The only thing I've really gathered from this thread is that no one knows dick about what's going on and no one knows their ass from their head about what to do about it. It's simply amazing that there is no real guidance here and all views are diametrically opposing.
This tells me a few things: 1) No way's better than another, no method of thinking is better than someone elses; do your best. 2) Everyone is still fighting for the same slice of pie and it's only getting more random as to how that's done; competition is a bitch.
That's the whole point of discussion, to have different views and opinions even if you, in your infinite wisdom, don't think that any of the opinions posted have value. Personally I think that your post is flamebait and didn't add anything useful to the discussion at all.
The original poster, and all of those of us who are in a similar position, are interested in those different opinions which will apply more or less to each of us as our situations, while similar, are each different. Training, for example, might not help a 40 year old programmer find a job, but might well be of use to a 40 year old network engineer who is also looking for work.
Okay, but even so you are currently protected by immigration regulation. If there were no limits, you as an engineer wouldn't be up against the quantity of others that you're currently up against, but up against many more looking for similar work...in which case, assuming that economics is accurate, your earnings would drop in direct relation to the availability of similar labor.
You might not be a fool but you are ignorant of the ways of things beyond minimum wage. You aren't even realizing, as the earlier poster pointed out, the amount of protection you already benefit from even now.
If there were no laws regarding immigration, no laws regarding minimum wage...you either wouldn't have a job at all or you'd be earning what the folks in Mexico, India and China make.
Also, assuming that you'll eventually want to move up from minimum wage I would bet that you are going to want more and more protection as the wages, and thus the competition for them, gets higher.
They removed it because it isn't actually necessary and the removal of it can be called an added feature as people try and figure out why in the world they would bother upgrading to yet another version of Windows.
I don't know why you bring up Irish tax laws, it is not analogous to the situation I describe at all. Ireland is an independant country and can set whatever taxes they like.
That's just the point. They are not an independent country as they're part of the EU. France, Germany, et. al. have been screaming for many years that Ireland's low tax rates are unfair and must be raised and yet they are able to keep their tax rates as they want them, regardless of this pressure.
This isn't at all the same thing as the EU passing legislation and requiring all states to implement some form of it or face penalties. Which the 3 strikes law is a perfect example of.
It's not the same thing but it is applicable to the argument. Ireland is able to do what it wants even though it is part of the EU.
Your main argument for the EU being satisfactorily democratic is the EP.
Not only the EP (which is democratically elected) but also the council (whose members are democratically elected by each state in question) and the president of the council (who is democratically elected by those who have been democratically elected).
The EP cannot proposes legislation, only amendments. Think about that for a second. The commission holds a lot of power, yet you cannot vote for it's members.
Not directly, agreed. The commission is not directly elected but is selected by those who have been democratically elected. You can vote for those who then select the members of the commission.
To claim the people have a say in everything is bullshit. There are basically no countries where the people have a say in everything....it isn't workable with a representative democracy. Having a say on significant issues is a minimum, and something the EU misses out on. Could the people in the EU vote for or against ACTA?
I have to disagree on the basis that there is nothing stopping people from making themselves heard. When the French minority youths rioted because they had poor employment possibilities, they demonstrated (rioted really but nonetheless made themselves heard) which resulted in the French government putting in place legislation to enable short term contract firing possibilities to try and reduce unemployment in that segment of the population. To further the point, a larger (ie non-minority) segment of the French populace decided that they didn't like the new legislation and went out in the streets to demonstrate (minus the riots) in their millions. Something like ten percent of the population this time, resulting in a very quick killing of the new legislation.
Did they have a direct say? No, not at all.
Did they make themselves heard? Yes, absolutely.
The democratic deficit in the EU has been acknowledged and discussed since the 70's. That the EP is democratically elected does not make the problem go away.
As I said, it's not perfect. No system is perfect. I maintain that it is far from a joke, though, and is arguably one of the most democratic systems in place in the world today.
It's wonderful until the job market is flooded with 140k h1b workers working for absurdly low wages
And who are these H1B workers on absurdly low wages? It costs Microsoft 30% more to hire foreigners on H1Bs because there aren't enough Americans graduating with master's and PhDs in STEM fields. MSFT would gladly hire Americans to do these jobs, if they could. I'm quite confident this generalizes to other tech companies.
