It's an easy thing to fix - require that H1B visa holders receive the same pay and benefits for their work as the rest of the workforce.
It's already required.
It may well be required but I assure you that equal for H1B workers pay is a concept on paper only. In 2001 I worked as a senior programmer in Indymac Bank. I was making 103K plus full benefits. 60% - 70% (possibly more) of the development department were H1B Visa holders ALL of them from India. As I got to know them and we'd become friends and chat they told me their story. For the same kind of work as myself the Indian H1B workers were making $20 - $25 and hour with no benefits at all. About a third to a fourth of what I was making. And these guys were, as a rule, very very good. They complained that management treated them shabbily and they had to work longer hours with no overtime or extra pay.
The worst thing in their minds was that there was nothing they could do about it because if they complained their Visa was terminated and they were required to leave the country. They could not seek out other work.
So the "requirement" that equal pay and benefits to HiB workers was a sham - it was not being listened to or enforced.
HiB Visas exist for only one reason - one reason only - to lower the amount of money that companies need to pay to their workers and to lower the overall pay for American workers as well. Anyone living in California in the late 90's may recall the tens of millions of dollars the consortium, od Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Intel , spent in lobbying California state and government legislators into accepting ivastly increased HiB legislation and limits. Several after the legislation passed the industry "bubble" burst and all my friends , including myself were out of work.
By the way - I can no longer make 103K any more (wasn;t high at the time for what I did). I am lucky if I get 50K and for several years I have worked for 30K.
HiB legislation is a sham and any worker who agrees with it is an uniformed idiot.
I'm a commercially rated pilot and in the 80's flew Saratogas extensively in small Part 135 operations. I will say this: 1. Most fuel starvation accidents do happen near the airport simply because during the landing phase you are much closer to the ground and have less time to react when something happens. Higher up and you do have more time to correct the problem (change tanks, increase the mixture, etc) or find and set up a good field to land in.
2. Every pilot does a tank/fuel check just prior to starting the landing descent( among other times). It is drilled into us because of the importance of NOT having a fuel starvation problem that close to the ground where you have much less time to react and recover. So we ALL do it ALL the time. If a person was concerned for their life at any point in time they would be especially careful to do such a check.
3. Replacing or altering a small resistor in the fuel gages of a Saratoga (or bending float mechanism within the tank itself) could easily cause it to show more fuel then was in the tanks. A pilot should always visually verify before the flight that the quantity of fuel in the tanks match the gauges and this is especially easy to do in the Saratoga HOWEVER the visual check is not in any way "accurate" to more then an quarter of a tanks either way at the very best. If the tanks were not filled to begin with then it would be difficult to visually judge whether you had 40 gallons in the tank or 60. Especially in the evening. So a small alteration to the fuel gauge could easily show you off by 20 gallons or more (almost an hour and a half of flight time in a Saratoga) and you would never know.
Look , I know we're not exactly the New Your Times here (and I'm NOT a grammar troll) but flowers don't "smell" primarily because they don't have noses. Flowers can "smell bad" or WE can smell flowers but flowers can't "smell" anything. The headline should have read "Flowers Fragrance not traveling as..." or "Flowers Odor not traveling as..." , whatever.
Frankly I read the title three times and couldn't make any sense of it until I read the text beneath it. I'm not expecting you guys to win a Pulitzer prize but could you please have enough respect for me, as your reader, to at least use basic high school syntax and grammar? Thanks in advance...
The first time, I was attacked by a soccer hooligan, who smashed a bottle on my head with no warning, from behind. I remember turning round and seeing the thug waving the broken bottle - but everything had gone into slow motion. I could literally read every move he was going to make and counter it, with no apparent effort on my part, matrix-style. After I'd disposed of his bottle, I threw him around, then I played with him a bit without hurting him (much). I had the sense that I was far back, watching it all.
