had such draconian service terms such as Twitter would have been promptly dropped by most API developers.

Why do people continue to develop to Twitter's API? It's obvious that Twitter doesn't want people to use their API. In my years of developing on top of 3rd party APIs from Microsoft, Oracle, etc, I've never seen such contempt for developers as I see from Twitter and Facebook. Developers should abandon Twitter en masse.

But they don't. Developers keep using the Twitter API and they keep getting shut down after spending significant time developing their app. Fool me once, shame on them, fool me twice, shame on me.

I think developers keep doing it because they are still hoping for that one app that will get them acqu-hired by Twitter or Facebook, so that they can become fabulously rich. It's the one big difference between now and 5+ years ago, and especially before the Instagram acquisition.

<comment><USER6> Your comment is so filter bubbled that it hurts.

People keep developing against the Twitter and Facebook APIs because that's where the users are.

<comment><USER7> Why does it matter how many users there are if you aren't allowed to make money off of them?

Twitter is far worse than FB in this regard. Unless you can figure out a way to generate revenue by putting content into the stream (eg content publishers), Twitter is not a good place to build a business.

<comment><USER8> Unless you expect Twitter to sue you, "not allowed to" is pure ideology. In reality, you make money until they notice you, then walk away.

<comment><USER7> For a side-project, that is great. But if you are building a company where you have multiple people looking to you to keep supplying the paycheck that pays their mortgage, that just seems irresponsible.

Notwithstanding that, why would you want to build something that could have the rug pulled out from under it at any point? I build stuff because I enjoy building thing. If it wasn't working in the market and fails, it is my fault, and I can live with that. If it is successful in the market and fails through somebody else's actions (that I should have been cognizant of), that just sucks.

<comment><USER9> Because the alternative is to build CRUD app startups like Basecamp, with no dependencies on any API or 3rd party data. Useful, no doubt, but a saturated market.

<comment><USER7> Saying "CRUD application" is like saying "Java application". It's an implementation detail and not an actual feature.

Tumblr is a CRUD application, yet it shares almost nothing with Basecamp.

Focusing on the technology does not make great products.

FWIW, I think there are a lot of potentially interesting applications that _could_ be built on Twitter, but they've proven themselves hostile to the idea. I don't even trust them as an OAuth provider anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This might look like a failure for Flattr, but if you compare them with the flood of micro-payment services that sprang up 5 or 6 years ago, 99% of which vanished without a trace, then clearly it marks a kind of success for Flattr that people are still talking about them, and still thinking about their business model. Of all the micro-payment and/or donation sites that tried to make something like this work, Flattr has been the most successful so far. As a point of comparison, look at Kachingle, which so far has failed to gain any traction, and which has attracted more derision (and lawsuits) than praise: <http://kachingle.com/>

<comment><USER11> Kachingle made a big bet on getting a business method patent and (last year) they lost that bet. They also bet big on getting the _New York Times_ to sign up and, when it didn't happen, took an ... unhelpful ... tone about the subject afterwards.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I know. I worked with Kachingle very briefly. The amount of internal chaos and fighting was amazing, much worse than what I've seen at other startups.

<comment><USER11> Without commenting on the internal stuff, I think Flattr's slow-growth strategy has been much more effective. As you point out, the base rates for failure is very high.

I've been watching since about 2008. I remember thinking that Contenture and Tipjoy would be serious competitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I brought this up in the previous twitter api thread, but it is interesting to get more thoughts.

Perhaps the answer is to stop using apis.

I developed a reddit extension, and when reddit cut off my api access I was able to crowdsource a datafeed through an inbrowser extension. I'm not saying it applies here, but with some creativity I think some apps could be refactored to use a similar approach.

It is not a clean or easy technological solution, but it seems like the api route isn't clean or easy politically.

Imagine if Google tried to get off the ground by using apis to crawl or if Facebook had used approved apis to populate its initial database. They'd be quickly killed, just like what is happening api innovators right now.

