Wow, if you read all the articles linked, you'd know that it was not just Bill Gates, but others as well who testified on this subject. Secondly, a lot of companies support this, Google included. Finally, people from both parties support this.
The majority of the people who are on OPT are folks who're in the US to go to graduate school. Rather than send them back, they are trying to extend the amount of time that they can stay in the country. How is this a bad thing?
If anything, the number of native US candidates going to graduate school is much lesser than the number of foreign nationals coming to the US for graduate school. How is trying to retain folks who get advanced degrees a bad thing in any way?
Finally, a lot of people with graduate degrees (i.e. majority of folks on OPT) are by no means cheap - so, the old excuse that they are being exploited etc. does not quite work here.
Enough of the bullshit, already. A lot of folks petitioned about extending the OPT status for international students who go to graduate school in the US, and have to return because of visa policies (the H1B cap was met within a few hours last year). So, the government considered what the companies wanted and agreed to do this.
A lot of decision makers do not necessarily assume that free equals worthless, but rather that if it is free, then there is no accountability when stuff hits the fan.
A lot of process re-engineering requires you to have accountability at various levels, and when you have free software, that accountability becomes iffy (or it becomes your responsibility, which is also a bad thing). I mean, take a CPG or an insurance company - why should they spend money on having an open source development team? Their core business is not technology, it is retail or insurance.
Most IT budgets (in most places, 95% and upwards) is spent on IT maintenance, rather than on new technology. Given this, do you really think that they are going to take responsibility for maintaining that code themselves? They wouldn't, and they shouldn't have to.
That is why even in Open Source, companies like Red Hat (which charge a fee) are preferred. Even from among free software, companies would rather pay money and have something than have something free (unless it is from a well-known, well-established organization, say The Apache Software Foundation.
Accountability is assured (in one way or another) when money changes hands. And accountability (which sometimes translates to CYA) is what a lot of decision makers are looking for.
I enjoy writing, and I enjoy doing math, just for the fun of it.
So, when I write for pleasure or when I do math, I prefer using a fountain pen. In particular, I'm a fan of Parker or Mont Blanc - and the quality of my work has a direct correlation with the medium that I use to write.
If I use a ball-point or another pen that I'm not comfortable with, I just don't enjoy the process as much. But if it is a fountain pen, I derive a deep sense of personal satisfaction, and this is only made better by the fact that I enjoy what I'm doing more.
I'd hate to see people get proficient at faking fingerprints, because that leads to all sorts of interesting results in the realm of law. If fingerprint fraud becomes widespread, for example, will fingerprints at a crime scene still be valid evidence in court?
What are you talking about?! It's fantastic.
I mean, since fingerprints cannot be conclusive anymore, I foresee our politicians with moral fibers of steel pushing for more surveillance. I mean, if we cannot really tell whose fingerprints they are, we certainly need video proof! And since we do not know where a crime may happen, the policy makers (who typically have about as much morality as a pea) have decided that the way around this is to have cameras everywhere. Public restrooms and your house included.
What better way than a senior official to be convicted of crimes as a result of identity theft because officials such as him decided that privacy didn't really matter anymore?
Personally, I sincerely wish that this happens in all the countries which have fingerprinting in place. Enough already.
I had a friend do that once - some kids came by asking him if he wanted girl scout cookies. He asked them if the cookies had real girl scouts in them, and one of the little girls burst out crying.
Of course, these days the man is married with a kid, and meekly buys as many packs as his wife orders him to. Funny nevertheless.
They forgot to mention 80-100 hour weeks, lots of travel and not to mention the stress.
Of course, I take solace that compared to my i-banking friends, my weeks are relatively "free" and I can even spend part of the weekend with the girlfriend!
Having flown after having radiation treatment/scans, let me reassure you that it is a breeze.
When you undergo a radioactive scan or treatment, they give a small, dated card that tells you what the treatment was, how long it would be detectable, who the doctor was, the place where it was done, and any other contact information.
If you're pulled aside, you can show them the card and that is all. And as a brown man who travels twice a week, I have yet to be pulled aside after a scan - at least, not for that reason.
Secondly, TSA is getting a lot better - while there are a lot of idiots, most of them are indeed educated on things like this, and all you need to do is cite a valid medical reason, and show them some form of evidence (e.g. the card) that you underwent a medical procedure.
Eh. As an H1B worker who's worked for more than a couple of companies, I've never had that problem. In fact, a lot of friends/family I know who're on H1B are in the same boat as me.
If anything, I'm in the upper salary range for my age/qualifications even within the companies I work for. I do not know where you are getting your "data" from, but I'm yet to meet an H1B employee who is a "second grade citizen" within the company.
