Microsoft can't keep selling dinosaur-era hardware in its Lumia phones [COMPACTIDEA]

Intel won by advertising clock speed. People look at numbers. A 1.3 liter engine that's better than a 1.5 liter engine will still be judged by public as "smaller". Public doesn't think intelligently, on average. So people look at specifications of phones. They find 2 GB RAM better than 1 GB, even if the latter phone is faster and can run more memory-intensive programs than the former. Lumia phones, in light of the above, seem both dated and expensive. Microsoft is giving old processors, just 1 GB RAM, low inbuilt memory, etc., in most Lumia phones. How are Lumia devices supposed to be tempting to people? Windows 10 alone can't do it all, especially since the gap in applications continues to be huge. Lower hardware + an OS that lacks applications = why buy it at all? Microsoft should've given higher hardware to make up for the weakness in software. Microsoft is no Apple that it can keep selling a 1 GB smartphone at outrageous prices and profit margins.

The massive war by American newspapers on Donald Trump [COMPACTIDEA]

Every day, doubt-inducing, fear-inducing and Trump-bashing stories adorn the top of NYT - desktop website, mobile website and smartphone applications, complete with poisonous user comments. And these are displayed on the home page longer than other stories! Every day. Like NYT is obsessed with hurting Donald Trump. The same level of scrutiny isn't given to Hillary Clinton. In fact, the only type of stories that compete for space and attention with the anti-Trump pieces and pro-Hillary pieces, which humanize her, fondly detail her childhood, her youth and her struggles, make her seem like a powerful person in the face of difficulties, quietly ignoring to report similarly about Trump. You will never find the kind of pointed, directly attacking pieces that Trump gets for Hillary, and not because there isn't stuff to write about Hillary, but because many big American news media houses are bedding this evil woman.

Update [Oct'16]: It's clear now that wicked NYT has started licking Clinton's/Clintons' very vigorously, without the shame that others are looking. On 09-Oct-16, no less than all of the top nine stories on the homepage of NYT's Windows Phone mobile application were anti-Trump. NYT has likely taken bribes from the Clintons in return for anti-Trump, pro-Hillary/pro-Bill/pro-Obama coverage.

Update [11-Oct-16]: Same thing repeated on NYT's BlackBerry 10 mobile application today. All top eight stories were vilifying Donald Trump. Interestingly, among the leaked emails that detailed Hillary's misdeeds and evil acts, NYT could find only her "Campaign Missteps" to report. The amount of anti-Trump that NYT is applying in simply unprecedented and unbelievable.

An arrogant warning from America to Syrian Arab Republic to stay away, in its own sovereign motherland

The Pentagon issued a blunt warning to the Syrian government after its warplanes struck a Kurdish-controlled region where American military personnel were on the ground.

“The Syrian regime would be well advised not to interfere with coalition forces or our partners,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. - NYT

The sheer irony in this American warning is hard to digest. What bloody right does an Amreeki have to "warn" the Syrian government and Syrian forces "not to interfere" on its own soil? What does America think it is? America would be well-advised to understand that it has invaded Syria, and that it has no fcuking right to be there.

The episode prompted the United States to contact the Russian military, which indicated that its planes had not participated in the strikes, Captain Davis said. American officials urged the Russians to contact the Syrian government with a blunt message: “United States aircraft would defend troops on the ground if threatened,” Captain Davis said. - NYT

“If the U.S.-led coalition think for once that by allowing them into Syrian airspace they can do whatever they wish inside, they are mistaken,” said a post on a Syrian Arab Army Facebook page. The Syrian Arab Army is the land element of Assad’s forces. - The Washington Post

Faysal Itani, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, said it was easy for the Syrian government to avoid bombing large bases, but far more risky to strike areas close to YPG forces being trained by U.S. forces.

"If the regime continues bombing in close proximity to U.S. forces, then simply I think the United States will shoot down the regime aircraft," Itani said. - Reuters

Good that European companies, rather than American ones, dominate the global container shipping business [COMPACTIDEA]

Good to see that there are at least some industries/sectors where Americans don't dominate [and don't figure anywhere near the top either]. Europeans, to be sure, aren't any less cruel compared to the Amreekis, but at least the dominance isn't concentrated in the hands of one devil.

America could never kill the aircraft designer and manufacturer in Japan

America brutally annhilated Japan and the Japanese during World War II. It then tried to perform mastectomy on Japan by writing Japan's constitution, prohibited Japan from becoming a nuclear power, prohibited it from developing and exporting weapons, destroyed aircraft designs created by Japanese aerospace engineers, banned manufacture of aircraft by Japan, and all but brought Japan's aircraft design/manufacturing industrial base to its coffin. But the engineer in Japan lived on [Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation - NAMC].