<comment><USER7> Facebook has shown a willingness to send Cease and Desist letters to people who do this[1]. I'm sure they would be more than willing to follow up with a lawsuit. Most sites (that I've actually looked at :) with APIs have clauses against the automated gathering of data from their site. This would fall directly within that.

I suppose if you are located somewhere where you feel like you are outside of the reach of their legal arm, you might be able to get away with it. Otherwise, you are in a legally shaky position, at best.

1\. [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-bans-browser- plu...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-bans-browser-plugin-fgs- and-its-developer/6955)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can anyone remember a few years ago, where it felt like almost twice a week there was a new thing leveraging from Twitter in some way, doing something useful or something novel or something completely terrible? That was great, it created genuine value and drew more users in.

If you're a developer and you build on Facebook, or Twitter, or any other API, you now need to be ready for them to pull the T&Cs out and ban your ass and kill your project because damnit, we can't extract _value_ from _your_ additions that'll help us effectively monetize our customer base.

(p.s. flattr looks like a great service and I'm sure they'll find a work around, but they should have known this was on the horizon)

</comment><comment><USER14> Is network effect so strong that Twitter can go so long at to try to destroy its own platform? Or is it the lack of an alternative? Makes me think of Oracle doing the same with Java by trying to extend copyright to APIs.

<comment><USER15> Is Twitter even a platform any more? They are going out of their way to limit and prevent 3rd party app's so they can distil down what Twitter is.. a status update service.

Beyond using Twitter for authentication I don't see why you would want to risk anything else on the Twitter API.

<comment><USER16> They don't share the user's email address. Kinda rules out using them for authentication, IMO.

<comment><USER17> Why? It protects the user's privacy, unlike Facebook. Ask them for their email address after they authenticate and make it an act of volition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How long until twitter rolls out it's own tweet-directed payment service? Maybe they finally found a market-tested monetization strategy.

<comment><USER19> Yeah it's called kill Flattr and take their idea, oldest game in the book.

<comment><USER20> Cleaner fish <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaner_fish> sometimes become food when they're no longer wanted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Twitter is a culture, and bringing money into the culture of favoriting and retweeting could change it, possibly for the worse. Twitter has a right to stop that. I'm not saying their intentions are necessarily so pure (probably not), but it's also not out of the question.

<comment><USER22> What about Favstar and its pro features? The service makes money of people's favourites, albeit less directly.

<comment><USER21> I think it's different. As I understand it, with favstar you can't actually give someone money. You can give them a trophy (or other virtual rewards) which you yourself buy with money. The key difference is that the system is still fundamentally about nothing more than status. You make content and receive thanks and status VS you make content and get paid for it. Innovations to the former system are far less likely to cause a big cultural shift than a switch to the latter system is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Twitters war on developers continues.

</comment><comment><USER24> Ugh, I guess Twitter wants to be the next MySpace. These companies need to ADAPT if they want to stay relevant.

<comment><USER25> This isn't Twitter's lack of adapting, this is them actively retracting. They're not losing relevance through inaction. They're making decisions to purposefully reduce extra featuresets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Interesting... They seem to crack down heavy-handed on companies that offer payment related to twitter. Is this about user experience or is this a harbinger of their upcoming monetization strategy?

<comment><USER27> Same reason Apple doesn't allow in-app Bitcoin transactions, they can't monetize it. It's anticompetative- but that's their right, in this case.

<comment><USER19> Flattr was also hurt by Apple too remember...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> More and more Twitter reminds me a fat and ugly beast.

</comment><comment><USER29> Flattr's blog post seems to have a bit of that "not fair!" tone to it, which they - for better or for worse - don't actually have the right to say.

I can definitely see the argument from Twitter's side, even if I don't agree with it. But more than that: these are Twitter's terms! You can't roll in and start arguing for benefit-of-the-doubt with the people that wrote the terms for their own platform.

If you build your app on another company's platform to monetize their platform and they decide you can't, you're just falling into a trap you set for yourself. Even if it would be cooler if they allowed it.

