Category Archives: Finance

July 24, 2019 · 11:08

This stupid Neanderthal

Yes, you read it right, as the worst possible grammar allows for we see the needed expression: ‘Me is havening to be the stupid man today‘ statement. It all started in the middle of the night when the Guardian brought us: ‘Saudi state part-owns Evening Standard and Independent, court told‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jul/23/evening-standard-and-independent-unable-to-rebut-concerns-over-saudi-ownership). It gets to be worse (and the actual trigger) with: “Government lawyer tells court part-sale of news outlets has ‘national security implications’“, the naive Neanderthal in me is wondering what kind of drugs David Scannell is on and if I could get some of those (it never hurts to ask). The media (specifically the newspapers) are about the truth and about giving us actual information. The fact that the government has never ever been able to get a handle on whatever Rupert Murdoch does, in that same air the issues with Paul Dacre (specifically on a missing airplane), makes me wonder how the implied gossip that several newspapers spread are national security.

We could go with the premise that with a part owned Saudi Newspapers, the readers will actually get exposed to the acts or Iran, and the facts that many newspapers decided not to give visibility on that (like the proxy war Iran is waging via Yemen). That is beside the point that David Scannell is claiming national security issues against a Russian citizen, is that not laughable too (a Paul Hogan comedy kind of humour)?

So when we get David Scannell stating: “What is of concern to Her Majesty’s government is that a foreign state could be acquiring a substantial stake in Lebedev Holdings [owner of the Evening Standard] and the Independent simultaneously“, whilst her majesties government is seemingly forgetting that the current owner is Russian (born 8 May 1980, In Moscow Russia). Perhaps David Scannell would prefer to consider journalistic integrity and hold the UK newspapers to a much higher standard? He (his bosses more precisely) could have done that a decade ago by removing 0% VAT rights from these glossy ‘news’ bringers, a solution that would fit the UK citizen and resident to the largest degree, but just like the facilitation to the FAANG group (and their less than 2% tax), big corporations are facilitated to the largest degree and a clever Saudi investor thought that this was a good return for their investment. Then there is the other part.

When we see: “The heavily lossmaking free London newspaper is edited by the former Conservative chancellor, George Osborne“, we could consider that this is about changing the hearts of readers, yet if the government legal team is so worried about ‘poor record on press freedom‘, has that legal team not considered that in the end, when the papers becomes even more loss making that the current owners back out and the government could take over at £0.01 per share? In addition, if there is enough evidence in the statement of: “Both the Independent and Evening Standard insist concerns about editorial independence are unfounded and they are not influenced by financial backers” then what is this actually about? It seems that there is a reduced to zero chance that there are actual national security implications, the fact that national security events were always embargoed and as such these two papers must adhere to this, foreign owned or not and in the end, in addition, the fact that we saw last May the quote “There is nothing new about concern over the impact the company, which controls 70% of the country’s newspaper circulation, might have on democratic debate” (source: the Guardian), that keeping more papers out of the fingers of Murdoch might be a Humanitarian good, is that not important too? In addition, there is a second consideration, if the digital worlds that these two newspapers have, setting a stage that this evolution is passed on to places like the Dallah al Baraka Group, Al Arabiya, Al Saudiya and Al Ekhbariya could set a long term prosperity to both Saudi Arabia as well as their European affiliation. This is a long term slow plan and when we consider that Neom City is still happening, having a city well over 20 times the size of New York, also implies that overall the media will grow as well; digital marketing as well as 5G information streams will evolve, and evolve faster. Part of my IP was designed to do just that, whilst promoting commerce on several levels. We see that the evolution cannot begin in Saudi Arabia, but over time evolving those and new stations will be in the interest of Saudi Arabia who is eager not to lose it all to the UAE (Dubai Media Incorporated) or Qatar (Al Jazeera) changing the game and the way they do business is an essential must in the long term and in the short term evolution is more and more pressing.

Homo sapiens

Evolution has stepped in and as the Homo sapiens we are now, life is not that simple, the interaction of the media is larger and more complex. Yet I still find the approach through David Scannell laughable. We want to muster muzzles and bits to state who is allowed to go where, yet the unbridled freedoms pushes through by places like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google remain unhindered. Even in a stage where these groups pay less than 2% taxation in the end, the monster we know is still less acceptable than any optional new monster we do not know. The policymakers have been unable and unwilling to adjust laws ad legislation for almost two decades, the premise of iteration and Status Quo are found everywhere but were given on how the new owner (partial new owner) is setting the stage of national security. When we look at the fines we see in the direction of Facebook and Equifax are partial evidence that this ship has sailed years ago, the latest data breaches show that there is no stopping the flow of data and whilst we look towards North Korea who does not have the storage abilities, skills and bandwidth to do 10% of the issues that they are accused of, we see that the foundation of the current batch of National Security monitoring teams are seemingly in a stage that they have no clue where to look and what data to sift through (a common shortcoming).

So in all this we have larger issues and whilst we forgot about July 2015 ““source close to the family” (MH370 disaster)” with the additional “what is also important is that we saw an issue in 2014 the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) decided to investigate a case whilst using only 1 of 83 plaintiffs” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/07/31/that-joke-called-the-first-amendment/), it would be my personal recommendation that the government (as well as David Scannell have bigger fish to fry. We could start a new Leveson investigation and force harsher settings, but all kinds of chief editors will burst into tears in the House of Lords and as we know that those gentlemen are really unwilling to slap crying girls around, so we get nowhere ever and the option to remove the 0% VAT from some of these newspapers is not regarded as an option, so we are at a stalemate with no solution. But the call via National Security seemingly remains.

In the complete evolved view we see that there is political power into the ability to reach an entire nation through the newspapers and the media, yet in that light when we accept Gay Alcorn (the Guardian) who gave us: “There is nothing new about attacks on News Corp’s influence on policy and politics in Australia. There is nothing new about claims that Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers are not just right wing, but distort and manufacture news“, does it actually matter whether news is manufactured by NewsCorp (Australia) or the Independent (partial Saudi)? Is pushing this path not a race towards discrimination lacking all diplomacy and subtlety?

I am merely asking, because even as i really do not care who the owners are becoming, and the fact that the previous owner is Russian, is it not just all water under the bridge. To be slightly more precise a bridge called Facebook transporting terabytes of data per minute?

In the end, the legal battle is seemingly set to “The legal challenge was only against the decision to refer the Saudi investment to the Competition Commission on merger grounds“, whether valid or not (that is a legislation issue), the fact that the entire article has only one mention of the word ‘merger‘ in that entire article. Informing the public on the exact nature of the issue on the merger, would that not have been an essential first? If that is the case, how does National Security actually fit would be my question, but we really don’t see a clear answer on that either, do we?

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Tagged as Al Arabiya, Al Ekhbariya, Al Jazeera, Al Saudiya, Amazon, Apple, Dallah al Baraka Group, David Scannell, Dubai Media Incorporated, Equifax, Evening Standard, FAANG group, Facebook, Gay Alcorn, George Osborne, google, MH370, National Security, Neom city, Netflix, Paul Dacre, Qatar, Rupert Murdoch, Russia, Saudi Arabia, The Independent, UAE, UK

July 22, 2019 · 10:46

In plain view

We have seen several issues in the last week regarding the Strait of Hormoz; most interesting is the M/T Riah, which is getting half-baked exposure. You see, a ship gets registered, a ship is usually insured and it has an owner. I know this because I attended the Merchant Naval Academy in the 70’s. For all kinds of reasons, a lot of these ships tend to have a Panama registration, yet it is registered. So when I see: ‘It is not clear which country or company owns and operates the Riah‘, i know that there is a hidden stream going on. From conception to death time (last week) there were owners, a ship was bought, a ship was sold and there will be a new owner, the fact that the media is not able to tell us anything implies that this ship has a very different duty and owner. It is like watching stolen cars, for the most we can see the Vehicle identification number (VIN) when it is a stolen car, if that is not available we can start with the engine number. Now there is a lot we can do with cars, but the knowledge to erase its identity only goes so far. With ships there are a lot less options to hide. There is the engine number, the serial number of the Gyroscope, radar serial numbers (larger vessels often have more than one), the list goes on and as such we can paint a picture how the gear moves and likely in several cases the owner has been the same and it is all linked to the boat itself. It seems that the media did not that much digging. For a ship to fall of registries takes a lot of muscle and a lot more knowhow, so I am at a loss why we see: ‘It is not clear which country or company owns and operates the Riah‘, and not: ‘Shipping Line X, who owned the M/T Riah confirmed that there was a new owner as per [insert date], yet was unwilling to comment on who that was‘. This would give us a lot more, but for some reason the Media seemingly lost interest and this is weird, because there is a larger stake in this game and it is ignored.

Who, What, When, Where, How, Why?

The fact that we saw: “A UAE official said on Tuesday that the oil tanker MT Riah is not owned by the UAE” implies that at one time it was, if not them, who was it sold to? If they never owned it, why was there a UAE reference? Then we look into history and when we have proper access, we could check every bill of lading that this ship had, as well as any insurance underwritten to this boat, was that investigated? What details does the Lloyds registry have on this boat?

There is a whole league of question that can lead to answers, yet the media is not looking, which is odd to say the least. When we consider that a bill of lading is a contract between you, the owner of the goods, and the carrier stating what goods you’re shipping, where the shipment is coming from, and where it’s headed. It also serves as a receipt issued by the carrier once your shipment is picked up. So if none of this exists, there is an implication that the M/T Riah was a spy ship of some sorts. It is less likely to be a smuggler vessel as they rely on some level of paperwork and bills of ladings are contracts that tend to be registered, even if the actual owner is not always a given (there are a few ways to circumvent certain papers).

The fact that the media has avoided all this to a larger degree implies that there is more, but it is hustled away from prying eyes. The question becomes if the boat is an Iranian asset that came in from the cold? Let’s not forget that we have not found the travel mechanics of Iranian drones and missiles, so investigating this ship as far as possible seems to be an essential first, even if it is out of our hands, someone sold that ship registry radar, radio and all other kinds of hardware.

That is even before you realise that radio systems and satellite navigational systems on boats are often rented (like Radio Holland) and as such those serial numbers could hand out more details, or in the other directions, which facilitators and service providers have done business with the M/T Riah? There is absolutely 0% that this was the case unless it was a governmental spy/smuggling operation and that implies that the M/T Riah has returned ‘home’, you see if it was someone else, the Iranian government would be shouting that fact from every roof in Tehran, something that obviously has not happened.

So we are left with the question in plain sight. Why is the media ignoring the M/T Riah and why are they giving us the smallest collection of basic facts, in several cases the article they gave us was less than 100 words, for a business unit seeking attention and clicks that is really too shallow.

