This was my first thought that went through my mind. It came from the BBC and I was reading this in a decent degree of unknowing. The title ‘China property giant Country Garden warns of up to $7.6bn loss’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66470170) where we see “Country Garden, which is one of China’s biggest property developers, has warned that it could see a loss of up to $7.6bn (£6bn) for the first six months of the year” and I am quite frankly at a loss. You see, a developer gets (read: buys) a piece of land, he places a building on it and sells this place(s) and in the end there is a profit, it might not always be a great profit, but a profit nonetheless. So when I see a loss of $7.6bn, the math in my head goes that at $250K it sets the stage for 30,400 houses and if a place costs 1.5 million we see the bungling of 5,065 places. Now it is not that simple. I get that, but the idea that someone set a stage where 30,400 houses are sold for $0 is equally laughable, implying that the problem is a lot larger than we can see. We saw it in the UK with Carillion, we saw a few examples and they all wanted ALL the profit and as such they did it all, all the elements of construction and all elements of the service. That never works, the moment a short cut is made, people start filling to holes and creating more holes in the process.
Then there is the larger financial impact. How does a company like Country Garden has any setting that allows for that kind of a loss in the first 6 months? Even as the article gives us “The expected loss compares to a $265m profit for the same time last year. The firm also said it has set up a special task force, headed by its chairman Yang Huiyan, to find ways to turn the business around”, I reckon it might be close to ‘too late’, which is seen with “rating agency Moody’s downgraded the company’s rating, citing “heightened liquidity and refinancing risks”” and don’t expect me to give explanations. I have none. I have a few speculation, the first we saw in the beginning. But there was also the 2021 event when 15 buildings were demolished all in one go (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om6b0_ffyFQ), I cannot tell you the reason, I merely saw the YouTube on USA Today, and we get that one building needs to go at times (still sloppy), but 15 buildings? Now consider those costs and I am certain that those building in total would not have surpassed $2 billion. So now consider that one developer has well over 300% of those losses. Something does not add up and I cannot tell you what it is. In the first I do not have an economics degree, I have engineering, IT and Law degrees and I am still grasping for nothing at this time. The speculation I made earlier makes the most sense of stupidity. Yet it was speculation, so I could be wrong. As such, in an age in China where there are no jobs, there is a housing shortage and there are a few more issues. The 15 building demolition raises questions, the loss by Country Garden gives even more question marks. The Financial Times gives us “Nine months later, it is dangerously short of cash. The company expects to have lost Rmb45bn-Rmb55bn in the first half of the year and is confronting what it calls “the biggest difficulties” in its history.” (At https://www.ft.com/content/c266f377-33dc-4cf6-89a1-b62998896027) and it is not the first time. Evergrande in 2021 has a massive default and it seems to me that all these firms ‘doing it all’ are imploding. Is it a mere setting of idle time? Me and idle time go way back, all the way to the early 90’s and it is not the first time that idle time is overlooked or seen as a linear event, which it is not. It does not explain these billions of loss, it really does not but to see this in China implies that there is a lot more going on than we are able to see and that is never a good thing.
This happens, some other (or new) player sets the stage where they can become a major player. This is a rare case but it can happen and now I seem to be witness to one that could end up being a much larger stage than I ever expected. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66310714) gives us ‘Why it matters where your data is stored’. The article is all about the cloud, yet this article gave me parts that brought out questions that allowed the consideration that the new player could in a short time frame become a major player. Yet to see this, we need to look at the parts.
Part 1 The first question is coming from ““The American authorities have the right to go in and see any data that is stored in an American cloud, even if the data centre is in Europe,” Mr Åström says.” That was a selling point for American firms and with the IP in data centres the Europeans will become concerned. The American credit score is dwindling down as such they will become more and more concerned with THEIR value, a view Europeans will not share, or will be willing to chance sacrificing asI see it.
Part 2 Then we get to “it’s big enough to rival the major US cloud providers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and Google. They have a 65% share of the world cloud market between them, according to Synergy Research Group”, here I miss the IBM and Apple clouds. Apple is a different issue, they have a niche market and they are optionally decently safe from what is coming. IBM is different, they have been on the corporate data shoe forever, so why is IBM avoided? The numbers give me “IBM Hybrid Cloud has market share of 1.88% in infrastructure-as-a-service market. IBM Hybrid Cloud competes with 71 competitor tools in infrastructure-as-a-service category.” Perhaps they are ‘too small’, time will tell but that doesn’t matter. With this setting Evroc has the momentum to become a major player, perhaps slightly below AWS, but to go from a wannabe to a player next to AWS, possibly surpassing Microsoft is not done lightly and as far as I could tell has never been done before. But that is not the worst of it (for Amazon and Microsoft). You see the EU is larger in population, as such more services are needed there, but this could flow over into Canada (as it is a Commonwealth nation) then the larger concern (for Amazon et al) will be the Middle East. I reckon that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE might want to be separated more strongly from American firms. If I were China, I would be pushing that button too. As such Evroc as localisation bubbles could grow even further.
