It's quite disconcerting that great leaders of past and present have sometimes willingly put their own lives at stake in the pursuit of greatness and success

A good example is the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. As beautifully detailed in this latest Mustard video about the legendary Tupolev Tu-114 turboprop airliner, Khrushchev knowingly and willingly risked his own life by choosing a somewhat experimental and unfinished Tu-114 airliner [instead of the complete  / finished / tested albeit less glamorous Tu-116 variant] in order to make a grand entrance / landing in the US. He wasn't / isn't alone. Great leaders have sometimes chosen to put their own lives at stake in the pursuit of greatness. It isn't always technological confidence or knowledge that drives them to take risk - Khrushchev was no aviation expert [he did carry onboard pretty effective non-technical confidence-building means though - the son of the Tu-114's designer, no less!]. Instead, it's a burning desire to make an impression, to be seen as big and tall, that drives these men to endanger their own lives.

No one should be fooled that risking one's own life is an essential quality for big successes. No one should assume that the so-called "calculated risk" [MBAspeak bullshit] is not going to be fatal because it hasn't been fatal to great leaders. The great leaders that we know about are only those who risked their lives and happened to survive the risk. We never hear about or know about those men who just never made it - whose lives got ended during the risk-taking activity. It's essential to include these dead men in the probability / statistical calculation in order to arrive at a more realistic picture.

Meaning of arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's CFO, and how China should respond [COMPACTIDEA]

In one word, China should retaliate, and should retaliate immediately and forcefully. Immediately arrest one or more American CxO level folks on [otherwise genuine] charges ranging from helping America's illegal global spying operations and also aiding USA's killing of innocents in Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. Let the message spread worldwide. Let the world know the reasons for China's arrests - at least America's murderous wars will get ample news media coverage on the world stage. Let America know that it cannot touch China. The Americans have deliberately arrested a prominent Chinese woman in order to humiliate the Chinese even more, and it'll be better if the Chinese arrested one or more American female executives rather than male executives.

There's now pent-up demand in India for a Bollywood movie similar to Corporate or Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year [COMPACTIDEA]

Both of these movies are excellent. And have been widely praised and loved by the public. But there aren't too many movies like these in Indian cinema. It has been a long time since Rocket Singh, and now a good amount of pent-up thirst exists in the Indian audience for a movie similar to these. A movie that shows the lives of employees - lower, middle and higher level - in both large and small Indian companies.

These two movies quite accurately and comprehensively cover things that totally happen in reality in Indian companies - bullying by co-workers, casual or serious flirting, dreams and aspirations of young folks, hard work, theft of tangible or intangible company assets, jugaad, mistakes employees or interns / trainees make, rough relationship with your superiors, the different types of people that exist in identical job roles, tough life, limited money, frustrations and tensions, fun-filled office parties, female employees sleeping with their male bosses or with their male co-workers to get jobs or promotions, desi slang and also abuses, our obsession with not wasting our petrol, the role of politics and politicians, and so on.

Not championing Russian homegrown electronics, semiconductor, and software industries is a weak point of President Vladimir Putin

President Vladimir Putin of Russia is astonishingly good in so many areas. But one weak area that's very important yet not discussed is that you haven't heard much from him - if at all - about the need for Russia to have strong domestic industrial base in electronics, software, Internet services, communication networks, semiconductors, and the like. It's possible that Vladimir Putin doesn't properly understand "stuff" such as Internet, computers, microprocessors, operating systems, routers, etc., and hence doesn't appreciate their power [compared to visible power of missiles, aircraft and ships]. What I term "strategic technological sovereignty" in these areas is crucial already, and is going to become only exponentially more important, as more and more devices/products become connected, and the civilization needs to be shielded from spying and thought manipulation by Western corporations/nations. Even if this independence comes at the expense of technological parity [meaning thereby that homegrown Russian technology stays a bit behind the latest Western technology], that's a more acceptable scenario than depending on West.

For strategic technological sovereignty as well as national security, Russia needs at least a few domestically-designed microprocessors

Russia has been historically weak in semiconductors generally and microprocessors in particular [though the situation in software is somewhat better]. Near-total dependence on America's Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, etc., is not good at all for the nation. In the long term, Russia needs at least one decent-sized functional foundry inside its borders which both churns out domestically-designed chips at a medium pace, and also manufactures chips with classified / secret capabilities [you can't ask Samsung or TSMC to build these]. In the short term though, Russia urgently needs a fabless chip designer that designs chips based on both x86 and ARM architectures [possibly one SPARC and one MIPS chip too].

The reasons for this are both development of domestic semiconductor industry and also national security. I also mention, what I call "strategic technological sovereignty" as another important reason. As is stopping and possibly reversing brain drain of Russian talent to the West. For government needs as well as mission-critical tasks, only Russia's self-designed processors should be used, and not Intel's or AMD's.

China's Huawei's HiSilicon is such an excellent example of what Russia needs. It designs chips based on standard ARM architectures, and doesn't alter these designs [unlike Qualcomm and Samsung]. This keeps things easy and simple and manageable. China doesn't have to depend on Qualcomm for SoCs for mobile phones. Russia too needs a domestic chip designer. Sufficient domestic demand can be artificially created for this company by making sure that all government computers, smartphones, location devices, laptops, tablets, servers, etc., use chips designed by this company. Like a mutual funds tracks an index, different Russian chips should be pegged to specific Western chips [as if these Western chips were targets to be achieved or beaten], and attempt should be made to at least equal the Western chips in terms of price, durability/quality/reliability and specifications. Over time, the Russian public can be encouraged / nudged to prefer domestic chips rather than US-designed ones, particularly when Russian designs become broadly equivalent or superior to their Western brethren.

