The obvious fix is to split up the elections so fewer choices and more informed electorate
I'd agree with that if holding elections didn't cost money. Many states/counties/communities have consolidated elections to reduce the costs, which are generally not reimbursed. Any time a special election is held, somebody will sue or complain about the unwarranted expense.
I see no advantage in cost, speed, security, or accuracy with moving from the system we are currently using to some ethereal electronic touch-screen system.
The E-voting machines have a number of advantages. Since you mentioned speed, hey just poke the tallying computer and it spits out the totals. That's fast. Need a recount? Poke it again, and it'll give you exactly the same numbers again. Is that great or what? No messy disputes. There are further advantages for election officials using Diebold machines: Enter the proper two digit code, and you can change the totals to more accurately represent what your community really intended. Oh, and there's an easy way to change the logs, so pesky reporters and other snoops won't cause problems. These new machines have tons of features that make them far superior to older voting methods. It's Luddites like you who are holding back progress and the election of my favorite candidate.:)
It wasn't real when he wrote them, so he wrote fantasy. You can't change it to, for example, historical fiction retroactively.
Clarke used the science at the time and its progress to fairly accurately predict the near future. That's not fantasy. Fantasy is when you write, "From under her cloak and behind the cascade of golden hair, gossamer double wings appeared, spread outwards and vibrated, lifting her tiny, green-velvet clad feet a man's height above the courtyard's rough-hewn stone paving as she intoned in a lilting elven accent, 'Luser.'"
Be it right or wrong facts doesn't matter.
That has to be one of the all-time best AC quotes. Ever.
Wow, this will be a great article for the trolls. You're sure to see a lot of ridiculous posts here. . . . I was working with the FBI, on a special mission in Russia . ..
LOL. Okay, that was ridiculous. Nice troll - the guy that modded it insightful is probably out waxing his Yugo now.
Let me try. There is no way you're going to rid the equipment of the stench unless you sacrifice a PETA member and cremate the remains in the room with the equipment. The smoky holiness will counteract the "unholy" residue mentioned. It works doubly well if the PETA member is a virgin. The only side-effect is that all subsequent users of the equipment will become politicized vegetarians (well, that and the ashes all over everything).
For the record, Bradbury opposes Moore's theft of Bradbury's title.
I'm no fan of Moore's (and I am a Bradbury fan), but for the record, I channel Walt whitman, and he's opposed to Bradbury's theft of the title, I Sing the Body Electric.:)
"Stargate" was "What if there were portals that could allow people to travel between planets".
Oh, so that's what Stargate is about; I've always wondered. I thought it was about taking the worst parts of Dr. Who's transportation, Star Trek's aliens (and alien crystal devices/controls) with costumes from the original Planet of the Apes, the nasty Dune movie's silly weirding weapons, and the military expertise of Gomer Pyle in No Time for Sergeants and mixing it all together. My mistake.
The US patent office once announced that they were done with their work because everything that could possibly be invented was already made - and this was somewhere around 1900 (the actual date escapes me at the moment).
That is definitely fantasy. The day any government agency proclaims its work is done, you'd better drop what you're doing and start walking toward the light lest you be left behind.
I assume you're talking about the stuff on the SciFi Channel. Aurthur C. Clarke wrote science fiction. Much of it was certainly not fantasy since some of it has happened and some is still works in progress.
No one wants to loose their jobs overseas, so we begin attacking the Indian's who get them. Don't blame them.
That's astroturfing crap. Jobs offshored are going to China, Ireland, Russia, Poland, Canada, Mexico, and others as well as India.
Blame your lifestyle.
No. I blame the lifestyle of the American CEO who makes many millions of dollars per year by convincing a board of directors comprised of (and compromised by) other CEOs, that s/he has cut costs by offshoring. The reality may be quite different or the results may be a one-time saving while the company's IP was stolen by the offshore operation. (Think Cisco, Oracle, etc.)
IMHO globalization is inevitable. If the US attempts to climb into a dark closet and close the door on the rest of the world, the rest of the world will soon be a richer, freer, and more technologically advanced than the US.
Who said anything about isolationism (although I'm not opposed to it)? What about a level playing field? Why are other countries allowed to bring IT workers into the U.S. at will on an L1 visa or get temporary (haha) H-1B visas? The converse is not true. If you support the status quo and the exportation of technology-related work to other countries, then the rest of the world will definitely become "more technologically advanced than the US" when we no longer have anyone doing such work (much like the textile and garment industries now).
