Relative: "Oh, I just don't know what he would want! I can't make this decision for him..."
Doctor: "Well, thanks to recent breakthroughs we may be able to ask him directly. Lets just get him into this MRI..."
Doctor: "The results are clear, we were able to communicate with him and he was very adamant about stopping all treatment. He clearly does not want to live out his remaining days in this state, and I don't think anyone could blame him for that."
Relative: "If that's his wish then yes, lets stop all treatment."
Doctor (after Relative leaves): "Intern, prep this body for organ harvesting."
Intern: Doctor, I saw the MRI results myself, he definitely didn't want to die.
Doctor: He has no health insurance since he can't work now. Alive, he's a liability for the state. But as an organ donor, he's worth millions. And no one will ever know anyway. We're practically doing him a favor.
So if we grow taller with age, time will remain constant.
Brilliant!!
I'm 6'5". While I disagree with the living-in-the-past assessment of brain function, I agree that short people have a hidden advantage. When I was younger, it took years to get used to my height. I was hitting my head constantly. One time I even knocked myself out. I still hit my head from time to time, especially on that fscking shower door frame. I don't fit in cars. I don't fit in airplanes. I don't fit in clothes. I don't fit in movie theaters. I have to pick the right seat on commuter trains making me arrive 10 minutes earlier to the train to ensure that I get it. I have to bend over for literally everything. I have to duck to get under shower heads in hotel rooms. My feet are constantly hanging off the end of mattresses and out from under the end of blankets. Baby strollers have handles that are so low that I have to bend over constantly to push them. Roll-around luggage generally has handles that are too short so that it's just another handle I can use to carry the bag. At least my feet are too small for my height, making them closer to average. I believe being tall even makes me look disproportionally less muscular.
Many short men wish they were tall. Being tall sucks. I wish that I were about 5'10". It's tall enough to not be considered short. But short enough so that the world still fits you.
The only problem I have with homeschooling is that the vast majority of homeschooling is done by ultra fanatic religious fringe groups who claim their kids would get all those "wrong" ideas (like, say, a humanistic education and values) when they were sent to a public school.
As a christian, I've met many home-schoolers. And I don't think anyone would consider any of them to be ultra fanatic religious fringe group members. They were definitely christians, but very level-headed. I would love to be able to home school my kids. But I have to work. And my wife doesn't feel qualified to do it. So we send our kids to a private christian school.
Any time the government dictates a certain standard of anything for all children in the country, it infringes on freedom. When a population is allowed to home school, there's always a risk that some kids won't get an adequate education. But you can't legislate away bad parenting.
The next time you feel like we should outlaw home schooling, think about how you would react if a religious nut came to power and mandated that your children take a religion class in public school. Would you want to pull your kids out and educate them in the manner of your choosing?
P.S. In my kids' private christian school, they learn about evolution.
This is such horseshit. I found my time in college to be uniformly exciting and mind-expanding. I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational. It's like the whole "mentor/student" concept has a been a hideous gaffe for what, 4000 years?
My university experience matches yours. My work experience matches the GP.
except that Non-compete clauses are basically 100% unenforceable. Its a joke that some firms still use them.
If you're talking about contract work, non-competes exist primarily to prevent cutting out the middle man. If you work for client A through consulting firm B and you switch to working for client A through consulting firm C, you're untouchable.
If you're talking about salaried employment, then non-competes suck. They put them in to threaten you. How do you like being threatened by your employer on the first day of work? No thanks.
This sidelines a lot of talent and helps exacerbate the software developer labor shortage employers are always complaining about.
There is no software developer labor shortage. There is a shortage of developers who are willing to work for what they want to pay. This is intentional so that the numbers look right to congress when they lobby them for an increase in the H1 cap. It's designed to drive down salaries and contract rates. Please stop perpetuating this lie.
