Hehe, sorry about that. I missed the end of the sentence about "saving a full second" or however you phrased it. Believe me, I've had to correct much weirder claims that that one on Slashdot!
My post shot up to 4 at first (probably 5), then dropped to -1 and now has oscillated between 1 and 0. (Wouldn't it be cool if moderators could get together, cancel out all the conflicting moddings, and then apply their mod points to other posts?)
I'm just not going to say anymore on this, except that the thing about "running laps around MS" was a general evaluation, not necessarily concerning the speed and storage issues. OO.o is so much easier to use for me, I just love it. That's why I made the incriminating "lap" comment.
No, it wouldn't. In both cases, you're talking about a time difference that wouldn't make a difference. Right now, when you search Google, the results are, for all practical purposes, immediate. The amount of time to get the results is small relative to the total time you spend on a search. Say it takes you ~2 seconds to skim the results. Then using a hypothetical 0.002 second search vs. 0.2 second search would save you (optimistically) 10% which may be significant to you but is nowhere near the 100x you claim (as revised in your follow-up). And again, even that's not a fair comparison. To really assess the usefulness of the first few pages of results may take ~5 minutes. The increased search speed has therefore not noticeably affected the time it takes you to search. You're long past the point of diminishing returns. You can't just say that 100x faster search means 100x greater productivity.
Point being, the absolute time spent by the service in searching is not a limiting factor. You couldn't actually make a noticeable use of the saved time. Therefore, for MS to advertise faster searches... I don't see that drawing anyone except through the appeal of novelty. But a cheaper ad campaign could do the same thing.
Please clarify. Someone using google to search their intranet for what purpose would be able to process search results that came at 0.002 seconds apiece versus 0.2 seconds?
For example, Microsoft search can be adless (or charge less for ads) and hyperfast thanks a server farm 100x Google's size.
The other advantages you listed are substantial, but not this one I'm afraid. Google's searches are already on the order of 0.2 seconds. I can't imagine anyone "on the margin" switching to MS because they get their results in 0.002 seconds plus download time rather than 0.2 seconds plus download time. I could be wrong though: Are there people who do rapid searches in succession and can process the data from those searches at that speed?
"Essentially" the same data?
on
OpenOffice Bloated?
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· Score: 1, Interesting
I seriously doubt that. I was working with files similar in size to the ones discussed in the article just last night, and I got completely opposite results. OO.org took half the time to load that Excel did and took up just over half the space for the files. I really don't know where they get these numbers. Probably a biased test with fundamentally different data. I hate trying new software that does the same thing, and I am by no means tech-savvy, but even I can see that OO.org runs laps around any MS product for my uses. I swear, this must be someone shilling for Microsoft.
Read the exchange with the other poster. I was mocking the concept of "non-violent direct action" irrespective of whether the NZ Greens specifically misuse it. Of course, I'd be surprised if many NZ Greens didn't support "non-violent direct action" and the actions of Greenpeace I linked.
My question was what this has to do with the issues Greens are concerned about - you know, phony environemental boogeymen, dismantling successful businesses. And you missed my other point: sure, the Greens might have a case for open source if they opposed locking the government into using the services of monopolists in general. However, they don't: all Green parties worldwide, to my knowledge, support "locking in" the government to union labor (i.e., labor monopolists). Again, large inconsistency.
I understand why many people would support open source in government. I do not understand why the Greens are focusing on this issue so intently. It diverges from their core issues, and it's inconsistent with their position of locking the government into union labor.
Sorry, it doesn't work that way. If your statistics fail even the most rudimentary "reality check", they're way off. That I could not find bidders offering the prices your statistics would suggest shows they're off. I should have been getting low bids from Americans. I got no bids from Americans. Refusing my offer just shows you're blowing smoke.
Regarding the rest, I don't know what to say. It looks like a version of "Somehow, Cuba is in dire poverty despite its noble communist government." Maybe Europeans are poor because of over-regulated labor markets? Makes sense. When you buy labor - like when you shop at the supermarket, if someone told you that once you bought from the supermarket, you had to buy there until you could convince a judge that you had a "legitimate economic need" to shop somewhere else, you'd be pretty wary about buying anyone's labor, i.e., shopping at any supermarket. That doesn't make for a healthy economic environment.
Your comment about Social Security is particularly perplexing. Sure, it's going to collapse. If you had been able to invest your own money in your own account, you would be loaded in 2020. Unfortunately, the political party closest to your views tends to 1) support this theft of your investment funds and 2) denies that there is a problem at all.
I'll go back to looking for these imaginary $15/hour American coders. You can go back to not believing everything you hear.
Let's try to interpret people to mean something that's not incredibly unreasonable. Yes, Switzerland doesn't have the specific law referred to as HIPAA. She does have medical privacy laws nonetheless. These would almost certainly affect the use of the iPod in medicine. You shouldn't be so focused on a small error in the GP that you ignore the broader point about the conern for medical privacy. If someone said to me, "How could doing X be legal in Switzerland? The Banking Act prohibits it." I wouldn't say "hahahahhahahahahaha you idiot that law doesn't apply there!", I would say something like "Well, that's just a US law, but the relevant Swiss regulations say that..."