Note that this is a very close relative of one of standard arguments against open source: free software, often developed overseas, harm American companies because they don't have any technological edge any more.
The real reason "American companies . . . don't have any technological edge any more" is because companies like Cisco and Oracle have offshored their technology operations and had it stolen. It seems some countries don't have our tender concern for IP rights, don't have specific laws to protect it, and aren't concerned about trying to prosecute it. It has to do with ethics, professionalism, legal responsibility, and corporate greed for offshoring their IP in the first place - not F/OSS.
Makes sense, but I'll reserve judgement until the majority of economists have had a chance to weigh in on it.
The "majority of economists" hold opinions which disagree with a majority of other economists. Ask the same question of three different economists, and you'll get three different opinions. Really, you need to think it through for yourself; many economists have a vested interest in their *opinions*.
answer: corporate salary cap, just like in sports.
Actually, that could be part of the answer - a salary cap for management. The feds made a move in that direction when they changed tax policy to be more favorable for stock options as opposed to straight salary. The problem is that it backfired (as do most *good ideas* from the government), and executive compensation continues unchecked, especially for those who offshore. Damping the greed of execs would likely lead to less short-term profit generation and more long-term beneficial leadership for the companies. Perhaps a CEO who is really interested in the good of the company might be better for the company than a CEO who is more interested in how much s/he can raid before using their golden parachute.
How about we stop wasting money on sports programs and put it toward paying teachers properly and giving students the tools they need in order to achieve greatness?
Because the parents won't stand for it. When our local school district had a budget shortfall, they tried to raise taxes and were voted down. When they said they were going to cut the band and sports programs, people howled and then passed a second tax increase measure. I don't think the message about what's really important was lost on the school board.
Actually, I probably don't qualify since it was before the USC became part of CSU, but it's still good to see the name on/. Good luck on your start-up. If IT employment was as good as everyone claims, I'd still be in Colorado.:)
You cannot seriously deny that someone who was hired with the privelege of making such decisions has the right to do fire whoever they want for whatever reason. It is a sad fact of life, that often hurts the worker.
That is one of the most amoral statements I've ever seen. You're suggesting a person in power has the right to fire anyone for personal gain simply because she has the power.
It sounds like you're saying that the worker has the right to tell the CEO or owner what they can and cannot do with their company when it comes to who gets to work and stay there, except if it comes to firing the execs, which you must hate absolutely, being non-management and all......Carly Fiorina? Very clever.
I didn't say anything of the sort, Carly, but your firing of the HP executives who tried to implement your ruinous policies was truly entertaining and makes my point very well.
If I demanded a salary of £50k to sweep the streets, I'd expect my job to go to someone else. That's just logical. IT is footloose, by which I mean it's not dependent on location (no raw materials needed), and as such it can operate almost anywhere.
There is no IT organized labor in the U.S. If the companies want to offer a certain salary for a given job, they can, but they don't. The companies are making a point about moving jobs overseas in order to boost stock prices because it plays well in the financial press. The end result is that the CEO makes another fortune while a few thousand U.S. workers lose their jobs.
Shortsided? Didn't the 1980's already happen 20 years ago?
I don't care how short your sides are, the comment was short-sighted, meaning lacking foresight. And yes the 80's did happen about 20 years ago - that's called hindsight (and I don't care how short your hinds are either).
In twenty years it will be another country, another job sector, and another bunch of doomsayers.
I certainly hope it won't be another country. The point is still the same: What is the next "job sector"? So far, nobody has been able to identify it. Please enlighten us.
I find it funny that when I went to school (Colorado State University), I was #1 in all my classes. But my competition were the Indians and Chinese, not Americans. As a nation, we have gotten lazy and and are paying the price.
CSU?! Homie! However, I have to disagree. We have hundreds of thousands of well-educated, experienced people who built great companies and were then discarded in order to bolster the bottom line of companies that were already highly profitable. We will really pay the price when there is no longer an American IT industry.
