Another article about the IT job situation in the U.S. Similar to the German situation, where economy revives and the gouvernment claims ideal conditions for IT employees. Especially students are in the focus, because their job decision will constitute the job market's condition the of the next years.
One may observe the familiar rituals of employers (and politicians), complaining about free jobs in the industry employees are unwilling to fill. This usually leads to requests for visas or green cards for foreign workers who should fill the gaps. And if the gouvernment doesn't want to support this, industry even persuades women to enter the IT job market.
Foreigners, young people, women... the low wages troopers are on the run. Instead of making IT jobs more attractive to everybody and to give work to unemployed IT workers, industry tries to go low-cost thus saving a costly off-shore operation. Why going to China or India if young people of the same culture area will do it for the same money.
Just my opinion: this will fall to the ground. Without a good reason (good wages, good career chances, job/life balance etc.), young people and especially women will continue to resist starting an IT career.

I don't want to raise this guy's popularity even further by calling his name. Obviously, he was mentally ill, long before he run riot. Just two short comments: when looking at technorati we see more than 5000 blog entries commenting on that guy thus tranforming his amok run into an act of attention terrorism. It will be interesting to observe the conclusions drawn from this misdeed and its medial analysis. Then, friends of arms: a madman without guns is better than a madman with guns. Please reconsider this simple truth. My deepest sympathies to the victims and their families and friends.

What makes people want telling everybody what they are doing now? Sites like twitter.com where users tell others what nobody wants to know, Justin Kan's website of his daily life where he virtually shares everything that happens to him make even bloggers writing about themselves just a back number.

Consistent to this, a report compiled by the Accelerating Studies Foundation describes the Metaverse as a digital wonderland, where all kind of electrical 3D-gadgets do the total immersion and users are writing their lifelogs. Their roadmap consists of all the geeky buzzwords you've ever heard of.

This doen't push my button. I don't want to tell everybody what I'm thinking now. I want to reflect on my thoughts and to present them in an ordered manner. I don't want to look at a video instead of remembering things that were important to me. I sometimes want to forget things that were not that convenient and especially I don't want to see other's unreflected thoughts.

Does the Metaverse make the world a better place? Do we learn more about ourselves or is it just another escapism toy that constrains our view of us? (Source)

Another must-have for security administrators. Will order one for each application I have to manage.

Just watched Fritz Lang's last silent movie "Frau im Mond" ("By Rocket to the Moon", "Girl / Woman in the Moon"): a wild story about true heroes, true love, greed, a nutty professor, and the German moon rocket! Lovingly done special effects, my favourites are the straps on the ceiling to be grapped at zero gravity.

Google Maps is a really fine application. It even tells you how to get from Düsseldorf to New York, NY. Hmmm... there's the Atlantic Ocean between these cities... No problem! Just follow step 35!

Now we know it: British people don't know how to use the Internet correctly! Especially Scots are completely unaware about the possibilities the web has to offer and spend long hours with useless 'wilfing' instead of going to work or doing useful things. Shame on you, boys: In many cases, wilfing means 'porning'. Of course, in the end we can the evergreen white-bread advice to get off the computer and to do something useful. Roger that, I'll think about a wilfing business model.

The 'Future Lab' Fraunhofer is praised in this Spiegel Online article. Top statement: German Fraunhofer Society is the top German scientific corporation where creative geniuses are questing for innovative products between the poles of science and economics. Fraunhofer is described in contrast to the Max Planck Society where fundamental research is usually done. According to this, Max Planck scientists (among others who do basic research in general) are called 'sophisticated' and 'high-browed' and only the Fraunhofer way is contemporary and promising.

Just a few comments from a has-been-scientist who worked in a scientific institution that was part of the Helmholtz Association and that has been taken over by Fraunhofer.

First: nothing against "Research of Practical Utility". MP3 is a tremendous success and the only reason why they didn't get rich was that they were just too early when releasing MP3. Establishing contacts to the industry and working together with professionals can be extremely inspiring, and to be a part of a great project that finds its way to happy customers is amazing.

But: there is a reason why Germany has produced only a handful of Nobel Prize candidates in the last years. Fraunhofer isn't interested in scientific glory: money is the big thing and only third-party funds do matter. If a student wants to do her thesis she has to prove the economical value of that work. But maybe there isn't any. Under this circumstances, my own thesis wouldn't have been possible. Additionally, a lot of important research disappears behind the iron curtain of patents and theis holders.

In the meantime, students and scientists became sort of scientific merchants who have to streamline and polish their work to make it interesting for possible investors. Why should somebody want to do this? Scientific careers are paid as bad as they always were. If a scientist in Germany wants to stay in the German scientific community (without becoming a businessman à la Fraunhofer), she may do so for 10-12 years, because there is an upper limit in years she might work in public scientific institutions (including public universities). Maybe not everybody is supposed to be a great scientist who wants to work in the university, but to urge people to go the Fraunhofer way is - IMHO - the best method to make them leave their country because they are not compatible to common sense. This is plain disgusting and proves once more the influence of our neoliberal terriers.

Remember when off-shoring was the big thing in IT? Now global players are shooting their own feet, because talented and well-educated tekkies are running out in the countries big IT companies invested in. Now they go into the hinterlands to find cheaper workers than in the capitals. Good luck, folks! Even chinese hinterlands will be filled with workers who want real wages.
I don't know if the target countries in central and eastern Europe will profit from these developments in the long run. Companies that invest very fast will leave the scene when worker's earnings get too big for them. Then again it's rather hard for domestic companies to attract workers because most of them will follow the money (who wouldn't?) and most talent will be bound to the big players.
The whole madness is best expressed by a word of HP's Sasha Bezuhanova: "If you build your economic model only around low-cost labor, you have a three- or four-year window where you have an advantage." Companies of former times had several years to decades to develop themselves - how could an employee plan his life when everything changes every few years? How long will the boom in these countries last until the common chain reactions will make corporations move to the next country? (Source)