My understanding is that msft has hated this OLPC program since it began. And that msft has worked hard to undermine the program. For example, if msft found a school that was interested in OLPC, msft would step in and offer to install a msft network instead. Of course, there may have been a lot of msft sponsored fud: "the OLPC teaches children non-standard computing" and of course: "msft will offer something better."
>>Having more than one international standard doesn't make much sense.
It is also against ISO policy. But, when msft is involved, who cares about policy, or making sense? It's all about $$.
Re:Whatever happened to actual economy cars?
on
The SUV Is Dethroned
·
· Score: 1
The 2009 will get 35mpg/hwy, and cost between $15K - $20K. Not all that bad. But, when you consider that the honda crx hf was getting 50mpg/hwy 20 years ago, shouldn't we be getting at least that kind of mpg now?
How the hell did hybrids take off in the first place? First, they got rid of the real economy cars. My 1992 ford festiva is rated at 41mpg on the highway - but you can not find those kinds of cars in the USA anymore.
Seems to me that major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires a $60K heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.
There used to be a lot of cars in the USA that got 40mpg/hwy, or better:
1973 Honda Civic rated 40mpg/hwy 1986 VW Golf diesle rated 40mpg/hwy 1989 Geo Metro was rated at 49mpg/hwy 1992 Ford Festiva rated at 41mpg/hwy
But not anymore. Now you have to buy hybrid to get that kind of mpg - or to get anything near that kind of mpg.
Seems to me that major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires a $60K, heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.
Maybe the major car makers don't want 40+ mpg econo-boxes to compete with their hybrids?
I feel like I'm re-living the past. I am old enough to remember the oil embargo of the 1970s, and how that quadrupled the cost of fuel. For a short time, it was all windmills, car pooling, public transportation, and econo-box cars, then it was right back to the guzzlers.
I also remember fuel prices dropping, very briefly, in early 2006. The sales of SUVs spiked right along with the fuel cost drop. If fuel prices drop during the election, the same thing will probably happen again.
Seems to me that major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires a $60K heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.
Does anybody remember those inexpensive, boxy looking, 40+ mpg, hatchbacks? What ever happened to those? Here is what I mean:
1973 Honda Civic rated 40mpg/hwyy 1986 VW Golf diesle rated 40mpg/hwy * 1989 Geo Metro was rated at 49mpg/hwy 1992 Ford Festiva rated at 41mpg/hwy
* I got over 50mpg driving from Florida to New Jersey, while running the air conditioner.
I having been reading about 60mpg Tata Nano, which will probably cost $3700. At a top speed of 60mph, it may not be practical for the USA. But, what about something that gets 40mpg, and costs $8000?
I suppose the closest thing to an economy car today is the Toyota Yaris - 36mpg/hwy and costs about $12K. Why not strip that down? Make it a lighter, cheaper, hatchback? Remember, Honda made a 40mpg car 35 years ago.
I suppose that's the way we are going with blackberries and iphones. If the Eee could be used for making a phone call, it would be something like a blackberry on steroids.
Paranoia about computer cracking may have also been increased by highly publicized real events. The Cuckoos Egg was published in 1990 about events that occurred in 1986. The Morrison worm happened in 1988, I think.
Sadly, that means your favorite PC mfg couldn't gouge you for replacement batteries.
Actually, I think most people just get a new laptop. Since, the high cost of new battery can hardly be justified if the laptop is over three years old.
I just think it's a shame that so many mobile devices are retired before their time.
Yes, the GPL is more restrictive than the BSD. But many free software advocates see that as a good thing.
The ideas behind the GPL, I think, are 1) stop msft from using their embrace-extend-extinguish strategy. 2) stop proprietary developers from using the code without giving anything back.
I understand that standard AAs will not cut it for today's devices.
But why must every laptop and mobile device have a special battery developed just for it? Could it not be narrowed down to about 10 different standardized rechargeable batteries?
