Author: somxlr8

Baltic States – Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia

Baltics, also known as the Baltic States is comprised of three countries including Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The three countries are situated on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. In 1991 the regional governments of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia declared independence from the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics (USSR). Three countries have a collective population of just over 6 million. The three have been one of the better examples which have been progressing well after the breakup of the USSR. Many other former Soviet republics have been suffering the disarray of corruption and political instability. 

In 2002 Baltic countries applied for membership in the European Union (EU) and by May 2004 all the three countries joined the EU. They also gained membership in NATO by March 2004.

It’s truly astounding how the three countries have developed since 1991. None of them were independent since 1940. The three countries had large Russian minorities and many Soviet soldiers were still stationed there. There were no major national institutions and banking infrastructure with a crumbling economy. There was a growing homegrown national moment against the ruling government since the 1980s. The homegrown fronts won the republican parliamentary election against the ruling party in early 1990 and were allowed to govern but with limited power. The Russian president at that time, Boris Yeltsin had not contested their newly declared independence in 1991. The Baltic also witnessed no violence when the three governments had declared their independence.

The three nations also had almost no natural resources, unlike USSR which was resource-rich. They were still in a very vulnerable situation with a small population and no military of their own. Even though the countries were linguistically distinct with different languages, but people in all three countries had the united drive to strive for a better future. The three had implemented reforms with a shared vision. The governments of the three share many policies, ideas, and experiences. The Baltic States also valued their new independence with a lot of enthusiasm and didn’t take it for granted. The other ex- USSR countries often had to ask for assistance from Russian Federation and also formed new alliances with the Russian government. Baltic countries on the other hand tried to stay away from joining the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States. In the subsequent years, all the three countries adopted radical economic policies and Estonia was the first mover and Latvia and Lithuania would follow suit. In 1994 Estonia introduced a flat income tax at just 24 percent and the other two also implemented the policies. Currently, Lithuania has a tax rate of just 15 percent which is one of the lowest. With early and fast deregulation and privatization, the Baltic countries were able to capture a large amount of foreign direct investment. Estonia also radically transformed its public sector with various digitalization implementations and less reliance on paperwork. Latvian and Lithuania’s transformation in this area was not as drastic but after some time both of them followed Estonia’s footsteps.  Transparency International ranks Estonia No. 17, Lithuania 37, and Latvia 42 out of 175 countries on its Corruption Perception Index for 2020. This is a commendable ranking considering they all the three are relatively new entrants to the EU and many other EU countries have lower ranks than the three.

The success can also be attributed to the generous support that the three countries received from the international community and funds granted by the EU, World Bank, and the IMF. In 2008 Baltic suffered from the global economic crisis. The three soon adopted the Euro as their currency to avoid any future liquidity freeze issues that they experienced at that time. The economies al the Baltic rebounded quickly and due to good monetary measures, the three have a very low public debt. Baltic governments have also made swift progress in the Education sector and the three have attained commendable rankings in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Estonia has done a very commendable task in this area with top 10 rankings in many assessments.         

In 2002 Baltic countries applied for membership in the European Union (EU) and by May 2004 all the three countries joined the EU. They also gained membership in NATO by March 2004.

It’s truly astounding how the three countries have developed since 1991. None of them were independent since 1940. The three countries had large Russian minorities and many Soviet soldiers were still stationed there. There were no major national institutions and banking infrastructure with a crumbling economy. There was a growing homegrown national moment against the ruling government since the 1980s. The homegrown fronts won the republican parliamentary election against the ruling party in early 1990 and were allowed to govern but with limited power. The Russian president at that time, Boris Yeltsin had not contested their newly declared independence in 1991. The Baltic also witnessed no violence when the three governments had declared their independence.

The three nations also had almost no natural resources, unlike USSR which was resource-rich. They were still in a very vulnerable situation with a small population and no military of their own. Even though the countries were linguistically distinct with different languages, but people in all three countries had the united drive to strive for a better future. The three had implemented reforms with a shared vision. The governments of the three share many policies, ideas, and experiences. The Baltic States also valued their new independence with a lot of enthusiasm and didn’t take it for granted. The other ex- USSR countries often had to ask for assistance from Russian Federation and also formed new alliances with the Russian government. Baltic countries on the other hand tried to stay away from joining the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States. In the subsequent years, all the three countries adopted radical economic policies and Estonia was the first mover and Latvia and Lithuania would follow suit. In 1994 Estonia introduced a flat income tax at just 24 percent and the other two also implemented the policies. Currently, Lithuania has a tax rate of just 15 percent which is one of the lowest. With early and fast deregulation and privatization, the Baltic countries were able to capture a large amount of foreign direct investment. Estonia also radically transformed its public sector with various digitalization implementations and less reliance on paperwork. Latvian and Lithuania’s transformation in this area was not as drastic but after some time both of them followed Estonia’s footsteps.  Transparency International ranks Estonia No. 17, Lithuania 37, and Latvia 42 out of 175 countries on its Corruption Perception Index for 2020. This is a commendable ranking considering they all the three are a relatively new entrant to the EU and many other EU countries have lower ranks than the three.

The success can also be attributed to the generous support that the three countries received from the international community and funds granted by the EU, World Bank, and the IMF. In 2008 Baltic suffered from the global economic crisis. The three soon adopted the Euro as their currency to avoid any future liquidity freeze issues that they experienced at that time. The economies al the Baltic rebounded quickly and due to good monetary measures, the three have a very low public debt. Baltic governments have also made swift progress in the Education sector and the three have attained commendable rankings in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Estonia has done a very commendable task in this area with top 10 rankings in many assessments.     

