Slashdot Mirror

Well, at least with all countries going after eachother's economies and such, I will start off by saying that at least I know who to blame when my Interest rates to up. You Bastards! But in related news, i did see that the Chinese Government attempted to hack into the Rolls Royce data center in Texas. The news article said everything was fine and dandy though so at least thats good.

http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2591293.cms

I guess they want real engine technology or something.

link to the times story quoted above

India has had more sophisticated parking solutions than this. There are multi-level parking buildings, where one has to drive in a car into an elevator, lock it, and then the elevator would put the car in an available slot. Once you are back, the car can be retrieved from that slot, and ready for you to depart. All this for less than 50 cents an hour.

There are buildings which have car parks and motor cycle parking lots on the terrace, and use elevators to transfer the vehicles to the terrace.

Multiple news reports about the multi-level parking solutions could be found here.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/03/07/stories/2007030703420500.htm
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2002/03/28/stories/2002032801021900.htm
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/39396831.cms

Merely having freedom of speech in the constitution is meaningless. Have you seen the uproar whenever anyone writes or produces anything controversial? How about the banning of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses because it would offend the Muslim minority? How about the moral police that comes out ever so often over ridiculous issues?

Or the very recent Orkut case that went all the way to Parliament, wasting precious time when we have a million more important matters to discuss?
Or-scariest of all, the IT Act of 2000. One of the provisions of the act is to allow the police to search or arrest any individual without a warrant, at the same time giving the govt. and its officers immunity from prosecution in case they made a mistake with respect to said individuals.

How come no one's talking of freedom of speech during such times? What's the use of having these rights in the constitution if no one is going to bother when they are violated??
Freedom is binary-you either have it or you don't. Freedom 'subject to the following terms and conditions' is an oxymoron. (I'm not claiming that the US is any better, they've had their own record of violations)
Going by what you've said, Americans could do the same, sit back on their asses and turn a blind eye to whatever's going on there-be it the debate on net neutrality, or evolution vs. 'intelligent design' and so on. Democracy is something that has to be protected and upheld by citizens, once you allow a legal precedent to ban something because someone gets offended, there's no looking back. In India, given the small proportion of population that is educated and affluent (the fact that we're both posting here puts us firmly in this bracket), it is sad that no one is protesting against these things(yup, this again includes me).

If you'd RTFA, you would notice that, according to Microsoft, indeed respect does own "the government's decision".

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/The_Unite d_States/US_bridge_had_a_design_flaw/articleshow/2 269631.cms

Speaking of untested products with design flaws...

In the case of tariffs, the EU is attempting to encourage local manufacturing and reduce trade imbalances

If the EU rally wanted to correct for a trade imbalance then what they need to do is get rid of the 100s of billions of euros in subsidies given to European farmers. Because of these subsidies food grown in Europe can be exported to third world nations and sold there retail for less than farmers there can grow food. That's a big reason the WTO meeting in Geneva fell apart in the summer of 2006. India walked out because first world nations, the EU, Japan, and the US wouldn't cut farm subsidies. India has literally thousands of farmers committing suicide because they can't compeat with farmers who collect hugh subsidies. Slashing US farm subsidies to $13 billion a year is "unacceptable," a Bush administration official said on Wednesday. All these tariffs are is protectionism.

whereas airline "security" is not about making flying safer, but about social engineering, making people more accepting of micro-management from a nanny state, and introducing the perception of safety even though everyone knows that it won't do a lick of good.

Yeap, our overseer lords want us all to believe the only way to keep safe is by having a nanny state. What they're really doing is a power grab, they want to tell people how to live, and if the people won't then force them to live the way they say.

Microsoft is a thirty year old company, debt free, with tens of billions in liquid reserves, quarterly profits up and every other week or so another billion gets poured into the money bin. Microsoft plays for long-term gains.

"Nobody wants Vista." But Vista is selling.

