As a benefit, violin technology hasn't changed much in 300 years! Talk about a long term investment.
Quick quiz:
Name a language or program you learned on a computer 15 years ago that you still use on a computer today. (UNIX guys working on mainframes excepted)
You need to learn basic computer skills, not be completely emersed in computers. Even if you (or your kid) is going to be a CS/Comp Eng type, all you need is the fundamentals.
Please, when was the last time you used Pascal? Logo?
OTOH, I use the skills I learned through music every single day. And I'm not a musician nor have I played an instrument in months.
We can't hold back our development because a few people might lose their jobs. If you want to do that personally, that's fine, just don't force it on the rest of us.
A little data on what happens when a job off-shores. Say a company moves 1,000 jobs to China. 70% of the prior employed 1,000 workers find new jobs. Those 700 workers are now earning, on average, 95% of what they did before. This is the data behind the oft-quoted Gartner study that shows $1.14 is returned to the U.S. for the $1 spent offshoring (wish I could find a link for it besides my class notes)
The issue now is that if you look at the "highly educated" fields, the ones that the U.S. supposedly has an advantage, we don't. We do not turn out the PhDs (they're foreigners in U.S. schools), we don't turn out the MDs (again, foreigners from schools abroad come back here to become doctors, not from the US), we don't turn out the engineers.
The only profession which the U.S. dominates in is turning out lawyers.
Meanwhile, we, as a society, now have with each iteration of this 30% more unemployment/underemployment. Eventually, all of our jobs will be in India, or China, or the Phillippines, or Russia. You cannot say that India doesn't have doctors or programmers who are every bit as good as U.S. ones, yet work much much cheaper than U.S. ones.
So, where's the off-shored engineer supposed to go to get a "new" job? Already has spent $150,000 on education to get the "good, highly educated" job, and now its sent to India where someone will do it for $800 a month.
I read this a while ago. I found a pdf of the New York Times article here http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/nytimes/2004-12-0 7_nytimes_poor_english.pdf .
Cogent point:
Businesses are having to send people back to school to learn how to write. Many cannot write coherent sentences or paragraphs.
Just try to deal with requirements when not only do they not have a clue, but can't even write their non-clue.
If blogs are journalism, they should have to follow the other laws that apply to journalism, namely, that they cannot be libelous or slander individuals.
Libel:
1. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.
2. The act of presenting such material to the public.
Slander:
1. Law. Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.
2. A false and malicious statement or report about someone.
So many people write things that are blatantly false and damaging, and get away with it without any punative action because they are blogs or forums. There should be some major penalty for putting completely false information out there - and this holds for "old" media companies too.
"Fascist" seems to be used today the same way "Communist" was forty years ago - or "She's a witch!", 300 years ago.
Er. Last I checked, people were still using communist that way (big C or small c) and they're still afraid of witches' corrupting influence. Although the witches are now lesbians.
Slashdot Mirror
Quick quiz:
Name a language or program you learned on a computer 15 years ago that you still use on a computer today. (UNIX guys working on mainframes excepted)
You need to learn basic computer skills, not be completely emersed in computers. Even if you (or your kid) is going to be a CS /Comp Eng type, all you need is the fundamentals.
Please, when was the last time you used Pascal? Logo?
OTOH, I use the skills I learned through music every single day. And I'm not a musician nor have I played an instrument in months.
A little data on what happens when a job off-shores. Say a company moves 1,000 jobs to China. 70% of the prior employed 1,000 workers find new jobs. Those 700 workers are now earning, on average, 95% of what they did before. This is the data behind the oft-quoted Gartner study that shows $1.14 is returned to the U.S. for the $1 spent offshoring (wish I could find a link for it besides my class notes)
The issue now is that if you look at the "highly educated" fields, the ones that the U.S. supposedly has an advantage, we don't. We do not turn out the PhDs (they're foreigners in U.S. schools), we don't turn out the MDs (again, foreigners from schools abroad come back here to become doctors, not from the US), we don't turn out the engineers.
The only profession which the U.S. dominates in is turning out lawyers.
Meanwhile, we, as a society, now have with each iteration of this 30% more unemployment/underemployment. Eventually, all of our jobs will be in India, or China, or the Phillippines, or Russia. You cannot say that India doesn't have doctors or programmers who are every bit as good as U.S. ones, yet work much much cheaper than U.S. ones.
So, where's the off-shored engineer supposed to go to get a "new" job? Already has spent $150,000 on education to get the "good, highly educated" job, and now its sent to India where someone will do it for $800 a month.
I read this a while ago. I found a pdf of the New York Times article here http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/nytimes/2004-12-0 7_nytimes_poor_english.pdf .
Cogent point:
Businesses are having to send people back to school to learn how to write. Many cannot write coherent sentences or paragraphs.
Just try to deal with requirements when not only do they not have a clue, but can't even write their non-clue.
Libel: 1. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation. 2. The act of presenting such material to the public.
Slander: 1. Law. Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation. 2. A false and malicious statement or report about someone.
So many people write things that are blatantly false and damaging, and get away with it without any punative action because they are blogs or forums. There should be some major penalty for putting completely false information out there - and this holds for "old" media companies too.
Er. Last I checked, people were still using communist that way (big C or small c) and they're still afraid of witches' corrupting influence. Although the witches are now lesbians.