health care is very good. Rich people from around the world send their family to US based hosiptals
This is probably the most unintentionally funny thing I've read in this whole comment list. While it is true that other countries send their people here, are you not aware that due to the rising costs of US healthcare, upper-middle-class people in the US routinely leave the country for major elective surgeries (and some other non-critical surgeries where travelling half a day isn't a problem), to have them done by American-schooled foreign doctors in modern facilities (largely paid-for by these American patrons) in other countries where expenses are lower? How long before the rich people around the world realize that they're paying too much?
As for earning wealth, what exactly does a CEO do that merits their "vast" wealth? They don't create new products for their company to sell, they don't market these products to people, and as Enron has proven, they don't even take the fall when their corporation does something illegal. To me it seems that they play golf and find new people to trade board positions with, and to promise to vote each other big raises at the next board meeting.
This would be great, except what will the US produce then? After all, once we've lost all of our domain expertise to other countries, what would India want with our third-rate software development? Maybe we could all set up on our front lawn and sell hand-carved furniture in hopes that an Indian will fly over and buy something to be shipped back home?
Without manufacturing or thinking jobs, what can we possibly be doing to keep ourselves relevant in this situation? The so-called "Bollywood" proves we can't even rely on the entertainment sector.
As for what's with the jealousy of CEOs or other wealthy elite here, they don't purchase more goods from home or abroad. Instead, they buy stock and put money into taxshelters so they can avoid paying taxes on it. And don't claim that the money in stock somehow creates new jobs, since the vast majority of the stock volume is in trades between people, and not a penny goes to the company being traded.
You forgot the start of the whole argument. We were doing this because we weren't getting a job that pays marginally more than one you can get without a degree. We were doing this because we were getting $90K+ a year. The $90K+ a year salary was justified by the certification, which in turn justified drawing a high salary by proving knowledge in a certain field.
Now that the jobs aren't there, certification is still required to be competitive for the fewer jobs that remain, except now most of those jobs no longer pay $90K. This will cause fewer people to take this career path.
The question is, will HR people loosen the reqirements for certifications when competition decreases? Knowing the Dilbert-esqe corporate landscape, probably not.
may be uncomfortable for a while, but in the long run economies around the world will become more similar
And here I was thinking that some day I'd marry, own a house, and have 2.5 kids, and here you're telling me that I'm going to have to live in a mud hut and watch my kids starve to death so that we can be on the same level as the rest of the world?
After all, once the field is levelled, isn't that whats going to leftover? A world where there is no middle class, where ruling corporate leaders have 99% of the world's wealth while the rest of the workers subsist? Maybe if you average out the United States' largesse with the rest of the world's poverty, the rich will only have 95% of the wealth.
After all, there is an entire world out there, and most of it is worse off than we are.
anyone who has a 401K, and anyone who has insurance
And if you don't? I read this great article in the paper a couple of weeks ago. Someone was defending Bush's "job recovery" by flat out stating that since the administration doesn't report what kind of jobs were created, it obviously doesn't matter. "A job is a job." It claimed that since we don't have metrics for determining what jobs are "good", then all the jobs created since the beginning of the year must have been good.
Contrast this with the reality that increasing numbers of Americans do not have health insurance, and you have to wonder what makes a job "good".
Remember that the person across the counter from you does not have health insurance next time they breath at you while saying "Would you like fries with that?" Maybe you can take some $20s from your 401K and roll them up into nose plugs to protect you.
If you spent $90k on your education, you paid too much.
MCSE, CCNA, CISSP... the numbers keep growing even after graduation. Unlike doctors, who practically get begged to come to their required continuing education classes, paid for by sponsors and the companies with booths at the mini-expo that springs up around these things, the average IT worker pays for his own continuing education. After certification, comes re-certification, re-training, the latest and greatest technologies.
Oh, and don't say You can do IT work without that. Unless of course, you're running a company and you've got openings for uncertified, community college grads. If so, post the job listing here.
Can someone explain to me why the shift in frequency is not being considered as the signal itself? It doesn't take rocket science to create and broadcast an FM signal, and we've even learned how to cope with the doppler effect as we drive along listening to the radio in our cars.
Perhaps 1420 is the start-of-message signal?
