99% of the files used to test the new Dirac CODEC will be pornopraphy. Most of it will be weighted towards luscious, blonde lesbians engaged sexual acts that almost defy gravity.
The lesson here is that security problems are not restricted to commercial software products: e.g. Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Open-source software without the backing of a stable commercial company (i.e. IBM backing Linux) runs the serious risk that a security flaw will not be addressed promptly or effectively since we are relying on the goodwill of programmers. How do we ensure "goodwill"?
On the other hand, open-source software backed by a stable company does not face the same problem. Consider Linux. If the open-source community did not address the security flaw expeditiously, then you can be sure that IBM will step into the picture and fix the problem promptly. IBM will never fail its customers. Hence, Linux exploded in popularity among commercial companies after IBM committed $1 billion to Linux.
I applaud the EFF for fighting the FCC. If the EFF can establish that the FCC only has powers specifically prescribed by Congress (as opposed to having any power unless it is specifically circumscribed by Congress), then the EFF will establish an awesome legal precedent that will pave the way for folks like Howard Stern in the digial era. He and others like him need not fear the FCC again -- at least in the domain of digital communication.
Remember that Stern, himself, paved the way for Bill O'Reilly. Before Stern, people like Bill O'Reilly really could not say "outrageous" things like "let's use the national guard to defend the borders from illegal aliens." Stern pushed the limit of being outrageous, and O'Reilly lives within that limit.
The point is not that O'Reilly's comments are outrageous. They are not. Rather, some people who hate O'Reilly are bigots and accuse him of being outrageous. In the past, these bigots would use the "outrageous" label to convince the FCC to shut O'Reilly down. However, thanks to Stern, these bigots can no longer use the "outrageous" label to shut down folks like O'Reilly. After all, even the bigots note that O'Reilly's comments are not more outrageous than Stern's comments about anal sex, transvestites, and heroine addiction.
Let's support the EFF, Howard Stern, and... Bill O'Reilly.
If you hate what is happening to our nation, the USA, then please the following on the November ballot.
Why is Ralph Nader not participating in this debate? He is a "third-party" candidate since he is hardly mainstream.
In order for this debate to have credibility and in order to raise the profile of this debate, we need a "star" to give the questions to the candidates. Let's ask Bill O'Reilly to be the questioner.
If you hate what is happening to our nation, the USA, then please write the following on the November ballot.
Let's honor James Doohan, aka "Scotty".
on
Win the X-Prize Cup
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Let's try to honor James Doohan by rename the "X-Prize" to the "Doohan Prize".
Also, let's be a bit more ambitious. With the recent revelation that the American military is working on anti-matter weapons, we can safely conclude that we have "found" the fuel necessary for intergalactic travel. An matter-antimatter engine would have almost limitless power.
So, instead of merely "shooting for low-earth orbit", let's "shoot for the stars". Let's "boldly go where no man has gone before..."
Actually, More Fragmented Market
on
The Long Tail
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
20 years ago, the TV audience was partitioned among 3 major networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS. Today, the TV audience is fragmented among 20+ stations, of which the majority are on cable TV.
Hence, Hollywood, which produces most of the films, must target a fragmented audience. Each film must be profitable on a tiny percentage of the viewing audience. By definition, such films are niche films
Consider "Star Trek". When it first aired, its ratings were considered terrible, but those same ratings would be considered a success today.
The negative side of niche films is that they divide the culture of the nation. In the golden age of TV, with only 3 TV networks, a huge percentage of the population shared the same TV experience by virtue of watching the same TV programs. Now, with so many TV networks and so many films, where is the binding glue for a common culture?
What is remarkable is that FOX news regularly beats the competition in this fragmented market, besting ABC, CBS, and NBC. Perhaps, there is something to this "No Spin" thing.
The frightening scenario of a car accelerating on its own is a failure of engineering. The engineer should have analyzed the dangerous modes of failure and then ensured redundancy in those modes. For example, the space shuttle has multiple computers performing identical tasks; if one computer failures, then the remaining computers continue to operate.
