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Microsoft Unveils "Elevate America"
nandemoari writes "In response to the current economic crisis, Microsoft Corp. has come out with a stimulus plan of their own. Their goal is to help a large group of individuals use their computers to land employment in ways other than to generate a compelling resume. The new online initiative, Elevate America, is set to equip close to 2 million people (over the next three years) with the skills needed to succeed in the field of technology."
It's a trap.
They'll teach people to groom themselves to look nice and then quit after 20 minutes on the job?
That's great, but aren't there already more people equipped with computer skills than the market needs? America doesn't need more job-qualified people (at least, that's not the big problem), it needs jobs to put those people in to.
Whale
Microsoft on hiring American Workers: great for other people!
Microsoft is just grabbing the opportunity to train more devs and IT in advanced Microsoft products. After all, this is what ensures that companies use these products; that way, the companies don't have to pay for training.
They also use this tactic with student/academia discounts, also.... (MSDNAA, anyone?)
As it is, the problem isn't a lack of qualified individuals, but rather a lack of jobs for them. On the face of it, this looks like a complete failure of an idea. But they have a secret. You see, they will teach people to use only Microsoft technologies, and if everything goes right, these people will be unemployable in an IT environment. When the number of qualified IT people is lowered to the number of jobs, success!
At first, I was going to post about not berating Microsoft blindly. Then I RTFA... They have basic courses for free online, but anything past that is an advertisement for MS certs.
No point in getting skilled up in regular skills if they're just going to replace you with cheaper emplyees later.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
2 million more MCSE's.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Can step #1 be teaching everybody in my office that Caps lock is not the same as shift?
Also that you need to turn on num-lock to use the numpad?
Seriously...what ever happened to requiring basic computer skills to get an office job?
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Will Microsoft also be relocating those 2 million people to India so they can actually find jobs with their new skills?
i see no Cisco training, Apache, MySql, etc
but i do see training on Server2008 (woopee do)
this is just a fluff/feelgood PR initative, when really they want 2 millon mcse's/advocates/salespeople who only know about a single vendors product and are therefore ill equipped for the modern diverse IT industry.
there is more to IT than MS and a Mcse
The new online initiative, Elevate America, is set to equip close to 2 million people (over the next three years) with the skills needed to succeed in the field of technology.
So they are not trained in using Microsoft products?
Nigerian "Princes" have been using their computers to generate income for themselves for years now...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
... and install SilverLight!
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who reads this as "brace yourself for 2 million more unemployed MSCE's to dilute the IT field within the next 3 years". Sorry for the cynicism, but I see this as Microsoft trying to raise a generation of tech users and admins who know nothing of the tech world beyond Windows.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Seems like they're offering discount MS specific certifications, with a free retake if you fail. In short it seems like they're offering a whole load of taxdeductable services that relate to their own product lines, but with the PR and marketing machine that MS has behind them makes it look like they are actually helping America - good on them for trying.
I wonder if IBM or Oracle will have a similar strategy to "elevate" America?.....
Cause I'm having a hard time justifying a $200 OS for my $300 laptop ... at least in the Real America that most of us live in.
Oh, and no takebacks on the Elevation, like they did with the firings of their staff and the pay they "overpaid" ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Want to help more Americans become employed? How about you stop being such a vocal advocate for expanding H-1B visas?!?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Oh, so they'll be teaching them how to manage systems running real operating systems like AIX, Solaris, *BSD, and various flavors of Linux. Neat.
This is a good strategy for MS, much like what Apple had with school districts - teach as many people in ways that make them dependent on your proprietary technology as you can, and call it a public service.
In my opinion, the underlying problem in this economy is thus: The rich portion of the populace owns about as much as is possible before the economy collapses. Our market is based on speculation and expectation setting - on growth of money making schemes. But what happens when the players looking to take more resources run out of easy resources to grab? Collapse.
