felipe

Brazilian here: A local tax expert pointed out that Sony is adding a huge profit margin on top of the taxes [1]. Sony has disclosed the tax figures to the media but not their profit margin, and trying to blame it only on taxes because they know the Brazilian consumer will believe.

Some suspect that Sony is importing at an even higher price than the retail US price. No one knows for sure, but clever US sellers were buying PS4 at full retail price, shipping to Brazil, paying all taxes, and still they were able to sell cheaper than the retail price of the Brazilian PS4.

If Sony produced PS4 in Brazil they would pay 6% taxes instead of the 40% protection tariff. Microsoft (actually Foxconn) is doing exactly that in Brazil and that's why the XBox One is actually cheaper than a PS4.

Sony simply did not want to incur the labor costs and risks associated with investing in the local tech industry. Nothing wrong with that (it's their decision), but they are not being truthful to the local consumer.

[1] (in portuguese) http://info.abril.com.br/games/noticias/2013/10/sony-divulga...

Google "Cory Booker". He is a politician, so any link I include here will create controversy, but his model was to implement small-scale experiments, collect data, and use that data to gather additional funding from external sources.

Actually the data is available. The city of Newark for example has implemented several small-scale social innovations during the past few years, and they focused very much on data gathering and statistics. We don't see that in the media because it does not fit their narrative, and it does not fare well for opinion-makers to stand-up for that either. But the data is out there

> I believe that if you remove the incentive to work to survive, vast swaths of people will simply choose not to do anything

Three-quarters of adult recipients of the Brazilian basic income system do work [1].

Like the parent commenter said, "without solid evidence, statements like that are little more than expressions of ideological preference, both on the left and on the right."

[1] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-giving-cash-directly-to...

> Lastly, TED's biggest value is in developing countries.

TED Global 2014 will be hosted in Rio, Brazil, at US$6,000 per person. This is 4 months of a local mid-level web developer salary before taxes [1]

Locals cannot afford to attend TED. TED is made by the elite, for the elite, with the occasional feel-good-save-the-planet token NGO from Africa.

And so much for their "scientific" approach, given that they hate when a contrarian challenges them. Case in point: Sarah Silverman. [2]

Here is a true grassroots and inclusive event for the developing world: Campus Party [3]

[1] http://www.profissionaisti.com.br/2011/02/qual-o-salario-med...

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci5p1OdVLAc

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campus_Party

The title is misleading. It should read "Google employee ports Amiga emulator to Chrome"

From the FAQ:

"The code was forked from PUAE, the Portable Universal Amiga Emulator, from GnoStiC's GitHub repo [1]"

[1] https://github.com/GnoStiC/PUAE

"I work for Google. I was a member of the Chrome team, and more specifically the Native Client team, from August 2010 to June 2013."

My statement "on the expectation that he would be paid only if Apple would perform well" meant "paid in bonuses", which includes the shares and perks. Also, I never stated that Jobs made less than Pandit -- You said first: We are not arguing about compensation here.

Point being: Jobs accepted a new position and would earn money only if he would deliver. Pandit in the other hand would make money regardless what was the outcome, staying on the position he was before. He screwed it up, got bail-out by the government, reduced his salary to $1 as a mea-culpa, then made a bunch of money and left. Is this what a good CEO would do?

When Steve Jobs accepted the job as a interim-CEO to clean-up Sculley's mistakes, back when Apple was almost bankrupt, he accepted the $1 salary on the expectation that he would be paid only if Apple would perform well. That's how much faith and commitment he had in Apple succeeding, and that was before the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad...

Compare Steve Jobs attitude with Pandit's, who announced he would "reduce" his salary to $1 in 2009, only after the $25b in govt bail-out. On that same year, he was compensated "just a few million dollars" (as opposed to $38m in 2008), plus $165m for his hedge fund. [1]

Yes, Pandit was overpaid.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Pandit#Compensation

What is the problem in calling public people for what they really are? Vikram Pandit is overpaid [1], John Sculley was clearly unfit for the position, and although Tim Cook is talented as a supply chain expert, he is not the visionary that Steve Jobs was.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=vikram+pandit+bonuses

> Why not say all chemicals should be legalized.

Very simple: Law enforcement protects individuals against the actions of other individuals, and not against themselves.

Your loved one needs addiction treatment (i. e.: heathcare), and law enforcement will not solve his/her problem.

> homeless people aren't all stupid, stoned-out losers.

And then you say I am biased?

It's interesting that you mentioned the newspaper model, because that's actually what I had it on the back of my mind when I wrote my comment above: The newspapers you are referring to actually have a history rooted in social-justice activism and grassroots movements, which are very different from the patronizing approach McConlogue decided to take. I do not see a minimal interest in his Medium blog, in the video, or anywhere else related to the homeless issues, their lives, how they got there, and so on. To the contrary, his choice of words are actually offensive and demeaning.

I suggest you take a look at his Medium blog.

Why the choice is between exploitation vs. do-nothing? Why not the old-school approach? Interview experienced professionals in the area (people who actually work with homeless people) and then interview homeless people in order to find out what are the problems they face, then design a repeatable and sustainable plan and implement it.

