Most big companies have already set up foreign subsidiaries that offshore the work from the US. So the H1B program is a red herring. Having business penalized for pushing work overseas for domestic use should be the focus of such efforts. This is not only true in manufacturing, but IT, finance, radiology (yes...your x-rays are read in India when at the ER at 3 AM), and even legal services. The only things that can't be outsourced are service industries that are face-to-face like plumbers, electricians, servers, etc.
For the record, I am an IT professional with 40 years of IT experience in a wide range of fields and I am living in constant fear of losing my job to somebody overseas.
Contact was the first movie that made me buy a DVD player. The opening sequence was and is still stunning in it's scope and detail.
Another that I haven't seen is the series Babylon 5. Even though they had hour-long shows, they had story arcs that spanned seasons and had excellent acting and story lines. And let's not forget that Walter Koenig was a real baddie in this series. And he played it so well!
One day when I was very frustrated with work and people, I fired up Doom and got to the last level with the Big Nasty...and went into God mode. I decided I wanted to inflict maximum pain (to work out my frustrations) so I went after him with a chain saw...It was WONDERFUL!!! I chased him around and had him howling for a good half hour, but didn't kill him. But that was the best use for Doom I ever had...
My iPhone 5s (64 GB) works just fine with iOS8 and so I decided to upgrade my iPad 2 (64 GB WiFi+ATT 3G). This has been problematic. The problems I have encountered are:
1. Install took very long and required some reboots
2. I lose the 3G stuff and have to do a hard boot to get it back for a while (found this online)
3. Some apps just start up and hang
4. Response is very slow...trying to start it up when it's been idle for a while takes about 15-30 seconds to respond...
So it is fine on the phone but lousy on the iPad...
Plastic! Actually, some countries are using plastic for the larger currency in a bill form because it is more durable and harder to forge. Besides, wouldn't it be fun to have translucent coins in different colors for the denomination? Of course, breaking a penny or nickel might take on a new meaning...
I assume that you are talking about conventional software you buy and install on your desktop/laptop/tablet/phone. But what about cloud-based services (Salesforce, Google, iTunes, etc.)? They are exposing an interface and set of functions but the rest of it is not transparent.
This class of software is probably where we should focus anti-SOPA efforts...
In Communications Security (COMSEC, for short), they follow what are called TEMPEST guidelines to prevent unwanted signals from getting out or in.
While you can Google TEMPEST COMSEC and get lots of hits, here are some useful suggestions you can implement:
1. Use copper mesh on the walls. It doesn't have to be embedded in the walls if you use decorative screens or floor to ceiling drapes (presumably behind nice curtains, unless you are into the Metallic/Techno decorating thing).
2. Likewise, for windows, a stainless steel or copper screen will do a great job and not look hideous.
3. You may want to put up a decorative wall panel (trifold) between your computer stuff and windows and have some copper mesh embedded/applied to it.
As regards the building itself, if there is brick or stone on the facade facing the towers, you shouldn't have to worry about dealing with walls. Using options 2 or 3 should suffice for windows and doors.
Since you are getting a penthouse suite, you should have money to do this and might want to call in a business/computer security expert with TEMPEST experience. Not cheap, but will make sure no industrial espionage or stray radiation will get into your domicile.
By the way, my Father used to work in a high-rise building for the Federal government just next to a high-powered radio station tower near D.C. and they stated that as long as he kept the sliding glass door out onto the patio covered, he was safe. Of course, radio reception was lousy for anything other than that station, and cell phones and wireless networking was not around then. Being the Federal government (back in the 70's), they did come around and ask if he wanted patio furniture for the deck (facing the radio tower)! He wisely and graciously declined citing the potential health hazard (and not mentioning that it was a waste of money).
Let's apply Occam's Razor here: They offer Bing Cash on selected web sites (especially eBay) that you click though to and buy from when you have signed up for Bing Cash (free, as in beer).
I'm not scared of using Bing and Bing Cash to get 2-8% back on my purchases (even if it takes up to 60 days). I use my other browsers to find out what I want to buy (amongst other things) and use Bing with Bing Cash to buy the item, if possible, and get some money back.
