It's not a close vote that shows the system is broken...
Maybe I wasn't clear. What I meant was that the counting process as it is now is not accurate enough when the results are extremely close. Two machine counts and one hand count gave three different results, with differences larger than the margin of victory. If the difference had been tens of thousands of votes, we would not have had all this mess.
...it's using a less accurate counting method to reverse the result that shows the system is broken
With all due respect, I'm going to do some nitpicking and arguing here...
"reverse the result" ? Result of what? The election? The election does not have a result until it is certified. Reverse the count? You can't reverse the count, you can only have a recount.
"less accurate counting method" ? I have a problem with that, since I am by no means convinced that a machine count is more accurate than a hand count. I will agree that machines will typically not "lose count", whereas humans will. However, in the case of humans miscounting, you can assume that counting errors will offset one another, at least for the most part. Machines may have a systematic error. For example, they may not be able to read certain ballots because they have not been filled out perfectly. Does that mean these ballots should not count? I think that ballots that have been rejected by machines should be evaluated by humans (as has been done). We geeks like to think that machines are better at counting and such, but in this case I am not sufficiently convinced to take this as a given. But that's just me...
Lastly, a revote could quite possibly have the same close result (it's not just a random fluke, there's a reason why it's so close) and the whole mess of recounting and hand counting could have to start again...
I can't speak to the legislature stepping in, but rest assured, if it happened, it would be on reasonable legal grounds.
Hopefully, yes. However, this seems a circular argument: you can't think of compelling grounds why the legislature should step in, but if they do, they must have a good reason.
In every poll I've seen, the majority of people said Gregoire should concede, by a good margin, and even now, a significant number are saying they don't see Gregoire as legitimate (might even be a majority).
I think it might very well be that people said that Gregoire should concedede because they were sick of the whole thing. Are there any polls out yet that ask people if they think Rossi should concede? Might very well be that that would be a majority too (yes, I'm speculating). As for many people not seeing Gregoire as legitimate: yes, most Rossi voters would feel that way, and a few Gregoire voters as well, since it is clear that the system is broken when the results are so close. If Rossi were to get his revote and win (which remains to be seen), do you think many people would see (then) Governor Rossi as not legitimate?
I think that no matter what happens, many people will feel cheated. That's what you get, unfortunately, when results are this ridiculously close.
The problem I have is that this will likely be a hand recount, which is more prone to error...
How do you know that a hand recount is more prone to error? It seems to me that a hand recount would be more prone to random error, i.e., humans simply making mistakes. But those mistakes could cancel each other out. On the other hand, if there is a systematic error in the machine recounting process (e.g., not processing damaged ballots correctly, software errors, whatever), then this could influence the outcome just enough to tip the result one way or the other. I just don't think that a machine recount is necessarily more accurate with these small margins.
...will take longer, and will cost more than a machine recount.
So what is the price of getting the right result in terms of time and money?
I agree. Some years ago, I did the following. Work 40 hours a week at a customer site. Be home by 6PM. Play with my kids, have dinner, read to my kids, kids in bed by 9 PM. Work (at home) on another project for 4-5 hours. Go to sleep at 1 AM - 2 AM. Wake up at 7 AM. Go to work. Etc.
On Saturdays and Sundays I would work 10 hours on the second project at home. So, that adds up to something a little more than 80 hours a week.
The extra pay for the extra work was nice. However, after about 3 months, the weekend hours started to tail off. I just couldn't do it any more. I was lying on the couch watching football games on Saturdays and Sundays. Fortunately the second project came to an end, and I gradually could go back to a normal schedule. I missed the extra money, but I sure felt a lot better, and my family sure appreciated the normal situation as well.
Not that much higher cruise speed, but that's beside the point. The point is that air defenses will have to be knocked out first. A B-52 cannot just cruise over a country like Russia, they could easily shoot it down with a SAM.
So, yes, the same tactics that work for a B-52 will work for a 747 as well, I agree with that much. The question is what the tactics would need to be.
Thats the whole idea. Boost phase is when icbms are most vulnerable. Thats why the plan is to put them on jets. Fly them outside unfriendly borders and zap them when they launch.
