Companies like TCS and Infosys bring cheap labor mostly on L1 and not on H1. Most of the H1's I know are US graduates and majority are MS/PhD in CS. It is the L1 visa that allows a company to bring in cheap labor because the limitation on minimum salary by the DoL is not as stringent as H1. For H1 visa, a company has to file for labor certification with DoL and they decide what the minimum prevailing wage for a particular zip code, the skillset and the experience is. [1]
Having said above I agree that the H1 visa IS being abused but the main issue is L1, not H1. there was about 20% abuse a few years ago and there was a huge crackdown by the USCIS and DoL on those doing that.
I have become so cynical and scared that I usually do not even click on such websites and links. Can the US police arrest you to visit just the web page and search on it?
I wonder how it is back? Aren't Sunde et. al. in jail for this?
It's about as likely as police arresting you because they feel like it. Which I guess happens, but there is little that can be done personally to guard against it.
(I'm trying to draw a distinction between actions that protect an individual and actions that encourage a fair society there, it's the protecting just yourself against corrupt police that isn't particularly possible)
Yeah, there is a strange misconception on HN that the US legal system is totally broken and that everyone is out to get you. I don't think the data support this. Actually, I believe there is legal precedent that you can't be prosecuted for downloading something from a site like TPB, only from uploading to others (the reasoning is that when you upload you're a distributor).
This is mostly true; it is perfectly legal to download copyrighted material. The crime is in distributing copyrighted material that you do not have any rights to. This means that I do not need to worry about if Hulu, Funimation, or whatever streaming service I am using is complying with the law and obtained the rights to stream their content.
However, in the case of torrents you are also uploading the content, which is illegal; and I believe there is precedent that you can be charged (although I do not have a case handy).
This strategy is mentioned in many bittorrent discussion.
What I have yet to see is any sort of justification for why it is ok to push personal risk onto other people, many of which have no idea how bittorrent works.
If you're going to use bittorrent for works that are protected by copyright, sharing in a small amount of risk is how the protocol works. Technical changes that actually reduce risks are fine; moving risk around is merely hoping someone who is ignorant of the technical details can be the patsy.
I'm not familiar with the specifics of the protocol, but your download speeds would be much slower without uploading. I believe that with BitTorrent, you are penalized/rewarded somehow for not uploading vs. uploading.
Not really, trackers will impose restrictions on users based on seeding ratios, but if you just DHT a random torrent whoever gets bandwidth is more down to random luck than priority towards other seeders. There is just no protocol level mechanism that prioritizes seeding to someone with a higher upload - the choice of who to seed to is up mostly to the implementation.
I don't think you need to worry about that. We live in a world where web browsers implement prefetching to improve overall performance, which means your browser "clicks" links for you in the background all the time. This may or may not end up looking like you visited the website yourself. I'm not sure if they're distinguishable, but you get the point. Aside from that, I don't think visiting The Pirate Bay is illegal in the first place, the same way that talking to a drug dealer isn't necessarily illegal either.
Anyway, if you're still worried, I suggest you use the Tor Browser and stop worrying about these things all together.
>I don't think visiting The Pirate Bay is illegal in the first place, the same way that talking to a drug dealer isn't necessarily illegal either.
You'd think that, but stop and remember what the pirate bay actually does, again.
They don't have copyrighted files. They used to but no longer keep track of the people that do have copyrighted files. All they have is descriptions of files and ID numbers. Plus comments and a search engine.
So while I'm pretty sure you won't get arrested for visiting today, I'm less confident the current law won't become stretched enough to cover it.
> They used to [...] keep track of the people that do have copyrighted files
Did they get rid of their tracker? I don't know actually, but that's not important. Running a torrent tracker is considered very legal in most places (similar to running a Tor exit node or something like that).
> Plus comments and a search engine.
That's the tricky bit.
> So while I'm pretty sure you won't get arrested for visiting today, I'm less confident the current law won't become stretched enough to cover it.
I'd rather you wouldn't just say stuff like that. You're basically spreading FUD. There is no sane reason to believe anybody will ever be arrested (in western countries, that is) for visiting a site like TPB. Which law would you like to stretch in order to make that happen? Using their indexer is similar to getting a menu from your drug dealer. You haven't even attempted to do anything illegal yet. What you'd need is a law that allows you to arrest people for something they haven't even attempted to do (some people call that pre-crime).
What happens in reality instead is governments blocking sites like TPB and that's the end of that.
Wait, you think the comments and search engine are the problem? What if they dumped a big list of the most recent 10000 magnet URLs and descriptions at you?
