Category Archives: Finance

Presenting yesterday now

Yup, it is a nice one, but that is not how I am starting this. You see, I doubt everything, even myself. And It was in that setting I had doubts, doubt on me. You see, even as I see things left right and centre proving me right, I always understand that this is not always given, I could be wrong. 

As such I also doubted my IP abilities as I was too focussed on a few matters (Augmented reality being one) so when I saw a sketch on Twitter I knew that I was not alone in the stage that we have had enough of the media crucifying Elon Musk, not just that, I came up with a new piece of IP. I gave it to my boss, I could not find anyone that had turned this summer thought into IP, and so I handed over that IP and if he registers it, he’ll have well over a year of advertisement bonuses (I already have three bundles of IP) and I am nowhere near done. So that is enough about me, now lets go back to Greece and lets see what is going on there.

Part 1
The trip to Crete was simple and decently fast. There were no delays in London, the trip to Heathrow was simple, checking in was a breeze and I saw none of the traces of anyone that was either in Paris or Rhodes. The purchase in Crete was done via a dummy corporation so my lawyer earned his keep and I was on a bus towards Rethimno.  I got there a little over two hours later and it was starting to get dark. The hotel Porto Enetiko Suites was close to the Venetian harbour so I got there and there was a room available (high end hotels usually have rooms for people with credit cards), and this place was no exception. I got a simple room with two levels, the bed was on the upper level and the room was simple but decent. There was a full kitchen with an excellent fridge. It was early evening, so I went out seeking a supermarket which was less than 10 minutes away with the surprising name ‘7 days supermarket’ I got a few bottles of fruit juice and some bottled water. I did not bother with food, this city had more restaurants and eat places than London had bankers. I got back to my room another 10 minutes later and dropped the bottles in the fridge. I left again for some food, which would likely include a glass of Ouzo. I turned left and about 100 metres further was Makan a nice restaurant with the promise of greek dishes. The dishes were really nice and I had my fill of Greek food (and loving it) and yes the bill came with a glass of Ouzo. I paid the bill with the 20% tip and drunk the Ouzo. I greeted the girl and walked back to the hotel. It would be a nice sleep, the weather was lovely, a little warm but that is to be expected when you are used to British summers. It was the next morning that I checked with the lawyer and he told me that everything is in order and the property was now mine. I checked my clock, a little late in the morning, so I found a place that rented out scooters and drove to my destination, which was still 2 hours away. The instructions from the lawyers were clear precise and correct. It was the middle of nowhere, there was nothing around and there was no one around. I walked into the ruined church and yes, if it was even a little more a ruin it would not be a ruin, but mere rubble. 

I leaned against the wall after I checked that it was sturdy and I looked around. Not sure what to do here. I walked around the church on the outside and saw a stone. It stated 1423-1427, from that point I reckoned that it took the builders 4 years to make the church. This made sense as it was in the middle of nowhere and it was not some prime location. But I recalled from the writings that there was a link between the clock and the oil lamp, so I took them out of the safe, which I created in the sturdiest wall and studied the lamp now more intense. As I turned the lid around I noticed that the inside of the lid was exactly the shape of the clock. I put the clock in the lid and held it in my hand, the clock fell out of the lid into my hand. It was then I noticed the small hole in the lid. What if I turned the lid upside down? I then considered the clock, I set it 2:31PM and placed it on the lid and set the lid on the lamp. I saw the liquid pore into the lid but no more than that and I ignited the oil lamp. That did more than something, the light even in the day was bright as the sun, and in addition to that the lamp suddenly felt sluggish and very heavy. But it was nothing compared to what my eyes saw. Not only did I see the church as it was in those days when it was new. As I illuminated the wall and the window opening, the walls and windows repaired themselves, or that was what I initially thought. The lamp did more than project the church as it was in 1431, It pushed that stage into today. Within 2 minutes the walls and windows were like they were in the original days. The church was in part renewed, and as the light hit the door opening the doors restated themselves. They were gorgeous, chiseled olive planks with metal reinforcement. I quickly shut off the light and separated clock and oil lamp. I quickly placed them back in my personal vault. I also noticed that time had past rather fast. I checked my clock, It still stated that it was 15:17, but outside was a lot darker, so time was definitely moving at different speed.

I quickly walked out of the church and I used the torch on my phone to look one more time at the window then I turned around and saw something I had not expected. It was a woman, seemingly late 40’s and she had one eye. “γεια σου εγγονέ του Άδη, είμαι η Λάχεσις, πρέπει να μιλήσουμε” (Hello grandson of Hades, I am Lachesis, we need to talk) and with that it became clear that my problems were merely at a start and all the time until tomorrow evening would become a lot more problematic. 

