Monthly Archives: September 2023

September 21, 2023 · 01:07

Runaway brain

That is how I feel, it started hours ago, the brain went into high gear and would not stop. New (remastered) games, new ideas, new IP and all in the blink of an eye. Now do not get your hopes up. None of this is thoroughly by me, as such it might all be nothing, but the sensation was rather nice (and scary). So whilst the Saudi Gazette gives us (at https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/636019/SAUDI-ARABIA/Saudi-Arabia-China-consider-enhancing-economic-and-trade-relations) I need to look and saw that I made mentions of this danger 3 years ago. It is in the Gazette that we see ‘Saudi Arabia, China consider enhancing economic and trade relations’ with “The two sides have discussed ways of strengthening economic cooperation, and trade exchange, and enhancing the relations in these fields. They have also discussed joint investment opportunities in a number of targeted sectors, and increased access to non-oil exports between the two countries, in addition to several topics of common interest.” Most of this is not new. It is another source that gives us that Saudi Arabia is now considering a Chinese nuclear reactor. Another economic loss for America and the EU. They can get mad all they want, but they created this mess themselves. It was my mommy, who stated when I was very young (more than half a century ago) that you should not bite the hand that feeds you and now we see China walking off with several billions more. So whilst everyone is creating anger and hate on some notion that Microsoft had plans to buy Nintendo (I reckon that Nintendo would never be that stupid), China gets a clean sweep economic deal after economic deal and the west remains largely quiet. I merely got what I read from Al Jazeera and funny enough the west merely mentioned it a month ago (as far as I could tell), yet there were pages and pages of news that Microsoft did consider in 2020 to buy Nintendo (as if). So what news is more important? Or has the media now resorted in ignoring economic news? The fact that this reactor is close to the borders with the UAE and Qatar implies that they could be supplying more and more energy all over several nations. That is actual news we should know about. 

In the meantime I had another idea considering a remaster in a few ways and even a new notch on the setting of the game that never existed before. A setting to give it a little more realism (of sorts) and it would please the Amazon lobby as it is a direction they might not have sailed before with their Luna, but the idea is not fully grown yet and the machine learning part to get these two parts done will not be easy either. It might have been done before, but I am not aware of it. As such my runaway brain is running on all thrusters and might soon need another dose of food to fuel its engine.

In the meantime whilst I see X (Twitter) fuel more hate messages on the Microsoft over Nintendo issue. The reality is that I do not expect Nintendo to ever be this stupid. The Japanese population would all turn against every Nintendo executive in Japan. I feel that they are not that silly. Is there a. connection? Yes, it is the media, they are so drawn to the stories that flame digital dollars that the other stuff is neglected. The media is marketing itself out of existence and that has repercussions, large ones. We see all the messages on how populism interferes in all kinds of ways, but the media is directly responsible for that. It is the effect of flaming all over the field for digital dollars, all whilst important issues are not the main course, it is added stories and the people can no longer tell what is important. So feel free to debate the small issue on something relating to Microsoft and leaked emails. Just so you know, over the last 4 weeks China had created an inside track towards another $5,400,000,000 revenue option. Its not like the US or EU needed that money, did they? The US government shutdown must be imaginary (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2023/sep/19/government-shutdown-mccarthy-republicans-trump-biden-politics-live) and when that happens? What next?

Several nations in some stupid deadlock whilst they should have been minding the revenue store. Go figure!

Enjoy the day. 

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September 20, 2023 · 02:19

Chapter 13

This is not economy (Chapter 11), or procreation (Chapter 17). This is about a very different stage. And this starts with the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-66835995) where we are given ‘Biden urges UN leaders to stand together against Russia’. I agree with the sentiment. Apart from the fact that Russia has become a terrorist nation attacking unarmed civilians (and getting bitch slapped by Paddington bear), there is a much larger setting and the people are mostly in the dark here.

Russia has created a spy network on a global level and it is hindering any actions. The US is clearly in a stage of catering to Russia where its own Republican Party is trying to stop any aid to Ukraine. In addition to this there is still a large amount of American companies doing business in Russia. As such it is nice for President Biden to ask what he is and many support this, but America has to clean out its own front yard and that has not been happening for well over a year. It gives a two sided story to others.

Then we get ‘Dutch defence ministry official arrested for evasion of Russia sanctions’ (at https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/dutch-defence-ministry-official-arrested-for-evasion-of-russia-sanctions/) where we see “The Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) arrested a Defence Ministry official accused of having evaded EU sanctions against Russia by exporting spare aircraft parts to Russia via third countries, the government agency announced on Friday.” This is a defence ministry official. On top of all this there are NATO links, but the concrete level and levels of access are unknown to me.

From there we get to ‘Germany charges intelligence ‘mole’ with treason in Russia spying case’ which was handed to us in the beginning of September by the BBC. The story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66727785) is where we are given “Prosecutors believe Carsten L shared intelligence about the war in Ukraine and the Wagner mercenary group and received roughly €400,000 (£340,000), according to German reports.” To make matters worse, Carsten L is a high ranking officer in German intelligence. 

