GP: They have dozens of programs designed to helping out disadvantaged children and poor performing students, while the gifted students are left to their own devices.
You: freakin' a! You know what? They also have a metric butt ton of hospitals while the healthy people are left to their own devices, too.
The difference between a university and a hospital is that a hospital is designed to make sick people healthy. The purpose of a university is to make smart people educated, not to make slow people smart.
In my experience the "most gifted" among us often turn out to also be the "most lazy". Determination and working hard, these are the true keys to success, even if you're not "born with it".
Well, in my experience the gifted students are allowed to be lazy because they are never challenged by the assignments designed for slow or unmotivated students. Gifted students can do the same amount of work as a slow student in half the time. Their teachers and professors give them no motivation to do more than the bare minimum since those teachers and professors are making sure that everyone gets at least the basics. We may argue over the appropriateness of that policy for high school, but that is certainly not appropriate at the university level.
Hard work will only get you so far. After that, you need inspiration, which the gifted students have. It may be cliche, but it is still true: work smarter, not harder. We should be pushing and challenging the gifted students to be the smartest they can be.
You want me to feel sorry for you because something has come easily to you while others struggle? If these little Eisteins are so damn "gifted" I'm sure they'll have no problem finding something useful to do with their extra time.
Two words: reading comprehension. No one is asking anyone to feel sorry for anyone else. The GP poster was merely stating an observable fact: schools do not cater to the gifted or even average students, to our detriment as a society.
The GP poster was saying the problem with our high schools and universities was that too much attention is given to the people who are doing poorly instead of advancing the skills of the gifted students. While these "Eisteins" could find something to do in their own time, their teachers and professors should be doing their job to guide them to further their education. However, those teachers and professors are instead wasting their time on the few students who don't get it, are too slow, or who are unmotivated.
Currently there are only a few solutions to this problem. One is to limit class size so that classes are less likely to have slow or unmotivated students. Another is to separate students according to ability so that all the slow or unmotivated students are in a single class. Another is to only admit the students with the highest grades and SAT scores, so that slow or unmotivated students are not admitted at all.
Attacking our best and brightest is not the appropriate solution. Our best and brightest make society as good as it is today. Without them, our society would be far, far worse. We should be doing everything we can to push our best and brightest to do better. And we should not be limiting their education to the lowest common denominator of the slow and unmotivated students.
Why don't YOU stop being a whiny bitch about HIM being a whiny bitch?!
Hmmm... Oh wait. Maybe I should stop being a whiny bitch about YOU being a whiny bitch about HIM being a whiny bitch?!... Damn, the bitching never ends!
We've discovered the key to perpetual bitching!... The whiny bitch complaint!
Humm.... from here, it doesn't look like companies are really so desperate to get more cheap H1-B labor as you say....
Riiiight.... that's why all the H1-B visas for the year are gone within hours of release. That's why all the corporations are screaming to Congress to increase the number of H1-B visas. That's why Bill Gates recently said Microsoft's number one goal is to increase the number of H1-B visas.
With CS enrollments down, we should be seeing an increase in wages for CS graduates. However, we're not - wages are going down. That means even though the supply of CS grads have gone down, the demand for CS grads have decreased even further.
All these media reports saying we need more CS grads are pure bunk. So, that leaves us with a question: why are they putting out these reports? The short answer is that this is what companies are telling them. The long answer is that companies are telling the media this so that these same companies can then go to Congress and push for more cheap H1-B labor to drive wages down even further.
Everything is positive... if you start from a sufficiently negative point of view.
Exactly. Last year companies like IBM and HP were laying off tens of thousands of employees at a time.
Last Friday, the big news was that college graduates were getting offered more money, except CS grads who were offered 0.8% less than last year's CS grads. If wages are going down, then the demand for labor is going down. For all of you without business degrees, that means there are MORE CS grads than there are jobs.
All this media hype over "highly demanded" IT workers is a bunch of bunk. It's all about making the excuse for more cheap H1-B labor.
Hey buddy, it may be obvious to YOU, but it certainly wasn't obvious to the interviewer nor the subject of this article. It's probably not obvious to most people reading the article either.
The statistics that didn't make sense to me was when she said enrollment was down 32% for the last 4 years. This was surprising given the fact that wages for American computer science graduates have also gone down for the last 4 years as well. That means that even with less supply of CS grads, the demand has gone down further. If there really was huge demand for these graduates, then we would be seeing increasing wages as supply decreased.
The idea of over-dressing for work, and generally all occasions, is definitely an east-coast attitude. The west coast is well known for dressing down. That's why IBM in New York is famous for the blue suit while Microsoft in Washington state is known for jeans and t-shirts. These attitudes extend beyond business too. I had to argue with my wife, who is from Connecticut, that coming to a birthday party in Seattle in jeans was perfectly acceptable. She just couldn't imagine coming in anything less than a dress.
