Civil, chemical, biomedical, mechanical engineerings are strong and growing.
Do you have data to support this? The last numbers I could find were that undergraduate engineering peaked in 1983, declined sharply until 1990, and has been creeping downwards since.
the US churns more jobs PER MONTH than are out sourced.
In a macro sense that is true. However in the engineering professions unemployment is at an all time high, and is higher than the overall average which includes people who never graduated 6th grade.
Over the course of my career as an engineer, unemployment in my profession rarely reached 2%. Now it is 7+%. It just doesn't make economic sense to me to invest the time and energy without the return.
Of course if you have other reasons, all the power to you. But don't kid yourself about what you are getting into from an economic perspective.
Joe was an engineer. He worked hard, studied hard and took pride in his work. He was also faithful to his wife, raised two children to be solid members of the community and attended church every Sunday.
Finally after a full life Joe died in his sleep one night.
On awakening he found himself facing St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. Peter looks in his book, and finds that Joe is not in the Authorized list. He looks at Joe and says, sorry!, pulls the trapdoor lever and Joe starts falling. Joe yells "Wait there must be some Missstaaakeeee".
A few hundred years later God is auditing the Big Book and finds that Joe should have been listed as Authorized. We, he goes on a rampage, thunder and lighting, assorted Vengeful God stuff. After calming down God picks up the cellphone and rings up the Devil.
God: Hey Dev, remember Joe, that Engineer I sent you a few hundred years ago?
Devil: Yeah, I sure do. I want to thank you for sending him down here. He's got the A/C fixed, and we now get broadband and digital cable. He's now working on beer-on-tap. Whatta guy!
God: (Pissed Off) Hey! You have got to send him up here. He should have never been sent down to you. He belongs up here.
Devil: Yeah Right. Finders Keepers. No way am I letting him go!
God: (Really Pissed Off) I'LL SUE!!!
Devil: (ROTFL) HA HA Where are you getting a lawyer HA HA.
- -
So that's where we are heading. A country of lawyers where the A/C and cable doesn't work. Not a pleasent prognosis.
One thing I do remember is that another survey picked the Amish as being the happiest group in America - to be honest I can see why. They have a lot of community and extended family around to make life a lot richer than the nuclear family way of life that is the norm in the US.
I haven't seen any reliability studies of DVD media that include good numbers as to what to expect. However Kodak did publish some accelerated aging studies of CD-Rs where they showed gold stabilized phenothiazine dye (licensed by them from Mitsui) could be expected to last 200 years or so. Of course the stuff you get from CompuUSA for $2 per 100 isn't that dye system at all, it's whatever is cheapest that week.
Unfortunately Kodak isn't in the CD-R business any more (pushed out of the market by the cheap stuff) so if you want the Mitsui gold dye system you have to get Mitsui media.
If I had really critical data I would still burn it multiple times - CDs can are subject to problems in other ways than dye layer degradation, but I would do the burning onto Mitsui gold media.
DVD recordables? Not for critical data storage until I see some data on longevity.
I think it's going to get worse, not better. There are two big shoes out there - HD and BluRay or whatever that will be called, (plus variations) that have to be dropped yet. These are sure to trigger more compatability issues.
While I'm not going to stop buying (because the technology is so useful), I'm not making any >$100 purchases either.
These methods to save a quick buck rarely pan out in the end, though they look good on paper.
Mod parent up. If it sounds too good to be true, it almost always is too good to be true.
All this outsourcing stuff sounds to me like the last big IT fad - re-engineering. This was supposed to be a re-do of all business processes within a company to streamline costs. Sounds great to CEOs, and consultants got very good at selling massive re-engineering projects. The problem was that 80%+ were found to be abject failures.
Now we have these outsourcing images - save money by paying a 3rd world person peanuts to do the work. Well, what is very suspicious to me is that I haven't seen any numbers attached to the success or failure rates of these projects. I wonder if when the real analysis becomes available these cost savings are going to exist at all.
It's your job in the US/Canada/Europe that is going "poof!"
By the time these Indian freshers are doing senior level work, I will be at the next level up. It's the guys coming out of school that are in trouble - they don't have a skill/experience edge over the masses of programmers being turned out in India and China.
From my experiences with the resume and hiring process I would put the number at more like 2%.
And that applies not to just Java, but ANY programming language or computer skill. After all, how many people who put HTML on their resume can actually code clean standards compliant HTML 4.01? How many know when CSS layout is appropriate, and when it is not, and can successfully blend table and CSS layout in an optimal fashion?
