Actually, Apple is somewhat ambivalent about how to deploy. We know that Apple personnel read Slashdot - perhaps someone from Apple will explain whether we can actually deploy with a.WAR package on a platform besides Mac OS X Sever.
WebObjects used to be authored in Objective-C. WO developers were very happy. Then Apple decided that Java would be the Next Great Thing and removed Objective-C support and transitioned to Java - causing a great number of previous WO sites and developers to give up the toolkit.
Of course, one of the major reasons to port WO to Java was to use it in an enterprise environment. Now Apple wants us only to deploy on X server, somewhat breaking the point of the entire Java transition. Ah well....
And some of the best Web sites have been done using WebObjects, including the Apple Store (http://www.apple.com/store) and the entire infrastructure for iTunes. Don't blame the tool for lousy site workflow.
However, I would say that the people who program in WO tend to understand a great deal about software architecture and theoretical IT issues - but in truth, many WO programmers are former NeXT GUI programmers who always will look on the Web as a bastard UI.
WebObjects is a fantastic development environment, a hell of a lot nicer than JSP/J2EE, but requires substantially more training than the lamp stack.
How many of Redhat's employees would walk out if Redhat were to be purchased by MS?
MS no longer has the latitude to generously grant options to prospective staff (and in fact Bill G. regrets giving out stock options in the past, or at least questions its impact). True, some RedHat senior level staff will benefit tremendously, but many staff may question the wisdom of joining up with their true arch-enemy.
Would you work with a firm that will, in all likelihood, take your work and, well, corrupt it? Do you want to see your efforts to support Linux be converted to an attempt to destroy it? Truthfully, do you trust Redmond?
I think that they could lose many more good people than they think - and those people will go to IBM, with their contacts, connections, and knowledge.
So she's forced out. Now she can write a book, go on speaking tours, appear on CNN, possibly serve as a lobbyist. Her career is far from over.
But she laid off tens of thousands (literally), destroyed the legacy of Digital in Compaq, turned HP into an offshoring shell, and damaged HP's reputation. Brilliant!
Her short term management style, however, is the American management style. Quarterly profits matter more than profits five years down the road. Acquire to destroy your competition, pursue that dream of oligopoly. Oh, and send as many jobs overseas as possible so you can keep your workers in line.
China seems to be if not exactly ignoring the WTO and GATT agreements, then playing loosely with them. American and European governments promised their voters that China's entry into the various world trade organizations would a) promote democracy, and b) allow the West to export high-tech products to China.
Point A doesn't seem to be happening very quickly, but we can have hope for the future. On Point B, the Chinese economy is frankly wiping the West, exporting tons of goods and importing relatively little (while supporting the dollar's high value).
We may think that this is only about IP, but software is one of the few things the West can hope to compete in. This seems like a legitamate GATT / WTO offense. It would be pretty fun to see these agreements actually work for the benefit of the US by overturning the software ban.
So, what's the value of a human life if you work for $.25 per hour? How do you calculate the life of the poor?
I suppose under your logic that we should invest money in protecting golf courses, yachts, etc. -- where, one must admit, the wealthy are likely to be found. So much better to save the life of someone who earns $25 million per year than to save the life of someone who earns $50,000. True, the probability of something happening to a golf course or yachting club is very low, but hey, the cost benefit analysis certainly ever so more logical.
There needs to be a balance between accounting and morality. The value of a life must be more than what a person earns.
Outsourcing is not inevitable. Capitalism, all of economics, is a function of our choices - the choices of our leaders, the choices of consumers, the choices of businessmen. Somewhere along the line we decided to ignore morality in making choices, and capitalism has degraded to nothing more than the merciless exploitation of the environment and workers. Even knowledge workers, though it appears that every non-outsourced/. reader assumes that they can never be outsourced.
The decision to "outsource" is made to save money. Nothing more. Not to improve quality - who has proof that outsourcing has rescued any project? Not to save consumers money, nor to save the third world. Not even to benefity "shareholders", but pretty much to benefit upper-management. As competition increases between firms, they are desparate to keep profits growing eternally. Profit growth can occur due to an increase in revenue, or cutting costs. Increasing revenue is damn difficult. Cutting costs makes you a hero - to your shareholders, and you bear no responsibility for the laid off workers, nor the society you betrayed.
We must recognize that those who transfer jobs, knowledge, and the technology of our country abroad for quarterly profits are not captain's of industry but profiteers. Why do we accept the destruction of our factories, our labs, our research traditions? How do those who destroy entire towns sleep at night? I'm from North Carolina, and saw what happened when the textile factories went to China, when the equipment was packed off to Shanghai. Who benefitted - the American public, the managers, or the shareholders?
Outsourcing is not inevitable. We can reverse the trend. But we must first challenge the concept that free trade is beneficial to all parties. How, precisely, has free trade benefitted the US or the Western world? Our trading partners - India and China - do not believe in free trade - why should we?
And for all of the/. members from the States who think that outsourcing doesn't affect them: how much has your salary increased in the last four years? How many extra hours do you accept every week unpaid? How long have your friends been laid off?
The US will become a third-world country if we choose to support outsourcing. Don't shop at Wal-Mart. Write your congressional representatives. Question the leadership of the companies that you own shares in. Don't accept the destruction of our country to make the rich richer.