However, I am not saying that the US is xenophobic, only that Denmark is. And I'm saying: Don't go that way. It's up to you, of course, but chances are that you will lose more than you gain if you do. You are confusing rational national policy with racism. No industrialized country allows unfettered access to foreign nationals.
The H-1B system is, by design, a scam. Practically all h1b workers are hired by six Indian contracting companies. If the h1b were honestly about filing shortages then 1) why so hugely disproportionately IT? There is a huge shortage of nurses in the US right now, and a glut of software developers - but the h1b are almost all software developers. 2) why are almost all h1bs from India? Why no Europeans?
Opposing the present h1b scam is not xenophobic at all. It is perfect reasonable to oppose a scam that hurting this nation in order to benefit a few Indian contracting companies, and a few corrupt US politicians.
Take a lesson from Denmark - currently notorious for its xenophobic legislation. It takes a lot of balls to suggest that the USA is being xenophobic. The USA is way beyond lavishly generous in matters of immigration, and work visas.
All in all it is very stupid to stop immigration, especially of young talented people like students.
H-1Bs are not immigrants. Furthermore, how does it benefit US IT workers to have their jobs replaced by cheap foreign labor? The H-1B program is mainly designed to help msft, and a few Indian contracting companies.
What is at stake here is the US' position in the world - I, being a foreigner, don't have as much invested in America's reputation and well-being as an American would, or should, but it would be very sad to see a nation that was once admired and envied crumble into the dust and become a sleepy, introverted backwater. You think it's beneficial to the USA to further hurt it's workforce during a recession? That is your idea of sound economic policy? Consider this:
> "Currently, the Department of Labor estimates that there are about 656,000 unemployed IT workers in the U.S. In addition, the slowing economy has led to a loss of jobs across the board including in IT. The Denver-based Rocky Mountain News reports that Colorado -- the state with the third highest concentration of IT workers -- has lost 47,200 technology jobs since 2001."
The US is great in many ways because of its immigrants, not in spite of them. I am often surprised to see the slashdot crowd supporting more strict H1-B limits. 1) H-1Bs are not immigrants, they are here on temporary work visas.
2) H-1B are not the "best and brightest." If that were true, H-!Bs would be nobel-prize winners and the like. In fact H-1Bs are very average people, usually right out of college. And the random lottery nature of the system insures that employers have no idea what they are getting. H-1Bs do nothing except replace displace equally qualified US IT workers. How does that make the US greater?
3) Many of Americans have invested an awful lot in their IT careers. To lose your job, just so a company can save a few bucks on cheap foreign labor, hurts - a lot.
4) H-1Bs are absolutely not needed. According to the US-DOL, there is a glut of IT workers. There have been huge layoffs all over.
5) According to Dr. Ron Hira, an expert on the subjust, the real reason of H-1B is to make it easier to send US development jobs offshore - where the pay is $5 an hour instead of $50 an hour.
Reality: If that were true then the typical H1-B would a Nobel prize winning scientist. The truth is, the typical H1-B is an average student, hired right out of college with only a four year degree. The typical H1-B is no more qualified than the US graduates who are not getting jobs. The H1-Bs are just cheaper. And because of the lottery nature of the H1-B process, employers do not even know who they are getting. So how do employers know that they are getting the best and brightest?
Also, isn't it funny that almost all of the "best and brightest" come from countries where people earn as little as $1 a day? If it's really about the "best and brightest" then why aren't there more European H1-Bs?
----
Myth: H1-Bs are needed because of the critical shortage of US technology workers
Reality: Serious academic studies clearly indicate that skills shortage is a myth.
> These studies done at Duke aren't alone in their assessment that there is in fact no skills shortage. They're backed up by other studies conducted by RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, all of which settle upon the same conclusion: There is no shortage of educated IT workers.