References for your assertions? Demonstrate that there weren't enough Americans that could do the jobs in question, don't just make a statement without anything to back it up.
It doesn't invite the best of the best. It invites people who will do the same jobs as Americans but for much less money, thus increasing corporate profits while helping to ensure the continuation of high American unemployment.
In the US, the States retain many powers that the Federal government is not allowed to fuck with. The same is true for the EU.
No, in the EU, the EU forces member states to enact laws that they may disagree with, such as the 3 strikes law, or face penalties.
Not ones they really care about, like Ireland's corporate income tax levels for example.
The countries in the EU provide checks and balances to each other, quite without meaning to.
In practice, you have the strongest countries outlinng the policy and the smaller countries can't really say much. What the UK, German and France want, they tend to get.
Again I will reference the Irish corporate tax levels, which the UK, Germany and France most certainly want raised but have been unable to force.
So how, exactly, is democracy at the EU level a joke?
Because it isn't as democratic as you have said? Because the people don't have say in a lot of matters? Because the Lisbon treaty passed despite people not wanting it? Because here you have an official saying ACTA will go ahead and nothing can stop it?
The European Parliament (abbreviated as Europarl or the EP) is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union (EU). Together with the Council of the European Union (the Council) and the European Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world.[2] The Parliament is currently composed of 754 Members of the European Parliament, who represent the second largest democratic electorate in the world..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament
The people have a say in everything. Whether they choose to make themselves heard is a different matter. People may be passive cows but that is much different from them not being able to do anything about something they don't like. Each country had to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, and each of them did. If the people in any given country didn't want it strongly enough, then they had to make themselves heard loudly enough at the country level. They did not, or in the case of the Irish they changed their minds. This does not make the EU non-democratic at the EU level, but rather points out problems at the individual country level.
With regard to the official saying ACTA will go ahead...he can say what he likes but he himself does not make the final decision and his direct and obvious support of ACTA may very well end up being his downfall before all is said and done.
Are there problems with the way the EU is set up? Absolutely - nothing is perfect and the EU is still quite new as these things go. It remains, in my opinion, more democratic as an entity than many individual countries that are supposed to be democratic.
Ireland voted no first, and it was no. Then they voted yes...and what? That's the democratic process and the 'bureaucrats in Brussels' didn't and couldn't actually force them to vote yes.
Holland's MPs voted against the people they represent and should have been soundly thrashed by their population. This again is not the bureaucrats in Brussels but rather a problem locally in Holland that should be dealt with by the Dutch people by them voting out the MPs that didn't well represent them.
Simple solution has already be proposed. Queue trade requests in such a way that a random delay is inserted. The delay will be negligible and go unnoticed for humans but it would definitely screw up milliseconds traders.
Why not take it a bit further and bring trading back to normal human capacity by introducing a delay of an hour?
When EU citizens vote wrong, they're forced to vote again and again until they give the right answer.
Supporting references or examples please? I've been living in the EU for the past 15 years and I haven't seen any evidence at all of what you're saying.
This is the type of thing when you have something resembling a country, but that is not in essence a country, which has non of the protections or checks and balances that a state should actually have.
Democracy at the EU level, kind of a joke.
You say this, and yet democracy seems to be working better in Europe than in what is supposed to be a democratic America. In both cases you have a collection of States that make up a super-state. In the US, the States retain many powers that the Federal government is not allowed to fuck with. The same is true for the EU.
The EU has a multiplicity of political parties in each country, all of which are democratically elected, with the European Parliament being directly elected and with a rotating presidency of the EU itself that shifts to a different country every six months power is never focused too long in one place.
The countries in the EU provide checks and balances to each other, quite without meaning to. Because of the different interests that each country has, it's difficult for any given policy to be pushed through even by the strongest country or even set of countries in the Union.
So how, exactly, is democracy at the EU level a joke?
As an American: at least he's honest about it. My politicians just issue bald-faced lies.
