I did this about a year ago for my 70 year old parents and now all the calls I get are related to family events rather than tech support. Well worth the few hundred bucks for a 1080p chromebook. They absolutely love it.
Microsoft is attempting to live off that hackneyed old model of parachuting in consultants to enterprises who they feel are too stupid to "get" cloud on their own. They'll sell them expensive services to help those dinosaurs forklift ancient applications onto the cloud until those enterprises mature (or simply die) and figure out that they can get what they actually need (and at a significantly more reasonable cost) with AWS and Google.
This isn't material to the decision making in China. What IS material is that there are either explicit (not likely) or hidden (likely) ownership interests by people in the government who stand to benefit. They will benefit if it's a scam or a bona fide export engine and will quietly squirrel the proceeds out of the country. The only people worried about dirty air in China are the impacted citizens and they don't have a shred of political power to influence the outcome.
Been boned on the IAD-->SFO route a couple of times with United as well. Now I pay a little more and use another airline. They probably do the same thing, but I don't notice the same free-for-all atmosphere as people are bumped at the last instant like I experienced on United.
I suspect that hauling around the means to generate electricity from a nuclear source is a LOT less mass to deal with than huge tanks of chemical propellant.
Other than an easier way to snag OTA content, I'm not sure what this box offers. Most new TV's, home theater receivers, and blu-ray devices already offer a plethora of streaming options built right in (or you can just pick up a Roku or similar device). It would have to be an extremely compelling "experience" at an even more compelling price point to get any traction.
Ditch java in favor of what? The body shops will need some re-training time to converge all their marginal resources into the new tech so they're ready to feed at the corporate trough.
It's only a matter of time before China runs out of fresh water. They're eyeballing Baikal. Any significant military conflict is going to hasten the collapse of that house of cards.
I remember that China has been unsuccessful in keeping ANY of its friends around for long other than North Korea which is very telling. Look back over the last 65 years. They've flirted with Russia and then bit the hand...and India....and Vietnam....and now the US...etc.
If there is any kind of hot war, China will be alone since they have proven they cannot be trusted. The instant they are engaged in any real conflict, all their domestic issues will come home to roost...Tibet, Xinjiang,Taiwan, etc.
China wants to appear strong, but if the poop hits the fan, they don't have much of a chance. Who is going to help them? The African and South American countries who have been taking financial aid in exchange for wagging fingers at Taiwan? Please.
Regardless of what Iraq looks like now, when they attacked Kuwait they had one of the best equipped, largest, and most modern military machines in the world. The US dismembered them in weeks. Granted, China has nuclear weapons, but there isn't much incentive to go there when they've got hundreds of warheads and the US has thousands. If the US were to dismember China's command and control systems and degrade China's conventional forces that country would be ungovernable pretty quickly. No need to invade. I doubt the kleptocrats want to see that happen. They'll make a lot of noise and then back down (while squirreling their cash out of the country to those running dog capitalist nations that they claim to hate so much while sending their children their to study and store their ill gotten corruption money.
The social unrest is already boiling just below the surface and their economic bubble is about to burst. This is why they're sabre rattling and egging on a conflict. It's a classic move from their playbook. They know a hot war is unlikely.
I have worked at a few Fortune X (single and low double digit) companies. They have all been addicted to hiring folks from the usual offshore suspects who pay substandard wages and import (mostly) Indian and Eastern European labor for jobs that could clearly be offered to kids fresh out of college with engineering or comp sci degrees in Europe and the US. I honestly can't fathom why. For all the money "saved" there's the SIGNIFICANT wasted productivity and the "meh" value to the business of the average "resource" supplied. Calls take a lot longer, code quality tends to be sucky to average, emails are hard to parse, and you wind up with a "team" who feels like "as long as there are lots of people on a call, we've got it covered." The fact that efficiency measures suck, employees have no skin in the game to improve things, and everything takes a lot longer seems to be ignored.
What is it that ensnares the bean counters to prefer this situation over hiring qualified local candidates? I honestly don't get it. Why is it "better" to pay some unqualified person a low wage, tack on a substantial fee paid to the body shop, and then have everyone suffer through the extended delivery times, angst, etc. It can't be cheaper to do it this way, and if it is, it could not possibly be enough of a savings to merit delaying the delivery of what the business needs in a timely manner. Or can it?
