So the EPA couldn't talk the other Federal Agencies into participating with their data centers?
EPA has a Headquarters plus 10 regional offices = 11 data centers.
EPA has some influence on every state's Department of Environmental Protection = 50 data centers.
Almost every state has at least 1 state run lab = 50 data centers.
Universities? I'm pretty sure they have data centers and some get money from the EPA.
They should've been able to find hundreds of data centers without leaving their own back yard.
And if they've outsourced data center management - make participation in the measurement program part of the contract.
Bad Grammar on my part - the tunnel capacity that I was refering to wasn't the airport tunnel - it was the replacement for the elevated expressway. I can't remember with politician it is named after.
As for where to build this airport, you have to think back to the 1980's when the project was first thought of. I was a little younger then, but think that the Upton / Grafton maybe even Marlboro area would've had the land mass available for a modern airport. Worcester could've been consolidated or potentially could've been expanded to be the airport. Those locations give prime access to the Mass Pike and route 495, and about a 45 minute taxi to downtown - not significantly different than most major cities. Logan could continue to operate in the same way that Dulles and Reagan do in Washington DC. At the time, an airport west of the city could've taken on Southwest and basically stunted the growth of Providence (Green) / Hartford and Manchester.
If you tried to do it today, you'd have to go Worcester or west of there, which doesn't make any sense given the rise of Hartford, north (Haverhill / Chelmsford) doesn't makes sense with Manchester there, and south (fall river / new bedford) doesn't make any sense given Providence. The point is that the window was wide open 20 years ago, and the pols decided that the path of most resistance, least utility, and highest cost.
The Airport Tunnel may have been the cheapest part, but was it cheaper to build the tunnel or build a brand new airport that wasn't space constrained on an island? I think Denver cost about $5b to build in the mid 90's - the same time period that the tunnels were being built.
So now Boston has a tunnel that is collapsing on itself, and even if fixed will be inadequate to carry the traffic load, to get to an airport that can't build any more runways, so it won't be able to handle the capacity needs either.
The government created a mechanism called "prevailing wage". If they actually made the prevailing wage something like 2x what a company could pay a citizen, the only time a company would hire a H1B is when the really couldn't find a citizen to work in that role. In my business - environmental chemistry - the "prevailing wage" is something around 2x what we can afford to pay a chemist. So we don't hire any H1B's. It is just too damn expensive. So if your average techie makes 80k a year, the government could make the prevailing wage $200k. Then the companies would have to choose between; a.) paying the person 2.5x what a citizen would make, b.) breaking federal laws which sends the VP's to jail for a good long time, or c.) not hiring H1B's. If there is a real talent shortage, a company would be willing (and able to pass along the cost) of an H1B. If there isn't a shortage, the government can make the economics so bad that it doesn't make sense to hire a non-citizen.
Romney and his administration didn't have a choice but investigate. The Nov. article says the Globe went to the administration and basically said, we've got evidence that this guy broke the rules. They could do two things - say we won't investigate it, which the Globe spins into a story about the future Presidential candidate protecting his own and playing political games, or put their high ranking finance person on the review, at which point the Globe says that Romney is investigating Quinn.
The Globe went after the story and played both angles - they were going to get a story either way. My guess is they could pick anyone in government and do the same thing. They just "happened" to chose Quinn.
Anyone know how much of the NY Times Microsoft owns?
My guess is that you never were in a position to know why a decision was made. It's pretty easy to ridicule management as idiots because you have no idea what goes into making some decisions. For you it may be black and white, but when you are responsible for 10,000 employees, compliance with multiple (and usually conflicting) regulatory environments, owners / investors, competing vendors, decisions become a little more gray.
Real world example - a friend of mine is an engineer who is responsible for maintenance / repair of certain miliary equipment. He manages 300 people and for years could never figure out why the Department of Defense would make such "stupid" decisions about what got maintained and how. The place he works for has a rotation program where he was sent to Washington to work at the Pentagon for 6 months. After going there and being part of the process, he's got a much better perspective on why certain decisions get made.
Long story short - it's easy to complain about other people's decisions when you don't understand all of the elements that go into making the decision.