<comment><USER19> I helped write that post a bit. What is sad is that the typical story is the big fish always push out or eat the smaller fish. We would love to offer Twitter a 50/50 split of our fee (or better) as a rev share, but it is doubtful they will take that offer. It seems like everyday now there is another story like this and that is very discouraging for the open web, something that Flattr was built to help support. If you believe in the open web, support it.

<comment><USER11> I honestly don't know if they're doing it because of some undisclosed master plan, or just because someone is being pigheaded.

Either way, the publicity via HN should shake loose a better answer and I -- as a potential future competitor, hello, nice to meet you -- will be interested to see which one it is.

<comment><USER19> We love competition, especially US based, have you seen Copper.is and Centup :)

<comment><USER11> I'm in Australia, actually. Thanks for the names, I periodically lose track of everyone who comes and goes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady I haven't used Flattr in a few years so I'm not sure exactly how this feature works. However company's features or businesses being destroyed through failure to read the rules/guidelines set out by the company they are working via is becoming more and more common. If you are developing for iOS, Twitter, Facebook etc. read the rules first. If there is anything that could be interpreted in any way to affect you get clarification.

<comment><USER11> > _I haven't used Flattr in a few years so I'm not sure exactly how this > feature works._

Flattr is the best of the microtipping services that has so far emerged. They removed one classic source of angst by capping the total monthly fee, so tippers don't get a little sting of worry every time they click the but button.

Compare fixed-rate mobile phone plans with pay-as-you-go. Even though PAYG plans are often cheaper, many people will pay a premium simply to avoid having to think about what they might or might not owe at the end of the month. Flattr get that part right.

> _If there is anything that could be interpreted in any way to affect you get > clarification._

I disagree, for two reasons. Firstly, it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. Second, even if they're kicked off Twitter, they got exposure during their time there and more since getting the boot.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "it's easier to get forgiveness than permission"

This is true in many cases (and is fine for Flattr) but in other cases I've seen (AppGratis for example) their business is in serious trouble. If your entire business relies on an interpretation of the rules it's better to ask for permission because if you aren't forgiven the consequences could be serious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does anyone have a clear view of Twitter's Terms on commercial use and can clarify it?

For example, Flattr and Ribbon.co have recently run into trouble, but Chirpify, Amex and Dwolla look like they might have Twitter's blessing.

Can anyone give a good explanation of how it works?

</comment><comment><USER31> Man this was what made flattr fun to use. O well, at least I can flattr youtube videos.

</comment><comment><USER32> It's even worse for them than that. If they are violating the TOS it is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 18 U.S.C. § 1030. Federal felonies for all involved. :-/

<comment><USER11> I went and had a quick look and I think you are over-stating the situation. 1030 appears to deal with either going around authorisations for USG computers (a)(3), _or_ going around authorisations for other computers (a)(4) in order to commit what would be in other settings ordinary crimes and misdemeanours: intentional damage (5)(A), reckless damage (5)(B), damage and loss (5)(C) and various species of fraud (6),(7).

I'm pretty sure Flattr's actions qualify for zero of these.

(IANAL, TINLA).

<comment><USER33> I believe he is referring to the case of Weev.

<comment><USER11> Who is not a direct analogy. In law, your motives matter when determining whether an act was criminal. The fancy term is _mens rea_ , literally "guilty mind".

<comment><USER34> Unfortunately this high school civics version of the U.S. criminal justice system is not accurate. "Mens rea" comes from the traditional common law, which is now increasingly divorced from actual federal criminal statutory law. An increasingly number of federal crimes say unlawful intent may be presumed or is even irrelevant.

Note I'm not taking a position on whether any possible TOS violations rise to the level of a CFAA violation, or whether DOJ would care, just that waving around terms like "mens rea" does not an actual rebuttal make.

Or, if you prefer a high school civics sur-rebuttal, "ignorance of the law is no defense." :)

<comment><USER11> I'm not American, but I do resemble one on the internet.

It does vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but strict liability is still rare and still largely constrained to summary offences, not indictable offences.

Regardless of whether you are in a purely code jurisdiction or purely common law jurisdiction or some hybrid, there usually has to be additional effort by a legislator to indicate that strict liability applies.

