There is no shortage of American programmers - there is a shortage of skilled programmers.
Part of the H1B process is that, before hiring a foreign worker, the job in question must be advertised to the general public for a certain length of time, and any applications from Americans must be considered. There have been some cases where an American worker has applied and got the position - but in the majority of cases, there is no American with the required skill set.
Note that it is against US law to pay a H1B worker any less than an American doing the same job.
Millions of homes have natural gas piped in - which is far, far more dangerous than lithium-ion, NiMH, or any other battery technology. Only a handful of houses blow up every year from gas-related causes. So relatively speaking, this isn't going to be an issue.
There is a Darwin award waiting for the first homeowner to short the battery terminals with a screwdriver, though.
Yeah, typing in IP addresses is a pain in those situations. Maybe in future Microsoft will add a "cut" and "paste" feature to Windows 7, like they have in OSX - that should make life easier.
I don't believe that they have enough data to accurately model the size and time of a future attack - but let's just say for a minute that they did. That information is still useless without a location.
the market price for aluminum is $1.1475/lb today. Why don't more manufacturers use it?
The raw cost of the material is not the main factor. You can quickly and cheaply create laptop parts by injection molding - aluminum needs to be machined, a much slower and more expensive process.
For an example, compare the price of the new HP Envy laptops (aluminum), which start at $1700 for a 13", to the rest of their laptop lineup, where you can get a nicely loaded up 17" with Blu-Ray for less than that.
Silicon is virtually free - and you only need a few grams worth for a processor - but the cheapest i7 is $280.
Should be, but isn't. Clearly the people who write software for a Zune are not rocket scientists in the first place, right?
TFA also complains that the app is slow. Well, if you're searching all text input for a dictionary of naughty words on a underpowered embedded CPU, the fact that it turns out slow is not a surprise.
Exactly my point. The peaks (which are FCC regulated) are the same. A normal show's average sound level might be 25% of the peak, but a commercial might average 90% of the peak. That is why the commercials appear to be louder.
So someone (the network or the commerical producer - don't care) just runs the commercial through the moral equivalent of mp3gain, and we're done.
The network won't because they don't have the time or money to do so.
The commercial producer won't because they want the commercial to appear louder, to get your attention.
You're somewhat misunderstanding. The networks and stations just receive commercials on a tape, and air them - in many cases they don't even watch them first. The time to run every spot received through a process would cost a lot of money that the networks/stations don't have right now.
And - basically, both shows and commercials are at the same level, but they heavily compress the audio on commercials. If the network heavily compressed shows, the problem would go away - but the shows would sound like crap (whispers at full volume, background music becomes deafening when there is no dialog, and so on). Several commenters have mentioned TV sets that modulate the audio - they are simply compressing all audio (and making all audio sound like crap, not just the commercials).
The FCC regulates the technical side of the TV signal; but technically the FM audio signal is equally modulated for all content. The FCC can't prevent people on commercials from yelling.
Interesting that there is no mention of the police union stepping in here - the union stewards are usually the first on the scene when a cop-versus-management dispute arises.
Wouldn't the use of BusyBox inside a DVD player be for debugging use only? In other words, great for the developer, but useless for the end customer?
In which case - why didn't they simply remove it from the shipping version? They are free to use it as an internal tool, just not ship it with the product. Satisfies everyone - engineers, upper management, and the OSS lawyers.
Sony's loss is hardly the fault of the PS3 - gaming consoles are only a tiny fraction of the Sony empire.
Citing a 60% drop in Wii sales is also highly suspect - the Wii is over 3 years old. In fact, I can't think of any other console that sold so well in it's *fourth* Christmas season.
What does the FCC care? It's still compliant, even if it's hacked.
Not necessarily true. For instance, most open firmware for routers (Tomato, for instance) allows you to boost the transmitter power beyond FCC certified levels. You can also enable the use of frequencies not allowed in the USA. So hacking firmware can certainly break compliance.
The treaty would not only "allow" cross-border sharing of books for the blind, it would *require* such sharing
Books for those with sight can be freely shared across borders today (I lend books to friends in other countries all the time). All the blind are really asking for here is equal rights.
Or the other alternative: the marketing department decided that releasing this trivial small amount of code would make Microsoft look better to the open source community, whereas fighting the matter in court would make them look bad.
So the TV numbers are reasonable, but the radio ones are not.
Radio was 10.59% of the overall, or 34GB * 10.59% = 3.6 GB per day. CD quality is 44100 * 16/8 * 2 = 176KB/sec. So they're saying the average American listens to stereo CD-quality radio for over 20 hours per day? I doubt it.
Slashdot Mirror
How can we be so short of American programmers
There is no shortage of American programmers - there is a shortage of skilled programmers.
Part of the H1B process is that, before hiring a foreign worker, the job in question must be advertised to the general public for a certain length of time, and any applications from Americans must be considered. There have been some cases where an American worker has applied and got the position - but in the majority of cases, there is no American with the required skill set.
Note that it is against US law to pay a H1B worker any less than an American doing the same job.
Cue the tinfoil hat references in 3....2....1....
Mr. Torvalds may be well known, but when you use just the single name "Linus", most people think of the blanket-carrying kid in Peanuts.
Yeah I think the fact that ADSL, cable and 3G are always on is more important than the throughput.
Not with Verizon 3G.... can't talk and surf at the same time on CDMA. A fact that AT&T is hammering home on their ads right now.
