Re: Compression and crypto

Luc The Perverse wrote:
... books that challenge students are not popular.

I don't think that's the whole problem, but it's part of it.
In this as well as other contexts, our society has recently
gone through a phase where children's "self esteem" was
emphasized. Unfortunately, few who got involved in that
understood the concept a la Branden et al, instead working
out approaches to bolster what should be called *pseudo*
self-esteem, i.e. a feeling of self worth not based on
objective facts. Challenges need to be devised carefully,
as frustration over an obstacle that the individual does
not overcome can have a negative effect; of course the
desire is for the challenges to be overcome when the
individual really makes the effort. That means a lot of
preliminary and concurrent instruction in methods and
means.
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