Category Archives: Finance

November 19, 2023 · 04:03

Speculating towards something?

That is the setting, I have been keeping my eyes on Bangladesh for more than one reason. You see, Bangladesh with its 170,000,000 people represent an upcoming population that has never been considered for several retail groups, but that nation could become a more important group. China sees this, Saudi Arabia sees this and that is where the next article comes into play. The article (at https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2023/11/18/japan-brings-bangladesh-into-the-folds-of-new-security-framework/) gives us ‘Japan brings Bangladesh into the folds of new security framework’ which also gives us “Japan maintains economic partnerships with most Asian countries, particularly Bangladesh. Dhaka has received around US$25 billion in development and economic assistance from Tokyo since 1972 and around US$9.2 billion of this has been overseas development assistance.” I believe it is one truth, but not the one that matters to Japan. When America implodes, so will Japan, unless they make new friends fast. And when Japan embraces 170 million Muslims, they stand a chance to get some relief from Saudi Arabia and optionally the UAE too. That is what I am speculating is behind this move. Yes, there is a stage that Japan can use for retail purposes, but there is a larger stage. As per March, Japan is dealing with a $9.2 trillion debt. When America collapses (not if, when) Japan will lose a lot more and whatever they have banked against the dollar will fall away, as such Japan needs another path. China is not one due to historical stages, Russia is equally unavailable. As such this path seems the most intelligent one and even as it is not the best path, it might be one of the few left available to the former friends of the United States. And in continuation of this speculation, when things implode, the BRICS players would like to keep as many as larger players on their side as possible and Japan is not great, it is a huge economic player. 

So as I see it (and I could be wrong), Japan and a few others will need to realign their priorities in allies and economic sides and Japan seemingly just made their first move. I wonder when either Saudi Arabia or the UAE will set another path towards Indonesia and its 273 million citizens. This makes the setting fro BRICS a larger one, with two additional nations they get almost half a billion consumer and this is the stage that is merely in its starting place. When these two nations get the chance to become workers in Neom, optionally additional domains we get a new setting for economy and that is where Japan is banking on. It is trying to get a slice of that pie and as America has been in denial of too much we see that their ‘friends’ are reevaluating their options and there is now an optional case that Japan made the first move. 

Am I right? Am I wrong?
That remains the question, my speculative view comes from the data available to me, it does not make me correct, but I see it that I am more likely than not correct. A stage we all faced. I am willing to become critical of my view, slice and dice it, merge the data streams and see what I can prove through that. I am still a decent amount away from proving it all, but I feel that It is clear that Bangladesh wasn’t merely for some security framework, the larger stage is still in play. It is still fluidic but the media at large is less and less reliable. Consider the media streams that gave ANY view on this stage and then ask yourself the question why did they not make mention of it? 

Just 20 hours until my weekend is over, enjoy yours.

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November 17, 2023 · 19:09

It’s that time again

Yes, America has Thanksgiving, they have Christmas and now they have stopgap (4 times a year). You see, yesterday the news was given (at https://arab.news/vysbu) with ‘US Senate passes stopgap funding bill to avert government shutdown’ I made mention of this on October 2nd with ‘An altering stage’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/10/02/an-altering-stage/)where I gave the readers “I expected it would, but I also expect that this might go wrong in the future and the next shutdown is a mere 45 days away and US businesses are setting this new marker as the disaster moment” and I actually got it exactly right. Yes,. There was a stopgap now, but that is not a budget, as such Americans face the same dance around December 29th, just as the year ends. So when the stopgap isn’t coming through things will turn bad really really fast. Consider the thought that the bulk of approximately 2.79 million civil servants will be set out in the cold just after Christmas. As such how deeply disturbing will this become? All this because for 25 years America decided not to overhaul the tax laws. Lets be clear, this was ALWAYS going to happen, but with overhauled tax laws they would have had an additional year to get their act together, now their end of game moment comes in stages of stopgaps. All to stop the government from falling over. We might see the populist setting from others with their ‘tax the rich’ but it is a farce, a joke that has no way to go. A complete overhaul was the only option and now with BRICS and China pushing in on the little revenue they had left, they have no options now and their competitors are moving in on whatever revenue they had left. Is it doomsday speech? To some degree, but it is laced with reality. The debt of $31,000,000,000,000 is real and that interest will exceed $310,000,000,000 annual, all whilst we see articles that America is a mere 18th on the list. Yes, it is flimflam presentations. We get that Japan is in deeper waters, but not by much. We see the flimflam approach towards % or GDP, but when you look at the outstanding interest and the simple setting that 100% annual taxation in America doesn’t even cover the interest bill, the larger stage is seen that this is a decliner with no escape. And all that is before we see the impact of infrastructure bills (like paying civil servants). The stage is not a nice one, but America did this to themselves and as the rich and the large corporations become ‘transient’ out of America could be the killing nail that shows the stupidity of several administrations that refused to overhaul tax laws. And when this goes south fast, debts will implode and those owning US treasury bonds will lose whatever they thought they had. That is the nightmare scenario that is showing to become an optional reality ever 45 days from now. Until when? Until it goes wrong. 

