Category Archives: IT

July 31, 2024 · 16:40

It was never rocket science

Yup, that is the gist of it. And it seems that people are starting to wake up. You see the biggest issue I have had with any mention of AI, is that it doesn’t (yet) exist. People can shout AI on every corner, but soon the realisation comes in that they were wrong all the time will hurt them, it will hurt them badly. And this is merely a sideline to the issue. The issue is Microsoft and lets get through some articles.

1. Microsoft says cyber-attack triggered latest outage
The first one is (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c903e793w74o) where we see “It comes less than two weeks after a major global outage left around 8.5 million computers using Microsoft systems inaccessible, impacting healthcare and travel, after a flawed software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. While the initial trigger event was a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack… initial investigations suggest that an error in the implementation of our defences amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it,” said an update on the website of the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform.” The easiest way of explaining this is to compare Azure to a ball. A foot ball has (usually) 12 regular pentagons and 20 regular hexagons. They are stitched together. Now under normal conditions this is fine. However software is not any given shape, implying that a lot more stitches are required. Now consider that Microsoft 365 is used by over a million corporations. Now consider that a lot of them do not use the same configuration. This implies that we have thousand of differently stitched balls and the stitches is where it can go wrong. This is where we see the proverbial “the implementation of our defences amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it” Microsoft has been so driven by using it all, that they merely advance the risk. And it doesn’t end here. CrowdStrike is another example. We see the news and the fake one person claiming responsibility for it. Yet the reality is that there is a lot more wrong than anyone is considering. These two events pretty much prove that Microsoft has policy and procedure flaws. It is easy to blame Microsoft, but the reality is that we see spin and the trust in Microsoft is pretty much gone. People say “Microsoft’s cloud revenue was 39.3% higher”, yes this is the case, and considering that Amazon was originally a ‘bookshop’, so they went against the larger techies like IBM and Microsoft and they got 31% of the global market share. Not bad for a bookshop. And the equation gets worse for Microsoft, these two events could cost them up to 10% market share. In which direction these 10% go is another matter. AWS is not alone here. 

I was serious about not letting Microsoft near my IP. I had hoped that Amazon would take it (they have the Amazon Luna) but it seems that Andy Jesse is not hungry for an additional 5 billion annually (in the first stage). 

And as Microsoft adds more and more to their arsenal these problems will become more frequent and inflicts damage on more of their customers. Do I have evidence? No, but it wasn’t hard and my example might give you the consideration to ponder where you could/should go next. 

2. Microsoft Earnings: Stock Tanks As AI Business Growth Worse Than Expected
In the second story we see (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/07/30/microsoft-earnings-stock-tanks-as-ai-business-growth-worse-than-expected/) that Forbes is giving us “shares of Microsoft cratered about 7% following the earnings announcement, already nursing a more than 8% decline over the last three weeks” with the added “Microsoft’s crucial AI businesses was worse than expected, as its 29% growth in its Azure cloud computing unit fell short of projections of 31%, and sales in its AI-heavy intelligent cloud division was $28.5 billion, below estimates of $28.7 billion” As stated by me (as well as plenty of others) there is no AI. You see AI would give the program thinking skills, they do not have any. They kind of speculate and they have lots of scenario to give you the conditional feeling that they are talking “in your street” but that is not the case. For this simple illustration we get Wired (at https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-ai-copilot-chatbot-election-conspiracy/) giving us ‘Microsoft’s AI Chatbot Replies to Election Questions With Conspiracies, Fake Scandals, and Lies’, so how does this work? You see the program (LLM) looks at what ‘we’ search for, yet in this the setting is smudged by conspiracy theorists, troll farms and influencers. The first two push the models out of synch. Wired gives us “Research shared exclusively with WIRED shows that Copilot, Microsoft’s AI chatbot, often responds to questions about elections with lies and conspiracy theories.” Now consider that this is pushed onto all the other systems. Then we are treated to “Microsoft’s AI chatbot is responding with out-of-date or incorrect information”, so not only is the data wrong, it is out of date, as I see it what they call ‘training data’ is as I see it incorrect, out of data and unverified. How AI is that? A actual real AI is set on a Quantum computer (IBM has that, although in its infancy) a more robust version of shallow circuits (not sure if we are there yet) and is driven not by binary systems but framed on an Ypsilon particle system, which was proven by a Dutch physicist around 2020 (I forgot the name). This particle has another option. We currently have NULL, Zero and One. The Ypsilon particle has NULL, Zero, One and BOTH. A setting that changes everything.