Slashdot Mirror
So the EPA couldn't talk the other Federal Agencies into participating with their data centers? EPA has a Headquarters plus 10 regional offices = 11 data centers. EPA has some influence on every state's Department of Environmental Protection = 50 data centers. Almost every state has at least 1 state run lab = 50 data centers. Universities? I'm pretty sure they have data centers and some get money from the EPA. They should've been able to find hundreds of data centers without leaving their own back yard. And if they've outsourced data center management - make participation in the measurement program part of the contract.
Bad Grammar on my part - the tunnel capacity that I was refering to wasn't the airport tunnel - it was the replacement for the elevated expressway. I can't remember with politician it is named after.
As for where to build this airport, you have to think back to the 1980's when the project was first thought of. I was a little younger then, but think that the Upton / Grafton maybe even Marlboro area would've had the land mass available for a modern airport. Worcester could've been consolidated or potentially could've been expanded to be the airport. Those locations give prime access to the Mass Pike and route 495, and about a 45 minute taxi to downtown - not significantly different than most major cities. Logan could continue to operate in the same way that Dulles and Reagan do in Washington DC. At the time, an airport west of the city could've taken on Southwest and basically stunted the growth of Providence (Green) / Hartford and Manchester.
If you tried to do it today, you'd have to go Worcester or west of there, which doesn't make any sense given the rise of Hartford, north (Haverhill / Chelmsford) doesn't makes sense with Manchester there, and south (fall river / new bedford) doesn't make any sense given Providence. The point is that the window was wide open 20 years ago, and the pols decided that the path of most resistance, least utility, and highest cost.
The Airport Tunnel may have been the cheapest part, but was it cheaper to build the tunnel or build a brand new airport that wasn't space constrained on an island? I think Denver cost about $5b to build in the mid 90's - the same time period that the tunnels were being built.
So now Boston has a tunnel that is collapsing on itself, and even if fixed will be inadequate to carry the traffic load, to get to an airport that can't build any more runways, so it won't be able to handle the capacity needs either.
Now that sounds like a great plan.
The government created a mechanism called "prevailing wage". If they actually made the prevailing wage something like 2x what a company could pay a citizen, the only time a company would hire a H1B is when the really couldn't find a citizen to work in that role. In my business - environmental chemistry - the "prevailing wage" is something around 2x what we can afford to pay a chemist. So we don't hire any H1B's. It is just too damn expensive. So if your average techie makes 80k a year, the government could make the prevailing wage $200k. Then the companies would have to choose between; a.) paying the person 2.5x what a citizen would make, b.) breaking federal laws which sends the VP's to jail for a good long time, or c.) not hiring H1B's. If there is a real talent shortage, a company would be willing (and able to pass along the cost) of an H1B. If there isn't a shortage, the government can make the economics so bad that it doesn't make sense to hire a non-citizen.
just my 2c.
..the nasty viruses you can get using the computer on the crapper?
This sigline left intentionally blank.
Romney and his administration didn't have a choice but investigate. The Nov. article says the Globe went to the administration and basically said, we've got evidence that this guy broke the rules. They could do two things - say we won't investigate it, which the Globe spins into a story about the future Presidential candidate protecting his own and playing political games, or put their high ranking finance person on the review, at which point the Globe says that Romney is investigating Quinn.
The Globe went after the story and played both angles - they were going to get a story either way. My guess is they could pick anyone in government and do the same thing. They just "happened" to chose Quinn.
Anyone know how much of the NY Times Microsoft owns?
My guess is that you never were in a position to know why a decision was made. It's pretty easy to ridicule management as idiots because you have no idea what goes into making some decisions. For you it may be black and white, but when you are responsible for 10,000 employees, compliance with multiple (and usually conflicting) regulatory environments, owners / investors, competing vendors, decisions become a little more gray.
Real world example - a friend of mine is an engineer who is responsible for maintenance / repair of certain miliary equipment. He manages 300 people and for years could never figure out why the Department of Defense would make such "stupid" decisions about what got maintained and how. The place he works for has a rotation program where he was sent to Washington to work at the Pentagon for 6 months. After going there and being part of the process, he's got a much better perspective on why certain decisions get made. Long story short - it's easy to complain about other people's decisions when you don't understand all of the elements that go into making the decision.
that the same song played at the same time on three different radio stations in the same market. --------------- sarcasm rarely works in type.