Enjoy the day, it is Friday here now. The weekend is starting for the Pacific, the west needs to wait the better part of a day.

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November 16, 2023 · 20:24

Just a tally

Yes, we like our tallies, it gives us a feel of accomplishment even if what is behind that tally is beyond our control. I have tallied my way through life and even as some was directly applicable to me, some was not.

Yet there is a realisation and it sets off at the very beginning. The realisation of comparison. I might have a tally that includes 2 21 year old women, 1 22 year old and 4 23 year old, without comparison and meaning it is a little hollow. If it is your ‘black book’ some will applaud, when it is your achievements in a retail shop a lot less so, especially when it involved a mall.So one with out the other is meaningless and the other way around it tends to be pointless.

So here we are looking at

And we are given the numbers. But what does it mean? You see the Dutch Army had at the height of the cold war age 1000 tanks, at the moment according to some sources it merely has 18 tanks (no idea how correct that is). And as you see, the Russians have lost 5,362 tanks during its Ukrainian offensive. This becomes a whole different crumbled cookie when you consider that (according to one source) has 12,556 tanks. Now the tally becomes a much larger consideration. This implies that on what I consider to be a meaningless war, a war of terror they lost 42% of all tanks, as such the Russian armoured assault power has almost diminished by 50%, that ain’t nothing that is half the battle gone against an armed force that was considered 21st on the world ranking list. As such the tally continues and when you consider that they lost 22 warships, all whilst the UK has a total of 70 warships. This might not seem much against the 290 that Russia is supposed to have, but if the spread of that navy is anything to go by Russia is indeed in trouble on several fronts. Now we might giggle and expect scenes from the battleship Potemkin to become a reality. The supply and support issues we have seen in recent days might not make that setting too unrealistic. Now that Ukraine has access to more modern airplanes, the 322 they lost will up by a lot soon enough. Yet they were supposed to have 900 of these bad boys and well over q third is now gone and that was before the F16’s were roaring over Ukrainian sky. A meaning less war, based on lies and Russia seemingly have lost 50% of its tanks and 33% of its fighter jets and that is all before we see the losses of helicopters and 313,000 troops. On the other hand that means that over 250,000 Russian women are cold at night. Can we reintroduce the concept of prima nocta in St Petersburg? 

I might not be a monarch, but at times I am just like any other horny little teenager. Is it fair? Nope, but they weren’t fair on Ukraine either so something needs to give. In addition, this might be the first time in history that Russian gender imbalance was so outspoken, as such beyond the military parts, the Russian social parts will also see changes and impacts all over the field. In addition, as the gender curve changes, the jobs that have been overwhelmingly male will also change. It will not immediately meltdown the economic vibe in the larger cities, but there will be a larger impact. There is no upside for Russia, the dead do not contribute and it cost the Russian government nothing. Conscription is up and when over 17 you can now be drafted into the Russian army. On the other side we see “aims to increase spending by around 25% in 2024, with record amounts going on defense” yet that is also a loaded stage. You see tanks ned time to get assembled, planes need assembly and the labour force required is currently down by a lot. All that I saw coming close to a year ago. We are also given (source: ABC News) “Record low unemployment, higher wages and targeted social spending should help the Kremlin ride out the domestic impact of pivoting the economy to a war footing, but could pose a problem in the long term” and no one considered the impact of no tenants, the pricing bubble of apartments, especially in St Petersburg and Moscow and several other linked factors. All that was optionally visible with a mere tally. 

