My current employer has outsourced nearly all of their IT and software development to IBM.
IBM itself estimated the cost of migrating and regression testing all server side software from Websphere 5.x to 6.0 (which will support J2EE 1.4, not Java EE 5) was deemed so prohibitively high, that they instead offered to extend support for the officially discontinued Websphere 5.x.
Supporting multiple versions at the same time, during a long transition period would increase operating cost significantly. I will be surprised if the customer moves to a websphere version that supports java EE 5 or higher within the next 5 years.
At another customer, in the same sector and of similar size, the situation was not much different.
Replacing something old fashioned but still functioning just fine can be very painful if this will mean a nine figure cost and a project of several years.
Why are you so sure H1-B visa holders are paid less than the rest of the workforce?
There is quite a bit of competition over this limited number of visas, so a lot of them are rather highly qualified, and paid accordingly.
I don't see any evidence that the H1-B program has a depressing effect on engineers wages. Typically, an American engineer is paid two or three times as much as his equivalent in western European countries, which either don't have H1-B type positions, or are unable to attract the highly qualified engineers to fill these positions.
It may look like that to you in the UK, but here on the other side of the Channel, it's not so bad. The economy is slowing down, but no mass layoffs. At least not yet.
My apologies for being pedantic, but there is no evidence that agriculture had been invented 12,900 years ago, nor is it likely that the climate was very suitable for it.
and this sort of thing isn't terribly uncommon in the world of customs and immigration.
I don't know. I travel a lot, and the USA is the only place where I'm finger printed and photographed every time I enter, and where I'm required to provide all the addresses where I'll be staying. The airline is also required to provide my credit card number and other personal data to homeland security prior to every flight.
I'm also required to fill out a form stating that I'm not a terrorist.
It's not that I presume to have any rights in a foreign country, just that I don't entirely agree with your statement that this sort of thing isn't terribly uncommon in the world of customs and immigration. China and Russia don't do it for example.
As far as I can tell from TFA, the new program doesn't include tourists or students... only people intending to reside within the US on a long-term basis.
Tourists and students were already included in this, as I understand it, what's new is that it is being extended to legal residents.
The only thing you have to worry about as a US Citizen is our image abroad. I'm not thrilled about these measures.... however, sarcastic political hysterics and lies rarely ever help change things.
"Image" abroad is an intangible thing that doesn't directly affect anyone. Does any American really care what foreigners think of them?
You might be more affected by reciprocal measures when traveling abroad. If another country were to start treating American visitors the same way, there would be a diplomatic incident.
"Why do crack dealers still live with their moms?" (Steven Levitt)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UGC2nLnaes
It's weird isn't it? Rather than getting a job and leading a reasonably comfortable life in exchange for a reasonable amount of work, many criminals would rather live in poverty and "work" under appalling conditions for a paltry "pay"
The EU isn't like the US federal government. The EU is a group of independent nations that have voluntarily chosen to cooperate economically rather than violently competing over scarce resources as in the period up to 1945.
In this sense, the EU has been a great success. War between EU member states is now pretty much unimaginable.
The EU council is not a 'government', the power lies with the various national governments. The primary function of EU regulations is to make the one common market possible without forcing the various member states to revert to the lowest common denominator in terms of quality control, labor laws and taxation in order to prevent their businesses from moving elsewhere.
The EU does not have a lot to do with civil liberties and policy on the national level, which explains the widespread lack of interest in EU politics among voters. Simply making the EU more democratic for the sake of making it more democratic would inevitably amount to making it exclusively pursue the national interests of the largest member states at the expense of the EU as a whole.
I personally like the EU the way it is now. I don't want a European president, a European army or a single European foreign policy. I like my country to be independent as well as having a common European market without internal border controls.
The French started it with their ethnic cleansing campaign against German people in the late 17th century (google for 'Burn the Palatinate')
Or you could say it started with the 30 years war, which killed about a fifth to a quarter of the German population. Before 1870, France was the big bully superpower that always threatened to beat people up.
So it is only the oak trees that are "underhanded" that survive and make new trees.
This sounds plausible, but it only works when different species of oaks and beeches in an area synchronize their cycle, which would require some external trigger.
