An A/C claimed that Indian H1-Bs are trying to stay in this country (which may or may not be true) and that the H1-B program requires that they be paid in the 90K range, which is definitely NOT true.
Let me explain.
It is true that the H1-B program *technically* requires that H1-Bs make a prevailing wage, but this is almost NEVER ENFORCED.
Here's an example: I know DOZENS of Indian H1-Bs, and I know what they make. They make about 45K. And this is in NEW YORK. The company they work for takes in about 100K, of course, because they're all contractors. If anyone can explain to me how this means they're getting a prevailing wage, I would like to hear that. It's probably good for a laugh.
I would also like to point out that I have heard many Indians talk with some degree of hopefulness and joy about how they're going to take their savings back to India with them, because money goes much further there. I would tend to believe the actual Indians themselves before a third party such as yourself. It's expensive as hell here, and it is NOT expensive there; it's a no-brainer, really. Common sense.
The H1-B program will eventually be killed off, and the sooner the better.
Hoo, boy, you're really into this whole "wave the flag for the H1-B" thing, aren't you? Ok, I'll take the bait.
First of all, this country rose to power during a period in which we had very restrictive immigration policies in force. Immigrants went through a quarantine period in Ellis Island, took IQ tests, and had to file a ton of paperwork to get in. During this period, in which we were allowing far fewer people in, we became a superpower. My grandparents (and those of everyone else that I know) went through this, so I have no sympathy for your whinging about how tough it is to get into the country now (it's a fucking CAKEWALK now, compared to the old days, SO FUCK OFF!).
I was polite to the other guy, not YOU, you idiot Aussie fuck. Tra, la la!
Ok, moving right along, it's a GOOD thing that immigration is difficult. You don't want the whole fucking world moving here. And compared to OTHER countries, we're as sweet as pie, because it's a hell of a lot harder to emigrate to, say, Europe or your home, Australia, SO FUCK OFF.
Finally, who cares if a conference is held somewhere else? It's still held, the same people go, and the same things take place. Nothing has been lost, and OUR scientists get to go to Europe which should be a nice change of pace for 'em.
Nobody cares about your pissy little problems, biology boy.
"Do these countries ask how they can attract the best and the brightest from elsewhere?"
No, because they are pinning their future hopes on sending their workers out to other countries and bringing the money back. The Philippines has been engaging in this strategy for years, in fact it's a large national program, but they target more menial labor, like maid services, for some reason. India has engaged in a national push to become the "back office of the world" and several years ago, some high-muckety-muck over there was quoted extensively in a Wired Magazine article about how they were going to flood the world with IT workers, take over most IT functions, and so on.
All of this is deliberate. It's (almost) an economic war between the bottom and the top.
Threw the "racist" bomb, didn't you? But of course you did, even though we are both likely white. You're an idiot.
It is not racist to seek the elimination of guest worker programs. Also, seeking the elimination of guest worker programs is NOT the same thing as wanting to end immigration. I am quite comfortable with PERMANENT immigration, i.e. someone filing for a green card and coming here for good, renouncing their old citizenship. That's how most of our grandparents got here, and it's how things are supposed to work.
The H1-B program doesn't work that way. People come here for six years, steal a job (YES, STEAL) from an American Citizen, and then fuck off back to their own country with their ill-gotten gains. The only reason people like you get away with it is because you're cheap, and the people hiring you are greedy and disloyal. These programs should be (and will eventually be) abolished, so enjoy them while you can.
As for your weirdo comments about "science", if it's necessary to bring in foreigners for temporary research purposes, I'm pretty sure a special visa can be created for that without throwing you in with the H1-Bs. And anyway, you're not the norm for H1-Bs so you're just building a straw man argument around yourself. Didn't you study logic?
Bottom line: I'm not a racist, but you're an asshole. Be one with your assholeness! You'll be happier in life.
An A/C made the reasonable point that the H1-B program *could* lead to actual immigration, which *could* lead to a positive result. However, I disagree (and will do so politely, because I respect the poster's point of view, even though I disagree with it):
First of all, we already have programs for handling permanent immigration. People can apply for a green card and get admitted; it happens all the time and is how things are SUPPOSED to work. There are quotas, and a certain number of people are admitted, naturally -- you can't admit EVERYONE or half the rest of the world will be depopulated and this country will be an overcrowded hellhole. The situation SHOULD be managed. It SHOULD be controlled. And it has been, up until recently.
Guest worker programs are a terrible idea. First, they let people from the poorest countries in the world sell their labor at miniscule wages, undercutting everyone in an entire profession. It's not unlike a foreign nation dumping cheap steel on the market to ruin our industrial capacity. It ruins people's LIVES, and the only reason it's permitted is to make a bunch of rich assholes even richer than they already are.
These guest workers generally don't stay here. They stay for six years, save up as much money as they can, and take it home with them. It leaves our economy and enriches theirs.
The whole guest worker idea is ruinous. It's a rotten idea, and I think that eventually people are going to get pissed off enough about it that laws will be passed (I'm hoping for a constitutional amendment) that ban it utterly.
Here's a fun idea: if a company opens up a shop offshore, let them pay full U.S. income taxes for every offshore worker they employ, and let them lose every tax break they would otherwise qualify for.
Although, I'd settle for the U.S. dropping out of the WTO until it can demonstrate that it is equally concerned with the unfair trade practices people use against US, and backing out of NAFTA and GATT.
Sigh... Something will happen to change things, one way or the other, It'll probably end up as a plank in an election campaign. "Dubya" can't run again, so maybe in the next election they won't cook the books... Ya think?
An A/C claimed I was creating a flip-side conformist framework for geeks that was the equivalent of a high-school clique's rules. I beg to differ.
What I described was a set of characteristics most actual geeks I know possess, characteristics NOT shared by people who are just playing a role because they think there's money involved.
I think it is a valid, interesting form of inquiry. The question, "is this person actually a geek, or did he just adopt what he felt were geeklike characteristics to play a role and get a job?" is a valid question. It has nothing to do with any sort of High School anything.
If you want to know what a person is really about, what he's really like inside, when he's not gunning for a techie job, you have to ASK.
Real, actual geeks share a subculture which possesses certain very real characteristics. The fact that World+Dog has latched onto at least the pretense of being in this subculture because they smelled money during the dot-com boom doesn't change this; it only makes knowing who's who more valid.
As much as I hate to say it, you're right. It's a major problem in the United States. And those of us who always suspected that 22 grown men slamming into one another over an inflated pig bladder was pointless and silly compared to something interesting like physics or computer science, well, we've always been outcasts here.
Even at my office, where almost everyone is a programmer, if you can't talk about football, baseball, or basketball, you're shut out of half of the conversations that take place. Bring up something technical you heard about over the weekend and people look at you like you're a paste-eating dweeb.
A system such as you describe would be HEAVEN for many of us, and we would trade in a heartbeat. But I'd like to point out that in the U.S. there are still plenty of geeks despite the odd sports fixation of most of society, and REAL geeks almost NEVER want jocks for kids (can you imagine the horror of having your own offspring turn into your natural pecking-order enemies? It'd be like a black guy trying to raise little skinheads!).
Here's how to tell a real geek from a faux geek.
A real geek and a faux geek both generally talk the talk. However, only the real geek will also walk the walk. Ask him, while looking for "tells" (little fidgets people do while lying, like looking away for just a second, or fidgeting with a wedding ring):
(With the understanding that knowing what these things are is just as big an indicator as doing them)
1. Ever been to a DefCon or HOPE conference, or the phones by Citibank? This is a strong indicator, but the converse doesn't tell you anything.
2. Run Linux at home? As a primary O/S, or dual boot for messing around? Which distro? NOTE: If he says "Slackware", "Debian" or *BSD, that's a strong indicator; if he uses a user-friendly distro, that's a weaker indicator, but still an indicator.
