Given Apple's strict prohibition against virtualizing OS X, it seems hard for Apple fans to complain if Microsoft is doing the same to Apple.
However, as someone who is using virtualization software, I have to say, I doubt they have anything to fear. Virtualization software is non-trivial to set up, has spotty hardware support, has performance hits (particularly for I/O), uses lots of memory, and results in inconsistent UIs and unpleasant window management. I doubt that Microsoft is seriously worried about virtualization on OS X.
The government may have a recording of it, but they probably don't actively know they have it.
Not yet. Right now, sifting through that data takes a lot of manual work. In a few years, it will be as simple as saying "please show me all CCTV footage following John Smith (#432980423) throughout March 17, 2005."
"I have a movie of you meeting with someone else, mwahaaha!"
"Mr. Smith, here are 35 clips over a span of 5 years showing you going into restaurants where known terrorists were holding conspiratory meetings at the same time. What can you say in your defense?"
"Mr. Smith, so you claim that you have detected financial irregularities in the Jones government. Well, here are 17 clips of you meeting with your mistress. We'll introduce these into court to show that you are of bad moral character. The court may throw them out, but people will still know about them. well, of course, we wouldn't have to if you just did the right thing and resigned from your position."
I like todo this to people in public, mimmick things they're saying to each other "Oh John I love you" "Love? I can't find love, where are my car keys?"...
Sure it is. More importantly, these documents can be used for political blackmail.
I don't think you get how widespread selective presentation of evidence, blackmail, and political blackmail are in the legal and political system. A CCTV network that can record every public place is a huge problem.
we can always use venus or saturns moons or something if we screw up mars.
No, we can't. Venus cannot be terraformed. And Saturn's moons are out of the habitable zone.
Mars is the only planet we will likely ever have the opportunity to terraform. There is no reason to rush that. We can wait a few thousand years until we get it right. Until then, domes are fine.
I apologise my misuse of certain terms with their full meaning of things. English isn't my native language. By terraforming areas I understand things to include changing the atmosphere of area, like raining and seasons, not just adding some water.
So do I. That's why "terraforming" was in quotes.
Building a pumping station and running pipes to Sahara isn't that much of terraforming, it's just irrigation.
Quite right; and we demonstrably can't even get something as simple as irrigation right without turning land into desert; what makes you think we can terraform a planet?
nature will take its own shape when required to survive
Except for maybe some microbes, there is nothing on Mars that can "survive", and Mars lacks all of the homeostasis involving living organisms on Earth. Furthermore, several times in Earth's history, nature essentially just died for a few million years. Big, bad things can and do happen to life on a planetary scale. Worse yet, humans are getting numerous and powerful enough to make them happen.
It won't be a short time period to terraform a planet. If we decide to start it, there might not be humans around to see Mars with nature of any sort
Quite right. And that's a good reason not to start terraforming Mars, because we might turn it from a planet that potentially supports colonies (under domes) in a few centuries into a planet that remains unstable and uncolonizable for tens of thousands of years.
The difference is about 30 times, not "several hundreds".
That's because you measure at the bottom of a basin, and I did a rough estimate in my head.
In any case, you're missing the point. After hundreds of millions of years of strong evolutionary pressure, no higher life forms have settled environments above about 6.5km, even though those environments are easily accessible, have plenty of water, and plenty of energy. It's pretty safe to assume that complex terrestrial life simply isn't compatible with those environments.
The Martian atmosphere is 95% CO2, whereas the air on Earth only has about 0.3% of CO2. That makes the partial pressure of CO2 ten times higher on the bottom of Hellas Planita than on top of Mount Everest!
That's nice, but CO2 concentrations are almost certainly not the limiting factor for complex life at high altitude.
Because there are to many riskfactors involved in projects like these. Changing course of water streams that used to go to Sahara could cause other areas that are now fertile and have water to become deserts. This could cause huge amount of starving people in places that are now densily populated.
So, you're saying we can't even figure out how to irrigate the desert without causing a major disaster elsewhere. Well, you're right. Now, if our understanding of the environment is so poor that we can't even redirect a bit of water to irrigate, what makes you think that humans have anywhere near the necessary skill to terraform a planet successfully?
