I understand it's not a fun experience to be laid off, but there's no reason to panic and be so pessimistic about the future. The bottom line is that whether today or tommorrow, we're gonna have to face the competition from the rest of the world. Using our current high status to create artificial barriers will only make it a harder hit on us in the long run. Yeah we can use regulation to force jobs to stay here and pretend that everything's all right, but isolating ourselves like that will eventually be detrimental -- much worse than if we adjust ourselves to the changing economy and flow with it.
In the short term, for laid of workers who are truly skilled, it's cheaper than ever to start and run a business and actually be competitive in a lot of markets. I don't mean to sound as if it's trivial to do so, but hey, there's really no easy solution. Just a suggestion.
Even if there's only a handful of "major players", they're still competing with each other, and there's many many smaller companies looking for a chance to rise and compete.
And don't forget your basic economics - there's nothing stopping new companies from coming into the market when they see the chance. A good chance would be precisely when the existing players in the market are inefficient and beatable. That's how the free market works, and that's why successful companies can't afford to get complacent and stagnate, or they will eventually be beat.
I think you've got it totally wrong here. If American companies don't outsource to reduce costs, they won't be able to compete with their rivals, and this would result in a loss for the entire American economy.
Inefficient companies that don't try to minimize operating costs just won't cut it in our market. They would stagnate and lose their business to more efficient firms. Outsourcing is good for both America and the countries being outsourced to (like India). There's nothing "unfair" about competition. It's good for us all in the long term.
It's scary that you actually think the government should take action in this situation. Most ideas that go something like "the government should...", are not bound to work. In fact they're more likely to make things worse. The government can't (and shouldn't try to) control the direction of the international market. As for jobs being lost, structural changes have come before in our economic past, and we've always gotten through them all right. The workers who aren't willing to compete and sharpen their skills to survive probably don't deserve the jobs they're losing to begin with.
Our country is at the top position in the world today for a reason. We earned our way there, but can only stay as long as we can keep ourselves there. We must continue to evolve and compete to avoid being outdone by others, who have every right to try their best as well.
The solution is not to waste our time trying to keep others down, but rather to be smart and keep trying to get better and stay ahead of the pack. And this requires innovation, not regulation.
Oops, my bad. I think what happened was that the parent to your post didn't show up on my threshold, and your post did. So I thought you were talking about the laptop.
What is significant is that these products are suitable for Indian conditions being able to run without electricity, using battery
These computers are made to work with "unreliable" electricity, as is often found in rural places. And as for the carrying case:
It comes with an innovative carry-case that opens up as a desktop stand and a keyboard that could be rolled up and kept in a pouch of the carry-case when the user is on the move
Besides, how useful would the Dell refurbished one be if there's no monitor included? Also, the refurbished ones from Dell obviously can't support the demand for such a product at that price. We're talking about ready-to-use computers that you can go and buy, as opposed to waiting for the next cheapest listing to show up on Dell's refurb website and having to shop around for an essential part like a monitor. Of course, if you have a lot of time on your hands, you could probably find even better bargains, but that isn't what most people want to do (time is money). Yours is a solution that doesn't scale. And those Dell PC's aren't exactly portable either.
Great Idea! Let's put all of our personal information (credit cards, bank accounts, computer passwords, business activity, etc.) on a single card so the government has everything about everyone in one database. How convenient! And we all know we can trust our friendly government to protect all that private information and only look at what they need to for "security" purposes.
Wikipedia was a great concept at first, but it's become such a big back-and-forth mess that I don't bother with it anymore. There's just too much worthless junk for it to be reasonably useful.
I'd rather use something trustable, like even Encarta, which is basically free on the internet unless you need the premium features. At least I can rest assured that the content is clean, organized, and reliable. I would definitely recommend against citing Wikipedia as an official source for any kind of research.
"The only OSS tool authored by an Indian located in India is Anjuta (the programming IDE for gnome). Know of any others ?"
Dude, there's no way that could be the only one. Check this out. I haven't looked through it a whole lot myself, but I'm sure you'll find a bunch more Indian OSS projects there.
A few decades ago, it was global cooling, now they're all panicky about global warming. I wonder what it'll be next?? It's all just ridiculous scare tactics/political propoganda. The data they're citing isn't even standardized.
Don't worry people, sit tight, the sky isn't gonna fall down on us.
"The challenge is to allow people to gain maximum benefit from these auxiliary memories, while maintaining their privacy"
I don't see what's so "Grand" about that. It's already possible to some degree. Yeah, it would be nice to have better organization systems, etc. but I don't think it's gonna require a major breakthrough in science or anything.
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I understand it's not a fun experience to be laid off, but there's no reason to panic and be so pessimistic about the future. The bottom line is that whether today or tommorrow, we're gonna have to face the competition from the rest of the world. Using our current high status to create artificial barriers will only make it a harder hit on us in the long run. Yeah we can use regulation to force jobs to stay here and pretend that everything's all right, but isolating ourselves like that will eventually be detrimental -- much worse than if we adjust ourselves to the changing economy and flow with it.
