The major attraction of moving to India in the first place is that they speak English. Granted, it's hard to understand English, but it's still English.
Other countries that charge less for IT services can't make these English claims and would be that much harder for companies to offshore to. For example, programmers in Vietnam charge half of the India rate, but don't have the same English skills as India.
With the supply for workers holding these skills staying the same while the demand increases, that means Indian wages will shoot up. Considering that companies only save about 10-20% by going to India, you can bet offshoring to India will cool off. That's great news for US workers.
Computer age or not, you're dealing with human processes, which can never be absolutely perfect. Even if the vote was 99.9% accurate, that still leaves 2,900 votes that may be wrongly counted.
Usually, this is no big deal since most of the time elections involve a blowout that does not end so close. This only became a problem because we're in that 0.1% margin of error.
What they should have done is follow the Constitution, which means turning to the Legislature. Bringing up a challenge in court is completely unconstitutional. I would have loved to see this go to the state Supreme Court, because I bet that's exactly what they'd say. As it stands, Rossi left the door open to another court challenge in the future since nothing was really decided here.
You forget that the average person doesn't install Windows. It just magically comes with the computer.
The average person wants to use their PC for running what PCs run, which include games. Tell an average person that Linux can't do something they want to do that Windows CAN do, and they'll choose Windows EVERY time. Being able to run games is a core function in many people's minds. My mom, for example, runs Solitaire and Oregon Trail 1. Tell her she couldn't run Oregon Trail 1 on Linux and she would never switch from Windows.
And yes, the fact that Windows has more users than Linux DOES make it easier. When grandma has a question about Windows, she can ask the 12 year old neighbor boy. If grandma had a question about Linux, the 12 year old neighbor boy would go "WTF is this?" Then grandma would be SOL until I take the time to go to grandma's.
At 13,000 people, they are bringing out the chainsaw, not the pruning shears.
Considering the majority of these 13,000 people are in Europe, I'm assuming IBM is getting rid of them because of their expense. The Euro has gone through the roof compared to the dollar, so even hiring Americans have become cheap in comparison. But, they'll probably replace these people by hiring in India.
When interest rates get high enough, the real estate market will dry up. Then, you'll be competing will all the other people that rushed to get real estate licenses.
Stick with CS. Remember that there is always a certain amount of work that will never be outsourced. There is always a need for developers, systems analysts, and program managers who know the local market.
Companies are learning the hard way that outsourcing is not all its cracked up to be. Once that idea gets drilled in their heads, the demand for CS folks will pick back up dramatically.
I sincerely doubt there is a lack of qualified candidates considering that IBM itself is currently going through a downsizing that will eliminate 13,000 positions.
This is more posturing for the sake of the politicians. If the industry complains enough, then the newspapers will pick up that complaining, and give the politicians an easy excuse to increase H1-B's in the future.
If there really were a shortage of IT workers, companies would not be downsizing, but rather hiring. They'd be going after everyone with even dubious credentials. Wages would not be stagnant or declining, but instead going through the roof. Considering that NONE of this is happening, I sincerely doubt that there is a shortage of workers. In fact, all this points to an oversupply of workers.
I have no problem with letting information flow. However, we should not be in the business of training the nuclear engineers of China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. There are serious concerns with all of these 12 countries regarding this sensitive information. Several are openly hostile to the US. Several are severely unstable. And several others already use nuclear weapons to threaten their neighbors.
I do not see this as intellectual isolationism. First, anyone from outside these 12 nations can still come here and study whatever they want. Second, anyone from inside these 12 nations cans still come here and study anything outside these sensitive topics. Third, if the people from these 12 nations want to study these sensitive topics, they can after applying for permission.
You may call my views paranoia. However, it is not a delusion that a Chinese MIT graduate founded China's nuclear program.
No, you're not listening. We don't have enough firepower to cover any more than a fraction of the surface area. There's nowhere near enough weapons to wipe out all life on Earth.
I heard you and you are WRONG. Not to be rude or anything, but I suggest you take a modern history class.
You complained that the Russian equipment always outnumbered ours. That's not as true as it was made out to be, and there equipment ended up being non-comparable to our own.