Myth: H1-Bs do compete unfairly, because H1-Bs are paid the prevailing wage
Reality:
> According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) as the measurement of U.S. wages, and the H-1B LCA disclosure data to measure H-1B wages, 90% of H-1B employers' prevailing wage claims for programmers were below the median U.S. wage for that occupation and location, with 62% of them falling in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages, said Miano [founder of the Programmer's Guild].
> Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology (currently on leave) and a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, pointed to USCIS's most recent report to Congress, which shows that the medium wage in 2005 for new H-1B computing professionals was just $50,000 -- even lower than the entry-level wages that a newly graduated tech worker with a bachelor's degree and no experience would command.
According to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service's (USCIS) annual report to Congress in 2005, the aggregate data for computing professionals lend support to the argument that the practice of paying H-1Bs below-market wages is quite common.
H1-Bs are hired at four different skill levels, "4" being the highest. But most H1-Bs are hired for the lowest "1" level jobs - regardless of what kind of work the H1-Bs actually do.
----
Myth: In the USA enrollment in technical disciplines is declining. Proof the USA needs to hire more foreign workers
Reality: This myth is designed to confuse cause and effect. Employers are not forced to hire offshore because enrollment is down. Rather, enrollment is down because of aggressive offshoring by employers. But even with enrollments down, there are still more than enough US workers.
> Due to both outsourcing and insourcing, many young people are concluding that technology is a bad place to invest their time," said Mark Thoma, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon in Euge
Personally, I'm happy to see "embrace and extend" applied against Microsoft. Microsoft overturned industry-established standards by embracing them (adopting them, providing interoperability with them, etc.), then creating Microsoft-only extensions that locked people into their products. Now, Nov ell is giving Microsoft a little taste of their own medicine, embracing.NET and turning it into Mono, among other things. WTF? Who uses Mono? I thought Mono was completely borked, and a joke to real developers? Besides, what does Mono have to do with novl/msft scam? And how does this use "embrace and extend" against msft?
The only way we're going to get back to truly open standards for everyone is if we accept the reality that, at the current time, a lot of standards are Microsoft-only, and only by providing a clean interoperability path with existing tech will we ever be able to migrate to something better So we should go along with the msft/novl scam, and agree that Linux is patent encumbered, and that Linux needs this dirty under-the-table deal to be legal? And that only novl Linux is legal to use?
> Huh? ODF is the standardization of StarOffice's document format, the same way OOXML is the standardization of Office's document format.
Not at all. ODF is used in about 20 different applications. It can even be used with ms-office. ODF is wide open, and any vendor is welcome to use it. OOXML can only be used by msft, and vedors approved by msft.
Saying that ODF can only be used by OpenOffice, is like saying that ASCII can be used by vi.
Anybody following the OOXML ISO approval process (or anybody who followed the Peter Quinn case) can see that msft is desperate and willing to go to any lengths to shove its bogus "standard" through the system.
BTW: ODF has nothing to do with openoffice. OpenOffice is an application, ODF is a document standard - like HTML or ASCII.
I use openoffice 2.4, it works for me, does all I need to do. Although I will admit, I considered every version of openoffice before 2.4 to be too slow.
Novell execs do what novell execs think is in their own best interest. Sometimes that means helping Linux/foss, other times not. Novell execs may presently wants to linux to succeed - but only for novell, not for everybody. Bottom line, novell execs are looking at their own bottom line - whether that helps, or hurts, linux is inconsequential. Novell execs are not in business for the sake of any kind of idealism.
Whatever criticisms people have against msft, you have to give msft credit for being strategic. Right now, msft is teaming with novell to defeat redhat via msft's patent scam. Once redhat has been defeated, msft can turn their attention to other linux distributors, including novell. Let me remind you, msft has a long history of turning against their business partners.
> Microsoft wants to hedge bets on many levels and getting any stream of income from open source would be good for them.
I don't think that is what the deal is about. Msft's business model does not work unless msft can control the standard. Msft wants linux to be legally encumbered. Msft is getting Novell to agree that all other version of linux are violating msft patents. This is supposed to create one legal version of Linux, and all the rest are illegal. Why do you think msft is sponsoring the Acacia lawsuit against Redhat?
