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User: jemmyw

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  1. Re:Sometimes Extra Jobs are Intentional on Ask Slashdot: Does Your Job Need To Exist? · · Score: 1

    Hang on though, what are "real goods"? A teacher doesn't provide any real physical goods, nor does a care giver. Do you count an airline pilot only if the work of creating a good meant that someone had to travel, not to visit their mum and dad?

  2. Re:Same old slashdot, same old circle jerk on Let Spouses of H-1B Visa Holders Work In US, Says White House · · Score: 1

    What's wrong with the L1 system, out of interest? I'm on an L1 visa. The foreign company I worked for was bought out. It seems like a reasonable proposition to bring over the technical team, knowledge transfer into the US and so forth.

  3. Re:work is survival on Let Spouses of H-1B Visa Holders Work In US, Says White House · · Score: 1

    I'm living in the bay area

    I'm a software (and sometimes hardware) engineer.

    I've found that its extremely hard to find jobs and everyone I'm being interviewed by is from another country.

    I find this somewhat puzzling. I'm in the bay area, on an L1 visa. There seems to be a shortage of engineers, not jobs. I've only got anecdotal evidence of course, but the company I work for has struggled to hire good engineers. We might offer a crap wage or something (although I've come to the opinion we don't get many applicants, especially Americans, because we're not "hip"). But I was talking to another dad at my son's school today who mentioned his company is hiring, has the same problems, was I thinking of moving etc.

    I'm intending to leave the area anyway. It's ok, but not as great as people gush about it. If you like rain, it's not really the place for you (I like rain). I can work remotely, so it's a chance to check out some other parts of the USA.

  4. Re:Same tricks played in UK on Google May Be $1 Billion Behind In Tax Payments To France · · Score: 1

    Another complexity to administrate.

  5. Re:Same tricks played in UK on Google May Be $1 Billion Behind In Tax Payments To France · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, it will hit the poor harder. It doesn't matter the amount of money, it matters the proportion. If a less well off person spends 100% of their earnings on rent, food, water, etc. then they'll be taxed the full amount, and for the basics they have no choice. A very well off person won't be spending 100% of their income even if they buy that luxury yacht, and they don't even need that yacht so they could choose not to make the purchase and invest instead.

  6. Re:Same tricks played in UK on Google May Be $1 Billion Behind In Tax Payments To France · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem with sales tax (VAT) is that it taxes the poor more than the rich because the poor tend to spend a greater proportion of their income. It is also quite a burden to administer for companies and government. It is also an inefficient tax for states with welfare - government gives you money and then you give a large portion of it back again.

    I don't have a solution though, even though it is something I think about often. But it seems to me that what we really need is for some way to experiment with widely different tax regimes. But what country is going to be willing to suffer negative consequences of doing so?

  7. Re:And Amazon's not the only one either! on Amazon Embodies the Gender Gap in Tech · · Score: 1

    You're right to question where I got them from, I just searched google and read the first link that came up. Anecdotally I had plenty of female friends in school who had the intelligence and aptitude for programming, and they did other science like degrees but not CS. Can't help thinking that's because the CS classes at the time I went were all guys, and so it was a self-perpetuating bias.

  8. Re:Ukraine on Former US Test Site Sues Nuclear Nations For Disarmament Failure · · Score: 1

    Africa isn't a country, fucking or otherwise. Sorry.

  9. Re:The gender gap will only close so far, here's w on Amazon Embodies the Gender Gap in Tech · · Score: 1

    * It will take generations to "bleed out" the vestiges of past discrimination. If today's boys and girls see that their grandmothers or great-grandmothers were nurses and teachers and their grandfathers and great-grandfathers were doctors and headmasters, they will notice and may choose a career path accordingly.

    Our grandmothers were programmers, that doesn't really seem to have made a difference.

  10. Re:Naturalistic fallacy on Amazon Embodies the Gender Gap in Tech · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure how you can point to that as showing that statement wrong. All it shows is that there have been many studies, and they disagree and are inconclusive.

  11. Re:how come we never hear on Amazon Embodies the Gender Gap in Tech · · Score: 1

    It'd be interesting to find out what is best, to measure it. Is it best to have a team where all the programmers are at a very senior level. Probably not, in my experience, too many opinions and directions. I'm pretty sure a spread of junior to senior is better.

    Next, would a team work better if it were mixed gender? What if you have 2 teams, one all male and one all female. How does that then compare to two mixed teams? Now ask the same questions with ethnicity and age.

    What I'm getting at is that the best candidate for the job might not be the best worker or the favourite choice of the team in question. And it sounds like an expensive experiment.

