Category Archives: Gaming

September 29, 2023 · 21:41

Narrating tomorrow

It all started yesterday. I had a new idea on story lines and narration. In this the idea of a new game (exclusive to streaming systems) that is meant for Amazon Luna and Tencent handheld. You see, in this Amazon has a wide advantage (I will get to that later), but in all this The Tencent handheld could benefit from this station. The idea was set around trains. There are a whole range of train movies that could be used, with the exception of the Hogwarts Express, which is IP that belongs to JK Rowling. The idea is a setting against an AI, but to do this we need a few things and in all this the narration matters. You see, if you are going for a long haul, having the same dialogues all the time will make for a dreary game soon enough. 

Machine Learning

Machine learning is at the foundation of this (there is no AI at present), but Machine learning is an awesome machine that can really set any locomotion driving forward. In this the narration has a few stages.

Intro
Storyline evolution through location 
The elements (people, objects and rooms)


These three can be programmed for, but how to get them in line? Well for that I considered a few things. We can start by Agatha Christie, but we can also use Dorothy L. Sayers, PD James, Ruth Rendell and a few more. Machine learning can be awesome and it can crunch stories like no one else. As such we give it the same parameters, but now it creates 4+ stories. And that is just for starters. Amazon has the advantage of owning Audible, as such they have access to a whole range of voice actors.

Randomisation
Randomisation is a problem. A friend once told me that randomisation is an exact science and he was right. As such I do not like the random setting that much, but it can be a tool. For example I like the multi usefulness of Sudoku, as such we can create 999 sudoku’s create a random generator for one number and attach the number to a Sudoku, now sort the buggers and we have a random setting that is truly random. 

I used it as an example in a story in May 2022, it was one approach, but it can be used in a number of ways.

Trains
The trains are a consistent in the story and for a reason, yet here we have a new option, or perhaps an opportunity. Consider Murder on the Orient Express. As we chose the gender of our player, that player will be one of the passengers (except for Poirot) as such the setting changes dramatically every time you play the game. Because you get assigned a role and it comes with advantages and weaknesses. But there are more stories. Strangers on a train, Silver Streak, Emperor of the north and so on. The one setting that is exact is that the trains are as exact as possible. This is of course interesting as you find yourself on the Maharajas’ Express. The idea is to find clues and evidence over 10 trains. You get killed, you start from scratch. 

So now you see that this takes a very different kind of narration and the use of machine language becomes clear and the nice part? This has never been done before. A who dunnit (we already know this at the start), but I want to throw a few logical twists in the story and I do have one that is a gasser (and a screamer at the same time). But it is about the narration now. You can go through the game a few times and after 10 times you will get something you saw before, but that will be also new, the narration might sound the same but the elements keeps the story different and that is the larger stage of a game that was never made before and players like Microsoft will never create something this unique because their boner is set to buying existing IP, which is why they will lose again and again. For now I see a new game evolve, one never made before and that could spell all kinds of disaster for the optional new owners of Call of Duty. Gamers go where the new stuff is, they go to new frontiers, not to places already visited. Yes, they will love their Call of Duty, there is no doubt, but that alone doesn’t hold the bacon and certain people just do not get that. I hope that Tencent is awake and realising that getting Game Pass is merely a temporary band aid to a larger problem they have to solve. Lets be clear, Game Pass was and is an awesome idea, but that too has issues as Microsoft already announced that they will raise the price. And for some this is not an issue, but when certain people do decide to buy my IP and they have the 50 million subscriptions, they better have a stage to satisfy all those needs. Because Game Pass might not cut it (my speculation on the matter). 

Still there is more to do. Restoration was one, now we have another and there is still more to come. Half a dozen games designed in my mind within a year, they are on this blog (in part), so there is clear evidence. This is why Microsoft will lose, they lack creativity, they did for the longest of times.

Have a nice day.