But the implementation into servers is to be expected around 2037 (a speculation by me) then we get to the thinking programs and an actual AI. So when we see AI, we need to see that is a program that can course through data and give you the most likely outcome. I will admit that for a lot of people it will fit, but not for all and there we get the problem. You see Microsoft will blame all sources and all kind of people, but in the end it will be up to the programmer to show their algorithm is correct and as I am telling you now that it comes down to unverified data. How does that come over to you? 

When you consider that Wired also gave us “it listed numerous GOP candidates who have already pulled out of the race.” The issue of how out of date data is becomes clear. We see all these clever options that others give us, but when some LLM (labeled AI) is un-updated and unreliable, how secure remains your position when you base decision making streams on the wrong data? And that is merely a sales track. 

The last teaspoon is given to us by The Guardian. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/06/microsoft-ai-explicit-image-safety) gave us on March 7th 2024:

3. Microsoft ignored safety problems with AI image generator, engineer complains
So when you consider the previous parts (especially CrowdStrike) “Shane Jones said he warned management about the lack of safeguards several times, but it didn’t result in any action” Microsoft will state that this is another issue. But I spoke about wrong data, out of date data and unverified data. And now we see that the lack of safeguards and inaction would make things worse and a lot faster than you think. You see as long as there is no real AI, all data needs to be verified and that does not seem to be the case in too many setting. I spoke about policy issues and procedural issues. Well here we get the gist “it didn’t result in any action” and we keep on seeing issues with Microsoft. So how many times will you face this? And that is before people realise that their IP are on Azure servers. So how many procedural flaws will your research we driven into until it is all on a Russian or Chinese or North Korean enabled server (most likely by Russia or China, which is a speculation by me).

As such, it was never rocket science, look at any corporation and in their divisions there will always be one person who thinks of number one (himself) and in that setting how safe are you? 

There is a reason that I do not want Microsoft near my IP. I can only hope that someone waked up and give me a nice retirement present ($30M post taxation would be nice).

Enjoy the day.

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July 30, 2024 · 21:03

Rules of the game

It isn’t a statement, it is actually a question. You see, something caught my eye in Al Jazeera today. The article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/30/why-are-conservatives-claiming-google-is-covering-up-the-shooting-of-trump) gives us ‘Why are conservatives claiming Google is covering up the shooting of Trump?’. I took a look and I noticed the given “Google has come under fire from conservatives in the United States amid claims that the tech giant is suppressing information about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in order to influence the presidential election.” Then we see “Google on Monday told NBC News that autocomplete was “not working as intended for some searches about the names of several past presidents and the current vice president”.”

My issue is that there are other matters not being taken into account. I have partial knowledge of this and. Wonder on the stage we are facing. The first stage are the conservatives, the second stage are the influencers and the conspiracy theorists. Let me explain as best as I can. 

We can search for something direct [attempted assassination of Donald Trump] then we have the option [assassination + ”Donald Trump”] they are not the same you see the first one also gives use anything related to ‘attempted’ as such any combination of [attempted, assassination, of, Donald, Trump] will be caught in this. The problem is that the influencers know this, the conspiracy theorists know this and they are always try to put ‘their story’ above all the others. These two groups have elevated their knowledge of the search routines and the in’s and out’s above all others. Because they need their story to come on top.

Now consider these two groups, do you think that they influence the outcome? So when we see “autocomplete was “not working as intended”” the question becomes how to see ‘not working as intended’ I wonder how the other players influenced the ‘not working as intended’. I do not think that Google did anything wrong (speculation on my side), I think that there is more into this. You see what evidence do the Conservatives have? 

So do you think that Kansas Senator Roger Marshall who also accused Google of suppressing information looked into the whole range of this? I doubt it. These man tend to have less than an hour a day to look into matters. The Google setting requires close to a week of several people dedicated to search and autocomplete. Consider the small setting that the world has thousands of dedicated Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) people. Do you think that Google will mess around with that, or is it likely that these thousands as well as the influencers and conspiracy theorists have found a loophole that sets them above all others and when that is the case is there a clear case of malignant Google messing with an autocomplete. The last part is that it is ‘autocomplete’ as such the search could (or should) have been given completely and not via an autocomplete. Oh, and an autocomplete is relying on an anticipated result, yet when these results are pushed by SEO’s, influencers and Conspiracy theorists, what are the changes that the model sways?

