kaufland

To be fair, he said "the average Joe", not "the young, educated, upwardly mobile."

Snowden's status in Russia is more that of a pet, or a trophy -- up for trade at any moment, for a high enough price -- than that of a political refugee.

And he knows it, which is why he's trying to GTHO of there (even at the price of a reasonably short prison sentence in the U.S.).

As long as you don't step out of line:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26265230

Alles klar. Thanks for clarifying.

It's quite common for startups to have 1 or 2 sexy (and well-enough engineered) projects involving your favorite technology X, to run up the flagpole at conferences or in job ads, etc. But like as not, 80% of what they do (and of what you'll be doing as a developer there) is the same half-baked, post-"blitzkrieg" mop-up work you'll be doing pretty much anywhere else.

I was extremifying a bit my comparison; but the basic point is that the 10x price difference is in no way proportionate to any real infrastructure costs that would be necessary to guarantee safer (or non-exploitive) product standards. I can see the same no-name, barely-fitting (but otherwise generally quite adequate) apparel products from the major discounters costing 2x or 3x if produced at gold standards (environmentally or labor-wise); but not 10x.

That is, at the end of the day, 80% of the 10x overhead you pay at the premium retailers is just for the brand, not for safer products or better labor conditions (which are at best a secondary matter of concern to these outlets).

Valid point, but apparently the Greenpeace study only targeted Germany's largest (brick-and-mortar) discounted retailers; there's no particular reason to believe that the products offered by premium retailers would score any better.

Or that the 10x factor in price overhead is in any substantive way directly invested in safer product standards. No matter how you slice it, to a large extent all we're really getting when we shop at specifically fashion-outlets (as their marketing gurus know all to well) is... the brand.

Hmm, looking a bit at their site[1]:

Addidas jogging pants -- 59,95 €

Volcom T-shirt print -- 17,45 €

Under Armour T-shirt -- 39.95 €

Like really now -- who needs this stuff? Especially when you can just go to Aldi or Tchibo (or any of a number of other discount retailers readily visible at nearly every shopping mall in Germany) and buy essentially same stuff (minus the logos, of course) for 1/10th of the price. So perhaps a better title might be:

“Fashion generates revenue, and handsome pay-outs. But is basically pointless. And a soul-sucking waste of time.”

[1] https://www.zalando.de/herren-home/