The two weeks notice issue rarely burns bridges. I haven't seen many people give and actually work a full two weeks. They use up vacation time or they simply give some excuse they need to stop a week early or whatever because while you might care when you gave notice it is REALLY hard to keep caring that long when you know you are gone.
Employers generally don't care that much, employees on two week notice are pretty useless. We all take so much crap at work and it becomes very difficult to make yourself take that crap when they no longer have leverage over you.
You say this like it's some big issue. Companies are quit happy to get you to claim you quit otherwise they are open to an unemployment claim. Even if they weren't, one party indicating they quit while the other indicating fired is so common it doesn't generally impair your ability to get new employment at all.
The former employer isn't permitted to give any explanation and the employee is. So the employee can say anything they want, by the time this is coming up the company has usually already decided whether they want you or not.
Employers are not permitted to share information such as whether or not you gave notice with future employers. That also is a myth. They can confirm your employment dates, which party terminated the relationship, role, and rate of pay. If a company says something else they've opened themselves to liability and you can sue them.
"Um, most companies which fire you without notice will pay you a severance package of several weeks or months worth of pay."
No, no they don't. Such packages exist but they definitely not the norm, even where they do exist they are normally only paid under certain limited circumstances like lay offs.
Don't kid yourself, the company attaches strings to such offers like not filing unemployment (so they can avoid their rates going up), gag terms, etc. There is nothing altruistic about this.
On the other hand I've rarely seen people give two weeks notice and then actually work the two weeks. The only reason companies perpetuate the 2 week notice standard is that it's in their interest.
Also, employers are not permitted to share information such as whether or not you gave notice with future employers. That also is a myth. They can confirm your employment dates, which party terminated the relationship, role, and rate of pay. If a company says something else you can sue them.
Nope, Moses wrote those based on conversations with a burning bush. At least according to the bible. I know lots of things like to depict it like the stone is being zapped by god and shaped in movies and such but that is all theatrical drama. He talked to the bush and chiseled the commandments himself.
If you weren't paying your assistant, your assistant would hold the copyright on a dictated letter not you. You only get the copyright because it's produced as a work for hire. It isn't even made clear from the text if the commandments are even a quotation and god didn't send Moses back down off the mountain with a sack of gold for the work.
"Net Neutrality wouldn't be a problem if the artificial monopoly of the cable provider was tossed out the window."
Yes, yes it would. There still are and still only would be a handful of major datacenters and so long as that is true net neutrality will be an issue. Net neutrality is about greed, publicly traded and large corporations are profit machines, people stop being people and start being a job title when they walk in the door and the only driving force or motive for anyone is profit. Doing away with regulation isn't going to solve anything, corporations and greedy individuals will screw the masses simply because they can and it MIGHT be profitable.
This fallacy is the favorite of the two entrenched sides of the ruling party which pretends to be two parties. They don't even have to pay you to say it. People repeat this non-sense every day! Like many major competing brands they are owned by the same people and even if they weren't they've narrowed the field to the point where they have no interest in removing their competitor that would risk anti-trust, and since they aren't competing for real, just pretending to, all that remains is common interest. They don't even have to be actively colluding to get the result of collusion!
Eh? You really need to understand quite a bit about how a microprocessor works before those blinking leds mean anything to you and at that point you don't really need them anymore.
Building this would certainly be a great way to learn how a microprocessor works though.
"Although... Copyright is lifetime of the author + 70 years. How does this work with immortal beings? Is it possible to file suit on behalf of someone? Jewish God vs. Roman Catholic Church et al (the rest of the different flavors of zombie jesus freaks, essentially), over copyright on the bible. After all, the original author is still alive, being a being that transcends space and time."
The bible would not settle this issue. The authors are undisputed humans that are all long since dead regardless of who they were (which is disputed). god is alleged only to have inspired those authors and the copyright goes to the author and not his muse.