Update [9-Oct-18]: I just read this very long and fascinating article on Bloomberg, and realized how well-timed my blog post was. This article strongly reinforces the idea that Russia needs its own chips, its own code, and its own men working on its own machines. No one else can be trusted.

When China acquires Taiwan, it will get access to many high-end technologies that it has been trying for a long time to gain [COMPACTIDEA]

By acquiring Taiwan, China will instantly get ownership of such gems as TSMC, MediaTek, Foxconn, as well as several dozen well-known and established computer hardware companies with large product lines and significant sales. The Made in China 2025 plan will get a significant boost from inclusion of Taiwanese companies, their research, their existing and prospective technologies, sales networks, and their partnerships, coming under the ownership and control of Beijing. Ownership of Taiwan is critical to China's 2025 plans specifically, and China's technological self-dependence more generally.

In its relationship with America, India is behaving like that poor man who feels rich, elevated and important when dealing with a high-society person

I feel quite sad when I see multiple news stories these days showing how India is slowly drifting towards America, leaving our trusted friends - Russia and Iran - behind. Among other harmful steps of the Modi government, this one stands among the top worst. India doesn't realize that for USA specifically and Westerners generally, India is merely another pawn on the chessboard through which it wants to maintain and extend its global hegemony. It's very sad that India is foolishly "excited" to be working with, and to be seen working with the Americans. As if this somehow "elevates" India to the level of a more superior country than India is.

Can there be a version of the Airbus A320 aircraft called the R320 - powered by engines from Russia's Aviadvigatel?

I've always advocated that, as far as possible, Russia, Iran, China, etc., shouldn't purchase Western [especially American] passenger planes, so as to not send billions of dollars of their money to the West. But this isn't always possible - at least not until Russia's own Irkut MC-21 and CRAIC CR929 airliners are ready for prime time. Till then, Russian airlines like Aeroflot, S7, and Rossiya are forced to buy Western equipment.

Fine. But two steps should be taken to partially reduce the negative impact of this compulsory purchase of Western airplanes:

1. Buy/prefer Europe's Airbus over America's Boeing. Better to buy A320s rather than Boeing's 737s. Why send billions to the most evil nation in mankind's history?
1. Where possible, buy/prefer Bombardier or Embraer instead of A/B.
2. Try to "Russify" the A320 by partnering with Airbus to produce a version of the A320 with Russian powerplants from Aviadvigatel [PS-90A2 and later PD-14]. To clearly distinguish it from the regular A320, call this one R320.

Why would Airbus agree to such a variant? The answer is orders and money. If Airbus can be convinced that by providing the R320, it can effectively shut out its main competitor Boeing from the Russian civil aviation market, there'll be ample financial and strategic incentive to make such a move. The A320 brand would remain untouched because the name R320 is sufficiently different. Further, if the Russian government or a Russian lessor asks Airbus for a few hundred R320s, Airbus probably won't be able to refuse such a large order for which relatively little customization might be needed [such a large single order will effectively be a pooling of smaller orders from various Russian airlines, collected into a single order placed by a single dominant entity, in order to increase the bargaining power of the buyer].

Update [28-Oct-19]: Something similar can be seen in this recent news story:

"The CJ-1000 is designed for the C919, but is expected to power the Boeing 737 or Airbus 320 or a similar newly built aircraft in the world market by 2025."

Is China thinking of eventually forcing Airbus and/or Boeing to exclusively use Chinese-made engines for the A320s and/or the 737s that are sold in China? This is within the realm of possibility, considering the size of the Chinese market. If China forces Airbus/Boeing to use a Chinese/Russian engine if A/B want orders from China, it'll dramatically reduce the stronghold that the West has on commercial aviation, by removing GE/Pratt/Rolls/Safran from the equation.

Given enough time, all videos on YouTube can get large-looking number of views, thus signaling quality to a user without actually having quality

Since YouTube shows aggregate number of views for every video, the total number of views can go in only one direction - upwards. After "enough" time [without defining the term], even mediocre videos can collect thousands or tens of thousands of aggregate views [the headline number that is shown in search results], thus falsely implying to a user [in many cases] that the video is of good "quality" [where quality refers to the video's pixel resolution in only a small part]. The screenshot below is from such a video - an overall useless video that makes you click it because it has several thousand views and you feel that it should be at least decent.

A possible solution to this problem is to be able to specify to YouTube that "Show me number of views for each video from the last two years only.", or something along these lines. Or you could ask YouTube to also show the "per day views" ratio for each video, so that normalization is possible [one video might be 10 years old, while the other could be only 10 months old].

Under India's GST tax system, filing multiple returns monthly is too time-consuming - it's an unnecessary burden [COMPACTIDEA]

It would've been better if the government had kept tax returns to quarterly intervals - as before - rather than monthly. No real useful purpose is served by making returns monthly [will the government tomorrow ask us to file returns weekly?]. Workload has increased considerably. It's almost like the government disallowing a cheque of INR 10 lakh, and asking us to instead issue 10 separate cheques of 1 lakh each. What could've been filed once every quarter has to be filed three times each quarter. What's the point?