When you diminish 300K people it might not seem a lot on the scale of Moscow (12 million) or St. Petersburg (250K) but overall that impacts start counting in several ways and there is one little thing the Russians overlooked. The dead do not pay taxation, so how will that increased budget come to pass? Something will have to give way and that doesn’t spell well for the current population of Russia. Suddenly my reference towards prima nocta doesn’t sound too weird, does it? You see we overlook that in WW2, the Nazi’s relied on 34,000 women over 500 Nazi-run brothels across occupied Europe to keep their troops in check. So how long until Russia takes a page from that charter? 250,000 women all manless and all serving mother to be Russia. The tally does not make sense, but to some it starts adding up to a new setting and behind all that is Bratva, a group overlooked by too many and now that their bosses have lost their capital in the west and their homes all over the west they will start getting creative fast. When you see the tally and what it connects to you get new iterations of what could be, not what should be and the nice thing about a tally it is a one dimensional application of simple numbers. 

I get it, some will frown, some will say I am wrong, but they will all be worried. I took the simplest application of numbers and took a gander on where it COULD lead to. In my defense, the path of the greed driven tends to be highly predictable, but that is merely my view on the matter.

Enjoy the day.

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November 14, 2023 · 11:00

A gap preceding a gap

This is a difficult article to write. A lot of it is speculation, optionally presumption. Yet if someone tells me that presumption, due to my lack of knowledge is inappropriate I would accept that. My mind wandered and I saw a weakness in a program called Final Draft. It is not really a weakness, but it could be THEIR opportunity. This site is debatable for them, but to be the more rounded solution would enable them to create a larger gap behind whomever are following them. 

My mind saw Ryan Reynolds (yes, the Canadian actor) starting talks with some guy named David Thomson. Not entirely sure what the conversation was about. But Ryan saw a new opportunity that grew from his insight in MNTN (www.mountain.com). You see the narrative of advertisement in changing. In that view we all focus on the advertisement themselves, but the larger stage is now becoming Development, production, deployment and so on. As such Final Draft might optionally be best to offer a new setting on Final Draft v13. 

You see, the missing part of project management. Even as there are some solutions, they are generic, for these people having one that is specific for Final Draft with timelines (somewhat similar to Monday dot com) would benefit Final Draft greatly. 

And it isn’t just for large companies, indie developers and script writers would be able to use it as well. Especially in scripts that have more than one season you want to see time lines, to test whether the scrutiny holds up and in that way advertisement companies could use the same setting. I reckon that the larger companies all have their own solutions, but Final Draft is used in over 60 countries and when you think of it, there is a larger pressing need to use project management solutions catered and tinkered to media and advertisement. Excel (not the worst solution) will no longer suffice in these places and as media corporations have a more distributed purview, that purview requires management with timelines, with options to see where pressure points arise and even more important when idle time and zero hours become too abundantly visible. We all have idle time at times, but when you have an entire crew on 40-80 hour idle time the cost will start to show and that impacts the margins and profit stages. 

For the simple developer (like myself) seeing the timelines and the completion times are also important. Not the fact of pressure, but to see where the lag is and whether certain parts were overlooked. It is the stage where the working project is set to a 90% complete versus 95% complete starts to show. If we take the old rule that completion of 5% past 90% has the same timeline as the first 60%, that gain is easily suppressed when you have a project file seeing what you optionally overlooked and in advertisement that part is even more clear, they work against (at times irrational) timelines and deadlines we see that Final Draft has an opportunity to grow its solution in another direction as well. I reckon that no matter where the project is set up, it needs to be deployed on a local level, because no executive will trust its data to the cloud, not with IP of this nature and also clouds fail (see Microsoft, September 2023). A distributed system might be the way to go, and independent developers (that one person studio) might not benefit with the cloud. And that is before you realise that there are 38,000,000 active VLoggers, they too need to up their game, the competition is cutthroat and murder as well. All options that show the possible opportunity that Final Draft has coming their way. I haven’t touched Final Draft since I tested version 6 decades ago, but I just went through the PDF of version 11 and I saw this gap and covering the gap preceding the gap makes the remaining gap passable and that is also where MNTN could find itself in the next 2 years. As they started the new setting the wannabe’s will come in soon and the better prepared they are, the stronger their foothold on the market will be and with all the others failing in obvious places MNTN could chisel out the niche that is safe, secure and almost spectacular (a subjective term). As such Final Draft has an even larger foothold it could create, but that is just me. I could be wrong after all. 

Another practical Tuesday filled. Time to rewatch Bullet Train and snore a little too. Enjoy the day.

