Good CS programs: Two great universities with well-regarded CS programs - NTU and NUS
Language: All classes are in English; most people speak English (it's quirky Singlish, but you'll get by)
Infrastructure: The country and both schools have excellent infrastructure and your basic living comforts would be similar to or better than in the US
Travel and exposure: It's cheap and easy to explore neighboring countries (Malysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, China, India, Korea, etc). You can experience a rich diversity of cultures solely through weekend getaways
Diversity: Singapore itself is pretty diverse - you can experience elements of Chinese, Indian and other cultures within the city-state.
It's not "the West": Chances are, you have visited or will visit Europe anyway. Singapore will expose you to an entirely different worldview. Yet, you will not sacrifice basic comforts that you take for granted in the US
Till 2004 I worked at a multinational company with ~22,000 employees of which ~450 were IT staff. But these numbers don't tell the whole story.
The company had offices in around 130 countries, many with only a small staff. There were a few local IT personnel in most countries (included in the 450). They did on-site troubleshooting, facilities and hardware installations, etc.
Most IT staff were in 4 locations around the world, providing follow-the-sun helpdesk support. We also had operations, application development/ support, management and strategy folks at these 4 locations. The company maintained a ton of internally developed business systems, including some written in COBOL way back when.
The company was (and is) almost entirely a Microsoft/ Windows environment. In the operations team, we did everything via AD and Group Policy using terminal services/ RDP. Really, it wasn't too painful.
That picture is of a train in Bangladesh, not India - you can tell from the rake, which is not Indian Railways, and from the lettering on the plates, which is in the Bengali script. In India, these are ususally in English.
Further, the meme of folks regularly travelling on traintops in India is not entirely accurate - many trains and train lines are electrified, with overhead wires and pantographs making this impossible or at leasst very dangerous. And there's the fact that it's illegal to do so.
Spot on - this has nothing to do with religion. Note that the real Hindu clergy is not protesting.
This is pure, filthy politics - the Shiv Sena and their ilk are just trying to fight their own growing irrelevance - this is just to remind the UPA government that they still have the power to make life difficult - an attempt to gain leverage on some obscure internal negotiations, perhaps.
You and I are not the intended audience for this charade - the current administration is. The poor Internet cafes are merely caught in the crossfire.
And finally to all those who lament censorship in India, please don't worry on our behalf. We Indians have seen off graver challenges to our freedoms. We maintain a level of openness unmatched in the third world, and it will take more than a few assholes like these guys to change that. We're far from perfect in this regard, of course, but we'll get by just fine.
Specifics aside, this kind of thing is just another piece of why India (as opposed to China, Vietnam etc.) remains all talk and no action. Would you, as an American or EU business owner want to set up shop in a country where these types of things are routine events?
...As opposed to setting up shop in a country where you toe the official party line or ship out?
This is Freedom 101 - you need to put up with idiots and their opinions. India is perhaps the only recently independent nation that has even attempted to achieve an essentially open society. In India, we are free to express and actively promote our views - and that includes morons such as these RSS guys. What's not mentioned in TFA is that we also have recourse to the courts and the police, who, while inefficient, generally do come through in guaranteeing our basic safety.
India continues to prove itself incapable of shaking off such middle ages thinking
Thank you for judging me and my entire country based on the actions of these asshats. Should I go ahead and assume that all Americans think like Ann Coulter?
Actually the corporate version doesn't exactly make me get all orgiastic either...
Ever tried remotely deploying their "Client Security" product? Includes the AV and Desktop Firewall. I tried it 2 years ago at my previous company.
First you have to deal with Symantec Packager (a product straight from the Kim Jong Il school of user-friendly design). And the install itself, as far as I can tell uses the following elegant and unintrusive procedure (Configured for "silent" install/ prompt for reboot):
1. Install SAV 2. BSOD -> Reboot 3. Fail to read the GRC.dat 3.5 Accept DRC.dat placed manually by SysAd 4. Hang/ Reboot 5. Log in as Local Administrator (seriously, what with that?) 6. Install SDF with default ruleset 7. Hang 8. Reboot automatically 9. Hang on start up. 10. Install your customized rules 11. Hang 12. Reboot automatically 13. Hang on start up. 14. Crap SAV on reboot 15. Start SDF with default ruleset
1. Dabble in politics
2. Sue website for member's postings
3. Sue common carrier for subscriber's actions
4. Watch as Internet content goes the way of mainstream media
4. ???
