It's a shame that Putin has to sit across the table with Petro "Puppet" Poroshenko

This puppet who should be rotting in a Russian dungeon is "negotiating" across the same table with Vladimir Putin. What a shame!

Update [26-Nov-18]: Noticed that this puppet always poses for photos giving an artificially-serious look, trying to look like a knowledgeable, tough and decisive leader - as if he's legitimate and presidential and not a lapdog installed by the West. It seems like he's simply trying to hide his weakness. On his inside he knows that he's a thug and a nobody and just a Western pawn, and that each day and each night he oils and sells his @$Shole to his Western masters.

Flash bashing is a cheap trick that idiot bloggers use to sound knowledgeable

For several months or maybe years, there's an ongoing trend on the Web - blasting of Adobe's Flash technology. Self-proclaimed technology "experts", "gurus" and "reviewers" [who are nothing more than random, useless bloggers] have continued to prolifically attack the Flash platform as if it is and has always been useless. It might have gotten dated, and some of Flash's features have now become native to Web browsers, and Flash does at times have issues related to memory [see screenshots at the end], performance and security, but in no way is Flash useless.

More importantly, these idiot bloggers have absolutely no idea of the invaluable contributions made by Macromedia Flash to the Web [others like Apple/Jobs, Facebook and Microsoft have their own business reasons to bash/hate Flash]. Flash brought those capabilities to the Web which browsers couldn't power in the early days - animations, games, animated ads, puzzles, audio/video, online applications, interactive educational content, forms inside ads, and so on - on low-bandwidth Internet connections. It made the early Web more exciting and more interactive. And to be honest, there are a lot of capabilities/features that Flash has that the Web of today just can't provide without  it.

Blasting Flash has become almost fashionable these days to the extent that random journalists use this cheap trick to make it look like these idiots are knowledgeable [just like random Western journalists routinely attack Russia/Iran/Syria in almost every article they pen in order to appease their neocon-funded and neocon-licking masters].

A search engine results page [SERP] can be thought of as a topic-specific custom webpage instantly built by computers

These days there's online discussion about use of artificial intelligence to write news articles. I like to think of a SERP as a topic-specific webpage - like a sort of article on a particular topic to be found on PC Magazine or CNET News website - except that it has been rapidly assembled from scratch, and it has been built by machines.

The screenshot below of Bing makes this thought somewhat clear. To a user, Bing instantly wrote a dedicated webpage for the query windows defender for windows 8. This custom-built webpage contained a lot of useful information related to the query. To be sure, this SERP certainly wasn't as lucid or thorough as a human-built webpage would be for this same query/topic, but that quality gap is only a matter of time. The core principle prevails and is time-independent - that SERPs are fundamentally custom-written articles/webpages in response to queries entered by users of Web search engines.

Smartphones of today emit a multitude of likely dangerous wireless radiation [COMPACTIDEA]

It isn't limited to just the mobile network signal now. New types of waves additionally burning your brain/heart/whatever include Bluetooth, GLONASS/GPS, Wi-Fi, etc. Dual SIM phones further increase the amount of phone network waves emitted.

Likely effects of Delhi's odd-even policy on related products, services and stakeholders

1. Second-hand car market will become more active, with some folks who have only one car wanting to keep another car [with the other type of registration number, to be used on alternate days].
2. Rise of car-pooling, resulting [incidentally] in increased real-life social interaction with colleagues, neighbors, etc.
3. Rise in use of public transport like buses, Delhi Metro, etc.
4. Newfound consideration about the registration number for the second car/vehicle people purchase, with people wanting to have both even- and odd-numbered cars in their homes.
5. Fall in sales at Delhi car dealerships, as Delhites prefer buying from outside Delhi/NCR for use inside Delhi [in case the odd-even rule doesn't apply to non-Delhi/non-NCR vehicles].
6. An opposite market force that will try to increase new vehicle is the desire/need of Delhites to own a second car to circumvent the odd-even rule. However, folks are likely to choose a small car as the second car. People likely won't want to spend on a big/expensive car just to circumvent the rule.
7. Increase in use of cab/taxi services such as Ola, Meru, Uber, etc.
8. Increase in the proportion of women drivers - in case Delhi creates an exemption for female drivers - as many men will prefer making their women do the driving on alternate days rather than buying a second car or using public transport or a two-wheeler.
9. Similarly, both sales and usage of two-wheelers are likely to rise, in case these are also exempt from the rule.

These points can be groups under different heads - what things will rise, what things will fall, etc.

Language barrier is a key reason why English-speaking Western nations don't empathize with non-English people such as Russians or Iranians

It's because Western lawmakers and the general public don't really get to know non-English people closely - they can't/don't watch Russian or Kazakh movies, they can't/don't see Iranian or Iraqi TV shows, they can't/don't read Syrian or Palestinian books, they can't/don't listen to Libyan or Lebanese music, they can't/don't understand what the people of Yemen or Afghanistan talk, and so on. The result is that these other people exist, but they're so far off that there's no emotional connection with them. The thought of bombing or killing these other people for own benefit doesn't hurt the hearts and minds of the Americans, the British, the Canadians, etc.

Language barrier is one of the reasons why wars are waged. How tragic!

It shouldn't be so difficult to call what America is - an empire

It's difficult for people the world over to accuse America of being an empire because of two reasons:

1. Fear of offending America.
2. The word empire brings up an image of horses, cannons, swords, etc., and the America of today doesn't fit into this mental image.

However, America of today is a full-fledged empire that obsessively invades and conquers and kills and destroys, just like the empires of previous centuries. It's just that because the world has advanced so much, we no longer use cannons or rifles or swords to fight, nor do military men ride horses in open fields, chasing other horses. America of today butchers people - including women and children - using remote-controlled drones and missiles, and we better quickly alter our mental perception of what constitutes an empire. Because the empires of the years gone by are not coming back ever again.

