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Comment Re:Worried about the cost of your actions? (Score 3, Insightful) 730

GP makes a great point.

"Remotely" doesn't mean offshore. All big outsourcers - especially those who have large offshore operations - make their offshore staff sign all sorts of confidentiality and privacy contracts. A sysadmin in India is as likely to wind up in jail as a sysadmin here. A worker in a Chinese factory committed suicide just because an Apple prototype got stolen from him.

In addition, outsourcing contracts have liability clauses for breaches. So get the vendor company to agree to liability clauses and protect yourself.

Comment Re:Tax Exempt? (Score 1) 490

Only on Slashdot can trolling like this be modded up as Insightful. There _is_ a shortage of technical talent in the US. That doesn't mean there is no unemployment in this sector. If all you know is VAX/VMS and you only want to live in Nashville, perhaps you will be unemployed. But unemployment in the tech sector is _far_ lower than the rest of the economy.
The basic principle of free trade and free movement of capital, goods and labor is to maximize efficiencies that benefit society as a whole. This produces winners and losers depending upon who is best positioned to take advantage of market opportunities. I don't have a problem with the government helping the people who lose out - retrain laid off workers, for example. But these workers have to learn skills that are in demand in society.
If you simply raise protectionist barriers, cost of IT workers will be artificially high, so cost of doing business will be high, so cost of goods will rise. American consumers and shareholders will ultimately pay the price. So they will subsidize the artificially high salaries of IT workers. Just like all taxpayers had to foot the bill for bailing out banks.
Parent should be modded down -75

Comment Re:It's their own fault (Score 1) 564

Everyone can edit
Doesn't mean your edits won't be reverted. It's still faithful to its original mission.
Wikipedia matured a couple of years ago. There are many articles for which the best write-up is a an old version archived on Wikipedia, not the current revision.
It would be nice if someone could redirect their zeal on other wikis instead of Wikipedia. Like this encyclopedia of comparisons.

Comment Re:My fanboi response (Score 3, Funny) 338

Any web developer worth his salt ought to have strong experience with the UNIX shell, shell scripting, and Apache configuration. Developers with broader interests should have Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash at their disposal. And every developer should have decent C/C++ skills.

And he should be able to dance, cook, be good in bed, know how to sail a boat, be good with kids and impress my parents.

WTF?? I could climb Mt. Everest but not your ego.

Privacy

Submission + - Facebook sued over data access (yahoo.com)

sufijazz writes: A Brazilian service, Power.com, that lets users simultaneously access several social networks has filed a countersuit against Facebook. The suit claims that Facebook improperly restricts its users' access to their private information such as photos, contacts and online profiles when it prevents them from accessing it through a third party like Power.

Comment Re:What Are You Talking About? (Score 1) 893

Have you ever watched TV in other countries? If it's not reruns of old stuff from the US, It's knock-offs like [insert country here] Idol. Entertainment is bad on a global scale.

Before you take too much misplaced patriotic pride in the silliness of American Idol, you should know that it's a ripoff from a British show. But it's too late for that I guess.

Robotics

Submission + - Robots assimilate in cockroach society (nytimes.com)

sufijazz writes: "Scientists have gotten tiny robots to not only integrate into cockroach society but also control it. This experiment in bug peer pressure combined entomology, robotics and the study of ways that complex and even intelligent patterns can arise from simple behavior. Animal behavior research shows that swarms working together can prosper where individuals might fail, and robotics researchers have been experimenting with simple robots that, together, act a little like a swarm.

The BBC also has a video story on this."

Google

Submission + - Google to show Videos on other Websites (nytimes.com)

sufijazz writes: "In the last 3 hours, there have been a series of articles announcing Google's plan to monetize YouTube clips. The gist:

The ads accompanying the outbound YouTube clips won't be in a video format. Instead, they will appear as a graphic straddling the video or as a link along the bottom.
Google won't be pulling clips from YouTube's entire library, which includes a multitude of wacky segments contributed by amateur videographers. The material sent to other Web sites will be confined to video from providers who sign consent forms.
With the new twist, Web sites participating in AdSense now can sign up to specify the kinds of YouTube videos they want shown on their pages.
"

Google

Submission + - Google's stock tops $600 for the first time (yahoo.com)

sufijazz writes: "Google Inc.'s stock price sailed past $600 for the first time Monday, extending a rally that has elevated the Internet search leader's market value by about $25 billion in the past month.

Coupled with a more reliable article from the New York Times, speculating about the GPhone, it looks like there is no stopping the big G."

It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Japanese Wikipedia 'editors' rapped by employer (scotsman.com) 1

sufijazz writes: "JAPAN'S agriculture ministry has reprimanded six bureaucrats for shirking their duties after an internal inquiry found that they had spent many work hours contributing to the Wiki-pedia website — including 260 entries about cartoon robots.
The ministry verbally reprimanded each of the six officials, and slapped a ministry-wide order to prohibit access to Wikipedia at work, while disabling access to the site from the ministry."

Announcements

Submission + - PopSci's 6th Annual Brilliant Ten Scientists (popsci.com)

sufijazz writes: "Popular Science magazine visits operating rooms, observatories, and islands full of slightly-less-than-rational monkeys to find the 10 young geniuses who are shaping the future of science.

"We take about six months to create our annual list of the most impressive young scientists in the U.S., six months of quizzing academic department heads, professional organizations and journal editors about the most creative and important research in the country and the individuals making it happen.
So when we say that these 10 are the most creative, the most groundbreaking, the most brilliant, just what does it mean? It means they have the gall to ask the big questions, even if those happen to be outside the traditional areas of inquiry. It means they challenge what we thought it possible to know. It means their answers are opening up ever more perplexing questions.
"

Robotics

Submission + - Robots take on social tasks (yahoo.com)

sufijazz writes: "Dominated by home-cleaning gadgets, the consumer robotics market is expanding with the arrival of 'bots that can spy inside your home when you're away or arrange virtual meetings of family or friends.

The AP story cites utilitarian Western robots like the gutter-cleaning Looj and the WiFi Spy Robot Spykee contrasted with Korean and Japanese robots that are more human-like.

From the article:

I think Americans will be willing to experiment with cute-ish robots that do something like bring a family together
"

Biotech

Submission + - Happiness through a warm electrode (popsci.com)

sufijazz writes: "A story by Gregory Mone on the Popular Science website talks about trials to use deep brain stimulation to cure chronic depression. From the article:

Antidepressants may generate billions of dollars in revenue for pharmaceutical companies, but recent studies suggest that pills work only 50 percent of the time — and they don't do much at all for the millions like Hire who are severely depressed.
So the alternative being tried is brain surgery whereby electrodes are lodged in the patient's brain and 2 Volts of electricity is passed. Why the pulses affect mood is still unclear, but scientists believe that they may facilitate chemical communication between brain cells, possibly by forcing ions through nerve fibers called axons. In turn, this may trigger the release of mood-regulating chemicals like serotonin and norepinephrine. Similar trials are being conducted in other places. Exact numbers are hard to ascertain, but it's estimated that fewer than 50 patients in North America are walking around with wires in their brain."

Music

Submission + - "Illegal" file sharing network eDonkey dis (timesonline.co.uk)

sufijazz writes: "The TimesOnline (UK) website reports that

The second largest file-sharing network on the internet has been severely disabled in a significant coup for the music industry's fight against piracy.
Of course, there are those of us who question whether all file sharing on eDonkey is illegal. But that little question seems to have gotten lost in the entertainment industry's tirade against file sharers."

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