These are merely a few stories in a vast collection of events. It affects The Netherlands, the US, Germany, France and a few more nations. You see, Chapter 13 is the chapter on Espionage in the Art of War (Sun Tzu). That chapter gives us that there are 5 types of spies.

Local spies
Inward spies
Converted spies
Doomed spies
Surviving spies

And Russia has all 5 types all over Europe and the US, as such the comment by Stoltenberg “Nobody knows how long this war will last, he says, but with the support of NATO and the international community, Ukraine has been able to push Russia back.” Goes wrong. The intent is nice, but as long as you do not clean your house, too many political and wannabe players will destroy whatever you are trying to achieve. It is perhaps the one part I agree on with Joseph McCarthy, until your house is clean you are headed for disaster. To be honest I never expected to EVER quote McCarthy, but the anti Ukrainian setting in the US and these fake peace proclaimers are showing him to be correct. And until the cleaning is done, matter will only get worse and I believe that some realise this, but the rest is pushed to sleep it through (until too late) which will end up being the start of a disaster. 

Sun Tzu is merely one example There is also Carl von Clausewitz (On war), yet the Art of War is (as I personally see it) much better, more generic and more versatile. The problem (for the Netherlands and Germany) is to see what kind of spy their spy was. A converted or a doomed spy. To act for money makes a person a doomed spy, but it is unclear how long this had been going on, especially when someone parks funds at the behest of a mother in laws maiden name and when that account is in a place like Saudi Arabia, finding these funds will be near impossible, making the foundation of what kind of adversary harder. 

In the case of Germany there is even more. Many parts of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) support Russia, its foreign policy, and its allies. For example, AfD members and activists were listed as keeping close ties with Russian politicians and receiving financial benefits in an OCCRP investigation of Russia’s International Agency for Current Policy. And these people are part of what is said to be the AfD pro-Russia movement. Two nations and several to find. France is cleaning house and they made progress, but they are only finding those who weren’t clever enough to mask their actions and there are plenty in many nations who were that clever making progress an issue. That is what we see now, but what we do not see (and most will not know) is how the FSB (and optionally the GRU) are working in India and Pakistan. It is clear that they are there, but the level of access and how deep they are rooted in those political climates is (as far as I know) unknown and speculating is useless. No matter how you slice and dice this, until there is some proper cleaning there will be a larger problem and it is not going away any day soon.

Enjoy the mid week that is about to come (I’m already there).

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September 19, 2023 · 03:04

The joy of a sleepless night

It all started a few hours ago. The neanderthal hate mail came in regards to the previous article. I was delusional, this never happens. If you receive hate mail, you probably have heard it before. I do not care, but I think it is nice to tell their mommies just how stupid Junior is, as such here goes.

The military have been stupid, very stupid. We see this shown Reuters (the New York Times is behind a paywall). The story (at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/man-suspected-leaking-secret-us-documents-appear-court-2023-04-14/) gives us ‘Airman suspected of leaking secret US documents hit with federal charges’ where we see “Jack Douglas Teixeira of North Dighton, Massachusetts, the U.S. Air National Guard accused of leaking top secret military intelligence records online was charged on Friday with unlawfully copying and transmitting classified material.” In addition to this, The BC gives more, gives links to gamers and a service named Discord, which has 150,000,000 active users. As such the military link is proven. What is unknown is what other stupid things he has been doing. For that we need to await the full investigation of the FBI. Although it is increasingly likely that the NSA will wield the national security flag. I would totally get that. 

Then the second setting the gaming part. For that we go to Kaspersky. They give us (at https://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/threats/coronavirus-gaming-scams) a rather nasty part with warnings. The important ones are:

  1. Only use official websites for any purchases related to the game.
  2. Use a strong password for the game login.
  3. Never click on any links asking you to reconfirm your password.

There is a lot more, but if a gamer (especially one in the military) has ignored 2 of these, the damage is likely done. There will be one stupid person in any airbase (the US does not get to be that lucky) as such there are phishing and data capturing dangers in most of the 59 of them. The Army has over 300 of them. You still think I was kidding? As I see it Teixeira is merely the tip of that iceberg. I have no idea what the danger is with the Marines, but it is likely very low, not as low as the navy, but it is still better than the other two. That is the realistic danger that the US faces and if Russians were watching Discord the US has a massive problem. You see, it is not only what the US (or NATO) knew, it is what they didn’t know that will become the achilles heel. That is two of the settings right out here in the open and the Teixeira might seem new, but the New York Times implied that this had been going on for a lot longer, as such the damage is real. 

As far as I am concerned when Teixeira is thrown in prison, they can cover the door with concrete and forget about him. The idea to put classified materials online to look cool is even more stupid to fall for a Russian 17 year old honey trap. With the honey trap we get it, hormones take over, but to look cool? I am at a loss what that man ever did in a uniform and even less why it took so long to find the link. 