Instead of focusing on production, procurement, quality, sales, marketing, new product development, and infrastructure, businessmen are having to waste their precious time and energy on bureaucratic hassles introduced by the Indian government [the latest being E-Way Bill]. These ministers and politicians sitting in legislative buildings have zero idea of how a business or a factory is run, and yet they get to decide how everyone in India does business. Couldn't be sadder.

Chinese smartphone makers are co-branding their flagship devices with design houses such as Porsche Design or Lamborghini to compensate for low reputation of their own brands

Of course, BlackBerry did this much before [and BlackBerry already was and remains a high-reputation brand].

OPPO wants to sell high-priced and high-specifications phones [because that's where the margins are], but a rich man doesn't want to carry a device branded OPPO. Unless this OPPO also has the Lamborghini branding, to compensate for the "cheap" OPPO branding. Ditto with Huawei trying to sell high-priced flagship devices to the wealthy guys using Porsche Design branding.

Trade between US and Europe based on the theory of comparative advantage could be the reason why America is applying tariffs on imports from China

• America desperately wants to "contain" China, just like it wanted to contain the Soviet Union, and just like it keeps trying to contain Russia, Iran and others.
• Containing China isn't easy at all, primarily due to China's vast size and fast growth.
• America knows that it needs Europe's help to contain China.
• What if US and Europe joined forces in this pursuit, freely trading with each other [add America's vassal states, or so-called "allies" to the mix - Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK, Japan, South Korea, and others], but excluding their adversaries/rivals [China, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela] from this free trade, thus creating huge mutual benefits for the gang as predicted by the comparative advantage theory [naturally at the cost of China and others]. America tells Europe - let us both drop all sorts of tariffs on each other's products and buy from and sell to each other and only each other [especially the buy from part, naturally]. Let us both impose tariffs on imports from China, so that China's exports are severely curtailed [by the way, these so-called tariffs are nothing but a form of sanctions cloaked under a different term that doesn't sound like "sanctions"]. What's more, not only are China's exports going to get hurt, foreign companies manufacturing goods in China both for the local market as well as for global export might want to shift elsewhere, thus hurting China even more.
• Comparative advantage states that even if an absolute advantage exists for a particular country, the overall benefit and prosperity for everyone increases if this superior country focuses on producing only certain goods and lets the other(s) produce the other goods [and free trade takes place]. So, to stop China's exports/trade - which produces wealth and prosperity for China - it appears that America and Europe are banding together.
• It's possible that imposing tariffs on both European and Chinese goods was just a calculated stunt by America. Maybe this was discussed with the Europeans. The Americans wanted to make it look like Donald "Madman" Trump is imposing tariffs on every country, but in reality, they were always going to remove tariffs on Europe, thus leaving the tariffs on only China, without giving the appearance ["optics"] that the tariffs were always only for China.

If only there wasn't pervasive corruption in defence procurement, the Indian Air Force would be so much more powerful

ALSO SEE OID 244Z

• Not wrong to say that when it comes to procurement of military equipment, bribery, corruption and squandering of rare cash on needless "capabilities" are things that are present throughout the world - like an epidemic - irrespective of whether a country is developed or developing [don't fool yourself into thinking that defence spending in an advanced nation like America doesn't involve corruption - there's probably much more corruption in America than in India].
• After centuries of loot by the British [and other Europeans], India is a poor nation and ideally we cannot afford to waste any money. However, as written above, overpriced procurement of fighter aircraft, missiles, tanks, etc., is a widespread phenomenon throughout the globe, and obviously India too has wasted and is wasting its precious money on equipment that isn't the best bang for the buck.
• Examples include Dassault Rafale, Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, Boeing P-8I Neptune/Poseidon, etc.
• India's focus should be on buying high-value aircraft, rather than getting attracted to the most powerful ones [which are usually very expensive and not suited for constrained Indian budgets].
• India's second focus should be on buying Indian-designed and/or Indian-made planes, so that our own aircraft-manufacturing industrial capabilities get evolved [even if this means pains for some years or decades].
• Thirdly, from a geopolitical standpoint, India should also focus on buying fighter jets and other equipment from our decades-old trusted friends Russia and Japan, as well as our other emerging partners from developed and developing countries [Brazil, South Africa], rather than relying on nefarious, opportunistic and unreliable countries such as the US and UK.
• Fourthly, where possible, acquire modern, clean-sheet designs with latest technologies [such as Kawasaki C-2 and Kawasaki P-1].
• Following aircraft seem suitable based on the above focus areas:
• Yakovlev Yak-130, AHRLAC Holdings Ahrlac, Dornier Do 228, Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano, Textron AirLand Scorpion [American but high value], HAL Tejas, Embraer KC-390, Saab JAS 39 Gripen, Saab Swordfish, Mikoyan MiG-35, Sukhoi Su-35, Kawasaki C-2, Kawasaki P-1 [link], Beriev Be-200, Beriev A-100, etc.
• Continue buying existing high-value yet capable planes such as Ilyushin Il-76, Ilyushin Il-78, Sukhoi Su-30MKI, etc.
• This is obviously an ideal scenario. Neither the sellers nor the buyers [Indian ministers] will let "value buying" happen. When everyone wants corruption, it's obviously going to happen.

