Mine comes from nearly a decade in a sedentary job, and way too much cola over same time period. What does that have to do with the speed of light, though?
It's all that mass that you've gained over the years that's slowing light down.;-)
Oh I couldn't agree more. Every time I hear the bass go off, it literally hurts my ears - and I shudder to think of the person inside the car. They're all probably going to go deaf at a very young age.
I've been gifted a Shuffle, and I've gifted iPod nanos to two people. And I'd bought a regular iPod which I later sold.
(I'm not so much into the music 24/7 thing; I like keeping my ears open, and the Shuffle was useful because it was simple, durable and also doubled as a USB drive. Regular iPods and the Nano have always seemed a tad flimsy to me.)
So, technically, I purchased 4 iPods according to Apple. There you go, skewing of stats, right there.
Today, yes. It wasn't always so, and some of us do remember a time when there was a big hue and cry over this as well. And I do not know how many of you here remember michael, and the whole moderation abuse that happened.
That said, Slashdot has a relatively mature audience compared to digg (I know, I know). While there are imbeciles here too, for the most part, the Slashdot crowd tends to be in the industry and/or college and seems a tad experienced in the ways of the world.
Digg crowd, for the most part, seems to be full of highschool kids who just learnt about the Intranets and decided to hop on and share their extremely mature views on things. And give these people the ability to moderate anyone and everyone, you have an inherently flawed system.
Not that Digg doesn't have the occasional good article or two, but the comments and the participation are not anywhere close to the levels seen on Slashdot. Once again, age plays a role - Slashdot comments, ignoring the idiotic and inane ones, tend to contain a few genuinely good ones. Even if you took an article on something obscure (say, something obscure in medicine or chemistry or whatever), you will find the occasional comment by someone who knows what's going on.
This is hardly the case with Digg, which has a bunch of kids who have no idea what's going on, and is choke full of nothing but opinions and little else (not that Slashdot doesn't have its fair share of asshats, it's just not as big a number).
Not a good idea. Especially because the cap applies to *all* industries, not just CS/IT. And no two industries pay the same.
Someone working in silicon valley for a software company will probably make way more than someone working as a physicist in Wisconsin or doing biotech research in the Carolinas.
So, you end up with the high-paying industries attracting more and more skilled workers, while the smaller industries (which also need skilled people but have a shortage locally here in the US) being affected adversely.
According to Business Week, there were "an estimated 700,000 holders of H1B and L1 visas in the U.S., and critics say the number may be closer to 1 million."
Umm, that's because H1Bs are granted and last for six years. So, if you have 65k + 20k granted per year, and accumulate that for six years, you get 85k * 6 = 510,000. Combine that with L1s and you get the figure you talked about.
Secondly, the numbers in your previous post are a function of MEVs - multiple entry visas. If I had a single H1B but went back to my home country and reentered the US, it gets counted as a new entry. Obviously, a lot of people will visit their home country once every few years, just so.
Also, a lot of the exemptions go towards existing H1B holders who are waiting for their green card (permanent residency), and depending on its status, their H1Bs are renewed in one or three year increments.
L1s are a different issue, but usually L1s are issued for people who are on the track to permanent residency (either they are, or their spouses are) and need an L1 for a short amount of time (2 years as opposed to six). Secondly, L1s applicants usually tend to have an American residence and take up the visa merely as a stop-gap between their H1 and green card. If the L1 numbers were anywhere as high, trust you me - the INS will clamp down on those asap.
You know, it really would help if you grasped what the figures meant before foaming at the mouth and repeating your point over and over again. I can understand that this is Slashdot and immigrant bashing is considered fair, fun and all that, but seriously. Read a little and try understanding what it's all about.
You make a good point, however while there is some degree of hostility, it is particularly bad in the South (at least, compared to the North).
As a "Madrasi" who spent most of his childhood growing up in parts of North India, the North was a whole lot more broad minded than the South. The term Madrasi is used to refer to all south Indians, but for the most part it is fairly benign, humorous even.