Bizarre - an extremely similar thing happened to me. I left a club late one night and walked to my car a block away. I saw that I was being followed and just as I put my keys in the door the man following me grabbed me by the fake pony tail I was wearing that evening. I turned around and everything went into slo-mo. I remember seeing him move and then thinking about places to push and kick him and, though I have only the vaguest of recollections of pushing him (or hitting him? - I don't know) , when things speeded up again he was moving backwards and his arms were flailing and one of them went though a plate glass store from window on the sidewalk and the store alarm went off.
I went back to the club where there were people and told them what happened and then started shaking all over like I was in shock or something.
It was just a weird perceptually experience and to this day your story was the only thing that comes (really!) close to what I felt. I understand the defend myself original article hypothesizes that memory is being changed but I would swear to this day that my perceptions were changed , so much so that I was able to defend myself in a way that I would ordinarily not be able.
PDAs sales will continue to slump until it becomes as easy (or easier) to write on the !@#$! things as it is to jot down a number on a post-it note.
Handwriting recog is a bit of a joke isn't it? It takes me maybe two minutes to find the damn thing in my kit, go through several screens and then get to the field that handles phone numbers and hope to high heaven that my "7"s don't turn into fives when I input it all in.
It takes me maybe 15 seconds to jot down a number on a piece of paper and cram it into my purse (whereupon it then takes me several hours to find it again but that's another story....)
This reminds me SOOO much of the UV Nitrogen stun laser cum "phaser" gun that was all in vogue 18 months ago.... what a load of crap.
In my never too humble opinion what's hapenning is that some fast talking BS artist spins a tale to tech to a defense buddy/contact/flak who's more knowledgable about ProSprorts than science....and gets a million or so research grant to pursue the idea. Then of course a small chunk of the grant goes out to the spin machine flaks like the Wash Post (and eventually end up) here.
By te time the idea is proven to be BS (which any 2nd year college physics student could likely have told you ) then everything is covered up and forgotten so there are no embarrassing questions about what MORON allocated the funding in the first place.
Moller and his fantastic flying cars has been pulling that stunt on the government every 15 years and those f-tards never learn.
Am I ranting again?.... Oops..
One more thing - the original artical goes on to say that the company's big achievement to date is selling scay green laser pointers to the military as a defense weapon for $1100 a pop! Oh well...at least it keeps these a-holes out from selling junk bonds to grandmothers.
Deterring a mere one-fifth of 1 percent of those crimes - one in 500 hackers - would save society $100 million.
You want to save society some money?
In 2000 Micro$oft paid ZERO Federal taxes.
For the last FIVE years before Enron becoame defunct it also paid ZERO Federal taxes.
Boeing corporation, in 2003 paid ZERO federal taxes as well.
That's right - YOU paid more federal tax a few years ago then fricking M$, Boeing or Enron.
You want to save society some cash?
How about we start knocking off a few corporate monopolists before we start on the script kiddies?
It sucked. Food was awful and the hotdogs cost eight dollars. The only high point was meeting the First World President - when he offerred to supersize my meal I almost fainted!
>Honestly, do you think it's light that heats the >earth? no, it radiation. Any radiation from a > little spacecraft up in space is miniscule!
Not really... the sun puts out something like 1400 kiowatts/meter^2 before it gets to the surface... and that's mostly *not* in the form of gamma rays.
A small 100kw nuclear reactor core puts out a lot more radiation in a smaller form factor (like a cubic meter or so)...and most of *that* is in a far more energictic and harmful form that *does* produce gamma rays and other nasties...
>> So what is left? Where in the ST Universe is >>there enough uncertainty to make interesting >>plots?
First of all, must comment on your intelligent and cogent comments - nice analysis.
Your last question stood out for me and I would answer that good television and/or theater is not about the plot as it is about the characters,
Look, we *always* know that the main cadre of characters is never going to die off (except in B5 maybe) or even get really badly hurt. We don't really care because we suspend our disbelief for a while if we like the show enough. And what is it about the shows that draws us in?
I submit that it is he quality of the characters and how much we like/empathize/want to spend some time with them that keeps us coming back.
Look, everyone *knew* that most of the plotlines in TOS were weak at best - but we didn't care because Spock and his internal struggle intrigued us and we liked the growing friendship between Kirk and Spock. And the love/hate relationship between McCoy and Spock.