On unfair state subsidies to Airbus and Boeing, and the effect on the rest of the world

• This blog post uses Boeing as the subject, but the mechanism applies to other American defence companies too - Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, etc.
• For decades, Boeing has received and continues to receive very large sized defense/military contracts from the US government. Despite the "optics" fooling the American public that costs are being kept under control, all of these contracts are highly overpriced and "wasteful" [else why would Boeing "invest" hundreds of millions for campaign donations, lobbying, speeches, etc.], meaning that Boeing reaps rich rewards - billions in profits funded by the American public under the pretext of national security and America's global imperial wars. These huge profits ensure that Boeing is always awash in cash.
• Boeing can use and indeed redirects this financial power towards the development of its commercial aircraft - for example by undercutting Airbus on prices [effectively a cross-subsidy discount].
• The lucrative military contracts that Boeing regularly receives from US government ensure that Boeing is able to conduct cutting-edge R&D on materials/metallurgy, aerodynamics, engines/propulsion, wing designs, testing, manufacturing best practices, new processes, and other technologies, without any of these R&D expenses counting against its commercial aircraft segment.
• However, much or maybe all of this high-end R&D is usable and in all likelihood indeed gets used in Boeing's commercial airliners [for example the 787]. As Boeing probably saved billions by reusing the R&D knowledge from its military programs, it can undercut Airbus on prices and this is effectively a subsidy [though an opaque one].
• The American taxpayer thus subsidizes not only America's military projects, but also its passenger planes [R&D expenses and hence sale prices].
• Further, it's likely that several of the actual parts/components that Boeing develops for its military products get shared in its commercial aircraft, thus giving it a speed/time boost, saving development and testing costs, as well as providing economies of scale and hence cost savings on these parts/components. This too constitutes an indirect form of subsidy, as if Boeing's military division gave "funds" to its passenger division.
• Also necessary to mention here is the billions in military aid that US gives Israel, much of which flows back to the US in the form of purchase of US weaponry and fighter planes, thus effectively being a US-taxpayer provided subsidy despite giving the appearance of being a normal foreign-customer purchase.
• A similar mechanism of subsidies - though to a much lesser extent as Europe has handed over its security apparatus to America/NATO - likely functions for Airbus too.
• And so it's a matter of great laughter when Boeing complains that the Bombardier CSeries is being subsidized by the Canadian/Quebec governments. Boeing is lying and it knows that it's lying and it's lying with the explicit intention of lying and it knows that it's Boeing in reality which has received huge subsidies over several decades from the US government, paid for by the American public. What a crooked corporation!
• Overall, both Boeing and Airbus receive state subsidies, that harm other, much-smaller aircraft manufacturers in the rest of the world. The subsidies that these two manufacturers receive create a roughly level playing field for these two [relative to each other], but severely curtail the ability of other manufacturers to challenge this cozy duopoly.

The risk of loss of defense technology secrets in foreign sales of military equipment

Recent news stories reveal that Israel, in collaboration with Greece, conducted training against the deadly Russian air-defense system, the S-300, which is now deployed in Syria and is also being sold to Iran. That Israel and Greece [and ultimately their master - the US] are able to sort of reverse-engineer the working of the S-300 system shines spotlight on the risks inherent in foreign sales of critical military gear. As part of the Cyprus Missile Crisis, the S-300 fell into the hands of a NATO member, and it is certain that America must've pounced upon the system to understand its inner workings, to copy its superior characteristics and to train against it.

Of course, there's a risk for Israel, Greece and the US too. Assuming that Russia keeps updating the software of the S-300, it's possible that Western nations train against an older firmware version of the S-300, and are taken aback in the battlefield when a system with the latest software version is able to lock-on despite the evasive measures devised by the West.

Nothing wrong with factual labeling of products made in settlements on Israel-occupied territory

There is absolutely nothing wrong in correcting the false and incorrect information printed on products made in Israeli settlements built on land grabbed from Palestine [or other countries]. Since that land and the natural resources on that land rightfully belong to their actual owners, Israel's use of the phrases "Made in Israel" or "Product of Israel" is incorrect and also illegal. Hence there is nothing wrong [it's helpful and useful in fact] with correcting this incorrect and misleading information on the relevant products through factual labeling.

As far as Israel's and Netanyahu's habitual cries about anti-Semitism are concerned, Israel and Netanyahu are known pretty well to invoke the overused anti-Semitism excuse whenever they can't come up with any meaningful argument [which they almost-always can't]. Hence Israel's denunciations about this labeling can simply and quietly be ignored.

NATO's collective defence, collective security principles seem illogical and illegal

Suppose Russia retaliates militarily against Turkey for the latter's criminal downing of a Russian bomber jet. NATO would likely invoke its collective defence agreement here and other members of the gang would come to rescue Turkey by waging a war with Russia. This doesn't seem logical or even legal.

Britain claiming that an attack by Russia on Turkey is the same as an attack by Russia on Britain, this seems too foolish and provocative. It's like this has been designed to cause large-scale wars, as if some of the NATO members want war, rather than letting bilateral conflicts remain bilateral.

Mathematical probability can explain the frequency of shootings in the United States quite well

The US experiences gun-related murders, school shootings and other violence quite frequently. It obviously is a direct consequence of the mass-ownership of guns by the general public. Simple mathematics can explain the regular occurrence of these shootings in America quite well.

Since it's certain that at least some people among the entire population of America are going to be mentally unstable, and since it's also sure that at least some people among the overall population are going to have some sort of vengeance with some other people [for whatever reason], and so on, plus if all or most of America's population owns a gun/pistol/rifle, then it becomes quite natural that at least a fraction of these angry/disturbed/enraged/violent people are going to pick up their guns and actually use them on others. It's as simple as that.

