Then we could use something like an FDA, as it were, to regulate the labelling and safety of software sold to consumers, or provided as a free download.
Yes, because I would just love having to go through regulatory channels and potentially paying fees in order to publish software that I don't even make any money from.
This is nice and all, and I do wish more sites would do this (mega style ecmascript encryption) however it isn't foolproof; the server could be "ordered" to give you a page that steals your keys by the NSA or whoever else.
IMO a nice way to prevent that from happening in the future would be to add this as part of the W3C standards so that the browser can encrypt using native code. That way you never give your keys over for processing by any code that has been issued to you by a server, rather instead you simply hand over the data after its encrypted. Though we'll need to add some kind of virtual environment, say for example a google docs style editor that runs in the browser, only it can edit your encrypted content without the possibility of any unencrypted data making its way back to the server.
This would of course take years to figure out, standardize, and then implement, but so does everything else.
Some hunters like to use devices similar to hearing aids for hunting because they muffle the sound of gunshots while amplifying quieter rustling noises. Some models are as small and discreet as a medical hearing aid, will work just fine for that purpose, and cost a lot less.
If I were to guess I would think that since they aren't prescription they don't require any kind of FDA approval, which would certainly save on cost somewhere.
Indeed let's look at it from that perspective: I'm sure you'd be rather suspect of any study that has received most of its funding from Monsanto. Likewise, would you be in favor of retracting any that reached a very shaky conclusion?
On that same token, would you be suspect of any research study that was funded by any one (or several) companies in the organic lobby? The organic industry is massively profitable, and in fact enjoys much higher profit margins than conventional farming. The organic lobby also dumps all kinds of money into trying to prove that GM crops are harmful, and this particular study was in fact one of those they funded, in addition to this one:
Seralini is himself an anti-GMO activist who is setting out from the get-go to try to kill GMO farming. This is like having a scientist who also happens to be a catholic minister publishing a study proving that Intelligent Design is true and Evolution is false. Of course I'd retract it. And besides, it isn't even just the publisher who wants it retracted, numerous other independent researchers want the same thing because Seralini himself tried to derail the peer review process:
That's exactly like asking why don't we just end capitalism to end the complaints about capitalism. Easy: Because it is a horrible idea.
Really it's a lot easier to hire local talent than foreign talent. You get foreign talent when you can't find anything domestic not because the law requires it, but because it's a lot cheaper and easier. Try running a corporation without any talented people in it, see how far you get. It's either they can get them, or their overseas competitors get them. If their overseas competitors get them, then not only does your wish of that foreigner not getting his job come true, but a lot of local talent lose their jobs as well and their foreign competitors take over the market.
You know why in spite of our crap education system for decades, the US is still winning in the global economy game?
That's why. Without it we're sunk. Killing the H-1B program would be an excellent step in that direction, if that was your goal. The argument that immigrants kill jobs is a really stupid one. It holds no basis in fact at all, rather it does the opposite: It makes the economy larger.
Dude this is slashdot. If you're a corporation, you are inherently evil. Of course you hire H-1B's and you do it because you get to only pay them $1 per hour.
(Joking, read my previous post by the way: http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4497303&cid=45551941 as I want to hear your thought on what I said. My career field is perhaps one of the most vulnerable to H-1B, yet I'm not at all concerned about it.)
I'd be interested in meeting this immigration law professor.
It's already hell to find qualified candidates who can operate the specific and possibly unique IT infrastructure in your organization (for example, if you're a Cisco shop you probably want somebody who knows Cisco rather than somebody who only knows Juniper, but you *might* take them if you can't find anybody else) and H-1B visas are in very small supply relative to the need for that. If the company doesn't already have an H-1B visa allocated to them (they've all been given out, by the way, there aren't anymore left) then there's no point in posting such a job listing because they'd never get that one person they were supposedly after.
In my dealings with HR people (who are actually pretty nice people by the way, slashdot for whatever reason paints them as the devil,) it usually works like this: We're going to spell out exactly what we want, and people who know something similar will apply anyways. We'll probably take the guy closest to our specifications, though if he has a shit personality we'll end up taking the guy second closest. (If your company doesn't discriminate against shit personalities, you'll probably hate working there.)