You don't get a do over on terraforming; once the CO2 and water has been released, you can't put them back again where they were. You may end up with a frigid and useless atmosphere and useless puddles of dirty, poisonous water, when in their current, solid form, these materials could have supported thriving Martian colonies.
You can't "terraform" a desert... you can only terraform a planet.
Geez, dunces like you really need to have it spelled out for them, don't they? Sarcasm goes right over your head, doesn't it?
Of course, we can't "terraform" earth because it already has a nearly ideal atmosphere and temperature for growing plants, and we still can't keep the Sahara from growing, let alone replanting it.
You really just don't get how hostile Mars actually is. On average, at the summit of Mt. Everest, air pressure is several hundred times what it is on Mars, and it's 60F warmer than on Mars, and nothing grows there. Antarctica is even balmier than Mt. Everest, and still nothing significant grows there. And those places at least have plenty of clean water.
Lawyers are officers of the court. They may not advise clients to perpetrate a fraud on the court any more then they can advise clients to destroy evidence in a criminal trial.
This lawyer is holding a seminar, he isn't advising a client. If he were advising a client, you wouldn't be seeing this on YouTube, and it wouldn't be held in a conference room at the Hilton.
No, their stated goal is not to find a qualified and interested US worker. I quote from the video clip: (at about 1:50):
Yes, that is their stated goal for that specific part of the green card process; furthermore, "qualified" refers to someone who is qualified in the sense of the literal job ad, not in the sense of being able to do the job. That is why the job posting needs to be written carefully to exclude people who are nominally qualified but actually can't do the job.
You think that indicates bad faith because you don't understand the process. But the lawyer is just being sarcastic about a specific, useless requirement of the green card process, a requirement that is unlikely to get any American a job no matter how many newspaper ads the company posts and no matter how many weeks the company HR department wastes on reviewing crappy resumes.
I'll say it again: you can be certain that almost every one of those companies is desperately and actively looking for US workers even while doing exactly what the lawyer advises for their green card applications. And that shows that they are acting in good faith in the way the law intends.
Running OS X I'm sure it is but its not the type of thing you want to risk. This isn't a teenage demonstration of bravado here. This phone is a big deal for Apple and Apple isn't taking any chances.
I've had smart phones for many years, some of them with rather crappy operating systems; I have yet to see a single third party application causing problems.
No, the real reason Apple doesn't want uncontrolled third party apps is the same reason they don't want them on the iPods: their business models are based on keeping those devices proprietary and making it hard for people to use other services and software with their hardware.
How the hell can you not see the difference between doing something IN PUBLIC verses doing something PRIVATE?
I sure as hell don't. If you have CCTV cameras everywhere in public places, you simply cannot meet anybody in private anymore without the government knowing about it and recording it. And you can't meet in public places without people being able to reframe and reinterpret those meetings to your disadvantage.
Can't anybody who doesn't want the German government to read their mail just sign up with gmail.com or yahoo.com?
(Granted, the US government will likely read their mail, but the US government is not likely to be that interested in what Germans do in Germany unless it affects the US.)
One thing he left out though was in addition to bricking phones, crappilly made 3rd party apps can cause instability and resets that cause the customer to return the phone for a new unit.
So, you're saying that the iPhone OS is not capable of preventing crappily made apps from causing instability and resets? Sounds like a serious problem with the iPhone OS to me.
+ nice UI + nice screen + small + nice music/video player + looks good
- very expensive compared to other phones - no 3G - no unlocking or portability to other carriers - no GPS - forced to use, and register with, iTunes - no touch typing - bad camera - two year lock - very limited programmability - I don't like being lied to by Jobs about why the iPhone isn't programmable
Lack of programmability means that I don't get a number of things I have had on every phone for the last several years: an open source password safe, an SSH and VNC client, and a good e-book reader.
I expect that there will be a whole range of really exciting new phones coming out, some of which have been in the pipeline, and others inspired by the iPhone. I think this is the wrong time to lock myself into a 2 year contract, in particular at that price.
You completely misunderstand the concept of good faith. [...] In this case the lawyers made explicit motives contrary to the law as it stands.
First of all, the intent of the lawyer doesn't matter, what matters is the intent and the good faith of the company posting the job.
