I saw Jobs as a difficult man who mistreated his employees, and I never understood his value to the market. That is, until I did my Masters Degree and I was introduced to the concept of industry paradigms.

Regardless of any rivalry feeling one can feel on “Apple Vs Windows” subject, Steve Jobs was undeniably a visionary and a paradigm pioneer who challenged concepts and developed new markets and trends. Before the iPod, the digital music players were all but a joke, and the iPad succeeded to launch the tablet industry where others previously failed.

The world will be less innovative without him. My sympathies to Apple and his family and friends.

It doesn’t matter if it is an email offering me dodgy Rolex replicas or dubious pharmaceuticals, or if it is a newsletter from a major and respectable institution. Any speculative email I receive that I haven’t explicitly subscribed to, is to be considered SPAM. Enough said.

It seems that for those acting in their own disposition forget that the UDHR has 30 articles, and not 29. The 30th Article of the UDHR is perfectly clear:

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein

So how is it that sovereign states that adopt and recognise the UDHR accept the engagement of organisations, parties and other sort of entities that disregard the 30th Article?

Don’t get me wrong. I agree that instead of having extremist political groups or militants operating in the underground, is better to have them out in the open as it is easier to monitor their activities, and to expose their views. Concerning the recent decision of BBC to invite a far-right activist to a television debate, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he believes it is a duty to expose racist and sectarian politics – which I agree – and that “anybody who listens to what they are really about will find that what they are saying is unacceptable.” Well is this last bit that I am not so sure about. Mr Brown is parting from the principle that everyone has the same opinion. And unfortunately, this is not the case. If that was the case, there wouldn’t be any racism. Particularly, the political party in question wouldn’t have its supporters – which it does, no matter how minimum they are. This is a false consensus bias.

My concern is the use of democracy and the UDHR to destroy these same principles, or to deny these principles to others. An example that is often cited as the use of democracy for the destruction of democracy is the rise of the NAZI party in Germany.

After being elected through democratic means, the NAZI party started to impose authoritarianism and ideologies that destroyed democracy and oppressed minorities, to say the least. Following the defeat of the NAZI regime and the revelation of their atrocities to the whole world, it was the overall consensus that something had to be done to prevent the same to happen in the future. With this in mind, the UDHR was adopted in 1948.

Yet we don’t need to go that far in history to see events of democracy being used to destroy democracy or to thwart the UDHR. You can see clear examples in recent events where state leaders, once elected through democratic means, are violating constitutions to impose their authority, perpetuate their rule and oppress any sort of opposition.
So I think about what Mr Brown said:

“Anybody who listens to what they are really about will find that what they are saying is unacceptable.”

And I wonder: Is there anybody listening? If so, who is listening?

Let me just make one brief point here: The reason we are seeing this escalation of violence is because the police is acting to tackle crime and pacify areas controlled by crime – and the criminals are fighting back. Rio is facing a now-or-never situation, where the government is aware that a change must be made, particularly for the 2014 World Cup and for the 2016 Olympic Games, which are serving as a major catalyst for such changes.

Let’s not forget that one day after being elected the city to host the 2012 Olympic Games, London was hit by a coordinated terrorist attack on its public transport. Since the UK government is under constant threat of international terrorism, one could argue that the public in general would be more vulnerable to violence in the 2012 games rather than in 2016 games. Drug-lords want to sell drugs; international terrorists want to kill people in the name of their ideology.

Sérgio Vieira de Mello was a man who lived his life to honour the principles for which the United Nations was created: To help ease the suffering of people and mediate conflicts around the world. Sérgio Vieira de Mello was a pivotal figure within the United Nations that legitimised the organisation’s existence. A charismatic figure and remarkable diplomat, he worked to resolve conflicts in several regions including Lebanon, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Timor-Leste. He died five years ago in a coward attack in Iraq.