Realistically speaking, if I took a reading of a signal that always started the same way and behaved the same way no matter when I started, I would suspect an artifact of the equipment or software.
When you put it like that, you just highlight that the most densly packed parts of Canada still kick our metropolitian center's asses when it comes to speed and price.
Downtown access is getting there, I've seen posts here about people with 6Mbit DSL connections in New York or wherever, but its still not to synchronous 10Mbit connections like the ones cited in the article.
The answer to having to dig up every street is for the government to do it once, and lay conduit large enough to handle a good number of runs beneath the street, with secure access ports. The companies could then use these to run their wires without ever having to dig up the street again. Have a little oversight (access records) to discourage corporate sabotage, and let the companies loose on it.
This kind of infrastructure design and implementation is what I think the government is perfect for. Companies can send ferrets to pull fibre themselves.
Everyone's mentioned a lot of stuff, but nobody's mentioned the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie (shoujo kakumei utena: adolescence mokushiru). Brightly colored, well paced, with plenty of action, it will keep people's attention while playing out several symbolic comparisons to becoming an adult and finding acceptance of one's lifestyle.
Is it the best? Probably not, for several reasons (very little character exposition, it expects that the viewer has seen the 39 episode TV series (also very good), and unfortunately CPM's US release of the movie is glitchy) but it definitely deserves watching unless you're easily offended. I was lucky to see it in a movie theater at a convention years ago, its truly stunning on the big screen in surround sound.
Works great until you're the one on the ground watching the car speed off into the distance. Or you have a wreck with a broke uninsured person.
Some policies have additional coverage you can buy if you get in a wreck with an uninsured motorist. You get the money from your own insurance company, they spend the time in court or with collection agencies. Not cheap in my neck of the woods where a lot of people are uninsured despite the law.
We market. We service. And we do research to open new ways and jobs and services.
And you think nobody in India markets or service? That the US has the monopoly on ad campaigns? And who is going to do research as the number of people going to college on an IT major dwindle?
You're missing the time-factor.
You're missing that the candle is burning at both ends: we're losing talent, India and other countries are gaining talent. The crossing point is going to be within two generations of people at the upper bound and liable to be closer to a single generation of people. Worst of all, we're losing the so-called "low-level" jobs, named for the fact that everything else is built on that experience. Imagine your tribe in the stone age trying to get to the iron age, except that nobody in your tribe knows how to make stone tools because they have someone from another tribe do it for them.
Better health care, better education, indoor plumbing, better sanitation, better food, and higher wages.
Education, plumbing, sanitation, and food are all brought to you thanks to laws by the government.
As for health care and wages, I think you'll find that the people in the groups you cite are just as unable to afford healthcare now as they were in 1950.
the US's greatest asset is that it is innovative, creating new jobs and new possibilities.
Is it? Stop and think how we got that way.
What do you think happens to technological innovation in the US when you outsource the technology? Where do you get your experienced workers who have the domain knowledge required to see the problem and conceive the solutions? You imply that the iPod HAD to be invented in the US, but as the programmers and designers in India acquire more experience and skill, they're going to start solving problems on their own and designing new products that we will no longer have the skill to think about.
many IT people were the first to say that to the "old economy" manufacturing employees
Back when steel was drying up and textiles were gone, these IT people were still in acadamia, and knew little of the scam that was the American Dream, except for the more public scams like the company stores and such run by these corporations. Back then, a job with a company was a lifetime relationship unless one side or the other screwed it up.
It's a known economic fact that lower labor costs translate to lower finished goods costs.
Tell me one example where outsourcing has reduced the price of a good? You cite "latest graphics hardware" but at the costs for the latest nvidia or ATI cards and the machines to run them, I can't afford them and I have a job.
Take a look at these other industries that left, the only one where prices have come down substantially is the automotive industry, and oddly enough foreign countries outsource that to us.
I do have one question, and this has stumped every economist who has been asked it: "What's next?" Now that production of physical goods is offshore and production of intellectual goods is offshore, and service/support is offshore, what is there left for us to do, other than pick up the trash along the highway (and we'd have to compete with the schoolkids who do it for free)? Some have said "inventing" but its plain arrogant to believe that somehow the US is better at innovation than any of these other countries which have succeeded at doing our jobs better than we can. Others have suggested that everyone who lost their job can just start a company and employ themselves, but they're usually at a loss to explain what exactly all these people are supposed to do.