The economy is doing well? Hardly - the economy is in terrible shape:
Real wages have fallen (or remained constant) for the last thirty years, while costs have risen. People are now fighting to remain at the standard of living of their parents. Longer hours, fewer benefits, two income families, all struggling to get by. Without home equity loans and the incredible (and unstainable) rise in housing prices, household spending would have fallen dramatically.
The trade deficit has grown to the highest level in history. The US has stopped being a net exporter of manufactured goods and now primarily exports agricultural items. We're rapidly becoming a classic third world country.
The federal budget deficit has grown to the largest size in history - which means less capital available to build factories, hospitals, schools, etc.
The programmers taking American jobs do spell doom for the American economy. Our technology, our skills, are being transferred to citizens of foreign nations. We're giving away intellectual capital. We're telling American workers not to fight for their wages, to just accept what the landed gentry will give them. Capitalism functions best as a balance between labor and the capitalist, not as a one-sided affair.
So, is "capitalism" more important than "democracy"? Man, do you realize what you've stated? Is the point of the US to make the most money, or to advance the rights and liberties of it's citizens?
Indian programmers are better? How? Cheaper. That's it. Nothing more. If all else is equal, saving money on labor equals higher productivity and thus, yes, better.
Better from a corporate perspective also means:
No need to adhere to overtime or other irritating labor laws;
Workers can be dismissed with no guilt;
No need to pay for training;
Just having a few H1-B's around scares the other workers...
Foreign workers are brought into the US to cut costs, not to do better work. If you hire some H1-B's and fire permanent staff, you do have a "better" annual report. You've cut permanent expenses - Wall Street will be ecstatic.
Simple answer!
on
Offshoring IT
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· Score: 1, Insightful
Outsourcing exists to cut labor prices for those who control capital (either physical or intellectual) so that they may earn a higher profit. That's it. Nothing more. It doesn't mean that society benefits, or that a nation will be richer after trade. All that matters is reducing the cost of labor.
Ricardo's theory of comparitive advantage assumed that labor and capital was essentially restricted to individual countries, and could not be exchanged. Ricardo did not foresee a situation where all labor costs would be cheaper in a differing nation. Put very simply: where, exactly, does the US have a comparative advantage vis a vis India?
If you want the US to "compete" against India and China the only way you can do so is to drastically cut US wages. Hence, a side effect of "free trade" is a "race to the bottom" where worldwide wages plumet to that of the lowest cost labor market. The net effect would actually be more economic efficiency - more goods produced at a cheaper price - but the effect on a Western nation would be - is - disasterous.
What's good for the capitalist is not necessarily what's good for the country. Should the wealthiest - say the Walton family - be made wealthier in order to sacrifice literally million of American manufacturing jobs? The benefits of offshoring are received by just a few, the costs impact all of society.
Besides, there is no "free trade." The Chinese currency (Yuan) has been kept artificially low vis a vis the dollar for years. The Chinese government has access to prison and forced labor, lower enviornmental standards, etc. that put the US at a distinct disadvantage.
So what if it does:) ? Frankly, I'm surprised that/. members have such a laissez-faire attitude in regards to outsourcing, technology transfer, and general free-trade issues.
/. readers, generally, work in fields which are easily affected by free trade. Wonder why your salary has been the same for four years? Wonder why your friends are unemployed? Wonder why you can't buy hardly anything made in the U.S.? You have to pay attention tow what's going on in the economy, not just what's happening in the world of anime. And economics is more than one's own financial picture...
Specific to this case, selling both the patents that IBM holds for PC manufacturing and selling IBM's legitamacy to an external agency.
And, to put it damn bluntly, all the parts in your PC (and my Mac laptop) made in Asia do sell out our technological base. But booyah, we've saved $100 bucks! What the hell is to stop these firms in Asia from realizing that hey, why make your machines for Dell or Apple when you can get the profit yourselves? Hey, even better, you can call it an IBM?!/p>
We transfer technology paid for by the US government (research, infrastructure) and US consumers (far higher prices, our taxes that pay for research and infrastructure) over to foreign countries - all so the wonderful benefits of "free trade" make everyone richer. Yet free trade means nothing more than cheaper labor and looser environmental standards, never noticing that we're undermining our own way of life.
IBM is selling the proverbial noose that will strangle the West. Selling out our technological base to an entity owned partially by the Chinese government is a recipe for disaster. I know it sounds alarmist, but this is a recipe for long term catastrophe.
The US is becoming a third world country. IBM sells an entire division to China - now a Chinese firm becomes one of the top three world PC makers - and not just on cheap PCs, but near the top. Worse, IBM sells this firm its PC patents, manufacturing processes, engineering knowledge. Several thousand more Americans are out of work (either from being laid off from IBM or through further competition from Chinese firms), and our technological base erodes. Good thing we can export grain, leather products, and beef.
However, Wall Street will likely respond to IBM's sale with a rise in IBM's stock price; the Bush administration won't raise a fuss due to their unquestioning support for "free trade" and Red China; most people won't care as prices for PC's will continue to fall.
I wonder how the workers in "Lenovo" are treated. What hours do they work? Do they have health care? Do they have any freedoms? When you go to Wall-Mart and purchase that Chinese made PC - likely soon with the IBM label - think of the people who slaved over it.
Canadian i-Tunes users may see their prices rise relative to U.S. users. The dollar is falling due to severe economic issues inside the U.S.:
The U.S. trade deficit has crossed the $500 billion mark, and is its highest dollar value in history (though the deficit has been larger as a % of GDP for a few moments in the past, 1970's). This is about 5% of U.S. GDP. The trade deficit shows no sign of contracting;
The U.S. Federal deficit has soared to a new record ($7.4 trillion), and is set to grow at a rate of $700 billion a year - or more.