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Contemplation

We all have this at times. We all contemplate things and I am no different. As such a few thoughts came together. The first is that mobile company managed by the craziest marketeer in history (Ryan Reynolds). Now lets be clear I have no negative thoughts towards him, he is the craziest marketeer and it is working. As such I was wondering what we could do to keep prices low for these people. Now, I have no idea how up to date this all is because the telecom organisation is apparently up for sale. You can read more information (at https://www.techradar.com/au/deals/mint-mobile-what-is-it-and-is-it-worth-it) and there are probably a few more places where you can read it all. But this is not about the sale of it all.

This is about solutions. I reckon that Apple is trying to fill its pocket, as are plenty of other players. But in all this we are forgetting about one player Elon Musk, not him precisely, it is his mobile phone, the Pi phone. I reckon that it would be a streak of options if the people at Pi phone could reach out to millions of Canadians. Canada not just in touch with one another, but with Starlink a much larger national test is possible, in addition to this Canadian 5G is in a much higher setting than the US has it. With these elements in place I wonder if this combination could drive augmented reality in Canadian malls as well. But that is something for later. For now the good idea that Ryan Reynolds had for cheap mobile connection, it might be an idea for Pi phone to have a cheap deal for proper testing.

If there is one clarity in all this, then it is the fact that Rogers Communications showed Canada that there is a problem and it seems to me that alternatives are needed. Of course there is still the setting that Mint Mobile relies on the T-Mobile network and that might lead to more than one question, but there is a larger stage in play and I learned early that the iron is more easily managed when the iron is hot and at present it is flaming hot, there is space for change and there is space for increased visibility for a player like Mint mobile, so why not take it and as the Pi phone is now ready for deployment we have three factors out in the open. Lets see if we can make life better for a whole lot of people.

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Choices and power

It is something that has been bugging me all day and part of last night. It was set in motion by a story I am working on and it reflected on my IP. You see I had hoped that Amazon or Google had bought my IP, it benefits them the most (amazon more than Google). But in this day and age there are two new players in town Netflix and Tencent. They are not on anyones radar before 2023 (second half) but that does not mean I need to ignore two potential players for my IP. Consider that my IP will allow a minimum of 50 million consoles (or subscriptions). Consider the following list

Playstation 4 – 117 million
Nintendo Switch – 107 million
Playstation 5 – 20 million
Google Stadia – 3 million
Amazon Luna – Unknown

I have no real reliable information on how the Amazon Luna is doing and Microsoft is not a consideration. Now we get Tencent and Netflix and one of them gets an option to surpass the others and end up behind Nintendo and Sony in the number three spot, the setting is a sale that is the starting setting and will get them well above 50 million subscriptions, optionally around 75 million, and that mind you is merely the beginning. They could temporarily be the number one but Sony is hardcore focussed on this market and they do have the goods. So am I empowered to set one in a fighting position and become one of the top 3 game solutions? Or is the power derived from the additional choices that entered the field? 

More important Tencent and China get the option to run and rule one more field, it would be empowering to Tencent. Yet Netflix has reasons too and they have the setting to optionally alter their subscription approach two new players added to the ones I was willing to sell to (Amazon and Google). There is the option of Elon Musk and he is considered by me as a wild card. He is not in these fields but he has the Midas touch and when he sees options he seemingly grabs them. The odd satisfaction of all the Elon Musk haters entering a new market and becoming a top three player is oddly satisfying. So I went from two consideration now to 6 considerations and I feel decently well, because that is merely one side to the first IP bundle and the other two are still available, the second is ruled by the 5G solution and that will take off in 2-3 years when 5G is fully deployed, all ahead of the largest boom I am ever to likely see in my lifetime. 

To be honest I had some sights on Netflix, but Tencent is new, until recently and until some patents came past my desk I was in the dark on the setting of Tencent, but here they are a contender for streaming information and with 50 million plus, they are looking at up to half a billion a month, not something anyone can afford to sneer at, not in these times. But the larger settings are still out of the equation, the Augmented reality solutions I came up with (see previous articles), there we have a stage where marketing could rule a new part of well over 100,000 malls on a global scale and from there I can only speculate where this goes. A stage that could benefit places like Monaco, Riyadh and Dubai in all kinds of ways. But I get ahead of myself. Is all this power through choices, or choices that come from power? You see they are not the same coin, they aren’t even the same currency. The implied word ‘choice’ has several sides and they aren’t restricted to coins, they are also part of technology and enablement. All different settings for the same word and only the shallow will see them as one and the same. Power is more restrictive but also more out there and eagerly seen by everyone for all the wrong reasons, it is an enabler but only to some degree and it reflects on the chosen partner in this on how they want to continue with the offered choice and they pretty much see power as a monetary enabler, which is their choice, but it is the second tier and the third tier that will enable them to a much larger degree. That is the long game and that is where I have been focussing on, the long game, only the greedy reflect on the next quarter and their bonus.

