I can't say what the public thought of net neutrality. I don't know if it matters -- our representatives decide what's best for us, not enact our wishes to a T, it seems.
One thing to point out, though, is that everyone seems focused on ammendment 987 (which failed). We should also take a look at 986, which was agreed. This ammendment appears to clarify language indicating that the FCCs authority to deal with network neutrality complaints affect neither antitrust laws nor the ability of courts to hear cases concerned with them. If my interpretation is correct, it's not a win, but it isn't a total loss either. In fact, I would guess this more moderate language is why 987 failed.
It split down party lines, as it probably would have without any intervention by Google and Ms. Milano, without any mainstream news articles.
I really wouldn't call this a split down party lines. You had 58 democrats who voted against the ammendment and three who didn't vote at all. If all the democrats had voted for the ammendment, they would have been in the majority. Nearly 25% of democrats voted against the ammendment -- hardly a party line split.
Often, the same people who immediately called their congresscritter after the wardrobe malfunction would have no trouble with little Johnny or Jane seeing 24 or CSI or Law and Order: SVU. Personally, I think either of those are more likely to do damage to a kid than a 500ms flash of nipple.
Although we're straying a little off-topic here, I think we have a different situation between 24 or CSI or Law and Order: SVU and the Superbowl nipple-flash. Parents have a good idea about what content to expect on the aforementioned TV shows, and most would not let young children watch those shows. However, it is widely accepted that Superbowl programming should be free from such content (family viewing), so you can't blame the parents too much for being shocked. Having said that, however, I think what was far, far worse than the 1/2 second exposure on the Superbowl was the incessant need for the TV News Media to show the whole thing over and over in slow motion. It's like somebody needed to beat them upside the head with a bat and say "we get it already!!"
Does anybody know where we can find the voting record? I'd like to see how my representative voted -- I sent him a rather lenghtly letter with a nice executive summary (for quicker reading), and I'd like to be able to tell him I'm either going to vote for him again, or that I'm crossing party lines on my next trip to the polls....
One ships with nude base models for characters, and clothing is put on top when the models are generated for display. The nude models are never shown during "normal" gameplay, but someone makes a mod to make all clothing transparent.
So can you explain to me what possible reason there would be for wasting time designing the graphics on the "naughty bits" in the first place if you never intended for them to be seen? Or did they use real photos as their base material? (I've never played the game)
You have multiple reflexes to prevent you from ingesting boiling or near-boiling materials. 180-degree coffee would hardly get past the lips, much less down the throat.
Since the coffee is in an insulated cup, there's a pretty good chance that it would never touch the lips at all, so getting 180-degree coffee into the mouth is not a real problem. Also, anything that touches the back of the mouth will generally cause a swallowing reflex. Ever take a mouthful of unexpectedly hot mashed potatoes? The natural reaction is to try to swallow it quickly. I'm not sure what the impact of 180-degree liquid would be, though.
You can diet, excercise, and lead a healthy lifestyle, but you can still be hit with cancer or some other disease!
And yet proper diet and exercise and vacations can dramatically reduce your chances of getting cancer or other diseases. I would say the car insurance analogy is better than you thought.:)
When everyone made the switch to Google that gave them dominant market share in search, wasn't the default "search from address bar" setting in IE at MSN?
Umm, I think the migration to Google began BEFORE IE had a search from address bar setting, but I could be wrong, here.
If thats the case, and MS is so awesome at leveraging their monopolies - how did Google gain share? How did they become dominant?
This one is easy. The MSN search was absolutely HORRIBLE before. In order to get decent results, people had almost no choice but to switch to another engine.
People keep arguing that MS is leveraging a monopoly that was already in existence when Google took over. Why the hell would Google magically begin losing share now, especialy if it gained so much in the face of this monopoly?
The difference now is that the MSN search has improved significantly -- they paid attention to what Google did. Does MS deserve to gain back some market share? Yes. But they should do it without the tactics they are trying to employ.
I don't see anyone here screaming "MSN YAY!" I see alot of counter arguments, but no one actually cheering for MSN.
That's because you're reading Slashdot. Outside of this forum (and others like it), you'll see differing opinions. Yes, you and I and most of our friends know what Google is, and use it almost exclusively, but there are a lot of folks out there who don't know the difference between MSN search and Google. They just want to search the internet. In fact, some of them will use MSN Search and calling their activity "Googling". Ever hear anybody say "Yesterday, I used MSN to Google the internet..."?
If Google has leading market share in the search marketspace, how can they claim that Microsoft's intent to default to MSN in IE7 is a not competative practice. I see how the argument works from the OS/effective monopoly perspective, but the argument seems a little weak if approached a different way.
