Why not get VOIP and get rid of your phone instead, you'll save enough money on phone bills to justify the broadband connection. Also host your own site if you have one, seems better to find a good use for the bandwidth you have, rther than to get rid if it altogether.
M
This happens all the time with outsourcing/offshoring, when you send your customer's data to another country, you give up the privacy protections afforded by your country's laws. The Canadians are blowing by sending there data to the US, now that are constutional rights are infringed, also I'd rather not have my data sent to India etc. Caveat emptor!
Let's face it many ASP's in this country are unreliable, incompetent or downright dishonest. The ones overseas are even worse, and there out of reach of both the US legal system and 'Icepick Vinnie'. Anyone who trust the offshore companies, even the big ones like WIPRO is just palin nuts I think. I've done tons of work on messed up outsourced coce, so this opinion is based on my experience. Wouldn't necessarily trust US companies like EDS or whatever either, but at least you could drag them into court, can't realistically do that to overseas comapnies.
In FOSS software, the developers get paid in many cases, I work on a FOSS project full time and get paid for it. The difference between FOSS software and commercial is that money does not get wasted and layers of management, adverstising, and general coroprate greed. Also FOSS projects are more efficient because a small number of very skilled and motivated developers do all the work rather than using a large number of low skilled offshore workers, which tends to be a wasteful and inefficient method. I like FOSS because it allows me the developer to do interesting work and still get paid. In most commercial projects I've worked on the developers got screwed due to the incompetence and greed of the management. At least in FOSS the developers get most of the available money, and we have streamlined the procress that consist of the developers and users only, money and time are not wasted on management, offshoring, advertising, and corporate larceny. Paying people to manage software projects when they neither understand the developers or users is a huge waste of money, yet this how most commercial projects are done. FOSS is still a business model, and a superior one, its just a different that the traditional software business model which is apparantly based largely on greed and ignorance. If business people want to call us communist, that's fine, in words of Comrad Kruschev 'We will bury them'.
Viva Open Souce!
Sounds cool, should replace my current WIFI security scheme which consist of a 12 guage loaded with rock salt. Get off my network you ding darn kids!
M
What will US companies who outsource to India do when they start getting sued left and right for violating patents? Seems like India is determined to make all the same mistakes we have and they will kill their own tech industry. This and the imminient collapse of the dollar will only help us US programmers.
M
There are many, many available US programmers, if you don't know an unemployed programmer, you probably don't live in the US. The H1-B program is merely a tool used by greedy corporations to hire workers for well less than the prevailing wage. It is an outrage that this program even exist considering the rampant un-employment in our domestic IT industry. It seems that this current administration will stop at nothing to give every last US job to a foriegn national. When we have no indusry left at all, and the dollar collapses, and our econmomy is in shambles, we will have nothing to blame but idiotic greed driven policies like the H1-B program.
M
Mark
The good thing about Palm is that it is not PC like, the simplicity of the OS is its best feature, I don't need a file system, or floating point numbers etc. Having a simple robust OS that runs on hardware that draws little power, has no moving parts and will actually function in adverse conditions is a huge advantage. Turns out you really don't need a file system or floating point numbers or a 32 bit OS to implement complex applications. Also Palm devices are as cheap as $75 for OS 5 models. My current project http://www.snowpilot.org uses base level Palm devices to collect Snow science data in the field, the conditions are quite adverse, (extreme cold, moisture etc.) this type of project would be very difficult to implent on heavy weight hardware and OS. I love Palm OS because it is the opposite of PC, the more they try to make it PC like the more they'll ruin it. Developers have implemented all kinds of very powerful apps on Palm without all the extraneous PC like features, and this can continue, if it ain't broke don't fix it. If you want a more PC like OS why not use Pocket PC/ Windows Mobile?
Mark
I appluad the current administration for running horrendous and unsustainable debt, this will invariable lead to a massive devaluation in the dollar, and subsuquently an end to outsourcing. Most international analyst are predicting an Argentina style economic implosion in the US unless significant fiscal changes are made. The current administration however seems determined to 'stay the course' on our path to bankruptcy. One of the few bright spots in the Argentinian economy however, is an outsourcing boom since there wages/currency are so weak on the global market.