3. Does he program at home? If so, what language? If he says he programs in Visual Basic on purpose, smile broadly, excuse yourself, and back away, keeping one hand each on your wallet and keys and maintaining eye contact. DO NOT RUN. He will chase you, it's instinctual. NOTE: If he does Java, C, C++, that's a fairly strong indicator; if he does something more arcane like assembler, Smalltalk, Prolog or Lisp, that's not just a strong indicator, that's proof positive.
4. Does he like videogames? Most geeks are fairly strongly drawn towards videogames, especially fantasy and science-fiction. Poseurs hate videogames and mock them openly. If the guy laughs the question off, he's no geek. If he gives you an interested answer, occasionally with a top-ten list of favorites, that's a strong indicator.
5. Does he dabble in different sciences, like physics or chemistry? Strong indicator.
6. Does he dislike or ignore sports? That's a pretty strong indicator, but the converse shouldn't be considered an indicator at all. Many people in the office fake an interest in sports to ingratiate themselves to the non-geeks who seem to run everything. If the person seems a little TOO perfect, sports-wise, that might be an indicator; maybe he approached it as a research project.
And so on. You should be able to figure someone out in less than fifteen minutes of sly conversation.:)
It's true very little will be manufactured here in any kind of macro sense, but small companies will still make some items. With all the on-demand manufacturing that's coming about, like the machine shop which lets you submit designs over the web, they'll be able to produce small runs of products and sell them directly to consumers.
Large companies, including foreign companies, will continue to want to sell things to us. They'll hire staff here to manage their local operations, much as we used to hire staff THERE.
Stores will still be open. So will restaurants, libraries, colleges... Auto mechanics, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, HVAC, cops, security guards... All will continue to make a reasonable living.
Civil service will end up being one safe haven; sooner or later security concerns will result in legislation mandating citizenship for all such jobs. The government should be manned by citizens on principle anyway.
On the whole, I expect the U.S. to become "just another country" and settle down, maybe turning into something like a smaller European state. Nice and quiet, not really paid attention to, with a few nice beaches and good bars.
I don't think this is a BAD thing, actually. There will still be opportunities, but they'll be in small, locally held companies the way they USED to be before the manufacturing explosion in the fifties. I think it'll be ok.
POSSIBLE SCARY THOUGHT:
What if the only industry we really hang on to is that populated by miltary manufacturers like Lockheed? What if they are the ones that forge ahead into nanotechnology and biotech? What if they produce the next generation of weapons?
They'll want a market. And the CIA will be receptive to their desire for this, at least during republican presidencies.
One might expect the CIA to "help out" from time to time, stirring up trouble in one or another third-world nation, then nudging them towards one supplier or another. Result: another century of war, this time not directly involving the U.S. but rather, only its weapons manufactures.
Think this is unlikely? We do, after all, make the most exciting, CNN-worthy weapons. We're not just good at it; we're fucking IMAGINATIVE. What other country actually builds in missle-cams? Who else would have thought of the entertainment value in such a thing, or would have been so base as to actually PUBLISH the footage?
This might just be one of the biggest challenges of the next century: how do you convince the nation with the biggest nuclear weapon stockpile not to manufacture and sell extremely profitable weapons systems? You can't attack them (they'll destroy you, and make billions rebuilding your infrastructure afterwards). You can't talk to them (picture having such a conversation with George Bush, the capitalist from hell). You can't put any economic pressure on them, because they don't sell anything anymore -- they just buy from everybody, because globalism has destroyed all their native industries. You have no carrots OR sticks to offer.
1. If you're an H1-B, you're NOT an immigrant, you're a guest worker. You don't belong here, and the only reason you ARE here is lobbying by high-tech companies and their greedhead owners. SO FUCK OFF.
2. American universities should hire their own U.S. grads, not arrogant foriegn fucks who have the nerve to talk shit on Slashdot about their situation. SO FUCK OFF.
3. What, weren't there any jobs in Australia? People down there find you as annoying as we do? Why come here, why not just work in your own fucking country? FUCK OFF.
When I was working for Screamingmedia in Chelsea, NY, in 1999, I was considered to be a little nuts because I had the company logo tattooed on my left arm. The TRUE story of how that came about was that one of the marketing people had said in a company-wide meeting that they were going to give 1500.00 to the first person to get a logo tattoo. Being a good sport, I got one, and was told that they were "only kidding". I later found out that the offer didn't really apply to *everybody*, but rather just one of the people close to the founders, who had decided NOT to get a tattoo after all.
I'm kind of laid back, so I didn't start any trouble, but later on I *did* turn the tattoo into a very attractive "Dragon crossing Japanese Sun" kinda thing -- you can't see any logo in there at all now. So no harm done.
One day, Wired sent someone around to interview everyone, focusing mostly on the fact that the company head was Jay Chiat, who was fairly famous at the time. I guess Wired didn't like Mr. Chiat, because their story about us wasn't particularly kind (we really didn't deserve that, either). Regardless, what annoyed me was, I spent a few minutes talking to the idiot they sent around to interview us about why I got the tattoo, and etc.
So, what did said idiot put in the magazine? I don't remember the exact words the idiot used, but the idiot totally made up my quote. The idiot made me look like a fucking MORON -- the idiot had me talking like some kind of dippy stoner.
So I visit NYC from time to time -- maybe four times a year -- so what? MOST of the time, I hang around here, because my home is much better than NYC. I prefer my nice, clean, safe, green, beautiful suburb to your nasty, dirty, ugly grey city. Deal with it.
Call me silly, but I like living in a place where at night, it actually gets DARK. I can go out in the woods, look up, and see stars without interference from city lights. You have no idea how many stars are visible at night out here. In NYC, you can only see the brightest stars. Where I live, you can see everything visible in our hemisphere. Of course, you're probably much more interested in some awful Broadway spectacle than indulging in a little astronomy, but there's no accounting for taste.
And my commute to work is about twenty minutes door to door. Good luck even getting around Manhattan in twenty. Hell, you spend more than that just waiting for the subway, let alone walking the several blocks between the station and your job. I used to work in Chelsea, so YES, I know how that whole thing works.
Here's something interesting: people out here are a whole lot nicer than the ones you're used to. I suspect this has something to do with the way you people are packed assholes to elbows like rats in a cage. You remember that experiment where they packed tons of rats in a little cage, and they all went nuts and ate each other? Yeah... That's your city all over. I don't want to live that way. Humans weren't MEANT to live that way. We belong out in the woods, breathing clean air and drinking clean water. Not surrounded by the smog and filth of a nasty, grey, crumbling city.
Ugh.
Anyway, I don't remember saying your description fits ANYWHERE. I only said that crystal meth was a midwestern thing. Read the post. YOUR vision of suburbia is the bitter fantasy of a city dweller who, faced with a constant barrage of misery and inconvenience, feels the need to justify his poor life choices. It isn't accurate ANYWHERE.
I live in Upstate New York, the nicest of the blue states. And yes, my suburb is very nice, and very safe. It's not a gated community, either, just a nice place to live.
It's mostly working class, lots of blue collar and tech workers, with a healthy mix of different nationalities and races. Nobody around here has been killed, mugged, raped, etc, at least as long as I've lived here. And the only drugs I've heard about in use here have been the occasional college kid smoking a doobie, which I don't find particularly horrifying (although I wouldn't do it).
Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because YOUR home is dangerous, everyone else's is, too. Such generalizations don't hold water.
Hoo, boy, you've created a whole fictional rural world to make fun of, haven't you? What bullshit. You either watch way too many movies, or you're just trolling.
Here in upstate New York, things are nice and quiet, and I don't remember the last time an actual crime occurred in my town. Hell, I haven't even heard of a fistfight, much less an actual robbery. You need to get out more.
As far as "crystal meth" goes, we don't seem to have that particular problem around here. We've got a pothead or two, but they don't really start much trouble. You're thinking of the Midwest, chum.
Let's see; you complain about a lack of immigrants, gallery openings, and playwrights.