The poorer 3/4 of the country have spent about all they are going to spend, and have gone in about as deep a debt as is plasible. It no longer makes sense to lend more money, or leverage more resources in hopes of getting return from that process. The owning class already has already extracted as many resources as they easily can, and it would take death on the part of the poorest folks to free any more resources to grab.
The only way left to continue the desired cycle and free up credit would be to take resources from the rich, and give it to folks who would actually spend those resources in the process of just living day to day, which would open up the credit markets again, increase demand for products, and so on.
But we've seen what outrage occurs when that happens - the whole point of the market for the larger players is to extract more resources, not give money to the "undeserving!" So, we get schemes like those from Microsoft - push for further ownership of mindshare, and call it charity.
Ryan Fenton
"...The new online initiative, Elevate America, is set to equip close to 2 million people (over the next three years) with the skills needed to succeed in the field of technology."
This would have been better and on point:
"...The new online initiative, Elevate America, is set to equip close to 2 million people (over the next three years) with the skills needed to succeed in using Microsoft technologies to perpetuate their proliferation while increasing dependence on such technologies at the same time."
That's what I'd call a broad curriculum.
I can buy my own copy of Teach Yourself Visual Basic in 21 days.
It should read, "... is set to equip close to 2 million people (over the next three years) with the skills needed to succeed in the field of Microsoft technology."
Oh goddammit, figures I'd have to start grad school right before this started.
...because we can't get it up on our own.
There surely seems to be too many MCSEs around. But I think there are jobs available for setting up and running Linux servers. Perhaps that's Microsoft's plan?
The skills needed to succeed in technology are quite simple, "avoid Microsoft products". An army of drones employed to pour over Microsoft Knowledge Base articles is not a net boost to the economy.
Thanks to Microsoft for promoting the Broken Windows Fallacy one more time.
First off, of course computer sales are in a slump. They were in a slump during the last big economic downturn, too. (Remember the "bubble"?) That doesn't mean much of anything.
Second: Microsoft's slump is probably due more to peoples' general (and increasing) dissatisfaction with Microsoft than anything else. But the economy will hurt them, too. Maybe a lot. After all, a 5-year-old PC can run Linux just fine. But try Vista on it. Nope, didn't think so.
I would be willing to bet that Microsoft's slump lasts longer than any slump for Intel or AMD or Google.
And IBM? Who cares? When was the last time YOU bought something from IBM?
So they wan to help laid off workers, just not their own laid off workers?
Microsoft Bungles Severance, Asks Laid Off Workers for Money Back
How Microsoft-esque
Get rid of any trace of MS in your resume, and you'll have a better chance to land a nice, challenging and rewarding job. As soon as I dropped the very first years of my experience (I know!! I didn't know back then) from the resume, offers started flowing in. Do it, it works every time!
Some areas have large surpluses, others have large deficits. One area I'm familiar with with a deficit is anything to do with data analysis, due to the huge piles of data companies like Google and Facebook are building up that they don't do nearly as much with as they could. If you can convince a company that you're both technically competent when it comes to data mining, machine learning, etc., and have knowledge in some area that relates to something to do with it (marketing/customer stuff, artificial intelligence, even just information visualization), there are plenty of jobs.
Actually, in general, the best bet seems to be to have two useful skill areas that intersect in some reasonable way; really cuts down the competition as compared to going up against people in one area or the other in isolation.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Stupid UAC, look what it's come to. Now we have to elevate the entire COUNTRY just to make Vista usable.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Elevate America has two main offerings, one available immediately and one that will be provided in partnership with state governments
Translation: MS will get money earmarked for retraining programs in order to flood the market with MS trained workers, depressing the wages of the latter and making their "TCO" so much more attractive.
You have to admire a company that is able to screw us coming and going.
At my company, windoze admins are being laid off and linux admins are working overtime. If microsoft can help me develop and extend my linux skills portfolio I would appreciate it very much.
Don't worry! Our MCSA will solve all your problems!