I don't use Bing for general searching or research, just when I am looking to buy something.
I guess this is where their big advertising budget is going towards. My wallet, for a change.
So I'm not surprised that their click-thru rate is higher, and probably their click-n-buy rate; but this will last as long as they have the Bing Cash program. Now if they looked at how much research was being done, I bet that is very low.
A lot of the comments here are missing a key point: Detroit wants to keep on doing things the way they have been. They are happy to try and tweak 2-3 MPG out of an existing vehicle and claim victory.
My wife and I have been discussing this for a while and I think some points are worth bringing up on how to resurrect the US auto industry:
1. Create an "open source" equivalent to the systems and electronics for the vehicles--something open and standard that eliminates a lot of custom widgets that only work on one model for one year. Hold on for number two and three before rebutting this one...
2. Build vehicles with a standardized chassis (or a small set of them: compact, regular, huge, truck) that allows you to have a plug and play engine/power source. You can then start with gas/diesel/hybrid and upgrade the engine to newer technologies as they evolve.
3. The body--grill work, cabin, trim, bling, etc. are things you can swap out as you needs/desires/wants change. How would you like to start out with a convertible, change it over to a van (when the rugrats arrive) and then go sporty when the kids are out of the house...
Can Detroit do this? They were starting with with the Hydrogen car (at least GM was) in the early 2000s.
More important: Will they do this, given their management and culture? My bet is NO. I'm singling out the management of the big 3 here for this one. They've had ample opportunities to work on this and have squandered the opportunities time and again "because it doesn't make sense for the quarterly earnings report."
Hate to say it, but companies that don't invest in R&D for the "next big thing" wind up having NO quarters to deal with...Oracle almost bit the dust in the early 90's because they skimped on R&D until that point; Microsoft is still trying the catch up with that Web thing...(two companies most Slashdotters will grok)
Sounds too idealistic or naive, right? Uh, look at the software and hardware you are using now to look at this. Most of it wasn't around 10 years ago or was very primitive by today's standards.
Of course, I'm still grumbling that it's the 21st century and I still don't have the untethered personal jet pack they were touting in the 60's Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines.
Let the great minds in HR and upper management that thought of this go over there (at prevailing local wages) and take a year to set things up. No pay differential, no hazard pay, etc. and let them try to pay for their mortgage and kids education back here in the U.S.
If this is such a "great opportunity" they should lead the way by example.
For those people getting laid off, this is probably the worst insult possible: we want you but at 3rd-world wages.
I suggest those people proposing this immediately get their pay adjusted to 3rd-world wage rates here in the U.S. and see how it feels.
I guess IBM now stands for "Idiots, Bozos, and Morons"
When that event occurred, I decided not to shop at Circuit City. The staff they had up to that point was mostly knowledgeable, helpful, and worth dealing with. After they did this deed, I figured (correctly, as it turned out) that the service would suck supreme--other people confirmed this--and they would start the swirl into oblivion.
Have fun sleeping with the billions of flushed goldfish, Circuit City!
I was hoping that they would keep XP alive until the new Windows came out, but this is a double shotgun blast in the gut.
Okay, so you can still get XP (Professional, please) on systems through OEMs and manufacturers for a while, but Microsoft effectively is saying "Use XP and you are on your own." One could argue that with Vista, the same is true (except you substitute Vista for XP in the statement)...
Second shotgun blast to the gut: they're going to build it on Vista...There's an old IT industry saying: you can't polish a T*RD! (swap U for the *)...
I've been contemplating switching the LINUX and MAC OS/X (yep, MAC hardware too) and so I guess my next system will be one of those.
I'm tired of having to tweak, reinstall, fix, patch, and generally spend more than 2% of my time on operating system/hardware compatibility issues. A computer is supposed to help you do things, not consume your time caring for it. It should be a simple thing: apply electricity, provide network access, and update periodically. Software should be even simpler--update periodically.