IANAL, TINLA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> that's it , I can finally stop wasting my time on writing an app which obviously will be pulled down due to violation of twitters terms.

</comment><comment><USER36> twitter doesn't make any money if you use their apis. in the same way google wound down google reader, i think you'll see the same neglect hit the apis. twitter needs developers focusing most of their attention on products that make money.

</comment><comment><USER37> They are going to pivot to compete with Spotify next :D

</comment><comment><USER38> time to get an app.net invite and abandon twitter i guess. At least for me.

</comment><comment><USER11> I am currently in the process of patenting a technology for a business which I suppose will indirectly compete with Flattr.

To be quite honest, I admire how far they've gotten. Of the various micropayment and microtipping ventures, they've been able to steadily plug away. I gave them about as much odds of success as the many other companies that have come and gone. (How this bodes for my own ambitions is left as an exercise for the reader).

Naturally, I think that their model has critical economic and technical flaws that put me in a better position. But they're in the market making money and I'm on HN being all hand-wavy and mysterious (sorry: pre-patent secrecy).

If I could give them one piece of advice -- and it goes for everyone who's had a crack at this -- 10% isn't enough. The incidence of the micropayment/tipping service's share doesn't fall on the user, it falls on the websites. So you might as well pick a sustainable rate, rather than hobble your cashflow.

<comment><USER39> Is a patent really necessary?

<comment><USER11> It's neither necessary nor sufficient for success. But I believe it will deter some competitors into choosing an easier alternative. Writing iOS apps for sharing pictures of your lunch with people nearby, for example. And some investors -- particularly investors in low-risk cultures like Australia -- would prefer to invest in something with IP.

I am not in a strong position to start a fence-swinging business.

I have no startup pedigree, no contacts in SV, no famous friends, no rich parents, didn't study at MIT/Stanford/UCB or work at Google/Facebook/whoever and I cannot move to SV for the foreseeable future.

I'll take every legal advantage I can.

And judging by the downvotes, applying for a patent is unpopular. I feel that it's more inventive than slide-to-unlock, but folk will have to take my word for now.

<comment><USER39> It's endemic of a broken system based on completely asinine patents on things like (as you mentioned) slide-to-unlock, rounded rectangles, "[X that has been around for thirty-five years] _but on a computer!_ " and as one of my clients wanted to patent, "chat inside a Facebook page."

Applying for a patent is unpopular because (software|technology) patents are unpopular, wrong-headed, and generally used by companies like Lodsys to extort money from independent iOS developers who don't have the resources for legal staff.

I don't know anything about you other than vaguely recognizing your handle from around HN. It's possible your idea is extremely novel, even groundbreaking, and it completely deserving of legal protection. It's very unlikely. Chances are you're just going to waste time and money.

<comment><USER11> I agree with your general position and I just want you to know I take none of your criticism or remarks personally.

I suspect that if it ever gets a mention on HN, someone will say something like "Jacques Chester tries to patent logins" or "Jacques Chester tries to patent apache weblogs" or any number of things that don't at all describe what I developed.

Part of the trouble is that patentese is hard to read. While developing the technology to be submitted I wrote and refined what amounts to an RFC. It's a few thousand words with about a hundred lines of pseudocode near the middle.

This in turn blew out to about ten thousand words and 5 diagrams with ~200 reference numbers.

When my first examiner's report came back he'd found and rejected two candidates for prior art; in both cases it took me about an hour to make heads or tails of what was described.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I don't feel sorry for Flattr. The creator, Peter Sunde, one of the creators of The Pirate Bay, not only facilitates the sharing of content against the wishes of many of the owners, but charges 10% to use Flattr.

If Flattr was really all about helping others, the fee would be much less.

I still remember when he spoke at a conference and he talked about how everything should be shared/free. It seems he's not being very honest with us.

With the amount of advertising on TPB (and traffic), I know he was making a profit (and paying his salary).

Why should he get to profit on the backs of hard-working developers and musicians and at the same time saying they shouldn't be able to earn a living?