Although my first exposure to video-games was to the earlier Atari 2600, the earlier Nintendo handhelds and then it’s Nintendo Entertainment System, it was with computers that I had my experience of really being immersed into the virtual worlds. Computer Role Playing Games were (and still are, in my opinion) much richer in personal computers than they could in videogame consoles. Although the first role playing game I played was Dragon Warrior for the Nintendo, the first role playing game that really made me immerse into the game world was Hero’s Quest I (later renamed to Quest for Glory I). In Hero’s Quest, you play the role of a wannabe hero which needs to do good deeds and save the land in order to prove itself worthy of the title of hero. Instead of simple actions, repetitive battles and linear boring dialogues, I found myself having to type what I wanted my character to do and to say in order to move along the plot. Dialogs were extremely rich, and I found myself really thinking as the character I created in order to advance on the game. I spent countless days (no – months) playing and re-playing the game, and all of its sequels. I was about 12 years old at the time and I remember quite well spending half of my days thinking either about girls, or about how cool it would be to be a great hero like in Quest for Glory.

But perhaps the most influential game I have ever played was the Ultima Series, in which you play the role of The Avatar – a hero from a far away world sent to the land of Brittania to rid the world from evil. Besides complex dialogs and non-linear quests and complex story-lines, Ultima had an elaborate set of principles and virtues which made players immerse into questions of moral and ethical grounds, making the character of the Avatar to lead by example in order to advance within the game.

Playing Ultima through my teens really influenced my way of reasoning. It made me wonder, question and further think on the subjects of ethics and moral grounds, developing in me an interest that brought me in contact with several different beliefs – from spiritual teachings such as Abrahamic religions and Buddhism to philosophical schools such as Stoicism. It made me want to understand how people see spirituality through different eyes, and I came to develop my own set of values and “virtues” that I deemed important for my personal growth and enlightenment.

It is fair to say that, in part, it influenced my ways of accepting people’s own way of dealing with their spirituality and God. Making me believe that

we’re all looking into a prism, but as each of us see it through different angles, we’re seeing different colours. But the reality is that we’re all looking at the same prism *.

* That is, as as long as you don’t try to push or shove at me the idea that the colours that you see are better than the ones I see – we can all be happy.

Being a good cop, being a hero, being the saviour of a land by doing and promoting good deeds to drive evil away… Are those values so démodé? I mean, do I risk being labelled a “f*g” by some 13 years old boy because I like playing games where I’m a good guy? Instead, games nowadays like grand-theft auto promotes no values whatsoever, besides how to be a parasite sociopath. I do believe, based on my own experience and the experience of those close to me who played computer games, that video games DO influence people – perhaps it wouldn’t influence most people directly on their behaviour, but it can definitely influence people on their reasoning, and in their values. Now you combine this with the right set-up: poor upbringing, no job, no money, no future, bad company, depression…

In less than three weeks, there has been news of horrific crimes in Brazil, Greece and Canada in which victims have been mutilated. Call me old-fashioned pansy, but I think we need a stop on the violence-o-metre.

Now the Brazilian president signed a decree that imposes new regulations for call centres (source). If you have ever suffered in the hands of poor service delivery through call centres then get ready to feel avenged. You’ll love this!

From 31^st July 2008 all companies that provide the following services (amongst others) will have two months to adapt their call centres to the new legislation:

• telephony;
• communications;
• water supply;
• electricity supply;
• terrestrial transportation;
• airline transportation;
• financial services (including credit cards); and
• health insurance.

The new legislation enforces the following decrees:

• The decrees were divided in five groups: access, quality, transparency, cancelation (of services) and general rules;
• For services of uninterruptible supply (e.g.: water and electricity, cable TV and telephony), all call centres must be available 24 hours, 7 days a week;
• Companies must provide a unique FREE phone number to attend their variety of services;
• A customer call can only be transferred once from one customer care operator to another, in order to ensure that customers don’t have to overly repeat their issue;
• Customers have the right to request a case history in order to track the resolution progress of their query;
• Customers must have the option to override a telephone based menu at any time and request to speak with an operator;
• Service cancelations must take effect immediately; and
• Companies that fail to follow these regulations could be fined to a sum of up to R$3,000,000.00, in accordance with the Código de Defesa do Consumidor (Consumers Defence Code).