I had enough fun with XP SP3 because I used an Athlon processor--I had to remove/rename a *.sys file because I was using a non-INTEL processor? GIMEE A BREAK!!!
I'm expecting corporations will start migrating away from Windows to other operating systems, or a web browser and SAAS applications...so I'll start early and not spend any more money or time with Microsoft.
It's amusing that a government is trying to legislate good health with a punishment against the company. But it is totally wrong. That is discrimination against the individual (albeit indirectly through their weight).
Obesity (aka being Fat/Overweight/Tubby/etc.) is a complex set of genetic conditions (Syndrome X/Metabolic Syndrome, diabetes, etc.), medical conditions (Thyroid conditions, etc.), psychological factors (stress eating, low self-esteem, etc.), and/or other factors (diet, available food, etc.) that make it nontrivial for a large group of people to lose weight. I doubt I've even scratched thesurface of factors...
If you look at the American Society of Bariatric Physicians (asbp.org), and (I bet) the AMA, you will find that folks that have a BMI index over 45 or over 100 pounds of weight are not really able to get it off through just diet and exercise.
This is where surgery (lap band, roux-n-y, etc.), drastic programs (ever watch those Discovery shows on the hyper-obese?), serious drugs (alli-aka Xenecal/Olestra, Byatta, etc.) and combinations of those various options are used to get the weight off.
Unfortunately, the health care providers are long on talk and short on action to help obese people--it's the typical "doctor talks to you about diet and exercise" and you feel guilty and go get a big meal to feel better...
If you want surgery--or NEED surgery--you have to jump through hoops for at least a year before they consider it.
My take is that if you want to legislate good health, then also provide easier access to the tools and medical means to help folks make it happen. How many folks have consulted with a nutritionist about their diet? Does you plan even provide for that?
And let's not forget the psychological aspects--this is a dirty little secret of healthcare plans in that they really scrimp on this aspect of healthcare and won't even reimburse for help on stress eating.
Frankly, if I were an obese Japanese worker, I'd sue right now for more medical help--and not just the company but the Ministry of Health and the wonderful government officials and elected folk that enacted this cruel joke.
If they tried this here in America, I'd be going to the ACLU and getting them to start litigation against anybody proposing or supporting this nonsense as it stands. If they made real medical help readily available with it--as mandates to healthcare providers and funding for those who don't have healthcare (who really need it), then I could agree to helping people lose weight and keep it off and not punish them or their employers for the problem.
We're hearing about the "National Obesity Epidemic" but I don't see any action by healthcare providers or the government that means anything. Come on, a revised food pyramid that is far worse for you than the one from 20 years ago?
And yes, I am about 100 pounds over my target weight. And no, I've already tried surgery (my first round with lap-band went wrong somehow and I'm actively looking at other surgical options), too many diets that didn't work, too many drugs (some are now working), and some things that are working slowly (managing stress). So I'm talking from real experience.
Anybody that just says "shut your mouth when around food", or "diet and exercise", or "watch what you eat" or other plattitudes should be sat upon and fed their weight in twinkies or cornstarch. Or maybe I'll just counter with "maybe you should stop breathing so much"...
In the case of industry business people, the motive is to get the Feds to loosen immigration restrictions for cheap foreign labor, to increase supply of workers in order to reduce labor costs and to justify offshore outsourcing efforts, Hira said.
I get lots of offers to work in NYC (and other places like Iowa, Kansas, etc.) in IT but at the wages I was making 20-30 years ago. If businesses are going to expect first-world expertise (50+ years of Java coding) but pay third-world wages (you can get by fine on $40/hr in NYC doing senior level coding), well....they have their labor shortage.
One of the best indicators I found for how desirable a field is for workers is to look at the percentage of college-educated workers that are female. Sad fact is that the IT field has very few female IT coders...they've moved into BA roles or PM roles because those jobs won't get outsourced to cheaper labor pools and these other jobs have some career paths defined. Women do tend to take a longer view of work than men, especially at the career level.