Attracted by aggressive prices and the launch of Microsoft's Windows Vista OS, consumers purchased more notebooks during the first quarter than expected, pushing IDC to raise its 2007 PC industry forecast.
The PC industry is set to ship 256.7 million units in 2007, marking 12.2 percent growth over the previous year. IDC had previously forecast a growth rate of 11.1 percent and shipment volume of 254.2 million.
The primary engine of growth was a 28 percent jump in first quarter notebook shipments compared to the same period last year, a faster pace than the 25 percent increases seen in that segment for the past three quarters. Vista and notebooks boost PC sales

You know the Geek is living in a dream world when it is bad news for Microsoft that Acer's shipments are only expected to grow 30 to 40 percent this year. Vista knocks down Acer sales

Fascism has spread throughout history under a populist garb. The Nazis were supposed to help restore German pride

The big difference is that the Reich was not fighting any injustice. They completely manufactured claims that they were "oppressed" by Jews and used it as an antisemitic canard against them to try to wipe them out.

The same thing is not the case here, or are the various massacres perpetrated against Hindus by Muslims all over South Asia,from the Talibanized Bangladesh to the Jamaatis in Pakistan, the massacre of Hindus in Marad by Islamists, the open pro-taliban riots by Islamists in Malegaon and bands of Islamic terrorists bombing temples, trains and schools all "Windmills"? Eh?


Besides, if the RSS was so "obsessed with Muslim/Christian/Communist Bashing", why did they rescue poor Muslims during the Surat floods. Why did they rescue Sikhs from massacres perpetrated against them by the Congress Party in 1984 (Read the works of Khushwant Singh praising RSS for it's relief work among Sikhs)? Why did they rescue Muslim children from terrorists in Kashmir? Why do they cooperate with Catholic missions?

During Israel prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to India, Leftists and Muslims openly attacked Sharon, called him a "Filthy Jew", and publicly called for re-enacting the holocaust. It was the RSS that welcomed him and helped cement better ties with Israel. Funny how a "Fascist" movement would do that, eh?

Are these the actions of "Fascists"?Oh, yes, these filthy urine drinking Hindu fascists are such cosmic swine that they dare to actually build bridges with the Dalit Community, aggressively champion for their right to worship in temples, and enagage in interfaith dialogue with Muslims and Christians. What filthy Hindu "kuffar" idolater fascists they are!
The terms "Fascism", "Nazism and "Communalism" are much abused terms in India, thanks to the far-left propaganda.They have a distinct connotation in the European context that can hardly apply to the Indian milieu.

The term fundamentalism was first coined in the context of the emergence of the Protestant movement in the Christian church in America in the twenties. The ideology of the RSS and the way in which it is interpreted by the Sangh leaders borrowing modern terminology have no camparison to the sense in which the term fundamentalism was used in America. So also, fascism and Nazism do have distinct meanings in the socio-political contexts that prevailed in Italy and Germany which have no bearing in the Indian context.

Communalism is not at all a part of religion. Communalism is nothing but mobilisation of people on communal lines to serve a specific cause. RSS can, therefore, be said to be communal only in a limited sense. RSS has not committed any acts that could truly be described as fundamentalist, fascist, or communal. In fact, one of the first acts of A B Vajpayee after taking over as Prime Minister last time was to call on Mother Teresa and Delhi Archbishop.
<br>
The socio-political milieu of India offers a fertile ground for the RSS to grow. One admirable aspect of the RSS, is its flexibility to move with the times and to adopt the best from other socio-cultural-religious movements. It learnt the rudiments of social work from the missionary organisations of the church and mass mobilisation techniques from the communists.

RSS has a dedicated and disciplined set of cadres, the simple life style of its pracharaks, the moral teaching it imparts to the younger generation in its daily sakhas, an

Fascism has spread throughout history under a populist garb. The Nazis were supposed to help restore German pride

The big difference is that the Reich was not fighting any injustice. They completely manufactured claims that they were "oppressed" by Jews and used it as an antisemitic canard against them to try to wipe them out.

The same thing is not the case here, or are the various massacres perpetrated against Hindus by Muslims all over South Asia,from the Talibanized Bangladesh to the Jamaatis in Pakistan, the massacre of Hindus in Marad by Islamists, the open pro-taliban riots by Islamists in Malegaon and bands of Islamic terrorists bombing temples, trains and schools all "Windmills"? Eh?


Besides, if the RSS was so "obsessed with Muslim/Christian/Communist Bashing", why did they rescue poor Muslims during the Surat floods. Why did they rescue Sikhs from massacres perpetrated against them by the Congress Party in 1984 (Read the works of Khushwant Singh praising RSS for it's relief work among Sikhs)? Why did they rescue Muslim children from terrorists in Kashmir? Why do they cooperate with Catholic missions?