I'd like to ask this immigration law professor how many of these supposed targeted job listings actually end up hiring an H-1B visa, because chances are there aren't many at all. If this situation does happen, it's likely that the candidate already works for the company in some fashion, so you're unlikely to get the job even if H-1B didn't exist at all.
Hmm...I must be born in another country and getting ready to get an H-1B visa without knowing it then. Every job I've been considered for wants experience with one of Cisco UCS, Vmware ESXi, and/or Cisco routers and switches.
Although HP, Citrix, Brocade, Netapp, and Juniper offer similar devices and software, I'm not familiar with them, and I likewise wouldn't waste somebody's time in applying for a job that requires experience with them.
So often I hear that the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy, but here we are. It's held true in this as well as other instances.
First it targets the child porn. Well now that we have the system in place, let's hit piracy while we're at it. Now they've hit stage 3: Oh hey look, there's some speech that we don't like, let's get that too.
Timothy doesn't bother me. Kdawson was awful though; that guy couldn't wipe his ass without hatching a conspiracy theory, and I did stop visiting slashdot for a while because of it. If I really wanted that, I would be a regular visitor at prisonplanet and listener of Alex Jones.
If politicians would actually listen to economists, there are a lot of huge blunders that we could have avoided. The great depression for one (Smoot-Hawley was extremely destructive on the economy, and economists were literally in an uproar over its passing, hardly anybody remembers that though) the gas crisis of the 70's, and other smaller blunders like "cash for clunkers" never would have seen the light of day (it was a total waste; look up "the parable of the broken window" for an explanation as to why.)
I wouldn't say "some economists" so much as I would say "Keynesian economists" (also called saltwater economists) as being a more precise term to describe them. Keynesians generally hold the view that it is generally best if the government has a more direct say over the economy, believing that the free market frequently makes mistakes and requires the government to intervene and fix things - some more than others.
They don't trust bitcoin because it doesn't provide those avenues of control that they believe need to exist for a stable economy (or that it will remove those controls that the government currently has - depending on your perspective.)
They stand opposed to Chicago school economists (also called freshwater economists) who generally favor free market thinking, and Austrian economists who think similarly but don't like to rely on mathematical models as proofs (Both Keynesians and Chicago rely heavily on mathematical models, though the Keynesians have gotten into trouble the worst over their models and have had to make numerous revisions to their core theories as a result, often referring to themselves as "New Keynesians" these days.)
I don't know this particular economist, but NYT almost always features Keynesians in their columns, most commonly Paul Krugman who I believe is actually part of their full time staff.
apple & all are all moving it through ireland anyways dodging taxes by phony on-paper valuations of their products or services so what new problems would we have again with this?
There's nothing "phony" per se, the name given to it by accountants is "transfer pricing." It is perfectly above ground, out in the open, and legal at any rate.
This exists primarily as a result of the way the global economy does business: Taxes need to be recognized somewhere, but countries let people get away with taxing in just one place because if a good was taxed across every border that it traversed, then it would be borderline impossible to do business on an international scale. (Think similar to physical goods, e.g. intel does the heavy lifting of manufacturing semiconductors here, but most of them are stamped "made in malaysia" because its more cost effective to do the final packaging there.)
We should probably be thankful this exists if anything, otherwise it would be much more profitable for these companies to relocate overseas entirely, in which case there would be a lot fewer tech jobs in the US (either these companies would lose their competitive advantage and go out of business, or they'd have to relocate.) Unfortunately these companies just pay Bermuda or Ireland's taxes and very little to the US. In my opinion, the best way to "fix" this would be to lower the corporate income tax rate so that it is cheaper to simply pay taxes here instead of somewhere else. One thing that few people realize is that since a corporation isn't a real person, it doesn't actually pay those taxes - instead the one who *really* pays those taxes is you, the consumer.
I do other similar things, like for example he always talks to his dog in Persian, and when I overhear it I ask him if he's trying to teach his dog Arabic, to which he replies "it's Persian you fuck." He also hates Islam, so just to annoy him when we're around people we don't know, and I refer to him in the third person I often refer to him as a muslim, e.g. "that muslim guy." We're really good friends though.
I think ethnic jokes are funny but nobody throws enough at me. I openly tell people that I am ethnically some kind of mix of Irish, British, German, and French, which provides plenty of ammunition, but it's pretty rare anyways (when it happens it's usually the German part.)