Second, any company sitting in the audience is likely spending millions on recruiters, headhunters, college relations, and internship programs in the US. That means that they are complying in good faith with the intent of the law--to give US residents priority at those jobs--and that's what counts. The fact that they are trying to minimize the number of crappy responses they are going to get in response to a legally required but useless newspaper ad campaign doesn't change that.
And if the company couldn't just reach over into the "bring in a foreign worker" pile, the would be forced to offer a higher salary and greater benefits to entice someone to consider the position they are trying to fill.
Yes, and then they would be competing against companies with lower labor costs and better engineers overseas. Or, if they are a multinational, they simply would hire the person overseas and shrink their US operation accordingly.
US engineers are competing globally. If you want to keep salaries for US engineers high, the best thing to do is to get as many skilled engineers from other nations to come to the US and work here, at whatever salary the market picks. That's because even if they depress engineering wages in the US, they are still going to make a lot more money than if they worked in their countries of origin. Furthermore, by getting the best and the brightest to come to the US, companies can actually afford to stay in the US; the more the US tightens immigration, the more companies move overseas.
People like you still have this quaint notion that the US somehow owns particular industries and can pay whatever salaries it wants. But the US is competing globally. How many more industries does the US have to lose to other nations before people like you figure it out?
On a personal level that means that if you're a US engineer and you aren't absolutely stellar, you better hone your burger flipping skills because that will be your future job prospects, no matter what US immigration policy is.
The H1B visa is a non-immigrant temporary worker visa. That's its purpose and reason for existence.
"Dual-intent" is a pragmatic recognition that immigrants have no choice but to work temporarily on H1B's. However, the purpose of H1B is still temporary work, not immigration.
The video is only about green cards. The H1b discussion is an unrelated side-issue.
but the article you linked to implies they can only change if they're already in the process of applying for a green card, i.e. they're approaching to the point where the 'indenture' ends anyway.
Even if you don't have a pending green card application, changing jobs on an H1b isn't a big deal (I have done it). It just means that your new employer needs to get an H1b for you, just like your old employer did. The only obstacles ever are processing delays at the DHS and H1b visa availability.
What the article is saying is that it's even easier once you have your green card application filed--your new employer doesn't even have to get an H1b for you. Also, many employers will file H1b and green card applications at the same time (that didn't use to be possible), so that this usually happens quite quickly.
I look at the video and see a lawyer counseling his client on how to present the appearance of following the law while avoiding actually carrying out the obligations of the law. This seems to me the very essense of bad faith
"Good faith" legally means posting in Sunday newspapers, reviewing the resulting applications, and rejecting applicants for not meeting specific requirements. That's what companies are doing. And in my experience, if they get a good application in the process, they will actually interview that person.
Real-world high-tech recruiting efforts, of course, do not usually involve posting in Sunday newspapers or rejecting applicants for not meeting specific requirements, they involve extensive networking and Internet postings, and rejecting applicants that make a bad impression in interviews. But those efforts don't satisfy the law.
So, companies are trying to do both at the same time. What the lawyer is talking about is to make sure that a company doesn't end up being forced to hire someone who is nominally qualified but who wouldn't stand a chance of making the cut if he applied otherwise. What the lawyer is also talking about is minimizing the number of crappy applications the company gets because every application that comes in in response to a newspaper ad requires legally careful scrutiny by the HR department and HR departments simply don't have the manpower to do that for hundreds of applications.
I am not a lawyer, nor I assume are you, so we may not have any way of establishing which of us is correct.
I agree with you that this law firm stepped out of line in their choice of words, and that may even legally establish "bad faith". And I have no idea whether the law firm itself is reputable or has reputable clients. But that's not the issue.
Even if they had chosen their words more carefully, the result would have been the same: companies need to minimize the number of crappy applications they get, and they need to make damned sure that they have strict statements of required qualifications so that they aren't forced to hire people who can't do the job.
That's a hand wave, not an argument. Can you site any actual treaties that the US is a signatory to that would prohibit our current green card process?