Possibility - could terrorists use pressure difference to explode something in the cargo hold of a plane

I wondered about this dangerous possibility when the other day I saw this message on the box of a deodorant I received from Amazon - "DO NOT SHIP BY AIR".

Could terrorists improvise some sort of explosive that works by exploiting the pressure difference between the interior of the improvised device [high pressure] and the outside atmosphere [low pressure]? Can this explosion be strong enough to damage, and thus bring down a commercial airliner? This concern is especially important considering a lot of things - deodorants included - are allowed in the checked baggage.

A fighter specially designed to escort the plane of a head of state - with pre-programmed missiles

Suppose Xi Jinping is flying to the US to attend a UN meeting. We all know that America's CIA is one of the most evil and nefarious organizations in the world. It certainly keeps making plans for assassination of those heads of state who do not bow down to American dictatorship on the rest of the world.

How can Xi Jinping create enough of a deterrent so that CIA/US doesn't attempt to assassinate Mr. Jinping while he's in the air, and make it look like it was an accident?

One solution is to escort his presidential aircraft with several, say four, long-range fighter jets armed with precision cruise missiles. Let's assume that these fighters won't need mid-air refueling, so they can accompany Mr. Jinping's aircraft throughout the flight. The fighters would escort the plane up to the point where international airspace ends and US sovereign airspace begins.

Further, the missiles on these fighters will be pre-programmed with specific targets inside the US. In the event that the presidential plane or the fighters are attacked/destroyed, the missiles will start their journey towards the pre-programmed targets on US mainland. This certainty of a second strike will deter the CIA/US from being too adventurous in their evil planning to assassinate Mr. Jinping.

WhatsApp should be used to send one-time password to users who are roaming internationally

When you're abroad, you normally can't [easily] receive one-time passwords needed to carry out many/most financial transactions online. The solution is quite simple. Banks should have their own verified WhatsApp accounts which send out OTP to customers who are traveling internationally, so that the problem of not being able to receive OTP in another country is solved.

I really like the instrument periscope

I find periscope just brilliant. You can fire or watch fearlessly without directly being in the line of fire. Marvellous.

If the shootdown of the Russian fighter was indiscriminate, Turkey should face severe repercussions

At this point it isn't clear if the Russian Su-24 violated Turkish airspace. Turkey claims that the fighter did violate its airspace [and that it was warned several times before the shootdown], but Russia claims that the plane was "strictly" within Syrian airspace. Of course, both sides probably have some sort of evidence.

Even though I spent my honeymoon in Turkey, I strongly feel that if this shootdown of the Russian fighter jet was indiscriminate, reckless and wrongful, then there should be immediate and severe military repercussions for Turkey from the Russian Federation. Let it be known to the pet animals of Western imperialist nations that Moscow has not, does not and will not bow down to intimidation. 

And that a slap will be returned by a punch.

Related coverage here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

UPDATE [NOV'15]: It's possible [rather likely] that the US was behind this shootdown. It knew the flight path of the Russian fighter-bomber and likely shared the flight coordinates with Turkey as part of a well-planned ambush of the Russian Su-24 plane.

A lot of profit generated by family-owned SMEs gets used up in fixed assets such as machines

This thought is related to this other thought about family-owned SMEs in India. The point here is that a large portion of the profits generated by a business don't turn into disposable/spendable income for the business owner, as these are put back into the business and become "locked" forever in the form fixed assets like machines, pillars, walls, other equipment, etc.

The portion of profits that's used to buy these fixed assets never comes back to the business owner, and hence practically gets "lost" for the owner [his future generation might get to enjoy it]. Now, numbers need to be run in order to find out if the additional income that results [in the future] from this money put back into the business outweighs the temporary loss of disposable/spendable income. Only then can it be ascertained whether a business owner really gets to enjoy all/most of the profit that his business generates, especially compared to a purely trading-based business in which profits don't get locked in fixed assets.

Nestle should've waited before burning Maggi - it could've distributed Maggi to the underfed

Nestle hastily burnt anywhere between 27,000-29,000 tons of Maggi in India, worth about INR 320 crore [link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4] even as it claimed in parallel that Maggi was safe. That's approximately 2,80,00,000 kg of Maggi, or about 28 crore packs of 100 g Maggi packing. This WSJ story given an even higher number - 40 crore packs.

Had Nestle waited a little before incinerating this incredibly-large number of Maggi packs, it could've saved all those packs [since Nestle eventually got a go for Maggi], and could've provided two packs of Maggi per child to 20 crore hungry and poor kids in India. How good this would've been!

Aeroflot's switch to Western planes is a key factor in the demise of Russian aircraft manufacturing

Instead of buying Western planes, Aeroflot should've leased these so as to be able to get rid of these once issues in domestically-made aircraft got solved. It should've simultaneously pressured and consulted Russian manufacturers to produce overhauled/refined/updated versions of their existing aircraft as a short-term solution and all-new, world-class aircraft as the long-term solution.

Aeroflot's switch to Western-made planes [link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4] has been one of the major factors in the demise of Russia's aircraft manufacturing industry. Aeroflot shouldn't have switched completely to foreign-made planes. It should've retained at least some Russian-made planes [perhaps the Tu-204 or An-148] and should've maintained these well.