I would have thought this was an easy question by now. Microsoft has a monopoly in the desktop operating system market. Microsoft leverages this monopoly to gain a new monopoly in the web browser market. Now Microsoft is leveraging the browser monopoly to overthrow its competitors and establish a monopoly in the search engine market. Can't you see where this is going? The rules are different when a company develops a monopoly. Up until that point, a practice like this would be considered shrewd business tactics, and provides healthy competition. In fact, it's even OK for their competitors to use this tactic. But when a company that has a monopoly uses tactics like this, it is considered anticompetitive and illegal. They are using a monopoly in one part of the market to gain market share (and eventually set up a monopoly) in another part of the market.
IE defaults to MSN as it's home page, correct? Well, MSN search is there. Google's stating that people won't use their search because users won't change the toolbar default is equivalent to saying that people don't change their default home page - which is untrue.
Actually, it's true. Many people DON'T change their default home page. I helped set up three computers for family and friends in the last two years. Not one of them changed the default page from MSN until I went back later and installed Firefox. In fact, one of them asked me to make MSN the default page for Firefox because that was what they were accustomed to.
The OS is entrenched, but Google market share is significant over MSN's search. I mean hell, its almost 50%. How can you argue that your dominance is in danger by a company who holds 8%?
Google does not yet have a monopoly in the search engine market. But for argument's sake, let's assume that they do. If they used their monopoly in the search engine market to push Google OS and Google Office to their customers (at the obvious expense of competitors), then they would be guilty. It's because the OS (Windows) and Internet Explorer are entrenched that Microsoft could easily erode the dominance that Google has. The 8% market share that MSN Search has means nothing. The 90+% market share that Internet Explorer has means EVERYTHING. Think about it.
5. "Sexual conduct" means acts of..., homosexuality,...
wtf? Does this mean you can't have two guys holding hands in a game? *shakes head*
Perhaps if you had included the ENTIRE text of definition 5, it would make a bit more sense and seem a bit less biased.
"Sexual conduct" means acts of masturbation, homosexuality, sexual intercourse, or physical contact with a person's clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if such person be a female, breast;
I don't think they are trying to single out homosexuals. I think they are just trying to completely spell everything out for the corporations that act like children and try to find all the loopholes in the law. However, I'd like to echo somebody elses sentiment: What does all of this have to do with violence?
Me too. And I saw what happens when the H1B doesn't kiss up and do what he/she is told. I watched a woman's marriage fall apart as a result.... She's back in India now, and her ex-husband is still here, ironically working for the same company that dinked with her.
Their primary services work fine on low-bandwidth and high latency connections, so an extortionist ISP would have to threaten to cut their customers off from Google entirely.
Their current services work fine on low-bandwidth, but their future vision may not work so well. Remember, they'd like to offer video and other high-bandwidth content.
The reason the companies hire out elsewhere is because it is economically advantageous.
If this were REALLY true, I'd buy into it. Let's talk a little bit about H1B first. According to the law, not only do companies have to prove that they can't find an American to do the job, the are supposed to pay the H1B-hire a salary that is comparable to the industry average in their area. Obviously, neither of these happens because the H1B candidates will accept the lower salary and keep their mouths shut about it. The question is, why can they accept such a low salary? Is it truly because Americans are greedy? Maybe partly, the the bulk of the reason is because you get 7 workers from {insert overseas country here} living in a two-bedroom apartment (which would not by any stretch of the imagination be considered humane in this country). They are sending money overseas back to their families. Because of the poorer economy in their native country, they can work at a pay rate lower than the poverty line in the US and still be better off than if they had taken a job back home. Now, let's take one of those H1B employees and pretend that he has decided to bring his family to the US. So, his wife, child that he hasn't seen in two years, and parents all come over to the US. He makes the other six guys find another apartment, and packs his family into the two-bedroom place. This wouldn't go overwell for an American family here, but where he comes from, this is about normal. However, now that he has to pay $2000/month rent on his own and buy groceries in this country for five people on his meager salary, he discovers that he's making about 20% less than what is required to keep his family in a home. Let's face it. The real reason he was able to accept the crappy salary of an H1B employee is because he was taking dollars from our economy and spending them in a poorer economy where their value was higher.