That would probably save a bunch of redundant posts and back-and-forth. Just a thought.
I think a good idea would be for them to truly find out how many people are using it. Make it so that when you download it, you have to state how many people it's for. And to make that accurate, you should have to give your SSN or whatever your country's national ID number is, and the ID number of everyone who you claim will use it. Then they can strike any duplicates. To make sure people don't give it away and distort the number, they could make the file encrypted such that it will only run if you register it. To confirm you're not using someone else's number, they could set up centers at DMV's (Department of Motor Vehicles) where you can verify that it's you before you can register it (and they'd have computers you'd use to register your copy).
To prevent people from compiling it on their own, they could close the source so that you can only run it through the official installer and only that would be counted in the tallies. To verify transparency, they should put all the names and ID numbers in a central database that everyone can access so that independent agencies can verify the names and contact people to be sure they're actually using it. This could all be funded by selling the contact information in the database to direct marketing organizations (the legitimate ones, not the ones who harass you).
This is the only way to get an accurate, scientific count of the true number of users.
Even conceding that you're right about the status of wages, I really don't see how it implies people living in tenement housing (and I don't particularly care for terminology that implies non-poor people don't work). I've lived on much less than 30K BEFORE taxes and I wasn't in tenement housing and I could actually save up a lot. And just to clarify, that doesn't mean these programmers are "loaded", just that they're not going to be dirt poor like you seem to think, even taking your stats at face value.
And I don't even know where you are getting these numbers. I posted a programming contract job for a project on rentacoder.com. I expect that the labor would take at least 10 hours, and I didn't a single bid from an American - and none as low as $150. If that's what these programmers are working for, it's really odd why they aren't bidding on my project. Can you refer me to one of these people? I'm serious. It would be great to have an American programmer.
Yeah...damn capitalists. You people keep forgetting that Google is a CORPORATION and thus, BY DEFINITION does not care about the environment, about its workers, and insofar as it betrays any concern for these it's no longer a corporation, but an exponent of socialism.
That would mean much of the American population will move into tentaments for 21st Century living. Expenses can't continue to rise (or even plateau) when income takes THAT MUCH of a dive.
No, they wouldn't. Sorry. If every American coder's wage is driven alllllllllllll the way down to $55,000, that's still MUCH higher than, I don't know 99.5% of the world... not tenement housing yet. Further, the policy of letting everyone hire the best value labor means your prices are lower. Would you be better off if I made you turn down gifts? Then why are you better off when you're stopped from buying better values?
Ah, so you're the person who mods down well-reasoned posts he disagrees with instead of replying to them. Sorry, I prefer the latter option...more civilized and all.
There is no union of engineers that determine the going wage.
No union ever determines the going wage... not long term anyway. If an engineer's union formed and tried to extort higher-than-market wages, that would accelerate the flight of jobs to other countries.
Companies are free to offer what they will, only they don't. The company stock price goes up when layoffs and outsourcing are announced. Stock analysts and CxOs love it, so it happens. Why should the engineers who built a great big company lose their jobs because the new CEO wants a bigger bonus?
Right, stock price always goes up when they outsource and fire overpriced American programmers. So, tell me again why the entire American labor force hasn't been replaced by Indians? If outsourcing always 100% guarantees a jump in stock prices, why hasn't everyone been outsourced? Why not just have uneducated sub-Saharan workes, who work for like five cents an hour, do the coding? Wouldn't that be cheaper? Why hasn't anyone tried that?
And why don't you make a bet with some CEO that doing so will get him huge profits?
Who says the people who made the company make too much? You? How? WTF do you know?
Hey, why stop there? My mom did a lot of work raising me. I think she deserves, right now, a fat check for $1 million. What? You disagree? How? WTF do you know?
Well, since you've decided to degenerate into calling names, may I call you Moron? OK, thanks. Moron, there's a difference between a bargain and the cheapest price. A bargain is getting good value for your money. A cheap WalMart shirt that falls apart in a few weeks is not a good bargain compared to a more expensive shirt that will last for years. I recently paid 20% more for some major yard work to a company with a good reputation over the lowest bid, and it was done well and on schedule. I got a bargain.
Really? Really? You mean it's not just the price, but the ratio of value to price? Wow, I never knew that before! I guess that's why I never said this: "Employers seek more value per cost." http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166337&cid=138 75362
Oops, I did.
No shit quality is a factor. New concept: those buying cheaper programming labor *don't think the higher quality of American coders justifies the additional price*. That's why the cheaper labor in this case is a bargain. But you're not satisfied with that. You want to make them hire your labor at higher prices despite the additional quality not justifying the additional expense. You look for bargains, but tell others not to. That makes you a hypocrite. It does not make me a moron (though it does suggest another candidate).
Okay, let me see if I can put this in terms you understand. I'm trying to establish that the minimum wage (i.e., legal price floor on per-unit-time price of labor) does not accomplish the goals you have outlined. I have explained a simple reason why: if a law can increase the real compensation of a worker, why stop at $10/hour? Why not $100/hour? You declined to answer this at least three times. Until you answer this, your argument in favor a labor price floors is non-existent. If you propose policy X to accomplish Y, and policy X does not accomplish Y, your policy prescription is in error. It does not matter that there are "hidden costs" to poverty. If the minimum wage does not affect poverty, it doesn't quite do a whole hell of a lot for the "hidden costs of poverty", now, does it?