He's not being honest because it's virtuous; He's being honest because there's no consequences for him doing it. Our politicians lie their asses off when it suits them just like yours. He just knows there's no fight left in the general population. Don't go getting funny ideas about how our politicians are somehow special... they were bought and paid for same as yours, and probably by the same people.
Speak for your own population. If the French don't like something they're out on the streets in their, quite literally, millions.
If you have a US-issued ID, you're not a "foreigner." Likewise if you have a SSN.
Non-Americans can have social security numbers and US issued identification. Imagine, for example, an exchange student who came to the US for one semester or one year and while there worked (SSN) and got a driver's license (US issued ID). They might stay past their visa, or even leave and then come back illegally.
Somewhat surprised to see that the original research on the worm by ESET has not been mentioned yet on Slashdot. For all those who are interested, here it is:
what the chinese will mostly get is many, many house floorplans, elevations and relfected ceiling plans
And of course, lacking human resource to take the time to peruse the captured information they'll just throw their hands up and say 'Oh well I guess it's not worth stealing 100,000 designs to get one or two really good ones..."/ironyoff
Doesn't work that way. The customer buys a product from Microsoft (or any other vendor who sells such, as there are several) and as part of the setup / configuration, the customer chooses which categories of site to allow and which to block. Most customers will block the category of gambling sites but will not block the categories of software development sites or the donation mechanisms attached to them. It is not Microsoft who chooses the categories.
Microsoft has, perhaps deliberately, mis-catagorized the FSF site as a gambling site perhaps in order to block it from receiving donations. This is, arguably, anti-competitive behavior that has a negative financial impact on the target organization that Microsoft should be held accountable for as they have the responsibility of accurately categorizing the sites to start with.
Further on my previous post, the definition of an export according to the US department of commerce states that it is the transportation to the country in question, or the sale to a 'foreign national' in the US that defines the export. Sales to a US citizen would not qualify.
"Any item that is sent from the United States to a foreign destination is an export. “Items” include commodities, software or technology, such as clothing, building materials, circuit boards, automotive parts, blue prints, design plans, retail software packages and technical information.
How an item is transported outside of the United States does not matter in determining export license requirements. For example, an item can be sent by regular mail or hand-carried on an airplane. A set of schematics can be sent via facsimile to a foreign destination, software can be uploaded to or downloaded from an Internet site, or technology can be transmitted via e-mail or during a telephone conversation. Regardless of the method used for the transfer, the transaction is considered an export. An item is also considered an export even if it is leaving the United States temporarily, if it is leaving the United States but is not for sale (e.g., a gift), or if it is going to a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary in a foreign country. Even a foreign-origin item exported from the United States, transmitted or transshipped through the United States, or being returned from the United States to its foreign country of origin is considered an export. Finally, release of technology or source code subject to the EAR to a foreign national in the United States is “deemed” to be an export to the home country of the foreign national under the EAR."
The store employee had no choice: he was obeying the law.
No, he was being an idiot. He wasn't breaking any export regulations by selling the ipad in the United States. If the customer had requested that he ship the ipad to Iran then he would have been obeying the law but this does not appear to be the case.
Also, it seems that you didn't realize it but the poster was joking about homosexuality.
The point isn't work vs. home but that Microsoft is using it's power to block competition. They're not leaving it up to their customer to decide if they want to block access, but instead are miis-classifying that competitors site as a gambling site so that the customer is likely to block it as most customers are going to block gambling sites.
Slashdot Mirror
Any water pumped from aquifers or glacial/ice sheet melt is added to that.
How big is the effect of thermal expansion in comparison to melting of ice? How much would be the additional rise in the worst case scenario?
Wouldn't that be thermal contraction, as water has less volume in liquid state than frozen state?
The only thing I've really gathered from this thread is that no one knows dick about what's going on and no one knows their ass from their head about what to do about it. It's simply amazing that there is no real guidance here and all views are diametrically opposing.
This tells me a few things:
1) No way's better than another, no method of thinking is better than someone elses; do your best.
2) Everyone is still fighting for the same slice of pie and it's only getting more random as to how that's done; competition is a bitch.