Ah... you misinterpreted my comment about out of work or "underpaid" programmers trying to get ahead at the expense of others. A programmer, or former programmer, who is supporting an organization lobbying to congress on his behalf is doing so for his own benefit --- and it will come at the expense of others if the money [undeniably] saved in outsourcing said job is denied and I am practically forced to pay for the programmer to keep his job.
I don't think I'm misinterpreting anything. Programmers or IT workers in general are not organized labor. You are not being forced to pay for their labor, which is highly obvious, since their jobs are being offshored.
If you reduce the number of people that can go on unemployment/welfare, reduce the benefits of being on unemployment/welfare, people will be forced to stay off it. Without these often dependency creating institutions, government spending has no "reason" to go up.
Kill the slow, weak, and unfortunate. A great system. I'm a conservative, and even I can't buy that.
The owner of the company has the right to choose who to fire and who not to fire. It is their company, not the workers. If he fires workers needlessly, then he might very well have to pay for it in the long run. However, since the jobs are not being destroyed, just outsourced, employees are still being... employed.
The CEO of a company is not the owner. A *company* in both historical and modern terms is the combination of shareholders and employees. The CEO should have no "right" to fire employees to bolster his/her salary.
If the workers do not own the company, it is not their decision. In a society of a free market, government has no place in deciding this either.
OMG, I just realized I'm having a discussion with Carly Fiorina.
It should be their privilege to pay exorbitant prices so as to support the grossly inflated salaries of the minority that actually matter i.e. you.
Um, are these the same people making "grossly inflated salaries" that built the company? And that is opposed to the blood-sucking, parasite CxOs like your namesake who just ruin companies for their personal gain?
Offshoring tech jobs will not lead to the economic disaster liberals are waiting for. Besides it must be good, George Soros' companies made millions consulting US companies on moving jobs offshore.
That has got to be the ultimate short-sighted comment. People in the Vichy regime did well for themselves also. I want you to print out your comment, frame it, and hang it on the wall. Then read it twenty years from now.
Slashdot Mirror
The obvious fix is to split up the elections so fewer choices and more informed electorate
I'd agree with that if holding elections didn't cost money. Many states/counties/communities have consolidated elections to reduce the costs, which are generally not reimbursed. Any time a special election is held, somebody will sue or complain about the unwarranted expense.
I see no advantage in cost, speed, security, or accuracy with moving from the system we are currently using to some ethereal electronic touch-screen system.
The E-voting machines have a number of advantages. Since you mentioned speed, hey just poke the tallying computer and it spits out the totals. That's fast. Need a recount? Poke it again, and it'll give you exactly the same numbers again. Is that great or what? No messy disputes. There are further advantages for election officials using Diebold machines: Enter the proper two digit code, and you can change the totals to more accurately represent what your community really intended. Oh, and there's an easy way to change the logs, so pesky reporters and other snoops won't cause problems. These new machines have tons of features that make them far superior to older voting methods. It's Luddites like you who are holding back progress and the election of my favorite candidate. :)
Thanks. It's good to know that someone caught the double-entendre. :)
It wasn't real when he wrote them, so he wrote fantasy. You can't change it to, for example, historical fiction retroactively.
Clarke used the science at the time and its progress to fairly accurately predict the near future. That's not fantasy. Fantasy is when you write, "From under her cloak and behind the cascade of golden hair, gossamer double wings appeared, spread outwards and vibrated, lifting her tiny, green-velvet clad feet a man's height above the courtyard's rough-hewn stone paving as she intoned in a lilting elven accent, 'Luser.'"
Be it right or wrong facts doesn't matter.
That has to be one of the all-time best AC quotes. Ever.
Wow, this will be a great article for the trolls. You're sure to see a lot of ridiculous posts here. . . . I was working with the FBI, on a special mission in Russia . . .
LOL. Okay, that was ridiculous. Nice troll - the guy that modded it insightful is probably out waxing his Yugo now.
Let me try. There is no way you're going to rid the equipment of the stench unless you sacrifice a PETA member and cremate the remains in the room with the equipment. The smoky holiness will counteract the "unholy" residue mentioned. It works doubly well if the PETA member is a virgin. The only side-effect is that all subsequent users of the equipment will become politicized vegetarians (well, that and the ashes all over everything).
For the record, Bradbury opposes Moore's theft of Bradbury's title.