I have exactly the opposite experience. The banks in chicago routinely pay $20k higher salaries and an extra $10 an hour contract rates compared other businesses. I'm not sure if it's because of the work that's done there, or because they're downtown vs the suburbs. But in my experience, this is true for every bank out there except for one: JP Morgan Chase. They seem to think they're so awesome that a.net architect will come to work for them for $35 an hour. Hey JP Morgan Chace, suck it! How's that working out for you? I wonder how many time bombs are in your code and how many of your developers will leave in a few months when the numbers on dice increase again.
People want to think of the office as family because we're social creatures.
Make no mistake. This is attitude carefully crafted propaganda designed to keep you from changing jobs. If you hear your coworkers repeating it, they've been brainwashed. Your employer care about you as far as how much money you make over and above what it costs to have you there. They'll love you like a brother until their estimation of your net worth to the company goes negative, then you'll be thrown out with the rest of the outdated technology.
There's a bell curve at play, though, which peaks at about age 35. After that experience becomes a detraction, and unless you settle on one company that looks stable enough to keep you till retirement, going from job to job will lead to decreasing salaries/rates.
This is exactly the opposite of my experience. I'm 39. I have 20 years of professional programming experience. I've been a salaried employee on a number of occasions, but mostly I've been a consultant. I've met some consultants in their 40s and 50s. I believe the reduced number of programmers older than me has more to do with the technologies that were around before me as well as the amount of computer use back then. If I were doing mainframe work, I'd probably see a lot more developers who are older than me.
For salaried jobs, if you stay in one job for more than 3-5 years, you will continue to receive 1% or 2% pay raises that don't compensate for inflation. If you switch, you'll get $5k to $10k more each time you switch, maybe more. Corporations never value their existing employees enough to ensure that their salaries keep up with inflation and changes in the market. If you're lucky, you'll get a bonus when times are good. Then again, over the last 20 years, I've been promised a bonus 9 times and received it once. And it was less than what they promised.
For consulting, unless you're switching every few weeks, how much you've switched is irrelevant. 6 months here, 12 months there, is completely 100% normal. Having no gaps is more important. And how much you've switched has no effect on the bill rate. Your bill rate is all about supply and demand. If you have a valuable skill that not many people have, your rate will be higher. If you have a set of skills that the indians also latched onto (Java/Oracle), unless you're the architect, your rate will suck. The city you're in and how the market is doing in general also have a huge effect.
The industry needs massive consolidation - like maybe 90% of the print papers folding.
Get your news from Patriot News: the only news source approved by the Ministry of Information! Beware of other news sources! They encourage terrorism and subversion! If you see your neighbor reading unapproved news, report them to the Ministry of Information at once! It's for their own good and the good of our nation!
With lots of experience both within and without, what other words of wisdom can be offered to those wishing to break into a mega-corp?
You'd better be young, idealistic, without a family, and willing to trade your life for your job. Some large trendy corporations might not be like that (yet) but the vast majority of corporate america is a slave labor camp. My advice is to stick up for yourself and don't let anyone take advantage of you, because they will if you allow it. Overtime is for emergencies, not business as usual. And emergencies had better not be business as usual. If you think working 50 or 60 hours a week and foregoing vacation is normal or "necessary in today's world" stop it. Just stop it. Life is not all about working.
Being crap with people suggests some form of social, behavioural, or anxiety disorder. ASD is a serious disorder with serious consequences. Rainman does not exist. As a rule of thumb, if you can put together a fully formed sentence, you almost certainly don't have meaningful levels of ASD. If you can read facial expressions without spending years actually consciously memorising what faces mean what, you don't have meaningful levels of ASD. Okay, if you've gotten this far you might have comparatively mild Asperger's or something on that end of the spectrum, but it'll be clinically relevant only in a small fraction of a percent of that already small group.
I have Asperger's Syndrome. Two of my biological children also have it. And a son we adopted from Russia has high functioning Autism. All of us have an autism spectrum disorder. All of us can put together fully formed sentences. The ability to form sentences is largely irrelevant with respect to autism spectrum disorders. High functioning autism kids have a speech delay that they overcome fairly early in childhood. But that's about it.