When asked why, the employees are typically told it's due to legal fees to support the H1B.
Eh? Including legal fees, on an average, it probably isn't more than 5k, if that. I'd say 2-3k, which is negligible (and yes, I've had an employer ask me to pay back that amount prorated when I've resigned, but whatever).
Religion isn't doing squat to harm anyone. People use religion to justify all sorts of wrongdoing, but one can hardly blame Marxism or atheism for China's actions in Tibet.
To quote Steven Weinberg -- "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
Sure, people do good and evil things immaterial of religion - but systematic harm to society by converting perfectly, normal good people into doing things that are harmful to society? No, that's something only religion can do.
I'll bet neither have the fundie Christians or Islamists done anything directly to harm you and yours. "Nuts" and murder, extortion, false accusations, kidnapping and other activities are worlds apart.
Yes, they have. They have passed laws that are keeping in with their religion that are offensive to my person. And their religious beliefs and actions are changing the landscape of this country, the world, and how nation-states view freedom and liberty. What's your point?
"Nuts" and murder, extortion, false accusations, kidnapping and other activities are worlds apart.
Would you rather prefer terrorist attacks, invading other nations in retaliation and killing hundreds of thousands, instead?
Scientology is bad, but there are other religions that have been around a lot longer and are a lot more harmful to society and civilization as a whole.
Re:From reading the summary....
on
Reading Comics
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· Score: 1
Indeed.
In fact, that was my first thought - I grew up reading Tintin and Asterix, and I do not see anything about European comics or where they may fit in. Or even South Asian ones (apart from anime, comics were/are a big hit in certain Indian demographics).
Not that it necessarily makes it a bad book, but it still comes across as quite myopic (IMHO).
They already do this for short "commuter" type flights.
I know. Where do you think I got the idea from? Personally, there have even been times when I've let them take my laptop bag and not bothered with it. So, if they could efficiently do this without hurting or losing the luggage, then everyone's happy all around.
Are you kidding me? You probably don't fly often enough.
As someone who flies at least twice a week (and I am typing this from an airport at 5:30 AM, funnily enough), I would literally hate life if carry-ons were banned.
As a frequent flyer and a business traveler, carry-ons are the saviors. You don't have to wait in life for checking in a bag, you walk through priority check-in and you don't wait for your luggage to reach you. And given how often I fly, the chances of my bags ending up elsewhere is significantly higher - I'd rather not take that chance (and yes, it's happened in the past, on more than one occasion).
No garment bags. No wheelies. Nothing else.
God, I'd hate you. Carrying around my laptop and a bunch of notes hurts my shoulders, and the only thing that makes it bearable is the fact that I can put it on top of my wheeled carry-on.
Now, here's a better alternative -- permit carry-ons, but have the crew do a curb-side check-in of the bags (i.e. they take all the big bags from you before you board the plane).
No carry-ons? That's a business travelers nightmare. I'd rather spend 1/2 hour extra than give up my carry-on.
Isn't the inability to track people (and the problems this would cause for emergency operators in the 911 service) why GPS is being included in phones now.
I do not know about that, but cell phone tower triangulation can be done without a GPS, to establish your position.
Quite obviously, the accuracy and resolution of such triangulation would not compare to a GPS triangulation, but it is still quite possible to sort of point your position using tower triangulation techniques.
I'm not a lawyer, but I am fairly interested in finance and business, so let me offer my two cents.
If Yahoo can effectively prove that the 62% premium offered by Microsoft undervalues the company, then they are on good ground. And indeed, in the past 52 weeks, they have been over that, so that is in their favor. In fact, right now they are trading fairly high post-Microsoft offer, which is also a good thing for them.
Now, the problem may be with this statement that one of the pension funds made:
"The Yahoo board members have placed personal distaste for Microsoft ahead of shareholder welfare. The Yahoo board's supposed commitment to 'consider' Microsoft's proposal appears to have been a hollow promise."
While proving that may be hard, Yahoo's idea of looking at alternate partners to offset a Microsoft takeover (hostile or otherwise) puts them on iffy ground. It may not necessarily be a problem, but it could be something that's brought up.
On the other hand, courts interpret minority shareholder rights rather broadly - if they are short-term minority shareholders, Yahoo may be able to say that they did not have the long term best interests of the company, and get away with it. Now, if they are not short-term minority shareholders, Yahoo could be in a bit of a tangle since minority shareholder "oppression" (just look it up) is one of those touchy issues.
Either way, I feel bad for them - they are between a rock and a hard place. Ah, well.
Sure, a lot of these may be Open Source, but I know of a lot of companies that have Open Source software installed by commercial vendors (e.g. Red Hat or even IBM).