Brief steps for innovation in the era of E-commerce

As the Economist Joseph Schumpeter said Entrepreneurs can’t sit idle and try to innovate. They are the people who have an uncanny sense of using the resources from less productive use to more productive use. They are the ones who do Value creation, this is what we call innovation.

E-commerce belongs to this generation and Technology is irreversible; no one can hold it back and only curiosity won’t help us. Research activity is also needed. Scientific knowledge is essential (supported). Research is also supplemented by Developmental activities (R&D), closer to practical uses.

The Technological Innovation world involves product and process development activities (converted into manifestation forms). Then it transcends to the market/people with practical uses. Invention and discoveries constitute the technology world/innovation world- product process- market development activities (Administrative capabilities needed as well).

This all has to be assembled holistically and make the tech happen/forward driven with innovation. Business world needs tech entrepreneurship and administrative skills.

We have to question what value the tech will bring to our product. Simple innovation without value creation cannot create Blue Ocean/has no meaning.

Technological importance means the value that the technology brings to a product/potential product

We have to ensure not to bring value to other products in the competition. We need technological positioning. Frontier-ending R&D investment is needed to compete with the rival companies that are deeply entrenched in technology. Keep competitive parity is not an advantage.  

A technology portfolio consists of- Bet, Draw, Cash, and Fold

Regime of Appropriability

Is the effectiveness of legal mechanisms of protection of technology, Patents, copyrights, trade secrets, tacit knowledge, and codified knowledge.

Process innovation can’t be protected by patents.

Codified knowledge is very prone to industrial espionage, in other words, Hiring people from other companies. The regime of appropriability can be from high to low depending on the technology. E.g. KFC spice formula (easy to safeguard) or a new search algorithm (hard to seep safe).

Any innovation passes through two stages-

Pre Paradigm and Paradigm stage

Pre Paradigm is when a technology is in the process of innovation. Every innovation goes through this stage when it remains in the domain of the innovators and scientists.

In the Paradigm stage product designs are fluid and the manufacturing process is loosely organized whereas in the Paradigm stage less uncertainty for the design emerges and a final design emerges. The focus is now on process design.

Our objective is to transit from the pre paradigm stage to the paradigm stage as fast as possible. Successful transit of tech to practical use is called commercialization and has to be ensured with another set of capabilities called complementary assets.

The tinkering or invention needs to be followed by research and then a complimentary stage in development. Entrepreneurs have to ensure that complementary assets have to be built around innovation to be successful. Innovators need to have certain complementary assets which are not generic (highly specialized).

There is a third category of assets called Co specialized. These assets have a bilateral dependence. These assets have no other use other than their intended use. E.g.: A spacecraft manufacturing facility.

Many innovators fail and succumb and they don’t have the complementary assets. To counter that, entrepreneurs can do collaborative strategy by collaborating with partners with complementary assets. It should exclude the possibility of any other collaboration.  

Technology has to be adopted by people otherwise, it has no meaning. Early adopters need to leverage by patronizing the products. This gives way to the early majority who are more market-orientated. If they are satisfied they give way to the late majority. This transition will secure our position in the market.

But there is a catch, when technology falls between the transition space of early adopters and the early majority. This is known as ‘Chasm’. This change in emphasis poses a problem for innovating firms since incumbents are often much better equipped to meet the desire for complete products and low-risk purchases,and once you fall into this space. It gets really difficult to get out of it. A tornado (another group of people) is needed to take it out of the chasm and hit it into the mainstream.

E-commerce implementation can have two strategies:

Bottom-up approach and Top-down approach

Introduction of Ecommerce has complemented traditional business. This has also made traditional businesses more competitive.

Top-down approach implementation is preferred on a large scale and national level but when it comes to administrative (meeting the requirements of civil services), local trade and commerce services are suited to have a bottom-up approach.

Digital infrastructure is essential for making e-commerce successful. Cradle to grave digital identity is emerging as the new measure to the unique identification of people.

Common service center: Helps in providing e-Services to rural and remote locations where availability of computers and Internet is negligible or mostly absent. With the help of Interoperability and common information center data and information can be accessed at any location.

Mobile banking is another approach that is also increasing its proliferation.  But it’s still in its nascent stages.

Another concept that is emerging is Cashless transactions where all the POS and banking services can be attained remotely. Although the security issue remains which has to be taken care of by a central agency (Government).

One of the most important things to consider is Digital literacy. A certain amount of literacy is needed for availing all these digital infrastructure and access. For a widespread utilization of digital services, we have to ensure that more people are digitally literate.

We also have to keep in mind that common support ICT infrastructure and adequate private and public partnership will help to make these services more efficient and better.  With the help of aforementioned knowledge, an E-commerce can certainly endure in the realm of digital world.

References:

https://www.reed.edu/economics/parker/f10/201/cases/appropriability.html

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/stages-paradigm-shift-organization-78904.html

Crowdfunding and How it works?

Crowd Funding dates back to 1713 when Alexander Pope united his subscribers to find the translation of Homer’s Iliad into English. He had promised to include the 750 donors’ names in the book in exchange for two gold guineas.

The Internet has modernized crowdfunding by connecting people in search of funds with the general public. Crowd funding is generally defined as the collective – ‘Crowd pooling funds’ to support a specific project or an organization. Crowd fund serves as an alternative source of capital to support a wide range of ideas and ventures. Crowd funding can also be a great way to fund ideas and it can also be a great way for new businesses to get some funding in the initial stages.

