Depending on where you live (state taxes?), that's at best a cool $350-$365 after payroll taxes (259-270 Euros) per week for a family of two to four.

Really? And would that $10.10/hr magically become more or less money with a family of 1, or a family of 10?

And actually, with a family of 4 on $20,000/year, you probably wouldn't be paying ANYTHING in state or federal income taxes in most states, so it would be $404/week take-home.

And more relevant than abstract cash figures:

"If you have a [full-time] job in this country, (thereâ(TM)s a) 97 percent chance that you're not going to be in poverty."

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

Hi there. Been an engineer at Microsoft since 2000. Have interviewed hundreds of people at all skill levels.

Why do you assume that wages at Microsoft aren't increasing?

I understand the compensation model, and how it has changed in my 14 years. The comp packages we are offering to college grads these days are astoundingly lucrative. Every few years in my career, there has been a big compensation realignment based on market realities. Everytime something at work upsets me enough that I start talking to other companies, their comp packages (especially with cost of living factored in) aren't able to match what I'm getting now from Microsoft.

Lately, high comp packages are required to compete with Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc, who all have plenty of money, and, for younger developers, are often seen as cooler places to work than old stodgy Microsoft.

I just see no evidence that H1-Bs are a mechanism for the company to save money. Dealing with HB-1 hassles involves a lot of overhead and expense that are not applicable to domestic employees.

As I said earlier, I have interviewed many, many folks, for many positions. The hire rate is not as high as we would like it to be. It never feels good to have to turn someone down, and it is a waste of time for everyone when an interview doesn't go well. But the bottom line is, we talk to many more people than we can feel confident about making an offer to. There are lots of STEM graduates, foreign and domestic. But not all of them are someone we could feel comfortable hiring. I'm sure you've known people in your CS class who could get good grades but who couldn't code... those people count as "qualified STEM applicants" to people that are pushing the "H1B is evil" rhetoric, but we all know that just because someone has a degree doesn't mean they are employable in that field... and certainly not by the top organizations in that field.

I've also seen no evidence that Microsoft has a preference for hiring H1-Bs, or that there is any compensation disparity for H1-Bs. I have seen evidence that H1-Bs cost the company money that domestic employees do not. For example, the company has special lawyers and paperwork people that deal with H1-B and other immigrant-labor related problems. That's a cost. When H1-B engineers are dealing with this stuff (which is frustratingly often), they aren't writing code or analyzing tests. That's a hit to their productivity, which ultimately, is another cost.

Methanol fuel cells need some research love....

No they don't... They're getting extensive use in forklifts, surpassing battery-electrics even at the currently crazy fuel-cell prices.

Now Unleaded Gasoline fuel cells... Those could use some money. Range booster for EVs or hybrids, an instant doubling of fuel efficiency over ICEs, practically no maintenance, and a future where fuel conversion efficiency isn't limited by Carnot.

Russia supplies much of Europe's fossile fuels, specifically oil and gas

The US has a glut of natural gas and is aching to export it. Terminals are being built, if they were rushed, the pipe to Russia could be shut-off, ore at least made largely insignificant, in a hurry.

And whatever energy resources the west doesn't buy, will be purchased by some other nation (eg. China) at a less-profitable price and via a round-about route.

[Grabs PA microphone]
This is the captain. We're having a little problem, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then... explode.
[Hangs up microphone]

a quick back of the envelope calculation would suggest the Shannon limit for a 6MHz channel with SNR of 28 would only be of the order of 20Mbit/sec

Quick and dirty... I get ~48Mbit/sec.

Is QAM-256 in that wide of usage?

It seems to be. Not exactly a definitive study of the subject, but plenty of user reports out there, even from quite a few years back, saying QAM-256. And would you really doubt that cable companies will do anything to squeeze double the channels into the available space?

How do they get 40Mbps in a 6MHz channel? That sounds like it would be above the Shannon limit unless the SNR is ridiculously good.

QAM-64 needs a SNR above 23, while QAM-256 needs a SNR above 28.

Modern cable systems are fiber-optic to the neighborhood, and only there do they switch to coax for a relatively short distance, so the SNR is actually very high.

QAM-64 is going to put them at around 26Mbps.

But (like 16-VSB) QAM-256 will put them at around 38Mbps.

Wake me when we surpass the highest-ever recorded temperature on earth, set in Death Valley about a century ago.

Most "records" are BS that only gets reported because a computer is tracking all this data, and can very easily spit out a record for SOMETHING, whenever desired, with no effort. Nobody would keep track of how much it rained on Tuesdays in April, but a computer will be happy to spit out that "record"-setting event, and news-models are so desperate for many hours of cheaply acquired content, daily, that they'll tell you about this new "record".

When Death Valley hits 135 ÂF, wake me up. Until then, fuck off with your BS "records" all the god-dammed time...

that they can't ruin your credit score because they never extended credit

Do you pay up-front for your service BEFORE they give it to you? If not (hint: no you don't), they're extending credit to you, EVERY SINGLE MONTH.

I like the pre-paid model, and it works well for any predictable bill like "unlimited"-anything plans. But for something billed based on consumption (electric, gas, water, etc.) it's somewhat impractical.

In a cable system, each 6MHz channel also gives around 20Mbps.

No, thanks to the higher S/N ratio of cable versus OTA broadcasts, less error correction is needed, and much more aggressive and efficient modulation can be used that provides more bits per symbol. So in the same 6MHz, they might be able to fit 40Mbps of content, not just 20Mbps. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Cable companies still compress the video to hell and back, because 2X as many channels isn't good enough for them... They want MORE, MORE, MORE. It's so bad that 1080i broadcast over cable often looks worse than a 480i DVD.

I'm not going to resort to lying, or begging or pleading to get my service canceled.

I will make one call, give them maybe 30 minutes max, and if they don't cancel my service, no problem... I'm just not paying my next bill. Problem solved.

I don't care how skilled a women is, she ain't gonna be fighting worth a damn in 5 inch 'fuck-me-heels' with her ass and boobs falling out of her costume.

Face it, no woman can fight a man worth a damn, in any case. Biology just simply precludes it as an option. If you think I'm wrong, you've never really fought an adult man. In a fight between a female Olympic athlete, and an over-weight, middle-aged male office worker, I'll bet good money on the man, every time.

Not to get too dark, but that's a key point in nearly every military rape story... Woman was trained to fight, thought she could handle herself... Is horrified to find men are incredibly strong and she can't do a thing to help herself when she, for the first time, really needs to.

Heartland Institute deliberately misrepresenting something to influence public policy? Surely you jest!