Even the Washington examiner (6 days ago, gave us the bare minimum (at https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/missing-oil-tanker-likely-seized-by-iran-us-intelligence), they took a whole page to tell us nothing and basically rehashing the same facts three times over, to me this does not add up. It optionally is a case where the smuggling of missiles fired into Saudi Arabia have ended and Iran got their little toy back, in light of the headline: ‘Missing oil tanker likely seized by Iran: US intelligence‘, we merely see more questions and optionally we see more facilitation towards Iran at present. I would be happy to be 100% wrong in this instance, but the facts do not add up and the fact that the media stays asleep at the wheel is a mess of partial confirmation and larger lack of interest, especially in light of all the other over exposed points.

In a place where the pressure is coming to a boil, is this lacking exposure really the best way to go?

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Tagged as bill of lading, Iran, M/T Riah, Panama, Radio Holland, registry, Saudi Arabia, ship owners, Smuggling

July 19, 2019 · 10:57

Analyzing Intelligence

What is given to us is behind a veil, we accept that and at times we accept that the media does not give us everything. It is however weird when the change is slightly larger than we expected and in a direction we did not see coming.

This all started almost three days ago when Iran ended up with a tanker, the news (several sources) gave us: “Tracking data shows an oil tanker based in the United Arab Emirates traveling through the Strait of Hormuz drifted off into Iranian waters and stopped transmitting its location over two days ago, raising concerns Tuesday about its status amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S.” we all have issues and we all thought about the big bad Iranian doing things that are unacceptable. In light of everything that happened, this is a fair point of view to have (you know that Iranian tanker in Gibraltar).

Yet now, CNN gives us (at https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/18/middleeast/iran-tanker-intl/index.html) “Iran has seized an oil tanker it claimed was carrying 1 million litres of “smuggled fuel,” state news agency Press TV said on Thursday, before later releasing a video purporting to show the tanker.” we all want to think the worst of Iran (still a valid point of thought), yet that premise changes when we also get the following quotes: “US intelligence have been investigating what happened to the Panamanian-flagged tanker M/T RIAH. The ship-tracking website Marine Vessel Traffic has not had a current location for the tanker since July 7“, as well as “It remains unclear who owns the ship. While the initial US intelligence suggested that the tanker was UAE-owned, the United Arab Emirates has said that the tanker in question was “neither owned nor operated by the UAE. It does not carry Emirati personnel, and did not emit a distress call,” according to state-run WAM”

And now we have an actual problem

To begin with, with all the digital options, and registries we get: ‘It remains unclear who owns the ship‘ are you flipping kidding me? In a time when both the Sea of Dammam, as well as the Strait of Hormuz are an absolute tinderbox, you have no idea what is going in and out of that place, you cannot tell who owns a million litre tanker? This is not some $27,000 Glastron poaching lobsters, too small to be seen by radar, this is a piece of metal the size of 500 40 feet containers this puppy is really visible! So not only does it imply the incompetence of the CIA, it shows that there is a larger facilitation at play.

When we consider the political and intelligence pressures in the Middle East as they are presently presented; the quote: ‘The ship-tracking website Marine Vessel Traffic has not had a current location for the tanker since July 7‘ reads like an absolute joke. When we consider intelligence pressure, the CIA, DGSE, MI-6 and optionally Mossad should have had an alert within 24 hours that any tanker vanishes. More important depending on where that happened red flags should have been raised all over the place and now that we see: “US intelligence suggested that the tanker was UAE-owned, the United Arab Emirates has said that the tanker in question was “neither owned nor operated by the UAE. It does not carry Emirati personnel, and did not emit a distress call” we see a much larger failing. There are programs in place to check ships registries, there are systems that can check the moment any blip is added or removed on the website Marine Vessel Traffic (and several places alike), in addition the fact that the UAE now gives us that an apparent UAE ship is not and neither does it have UAE staff is a failing on several fronts. I personally wonder what excuse Lloyds registry gives us soon enough. We cannot fault them for not being aware of facts, but the fact that a ship of this size cannot be identified as being owned is a failing, it is a tactical one to a much larger degree.

Overreacting much?

Is it? when we see the attacks in Yemen and other places, we see a tanker that could do massive damage to any harbour and for 9 days we had no clue that something was wrong, perhaps we did not care, but consider that a tanker like this could destroy in several ways a harbour and the environment in either Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar or the UAE, yes that is a large issue. A floating fuel bomb (a slight exaggeration) with one million litres of oil is a large issue. At the top of my head, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Riffa, Manama, Dammam, Kuwait city, as well as several Iranian villages, any of them could have been a target leaving any of these places in ruins for at least a decade. So yes, the intelligence community failed, moreover, at present with the presented awareness the IRGC did nothing wrong. The fact that in opposition the stage where US intelligence has nothing credible to offer is a larger failing still (yes more to come).

You are who?

When we consider that awareness of Panamanian-flagged oil tanker MT Riah could have been found in minutes is one part, the fact that the implied owner UAE is not gives us a larger doubt on intelligence data. Now data is dependent on vetting and checks and we cannot check it all, yet when we consider the registry, the owner was someone, who is not implies it was sold, so basically 40 hours ago, that part could have been verified and none of that seems to be the case (or it is classified beyond my eyes, which is weird, right?)

So for no less than 35 hours certain escalations seem to have been the case and CNN ignored that part, which might be a valid embargo, these things happen, yet the global news is propagating facts that are not and facts that are nowhere and none of it has any validation. This now sets a larger stage, in the eyes of the world Iran did nothing wrong (which does actually happen), but this floating tinderbox should have received a lot more visibility with credible and verified data, which is not the case and a lot of missing data in the last 24 hours ago implies that there is a path and that path is about something we are not informed on (which is still valid and credible) but in light of the fact that only 5 hours ago Reuters merely mulls data that has been known for well over 36 hours implies that there is a larger play and for whatever reason we see the absence of awareness by the news and those claiming to inform us leave us with the stage of “Iranian state TV aired footage of a vessel called “RIAH” that it said was seized by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards for smuggling fuel” and was all they gave us 5 hours ago, whilst I gave a dedicated list of actions that could have been followed up on by actual journalists in the three minutes it took me to digest the data available. Is that not weird?

It gets to be worse

That is seen when we look at UK Reuters. We search of all news gives us: ‘US demands Iran free seized ship, vows to protect Gulf oil lifeline, In-Depth-Reuters UK‘ a mere three hours ago, yet the article it links to is all about ‘U.S. says Navy ship ‘destroyed’ Iranian drone in Gulf‘, something here does not belong, this is not a simple error and Reuters does not usually make these kinds of blunders, this is about something more and even as we all want to point fingers at Iran, we now have a larger stage and the US loss of credibility (that famous silver suitcase) gives us more to worry about, this is a set stage of pushing awareness and whilst the Europeans are all about saving a nuclear deal and the fact that (what I predicted) the surpassed transgressions of Iran on nuclear terms are now trivialised imply that there is a theatre going on, I merely wonder who the players are an which government ends up playing the court jester.

We might think about trivialising the entire matter, but consider that the ship optionally was smuggling merely $250K in crude oil, someone is not really getting rich, not in the larger scheme of things, so what was this actually about? Is it not interesting on how the media is not all over this, especially as it could escalate gulf pressures to a much larger degree?

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Tagged as Abu Dhabi, CIA, CNN, Dammam, DGSE, Doha, Dubai, Iran, IRGC, Kuwait city, Manama, Marine Vessel Traffic, MI-6, Mossad, MT Riah, Panama, reuters, Reuters UK, Revolutionary Guard, Riffa, Saudi Arabia, UAE, US

July 17, 2019 · 12:44

Victimising criminals

OK, this is not the latest news. I got the news 2 days ago, but I was slightly too angry to deal with Zoe Kleinman directly. It all started with ‘My son spent £3,160 in one game‘, the headline was already an indication that I was dealing with a stupid person, which in itself is not a crime, yet when we are given: “I have a 22 year-old disabled son, who has cerebral palsy, complex epilepsy, autism, learning difficulties and the approximate cognitive ability of a seven-year-old child. He is unable to do any bilateral activities so relies heavily on his iPad and PlayStation for entertainment and educational activities”

Yes, there is always some excuse and the dog ate my homework is right there on top reasoning here. ‘He has recently been playing a game on his iPad called Hidden Artifacts‘, yes this is part one and part 2 is “He has been charged £3160.58 between 18 February and 30 May 2019, clearing out his entire savings“.
It is an interesting excuse because the question: ‘How do I block purchases on my iPad?‘ is answered in three steps:

On the iOS device, open the Settings screen. Tap General, and then tap Restrictions.
Tap the option to Enable Restrictions. Enter and then re-enter a Restrictions passcode.
By default, all of the apps and services are allowed. To disallow in-app purchases, tap on its button.

So, people can download free games, play free games, but cannot spend money to purchase. The fact that this is not a new answer but it has been there for years, moreover, I still have the very first iPad and the functionality is there too makes this a bit of a cry story. Unlike the previous story on FIFA (which I am about to get to), this was about a person’s savings and as the person is in the described situation, it could have been prevented if the parents were more on the ball, the fact that there is no casual investigation of his bank account on a weekly basis, to check if nothing funny was going on is also a parental failure to some degree.

The basic foundation that there is no ‘free’ in free gaming does not appear to sink in to the minds of people who think that gaming should be free, there is always a price to pay, it is either through captured data, or it will be through micro transactions. We can agree that many do not use that option, and they will stop soon thereafter as the frustration algorithm kicks in making the game harder and harder. Some will spend some cash and then there are a few that go overboard. Yet in all this the makers did nothing legally wrong, they should have set the limit to max spending to look better, but they did nothing wrong, the parents failed in this case and the parents keep on failing to a much larger degree.

It is the second part that is more striking. We are introduced to EA NBA, where we get: “He used my bank card and I didn’t realise until I had a payment declined. He accessed the app via Google Play. EA made no response to me and Google Play has a disclaimer about kids using parents’ bank details without permission“, so this 16 year old stole from his parents and the parents lets the other kid pay for it. OK, that was slightly unfair, but the case remains, this is a simple case of theft and EA has no blame here.

Yet there is another side, and it is found in the same article by Zoe Kleinman. Even as the stage is almost the same, in one case, the case of that dastardly Mini Golf King, we see an important fact that is important. The game was classified as PEGI 3, now we have something to slap the makers (and Google) with. The law could force a change that in game purchasing cannot be allowed to games that are below PEGI 12, so the games that are PEGI 3 and PEGI 7 should not have any in game transactions, other than rewards for watching advertisement. In this the Pan European Game Information failed its consumers miserably and that could have been avoided. Although I am willing to put some question marks at the quote: “this game successfully tricked him into spending £300 on in-app purchases“, the stage of deceptive conduct towards minors should be investigated by PEGI and Google, if it is supported the game should be barred and pulled, also, the change towards PEGI 3 and PEGI 7 should be made immediately. We can definitely argue that these two PEGI ratings (with a green background, to make it seem safer) should not have anything resembling in game purchases, other than optional additions that much be bought at a one-time price (like mulligan refresh every 24 hours), I am certain that parents will have no issue adding the £1-5 as a one-time expense. The truth is that no game is ever free and that should be advocated much louder.

