If the company is on the brink of disaster and is receiving bailout money in order to save the company (which I oppose), then they should do everything in their power to stay afloat. If the H1-B workers are providing a better deal than Americans, or have skills that can not be replaced, then getting rid of them to support American jobs endangers the company and goes against the whole bailout effort.

Or maybe Americans have an inflated view of their own ability. I'm humbled by the foreigners and H1-B visa holders I work with.

Very true. This is to be expected because America makes up only, what, 4% of the global population? This alone means we'll have only a small percent of the top-talent natively.

We probably have a higher percent in actuality because our wealth allows more people to go to higher education, whereas large swaths of the world are prevented from reaching their potential, either through poverty, health, or non-free governments. This is a huge shame; I can only imagine the scientific progress and quality of life improvements we'd make if everyone were allowed to live up to their full potential.

You can train people all you want, it won't necessarily make them smarter.

My team at work has five engineers and a manager. I'm the only one that was born in the US. Some of them have become citizens and others are here on visas. They are extremely smart and know their shit. There is a shortage of top-notch talent, and the only way for a company to remain competitive is to hire people from outside the US. In my opinion it is better to bring them here to work than to set up an office in their native country (offshore) because the employees make more and they spend most of it within the US. That's a net win.

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.

And replaces them with links to Knol!

I came across Mr. Show on YouTube. I think I was linked there by some website. I ended up watching a bunch of the clips. A few months later I went and bought the whole series on DVD through Amazon. I would have never known about the show if it wasn't for YouTube.

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.

1. I'm not about to give up walking. I work five miles from home, so I'm not about to start walking that.

2. I always yield for and go slow around pedestrians. I consider pedestrians highest on the chart of locomotion. It goes pedestrians, bicyclists, public transit, Segway, cars.

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.

Amazon MP3 is available in the UK now.

And if you are annoyed by how US-centric many big companies are, then maybe you should move here and reap the benefits :)

Fine, you can accept $1.29 for the latest hits from Apple, but I'll stick with Amazon, where the top 100 tracks are 79 cents.

Well, the storage cost per gigabyte-month is $0.15 and the storage cost for transferring a gigabyte outbound is $0.17, so if you download the stored data once per month then transfer is the dominant cost.(1)

Someone is always paying for the cost of storage and transfer. Before the person who owns the bucket would pay for both, but now they can make the accessor pay for the transfer. Amazon isn't offering either for free, so as long as they are making a marginal profit on storage and transfer, they aren't eating any loss.

(1) Both numbers are for the base tier.

I posted this as a comment on the blog post, but I'm copying it here as well:

http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2008/06/03/skynet-lives-aka-ec2-smugmug/

Outside of one instance where it launched 250 XL nodes, it seems to be performing pretty well. Their software takes into account a large number of data points (30-50) when deciding to scale up or down. It also takes into account the average launch time of instances, so it can be ahead of the curve, while at the same time not launching more than it needs.