Great observation. There is more pressure on kids than in the past. My daughter (1st grade now) was assigned homework every day in kindergarten (age 5), at a regular public school in the US, albeit a small amount and she didn't seem to be too bothered by it. These do seem possibly above a 5-year-old's level, and potentially a turn-off if they don't latch on quickly.
However, I'm actually impressed that the Math curriculum at schools today is much less narrowly arithmetical, and much in the vein of some of the puzzles mentioned here, in particular the "sets" game.
These games are good ideas, I will definitely try them, at the same time if the kid just isn't into it, no need to give up on them going to college. Let them try something else, or just go outside and play.
If anyone wants to try Set out with their kids, I made a free[0] Android version a while back. It's called Pipster[1] and it uses dog/cat/rabbit pictures instead of abstract shapes. "Beginner" difficulty is 3 dimensions (shape/color/number of stripes) which is much more appropriate for young children; "normal" and higher difficulties add color-of-stripes as the fourth dimension, which is equivalent to the normal Set game.
Well, the monopoly aspect has had a limiting effect on a few things I've been involved in, at least in government/quasi-government. Given that some data series I've used are only (? or most conveniently) available through the terminal, it has meant having only half-automated tools. You always still need to do a weekly walk down the hall to a terminal followed by a lengthy boot-up on an old box, entering of password, opening of spreadsheet. They tend to lock down those machines too.
While I guess there are APIs, I don't get the impression they're easy to just integrate into any old workflow if the terminal is down the hall or even on the other side of your desk. It's all linked to that terminal, no? Pretty annoying if you ask me, from a programmers standpoint. Not to mention another case of closed, proprietary tech in the financial sector.
In many cases it is not Bloomberg's monopoly but the data provider's. The licensing and royalty agreements between Bloomberg and the data provider have very onerous terms including restricting how many screens the data can be displayed on, what mediums the data can be transferred to, and where and for what purpose the data can be used. The terminal restrictions and API limitations that Bloomberg imposes are usually driven by these concerns.
Bloomberg offers less restrictive APIs but they are even more costly than a terminal license and often require the end user to sign agreements with the data providers directly and pay additional royalties.
However, I'm actually impressed that the Math curriculum at schools today is much less narrowly arithmetical, and much in the vein of some of the puzzles mentioned here, in particular the "sets" game.
These games are good ideas, I will definitely try them, at the same time if the kid just isn't into it, no need to give up on them going to college. Let them try something else, or just go outside and play.