Part 3 “Evroc has secured €15m in seed funding and plans to build eight data centres in Europe in the next five years. The first will be a large pilot data centre in Sweden next year.” As I see it, should they decide to add two more clouds (KSA and UAE) they could tap into a few massive organisations and that should make the US a lot more bothered than they ever considered. I had issues with ‘data sharing’ in the late 90’s but I was laughed at, I was overly BS howled at. Well, it seems that I was right all along and now that the US needs its corporations to do well, Evroc comes in and takes away even more. I never saw this coming, yet as I see it Mattias Åström played his cards well and at the right moment. There is no telling how far this goes, yet the idea that (based on the numbers) “Microsoft increased its share from 23%, up from 21% the prior quarter, while Amazon fell from 34% to 33% and Google remained steady at 11%.” Evroc could grow by taking 20% of the others, we get 18% Microsoft, 26% Amazon and 8% Google, Evroc could grow by 12% (optionally towards 20%+) almost overnight (if a night lasts 7 years) That puts them ahead of Google and Microsoft making them a new major player. That is beside the damage they could do in the Middle East. With Aramco, SAMA, Al Rajhi banking, SABIC, STC, MA’ADEN, International Holding Company (IHC), ADNOC, Emaar Properties and a few more more. You might think this is all fun and games, but it is about to get worse.
Part 4 This part was not in the article and that is not on the BBC. You see I have looked in this direction before. In 2020 I wrote ‘Institutionalised Positioning’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/02/institutionalised-positioning/) where we see ‘Microsoft Security Shocker As 250 Million Customer Records Exposed Online’ (source: Forbes), and add to that the recent forged key issue, an issue that the NSA warned them for 3 years ago, we see a much larger stage. A stage where Microsoft is bleeding faith, the faith the customers had in them is dwindling down, as such Evroc could take away a much larger part of that blue joke. As such Microsoft could face a much larger loss. It would be nice to state that Amazon loses less, but certain other parts might not make that realistic. The only player optionally not losing any is Apple. Their largest base are iPhone users with subscriptions.
These 4 parts show that Evroc is the new player to watch. If that is the case they will need staff all over the world. Even I would like to work for a new player and that is the second danger that they (mostly Microsoft) faces. If Amazon and Microsoft only lose 5% of their cloud workforce they both face shortages all over, and this is in a place where you need all hands on deck. This last part is hugely speculative, but with 8 new centres coming and optionally 2-5 more in the middle east Evroc is set to grow beyond the assessments of analysts. As such Mattias Åström and its new Evroc could be a force to be reckoned with and as such bring massive cash coffers into the EU and towards the Middle East as well and all that revenue goes out of the US and that is a loss the US was not ready for.
Yup that is the saying. It is written DJI and would you believe it, it means Dopey Justice Investigations. Of course in this case we have to go to that place that Europeans regard as the land west of the Atlantic River, the Asians and Australians see it as land east of the Pacific river and we all agree that it is south of Canada. It is known as the USA. The BBC gave me 22 hours ago ‘Boy, 6, boasted about shooting Virginia teacher Abigail Zwerner’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66451768), it is there we see “The boy’s mother, however, Deja Taylor, has been charged with felony child neglect and misdemeanour recklessly leaving a loaded firearm as to endanger a child. In June, she was also charged with unlawfully using a controlled substance while in possession of a firearm and making a false statement during the purchase of a firearm.” This all sounds nice, but when you consider that in January I wrote in ‘Little Shits’ (at https://wp.me/p1RftY-2mn) “So far NO report shows that the parents were arrested, or interrogated over the case. If that is the stage, the US has earned the right to see many more shootings in schools until they fix this mess”, as well as “So what part do the parents play? Well, as I see it the mindset tends to come from parents, not peer pressure, not at that age. But no one is looking at the parents, why not?”, as such I got to this setting MONTHS before the American authorities got there and the evidence is clear, the media had nothing. And you wonder why nothing gets to be resolved during mass shootings? Well here you have the evidence. As such as we are given “His teacher, Abigail “Abby” Zwerner – who survived – filed a $40m (£31.4m) lawsuit earlier this year.” I personally believe that Abigail should have (at least) doubled her claim, with incompetence seen to this degree there is a fair case that her life was trivialised to a much larger extent. I get that the boy was not charged, the rule of Doli Incapax is pretty much all over the common law nations and this means that you cannot be seen as responsible as a 6 year old. I mentioned that in the first article on this event, but how the kid got the firearm as well as the parents (I did not know the household setting there) were not. And now 7 months and three days later we see this play out as being the correct path. Yes, we saw the reference to June, but the media was not all over that, were they? So when we now see “While being restrained after the shooting at a Virginia school, the boy is said to have admitted “I did it”, adding “I got my mom’s gun last night”.” Consider looking back to the media covering in those days, none of them mentions that small part, did they? Why not? Especially the small part of “the boy is said to have admitted”, why was that omitted from the media coverage? The fact that he got his mom’s gun last night is a pretty clear indication to arrest the mother at that moment. The unsafe handling of a firearm leaving it open for a child to get is pretty indicative of the blunders made in this case. To Abigail Zwerner, the 25 year old teacher I say “I hope you get well over 300% of what you ask for”, the media, the authorities and the school all trivialised your life for what? Political points? Business points? There should be a price for that and after that, use that money to retire to a nice happy safe place and enjoy your early retirement, you definitely earned it.
I think that it is time for the dopey justice system of America to wake up and see the mess you are at present making, I have said well over a year ago that upgrading the ATF and giving it actual teeth would be essential in cleaning this mess up and again I am proven correct.