Yeah, that might work against a country like North Korea (maybe). However, countries with a large interior (like China for example) could simply launch from the middle of their country. You need a pretty good laser to shoot something down from several thousands of miles distance. Atmospheric effects, and the inevitable divergence of the laser beam, targeting difficulties, and all that...
Re:As an American I can say...
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The Jobs Crunch
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The American worker, on average, works longer hours than any other country - including Japan.
Probably correct. However, working longer is not always a good thing. In my experience (IT environment), working ridiculously long hours isn't all that productive.
Also, our culture has fewer holidays and days off than any other culture.
Holidays are actually comparable to a lot of other countries. Vacation time though is way too low in the USA, in my humble opinion. As a good friend of mine once said: "I can do 12 months worth of work in 11 months, but I can't do it in 12 months." Really, 10 days of vacation is a bad thing for the US economy...
So that's why the 737 is the most common commercial airplane on the planet?
What's your point? The 737 is so popular because the American domestic market is so huge. Of course you won't be flying an A380 (nor a 747 for that matter) from Orlando to Atlanta, a 737 is far more efficient for short distances. Different distances, different needs, different size planes.
Military spending distorts the aircraft market more than anything else.
Agree. Look at the military and space division of Boeing, and the turnover and profit they have. This money comes mostly from the federal government, so how is that not subsidy? Can't really blame either Boeing or the U.S. government, of course...
Correct. Since compression algorithms effectively decrease the correlation of the original, the result resembles 'noise', or a random bit stream. You see, if there is still correlation in the original, it can be compressed further. Note though that compressed files often have 'standard' headers or other sections, and that is very vulnerable to attack.
Not very many posters seem to comment on the article, so I'll give a few comments. Mind you, I was one of those H1-B workers...
Instead the program floods the marketplace with the potential of 200,000 or more professional guest workers each year...
Interesting. They don't quote the actual number of H1-B visas issued in recent years. I remember reading that the number of H1-Bs issued has declined sharply since the economy went south. Anyway, call me a nitpicker, but how do you "flood" the marketplace with a "potential"? Maybe it's a language issue...
[Proposal]: Limit number of guest workers in any one firm, to a set percentage of the firm's workforce.
Hmm. That seems reasonable. However, consider the following true story. I worked for a large European software company, with branches in many countries. My company managed to land a big software contract with a large U.S. company, mainly because of my company's specialized skills. The contract was large enough to justify founding a daughter company in the U.S. Obviously, in the beginning, no U.S. workers with the required skills could be found. So, the U.S. daughter company was started with almost exclusively European workers. Support staff (secretaries, bookkeepers, etc.) were recruited locally. Also, a general manager was recruited locally, because my company had the philosophy that an American daughter company should be led by an American manager. As the company grew, more and more American (technical) workers were hired, because it's just easier to hire (qualified) local people than moving them over from Europe with all the H1-B costs and hassle (and trust me, it's a big hassle). So, by the time I joined the U.S. daughter company (two years after the founding), all management and support people were American workers. About half of the technical staff was American, the other half was European. And yes, I got my H1-B based on skills that were close to impossible to find in the U.S.: it involved a lot of experience with my company's (in-house) developed tools that were crucial to the project.
Anyway, my point is that founding this company provided a lot of jobs to Americans and non-Americans alike. However, since the workforce was close to 100% H1-Bs in the beginning, it could never have happened had there been a limit on the percentage og H1-B workers.
. A program of six years duration does not qualify as "temporary."
Of course it does. Look up the definition of "temporary". If they had said that six years does not qualify as "short-term" than I would have agreed with it.
Possible Reforms: Restrict this "temporary" guest worker program to one, two or three year (non-renewable) term.
That's a good idea, or a bad idea, depending on what your motives are. If you want to limit the number of H1-Bs, then it's an excellent idea. For many people, two or three years is too short to justify moving to another country. Also, it's too short for many companies to justify the cost and trouble of hiring foreign workers. If you want to attract talented foreign workers to fill a hole in the marketplace (which is the intention of the H1-B program), then it's a bad idea, for the same reasons.