It doesn't work well for an applet in a browser, and it doesn't work well for stand alone apps.
Yes, and those are not the areas where Java has been very successful. However there are others, like server programming where Java is clearly the best choce.
I think most Java programmers are like me, they played with it enough to find out it's not worth the trouble.
I hope so. That will make it easier for those of us who actually understand Java and where it is appropriate to charge high hourly consulting rates.
They would outsource Mr. Fancy Pants Editor and his bosses. Clearly the big bucks are going to these guys. If the writers can live on $1.00 per day in Bangalore, surely then can management live there on $2.00.
Sometimes I think the average slashdot poster must be about 14 years old judging by how much thought goes into some of these comments.
I agree. Unfortunately your post shows exactly the sort of thoughtless knee jerk reaction you are complaining about.
The fact of the matter is that the US economy is drastically and negatively influenced by the current status quo of statisfying energy needs by cheap oil imports. The costs of the foreign policy needed to support this situation are in the 100's of billions per year. The current ballooning deficit ($500 billion this year) and military budget are the direct result of this oil dependence. Do you think Americans would give a rats ass about what happens in the Middle East if oil didn't come from there?
And it can only get worse as these finite reserves of oil are consumed. What is the end game we are heading towards? Surely it is nuclear war or nuclear terrorism. We cannot tolerate where this is heading, yet we seem to ignore the clear signposts.
The taxes and the huge balance of trade deficits that drain the life blood from out economy are the distortion that is the direct result of our dependence on foreign oil, and the erroneous percieved need to keep the price down. It is distorting the true market forces through massive government intervention. Any sane economist will tell you that this is incredibly wasteful.
What is the solution to this? Other countries have partially found it in more efficient use of energy. The US uses over 12,000 BTU per $1 of GNP. That is only SLIGHTLY more efficient than the Dominican Republic. Switzerland manages 2,900 BTU per $1 GNP. Japan even less. Now this says to me that the US could potentially reduce its energy consumption by a FACTOR OF 4 with NO reduction in standard of living.
To me the idea that the economy of what is supposed to be the most technologically advanced nation on earth is driven by an energy balance no more efficient than the Dominican Republic, and it must sustain this by imposing its political will on another part of the world by military intervention is nonsense on the face of it, and history will record it as insanity.
I think that the US *MUST* face the music and realize exactly what this current economic fallicy is costing the country. Instead of the giant balance of trade deficits and military budgets, we should be investing in sustainable development - efficient utilization of the resources we have, and new technologies to expand their use. The result will be those oil and defense budget dollars going into technologies that are being surpressed due to an artificial and ultimately untenable situation.
This economic approach would have drastic results in the revitalization of American industry. Productivity of energy will soar, and the distortions in the current national policy disappear. Investments in new technologies other than pinpoint bomb delivery will lead to the end of the need for oil wars. The development of new energy technologies will lead to a whole new economic growth vector that will complement and amplify the silicon revolution, and hasten growth in other (bio- and nano-) technologies.
This is why I said a rise in the price of oil is a good thing.
What the world really needs is a cheap, non-bulky rechargable battery.
That would be hydrogen fuel cells.
Let's see -
Cheap - Nope (requires expensive catalysts). $3000/kw. Internal combustion engines cost $50- $75 per kw. The internal combustion engines use cheaper and denser fuel, too.
Rechargable - Nope (can't run current back into it to recharge it like a battery - you need to get more H2 for it by some other process). Refuelable, yes. Rechargable, no.
Non-Bulky - Nope (H2 storage isn't cheap and is generally bulky because of the low energy density of H2).
Not only that, but there is now a belief that H2 may lead to ozone depletion if used widely.
What the world really needs is a cheap, non-bulky rechargable battery.
Duh!!!!!
Conspiracy theories, anyone?
Doubtful. I've been involved in electrochemical R&D myself, and given the number of companies that have had programs in this area for many years, plus the vast wealth that would be generated by such a device it is hard to imagine how it could be surpressed.
It's the only thing that keeps solar power, wind power, electric cars, and a lot of other cool sustainable tech from happening.
Electric cars, maybe, although hybrids seem to be doing pretty well with plain old lead-acid batteries.
I think that there are a lot of other systems that can be used with wind and solar power other than batteries. What limits these technologies is other issues, like basic cost per kw-hr generated.