Update [2-May-19]: There's another, completely opposite way to look at the effect on Russian passenger aircraft manufacturing of Aeroflot's switch to American and European airliners. Could it be that the switch to Western planes is actually eventually helping Russian passenger plane manufacturing? One might ask how. Had Aeroflot not made this switch, it would most likely had not thrived the way it has, and most likely today it would've been a tiny fraction of the giant it is now [thanks to its timely switch to Western airliners]. Now that it has grown into a very large international airline spanning the skies across the globe, it is in a powerful position to support the Russian aircraft manufacturing industry by gradually inducting Russian planes. Further, now that it has full experience with high-quality Western passenger planes, it can actually positively guide the development of new Russian planes, and can also make the right demands for quality and features to Russian plane designers and manufacturers. This wouldn't have been possible had Aeroflot not made the switch.

You don't have to be the worst airline in the world to have the reputation of the worst airline

Over the last few days, I've read several articles about Aeroflot, in both Western publications such as NYT [link 1, link 2, link 3] and on other news websites. One thing I've consistently noticed is that while statistically, Aeroflot was either as safe as US carriers or at least well above the world average in terms of safety [depending upon which time period we refer to], its reputation was markedly poorer than its actual safety level. Everyone would make fun of Aeroflot as well as Russian-built aircraft, to the extent that it became a habit and maybe an obsession for both the Western public and for the Western news media complex, without paying heed to the actual quality/safety of Aeroflot.

This raises an important point. Can you be demonized in the hearts and minds of the world's peoples - for whatever objective or reason - without you really having to be a demon? The answer seems to be yes. Whether as a result of well-planned but covert attempts by the government, or as a result of the collective hatred of a populace for something, demonization can occur, especially if this populace happens to command significant influence [say via dominance of media] on other people.

Actually safety numbers be damned, Aeroflot started to be assumed as the least safe, and that's what started to matter. The perception, not the real truth, matters.

Is it possible that immigration of intelligent individuals into the US is resulting in a superior gene pool there?

So many bright, intelligent individuals from all over the world have emigrated to the US over the past century, and more keep getting added each year. This movement is an alarming intellectual drain on many nations, including India, China and Russia, and results in double relative benefit for the US - its adversary, for example, gets stripped off one smart man [-1], and the US gains that smart man [+1], for a double net relative effect [+2].

But could this movement of intelligent people into the US lead to accumulation of a superior gene pool in the US? Is it possible that as a sub-species of humans, Americans could start to have a more intelligent gene pool compared to the random distribution originally made by nature? If so, this could give Americans a significant advantage in all things compared to peoples of other nations, since intelligence is the bedrock of humanity.

Will this endless war between Muslims and the West ever end?

The same story repeats over and over again. The West goes to the Middle East, attacks its Muslim populace, wages wars, kills civilians [including women and children], rapes girls and women, loots its oil and other resources, attempts to change its culture, and cloaks all of its actions behind terms such as democracy, freedom, values, responsibility, etc. In retaliation, Arabs from the Middle East organize terror attacks on Western soil and kill as many Western civilians as possible at the first available opportunity in order to get the "get out of our motherlands" message across to deaf Western ears. Not to look weak and also pressured by other Western nations, the attacked Western nation strengthens its wars on the Middle East, and eventually gets more retaliation in return. This cycle goes on and on and has been going on for a very long time now.

Will it ever end?

"National security", "safety", and "security" are the terms most used to justify illegal actions, policies

American government and their propaganda mouthpieces in the US media complex prolifically overuse the term national security in order to justify actions and policies that are criminal and illegal, both by law and by morality. However, America isn't alone. Far from it. Even companies use the safety/security scare card to trick the world's peoples into believing that whatever evil/illegal they're doing should be allowed to happen since it's for the safety/security of people.

Facebook is telling the world that it's protecting Facebook/Internet users in Belgium as well as the rest of the world from cyber terrorists by tracking everyone using its datr cookie. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be as laughable. This is not about protecting. It's only about omnipresent tracking, targeting, advertising, and profits. And it's also about covertly supplying all the collected information to criminal organizations such as CIA and NSA.

Even this SMS I received from Flipkart is basically an application of the safety/security scare card.

*****

Jan'16

The opening sentences of this article on NYT say exactly the same thing as has been said above.

Also see - "I'm increasingly confident that private corporations just cannot be trusted - they will resort to every possible form of cheating if and when they can" [link].

*****

Mar'16

Turkish & Arabic language courses banned for ‘security reasons’ in French town, RT, Feb'16 [link]

*****

26-Apr-17

Donald Trump plans to impose tariffs on steel imported from China under the guise of "national security". So this way you can call anything and everything a "national security" matter because you don't give anyone a forum to question you publicly. Today's it's steel, tomorrow it could be for imports of Chinese-made toilet paper too. [link 1] [link 2] [link 3] [link 4]

*****

27-Apr-17

And now they launch a "national security" investigation into aluminium imports. As said before, they can use this excuse to act like an international thug on practically any matter. [link 1] [link 2]

*****

11-May-17

Alternatives Web browsers banned from Windows 10 S for "security" reasons.

*****

25-May-18

According to Facebook, its owning of several top digital communication platforms/services - sort of a monopoly - is "good for the users" because it keeps these users safe/safer. No talk about how this enables FB to create more accurate/detailed profiles of its users [by following and tracking them everywhere], in order to better target content and ads at these users :)

*****

23-May-19

When the US and UK suffered a humiliating defeat at the UN regarding UK's continued illegal occupation of the Chagos Islands [thus threatening the global legitimacy of US' large military base on Diego Garcia], it resorted to the familiar security / counterterrorism / safety cards to justify its claim over the Islands, rather than refuting the legal reasons why its claims have been ruled as invalid.

"The 116-6 vote left the UK diplomatically isolated and was also a measure of severely diminished US clout on the world stage."

"In London, the Foreign Office stressed the importance of the partnership with the US over the Diego Garcia military base. “The joint UK-US defence facility on the British Indian Ocean Territory helps to keep people in Britain and around the world safe from terrorism, organised crime and piracy,” a spokeswoman said. “As the US government has made clear, the status of BIOT as a UK territory is essential to the value of the joint facility and our shared interests – an arrangement that cannot be replicated.”"