That's not what you asked. You asked whether I denied the right of nations to enact [arbitrary] protectionist laws, and I do; the membership treaty in the WTO does, for example. Additionally (and you didn't ask for this), I also pointed out that, while not yet prohibited by treaty, human rights in principle limit the ability of nations to enact arbitrary trade and immigration laws. The US can fail to comply with international human rights (as it does on other occasions), but that doesn't change the existence of those rights.
By the way, my beef here is not with the green card applicants, it is with the companies seeking to evade the law, and espcially with lawyers counseling their clients to evade the law.
Green card applications are something tied to the individual, so your beef is indeed with individual immigrants. The reason companies get involved in it at all is because it's gotten so hard and costly already that individuals can't do it anymore. Now, you want to ratchet up the requirements another few steps by interpreting green card applications in an even more convoluted way. When is this madness going to stop? Are you only satisfied when the only people who immigrate are illegal or very rich? Because that's where people like you are driving the process.
I've seen this in play: an H1-B is a very powerful hold over an employee to ensure loyalty
There are two major kinds of work visas: H1b and green cards.
H1b visas may (or may not) give companies a "very powerful hold", but we aren't discussing H1b visas. H1b visas don't even require job postings; the company can just self-certify that it couldn't find anybody.
These companies are trying to get green cards for their employees. Green cards give their employees the same rights as US citizens in employment. These lawyers are trying to help people get green cards as quickly as possible, removing any hold that the employer would have over them.
Now, you can argue whether the lawyers are acting technically in bad faith, or even actually in bad faith, but to assert that they are doing this to "keep salary costs down" makes no sense. If they wanted to "keep salary costs down" by controlling people through H1b visas, they'd not apply for a green card, or they'd try to drag out the green card application for as long as possible.
I think this is the crux of the matter: by law the company is required to prefer a US citizen.
Yes, they are required to do so within the parameters of immigration law; this lawyer is telling companies what those parameters are. In addition to formally complying with immigration law, most US companies are also strongly recruiting US residents, simply because it's cheaper. So, you have compliance with the law and good faith efforts to recruit US residents in general. What else do you want?
Green card applicants do not have the same status as green card holders and an H1-B does not guarentee that you will eventually get a green card no matter how many years you invested in it. Are these protectionist laws? Absolutely. Do you deny the right of nations to enact protectionist laws?
Actually, the right to enact protectionist laws are limited both by treaties and by universally accepted human rights. Although not widely realized yet, there's growing recognition in international law and ethics that persons do acquire a right to permanent residency and citizenship through presence.
Again this suggests that you have not actually watched the video in question. The lawyers explicitly provide advice on how to eliminiate applications from qualified US citzens.
I did watch the video. They are giving their clients advice on valid reasons to turn down applications they don't want. Companies need to know that because if they use the wrong reason to turn down a US applicant they don't want, both the company and the green card applicant are in deep trouble.
(In fact, companies may turn down a US applicant as part of the green card process and invite him separately for an interview for a different position.)
Does the convenience for the company and the desire of the green card applicant automatically trump the law?
Legally, as far as I can tell, the lawyer gives advice about how to stay just within the law; you may disagree with his motivations, but that's a different question.
Ethically, we aren't talking about "convenience" or "desire" here, we are talking about a commitment by a company to an immigrant to get the a green card, a commitment that, if they can't fulfill it, potentially hurts the company badly and can completely destroy the immigrant's life. The time to consider large numbers of US applicants is before the green card application, not afterwards, and that's when companies do it. They do so because US residents are a lot cheaper and less trouble to hire than green card applicants.
Not if they want a green card. Until they pass a certain milestone late in the green card process, which may take anywhere from 1 to 5 years to get there, they can't change jobs without restarting the green card process.
That used to be the case when I was applying, but I think that's not true anymore either. Nowadays, I think there are just some shorter periods during which you shouldn't change jobs.
But those who want a green card are chained to their employers for years.
Even if you have to restart the process for some reason, that's hardly "being chained" (as I know from personal experience).
In any case, I think we can agree that the best way of fixing the process then is to make the green card process more efficient and less bureaucratic. And just maybe that would include dropping the "job advertising" requirement:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Given Apple's strict prohibition against virtualizing OS X, it seems hard for Apple fans to complain if Microsoft is doing the same to Apple.