Indeed, a good chunk of IoT type sensors and devices I have around the house I made myself.
But it also depends on what you want to do/make. More and more keeping up with the Joneses means not just getting custom boards but being able to solder ball grid arrays. You need hot air skills, infrared gear, masks, etc.
You have to grant that his tetris game is moving very fast, he probably has the timing connected to the speed of his megaprocessor and at that point in the video has it set at max.
But even allowing for that, he isn't exactly playing well.
"If all you do is take quick notes and scribble freehand sketches, then by all means go out and get yourself a pad of paper and pencil."
Ummm... yeah. That would be the topic of conversation. The tool one uses to take quite notes and scribble freehand sketches.
"On the other hand, how are pencil and paper for searching? How are they for indexing and cross referencing? How are they for storing blocks of text or images from a web page or an email or a document? How are they for syncing from home to work and back? How are they for being able to go back at a later date and add additional details to notes you've already taken? Etc, etc, etc."
What do those functions have to do with scribbing down content and brainstorming realtime? Those features are handled by your phone/laptop or maybe tablet in the case of search and for the rest they are a job for the application that you feed more fleshed out information from your quick notes into. What application is best for that job depends on the content of the notes.
"But if you actually store, organize and use significant amounts of data, then you need a note taking app"
No, actually you don't. If you are using a note taking app to store, organize, and use significant amounts of data you are attempting to bury nails with the handle of your screwdriver to make one tool fit all. That is the point really, notes are by definition a highly generic solution that easily encapsulates almost anything in small quantities for a short period of time. For almost anything you'd take notes on, there is a more specialized format/application to put that information in when time permits. It might be calendars, todo lists, project management software, accounting software, a diagram, or even simply a more organized outline in any number of formats. In some cases the note might simply be a task that gets executed very quickly like a reminder scribbled before lunch to call someone after lunch... in that case is a note the most organized way to record that information? No, it certainly is not but it highlights the utility of a note vs that more comprehensive and feature rich solution, a post-it is faster and easier than sitting back down and logging back into your computer, pulling up your calendar software and recording that phone call. Maybe the call is for the middle of next week, in which case you'd record it when you return.
This has nothing to do with being a Luddite it has to do with using the best tool for the job. Currently, the most technically superior solution for the function of notes, which is recording random ad-hoc information on a short term basis, is in fact some form of pencil and paper. All other purposes notes once served are long since obsolete and a big part of what makes for their obsolescence is that there isn't a single replacement but rather than you can readily access many many specialized tools from any computing platform rather than depending on a single monolithic and generic digital note system like some Luddite who doesn't understand modern technology. What next, building a general ledger and book of accounts in excel because you converted from a paper ledger after you took a MS Office class instead of using a modern purpose built accounting system?
"I prefer to take meeting notes in a notebook then transfer them to Evernote afterward."
In other words your solution is also pen and paper. I don't really count the version I've converted to digital after the fact as notes. Notes are that quick thing you do with a handful of people sitting around a table planning and sketching out ideas. A whiteboard also works. Just take a snapshot afterword.
Touchscreens suck but with a decent stylus you can make do for very simple things. It's like having a pen that's always low on ink and only one page visible at a time.
Okay, now lay three pages out with related content and sketches on the desk at once in a conference room... or even three blank pages so you can work on different pieces side by side... oh wait, you can't. At least not without paying hundreds of dollars for every digital sheet.
Hands down. Digital solutions are horrible for quickly scribbling freehand notes with sketches. Even with touchscreen and a good drawing stylus on a tablet you only have one page you can view at a time.
Setting aside all the anecdotal evidence for and against the drama queen status of the ladies above for a moment. I do think there is something valid being presented in the salary negotiation.
" I have never been given any opportunity to negotiate on salary. I do my performance review and I get a little slip of paper with my raise."