*****

8-Jun-19

US government warns about national security risks from Huawei, and Google warns about national security risks from US government's Huawei ban. Obviously, Google's real aim is to keep Huawei, and thus the world, dependent on Google's Android operating system, and to not force Huawei to come up with own OS, thus ending its dependence on Western OSes once and for all, to severe detriment of Google. One of most upvoted FT comments below:

"You couldn't make this up, Google and US admin warn each others on "national security risks"."

*****

Comparing the public image of Adolf Hitler and Harry S. Truman

• Hitler has an evil image among the world's people, whereas Harry S. Truman does not have a negative image among most of the world's people [he might not have a positive image, but he doesn't have a negative one either].
• This is bizarre, considering Harry S. Truman purposely murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians using atomic bombs, including women and children, only in order to show strength and send a message to both Japan and the Soviet Union, plus to the rest of the world.
• It is at the very least curious that Harry S. Truman does not enjoy an image of a barbaric, bloodthirsty war criminal, at least in the league of, if not equal to, Adolf Hitler. This is most likely a result of massive brainwashing of both Americans and the world's peoples over several decades by American government machinery, supported in no small measure by the sprawling American media complex.
• Any sane person should immediately be able to see beyond the fog of US government propaganda, and note that the dropping of nuclear weapons on Japanese cities was the single largest act of war crimes in the history of mankind.

When your Android tablet constantly listens to everything around, waiting for "Ok Google"

• I saw this totally unacceptable thing on the home screen of my Android-powered Samsung tablet the other day [after I had fiddled with some seemingly-harmless settings, none of which clearly/explicitly informed me that my microphone would henceforth be constantly monitored, and that all audio captured would be sent to Google's servers in real-time to determine if "Ok Google" had been spoken.
• We really, really need offline voice recognition capability, especially for small and frequently-used phrases such as Ok Google. Once it has been determined offline that Ok Google has been said, it is then that online audio processing can be turned on.

Canadian airlines must buy Bombardier's CSeries to save the Canadian aircraft manufacturing industry

It's a surprise that unlike in China and Russia, Canadian airlines haven't flocked to Canada's own baby in as large numbers as they should've, resulting in a project that was promising but is in great trouble today. The flagship carrier, Air Canada, for example, operates dozens of Brazilian Embraer jets but hasn't ordered a single CSeries, which is a sort of a shame. Similarly, both WestJet and Air Transat haven't ordered the CSeries. Only Porter has placed a small, conditional order for a dozen CSeries planes.

Canadian government must softly intervene in the airline industry, guiding Canadian airlines to include a healthy number of CSeries jets in their respective fleets. Only then can the Canadian large-sized aircraft manufacturing industry grow wings and fly high.

Update [Feb'16]: It's good to see that Air Canada ordered CSeries aircraft and thus gave a rightful lifeline to this nice plane. No matter what nonsense Western media outlets pour routinely [and no matter how much Bombardier or Air Canada deny this], fact is that it's not only the Chinese and the Russians who make their airlines use their own aircraft :-)

Update [Dec'17]: Similarly, Japanese government should force Japanese airlines - primarily JAL and ANA - to place sizeable orders for the Mitsubishi Regional Jet. MRJ will eventually be a great jet, but it needs some initial hand-holding to make it fly. Another idea could be that Russia and Japan should buy newest jets from each other - Irkut MC-21 and MRJ. They will both get much-needed support this way, while increasing their level of cooperation, without affecting flow of cash.

Some implications of the growing numbers as well as influence of Punjabis/Sikhs in Canada

• In the short term, secularism/stability in India's Punjab will rise, as the growing clout, influence and numbers of Punjabi language as well as Sikhs in Canada will satiate, to some extent, the radical/separatist energies present in a small proportion of the community, thus exhausting these energies to some extent, which would otherwise have been expended inside Punjab.
• In the long term, however, the prospects for non-Sikh people in India's Punjab look bleak. As the Sikh community will get ever more powerful in Canada, the small minority which houses radical and separatist thoughts will have ample financial, political and other resources to enforce their ideology on the non-Sikh people in Punjab, leading to a decay of secularism here. There might even be attacks here, conducted using Canadian military equipment.
• Also in the longer term, Sikhs probably will outnumber native Canadians owing to relatively higher fertility/reproduction numbers among Sikh women compared to White Canadian women, thus de facto occupying the country, and in a karma sort of way, things will turn a full circle for the Whites, who are actually not true natives.

Fake currency notes end up with the guy who is least capable of clearing them

In my opinion, this is a sort of Darwinian thing. Guy A gets a fake currency note from some random Mr. X. Guy A cleverly passes it on to a guy called B, who is also able to cleverly pass it on to C. This process continues until the fake note comes into the hands of a guy F who isn't clever/smart enough to be able to pass it on to someone. Guy F is the guy for whom this fake note leads to actual monetary loss. Since F was anyway not clever/smart enough [to earn, to protect himself, etc.], this monetary loss is an additional nail in the coffin of his genetic makeup, again in a sort of Darwinian way.

Western's news outlets purposely demonize Russia's aviation industry

• If the airplane in question is from a Russian manufacturer [Tupolev, Ilyushin, Yakovlev, Irkut, Sukhoi, etc.], then irrespective of the nationality of the airline, the title of the news story will emphasize the terms "Russian jet crashes...", "Russian plane crashes...", "Russian airliner crashes...", "Russian airplane crashes...", etc.
• If the airline in question is Russian, then irrespective of the nationality of the actual airplane, the title of the news story again will emphasize the terms "Russian jet crashes...", "Russian plane crashes...", "Russian airliner crashes...", "Russian airplane crashes...", etc.