FIFA

Yup time to go back to FIFA, there are two points, the first thing is that you cannot make EA guilty by victimising your little criminal. Although in this particular setting there is a sage of doubt whether they were fully aware, but it seems that they knew they did something wrong. As we see: “Mr Carter, from Hampshire, admits that he did not take full precautions to limit access to his Nintendo account: he did not use a unique Pin number and the emailed receipts were sent to an old email address with a full inbox“, I am on the side of the parent to some degree. Yes, this was an error in judgement and we all have them, I for one once fell for the witch Teresa Palmer until I learned that she married the actual original Scott Pilgrim 5 years ago. You see that is a guy who went up against the world to get one girl, I salute him, to the victor goes the spoils, and as I looked into the eyes of that witch one more time (they were sapphire blue, sniff sniff) I moved on.

We all make errors in judgement to the father I advice that never use a credit card, just buy some credit for the game, you can buy system credit for Nintendo Switch for Microsoft Xbox, and for Sony PlayStation, ranging from £20 to £50, you can buy in game stuff, renew subscriptions, buy DLC and at no time are your credit card details out in the open. All five (Apple and Google have that too) they had this option from almost the very beginning and it allows you to limit expenses and keep your details safe, a solution that works well, most articles never mentioned that part, did they?

Then there is the other part, where we see all the fire and hardship on kids trying to buy Lionel Messi, all criminals that are being victimised. And I particularly like it on how the BBC phrases it: ‘the contents are only revealed after payment is completed‘, it makes the BBC equally deceptive. When I see phrases like: “A 32-year-old FIFA player from the UK spent more than $10000 on FIFA in two years without realizing it“, I merely see a stupid individual that has no concept of purchase, no concept of value and no regard for credit cards (or his credit rating), he was his own worst enemy and he is not alone, in all that EA was not to blame, we are responsible for our actions.

Explain!

I myself am not a soccer fan, I always saw it as two monkeys in a cage and 20 fools chasing some ball, OK this is not my most eloquent moment, I admit. I am into real games (NHL) and the FIFA card setting is there too, yet like in the other games there might be differences between these two.

As I know it, FIFA gives a daily gift though logging in: “Every day you do it, you get free coins or a free pack. If you forget to log in you lose the offer of that day. The daily gift expires every day at midnight (UK time) and then it starts a new one“, it is different from NHL where you get a free pack every 8 hours. However, every pack has a token, and over a month these tokens give you a bronze, a silver pack and a gold pack. Every pack will have something and a random amount of coins between 100 and 1250 coins (largest amount I ever got). Within 3 months I had every NHL jersey (both home and away), every stadium, as well as all the NHL goalie masks and of course a truck load of players. Over time I got the jerseys from the Canadian League and a few more and I never had to spend anything. I could, but did not have to do that. On the other side, I have no real legendary players to speak off (I have around a dozen 90+ players), none of the Capitals (My favourite team). Am I upset? No! I have a great game that is fun to play, some parts I do not like, but plenty are great fun and NHL 19 is the best of them all (some dekes are just too finicky, I did not like that part), but overall a great game. I reckon that FIFA is similar. In addition, by playing the game, I unlock coins (no charge) and players, OK you need to get your game up, but those players come at no expense. Now there is a part I did not like in FIFA, you can buy an ultimate addition, which was $10-$20 more at the beginning, however it was digital only and it did include 2 gold packs a week for 20 weeks, each pack had 26 cards, 3 rare cards and a minimum of 6 players that times 2 every week for 20 weeks, so it is worth the extra, I merely hate digital downloads (this is just me), there is of course always a side to nag about and that is fair, but it is still value (for some) and more important it is not gambling!

How so, no gambling?

To explain this, we need to make two jumps, the first is to card games this entire concept was started by Wizards of the Coast with a game called Magic. In case of their other game Netrunner we see a box are 36 packs, each pack has one rare, 4 uncommon cards and 10 common cards. Consider that the game has 374 cards, 100 rare, 125 uncommon and 149 common cards. So in that setting 3 booster boxes, would make a complete set, the truth is no, but for the most it fits. 36 rare cards and three boxes means 108 rare cards, yet you will get doubles, so you need to find another person to switch rare cards and complete your set. The math also plays a part, you have one rare, but 1% of a chance (1/100) to get a specific rare, and in the end you get 108 times 1% (which is not 108%) to get a specific complete set. In this case the amount of uncommon and common cards you get will be completed 98% for certain (commons 100% complete). There is a chance you might miss out on 1-5 uncommon cards, but they are usually easy to swap, it is the rare cards that make for the difference.

So, why is it not gambling?

Because you always win, you always get cards and you always get the same distribution, so those with plenty of fellow friends who play will get their collection complete, it is not the one player buying the three boxes, it is the 50 players doing that who play the same game that level the playing field. It becomes gambling when the booster pack is empty and you only get a ‘thank you card‘, that never happens, you always got the 15 cards and the same can be said for FIFA and NHL. The packs you buy will always have a distribution, have certain content. the fact that it might not have Messi, Pele, Cruijf, Beckham or Bale, but you get players, players that you can trade, yet there will always be an issue, not every player will get a Messi, there are 211 countries connected to FIFA, 11 players per team, which gives us 2321 players. Now we get it that not all countries are in FIFA 19, but you are starting to get the picture, if every nation has 2 legendary players, or one player and one goalie, we are looking at one hell of a collection you need. And FIFA 19 is true to its word, it has 30 leagues and over 700 playable teams, so we have a setting of well over 1400 players that the bulk will want and desire. Now, we get that Scandinavians have no interest in some of the Latin teams, but you bet your life that they all want the classical Pele (nowadays Suarez/Maradona) card. This creates another mess on a few levels and even as it is not gambling there is a collector’s pressure in play.

Media is guilty, EA too

The media is also guilty of propelling this pressure, not in the least with the accusations and pressing for a larger visibility of criminals being placed as victims, the game intensifies when you look at the hundreds of YouTubers adding pressures for their own need for visibility following and reputation. You merely have to search FIFA 19 in YouTube to see the mess it creates by the vocals of subjectivity on what they think is fair and not, what is sic and mundane. This all creates an unreal dimension of fake imagination. And in all this EA tries to create hype after hype and becomes the evil it should be preventing. In addition, we see a lack of exposure by the media on that part on a few levels.

So as we look at the origin of CCG cards, we learn from the very beginning that these games all have checklists, so that you know what you have, and what you are missing. EA never gave out that list; as such they are propelling the stage that works against them. Not one list of what cards there are, merely what is optionally in a pack. EA should have been clear upfront on which cards are in the game, and they have (as far as I can tell) never done that, yet when they propagate their 700 teams, they should have added digital checklists and on which players are bronze, silver and gold and we do not see that part. EA failed its fans!

EA should have set up a Wiki page from day one, giving us lists too download so that we can see what is what, but they also realise that the list will blow he socks off every player realising the daunting task and there for did not do that (as far as I could tell). That is perhaps the one deceptive part on the side of EA as I can tell.

So why the card reference?

The origins are important, it makes us comprehend where it all came from and in this specific case, Wizards of the Coast, there is also another side, it is seen with the game Netrunner.

That game was re-released as Android Netrunner with a big difference. The starter kits and expansions are all identical. So as you buy an expansion you got all the cards, no rare cards, no uncommon cards and no common cards, the base set has a set and the expansions (one box with 60 cards) ever month, so as long as you had the expansion, you had every card and you all had a level playing field, even as some tactics would never require any additions, having the additions allowed for tactical options you might really like. So as EA switches from one set to another, selling a factory set of KNVB (Dutch), AllSvenskan (Swedish), BundesLiga (German) and so on, the national players could get all the players for let’s say €5 for country and down the track for €10, European, Latin America, Asia, Africa and so on. Yet the money in this shape is too inviting and EA is unlikely to change, yet we can force on part, for EA to set up an open list of every card that can be acquired, consumables, outfits players and so on. When the player realises how huge this list is, it might temper spending and change the way these games are addressed. I remain on the fence and denouncing this as gambling, but the fact on how many cards there are should be clearly stated, so far I cannot see a real comprehensive list anywhere. The media failed us all by not looking at that part. Even as there is a FUT database giving us: “The EA SPORTS FUT Database is a complete catalogue of Players in FUT. You can search for Players by their nationality“, I want to see a pdf with a complete list (which will be hundreds of pages I reckon), so that every player see clearly what they are in for, not some implied number, but a complete list to browse, when they all realise just how large it is and how insane it is to think you ever get all the players, or a specific legendary one, at that point it will clearly sink in how much money is involved. The EA site (at https://www.easports.com/au/fifa/ultimate-team/fut/database) does give you the option to search the ‘gold list’ and that does merely give the total of 2189 players and 220 goalies that are golden cards that make up for merely that part of the list, yet a better visibility of exactly how large that list is seems absent in many places that are so bound to push for the gambling tag.

So tell me, what media gave proper light to that part of the equation?

I am not saying that EA cannot sell cards, I still think it is not gambling, but the completionist part will never be realistic and that too is a problem, we might not have all players at our back and call, not in FIFA, not in NHL, but pushing for a dream team in a $90 game, when it requires $12,000 to get every player is equally insane and not realistic. We should add the limelight to that too. Yet I do remain on the team that does not call this gambling and EA might consider to create a factory set of all these players (non-tradeable) after 6 months of initial release, if they truly want to be seen as a decent company, a phase that they are still in denial off at present.

So we have plenty of issues, but to a decent extent they are not the gaming baba-yega, at least not when it comes to FIFA and NHL, other games might require deeper scrutiny and optionally an overhaul.

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Tagged as AllSvenskan, Android, BundesLiga, CCG, EA, EA NBA, FIFA, KNVB, Netrunner, NHL, Pan European Game Information, PEGI 3, PEGI 7, WOTC, Zoe Kleinman

July 15, 2019 · 11:09

It’s fine that fine

I saw he news last week and it was one sentence that made me stop on the spot, but I needed some time to digest it all (and there was news from Iran to contemplate too). Facebook has been fined, the fine (the largest ever at $5,000,000,000) is not the sneer at, but for Facebook it will be business as usual soon thereafter. The amount is nothing more than an Apple building at the edge of the Mojave desert, so it seems little, but that would be the facade that we are offered. The article I initially saw (I forgot the source) stated: “paying fine to stop further investigations“, from my point of view that this would be worth a bundle, I believe that Facebook had been stupid to some degree and super clever in other ways. Let’s face it Mark Zuckerberg is on my level of data knowledge, so he is thinking several iterations ahead of all others and he needs the FTC of his back during the start-up of 5G, whoever is there first has a larger advantage to gain momentum. All my investigations into the dumb smart device shows that, all the data I see optionally coming requires unhindered acceleration and my device was meant to suppress data drag and emphasize on facilitation. Facebook needs this, Google needs this and Huawei has the advantage at present.