Note that Mapmakers make intentional mistakes...
on
Open US GPS Data?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Folks, be aware that one way that a mapmaker "improves" on a copyright protection is to intentionally alter a small section of a map (and in a book, a few at random) that is hopefully not used. This helps them to prosecute somebody that steals the map information and resells it. Granted, this is known for hard-copy maps, but I believe it is also true for GPS maps as well (call them the "soft-copy" versions).
I can attest to this because near where my parents live on most maps there is a road that appears to go from their development right into the next one. Unfortunately, there is a gap of about 100 feet where there is no road but rather a swampy stream. And it gets better... When they were laying sewer lines, they put in in this swampy stream so that if somebody wants to extend the road they will have to build a bridge over the stream. So this would involve (and has involved) the state, county, and sewer authority determining how much each should pay.
You can guess how far this has gotten...I'm expecting it may happen when my (as yet unborn) great grandchildren reach 21 years of age...
Of course, this was the source of a lot of fun during the summer when growing up...my brother and I would sit out on the front lawn in the twilight/evening/night and watch the cars come zooming down to take the "short-cut" and then have to slam on their brakes and then back up and wander around aimlessly. Nobody ever crashed into the swamp, but one person almost hit the barrier at the end of the street.
Yes, I did call the map people (ADC) and report it several times over a decade. It's still that way in the latest edition, and I've seen the same mistake in an in-dash GPS display for the location in one car.
My dad brought home one of those TTY keyboards with built-in modem (looked like a typewriter with mutant ears growing out of it for the phone) to do some weekend work. He showed me the game they had (ASCII, definitely) called Star Trek. Think it was `75...
Happily, he didn't have much work to do over the weekend and I could play it for hours at a crack.
Seems to me that the author neglected a basic tenet of modern particle/subatomic physics: Things are Quanta!
This simple insight into the complexities of quantum mechanics, string theory, etc. basically defines things as quantized components (much like computer bits, only much more interesting...flavors, spins, charms, etc.) and therefore makes it hard to distinguish it from a "digital universe".
Of course, we should not discount the fact that although things are quantized, there can be lots of state spaces for each quanta beyond 0 and 1 (say on the order of 2**N where N is pretty large-the number of particles being modeled), rendering most computer simulations of reality impractical. [Yes, I did FORTRAN programming in my early years and the exponentiation notation has stuck.]
Now if he can provide a consistent framework to scale from subatomic scale to any visible scale (mm, km, light-year) in describing things, that would be a big advance for Physics, Cosmology, Mechanics, etc.
un-DUH that one...
You are testing for effects of electronic radiation, not foil...
Of course, we would have to issue warnings that you shouldn't completely cover your head in foil...you could suffocate. Kinda right up there with "Don't attempt to lift a running lawn mower with your hands". That's a big DUH...
Um...ask you're SO (Significant Other) about sleeping with curlers, etc. in hair at night...and I believe there are a lot of non-US men who wear a sleeping hat to bed. Of course, you can create a metal-impregnated knit cap for people to wear (look at your butcher/meat person in the store next time; they wear metal mesh gloves).
Do we need to wear tin-foil hats to bed? (I'm half-serious here...) I wonder if they can do the study with two additional groups of people: tin-foil hats and signals, tin-foil hats and placebo...
That actually would be interesting...tin-foil hats are cheap Faraday cages, after all...
Sounds loony, but may be something significant...I'd rather see research money go for this than proving that drinking too much water/breathing too much air causes cancer...
Folks-
While people get all flamed up over GOTOs , global variables, coding styles (and I bet parenthesis placement), the hard reality is this:
Most businesses only care that it works! And works "Well Enough" for their delivery deadlines!
Yes, I was actually trained in good coding practices and the total lifecycle costs of software development, but most places only care about checking the "Done, now ship it" box. A very significant indicator of whether or not they care about code quality and style is this: How beefed up is there QA?
If the QA effort consists of a bunch of people doing things manually, they don't have time to check code; only functionality.
If the QA effort is primarily automated with tools to parse and check code, as well as run serious automated testing, then you have something there.
I'm afraid many shops are now in the mode of "just code it and get it working...we can clean it up in maintenance..."