However, as someone who is using virtualization software, I have to say, I doubt they have anything to fear. Virtualization software is non-trivial to set up, has spotty hardware support, has performance hits (particularly for I/O), uses lots of memory, and results in inconsistent UIs and unpleasant window management. I doubt that Microsoft is seriously worried about virtualization on OS X.
The government may have a recording of it, but they probably don't actively know they have it.
Not yet. Right now, sifting through that data takes a lot of manual work. In a few years, it will be as simple as saying "please show me all CCTV footage following John Smith (#432980423) throughout March 17, 2005."
"I have a movie of you meeting with someone else, mwahaaha!"
"Mr. Smith, here are 35 clips over a span of 5 years showing you going into restaurants where known terrorists were holding conspiratory meetings at the same time. What can you say in your defense?"
"Mr. Smith, so you claim that you have detected financial irregularities in the Jones government. Well, here are 17 clips of you meeting with your mistress. We'll introduce these into court to show that you are of bad moral character. The court may throw them out, but people will still know about them. well, of course, we wouldn't have to if you just did the right thing and resigned from your position."
I like todo this to people in public, mimmick things they're saying to each other "Oh John I love you" "Love? I can't find love, where are my car keys?"...
Sure it is. More importantly, these documents can be used for political blackmail.
I don't think you get how widespread selective presentation of evidence, blackmail, and political blackmail are in the legal and political system. A CCTV network that can record every public place is a huge problem.
These days, however, giant squares roam the halls of corporate IT.
you dont learn if you dont try
There is no rush.
we can always use venus or saturns moons or something if we screw up mars.
No, we can't. Venus cannot be terraformed. And Saturn's moons are out of the habitable zone.
Mars is the only planet we will likely ever have the opportunity to terraform. There is no reason to rush that. We can wait a few thousand years until we get it right. Until then, domes are fine.
I apologise my misuse of certain terms with their full meaning of things. English isn't my native language. By terraforming areas I understand things to include changing the atmosphere of area, like raining and seasons, not just adding some water.
So do I. That's why "terraforming" was in quotes.
Building a pumping station and running pipes to Sahara isn't that much of terraforming, it's just irrigation.
Quite right; and we demonstrably can't even get something as simple as irrigation right without turning land into desert; what makes you think we can terraform a planet?
nature will take its own shape when required to survive
Except for maybe some microbes, there is nothing on Mars that can "survive", and Mars lacks all of the homeostasis involving living organisms on Earth. Furthermore, several times in Earth's history, nature essentially just died for a few million years. Big, bad things can and do happen to life on a planetary scale. Worse yet, humans are getting numerous and powerful enough to make them happen.
It won't be a short time period to terraform a planet. If we decide to start it, there might not be humans around to see Mars with nature of any sort
Quite right. And that's a good reason not to start terraforming Mars, because we might turn it from a planet that potentially supports colonies (under domes) in a few centuries into a planet that remains unstable and uncolonizable for tens of thousands of years.
The difference is about 30 times, not "several hundreds".
That's because you measure at the bottom of a basin, and I did a rough estimate in my head.
In any case, you're missing the point. After hundreds of millions of years of strong evolutionary pressure, no higher life forms have settled environments above about 6.5km, even though those environments are easily accessible, have plenty of water, and plenty of energy. It's pretty safe to assume that complex terrestrial life simply isn't compatible with those environments.
The Martian atmosphere is 95% CO2, whereas the air on Earth only has about 0.3% of CO2. That makes the partial pressure of CO2 ten times higher on the bottom of Hellas Planita than on top of Mount Everest!
That's nice, but CO2 concentrations are almost certainly not the limiting factor for complex life at high altitude.
Because there are to many riskfactors involved in projects like these. Changing course of water streams that used to go to Sahara could cause other areas that are now fertile and have water to become deserts. This could cause huge amount of starving people in places that are now densily populated.
So, you're saying we can't even figure out how to irrigate the desert without causing a major disaster elsewhere. Well, you're right. Now, if our understanding of the environment is so poor that we can't even redirect a bit of water to irrigate, what makes you think that humans have anywhere near the necessary skill to terraform a planet successfully?
You don't get a do over on terraforming; once the CO2 and water has been released, you can't put them back again where they were. You may end up with a frigid and useless atmosphere and useless puddles of dirty, poisonous water, when in their current, solid form, these materials could have supported thriving Martian colonies.