For a car with cruise control, there should be an emergency lever that shuts off the hoses supplying fuel to the engine. The driver would control the lever manually just as he manually controls the parking brake.
As much as I know we all hate MS funded "research" I just can't trust the number of times that an application is downloaded as market-share.
The above observation is a good point since frequency of download does not equate to frequency of use.
The greatest lack of credibility for Linux going mainstream is the lack of an AOL client in Linux. If Linux really had a huge following or interest in the consumer market, then AOL would have already launched an AOL client for Linux so that millions of tech-ignorant consumers could dial into AOL from their Linux desktop.
The success of Linux continues to be restricted to the business market and the engineering market. Soccer moms driving around in environment-destroying SUVs still will not touch Linux with a 10-foot poll.
When SCO slapped IBM with a multi-billion dollar lawsuit, the management at Sun Microsystems snickered and bragged that it had "legally" bought the perpetual right to the UNIX patents. Then, the management prepared a knife to stab into the back of the Linux movement.
Next, the management showed its hand by doing a deal with the devil: Bill Gates. He gave Sun Microsystems a ransom on the order of a billion dollars.
Now, Kodak comes out of nowhere and slaps Sun Microsystem with a lawsuit and wins a billion dollars.
These trust chips appear to be an attempt at preventing software piracy.
The attempt is futile because every attempt to prevent illegal copying has been defeated. Some Taiwanese engineer will design a hardware addon to enable the customer to illegally copy the software.
The only way to protect the trust chips is to obtain a federal injunction (from a judge) barring hardware hackers from circumventing the hardware anti-piracy chips. However, those injunctions apply only to the USA. The Taiwanese engineers will gleefully ignore the injuntion -- as is their wont. The Chinese in China (including Taiwan province and Hong Kong) routinely ignore Western standards and custom.
After all, China is the software-piracy capital of the world. The piracy rate exceeds 91%.
20 years from now, we'll have discovered there's a natural grow/shrink cycle we never knew about...
Here is a better assessment: 20 years from now, we'll thank the Russian government. Please read the latest news about Putin signing the Kyoto treaty. His signature means that the Kyoto treaty is activated.
Sometimes technology marginalizes the blind. In the old days before graphical user interfaces (GUIs), a blind person could easily visualize what is on the screen of a line terminal with the assistance of a voice synthesizer stating the response from the computer. GUIs basically give too much information to be described verbally.
A similar problem exists here. Colorful, highly detailed maps on the computer are no use to the blind. What the father should do is to buy a giant relief map so the child can use this sense of touch to get a feel for each countries terrain.
As for the political boundaries, the father should use some glue to trace, with thick lines of glue, the outline of each country. The glue will solidify and will have a different texture from the relief in the relief map, and the kid can simply run his fingers along the thick glue-based traces. Here, glue means "Elmer's glue". It solidifies into a somewhat translucent rubbery consistency.
As a side note, the plight of this poor child is yet another example that a loving god simply does not exist. If god does exist, then it certainly cannot be loving. What loving god would allow such a tragedy to befall an innocent child? Remember the exodus story where god murders the first born sons (including babies) of the Egyptians? Get my drift?
A loving god simply does not exist. If she did exist, why would she allow such suffering.
In addition to the victims of this tragedy, consider the millions of victims of child abuse, spousal abuse, female genital mutilitation, etc.
If god does exist, she definitely cannot be loving.
I decline to offer condolences, for the person who died and others who will die from this auto crash are now in eternal peace or will be in eternal peace.
According to various reputable sources, the rate of software piracy in China (which includes Taiwan province and Hong Kong) exceeds 90%. In other words, the Chinese simply stole 90% of all software used in China.
Since all software is essentially free in China, Linux will have serious trouble in gaining market share in China and other emerging markets. Microsoft Windows is "free", and Linux is free.
That 80% of Linux desktops sold in China is running Windows merely confirms the above analysis.
The problem will not be resolved any time soon. The Chinese have almost no respect for human rights (e.g. brutal occupation of Tibet) or property rights (e.g. theft of software, blueprints for microprocessors, "Star Wars" before its American debut,...).
