msantos

But since you pointed out one of the many articles surrounding that particular case, fyi that article is also incomplete. Google a bit and you'll find some extractions of the court case. The speaking-during-break was the pinacle of the story, which had started months before when her boss told her to speak only English even when the clients (parents) started a conversation with her in their shared/common language.

I have also noticed that in Brazil, over a decade ago, in a local company that was trying its luck in the US market. Eventually it failed, for many reasons but mostly because some of the staff wasn't fluent enough in English while others were. Internal bickering ensued, until the company went bust. The management was only focused on the US expansion and failed to address internal disputes.

On a second thought, it's also fair to say that the idea is all well and good, but all you need is a disgruntled employee to ruin it to everybody else. But then, I guess it's all up to what type of people you hire in the first place, and how the company shows those new-hires what kind of culture is expected from them.

There are few rulings in the UK, based on EU's laws, supporting employees speaking they own language even when the nature of the business require them to speak English. The most recent case I recall of, is that of a Polish nurse/nanny/babysitter who would speak Polish to Polish-parents and Polish co-workers. But her managers required there to stick to English at all times, even when approached by Polish speaking parents and co-workers. She sued and won.

You love Macs, open source software and tools, and cringe when you hear the words .NET

Yes, I'm Brazilian but I do not hate the fact I'm one. I just don't have pointless and blinding patriotic feelings. Go see the world, expand your horizons, then let me know if you still think that Brazil is really as "maravilhoso" as you like to think.

Regarding the stereotypes, I had made it clear that those points where "not so serious", but since you seem to have taken them serious: Yes, some Brazilians are too touchy-feely and that's not a stereotype, that's a fact. Some people appreciate that type of personality, others don't.

And finally, here's the actual response from iFit => https://twitter.com/iFit/status/394852154680172544

iFit said: "due to Brazilian labor laws, our corporation will not allow us to hire from Brazil."

- If the Brazilian is working remotely, sending money to Brazil is costly and a huge hassle for the employer.

- The company had a previous bad experience with a Brazilian employee

Other not so serious reasons

- Some Brazilians are loud, touchy-feely and unaware of the personal-space concept, therefore they are annoying for most non-Brazilians.

- Most of this company's HR is from Argentina

From my own experience, in lame terms, if you use non-black caps, for arguments sake let's say you use a red cap from a coca-cola bottle, that red cap will reflect some light as well as the water. And inside the room the bottle will not "shine" as bright as it could and depending on the Sun's position the room will have red'ish rays - like a rainbow.

So using any colour cap and covering the bottle cap with old photographic film containers like this one http://www.kveller.com/images/Article_images/film-canister.j... will prevent the non-black cap from stealing sun rays from the water.

Surely CloudFlare just like any other company should take a stand against possibly pretentious bloggers, but the whole america-land-of-the-free is tiring, more so given the recent spying disclosures brought to light by Snowden and others.

http://i.imgur.com/Duyq1N4.png

Here's the official "map" of the base http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/_images/volkelmap.jpg

And here is a post highlighting the Base's obscurity http://theaviationist.com/2013/04/28/volkel/

> Cyberwar Doomsayer Lands $34 Million in Government Cyberwar Contracts [2010] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/booz-allen/

In the end I settle for a hybrid like this https://gist.github.com/mvsantos/5554663

5. Legal documents are created to protect the preparer (and its firm), not you or yours

The very common practice of paying "cash in hand" to certain professionals such as plumber, house cleaner and many others, can take up a whole new level. Resulting in very costly loss - quite possibly - of billions of dollars (depending on the country) in tax evasion. Of course not all freelance and self employed professionals dodge their taxes but would be silly to say a lot of them don't.

Also, if it fall into the wrong hands, it can be used by pickpockets and other crooks, to skim the victim's card minutes after the card was stolen. One might argue that credit card transactions are not settle in minutes, but rather in days and sometimes only after 30 days that the payment was made, the merchant/crook would be credited with the monies. But some transactions do credit the merchants within few hours or a day or two - and for those type of transactions crooks could setup their biz and start transferring monies to several accounts making the funds very hard to trace and of course, getting a new device every so often because it wont take long until Square's fraud prevention realise that one particular device is the root of too many complains/fraud alerts

However, on the other hand Facebook would do just fine if they acquire Yahoo. As soon as Facebook's stocks get more stable and the fuss settles, I'm guessing Dec/2012 to Feb/2013, Facebook's shares will be going for a "very fair" USD15 ~ USD21. But if they launch their mobile device in that period, then I guess their shares will rock on USD25 ~ USD31 Anyways, considering the mobile device is not arriving before Q2 2013, then without growth and new features and afraid of new comers, the board will realise than they need content and loads of patents if they are to take on Google's array of products. And Yahoo will fit Facebook just like a glove.

However, Microsoft fearing for it's lack of social presence and weak search-engine, will possibly start a bidding war. Cutting the story short, I'd bet Facebook takes over if not completely, at least a good chunk of Yahoo, by the end of 2013.