However, can you explain how outsourcing is an example of the broken window parable?
It's not an exact fit for the situation, but it is somewhat akin to it. Except in this case its not about destruction of property, rather just about the opportunity costs. Corporation chooses to spend its money either offshore or here. If the company chooses to spend its money in India, it has costs of the loss of knowledge (laying off trained employees) as well as a possible loss of revenue (the money it spends overseas is less likely to find its way back to themselves).
OK, maybe the CEO logged into everyone else's equipment and used them as part of the DDoS. I dunno about you, but we're colocating our equipment and we have no plans of handing over any passwords or accounts to the company who will be hosting it.
As for evidence, maybe the FBI should, I dunno, make a copy of the drive? You know, I think that might just make too much sense. And if they want to keep the original to look for deleted files, then return the machine with the copy? Hell, they might even be able to convince some of the corporations they've taken this equipment from to pay $200 per drive for the service. Beats the hell out of losing major amounts of money every day you go without your computers.
Well, now they have their charges and their evidence. So where's our innocent machines? The people who are angry are angry because the FBI still hasn't returned all of the machines. Now that its after the investigation, would you like to come up with a new apology for the FBI?
Sure, the CEO sucks ass and should be dragged back to the country and imprisoned, but the FBI needs to learn to play nice and return the toys they borrow.
Then it becomes a new problem... Who signs it? What keeps me from signing Sandman and distributing it? With a cert with Lars Ulrich's name on it? How much do I have to pay for the priviledge of signing my own music? Can I get it as cheap as an SSL cert? Self-generated like my GPG key? Or is the RIAA going to want to sign music itself so that its "experts" can make sure the music isn't copied from them? At a per-minute charge, of course, experts' time is valued quite highly. And these lyrics are great, glad our writers thought of them! As for serving it from my website, what if I can't afford the bandwidth? What if I want people who don't know about me already to get my music?
I didn't suggest it because it was a random technically-unfeasable solution, I suggested it because thats what RIAA has been working on for some time now: "fingerprinting" the sound of songs so it can figure out if it "sounds like" a song they own.
You see the world OWES them free movies, music, software etc.
The distribution companies OWES us reasonable access to reasonable amounts of copyrighted materal at reasonable rates. I found iTunes to be quite reasonable, and millions of paid-for and downloaded songs back up my position.
If a company chooses to ignore demand, in our capitalist country what right do they have to throw laws around to prevent their inevitable demise?
The entire problem with P2P could have been resolved had anyone been willing to build responsibility into the networks, so that nobody would have thought redistributing music without authorization was something they could do without getting caught to begin with.
How would you propose doing this? Magical Metallica detectors that can identify Sandman no matter how much its compressed or how its encoded? This is what the RIAA wanted earlier in this war on P2P software.
Btw, using the RIAA lawsuits to determine that the predominant use of the networks is illegitimate is somewhat wrong-headed. After all, they would only be suing people sharing music owned by their members, not the stuff that people have granted redistribution for (with the exception of the old granny they sued, who wasn't downloading anything). In fact, "clearly from the lawsuits", comparing the numbers of lawsuits to date by the RIAA vs. users of P2P indicates that either the RIAA is incredibly behind, or the number of p2p users distributing riaa-owned music is a tiny fraction of a percentage point of the other users.
If your IT house is already on fire, it's sure nice to want to protect the neighborhood, but who's going to pay for that in advance?
The neighborhood would want to pay for that. Really, we're talking about people who already can't figure out how to operate windows update or install firewalls of their own, they certainly aren't going to buy this because they don't care. But, when their ISP gives them a nice shiny CD that just happens to include this, they'll chuck it onto the machine with the rest of the junk ISPs give you. Think AOL, SBC Yahoo's self-install CD, Roadrunner.
It's one thing to say "I think you infringe against my patent" and another thing entirely to say "I think you infringe on this patent which belongs to someone else but you can pay me anyway."
So, now that its established that these people don't have the copyright to the song after all, will anyone take them to court for their lies in an attempt to obtain money from these JibJab people? Around these parts, we call lying for money "fraud".
