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Peter Duncanson · Guest

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 07:00:12 -0000, "Jim Webster" <Jim@feeswerve.spam.co.uk>
wrote:

[quote]
"Peter Duncanson" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
news:bv2vtvsh24gddnk9uasd9mal2cedh1cmve@4ax.com...
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 21:27:26 -0000, "Jim Webster"
Jim@feeswerve.spam.co.uk
wrote:
snip
sounds almost Athenian. Perhaps we could support our population by paying
citizens to turn up to vote?

It might work. However in the case of the TV shows the public pays to
vote.

curses, yet another economic problem for the government.
[/quote]
Although it is said that people value more something they have paid for,
versus than something that is free.

[quote]Mind you, the Athenian idea may still have legs. We ought to form a league
to protect people against the attack from a hopefully distant enemy (The
inhabitants of Alpha Centaurii for choice) and have the treasury stored in
Westminster abbey

Yes that might work - although I>m not sure we would want to associate with[/quote]
some of the people who would join such a league. :-)
[quote]

The other two judges are silent. They are from the company that will
manage
the winner under the terms of the 2 million pound record contract which is
the prize!

I suppose that people do tend to vote against authority figures. I know
that, while I have never smoked in my life, when ASH spokesmen go on the
radio demanding that this or that be banned, I get this urge to dash out and
buy a packet of twenty.
[/quote]
I know the feeling.

[quote]Or is it merely the casual cruelty of the mob, sitting there enjoying some
loon make a fool of themselves?

I>m not sure. The public have already voted out the really bad ones. I would[/quote]
hazard a guess that there are several things going on.

Anti-authority urges.
A genuine liking for the underdog, and support for him.
A recognition that in previous series of Pop Idol and Fame Academy winning
was not essential to doing well (Pop Idol>s Will Young, Gareth Gates and
Darius Danesh (the top three, still going strong two years down the line),
and Fame Academy>s Lemar Obika (third but doing much better than the first
and second a year on).
I can understand the public deciding that a weak contestant, who they
like, is more in need of the winner>s guaranteed record contract than the
stronger ones - who will pick up contracts on their own merits.

It>s a mildly interesting social study.

--
Peter Duncanson
UK

Torsten Brinch · Guest

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 03:35:33 -0600, "Gordon Couger"
<gcouger@NOSPAMprovalue.net> wrote:
[quote]"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message
UK is really much like USA, Gordon. It is like you cannot compete, or
do not want to. Perhaps it is a cultural thing.

We can compete a great deal longer than they can. The government is not
nicking us for 60% of the take and possibly as much misses the tax man as he
catches. <snip
[/quote]
Ah good, that bodes well for further runaway consumption of imported
products.

Jim Webster · Guest

"Peter Duncanson" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
news:lg90uvglamact602jif2fetecr4n5q504p@4ax.com...
[quote]On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 07:00:12 -0000, "Jim Webster"
Jim@feeswerve.spam.co.uk
wrote:

"Peter Duncanson" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
news:bv2vtvsh24gddnk9uasd9mal2cedh1cmve@4ax.com...
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 21:27:26 -0000, "Jim Webster"
Jim@feeswerve.spam.co.uk
wrote:
snip
sounds almost Athenian. Perhaps we could support our population by
paying
citizens to turn up to vote?

It might work. However in the case of the TV shows the public pays to
vote.

curses, yet another economic problem for the government.

Although it is said that people value more something they have paid for,
versus than something that is free.

Mind you, the Athenian idea may still have legs. We ought to form a
league
to protect people against the attack from a hopefully distant enemy (The
inhabitants of Alpha Centaurii for choice) and have the treasury stored
in
Westminster abbey

Yes that might work - although I>m not sure we would want to associate
with
some of the people who would join such a league. :-)
[/quote]
just ensure we get the subscriptions paid in cash and in advance. Then we
can have our writers of plays and poetry satairise them and mock their
strange names and barbaric customs.

[quote]

The other two judges are silent. They are from the company that will
manage
the winner under the terms of the 2 million pound record contract which
is
the prize!

I suppose that people do tend to vote against authority figures. I know
that, while I have never smoked in my life, when ASH spokesmen go on the
radio demanding that this or that be banned, I get this urge to dash out
and
buy a packet of twenty.

I know the feeling.

Or is it merely the casual cruelty of the mob, sitting there enjoying
some
loon make a fool of themselves?