But it wasn’t merely about the person Teixeira, it was about the setting for a movie or TV episode. You see, phishing has been going on for decades and the lack of Common Cyber Sense (especially in the military) was covered by me over the last few years. I have articles that go back to at least April 2022. So this is more than a loaded canon, this is the making of more (in what direction remains open and not discussed). It has all the makings of the nightmare scenario. You see you want your data to be safe whilst not using a password, or perhaps one of the routers at the pentagon which had been implied (by an anonymous source) to have been Cisco123 for the longest of times. So how is that security going? It is a sliding scale from non existent to a revolving door for anyone that wanted to read some. It might be my point of view, but the released facts seem to fit the profiles I set.

In addition, for some weird reason, I seem to dream up all kinds of advertisements. One was for AA, where I used the phrase (with a nice animated bottle) “It is fine to have a drink. Make sure the drink does not consume you” I also got a girl to pose partially undressed, dancing is a slutty outfit, in a hospital bed and one more. You do not see her ‘details’ as I used a very interesting way to filter the view. The bottle has a label “Cemetery premium 45%”

The second add was about healthcare, I will spare you the details, they are not important. The weird part is that my mind designed both of them in mere minutes. I still need some things (like software) to get it done, but it is a weird setting. Especially as I never had any real intent to go into filming. Ah well, another mess to overlook I reckon.

And how do these two relate? They do not, but consider all the gaming ads you see on mobiles and tablets. Do you know the sources? Do you know what is collected? You see the FBI gives us that in 2022 $10,300,000,000 was lost due to scams and I reckon that number is low. Too many are ashamed to admit that they have been made the fool. As such all elements I mentioned yesterday were covered and anyone who had read up on the subject would know this. 

So enjoy Monday and consider how safe your data and details are. 

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September 18, 2023 · 16:56

The notion

This all started a long time ago and my mind revisited this point mere hours ago. I was watching a YouTube on Dubai by Travelalgorithm. I saw a banner stating “The dream starts here” and my mind went somewhere else. You see, what it is not the dream or the nightmare, but the notion? The spark that sets things in motion.

Past tense
In the past (around 35 years ago) I was send a game to test. It was called Virus. It had a bio hazard sticker, it was wrapped like it was dangerous, but it was a game. A game with a difference. You see, someone thought things through. They had the building blocks, but your hard-drive was the template. It would scan your drive and from there it would create levels and a game. And that file could be send to others who would send their file to you and you would have hundreds of hours to play. The setting was pretty ingenious.

Present time
Now we go to today, it could still work, but it could also set a massive larger stage with cloud stages. Now we are going to a much higher challenge (if you have a cloud directory). Then my mind took a twist on the matter and I cannot tell if it is just the story, a related story to other film IP I have, or merely new IP. 

What happens when that solution creates a scan handle for every file? What if it looks for something specific? Now these levels become an entirely new stage in data collecting. And the idea is not new. Phishing operations are set to this level of access. Yet did anyone consider that gaming is also a data collective? I accuses Microsoft of that years ago, but that was a simple operation. What if the operation is not that simple. What if the combination of games create the handles they need to collect stuff? People thinking that they are gamers are so collectively driven to whatever is proclaimed to be cool. Look at some game advertising that claim “only 1% can do this”. How many people will let their ego speak and fall for that trap and that is merely the simplest of traps. What if the upload that some games do is holding a little more? It is not out of the realm of possibilities and I a not that certain how alert Google and Apple are on the subject. This gets to be a lot more dangerous if you consider the old stages that Facebook game creators employed. If you had one game, getting to a certain level would unlock something in another game and soon enough people started to play that game too and more games afterwards. So what happens that two or more games will unlock interactions as well as other interactions? 

You might think this is nuts and it possibly is, but isn’t that how some ideas make for great story IP (read movie IP). At present there is more and more need for new stories and as America hasn’t been getting anything done. Other creators have had the stage all to themselves. There are all kinds of twists in stories. I personally will always love the Usual Suspects (1995) and that is for me. Yet today thee is an abundance of twists and cockles in storytelling that could and should be upgraded. Yet too many use the game as the story (which makes sense), yet too many are avoiding the technology that enabled the game in the first place and Virus was not a usual game. We focus on intelligent auto design of levels making them never the same (Diablo 3) and that is fine. Yet what happens when that engine is corrupted? It is starting to happen and it is happening more and more. What if the design is set to make you ALMOST succeed? Did you figure on that? Did you realise that most match three games seem to be easy the first 15 levels and after that it gets harder soon enough? But they have you, just buy a few ‘special items’ and you are back on track and it works, for the next 10-15 levels at least and suddenly you have spend $5. It isn’t much because that is not the goal. It is the goal of 200,000 people spending that and suddenly the game makers has a cool million. But what if that isn’t all? What if the IP on your laptop is the end goal? Did you consider that danger? That is the notion this story is thinking of. Consider the twist in Ocean’s 8 (2018). I thought it was brilliant and until the end I never saw it coming. As we went in blinker mode for one target, we overlooked the larger picture and combine these two and you have the setting. If you are still in the dark. Consider the military locations and what hardware too many kids get access to on that base (some adults too). There is a larger setting where they are all gullible and the Pentagon has overlooked that setting. Now consider what access the criminal mind gets when they combine two notions to create a third. So is that three notions, or does it suddenly become a total of 6 options? ( I will let you figure that one out).