I find the whole thing to be sordid, unsavory, and just demeaning to all concerned. I can't blame the folks who take those H1-B jobs. One trip to Bangalore, Sofia, Kiev, etc and you realize that these are folks that are just trying to make a living. They are acutely aware that many of their co-workers don't like this situation and simply tolerate them. Clearly someone is making some serious $$$ by perpetuating this system. Who? If I was in an industry where the top 20 experts in a particular field were from country X, I could understand. But this is for relatively inexperienced java programmers and sysadmins....clearly not what the H1-B program is designed to help.
Unemployment numbers are a bit worse off today than they were when Obama took office, regardless of which measure you look at. So Obama didn't really "fix" anything. Here's an article from CNBC where they explain the differences in the various measures of unemployment and why the number mentioned in the OP isn't terribly meaningful.
The IRS needs to seek new avenues to fleece the populace now that it's about to be pried out of the middle of 17.5% of the US GDP (healthcare industry).
Abolish most of the IRS and all the parasites that feed off the ridiculous and intentionally complex tax code. A flat tax plus perhaps a consumption tax would allow most Americans to do their taxes on a post card. Of course, millions of tax accountants and attorneys would then need to find honest work, but that's a small price to pay for complete transparency. A scenario where half of the citizenry pays virtually nothing (or gets net payments) while the others foot the bill is unsustainable.
In other news, the National Enquirer is about to break a story about William Hartnell diddling the daleks on set back in the 60's. You heard it here first....
Now THAT'S my kind of outsourcing. His wife is extremely smart and a talented business woman in her own right. That's the equivalent of hitting up Wipro and getting a rockstar programmer. Sadly, what you usually get with the body shops is more akin to a Rosie O'Donnell.
Prices have gone up and the quality of the programming has gotten worse (which I didn't think was possible). The only thing keeping them in business at this point is that in many markets the cable companies are the only source of broadband internet. I would kick Comcast to the curb tomorrow if there was a broadband alternative in my town. The INSTANT there is one, I'm gone.
I don't get the manufactured outrage over Trump's tax situation. I don't know about you, but I take EVERY tax deduction that I'm legally entitled to. If I ran a business, I'd consider it my fiduciary responsibility to my employees and shareholders to do the same for the business. So according to the bias in the media, that somehow makes me a bad guy and I should be paying more. No. Simply no.
The "foundation" loopholes must be pretty lucrative since all the uber-rich have them.
But back to the topic...these are clearly run of the mill IT jobs that don't require any special skills that can only be filled by importing highly skilled workers from other countries. Telling that it's a notoriously liberal university in a notoriously liberal state and the displaced citizen workers are basically told to buzz off by their Democrat Senator. Who was it that's for the "little guy" again???
The bottom line is that Comcast has very little incentive to do the right thing until it is coerced. They are always publicly stating how they are working to improve customer experience and customer service. The former is true. They are indeed working diligently to make it easier to make incremental purchases on things like Video on Demand. That interface is smooth and polished and it is in their financial best interest to make it so. The latter is debatable. Comcast is no longer the MOST hated consumer brand in the country. I believe they are now in 4th or 5th place. Still pretty dreadful, but a small improvement. It is my assertion that they feel the financial gain from making the investment in customer service is a poor investment given that they've got a captive audience due to their monopoly position in many markets.
For f's sake, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives and BARELY spared removal from office when the necessary votes fell just short in the Senate. The last person that happened to was Andrew Johnson back in 1868. Quite an exclusive club. Scandal follows the Clintons like the dust cloud follows Pigpen.
"In other words it's easy to say "burn it all down" when you're not the one in the house."
You've hit the nail on the head, even if by accident. Those folks don't feel like they have a stake in maintaining the house since it is clear the political class and its well heeled supporters (and the media) don't feel inclined to invite them to the party. I guess it shouldn't be shocking that the hipster elite don't understand or particularly empathize with that crowd. What makes the concerns and fears of that group any less relevant than your own or those that you list above? Just because you don't rub elbows with them as you plunk down your $5 for a double wide venti latte with truffles on top doesn't mean their voices are irrelevant or "deplorable."
I haven't decided who I'll vote for yet, but I'm leaning towards the arrogant ass versus the demonstrable corrupt politician who's been feeding off of and perpetuating the broken system that exists today for decades.
Slashdot Mirror
Or perhaps it will just create more incentive for the Chinese to more aggressively harvest organs from their prison populace.
That ship has already sailed and was going to happen anyway. A menu full of "less choice" coming right up.
Interesting that the outsourced "cheap labor" is now on the receiving end of being outsourced to robots.