The U.S. economy is built primarily upon consumer spending - about 60-70% GDP. Consumers have seen very small rises in wages for the past thirty years, and have been essentially living off increases in real estate values caused by low interest rates (i.e. people would have constrained spending if they had not had access to home equity loans, etc.).
The U.S. manufacturing base continues to decline, and other goods in step. We don't have much to export besides raw goods, hence why buy dollars?
The Euro offers a replacement international currency, based on fiscal policy rather than "we're the great superpower, use our dollar!" OK, really simple, but the US dollar has been subsidized by nations around the world. Times are changing.
The dollar will fall, if for no reason other than other countries will find little use for it. As an American, we frankly need the dollar to fall, especially against the Yuan (China). A trade deficit as large as the one we have cannot endure, especially when capital is being consumed at a ferocious rate by the Federal government.
I have no idea how intellectual property prices will be affected by the dollar's decline. It depends upon the U.S. music / recording / software industries ability to maintain dominant and demand higher prices than the rest of the world. Should be interesting.
I don't want a free credit report. I want accountability from three corrupt, incompetent, and powerful corporations.
How generous of the three credit reporting firms that we can see, for free, the information that they collect and profit from. The information that is used not only to decide on whether we can buy a home, but what our car insurance will be, whether we'd make a good employee, whether we can get a security clearance. Now we'll have the obligation to correct the errors made by others, at our expense. Let's Experien, TransAmerica, and Equifax off the hook.
So, your credit rating is now the measure of your worth. Now with laws regulating when we can see our report (for free), the government is giving further de facto authority to three private, profitable, and notoriously error prone organizations. These unregulated corporations that act in a quasi-governmental capacity expect us to be delighted that we can see our data once a year.
Of course, you still don't get to find out how the all important "Fair" Isaac number is computed. But that's another issue.
A question to ask one of the credit reporting firms is if you can be removed from their system. Say I don't want to use a credit card, or get a car loan. Why should my information be tracked? Why should these firms know who my employer is, what my salary is, my marital status? For God's sake, even if you wanted a car loan, why do they have access to so much information? Drop the damn "credit efficiency" argument and you have private agencies with enough data to ruin your life.
Somewhere along the line we've abandoned freedom and liberty for the sake of slightly lower prices, both on goods and loaned monies. I'd accept a higher interest rate to have some privacy.
I honestly believe that our democracy is an illusion, and we're taught to vote in our schools in order to make us complacent. Voting makes people feel as if they have "ownership" of the system, though our government is evidently owned by corporations.
We're all taught to legitimize the government. That way, when our government commits atrocities, it's with the implicit agreement of the American people. The myth that every man (or woman) can become president is taught to children, whether the sons of the wealthy (who do stand a chance of being president), and the child in the inner city (who basically has a tiny chance of even escaping poverty). Our Congress is made of millionaires, to a lesser extent our judiciary. Don't even think about getting a good executive branch political appointment without having donated a fortune to whomever is in power at the time.
We do have a system of laws, however. Those laws exist primarily to protect private property. At times I think our freedoms - what remain after four years of Bush II - exist only to let us vent of steam, and never get angry enought to overthrow those who control our destinies.
Morality - Re:Mixed feeling
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HIV Vaccine
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· Score: 1
I hope that this vaccine is available to all who need it - whether they're rich, poor, or have been foolish enough to commit some act that left them affected. Our feelings are irrelevant, however, from a public health point of vieew - ending the HIV / AIDS epidemic is a great good unto itself.
On the issue of "irresponsible action", I understand your point. You're right - many of the people who will be able to afford the vaccine without governmental assistance probably did do something stupid. I don't care. I want them to live and have a healthy life.
Each of us does stupid things. I've raced my car when I shouldn't have. I was an idiot in college, and a fool at times. I'm healthy, though, through both fortune and comon sense. And I've seen friends contract HIV, and one of them has died. Did they do stupid things? Absolutely. But we all make mistakes, and we shouldn't have one stupid mistake be a death sentance.
All of us our human, all of us have flaws. Thank whatever good exists in the universe that there now is a chance to save more people from an agonizing death.
Pivot tables were originally developed in Lotus Improv, Lotus's incredibly advanced word processor for the NeXT machine. Lotus attempted to develop a new paradigm (can't believe I used that word) for spreadsheet interaction, something more sophisticated that +A1+@sum(B1..B3). Pivot tables were a component of this formulaless spreadsheet.
Improv was, is friggin' amazing.
I suppose this is another example of Microsoft getting credit for company's innovations?
First, I generally agree with you, but this is still a worthwhile act. Corporations are, in a legal sense, people, and should act as responsible members of the community. Charitable corporate donations have plunged over the last twenty years. Any positive action, even helping a dolphin, is a good thing.
Considering that Bridgestone's primary product (tires) is environmentally quite destructive, helping an animal is the least that they can do. We can be critical about what other causes they could have chosen to support, we can even make fun of dolphins, but fundamentally it was a decent act to help the creature.
How much is a dolphin worth? It's market value, or it's value as a living, caring, creature? People spend fortunes taking care of their pets, though it would be much cheaper to purchase a new dog or cat. They do it because they recognize the moral value and ethical requirement to be a good caretaker for the creature that they own. This is a 34 year old dolphin, dependant on human beings for it's life. There is nothing wrong with being decent towards it.