In the short term, for laid of workers who are truly skilled, it's cheaper than ever to start and run a business and actually be competitive in a lot of markets. I don't mean to sound as if it's trivial to do so, but hey, there's really no easy solution. Just a suggestion.
Even if there's only a handful of "major players", they're still competing with each other, and there's many many smaller companies looking for a chance to rise and compete.
And don't forget your basic economics - there's nothing stopping new companies from coming into the market when they see the chance. A good chance would be precisely when the existing players in the market are inefficient and beatable. That's how the free market works, and that's why successful companies can't afford to get complacent and stagnate, or they will eventually be beat.
I think you've got it totally wrong here. If American companies don't outsource to reduce costs, they won't be able to compete with their rivals, and this would result in a loss for the entire American economy.
...", are not bound to work. In fact they're more likely to make things worse. The government can't (and shouldn't try to) control the direction of the international market. As for jobs being lost, structural changes have come before in our economic past, and we've always gotten through them all right. The workers who aren't willing to compete and sharpen their skills to survive probably don't deserve the jobs they're losing to begin with.
Inefficient companies that don't try to minimize operating costs just won't cut it in our market. They would stagnate and lose their business to more efficient firms. Outsourcing is good for both America and the countries being outsourced to (like India). There's nothing "unfair" about competition. It's good for us all in the long term.
It's scary that you actually think the government should take action in this situation. Most ideas that go something like "the government should
Our country is at the top position in the world today for a reason. We earned our way there, but can only stay as long as we can keep ourselves there. We must continue to evolve and compete to avoid being outdone by others, who have every right to try their best as well.
The solution is not to waste our time trying to keep others down, but rather to be smart and keep trying to get better and stay ahead of the pack. And this requires innovation, not regulation.
Oops, my bad. I think what happened was that the parent to your post didn't show up on my threshold, and your post did. So I thought you were talking about the laptop.
Your claims are invalid. From TFA:
What is significant is that these products are suitable for Indian conditions being able to run without electricity, using battery
These computers are made to work with "unreliable" electricity, as is often found in rural places. And as for the carrying case:
It comes with an innovative carry-case that opens up as a desktop stand and a keyboard that could be rolled up and kept in a pouch of the carry-case when the user is on the move
Besides, how useful would the Dell refurbished one be if there's no monitor included? Also, the refurbished ones from Dell obviously can't support the demand for such a product at that price. We're talking about ready-to-use computers that you can go and buy, as opposed to waiting for the next cheapest listing to show up on Dell's refurb website and having to shop around for an essential part like a monitor. Of course, if you have a lot of time on your hands, you could probably find even better bargains, but that isn't what most people want to do (time is money). Yours is a solution that doesn't scale. And those Dell PC's aren't exactly portable either.
Great Idea! Let's put all of our personal information (credit cards, bank accounts, computer passwords, business activity, etc.) on a single card so the government has everything about everyone in one database. How convenient! And we all know we can trust our friendly government to protect all that private information and only look at what they need to for "security" purposes.
Umm...yes they do. Radio waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. ALL electromagnetic radiation travels at the speed of light.
Or maybe Encarta is just a Wikipedia API program with Microsoft's name written all over the outside.
Right on.
Wikipedia was a great concept at first, but it's become such a big back-and-forth mess that I don't bother with it anymore. There's just too much worthless junk for it to be reasonably useful.
I'd rather use something trustable, like even Encarta, which is basically free on the internet unless you need the premium features. At least I can rest assured that the content is clean, organized, and reliable. I would definitely recommend against citing Wikipedia as an official source for any kind of research.
"The only OSS tool authored by an Indian located in India is Anjuta (the programming IDE for gnome). Know of any others ?"
Dude, there's no way that could be the only one. Check this out. I haven't looked through it a whole lot myself, but I'm sure you'll find a bunch more Indian OSS projects there.
Hmm...let's see, on one hand there's "Windows Lite" and on the other there's open, free Linux.
Is it really that surprising that India chooses Linux?
A few decades ago, it was global cooling, now they're all panicky about global warming. I wonder what it'll be next?? It's all just ridiculous scare tactics/political propoganda. The data they're citing isn't even standardized.
Don't worry people, sit tight, the sky isn't gonna fall down on us.
The easiest way is to just reload the page, and it comes up fine.
"The challenge is to allow people to gain maximum benefit from these auxiliary memories, while maintaining their privacy"
I don't see what's so "Grand" about that. It's already possible to some degree. Yeah, it would be nice to have better organization systems, etc. but I don't think it's gonna require a major breakthrough in science or anything.
"Apple has thus far shown less then zero interest in moving into the entertainment market"
Really?
What do you think this is, then?