+1000
I did this about a year ago for my 70 year old parents and now all the calls I get are related to family events rather than tech support. Well worth the few hundred bucks for a 1080p chromebook. They absolutely love it.
Microsoft is attempting to live off that hackneyed old model of parachuting in consultants to enterprises who they feel are too stupid to "get" cloud on their own. They'll sell them expensive services to help those dinosaurs forklift ancient applications onto the cloud until those enterprises mature (or simply die) and figure out that they can get what they actually need (and at a significantly more reasonable cost) with AWS and Google.
This isn't material to the decision making in China. What IS material is that there are either explicit (not likely) or hidden (likely) ownership interests by people in the government who stand to benefit. They will benefit if it's a scam or a bona fide export engine and will quietly squirrel the proceeds out of the country. The only people worried about dirty air in China are the impacted citizens and they don't have a shred of political power to influence the outcome.
Been boned on the IAD-->SFO route a couple of times with United as well. Now I pay a little more and use another airline. They probably do the same thing, but I don't notice the same free-for-all atmosphere as people are bumped at the last instant like I experienced on United.
I suspect that hauling around the means to generate electricity from a nuclear source is a LOT less mass to deal with than huge tanks of chemical propellant.
LOL!
Other than an easier way to snag OTA content, I'm not sure what this box offers. Most new TV's, home theater receivers, and blu-ray devices already offer a plethora of streaming options built right in (or you can just pick up a Roku or similar device). It would have to be an extremely compelling "experience" at an even more compelling price point to get any traction.
Ditch java in favor of what? The body shops will need some re-training time to converge all their marginal resources into the new tech so they're ready to feed at the corporate trough.
It's only a matter of time before China runs out of fresh water. They're eyeballing Baikal. Any significant military conflict is going to hasten the collapse of that house of cards.
I remember that China has been unsuccessful in keeping ANY of its friends around for long other than North Korea which is very telling. Look back over the last 65 years. They've flirted with Russia and then bit the hand...and India....and Vietnam....and now the US...etc.
If there is any kind of hot war, China will be alone since they have proven they cannot be trusted. The instant they are engaged in any real conflict, all their domestic issues will come home to roost...Tibet, Xinjiang,Taiwan, etc.
China wants to appear strong, but if the poop hits the fan, they don't have much of a chance. Who is going to help them? The African and South American countries who have been taking financial aid in exchange for wagging fingers at Taiwan? Please.
Regardless of what Iraq looks like now, when they attacked Kuwait they had one of the best equipped, largest, and most modern military machines in the world. The US dismembered them in weeks. Granted, China has nuclear weapons, but there isn't much incentive to go there when they've got hundreds of warheads and the US has thousands. If the US were to dismember China's command and control systems and degrade China's conventional forces that country would be ungovernable pretty quickly. No need to invade. I doubt the kleptocrats want to see that happen. They'll make a lot of noise and then back down (while squirreling their cash out of the country to those running dog capitalist nations that they claim to hate so much while sending their children their to study and store their ill gotten corruption money.
The social unrest is already boiling just below the surface and their economic bubble is about to burst. This is why they're sabre rattling and egging on a conflict. It's a classic move from their playbook. They know a hot war is unlikely.
I have worked at a few Fortune X (single and low double digit) companies. They have all been addicted to hiring folks from the usual offshore suspects who pay substandard wages and import (mostly) Indian and Eastern European labor for jobs that could clearly be offered to kids fresh out of college with engineering or comp sci degrees in Europe and the US. I honestly can't fathom why. For all the money "saved" there's the SIGNIFICANT wasted productivity and the "meh" value to the business of the average "resource" supplied. Calls take a lot longer, code quality tends to be sucky to average, emails are hard to parse, and you wind up with a "team" who feels like "as long as there are lots of people on a call, we've got it covered." The fact that efficiency measures suck, employees have no skin in the game to improve things, and everything takes a lot longer seems to be ignored.
What is it that ensnares the bean counters to prefer this situation over hiring qualified local candidates? I honestly don't get it. Why is it "better" to pay some unqualified person a low wage, tack on a substantial fee paid to the body shop, and then have everyone suffer through the extended delivery times, angst, etc. It can't be cheaper to do it this way, and if it is, it could not possibly be enough of a savings to merit delaying the delivery of what the business needs in a timely manner. Or can it?