This is just one of the companies moves in the game. A negotiating tactic. There are still plenty of moves that advance salary in a meaningful way. Aside from a confrontation with your boss, you can go the path of being so ridiculously overachieving they have to advance you. I've even gotten companies to create new positions with job descriptions I wrote so they could promote me into them (after pretending to post it and consider everyone else who applied of course). Where there truly is no forward potential you jump ship. Without actually jumping position or ship you can go to your boss to confess how much you truly love your team and position but expenses are coming in and the hiring rates for similar positions at other companies are too appealing. In this way I got an across the board raise of 15-20% at one company despite having the usual annual 1-3% raise nonsense in place. The downside is that these don't happen overnight since it requires approvals so they can string you along for a bit with promises. Regardless you play humble and loyal while making strong strategic positions.
This isn't just a STEM thing, this is in all professions. I can't help but wonder how much of the alleged glass ceiling comes down to things like this. Most men aren't good at the game otherwise the rules would change but I suspect more men are and the average is higher because we built the game (and not to keep women out) and the right attitudes, advise, and approaches are passed from older males to younger males just as many other things are passed from older females to younger.
Aside from the fact management tends to advance and raise the salary of people they understand, relate to, and trust and for a male manager this is more likely to be a male and for a female manager more likely a female without any actual sexism required. Women are often seen in careers acting like men. Men have been trained since birth to give women advantages not disadvantages, to not treat them as men and therefore hold them to a lower bar in many areas. When the women begin acting like men instead of like women... they tend to be bad at it. More of a characterture. Bold at the wrong times and moments perhaps thinking "a man could get away with this" except they are wrong, a man would know based on specific circumstances right down to the tone in the room and the way the boss phrased something innocuous at the beginning of the meeting that getting his way would not involve a direct confrontation. The ladies making bold moves tend to miss all the subtle things that go along with that indicating respect and deference to the boss that get made while taking that bold action. Instead of paying attention to these things the ladies just complain they are seen as bitchy even though a male doing the same would be seen as an asshole and a man saying the same thing as those ladies say on a regular basis would be fired on the spot.
"It is well-trod territory at this point that biases against women's technological abilities hold women in technology back. Study after study has shown bias persists at every point of the employment process."
Actually there is study after study showing a disparity between women and men in terms of numbers and performance in the field. It is only the assumption that the cause is bias against women.
I can't imagine any field that if anything gives so much of an advantage to women and minorities from my experience. This is actually demonstrated by this study where providing male voices to the women resulted in much lower hiring rates.
"Android has the same problems for different reasons. Apps suck on Android due to lack of quality control and lack of standardization of the OS and hardware."
Correction, there are apps that suck for these reasons. There are also apps for just about every purpose that are as good or better than anything available on IOS. There are only a few very oddball cases where someone releases an app on IOS and doesn't also release it on Android because there are no shortage of great frameworks that you can develop with and release to both platforms with no extra effort. There are however plenty of apps that are available for android and not IOS... hundreds of them.
In the case of spotify I think it's a reasonable model, just like Netflix was when it actually had a decent content selection. I run my own personal home streaming system and it definitely costs quite a bit to do right (able to stream full blu-ray streams to every tv in the house at once along with handling realtime transcoding of remote streams), even without the cost to buy the content. Granted music doesn't present nearly so great a cost but actually buying the amount of music that is on spotify would cost a great deal so paying a small subscription for access to stream anything in the library instead of having to maintain one is reasonable.
This is quite different than suckers who are participating in the itunes "pretend you own" scheme where the content you "bought" could disappear in the mist at any moment. You never bought the content here.
I do think the likes of Spotify and Netflix are suckers though and that's why their content disappears. You don't see studios taking back content from blockbuster and the like. Once they've bought it with rights to show publicly they should pay once and own it and be able to show it as much as they like.
That all sounds well and good as long as the h1b visa program is cut and this "It proposes investments in computer science and engineering education" provides no public funds via any method including tax breaks for this "attaching a green card to the diplomas of foreign-born students earning STEM degrees."