You can't "terraform" a desert... you can only terraform a planet.
Geez, dunces like you really need to have it spelled out for them, don't they? Sarcasm goes right over your head, doesn't it?
Of course, we can't "terraform" earth because it already has a nearly ideal atmosphere and temperature for growing plants, and we still can't keep the Sahara from growing, let alone replanting it.
You really just don't get how hostile Mars actually is. On average, at the summit of Mt. Everest, air pressure is several hundred times what it is on Mars, and it's 60F warmer than on Mars, and nothing grows there. Antarctica is even balmier than Mt. Everest, and still nothing significant grows there. And those places at least have plenty of clean water.
Why don't we "terraform" the Sahara desert, the Gobi desert, Antarctica, and the various dust bowls around the world before trying to tackle Mars.
Right now, we can't even keep existing, fertile land from turning into desert right here on earth, with plenty of water and air around.
Lawyers are officers of the court. They may not advise clients to perpetrate a fraud on the court any more then they can advise clients to destroy evidence in a criminal trial.
This lawyer is holding a seminar, he isn't advising a client. If he were advising a client, you wouldn't be seeing this on YouTube, and it wouldn't be held in a conference room at the Hilton.
No, their stated goal is not to find a qualified and interested US worker. I quote from the video clip: (at about 1:50):
Yes, that is their stated goal for that specific part of the green card process; furthermore, "qualified" refers to someone who is qualified in the sense of the literal job ad, not in the sense of being able to do the job. That is why the job posting needs to be written carefully to exclude people who are nominally qualified but actually can't do the job.
You think that indicates bad faith because you don't understand the process. But the lawyer is just being sarcastic about a specific, useless requirement of the green card process, a requirement that is unlikely to get any American a job no matter how many newspaper ads the company posts and no matter how many weeks the company HR department wastes on reviewing crappy resumes.
I'll say it again: you can be certain that almost every one of those companies is desperately and actively looking for US workers even while doing exactly what the lawyer advises for their green card applications. And that shows that they are acting in good faith in the way the law intends.
Running OS X I'm sure it is but its not the type of thing you want to risk. This isn't a teenage demonstration of bravado here. This phone is a big deal for Apple and Apple isn't taking any chances.
I've had smart phones for many years, some of them with rather crappy operating systems; I have yet to see a single third party application causing problems.
No, the real reason Apple doesn't want uncontrolled third party apps is the same reason they don't want them on the iPods: their business models are based on keeping those devices proprietary and making it hard for people to use other services and software with their hardware.
How the hell can you not see the difference between doing something IN PUBLIC verses doing something PRIVATE?
I sure as hell don't. If you have CCTV cameras everywhere in public places, you simply cannot meet anybody in private anymore without the government knowing about it and recording it. And you can't meet in public places without people being able to reframe and reinterpret those meetings to your disadvantage.
Can't anybody who doesn't want the German government to read their mail just sign up with gmail.com or yahoo.com?
(Granted, the US government will likely read their mail, but the US government is not likely to be that interested in what Germans do in Germany unless it affects the US.)
One thing he left out though was in addition to bricking phones, crappilly made 3rd party apps can cause instability and resets that cause the customer to return the phone for a new unit.
So, you're saying that the iPhone OS is not capable of preventing crappily made apps from causing instability and resets? Sounds like a serious problem with the iPhone OS to me.
The way I look at it is the following:
+ nice UI
+ nice screen
+ small
+ nice music/video player
+ looks good
- very expensive compared to other phones
- no 3G
- no unlocking or portability to other carriers
- no GPS
- forced to use, and register with, iTunes
- no touch typing
- bad camera
- two year lock
- very limited programmability
- I don't like being lied to by Jobs about why the iPhone isn't programmable
Lack of programmability means that I don't get a number of things I have had on every phone for the last several years: an open source password safe, an SSH and VNC client, and a good e-book reader.
I expect that there will be a whole range of really exciting new phones coming out, some of which have been in the pipeline, and others inspired by the iPhone. I think this is the wrong time to lock myself into a 2 year contract, in particular at that price.
