Yes copyright infringement is theft of labor. It's no different from if you hired an employee to mow your grass, and then you refused to pay them.
Actually... no it's not. At least, not in the U.S. What one feels (according to one's own personal moral code) and what copyright law says are often two very different matters.
Why they'd want to be on the U.S. and Soviet target list is beyond me though. Being a nuclear power today (even a nuclear superpower) is risky business, no matter how you slice it.
No. Not being a nuclear power is risky business.
If you don't have nukes and you piss us off, you get invaded: see Iraq and Afghanistan. If you piss us off but you have nukes, we have to talk to you, maybe even make a deal and send you money: see Pakistan and North Korea.
True, but there's risk and there's risk. I was referring to what would happen in a full-scale nuclear confrontation. If that happens, anyone with missile that could strike at the U.S. or its allies would be volatilized. That's what I meant by "target list."
Big difference between Sputnik and Omid wrt ICBM capabilities.
When Sputnik went up, there was no GPS.
Now they only need an intercontinental GUIDED missile, which should be a lot easier than an intercontinental BALLISTIC missile.
Well, if you look at the history of ICBM development, you'll find some interesting parallels.
During the early phases of the Cold War, the United States decided that Russia might use our own radio broadcasts as homing beacons for their ballistic weapons. The old CONELRAD (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation) program was born out of that fear.
Ultimately, inertial guidance systems eliminated the need to depend upon an enemy's radio transmissions. CONELRAD also made the use of our commercial transmitters unreliable for that purpose, so as far is known neither side ever took that approach. Nowadays, there's no way in Hell that any reasonably intelligent missile designer would ever risk doing anything so stupid. Furthermore, from the perspective of a hostile power such as Iran, what is the United States' Global Positioning System but an enemy radio transmission? At the first sign of an incoming warhead, you can bet that our military will disable GPS forthwith. That, or alter the transmissions to make any such idiotically-designed guidance system malfunction. What, you think the military which devised and launched GPS didn't account for that possibility?
GPS is of strictly limited value for guiding weapons to their targets. It's okay for us to use it, because we control it. Up to a point: it could still be jammed, which is why we don't dare depend upon GPS for that purpose. Neither will Iran, or anyone else that wants to play games with ICBMs. If they want to fire a long-range missile at any of our allies, they'll just have to find another way. Oh, I suppose they could use the Soviet GLONASS system, if they're shooting at someone in an area covered by it, or Galileo once it's fully operational.
In any event, we figured out how to build missiles that can get themselves to their targets, and believe me, so will they. It's tricky, but no trickier than building a nuclear infrastructure, a significant number of atomic weapons, and the missile systems to deliver them. Apparently, those little items aren't slowing them down, and I fail to see why an effective targeting system would be beyond them either.
Seeing nonsense like this modded up to +5 really turns me off to reading slashdot comments anymore.
I start bleeding from me eyes. If that's what people from other countries have been led to believe, it's no wonder they have such outrageous opinions about the United States.
It's also wrong. WE get to decide what we wish to be called, not you. So cut it out. I'm not going into another stupid argument about how some people in South American call themselves Americans and are offended that we call ourselves the same thing, and that Canadians and Mexicans are really Americans too, when in fact this is the goddamn Continent of North America, and which happens to contain three separate nations, one of which is called the United States of America. I'm an American, not a "USAsian" (whatever the Hell that means) and that is that. If you want to keep irritating Americans, by all means continue, but we'll take you less seriously if you can't be bothered to use the correct appellation. I don't insist upon call the French "Francians" or the Englishmen "Englians" or the Germans "Germanians", because it's impolite to just invent names for other countries, and insist the the people of said countries abide by your stupidity. The peoples of the various nations that exist on this planet all share a number of rights, one of which is to determine how others should refer to them.
however there are quite a few ignorant USAsians who hold quite forthright and aggresive views towards the rest of the world
And there are far more who do not. You think you know us? That you know all of us? Grow the hell UP, and realize that your misguided criticisms of an entire culture simply makes you (yes, you), not us, look ignorant and ill-mannered. I don't judge people of other nations by the unenlightened actions of a particular government or a particular political party, and if that's what you're doing, you're one bigoted son of a gun. I tell you this: if I did think that way, I'd figure that all Russians, Chinese and North Koreans must, to a man, be really baaaaaadass people, given the way their leaders behave.