That's the whole point of discussion, to have different views and opinions even if you, in your infinite wisdom, don't think that any of the opinions posted have value. Personally I think that your post is flamebait and didn't add anything useful to the discussion at all.
The original poster, and all of those of us who are in a similar position, are interested in those different opinions which will apply more or less to each of us as our situations, while similar, are each different. Training, for example, might not help a 40 year old programmer find a job, but might well be of use to a 40 year old network engineer who is also looking for work.
I think we're going to have to agree to disagree as I don't agree with what you're saying but I won't repeat myself -
Thanks for the interesting and well stated discussion -
Okay, but even so you are currently protected by immigration regulation. If there were no limits, you as an engineer wouldn't be up against the quantity of others that you're currently up against, but up against many more looking for similar work...in which case, assuming that economics is accurate, your earnings would drop in direct relation to the availability of similar labor.
You might not be a fool but you are ignorant of the ways of things beyond minimum wage. You aren't even realizing, as the earlier poster pointed out, the amount of protection you already benefit from even now.
If there were no laws regarding immigration, no laws regarding minimum wage...you either wouldn't have a job at all or you'd be earning what the folks in Mexico, India and China make.
Also, assuming that you'll eventually want to move up from minimum wage I would bet that you are going to want more and more protection as the wages, and thus the competition for them, gets higher.
They removed it because it isn't actually necessary and the removal of it can be called an added feature as people try and figure out why in the world they would bother upgrading to yet another version of Windows.
I grew up in a state funded school for orphans and now I make well over 150k a year so I am no stranger to making my way in the world.
If you think that you can compete at any level below C (CEO, CIO, etc) without protection from competitive cheap labor then you are a fool.
I don't know why you bring up Irish tax laws, it is not analogous to the situation I describe at all. Ireland is an independant country and can set whatever taxes they like.
That's just the point. They are not an independent country as they're part of the EU. France, Germany, et. al. have been screaming for many years that Ireland's low tax rates are unfair and must be raised and yet they are able to keep their tax rates as they want them, regardless of this pressure.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0119/breaking7.html
http://www.thejournal.ie/frances-bottom-line-increase-corporate-tax-or-we-wont-cut-your-bailout-rate-150942-Jun2011/
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/business/global/26tax.html?pagewanted=all
This isn't at all the same thing as the EU passing legislation and requiring all states to implement some form of it or face penalties. Which the 3 strikes law is a perfect example of.
It's not the same thing but it is applicable to the argument. Ireland is able to do what it wants even though it is part of the EU.
Your main argument for the EU being satisfactorily democratic is the EP.
Not only the EP (which is democratically elected) but also the council (whose members are democratically elected by each state in question) and the president of the council (who is democratically elected by those who have been democratically elected).
The EP cannot proposes legislation, only amendments. Think about that for a second. The commission holds a lot of power, yet you cannot vote for it's members.
Not directly, agreed. The commission is not directly elected but is selected by those who have been democratically elected. You can vote for those who then select the members of the commission.
To claim the people have a say in everything is bullshit. There are basically no countries where the people have a say in everything....it isn't workable with a representative democracy. Having a say on significant issues is a minimum, and something the EU misses out on. Could the people in the EU vote for or against ACTA?
I have to disagree on the basis that there is nothing stopping people from making themselves heard. When the French minority youths rioted because they had poor employment possibilities, they demonstrated (rioted really but nonetheless made themselves heard) which resulted in the French government putting in place legislation to enable short term contract firing possibilities to try and reduce unemployment in that segment of the population. To further the point, a larger (ie non-minority) segment of the French populace decided that they didn't like the new legislation and went out in the streets to demonstrate (minus the riots) in their millions. Something like ten percent of the population this time, resulting in a very quick killing of the new legislation.
Did they have a direct say? No, not at all.
Did they make themselves heard? Yes, absolutely.
The democratic deficit in the EU has been acknowledged and discussed since the 70's. That the EP is democratically elected does not make the problem go away.
As I said, it's not perfect. No system is perfect. I maintain that it is far from a joke, though, and is arguably one of the most democratic systems in place in the world today.