Laid-off H-1B workers must return to their country of origin within 60 days of their unemployment;
Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the current time limit was 10 days! As far as I know, the only way to get out from under this (unreasonable) rule, is to apply for a status change to "visitor". This would give you 90 days. But you can't be employed while in "visitor" status, all it does is give you some time to get your stuff packed to move overseas.
Current Problem: H-1Bs are supposed to be highly skilled professionals with the requisite academic degree. But even this standard is undercut by language that allows a vague degree equivalency, such as work experience, to suffice. In addition there is no system in place to verify that those with degrees have valid credentials or that they are equivalent to a U.S. degree.
Well, maybe things have changed, but in my case: I had to submit notarized copies of my high school diploma, and my university diploma. The copies had to be translated, and the translations had to be certified. I had to describe in detail all the projects that I worked on in a professional capacity. I had to give addresses and phone numbers of my high school, university, and current employer. Then, all this paperwork was evaluated by a (sworn) evaluator from some evaluation bureau in the U.S. Conclusion: the equivalent of a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and a B.Sc. in Computer Science. There was lots and lots more: birth certificates, passport copies, a list of countries I had visited in the last 10 years, and the reasons why, etc., etc. I have copies of all the paper that was submitted to the INS and DOL with my petition, and it's about an inch thick. Don't give me any nonsense that there is no system in place to verify credentials.
"The OIG has averaged 14 indictments and 11 convictions per year for labor certification fraud over the prior [1996] five-year period."
Err, is it just me, or does that not sound too impressive? Either there's not all that much fraud going on, or the authorities are doing a really poor job in finding it. Or both...
I specialized in natural language interpretation in college- and have yet to find a job doing it.
Are you suggesting that you are being cheated out of a job by H1-B workers specialized in natural language interpretation?
And as for H1b being paid the same as US citizens- bullshit.
I know several H1-B workers (about a handful). Most are being paid more than the average U.S> citizen. But that's based on ability, not on citizenship.
It's true, most of the H1B's I know have **mad skillz** with the ladies. I don't know if they take classes for that shit over there but man...
No, it's just that being exotic makes you more attractive (in general). By 'exotic' I don't mean having a different skin color, but having blood lines that are diffent from the average in a given area.
My personal theory is that humans subconsciously know that a very different genetic makeup reduces chances of inbreeding, and therefore increases the chances of healthy offspring.
Furthermore, talking to someone from a different country/culture is more interesting than talking to the chum that lives two blocks away. So, more talking, more chances of hitting it off.
Try living in a different country. Chances are you'll have more success with the other sex than in your own country.
In addition to this: I recently read a salary survey by an IT magazine (I forgot which), and one of the questions asked was about the respondent's immigration status: citizen, green card holder, temporary visa holder, etc.
If I remember correctly, about 2.5% of the respondents indicated that they were in the U.S. on a temporary work visa.
That's a drop in the bucket. People should not blame their inability to find a job on others who do have a job. You might just as well start blaming women for having a career.
The human breast does not reach full maturity until at least one pregnancy is completed. If a person has multiple abortions and never carries a pregnancy to term, their risk for breast cancer COULD be higher, but it may be because of never having children; the fact that the woman aborted all her pregnancies is just the method. She could just as easily be a spinster or nun, and carry the same risk.
In other words, don't confuse correlation with causation...
Yes, but I understand that these things have quite a bit of startup time (for the refrigerator to start up), in the order of several minutes. Probably not a big issue if you have your system on 24/7, but I like to shut my PC down when I'm not using it (saves electricity, and it stays cooler when it's off, not to mention the reduction in noise level:-).
and most people wisely don't wish to leave the sides off of their case for better ventilation.
Actually, in some cases this might hurt ventilation rather than help it. Sometimes the cooling design relies on the case being closed to force proper (cool) air flow over the various parts.
The magazine "Maximum PC" had a review of a solid state 4GB RAM drive (card) recently (sorry, too lazy to find a link). I found the throughput (~160 MB/s) rather disappointing for a RAM drive, though. Also, I'm not sure if it had battery backup, which seems rather silly not to have.
