Why you should care about H1-B visas

If you’ve heard about them, but haven’t given them much thought, I give a trench level view of why H1-B visas are bad for everyone involved (except corporate management)

Congress is trying to raise the cap on H1-B visas again. This is very bad and shows how the government is losing touch or just doesn’t care about their constituents.

What is an H1-B visa? It’s a mechanism by which a company can bring in a skilled foreign worker to fill a position that they can’t fill using an American worker. It was very popular in the tech industry during the boom of the 90s when almost 200,000 H1-B visas were granted per year. The visa lasts for 6 years. Having worked with many recipients of this visa, I can give some ground-level reasons why this bad for both US workers and foreign workers as well.

For foreign workers, they are essentially tied to a company for 6 years. If the company goes out of business, they are deported. If they are fired, they are deported. This essentially makes them indentured servants for the life of their visas. It is possible for them to switch to another company, but it requires a lot of effort on all parts and is extremely difficult. Additionally, H1-B visa holders are paid a lot less than their US counterparts. If a US citizen is being underpaid for their work, they can try to find a new job. The H1-B visa holder is not nearly so lucky.

For US workers, they have downward pressure on their salaries given that they can be replaced by H1-B visa holders. Additionally, since H1-B visa holders are tied to their companies, a company might choose to fill a position with an H1-B holder, rather than a US citizen who can quit if they are being mistreated. There are thousands upon thousands of skilled US workers who are currently unemployed. Recent years have seen the highest numbers of unemployed technology people in history and yet tech companies are pushing the government to raise the H1-B quotas. It certainly isn’t because they can’t find the workers.

Many H1-B visa holders become US citizens or make the US their home permanently. This is good for the US certainly. However, many return to their home countries with US corporate training making their home countries more competitive with the US which is not good for US companies long term.

Here’s a related article on usatoday.

Re-angry

My full-tilt boiling over anger over the election had subsided, but now it is back.

I think my anger over the election was starting to subside. I’m not happy, but I just can’t stay so pissed off and continue to function. Then I rented, “Bush’s Brain” last night. It brought up a lot of stuff that was sort of settling to the bottom of my mind. I think that the filmmakers should do an update to cover the 2004 election. The Swift boat ads, questioning John Kerry’s Patriotism, dirty trick after dirty trick were all straight from the Karl Rove textbook. When you learn about some of the dirty tricks that this guy has been pulling for years, it becomes very easily to believe that the Bush team would out and out steal the election illegally.

I don’t think we’ll ever know what really happened in this election, mostly because I no longer trust the government to police itself. I just hope that a small percentage of the dirty tricks pulled by the republicans become public and cause enough of an outcry to get them out of power for a good long time.

Off-shoring and the software industry, a coupla things

This is something close to my heart that I haven’t touched on in this blog yet, I was going to do write something today, but I haven’t got time, so instead here are a couple of interesting links…

Microsoft and other major technology companies are trying to get congress to bump up the indentured servant, er, I mean, H1B visa cap. This is at a time when Microsoft is secretly (and not so secretly) laying off a bunch of people and expanding their campus in India. There was a thing on Slashdot about it .

On the similar theme of high-tech companies treating their employees like crap, there is another post on slashdot about how EA might be facing a class action lawsuit for treating their employees like crap.

Finally for today is an article that I meant to post a link to earlier but haven’t had the change. News.com has an article about a company called Rural Outsourcing, which helps high tech companies reduce their costs without getting rid of American jobs. I really honestly don’t know what to think about that. I guess if we are going to use American corporate dollars to raise the standard of living for someone it is better for it to be Americans since the corporations are getting so much of our tax dollars already as government handouts. On the other hand, it doesn’t really do anything to control the slide of yet another solid middle class profession into a subsistence profession.

My dream gadget

Mini-summary of small multi-function video/photo cameras

I’m a documenter. Or rather, I’d like to be. I’m always seeing (or hearing) something and wishing I had my camera or mini-disc recorder with me. I’ve got a digital camera, a mini-DV camera, and a mini-disc recorder and microphone. So, I’m set, sort of. Except that they are too big to carry around. I want something I can slip into a pocket, the size of a cell phone or smaller. Luckily, technology has come to the rescue, although not completely. I’m waiting still for something with good quality, small size and not crazy expensive (because I know it will get outdated quickly). So still I wait. The outlook is getting better though. Here’s the current crop of portable devices I’m eyeing:

The Philips GoGear Digital Camcorder – This looks good, good enough that I actually visited a few stores this weekend to see if I could find one and see it up close. Unfortunately, the only place to actually buy one is on-line, which I’m not too happy about. I’d like to see it before I plunk down cash for it. I’m also a little suspicious because there aren’t any clips of captured video from it on the web. I know that it is QVGA MPEG-4 and I might be willing to accept that, but I’d like to see what the quality of the video actually is. Other cons are the fact that it is PC-only and my main machines are all macs. Also, it says that it records audio with the video, but I have no idea what the quality is. I’m willing to deal with no mic-in and having to record audio with video when I only want audio, but the audio better not suck. With this, I have no idea. Also, you can’t expand its memory through an SD slot. A big pro is that you can use AAs to extend its battery life (No more proprietary non-replacable batteries ever!)

The Fisher FVD-C1 – Feature-wise this looks pretty awesome. It addresses some of the things I don’t like about the Philips, it has an audio-only mode, for example. It uses Li-ion batteries, but you can buy extras and switch them if you run out. The cons: I can’t get any real specs off their website. They claim DVD quality video and CD quality audio, but then again so does everyone. I want sampling and data rates please. Also, I actually got to check one out at the Apple store and the form factor didn’t blow me away. Also, it is crazy expensive.