The reality is that the average American (if there can be said to be such a thing) is generally very insular, not particularly concerned about the affairs of other nations, and is very much against our interfering in said affairs. Do you realize just how unpopular ex-President Bush was, how unpopular that War in Iraq still is, and how little we wish to apply military force against anyone? I can tell from the above remark that you know very little about America and its people.
"a responsible member of the international community" == sucks US cock
You know what? As an American who happens to work regularly with a number of Canadians, I have to say, in all sincerity, that that is the dumbest goddamn thing I've heard all week. And this is Slashdot, where dumbass comments show up on a regular basis.
You can test it out next time you get a traffic ticket: Tell the cop you think he's an evil asshole who deserves to rot in hell. Wait 30 seconds and gauge his response. Then tell him you're going to feed his children through a woodchipper, and see how his reaction differs. I'll bet you large quantities of cash that you get a completely different response.
It's a damn good thing for you that I'd just finished swallowing my soda.
"Being a new nuclear power today is risky business, no matter how you slice it."
Corrected for you.
Nonsense. It's always been a risky business... or did the entire Cold War escape your attention? If what you're trying to say is more along the lines of "the incumbent nuclear powers don't want anyone playing with their toys", I'd tend to agree with you. However, if you look at this logically, the fewer countries have these things, the better off we'll all be. Russia, for all it's faults, hasn't gone off half-cocked and nuked anyone (granted, that may be because of U.S. opposition, but whatever), France and England have exercised appropriate restraint... as have all other nuclear-armed countries to date. But that's because all of those outfits are terrified of what will happen to them if they actually use a nuclear weapon. They're also generally civilized countries that take a very dim view of mass murder on a Biblical scale.
Whether that can be said for certain Middle Eastern and Asian nations... I don't know. All I do know is that we are talking about nuclear weapons, not a some trade agreement or embargo or something like that. Fairness doesn't enter the picture: if your nation exhibits any tendency towards ever using a thermonuclear device in a conflict, declared or otherwise, expect to get slapped down hard.
This now a game where tens of millions of people might get killed, not just thousands.
Well, one might argue that the Cold War with the Soviet Union was a much greater threat, and it was. There's a qualitative difference though: Russia's leaders may be totalitarians (evil enough from a Western perspective), but they understood the concept of mutual annihilation. Can the same be said for Iran? I don't know enough about them to have an opinion.
One military maxim says that if you want to avoid a war, you eliminate the enemy's ability to wage it. That means that, from a practical perspective, there will never be a better time than now to deal with Iran by means of force.
I think there's probably a big difference between making a rocket which can reach escape velocity and being able to target a specific location thousands of miles away.
There is. In reality, this is more akin to Sputnik than an ICBM.
Nevertheless, we and the Soviets started like this, and it didn't take many years before both we and they had intercontinental capability in weapons delivery. Furthermore, the Iranians (and everyone else interested in near-space) have the advantage of knowing what can be accomplished. We and the Russians did not, and spent a lot of time and money figuring that out.
They also don't have to come up with anything akin to a Saturn V or Energia heavy-lift booster to become a real threat, if they want to be. Why they'd want to be on the U.S. and Soviet target list is beyond me though. Being a nuclear power today (even a nuclear superpower) is risky business, no matter how you slice it.
Honestly, I'm not really all that worried about this: a cruise missile is a lot cheaper to develop and deploy than an ICBM, and damn near as deadly.
As they should. When millions of people in your country are without jobs, you want your government to protect your ability to get a job, not a corporation's ability to get cheap labor from somewhere else. At least, last time I checked the government is supposed to work for the people.
Disclaimer: I'm a small business owner who despises organizations using H1B visas, since it's only used to get high quality talent at dirt cheap wages.
Couldn't agree more, although I think you're being too generous in your estimation. Most of the outfits I know that are heavily into H1Bs are really more concerned about the "dirt cheap" part. MBA and middle-management types (the ones who make the decision to scrap their current workforces in favor of indentured servants^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H1B visa holders) are typically unable to make such fine distinctions. As an engineer myself, I find that it's a rare company indeed that places any value on knowledge and experience: not in the modern globalized United States anyway. The real deciding factor is usually salary, and whether or not they think they can get away with providing no benefits. I don't truly understand the pathology of such minds, but whatever it is they have under their collective hood, it ain't pretty. I'm certain of that.