Here's a metaphor what learning social skills is like for people with AS : The entire world communicates by playing the piano. 99% of the people out there are born knowing how to play the piano and can simply walk up to a piano at age 2 and start playing. Some are better than others. But most people can play the piano very well. I was born without being able to play the piano. I can learn it. But it's going to take me years. And a lot of variables will affect how fast I learn it and whether I learn it correctly. Am i an introverted shut-in who never seeks piano lessons? If so, I'll never learn it. Am I extroverted (but constantly making mistakes) and always trying to learn from as many piano teachers as possible? I may learn it faster and eventually play very well. Innate ability matters also. Some normal people are naturally good at the piano (social skills) while other normal people are not. What would the AS person have been had they not had AS? This affects things as well.
It's not so much about memorizing facial expressions, but that's part of it. It's more about memorizing prerecorded behaviors and verbal responses for every possible social situation imaginable. Smile at a wedding... don't smile at a funeral... crying at a wedding doesn't equal sad... someone can be sad but not crying... there's a million combinations.
Disclaimer: i'm a registered republican, but I hate both parties now
Republicans here (in the US) will never allow that. They believe that anything that's good for the free market (large corporations) is good for them. They actively work to injure themselves and benefit their masters by defeating public programs. This includes public health care, labor laws, minimum wage, financial help for the poor or unemployed... all of it. This is in spite of the fact that all of these things indirectly (and maybe directly at some point) help them. See how effective the corpratocracy brainwashing is here?
I wonder how they would define a civilized society.
But they just can't seem to afford bonuses this Christmas.
But they know that if I were to walk out, it'd be tough to find a job.
Not really. It depends on where you live. If you live in Orlando, I know from experience that you'll be hosed if you leave. And management knows it. But in Chicago, things are very different. During the.com crash, I took a 66% pay cut. People I know were out of work for months. This time it's nothing like that. Everyone I know in IT is employed and doing fine. Rates are a little down, but nothing like 2000-2002. There's plenty of work out there. You just have to be marketable.
and yet my experience in university tells me that the religious social conservatives are concentrated in the engineering college...
why?
Asperger's Syndrome. I think a person with AS would be the ideal suicide bomber. People with AS are drawn to engineering disciplines for obvious reasons. And for people with AS, (any) religion offers a clear and obvious set of rules that are easy to understand and follow. They're also very easy for non-AS people to manipulate. They're good at focusing on the problem, planning an attack, then executing the plan flawlessly. If they're convinced they'll get 70 virgins, it solves the girl problem for them. They probably don't have strong attachments to friends or family. And they're likely to have a pissed-off-at-the-world attitude from being tormented their entire childhood. They're also able to switch off those troublesome emotions that can get in the way leading up to the main event.
If they're not working in other states, than either their storms are somehow worse than ND's, or they've cheaped out on the snow shields that go over the top of the lights. I know which one I'd put my money on...
I've lived in both Indianapolis and Chicago. I've noticed that winter weather can behave very differently from place to place. Indianapolis seems to be right on the border between rain and snow. I've never seen a place more susceptible to sleet and freezing rain. There were many days where my car was so encrusted with ice, that I was unable to even get my hand in the door handle, let alone actually open the door. We're talking 1/2" of ice. Also, 90% of my experiences with black ice were in Indianapolis.
Once I moved to chicago, winter was a very different experience. We do get sleet and freezing rain here, but mostly, it just snows. This makes all the difference in the world for driving. And since it seems logical that different geographic locations have different wind patterns, I think some locations are more susceptible to driving, horizontal snow. And if it's a wet snow instead of powder, that's the stuff that plugs up the traffic lights. If ND is dryer and less windy, then you're more likely to get falling powder I would think, which would fall out of the traffic lights instead of sticking.