Sadly, I doubt I could say the same of the south. I've lived in a few states in the South - and TN was the worst (in my experience). If anything, as someone who did not speak good Tamil, I had trouble integrating with my classmates in Madras (even though I'm technically a tam-brahm). In fact, I noticed visible hostility towards cultural practices that people in the North didn't really care about (e.g. you'd get teased and made fun of for even speaking in English, was surprised me). And speaking in another language in public (autos, restaurants, buses etc) just got rude responses. Compare this with North, where even if you didn't speak the language, they usually try to help you out.
I really do not know enough about the East/West, but between North and the South, the North is a whole lot better and broad minded. People tend to be nicer, compared to the South, particularly Tamil Nadu.
Now, I do agree with the rest of your points, though. If any one group had gotten successful in a region of India they are not from, things would not have been that pleasant. Although, I do believe that things are looking a whole lot better today than they did a few years ago.
But I think the key difference is that India is inherently a very conservative, closed culture (at least in recent history). The US is inherently a very open, immigrant-friendly culture -- hell, it was built by and for immigrants. That may have something to do with it.
PS - had added you as a friend a while ago, but for whatever reason, you showed up as a foe. Weirdness.
I do not know if you know this already, but if you are engaged or married (to an American), it becomes a lot easier for you to come down here?
As an Indian engaged to an American girl, I can tell you that once you are engaged/married, the immigration paperwork becomes a lot easier. In my case, it's a little more complicated because my girlfriend is in the navy and has security clearance. So, if she married me, she'd be marrying a foreign national, so we both have to jump through hoops before we get married.
Fortunately, I came here as a student for my grad school and have been working here ever since on an H1B, so it's not been that big a deal in terms of my immigration status.
But I have heard stories similar to yours from a lot of friends. In your case, you were lucky that you could work it out. A lot of people aren't and it's unfortunate when people have to break up because of stupid immigration policies.
Your waking hours are a function of when you go to sleep, the earlier you fall asleep the earlier you wake up.
It's a good habit for kids to go sleep early and wake up early.
Now, admittedly, when I was in grad school there were times when I would work nights and waking up in the mornings was a bitch.
But after a little getting used to, I switched back to waking up early again. Besides, it helps to function during the hours of the rest of the world (well, unless you have a job that requires you to be up late).
Nothing better than waking up early, going for a run and working out, having a good breakfast and heading to work early. This way, you can leave early and have time for other things.
I went to GT, and even took a class of his. You could always see him walking around with all kinds of things attached to him. Some of his PhD students are the same way, too. Although, the continuous clicking and buzzing does get to you after a while.
Both Starner and Mann have done some very pioneering work in this area.
Although, to be fair, Mann has done significantly more and has been at this a lot longer. IIRC, he was once stopped at an American airport for carrying this stuff. They refused to believe that he was dependent on them (he's Canadian). I remember a talk by him where he said that he now drove, instead.
Well, as far as I can tell, it was Apple's fault -- sure, the music companies supposedly made Apple do it, but that does not absolve Apple of actually going along with it.
If you are doing business in a region, you'd better do follow the law of the land. If your business "partners" (i.e. the music industry) does not like playing by the rules, too bad, pull out. However, you cannot not play by the rules and insist that it is not your fault.
Next in line, I'm hoping to see Apple fined for selling DRM-ed music (the other issue the article talked about).
Ah, let me guess. Upset that the movie didn't waste 30 minutes on Tom Bombadil, right?
No, not really.
Upset that the movie didn't show the coming of age of Middle Earth. It's about the elders (Elves, Maiar, etc) leaving Middle Earth, and its other, younger races (Men and Hobbits) coming of age.
And he missed the most important part of the movie - the scouring of the Shire.
So, yeah. It's not even about the inaccuracies or what he showed or didn't show, it's the fact that the spirit of Tolkien's work was completely ignored.
Sooner or later there comes a point where the vast majority of people - even we learned Slashdotters - have to take what the smart guys are saying on faith.
That's the thing, though.
It's not entirely faith - it is based on a methodology that's proven to work, and that methodology (i.e. science) isn't always written in stone. We change the way we do things based on what we observe and learn.