The best way to dress is in the manner of employees already at the company. Put on that suit when you visit IBM. But, you better leave that 3-piece suit at home to be taken seriously at Microsoft.
thats just because you are not very smart with your money. it says nothing about a trend.
Why? Because I don't have the time nor the inclination to pirate games? Either way, that should make game companies target their wares more at me than someone like you.
Yes, but you miss half the point. Companies make these games to make money selling them. You do have to admit that working adults have more money than poor college or high school students. Further, college and high school students also have the time to pirate games. So, the adult gamers should be the target audience, however most games seem created for the 12-13 year olds.
The working adults may not have as much time to play, but they certainly have the money to spend on the games. I myself bought quite a few games recently, WoW, Civ 4, and GalCiv 4. WoW has sucked all my time down, so I haven't even tried the other two games. That didn't stop me from laying the money down though. And if any other games come along that I'm interested in, I'll lay the money down for those as well.
"macroscopic life" is only a hair's breadth on the cosmic scale from effectively enslaving microscopic life
Why? Because we use them to make our pharmaceuticals, convert biomass to fuel, etc, etc? Considering we're supplying the microbes with food and energy, it sounds more like we are serving them! We just find something useful to do with their waste...
Well, you may not believe it, but it's nevertheless true.
It's true simply because you say it is? I don't think so. I actually worked at Microsoft and I do know better from my own experience and from talking with other employees at Microsoft.
My company is inviting less than 1% of the applicants we get for interviews, and even most of those aren't any good.
Sounds like you are just too damn picky. You just want 100% perfect applicants, which of course are extremely rare. The only reason you can get away with this is because there are tons of people looking for jobs. You could easily find someone intelligent with a decent background and train them in a matter of weeks to do the job. But, since you can have the pick of the litter, you don't want to do this.
If the job market were actually tight, then you wouldn't be so damn picky and we would actually be seeing salaries rise.
Salaries don't even enter into the application process anyway--at good places, salary is discussed only after a decision to hire has been made.
In the past, Microsoft was known to create millionaires out of even lowly secretaries. At that time, all kinds of people wanted to get to MS in order to cash in after a few years. Now, MS doesn't have that cachet. They still get tons of resumes, but they're not the same as they used to be.
Despite all attempts at corporations to hide what they pay employees, people actually do talk about the wages they earn. Interview candidates do have an idea whether one company pays well and whether another company is cheap.
Of course, that's fine as far as I'm concerned: for a company like Microsoft to derive a large chunk of its revenue overseas but create skilled jobs primarily in the US is unfair.
The US just set a record trade deficit last month. It is perfectly fair for Microsoft to take in overseas revenue without creating overseas jobs. I only wish they would do it more and not less. Then, maybe we'd see some actual balance in trade.
Me: It is more likely that they are only saying that they can't find qualified workers in order to justify importing more cheap labor from overseas.
You: Well, you can believe whatever hare-brained conspiracy theory you like, but the fact is that if they don't import the labor, they're just going to move large parts of their operations overseas altogether.
Let's see... there is no dearth of American applicants, but MS says there are. There is no dearth of computer science students graduating, but MS says there are. We know that H1-B workers work for significantly less than American workers with the exact same skill set, although MS says otherwise. And we know that MS has every incentive to make more money.
But of course Microsoft would not lie to politicians or the general public in order to swing opinion to their side in order to make more money. Oh no, of course not! Corporations never lie...
Either you are naive, an idiot, or just plain stupid.
If you'd actually had to deal with unions, you wouldn't be so gung-ho about it. You also wouldn't be living in the fantasy world where all the things you say would come to pass under a union.
From my experience with unions, the good far outweighs the bad. High salaries are a good thing for employees. My uncle, who never went to college, has always made more than my mom, who has a master's degree in nursing. Why? He's always worked a blue-collar union job while she worked white-collar non-union jobs.
Further, the average Boeing machinist makes $62,500, excluding overtime and shift premiums and all the other benefits they receive. These are jobs that don't require a college degree. Why do they get so much? The union. The average salary for computer science jobs: $60,000.
Unions only work 40 hour weeks. Software engineers?... Maybe 60 hours a week?
And when was the last time a union worker trained his Indian replacement? Damn, I've never even heard of that...
When unions were first started in this country, they served a useful purpose. That has long since passed.
Riiiight... Like companies aren't taking advantage of their workers any more. Granted, it is not as bad as it was back then, but the average worker is still getting raped by corporations.
If you're not getting raises and bonuses, then you're in the wrong job...or you're not doing yours as well as others are.
That's not the problem. The problem is that all our raises and bonuses aren't even keeping up with inflation. After being adjusted for inflation, wages are lower than they were 30-40 years ago. The peak was actually in 1968. What happened? Nixon opened up China and all our manufacturing started moving there, diminishing the power of unions to keep salaries up. Then, Reagan came in and further weakened unions and the American economy overall. Then, Bush Jr came in and further raped the economy and workers. Now, you have to have two salaries coming in where one salary was sufficient before.