I'm no fan of Moore's (and I am a Bradbury fan), but for the record, I channel Walt whitman, and he's opposed to Bradbury's theft of the title, I Sing the Body Electric. :)
"Stargate" was "What if there were portals that could allow people to travel between planets".
Oh, so that's what Stargate is about; I've always wondered. I thought it was about taking the worst parts of Dr. Who's transportation, Star Trek's aliens (and alien crystal devices/controls) with costumes from the original Planet of the Apes, the nasty Dune movie's silly weirding weapons, and the military expertise of Gomer Pyle in No Time for Sergeants and mixing it all together. My mistake.
The US patent office once announced that they were done with their work because everything that could possibly be invented was already made - and this was somewhere around 1900 (the actual date escapes me at the moment).
That is definitely fantasy. The day any government agency proclaims its work is done, you'd better drop what you're doing and start walking toward the light lest you be left behind.
Science fiction is about fantasy.
I assume you're talking about the stuff on the SciFi Channel. Aurthur C. Clarke wrote science fiction. Much of it was certainly not fantasy since some of it has happened and some is still works in progress.
No one wants to loose their jobs overseas, so we begin attacking the Indian's who get them. Don't blame them.
That's astroturfing crap. Jobs offshored are going to China, Ireland, Russia, Poland, Canada, Mexico, and others as well as India.
Blame your lifestyle.
No. I blame the lifestyle of the American CEO who makes many millions of dollars per year by convincing a board of directors comprised of (and compromised by) other CEOs, that s/he has cut costs by offshoring. The reality may be quite different or the results may be a one-time saving while the company's IP was stolen by the offshore operation. (Think Cisco, Oracle, etc.)
IMHO globalization is inevitable. If the US attempts to climb into a dark closet and close the door on the rest of the world, the rest of the world will soon be a richer, freer, and more technologically advanced than the US.
Who said anything about isolationism (although I'm not opposed to it)? What about a level playing field? Why are other countries allowed to bring IT workers into the U.S. at will on an L1 visa or get temporary (haha) H-1B visas? The converse is not true. If you support the status quo and the exportation of technology-related work to other countries, then the rest of the world will definitely become "more technologically advanced than the US" when we no longer have anyone doing such work (much like the textile and garment industries now).
Note that this is a very close relative of one of standard arguments against open source: free software, often developed overseas, harm American companies because they don't have any technological edge any more.
The real reason "American companies . . . don't have any technological edge any more" is because companies like Cisco and Oracle have offshored their technology operations and had it stolen. It seems some countries don't have our tender concern for IP rights, don't have specific laws to protect it, and aren't concerned about trying to prosecute it. It has to do with ethics, professionalism, legal responsibility, and corporate greed for offshoring their IP in the first place - not F/OSS.
Makes sense, but I'll reserve judgement until the majority of economists have had a chance to weigh in on it.
The "majority of economists" hold opinions which disagree with a majority of other economists. Ask the same question of three different economists, and you'll get three different opinions. Really, you need to think it through for yourself; many economists have a vested interest in their *opinions*.
answer: corporate salary cap, just like in sports.
Actually, that could be part of the answer - a salary cap for management. The feds made a move in that direction when they changed tax policy to be more favorable for stock options as opposed to straight salary. The problem is that it backfired (as do most *good ideas* from the government), and executive compensation continues unchecked, especially for those who offshore. Damping the greed of execs would likely lead to less short-term profit generation and more long-term beneficial leadership for the companies. Perhaps a CEO who is really interested in the good of the company might be better for the company than a CEO who is more interested in how much s/he can raid before using their golden parachute.
How about we stop wasting money on sports programs and put it toward paying teachers properly and giving students the tools they need in order to achieve greatness?
Because the parents won't stand for it. When our local school district had a budget shortfall, they tried to raise taxes and were voted down. When they said they were going to cut the band and sports programs, people howled and then passed a second tax increase measure. I don't think the message about what's really important was lost on the school board.
Actually, I probably don't qualify since it was before the USC became part of CSU, but it's still good to see the name on /. Good luck on your start-up. If IT employment was as good as everyone claims, I'd still be in Colorado. :)
You cannot seriously deny that someone who was hired with the privelege of making such decisions has the right to do fire whoever they want for whatever reason. It is a sad fact of life, that often hurts the worker.
That is one of the most amoral statements I've ever seen. You're suggesting a person in power has the right to fire anyone for personal gain simply because she has the power.