Now, this may not necessarily be a bad thing, but I don't see how this is markedly different from, say, paying Microsoft.
You're still paying for support and stability -- just that you have a little more flexibility and control over your software, which usually does not matter all that much in enterprise production applications. I mean, just often do you recompile your kernel or add a new feature on your platform handling millions of transactions a day for a critical client? I didn't think so.
I mean, yay for Open Source and all that, but so what? At least from a customer perspective, you may not be paying for licenses anymore, but you are still paying for support -- and that is usually where the bulk of the expenses lie.
To answer you, Starbucks is charging because making it free will only make more people flock there for the wrong reasons. Starbucks tries hard to be open yet picky about its customers (notice their prices, compared to say, McDonalds?). It's that fine balance.
And in most cities, Starbucks are usually too crowded - too many people loitering around for the wifi would only make it worse.
If you are really desperate, just buy an EVDO card from one of the providers, and you can have Internet wherever you want (well, almost). And if you are like me, on the road a lot, it is worth its weight in gold.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, if you read all the articles linked, you'd know that it was not just Bill Gates, but others as well who testified on this subject. Secondly, a lot of companies support this, Google included. Finally, people from both parties support this.
The majority of the people who are on OPT are folks who're in the US to go to graduate school. Rather than send them back, they are trying to extend the amount of time that they can stay in the country. How is this a bad thing?
If anything, the number of native US candidates going to graduate school is much lesser than the number of foreign nationals coming to the US for graduate school. How is trying to retain folks who get advanced degrees a bad thing in any way?
Finally, a lot of people with graduate degrees (i.e. majority of folks on OPT) are by no means cheap - so, the old excuse that they are being exploited etc. does not quite work here.
Enough of the bullshit, already. A lot of folks petitioned about extending the OPT status for international students who go to graduate school in the US, and have to return because of visa policies (the H1B cap was met within a few hours last year). So, the government considered what the companies wanted and agreed to do this.
A lot of decision makers do not necessarily assume that free equals worthless, but rather that if it is free, then there is no accountability when stuff hits the fan.
A lot of process re-engineering requires you to have accountability at various levels, and when you have free software, that accountability becomes iffy (or it becomes your responsibility, which is also a bad thing). I mean, take a CPG or an insurance company - why should they spend money on having an open source development team? Their core business is not technology, it is retail or insurance.
Most IT budgets (in most places, 95% and upwards) is spent on IT maintenance, rather than on new technology. Given this, do you really think that they are going to take responsibility for maintaining that code themselves? They wouldn't, and they shouldn't have to.
That is why even in Open Source, companies like Red Hat (which charge a fee) are preferred. Even from among free software, companies would rather pay money and have something than have something free (unless it is from a well-known, well-established organization, say The Apache Software Foundation.
Accountability is assured (in one way or another) when money changes hands. And accountability (which sometimes translates to CYA) is what a lot of decision makers are looking for.
I enjoy writing, and I enjoy doing math, just for the fun of it.
So, when I write for pleasure or when I do math, I prefer using a fountain pen. In particular, I'm a fan of Parker or Mont Blanc - and the quality of my work has a direct correlation with the medium that I use to write.
If I use a ball-point or another pen that I'm not comfortable with, I just don't enjoy the process as much. But if it is a fountain pen, I derive a deep sense of personal satisfaction, and this is only made better by the fact that I enjoy what I'm doing more.
And here I was, thinking that I was jaded.
I mean, since fingerprints cannot be conclusive anymore, I foresee our politicians with moral fibers of steel pushing for more surveillance. I mean, if we cannot really tell whose fingerprints they are, we certainly need video proof! And since we do not know where a crime may happen, the policy makers (who typically have about as much morality as a pea) have decided that the way around this is to have cameras everywhere. Public restrooms and your house included.
I mean, think of the children!
One can only hope.
What better way than a senior official to be convicted of crimes as a result of identity theft because officials such as him decided that privacy didn't really matter anymore?
Personally, I sincerely wish that this happens in all the countries which have fingerprinting in place. Enough already.
Hah.
I had a friend do that once - some kids came by asking him if he wanted girl scout cookies. He asked them if the cookies had real girl scouts in them, and one of the little girls burst out crying.
Of course, these days the man is married with a kid, and meekly buys as many packs as his wife orders him to. Funny nevertheless.
Eh. If only. :)
They forgot to mention 80-100 hour weeks, lots of travel and not to mention the stress.
Of course, I take solace that compared to my i-banking friends, my weeks are relatively "free" and I can even spend part of the weekend with the girlfriend!
Having flown after having radiation treatment/scans, let me reassure you that it is a breeze.
