runesoerensen

> Dumping/delegating mundane tasks onto a high income earner doesn't jive with common sense

From the article: "Caring for your child, therefore, produces not only a strong bond but a neurochemical reward, inducing feelings of happiness, contentment and warmth"

I suspect that some of the "mundane tasks" you have in mind are exactly the ones that produce this bond - like changing a diaper when you hear your baby crying at night. That's probably difficult if you're using earplugs, and I guess such tasks might not make sense for some high income earners, though.

More details: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/apple-unveils-powerfu...

https://investor.qualcomm.com/static-files/e8c6eb06-9de6-421...

Facebook comms: You can't really use the word "keep" when the entire post is about how you have failed to keep passwords secure, by storing it in plaintext.

Or at least, you probably shouldn't use that word. It signals that you intend to keep doing what you're doing, which wasn't just keeping passwords insecure up until sometime in January.

It's up until today when you effectively disclosed that you haven't notify hundreds of millions of users that their passwords were compromised for months after discovering it. I know they "were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook", but that group still includes some +25K people.

[0] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/keeping-passwords-secur...

Incidentally, Kierkegaard kinda tried to answer this question 5 years later in Either/Or. A couple of related snippets:

"I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both" [0]

And a more long-winded version:

"Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy" [1]

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/28780-i-see-it-all-perfectl...

[1]https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7141047-marry-and-you-will-...

In the case of senior roles: Because letting a college grad grow into a job that requires many years of experience, unsurprisingly, takes many years to grow in to.

As to entry-level positions I'd assume that a shortage of American candidates would be the reason. Or perhaps some employers have experienced foreign workers that seem more motivated/harder working (for instance they might have more to loose from being fired)?

> I have noticed that they pay less for h1b workers, and this is not only at Cisco, basically everywhere I have worked.

That would be a violation of H-1B requirements and seems to be why the Department of Labor is taking action against Cisco here.

> I’ve also seen the companies write job descriptions that only fit the h1b worker so they can help them get a green card.

I'm curious if you can provide an example of a job description that only fit one H-1B worker?

Also, H-1B is a non-immigrant visa, i.e. not a green card. It's a "dual intent" visa, which just means that an employer can legally file for a green card for an employee in H-1B status - it doesn't grant any immigrant benefits or a direct path to permanent residence.

> It’s sad.

If an employer is abusing the immigration system by somehow designing job descriptions for a specific person (and I'm interested in examples of that as noted above) I agree.

However, and I suspect this represents the vast majority of EB visa petitions for temporary workers, I don't find it sad if an employer sponsor a green card after someone has worked in the U.S. for many years. The H-1B visa is limited to 6 years max, after which the worker will have to leave the U.S. In most cases I'd find it quite nice if an employer makes the effort of securing a green card for an someone who has created a life for themselves in the US. It's also ususlly in the best interest of the employer, which is why they spend the time and resources to do it :)

> Finally, I believe that companies have too much power over a h1b worker. If they fire them, they only have a month to find a new job and then they have to fly home. It’s bad on all sides.

I agree fully with that sentiment, but it's unfortunately worse than you think: Technically an H-1B worker whose employment is terminated have to leave the country immediately. There's a vaguely defined policy granting some degree of lenience/grace period, but it's not a right at all.

In reality, a person in H-1B status should see every day in the US as potentially their last - at least in legal status (although very short lapses are often tolerated/accepted).

The discussion left me with the impression that the lack of progress in terms of making skilled labor immigration easier wasn't just a result of Washington's/politicians inability to get things done. That was however the reason I would usually hear when debating immigration hurdles with friends in the Bay Area.

It was pretty clear that keeping immigration difficult and very limited, even for skilled people, was also very much a popular position that largely reflected many HN users (presumably US voters).

Posting again to see if anything has changed in terms of how this community view and value foreign labor in tech?

I agree that would be a stretch especially because the yearly H-1B visa cap is 65,000 across all industries.

In any case, even if wages would be a bit higher without foreign labor, Cisco would probably only be responsible for paying at least the market wage for a position at the time the H-1B petition was filed.

> I also think about roles like HR and Marketing that do not have much competition from immigrants

Just a small nit (because I'm reminded of this every time I enter the US): H-1B is a non-immigrant visa type for temporary workers ;)

Yes that seems to be pretty close to the mean wage in San Jose for a likely "Software Engineer" job code: http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=41940... Cisco's (posted) wages span the different levels of that job description pretty well as far as I can tell.

However it's probably important to note that LCA data (e.g. the data on h1bdata.info) doesn't actually say anything about how much Cisco's paying. Those are just the wages Cisco has submitted in LCAs, but I don't think there's any way to verify that an LCA is connected to and used for an approved H-1B petition and actual employment of a foreign worker.

> Because Cisco is "underpaying" H1 workers is a myth that a lot of HN posters like to believe

Not sure about HN reader bias (*see edit below), but in this case the Labor Department clearly found some wrongdoing on Cisco's part. Would be interesting to know what that is? Perhaps Cisco is filing all these LCAs to signal that's they're employing workers in all wage levels, but only use the certified LCAs with the lower wages when submitting H-1B petitions?

Edit: OK, I'll admit that I do actually know about HN bias a few years back. That was abundantly clear from the shitshow that was the HN discussion about pg's "Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8799572

Seems like the company would have to either misrepresent the job requirements/responsibilities/wage level (seniority).. Or perhaps they'd fake a survey of local wages rather than using the "official" statistics?

Otherwise I don't think the Department of Labor would/should certify an LCA with a wage way below market for the position. If they do, though, perhaps that's where the issue can and should be fixed?