But that is merely my (limited) point of view.

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For those not seeing the oil field

There is a larger field, a larger oil field if you wish. And the people aren’t getting it. I get it, it isn’t an easy equation and it is not really your fault, because the media is guilty as hell in all this, but lets start at the beginning (well, some kind of beginning). One such headline is ‘Oil trumps human rights as Biden forced to compromise in Middle East’, it is one way to look at it, but it is the wrong way. My headline would have been ‘Greed is eternal at the expense of everything else’. The point here is that we get to see a few sides that the media is not giving us. It starts with the oil and that part is a lot more important than you think it is.  So lets take a look at the three nations and the barrels per day they pump.

United States11,184,870
Russia10,111,830
Saudi Arabia (OPEC)9,313,145

So America pumps out a lot of oil, now it makes perfect sense that they will not deal with Russia, but it is at present still an unequal information package.

You see the United States exported about 8.63 million barrels per day (b/d) and imported about 8.47 million b/d of petroleum. And now you think it does not make sense. So lets just say that the US is selling oil at $50 a barrel and buys it at $35 a barrel, so they get 8 million (rounded) times $15, is $120 million of profit a day and that amounts to $43.8 billion a year. Profit they basically got for free. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not willing to give away $43.8 billion after the way the US treated the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There is just so much any person will take and I reckon the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has taken enough of the treatment handed to them. So the US instead of catering to self sells 73% of all the oil they pump, so why should the KSA after the way they were treated cater to that situation? Even an alternative that the us keeps 50% of their sales, they hand the KSA 50% it might be seen as a compromise. The US could stop selling 2,500,000 barrels a day and cater to its own needs, but the profit of some are not easily swayed. They are seemingly willing to let the US population freeze to death (or boil to death). And these numbers are out there, the media has had them for the longest time. All these BS articles on going crude oil free whilst the US is selling 73% of whatever they drill. Seems a little hypocritical, doesn’t it? 

That 73% does cater to 176 countries and 4 U.S. territories, no one denies that, but the profit goes somewhere and not all of it to the US coffers owned by the US treasuries. Someone is getting rich and the media is happy for you to be in the dark about it. Ask yourself “How many media outlets have given view of the amount sold? Why is the US short on oil whilst the oil harvested goes somewhere else?” I get it, there is a need for profit, no one denies that, but we see all these articles that imply and suggest that the Saudi’s are the bad paty whilst the US is trying to get cheap oil so that they can sell it at a profit. And believe me, when we change the prices of the earlier given $50 and $35 into the real numbers the equation changes really quick and the numbers become exceedingly large. 

So why should the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hand over profit that they are entitled to? Did you honestly think that Aramco was some non profit organisation? If it is it will be non profit for Saudi Arabia and its citizens, not for the US and their citizens, or the 176 countries that they could cater to. And the media does not really give you that, do they? So when the Guardian gives us “Brent crude hit a 14-year high of $139.13 a barrel in March, fuelling global inflation and a worldwide cost of living crisis. In the US, inflation is at 9.1% and accelerating, which is likely to translate into lost seats for the Democratic party in November’s midterm elections.” What happens when they sell 2.5 million barrels a day less and let that go to the US shortage? The equation changes by a lot does it not? 29% less sales will be felt all over the US and by Brent in particular, so why exactly does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia need to play ball with the US, especially when China is exceedingly courting Saudi Arabia for all kind of goods and when I see the revenue setting of 375 billion + 530 billion that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is spending on improving Saudi Arabia, there is every setting where the US has overplayed its hand and China is now in a premium position to get their revenue balls rolling. A setting I warned about before Covid before 2019, there were courters in the field and when that overpriced US plane wasn’t going there, China could sell the Chengdu J-20 at a nice price to Saudi Arabia (I admit I was trying to get my foot in the door and make a play for a simple 3.75% commission), and when you consider that this bill might go up to 15 billion, my 3.75% makes for a nice half a billion (we all have overly big dreams), and merely to play the courier? You have got to be kidding, I am so ready for that part! 

But this was about oil and the US played the wrong hand several times over (like shaking hands with air) and now Saudi Arabia and especially Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud might feel that the US played them for a fool and the problems start when the US could not afford problems. A stage where we see that Brent Crude is not so innocent and the media should have been on top of this, but I will let you people decide how that should be seen.

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The media gets it this wrong?