All of the alternate uses are good, even better. But to get a corporation to do something good is in itself remarkable.
MPAA is attempting to throw a bone to the Internet2 community by promising "eventual" research projects. Why should their membership be accepted? Their interest in reaserching bandwidth speed on file transfer frequency can be done without being a member of Internet2. If you're attempting to join a (theoretically) academic Internet, at least have your reaserch proposal ready!
Seriously, I assue that their "negotiations" with Internet2 would likely be one-sided. None of the member institutions would want the MPAA monitoring the network - consider the liability. That's the effective technique MPAA is using to attempt to join - either work with us, let us join, or we'll make your lives hell. Blackmail negotiations.
If the MPAA joins Internet2 and gather potentially unpleasant data, they can use that information to mandate new data standards, new protocols, whatever possible to insure the maintenance of their IP. In other words, they decide the future of the Internet based on protecting copyright. Lovely.
I know on/. you're not expected, or even supposed to, respond to your own posting. I think that I'd better make my point clear, using this response as the message.
Consider phone service - in some form - to be an absolute necessity. Using the pay phone down the block is not a comparable substitute to having your own land-line phone, a cell phone, or ta-da - VOIP. Those who don't have a phone face serious disadvantages in terms of their safety, ability to work, social contact, etc. Point: Everyone needs a phone.
The issue is, phone lines (cell and land), are easy targets for taxation. I understand that the E911 charge is actually a general tax, not a toll for a specific service. But sadly, masking a service charge when in fact something is a tax is how states and localities often get badly needed revenue. Economically efficient? No. Fair? Hardly ever. A convienient way of raising revenue without saying you're increasing taxes, yes. No matter what, though, being able a tax that the lower income classes must pay due to your access to technology is not at all better.
Consider that where I live, our county recently added a $4 per month per land-line charge. That sucks. Really. It was done to avoid increasing property taxes (in a booming, out-of-control real estate market, sigh). Suppose I want to avoid that $48 per annum tax, and I use VOIP. Am I being clever or am I being irresponsible? Essentially, is acting in a manner designed to minimize your tax exposure fair to others?
Tax policy in the US is a mess. This is another example of how those who are wealthier are able to avoid taxes that those who are poor cannot avoid. Note that I'm not commenting on the normative (efficiency) economics in question, but on the positive (morality) economics of taxation policy.
As an aside: consider E911 to be a public good. The system functions best when the highest number of people have access to it; you want the earliest possible report of a dangerous situation. We all benefit by having a broad coverage E911 system. Letting some individuals avoid funding an essential service who benefit from that service seems... troublesome.
I know that this will be unpopular with the./ crowd, but this strikes me as a pretty unfair subsidy of the technologically savvy at the expense of the less technologically competent.
VOIP requires that you have a high speed line - either DSL or cable - an expense that many people can't afford. Additionally, many people live in locations that do not have access to high speed internet. If you can't afford, or can't receive high speed access, you're left with conventional phone or cellular phones - both of which can be regulated and taxed by the states.
Though I understand the FCC's motivation to promote development of the VOIP industry, why should those with high speed access find a loophole out of local telephony costs? The administration is all in favor of reduced taxation, but this ruling actually works out be a non-legislative regressive tax.
IMO, We need to try to equalize the costs and benefits of new technologies, and not allow technologies to be used to escape financial responsibilities.
A natural stepping stone - two monopolies helping each other expand their turf?
MS is a monopoly (let's not argue about it) - now their working with another (localized) monopoly to place their DVR boxes into our homes. Isn't this exactly what the DOJ-MS settlement was supposed to prevent?
Cable TV is, in many cases, an artificially created monopoly, and effectively the only option for individuals who want an expanded channel line up. Cable is a natural monopoly (there's no point in having multiple cable providers and capital costs going to each residence). But DVR's are not a natural monopoly. Any user should be able to user whatever DVR they want with their chosen service - whether sat or cabal. But the DVR provided by the cable company can change that circumstance.
The DVR's currently provided by Comcast are often (always) a combination of dvr and tuner. The DVR functions are turned on by the installer, possibly the central office. So how far, realistically, could we expect an MS DVR / Comcast Tuner box to cooperate with a third party DVR?
Cooperation between Comcast and MS is an effective bar to competition on the DVR market: Comcast subsidizes the initial cost of DVR purchase - probably with financial aid from MS. Tivo cannot afford to rent DVR's out for $9.99 a month. Comcast is using it's monopoly position (how it can expense capital costs - like 30,000 DVRs) to promote another monopolies product.
I don't want an MS DVR; I don't want my essentially mandatory cable tax be used to fund a corporation's expansion efforts into yet another market!
The essential, defining characteristic of a democracy is the demos, loosely, the people. It's proper that each of us has an opinion, and each of us assumes that we know the best way to run the government. The marketplace of ideas, in action.
True, the US is a republican (little r) government - with elected leaders given a higher degree of responsibility. Our Founding Fathers assumed that those elected leaders would be smarter, would be wiser than the average person. Funny though, it seems that our system is rapidly evolving into a means of electing those who are disinterested in reality, or who do not wish to understand the world.
Proffesional politicians, and their staff, are contributing to the death of our democracy.