An entity or individual raising funds through crowd funding typically seeks small individual contributions from a large number of people. Crowdfunding campaigns have a specified target amount to be raised. It can also be a goal and an identified use of those goals.

The entrepreneur of the company usually offers donors non monetary goods in return for their donation. The reward is personal satisfaction. This makes crowd funding a very efficient and cost effective method to raise money. Some of the most popular platforms for crowdfunding are Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

But we also have to realize that not all the companies or entrepreneurs are successful in funding their campaign. The majority of the campaigns fail. They usually fail to hit their financial targets. Kickstarter’s success rate sits around 38%.

The ways to Endure a successful campaign

One of the ways to ensure a successful crowdfunding is when the entrepreneur defines the objective of their campaign. They also need to factor in how much money is being spent, thus consideration of the costs is also very critical. The entrepreneur also has to be content creator and talk with experts to improve upon the product or the idea. Wise use Networking is also very important to increase the reach of the campaign.

The different types of crowdfunding are:

Donation based crowdfunding

Donation based crowdfunding involves amassing high amounts of donations without needing to provide the investors with anything in return. It is usually used for charities and NGOs.

Rewards based crowdfunding

Rewards-based might seem similar to Donation based crowdfunding but there are key differences that make it one of the most popular forms of crowdfunding. This form of crowd funding is also the most feasible to startups to utilize. One of the main differences is that investors are provided with different tiers of rewards which directly correspond with the numerous wage pledges.

Equity based crowdfunding

This form of crowd funding is increasingly getting very popular among startups. One of the primary reasons is that startups are usually short of money and by providing investors with shares in their company can be a great way to raise funds rapidly.

Royalty based crowdfunding

It is a type of crowd funding that gives its backers a smaller percentage of the revenue that’s gained once the venture or project becomes successful and starts to generate money. One big difference between Equity based funding and this one is that backers will only get royalties based on sales that are made from the product they invested in.

Loan or debt based crowdfunding

This form of crowd funding is beneficial for the owners of the company because they do not need to give shares and royalty. Instead this is more similar to a typical loan where the project initiator has to repay the amount within a certain period of time. It can also be used to raise a comparatively large amount of money.

References:

Why Skyscrapers are not that great.

The story of early skyscrapers begins in the late 19th and early 20th century America. Between 1884 and 1945 numerous skyscrapers were built American cities of New York City and Chicago. The two cities competed with each other with many subsequent constructions surpassing the earlier one. The growth of the skyscrapers in the 20th century American cities were mainly fueled by dynamic economic growth as the demand for various new office spaces to hold America’s expanding workforce of white-collar employees continued to grow. With better engineering and construction methods it became easier to construct taller buildings.    

Flatiron Building in New York City finished its construction in June 1902. The 22 floors building was one of the first tallest skyscrapers and later in the subsequent decades even taller buildings were constructed.

But the developments of modern skyscrapers have many challenges and questions that need to be cleared. Though the growth of skyscrapers has not subsided, they are not the most ideal form of buildings. According to engineer Tim Snelson, of the design consultancy, a typical skyscraper will have at least double the carbon footprint of a 10-story building of the same floor area. This tells us that skyscrapers are not environmentally sustainable. Also, any additional methods to minimize the environmental impact will require overcoming the fight of the handicap of being a tall skyscraper in the first place. As the majority of the building is made with glass and steel frame, high-rise buildings are subject to the consequence of the substantial amount of sunlight and a lot of wind on their mostly glass skins. Glass is inherently inefficient in keeping excessive heat out of the buildings in summer or keep heat trapped in the colder months. This also leads to the reliance on continuous Air Conditioning.

The modern construction of skyscrapers in the cities of today is no longer driven purely by economic growth or the need for commercial office space, but instead, it is more driven by glamorous architecture construction and many times the dirty money gets funneled into the construction of Skyscrapers.  High rises also separate people from the street and people lose a connection to nature and the outdoors. The occupants in the tall buildings are often isolated from the street of the city and meaningful contact with ground-level events is often disconnected with taller buildings.  

High-rise buildings also lead to gentrification and inequality. It is no surprise that taller buildings often tend to be luxury units as the higher a building rises, it becomes more expensive to construct. This means that high rises also inflate the prices of the adjacent lands and driving out the affordable properties, thus increasing the inequality. The areas near the skyscrapers are often dark and swept under the shadow of these tall buildings.

Contrary to the popular notion, skyscrapers are not the only way to build high-density construction. The mid-rise buildings are often more able to house more amount of people per area compared to the high rises. Mid rises are also more flexible to affordable.  The mid-rises can work as a good middle ground between the taller buildings and low-density buildings. Instead of blindly building taller buildings we will have to look at the construction of our future buildings that are more sustainable, affordable, and efficient.

References:

Universal Design

Universal design is the approach of designing products and environment so that it can be used by broad number people irrespective of age, disability, ability, status in life and various other factors.

Usually, products are designed to be suitable for average users whereas products designed under the principle of universal design try to be suitable for the maximum number of users. The purpose of universal design is not to create a design that can work for 100 percent of the people because it is almost impossible to have a ‘One size fits all’ design. The purpose is to create a design that can serve solutions that are more inclusive. Designers have to look at those designs that push the boundaries as far out as possible without compromising the quality and integrity of the product.

There are many instances where a designer will have to choose between different designs and determine the more suitable design according to UD principles. For instance, if there is a choice to choose between a lever-design handle and a knob-design handle. It is preferable to choose the former rather than the latter as the lever design can accommodate more people’s daily usage. The lever design feature will be a more inclusive element compared to the latter. It can accommodate various usages like opening the door with closed fists or the elbow or so that a person can easily access the door while carrying something as well as people with finite strength.