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November 11, 2023 · 13:27

Wandering thoughts

We all have them, and I am no different. As I was contemplating more sides to yesterday’s story. As I was thinking through new levels of intelligence (machine learning) on grouping impact of NPC characters I saw the article in the Khaleej Times (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/travel/saudi-e-visa-demand-for-umrah-from-uae-soars-trips-start-from-dh600) where we see ‘Umrah demand in UAE soars; trips start at Dh600’ As such I wondered about a few things. You see, Saudi Arabia is busy increasing its tourism footprint. Then I learned that there is no train connection between Dubai and Riyadh. Consider these 1050 Km and tell me which tourist, religious or not wouldn’t consider doing that trip by train. From there we see two new options. The train from Riyadh to Mecca which does exist, as does the train ride from Riyadh to Medina. But the train trip from Medina to the Line does not yet exist. So now we have more than merely a religious trip. The Line – Medina – Riyadh and Dubai. A new way for tourists, Muslim and non-Muslims to see the nation of Saudi Arabia. People who can see that land without checking in and out of airports, see the lands of Saudi Arabia, its deserts and much more. A new tourist attraction if you will and a new way, one not blemished by western exploitation to see and learn about Islam. 

And even as these are mere thoughts, when we see “These budget-friendly packages start at just Dh600 per person and are not only economical but also convenient, as they are designed for travel by bus. DoJoin App is offering this 10-day package with travel by bus and is for residents who already possess the 1-year Umrah e-visa.” The small upgrade from $163 (Dh600) to Dh750-Dh999 might have the right appeal for a lot of people to take the train, optionally seeing Medina and the Line, two stops they might never have considered before, all whilst growing tourism in several directions. I reckon that I am not stating anything new, I feel certain that both the United Arab Emirates as well as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are working on this and with Saudi Arabia working on Hyperloop technology, we might see a lot more options in the coming years. I reckon that once Emaar and Virgin Hyperloop One (VHO) crunch the numbers, the line that comes after Riyadh – Jeddah will possibly include Medina and the Line giving Saudi Arabia, a new achievement and a worlds first. That will be the 3rd or 4th time they surpassed any expectation and that is another setting where we see that America as well as the European Union has politicised themselves out of the game. In 2019 we were given the quote “MEMBERS of the European Parliament spend £60 million of taxpayers’ cash on gravy train, plane and taxi services getting to and from work” and another source gave us ““This is not value for money and, as the second largest contributor to the EU gravy train we should get a grip on reality, pull the plug and pull out of the European Union” it is not the reason that I see is reason to disband the EU, but what is happening is that non-EU members are creating a real train ride that is very much value for money, whether it is the current train technology or the coming Hyperloop, others are showing that there is plenty value for money and that is weirdly enough one of the first things a tourist is looking for. Well over 90% of the population gets to spend their vacation money only once a year, so they try to make it count and there is plenty to see in Saudi Arabia (in the UAE too), even as too many media has been trivialising that for way too long.

Just my thought in the weekend, still 35 hours to go in this weekend, whatever will I think of next.

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November 8, 2023 · 23:23

Is it bigger than a hotel room?

That seems like a question, but if you have been on the web and if you have been on YouTube you will have seen a AirBNB advertisement. I personally do not trust them. That is nothing against them, I for the most do not trust anyone. If my mother would call me promising me a solution that gets me  1000% return on investment, I would not trust her (she dies decades ago). 

The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67341051) gives us ‘Italy to seize $835m from Airbnb in tax evasion inquiry’, it sounds simple and cozy. Yet I believe the all over setting is less simple. We see this with “Prosecutors say the firm failed to collect a tax from landlords on around €3.7bn of rental income. Landlords in Italy are required to pay a 21% tax on their earnings” and here lies the rub. Italian tax laws are not simple, but a lot less complicated than some and this was there in all the writings upfront. AirBNB might be “surprised and disappointed at the action announced by the Italian public prosecutor” but this was a simple application of Italian law. And the statement “Christopher Nutly said the firm’s European headquarters had been working to resolve the matter with the Italian tax agency since June” Really? June? It took me 11 minutes to see that part of the law and AirBNB was in the dark for months? As such “In 2022, Airbnb challenged the Italian law requiring the company and other short-term rental providers to withhold 21% of the rental income from landlords and pay it to tax authorities” Really? A firm goes up against Italian tax laws? How quaint. 

So when I see “The firm argued that Italy’s requirements on taxation contravened the European Union’s principle of freedom to provide services across the 27-country bloc” I wonder how their CLO (Chief Legal Officer) saw this? They checked with the local hookers on the Warmoestraat in Amsterdam perhaps? I am just fishing, but still. And the fact that they took this approach after YEARS leaves something to be desired as well. The fact that we are also given “Three people who held managerial roles at Airbnb from 2017 to 2021 were also under investigation, Milan Tribunal prosecutors said in a statement” gives me another path a simplified and optionally an incorrect  one. You see, this is an issue that has lasted for 6 years, the simpleton I would have looked at legal settings before day one commenced, but that is just me. 

Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Bankman-Fired, WeWork and the list goes on. Some ignored the law, some ‘overlooked’ and some merely made bad business calls and the media saw nothing until their stars exploded or imploded. How is that? A setting where we see €3.7bn of rental income and the Italian media never saw that post missing from the tax statutes? I am asking the questions out loud now, because the media isn’t. With Elizabeth Holmes, the media shunned Tyler Shultz. The media levitated Sam Bankman-Fried to godhood and no one looked where they needed to look for the longest of times. The €3,700,000,000 income in Italy makes that almost clear as day. You see that revenue exceeds the combined sums of Enel, Eni and Generali over 6 years and they are the top revenue firms in Italy and no one noticed? Who is asleep at the wheel there? 

Just some food for thought, enjoy it as you progress to the middle of the week.

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November 4, 2023 · 22:16

Voice of the Peoples Republic

It is not a voice we hear often, most times we try to ignore that voice on a multitudes of given premises that are by some account unverified. We merely accepted it and for the most we see the Tiananmen square image. We were all lulled into a state of denial and sleepiness. Now I am not stating that the pavements of President Xi are innocent, that is not the case I am going for. Consider that well over a dozen communities in the America’s are now extinct, all due to the greed of the Vatican. How do YOU see the Vatican? That is a serious question and you should ponder it. You see, some of this surfaces when we consider the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67305453) giving us ‘China and Australia: Frenemies who need each other’, I get the premise, yet this premise is incorrect for us. You see, as far as I know China has never engaged in hostilities with either Australia or New Zealand. We are also not at war with them. We merely boastingly push them away because of America. The article gives us “In recent years Australia and China have accused each other over human rights violations and perceived threats to national security. Public perceptions of the other side are more negative than they have ever been. But when it comes to trade, they cannot afford to let go of each other. At the peak of their trading relationship in 2020, almost half of Australia’s exports went to China.” It is true, we (Australia) do need China. America has less an less options to fund whatever they overspend. For China Australia (optionally New Zealand too) is a path setting a trade and commerce setting with the entire Commonwealth, with Canada optionally abstaining due to the borders of America. But that gives them Australia, New Zealand, India, Bangladesh, Bahamas, Jamaica, and in the end the United Kingdom and optionally Tuvalu. Tuvalu sounds like a joke, but the moment China gets to place a base there, Hawaii becomes an interesting setting. A place where the USA is no longer safe and it impacts most of the Pacific Oceans strategic area. 