During Israel prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to India, Leftists and Muslims openly attacked Sharon, called him a "Filthy Jew", and publicly called for re-enacting the holocaust. It was the RSS that welcomed him and helped cement better ties with Israel. Funny how a "Fascist" movement would do that, eh?

Are these the actions of "Fascists"?Oh, yes, these filthy urine drinking Hindu fascists are such cosmic swine that they dare to actually build bridges with the Dalit Community, aggressively champion for their right to worship in temples, and enagage in interfaith dialogue with Muslims and Christians. What filthy Hindu "kuffar" idolater fascists they are!
The terms "Fascism", "Nazism and "Communalism" are much abused terms in India, thanks to the far-left propaganda.They have a distinct connotation in the European context that can hardly apply to the Indian milieu.

The term fundamentalism was first coined in the context of the emergence of the Protestant movement in the Christian church in America in the twenties. The ideology of the RSS and the way in which it is interpreted by the Sangh leaders borrowing modern terminology have no camparison to the sense in which the term fundamentalism was used in America. So also, fascism and Nazism do have distinct meanings in the socio-political contexts that prevailed in Italy and Germany which have no bearing in the Indian context.

Communalism is not at all a part of religion. Communalism is nothing but mobilisation of people on communal lines to serve a specific cause. RSS can, therefore, be said to be communal only in a limited sense. RSS has not committed any acts that could truly be described as fundamentalist, fascist, or communal. In fact, one of the first acts of A B Vajpayee after taking over as Prime Minister last time was to call on Mother Teresa and Delhi Archbishop.
<br>
The socio-political milieu of India offers a fertile ground for the RSS to grow. One admirable aspect of the RSS, is its flexibility to move with the times and to adopt the best from other socio-cultural-religious movements. It learnt the rudiments of social work from the missionary organisations of the church and mass mobilisation techniques from the communists.

RSS has a dedicated and disciplined set of cadres, the simple life style of its pracharaks, the moral teaching it imparts to the younger generation in its daily sakhas, an

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

What's hard to believe about it? Negroponte has demonstrated that it can be done. Now, he's got to fend off the competition. Intel isn't the only problem. For example, India's Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) claims that it can develope and produce a $10 laptop (though what they'll make this laptop out of, no one has said). My take is that Intel and HRD see the "One laptop" project as a threat to them (Intel clearly is concerned about the AMD processor while HRD apparently is concerned about their own image). It appears to me that both organizations have incentive to kill the OLPC project.

Dots connected: http://infotech.indiatimes.com/Tech_News/News/IBM_ may_hire_12_lakh_more_by_08/articleshow/1553044.cm s

Walk down any street in India and ask yourself: Why are people in India so poor? They are poor because their culture is extremely self-defeating.

Tell that to all of the farmers in India committing suicide because they can't compeat with all of the heavily subsidized produce from the US and EU. The same thing happens in South Korea and Mexico. People wonder why so many Mexicans come to the US as "illegal aliens". The reason why is US subsidized agriculture products and NAFTA. Because of the subsidies US agribusinesses can export to Mexico and sale it for less than Mexican farmers can grow the food for. This drives Mexican farmers off their farms and they go north to try to cross the border or they go into Mexican cities and those already in the cities are driven north.

Remember, Time-Warner bought AOL and immediately lost 88 Billion dollars.

WRONG!!! AOL bought Time Warner!

$10 laptops ! Combined with FREE broadband I mean Free as in Beer http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Broadband_to_g o_free_in_2_yrs/articleshow/1955351.cms 10 + free broadband for everyone + $15 to $25 per hour salaries ..Wow is there a place to beat India !!

Another service provider called Hutch (recently taken over by Vodafone) provides a service where you can choose the background music when talking to someone. Launched on Valentine's Day, it was showcased to play soft music while talking to your sweetheart on phone.

"They are probably the only company with the cash and skills to "fix" everything that is wrong with Linux on the desktop. But they don't do it"

'The product .. pulls together software IBM has developed in-house and with partners Novell Inc and Red Hat Inc .. We worked with the open source community and found a way to write software once that will work regardless of operating system'

was Re:IBM *could* make Linux the standard

I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.'