It's the characters that draw us into the show and keep us there - not the plot - because we *always* know that the good guys will pretty much overcome the obstacles by the end of the episode(s) every time.
And this is why Enterprise fails not because Bacula Blalock are bad actors (they're not)- it's because the writing given to them sucks worse then a Klingon french kiss.
So, imho, a star trek series (or any other) can flourish indefinaely if you can just make the characters, by way of the writers, interesting and likable enough.
Paramount might be waiting for Berman's and/or Braga's contracts to expire before they relaunch another ST series again?? Perhaps they want a producer that can create something other than crap? Hellooooo... Coto or Joe??
Maybe they have more neurons then we give them credit for...then again
TRANSLATION: We've fired so many of our development team in order to increase compensation for our highest level execs that we can no longer be innovative so we're going to "market" bullsh*t ideas as "value added services".
Iam SO thinking of putting in an application for a patent for a device (shaped like a beanie and uses lots of tinfoil) that nullifies ultrasonic waves directed to the brain. Base it on noise cancelling technology or something similar.
Hey it *must* be plausible because there's a patent for soney's device right??
So, if I want to leave a planet by, say, firing out a gun, I need to be travelling at escape velocity (assuming no atmosphere). However, in a rocket I just need to excert more force in thrust that the planet's gravity does on my rocket. If I do this I can leave without ever reaching escape velocity.
That's a common misconception. When you understand the equations you realize that no matter how slowly you accelerate away from the mass you always **accelerate** and by the time that you are any significant distance away from the mass you have arrived at escape velocity...albeit very slowly.
It's a common misconception and the source of much flamage amongst those who forget that you are always **accelerating** away from a mass... and not moving away at a constant velocity.
Slashdot Mirror
It may well be required but I assure you that equal for H1B workers pay is a concept on paper only. In 2001 I worked as a senior programmer in Indymac Bank. I was making 103K plus full benefits. 60% - 70% (possibly more) of the development department were H1B Visa holders ALL of them from India. As I got to know them and we'd become friends and chat they told me their story. For the same kind of work as myself the Indian H1B workers were making $20 - $25 and hour with no benefits at all. About a third to a fourth of what I was making. And these guys were, as a rule, very very good. They complained that management treated them shabbily and they had to work longer hours with no overtime or extra pay. The worst thing in their minds was that there was nothing they could do about it because if they complained their Visa was terminated and they were required to leave the country. They could not seek out other work. So the "requirement" that equal pay and benefits to HiB workers was a sham - it was not being listened to or enforced. HiB Visas exist for only one reason - one reason only - to lower the amount of money that companies need to pay to their workers and to lower the overall pay for American workers as well. Anyone living in California in the late 90's may recall the tens of millions of dollars the consortium, od Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Intel , spent in lobbying California state and government legislators into accepting ivastly increased HiB legislation and limits. Several after the legislation passed the industry "bubble" burst and all my friends , including myself were out of work. By the way - I can no longer make 103K any more (wasn;t high at the time for what I did). I am lucky if I get 50K and for several years I have worked for 30K. HiB legislation is a sham and any worker who agrees with it is an uniformed idiot.
I'm a commercially rated pilot and in the 80's flew Saratogas extensively in small Part 135 operations. I will say this:
1. Most fuel starvation accidents do happen near the airport simply because during the landing phase you are much closer to the ground and have less time to react when something happens. Higher up and you do have more time to correct the problem (change tanks, increase the mixture, etc) or find and set up a good field to land in.
2. Every pilot does a tank/fuel check just prior to starting the landing descent( among other times). It is drilled into us because of the importance of NOT having a fuel starvation problem that close to the ground where you have much less time to react and recover. So we ALL do it ALL the time. If a person was concerned for their life at any point in time they would be especially careful to do such a check.