That is more than a question, it is a statement and the ABC is joining the tool section of media. This all started today when I saw a piece by Stan Grant. The article (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-17/joe-biden-upholding-rules-based-order-shaking-hands-with-killers/101242386) gives us ‘For Joe Biden, the price of upholding a global rules-based order seems to be shaking hands with killers and tyrants’ and the article is lousy from the start. We get “So this is what the global rules-based order looks like: US President Joe Biden sitting down with a Saudi leader with blood on his hands. US intelligence says Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. His body is believed to have been cut into pieces and incinerated.” A little recap. The UN report (at [381]) gives speculation what had to be done, but there is no evidence of any kind that the CIA or other intelligence agencies had ANY realistic level of evidence that Khashoggi’s life was in danger, more important none of the evidence shows that there was a definite evidence. I saw one report that gives us that it was highly likely that a member of the royal family was involved. Lets repeat that ‘Highly likely’ and that is not evidence, as such the statement ‘sitting down with a Saudi leader with blood on his hands’ is a farce and pure speculation. In addition the statement “His body is believed to have been cut into pieces and incinerated” is equally speculative. Then we get to the statement “Osama bin Laden, who plotted the attacks, was a Saudi. Of the 19 terrorists who carried out the attacks, 15 were Saudi citizens. An FBI report has linked a Saudi diplomat to the attackers.” Lets look at that. The more correct version is “Osama bin Laden, who plotted the attacks, was a Saudi, trained by the CIA” as such the attack on America was done by a rogue CIA agent, but that is bad PR, is it not? Then we get “When it comes human rights, China ranks higher than Saudi, according to Freedom House.” Based on what data? How many nations were tested? These seem like harsh questions to ask, yet the writer added the line in the middle, so these questions are valid. Especially as Freedom House is added once in the entire text, the context is gone. In all this the Uyghurs might not agree with that statement, but behind every silver lining a new dark cloud is hiding. 

Is Saudi Arabia a perfect state? Not according to many in the west, not according to non-islamic people. I do not know, I have never been to Saudi Arabia, what I saw was from YouTube. I saw the Hajj today, I saw Mecca, a place that a christian will never visit because it is off limits to non islamic people. Am I upset? No, I am not. I reckon that there are places in Saudi Arabia I would want to see before Mecca ever graces my list. It is nothing negative, it is that Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam have a lot to offer. I saw the video’s and they look awesome. I saw the Hajj, thousands of people united in one faith and these people are a mix of Sunni and Shias, praying next to one another in peace, more important they all have the same Quran. Try that in the western world. The Protestants and Catholics have been at each others throats for centuries and they still are. There are over a dozen version of the bible and they all claim theirs is the real one. There is ONE Quran! In the Mecca walk that someone posted I saw Mecca. I saw the streets, I saw a surprising amount of high rises. I saw Haagen-Dazs and I saw two KFC’s. I saw a shopping mall that is every bit as luxurious as the ones I saw in Sydney, Bangkok, Chicago or New York. I saw a vegetable store handing out bananas to passing people. Try that in London. I saw people happy and walking in joy. I think that we are more alike than unlike and it made me happy. The streets were clean, the people were walking all over and as they were closer to the Mosque, the pilgrims stood out in their white cloaks, all unified in faith. I can honestly say that I never saw such a sight in Lourdes. I saw no discord, It was an awesome sight. 

This all reflects back to the article. Is MBS guilty? No! He is not, is he innocent? I cannot tell because there is no evidence, and that what is there is warped. I stated that several times and there is something to say for the rogue agents. We have our own Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) to thank for that. Wasn’t it he who said “Oh, who will relieve us of these blasphemers?” No order was ever given, but the blasphemer was gone. Was this the same? I cannot tell, there is no evidence, but it seems clear that rogue agents were hoping for some reward. I like the response of one of the spokespeople best “Khashoggi doesn’t make the top 1000 of worries of the Crown Prince”, it is paraphrased. I tried to find the article again, but I was unable. Consider the facts, when Khashoggi was alive he was a mere columnist for the Washington Post. I reckon that less than a thousand non WP readers had a clue who he was. And now his name is stated in nearly every article that mentions Saudi Arabia or the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, have you not noticed that? So in this age, the US needs cheap oil and Saudi Arabia is the only source left for America. And in that race no one is asking why the US needs Saudi oil. You see America is the largest oil producer, followed by Saudi Arabia, Russia and China. In this day and age of everyone screaming to reduce oil, why does the US need Saudi oil? Perhaps the US needs to reconsider the stupidity they preach and come out clean why they need more oil. They are by several sources the largest producer of oil, so why would they need more? Perhaps I was right all along, to reduce oil usage one must redefine what is essential, it seems that the US is not doing that. But that side of the equation does not make it into the media, does it?