Right now, there is no way msft can kill off linux in the same manner that msft has killed off msft's proprietary competitors. But, if there is only one linux, and this linux is commercial product, then it becomes much easier for msft to kill off, or at least contain the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
My understanding is that msft has hated this OLPC program since it began. And that msft has worked hard to undermine the program. For example, if msft found a school that was interested in OLPC, msft would step in and offer to install a msft network instead. Of course, there may have been a lot of msft sponsored fud: "the OLPC teaches children non-standard computing" and of course: "msft will offer something better."
>>Having more than one international standard doesn't make much sense.
It is also against ISO policy. But, when msft is involved, who cares about policy, or making sense? It's all about $$.
The 2009 will get 35mpg/hwy, and cost between $15K - $20K. Not all that bad. But, when you consider that the honda crx hf was getting 50mpg/hwy 20 years ago, shouldn't we be getting at least that kind of mpg now?
Web-site about hi mpg cars.
http://hi-mpg.org/best-cars-with-high-gas-mileage.phtml
December 20 2007 - Article on CNN Money:
57 mpg? That's so 20 years ago
Want to drive a cheap car that gets eye-popping mileage? In 1987 you could - and it wasn't even a hybrid
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/17/autos/honda_civic_hf/index.htm
Also:
1973 Honda Civic rated 40mpg/hwyy
1986 VW Golf diesle rated 40mpg/hwy *
1989 Geo Metro was rated at 49mpg/hwy
1992 Ford Festiva rated at 41mpg/hwy
* I got over 50mpg driving from Florida to New Jersey, while running the air conditioner.
Not only were those cars fuel efficient, there were also inexpensive to buy. In fact, they were often the least expensive cars you could buy.
Also, those cars did not have those huge, environmentally unfriendly, batteries, that you find in a hybrid.
Seems to me that major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires a $60K heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.
There used to be a lot of cars in the USA that got 40mpg/hwy, or better:
1973 Honda Civic rated 40mpg/hwy
1986 VW Golf diesle rated 40mpg/hwy
1989 Geo Metro was rated at 49mpg/hwy
1992 Ford Festiva rated at 41mpg/hwy
But not anymore. Now you have to buy hybrid to get that kind of mpg - or to get anything near that kind of mpg.
Seems to me that major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires a $60K, heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.
Maybe the major car makers don't want 40+ mpg econo-boxes to compete with their hybrids?
I feel like I'm re-living the past. I am old enough to remember the oil embargo of the 1970s, and how that quadrupled the cost of fuel. For a short time, it was all windmills, car pooling, public transportation, and econo-box cars, then it was right back to the guzzlers.
I also remember fuel prices dropping, very briefly, in early 2006. The sales of SUVs spiked right along with the fuel cost drop. If fuel prices drop during the election, the same thing will probably happen again.
Those who don't remember the past, yadda yadda.
Seems to me that major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires a $60K heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.
Does anybody remember those inexpensive, boxy looking, 40+ mpg, hatchbacks? What ever happened to those? Here is what I mean:
1973 Honda Civic rated 40mpg/hwyy
1986 VW Golf diesle rated 40mpg/hwy *
1989 Geo Metro was rated at 49mpg/hwy
1992 Ford Festiva rated at 41mpg/hwy
* I got over 50mpg driving from Florida to New Jersey, while running the air conditioner.
I having been reading about 60mpg Tata Nano, which will probably cost $3700. At a top speed of 60mph, it may not be practical for the USA. But, what about something that gets 40mpg, and costs $8000?
I suppose the closest thing to an economy car today is the Toyota Yaris - 36mpg/hwy and costs about $12K. Why not strip that down? Make it a lighter, cheaper, hatchback? Remember, Honda made a 40mpg car 35 years ago.
A major web-site off-line for hour, oh the horror, the HORROR!