Mark
As Palm developer I've never found the lack of file system to be a problem. Moreover the siplicity and compactness of the DB system is quite desirable. The best thing about Palm OS is that it is simple and robust. I tend to think that the file system got added because other operating systems have such.
I concur most heartily, Navier Stokes is one of the Milenium problems, see:
http://www.efunda.com/formulae/smc_fluids/navier_s tokes.cfm
for a brief overview.
MM
Seems like we've reached record un-employment and negative real wage growth under the Bush administration quite well, maybe a change would be good. Also I think the econimist consider only what's good for the large corp's which is not nescessarily what is good for the country as a whole. If the large corp's had there way every last American job would be sent over seas or given to an H1-B etc.
Seems like PDA are really coming into their own for outdoor use. It seems like regular Palm Pilot PDA's hold up well outside anyway, I regularly use mine back country skiing and so do many guides and avalanche forecasters, see http:\\www.snowpilot.org
Great now you'll have to include 60 MB of IDL code to run any program. Where do these ideas come from? Who would think to port a bloated server app development API to a portable device..NET is loved by managers who think they can dumb down their server side code so any H1-B can do it, that's about it. Nobody even uses.NET for desktop apps, so where'd the idiotic idea that it would take off in a portable environment come from. The main reason I refuse to use.NET for desktop apps is the 60 MB IDL needs to be included, better to VB 6 or anything else for that matter.
M
Apparantly the President knows about this but the white house is reluctant to admit it, the White House doesn't mention the mushroom cloud, but refers to ' a confusing series of actions', this seems a bit odd, since the word is already out that there most likely was a nuclear detonation in N. Korea, see MY Times article below:
Atomic Activity in North Korea Raises Concerns
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: September 12, 2004
ASHINGTON, Sept. 11 - President Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports in recent days describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon, according to senior officials with access to the intelligence.
While the indications were viewed as serious enough to warrant a warning to the White House, American intelligence agencies appear divided about the significance of the new North Korean actions, much as they were about the evidence concerning Iraq's alleged weapons stockpiles.
Advertisement
Some analysts in agencies that were the most cautious about the Iraq findings have cautioned that they do not believe the activity detected in North Korea in the past three weeks is necessarily the harbinger of a test. A senior scientist who assesses nuclear intelligence says the new evidence "is not conclusive," but is potentially worrisome.
If successful, a test would end a debate that stretches back more than a decade over whether North Korea has a rudimentary arsenal, as it has boasted in recent years. Some analysts also fear that a test could change the balance of power in Asia, perhaps leading to a new nuclear arms race there.
In interviews on Friday and Saturday, senior officials were reluctant to provide many details of the new activities they have detected, but some of the information appears to have come from satellite intelligence.
One official with access to the intelligence called it "a series of indicators of increased activity that we believe would be associated with a test," saying that the "likelihood" of a North Korean test had risen significantly in just the past four weeks. It was that changed assessment that led to the decision to give an update to President Bush, the officials said.
The activities included the movement of materials around several suspected test sites, including one near a location where intelligence agencies reported last year that conventional explosives were being tested that could compress a plutonium core and set off a nuclear blast. But officials have not seen the classic indicators of preparations at a test site, in which cables are laid to measure an explosion in a deep test pit.
"I'm not sure you would see that in a country that has tunnels everywhere," said one senior official who has reviewed the data. Officials said if North Korea proceeded with a test, it would probably be with a plutonium bomb, perhaps one fabricated from the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that the North has boasted in the past few months have been reprocessed into bomb fuel.
A senior intelligence official noted Saturday that even if "they are doing something, it doesn't mean they will" conduct a test, noting that preparations that the North knew could be detected by the United States might be a scare tactic or negotiating tactic by the North Korean government.
Several officials speculated that the test, if it occurred, could be intended to influence the presidential election, though a senior military official said while "an election surprise" could be the motive, "I'm not sure what that would buy them."