You completely misunderstand the concept of good faith. [...] In this case the lawyers made explicit motives contrary to the law as it stands.
First of all, the intent of the lawyer doesn't matter, what matters is the intent and the good faith of the company posting the job.
Second, any company sitting in the audience is likely spending millions on recruiters, headhunters, college relations, and internship programs in the US. That means that they are complying in good faith with the intent of the law--to give US residents priority at those jobs--and that's what counts. The fact that they are trying to minimize the number of crappy responses they are going to get in response to a legally required but useless newspaper ad campaign doesn't change that.
And if the company couldn't just reach over into the "bring in a foreign worker" pile, the would be forced to offer a higher salary and greater benefits to entice someone to consider the position they are trying to fill.
Yes, and then they would be competing against companies with lower labor costs and better engineers overseas. Or, if they are a multinational, they simply would hire the person overseas and shrink their US operation accordingly.
US engineers are competing globally. If you want to keep salaries for US engineers high, the best thing to do is to get as many skilled engineers from other nations to come to the US and work here, at whatever salary the market picks. That's because even if they depress engineering wages in the US, they are still going to make a lot more money than if they worked in their countries of origin. Furthermore, by getting the best and the brightest to come to the US, companies can actually afford to stay in the US; the more the US tightens immigration, the more companies move overseas.
People like you still have this quaint notion that the US somehow owns particular industries and can pay whatever salaries it wants. But the US is competing globally. How many more industries does the US have to lose to other nations before people like you figure it out?
On a personal level that means that if you're a US engineer and you aren't absolutely stellar, you better hone your burger flipping skills because that will be your future job prospects, no matter what US immigration policy is.
The H1B visa is a non-immigrant temporary worker visa. That's its purpose and reason for existence.
"Dual-intent" is a pragmatic recognition that immigrants have no choice but to work temporarily on H1B's. However, the purpose of H1B is still temporary work, not immigration.
The article and the summary talk about both.
The video is only about green cards. The H1b discussion is an unrelated side-issue.
but the article you linked to implies they can only change if they're already in the process of applying for a green card, i.e. they're approaching to the point where the 'indenture' ends anyway.
Even if you don't have a pending green card application, changing jobs on an H1b isn't a big deal (I have done it). It just means that your new employer needs to get an H1b for you, just like your old employer did. The only obstacles ever are processing delays at the DHS and H1b visa availability.
What the article is saying is that it's even easier once you have your green card application filed--your new employer doesn't even have to get an H1b for you. Also, many employers will file H1b and green card applications at the same time (that didn't use to be possible), so that this usually happens quite quickly.
I look at the video and see a lawyer counseling his client on how to present the appearance of following the law while avoiding actually carrying out the obligations of the law. This seems to me the very essense of bad faith
"Good faith" legally means posting in Sunday newspapers, reviewing the resulting applications, and rejecting applicants for not meeting specific requirements. That's what companies are doing. And in my experience, if they get a good application in the process, they will actually interview that person.
Real-world high-tech recruiting efforts, of course, do not usually involve posting in Sunday newspapers or rejecting applicants for not meeting specific requirements, they involve extensive networking and Internet postings, and rejecting applicants that make a bad impression in interviews. But those efforts don't satisfy the law.
So, companies are trying to do both at the same time. What the lawyer is talking about is to make sure that a company doesn't end up being forced to hire someone who is nominally qualified but who wouldn't stand a chance of making the cut if he applied otherwise. What the lawyer is also talking about is minimizing the number of crappy applications the company gets because every application that comes in in response to a newspaper ad requires legally careful scrutiny by the HR department and HR departments simply don't have the manpower to do that for hundreds of applications.
I am not a lawyer, nor I assume are you, so we may not have any way of establishing which of us is correct.
I agree with you that this law firm stepped out of line in their choice of words, and that may even legally establish "bad faith". And I have no idea whether the law firm itself is reputable or has reputable clients. But that's not the issue.
Even if they had chosen their words more carefully, the result would have been the same: companies need to minimize the number of crappy applications they get, and they need to make damned sure that they have strict statements of required qualifications so that they aren't forced to hire people who can't do the job.
That's a hand wave, not an argument. Can you site any actual treaties that the US is a signatory to that would prohibit our current green card process?