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
It's fashionable to release stimulus packages at the moment. Everyone is doing it, why shouldn't Microsoft jump on the bandwagon. Of course those of a more cynical nature may construe this as just a trick to try and get more customers on board... The cynics may have something there.
The game remains the same but the presentation changes.
""" in partnership with state governments."""
I was wondering what MS's plans were for grabbing a share of the 700 billion.
The 'partnership' is that the state pays for the courses and for computers with Windows Vista/7 and Office 2007, and Microsoft gets the training revenue plus the software revenue plus a cut of the computer revenue and gets 2 million indoctrinated MS comsumers incapable of knowing anything else.
But didn't Microsoft just cut their workforce? http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=11561
I am sure it wasn't all in the US, but still one hand saying hey lets help American workers get the skills they need to get a job, and then cutting thousands of workers seems to be a bit conflicting in their messaging...
Microsoft doesnt care about whether or not Americans have jobs. Wasnt Bill Gates in the news recently bitching at Congress because he wants more H1B Visa workers allowed here?
...and I'll show you a man no one wants to work for. Multiply the offer by a factor of ten and you'll have the absolutely perfect people banging down your door. If you're having trouble finding someone in this economy, then either your offer is ridiculously low or your reputation precedes you.
Gee, Frank told me he can't find anyone to sell him a BMW for $500 with a credit score of 310. Clearly, the government needs to intervene to force those lazy Germans to sell the product of their labor to Frank...
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Full story http://www.infopackets.com/news/business/microsoft/2009/20090223_microsoft_unveils_its_own_economic_stimulus_plan.htm
I think some /.ers miss the point when they suggest this is about selling MS software. This is not about increasing MS revenue by selling more software, this is about increasing MS revenue by selling courses and certifications.
I am so pissed with MS lately, after Bill left they switched over from "certifying qualified people to support their products" to "selling certifications". Red Hat and Cisco certs are the way to go, they do a better job of testing real world experience, Red Hat being the best.
For the record I have the following certs, MCP, MCTS, MCITP: Enterprise Adminstrator, MCSA, MCSA: Messaging, MCSE, MCSE: Messaging.
Respect the Constitution
Several posters have mused that Microsoft's strategy is to flood the market with MSCEs and grow the market for themselves.
My general impression is that we've been hearing about organizations switching to Open Source solutions during the economic downturn due to lower costs.
Could this be Microsoft feeling threatened and reacting by counter-attacking?
Microsoft *is* big and is not going to die soon, that much is certain. But what's important is whether the trend is going up or down, and by how much. Being big just helps you control that (to some extent).
Ok, you get the axe, I'll get the pitchforks, torches, and angry villagers. Honestly, who could be less qualified to 'elevate' anyone in a technological sense. Microsoft impedes progress; they don't facilitate it. It's like Pol Pot claiming to be a champion of human rights, and starting a 'training program'.
If you're going to take a bunch of probably 30+ year olds and teach them semi-advanced and basic computer skills so they can do neat stuff, you might as well do it in Linux. I mean starting with almost no knowledge is sort of nice because basically the only reason I don't use Linux is I already know everything about Windows and don't feel like re-learning everything. So for others that don't already know windows inside and out, why not just teach em Linux? By the way, the other reason I don't use it is compatibility cuz I have to run certain programs that it doesn't support.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Really stimulating the economy would mean freezing their overseas hiring and rehiring their workers in the US. You can't really "Elevate America" if all you're doing is elevating China.
The bottom line about offshoring that employers still don't seem to be honest enough to admit is that it's all about money. It's not because they really want some amazingly skilled people overseas, so much so that they'd lay some guy in the US with the skills to currently deliver work off and pay him unemployment insurance...they want cheap workers. I work in a company that has some guys offshore. We don't employ them because they can do anything more than any of our guys we employ here, we employ our offshore team because the company I work with takes low bid flat fee projects from small businesses, and we give that work to those guys offshore because they work for the US equivalent of minimum wage. That holds true for any company trying to do things cheap.