We don't have any real shortages in this country of STEM talent so we shouldn't be paying for the advanced education of immigrants especially since we don't even pay for the education of people born here. But if a student pays for a taught 100% in English by a unilingual US citizen teacher (important for establishing fluency in English and reading comprehension) education here or is worthwhile enough to convince penny pinching US companies to pay to educate them with after tax funds I see no reason we wouldn't want to put them on the fast track for a green card (assuming they pass background checks and such).
Stuffing our melting pot with intelligent people is a good thing. The key is to get the gems, anyone who has ever worked with international IT crowds knows that they are larger and stuffed with even more morons than you find in the field here and a degree/marks in school have very little relation to being able to apply information in new and novel ways. Teaching material tends to give hints that guide you toward the right answers for the testing and challenges that will be presented later that the real world doesn't. I've yet to find a consistent metric that picks out that guy who consistently finds novel and creative solutions like using the liquid foam system in shipping to craft lumbar support for his chair when management is too cheap to buy new ones. That's the guy you want more of no matter where he comes from.
I've lived in places where they actually outsourced red light cameras to a third party because they didn't actually meet the burden of proof. If you refused to pay their recourse is no different than any other company claiming you owe them money, they can send it in for collections.
But make no mistake the state IS bypassing due process by declaring a lower burden of proof and denying your constitutional rights as someone accused of a crime and for most offenses, including toll violations you can ultimately end up in jail if you refuse to pay that "debt." You are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and entitled to a trial by jury, whether the punishment is jail time and a record or a $500 fine for a $1 toll. By most standards civil offenses 500 fold damages levied by the state is far in excess of what should be called civil, even an angry judge would normally award only treble damages as a punitive measure in a civil case. Generally, they keep real judges out of traffic court though.
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The two weeks notice issue rarely burns bridges. I haven't seen many people give and actually work a full two weeks. They use up vacation time or they simply give some excuse they need to stop a week early or whatever because while you might care when you gave notice it is REALLY hard to keep caring that long when you know you are gone.
Employers generally don't care that much, employees on two week notice are pretty useless. We all take so much crap at work and it becomes very difficult to make yourself take that crap when they no longer have leverage over you.
You say this like it's some big issue. Companies are quit happy to get you to claim you quit otherwise they are open to an unemployment claim. Even if they weren't, one party indicating they quit while the other indicating fired is so common it doesn't generally impair your ability to get new employment at all.
The former employer isn't permitted to give any explanation and the employee is. So the employee can say anything they want, by the time this is coming up the company has usually already decided whether they want you or not.
Employers are not permitted to share information such as whether or not you gave notice with future employers. That also is a myth. They can confirm your employment dates, which party terminated the relationship, role, and rate of pay. If a company says something else they've opened themselves to liability and you can sue them.
"Um, most companies which fire you without notice will pay you a severance package of several weeks or months worth of pay."
No, no they don't. Such packages exist but they definitely not the norm, even where they do exist they are normally only paid under certain limited circumstances like lay offs.
Don't kid yourself, the company attaches strings to such offers like not filing unemployment (so they can avoid their rates going up), gag terms, etc. There is nothing altruistic about this.
On the other hand I've rarely seen people give two weeks notice and then actually work the two weeks. The only reason companies perpetuate the 2 week notice standard is that it's in their interest.
Also, employers are not permitted to share information such as whether or not you gave notice with future employers. That also is a myth. They can confirm your employment dates, which party terminated the relationship, role, and rate of pay. If a company says something else you can sue them.
Nope, Moses wrote those based on conversations with a burning bush. At least according to the bible. I know lots of things like to depict it like the stone is being zapped by god and shaped in movies and such but that is all theatrical drama. He talked to the bush and chiseled the commandments himself.
If you weren't paying your assistant, your assistant would hold the copyright on a dictated letter not you. You only get the copyright because it's produced as a work for hire. It isn't even made clear from the text if the commandments are even a quotation and god didn't send Moses back down off the mountain with a sack of gold for the work.