As I see it, there is no fault at present to its director Steven Michael Dettelbach, but I do believe that he has his work cut out for him and I reckon that keeping scores of whoever block essential needs for the ATF will be required soon enough. You see, 1.5 billion does not go far, not when you have 5,285 people trying to sort the gun mess out. Some might see the mention of “The ATF has received criticism over the Ruby Ridge controversy, the Waco siege controversy and others.” Yet no one is mentioning a story from 2022 “Missing weapons, false records: Franklin Gun Shop owners plead guilty to federal charges”, the Tennessean gave us that one (at https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/crime/2022/11/23/franklin-gun-shop-owners-plead-guilty-over-missing-weapons-false-records/69671186007/) there is a larger stage that gun shops are falling short, and it could have been prevented years ago by giving the ATF teeth and a real budget. There is also a larger stage of automated systems to see where the history of guns are at and I am referring to the NBC article (at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/s-just-insanity-atf-now-needs-2-weeks-perform-routine-gun-trace-rcna39606) where we see ‘‘It’s just insanity’: ATF now needs 2 weeks to perform a routine gun trace’ with the by-line “Boxes of paper records fill nearly every corridor of the ATF’s National Tracing Center, where agents are struggling to keep up with surging requests from local police.” Red tape might be stated to be the source, but I see this as the failing of a justice system. We might take notice of “A 2023 report published in JAMA covering 2014 to 2022, found there had been 4011 mass shootings in the US”, with over 4000 mass shootings in almost 10 years we come to the generic 400 mass shootings a year and you don’t think that the ATF needs an upgrade in IT systems and other materials? Don’t make me laugh, this is beyond dopey and you better realise it. For the American parents it is easy. 400 mass shootings a year comes down to almost 8 a week. So how long will you roll the dice until it is YOUR child you get to bury? It is simple (yet somewhat deceptive) statistics, but feel free to blame the people who are almost certain no part in that play and ignore those who could make a difference because that would be the US Senate and US congress. Did you think that ‘Red tape’ or the ATF was to blame. Someone pushed for that ‘Red tape’ and it is time to wake up and see what causes your children to die. I can assure you it is not the maker of the gun, it is the lawmakers that enable to hobble the ATF. And that gives us the Senate and Congress. And when exactly did either call out to enforce the ATF with the equipment and budget to give the Americans a safer place to live? I am willing to wager you cannot really find that part of the equation. Why not?
Weekend is soon upon us, so enjoy the day and go shopping for a bulletproof vest for your child, you might need one soon.
This all started a day ago when a tweet passed me by.
This seems nothing new, I have heard issues like this and I have listened to them. Yet something about this nagged me and I had another look. The link gave me some of the bits (at https://www.law.com/2023/08/02/real-time-litigation-salesforce-hit-with-whistleblower-retaliation-suit-as-former-vp-accuses-it-of-lying-about-genies-capabilities) yet I started to look further. I found a few articles regarding sex trafficking, and I might look into that part, but when I started to dig into “Salesforce Genie court” only two links appeared. This one and a French one and now I have a few questions. The first few are how is the media ignoring this? How come there is only one story? The rest I will leave for later.
So I went into the article and the start is a good beginning, which is “Salesforce was hit with a lawsuit by its former vice president of product management over whistleblower retaliation allegations after he raised concerns regarding the company’s alleged plan to falsely inform the public that its customer data platform “Genie” operates in real time.” Now first there is an issue (there always is). Salespeople tend to emboss issues (possibly to hide certain short comings). And that text is reinforced with “Publicly claiming that the CDP operated in “real time” could be violations of several federal laws relating to fraud against shareholders, as well as some rules and regulations of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the plaintiff believed.” Now the issue I have is that the claims do not show to have a recording of these events. This is important because if the salesperson (or presenter) stated “almost like real-time” it becomes subjective and a personal interpretation. Just like some salespeople make claims with “my personal view” because in other cases they tend to show things. I know very little about genie, but certain parts of missing evidence leaves me with questions. In addition to that the end of the article states “NOT FOR REPRINT” which I regard to be another media mess. These two elements give me pause to just accept some story and made me look deeper. Yet over the past month we have 2 articles? The fact that Salesforce gets a court mention at all is pretty rare, so I would have expected the media to be all over this. With its HQ in San Francisco and the primary owner being Marc Benioff. I would have expected the LA Times, the SF Chronicle and a few others (USA Today, Wall Street Journal) to pick something like this up, they did not. It leaves me puzzled. I found a lot more on Karl Wirth, but not regarding this case. So what is up?
It is a genuine question because I need to accept that some cases are optionally flimsy, even though the article gives me “A July 28 complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts by Hartley Michon Robb Hannon on behalf of Karl Wirth” and this links to a complaint which I will add at the end. The complain has a lot more, but this is merely a legal brief, as such it is tainted towards one side and I wonder what the other side will do.
Still, it is cool in a way, because players like Salesforce tend to have a clean look, as such another view tends to be nice and of course there was the option to dig into a player I know little of, so I had a bit of a blank slate. No matter how you slice it, the fact that a company is worth over $205,000,000,000 and no one is looking at a court case is reason for consideration, which is pretty much the number one reason why I decided to take a look.
I have ‘complained’ about the media before and this time I come with an example. Weirdly enough none of them are doing anything wrong, but when you see the example you might wonder what the fuzz is about. As I see it is more than merely one stating the bottle is half full and the other stating the bottle is half empty. But I will let you decide. I got there because I am investigating a setting that is approaching maturity and I want my share. Google walked way from well over 5 billion a year and Amazon is leaving it on the floor. Both are entitled to do so, yet now Tencent Technologies is coming and there is every chance that they will not pay me a dime. I am not willing to hand it to Amazon with Andy Jassy stating ‘Thank You’ and pocketing all that revenue for himself. I am not THAT nice. As such I am in a state of worry and the battle arena seems to be Dubai. Amazon has options if it is forced to break up. I think its setting will be stronger if a layer like the Kingdom Holding Company would champion the stage, especially with someone like Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud overlooking the stage. A setting that brings benefits but might not be essential. I do believe that a strong setting could be presented from Dubai, it is a personal feeling. So at times I look at the UAE and that is where the three voices got hold of me. So lets begin.