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IP of opposition

My mind has been wandering. I have been confronted with the images of oppositions. Vampires versus Lycans (Underworld), good versus evil (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings), humans versus Aliens (Predator), and the list goes on. It seems that the worlds of Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris) is all but forgotten. The story is still everything, but there is too much special effects. Too many fight scenes. I do not oppose them, but they seemingly take over the story and that is wrong. Or perhaps better stated, it is not good. There is a difference and I acknowledge it. But how can we evolve this? It is a question I had in my mind for a while. In Keno Diastima it was not them against us and the finale of series 3 opens doors, but I was unwilling to set a path beyond it, the open ending seems so… (perfect is the wrong word), it seemed so Terry Gilliam to consider it as such. In ‘Exhaurire vitam’, it was not opposition for an entirely different reason. And there was opposition in ‘How to assassinate a politician’ yet that was opposition of the mind. I am not against opposition, but I feel that in too many ways it is framed wrongly, or perhaps incorrectly. So, how to go about it? That is the question I have been asking myself. My education gives me that there are two forms of antagonism, the competitive and the non-competitive So we have reversible, surmountable versus irreversible, insurmountable. Two shapes of two dimensions I do not like in the first place. I know they need to exist, but they are shallow, to shallow. It remind me of the old setting I once created in my mind. Any relationship is set to the three legs of the pyramid. A physical, a mental and a spiritual one. The more they align between the two partners, the more aligned their relationship is. 

The longer the legs, the more meaningful the side is. In the example the three green ones are the same, I merely connected them to another side of the pyramid. They are a good match, not a perfect one, but a good one. It does not matter which colour is which gender. In the three sides (physical, mental and spiritual) they are a good match. It could be worse, a one sided or two sided match. A one sided match it is friendship, sexual or perhaps spiritual, yet one side will always result in divorce. Two sided matches are harder, there is enough to keep them together, especially as the side they desire the most (often the largest leg of the three legs). It does not matter what side it is, but the one favoured side when both have the same side will keep them together, and that starts the long term relationship/marriage. I have never seen that expressed in any movie, or at least not a movie I have ever seen. You see this is not opposition, or antagonism, it is another way of seeing multiple sides. And it should not be the focus of anything, but it should be there and we seldom see it. There is too much antagonism. I know it makes for better cinema, but does it? Does it really? I remember Ordinary People, the debut by Robert Redford, it got 4 oscars. It seldom comes up, I reckon because there was a harsh light on psychological sides. A 1980 movie that seems to shy away from the limelight. It also reminds me of Timothy Hutton and his part in Taps (an early Tom Cruise movie). They have something in common, our assessment of values and how the people around us see those values. It is a form of inner antagonism. We versus what we believe and what we perceive. It matters because I have been playing that card in two settings whilst not really being openly aware I was. 

I may have surprised myself and that is part of the equation. How to give that inner battle to the people we present to? I am honestly at a loss. I am so driven by the story so that I cannot say what the story could be. That matters, you see I am about the story and I want it to be everything it could be. This is how I see the evolution of any story. I do not start from scratch, I evolve the story (especially Kenos Diastima and Exhaurire Vitam) and I see where I can evolve the story to be more including of other sides. It is not always that easy (especially Exhaurire Vitam) but sides could be considered, or perhaps better stated should be considered, they might be rejected and that question comes for every person playing a role in it. 

It reflects on both the 5G and the Augmented reality IP as well. As I stopped to reconsider the first step in both, I suddenly remembered that certain data technologies were in its infancy in those days. They still are (my assessment) and I believe that when some players stop their petty bickering we might actually get somewhere. It is no longer about their system against ours, it will be what can we unite to get the best systems in play. Some will go and research a new setting (which is not wrong) but as I see it time works against some players and in all this Amazon has the  upper hand, Amazon has most elements ready in at least three of my IP stages and it includes one IP bundle. So is Amazon the best solution? I think it is, Google is messing around and only partially taking notice of their own weaknesses. It does not mean Amazon does not have any weaknesses, it merely implies they have a better handle on it and here we see some of the elements connect. It is not antagonism, it is a three sided alignment with the realisation that a bookstore surpassed a technology titan, in its physical (hardware), mental (software) and spiritual (mentality) foundations. Like Taps and Ordinary People it is not about antagonism it is about the inner struggle towards what we believe and what is perceived. If someone told me that Amazon would surpass Google and that Elon Musk Mobile would close to equal Google 10-15 years ago, I would tell them to get better drugs and please could I have some of them, but today, or basically 2021-2024 will prove these people correct and that I underestimated an online bookstore named Amazon, and many with me. A stage where Amazon surpasses Google was before the Covid era unimaginable and the Elon Musk mobile (Pi. Phone) is not far behind. By giving the people, or perceptionally offering the people what they needed they got ahead in the game. I wonder if Mint Mobile (Canada) has a similar track ahead of them. All captains of industry and the one that started furthest ahead is now in danger of being placed last. Most forgot about the people, the consumers Microsoft made that mistake some time ago and there is some concern that Google is on the same track, leaving the work to the third parties who have no concern of people. An inner struggle, an IP of opposing sides and oppositions. But here is the last question, what makes the IP and what creates the opposition? Are these part interchangeable?