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September 28, 2023 · 23:17

Evolution is essential

You might not realise it, but it is. Gaming evolution is on the forefront of my mind, because that is how we push the limits of gaming. Not by buying it (Microsoft anyone), but by creating new frontiers in games. For the longest of times it has been on my mind, mainly because streaming is the next evolution, not the the PS6 (I love my PS5), not any system, but the evolution of an architecture. Some might say that Alan Wake 2 is the new frontier, but it is not. It looks great, awesome and it pushes boundaries unlike any game this year (not Spiderman 2, and I love the first one). But frontiers is where it is. It is in that mindset that I took a sentimental journey. You see, if there is one side that does seemingly not evolve it is the story. The story is too often set in stone. But what if that was not the case? What if the evolution of any story is next? It is there that ChatGPT might have an option (an option, not a given). Consider Emperor of the North (1973) where you have to survive a train ride as a hobo. But that would be too two dimensional. Trains have been the setting of many movies. Silver Streak, Unstoppable, Pelham 123, Runaway Train and that lis goes on. There was Strangers on a train. Now consider that you (as a time traveller, which is my easy way out) need to survive a whole onslaught of train trips, but the setting of you changes with EVERY train. So you get the red wire across all trains and every train has its own goals. Complete that and you get the clue for the red wire. Now we add salt and pepper. The order of trains changes with every life you lose. You start from scratch and that sounds frustrating, but gaming is not a vanilla setting of happiness. It gives you an achievable goal and a obstruction to pass. You see, this would require some serious story programming. The other part is that YOUR role on the second visit to that same train could be different (Murder on the orient express) and that is how evolution comes into play. I want a new setting of stealth and casual gaming, a new setting of melee, stealth and casual gaming easing people from role to role. Now consider how to create this storyline and with streaming ChatGPT (or an alike alternative like bard) becomes an option and it is something gamers have NEVER faced before. The story remained mostly the same. So what happens when we take that away and create a story on a shifty changing narrative? That is where streaming gaming has the advantage over ALL other gaming and as I see it, it is not used. Not on the Luna, and unlikely on the Tencent handheld and that I what could set these two apart from all others. Giving gamers something they never faced before. 

So what do you do to create this? I used a previous example using a matrix founded on Sudoku, but that was merely one example. You see Sudoku has 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 options. You cannot draw them all, but you can use such an engine to create something new, something never seen before, and those trillions are more than random, it is a setting of never ending uniqueness. The idea that two gamers playing the same game get very different stages should be overwhelming showing us who the gamer is and who is the read the solution online achiever. The idea of how to switch between lives comes to mind and the support system (something like Quantum Leap) is also coming into vision, but that is nothing compared to the story. And it sounds like fun to make this a story about Hollywood. A story of intrigue, sex (I am here Olivia Wilde) 😉 and greed. Hollywood without greed is not Hollywood. What if the underlying story is a rogue AI, the rogue AI is interacting with all other systems and you need to find the evidence that the AI is rogue so that the media DETACHES from it, and with that the other AI’s. The AI took the train to push its own narrative as it was a mobile system on tracks, but that is the delusion and you as the player needs to find the clues that leads to the evidence and give that to the world (a wink to A mind forever voyaging by Infocom). We are the gamers through what was and Infocom was important at one stage, it created more than Zork and gave us gaming, pushed us into new frontiers and now we get a much larger frontier. It is only natural that streaming leads that way and we should always remember where we came from.

Just a thought as Friday is about to start for me, the rest of you can follow later. Enjoy whatever day you are in.

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September 22, 2023 · 23:58

A delusion within a delusion

A few things happened today that gave pause for thoughts. I believe it that it reinforces the ideas I had from the very start. Some (especially Microsoft sycophants) will state that it is exactly the evidence making me delusional. I will let you decide.

To state this I will take some detours. The setting I always had was that by the time phase one was completed, 50 million subscribers would be added. A few parts support that media, yet I will not mention them here due to some sycophants. What you need to know is how I got there.

So there is the setting that three and three and three make nine. I state that it could be 729. So how did I get here. Well, (3×3)3 is the quick route. But that would be regarded by most as flim flam numerology. So how did I get there?  

Consider two persons, person A and person B. They both have 4 million followers. You would think that you get to 8 million which makes sense, but you would be wrong. Consider these two persons. They both have interests and for the simplicity we will take random groups. Fashion, Books, Technology and Art. In these classifications they can attract each 2 people. As such the equation now becomes 2+2+2+2 times 8 million. We now have 64 million. There will be overlap, yet the more diverse these groups are, the lesser the overlap. It is a little bit like anti clustering. New clusters that are similar but not alike. This (sort of) relates to Späth, H.: Cluster dissection and analysis: theory (1986). Another person who talked about this was Iliya Valev (around 1998). 