I'm not accusing McConlogue to throw Leo under the bus. I am accusing McConlogue to throw technology professionals under the bus: People who believe in the cause of technology for social development and environmental change. People who make real sacrifices and take their job seriously instead of making up little games. People who would not call a homeless person "unjustly homeless" as if others were "justly homeless".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_and_communication_t...

So if I go to an upscale neighborhood and offer $100 at random, would that mean that anyone who refuses my offer is motivated enough to code?

Of course not, that's silly. We are discussing within the context of homelessness, in which the guy is playing a game with a vulnerable individual by offering an amount that is far higher than a change, but far lower that any developer (even junior) would consider an offensive offer for a mobile app.

I have a very close family member who went missing and eventually was found homeless. In the course of the investigation we found that several people exploited and took advantage of him for personal gain.

If you study the issue (like we did) you will find that this is a common and recurring problem, as homeless people are mentally vulnerable and open to narcissistic individuals.

Nothing against helping others -- I myself volunteered for social-change tech ngos for several years. My problem is in exploiting a vulnerable person for personal gain, which this guy is obviously doing.

Are you arguing that lack of motivation is the root cause of homelessness, rather than poverty and mental health issues?

Homelessness is a serious and complex issue rooted in mental health and poverty, and the "mentor" behind the homeless coder reduced it to a game, just to show that all one needs to succeed is the patronizing goodwill of some privileged narcissistic clown.

Stories like this are actually a disservice to the cause of technology as an agent for social and environmental change.

> Tests like 23andme aren't something your local doctor does every checkup.

Fair enough. So why not let FDA go through their process, do their investigation, and once approved people could safely rely on 23andme.

Have you considered XULRunner?

Although you are correct in your assertion that Fairchild was basically the "mother" of VC, that does not invalidates the OP's point. Take this example: Do you know any VC firm today that would invest in a company like Apple, ran by a smelly barefoot hippie followed by two other nerds holding some weird circuitry machines?

Mike Markkula did, and that's the classic story of VC as in Venture Capital: He provided critical funding in a very risky business attached to also very specific conditions (part of the funding was a loan, for example), and in exchange he asked for a high return.

What we have today is NOT venture funding: We have funding without risk. And that's the OP's point.

> So you take a picture of each sketch, and upload them to Dropbox

You just created an incentive for programmers to draw useless diagrams on paper and upload them on Dropbox just to "score one point".

Sure, we could go on and on suggesting metrics back and forth to minimize this problem, but my point is that metrics must be carefully chosen due to the unintended side-effects that they may cause. Maybe you can use the number of pictures on Dropbox just to get a sense of overall quality, but if you are going to hold individual people accountable using very exact metrics, then they must be chosen very carefully. This tool certainly does not help on that regard.

The key issue is what you just described in your last paragraph. Micro-managing by metrics without thinking in side-effects is actually harmful to the team. There is a reason measuring productivity by LOC is considered a bad practice (which was actually very common in the past).

I completely see the need for metrics, but they are very easy to gather by specialized tools for the job (software engineering, customer service, etc...). It seems that Peak is just a glorified dashboard, and by assuming that the product is actually "automatically tracking work" (referencing their slogan) one would be damaging the team's productivity and morale, and not increasing it.

> Where is Brazil’s Snowden?

Is the author aware that Glenn Greenwald (the reporter who first reported about Snowden) ACTUALLY LIVES IN BRAZIL???

This article is just a nationalistic piece written with a very specific agenda.

Chen Guangcheng also "broke the law". So in your logic does that excuses China?

> an iPhone app that allows you to download your medical record from any doctor and share health activity with friends and family

I mean no offense to you personally, but I fail to understand how this problem fits in a world in which 2.5 billion people lack basic sanitation.

I also get RSUs as part of my compensation package (as any other tech company offers, by the way). The difference is that I am not getting a pay-cut for receiving RSUs. In other words, I am not making less for having the "opportunity" to maybe hit the lucky jar in the future.

> And sure, share price can go down but if you don't believe a company is going to continue building wealth, why work there?

My point is simply that IMO FB employees are not being fairly compensated for the amount of risk they are taking. If my future employer is asking me to accept a salary pay-cut in exchange of RSUs, my upside needs to be more than that. If we are talking about a revolutionary company, then sure, I'd agree with you, but Facebook?

> Are the others, in fact, just as bad?

Well, just one example that came to my mind from a documentary I watched recently:

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/viewfinder/asia/2013/07/...

Costco targets the high-middle-class families, who have the income and space to buy bulk. And by making up in volume and high-end products [1] Costco can afford to "not be evil".

[1] - One not very well-known facts about Costco is that a big part of their profit comes from the high-end "novelty" stuff that they put in between the cheap bulk items. That works for them because people who shop at Costco have high disposable income.

You forgot to subtract the amount you "paid" for the RSUs by not making an optimal salary.

That would be the same of accusing Apple of being evil for overlooking environmental laws, while other companies (Samsung, etc...) use the exact same practices and end up getting a free pass. Walmart gets labeled as "evil" simply because they are the big ones and therefore the media likes to make them the example, but every retailer acts like them.

This is a problem of corporate-capitalism and the lack of labor protection in the US more than anything else.

(I agree with you that this is bad behavior. My point is simply that this kind of behavior should be enforced by the system)