On a related subject: (software) RAM drives are rather old. Back in the days when I worked with dual floppy drive PCs (i.e. no hard drive, one floppy for DOS, and the other for the application and data), there were applications that emulated a floppy drive in RAM (much faster). Typically these were limited to 128K or 256K, and ran in "upper memory", i.e. the memory segment above 640K. Better remember to copy the contents of your RAM drive to a floppy before shutting down, of course...
This makes me wonder further about how much power I'm actually using. By my (again, very coarse) math, I shouldn't be close to using all of the 350W the power supply can deliver, but I can't see investing in equipment to check.
You're probably right, but it doesn't hurt to check the actual amps your PS can supply at the different voltages: +12V, +5V, +3.3V (and a bunch of less interesting voltages, since the amps are usually very low on those). Going from, say, a 350W to a 430W PS does not necessarily mean that all amps on all voltages will increase. Check the PS manual or the sticker on the casing. Also, most power supplies cannot supply the maximum currents at all voltages simultaneously. The manual and/or sticker should also mention this.
And I find harkening back to all of those science fiction books I read which incidentally noted water-cooled PCs in the world of the future. How silly that seemed in 1989. And yet now, at the rate power consumption and heat are growing, I start to wonder... might we see factory-installed water cooling coming from the major retailers in few years?
Actually, I think this was an issue in supercomputing long before PCs started producing these ridiculous amounts of heat. I think I read a quote by Seymour Cray somewhere, stating something to the effect of: "I'm not a computer engineer, I'm a cooling engineer.". Also, I think I read something about a supercomputer being cooled by liquid air(!).
It's an interesting idea. However, you would have a single point of failure for all your computers. I understand that this is especially risky when using Athlon processors, since they can fry themselves in a matter of seconds when not cooled. Hopefully the thermal protections on the motherboards would protect against this, but still...
When is the last time you checked up on the state of affairs in liquid cooling? Peltiers are rarely used nowadays, because of their heat production and the condensation problems. If you read the article, you'll see that the kit that is reviewed is intended to be used with water, not ethylene glycol or mineral oil. It's a commercial product, not some geek's homebrewed contraption. Also, it is recommended to use distilled water with these kits, in case you have a leak. Although there's no guarantees, this should reduce the risk of a short circuit significantly, since distilled water is a poor electrical conductor.
First of all, you really need to know your requirements before you can even take a first guess.
Then, you need an architecture. After this is defined, you can divide the work into modules (or subsystems, or whatever the buzzword of the week is).
It is *extremely* hard to estimate anything until this is done.
Now, the good news is that if you can give an experienced developer a reasonable idea of what a module is supposed to do, you have somewhat of a chance of getting a reasonable estimate of the amount of time it will take. You see, good developers can actually estimate this quite accurately (contrary to popular belief). This is because they overestimate their own abilities somewhat, but this is compensated by the fact that they tend to give themselves some leeway ("I think it will take 2 weeks, so I'll tell them 3 weeks"). A potential problem is that a manager does not like the answer, because of planning and scheduling, and what the manager promised his boss. My favorite quote here is: "3 weeks? That's not a good enough answer!". My standard reply to this kind of nonsense is either: "I think it's an excellent answer, because it happens to be true", or "What do you think the right answer is?". Anyway, the risk is that the developer thinks: "Well, my own secret estimate is 2 weeks, so I'll just tell him that, to get him off by back". Then, of course, it takes 3 weeks after all. Sadly, we've all come to accept and expect this kind of stuff in the IT business.
From personal experience: I was asked to write a thin wrapper around a RDBMS API written in C. Since I had to familiarize myself with the API, I estimated 3-4 days, so I told management 1 week. I was asked if I could do it faster if I were to use C++ rather than C. I said no, because it wasn't the silly wrapper code that would take the time, but figuring out the darn API. Oh. Anyway, I was done by the end of the fourth day, so, on the high end of my own estimate, even though I have more than average experience in these kind of things. Everybody seemed really surprised that I managed to do it within the official estimate. The code did have one subtle bug that showed up the next week, but that was fixed in half an hour. Again, people seemed surprised that there was only one obvious bug in the code.
Anyway, after all this bragging, the point is: you can reasonably trust the estimates developers give you, but only after you give them a reasonable amount of input.
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You're right. My bad.
It's not a close vote that shows the system is broken...