Now can you imagine if companies such as BT and Sky ever had to follow a similar decree? One can hope, if ever…

However, the authors also righteously assert that Brazil is not yet a superpower and that there is yet a lot to be done – particularly with regards to the public sector, infrastructure and the bureaucracy faced by organisations. This is the last bit I would like to stir some thoughts about.

I do think massive reforms are needed in regards to corporate legislation. But while Brazil should look around and learn from the experience of other successful economies in what to do, I think it is mostly important to learn what not to do. Let me develop on this thought.

I’ve been living in Europe for over eight years, and I have noticed organisations doing things in here that they simply wouldn’t get their way with in Brazil, particularly with regards to employment laws and consumer rights. What I mean is that although Brazil has problems, they can get much worse if Brazil just open its market to foreign investments by simulating other economies, without taking into considerations the singularities of the Brazilian market.

In the Canadian documentary “The Corporation“, a psychological profile is drawn upon American corporations as if they where physical human beings. Following this premise, the documentary illustrates how organisations tend to display a psychotic and egocentric profile. The documentary asserts that the main issue with corporate legislation in the USA is that it allow organisations to act like individuals within the constitution, whilst there is no single individual that could be taken into account for all the actions perpetrated by the organisation. The bottom line is: who is the culprit when an organisation crosses the line of ethical behaviour? Now imagine a country like Brazil with all the problems it still has to overcome, full of psychotic organisations.

Well in Brazil companies are also seen as individuals. You have pessoa física and pessoa jurídica (i.e.: physical individual and juridical individual). But there are also strong laws with regards to consumer rights and employment rights, and having lived abroad for over fourteen years and being a constant traveller interested in foreign markets, I am yet to see legislations on these matters that would match those of Brazil’s. Foreign companies really find a hard time in Brazil when trying to implement some of its questionable domestic practices. I always giggled when I read on Brazilian newspapers that yet another European telecom got its ears pulled by the Brazilian ombudsman due to some of their shenanigans, like trying to penalise customers for switching mobile networks.

I the UK, I have seen two page employment contracts, in which employees would be bound by a dozen pages “employee handbook”. This often means organisations can change the contents of their “employee handbook” from time to time and the employees are automatically subjected to its terms by proxy. I have even seen extreme example of an employee handbook attempting to override the laws of the land, in whicn an organisation was cheeky enough to put a clause in its employee handbook which stated that “if a crime was committed within the organisation premises, employees were forbidden to inform the police and they should inform a member of the board instead”.

What I also love in the UK is the fixed term contracts that state that the given organisation can change the terms of its contract at any time they want without prior notice. Picture this: You sign a contract for a TV subscription service for a period of twelve months. Months after you signed the contract, the service provider decides to raise its prices in 25 percent. You can’t get out because you are bound on the terms of the original contract. In Brazil, as soon as the organisation makes a change in the contract to which customers disagree, customers would be able to pull out of the fixed-term. In the UK, you would have to go to court in order to prove your rights.

So I DO think reforms in company legislation is a must for the Brazilian economy. But as chaotic and crazy it can be for a foreign company to establish itself in Brazil nowadays, in a (not so perfect and totally incidental) way this Babel tower of bureaucracy has kept the country safe from being on the mercy of corporatism — We have enough problems already!

How easy it is for one to blame others for their own failures. What I find amusing is the kind of comments that goes around about Brazilian biofuels. Forgive me for being so blunt, but I think that 30 years of experience in the biofuel market does give Brazil more know-how and leverage to talk about the subject. And if one thinks that the Brazilian perspective is solely motivated by commercial opportunities with regards to its biofuels, well think again from another perspective:

Brazil’s production of biofuel is so far mostly aimed towards the internal market. Just look how haply Brazil is powering its cars with flexi-engine fuels that support the mixing of any ratio of gasoline and ethanol.

Since sugar is not a ration or basic food product like corn or beans, it is very anecdotal to claim that it is responsible for the raise of food prices. Moreover, only 0.02% of Brazil’s arable land if used for sugarcane. From this 0.02%, only half is used for fuel production (that is 0.01%). There are no issues in Brazil with over production of sugar cane favouring other types of crops, and due to the size of Brazil (amongst other elements I raised previously) it is quite far-fetched to think it would ever be.