I>m not sure. The public have already voted out the really bad ones. I
would
hazard a guess that there are several things going on.

Anti-authority urges.
A genuine liking for the underdog, and support for him.
A recognition that in previous series of Pop Idol and Fame Academy
winning
was not essential to doing well (Pop Idol>s Will Young, Gareth Gates and
Darius Danesh (the top three, still going strong two years down the line),
and Fame Academy>s Lemar Obika (third but doing much better than the first
and second a year on).
I can understand the public deciding that a weak contestant, who they
like, is more in need of the winner>s guaranteed record contract than the
stronger ones - who will pick up contracts on their own merits.

It>s a mildly interesting social study.
[/quote]
I can imagine it as a souce of material for a fascinating Phd thesis

Jim Webster

[quote]--
Peter Duncanson
UK[/quote]

Jim Webster · Guest

"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message
news:ofc0uvsbm0ffar3cks8j7d88j8oudtisif@4ax.com...
[quote]On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 03:35:33 -0600, "Gordon Couger"
gcouger@NOSPAMprovalue.net> wrote:
"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message
UK is really much like USA, Gordon. It is like you cannot compete, or
do not want to. Perhaps it is a cultural thing.

We can compete a great deal longer than they can. The government is not
nicking us for 60% of the take and possibly as much misses the tax man as
he
catches. <snip

Ah good, that bodes well for further runaway consumption of imported
products.
[/quote]
pity they are unlikely to be EU produced products, given that about the only
thing the EU can produce now is documentation

Jim Webster

Peter Duncanson · Guest

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 12:17:00 -0600, "Michelle Fulton" <notvalid@charter.net>
wrote:

[quote]Jim Webster wrote:
yes, we are even exporting call centres, as it you can run one on the
indian subcontinent for a third the cost and get staff who are better
educated and often speak better English.

Funny you should bring up India and call centers, as I just read a job
posting for an IT job in India. Maybe we have have already used up the
employables over there???? Seems unlikely, with their population, but why
else would a company want to pay the expense of shipping someone over there?

New York Times article December 15, 2003[/quote]

In India, a High-Tech Outpost for U.S. Patents
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/15/technology/15innovate.html?th
<quotes>
BANGALORE, India, Dec. 14 - In clusters of modern low- and high-rise office
buildings set amid acres of lush greenery here, thousands of engineers are
hard at work, writing software for the latest telephones, designing
next-generation microprocessors and developing wireless broadband
technology.

The work of these engineers is generating significant amounts of
intellectual property for American companies like Cisco Systems, General
Electric, I.B.M., Intel, Motorola and Texas Instruments - whose various
Indian units have filed more than 1,000 patent applications with the United
States Patent and Trademark Office. Some applications, with patents already
granted, date to the early 1990>s. But most applications from India have
been filed in the last two years and still await decisions by the patent
examiners in Washington.

For American technology companies, under pressure to generate quick
breakthroughs and develop products while curbing costs, India>s big draw is
its low-cost, deep pool of well-educated technical talent. The Indian
research centers of Cisco and Motorola, for example, are now those
companies' largest outside the United States.

While outsourcing lower-level technical tasks to India has been a practice
of American industry for years, the United States technology titans'
increasing reliance on Indian research-and-development operations is a
relatively new and growing trend.
....
Thousands of engineers in disciplines as diverse as textile engineering and
aeronautics graduate each year from India>s engineering schools. Top-notch
graduates can be hired at salaries beginning at $10,000 a year, even as
their peers in the United States earn six times that amount or more. In all,
personnel experts estimate that in the next 18 months, the Indian centers of
multinational technology companies will double their head counts from 40,000
today.

Intel plans to move into a $41 million, 42-acre Bangalore campus next year
and more than double its number of employees in India to 3,000. "It would
easily cost twice as much to set up a similar operation in the United
States," Ketan Sampat, the president of Intel Technology India, said.

Texas Instruments, with 1,000 employees in India, said it expected to expand
to 2,500 and would move to a new high-rise building by 2005, with Motorola
as its neighbor. A decade ago, Motorola set up its research and development
operations in India with six employees who did small jobs for its two-way
radios. Today, Motorola>s software, integrated circuits and semiconductor
divisions in Bangalore and Delhi have 1,200 employees.