OK, now that we've had a nice long-winded example of the H1B visa, let's talk about outsourcing in an equally long-winded fashion. My company recently jumped on the outsource-to-India bandwagon. To date, we are now spending MORE money on the same tasks. That's right...more! Why? Because 1) it takes 2 people in India to do the job that was being done here, 2) the job turnover rate in India is so high that the costs of continually training the new people is outrageous and 3) the overhead associated with compliance and management of resources associated with shifting the work burden way from the group that needs it is higher than most companies realize. When you add the fourth factor that salaries are rising in India, I figure this will only continue for about 2 more years before we either outsource to China / Malaysia, or bring back in-house to save money. Many other companies have discovered that outsourcing is NOT economically advantageous. Only in certain situations where you have well-defined repetitive tasks does it make sense to outsource work. These tasks require very little back and forth communication and can be done with fairly unskilled labor. For tasks that are unique and require skilled labor, the cost of a resource in India is nearly as high as one in the US or Europe. So, why are companies really continuing to outsource? Because it's the "in" thing to do and it gets them bonuses and wonderful golden parachutes. In practice, it simply doesn't work out.
i'm pretty much in the heart of europe. nobody will enforce one single united states law here. you're dillusional my friend, albeit very patriotic.
Recent history says otherwise. Take a look at all of the junk with patent law, copyrights (digital rights management), etc. An by the way, adoption of similar laws is a two way street. The US has also adopted legislation similar to European countries.
an search engine in europe will index nicely all the websites of the free world and the american ones as well, exactly matching their content (so the marked u.s. sites will get a nice flag "sexual stuff").
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the this is exactly what will probably happen in the US. The laws aren't forcing websites to take down content. They are forcing them to rate content. The search engines would take advantage of this and provide a label of some sort that sites contain sexual content. They'd probably go one step further and allow users to customize their search results by what type of content they want to see. Actually, I'd appreciate that feature now because there are many times when I'm searching for a topic with a keyword that seems to be commonly used by pr0n sites, and so my top results aren't very useful to me.
if you think that people won't go for the search engines that get the real content instead of america's "filter", you're wrong again.
The implied intent of the laws is not to force search engines to filter content. It's to provide consumers with a choice. People that want to see nudity will have no problem finding it (it might actually be easier). People that don't want to see it will be able to turn it off.
people want to get the stuff that they need, not the stuff that the american government thinks their people should get.
You actually think that people NEED pr0n? Well, maybe *you* need it. If so, then you should WELCOME these laws. The net result is that you'll be able to run a google search by keyword and tell it to include ONLY sexually explicit sites. You won't have to be bothered with all the other crap you're not interested in.
honestly, if you think that anyone gives a lama's ass how you decide to shoot yourself in the foot with this, you're dead wrong. europeans actually think before they open their mouths, unlike your law makes as it seems.
This very comment seems to provide evidence to the contrary.
talking about a free and open country seems rather unfit for the united states right now. occupying foreign countries, limiting press freedom in them, limiting the content available to their own people in their own country... to me this doesn't really seem like a highway to democracy nor freedom.
Having lived in Europe for a while, and with frequent trips there now, I can absolutely assure you that if you believe the crap you are being fed by your news media is any more accurate than what Americans see, you're one naive sucker. The media is equally tuned on both sides of "the pond" to develop just the "mindset" in the sheep that the politicians want. Based on all of your comments, I'd say their efforts are working quite well.
Images to test their alertness sure, but images of bombs? That's just plain crazy. All you're doing is desensitising them and guaranteeing that even if they're alert they won't get the adrenaline rush they should.
It depends on what they do with the tests. If there are severe consequences for the operator if they miss one of the test images, then I doubt they'll be desensitized. On the other hand, if there's no consequence for being a slacker, you'll see a group of operators hudding around the display laughing at the "fake" bomb image while a terrorist walks right on through.
Haven't flown internationally since 9/11 so I can't comment there.
I can confirm that on every single International flight I've been on since 9/11 (four or five trips annually), my passport was checked and compared against my boarding pass prior to boarding the plane. The procedure has been even more rigorous coming back to the US. We weren't even allowed into the sitting area at the gate without a comparison between boarding pass and passport and answering several questions (for like the umpteenth time). Also, the carrier is required to generate and submit a manifest to government officials containing the exact passenger list at time of departure. There are rather steep fines for every mistake on that list. Finally, I believe that the immigration official can take the customs declaration form (required on entry to the US) and compare it against the flight manifest. I know they look at the information on the customs form and make some sort of notation in the computer, but I'm not sure exactly what it is. I seem to remember hearing of a situation where a couple arrived in the US with no record on the manifest and got to enjoy a couple hours of interrogation, so I'm pretty sure they are checking this sort of thing (at least on entry). I also have a friend who had a strange connection in the UK where he had to claim his bags and recheck them for the ongoing flight. He decided to recheck only one of the two bags and carry on the other. Because of this decision, the plane was not allowed to leave the airport, and he was treated to a round of interrogation while the rest of the passengers waited.