You have made numerous sweeping generalizations and exaggerations in your post.
1. Far from ALL Indian coders are "shitty". Look at the many inventions and innovations attributed to Indians in American companies. Google for names.
To be fair, certainly not all. But in my experience, a significant majority are sub-par.
2. The salary is an exaggeration. H1B requires the companies to pay as much to an H1B hire as to an American citizen with the same experience/profile.
This is the standard propaganda. The truth is that in the vast majority of cases, H1Bs are much cheaper. Why else would a company front the $2000+ it takes to host a single H1B? Of course, the kicker there is "with the same experience/profile". In my experience, the replacement H1B is nowhere near as qualified, on paper as well. They're just cheaper. The indentured servitude angle is also very attractive to the employer. You can treat them like crap and they won't leave because they can't. It does wonders for a worker's "attitude".
3. If the companies scam by listing out ridiculous requirements for job positions, don't they apply to Indians as well?
No. The requirement are conveniently changed later. Or the H1Bs resume is deliberately falsified to turn them into a match. Or the employer "throws up its hands" and works out a deal with someone like TCS to hire consultants only from them. Throw in an artificial rule like no consultants allows to work there for more than a year and you end up with a little invasion.
Are you suggesting Indians are generally more skilled than Americans? If you are, then I can see you have explained why an H1B hire could be of more value than an American.
An individual Indian could easily be more skilled than an individual American. And many highly skilled people are coming here on H1B visa. In my opinion, they deserve to be here (when the economy is good). But no immigrant, no matter how qualified should ever be allowed to replace an American (of any descent) who is already established here.
But as a group, the Indians I've seen here, when a company has clearly abused the H1B program, have been far less qualified than the people they replaced.
And not only are you racist, you're ignorant. Do you know how many Indians graduate from American Universities with Masters/PhDs? Those are a huge chunk of H1B holders.
It's convenient to use the examples of when the system has worked as intended to explain away the vast abuse and injustice taking place in our country. It's convenient to call us racist when we complain and take steps to protect the livelihoods of the people who are already here. This argument always makes me think about taking an IT job in India. Oh that's right, I can't. I would never be issued a work visa for an IT job because they protect their labor pool like we should be. But they're not racist.
It is always interesting to me how the people who complain the loudest about unjust laws and convictions are so often the ones who can't be bothered to participate in the very system that metes out justice to their fellow citizens.
Believe it or not, I would actually like to serve jury duty. I think it would be interesting. I've never been called, but when it happens, I'm certain to do everything I can to avoid it. The reason is because I'm a consultant. And missed work costs me $700 to $900 a day. I know they pay... minimum wage. And if I were a salaried employee, iirc, my employer would be required to pay my salary. But until the (US) government starts compensating people in a way that doesn't make them miss mortgage payments or get laid off because their employer can't afford the down time, I'm avoiding it.
I'd just like to point out... this stuff was written from the perspective of people who lived 2000+ years ago. To them, any bright object in the sky would be a star. So when you see the word star, don't think huge unshielded fusion reactor... think comet or meteor. I think everyone here would agree that it's definitely within the realm of possibility that a largish rock could burn brightly through the atmosphere and then fall into the ocean and ruin everyone's day.
The book of Daniel talks about eagles with the hearts of men. Sounds like an F-15 to me. Even an apache helicopter could look like the locust/scorpion combo in the book of revelations. I don't claim to be an expert on this stuff or even right when it comes to bible prophecy. But I find it ironic that a christian is telling the non-christians to have an open mind.
Slashdot Mirror
Relative: "Oh, I just don't know what he would want! I can't make this decision for him..."
Doctor: "Well, thanks to recent breakthroughs we may be able to ask him directly. Lets just get him into this MRI..."
Doctor: "The results are clear, we were able to communicate with him and he was very adamant about stopping all treatment. He clearly does not want to live out his remaining days in this state, and I don't think anyone could blame him for that."