The job of the political expert (spin doctors, media consultants, pollsters, etc.) is quite simple and direct: elect a particular candidate to public office. Nothing more, nothing less. True, the various experts may have some political opinions, but at the end of the day that political opinion is subjugated to the task at hand. Understanding problems - now that really doesn't seem to contribute to electability.
Candidates refuse to take strong positions as their advisiors (rightly) point out that strong positions may alienate those who hold differing opinions. Candidates simplify complex issues to avoid confusing voters and ensure that the sound bites are ready for the evening news. For goodness sake - candidates are essentially selected by political professionals to guarentee some vanishing measure of "electability." If you know to much, you're an "egghead", you're out of touch with the common man, you're elitist, etc. Which is how we wind up with anti-intellectuals in charge of the government. (Actually fake anti-intellectuals - look where they went to school.)
True, the world is a complex place, but the professional politician and his staff often seems disinterested in understanding complexity. Each person has an opinion about politics - and that's the way it should be.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Apple is somewhat ambivalent about how to deploy. We know that Apple personnel read Slashdot - perhaps someone from Apple will explain whether we can actually deploy with a .WAR package on a platform besides Mac OS X Sever.
WebObjects used to be authored in Objective-C. WO developers were very happy. Then Apple decided that Java would be the Next Great Thing and removed Objective-C support and transitioned to Java - causing a great number of previous WO sites and developers to give up the toolkit.
Of course, one of the major reasons to port WO to Java was to use it in an enterprise environment. Now Apple wants us only to deploy on X server, somewhat breaking the point of the entire Java transition. Ah well....
And some of the best Web sites have been done using WebObjects, including the Apple Store (http://www.apple.com/store) and the entire infrastructure for iTunes. Don't blame the tool for lousy site workflow.
However, I would say that the people who program in WO tend to understand a great deal about software architecture and theoretical IT issues - but in truth, many WO programmers are former NeXT GUI programmers who always will look on the Web as a bastard UI.
WebObjects is a fantastic development environment, a hell of a lot nicer than JSP/J2EE, but requires substantially more training than the lamp stack.
How many of Redhat's employees would walk out if Redhat were to be purchased by MS?
MS no longer has the latitude to generously grant options to prospective staff (and in fact Bill G. regrets giving out stock options in the past, or at least questions its impact). True, some RedHat senior level staff will benefit tremendously, but many staff may question the wisdom of joining up with their true arch-enemy.
Would you work with a firm that will, in all likelihood, take your work and, well, corrupt it? Do you want to see your efforts to support Linux be converted to an attempt to destroy it? Truthfully, do you trust Redmond?
I think that they could lose many more good people than they think - and those people will go to IBM, with their contacts, connections, and knowledge.
So she's forced out. Now she can write a book, go on speaking tours, appear on CNN, possibly serve as a lobbyist. Her career is far from over.
But she laid off tens of thousands (literally), destroyed the legacy of Digital in Compaq, turned HP into an offshoring shell, and damaged HP's reputation. Brilliant!
Her short term management style, however, is the American management style. Quarterly profits matter more than profits five years down the road. Acquire to destroy your competition, pursue that dream of oligopoly. Oh, and send as many jobs overseas as possible so you can keep your workers in line.
China seems to be if not exactly ignoring the WTO and GATT agreements, then playing loosely with them. American and European governments promised their voters that China's entry into the various world trade organizations would a) promote democracy, and b) allow the West to export high-tech products to China.
Point A doesn't seem to be happening very quickly, but we can have hope for the future. On Point B, the Chinese economy is frankly wiping the West, exporting tons of goods and importing relatively little (while supporting the dollar's high value).
We may think that this is only about IP, but software is one of the few things the West can hope to compete in. This seems like a legitamate GATT / WTO offense. It would be pretty fun to see these agreements actually work for the benefit of the US by overturning the software ban.
So, what's the value of a human life if you work for $.25 per hour? How do you calculate the life of the poor?
I suppose under your logic that we should invest money in protecting golf courses, yachts, etc. -- where, one must admit, the wealthy are likely to be found. So much better to save the life of someone who earns $25 million per year than to save the life of someone who earns $50,000. True, the probability of something happening to a golf course or yachting club is very low, but hey, the cost benefit analysis certainly ever so more logical.
There needs to be a balance between accounting and morality. The value of a life must be more than what a person earns.
Outsourcing is not inevitable. Capitalism, all of economics, is a function of our choices - the choices of our leaders, the choices of consumers, the choices of businessmen. Somewhere along the line we decided to ignore morality in making choices, and capitalism has degraded to nothing more than the merciless exploitation of the environment and workers. Even knowledge workers, though it appears that every non-outsourced /. reader assumes that they can never be outsourced.
The decision to "outsource" is made to save money. Nothing more. Not to improve quality - who has proof that outsourcing has rescued any project? Not to save consumers money, nor to save the third world. Not even to benefity "shareholders", but pretty much to benefit upper-management. As competition increases between firms, they are desparate to keep profits growing eternally. Profit growth can occur due to an increase in revenue, or cutting costs. Increasing revenue is damn difficult. Cutting costs makes you a hero - to your shareholders, and you bear no responsibility for the laid off workers, nor the society you betrayed.
We must recognize that those who transfer jobs, knowledge, and the technology of our country abroad for quarterly profits are not captain's of industry but profiteers. Why do we accept the destruction of our factories, our labs, our research traditions? How do those who destroy entire towns sleep at night? I'm from North Carolina, and saw what happened when the textile factories went to China, when the equipment was packed off to Shanghai. Who benefitted - the American public, the managers, or the shareholders?