Voice One: Arab News Here we see (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2348896/business-economy) ‘UAE’s non-oil economy remains strong in July as PMI stands at 56’ this is good, someway. I like to think that it will be better soon enough, but the Arab News gives us “According to the seasonally adjusted S&P Global UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index, the country’s PMI stood at 56 in July compared to 56.9 in June. This still indicates a positive trend as any readings above 50 are considered a growth in economic activities, while figures below 50 show contraction.” Overall a strong message, there is a little fallback, but the story gives us that is still in the growth margin. The message has the added “Higher business activities were driven by an upturn in new orders, which continued to be boosted by strong customer demand and improving market conditions, the report stated, citing survey panelists. However, it noted that growth eased since June as several firms faced greater competition which dampened sales in the process.” OK, greater competition is a little vague, but that is fine a positive approach to a story.
Voice Two: Khaleej Times Then we get the article (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/uae-non-oil-sector-continues-to-grow-at-a-strong-pace-creating-more-jobs-in-july) here we are given ‘UAE non-oil sector continues to grow at a strong pace, creating more jobs in July’, which makes sense as it is a UAE newspaper. Here we get “The S&P Global UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) – an indicator designed to give an overview of operating conditions in the non-oil private sector economy – dropped from 56.9 in June to 56.0 in July but remained well above the 50.0 no-change mark and the series long-run average. The reading indicated a sharp improvement in the health of the sector, supported by a marked expansion in output.” It basically gives us the same we saw in the Arab News with the added “S&P said driving activity higher was an upturn in new orders, which continued to be boosted by strong customer demand and improving market conditions, according to survey panellists.” I personally would have a few question marks, but in the end it is how the painting is made. I would state that this critic is looking at the painting, giving the summary and looking at the use of blue paint in the process. This happens, we all have our ways of looking at a painting and it is probably the best way to describe it.
Voice Three: Reuters It was the first article I saw (at https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lower-sales-weigh-uae-non-oil-business-activity-july-pmi-2023-08-03/) making me look at the setting a little deeper. The start ‘Lower sales weigh on UAE non-oil business activity in July’ with the added “The slowdown was attributed in part to an easing of growth in new orders, although demand remained strong, with the sub-index falling to 57.4 in July from 61.0 the previous month, which was the fastest rate of expansion since June 2019.” Now we get an interesting sight, this article is cautiously pessimistic (headline) but the overall message is still positive. Yet the numbers are not matching. It might not be wrong as they use ‘sub-index’, but which one? Then we get the added “Owen added that the “the easing of sales growth was substantial and, if accelerated in future months, suggests that the demand boom could have reached its peak.”” The reference is to David Owen, senior economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. Yet the station is how does ‘substantial’ apply? Is this fear-mongering for investors, is it biased negativity towards the Middle East? You tell me, I have no clue. But the fact that we have these three voices is important because it shows us that there is a media flaw. Now, there are all kinds of flaws and flaws due to arbitrary interpretation is nothing new and optionally not a flaw but the stage is there and now we have ourselves a ballgame. So which one is true? They might all be true but the anarchy in the three voices tend to impact us all. My gut tells me to go with the Arab News, but that is instinct and not a given view of evidence. I will let you decide which one is more apt.
Enjoy the day, Friday is about to start in Vancouver, the rest of us are already there.
This all started with a weird dream. In the dream I was meeting up with a marketing friend in Sweden who had become the new Marketing director of Coca Cola. He was bringing me gifts. There was a box with 12 bottle of cola (4 classic, 4 cherry and 4 vanilla cola). There was a second box with all kinds of swag, embroided polo shirts, T-Shirts, and the piece the resistance a metal model of the original cola delivery truck from 1927. We were talking in a seating corner in what I think was supposed to be his office. We were going over some details and then I woke up. I might have woken up, but the elements were already in my brain and I went to work.
The Envoy system You see social media has become unreliable, even unpredictable at times. As such I came up with the envoy system. To see the larger frame, lets take a look at its Twitter profile.
As you can see 3.3 million people follow Coca Cola, not bad. But the untamed fields are there and the larger corporations are the first who can wield in the results. To see this lets take a look at the envoy system. There is the company and their server(s), the envoy and the instance. Every cycle the envoy needs to make sure that their instance is up to date. Their instance is a personalised setting for every social media setting. As such the instance will cover Facebook, Threads, Twitter, Instagram and whatever else is out there. As such one person can have well over 4 connections and in that one instance all five are reached and inform so that all their friends get the message. This is not direct marketing or mass marketing. This is personal marketing and it is set in a new light. This is not some blanket setting, this is one department optimising the message, their mission statement and the envoys are the way to get there.
So as I see it, the the aware person sets the instance (the unaware person), both message the server (a verification of A and B) and from there the message starts and now those people lets say 100K envoys will give message to 1-50 million people, none of them following Coca Cola, but they are still getting the message. No advertisement money used and it will have larger impact. Would you believe a company stating that they are good, of a friend or influencer stating that this company is good? This is not an easy track or the small or the faint of heart, but I reckon it could send a much larger message than we currently see and I reckon that at some point all the larger players will some kind of system like this.
Well that is another nice day, all ready to go towards an evening of gaming and perhaps a movie, enjoy yours and remember, tomorrow is Friday.
