I've been living and working in Europe for almost three years now, so I've got a bit of an opinion on the issue. The simple answer is: you can find work in IT no matter where in Europe you go. Germany has recently made a lot of "green cards" available for hi-tech workers from Eastern Europe due to a general lack of workers. It's generally true that there is a shortage of workers everywhere.
However, moving overseas and getting set up is not an easy task. Taxes (especially VAT's) are IMHO higher in Europe than in the US, housing can be difficult to find. If you don't speak the language, it limits the places where you can work. The best advice I can give you is to get as much of the paperwork as possible done before you fly over. Also, be sure to take a certified copy of your birth certificate with you - if you lose your passport you may need it, and many foreign offices require it for various permits.
The fact is that if you've had a DNA test and there's no problem then you will be getting an advantage - companies will be more likely to insure you at a much cheaper rate. And seeing as anything that brings down those premiums is good, I don't really see how this can be construed as a negative move on behalf of the UK government
Hmmm. Let's look at this for a moment. It does in fact hurt the consumer, and I'll tell you why. There is no difference between charging more to one class of people and giving a discount to a different group. If they charge more to a particular group, then they'll set the base rate lower. If offering a "discount", they'll set the base rate higher.
When you control the base rates that you charge, it makes no difference if you offer discounts to one group, or charge more to a different group. It's discrimination no matter how you look at it, and discrimination based on genetic characteristics is just plain wrong.
Balancing constitutional rights with what "law enforcement" wants is not always easy. Since Carnivore largely amounts to a tool for gathering intelligence, it's quite understandable that the Feds don't want to release details. The first rule of intelligence gathering is to keep your methods secret -- otherwise your targets will be able to adapt and avoid interception.
Of course, if the targets use strong encryption, Carnivore is worthless (without the NSA, of course). Which leaves us with the question, who is Carnivore actually aimed at? Criminals who are smart enough to use email, but dumb enough not to encrypt, and evil enough to have committed federal felonies? Somehow I doubt that that group is large enough to justify Carnivore.
This seems like a phenomenally bad idea -- just think what happens if the secretary at a large company with thousands of employees (like the one where I work) inadvertantly allows the email to be sent.
Hmmm... pulling out my trusty old HTTP proxy spy, let's see exactly what information IE is sending to MS server:
GET http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=Windo ws&sbp=MediaPlayer&ar=Favorite&sba=CNET& pver=6.2 HTTP/1.0
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/vnd.ms-
powerpoint, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/msword, */*
Accept-Language: en-us
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 4.0; y)
Host: www.microsoft.com
Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive
And it gets back:
HTTP/1.0 302 Moved Temporarily
Location: http://stream.cnet.com
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 145
Age: 0
X-Cache: MISS from x.x.x.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
<head><title>Document Moved</title></head>
<body><h1>Object Moved</h1>This document may be found <a HREF="http://stream.cnet.com">here</a></body>HTTP/ 1.0 302 Moved Temporarily
In other words, it's not sending any extra information, and it's very plausible that MS would use it to 1) redirect to a current, correct URL for the given services, and 2) verify usage of the latest version of the browser. In other words, nothing sinister, even if they're keeping statistics on which links are used -- if they don't have statistics, then they won't know which URLs to keep and which to trash.
The practice of charging arbitrary prices based on how gullible a person seems has been around for ages -- just think of the last time (at least in the US) that you went looking for a car at a dealership. The only difference here is that it's impossible to haggle (unless you're willing to use different browsers, play with the cookies cached, and so on... average "Joe User" isn't going to do those things or even know that he should). While giving certain good customers discounts is good business practice, in this case these customers need to know that they've been selected for discounts, or else the entire effect is lost.
Wil this in any affect Kylix (delphi for linux) which is based on the QT lib?
No, probably not. People developing software can use either the GPL, or they can purchase a license from TrollTech -- Borland is probably not using the Free Edition. So, it shouldn't have any effect at all.
Or 3) only accept connections from registered clients. Which would be way worse than the blocking of a single bloated windows-only toaster/coffee-machine.
... which is unfortunately exactly what cddb2 does. It forces each application to register to get developer and application IDs, and then each user must in turn register. This is also the reason why I'm not going to ever implement it.