You can pretty up resumes and offer cheap training all you want, but if you're not going to hire those people because you don't want to pay them, it's all for show. IMO, this is just a big public image stunt unless they're willing to directly place people in jobs.
Yep, a stimulus package "of its own" is correct.
Americans are to be stimulated to:
Seriously, where is the novelty in this list:
You have to hand it to them though, if anyone can find a silver... um, golden lining to a problem, it's MS.
It's time the geek stopped wallowing in his own FUD.
The Acer XP laptop with an Atom CPU, a 9" screen, 1 GB RAM and a 160 GB HDD is $298 at Walmart.com.
In six months to a year the OS will be Win 7, the specs significantly better, and the price will still be cheaper than OEM Linux.
The lone Linux netbook?
A Dell Inspiron with 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB of Flash for $350.
"Not sold in stores."
Micro. Soft. .... has finally surpassed themselves....
is the "field of technology?"
That sounds too much like it came from Dr. Science:
"I'm not a real doctor"
"He's got his Masters degree"
"In Science"
Just what I need, more competition for the inadequate number of jobs available to me.
How does one get the temperature below 0 degrees Kelvin?
When jokes fly above the heads of unsuspecting slashdotters, the ensuing endothermic reaction has been shown to lower temperatures past 0 degrees K.
The "woosh"-ing sound means it's working!
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/BMW
BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Works; German auto manufacturer)
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
1. Provide online training on how to write formatted email and other inane MS Office features
2. ???
3. Profit!
Yup, real gnome's underpants this one....
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Gates: Elevate me!
Ballmer: Now? Right here?
... now all I need is an email box in Nigeria and I'll be set to make millions.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That RedHat, Suse and the FSF come up with similar programs, both in breadth and # of persons reached.
That way, the computer Illiterate can choose what technology to learn, and are armed and ready when the ceconomy picks up in three years time...
And let's also hope that Microsoft, RedHat, Suse, the FSF, Cisco, Juniper, IBM, Oracle, Sun and the gang rememeber that this is a GLOBAL crisis, and launch similar programs worldwide....
Bridging the "digital divide" will only be good for America and for the World
Salud!
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
Are they really going to find 2 million people who are both:
a. capable of learning to be MSCEs, etc
b. interested in doing so?
BOOM! error. Of course this was in Firefox. I'll bet IE works fine. Oh well, I applaud them for try to educate. I will be getting my family members to participate. Hopefully it will eliminate some of the need for me to hold their hands in minor computing matters. Hopefully, one day we will be like the cheezy sci-fi flicks where pretty much everyone is able to perform minor programming tasks.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Skills do not matter when 100 unemployeed people with an IT/IS degree, who are all submitting all submitting resumes thru 3 headhunters for the same position. America isn't the land of the skill-less, it's the land of the IT/IS offshoring. IT/IS degree people are moving toward finding small businesses to work at. It's all about a job and less about career.
Where did you get your odd misunderstanding of basic economics ? [citation please]
In my client's building, a state government agency, with 800 total staff, about half are H1-Bs. OK, some of them may have green cards, but either way that's 400 Americans out of work. I go to Hartford for meetings at an insurance company sometimes. At quitting time, the ratio of people coming out must be 5 H1-Bs for every American (not buying insurance from that named-for-a-Connecticut-city company). I can't believe the .25% number is remotely accurate.
How many unemployed Americans do we need before something gets done about this?
Furthermore why would you spend $300 on Windows?
If you already own Windows it's between $60-140 to upgrade to Vista.
If you don't:
OEM Vista Ultimate costs $170.
OEM Vista Home Premium is $99.
If you want to use almost exclusively "free" software on top of a 'minimalistic OS' you can even get Vista Basic OEM for $89.
In 3 years will be 2012... I'd call it a hit. At least this time will be no one left to check if Microsoft this time said the truth or just released vaporware as usual.