In practice this also means that employers need to file an amended H-1B petition with a newly certified LCA when an H-1B employee moves to a new area code. For instance, if you move a H-1B software engineer from Denver to San Francisco you'll likely have to pay the employee more.

The article does point out that the issue was discovered by the Labor Department (rather than for instance the USCIS, who's responsible for processing the H-1B petition itself), so perhaps that indicates a failure to comply with LCA requirements?

That might be the case, but it's probably not the relevant comparison. The relevant comparison, for the sentence to be true, would be between "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture" and "The pain experienced from thinking about torture".

Or to put it another way (in the same format as the sentence we're debating): "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture does not hurt less than the pain experienced from thinking about torture".

I think the profoundness here is more related to the word "imaginary" being unnecessary (and even harmful) as it relates to suffering. My sentence above might make it more obvious that "imaginary pain" is somewhat ridiculous in the first place, but it is however used to dismiss people who are hurting.

> Yes, people might disagree about whether or not someone is in pain. Similarly, they might disagree about whether or not someone is eating cake. That doesn't mean that "imaginary cake tastes just as good as real cake".

If a person is conscious and claim to be in pain, that person is in pain, and it doesn't matter if other people think differently.

Similarly, if someone is eating cake it's just weird for anyone else to disagree that they're eating cake, or even discuss the difference between the taste of cake and thinking about eating cake. People of course rarely question the reality and experiences associated with eating cake, but they do with people experiencing pain, which makes the sentence more insightful than you seem to believe.

In a sense this also kinda leads to the result of the study: I do see a point in the statement (and the other non-BS statements), and I think it's a lot more likely that I'll engage in prosocial behavior, such as relieving someone from pain others may describe and dismiss as "imaginary" - or for that matter giving someone the cake they want/need, whether that be real or imaginary ;)

In any case, the sentence doesn't seem to require the imaginary pain to be equivalent (or even compared) to the pain experienced from whatever is causing the imaginary pain. I don't think that's even possible.

It just requires that the pain someone experience from imagining/actually being tortured hurts just as much, albeit likely differently, regardless of the nature or cause of the pain ("imagined"/"real").

The "profoundness" of the sentence is probably related to the already questionable concept "imagined pain"; and how the pain experienced by other people can easily, and way to often, be dismissed and classified as "imaginary".

The pain still hurts the person experiencing it though, regardless of whether some might call it imaginary (and whether "imaginary pain" even makes sense).

One thing I found interesting is how incredibly subjective and relative painful experiences are. Increasing and varied types of pain would typically be inflicted over the course of an experiment, while I had to perform various tasks and grade the pain on a scale from 0-10.

Very often I'd grade the initial pain around 6-7, and increase that to the maximum of 9-10 during the experiment. The pain I experienced by the end would however be much more severe, and if I could've corrected the initial grading it'd have been closer to 2-3.

I guess you could say that I was unable to imagine the level of pain I'd later experience, and how relative pain is perceived in this type of experiment.

Just a tangential anecdote, but I didn't call BS on that statement :)

If an employer buys USB-C only laptops for employees I'd consider it very likely, not to mention smart, if there was a USB-C plug in the bundle.

I understand, but don't share, your bitterness over USB-C as a display interface, particularly since you can use it for so many other things even when it's obsolete for that purpose.

In the context we're debating (e.g. compatibility/convenience problems related to recent MBPs) it's also much simpler than the scenario you're portraying. In that case, the other end of the connection is the only variable as there's only one connector type, but fortunately USB-C/TB3 supports all the others :)

If it's the latter, the argument is moot vs USB-C, and if it's the former I just personally don't miss the HDMI port in earlier MBPs. Mostly because I would have to use a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI to get 4K@60Hz - the HDMI port in the latest pre USB-C Macbook Pro only support 4K@30hz.

Otherwise the USB-C to A + USB-C to HDMI is one adapter if you get Apple's version. So maximum one adapter is required here.

1. I just mailed it in for the keyboard replacement yesterday.

2. I was slightly disappointed at the time that they didn't include a USB-C to Lightning cable for the iPhone 7, but it made sense as the iPhone 7 was released earlier. The fact that the iPhone X doesn't include that cable is inexcusable.

3. It's weird that there's an audio jack but my iPhone comes with lightning headphones. Not much of an issue in practice though as never really use either for audio, and AirPods work well on both devices.

So my issues with the MBP are mostly related to how it ties in to the broader Apple line-up, and the lack of out-of-the-box compatibility/connectivity between devices.

USB-C, and particularly Thunderbolt 3, is awesome though:

* Sure, the power brick doesn't have ears, but you can just remove the cable from the adapter. Seems like a better solution to me. The ears are no longer necessary because the cable isn't attached to it.

* The power brick can be used to quickly charge your iPhone or other USB-C PD devices. For instance, I also use it to charge a USB-C PD battery pack, which I can then use to charge my MBP at 30W on the go.

* I never have adapters dangling from my laptop. I've bought a few new cables, a USB-C display that charges my laptop over a single cable, and a USB-C SSD that's more compatible (e.g. not Thunderbolt 2) and faster than I could previously achieve.

* I'm contemplating getting a Thunderbolt 3 NVMe SSD and an eGPU soon. Both will provide near-desktop performance extremely conveniently albeit at the expense of backward compatibility.

* Touch ID makes it much easier for me to keep my computer safe. I can conveniently separate more activities with user accounts and use longer passwords, and I don't have to worry if someone or a camera is peeking while doing so.

* The few times I've had to use HDMI I've plugged in the HDMI cable, which now has a USB-C adapter permanently attached. Problem solved.