A twenty minute drive brings me to several live theaters, galleries, and more immigrants than you can shake a stick at. A slightly longer drive brings me into downtown Manhattan. Even more theaters, galleries, and immigrants. The difference between you and me is that I can go HOME after my night out, and experience something you city assholes have forgotten exists: PEACE and QUIET. And I can walk around my neighborhood at night without fear. I've got several state parks within a ten or fifteen minute drive, if I want to swim in a lake, go camping, hike, or otherwise enjoy the gorgeous outdoors. What have you got, central park? Please. It's filthy, dirty, swarming with degenerates and criminals... No comparison, my world beats yours hands down.
But if it helps you sleep at night in your overpriced, tiny, sad little apartment, by all means, make fun of all of us suburbanites. We can afford to be magnanimous, after all.
You lost all your credibility with me when you actually said the words "car addict". "Car addict"??? You're a daft hippie...
Cars are the single best thing to happen to transportation, ever. They give individuals more freedom than they have ever had before, and are one of the major contributing factors to the success of American society in this century. When anyone can work or live anywhere, everyone has much more opportunity to participate. And that's a GOOD thing.
The ONLY problem with cars is that the idiot government refuses to commit to converting us to anything other than an oil economy. You can run a car on hydrogen, alcohol, electricity, biodiesel, even compressed air for christ's sake (google it, it's true!). GASOLINE is the problem, not cars.
Quit worrying about "car addicts" and start worrying about "oil addicts". Maybe I'll take you seriously.;P
Uh huh... Spoken like a true urbanite. Ok, Mr. Metrosexual, here is my response:
The suburbs are much nicer than the cities. They're GREEN, for one thing -- my neighborhood is beautifully forested. I'd rather live in the woods than be surrounded by concrete any day.
As for culture, we have coffee shops and bars too, only ours are nicer, our bookstores are bigger, and parking is easier.
Add to that the fact that in my nice, quiet, working-class suburb, I've never heard of anyone being robbed, murdered, raped, mugged, invited to buy drugs, or otherwise annoyed. In the nearest city, the people living downtown have quite a different experience.
You enjoy your city life. The rest of us are quite happy out here.
1. Tell Stallman that Microsoft has bought the company that does all of the FSF's web hosting, and that the paper Stallman signed that morning wasn't actually a legal form related to his latest fight, but a contract signing over all his projects to Bill Gates. Before he can explode, tell him that Bill wants to seal the deal with a handshake in person at this address...
2. While Stallman is driving to the meeting at Mach 4 with a chainsaw, a ball-peen hammer, and a skinning knife, tell the other two guys that Stallman is going to meet with Bill Gates and sell the FSF to him, along with the rights to the phrases "Free Software", "Open Source", and "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" (which is going to be made into an X-Box fighting game). Ask them if they're just going to let that happen, or if they're going to head him off and deal with the Microsoft swine that talked him into it.
3. Sneak to the meeting location and watch through the window. My money's on Mr. Stallman; he looks pretty cagey. I bet he wipes out the whole Microsoft contingent before the others get off the expressway...
I should point out that the German rocket scientists and the nuclear physicists involved in your rebuttal had already emigrated to the United States and were, therefore, AMERICANS.
It is frequently forgotten by the rest of the world, especially Europeans, that there ARE no actual "Americans" in terms of race or creed. ALL of us, even the native Americans (Navajos, etc) came here from someplace else.
The only thing that identifies us as Americans is that at some point, our ancestors chose to come here. And once our ancestors came here, we proceeded to invent a large number of the things the rest of the world now takes for granted. Things like THE INTERNET.
So pardon me, but it really burns my ass when people dismiss us as stupid. When Europeans call Americans stupid, considering that 77% of us are of European origin, and therefore are *exactly* like them, the irony is usually lost on them.
Let me restate my original point in a way you might be able to be comfortable with (and this is actually how I think about this issue).
Americans, and by extension Europeans (because we really are one culture when you think about it) generated the vast majority of scientific, mathematical, and technical advancements of the past five hundred years. Prior to this, most of the advancements were performed by Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the various Arab cultures they traded with.
Indians "invented the number zero", built pretty palaces, and maintained a culture in which the vast majority of people were dirt poor and served a fabulously wealthy elite. Their unjust system of castes endures to this day, although after contact with the West, the system is fading a bit.
Greece, in the same time period, invented or significantly advanced philosophy, natural science, mathematics, the concept of democracy, and building methods so sound that many of their buildings still stand to this day.
IF, as many people love to slanderously allege, Indians are naturally smarter than Americans (and by extension Europeans, Greeks, Romans, etc) why is it that their culture was so primitive until the British conquered them? Why is it that even today, their literacy rate is so low? Why is most of their country so poor? Why don't most people there have indoor plumbing, for crying out loud? Why do large segments of their population cook their food over fires made from COW CRAP, and see nothing wrong with that? National Geographic is pretty interesting; I watched a rural Indian woman pick up cow shit with her hands, pat it into a log, carry it in, and then prepare and cook food over it (without washing her hands) and eat it (with her hands, no forks or spoons).
Sure, they had pretty palaces and the number zero. But we had indoor plumbing, steam power, science, mathematics...
My point is not that Indians are worthless, but rather that they should consider being a little more humble, a little less arrogant, and stop yammering about how they're naturally brighter than the rest of us.
I eagerly await your reply. "Hairy grunts"? Socrates was a hairy grunt? You're nuts.
You are correct about Minix. Sorry about that, my bad. But, IT was still based on Unix and BSD, which were developed here, so I'm not completely unmanned.
Unix came from Bell Labs in New Jersey, and BSD came from Berkeley, California (the B in BSD).
You said: "think it's entirely possible that a new generation does not have the level of education than the one before. I think we can all agree that your ancestors where great. You will have to prove yourself."
Well, that's some nasty speculation. But America still has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, right alongside Europe and Japan. Also, most of us DO end up going to college (yes, including technical subjects). If you're trying to say less of us are going to graduate school, well, it's possible that more of us have decided it isn't worth the vast expenditure of money and time considering we're not likely to get hired, anyway. This does not make us less bright, though. If anything it implies a certain thrift.
You blathered like an asshole: "Quit your fucking whining and start doing something."
Which is what I said Americans were going to do to cope, now, isn't it? READ THE FUCKING POST.
As for your point number 5, today my government (which you have so little respect for) told Mr. Gates to go fuck himself on the visa issue. So I guess it isn't ALL bad around here.
MOST immigrants move to the United States, become Americans, and contribute to our culture and nation. Chinese people, Japanese people, Europeans, Russians, and tons of other groups move here and become a part of this country. And it's great. It's how things are supposed to work.
SOME Indians -- a minority -- do the same thing. And that's great too. They immigrate in the traditional, non-guest-worker way, and they're just another group of immigrants, just like all the others who came before them.
But the majority of Indians who come here are coming over just to snatch a job, work for a few years, then fuck off home when it's convenient for them. The money they make here goes a long way back there, and they have no intention of passing that up. THIS is the problem.
It is completely unfair and wrong to allow temporary guest workers to come into this country and take jobs that SHOULD be reserved by law for people who are citizens or who are going to be citizens. If our government worked for US, that's how things would work. But it works for corporations, and so things are a bit different.
If we don't allow guest workers to come here, and they stay home, GOOD. If corporations open up shop over there, GOOD. Who cares? They weren't going to give US those jobs, anyway.
Bottom line: If you're not moving here to live FOREVER, you shouldn't be permitted to help corporations ruin the livelihoods of the people who DO live here permanantly. You shouldn't be allowed to undercut the salaries of the people you're replacing, engaging in unfair competition. And don't tell me how much H1-Bs make, either -- I know plenty of them, and they're making peanuts. Not only that; most of the ones I know have no health insurance or benefits. And lots of them group up and share apartments, so don't tell me any nonsense about them buying houses. If any Indians are buying houses, it's as an investment so they can sell it at a profit before they take off.
Most countries, by the way, don't let this sort of thing go on. I notice you mentioned Indian laws which don't allow us to do the same thing THEY are allowed to do. It's a trade issue, and it should be addressed.