One acquisition here, one joint project with an American company there, one licensed manufacturing project here [Mitsubishi H-60], one fully indigenous aircraft there [Kawasaki C-1], one aerostructures and components order here, one next-generation leap there. Step by step Japan kept its aircraft design and manufacturing [and aviation engines] industrial base alive and kicking. And can we say that today Japan has resurged in this sector? Surely. To achieve total global dominance, America tried to chop the limbs of Japanese engineers, but it failed miserably [Kawasaki P-1].

Update [5-Jul-20]: US is anxious about Japan doing its next fighter jet X-2 all by itself. It doesn't want Japan to do research on various advanced technologies, and instead wants Japan to directly buy these advanced technologies from US companies, so that Japan's knowledge of advanced technologies doesn't increase, and so that US gains deep knowledge about capabilities of and innovations in Japan's new jet [for both US' military intelligence purposes and also for copying/espionage, to help US companies], and so that updated/upgrades to this plane can be limited and/or controlled by the US like in the case of F-2, and so that US earns billions by selling its overpriced stuff for this Japanese jet, and so that the US retains the critical 'kill switch' ability to remotely down any of these Japanese fighter planes if the situation for such an action arises. Such a "collaboration" will benefit only/mostly the US.

Brazil should rename Brazilian Portuguese to simply Brazilian [COMPACTIDEA]

That Brazil and Brazilians were force-fed the Portuguese language by colonizers doesn't mean that Brazil necessarily needs to keep calling its main language Portuguese, especially since the variant used there is slightly different and is hence called Brazilian Portuguese. Rename it to just Brazilian, and do a symbolic cut-off with the colonial past. Give a snub to the occupiers and more broadly to the Westerners/Whites who've invaded, occupied, looted, enslaved and destroyed numerous countries all over the world.

I don't like it that South Africa and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons [COMPACTIDEA]

I feel this even more for South Africa than for Ukraine. Why in the hell did SA eventually turn into a non-nuclear power despite developing atomic bombs by itself? What a step backward. SA's clout and its importance would've been so much higher in the world today had it continued to possess nuclear weapons.

The funny thing today is that it helps Microsoft to strengthen Apple's iOS, iPhone, etc., against Google's Android juggernaut

Weird as it might sound, Microsoft benefits from a strong Apple against Google. So Microsoft should release amazing applications for iOS and should leave out some of these great programs for Android, thus boosting Apple's iOS ecosystem. Microsoft doesn't want Google to become an insurmountable force through Android's near-total dominance.

Why does turning off the car AC - when its cooling starts to feel excessive - immediately makes one feel quite warm

Happens frequently. Rather all the time. It's summers and you turn on car's AC to cool yourself. After some time it seems as if the cabin is quite cool and the direct cool air coming to your face - which initially felt quite good and relieving - now feels a bit uncomfortably cool. You turn the AC knob and turn off the AC, but you immediately feel uncomfortable and turn it back on. Likely happens with many/most people. Why?

One explanation could be that cool AC air gives both pleasure and pain simultaneously, like two vector forces in opposite directions whose "overall" effect can be abstracted/simplified as one "net" value and direction but which nevertheless act independently. When you're feeling very hot, pain component is close to zero while pleasure component is substantial positive. As you cool down, pleasure component comes slightly down, and as you cool down very much, pain component [or call it pain effect] starts to grow. When pain [or call it displeasure] component becomes meaningful, you feel urge to turn off the AC. As soon as you turn it off, you withdraw both pleasure and pain components. Pain goes away no doubt, but pleasure also goes away and so you immediately feel urge to turn the AC back on.

Or to put it the other way, the moment you turn off AC, ambient temperature gives you pain associated with heat and so you feel urge to turn AC back on.

LinkedIn can become a potent rival to Facebook if Microsoft tries properly

When Microsoft [henceforth MS] announced the acquisition of LinkedIn [henceforth LI], at first I thought - why in the world? But after looking at both the [large] number of users LI has and also the quality of LI’s users [all grown-up professionals], I now feel that LI is one of those very few social networks in the world that have the real potential to become serious Facebook rivals, provided these networks morph into full-blown social networking platforms [others include Skype and Twitter]. It's my genuine fear that FB might become insurmountable soon if a strong rival to it doesn't emerge soon - and existing networks with hundreds of millions of users have the best chance of rivaling FB. New networks simply don't stand a chance due to network effect.

That being said, LI shouldn’t alter/adulterate the core ideology behind LI by adding FB-like features directly to the core LI service. Such a step would corrupt LI's value proposition - the very proposition that makes people have and use both FB and LI rather than shifting to FB alone. Instead, a separate service that relies on LI credentials/identity can be launched which allows these professionals to have fun with photos, videos, animations, games, etc., without disclosing their real LI profile.