The new system when operational will give them (especially with Oak/OS) a 15%-24% advantage and in data terms when we consider that 5G is set to top out at 10 gigabits per second (Gbps), that difference is a lot, it is everything to enable a larger market advantage. Add to this the new devices that offer independence to SME and franchise markets, the stage would push towards smaller independent solution providers, if Google, Apple and Facebook even hesitate for one week the difference will be seen and short thereafter felt as well.

At that point every contract in the new setting will entice 3-5 others to follow as well. It is not word of mouth, it is companies watching their competitors gain advantage and that observed difference is almost exponential against mere word of mouth. And that part will also increase choices.

Yet it is not about what comes next (only partially) it is about what is now. There are two essential parts in the fine. The first is how it was a 3-2 split, with the Republicans all in favour to continue and the Democrats all eager to block. There is a polarising difference there. I am partial on the Republican side, Democrats clearly misrepresented this with the quote: “the dissent of the two Democrats on the commission because they sought stricter limits on the company” (source: NY Times). It is not about stricter limits one the company, it is the fact that the data has grown to dimensionality far beyond what governments have and it is available for purchase (to some degree). The element that we forget with the fine is what the Guardian gives us (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/12/facebook-fine-ftc-privacy-violations) when we see: “Facebook will now re-examine the ways it handles user data, but the settlement will not restrict the company’s ability to share data with third parties, reports said“, it is to some degree about the ability to share data and how granular that data is set for the upcoming war that the Democrats want to wage. It has direct implications in insurance and healthcare and the Democrats have a system in mind that cannot function when all that data is available for health care scrutiny (one of many issues), yet healthcare is the most visible one. One short thought like on what drinks (alcoholic) you like and you might be seen as a higher risk and as such see your premium rise. Alcohol, tobacco and recreational pharmacy might be the most visible ones, but as the data net grows, we see a more comprehensive flag system that pushes close to 20% out of healthcare soon enough (as premiums go up and up on the risky groups) and it is not that this point is coming soon, this point has already been passed and the moment that data gets out, the ducks come home to roost on a coffin.

As the New York Times gives us the quote: “Last year, the European Union fined Google $5.1 billion for abusing its large market share in the mobile phone industry. More recently, numerous officials and lawmakers around the world have rushed to regulate Facebook” (at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/technology/facebook-ftc-fine.html), we seemingly all put it on one pile, yet that would be a massive problem and wrong too. In one side (source: the Verge) we get: “Google also made customers sign contracts forbidding them from including rival search engines on their sites alongside Google’s own. In 2009, Google allowed the inclusion of rival search engines as long as Google’s was more prominent. In 2016, around the time the EU announced its case, the company removed these terms altogether“, we can debate the correctness, but we can also accept that Google started this and took the advantage that they engineered, as in most places software cannot be patented, so it had to find another path to gain the advantage it created whilst followers re-engineered whatever Google published as soon as humanly possible. We can call it wrong (or not) but that stage is in place and it links to now and it also links to Facebook. The 5G wave is all about getting there first and at present the FTC was in a place to stop Facebook innovation and paying the fine will give larger gains to Facebook than to let investigative wave after wave continue to slow Facebook down, and when we realise that Facebook is no longer the only player on that level Facebook needed to make a tactical decision.

Still, there is a remaining issue with the Facebook data and how it becomes available and the lack of answers should remain to be a cause for concern. It comes down to the beginning when we got: “The F.T.C.’s investigation was set off by The New York Times and The Observer of London, which uncovered that the social network allowed Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm to the Trump campaign, to harvest personal information of its users. The firm used the data to build political profiles about individuals without the consent of Facebook users“, that was merely the tip of the iceberg and those who comprehend Facebook data know this to be true. The issue is not merely how the data is collected; it is what else becomes available and what else is collected. To see this we need to consider the added image.

At present there are some stages where larger contracts give people their advertising over different locations. Yet what happens when you have a complete mobile image on where what is shown? What happens when we see interactions of an advertising and where it actually works and how users react, that is the next stage and the data is ready and to some degree in that setting Facebook is more ready than others, that is the image that pushes us all and the innovation through handed data and as we can see Facebook people either do not care, or have no comprehension of all the data linked to their actions.

I took that data and more into another innovation and pushed it to a new stage, giving the collector even more data, more advertising options and optionally even more data opportunities on a larger scale. It is that shift that is all the difference between a 5% and a 9% market share for companies and now it is no longer local, the data allows for global exposure, so consider that exposure in New Delhi (India) could also expose those in Little Bombay (New Jersey) addressing a similar group at the same time, brand exposure that becomes global changing the entire setting for smaller enterprises at close to similar prices, driving advertisement bidding wars and pushing revenues for those in that area and that is merely the first part of the IP I created. Places like Facebook could get a much larger advantage and transform advantage into momentum pushing that advantage further and faster. It is only for the bigger puppies (Google, Facebook, Huawei) but they all want the largest juiciest bone to gnaw on and that is where the group of innovations push the difference, so in the end $5 billion is chicken feed under what is pushing towards the surface at this very moment, and they all want to nibble on that pie, they merely need to be the first in the game to gain advantage through momentum. As I see it IBM and Microsoft are already out of the game trying to facilitate the systems and the data and to be fair Microsoft Azure does have a larger advantage here, but IBM is not sitting still and we know that Facebook (to a lesser degree) and Google have systems that work. The playing field is near level and the match is far from over, now with the Huawei push and Oak/OS they have opportunity to gain advantage and they can decide who to allow access to that new system, so even as Google seemingly had the advantage, the Trump trade war took that advantage away from them, so there is a second level war going on and whomever makes the larger deal with Huawei gets the gain, the issue is that Huawei hardware is more advanced and that is their advantage, the Trump trade war stopped innovation towards the US, so as such in a global setting now pushes the advantage to Europe, India and the Middle East. In this the US loses more than it comprehended in advance and it all depends on how they react to the change. It is the error in judgement on 4G and 5G is where the American disadvantage lies. In 4G is was ‘Wherever I am‘, now with 5G it becomes ‘Whenever I want it‘ and for that step the most advanced provider wins , it is not Ericsson, not Nokia, not Telstra, and not Sprint. It is Huawei that can facilitate towards ‘Whenever I want it‘ to a much larger degree at present and that wins the race, but the others are not done yet and there the Facebook data becomes a power player, an optional sledgehammer for those who know how to bash a wall and that is happening now, so when we see: “Facebook and other large tech companies are under an increasingly harsh spotlight in Washington, D.C., including at a “social media summit” at the White House on Thursday in which President Trump repeatedly bashed Silicon Valley as being unfair to conservatives. Facebook wasn’t invited to attend, nor were other tech companies. They have previously said they police their platforms without regard to political ideology“, we see a setting that we accept to some degree, yet those who are all about that “Social Media Summit” seemingly do not comprehend the application of data to the degree they need to and as such they as shooting themselves as well as their economic options in the foot, which is good news for Huawei, not that much for the other players.

I reckon that I will be proven correct within the next 12 months. When the dust settles we will see the first clear winners, I am certain that Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics shows me to be correct and it will show the first larger winner, at present in this culture of short sighted decisions Google and Huawei will have the largest advantage, but 2 other players are not out of this race yet, so plenty can happen before we see the Olympic flame light the fires and start the Tokyo Summer Olympics.

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Tagged as 5G, Apple, Azure, Cambridge Analytica, Ericsson, European Union, Facebook, Facebook Fine, google, Huawei, Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft, New York Times, Nokia, NY Times, Oak OS, Social Media Summit, Sprint, Summer Olympics, Telstra, the Guardian, the Observer, Tokyo 2020

July 13, 2019 · 12:06

Game of labels

Yes, we all have games on the mind, mind games, video games, war games, and not to forget political games and economic games. These are not games that we see on the console or computer. Games do not usually rename waters from Persian Gulf to the Saudi Straight, or perhaps we will name it the Sea of Dammam. When we see that the US is changing the stage at which they can operate, mind games is all that they are left with. They failed to political game, they bungled the economic game, they are blocking their ability to play War Games so what is left? Yup, you got it mind games is all they have left.

So see this stage we need to visit USA Today (at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/07/12/house-passes-bill-bar-trump-from-launching-iran-strike-and-end-us-support-saudi-arabia-war-in-yemen/1708612001/) where we are told ‘House approves measure to block Trump from launching military strike against Iran‘, so not only are politicians weak weasels they have now blocked their own commander in chief to do the responsible thing against Iran, it has dwindled to this. OK, let’s face it war is not a good thing, there needs to be a really good reason to start one, as wars are expensive and the house does seemingly need approval to spend large amounts of cash that is not directed at Wall Street.

And in fairness the text: “bar the Trump administration from using any federal funds for military force “in or against” the Islamic Republic, unless the president receives explicit congressional approval for a strike. It would not bar the president from responding to an attack on the U.S.“, yet it is also interesting that this is the cowardly act (as I personally see it) to cross swords with expectation and a lack of determination. Is it not funny that I quoted in ‘Be the bitch‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/07/be-the-bitch/) on July 7th: “when we see: “that nuclear agreement prevented war“, it never stopped it, it merely delayed it so that Iran could get ready and that part has been shown in several ways over the last three years alone, now that the pressure is growing we need to consider that no one wants a war, but Iran made it impossible to avoid and as they make tally of all who are willing to become the bitch by not acting, that is how we might lose this upcoming war, not merely by inaction of them, but the mere fact that these politicians are willing to grab their ankles and let happen what would happen next. They will call it: “We have reached an immediate cease fire so that a diplomatic agreement can be drawn” that will be the second sign that the war was won by Iran“, we now see this very scenario unfold. It is seen with the additional text: “It would not bar the president from responding to an attack on the U.S.” We all know that a direct attack on America is most unlikely, but this also means that America will only come to the aid of the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia AFTER Congress approves it and there is absolutely no guarantee that Wall Street will give approval at that point.

It is no longer a mere expectation, less than 12 hours ago Newsweek got us: ‘Iran launches strikes in Iraq and responds to Israel;s threat as it vows to defend itself against any attack‘, and here we see: “The Revolutionary Guards announced Friday that they conducted strikes against anti-Iranian government insurgents operating along the Iraqi border in the Kurdistan region“, Iran is lashing out, in this particular case to appease their Turkish ally (they always enjoy Kurdish slaughter). When we add the pressure of the Iranian tanker, as well as the threats between Iran and Israel, we see a much larger stage evolving, and the US, just like the stage of the Syrian war was unable to accomplish anything; they merely pulled support from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a nation that they call an ally. The question is that we do not know who states it, who means it and who ignores it. That is the stage that the US Senate, the House of Representatives, the presidential administration and Wall Street are in, like it is an episode of Musical Chairs, and we cannot tell which party takes on which pose, they merely refer to it as: ‘an extremely complex situation‘.