The latter was most evident this week with the crash of Kogalymavia Flight 9268, operated by an Airbus A321. Every Western media outlet rushed to demonize Russia's aviation sector by emphasizing that the plane that crashed was Russian, when in fact it was not. It was a plane crash of a Russian airline, and the equipment that crashed was European.

 

Whenever there is any Russian connection in a plane crash, Western media's dogs quickly and loudly start barking "Russia! Russia! Russia!" in order to make the world feel like something Russian has crashed, even when the real truth might be otherwise. Russian airlines and Russian aircraft manufacturers are not given names. They're simply referred to as Russian. This is one of the hundreds of ways in which they demonize Russia.

Update [2-May-19]: Just came across this 2015 NYT story on Russia's Aeroflot starting to induct Russian-made passenger airliners. Not unexpected that NYT tries to paint Russian aircraft in a negative light with sentences such as "As Aeroflot folds Russian-made jets back into its fleet, cramped doorways are just one of its challenges.". NYT apparently deliberately didn't compare the size of doors on the Superjet 100 with its competitors/peers [by Embraer, Mitsubishi, Antonov and Bombardier], thus giving an incomplete and distorted message about both Superjet and Aeroflot to its readers. Appears fully intentional and malicious rather than accidental.

Another gem in the NYT story:

"Judging by passenger chatter, the squat, chubby Superjet is not many travelers’ first choice for getting around. “An idiotic plane,” one customer wrote on Aeroflot’s website after taking a flight on the Superjet. “For me, all routes this tub flies are off limits. Once was enough.”"

How did NYT find out the average value of the "passenger chatter", so as to be able to write the average/summary - "...is not many travelers’ first choice for getting around..."? It looks like NYT handpicked the negative comments/reviews in order to present Superjet in a negative light.

Yet another NYT gem:

"The Superjet itself has had safety problems. During a demonstration flight in 2012, the plane crashed into a mountain in Indonesia with 37 aviation executives and journalists and eight crew members aboard, killing everybody. Aeroflot says the plane these days is safe."

No mention that the crash was a result of pilot error, and not the plane itself. Obscene attempt to make readers fear Superjet.

Update [26-May-19]: A fresh, latest example of Western news media berating Russian aviation industry [likely to cause commercial damage]. One crash [probably the first with revenue passengers] of the Sukhoi Superjet and the FT starts to spew dark and grim analyses about the entire Russian aviation industry [notwithstanding the fact that "Great" Britain, with its centuries of worldwide colonialism / imperialism accompanied by unfathomable loot of others' wealth conducted across the globe doesn't have a civil aircraft industry at all - this despite it not having been subjected to a traumatic experience of the scale of the breakup of the Soviet Union, that Russia endured and came out from]. The FT pretends that Boeings and Airbuses don't crash, when it throws in completely unwarranted exaggerations such as "one of the drive’s greatest failures". The FT says "has failed to find serious buyers other than the Kremlin’s own Aeroflot, due to manufacturing and repair concerns.", but doesn't even touch the possibility of the role of malicious geopolitics in Russian aircraft getting few orders. The role of Western sanctions in negative affecting Russia's aircraft industry is not directly noted.

West is jealous of Russia's size and is desperate to break it up

West got its first victory when USSR broke up. Russia continues to be the world's largest country, the way the Soviet Union was, and this fact hurts the inflated ego of the West. They just can't accept that Russia owns a staggering ~11.5% of the world's area, and they would like to break Russia up in several smaller and weaker states.

Canada and Stephen Harper bark unusually loud against Russia

Does anyone care what Canada says or thinks on the world stage? Probably no one. Maybe not even the Canadians themselves. Hence it seems both strange and amusing when from time to time Canada/Harper shout loudly against Russia and Vladimir Putin, as if trying to catch the attention of the world's public and politicians, and as if trying to make themselves feel important and relevant, and perhaps, as if acting on the order of their masters - the US - which wants to carefully "spread out" the rhetoric against Putin/Russia so as to make it look like there is a broad coalition/consensus against Putin/Russia rather than a lone, loud voice of America. America knows all too well that Canadian politicians will be more than happy to receive this two minutes of fame granted by their masters, and thus by making the Canadians do some of the rhetoric, America is able to preserve some of its own diplomatic/political capital.

• A related post by me on FB, Dec'13 [link 1] [link 2]
• A related post by me on FB, Oct'14 [link 1] [link 2]
• Canada Imposes More Sanctions Against Russia Over Ukraine, Feb'15 [link]
• Canada's Harper Warns Russia That G-7 Prepared to Continue Sanctions, Mar'14 [link]
• Canada warns Russia it won't rejoin G7 with Putin in power, Jun'15 [link]
• Canada expands anti-Russian sanctions, calls for ‘real peace’ in Ukraine, Jun'15 [link]

Geotagged photos make revenge porn much more potent, by revealing the precise location of victims

Almost every photo clicked today - whether using a camera, a feature phone or a smartphone - is geotagged. Most likely almost everyone shares these geotagged photos [whether directly using, for example, email, or otherwise using social networking services such as Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.] without knowing or caring about the geolocation information present in these photos. It can be said with supreme confidence that services such as Facebook devour this information hungrily, attempting to serve both content and advertisements that are ever more "relevant" to the user [raising the odds of him spending money and/or ceding control of himself to Facebook/US government, bit by bit].

Geotagged photos will also significantly increase privacy invasions for revenge porn victims [primarily young females], since photos distributed/leaked with geolocation information intact inside will allow precise tracking of these victims.