I find the whole thing to be sordid, unsavory, and just demeaning to all concerned. I can't blame the folks who take those H1-B jobs. One trip to Bangalore, Sofia, Kiev, etc and you realize that these are folks that are just trying to make a living. They are acutely aware that many of their co-workers don't like this situation and simply tolerate them. Clearly someone is making some serious $$$ by perpetuating this system. Who? If I was in an industry where the top 20 experts in a particular field were from country X, I could understand. But this is for relatively inexperienced java programmers and sysadmins....clearly not what the H1-B program is designed to help.
What do YOU think?
Unemployment numbers are a bit worse off today than they were when Obama took office, regardless of which measure you look at. So Obama didn't really "fix" anything. Here's an article from CNBC where they explain the differences in the various measures of unemployment and why the number mentioned in the OP isn't terribly meaningful.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/02...
The IRS needs to seek new avenues to fleece the populace now that it's about to be pried out of the middle of 17.5% of the US GDP (healthcare industry).
Abolish most of the IRS and all the parasites that feed off the ridiculous and intentionally complex tax code. A flat tax plus perhaps a consumption tax would allow most Americans to do their taxes on a post card. Of course, millions of tax accountants and attorneys would then need to find honest work, but that's a small price to pay for complete transparency. A scenario where half of the citizenry pays virtually nothing (or gets net payments) while the others foot the bill is unsustainable.
In other news, the National Enquirer is about to break a story about William Hartnell diddling the daleks on set back in the 60's. You heard it here first....
Now THAT'S my kind of outsourcing. His wife is extremely smart and a talented business woman in her own right. That's the equivalent of hitting up Wipro and getting a rockstar programmer. Sadly, what you usually get with the body shops is more akin to a Rosie O'Donnell.
Prices have gone up and the quality of the programming has gotten worse (which I didn't think was possible). The only thing keeping them in business at this point is that in many markets the cable companies are the only source of broadband internet. I would kick Comcast to the curb tomorrow if there was a broadband alternative in my town. The INSTANT there is one, I'm gone.
I don't get the manufactured outrage over Trump's tax situation. I don't know about you, but I take EVERY tax deduction that I'm legally entitled to. If I ran a business, I'd consider it my fiduciary responsibility to my employees and shareholders to do the same for the business. So according to the bias in the media, that somehow makes me a bad guy and I should be paying more. No. Simply no.
The "foundation" loopholes must be pretty lucrative since all the uber-rich have them.
But back to the topic...these are clearly run of the mill IT jobs that don't require any special skills that can only be filled by importing highly skilled workers from other countries. Telling that it's a notoriously liberal university in a notoriously liberal state and the displaced citizen workers are basically told to buzz off by their Democrat Senator. Who was it that's for the "little guy" again???
The bottom line is that Comcast has very little incentive to do the right thing until it is coerced. They are always publicly stating how they are working to improve customer experience and customer service. The former is true. They are indeed working diligently to make it easier to make incremental purchases on things like Video on Demand. That interface is smooth and polished and it is in their financial best interest to make it so. The latter is debatable. Comcast is no longer the MOST hated consumer brand in the country. I believe they are now in 4th or 5th place. Still pretty dreadful, but a small improvement. It is my assertion that they feel the financial gain from making the investment in customer service is a poor investment given that they've got a captive audience due to their monopoly position in many markets.
Moderating this as flamebait is silly. Having a user-replaceable battery is a desirable feature, at least for me.
That was TWENTY years ago. Let's re-run the litany of documented Clinton scandals since then, shall we? Meh...look here for all that...
http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...
For f's sake, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives and BARELY spared removal from office when the necessary votes fell just short in the Senate. The last person that happened to was Andrew Johnson back in 1868. Quite an exclusive club. Scandal follows the Clintons like the dust cloud follows Pigpen.
"In other words it's easy to say "burn it all down" when you're not the one in the house."
You've hit the nail on the head, even if by accident. Those folks don't feel like they have a stake in maintaining the house since it is clear the political class and its well heeled supporters (and the media) don't feel inclined to invite them to the party. I guess it shouldn't be shocking that the hipster elite don't understand or particularly empathize with that crowd. What makes the concerns and fears of that group any less relevant than your own or those that you list above? Just because you don't rub elbows with them as you plunk down your $5 for a double wide venti latte with truffles on top doesn't mean their voices are irrelevant or "deplorable."
I haven't decided who I'll vote for yet, but I'm leaning towards the arrogant ass versus the demonstrable corrupt politician who's been feeding off of and perpetuating the broken system that exists today for decades.
A cricket bat is only meant for sport...
Again, where does it end?