What I want you to do is, (like I asked you three times) explain why a $100/hour minimum wage would be a bad idea. Then explain why that exact argument does not apply to the minimum wage you advocate. If you can't do that, all your grandstanding about how, golly gee, shouldn't we have a law that makes employers PAY SOMEONE ENOUGH TO LIVE FROM is seen as irrelevant.
You claim the minimum wage is working "quite well" wherever it is that you happen to live. I dispute this. You see the workers get raises from increases in the minimum wage (er... at least until the employer rides out the employment contract and moves the jobs elsewhere). You do not see the jobs that never get offered in the first place like internships that would give "risky" workers a foot in the door and a chance to earn money. Like, the Google Summer of Code project that would not have happened if people like you were in the California legislature. "Hey! Pay a fair wage!" "That is a fair wage... the coders certainly like it." "No! You pay what we say you pay... if you hire at all." "Okay, then we will do something else with the funds." "Yeah! That's right! Take that, Google! That's what you get for trying to give people jobs! Good riddance."
Now, regarding your other point about the "justification" of the minimum wage... is this really a road you want to go down? Did you know that the original OFFICIAL justification of the original minimum wage in America was keep industry from fleeing from the North to the South? Or what if I told you it was also originally justified on eugenics grounds. Don't believe me? Read this:
Progressives wanted to make women and other groups (you know, the blacks and disabled people you claim to care about) unemployable. Their chosen tool: the minimum wage.
Quoth the author Thomas Leonard: "...these progressives argued that minimum-wage-induced disemployment was a social benefit. Legal minimum wages and other statutory means of inducing undesirable groups to leave the labor force were, in the progressive view, a eugenic benefit."
And that's even setting aside the whole issue of whether the fact that a law "feels good" makes it a good idea. You seem to say yes, I say no.
No, if you prohibit this then you enforce that things you cannot afford doing keep being done. 'Addord' in this is not just a matter of having the direct financial means, but also of longer term cost and benefit to society.
Do you understand what a minimum wage law says? It prohibits an exchange. It does not say "you must hire this person, and at this wage". It says, "IF you hire this person, it must be for this wage". Understand the difference? See why it makes people not worth hiring?
If you believe that having to depend on food stamps while working 40+ hours/week is reasonable then you and I have a compketely different definition of reasonable.
If the minimum wage law actually relieved that situation, that comment would be relevant.
THe opposite of having a minimum wage is not having one obviously. The opposite of your 'why not pay them $50/hour, why not $100/hour' absurdity is taking no minimum wage to the extreme and implementing slavery. (not to mention that many people consider working while not even gettign payed enough to live from slavery)
Is the opposite of a minimum wage slavery or is it no minimum wage? Ignoring your rank appeal to emotion, do you have any idea why I keep bringing up the $100/hour? See the comment below about reduction to absurdity.
People go there because they have better chances then anywhere near that place, not because the places around it have a minimum wage. Completely irrelevant argument.
It's "irrelevant" because you don't see the cause and effect. Hong Kong has "better chances than anywhere near that place" because of it's free, dynamic economy, in which you don't have to worry that you'll be forced to give someone a raise some day if you contract for their labor. But more importantly, it puts paid your notion that the nation would totally descend into poverty if there were no minimum wage laws, so even in that respect it's relevant. Please, wake up.
Now, go back to your nice theoretical world of paper assurances (like certificates, diplomas etc). Those who are succesfull in the real world care about result however and not about theoretical certification.
What the fuck are you talking about? I come in arguing about how irrelevant the diplomas are, and how they're only used to vet employees for risk, since whoever you hire you're stuck with (and, thanks to you, have to give arbitrary raises to), and you're accusing me of living in a "theoretical world of paper assurances"??? Get a fucking clue! YES, employers care about bullshit certifications. You know why? You want to know where you can find the solution to this mystery? It's called a "mirror". YOU are the reason. You're the person demanding more benefits be lobbed onto every employement contract: arbitrary raises, impossibility of firing, impossibility of wage cuts, required benefits, possibility of getting sued on flimsy "discrimination" grounds for millions, prohibiting employers from saying "nice dress", etc etc etc ad nauseum ad infinitum.
Wouldn't it be great if every contract had all that shit? Wouldn't it be fuckin' paradise?
Oops, small problem: the more of that stuff you require, the more dangerous any employee is. So you see someone with no acquired skills but claims he's a fast learner. Aw, give the fucker a chance. Oops, turns out to be totally useless. Time to turn him over to someone who might be able to actually use him. Wait...you mean you can't fire him? That would be "discrimination"? Aw, fuck. Now you get taken to the cleaners for millions... all because you believed someone who said he was a fast learner.
Anticipating legal bullshit like that employers don't hire anyone unless they can show loads of documentation that they're not a fuckup: background checks, SSN, bullshit diploma irrelevant to the job, references, and, yep, everyone's favorite: having "connections". Take a chance on someone? Fuck that. "Sor
We do have "plenty of engineers", but they charge too much. Solution: bid lower to compete with foreign labor. Just like how everyone you buy from bids lower to get your business.
