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bitcartel | 12 years ago | on: MP on Google tax avoidance scheme: 'I think that you do evil'

Google's tax strategy is legal, but disguising UK sales as Irish sales is not.

"Google vice-president Matt Brittin insisted he stood by evidence he gave last year that all the firm's advertising in Europe was sold through its offices in Ireland.

But in a series of testy exchanges, the committee chairman, Margaret Hodge, said his claims were contradicted by documentation MPs had seen and evidence from a "stream" of whistleblowers.

"It was quite clear from all that documentation that the entire trading process and sales process took place in the UK," she told him."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/16/google-deni...

"The committee had also been contacted by a senior salesman who Ms Hodge said was paid a "modest" salary, but three or four times that in commission for sales and for "closing deals".

"This is somebody, a senior salesman, who said he was making sales in the UK. This is a UK sale and should be subject to UK tax," she added.

...Mr Brittin said that although sales staff in the UK were promoting Google and encouraging people to spend money, the transaction would take place in Ireland.

But Ms Hodge replied: "We all accept the billing is in Ireland. If sales activity is taking place in the UK, you are misleading both Parliament and the taxpayers in suggesting that is not happening."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hmrc-are-being...

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: Traffic From Syria Disappears From Internet

Exactly. Gold is a universal currency, you can use it for barter pretty much anywhere on the planet.

Gold coins (British Sovereigns) were supposedly part of the emergency survival kit given to US and British fighter pilots during the first Iraq war.

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: Google changes Palestinian location from 'Territories' to 'Palestine'

Here's something few people seem to be aware of - Taiwan agrees it is part of China (aka 'One China' [1]).

While we often hear about the government in Beijing claiming the island as the sovereign territory of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), we don't hear much about the claims made by the government in Taipei that the mainland is the sovereign territory of the Republic of China (ROC).

Although both sides dispute who is the sole legitimate government of a single China, they both agree that territorially it includes the island of Taiwan. Meanwhile, a recent poll suggests that for people on the ground, opinion is divided.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy

[2] http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/04/30/2...

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: The Promise to Develop Ethical Software

Create a new (viral) software license, the Ethical Public License (EPL). The EPL is linked to the oath and forbids use of the source code in any project or system deemed to break the oath.

This might result in an economic incentive for companies like Path to curb bad behaviour, due to the cost of rewriting EPL code or using inferior code.

Note: The OSI will probably claim the EPL is not an open source license ("No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor") and the FSF will likely say the EPL isn't a free software license because it breaks Freedom 0 ("The freedom to run the program, for any purpose").

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

It would be interesting to combine this with an open source license which links to the Oath, and forbids use of the code in any project or system which breaks the Oath.

For developers who have undertaken the Oath, the challenge would then be to write the best code, so that it sees widespread adoption. This might potentially make it harder for companies like Path to engage in activities which break the Oath.

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: Path texts my entire phonebook at 6 AM

We need to nip this in the bud.

Maybe it's time to create a Hippocratic Oath for developers to publicly commit to?

A future Path developer could then refuse to implement an unethical "feature" by pointing out that the company had hired them with the full knowledge that the oath had been undertaken.

I don't think the company would pink slip the developer, as they would probably want to avoid any attention being drawn to the unethical "feature" in a tribunal or other legal setting.

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever

What on earth are you talking about?!

Someone else[1] first mentioned that the original poster once worked for CME. Anyone who has been following the LIBOR rigging story can see the irony.

You've now accused several people of defaming the original poster. Did you somehow forget that the topic of discussion is fraud in the financial markets?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5616839

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever

> the CME is almost completely irrelevant

To call CME irrelevant is strange - it's the world’s largest futures exchange! The CME decision many years ago to link futures contracts to LIBOR may have inadvertently kick-started the entire scandal, because banks responsible for fixing LIBOR would also have trading positions, and thus might be tempted to rig things (which is what happened).

> Exchanges don't do "evil finance things".

Ask farmers: "...rampant dairy price rigging that occurs at the CME and hurts farmers and consumers across the U.S. and around the world. In 2008 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) found Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) guilty of price rigging at the CME and levied an unprecedented $12 million fine. Yet, these illegal trading practices continue at the CME." http://familyfarmers.org/?p=731

Or bullion traders: "As the operator of U.S. commodity futures markets; the CME Group has a quasi-regulatory capacity to ensure the markets are operated in a legitimate manner. A primary facet of this responsibility is to set “margin requirements” for trading positions in a manner which enhances market stability. However, for the second time in 24 months we have this market operator engaging in precisely the opposite manner: maliciously rigging margin position requirements in order to increase the current “instability” in precious metals markets – i.e. the downward pressure in prices." http://wallstreetsectorselector.com/2013/04/cme-group-destab...

> finance discussion causes people to enter "good vs evil" mode. Go figure.

Maybe farmers and bullion traders are just bad losers. Maybe brokers don't front-run their customers. Maybe banks who settle lawsuits are innocent. Or maybe Matt Taibbi is right and people have simply had enough of rampant financial fraud that goes unpunished.

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever

You worked for CME right? Quite ironic given we're discussing LIBOR rigging which has its roots in a decision made by the CME, subsequently exploited by traders.

"In late 1996, Marcy Engel, then a lawyer for Wall Street heavyweight Salomon Brothers Inc, fired off a warning letter to U.S. regulators: If they approved a Chicago Mercantile Exchange plan to change how a popular futures contract was priced, they would put at risk the integrity of a key interest rate in the global financial system."

"The problem with the CME's plan, as Engel saw it: The banks that set the rates in London daily were also able to take positions in the CME's Eurodollar contract. In her letter to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, she said tethering the futures contract to Libor "might provide an opportunity for manipulation" of the interest rate. A "bank might be tempted to adjust its bids and offers ... to benefit its own positions."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/20/us-libor-fixing-or...

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: How Apple's Developer Conference Grew Too Big for Its Own Developers

Is it really though?

Registered developers can already submit code level problems[1], there are official developer forums and bugs can be filed with Radar.

Meanwhile at WWDC, it's a developer scrum to get a 15 minute slot with an engineer and walk him/her through code they've never seen before.

From my experience, engineers do their best but they have always looked somewhat tired, hungry and distracted. All things given, I'm not sure it's the best environment to solve non-trivial problems, although it is nice to put a face to a name.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/support/technical/submit/

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: Facebook buys Parse

What did your revenues look like?

This acquisition doesn't really tell us if Parse, based around a proprietary SDK, had a viable business model or not.

bitcartel | 13 years ago | on: WWDC 2013 – June 10-14

If Apple wanted to, they could offer free tickets to everybody.

For example, 5,000 tickets at $1,599 each is just under $8 million, which is a drop in the ocean when you consider Apple has around $145 billion in cash.

While shareholders are rewarded with dividends and share buybacks for taking on risk, developers have to pay to take on the risk of building Mac/iOS apps.

$8 million represents %0.000055172 of Apple's cash. That looks to me like a pretty cheap way to throw a party for developers and celebrate all that they've done over the years.

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