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t1o5

1,199 karma · joined February 3, 2017

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t1o5··on Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
Other than Montreal's cheap cost of living and good public transportation, everything else is not so great. Talented engineers graduating from McGill and Concordia are leaving the province in droves because of Quebec's weird language laws [1], high taxes and obsolete immigration system. (Eg: KFC was renamed to PFK to comply with the language laws)

MIDI, the immigration department of Quebec which has fully autonomy for selecting immigrants to Quebec fails to attract or retain the foreign talents. A highly skilled worker is not given any kind of priority in their immigration application.

On the other hand, if you only have a school diploma, but can speak fluent French, you get the top priority in Quebec immigration.

If you are highly skilled, but do not know a word of French, it will take a minimum of 4 years to immigrate to Quebec [2]. Montreal is just riding on their old inertia. There is a huge shortage of talent in Quebec. The policies of immigration dept. of Quebec and Quebec's language policies will drive Quebec down the drain. Some politicians have even announced that if they get elected, they will deport all the non French speaking immigrants out of Quebec.

So any startups looking to start their business in Quebec, you have been warned. Montreal is a great tourist city, no contest. But not so great to live or work for tech. If you immigrate to Quebec, your kids should go to French school only.[4]

[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pastagate-reve...

[2] http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2018/02/27/des-travailleurs...

[3] https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/caq-s-new-immigration-policy-lea...

[4] http://unbelavenir.gouv.qc.ca/en/whychoosequebec-foreducatio...

t1o5··on Tech company career ladders
I made the switch from H1B's indentured servitude to being a permanent resident of Canada through the Express Entry system. It changed my life for good. US corporates likes H1B so much that they are lobbying to keep the shackles as it is.

Here is how I did it -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15452647

t1o5··on VC from Asia is skyrocketing
>VC from Asia is skyrocketing, threatening to shift power over innovation

Thats what the OP thinks it is. The actual title of the article is " Silicon Valley Powered American Tech Dominance—Now It Has a Challenger "

Perhaps the western world sees challenges from Asia as threats now.

t1o5··on Show HN: SalaryFeed – Anonymous salaries
Will this handle duplicate Employer field entry ?
t1o5··on My experience with off-shoring teams and what went wrong
Agree. What I see is, skilled ones are flocking to Canada and Australia because of their merit based immigration system.

H1B has lost its luster because its now a lottery visa, no place for skills. The Indian IT biggies flood H1B market with petitions claiming high skills for a meager developer.

There are also a lot booming startups in many cities spread across India. You can find the best ones there too.

t1o5··on My experience with off-shoring teams and what went wrong
How much of those million Euros went to the actual employees ? I agree with you that the pay was split unfairly by the “hierarchy”.

Big Indian IT firms makes a killing when it comes to billing clients. Not much of that money trickles down to the employees who actually do the job. The employees are plagued with "performance appraisals", "yearly evaluations" to fight for meager raises.

t1o5··on My experience with off-shoring teams and what went wrong
The author forgot to mention how much he paid for the offshore team. There was no mention of money in the things that went wrong. I think the cost is a very important factor if you expect a high quality project.

I have seen many people who bash India and Indian engineers for low quality work, but lets get to the crux of the problem. Its not that Indian engineers are all bad. They come in all shapes and sizes. You will get the best ones if you pay enough. You pay cheap, you get cheap.

Where can you get cheap ones ? From those big IT companies who treats employees as resources. The employees in turn will also treat their jobs along those lines.

So if you need high quality work, please don't go to these giant corporations. If you look hard enough, you will find small high quality places, but they are not cheap and not 'scalable' like your manager wants them to be.

t1o5··on OVH CEO: Unlike Amazon, Google, “we will never be in competition with you”
Re: Random French switching

Maybe you are using their Quebec DC. (Bill 101)

t1o5··on OVH CEO: Unlike Amazon, Google, “we will never be in competition with you”
Ah a French company with one of their DC in Quebec. What could go wrong ?
t1o5··on Charles Proxy now available on iOS
Won't an app worth its salt use certificate pinning to prevent this mitm ? In other words - Can I use Charles to sniff FB or watsapp traffic ? I do not use both services, but interested in analyzing their traffic.
t1o5··on How I Erased Facebook Comments and Likes
That's very clever. I tried to do something along those lines. On a second thought, why bother, its just a flag for them.
t1o5··on Google Code Jam void if you are resident of Quebec/Crimea/North Korea/Syria
Some of the wierd things I found out about Quebec's absurd language laws -

Toys and games, which require the use of a non-French vocabulary for their operation are prohibited on the Québec market, unless a French version of the toy or game is available on the Québec market on no less favourable terms.

