Yeah, many jobs that have been replaced were highly skilled; even riding a horse is more difficult than driving a car, arguably, and who can thatch a roof to last 50 years these days? As for shoing horses, probably proportionately many more people can change a car's flat tyre than could change a horse shoe in the days of getting around on horseback. You can see the point, but calling it "low-skilled" is not correct.
Of course they are lower skilled jobs being exported. The rising tide of productivity and economic growth means that "low-skilled job" is a moving target. It's a relative term, and it's an indication that jobs in advanced economies are getting more skilled. Moving jobs overseas costs time and money; it's not done for no reason.
Efficiency is "output/cost". If you get the same output for less money, that's more efficient. A car that goes 100 miles on one gallon is more efficient than an car that goes 50 miles on one gallon.
Calling service jobs not real jobs is an old fallacy. Apparently people had the same reaction during the rise of manufacturing. How could manufacturing be really doing something? It just takes things from nature and rearranges them. Everyone knew that only farming and growing things was really creating value.
If someone pays money for something, then value has been created. Service jobs also include programming the iPod, making movies, designing more efficient road systems, career advice, education, medicine, childcare, babysitting, price comparison,... to me it seems clear there is a lot of value. Mobile dog washes... well, I'm not so sure, but it must be of value to someone.
And the final point in Economics 101: stable economies are not healthy. You need growing economies. The bedrock of growing economies is really simple. It's the allocation of scarce resources to the most effective use, and the most important scarce resource is people. That's why it's good that jobs are destroyed (in the long run): it's the only way to free people for better jobs. Meanwhile, the places where the jobs go are also getting richer, and downloading more music, watching more movies etc etc
I am not depressed. What gave you that idea? I know I'm right because the past 500 years proves me so.
The fact is that for 20 years the US has been bringing the smartest and brightest internationals to work in the US: other governments paid for the first 12 to 15 year of educating these people, but in a global economy, they go to where they add the most value. I bet a lot of IBM's US patents have significant contributions from foreigners who live in the US. The same economic forces that attract PhDs means lower skilled jobs get exported. We can all except that manually harvesting wheat or hand-making horse shoes are low-skilled jobs that long ago got swept aside by technology. Perhaps it's hard to accept that this process never stopped happening.
Sorry for any typos, but the typing pool that I normally use to take my dictation seems to have disappeared in the past 50 years.
They are not "taking jobs"; this is a process of reassigning people to jobs where they are worth the salary they want. It's harsh, but the fact is that if someone in Eastern Europe can do the job for $2000 a month, that is what the job is worth. If you force those jobs to stay in the US at $5000 a month, who pays for this? Either the USD get devalued, or through the force of law you rob the customers of IBM of $3000 a month. Get a grip. Don't you see where this would end? What's so special about IBM workers? Why not block every lost job, and ban every foreign import? Why should T-shirts cost $5 and shoes $70? That's way too cheap, damn foreign labor. Make them in the US, ban the imports and pay $25 for a T-shirt and $200 for shoes. That will fix everything. Of course that's too bad for poor families, but let's fix that with price controls. Or subsidises. Gosh, why didn't anyone think of this before? Anyway, where is Eastern Europe?
Why assume that wikipedia has stopped learning about how it should work? Maybe this proposal is a bad idea. However, it's an attempt to solve a problem, and it's better than the current tool of locking-down pages. Because this will only be used for a small range of pages, I think/hope. What other solutions are there? Peer review is essential in open source projects, why should it be different for Wikipedia? This is a process or technical question.
The problem with Wikipedia is cultural. Peer review can work if the culture is right. Wikipedia is infested with nits. It's has become cliquey and obsessed with a playground-interpretation of "objectivity". I've seen good articles rejected stupidly by people who don't know anything about the topic, but think the application of a few simple "objectivity" rules is a substitute for their ignorance.
Appealing against rejections is Kafka-esque, it is surreal and one of those activities probably best experienced with the aid of mind-altering substances. Extremely demotivating. It's really hard to avoid the conclusion that its deliberately difficult. How sad is that? Is anyone listening?
