Consider it a blessing. Apart from the few success stories, most tier1 college graduates take the safe route of unsatisfying mass recruitment, do an MBA and end up in less technical jobs.
Unlike in the past since the advent of the internet, resources available to a random student is almost as good as that available to someone from a tier1 college.
There are plenty of small companies/startups where one could have a much better long term career. Outside the glamours jobs, plenty of niche area like manufacturing/defence/... software has much more real world impact and long term value than social media/marketing/finance.
ISRO's wonderful engineering team is built almost entirely of graduates from tier3 colleges.
Hope you won't take it wrong sense but don't think not getting opportunity and being stereotyped because not part of cream layer is that much of a blessing :)
By the way the all the requirement of tier1 degree were found in startup job ads not just in big tech company jobs. Regarding the resource availability you are right but the problem is not about becoming skilled instead no one is ready to accept your skills if you don't have a tier1 college degree
American salaries along with low taxes are way more attractive even compared to Nordic countries which apart from high taxes also have some of the highest living costs in the world.
The whole debate on suppressing incomes is quite debatable. Though one can see the argument for people who have spent decades working exclusively on legacy systems. When these become cost centres, companies try and outsource them.
The brief period that I spent working for an Indian outsourcer, I noticed almost every project was about maintenance of legacy systems.
Bringing in low cost foreign workers to maintain a system directly drags down the average wage, hurting Americans in the IT industry and lowering their income & benefits. Foreign workers are a tool that companies like to use to scare IT workers away from organizing & unionizing, keeping the Americans they do employ under foot and poorly paid.
As an example, Kroger has a support center for its Fred Meyer brand of stores in Portland, OR. As of last year, they were paying $12hr while expecting in depth networking knowledge, familiarity with SUSE & SunOS, and the ability to write moderately complex scripts for these legacy systems.
Comparatively, another employee who was transfered from Portland to Cleveland went from making a little over $14hr to $120k a year, as the market in Cleveland is apparently so barren of talent that poaching is a serious issue.
What you say is true, but as I mentioned that works only with legacy systems, which are often just cost centres.
There are in general very few people who can work with or want to work with legacy systems and therefore does demand a very good pay but it does not add any value to the American economy.
These aren't legacy systems, just a few years back Kroger started moving off IBM 4690, which was a legacy OS. That is gone from most areas of the business at this point, hence the expectation to be familiar with SUSE.
There are plenty of cost effective traditional alternatives. Banana leaves, hand made leaf plates, machine made leaf plates, in the worst case paper plates.
Plastics are just convenient and cheap, if the environmental costs are not considered.
Banana leaves may be traditional and popular in southern India where banana grows aplenty. In Delhi banana leaves would be used in chic restaurants with traditional touch. It is no way going to be used by street vendors.
I have normally seen steel plates/spoon used by street vendors. Not very hygienic as they just rinse in water after use.
When I visited Nepal, a lot of the street vendors had these bowls made of leaves (perhaps banana leaf, not really sure). I have no idea if they are financially better off or cost effective but thought I'd mention that I've seen something like this before.
Street phuchka vendors in Kolkata (they are what you call golgappas in Delhi) will hand you bowls made out of sal leaves. I wonder if that's the same as what you came across?
I think using dried leaves saves the trouble of having to pick them off the tree because they just fall to the ground, but I'm a city boy and wouldn't know for sure. Might have to ask my father! :)
I buy it on regular basis for religious functions as we don't use plastic in religious ceremonies to the extent possible. These alternatives are nearly 3 times more expensive and availability is a real issue. Not to mention the environmental impact of breaking branches of trees to get leaves quickly.
Yeah, many of bowls/plates are made up of mango tree leaves. All my childhood I have eaten village feasts on those leaves plates and earthen bowls for gravy/yogurt.
Even if you poop in your fancy bungalow toilet, it does end up in the rivers, along with detergent and toxic toilet cleaners.
Banning disposable plastic and non biodegradable detergents would go a great way in letting microbes and plants do their job in cleaning up the environment.
With plastics not clogging up the rivers and chemicals not killing all river life, the rivers would definitely run much cleaner. This move was incidentally meant to curb air pollution, so clean rivers or oceans are an added benefit.