It shouldn't be hard to find more information on this; probably under ecology literature.
So I'm not the only geek in the world who takes an interest in trees after all?
I knew about mast years, and the following meagre years. This is a common adaptation to predation pressure or parasites. An extreme example of this are cicadas; predators don't live long enough for their population cycle to become synchronized with that of the cicada.
I'm curious what the synchronization mechanism could be. In my area (north western Europe), last year was a mast year... for beeches, chestnuts and all four species of oak growing in my area. This fall I found only a handfull of chestnuts, no beech nuts and hardly any acorns.
While hiking in North Carolina this fall, I didn't see a lot of acorn remains either, but I attributed that to having been a bit late in the season.
I'm surprised and intrigued that the phenomenon appears coincided on both sides of the Atlantic this year. Are the cycles synchronized via some global (solar?) external trigger, or is this just coincidence? I always assumed it must be the weather, but that isn't even remotely similar on both sides of the Atlantic.
It's not quite the same. As an American voter, you register your party affiliation: Republican, Democrat or Independent. This registration is a matter of public record. A potential employer or a reporter of the government can find out what party you (most likely) voted for in a given election.
The circuit boards, maybe, but you should probably consider the hard disks and the PSU a total loss - there is no way you're going to get those dry without disassembling them, and it takes a specialist with the right tools to be able to disassemble and reassemble a hd.
A method used for drying complicated laboratory equipment is hosing it with acetone and then blowing air through it. This might work for electronics as well. The moisture dissolves in acetone, while the acetone evaporates readily.
I will bet that this process is more expensive than letting mother nature create starches/sugars that we then modify into hydrocarbon "fuels".
It is VERY hard to beat the efficiency of mother nature on this one:
6CO2 + 6H2O + Light = C6H12O6 (Glucose) + 6O2
I wonder what a gallon of this "fuel" costs.
Mother nature uses that process as an energy source for things like flapping flagella back and forth, synthesizing proteins and DNA, splitting viral plasmid, making baby cells etc. If the hydrocarbons are the only part of the process you're interested in, then perhaps you could potentially make the process more efficient by removing all the other parts.
As for what this fuel costs to make, if it resembles a refined product like diesel more than it does crude oil, $100 per barrel would probably be competitive with fossil fuel.
Why not? The algae or cyanobacteria are full of stuff that do things other than photosynthesis, all very essential to the survival and reproduction of the cell, but maybe not to the process of making hydrocarbons out of water and CO2.
The Netherlands usually has a voter turnout percentage in the 80's or 90's, pretty much the same as Belgium, except obviously in elections for the EU, which are popular only in Belgium
Western European democracies routinely have an election turnout percentage in the 80's or 90's.
One of the result is a large representation for socialist, extreme left-wing and extreme right wing parties. In the US, this segment of the population by and large doesn't bother to vote.
I'm not saying the poor, angry, permanently unemployed or xenophobic segments of the population should be prevented from voting, but before you actively start encouraging them, be sure you know what you're getting into.
In my opinion, the voter turnout isn't the biggest problem, but the reputation of the voters' representatives. Congress is almost universally despised by the electorate, and this more than anything else is undermining democracy.
Something needs to be done to fix this, both in the behavior of congress (get rid of all lobbyists for example), and in the rhetoric of the media and certain politicians, who blame everything that's wrong, of perceived to be wrong on congress,
I don't think the global warming advocates and detractors disagree about the fact that the use of fossil fuel over the past 2 centuries has changed the CO2 level in the atmosphere.
They don't agree over the amount of influence this has on the climate.
Slashdot Mirror
My current employer has outsourced nearly all of their IT and software development to IBM.
IBM itself estimated the cost of migrating and regression testing all server side software from Websphere 5.x to 6.0 (which will support J2EE 1.4, not Java EE 5) was deemed so prohibitively high, that they instead offered to extend support for the officially discontinued Websphere 5.x.
Supporting multiple versions at the same time, during a long transition period would increase operating cost significantly. I will be surprised if the customer moves to a websphere version that supports java EE 5 or higher within the next 5 years.
At another customer, in the same sector and of similar size, the situation was not much different.
Replacing something old fashioned but still functioning just fine can be very painful if this will mean a nine figure cost and a project of several years.