This article goes over several parts, parts you might agree with and parts you will not agree with. That is fair! You see several parts are set to presumption, which is still better than speculation. The difference is seen in the meaning. Presumption is an idea that is taken to be true on the basis of probability. There is more than probability in my case. I have worked in IT since 1983, as such I have been around (at least twice). Speculation is the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence. And both are important because I am talking from the past, which is not always seen or accepted as evidence. This is fair, and this is why people might disagree and I get it, never take anything for granted, not Ven when I say it. I love the expression from NCIS in this case ‘Trust but verify’ Gibbs was right, always verify what you learn. It is the only real way to move forward.
So this all started yesterday with an article. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66118831) gives us ‘Gallium and germanium: What China’s new move in microchip war means for world’, they say it is 8 hours old, but I saw the article a little over 25 hours ago, so not sure what changed. The setting is “Under the new controls, special licences are needed to export gallium and germanium from the world’s second largest economy. The materials are used to produce chips and have military applications. The curbs come after Washington made efforts to limit Beijing’s access to advanced microprocessor technology.” You can turn and twist this to your heart content, but the setting is inaccurate and largely incorrect. Not what you read, that is fine. But there is a whole mess that precedes this and to see this we need to go back to the 90’s. You see, the IT world saw hoe the arms race was going and how military contractors were filling their pockets and the IT world took a page from that stage and started its IT Armistice race. I was caught up in it as well. A 386, a 486, a 486DX2, the Pentium, the Pentium 2, the Pentium-450, the Pentium2, as such between 1993 and 2002 I had wasted thousands on 7 systems, 7 systems in 10 years and I had enough. You see for the most the Pentium2 was enough to do 90% of everything I did, except gaming. Then I switched to consoles and saved myself thousands more. As such I avoided to the largest extend the graphic card war which might seem small but high end gaming needs a $1200 card, my PS5 was less then a thousand dollars on day one. In this Microsoft also pushed the borders, making us upgrade again and again. Oh, they played their cards cautiously and they played it well. Yet consider “Vista alone had 50 million lines of code, 10 million lines more than its successor, Windows 7. Because of the excessive amount of bloat and code, it was very slow on devices at the time, even on the latest and greatest hardware of 2007. This meant that it was more expensive to buy a machine that ran Vista properly.” Between Windows XP and Windows 7 we had the Vista nightmare and it cost too many too much. Yet weirdly enough with a little effort (Suse Linux at $99) you had an equal if not much better option, it would work on most Pentium2 systems like lightning. You could download it for free but for that money you got the discs and a DVD, the DVD had all the discs which included Linux and a truckload of programs, even open office I believe. If not it was easily downloaded. A linux lookalike version of Microsoft office that was free. It had an SQL database and so much more, even a nice collection of games, but they were not high resolution games. Fo that you needed a console and you saved thousands. It is this armistice race. We went though thousands of processors and that is what counts, because that drained the Gallium and Germanium we had and now China is one of the few that has it now. You see, we might act against China, but Gallium is found in Japan, South Korea, and Russia as well. China has however 90% at present. That does not mean there isn’t more, but finding it is not easy. Germanium is also found in Canada, Finland, Russia and the United States. China has about 60% and that is where we see the odd duck out (on your left). And is it not interesting that the second material is not mentioned that it is also found in Canada and the US? In this greed was again a much larger stage to this. The IT Armistice race dwindled whatever the west had and now China and Russia seem to have the upper hand. Still the larger stage is not merely who has it, but it becomes who can find it better, because that is where this is heading. I get it, we all need the latest PC (or MAC) but ask yourself, what allows you to do what you need to do? That is the question that IT providers like Dell and HP were eager to avoid at all cost as it impacted their bottom dollar. They will make the ‘party line’ To enjoy the best of Windows (whatever version) you are best off having a (the latest chip). That is what caused a large part of the drain and I was every bit as guilty. By the time I figured out what was going on I my bank account had about $22,000 less (11 systems with 2 still in use). You can scream whatever you want on how I could ‘save’ some dollars, but the truth is that we all enjoyed that feeling of the latest system, but it came at a price. So when we now see “a Pentagon spokesperson said the US had reserves of germanium but no stockpile of gallium” and why is that? It it is such a crucial element, why is there no stockpile? That is an easy answer, but no answer will be forthcoming. A race for supremacy, all whilst at least two racers are no longer able to keep up and that race is about to turn nasty for at least one of them. The Commonwealth might rely on Australia, but until the deposits are found the UK is in a tight spot. As I personally see it we might have to take a step back and see how else we can get the job done. As such I am phrasing an extremely speculative question. French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran found in 1875 the substance we now know to be gallium, it is in group 13 of the periodic table and is similar to the other metals of the group (aluminium, indium, and thallium. My question becomes Is there another solution that employs indium or thallium? I honestly have no idea, I do not even know where these two are found and whether they can do what Gallium does. Also there is Rhodium, can it (or a combination) get the job done? I have no idea, but it seems to me that the head-banging against a wall we raised ourselves is massively stupid to say the least and there is every chance that there is a chemist and an electronic engineer who will laugh at my suggestion, which is fair enough. To see this we need to look at 1965 when Friedrich Schächter created a ballpoint that works in space as it is a pressurised ink solution. In in 1967 it was reported that NASA purchased approximately 400 pens for $2.95 a piece, all whilst Bic pens were $0.29 in those days. Russia decided to solve it by using a pencil, which costed $0.39 at the time. So we can caress our ego’s or find another solution. And this is merely one of many issues. So will you embrace someone who adds 10 million lines of code, or seek whatever else is out there? I get it, the other solution will not work for everyone, but over 2 billion people use a PC out there. I am willing to bet the bank that at least 25% could do with a cheaper solution. There are (according to some) an estimated 300 million computers in production annually. I feel certain that at least a third doesn’t need to be bought and if Microsoft woke up and recreated Windows XP for households and adds a decent office version to it several other gallium issues could suddenly be less stringent. In 2018 970 units of Gallium were used. In 2022 it was almost 3500 units (the chart did not clearly give me what the units were). Why is that? I know that PC output is not over 300% in 2022. There might be other uses as well, but I would not know that, but the more I see the more questions I end up with and the BBC (or its article) isn’t giving me the goods. There was no mention of Canada or the US in it, was there?