Still, the idea has merit if you know the direction some are not considering for too long a time.

Enjoy Monday.

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September 18, 2023 · 00:14

A dark journey

This journey isn’t for every one. I have hd the same setting earlier and the same conclusion as well, but I was never outspoken about it. I got there via two articles. 

Overdose
The first article is given to us by BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-66810832) where we see ‘UAE seizes billion dollar amphetamine haul’ there we are given “A portion of the 86 million Captagon pills police in Dubai say was seized”. You see, there is literally no reason to be this stupid. This amounts to 10 tablets to EVERY citizen in the UAE. The UAE has a remarkably well organised detection team as well as a well organised cyber investigation team. This was never going to go right. And lets be clear, the idea to set a market to serve 100% of a population is just insane. And I am not the only one thinking this. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are thinking pretty much the same thing (my speculation). This is either a distraction or it is about destabilisation. How? Your guess is as good as mine, but I see o other setting than these two. Perhaps they whistle this load whilst 100Kg (or more) gets safely transported via other places. Now, that would make sense. The materials cooked are not the issue. If you can make that much, you can make 100Kg more. But was it really about the drugs or the distraction. Perhaps it was about finding the right people to assist them in this endeavour. As I said, your guess is as good as mine.

The second article is also from the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66826895) with ‘How the fentanyl crisis’ fourth wave has hit every corner of the US’ there we are given “the US witnessed a grim milestone: for the first time ever, drug overdoses killed more than 100,000 people across the country in one single year. Of those deaths, more than 66% were tied to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin.” It seems that the war on drugs is not working. I see only one solution. After the arrest, just put drug dealers to death, no long trial, no long Rebuttal. As their stuff kills millions, they too should die. And after Breaking Bad, drug dealers have been romanticised. No matter how this plays out, we need to change the game. All this lame war on drugs is as useless as anything we see. Its like throwing your 17 year old daughter naked in a room full of horny sex depraved men thinking she will still be a virgin in 300 seconds time. It is time to change the game with deadly precision. The talkative weak minded liberal politicians have had decades and nothing was achieved. 

Consider 2000, the movie Traffic is released. We see several sides of the drug market and that market had been growing for decades, now a quarter of a century later, it drains healthcare, it drains prison space and it drains the patience of the parents of the victims of drug trafficking. 

Patients and funds are gone. Now, why didn’t I speak up earlier? I did, but not to this degree. You see when nations are attacked and the intent is destabilisation of a government it becomes a very different problem. You see it might start in the US, but the greed driven are never satisfied. The EU is next and after that who knows? With the UAE it becomes a different game, but when you see a board and you do not know whether the data refers to Chess, Checkers or Go it is a hard issue. The hard issue is whether the data supports the view, whether the game presented reflects the real issue or whether it is merely a smokescreen telling us it is one of those three. This matters because in an age where we cannot afford these leaps, we need to make sure that any false leaps are stopped and fast, which is why I am on this dark journey.

Is there another option? 
It is a fair question, but the death graphs from the US implies that it is already to late for that. Before this is stopped hundreds of thousands will die. Now, we have plenty of people (8 billion), so this could go on for a little while longer and if it does the US will be without healthcare funds. This will not take long, I reckon that it collapses within 5 years. So what will we do after that? What will the US do, what will Europe do? Your guess is as good as mine. I reckon that the UAE and other Arabic nations will see that the US is on track to lose it all, and after the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia locked down on drug offences and last year performed at least 20 executions for drug offences, the UAE might follow that course. When the deaths and the cost of healthcare starts adding up, it might not have another option open to them. The fact that they captured 13 tonnes of amphetamine pills smuggled in furniture is one side, the other side is that there is no prediction on what got through via other means. It is speculation on my side, but when you consider the data, I am very likely to be right on this (a little less on the reason on why it is done).

Enjoy the day, Monday is almost here.

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September 17, 2023 · 01:23

Dreamcast, a place

Yup, In succession to part one. I decided to think through the characters. I am not putting it all here (for obvious reasons) yet when you think it through, I set up the larger station in merely a few hours. As such, any Canadian TV channel can pick this up. The reason is simple and two fold. In the first there is a writers strike in the USA. I will not assist any TV station there whilst the strike is going on. The second is that this event plays in Toronto, it seems logical that a Canadian TV stations could have a go at this.

Vasileios
He is the main character, not much is known about him and in the beginning the setting is that he travelled in time. Over the course of the movie we get more and the end has a twist (as one expects). He is driven to solve this event for reasons unknown.