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Realisation

This happens, at times we realise something AFTER the fact and for some reason not before. The BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62158936) ‘Netflix and Microsoft team up for cheaper plan with adverts’, apart from the setting that they decided to trust Microsoft on this, the setting of movies or TV series with advertisements is called TV, The Dutch have channels one, two and three. The Brits have the same but they call it BBC One, Two and oh, four is ITV. And so every nation has its own version of TV, so why would we want Netflix when we can get the others for free? It comes with “It lost 200,000 subscribers between January and March, compared to the 2.5 million analysts had been expecting the firm to add in the period. Netflix also now expects to lose a further two million subscribers between April and June.” And this is a surprise? How? The covid era ended, people are expected to be back in the offices and do actual work. And those who decided to quit their jobs to be at home for whatever reason will soon be in a space where they CANNOT afford Netflix. Instead of offering an 8 hour segment (when they aren’t working) for less, and as such create 3-6 timezones to capture the bandwidth pressures, they decided to compete with local TV stations at a price, whilst local TV is free. I reckon (and that I merely my view) that the people will stop subscription TV, especially as some favourite series are spread over several providers. And these people will return to Channel 7, Channel 9, ITV, RTL+, Sjuan, TMC, TFX and the list goes on for a while. I reckon that they will not be too happy with Netflix and they will demand local based sanctions against Netflix. In addition, some will demand that the bandwidth usage of Netflix users will be capped or even surcharged to avoid congestion on several levels. It is not whether it happens, it will soon be on WHEN it happens. Especially when the Amazon and Google group could stick it to Microsoft, they will be enthusiastically motivated to do just that. 

Do I care?
Not really, I sometimes get a month subscription to load up on missed things and I have to as we all have budgets. I reckon that the UK is facing a much harder time. When they get to decide on two of the items (Food, Rent and heating) Netflix will be the first to go, and after that cheaper internet deals. The cost of living bites everywhere and Netflix should have seen this coming. I think they did not, because in all my dealings with Americans, they always avoided any discussion on market saturation, it was always the fault of the bad salesperson. This time around there is no escaping it, and I saw this setting in 2020 when I was clear about saturation, and they were all in the stage of ‘We never heard that’ but the stage was clear and Covid ended as such the good times were gone and now Netflix with their desperate act decided to rely on Microsoft. Whether these two are in bed because of the Netflix game streaming is unknown to me, but it would not surprise me. And that too will backfire on them when Tencent comes out to play. Tencent could muscle in on both Amazon Luna and Google Stadia as well if these two did not adjust their way of thinking. 

These players are all realising that there is one population and they can no longer afford EVERYTHING. These people have to make choices, some of them hard and depending on what TV brings instead of Netflix comes with $10 a month savings, for a lot of people it will be a simple choice. It is this realisation that governs the global population. If EU inflation is up by 8.6% (last month), how long until people have to select what food they can afford? This is not out of consideration at present, the UK seems to be going back to the daily fish and chips. In the Netherlands some vegetables went up between 29% and 34%, that is HUGE! It is in this setting that Netflix makes a move the way they did and at some point people will realise that they get the same by watching TV, which does not cost them $10 a month, and that was the only reason keeping them on Netflix. Realisation is a dangerous and ugly thing. Yes, we can continue to watch Netflix, but how long until those prices go up? Which will drive a lot of people towards their normal local TV stations again, some already did. 

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The blind seeker

This is not a riddle, it is simple. I cannot tell what the rules are for getting a script. I created three of them and I get it, it needs to be a certain format, it needs appeal, but as a storyteller, I do not care, and that is not some short sighted look. Around 35000 stories are submitted and only 350 get made. I am not some person seeking wealth (well I am, but not in stories), and as I have stated in the past. I lived the FX slogan, ‘The Story is everything’, it has been true for the longest of time and it ill remain true decades from now. So as I recall an article I wrote in ‘The stage of a game’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/09/24/the-stage-of-a-game/) almost 2 years ago, someone in Hollywood or Netflix should have woken up.