It is time for plenty of people to wake up, I for one would send a wake up call (plus coffee) to Dr. Stefanie Tompkins of DARPA, perhaps they can find alternative options for these two metals? Not the weirdest idea and as the Pentagon needs these materials it seems to me that between lunch and diner DARPA might find an answer, these boffins are kinda clever so it is one way to go. What do you think?
Enjoy the middle of the week, its all uphill in anticipation to the weekend until Friday.
To get to this point, I need to take you on a little tour into my (optionally devious) mind. In the mid to late 80’s I had an idea. An idea any horny man in his twenties will have. In this setting (I was an amateur photographer) I was talking to Claudia Schiffer, convincing her to pose for me naked for one picture. We would then edit the image to show the bikini she would pose for and that one picture would ensure hundreds of bikini shots and she would get a royalty for every photograph produced. Yes, you laugh now, but in those days Photoshop was merely a whisper, the editing options we now take for granted did not even exist in those days. It was a slightly delusional idea and guess what, it never happened (big surprise). That was the premise that happened a long time ago, decades even. Today I had another daydream, I dozed off and I lost a competition, my consolation price was taking a picture of Mischa Barton (no idea how she got into the mix), she was wearing a very transparent top (extremely transparent) and I had to make a handbag picture. So I had her hold it in front of her face, her arms hid the nipples and the byline was ‘I do not use my face to promote a product’. You are laughing now, but there is a lot more to this. You see, in the early 90’s I tested a product from Macromedia called Director.
The product had things that were beyond imagination (in those days). That image is needed, as it sets the stage for the now. You see when we consider that old program, it had options for presentations that many have forgotten about. What was the case is that you could set a stage, complete with people and objects and it would get us the setting like below (now in full 3d).
The 3d model optionally starts naked, but can be dressed like a barbie, we add the elements, accessories, the lights and the image starts to shape. The rectangle is what the camera sees and when we are happy a 24 bit image is created from scratch. You think this is a joke, it is not. Consider that there are 75,000,000 professional photographers in the world, the amateur photographer group is at least 4 times bigger, so we now have an optional population that is closer to half a billion. Consider that a photo model costs $200 upwards to $15000 an hour, and it does not need to include people, there are plenty of photographers that go for food, cars, luxury items and now we get a entirely new stage. It is not merely the photographer. It becomes a prototyping scene for what some call AI (which does not yet exist), but the deeper machine learning systems rely on data and now we have a system that offers creation whilst that data feeds the learning machines, and besides that, it becomes a 24 bit photographic prototyping system, something that doesn’t even exist at present. All these students can work deep into the night without worrying about the $200 an hour taximeter called the photo model. I think that this all escalated when I was thumped to death by these ‘free slot machine’ advertisements. We all think it is a scam, but this seems to be about free slots and that makes no sense, unless an operator like Las Vegas wants to test a prototype new slot machines and tweak it to be the most efficient one until it is release to the money feeding audience in Las Vegas. A free slot machine system makes a lot more sense now, does it not? You can feed the revenue beast all you like, but until you find the angle that does not cost you money, optionally making you money in the process the endeavour is nothing more than a money pit. And in comes the hungry gamers who will never go to Las Vegas in the first place, now there is an optional need.
Director was a brilliant idea, especially in an age when certain graphical options were not available (neither was computing power) and it set a new tone. It also gave us a new direction to consider and even as Director was a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia and managed by Adobe Systems until its discontinuation ten years ago, it was a great idea in an age when there was nothing. It is now surpassed, but I do not think that the concept should be forgotten. For this we could look at the 1991 comedy ‘Others peoples money’ with Danny deVito. It was about the New England Wire & Cable Company and how one man’s need for greed takes it to the slaughter. The nice evolution was that the lawyer (Penelope Ann Miller) searches for a solution and finds it in a Japanese automaker that wants to hire New England Wire & Cable to manufacture stainless steel wire cloth for making automobile airbags, something which will make the company profitable again on a new expanding industrial product. That is where we are, finding alternative uses for good products because Director was that. I merely wonder if anyone considered making it a two sided solution one one side a photographic prototyping tool, on the other side a system to teach deeper machine learning solutions a way to learn graphical sides to an artsy problem, one that requires containers loads of data, if not a load more than that.
Well that was my Monday being creative, have a nice day.