We always knew our equipment was better. That was no surprise. What did come as a surprise was that they didn't have as much of their less advanced as we thought they did. Even so, they still had to spend gobs of money to attempt to keep up with us. That still doesn't change my basic premise.
Uneducated is not the same as no higher education.
It depends on whether you think a high school diploma makes you educated or not. Given the value of a high school education these days, one could argue either way.
Experience is not the same as education. That is why people separate the two.
They would, if it weren't for one minor issue: Where do they get the Plutonium from? The method for generating sufficient plutonium is a nuclear reactor. In case you haven't noticed, nuclear reactors are carefully controlled by the UN. All nuclear materials must be accounted for or there will be hell to pay.
Iran has had the materials to build a nuclear weapon for some time. Tell me, why haven't they.
A spy is just as much of weapon as a nuclear bomb.
No, a spy is not capable of killing everyone within a 50 mile radius and making the land uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
Even so, the knowledge of French gives you no specific ability to spy. My 50 year old aunt knows French. She has no more ability to spy than I have without knowing French. In fact, I would say I would make the better spy.
However, my father-in-law who happens to be a nuclear engineer certainly would have some knowledge that could be used to make a weapon.
Me: I don't particularly care about saving lives in China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. However, I do care if they incease their ability to make nuclear weapons.
You: Aren't you selfish?
No, my reasoning is NOT selfish. THEY do not need to know ANY knowledge that COULD be used to create these weapons. These countries could EASILY use the knowledge gained from our educational programs to create weapons for use against ALL OTHER COUNTRIES.
In fact, it has been PROVEN that this HAS occurred in the past. China is the prime example.
It requires a significant industrial infrastructure to process Uranium and Plutonium.
Then I guess you couldn't create a bomb all by yourself.
Note that pretty much every country that gains a sufficient industrial base has nuclear weapons. India is a perfect example of a country that recently gained such a base. Nuclear weapons followed not long after that, despite efforts to keep them from obtaining such weapons.
No, you need to take lessons in nuclear science. We have enough weapons to "blast ourselves back to the stoneage", but not enough to wipe out the earth (or even the surface). Not even sufficient antimatter for a trip to alpha-centauri could do it. We've maanged to shrink the world to a small place, but at the end of the day the Earth *is* still pretty damn big.
So, you're nitpicking over semantics. No, we didn't have enough firepower to destroy the world a la Star Wars. However, the term "destroy the world" as I and most other people were using it referred to destroying all life on the world. THAT we were able to do with enough coverage to engulf the world multiple times over.
Doesn't change the fact that the Russian threat was always overstated. We just didn't know it until the Cold War was over.
Yes, and they still spent to keep up with us. So what? It still doesn't change the fact that they overspent because we overspent.
My point is that no one *needs* to have their mind trained if they're willing to do it themselves. Even if you are relying on someone else, there's nothing in our schools that's particularly special other than the knowledge available. And since the knowledge can be obtained from other sources, they don't actually need our schools, do they?
Yes, and therefore it's perfectly acceptable that we should just help them along in building those nuclear weapons? I don't think so.
If they don't need our schools, then we don't need to worry about this topic at all. They don't need to come here either way.
I lack a college degree but I could probably build you an implosion nuke if I had the proper equipment.
I've had talks with a technician that serviced nuclear weapons. You need to build a device with a shaped charge that will detonate in a precise sequence while still maintaining the integrity of the device. No such device is so easy to make that an uneducated person could do so with "the proper equipment". Were your statement true, then every country in the world would have plutonium nukes.
You've just described two core elements of a spy.
I was hoping you'd fall into that trap. We are talking about weapons. These weapons are physical devices one could touch or hold. Learning French does not enable you to make a weapon. And yes, you could steal a weapon, but knowing French does not specifically give you the ability to steal. However, knowing nuclear engineering certainly does give you the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon.
And I can tell you how nuclear engineering can be used to save lives. Including the destructive power of a hydrogen bomb.
I don't particularly care about saving lives in China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. However, I do care if they incease their ability to make nuclear weapons.