I suppose that's the way we are going with blackberries and iphones. If the Eee could be used for making a phone call, it would be something like a blackberry on steroids.
Paranoia about computer cracking may have also been increased by highly publicized real events. The Cuckoos Egg was published in 1990 about events that occurred in 1986. The Morrison worm happened in 1988, I think.
Actually, I think most people just get a new laptop. Since, the high cost of new battery can hardly be justified if the laptop is over three years old.
I just think it's a shame that so many mobile devices are retired before their time.
Yes, the GPL is more restrictive than the BSD. But many free software advocates see that as a good thing.
The ideas behind the GPL, I think, are 1) stop msft from using their embrace-extend-extinguish strategy. 2) stop proprietary developers from using the code without giving anything back.
I understand that standard AAs will not cut it for today's devices.
But why must every laptop and mobile device have a special battery developed just for it? Could it not be narrowed down to about 10 different standardized rechargeable batteries?
The H-1B system is, by design, a scam. Practically all h1b workers are hired by six Indian contracting companies. If the h1b were honestly about filing shortages then 1) why so hugely disproportionately IT? There is a huge shortage of nurses in the US right now, and a glut of software developers - but the h1b are almost all software developers. 2) why are almost all h1bs from India? Why no Europeans?
Opposing the present h1b scam is not xenophobic at all. It is perfect reasonable to oppose a scam that hurting this nation in order to benefit a few Indian contracting companies, and a few corrupt US politicians.
H-1Bs are not immigrants. Furthermore, how does it benefit US IT workers to have their jobs replaced by cheap foreign labor? The H-1B program is mainly designed to help msft, and a few Indian contracting companies. What is at stake here is the US' position in the world - I, being a foreigner, don't have as much invested in America's reputation and well-being as an American would, or should, but it would be very sad to see a nation that was once admired and envied crumble into the dust and become a sleepy, introverted backwater. You think it's beneficial to the USA to further hurt it's workforce during a recession? That is your idea of sound economic policy? Consider this:
> "Currently, the Department of Labor estimates that there are about 656,000 unemployed IT workers in the U.S. In addition, the slowing economy has led to a loss of jobs across the board including in IT. The Denver-based Rocky Mountain News reports that Colorado -- the state with the third highest concentration of IT workers -- has lost 47,200 technology jobs since 2001."
http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_may08nl02
2) H-1B are not the "best and brightest." If that were true, H-!Bs would be nobel-prize winners and the like. In fact H-1Bs are very average people, usually right out of college. And the random lottery nature of the system insures that employers have no idea what they are getting. H-1Bs do nothing except replace displace equally qualified US IT workers. How does that make the US greater?
3) Many of Americans have invested an awful lot in their IT careers. To lose your job, just so a company can save a few bucks on cheap foreign labor, hurts - a lot.
4) H-1Bs are absolutely not needed. According to the US-DOL, there is a glut of IT workers. There have been huge layoffs all over.
5) According to Dr. Ron Hira, an expert on the subjust, the real reason of H-1B is to make it easier to send US development jobs offshore - where the pay is $5 an hour instead of $50 an hour.
Myths and Realities About the USA H1-B Program
Myth: H1-Bs are the "best and brightest"
Reality: If that were true then the typical H1-B would a Nobel prize winning scientist. The truth is, the typical H1-B is an average student, hired right out of college with only a four year degree. The typical H1-B is no more qualified than the US graduates who are not getting jobs. The H1-Bs are just cheaper. And because of the lottery nature of the H1-B process, employers do not even know who they are getting. So how do employers know that they are getting the best and brightest?
Also, isn't it funny that almost all of the "best and brightest" come from countries where people earn as little as $1 a day? If it's really about the "best and brightest" then why aren't there more European H1-Bs?
----
Myth: H1-Bs are needed because of the critical shortage of US technology workers
Reality: Serious academic studies clearly indicate that skills shortage is a myth.
