Reality check.

There are many phones in China which out-smart Western "smart" phones. At one tenth of the price. 

Pourquoi?

There are HUNDREDS of outfits in Southern China who look at the latest bell or whistle from Nokiarola and duplicate within days, hours or minutes.

Case in point :

Posing with an old mate in Shenzhen the other day I tried and failed to impress him with my (unlocked) Iphone (cost around Hk$5K). He showed me his MUCH lighter Made-In-China phone costing around Hk$500 and pressed a button - local stock prices within nano-seconds. Pressed another button - graphical price movements within nano-sec,,, ok you get it.

He did not even know whether it came from the stock exchange or his phone company. It was just a commodity.

Hello world....


According to the Koran, “All who is born of Adam is touched by Satan”, but some are more “touched” than others, it seems. Howsoever “touched” are the Chinese sin-eliminators and sinners against "democracy & freedom", they mostly stumble onto the correct path either as a consequence of the culture bequeathed to them by real saints [who were/are not Chinese in essence so “off” with the guilt & anger trips] or through sheer practicality in the vein of “Necessitity being the mother of invention”. The “chosen few” will have a harder time scrwing this lot, not that their worshippers/doormatters with names like Marie Elizabeth Wang or Elvis Chan are not trying their best to “democratise” their backward tree-stump kins. So, “touch” your damnest by all means but you will return with scarred fungers. Perpetual income beggars be warned. This lot knows how to "innovate" when they see an opportunity.

And the same can be true in so many circumstances.
A knock-off-Nigel DVD can be better than a real one, since it won't have region encoding and probably won't have any prohibited actions, stopping you skipping the dross at the beginning (if indeed the dross is even included).

A "homebrew" cartridge for the Nintendo DS is a much more convenient option than buying games, as you can slap in a 4GB MicroSD card, bung 100+ ROMs on it and you're good to go.

A ripped MP3 album is usually better than some wanky DRM terthered bollocks from iTunes (et al) as you can freely use it on any MP3 player.

The list goes on and on...