"Thirty percent of all software for Motorola>s latest phones is written in
India," said Sammy Sana, managing director of Motorola India Electronics.
....
[Intel]
Elsewhere in the building, one floor is out of bounds to other employees as
a group of engineers works on a microprocessor chip scheduled for
introduction in 2006. The 32-bit processor, designed entirely in Bangalore,
is to have one billion transistors (Intel>s Pentium 4, its most advanced
32-bit chip for desktop computers, has 55 million transistors).

As the export of technology jobs from the United States continues, the rise
of development centers in India can be a politically delicate topic in
American circles. But Indian executives take pride in their nation>s growing
status as a preferred offshore location for high-level work.
....
According to India>s software trade body, the National Association of
Software and Services Companies, about 5,000 technology professionals of
Indian origin with more than five years of work experience have moved back
to India from the United States in the last two years. These include
professionals holding United States work visas and green cards, and even
American citizens.
....
Mr. Rajagopal, the editor of a software specification that defines how
devices that are compliant with Bluetooth, a short-range wireless standard,
interact with each other, said he had wondered whether the work in India
would be as advanced as what he was used to in Arizona.

He need not have worried, he said. "The pace and kind of work that I do is
beyond my wildest imagination," said Mr. Rajagopal, who is part of a
worldwide team that develops graphics devices. The team has members in
Bangalore and the California cities of Folsom and Santa Clara. Mr. Rajagopal
has filed for two patents based on his work since returning to India.
....
</bits>

This is all serious stuff.

--
Peter Duncanson
UK

Hamish · Guest

"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message > >Exporting jobs to
India is a greater problem for the USA since you earn more
[quote]over there the cost incentive to export the job is greater.

Yes, that>s true. USA cannot even compete with UK!

It>s trade deficit with UK this year (up to and including October)
is about 7 billion dollars, very closely the same as its trade
deficit with India. While UK still has a trade surplus with India
(albeit very small).

[/quote]
The UK economy is centered on a strong USA economy. The USA has survived a
large negative trading balance with the rest of the world because the rest
of the world returns that deficite as investment in the USA. This shows as a
strong dollar. All current indications are that the world is withdrawing its
investments and cashing in the dollar. At first sight this looks good for
the USA as it makes its trade more competitive, but if the underlying weath
generation is being exported to India etc then the USA has less product to
be competitive with. The USA rose after the 2nd world war on the back of
the industry and manufacturing that was way ahead of the rest of the world.
It then carried on on having world leading development, powered by the cold
war and space race. These power engines are no longer running. Teach your
grandchildren Chinese.

Jim Webster · Guest

"Peter Duncanson" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
news:nfb4uv03vm9r0r4cglp14763pp0h50el5h@4ax.com...
[quote]On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 12:17:00 -0600, "Michelle Fulton"
notvalid@charter.net
wrote:

This is all serious stuff.

--
Peter Duncanson
UK
[/quote]
certainly more than just a few call centres. These are the sort of high
skilled jobs that are supposed to support the UK economy but we are already
priced out of them

Jim Webster

Michelle Fulton · Guest

Peter Duncanson wrote:
[quote]
This is all serious stuff.
[/quote]
Very serious, indeed. While I was reading the article, with all of the
references to U.S. patents, I started wondering if that might not be an
avenue to curbing some of the job exports???? Me thinks our wonderful
president needs to concentrate more on what is happening within our borders
for a while, namely our economy/unemployment rate.

--
Michelle
Texas, USA
If you>re not living on the edge, you>re taking up too much space.

Michelle Fulton · Guest

Hamish wrote:
[quote]Teach your grandchildren Chinese.
[/quote]
.....or Hindi.

--
Michelle
Texas, USA
If you>re not living on the edge, you>re taking up too much space.

Oz · Guest

Hamish <akc@despammed.com> writes
[quote]
"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message > >Exporting jobs to
India is a greater problem for the USA since you earn more
over there the cost incentive to export the job is greater.

Yes, that>s true. USA cannot even compete with UK!

It>s trade deficit with UK this year (up to and including October)
is about 7 billion dollars, very closely the same as its trade
deficit with India. While UK still has a trade surplus with India
(albeit very small).

The UK economy is centered on a strong USA economy.
[/quote]
Actually most of our trade is with the EC.