Olivia
She is the liaison officer connected to our main character. She sports a heavy Taurus Raging Hunter 357 Mag 7-Round Revolver. The gun is specific and this has a reason. Her father was a police officer who was killed in the line of duty. What she knows that other corrupt officers got him killed and she vowed to kill them with that gun. She is a crack shot, slightly rude mannered on speak and actions. She does genuinely care for justice and people. She cares for victims and she does not stand for bullshit. 

Michel Coulombe
He is a twist. I wanted to get the actual former director of the CSIS involved. This is largely an intelligence gathering operation, as such he would be a great consultant. Also, who is better equiped and trained to play head of the CSIS then the former director of the CSIS? From the beginning when our main character stops the initial terrorist event the CSIS gets involved and the fact that they were unaware that this was about to happen gives Vasileios a foot in the door.

Police Captain
The involved police captain is there to smooth things over and set the larger operation to get things done. I thought of John Larroquette or Patrick Labyorteaux to fill this role. The elected person is there to manage the police forces and to keep tabs on the two main characters.

MAGA
The nice part of these MAGA people is that they tend to be conspiracy theorists and that works for me. It is hard to find a decently believable opponent. The setting of the stage is that MAGA is ‘working’ with(or for) the Canadian Conservative Party. What none of them know is that MAGA is pushed by American Industrials to create enough panic and chaos so that America can push in and make Canada a republic. It adheres to the old golden rule ‘in confusion there is profit’ and with the US running out of space and resources expanding to the north is a simple business decision. I have set that stage in a few stages the conspiracy people, their support system, the conservative players and the conservative party. There needs to be clear separation so that the detection feels real. 

Unknown player
This person is unknown (for now) because I do not have the larger setting here. It is why there were two names for the police captain. The other one becomes the head of CSIS data analyses. I was thinking that they would have a data room with actual Palantir servers crunching the numbers. During the events we learn that data is ‘misplaced’ and this gets us to the corrupt police officers who were filling their pockets wherever they could, as such they are involved and we get to see Olivia being a crack shot. There is no denying that seeing a corrupt police officer executed is more satisfying than some organised crime figure (not by much though).

There might be some additional key people down the road, but I got this all done in under 4 hours (including the time for the first article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/09/13/dreamcraft-the-specifics/) 

Location 1
This is Bloor–Yonge Station. Here we see the initial attack stopped. The detonation (with hydrogen cyanide) is stopped. The event would have killed all the people in the subway station and the tanks were large enough to flow the gas into the street, which would be a first chaos point. With the subways out of commission and a massive cornerstone of Toronto traffic stopped in the heart of the city would create massive amounts of panic. As this is stopped the CSIS enables Vasileios to proceed, but only with Olivia locked at the hip to him. This gets the police in the mix as well and the CSIS data centre will be looking over every byte of data, to see what they missed. 

Location 2
It is a house, and I think it should be in Rockwood village. It allows for a later link to business conferences and Mississauga. The house is the impact of a shootout between parties and our two characters. He is sporting a Cretan knife which he buys in an earlier scene. Olivia was unwilling to hand him a gun. The scene starts with them sneaking into the back and he starts silently and indiscriminately killing the people there. Olivia shoots three and calls for backup. We see the cellar has a bomb factory, the police shows up a minute later. Vasileios grabs a gun from the table and kills the police officers. He states that these cops are corrupt, at that point the police commissioner calls and states that the reinforcements are 10 minutes out. This convinces Olivia this is about more and we see all kinds of evidence that bombs were made. 

Location 3
the CSIS ‘server room’ where the data is crunched, the captain there is starting to find ‘mislabelled’ data and now he knows that there is a larger problem. He gets 3-4 most trusted people in a separate server room and they start crunching the data differently, which is time consuming, but they do not know what is missing. As the story continues we see the crunching of locations and people on every bit of data. 

There is of course more, but two locations are key to the story. Seems weird to give away the plot ahead of schedule. I am still mulling over the option of how to include the conservative party without getting slammed with slander (or whatever claim they will make), for me the larger reason was their ‘worshipping’ of Donald Trump and MAGA. I still need to figure out a setting where Olivia executes the three corrupt officers that killed her father. It needs to read that it could have been a justifiable killing or a mere execution and it could be seen as either way. I personally believe it spices up the story a bit at the end.

 

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September 16, 2023 · 02:30

Sentimental Journey

I just had one. Not the one you think. In the 90’s movies and games were relatively expensive in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands a company named Homesoft had control of video games, and as such in 2000 I got Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation and Diablo 2. One for the Dreamcast and one for the PC. The ferry from Hoek van Holland to Harwich (plus train to London) was around $59. The two games in the UK saved me around $40, so for $19 I went to London for the day, bought the 2 games (and a few other items) and took the night ferry back. 

I was able to upgrade to a cabin for around $30 more. It was the cheapest weekend trip and I got to walk on Regent Street, Picadilly, went to the Virgin Megastore and did a few other goofy things. I spend the day in London (from around 09:00) and for one day I felt like a king until the train around 17:00 took me back to Harwich for the night boat back to the Netherlands. 