Give this fellow some humor and insightful points for finally showing that Microsoft Vista is a weapon of mass destruction! Maybe now we can ban it here and go back to XP...or better yet, move to LINUX/UNIX...
Slashdot Mirror
For the record, I am an IT professional with 40 years of IT experience in a wide range of fields and I am living in constant fear of losing my job to somebody overseas.
Contact was the first movie that made me buy a DVD player. The opening sequence was and is still stunning in it's scope and detail. Another that I haven't seen is the series Babylon 5. Even though they had hour-long shows, they had story arcs that spanned seasons and had excellent acting and story lines. And let's not forget that Walter Koenig was a real baddie in this series. And he played it so well!
One day when I was very frustrated with work and people, I fired up Doom and got to the last level with the Big Nasty...and went into God mode. I decided I wanted to inflict maximum pain (to work out my frustrations) so I went after him with a chain saw...It was WONDERFUL!!! I chased him around and had him howling for a good half hour, but didn't kill him. But that was the best use for Doom I ever had...
My iPhone 5s (64 GB) works just fine with iOS8 and so I decided to upgrade my iPad 2 (64 GB WiFi+ATT 3G). This has been problematic. The problems I have encountered are: 1. Install took very long and required some reboots 2. I lose the 3G stuff and have to do a hard boot to get it back for a while (found this online) 3. Some apps just start up and hang 4. Response is very slow...trying to start it up when it's been idle for a while takes about 15-30 seconds to respond... So it is fine on the phone but lousy on the iPad...
Wonder where this puts you: spam.spam.spam I would think either in England (for Monty Python)...
I think it is an area of relative calm around the swirling bands...but that's my 2 cents of scientific insight/guessing...
Plastic! Actually, some countries are using plastic for the larger currency in a bill form because it is more durable and harder to forge. Besides, wouldn't it be fun to have translucent coins in different colors for the denomination? Of course, breaking a penny or nickel might take on a new meaning...
I assume that you are talking about conventional software you buy and install on your desktop/laptop/tablet/phone. But what about cloud-based services (Salesforce, Google, iTunes, etc.)? They are exposing an interface and set of functions but the rest of it is not transparent. This class of software is probably where we should focus anti-SOPA efforts...
In Communications Security (COMSEC, for short), they follow what are called TEMPEST guidelines to prevent unwanted signals from getting out or in.
While you can Google TEMPEST COMSEC and get lots of hits, here are some useful suggestions you can implement:
1. Use copper mesh on the walls. It doesn't have to be embedded in the walls if you use decorative screens or floor to ceiling drapes (presumably behind nice curtains, unless you are into the Metallic/Techno decorating thing). 2. Likewise, for windows, a stainless steel or copper screen will do a great job and not look hideous. 3. You may want to put up a decorative wall panel (trifold) between your computer stuff and windows and have some copper mesh embedded/applied to it.
As regards the building itself, if there is brick or stone on the facade facing the towers, you shouldn't have to worry about dealing with walls. Using options 2 or 3 should suffice for windows and doors.
Since you are getting a penthouse suite, you should have money to do this and might want to call in a business/computer security expert with TEMPEST experience. Not cheap, but will make sure no industrial espionage or stray radiation will get into your domicile.
By the way, my Father used to work in a high-rise building for the Federal government just next to a high-powered radio station tower near D.C. and they stated that as long as he kept the sliding glass door out onto the patio covered, he was safe. Of course, radio reception was lousy for anything other than that station, and cell phones and wireless networking was not around then. Being the Federal government (back in the 70's), they did come around and ask if he wanted patio furniture for the deck (facing the radio tower)! He wisely and graciously declined citing the potential health hazard (and not mentioning that it was a waste of money).
Let's apply Occam's Razor here: They offer Bing Cash on selected web sites (especially eBay) that you click though to and buy from when you have signed up for Bing Cash (free, as in beer).
