whatever wages make sense in the US context

Sorry, correction, "in the Indian context"

What happens when corporations can no longer exploit global wage differences?

It's easy to spew vitriol at the 'evil corporations', but this is mostly irrelevant, and the reason becomes clear if you actually think about it for a bit ... here's the thing, even if outsourcing by US corporations were totally banned, the existence of those 112,000 Indian individuals presently employed by IBM would amazingly enough not in fact just magically disappear into thin air. On the contrary, they would continue to exist. They would continue to have IT skills, IT qualifications, would continue to represent useful labor, and would continue to work for whatever wages make sense in the US context. However, the difference is that competing Indian-owned conglomerates would form instead, and the organization would compete with US companies, instead of being owned by US companies.

Which would you rather have, US-owned companies dominating global ownership of IT organizations, or US-owned companies becoming small bit players amidst even stronger global competition from hundreds of new "IBMs" all around the world?

The core of the "problem" is not really the demand side of outsourcing, it's the supply side of it: Because no matter how much we whine about it, a world full of skilled people simply isn't going away anytime soon. On the contrary, more and more countries have more and more universities and have increasingly skilled workforces.

Actually what happened to you was not that the law states that "if you have a valid reason you will be fine", but that a police officer used his discretion. If the police officer felt like being an asshole it would have turned out differently.

The problem is if you outlaw Cubesat launchers, only outlaws will have Cubesat launchers.

Blaming Chernobyl on the profit motive, that is 'just wow' ... I nominate GP post for "stupidest slashdot comment ever".

Stop being a prima donna and pick the one with the best employment prospects.

Or, as a developer with multiple prospects, he could pick the one he ultimately finds more enjoyment working with.

I'm sure there good "employment prospects" working on things like with the tangled mess of spaghetti and backward compatibility in WinSxS and the Windows source code, but I suspect that would be a PITA job to go to every morning.

I find working on better-designed systems tends to come with better job satisfaction.

A thousand times: PostgreSQL

When you start dealing with anything other than very basic website apps, MySQL's many significant deficiencies start becoming obvious. And the problems in the development seem to be institutionalized, it was this way even before Oracle took over. MySQL should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Then why would the fence need high voltage?

Do I really need to answer this, or do you want to think about it for a bit? Hint, some robbers may find massive electric shocks a little off-putting.

But seriously, all this means is the copper thieves will have to use insulated tools to cut the electrified wire first.

Electric fences can detect when they've been cut, and are often linked to alarms and other security systems (additionally most modern systems can even send you e.g. mobile phone notifications the moment they're tripped, or can be easily programmed to automatically call a security company). Actually, as this business owner has 'tried everything', he probably has existing security systems that the electric fence systems would plug into.

Most people are missing the point. It's not about the method of killing, it's whether a particular act of killing is justifiably self-defense or not. If a 'killer robot' protects an innocent woman and/or child from being raped and/or murdered, then it stands to reason this is good. Denying innocent parties a valid method of self-defense is (e.g. banning methods of self-defense), on the other hand, wrong. When 'killer robots' become intelligent enough to be used for e.g. home security then I'll be getting one ... it will keep my wife and children safer from murderous thugs.

As for military, again, what if 'killer robots' could be used to help conduct surgical precision strikes against ruthless murderous dictators like Kim Jong Un, minimizing loss of innocent life? Would they still be 'bad'? Wouldn't banning them in such a case actually prevent killers like Kim Jong Un from being stopped?

The problem with nuclear weapons (that you mention) is that they inherently and unavoidably kill thousands of innocent people. 'Killer robots' can in fact do the exact opposite - they can be used for surgical precision strikes of precisely the 'bad guys' - which is actually the correct thing, in war or not. (Yes they could be used for evil, but that doesn't mean they should be banned.)

If you can't even be bothered to turn off your AC during a major emergency with downed power then you deserve whatever happens to you. If you are rich and can afford an oversupply then sure, go for it, but stop giving lectures, the majority of folks simply cannot afford such large systems, and can and must "make do" by taking such tremendously complex steps such as "turning off AC" and "not running kettles, stoves and microwaves all at the same time".

Sounds to me like you got oversold by the company that sold you the setup, and now don't want to admit it. 10kw is huge.

I'm sure you trivially buy a 2kw kettle, there you save 1kw right there, it'll just take slightly longer to boil the water. Then don't run the microwave and kettle or oven at the same time, and you're already down to around 5kw to 6kw peak - and you've saved a farkload of money on the system.

If you are rich and have lots of money to waste, then sure, go for it, 10kw system is OK.

500W PC? That sounds like some hardcore gaming system.

He's doing a valuable service to us -- pointing out how ridiculous things got.

Kind of like Rosa Parks did, but I suppose she was also just looking for attention.

And yet a utility patent for just this sort of thing already exists, so the point would seem to stand, wouldn't it?

The USPTO is basically funded by fees it charges patent applicants. In effect this means that the more it rubber-stamps, the more money it makes ... if it tightened up applications to only grant "reasonable" patents their income would plummet as the industry would no longer file for every stupid thing. Conflict of interests / moral hazard ... they get paid more the more wreckage they cause.