That's why I'd rather move to a system more like the Canadian "points" system, that just outright offers residency to highly skilled immigrants. If someone fills a critical gap in the U.S. economy, fine, let them immigrate, give them a green card, and let them play the regular employment market like anyone else.
Even for those of us who support expanding legal immigration, they are pretty terrible poster children. Infosys and the like give H1-Bs a bad name which then drags the legitimacy of the whole system down with them. More respectable tech companies like Google and Microsoft do have sporadic abuses, but for the most part they use the system much more like how it was intended to be used. It would be nice to find a way to tailor the system more towards them, cut the Infosyses out of the game, and then expand a cleaned up H1-B system.
One approach could just be to put an absolute salary floor on H1-B positions. If you're willing to offer someone $120k, I have a lot more confidence that this is actually a job in demand that fills a critical gap in the U.S. economy, versus if you aren't willing to pay more than $60k for this supposedly impossible-to-fill position.
Airfares are a strange market, selling a particular segmented product, and trying to maximize the profit on it. Logistics optimization when you own the network, on the other hand, is a different, and well-studied problem. The closest analogy is probably to shipping: someone like Maersk has pretty good software optimizing their shipping routes and determining which containers should go on which ships, and which ships should take which routes to which ports.
As far as i know there is no ship routes trough the northern arctic sea.
Not all the way across it from Europe to Asia, no. But the western portion of the Arctic near the Atlantic, i.e. far-northern Norway and far north-western Russia, is actually ice-free year round. That's why Murmansk is strategically important to Russia, as an ice-free port where access to the sea isn't controlled by the narrow straights between Sweden and Denmark.
I agree, especially for lower-level classes. Students often don't have any idea what they ought to argue, because they don't yet have enough immersion in a subject to have intelligent opinions about what to advocate. This leads to bad essays, because they end up having to make up some random B.S. they don't even necessarily believe, just because they need a thesis statement.
A good survey of the literature is probably a better learning tool, and has the added bonus of perhaps actually being useful, whereas a freshman philosophy major making a "novel" argument about free will has extremely low odds of producing a valuable new addition to the existing philosophical arguments on free will.
Fwiw, the Finns have been researching this idea for a while now; interesting to see it actually being built. Here is a 1999 paper [pdf] from one of Arctech Helsinki's parent companies studying the feasibility of such a design, which has some good information on the details.
There's an active program for that, which has had some success, particularly in attracting student editors from countries that are lacking in Wikipedia editors compared to the US and Western Europe.
They do have to be written in an encyclopedia-like way, though, with proper references, a neutral overview, relatively broad view of the subject, etc. Occasionally students will paste in an essay not originally written as an encyclopedia article, and those are often poorer fits. The most common problem with a pre-written essay of that sort is that they start with a thesis statement that focuses on a specific view of the subject, and then support it with an argument; but a Wikipedia article should typically be both broader and less argumentative, and not organized as an argument for a thesis.
Some of the attacks in captivity look likely to have been provoked by the humans as well, which is something less likely to happen in the wild.
I can't tell you for sure what happened here, but it sure doesn't sound like the orca initiated it:
in July 6, 1999, a 27-year-old man who stayed after the park closed and evaded security to enter the orca tank was found dead and nude, draped over Tilikum's back with his genitals bitten off
Why was he nude? Why specifically his genitals bitten off? My guess is that it was not a case of sexual assault by an orca that stripped him.
How is the executive "ignoring" the law? When Congress passed the law, they included a section that explicitly directs the president to review all determinations of the ITC on a case-by-case basis, and approve or reject its proposals. In doing so, the President is supposed to consider whether the ITC's determinations conform with U.S. policy.
If Congress wanted the ITC's determinations to go through without case-by-case presidential review, they should've written a law saying so. There was no "duly authorized" anything here, because Congress explicitly declined to give the ITC power to authorize anything without Presidential approval.
Samsung lost in an actual court, which Apple hasn't. This was just an administrative procedure, which explicitly gives the President the authority to consider policy preferences in making decisions.
If Samsung wants to, they can file a proper patent lawsuit in a proper court, instead of trying for this backdoor ITC procedure. The president has no authority to set aside the judgment in a regular patent suit.
A regular court could still issue an injunction prohibiting sale, if Apple lost and the court determined that was the appropriate remedy. The import-regulations decisions really don't have anything to do with the regular patent-law system. In a way it's silly that they exist at all, since patent complaints should be adjudicated in a regular patent lawsuit, not via some backdoor administrative procedure.
I think there's definitely some bias towards a U.S. company here, but fwiw, this isn't actually setting aside the patents or authorizing ignoring them. It's purely an import-regulations decision, not a patent-law decision. U.S. customs will not stop iPhone imports as a result of this ruling, but that doesn't mean it's actually legal to sell them in the US. Samsung can still sue Apple in regular courts for patent infringement.
They can still be sued in regular court for damages. The import procedure is parallel to and separate from regular patent law. If Apple made all their products in the U.S., the ITC wouldn't even have entered into it at all, but they could still be held liable for patent violations.