I'm not scared of using Bing and Bing Cash to get 2-8% back on my purchases (even if it takes up to 60 days). I use my other browsers to find out what I want to buy (amongst other things) and use Bing with Bing Cash to buy the item, if possible, and get some money back.
I don't use Bing for general searching or research, just when I am looking to buy something.
I guess this is where their big advertising budget is going towards. My wallet, for a change.
So I'm not surprised that their click-thru rate is higher, and probably their click-n-buy rate; but this will last as long as they have the Bing Cash program. Now if they looked at how much research was being done, I bet that is very low.
A lot of the comments here are missing a key point: Detroit wants to keep on doing things the way they have been. They are happy to try and tweak 2-3 MPG out of an existing vehicle and claim victory.
My wife and I have been discussing this for a while and I think some points are worth bringing up on how to resurrect the US auto industry:
1. Create an "open source" equivalent to the systems and electronics for the vehicles--something open and standard that eliminates a lot of custom widgets that only work on one model for one year. Hold on for number two and three before rebutting this one...
2. Build vehicles with a standardized chassis (or a small set of them: compact, regular, huge, truck) that allows you to have a plug and play engine/power source. You can then start with gas/diesel/hybrid and upgrade the engine to newer technologies as they evolve.
3. The body--grill work, cabin, trim, bling, etc. are things you can swap out as you needs/desires/wants change. How would you like to start out with a convertible, change it over to a van (when the rugrats arrive) and then go sporty when the kids are out of the house...
Can Detroit do this? They were starting with with the Hydrogen car (at least GM was) in the early 2000s.
More important: Will they do this, given their management and culture? My bet is NO. I'm singling out the management of the big 3 here for this one. They've had ample opportunities to work on this and have squandered the opportunities time and again "because it doesn't make sense for the quarterly earnings report."
Hate to say it, but companies that don't invest in R&D for the "next big thing" wind up having NO quarters to deal with...Oracle almost bit the dust in the early 90's because they skimped on R&D until that point; Microsoft is still trying the catch up with that Web thing...(two companies most Slashdotters will grok)
Sounds too idealistic or naive, right? Uh, look at the software and hardware you are using now to look at this. Most of it wasn't around 10 years ago or was very primitive by today's standards.
Of course, I'm still grumbling that it's the 21st century and I still don't have the untethered personal jet pack they were touting in the 60's Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines.
Let the great minds in HR and upper management that thought of this go over there (at prevailing local wages) and take a year to set things up. No pay differential, no hazard pay, etc. and let them try to pay for their mortgage and kids education back here in the U.S.
If this is such a "great opportunity" they should lead the way by example.
For those people getting laid off, this is probably the worst insult possible: we want you but at 3rd-world wages.
I suggest those people proposing this immediately get their pay adjusted to 3rd-world wage rates here in the U.S. and see how it feels.
I guess IBM now stands for "Idiots, Bozos, and Morons"
Truly Pathetic!
When that event occurred, I decided not to shop at Circuit City. The staff they had up to that point was mostly knowledgeable, helpful, and worth dealing with. After they did this deed, I figured (correctly, as it turned out) that the service would suck supreme--other people confirmed this--and they would start the swirl into oblivion.
Have fun sleeping with the billions of flushed goldfish, Circuit City!
I was hoping that they would keep XP alive until the new Windows came out, but this is a double shotgun blast in the gut.
Okay, so you can still get XP (Professional, please) on systems through OEMs and manufacturers for a while, but Microsoft effectively is saying "Use XP and you are on your own." One could argue that with Vista, the same is true (except you substitute Vista for XP in the statement)...
Second shotgun blast to the gut: they're going to build it on Vista...There's an old IT industry saying: you can't polish a T*RD! (swap U for the *)...
I've been contemplating switching the LINUX and MAC OS/X (yep, MAC hardware too) and so I guess my next system will be one of those.
I'm tired of having to tweak, reinstall, fix, patch, and generally spend more than 2% of my time on operating system/hardware compatibility issues. A computer is supposed to help you do things, not consume your time caring for it. It should be a simple thing: apply electricity, provide network access, and update periodically. Software should be even simpler--update periodically.