The Panasonic D-Snap Line – Panasonic has got a bunch of different cameras at different price points. There must be something wrong with their specs pages though, because their top of the line video camera, the AV-100 doesn’t seem to have a Microphone or a way of adding audio to its MPEG 2 video which seems moronic in a $1000 video camera, especially since their $400 models have them. I need to track these down in person and check out their boxes to make sure. Their AV-50 models make more sense, but tempted with MPEG2 in the AV-100, I don’t know if I want to settle for MPEG4 in a larger form-factor even if it does cost less than half.

Samsung just announced their Miniket, which might be the one for me if I could get some real specs or street price estimates on them. Right now they just have a tantalizing flash demo. I’m going to keep a watch on them for more info though.

Aiptek is the king of the inexpensive SD photo/video recorders. Unfortunately, I had one of their earlier models and had to replace it twice in two months because it kept falling apart. I gave up after the third time. I’m never buying from them again.

Mustek has the DV5500, which is too big and just doesn’t blow me away. After my Aiptek, I’m a little scared of anything in a plastic shell.

I was on a plane to LA with a well-known animator (name drop omitted) who swore by his Archos. It is true that with attachments, the Archos AV300 does almost everything I want, plus it is a decent media player too. The cons: it isn’t meant to do what I want to do, so with the attachments I’ll be spending a big chunk of change. With the attachments, I’m still only taking QVGA video. Also, it is big, bigger than I want.

Believe me, I’m watching this market, so when I see something new I’ll post it to the blog and if I can get more details, I’ll post ’em.

Here is my wish-list (in order):

  1. Fits in a pocket (a real pocket)
  2. Full NTSC video (720×480) at 30 fps with GOOD compression
  3. Real CD Quality audio (44 MHz, 16 bit STEREO)
  4. Mic input
  5. Replaceable storage media (anything but Memory stick)
  6. Replaceable Battery or Add on adapter that takes a STANDARD battery set (AA, AAA, etc)
  7. 2 Mega-pixel still camera
  8. Flash
  9. Viewer/screen (small is ok)
  10. Under $500

Sure, I’m probably not gonna get it for Chanukah this year, but I bet it might be available for next year.

Is Iraq another Vietnam?

The more land we capture the more land we lose… Are we going to be stuck in Iraq?

Our “coalition” is disbanding, the U.N. isn’t so sure they want to help us anymore. The Iraqi people don’t seem to excited to have us there either. Are we stuck in an un-winnable war that will continue to draw American lives and resources? It looks increasingly so to me and to anyone else with a brain. There is a good article on greenleft about it.

The Persuaders

This looks like an awesome show about how marketing is getting progressively more insistent.

I saw a link on wired this morning about a Frontline episode called Persuasders. It is about how marketers are becoming more and more insidious as we are becoming immune to their approaches. I missed it on TV, but luckily they are streaming the whole episode on the web. Check it out, it looks good.

Free media is awesome

Did you know that Dawn of the Dead is now in the public domain?
I found a link to Undead Art in one of my rss feeds today (sorry, I don’t remember which). It turns out that Dawn of The Dead is now in the public domain! Download it, burn it, and enjoy! Undead art is doing a sort of public domain remix content to support Creative Commons licensing. If you’re looking for more cool public domain content, check out The Internet Archive, they have tons of awesome public domain video and audio. It’s perfect for burgeoning culture re-mixer.

ICANN changes its rules

The ICANN has changed the domain transfer rules because they are evil.

I found this article on Slashdot this morning about how ICANN is changing the rules on domain transfers to inexplicably make it easier for hijacking. There is some good info on netcraft about it. Here is the actual change language. It freaked me out, of course, so I went to make sure that all my domains were locked. Smartly, Network Solutions automatically locks their domains to make hijacking impossible. Moronically, MyDomain doesn’t. You have to specifically add it for each domain. At least it is free. I guess you get what you pay for. Now is a good time for you to check out the settings on all your domains and make sure they are protected.

Laurie Anderson

My kind-of review of last night’s Laurie Anderson performance in Seattle.

I saw Laurie Anderson last night here in Seattle. She continues to be an excellent performer, but something has changed in the way that I relate to her as I get older. I first discovered her when I was 16 and I checked out her United States 1-5 on vinyl from the library where I worked (hint on my actual age here). It blew me away. She became, and remains, one of my heroes. Her observations were revelatory to a suburban teenager in Reagan’s America with aspirations toward the avant-garde.

Her new piece, “The End of the Moon” deals with her time as NASA’s first (and last) artist in residence. While much of it was engaging, when she would wander off into deep-sounding non-sequiturs I caught myself wondering if she was actually trying to say something or if she was in sort of automatic art mode. I never noticed this in her work before. I’m not sure if she was just filling space in the piece or was actually going somewhere and just lost me on the way.

More interesting to me was how her music has progressed. I’ve always admired the sound beds she creates that form the backdrop of her more introspective music and her narratives, but a lot of her music didn’t thrill me. Last night, I was a lot more impressed by her music than her words for the first time. She has been playing violin for decades, but last night was the first performance of hers where I actually felt her virtuosity on the instrument. It could be that technology has finally caught up to her vision, but her extended music solo music pieces (with computer accompaniment) were amazing. It really inspired me to re-think my own extended playing techniques.

I don’t know if she’s picking up new audiences anymore. We were definitely on the younger side of the audience age range, which is saying something. It’s too bad, because while some of her new work is a bit too much like some of her old work, the rest is really worth exposure to some new minds.

Posted: Tue – November 9, 2004 at 11:20 AM