When you undergo a radioactive scan or treatment, they give a small, dated card that tells you what the treatment was, how long it would be detectable, who the doctor was, the place where it was done, and any other contact information.
If you're pulled aside, you can show them the card and that is all. And as a brown man who travels twice a week, I have yet to be pulled aside after a scan - at least, not for that reason.
Secondly, TSA is getting a lot better - while there are a lot of idiots, most of them are indeed educated on things like this, and all you need to do is cite a valid medical reason, and show them some form of evidence (e.g. the card) that you underwent a medical procedure.
If anything, I'm in the upper salary range for my age/qualifications even within the companies I work for. I do not know where you are getting your "data" from, but I'm yet to meet an H1B employee who is a "second grade citizen" within the company. Eh? Including legal fees, on an average, it probably isn't more than 5k, if that. I'd say 2-3k, which is negligible (and yes, I've had an employer ask me to pay back that amount prorated when I've resigned, but whatever).
Sure, people do good and evil things immaterial of religion - but systematic harm to society by converting perfectly, normal good people into doing things that are harmful to society? No, that's something only religion can do.
Been reading Douglas Adams much? :)
Scientology is bad, but there are other religions that have been around a lot longer and are a lot more harmful to society and civilization as a whole.
Indeed.
In fact, that was my first thought - I grew up reading Tintin and Asterix, and I do not see anything about European comics or where they may fit in. Or even South Asian ones (apart from anime, comics were/are a big hit in certain Indian demographics).
Not that it necessarily makes it a bad book, but it still comes across as quite myopic (IMHO).
As someone who flies at least twice a week (and I am typing this from an airport at 5:30 AM, funnily enough), I would literally hate life if carry-ons were banned.
As a frequent flyer and a business traveler, carry-ons are the saviors. You don't have to wait in life for checking in a bag, you walk through priority check-in and you don't wait for your luggage to reach you. And given how often I fly, the chances of my bags ending up elsewhere is significantly higher - I'd rather not take that chance (and yes, it's happened in the past, on more than one occasion). God, I'd hate you. Carrying around my laptop and a bunch of notes hurts my shoulders, and the only thing that makes it bearable is the fact that I can put it on top of my wheeled carry-on.
Now, here's a better alternative -- permit carry-ons, but have the crew do a curb-side check-in of the bags (i.e. they take all the big bags from you before you board the plane).
No carry-ons? That's a business travelers nightmare. I'd rather spend 1/2 hour extra than give up my carry-on.
Ah, the joy of idiots discussing physics.
There is such a thing as knowing just enough to sound intelligible, but being a complete idiot while trying to sound intelligent.
*shakes head*
Seriously, go watch porn or something.
Quite obviously, the accuracy and resolution of such triangulation would not compare to a GPS triangulation, but it is still quite possible to sort of point your position using tower triangulation techniques.
If Yahoo can effectively prove that the 62% premium offered by Microsoft undervalues the company, then they are on good ground. And indeed, in the past 52 weeks, they have been over that, so that is in their favor. In fact, right now they are trading fairly high post-Microsoft offer, which is also a good thing for them.
Now, the problem may be with this statement that one of the pension funds made:
And I must clarify - when I mean vendors, I do not mean third party consultants (even by those vendors), as the article seems to indicate.
Sure, a lot of these may be Open Source, but I know of a lot of companies that have Open Source software installed by commercial vendors (e.g. Red Hat or even IBM).
Now, this may not necessarily be a bad thing, but I don't see how this is markedly different from, say, paying Microsoft.
You're still paying for support and stability -- just that you have a little more flexibility and control over your software, which usually does not matter all that much in enterprise production applications. I mean, just often do you recompile your kernel or add a new feature on your platform handling millions of transactions a day for a critical client? I didn't think so.
I mean, yay for Open Source and all that, but so what? At least from a customer perspective, you may not be paying for licenses anymore, but you are still paying for support -- and that is usually where the bulk of the expenses lie.
Well said, and hats off.
Your point?
The only difference between a cult and a religion is the number of followers.
To answer you, Starbucks is charging because making it free will only make more people flock there for the wrong reasons. Starbucks tries hard to be open yet picky about its customers (notice their prices, compared to say, McDonalds?). It's that fine balance.
And in most cities, Starbucks are usually too crowded - too many people loitering around for the wifi would only make it worse.
If you are really desperate, just buy an EVDO card from one of the providers, and you can have Internet wherever you want (well, almost). And if you are like me, on the road a lot, it is worth its weight in gold.
Eh? You are kidding, right? 62% premium and they reject it?
Unbelievable and surreal.
The stance the board has taken is only going to make it worse when/if MS actually does do a hostile takeover.
*shakes head*