... you moron, ...
Would you be an immigrant from Holland or northern Germany by any chance?
Why are you so sure H1-B visa holders are paid less than the rest of the workforce?
There is quite a bit of competition over this limited number of visas, so a lot of them are rather highly qualified, and paid accordingly.
I don't see any evidence that the H1-B program has a depressing effect on engineers wages. Typically, an American engineer is paid two or three times as much as his equivalent in western European countries, which either don't have H1-B type positions, or are unable to attract the highly qualified engineers to fill these positions.
Most nerds are not beautiful on the inside.
In fact, if you are, you're probably not really a nerd.
There's nothing more repulsive than a man without confidence and cool
The economy globally has tanked.
It may look like that to you in the UK, but here on the other side of the Channel, it's not so bad. The economy is slowing down, but no mass layoffs. At least not yet.
... (rainfall for irrigation, etc.) ...
My apologies for being pedantic, but there is no evidence that agriculture had been invented 12,900 years ago, nor is it likely that the climate was very suitable for it.
and this sort of thing isn't terribly uncommon in the world of customs and immigration.
I don't know. I travel a lot, and the USA is the only place where I'm finger printed and photographed every time I enter, and where I'm required to provide all the addresses where I'll be staying. The airline is also required to provide my credit card number and other personal data to homeland security prior to every flight.
I'm also required to fill out a form stating that I'm not a terrorist.
It's not that I presume to have any rights in a foreign country, just that I don't entirely agree with your statement that this sort of thing isn't terribly uncommon in the world of customs and immigration. China and Russia don't do it for example.
As far as I can tell from TFA, the new program doesn't include tourists or students... only people intending to reside within the US on a long-term basis.
Tourists and students were already included in this, as I understand it, what's new is that it is being extended to legal residents.
The only thing you have to worry about as a US Citizen is our image abroad. I'm not thrilled about these measures.... however, sarcastic political hysterics and lies rarely ever help change things.
"Image" abroad is an intangible thing that doesn't directly affect anyone. Does any American really care what foreigners think of them?
You might be more affected by reciprocal measures when traveling abroad. If another country were to start treating American visitors the same way, there would be a diplomatic incident.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2004-01-06-brazil-usa_x.htm
http/ftp have done, wtf? Is english your second language?
omg lol wtf!!!1122
furreners r so dum
"Why do crack dealers still live with their moms?" (Steven Levitt)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UGC2nLnaes
It's weird isn't it? Rather than getting a job and leading a reasonably comfortable life in exchange for a reasonable amount of work, many criminals would rather live in poverty and "work" under appalling conditions for a paltry "pay"
Relevant ? Who knows. Anyway, I didn't know about it.
Your past military escapades have been a major factor in establishing the widespread, deep antipathy towards France felt in most European countries.
The EU isn't like the US federal government. The EU is a group of independent nations that have voluntarily chosen to cooperate economically rather than violently competing over scarce resources as in the period up to 1945.
In this sense, the EU has been a great success. War between EU member states is now pretty much unimaginable.
The EU council is not a 'government', the power lies with the various national governments. The primary function of EU regulations is to make the one common market possible without forcing the various member states to revert to the lowest common denominator in terms of quality control, labor laws and taxation in order to prevent their businesses from moving elsewhere.
The EU does not have a lot to do with civil liberties and policy on the national level, which explains the widespread lack of interest in EU politics among voters. Simply making the EU more democratic for the sake of making it more democratic would inevitably amount to making it exclusively pursue the national interests of the largest member states at the expense of the EU as a whole.
I personally like the EU the way it is now. I don't want a European president, a European army or a single European foreign policy. I like my country to be independent as well as having a common European market without internal border controls.
The French started it with their ethnic cleansing campaign against German people in the late 17th century (google for 'Burn the Palatinate')
Or you could say it started with the 30 years war, which killed about a fifth to a quarter of the German population. Before 1870, France was the big bully superpower that always threatened to beat people up.
So it is only the oak trees that are "underhanded" that survive and make new trees.
This sounds plausible, but it only works when different species of oaks and beeches in an area synchronize their cycle, which would require some external trigger.