Truth is, if they did value those intangibles (and understood the nature and importance of institutional memory) they'd do whatever it took to hold on to the people they already have, and would have a very different perception of the temporary foreign worker. A single top level engineer who thoroughly understands your product line, your customers, and your corporate mindset is worth a dozen H1Bs, and I don't care how educated or talented or cheap, they may happen to be. Too many corporations have gone the new "HP Way" and fired all their so-called high overhead people to save costs. Of course, those high overhead types were expensive for a reason, usually many reasons, none of which can be remotely comprehended by an MBA.
Are you gathering from this little diatribe that I have little respect for your typical MBA? If so, why, you'd be right. To any Masters of Business Administration in the audience tonight, here's a hearty "fuck you" to you and all your kind for what you've done to my country, and my countrymen. Oh, there are decent souls among you, I know that. One of my best friends is one of those, even if he does have an MBA. Still, he absolutely can't stand the rest of you, because he considers you to be greedy, sociopathic fucks who don't care about anyone but yourselves. His words, not mine, although obviously I agree with him.
Let's get back to why focusing on salary alone is so morbidly stupid. It goes like this: you have to understand that your people are important, and that goes all the way down to the guy on the line. There's a lot of unwritten knowledge that goes into manufacturing complex products, knowledge that the engineers who designed said products are often surprised to find out (usually they never do.) You dump all your "expensive" staff and bring in a bunch of newbies, and you'll find yourself in a world of hurt. Sure, the new guys may follow the schematics, drill and machine and grind everything just like the drawing says... only to find that it doesn't work. The dude that knew you had to shave an extra thousandth off that one standoff... well, you fired his ass. The engineer who might have been able to take one look at the drawings and figure out what the plant guys had been doing... well, you laid him off and he moved to California to slap burgers. Yep, pretty much a win-win all the way around.
Just to make my position clear (because some people tend to level charges of bigotry at me when I say things like this) I'm not against legal immigration, and I hold no grudges against those from other countries (well, okay... maybe Can
Like when Metallica was demonized for going after Napster?
Metallica was quite rightly demonized for their petulant behavior. I mean, come on... the group is lead by the bloody self-proclaimed Prince of Darkness, man.
Before you get on your MS bashing high-horse, you might choose to take a glance at Sun, who has been including the _goddamn google toolbar_ in Java updates as a default option.
Well, I don't agree that Microsoft is on the up-and-up here... but yeah, that was sure a professional touch on Sun's part, wasn't it? I had a couple of updates that offered Yahoo's toolbar instead. I was irked enough to write them a letter about it. Got a polite response, that was about it. My laptop updated its Java yesterday, and sure enough there was the Google Toolbar option (checked by default, of course.)
I always thought better of Sun, for some reason. Smacks of some lame shareware program, where the author makes more money installing toolbars than he does from his own work.
Why should we? If fifteen or twenty million U.S. citizens decided to leave and illegally emigrate to your country, causing massive economic dislocation and bringing increasing amounts of violence and crime along with us... should we expect to be made citizens? Just "because"? What the fuck is the matter with you?
Consider yourself surprised. I have to travel as part of my job (my employer sells to just about everybody on the planet that has a petroleum industry, or uses petroleum products.) I don't particularly like to travel (I got that out of my system a long time ago, and I'm rather tall so I'm not very comfortable in jetliner seats) but trying to say that I'm ignorant of people from other countries is off base. Heck, I'm about to marry an African woman, so take your petty remark and stick it where the Sun don't shine.
However, as an American I believe that my people should come first, and that my government should put Americans before all others. Does that mean that we should abuse people of other countries? Of course not... our Constitution doesn't permit that. However, it does not say that our government should be giving away our candy store, making economic policies and laws that benefit foreign nationals at the expense of U.S. citizens. You can deny that that is happening if you wish, but that just makes you blind. I know a lot of American engineers and technical people that have been fired and replaced by (often inferior, but invariably cheaper) foreign labor. That's the facts, jack, and it is what the H1B program is all about.