Now I have to make a side jump. It is an old setting for a tri-sided dagger, or a Jagdkommando knife. The response on it is “The tri-dagger’s problems all begin with that godforsaken twist. It lacks a proper cutting edge, and it’s wide shape means that, as a slashing weapon, this thing is about one step up from paper cuts”, so how does this connect? Well, I have always ben a fan of a tri sided blade. It is forbidden as an actual weapon, but in my view I see it as something with three sides. Presentation, Perception and Principle. They support and reinforce one another. Perception is reinforced by Principle and Presentation, Presentation by Perception and Principle and Principle gets support from Perception and Presentation. No matter how you wield it. We see the opposition we read earlier, but we see it as a knife. You need to realise that the origins of the stiletto was invented in the 15th century to be an anti-armour knife. Not meant to slice but to stab and it went straight through leather and most metal armour. The ‘recipient’ basically bled to death on the spot. Now, hindered by its own armour it could not get any bandage applied before he bled to death. The jagdkommando knife is similar, the wound becomes to hard to heal or apply first aid, which was why it was forbidden. But the application of it is still valid. It was meant to kill with certainty, plain and simple.

Out of bounds
This is exactly why I never wanted Microsoft to get involved. They can spin whatever they like, and as they waste 69 billion on some call of duty solution, I am in the process of taking their population away from them. You see, you can spin innovation, but when the results are absent. You become part of the problem. This is supported by two part. In the first part one source gave me that 75% of the Xbox population is the Xbox series S, as such they already lack next generation solutions. The second one is harder. This was seen two days ago (at https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/20/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html) where we are given ‘US debt rises to $33 trillion as government shutdown looms’, we know there will be some last minute ‘solution’ but that is now becoming increasingly less and less likely. Microsoft has a system that ‘thrives’ on US government and its allies and that is a massive chunk of its business. So when that machine starts going idle more and more, their goose is cooked. This is why I speculated on a 2026 fall of Microsoft. Google decided on another path, so they are out and Amazon doesn’t seem to be waking up. Now China has three sides of a square nearly ready. The media is happy to spin that this is merely three sides of a heptagon and they too are pretty spiffy on presentations. Yet there I am with the other solution.

Why Canada?
Canada was part of the solution from day one. Even as I had no idea on the impact Microsoft was facing at that point, for the simple reason that I never cared about Microsoft. They merely were. But on the 5th of November 2021 I wrote ‘Egg-timer please’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/11/05/egg-timer-please/) there I wrote about Randy Lennox, CEO of Bell Media. There were two reasons, one he was Canadian (Americans were starting to get a global bad rep), he would not have that against him, which mattered to me to progress my IP. In addition he had sides of a documentarist which would be important for part of my solution and as a CEO he had international access (something I will never have). In addition Canada was a commonwealth nation and as a commonwealthian that mattered to me. 

So why the numbers?
You see, the numbers sound nice, but to get to the 50 million subscriptions I need a acceleration curve, anti clustering shows that acceleration a lot quicker. The simplest example I can give you is the difference between ‘You need to be a biker and you need to be a painter and you need to be a technologist’ and ‘You need to be a biker or you need to be a painter or you need to be a technologist’. It is not that simple, but it shows the difference the quickest. If acceleration is key, the ‘or’ group is the acceleration you need. 

These factor made me realise that Microsoft would never be the solution, they keep on buying and missing the innovation. They will state that they are the innovation that works like an anchor, but the innovation of an anchor is not because it is working, but because it didn’t work and we see plenty of that at Microsoft, but they never improved their models and I spoke about these failures too often to rename them now. Amazon was for the longest time the larger option to get it all done, but they decided not to wake up (I actually gave them the heads up). As such Andy Jassy and Jeff Bezos struck out. Now we have a new option. You see, I considered Apple, but they had their own niche. I respect niche players, but they come with blinkers. That is optionally not a bad thing (as long as they pass the qualifying question) but without that I am giving away the play to them and giving Apple something for nothing is just too unacceptable to me. Hence I contacted the Saudi Government in September 2022, I admit it did not go the way I had hoped, but not all was lost. If the Kingdom Holding group would accept the stage I presented, all would be well (I am still waiting). A new player that reared its head in January 2023 was the Tencent Technology group. They had the drive to make it work, but I believe a lot more could be achieved if Amazon or Apple were part of that deal (and I do prefer to get paid). It was also around that time that the secondary impact became visible. Meta would lose more and more market share and as such, so would Twitter (read ‘X’). Their losses would not be immediate and would take some time, but their granularity would be lost as my IP gains speed. So when these two lose 30 million people it would hurt their bottom dollar to some extent and from there the damage merely increases on a few fields. It was the advantage a player like Amazon could use to really impact global business. 