There are briefly 7 Principles of Universal Design. These were developed in 1997 by a team of architects, designers, engineers, and environmental design researchers.  The team was led by the late Ronald Mace who was an internationally recognized American Architect and designer in North Carolina State University.

The seven principles are:

  • Equitable use

While designing, the product should be kept in mind that it should be accessible by every person including disabled people.  

  • Flexibility in use

The design needs to be configurable to accommodate everyone’s preferences, needs, and abilities.

  • Simple and intuitive

This means that the design should be easy to understand for everybody. The person can easily figure out a well-designed product or an environment without thinking too much about it.

  • Perceptible information

The design can communicate all of its necessary information to everybody irrespective of the environmental conditions or the user’s sensory abilities.

  • Tolerance for error

It refers to safety so that the design minimizes hazards, accidents or unintended actions.

  • Low physical effort

The design in use needs to be comfortable and efficient rather than being exhausting and fatiguing to use.

  • Size and space for approach and use

The design irrespective of user’s body size, posture, or mobility should not restrict anybody by its size or space.

Universal design can really make the lives of people much more comfortable, safer, and efficient in the long run. There are still many areas that are not designed well and poorly designed products, buildings or the environment can be a safety hazard as well. It is usually the job of a universal designer to design new products from the ground up and many also renovate existing designs to make them more accommodative and accessible.

References:

http://universaldesign.ie/What-is-Universal-Design/The-7-Principles/

https://www.washington.edu/doit/what-universal-design-0

Urban Agriculture

Urban agriculture can be described as the agricultural practices to producing fresh food or other agricultural products in urban areas and their surrounding regions (peri-urban). This can function centrally where plants can be grown and animal husbandry, horticulture, and aquaculture can be practiced. It also involves the processing, packaging, marketing, and delivery of food. In purview urban agriculture extends to establish food production sites within the city’s sphere.

As more land area is getting urbanized and larger number of people are coming to the urban areas to reside. It becomes very critical to properly utilize the space in our cities and suburban areas. Research in the last two decades is has proven that Urban agriculture can be a viable option for food production. It can also help in decreasing the effects of climate change and make the food supply chain more efficient.  Proper land use and spatial planning are crucial to practice this effectively. There are various methods to practice urban agriculture including ground-level farming, hydroponic farming, rooftop farming, vertical farming, greenhouses, and other new technologies.

As cities are expanding, this has created new sets of issues like the urban heat island effect, waste management, lack of biodiversity, and high levels of air pollution. With more people moving around the urban space, this has also increased carbon emissions. With urban agriculture, we can try to offset some of the adverse effects of these problems. This kind of agriculture is now being practiced in many cities. Cities like Tokyo, Seoul, and Sao Paulo have their own urban agriculture initiatives. But one of the cities is betting on urban farming in Singapore. The city-state currently imports 90 percent of its food. This also means that any kind of geopolitical tension or a global crisis can severely affect the food supply of Singapore. This means that growing own food becomes critical and essential. Due to this, the Singaporean government has envisioned an ambitious goal to produce 30 percent of its food in the city itself by 2030. This is a special challenge in Singapore’s care due to its tiny land area and highly urbanized population. The city has almost non-existent agriculture land and this is why the focus of food production is on the unutilized urban spaces, on top of shopping malls, hotels, schools, homes, rooftops in parking lots across the city, etc.

In 2009 Singapore government launched a program that incentivizes injecting greenery into development projects across the nation The program was aptly named ‘Landscaping for Urban Spaces and High-Rises’ (LUSH). Their current initiative to build urban food-growing areas within the city will be built upon this program.

Some of the benefits that Urban farming enjoys are immunity from water pollution, a better-controlled environment from the physical forces, and minimal to no use of pesticides and insecticides. But there are some limitations as well. This type of farming can be quite energy-intensive and the outputs can be comparatively lower than traditional farming. This also makes it more expensive.

To make Urban farming more effective governments will also need policies that will make use of the maximum amount of land across the city. Hydroponic farming can be a very effective way to rapidly scale the production where plants are grown with the help of water and the additional nutrients and minerals are added to the water to substitute soil. Additional Urban farming can also help in reducing carbon emissions and making cities cooler. Private firm involvement can also help in stepping up the scale of this kind of farming. This will be the step towards sustainable food production in the cities of the future but to make this happen greater involvement across the citizens and sectors will be needed.

References:

China’s 5 Year Plan (2021-2025): Proposed Dam on River Brahmaputra

The five-year plans are a sequence of economic and social development initiatives furnished by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) since 1949. The five-year plans were inspired by the five-year plans from the USSR and the focus was on launching new schemes, reforms and setting new growth targets.

Since the 11th five-year plan (2006-2010), the Chinese government has mentioned it as ‘Guidelines’ instead of plans. Currently China is on its 14th five-year plan/ guidelines. Unlike the previous five year plans, there is no specific GDP growth target and instead, the government announced that growth would be kept in “reasonable range” and an annual target would be set based on the specific conditions each year. The focus of the current plan is on self-sufficiency as the country had to endure difficulty after the United States had restricted China’s major chip makers from using American technology. Other areas of focus will be on the above 7 percent growth in the research and development spending. The government will also try to raise the urban residents to 65 percent of the population while maintaining green development and increasing the life expectancy by 1 year. Infrastructure will also be an area of priority with a focus on high-quality development of the belt and road initiative.

