Letters to the Editor
Ilya
Published Letters: 14 Editor's Choice: 2
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Return of the hi-tech exec zombies: send us more H1B meat!
[Read the article: What's good for Bill Gates...]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's the same claptrap again and again: "we don't have enought workers in the pipeline". Biggest consumers of H1B's are "consulting" companies, like Kelly Services, which produce nothing of their own, but are simply middlemen brokers -- and they make a much larger margin on their H1B indentured servants, who can't fight back. Tech industry is not rocket science -- the pipeline is easily filled by people taking a few courses and/or by college graduates from other disciplines.
To answer someone's question about mr. Besser -- yes, he is very well qualified and gets along with people just fine -- you don't spend 20 years in the industry otherwise. Mitch and I co-founded ORTech -- modelled after WashTech -- to try and bring awareness to this and other technology worker issues. Unfortunately, we found that people are either too afraid to get involved, fearing retaliation from their employer, or under the illusion that their skill sets make them untouchable. We all should do well do disabuse ourselves from the notion that our "skill sets" are irreplaceable. To high flying technology visionaries, such as Bill Gates, we are just "headcount".
Last, it's just breathtaking how a few corporations are privatizing immigration, something that should be a question of public policy. Meanwhile, we are debating about whether becoming a code "designer" as opposed to a code "writer" will save us from the unemplyment line -- get real!
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poppycock!
[Read the article: Why Johnny can't code]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why would you want to teach a fifth grader computer programming? Programming is a skill; it's a trade; it's a way to make a living. I went to college 25 years ago majoring in Comp Sci -- today, I don't even think that we should have such a major, at least not for a BS degree. You want to be a computer programmer? Study math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Art, music...and pick up a Comp Sci minor along the way. We have enough monkeys banging on the keyboard who know all sorts of fancy, new-fangled contraptions, yet they can't code or debug or reason their way out of a paper bag.
Over my 21 year career I've seen more than my share of bad computer programs. I don't know whether their authors learned computer programming by the way of BASIC, COBOL, Algol, Z80 assemblly or PERL, but the common feature that bound them all together was that they couldn't create an elegant logical construct to save their lives.
Microcoder
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doesn't pass the smell test...
[Read the article: Another spying scandal for Capitol Hill]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The company obviously went well beyond checking its own phone records and emails. It was qutie fascinating to watch these "captains of the industry" on C-SPAN. They were bobbing and weaving and straining to recollect and attempting to sound forthright and honest. Several things were painfully obvious. Corporate managers think that their shit doesn't stink, which is why they didn't bother with the common sense "smell test" for their action.s Secondly, they treat their employees like chattel and are genuinely surprised to find out that they can't do anything they want to them.
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maybe it is "peddling"
[Read the article: Free trade: Keep pedaling, or crash?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]as in keep "peddling" free trade claptrap, so that no one is the wiser. I am one of them deft cyclists who can balance themselves for minutes, so another cycling metaphor comes to mind -- the faster you pedal the harder you fall...and everyone takes a spill eventually.
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who could've thunk....
[Read the article: University officials waited two hours to warn campus, students say]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]alright now, it's not like we are talking about the butterfly effect here -- someone gets shot in a campus dorm and six month later there's a mansoon in India. No! There's a social fabric on campus with a much higher degree of inteconnectedness than in, say, some town of 26000 people; and a lot less entropy. That is to say that everyone congreates in a few buildings and classrooms. So, we have an unexplained shooting with the gunman or gunmen still on the loose and this is business as usual?...geez, what bad things can possibly happen here? Of course, according to el presidente Arbusto, no one anticipated the levies breaching in New Orleans either.
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what is the point
[Read the article: The case against homeownership]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The post is not written from the perspective of *either* home owners or renters. The point of view is decidedly that of the global labor consumer. It is trivially true that we are not forced to move, regardless of whether we are renters or owners; that is, we are not China that will forcibly relocate their labor force. The post merely suggests that we should not incetivize home ownership, which, it turn, will create a more mobile workforce. The human element, such as setting community roots, friends, family, etc., is, of course, of no concern. We all need to participate in the free market economy...in the same way as the chicken participates in my dinner.
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Password!
[Read the article: If you drive with your iPhone, police can search it]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't own an iPhone or any cell phone -- don't like them new-fangled contraptions -- but exactly right! -- protect it with a password! I also don't see how the search can be extended to items not physically in the car or on your person, e.g. logging in into a bulletin board or a chat session, which is not stored right on your iPhone. To put it another way: if you have a piece of paper with a locker number and combination written down on it, can the police go to that locker to search it? Makes no sense.
On a different note, in CA you can now be stopped if you're talking on your iPhone while driving...which would cause your iPhone to be searched. Seems almost recursive.
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Ironcrat
[Read the article: If you drive with your iPhone, police can search it]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I believe that searching the car and its occupants is allowed incidental to a traffic stop...so, don't think it needs to be an arrest situation. Perhaps someone can set us straight on that account.