Stats on contribution would be interesting. If Britannica gets its act together, good because then Wikipedia will have to get young and fresh again. Perhaps it has entered a mid-life crisis, hesitant, defensive and scared of what it has created. Standing on the shoulders of giants is no good if you're scared of heights.
Well speaking as an iPhone user I got to say - BlackBerrys suck.
Speaking as a BlackBerry user, I agree. My reference is a series of Nokias, which the BalckBerrry has taught me to appreciate. The BlackBerry user interface... well, I love to read documentation, but I hate to have to read it.
The OWA ("web scraping") Evolution plugin is no longer developed. The new approach is MAPI, which is the connectivity solution for Exchange 2007. Just search for Evolution Exchange MAPI.
Skype. I use Debian. I skype with people on Macs, Windows and Ubuntu. Why do you rule out skype? It's easy to install. It's not open, but your criteria is "good" and if you mean "it installs easily and it works" then Skype is the answer. It worked with my Toshiba built-in webcam out of the box.
I've been using Ubuntu and Debian on few machines for months. I use Firefox, and Flash. I haven't noticed any problems, so I wonder how big this problem is? Until I read this, Flash support certainly didn't come to mind as a problem for Linux on the desktop.
The Debian browser (or this one, you of course have a choice) is iceweasel. That's its name. The Debian team decided that the branding of Firefox is too restrictive to meet Debian's licence for free software. The solution, iceweasel, is good enough, and that's why no one has added firefox to the non-free repository.
The lazy parties are those few websites that do poor browser sniffing. There are only a few sites that think iceweasel is not the same as firefox. The only one that bothers me is the wsj.com. So most websites either don't care about which browser you use, or correctly treat iceweasel and firefox the same. Somehow, a handful avoid the practices of the many, and make a mistake.
It's not Beta 2 of Lenny. Only the installation program is Beta 2. So that's a big mistake.
And the mistakes continue.
The advice to remove iceweasel and replace it with Firefox is crazy. Iceweasel is 99.99% Firefox, and the version that comes with Debian is optimised to use libraries and other software in the distribution (like spell check). If you follow the advice and use the mozilla version of firefox, you lose this integration.
Some sites "sniff" for browser type, and iceweasel is not detected as Firefox (wsj.com, google docs). This is easily fixed by going to about:config, searching for useragent, and changing "iceweasel" to "firefox". All firefox extensions that I know of work with iceweasel.
To install acrobat reader, just add the http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ repositories, and add the package acroread with Synaptic or apt-get.
I asked a shop in the central business district of Melbourne how the EEE laptop Linux machines were selling now that Asus provides a Microsoft system (with lower hardware specs to compensate for the cost of the OS). The answer was that the Windows version was strongly outselling the Linux version. However, Linux market share is about 0.7% so even if the Windows version is selling 10 to 1, the Linux version is still helping Linux get market share. For the record, I use Debian and for an EEE PC I would recommend to consumers to use the Linux version.
And the Soviets did a lot to make sure the second world war started too: Germany attacked Western Europe safe that the Russians were not going to attack them thanks to most cynical and disgusting treaty ever signed in human history, the Nazi/Soviet non-aggression pact of 1938 (or "partition of Poland pact"). The invasion of Russia by the Germans after they had dispensed with Western Europe, well, let's just say that the Russians discovered a different world view quickly.
France didn't get taken over in the first world war. The French army moved reserves to the front line when it appeared Paris may fall (even using taxis) and stopped the aggressor German imperial army, and then the next four years was spent without the front moving much. I'm an Australian and I haven't heard that joke before. Perhaps more indicative is the fact that in two world wars French freedom stood for something that Australians were willing to die for. The French had no useful allies in the second world war in their time of need: the Americans didn't care and the British hardly had an army, let alone an army on the Continent. The disaster that befell France happened due to inaction of the democracies from 1935 onwards; the French army in 1940 can't take much of the blame, the situation was completely hopeless by then.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, many jobs that have been replaced were highly skilled; even riding a horse is more difficult than driving a car, arguably, and who can thatch a roof to last 50 years these days? As for shoing horses, probably proportionately many more people can change a car's flat tyre than could change a horse shoe in the days of getting around on horseback. You can see the point, but calling it "low-skilled" is not correct.