One of the biggest infrastructure projects of the 14th The five-year plan (2021-2025) has been officially approved to build a series of dams in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, as the Brahmaputra is known in Tibet before it flows into India.

The proposed dam would be in Medog, Tibet region will have a maximum possible capacity of 60 gigawatts and could potentially produce 300 billion kWh annually. The location is an area called ‘the great bend’ also known as ‘Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon’ where the river goes through a very drastic U-turn and then the river descents from an elevation of 3000 meters to around 800 meters. Due to the drastic elevation change, the river flow is quite strong and is also an ideal location to build the dam.

The location of the dam could be a strategically risky move by china as it is very close to the Indian border but the other issue is that this proposed dam can undermine the water security of India. India relies heavily on the Brahmaputra River for agriculture and various other purposes.  Due to this, the proposed Dibang Dam by India in downstream (Arunachal Pradesh) might be the solution to offset the effect of the Chinese proposed dam. Although the majority of the catchment area of Brahmaputra is on the Indian side there is still the issue of water flow from the upstream as Assam usually suffers from floods in the rainy season and any additional water flow from the Chinese dam would make the situation worse. The problem will not only affect India but also Bangladesh due to its low-lying land and flood-prone region. Problem is that the region is ecologically diverse and sensitive and any kind of development in this region will negatively affect the ecology of this region. Due to turbulent tectonic plates, there are high chances of landslides and earthquakes as well. India will have to be vigilant and develop its strategy according to the developments on the Chinese side.

References:

McLaren F1: The Ultimate Road Car Ever

McLaren F1 was the fastest production car for 12 straight years from 1993 to 2005. At the time of its unveiling, McLaren F1 was an engineering marvel with numerous pioneering technological innovations. It was designed by the legendary designer and engineer Gordon Murray.

McLaren F1 Rear

It was the first road production car to be fully built carbon fiber. The entire Carbon fiber monocoque weighs just fewer than 220 pounds and 5000 pieces of carbon fiber pieces were used to mold the final frame.  This gives it double the strength of steel but it makes it five times lighter than traditional frames.

The car has a central seating position which is unique to this car. While developing McLaren F1, Gordon Murray drove and tested all the contemporary supercars of that time and he realized that their three-pedal boxes were somewhat offset. So He wanted to eliminate that. To solve this problem he placed the seat in the central driving position similar to a traditional F1 racing car. The central position also helps in increasing the visibility of the driver.

It has a naturally aspirated 6.1-liter V12 engine, but initially, McLaren has asked Honda to supply an engine for them as they were also the supplier for their F1 racing team at that time. But Honda didn’t follow the specification stated by Gordon Murray. Later they asked BMW to supply them with the engine of their car. BMW had to make a new engine as per the specification and the final results were incredible. The Engine is called BMW Motorsport S70/2

 The engine possesses extremely efficient heads. It also has continuous variable inlet valve timing and an emission-control system and four catalytic converters with ‘Lambda’ exhaust gas analysis control. Even with a 6064 CC displacement and a power output excess of 550bhp, the engine is quite efficient. The engine created so much heat that it had to be covered with a good heat deflecting material and to solve that problem the engine bay was covered with 16 grams of gold foil.

On 31 March 1998, Andy Wallace drove the McLaren F1 XP5 prototype at Volkswagen’s test track in Ehra-Lessen, Germany, and broke the record created by McLaren F1 itself in 1993. The car reached the top speed of 391 kilometers per hour or 243 Miles per hour. As of today, the F1 remains the fastest naturally aspirated production car in the world.

https://www.autozine.org/Archive/McLaren/old/F1.html

The car had a limited production of 106. Of those only 64 of them were road-going cars and 28 of them were racecars and the remaining of them were prototypes and special editions like the LM and longtail version. Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) was for one period the owner of McLaren F1 as well.

Back in 1993, a brand-new McLaren F1 cost £540,000. In today’s money it would be approximately 1.1 million pounds but due to the rarity and the special status and engineering feat of the car. McLaren F1 has steadily climbed in value since then. As of today a McLaren F1 costs around £16 million and special versions can fetch even more. This car has also stood the test of time in its design, engineering, and craftsmanship.

References:

Belarus: Escalating political tension and sanctions

Belarus is an overlooked country that is located east of Poland and south of Lithuania and Latvia. It is bordered by Russia in the East and also bordered by Ukraine in the South. The landlocked country has an area of 207,600 square kilometers (80,200 square mi) and a population of little over 9 million people. Belarus was one of the newest countries that were formed after the disintegration of the USSR in 1991.

Alexander Lukashenko was elected Belarus’s first president of Belarus in 1994. Since then he has held the position and has been governing the country for more than 25 years. Lukashenko’s style of governance has been deemed as authoritative as there have been no free elections since he got elected. He has maintained many of the Pre-Soviet policies and Belarus’s Democracy Index rating is the lowest in Europe. In the 2020 Belarusian elections, Lukashenko was declared the winner against the opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. The election was marred by allegations of widespread electoral fraud. Many western countries had demanded a re-run but that never happened. This also triggered mass protests across the major cities in Belarus. But to control the critics and protesters, the government reacted with brute force, arresting demonstrators and sending numerous protestors behind the bars.

In May 2021 the kidnapping of opposition journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega was another sign of the Belarusian government’s woes against any kind of critics. This was basically a state-sponsored hijacking of air piracy. This incident occurred on Ryanair Flight 4978 en route to Vilnius on May 23 when the plane was diverted to Minsk with a fake bomb threat from Belarusian air traffic control. After this violation of international aviation rules, both were arrested on questionable charges of organizing mass unrest.