Yeah, there's one this month.

also here.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/77 4168.cms

India is kicking our ass, and have no patents on pharmacuticals at all (but they do on manufacturing process). Also, they are a tool of violence, just like slavery is. Sure some masters are nice to their slaves, and some people are reasonable about patetns, but that's bullshit. You are presuming that people have a right to that kind of control to begin with. I wouldn't be such a hard ass on patetns if I hadn't lived it.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/103 4077.cms
google is your friend

A recent Washington Post article gave this scientist's quote from 1972. "We simply cannot afford to gamble. We cannot risk inaction. The scientists who disagree are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored." The warning was not about global warming (which was not happening): it was about global cooling!

you omitted this one

Novartis is suing the Indian government for rejecting the Novartis patent.

From TFA:
Novartis had sought a patent for a new use for its cancer drug Gleevec, which was rejected by the Indian patents office in January, on the ground that the drug was a new form of an old drug, and therefore, not patentable under Indian law.

The US government recently tried to throw its weight around in the Coke pesiticide controversy in India.

that's the nth time my big mouth has got me into trouble ... now i'm just going to make wise ass remarks about trivial topics. but since we're in this subject ... what is the total percentage of people in India who actually read blogs? About 2% of the population have access to the Internet in India. I totally agree that "freedom of press" is important, but we don't see that even in the traditional print medium. I'd say this story is more worthy of /.

The author , though his name sounds to be Indian, is a person from MARS, b'cos he knows nothing about India and its people. No place on earth has such an amazing amount of diversity and yet the country grows at a impressive rate of 8% per year , check this latest article "The dragon faces Indian FDI threat" by Yasheng Huang, a stickler for time and associate professor at the Sloan School of Management at http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/17 06117.cms Mr author fyivisit http://www.goodnewsindia.com/ to read 100% authentic and unbiased news about how indian poor and rich serve their country and their fellow citizens with amazing success. This site is not biased by any media or any politician or any author like you ! As rolfwind (another blogger) rightly pointed out ... before writing again on things such as numbers on exports, imports and poverty 'n blah blah ... please first check the facts verified ... http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ india.html [cia.gov]. Poverty in india is 25% from cia.gov while in US it is 12% ! so what is big difference if you consider the 1.1 billion population with that of 350million !! Can the author pls point out from he got the magical figure "less than $1 a day" figure ....i think author from MARS !!!

U send me no more jobs:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/161 1960.cms

I send U wife:

http://www.shaadi.com/

U mak wrd fltr 4 2 beat me , but u r btn by it urself.

guys guys guys....hoe many banks will u'll change....the earth is flat give in & give up.... HSBC goes to india as well. check this link : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/16 37083.cms

Let's deal with the Indian labor problem the way India deals with its competition problems: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/15 25535.cms

So, we impose a penalty on India for labor dumping.

I totally agree, in my country, India, kissing in public is considered a crime

Just for the record, I know for a fact that China is always Month/day, living here and all (here's an example. And I've seen the month/day used in India, you can see an example of such here.

Quite in tune with an earlier comment ( http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=14181474&sid=1 70151 ).

Bush's decision to choose Hyderabad over other Indian tech hubs like Bangalore, Pune comes close on the heels of the city bagging the $3bn Fab City project by the AMD-SemIndia consortium. Bush has also announced setting up of a new US consulate in Hyderabad, since the Andhra Pradesh state contributes majority of the Indian techies visiting US.

Telugu is now the largest spoken Indian language in the Silicon Valley / SF Bay Area. An article about Bush's visit to Hyderabad, & the Telugu diaspora in America

Corrected link from above; http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/13 65279.cms

Here is a link, to a story; http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/13 65279.cms/ This mentions Google founder Larry Page as saying this service may herald a new strategy to pay for services by Google. WOW- A whole new story hits the back of my mind. And yet I must doubt the information. In the past Google has offered a lot for free, aside from the ads which are to be expected. As a search engine Google has always been # 1 by me. But now I am a little concerned. These things creep up on you sometimes. Let me tell you a little story (True) about an old friend of mine. He was an Art Bell fan, and years ago he came over to my house and I showed him my computer and all the wonderfull things it could do. Everything to him was better on TV than what I was showing him on the internet. But then I showed him wwwdotArtBelldotcom and he found out he could download the radio shows he missed for free and listen whenever he wanted. He bought a computer and got on the internet, with a little help from me from time to time. Well all was fine till they shut down that site and started charging from another site for the show's streaming. That was it for my neighbor, he was paying for the internet $19.95 a month as I recall, and he wouldn't pay more for the only thing he used the internet for. He quit using computers and hasn't had one since. That's all it takes sometimes, I've seen people stop computing over virus and worms, Hackers, cost of internet hookup, poor computer service, rebate fraud, changing programing, options, a lower quality product or service, and money. Money seems to be really up there. I pay pay 39.95 a month for cable internet, and 100 miles away the same service is only 19.95. That aggravates. I'd like to see someone do a more in depth news research story on what appears to be a possible change in one of the internet's mega movers. Google's always been my favorite search engine. That's all I ever expected from them. I hope a big change isn't beginning. Please Google don't change too much, I already have the programs you list that I want. All these extra bars I don't want. I like my system the way I have it. I don't want to end up paying more in the future because there are fewer people that are using the internet.Think.