> Even if you poop in your fancy bungalow toilet, it does end up in the rivers, along with detergent and toxic toilet cleaners.
Wastewater should be treated. And at least if you concentrate all the waste into one place, you greatly reduce the spread of infectious diseases spread by untreated waste.
Not when you eat the animals that eat corpses afterwards. That's how you spread diseases, plus when animals eat human flesh, they leave bits floating in the water supply.
We bury people for a reason. Or we burn them, or leave them on the land to get eaten by animals, away from water supplies. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial)
The difference between what you're proposing is the difference between composting an animal corpse and then using it to fertilize your crops, or just grinding it up and spraying it all over your tomatoes.
Note: Thank you for down voting for pointing out a glaring 'fake statistics' and poor journalism, on a #1 trending post on HN.
The first and the second quote do not mean the same thing, not even close.
"A massive 60%t of the plastic waste in the oceans is said to have come from India, according to the Times of India."
The TOI reads - "Banning disposable plastic is a huge step for the capital and the country because India is among the top four biggest plastic polluters in the world, responsible for around 60% of the 8.8 million tons of plastic that is dumped into the world’s oceans every year."
As an Indian, I see a lot of journalists stuck in a colonial era. They go out of their way to tarnish and stereotype the great unwashed. They manage to turn even positive news to mock and heckle the less developed world.
But this article has taken it to great heights. The TOI isn't exactly known for journalistic integrity and often conveniently pulls statistics from their backside. But to misquote the devil, this article has certainly hit the lowest level.
"India, with 0.60 million tonnes per year of mismanaged plastic waste, is ranked 12th. China ranks no. 1 with 8.82 million tonnes per year of mismanaged plastic waste. There are 11 Asian and Southeast Asian countries in the list, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Burma."
>But this article has taken it to great heights. The TOI isn't exactly known for journalistic integrity and often conveniently pulls statistics from their backside. But to misquote the devil, this article has certainly hit the lowest level.
I second this. We should just ban TOI links on hacker news.
I think it might actually be factually incorrect. I looked up the Times Of India article that OP's article was referring to [1], and could not find a source on the biggest plastic polluters in the world.
Then, after searching around, the articles [2] and reports [3] that I found all put Indonesia (not India) in the top 5 polluters in the world. They refer to an authoritative source from Science [4], but I'm not able to access this due to the paywall.
I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. Surely the Times of India hasn't confused "Indonesia" for "India", right?
The article claims - India contributes 60% of the plastic in the ocean.
From the Times of India (TOI) article that it refers to - "India is among the four largest contributor who in total contribute 60%". Which considering a journalist's honesty definitely means India is the fourth largest contributor, which would mean India at most contributes 15% of the waste.
That is a long way from the 60% claimed. Considering the reputation of TOI, even the milder claim is quite suspect.
I am neither European nor American and have been living in Copenhagen for about 3.5 years. Here are some observations.
The one big difference is that at the end of the month you would have nothing left to save. And if you plan to move out at a later point you would have neither money nor a useful professional network.
You would not be eligible for most of the good things we hear about socialist states - social housing, paid education.
If you are young and healthy you may not have much to get out of the free healthcare.
Be ready to pay incredibly high rents for private company housing or be homeless constantly, I have moved 9 times in 3.5 years and now I pay more than half my pay in rent+transport to live in a city 100 KMs away (unlimited by expensive).
Language and Credentials: Can be a short term and long term barrier, be ready to start from square one at least on your first job.
Pay: Usually unionised, software engineers earn about average salaries just like everyone else, even though they have diminishing career prospects. I was shocked to learn that CS was the least attractive majors, now I understand why.
Scale and opportunity: There is no critical mass at least in small countries like Denmark so I believe the best opportunities are still the ones in the US, especially if you want to specialise.
I am sure you have heard plenty of the positives of life in Europe and assume it must be the reason for your question.
Unlike in the past since the advent of the internet, resources available to a random student is almost as good as that available to someone from a tier1 college.
There are plenty of small companies/startups where one could have a much better long term career. Outside the glamours jobs, plenty of niche area like manufacturing/defence/... software has much more real world impact and long term value than social media/marketing/finance.
ISRO's wonderful engineering team is built almost entirely of graduates from tier3 colleges.