No, we don't. Nuclear engineering would be a wise thing to screen, but it's impossible to keep the information from people. I've gotten a basic education in it just by chatting with nuclear scientists on the Internet and filling in the rest with publicly available information. If I was actually trying to build a nuclear device (be it a reactor or a bomb), then there's plenty of stuff I could dig up. Including basic instructions on how to separate the Uranium 235 from the 238.
Again, it can't be THAT easy considering it takes countries actually trying to become nuclear powers a great deal of time to create a weapon.
The people from these 12 countries don't have to learn nuclear engineering. They can study humanities or business or any other topic that doesn't involve weapons.
The US should NOT be in the business of training the weapons makers of China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. EACH country listed there has significant security concerns for the US.
I don't care if we're "restricting their contributions". THAT is the whole point.
The education one gets in university is not limited to what's published on the internet. The US should not be in the business of training ANYONE who would be likely to use that knowledge to make nuclear weapons that would threaten us. I don't care if that student is from India, China, Iran, North Korea, or any of the other 12 countries on the list. We have one legitimate reason or another to distrust the intentions of ALL of these countries. We should NOT be helping them further their goals.
As for the rest of your argument, you seem to be confusing this education issue with H1-Bs. Once these foreign students get their education, they do not automatically qualify to stay in the US. And considering we only give out 85,000 H1-Bs a year, they're not likely to qualify for those either. That means they're likely to head home. Once they get home, they're going to need a job. And since they can create weapons, that means their governments are going to be interested in paying the money to hire them.
We shouldn't be teaching students from either country the skills necessary to build weapons. But, India is especially bad because they have already demonstrated that nuclear knowledge would be used to create weapons.
Slashdot Mirror
Offshoring the production of basic goods is child's play compared to offshoring the production of software.
Your original point was that this was a voting machine issue, when clearly it was not.
Just give up now. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
... China and Africa speak worse English than even the Indians.
The major attraction of moving to India in the first place is that they speak English. Granted, it's hard to understand English, but it's still English.
Other countries that charge less for IT services can't make these English claims and would be that much harder for companies to offshore to. For example, programmers in Vietnam charge half of the India rate, but don't have the same English skills as India.
With the supply for workers holding these skills staying the same while the demand increases, that means Indian wages will shoot up. Considering that companies only save about 10-20% by going to India, you can bet offshoring to India will cool off. That's great news for US workers.
Computer age or not, you're dealing with human processes, which can never be absolutely perfect. Even if the vote was 99.9% accurate, that still leaves 2,900 votes that may be wrongly counted.
Usually, this is no big deal since most of the time elections involve a blowout that does not end so close. This only became a problem because we're in that 0.1% margin of error.
The Republican judge in this case found against every point the Republicans brought up for their case, including the fraud charges.
No, Rossi didn't go through the proper channels to the Legislature because it is predominately Democrat.
He picked his court venue based on the politics of the court, which leaned Republican.
You need to read the news. The largest problems were supposedly with absentee ballots, which don't use those electronic voting systems.
Since when does the governor's race in Washington have anything to do with technology?
What they should have done is follow the Constitution, which means turning to the Legislature. Bringing up a challenge in court is completely unconstitutional. I would have loved to see this go to the state Supreme Court, because I bet that's exactly what they'd say. As it stands, Rossi left the door open to another court challenge in the future since nothing was really decided here.
There's nothing like deja vu.
You forget that the average person doesn't install Windows. It just magically comes with the computer.
The average person wants to use their PC for running what PCs run, which include games. Tell an average person that Linux can't do something they want to do that Windows CAN do, and they'll choose Windows EVERY time. Being able to run games is a core function in many people's minds. My mom, for example, runs Solitaire and Oregon Trail 1. Tell her she couldn't run Oregon Trail 1 on Linux and she would never switch from Windows.
And yes, the fact that Windows has more users than Linux DOES make it easier. When grandma has a question about Windows, she can ask the 12 year old neighbor boy. If grandma had a question about Linux, the 12 year old neighbor boy would go "WTF is this?" Then grandma would be SOL until I take the time to go to grandma's.
Read about it yourself.
At 13,000 people, they are bringing out the chainsaw, not the pruning shears.