<comment><USER41> >If Flattr was really all about helping others, the fee would be much less.

How much less? Five percent? One percent? The only other micropayment processor I'm aware of that has better rates than Flattr is Paypal's micropayment service at five percent plus five cents. Given Paypal's massive size advantage I'd say Flattr's doing well so far.

>...talked about how everything should be shared/free.

I'd think founding a startup aimed at micropayments for all kinds of artists and other creators would indicate that Peter's ideas about distribution of art and creator compensation are more nuanced than simply "everything should be shared/free." He says as much in TPB AFK. He certainly doesn't believe that copyright as it stands has any place in a digital world and Flattr seems to be his manner of investigating ways to share content while still giving back to creators.

>With the amount of advertising on TPB (and traffic), I know he was making a profit (and paying his salary).

I've found no numbers on just how much has been made via adverts or what it was spent on, though I'd imagine the costs of bandwidth for coordinating the majority of the planet's bit torrent traffic could easily reach thousands per month. The recently released documentary has one of the prosecutors arguing that there were 64 unique ads on the site at any given time, each costing 500 dollars per week, coming out to about 1.7 million in revenue each year. Gottfried says in the documentary that there were four unique ads, and that even 110k annual revenue was bigger than they had typically gotten but a more realistic figure. I'd love to see the actual balance sheets, though I doubt anyone from the defense or prosecution has any to speak of.

>...at the same time saying they shouldn't be able to earn a living?

90% of flattrs that cost next to nothing for the creator to take advantage of constitutes an incapacity to earn a living? Sounds better than what an artist would get via itunes or an old-fashioned record deal. Of course, this is all operating on the poor assumption that most artists would ever be able to earn a living off their work, no matter how draconian copyright law became or how perfectly DRM was designed and implemented.

<comment><USER42> We can get a hint about how much of the advertising went to the founders, by comparing it with an other high alexa ranked site: Wikipedia. Their budget is public.

At the time when Peter Sunde operated it, Wikipedia had about about 3 times the traffic of TBP. Wikipedia also had about 10 times higher of the operational budget (not counting Salaries and wages). We get this by looking at the TPB advertising money as reported by the police, and comparing it to the WP budget.

One can then either assume that Wikipedia administrators are swimming in money and have all bought small island in the Caribbeans, or that running a services on that scale is actually quite expensive.

Link to 2006-2007 WP budget: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/49/Wikim...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/49/Wikimedia_2007_fs.pdf) Link to TPB budget for 2006: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pirate_bay#Advertising>

<comment><USER43> > One can then either assume that Wikipedia administrators are swimming in > money and have all bought small island in the Caribbeans, or that running a > services on that scale is actually quite expensive.

Running services on the WMF may be quite expensive but that tells us little about TPB - the WMF is not really comparable. They're running hundreds of projects, not just the English Wikipedia; their staff are living in one of the most expensive places in the world, San Francisco; they're developing & supporting an infrastructure much more complicated than 'upload a torrent file and a textual description box', due to editing pages by all sorts of users with different privilege levels and rich media and exploiting HTML5 and working with new MediaWiki extensions like Semantic and of course the truly enormous size of Commons' media database of millions of photos and images and videos; they work under many more legal pressures than TPB (which takes joy at thumbing their nose at any legal issues); coordinate dozens of chapter organizations worldwide (some with significant amounts of revenue like the de chapter); and do other things like the floating Wikimania conference or the DVD encylopedias aimed at Africa or surveys or editor-retention projects or third-world article writing contests etc.

What TPB does is impressive in its own way, but simply is not on the same scale of complexity or variety.

<comment><USER42> While some of that is true, I am talking 2006.

At that time, Semantic was developed and funded by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Commons was just a year old and was of 1/16 of todays size. I am also not sure how many chapter organizations they had, or if the work towards any DVD encylopedias was in the works then.

I also intentionally excluded travel for the above calculations.

An other telling part can be seen in the Wikimeda fundation 2006 budget under the heading of "Internet hosting". To my understanding, that number is exclusive bandwidth costs.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>