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Comment Re:Easy (Score 2) 235

... run wires in conduit at a uniform height in every wall ...

OK, I'm confused. Is the conduit running horizontally through the wall? And then you reach through the new hole in the wall to tee into the conduit?

I'm not aware of anything UL listed / permitted by code that works that way.

Comment H1-B is very problematic, but (Score 2) 484

I consider H1-B's to be very problematic because of how dependent they make someone on an employer. I think there's a real risk of the employer employee relationship becoming too coercive and akin to slavery.

But, I have no problem with more immigration if the result is full citizens with the same rights as everybody else.

Perhaps we should have an accelerated citizenship process for people who've been here on an H1-B visa for over a year. That, in combination with actually reducing the number of H1-B visas granted would be something I could get behind.

The main negative effect I see from my proposal is that it reduces these large corporations incentive to improve the educational and vocational rehabilitation system to create the workers they need from our existing citizenry.

Comment Re:They're not who you think (Score 1) 512

H1-B's are not about importing tech workers. They're about both creating a class of workers who are dependent on their employer's good will to stay in the country and about making it easier to ship jobs overseas.

I would be much happier if it became easier for people with certain skills to become full citizens. Then they have a stake in our country and our economy.

Comment Interesting (Score 1) 4

The first article is a shill for an industry that would dearly love to be able to treat developers poorly. If they can get a whole ton of developers from other countries who are dependent on their employer's good will to even stay here they can lower the standards by which they treat all their employees.

Additionally, of course, it means that the elites can continue to let the US education system slide into uselessness and unaffordability because they can find some other country's education system to parasitize instead.

Comment I would rather they enforce auditability (Score 2) 220

I would rather they insist that any such equipment bought by the US government be open and fully independently auditable. I think they would do a lot better for everybody if they simply made that a standard requirement of the procurement process.

Though, I can also well understand the paranoia. The US government has done the exact same thing to security equipment sold to other countries that they are now worried about China doing to us. They should be worried about that.

Comment Durability (Score 1) 591

The thing I appreciate the most about my MacBook Prop is its durability. The case is a solid machined block of aluminum. It does not flex or creak. Everything inside the laptop is solidly situated and solid-state. I wouldn't purposely drop it from a height or anything, but I'm not too worried about normal wear causing a lot of problems either.

I resent having to buy an Apple product in order to get this. I want something that's not a piece of flexing trashy plastic.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin Currency Surpasses 20 National Currencies In Total Value 583

Velcroman1 writes "More than $1 billion worth of bitcoins now circulate on the web – an amount that exceeds the value of the entire currency stock of small countries like Liberia, Bhutan, and 18 other countries. Bitcoin is in high demand right now — each bitcoin currently sells for more than $90 U.S. — which bitcoin insiders say is because of world events that have shaken confidence in government-issued currencies. 'Because of what's going on in Cyprus and Europe, people are trying to pull their money out of banks there,' said Tony Gallippi, the CEO BitPay.com, which enables businesses to easily accept bitcoins as payment. 'So they buy gold, they put it under the mattress, or they buy bitcoin,' Gallippi said."

Comment Re:Crypto, value, etc. (Score 1) 398

Well, I certainly don't think its value will 'only increase'. I think that the ideal scenario has a more or less smooth S curve in which the value increases to a certain level then plateaus. After that, I would expect the value to fluctuate up and down a bit, and on average increase slowly.

Anyway, we'll likely see how it all pans out. There are enough businesses now that accept it that it's not going away in a heartbeat. And a secure way to pay for things with your smartphone with a similar level of anonymity as cash would be very nice to have.

Comment Re:What's bitcoin? (Score 1) 398

That is an interesting take. And you might be right. I'm not sure. I know that I intend to spend bitcoins. I will do that because if I don't they won't end up having any value at all. But that requires a certain amount of long-term thinking that hasn't generally characterized our modern financial institutions.

Comment Re:misuse of sentencing (Score 1) 761

Did I claim the laser pointer guy should've been charged with 60 counts of negligent homicide? I don't think so.

And the law rightly distinguishes between actions you take and things you don't take proper care with (aka negligence). Actions you purposely take that are illegal are generally punished more harshly than negligence.

You can, in fact, be charged for negligently allowing your attention to wander while driving for precisely the reason you outline.

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