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User: vigmeister

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  1. I think that in the end they might make it harder for themselves to recruit talent.

    Or easier, now that the initial offer is also their best offer, rather than a low-ball. This may also encourage more resume submissions from people that don't like to haggle.

    If they make the 'best offer' and the pay gap still exists, M. Pao will go nuts. Therefore, this is unlikely to happen. This means either:
    - Women get offered more pay than they would be willing to work for (poor business decision)
    - They refuse to negotiate and try to save some cash and 'agressive negotiators' take up offers elsewhere

    The second scenario is likelier which means e go from "Lower pay for equal work" to "Equal pay for better work" for women. This cannot be proven, so everyone's happy with this compromise (except the reddit shareholders)

  2. Re:STEM has no future on Saurabh Narain and His Homemade Lego-Based Rubik's Cube Solver (Video) · · Score: 1

    With outsourcing, you get what you pay for. Most outsourcing programs are cost-cutting measures. Companies go to the cheapest vendor available and expect comparable results. And when that does not happen, they feel comfortable and safe in the fact that "Indian IT personnel are less competent".

    When you have a large number of IT graduates, you can expect a lot more incompetent graduates as well. And that is exactly what you get when you go to "IT sweatshops". Successful outsourcing programs would be found amongst the companies that pay the best salaries and rely on the PPP differences to bring the cost advantage. If you can get a selection of the top 10% of the talent in the US for $200,000, I would assume you can get comparable talent (top 1% in India) for $120,000. But this is not a common way to go about outsourcing. Ask those that do and you would be surprised at what is possible.

    The issue is not about racial or genetic advantages. It is a question of comparative advantages and available resources between the two countries.

    Cheers!

  3. Re:Seamless fallback on US Wireless Carriers Shifting To Voice Over LTE · · Score: 1

    I do not know if I should apologize for RTFA or that I made the post above without doing so....

  4. Seamless fallback on US Wireless Carriers Shifting To Voice Over LTE · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Blindingly obvious to me is the fact that voice calls and SMS reaches me even without a high bandwidth 3G or faster data connection. If this leads to better network coverage for high speed data, I will be the first to celebrate, but until then I will stick to a split data/voice provider ... or one that can transition relatively seamlessly between the two types of networks...

    Cheers!

  5. Crowdsourced solution? on Ask Slashdot: Communication With Locked-in Syndrome Patient? · · Score: 1

    http://www.gtec.at/Products/Co...

    This product was on display at CeBIT and I tried it out. The calibration takes about 45 minutes, but after that period, each letter took about 10 seconds and I was rapidly improving. In principle, I would also assume that they could extend the technology to words rather than letters and combine it with some kind of predictive text input.

    I really hope you find a solution that works and I think the community at large would appreciate if you could document the experience and the successes I hope you have in such a situation.

    I would also ask if you could make this some kind of a collaborative project over the interwebs. There must be more people in this situation and countless people like myself who would be motivated to work on this challenge...

    Let's get to it!

  6. Regeneration on Cells Reprogrammed In Living Mice · · Score: 2

    Could be messy, but ultimately, would a 'rolling regeneration' of our organs conveniently sidestep cellular senescence? Can you hear me now?

  7. Re:Silly me on How Gen Y Should Talk To Old People At Work · · Score: 1

    I think this brand I use can help with the brain rinsing... it's called P-504 or 504P or something...

  8. Re:False dichotomy on Ask Slashdot: Is Tech Talent More Important Than Skill? · · Score: 1

    No left left behind..

  9. Generate Conflicts on Ask Slashdot: Moving From Contract Developers To Hiring One In-House? · · Score: 1

    1) Contract 3 developers:
    - Developer to develop the code
    - Tester to test the damn thing and find bugs
    - Bug fixer to fix the damn bugs

    2) From your experience, you should be able to set bonus related targets for each guy...

    3) ????

    4) Profit!!

  10. Re:Game on Why US Mileage Ratings Are So Inaccurate · · Score: 1

    Doesn't this translate into some kind of propaganda to influence what people care about when buying a car?

    Have we collectively decided as a society that we are willing to compromise further on free speech to reduce emissions and fuel consumption (manufacturers should be free to decide how to advertise their cars)?

    For the record: I do not deny climate change or its anthropogenic components - I just think the solution is to tax fuel, enforce truth in advertising (to prevent fraud) and wait for the technological breakthroughs that will make us look like luddites...

  11. Re:Simple explanation on Why US Mileage Ratings Are So Inaccurate · · Score: 1

    In America, gas typically refers to petrol (and colloquially, anything you put into your vehicle as fuel).

    In Europe, gas typically refers to Autogas (LPG) ...

    In Soviet Russia, your uncle's car converts petrol into gas ...

    Cheers!

  12. Re:Can never know too much math on Summer Programming Courses Before Heading Off To College? · · Score: 1

    Seconded...
    oblig xkcd: http://xkcd.com/435/

  13. Re:Don't Bother on Summer Programming Courses Before Heading Off To College? · · Score: 1

    This, but with a different conclusion. Learning programming meant I was able to do a different degree while working in the software industry and taking electives or doing a minor in CS. Eventually I ended up being competent in both areas which led to opportunities to dabble in an exponentially larger set of subjects...