The Japanese market went ga-ga for cameras, text-messaging, ring-tones, etc., but from what I've seen, most Americans want a phone that works easilly and reliably as a phone more than anything else. Someday, a phone maker will become clueful about this fact, and they will sell them like hotcakes. I know I'll be in line for one.

Actually, what most people want out of a cell phone, besides just working, is to make them look cool and chic. Small portable items that we carry with us become fashion statements about us. That's why ipods have to be skinned or placed in their special holders with your name on them for everyone to see. They're like clothing. They reflect on us. That's why nokia is coming out with their L'Amour collection. The real money is going to be in personalized stuff like engraving. I personally would like a cell phone series that had original artwork etched on the cases. Custom faceplates usually only cover part of the plastic surface. Look at the L'Amour collection to see what I'm talking about.

That said, not everyone believes that branding really provides much value to companies. I'd say that in general whether you believe in the power of branding or not depends in large part on how much money you've spent on branding and how successful your company has been in the marketplace. If you've spent a lot of money on branding and have risen to dominate your market, you likely won't want to stop your branding efforts, if for no reason other than to avoid rocking the boat. I'm sure many big branding spenders don't have much emperical data to back up their belief that branding is effective. On the other hand, bean counters aren't always very good at incorporating intangibles into their calculations. When is the last time you heard a CFO say, "Yeah, we need to spend more money on tech support, so people will get a warm fuzzy feeling after we respond to their problem."

It seems that the person who started this does n't know enough to comment on it. Security is just one that Govt. of India is interested in discussing with Google. Actual part is India has protested to Google Inc. - the multi-billion dollar internet company that owns the world's most used search engine - against the depiction of the part of Kashmir which New Delhi claims as its own as part of Pakistan. You can read full news at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/131 3644.cms And for those who think Indian Govt. is stupid slap yourself because you are wrong. Indian Govt. has set up an expert group to review such products(Like google earth) available in the market. They only mentioned google earth as an example. And as a part of their work, they will tackle with Google Earth as well.

outright racist as worst. A person (usually non U.S) has to spend just a few days on the site to realize this. Usually most of us ignore and sometimes even enjoy such discussions and take the site for what it is and don't normally have the time or inclination to argue against this bias. The low quality and intelligence of the posters is a final deterrent.

As I have some time at hand today, I would like to point out to the very small minority of rational readers here that while slashdot considers it acceptable to play a scaremonger with articles ranging from tongue-in-cheek criticism to being of an outright inflamatory nature, it conviniently decides to reject a front page article from the most prominent Indian English daily The Times of India which concerns slashdot itself and shows an unpleasant side of outsourcing.

This is interesting as even the most biased party would atleast pretend to be non-prejudiced by publishing the front-page opinion of the most important newspaper of the country which is at the very center of this whole debate, while agreeing to publish irrelevant information from trivial sources.

The submitted article was this (reproduced below): Indian techie alleges racial abuse