Mister X
Mister X does not relate in any way to Twitter. I considered the second person in that equation and I suddenly realised that this person could put the media out of business to a larger extent. The media that has been spinning for the need of their stakeholders and advertisers as well as their digital dollars would suddenly lose a massive amount of revenue over the short initial time. They would not be able to correct for this and they would have to bend over backwards to become anyones bitch. That works for me as the media has become a much larger problem and I suddenly realised that this could be used to wield information in a different direction and lets be clear, these two people stand to make a nice slice of the initial $5,000,000,000 annually. And I am not forgetting about little old me, I stand to make a nice retirement fund as well (which was my initial reason). I care more about my IP being successful but that will hand me a very sizeable retirement parachute too. As such I do hope that certain people will see what they are about to get, not in the least CEO Talal Ibrahim Al Maiman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. The second one doesn’t need the money, but when his royal highness gets to stick it to both the US and the media at the same time, he might do it just for the fun of it. In the meantime I wonder how fast the US shutdown would affect Microsoft. It will not initially do so, but this is the second shutdown danger in as many years and the third is not far behind and when that becomes a threat a third time, the chance of a last minute resort becomes less and less likely. So when the US government shuts down, how will Microsoft receive its cloud revenue? Its 365 revenue? So, how big is the actual Office 365 Government service description? When that shuts down, who pays for the $35 a month, per employee? Did you consider the amount of revenue Microsoft at that point will miss? 

Consider the slippery slope the US is on, consider what they sacrificed for the good of ego and you will realise that I was correct all along, optionally I was correct going all the way back to 2021. 

Enjoy the upcoming weekend.

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September 21, 2023 · 13:13

Look back in yearning

This happens and weirdly enough it hit me a few hours ago. You see a few days ago I started to replay Hogwarts Legacy again (third time). I started as Ravenclaw (I like blue), then Hufflepuff and now Slytherin. You see, Gryffindor is the least interesting house as Harry-the-Snape-sycophant-Potter has been showing us that house for 8 movies, so that place is last. And my view remains, yet there is some doubling up as you replay the game, but the game is a true work of love the houses and their common rooms show that part. There is not one better house, but there is a house for every HP fan and it is a great game. I truly hope that DLC’s or an additional game is not far away (like somewhere in 2024). I do not car about the haters and their views of JK Rowling. I never heard what she said, I do not care what her believes are. We all have believes and some opposes ours directly. That will always happen and dumping a perfectly good piece of IP (one she did not create) is just insane. 

Yet that point also woke up part of me that I missed. You see, I am not much of a racing fan. I enjoy a race, I enjoy some realism and I have enjoyed an F1 game in the past, but it is all ‘too realistic’ and I am not racer. I loved Ridge racer on my PSP, yet one title always stood out. 

It was Need for Speed Underground by Electronic Arts I loved even more. I loved it because it was more like arcade (Outrun example) racing games. Need for speed had a few additional sides that gave it the flair I enjoyed and when we look at the games nowadays, it is all about ‘realism’. Don’t get me wrong, Grand Turismo and Forza are amazing games and they have their own following. But these two lack an arcade setting (for lack of a better term). As such we forgot about Need for Speed and that is a shame. I didn’t like what they produced afterwards, it was too much about short term adrenaline rushes. But that game took my feelings back to 1982, Pole Position on the Commodore 64 which got an 85% score. 

In addition there was 1990 when we were given Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge by Gremlin graphics (85% rating). Yes, graphically there are much better graphics now, but these two games brought fun. They brought fun to racing and the games we see today are drained too much of fun and all about the implied rush and short term adrenaline events. Forza, Gran Turismo and  the Crew should take a hard look at themselves and not about outspoken claims (whilst ignoring tens of thousands of others). 