I noticed some strange and very subtle ad's the other night whilst watching TV. Personally it offended me.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
It is clearly first step of Microsoft's infamous Elevate-Extend-Extinguish tactics.
Just wait till they aproach the third phase.
I came up with a stimulus plan of my own. It goes like this: Everyone, install firefox and delete your IE shortcuts. Then we won't have *every web development shop in the world* spending roughly 2x the necessary time on any given project to make up for its shortcomings.
Seriously, that would mean twice as many pieces of web-based software could be written in the same amount of time for the same amount of money, and would similarly drop the maintenance costs of the sites by roughly 1/2. Any web developer in the world* will agree that IE is the worst part of their job.
So there, the Isotope11 stimulus package. [http://www.isotope11.com] [yes, our site is terrible.]
* I obviously exclude people that build apps dependent on ActiveX controls from the rank of web developer, because God told me they suck.
-knewter
Seems to me that ms wants to suckle money from the Stimulus Package by giving false hope to tens of thousands of people who already have enormous competition from hundreds of thousands of already- ms-certified techhies out there who DO NOT need the extra competition, but who will suffer from the lower pay expectations of the newcomers.
Sounds like a quasi reach-around. People wanting to get into tech jobs can already go to local city/county/state offered programs. But, in making this "levitate/satiate/simulate Amerca" pitch of theirs, they probably hope someone in the Obama administration is green (or dumb) enough to say, "Hey, lets give ms some of that money and let them decide how to dole out the vouchers...." Only thing is is that ms as SURELy would love to get the money, and put the vouchers down to the lowers dollar amount they can get away with.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"The Web site provides access to several Microsoft online training programs, including how to use the Internet" - This is fantatic idea. Now anyone who can't use the internet can just go on the internet and...oh wait.
I am only saying that the H-1B program was misrepresented to the American voters. They were told there was a "shortage" of techies, not that it is to replace "C" citizens with "A" guest workers. If that is REALLY the purpose of the H-1B program, then lobbyists etc. should be honest about it. It appears voters have been lied to.
Table-ized A.I.
I am working on an open sourced business plan to create customized applications for various niche markets (I won't list them here, for someone else will compete with me and get a head start on me) for platforms that lack certain types of applications be they open sourced or commercial.
Then use those open sourced projects as templates to create customized versions of them that are tailored to the client's needs. Each client has different needs and commercial off the shelf software does not always fill those needs or may never fill those needs as they are mostly "one size fits all" projects that either have things the client doesn't need and doesn't want to pay for, or lacks the things they need but cannot be modified to include them.
Systems Integration will also be part of the business plan. For if these customized programs cannot work with other already designed programs, what good are they?
The business plan is to earn money off selling the services to customize the open source programs or build new ones and the client can pay money to release their code fork from open source to closed source and pay for service and support and customized programming. Each forked version will become a different version of the software, but have elements in common so that data can be migrated if one client buys out or merges with another client.
I've gotten tired of writing customized programs for big companies and small companies and not being paid what my IP is worth. I eventually became the disposable employee of migrating someone else's code and database and debugging and rewriting them so they crash less and run faster, only to be terminated after the projects are finished, then hired by another employer and repeat the cycle. The IP I had invented and created for them can be measured in the millions, and they got rid of the goose that laid the golden egg, all I am saying is that we should start to create our own IP and then sell our own golden eggs instead of being employed and being paid peanuts of a small salary for laying golden eggs only to be terminated after the projects are over or as soon as the company starts losing money whichever comes first.
I am not just another el cheapo code monkey with an IT degree, I get results, damn amazingly great results, commercial quality results, while the average code monkey will crank out "crap" sloppy code that crashes the system 12 times a day and runs really slow. I beg to differ by the quality of my code, compared to the "dime a dozen" programmers who only wish they can write code like I and a few others can. Offshore the programming jobs all they want, but when they want it done right and want it done the correct way they can call me in and pay me as a high priced consultant cleaning up the broken code and sloppy code and legacy issues with all of the old code so it runs better and rewriting it so it runs faster and crashes the system hardly ever.