While the intelligence community's experience in Iraq colors how it assesses threats in places like North Korea, the comparisons are inexact. Inspectors have seen and measured the raw material that the North could turn into bomb fuel; the only question is whether they have done so in the 20 months since arms inspectors were ousted. While Iraq denied it has weapons, the North boasts about them - perhaps too loudly, sugge
First of all brilliant article by Prof. Samuelson. I've long recognized that the assumptions used by the pro-outsourcers to be flawed, the Keysian model that assumes a free flow of labor, and capital, that does not account for immigration laws, environental impact, and tax structure. A recent survey indicates that companies who use outsourcing are only saving around 20 to 40 percent, if they save money at all. This is roughly equivalent to the de-facto tax breaks obtained by outsourcing in avoiding payroll taxes. In other words the only reason anyone on average saves money outsourcing is because they avoid US payroll taxes. One would think that the current administration would be concerned about the loss of tax revenue, instead they have proclaimed that outsourcing is all good, and the lack of tax revenue is irrelevant because according to the VP 'deficits don't matter'. The good news is the outsourcing problem could be easily addressed by repealing the tax break, and forcing companies to pay taxes on outsourced labor. At least Senator Kerry claims he will address the outsourcing issue, if he is sincere, I'm sure there are things that can be done to change the tax structure to at least improve the situation. We can all go out on Nov 2 and vote to fire the current administration who financial recklessness threatens us all, and who's mantra seems to be 'Outsourcing is always good' and 'deficits don't matter'.
M
The country music station KNIX in Pheonix Az has a shuv it line where you can call in and tell your boss to take his job and shuv it on the air. At the end they play Jonnie Paycheck's 'Take This Job and Shuv It.' This is or was generally done on Friday afternoon.
M
Like many security features, no encryption scheme will ever be completely secure, if someone is willing to throw enough CPU cycles at it, they can crack it. The purpose of security is to make it more trouble to steal or de-crypt something than the item or information is worth, not be completely un-crackable since there very well may be no such thing.
M
Slashdot Mirror
Why not get VOIP and get rid of your phone instead, you'll save enough money on phone bills to justify the broadband connection. Also host your own site if you have one, seems better to find a good use for the bandwidth you have, rther than to get rid if it altogether. M
you'd be using Mac OS X.
About what you'd expect from the PRC (People's Republic of Califormia). M
So in China when a reactor melts down, is that referred to as the 'American Syndrome'? M
This happens all the time with outsourcing/offshoring, when you send your customer's data to another country, you give up the privacy protections afforded by your country's laws. The Canadians are blowing by sending there data to the US, now that are constutional rights are infringed, also I'd rather not have my data sent to India etc. Caveat emptor!
Let's face it many ASP's in this country are unreliable, incompetent or downright dishonest. The ones overseas are even worse, and there out of reach of both the US legal system and 'Icepick Vinnie'. Anyone who trust the offshore companies, even the big ones like WIPRO is just palin nuts I think. I've done tons of work on messed up outsourced coce, so this opinion is based on my experience. Wouldn't necessarily trust US companies like EDS or whatever either, but at least you could drag them into court, can't realistically do that to overseas comapnies.
In FOSS software, the developers get paid in many cases, I work on a FOSS project full time and get paid for it. The difference between FOSS software and commercial is that money does not get wasted and layers of management, adverstising, and general coroprate greed. Also FOSS projects are more efficient because a small number of very skilled and motivated developers do all the work rather than using a large number of low skilled offshore workers, which tends to be a wasteful and inefficient method. I like FOSS because it allows me the developer to do interesting work and still get paid. In most commercial projects I've worked on the developers got screwed due to the incompetence and greed of the management. At least in FOSS the developers get most of the available money, and we have streamlined the procress that consist of the developers and users only, money and time are not wasted on management, offshoring, advertising, and corporate larceny. Paying people to manage software projects when they neither understand the developers or users is a huge waste of money, yet this how most commercial projects are done. FOSS is still a business model, and a superior one, its just a different that the traditional software business model which is apparantly based largely on greed and ignorance. If business people want to call us communist, that's fine, in words of Comrad Kruschev 'We will bury them'. Viva Open Souce!
Sounds cool, should replace my current WIFI security scheme which consist of a 12 guage loaded with rock salt. Get off my network you ding darn kids! M
We've been using vonage, make a lot of calls to UK and Argentina, usually runs 2 - 4 cents/minute, and the quality is excellent. M
That would have solved the Social Security solvency problem.