And finally, if you *really* wanted to understand something, nobody is stopping people from going to a library and spending a few years understanding the science. It boils down to how badly you want to have something verified personally.
We even question everything that comes about. There's a reason publications are peer reviewed. I mean, science by its nature tends to be very fact-oriented -- immaterial of whether or not you believe that an apple falls to the ground, it does.
No, I think it boils down to something else. At the end of the day, this is how it works for the religious nutheads - "I cannot be bothered to do all that, but my prejudice tells me I'm right. Therefore I should be."
Most of these "Christians" are hardly that. They are just zealous idiots afraid of change and are merely using religion as a crutch. They are no different from the other religious nutheads all over the world. They are no different from the people who burnt witches, books and killed people for thinking.
Given the chance, they would gladly do that - it's just that it's a little hard in this day and age to get away with doing stuff like that.
We care, because these people are also making our laws, electing our politicians and teaching our kids.
These people would be deciding that scientific research is bad (it's already begun, look at the funding cuts in science and technology and the government stance on stem cell research etc). These people will also be electing idiots into office, idiots who believe that a voice-in-the-sky talks to them. And these people will be teaching -- no proselytizing -- to our children.
Do you really want to live in such a society? I, for one, do not. If anything, it scares me to no end.
And have rm aliased in your shell config as 'rm -i' -- that would ensure that even if you did type in something wrong by mistake, you will be asked about it first.
Usually, having both rm and mv requiring sudo while interacting with anything other than the home directory and aliasing both with -i has been extremely useful to me in the past.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, have you *seen* Hillary?!
That poor man.
Mine comes from nearly a decade in a sedentary job, and way too much cola over same time period. What does that have to do with the speed of light, though?
;-)
It's all that mass that you've gained over the years that's slowing light down.
Oh I couldn't agree more. Every time I hear the bass go off, it literally hurts my ears - and I shudder to think of the person inside the car. They're all probably going to go deaf at a very young age.
That's true.
I've been gifted a Shuffle, and I've gifted iPod nanos to two people. And I'd bought a regular iPod which I later sold.
(I'm not so much into the music 24/7 thing; I like keeping my ears open, and the Shuffle was useful because it was simple, durable and also doubled as a USB drive. Regular iPods and the Nano have always seemed a tad flimsy to me.)
So, technically, I purchased 4 iPods according to Apple. There you go, skewing of stats, right there.
W0rd, man.
And boy, we should have killed him when we had the chance.
Now he's off making bug-men. Or something. Gee.
Today, yes. It wasn't always so, and some of us do remember a time when there was a big hue and cry over this as well. And I do not know how many of you here remember michael, and the whole moderation abuse that happened.
That said, Slashdot has a relatively mature audience compared to digg (I know, I know). While there are imbeciles here too, for the most part, the Slashdot crowd tends to be in the industry and/or college and seems a tad experienced in the ways of the world.
Digg crowd, for the most part, seems to be full of highschool kids who just learnt about the Intranets and decided to hop on and share their extremely mature views on things. And give these people the ability to moderate anyone and everyone, you have an inherently flawed system.
Not that Digg doesn't have the occasional good article or two, but the comments and the participation are not anywhere close to the levels seen on Slashdot. Once again, age plays a role - Slashdot comments, ignoring the idiotic and inane ones, tend to contain a few genuinely good ones. Even if you took an article on something obscure (say, something obscure in medicine or chemistry or whatever), you will find the occasional comment by someone who knows what's going on.
This is hardly the case with Digg, which has a bunch of kids who have no idea what's going on, and is choke full of nothing but opinions and little else (not that Slashdot doesn't have its fair share of asshats, it's just not as big a number).
My two cents.
As someone once said -- "The nipple is the only truly intuitive interface".
Pick the H1B candidates according to salary.
Not a good idea. Especially because the cap applies to *all* industries, not just CS/IT. And no two industries pay the same.
Someone working in silicon valley for a software company will probably make way more than someone working as a physicist in Wisconsin or doing biotech research in the Carolinas.