Until oil gets above $50-60/bbl long term you won't see them widely used. The good news is that $50-60/bbl isn't that far off.
Seriously, these guys are pushing one of the oldest scams in the world. Send us money for work at home opportunities has been one of the FTC's main scam warnings for years and is a common theme in spam messages.
Here are some references:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/ftc_work_at_ h. htm
The FTC should be informed of these guys so they can shut them down.
I am surprised that Slashdot's editors would let an article like this get through. Rather that posting this as a question, it should be posted as a warning. For all we know the person asking the question could be trying to attract traffic to this site.
http://www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/biosfty/bmbl4/bmbl4s3. ht m
The Plum Island directors are referring to a specialized level for livestock diseases; i.e. BL's which are defined by the Dept of Agriculture. The USDA Level 5 definition is a BL level 3-Ag (modifications to BSL-3 to handle animal, not human pathogens) facility that is separated from the mainland, i.e. on an island. Plum Island is a mechanically level 3-Ag facility that get a level 5 Ag rating BECAUSE IT IS ON AN ISLAND.
In this case BL-5 is lower security than BSL-4, and may not even qualify for BSL-3. And it does not contain human pathogens.
Do the math. If your homebrew system goes down, you will be burning the time of 1000+ people ($60,000) per hour. With those kind of numbers it doesn't pay to do it on the cheap. Get a redundant Cisco system with plenty of power backup.
Slashdot Mirror
Civil, chemical, biomedical, mechanical engineerings are strong and growing.
0 2- 09.xls
Do you have data to support this? The last numbers I could find were that undergraduate engineering peaked in 1983, declined sharply until 1990, and has been creeping downwards since.
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind02/append/c2/at
the US churns more jobs PER MONTH than are out sourced.
In a macro sense that is true. However in the engineering professions unemployment is at an all time high, and is higher than the overall average which includes people who never graduated 6th grade.
Over the course of my career as an engineer, unemployment in my profession rarely reached 2%. Now it is 7+%. It just doesn't make economic sense to me to invest the time and energy without the return.
Of course if you have other reasons, all the power to you. But don't kid yourself about what you are getting into from an economic perspective.
Joe was an engineer. He worked hard, studied hard and took pride in his work. He was also faithful to his wife, raised two children to be solid members of the community and attended church every Sunday.
Finally after a full life Joe died in his sleep one night.
On awakening he found himself facing St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. Peter looks in his book, and finds that Joe is not in the Authorized list. He looks at Joe and says, sorry!, pulls the trapdoor lever and Joe starts falling. Joe yells "Wait there must be some Missstaaakeeee".
A few hundred years later God is auditing the Big Book and finds that Joe should have been listed as Authorized. We, he goes on a rampage, thunder and lighting, assorted Vengeful God stuff. After calming down God picks up the cellphone and rings up the Devil.
God: Hey Dev, remember Joe, that Engineer I sent you a few hundred years ago?
Devil: Yeah, I sure do. I want to thank you for sending him down here. He's got the A/C fixed, and we now get broadband and digital cable. He's now working on beer-on-tap. Whatta guy!
God: (Pissed Off) Hey! You have got to send him up here. He should have never been sent down to you. He belongs up here.
Devil: Yeah Right. Finders Keepers. No way am I letting him go!
God: (Really Pissed Off) I'LL SUE!!!
Devil: (ROTFL) HA HA Where are you getting a lawyer HA HA.
- -
So that's where we are heading. A country of lawyers where the A/C and cable doesn't work. Not a pleasent prognosis.
And I suppose the next step is teeny implants to test the effects of different materials....
One thing I do remember is that another survey picked the Amish as being the happiest group in America - to be honest I can see why. They have a lot of community and extended family around to make life a lot richer than the nuclear family way of life that is the norm in the US.
I haven't seen any reliability studies of DVD media that include good numbers as to what to expect. However Kodak did publish some accelerated aging studies of CD-Rs where they showed gold stabilized phenothiazine dye (licensed by them from Mitsui) could be expected to last 200 years or so. Of course the stuff you get from CompuUSA for $2 per 100 isn't that dye system at all, it's whatever is cheapest that week.
Unfortunately Kodak isn't in the CD-R business any more (pushed out of the market by the cheap stuff) so if you want the Mitsui gold dye system you have to get Mitsui media.
If I had really critical data I would still burn it multiple times - CDs can are subject to problems in other ways than dye layer degradation, but I would do the burning onto Mitsui gold media.