And just FYI, they're putting a linux client for cddb2 out to beta...
What we need is a local proxy for CD requests that users can install (and use with all the same software the cddb does). This proxy could then randomise the agent string (if required) and firstly search FreeDB and then CDDB if FreeDB aint got it.
Randomizing is good, but it would be better to randomly pick from the list of valid user-agent strings, taken from their list of "approved" applications. CDDB would be forced to either scrap the original service -- which I don't think they'll do until they reach critical mass of users for the second-generation (read "proprietary extension designed to snuff out the competetion") software -- or they would simply have to deal with it.
The question is, would they sue? Could they sue? The original server was GPL'ed, and any application can use the original documentation or source code to talk to a server based on the original protocol.
Unless Media Jukebox is CDDB2-enabled, it would be a simple matter to fool the server -- just substitute a different user-agent. No problem. The only way CDDB can know that the client is lying is to 1) reverse engineer (ie. use an http spy) the software in question, or 2) force everyone to use CDDB2. Eventually, the original CDDB is supposed to be turned off in favor of CDDB2.
My ripper (win32 only...), can be configured to use any CDDB out there, but I'm hesitant to disable the "official" *.cddb.com servers, since it should be the user's decision what to use.
The last test I did with my ears, vs LAME 3.84, LAME was easily (subjective) better. I encode everything at 160 stereo, and Ogg just didn't sound as good at the maximum bitrate available.
The original Vorbis beta only supported ~128 kpbs VBR, so no matter what command-line flags you passed to LAME, you got the same output for Vorbis. The second beta should actually support more bitrates.
You can get the plugins at the URL's listed earlier. If you're using Windows, you can either rip to a WAV file and use the LAME encoder from the same page, or try my ripper (open-source, of course), which will encode to Ogg Vorbis on-the-fly, and supports tagging the output file with artist info.
I wouldn't mind Microsoft dropping the backward compatibility all together...
That's not going to happen, and there are a few reasons why. The biggest reason is the existing investment in software... a lot of companies waited (or are still waiting) to deploy Win2K, despite the fact that it will run almost 100% of the software that ran under 95/98 and contained security and other enhancements. If you completely axe backwards compatibility, hardware or software, people are not going to flock to replace existing installations.
Or just make it software-emulated and stop wasting die space.
Absolutely. Emulation would probably be able to handle 90% or more of current applications. The choice would then be to either keep around 32-bit machines for the software that needs it, and/or wait for new version built for the new platform.
OHMIGOD, Microsoft has finally lived up to a promise from many years ago and removed support for MSDOS? Those bastards!
</SARCASM>
This is about a non-story if I ever heard one. On the one hand, MS is blasted by the non-MS community for maintaining legacy 16-bit code. Then, when finally cutting it free, the same community suddenly realizes that they've been benefitting from the old 16-bit code and throws a hissy fit. You can't have it both ways.
All this really means is that people will need to keep old boot diskettes around, or perhaps look at creating a boot floppy using FreeDOS. If it doesn't work now with FreeDOS, I suspect that it could certainly be made to given the proper impetus. In any case, it hardly means the End Of UMSDOS And BeOSfs Over Vfat, as the title of the article suggests.
Because of the philosophy of mozilla (It's a platform, not a browser), you can do *anything* with it.
Uh, sorry, but no. There are a large number of people who just want a good browser. I don't need a browser that has a 30MB memory footprint just to start up. People complain about "bloatware" -- Mozilla is among the most bloated pieces of software out there.
I don't know all the costs, someone who works in the recording industry might better be able to name them, but it's unfair to say the record companies make CDs for 50 cents and sell them for $15.
OK. I'll bite. According to this report (I know it's ZDNet... ugh), the record labels only pay production and promotional costs for established acts. According to the same article, production costs for 100,000 copies of a CD are around $93,000 (the cost per copy goes down as the number of copies goes up). The record companies aren't losing a lot of money promoting lesser known bands, since those bands have to repay those costs to the record companies. And according to this report at Harvard Law School, artists don't actually start to make any money until 500,000 units have been sold.