Relative: "If that's his wish then yes, lets stop all treatment."
Doctor (after Relative leaves): "Intern, prep this body for organ harvesting."
Intern: Doctor, I saw the MRI results myself, he definitely didn't want to die.
Doctor: He has no health insurance since he can't work now. Alive, he's a liability for the state. But as an organ donor, he's worth millions. And no one will ever know anyway. We're practically doing him a favor.
On a related note:
The Secret Advantage Of Being Short
So if we grow taller with age, time will remain constant.
Brilliant!!
I'm 6'5". While I disagree with the living-in-the-past assessment of brain function, I agree that short people have a hidden advantage. When I was younger, it took years to get used to my height. I was hitting my head constantly. One time I even knocked myself out. I still hit my head from time to time, especially on that fscking shower door frame. I don't fit in cars. I don't fit in airplanes. I don't fit in clothes. I don't fit in movie theaters. I have to pick the right seat on commuter trains making me arrive 10 minutes earlier to the train to ensure that I get it. I have to bend over for literally everything. I have to duck to get under shower heads in hotel rooms. My feet are constantly hanging off the end of mattresses and out from under the end of blankets. Baby strollers have handles that are so low that I have to bend over constantly to push them. Roll-around luggage generally has handles that are too short so that it's just another handle I can use to carry the bag. At least my feet are too small for my height, making them closer to average. I believe being tall even makes me look disproportionally less muscular.
Many short men wish they were tall. Being tall sucks. I wish that I were about 5'10". It's tall enough to not be considered short. But short enough so that the world still fits you.
The only problem I have with homeschooling is that the vast majority of homeschooling is done by ultra fanatic religious fringe groups who claim their kids would get all those "wrong" ideas (like, say, a humanistic education and values) when they were sent to a public school.
As a christian, I've met many home-schoolers. And I don't think anyone would consider any of them to be ultra fanatic religious fringe group members. They were definitely christians, but very level-headed. I would love to be able to home school my kids. But I have to work. And my wife doesn't feel qualified to do it. So we send our kids to a private christian school.
Any time the government dictates a certain standard of anything for all children in the country, it infringes on freedom. When a population is allowed to home school, there's always a risk that some kids won't get an adequate education. But you can't legislate away bad parenting.
The next time you feel like we should outlaw home schooling, think about how you would react if a religious nut came to power and mandated that your children take a religion class in public school. Would you want to pull your kids out and educate them in the manner of your choosing?
P.S. In my kids' private christian school, they learn about evolution.
This is such horseshit. I found my time in college to be uniformly exciting and mind-expanding. I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational. It's like the whole "mentor/student" concept has a been a hideous gaffe for what, 4000 years?
My university experience matches yours. My work experience matches the GP.
except that Non-compete clauses are basically 100% unenforceable. Its a joke that some firms still use them.
If you're talking about contract work, non-competes exist primarily to prevent cutting out the middle man. If you work for client A through consulting firm B and you switch to working for client A through consulting firm C, you're untouchable.
If you're talking about salaried employment, then non-competes suck. They put them in to threaten you. How do you like being threatened by your employer on the first day of work? No thanks.
This sidelines a lot of talent and helps exacerbate the software developer labor shortage employers are always complaining about.
There is no software developer labor shortage. There is a shortage of developers who are willing to work for what they want to pay. This is intentional so that the numbers look right to congress when they lobby them for an increase in the H1 cap. It's designed to drive down salaries and contract rates. Please stop perpetuating this lie.
banks pay less than almost everyone
I have exactly the opposite experience. The banks in chicago routinely pay $20k higher salaries and an extra $10 an hour contract rates compared other businesses. I'm not sure if it's because of the work that's done there, or because they're downtown vs the suburbs. But in my experience, this is true for every bank out there except for one: JP Morgan Chase. They seem to think they're so awesome that a .net architect will come to work for them for $35 an hour. Hey JP Morgan Chace, suck it! How's that working out for you? I wonder how many time bombs are in your code and how many of your developers will leave in a few months when the numbers on dice increase again.