DVD recordables? Not for critical data storage until I see some data on longevity.
not ALL the compatibility issues....
I think it's going to get worse, not better. There are two big shoes out there - HD and BluRay or whatever that will be called, (plus variations) that have to be dropped yet. These are sure to trigger more compatability issues.
While I'm not going to stop buying (because the technology is so useful), I'm not making any >$100 purchases either.
"8XDVD+/-R DL 8XDVD+/-R 4XDVD+/-RW 16XDVD-ROM 48XCD+/-R 8XCD+/-RW 48XCD-ROM"?
I like it. Now add in Blue Light and HD to the mix to make it truely consumer baffling.
does anyone know of an effective DVD burner that runs under Linux
.iso under Linux so long as you use this software.
All the burners I've tried work fine for
wait until all the compatibility issues are figured out
Don't hold your breath.
These methods to save a quick buck rarely pan out in the end, though they look good on paper.
Mod parent up. If it sounds too good to be true, it almost always is too good to be true.
All this outsourcing stuff sounds to me like the last big IT fad - re-engineering. This was supposed to be a re-do of all business processes within a company to streamline costs. Sounds great to CEOs, and consultants got very good at selling massive re-engineering projects. The problem was that 80%+ were found to be abject failures.
Now we have these outsourcing images - save money by paying a 3rd world person peanuts to do the work. Well, what is very suspicious to me is that I haven't seen any numbers attached to the success or failure rates of these projects. I wonder if when the real analysis becomes available these cost savings are going to exist at all.
It's your job in the US/Canada/Europe that is going "poof!"
By the time these Indian freshers are doing senior level work, I will be at the next level up. It's the guys coming out of school that are in trouble - they don't have a skill/experience edge over the masses of programmers being turned out in India and China.
From my experiences with the resume and hiring process I would put the number at more like 2%.
And that applies not to just Java, but ANY programming language or computer skill. After all, how many people who put HTML on their resume can actually code clean standards compliant HTML 4.01? How many know when CSS layout is appropriate, and when it is not, and can successfully blend table and CSS layout in an optimal fashion?
It doesn't work well for an applet in a browser, and it doesn't work well for stand alone apps.
Yes, and those are not the areas where Java has been very successful. However there are others, like server programming where Java is clearly the best choce.
I think most Java programmers are like me, they played with it enough to find out it's not worth the trouble.
I hope so. That will make it easier for those of us who actually understand Java and where it is appropriate to charge high hourly consulting rates.
They would outsource Mr. Fancy Pants Editor and his bosses. Clearly the big bucks are going to these guys. If the writers can live on $1.00 per day in Bangalore, surely then can management live there on $2.00.
Ahahahaahaha, what are you new here, son?
Not new, just less cynical than you.
but then so would eliminating patents completely.
A limitation of patents to only drugs that make people live longer would have a good effect
Oh great. No new pain killers. Or cures for non-fatal diseases like macroreticular degeneration. Or psychological disorders like bipolar disease.
but then so would eliminating patents completely.
So who is going to spend a billion dollars developing a new drug without patent protection? It's the most idiotic concept I have seen in a LONG time.
Sometimes I think the average slashdot poster must be about 14 years old judging by how much thought goes into some of these comments.
I agree. Unfortunately your post shows exactly the sort of thoughtless knee jerk reaction you are complaining about.
The fact of the matter is that the US economy is
drastically and negatively influenced by the current status quo of statisfying energy needs by cheap oil imports. The costs of the foreign policy needed to support this situation are in the 100's of billions per year. The current ballooning deficit ($500 billion this year) and military budget are the direct result of this oil dependence. Do you think Americans would give a rats ass about what happens in the Middle East if oil didn't come from there?
And it can only get worse as these finite reserves of oil are consumed. What is the end game we are heading towards? Surely it is nuclear war or nuclear terrorism. We cannot tolerate where this is heading, yet we seem to ignore the clear signposts.
The taxes and the huge balance of trade deficits that drain the life blood from out economy are the distortion that is the direct result of our dependence on foreign oil, and the erroneous percieved need to keep the price down. It is distorting the true market forces through massive government intervention. Any sane economist will tell you that this is incredibly wasteful.
What is the solution to this? Other countries have partially found it in more efficient use of energy. The US uses over 12,000 BTU per $1 of GNP. That is only SLIGHTLY more efficient than the Dominican Republic. Switzerland manages 2,900 BTU per $1 GNP. Japan even less. Now this says to me that the US could potentially reduce its energy consumption by a FACTOR OF 4 with NO reduction in standard of living.