[quote]The USA has survived a
large negative trading balance with the rest of the world because the rest
of the world returns that deficite as investment in the USA.
[/quote]
You obviously haven>t read kaletsky recently.
The us needs to cut its expenditure by 6%, and one way or another it
will. The economics enforces this requirement.

[quote]This shows as a
strong dollar.
[/quote]
The dollar is weak.

[quote]All current indications are that the world is withdrawing its
investments and cashing in the dollar. At first sight this looks good for
the USA as it makes its trade more competitive, but if the underlying weath
generation is being exported to India etc then the USA has less product to
be competitive with.
[/quote]
The US is a very big country. It has a great deal of expertise.
It is very good at moving fast, economically, due to the high level of
labour mobility and powerful funding for startups.

[quote]The USA rose after the 2nd world war on the back of
the industry and manufacturing that was way ahead of the rest of the world.
[/quote]
Hmm, maybe. Mostly it had fully intact industry, expanded during the war
years, when the rest of the world had none, due to a major and
destructive war.

[quote]It then carried on on having world leading development, powered by the cold
war and space race. These power engines are no longer running.
[/quote]
They are, but not as effectively.

[quote]Teach your
grandchildren Chinese.
[/quote]
Which dialect?

Also to note that in my youth everyone said 'learn german' or even
better 'learn russian'. This wasn>t actually terribly good advice at
all. Japanese would have been better, but rarely mentioned.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
DEMON address no longer in use.

David G. Bell · Guest

On Friday, in article
<h1t5uvs2s4p0oihrmipqhgbrstati0i1mc@4ax.com>
mail@peterduncanson.net "Peter Duncanson" wrote:

[quote]On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 01:20:07 -0600, "Michelle Fulton" <notvalid@charter.net
wrote:

Hamish wrote:
Teach your grandchildren Chinese.

....or Hindi.

English will do very nicely in high-tech jobs in India.

From the CIA World Fact Book:
"English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for
national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national
language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other
official languages."

We have friends from India (they moved to the UK 30 years ago). The language
of the family is English, and has been ever since the mother and father met
- they speak different Indian languages.
[/quote]
Watch the movie "Monsoon Wedding", where the family speaks three
languages, English, Hindi, and Punjabi (which is used a little like
Latin or Greek might have been used by an educated Briton quoting the
classics).

--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.

"History shows that the Singularity started when Tim Berners-Lee
was bitten by a radioactive spider."

Peter Duncanson · Guest

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 01:20:07 -0600, "Michelle Fulton" <notvalid@charter.net>
wrote:

[quote]Hamish wrote:
Teach your grandchildren Chinese.

....or Hindi.
[/quote]
English will do very nicely in high-tech jobs in India.

From the CIA World Fact Book:
"English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for
national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national
language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other
official languages."

We have friends from India (they moved to the UK 30 years ago). The language
of the family is English, and has been ever since the mother and father met
- they speak different Indian languages.

--
Peter Duncanson
UK

Hamish · Guest

"Oz" <acoohdb@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:oZkVuWG6Pr4$EwRH@btopenworld.com...
[quote]Hamish <akc@despammed.com> writes
Teach your
grandchildren Chinese.

Which dialect?

Also to note that in my youth everyone said 'learn german' or even
better 'learn russian'. This wasn>t actually terribly good advice at
all. Japanese would have been better, but rarely mentioned.

[/quote]

It is a numbers game, there are a lot of Chinese, left to their own they
are industrious.
They will become the economic power of the next century.
As for dialect, I would guess cantoese with a very high english content, and
written using the roman alphabet, chinese charaters have no place in a
modern economy and will be scrapped.

German would have been useful in your youth, times move on.
The Japanese will be a victum of their own history, the Chinese will be the
economic power of the next century and probably remember what the Japanese
did in the war.

Britain has a large Chinese community, in the next century this link will
serve us well in dealings with China, with whom we will have a 'special'
relationship. The USA and Canada have similar communities and will thus
benifit.

As for Russia, an important member of the European Community, but the EC
will be third after China and the USA in the pecking order.

China is an advanced culture held back by comunism. Communism is dieing
fast.

Hamish · Guest

"Michelle Fulton" <notvalid@charter.net> wrote in message
news:vu58t0qmc046eb@corp.supernews.com...
Me thinks our wonderful
[quote]president needs to concentrate more on what is happening within our
borders
for a while, namely our economy/unemployment rate.

Indeed, having a job comes first, everything else is an optional luxury.[/quote]


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