I really don't need the Microsoft training, but I'll take it if they offer it for free. I'll also develop in Java, C++, Pascal, Python, PHP, and many other languages as well, because I know over 30 of them.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Wow. And I though "Genuine Advantage" was lame.
Say hello to my little sig.
the skills needed to succeed in the field of technology.
That means that Microsoft is finally teaching people Linux and open source?
The real plan:
1. Give away free platform shoes (made overseas)
2. Distribute free (unsold surplus) Zunes with DRMed "Best of Disco Era" tracks
3. During ensuing confusion & public distraction of mass pain from twisted ankles... profit!
Balmer: "Brilliant! Wadda we call it?"
Gate$: "'Elevate America' has a nice ring to it, nobody will suspect a thing"
Balmer: "sweeeeeet! can I throw some of the platform shoes at people?"
G$: "mmmmmm, should make a nice thud"
The purpose of H1B is to increase the number of A and B level tech workers so that the wage pressure is relieved. As a nice side benefit, H1Bs are less mobile, so you can drive them harder.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
[snip] voters have been lied to.
O RLY? Call the media!!! It's not like this has ever happened before!
$ make available
They got the E part wrong in the name. It should be "Embrace America". Or are we on "Extend America" now?
I'm supposed to take a class in Internet literacy from someone who can't code a form that will work in anything but IE? And they tell me the problem is pedagogical. System requirements:
What if I donâ(TM)t use Microsoft products, or have older versions installed?
Since Digital Literacy simulates software user environments, pedagogically, it doesnâ(TM)t require a specific application software or operating system to be installed for use. However, the practice exercises in the instructorâ(TM)s manual assume that students have access to Office and Windows. Instructors report that greater retention of ICT concepts occurs when students are able to reinforce learning with hands-on practice.
The only software required to run either version of Digital Literacy is a minimum of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, which is available to users of Windows XP Service Pack 2(SP2) and later. The curriculum also works with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. If you plan to use the Microsoft Word download versions of the curriculum, you must have Microsoft Word 2002 or later installed.
I am sure that your crap training will undo all the lobbing you have done before congress to increase the H1-B visas. What a bunch of Bullshit!. If you wanna make a contribution why don't you give away that so called operating system you guys make. Oh that right I would use it anyway... -avattathil
As part of its "stimulus package" would Microsoft forego the repayments it is asking from laid-off employees?
It is a stimulus in reality for both Microsoft and the ex-employee:
Microsoft gains a HUGE PR which even the Seinfeld actor can't provide, which translates to sales.
The laid-off guy has a bonus.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Look everyone, MS seems to have some good intentions. Let's bash them for trying to improve people's lives and coming up with an idea that Google and Apple haven't! How dare they?
/me Goes back to brown-nosing Steve Jobs.
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
A quick search on google shows Ultimate avaliable from between $175 and $245, but usually around $200. Parent claimed $200 not $300 for windows, the $300 was the laptop price. Also, WTF does free software have to do with Vista Basic?
is a breech of the license.
Are you telling people to pirate software???
The problem I see in this is that, knowing microsoft as we all do, for years and years of FUD and mischief, they are NOT going to equip america with technology skills. They are going to equip america with Microsoft skills, thats a big difference. They wont teach these people how to work with computer, to understand the basis of computer science. No, they will teach them how to be a MCP or a MCT. Yes these people will probably get a job, well I hope so for them. The only thing that depress me is that it will create more Microsoft Cappies (guys wearing a microsoft cap)
Microsoft? They've already Embraced and Extended America, so now they are on that third thing... Elevate (yeah, that's the ticket).
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
what is it with Microsft and the word 'compelling'?