People want to think of the office as family because we're social creatures.
Make no mistake. This is attitude carefully crafted propaganda designed to keep you from changing jobs. If you hear your coworkers repeating it, they've been brainwashed. Your employer care about you as far as how much money you make over and above what it costs to have you there. They'll love you like a brother until their estimation of your net worth to the company goes negative, then you'll be thrown out with the rest of the outdated technology.
There's a bell curve at play, though, which peaks at about age 35. After that experience becomes a detraction, and unless you settle on one company that looks stable enough to keep you till retirement, going from job to job will lead to decreasing salaries/rates.
This is exactly the opposite of my experience. I'm 39. I have 20 years of professional programming experience. I've been a salaried employee on a number of occasions, but mostly I've been a consultant. I've met some consultants in their 40s and 50s. I believe the reduced number of programmers older than me has more to do with the technologies that were around before me as well as the amount of computer use back then. If I were doing mainframe work, I'd probably see a lot more developers who are older than me.
For salaried jobs, if you stay in one job for more than 3-5 years, you will continue to receive 1% or 2% pay raises that don't compensate for inflation. If you switch, you'll get $5k to $10k more each time you switch, maybe more. Corporations never value their existing employees enough to ensure that their salaries keep up with inflation and changes in the market. If you're lucky, you'll get a bonus when times are good. Then again, over the last 20 years, I've been promised a bonus 9 times and received it once. And it was less than what they promised.
For consulting, unless you're switching every few weeks, how much you've switched is irrelevant. 6 months here, 12 months there, is completely 100% normal. Having no gaps is more important. And how much you've switched has no effect on the bill rate. Your bill rate is all about supply and demand. If you have a valuable skill that not many people have, your rate will be higher. If you have a set of skills that the indians also latched onto (Java/Oracle), unless you're the architect, your rate will suck. The city you're in and how the market is doing in general also have a huge effect.
I hope it's an open standard so someone can write a utility to strip all the crap from the "new and improved" mp3 files.
The industry needs massive consolidation - like maybe 90% of the print papers folding.
Get your news from Patriot News: the only news source approved by the Ministry of Information! Beware of other news sources! They encourage terrorism and subversion! If you see your neighbor reading unapproved news, report them to the Ministry of Information at once! It's for their own good and the good of our nation!
With lots of experience both within and without, what other words of wisdom can be offered to those wishing to break into a mega-corp?
You'd better be young, idealistic, without a family, and willing to trade your life for your job. Some large trendy corporations might not be like that (yet) but the vast majority of corporate america is a slave labor camp. My advice is to stick up for yourself and don't let anyone take advantage of you, because they will if you allow it. Overtime is for emergencies, not business as usual. And emergencies had better not be business as usual. If you think working 50 or 60 hours a week and foregoing vacation is normal or "necessary in today's world" stop it. Just stop it. Life is not all about working.
With the economic hangover starting to wear off...
Says who?
Being crap with people suggests some form of social, behavioural, or anxiety disorder. ASD is a serious disorder with serious consequences. Rainman does not exist. As a rule of thumb, if you can put together a fully formed sentence, you almost certainly don't have meaningful levels of ASD. If you can read facial expressions without spending years actually consciously memorising what faces mean what, you don't have meaningful levels of ASD. Okay, if you've gotten this far you might have comparatively mild Asperger's or something on that end of the spectrum, but it'll be clinically relevant only in a small fraction of a percent of that already small group.
I have Asperger's Syndrome. Two of my biological children also have it. And a son we adopted from Russia has high functioning Autism. All of us have an autism spectrum disorder. All of us can put together fully formed sentences. The ability to form sentences is largely irrelevant with respect to autism spectrum disorders. High functioning autism kids have a speech delay that they overcome fairly early in childhood. But that's about it.