Then we get to the Washington Post, who gives us: ‘Iran’s nuclear program seems to be accelerating. Will Saudi Arabia take a similar path?‘ (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/12/irans-nuclear-weapons-program-seems-be-accelerating-will-saudi-arabia-take-similar-path), here we see the escalation in another way. With the direct headline ‘In a multipolar world, curbing nuclear transfers becomes more difficult‘, we merely see one side. So even as we see: “Riyadh has vowed to match Iran’s nuclear capabilities, including the ability to enrich uranium and acquire nuclear weapons if Tehran gets the bomb. My research, recently published in International Security, explains how Riyadh’s ability to play nuclear suppliers off against one another can increase its chances of securing nuclear technology.” There is no denying this, and that is only when we look at that side. You merely have to look back towards 2004 and remember “Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer (A.Q.) Khan, then famous for his role in developing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, confessed on live television to having illegally proliferated nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea over the course of decades. Today Khan is enjoying a resurrection at home, where he is again touted as the “Mohsin e-Pakistan,” or the savior of Pakistan” to consider that this might already have happened. Pakistan has ties to Saudi Arabia. The fact that this is largely in a stage where we see: “Wouldn’t the United States and other countries interested in stopping proliferation block Riyadh’s access to sensitive nuclear transfers, such as enrichment technology?” We see the wrong question, the stage is that America is no longer a significant super power, it is too broke, it is too much bankrupt. That gave Russia an edge and more important, other players are no longer heeding America’s word, it becomes simple for them when the infighting in America is doing most of the work for them, so seemingly America has become really good at trivialising itself as a world power. In all this (from recent events) America failed twice, it did not act when the Syrian issues were playing, so as the world saw the Ghouta chemical attack unfold on 21^st August 2013, the world saw the Obama Administration sit by and do nothing, even as there had been decades of messages that a chemical attack is a red line that was not to be passed, Someone in Syria passed it and nothing was done. Again we see failure now under the Trump administration that when the calls for Yemen were needed, the US pulled away and the media set the stage for this war to continue for at least 3 years more costing the lives of hundreds of thousands. Two direct failures in the last 7 years and when someone is asking others on why the USA is not taken seriously, did you actually expect a serious response?

So when the Washington Post gives us: “As Matthew Fuhrmann explained here in the Monkey Cage, there remains debate over whether peaceful nuclear technology transfers lead to proliferation — but the risk of proliferation is high in the Saudi case“, again the stage is miscommunicated. It is not about the Saudi case, it is about the not stopping Iran case. For over 2 years we have seen and heard spokespeople from the KSA state that they have no interest in nuclear technology as long as Iran does not move forward on where they are. So now that the nuclear pact has collapsed and as Europe and America do not do anything after 2+ violations by Iran, Saudi Arabia does not really have any options left.

In all these events Iran was clearly the powder keg and the two larger players are unwilling to act. As I personally see it, the US has benefit to a lack of stability in the Middle East (outside of Iran) and is now courting Qatar to keep in the game, we see all the threats by Iran and the media is always good to make sure that we all hear the threats made (but little else) and that is now pushing for a very different stage. With the UK sending a second warship into the Sea of Dammam, escalation risks go up, not down.

The third problem is not merely the players that are out and about, when this goes south the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain will have little options left, they will be caught in the middle, all because certain players are unwilling (or disallowed) to make the hard calls. Finally there is the last piece, there is Hezbollah. We see all kinds of statement in the last few hours and they are merely that, mere statements. Yet, when Iran does make a move how will Hezbollah act? The statement that they gave 6 hours ago with ‘Hezbollah can target all of Israel with it’s missiles‘, might be true, but is it Hezbollah or Iran doing the work? The missiles are all Iranian, the knowledge to strike more precise came from IRGC instructors, the (upgraded) hardware is also covered in Iranian fingerprints. So when Hezbollah does make a move, there will be consequences and at that point the US and Europe will have no cause, no call and no right to make some lame humanitarian statement. They left this mess unattended for too long, so whatever Israel decides should be regarded as acceptable.

I still believe that the strikes that come will be 79.5% against Israel, 19.5% against Saudi Arabia and 1% against both. The Houthis are losing more and more options, Hezbollah is nowhere near ready to face two armies and Iran needs to play the game very carefully, because even as the US and Europe are not acting, there is every chance that Israel and Saudi Arabia can make short work of Iran, the Iranian threats that we have seen over the last few hours (the usual) as well as mention of a special weapon give rise that they took a little too much on their for and striking now might be the only way to defuse a nasty situation.

It is time to push back to Iran and if the politicians can’t make it work then we must make it work, so my first action to diffuse the situation is not to strike with weapons (I only have a steak slicer and a cricket bat at home at present), is to make war through mind games. I call for a change on the map; we rename the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Dammam.

It trivialises Persia and therefor Iran, when we take away the old naming mistakes, we get to trivialise Iran to a lager degree, when they cannot counter they will need to push harder or fold the hand. I saw that they were only holding a two and a seven in this poker match and there is not a lot you can do with that, to win you need to get really lucky or bluff like a god and they are unable to do the second.

So I scored an easy victory over Iran with the greatest of ease and without firing a bullet in real life, but we can keep that option for later. So take a look at the city of Dammam, with the Sea of Dammam to the right, or consider my second option below, I did made a mention of video games in the beginning and we can all bluff, we can optionally argue that bluffing is all that Iran has left, but that is a story for another day. In my case of bluff I went up against my cold war adversary the Russians (always a decent opponent to cross, and we can’t have Alexander Bortnikov feeling too relaxed in all this, can we?)

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Tagged as Abdul Qadeer Khan, Alexander Bortnikov, Bahrain, Europe, FSB, Ghouta, Ghouta chemical attack, Houthi, Iran, IRGC, Israel, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kurds, Matthew Fuhrmann, Newsweek, Obama administration, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sea of Dammam, State of Israel, the House of Representatives, Turkey, UAE, UK, US, US Senate, USA, USA today, Wall Street, war ships, Washington Post, Yemen

July 12, 2019 · 11:49

Desertion

Desertion is an ugly word, it is often contributed to cowardice and cowards, the truth is actually less straight forward. We can consider that the choice is left to someone who can no longer tolerate the actions of their government. Then there is another form, when it is not linked to a military decision, when in its purest form the application is the action of deserting a person, cause, organization or even a government, and even then people try to hide it behind words like forsaking, abandonment, shunning, stranding or jilting.

They consider desertion too harsh a word, but that is exactly what the US government is doing as the New York Times (at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/us/politics/house-democrats-saudi-arabia.html) gives us: ‘House Moves Again to Cut Off Support to Saudi War in Yemen‘, so when we see: “to prevent the Trump administration from using its emergency authority to transfer munitions to the kingdom, delivering twin rebukes as Democrats sought to leave their stamp on military policy“, when we see this, we should consider betrayal of an ally, abandoning a nation that the US claims to have good ties with. And it goes further than that, there is actually an issue that has been left unpublished for a much longer time (to the degree it should have been published).

Qatar has been accused of being a facilitator for state sponsored terrorism. This is not a light subject, it is quite heavy an accusation. Let’s be clear, I am not accusing them of this, they have been accused and it is an important accusation, because the US is in much deeper waters than you think. Even as Saudi Arabia is getting cut off from defence options to defend itself against Hezbollah and Iranian supported Houthi units, attacked by (mostly) Houthi forces using missiles, we learn that mere hours ago “a Houthi rocket was fired indiscriminately and targeted a non-military area“, the target was Dhalea in SW Yemen, so the fighting goes on and America is pulling out, or are they? With the news from ABC that less than 24 hours ago (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-10/qatar-donald-trump-military-and-commercial-deals/11294500) we are given: ‘US and Qatar ink deals for ‘tremendous amounts’ of military weapons and Boeing planes‘, the quote: “Qatar has agreed to buy “tremendous amounts of military equipment” and Boeing planes from the United States following a visit by Gulf Nation’s Emir to the White House, according to President Donald Trump” implies that the United States wants to be part of the Middle East, more importantly it is seemingly on track to keep stability to a nominal minimum, which is only serving America at present. It was given (by ABC as well ) that Qatar has an issue, in 2017 we saw the accusation “According to James Piscatori, deputy director at ANU’s Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, “It is probable that the regime, as well as some wealthy Qataris, have been supporting various groups, such as the Nusra Front.”” and unlike the implied murder of a journalist no one cares about, the accusation against Qatar is not one that requires ‘beyond all reasonable doubt‘, it requires ‘is it more likely than not‘ and that bar was seemingly passed. Over two years there has never been clear evidence produced that this was not the case and now we see that in the backwash of implied state sponsored terrorism we see the US making happy deals. The fact that these questions are not out in the open with the media is a lot more pressing than one might imagine. Media inaction allows for the accusation to fester and that is happening.

So when we get the additional quote: “The terrorist group, which has since changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, began as an offshoot of Al Qaeda. It’s been fighting President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war and wants to establish an Islamic caliphate“, the fact that this was given to AC out in the open in a stage where we see the American non treasury see a shift from one player to another is more pressing, there is a larger concern and as the US is keeping stability in the region to a minimum, the dangers will mount to larger degrees soon enough. the problem remains a large one, not because of the lack of evidence pointing one way or another, it is the statement from Gen. Charles Wald, former commander of U.S. Central Command Air Forces, who gave us only a few days ago: “Qatar is helping Iran“, now this is a loaded issue, first of all, there might be a large issue with Iran, but that does not mean that some nations do not have an economic need to play mean to dump Iran as a business partner. Can we (or should we) prevent medications and food to be shipped to any nation? If we have a humanitarian side, it wold be that a population need not be hungry, famished or denied medical provisions. And we also acknowledge that less than 48 hours after the attack on the World Trade Centre, Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar opened business to America so that it could have a strategic advantage. Even as we acknowledge it all, we also see the view that this general has with: “Qatar must choose: It can keep its U.S. air base or its ties to Tehran“, I am willing to think that issues are this simple, but they are not. Yet the state funded terrorism accusation lingers.

Then the second tier comes into play, consider that the accusation is true, how high does it go? Consider that Qatar is a monarchy with Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani at the head of that table. No matter the accusations have never been linked, or were there any serious accusations (with some level of evidence) that a member of the monarchy was involved. Is Qatar therefor still guilty, or are there elements in Qatar (high ranking ones) part to the stage where state funded terrorism is a valid accusation? The fact that the media is not looking there, does not mean we must shun the question.

When we look at family, we see the father Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, under his rule as previous ruler, we see that two US military bases were hosted, large investments in western corporations for well over $100 billion, there was the support of Arab spring and founded Al Jazeera, these are all actions that imply futuristic thinking, not funding terrorism and we need to acknowledge that. Then there is the brother (of the current monarch) Jassim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, educated at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as well as at Sherbourne School (Dorset), none of this screams terrorist support, this does not mean that it is not happening, it merely implies that the ‘more likely than not‘ might be a wrong standard and there has been very little investigation towards the guilt or innocence of Qatar.