Economies of scale also apply to unions. In short, the larger a union gets, the more efficient they can become. Note, that doesn't necessarily that they will become more efficient, but that they can become more efficient with decent management.
Further, a large union holds more power over companies, which is the ultimate purpose of the union.
The hugeness of many unions seems to be more for purposes of power outside the workplace than to directly help the members.
The power outside the workplace is generally used to benefit the members. The members may disagree with the politics used, but that is their own opinion. And, in a Democracy it is the member's overall opinions that matter. If the union members don't like the views of the union, then they can change those views.
Yes, unions generally support Democrats as opposed to Republicans. However, Democrats stand up for the working men and women of the unions more than Republicans, who mostly stand up more for large corporations. The recent Dubai ports deal is a prime example of this. Here you have a Republican president that did everything in his power to push through a sweatheart deal for a large foreign business. The loudest voices against this deal were the Democrats. Sure, some Republicans in Congress were against the deal too, but only because they were getting hammered on national security.
Hiring someone to take care of clerical and legal work is different than paying someone to tell the union members what to think and do.
Telling people the union position is not the same as telling them what to think or do. The union itself is a democracy, so the union members themselves elect their representatives. In effect, you have the majority in the union represented in the union position.
Union governance would be less corrupt (IMO) if it were more shared (less work for a single person), anyway.
That sounds like a problem with one specific implementation of a union rather than a indictment of all unions.
I suggested that I assume that the're corrupt when people claiming to represent the union aren't actually part of the group that they claim to represent.
So, how does that help Microsoft's skilled labor shortage? If they are already getting tons of resumes and they can't hire the people they need, how is getting more of the same kinds of applicants going to help them?
Paying higher salaries helps attract all workers, including the best available candidates.
Further, I don't believe for one second that MS can't find skilled and qualified workers with all those tons of resumes they get. It is more likely that they are only saying that they can't find qualified workers in order to justify importing more cheap labor from overseas.
I'm sorry for you that money is a predominant consideration in your choice of jobs.
Lol... It's not just me. Money is a predominant consideration for most people.
The big problem with unionizing is that what happened to the other industries will happen to high tech....
Oh? Salaries will go up and stay up. People will only have to put in 40 hour weeks. You'll actually have a little job security. You'll have help preventing your company from offshoring your job to India. You won't have to train your Indian replacement to qualify for unemployment. And, you might actually be valuable past the age of 50.
Sounds damn good to me! Where do I sign up?
I'm not talking about layoffs, strikes, or anything like that. I'm talking about people that don't do their job.
There's plenty of people like that now without unions. Companies don't fire those people for fear of lawsuits. The only way to get rid of them is through mass-layoffs, which unions also have to endure. I don't see how adding a union would these people any worse.
Another thing is that while you would probably get a raise every year, there's much much less of a chance that working really hard on a great new idea for the company will land you that promotion, big raise and big bonus. Nope... You get the same as everyone else in your grade scale. It's like the old Dilbert comic "I get paid the same, no matter what I do".
Last time I checked, Dilbert didn't work in a union shop. People get paid the same regardless, whether they work in a union or not. That big raise and big promotion? Ha, riiiiight... Won't happen with or without the union.
Paying higher salaries doesn't make skilled workers appear magically Microsoft probably pretty much has scooped up all the skiled technical workers they are ever going to get; few other people are going to be willing to work for them even if they paid twice as much as they do now.
Regardless of the seemingly predominant hatred of Microsoft on Slashdot, there are plenty of people who hold no ill will towards the company. MS gets a ton of resumes on a regular basis. If MS doubled their salaries, you would see a great deal more people rushing to try to work there.
I know in my career, I have always chosen job offers with substantially lower salaries than the highest available offer, and I'm quite typical that way.
Sorry, I don't see it. "Please, please, give me less money!" No...
Furthermore, even if hiring IT workers were like buying widgets, there is a salary beyond which the cost/benefit calculations for hiring another IT worker just don't work out. At that point, the salaries stop rising and you have an IT labor shortage.
You obviously don't know how completely and overwhelmingly profitable Windows is. During a MS pep rally, one of the VPs mentioned that if they broke out the profit on Windows per worker, that each employee made the company over a million dollars. (Of course, the employees looked at each other and wondered where their bonus was!)
Microsoft could more than double or triple it's salaries and still be profitable.
Let's see... the average salary in India is $3,400. In the US, it's $41,800. So, the Microsoft worker in India making $15,000 makes 341% more than the average Indian. The Microsoft worker in Seattle making $75,000 makes 79% more than the average American.
Oh, and rents around Seattle are also quite a bit higher than the rest of the country.
Show me a union where the leaders of the union are actually currently working in the jobs that they claim to represent, make within a standard deviation of the mean income of the union members, and recieve no compensation for leading the union... Unions don't stay that way because they are so easily corruptible, and so useful to organized crime, politics, etc.