KFC was renamed to PFC (Poulet Frit Kentucky) inorder to operate in Quebec.

The child of non English immigrants or naturalized citizens cannot go to English schools in Quebec by law !

What fun in Quebec.

t1o5··on The Declining Value of a CS Master's Degree (2013)
Although the parent is not 100% correct, the majority of MS students from India and China are in the US for improving their odds of getting the H1B visa. These students either missed the H1B boat while they were working in India or they were not competent enough to be hired from their college campus, or their colleges were not good enough for a company to recruit.

H1B is a quota based lottery system. There is extra quota for MS graduates in US. They also have two chances to get an H1B while being in the US under an OPT work visa after studies. (2 years stayback visa)

Now after graduation, these students go to the body shops which are conveniently setup in those college cities. The body shops are usually run by IT managers in fortune 500 companies who is now a US citizen. (most of them came in the Y2K boat). The IT managers bill the body shops at very high billing rate, thus filling their own coffers.

For example: Take ASU, Arizona State University. Check the demographics of MS students there and the body shops around that area.

You get the idea.

More about the faux consulting companies here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4100451

t1o5··on Google Code Jam void if you are resident of Quebec/Crimea/North Korea/Syria
I wonder how tech companies find talents assuming most of the software and books about it are in English.
t1o5··on Google Code Jam void if you are resident of Quebec/Crimea/North Korea/Syria
Being a new resident in Quebec, I started to notice a pattern here.

https://www.spotify.com/ca-en/premium/

" Offer not available to users who already tried Premium or to users in Quebec. "

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

" Residents of Quebec aren't eligible for a free trial of Amazon Prime. "

t1o5··on Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley
> One million people get green cards each year in the US.

Is a blanket statement. The topic is about skilled immigration. Majority of US green cards are family based.

Source here: https://www.us-immigration.com/how-many-immigration-applicat...

> Immigrants and their children are now 27% of the US population.

Immigrants from 1800s maybe ?

> Show me the numbers on China.

China has just started. I dont think there is any data yet. Even if there is, wont be easy to find.

> Why is Canada only 1% hispanic? Because they restrict immigration overwhelmingly by skill.

No they don't. They encourage both. Express Entry is for the skilled ones, family based quotas parents and siblings in addition to asylum and refugees. Isn't that how immigration is supposed to work ?

> How's that for treating people with dignity?

Canada have temporary worker visas similar to H1B. They issue the spouses of those temporary skilled workers with open work permit. Dignity & freedom from the day one they land in Canada. There are no carrots in Canada for temporary skilled workers. If you satisfy Express Entry points which you almost will, you can apply for permanent residence. Your permanent residence is not under the control of your employer master. Canadian employers cant threaten your Express Entry application. You wont have to wait 10 years or get kicked out of the queue if you change jobs or gets fired while being on H1B.

Those who come to Canada as students get a post graduate work permit. No lotteries, no quotas and can apply to express entry and become residents unlike those unfortunate master degree holders who are at the mercy of their employer masters and waiting 10 years for their GreenCards.

The fact that open work permits are issued for spouses of temporary skilled workers in Canada proves that temporary workers are treated with dignity in Canada than H1B workers in the US.

Are the points above dignifying enough ?

t1o5··on Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley
If a 10 year wait time for greencards and restricting the H4 spouses of those skilled visa workers to work legally is not a carrot, then yes US is doing a great job attracting and retaining talents.

I went behind the carrot for 3 years and then immigrated to Canada. My spouse has dignity now and she is a full time employee just like me earning a very good salary. In US, she lost all her confidence,dignity and was depressed because she was "not allowed" to work though she was a post graduate degree holder.