A guy goes to a doctor's office once after watching Dr. Oz and asks if reducing the sodium, trans fats, msg, and sugars in his diet would I live longer. The doctor thinks for a second and replies "Hmm...well, it'll certainly seem longer."
Some of these you kind of have to, though for differing reasons. Just as an example, part of my diet requires me to avoid bran (high in phosphorus,) which e.g. requires removal from brown rice to make it white rice. At that point, fortifying nutrients back into it only serves to benefit.
Even if it was, does the source of information make it any less true? If so, you might want to check out a pamphlet called 100 scientists against Einstein.
I'm sorry, but "most" isn't good enough. When you're talking about things that people stuff into their bodies, they damned well better all be fine to consume.
All of them are fine to consume, it just depends on the quantity. Trace amounts of hydrogenated oil are harmless, but large quantities are probably not a good idea. Along that same line of thought, few people know that too much potassium can have very deadly short term consequences that can kill without warning, even deadlier than too much hydrogenated oils.
Foods you pick off of the vine contain these things. The fact that something on the shelf might also contain them doesn't make it inherently bad.
Honestly it's starting to irk me a bit when people are against processed food. Most people have no idea what it even means and what the concerns might be (actual or merely perceived.) You can live perfectly healthy on processed foods. In fact, people who don't eat processed foods are extremely rare, even indigenous tribes devoid of modern technology process their food.
It also irks me a bit when I hear people say you need to stay away from ingredients whose names you can't pronounce. I've asked said people what they think of ascorbic acid, to which most of them effectively say they'd avoid anything containing it. Not a very good idea to completely shut out one of the most important amino acids from your diet. Words you don't recognize, or even things that aren't "natural" aren't inherently bad, in fact most of them are fine to consume.
Slashdot Mirror
Then we could use something like an FDA, as it were, to regulate the labelling and safety of software sold to consumers, or provided as a free download.
Yes, because I would just love having to go through regulatory channels and potentially paying fees in order to publish software that I don't even make any money from.
http://eater.com/archives/2013/10/30/toronto-woman-serial-dates-to-get-free-restaurant-meals-and-blogs-about-it.php
That doesn't make the bunny any less delicious.
Hurricane Sandy destroyed the POTS network in much of the area that it hit. In fact it hasn't yet been fully rebuilt.
POTS didn't survive Sandy all that well.
You know what did? Cell phones.
This is nice and all, and I do wish more sites would do this (mega style ecmascript encryption) however it isn't foolproof; the server could be "ordered" to give you a page that steals your keys by the NSA or whoever else.
IMO a nice way to prevent that from happening in the future would be to add this as part of the W3C standards so that the browser can encrypt using native code. That way you never give your keys over for processing by any code that has been issued to you by a server, rather instead you simply hand over the data after its encrypted. Though we'll need to add some kind of virtual environment, say for example a google docs style editor that runs in the browser, only it can edit your encrypted content without the possibility of any unencrypted data making its way back to the server.
This would of course take years to figure out, standardize, and then implement, but so does everything else.
Some hunters like to use devices similar to hearing aids for hunting because they muffle the sound of gunshots while amplifying quieter rustling noises. Some models are as small and discreet as a medical hearing aid, will work just fine for that purpose, and cost a lot less.
If I were to guess I would think that since they aren't prescription they don't require any kind of FDA approval, which would certainly save on cost somewhere.
Indeed let's look at it from that perspective: I'm sure you'd be rather suspect of any study that has received most of its funding from Monsanto. Likewise, would you be in favor of retracting any that reached a very shaky conclusion?
On that same token, would you be suspect of any research study that was funded by any one (or several) companies in the organic lobby? The organic industry is massively profitable, and in fact enjoys much higher profit margins than conventional farming. The organic lobby also dumps all kinds of money into trying to prove that GM crops are harmful, and this particular study was in fact one of those they funded, in addition to this one:
http://www.marklynas.org/2013/06/gmo-pigs-study-more-junk-science/
Seralini is himself an anti-GMO activist who is setting out from the get-go to try to kill GMO farming. This is like having a scientist who also happens to be a catholic minister publishing a study proving that Intelligent Design is true and Evolution is false. Of course I'd retract it. And besides, it isn't even just the publisher who wants it retracted, numerous other independent researchers want the same thing because Seralini himself tried to derail the peer review process:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ralini_affair
It has to do with Chicago being near the great lakes, and Keynesians largely coming out of New England universities.