Apple doesn't actually donate much to politicians at all, and their lobbying budget is exceptionally small for a company of their size, so I doubt that's the reason.
My guess is that this is actually for the stated reason. Whether it's a good reason or not is another question, but I don't think they're covering up a hidden motive here. Basically, the iPhone 2 and 4 sell a lot in the U.S., and banning them would disrupt the U.S. economy to some extent, so they chose not to.
The statute authorizing the ITC pretty explicitly contemplated that possibility, which is why it has an opt-out clause for the president to cancel ITC orders if he determines they would be too disruptive to the economy.
A group of successful developers get together on a panel and, surprisingly, everyone on the panel agrees that developers are very important and goin' places in the world.
One of the most skeptical-of-nuclear-power people I know is a naval nuclear technician, for that reason. He might be overreacting in the other direction, but his position is something like: we know how to do it right in the navy, and I don't trust a civilian operation to get it right.
On #1, most libertarians with economics backgrounds take the position you take, but there is also a sort of pop-economics style of libertarianism with market-Panglossian views that's fairly widespread. That view tends to believe that unfettered markets allocate resources with optimal efficiency, and any observed problems are traceable to a state-created distortion.
They are perhaps the libertarian analog of certain kinds of spiritual environmentalists, who believe that if we only left "nature" alone, all ecosystems would be optimal and perfectly balanced, and any observed problems are traceable to a human-created distortion.
Do we actually need more power generating capacity? I think the main unfortunate thing with the U.S. reluctance to maintain or expand its nuclear power sector is that we need more clean power, i.e. not from coal, oil, and natural gas. But we are not actually at a shortage of power full-stop, if that's what you're worried about: there is a huge glut of cheap gas, and as shale-gas extraction expands that is only going to continue. Natural-gas power plants are very easy to flex with demand, too.
True, although other areas also have problems. Generally you need to be on a coast for the massive amount of cooling water needed, although Palo Verde is an exception.
The Pacific coast was going to be the site of the first U.S. plant, but public opposition forced its cancellation, and that doesn't seem too likely to change in the near future. Plus you trade hurricane problems for earthquake problems.
More plants on the Great Lakes might be a possibility. Illinois is already the top nuclear-power-producing state as it is.
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That's why I'd rather move to a system more like the Canadian "points" system, that just outright offers residency to highly skilled immigrants. If someone fills a critical gap in the U.S. economy, fine, let them immigrate, give them a green card, and let them play the regular employment market like anyone else.
Even for those of us who support expanding legal immigration, they are pretty terrible poster children. Infosys and the like give H1-Bs a bad name which then drags the legitimacy of the whole system down with them. More respectable tech companies like Google and Microsoft do have sporadic abuses, but for the most part they use the system much more like how it was intended to be used. It would be nice to find a way to tailor the system more towards them, cut the Infosyses out of the game, and then expand a cleaned up H1-B system.
One approach could just be to put an absolute salary floor on H1-B positions. If you're willing to offer someone $120k, I have a lot more confidence that this is actually a job in demand that fills a critical gap in the U.S. economy, versus if you aren't willing to pay more than $60k for this supposedly impossible-to-fill position.
Airfares are a strange market, selling a particular segmented product, and trying to maximize the profit on it. Logistics optimization when you own the network, on the other hand, is a different, and well-studied problem. The closest analogy is probably to shipping: someone like Maersk has pretty good software optimizing their shipping routes and determining which containers should go on which ships, and which ships should take which routes to which ports.
As far as i know there is no ship routes trough the northern arctic sea.
Not all the way across it from Europe to Asia, no. But the western portion of the Arctic near the Atlantic, i.e. far-northern Norway and far north-western Russia, is actually ice-free year round. That's why Murmansk is strategically important to Russia, as an ice-free port where access to the sea isn't controlled by the narrow straights between Sweden and Denmark.
I agree, especially for lower-level classes. Students often don't have any idea what they ought to argue, because they don't yet have enough immersion in a subject to have intelligent opinions about what to advocate. This leads to bad essays, because they end up having to make up some random B.S. they don't even necessarily believe, just because they need a thesis statement.
A good survey of the literature is probably a better learning tool, and has the added bonus of perhaps actually being useful, whereas a freshman philosophy major making a "novel" argument about free will has extremely low odds of producing a valuable new addition to the existing philosophical arguments on free will.
Fwiw, the Finns have been researching this idea for a while now; interesting to see it actually being built. Here is a 1999 paper [pdf] from one of Arctech Helsinki's parent companies studying the feasibility of such a design, which has some good information on the details.
There's an active program for that, which has had some success, particularly in attracting student editors from countries that are lacking in Wikipedia editors compared to the US and Western Europe.
They do have to be written in an encyclopedia-like way, though, with proper references, a neutral overview, relatively broad view of the subject, etc. Occasionally students will paste in an essay not originally written as an encyclopedia article, and those are often poorer fits. The most common problem with a pre-written essay of that sort is that they start with a thesis statement that focuses on a specific view of the subject, and then support it with an argument; but a Wikipedia article should typically be both broader and less argumentative, and not organized as an argument for a thesis.