If not for America's nefarious geopolitics, there's no reason why Iran too cannot become a large hub for global aviation, connecting East, West and more (like Emirates, Qatar, and Etihad) [COMPACTIDEA]

One look at the map of the Middle East makes it clear that if geographic location's "lottery" is the reason why Emirates of Dubai, Qatar Airways of Qatar, Etihad of UAE, Turkish of Turkey, etc., are able to act as hubs in the global airline industry, then there's no reason why Iran too cannot and should not be able to [similarly] become a hub for commercial international flights [also applies to Saudi, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and some others]. It's only the highly destructive and nefarious geopolitical games played by the US that stop Iran from realizing its full potential - geographic, manpower, industrial, and more.

It's a mistake to think that just because China imports a lot less from America than the other way round, America can somehow hurt China more

US exported ~130 billion USD worth of stuff to China in 2017. The reverse flow was ~505 billion. News stories are filled up with analyses / claims / declarations / opinions that because of this huge imbalance - in China's favor (??) - the US has an upper hand in the ongoing US-China trade war [ironically, it's this trade imbalance itself which has caused the trade war in the first place], and that America can somehow hurt China more. The argument is that China can't match dollar-for-dollar the tariffs that the US continues to impose on imports from China [because China imports so little, relatively], and so it'll quickly "run out" of the current Chinese response of imposing matching tariffs on imports from America [once American tariffs cross 130 billion worth of goods imported from China].

Not entirely correct actually. 130 billion is just the direct, visible imports figure. There's another *massive* category of indirect "imports" from America - the locally-made American products that Chinese consumers buy *so prolifically* [Starbucks, GM cars, Apple's iPhone and other iProducts, Boeing airliners, etc.]. Example follows:

"General Motors now sells many more cars in China than it does in the United States...". - [link]

Not sure if America or Donald Trump realizes this, but it's quite easy for the Chinese leadership to *really, really* hurt American companies and thus America by mobilizing its population against American products - whether directly imported or manufactured and sold locally - in the name of retaliation and patriotism. Trump and his team will quickly crumble to their knees under unbearable pressure from Corporate America if the Chinese leadership one day decides to encourage its citizens to vigorously boycott American products and services in favor of goods from German, British, French, Italian, South Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Indian, Australian, Spanish, Mexican, Russian, Swiss, Swedish, Canadian, and other developed / powerful nations' companies. The point behind listing the names of these nations is that there are many other developed or otherwise large / consequential countries in the world which'll be more than happy to provide substitutes for American goods and services.

America shouldn't overestimate its power, or underestimate a mighty country like China's. The eras of America hegemony, and of abuse of the rest of the world are ending fast.

Update [May'19]: A comment on a FT article.

Russia must seize the moment - the 2018 FIFA World Cup - and convert each of the foreign visitors into a psychological soldier who will forever speak good of Russia

Western news media is vile. They report selectively. They don't report stuff that doesn't fit their agenda, their goals [which is basically promoting the imperialist foreign policy of their home nations]. They act as a middleman between those leaders/rulers who they want to demonize, and thus general public - thus presenting a highly distorted image of the leader/ruler to the public and making him a sort of demon in their eyes. They don't allow you to see or hear him directly - lest you see clearly that Western media is lying. This isn't very different from a man-in-the-middle attack.

Russia must fully utilize this moment it has got - the FIFA World Cup - to send back home "soldiers" who will speak well of Russia. Russia must convert the foreign fans and visitors who have come here for the games into Russia-lovers who will, for their entire lifetimes, spread positive messages about Russia and attack Western media's false reporting. Russia has got this moment where it can speak directly to the people of the world - right here in Russia - completely bypassing Western media which doesn't let Westerners directly see or hear Russia/Russians.

The logos of Hyundai and Renault are fundamentally and absolutely uninspiring, and need to be changed [COMPACTIDEA]

This thought is originally from Jan'16.

The issue with logos of Hyundai and Renault is that these aren't artistic or tasteful. These very "ordinary", school-grade logos might have been fine for these two companies when they were small, but today these low-class logos are actually hurting these companies and becoming an impediment to the companies acquiring a premium image in the hearts and minds of the public. Further, these logos are so immature that they can't ever "grow" into premium logos in your mind.

In contrast, look at logos of Alfa Romeo, Lister Cars, or BMW's M. So artistic, elegant, tasteful, and you feel that they're premium even without knowing about the brand.

Bizarre voting seen for FIFA 2026 bids - no logical explanations visible [COMPACTIDEA]

While I had expected and predicted that the United 2026 bid would win, I hadn't expected the following weird votes.

• America was able to successfully milk votes from many of the nations it has destroyed or helped to destroy - Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, etc. Was this because there are puppets here or was it because of covert threats?
• Why does American Samoa get to vote when it is among the "unincorporated territories of the United States". US territory voting for US?
• Several African nations didn't vote for their fellow African brother Morocco - Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc. Was this out of fear of Trump, or maybe some sort of intra-continent rivalry?
• Several Muslim nations didn't vote for their fellow Islamic brother Morocco - Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, UAE, etc. Was this out of fear of Trump or religious differences?
• Taiwan ["Chinese Taipei"] voted for Morocco? It's supposed to be a vassal of America!
• China voted for Morocco, yet Hong Kong and Macau [both of which weirdly get to vote separately] voted for America and Morocco, respectively??
• Russia for America???
• Venezuela has been literally destroyed by America, and yet they voted for America???? Are these people fools?