> These studies done at Duke aren't alone in their assessment that there is in fact no skills shortage. They're backed up by other studies conducted by RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, all of which settle upon the same conclusion: There is no shortage of educated IT workers.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1081923#PaperDownload
This according to a well researched article at baselinemag.com:
http://tinyurl.com/yoy2rw
----
Myth: H1-Bs do compete unfairly, because H1-Bs are paid the prevailing wage
Reality:
> According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) as the measurement of U.S. wages, and the H-1B LCA disclosure data to measure H-1B wages, 90% of H-1B employers' prevailing wage claims for programmers were below the median U.S. wage for that occupation and location, with 62% of them falling in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages, said Miano [founder of the Programmer's Guild].
> Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology (currently on leave) and a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, pointed to USCIS's most recent report to Congress, which shows that the medium wage in 2005 for new H-1B computing professionals was just $50,000 -- even lower than the entry-level wages that a newly graduated tech worker with a bachelor's degree and no experience would command.
http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh
According to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service's (USCIS) annual report to Congress in 2005, the aggregate data for computing professionals lend support to the argument that the practice of paying H-1Bs below-market wages is quite common.
http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp187.html
H1-Bs are hired at four different skill levels, "4" being the highest. But most H1-Bs are hired for the lowest "1" level jobs - regardless of what kind of work the H1-Bs actually do.
----
Myth: In the USA enrollment in technical disciplines is declining. Proof the USA needs to hire more foreign workers
Reality: This myth is designed to confuse cause and effect. Employers are not forced to hire offshore because enrollment is down. Rather, enrollment is down because of aggressive offshoring by employers. But even with enrollments down, there are still more than enough US workers.
> Due to both outsourcing and insourcing, many young people are concluding that technology is a bad place to invest their time," said Mark Thoma, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon in Euge
An H-1B is a temporary work visa. I suppose some H-1Bs might become citizens, but that is not what the program is about.
> Huh? ODF is the standardization of StarOffice's document format, the same way OOXML is the standardization of Office's document format.
Not at all. ODF is used in about 20 different applications. It can even be used with ms-office. ODF is wide open, and any vendor is welcome to use it. OOXML can only be used by msft, and vedors approved by msft.
Saying that ODF can only be used by OpenOffice, is like saying that ASCII can be used by vi.
Anybody following the OOXML ISO approval process (or anybody who followed the Peter Quinn case) can see that msft is desperate and willing to go to any lengths to shove its bogus "standard" through the system.
BTW: ODF has nothing to do with openoffice. OpenOffice is an application, ODF is a document standard - like HTML or ASCII.
I use openoffice 2.4, it works for me, does all I need to do. Although I will admit, I considered every version of openoffice before 2.4 to be too slow.
Novell execs do what novell execs think is in their own best interest. Sometimes that means helping Linux/foss, other times not. Novell execs may presently wants to linux to succeed - but only for novell, not for everybody. Bottom line, novell execs are looking at their own bottom line - whether that helps, or hurts, linux is inconsequential. Novell execs are not in business for the sake of any kind of idealism.
Whatever criticisms people have against msft, you have to give msft credit for being strategic. Right now, msft is teaming with novell to defeat redhat via msft's patent scam. Once redhat has been defeated, msft can turn their attention to other linux distributors, including novell. Let me remind you, msft has a long history of turning against their business partners.
> Microsoft wants to hedge bets on many levels and getting any stream of income from open source would be good for them.
I don't think that is what the deal is about. Msft's business model does not work unless msft can control the standard. Msft wants linux to be legally encumbered. Msft is getting Novell to agree that all other version of linux are violating msft patents. This is supposed to create one legal version of Linux, and all the rest are illegal. Why do you think msft is sponsoring the Acacia lawsuit against Redhat?
Right now, there is no way msft can kill off linux in the same manner that msft has killed off msft's proprietary competitors. But, if there is only one linux, and this linux is commercial product, then it becomes much easier for msft to kill off, or at least contain the problem.