Comment Re:BS (Score 1) 377
False. Look for example at the comparison between private and federal government compensation. Both raise, but the raise of government compensation is much quicker. CPI was 174 in 2000, 210 in 2008.
Comment Fair, shmair (Score 1) 377
This is total bullshit. Amazon employees enjoying some benefits in some other state has nothing to do with me having to pay sales tax in California. I do not have a moral duty to ensure California gets as much tax revenue as possible from me. And if California businesses feel disadvantaged by the huge taxes - they should either complain to the California legislature or enjoy the fruits of the out service California government provides them for this money. Either way this has nothing to do with "fairness" or my private transactions with Amazon.
Comment Re:Yea? so it was a targeted job listing.. (Score 2, Interesting) 354
PERM ads are for *Green card*, not H1-B's. Which means the applicant *would not* be limited to one employer after he gets it, and so if HP or anybody else would really want cheap hitech slave labor, it would make zero sense for them to do it. The reason they do it is because they need more people than US-only market can provide them, and they are ready to go through considerable expense that PERM/GC process involves because they have no other way to get enough people that they need. They would not be cheaper or in any way linked to the employer once they have the GC - the only way to keep them would be to pay them the same as US citizens. And since hiring them involves additional expense there's absolutely no monetary or otherwise reason to prefer them to qualified US citizens - if those were available.
The reason why they do it is very simple - they already have a person that they know fits the job and they want to keep her on the job. The government, however, doesn't let them to do just that - they require to post fake job ads, even though there's no real intent to hire - because nobody wants to replace known trained good worker with unknown newbie. This farce is a direct consequence of government meddling, as most bureaucratic farces in US are.
It is sad that the post which gets basic facts wrong gets moderated as "Insightful"...
Comment Re:"or dangerous" (Score 1) 390
It's never about piracy or drugs or security or health or children or anything like that. It's always about control over your life. And they are getting more of it every day.
Comment Re:Isn't freedom great? (Score 5, Informative) 496
Yes, exactly, If you go around saying judaism is fake, absolutely nothing is going to happen to you. Well, some people may be pissed off, but that's it. Nobody is going to arrest you, send Mossad after you, have black helicopters take you to secret prison. Some people may yell at you, that's about it.
Yes, I am Israeli and lived in Israel for 13 years, and I know what I am talking about. Looks like you do not.
Comment No fixed vacation (Score 1) 371
About CarMax not having fixed vacation - I think it's super-clever from their side. I know that I constantly accumulate more vacation time than I take and I have hit the company cap sometimes and took time off just not to lose it - and if I leave they have to pay me all the vacation time I have accumulated. However if they don't have a fixed vacation - nothing of it applies, they can just rely on tech people being workaholics (which happens quite often) and not take too much vacation (if one does, you can always fire him...) - but they don't pay any additional money for unused vacation time! This is pure genius.
New York Judge Rules 6-Year-Old Can Be Sued 799
suraj.sun sends this snippet from Reuters:
"A girl can be sued over accusations she ran over an elderly woman with her training bicycle when she was 4 years old, a New York Supreme Court justice has ruled. The ruling by King's County Supreme Court Justice Paul Wooten stems from an incident in April 2009 when Juliet Breitman and Jacob Kohn, both aged four, struck an 87-year-old pedestrian, Claire Menagh, with their training bikes. Menagh underwent surgery for a fractured hip and died three months later. In a ruling made public late Thursday, the judge dismissed arguments by Breitman's lawyer that the case should be dismissed because of her young age. He ruled that she is old enough to be sued and the case can proceed."
BP Claims Gulf Well Has Been Stopped 601
An anonymous reader writes with word that BP has announced the Gulf oil spill has been stopped.
Another reader adds more detail: "The last valve on the new cap has been closed, and the flow of oil and gas into the sea has stopped. That doesn't mean it's over. It is unclear whether the steel casing deep in the well can contain the pressure. The risk is that it could burst, which would eventually cause a rupture on the sea floor that would make things much messier to deal with. However, they're monitoring the pressure buildup carefully and if the pressure holds over the next 48 hours (indicating there is no leak below the sea floor), they'll assess what to do next. If it doesn't hold at the expected readings, then they'll re-attach the pipe used for producing to the surface and start collecting again. Regardless of what happens the relief well still has to be completed to permanently plug the well with cement, which could take a couple more weeks."
Submission + - How 136 people became "7m illegal file-sharers (pcpro.co.uk) 5
Barence writes: "The British Government's official figures on the level of illegal file sharing in the UK come from questionable research commissioned by the music industry. The Radio 4 show More or Less examined the Government's claim that 7m people in Britain are engaged in illegal file sharing. The 7m figure actually came from a report written about music industry losses for Forrester subsidiary Jupiter Research — that report was privately commissioned by none other than the music trade body, the BPI. The 7m figure had been rounded up from an actual figure of 6.7m, gleaned from a 2008 survey of 1,176 net-connected households, 11.6% of which admitted to having used file-sharing software — in other words, only 136 people. That 11.6% was adjusted upwards to 16.3% "to reflect the assumption that fewer people admit to file sharing than actually do it." The 6.7m figure was then calculated based on an estimated number of internet users that disagreed with the Government's own estimate. The wholly unsubstantiated 7m figure was then released as an official statistic."