"Net Neutrality wouldn't be a problem if the artificial monopoly of the cable provider was tossed out the window."
Yes, yes it would. There still are and still only would be a handful of major datacenters and so long as that is true net neutrality will be an issue. Net neutrality is about greed, publicly traded and large corporations are profit machines, people stop being people and start being a job title when they walk in the door and the only driving force or motive for anyone is profit. Doing away with regulation isn't going to solve anything, corporations and greedy individuals will screw the masses simply because they can and it MIGHT be profitable.
This fallacy is the favorite of the two entrenched sides of the ruling party which pretends to be two parties. They don't even have to pay you to say it. People repeat this non-sense every day! Like many major competing brands they are owned by the same people and even if they weren't they've narrowed the field to the point where they have no interest in removing their competitor that would risk anti-trust, and since they aren't competing for real, just pretending to, all that remains is common interest. They don't even have to be actively colluding to get the result of collusion!
"but it's legitimately useful for teaching"
Eh? You really need to understand quite a bit about how a microprocessor works before those blinking leds mean anything to you and at that point you don't really need them anymore.
Building this would certainly be a great way to learn how a microprocessor works though.
I'd got a step further and say that ONLY techies would be interested.
"Although... Copyright is lifetime of the author + 70 years. How does this work with immortal beings? Is it possible to file suit on behalf of someone? Jewish God vs. Roman Catholic Church et al (the rest of the different flavors of zombie jesus freaks, essentially), over copyright on the bible. After all, the original author is still alive, being a being that transcends space and time."
The bible would not settle this issue. The authors are undisputed humans that are all long since dead regardless of who they were (which is disputed). god is alleged only to have inspired those authors and the copyright goes to the author and not his muse.
Indeed, a good chunk of IoT type sensors and devices I have around the house I made myself.
But it also depends on what you want to do/make. More and more keeping up with the Joneses means not just getting custom boards but being able to solder ball grid arrays. You need hot air skills, infrared gear, masks, etc.
Yup. In more recent times I've used arduinos and raspberry pi's for most things but I do still keep quite a reserve of PIC processors.
Yes, now if the editor would just replace the link TFS with the youtube link the guy might not be bankrupt tomorrow...
You have to grant that his tetris game is moving very fast, he probably has the timing connected to the speed of his megaprocessor and at that point in the video has it set at max.
But even allowing for that, he isn't exactly playing well.
"If all you do is take quick notes and scribble freehand sketches, then by all means go out and get yourself a pad of paper and pencil."
Ummm... yeah. That would be the topic of conversation. The tool one uses to take quite notes and scribble freehand sketches.
"On the other hand, how are pencil and paper for searching? How are they for indexing and cross referencing? How are they for storing blocks of text or images from a web page or an email or a document? How are they for syncing from home to work and back? How are they for being able to go back at a later date and add additional details to notes you've already taken? Etc, etc, etc."
What do those functions have to do with scribbing down content and brainstorming realtime? Those features are handled by your phone/laptop or maybe tablet in the case of search and for the rest they are a job for the application that you feed more fleshed out information from your quick notes into. What application is best for that job depends on the content of the notes.
"But if you actually store, organize and use significant amounts of data, then you need a note taking app"
No, actually you don't. If you are using a note taking app to store, organize, and use significant amounts of data you are attempting to bury nails with the handle of your screwdriver to make one tool fit all. That is the point really, notes are by definition a highly generic solution that easily encapsulates almost anything in small quantities for a short period of time. For almost anything you'd take notes on, there is a more specialized format/application to put that information in when time permits. It might be calendars, todo lists, project management software, accounting software, a diagram, or even simply a more organized outline in any number of formats. In some cases the note might simply be a task that gets executed very quickly like a reminder scribbled before lunch to call someone after lunch... in that case is a note the most organized way to record that information? No, it certainly is not but it highlights the utility of a note vs that more comprehensive and feature rich solution, a post-it is faster and easier than sitting back down and logging back into your computer, pulling up your calendar software and recording that phone call. Maybe the call is for the middle of next week, in which case you'd record it when you return.