  14. Engineering student? on Summer Programming Courses Before Heading Off To College? · · Score: 1

    For a student with a strong math/science background, MATLAB might be useful to learn especially if he decides to pursue engineering. It helps you to learn fundamental programming (at least procedural programming) concepts while not requiring too much time to get up an running. The symbolic toolbox along with more traditional capabilities will also give him a massive leg up in doing assignments and projects because he can focus on learning concepts in most of his classes rather than executing procedural mathematical techniques (matrix operations and PDEs, I am looking at you...).
    P.S. I know a TI-xx can do some of this, but calculators are the slide rules of the 21st century...

  15. Re:As a professional, I would say... on Summer Programming Courses Before Heading Off To College? · · Score: 2

    I think the kid would be better off learning touchscreen typing...

  16. Re:As a professional, I would say... on Summer Programming Courses Before Heading Off To College? · · Score: 0

    Having been a successful programmer for 35 years, I would discount the value of touch typing. It has been my experience that thinking is far more important than typing skills. Fast typing helps, but I think your son would find this boring.

    Ah, see what you did here? A is useless. B is more important than A. (Which is orthogonal to whether A is useful in itself.) (And now the admission.) A helps, but is boring.

    You missed the implication that learning to think would be a better use of the kid's summer than learning ho to type even though the latter helps...

  17. Re:This cannot be underestimated on Summer Programming Courses Before Heading Off To College? · · Score: 1

    Great until he moves to Europe :S ... Rediscovering hunt and peck is painfully slow :/

  18. Car analogy on Making Sure Interviews Don't Turn Into Free Consulting · · Score: 1

    This is silly... It's like a car mechanic who will not diagnose your problem and starts talking about his skills and expertise. Most places give you a free quote to have you as a customer. Lawyers and doctors charge for the first consult too and you could take that approach by *BEING* a consultant rather than interviewing for a job. Or you could tell the interviewer to fuck off as opposed to taking your hour of consulting (worth $100 or so for a decently salaried position) and considering that an investment into your job hunt. Of course, if you are looking for a job, your time is probably worth far less to you, so make a grown up judgement call as to whether the odds of getting a job are worth taking the insurmountable risk of *gasp* working for free *gasp*!

    Cheers!

  19. No cores needed? on Stanford Uses Million-Core Supercomputer To Model Supersonic Jet Noise · · Score: 1

    I was able to calculate the noise from the jet *inside the cabin* without so much as a calculator...

  20. Re:Why not both? on ITU To Choose Emergency Line For Mobiles: 911, or 112? · · Score: 1

    But that only works if you hold your phone in your left hand...

    Makes sense...right handed folks with iPhones trying to call for help => 'death grip'

  21. Re:Wow. on DHS Goes Ahead With 'Pre-Crime' Detection Project · · Score: 1

    Simple answer: No one (probably not even you) expects them to be 100% correct*. If I am forcibly isolated and "helped" because their classifier uses 16 bit inputs from the temperature sensor and not 32, I wouldn't accept the shitty quality of life that I expect to have because my gait makes me fall more than 3 std. deviations outside the defined "average human being".

    Paranoid corollary: By defining what is "not criminally psychotic", we are fundamentally influencing opportunities for reproduction. Thereby, the fitness function involved in natural evolution has an additional term introduced by those who decide what constitutes "normal". This leads to a severe risk of targeting a minority population with certain quirks as "criminally psychotic" and therefore 'cleansing' the population of this minority.

    Due to the above arguments, I would say that even if you gave the "chosen ones" the best possible quality of life, this would have unforeseen effects of human evolution and I do not want to risk that. I agree that life is unfair, but being born with a propensity for crime is like having a handicap. I know this is insensitive, but having to give people in wheelchairs the same opportunities for employment possibly lowers overall productivity, but that is what I treasure in society - knowing that losing my legs tomorrow does not immediately turn my life into a total bag of shit - these rules would make my life suck a little bit lesser than it otherwise would.

    * The criteria for "criminally psychotic" would be generated by psychologists (or other humans) or statistically which have the weaknesses of subjectivity and uncertainty respectively. Neither can be 100% sure of anything. Throw in the fact that we have no fucking idea whatsoever how many people with "criminal psychosis" actually commit crimes and I am really unnerved by Pre-crime detection.

    Arguments based on culpability for your thoughts and human profiling are wonderfully described in almost every dystopian novel - I believe the required reading for your geek card (at least 1984 and Brave New World) ought to cover these arguments.

    Cheers!

  22. Re:Yo, Jimmy, I've got an idea: on Should Wikipedia Just Accept Ads Already? · · Score: 1

    I would really hate to see Wikipedia founder for lack of a pragmatic means of maintaining its existence

    Why would you see Jimmy about that? I recommend you see Similing Bob or JG Wentworth about your problems.

    *rimshot*

    Cheers!

  23. Re:Grammar on Hand-Off, Reconnect To Verizon LTE Can Take 2 Minutes · · Score: 1

    If your going too be pedantic, better you are in right!

    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/couple
    http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/couple

    Cheers!

  24. Re:vwhat better 2 year degrees + real world work o on Seagate To Pay Former Worker $1.9M For Phantom Job · · Score: 1

    If the same kind of people went to both, the former might be better for some jobs. On the other hand, smart and capable students typically tend to favour 4yr programs which means you are more likely to find better talent coming out of a 4yr program.

    Cheers!

  25. Re:Now That's Bizarre on Man Loses Millions In Bizarre Virus-Protection Scam · · Score: 1

    Looks like he was paying for a service. I don't see how this is any different from Homeopathy or Scientology...

    Cheers!