So, you end up with the high-paying industries attracting more and more skilled workers, while the smaller industries (which also need skilled people but have a shortage locally here in the US) being affected adversely.
According to Business Week, there were "an estimated 700,000 holders of H1B and L1 visas in the U.S., and critics say the number may be closer to 1 million."
Umm, that's because H1Bs are granted and last for six years. So, if you have 65k + 20k granted per year, and accumulate that for six years, you get 85k * 6 = 510,000. Combine that with L1s and you get the figure you talked about.
Secondly, the numbers in your previous post are a function of MEVs - multiple entry visas. If I had a single H1B but went back to my home country and reentered the US, it gets counted as a new entry. Obviously, a lot of people will visit their home country once every few years, just so.
Also, a lot of the exemptions go towards existing H1B holders who are waiting for their green card (permanent residency), and depending on its status, their H1Bs are renewed in one or three year increments.
L1s are a different issue, but usually L1s are issued for people who are on the track to permanent residency (either they are, or their spouses are) and need an L1 for a short amount of time (2 years as opposed to six). Secondly, L1s applicants usually tend to have an American residence and take up the visa merely as a stop-gap between their H1 and green card. If the L1 numbers were anywhere as high, trust you me - the INS will clamp down on those asap.
You know, it really would help if you grasped what the figures meant before foaming at the mouth and repeating your point over and over again. I can understand that this is Slashdot and immigrant bashing is considered fair, fun and all that, but seriously. Read a little and try understanding what it's all about.
You make a good point, however while there is some degree of hostility, it is particularly bad in the South (at least, compared to the North).
As a "Madrasi" who spent most of his childhood growing up in parts of North India, the North was a whole lot more broad minded than the South. The term Madrasi is used to refer to all south Indians, but for the most part it is fairly benign, humorous even.
Sadly, I doubt I could say the same of the south. I've lived in a few states in the South - and TN was the worst (in my experience). If anything, as someone who did not speak good Tamil, I had trouble integrating with my classmates in Madras (even though I'm technically a tam-brahm). In fact, I noticed visible hostility towards cultural practices that people in the North didn't really care about (e.g. you'd get teased and made fun of for even speaking in English, was surprised me). And speaking in another language in public (autos, restaurants, buses etc) just got rude responses. Compare this with North, where even if you didn't speak the language, they usually try to help you out.
I really do not know enough about the East/West, but between North and the South, the North is a whole lot better and broad minded. People tend to be nicer, compared to the South, particularly Tamil Nadu.
Now, I do agree with the rest of your points, though. If any one group had gotten successful in a region of India they are not from, things would not have been that pleasant. Although, I do believe that things are looking a whole lot better today than they did a few years ago.
But I think the key difference is that India is inherently a very conservative, closed culture (at least in recent history). The US is inherently a very open, immigrant-friendly culture -- hell, it was built by and for immigrants. That may have something to do with it.
PS - had added you as a friend a while ago, but for whatever reason, you showed up as a foe. Weirdness.
I do not know if you know this already, but if you are engaged or married (to an American), it becomes a lot easier for you to come down here?
As an Indian engaged to an American girl, I can tell you that once you are engaged/married, the immigration paperwork becomes a lot easier. In my case, it's a little more complicated because my girlfriend is in the navy and has security clearance. So, if she married me, she'd be marrying a foreign national, so we both have to jump through hoops before we get married.
Fortunately, I came here as a student for my grad school and have been working here ever since on an H1B, so it's not been that big a deal in terms of my immigration status.
But I have heard stories similar to yours from a lot of friends. In your case, you were lucky that you could work it out. A lot of people aren't and it's unfortunate when people have to break up because of stupid immigration policies.
And just why?
Your waking hours are a function of when you go to sleep, the earlier you fall asleep the earlier you wake up.
It's a good habit for kids to go sleep early and wake up early.
Now, admittedly, when I was in grad school there were times when I would work nights and waking up in the mornings was a bitch.
But after a little getting used to, I switched back to waking up early again. Besides, it helps to function during the hours of the rest of the world (well, unless you have a job that requires you to be up late).