...it's using a less accurate counting method to reverse the result that shows the system is broken
Maybe I wasn't clear. What I meant was that the counting process as it is now is not accurate enough when the results are extremely close. Two machine counts and one hand count gave three different results, with differences larger than the margin of victory. If the difference had been tens of thousands of votes, we would not have had all this mess.
With all due respect, I'm going to do some nitpicking and arguing here...
"reverse the result" ? Result of what? The election? The election does not have a result until it is certified. Reverse the count? You can't reverse the count, you can only have a recount.
"less accurate counting method" ? I have a problem with that, since I am by no means convinced that a machine count is more accurate than a hand count. I will agree that machines will typically not "lose count", whereas humans will. However, in the case of humans miscounting, you can assume that counting errors will offset one another, at least for the most part. Machines may have a systematic error. For example, they may not be able to read certain ballots because they have not been filled out perfectly. Does that mean these ballots should not count? I think that ballots that have been rejected by machines should be evaluated by humans (as has been done). We geeks like to think that machines are better at counting and such, but in this case I am not sufficiently convinced to take this as a given. But that's just me...
Lastly, a revote could quite possibly have the same close result (it's not just a random fluke, there's a reason why it's so close) and the whole mess of recounting and hand counting could have to start again...
I can't speak to the legislature stepping in, but rest assured, if it happened, it would be on reasonable legal grounds.
Hopefully, yes. However, this seems a circular argument: you can't think of compelling grounds why the legislature should step in, but if they do, they must have a good reason.
In every poll I've seen, the majority of people said Gregoire should concede, by a good margin, and even now, a significant number are saying they don't see Gregoire as legitimate (might even be a majority).
I think it might very well be that people said that Gregoire should concedede because they were sick of the whole thing. Are there any polls out yet that ask people if they think Rossi should concede? Might very well be that that would be a majority too (yes, I'm speculating).
As for many people not seeing Gregoire as legitimate: yes, most Rossi voters would feel that way, and a few Gregoire voters as well, since it is clear that the system is broken when the results are so close. If Rossi were to get his revote and win (which remains to be seen), do you think many people would see (then) Governor Rossi as not legitimate?
I think that no matter what happens, many people will feel cheated. That's what you get, unfortunately, when results are this ridiculously close.
The problem I have is that this will likely be a hand recount, which is more prone to error...
...will take longer, and will cost more than a machine recount.
How do you know that a hand recount is more prone to error? It seems to me that a hand recount would be more prone to random error, i.e., humans simply making mistakes. But those mistakes could cancel each other out. On the other hand, if there is a systematic error in the machine recounting process (e.g., not processing damaged ballots correctly, software errors, whatever), then this could influence the outcome just enough to tip the result one way or the other. I just don't think that a machine recount is necessarily more accurate with these small margins.
So what is the price of getting the right result in terms of time and money?
Anyone with a family can't work 80 hours a week.
I agree. Some years ago, I did the following.
Work 40 hours a week at a customer site. Be home by 6PM. Play with my kids, have dinner, read to my kids, kids in bed by 9 PM. Work (at home) on another project for 4-5 hours. Go to sleep at 1 AM - 2 AM. Wake up at 7 AM. Go to work. Etc.
On Saturdays and Sundays I would work 10 hours on the second project at home. So, that adds up to something a little more than 80 hours a week.
The extra pay for the extra work was nice. However, after about 3 months, the weekend hours started to tail off. I just couldn't do it any more. I was lying on the couch watching football games on Saturdays and Sundays. Fortunately the second project came to an end, and I gradually could go back to a normal schedule. I missed the extra money, but I sure felt a lot better, and my family sure appreciated the normal situation as well.
Not that much higher cruise speed, but that's beside the point. The point is that air defenses will have to be knocked out first. A B-52 cannot just cruise over a country like Russia, they could easily shoot it down with a SAM.
So, yes, the same tactics that work for a B-52 will work for a 747 as well, I agree with that much. The question is what the tactics would need to be.
How do you think B-52 bombers manage to avoid getting shot down?
A combination of flying very high, and waiting until air defenses have been disabled by strike aircraft.
Thats the whole idea. Boost phase is when icbms are most vulnerable. Thats why the plan is to put them on jets. Fly them outside unfriendly borders and zap them when they launch.