So, Bill Gates, richest man in the world (almost), who made his fortune with the help of American developers, now wants to bring a million Indians in to destroy the U.S. software industry as a job prospect for his own countrymen. What a guy! Let me add a few thoughts worth contemplating:
1. If Americans are supposedly so stupid compared to Indians, why exactly was it American engineers who developed the transistor (Bell Labs), the airplane (Wright Brothers), the light bulb (Thomas Edison), most of the foundation of modern computer science, the Unix operating system and the C language, Minix (upon which Linux was based), BSD, Java, the laser, the space shuttle, the satellite (yes, the Russians were first with the dog, but we leapfrogged them and our technology was much, much better -- also, Russia was stealing American technology throughout the cold war to help them compete), the nuclear submarine, the skyscraper, steel reinforced concrete, a vast number of modern medical procedures, the atomic and hydrogen bombs (those German physicists were aided by many American physicists and engineers), the atomic power plant, the Apollo Moon shot (most of the engineers were Americans, don't get started on Nazi rocket scientists...) and the personal computer? I could go on, but considering India's main claim to fame is the supposed invention of the number zero, and that it was a cruddy little third world country until the tech boom (and the technology WE GAVE THEM)... Well... You see my point. India's claim to have the best engineers in the world is pure hubris and fantasy.
2. If Bill G et al were REALLY concerned about producing more computer science graduates, they'd give kids a reason to enter the field instead of destroying their job prospects. But they're not. What they're concerned about is cheap, easy to exploit foreign labor. They don't care whether the foreigners are any good at programming at all; it isn't just IIT grads coming over, you know, it's the losers, too. And unlike Americans, they have lie-packed resumes that are impossible to doublecheck.
3. If these guys get their way and wipe out the computer science field for Americans, my people will figure out a new way to survive. We'll go into government, or civil service, or start our own local companies and bulletin boards, or turn to hacking like our Russian jobless counterparts.
4. I think it's very interesting that corporate America is so determined to wreck things for the very people who are best positioned to take revenge, whether it's by contributing to open-source and destroying the proprietary market, starting a company to directly compete, or going berserk and writing the next generation of viruses. It seems a little nuts to me, but then, nobody ever said suits had any common sense.
5. This ought to clear up the question of how committed Bill Gates et al are to "developers, developers, developers". I like the guy who suggested Bill G fuck himself with a cactus. That was perfect. My only gripe is, what about the poor cactus? I think he should use a cattle prod instead. It's the high-tech solution.
I'm stuck doing VB6 on a legacy app, right? And the previous programmer was a complete jackass. For example, in this one function I'm working on, he's just doing a very simple SQL select pulling down two values in one record, and returning true if the record exists, and false if it doesn't.
First of all, he didn't properly handle errors, so if anything goes wrong, his object just sits there in memory (no garbage collection in VB6!). Our servers have been crapping out lately, so this was a valuable discovery for me. Second, when he fetches his data from Oracle, he inexplicably sets the lock type to "adLockPessimistic" (with a static, client-side recordset that doesn't get updated!!!) which locks the affected records until the recordset is done with them. Which I suspect means that if there's an error and the recordset doesn't get closed or set to nothing, the records will be locked until some timeout occurs. Another tip about why the server might be choking (lots of users hitting the same records, ha ha, what fun). And, on top of that, he's not cleaning up his objects, so it's not like the recordset ever releases the records in the first place. I mean, at some point they're getting released, but it's not HIS code that's doing it.
So, I rewrote the whole thing correctly, fixing the error handling and making sure objects were cleaned out, switching to a static recordset with optimistic locking, etc, shortening and speeding up the code. I might speed it up some more by making it readonly, I dunno. Thinking about it.
And, so I'd remember what I did and why, I added brief notes stating why I chose the lock and cursor types I did, why I used adUseClient instead of server, etc. In other words, I pointed out the nonobvious stuff that the code didn't explain.
I'm hoping that the next programmer to come along, who might not be that good at ADO, will read what I wrote and understand why it should be done a certain way.
I think good comments are about context, and sharing the thought process of the original programmer, and adding nonobvious info.
Sorry I didn't have code to share, but it's at work and it's late.:(
It is completely natural that far fewer people are studying computer science. The corporate jobs have gone overseas, and what they haven't offshored they've hired H1-Bs and L-1s for. An entire sector of employment has evaporated here in the U.S, just as it did with the steel industry, the garment industry, the automotive industry... And the kids can read the writing on the wall. Good for them! I hope they find something they can be successful in.
I remember when the mechanical engineering field collapsed, back in the nineties. Auto manufacturing had gone overseas and thanks to NAFTA, to Mexico and Canada, so there weren't many jobs available. On top of that, the defense industry in California dried up, putting hundreds of thousands of experienced engineers out on the street. At that time, Mech.E was being called "the new liberal art".
Computer science is going through that right now. The computer science major is now just like an art or physics major -- no prospects. The only people who'll study computer science nowadays are people who LIKE it, career notwithstanding.
Think about art majors, for example. They know they're not going to get a corporate job or make a lot of money. They know they're pretty much in for the whole "starving artist" thing, that they'll end up working some joe job to pay for their materials, and that the likelihood of their making it big is pretty minimal. They do it anyway, because they see majoring in art as an end in itself rather than a career path. If they hit something just right, they might make it big. Even if they don't, they'll probably be able to make a little money on the side here and there and supplement their income.
It's going to be exactly the same for computer science majors, with one (beneficial) difference: computer science majors will usually be able to find a computer-related job that pays their bills, and they MIGHT be able to score something in civil service or academia and even be successful.
This isn't that important. It's mostly going to be used by corporations to justify increased outsourcing, and by colleges to justify increased advertising and the pursuit of federal grants.
It's bullshit in other words, not in the sense that enrollment ISN'T dropping (it IS) but in the sense that they claim it matters (when it doesn't).
"They probably know a lot more about building houses and crowing crops in their area than we will ever know, and certainly more than google will tell you."
Ok, pop quiz: which area is more advanced, agriculturally: a third-world jungle nation struggling to grow sweet potatoes as a staple and vulnerable to variations in weather and environment, or the American Midwest, which produces so much agricultural product that it not only feeds the U.S. but much of the rest of the world as well?
Question 2: Where are you more likely to attend a university to learn agricultural engineering? The American Midwest? Or the hills of Thailand?
Or, here's one: If your yoda-like super-knowledgeable third-worlders know how to make houses better than we do, WHY DON'T THEY? Why do all the shacks I've seen overseas (both with my own eyes and in the news) look like they're made of scrap wood, cardboard boxes, and pieces of rusty metal? Are you honestly telling me that you think those people wouldn't be interested in better ways of building a house for themselves? Do you really expect me to believe that???
Sorry to "beat you up like this" but you're totally, hopelessly, incorrect.
The difference between the West and the Third World is NOT just caused by exploitation and corrupt governments.
The difference is the West has a several thousand year head start in the aquisition of scientific and technical know-how. This is an advantage the third world has NO CHANCE of overcoming on their own.
The ONLY way the third world has a chance of coming into the twenty-first century with the rest of us is if WE HELP THEM DO IT. What they need is technology transfer. Know-how. Education. And exposure to new ideas.
This laptop plan is brilliant, and I hope they succeed. The raw power of making information available to third-world people, of showing them areas of knowledge they would NEVER have had access to otherwise, is just mind-boggling. It's capable of transforming their world, plain and simple.
Are structural and economic problems a major problem for the third world? Sure.
But knowledge and know-how go a long way towards solving those problems. The first step is an educated, knowledgeable population. Don't give them fish -- teach them to fish.
I'm sorry, but I don't respect your point of view. I think it's thoughtless and shallow. You're essentially saying "We cannot help the third world because their governments are corrupt, and the big nasty west is exploiting them, so it's pointless to try anything at all."
Slashdot Mirror
An A/C claimed that Indian H1-Bs are trying to stay in this country (which may or may not be true) and that the H1-B program requires that they be paid in the 90K range, which is definitely NOT true.
Let me explain.
It is true that the H1-B program *technically* requires that H1-Bs make a prevailing wage, but this is almost NEVER ENFORCED.