How can we use 100 GBytes? Obvious answer.
on
100 GB Email Account
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· Score: 1, Insightful
How can we use 100 gigabytes of e-mail storage?
Obvious is the answer: storing pornographic pictures (as e-mail attachments) of luscious lesbian women commiting erotic sex acts.
Storage requirements for pornography are (1) lot of space and (2) optional reliability. If the e-mail server failed and all the pictures were lost, there would be no problem. We'd just spent another 48 hours searching for them on the web.
Storage requirements for personal files or work files demand reliability. An e-mail server that offers free e-mail accounts is not likely to backup its data. "free" does carry a price.
Star Wars Via Lens of Star Trek
on
Star Wars TV Show
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Television is inherently inferior to the big screen. The plot of Star Wars (Chapter IV) is full of depth, and gems of this nature simply cannot be pumped out week after week.
The weekly treadmill is precisely what television is.
For further insight, consider "Star Trek V". It was the only movie (based on the original characters) to lose money. However, when "Star Trek V" was broadcast on television, the movie seemed okay, compared to the junk food on the other channels.
The only conceivable way for Star Wars on the boob tube to not deteriorate to the level of Star Trek is to develop plots requiring at least 3 episodes to tell. In other words, across a 21-week viewing season, Star Wars, the boob tube show, would essentially be aired as 7 movies, each movie being 3 hours in length.
For fate's sake, please try to get good actors and actresses.
Quality news sources like "The Washington Post" and the "Los Angeles Times" should follow the lead of "The Economist" and the "Wall Street Journal". The last 2 journals charge a fee for browsing their articles. The quality of these 2 journals is so high that people are willing to pay for reading their articles. Indeed, the subscription rate of "The Economist" is increasing.
Google does not produce links to "Economist" articles or WSJ articles via the New page. However, via the regular search page, you sometimes see links to such articles. If you clink on the links, they take you to a page requesting that you pay for a subscription to the journals. There is no cached version of them.
On the other hand, if you are a low-quality journal like "New York Times", then you have plenty to fear.
By the way, do try Yahoo News, which is much better than Google News.
Given the pace of technological advancement in the West, we can be certain that a winner for the prize will emerge. SpaceShipOne is likely to be that winner.
For sentimental reasons, we should probably rename SpaceShipOne to "The Doohan" -- in honor of James Doohan. Before he passes into oblivion, he would certainly feel honored that the first prototype of a commercial spacecraft is named after him.
There is always the remote possibility that the winner of the space prize will evolve, 100 years later, into a real starship.
Unlike the telephone, wiretapping has only limited utility on the Internet. A culprit with a sinister motive could communicate with his accomplice by using encryption (e.g. PrettyGoodPrivacy) to send and receive e-mail. The culprit would not be submitting articles to bulletin boards on Slashdot. Further, the culprit would not be engaged in conversations on real-time chat rooms. The culprit would confine herself to only those forms of electronic communication that can be encrypted.
The article starting this thread of discussion omits the Internet bubble's key element: H-1B engineers from India and China (which includes Taiwan province and Hong Kong). Here is what happened.
When the Internet frenzy began in 1998, the labor market encountered shortages. Consider what would have happened in two scenarios: (1) no H-1B's and (2) plenty of H-1B's. Consider scenario #1. The dire labor shortages would have done 2 things: (1) improved working conditions for engineers and (2) raised salaries. "Improved working conditions" could, for example, mean that the average working hours is reduced so that the engineers can return home somewhat earlier to be with their families and to build better relationships with their children. When companies cannot raise salaries to attract more workers, the companies could improve working conditions.
As salaries rise and working conditions improve, more people enter the engineering profession. However, the labor market does not grow fast enough, so some ideas are delayed and are not turned into startup companies. There is no problem here, since there are already plenty of jobs. Some companies close due to labor shortages. Consequently, venture capitalists are more prudent and do not fund hokey, idiotic ideas.
