felipe

Would you call FB high-growth? At least from a VC standpoint "high-growth" is a 10x return, and not 2.5x like FB (on a good day)

Apparently this is the software currently being used to replace Outlook: http://www.expressolivre.org/modules/conteudo/conteudo.php?c...

As a non-believer, I've never touched a sacred book and never will, and I don't understand the need to "indoctrinate" everything. Why can't there be a culture of having just good clean fun, no religion, no wars, no oppression in the name of a virtual god?

(point being: blame the perpetrator, not the substance)

I do not read Chinese fluently, but I do follow news from China pretty closely (I lived in China for a couple of years) and I am not denying that top-members of the party are taking advantage of their position (Wen Jiabao as an example). Although I agree with you that we do not know it for sure due to the lack of transparency, the corruption problem in China is similar to the problem we have in other countries like in Brazil, where I live. And in both countries there always the forces "for" and "against" working to put things under the rug or investigate and prosecute, most of the time for political gain (Bo Xilai as one example, and here in Brazil we have other similar cases too).

In Russia it seems that it's a different problem altogether, that is, a mob were able to literally seize part of the country, including the president's cabinet. In Brazil and in China we can say (sometimes cynically) that all politicians are corrupt, but there are opposite forces at play, but to me it seems like in Russia the damage is really catastrophic. (granted that I do not follow Russian politics, so I am not completely sure)

(EDIT: Thanks for sharing the link btw, spot-on criticism from SCMP)

I understand the problem of rising wealth gap in China, but I missed the part in the articles you linked where it says that a very small and tight group of connected people owns a substantial part of the country.

Obviously guanxi and party membership are unfair and create such inequalities in China, but it seems to me that in Russia the issue is a mafia-like situation, while in China it's more of a system-related issue. (I am not trying to minimize the problem in China, I am just not sure whether they can be compared)

> "given that I live in a very big, liberal city"

I don't know what city you are referring to, but your post alludes to a good point which is the fact that people normally associate Silicon Valley and San Francisco as liberal, and this is very much a myth. San Francisco in specific is actually a very conservative city: Gays are accepted only in a limited area of the city, the homeless are taken as a tourist attraction, the educational system is biased towards privileged kids (for example: latino kids are excluded and bused around to other areas of the city), there is no modern urban planning such as a decent public transportation plan (BART sucks, MUNI sucks, Caltrain is not connected to BART for example) while areas such as Pacific Heights and Palo Alto love to talk about environmental issues but actively lobby for not allowing BART in their neighborhoods.

Don't take me wrong: SF Bay Area is not a horrible place to live. All I am saying is that this notion that SF is liberal is wrong.

I don't think it's right that Twitter is being singled-out as the evil chauvinistic company out there, but it is undeniable that positions of power in Silicon Valley are indeed reserved for the privileged white-male, and that's the focus of the NYT article [1], although it does use Twitter as a high-profile example.

Would you deny that Silicon Valley's VC community is not a "old boys’ club" as the article describes? Would you deny that things are not tougher for women, persons of colour such as yourself, or latinos such as myself?

You are right: It is not practical to force companies to distribute opportunities equally among genders / sexual preferences / ethnicities / races and whatnot. However, we cannot also simply ignore the problem in our industry because a solution is not available at first sight.

Also, your own answer shows a bias against the author, dismissing her kind as "pseudo-intellectuals". That's exactly the kind of comment that makes technology such an unfriendly field for diversity in general.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/technology/as-tech-start-u...

> "Bay Area VC-funded companies are now the conservative, boring choice. They don't involve much risk"

The question I love to ask around is whether any of these VCs or so-called "angels" of today would write a check to a smelly barefoot bum in a garage working with two other nerds on some unknown unproven electronic board. (in other words, how Mark Markkulla wrote the check to Steve Jobs to fund Apple)

> "I don't know where the next emerging opportunities are"

I am not sure either, but if I was 22 today I would be packing my stuff and buying a one-way ticket to China. (I did live 2 years in China and left recently due to family reasons, but I am almost 40 now).

No, I never said only foreigners can complain. And I am far from nationalist: Like I said, I am normally the first one to criticize Brazil, and I was accused of being "unpatriotic" on every country I lived, so I am pretty sure my views are balanced.