Indian techie alleges racial abuse
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA [ Sunday, December 11, 2005 12:53:48 pmTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
To hear the full blast of invective against outsourcing, offshoring and other aspects of job migration from the United States, stop by at Slashdot.org . An online forum for nerds and nerdy natterings, it teems with angry young men writing under nom de guerres such as AnonymousCoward and TempestData, sgt_doom and pubjames. Many of them are obviously American, but you can see the odd Indian signature locked in verbal combat with a flaming Yankee. On the day Bill Gates announced that Microsoft would be hiring another 3,000 people in India and investing some $1.7 billion (a lot of it towards opening outlets to sell MS products and making more money), nerdy narcissists were out in strength. "Why worry about H1B visas when you can just buy India?" sneered someone writing under the pseudonym Heck. "So, what's the Indian equivalent to H1B?" asked someone called Hmmm. "More companies going to India? Well, I guess I am going down to McDonald's to pick up some applications -- anybody want me to pick them one up as well?" King Vance lamented. "From experience of remote call centres, you'll get more sense out of what a dog says," related SatanicPuppy. "I find they speak English quite well," retorted someone. "In fact, they often speak English better than the ebonified English you get at times from some of the support folks based in NYC." "Microsoft Curry XP coming soon! And it's damn hot!" mocked someone else. "Khidkiyaan2006," bragged another, evidently Indian. It was corrosive sometimes, nasty occasionally, but mostly it was good collegiate fun. Some of the more poisonous posts sullied the many intelligent observations made on both sides of the debate, but it was a welcome letting off of steam in a largely anonymous online forum. Heck, online flamebait is better than real-life threats and violence, as Neelima Tirumalasetti will say. A Texas-based Indian techie who came to the US in 1998, Neelima wishes her tormentors had lit into her on Slashdot.org. Instead, some days after her company Caremark Inc began outsourcing work to India in early 2004, her team members began harassing her -- mocking her accent, excluding her from conversations, and essaying jokes and insults based on her race, ethnicity and national origin, according to an affidavit she filed in a Texas court. A co-worker ambushed her in the ladies room, she says, and called her a "brown-skinned b****" and a "dirty Indian". When she reported the harassment to the management, it first did not take cognisance of her complaint. She was divested from major responsibilities in a project.

outright racist as worst. A person (usually non U.S) has to spend just a few days on the site to realize this. Usually most of us ignore and sometimes even enjoy such discussions and take the site for what it is and don't normally have the time or inclination to argue against this bias. The low quality and intelligence of the posters is a final deterrent.

As I have some time at hand today, I would like to point out to the very small minority of rational readers here that while slashdot considers it acceptable to play a scaremonger with articles ranging from tongue-in-cheek criticism to being of an outright inflamatory nature, it conviniently decides to reject a front page article from the most prominent Indian English daily The Times of India which concerns slashdot itself and shows an unpleasant side of outsourcing.

This is interesting as even the most biased party would atleast pretend to be non-prejudiced by publishing the front-page opinion of the most important newspaper of the country which is at the very center of this whole debate, while agreeing to publish irrelevant information from trivial sources.

The submitted article was this (reproduced below): Indian techie alleges racial abuse

Indian techie alleges racial abuse
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA [ Sunday, December 11, 2005 12:53:48 pmTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
To hear the full blast of invective against outsourcing, offshoring and other aspects of job migration from the United States, stop by at Slashdot.org . An online forum for nerds and nerdy natterings, it teems with angry young men writing under nom de guerres such as AnonymousCoward and TempestData, sgt_doom and pubjames. Many of them are obviously American, but you can see the odd Indian signature locked in verbal combat with a flaming Yankee. On the day Bill Gates announced that Microsoft would be hiring another 3,000 people in India and investing some $1.7 billion (a lot of it towards opening outlets to sell MS products and making more money), nerdy narcissists were out in strength. "Why worry about H1B visas when you can just buy India?" sneered someone writing under the pseudonym Heck. "So, what's the Indian equivalent to H1B?" asked someone called Hmmm. "More companies going to India? Well, I guess I am going down to McDonald's to pick up some applications -- anybody want me to pick them one up as well?" King Vance lamented. "From experience of remote call centres, you'll get more sense out of what a dog says," related SatanicPuppy. "I find they speak English quite well," retorted someone. "In fact, they often speak English better than the ebonified English you get at times from some of the support folks based in NYC." "Microsoft Curry XP coming soon! And it's damn hot!" mocked someone else. "Khidkiyaan2006," bragged another, evidently Indian. It was corrosive sometimes, nasty occasionally, but mostly it was good collegiate fun. Some of the more poisonous posts sullied the many intelligent observations made on both sides of the debate, but it was a welcome letting off of steam in a largely anonymous online forum. Heck, online flamebait is better than real-life threats and violence, as Neelima Tirumalasetti will say. A Texas-based Indian techie who came to the US in 1998, Neelima wishes her tormentors had lit into her on Slashdot.org. Instead, some days after her company Caremark Inc began outsourcing work to India in early 2004, her team members began harassing her -- mocking her accent, excluding her from conversations, and essaying jokes and insults based on her race, ethnicity and national origin, according to an affidavit she filed in a Texas court. A co-worker ambushed her in the ladies room, she says, and called her a "brown-skinned b****" and a "dirty Indian". When she reported the harassment to the management, it first did not take cognisance of her complaint. She was divested from major responsibilities in a project.