During the downtown in 2003 to 2005, there is a surplus in the labor market, and the ideas previously delayed due to a labor shortage are now converted into companies, hiring the newly unemployed Americans. The downtown is not severe. All is well.
Now, consider scenario #2, which actually happened. Into the picture enters the H-1B engineers from India and China. Instead of allowing market forces to work in the labor market for high-tech employees, the American government chose to intervene aggressively -- in much the same fashion that the government has intervened in the low-tech labor market. The government "fixed" the labor shortage and flooded the market with H-1B engineers (in the same fashion that the government floods the low-tech labor market with Mexican illegal aliens).
Companies demand that engineers work 57 hours per week. Since the Indians work 57 hours per week, the other engineers better work 57 hours per week. Otherwise, they are "out" of the company.
Almost every idea is converted into a startup company since there is plenty of H-1B labor. Many hokey, idiotic ideas are funded by venture capitalists.
The shortage of labor does increase wages, but wages do not rise as rapidly as they would in scenario #1.
Rents increase rapidly. The flood of H-1B engineers create a housing shortage. The Chinese engineers and the Indian engineers come from the elite of their nations, and expensive housing is no problem. They lived as elites in their own nations, and they have the money to pour into high rents and high mortgates.
Then, the downturn arrives in 2001-2003. All the companies based on hokey, idiotic ideas crash. Massive numbers of people are fired. Unemployment in Silicon Valley reaches 9%. The downturn is deep and long.
There are very few new delayed ideas because most of them were implemented as new startup companies during the Internet craze. The H-1B hordes facilitated this situation.
Which scenario is better? Scenario #1 is better. Allow the free market to work. The government should not intervene in the high-tech labor market. If the government did not intervene, the downturn in the Silicon Valley would have been much milder than it actually was. We should not allow any more H-1B workers into this country unless that country has a free market. In other words, H-1B workers from Canada and Europe are okay. However, foreign workers from Mexico, China, and India should be banned.
If you hate what is happening to our nation, the USA, then write the following on the November ballot.
This release, unfortunately, doesn't include any source for the actual speech recognition engine.
What is the problem? Speech recognition is a mature technology, and algorithms for speech recognition are well documented in the research journals. The federal government has long since stopped funding research into speech recognition.
If you want to code some speech recognition software for Linux, just get a good book on C# (which is an open standard, unlike Java) and photocopy some relevant papers from the IEEE Transaction journals.
Thanks Due to CMU
on
ACM on E-Voting
·
· Score: 3, Informative
That the ACM is entering the picture for e-voting is good news. Too many Americans lack the knowledge to understand the science of electronic voting, and e-voting machines without paper trails almost became the principal voting system in several states. Computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon University and other top universities stepped into the picture and signed a petition demanding a paper trail on all machines.
Now that the ACM has also entered the picture, we can be sure that future e-voting machines will be reliable.
What I cannot understand is how the Pentagon can approve electronic voting by Internet without any paper trail for soldiers stationed overseas.
Clearly, the Bush administration has failed on the environment. It refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty to prevent global warming.
Guess what? President Putin, of all people, has solidly supported the treaty and intends to sign it.
Want another example? The Bush administration refused to enact tough standards for automotive emissions and claims that they are unfeasible. Yet, the California government has just enacted such legislation. Furthermore, the technology is quite feasible. Both Honda and Mazda make ULEVs (ultra low emission vehicles).
The issue is not one of whether government should be funding or subsidizing research and development. We all have our opinions on such government intervention.
The issue is one of the Bush administration (and also previous Democratic administrations) simply making false statements about science and technology and then using those false statements to pursue policies that damage the environment.
The best example is nuclear power. It is clean and efficient and could substantially reduce our dependence on oil from Islamic thugs. Yet, science frauds in the government have effectively stopped the construction of any more nuclear power plants since the 1970s.
Really, we can blame only ourselves. We elect these idiots.