Yeah, that might work against a country like North Korea (maybe). However, countries with a large interior (like China for example) could simply launch from the middle of their country. You need a pretty good laser to shoot something down from several thousands of miles distance.
Atmospheric effects, and the inevitable divergence of the laser beam, targeting difficulties, and all that...
The American worker, on average, works longer hours than any other country - including Japan.
Probably correct. However, working longer is not always a good thing. In my experience (IT environment), working ridiculously long hours isn't all that productive.
Also, our culture has fewer holidays and days off than any other culture.
Holidays are actually comparable to a lot of other countries. Vacation time though is way too low in the USA, in my humble opinion. As a good friend of mine once said: "I can do 12 months worth of work in 11 months, but I can't do it in 12 months."
Really, 10 days of vacation is a bad thing for the US economy...
So that's why the 737 is the most common commercial airplane on the planet?
What's your point? The 737 is so popular because the American domestic market is so huge. Of course you won't be flying an A380 (nor a 747 for that matter) from Orlando to Atlanta, a 737 is far more efficient for short distances. Different distances, different needs, different size planes.
Military spending distorts the aircraft market more than anything else.
Agree. Look at the military and space division of Boeing, and the turnover and profit they have. This money comes mostly from the federal government, so how is that not subsidy? Can't really blame either Boeing or the U.S. government, of course...
Correct. Since compression algorithms effectively decrease the correlation of the original, the result resembles 'noise', or a random bit stream. You see, if there is still correlation in the original, it can be compressed further.
Note though that compressed files often have 'standard' headers or other sections, and that is very vulnerable to attack.
Not very many posters seem to comment on the article, so I'll give a few comments. Mind you, I was one of those H1-B workers...
Instead the program floods the marketplace with the potential of 200,000 or more professional guest workers each year...
Interesting. They don't quote the actual number of H1-B visas issued in recent years. I remember reading that the number of H1-Bs issued has declined sharply since the economy went south.
Anyway, call me a nitpicker, but how do you "flood" the marketplace with a "potential"? Maybe it's a language issue...
[Proposal]: Limit number of guest workers in any one firm, to a set percentage of the firm's workforce.
Hmm. That seems reasonable. However, consider the following true story.
I worked for a large European software company, with branches in many countries. My company managed to land a big software contract with a large U.S. company, mainly because of my company's specialized skills. The contract was large enough to justify founding a daughter company in the U.S. Obviously, in the beginning, no U.S. workers with the required skills could be found. So, the U.S. daughter company was started with almost exclusively European workers. Support staff (secretaries, bookkeepers, etc.) were recruited locally. Also, a general manager was recruited locally, because my company had the philosophy that an American daughter company should be led by an American manager. As the company grew, more and more American (technical) workers were hired, because it's just easier to hire (qualified) local people than moving them over from Europe with all the H1-B costs and hassle (and trust me, it's a big hassle).
So, by the time I joined the U.S. daughter company (two years after the founding), all management and support people were American workers. About half of the technical staff was American, the other half was European. And yes, I got my H1-B based on skills that were close to impossible to find in the U.S.: it involved a lot of experience with my company's (in-house) developed tools that were crucial to the project.
Anyway, my point is that founding this company provided a lot of jobs to Americans and non-Americans alike. However, since the workforce was close to 100% H1-Bs in the beginning, it could never have happened had there been a limit on the percentage og H1-B workers.
. A program of six years duration does not qualify as "temporary."
Of course it does. Look up the definition of "temporary". If they had said that six years does not qualify as "short-term" than I would have agreed with it.
Possible Reforms:
Restrict this "temporary" guest worker program to one, two or three year (non-renewable) term.
That's a good idea, or a bad idea, depending on what your motives are. If you want to limit the number of H1-Bs, then it's an excellent idea. For many people, two or three years is too short to justify moving to another country. Also, it's too short for many companies to justify the cost and trouble of hiring foreign workers.
If you want to attract talented foreign workers to fill a hole in the marketplace (which is the intention of the H1-B program), then it's a bad idea, for the same reasons.