Therefore, I can officially say that at least with the airports I normally use, the possibility of pulling a international / domestic ticket swap is rather slim.
A few years ago I'd have agreed with you that Americans either didn't know about global warming and/or didn't care. But recently I am definitely sensing a trend that most Americans both know and care.
As an American, I'd like to add (anecdotal) evidence that many Americans are just as sensitive to this topic as our European counterparts. I apologize if I ramble a lot, but I hope somebody at least finds it an interesting read. I work in the IT department at the American subsidiary of a European-based corporation. Almost every aspect of my job involves working directly with people in Germany, Singapore and the UK via conference calls. Even my interactions with the personnel in the local office are usually over the phone. With the exception of front-end loading on project startups, there is absolutely NO reason why I need to be in the office. Because of the ridiculously overinflated housing market, I could only avoid living in a trailer by buying a house 35 miles from the office where I work. This means that I drive 70 miles a day, every day of the week. The car I drive is one of the more fuel-efficient non-hybrid models that gets over 30 miles per gallon. Although I could do better with a hybrid or diesel, the cost of maintenance on both those types of vehicles leaves me slightly biased against them. And, since I'm a parent, the ultra-fuel-efficient two-seater vehicles are not practical for me. Recently, my company sold part of the land on our local campus, and we are now renting two of the buildings that sit on the land we sold from the company we sold to. I have suggested numerous times to my management that at least two thirds of the workforce could just as easily work from home. I have offered to pay my own bills for internet and telecomm access, only charging back international calls to the company (at a lower rate than they currently pay). I have offered to sign a waiver of liability so that there are no insurance issues associated with my working from a home office. I have demonstrated that I get more done in the same amount of time in the quieter environment of my home office, and I have carefully explained that I would probably start working earlier and finish later because I don't have two hours of driving a day. I have patiently explained that if those whose jobs permitted were allowed to work from home, we would be able to stop leasing the two buildings on the land we sold and easily fit everybody into the remaining buildings with a few "virtual cubes" available for when people need to come to the office. My American management is completely in support of this idea. However, the transplants from our corporate headquarters in Europe absolutely cannot stand the thought of not being able to watch people work. I have even used the "Global Warming" argument (out of frustration), and they refuse to relent. Now, just imagine what would happen if 25% of the work force in the US started working out of home offices. They would reduce their daily driving to vitually zero. Imagine the impact to greenhouse gases this would have.
So, what's my summary? I think the companies we work for could very easily contribute to improving the environment if they would just think out of the box a bit. For some reason, they refuse to do so. I also think that our European counterparts are just as blind to potential solutions as we are, but just in different ways.
Re:Wow, has Sony started to LEARN?
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er... wait, you missed that? theyve already done that. there was a letter posted.
Yup, missed it completely. I was probably traveling. Any shakeups in the company?
Re:Wow, has Sony started to LEARN?
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One cannot help but wonder if the CD copy protection disaster has taught them something.
Perhaps this is some sort of apology, and it's definitely a step in the right direction. But personally, I will avoid Sony products until there is a VERY public apology that accepts responsibility and acknowledges that the direction they took was very much not in the interest of their customers, followed by a solemn promise to never employ such tactics again.
Actually, this is wonderful news for "us evolutionists".
Actually, I think the wonderful news is instead for paleontologists, whether they agree with theories of evolution or not. Regardless of whether you feel the world was created billions of years ago or only a few thousand, you have to admit that reconstructing what a species looked like from its fossilized remains requires quite a bit of guess work. Techniques have been developed to make such guesses as accurate as possible, but the discovery of an actual living representative of the fossilized species allows validation (or invalidation) of those techniques.
agreed... I'm starting to think, that it is time for me to bail out of Skype.
I'd say bail out of Skype and Ebay both. Also, if you have a choice, don't purchase anything with Intel inside. What's the best replacement for Skype that has a feature similar to SkypeOut and works in both the US and Europe?
So I propose instead we return all the Graphic Cards marked HDCP compliant directly to Nvidia/ATI, and ask for a free working replacement + inordinate amounts of money...
Returning the cards directly to NVidia/ATI isn't a good idea. But for those who purchased them recently, returning them to the place they bought them from is probably good. It works within the system, and it will cause the retailers to put pressure on ATI and NVidia board manufacturers. Now, your idea of a class action is good. In fact, this is exactly the time to do it. If it is done RIGHT NOW while card manufacturers are still deciding what to do, it will greatly increase customer awareness (and outcry), and any settlement may force manufacturers to evaluate what their customers actually want. Another good idea would be to contact your state Attorney General and allege collusion. The fact that all the manufacturers are crying "mum" makes it seem like there have been some interesting meetings between Intel, Microsoft, Hollywood, Graphic Card manufacturers and several others, with the outcome being a decision decidedly not customer-oriented.