If you hate what is happening to our nation, the USA, then write the following on the November ballot.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, open-source software backed by a stable company does not face the same problem. Consider Linux. If the open-source community did not address the security flaw expeditiously, then you can be sure that IBM will step into the picture and fix the problem promptly. IBM will never fail its customers. Hence, Linux exploded in popularity among commercial companies after IBM committed $1 billion to Linux.
Remember that Stern, himself, paved the way for Bill O'Reilly. Before Stern, people like Bill O'Reilly really could not say "outrageous" things like "let's use the national guard to defend the borders from illegal aliens." Stern pushed the limit of being outrageous, and O'Reilly lives within that limit.
The point is not that O'Reilly's comments are outrageous. They are not. Rather, some people who hate O'Reilly are bigots and accuse him of being outrageous. In the past, these bigots would use the "outrageous" label to convince the FCC to shut O'Reilly down. However, thanks to Stern, these bigots can no longer use the "outrageous" label to shut down folks like O'Reilly. After all, even the bigots note that O'Reilly's comments are not more outrageous than Stern's comments about anal sex, transvestites, and heroine addiction.
Let's support the EFF, Howard Stern, and ... Bill O'Reilly.
If you hate what is happening to our nation, the USA, then please the following on the November ballot.
president: Bill O'Reilly
vice-president: Tammy Bruce
In order for this debate to have credibility and in order to raise the profile of this debate, we need a "star" to give the questions to the candidates. Let's ask Bill O'Reilly to be the questioner.
If you hate what is happening to our nation, the USA, then please write the following on the November ballot.
president: Bill O'Reilly
vice-president: Tammy Bruce
Via bought Centaur ages ago. Via is based in Taiwan and carries all the associated baggage: Taiwanese transferring American technology to Beijing and the Chinese military . Hence, although Centaur is American, I will boycott this chip for ethical reasons: e.g. Tibet .
Also, let's be a bit more ambitious. With the recent revelation that the American military is working on anti-matter weapons, we can safely conclude that we have "found" the fuel necessary for intergalactic travel. An matter-antimatter engine would have almost limitless power.
So, instead of merely "shooting for low-earth orbit", let's "shoot for the stars". Let's "boldly go where no man has gone before ..."
Hence, Hollywood, which produces most of the films, must target a fragmented audience. Each film must be profitable on a tiny percentage of the viewing audience. By definition, such films are niche films
Consider "Star Trek". When it first aired, its ratings were considered terrible, but those same ratings would be considered a success today.
The negative side of niche films is that they divide the culture of the nation. In the golden age of TV, with only 3 TV networks, a huge percentage of the population shared the same TV experience by virtue of watching the same TV programs. Now, with so many TV networks and so many films, where is the binding glue for a common culture?
What is remarkable is that FOX news regularly beats the competition in this fragmented market, besting ABC, CBS, and NBC. Perhaps, there is something to this "No Spin" thing.
For a car with cruise control, there should be an emergency lever that shuts off the hoses supplying fuel to the engine. The driver would control the lever manually just as he manually controls the parking brake.
The above observation is a good point since frequency of download does not equate to frequency of use.
The greatest lack of credibility for Linux going mainstream is the lack of an AOL client in Linux. If Linux really had a huge following or interest in the consumer market, then AOL would have already launched an AOL client for Linux so that millions of tech-ignorant consumers could dial into AOL from their Linux desktop.
The success of Linux continues to be restricted to the business market and the engineering market. Soccer moms driving around in environment-destroying SUVs still will not touch Linux with a 10-foot poll.
Next, the management showed its hand by doing a deal with the devil: Bill Gates. He gave Sun Microsystems a ransom on the order of a billion dollars.
Now, Kodak comes out of nowhere and slaps Sun Microsystem with a lawsuit and wins a billion dollars.
Apparently, karma works.
The attempt is futile because every attempt to prevent illegal copying has been defeated. Some Taiwanese engineer will design a hardware addon to enable the customer to illegally copy the software.
The only way to protect the trust chips is to obtain a federal injunction (from a judge) barring hardware hackers from circumventing the hardware anti-piracy chips. However, those injunctions apply only to the USA. The Taiwanese engineers will gleefully ignore the injuntion -- as is their wont. The Chinese in China (including Taiwan province and Hong Kong) routinely ignore Western standards and custom.
