Why Google's driverless, self-driving cars are really a big deal - some important reasons and thoughts

• Uber is worried about Google's cars, because driverless, self-driving cars are both a threat to and an opportunity for Uber. A startup using such automated cars could usurp Uber because its drivers - the software - doesn't need sleep and doesn't fall ill and doesn't go on a strike. There's opportunity here too - such automated cars could work 24x7x365, quickly and efficiently transporting men and goods where needed. The larger/wider the network, the lesser the distance/time when these cars run idle, and the higher the utilization that generates revenue. Game-changer is a small word.
• Apple [and also Samsung, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.] is worried about Google's cars because it knows that a significant proportion of any person's time is spent commuting inside a car. Google's cars, which won't have to be driven manually, naturally will keep the occupants occupied by serving them all sorts of context-sensitive/local/targeted ads and other content [audio/music, movies/videos, photos, news, etc.], and also by taking care of their emails, calendar, phone calls, searches, payments, and so on. Inside a Google car it'll naturally all be done by Google [and all of it will be monitored and recorded for analysis], thus tightly locking the owner(s) into Google's ecosystem and thus also progressively making Google's services better, more focused and overall more relevant/useful [and thus insurmountable after a point].

What an irony - Yahoo has a lot of users/visitors but no useful services, while OLX, Quikr have useful services but have to pay to acquire users

It intrigues me that established/veteran powerhouses such as Yahoo [especially] and AOL [to some extent] have a lot of regular users/visitors - numbering in millions - but neither of them has even a single new-age, innovative product/service in its portfolio. For example, in the last few years, India has witnessed an explosive rise of services such as BookMyShow, Flipkart/Snapdeal, OLX/Quikr, Ola, MobiKwik/Paytm, Zomato, etc., but there has been no such cutting-edge product/service from Yahoo India. Does Yahoo India have no idea incubator/startup incubator lab which gives wings to those creative guys who have the idea and the zeal to launch a new, innovative venture [drawing on the established user base of and funding from Yahoo India]?

In contrast, look at the startups. They're - and this includes OLX, Flipkart, Ola, etc. - literally burning money in order to acquire customers. These startups have the catchy ideas and the zeal, but are short on cash and customers.

What an irony.

Update [Feb'16]: It's of course painful to see Yahoo shutter product after product ["Product Prioritization"], including seemingly important/innovative ones like Yahoo Maps and Yahoo Pipes.

Artificially increasing friction and hassles in online financial transactions in the name of customer safety isn't good

I don't have any problem with Indian banks adopting a mandatory delay before money can be transferred to a newly-added payee [likely at the instructions of our RBI], in the name of safety. However, I do have a problem with banks not allowing this even to folks who are willing to assume all the risks upon themselves. For example, I'm willing to tell my bank that it should allow me to transfer any amount even to a newly-added payee [and also that I should be able to instantly activate a new payee, rather than having to wait for 30 minutes], and that I take upon myself any financial fraud risk this brings. But banks won't allow this, thus artificially making the online process slower and more cumbersome than offline methods [like issuing cheques].

On the use of the term "probably" by the inquiry into Alexander Litvinenko's killing, and later its nefarious extrapolation by Western media

Is it responsible for a judge to use the word "probably" when giving out a judgment, while admitting simultaneously that there's no solid evidence to support the accusation? I haven't seen the use of this term by a judge before. Courts/judges either convict an accused, or announce that there isn't sufficient evidence for conviction. The fact that the British inquiry's judge used the word "probably" leads one to conclude that, in the face of an absence of evidence, this report's conclusions are politically designed and motivated to effectively blame and defame both Vladimir Putin [in particular] and the Russian Federation [in general] for the death/killing of Alexander Litvinenko.

As usual. And as always.

Evil Western media and media from Western allies such as Qatar, as expected, has quickly extrapolated the already-misused term "probably", and taken it to a whole new level of anti-Putin propaganda with obsessive, round-the-clock reporting on this inquiry - directly blaming President Putin for the killing and demonizing him like seldom before, as if the inquiry had directly convicted Mr. Putin rather than assigned a [questionable] qualitative probability. Al Jazeera America's anti-Putin piece [link and screenshots below] is even more poisonous than the Polonium-210 used to kill Mr. Litvinenko. Similarly, dumb Indian media which republishes Western stories has spread out these propaganda pieces to Indian audience. And so on.

This is the same Western media that has forgotten that America and Europe [and Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Blair, Sarkozy, etc.] definitely approved the barbaric and murderous wars in Iraq, Vietnam, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere, killing millions upon millions, with full knowledge and desire of the Western leadership. The level of anti-Putin and anti-Russia sentiment in these so-called advanced countries is simply disgusting. Western media is emphasizing the "murder of British citizen on British soil" point. Where were these dumbasses when Americans and Europeans were merrily slaughtering Iraqi citizens on Iraqi soil and Syrian citizens on Syrian soil and Libyans citizens on Libyan soil and so on?

The statement of Mr Litvinenko's widow, Marina, is noteworthy: "the words my husband spoke on his deathbed when he accused Mr Putin have been proved by an English court". Wrong, the court didn't prove anything. Foolish journalists who are "reporting" that the court has somehow "proved" something and the general public need to know the difference between "probably" and "definitely". These illiterates also need to be reminded that the court/inquiry has itself admitted that there's no solid evidence to support the court's/inquiry's claims.