Here's a metaphor what learning social skills is like for people with AS : The entire world communicates by playing the piano. 99% of the people out there are born knowing how to play the piano and can simply walk up to a piano at age 2 and start playing. Some are better than others. But most people can play the piano very well. I was born without being able to play the piano. I can learn it. But it's going to take me years. And a lot of variables will affect how fast I learn it and whether I learn it correctly. Am i an introverted shut-in who never seeks piano lessons? If so, I'll never learn it. Am I extroverted (but constantly making mistakes) and always trying to learn from as many piano teachers as possible? I may learn it faster and eventually play very well. Innate ability matters also. Some normal people are naturally good at the piano (social skills) while other normal people are not. What would the AS person have been had they not had AS? This affects things as well.
It's not so much about memorizing facial expressions, but that's part of it. It's more about memorizing prerecorded behaviors and verbal responses for every possible social situation imaginable. Smile at a wedding... don't smile at a funeral... crying at a wedding doesn't equal sad... someone can be sad but not crying... there's a million combinations.
But barring that, there's cashless ways to show care.
Yeah, maybe they can let you park in that close parking space next to the CEO's space... for a month.
Fix your employment laws.
Disclaimer: i'm a registered republican, but I hate both parties now
Republicans here (in the US) will never allow that. They believe that anything that's good for the free market (large corporations) is good for them. They actively work to injure themselves and benefit their masters by defeating public programs. This includes public health care, labor laws, minimum wage, financial help for the poor or unemployed... all of it. This is in spite of the fact that all of these things indirectly (and maybe directly at some point) help them. See how effective the corpratocracy brainwashing is here?
I wonder how they would define a civilized society.
But they just can't seem to afford bonuses this Christmas.
But they know that if I were to walk out, it'd be tough to find a job.
Not really. It depends on where you live. If you live in Orlando, I know from experience that you'll be hosed if you leave. And management knows it. But in Chicago, things are very different. During the .com crash, I took a 66% pay cut. People I know were out of work for months. This time it's nothing like that. Everyone I know in IT is employed and doing fine. Rates are a little down, but nothing like 2000-2002. There's plenty of work out there. You just have to be marketable.
He pays dues. He gets no real benefit. And they tell him what he can and can't do.
Sounds like my home owner's association.
and yet my experience in university tells me that the religious social conservatives are concentrated in the engineering college...
why?
Asperger's Syndrome. I think a person with AS would be the ideal suicide bomber. People with AS are drawn to engineering disciplines for obvious reasons. And for people with AS, (any) religion offers a clear and obvious set of rules that are easy to understand and follow. They're also very easy for non-AS people to manipulate. They're good at focusing on the problem, planning an attack, then executing the plan flawlessly. If they're convinced they'll get 70 virgins, it solves the girl problem for them. They probably don't have strong attachments to friends or family. And they're likely to have a pissed-off-at-the-world attitude from being tormented their entire childhood. They're also able to switch off those troublesome emotions that can get in the way leading up to the main event.
If they're not working in other states, than either their storms are somehow worse than ND's, or they've cheaped out on the snow shields that go over the top of the lights. I know which one I'd put my money on...
I've lived in both Indianapolis and Chicago. I've noticed that winter weather can behave very differently from place to place. Indianapolis seems to be right on the border between rain and snow. I've never seen a place more susceptible to sleet and freezing rain. There were many days where my car was so encrusted with ice, that I was unable to even get my hand in the door handle, let alone actually open the door. We're talking 1/2" of ice. Also, 90% of my experiences with black ice were in Indianapolis.
Once I moved to chicago, winter was a very different experience. We do get sleet and freezing rain here, but mostly, it just snows. This makes all the difference in the world for driving. And since it seems logical that different geographic locations have different wind patterns, I think some locations are more susceptible to driving, horizontal snow. And if it's a wet snow instead of powder, that's the stuff that plugs up the traffic lights. If ND is dryer and less windy, then you're more likely to get falling powder I would think, which would fall out of the traffic lights instead of sticking.