All settings that could (not a given) been an influence and there is nothing of that in the Al Jazeera article. But in all this Kansas Senator Roger Marshall got his limelight. So I wonder how many holes I can shoot in that case, after all Donald Trump merely got his ear pierced and not by a qualified piercer. 

Oh and before we end this story, lets not forget that the conservatives use any option they can to get some limelight, did anyone take that into account as well?

Enjoy the day Monday is almost over for me, Vancouver will follow in 17 hours.

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July 29, 2024 · 11:44

A granny named Smith

Yup, it is time to bitch about Apple products. This should be future Apple products. You see for some time I have seen that Apple has been in a wrong course. Lets not talk about to MacBook Pro. That thing actually looks phenomenal, every bit is seemingly impressive. And even though I cannot afford it (at present) the idea of a 96GB RAM with 8TB storage is overwhelming, it is a bit much (not my needs). Yet storage is what every one needs and I would be content with 4TB (and 64GB RAM). That being said, the iMac doesn’t even come close to it.

So as I saw Matt Talks Tech today, I saw the ‘announcement’ of what is to be (in about 16 weeks) and it is not good. As we see Apple doesn’t seem to learn at all. They give the ‘new users’ up to 24GB RAM, which is in many cases enough. It is the storage, still a mere 2TB. For many it would be enough. Yet the settings of 100MP camera’s is setting a new premise. Medium format in the digital field is calling new professionals and then there are the YouTubers and TikTokkers. They will all need Adobe solutions. And the full Adobe users with other software will soon find out that their 2TB hole is filled with the frustration of multiple connections. That is not why I would buy a desktop. They are throwing their market to PC (and Microsoft) troubles. What is up? Apple becomes a sour apple, a Granny Smith. Sour and meant for senile fossils, the newly adapted age of digital influencers is seemingly totally ignored.

The fact that there is no option for 4TB. We know that not everyone needs it, but any Digital streamer or medium format photographer has only the MacBook Pro. They need to be able to set to a desktop screen working in comfort, and the iMac no longer provides. They should have provided for that last year. There is some consideration that this could have come later, but the M4 news shows that the iMac just isn’t up to it (speculation by me). What are they doing? Leaving it all to Dell and HP? 

As somewhat dubiously stated by me, 96GB is a lot, even in digital edition. I would consider 32GB, even that cannot be provided for as the media tells us. More important there is no mention of set aside upgrades by Apple (32GB RAM, 4TB storage), as such whatever they gained in niche markets they are throwing away to the niche graphic designers. These people only have the MacBook Pro to look forward to. This is great, but when you are working at home, it just doesn’t cook the goose. And the setting that it is due in 16 weeks and for another year people have no real option is disturbing, because this implies that the iMac is pretty much done for. No mention of an iMac Pro either. Apple needs to revisit their presentations and what they have coming and they need to do it really fast.
They are opening the market (that they catered to for the longest time) to Asus, HP and Dell. 

So am I right? The idea that Apple is now becoming the sour Apple no one really wants is a bad move to be considering. I stated this before (last year). There are roughly “64 million YouTube creators” at present. Now they don’t all need high end solution, but most of them want something more comfortable than a laptop screen. Even is only 1% needs high end equipment, that still amounts to 640,000 users. I didn’t ever consider the 1,300,000 TikTok creators, many of them are also on YouTube. Oh and when you consider 1% is too low, the losses to Apple get to be worse. I am pretty sure that Asus likes this setting, but when we see that Apple is lowering their expectations, can we be sure this is valid? The second side to this is that the iMac cannot meet these needs, does that mean that the Tim Cook presentations of ‘innovations’ are still valid?

So this seems like a bitch moment (by me) but consider the needs of the many (well over 640K of them). Are they getting deserted by Apple? Oh and the larger Data miners, who all need storage space, how are they served? It seems to me that Apple has been dropping the ball yet again. Perhaps they should adapt the Microsoft logo? (Me rolling on the floor laughing)

Enjoy Monday, apart from the people living in Nova Scotia and eastern from there. They are still on Sunday.

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July 28, 2024 · 11:24

As the idea erupted

This happens, we do one thing and suddenly an idea erupts. In this case I was thinking of the second script that I am generating in Final Draft.

