Posts by Russell Brown
-
Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Sacha,
there’s even a filter for that?
You should see the E filter.
-
Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to JacksonP,
The same sunset, even. Have dozens of Laneways photos, and wondering what to do with them. Too soon for another music event post?
Nah. You should do one asap :-)
-
Hmm. BSR, a labour rights and social responsibility group, has complained about the way an unnamed "BSR consultant" was quoted repeatedly in the second of the Times' stories. I kind of think they have a point. I read that as being indicative of the organisation's view, but it appears this wasn't an employee.
-
And, finally, sunset while SBTRKT played at Laneway yesterday. A magic hour.
-
Then my acid came on.
-
Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Heh, sometimes I watch in awe.
Things can get pretty tasty in Auckland too ...
-
We're looking at this story in our first Media7 for 2012, with Rick Sher(p)a, Simon Grigg and Australian film-maker Neil Peplow.
If you'd like to come to the recording tomorrow evening, we'll need you to present yourself at the Victoria St entrance of TVNZ some time between 5.15pm and 5.40pm.
-
Hard News: Getting to the bottom of…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Wisdom that’s passed on socially, ideally through unconferences held in expensive western countries that wouldn’t give your average Vietnamese aspirant a visa, even if they could stump up the airfare. A culture that puts a premium on free time spent hacking (which is hard when your boss expects a 12+ hour day on chargeable work).
I didn’t get the impression that people were working 12+ hours a day, although one of the companies I visited at a large software park looked a very dull, mechanical place to be a programmer (the managers struck us as arseholes too). Other, smaller companies had quite different cultures.
I went there with Mitchell Pham, who came to NZ as a boat-person refugee and has since expanded the software business he helped found here back into Vietnam. The time – especially meal times – I spent with the young people working there was a highlight of the trip. They were happy, ambitious and inquisitive. One of them had got through a few rounds of Vietnam Idol, so was a bit of a star. Elsewhere on the park you’d see kids hanging out on their scooters after work. Mitchell said there was so much work that there was huge workplace churn -- kids who didn't like one company went and worked for another one.
I would submit that the place didn’t really resemble your description.
-
Hard News: Getting to the bottom of…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Anybody remember the Shanxi brick kiln slavery scandal, or did that not make the news in NZ?
I knew about it, but possibly only because I was in Asia at the time.
-
Hard News: Getting to the bottom of…, in reply to Paul Campbell,
The This American Life piece is being credited with Apple’s (very) recent publishing information about practices in its supply chain – while it’s a great piece it’s probably more due to California passing a law requiring ALL companies to provide a supply chain statement on their web page – this law came into effect Jan 1st (and was aimed at Apple).
Did not know that. Thanks.
I think that China is in a stage along a path – they’re growing their middle class which can only be a good thing – largely middle class countries tend to have too much to lose if they go to war – this is also what real wealth redistribution from the West to the 3rd world looks like – maybe not always pretty, but long term a good thing – eventually China’s standard of living will rise and the factories will move to Vietnam, Burma, India and eventually Africa
When I visited Vietnam five years ago, the view there was very much that they did not want to simply be the next cheap outsourcing location. They were training a hell of a lot of programmers.
But it was also pretty common for local programmers and engineers to sign up for six or 12 month contracts with Japanese manufacturers, where they'd work 12-hour shifts and save their money.
