But they still have to seek out the new job secretly, otherwise if present employer finds out the worker gets fired and is subsequently deported before finding replacement work.

Too hard to enforce. You just give the cheaper worker a title that has a lower pay grade. Ie, you make "Software Engineer 1" do the same work as "Software Engineer 3". If for some bizarre reason this causes problems then you just say "oh, we're doing a title and pay re-evaluation next month, we're just a little behind is all". But don't even worry about that, the Labor Department isn't sending out inspectors, and the H1-B visa holder is in not going to rock the boat and risk being departed.

If you're talking past tense, I really don't think such times ever existed.

No, my worker will accept $20/hour, so you need to pay me as the labor broker only $80/hour.

Some businesses seem to want a cookie cutter approach. Ie, anyone with piece of paper that says Microsoft Certificate at the top is preferred in some places because it means they're cookie cutter employees. Anything difficult is handled by outsourcing to someone. Ie, set up things so that you have a Microsoft only office, using only 2 or 3 pre-approved software packages. If you need additional tools then outsource that particular function to a subsidiary or even overseas. Now when any of those employees starts getting uppity and asking for more wages you dump that worker and get a cookie cutter replacement who has the relevant pieces of paper from Microsoft.

However that experience counts for things you don't get elsewhere. Ie, I may not know a particular language but I can learn it fast without complaining that I was never taught that in school. I also understand lots of practical things, how to write a device driver that doesn't exactly fit the template of the previous job, how to spot bugs in code quickly, how to question the specifications if they don't look right, and so forth.

So it depends on what you mean by "relevance of experience in technical fields". If you mean knowing all the particulars of the latest Java incarnation, then you're going to have bad results for both younger and older workers. But if you mean "knows how to get stuff done" then the older worker will usually be the one who knows it after a brief time spent getting up to speed with a new environment.

Now if knowing modifier keys is essential to the job, then spend 5 minutes explaining it and move on. It's irrelevant to the big picture and it says nothing about decayed technical skills. Everyone starting a new job has to learn new stuff, no one ever comes pre-loaded with all the stuff they need to know unless it's a really stupid job.

Many people like to claim that they lack talent with the relevant skills for the particular jobs. I think some of this is true, but most is BS. What it really means is that they don't want to spend even a minute training anyone. They'd rather have the person with the particulars already on the resume than hire someone who might need some minimal introduction. Ie, any older programmer is going to be able to figure out your new fad language of the year very quickly, and will be able to program it far better than your entry level worker who peppers the resume with buzzwords.

This is where age discrimination comes in, and it's very subtle, and the people doing the discrimination don't even realize they're doing it. Managers want the exact match for a job, HR people are filtering based on keywords, executives want to give out lowest possible salary. It all adds up.

The visa system is up for abuse, and it is being abused. Those execs who disagree about this should be made to step up and prove that no other suitable workers could be found.

I am dreading the day that my mother calls me up and asks me what this chrome thing is that changed her mozilla.

Big problem with Chrome is all the new Google features that require Chrome. Google wants vendor lock in and Chrome is their tool to do so. Granted, Mozilla is acting very much like corporate vendors as well these days, so maybe it doesn't make any difference. I just want a browser that pays attention to the customer, and prefers listening to customers needs instead of telling customers what they need, and neither Chrome nor Firefox fit this model.

Studies have shown that most computers use less than the full 100% of CPU capacity. This change should help remedy that immense waste of resources.

Hmm, it used to be that PDF was secure, since it was render only and no way would anyone be stupid enough to have a PDF engine that could actually munge with your computer. But it happened. Now is this to repeat with JavaScript, which used to be for "light" web work to do some fancy tricks and is now being greatly expanded in order to enable the HTML5 new world order? Yes there will be massive security holes with this approach too.

Chrome has a stupid release cycle too. But it's always had a stupid release cycle, the problem with Firefox is that it went from a nice stable development style to the bleeding edge Chrome style without even an apology.

I use the phone part the most actually. And I would have gotten a dumb phone but they were all really really bad. Nokia essentially stopped making their normal high quality dumb phones (or at least AT&T wasn't selling them), and the ones that were almost bearable were flip phones. I figured that occasional web use using wifi only would be useful so I decided to go with smart phone.

Chrome only? I just get a blank screen in firefox.

Actually, it dawned on me awhile back that on my desktop, Metro has these giant icons. Bigger than are necessary for touch, and vastly bigger than necessary for a mouse. Yet, the exact same UI on the phone has much smaller icons even though people's finger tips are the same size. So it really says to me that the desktop really is just a phone blown up in size, or maybe a tablet that's expanded, for no good reason.

Further, these full screen Metro apps just don't seem well suited to a desktop. Most of them really look like they could be projected into a screen during a presentation: large fonts, pretty pictures in the background, trimmed down detail. What they don't have is a full screen's worth of detail that you would expect on a computer. They're an executive briefing really. Even if the info is there you have to scroll a lot to get to it. Bing the web site gives you more information in a browser window than the full screen Bing application shows you. (I don't use tablets so I have no idea if other tablets are equally dumbed down)