Outsourcing is not inevitable. We can reverse the trend. But we must first challenge the concept that free trade is beneficial to all parties. How, precisely, has free trade benefitted the US or the Western world? Our trading partners - India and China - do not believe in free trade - why should we?
And for all of the /. members from the States who think that outsourcing doesn't affect them: how much has your salary increased in the last four years? How many extra hours do you accept every week unpaid? How long have your friends been laid off?
The US will become a third-world country if we choose to support outsourcing. Don't shop at Wal-Mart. Write your congressional representatives. Question the leadership of the companies that you own shares in. Don't accept the destruction of our country to make the rich richer.
The economy is doing well? Hardly - the economy is in terrible shape:
The programmers taking American jobs do spell doom for the American economy. Our technology, our skills, are being transferred to citizens of foreign nations. We're giving away intellectual capital. We're telling American workers not to fight for their wages, to just accept what the landed gentry will give them. Capitalism functions best as a balance between labor and the capitalist, not as a one-sided affair.
So, is "capitalism" more important than "democracy"? Man, do you realize what you've stated? Is the point of the US to make the most money, or to advance the rights and liberties of it's citizens?
Indian programmers are better? How? Cheaper. That's it. Nothing more. If all else is equal, saving money on labor equals higher productivity and thus, yes, better.
Better from a corporate perspective also means:
Foreign workers are brought into the US to cut costs, not to do better work. If you hire some H1-B's and fire permanent staff, you do have a "better" annual report. You've cut permanent expenses - Wall Street will be ecstatic.
Outsourcing exists to cut labor prices for those who control capital (either physical or intellectual) so that they may earn a higher profit. That's it. Nothing more. It doesn't mean that society benefits, or that a nation will be richer after trade. All that matters is reducing the cost of labor.
Ricardo's theory of comparitive advantage assumed that labor and capital was essentially restricted to individual countries, and could not be exchanged. Ricardo did not foresee a situation where all labor costs would be cheaper in a differing nation. Put very simply: where, exactly, does the US have a comparative advantage vis a vis India?
If you want the US to "compete" against India and China the only way you can do so is to drastically cut US wages. Hence, a side effect of "free trade" is a "race to the bottom" where worldwide wages plumet to that of the lowest cost labor market. The net effect would actually be more economic efficiency - more goods produced at a cheaper price - but the effect on a Western nation would be - is - disasterous.
What's good for the capitalist is not necessarily what's good for the country. Should the wealthiest - say the Walton family - be made wealthier in order to sacrifice literally million of American manufacturing jobs? The benefits of offshoring are received by just a few, the costs impact all of society.
Besides, there is no "free trade." The Chinese currency (Yuan) has been kept artificially low vis a vis the dollar for years. The Chinese government has access to prison and forced labor, lower enviornmental standards, etc. that put the US at a distinct disadvantage.
So what if it does :) ? Frankly, I'm surprised that /. members have such a laissez-faire attitude in regards to outsourcing, technology transfer, and general free-trade issues.
/. readers, generally, work in fields which are easily affected by free trade. Wonder why your salary has been the same for four years? Wonder why your friends are unemployed? Wonder why you can't buy hardly anything made in the U.S.? You have to pay attention tow what's going on in the economy, not just what's happening in the world of anime. And economics is more than one's own financial picture...
Go ahead, zap me karma wise.
Specific to this case, selling both the patents that IBM holds for PC manufacturing and selling IBM's legitamacy to an external agency.
And, to put it damn bluntly, all the parts in your PC (and my Mac laptop) made in Asia do sell out our technological base. But booyah, we've saved $100 bucks! What the hell is to stop these firms in Asia from realizing that hey, why make your machines for Dell or Apple when you can get the profit yourselves? Hey, even better, you can call it an IBM?!/p>
We transfer technology paid for by the US government (research, infrastructure) and US consumers (far higher prices, our taxes that pay for research and infrastructure) over to foreign countries - all so the wonderful benefits of "free trade" make everyone richer. Yet free trade means nothing more than cheaper labor and looser environmental standards, never noticing that we're undermining our own way of life.
IBM is selling the proverbial noose that will strangle the West. Selling out our technological base to an entity owned partially by the Chinese government is a recipe for disaster. I know it sounds alarmist, but this is a recipe for long term catastrophe.
The US is becoming a third world country. IBM sells an entire division to China - now a Chinese firm becomes one of the top three world PC makers - and not just on cheap PCs, but near the top. Worse, IBM sells this firm its PC patents, manufacturing processes, engineering knowledge. Several thousand more Americans are out of work (either from being laid off from IBM or through further competition from Chinese firms), and our technological base erodes. Good thing we can export grain, leather products, and beef.
However, Wall Street will likely respond to IBM's sale with a rise in IBM's stock price; the Bush administration won't raise a fuss due to their unquestioning support for "free trade" and Red China; most people won't care as prices for PC's will continue to fall.
I wonder how the workers in "Lenovo" are treated. What hours do they work? Do they have health care? Do they have any freedoms? When you go to Wall-Mart and purchase that Chinese made PC - likely soon with the IBM label - think of the people who slaved over it.
