RE: 6. Re: looks like it's happening everywhere

 
> > Microsoft can just as easily do engineering in the middle 
> and far east as anyone else. 
> 
> 	They already do but they do have a huge number of US 
> employees.  I was
> just pointing out that if M$ went out of business there would 
> be a large
> number of unemployed programmers here because it's *much* cheaper to
> outsource it overseas.

But lets look at the "systems approach"  Lets say that Microsoft were to fold tomorrow.  There are a bunch of what for the most part are very good people who are now out of work in greater Seattle.  The need that Microsoft was providing now must be filled somehow. Do you not think that their would  be a bunch of start-ups all throughout the area from Vancouver right south to los-angeles that would all be seeing opportunities to sell support in one form or another to M$'s former customers?

NOTE:  I am in the Ottawa Area were we have seen a Large number of layoffs from Digital Canada/Nortel Networks/ JDS Uniphase/ Corel and so on.  Our tech sector is still strong with a fair number of small start-ups.  Some folks have left, but there are sure no empty stores and houses.  In fact my House is probably worth more now than when I bought it ten years ago.  (and MY neighbourhood is right near where the tech sector is located)

 

> 	Nope.  Very little DSP.  Mostly dealing with large 
> amounts of data (240
> beams at 40 pings/sec = 576000 soundings/minute) for hazards to
> navigation.  You can't use filters on this data without being able to
> verify that you didn't inadvertently delete a coral head/ship 
> mast/well
> head/funny pointy thing sticking up out of the bottom/rock 
> that the QE 2
> runs into.

Gottcha.  But you still are using a lot of data to generate some sort of 3D model of a system..  You want to look for similar data to find the hazardous targets.  The petroleum guys (with probably a lower data rate) are looking for features that they relate to holding oil.


> 	Programming language that was designed for embedded 
> systems.  Congress
> passed a law that all DoD programs would be written in ADA unless you
> got a waiver from SecDef.  ADA is a pretty lousy language and 
> it kind of
> died slowly.  I believe the law is still on the books though. 
>  Companies
> would tell us that we could have it in C++ for X dollars but it would
> cost us 10 to 100 X dollars in ADA.

Pardon, It must be early in the morning, I had almost forgotten about the "Countess of Lovelace"

In that game you have a requirement that is specific to a government policy, and so the contactors have to pay to have the ability to meet that requirement.  IE pay more salary to hire folks with that specialised knowledge.