Submission + - How a Team of Geeks Cracked the Spy Trade (wsj.com)
drunken_boxer777 writes: The Wall Street Journal has a fairly lengthy and interesting article on a small tech company that is making the CIA, Pentagon, and FBI take notice:
One of the latest entrants into the government spy-services marketplace, Palantir Technologies has designed what many intelligence analysts say is the most effective tool to date to investigate terrorist networks. The software's main advance is a user-friendly search tool that can scan multiple data sources at once, something previous search tools couldn't do. That means an analyst who is following a tip about a planned terror attack, for example, can more quickly and easily unearth connections among suspects, money transfers, phone calls and previous attacks around the globe.
And yes, their company name is a reference to what you think it is.
Submission + - Comcast makes you subject to Non-US laws (comcast.net) 4
boyfoot_bear writes: I just received an email from Comcast that tells me "we're introducing an updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, effective October 6, 2009." Included in the terms of service (which can be found here
http://www.comcast.net/terms/web/2009-10/) is the following:
You specifically agree not to:
* use the Comcast Web Services to undertake or accomplish any unlawful purpose, including but not limited to, posting, storing, transmitting or disseminating information, data or material which is libelous, obscene, unlawful, threatening or defamatory, or which infringes the intellectual property rights of any person or entity, or which in any way constitutes or encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, or otherwise violate any local, state, federal, or non-U.S. law, order, or regulation;
It sounds to me like Comcast is making me subject to the laws of, say, China. I don't know about you but I sure don't know all of the non-US laws, orders or regulations that even this post runs afoul of but I am sure that Comcast is overstepping its authority.
You specifically agree not to:
* use the Comcast Web Services to undertake or accomplish any unlawful purpose, including but not limited to, posting, storing, transmitting or disseminating information, data or material which is libelous, obscene, unlawful, threatening or defamatory, or which infringes the intellectual property rights of any person or entity, or which in any way constitutes or encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, or otherwise violate any local, state, federal, or non-U.S. law, order, or regulation;
It sounds to me like Comcast is making me subject to the laws of, say, China. I don't know about you but I sure don't know all of the non-US laws, orders or regulations that even this post runs afoul of but I am sure that Comcast is overstepping its authority.
Submission + - Code-breaking quantum algorithm on a silicon chip
Urchin writes: "Shor's quantum algorithm, which offers a way to crack the commonly used RSA encryption algorithm, has been demonstrated on a silicon chip for the first time. The algorithm was first demonstrated on large tabletop arrays 3 years ago, but the photonic quantum circuit can now be printed relatively easily onto a silicon chip just 25 mm long.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17736-codebreaking-quantum-algorithm-run-on-a-silicon-chip.html"
Leaving the GPL Behind 543
olddotter points out a story up at Yahoo Tech on companies' decisions to distance themselves from the GPL. "Before deciding to pull away from GPL, Haynie says Appcelerator surveyed some two dozen software vendors working within the same general market space. To his surprise, Haynie saw that only one was using a GPL variant. 'Everybody else, hands down, was MIT, Apache, or New BSD,' he says. 'The proponents of GPL like to tell people that the world only needs one open source license, and I think that's actually, frankly, just a flat-out dumb position,' says Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, one of the many organizations now offering an open source license with more generous commercial terms than GPL."
Supreme Court Review of Bilski Heats Up 121
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Supreme Court's review of In Re Bilski (discussed here numerous times) is heating up, having attracted no less than 44 friend-of-the-court briefs from almost everyone with a stake in the patent system. Patently-O provides a nice summary of who is arguing against Bilski. The two questions before the Supreme Court are whether or not a process must satisfy the particular machine or transformation test, and whether this test improperly excludes many business methods in spite of the wording of 35 U.S.C. 273, which specifically allows business-method patents. So far, the case has attracted legal filings from nearly every large company or group whose patents might be threatened. You can read briefs from Yahoo, IBM, Borland, Dolby Labs, the BSA, and many others, even one from some guy claiming to speak on behalf of the State of Oregon."
Comment Re:Not a lot of difficulty? My ass. (Score 2) 190
I've seen some mindblowing graphics produced with photoshop.... I have yet to see anything comprable with the GIMP.
You know what? I have seen some mindblowing graphics done in image editor coming with Windows 3.11. Moreover, I have seen some mindblowing graphics produced without any help of Photoshop or computer at all. Actually, some of it is hanging on my walls right now.
Saying "tool X sucks because I have seen better graphics made with tool Y" is basically saying "guitar sucks because my brother plays good on violin". That's plain stupid argument.
When the GIMP (or comprable app) can use the photshop 5 keyboard shortcuts
Well, here is another stupid argument coming. Judging professional application by keyboard shortcut compatibility with other application. Is it trained monkey who is going to use it? So that once imprinted with some basic keyboard accords it cannot do anything else effectively? Oh my...
You know what? I have seen some mindblowing graphics done in image editor coming with Windows 3.11. Moreover, I have seen some mindblowing graphics produced without any help of Photoshop or computer at all. Actually, some of it is hanging on my walls right now.
Saying "tool X sucks because I have seen better graphics made with tool Y" is basically saying "guitar sucks because my brother plays good on violin". That's plain stupid argument.
When the GIMP (or comprable app) can use the photshop 5 keyboard shortcuts
Well, here is another stupid argument coming. Judging professional application by keyboard shortcut compatibility with other application. Is it trained monkey who is going to use it? So that once imprinted with some basic keyboard accords it cannot do anything else effectively? Oh my...