After all, China is the software-piracy capital of the world. The piracy rate exceeds 91%.
Here is a better assessment: 20 years from now, we'll thank the Russian government. Please read the latest news about Putin signing the Kyoto treaty. His signature means that the Kyoto treaty is activated.
The most significant holdout is the USA.
A similar problem exists here. Colorful, highly detailed maps on the computer are no use to the blind. What the father should do is to buy a giant relief map so the child can use this sense of touch to get a feel for each countries terrain.
As for the political boundaries, the father should use some glue to trace, with thick lines of glue, the outline of each country. The glue will solidify and will have a different texture from the relief in the relief map, and the kid can simply run his fingers along the thick glue-based traces. Here, glue means "Elmer's glue". It solidifies into a somewhat translucent rubbery consistency.
As a side note, the plight of this poor child is yet another example that a loving god simply does not exist. If god does exist, then it certainly cannot be loving. What loving god would allow such a tragedy to befall an innocent child? Remember the exodus story where god murders the first born sons (including babies) of the Egyptians? Get my drift?
In addition to the victims of this tragedy, consider the millions of victims of child abuse, spousal abuse, female genital mutilitation, etc.
If god does exist, she definitely cannot be loving.
I decline to offer condolences, for the person who died and others who will die from this auto crash are now in eternal peace or will be in eternal peace.
Since all software is essentially free in China, Linux will have serious trouble in gaining market share in China and other emerging markets. Microsoft Windows is "free", and Linux is free.
That 80% of Linux desktops sold in China is running Windows merely confirms the above analysis.
The problem will not be resolved any time soon. The Chinese have almost no respect for human rights (e.g. brutal occupation of Tibet) or property rights (e.g. theft of software, blueprints for microprocessors, "Star Wars" before its American debut, ...).
Obvious is the answer: storing pornographic pictures (as e-mail attachments) of luscious lesbian women commiting erotic sex acts.
Storage requirements for pornography are (1) lot of space and (2) optional reliability. If the e-mail server failed and all the pictures were lost, there would be no problem. We'd just spent another 48 hours searching for them on the web.
Storage requirements for personal files or work files demand reliability. An e-mail server that offers free e-mail accounts is not likely to backup its data. "free" does carry a price.
The weekly treadmill is precisely what television is.
For further insight, consider "Star Trek V". It was the only movie (based on the original characters) to lose money. However, when "Star Trek V" was broadcast on television, the movie seemed okay, compared to the junk food on the other channels.
The only conceivable way for Star Wars on the boob tube to not deteriorate to the level of Star Trek is to develop plots requiring at least 3 episodes to tell. In other words, across a 21-week viewing season, Star Wars, the boob tube show, would essentially be aired as 7 movies, each movie being 3 hours in length.
For fate's sake, please try to get good actors and actresses.
Google does not produce links to "Economist" articles or WSJ articles via the New page. However, via the regular search page, you sometimes see links to such articles. If you clink on the links, they take you to a page requesting that you pay for a subscription to the journals. There is no cached version of them.
On the other hand, if you are a low-quality journal like "New York Times", then you have plenty to fear.
By the way, do try Yahoo News, which is much better than Google News.
For sentimental reasons, we should probably rename SpaceShipOne to "The Doohan" -- in honor of James Doohan. Before he passes into oblivion, he would certainly feel honored that the first prototype of a commercial spacecraft is named after him.
There is always the remote possibility that the winner of the space prize will evolve, 100 years later, into a real starship.
When the Internet frenzy began in 1998, the labor market encountered shortages. Consider what would have happened in two scenarios: (1) no H-1B's and (2) plenty of H-1B's. Consider scenario #1. The dire labor shortages would have done 2 things: (1) improved working conditions for engineers and (2) raised salaries. "Improved working conditions" could, for example, mean that the average working hours is reduced so that the engineers can return home somewhat earlier to be with their families and to build better relationships with their children. When companies cannot raise salaries to attract more workers, the companies could improve working conditions.