Furthermore, anyone who believes there's a critical shortage of skilled workers is uninformed, and if there were, well, let me tell you what is supposed to happen. What happens then is that employers compete for the existing talent, salaries rise for a while, then schools churn out a sufficient number of new workers and salaries drop back to previous levels, or perhaps slightly below. That's how it's worked for a long, long time. Yes, that means employers have to temporarily pay more than the previous prevailing wage, and must continue to pay a decent wage once the quantity of workers is sufficient. However, in recent years (thanks to some rather pliable (read: treasonous) members of Congress) certain companies think they've found a way to get around that, by bringing in cheaper foreign workers now. That way, they don't have to wait until there's more local workers available (assuming their really is the claimed shortage) and get cheaper labor long-term. Whether you want to admit it or not, a lot of Americans have lost their jobs because of this. I'm sure the Founders would be proud.
Anyway, that's the theory: it hasn't actually worked out all that well in practice. I know a number of companies that eventually dumped their H1B's and re-hired their American people. They did that for a lot of reasons: often the foreign workers weren't as skilled or knowledgeable as claimed (as in, "lied on the their applications"), weren't trustworthy (as in "stole prototypes and source code") or just generally weren't as advertised. The converse is also true, of course, but as a potential employer you have no way to tell for sure.
Regardless, just as your government should put the welfare of its citizens above any American visitors, I expect mine to do the reverse. Get over yourselves: I'm sick to death of people who feel that nationalism should work only in their interests (i.e., America should give them anything they want.) It doesn't, bucko... it works both ways. Want us to respect you? Do us the same favor.
You may be shocked by your reading and your restatement of this person's opinion. But why don't you wait till this person agrees to your restatement before you say "wow".
I think that people on both sides of the H1B issue may believe that H1Bs are more cost effective (to the corporation) than hiring locals, within some error. The question is whether allowing this is good for the country as a whole.
As a taxpayer and someone in favor of H1Bs, can't I ask that my taxes be used in the most cost-effective way?
Certainly you my ask. But that only makes you short-sighted. There are other concerns than the purely economic elements that everyone is focusing on. But keeping to that point, there's such a thing as being penny-wise and pound foolish... and that's precisely what I believe is happening here. By eliminating the incentive for our own people to go to school and gain the requisite education to develop and maintain our economic system and domestic industry, we are costing ourselves in the long run. You don't think that's happening? Well, what do you think happens when a young person is deciding whether or not to spend the hundred grand or more it takes to gain an advanced degree in the U.S. He or she is going to see that what was once a well-paid profession is now worth peanuts, and that the college loan they'll have to take out will never get paid back That's one price we're paying by allowing ourselves to take the low road here. I've been a developer and businessman in the manufacturing sector for thirty years, and I see it everywhere. It's depressing. It's not a level playing field, just like everything else about the so-called "Global Economy" (e.g. global wealth-redistribution system.)
This is a mistake, pure and simple, and it's being done because a number of extremely dishonest corporations want it this way. Period. Anything else is just sugarcoating and ignorance of history.
Thank you, Viz. I was feeling a bit lonely in this thread. I agree: the global economy has turned out to be a global wealth redistribution system, and not much else. There's a certain element of irrationality in the way the U.S. government is handling our foreign affairs and our economic development nowadays. Now, it's perfectly understandable that foreign workers would want to come here, educate themselves, and perhaps send some earnings home to support their families. I'm not really complaining about them: I'm complaining about the people we've put in charge, who are (let's face facts here) selling us down the river, throwing away everything that previous generations built for us. The tragedy is damn near Biblical in nature.
I frequently ask people what will replace America's industrial engine, the very engine that drove it to economic and military supremacy, that will allow it to maintain its current status as a world power without continued deficit spending. The answers I usually get revolve around words like "service economy." Nice-sounding euphemism, that. Unfortunately, "service economy" is semantically equivalent to "third world economy."
Honestly, I've been to a few such countries. I'd not choose to live in many of them, and I reset being forced into it by ignorant, short-sighted and self-aggrandizing Americans that can't see that we're shooting ourselves in the foot.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes copyright infringement is theft of labor. It's no different from if you hired an employee to mow your grass, and then you refused to pay them.
Actually ... no it's not. At least, not in the U.S. What one feels (according to one's own personal moral code) and what copyright law says are often two very different matters.
Guess which one trumps the other in court.
No. Not being a nuclear power is risky business.
If you don't have nukes and you piss us off, you get invaded: see Iraq and Afghanistan. If you piss us off but you have nukes, we have to talk to you, maybe even make a deal and send you money: see Pakistan and North Korea.
