Sunday, December 31, 2017

On its website, Postbox shows photos of only the Mac version of its email program, which looks much more beautiful than the Windows version [COMPACTIDEA]

You surf the website and you see this beautiful, colorful, lively email program. You are attracted and impressed and you end up buying it. But when you install and run it, it bears no resemblance to the photos you saw on the website. Because those were of the OS X / macOS version of the program. You feel deceived, especially because the Windows version looks so boring.

This happened to me. I felt disappointed with the looks and the feel of Postbox after having bought and installed it. I felt even more bad when I realized that, coincidentally [I didn't know this before], the Mozilla Thunderbird that I uninstalled in order to switch to Postbox is the same Thunderbird on which Postbox itself is based. Such a bad feeling - Postbox website never tells you about this.

Windows


Mac




Monday, September 4, 2017

Control, submission and vote-bank politics disguised as empowerment and progress

While online Indian news media, newspapers and folks on social networking websites all blindly and foolishly hail and celebrate the appointment of a woman as India's first female Defence Minister, it's important to observe that this move was likely a well planned and calculated one by our shrewd PM Narendra Modi. He knew well that there will be quick and collective jubilation from impatient feminists [and women in general], and he appointed Nirmala Sitharaman as India's next Defence Minister to make himself seem progressive, and to thus secure votes for himself from females.

Further, my theory is that Narendra Modi is so cunning that his second, less-visible goal behind appointment of Nirmala Sitharaman was to exert more control over Defence expenditures and allotments. She's probably submissive and will quietly do as told [by Modi], and Modi needed exactly this kind of a compliant puppet in the [lucrative and money-making] Defence Ministry. Let's not blindly and foolishly believe what's visible. Dig deeper and observe what isn't directly visible. We have to remember that our PM is a clever and self-centered man. He thinks of only himself. It's yet another political masterstroke by Modi that he was able to kill two birds with one arrow - win female votes and applause, and appoint a controllable pawn in the profitable Defence Ministry. This is Modi's own way of using feminism as a tool to further his "political profit".


Wednesday, March 29, 2017

ESET Multi-Device Security for only one device - an oxymoron by definition

Bought "ESET Multi-Device Security" from Amazon. Not really anything "multi" about it, as "1 device, 1 year" is clearly labeled on the box. What nonsense is this? You've reduced a "multi" product to the regular ESET Smart Security. Almost an oxymoron.



Saturday, February 25, 2017

Online ticket-booking websites like Cleartrip, BookMyShow, MakeMyTrip, Yatra.com, etc., deceptively and covertly add some sort of "convenience fee" at the last step

They don't reveal these rather significant charges, and if they do, it's in such a small-sized print placed at such an awkward place that it's hardly visible amd hence doesn't qualify as "we fully informed all customers". These websites non-insignificantly increase your switching cost by first making you go through the entire booking process, including filling names, details, etc., and only after one has "invested" a significant amount of time/energy and is thus more "committed". They know that one is significantly less likely to abandon booking [upon seeing the onerous "convenience" charges in the end] once one has spent a great deal of time/energy on filling forms, etc. That's the psychology they exploit. Their revenues/profits aren't based on only delivering real value to their customers. Part of it also comes from pure deception and nefarious psychological tricks.









Update [11-Apr-17]: Seen today.





Monday, January 30, 2017

Audi has deceptively named the model numbers of its Q3 cars, making it look like there's a 3.5 liter engine inside

It's clear to everyone that when a model number of a luxury car is "35 TDI Premium", it means there's a 3.5 liter engine inside. Not in the Audi Q3, where there's just a 2 liter engine inside. Quite deceptive!