To me the idea that the economy of what is supposed to be the most technologically advanced nation on earth is driven by an energy balance no more efficient than the Dominican Republic, and it must sustain this by imposing its political will on another part of the world by military intervention is nonsense on the face of it, and history will record it as insanity.
I think that the US *MUST* face the music and realize exactly what this current economic fallicy is costing the country. Instead of the giant balance of trade deficits and military budgets, we should be investing in sustainable development - efficient utilization of the resources we have, and new technologies to expand their use. The result will be those oil and defense budget dollars going into technologies that are being surpressed due to an artificial and ultimately untenable situation.
This economic approach would have drastic results in the revitalization of American industry. Productivity of energy will soar, and the distortions in the current national policy disappear. Investments in new technologies other than pinpoint bomb delivery will lead to the end of the need for oil wars. The development of new energy technologies will lead to a whole new economic growth vector that will complement and amplify the silicon revolution, and hasten growth in other (bio- and nano-) technologies.
This is why I said a rise in the price of oil is a good thing.
What the world really needs is a cheap, non-bulky rechargable battery.
6 07 3725.htm
That would be hydrogen fuel cells.
Let's see -
Cheap - Nope (requires expensive catalysts). $3000/kw. Internal combustion engines cost $50- $75 per kw. The internal combustion engines use cheaper and denser fuel, too.
Rechargable - Nope (can't run current back into it to recharge it like a battery - you need to get more H2 for it by some other process). Refuelable, yes. Rechargable, no.
Non-Bulky - Nope (H2 storage isn't cheap and is generally bulky because of the low energy density of H2).
Not only that, but there is now a belief that H2 may lead to ozone depletion if used widely.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/
Now maybe someday these problems will be solved, but I don't think that will happen in my lifetime.
What the world really needs is a cheap, non-bulky rechargable battery.
Duh!!!!!
Conspiracy theories, anyone?
Doubtful. I've been involved in electrochemical R&D myself, and given the number of companies that have had programs in this area for many years, plus the vast wealth that would be generated by such a device it is hard to imagine how it could be surpressed.
It's the only thing that keeps solar power, wind power, electric cars, and a lot of other cool sustainable tech from happening.
Electric cars, maybe, although hybrids seem to be doing pretty well with plain old lead-acid batteries.
I think that there are a lot of other systems that can be used with wind and solar power other than batteries. What limits these technologies is other issues, like basic cost per kw-hr generated.
Until oil gets above $50-60/bbl long term you won't see them widely used. The good news is that $50-60/bbl isn't that far off.
Out of curiosity, for people that are using +/-RW, what are you using it for?
It is an excellent backup choice if you use a media rotation plan and offsite storage if your data size is appropriate.
Seriously, these guys are pushing one of the oldest scams in the world. Send us money for work at home opportunities has been one of the FTC's main scam warnings for years and is a common theme in spam messages.
Here are some references:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/ftc_work_at
http://www.keytlaw.com/FTC/Actions/ftc020730.ht
http://boston.internet.com/news/article.php/217
The FTC should be informed of these guys so they can shut them down.
I am surprised that Slashdot's editors would let an article like this get through. Rather that posting this as a question, it should be posted as a warning. For all we know the person asking the question could be trying to attract traffic to this site.
This story should be pulled ASAP.
BSL levels 1-4 are defined in places like:
. ht m
http://www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/biosfty/bmbl4/bmbl4s3
The Plum Island directors are referring to a specialized level for livestock diseases; i.e. BL's which are defined by the Dept of Agriculture. The USDA Level 5 definition is a BL level 3-Ag (modifications to BSL-3 to handle animal, not human pathogens) facility that is separated from the mainland, i.e. on an island. Plum Island is a mechanically level 3-Ag facility that get a level 5 Ag rating BECAUSE IT IS ON AN ISLAND.
In this case BL-5 is lower security than BSL-4, and may not even qualify for BSL-3. And it does not contain human pathogens.
Do the math. If your homebrew system goes down, you will be burning the time of 1000+ people ($60,000) per hour. With those kind of numbers it doesn't pay to do it on the cheap. Get a redundant Cisco system with plenty of power backup.
One thing to be aware of is that hiring family members has big tax advantages. Children can earn 7K+ per year tax free, and so on.