Snow can do some amazing things.
http://thumb7.shutterstock.com.edgesuite.net/display_pic_with_logo/4676/4676,1174002470,1/stock-photo-snow-covered-stop-sign-and-blue-cloudy-sky-2882411.jpg
You have made numerous sweeping generalizations and exaggerations in your post.
1. Far from ALL Indian coders are "shitty". Look at the many inventions and innovations attributed to Indians in American companies. Google for names.
To be fair, certainly not all. But in my experience, a significant majority are sub-par.
2. The salary is an exaggeration. H1B requires the companies to pay as much to an H1B hire as to an American citizen with the same experience/profile.
This is the standard propaganda. The truth is that in the vast majority of cases, H1Bs are much cheaper. Why else would a company front the $2000+ it takes to host a single H1B? Of course, the kicker there is "with the same experience/profile". In my experience, the replacement H1B is nowhere near as qualified, on paper as well. They're just cheaper. The indentured servitude angle is also very attractive to the employer. You can treat them like crap and they won't leave because they can't. It does wonders for a worker's "attitude".
3. If the companies scam by listing out ridiculous requirements for job positions, don't they apply to Indians as well?
No. The requirement are conveniently changed later. Or the H1Bs resume is deliberately falsified to turn them into a match. Or the employer "throws up its hands" and works out a deal with someone like TCS to hire consultants only from them. Throw in an artificial rule like no consultants allows to work there for more than a year and you end up with a little invasion.
Are you suggesting Indians are generally more skilled than Americans? If you are, then I can see you have explained why an H1B hire could be of more value than an American.
An individual Indian could easily be more skilled than an individual American. And many highly skilled people are coming here on H1B visa. In my opinion, they deserve to be here (when the economy is good). But no immigrant, no matter how qualified should ever be allowed to replace an American (of any descent) who is already established here.
But as a group, the Indians I've seen here, when a company has clearly abused the H1B program, have been far less qualified than the people they replaced.
And not only are you racist, you're ignorant. Do you know how many Indians graduate from American Universities with Masters/PhDs? Those are a huge chunk of H1B holders.
It's convenient to use the examples of when the system has worked as intended to explain away the vast abuse and injustice taking place in our country. It's convenient to call us racist when we complain and take steps to protect the livelihoods of the people who are already here. This argument always makes me think about taking an IT job in India. Oh that's right, I can't. I would never be issued a work visa for an IT job because they protect their labor pool like we should be. But they're not racist.
It is always interesting to me how the people who complain the loudest about unjust laws and convictions are so often the ones who can't be bothered to participate in the very system that metes out justice to their fellow citizens.
Believe it or not, I would actually like to serve jury duty. I think it would be interesting. I've never been called, but when it happens, I'm certain to do everything I can to avoid it. The reason is because I'm a consultant. And missed work costs me $700 to $900 a day. I know they pay... minimum wage. And if I were a salaried employee, iirc, my employer would be required to pay my salary. But until the (US) government starts compensating people in a way that doesn't make them miss mortgage payments or get laid off because their employer can't afford the down time, I'm avoiding it.
We need a nobel prize for computing.
I'd just like to point out... this stuff was written from the perspective of people who lived 2000+ years ago. To them, any bright object in the sky would be a star. So when you see the word star, don't think huge unshielded fusion reactor... think comet or meteor. I think everyone here would agree that it's definitely within the realm of possibility that a largish rock could burn brightly through the atmosphere and then fall into the ocean and ruin everyone's day.
The book of Daniel talks about eagles with the hearts of men. Sounds like an F-15 to me. Even an apache helicopter could look like the locust/scorpion combo in the book of revelations. I don't claim to be an expert on this stuff or even right when it comes to bible prophecy. But I find it ironic that a christian is telling the non-christians to have an open mind.