True, but there's risk and there's risk. I was referring to what would happen in a full-scale nuclear confrontation. If that happens, anyone with missile that could strike at the U.S. or its allies would be volatilized. That's what I meant by "target list."
Big difference between Sputnik and Omid wrt ICBM capabilities.
When Sputnik went up, there was no GPS.
Now they only need an intercontinental GUIDED missile, which should be a lot easier than an intercontinental BALLISTIC missile.
Well, if you look at the history of ICBM development, you'll find some interesting parallels.
During the early phases of the Cold War, the United States decided that Russia might use our own radio broadcasts as homing beacons for their ballistic weapons. The old CONELRAD (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation) program was born out of that fear.
Ultimately, inertial guidance systems eliminated the need to depend upon an enemy's radio transmissions. CONELRAD also made the use of our commercial transmitters unreliable for that purpose, so as far is known neither side ever took that approach. Nowadays, there's no way in Hell that any reasonably intelligent missile designer would ever risk doing anything so stupid. Furthermore, from the perspective of a hostile power such as Iran, what is the United States' Global Positioning System but an enemy radio transmission? At the first sign of an incoming warhead, you can bet that our military will disable GPS forthwith. That, or alter the transmissions to make any such idiotically-designed guidance system malfunction. What, you think the military which devised and launched GPS didn't account for that possibility?
GPS is of strictly limited value for guiding weapons to their targets. It's okay for us to use it, because we control it. Up to a point: it could still be jammed, which is why we don't dare depend upon GPS for that purpose. Neither will Iran, or anyone else that wants to play games with ICBMs. If they want to fire a long-range missile at any of our allies, they'll just have to find another way. Oh, I suppose they could use the Soviet GLONASS system, if they're shooting at someone in an area covered by it, or Galileo once it's fully operational.
In any event, we figured out how to build missiles that can get themselves to their targets, and believe me, so will they. It's tricky, but no trickier than building a nuclear infrastructure, a significant number of atomic weapons, and the missile systems to deliver them. Apparently, those little items aren't slowing them down, and I fail to see why an effective targeting system would be beyond them either.
>How does your statement explain the 2nd child? And the 3rd? I'm a 4th child of a married couple
Alcohol.
Catholicism.
Two 14 years have a combined age of 28 though
Following that logic, two 9 year old girls have a combined age of 18.
Just sayin'.
There seems to be a correlation between vanity signatures and patronising, holier than thou attitudes. JCR being another good example.
What sig are you referring to? Neither Gerry or XcepticZP seem to have any.
Seeing nonsense like this modded up to +5 really turns me off to reading slashdot comments anymore.
I start bleeding from me eyes. If that's what people from other countries have been led to believe, it's no wonder they have such outrageous opinions about the United States.
Ah well. They say ignorance is bliss.
USAsian is more precise than American.
It's also wrong. WE get to decide what we wish to be called, not you. So cut it out. I'm not going into another stupid argument about how some people in South American call themselves Americans and are offended that we call ourselves the same thing, and that Canadians and Mexicans are really Americans too, when in fact this is the goddamn Continent of North America, and which happens to contain three separate nations, one of which is called the United States of America. I'm an American, not a "USAsian" (whatever the Hell that means) and that is that. If you want to keep irritating Americans, by all means continue, but we'll take you less seriously if you can't be bothered to use the correct appellation. I don't insist upon call the French "Francians" or the Englishmen "Englians" or the Germans "Germanians", because it's impolite to just invent names for other countries, and insist the the people of said countries abide by your stupidity. The peoples of the various nations that exist on this planet all share a number of rights, one of which is to determine how others should refer to them.
however there are quite a few ignorant USAsians who hold quite forthright and aggresive views towards the rest of the world
And there are far more who do not. You think you know us? That you know all of us? Grow the hell UP, and realize that your misguided criticisms of an entire culture simply makes you (yes, you), not us, look ignorant and ill-mannered. I don't judge people of other nations by the unenlightened actions of a particular government or a particular political party, and if that's what you're doing, you're one bigoted son of a gun. I tell you this: if I did think that way, I'd figure that all Russians, Chinese and North Koreans must, to a man, be really baaaaaadass people, given the way their leaders behave.