So if the Europe is concerned about the raise in food price, here is some food-for-thought (no pun intended): What about Europe’s unfair agricultural subsidies that not only harm their own small farmers, but also poorer regions like South America and Africa?

However the current iminent threats imposed to it has nothing to do with the production of ethanol, but the following activities:

• Illegal logging
• Illegal soybean fields
• Illegal cattle pastures

Mr. Grunwald DO SAY later on his article, and I quote:

“In Brazil, for instance, only a tiny portion of the Amazon is being torn down to grow the sugarcane that fuels most Brazilian cars [...]“

However this statement only comes after a full rethoric about the Amazon deforestation — which is in practical terms like having a small print on a legal contract. By the time you read it, you were already led to an opinion. Nevertheless, even after this statement Mr. Grunwald goes on again on a rethoric rolercoaster, making a strong link to ethanol and the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon by quoting an authority from the “Woods Hole Research Center”. Once again: nothing to do with ethanol production but with illegal agriculture and wood logging.

So I decided to write some facts about the production of Brazilian ethanol, and unlike the article mentioned above, making reference to my sources.

When evaluating how much pollution a given fuel produces, you must take into consideration not only the pollution produced during the combustion process, but also during the creation process. For example, to creatre gasoline you must refine crude oil. The refining process requires energy. Where is that energy coming from?

Following this reasoning, let’s consider the production of hydrogen: To produce hydrogen you require electricity, which comes from burning coal and oil at thermoelectric power plants. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think hydrogen would be fantastic idea — if its production were to be powered by windmills, hydroelectric or any other sort of clean (and safe) energy. However the reality is that at the moment, 60% of the electricity produced globally comes from coal, which is the worst polluter (source) of all fuels.

Now, in Brazil 90% of its electricity comes from hydroelectric power plants (source). Furthermore, to power the production of ethanol Brazil makes use of the biomass left from previously crushed sugarcanes (cane-waste, which is called bagasse). Another cane-waste, called vinhaça, can also be used as fertiliser. I guess you can pick up that these facts mean in practice that Brazilian ethanol is a very green fuel, from production to combustion. This nice graph at Wikipedia (which cites this document from UK’s Department for Transport as its source) illustrates how the Brazilian ethanol is the least polluter from a list of of 19 types of fuels: Brazilian sugarcane ethanol produces 18 grams of carbon dioxide per megajoule of energy, while US maize ethanol produces 103 grams of carbon dioxide per magajoule of energy (coal: 112/MJ, gasoline: 85/MJ, diesel: 86/MJ). In matters of efficiency, it is worth mentioning that sugar-cane ethanol is not only far superior than maize ethanol (The Economist, 03/03/2007), but it is also cheaper too. In fact, it is the cheapest in the world (source).

The only factual and still current issue against the production of ethanol in Brazil is the burnings of sugarcane crops prior to havesting. However the burning of sugarcane crops has been in decline since a law has been passed in Brazil against it, which seeks to abolish the practice until 2017. Some “pundits” however claim that the expansion of sugar-cane crops for the production of ethanol can threat the Amazon. Originaly this argument is mostly based on pure ignorance, since the Amazon is unsuitable for planting sugar-cane due to its rainfall patterns. But on a second thought, as the Brazilian newsweek VEJA points out in an article about ethanol in its 2052 edition, the expansion of sugar-cane crops could in theory push other agricultural activites towards the Amazon region. There is also the argument of fuel vs. food, where land is being used for the production of fuel instead of food. This might well be the case in other countries seeking to produce ethanol. But in Brazil this a far-fetched scenario that is very unlikely to happen, since ony 26.5% of Brazil’s arable land is suitable for sugar-cane. At the moment on 0.02% of the arable land is being used for sugar-cane production, and half of it is for sugar (source).

Brazil’s success on the prduction of ethanol is a result of over thirty years of government-sponsored reasearch and development in conjuction with Brazil being gifted with a vast biodiversity. I guess that G-d is Brazilian after all. And he drives a Brasília with a fitted flexi-fuel engine.

Further information can be found here.