It was a setting that made me think for a moment. And this setting came from the days of the Commodore Amiga. I even was working an reset emulated version of the game in Macromedia Flash, just 1-2 weeks before I suddenly was made redundant. I suddenly had to relocate from Stockholm to Gorinchem when I got screwed over by my previous boss. But the thought got to me and I thought “Wouldn’t this make a great small budget movie?” An ‘almost’ one person movie with its own narration. Most of the movie in a sort of CGI and an interaction with computers and a sort of deserted place. It might not be the Hollywood stage of stories and not really for the big screen, but an idea that a streaming company might like or consider. In a stage where they have to pump billion into material, a low budget might have a much better chance. They can test an actor or actress as well as the director and director of filming in a cheaper setting. As such 3-5 people straight out of film school. I reckon that Pedro Pascal, Tom Hanks, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Steven Spielberg would be too expensive. But there are over 50,000 actors many of them do not have a place in Bel Air, not to mention of the amount of Directors in the field. New players have a hard time getting through. So, here the speculated number race through my head and now there is a viable setting. The stage of using low budget films to create a talent pool of newbies. You know people like Pedro Pascal had a lucky break. Considering he was the man behind Napoleon Dynamite (vote for Pedro), I know I can be quirky (read: funny) at times. Still the premise remains, luck isn’t always available so what then? I believe that low budget movies are part of that key and places like Dubai Media are likely to break through their own confinements and start breaking through into the West European streaming markets. There is an upside to that. When the current borders by Netflix and Disney plus start pushing their own limitations others could be there taking up the slack. You see one source is stating ‘The US will need 22,700 film directors over the next 10 years’, I cannot vouch for the accuracy there. Yet this implies that ever upper level University will need to fight off job offers with a stick for 100% of their art students. I nice setting, but not realistic. Adding a talent pool becomes essential and not merely for these people, they will all need scripts. There are plenty of them around, but how good are they?

These elements put the larger streamers on the spot and those ready to grow could enter new fields. This puts Dubai Media in a nice place and lets not forget iQiyi and Tencent Media either. America might hate all that is Chinese, but I reckon that Europe is more open to this stage. As the mindset goes that in the first century Decimus Junius Juvenalis stated “Give them bread and games and they will never revolt” It was around the age of Emperor Trajan. What strikes me was that no-one considered owning the bakers. It might be merely a coin per bread, however the Colosseum had 50-80 thousand spectators and that makes for a nice penny. And there were more places over the empire of Rome where these places had crowds. Being the admiral of baker makes perfect sense to me. Even today ‘give them bread and games’ applies but in this setting nowadays growing the streaming services makes a lot more sense. And there to centrality of content becomes a new focal point. Everyone is looking towards Hollywood, but there is a problem there. California is losing their focus, they are saturated, so new borders are required. The Middle East and Asia make sense and when Europe finds out that the American prices are getting too high the aforementioned three players as well as other other streamers will see their markets erupt. Not to mention countries like Indonesia and Bangladesh that over these two countries have a little over half a billion citizens, we see a disrupted market. All looking at California and Hollywood to hand them materials, but the ongoing mass emigration of residents and businesses from California to other U.S. states (Texas) or countries is about to leave California is a near desperate state and the desperate need to pay a lot more. That opens the doors for the Middle East and Asia to make their mark. It is almost the proverbial butterfingered aide putting all egg in one basket. 

All that came to me in a near instant (in less than on hour) whilst was contemplating a low budget movie. I have no idea yet how to do that (I have three other projects in my brains) but it is something to keep in mind. Considering that this setting will take time to implode (before 2026) I still have time and until the end of the year I need to focus on the next two projects but Residuam Vitam comes first. 

Enjoy this Sunday 

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July 26, 2024 · 04:42

The misaligned cogs

This is a little hard. I just read an article on the Military hacks by North Korea, it doesn’t fit. Let me explain with a little time line.

2012
The Dutch had a press tour in North Korea. The Koreans confiscated temporary their camera’s and the Dutch were howling with laughter, they still had their iPhones and Android equivalents. They kept on filming. The Korean officers had no idea what a smartphone was, as such the Dutch had all the footage.

2014
Sony get hacked and soon thereafter we get all kinds of ‘leaked’ information. In addition within a year (I have no specific date) we get an amalgamated

The FBI later clarified more details of the attacks, attributing them to North Korea by noting that the hackers were “sloppy” with the use of proxy IP addresses that originated from within North Korea. At one point the hackers logged into the Guardians of Peace Facebook account and Sony’s servers without effective concealment. FBI Director James Comey stated that Internet access is tightly controlled within North Korea, and as such, it was unlikely that a third party had hijacked these addresses without allowance from the North Korean government. The National Security Agency assisted the FBI in analysing the attack, specifically in reviewing the malware and tracing its origins; NSA director Admiral Michael S. Rogers agreed with the FBI that the attack originated from North Korea. A disclosed NSA report published by Der Spiegel stated that the agency had become aware of the origins of the hack due to their own cyber-intrusion on North Korea’s network that they had set up in 2010, following concerns of the technology maturation of the country.