Unions don't stay that way because if they get too big, then it becomes a full time job just to manage the union. At that point, the president of the union can't function properly working his regular job and would then earn nothing. So, it's in the best interest of the union to step in, pay him a salary, and let him continue his work of managing the day-to-day interests of the union. You may disagree about the amount of his salary, but it's just plain stupid to bitch about the fact that he gets a salary at all.
As for unions being corruptable, sure it's possible and it has happened. But, these democracies are likely to be more corruptable simply because they're unions? That's an unproven assertion if I've ever heard one. Come on, get real, and quit listening to conservative talk radio - that has been proven to corrupt minds.
The *result* of this differential is that countries can mutually benefit by shifting local production from one good to another, i.e. specializing in production of certain goods, and using trade to exchange the goods of specialization for even MORE of the goods that were specialized *away from*.
Tell me how the US can benefit when a countries like China and India produce just about everything cheaper than the US? What goods or services do we trade with China or India? Music? Hahaha... the Chinese copy our IP goods. Food? Hahaha... food production is highly subsidized in the US, they'd only take us to the WTO to get those subsidies removed. Then food production would no longer be profitable. So then, what else? Everything we make or do can be made or done cheaper in China or India. That's where the theories break down, even though you insist that's impossible.
...and you have not shown any sign of understanding this basic concept.
I understand the concepts perfectly well. I have a BBA in business management from Texas State University. Further, I have run my own business, so I have lived these economic rules myself.
Now, you may think that attacking me personally will somehow win your argument. You are wrong. I suggest you look up the term ad hominem, for obviously you are not trained in logical debate.
From your story, it appears to me that you could explain these effects from regular players just as well as gold farmers. In fact, unless you absolutely know for certain that these players are gold farmers, then they probably are regular players.
Me: "Given the thousands of players on each server, a few gold farmers are not likely to affect the economy on a long-term basis."
You: The number involved isn't as important as the number of man-hours they put into it. Man-hours is the only limiting factor on the amount of gold in ciruclation.
No, the number of gold farmers involved is a critical factor. 1 or 2 gold farmers per 1000 regular population aren't going to have that big of an affect on the economy, even if they can play 24 hours a day.
I sincerely doubt the ratio of gold farmers rises above 1:1000. But even at 1:100, their affect isn't that large.
Me: However, can the US produce goods and services cheaper than the rest of the world,... NO.
You: The same red herring, over and over again. This is NOT the criterion for international trade to be beneficial.
With everyone else cheaper than us, selling the same goods and services as us, then there is no reason for them to buy from us. And, in fact, we have been running a trade deficit with the rest of the world for 30 years! Frankly, that is not beneficial at all to the United States.
And why is it favorable to give your neighbor money in exchange for his goods? Because he is specialized in something different than you are. If he's a baker and you are a dairy farmer, you trade some of your butter for some of his bread, and you both can make buttered toast. IT IS THE SAME SITUATION, and you missed it, because you don't understand the basic principles of economics.
No, the specialization of trade is distinctly different than comparative advantage. Considering that you are the one confusing the two, it seems like you lack the understanding of basic economics.
My neighbor lives under the same laws, rules, and society that I live under. Competing with him or trading with him is done on a level playing field. Competing with someone from another country changes that. If their rules, laws, and society make it so that they can completely undercut me in a transaction, then it is in my best interest to not deal with them. Likewise, if someone in another country can undercut my neighbor, then it is still in my best interst to not deal with them since I have to live with and support my neighbor. It is better for me to only deal with people that trade on or near the same level playing field that I deal on and to encourage all others to join me.
If "Apu" makes things in a more efficent (and thus more likely cheaper) way, then keeping Jue Consumer on his now inneficient job is hurting all the other Joes and Janes that are forced to pay inflated prices in order to keep Joe Consumer on his job.
No, removing Joe's job and making him go on unemployment makes all the rest of us pay for Joe's welfare. It also removes the taxes Joe paid into federal, state, and local governments, further weakening us all.
Further, you assume that businesses would decrease the prices they charge customers should Joe's job be outsourced. From what I've seen, businesses generally pocket the money they save rather than give it back to the customer in the form of lower prices.
By hiring "Apu" via outsourcing you are liberating the salary of Joe Consumer in the US economy in order to be allocated in a more productive fashion and also Apu becomes a potential costumer.
No, that money sent to Apu is mostly used in the Indian economy. That is a drain to the US economy, which again further weakens it. From his lower salary, Apu is unable to contribute as much to the US economy as Joe previously did.
It is also questionable whether Apu is more productive than Joe considering that outsourcing has been documented as not saving most companies any money.
Money is allocated in a more efficient manner in the US economy to the bussinesses where is more profitable to invest.
Your statement is part of the equation. Money is also allocated to the businesses where it is more fashionable to invest. At this current moment, it is fashionable to outsource offshore... Fashions change.
Slashdot Mirror
GP: They have dozens of programs designed to helping out disadvantaged children and poor performing students, while the gifted students are left to their own devices.
You: freakin' a! You know what? They also have a metric butt ton of hospitals while the healthy people are left to their own devices, too.