The fact that a comic (1965-1982) with artists like Don Lawrence; Oliver Frey; Gerry Wood; Philip Corke; Ramon Sola; Ron Embleton; Miguel Quesada can still tempt the mind of the reader a generation later should have alerted them to the setting that they have a winner here. In the age when special effects and CGI are so close to the real thing that we can no longer tell the difference whether something is real or CGI should have triggered the idea that the Trigan Empire could be big bucks. The fact that this remains a hidden treasure is delighting in so many ways. The series I started to follow at the age of 5 (2 years after it was released) and still has this appeal on me and on thousands who were around when they first appeared is a wonderful feeling. It gives rise to the appeal that Flash Gordon had in the 50’s to the previous generation and this generation who is a lot on the Hogwarts stage. Every generation has its special stories and to consider that the next generation could enjoy on the screen what the previous generation loved in equal measure in comic books, is overwhelming. I wonder if it ever becomes real. Well, Valerian became a reality in 2017, 50 years after the comic book launched. Even as the movie flopped (according to the numbers), I was happy to see it and as part 2 is now ready to be filmed and a part three is on route to become a reality too, I merely hope that I live long enough to see all three parts. But the small voice in me silently hopes that the Trigan Empire will become a reality too. And there is a lot more in the comic books that never graced the American shelves. Don Lawrence gave us Storm, the Spanish artist Vicente Segrelles gave the world a comic named ‘the Mercenary’ in an age of knights, magic and dragons. 

So many awesome stories that one wonders how blind are these Hollywood seekers, these diggers for Netflix, Hulu and Apple+? A stage that is merely waiting to be found by a limelight, any limelight. Dozens, if not hundreds of comic books, all undiscovered as they never graced the American comic book shelves (a speculation of mine). Yet in the stage of what we see now and what we hear now, so many series flop. I honestly do not know why, some I have never seen, some I saw and it was not my favourite, yet it was not bad. The reason of what we see and what some things are rated as follows definitions that some might think ludicrous and mostly because we do not understand what drives the ratings. So under those rules will series like the Trigan Empire and the Mercenary make it? I cannot tell, but I hope they do, to see my childhood hero (Valerian) make it to the big screen was mesmerising, I hope to see the other two there as well.

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Meme by Elon Musk

The guardian is giving us a part, other papers are giving us a part. Yet no one is treading on the side where they have to be, the media pussies on patrol. Trying to keep safe their digital dollars. And it is about to come to blows. You see the article ‘Elon Musk may have to complete $44bn Twitter takeover, legal experts say’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/10/elon-musk-may-have-to-complete-44bn-twitter-takeover-legal-experts-say) gives merely part of the painting. Yes, legal experts state “Quinn said Musk’s information requests on spam accounts were not “reasonable” and would not be accepted by the court. “He can’t use unreasonable information requests to create a pretext to claim a violation,” he said.” But the setting is incomplete. Twitter has maintained that no more than 5% of the Twitter accounts were fake, I have data suggesting it is as high as 20%, another source (www.trollrensics.com) has data showing the number of fake accounts for trolls and misinformation to be as high as 50%, this implies that Twitter is trying to sell a bill of goods, but the bill is only 50% filled and that has been at the centre of this all along. So whilst Jack Dorsey and friends and now in a stage where the gig is up, they need to get as much out of it as possible, because the media will at some point ‘wake up’ and take a much deeper look. Consider hundred of media outlets and they have been avoiding this part all along. Politicians setting their premise, misinformation on covid, election misinformation, and the Ukraine war thousands to troll accounts working day and night to give a false premise of what is going on and in all this the media remained SILENT. 

Trollrensics has data spanning 8 years (at least) and that is merely the beginning. You see, on route to home I remembered that trolls and click-farms rely on greed. As such we see a different setting. First there is the ‘unmonitored source’ that gives us “Twitter doesn’t reveal IP addresses of its users. They use it internally and strictly restrict the public from this information. But there’s always a way. In this article, we’ll discuss how to find someone’s IP address on Twitter.” This implies that we need another path, but criminals and click-farms are lazy, they will reuse what they can. Every second they can tweet is another few cents in their wallet, as such more is better. This implies that if you create a database of the @TwitterAddress and you strip all the messages, you can look per message and see how it moves. This is not a simple solution, you need serious computing power for this. But as such, you get a message that is spread (in the near same instance) from different mobiles in the same location you optionally have a click farm point. Now if we get a multitude of misinformation from clusters of mobiles, we have found such a place. 