The sources were the New York Times, Times magazine, The verge and CNBC. I had issues with the release of information, but my issues were speculative and based on the Dutch field trip to Korea

2017
In ‘The Good, the Bad, and North Korea’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/09/30/the-good-the-bad-and-north-korea/) I wrote “I got this photo from a CNN source, so the actual age was unknown, yet look at the background, the sheer antiquity that this desktop system represents. In a place where the President of North Korea should be surrounded by high end technology, we see a system that seems to look like an antiquated Lenovo system, unable to properly play games from the previous gaming generation, and that is their high technology?” This is my second opposition. Between 2012 and 2017 they had apparently gained the ability to produce their own smartphone. This is realistic.

2024
Now we get “North Korean hackers have conducted a global cyber espionage campaign to try to steal classified military secrets to support Pyongyang’s banned nuclear weapons programme, the United States, Britain and South Korea said in a joint advisory on Thursday.

The hackers, dubbed Anadriel or APT45 by cybersecurity researchers, have targeted or breached computer systems at a broad variety of defence or engineering firms, including manufacturers of tanks, submarines, naval vessels, fighter aircraft, and missile and radar systems, the advisory said” (at https://www.reuters.com/world/north-korean-hackers-are-stealing-military-secrets-us-allies-say-2024-07-25/).

My issue (still speculation) is two fold. In the first we get to se that the Sony Hack was apparently not North Korea, but the Guardians of peace (the Lazarus group). We see references to “links to” and a small byte that they are “Originally a criminal group”. It is my speculation that these criminal ‘masterminds’ are either Russian or Chinese. They cater to North Korea as it allows them to act freely and I would expect them to share whatever intel they get with North Korea.

Even if these formerly known criminals were behind this setting, the whole picture doesn’t add up. I reckon that we all work at our own speed, however when we see Reuters give us “one elite group of North Korean hackers had successfully breached systems at NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, a small town on the outskirts of Moscow.” I do not debunk that setting, but over the timeline I have seen (many might have seen it), it is possible that this last statement is a smokescreen. Was it breached or were the Russians willing to hand over that ‘victory’ to make them sound more of a threat? In addition when we see “The hackers, dubbed Anadriel or APT45 by cybersecurity researchers, have targeted or breached computer systems at a broad variety of defence or engineering firms, including manufacturers of tanks, submarines, naval vessels, fighter aircraft, and missile and radar systems” I mostly worry about the state of cyber security at our own shores. That they get breached by China or Russia is understandable, They are on par in technology with us. North Korea is not. It is like a hacker with an 80282 AT computer, a processor from 1982 coming up to a server with a Xeon processor stating ‘gimme your data’ It is like a swimmer slamming a great white shark with a BB gun. Utterly ineffective. That is merely the hardware, These hackers would have lacked at least a decade of hacking skills. The NSA and GCHQ would be running circles around them. No, I believe that this is another player making North Korea their patsy. 

Now consider that all (or some) of my speculations are wrong. I get that, this is realistically possible, we still get the stage that the time line doesn’t fit. It is like going from an Apricot PC, to an IBM Q System One in a little over 7 years, without the required resources mind you. The other, more realistic, option is that defence and engineering firms have made a booboo and failed their cyber security requirements and now all avenues are racing to hide these facts. 

Can North Korea get to this point? Yes, that is possible, but it seems to me that ‘western’ criminals are using that place to hide their actions and loot whatever they can, whilst they part time hack into places and hand these secrets over to North Korea. OK, I am still speculating. However, remember that building in Russia filled with hackers? Russian forces had to intervene there. It seems to me that these hackers would like another place to work from. It doesn’t make China innocent either. They might have the same issues and these hackers also need a place to work from. In this story, I merely come to the speculated conclusion that the term ‘North Korean Hacker’ is almost an newly seen oxymoron. 

In all this the cogs are not aligned. In 1776 native American Indians got their hands on rifles. It took time to get good with them. In 1877 Satsuma Rebellion, led by Saigo Takamori faced Japanese forces with modern weapons, it took them time to adequately use these weapons. With the complexity of a system the time line expands. The timeline expands even more when excellence of a system is required. As such I feel that these technology skills do not fit the abilities of the North Koreans. But that is merely my point of view.