That's not what you asked. You asked whether I denied the right of nations to enact [arbitrary] protectionist laws, and I do; the membership treaty in the WTO does, for example. Additionally (and you didn't ask for this), I also pointed out that, while not yet prohibited by treaty, human rights in principle limit the ability of nations to enact arbitrary trade and immigration laws. The US can fail to comply with international human rights (as it does on other occasions), but that doesn't change the existence of those rights.
By the way, my beef here is not with the green card applicants, it is with the companies seeking to evade the law, and espcially with lawyers counseling their clients to evade the law.
Green card applications are something tied to the individual, so your beef is indeed with individual immigrants. The reason companies get involved in it at all is because it's gotten so hard and costly already that individuals can't do it anymore. Now, you want to ratchet up the requirements another few steps by interpreting green card applications in an even more convoluted way. When is this madness going to stop? Are you only satisfied when the only people who immigrate are illegal or very rich? Because that's where people like you are driving the process.
I've seen this in play: an H1-B is a very powerful hold over an employee to ensure loyalty
There are two major kinds of work visas: H1b and green cards.
H1b visas may (or may not) give companies a "very powerful hold", but we aren't discussing H1b visas. H1b visas don't even require job postings; the company can just self-certify that it couldn't find anybody.
These companies are trying to get green cards for their employees. Green cards give their employees the same rights as US citizens in employment. These lawyers are trying to help people get green cards as quickly as possible, removing any hold that the employer would have over them.
Now, you can argue whether the lawyers are acting technically in bad faith, or even actually in bad faith, but to assert that they are doing this to "keep salary costs down" makes no sense. If they wanted to "keep salary costs down" by controlling people through H1b visas, they'd not apply for a green card, or they'd try to drag out the green card application for as long as possible.
I think this is the crux of the matter: by law the company is required to prefer a US citizen.
Yes, they are required to do so within the parameters of immigration law; this lawyer is telling companies what those parameters are. In addition to formally complying with immigration law, most US companies are also strongly recruiting US residents, simply because it's cheaper. So, you have compliance with the law and good faith efforts to recruit US residents in general. What else do you want?
Green card applicants do not have the same status as green card holders and an H1-B does not guarentee that you will eventually get a green card no matter how many years you invested in it. Are these protectionist laws? Absolutely. Do you deny the right of nations to enact protectionist laws?
Actually, the right to enact protectionist laws are limited both by treaties and by universally accepted human rights. Although not widely realized yet, there's growing recognition in international law and ethics that persons do acquire a right to permanent residency and citizenship through presence.
Again this suggests that you have not actually watched the video in question. The lawyers explicitly provide advice on how to eliminiate applications from qualified US citzens.
I did watch the video. They are giving their clients advice on valid reasons to turn down applications they don't want. Companies need to know that because if they use the wrong reason to turn down a US applicant they don't want, both the company and the green card applicant are in deep trouble.
(In fact, companies may turn down a US applicant as part of the green card process and invite him separately for an interview for a different position.)
Does the convenience for the company and the desire of the green card applicant automatically trump the law?
Legally, as far as I can tell, the lawyer gives advice about how to stay just within the law; you may disagree with his motivations, but that's a different question.
Ethically, we aren't talking about "convenience" or "desire" here, we are talking about a commitment by a company to an immigrant to get the a green card, a commitment that, if they can't fulfill it, potentially hurts the company badly and can completely destroy the immigrant's life. The time to consider large numbers of US applicants is before the green card application, not afterwards, and that's when companies do it. They do so because US residents are a lot cheaper and less trouble to hire than green card applicants.
Not if they want a green card. Until they pass a certain milestone late in the green card process, which may take anywhere from 1 to 5 years to get there, they can't change jobs without restarting the green card process.
:-)
That used to be the case when I was applying, but I think that's not true anymore either. Nowadays, I think there are just some shorter periods during which you shouldn't change jobs.
But those who want a green card are chained to their employers for years.
Even if you have to restart the process for some reason, that's hardly "being chained" (as I know from personal experience).
In any case, I think we can agree that the best way of fixing the process then is to make the green card process more efficient and less bureaucratic. And just maybe that would include dropping the "job advertising" requirement