The difference between a university and a hospital is that a hospital is designed to make sick people healthy. The purpose of a university is to make smart people educated, not to make slow people smart.
In my experience the "most gifted" among us often turn out to also be the "most lazy". Determination and working hard, these are the true keys to success, even if you're not "born with it".
Well, in my experience the gifted students are allowed to be lazy because they are never challenged by the assignments designed for slow or unmotivated students. Gifted students can do the same amount of work as a slow student in half the time. Their teachers and professors give them no motivation to do more than the bare minimum since those teachers and professors are making sure that everyone gets at least the basics. We may argue over the appropriateness of that policy for high school, but that is certainly not appropriate at the university level.
Hard work will only get you so far. After that, you need inspiration, which the gifted students have. It may be cliche, but it is still true: work smarter, not harder. We should be pushing and challenging the gifted students to be the smartest they can be.
You want me to feel sorry for you because something has come easily to you while others struggle? If these little Eisteins are so damn "gifted" I'm sure they'll have no problem finding something useful to do with their extra time.
Two words: reading comprehension. No one is asking anyone to feel sorry for anyone else. The GP poster was merely stating an observable fact: schools do not cater to the gifted or even average students, to our detriment as a society.
The GP poster was saying the problem with our high schools and universities was that too much attention is given to the people who are doing poorly instead of advancing the skills of the gifted students. While these "Eisteins" could find something to do in their own time, their teachers and professors should be doing their job to guide them to further their education. However, those teachers and professors are instead wasting their time on the few students who don't get it, are too slow, or who are unmotivated.
Currently there are only a few solutions to this problem. One is to limit class size so that classes are less likely to have slow or unmotivated students. Another is to separate students according to ability so that all the slow or unmotivated students are in a single class. Another is to only admit the students with the highest grades and SAT scores, so that slow or unmotivated students are not admitted at all.
Attacking our best and brightest is not the appropriate solution. Our best and brightest make society as good as it is today. Without them, our society would be far, far worse. We should be doing everything we can to push our best and brightest to do better. And we should not be limiting their education to the lowest common denominator of the slow and unmotivated students.
Ahh yes, finally... the whiny bitch complaint.
Why don't YOU stop being a whiny bitch about HIM being a whiny bitch?!
Hmmm... Oh wait. Maybe I should stop being a whiny bitch about YOU being a whiny bitch about HIM being a whiny bitch?!... Damn, the bitching never ends!
We've discovered the key to perpetual bitching!... The whiny bitch complaint!
That's your problem, you're using last year's data. Here's this year's:
n g_salaries/index.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/pf/college/starti
This data has CS starting salaries down by 2%.
Humm.... from here, it doesn't look like companies are really so desperate to get more cheap H1-B labor as you say....
Riiiight.... that's why all the H1-B visas for the year are gone within hours of release. That's why all the corporations are screaming to Congress to increase the number of H1-B visas. That's why Bill Gates recently said Microsoft's number one goal is to increase the number of H1-B visas.
Can you detect my sarcasm from there?
With CS enrollments down, we should be seeing an increase in wages for CS graduates. However, we're not - wages are going down. That means even though the supply of CS grads have gone down, the demand for CS grads have decreased even further.
All these media reports saying we need more CS grads are pure bunk. So, that leaves us with a question: why are they putting out these reports? The short answer is that this is what companies are telling them. The long answer is that companies are telling the media this so that these same companies can then go to Congress and push for more cheap H1-B labor to drive wages down even further.
Everything is positive ... if you start from a sufficiently negative point of view.
Exactly. Last year companies like IBM and HP were laying off tens of thousands of employees at a time.
Last Friday, the big news was that college graduates were getting offered more money, except CS grads who were offered 0.8% less than last year's CS grads. If wages are going down, then the demand for labor is going down. For all of you without business degrees, that means there are MORE CS grads than there are jobs.
All this media hype over "highly demanded" IT workers is a bunch of bunk. It's all about making the excuse for more cheap H1-B labor.
Hey buddy, it may be obvious to YOU, but it certainly wasn't obvious to the interviewer nor the subject of this article. It's probably not obvious to most people reading the article either.
The statistics that didn't make sense to me was when she said enrollment was down 32% for the last 4 years. This was surprising given the fact that wages for American computer science graduates have also gone down for the last 4 years as well. That means that even with less supply of CS grads, the demand has gone down further. If there really was huge demand for these graduates, then we would be seeing increasing wages as supply decreased.
The idea of over-dressing for work, and generally all occasions, is definitely an east-coast attitude. The west coast is well known for dressing down. That's why IBM in New York is famous for the blue suit while Microsoft in Washington state is known for jeans and t-shirts. These attitudes extend beyond business too. I had to argue with my wife, who is from Connecticut, that coming to a birthday party in Seattle in jeans was perfectly acceptable. She just couldn't imagine coming in anything less than a dress.