Quick thoughts on Kim Jong-un's air travel to Singapore [RAWDUMP]

• Good that he flew on an Air China plane. US won't dare to shoot down a Chinese plane.
• Especially not the one that carries the Chinese Premier or Xi Jinping himself.
• Also good that he also flew two of North Korea's own Ilyushin planes [Il-62M and Il-76] to Singapore. Creates uncertainty about in which one he might be [raises safety], and also increases his prestige.
• Use of prestigious Chinese plane for Kim's flight - in particular the one that the Chinese Premier or Xi Jinping himself uses - raises rather than reduces Kim's prestige.
• Arrival of multiple planes from both China and North Korea decently balances the power that's projected by the arrival of American planes.
• Presence of Chinese aircraft sends a clear message to US and to the world that China is very much involved and present in this summit.
• Kim Jong-un must never give up his nuclear weapons else will be certainly meet the fate of Saddam and Gaddafi, or maybe worse. He must understand, remember, and continually remind himself that Americans and some of their so-called "allies" are among the worst scum our planet has. They're bloodthirsty monsters without souls who can keep killing and destroying endlessly to grab resources and power.
• Russia too should've sent one or two aircraft in support of Kim Jong-un, and to show what West calls "solidarity". The presence of massive Russian Il-96 and Il-76 airplanes would've raised the prestige of both North Korea and Russia, and would've made America look weaker and more isolated. Or maybe Russian and Chinese fighter jets could've escorted the Air China aircraft - again, this would've sent a clear message.

Why doesn't Flipkart sell Domino's pizzas, movie tickets, bicycles, bikes, mopeds, and even flight tickets, hotel rooms and train reservations?

The broader point here is that Flipkart has that immense "footfall" every seller craves for. And there are some product categories that seem like Flipkart can quickly and easily add these to its online store to further monetize this footfall. In particular, products that are more "fixed/standard" and whose prices are more or less constant [like pizzas or garlic bread or movie tickets] are even easier for Flipkart to sell than, say, dynamically-priced airline tickets [whose prices are fetched in real-time from global reservation systems]. It should be quite easy for Flipkart to collaborate with Domino's or Pizza Hut [or both? Or is collaborating with only one more profitable?] to create a sort of dedicated "store-within-a-store" where Flipkart users can quickly and seamlessly order food stuff for home delivery or manual pickup. It should even be possible to "gift" a pizza to someone sitting anywhere in India where this service is available. The possibilities are endless.

Many of Japan's high-tech industries and companies are in ill health - so they're up for grabs by China and China should quickly milk these [COMPACTIDEA]

It's no secret that developing an end-to-end semiconductor industry at home is China's dream. US won't allow China to buy any US high-tech firm. Europe too is closing its doors. Japan seems like it's still up for grabs. China should acquire as many Japanese microprocessor firms as possible before anti-China laws get enacted [at the behest of America]. Many of the major Japanese firms with high-end technology are in a poor financial state currently, and in great need of Chinese money. Both sides are needy. No reason a marriage shouldn't take place.

Reliance Jio should entirely kill its current shitty lineup of LYF smartphones and resell popular phones of top Chinese and even Korean makers under its own brand [COMPACTIDEA]

Current phones by Reliance's LYF are pure shit. Nothing less. For INR 20K they give you pure horse-shit. Same for INR 10K or 7K or any other price point. At these prices, Chinese smartphone sellers - Huawei/Honor, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Gionee and even Lenovo and Moto/Motorola - simply create magic. Phones such as Redmi Note 5, Redmi Note 5 Pro, Redmi 5, Honor 9 Lite, Honor 7X, Redmi Note 4, Redmi Y1 Lite, Redmi 5A, Mi A1, etc., are pure gold [relatively speaking, at their respective price points, compared to phones from other manufacturers at similar price points], with which no current LYF phone can hope to compete. It's better to kill the entire current lineup of LYF phones. Instead, Reliance should resell popular Chinese phones via its own online and offline distribution channels. Even select Korean phones - from LG and Samsung - offer good value for money and should be resold by Reliance, either as standalone handsets or bundled with long-term Jio subscriptions.

Us Indians trust State Bank of India so much! [COMPACTIDEA]

As I wrote before, many Indians - including me to some-though-diminishing extent - don't trust the name "Reliance" and consider it a "chor". So reading the news story below about the launch of Jio Payments Bank, I was a bit less than confident about the trustworthiness of this "bank" until I noticed the four magical words which changed my feelings completely - State Bank of India. Like LIC, Indians blindly trust SBI. And why not, SBI has earned the trust of Indian public.

Fear not our very own Mukesh Ambani - instead, fear these "गोरी चमड़ी वाले" Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Larry Page, etc.