We see it, we ignore it and we shout issues of disbelieve. I am no different, I have ignored a few elements at times, even as the writing was on the wall (ceiling and floor too). I thought that politicians would wise up. I considered that the people would take the intelligent path, but a lot of them are not. As such I saw a wake up call. The call came from the Kashmir Observer giving us (at https://kashmirobserver.net/2023/07/29/the-burning-of-the-quran-represent-an-act-in-desperation/) ‘The Burning of the Quran Represents an Act in Desperation?’ It comes with a question mark, but I think that the question is a lot closer to the truth setting than anything I have seen so far. We are also given “West’s far right still live in their invincible, racial, never-ending civilisational supremacy. However, the rise and fall of civilisations represents a universal fact. None of the dominant civilisations lasted forever. What is consistent in the fall of civilisations is arrogance and delusional belief of never-ending dominance, looking down in disdain at other people and values dear to them. The same arrogance that West demonstrated had been the feature of prior dominant civilisation that is Islamic golden age. That also saw barbarians among the other non-Muslim communities till savage barbarians in the form of Mongols descended on them from nowhere decimating Islam’s golden age, and palaces of tyranny, precious literature that had origin in Quran’s teachings.” I can get behind the sentiment, but there is an issue. I wonder if you can spot it. It is the use of ‘civilisation’. As we look at the settings of governments in the west, there is a claim of civilisation, but I feel that that semi tank left the building some time ago. I reckon that the setting was vacated with the departure of President Bill Clinton. He left the office with Wall Street in too much power and any setting that is greed driven will undo civilisation every single time. Civilisation does not compute to the bottom dollar and we have seen the impacts that followed. Now as the US is one step away from being a third world nation we are seeing the impact that christianity bends to the powerful players and in this case it was Wall Street. Ethicality went out the window and any secular power that enforces the bottom dollar gets to call shots and guess what, it opposes civilisation every single time.
Then in comes Saudi Arabia, they were mostly quiet during the initial Quran burnings, but there would be a response and the Saudi Gazette (at https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/634563) gives us ‘Prince Faisal renews to his Swedish counterpart Saudi Arabia’s rejection for all attempts to offend Qur’an’, where we are given “Prince Faisal noted to Billström Saudi Arabia’s demand on taking immediate procedures to stop these extremist acts that are trying to undermine the holy books, and provoke the feelings of Muslims around the world.” An essential diplomatic step, but I personally fear it was not strong enough. I get that politically speaking as an Islamic nation Saudi Arabia is cautious on how to proceed, it makes sense, but the lack of actions and the strife of secular governments (in this case Nordic nations) make the lack of push an issue. You see, I wrote in several stories over the last few weeks that there is an issue with Freedom of speech versus discrimination, the burning of Islamic holy scriptures makes that a clear case. I am for freedom of speech, but not at the cost of accountability. That is the larger station. People think that freedom of speech is one anchor without any sides, but accountability gives weight to that freedom and that is what people forgot. To be honest at times I forget that too. Now my transgressions seem small and insignificant, but when you think of it, it matters to the value of freedom of speech and Sweden clearly forgot that part of the equation.
And in comes Iran. The funny part is that I tend to shy away from anything Iranian, yet in this case (at https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2023/07/29/2932699/muslim-nations-urged-to-cut-ties-with-countries-allowing-quran-desecration) they might actually have a more important case to bring. It starts with ‘Muslim Nations Urged to Cut Ties with Countries Allowing Quran Desecration’, not only are they correct there is a larger truth here. This is a setting that should have been championed by Saudi Arabia or even the United Arab Emirates, but it is Iran that gives us “Over the past month, the Holy Quran has been subject to acts of sacrilege by extremist elements in separate incidents in Sweden and Denmark, where authorities gave a green light to the desecration.” I do not completely agree, but I can see how Muslims would see it that way and they have every right to be angry. The larger truth was not anti Islam, it was pro ‘Freedom of speech’ and when you see coins on any table, you merely see one side (the clever people see two sides) but both forget for an instance that there was another side to that coin and it is the side we do not see, we realise that it is there, we merely ignore it and accountability would have taken care of it, but our minds crossed out the other side. And now we have a problem and it is a large one. If the Islamic nations rekindle with the Iranian sentiment and not with the cautious approach that the KSA and the UAE hold we end up with quite the problem.
More importantly too many newspapers and media shunned this setting and it is Al Jazeera that showed us two weeks ago (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/12/un-bodys-motion-on-quran-burning-how-did-your-country-vote) the part that matters. The people against this increased action on Islamaphobia include the UK, the EU, and the US. They revere their freedom of expression and are refusing to let accountability take a center seat. A stage that they are intent on pushing, a place where there is freedom of religion as long as it is under the direction of christian based elected aficionados. Sounds familiar?
And I think it is about to get a lot worse. Personally I think it is time for the Kingdom Holding Company to take a serious look at my IP as it pushes a lot more than accountability, it unifies muslims and that could open a lot more doors, especially as it pushes western media out of the way. The fact that I had to rely on an Iranian source all whilst the western media is setting a stage that is no longer reliable or accurate is cause for concern. And this is not really the end of it all, a mere 15 minutes ago we were given ‘Denmark to put legal limits on protests involving Quran burnings’ and the setting there is “Denmark’s government on Sunday released a statement saying that it would put legal limitations in order to stop the demonstrations involving the burning of the holy book Quran in certain circumstances, citing security concerns”. Really? How about the EU charter where we are given “Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.” The burning of a Quran is a clear act of discrimination, it is time for the EU to own up to that reality and act accordingly. The cornerstone of all this is accountability, I have stated this for 13 years and now that it all comes to pass the setting becomes an accelerator for a lot of things. I saw the power that one point eight billion people have, I saw the impact and how quickly the sands of opportunity will decimate for the EU and US if they do not wisen up and that is about to happen. The three new BRICS members is one, but if they push for a ban of Nordic products is merely the first step, it could mean a lot more bans that the middle east could push for in the near future. So what happens when over 400 million people in the Middle East decide to ban products from the EU? Don’t think it will not happen because Sweden and Denmark are merely the first steps. When Asia (India and China) steps up to replace items that enrages people there will be a sudden drain of revenues all over the EU (US too). 400,000,000 people needing a new alternative for products. So what happens when these places ban all Cadbury and Nestle items and Amul items take their place? What happens when Paneer (Indian cheese) replaces European cheeses. I bet the Dutch, Swedes, French and Italians will not be happy and that is merely two out of hundreds of examples. The Middle East has buying power and what happens when that is pointed in another direction?