The article is also giving us “Sure enough, a string of Chinese tariffs and restrictions followed on an estimated $20bn (£16.4bn) worth of Australian goods. Among the many products affected were barley, beef, wine, coal, timber and lobster. “Basically the Chinese government was sending a message. They were unhappy with the Australian government and decided to use economic coercion to make that point,” Professor Golley added.” Getting back to that, did we ever see a complete document on the origin of Covid-19? We saw that the media whore itself to all the digital dollars we can get, we saw some of the accusations, but were we ever presented a clear version of what actually happened? Preferably from an independent source? We have acted or presumed acting against China for the longest of times, but it is time to disregard certain media, disregard certain politicians (US politicians) and start listening to what we (in a national sense) need to get ahead. The fintech people made that abundantly clear and most of them are on Wall Street. Then we get something that gives me a question mark. We are given “He reminded Australians that trade with China was worth more than with Japan, the US and South Korea combined. Clearly, normalising relations between what he called “two highly complementary economies” would be a priority for his government. Whether China’s so-called economic coercion was successful is doubtful. Australia is still openly critical of Beijing on several fronts – but there is no question that Australian businesses and workers took a hit because of China’s trade restrictions.” The first is that America is becoming a liability. As its economic value decreases, so does the voice it holds and lets be clear America has used its own version of coercion for the longest of times. Its defence apparatus, the hardware we were ‘allowed’ to obtain and that list goes on. There is a question on economic-coercion from China, I am not saying it isn’t (or wasn’t) happening. I am stating that as the media has remained silent on too many sides, it is also the least reliable one. It is the cross that players like the Sydney Morning Herald (and other Australian papers) will have to carry. There is truth that China needs Australia, I reckon it needs New Zealand too. In all this BRICS will win and America will lose more and more ‘allies’, the economy has pushed for that part. I reckon that once the they acquire a clear business setting with the United Kingdom, the settings for Margrethe Vestager (EU commissioner) will change a lot. Her digital age will change from a field of dreams into a harsh pitfall as EU members will side with the UK hoping to salvage whatever they can, the EU will soon thereafter collapse, it is on the brink of failure right now. The EU had in March a total debt exceeding $14,689,200,000,000. So how long until more banks will have to pull the plug? I gave you all part of this in ‘The finality of French freedom’ which I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/17/the-finality-of-french-freedom/) on March 17th 2017. I saw the dangers SIX YEARS AGO. I compared the EU economy kept in place by 4 anchors, with the UK gone it would be three anchors. So the moment China gets the setting to woe the Commonwealth to the BRICS organisation, the EU anchors will collapse. I even mentioned that that economy cannot be maintained with two anchors and I believe that France will buckle before Germany will. The greed and gravy train embellished economy will not support itself when the gravy train collapses, these politicians will side with whatever pays their food stamps and America has none left at present. So yes, we might call China a frenemy, which sounds clever. Yet where is the evidence? We see a mention of coercion, but is it not the customer who is allowed to decide WHERE to buy? Were trade agreements broken? It might be, I merely do not know and the media is not properly informing us. This BBC article is good, it gave us more questions then answers and that is not a bad thing. The issues for a place like America is that the straws are now escaping their grasp and with each iteration we see BRICS gaining strength. It alas means that Russia will be in a stronger position and I reckon that for Chine, for them to win the long term gain they will need to remove Russia out of the equation. Russia is seeing that and is trying to set up more partnerships. But the overall picture with the players is somewhat clear. America and Russia fought so long that the sum of them is now less than the total power of
China and it is now fuelled with Middle East trillions, the one player that had all the cash was shunned and rejected on ego driven factors by America, how stupid was that and I have warned about that stupidity for well over a year. 

How is your weekend going?

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November 3, 2023 · 22:50

Weeds in the reeds

That is not a term you are too familiar with, but in the old days (really old days) it became important to clean the reeds of all weeds. Weeds take the nourishment away from the reeds. It seems trivial but when a farmer had to live from a one acre field the impact of weeds becomes irritating and almost damaging. It is that setting that gets us to the Guardian who gives us ‘Microsoft accused of damaging Guardian’s reputation with AI-generated poll’ The article (at https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/31/microsoft-accused-of-damaging-guardians-reputation-with-ai-generated-poll) gives us “Microsoft’s news aggregation service published the automated poll next to a Guardian story about the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old water polo coach who was found dead with serious head injuries at a school in Sydney last week.” In my personal view it is a populist setting by a desperate joke (Microsoft). 

Take a moment
You see, AI does not exist that is the first thing you need to realise. We do not have the technology to have AI at present. I believe in 10 years we will be able to do so. IBM has two elements that are still in their infancy. The quantum computer and shallow circuits are still not up to speed, but these two essential parts are missing everywhere. I stated before “Machine Learning and Deeper Machine Learning” are two elements and they are awesome, but they are not AI. 

The second stage is that whatever Microsoft has, it is lacking data, they don’t have enough and their data is not clean. To be stupid and tasteless to give us a poll with the three options “murder, accident or suicide”, so whatever idiot (at Microsoft) playing spokesperson with the lamest of all excuses “We have deactivated Microsoft-generated polls for all news articles and we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content. A poll should not have appeared alongside an article of this nature, and we are taking steps to help prevent this kind of error from reoccurring in the future.”

Stage Three
Stage three is painfully obvious. You see the two missing parts of any poll we see tends to be ‘Don’t know’ and ‘no opinion’, but that doesn’t fit the populist agenda of Microsoft. It wants to rock, rule and conquer and it is done emulating generals like Cadorna, Pillow, Haig, Ludendorff, McClellan and fear not, Microsoft has plenty of stupid people ready to emulate whatever they need to make their ego’s shine at the expense of everyone else.  