So don't come crying to me about all the extra costs the record labels have to bear promoting lesser-known bands. It's just not true. 3000-4000% was probably a bit of an exaggeration, but 1800% is not (at the $8-10 sell price).
While I personally don't side with Napster, et al., I'll agree that RIAA is taking the wrong tack. The fact is that the "genie is out of the bottle", and suing Napster won't change that fact. But it's not surprising that an industry that consistently charges $15-20 for something that costs them $0.50 (a 3000-4000% markup) will sue anyone who tries to threaten it.
Let's face it. Napster is/was not the only game in town, but it was the most prominent, and had venture capital to boot. RIAA knew they stood a good chance of winning, and is desperately looking for a precedent in their favor. And going after Napster makes for good publicity with the media (who still report Napster as a "website that allows users to share MP3s").
The bottom line is that RIAA has been gouging customers for years and it's not at all surprising that Napster would come along. Napster, for it's part, has knowingly been aiding people to trade music that they didn't pay for. Neither side deserves to win.
I honestly believe that if people are given a convenient way to purchase the music online, a large number will. If RIAA realizes this, they stand a chance of surviving. If they don't, they won't be around 10 years from now.
I'm sick and tired of good intentions being used to defend bad plans.
Uh, sorry. No. The internet as we know it was built on a large number of assumptions, many of which are simply no longer true. The largest of these assumptions is that there was no reason for built-in security, since the only people using the network were academic types -- and it was true that the various institutions could generally trust each other. But as the network became more open to the public at large, the old assumptions begin to break down. This plan is attempt to fix a single problem in an inherently bad design. Get over it.
In addition to the GPL...will be made available under the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL)....An important requirement of the SISSL license is that it requires compatibility with the GPL reference implementation of the OpenOffice.org source code, including APIs and file formats.
I couldn't find any information on the SISSL, but it sounds a little fishy to me. If the source code is GPL'ed, then I can create a derivative work, which would be as incompatible as I want. (Not that I'm advocating intentional incompatibility). Is the SISSL intended to be a closed-source complement to the GPL? Otherwise, I can't see how it would be useful, since under the GPL you can do what you want with the code in terms of modifications.
I say that unless you use HTTP authentication or another form of validation.. anything you put on a webpage is public-accessible, copyright be damned. It is simply an unreasonable burden to ask otherwise.
Absolutely agree. HTML is designed for linking, and in general, if you've placed something up without placing a robots.txt in the same directory, it should be fair game for indexing.
Also, technical solutions already exist, and if used properly are more effective and less costly than litigation. Simply require that there be a valid "Referrer:" header before serving up the information -- sure, the indexer can easily provide a fake header, but anyone who tries to follow the link from an outside site is simply SOL. It's sufficient to serve a static page stating that those links will be accessible only from within the site.
Of course, the lawyers won't like any solution that cuts them out of the picture.
...such as people that post bogus files for that reason.
OK. I'll bite. What constitutes a bogus file - one that is intentionally mis-named? Once Napster starts adding in editorial control such as mandatory filename standards, they're starting down the road towards assuming responsibility for what is served or facilitated by their system.
Also, if you make the file naming standards mandatory, then it's now a simple matter for an artist to request that all MP3s allegedly produced by them not be traded, as they have not provided any publically redistributable files. And I suspect that artists would win this one in court if Napster refused to comply.
As long as the files being put up are valid MP3 files which do not violate copyright law, Napster has no reason to ban those users.
...but this really isn't any different from any other form of voting. I can pretend to be a dead guy in person, or I can do it over the computer.
With a few minor differences. Once the system has been compromised, or a way to submit phony votes devised, computers make it very easy to do on a large scale. And if system security has been compromised, all bets are off. WRT voting in the flesh, the fact that you just can't hire enough homeless with fake IDs limits the amount of damage that can be done.
But most politicians aren't smart enough to use a computer.
Politicians (other than Al Gore) don't generally do their own dirty work. They hire consultants, and there's no reason to believe that it would change in this case.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been living and working in Europe for almost three years now, so I've got a bit of an opinion on the issue. The simple answer is: you can find work in IT no matter where in Europe you go. Germany has recently made a lot of "green cards" available for hi-tech workers from Eastern Europe due to a general lack of workers. It's generally true that there is a shortage of workers everywhere.