No, it means that if society wants a certain hob done, they have to pay enough for it so that someoone can reasonably do that job. If it is not worth it then the job won't be done. That does nowhere mean that the person who'd have taken that job does not get payed in another job however.
They already do pay enough so that someone can reasonably do the job: it's called the market wage. If it's not worth that much to them, the job doesn't get done. If you prohibit such exchanges (i.e., your position), you eliminate that opportunity, meaning the person has to go find another opportunity. But since that was his best option (else why would you have to prohibit the exchange), he has to take an even worse option, i.e., a lower wage. If there were better wages out there, he would have already taken them.
In the style of that argument, why not solve the issue completely and reintroduce slavery? Makes sure that those jobs get done with the lowest direct cost to society...
The opposite would mean no minimum wage, not implementing slavery. It would result in such bastions of poverty as min-wage-free Hong Kong (you know, the place workers flock to to be oppressed or something). You know why you get paid what you do? Because of competition for labor, not because your employer likes you or because the laws says he has to. You know why it's hard to find a job? Because employers have to hire you without getting a chance to see if you're a good fit, so they only hire "sure things". Really. Otherwise, why the fuck would they care if you've gone to college if you know the skill?
Would it be possible for you to make an argument here without resorting to absurdities?
Reduction to absurdity is a valid rhetorical technique. If I can show your position implies something you disagree with, I have refuted it.
you:That is an assmption, which turns out to not be true in about any place on this planet that uses minimum wage. Argument ignored untill substantiated by proof.
me:Why not a minimum wage of $20/hour? $50/hour? $100/hour? If we can increase compensation for work just by passing a law, why be so miserly?
you:Because that has nothing to do with living wage or minimum wage anymore maybe? All you are doing for now however is telling yourself absurdities in order to discredit an idea that you do not even seem to understand to begin with.
You tell me the minimum wage always works and don't even consider what would happen if you made the minimum wage arbitrarily high? You think employers will keep hiring no matter how much they are made to pay? You think no one revises down hiring plans in the face of laws telling them they must pay more? No one says "hm... locate here, where they will arbitrarily make me give raises at random times... or there, where they won't... *think think*" If you want a good, you'll always buy it, regardless of any price floor placed on it?
Yes, that's what you have to believe to support the notion that it's effects are as minimal as you claim. But since I missed it, explain precisely why a $100/hour minimum wage would not raise every current worker's wage to $100/hour. Then explain why that argument does not apply to the minimum wage law you do advocate.
Guess what: "feeling good" about a policy doesn't mean it accomplishes anything. It can make intellectually lazy people more dangerous.
Ah ok, so you really od not understand it. Please shutup and learn to use your brains.
Do *you* want to work below living wage and someone is stopping you? Are *you* begging to have a job that pays less than living wage and someone is stopping you?
No, but many are, and someone is stopping them - whatever government passes such laws. I know, you don't really give a damn about them, but they exist.
Why are you arguing against living wage?
I'm against "living wage" laws because it means workers who aren't worth hiring at under that don't get paid at all, not that they are paid more for the same jobs. Why not a minimum wage of $20/hour? $50/hour? $100/hour? If we can increase compensation for work just by passing a law, why be so miserly?
Is it so hard to believe someone could oppose price floors on practical grounds, rather than because they hate poor people? Shocking, I know.
Oh, except that the minimum wage means they don't get paid at all, not that they are paid more for the same jobs. Why not a minimum wage of $20/hour? $50/hour? $100/hour? If we can increase compensation for work just by passing a law, why be so miserly?
I'm just thankful no one in California's legislature has found out about Google's exploitative practices... or that they did find out and realize how stupid it would be to prevent this exploitative practice.
Paragraph 2: my point was that you were making exactly the same kind of confusion between left-wing factions. NZ Greens are no more responsible for the actions of bolsheviks in London than the NZ ACT Party is for the actions of Enron/Andersen executives; they're unrelated.
I understand. I agree with your point about different proponents of the same ideology taking different measures. My point was just that the relationship between NZ Greens and London bolsheviks is different from the relationship between the ACT Party and Enron execs. NZ Greens and London bolsheviks have the same basic goals; they just use different means to achieve them. The ACT Party (~cursory view of their webpage~) supports free market capitalism. Enron execs, as far as I know, do not. At least, that is not a defining characteristic as it is for ACT Party members. I just wanted to correct your confusion between capitalism in the sense of pursuing wealth and capitalism in the sense of free markets and private property without regard for the goals individuals choose within such a metacontext. And don't worry - you're not the first person to confuse the two.
Paragraph 4: sorry, I don't know what you're referring to here. In any case I was making my assumption on the grounds that you were referring to an incident in London; my apologies for the error.
Employers seek more value per cost. Employees seek higher pay per effort. Anyone who says "there aren't enough engineers" is just saying "I want to pay less". (Join the club.) But on the other hand, employees who say "we have plenty of engineers" is just saying "I want to be paid more". (Join the club.)
Slashdot Mirror
Hehe, sorry about that. I missed the end of the sentence about "saving a full second" or however you phrased it. Believe me, I've had to correct much weirder claims that that one on Slashdot!