Firefox? The particular application I have open at this very moment? Perhaps uninterestingly, I have exactly 17 tabs open right now, with no (noticeable) adverse consequenses. 18, if you don't include opening the parent link, of course. I am a somewhat-regular user of fark.com (not sure if I should admit that) which, by its nature, allows itself to opening MANY pages at once. If you would prefer, I can list every link I have open at this exact moment, for reference:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=170983&op=Repl y&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=95&mode=nested&pid =14243431 (which is this /. reply page)
http://mail.google.com/mail/
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/state/h c-11154432.apds.m0309.bc-ct--statdec11,0,3518180.s tory?coll=hc-headlines-local-wire
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2005/12/11/nation al/a02121105_02.txt
http://www.pcomelet.com/articles1details.asp?NewsN um=40
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pag ename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&pubid =968163964505&cid=1134344411957&col=968705899037&c all_page=TS_World&call_pageid=968332188854&call_pa gepath=News/World
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/johnleo/20 05/12/12/178651.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AtXC1y50oxBO 7AL1gup9Q5.8vLYF?slug=ap-heat-vangundyresigns&prov =ap&type=lgns
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-12-12-brit ish-inferno_x.htm?csp=34
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051212/od_uk_nm/oukoe _uk_india_bangalore;_ylt=AosQuO8FvVJ0Vd3RebwSpmVva A8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051212/ap_on_el_pr/de mocrats_one_community;_ylt=AsioggEugZtPPwnu2ul_1Ii s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-
http://www.wfmy.com/watercooler/article.aspx?story id=53576
http://www.wytv.com/news/regional/2075952.html
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/132 7686.cms
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/technology/5517017 /detail.html?r

Titled "Code 4 Bill", the contest will provide the best pre-final and final year student technologists an opportunity to showcase their talent and join Gates' technical assistants team for a year.

From the TOI.. I don't see what everybody is getting so worked up about.. it's just a talent contest for college students ffs..

Please, global warming is a fact, the man-made greenhouse effect is the theory that is being questioned. Please keep them separate. When you question global warming you have to back it up with proof that the temperature measurements from the past century are wrong.

Okay. How about this?

[I just read a story in the past 2 months about European drug makers outsourcing R&D to the US - not because of costs, but to get at better talent.]
And what makes you think no one will look at those India Institute of Technology graduates? What makes you think the US is the only source of better talent?

We are seeing a drop in the number of American students enrolling in the sciences because they don't think a degree in those fields can pay their rent and bills. Where, then, is the talent coming from?

[The next "big boom" is probably Biotech. The US is also a HUGE exporter of services. If the US outlawed the import/export of services (so software jobs would stop going to China/India), the US would be the loser. Any idea the amount of engineering, research, civil design, and international legal work is outsourced to the US? What about R&D? As examples, do you know that both Japan's giant NTT and France Telecom run R&D labs in the US?]

Biotech, you say?
Funny, how I was just reading about how biotech is being offshored to India.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/775 563.cms
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/ a/2004/04/18/MNGBM672L01.DTL&type=printable

And I bet you more engineering work is offshored from the US to elsewhere, than vice versa.

There's a reason why the US runs a trade deficit with the entire world. We're net importing goods and net exporting jobs.

Now exactly what services are we exporting, and how many jobs does that entail? Do you have any hard numbers to back this up?

Now I've shown you documentation about biotech being offshored. I would prefer you afford me the courtesy of backing up your claims with some hard evidence.

First off, neither your post nor mine was a troll, nor did either deserve a downmod. We just disagree. I wish that was tolerated more by slashdot moderators. That said, you were being a jerk about it.


I agree; Apology offered.

My reaction was fueled by what I saw (and see) as yet another unreasonable extension of Google's motto. I see 'don't be evil' as more of guideline for acceptable advertising mechanism and protection of private data than as one that mandates a more-than-passive response to foreign regimes with which they do business. It is more than that, but it doesn't make Google a 501(c)3 either.