Of course they are lower skilled jobs being exported. The rising tide of productivity and economic growth means that "low-skilled job" is a moving target. It's a relative term, and it's an indication that jobs in advanced economies are getting more skilled. Moving jobs overseas costs time and money; it's not done for no reason.
Efficiency is "output/cost". If you get the same output for less money, that's more efficient. A car that goes 100 miles on one gallon is more efficient than an car that goes 50 miles on one gallon.
Calling service jobs not real jobs is an old fallacy. Apparently people had the same reaction during the rise of manufacturing. How could manufacturing be really doing something? It just takes things from nature and rearranges them. Everyone knew that only farming and growing things was really creating value.
If someone pays money for something, then value has been created. Service jobs also include programming the iPod, making movies, designing more efficient road systems, career advice, education, medicine, childcare, babysitting, price comparison, ... to me it seems clear there is a lot of value. Mobile dog washes ... well, I'm not so sure, but it must be of value to someone.
And the final point in Economics 101: stable economies are not healthy. You need growing economies. The bedrock of growing economies is really simple. It's the allocation of scarce resources to the most effective use, and the most important scarce resource is people. That's why it's good that jobs are destroyed (in the long run): it's the only way to free people for better jobs. Meanwhile, the places where the jobs go are also getting richer, and downloading more music, watching more movies etc etc
I am not depressed. What gave you that idea? I know I'm right because the past 500 years proves me so.
The fact is that for 20 years the US has been bringing the smartest and brightest internationals to work in the US: other governments paid for the first 12 to 15 year of educating these people, but in a global economy, they go to where they add the most value. I bet a lot of IBM's US patents have significant contributions from foreigners who live in the US. The same economic forces that attract PhDs means lower skilled jobs get exported. We can all except that manually harvesting wheat or hand-making horse shoes are low-skilled jobs that long ago got swept aside by technology. Perhaps it's hard to accept that this process never stopped happening.
Sorry for any typos, but the typing pool that I normally use to take my dictation seems to have disappeared in the past 50 years.
I suppose some people want their pensions to be worth something.
They are not "taking jobs"; this is a process of reassigning people to jobs where they are worth the salary they want. It's harsh, but the fact is that if someone in Eastern Europe can do the job for $2000 a month, that is what the job is worth. If you force those jobs to stay in the US at $5000 a month, who pays for this? Either the USD get devalued, or through the force of law you rob the customers of IBM of $3000 a month. Get a grip. Don't you see where this would end? What's so special about IBM workers? Why not block every lost job, and ban every foreign import? Why should T-shirts cost $5 and shoes $70? That's way too cheap, damn foreign labor. Make them in the US, ban the imports and pay $25 for a T-shirt and $200 for shoes. That will fix everything. Of course that's too bad for poor families, but let's fix that with price controls. Or subsidises. Gosh, why didn't anyone think of this before? Anyway, where is Eastern Europe?
Why assume that wikipedia has stopped learning about how it should work? Maybe this proposal is a bad idea. However, it's an attempt to solve a problem, and it's better than the current tool of locking-down pages. Because this will only be used for a small range of pages, I think/hope. What other solutions are there? Peer review is essential in open source projects, why should it be different for Wikipedia? This is a process or technical question.
The problem with Wikipedia is cultural. Peer review can work if the culture is right. Wikipedia is infested with nits. It's has become cliquey and obsessed with a playground-interpretation of "objectivity". I've seen good articles rejected stupidly by people who don't know anything about the topic, but think the application of a few simple "objectivity" rules is a substitute for their ignorance.
Appealing against rejections is Kafka-esque, it is surreal and one of those activities probably best experienced with the aid of mind-altering substances. Extremely demotivating. It's really hard to avoid the conclusion that its deliberately difficult. How sad is that? Is anyone listening?
Stats on contribution would be interesting. If Britannica gets its act together, good because then Wikipedia will have to get young and fresh again. Perhaps it has entered a mid-life crisis, hesitant, defensive and scared of what it has created. Standing on the shoulders of giants is no good if you're scared of heights.
Finally, the launch of Microsoft Y2K Bug.
It's to earn the "Windows 7 capable" sticker.