Here's an example: I know DOZENS of Indian H1-Bs, and I know what they make. They make about 45K. And this is in NEW YORK. The company they work for takes in about 100K, of course, because they're all contractors. If anyone can explain to me how this means they're getting a prevailing wage, I would like to hear that. It's probably good for a laugh.
I would also like to point out that I have heard many Indians talk with some degree of hopefulness and joy about how they're going to take their savings back to India with them, because money goes much further there. I would tend to believe the actual Indians themselves before a third party such as yourself. It's expensive as hell here, and it is NOT expensive there; it's a no-brainer, really. Common sense.
The H1-B program will eventually be killed off, and the sooner the better.
Hoo, boy, you're really into this whole "wave the flag for the H1-B" thing, aren't you? Ok, I'll take the bait.
First of all, this country rose to power during a period in which we had very restrictive immigration policies in force. Immigrants went through a quarantine period in Ellis Island, took IQ tests, and had to file a ton of paperwork to get in. During this period, in which we were allowing far fewer people in, we became a superpower. My grandparents (and those of everyone else that I know) went through this, so I have no sympathy for your whinging about how tough it is to get into the country now (it's a fucking CAKEWALK now, compared to the old days, SO FUCK OFF!).
I was polite to the other guy, not YOU, you idiot Aussie fuck. Tra, la la!
Ok, moving right along, it's a GOOD thing that immigration is difficult. You don't want the whole fucking world moving here. And compared to OTHER countries, we're as sweet as pie, because it's a hell of a lot harder to emigrate to, say, Europe or your home, Australia, SO FUCK OFF.
Finally, who cares if a conference is held somewhere else? It's still held, the same people go, and the same things take place. Nothing has been lost, and OUR scientists get to go to Europe which should be a nice change of pace for 'em.
Nobody cares about your pissy little problems, biology boy.
SO FUCK OFF!
"Do these countries ask how they can attract the best and the brightest from elsewhere?"
No, because they are pinning their future hopes on sending their workers out to other countries and bringing the money back. The Philippines has been engaging in this strategy for years, in fact it's a large national program, but they target more menial labor, like maid services, for some reason. India has engaged in a national push to become the "back office of the world" and several years ago, some high-muckety-muck over there was quoted extensively in a Wired Magazine article about how they were going to flood the world with IT workers, take over most IT functions, and so on.
All of this is deliberate. It's (almost) an economic war between the bottom and the top.
Threw the "racist" bomb, didn't you? But of course you did, even though we are both likely white. You're an idiot.
It is not racist to seek the elimination of guest worker programs. Also, seeking the elimination of guest worker programs is NOT the same thing as wanting to end immigration. I am quite comfortable with PERMANENT immigration, i.e. someone filing for a green card and coming here for good, renouncing their old citizenship. That's how most of our grandparents got here, and it's how things are supposed to work.
The H1-B program doesn't work that way. People come here for six years, steal a job (YES, STEAL) from an American Citizen, and then fuck off back to their own country with their ill-gotten gains. The only reason people like you get away with it is because you're cheap, and the people hiring you are greedy and disloyal. These programs should be (and will eventually be) abolished, so enjoy them while you can.
As for your weirdo comments about "science", if it's necessary to bring in foreigners for temporary research purposes, I'm pretty sure a special visa can be created for that without throwing you in with the H1-Bs. And anyway, you're not the norm for H1-Bs so you're just building a straw man argument around yourself. Didn't you study logic?
Bottom line: I'm not a racist, but you're an asshole. Be one with your assholeness! You'll be happier in life.
An A/C made the reasonable point that the H1-B program *could* lead to actual immigration, which *could* lead to a positive result. However, I disagree (and will do so politely, because I respect the poster's point of view, even though I disagree with it):
First of all, we already have programs for handling permanent immigration. People can apply for a green card and get admitted; it happens all the time and is how things are SUPPOSED to work. There are quotas, and a certain number of people are admitted, naturally -- you can't admit EVERYONE or half the rest of the world will be depopulated and this country will be an overcrowded hellhole. The situation SHOULD be managed. It SHOULD be controlled. And it has been, up until recently.
Guest worker programs are a terrible idea. First, they let people from the poorest countries in the world sell their labor at miniscule wages, undercutting everyone in an entire profession. It's not unlike a foreign nation dumping cheap steel on the market to ruin our industrial capacity. It ruins people's LIVES, and the only reason it's permitted is to make a bunch of rich assholes even richer than they already are.
These guest workers generally don't stay here. They stay for six years, save up as much money as they can, and take it home with them. It leaves our economy and enriches theirs.
The whole guest worker idea is ruinous. It's a rotten idea, and I think that eventually people are going to get pissed off enough about it that laws will be passed (I'm hoping for a constitutional amendment) that ban it utterly.
Here's a fun idea: if a company opens up a shop offshore, let them pay full U.S. income taxes for every offshore worker they employ, and let them lose every tax break they would otherwise qualify for.
Although, I'd settle for the U.S. dropping out of the WTO until it can demonstrate that it is equally concerned with the unfair trade practices people use against US, and backing out of NAFTA and GATT.
Sigh... Something will happen to change things, one way or the other, It'll probably end up as a plank in an election campaign. "Dubya" can't run again, so maybe in the next election they won't cook the books... Ya think?
An A/C claimed I was creating a flip-side conformist framework for geeks that was the equivalent of a high-school clique's rules. I beg to differ.
What I described was a set of characteristics most actual geeks I know possess, characteristics NOT shared by people who are just playing a role because they think there's money involved.
I think it is a valid, interesting form of inquiry. The question, "is this person actually a geek, or did he just adopt what he felt were geeklike characteristics to play a role and get a job?" is a valid question. It has nothing to do with any sort of High School anything.
If you want to know what a person is really about, what he's really like inside, when he's not gunning for a techie job, you have to ASK.
Real, actual geeks share a subculture which possesses certain very real characteristics. The fact that World+Dog has latched onto at least the pretense of being in this subculture because they smelled money during the dot-com boom doesn't change this; it only makes knowing who's who more valid.
As much as I hate to say it, you're right. It's a major problem in the United States. And those of us who always suspected that 22 grown men slamming into one another over an inflated pig bladder was pointless and silly compared to something interesting like physics or computer science, well, we've always been outcasts here.
:)
Even at my office, where almost everyone is a programmer, if you can't talk about football, baseball, or basketball, you're shut out of half of the conversations that take place. Bring up something technical you heard about over the weekend and people look at you like you're a paste-eating dweeb.
A system such as you describe would be HEAVEN for many of us, and we would trade in a heartbeat. But I'd like to point out that in the U.S. there are still plenty of geeks despite the odd sports fixation of most of society, and REAL geeks almost NEVER want jocks for kids (can you imagine the horror of having your own offspring turn into your natural pecking-order enemies? It'd be like a black guy trying to raise little skinheads!).
Here's how to tell a real geek from a faux geek.
A real geek and a faux geek both generally talk the talk. However, only the real geek will also walk the walk. Ask him, while looking for "tells" (little fidgets people do while lying, like looking away for just a second, or fidgeting with a wedding ring):
(With the understanding that knowing what these things are is just as big an indicator as doing them)
1. Ever been to a DefCon or HOPE conference, or the phones by Citibank? This is a strong indicator, but the converse doesn't tell you anything.
2. Run Linux at home? As a primary O/S, or dual boot for messing around? Which distro? NOTE: If he says "Slackware", "Debian" or *BSD, that's a strong indicator; if he uses a user-friendly distro, that's a weaker indicator, but still an indicator.
3. Does he program at home? If so, what language? If he says he programs in Visual Basic on purpose, smile broadly, excuse yourself, and back away, keeping one hand each on your wallet and keys and maintaining eye contact. DO NOT RUN. He will chase you, it's instinctual. NOTE: If he does Java, C, C++, that's a fairly strong indicator; if he does something more arcane like assembler, Smalltalk, Prolog or Lisp, that's not just a strong indicator, that's proof positive.
