My wife was in the hospital once and a secondary Doctor in her team would come by every morning, say "Hi, you are you today?," shake my hand, chat a minute, and leave. I thought he was just being sociable, until I saw that each visit was a $300 consultation (which, BTW, insurance paid in full).

I am going to guess that you don't have much experience dealing with either hospitals or medical insurance. All sorts of things (including "mission critical" ones like prescriptions, tests and even surgery schedules) are arranged, discussed and argued about over the phone. Yes, you have to answer a set of challenge questions (i.e., social security number, policy number, etc.) to show that you are indeed the person in question, but pretty much all of the organizational business of patient care is done over the phone.

Anyone who has had an involved relationship with the US medical care system is likely to come to the conclusion that sometimes they just make their bills up, either to increase revenue or because their record-keeping is so chaotic.

If you doubt this, consider an analogy. Suppose you took your car in for major engine repair, it was in the shop for a week, and you paid the hefty bill. Now, suppose 4 months later you got another bill from a "muffler specialist" or a "catalytic converter specialist" for $ 300, with a code saying that they worked on your car while it was in the shop, but no indication as to what they actually did (except, maybe, look at your muffler or catalytic converter). Would you consider it legit? Would you assume you are being gouged? Would you pay? (They'll take you to court if you don't.)

In my experience, the medical version of this happens every time I have a family member in a US hospital. Not occasionally, not once in a blue moon, but every time. This is one reason why you never know how much a procedure is going to cost; you don't know what bills are going to show up months later.

*looks at parent's nick*

Oh, of course you'd say that.

You're probably Opportunity itself posting here.

I'm sure Slashdot user MightyHubble would have something to say about that.

--
But in seriousness, I agree with you.

If you want to search an audio or video recording, even a fairly poor speech to text can be very useful. A 90% success rate (1 word in 10 being incorrect) would provide a very frustrating transcript if you wanted to read it. However, if you are looking for a certain set of keywords or phrases, then 90% is likely to be perfectly adequate - after all, the point is to select "conversations of interest" that can then be listened to more intently.

If you could measure programming ability somehow, its curve would look like the normal distribution.

Says who? It would in fact look like a Pareto distribution, with some sort of long tail. Such distributions are common and to be expected in human affairs and human mental capabilities, which are not subject to the central limit theorem (which is what typically leads to a normal distribution in physical measurements).

So this week Gohmert, the chair of the oversight and investigations subpanel of the U.S. House of Representatives' Natural Resources Committee, held a hearing to explore "the consequences of politically driven science."

You have to understand that when he says things like "politically driven science" he is intending, not to communicate, but to bamboozle and deceive. This has been pointed out before:

"The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.” The words democ- racy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. "

(Politics and the English Language, 1946.)

If it's OK with you, I'm going to pretend they're all in the same folder.

That response is pretty combative and runs the risk of earning a black mark against oneself, easily done in the small-ish community that is IT. Not necessarily the best strategy when starting out. May not necessarily be the best strategy even when established.

When contracting, both the end user and the placement company are one's customers. I know nothing of matters legal in the States but my general sense of caution suggests taking a deep breath and maybe a short walk before giving serious thought to taking one's customers into litigation.

Judging from the context of your post I'd gently advise you to be careful with those linguistic gymnastics, you might injure yourself. :-p

I'm sorry you've copped a bit of flak over your past role. I can only guess at how many people are hurting because of this practice and I feel for them. Personally I'm grateful for you having shared your experience.

I'm not in the US but like many western nations, NZ is only a decade or so behind North America on a lot of matters social, commercial and otherwise. It seems wise to keep an eye on the US mood, naturally for myself but also because of my general nerdly concern for geeks in need. Nobody who appreciates skills can easily witness good knowledge workers lose much or all of what they've achieved financially for no good reason. I feel quite sad when I think of those forced to sit on their hands while third parties do a poor job of the work they used to take pride in performing themselves.

The first way to combat this 'corporate capture' of the H1B programme is a general understanding of its premise and mechanisms amongst the IT community. We're more than capable of understanding the legislation, although it is admittedly rather tedious reading. Anecdotes such as yours help us appreciate a little of the legal process, the administrative dodge and the half-truths that keep this race-to-the-bottom operation running.

Can we get this AI to test Slashdot summaries?

I'm not seeing the "well-reasoned" part. You don't like what they say and you spewed a poorly reasoned explanation for why you don't see local delivery happening. I'm not in love with Uber either, and I don't approve of all their actions. But my dislike for them doesn't preclude me from seeing the possibility of package delivery.