The best way to dress is in the manner of employees already at the company. Put on that suit when you visit IBM. But, you better leave that 3-piece suit at home to be taken seriously at Microsoft.
thats just because you are not very smart with your money. it says nothing about a trend.
Why? Because I don't have the time nor the inclination to pirate games? Either way, that should make game companies target their wares more at me than someone like you.
A real job TOTALLY takes away from game time.
Yes, but you miss half the point. Companies make these games to make money selling them. You do have to admit that working adults have more money than poor college or high school students. Further, college and high school students also have the time to pirate games. So, the adult gamers should be the target audience, however most games seem created for the 12-13 year olds.
The working adults may not have as much time to play, but they certainly have the money to spend on the games. I myself bought quite a few games recently, WoW, Civ 4, and GalCiv 4. WoW has sucked all my time down, so I haven't even tried the other two games. That didn't stop me from laying the money down though. And if any other games come along that I'm interested in, I'll lay the money down for those as well.
"macroscopic life" is only a hair's breadth on the cosmic scale from effectively enslaving microscopic life
Why? Because we use them to make our pharmaceuticals, convert biomass to fuel, etc, etc? Considering we're supplying the microbes with food and energy, it sounds more like we are serving them! We just find something useful to do with their waste...
Well, you may not believe it, but it's nevertheless true.
It's true simply because you say it is? I don't think so. I actually worked at Microsoft and I do know better from my own experience and from talking with other employees at Microsoft.
My company is inviting less than 1% of the applicants we get for interviews, and even most of those aren't any good.
Sounds like you are just too damn picky. You just want 100% perfect applicants, which of course are extremely rare. The only reason you can get away with this is because there are tons of people looking for jobs. You could easily find someone intelligent with a decent background and train them in a matter of weeks to do the job. But, since you can have the pick of the litter, you don't want to do this.
If the job market were actually tight, then you wouldn't be so damn picky and we would actually be seeing salaries rise.
Salaries don't even enter into the application process anyway--at good places, salary is discussed only after a decision to hire has been made.
In the past, Microsoft was known to create millionaires out of even lowly secretaries. At that time, all kinds of people wanted to get to MS in order to cash in after a few years. Now, MS doesn't have that cachet. They still get tons of resumes, but they're not the same as they used to be.
Despite all attempts at corporations to hide what they pay employees, people actually do talk about the wages they earn. Interview candidates do have an idea whether one company pays well and whether another company is cheap.
Of course, that's fine as far as I'm concerned: for a company like Microsoft to derive a large chunk of its revenue overseas but create skilled jobs primarily in the US is unfair.
The US just set a record trade deficit last month. It is perfectly fair for Microsoft to take in overseas revenue without creating overseas jobs. I only wish they would do it more and not less. Then, maybe we'd see some actual balance in trade.
Me: It is more likely that they are only saying that they can't find qualified workers in order to justify importing more cheap labor from overseas.
You: Well, you can believe whatever hare-brained conspiracy theory you like, but the fact is that if they don't import the labor, they're just going to move large parts of their operations overseas altogether.
Let's see... there is no dearth of American applicants, but MS says there are. There is no dearth of computer science students graduating, but MS says there are. We know that H1-B workers work for significantly less than American workers with the exact same skill set, although MS says otherwise. And we know that MS has every incentive to make more money.
But of course Microsoft would not lie to politicians or the general public in order to swing opinion to their side in order to make more money. Oh no, of course not! Corporations never lie...
Either you are naive, an idiot, or just plain stupid.
If you'd actually had to deal with unions, you wouldn't be so gung-ho about it. You also wouldn't be living in the fantasy world where all the things you say would come to pass under a union.
From my experience with unions, the good far outweighs the bad. High salaries are a good thing for employees. My uncle, who never went to college, has always made more than my mom, who has a master's degree in nursing. Why? He's always worked a blue-collar union job while she worked white-collar non-union jobs.
Further, the average Boeing machinist makes $62,500, excluding overtime and shift premiums and all the other benefits they receive. These are jobs that don't require a college degree. Why do they get so much? The union. The average salary for computer science jobs: $60,000.
Unions only work 40 hour weeks. Software engineers?... Maybe 60 hours a week?
And when was the last time a union worker trained his Indian replacement? Damn, I've never even heard of that...
When unions were first started in this country, they served a useful purpose. That has long since passed.
Riiiight... Like companies aren't taking advantage of their workers any more. Granted, it is not as bad as it was back then, but the average worker is still getting raped by corporations.
If you're not getting raises and bonuses, then you're in the wrong job...or you're not doing yours as well as others are.
That's not the problem. The problem is that all our raises and bonuses aren't even keeping up with inflation. After being adjusted for inflation, wages are lower than they were 30-40 years ago. The peak was actually in 1968. What happened? Nixon opened up China and all our manufacturing started moving there, diminishing the power of unions to keep salaries up. Then, Reagan came in and further weakened unions and the American economy overall. Then, Bush Jr came in and further raped the economy and workers. Now, you have to have two salaries coming in where one salary was sufficient before.