Oh yeah, but I've yet to find any antivirus software which doesn't do this.
Agreed. At work, we switched to McAfee. It appears to be marginally better, but I have been toying with creating a support message to facetiously ask for a second laptop under the explanation that my primary laptop is already fully allocated to other "colleagues". The virus scanner, spyware scanners, system inventory scanner, software firewall, and mobile backup solution have conspired to use most of my system resources nearly 100% of the time.
Having had to use and support enough Microsoft crap over the years, I consider it to be suspicious that there's a "problem" appearing after Microsoft introduces a competing product.
While I'm sure Microsoft would jump at any chance to trounce on its competitors in any borderline illegal way it can think of, I think this is more or less a case of improper testing on their part -- another typical Microsoft problem. It would be counterproductive to intentionally disable a competing product in the beta version. It would be much smarter to introduce this "feature" in the final version.
LOL...wouldn't it be poetic to stick the Feds with the lawyer's fees? Tack it on to the patent office's budget, perhaps. Take it out of management's raises and bonuses.
You and I both know that it won't be management paying for any legal fees. It'll be us taxpayers. So, no, I don't think the Feds should pay the fees. Now, if you could direct the fees to certain congressmen who have failed to improve the situation, *that* would be poetic justice.
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One thing to point out, though, is that everyone seems focused on ammendment 987 (which failed). We should also take a look at 986, which was agreed. This ammendment appears to clarify language indicating that the FCCs authority to deal with network neutrality complaints affect neither antitrust laws nor the ability of courts to hear cases concerned with them. If my interpretation is correct, it's not a win, but it isn't a total loss either. In fact, I would guess this more moderate language is why 987 failed.
It split down party lines, as it probably would have without any intervention by Google and Ms. Milano, without any mainstream news articles.
I really wouldn't call this a split down party lines. You had 58 democrats who voted against the ammendment and three who didn't vote at all. If all the democrats had voted for the ammendment, they would have been in the majority. Nearly 25% of democrats voted against the ammendment -- hardly a party line split.
Although we're straying a little off-topic here, I think we have a different situation between 24 or CSI or Law and Order: SVU and the Superbowl nipple-flash. Parents have a good idea about what content to expect on the aforementioned TV shows, and most would not let young children watch those shows. However, it is widely accepted that Superbowl programming should be free from such content (family viewing), so you can't blame the parents too much for being shocked. Having said that, however, I think what was far, far worse than the 1/2 second exposure on the Superbowl was the incessant need for the TV News Media to show the whole thing over and over in slow motion. It's like somebody needed to beat them upside the head with a bat and say "we get it already!!"
Does anybody know where we can find the voting record? I'd like to see how my representative voted -- I sent him a rather lenghtly letter with a nice executive summary (for quicker reading), and I'd like to be able to tell him I'm either going to vote for him again, or that I'm crossing party lines on my next trip to the polls....
So can you explain to me what possible reason there would be for wasting time designing the graphics on the "naughty bits" in the first place if you never intended for them to be seen? Or did they use real photos as their base material? (I've never played the game)
Since the coffee is in an insulated cup, there's a pretty good chance that it would never touch the lips at all, so getting 180-degree coffee into the mouth is not a real problem. Also, anything that touches the back of the mouth will generally cause a swallowing reflex. Ever take a mouthful of unexpectedly hot mashed potatoes? The natural reaction is to try to swallow it quickly. I'm not sure what the impact of 180-degree liquid would be, though.
And yet proper diet and exercise and vacations can dramatically reduce your chances of getting cancer or other diseases. I would say the car insurance analogy is better than you thought.
Umm, I think the migration to Google began BEFORE IE had a search from address bar setting, but I could be wrong, here.
If thats the case, and MS is so awesome at leveraging their monopolies - how did Google gain share? How did they become dominant?
This one is easy. The MSN search was absolutely HORRIBLE before. In order to get decent results, people had almost no choice but to switch to another engine.
People keep arguing that MS is leveraging a monopoly that was already in existence when Google took over. Why the hell would Google magically begin losing share now, especialy if it gained so much in the face of this monopoly?
The difference now is that the MSN search has improved significantly -- they paid attention to what Google did. Does MS deserve to gain back some market share? Yes. But they should do it without the tactics they are trying to employ.
I don't see anyone here screaming "MSN YAY!" I see alot of counter arguments, but no one actually cheering for MSN.