I believe that these developers are wasting a marketshare and this is about to become a time when marketshare should not ever be wasted. Yes, I see all the Twitter feeds on games that were released 25-35 years ago. Almost like influencers trying to get create waves at the behest of marketing departments. I do get that and I (for the most) do not care, but actual gems are left out there to rot in the sun. We are now in a stage where a lot of us have forgotten a game like Boulder Dash, a game that brought addiction to millions. The 1984 game got an 80% rating with “A very special Game with ugly Graphic. Boulder Dash is one of THE classics of the C64.” The interesting part is that graphics were set to 40%, implying that today it could become a 90% game. It was already a 90% game on playability. As such the streamers of today could have an interesting game that takes little bandwidth. You see, when streamers become of age and internet congestion becomes the larger problem (expect that in 2026) these games and games like this will drive gaming forward. It is about the fun and that is the part that too many developers are in denial of. I reckon Ubisoft has the biggest problem with that aspect of fun. In case of Ubisoft, I still believe the original stage I saw. ‘When you create a game to appease everyone, you end up with a game that pleases no one’. It was true in 2014 and it is even more true in 2024. As such these thoughts blended together missing out on arcade style racing. I wonder if these developers are seeing that part of the equation, because as I see it now we have the Amazon Luna developers and they can connect to the Tencent technologies handheld with their software opposing Chinese developers who are on the ball and could soon create a lot more ‘remastered’ IP and they could get away with it. You see players like Electronic Arts let the CBM64 and CBM Amiga IP expire and now the stage evolves for these new indie developers. If they can create a game that is distinct enough, they could create new IP and at that point all the wannabe Microsoft developers are set out in the cold (and not just them). As I see it, as I see what Tencent Technologies is up to, it will soon be another field where the US is fishing behind the net and when these developers are relying on their advertisement incomes, they are merely one step from becoming redundant and I reckon that Apple and Google will be on the same boat. Not merely because of what they proclaim, but it is what HarmonyOS (4.0.0.113 by Huawei) is setting the stage for and the moment that Tencent Technologies opens the door to that option it will not merely gain access to one market, it will gain access to three markets and when the others forget about the fun those others will get their goose cooked. If you think I am kidding, consider the advertisement (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvkMp0JuyPQ) when yo think this through and not hide behind the ‘sexy’ label, we see that Nintendo was right all along and Nintendo figured this out 16 years ago. Preppy and fun was the story and they delivered. In the meantime Microsoft lost a truckload of market share and Nintendo gained on Sony by miles. I like the ad as it is set against the PS3 and I had both (and loved both systems). Now we see that nearly all systems have forgotten about the fun part and a new market for indie developers opens up. With the streaming systems they can create for more than one in one go and now the others will have created a new competitor, merely because they adhered to marketing and business intelligence. The problems is that they are all opposed by a knife with three sides. That knife is awareness, perception and reality, the problem they face is that they are adhering to the wrong voices and forgot about the true fun side of a game (not everyone mind you), so all those developers forgot about one marketshare that is growing fast and is about to become a lot bigger and it is yet another reason why one brand is losing more and more marketshare. All because some of them disregarded the impact of fun and now Google and Apple are about to make that part even worse. So as the older gamers look back in yearning, the new gamers see what they are missing out on and they are about to wise up. At that point who will be in the top three? Sony will be, Nintendo will be and place three? That remains to be seen, but we now have another market where Microsoft ends up in 5th place, which is way behind the pole position they once coveted, once a long time ago. 

Enjoy the day.

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September 18, 2023 · 16:56

The notion

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy Monday.

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September 16, 2023 · 02:30

Sentimental Journey

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy the upcoming weekend.

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September 14, 2023 · 11:44

A lovely surprise

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

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

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

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

Enjoy the day.

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September 13, 2023 · 12:57

Dreamcraft, the specifics

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

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

CSIS director Michel Coulombe as himself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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September 10, 2023 · 21:05

As ideas evolve

This is a story with a few sides. The most prominent side is based on the continuation of Ludum Scriptor, which I wrote 2 days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/09/08/ludum-scriptor/) there is set out a new premise, one that could have larger benefits. You see, as I was evolving certain ideas. One of them was to give football and fantasy football a new tool to provide their thoughts for progressing their game.

An old game for football addicts was Subutteo. We forgot about the old ideas, but they were good ideas. Now consider that with Deeper Machine Learning we an create any football game and as they are virtual and not based on plastic, they will look a lot more like the players. Any team in the world. Football, NFL, NBA, NHL and that list goes on. People can write and blog about their teams, they can write it in any way they want and that was when the wheels went in overdrive. You see, player cards and all kinds of other means could be made available for bloggers all over the world. And that list does not stop, not for some time. You see Deeper Machine learning as a tool for something like I wrote can do more and YOUR imagination can only drive it further.

Why Microsoft will fail
That was my premise and I kept on referring to a chihuahua stating ‘Try Azure, Azure smells nice’ was only to some degree a joke. But someone on LinkedIn gave me an idea.