Unions don't need to be big.
Economies of scale also apply to unions. In short, the larger a union gets, the more efficient they can become. Note, that doesn't necessarily that they will become more efficient, but that they can become more efficient with decent management.
Further, a large union holds more power over companies, which is the ultimate purpose of the union.
The hugeness of many unions seems to be more for purposes of power outside the workplace than to directly help the members.
The power outside the workplace is generally used to benefit the members. The members may disagree with the politics used, but that is their own opinion. And, in a Democracy it is the member's overall opinions that matter. If the union members don't like the views of the union, then they can change those views.
Yes, unions generally support Democrats as opposed to Republicans. However, Democrats stand up for the working men and women of the unions more than Republicans, who mostly stand up more for large corporations. The recent Dubai ports deal is a prime example of this. Here you have a Republican president that did everything in his power to push through a sweatheart deal for a large foreign business. The loudest voices against this deal were the Democrats. Sure, some Republicans in Congress were against the deal too, but only because they were getting hammered on national security.
Hiring someone to take care of clerical and legal work is different than paying someone to tell the union members what to think and do.
Telling people the union position is not the same as telling them what to think or do. The union itself is a democracy, so the union members themselves elect their representatives. In effect, you have the majority in the union represented in the union position.
Union governance would be less corrupt (IMO) if it were more shared (less work for a single person), anyway.
That sounds like a problem with one specific implementation of a union rather than a indictment of all unions.
I suggested that I assume that the're corrupt when people claiming to represent the union aren't actually part of the group that they claim to represent.
I don't see how that makes someone corrupt.
So, how does that help Microsoft's skilled labor shortage? If they are already getting tons of resumes and they can't hire the people they need, how is getting more of the same kinds of applicants going to help them?
Paying higher salaries helps attract all workers, including the best available candidates.
Further, I don't believe for one second that MS can't find skilled and qualified workers with all those tons of resumes they get. It is more likely that they are only saying that they can't find qualified workers in order to justify importing more cheap labor from overseas.
I'm sorry for you that money is a predominant consideration in your choice of jobs.
Lol... It's not just me. Money is a predominant consideration for most people.
The big problem with unionizing is that what happened to the other industries will happen to high tech....
Oh? Salaries will go up and stay up. People will only have to put in 40 hour weeks. You'll actually have a little job security. You'll have help preventing your company from offshoring your job to India. You won't have to train your Indian replacement to qualify for unemployment. And, you might actually be valuable past the age of 50.
Sounds damn good to me! Where do I sign up?
I'm not talking about layoffs, strikes, or anything like that. I'm talking about people that don't do their job.
There's plenty of people like that now without unions. Companies don't fire those people for fear of lawsuits. The only way to get rid of them is through mass-layoffs, which unions also have to endure. I don't see how adding a union would these people any worse.
Another thing is that while you would probably get a raise every year, there's much much less of a chance that working really hard on a great new idea for the company will land you that promotion, big raise and big bonus. Nope... You get the same as everyone else in your grade scale. It's like the old Dilbert comic "I get paid the same, no matter what I do".
Last time I checked, Dilbert didn't work in a union shop. People get paid the same regardless, whether they work in a union or not. That big raise and big promotion? Ha, riiiiight... Won't happen with or without the union.
Paying higher salaries doesn't make skilled workers appear magically Microsoft probably pretty much has scooped up all the skiled technical workers they are ever going to get; few other people are going to be willing to work for them even if they paid twice as much as they do now.
Regardless of the seemingly predominant hatred of Microsoft on Slashdot, there are plenty of people who hold no ill will towards the company. MS gets a ton of resumes on a regular basis. If MS doubled their salaries, you would see a great deal more people rushing to try to work there.
I know in my career, I have always chosen job offers with substantially lower salaries than the highest available offer, and I'm quite typical that way.
Sorry, I don't see it. "Please, please, give me less money!" No...
Furthermore, even if hiring IT workers were like buying widgets, there is a salary beyond which the cost/benefit calculations for hiring another IT worker just don't work out. At that point, the salaries stop rising and you have an IT labor shortage.
You obviously don't know how completely and overwhelmingly profitable Windows is. During a MS pep rally, one of the VPs mentioned that if they broke out the profit on Windows per worker, that each employee made the company over a million dollars. (Of course, the employees looked at each other and wondered where their bonus was!)
Microsoft could more than double or triple it's salaries and still be profitable.
Let's see... the average salary in India is $3,400. In the US, it's $41,800. So, the Microsoft worker in India making $15,000 makes 341% more than the average Indian. The Microsoft worker in Seattle making $75,000 makes 79% more than the average American.
Oh, and rents around Seattle are also quite a bit higher than the rest of the country.
Show me a union where the leaders of the union are actually currently working in the jobs that they claim to represent, make within a standard deviation of the mean income of the union members, and recieve no compensation for leading the union... Unions don't stay that way because they are so easily corruptible, and so useful to organized crime, politics, etc.
