50CNT
Say you want bookshelf speakers. Going with the budget pick I might get Pioneer SP-BS22-LRs, but they're around 4500RMB here in China. Other reputable brands come in around 10000RMB, which is so far outside my budget its not even funny. But most of these speakers are made in China anyways, so you start sleuthing. K, i find a post on an Audiophile forum that tells me that HiVi(/Swan) makes the drivers for most upscale Audio equipment. Let's check what HiVi has. Ahh, they've got a bloody gorgeous pair of speakers for 1699RMB[0], and a passable one for 699RMB, and an official Taobao store. And they'll do.
Boots I would not buy from China, in China, you can return them and test.
For budget headphones, Senneheiser is what I get in Germany, Tascam if you're in the US, JVC for Asia. Don't know any Chinese brands of note there.
For smartphones Xiaomi is blowing it out of the water right now. Their Redmi(红米) line is incredible value. Then there's Huawei, Meizu, OPPO, Honor, and whatever Hammer(Chuizi) is.
[0]https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=542718449070&ns=1&abbuc...
[0]http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-09/08/c_136592568.htm [1]https://ifex.org/china/2017/09/06/ban-anonymous-content/ [2]https://www.techinasia.com/china-start-enforcing-realname-mo...! [3]https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-cr... [4]https://investmentwatchblog.com/in-china-every-citizen-is-be... [5]https://technode.com/2017/10/13/china-makes-progress-on-its-...
Maybe what Cook has said about freedom is a complete farce. Maybe it isn't. Taking a stand against the Chinese government might win him points on HN, but not with the Chinese government. And at the end of the day, they make the call on whether they'll tear down the wall or close the gates.
That said i enjoy Taobao for how i can get out of town prices inside of Beijing. But that pales in comparison to the sheer amount of stuff you can get on there. Want a chair? Done. Want beta-amylase in a 20kg bag? Done. Want socks? Done. Want a reverse osmosis system? A rotary evaporator? 12kg of chicken wings? Done, done, done.
That said, for things that aren't books, a marketing department that is complete dogshit might point to an opportunity. Berkshire Hathaway doesn't have great marketing. It doesn't need to.
If you go on Alibaba and find a merchant that has a great prospectus and a broad range of products, that's most likely a reseller. That means they take their share of the pie, and if you try to get something manufactured, you'll be working through a proxy. Better to find their manufacturer instead.
That plus a nice fountain pen [Lamy Safari 18.7USD], ink [J. Herbin Perle Noir 7.2USD/30ml], mechanical pencil [Lamy Safari 12USD], pencil leads [Uni Nano Dia 0.9USD/20leads], technical pen [Rotring Isograph 16.3USD], and I've got a nice little setup.
Excerpt relating the Weiquan movement[0]:
"Recently, some judges have started to believe that to be a judge you just have to strictly apply the law in a case. In fact, this kind of concept is erroneous [...] all the legal formulations have a clear political background and direction [...] We must stamp out the kind of narrow viewpoint that thinks that you can also do court work by having judicial independence."
* Extorting international companies into "joint" ventures
Look at some of these articles on starting a China JV[1]. Man are the caveats. So many ways to shoot yourself in the foot. Then look at a list of sectors WFOE (Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprises) are allowed in. Then check what licenses are required to operate, and whether this precludes entities with majority foreign control, any amount of foreign investment (e.g. Internet Cultural Media License 网络文化证), etc. Then look at the costs of acquiring such a license. Remember that your Chinese competitors will likely just ignore that until they're large enough to be fined for it. Remember that they'll get a slap on the wrist as long as they play ball, and you'll get deported.
* "Treats" (as an insider told me) every several months.
Look at how China ate up high-speed rail in a couple of years. All 国产 now.
[0] Huang Jiayou, "Considerations on some issues related to the education in socialist rule of law viewpoints," China Laws (http://www.lawbase.com.cn ), 13 June 2006. [1] https://www.chinalawblog.com/tag/jv/
Take a company with a completely and utterly broken sales process. Landing page copy is abjectly horrible, half the orders get dropped, no tracking or analytics, and one hand doesn't know what the other one is doing. Now fixing that entire system is a hard job, but a valuable one. So what do we do? We give people coupons. That's easy.
Now take the "self-esteem movement". The basic idea was that it'd be valuable to give people a sense of trust in their own abilities, acknowledge them as intrinsically valuable, and have them learn to appreciate their own accomplishments, because that better prepares them for any of the challenges that life may offer. But to put that to work up and down the stack is a hard problem. So we hand out coupons. That's easy.
And in that we accomplish the opposite from what we set out to do. Instead of feeling acknowledged, children feel conned. Instead of making them feel valued for what they are, we make them feel interchangeable. Instead of helping children celebrate their achievement we undermine the concept of achievement in their minds by treating it as "eh, you've tried".
_, result = min([(sqrt((i.R - c.R)^2 + (i.G - c.R)^2 + (i.B - c.B)^2), c) for c in colors])
and you're done.Why would you want a computer to come up with color names anyway? They're identifiers, so you want them to be consistent. What if it comes up with names like Piss or Ennui? Why go through that trouble?
With LIDAR, well, there's a new type of LIDAR coming out. Then there may be different successor designs and form factors.