Well speaking as an iPhone user I got to say - BlackBerrys suck.
Speaking as a BlackBerry user, I agree. My reference is a series of Nokias, which the BalckBerrry has taught me to appreciate. The BlackBerry user interface ... well, I love to read documentation, but I hate to have to read it.
Is not providing a key or password "probable cause"?
The OWA ("web scraping") Evolution plugin is no longer developed. The new approach is MAPI, which is the connectivity solution for Exchange 2007. Just search for Evolution Exchange MAPI.
Skype.
I use Debian. I skype with people on Macs, Windows and Ubuntu. Why do you rule out skype? It's easy to install. It's not open, but your criteria is "good" and if you mean "it installs easily and it works" then Skype is the answer. It worked with my Toshiba built-in webcam out of the box.
What a strange thread this is.
Ahead of its time? It was two years late!
I've been using Ubuntu and Debian on few machines for months. I use Firefox, and Flash. I haven't noticed any problems, so I wonder how big this problem is? Until I read this, Flash support certainly didn't come to mind as a problem for Linux on the desktop.
The Debian browser (or this one, you of course have a choice) is iceweasel. That's its name. The Debian team decided that the branding of Firefox is too restrictive to meet Debian's licence for free software. The solution, iceweasel, is good enough, and that's why no one has added firefox to the non-free repository.
The lazy parties are those few websites that do poor browser sniffing. There are only a few sites that think iceweasel is not the same as firefox. The only one that bothers me is the wsj.com. So most websites either don't care about which browser you use, or correctly treat iceweasel and firefox the same. Somehow, a handful avoid the practices of the many, and make a mistake.
It's not Beta 2 of Lenny. Only the installation program is Beta 2. So that's a big mistake.
And the mistakes continue.
The advice to remove iceweasel and replace it with Firefox is crazy. Iceweasel is 99.99% Firefox, and the version that comes with Debian is optimised to use libraries and other software in the distribution (like spell check). If you follow the advice and use the mozilla version of firefox, you lose this integration.
Some sites "sniff" for browser type, and iceweasel is not detected as Firefox (wsj.com, google docs). This is easily fixed by going to about:config, searching for useragent, and changing "iceweasel" to "firefox".
All firefox extensions that I know of work with iceweasel.
To install acrobat reader, just add the http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ repositories, and add the package acroread with Synaptic or apt-get.
Why use IE? Hell, the daily newspaper and the telephone directory are enough for me. I'll put this in the mail tomorrow.
Mr vonPoonBurGer, who are you to lecture?
I asked a shop in the central business district of Melbourne how the EEE laptop Linux machines were selling now that Asus provides a Microsoft system (with lower hardware specs to compensate for the cost of the OS). The answer was that the Windows version was strongly outselling the Linux version. However, Linux market share is about 0.7% so even if the Windows version is selling 10 to 1, the Linux version is still helping Linux get market share.
For the record, I use Debian and for an EEE PC I would recommend to consumers to use the Linux version.
Had "no army" because he purged almost the entire officer corp.
it is quite hard to get notebooks without Windows in many countries.
And the Soviets did a lot to make sure the second world war started too: Germany attacked Western Europe safe that the Russians were not going to attack them thanks to most cynical and disgusting treaty ever signed in human history, the Nazi/Soviet non-aggression pact of 1938 (or "partition of Poland pact"). The invasion of Russia by the Germans after they had dispensed with Western Europe, well, let's just say that the Russians discovered a different world view quickly.
France didn't get taken over in the first world war. The French army moved reserves to the front line when it appeared Paris may fall (even using taxis) and stopped the aggressor German imperial army, and then the next four years was spent without the front moving much.
I'm an Australian and I haven't heard that joke before. Perhaps more indicative is the fact that in two world wars French freedom stood for something that Australians were willing to die for. The French had no useful allies in the second world war in their time of need: the Americans didn't care and the British hardly had an army, let alone an army on the Continent. The disaster that befell France happened due to inaction of the democracies from 1935 onwards; the French army in 1940 can't take much of the blame, the situation was completely hopeless by then.
My HP calculator is Vista Capable. It has a sticker that says so.
Does the software get the patent, or the algorithm?