Maybe testing to see if the person tends to over-complicate things?

This

I have taken certs mainly to show that I continue to learn and improve myself. I may not use the knowledge I gained from getting several of the certs I hold on a daily basis, but I'd like to think that by studying for the certification exams, something stuck and that knowledge makes me somewhat better in my field. At the very least, they make you aware of things that you might not have been aware of before you read the material. As anyone in tech knows, you never stop learning.

I would postulate that the direct jobs are the ones that need to be created to support and/or fix the goofs that are created by the H-1Bs workers.

One of the best SNL skits EVAR!

http://youtu.be/BpyUmVFYrp4

The point being that companies want more and more complexity in their web applications, so you can't just fall back to plan html. But, they also want responsive applications, which is how AJAX can help. But without JavaScript, you don't have AJAX.

Exactly. And AJAX uses JavaScript.

Too bad the users want more and more complexity in their web applications. Can't tell you how often I hear that a web site sucks because it's not as fast as the old green screen applications. Say, for example, you want to add a row to an HTML table. Either you go through the request-response cycle, or you use JavaScript in the browser. Hmmmmmm...which one would be noticeably faster to the user over their 1Mb connection?

Hmmmmmmmm...can't remember the last time I worked for a company that left their systems unmaintained while someone was off in training. If they did, they weren't critical systems which meant the cost of having them down for any amount of time was negligible.

If the systems are critical, they're likely quite complex which means a pretty decent amount of time (at least a month) before the "expensive expert" comes up to speed on the system (and really, the business itself) and actually becomes semi-productive. If he's even making a third more than I am a year, that's the cost of one training class.

It's also unlikely that I would stick around to train my replacement. I'd personally leave the company twisting in the wind of they wanted me to train my replacement. They'd have to offer me a pretty nice severance or bonus to do that. More money out of their pockets for not training me instead.

What about this equation? costly training + high salary + retention of experienced employee = saves money by not having to do internal training for expensive expert and fix his/her fuck-ups from not knowing your systems..

I have to agree with this. If I couldn't type moderately well, I would lose my train of thought halfway through writing the code. And, I would be cutting corners trying to get it done before I lost my train of thought. And, I would hate my job. Anything that makes your job harder makes you like it less.

ccleaner finds and removes these pretty well in Windows.

I personally thought that since there are so many cell phones with GPS chips in them now, the cell phone could detect that it's traveling at a higher speed than just walking and disable itself.

This is so freakin' true, it's unbelievable. Never ceases to amaze me how we're willing to spend billions on senseless wars, but can't on something that might benefit the race as a whole in the centuries to come (assuming we don't blow ourselves to bits over some stupid religious war). Too bad we can't all get along.

Use a prepaid card for as close to the charge amount as possible. That way once the money runs out, you don't have to worry about the company continuing to charge you (as most do unless you explicitly cancel). And, it doesn't matter if they forward the card info on. When the money's gone, it's gone.

Yes, you have been trained. Look into the book "On Becoming Baby Wise" (ISBN-10: 1932740082). I have two boys that are now 6 and 8 years. I would have been stark raving mad had we not trained them.