However, moving overseas and getting set up is not an easy task. Taxes (especially VAT's) are IMHO higher in Europe than in the US, housing can be difficult to find. If you don't speak the language, it limits the places where you can work. The best advice I can give you is to get as much of the paperwork as possible done before you fly over. Also, be sure to take a certified copy of your birth certificate with you - if you lose your passport you may need it, and many foreign offices require it for various permits.
---
The fact is that if you've had a DNA test and there's no problem then you will be getting an advantage - companies will be more likely to insure you at a much cheaper rate. And seeing as anything that brings down those premiums is good, I don't really see how this can be construed as a negative move on behalf of the UK government
Hmmm. Let's look at this for a moment. It does in fact hurt the consumer, and I'll tell you why. There is no difference between charging more to one class of people and giving a discount to a different group. If they charge more to a particular group, then they'll set the base rate lower. If offering a "discount", they'll set the base rate higher.
When you control the base rates that you charge, it makes no difference if you offer discounts to one group, or charge more to a different group. It's discrimination no matter how you look at it, and discrimination based on genetic characteristics is just plain wrong.
---
Balancing constitutional rights with what "law enforcement" wants is not always easy. Since Carnivore largely amounts to a tool for gathering intelligence, it's quite understandable that the Feds don't want to release details. The first rule of intelligence gathering is to keep your methods secret -- otherwise your targets will be able to adapt and avoid interception.
Of course, if the targets use strong encryption, Carnivore is worthless (without the NSA, of course). Which leaves us with the question, who is Carnivore actually aimed at? Criminals who are smart enough to use email, but dumb enough not to encrypt, and evil enough to have committed federal felonies? Somehow I doubt that that group is large enough to justify Carnivore.
---
This seems like a phenomenally bad idea -- just think what happens if the secretary at a large company with thousands of employees (like the one where I work) inadvertantly allows the email to be sent.
---
Hmmm... pulling out my trusty old HTTP proxy spy, let's see exactly what information IE is sending to MS server:
o ws&sbp=MediaPlayer&ar=Favorite&sba=CNET& pver=6.2 HTTP/1.0
/ 1.0 302 Moved Temporarily
GET http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=Wind
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/vnd.ms-
powerpoint, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/msword, */*
Accept-Language: en-us
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 4.0; y)
Host: www.microsoft.com
Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive
And it gets back:
HTTP/1.0 302 Moved Temporarily
Location: http://stream.cnet.com
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 145
Age: 0
X-Cache: MISS from x.x.x.com
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
<head><title>Document Moved</title></head>
<body><h1>Object Moved</h1>This document may be found <a HREF="http://stream.cnet.com">here</a></body>HTTP
In other words, it's not sending any extra information, and it's very plausible that MS would use it to 1) redirect to a current, correct URL for the given services, and 2) verify usage of the latest version of the browser. In other words, nothing sinister, even if they're keeping statistics on which links are used -- if they don't have statistics, then they won't know which URLs to keep and which to trash.
Sigh.
---
AOLinux?
Is that a distro or a nightmare?
---
The practice of charging arbitrary prices based on how gullible a person seems has been around for ages -- just think of the last time (at least in the US) that you went looking for a car at a dealership. The only difference here is that it's impossible to haggle (unless you're willing to use different browsers, play with the cookies cached, and so on... average "Joe User" isn't going to do those things or even know that he should). While giving certain good customers discounts is good business practice, in this case these customers need to know that they've been selected for discounts, or else the entire effect is lost.
---
Wil this in any affect Kylix (delphi for linux) which is based on the QT lib?
No, probably not. People developing software can use either the GPL, or they can purchase a license from TrollTech -- Borland is probably not using the Free Edition. So, it shouldn't have any effect at all.
---
Or 3) only accept connections from registered clients. Which would be way worse than the blocking of a single bloated windows-only toaster/coffee-machine.
... which is unfortunately exactly what cddb2 does. It forces each application to register to get developer and application IDs, and then each user must in turn register. This is also the reason why I'm not going to ever implement it.
And just FYI, they're putting a linux client for cddb2 out to beta...