Canadian i-Tunes users may see their prices rise relative to U.S. users. The dollar is falling due to severe economic issues inside the U.S.:
The dollar will fall, if for no reason other than other countries will find little use for it. As an American, we frankly need the dollar to fall, especially against the Yuan (China). A trade deficit as large as the one we have cannot endure, especially when capital is being consumed at a ferocious rate by the Federal government.
I have no idea how intellectual property prices will be affected by the dollar's decline. It depends upon the U.S. music / recording / software industries ability to maintain dominant and demand higher prices than the rest of the world. Should be interesting.
I don't want a free credit report. I want accountability from three corrupt, incompetent, and powerful corporations.
How generous of the three credit reporting firms that we can see, for free, the information that they collect and profit from. The information that is used not only to decide on whether we can buy a home, but what our car insurance will be, whether we'd make a good employee, whether we can get a security clearance. Now we'll have the obligation to correct the errors made by others, at our expense. Let's Experien, TransAmerica, and Equifax off the hook.
So, your credit rating is now the measure of your worth. Now with laws regulating when we can see our report (for free), the government is giving further de facto authority to three private, profitable, and notoriously error prone organizations. These unregulated corporations that act in a quasi-governmental capacity expect us to be delighted that we can see our data once a year.
Of course, you still don't get to find out how the all important "Fair" Isaac number is computed. But that's another issue.
A question to ask one of the credit reporting firms is if you can be removed from their system. Say I don't want to use a credit card, or get a car loan. Why should my information be tracked? Why should these firms know who my employer is, what my salary is, my marital status? For God's sake, even if you wanted a car loan, why do they have access to so much information? Drop the damn "credit efficiency" argument and you have private agencies with enough data to ruin your life.
Somewhere along the line we've abandoned freedom and liberty for the sake of slightly lower prices, both on goods and loaned monies. I'd accept a higher interest rate to have some privacy.
I honestly believe that our democracy is an illusion, and we're taught to vote in our schools in order to make us complacent. Voting makes people feel as if they have "ownership" of the system, though our government is evidently owned by corporations.
We're all taught to legitimize the government. That way, when our government commits atrocities, it's with the implicit agreement of the American people. The myth that every man (or woman) can become president is taught to children, whether the sons of the wealthy (who do stand a chance of being president), and the child in the inner city (who basically has a tiny chance of even escaping poverty). Our Congress is made of millionaires, to a lesser extent our judiciary. Don't even think about getting a good executive branch political appointment without having donated a fortune to whomever is in power at the time.
We do have a system of laws, however. Those laws exist primarily to protect private property. At times I think our freedoms - what remain after four years of Bush II - exist only to let us vent of steam, and never get angry enought to overthrow those who control our destinies.
I hope that this vaccine is available to all who need it - whether they're rich, poor, or have been foolish enough to commit some act that left them affected. Our feelings are irrelevant, however, from a public health point of vieew - ending the HIV / AIDS epidemic is a great good unto itself.
On the issue of "irresponsible action", I understand your point. You're right - many of the people who will be able to afford the vaccine without governmental assistance probably did do something stupid. I don't care. I want them to live and have a healthy life.
Each of us does stupid things. I've raced my car when I shouldn't have. I was an idiot in college, and a fool at times. I'm healthy, though, through both fortune and comon sense. And I've seen friends contract HIV, and one of them has died. Did they do stupid things? Absolutely. But we all make mistakes, and we shouldn't have one stupid mistake be a death sentance.
All of us our human, all of us have flaws. Thank whatever good exists in the universe that there now is a chance to save more people from an agonizing death.
Pivot tables were originally developed in Lotus Improv, Lotus's incredibly advanced word processor for the NeXT machine. Lotus attempted to develop a new paradigm (can't believe I used that word) for spreadsheet interaction, something more sophisticated that +A1+@sum(B1..B3). Pivot tables were a component of this formulaless spreadsheet.
Improv was, is friggin' amazing.
I suppose this is another example of Microsoft getting credit for company's innovations?
First, I generally agree with you, but this is still a worthwhile act. Corporations are, in a legal sense, people, and should act as responsible members of the community. Charitable corporate donations have plunged over the last twenty years. Any positive action, even helping a dolphin, is a good thing.
Considering that Bridgestone's primary product (tires) is environmentally quite destructive, helping an animal is the least that they can do. We can be critical about what other causes they could have chosen to support, we can even make fun of dolphins, but fundamentally it was a decent act to help the creature.
How much is a dolphin worth? It's market value, or it's value as a living, caring, creature? People spend fortunes taking care of their pets, though it would be much cheaper to purchase a new dog or cat. They do it because they recognize the moral value and ethical requirement to be a good caretaker for the creature that they own. This is a 34 year old dolphin, dependant on human beings for it's life. There is nothing wrong with being decent towards it.
All of the alternate uses are good, even better. But to get a corporation to do something good is in itself remarkable.
Damn straight.
MPAA is attempting to throw a bone to the Internet2 community by promising "eventual" research projects. Why should their membership be accepted? Their interest in reaserching bandwidth speed on file transfer frequency can be done without being a member of Internet2. If you're attempting to join a (theoretically) academic Internet, at least have your reaserch proposal ready!
Seriously, I assue that their "negotiations" with Internet2 would likely be one-sided. None of the member institutions would want the MPAA monitoring the network - consider the liability. That's the effective technique MPAA is using to attempt to join - either work with us, let us join, or we'll make your lives hell. Blackmail negotiations.