Facebook photos, posts, etc., can play an important role in income tax investigations

As an example, people merrily post photos, videos, etc., of their foreign and domestic trips on social platforms such as Facebook. Government agencies such as the one tasked with investigating proper income tax payment can obtain valuable information from the stuff posted by people on these social networking websites. For example, if someone has posted a hundred photos of his 21-day trip to South America on FB, but hasn't declared/disclosed the purchase of international air tickets, foreign currency, etc., then these photos can serve as a conclusive evidence against him.

So it seems that governments can, and perhaps will, start using data uploaded to social networking websites for not only criminal investigations, but also for other, less serious purposes.

China is being kept/left behind the US because of, among other things, this

China is being held back because of inefficiency and wastage. Look at how much time, money, fuel and other resources are being wasted in such traffic jams. These people could've/should've utilized this time and this money for either work or leisure. However they did nothing in this time. The fuel spent in this jam did no useful work. And so on. This is not development. This is sheer wastage, and it's keeping China back, although it might seem to profit oil companies.

Is it possible to smuggle a small-sized nuclear bomb to the US via a visiting presidential plane?

Just wondering. Could Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, carry a small-sized nuclear weapon to the US in his presidential Il-96 aircraft, to be secretly handed over to GRU's Spetsnaz assassins covertly operating in the US? I'm not sure if this is possible, but it doesn't seem unfeasible.

Putin could get this done while visiting the US for a UN meeting. He could hand over the package while staying at his hotel.

Update [Dec'15]: Just watched The Peacemaker. Smuggling of an atomic bomb into the US using inviolate diplomatic baggage is also shown in this movie.

NYT and other MSM outlets have used "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" in a vulgar manner

This so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has been a frequently and widely used "source" on Syria by almost every major Western and Western-supported news outlet, including The New York Times. A search on NYT shows that it occurs on no less than 1,715 different pieces of content produced by NYT.

It's a fact that this sophisticated-sounding "Observatory" is run by one man, and even calling this one-man outlet an "organization" is a stretch. Using his information as a primary and key source in hundreds of articles by dozens of major newspapers isn't just irresponsible, it is blatant and malicious propaganda. More so because the major Western newspapers which so frequently quote the SOHR never explain why they trust and use this "source", or how does the SOHR get its information. Western media continues to quote SOHR as if it's a sophisticated and trustworthy source of on-the-ground information on Syria, using sentences such as "...the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported in a statement...". What observatory? What reporting? What statement? The SOHR is actually a one-man blog with zero credibility, unless you're trying to fool hundreds of millions in the general public and dozens of governments.

More disturbingly, the NYT and others can sometimes give the reader an illusion that more than one source is reporting the same news, making the reader feel that the information is likely to be correct, whereas in reality all the roots go back to this one-man blog.

What can one decipher and infer from all of this? Only one thing. That the NYT is fully in bed with the CIA, Pentagon, and others, as a powerful media propaganda branch of these institutions.

Update [24-Oct-15, 24-Nov-14]: More SOHR trash here and here.

Update [23-Jan-16]: More SOHR shit here on Reuters. It's all Western propaganda packaged as authentic news.

Update [23-Dec-16]: SOHR called out as an unreliable [and likely biased] one-man outfit.

Netflix is one of those few online video platforms which can challenge Google's YouTube

In order to successfully challenge Google's seemingly-insurmountable YouTube, at least the following three qualities are needed:

• Massive technology infrastructure to upload, transcode, search and stream user-generated videos.
• Large user base running into tens of millions, which is interested in watching movies/videos.
• A popular brand name.

I strongly feel that among the few contenders that seem to have the ability to successfully mount a challenge to YouTube, Netflix has a prominent position. Its technological infrastructure and capabilities cannot be questioned, considering its existing business. Equally importantly, it has a massive, paying customer base, and this customer base can be used to both upload user-generated videos [like YouTube] and to watch these same videos [either supported by ads or included alongside the customer's premium Netflix streaming subscription package].

Update [9-Jun-17]: Amazon [especially], Facebook [especially], and also Microsoft can mount a challenge to YouTube.

Europe already has a great, European-made alternative to Google - it's called Yandex

Much has been made of Europe's desire [and in particular of France] to have its own Web search engine, to [rightfully] reduce the dependence on America's Google and Bing, for cultural, economic and even national security reasons. Barring one product, there aren't decent European alternatives to American search giants. If dirty politics and foreign policy had not come in the way, the quest of Europeans for a European search engine would have [happily] ended long back at the one exception - the great search engine called Yandex.

Yandex, a powerful search engine from the exemplary computer scientists, programmers, mathematicians and researchers at Yandex LLC [the topmost technology company of Russia] is also available in English [apart from some other languages], and brief usage quickly indicates to anyone that it's a very good search engine.

Europe doesn't need Quaero. What Europe needs is more localized versions of Yandex [French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, etc.]. European nations such as France, Germany, etc., could've setup local branches of Yandex, and could've funded these local branches instead of trying to reinvent the wheel from scratch in the very costly game of Web search.

Update [3-Oct-17]: Qwant is wrong when it says that it is the only European search engine.

Tupolev Tu-144 and Concorde could've had military applications too

The two main assets of the Tupolev Tu-144 [world's first supersonic passenger airliner] and Concorde were their supersonic speed, and the capacity to transport 100-140 passengers. It immediately becomes clear that there's a potential military application here, especially since no contemporary military transport place is supersonic. These two birds, if revived, can introduce the ability to transport men and machines of military to distant places at supersonic speeds, something that's unique to these planes at this moment. There's no other way today to rapidly transport 100-140 men of military that's faster than what these two planes provide/provided.

On a second thought, modified versions of these two planes could also have been used as supersonic bombers [for free-fall bombs, carpet bombing]. Modified versions could've been designed such that these could drop free-falling bombs through a door that would open at the bottom of the fuselage. Similarly, it might have been possible to "drop" cruise missiles such as the BrahMos from such modified-for-warfare planes, assuming that the recoil to the airframe during the drop/launch is negligible.