Laid-off H-1B workers must return to their country of origin within 60 days of their unemployment;
Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the current time limit was 10 days! As far as I know, the only way to get out from under this (unreasonable) rule, is to apply for a status change to "visitor". This would give you 90 days. But you can't be employed while in "visitor" status, all it does is give you some time to get your stuff packed to move overseas.
Current Problem:
H-1Bs are supposed to be highly skilled professionals with the requisite academic degree. But even this standard is undercut by language that allows a vague degree equivalency, such as work experience, to suffice. In addition there is no system in place to verify that those with degrees have valid credentials or that they are equivalent to a U.S. degree.
Well, maybe things have changed, but in my case:
I had to submit notarized copies of my high school diploma, and my university diploma. The copies had to be translated, and the translations had to be certified. I had to describe in detail all the projects that I worked on in a professional capacity. I had to give addresses and phone numbers of my high school, university, and current employer. Then, all this paperwork was evaluated by a (sworn) evaluator from some evaluation bureau in the U.S. Conclusion: the equivalent of a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and a B.Sc. in Computer Science. There was lots and lots more: birth certificates, passport copies, a list of countries I had visited in the last 10 years, and the reasons why, etc., etc. I have copies of all the paper that was submitted to the INS and DOL with my petition, and it's about an inch thick.
Don't give me any nonsense that there is no system in place to verify credentials.
"The OIG has averaged 14 indictments and 11 convictions per year for labor certification fraud over the prior [1996] five-year period."
Err, is it just me, or does that not sound too impressive? Either there's not all that much fraud going on, or the authorities are doing a really poor job in finding it. Or both...
I specialized in natural language interpretation in college- and have yet to find a job doing it.
Are you suggesting that you are being cheated out of a job by H1-B workers specialized in natural language interpretation?
And as for H1b being paid the same as US citizens- bullshit.
I know several H1-B workers (about a handful). Most are being paid more than the average U.S> citizen. But that's based on ability, not on citizenship.
It's true, most of the H1B's I know have **mad skillz** with the ladies. I don't know if they take classes for that shit over there but man...
No, it's just that being exotic makes you more attractive (in general). By 'exotic' I don't mean having a different skin color, but having blood lines that are diffent from the average in a given area.
My personal theory is that humans subconsciously know that a very different genetic makeup reduces chances of inbreeding, and therefore increases the chances of healthy offspring.
Furthermore, talking to someone from a different country/culture is more interesting than talking to the chum that lives two blocks away. So, more talking, more chances of hitting it off.
Try living in a different country. Chances are you'll have more success with the other sex than in your own country.
In addition to this: I recently read a salary survey by an IT magazine (I forgot which), and one of the questions asked was about the respondent's immigration status: citizen, green card holder, temporary visa holder, etc.
If I remember correctly, about 2.5% of the respondents indicated that they were in the U.S. on a temporary work visa.
That's a drop in the bucket. People should not blame their inability to find a job on others who do have a job. You might just as well start blaming women for having a career.
The human breast does not reach full maturity until at least one pregnancy is completed. If a person has multiple abortions and never carries a pregnancy to term, their risk for breast cancer COULD be higher, but it may be because of never having children; the fact that the woman aborted all her pregnancies is just the method. She could just as easily be a spinster or nun, and carry the same risk.
In other words, don't confuse correlation with causation...
Yes, but I understand that these things have quite a bit of startup time (for the refrigerator to start up), in the order of several minutes. Probably not a big issue if you have your system on 24/7, but I like to shut my PC down when I'm not using it (saves electricity, and it stays cooler when it's off, not to mention the reduction in noise level :-).
and most people wisely don't
wish to leave the sides off of their case for
better ventilation.
Actually, in some cases this might hurt ventilation rather than help it. Sometimes the cooling design relies on the case being closed to force proper (cool) air flow over the various parts.
The magazine "Maximum PC" had a review of a solid state 4GB RAM drive (card) recently (sorry, too lazy to find a link). I found the throughput (~160 MB/s) rather disappointing for a RAM drive, though. Also, I'm not sure if it had battery backup, which seems rather silly not to have.