4. Does he like videogames? Most geeks are fairly strongly drawn towards videogames, especially fantasy and science-fiction. Poseurs hate videogames and mock them openly. If the guy laughs the question off, he's no geek. If he gives you an interested answer, occasionally with a top-ten list of favorites, that's a strong indicator.
5. Does he dabble in different sciences, like physics or chemistry? Strong indicator.
6. Does he dislike or ignore sports? That's a pretty strong indicator, but the converse shouldn't be considered an indicator at all. Many people in the office fake an interest in sports to ingratiate themselves to the non-geeks who seem to run everything. If the person seems a little TOO perfect, sports-wise, that might be an indicator; maybe he approached it as a research project.
And so on. You should be able to figure someone out in less than fifteen minutes of sly conversation.
Don't worry.
It's true very little will be manufactured here in any kind of macro sense, but small companies will still make some items. With all the on-demand manufacturing that's coming about, like the machine shop which lets you submit designs over the web, they'll be able to produce small runs of products and sell them directly to consumers.
Large companies, including foreign companies, will continue to want to sell things to us. They'll hire staff here to manage their local operations, much as we used to hire staff THERE.
Stores will still be open. So will restaurants, libraries, colleges... Auto mechanics, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, HVAC, cops, security guards... All will continue to make a reasonable living.
Civil service will end up being one safe haven; sooner or later security concerns will result in legislation mandating citizenship for all such jobs. The government should be manned by citizens on principle anyway.
On the whole, I expect the U.S. to become "just another country" and settle down, maybe turning into something like a smaller European state. Nice and quiet, not really paid attention to, with a few nice beaches and good bars.
I don't think this is a BAD thing, actually. There will still be opportunities, but they'll be in small, locally held companies the way they USED to be before the manufacturing explosion in the fifties. I think it'll be ok.
POSSIBLE SCARY THOUGHT:
What if the only industry we really hang on to is that populated by miltary manufacturers like Lockheed? What if they are the ones that forge ahead into nanotechnology and biotech? What if they produce the next generation of weapons?
They'll want a market. And the CIA will be receptive to their desire for this, at least during republican presidencies.
One might expect the CIA to "help out" from time to time, stirring up trouble in one or another third-world nation, then nudging them towards one supplier or another. Result: another century of war, this time not directly involving the U.S. but rather, only its weapons manufactures.
Think this is unlikely? We do, after all, make the most exciting, CNN-worthy weapons. We're not just good at it; we're fucking IMAGINATIVE. What other country actually builds in missle-cams? Who else would have thought of the entertainment value in such a thing, or would have been so base as to actually PUBLISH the footage?
This might just be one of the biggest challenges of the next century: how do you convince the nation with the biggest nuclear weapon stockpile not to manufacture and sell extremely profitable weapons systems? You can't attack them (they'll destroy you, and make billions rebuilding your infrastructure afterwards). You can't talk to them (picture having such a conversation with George Bush, the capitalist from hell). You can't put any economic pressure on them, because they don't sell anything anymore -- they just buy from everybody, because globalism has destroyed all their native industries. You have no carrots OR sticks to offer.
What then?
1. If you're an H1-B, you're NOT an immigrant, you're a guest worker. You don't belong here, and the only reason you ARE here is lobbying by high-tech companies and their greedhead owners. SO FUCK OFF.
2. American universities should hire their own U.S. grads, not arrogant foriegn fucks who have the nerve to talk shit on Slashdot about their situation. SO FUCK OFF.
3. What, weren't there any jobs in Australia? People down there find you as annoying as we do? Why come here, why not just work in your own fucking country? FUCK OFF.
I think that about covers it.
When I was working for Screamingmedia in Chelsea, NY, in 1999, I was considered to be a little nuts because I had the company logo tattooed on my left arm. The TRUE story of how that came about was that one of the marketing people had said in a company-wide meeting that they were going to give 1500.00 to the first person to get a logo tattoo. Being a good sport, I got one, and was told that they were "only kidding". I later found out that the offer didn't really apply to *everybody*, but rather just one of the people close to the founders, who had decided NOT to get a tattoo after all.
I'm kind of laid back, so I didn't start any trouble, but later on I *did* turn the tattoo into a very attractive "Dragon crossing Japanese Sun" kinda thing -- you can't see any logo in there at all now. So no harm done.
One day, Wired sent someone around to interview everyone, focusing mostly on the fact that the company head was Jay Chiat, who was fairly famous at the time. I guess Wired didn't like Mr. Chiat, because their story about us wasn't particularly kind (we really didn't deserve that, either). Regardless, what annoyed me was, I spent a few minutes talking to the idiot they sent around to interview us about why I got the tattoo, and etc.
So, what did said idiot put in the magazine? I don't remember the exact words the idiot used, but the idiot totally made up my quote. The idiot made me look like a fucking MORON -- the idiot had me talking like some kind of dippy stoner.
The idiot! The idiot! The idiot!
I was pissed off for weeks.
Ho, ho, ho.
So I visit NYC from time to time -- maybe four times a year -- so what? MOST of the time, I hang around here, because my home is much better than NYC. I prefer my nice, clean, safe, green, beautiful suburb to your nasty, dirty, ugly grey city. Deal with it.
Call me silly, but I like living in a place where at night, it actually gets DARK. I can go out in the woods, look up, and see stars without interference from city lights. You have no idea how many stars are visible at night out here. In NYC, you can only see the brightest stars. Where I live, you can see everything visible in our hemisphere. Of course, you're probably much more interested in some awful Broadway spectacle than indulging in a little astronomy, but there's no accounting for taste.
And my commute to work is about twenty minutes door to door. Good luck even getting around Manhattan in twenty. Hell, you spend more than that just waiting for the subway, let alone walking the several blocks between the station and your job. I used to work in Chelsea, so YES, I know how that whole thing works.
Here's something interesting: people out here are a whole lot nicer than the ones you're used to. I suspect this has something to do with the way you people are packed assholes to elbows like rats in a cage. You remember that experiment where they packed tons of rats in a little cage, and they all went nuts and ate each other? Yeah... That's your city all over. I don't want to live that way. Humans weren't MEANT to live that way. We belong out in the woods, breathing clean air and drinking clean water. Not surrounded by the smog and filth of a nasty, grey, crumbling city.
Ugh.
Anyway, I don't remember saying your description fits ANYWHERE. I only said that crystal meth was a midwestern thing. Read the post. YOUR vision of suburbia is the bitter fantasy of a city dweller who, faced with a constant barrage of misery and inconvenience, feels the need to justify his poor life choices. It isn't accurate ANYWHERE.
Tra, la la! Tag, you're it.
I live in Upstate New York, the nicest of the blue states. And yes, my suburb is very nice, and very safe. It's not a gated community, either, just a nice place to live.
It's mostly working class, lots of blue collar and tech workers, with a healthy mix of different nationalities and races. Nobody around here has been killed, mugged, raped, etc, at least as long as I've lived here. And the only drugs I've heard about in use here have been the occasional college kid smoking a doobie, which I don't find particularly horrifying (although I wouldn't do it).
Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because YOUR home is dangerous, everyone else's is, too. Such generalizations don't hold water.
Hoo, boy, you've created a whole fictional rural world to make fun of, haven't you? What bullshit. You either watch way too many movies, or you're just trolling.
Here in upstate New York, things are nice and quiet, and I don't remember the last time an actual crime occurred in my town. Hell, I haven't even heard of a fistfight, much less an actual robbery. You need to get out more.
As far as "crystal meth" goes, we don't seem to have that particular problem around here. We've got a pothead or two, but they don't really start much trouble. You're thinking of the Midwest, chum.
Let's see; you complain about a lack of immigrants, gallery openings, and playwrights.