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health care is very good. Rich people from around the world send their family to US based hosiptals
This is probably the most unintentionally funny thing I've read in this whole comment list. While it is true that other countries send their people here, are you not aware that due to the rising costs of US healthcare, upper-middle-class people in the US routinely leave the country for major elective surgeries (and some other non-critical surgeries where travelling half a day isn't a problem), to have them done by American-schooled foreign doctors in modern facilities (largely paid-for by these American patrons) in other countries where expenses are lower? How long before the rich people around the world realize that they're paying too much?
As for earning wealth, what exactly does a CEO do that merits their "vast" wealth? They don't create new products for their company to sell, they don't market these products to people, and as Enron has proven, they don't even take the fall when their corporation does something illegal. To me it seems that they play golf and find new people to trade board positions with, and to promise to vote each other big raises at the next board meeting.
This would be great, except what will the US produce then? After all, once we've lost all of our domain expertise to other countries, what would India want with our third-rate software development? Maybe we could all set up on our front lawn and sell hand-carved furniture in hopes that an Indian will fly over and buy something to be shipped back home?
Without manufacturing or thinking jobs, what can we possibly be doing to keep ourselves relevant in this situation? The so-called "Bollywood" proves we can't even rely on the entertainment sector.
As for what's with the jealousy of CEOs or other wealthy elite here, they don't purchase more goods from home or abroad. Instead, they buy stock and put money into taxshelters so they can avoid paying taxes on it. And don't claim that the money in stock somehow creates new jobs, since the vast majority of the stock volume is in trades between people, and not a penny goes to the company being traded.
Hahah, the only way to win is not to play?
You forgot the start of the whole argument. We were doing this because we weren't getting a job that pays marginally more than one you can get without a degree. We were doing this because we were getting $90K+ a year. The $90K+ a year salary was justified by the certification, which in turn justified drawing a high salary by proving knowledge in a certain field.
Now that the jobs aren't there, certification is still required to be competitive for the fewer jobs that remain, except now most of those jobs no longer pay $90K. This will cause fewer people to take this career path.
The question is, will HR people loosen the reqirements for certifications when competition decreases? Knowing the Dilbert-esqe corporate landscape, probably not.
may be uncomfortable for a while, but in the long run economies around the world will become more similar
And here I was thinking that some day I'd marry, own a house, and have 2.5 kids, and here you're telling me that I'm going to have to live in a mud hut and watch my kids starve to death so that we can be on the same level as the rest of the world?
After all, once the field is levelled, isn't that whats going to leftover? A world where there is no middle class, where ruling corporate leaders have 99% of the world's wealth while the rest of the workers subsist? Maybe if you average out the United States' largesse with the rest of the world's poverty, the rich will only have 95% of the wealth.
After all, there is an entire world out there, and most of it is worse off than we are.
anyone who has a 401K, and anyone who has insurance
And if you don't? I read this great article in the paper a couple of weeks ago. Someone was defending Bush's "job recovery" by flat out stating that since the administration doesn't report what kind of jobs were created, it obviously doesn't matter. "A job is a job." It claimed that since we don't have metrics for determining what jobs are "good", then all the jobs created since the beginning of the year must have been good.
Contrast this with the reality that increasing numbers of Americans do not have health insurance, and you have to wonder what makes a job "good".
Remember that the person across the counter from you does not have health insurance next time they breath at you while saying "Would you like fries with that?" Maybe you can take some $20s from your 401K and roll them up into nose plugs to protect you.
If you spent $90k on your education, you paid too much.
MCSE, CCNA, CISSP... the numbers keep growing even after graduation. Unlike doctors, who practically get begged to come to their required continuing education classes, paid for by sponsors and the companies with booths at the mini-expo that springs up around these things, the average IT worker pays for his own continuing education. After certification, comes re-certification, re-training, the latest and greatest technologies.
Oh, and don't say You can do IT work without that. Unless of course, you're running a company and you've got openings for uncertified, community college grads. If so, post the job listing here.
Can someone explain to me why the shift in frequency is not being considered as the signal itself? It doesn't take rocket science to create and broadcast an FM signal, and we've even learned how to cope with the doppler effect as we drive along listening to the radio in our cars.
Perhaps 1420 is the start-of-message signal?
Realistically speaking, if I took a reading of a signal that always started the same way and behaved the same way no matter when I started, I would suspect an artifact of the equipment or software.