Still these sides do not imply that the US is wrongfully selling arms, it does still support the tactic of minimalizing stability in the region and that is wrong, the abandonment of Saudi Arabia seems clear too and as such the dangers in the Middle East are escalating, not lowering, which is a large failure.

What happened?

For this we can turn to yesterday’s Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-saudi-qatari-breach-explained/2019/07/09/96ec69de-a260-11e9-a767-d7ab84aef3e9_story.html) Here we see: “The crisis was sparked in 2017 when hackers published a story on Qatar’s news agency quoting Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani as criticizing mounting anti-Iran sentiment after a trip to the region by U.S. President Donald Trump. Qatari officials quickly deleted the comments, and appealed for calm as Saudi and U.A.E. newspapers, clerics and celebrities accused Qatar of trying to undermine efforts to isolate Iran“. Here my issue becomes ‘when hackers published a story‘, and they have journalistic integrity how exactly? Hackers tend to lack credibility, not to mention in an age with over 10,000,000 hackers there is a group (well over 90%) that have only greed driven needs, so how is that reliable?

How money flows

Then the Washington Post gives a gem that is worth its weight in gold. With: “Some Qataris have provided support to al-Qaeda and its spinoffs, U.S. officials say. According to the State Department’s report on international terrorism, despite government controls, “terrorist financiers within the country are still able to exploit Qatar’s informal financial system.” The U.S. report uses similar language in its section on Saudi Arabia. The report details efforts by both the Qatari and Saudi governments to counter terrorism financing. It offers greater praise of the Saudi efforts“, it does something strong, the premise of ‘more likely than not‘ now fails to a much larger degree. when we see: ‘Some Qataris‘ we recognise that there is a small issue, but when we place ‘some Qataris‘ next to the thousands of terrorists that America has (the members of the Ku Klux Klan to name merely a first group), we see that the accusations against Qatar are suddenly less powerful. Now we accept that the issue existed in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, yet we see that Saudi Arabia has been more eager to fight this than Qatar it does not make Qatar more guilty, it merely means that optionally more is required from Qatar, yet in all this there remains the issue on why America abandoned Saudi Arabia. I believe that these steps have seemingly nothing to do with commerce, merely with reduced stability and in this day and age in the way that Iran is jumping around not a good thing, when the kettle boils a short decisive war would be essential and America just made that a non-option.

so when we get back to the New York times, we see how the US government is making themselves liable (as I personally see it) “But the most consequential amendments on Thursday continued Congress’s months long effort to intervene in the Yemen conflict and punish Saudi Arabia for the murder of the dissident Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi” you see, no evidence was ever presented, no evidence can be presented at present making a government privy to intentional murder, there is no body, there is no forensic evidence, there is merely circumstantial evidence at best and even then, some of that evidence in tainted. So the US taking the work of an essay writer (seemingly named Eggy Calamari) as gospel to the degree it is doing is not staging any level of progress, it was a document at best and presented in three stages, every time merely meant to attack Saudi Arabia, progressing destabilisation in the Middle East (better stating inhibiting stability).

It gets to be worse (for America) when we consider “Lawmakers voted 236 to 193 to prohibit the administration from using funds to support the Saudi-led military operations — either with munitions or with intelligence — against the Houthis in Yemen“, especially when we see mounting evidence that Houthis have directly been targeting civilians, have engaged on a larger scale firing Iranian missiles into Saudi Arabia and using drones to attack ships and airfields in the region, that is a group you want to protect? I think that there are optionally 236 voters guilty of supporting terrorism to a much larger degree, I wonder which excuse they will use for letting the battle rage on, stopping humanitarian aid to go forward towards the Yemeni civilians and now with the added accusation that Houthi forces have recruited 30,000 child soldiers up to this point (source: Middle East monitor). As I see it, when the dust settles, I will have fun! I will try to publish the photos of the cadavers from all over Yemen with (or is that ‘in’) all their exposed guts and glory. I will on the principle of the matter make sure that these 236 names are published with these images so that the American people know who they voted for and how humanitarian their actions were in the end, that’s only fair, right?

When you desert your ally, you should be proud of that fact and get named in full, should you not?

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Tagged as ABC, Al Udeid Air Base, Al-Qaeda, ANU, Dhalea, Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, General Charles Wald, Houthi, Iran, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, Jamal Khashoggi, James Piscatori, Jassim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Ku Klux Klan, Middle East, New York Times, Nusra Front, NY Times, President Bashar al-Assad, President Donald Trump, Qatar, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Sherbourne School, Trump administration, U.S. Central Command Air Forces, USA, Washington Post, World Trade Centre, Yemen

July 10, 2019 · 12:24

Grayscale, never Black or White

Grayscaling has been around since the beginning of photography, 30 years ago it was a lot more important as colour screens were not great and monochrome exposure came at a much higher quality (higher resolution, Hercules graphic adapters), others followed for the longest time and until EGA evolved (with overpriced monitors) we were all happy to think in grayscales, it was also more precise and easier on the eye. Even home computers had its version. The Atari MEGA STe with 4MB memory was ahead by a lot when you consider that the PC could not manage more than 640Kb (1991), more important, it was an almost direct attack on Macintosh who was up to 600% more expensive in those days, so it was a nice DTP alternative.

Yet today grayscaling had been done for, at least that was what I thought. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/10/watchdog-finds-work-of-patisserie-valerie-auditor-unacceptable) shows us mere hours ago that I was wrong, especially when we are confronted with Grant Thornton and the fact that that the work from this auditor has been regarded as unacceptable (basically in Black & White). It gets to be worse when we see: “Across the industry, one in four audits failed to reach required standards, a finding that will intensify pressure on the firms“. That is a massive failing that is no longer merely the optional rotten apple in the basket; this sets the stage that the entire harvest is no longer trustworthy. In the days of the Atari MEGA STe the work of accounting auditors were close to beyond reproach, so the slipping of quality is one of much larger concern, it is a much larger issue of quality; optionally it is now the age of butchers being granted to perform operations on people because the shortage of surgeons is too overwhelming.

And when we see the quote: “Grant Thornton’s chief executive, David Dunckley, exasperated MPs in January when he said it was not his firm’s job to uncover fraud or judge that a company’s books were correct“, is that not the foundation of an audit? Is the audit not to make sure as they ‘judge that a company’s books were correct‘ is that not at the core to check before they are signed off on? Of course it comes with the step to slam my favourite Tesco auditor when we see: “The FRC also criticised PwC, one of the big four accountants, for an unsatisfactory drop in the results for its audits. Only 65% of the firm’s audits of FTSE 350 companies required no more than limited improvements, down from 84% a year earlier and well short of the FRC’s 90% target“, I think the stage is becoming clear that these two places should no longer be considered as valid auditors. Like the Atari MEGA STe, they have become obsolete and optionally overpriced and useless. If we consider that they were optionally the beez knees in 1991, it is the passage of time how that view is now reduced against my smartphone.

	Atari MEGA STe	Smartphone	Difference	Alternative
CPU	16 MHz	2.4 GHz	150 times better	*+15,000%*
Memory	4 MB	4GB	1024 times more	*+102,400%*
Storage	20 MB	128 GB	6400 times more	*+640,000%*
Display	640*400	2340 * 180	16.45 times more	*+1,645%*
Price	$1995	$499	75% cheaper	*-75%*

We can all accept that technology moves on and I am comparing one tech that is 5 generations and 27 years more advanced, but that is the setting with these auditors. They are failing in quality again and again and they are still tolerated to operate, the FRC (Financial Reporting Council) is as I personally seeing this ignoring its duties, perhaps politicians have yanked out their teeth, so that they can merely bark, but the amount of issues that we see, issues that predates that so called Tesco clambake of 2013. The issue is not merely the fact that impacts places like PwC and Grant Thornton, it is larger and the sliding of quality is now well beyond embarrassing and for the most actions have been largely null and void. If there is something to be learned from the Carillion disaster, it is the fact that KPMG (at £1,500,000) a year dropped more than just the ball, they are setting the stage that auditing needs to be a lot more on par towards criminal prosecution and investigative prosecution than ever before. Before it got to the auditors, the financial controllers, the bookies and the CFO’s worked those books and that facilitating side needs to stop. There was an interesting view that was given in February 2018. Accountancy Age (at https://www.accountancyage.com/2018/02/26/carillion-inquiry-missed-red-lights-aggressive-accounting-pension-deficit/), and as we read: “In a series of scathing joint committee sessions MPs took to task Carillion directors, pension regulators and KPMG and Deloitte auditors– grilling them on missed red flags, aggressive accounting and the pension deficit reaching nearly £1bn“, is it all that simple? Is it not the task of the auditor to make sure that the books are 100% ok? It seems now that the auditors are facilitating to their paying clients on what they can get away with, and to some degree that is fine (it is about looking at black letter law and to see where the border is), because it is about what the law allows, yet the flaws of PwC, Grant Thornton and KPMG shows is that the auditor needs to be more towards prosecuting their client on what will not pass the tax laws and reporting laws, there is a much larger difference between these stages and as such the FRC needs to grow a set of teeth (optionally balls too) and whilst we accept the stage as it is, it is no longer a stage that is acceptable and that needs to be clear. The impact to people as we saw in Tesco and Carillion has been much too large and those board members walked away with more than just a pretty penny, so did the auditors and that requires adjustment of a much larger kind.

Even as we are shallowly given: “Audits carried out by PwC that the FRC inspected included Kier Group, the construction and services company whose recent profit warning prompted comparisons with Carillion, and the struggling department store chain Debenhams. The FRC did not disclose which audits were substandard from the list of companies it reviewed“, we could set the stage that these players can no longer audit any firm with a revenue over £1 billion or more than 1,000 employees. I feel certain that such a limitation will chase these players to much higher standards. Let’s face it, when we get to read small printed facts that PwC made an accounting error of £40,000,000 can we assume (read: speculate) that their flaws are larger and go deeper? Should we allow these dangers to set the stage where 1,200 jobs are cut because there was no more room to wiggle?

As I personally see it, the stage is actually rather simple. Any firm that makes the statement: “Kier Group plc’s Group financial statements and Company financial statements (the “financial statements”) give a true and fair view of the state of the Group’s and of the Company’s affairs as at 30 June 2018 and of the Group’s profit and cash flows for the year then ended;” all whilst we see that there was a £40,000,000 ‘oopsie’ is not a firm that should be allowed to set the stage where that statement was given in the first place.