Distrusting, fearing and criticizing Reliance Industries - and more generally the "Reliance" name - and the Ambani brothers is one of the favorite topics of discussion for many Indian people. I used to be somewhat in this camp till sometime ago. Not anymore, after I saw how America's Walmart [and now even Amazon itself] is desperate to gobble up India's Flipkart. Not good at all. These evil  White-skinned Americans will buy everything good we have, and then extort us and milk our wealth and control us and we might become slaves once again before we realize what's going on. Better be Ambani's slaves than slaves of the Americans or the British. That's the logic behind my changed feelings. Ambani's empire will actually help to scare away giant global/multinational corporations intent on owning the Indian "trophy". We need to stop these evil companies from controlling us - physically, mentally/psychologically, and financially. More power to Indian conglomerates and to Indian entrepreneurs. We need to buy Indian-grown and Indian-designed products, manufactured by Indian workers in Indian-owned factories and made using Indian raw materials, and sold to us by Indian-owned and Indian-domiciled companies run by Indians. We must not let evil Westerners run the show here. Not after centuries of occupation, brazen loot and slavery, which has resulted in national humiliation, and a national loss of dignity and confidence that lasts in Indians even to this day.

You will almost have tears in your eyes thinking about the condition of the man holding the stick in the photo below. This is what the British did to us. Our History textbooks need to be filled with such photos. The evil misdeeds of the British to us and our nation must not be forgotten. Fire must be lit in the heart of every Indian child, so that we all work to restore out national honor.

For business reasons as well as for geopolitical good of mankind, major smartphone sellers should increasingly incorporate MediaTek Helio and HiSilicon Kirin mobile processors

The underlying assumption here is that for the same or similar performance/specifications, a MediaTek Helio or a HiSilicon Kirin or a Spreadtrum / Unisoc [and though  less likely, maybe even a Samsung Exynos] mobile microprocessor can be had for a meaningfully lower amount of money compared to a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip [sort of like AMD's chips are so much cheaper than Intel's]. It's vital that this world be de-americanized as fast as possible. A de-americanized world will be free from the perpetual wars waged every day by America, and will be a place where killer bombs and missiles don't keep falling from the skies on the bodies of innocent men, women and children. A meaningful step in this direction can be if the use of American products/services is reduced to as low an amount as possible [at any given time], so that whatever money the rest of the world spends goes to other nations rather than to the United States. Samsung [with Exynos] and Huawei [with Kirin] are doing a good job in this regard by using their own chips in many [though not all] of their smartphones, rather than using US-designed Qualcomm chips. But much more still needs to be done. More smartphone companies need to start using non-Snapdragon microprocessors in their phones. Sony, Gionee, Asus and Oppo did launch a few phones with the very good Helio chips, but this shift to HiSilicon and MediaTek [and maybe Exynos too, assuming Samsung sells it to others and sell it at low prices] needs to be accelerated for the better of mankind. Firms such as Sony, LG, BlackBerry, Lenovo, HTC, Moto/Motorola, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, Xiaomi, ZTE, Nokia, Asus, Meizu, Gionee, and others must increase the proportion of phones that use these "alternative" chips to break the business of Qualcomm and thus America. And this isn't only political or geopolitical - it's also great for business. Money saved on the SoC can be used to boost either profits or marketing or the other specifications/features of the devices, thus making them more attractive. It's an overall win for the world, and frankly the Chinese government needs to gently and quietly nudge its huge smartphone companies to do this quickly [and frankly it's a shame that most of the major phones coming from China's top smartphone companies - one example being Xiaomi's Redmi Note 5 Pro - continue to use American processors rather than the equally-capable or maybe better processors from fellow Chinese brethren].

Made in China seems to be moving in the direction of Made in Japan and Made in Germany [COMPACTIDEA]

It seems like China's homegrown manufacturers are now beginning to produce products that are very good in quality. An industry in which this can be observed rather clearly is smartphones, where Chinese/Taiwanese brands such as Huawei/Honor, Xiaomi/Mi, Vivo, Oppo, OnePlus, Lenovo, ZTE, Gionee, HTC, Meizu, etc., now manufacture and sell phones that are in no way inferior to stuff coming from American, Korean or Japanese brands. In fact, Chinese/Taiwanese brands are actually pushing the innovation envelope. If, as a country, China keeps focusing on customer-centered innovation, cost-control, quality, and after-sales service, the time when Made in China becomes as respected as Made in Japan or Made in Korea isn't far.

Airbus is switching to a Cloud-based American product - Google's G Suite - Is Airbus out of its mind? [COMPACTIDEA]

I actually couldn't believe my eyes when I read that Airbus - one of the crown jewels of Europe and one of the most important competitors of America in both passenger aircraft and defense/military products - is switching to a Cloud-based service [Google's G Suite] from its current on-premise product [Microsoft Office]. Is Airbus's CIO really such a fool that he's going to put all of Airbus' sensitive communications, documents, emails and other stuff right in the hands of the Americans? Does he really not believe or know that the Americans are going to get real-time access to all of Airbus' data stored in the Cloud? Perhaps this is what the famous British saying “penny wise, pound foolish” means. This CIO will practically outsource his own job to Google to save some money and give away all Airbus data to his competitors. He should be fired without any delay.

Huawei is a giant now, and there are real reasons why America is so afraid of it

Just one read of the introduction summary of Huawei on its current Wikipedia article is enough to thoroughly impress the reader. Huge number of employees, huge revenue, huge profits, vast number of countries served, huge spending on R&D [spread across the world], large proportion of employees engaged in R&D, very wide product portfolio, and so on. In short, impressive in everything it's doing. And it's growing by leaps and bounds. No wonder the US is scared of Huawei. To the point that it's routinely using lame excuses to slow down Huawei's growth [it won't work]. The fear is real. In Asia, Europe and elsewhere, Huawei is stealing business from American competitor companies. Huawei is making innovations which threaten America's current lead in electronics/semiconductor technology. Huawei is earning China truckloads of foreign exchange through exports. And in a way Huawei is also an instrument of China's foreign policy. America is rightfully frightened by Huawei's rapid ascend, but fortunately it cannot and will not be able to stop Huawei's - and China's - rise. America's era is fading away.