It sounds like you're saying that the worker has the right to tell the CEO or owner what they can and cannot do with their company when it comes to who gets to work and stay there, except if it comes to firing the execs, which you must hate absolutely, being non-management and all... ...Carly Fiorina? Very clever.
I didn't say anything of the sort, Carly, but your firing of the HP executives who tried to implement your ruinous policies was truly entertaining and makes my point very well.
If I demanded a salary of £50k to sweep the streets, I'd expect my job to go to someone else. That's just logical. IT is footloose, by which I mean it's not dependent on location (no raw materials needed), and as such it can operate almost anywhere.
There is no IT organized labor in the U.S. If the companies want to offer a certain salary for a given job, they can, but they don't. The companies are making a point about moving jobs overseas in order to boost stock prices because it plays well in the financial press. The end result is that the CEO makes another fortune while a few thousand U.S. workers lose their jobs.
Shortsided? Didn't the 1980's already happen 20 years ago?
I don't care how short your sides are, the comment was short-sighted, meaning lacking foresight. And yes the 80's did happen about 20 years ago - that's called hindsight (and I don't care how short your hinds are either).
In twenty years it will be another country, another job sector, and another bunch of doomsayers.
I certainly hope it won't be another country. The point is still the same: What is the next "job sector"? So far, nobody has been able to identify it. Please enlighten us.
I find it funny that when I went to school (Colorado State University), I was #1 in all my classes. But my competition were the Indians and Chinese, not Americans. As a nation, we have gotten lazy and and are paying the price.
CSU?! Homie! However, I have to disagree. We have hundreds of thousands of well-educated, experienced people who built great companies and were then discarded in order to bolster the bottom line of companies that were already highly profitable. We will really pay the price when there is no longer an American IT industry.
If Schwarzenegger became president in the future, would that mean the US government supports outsourcing?
If that happened, it would mean the U.S. Constitution had been amended.
Telling someone that outsourcing his job will save him money is pathetic and absurd on its face.
+1 Best summary. :)
Ah... you misinterpreted my comment about out of work or "underpaid" programmers trying to get ahead at the expense of others. A programmer, or former programmer, who is supporting an organization lobbying to congress on his behalf is doing so for his own benefit --- and it will come at the expense of others if the money [undeniably] saved in outsourcing said job is denied and I am practically forced to pay for the programmer to keep his job.
I don't think I'm misinterpreting anything. Programmers or IT workers in general are not organized labor. You are not being forced to pay for their labor, which is highly obvious, since their jobs are being offshored.
If you reduce the number of people that can go on unemployment/welfare, reduce the benefits of being on unemployment/welfare, people will be forced to stay off it. Without these often dependency creating institutions, government spending has no "reason" to go up.
Kill the slow, weak, and unfortunate. A great system. I'm a conservative, and even I can't buy that.
The owner of the company has the right to choose who to fire and who not to fire. It is their company, not the workers. If he fires workers needlessly, then he might very well have to pay for it in the long run. However, since the jobs are not being destroyed, just outsourced, employees are still being... employed.
The CEO of a company is not the owner. A *company* in both historical and modern terms is the combination of shareholders and employees. The CEO should have no "right" to fire employees to bolster his/her salary.
If the workers do not own the company, it is not their decision. In a society of a free market, government has no place in deciding this either.
OMG, I just realized I'm having a discussion with Carly Fiorina.
It should be their privilege to pay exorbitant prices so as to support the grossly inflated salaries of the minority that actually matter i.e. you.
Um, are these the same people making "grossly inflated salaries" that built the company? And that is opposed to the blood-sucking, parasite CxOs like your namesake who just ruin companies for their personal gain?
Offshoring tech jobs will not lead to the economic disaster liberals are waiting for. Besides it must be good, George Soros' companies made millions consulting US companies on moving jobs offshore.
That has got to be the ultimate short-sighted comment. People in the Vichy regime did well for themselves also. I want you to print out your comment, frame it, and hang it on the wall. Then read it twenty years from now.
Since upwards of 3/4 of Americans are stockholders via 401k holdings then that's a pretty strong majority who benefits.
Since my 401K lost tens of thousands during the recession and only added $1,000 during the *recovery*, how did offshoring benefit me?