When you put it like that, you just highlight that the most densly packed parts of Canada still kick our metropolitian center's asses when it comes to speed and price.
Downtown access is getting there, I've seen posts here about people with 6Mbit DSL connections in New York or wherever, but its still not to synchronous 10Mbit connections like the ones cited in the article.
The answer to having to dig up every street is for the government to do it once, and lay conduit large enough to handle a good number of runs beneath the street, with secure access ports. The companies could then use these to run their wires without ever having to dig up the street again. Have a little oversight (access records) to discourage corporate sabotage, and let the companies loose on it.
This kind of infrastructure design and implementation is what I think the government is perfect for. Companies can send ferrets to pull fibre themselves.
Everyone's mentioned a lot of stuff, but nobody's mentioned the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie (shoujo kakumei utena: adolescence mokushiru). Brightly colored, well paced, with plenty of action, it will keep people's attention while playing out several symbolic comparisons to becoming an adult and finding acceptance of one's lifestyle.
Is it the best? Probably not, for several reasons (very little character exposition, it expects that the viewer has seen the 39 episode TV series (also very good), and unfortunately CPM's US release of the movie is glitchy) but it definitely deserves watching unless you're easily offended. I was lucky to see it in a movie theater at a convention years ago, its truly stunning on the big screen in surround sound.
Works great until you're the one on the ground watching the car speed off into the distance. Or you have a wreck with a broke uninsured person.
Some policies have additional coverage you can buy if you get in a wreck with an uninsured motorist. You get the money from your own insurance company, they spend the time in court or with collection agencies. Not cheap in my neck of the woods where a lot of people are uninsured despite the law.
With this program, that door charge is all profit.
At least as long as they don't offer Counterstrike. I wonder how long before other game companies will want a cut of the ticket price.
We market. We service. And we do research to open new ways and jobs and services.
And you think nobody in India markets or service? That the US has the monopoly on ad campaigns? And who is going to do research as the number of people going to college on an IT major dwindle?
You're missing the time-factor.
You're missing that the candle is burning at both ends: we're losing talent, India and other countries are gaining talent. The crossing point is going to be within two generations of people at the upper bound and liable to be closer to a single generation of people. Worst of all, we're losing the so-called "low-level" jobs, named for the fact that everything else is built on that experience. Imagine your tribe in the stone age trying to get to the iron age, except that nobody in your tribe knows how to make stone tools because they have someone from another tribe do it for them.
Better health care, better education, indoor plumbing, better sanitation, better food, and higher wages.
Education, plumbing, sanitation, and food are all brought to you thanks to laws by the government.
As for health care and wages, I think you'll find that the people in the groups you cite are just as unable to afford healthcare now as they were in 1950.
the US's greatest asset is that it is innovative, creating new jobs and new possibilities.
Is it? Stop and think how we got that way.
What do you think happens to technological innovation in the US when you outsource the technology? Where do you get your experienced workers who have the domain knowledge required to see the problem and conceive the solutions? You imply that the iPod HAD to be invented in the US, but as the programmers and designers in India acquire more experience and skill, they're going to start solving problems on their own and designing new products that we will no longer have the skill to think about.
many IT people were the first to say that to the "old economy" manufacturing employees
Back when steel was drying up and textiles were gone, these IT people were still in acadamia, and knew little of the scam that was the American Dream, except for the more public scams like the company stores and such run by these corporations. Back then, a job with a company was a lifetime relationship unless one side or the other screwed it up.
It's a known economic fact that lower labor costs translate to lower finished goods costs.
Tell me one example where outsourcing has reduced the price of a good? You cite "latest graphics hardware" but at the costs for the latest nvidia or ATI cards and the machines to run them, I can't afford them and I have a job.
Take a look at these other industries that left, the only one where prices have come down substantially is the automotive industry, and oddly enough foreign countries outsource that to us.
I do have one question, and this has stumped every economist who has been asked it: "What's next?" Now that production of physical goods is offshore and production of intellectual goods is offshore, and service/support is offshore, what is there left for us to do, other than pick up the trash along the highway (and we'd have to compete with the schoolkids who do it for free)? Some have said "inventing" but its plain arrogant to believe that somehow the US is better at innovation than any of these other countries which have succeeded at doing our jobs better than we can. Others have suggested that everyone who lost their job can just start a company and employ themselves, but they're usually at a loss to explain what exactly all these people are supposed to do.