As salaries rise and working conditions improve, more people enter the engineering profession. However, the labor market does not grow fast enough, so some ideas are delayed and are not turned into startup companies. There is no problem here, since there are already plenty of jobs. Some companies close due to labor shortages. Consequently, venture capitalists are more prudent and do not fund hokey, idiotic ideas.
During the downtown in 2003 to 2005, there is a surplus in the labor market, and the ideas previously delayed due to a labor shortage are now converted into companies, hiring the newly unemployed Americans. The downtown is not severe. All is well.
Now, consider scenario #2, which actually happened. Into the picture enters the H-1B engineers from India and China. Instead of allowing market forces to work in the labor market for high-tech employees, the American government chose to intervene aggressively -- in much the same fashion that the government has intervened in the low-tech labor market. The government "fixed" the labor shortage and flooded the market with H-1B engineers (in the same fashion that the government floods the low-tech labor market with Mexican illegal aliens).
Companies demand that engineers work 57 hours per week. Since the Indians work 57 hours per week, the other engineers better work 57 hours per week. Otherwise, they are "out" of the company.
Almost every idea is converted into a startup company since there is plenty of H-1B labor. Many hokey, idiotic ideas are funded by venture capitalists.
The shortage of labor does increase wages, but wages do not rise as rapidly as they would in scenario #1.
Rents increase rapidly. The flood of H-1B engineers create a housing shortage. The Chinese engineers and the Indian engineers come from the elite of their nations, and expensive housing is no problem. They lived as elites in their own nations, and they have the money to pour into high rents and high mortgates.
Then, the downturn arrives in 2001-2003. All the companies based on hokey, idiotic ideas crash. Massive numbers of people are fired. Unemployment in Silicon Valley reaches 9%. The downturn is deep and long.
There are very few new delayed ideas because most of them were implemented as new startup companies during the Internet craze. The H-1B hordes facilitated this situation.
Which scenario is better? Scenario #1 is better. Allow the free market to work. The government should not intervene in the high-tech labor market. If the government did not intervene, the downturn in the Silicon Valley would have been much milder than it actually was. We should not allow any more H-1B workers into this country unless that country has a free market. In other words, H-1B workers from Canada and Europe are okay. However, foreign workers from Mexico, China, and India should be banned.
If you hate what is happening to our nation, the USA, then write the following on the November ballot.
president: Bill O'Reilly
vice-president: Tammy Bruce
What is the problem? Speech recognition is a mature technology, and algorithms for speech recognition are well documented in the research journals. The federal government has long since stopped funding research into speech recognition.
If you want to code some speech recognition software for Linux, just get a good book on C# (which is an open standard, unlike Java) and photocopy some relevant papers from the IEEE Transaction journals.
Now that the ACM has also entered the picture, we can be sure that future e-voting machines will be reliable.
What I cannot understand is how the Pentagon can approve electronic voting by Internet without any paper trail for soldiers stationed overseas.
Guess what? President Putin, of all people, has solidly supported the treaty and intends to sign it.
Want another example? The Bush administration refused to enact tough standards for automotive emissions and claims that they are unfeasible. Yet, the California government has just enacted such legislation. Furthermore, the technology is quite feasible. Both Honda and Mazda make ULEVs (ultra low emission vehicles).
The issue is not one of whether government should be funding or subsidizing research and development. We all have our opinions on such government intervention.
The issue is one of the Bush administration (and also previous Democratic administrations) simply making false statements about science and technology and then using those false statements to pursue policies that damage the environment.
The best example is nuclear power. It is clean and efficient and could substantially reduce our dependence on oil from Islamic thugs. Yet, science frauds in the government have effectively stopped the construction of any more nuclear power plants since the 1970s.
Really, we can blame only ourselves. We elect these idiots.
If you hate what is happening to our nation, the USA, then write the following on the November ballot.
president: Bill O'Reilly
vice-president: Tammy Bruce