A twenty minute drive brings me to several live theaters, galleries, and more immigrants than you can shake a stick at. A slightly longer drive brings me into downtown Manhattan. Even more theaters, galleries, and immigrants. The difference between you and me is that I can go HOME after my night out, and experience something you city assholes have forgotten exists: PEACE and QUIET. And I can walk around my neighborhood at night without fear. I've got several state parks within a ten or fifteen minute drive, if I want to swim in a lake, go camping, hike, or otherwise enjoy the gorgeous outdoors. What have you got, central park? Please. It's filthy, dirty, swarming with degenerates and criminals... No comparison, my world beats yours hands down.
But if it helps you sleep at night in your overpriced, tiny, sad little apartment, by all means, make fun of all of us suburbanites. We can afford to be magnanimous, after all.
You lost all your credibility with me when you actually said the words "car addict". "Car addict"??? You're a daft hippie...
;P
Cars are the single best thing to happen to transportation, ever. They give individuals more freedom than they have ever had before, and are one of the major contributing factors to the success of American society in this century. When anyone can work or live anywhere, everyone has much more opportunity to participate. And that's a GOOD thing.
The ONLY problem with cars is that the idiot government refuses to commit to converting us to anything other than an oil economy. You can run a car on hydrogen, alcohol, electricity, biodiesel, even compressed air for christ's sake (google it, it's true!). GASOLINE is the problem, not cars.
Quit worrying about "car addicts" and start worrying about "oil addicts". Maybe I'll take you seriously.
Uh huh... Spoken like a true urbanite. Ok, Mr. Metrosexual, here is my response:
The suburbs are much nicer than the cities. They're GREEN, for one thing -- my neighborhood is beautifully forested. I'd rather live in the woods than be surrounded by concrete any day.
As for culture, we have coffee shops and bars too, only ours are nicer, our bookstores are bigger, and parking is easier.
Add to that the fact that in my nice, quiet, working-class suburb, I've never heard of anyone being robbed, murdered, raped, mugged, invited to buy drugs, or otherwise annoyed. In the nearest city, the people living downtown have quite a different experience.
You enjoy your city life. The rest of us are quite happy out here.
No, no, no. You left out some steps!
1. Tell Stallman that Microsoft has bought the company that does all of the FSF's web hosting, and that the paper Stallman signed that morning wasn't actually a legal form related to his latest fight, but a contract signing over all his projects to Bill Gates. Before he can explode, tell him that Bill wants to seal the deal with a handshake in person at this address...
2. While Stallman is driving to the meeting at Mach 4 with a chainsaw, a ball-peen hammer, and a skinning knife, tell the other two guys that Stallman is going to meet with Bill Gates and sell the FSF to him, along with the rights to the phrases "Free Software", "Open Source", and "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" (which is going to be made into an X-Box fighting game). Ask them if they're just going to let that happen, or if they're going to head him off and deal with the Microsoft swine that talked him into it.
3. Sneak to the meeting location and watch through the window. My money's on Mr. Stallman; he looks pretty cagey. I bet he wipes out the whole Microsoft contingent before the others get off the expressway...
I should point out that the German rocket scientists and the nuclear physicists involved in your rebuttal had already emigrated to the United States and were, therefore, AMERICANS.
It is frequently forgotten by the rest of the world, especially Europeans, that there ARE no actual "Americans" in terms of race or creed. ALL of us, even the native Americans (Navajos, etc) came here from someplace else.
The only thing that identifies us as Americans is that at some point, our ancestors chose to come here. And once our ancestors came here, we proceeded to invent a large number of the things the rest of the world now takes for granted. Things like THE INTERNET.
So pardon me, but it really burns my ass when people dismiss us as stupid. When Europeans call
Americans stupid, considering that 77% of us are of European origin, and therefore are *exactly* like them, the irony is usually lost on them.
Let me restate my original point in a way you might be able to be comfortable with (and this is actually how I think about this issue).
Americans, and by extension Europeans (because we really are one culture when you think about it) generated the vast majority of scientific, mathematical, and technical advancements of the past five hundred years. Prior to this, most of the advancements were performed by Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the various Arab cultures they traded with.
Indians "invented the number zero", built pretty palaces, and maintained a culture in which the vast majority of people were dirt poor and served a fabulously wealthy elite. Their unjust system of castes endures to this day, although after contact with the West, the system is fading a bit.
Greece, in the same time period, invented or significantly advanced philosophy, natural science, mathematics, the concept of democracy, and building methods so sound that many of their buildings still stand to this day.
IF, as many people love to slanderously allege, Indians are naturally smarter than Americans (and by extension Europeans, Greeks, Romans, etc) why is it that their culture was so primitive until the British conquered them? Why is it that even today, their literacy rate is so low? Why is most of their country so poor? Why don't most people there have indoor plumbing, for crying out loud? Why do large segments of their population cook their food over fires made from COW CRAP, and see nothing wrong with that? National Geographic is pretty interesting; I watched a rural Indian woman pick up cow shit with her hands, pat it into a log, carry it in, and then prepare and cook food over it (without washing her hands) and eat it (with her hands, no forks or spoons).
Sure, they had pretty palaces and the number zero. But we had indoor plumbing, steam power, science, mathematics...
My point is not that Indians are worthless, but rather that they should consider being a little more humble, a little less arrogant, and stop yammering about how they're naturally brighter than the rest of us.
I eagerly await your reply. "Hairy grunts"? Socrates was a hairy grunt? You're nuts.
Consider me corrected. But who created the airliner?
FANTASTIC! Thank you!
As for the poster to whom you were replying, I take back my comment about not knowing Minix was invented in Amsterdam. Ha, ha, ha... Beautiful.
I owe you one, man. Thanks!
You are correct about Minix. Sorry about that, my bad. But, IT was still based on Unix and BSD, which were developed here, so I'm not completely unmanned.
Unix came from Bell Labs in New Jersey, and BSD came from Berkeley, California (the B in BSD).
You said: "think it's entirely possible that a new generation does not have the level of education than the one before. I think we can all agree that your ancestors where great. You will have to prove yourself."
Well, that's some nasty speculation. But America still has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, right alongside Europe and Japan. Also, most of us DO end up going to college (yes, including technical subjects). If you're trying to say less of us are going to graduate school, well, it's possible that more of us have decided it isn't worth the vast expenditure of money and time considering we're not likely to get hired, anyway. This does not make us less bright, though. If anything it implies a certain thrift.
You blathered like an asshole: "Quit your fucking whining and start doing something."
Which is what I said Americans were going to do to cope, now, isn't it? READ THE FUCKING POST.
As for your point number 5, today my government (which you have so little respect for) told Mr. Gates to go fuck himself on the visa issue. So I guess it isn't ALL bad around here.
MOST immigrants move to the United States, become Americans, and contribute to our culture and nation. Chinese people, Japanese people, Europeans, Russians, and tons of other groups move here and become a part of this country. And it's great. It's how things are supposed to work.
SOME Indians -- a minority -- do the same thing. And that's great too. They immigrate in the traditional, non-guest-worker way, and they're just another group of immigrants, just like all the others who came before them.
But the majority of Indians who come here are coming over just to snatch a job, work for a few years, then fuck off home when it's convenient for them. The money they make here goes a long way back there, and they have no intention of passing that up. THIS is the problem.
It is completely unfair and wrong to allow temporary guest workers to come into this country and take jobs that SHOULD be reserved by law for people who are citizens or who are going to be citizens. If our government worked for US, that's how things would work. But it works for corporations, and so things are a bit different.
If we don't allow guest workers to come here, and they stay home, GOOD. If corporations open up shop over there, GOOD. Who cares? They weren't going to give US those jobs, anyway.
Bottom line: If you're not moving here to live FOREVER, you shouldn't be permitted to help corporations ruin the livelihoods of the people who DO live here permanantly. You shouldn't be allowed to undercut the salaries of the people you're replacing, engaging in unfair competition. And don't tell me how much H1-Bs make, either -- I know plenty of them, and they're making peanuts. Not only that; most of the ones I know have no health insurance or benefits. And lots of them group up and share apartments, so don't tell me any nonsense about them buying houses. If any Indians are buying houses, it's as an investment so they can sell it at a profit before they take off.