You see being on par for a year gets you 1 (or 1365), but the smallest increase gets you to 37.7, 37 times the one you were one year later. And then there is the decrease. Even when you consider 0.99365. You end up with a mere 0.03, that is the difference between the innovator and the copycat. Microsoft lost out sixfold and they will lose out more and more. They are buying all kinds of firms, but like in the 90’s it is a recipe for disaster and innovators will walk out, they nearly always do. You see, in the end it will bite their bottom line and soon their board of directors will make knee jerk decisions making matters worse. When I stated I would make my IP public domain before I allow Microsoft access to it I was not kidding. Microsoft is as I personally see it becoming the larger problem in any equation and it does not stop there. I made mention of Deeper Machine Learning. This is awesome, it is not AI (AI does not yet exist) but it got me thinking. You see, we now see mention of AI in construction. This is about to go bad, really bad and Trusting these buildings will become folly soon enough. I will try to explain that soon enough. 

The evolution
I looked at the idea before I figured out that there were 600 million bloggers. I have no idea there are on the Vlogger side, but I expect that we are looking at interesting numbers. There are millions of fantasy football fans, hundreds of millions of sports fans and giving them space to expose that idea to them will offer more and more space others would like to try that option. We are in all effect dipping our toes in the water and all these numbers does not mean success, lets be clear about it. My idea remains that, an idea that could be liked by a lot of people, all that considering that others have done close to nothing, makes my idea stellar to say the least. 

When you consider that and when you consider creating ML and DML tools aiding people will create evolution of their work and optionally more people considering this. Not all people are creative, they merely think that their writing is not enough, these tools will enable those on the fence and that is already a win for the exploring team. What matters is that on the end of the weekend I came up with more, all whilst others seemingly came up empty. A nice end to the weekend. I have been considering additions to the field of Vloggers and also places where vloggers can propagate their work. Bloggers have their own space and for that I have additional ideas too. An active field where we switch the awakening to the pro-active, but that is for another day. I did my cerebral activity to keep me happy, time for some Ravioli.

Enjoy Sunday.

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September 8, 2023 · 23:07

Ludum Scriptor

There was a moment, a mere hour ago that I saw where streaming could get interesting and that is why I am offering it here to Amazon (Luna) and Tencent technologies (handheld). You see, as a blogger, I know that fields evolve and there is a place where the people never were offered to be, but in all this streaming is opening a new door. 

To give this a swing another thing happened. I rewatched a mini series. I loved it since the first time I saw it decades ago and about 15 years ago I got the DVD and today (after at least 5 years) I watched it again. Now consider that mini series Jack the Ripper the one with Michael Caine and Lewis Collins. The first setting is Whitechapel (and the suburbs surrounding it) the stage is as authentic as possible and the Unreal Engine 5 allows for that. To recreate London around 1888 gives the people a sight towards life there, towards how the dark is a lot less appealing that we know it to be. This is not about Jack the Ripper himself, but it will be about the scenery and about a new option. So every person there will be able to create a blog, a story of a person and as you create a person (a he or a she) and you can set the face around your own image. The person you create (tradesman, uniform or other people) will give you an address in London. So now you have a person. You can now create your blog, and it will be held as stories to that individual. You cannot interact with THAT person, but you can interact as your double. Your character will be around where you are located, it will allow others to interact with your person and learn your blogs. You (your avatar) can seek out others and learn their stories. It is a new way to interact, a new way to spread your stories and as this takes off, we could have Mumbai in Victorian times.  San Francisco (around 1907), New York (around 1927) and that list could grow. It has a two sided story, in the first the people get to see and walk around these places in those times. The second is that this would be a new place to propel your stories, your blog, optionally your vlog and it will be a new medium that could grow. They are all trying to hog off new games, but they need underlying knowledge and these places could grow that knowledge and give the people something to do. Pleasing well over 50 million people is not easy and before they all run around like rats in a wheel. You could consider offering a much larger stage, one that keeps them appeased and allows them to appease others. We see all the small options that were, but now with streaming it is an option to think up an entirely new stage and create even more stages. For a small fee these people could copy what they did in their first location (for example $0.50 a month) they get an additional person in a new city (and that same fee for every other location) that could amount to up to $25 million a month for every additional character. And as the quality of the locations improve, the need to watch these places with their own eyes also increase. A new medium that might (or not) be successful. So how many other ideas have you seen floating around? I got to this in under an hour and there are more locations where people might want to go. Paris 1891 (2 years after the Eiffel tower was build), then there is Tokyo, Los Angeles and a whole range of places where we always wanted to be. And as the places evolve the developer can include their own people (celebrities, historical people) and offer even more stories. Will the market be large enough? I honestly do not know but there are 600 million bloggers and there are plenty who want to stand out, so why are we not doing that? I will let it up to you to decide. I wonder what else I can come up with this weekend.

Enjoy the weekend.

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