This sentimental journey was recalled through the Khaleej Times who (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/uae-iphone-pre-booking-draws-shoppers-from-india-pakistan-europe-to-dubai) gave me ‘iPhone pre-booking draws shoppers from India, Pakistan, Europe to Dubai’. It is here that we get “In places like India and Pakistan, iPhones can be quite expensive because of the taxes”. OK, I get that. Yet I am a little surprised that people from Europe are equally signing up for that, as we are given “A European tourist arrived in Dubai last week to get his hands on the new model. “There’s a big demand for iPhones in my country and I can get them at a relatively cheaper price here.”” It all makes sense, but I was unaware that it pays to travel to get the iPhone cheaper. It was around 6 years ago when I was ready to upgrade my old Huawei but the mobile stores did not have the 64GB edition, only the 32GB edition. Even thought here was a 64GB edition in existence. I speculated that the mobile providers wanted people to upgrade their phones every year, which would not be initially needed with a 64GB phone. In the end I found a way around it and now I rely on my Google Pixel to get me by and so far it has not let me down. The iPhone is not the cheapest and the iPhone 14 pro max is $2100 here, so I reckon that if we can get it at least 25% cheaper in Dubai it starts making sense. A flight from Sydney to Dubai (with one stop) is $961. The iPhone 15 Pro max is in Dubai $2155. You think it is the same and it is at present (I gave the 14 price as that is in the shops). You can preorder it for exactly the same price. So from Sydney a trip to Dubai makes no sense. Yet in the Netherlands it is €1.479,00 which comes down to $2,450.74 with an additional flight of around $500, so it is not that cheap, but you do get an iPhone on day one and the difference almost makes for the flight. So the math works out well for some and a little less for others, but if you have to have that version 15, a flight to Dubai suddenly makes a lot of sense. You could see it as a cheap short vacation to Dubai. When I was going over the text and I was doing the math my sentimental journey came back to me. Especially Diablo 2, which ended up giving me a massive amount of joy for a very long time. So when will people consider getting their new MacBook Pro or MacBook Air in Dubai? When you do the math, these additional items make for a free trip. A simple MacBook Pro (€ 4659) ends up being $7717, in Dubai we get it for $6961, so now we are already breaking more than even with the flight. And customs can’t do anything, just put a local sticker on the top of your new apple and it is your own already owned MacBook Pro (with non UAE stickers on top). 

I have no idea how much the people save when they get the iPhone and the MacBook Pro, yet I reckon that some might save even more. Making this and perhaps others too a really nice deal. And lets be honest. When you can get exactly the same stuff down the road or in Dubai. Who would not be willing to fly to Dubai? Even if it is just to have a shawarma in the mall (not the worst reason to go to Dubai). 

At this moment I am just smiling. It was been 24 years and we still try to get the best deal for ourselves and in this case a little more than a good deal. I remember in the 80’s it was cheaper to fly to America to get a car there then to buy an American car in the Netherlands. I never got one, but that setting also (to some degree) applied to get a car in Germany (a German model), then commerce houses started to strangle parallel imports and with the EU that all stopped. I wonder what they will do next. You see they might safe in one side, but some aren’t paying taxes, so why not get it in a tax zero nation? I reckon that this could drive commerce up in Luxembourg and Monaco. And a flight from Amsterdam to Nice is $133 (with an additional train ticket to Monaco) now the math really tanks in your favour. The train to Luxembourg is around $55, so people have options. In this day and age when the bills bite saving is key and we all try to find a cheaper way, don’t we?

Enjoy the upcoming weekend.

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September 15, 2023 · 06:58

Lining

That is the setting. You see, you might not be aware. You might merely see one negative article and dismiss it. That is fair enough, for the most I would have dismissed it too. Yet when you start using Google Search on topics like (for example) “Neom” the negativity list starts adding up and they all have something negative to say. 

A long time ago
So lets take a small sidestep towards the young days of your grandfather. It’s 1886 and plans are made for the world fair 1889. An architect named Gustave Eiffel ends up constructing the Eiffel Tower. It was met with ridicule, criticism and a fair amount of hatred. It is now the most recognised building in the world drawing almost 6 million visitors last year, and they all have to pay. The prices vary, but it amounts to about $75 per person. Do that 6 million times over. I reckon that that so called ugly building has earned its investment back a few dozen times over. 

So back to today and this time I am not using the media. This time I am relying on Popular Mechanics (at https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a44966174/saudi-arabia-line-city/) where we are given ‘Saudi Arabia Is Building an Entire City in a Straight Line. It Makes Zero Sense.’ I wonder why it makes zero sense. You see the start gives us “mathematicians broke down the numbers and calculated what the typical commutes in such a city would look like, discovering that it’d be better the built the city in a circle rather than a straight line” and there I am wonder for whom it would make sense to have a circle?