Most countries, by the way, don't let this sort of thing go on. I notice you mentioned Indian laws which don't allow us to do the same thing THEY are allowed to do. It's a trade issue, and it should be addressed.
So, Bill Gates, richest man in the world (almost), who made his fortune with the help of American developers, now wants to bring a million Indians in to destroy the U.S. software industry as a job prospect for his own countrymen. What a guy! Let me add a few thoughts worth contemplating:
1. If Americans are supposedly so stupid compared to Indians, why exactly was it American engineers who developed the transistor (Bell Labs), the airplane (Wright Brothers), the light bulb (Thomas Edison), most of the foundation of modern computer science, the Unix operating system and the C language, Minix (upon which Linux was based), BSD, Java, the laser, the space shuttle, the satellite (yes, the Russians were first with the dog, but we leapfrogged them and our technology was much, much better -- also, Russia was stealing American technology throughout the cold war to help them compete), the nuclear submarine, the skyscraper, steel reinforced concrete, a vast number of modern medical procedures, the atomic and hydrogen bombs (those German physicists were aided by many American physicists and engineers), the atomic power plant, the Apollo Moon shot (most of the engineers were Americans, don't get started on Nazi rocket scientists...) and the personal computer? I could go on, but considering India's main claim to fame is the supposed invention of the number zero, and that it was a cruddy little third world country until the tech boom (and the technology WE GAVE THEM)... Well... You see my point. India's claim to have the best engineers in the world is pure hubris and fantasy.
2. If Bill G et al were REALLY concerned about producing more computer science graduates, they'd give kids a reason to enter the field instead of destroying their job prospects. But they're not. What they're concerned about is cheap, easy to exploit foreign labor. They don't care whether the foreigners are any good at programming at all; it isn't just IIT grads coming over, you know, it's the losers, too. And unlike Americans, they have lie-packed resumes that are impossible to doublecheck.
3. If these guys get their way and wipe out the computer science field for Americans, my people will figure out a new way to survive. We'll go into government, or civil service, or start our own local companies and bulletin boards, or turn to hacking like our Russian jobless counterparts.
4. I think it's very interesting that corporate America is so determined to wreck things for the very people who are best positioned to take revenge, whether it's by contributing to open-source and destroying the proprietary market, starting a company to directly compete, or going berserk and writing the next generation of viruses. It seems a little nuts to me, but then, nobody ever said suits had any common sense.
5. This ought to clear up the question of how committed Bill Gates et al are to "developers, developers, developers". I like the guy who suggested Bill G fuck himself with a cactus. That was perfect. My only gripe is, what about the poor cactus? I think he should use a cattle prod instead. It's the high-tech solution.
I'm stuck doing VB6 on a legacy app, right? And the previous programmer was a complete jackass. For example, in this one function I'm working on, he's just doing a very simple SQL select pulling down two values in one record, and returning true if the record exists, and false if it doesn't.
:(
First of all, he didn't properly handle errors, so if anything goes wrong, his object just sits there in memory (no garbage collection in VB6!). Our servers have been crapping out lately, so this was a valuable discovery for me. Second, when he fetches his data from Oracle, he inexplicably sets the lock type to "adLockPessimistic" (with a static, client-side recordset that doesn't get updated!!!) which locks the affected records until the recordset is done with them. Which I suspect means that if there's an error and the recordset doesn't get closed or set to nothing, the records will be locked until some timeout occurs. Another tip about why the server might be choking (lots of users hitting the same records, ha ha, what fun). And, on top of that, he's not cleaning up his objects, so it's not like the recordset ever releases the records in the first place. I mean, at some point they're getting released, but it's not HIS code that's doing it.
So, I rewrote the whole thing correctly, fixing the error handling and making sure objects were cleaned out, switching to a static recordset with optimistic locking, etc, shortening and speeding up the code. I might speed it up some more by making it readonly, I dunno. Thinking about it.
And, so I'd remember what I did and why, I added brief notes stating why I chose the lock and cursor types I did, why I used adUseClient instead of server, etc. In other words, I pointed out the nonobvious stuff that the code didn't explain.
I'm hoping that the next programmer to come along, who might not be that good at ADO, will read what I wrote and understand why it should be done a certain way.
I think good comments are about context, and sharing the thought process of the original programmer, and adding nonobvious info.
Sorry I didn't have code to share, but it's at work and it's late.
It is completely natural that far fewer people are studying computer science. The corporate jobs have gone overseas, and what they haven't offshored they've hired H1-Bs and L-1s for. An entire sector of employment has evaporated here in the U.S, just as it did with the steel industry, the garment industry, the automotive industry... And the kids can read the writing on the wall. Good for them! I hope they find something they can be successful in.
I remember when the mechanical engineering field collapsed, back in the nineties. Auto manufacturing had gone overseas and thanks to NAFTA, to Mexico and Canada, so there weren't many jobs available. On top of that, the defense industry in California dried up, putting hundreds of thousands of experienced engineers out on the street. At that time, Mech.E was being called "the new liberal art".
Computer science is going through that right now. The computer science major is now just like an art or physics major -- no prospects. The only people who'll study computer science nowadays are people who LIKE it, career notwithstanding.
Think about art majors, for example. They know they're not going to get a corporate job or make a lot of money. They know they're pretty much in for the whole "starving artist" thing, that they'll end up working some joe job to pay for their materials, and that the likelihood of their making it big is pretty minimal. They do it anyway, because they see majoring in art as an end in itself rather than a career path. If they hit something just right, they might make it big. Even if they don't, they'll probably be able to make a little money on the side here and there and supplement their income.
It's going to be exactly the same for computer science majors, with one (beneficial) difference: computer science majors will usually be able to find a computer-related job that pays their bills, and they MIGHT be able to score something in civil service or academia and even be successful.
This isn't that important. It's mostly going to be used by corporations to justify increased outsourcing, and by colleges to justify increased advertising and the pursuit of federal grants.
It's bullshit in other words, not in the sense that enrollment ISN'T dropping (it IS) but in the sense that they claim it matters (when it doesn't).
"They probably know a lot more about building houses and crowing crops in their area than we will ever know, and certainly more than google will tell you."
Ok, pop quiz: which area is more advanced, agriculturally: a third-world jungle nation struggling to grow sweet potatoes as a staple and vulnerable to variations in weather and environment, or the American Midwest, which produces so much agricultural product that it not only feeds the U.S. but much of the rest of the world as well?
Question 2: Where are you more likely to attend a university to learn agricultural engineering? The American Midwest? Or the hills of Thailand?
Or, here's one: If your yoda-like super-knowledgeable third-worlders know how to make houses better than we do, WHY DON'T THEY? Why do all the shacks I've seen overseas (both with my own eyes and in the news) look like they're made of scrap wood, cardboard boxes, and pieces of rusty metal? Are you honestly telling me that you think those people wouldn't be interested in better ways of building a house for themselves? Do you really expect me to believe that???
Sorry to "beat you up like this" but you're totally, hopelessly, incorrect.
The difference between the West and the Third World is NOT just caused by exploitation and corrupt governments.
The difference is the West has a several thousand year head start in the aquisition of scientific and technical know-how. This is an advantage the third world has NO CHANCE of overcoming on their own.
The ONLY way the third world has a chance of coming into the twenty-first century with the rest of us is if WE HELP THEM DO IT. What they need is technology transfer. Know-how. Education. And exposure to new ideas.
This laptop plan is brilliant, and I hope they succeed. The raw power of making information available to third-world people, of showing them areas of knowledge they would NEVER have had access to otherwise, is just mind-boggling. It's capable of transforming their world, plain and simple.
Are structural and economic problems a major problem for the third world? Sure.
But knowledge and know-how go a long way towards solving those problems. The first step is an educated, knowledgeable population. Don't give them fish -- teach them to fish.
I'm sorry, but I don't respect your point of view. I think it's thoughtless and shallow. You're essentially saying "We cannot help the third world because their governments are corrupt, and the big nasty west is exploiting them, so it's pointless to try anything at all."
Your point of view is morally indefensible.