What will US companies who outsource to India do when they start getting sued left and right for violating patents? Seems like India is determined to make all the same mistakes we have and they will kill their own tech industry. This and the imminient collapse of the dollar will only help us US programmers. M
There are many, many available US programmers, if you don't know an unemployed programmer, you probably don't live in the US. The H1-B program is merely a tool used by greedy corporations to hire workers for well less than the prevailing wage. It is an outrage that this program even exist considering the rampant un-employment in our domestic IT industry. It seems that this current administration will stop at nothing to give every last US job to a foriegn national. When we have no indusry left at all, and the dollar collapses, and our econmomy is in shambles, we will have nothing to blame but idiotic greed driven policies like the H1-B program. M Mark
The good thing about Palm is that it is not PC like, the simplicity of the OS is its best feature, I don't need a file system, or floating point numbers etc. Having a simple robust OS that runs on hardware that draws little power, has no moving parts and will actually function in adverse conditions is a huge advantage. Turns out you really don't need a file system or floating point numbers or a 32 bit OS to implement complex applications. Also Palm devices are as cheap as $75 for OS 5 models. My current project http://www.snowpilot.org uses base level Palm devices to collect Snow science data in the field, the conditions are quite adverse, (extreme cold, moisture etc.) this type of project would be very difficult to implent on heavy weight hardware and OS. I love Palm OS because it is the opposite of PC, the more they try to make it PC like the more they'll ruin it. Developers have implemented all kinds of very powerful apps on Palm without all the extraneous PC like features, and this can continue, if it ain't broke don't fix it. If you want a more PC like OS why not use Pocket PC/ Windows Mobile? Mark
If 2 many 'puter iz bad fer yuz, tha'd mean peplez like ize which haz a lod uv 'puterz wudz be reawy reawy dum
I appluad the current administration for running horrendous and unsustainable debt, this will invariable lead to a massive devaluation in the dollar, and subsuquently an end to outsourcing. Most international analyst are predicting an Argentina style economic implosion in the US unless significant fiscal changes are made. The current administration however seems determined to 'stay the course' on our path to bankruptcy. One of the few bright spots in the Argentinian economy however, is an outsourcing boom since there wages/currency are so weak on the global market. Mark
As Palm developer I've never found the lack of file system to be a problem. Moreover the siplicity and compactness of the DB system is quite desirable. The best thing about Palm OS is that it is simple and robust. I tend to think that the file system got added because other operating systems have such.
M
I concur most heartily, Navier Stokes is one of the Milenium problems, see: http://www.efunda.com/formulae/smc_fluids/navier_s tokes.cfm
for a brief overview.
MM
Seems like we've reached record un-employment and negative real wage growth under the Bush administration quite well, maybe a change would be good. Also I think the econimist consider only what's good for the large corp's which is not nescessarily what is good for the country as a whole. If the large corp's had there way every last American job would be sent over seas or given to an H1-B etc.
M
see http://www.snowpilot.org, free and open source software snow science data collection. Mark
Seems like PDA are really coming into their own for outdoor use. It seems like regular Palm Pilot PDA's hold up well outside anyway, I regularly use mine back country skiing and so do many guides and avalanche forecasters, see http:\\www.snowpilot.org
Great now you'll have to include 60 MB of IDL code to run any program. Where do these ideas come from? Who would think to port a bloated server app development API to a portable device. .NET is loved by managers who think they can dumb down their server side code so any H1-B can do it, that's about it. Nobody even uses .NET for desktop apps, so where'd the idiotic idea that it would take off in a portable environment come from. The main reason I refuse to use .NET for desktop apps is the 60 MB IDL needs to be included, better to VB 6 or anything else for that matter.
