Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment stop the xenophobia (Score 5, Insightful) 749

by adpowers (#26688989) Attached to: Rescued Banks Sought Foreign Help During Meltdown

I'm worried by the increasing number of stories on /. up in arms about companies bringing in *gasp* foreigners. America was founded by non-natives and our economic strength comes from the thousands of immigrants who come here for a better life by getting good jobs or starting businesses.

The contempt for the foreigners coming here on H1-B visas, and the companies that hire them, disgusts me. What makes you any better or more deserving than these people? The fact that you were born in the US? Please. These people have the should have the same right as all of us to come here and be successful. By preventing people from immigrating, especially talented, smart people, we are damaging the future of this country. The ability to attract the best and the brightest to come here is one of our greatest strengths. Erecting barriers to trade and enacting protectionism, especially during this economy, will lead to our downfall as a nation.

The economy isn't a zero-sum game. Allowing foreigners to come here to work enhances their life and the life of those in this country. If you believe you are inherently more entitled to a job than someone from another country, just because you were born here, then you are a xenophobic prick.
The Almighty Buck

Rescued Banks Sought Foreign Help During Meltdown 749

Posted by kdawson from the simple-fairness dept.
theodp writes "An AP review of visa applications has found that major US banks sought permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country under the H-1B visa program, even as the banking system was melting down and Americans were being laid off. The dozen banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years. (It's not known how many of these were granted; the article notes 'The actual number is likely a fraction of the... workers the banks sought to hire because the government only grants 85,000 such visas each year among all US employers.') The American Bankers Association blamed the US talent pool for forcing the move, saying they couldn't find enough Americans capable of handling sales, lending, and bank administration. The AP has filed FOIA requests to force the US Customs and Immigration Service to disclose further details on the bailed-out banks' foreign hires."
Bug

Seagate Firmware Update Bricks 500GB Barracudas 559

Posted by kdawson from the three-steps-back dept.
Voidsinger writes "The latest firmware updates to correct Seagate woes have created a new debacle. It seems from Seagate forums that there has yet to be a successful update of the 3500320AS models from SD15 to the new SD1A firmware. Add to that the updater updates the firmware of all drives of the same type at once, and you get a meltdown of RAID arrays, and people's backups if they were on the same type of drive. Drives are still flashable though, and Seagate has pulled the update for validation. While it would have been nice of them to validate the firmware beforehand, there is still a little hope that not everyone will lose all of their data."

So Who's Running Apple Now? 399

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-admit-it-it's-me dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With Steve Jobs stepping down from heading Apple for at least six months who's running the company that he resurrected? This article names the three people who will try to keep things running. But you have to wonder whether they'll have the charisma needed to keep Apple cool..."
Businesses

How Does a 9/80 Work Schedule Work Out? 1055

Posted by kdawson from the on-the-ground dept.
cellocgw writes "My company is in the process of implementing a version of '9/80,' a work schedule that squeezes 80 hours' labor time into 9 business days and provides every other Friday off. I was wondering how this has been implemented in other companies, and how it's worked out for other Slashdot readers. Is your system flexible? Do you find time to get personal stuff done during the week? Is Friday good for anything other than catching up on lost sleep? And perhaps most important, do your managers respect the off-Fridays, or do they pull people in on a regular basis to handle 'crises?'"

Comment Re:I ride a Segway (you insensitive clod) (Score 1) 887

by adpowers (#26436737) Attached to: How do you get to work?

I also ride bikes, thanks. I'm not good at getting into that whole exercise mode in the morning, though, I'm not a morning person.

Also, the Segway is a totally different mode of locomotion. It is like Wii Fit on steroids. On smooth roads you don't do much, but on the uneven sidewalks were I live you constantly have to shift your weight around. It some ways it feels like skiing.

Finally, I'm not sure why people always call out Segway users for being lazy. At least they are standing up for a while, people in cars don't even do that.
Government

Obama Proposes Digital Health Records 563

Posted by CmdrTaco from the cuts-both-ways dept.
An anonymous reader writes "'President-elect Barack Obama, as part of the effort to revive the economy, has proposed a massive effort to modernize health care by making all health records standardized and electronic.' The plan includes having all conventional records converted to digital within 5 years. Independent studies are fixing this cost somewhere in the range of $75 to $100 Billion, with most of the money going to paying and training technical staff to work on the conversion. Early government estimates are showing 212,000 jobs could be created by this plan."

Comment I ride a Segway (you insensitive clod) (Score 1) 887

by adpowers (#26413445) Attached to: How do you get to work?

Segway! (Pictured here in my breakfast nook)

For the last year and a half I've ridden the bus to work. It was great when I worked above a major bus station, but I switched buildings and now I'm in a more remote area not well served by transit. They do run a company shuttle from my old office to the new, but having a transfer twice a day is annoying.

Anyway, I've wanted a Segway since the day they were announced. However, only now that I'm employed full time am I able to afford one. The office move combined with some bus issues recently (breakdowns and such) have made me seriously consider a Segway. In fact, yesterday I rented one from the local dealer. They are letting me keep it until Wednesday, so I'll be able to try it for a couple of commutes. In the two days I've used it, I've come to realize just how awful my city's sidewalks are. It doesn't help when people park in front of the wheelchair ramps. If I decide to buy this thing, I'll probably end up becoming a pedestrian advocate.
Communications

State Dept E-mail Crash After "Reply-All" Storm 384

Posted by timothy from the forward-this-story-to-all-your-friends-in-triplicate dept.
twistah writes "It seems that a recent 'reply-all storm' at the State Department caused the entire e-mail infrastructure to crash. A notice sent to all State Department employees warned of disciplinary actions which will be taken if users 'reply-all' to lists with a large amount of users. Apparently, the problem was compounded by not only angry replies asking to be taken off the errant list, but by the e-mail recall function, which generated further e-mail traffic. One has to wonder if capacity planning was performed correctly — should an e-mail system be able to handle this type of traffic, or is it an unreasonable task for even the best system?"
Government

Obama Picks RIAA's Favorite Lawyer For Top DoJ Post 766

Posted by kdawson from the paging-mister-lessig dept.
The Recording Industry of America's favorite courtroom lawyer, Tom Perrelli, who has sued individual file swappers in multiple federal courts, is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for the third in line at the Justice Department. CNet's Declan McCullagh explores the background of the man who won the RIAA's lucrative business for his DC law firm: "An article on his law firm's Web site says that Perrelli represented SoundExchange before the Copyright Royalty Board — and obtained a 250 percent increase in the royalty rate for music played over the Internet by companies like AOL and Yahoo," not to mention Pandora and Radio Paradise. NewYorkCountryLawyer adds, "Certainly this does not bode well for CowboyNeal's being appointed Copyright Czar."

Slashdot Top Deals

Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use functions for scratch space after they are finished calling them?

Close