The reality is that the average American (if there can be said to be such a thing) is generally very insular, not particularly concerned about the affairs of other nations, and is very much against our interfering in said affairs. Do you realize just how unpopular ex-President Bush was, how unpopular that War in Iraq still is, and how little we wish to apply military force against anyone? I can tell from the above remark that you know very little about America and its people.
"a responsible member of the international community" == sucks US cock
You know what? As an American who happens to work regularly with a number of Canadians, I have to say, in all sincerity, that that is the dumbest goddamn thing I've heard all week. And this is Slashdot, where dumbass comments show up on a regular basis.
You can test it out next time you get a traffic ticket: Tell the cop you think he's an evil asshole who deserves to rot in hell. Wait 30 seconds and gauge his response. Then tell him you're going to feed his children through a woodchipper, and see how his reaction differs. I'll bet you large quantities of cash that you get a completely different response.
It's a damn good thing for you that I'd just finished swallowing my soda.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSDAH23449220080602
Now that was a waste of a perfectly good fact.
"Being a new nuclear power today is risky business, no matter how you slice it."
Corrected for you.
Nonsense. It's always been a risky business ... or did the entire Cold War escape your attention? If what you're trying to say is more along the lines of "the incumbent nuclear powers don't want anyone playing with their toys", I'd tend to agree with you. However, if you look at this logically, the fewer countries have these things, the better off we'll all be. Russia, for all it's faults, hasn't gone off half-cocked and nuked anyone (granted, that may be because of U.S. opposition, but whatever), France and England have exercised appropriate restraint ... as have all other nuclear-armed countries to date. But that's because all of those outfits are terrified of what will happen to them if they actually use a nuclear weapon. They're also generally civilized countries that take a very dim view of mass murder on a Biblical scale.
... I don't know. All I do know is that we are talking about nuclear weapons, not a some trade agreement or embargo or something like that. Fairness doesn't enter the picture: if your nation exhibits any tendency towards ever using a thermonuclear device in a conflict, declared or otherwise, expect to get slapped down hard.
Whether that can be said for certain Middle Eastern and Asian nations
This now a game where tens of millions of people might get killed, not just thousands.
Well, one might argue that the Cold War with the Soviet Union was a much greater threat, and it was. There's a qualitative difference though: Russia's leaders may be totalitarians (evil enough from a Western perspective), but they understood the concept of mutual annihilation. Can the same be said for Iran? I don't know enough about them to have an opinion.
One military maxim says that if you want to avoid a war, you eliminate the enemy's ability to wage it. That means that, from a practical perspective, there will never be a better time than now to deal with Iran by means of force.
I think there's probably a big difference between making a rocket which can reach escape velocity and being able to target a specific location thousands of miles away.
There is. In reality, this is more akin to Sputnik than an ICBM.
Nevertheless, we and the Soviets started like this, and it didn't take many years before both we and they had intercontinental capability in weapons delivery. Furthermore, the Iranians (and everyone else interested in near-space) have the advantage of knowing what can be accomplished. We and the Russians did not, and spent a lot of time and money figuring that out.
They also don't have to come up with anything akin to a Saturn V or Energia heavy-lift booster to become a real threat, if they want to be. Why they'd want to be on the U.S. and Soviet target list is beyond me though. Being a nuclear power today (even a nuclear superpower) is risky business, no matter how you slice it.
Honestly, I'm not really all that worried about this: a cruise missile is a lot cheaper to develop and deploy than an ICBM, and damn near as deadly.
As they should. When millions of people in your country are without jobs, you want your government to protect your ability to get a job, not a corporation's ability to get cheap labor from somewhere else. At least, last time I checked the government is supposed to work for the people.
Disclaimer: I'm a small business owner who despises organizations using H1B visas, since it's only used to get high quality talent at dirt cheap wages.
Couldn't agree more, although I think you're being too generous in your estimation. Most of the outfits I know that are heavily into H1Bs are really more concerned about the "dirt cheap" part. MBA and middle-management types (the ones who make the decision to scrap their current workforces in favor of indentured servants^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H1B visa holders) are typically unable to make such fine distinctions. As an engineer myself, I find that it's a rare company indeed that places any value on knowledge and experience: not in the modern globalized United States anyway. The real deciding factor is usually salary, and whether or not they think they can get away with providing no benefits. I don't truly understand the pathology of such minds, but whatever it is they have under their collective hood, it ain't pretty. I'm certain of that.