Belarus has always swayed between Russia and the EU but recently European Union has imposed one of the toughest restrictions against Belarus. EU has blocked the sale or supply of major technology to Belarus, as well as restricted access to capital markets and trade in oil and potash. EU has also imposed airspace restrictions against Belarus. But any sanctions against Belarus must not target ordinary people. Because the land borders are already sealed off with Poland and Lithuania. The only viable option for Belarusian people was air travel. So this restriction will also affect the citizens of the country. To counter the problem of Potash sanctions, Lukashenko has struck a deal with his Russian business friend to create a new Potash mining and processing plant. But this will come at a cost of increased taxes for the individual citizens of Belarus amid the Covid-19 crisis and economic downturn. The United States has also imposed visa bans and other sanctions on 62 individuals who were identified as contributing to the Belarus crackdown.  

The citizens of Belarus deserve free Elections and a leader who can think about the citizens of the country instead of holding onto the power. With a progressive leader, Belarus could have been on par with the Baltic countries. The recent sanction might or might not work but in the end, the common citizens of the country suffer the most. 

References:

Steam Deck: Nintendo Switch’s newest competitor

Steam is a digital marketplace and is owned by Valve Corporation. Valve Corporation has published numerous games but in recent years they have been trying to enter the space of hardware. On November 10, 2015 Valve launched its first game controller for connecting to PCs and their own Steam machines (A prebuilt PC developed by Valve which was designed to operate Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS via the Steam client). The Steam controller was discontinued in 2019 and with modest sales.

Steam deck is Valve’s foray into the handheld console space. The Handheld space is currently dominated by Nintendo Switch. With 84.59 million of units sold since its launch in 2017, Switch has been one of the most successful consoles in the current gaming generation.  The most unique thing about Switch is that it can be switched from a handheld design to a home console with the help of a dock accessory.

Steam deck is essentially a PC on the go with very impressive hardware specifications. The handheld is equipped with a 7-inch diagonal display with 1200x800 pixels and 60 Hz refresh rate. It has an AMD APU (Processor) with Zen 2 architectures and 4 cores/8 threads. With 16GB LPDDR5 RAM and storage options ranging from 64GB eMMC($399) , 256GB SSD($ 529) and 512GB SSD($ 649).

Since the late 80s, Nintendo has been the reigning king in the portable gaming space. After the success of Switch, Nintendo revealed the new switch pro which has an OLED display upgrade. This will surely enhance the experience in the console but many were disappointed with no hardware upgrade. Nintendo Switch is still running an Nvidia Tegra custom chip which is severely underpowered and the console struggles to even play Nintendo’s core games with 30 FPS. This means that compromises have to be made to make a game run of the system. Another aspect is that the failure of Sony’s PS Vita (Sony’s portable handheld) failed against the Nintendo 3DS of the previous generation. Sony did not attempt to compete against Nintendo. This meant that there were no major competitors against Nintendo and the company has become somewhat complacent. The launch of Steam Deck also means that there is another competitor against the Switch and this will lead to healthy competition and ultimately it’s a win for the consumers. With 1.6 TFLOPS of GPU power its significantly more powerful than the Switch. Another point to be noted is the versatility that the Steam ex provides. The Deck essentially is a PC and this means that it runs on Valve’s version of Linux OS and by connecting it to a dock via a USB C and it also has full Bluetooth 5.0. This means that you can use it to hook the device up to a full-sized monitor and work on any productivity applications as well. Due to its open nature, even Windows can be installed on the deck. This means that it will be much more flexible than any of its competitors. There have been many recent smaller projects that have attempted a similar portable gaming PC, but Valve (Steam’s parent company) has a much deeper pocket and experience in its hands. The console will be shipped by the end of December 2021. There is no guarantee that this system will be a success but it surely will make the handheld space more exciting.    

Why should we care about our privacy?

Privacy in general terms is the right to be left alone or freedom from interference or intrusion. In terms of the internet, privacy is the right to have some control over how your personal information is collected and used.

More technical innovation gives way to more efficient and advanced technologies. In recent years the information has become the most important component to cultivate this innovation. As many new people are coming on the internet and the amount of information being shared is increased manifold. Every organization or individual is entering the realm of the digital world and data is the entity of this world. Data is also very essential to understand a user or a customer or a client but sometimes there is no limit to the amount of data that an internet corporation is willing to extract. Somewhere there has to be a line that needs to be drawn. In recent years there have been many issues regarding the privacy policy of many tech corporations. Facebook has been in controversy much time. Recently Whatsapp’s privacy policy also raised many questions, then in an ironic move Whatsapp raised the question of privacy by suing the government regarding the new Information technology rules. But this is just the tip of the iceberg and numerous other aspects get overlooked. First, we will need to understand what this privacy means for us as individuals. Only then we can clearly determine the relevance of these rapidly changing developments in this subject.  

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”

-Edward Snowden

It’s not that privacy means that there is something to hide; rather privacy is having things you don’t want to show. For instance, people would not like to post their Bank account online or Bank statements. People would also not like to have a public camera inside their homes. Similarly, there are some things that an individual would not like to share online. Privacy can provide secrecy, but there is more to it. Privacy also provides autonomy and therefore freedom to an individual. Well, there is even more to privacy than the freedom that many people do not realize which is that when we think we’re being watched, we make behavior choices that we believe other people want us to make.  Humans intrinsically like to avoid societal condemnation and perception of whether or not we are in private changes the way we behave. This indicates the benefit that a state can have with surveillance and can lead to a conformist population.