---
What we need is a local proxy for CD requests that users can install (and use with all the same software the cddb does). This proxy could then randomise the agent string (if required) and firstly search FreeDB and then CDDB if FreeDB aint got it.
Randomizing is good, but it would be better to randomly pick from the list of valid user-agent strings, taken from their list of "approved" applications. CDDB would be forced to either scrap the original service -- which I don't think they'll do until they reach critical mass of users for the second-generation (read "proprietary extension designed to snuff out the competetion") software -- or they would simply have to deal with it.
The question is, would they sue? Could they sue? The original server was GPL'ed, and any application can use the original documentation or source code to talk to a server based on the original protocol.
---
Unless Media Jukebox is CDDB2-enabled, it would be a simple matter to fool the server -- just substitute a different user-agent. No problem. The only way CDDB can know that the client is lying is to 1) reverse engineer (ie. use an http spy) the software in question, or 2) force everyone to use CDDB2. Eventually, the original CDDB is supposed to be turned off in favor of CDDB2.
My ripper (win32 only...), can be configured to use any CDDB out there, but I'm hesitant to disable the "official" *.cddb.com servers, since it should be the user's decision what to use.
---
The last test I did with my ears, vs LAME 3.84, LAME was easily (subjective) better. I encode everything at 160 stereo, and Ogg just didn't sound as good at the maximum bitrate available.
The original Vorbis beta only supported ~128 kpbs VBR, so no matter what command-line flags you passed to LAME, you got the same output for Vorbis. The second beta should actually support more bitrates.
---
You can get the plugins at the URL's listed earlier. If you're using Windows, you can either rip to a WAV file and use the LAME encoder from the same page, or try my ripper (open-source, of course), which will encode to Ogg Vorbis on-the-fly, and supports tagging the output file with artist info.
---
...but what will this file format come to be known as?
.ogg -- vorbis is just one audio component in that stream.
They went for the extension
---
Sorry, but until Jabber implements their promised HTTP proxy support, it's just not an option for a large number of users behind firewalls.
---
I wouldn't mind Microsoft dropping the backward compatibility all together...
That's not going to happen, and there are a few reasons why. The biggest reason is the existing investment in software... a lot of companies waited (or are still waiting) to deploy Win2K, despite the fact that it will run almost 100% of the software that ran under 95/98 and contained security and other enhancements. If you completely axe backwards compatibility, hardware or software, people are not going to flock to replace existing installations.
Or just make it software-emulated and stop wasting die space.
Absolutely. Emulation would probably be able to handle 90% or more of current applications. The choice would then be to either keep around 32-bit machines for the software that needs it, and/or wait for new version built for the new platform.
---
OHMIGOD, Microsoft has finally lived up to a promise from many years ago and removed support for MSDOS? Those bastards!
</SARCASM>
This is about a non-story if I ever heard one. On the one hand, MS is blasted by the non-MS community for maintaining legacy 16-bit code. Then, when finally cutting it free, the same community suddenly realizes that they've been benefitting from the old 16-bit code and throws a hissy fit. You can't have it both ways.
All this really means is that people will need to keep old boot diskettes around, or perhaps look at creating a boot floppy using FreeDOS. If it doesn't work now with FreeDOS, I suspect that it could certainly be made to given the proper impetus. In any case, it hardly means the End Of UMSDOS And BeOSfs Over Vfat, as the title of the article suggests.
---
Because of the philosophy of mozilla (It's a platform, not a browser), you can do *anything* with it.
Uh, sorry, but no. There are a large number of people who just want a good browser. I don't need a browser that has a 30MB memory footprint just to start up. People complain about "bloatware" -- Mozilla is among the most bloated pieces of software out there.
---
I don't know all the costs, someone who works in the recording industry might better be able to name them, but it's unfair to say the record companies make CDs for 50 cents and sell them for $15.
OK. I'll bite. According to this report (I know it's ZDNet... ugh), the record labels only pay production and promotional costs for established acts. According to the same article, production costs for 100,000 copies of a CD are around $93,000 (the cost per copy goes down as the number of copies goes up). The record companies aren't losing a lot of money promoting lesser known bands, since those bands have to repay those costs to the record companies. And according to this report at Harvard Law School, artists don't actually start to make any money until 500,000 units have been sold.