That's exactly like asking why don't we just end capitalism to end the complaints about capitalism. Easy: Because it is a horrible idea.
Really it's a lot easier to hire local talent than foreign talent. You get foreign talent when you can't find anything domestic not because the law requires it, but because it's a lot cheaper and easier. Try running a corporation without any talented people in it, see how far you get. It's either they can get them, or their overseas competitors get them. If their overseas competitors get them, then not only does your wish of that foreigner not getting his job come true, but a lot of local talent lose their jobs as well and their foreign competitors take over the market.
You know why in spite of our crap education system for decades, the US is still winning in the global economy game?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_drain
That's why. Without it we're sunk. Killing the H-1B program would be an excellent step in that direction, if that was your goal. The argument that immigrants kill jobs is a really stupid one. It holds no basis in fact at all, rather it does the opposite: It makes the economy larger.
Sorry I just don't trust a continent where the toilets flow backwards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_vs._Australia#Reaction_in_Australia
Also we never hire H-1B's.
Dude this is slashdot. If you're a corporation, you are inherently evil. Of course you hire H-1B's and you do it because you get to only pay them $1 per hour.
(Joking, read my previous post by the way: http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4497303&cid=45551941 as I want to hear your thought on what I said. My career field is perhaps one of the most vulnerable to H-1B, yet I'm not at all concerned about it.)
I'd be interested in meeting this immigration law professor.
It's already hell to find qualified candidates who can operate the specific and possibly unique IT infrastructure in your organization (for example, if you're a Cisco shop you probably want somebody who knows Cisco rather than somebody who only knows Juniper, but you *might* take them if you can't find anybody else) and H-1B visas are in very small supply relative to the need for that. If the company doesn't already have an H-1B visa allocated to them (they've all been given out, by the way, there aren't anymore left) then there's no point in posting such a job listing because they'd never get that one person they were supposedly after.
In my dealings with HR people (who are actually pretty nice people by the way, slashdot for whatever reason paints them as the devil,) it usually works like this: We're going to spell out exactly what we want, and people who know something similar will apply anyways. We'll probably take the guy closest to our specifications, though if he has a shit personality we'll end up taking the guy second closest. (If your company doesn't discriminate against shit personalities, you'll probably hate working there.)
I'd like to ask this immigration law professor how many of these supposed targeted job listings actually end up hiring an H-1B visa, because chances are there aren't many at all. If this situation does happen, it's likely that the candidate already works for the company in some fashion, so you're unlikely to get the job even if H-1B didn't exist at all.
Hmm...I must be born in another country and getting ready to get an H-1B visa without knowing it then. Every job I've been considered for wants experience with one of Cisco UCS, Vmware ESXi, and/or Cisco routers and switches.
Although HP, Citrix, Brocade, Netapp, and Juniper offer similar devices and software, I'm not familiar with them, and I likewise wouldn't waste somebody's time in applying for a job that requires experience with them.
So often I hear that the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy, but here we are. It's held true in this as well as other instances.
First it targets the child porn.
Well now that we have the system in place, let's hit piracy while we're at it.
Now they've hit stage 3: Oh hey look, there's some speech that we don't like, let's get that too.
Timothy doesn't bother me. Kdawson was awful though; that guy couldn't wipe his ass without hatching a conspiracy theory, and I did stop visiting slashdot for a while because of it. If I really wanted that, I would be a regular visitor at prisonplanet and listener of Alex Jones.
If politicians would actually listen to economists, there are a lot of huge blunders that we could have avoided. The great depression for one (Smoot-Hawley was extremely destructive on the economy, and economists were literally in an uproar over its passing, hardly anybody remembers that though) the gas crisis of the 70's, and other smaller blunders like "cash for clunkers" never would have seen the light of day (it was a total waste; look up "the parable of the broken window" for an explanation as to why.)
I wouldn't say "some economists" so much as I would say "Keynesian economists" (also called saltwater economists) as being a more precise term to describe them. Keynesians generally hold the view that it is generally best if the government has a more direct say over the economy, believing that the free market frequently makes mistakes and requires the government to intervene and fix things - some more than others.
They don't trust bitcoin because it doesn't provide those avenues of control that they believe need to exist for a stable economy (or that it will remove those controls that the government currently has - depending on your perspective.)