It's far more easy for Russia to conduct airstrikes in Syria, than it is for US, et al.

The simple reason why it's much more easy for Russia to conduct aerial strikes in Syria, than it is for the West, is that for Russia/Syria, both IS/ISIL/ISIS and the so-called rebels are enemies, whereas the West wants to strike only IS/ISIL/ISIS, and wants to preserve the extremists/terrorists who are opposed to the Syrian President.

As a consequence, the West has to take extreme care when conducting aerial bombing/strikes in Syria. In contrast, Russia, in coordination with the Syrian Arab Army, can strike anywhere where there is armed opposition to the legitimate Syrian government - whether it's from IS/ISIL/ISIS or from the terrorist rebels financed and supported by the West.

Wide rift between Russia and Ukraine is not good for both the countries - it is exactly what the West wanted in the first place

Ukraine has banned Russian airlines [another link], and Russia has reciprocated the measure by banning Ukrainian airlines [another link]. Score settled, right? Wrong. If we look at the broader picture from the above, it is the #1 SSR of the USSR fighting with the #2. Fellow Slav people have become thirsty for the blood of each other. And in this whole process, the real victor is West. Both Russia and Ukraine are losers, as are other SSRs of the USSR. This wide rift between Russia and Ukraine is exactly what the West wanted always, in order to weaken both of these nations, and especially West's perennial target - Russia. West wants to divide Russia and Ukraine on the lines of what Britain did to India and Pakistan [a FB post by me; alternative link].

The West wants to, first of all, break cultural, emotional and legendary historical ties between Russia and Ukraine by distancing these two peoples. Incidents such as Russians walking out when Poroshenko spoke, Ukrainians walking out when Putin spoke, Ukraine banning Russian movies/news channels/TV shows, etc., are, to put in simple words, not good at all. Banning flights, barring trade, imposing sanctions on each other, etc., will together have the effect of creating a rigid wall between these great nations, weakening both of them. Exactly the kind of thing that the West wants to do to Slav people - especially Russians.

UPDATE [OCT'15]: New developments here and here.

UPDATE [NOV'15]: More new developments here and here. Thiese tit-for-tat steps by Russia and Ukraine will, in the end, only strengthen the West and help its nefarious long-term goals.

UPDATE [DEC'15]: More worrying development here [Westernization of Soviet Union's legendary Antonov An-124]. And more Westernization of other Antonov aircraft [at the behest of Western puppet Petro Poroshenko]. Plus frequent and many tussles over An-70.

UPDATE [JAN'16]: The move by Petro "Puppet" Poroshenko to replace Russian language with English is yet another sign of the dangerous rift between fellow Slav people, orchestrated from Washington. This Westernization of Ukraine will weaken the Slav people as a whole.

•  Ukraine not participating in regional events held in Russian territory [link]

Why did China and India order several aircraft and helicopters, respectively, from the US and not Russia?

China/Chinese airlines recently ordered 300 aircraft from Boeing [including both narrowbody and widebody planes], while India ordered several Boeing military helicopters. At this point one is forced to wonder - why did China order 300 passenger planes from the US - it's biggest adversary - and not from Russia, especially when the latter needs all the help it can get at this point? In the case of India, the decision to get even closer to the US is more understandable - shrewd Boeing officials most likely paid bribes to the guys responsible for making the decision, and the Americans thus won the lucrative Indian order.

But what about China? Why didn't China instead order Russia's 21st century airliner, the Irkut MS-21 [MC-21]? If immediate deliveries are a concern, then with such a large order, China could've ordered a mix of Boeing and Russian planes, especially when the MS-21 is expected to be a comfortable, efficient, modern and safe airliner on a par with contemporary Western narrowbody planes. This is hard to understand. China could've single-handedly propped up Russia's legendary but needy civil aviation industry and would've surely secured a two-way win-win deal for both the countries in the process.

I'm pretty confident that if Boeing's Completion Center was a strong attraction for China, Russia's UAC would've also been happy to setup a similar center in China for the MS-21, if it had been promised a 100+ or 150+ order for the plane from Chinese airlines and also the flexibility to export.

Why didn't China help Russia in this time of need?

[UPDATE]: Even more curiously, why does Iran have plans to buy several Airbus/Boeing planes? Why doesn't Iran buy planes from its friend/savior Russia instead [Superjet 100, MC-21, Il-96, etc.]?

[UPDATE]: I just realized that I have little right to complain and protest about China/India/Iran not purchasing Russian passenger aircraft, when top Russian airlines [example, another example, and another] themselves prefer and operate Airbus and Boeing planes. Sigh!

[UPDATE]: China just placed a massive order with Airbus and with Airbus Helicopters. Sigh.

[UPDATE]: And indeed, Iran confirmed plans to buy 114 Airbus aircraft soon. Nothing Russian. Sigh. What's more, this WSJ article says that "Iran keen to re-establish ties with Boeing".

[UPDATE]: And Iran "invites" Boeing for "talks". Sigh.

Update [21-May-19]: The China-US trade war is in full swing currently, and US is punching China with its full might, yet China still won't use its buying power / market power to severely hurt Boeing and give a much-needed boost to the only credible challenger to the Western duopoly - the Irkut MC-21. Sigh!

Update [1.10.21]: These days there's much ongoing talk about the US choking China's C919 program by blocking / delaying American components. What I don't understand is, why wasn't this scenario anticipated earlier by the Chinese? After the ZTE saga, it should've been obvious. Even more so after the strangulation of Huawei. And it isn't like there aren't alternatives - Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Russia, China itself, etc. The de-risking of C919's components should've been done right from day 1. Hopefully the CR929 will be protected from these issues.