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Journal: My job went to India and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

Journal by ted_nugent

I will preface this thought with a disclaimer. I have no formal background in economics nor political science. This is just a layman stating a view haven't seen mentioned in the press. Nothing profound to be seen here - just plain old common sense.

With that said, I am going to make a bold prediction. The massive transfer of tech jobs from the US to India will have a profound effect on the political stability of the East. I just don't know whether it will be for the better or not.

Nearly all of the Fortune 1000 now depend on India-based workers to operate. Most are indepedent outsourcers, while a few, such as Oracle, Intel, and Dell, run their own shops there.

Big business pays for a lot of political campaigns, and they expect some benefits in return. Not only that, but they can now truthfully state that the stability of India is of vital importance to their daily operations, and as such, is important to our own (short-term) US economy.

Therefore, the first order of business will be to squelch any rumblings of conflict with Pakistan. We have little interest in the well being of Pakistan, other than our usual role of "Cops of the World". So the UN and the international community at large will have to step in and convince them that the proposed agreement is indeed amicable.

I'm not sure where this will take us next, but mark my words, conflict is coming.

User Journal

Journal: Thanksgiving

Journal by ted_nugent
When I lived in Europe, a British colleague asked me about Thanksgiving. The conversation went something like this:

So what is Thanksgiving? Is it just like Christmas but without the presents?

No, it's a time where we get together with family, eat a lot of food, and reflect on our good fortune over the past year.

Right - like Christmas, but without the presents.

Yes, exactly.


Journal: A Tale of Two Camps

Journal by ted_nugent

Having now reached my first anniversary as a "switcher", I've spent some time lurking in the mac forums and download sites. One observation I find interesting is the mixed culture that has resulted since the introduction of OS X. There are two user bases, each having polar opposite perspectives on applications.

The first one is the old world Mac community. These folks are the loyalists who have stuck by Apple, through thick and thin, lo these many years. Many of them weren't too happy about the death of their old OS and the arrival of the very different OS X, but are begrudgingly coming along.

These folks love utilities that make their desktop look and act more like OS 9, but they loathe the X-Window system. They're very happy to pay and register for any useful shareware. In fact, they're thrilled to see any development happening for their platform. They're used to being a distant second place when it comes to the commercial software market. Which, apart from a few small freeware utilities and games, was the only source of software.

Then there are the switchers. Not the type targeted in Apple's marketing campaign, but the more savvy power users who are drawn to the Unix undercarriage married to stylish good looks. These folks were impressed with the original Macintosh, but by the early 90s didn't see it as being so innovative anymore. The switchers considered OS 6-7-8-9 to be an overpriced, unstable, black box used only by industrial artists and technophobic consumers. These folks are used to getting most types of software for free, and want nothing to do with classic applications or carbon libraries. These folks revel in the fact that most anything not available as a native app is available as a Fink port.

What about the Windows switchers? I'm sure there are a few out there, but they're harder to spot. Maybe they just aren't a forum posting kind of people.

Weekends were made for programming. - Karl Lehenbauer