This has nothing to do with being a Luddite it has to do with using the best tool for the job. Currently, the most technically superior solution for the function of notes, which is recording random ad-hoc information on a short term basis, is in fact some form of pencil and paper. All other purposes notes once served are long since obsolete and a big part of what makes for their obsolescence is that there isn't a single replacement but rather than you can readily access many many specialized tools from any computing platform rather than depending on a single monolithic and generic digital note system like some Luddite who doesn't understand modern technology. What next, building a general ledger and book of accounts in excel because you converted from a paper ledger after you took a MS Office class instead of using a modern purpose built accounting system?
"I prefer to take meeting notes in a notebook then transfer them to Evernote afterward."
In other words your solution is also pen and paper. I don't really count the version I've converted to digital after the fact as notes. Notes are that quick thing you do with a handful of people sitting around a table planning and sketching out ideas. A whiteboard also works. Just take a snapshot afterword.
Touchscreens suck but with a decent stylus you can make do for very simple things. It's like having a pen that's always low on ink and only one page visible at a time.
Okay, now lay three pages out with related content and sketches on the desk at once in a conference room... or even three blank pages so you can work on different pieces side by side... oh wait, you can't. At least not without paying hundreds of dollars for every digital sheet.
Hands down. Digital solutions are horrible for quickly scribbling freehand notes with sketches. Even with touchscreen and a good drawing stylus on a tablet you only have one page you can view at a time.
Setting aside all the anecdotal evidence for and against the drama queen status of the ladies above for a moment. I do think there is something valid being presented in the salary negotiation.
" I have never been given any opportunity to negotiate on salary. I do my performance review and I get a little slip of paper with my raise."
This is just one of the companies moves in the game. A negotiating tactic. There are still plenty of moves that advance salary in a meaningful way. Aside from a confrontation with your boss, you can go the path of being so ridiculously overachieving they have to advance you. I've even gotten companies to create new positions with job descriptions I wrote so they could promote me into them (after pretending to post it and consider everyone else who applied of course). Where there truly is no forward potential you jump ship. Without actually jumping position or ship you can go to your boss to confess how much you truly love your team and position but expenses are coming in and the hiring rates for similar positions at other companies are too appealing. In this way I got an across the board raise of 15-20% at one company despite having the usual annual 1-3% raise nonsense in place. The downside is that these don't happen overnight since it requires approvals so they can string you along for a bit with promises. Regardless you play humble and loyal while making strong strategic positions.
This isn't just a STEM thing, this is in all professions. I can't help but wonder how much of the alleged glass ceiling comes down to things like this. Most men aren't good at the game otherwise the rules would change but I suspect more men are and the average is higher because we built the game (and not to keep women out) and the right attitudes, advise, and approaches are passed from older males to younger males just as many other things are passed from older females to younger.
Aside from the fact management tends to advance and raise the salary of people they understand, relate to, and trust and for a male manager this is more likely to be a male and for a female manager more likely a female without any actual sexism required. Women are often seen in careers acting like men. Men have been trained since birth to give women advantages not disadvantages, to not treat them as men and therefore hold them to a lower bar in many areas. When the women begin acting like men instead of like women... they tend to be bad at it. More of a characterture. Bold at the wrong times and moments perhaps thinking "a man could get away with this" except they are wrong, a man would know based on specific circumstances right down to the tone in the room and the way the boss phrased something innocuous at the beginning of the meeting that getting his way would not involve a direct confrontation. The ladies making bold moves tend to miss all the subtle things that go along with that indicating respect and deference to the boss that get made while taking that bold action. Instead of paying attention to these things the ladies just complain they are seen as bitchy even though a male doing the same would be seen as an asshole and a man saying the same thing as those ladies say on a regular basis would be fired on the spot.