However, can you explain how outsourcing is an example of the broken window parable?
It's not an exact fit for the situation, but it is somewhat akin to it. Except in this case its not about destruction of property, rather just about the opportunity costs. Corporation chooses to spend its money either offshore or here. If the company chooses to spend its money in India, it has costs of the loss of knowledge (laying off trained employees) as well as a possible loss of revenue (the money it spends overseas is less likely to find its way back to themselves).
OK, maybe the CEO logged into everyone else's equipment and used them as part of the DDoS. I dunno about you, but we're colocating our equipment and we have no plans of handing over any passwords or accounts to the company who will be hosting it.
As for evidence, maybe the FBI should, I dunno, make a copy of the drive? You know, I think that might just make too much sense. And if they want to keep the original to look for deleted files, then return the machine with the copy? Hell, they might even be able to convince some of the corporations they've taken this equipment from to pay $200 per drive for the service. Beats the hell out of losing major amounts of money every day you go without your computers.
Well, now they have their charges and their evidence. So where's our innocent machines? The people who are angry are angry because the FBI still hasn't returned all of the machines. Now that its after the investigation, would you like to come up with a new apology for the FBI?
Sure, the CEO sucks ass and should be dragged back to the country and imprisoned, but the FBI needs to learn to play nice and return the toys they borrow.
Then it becomes a new problem... Who signs it? What keeps me from signing Sandman and distributing it? With a cert with Lars Ulrich's name on it? How much do I have to pay for the priviledge of signing my own music? Can I get it as cheap as an SSL cert? Self-generated like my GPG key? Or is the RIAA going to want to sign music itself so that its "experts" can make sure the music isn't copied from them? At a per-minute charge, of course, experts' time is valued quite highly. And these lyrics are great, glad our writers thought of them! As for serving it from my website, what if I can't afford the bandwidth? What if I want people who don't know about me already to get my music?
I didn't suggest it because it was a random technically-unfeasable solution, I suggested it because thats what RIAA has been working on for some time now: "fingerprinting" the sound of songs so it can figure out if it "sounds like" a song they own.
You see the world OWES them free movies, music, software etc.
The distribution companies OWES us reasonable access to reasonable amounts of copyrighted materal at reasonable rates. I found iTunes to be quite reasonable, and millions of paid-for and downloaded songs back up my position.
If a company chooses to ignore demand, in our capitalist country what right do they have to throw laws around to prevent their inevitable demise?
The entire problem with P2P could have been resolved had anyone been willing to build responsibility into the networks, so that nobody would have thought redistributing music without authorization was something they could do without getting caught to begin with.
How would you propose doing this? Magical Metallica detectors that can identify Sandman no matter how much its compressed or how its encoded? This is what the RIAA wanted earlier in this war on P2P software.
Btw, using the RIAA lawsuits to determine that the predominant use of the networks is illegitimate is somewhat wrong-headed. After all, they would only be suing people sharing music owned by their members, not the stuff that people have granted redistribution for (with the exception of the old granny they sued, who wasn't downloading anything). In fact, "clearly from the lawsuits", comparing the numbers of lawsuits to date by the RIAA vs. users of P2P indicates that either the RIAA is incredibly behind, or the number of p2p users distributing riaa-owned music is a tiny fraction of a percentage point of the other users.
If your IT house is already on fire, it's sure nice to want to protect the neighborhood, but who's going to pay for that in advance?
The neighborhood would want to pay for that. Really, we're talking about people who already can't figure out how to operate windows update or install firewalls of their own, they certainly aren't going to buy this because they don't care. But, when their ISP gives them a nice shiny CD that just happens to include this, they'll chuck it onto the machine with the rest of the junk ISPs give you. Think AOL, SBC Yahoo's self-install CD, Roadrunner.
It's one thing to say "I think you infringe against my patent" and another thing entirely to say "I think you infringe on this patent which belongs to someone else but you can pay me anyway."
So, now that its established that these people don't have the copyright to the song after all, will anyone take them to court for their lies in an attempt to obtain money from these JibJab people? Around these parts, we call lying for money "fraud".