That's because you're reading Slashdot. Outside of this forum (and others like it), you'll see differing opinions. Yes, you and I and most of our friends know what Google is, and use it almost exclusively, but there are a lot of folks out there who don't know the difference between MSN search and Google. They just want to search the internet. In fact, some of them will use MSN Search and calling their activity "Googling". Ever hear anybody say "Yesterday, I used MSN to Google the internet..."?
I would have thought this was an easy question by now. Microsoft has a monopoly in the desktop operating system market. Microsoft leverages this monopoly to gain a new monopoly in the web browser market. Now Microsoft is leveraging the browser monopoly to overthrow its competitors and establish a monopoly in the search engine market. Can't you see where this is going? The rules are different when a company develops a monopoly. Up until that point, a practice like this would be considered shrewd business tactics, and provides healthy competition. In fact, it's even OK for their competitors to use this tactic. But when a company that has a monopoly uses tactics like this, it is considered anticompetitive and illegal. They are using a monopoly in one part of the market to gain market share (and eventually set up a monopoly) in another part of the market.
IE defaults to MSN as it's home page, correct? Well, MSN search is there. Google's stating that people won't use their search because users won't change the toolbar default is equivalent to saying that people don't change their default home page - which is untrue.
Actually, it's true. Many people DON'T change their default home page. I helped set up three computers for family and friends in the last two years. Not one of them changed the default page from MSN until I went back later and installed Firefox. In fact, one of them asked me to make MSN the default page for Firefox because that was what they were accustomed to.
The OS is entrenched, but Google market share is significant over MSN's search. I mean hell, its almost 50%. How can you argue that your dominance is in danger by a company who holds 8%?
Google does not yet have a monopoly in the search engine market. But for argument's sake, let's assume that they do. If they used their monopoly in the search engine market to push Google OS and Google Office to their customers (at the obvious expense of competitors), then they would be guilty. It's because the OS (Windows) and Internet Explorer are entrenched that Microsoft could easily erode the dominance that Google has. The 8% market share that MSN Search has means nothing. The 90+% market share that Internet Explorer has means EVERYTHING. Think about it.
Perhaps if you had included the ENTIRE text of definition 5, it would make a bit more sense and seem a bit less biased.
I don't think they are trying to single out homosexuals. I think they are just trying to completely spell everything out for the corporations that act like children and try to find all the loopholes in the law. However, I'd like to echo somebody elses sentiment: What does all of this have to do with violence?Me too. And I saw what happens when the H1B doesn't kiss up and do what he/she is told. I watched a woman's marriage fall apart as a result.... She's back in India now, and her ex-husband is still here, ironically working for the same company that dinked with her.
Their current services work fine on low-bandwidth, but their future vision may not work so well. Remember, they'd like to offer video and other high-bandwidth content.
If this were REALLY true, I'd buy into it. Let's talk a little bit about H1B first. According to the law, not only do companies have to prove that they can't find an American to do the job, the are supposed to pay the H1B-hire a salary that is comparable to the industry average in their area. Obviously, neither of these happens because the H1B candidates will accept the lower salary and keep their mouths shut about it. The question is, why can they accept such a low salary? Is it truly because Americans are greedy? Maybe partly, the the bulk of the reason is because you get 7 workers from {insert overseas country here} living in a two-bedroom apartment (which would not by any stretch of the imagination be considered humane in this country). They are sending money overseas back to their families. Because of the poorer economy in their native country, they can work at a pay rate lower than the poverty line in the US and still be better off than if they had taken a job back home. Now, let's take one of those H1B employees and pretend that he has decided to bring his family to the US. So, his wife, child that he hasn't seen in two years, and parents all come over to the US. He makes the other six guys find another apartment, and packs his family into the two-bedroom place. This wouldn't go overwell for an American family here, but where he comes from, this is about normal. However, now that he has to pay $2000/month rent on his own and buy groceries in this country for five people on his meager salary, he discovers that he's making about 20% less than what is required to keep his family in a home. Let's face it. The real reason he was able to accept the crappy salary of an H1B employee is because he was taking dollars from our economy and spending them in a poorer economy where their value was higher.
OK, now that we've had a nice long-winded example of the H1B visa, let's talk about outsourcing in an equally long-winded fashion. My company recently jumped on the outsource-to-India bandwagon. To date, we are now spending MORE money on the same tasks. That's right...more! Why? Because 1) it takes 2 people in India to do the job that was being done here, 2) the job turnover rate in India is so high that the costs of continually training the new people is outrageous and 3) the overhead associated with compliance and management of resources associated with shifting the work burden way from the group that needs it is higher than most companies realize. When you add the fourth factor that salaries are rising in India, I figure this will only continue for about 2 more years before we either outsource to China / Malaysia, or bring back in-house to save money. Many other companies have discovered that outsourcing is NOT economically advantageous. Only in certain situations where you have well-defined repetitive tasks does it make sense to outsource work. These tasks require very little back and forth communication and can be done with fairly unskilled labor. For tasks that are unique and require skilled labor, the cost of a resource in India is nearly as high as one in the US or Europe. So, why are companies really continuing to outsource? Because it's the "in" thing to do and it gets them bonuses and wonderful golden parachutes. In practice, it simply doesn't work out.