"It is well-trod territory at this point that biases against women's technological abilities hold women in technology back. Study after study has shown bias persists at every point of the employment process."
Actually there is study after study showing a disparity between women and men in terms of numbers and performance in the field. It is only the assumption that the cause is bias against women.
I can't imagine any field that if anything gives so much of an advantage to women and minorities from my experience. This is actually demonstrated by this study where providing male voices to the women resulted in much lower hiring rates.
"Android has the same problems for different reasons. Apps suck on Android due to lack of quality control and lack of standardization of the OS and hardware."
Correction, there are apps that suck for these reasons. There are also apps for just about every purpose that are as good or better than anything available on IOS. There are only a few very oddball cases where someone releases an app on IOS and doesn't also release it on Android because there are no shortage of great frameworks that you can develop with and release to both platforms with no extra effort. There are however plenty of apps that are available for android and not IOS... hundreds of them.
In the case of spotify I think it's a reasonable model, just like Netflix was when it actually had a decent content selection. I run my own personal home streaming system and it definitely costs quite a bit to do right (able to stream full blu-ray streams to every tv in the house at once along with handling realtime transcoding of remote streams), even without the cost to buy the content. Granted music doesn't present nearly so great a cost but actually buying the amount of music that is on spotify would cost a great deal so paying a small subscription for access to stream anything in the library instead of having to maintain one is reasonable.
This is quite different than suckers who are participating in the itunes "pretend you own" scheme where the content you "bought" could disappear in the mist at any moment. You never bought the content here.
I do think the likes of Spotify and Netflix are suckers though and that's why their content disappears. You don't see studios taking back content from blockbuster and the like. Once they've bought it with rights to show publicly they should pay once and own it and be able to show it as much as they like.
This right here. Understand now iphone users?
That all sounds well and good as long as the h1b visa program is cut and this "It proposes investments in computer science and engineering education" provides no public funds via any method including tax breaks for this "attaching a green card to the diplomas of foreign-born students earning STEM degrees."
We don't have any real shortages in this country of STEM talent so we shouldn't be paying for the advanced education of immigrants especially since we don't even pay for the education of people born here. But if a student pays for a taught 100% in English by a unilingual US citizen teacher (important for establishing fluency in English and reading comprehension) education here or is worthwhile enough to convince penny pinching US companies to pay to educate them with after tax funds I see no reason we wouldn't want to put them on the fast track for a green card (assuming they pass background checks and such).
Stuffing our melting pot with intelligent people is a good thing. The key is to get the gems, anyone who has ever worked with international IT crowds knows that they are larger and stuffed with even more morons than you find in the field here and a degree/marks in school have very little relation to being able to apply information in new and novel ways. Teaching material tends to give hints that guide you toward the right answers for the testing and challenges that will be presented later that the real world doesn't. I've yet to find a consistent metric that picks out that guy who consistently finds novel and creative solutions like using the liquid foam system in shipping to craft lumbar support for his chair when management is too cheap to buy new ones. That's the guy you want more of no matter where he comes from.
I've lived in places where they actually outsourced red light cameras to a third party because they didn't actually meet the burden of proof. If you refused to pay their recourse is no different than any other company claiming you owe them money, they can send it in for collections.
But make no mistake the state IS bypassing due process by declaring a lower burden of proof and denying your constitutional rights as someone accused of a crime and for most offenses, including toll violations you can ultimately end up in jail if you refuse to pay that "debt." You are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and entitled to a trial by jury, whether the punishment is jail time and a record or a $500 fine for a $1 toll. By most standards civil offenses 500 fold damages levied by the state is far in excess of what should be called civil, even an angry judge would normally award only treble damages as a punitive measure in a civil case. Generally, they keep real judges out of traffic court though.