3. Replacing or altering a small resistor in the fuel gages of a Saratoga (or bending float mechanism within the tank itself) could easily cause it to show more fuel then was in the tanks. A pilot should always visually verify before the flight that the quantity of fuel in the tanks match the gauges and this is especially easy to do in the Saratoga HOWEVER the visual check is not in any way "accurate" to more then an quarter of a tanks either way at the very best. If the tanks were not filled to begin with then it would be difficult to visually judge whether you had 40 gallons in the tank or 60. Especially in the evening. So a small alteration to the fuel gauge could easily show you off by 20 gallons or more (almost an hour and a half of flight time in a Saratoga) and you would never know.
For what it's worth
I stand corrected - Thanks!
"Flower's Smell Not Traveling As Far"
..." or "Flowers Odor not traveling as ..." , whatever.
Look , I know we're not exactly the New Your Times here (and I'm NOT a grammar troll) but flowers don't "smell" primarily because they don't have noses. Flowers can "smell bad" or WE can smell flowers but flowers can't "smell" anything. The headline should have read "Flowers Fragrance not traveling as
Frankly I read the title three times and couldn't make any sense of it until I read the text beneath it. I'm not expecting you guys to win a Pulitzer prize but could you please have enough respect for me, as your reader, to at least use basic high school syntax and grammar? Thanks in advance...
Bizarre - an extremely similar thing happened to me. I left a club late one night and walked to my car a block away. I saw that I was being followed and just as I put my keys in the door the man following me grabbed me by the fake pony tail I was wearing that evening. I turned around and everything went into slo-mo. I remember seeing him move and then thinking about places to push and kick him and, though I have only the vaguest of recollections of pushing him (or hitting him? - I don't know) , when things speeded up again he was moving backwards and his arms were flailing and one of them went though a plate glass store from window on the sidewalk and the store alarm went off.
I went back to the club where there were people and told them what happened and then started shaking all over like I was in shock or something.
It was just a weird perceptually experience and to this day your story was the only thing that comes (really!) close to what I felt. I understand the defend myself original article hypothesizes that memory is being changed but I would swear to this day that my perceptions were changed , so much so that I was able to defend myself in a way that I would ordinarily not be able.
>I am considering Vista analagous to Windows 95.
If by that you mean that it will take three years to get a workable release then I am inclined to agree.
A story on Slashdot I can truly relate to!
Nice going editors - Keep it up!
The really, really sad thing is that you are absolutely correct.
After all, it's worked out so well for SCO ....
....
I really do actually remember when SCO, Borland and, yes, even M$oft were the good guys
Time for a change
Don't believe it.
For one thing most cell phines put out less then 2 watts average power.
For another it takes over well over 60-80 watts of power at 2 meters to begin to, say cook a hotdog (don't ask)
And lastly, the frequency range is a gigahertz or more below what it takes (about 2 GHz) to achieve heat water through RF....
Fun... but silly...
PDAs sales will continue to slump until it becomes as easy (or easier) to write on the !@#$! things as it is to jot down a number on a post-it note.
Handwriting recog is a bit of a joke isn't it?
It takes me maybe two minutes to find the damn thing in my kit, go through several screens and then get to the field that handles phone numbers and hope to high heaven that my "7"s don't turn into fives when I input it all in.
It takes me maybe 15 seconds to jot down a number on a piece of paper and cram it into my purse (whereupon it then takes me several hours to find it again but that's another story....)
Imagine what we could do with a cluster of these guys!
This reminds me SOOO much of the UV Nitrogen stun laser cum "phaser" gun that was all in vogue 18 months ago.... what a load of crap.
In my never too humble opinion what's hapenning is that some fast talking BS artist spins a tale to tech to a defense buddy/contact/flak who's more knowledgable about ProSprorts than science....and gets a million or so research grant to pursue the idea. Then of course a small chunk of the grant goes out to the spin machine flaks like the Wash Post (and eventually end up) here.
By te time the idea is proven to be BS (which any 2nd year college physics student could likely have told you ) then everything is covered up and forgotten so there are no embarrassing questions about what MORON allocated the funding in the first place.
Moller and his fantastic flying cars has been pulling that stunt on the government every 15 years and those f-tards never learn.
Am I ranting again?....
Oops..