Recent history says otherwise. Take a look at all of the junk with patent law, copyrights (digital rights management), etc. An by the way, adoption of similar laws is a two way street. The US has also adopted legislation similar to European countries.
an search engine in europe will index nicely all the websites of the free world and the american ones as well, exactly matching their content (so the marked u.s. sites will get a nice flag "sexual stuff").
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the this is exactly what will probably happen in the US. The laws aren't forcing websites to take down content. They are forcing them to rate content. The search engines would take advantage of this and provide a label of some sort that sites contain sexual content. They'd probably go one step further and allow users to customize their search results by what type of content they want to see. Actually, I'd appreciate that feature now because there are many times when I'm searching for a topic with a keyword that seems to be commonly used by pr0n sites, and so my top results aren't very useful to me.
if you think that people won't go for the search engines that get the real content instead of america's "filter", you're wrong again.
The implied intent of the laws is not to force search engines to filter content. It's to provide consumers with a choice. People that want to see nudity will have no problem finding it (it might actually be easier). People that don't want to see it will be able to turn it off.
people want to get the stuff that they need, not the stuff that the american government thinks their people should get.
You actually think that people NEED pr0n? Well, maybe *you* need it. If so, then you should WELCOME these laws. The net result is that you'll be able to run a google search by keyword and tell it to include ONLY sexually explicit sites. You won't have to be bothered with all the other crap you're not interested in.
honestly, if you think that anyone gives a lama's ass how you decide to shoot yourself in the foot with this, you're dead wrong. europeans actually think before they open their mouths, unlike your law makes as it seems.
This very comment seems to provide evidence to the contrary.
talking about a free and open country seems rather unfit for the united states right now. occupying foreign countries, limiting press freedom in them, limiting the content available to their own people in their own country ... to me this doesn't really seem like a highway to democracy nor freedom.
Having lived in Europe for a while, and with frequent trips there now, I can absolutely assure you that if you believe the crap you are being fed by your news media is any more accurate than what Americans see, you're one naive sucker. The media is equally tuned on both sides of "the pond" to develop just the "mindset" in the sheep that the politicians want. Based on all of your comments, I'd say their efforts are working quite well.
It depends on what they do with the tests. If there are severe consequences for the operator if they miss one of the test images, then I doubt they'll be desensitized. On the other hand, if there's no consequence for being a slacker, you'll see a group of operators hudding around the display laughing at the "fake" bomb image while a terrorist walks right on through.
I can confirm that on every single International flight I've been on since 9/11 (four or five trips annually), my passport was checked and compared against my boarding pass prior to boarding the plane. The procedure has been even more rigorous coming back to the US. We weren't even allowed into the sitting area at the gate without a comparison between boarding pass and passport and answering several questions (for like the umpteenth time). Also, the carrier is required to generate and submit a manifest to government officials containing the exact passenger list at time of departure. There are rather steep fines for every mistake on that list. Finally, I believe that the immigration official can take the customs declaration form (required on entry to the US) and compare it against the flight manifest. I know they look at the information on the customs form and make some sort of notation in the computer, but I'm not sure exactly what it is. I seem to remember hearing of a situation where a couple arrived in the US with no record on the manifest and got to enjoy a couple hours of interrogation, so I'm pretty sure they are checking this sort of thing (at least on entry). I also have a friend who had a strange connection in the UK where he had to claim his bags and recheck them for the ongoing flight. He decided to recheck only one of the two bags and carry on the other. Because of this decision, the plane was not allowed to leave the airport, and he was treated to a round of interrogation while the rest of the passengers waited.
Therefore, I can officially say that at least with the airports I normally use, the possibility of pulling a international / domestic ticket swap is rather slim.