My post shot up to 4 at first (probably 5), then dropped to -1 and now has oscillated between 1 and 0. (Wouldn't it be cool if moderators could get together, cancel out all the conflicting moddings, and then apply their mod points to other posts?)
I'm just not going to say anymore on this, except that the thing about "running laps around MS" was a general evaluation, not necessarily concerning the speed and storage issues. OO.o is so much easier to use for me, I just love it. That's why I made the incriminating "lap" comment.
No, it wouldn't. In both cases, you're talking about a time difference that wouldn't make a difference. Right now, when you search Google, the results are, for all practical purposes, immediate. The amount of time to get the results is small relative to the total time you spend on a search. Say it takes you ~2 seconds to skim the results. Then using a hypothetical 0.002 second search vs. 0.2 second search would save you (optimistically) 10% which may be significant to you but is nowhere near the 100x you claim (as revised in your follow-up). And again, even that's not a fair comparison. To really assess the usefulness of the first few pages of results may take ~5 minutes. The increased search speed has therefore not noticeably affected the time it takes you to search. You're long past the point of diminishing returns. You can't just say that 100x faster search means 100x greater productivity.
Point being, the absolute time spent by the service in searching is not a limiting factor. You couldn't actually make a noticeable use of the saved time. Therefore, for MS to advertise faster searches... I don't see that drawing anyone except through the appeal of novelty. But a cheaper ad campaign could do the same thing.
Please clarify. Someone using google to search their intranet for what purpose would be able to process search results that came at 0.002 seconds apiece versus 0.2 seconds?
For example, Microsoft search can be adless (or charge less for ads) and hyperfast thanks a server farm 100x Google's size.
The other advantages you listed are substantial, but not this one I'm afraid. Google's searches are already on the order of 0.2 seconds. I can't imagine anyone "on the margin" switching to MS because they get their results in 0.002 seconds plus download time rather than 0.2 seconds plus download time. I could be wrong though: Are there people who do rapid searches in succession and can process the data from those searches at that speed?
I seriously doubt that. I was working with files similar in size to the ones discussed in the article just last night, and I got completely opposite results. OO.org took half the time to load that Excel did and took up just over half the space for the files. I really don't know where they get these numbers. Probably a biased test with fundamentally different data. I hate trying new software that does the same thing, and I am by no means tech-savvy, but even I can see that OO.org runs laps around any MS product for my uses. I swear, this must be someone shilling for Microsoft.
Read the exchange with the other poster. I was mocking the concept of "non-violent direct action" irrespective of whether the NZ Greens specifically misuse it. Of course, I'd be surprised if many NZ Greens didn't support "non-violent direct action" and the actions of Greenpeace I linked.
My question was what this has to do with the issues Greens are concerned about - you know, phony environemental boogeymen, dismantling successful businesses. And you missed my other point: sure, the Greens might have a case for open source if they opposed locking the government into using the services of monopolists in general. However, they don't: all Green parties worldwide, to my knowledge, support "locking in" the government to union labor (i.e., labor monopolists). Again, large inconsistency.
I understand why many people would support open source in government. I do not understand why the Greens are focusing on this issue so intently. It diverges from their core issues, and it's inconsistent with their position of locking the government into union labor.
The Simpsons hadn't started airing during their lifetimes.
*someone mod this insightful*
Sorry, it doesn't work that way. If your statistics fail even the most rudimentary "reality check", they're way off. That I could not find bidders offering the prices your statistics would suggest shows they're off. I should have been getting low bids from Americans. I got no bids from Americans. Refusing my offer just shows you're blowing smoke.
Regarding the rest, I don't know what to say. It looks like a version of "Somehow, Cuba is in dire poverty despite its noble communist government." Maybe Europeans are poor because of over-regulated labor markets? Makes sense. When you buy labor - like when you shop at the supermarket, if someone told you that once you bought from the supermarket, you had to buy there until you could convince a judge that you had a "legitimate economic need" to shop somewhere else, you'd be pretty wary about buying anyone's labor, i.e., shopping at any supermarket. That doesn't make for a healthy economic environment.
Your comment about Social Security is particularly perplexing. Sure, it's going to collapse. If you had been able to invest your own money in your own account, you would be loaded in 2020. Unfortunately, the political party closest to your views tends to 1) support this theft of your investment funds and 2) denies that there is a problem at all.
I'll go back to looking for these imaginary $15/hour American coders. You can go back to not believing everything you hear.
Let's try to interpret people to mean something that's not incredibly unreasonable. Yes, Switzerland doesn't have the specific law referred to as HIPAA. She does have medical privacy laws nonetheless. These would almost certainly affect the use of the iPod in medicine. You shouldn't be so focused on a small error in the GP that you ignore the broader point about the conern for medical privacy. If someone said to me, "How could doing X be legal in Switzerland? The Banking Act prohibits it." I wouldn't say "hahahahhahahahahaha you idiot that law doesn't apply there!", I would say something like "Well, that's just a US law, but the relevant Swiss regulations say that ..."
That would probably save a bunch of redundant posts and back-and-forth. Just a thought.
