Stories like this make me smile inside a little. Basically, Indian call center contract houses are turning down contracts from big Western corporations who got way too used to paying fractional labor costs for essential B2C services. Plus, the fact that offshored call centers are basically powerless to actually help any but the most casual customers raises the stress and load on the operation, making the workers and shops less able to get the work done for the same money.

Not only is this a case of Western corporate psychosis biting it in the ass, but it’s also good for the people in the onshored nations, as they are now demanding higher prices to keep up with demand. I presume the workers of these operations are also starting to get competitive with their shops, for whatever reason (like the physical needs from the stress of having to deal with angry, underserved, Western customers).

This may or may not mean an improvement for Western workers, although the offshoring trend has already shown signs of cooling. At very least, wholesale slicing-and-dicing of local operations and dropping offshored labor in their places is coming out of vogue; the new CW is only using offshored labor to augment, not replace, local operations. The incredible hidden onshore costs of offshoring, which workers were immediately aware of, but managers not aware of until workers started dropping off, are being noticed.

However, the fact of the matter is, there are still plenty of countries that, with a few good OC lines and computer trainers, could start being the new cheap labor havens.

[From Slashdot]

While it may be reasonable that there are those who believe that war is sometimes necessary, and perhaps forgiveable and repentable to believe that war is ultimately a good thing, it seems entirely deranged for there to be those who believe that war is the best thing that can happen to humankind. At dispensational millennialist (i.e. Left Behinders) blogs such as Rapture Ready, exactly this sort of people are currently creaming themselves (hey, you read them how you want) over the war breaking out between Israel and Jordan Lebanon. It’s bad enough that this is a direct analogue of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and portends that other countries will follow the pre-emptive example of the Bush administration. It’s a whole other thing to eagerly and excitedly look forward to war. Some samples, courtesy of Harper’s:

“Praise God! We are chosen to be in these times and also watch and spread the word. Something inside me is exploding to get out, and I don’t know what it is.” (K: Now do you see where I got that metaphor from?)

“This is the busiest I’ve ever seen this website in a few years! I have been having rapture dreams and I can’t believe that this is really it! ”

“Tunnel ceiling collapsed on a car and killed a woman of faith, and we had the most terrifying storms I have ever seen here!! But, yes, oh happy day, like in your screen name , it is most indeed a time to be happy and excited, right there with ya!!”

And the most cultish, disturbing, Heaven’s Gate-like comment:

“I am excited beyond words that the struggle of this life may be over soon and I can finally be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!”

Screw the Kool-Aid. Don’t drink the wine, either.

[From BoingBoing] This site from caffeine-addict blog Energy Fiend will calculate how much of any of your favorite energy delivery products you would need to drink in a day in order to die from caffeine overdose.

For example, I know that 75 and a half cans of Rockstar is my limit. Likewise, 166 and a half bottles of Coke Blak will do me in. However, I can drink 7-Up to my heart’s content.
[Link]

K and R survived the evening “lock-in” at the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries. The esteemed Museum hosts exhibits on every paranormally linked person, place, or thing in Washington, including but not limited to such topics as D. B. Cooper, Bigfoot, Georgetown Castle, even Mel’s Hole. Unfortunately, nothing on our favorite Seattle mystery, which to date has had no paranormal associations; although there is a corridor dedicated to former Seattleite Bruce Lee, who reportedly fought with and lost to a ghost.

Can’t say much about the museum’s in-house ghost tour, which takes you out back to a forgotten alley, the women’s rest room, and a utility closet, all of which may or may not be haunted by ghosts. In addition to their back hallways, the museum also believes that Pike Place Market, the Harvard Exit Theater, and even the Kalakala ferry boat, among other places, are haunted.

[From Digg] Dr. Gene Cooperman, director of the Institute for Complex Scientific Software at Northeastern University in Boston, has received a $200,000 grant for 20TB of storage to store and analyze as many as possible of the 43 quintillion possible positions of a Rubik’s Cube. The toys are to be used as a model for operations research, a science dedicated to using computers to solve and optimize complex combinatorical logistics problems. Rubiks also have been used as mathematical models for diverse fields including particle physics.

Prof. Cooperman is one of two people at NU who claim to know the best algorithm for solving the 2×2x2 Pocket Cube, proving that any arrangement can be solved in 11 moves or less.

[Link]

GPS The Game (not to be confused with GPS The Movie) recently kicked off their Live Hunts, the RL and traditional form of what the site carefully calls “GPS Hunts” (known to the rest of us not mired in the relevant social politics as Geocaches).

Kradeleet went out with caching partner R on a few in the area, which happens to be Ground Zero of geocaching. Given the breadth of cache hides we’ve been exposed to, there ain’t much you can impress us with; stumps and parallel sticks just aren’t special. That being said, the real life hunts are tied to more of the often challenging and tricky online puzzles.