The second part is that any poll is set to a hypotheses and the data once verified will result in top-line numbers. The hypotheses is based on insight and whatever Microsoft has can’t do that. In addition any poll needs to be overlooked and optionally revised. This is pretty much 101 in market research. Microsoft ignored it all, just like they ignore all the usual culprits and they care only for the bottom line. That is one of the clear results that this poll gives you. So, whatever idiot was linked to “we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content” should not be in any IT business. This should never have happened. All the issues state that their was no proper testing, no proper oversight BEFORE publishing and those hiding behind “better to ask forgiveness then ask permission” will merely assist bringing Microsoft down (and that is fine by me).
And consider that in one swoop they also diminished Microsoft Start, which is about to make it market failure number eight. To lose market share to all these competitor eight times over. How long until the core subscriptions will also lose market share. Google and Adobe are ready to take over. In one article some time ago I made mention on how Adobe could set a much larger stage. A stage where Microsoft will only have Excel to rely upon. So how do you think they will maintain their $198,300,000,000 (2022) annual revenue when they lose fight after fight being short sighted and overlooking the obvious? I will let you ponder that but the results and evidence is showing up in more and more places. So how long until others figure out that Microsoft is pretty much the paper tiger we see, we admire the origami skills that were required to fold it, but we forget that any origami can be crushed with the hand of a child. The one obvious setting overlooked by all and especially people listening to Microsoft Marketing who will claim it is the prettiest and it has the sharpest claws of all the tigers in the world. Yet in the end a small child can crush it, not entirely unlike what Nintendo with its Switch did to the Xbox series X. Once you see that spin you will realise the parts I saw appear on the edge of my eyesight 3 years ago and I have written about it often enough. So when Adobe and Google make a partnership and we see that evolve Microsoft with its Office, its Office365, the connected outages, the Exchange server security holes and we can go on for some time. It is (as I personally see it) a diversifying screw-up of the highest kind and now that players like Adobe, Amazon, Google and IBM have their ducks in a row, they can start taking over Microsoft marketshare. This will not happen overnight, but before December 2026 Microsoft will be what we call an empty egg, all shell and no substance. That was the larger danger that they opened to everyone else and I reckon that a player like India will see their own indie developers take the first bites out of what was once a great company. They merely left it (as I personally see it) to greed driven executives, their biggest mistake. So when I made reference with  the chihuahua stating “try Azure, Azure smells nice” I wasn’t kidding. We saw (a few months ago) “Microsoft’s Azure revenue is at least 25% lower than our previous estimates”, so was this fraudulent reporting (like the stuff Sam Bankman-Fried is found guilty of) or was this Microsoft ignoring the system missing part, something any market researcher knows from the get go (see Stage three). Your guess is as good as mine, but a drop of 25% is not a rounding error, it also gives me consideration why Microsoft was so desperate to partner up with Oracle. But Oracle has no master, it can optionally partner with Adobe, IBM and Google too. What it does show (to me at least) is that the Sybase engine that Microsoft bought in 1989 (I think) is no longer hacking it. It was once a contender, now it is down 25% and lagging massively behind Amazon. 

Just like the weeds in the reeds, to be an eight time loser takes a particularly creative kind of stupid. But that is just me. 

Enjoy Friday, the weekend and its 48 hour span are upon us.

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October 30, 2023 · 23:00

Behind door number two

That article arrived a mere hour ago and had me on edge. It came from Reuters. The title ‘Graphic pro-Israel ads make their way into children’s video games’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/graphic-pro-israel-ads-make-their-way-into-childrens-video-games-2023-10-30/) looks to me, a little bit like a hatchet job. 

The quote that does it is “The puzzle game on his Android phone had been interrupted by a video showing Hamas militants, terrified Israeli families and blurred graphic footage. Over a black screen, a message from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the first grader: “WE WILL MAKE SURE THAT THOSE WHO HARM US PAY A HEAVY PRICE.”” You see, if you know you know. But for those who don’t lets educate you in this matter, there is no blame to you, you might never have considered these parts.

We know that Angry Birds was the game and I feel that this is not on them. What does bother me is “Spokesperson Lotta Backlund did not provide details on which of its “dozen or so ad partners” had supplied it with the ad.” The fact that the ad partner pushed this through Android and possible iOS too. So who was the culprit? We are also given “Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ head of digital, David Saranga, confirmed that the video was a government-promoted ad but said he had “no idea” how it ended up inside various games.” It makes sense that this was Israeli government and I am willing to believe that they didn’t push it through, but the ad partners could, someone laced this to get a negative spin going. You might not push this to a game, but this game has at present 263 million monthly users, as such up to a quarter of a billion people are being made aware. Now, all things being equal this means that the ad partner that pushed the ad is important to colour and classify this culprit. If only to learn whether this was a mere short sighted salesperson (these ads cost money) and these salespeople like their coin, or was this something more? I cannot tell. To give this kind of visibility to any political song requires a few issues and I get that a person like Lotta Backlund wants to play nice with all parties and she is likely seeking answers too, I get that.