... only to find that it doesn't work. The dude that knew you had to shave an extra thousandth off that one standoff ... well, you fired his ass. The engineer who might have been able to take one look at the drawings and figure out what the plant guys had been doing ... well, you laid him off and he moved to California to slap burgers. Yep, pretty much a win-win all the way around.
... maybe Can
Truth is, if they did value those intangibles (and understood the nature and importance of institutional memory) they'd do whatever it took to hold on to the people they already have, and would have a very different perception of the temporary foreign worker. A single top level engineer who thoroughly understands your product line, your customers, and your corporate mindset is worth a dozen H1Bs, and I don't care how educated or talented or cheap, they may happen to be. Too many corporations have gone the new "HP Way" and fired all their so-called high overhead people to save costs. Of course, those high overhead types were expensive for a reason, usually many reasons, none of which can be remotely comprehended by an MBA.
Are you gathering from this little diatribe that I have little respect for your typical MBA? If so, why, you'd be right. To any Masters of Business Administration in the audience tonight, here's a hearty "fuck you" to you and all your kind for what you've done to my country, and my countrymen. Oh, there are decent souls among you, I know that. One of my best friends is one of those, even if he does have an MBA. Still, he absolutely can't stand the rest of you, because he considers you to be greedy, sociopathic fucks who don't care about anyone but yourselves. His words, not mine, although obviously I agree with him.
Let's get back to why focusing on salary alone is so morbidly stupid. It goes like this: you have to understand that your people are important, and that goes all the way down to the guy on the line. There's a lot of unwritten knowledge that goes into manufacturing complex products, knowledge that the engineers who designed said products are often surprised to find out (usually they never do.) You dump all your "expensive" staff and bring in a bunch of newbies, and you'll find yourself in a world of hurt. Sure, the new guys may follow the schematics, drill and machine and grind everything just like the drawing says
Just to make my position clear (because some people tend to level charges of bigotry at me when I say things like this) I'm not against legal immigration, and I hold no grudges against those from other countries (well, okay
Like when Metallica was demonized for going after Napster?
Metallica was quite rightly demonized for their petulant behavior. I mean, come on ... the group is lead by the bloody self-proclaimed Prince of Darkness, man.
Before you get on your MS bashing high-horse, you might choose to take a glance at Sun, who has been including the _goddamn google toolbar_ in Java updates as a default option.
Well, I don't agree that Microsoft is on the up-and-up here ... but yeah, that was sure a professional touch on Sun's part, wasn't it? I had a couple of updates that offered Yahoo's toolbar instead. I was irked enough to write them a letter about it. Got a polite response, that was about it. My laptop updated its Java yesterday, and sure enough there was the Google Toolbar option (checked by default, of course.)
I always thought better of Sun, for some reason. Smacks of some lame shareware program, where the author makes more money installing toolbars than he does from his own work.
My Web host's servers are all named after Star Wars characters.
Why don't you just let them become citizens?
Why should we? If fifteen or twenty million U.S. citizens decided to leave and illegally emigrate to your country, causing massive economic dislocation and bringing increasing amounts of violence and crime along with us ... should we expect to be made citizens? Just "because"? What the fuck is the matter with you?
I'd be surprised if he has a passport ....
Consider yourself surprised. I have to travel as part of my job (my employer sells to just about everybody on the planet that has a petroleum industry, or uses petroleum products.) I don't particularly like to travel (I got that out of my system a long time ago, and I'm rather tall so I'm not very comfortable in jetliner seats) but trying to say that I'm ignorant of people from other countries is off base. Heck, I'm about to marry an African woman, so take your petty remark and stick it where the Sun don't shine.
... our Constitution doesn't permit that. However, it does not say that our government should be giving away our candy store, making economic policies and laws that benefit foreign nationals at the expense of U.S. citizens. You can deny that that is happening if you wish, but that just makes you blind. I know a lot of American engineers and technical people that have been fired and replaced by (often inferior, but invariably cheaper) foreign labor. That's the facts, jack, and it is what the H1B program is all about.
... it works both ways. Want us to respect you? Do us the same favor.