I am just explaining to the (mostly foreigner) audience that your comments are connected to the local Brazilian politics, but this is not the point of this discussion.

The parent commenter is correct: This is specific to speech, and not in general. You also have not explained how your argument invalidates President Dilma's UN speech.

(side note: you don't need to be arrogant like that to defend your point. The parent commenter was respectful in his/her response)

Many other countries also do not have free-speech in the strict sense that the US guarantees in its Constitution. For example, in Germany one cannot protest in favor of neo-nazis, and in South Korea one cannot praise the North Korean regime. In the US any kind of speech is allowed, except for rare libel cases (which are extremely difficult to prove in court).

None of that invalidates President Dilma's point. I am actually the first one to criticize Brazil's lack of democracy, for example in the favelas (which are areas controlled by the drug traffickers and not by the state, and thus without real democracy), but in the international sphere she is absolutely right to raise the issue, as Brazil is an US ally and there was no reasonable explanation for the espionage whatsoever, especially to top-level officials. Furthermore, Petrobras is a oil exploration company -- This is effectively industrial espionage.

"here in Brazil (native)"

Ah, that explains your negativism against the Brazilian president.

For the benefit of the foreign audience: President Dilma faces fierce opposition from the Brazilian elite, because of her party's socialist reforms, in a country that historically always catered to the elites. Anything that the president does (good or bad) faces opposition, pretty similar to the opposition President Obama faces in the US.

Note how the commenter above does not say a word about the speech itself. It's all about paying so much taxes and not getting the speed rail.

(also a native-Brazilian here who lived 8 years in the US and 2 in China)

> Today Silicon Valley sounds more and more like the old money club of Wall Street

... or Holywood, where VCs (producers) minimize risk by funding well-known formulas betting that a blockbuster will save the summer, while talented programmers (actors) get any job out there, stay a few months, cash in and go to the next gig. A bunch of other untalented wannabes (biz devs, MBAs, PRs) act as talent scouts, schmoozing at "parties" (meet-ups) trying to find the next fresh-out-of-the-boat programmer to exploit.

In that sense, I believe NYC and other areas provide a much healthier environment for true "indie" productions (aka customer-centric development)

Actually #2 is a false assumption: Keep in mind that California approved prop 8 and just recently the courts rejected it after a long and tough fight.

In addition, my wife was a teacher and advocate for at-risk minority kids in SF, and I can tell you this whole thing about SF being "minority friendly" is a bunch of BS. Affluent new residents (such as high-tech employees) are very passive-aggressive about "accepting" minorities, but behind closed-doors they are actually very conservative. And the city policies are there to prove my point.

I am not trying to discourage you. I'm just trying to alert you to take the whole "SF vibe" with a grain of salt, as my wife and I have witnessed that first hand.

As a side note, that's a good example of my biggest problem with Glass as a product. Not even Google knows what to do with it, and they are expecting hackers to "show me something cool" -- Wait, what?? No, YOU TELL ME FIRST what Glass is supposed to do, then I might think about devoting some of my unpaid time to hack some "shit" for you.

Unless Google also open sources the Glass hardware, any "contributions" to their source code will be benefiting only Google and not the open source community.

I am simply pointing the fact that if you are going to claim yourself as the "good guy" the community will hold you to a higher standard, in reply to the parent comment. No one is expecting Google to do any charity, but Google themselves sell this image of do-good and pro-open source, so why the surprise when the community asks them to walk the talk?

None of these companies you mentioned have a "Don't Be Evil" policy, nor they have a lawyer posting here claiming that they are doing a "public service"

That is incorrect. Any company must act in the best interest of its shareholders. A publicly-traded company must maximize profit because that's the implicit nature of it: I buy stock in the market because I want a return on my investment. But if all shareholders of a given company (say, Mozilla) want to produce something for the good of the Internet and not make a profit, that's up to the shareholders.

A "non-profit" status simply gives the organization certain tax advantages because the state understands that the organization is acting on the best interest of the community, rather than its shareholders. But if a for-profit wants to do the same and not take advantage of said tax benefits, that's up to the shareholders to decide.

http://biztaxlaw.about.com/od/glossaryf/g/fiduciary.htm

Tesla is focused on a niche: Luxury / high-performance cars, which is a tiny fraction of the market in units, and even if they were wildly successful they would not even make a blip in the carbon emission statistics.