On a related subject: (software) RAM drives are rather old. Back in the days when I worked with dual floppy drive PCs (i.e. no hard drive, one floppy for DOS, and the other for the application and data), there were applications that emulated a floppy drive in RAM (much faster). Typically these were limited to 128K or 256K, and ran in "upper memory", i.e. the memory segment above 640K. Better remember to copy the contents of your RAM drive to a floppy before shutting down, of course...
This makes me wonder further about how much power I'm actually using. By my (again, very coarse) math, I shouldn't be close to using all of the 350W the power supply can deliver, but I can't see investing in equipment to check.
You're probably right, but it doesn't hurt to check the actual amps your PS can supply at the different voltages: +12V, +5V, +3.3V (and a bunch of less interesting voltages, since the amps are usually very low on those). Going from, say, a 350W to a 430W PS does not necessarily mean that all amps on all voltages will increase. Check the PS manual or the sticker on the casing. Also, most power supplies cannot supply the maximum currents at all voltages simultaneously. The manual and/or sticker should also mention this.
And I find harkening back to all of those science fiction books I read which incidentally noted water-cooled PCs in the world of the future. How silly that seemed in 1989. And yet now, at the rate power consumption and heat are growing, I start to wonder... might we see factory-installed water cooling coming from the major retailers in few years?
Actually, I think this was an issue in supercomputing long before PCs started producing these ridiculous amounts of heat. I think I read a quote by Seymour Cray somewhere, stating something to the effect of: "I'm not a computer engineer, I'm a cooling engineer.". Also, I think I read something about a supercomputer being cooled by liquid air(!).
It's an interesting idea. However, you would have a single point of failure for all your computers. I understand that this is especially risky when using Athlon processors, since they can fry themselves in a matter of seconds when not cooled. Hopefully the thermal protections on the motherboards would protect against this, but still...
When is the last time you checked up on the state of affairs in liquid cooling?
Peltiers are rarely used nowadays, because of their heat production and the condensation problems.
If you read the article, you'll see that the kit that is reviewed is intended to be used with water, not ethylene glycol or mineral oil. It's a commercial product, not some geek's homebrewed contraption.
Also, it is recommended to use distilled water with these kits, in case you have a leak. Although there's no guarantees, this should reduce the risk of a short circuit significantly, since distilled water is a poor electrical conductor.
First of all, you really need to know your requirements before you can even take a first guess.
Then, you need an architecture. After this is defined, you can divide the work into modules (or subsystems, or whatever the buzzword of the week is).
It is *extremely* hard to estimate anything until this is done.
Now, the good news is that if you can give an experienced developer a reasonable idea of what a module is supposed to do, you have somewhat of a chance of getting a reasonable estimate of the amount of time it will take. You see, good developers can actually estimate this quite accurately (contrary to popular belief). This is because they overestimate their own abilities somewhat, but this is compensated by the fact that they tend to give themselves some leeway ("I think it will take 2 weeks, so I'll tell them 3 weeks").
A potential problem is that a manager does not like the answer, because of planning and scheduling, and what the manager promised his boss. My favorite quote here is: "3 weeks? That's not a good enough answer!". My standard reply to this kind of nonsense is either: "I think it's an excellent answer, because it happens to be true", or "What do you think the right answer is?". Anyway, the risk is that the developer thinks: "Well, my own secret estimate is 2 weeks, so I'll just tell him that, to get him off by back". Then, of course, it takes 3 weeks after all. Sadly, we've all come to accept and expect this kind of stuff in the IT business.
From personal experience: I was asked to write a thin wrapper around a RDBMS API written in C. Since I had to familiarize myself with the API, I estimated 3-4 days, so I told management 1 week. I was asked if I could do it faster if I were to use C++ rather than C. I said no, because it wasn't the silly wrapper code that would take the time, but figuring out the darn API. Oh. Anyway, I was done by the end of the fourth day, so, on the high end of my own estimate, even though I have more than average experience in these kind of things. Everybody seemed really surprised that I managed to do it within the official estimate. The code did have one subtle bug that showed up the next week, but that was fixed in half an hour. Again, people seemed surprised that there was only one obvious bug in the code.
Anyway, after all this bragging, the point is: you can reasonably trust the estimates developers give you, but only after you give them a reasonable amount of input.