If the MPAA joins Internet2 and gather potentially unpleasant data, they can use that information to mandate new data standards, new protocols, whatever possible to insure the maintenance of their IP. In other words, they decide the future of the Internet based on protecting copyright. Lovely.
I know on /. you're not expected, or even supposed to, respond to your own posting. I think that I'd better make my point clear, using this response as the message.
Consider phone service - in some form - to be an absolute necessity. Using the pay phone down the block is not a comparable substitute to having your own land-line phone, a cell phone, or ta-da - VOIP. Those who don't have a phone face serious disadvantages in terms of their safety, ability to work, social contact, etc. Point: Everyone needs a phone.
The issue is, phone lines (cell and land), are easy targets for taxation. I understand that the E911 charge is actually a general tax, not a toll for a specific service. But sadly, masking a service charge when in fact something is a tax is how states and localities often get badly needed revenue. Economically efficient? No. Fair? Hardly ever. A convienient way of raising revenue without saying you're increasing taxes, yes. No matter what, though, being able a tax that the lower income classes must pay due to your access to technology is not at all better.
Consider that where I live, our county recently added a $4 per month per land-line charge. That sucks. Really. It was done to avoid increasing property taxes (in a booming, out-of-control real estate market, sigh). Suppose I want to avoid that $48 per annum tax, and I use VOIP. Am I being clever or am I being irresponsible? Essentially, is acting in a manner designed to minimize your tax exposure fair to others?
Tax policy in the US is a mess. This is another example of how those who are wealthier are able to avoid taxes that those who are poor cannot avoid. Note that I'm not commenting on the normative (efficiency) economics in question, but on the positive (morality) economics of taxation policy.
As an aside: consider E911 to be a public good. The system functions best when the highest number of people have access to it; you want the earliest possible report of a dangerous situation. We all benefit by having a broad coverage E911 system. Letting some individuals avoid funding an essential service who benefit from that service seems... troublesome.
I know that this will be unpopular with the ./ crowd, but this strikes me as a pretty unfair subsidy of the technologically savvy at the expense of the less technologically competent.
VOIP requires that you have a high speed line - either DSL or cable - an expense that many people can't afford. Additionally, many people live in locations that do not have access to high speed internet. If you can't afford, or can't receive high speed access, you're left with conventional phone or cellular phones - both of which can be regulated and taxed by the states.
Though I understand the FCC's motivation to promote development of the VOIP industry, why should those with high speed access find a loophole out of local telephony costs? The administration is all in favor of reduced taxation, but this ruling actually works out be a non-legislative regressive tax.
IMO, We need to try to equalize the costs and benefits of new technologies, and not allow technologies to be used to escape financial responsibilities.
A natural stepping stone - two monopolies helping each other expand their turf?
MS is a monopoly (let's not argue about it) - now their working with another (localized) monopoly to place their DVR boxes into our homes. Isn't this exactly what the DOJ-MS settlement was supposed to prevent?
Cable TV is, in many cases, an artificially created monopoly, and effectively the only option for individuals who want an expanded channel line up. Cable is a natural monopoly (there's no point in having multiple cable providers and capital costs going to each residence). But DVR's are not a natural monopoly. Any user should be able to user whatever DVR they want with their chosen service - whether sat or cabal. But the DVR provided by the cable company can change that circumstance.
The DVR's currently provided by Comcast are often (always) a combination of dvr and tuner. The DVR functions are turned on by the installer, possibly the central office. So how far, realistically, could we expect an MS DVR / Comcast Tuner box to cooperate with a third party DVR?
Cooperation between Comcast and MS is an effective bar to competition on the DVR market: Comcast subsidizes the initial cost of DVR purchase - probably with financial aid from MS. Tivo cannot afford to rent DVR's out for $9.99 a month. Comcast is using it's monopoly position (how it can expense capital costs - like 30,000 DVRs) to promote another monopolies product.
I don't want an MS DVR; I don't want my essentially mandatory cable tax be used to fund a corporation's expansion efforts into yet another market!
The essential, defining characteristic of a democracy is the demos, loosely, the people. It's proper that each of us has an opinion, and each of us assumes that we know the best way to run the government. The marketplace of ideas, in action.
True, the US is a republican (little r) government - with elected leaders given a higher degree of responsibility. Our Founding Fathers assumed that those elected leaders would be smarter, would be wiser than the average person. Funny though, it seems that our system is rapidly evolving into a means of electing those who are disinterested in reality, or who do not wish to understand the world.
Proffesional politicians, and their staff, are contributing to the death of our democracy.
The job of the political expert (spin doctors, media consultants, pollsters, etc.) is quite simple and direct: elect a particular candidate to public office. Nothing more, nothing less. True, the various experts may have some political opinions, but at the end of the day that political opinion is subjugated to the task at hand. Understanding problems - now that really doesn't seem to contribute to electability.
Candidates refuse to take strong positions as their advisiors (rightly) point out that strong positions may alienate those who hold differing opinions. Candidates simplify complex issues to avoid confusing voters and ensure that the sound bites are ready for the evening news. For goodness sake - candidates are essentially selected by political professionals to guarentee some vanishing measure of "electability." If you know to much, you're an "egghead", you're out of touch with the common man, you're elitist, etc. Which is how we wind up with anti-intellectuals in charge of the government. (Actually fake anti-intellectuals - look where they went to school.)
True, the world is a complex place, but the professional politician and his staff often seems disinterested in understanding complexity. Each person has an opinion about politics - and that's the way it should be.