Considering the majority of these 13,000 people are in Europe, I'm assuming IBM is getting rid of them because of their expense. The Euro has gone through the roof compared to the dollar, so even hiring Americans have become cheap in comparison. But, they'll probably replace these people by hiring in India.
When interest rates get high enough, the real estate market will dry up. Then, you'll be competing will all the other people that rushed to get real estate licenses.
Stick with CS. Remember that there is always a certain amount of work that will never be outsourced. There is always a need for developers, systems analysts, and program managers who know the local market.
Companies are learning the hard way that outsourcing is not all its cracked up to be. Once that idea gets drilled in their heads, the demand for CS folks will pick back up dramatically.
I sincerely doubt there is a lack of qualified candidates considering that IBM itself is currently going through a downsizing that will eliminate 13,000 positions.
This is more posturing for the sake of the politicians. If the industry complains enough, then the newspapers will pick up that complaining, and give the politicians an easy excuse to increase H1-B's in the future.
If there really were a shortage of IT workers, companies would not be downsizing, but rather hiring. They'd be going after everyone with even dubious credentials. Wages would not be stagnant or declining, but instead going through the roof. Considering that NONE of this is happening, I sincerely doubt that there is a shortage of workers. In fact, all this points to an oversupply of workers.
No, I have not gone mad.
I have no problem with letting information flow. However, we should not be in the business of training the nuclear engineers of China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. There are serious concerns with all of these 12 countries regarding this sensitive information. Several are openly hostile to the US. Several are severely unstable. And several others already use nuclear weapons to threaten their neighbors.
I do not see this as intellectual isolationism. First, anyone from outside these 12 nations can still come here and study whatever they want. Second, anyone from inside these 12 nations cans still come here and study anything outside these sensitive topics. Third, if the people from these 12 nations want to study these sensitive topics, they can after applying for permission.
You may call my views paranoia. However, it is not a delusion that a Chinese MIT graduate founded China's nuclear program.
No, you're not listening. We don't have enough firepower to cover any more than a fraction of the surface area. There's nowhere near enough weapons to wipe out all life on Earth.
I heard you and you are WRONG. Not to be rude or anything, but I suggest you take a modern history class.
You complained that the Russian equipment always outnumbered ours. That's not as true as it was made out to be, and there equipment ended up being non-comparable to our own.
We always knew our equipment was better. That was no surprise. What did come as a surprise was that they didn't have as much of their less advanced as we thought they did. Even so, they still had to spend gobs of money to attempt to keep up with us. That still doesn't change my basic premise.
Uneducated is not the same as no higher education.
It depends on whether you think a high school diploma makes you educated or not. Given the value of a high school education these days, one could argue either way.
Experience is not the same as education. That is why people separate the two.
They would, if it weren't for one minor issue: Where do they get the Plutonium from? The method for generating sufficient plutonium is a nuclear reactor. In case you haven't noticed, nuclear reactors are carefully controlled by the UN. All nuclear materials must be accounted for or there will be hell to pay.
Iran has had the materials to build a nuclear weapon for some time. Tell me, why haven't they.
A spy is just as much of weapon as a nuclear bomb.
No, a spy is not capable of killing everyone within a 50 mile radius and making the land uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
Even so, the knowledge of French gives you no specific ability to spy. My 50 year old aunt knows French. She has no more ability to spy than I have without knowing French. In fact, I would say I would make the better spy.
However, my father-in-law who happens to be a nuclear engineer certainly would have some knowledge that could be used to make a weapon.
Me: I don't particularly care about saving lives in China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. However, I do care if they incease their ability to make nuclear weapons.
You: Aren't you selfish?
No, my reasoning is NOT selfish. THEY do not need to know ANY knowledge that COULD be used to create these weapons. These countries could EASILY use the knowledge gained from our educational programs to create weapons for use against ALL OTHER COUNTRIES.
In fact, it has been PROVEN that this HAS occurred in the past. China is the prime example.
It requires a significant industrial infrastructure to process Uranium and Plutonium.
Then I guess you couldn't create a bomb all by yourself.