I think a good idea would be for them to truly find out how many people are using it. Make it so that when you download it, you have to state how many people it's for. And to make that accurate, you should have to give your SSN or whatever your country's national ID number is, and the ID number of everyone who you claim will use it. Then they can strike any duplicates. To make sure people don't give it away and distort the number, they could make the file encrypted such that it will only run if you register it. To confirm you're not using someone else's number, they could set up centers at DMV's (Department of Motor Vehicles) where you can verify that it's you before you can register it (and they'd have computers you'd use to register your copy).
To prevent people from compiling it on their own, they could close the source so that you can only run it through the official installer and only that would be counted in the tallies. To verify transparency, they should put all the names and ID numbers in a central database that everyone can access so that independent agencies can verify the names and contact people to be sure they're actually using it. This could all be funded by selling the contact information in the database to direct marketing organizations (the legitimate ones, not the ones who harass you).
This is the only way to get an accurate, scientific count of the true number of users.
Let's try to tone it down.
Even conceding that you're right about the status of wages, I really don't see how it implies people living in tenement housing (and I don't particularly care for terminology that implies non-poor people don't work). I've lived on much less than 30K BEFORE taxes and I wasn't in tenement housing and I could actually save up a lot. And just to clarify, that doesn't mean these programmers are "loaded", just that they're not going to be dirt poor like you seem to think, even taking your stats at face value.
And I don't even know where you are getting these numbers. I posted a programming contract job for a project on rentacoder.com. I expect that the labor would take at least 10 hours, and I didn't a single bid from an American - and none as low as $150. If that's what these programmers are working for, it's really odd why they aren't bidding on my project. Can you refer me to one of these people? I'm serious. It would be great to have an American programmer.
Yeah...damn capitalists. You people keep forgetting that Google is a CORPORATION and thus, BY DEFINITION does not care about the environment, about its workers, and insofar as it betrays any concern for these it's no longer a corporation, but an exponent of socialism.
I think I get it now.
That would mean much of the American population will move into tentaments for 21st Century living. Expenses can't continue to rise (or even plateau) when income takes THAT MUCH of a dive.
No, they wouldn't. Sorry. If every American coder's wage is driven alllllllllllll the way down to $55,000, that's still MUCH higher than, I don't know 99.5% of the world... not tenement housing yet. Further, the policy of letting everyone hire the best value labor means your prices are lower. Would you be better off if I made you turn down gifts? Then why are you better off when you're stopped from buying better values?
If you want to moderate, shut up and do so.
8 75362
Ah, so you're the person who mods down well-reasoned posts he disagrees with instead of replying to them. Sorry, I prefer the latter option...more civilized and all.
There is no union of engineers that determine the going wage.
No union ever determines the going wage... not long term anyway. If an engineer's union formed and tried to extort higher-than-market wages, that would accelerate the flight of jobs to other countries.
Companies are free to offer what they will, only they don't. The company stock price goes up when layoffs and outsourcing are announced. Stock analysts and CxOs love it, so it happens. Why should the engineers who built a great big company lose their jobs because the new CEO wants a bigger bonus?
Right, stock price always goes up when they outsource and fire overpriced American programmers. So, tell me again why the entire American labor force hasn't been replaced by Indians? If outsourcing always 100% guarantees a jump in stock prices, why hasn't everyone been outsourced? Why not just have uneducated sub-Saharan workes, who work for like five cents an hour, do the coding? Wouldn't that be cheaper? Why hasn't anyone tried that?
And why don't you make a bet with some CEO that doing so will get him huge profits?
Who says the people who made the company make too much? You? How? WTF do you know?
Hey, why stop there? My mom did a lot of work raising me. I think she deserves, right now, a fat check for $1 million. What? You disagree? How? WTF do you know?
Well, since you've decided to degenerate into calling names, may I call you Moron? OK, thanks. Moron, there's a difference between a bargain and the cheapest price. A bargain is getting good value for your money. A cheap WalMart shirt that falls apart in a few weeks is not a good bargain compared to a more expensive shirt that will last for years. I recently paid 20% more for some major yard work to a company with a good reputation over the lowest bid, and it was done well and on schedule. I got a bargain.
Really? Really? You mean it's not just the price, but the ratio of value to price? Wow, I never knew that before! I guess that's why I never said this: "Employers seek more value per cost." http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166337&cid=13
Oops, I did.
No shit quality is a factor. New concept: those buying cheaper programming labor *don't think the higher quality of American coders justifies the additional price*. That's why the cheaper labor in this case is a bargain. But you're not satisfied with that. You want to make them hire your labor at higher prices despite the additional quality not justifying the additional expense. You look for bargains, but tell others not to. That makes you a hypocrite. It does not make me a moron (though it does suggest another candidate).
Okay, let me see if I can put this in terms you understand. I'm trying to establish that the minimum wage (i.e., legal price floor on per-unit-time price of labor) does not accomplish the goals you have outlined. I have explained a simple reason why: if a law can increase the real compensation of a worker, why stop at $10/hour? Why not $100/hour? You declined to answer this at least three times. Until you answer this, your argument in favor a labor price floors is non-existent. If you propose policy X to accomplish Y, and policy X does not accomplish Y, your policy prescription is in error. It does not matter that there are "hidden costs" to poverty. If the minimum wage does not affect poverty, it doesn't quite do a whole hell of a lot for the "hidden costs of poverty", now, does it?