Nothing better than waking up early, going for a run and working out, having a good breakfast and heading to work early. This way, you can leave early and have time for other things.
Or Thad Starner.
I went to GT, and even took a class of his. You could always see him walking around with all kinds of things attached to him. Some of his PhD students are the same way, too. Although, the continuous clicking and buzzing does get to you after a while.
Both Starner and Mann have done some very pioneering work in this area.
Although, to be fair, Mann has done significantly more and has been at this a lot longer. IIRC, he was once stopped at an American airport for carrying this stuff. They refused to believe that he was dependent on them (he's Canadian). I remember a talk by him where he said that he now drove, instead.
Well, as far as I can tell, it was Apple's fault -- sure, the music companies supposedly made Apple do it, but that does not absolve Apple of actually going along with it.
If you are doing business in a region, you'd better do follow the law of the land. If your business "partners" (i.e. the music industry) does not like playing by the rules, too bad, pull out. However, you cannot not play by the rules and insist that it is not your fault.
Next in line, I'm hoping to see Apple fined for selling DRM-ed music (the other issue the article talked about).
No, not really.
Upset that the movie didn't show the coming of age of Middle Earth. It's about the elders (Elves, Maiar, etc) leaving Middle Earth, and its other, younger races (Men and Hobbits) coming of age.
And he missed the most important part of the movie - the scouring of the Shire.
So, yeah. It's not even about the inaccuracies or what he showed or didn't show, it's the fact that the spirit of Tolkien's work was completely ignored.
*shrug*
Among common folks, sure. But as a lot of fans of Tolkien will attest to, it was nothing more than visual masturbation.
Sure, they were decent standalone movies - but that's about it.
Who do you think you are, Daniel Jackson?
;)
Bleh!
Well, who cares.
I think we should celebrate - this is the only way we'd see the word laid in any on the front page of Slashdot.
Welcome to April first. You have no officially been fooled.
Tra la la.
Don't you mean, hairy geeks with man-boobs? Given that this is Slashdot and all that?
We do live in that exact society!
Bush has on several occasions stated that he takes policy advise from God.
Ummm, that's why I said that, gee.
Sooner or later there comes a point where the vast majority of people - even we learned Slashdotters - have to take what the smart guys are saying on faith.
That's the thing, though.
It's not entirely faith - it is based on a methodology that's proven to work, and that methodology (i.e. science) isn't always written in stone. We change the way we do things based on what we observe and learn.
And finally, if you *really* wanted to understand something, nobody is stopping people from going to a library and spending a few years understanding the science. It boils down to how badly you want to have something verified personally.
We even question everything that comes about. There's a reason publications are peer reviewed. I mean, science by its nature tends to be very fact-oriented -- immaterial of whether or not you believe that an apple falls to the ground, it does.
No, I think it boils down to something else. At the end of the day, this is how it works for the religious nutheads - "I cannot be bothered to do all that, but my prejudice tells me I'm right. Therefore I should be."
Most of these "Christians" are hardly that. They are just zealous idiots afraid of change and are merely using religion as a crutch. They are no different from the other religious nutheads all over the world. They are no different from the people who burnt witches, books and killed people for thinking.
Given the chance, they would gladly do that - it's just that it's a little hard in this day and age to get away with doing stuff like that.
Come on, who cares?
We care, because these people are also making our laws, electing our politicians and teaching our kids.
These people would be deciding that scientific research is bad (it's already begun, look at the funding cuts in science and technology and the government stance on stem cell research etc). These people will also be electing idiots into office, idiots who believe that a voice-in-the-sky talks to them. And these people will be teaching -- no proselytizing -- to our children.
Do you really want to live in such a society? I, for one, do not. If anything, it scares me to no end.
And have rm aliased in your shell config as 'rm -i' -- that would ensure that even if you did type in something wrong by mistake, you will be asked about it first.
Usually, having both rm and mv requiring sudo while interacting with anything other than the home directory and aliasing both with -i has been extremely useful to me in the past.