It shouldn't be hard to find more information on this; probably under ecology literature.
Do you have any pointers?
So I'm not the only geek in the world who takes an interest in trees after all?
I knew about mast years, and the following meagre years. This is a common adaptation to predation pressure or parasites. An extreme example of this are cicadas; predators don't live long enough for their population cycle to become synchronized with that of the cicada.
I'm curious what the synchronization mechanism could be. In my area (north western Europe), last year was a mast year ... for beeches, chestnuts and all four species of oak growing in my area. This fall I found only a handfull of chestnuts, no beech nuts and hardly any acorns.
While hiking in North Carolina this fall, I didn't see a lot of acorn remains either, but I attributed that to having been a bit late in the season.
I'm surprised and intrigued that the phenomenon appears coincided on both sides of the Atlantic this year. Are the cycles synchronized via some global (solar?) external trigger, or is this just coincidence? I always assumed it must be the weather, but that isn't even remotely similar on both sides of the Atlantic.
It's not quite the same. As an American voter, you register your party affiliation: Republican, Democrat or Independent. This registration is a matter of public record. A potential employer or a reporter of the government can find out what party you (most likely) voted for in a given election.
Americans don't trust the government to know exactly where they are living, and don't want the government to take care of everything for them.
Nope, there's a hole to equalize the air pressure inside and out. They're not water tight
The circuit boards, maybe, but you should probably consider the hard disks and the PSU a total loss - there is no way you're going to get those dry without disassembling them, and it takes a specialist with the right tools to be able to disassemble and reassemble a hd.
A method used for drying complicated laboratory equipment is hosing it with acetone and then blowing air through it. This might work for electronics as well. The moisture dissolves in acetone, while the acetone evaporates readily.
Just Basic Organic Chemistry...
I will bet that this process is more expensive than letting mother nature create starches/sugars that we then modify into hydrocarbon "fuels".
It is VERY hard to beat the efficiency of mother nature on this one:
6CO2 + 6H2O + Light = C6H12O6 (Glucose) + 6O2
I wonder what a gallon of this "fuel" costs.
Mother nature uses that process as an energy source for things like flapping flagella back and forth, synthesizing proteins and DNA, splitting viral plasmid, making baby cells etc. If the hydrocarbons are the only part of the process you're interested in, then perhaps you could potentially make the process more efficient by removing all the other parts.
As for what this fuel costs to make, if it resembles a refined product like diesel more than it does crude oil, $100 per barrel would probably be competitive with fossil fuel.
Why not? The algae or cyanobacteria are full of stuff that do things other than photosynthesis, all very essential to the survival and reproduction of the cell, but maybe not to the process of making hydrocarbons out of water and CO2.
The Netherlands usually has a voter turnout percentage in the 80's or 90's, pretty much the same as Belgium, except obviously in elections for the EU, which are popular only in Belgium
http://www.idea.int/vt/survey/voter_turnout_pop2.cfm
Voter apathy isn't necessarily the problem.
Western European democracies routinely have an election turnout percentage in the 80's or 90's.
One of the result is a large representation for socialist, extreme left-wing and extreme right wing parties. In the US, this segment of the population by and large doesn't bother to vote.
I'm not saying the poor, angry, permanently unemployed or xenophobic segments of the population should be prevented from voting, but before you actively start encouraging them, be sure you know what you're getting into.
In my opinion, the voter turnout isn't the biggest problem, but the reputation of the voters' representatives. Congress is almost universally despised by the electorate, and this more than anything else is undermining democracy.
Something needs to be done to fix this, both in the behavior of congress (get rid of all lobbyists for example), and in the rhetoric of the media and certain politicians, who blame everything that's wrong, of perceived to be wrong on congress,
Sorry, this video is only available in the UK
I don't think the global warming advocates and detractors disagree about the fact that the use of fossil fuel over the past 2 centuries has changed the CO2 level in the atmosphere.
They don't agree over the amount of influence this has on the climate.
Has Superstition Evolved To Help Mankind Survive?
So you're saying Superstition didn't evolve, but was created?
I agree. Long ago I noticed that journalists are often spectacularly wrong about stuff I happen to know a lot about.
How can I trust them to be right about things I don't know much about?