It does not matter which excuse is given (the contracts were way to complex), or how the stage seemingly turned through operational changes (this quarter has seen over double the number of weeks of refresh disruption compared to the same period last year). They are all excuses of an unacceptable level and no matter how we slice this, it seems that some accountancy firms can no longer keep up and they should be cut from clients that have grown beyond certain sizes. We have rules on the F1 races, we have rules on how soccer teams become premiere league, even the Olympics requires rules before athletes can compete and when they cannot keep up they no longer qualify, it is time for these accountancy firms to be held to qualifications to a much higher and larger degree, having a degree no longer takes the cake, we need to consider that issues like Tesco, Carillion, Debenhams, Kier group and several others are also case for limiting access. Each of these failings should be seen as the tipping point to the limit of companies with ‘a revenue over £1 billion or more than 1,000 employees‘ are required to find another auditor, or face an optional complete audit by an FRC appointed auditor (at the expense of the firm being audited). I feel certain that once this rule is in play that quality will suddenly go through the roof, it will also allow the smaller firms to become an optional future big four, even though it is more likely that the reduced pool will create a stage of a new big seven tier of accountancy firms; even though we think all accountants are evil, they are not and plenty are above board trying to be the best in their business, we all (including me) forget that at times and we too need some adjusting. It does however begin by clipping the wings of no less than two auditors at present.

There is also the idea that it is all in the presentation, and perhaps to some degree it is. Yet when something is marketed as a new 50 shades of grey for male readers, it is nice to know that it is marketing of a different kind, not a summary report that there are equal scales for two different groups, because that is not an oversight, that is an example of direct applied deceptive conduct and I think that we have seen too many victims of those twists. It needs to stop and perhaps the FRC will finally push for a stage that allows for larger changes, as this mess has been going on for well over 5 years now.

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July 8, 2019 · 11:35

The wider field

There is a wider field, the field is ignored by many because it overlaps in several ways and most people (read: media) tend to stare at one element. We can argue whether it is bad or good, but it does mean that the bulk of the information is not there. To get this view we need to look at several sources. First we get the International Business Times, they give us two headlines. The first is ‘Samsung Expecting Profits Slump For Q2‘ as well as ‘Huawei Ban Helps Company Earn More‘, in one way we get an increase of revenue due to the Huawei events in the US, yet there is still a Q2 slump. There are several plays that apply, but it is not about the play as such. The firs realisation is that 5G is currently being ‘advertised as here‘ by several players and at present there is an increased question on which phone is 4G and/or 5G and most people are holding off on phones this year until that field has a better view on what is available. Most people cannot afford to buy a new phone when some new models are $1800, most people cannot afford a step like that and being tied to any provider at present is an increasingly bad step to make. Even as Huawei is 20% cheaper, it remains a lot of money, and the Google (Android) issues are still there, so people are hesitant. I might have committed myself to Huawei, but that is in part because I renewed my phone in the beginning of the year, so it has to last me 2-3 more years (I have principles towards blatantly buying new phones) and I am happy with my phone.

then there is the new stage hat is now evolving when we see CNN Business give us (at https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/04/tech/huawei-us-ban/index.html) ‘US government asks judge to dismiss Huawei lawsuit‘, they are rightfully scared because the claim: “Huawei had filed the lawsuit in March, arguing that a law preventing US federal agencies from buying its products violates the US constitution by singling out an individual or group for punishment without trial” is almost a given, the US government made sure that every media outlet on the planet took great painstaking effort in illuminating that and now it becomes the anchor attached to their legs as they have to swim across the Pacific river (or Atlantic river). If the case goes through and discrimination is proven, the impact will be monumental, especially as no evidence was ever brought forward and if we are a nation of laws, the impact will be large, moreover, at present Huawei is still growing its pool of 5G contracts and should the Case fall on the side of Huawei, the impact on Europe will be much larger, it could signal a much larger run on trying to get a quick deal with Huawei, not because they are nice people (they optionally are), but because Huawei 5G equipment is more advanced and all the telecom players know this. Ericsson and Nokia fear that side, they had a good run due to the escalations, but Huawei is still on par to have well over 50% of 5G by themselves and that is what the US fears, that large a disadvantage because its pool of CEO’s and CTO’s were increasingly stupid, flaccid and complacent in an age where pushing innovation was essential.

The issue is not out of the room yet because there is the larger issue that everyone has not been looking at. There is still the Google issue around Android. Consider that Huawei’s Oak OS is now 60 days away from release, it is the start where people who were initially ‘forced’ to dump Android, they now will be part of the Oak OS group, a data core that involves millions from adding data to the Oak servers and no more to the Google servers. The impact seems small, but it impacts the US to a much larger degree, this stance has given China a much larger boost than ever possible. For the users it will only be a temporary setback, as apps will be supported through Oak/OS, these players will continue, yet the overhaul as people push away from android is much larger than the interaction of IOS versus Android. Consider what you need. The bulk of all android apps we use will almost immediately be available, leaving us with optionally some issues regarding LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Now there is a new stage where Chinese options could be considered and for the most when we can address who we need, we might not care on where we are. The idea that advertisements might initially fall away will be a massive reason to do that. I am certain that there will be a Facebook Oak and LinkedIn Oak, the rest remains open, the usage is huge but that too might be a reason to try something new, people love new things, especially if it comes with cool additions and new we see a different stage, it is not the US that matters, it is whether China has options that appeal to India and Europe, these three represent 3 billion people and there is the data crunch, they will not all go the Chinese solution, but even 10% would be massive, it would be a an intense gut punch to Google, more important over time as word of mouth make more people switch, the damage will increase for Google. Make no mistake, it will merely impact the total, it will not sink Google, it is too large, but in light of their predictions when they have 20% less data points to make predictions with, granularity becomes an issue for the professional side and there too there will be an impact, Chinese app owners will have their own digital advertisement agenda and business dictates that you cannot ignore that population, so budgets will be shortened to cover an audience as large as possible.

All that because of the Huawei ban, which was shown to be short-sighted from the very beginning. Consider that we were given in June: “Huawei can no longer pre-install Facebook apps on its smartphones after Facebook fell into line with a US ban on exporting software“, now consider that suddenly millions are offered a pre-installed WeChat and they are willing to try it, the impact on Facebook will be seen in less than 60 days, the fact that Facebook had been playing games with its mobile users for a much longer time will also entice users to give it a try. Not all will stay, but some will and the dimension of ‘some’ will imply a drop of Facebook of several million user. In addition we see “Chinese users spend an average of over 70 minutes a day within the app. All this makes it one of the most popular choices for businesses looking to get started with social media marketing in China“, yes it was overwhelmingly Chinese, yet in the shift it will now have optional access to a large Indian and European following. In addition the shift we optionally see when we realise: “WeChat allows for one-to-one personalized interaction between brands and users. This allows brands to communicate directly with their followers through the messaging functions on their account. This also allows brands to provide customer service directly through their WeChat account. It’s due to this reason that many companies in China don’t even operate traditional websites instead of focusing their efforts on constantly improving their WeChat official accounts” direct granularity towards the user, not mass marketing, but adjusted marketing for the individual, and then consider players like Tableau, Salesforce (now one and the same), SAP, Sony and Microsoft all wanting to address the person, not the masses, do you think that they will ignore this group of users? These people invest hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a day towards addressing their growing need of users, all revenue that is soon lost to Apple and Google. It goes beyond merely Facebook; Twitter and Snapchat, all have a Chinese version that now has the option to surpass (read: close the gap) towards their competitors. Surpass is perhaps the wrong word, the fact that people will consider the alternative in the immediate is a risk for these players, it sets the dangers of schools of users to switch to another pond, so those fishing for ads, visibility and awareness, they will all have to adjust the way they operate. There now are now only two parts where I have no idea how it will play out. Youku Tudou is the Chinese version of YouTube, but YouTube is so strongly placed that I have no idea how that will go, the same for LinkedIn. these are the two we cannot predict, no one can, but if they remain absent from Oak/OS something will have to budge, the question becomes how much do you need LinkedIn to be on your smartphone when you can just catch up daily at home, or in the office. I personally do not believe that its equivalent Maimai will be embraced as strongly as Maimai would hope, but that is my speculation on the matter.

Only YouTube as it is and remains the behemoth of Google, is too strong an app to ignore, it is too strongly desired, especially on smartphones, some might give Youku Tudou a try, but the library of YouTube increases with 300 hours of material every minute, there is no real competing with that, no matter how you slice that. There is no denial that their Chinese competitor will grow, but there the impact is less than a mosquito bite for YouTube, it is perhaps the one part of Google that no one seemingly can be without.

Is there another side?

Well there is always the option that everything in Google will be accessible on Huawei phones and that is for Google the best solution, but at present that part is just not a given, and when many Huawei smartphones are between 20%-40% cheaper, they will have an advantage and only because of US stupidity that impact is now optionally becoming much larger. And now the shift is changing faster, the Observer gave us on Saturday ‘UK mobile operators ignore security fears over Huawei 5G‘, when we consider the quote “The Observer understands that Huawei is already involved in building 5G networks in six of the seven cities in the UK where Vodafone has gone live. It is also helping build hundreds of 5G sites for EE, and has won 5G contracts to build networks for Three and O2 when they go live“, we see how things are escalating away from the US. the massive part in all this is “a firm line against the company amid claims, strongly denied, that it is controlled by the Chinese government and that its equipment could be used to spy on other countries and companies” all from the point of view that clear evidence was never provided and the commercial corporations need to remain on top or drown and that was the larger flaw the US never seemingly understood (or blatantly ignored). Yet the other side also matter, as the numbers are given: “The consultancy Assembly suggests a partial to full restriction on Huawei could result in an 18-to-24-month delay to the widespread availability of 5G in the UK. The UK would then fail to become a world leader in 5G – a key government target – costing the economy between £4.5bn and £6.8bn” (source: the Guardian). People tend to get nervous at a loss of millions, so the loss of £4,000,000,000 plus is something that can start cardiac arrests all over the telecom boardrooms. More important as Huawei is still ’embraced’ in Germany, the German players will get the upper hand over other European players giving a larger technological shift. The final straw was the consideration of “They have taken note of what happened last December when the O2 4G network went down for 24 hours due to problems with technology provided by the Swedish telecoms firm Ericsson“, a danger as this was 4G technology that should have been clear and non-problematic, now consider that this happened to established technology, so what optional risks are Ericsson users exposed to when in involves 5G, a technology that Nokia and Ericsson is still trying to figure out?

In all this, Huawei has not stopped adding pressure. Now that we see that less than 24 hours ago we were notified that Huawei has completed the contracts with Msheireb Properties. It seems small and insignificant, but it is not. With a smart experience centre in Qatar, it is my expectations that they are ready to approach and upgrade Al Jazeera to 5G, it is speculative but it will be the first time that Al Jazeera surpasses CNN technology (as well a Fox News), It might not matter to most of us, but to people like Nasser Al-Khelaifi (beIN Media Group) it matters a lot, so when we are informed that Al Jazeera getting ready to offer 5G streaming during the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and Huawei as a Chinese company is mentioned everywhere in Tokyo, you better believe that these two are on top of making this work as fast and as quickly as possible, so when I created my base station IP, I never considered this, but it fits and that is another notch that some miss out on. Half the planet goes nuts for sports on a regular day, how nuts do you think the planet goes when ‘their nation‘ is fighting its fight (against up to 205 other nations) to be the best at the Olympics? When you get to watch that live, streaming it all at 5G, do you really think that people will care who brings it as long as it is true 5G? In several nations the brand jump was huge when 4G became real and some were not up to scrap, I believe that this time around the jump will be close to 300% larger than before, and the Tokyo Olympics will be a clear driver on that part. When 206 nations fight for the laurels (gold medals) every nationally driven sports fan tends to get a little (read: abundantly) nuts, and at present that group of people is well over 3 billion people, all factors some players did not consider when they were playing the short game, Huawei never played the short game, it gives them an advantage in several ways.