One more thing - the original artical goes on to say that the company's big achievement to date is selling scay green laser pointers to the military as a defense weapon for $1100 a pop! Oh well...at least it keeps these a-holes out from selling junk bonds to grandmothers.
Am I ranting again?
In 2000 Micro$oft paid ZERO Federal taxes.
For the last FIVE years before Enron becoame defunct it also paid ZERO Federal taxes.
Boeing corporation, in 2003 paid ZERO federal taxes as well.
That's right - YOU paid more federal tax a few years ago then fricking M$, Boeing or Enron.
You want to save society some cash?
How about we start knocking off a few corporate monopolists before we start on the script kiddies?
>distribution just to show it can be done
>without the RIAA.
It's called http://cdbaby.com/
Enjoy !
Are probably worse then the effects of last minute editing ....
Dooh!!!
a thing "affects" another thing.
"effected" means produced, "affected" means influenced
(btw - the title is just a joke)
It sucked.
Food was awful and the hotdogs cost eight dollars. The only high point was meeting the First World President - when he offerred to supersize my meal I almost fainted!
>Honestly, do you think it's light that heats the
.
...and most of *that* is in a far more energictic and harmful form that *does* produce gamma rays and other nasties...
>earth? no, it radiation. Any radiation from a
> little spacecraft up in space is miniscule!
Not really... the sun puts out something like 1400 kiowatts/meter^2 before it gets to the surface... and that's mostly *not* in the form of gamma rays
A small 100kw nuclear reactor core puts out a lot more radiation in a smaller form factor (like a cubic meter or so)
>> So what is left? Where in the ST Universe is
>>there enough uncertainty to make interesting
>>plots?
First of all, must comment on your intelligent and cogent comments - nice analysis.
Your last question stood out for me and I would answer that good television and/or theater is not about the plot as it is about the characters,
Look, we *always* know that the main cadre of characters is never going to die off (except in B5 maybe) or even get really badly hurt. We don't really care because we suspend our disbelief for a while if we like the show enough. And what is it about the shows that draws us in?
I submit that it is he quality of the characters and how much we like/empathize/want to spend some time with them that keeps us coming back.
Look, everyone *knew* that most of the plotlines in TOS were weak at best - but we didn't care because Spock and his internal struggle intrigued us and we liked the growing friendship between Kirk and Spock. And the love/hate relationship between McCoy and Spock.
It's the characters that draw us into the show and keep us there - not the plot - because we *always* know that the good guys will pretty much overcome the obstacles by the end of the episode(s) every time.
And this is why Enterprise fails not because Bacula Blalock are bad actors (they're not)- it's because the writing given to them sucks worse then a Klingon french kiss.
So, imho, a star trek series (or any other) can flourish indefinaely if you can just make the characters, by way of the writers, interesting and likable enough.
It's dead Jim.
Paramount might be waiting for Berman's and/or Braga's contracts to expire before they relaunch another ST series again?? Perhaps they want a producer that can create something other than crap? Hellooooo... Coto or Joe??
Maybe they have more neurons then we give them credit for...then again
Well a girl could hope....
TRANSLATION: We've fired so many of our development team in order to increase compensation for our highest level execs that we can no longer be innovative so we're going to "market" bullsh*t ideas as "value added services".
Pax Requiem IBM
Iam SO thinking of putting in an application for a patent for a device (shaped like a beanie and uses lots of tinfoil) that nullifies ultrasonic waves directed to the brain. Base it on noise cancelling technology or something similar.
Hey it *must* be plausible because there's a patent for soney's device right??
So, if I want to leave a planet by, say, firing out a gun, I need to be travelling at escape velocity (assuming no atmosphere). However, in a rocket I just need to excert more force in thrust that the planet's gravity does on my rocket. If I do this I can leave without ever reaching escape velocity.
That's a common misconception. When you understand the equations you realize that no matter how slowly you accelerate away from the mass you always **accelerate** and by the time that you are any significant distance away from the mass you have arrived at escape velocity...albeit very slowly.
It's a common misconception and the source of much flamage amongst those who forget that you are always **accelerating** away from a mass... and not moving away at a constant velocity.