Matsu’s World: The One Less Traveled

Most of you have heard about all of the technology work and call center work from Western countries moving to India over the past decade. But wait, there’s more! Outsourcing has moved to an all new level. Now you can outsource your programming homework to a person in India. (I sure hope my son is not reading this post.)

A recent Slashdot post pointed readers to this story about students who have been outsourcing their coding homework to people in India. I suppose it was just a matter of time. After all, school papers on all sorts of topics have been available for sale on the Internet for a long time, and a lot of global corporations have been outsourcing their software development to India, why not combine the two?

This is not much different than having your roommate do your homework (for a small fee). With the time differences you can literally send your homework assignment to your “homework buddy” in India before you go to bed and while you sleep the programming homework will be written so when you wake up, you are done!

How many more ways can a person cheat? As long as people are creative, there will always be some new trick. This is just a little more high-tech and international than most.

I wonder if someone in India can write my departmental annual report for me…

I don’t know how this slipped by me, but last week at this time (May 17th) was the annual World Telecommunications Day. It seems strange to think that it occurred without proper recognition, so while I may be a week late, let me say, “Happy World Telecommunications Day, everyone!”

Why was one week ago, May 17th, chosen to celebrate world-wide telecommunications technology? Because it’s the anniversary date of the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865. And, because that’s what the United Nations decided to do in General Assembly Resolution 60-252.

So, mark you calendars for next year and remember to celebrate World Telecommunication Day on May 17, 2009.

Yes, today for the first time in my life I paid $4 (US) for a gallon of gasoline. It was actually $4.05 per gallon.

Those of you who live in the same area that I do will wonder why I paid that much since most gas stations are selling regular unleaded gas for only $3.85 or $3.90 (at most). Well, I drive a Mistubishi Galant and the model I own has a V6 engine, which requires the high octane super unleaded gasoline. And, for now, the cheapest price I could find today was just over $4 per gallon. That is the most I have ever paid for a gallon of gasoline.

I guess I’d better get used to it. Or, more accurately, I’d better get used to paying a lot more than $4 per gallon as the price is expected to continue to rise throughout the summer. In fact, we may even see $5 per gallon of gas by August. Ugh! That will be almost twice the price I paid for a gallon of gas a year ago.

My friend Bert insists that the price of oil is being driven up by the weak United States dollar. He argues that if the value of the U.S. dollar were to go higher against the other currencies in the world, then the price per barrel of crude oil could drop as low as $80 (it is at an all-time high of $124 per barrel right now). I don’t know if I really understand that or believe that he’s right, but I would sure like to see it happen just the same. I won’t argue or complain if it does.

This is an interesting sign. Can you guess which year this sign will appear?

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The past week I have been alarmed by the increasing number of news reports and stories on the Internet that talk about the global shortages in grains (rice, corn, and wheat). The price of fuel certainly will not help this situation as more and more grain products (primarily corn) are used for bio-fuels instead of food products for human consumption.

I fear that this is just the tip of the iceberg as the shortages are expected to get a lot worse and fuel costs will continue to rise. It’s easy to predict that food riots will increase across the globe. Wealthy nations must do something to help alleviate this growing problem.

What time is it? Donut time!

Today is donut (doughnut?) day where I work. Well, every Friday is donut day where I work. We always start our day with a demartmental meeting where the main food group is donut — of course we are very inclusive — we eat all types of donuts.

Well, this article in Wired was e-mailed to me yesterday and it really amused me since donuts are such a standard part of the life of I.T. people in my department. How can you argue with free donuts? My answer… you can’t!