So give them a green card so their employer can't hold their status hostage.
How about just hiring the fucking Americans who can do the job even though it costs a bit more to the company?
Why are you so ready to knock down the American standard of living?
It's wonderful until the job market is flooded with 140k h1b workers working for absurdly low wages
And who are these H1B workers on absurdly low wages? It costs Microsoft 30% more to hire foreigners on H1Bs because there aren't enough Americans graduating with master's and PhDs in STEM fields. MSFT would gladly hire Americans to do these jobs, if they could. I'm quite confident this generalizes to other tech companies.
References for your assertions? Demonstrate that there weren't enough Americans that could do the jobs in question, don't just make a statement without anything to back it up.
It doesn't invite the best of the best. It invites people who will do the same jobs as Americans but for much less money, thus increasing corporate profits while helping to ensure the continuation of high American unemployment.
In the US, the States retain many powers that the Federal government is not allowed to fuck with. The same is true for the EU.
No, in the EU, the EU forces member states to enact laws that they may disagree with, such as the 3 strikes law, or face penalties.
Not ones they really care about, like Ireland's corporate income tax levels for example.
The countries in the EU provide checks and balances to each other, quite without meaning to.
In practice, you have the strongest countries outlinng the policy and the smaller countries can't really say much. What the UK, German and France want, they tend to get.
Again I will reference the Irish corporate tax levels, which the UK, Germany and France most certainly want raised but have been unable to force.
So how, exactly, is democracy at the EU level a joke?
Because it isn't as democratic as you have said? Because the people don't have say in a lot of matters? Because the Lisbon treaty passed despite people not wanting it? Because here you have an official saying ACTA will go ahead and nothing can stop it?
The European Parliament (abbreviated as Europarl or the EP) is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union (EU). Together with the Council of the European Union (the Council) and the European Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world.[2] The Parliament is currently composed of 754 Members of the European Parliament, who represent the second largest democratic electorate in the world..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament
The people have a say in everything. Whether they choose to make themselves heard is a different matter. People may be passive cows but that is much different from them not being able to do anything about something they don't like. Each country had to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, and each of them did. If the people in any given country didn't want it strongly enough, then they had to make themselves heard loudly enough at the country level. They did not, or in the case of the Irish they changed their minds. This does not make the EU non-democratic at the EU level, but rather points out problems at the individual country level.
With regard to the official saying ACTA will go ahead...he can say what he likes but he himself does not make the final decision and his direct and obvious support of ACTA may very well end up being his downfall before all is said and done.
Are there problems with the way the EU is set up? Absolutely - nothing is perfect and the EU is still quite new as these things go. It remains, in my opinion, more democratic as an entity than many individual countries that are supposed to be democratic.
Ireland voted no first, and it was no. Then they voted yes...and what? That's the democratic process and the 'bureaucrats in Brussels' didn't and couldn't actually force them to vote yes.
Holland's MPs voted against the people they represent and should have been soundly thrashed by their population. This again is not the bureaucrats in Brussels but rather a problem locally in Holland that should be dealt with by the Dutch people by them voting out the MPs that didn't well represent them.
Obama, the Republican's Democrat...
Simple solution has already be proposed. Queue trade requests in such a way that a random delay is inserted. The delay will be negligible and go unnoticed for humans but it would definitely screw up milliseconds traders.
Why not take it a bit further and bring trading back to normal human capacity by introducing a delay of an hour?
When EU citizens vote wrong, they're forced to vote again and again until they give the right answer.
Supporting references or examples please? I've been living in the EU for the past 15 years and I haven't seen any evidence at all of what you're saying.
This is the type of thing when you have something resembling a country, but that is not in essence a country, which has non of the protections or checks and balances that a state should actually have.
Democracy at the EU level, kind of a joke.
You say this, and yet democracy seems to be working better in Europe than in what is supposed to be a democratic America. In both cases you have a collection of States that make up a super-state. In the US, the States retain many powers that the Federal government is not allowed to fuck with. The same is true for the EU.