They stand opposed to Chicago school economists (also called freshwater economists) who generally favor free market thinking, and Austrian economists who think similarly but don't like to rely on mathematical models as proofs (Both Keynesians and Chicago rely heavily on mathematical models, though the Keynesians have gotten into trouble the worst over their models and have had to make numerous revisions to their core theories as a result, often referring to themselves as "New Keynesians" these days.)
I don't know this particular economist, but NYT almost always features Keynesians in their columns, most commonly Paul Krugman who I believe is actually part of their full time staff.
apple & all are all moving it through ireland anyways dodging taxes by phony on-paper valuations of their products or services so what new problems would we have again with this?
There's nothing "phony" per se, the name given to it by accountants is "transfer pricing." It is perfectly above ground, out in the open, and legal at any rate.
This exists primarily as a result of the way the global economy does business: Taxes need to be recognized somewhere, but countries let people get away with taxing in just one place because if a good was taxed across every border that it traversed, then it would be borderline impossible to do business on an international scale. (Think similar to physical goods, e.g. intel does the heavy lifting of manufacturing semiconductors here, but most of them are stamped "made in malaysia" because its more cost effective to do the final packaging there.)
We should probably be thankful this exists if anything, otherwise it would be much more profitable for these companies to relocate overseas entirely, in which case there would be a lot fewer tech jobs in the US (either these companies would lose their competitive advantage and go out of business, or they'd have to relocate.) Unfortunately these companies just pay Bermuda or Ireland's taxes and very little to the US. In my opinion, the best way to "fix" this would be to lower the corporate income tax rate so that it is cheaper to simply pay taxes here instead of somewhere else. One thing that few people realize is that since a corporation isn't a real person, it doesn't actually pay those taxes - instead the one who *really* pays those taxes is you, the consumer.
I know, I just say that to fuck with him :D
I do other similar things, like for example he always talks to his dog in Persian, and when I overhear it I ask him if he's trying to teach his dog Arabic, to which he replies "it's Persian you fuck." He also hates Islam, so just to annoy him when we're around people we don't know, and I refer to him in the third person I often refer to him as a muslim, e.g. "that muslim guy." We're really good friends though.
I think ethnic jokes are funny but nobody throws enough at me. I openly tell people that I am ethnically some kind of mix of Irish, British, German, and French, which provides plenty of ammunition, but it's pretty rare anyways (when it happens it's usually the German part.)
Let me tell you a joke I once heard.
A guy goes to a doctor's office once after watching Dr. Oz and asks if reducing the sodium, trans fats, msg, and sugars in his diet would I live longer. The doctor thinks for a second and replies "Hmm...well, it'll certainly seem longer."
Some of these you kind of have to, though for differing reasons. Just as an example, part of my diet requires me to avoid bran (high in phosphorus,) which e.g. requires removal from brown rice to make it white rice. At that point, fortifying nutrients back into it only serves to benefit.
Even if it was, does the source of information make it any less true? If so, you might want to check out a pamphlet called 100 scientists against Einstein.
I'm sorry, but "most" isn't good enough. When you're talking about things that people stuff into their bodies, they damned well better all be fine to consume.
All of them are fine to consume, it just depends on the quantity. Trace amounts of hydrogenated oil are harmless, but large quantities are probably not a good idea. Along that same line of thought, few people know that too much potassium can have very deadly short term consequences that can kill without warning, even deadlier than too much hydrogenated oils.
Foods you pick off of the vine contain these things. The fact that something on the shelf might also contain them doesn't make it inherently bad.
Honestly it's starting to irk me a bit when people are against processed food. Most people have no idea what it even means and what the concerns might be (actual or merely perceived.) You can live perfectly healthy on processed foods. In fact, people who don't eat processed foods are extremely rare, even indigenous tribes devoid of modern technology process their food.
http://www.healthnewsdigest.com/news/food%20columnist0/Beware_Processed_Foods.shtml
It also irks me a bit when I hear people say you need to stay away from ingredients whose names you can't pronounce. I've asked said people what they think of ascorbic acid, to which most of them effectively say they'd avoid anything containing it. Not a very good idea to completely shut out one of the most important amino acids from your diet. Words you don't recognize, or even things that aren't "natural" aren't inherently bad, in fact most of them are fine to consume.