That is the larger setting that we need to be aware of. Do you really think that you can have freedom of expression without accountability? We are about to enter a phase of escalations and it does not bode well for the EU (or US for that matter). Feel free to disagree, but when the clock rings and you see how in August / September revenues are down all across the board the EU finds itself in a stage that is merely less than an inch for another recession, no matter how much it is labelled an economic downturn, because that is always how it starts, but this time around it could last well over a year pushing a massive amount of businesses out of circulation. Then what?
That was what pushed into view. I was about to write about something else, a movie idea I had. Yet several other messages came into view which pushed me to realign my focus. You see, I had the view just before CES2020 that Huawei was going to be a large player, much larger than anyone guessed. Even I had not thought that far ahead as certain plays by the STC (Saudi Telecom Company) were not in view yet. Now it becomes a much bigger play and two players (Huawei and STC) could reenforce each other, a setting that was not visible in 2019. So lets take a look.
Article One The first article was brought to us by the Hindustan Times last year (the year of Soylent Green, another idea that I already wrote about but came to the top of my mind again last night). Here (at https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/huawei-launches-harmonyos-to-compete-with-google-s-android-71622644049707.html) we are given the idea that Huawei is pushing for a release to 200 million mobile phones. An achievable mark to say the least, the rest was bla bla but the notion was given.
Article Two Tech outlook gave us two days ago (at https://www.thetechoutlook.com/news/technology/os/harmony-os-4-0-to-debut-on-august-4-mate-60-5g-expected-to-debut-alongside/) ‘Harmony OS 4.0 to debut on August 4’ and that is the part certain people were all waiting for. The text “Apart from Harmony OS 4.0, the Chinese manufacturer is rumoured to announce the Huawei Mate 60 5G at the HDC 2023 event. As mentioned above, it will be the brand’s first 5G flagship phone after facing US sanctions. While the Mate 60 series is expected to be announced at HDC 2023, the company will hold a dedicated launch event for it in September or October this year.” You see the ‘US sanctions’ part reads nice, but the play doesn’t go there. STC and Huawei has as of the coming month a larger setting. This setting will include Egypt, BanglaDash and Indonesia. This gives them a lot more than the targeted 200 million phones and the moment STC enters the EU they will have the needed traction, the STC 5G network will have some serious ‘umph’ as the expression goes. More important, a network that stretches to that degree will push the US and EU out of a few areas, or at least make them suffer the loss of expected revenue by some analytics, they will tumble twice over.
I’ll be honest, I saw the play, but not to this degree as the STC was not on my radar. I reckon that there was always a chance that Etisalat (UAE) would grow, but that is not in the cards at present. This is important as the needs of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are in the same direction, but they are not aligned. That difference is important and there is a chance that the STC will offer services that include the UAE. I reckon that the UAE might want to connect to Center3 and the STC for the additional business it will bring them, but that would be pure speculation on my side.
What does matter is that with the release of Harmony 4, on August 4th a new play opens up and it might go a long way to allow a digital setting to the MBC group to the settings they have in play at the moment. They will push the sports and news groups that are in the making with larger digital channels, just after they make their IPO offer (which Bloomberg mentioned only 3 weeks ago), now with the channels and digital groups in play it goes well beyond the shores we see at present and with Huawei at the mobile front, they can offer something larger than most have ever had and it will appeal to the hungry revenue entrepreneurs in Indonesia and BanglaDash. They will add hundreds of millions to their pool, hundreds of millions that haven’t ever had access to anything (of that nature). I reckon that by Q1 2024 the STC could have doubled in value and they were never a small player to begin with. Now add Egypt and you get a much larger population, mostly Muslim and all eager to be economic players. I reckon that BRICS had a few ideas on adding Saudi Arabia. And the US? Well they are still screaming middle east stability and requiring cheap oil in a play that is already outdated. And as we can clearly see, Saudi Arabia and China are getting along just fine, no EU or US required. That was a danger for some time and new we are about to see the fruition of these players. You still think the US was in Saudi Arabia for merely ‘stability’ reasons? Come to think of it Janet Yellen was in China recently, with these elements now in view was it really about what they say it was?
This is in part speculation, it does not make it true, yet you have to wonder if I saw these events unfold, they did not? I might not have seen the impact of the STC and MBC groups in 2019, but these people (Jellen and Blinken) get a large 6 figure income more than me (Jellen gets a 7 figure income), you mean they were in the dark? Go cry me a river, please.
Huawei should have enough to get their target from Egypt, Indonesia and BanglaDash alone and they have close to half a dozen nations more on their mind (China being not the smallest one) and as expansions go, with the Huawei 5G network in play, the STC can grow a lot faster, allowing the MBC sports and news channels to reach a few additional nations. This alone will make people in the EU want to see what they are missing out of. I reckon that the advertisements alone will pay for this caper and then some. A stage that grew in under 4 years, as such the EU and US now have a problem. You see all these TV channels and media players are about to become obsolete to a much larger degree. They can shout MAGA and Karen’s all they like, the rest are able to switch the channel to something they would much rather watch and there it seems that the MBC Group has you covered. I personally wonder what Murdoch is worth by the end of 2024, because when the advertisers go away, he is just shouting arranged news to people who are not interested in listening, that part of the pool he soiled himself as I personally see it.
Enjoy the weekend, or as they say at MBC in Arabic “رحلة جديدة في الخدمات الرقمية”
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 