As an American, I'd like to add (anecdotal) evidence that many Americans are just as sensitive to this topic as our European counterparts. I apologize if I ramble a lot, but I hope somebody at least finds it an interesting read. I work in the IT department at the American subsidiary of a European-based corporation. Almost every aspect of my job involves working directly with people in Germany, Singapore and the UK via conference calls. Even my interactions with the personnel in the local office are usually over the phone. With the exception of front-end loading on project startups, there is absolutely NO reason why I need to be in the office. Because of the ridiculously overinflated housing market, I could only avoid living in a trailer by buying a house 35 miles from the office where I work. This means that I drive 70 miles a day, every day of the week. The car I drive is one of the more fuel-efficient non-hybrid models that gets over 30 miles per gallon. Although I could do better with a hybrid or diesel, the cost of maintenance on both those types of vehicles leaves me slightly biased against them. And, since I'm a parent, the ultra-fuel-efficient two-seater vehicles are not practical for me. Recently, my company sold part of the land on our local campus, and we are now renting two of the buildings that sit on the land we sold from the company we sold to. I have suggested numerous times to my management that at least two thirds of the workforce could just as easily work from home. I have offered to pay my own bills for internet and telecomm access, only charging back international calls to the company (at a lower rate than they currently pay). I have offered to sign a waiver of liability so that there are no insurance issues associated with my working from a home office. I have demonstrated that I get more done in the same amount of time in the quieter environment of my home office, and I have carefully explained that I would probably start working earlier and finish later because I don't have two hours of driving a day. I have patiently explained that if those whose jobs permitted were allowed to work from home, we would be able to stop leasing the two buildings on the land we sold and easily fit everybody into the remaining buildings with a few "virtual cubes" available for when people need to come to the office. My American management is completely in support of this idea. However, the transplants from our corporate headquarters in Europe absolutely cannot stand the thought of not being able to watch people work. I have even used the "Global Warming" argument (out of frustration), and they refuse to relent. Now, just imagine what would happen if 25% of the work force in the US started working out of home offices. They would reduce their daily driving to vitually zero. Imagine the impact to greenhouse gases this would have.
So, what's my summary? I think the companies we work for could very easily contribute to improving the environment if they would just think out of the box a bit. For some reason, they refuse to do so. I also think that our European counterparts are just as blind to potential solutions as we are, but just in different ways.
Yup, missed it completely. I was probably traveling. Any shakeups in the company?
Perhaps this is some sort of apology, and it's definitely a step in the right direction. But personally, I will avoid Sony products until there is a VERY public apology that accepts responsibility and acknowledges that the direction they took was very much not in the interest of their customers, followed by a solemn promise to never employ such tactics again.
Actually, I think the wonderful news is instead for paleontologists, whether they agree with theories of evolution or not. Regardless of whether you feel the world was created billions of years ago or only a few thousand, you have to admit that reconstructing what a species looked like from its fossilized remains requires quite a bit of guess work. Techniques have been developed to make such guesses as accurate as possible, but the discovery of an actual living representative of the fossilized species allows validation (or invalidation) of those techniques.
Any idea what kind of service quality they have?
Does gtalk have a feature that allows you to call someone on POTS?
I'd say bail out of Skype and Ebay both. Also, if you have a choice, don't purchase anything with Intel inside. What's the best replacement for Skype that has a feature similar to SkypeOut and works in both the US and Europe?
Returning the cards directly to NVidia/ATI isn't a good idea. But for those who purchased them recently, returning them to the place they bought them from is probably good. It works within the system, and it will cause the retailers to put pressure on ATI and NVidia board manufacturers. Now, your idea of a class action is good. In fact, this is exactly the time to do it. If it is done RIGHT NOW while card manufacturers are still deciding what to do, it will greatly increase customer awareness (and outcry), and any settlement may force manufacturers to evaluate what their customers actually want. Another good idea would be to contact your state Attorney General and allege collusion. The fact that all the manufacturers are crying "mum" makes it seem like there have been some interesting meetings between Intel, Microsoft, Hollywood, Graphic Card manufacturers and several others, with the outcome being a decision decidedly not customer-oriented.
Agreed. At work, we switched to McAfee. It appears to be marginally better, but I have been toying with creating a support message to facetiously ask for a second laptop under the explanation that my primary laptop is already fully allocated to other "colleagues". The virus scanner, spyware scanners, system inventory scanner, software firewall, and mobile backup solution have conspired to use most of my system resources nearly 100% of the time.
Having had to use and support enough Microsoft crap over the years, I consider it to be suspicious that there's a "problem" appearing after Microsoft introduces a competing product.
While I'm sure Microsoft would jump at any chance to trounce on its competitors in any borderline illegal way it can think of, I think this is more or less a case of improper testing on their part -- another typical Microsoft problem. It would be counterproductive to intentionally disable a competing product in the beta version. It would be much smarter to introduce this "feature" in the final version.
You and I both know that it won't be management paying for any legal fees. It'll be us taxpayers. So, no, I don't think the Feds should pay the fees. Now, if you could direct the fees to certain congressmen who have failed to improve the situation, *that* would be poetic justice.