Has general aptitude sunk so far?

Sorry for the extended absence. All of the usual things have been intruding, family, work, work, work - some more work, occasional friends, work - and then family. It is hard to come up w/ something that I feel strongly enough about to sacrifice my time putting it all down. But I have a new mantra that has caused me to re-evaluate what I spend my time on;

- Trying to please everyone is a sure cause of failure

So this is now one of my revamped priorities - so that I don't curl up in a fetal ball and start sucking my thumb. That said..on w/ the commentary.

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I know that for years that educator's have been saying that America is dumbing down. What with Spell Checkers and Google - does anyone really have to think any more? All they have to do is hit a button on the computer and all of the answer's - correct or not - come right up.

Then it hit me as I was waiting for my connecting flight yesterday (yes - I am travelling on business this weekend). Take a look at the mainstream media and news reports, and I think we are actually seeing the results of this in every day society.

For airlines - they no longer have confidence in the public's ability to read the seat off of the ticket - you are assigned to a group to board the airplane. I know some of the airlines actually group the passenger's intelligently so to try to minimize the boarding times, but I swear others are just "split the passengers up into a couple of groups, based on the (pasenger) count."

That's one - and yeah - that one is a little weak - but look - there is more.....

Years ago - people worked the newspaper crossword puzzles to keep the mind in shape. What do we have today? Soduku. I saw someone sitting in the boarding area - w/ get this 'Sudoku for Dummies' (I think we all know that the '.. for Dummies' books are one of the signs of the apocalypse - or at least at sign that the Writer's for Pauley Shore's last movie - still live).

Have you ever tried to play Sudoku? It isn't that hard - most newspapers are printing them
daily now - instead of or in addition to crossword puzzles. Take a grid - 3x3 - and put 9 of those together. In a 3x3 grid of 3x3 grids (so you have a 9 by 9 grid). Now - each square in the grid can have one number in it, and each number (1-9) can only appear ONCE in each 3x3 grid, ONCE in each ROW, and ONCE in each column.

Sounds simple right? Sort of - no longer does the reader need to have a dictionary to be able to spell the word correctly (dictionary - a fault tolerant, power independant, public domain reference on English words). All they have to do is to be able to count to 9 (not even 10, just 9).

Now admittedly - there are variants out there that are a little more challenging, using shapes and colors - or the alphabet, but this is more problem and pattern solving rather than expanding someone's knowledge. Imagine being a member of a College Admission's office - and having someone put down on their application - that they can solve a Sudoku in under 5 minutes. They would probably get laughed at.

Now - also match up the decline in knowledge of the general public - w/ the currently successful game shows of the last 30 years. For a while it was Jeopardy then it became Wheel of Fortune (and how much of this was Vanna - who now just has to walk back and forth and touch the letter, not even having to turn it anymore), then it was Millionaire, and now it is Deal or No Deal.

+ Jeopardy - general, specific knowledge w/ trivia thrown in
+ Wheel of Fortune - word/phrase knowledge/spelling
+ Millionaire - knowledge, w/ the twist of audience/outside participation
+ Deal or No Deal - luck

Luck? Yes - luck - and a little bit of odds/probability. If you haven't seen this show yet - watch it at least once. It is an interesting study on social pressure. The premise is simple - 26 cases that represent Money in the amounts between 1 penny and 1 million dollars (or more - depending on if it is a sweeps week or not). Each case is held on stage by an attractive woman (yeah - a little eye candy never hurts) and the contestant has to pick one that they think contains the Million dollars.

Once they pick the initial one, then they have to pick additional cases to eliminate those cases from contention. Each time they eliminate a set, the 'Bank' (a producer hidden at the top of the set) will offer the contestant an amount of cash in exchange for the contestant's case. The Bank offer is usually the average of the total amount of money outstanding (unreveiled) minus 5-10k.

This Bank offer starts small - and as the number of cases dwindle, and the success of the contestant in picking cases, this number can get up in the 6 digit area. But inevitably - the larger values are picked (above $100k) and that offer starts to crash down. Usually after the first big value that is exposed, the contestant can still walk away w/ a pretty hefty sum. And this is where the host comes in. Howie Mandel.

I am not sure who Howie eggs on more - the contestant - or the studio audience - who will then chant 'No Deal' when they think that the 1 in 15 chance that the contestant's case has more than $100,000 is worth walking away from a guaranteed X amount of money. He talks about how much money that is still on the board, and
how many times the annual average American salary that is.

(The producers do a good job picking contestants too. I have seen high school coaches, beat cops, a Marine fresh out of the service trying to start again, a Dr trying to pay off his Med School bills.

[If you liked this one - and odds - I guess I started thinking about this last summer - in this blog - when I was talking about baffling the cashier's by handing them penny's to make their 'change math' a little easier]