As always, the munificence of U.S. Corporation in making life better for us all is deeply appreciated.
Some of the attacks in captivity look likely to have been provoked by the humans as well, which is something less likely to happen in the wild.
I can't tell you for sure what happened here, but it sure doesn't sound like the orca initiated it:
Why was he nude? Why specifically his genitals bitten off? My guess is that it was not a case of sexual assault by an orca that stripped him.
Well, I could use them for a faux-brick facade or something. How cheap are those bricks again?
So you're saying the previous administrations refused to follow the law as written?
How is the executive "ignoring" the law? When Congress passed the law, they included a section that explicitly directs the president to review all determinations of the ITC on a case-by-case basis, and approve or reject its proposals. In doing so, the President is supposed to consider whether the ITC's determinations conform with U.S. policy.
If Congress wanted the ITC's determinations to go through without case-by-case presidential review, they should've written a law saying so. There was no "duly authorized" anything here, because Congress explicitly declined to give the ITC power to authorize anything without Presidential approval.
Samsung lost in an actual court, which Apple hasn't. This was just an administrative procedure, which explicitly gives the President the authority to consider policy preferences in making decisions.
If Samsung wants to, they can file a proper patent lawsuit in a proper court, instead of trying for this backdoor ITC procedure. The president has no authority to set aside the judgment in a regular patent suit.
A regular court could still issue an injunction prohibiting sale, if Apple lost and the court determined that was the appropriate remedy. The import-regulations decisions really don't have anything to do with the regular patent-law system. In a way it's silly that they exist at all, since patent complaints should be adjudicated in a regular patent lawsuit, not via some backdoor administrative procedure.
I think there's definitely some bias towards a U.S. company here, but fwiw, this isn't actually setting aside the patents or authorizing ignoring them. It's purely an import-regulations decision, not a patent-law decision. U.S. customs will not stop iPhone imports as a result of this ruling, but that doesn't mean it's actually legal to sell them in the US. Samsung can still sue Apple in regular courts for patent infringement.
They can still be sued in regular court for damages. The import procedure is parallel to and separate from regular patent law. If Apple made all their products in the U.S., the ITC wouldn't even have entered into it at all, but they could still be held liable for patent violations.
Apple doesn't actually donate much to politicians at all, and their lobbying budget is exceptionally small for a company of their size, so I doubt that's the reason.
My guess is that this is actually for the stated reason. Whether it's a good reason or not is another question, but I don't think they're covering up a hidden motive here. Basically, the iPhone 2 and 4 sell a lot in the U.S., and banning them would disrupt the U.S. economy to some extent, so they chose not to.
The statute authorizing the ITC pretty explicitly contemplated that possibility, which is why it has an opt-out clause for the president to cancel ITC orders if he determines they would be too disruptive to the economy.
A group of successful developers get together on a panel and, surprisingly, everyone on the panel agrees that developers are very important and goin' places in the world.
One of the most skeptical-of-nuclear-power people I know is a naval nuclear technician, for that reason. He might be overreacting in the other direction, but his position is something like: we know how to do it right in the navy, and I don't trust a civilian operation to get it right.
On #1, most libertarians with economics backgrounds take the position you take, but there is also a sort of pop-economics style of libertarianism with market-Panglossian views that's fairly widespread. That view tends to believe that unfettered markets allocate resources with optimal efficiency, and any observed problems are traceable to a state-created distortion.
They are perhaps the libertarian analog of certain kinds of spiritual environmentalists, who believe that if we only left "nature" alone, all ecosystems would be optimal and perfectly balanced, and any observed problems are traceable to a human-created distortion.
Do we actually need more power generating capacity? I think the main unfortunate thing with the U.S. reluctance to maintain or expand its nuclear power sector is that we need more clean power, i.e. not from coal, oil, and natural gas. But we are not actually at a shortage of power full-stop, if that's what you're worried about: there is a huge glut of cheap gas, and as shale-gas extraction expands that is only going to continue. Natural-gas power plants are very easy to flex with demand, too.
True, although other areas also have problems. Generally you need to be on a coast for the massive amount of cooling water needed, although Palo Verde is an exception.
The Pacific coast was going to be the site of the first U.S. plant, but public opposition forced its cancellation, and that doesn't seem too likely to change in the near future. Plus you trade hurricane problems for earthquake problems.
More plants on the Great Lakes might be a possibility. Illinois is already the top nuclear-power-producing state as it is.
When it's compiled, e.g. by gcj, Java doesn't run in a virtual machine. It's compiled to native code.
The reason it's not done much is that this is actually slower for many tasks than the optimizing JIT is.
With all these terrorist accusations it's like a pressure cooker in the comments section lately.
There's also an open-source project also aiming at something like PhotoSynth, Insight3d. I haven't tried it myself, though.