I had enough fun with XP SP3 because I used an Athlon processor--I had to remove/rename a *.sys file because I was using a non-INTEL processor? GIMEE A BREAK!!!
I'm expecting corporations will start migrating away from Windows to other operating systems, or a web browser and SAAS applications...so I'll start early and not spend any more money or time with Microsoft.
Bullshit back at you...that is one of the SYMPTOMS of obesity...you eat more than you expend.
I suggest you stop breathing so much...
Obesity (aka being Fat/Overweight/Tubby/etc.) is a complex set of genetic conditions (Syndrome X/Metabolic Syndrome, diabetes, etc.), medical conditions (Thyroid conditions, etc.), psychological factors (stress eating, low self-esteem, etc.), and/or other factors (diet, available food, etc.) that make it nontrivial for a large group of people to lose weight. I doubt I've even scratched thesurface of factors...
If you look at the American Society of Bariatric Physicians (asbp.org), and (I bet) the AMA, you will find that folks that have a BMI index over 45 or over 100 pounds of weight are not really able to get it off through just diet and exercise.
This is where surgery (lap band, roux-n-y, etc.), drastic programs (ever watch those Discovery shows on the hyper-obese?), serious drugs (alli-aka Xenecal/Olestra, Byatta, etc.) and combinations of those various options are used to get the weight off.
Unfortunately, the health care providers are long on talk and short on action to help obese people--it's the typical "doctor talks to you about diet and exercise" and you feel guilty and go get a big meal to feel better...
If you want surgery--or NEED surgery--you have to jump through hoops for at least a year before they consider it.
My take is that if you want to legislate good health, then also provide easier access to the tools and medical means to help folks make it happen. How many folks have consulted with a nutritionist about their diet? Does you plan even provide for that?
And let's not forget the psychological aspects--this is a dirty little secret of healthcare plans in that they really scrimp on this aspect of healthcare and won't even reimburse for help on stress eating.
Frankly, if I were an obese Japanese worker, I'd sue right now for more medical help--and not just the company but the Ministry of Health and the wonderful government officials and elected folk that enacted this cruel joke.
If they tried this here in America, I'd be going to the ACLU and getting them to start litigation against anybody proposing or supporting this nonsense as it stands. If they made real medical help readily available with it--as mandates to healthcare providers and funding for those who don't have healthcare (who really need it), then I could agree to helping people lose weight and keep it off and not punish them or their employers for the problem.
We're hearing about the "National Obesity Epidemic" but I don't see any action by healthcare providers or the government that means anything. Come on, a revised food pyramid that is far worse for you than the one from 20 years ago?
And yes, I am about 100 pounds over my target weight. And no, I've already tried surgery (my first round with lap-band went wrong somehow and I'm actively looking at other surgical options), too many diets that didn't work, too many drugs (some are now working), and some things that are working slowly (managing stress). So I'm talking from real experience.
Anybody that just says "shut your mouth when around food", or "diet and exercise", or "watch what you eat" or other plattitudes should be sat upon and fed their weight in twinkies or cornstarch. Or maybe I'll just counter with "maybe you should stop breathing so much"...
Here's a quote from the article:
In the case of industry business people, the motive is to get the Feds to loosen immigration restrictions for cheap foreign labor, to increase supply of workers in order to reduce labor costs and to justify offshore outsourcing efforts, Hira said.I get lots of offers to work in NYC (and other places like Iowa, Kansas, etc.) in IT but at the wages I was making 20-30 years ago. If businesses are going to expect first-world expertise (50+ years of Java coding) but pay third-world wages (you can get by fine on $40/hr in NYC doing senior level coding), well....they have their labor shortage.
One of the best indicators I found for how desirable a field is for workers is to look at the percentage of college-educated workers that are female. Sad fact is that the IT field has very few female IT coders...they've moved into BA roles or PM roles because those jobs won't get outsourced to cheaper labor pools and these other jobs have some career paths defined. Women do tend to take a longer view of work than men, especially at the career level.