It shouldn't be ruled out - it's possible that climate change, global warming, etc., are concepts created by America's CIA to weaken oil-dependent enemies such as Russia and Iran

I'm myself a science and mathematics guy, but I also see pretty well how America's CIA works behind the scenes in unimaginable ways to influence the minds [and ultimately actions] of the world's people, ultimately to harm America's perennial enemies - Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, etc. So when I say that it's possible that contemporary global concerns such as climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, environmental damage, etc., have been created and fueled by pro-US and anti-world agencies of US [chiefly CIA], it shouldn't be labeled a conspiracy theory and quickly written off. Instead, the possibility should be allowed. The CIA has every reason to make people switch from fossil fuels and petroleum to electricity and other renewable sources of energy - it would severely weaken crude-dependent economies of US adversaries such as Russia and Iran, and increase the relative power and dominance of US. What's not to like here?

The modules for Handspring's Springboard Expansion Slot can be thought of as apps installed on a mobile operating system [COMPACTIDEA]

If you think about it broadly, there isn't much of a difference between the hardware modules that were available for Handspring's line of PDAs, and the software apps that we routinely install on mobile OSes such as Android or Windows Phone. The PDA device itself can be thought of as an OS, which provides a platform for expansion. And we insert various hardware modules into the PDA to add/provide specific capabilities. Sounds just like what applications do to an operating system.

British newspapers regularly report news about Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand and South Africa [COMPACTIDEA]

The regularity and interest with which British newspapers cover these former colonies seems to suggest that the hangover of Britain's imperial past hasn't yet gone. By frequently reporting on these nations [both news and opinion pieces, as well as usual British foreign policy propaganda], it appears that British news media is still trying to express or exert some sort of indirect control [or maybe "claim"] over these countries/territories, as if it's still the "duty" or "right" of Britain to stay interested in the affairs of these independent, sovereign countries. British newspapers' coverage of Hong Kong, for example, is quite nasty at times, as if Britain has anything to do with HK.

America likely has, or will have, an eye on Russia's Aeroflot airline - because Aeroflot's use of Russian-built aircraft helps Russia's defense industry too

Just like the vast military-related orders received by Boeing also directly or indirectly help its passenger planes business, use of Russian-manufactured airplanes by Aeroflot also helps Russian defense industry. In light of this, would America be comfortable with the increasing use of Russian-built civilian aircraft by Russia's legendary international airline Aeroflot? The loss to America is double - lost revenues/profits at Boeing and significant financial support to the Russian defense-industrial base. 

When Aeroflot's CEO makes statements like the one below, he obviously exposes his company to scrutiny by anti-Russian American hawks:

"In today's geopolitical context we believe it is essential that there is competitive Russian-made technology, and that it is of the highest quality and competitively priced. For this reason our partnership with Rostec, our largest partner and a shareholder of Aeroflot, is of critical importance." - [link 1] [link 2]

Vladimir Putin could secretly be baiting America to bankrupt itself by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear weapons that won't ever be used

So many times it has been said that the development costs of the F-35 fighter aircraft are too high. They complain about wasted tens of billions of dollars on this white elephant. And then, all of a sudden, they go out and commit between 1,200 and 1,700 billion dollars for modernization/overhaul of nuclear weapons. In comparison, the complaints about F-35's "steep" costs start looking rather childish. America's military-industrial complex now has its ambitions in the trillions. Billions won't wet the tongues of these big guys anymore. The milking of the public must be in trillions now. But could it be a calculated move by Vladimir Putin? To "force" America to spend trillions on atomic bombs [that won't ever be used]? Perhaps implying a zero return on investment? Thus making America hollow from within and eventually imploding and bankrupting it? If Mr. Putin can pull this one off, it will be one of the greatest contributions to mankind by anyone in the world's history. Just imagine how much peaceful this world will become without America's never-ending wars and bombardments and drones and missiles and fighter aircraft.

Wicked Western technology companies are hurting their rival companies and countries by sending their emails to Junk or Spam folders [COMPACTIDEA]

South Korea should develop national dignity and a national identity instead of always licking America's dirty bottom [COMPACTIDEA]

South Korea should stop being so womanly all the time. It always bends down too much for the US, as if feeling no shame in publicly admitting that it considers America its master, which can whip it as it pleases. When South Korea gives out such statements, it's the South's own dignity and identity that gets shaken. It appears that the South is always eager to please America [and also to not offend it in any way]. This is too girlie and not befitting of an economic, manufacturing and technology powerhouse. South Korea shouldn't think that there's no world possible without America. There is. And it's actually a better world.