That is merely my view on the situation at present.

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Tagged as 5G, Al Jazeera, Android, beIN Media Group, CNN, CNN Business, Ericsson, Facebook, Fox News, google, Huawei, Instagram, IOS, LinkedIn, Maimai, Microsoft, Msheireb Properties, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, Oak OS, Olympics, Qatar, Salesforce, Samsung, SAP, SnapChat, Sony, Tableau, the Guardian, the Observer, Tokyo 2020, Twitter, US government, WeChat, WhatsApp, Youku Tudou

July 5, 2019 · 10:49

The next economic identity

Today is about an opinion piece by Shoshana Zuboff, Zuboff graces us (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/02/facebook-google-data-change-our-behaviour-democracy) with: ‘It’s not that we’ve failed to rein in Facebook and Google. We’ve not even tried‘. It’s a good piece, I do not completely agree, but it is a good piece and you should read it. The start is actually full on when we see: “tech giants use our data not only to predict our behaviour but to change it“, it is not actually an attack on democracy, but the applied pressure on our way of thinking, consumer adjusting if you will. Then we get to the part that has an issue, with “In 2011, the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned that government overreach would foolishly constrain innovation“, it is not that, it is actually a lot worse than that. It is the stage where big business goes its own way, regardless of what any government dictates and governments are all about facilitating. when we see all governments drop down on so called individuals committing fraud (which is fair enough) staging thousands of man hours finding these dozen or so people, all whilst places like Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook pay a mere 1% of 3 billion plus, do you think that there might be a pattern? A solution offered by me 20 years ago, ignored, shunned and ridiculed could have made things a lot better, but these people ignore it. They did not fail calculus, did they? When you realise these two simple parts, you see that government officials and big business fat cats go like hand in glove, but which of the two is the glove?

Now we get to the good part. We now see: “Facebook giving private information to developers, and more. Each of these was an expression of a larger breakthrough: the invention of what I call surveillance capitalism“, the writer is not wrong, but as I personally see it the writer is incomplete. It is only in part surveillance capitalism, you see capitalism is merely the consumer item; the actual currency in this capitalism is data. Data is everything and Google figured that out from the very very beginning. It took a decade to get where they are now, but that long play changed everything for Larry Page and Sergey Brin, they had been right from the very beginning and it is one of the reasons why I contain my IP for them or Ren Zhengfei, as I personally see it they are the only ones who can take my billion dollar IP (a mere slight exaggeration) and turn it into some serious cash, but I digress.

You see, the realisation that they saw it correctly from the beginning is essential, data is like the application of greed, it value is contained by always getting more. A billionaire becomes stagnant as he/she lives of the interest, stagnancy kills in the end and in data it becomes certain death, so data must always grow, which is exactly why the entire Huawei mess is not a good thing, not for Apple Iovesa and not for Google Androidian.

So far I merely create a side-track and it is all still on the Zuboff train to eternity. It is when we see: “A leaked Facebook document in 2018 describes its machine-learning system that “ingests trillions of data points every day” and produces “more than 6m predictions per second”. Finally, these prediction products are sold to business customers in markets that trade in human futures” this is where we see the first part that should wake us up. It is connected to “our societies successfully confronted destructive forms of capitalism in the past, asserting new laws that tethered capitalism to the real needs of people. Democracy ended the Gilded Age. We have every reason to believe that we can be successful again“, it is a nice premise but it is where the plan falls apart and it all fails. You see the biggest flaw is not them; it is us, the people. We expect all digital media be for free. We want it all and we do not want to pay for it, in addition that this economy implies that we cannot buy too many items before the budget hits our food needs, at that point we see that we are limiting ourselves. There is no free ride, there never was! As people refuse to learn this lesson they are confronted with the notion that they surrender their data as it is currency, it is not taxed and the people are happy, the merely had to hand over their soul if you will be, their personal data to well over a million people with a Faustian agreement and many were happy to do so because they do not comprehend what they signed up for. They are in denial through: “it is supposed to be free, yes?” Nothing is free and nothing is for free. These developers have to pay rent, they want either a gorgeous girlfriend, or they need enough for hookers. It seems plain and bland, but there you have it. Sex sells and sex is never free, not even when they marry the option. It is the simplest of evolutionary points. Be in denial as much as you care to be, but that notion should make it clear that nothing is free. You see, if you bought a program, you get to have rights. They get to be liable and when they consider that 95% of their user base would not be their customer base their income would be exceedingly limited, so as we realise that data is all, data is cash we see the path that is a problem. True democracy is not free either, as such the problem merely becomes bigger. Consider the people using Microsoft Word and those paying for Microsoft Word; we see a difference is a much larger part of several nations. If one does not pay in one way, one pays in another form and data is often that form. So as we get all these Google apps (or Apple apps) to aid us, we are all happy but that reliance on Google/Apple gives them the data they need to make predictive analytics and evolve it at some point into Artificial Intelligence.

At that point the writer becomes absolutely brilliant and gives us: “Data ownership is an individual solution when collective solutions are required. We will never own those 6m predictions produced each second. Surveillance capitalists know this. Clegg knows this. That is why they can tolerate discussions of “data ownership” and publicly invite privacy regulation“, Shoshana Zuboff has figured it out. It is the predictions that move forward and give these firms the additional capital they need, in addition it is almost like answers versus responses. they are two different things, a person can answer you whilst never responding to the question, they can also respond to the question and never give you an answer and whilst you ponder this consider that people are 97% sheep, so the 6 million predictions go a long way. Now consider that 6 million predictions needs a lot of data and when the US trade war comes to blow, Huawei will get a share of users, a large share of users that will then become unavailable to Google when the isolation increases, optionally unavailable to Apple too and so on, a new data currency will be created and when that data is 5G based Huawei data will grow faster and faster whilst Google data will end up coming to a standstill, 6 million predictions become 2 million, become 666,666 (I had to go there), in two hardware revolutions (less than two years) the system has to deal with collapse. OK, it is only partial exaggerated, but that is what happens when everything goes positive for Huawei, when they deliver 5G, when the others falter to a larger degree, when their infrastructure is not ready for latency and congestion this is what we will face, the Trump administration was actually that stupid.

And then we get to the final part where the ball is struck out, not out of the field, but merely the ball is out. When we see: “Surveillance capitalists are rich and powerful, but they are not invulnerable. They fear law. They fear lawmakers. They fear citizens who insist on a different path“, I can tell you right now that they do not. The largest issue with tax laws is that they catered to big business for two decades, and that will not stop, if you think that there is no one willing to compromise to the largest extend, I will introduce you to a politician and they will compromise to the largest extent, it is merely towards big business and we have decades of examples in a whole league on nations, so do you really think we have nothing to fear? We do and until proper taxation is in place and until the large corporations are given a proper tax invoice we will see more and more. So when you get another headline like: ‘Australia targets cryptocurrencies in international tax crackdown‘, you better believe that it is a joke, it will be high visibility with claims like “J5 was formed a year ago because of growing concern that tax avoidance, cybercrime and crypto currency abuse were escalating as criminals exploited differences between national tax laws“, you better believe that you are sold some bag of goods. ‘growing concern‘ and ‘exploited differences between national tax laws‘ and consider that the first is not proven and the second is stated in such a way that it is optionally not even a crime, the laws are not properly in place, so consider these empty efforts and the facts below

Apple

Apple’s statutory 30 percent tax bill of $76.6 million was compounded by a number of additional tax expenses, adding up to a total income tax expense of $183 million for 2017
Apple has paid its largest Australian tax bill in years as it reached $8 billion in local revenue for the first time.

Google

Australians paid Google $4.3 billion for consumer items/software.
Google had a corporate tax bill of only $26.5 million.

Facebook

Facebook scored more than $500,000,000 for services in 2018.
Facebook paid a mere $11.8 million in corporate tax.

These are merely three of the larger players and we haven’t even considered Amazon and Netflix yet. Is it really about crypto currency whilst there is an optional one billion ($1,000,000,000) up for the taking once we get politicians that actually fix taxation laws. You really thing that these people fear laws when they can make a deal (read: national economic agreement) with whichever politician is elected? Go cry me a river please.

Oh and let’s not forget that this is merely Australian number for merely three firms, so let’s get real about data currency and the value it has, because as I see it the law will still not be up to scrap and ready in another 10 years, we will at that point be optionally in (or towards) a 6G stage and most cannot even comprehend the impact of that much data per minute on a national economy at present, there is really no way to tell.

In the end there is part that is an attack on democracy, yet not in the way that we see it. You see, we see that numbers, statistics and dashboards help us make our place more efficient, you see it in shops and in offered services, but when the streamlining begins and the shop becomes more efficient we see the impact, it is not that we cannot have a democratic voice, we see
(yet not realise) that the choices are no longer there. It is the most dangerous of democratic impacts as it tends to be subtly. A clever question was asked of me once, a consideration: ‘What if we only please 80% of our customer base, not 93%?‘ It is the immediate and direct impact of the cost of doing business. The question makes perfect sense, but what happens when one of the lost 13% has a direct link to a large player like Johnson & Johnson, McKesson or Marathon Petroleum? What happens when we cannot get their business because we limited ourselves through the cost of doing business? You cannot answer that can you? That is fine, it was not a test, it is to show that there is always a price to limiting choice and or those chosen it works out fine, but real innovation comes from inclusion, not limitation and that is where we are, we are so streamlines, all the same people living in San Francisco (I wrote about this in an earlier blog), it is all the same, we all become the same, we all become a limited version of ourselves and the people in charge cannot learn that lesson because they do not care, their pocket were filled, which was their priority. It was the only goal they had and that is why my IP is not available (merely to a chosen few), that is why I wait, in the end it is either lost or I win, perhaps someone else will have the same idea in 5-10 years, but at that stage I will no longer care, I will already have moved on to different and better challenges as well as new puzzles.

My creative mind allows me to redesign almost anything and create based on what I see, the creative mind only stops at death and that is not even proven at present, I remain hopeful that the people figure it all out before it is too late for them.

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Tagged as 5G, Amazon, Apple, Data Collection, data value, Donald Trump, economy, Facebook, google, Huawei, Johnson & Johnson, Larry Page, Marathon Petroleum, McKesson, Nick Clegg, Ren Zhengfei, Sergey Brin, Shoshana Zuboff, the Guardian, Zyboff

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