> You're basically spreading FUD.
Well I am pretty scared and uncertain. The Pirate Bay is already so far removed from the actual copyright infringement that I don't see how another layer of indirection guarantees safety for the people that visit the site. Perhaps you wouldn't get in trouble just for searching, but if you used the search results in the process of infringing copyright I would not be surprised to see some kind of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement charge added on for making the search. Is that completely unreasonable?
Can you explain to me how TPB's actions are illegal today? In the dealer analogy, they've never even seen a drug. They ask you what chemical you want and tell you an arbitrary code word that some dealers will recognize.
The problem can't really be that it's a search engine rather than an unorganized list...can it?
Absolutely not! Once you click a magnet link, you're on your own. I was just talking about visiting the site, searching, really not doing anything.
> Can you explain to me how TPB's actions are illegal today?
Depends on the jurisdiction, I guess. I'm not sure TPB is actually illegal, but that question is quite complex. I really wouldn't know.
> The problem can't really be that it's a search engine rather than an unorganized list...can it?
Of course it is! That's how the ended up in court in the first place. On top of all their legal-ish infrastructure (the trackers, etc.) they provide a website that allows people to aggregate, filter, enrich, etc., content. I'm not sure that alone get's you in trouble (it might not!), but it certainly will once you add ads to finance the entire thing.
>they provide a website that allows people to aggregate, filter, enrich, etc., content.
Well let me put it this way. If they had a site with exactly the same interface for viewing torrent info, but no comments, no votes, no filtering, no searching. You think that would win in court?
I think that it is important to emphasize is that the reason why they want to see it dead is because they want the community to build something new and better instead of relying on an over 10 year old service. They want to see some innovation.
>Can the US police arrest you to visit just the web page and search on it?
I'm going to sound like a paranoid nut (and I can assure you I'm not), but the reality is, if you get a target on your back the "US police" will find a way to arrest you[1].
This is the scary thing about mass data collection; they can concoct any story they want from the breadcrumbs of personal data.
Meditation is a lot less complicated than sometimes advertised. It can be helpful to know that alternative terms for the same activity is "contemplation" or "deep thought". It's a skill though, and you'll get better at it over time.
Set a timer for five minutes, sit down in a comfortable position (usually better than lying down, to keep yourself awake). Count your breaths until 10 and then count backwards down again. Repeat until the timer goes off, and bam! Meditation accomplished.
Don't worry if your mind drifts off, that's not a sign of failure. Just keep doing the task at hand (counting).
Use headphones if you need to block out sound. Slow music without lyrics or plain nature sounds usually work better.
Once you have that down, there are about a billion variations and ways to continue, but starting out doesn't have to be more complicated than outlined above.
Usually we wish to measure progress when undertaking any kind of endeavor, especially new ones, but measuring (or even defining) progress when it comes to meditation can be hard sometimes. It may require discipline on your part in order to overcome the perceived lack of feedback, but I assure you that you'll be very glad that you kept at it once you do start to notice what happens.
I fully agree that meditation is less complicated than advertised. However I'd like to state that "contemplation" and "deep thought" are alternative terms for a specific type of meditation called mindfulness meditation: "the intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one's attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment."
When I meditate, my goal is not actually to contemplate anything at all -- it is to clear my mind, whittle my senses down until the only thing I feel is consciousness. Ultimately, in a state of deep meditation, my goal is a fully blank state, in which I'm doing nothing except existing.
I find that this helps me tremendously in my mindfulness in normal life, but I don't attempt to be mindful _during_ meditation in the same way.
Absolutely, this was not intended to be about semantics. The alternative interpretations were given so as to make it easier to dispel the cumbersome connotations that usually comes with the word "meditation", not to make it seem like it's about a particular school of thought or anything like that. It's just to make it easier to sit down and try it out with fewer preconceived notions as to what it's supposed to be.
I think it's the privilege of the practitioner to formulate what meditation is to them, and the easier it is to establish a personal relationship to the practice unhindered by baggage (cultural, institutional, linguistic or otherwise), the better.
Since we're discussing semantics here, "deep thought" is not something I'd think as mindfulness meditation either: you're not supposed to be chasing your thought while meditating. You should just be observing them as they come ("the intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one's attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment." as you said), and then let it pass by, which is pretty much actually the opposite of deep thought.
I'd be disinclined to describe what you'd notice as that might lead to you looking for those milestones in particular. Everyone is probably wired a little bit differently and may end up noticing different things. If one were given to drama, one could say that part of the practice is to sort of walk out into the wilderness and purposefully NOT bring a map, making exploration a part of the game.