Part of the problem is Google's arrogance. They think that they're so great that the harm done to the Chinese people by not having access to Google would exceed any potential political benefit.

This is a very surprising argument, one which I do not see. China is large expanding market, and Google is a large expanding company. What makes you think Google wants to be in China for any reason other than that it is the next big market? I really don't see the "people would be harmed without us" attitude..

The other argument being made here is the opposite--Google is nothing special and could just as well be replaced by a Chinese government-run search engine. Both of these arguments are wrong.

I think the recent (last week) US offering of Baidu provides the strongest evidence to the contrary; there are indeed organic rivals to Google in China. On that note, who is to say that political pressure on the Chinese regime must come from Google? If the Chinese people start asking for Baidu by name, and one day Baidu is disappeared for flexing its muscle.. who knows. One can daydream and wonder if a web site could topple a regime.

The ethical justification for allowing a free trade relationship with a repressive regime is to promote positive change. That will only happen if we grow a backbone.

Speaking for the US economy, growing a backbone is going to be difficult when you have a $161 BILLION trade deficit. One could argue a huge chinese Google success could put the tiniest of nicks in this number.

Why don't we try to actively subvert their "Great Firewall"? Imagine what the geniuses at Google could do if they put their minds and hearts into it...

My feeling is that it is only a matter of time, as services such as Google become available in China, that the Great Firewall becomes unmaintainable.

Yahoo hired Prabhakar Raghavan today, who is a very well known person in the area of randomized algorithms and information retrieval.

There's going to be a lot less people in India to hire if this goes through. At least a hundred thousand less.

This story is all over in Indian press.
http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/jun/23bpo.htm
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1408799,001 300460000.htm
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/115 0344.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/115 0670.cms
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=4 9334

This story is all over in Indian press.
http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/jun/23bpo.htm
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1408799,001 300460000.htm
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/115 0344.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/115 0670.cms
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=4 9334

On similar lines, there is talk about using Methane Farming techniques to get bio-diesel.. Here is an article that says "Methane farming and Bio-diesel can meet the entire energy requirement of India." http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/950 402.cms
From the article linked above : We (in INDIA) have the world's largest livestock population of 250 million, which produces close to 125 million tonnes of cowdung. Using this we can produce enough methane gas to entirely replace LPG and kerosene in cooking, and substitute petrol in transportation. Methane gas can also generate enough electricity to meet all requirements, at least in rural areas. The by-product can serve as excellent organic manure, substituting chemical fertilisers which require LNG as feedstock.

MYTH #2: "New, innovative companies won't start up overseas."

Really? What do you think these laid-off chip designers are gonna do when they get back to Chennai? Sell trinkets to tourists?

MYTH #3: "R&D jobs don't go overseas. Hell, they don't even leave the US east and west coast, for the most part."

REALITY:

• GE Corporate Research in Bangalore and Shanghai
• HP Opens New Research Center in Singapore
• HP Bangalore Research
• IBM India Research Center
• IBM China Research Center
• Microsoft Research Beijing

Per nasscom.org, "A recent study on the biotech market by business intelligence firm, Ernst & Young, has shown that India has the potential to become a leading hub of biotech projects. Indian companies have the capability to enter segments such as manufacturing biogenerics, contract research services, clinical trials and even areas such as bio-informatics."

MYTH #5: "Ultimately, what xenophobes need to realize is that writing shitty code doesn't make anyone "high-tech." You're no more entitled to an inflated salary than the auto workers who saw their work moved overseas - if someone with no education can do your job cheaper, you don't deserve your job."

"Accenture in India has also been moving into front office work such as doing clinical data management for its pharma clients. Accenture's pharma team here, which consists of doctors, dentists and biologists, analyses data from tests and helps its pharma client to gain `time-to-market' advantage. "Normally, for a BPO, back office activities are the target, but we are beginning to spot opportunities in front office activities as well," Cole said."

This article seems to suggest the contrary. Granted, the store doesn't have the same amount of polish as my Apple Store in Dallas.

Is the price of hardware that highly differentiated that you get a state-of-the-art P4 desktop machine, with no Windows, for $200 in India?

No, you don't get a P4 for $200 in India. Zenith, one of the big dealers, sells this P4 computer for Rs 25,000 (~~$540). Local assemblers will sell you a P4 for even less. That's where the cost of a legal OS (~$200) becomes comparable.