M
Apparantly the President knows about this but the white house is reluctant to admit it, the White House doesn't mention the mushroom cloud, but refers to ' a confusing series of actions', this seems a bit odd, since the word is already out that there most likely was a nuclear detonation in N. Korea, see MY Times article below: Atomic Activity in North Korea Raises Concerns By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: September 12, 2004 ASHINGTON, Sept. 11 - President Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports in recent days describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon, according to senior officials with access to the intelligence. While the indications were viewed as serious enough to warrant a warning to the White House, American intelligence agencies appear divided about the significance of the new North Korean actions, much as they were about the evidence concerning Iraq's alleged weapons stockpiles. Advertisement Some analysts in agencies that were the most cautious about the Iraq findings have cautioned that they do not believe the activity detected in North Korea in the past three weeks is necessarily the harbinger of a test. A senior scientist who assesses nuclear intelligence says the new evidence "is not conclusive," but is potentially worrisome. If successful, a test would end a debate that stretches back more than a decade over whether North Korea has a rudimentary arsenal, as it has boasted in recent years. Some analysts also fear that a test could change the balance of power in Asia, perhaps leading to a new nuclear arms race there. In interviews on Friday and Saturday, senior officials were reluctant to provide many details of the new activities they have detected, but some of the information appears to have come from satellite intelligence. One official with access to the intelligence called it "a series of indicators of increased activity that we believe would be associated with a test," saying that the "likelihood" of a North Korean test had risen significantly in just the past four weeks. It was that changed assessment that led to the decision to give an update to President Bush, the officials said. The activities included the movement of materials around several suspected test sites, including one near a location where intelligence agencies reported last year that conventional explosives were being tested that could compress a plutonium core and set off a nuclear blast. But officials have not seen the classic indicators of preparations at a test site, in which cables are laid to measure an explosion in a deep test pit. "I'm not sure you would see that in a country that has tunnels everywhere," said one senior official who has reviewed the data. Officials said if North Korea proceeded with a test, it would probably be with a plutonium bomb, perhaps one fabricated from the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that the North has boasted in the past few months have been reprocessed into bomb fuel. A senior intelligence official noted Saturday that even if "they are doing something, it doesn't mean they will" conduct a test, noting that preparations that the North knew could be detected by the United States might be a scare tactic or negotiating tactic by the North Korean government. Several officials speculated that the test, if it occurred, could be intended to influence the presidential election, though a senior military official said while "an election surprise" could be the motive, "I'm not sure what that would buy them." While the intelligence community's experience in Iraq colors how it assesses threats in places like North Korea, the comparisons are inexact. Inspectors have seen and measured the raw material that the North could turn into bomb fuel; the only question is whether they have done so in the 20 months since arms inspectors were ousted. While Iraq denied it has weapons, the North boasts about them - perhaps too loudly, sugge
First of all brilliant article by Prof. Samuelson. I've long recognized that the assumptions used by the pro-outsourcers to be flawed, the Keysian model that assumes a free flow of labor, and capital, that does not account for immigration laws, environental impact, and tax structure. A recent survey indicates that companies who use outsourcing are only saving around 20 to 40 percent, if they save money at all. This is roughly equivalent to the de-facto tax breaks obtained by outsourcing in avoiding payroll taxes. In other words the only reason anyone on average saves money outsourcing is because they avoid US payroll taxes. One would think that the current administration would be concerned about the loss of tax revenue, instead they have proclaimed that outsourcing is all good, and the lack of tax revenue is irrelevant because according to the VP 'deficits don't matter'. The good news is the outsourcing problem could be easily addressed by repealing the tax break, and forcing companies to pay taxes on outsourced labor. At least Senator Kerry claims he will address the outsourcing issue, if he is sincere, I'm sure there are things that can be done to change the tax structure to at least improve the situation. We can all go out on Nov 2 and vote to fire the current administration who financial recklessness threatens us all, and who's mantra seems to be 'Outsourcing is always good' and 'deficits don't matter'. M
The country music station KNIX in Pheonix Az has a shuv it line where you can call in and tell your boss to take his job and shuv it on the air. At the end they play Jonnie Paycheck's 'Take This Job and Shuv It.' This is or was generally done on Friday afternoon. M
Like many security features, no encryption scheme will ever be completely secure, if someone is willing to throw enough CPU cycles at it, they can crack it. The purpose of security is to make it more trouble to steal or de-crypt something than the item or information is worth, not be completely un-crackable since there very well may be no such thing. M