5. Pr... Ooh - now I gets it...
Slashdot Mirror
Full disclosure - I am an NTU alumnus.
Till 2004 I worked at a multinational company with ~22,000 employees of which ~450 were IT staff. But these numbers don't tell the whole story.
The company had offices in around 130 countries, many with only a small staff. There were a few local IT personnel in most countries (included in the 450). They did on-site troubleshooting, facilities and hardware installations, etc.
Most IT staff were in 4 locations around the world, providing follow-the-sun helpdesk support. We also had operations, application development/ support, management and strategy folks at these 4 locations. The company maintained a ton of internally developed business systems, including some written in COBOL way back when.
The company was (and is) almost entirely a Microsoft/ Windows environment. In the operations team, we did everything via AD and Group Policy using terminal services/ RDP. Really, it wasn't too painful.
Further, the meme of folks regularly travelling on traintops in India is not entirely accurate - many trains and train lines are electrified, with overhead wires and pantographs making this impossible or at leasst very dangerous. And there's the fact that it's illegal to do so.
Maybe later
Ever heard of Sonia Gandhi?
This is pure, filthy politics - the Shiv Sena and their ilk are just trying to fight their own growing irrelevance - this is just to remind the UPA government that they still have the power to make life difficult - an attempt to gain leverage on some obscure internal negotiations, perhaps.
You and I are not the intended audience for this charade - the current administration is. The poor Internet cafes are merely caught in the crossfire.
And finally to all those who lament censorship in India, please don't worry on our behalf. We Indians have seen off graver challenges to our freedoms. We maintain a level of openness unmatched in the third world, and it will take more than a few assholes like these guys to change that. We're far from perfect in this regard, of course, but we'll get by just fine.
...As opposed to setting up shop in a country where you toe the official party line or ship out?
India continues to prove itself incapable of shaking off such middle ages thinkingThis is Freedom 101 - you need to put up with idiots and their opinions. India is perhaps the only recently independent nation that has even attempted to achieve an essentially open society. In India, we are free to express and actively promote our views - and that includes morons such as these RSS guys. What's not mentioned in TFA is that we also have recourse to the courts and the police, who, while inefficient, generally do come through in guaranteeing our basic safety.
Thank you for judging me and my entire country based on the actions of these asshats. Should I go ahead and assume that all Americans think like Ann Coulter?
Actually the corporate version doesn't exactly make me get all orgiastic either...
Ever tried remotely deploying their "Client Security" product? Includes the AV and Desktop Firewall. I tried it 2 years ago at my previous company.
First you have to deal with Symantec Packager (a product straight from the Kim Jong Il school of user-friendly design). And the install itself, as far as I can tell uses the following elegant and unintrusive procedure (Configured for "silent" install/ prompt for reboot):
1. Install SAV
2. BSOD -> Reboot
3. Fail to read the GRC.dat
3.5 Accept DRC.dat placed manually by SysAd
4. Hang/ Reboot
5. Log in as Local Administrator (seriously, what with that?)
6. Install SDF with default ruleset
7. Hang
8. Reboot automatically
9. Hang on start up.
10. Install your customized rules
11. Hang
12. Reboot automatically
13. Hang on start up.
14. Crap SAV on reboot
15. Start SDF with default ruleset
Ahh... poetry
What's there to understand?
1. Dabble in politics
2. Sue website for member's postings
3. Sue common carrier for subscriber's actions
4. Watch as Internet content goes the way of mainstream media
4. ???
5. Pr... Ooh - now I gets it...
--
Btw - my first post on Slashdot. Hello world!