Airbus is prostituting itself and endangering its future in order to save its flagship A380 program - but it isn't the only one doing this [COMPACTIDEA]

This is somewhat similar to what Russia is being forced to do, most unfortunately. Airbus is desperate for the survival of its flagship A380 program, and in its desperation it's doing what a prostitute routinely does - sell her body, her mind and her dignity in order to make money for her survival. That's the harsh truth about the so-called "industrial partnership" that Airbus has offered to China for the A380 airliner. This uncomfortable reality - that the A380 has been converted into a sort of industrial prostitute - has been nicely packaged into sophisticated sounding phrases such as "industrial partnership" by cunning MBAs who are naturally concerned with only their own jobs and care least about the future of the iconic company or of Europe. China will quite obviously and rightfully milk as much know-how and technology as it can from this "partnership" in return for throwing airplane orders at Airbus, and it'll help them advance at a higher pace in their domestic aircraft programs such as the C919 and CR929.

Good for Asia and good for the emerging world order!

Non-English nations like Iran and China must take steps to reduce and eliminate the cultural infection that comes with the English language

ALSO SEE OID 226Z

I say this as someone who is fluent in English. When a majority of the youth of your nation knows English fluently, some terrible things start to happen:

1. They start using the English language for daily conversations, leading to a gradual rot of their native language. This use is usually considered "prestigious", due to the historical colonial dominance of the world by the British.
2. Many native words start to get replaced by English words, thus corrupting the native language.
3. The youth's minds experience a "cultural invasion" from English movies, TV shows, etc. These audiovisual pieces of content introduce them to culturally, morally, religiously and socially harmful and corrupting concepts and practices that are widespread in countries such as US and UK.
4. They start to read the propaganda that is the bulk of English-language news media - whether it be about how this media portrays certain countries of the world, or how it spins the world's events. This can negatively affect the thinking and ultimately the actions of a country's youth and its people.

All that being said, it is unfortunately true that English is widespread in global business and trade. It is therefore essential to carefully "balance" a country's needs for global commerce with maintaining a country's cultural heritage, traditions and overall national identity.

How can this be done? One good way can be by diversifying. Let's take the example of Iran. There are - fortunately - many countries in the world that play a key role in global trade and commerce [or are upcoming giants] and are still not fully infected by the virus that is English. South Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Turkey, and South America [taken collectively] are some of the examples. Iran should cultivate speakers in the native languages of these non-English powerhouses using a fixed/forced quota system, whereby alongside Farsi/Persian language for all, some pupils are taught French, some are taught Russian, some Korean, some Turkish, some Spanish, some Arabic, and so on [as the second language]. This will ensure that no single non-Iranian language dominates within the Iranian people, and so the Iranian people will always communicate with each other in their native Persian. And yet Iran will have a good number of speakers in various other languages, and these folks will enable direct global trade as well as international diplomacy with powerful global nations without the need of English language. Diversification of citizens' second language can be a powerful tool by which nations can get the beneficial aspects of knowing other languages while preventing psychological corruption of their people's thinking.

The relation between accessibility features in products and services, and the lack of software applications for less-popular operating systems

It might seem at first that there's no connection, but there is. When we ask private corporations to wholeheartedly put accessibility features into their products and services, we're asking them to do things which aren't profitable for them. These companies publicly emphasize their "deep commitment" to making their offerings accessible to all, but privately it's an unnecessary cost for them and they grumble about it. Why? Because the number of users with such needs is low-enough to not make the expenses profitable.

Think about desktop and mobile operating systems. Platforms such as Windows 10 Mobile, BlackBerry 10, Linux, and others have a low market share. So very few companies release their applications for these OSes [even though all three of these, and many others, are excellent operating systems]. There's an analogy here - we're asking the same companies which don't support excellent operating systems [because the number of users is low] to make their products/services usable by those with disabilities [here too the number of users is low per product/service, even if not on an aggregate basis]. The difference here is that supporting the disabled makes for good PR [and there might even be laws requiring you to make your products accessible], but there are no laws and no PR losses if you don't support, say, Symbian. That's why we see the difference in how companies behave in these two otherwise analogous cases.

Narendra Modi isn't good but there's no alternative to him at present - it's a golden opportunity for Rahul Gandhi to prepare and establish himself

Forget the jokes people throw at Rahul Gandhi. Puny people will keep doing such things. Some people say that Narendra Modi is so widely and deeply established in Indian politics that there is and can be no credible challenger/opponent to him. This situation might seem bad for Rahul Gandhi at the first sight, but it's actually a blessing, an opportunity. The brutal power of time will ensure that sooner or later Modi is eventually kicked out of Indian politics, and someone will have to succeed him. Rahul Gandhi should take advantage of the lack of credible opposition/opponents at present and prepare himself for the inevitable near-future time when Modi leaves. The opposition-vacuum then will make it easy for a well-prepared Rahul Gandhi to quickly insert himself into Indian politics and take the crown jewel. Don't underestimate or mock Rahul Gandhi. He's young and this is his biggest weapon against Narendra Modi - the force of time will soon wear out Modi and Rahul might be the only choice then.

South Korea should actually admire that fellow Korean blood created such advanced nuclear weapons, rockets and missiles [COMPACTIDEA]

Just a passing thought. No matter how high the tensions between the two Koreas, in reality the South should have a secret admiration for the technological achievements of the North. Atomic bombs, hydrogen bomb, rockets, ICBMs, hacking/malware, and more. The South might be far more advanced in most other sectors, but it's the North that has made its mark in the defense/military sphere. Fellow Koreans they all are. The same blood. Brethren. Should love each other and admire each other's achievements.