Unions don't stay that way because if they get too big, then it becomes a full time job just to manage the union. At that point, the president of the union can't function properly working his regular job and would then earn nothing. So, it's in the best interest of the union to step in, pay him a salary, and let him continue his work of managing the day-to-day interests of the union. You may disagree about the amount of his salary, but it's just plain stupid to bitch about the fact that he gets a salary at all.
As for unions being corruptable, sure it's possible and it has happened. But, these democracies are likely to be more corruptable simply because they're unions? That's an unproven assertion if I've ever heard one. Come on, get real, and quit listening to conservative talk radio - that has been proven to corrupt minds.
The *result* of this differential is that countries can mutually benefit by shifting local production from one good to another, i.e. specializing in production of certain goods, and using trade to exchange the goods of specialization for even MORE of the goods that were specialized *away from*.
...and you have not shown any sign of understanding this basic concept.
Tell me how the US can benefit when a countries like China and India produce just about everything cheaper than the US? What goods or services do we trade with China or India? Music? Hahaha... the Chinese copy our IP goods. Food? Hahaha... food production is highly subsidized in the US, they'd only take us to the WTO to get those subsidies removed. Then food production would no longer be profitable. So then, what else? Everything we make or do can be made or done cheaper in China or India. That's where the theories break down, even though you insist that's impossible.
I understand the concepts perfectly well. I have a BBA in business management from Texas State University. Further, I have run my own business, so I have lived these economic rules myself.
Now, you may think that attacking me personally will somehow win your argument. You are wrong. I suggest you look up the term ad hominem, for obviously you are not trained in logical debate.
Screaming the equivalent of "shut up" at me does not prove me wrong. Doing that only makes you look like an ignoramus.
From your story, it appears to me that you could explain these effects from regular players just as well as gold farmers. In fact, unless you absolutely know for certain that these players are gold farmers, then they probably are regular players.
Me: "Given the thousands of players on each server, a few gold farmers are not likely to affect the economy on a long-term basis."
You: The number involved isn't as important as the number of man-hours they put into it. Man-hours is the only limiting factor on the amount of gold in ciruclation.
No, the number of gold farmers involved is a critical factor. 1 or 2 gold farmers per 1000 regular population aren't going to have that big of an affect on the economy, even if they can play 24 hours a day.
I sincerely doubt the ratio of gold farmers rises above 1:1000. But even at 1:100, their affect isn't that large.
Me: However, can the US produce goods and services cheaper than the rest of the world,... NO. You: The same red herring, over and over again. This is NOT the criterion for international trade to be beneficial.
With everyone else cheaper than us, selling the same goods and services as us, then there is no reason for them to buy from us. And, in fact, we have been running a trade deficit with the rest of the world for 30 years! Frankly, that is not beneficial at all to the United States.
And why is it favorable to give your neighbor money in exchange for his goods? Because he is specialized in something different than you are. If he's a baker and you are a dairy farmer, you trade some of your butter for some of his bread, and you both can make buttered toast. IT IS THE SAME SITUATION, and you missed it, because you don't understand the basic principles of economics.
No, the specialization of trade is distinctly different than comparative advantage. Considering that you are the one confusing the two, it seems like you lack the understanding of basic economics.
My neighbor lives under the same laws, rules, and society that I live under. Competing with him or trading with him is done on a level playing field. Competing with someone from another country changes that. If their rules, laws, and society make it so that they can completely undercut me in a transaction, then it is in my best interest to not deal with them. Likewise, if someone in another country can undercut my neighbor, then it is still in my best interst to not deal with them since I have to live with and support my neighbor. It is better for me to only deal with people that trade on or near the same level playing field that I deal on and to encourage all others to join me.
If "Apu" makes things in a more efficent (and thus more likely cheaper) way, then keeping Jue Consumer on his now inneficient job is hurting all the other Joes and Janes that are forced to pay inflated prices in order to keep Joe Consumer on his job.
No, removing Joe's job and making him go on unemployment makes all the rest of us pay for Joe's welfare. It also removes the taxes Joe paid into federal, state, and local governments, further weakening us all.
Further, you assume that businesses would decrease the prices they charge customers should Joe's job be outsourced. From what I've seen, businesses generally pocket the money they save rather than give it back to the customer in the form of lower prices.
By hiring "Apu" via outsourcing you are liberating the salary of Joe Consumer in the US economy in order to be allocated in a more productive fashion and also Apu becomes a potential costumer.
No, that money sent to Apu is mostly used in the Indian economy. That is a drain to the US economy, which again further weakens it. From his lower salary, Apu is unable to contribute as much to the US economy as Joe previously did.
It is also questionable whether Apu is more productive than Joe considering that outsourcing has been documented as not saving most companies any money.
Money is allocated in a more efficient manner in the US economy to the bussinesses where is more profitable to invest.
Your statement is part of the equation. Money is also allocated to the businesses where it is more fashionable to invest. At this current moment, it is fashionable to outsource offshore... Fashions change.