• Al Jazeera America: Putin’s murderous record can’t be ignored [link]
• BBC: President Putin 'probably' approved Litvinenko murder [link]
• Bloomberg: Putin 'Probably' Approved Litvinenko Murder, U.K. Judge Says [link]
• DW: Opinion: Litvinenko report - Essentially a verdict against Putin [link]
• DW: Getting away with murder [link]
• DW: UK judge says Putin 'probably' approved Litvinenko killing [link]
• Notice how this article nefariously - albeit predictably - switches from the use of the term "probably" in the title to a definite blame in the sub-title: "...British investigation has concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the green light to poisoning former Russian spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko..."
• NYT: Putin ‘Probably Approved’ Litvinenko Poisoning, British Inquiry Says [link]
• NYT: Key Findings From the Litvinenko Report [link]
• NYT: Alexander Litvinenko and the Banality of Evil in Putin’s Russia [link]
• NYT: Mr. Putin and the Poisonous London Tea Party [link]
• NYT: Diplomatic Clash Over Russian Poison Case [link]
• RFE/RL: British Inquiry Implicates Russia, Putin In Death Of Ex-Agent Litvinenko [link]
• The Atlantic: The Moment Russia Went Fully Rogue [link]
• WP: The death of a former KGB operative is a reminder of Vladimir Putin’s past life as a spy [link]
• WP: Why would Putin have had a former KGB operative murdered? [link]
• WP: Putin implicated in fatal poisoning of former KGB officer at London hotel [link]
• WP: The stealthy, nefarious way an ex-KGB officer was murdered in London [link]
• WP: With his dying words, poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko named Putin as his killer [link]
• WP: Analysis: Russia’s tone familiar after spy poisoning report [link]

 

***

31-May-19

The same old "probably criminal", "probably violated", "most likely responsible", "almost certainly", and so on. Lowering the threshold of actions, decisions, judgments from "certainly" and "demonstrably" to likely/probably. "Probably" allows nefarious regimes such as USA to start taking retaliatory action, even if it's in contradiction to international law, without being faced with the burden of proof. This "probably" strategy has probably been developed after the Iraq's WMD fiasco. The Americans probably decided that they need to henceforth push language that relieves them of the burden to prove anything.

Russia 'probably' conducting banned nuclear tests, US official says, 30-May-19

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48454680

Russia 'probably' violating nuclear test ban treaty, top US official says
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/29/russia-nuclear-test-ban-treaty-probably-violating-us

Top U.S. military intelligence official says Russia ‘probably’ not adhering to nuclear test ban

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/top-us-military-intelligence-official-says-russiaprobably-not-adhering-to-nuclear-test-ban/2019/05/29/815a1a36-8234-11e9-9a67-a687ca99fb3d_story.html

***

It fascinates me that increase in computer processing power and also network speeds has brought about a resurgence of GIF

GIF [Graphics Interchange Format] was getting obsolete - people were starting to use PNG images and proper videos for things that were done with GIFs. But the meteoric rise in computing horsepower coupled with an equally staggering rise in Internet downloading speeds has given a second life to the GIF format. Heavy GIFs are no longer a problem - they get downloaded in the blink of an eye, and the graphics/processing firepower renders them smoothly without breaking a sweat. Anyone who has interacted with both GIFs and videos on the Internet knows that the lag associated with GIFs is much lower than that with videos proper. GIFs render and play as quickly as regular JPEG or PNG images - there's practically zero overhead associated with them.

The rebirth is fascinating!

It's likely that Al Jazeera America was covertly strangulated and asphyxiated by America

Why? Because America doesn't like outsiders telling Americans anything other than what is supposed to be told to Americans. It's likely that it was covertly told to all current and would-be advertisers that do not advertise on Al Jazeera America [permanent link to current version], thus depriving the channel of vital oxygen, leading to an early death.

Or maybe the American audience is so dumb that they just want to remain surrounded by the propaganda that the vast American media complex has surrounded them with.

Yahoo must kick and throw Marissa Mayer out - it needs serious engineers, not a glamorous fashionista

Two related posts by me on Facebook are here [alternative link] and here [alternative link].

Trusting American technology companies for encryption and private communication is like...

...a young woman trusting a serial rapist with her bodily safety.

Let's always remember this analogy when trying to preserve and protect our privacy and safety/security.

Goodbye Google Chrome (and Comodo Dragon), hello SeaMonkey (and Mozilla Firefox)

Enough of serving Google's corporate interests and America's foreign policy goals packaged as good-for-consumer-features. Very soon I'm forever going to ditch Google's Chrome browser [and also Comodo Dragon and other technology shit coming from the US] and I'm going to use and prefer both SeaMonkey and Firefox henceforth. Mozilla and Firefox and GNU and FSF and Open Source can be trusted. America, Comodo, Google and NSA cannot and must not be trusted. It's not just likely, rather it's certain that Comodo, Google and other technology companies of USA are all heavily in bed with NSA and other American intelligence/spying agencies. The funny thing here is that they're regularly bedding NSA even if they themselves don't know it :)

A related post I wrote on Facebook is here [alternative link].

 

Who says betting and gambling are illegal in India - there's the stock market!

If you think about it, gambling is gambling when it's done in the way of gambling, and not just when it's named betting or gambling [or a casino]. Just because the Indian stock market is popularly called the share market here doesn't mean that it cannot be [and isn't being used as] a gargantuan avenue for gambling, and that too in a fully legal and organized way. The stock market of India is used by millions upon millions of individuals and firms for gambling, like a lottery ticket, complete with the thrill and unexpectedness of a lottery.

Looking this way, it's actually foolish to say that betting/gambling is illegal or restricted in India. It is practically legal, and dozens upon dozens of institutions provide services, software as well as advice for this type of gambling.