"It is totally unauthorized as far as we are concerned. It's really a serious mistake on the part of DARPA."

Sound familiar?

This meme just in: DARPA is the new AOL Time Warner, and John Poindexter is the new Justin Frankel.

Terror Trading Site Goes Bust

] "You can get crackerjack Java programmers in India right
] out of college for $5,000 a year versus $60,000 here,"
] said Stephanie Moore, vice president for outsourcing at
] Forrester Research. "The technology is such, why be in
] New York City when you can be 9,000 miles away with far
] less expense?"

This is a better article then the one I previous recommended, simply because the comments are, well, raw and uncut, and often quite arrogant. My favorite:

] "It's not about one shore or another shore," an I.B.M.
] spokeswoman, Kendra R. Collins, said. "It's about investing
] around the world, including the United States, to build
] capability and deliver value as defined by our customers."

Um, yes Kendra, we understand your motives. We're not dumb. However, Its ABOUT the macroeconomic impact of your strategy, something you ought to be thinking about. For example, drinking bottles of lye is a bad idea even IF you are helping your customers dispose of the lye, and therefore delivering value as they define it.

The last time I posted on this, Jeremy responded as follows:

] ] "He won't be able to have a career designing and building
] ] stuff because all those jobs have moved to India."
]
] So move to India already.
]
] Seriously, choosing one 'thing' and doing it repeatedly
] for decades on end. What's the term I'm looking for ...?
]
] Industrial age! That's it!
]
] Actually, that approach still applies, as long as your
] 'thing' happens to be learning.

Oh, if only things were so simple. There are several problems:

First: After studying computer engineering for 5 years at Georgia Tech, I'm honestly quite dismayed that my degree appears to have been useful for about 2 years after graduation. It is now extremely difficult to get good jobs in my chosen profession, and it looks as if that situation may never improve.

I might be exaggerating. 400,000 jobs overseas is far less then the margin between the estimated future growth in the need for computer professionals and estimated growth in the availability of computer professionals. However, I don't think the estimates that people still seem to be operating on take in to account the events of the last few years. I've seen people looking at the supply in horror (college admissions for said professions are way down), but not really adjusting their demand estimates. Basically, it remains to be seen.

Retrain? Should I go back to school for 5 more years, so that I can practice biology for another 2? Surely if people india can do CS they can do biology.

There are more problems...

The HR industry is set up to hire people who have degrees in particular professional fields. Our educational systems and dominate ideas about corporate management are simply not set up to support people engaged in continuous learning. So it may be extremely diff... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

I.B.M. Explores Shift of White-Collar Jobs Overseas

] Wozniak said he set out trying to solve problems people
] encounter in their everyday lives. In his case, he wanted
] an inexpensive way to know if his dog crossed over the
] electronic fencing around his home without having to tag
] the pet with an expensive device like a cell phone or
] Global Positioning System receiver.
]
] Rifredi said he's interested in having a way to track and
] instantly locate his 2-year-old son, "who's just getting
] mobile now."

Highly hyped WoZ net could be orwellian nightmare

This book paints a picture of the state of the information revolution today and how it will likely progress in the near- to mid-term future (10 to 15 years), focusing separately on different regions of the world—North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa.

The Global Course of the Information Revolution | RAND

] Townsend and others' similar experiences, no matter how
] limited today, point to a slowly widening hole in the
] Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA)
] recently announced drive to identify and ultimately sue
] what could be thousands of file swappers online.
]
] Wireless Net access through free, open or publicly
] available hot spots is proving to be a last bastion of
] privacy on an Internet where the veil of anonymity can
] now easily be pierced. Wi-Fi access points give anyone
] who possesses the appropriate computer equipment within a
] radius of about 300 feet the ability to reach the
] Internet.

Hot spots elude RIAA dragnet | CNET News.com

Cafe Press now sells books. Fairly cheap too when you consider how much kinkos charges for this. You no longer need a book publisher as long as you can market yourself.

Publish books for Free

]What Happens When Technology Zooms
]Off The Chart?

Wow, this looks like fun reading!

Whole Earth Magazine's - Singularity Issue

] Imagine sprinkling tiny sensors on road and fields for
] surveillance, putting them in buildings and bridges to
] monitor structural health, and installing them in
] industrial facilities to manage energy, inventory and
] manufacturing processes.That's the idea behind the
] emerging technology of wireless sensor networks (see
] "Casting the Wireless Sensor Net").

Sensors of the World, Unite!

The design and strength of all key lengths of the AES algorithm (i.e., 128, 192 and 256) are sufficient to protect classified information up to the SECRET level. TOP SECRET information will require use of either the 192 or 256 key lengths.

This essentially means that AES as at least as good as the algorithms the NSA develops for this purpose. Very impressive.

Policy Says AES OK for National Security Info

] What are we waiting for that's going to change the world
] right now? Something equivalent to the Macintosh
] operating system? It may be out there and I don't see it
] -- but I sure don't feel it. Also, computers had a little
] bit of excitement when not as many people had them.

The Woz - Part 2