I have high-grade apnea and I use a CPAP for years (and yes, it changed my life for the better!). Just last week I started an acupuncture treatment in which the doctor applies very small electric shocks to a muscle that pulls the tongue a little, for 30 minutes. I was explained this is a bit like physiotherapy, but for the tongue and mouth. I did my first session last week and I already felt some improvement. I have 4 more sessions to go.

I cannot stop using the CPAP because my apnea index is pretty high, but it might work for someone with a mild level.

Note that even though I mentioned acupuncture, this is not a "new age" or alternative-style treatment. In my country (Brazil) acupuncture is actually regulated by the Health Ministry, and this treatment is accepted by the local medical community.

This is great advice, thanks. On that subject, I use CPAP since 2008 but I occasionally did not use it for intervals up to a week (for example, when I traveled I would not bring the CPAP with me). It turns out I had an episode of atrial fibrilation (the heart beats with a weird rhythm) due to a few factors together, but the major one being the lack of CPAP usage. It was scary and I spent the night at the hospital. The doctor explained me that this condition can be caused by low levels of O2 while sleeping, which is caused by apnea.

Basically you sleep in a hotel-like room but with a bunch of wiring hooked-up to your head and body. It's painless, except for the discomfort of sleeping with all those wires. The "output" of the test is an index called AHI, which indicates your level of apnea. AHI > 5 means you might need a CPAP or some other kind of apnea treatment.

You make an excellent point regarding IP, and in fact BG's letter likely set the foundation for the entire software industry as we know today.

However, I believe the point of the article was that Jobs, Woz and BG did something contrarian to the establishment, or an act of disobedience if you will. That is pretty much in line with Swartz's actions which were done as a dissent defending a belief, and not for profit like a pro-IP argument for example.

> Very reliable, great tooling and it's the fastest VM out there for any language.

The JVM also has a very rich open source ecosystem. If your language-of-choice runs on the JVM, very likely you can leverage any Java-based library right out of the box.

That's excellent! I got confused because as I was looking at your web site I saw the "Pricing" link at the bottom and assumed that was the price of the tool. Maybe you could create a separate web site to help clarify this point?

This is an excellent concept that targets a real pain-point I faced many times, which is: How to properly lay-out or template emails without the pain of actually sending transactional emails through SMTP and looking at them in the client (Gmail, mobile, etc...). This also prevents designers and programmers to collaborate, so your concept would allow designers and marketeers to design and change email layouts independently from the programmer, which is another pain-point for non-developers.

Having said that, it seems that you expect the app to use your SMTP, and IMHO that's a deal-breaker. Once an app or company is already using a SMTP provider, changing to an unknown one (which could impact deliverability and so on) is a deal-breaker. However, if you provide a tool that somehow the marketing dept can change templates which then the developers can somehow fetch into the source codebase, now that would be (I think) a good value.

I am a software developer (not a designer nor marketeer) so I may not be the target user for this tool, but I think it would be valuable for developers too.

It's also important to note that Bill Gates' high-school was private and very rigorous. In fact, it was one of the first high-schools in the US to make computers available to its students.

Excellent point about connections... Also note that Paul Allen was BG's high-school friend.

Exactly my point... That's what we saw in the west (that's what the western media focused on), because it neatly fits the narrative of capitalism-as-freedom of our mainstream media. According to the sources I referenced above the educated students were actually a minority who joined the protests later. The huge majority (which was not the focus of the media) was made of peasants and factory workers pissed at the reforms.

The point of my post was the censors allowing a movie that challenges the government.

Regarding your comment, you could read more about the Wukan protests: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wukan_protests

Actually, ironically, knowledge of the Tiananmen Square WAS indeed suppressed in the west. What we know is the single guy standing in front of the tanks. What we in the west did not know is that, in fact, the great majority of protesters were workers being oppressed by the "free-market" reforms being implemented at the time. In other words, the protests were basically against the oppression caused by the new westernized-style economy.

This was (is) suppressed in the western media because it goes against our narrative that protesters were fighting for democracy, when in fact they were protesting against the oppression created by the same system that we so much value.

EDIT: I forgot to include sources. Check the book "What Does China Think?" by Mark Leonard, and look for essays by Cui Zhiyuan, a Chinese philosopher who was part of the Tiananmen protests.