Not as annoying as the old analog modem situation, but still an issue, especially if you tether your phone.
Especially because the terrorist in question remained in his seat the whole time.
In fact, the only person who seems to have left his seat is the guy who got up to stop the attack. So, should he have remained seated instead?
Millions of homes have natural gas piped in - which is far, far more dangerous than lithium-ion, NiMH, or any other battery technology. Only a handful of houses blow up every year from gas-related causes. So relatively speaking, this isn't going to be an issue.
There is a Darwin award waiting for the first homeowner to short the battery terminals with a screwdriver, though.
Yeah, typing in IP addresses is a pain in those situations. Maybe in future Microsoft will add a "cut" and "paste" feature to Windows 7, like they have in OSX - that should make life easier.
Seems a *LOT* pricey for a computer you can't run any software on (other than what comes pre-packaged with the unit).
With a wide variety of operating systems, processors, and capabilities, who the heck would ever develop software for it?
I don't believe that they have enough data to accurately model the size and time of a future attack - but let's just say for a minute that they did. That information is still useless without a location.
Video of machining a MacBook body from a solid slab of aluminum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc43LpuwHek (start about 1:22).
He may not be a terrorist - but I'm sure he has a tough time driving across the border.
the market price for aluminum is $1.1475/lb today. Why don't more manufacturers use it?
The raw cost of the material is not the main factor. You can quickly and cheaply create laptop parts by injection molding - aluminum needs to be machined, a much slower and more expensive process.
For an example, compare the price of the new HP Envy laptops (aluminum), which start at $1700 for a 13", to the rest of their laptop lineup, where you can get a nicely loaded up 17" with Blu-Ray for less than that.
Silicon is virtually free - and you only need a few grams worth for a processor - but the cheapest i7 is $280.
Oh, great. This won't end well.
For the non-Canadians: Stockwell Day is very much like George Bush - except he's more right wing, more redneck, and slower on the uptake.
Should be, but isn't. Clearly the people who write software for a Zune are not rocket scientists in the first place, right?
TFA also complains that the app is slow. Well, if you're searching all text input for a dictionary of naughty words on a underpowered embedded CPU, the fact that it turns out slow is not a surprise.
What, has reference to a Beowulf cluster gone out of style?
I will admit, I don't want to see a reference to a Beowulf cluster of lawn mowers to parallelize the task of doing the lawn....
No, they're not (although the peaks might be).
Exactly my point. The peaks (which are FCC regulated) are the same. A normal show's average sound level might be 25% of the peak, but a commercial might average 90% of the peak. That is why the commercials appear to be louder.
So someone (the network or the commerical producer - don't care) just runs the commercial through the moral equivalent of mp3gain, and we're done.
The network won't because they don't have the time or money to do so.
The commercial producer won't because they want the commercial to appear louder, to get your attention.
You're somewhat misunderstanding. The networks and stations just receive commercials on a tape, and air them - in many cases they don't even watch them first. The time to run every spot received through a process would cost a lot of money that the networks/stations don't have right now.
And - basically, both shows and commercials are at the same level, but they heavily compress the audio on commercials. If the network heavily compressed shows, the problem would go away - but the shows would sound like crap (whispers at full volume, background music becomes deafening when there is no dialog, and so on). Several commenters have mentioned TV sets that modulate the audio - they are simply compressing all audio (and making all audio sound like crap, not just the commercials).
The FCC regulates the technical side of the TV signal; but technically the FM audio signal is equally modulated for all content. The FCC can't prevent people on commercials from yelling.
were told that the messages wouldn't be read
Verbally? Or in writing?
Interesting that there is no mention of the police union stepping in here - the union stewards are usually the first on the scene when a cop-versus-management dispute arises.
Wouldn't the use of BusyBox inside a DVD player be for debugging use only? In other words, great for the developer, but useless for the end customer?
In which case - why didn't they simply remove it from the shipping version? They are free to use it as an internal tool, just not ship it with the product. Satisfies everyone - engineers, upper management, and the OSS lawyers.
Sony's loss is hardly the fault of the PS3 - gaming consoles are only a tiny fraction of the Sony empire.
Citing a 60% drop in Wii sales is also highly suspect - the Wii is over 3 years old. In fact, I can't think of any other console that sold so well in it's *fourth* Christmas season.
What does the FCC care? It's still compliant, even if it's hacked.
Not necessarily true. For instance, most open firmware for routers (Tomato, for instance) allows you to boost the transmitter power beyond FCC certified levels. You can also enable the use of frequencies not allowed in the USA. So hacking firmware can certainly break compliance.
What else is there? I hope you don't want a GPS - the entire point of a motorcycle is to be off the beaten track in the first place.
The treaty would not only "allow" cross-border sharing of books for the blind, it would *require* such sharing
Books for those with sight can be freely shared across borders today (I lend books to friends in other countries all the time). All the blind are really asking for here is equal rights.
Or the other alternative: the marketing department decided that releasing this trivial small amount of code would make Microsoft look better to the open source community, whereas fighting the matter in court would make them look bad.
So the TV numbers are reasonable, but the radio ones are not.
Radio was 10.59% of the overall, or 34GB * 10.59% = 3.6 GB per day. CD quality is 44100 * 16/8 * 2 = 176KB/sec. So they're saying the average American listens to stereo CD-quality radio for over 20 hours per day? I doubt it.