This is a mere setting to get to the numbers. You see, Russia and China have hundreds if not thousands of these click-farm locations. And now we have a serious number, when we move that action from nation to nation, we get well beyond my 20% and way past the 5% claim of Twitter. When that is obtained, we get what might be considered evidence towards what some would call the alleged fraudulent sale of Twitter to Elon Musk. Why Fraudulent? Well, Twitter maintained that they have no more than 5% fake accounts. These numbers would prove them wrong and with the previous part that they had IP addresses they had the information a lot longer than anyone would care to speculate on and as they speculatively lived by the rule that they look sexier with 330 million active users, than with 120 million active users. And one source gives us “Twitter has some 330 million monthly active users (MAU) based on its last reported data that leveraged this metric in the 1st quarter of 2019. As of 2020, Twitter’s monetizable daily active users (mDAU) stands at 166 million, which represents a 24% growth from 2019.” In the middle of Covid Twitter grew 24%? I am not saying it is not possible, after all Amazon pulled it off, but how many stores were active during coved? In addition to this, where did these funds come from? In all the presidents men we hear ‘Follow the money’, that equally applies to trolls and click-farms. They got paid, they paid for things, that money trail is equally important in discovering what was what. It is not fool proof, because others use similar paths for valid reasons, but that is one person, one business. Not a person or business with hundreds of phones. 

All this should have been seen and looked at by the media years ago, but it wasn’t interesting is it not? And as for the meme, see below. When you consider the elements of the meme, the silence of the media makes even less sense. Yet, I leave that to you to look into. 

Meme by @ElonMusk

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The joke on any corporation

Yes, there are corporations that are comfy and good and there are corporations that due to hiring practices and whether they rely on hiring teams or recruiters are soon to be seen as a joke. It all started with ‘The over-qualified workers struggling to find a job’ (at https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220705-the-over-qualified-workers-struggling-to-find-a-job). There we see several connecting issues, but what caught my eye was “In some instances, recruiters can see workers applying for positions apparently ‘below’ their current career level as a red flag”, you see there are two problems with that. The first is their subjective view, one that is often given to them by superiors who have lost all connection to a working force that is now beyond their comprehension. The second one is that I had been looking for something for almost 8 years. The fact is that this boss is a lot better than the previous two. I had actually forgotten what it was to be treated like a person. That last part is on me, but it is still unnerving how the workaholic setting took over my life and made me less than human. So there are issues all over the field and as this work force is experiencing a new breath of life. Bosses that treat their staff good (like mine now) will suddenly find an abundance of interest, because everyone wants to work for such a boss. 

So it is a new sight to work for, in an age of shortage a lot of people will have learned that more pay is second best to nice treatment. The second issue is seen in ““In hiring, you have to act paranoid,” he says. “If someone is coming down a level or two, and they’ve likely already achieved what the role offers, then you have to ask questions about their motivation.”” The recruiter is again in short supply of brain matter. It is old way thinking, the idea that a good boss with prospects in 1-3 years is preferable than a new challenge with no future in sight is beyond their scope of vision. Knowing you can do the job matters, it always did, but the Deloitte idea of a bigger future is still on their brains, even though beyond Deloitte and half a dozen firms that idea will never be delivered on, merely speculated on. I reckon that a player like Deloitte is one of the few that actually delivered on their mission statement. The rest will hide behind “It is a complex situation and we are feeling the market right now” is an excuse that was acceptable 10 years ago but it is obsolete now. And it is worse when you see the impossible way where Amazon is burning through  the global workforce. There is every chance that they will become the first undesirable employer for the working class (packaging and shipping). Fortune reported less than a month ago ‘Amazon’s warehouse problems? It’s running out of workers to hire, and has too much space’, it had become a place where proper robotics and automation would have made all the difference, but there is a chance that they could buckle before that point is reached. So in all this as we see temp agencies and recruiters seeking people, they had ventured on the wrong highway and when we see “In turning down such workers, employers may say they’re too experienced for the position. Sometimes, they inform them that they’re simply not the best fit for the company.” We suddenly see the failure that Apple stores engaged in, to seek the average person, not the inspiring one that is handled by a senior to get that person on board for the Apple frame of mind. Look in any Apple store, all young, dynamic and in some cases clueless past the Apple articles they promote. Some will try to adjust their way of thinking and that is good, but those who wrongly assessed a person will not just lose that person, it will lose that persons friends as well. You see in this atmosphere of hiring shortage the recruiters relying on capturing resume’s with fake jobs will not survive for long, the ones who did a fair job and adjust to a new working atmosphere will be around a lot longer. You can watch it happen in the short term at a recruiter agency near you. As I personally see it they all had the same flaw, instead of collecting resume’s they should have engaged with the candidate and whether it was their boss who told them, or their own insight that 500 resume’s will get them their bonus faster than engaging with 50 candidates is a numbers game, but I reckon that any recruiter that engaged with 50 candidates will have a much better 2022 than the other one. Mark my words.

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