So don't come crying to me about all the extra costs the record labels have to bear promoting lesser-known bands. It's just not true. 3000-4000% was probably a bit of an exaggeration, but 1800% is not (at the $8-10 sell price).
---
While I personally don't side with Napster, et al., I'll agree that RIAA is taking the wrong tack. The fact is that the "genie is out of the bottle", and suing Napster won't change that fact. But it's not surprising that an industry that consistently charges $15-20 for something that costs them $0.50 (a 3000-4000% markup) will sue anyone who tries to threaten it.
Let's face it. Napster is/was not the only game in town, but it was the most prominent, and had venture capital to boot. RIAA knew they stood a good chance of winning, and is desperately looking for a precedent in their favor. And going after Napster makes for good publicity with the media (who still report Napster as a "website that allows users to share MP3s").
The bottom line is that RIAA has been gouging customers for years and it's not at all surprising that Napster would come along. Napster, for it's part, has knowingly been aiding people to trade music that they didn't pay for. Neither side deserves to win.
I honestly believe that if people are given a convenient way to purchase the music online, a large number will. If RIAA realizes this, they stand a chance of surviving. If they don't, they won't be around 10 years from now.
---
I'm sick and tired of good intentions being used to defend bad plans.
Uh, sorry. No. The internet as we know it was built on a large number of assumptions, many of which are simply no longer true. The largest of these assumptions is that there was no reason for built-in security, since the only people using the network were academic types -- and it was true that the various institutions could generally trust each other. But as the network became more open to the public at large, the old assumptions begin to break down. This plan is attempt to fix a single problem in an inherently bad design. Get over it.
---
In addition to the GPL ...will be made available under the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL). ...An important requirement of the SISSL license is that it requires compatibility with the GPL reference implementation of the OpenOffice.org source code, including APIs and file formats.
I couldn't find any information on the SISSL, but it sounds a little fishy to me. If the source code is GPL'ed, then I can create a derivative work, which would be as incompatible as I want. (Not that I'm advocating intentional incompatibility). Is the SISSL intended to be a closed-source complement to the GPL? Otherwise, I can't see how it would be useful, since under the GPL you can do what you want with the code in terms of modifications.
---
I say that unless you use HTTP authentication or another form of validation.. anything you put on a webpage is public-accessible, copyright be damned. It is simply an unreasonable burden to ask otherwise.
Absolutely agree. HTML is designed for linking, and in general, if you've placed something up without placing a robots.txt in the same directory, it should be fair game for indexing.
Also, technical solutions already exist, and if used properly are more effective and less costly than litigation. Simply require that there be a valid "Referrer:" header before serving up the information -- sure, the indexer can easily provide a fake header, but anyone who tries to follow the link from an outside site is simply SOL. It's sufficient to serve a static page stating that those links will be accessible only from within the site.
Of course, the lawyers won't like any solution that cuts them out of the picture.
---
...such as people that post bogus files for that reason.
OK. I'll bite. What constitutes a bogus file - one that is intentionally mis-named? Once Napster starts adding in editorial control such as mandatory filename standards, they're starting down the road towards assuming responsibility for what is served or facilitated by their system.
Also, if you make the file naming standards mandatory, then it's now a simple matter for an artist to request that all MP3s allegedly produced by them not be traded, as they have not provided any publically redistributable files. And I suspect that artists would win this one in court if Napster refused to comply.
As long as the files being put up are valid MP3 files which do not violate copyright law, Napster has no reason to ban those users.
---
...but this really isn't any different from any other form of voting. I can pretend to be a dead guy in person, or I can do it over the computer.
With a few minor differences. Once the system has been compromised, or a way to submit phony votes devised, computers make it very easy to do on a large scale. And if system security has been compromised, all bets are off. WRT voting in the flesh, the fact that you just can't hire enough homeless with fake IDs limits the amount of damage that can be done.
But most politicians aren't smart enough to use a computer.
Politicians (other than Al Gore) don't generally do their own dirty work. They hire consultants, and there's no reason to believe that it would change in this case.
---