Folks, be aware that one way that a mapmaker "improves" on a copyright protection is to intentionally alter a small section of a map (and in a book, a few at random) that is hopefully not used. This helps them to prosecute somebody that steals the map information and resells it. Granted, this is known for hard-copy maps, but I believe it is also true for GPS maps as well (call them the "soft-copy" versions).
I can attest to this because near where my parents live on most maps there is a road that appears to go from their development right into the next one. Unfortunately, there is a gap of about 100 feet where there is no road but rather a swampy stream. And it gets better... When they were laying sewer lines, they put in in this swampy stream so that if somebody wants to extend the road they will have to build a bridge over the stream. So this would involve (and has involved) the state, county, and sewer authority determining how much each should pay.
You can guess how far this has gotten...I'm expecting it may happen when my (as yet unborn) great grandchildren reach 21 years of age...
Of course, this was the source of a lot of fun during the summer when growing up...my brother and I would sit out on the front lawn in the twilight/evening/night and watch the cars come zooming down to take the "short-cut" and then have to slam on their brakes and then back up and wander around aimlessly. Nobody ever crashed into the swamp, but one person almost hit the barrier at the end of the street.
Yes, I did call the map people (ADC) and report it several times over a decade. It's still that way in the latest edition, and I've seen the same mistake in an in-dash GPS display for the location in one car.
Guess it's now "Driver Beware"...
My dad brought home one of those TTY keyboards with built-in modem (looked like a typewriter with mutant ears growing out of it for the phone) to do some weekend work. He showed me the game they had (ASCII, definitely) called Star Trek. Think it was `75...
Happily, he didn't have much work to do over the weekend and I could play it for hours at a crack.
When I got to college, it was ADVEN...
Seems to me that the author neglected a basic tenet of modern particle/subatomic physics: Things are Quanta!
This simple insight into the complexities of quantum mechanics, string theory, etc. basically defines things as quantized components (much like computer bits, only much more interesting...flavors, spins, charms, etc.) and therefore makes it hard to distinguish it from a "digital universe".
Of course, we should not discount the fact that although things are quantized, there can be lots of state spaces for each quanta beyond 0 and 1 (say on the order of 2**N where N is pretty large-the number of particles being modeled), rendering most computer simulations of reality impractical. [Yes, I did FORTRAN programming in my early years and the exponentiation notation has stuck.]
Now if he can provide a consistent framework to scale from subatomic scale to any visible scale (mm, km, light-year) in describing things, that would be a big advance for Physics, Cosmology, Mechanics, etc.
But I think not...
un-DUH that one... You are testing for effects of electronic radiation, not foil... Of course, we would have to issue warnings that you shouldn't completely cover your head in foil...you could suffocate. Kinda right up there with "Don't attempt to lift a running lawn mower with your hands". That's a big DUH...
Um...ask you're SO (Significant Other) about sleeping with curlers, etc. in hair at night...and I believe there are a lot of non-US men who wear a sleeping hat to bed. Of course, you can create a metal-impregnated knit cap for people to wear (look at your butcher/meat person in the store next time; they wear metal mesh gloves).
That actually would be interesting...tin-foil hats are cheap Faraday cages, after all...
Sounds loony, but may be something significant...I'd rather see research money go for this than proving that drinking too much water/breathing too much air causes cancer...
Most businesses only care that it works! And works "Well Enough" for their delivery deadlines!
Yes, I was actually trained in good coding practices and the total lifecycle costs of software development, but most places only care about checking the "Done, now ship it" box. A very significant indicator of whether or not they care about code quality and style is this: How beefed up is there QA?
If the QA effort consists of a bunch of people doing things manually, they don't have time to check code; only functionality.
If the QA effort is primarily automated with tools to parse and check code, as well as run serious automated testing, then you have something there.
I'm afraid many shops are now in the mode of "just code it and get it working...we can clean it up in maintenance..."
Give this fellow some humor and insightful points for finally showing that Microsoft Vista is a weapon of mass destruction! Maybe now we can ban it here and go back to XP...or better yet, move to LINUX/UNIX...