  12. Re:And Amazon's not the only one either! on Amazon Embodies the Gender Gap in Tech · · Score: 1

    How about a maths degree (47% women) or physics (40%)?

  13. Re:Why? on Apple, Google Vying For Mobile Game Exclusivity · · Score: 1

    Granted that might be the strategy, but it'll surely fail if both are doing it... nobody (I'm probably wrong) would base the purchase of an iPad on the basis of a specific casual game.

  14. Why? on Apple, Google Vying For Mobile Game Exclusivity · · Score: 1

    Ok I sort of understand why, but mobile phones are such a different type of purchase than games consoles. If I was looking for a console I might inspect the available games, and I wouldn't care what it looked like in my living room, or how it performed (assuming that it runs the games I want).

    But mobile phones - if you're looking at top end phones I highly doubt anyone thinks that deeply about the available games these days (now that Android is nearly equivalent for apps). They'll be looking at specs, look and feel, etc. And if they're buying a low end phone then it'll be an Android anyway.

  15. Re:Blame Game on Heartbleed Sparks 'Responsible' Disclosure Debate · · Score: 1

    Yeah I don't think the East is any better than West in this area. Communism focuses on the big picture and community? What, by pretending problems don't exist, denying they exist, waiting for a catastrophe and then accepting the blame, but oh well it's too late, and by the way we're the all powerful communist party, don't even think about criticizing us?

  16. Re:Better Yet on Tesla: A Carmaker Or Grid-Storage Company? · · Score: 1

    I think you missed the sarcasm there.

  17. Re:Jewish "superiority complex?" on The "Triple Package" Explains Why Some Cultural Groups Are More Successful · · Score: 1

    move to somewhere that was a better climate, non-dessert

    It might not be healthy but I guess they need ice cream in that climate.

  18. Re:Thank goodness for Mozilla on Collaboration and Rivalry In WebKit · · Score: 1

    It doesn't. I run Chrome and Firefox. I use Firefox for everything, but sometimes for work I need to test with separate sessions, or have multiple accounts logged in at the same time. I've switched which I use for primary a few times, but now it's Firefox because, laughably considering, it now lasts longer without random slowdowns or memory blow out.

    But fresh, there's no detectable difference.

    On mobile I've started using Firefox because I prefer the UI and layout. But again, speed wise and compatibility wise, hard pressed to notice any difference.

  19. Re:Learn something about the Falklands on More Bad News For the F-35 · · Score: 1

    It is likely that at some point Scotland will vote for independence, and whichever way the vote goes I believe the British government will honour it. I'm sure the majority of the population of Britain would rather Scotland stayed in the union.

  20. Re:I've always wondered that about antihistamines on Fighting the Flu May Hurt Those Around You · · Score: 1

    So they should move somewhere else every 5 years.

  21. Re:Efficiency. on Who Is Liable When a Self-Driving Car Crashes? · · Score: 1

    It was a Prius wasn't it? Jeremy Clarkson's personal hatred of the Prius. Although since moving to California I've come to hate the Prius too, not because of the car but the people who drive them. Whenever a car is dangerously cutting in on the freeway it seems to be a Prius, and I was nearly rear ended by one yesterday who decided to go through the toll booth as fast as possible to cut past everyone else not rea.... ok I'm going to stop the traffic rant now.

  22. Re:Wrong again on Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island · · Score: 1

    You can't prove that it has no harmful effect. Everything has a harmful effect if you overdose on it. Artificial sweeteners have been tested so much that if you aren't convinced of its safety at this point I would suggest you are holding onto an ideological belief rather than basing your point of view on available evidence.

  23. Re:Someone else's problem on Searching the Internet For Evidence of Time Travelers · · Score: 1

    Why would this one be the original? In your scenario someone could have travelled back in time to near the beginning of mankind and altered it such that your family line was born instead of another.

    I would suggest that if it is possible to travel back to any point in time and fork it then it is more likely you're in a fork than in the original. This is the same reasoning that you would say if it is possible to simulate the whole of reality then it's more likely that you're in a simulation.

  24. Re:But seriously speaking ... on Searching the Internet For Evidence of Time Travelers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even though I'm strongly inclined towards the scientific mindset, these kinds of incidents strongly suggest there's a lot more going on than we understand.

    It doesn't really. You're just looking at your one event in isolation. What about all the other times earthquake nut jobs have been mentioned and there subsequently hasn't been a minor earthquake.

  25. Re:Not the algorithm we need on How Machine Learning Can Transform Online Dating · · Score: 1

    as I am not an U.S. american, diamond rings are out of question anyway

    I'm interested: I'm not an american but I'm pretty sure I can buy diamonds if I wanted, they don't check your nationality. What gives?