Err, localizing the site is already offering something better. I'd say go for it. Are you suggesting non-english people simply shouldn't have access to such a site because it already exists in english and the company chose not to build a localized version?

There's a huge market there ripe for the picking and many American companies aren't taking notice.

Try a luggage rack.

No comment on whether the future is bleak or not.

But extending beyond economics, also consider the US political commentary of the past year and a half. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, shit. Take the conventional wisdom for any day of your choice four weeks before the election to a year before the election, then come back to it two months later. Uniformly, the boldly-made predictions and much-blabbered conventional wisdom were horribly, horribly wrong. As I like to say, if it had been right, we'd be awaiting President Clinton's swearing in after defeating Guiliani 75-25.

Future predictions have never been that great, and maybe it's just that I'm paying attention now, but the "horizon of wrongness" seems to have moved a lot closer to the present now. Pundits are rarely even close to right for events a month in the future now, and it's getting to the point that I can't understand why anybody even listens to them, because they are so wrong, I can't hardly even point out the people who were right.

Play it conservative. Keep your savings up. Any techie after 2001 should know that anyhow. Maybe the future will indeed be awful, but at this point, I'm burned out on punditry, and I would say that at the very least, try not to let this doom and gloom depress you too unduly. The people selling you doom and gloom... and I use the term "selling" on purpose, because it's the literal truth... have a horrible track record. Let's wait and see what happens.

"Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.”

    - Bill Gates

Every once in a while, I come across something new that surprises and impresses me about Bill Gates. If luck had fallen differently and Bill had become merely a millionaire, I think geeks would find him much, much cooler.

Newsflash bro: meatspace is messy and relationships take work.

You seriously need to appreciate the distinction between CS and coding. Let me break it down: computer science is really difficult. It's not the CS jobs that go to India. It's the coding jobs.

Also, here's something you many not know. K-12 CS education in India is actually pretty good. My school started computer science in the fifth grade. Internalizing the Turing machine (even if it is not formally explained) at that age gives you a huge advantage should you decide to become a computer scientist later.

So how come India doesn't produce good computer scientists? Actually we do. If you look at the top CS conferences, the proportion of Indians is pretty high compared to the number of people we graduate. It's just that Indians choose to move to the U.S. to do research because there are no good government funded research programs in India.

Next up, innovation and design. I think PG pretty much answered that one. It doesn't matter if you have talented people, if you don't have a nurturing environment like Silicon Valley, it's just not gonna happen. There's not much incentive for an Indian firm to innovate because our business climate is just so bad. Success depends more on how well you can bribe government officials than on innovation.

That leaves coding jobs. If you teach everyone how to code, of course you're going to have a lot of coders who aren't particularly good designers or computer scientists. That's what we have. Many of my friends who are actually good tried to kick it in one of the outsourcing firms, couldn't take the boredom, and left to go to grad school or do something else. It's a self-perpetuating cycle.

To summarize: K-12 CS education is not hard, and it's important for producing good computer scientists. You just have to be prepared to accept that not every kid will be interested.

Just because it's Steve Yegge does not mean a review of a mediocre game deserves to be on Hacker News.

Not equivalent. As a "car guy" myself, I would be very surprised if there wasn't a strong correlation between hackers and gearheads. These are people who see a complex system, viewed simply as a utilitarian tool by most of society, and take it upon themselves to learn how it works. Some do this to be able to use it more efficiently, while others try to maximize or extend its performance. Sound familiar?

Oh, and +1 for the MazdaSpeed3; it's a great little car.

I'm not surprised. Amazon is usually cheaper than most brick and mortar stores. I ended up purchasing a couple books last minute for Christmas, and when I got home, I realized that Borders was charging nearly 50% more than amazon charged. Plus I had to deal with the traffic, crowded store, and bad customer service.

When I had a chance to meet the guy, these were the things that struck me, in order:

He looks really old, way older than he does in photos. Must be all the stress.

He's very, very good at thinking on his feet.

He's actually quite pleasant to interact with and has milder views than you might think. People who know him have told me that the aggressive, brash behavior was merely a persona that he deliberately cultivated as part of his management style.

(Incidentally, I've also interacted with RMS; he immediately came across as as a jerk. I can't help feeling that this has something to do with his project not reaching the heights that many feel it should have.)

This information was available over the past 8 years since China has been member of the WTO.

Why did it take until now for NYT to bother reporting the "full story"?

I have been in Shanghai those 8 years. I have lived this story. The only ones America has to blame are themselves. China has its own set of problems. They didn't setup a global conspiracy to achieve their current position. China simply took advantage of horrifically bad U.S. management and took care of their own country. U.S. business and government leadership were always the front runners in "enabling" this relationship. If you want to start a mob frenzy, do it on Wall Street.

Echo that. Besides, unless the creator deliberately sets out to copy every last detail of the original, their knowledge of local customs will inevitably result in subtle design differences that will make the "clone" a much more cohesive and pleasant experience for people in the target market, even those who can speak English.

Buy an used 2008 -- I'm seeing loads of people dumping their new cars -- Honda or Toyota econobox and use the rest of that money for something else more important.