To give you an example (with the disclaimer above in mind), I've a friend who noticed that he doesn't need as much sleep when he meditates regularly. Stop meditating, need for sleep increases. That's not the case for me, I need about the same amount of sleep regardless of amount of meditation. If I'd been told that less sleep is achievable, I might have been discouraged by the fact that this particular perk is nowhere to be seen for me. But I happen to know not to use another person's map for my personal wilderness.
For me, focus, patience, attention, memory and a very even (almost immutable, lately) temper are some of the things that have come out of this.
I agree with everything @fnordsensei said. With the same disclaimer as above, here are some of the things I noticed: heightened 'awareness' (ie: senses appear to be more sensitive than earlier), reduced anxiety, reduced 'restlessness'.
Is there any chance the effects of meditation can be achieved by, say, trying to solve a puzzle in your head? Meditation sounds great and all but when you actually start doing it, it's painfully boring and feels like a waste of time. And that's what usually puts me off, every time I start.
I certainly think that you could solve a puzzle and still have it down as meditation. In fact, that's sort of what a zen koan is. However, a koan would be designed to be tough to crack, but simple in structure (as opposed to complex). There's something to be said for learning to operate the brain in ways that are different to the sort of logical, problem solving kind of operational state that I'm sure many here (myself included) spend most of their time in. A koan is designed to make that part tired until it gives up. In that way, the inability to make progress with the puzzle itself is a design feature of a koan. But working on it produces a sort of meta-progress that has to do with the mind. Meditation is weird in that way, in that it's not about learning to play the piano, but learning to play the piano player. So to speak.
Also, boredom goes away eventually. Single minded, laser focus attention is one thing that this practice cultivates, and the kind of focus that I'm talking about is mutually exclusive with boredom.
Also, the shit your brain will make up and entertain you with once the chatter dies down is absolutely fascinating all in itself.
This. Getting started is tough (specially if you are a skeptic) due to the lack of perceived feedback, but if you manage to get through with it, before you realize you'll be doing it for a lot longer than your first tries.
Thanks. Is there a specific time of the day that this should be done? This seems really simple for what meditation has been advertised by some camps and "gurus". I can give five such minutes for the betterment.
I'd advise against meditating shortly after having a meal, as it is harder to focus. Apart from that, pick a time that'll most likely work for you every day. Otherwise it's hard to build a habit.
I started out doing it between "coming home from work" and "having dinner", but that didn't really work out. Some days, I came really late and my GF was already waiting with dinner ready, other days I would go to meetup, hang out with friends etc.
I'm now doing Yoga and Meditation every morning after waking up, and there's just much less that can get in the way.
My GF and me are right now building an iOS app for forming a daily habit of Meditation and/or Yoga, based on our own experience and reading the book "Hooked: How to build habit-forming products". If you (or anyone else!) would like to beta-test, shoot me a mail at chris [at] screenscott.com :-)
Find a time when you're naturally fairly calm. A lot of people like the morning right after waking up and getting ready. My preferred time is in the early afternoon.
There really isn't a specific time meditation should be done, you just need to find what works for you.
Great recommendation. It's an older edition of a print book (still in print for decades) that's online for free with permission. It's well done, clear, and has very little woo in it.
I've tried quite a few things and the most useful thing for me has been https://www.headspace.com/ . It's "daily" guided meditation (that after not too long is barely guided). The narrator's voice is really good, not too hippie, very calming. Everything is pleasant and well-designed.
headspace is a tremendous app with a new guided meditation everyday.
It slowly lets you build up your practice, as well as choose a specific branch of focus as you progress. The ptich sounds gimmicky, but I never managed more than 5 consecutive days on my own. With Andy (the narrator) I'm at 30 days and counting
>> What Can We Learn From windows?
>>> After a lengthy development process, Windows Vista was released on November 30, 2006 for volume licensing and January 30, 2007 for consumers.
...
>>> Many types of aquatic animals commonly referred to as "fish" are not fish in the sense given above; examples include shellfish, cuttlefish, starfish, crayfish and jellyfish.
>>The End
I have a pet peeve. I have setup OSX to show the hidden and dotfiles. So, everywhere I go using finder (say mounted drives), I get that .DS_Store file. Is there a way to avoid seeing that in the list?
I'm not aware of a way to prevent just seeing them with hidden file visibility turned on. However, there's several options to disable per-folder .DS_Store file creation: http://www.chrisnovoa.com/os-x-lion-ds_store-disabling/