... if you hire at all." "Okay, then we will do something else with the funds." "Yeah! That's right! Take that, Google! That's what you get for trying to give people jobs! Good riddance."
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What I want you to do is, (like I asked you three times) explain why a $100/hour minimum wage would be a bad idea. Then explain why that exact argument does not apply to the minimum wage you advocate. If you can't do that, all your grandstanding about how, golly gee, shouldn't we have a law that makes employers PAY SOMEONE ENOUGH TO LIVE FROM is seen as irrelevant.
You claim the minimum wage is working "quite well" wherever it is that you happen to live. I dispute this. You see the workers get raises from increases in the minimum wage (er... at least until the employer rides out the employment contract and moves the jobs elsewhere). You do not see the jobs that never get offered in the first place like internships that would give "risky" workers a foot in the door and a chance to earn money. Like, the Google Summer of Code project that would not have happened if people like you were in the California legislature. "Hey! Pay a fair wage!" "That is a fair wage... the coders certainly like it." "No! You pay what we say you pay
Now, regarding your other point about the "justification" of the minimum wage... is this really a road you want to go down? Did you know that the original OFFICIAL justification of the original minimum wage in America was keep industry from fleeing from the North to the South? Or what if I told you it was also originally justified on eugenics grounds. Don't believe me? Read this:
http://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/Womensw
Progressives wanted to make women and other groups (you know, the blacks and disabled people you claim to care about) unemployable. Their chosen tool: the minimum wage.
Quoth the author Thomas Leonard: "...these progressives argued that minimum-wage-induced disemployment was a social benefit. Legal minimum wages and other statutory means of inducing undesirable groups to leave the labor force were, in the progressive view, a eugenic benefit."
And that's even setting aside the whole issue of whether the fact that a law "feels good" makes it a good idea. You seem to say yes, I say no.
No, if you prohibit this then you enforce that things you cannot afford doing keep being done.
'Addord' in this is not just a matter of having the direct financial means, but also of longer term cost and benefit to society.
Do you understand what a minimum wage law says? It prohibits an exchange. It does not say "you must hire this person, and at this wage". It says, "IF you hire this person, it must be for this wage". Understand the difference? See why it makes people not worth hiring?
If you believe that having to depend on food stamps while working 40+ hours/week is reasonable then you and I have a compketely different definition of reasonable.
If the minimum wage law actually relieved that situation, that comment would be relevant.
THe opposite of having a minimum wage is not having one obviously. The opposite of your 'why not pay them $50/hour, why not $100/hour' absurdity is taking no minimum wage to the extreme and implementing slavery. (not to mention that many people consider working while not even gettign payed enough to live from slavery)
Is the opposite of a minimum wage slavery or is it no minimum wage? Ignoring your rank appeal to emotion, do you have any idea why I keep bringing up the $100/hour? See the comment below about reduction to absurdity.
People go there because they have better chances then anywhere near that place, not because the places around it have a minimum wage. Completely irrelevant argument.
It's "irrelevant" because you don't see the cause and effect. Hong Kong has "better chances than anywhere near that place" because of it's free, dynamic economy, in which you don't have to worry that you'll be forced to give someone a raise some day if you contract for their labor. But more importantly, it puts paid your notion that the nation would totally descend into poverty if there were no minimum wage laws, so even in that respect it's relevant. Please, wake up.
Now, go back to your nice theoretical world of paper assurances (like certificates, diplomas etc). Those who are succesfull in the real world care about result however and not about theoretical certification.
What the fuck are you talking about? I come in arguing about how irrelevant the diplomas are, and how they're only used to vet employees for risk, since whoever you hire you're stuck with (and, thanks to you, have to give arbitrary raises to), and you're accusing me of living in a "theoretical world of paper assurances"??? Get a fucking clue! YES, employers care about bullshit certifications. You know why? You want to know where you can find the solution to this mystery? It's called a "mirror". YOU are the reason. You're the person demanding more benefits be lobbed onto every employement contract: arbitrary raises, impossibility of firing, impossibility of wage cuts, required benefits, possibility of getting sued on flimsy "discrimination" grounds for millions, prohibiting employers from saying "nice dress", etc etc etc ad nauseum ad infinitum.
Wouldn't it be great if every contract had all that shit? Wouldn't it be fuckin' paradise?
Oops, small problem: the more of that stuff you require, the more dangerous any employee is. So you see someone with no acquired skills but claims he's a fast learner. Aw, give the fucker a chance. Oops, turns out to be totally useless. Time to turn him over to someone who might be able to actually use him. Wait...you mean you can't fire him? That would be "discrimination"? Aw, fuck. Now you get taken to the cleaners for millions... all because you believed someone who said he was a fast learner.
Anticipating legal bullshit like that employers don't hire anyone unless they can show loads of documentation that they're not a fuckup: background checks, SSN, bullshit diploma irrelevant to the job, references, and, yep, everyone's favorite: having "connections". Take a chance on someone? Fuck that. "Sor
Not another "insightful" populist...
We do have "plenty of engineers", but they charge too much. Solution: bid lower to compete with foreign labor. Just like how everyone you buy from bids lower to get your business.
You do look for bargains, don't you, hypocrite?