However, as an American I believe that my people should come first, and that my government should put Americans before all others. Does that mean that we should abuse people of other countries? Of course not
Furthermore, anyone who believes there's a critical shortage of skilled workers is uninformed, and if there were, well, let me tell you what is supposed to happen. What happens then is that employers compete for the existing talent, salaries rise for a while, then schools churn out a sufficient number of new workers and salaries drop back to previous levels, or perhaps slightly below. That's how it's worked for a long, long time. Yes, that means employers have to temporarily pay more than the previous prevailing wage, and must continue to pay a decent wage once the quantity of workers is sufficient. However, in recent years (thanks to some rather pliable (read: treasonous) members of Congress) certain companies think they've found a way to get around that, by bringing in cheaper foreign workers now. That way, they don't have to wait until there's more local workers available (assuming their really is the claimed shortage) and get cheaper labor long-term. Whether you want to admit it or not, a lot of Americans have lost their jobs because of this. I'm sure the Founders would be proud.
Anyway, that's the theory: it hasn't actually worked out all that well in practice. I know a number of companies that eventually dumped their H1B's and re-hired their American people. They did that for a lot of reasons: often the foreign workers weren't as skilled or knowledgeable as claimed (as in, "lied on the their applications"), weren't trustworthy (as in "stole prototypes and source code") or just generally weren't as advertised. The converse is also true, of course, but as a potential employer you have no way to tell for sure.
Regardless, just as your government should put the welfare of its citizens above any American visitors, I expect mine to do the reverse. Get over yourselves: I'm sick to death of people who feel that nationalism should work only in their interests (i.e., America should give them anything they want.) It doesn't, bucko
Cripes. I wish you people would grow up.
You may be shocked by your reading and your restatement of this person's opinion. But why don't you wait till this person agrees to your restatement before you say "wow".
I think that people on both sides of the H1B issue may believe that H1Bs are more cost effective (to the corporation) than hiring locals, within some error. The question is whether allowing this is good for the country as a whole.
As a taxpayer and someone in favor of H1Bs, can't I ask that my taxes be used in the most cost-effective way?
Certainly you my ask. But that only makes you short-sighted. There are other concerns than the purely economic elements that everyone is focusing on. But keeping to that point, there's such a thing as being penny-wise and pound foolish ... and that's precisely what I believe is happening here. By eliminating the incentive for our own people to go to school and gain the requisite education to develop and maintain our economic system and domestic industry, we are costing ourselves in the long run. You don't think that's happening? Well, what do you think happens when a young person is deciding whether or not to spend the hundred grand or more it takes to gain an advanced degree in the U.S. He or she is going to see that what was once a well-paid profession is now worth peanuts, and that the college loan they'll have to take out will never get paid back That's one price we're paying by allowing ourselves to take the low road here. I've been a developer and businessman in the manufacturing sector for thirty years, and I see it everywhere. It's depressing. It's not a level playing field, just like everything else about the so-called "Global Economy" (e.g. global wealth-redistribution system.)
This is a mistake, pure and simple, and it's being done because a number of extremely dishonest corporations want it this way. Period. Anything else is just sugarcoating and ignorance of history.
Thank you, Viz. I was feeling a bit lonely in this thread. I agree: the global economy has turned out to be a global wealth redistribution system, and not much else. There's a certain element of irrationality in the way the U.S. government is handling our foreign affairs and our economic development nowadays. Now, it's perfectly understandable that foreign workers would want to come here, educate themselves, and perhaps send some earnings home to support their families. I'm not really complaining about them: I'm complaining about the people we've put in charge, who are (let's face facts here) selling us down the river, throwing away everything that previous generations built for us. The tragedy is damn near Biblical in nature.
I frequently ask people what will replace America's industrial engine, the very engine that drove it to economic and military supremacy, that will allow it to maintain its current status as a world power without continued deficit spending. The answers I usually get revolve around words like "service economy." Nice-sounding euphemism, that. Unfortunately, "service economy" is semantically equivalent to "third world economy."
Honestly, I've been to a few such countries. I'd not choose to live in many of them, and I reset being forced into it by ignorant, short-sighted and self-aggrandizing Americans that can't see that we're shooting ourselves in the foot.
You can only catch a cat in the same trap once.
I used to think that. Now I don't have a cat.
My trust just went right down the toilet.
What's surprising to me is that you had any to begin with. But yeah, this is pretty raw even for Microsoft.
So...
Where can I buy these attachments?
Right here