Any skilled workers who care about their H4 spouses should do the same.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2017/01/28/green...

http://h4-visa-a-curse.blogspot.ca/p/home.html

https://qz.com/797831/the-h4-visa-and-the-desperation-of-ind...

t1o5··on Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse
I can very well attest to the fact that the chaff gets H1Bed to the US thru mega body shops and the cream stays in India.
t1o5··on Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse
Agree ! I was 3 years into my H1B and I called BS on that. Moved out of US sometime back with a Canadian PR. Living happily thereafter. Gets paid more than US, because no more visa or greencard shackles.

My spouse started working too unlike in the US where she was not "authorized" to work on H4. We are well ahead economically than was in the US and planning to buy a home soon and settle.

Seriously, what kind of country says that just because someone is on a work visa that their spouse cannot work !! Why cant ACLU take this up because DACA gives more PR for them ? Take cue from Canada, they too have temporary work visa, but the dependent spouses are free to work. The plight of H4 spouses..sigh.

The right to work is a basic human right. And they say other nations violate human rights because they block social media !! but wont allow my wife to work because she was married to me and on an H4 visa. Hypocrisy at its best.

So I left all those bullshit behind.

t1o5··on Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse
Send us your best ? What for ? The best and brightest of India are nowadays working at startups in India itself. They are smart enough to realize the greediness and exploitation of US corporations who wants cheap H1B labor to look good on their Q4s. Tatas and Infosys scratch that itch of greedy corporations thats all.

H1B is not a skilled visa if anyone thinks otherwise. There is no merit system in H1B. An example for merit based skilled visa is Canadian Express Entry system.

t1o5··on Show HN: Kismet – get an e-mail introduction to a fellow HN member every day
An apt name ! There is a bollywood movie by the name “Kismet Konnection”
t1o5··on Fiat Chrysler pushed a UConnect update that causes constant reboots
I think the 6.5” screensizes and MY13 or older ones were from Panasonic. Harman took over with the new touch enabled screen models. The consumer facing apps run on J2ME LWUIT on top of JamaicaVM in QNX.
t1o5··on Fiat Chrysler pushed a UConnect update that causes constant reboots
FCA ISOs are bundled from various vendors. The QNX OS from Harman, some of the uconnect apps and the data connectivity is from Sprint.

* FCA is an automotive company, I presume their s/w release management dont follow best practices.

* SiriusXM cannot push OTA updates. It has to be provisioned from FCA and pushed through their uconnect DRM process to the headunit.

* There is a watchdog in FCA UConnect but for the apps. Im not sure they have it for the OS. I know for sure that the watchdog restarts daemon apps when they crash.

t1o5··on Equifax under pressure after data breach update
What if the function of freeze_credit_report(..) is buggy too ? I do not think freezing a credit report will make this any safer. It might be just another flag in their already buggy system.
t1o5··on Telegram Login for Websites
Curious why typecast if instanceof is checked already ? Wont the compiler know of this already ?

  if (view instanceof ChatMessageCell) {
  .......                    
   ChatMessageCell cell = (ChatMessageCell) view;
  ....
  }
t1o5··on What I learned from watching my iPad's slow death
Exactly my thoughts too. I was "forced" into buying a smart TV this year. The app store sucks and they serve occasional ads too. I pulled the LAN and wifi off the TV. I am happily using an after market custom android box plugged into HDMI and a Bose TV sound bar. The TV is just for the display.
t1o5··on Car Navigation Systems Plot a Course Forward Against Phone Apps
I know for sure that the telematics systems in Chrylsers are running on QNX when I was working on them in 2012.
t1o5··on India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care
India already has free healthcare for all the citizens. Its just that its not efficient and well managed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_India

t1o5··on India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care
To be read as - the elections are coming. Mr Modi is seeking a second term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_elections_in_India

NYT article to be read in tandem with this one

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-budget/with-electio...

t1o5··on After alleged 'bait and switch,' Nevada DMV cancels $78M IT contract
The question you should ask is why wasn't the contract given to an American software company ?
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