As it is stated by many that data is the oil and for many tech organizations it truly is. We can witness this with the various technological corporations that rely upon user data including Facebook, Google, Amazon etc. But Even Smartphone manufacturers like Xiaomi have realized the lucrative benefits of collecting and selling user data. For these companies, our data is money and they earn billions of dollars with this data. Both the private tech giants have clauses in their privacy policy that allows government agencies and third parties to access the data. The data that gets uploaded on the internet never gets deleted and stays there forever. What we have to realize is that even if the information seems futile today, it may have an importance tomorrow. In conclusion, privacy is not a trivial issue and people will have to understand its importance until it’s too late.

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Video Game crash of 1983

In 1983 the video games industry was hit with a recession that almost ended the existence of video games of that time period. This period lasted for almost two years from 1983 to 1985. Many people and journalists who were critical were calling video gaming a fad. Numerous companies went bankrupt or stopped making video games entirely. This recession is known as the Great North American Video Game Crash or Atari Shock (Primarily in Japan).

Video games in the 1970s were dominated by arcade machines and by the end of the decade home game consoles were also getting popular. With the start of the 1980s, the video gaming industry witnessed a boom with numerous companies like Mattel, Atari, and Coleco dominating the market. The early 80s was a time of innovation and growth in the video game industry but there was instability in the industry as well. This was a time period when video games were becoming more mainstream and popular. Many new players entered the market ranging from industries to small developers that had no association or prior experience in game development in general.

  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System released on November 1990 (Successor to NES)

Pacman was a big hit in the early 80s and it was not of the most popular video games in the arcades. Its successor Miss. Pacman improved on the formula and was a success as well. After the success of Pacman in the arcades, Atari wanted to replicate the success in the home game consoles. But with the limited constraints with the memory and short development period, the game was not well received by the consumers and critics alike. In 1982 Atari also brought the license to release the video game of the movie for 21 million. The game was developed in a time period of only 5 weeks. The game was negatively received and only 1 million copies of the game were sold off the 5 million manufactured. Many of the sales were also returned to the retailers furthering the damage. During this period video games were being published by small developers with very poor quality and many big developers were producing games that were more of a marketing token than the game. There were many clones of the same games with little to no redeeming quality and replayability. There were also numerous consoles unlike today with too many options that were no different from one another. With the abundance of supply and low sales of games, retailers started to remove stocks of video games and this led to the shrinking of the industry. Atari had lost $500 Million in 1983 and had to cut its workforce from 10,000 employees to just 400 employees.

During the 1980s there was a boom in the Personal Computers market as well. The PCs were much more powerful than consoles and they could play games and do many tasks like word processing and spreadsheets. The PC industry was unaffected by this low point of video game consoles.

In 1985 Nintendo Corporation launched the Nintendo Entertainment systems in North America and Nintendo ensured that only a limited number of games to be released under their license agreement. This ensured a certain threshold of quality for the games that were released for the system and Nintendo emerged out of the survivor from the video game crash. The Nintendo Corporation started to dominate the video game industry with an assurance of quality that was unmatched by any other corporation at that time. Many other entrants like SEGA also emerged after the crash. Nintendo with its approach and license and quality assurance of video games has left a big impact on the industry to this date. Video games industry has only grown since then and also overtaken other source of entertainment. Nintendo can be credited to provide the industry a trajectory that was severely needed after the crash of 83.

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East Timor: Brief analysis of its history & independence.

East Timor or Timor-Leste is a tiny island country in Southeast Asia nestled between Australia and Indonesia.

For more than 300 years the territory of East Timor was ruled by Colonial Portugal (Portuguese Timor). They set up both commercial outposts and catholic missions. On 28 November 1975, Portugal withdrew from the island territory when the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor had declared the territory’s independence. But this exit from East Timor was not at all smooth and this enraged bitter rivalry between various local groups. Just nine days later in December 1975 East Timor was invaded and occupied by the Indonesian military. Suharto, the Indonesian president at that time didn’t receive much resistance from the western countries due to the left-leaning stance of East Timor at that time (Cold war).  The Indonesian occupation was a brutal and violent period in East Timor’s history with various suppression tactics many people lost their lives during that period.

The following decades were highly violent with many conflicts between the separatist groups known as Fretilin and the Indonesian military. The military fought a continuous guerilla war with the rebels in the island’s interior mountains. There were numerous rights violations and over 100,000 people died under the occupations of Indonesia.

One of the most defining instances happened on November 12, 1991, when the Indonesian military shot and killed over 250 people who had come for the memorial procession in honor of Sebastio Gomez, a pro-independence supporter killed by the Indonesian military. The events occurred in the Santa Cruz Cemetery in Dili, East Timor’s capital. This tragedy is known as the Santa Cruz Massacre. The event gained international media attention. Although the Indonesian occupation did not cede until eight years later in 1999, the Santa Cruz massacre was a defining moment in the island nation’s quest for independence.

In 1998 president Suharto resigned from his position after more than 30 years in power due to growing pressure and protests against him from within the country. His replacement was open towards more open towards the autonomy of East Timor. International pressure for East Timor grew in 1998. During the downfall of the New Order government, as part of Reformasi, a referendum was held in East Timor to ask whether they wished to remain in Indonesia with increased autonomy or become independent. On August 30, 1999, about 78% of the population of East Timorese chose to remain independent.

Following the referendum, violence again erupted in East Timor as Indonesian-backed militias increased their activities across the country. In September UN peacekeeping let by Australia force took control of the situation but a lot of damage was already done. In 2002 Xanana Gusmão was elected as the first president after three years of transitional governance by the UN.