No, it means that if society wants a certain hob done, they have to pay enough for it so that someoone can reasonably do that job. If it is not worth it then the job won't be done. That does nowhere mean that the person who'd have taken that job does not get payed in another job however.
They already do pay enough so that someone can reasonably do the job: it's called the market wage. If it's not worth that much to them, the job doesn't get done. If you prohibit such exchanges (i.e., your position), you eliminate that opportunity, meaning the person has to go find another opportunity. But since that was his best option (else why would you have to prohibit the exchange), he has to take an even worse option, i.e., a lower wage. If there were better wages out there, he would have already taken them.
In the style of that argument, why not solve the issue completely and reintroduce slavery? Makes sure that those jobs get done with the lowest direct cost to society...
The opposite would mean no minimum wage, not implementing slavery. It would result in such bastions of poverty as min-wage-free Hong Kong (you know, the place workers flock to to be oppressed or something). You know why you get paid what you do? Because of competition for labor, not because your employer likes you or because the laws says he has to. You know why it's hard to find a job? Because employers have to hire you without getting a chance to see if you're a good fit, so they only hire "sure things". Really. Otherwise, why the fuck would they care if you've gone to college if you know the skill?
Would it be possible for you to make an argument here without resorting to absurdities?
Reduction to absurdity is a valid rhetorical technique. If I can show your position implies something you disagree with, I have refuted it.
you:That is an assmption, which turns out to not be true in about any place on this planet that uses minimum wage. Argument ignored untill substantiated by proof.
me:Why not a minimum wage of $20/hour? $50/hour? $100/hour? If we can increase compensation for work just by passing a law, why be so miserly?
you:Because that has nothing to do with living wage or minimum wage anymore maybe? All you are doing for now however is telling yourself absurdities in order to discredit an idea that you do not even seem to understand to begin with.
You tell me the minimum wage always works and don't even consider what would happen if you made the minimum wage arbitrarily high? You think employers will keep hiring no matter how much they are made to pay? You think no one revises down hiring plans in the face of laws telling them they must pay more? No one says "hm... locate here, where they will arbitrarily make me give raises at random times... or there, where they won't... *think think*" If you want a good, you'll always buy it, regardless of any price floor placed on it?
Yes, that's what you have to believe to support the notion that it's effects are as minimal as you claim. But since I missed it, explain precisely why a $100/hour minimum wage would not raise every current worker's wage to $100/hour. Then explain why that argument does not apply to the minimum wage law you do advocate.
Guess what: "feeling good" about a policy doesn't mean it accomplishes anything. It can make intellectually lazy people more dangerous.
Ah ok, so you really od not understand it. Please shutup and learn to use your brains.
A weakness is revealed.
Do *you* want to work below living wage and someone is stopping you? Are *you* begging to have a job that pays less than living wage and someone is stopping you?
No, but many are, and someone is stopping them - whatever government passes such laws. I know, you don't really give a damn about them, but they exist.
Why are you arguing against living wage?
I'm against "living wage" laws because it means workers who aren't worth hiring at under that don't get paid at all, not that they are paid more for the same jobs. Why not a minimum wage of $20/hour? $50/hour? $100/hour? If we can increase compensation for work just by passing a law, why be so miserly?
Is it so hard to believe someone could oppose price floors on practical grounds, rather than because they hate poor people? Shocking, I know.
Oh, except that the minimum wage means they don't get paid at all, not that they are paid more for the same jobs. Why not a minimum wage of $20/hour? $50/hour? $100/hour? If we can increase compensation for work just by passing a law, why be so miserly?
... or that they did find out and realize how stupid it would be to prevent this exploitative practice.
I'm just thankful no one in California's legislature has found out about Google's exploitative practices
Paragraph 2: my point was that you were making exactly the same kind of confusion between left-wing factions. NZ Greens are no more responsible for the actions of bolsheviks in London than the NZ ACT Party is for the actions of Enron/Andersen executives; they're unrelated.
I understand. I agree with your point about different proponents of the same ideology taking different measures. My point was just that the relationship between NZ Greens and London bolsheviks is different from the relationship between the ACT Party and Enron execs. NZ Greens and London bolsheviks have the same basic goals; they just use different means to achieve them. The ACT Party (~cursory view of their webpage~) supports free market capitalism. Enron execs, as far as I know, do not. At least, that is not a defining characteristic as it is for ACT Party members. I just wanted to correct your confusion between capitalism in the sense of pursuing wealth and capitalism in the sense of free markets and private property without regard for the goals individuals choose within such a metacontext. And don't worry - you're not the first person to confuse the two.
Paragraph 4: sorry, I don't know what you're referring to here. In any case I was making my assumption on the grounds that you were referring to an incident in London; my apologies for the error.
www.freestateproject.org
Yes, that is insightful. It would make sense to work for lower pay than usual to signal how good your work is and to get your name out.
Congratulations: you just explained why the minimum wage is a bad idea.
What if California enforced "living wage" laws against these coders? Yeah, that would make the world a much better place.
Employers seek more value per cost. Employees seek higher pay per effort. Anyone who says "there aren't enough engineers" is just saying "I want to pay less". (Join the club.) But on the other hand, employees who say "we have plenty of engineers" is just saying "I want to be paid more". (Join the club.)