Note that pretty much every country that gains a sufficient industrial base has nuclear weapons. India is a perfect example of a country that recently gained such a base. Nuclear weapons followed not long after that, despite efforts to keep them from obtaining such weapons.
Most of Europe lacks nuclear weapons despite having such an industrial base.
No, you need to take lessons in nuclear science. We have enough weapons to "blast ourselves back to the stoneage", but not enough to wipe out the earth (or even the surface). Not even sufficient antimatter for a trip to alpha-centauri could do it. We've maanged to shrink the world to a small place, but at the end of the day the Earth *is* still pretty damn big.
So, you're nitpicking over semantics. No, we didn't have enough firepower to destroy the world a la Star Wars. However, the term "destroy the world" as I and most other people were using it referred to destroying all life on the world. THAT we were able to do with enough coverage to engulf the world multiple times over.
Doesn't change the fact that the Russian threat was always overstated. We just didn't know it until the Cold War was over.
Yes, and they still spent to keep up with us. So what? It still doesn't change the fact that they overspent because we overspent.
My point is that no one *needs* to have their mind trained if they're willing to do it themselves. Even if you are relying on someone else, there's nothing in our schools that's particularly special other than the knowledge available. And since the knowledge can be obtained from other sources, they don't actually need our schools, do they?
Yes, and therefore it's perfectly acceptable that we should just help them along in building those nuclear weapons? I don't think so.
If they don't need our schools, then we don't need to worry about this topic at all. They don't need to come here either way.
I lack a college degree but I could probably build you an implosion nuke if I had the proper equipment.
I've had talks with a technician that serviced nuclear weapons. You need to build a device with a shaped charge that will detonate in a precise sequence while still maintaining the integrity of the device. No such device is so easy to make that an uneducated person could do so with "the proper equipment". Were your statement true, then every country in the world would have plutonium nukes.
You've just described two core elements of a spy.
I was hoping you'd fall into that trap. We are talking about weapons. These weapons are physical devices one could touch or hold. Learning French does not enable you to make a weapon. And yes, you could steal a weapon, but knowing French does not specifically give you the ability to steal. However, knowing nuclear engineering certainly does give you the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon.
And I can tell you how nuclear engineering can be used to save lives. Including the destructive power of a hydrogen bomb.
I don't particularly care about saving lives in China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. However, I do care if they incease their ability to make nuclear weapons.
No, we don't. Nuclear engineering would be a wise thing to screen, but it's impossible to keep the information from people. I've gotten a basic education in it just by chatting with nuclear scientists on the Internet and filling in the rest with publicly available information. If I was actually trying to build a nuclear device (be it a reactor or a bomb), then there's plenty of stuff I could dig up. Including basic instructions on how to separate the Uranium 235 from the 238.
Again, it can't be THAT easy considering it takes countries actually trying to become nuclear powers a great deal of time to create a weapon.
The people from these 12 countries don't have to learn nuclear engineering. They can study humanities or business or any other topic that doesn't involve weapons.
The US should NOT be in the business of training the weapons makers of China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. EACH country listed there has significant security concerns for the US.
I don't care if we're "restricting their contributions". THAT is the whole point.
The difference is that India already has nuclear arms and Saudi Arabia doesn't even have a program to develop them.
The education one gets in university is not limited to what's published on the internet. The US should not be in the business of training ANYONE who would be likely to use that knowledge to make nuclear weapons that would threaten us. I don't care if that student is from India, China, Iran, North Korea, or any of the other 12 countries on the list. We have one legitimate reason or another to distrust the intentions of ALL of these countries. We should NOT be helping them further their goals.
As for the rest of your argument, you seem to be confusing this education issue with H1-Bs. Once these foreign students get their education, they do not automatically qualify to stay in the US. And considering we only give out 85,000 H1-Bs a year, they're not likely to qualify for those either. That means they're likely to head home. Once they get home, they're going to need a job. And since they can create weapons, that means their governments are going to be interested in paying the money to hire them.
We shouldn't be teaching students from either country the skills necessary to build weapons. But, India is especially bad because they have already demonstrated that nuclear knowledge would be used to create weapons.
The difference is that these two people aren't going to go to China, Iran, or North Korea to build nuclear weapons.