You see an advertisement is made, a project is created, the advertisements are added, that project gets vetted and then pushed online and set against a budget. As such two parts of that stream were either ignored, diverted or altered. Whomever created the project is one, whomever vetted the project (on the game, android and/or iOS) side is the other. If it is only android it might be the same person, but I doubt it. Behind door number two is a new setting, one too many people did not worry about. Even when we ignore all the emotions games are exploited for advertisements and now they are ore and more likely show a message that should not be placed on children. In their defence there are plenty of Adults who like Angry Birds too, so there is that issue but until we get who pushed the advertisement campaign has that project, and as such it tells us how widespread this campaign went. To how many people, in what countries and optionally we get even more personalised data on the who were shown the advertisement. 

The budget will tell us how much interest was given to the project. Without that we cannot see the optional damage created. Yet that part is equally important, this might be the first event we see, but it will not be the last. The moment more and more people learn that THEIR political game can be pushed into a game, the more radical players will show up on the radar and that amounts to  really bad news for governments trying to limit the damage, yet with the populist agenda’s out there, there would be added desire to push messages to games. 

It is still the day before Halloween. So here is a little dark humour.

Question: What is red, in a corner and shrinking?
Answer: A toddler with a cheese grater.

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October 30, 2023 · 22:29

Out of two issues

I am confronted with 2 issues. The first one passed my eyes a few days ago. It came from Arab News (at https://arab.news/946db) where we are given ‘Saudi authorities seize 3.8 million amphetamine tablets in Riyadh’. This is the second event in a year and my doubts are increasing. Not on the Saudi government. What drug dealer ships in one go enough tablets to make over 10% of a population an addict? Weirdly apart from having no knowledge in this, the little knowledge I have comes from a video game named Elite. There we could ‘smuggle’ decently safe 2% of the cargo as narcotics. As such you could ‘decently’ safe smuggle up to 500Kg in a 20 ton carbo haul. There is another matter. This is either done by a really stupid Saudi (with a lot more money than common sense) or this is something else. I personally belief that this is something else. We see the ‘market’ value, but the people with other interests will merely have the manufacturing costs as an expense. 

You see, if this was a real exercise, it would have made sense to merely smuggle 0.1% of that haul per shipping and it would most likely go right, as such I personally feel that these people were always going to get caught, especially in a nation like Saudi Arabia, a nation with zero tolerance towards narcotics. 

Then the quote “Eleven defendants involved in these activities were arrested. They include seven residents of Syrian nationality, one resident of Nepalese nationality, and three citizens in Makkah, Riyadh, Qassim, Hail and Al-Jawf.” My personal belief is that a government hostile to Saudi Arabia is trying to make Saudi Arabia look bad. This might account for the 7 Syrians and one Nepalese. At that point I wonder how the remaining three were EXACTLY involved. Consider that this is a highly volatile situation. Would YOU trust foreigners to make you run such a risk on you? This is not about foreigners, but lets face it, Saudi’s are for all the right reasons not the most trusting in the world and I expect that the Nepalese person might not be Islamic. Too many red flags are going up and I cannot shake them. 

I wonder what deep investigations with something like Palantir Gotham (if it is still called that) would uncover. My thoughts go towards the manufacturer, 3.8 million tablets is (according to some) set to a manufacturing cost of $3 per tablet. So someone handed over $12 million with a 99% certainty to get caught. It does not make sense, $12,000,000 leaves a trail. There is close to no way that it remains invisible, as such Palantir Gotham is one solution to get somewhere. The reason for thinking in this direction is that this is the second catch within a year. Someone has too much money and someone else acquired a lot of money, way more than some hauls. The largest bust in America was a year ago and involved a little over 650,000 pills. That in a nation with over 300,000,000 people makes ‘sense’, still it was a lot, so to see over 600% in a nation with only 10% of that population makes absolutely no sense at all to me. So, I am in a setting where I believe that someone is out there making Saudi Arabia look bad. I have no idea who, or why. My blinkers make me think the only direct (former) enemy is Iran, but that has no foundation in evidence of any kind, merely a gut feeling. But someone was willing to spend well over 10 million twice over to get that done, it is more than I will ever make in a lifetime (unless Amazon, Kingdom Holdings or Tencent Technologies buys my IP). And all this is based on the purity being average, if these pills were more pure, the price tag changes a lot. 

Enjoy the day before Halloween.

 

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