I work in a big city (Canada) and make a decent enough wage, especially for the current economic situation. When we were interviewing, a large portion of the candidates were - frankly - rather pathetic.
Supposed IT professionals who didn't know the names of the parts in their computer, or thought that knowing HTML made them a hot-shot programmer (lefover dot-bombers?). We had plenty of people show up who didn't even come close to meeting the listed skill requirements, and just wasted our time listing "alternative" experience from about a decade ago.
I know there are quite a number of MCSE's etc out there (and I'm more of a Unix/Linux shop type), but even then I've seen few with actual skills. While my own Windows administration skills have become a bit rusty over the years in favor of Unix, I wouldn't trust a lot of the so-called experts to fix my desktop let alone run my server!
So though I keep hearing about all these skilled workers out there, I wonder where they all are. Seems to me that the market has created a lot of people with a few pieces of paper claiming to be experts, but I haven't much of the real thing around here.
Thats why they needed money back from their laid-off employees, they needed to pay for their programs to find everyone else employment! The leaders at Microsoft are truly saints of our time!
The 1,400 former-MS employees are the current beta testing program. (BTW, don't forget to send your severance checks back!)
Muwha ha ha ha
If we're dealing with "observable" or "apparent" temperatures, there's an argument for assigning negative "apparent" absolute temperatures to matter that's beyond an observational horizon.
As a rough generalisation, the apparent temperature of a body, as seen by a distant observer, drops towards absolute zero as it approaches a horizon. Actually, Hawking radiation generates a "Hawking temperature" that complicates things, but we'll start with an idealised classical vacuum.
Once the body's passed the horizon by a significant distance, you can't see it at its actual position: you can only see an apparent temperature for it that belongs to it's earlier state near the horizon, so the "apparent temperature" for its current position seems at first sight to be "null".
However, it we take a mixture of gases, with positive and "null" temperatures, we find that the final equilibrium state for the gas presents a visible mean temperature whose value depends on how far beyond lightspeed the receding component of the gas was initially moving. In other words, for thermodynamic calculations to work across a horizon, the "initially-not-directly-visible" material has to be assigned a negative absolute temperature.
For intelligibility, we might want to refer to these negative Kelvin values as "virtual" temperatures, because normally they can't be observed directly, and can only be measured by the result of their their interactions with observably positive-temperature material.
The concept of virtual (negative) temperatures probably doesn't have much use in special relativity, but it becomes relevant when we're dealing with cosmological or gravitational horizons, or quantum mechanics (or acoustic metrics).
In some fields of physics, the properties of matter with supposed superluminal speeds tend to be assigned imaginary values. The observable effects of Brownian motion in a body of gas straddling a cosmological horizon (with information migrating across the horizon as a result of classical processes that appear in an observerspace projection as non-classical and acausal) is actually quite a good way of visualising classical Hawking radiation. When a gas molecule that's nominally behind a horizon gets knocked towards the observer and ends up nominally in front of the horizon, within observerspace geometry, it'll appear to be the result of a particle-pair production event.
So understanding these negative virtual temperatures is a handy bridge toward understanding how some familiar quantum-mechanical descriptions can be generated from (hypothetical) classical underlying processes.
Eric Baird
please clarify
Table-ized A.I.
If we want to compete in a world economy, we have to attract and keep the best minds in the world, whether they come from Kansas or Mumbai. Think back a little bit and you'll realize that the US has been actively recruiting the best and brightest it can from other nations for decades, to the benefit of those of us native-born. We give them a path to become citizens, they give us the expertise and innovation that help propel our economy into the next decade. Then they give us money in the form of taxes. They'd rather live here for various reasons, most having to do with our standard of living and the Bill of Rights and we don't have to push our birthrate to a rate we can't support in the hopes that 1 in 1,000 babies born will be a decent engineer.
Immigration is not the problem. I say let them come and I'll compete and work with them...after all, I'm not exactly a Native American from an ancient tribe myself.