For the inhabitants of the Apple frisbee? For the Pentagon? Consider the life of most of us. We start at home (point A) and we go to work (point B) we travel from A to B to A and in between on that route we get our shopping done. A straight line makes perfect sense to some, not to all, but to some and the most important part in all of this. This has never been done before, just like the Eiffel Tower. I reckon that by 2050 any web satellite camera will have zoomed in on the line a thousand times a day, because as webcams and YouTube satisfies our needs now, a camera version of Starlink will most likely satisfy the curiosity of our grandchildren. 

The question
What I do not get is the massive amount of negativity around this. Neom and the line are two places that have never been done before and has never been contemplated in history. Neom might become the first megacity that writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra erected in the comic book Dredd in 1977. A city 22 times the size of New York and Saudi Arabia (not America) is making it a reality. And they are doing it all whilst they have the fastest and most complete 5G network on the planet. As such I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. I have to because in my young days I studied ships engineering, not civil engineering (long before my IT and law degrees). In California a circle makes sense, a circle surrounding a park, but Saudi Arabia has a very different eco system and it is a fir bit longer too. 

Then we are given “The city—stretching from the Red City to the city of Tabuk 110 miles away—along with its estimated 9 million inhabitants would be entirely car-less, and instead be tied together by a high-speed rail system that could travel from one end of The Line to the other in just 20 minutes.” Another thing pops up. America and Europe have entire micro economies based on cars and transportation, they would not exist in the Line. Then the train system. A 20 minute ride from end to end. Consider that this line is 170Km long. In the Netherlands that covers Groningen to Utrecht and it takes that train 2 hours to get there. 600% longer and OK, they stop a few times, and it isn’t high speed, but that is what there is and you cannot make high speed trains work there under those conditions. 

The one part we are missing is that the line is 500 metres high. As such the building is significantly higher than Central Park Tower (longer and wider too). It raises even more questions, questions I can merely grasp at, but the others are merely coming with negativity. I wonder why. What I like about it is that no one has ever done this before and here Saudi Arabia is leading the way. If they pull this off (and I hope they do), the west needs to take a long hard look at itself. We might see all the experts talking the BS they do, but when this is done we get to see the excuses, the blame game, the lack of insight and the media would be regarded as culprit number one. 

Popular mechanics also had a few good idea’s as they tend to do. They give us “Although the paper mostly focuses on the mathematical shortcomings of The Line’s design, it also brings up some good practical problems. If the city’s main train line malfunctions for any reason, for example, it could effectively cut off residents from millions of people—an idea that’s unthinkable in today’s modern metropolises.” And that matters how? I have two best friends. I haven’t seen them in decades as they live on another continent. I have video chat, phone and email to keep in touch. Beyond that my connections over the last two decades have been work and social events around me. I never had the need to meet up with millions and the train is a realistic idea, but things break and things get fixed. Perhaps the train line will have a spare line? Just a thought. In todays world people have become self isolating, it is a result of all kinds of reasons, perhaps the line will offer an alternative?

If there is my need for realism, it becomes the setting of the 500 metres height. There might be all kinds of reasons why it is that high, but on what levels will people be? And then the idea that this one line will house 9,000,000 people. The largest three cities are Tokyo, Delhi an Shanghai, still a fair bit larger than this line, but what area do they cover, what pollution do they create and how much of the ecological side are getting destroyed in the process? This is the consequence of old day thinking. As such the line is starting to make more sense, but it is also a place with more questions. I reckon time will take care of most of them, just like in the days of Gustave Eiffel. Evolution will take care of itself and when one is done the next will come and then one more and for now Neom, the line and Mukaab (which will be 400 by 400 by 400 metres). All in Saudi Arabia and all dwarfing most other architectural achievements. Three places clearly visible from space. So why the negativity? Perhaps the EU and US are realising that they are done for, but who instigated that part? Was it their lack of evidence (small 5G reference), their inability to create because they are now too broke to get anything done? You tell me, I am not sure of any of it. But no matter how these three are completed, it seems to me that Saudi Arabia has its focal point towards the future, all whilst America in true Excel style merely looks at the next quarter, a time frame that does not allow for projects that we are currently seeing in Saudi Arabia. 

There was one final thought that hit me at the end of all this. The article gives us “If its 9 million inhabitants are homogeneously distributed in the city, each kilometre will have roughly 53,000 people” from that point of view it is denser than Manilla, the most dense city in the world with 43,064 people per kilometre. You see, it isn’t the fact that Manilla isn’t the densest city, it is that these metrics would no longer matter because based on the EIU’s Global Liveability Index for 2023, Manila placed 136th among 173 cities. Then we get that the current metro area population of Delhi in 2023 is 32,941,000 almost 400% higher than the Line. Certain metrics would become obsolete and I reckon that there is every chance that a place like the Line would grace the top 10 of the EIU’s Global Liveability Index from the very start. Did anyone consider those metrics?

Enjoy the upcoming last workday of the week.

