'Right now those things are perhaps best here in the US, which isn't to say that will not change or that it may not be doing so already.' That is correct, many a highly educated graduates in Asia, E. Europe etc. are driving cabs and waiting tables. Free markets will provide more opportunities all over the world, and more so if applied with some minimum ethics and discipline.
I always thought in eastern Europe live many logically-talented people. On the other hand, you have a clear demonstration that intelligence alone, without a political system which guarantees freedom, can't produce wealth. This is history. For the future we'll see, but you'll have to work at it. GS
I have EE background... and have lived in Kiev. A central point that has not been addressed is intellectual property. Russia/Ukraine are corrupt 3rd World societies... With no functioning legal system in terms of corporate litigation... And no ** enforcable ** laws in terms of intellectual property. The society itself has negligible moral framework such as respect of law... Resulting in an almost purely Darwinian "survival of the fittest" culture. Anybody telling you otherwise... is scamming you. Therefore very little software with any meaningful intellectual content value... Can be outsourced to or created in Eastern Europe. So the commodity coding you see... Is roughly on the same level and pay scale as Mexicans assembling widgets. And nothing much will change in the forseeable future... say 10 years out. rm+
No shit. Here is the list of Women Grandmasters of Chess, there is NONE from America. There are ladies from Ecuador, India, Hungary, Sweden, Germany, a bunch from Russia and other former Sovietunion, also quite a few from China but noone from America... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Chess_woman_grandmasters Elene Donaldson is Russian, married to an American... Edit: Actually I found one. Quiz : who is she? Edit Edit: Actually she is also American only by immigration and came from Ukraine, so I was right first... (Anna Zatonskih)
Nonetheless, the Chinese score near the top in international programming contests, and the Indians - below average. So much for India's "engineering talent".
'So much for India's "engineering talent".' Overhyped Cram buddies at their best ;-), this despite their english being at the standards of US and UK. Hats Off to Chinese who walk around with english-chinese dictinary at hand and to the Russians who despite severe economic hardships still come out on several top positions. Amazing!
i recall at my school in moscow in 1992, some of those brainy programmers convinced some foreign capitalists that they could make an MS-DOS clone in a few months time, and just with a 300K budget. Needless to say, the "programmers" used the hardware to play games, and the highly valuable then internet access to re-sell to the needy people like me an email box.... but i also know of an absolutely brilliant group of other guys who started a genuinely innovative software company in the OCR/translation area. You could feed an english text into a scanner and the program spit out a russian translation, almost no mistakes (in technical/business type of texts, anyway).
Yes, well ... a lot of it is hype. If you repeat a claim frequently and over time, the claim eventually becomes accepted as fact. Someone else made the statement that programming contests and the like are very impressive ... much like pie eating contests ... and with that statement I will agree. People seem enamoured with these "contests" and "competitions". Equating them with the talent and hard work neccessary to uncover useful and interesting facts through research or, to engineer a product from start to finish, is a bit silly: these endeavors are not pie eating contests .....
Actually you are proving the point made in the title of this thread. The best scamartists are geniuses in their own field...