As of today, the country has been relatively stable but the economic conditions have not been improved. Indonesia’s Timor has fared comparatively better than East Timor. It was also discovered that Australia, a country that East Timor considered as their ally had spied on East Timor to gain leverage over negotiations on the exploitation of natural resources in the Timor Sea. On a positive note, the country has comparatively good relations with Indonesia now.

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Madagascar Droughts: Climate Change

Madagascar is the fourth biggest island in the world, situated in the Indian Ocean. The island country is deemed as ‘Megadiverse’ by Conservation International with more than 250,000 species of plants and animals most of which do not exist anywhere else. Almost 90% of the species found on the island are endemic. The island of 28 million people is one of the poorest countries in the world and has been ravaged by many natural and human-induced hazards.

So we can confidently say that the country is extremely rich and unique biodiversity. On the eastern coast of Madagascar the Rainforests of Atsinanana comprising of six national parks with an endemic rate of species touching almost 80%. This area has also been added to the World Heritage List since 2007. The area is considered important to both ecological and biological processes and it also supports the rare species of Lemurs and many other primates.

Deforestation has been a major issue in Madagascar and this has also threatened the Lemurs and them and many endemic species of the island heavily rely on these forests. Madagascar witnessed rapid deforestation for long a time and this only accelerated by the end of the 19th century due to French Colonization. The forested areas were gradually converted into coffee fields and the country lost its original forest cover by almost 80%. As of today, the primary forest cover stands a little over 10 percent.

Deforestation has not only affected the ecology of the country but has also affected the soil quality and increased soil degradation. Subsistence agriculture is quite common among the inhabitants of the islands. Slash and burn is another method that has affected the forest cover of the island as these methods are not beneficial after a certain population cluster. Another big reason for the rapid deforestation is illegal logging and this benefits private entities and large corporations. The country has also seen a rapid growth in its population which currently is estimated at 26 million, up from 2.2 million in 1900. This has increased the requirement for more land for cultivation.

Currently, Madagascar is going through a very severe drought and deforestation can partly be a reason for this phenomenon. But there are other issues of cause too. Due to climate change, Madagascar has also suffered the consequence of the increased frequency of extreme weather events. It’s the worst drought in 40 years and has taken grip of the Southern part of the island. Due to low rainfall various streams, rivers and small dams built for irrigation dried up last year. The majority of the people in the south of the country rely on rain-fed, small-scale agriculture to survive.  With no rainfall and non-existent agriculture output, there has been an emergency in the country with severe food scarcity. Many people in the region have resorted to eating insects, wild roots.

According to experts’ deforestation, drier soils and higher temperatures due to climate change are the likely cause of droughts.

Climate experts

The island is already suffering from the covid-19 virus combined with the pressure of droughts and famines have caused strain to the poor country. Food and other aids are being provided to the affected areas of the country but supply is still not aligning with the current demand. A long-term solution will be required to tackle this situation as this problem is only going to get more serious in the future.

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Right to repair

Right to repair is a proposed legislation/movement that allows consumers the ability to modify and repair their own electronic devices.  

Planned obsolescence is the practice when goods are manufactured with a pre-determined expiry date aimed at forcing consumers into repeat purchases. The term was first termed in the 1950s by American industrial designer Brooks Stevens. This practice was introduced in the advent of mass-produced manufacturing at the start of the 20th century. But the practice was not as severe and prevalent as it is in recent years. One of the recent changes in the product design has been to make the goods very hard for end consumers to repair.

For instance smartphones, a couple of years back had a user-replaceable battery but with more features crammed into the chassis of a phone. Manufacturers have not only made it unnecessarily difficult to replace the battery but also to even open the panels of smartphones. With the recent MacBook Pro releases, Apple has soldered the SSD (Solid State Drive) on the motherboard. The reasoning for justifying the soldering by Apple is better reliability and the thinness of the laptops. But there is also another aspect. Apple’s business model is about selling laptops and not upgrading the systems. Upgrading an SSD can be a potential loss for them and to counter that Apple might have decided to make the laptop non-upgradable. The problem is that even SSDs are definitely much more reliable than mechanical hard disks but SSDs still fail and combining them with the motherboard means that if one of the two fails, the whole system fails. This also makes it much more difficult for end-user to repair their laptop. It also becomes a problem for the third-party repair business to access the repairing of these devices. This is just one of the instances of how access to repair is being restricted by the manufacturers but various companies are attempting to follow similar practices with varying degrees.          

With the introduction of newer and sophisticated technological components in electronic devices, it has become much more complicated to operate these modern devices. To reduce the access to repair these devices, manufacturers state that repairing the devices might violate their “Proprietary” rights. These repair limitations are a critical problem for not just the first owners but also for the second-hand/ used market. Due to proprietary information and diagnostics tools while evaluating a device. It has become difficult for third parties and end-user to even attempt the repair their own devices that they own. It took Apple the lawsuit to introduce the battery replacement program after the fiasco of the performance throttling issue on older iPhones. It clearly indicates that companies do not like it when consumers try to fix their products and companies deliberately try to reduce the user experience of older devices so that they can sell the newer models to maximize profits. With a monopoly on repair manufacturer’s intent is to lock down the user to the official service centers which can be significantly expensive than third-party service shops.

The right to repair movement intends to enact power into the consumer’s hands for the devices that they own. This means that consumers can open and modify everything they own. Also to root, unlock or jailbreak the software in their devices.

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