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September 14, 2023 · 11:44

A lovely surprise

It started around Sunday. I downloaded a game called Battle Lines and it as mere curiosity. After the dozens of lame games exploiting gamers for advertisement money. This game was more than a pleasant surprise. It was a revelation. This game has the potential of becoming the next big thing. It won’t be a Pokemon, but it will be big. The game has strategy, the game has nice graphics and it is simple, strategic and as I am learning addictive. 

So as we see above a level, the I added graphics. There are the elements and bricks. One of the bricks has a red circle. If an element is used next to them. So look at the Green icons with the black line and the Yellow icons with the green lines. So as you draw a line, these icons explode. When they are next to a brick it damages. The two green icons will damage the brick with the red circle twice. A total of three damage will remove the brick and another icon can be places. If I work that line of 4 they transform into an attack and with the power of the gloves I will hit the opponent 4 times. 

In this case it will be 4 times 762 and during the game you can upgrade to power of the glove, in the image I can watch a commercial for +54 damage upgrade, I had already bought an upgrade that level, on the right you see that for 82.33K I can buy +140 health. With every level I get more cash and there is a lot more to all this. There is more equipment and more levels (another story) or you can find out for yourself. The first image also shows space for 5 gadgets, I have unlocked 4. When I use a total of 5 icons the gadget can be used. It is an extra move and these gadgets can be upgraded, you can also earn more powerful gadgets on a map level. It all makes the setting to battle more powerful enemies. In the first image you see I am fighting a rat. There are rats, owls, cockroaches and that list goes on. The game has cool graphics and a killer game setting. I reckon that places like Apple Arcade and Amazon Luna could really add to their reputation if they had this game in their library. To be honest, I haven’t been this enthusiastic for a game for quite some time making this the surprise of the month, if not the quarter. In the age of commercial exploiters, this game is a breath of fresh air. We get to see some commercials, but not too many and it is possible to switch it off with premium boxes and they aren’t cheap, but if Apple or Amazon get this game, they can switch of the commercials as a first and get quite the following.  

To see a game with an original twist is rare as such the game is amazing and after seeing dozens of below par exploitation games, it is a great surprise to see a game like this. The game is called Battle Lines: Puzzle Fighter is available on Android and iOS. So good luck if you want to give it a try and be ready to get a pleasant surprise.

Enjoy the day.

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September 13, 2023 · 12:57

Dreamcraft, the specifics

This morning I came up with an idea. I have had certain elements of this idea in my head for some time, but this morning the pieces of the puzzle started to connect. I am not putting it all out here. It is meant for some Canadian TV maker, not sure which, and with the Americans on strike it seems wrong to hand it over to them. The setting is set to a time traveller with a twist. The setting is set in Canada (the Canadian film maker angle) and is connected to MAGA, making a first setting with America as the evil player.

It starts with “Certain names have been changed to protect the seemingly self-proclaimed innocent players” which could be seen as a twist as well. The movie relies on one player being part of this (as small actor and consultant).

CSIS director Michel Coulombe as himself

A setting that hasn’t happened since former CIA director William Colby in the PC game Spycraft (1996). So there is a precedence for this and I am happy to be to the smallest degree a copycat. I have no idea who would play in this, but a case could be made to give the largest role to Paul Tiberius Shatner (aka Paul Wesley) and I feel that the idea could benefit by a seasoned actors like John Larroquette and/or Patrick Labyorteaux, but I have no clear reason why, merely a feeling. 

The setting is set about a in progress terrorist attack on Toronto and our time traveller starts with an incapacitation gone execution of a person exiting the subway early in the morning. That is where he gets the CSIS involved and after the first evidence is shown to be correct they understand the time pressures and from there we get into a setting of executions showing more and more evidence to become more and more evident that it is all real and that is where we get to the intelligence mulling and a slightly more academic set (the need for an intelligence consultant) and from there we are taken on a rollercoaster of intel and action, but this is not too action driven, we see flashbacks (for the twist part) and a reference to

“Time travel is as I know it was set to reality somewhere in 2060-2070. The math came from an actual AI that IBM developed and as I understand it I can never comprehend it, the math is a dozen blackboards of algorithms. It is safer to go back and this is my second trip. My last trip. The chances of paradoxes become too great after trip one. Also with travelling into the future paradoxes increase exponential with every second you travel into the future. Its a big no-no. See it as as throwing a rock into the river, the river adjusts around the rock, but into the future the rock becomes bigger by the power of its size with every second it travels into the future, the river overflows and the river stagnates, it becomes a mess really quickly.”

As the story unfolds we are also introduced to a female kick-ass gung-ho liaison officer (optionally Nina Dobrev), but the actress is not defined and no sex scenes. She needs to be hardcore gung-h carrying something like a Taurus Raging Hunter 357 Mag 7-Round Revolver (she is a crack shot and every shot is a kill). This is an intelligence suspense movie.

There is a larger twist at the end involving a ring and with the narration showing us the collapse of the Eiffel Tower the movie ends?

There is of course more, but that is for the TV executive, we can’t have the yanks copying everything. It dilutes the script too much. So that was my overly productive morning.

What did you get done this morning? Enjoy your day.

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