The EU has a multiplicity of political parties in each country, all of which are democratically elected, with the European Parliament being directly elected and with a rotating presidency of the EU itself that shifts to a different country every six months power is never focused too long in one place.
The countries in the EU provide checks and balances to each other, quite without meaning to. Because of the different interests that each country has, it's difficult for any given policy to be pushed through even by the strongest country or even set of countries in the Union.
So how, exactly, is democracy at the EU level a joke?
As an American: at least he's honest about it. My politicians just issue bald-faced lies.
He's not being honest because it's virtuous; He's being honest because there's no consequences for him doing it. Our politicians lie their asses off when it suits them just like yours. He just knows there's no fight left in the general population. Don't go getting funny ideas about how our politicians are somehow special... they were bought and paid for same as yours, and probably by the same people.
Speak for your own population. If the French don't like something they're out on the streets in their, quite literally, millions.
If you have a US-issued ID, you're not a "foreigner." Likewise if you have a SSN.
Non-Americans can have social security numbers and US issued identification. Imagine, for example, an exchange student who came to the US for one semester or one year and while there worked (SSN) and got a driver's license (US issued ID). They might stay past their visa, or even leave and then come back illegally.
Hello,
Somewhat surprised to see that the original research on the worm by ESET has not been mentioned yet on Slashdot. For all those who are interested, here it is:
From speaking with some of the ESET folks involved in the above, it seems there may be additional details forthcoming.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Thanks for this..up until your post I actually thought it was called Merde.A...
what the chinese will mostly get is many, many house floorplans, elevations and relfected ceiling plans
And of course, lacking human resource to take the time to peruse the captured information they'll just throw their hands up and say 'Oh well I guess it's not worth stealing 100,000 designs to get one or two really good ones..." /ironyoff
Doesn't work that way. The customer buys a product from Microsoft (or any other vendor who sells such, as there are several) and as part of the setup / configuration, the customer chooses which categories of site to allow and which to block. Most customers will block the category of gambling sites but will not block the categories of software development sites or the donation mechanisms attached to them. It is not Microsoft who chooses the categories.
Microsoft has, perhaps deliberately, mis-catagorized the FSF site as a gambling site perhaps in order to block it from receiving donations. This is, arguably, anti-competitive behavior that has a negative financial impact on the target organization that Microsoft should be held accountable for as they have the responsibility of accurately categorizing the sites to start with.
Further on my previous post, the definition of an export according to the US department of commerce states that it is the transportation to the country in question, or the sale to a 'foreign national' in the US that defines the export. Sales to a US citizen would not qualify.
"Any item that is sent from the United States to a foreign destination is an export. “Items” include commodities, software or technology, such as clothing, building materials, circuit boards, automotive parts, blue prints, design plans, retail software packages and technical information.
How an item is transported outside of the United States does not matter in determining export license requirements. For example, an item can be sent by regular mail or hand-carried on an airplane. A set of schematics can be sent via facsimile to a foreign destination, software can be uploaded to or downloaded from an Internet site, or technology can be transmitted via e-mail or during a telephone conversation. Regardless of the method used for the transfer, the transaction is considered an export. An item is also considered an export even if it is leaving the United States temporarily, if it is leaving the United States but is not for sale (e.g., a gift), or if it is going to a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary in a foreign country. Even a foreign-origin item exported from the United States, transmitted or transshipped through the United States, or being returned from the United States to its foreign country of origin is considered an export. Finally, release of technology or source code subject to the EAR to a foreign national in the United States is “deemed” to be an export to the home country of the foreign national under the EAR."
Source: http://www.bis.doc.gov/licensing/exportingbasics.htm
The store employee had no choice: he was obeying the law.
No, he was being an idiot. He wasn't breaking any export regulations by selling the ipad in the United States. If the customer had requested that he ship the ipad to Iran then he would have been obeying the law but this does not appear to be the case.
Also, it seems that you didn't realize it but the poster was joking about homosexuality.
The point isn't work vs. home but that Microsoft is using it's power to block competition. They're not leaving it up to their customer to decide if they want to block access, but instead are miis-classifying that competitors site as a gambling site so that the customer is likely to block it as most customers are going to block gambling sites.