In addition, H1B holders should be free to change companies after say six months without losing their visa. If companies are paying the prevailing wage then that should not cause problems for them; if they aren't then the free market will sort it out for them.

"Over at Microsoft on the Issues, Microsoft continues to lament the gap between computer programming skills and a willingness to work on the cheap of American kids, while simultaneously lobbying for more H-1B visas to fill that gap."

It's far cheaper to rent an H1B programmer who you can dump easily once their skills are outdated than to hire someone , train them to keep skills current, and pay based on demand for those skills.

That eleven year old article is written from the POV that the FSF is the bad guy for enforcing the GPL and that somehow forcing companies to comply goes against the very idea of free open source software. Forbes has concluded it is bad to attempt to enforce copyrights and license agreements when it would force a large corporation to actually do what the license requires because it would open them up to competition. It complete ignores the option to not use GPL code; except for a passing note about some poor company that estimated it lost $10 million because it they licensed code and then scrapped the project and went to a BSD license when they didn't like the terms of the original license.

It's really simple. If you don't want to share don't use GPL software. Use a BSD style license or develop proprietary code if you are worried about cloners. If your code is so integral to your product that releasing it would allow cloners to capture much of the market you probably shouldn't use the GPL or rethink your product. Apple probably chose the BSD license, in part, because it allowed them to develop an OS that had a stable core without having to open up their OS to cloners. They can share what they feel is appropriate and maintain MacOS unique to Apple. No one is stopping other companies from doing this; and Forbes' claim the FSF is demanding companies "burn down [their] house, or at the very least share it with cloners" is pure FUD. CISCO seemed to survive OK by complying with the GPL after FSF' lawsuit.

Yes, dealers will do that. I do what you suggest, except I negotiate the new car price first, since that is what eh dealer is interested in selling. I simply say no trade, and get a final number for the purchase.

After that, I bring up the trade in. Since I am near a CarMax I get a written quote for what they will pay; which is the floor for what I'll take from the dealer. If the dealer matches or exceeds that I take it; otherwise it is off to CarMax.

While I agree with you that negotiating a car can be a pain (unless you are an obstinate SOB that enjoys the back and forth) but you have one key weapon - getting up and starting to walk out. They know if you leave you won't be back. Once they have agreed on a price, and I agree that you need to negotiate a bottom line not a price plus, you have the upper hand. Remember, you , the dealer and the sales person are all advisories of each other. The dealer want stye car off the lot and earn a profit, although sometimes losing money on a car means a bigger kickback form the manufacturer. he salesperson needs to sell it above a set price to get a commission. You want to pay as little as possible. If you walk you keep your money and the other two get zero. Also, never combine a trade in with a purchase.

What is insane about negotiating a price? Just because a price is posted doesn't mean it cannot be discounted or that at the least you cannot ask for one. The posted price is simply the ceiling for the negotiation.

Netflix has a limited supply of physical disks which means some demand would not be satisfied and some fraction of them will purchase a disk or digital copy. So Netflix' disks do not really compete with purchases to a significant extent; especially for people who want to see it now. Virtual disks would essentially give them the ability to meet an unlimited demand and really impact disk sales.

Netflix can also control expenses with real disks since they purchase a fixed amount, and if they pay studios a cut per rental they can slow down how fast they send them out to limit the total cost per months. Virtual disks, however, have no cap unless Netflix imposes one and that would risk pissing off subscribers. A a series of popular movies in one month could theoretically result in Netflix paying more to studios than planned and cause profits to drop because expenses were higher than planned.

A whole lot of people get cuts from the distribution chain and removing DVDs potentially means they won't make as much money and studios may find movies to be profitable before they had planned resulting in paying money to some poor sucker who got a cut of the net instead of the gross. Hollywood accounting can drive distribution decisions.

First of all, a prize applies to the capture of vessels from an enemy during conflict, so it would not be applicable here. As for salvage, state owned vessels are exempt from ,maritime salvage conventions unless the state relinquishes its claim; which the US clearly has not. That exemption is why Spain was able to recover coins salvaged from a vessel that sank several centuries ago.

I realize people know each other; having worked for quite some time I often tell people it is never a good idea to burn bridges because it really is a small world. I know many of the major players in my niche and we talk periodically even though we are competitors. My point was is most companies will do nothing but verify dates of employment to avoid potential lawsuits.

I totally agree. Lying is a bad idea overall and certainly bad on a resume. I can deal with incompetence but can't abide lying.

And any smart one simply refers the request to HR, especially if they fired you. No one ants to open themsvez up to a lawsuit.

I would not bet on that. More likely, if they haven't heard of the school they will trash the resume unless your experience is eye catching.

On what grounds? They already resell content and call it cable TV; from the sounds of TFA Comcast would deliver it as a managed service rather than as a simple stream.

It make sense not to count it. If Apple gives Comcast a cut of the revenue in exchange for the pipe, Comcast would have a vested interest in having customers use Apple's services. They already are getting your money for the pipe, so any Apple' money is just more revenue and it would be counter productive to do something to limit it. In addition, by getting deals in place they can start building for a future where subscribing to traditional cable dwindles in favor of al la carte delivery by companies such as Apple and the content owners. Apple is not the enemy, Google is because if they ever make significant inroads in the major metropolitan areas they will be able to deliver content separate from cable and the cable ISPs; which would cripple them financially.

Not really. A viable payment system lets you get real money in exchange for something; with Bitcoin there is no assurance you will be able to get anything beyond some bits and bytes. You are at the mercy of the exchange and if they don't have the cash you don't get paid. One huge red flag is the seeming arbitrage opportunities with Bitcoin process varying exchgane to exchange. If Bitcoin were a viable transaction system those opportunities would disappear as people took advantage of the free money. That they don't says a lot about the liquidity, or rather lack of it, in the Bitcoin market. A currency that is touted as being easy to use for transactions anywhere with no transaction costs would quickly erase any arbitrage if it really was that easy to buy and sell.

All this noise about Ponzi Scheme: Yes or No? masks the real issues with Bitcoin. It is an illiquid, volatile commodity that lacks any assurance you will ever be able to get real money for it; as a result almost no one really takes Bitcoin, they simply let you "Pay" in Bitcoin by assuring they can immediately convert them to real money. While that may work for a handful of deals the lack of liquidity makes them unusable as a real payment system to take on PayPal or other electronic payment systems. Unlike Paypal, which mostly just moves money for a fee or holds it in a form that is easily turned back to cash as needed; Bitcoin "exchanges" take short positions that they can't cover since they lack the cash reserves to payout all the withdrawals.

As a result, Bitcoin became a nice place for speculators and people who are hoping to cash in on the "next big thing" and now the bubble is starting to burst. I wouldn't say it is a scam as much as one more chapter in the mass hysteria of crowds.

People are stupid.