Have a great Friday, another 150 minutes until I have breakfast.

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July 19, 2024 · 19:18

A second visit

Well, it might have been a third time that I take a view towards an altered IP. This isn’t mine, it’s actually the property of Microsoft. The first game (Mass Effect) was released in 2007 and Mass Effect 2 was released in 2010. Mass Effect 2 is still regarded by many (and me) as one of the greatest tactical shooters. Mass Effect 3 is good, but it also gave us the greatest multi player shooters ever made. These two elements are the grounds of the massive fanbase of the series. 

The present we got at the launch party is still regarded by me as the coolest ever (see above), all the guests got one with themselves as the SPECTRE agent. 

At the end of game 3 there were a lot of complaints. I think that one was shoddy to some effect and it should have been set better, but the story was awesome. There were 4 endings (I never found the 4th, but I saw it on YouTube). And whilst going into this I accidentally found out another part which I will illuminate soon enough. It seems that Facebook is catering to Microsoft with accusations of spam. But I have my response for Facebook ready. Anyway back to the story. 

The new setting I created was set on the citadel. It happens after the slaughter starts and before Shepard makes its entry. In these weeks (optionally months) we are on the citadel. It has the familiar places (Embassy module and the stages from Mass Effect 2, yet there are a few hundred more places. This is a stealth game.

The story is that an engineer had smuggled his family on board, as such it he/she had a hiding place. As the slaughter (read: ascendancy) continues, this engineer needs to sneak its way around. The first thing that needs to be done is to secure water and sustenance. Also oxygen is needed (for the long haul).

Every place has three versions. The dirty stage (with bodies), the cleaning stage (with keepers) and the clean stage. They all have their own issues. 

One of the stages is to secure personnel manifests (with local celebrity locations), locations of interest and local artefacts. 

The races are Asari, Drell, Elcor, Hanar, Humans, Keepers, Salarians, Turians, Volus, Batarians, Geth, Krogan, Quarians, Vorcha, Yahg. The races in bold are the selectable races. In the citadel the Batarians, Quarians, Vorcha and Yahg have no embassy. As such they are the harder species to play. The Quarians (when found) will have information on the Geth. The Turians have data on Vorcha and Yahg and so on. As the game progresses once you have the data, you will face a setting where you have to install monitors all over the station to record what is happening as well as to set alarms so you can sneak your way around the station. You need to get a electronic shroud (a sort of digital cloak), enhance your hiding place as well as creating a few others where you can heal and rest in safety. In normal play the game will ignore several issues, but in hard more it will ‘see’ recording devices and start a hunt for you. Once this starts, you will have to set up a decoy to reset the alarm, the hiding place will be lost forever. 

To set this up it is more then a simple matter. The keepers are thorough in cleaning, as such it will be important to remain invisible. The largest issue I see isn’t merely locations, This place is huge. 

As you can see it is quite big. One idea is to set the stage by race (and most of the game on one of the platforms. It requires one huge LLM with deeper machine learning to create the levels. As I see it, per race you will need up to a dozen buildings (skyscrapers) to cover essential needs for the game. You will have to get the hardware you require for the tasks. The shopping district (ME2) should give you a camera and digital storage. No weapons in this game, however an idea comes to mind to get something like a mining laser (to cut through matter) and tools to open other areas.

Although the game seems straight forward. The idea came to me that the maker optionally have loads of other lore and concept art that they never used in the game. There would be use for them here. Also, other races would have data on humans like the illusive man, Shepard and so on. 

The larger setting I see is how to create a sphere of thrill and suspense that makes a stealth game, a stealth game. You see in ‘cheaper’ stealth games you carry everything making you a bulkier version of you with a backpack 15 times the size of you. So it is important to set the ‘sneak factor’ to find upgrades and better hardware to do the job. The shopping district will have a version one or two of an essential tool, but better versions need to be found. In addition to that, to set the tools to a random location requires a more spiffy setting. Or as they say, to be placed in ulterior locations where we have 1000 places it could be, but with references on items in logs (embassy and security). Then there is the idea of replayability. So as the citadel has hundreds of buildings per pillar, the stage comes that in a second game (with the same race) you will get confronted with different buildings. Similar but not identical, which gives new vibes to the game.

So, whilst we all see what Microsoft is up to with more rehashing the same idea. I took one look at a great game and created (optional) new IP in a day. This is why I see Microsoft as an agent of mediocrity. Now I will accept that this is not enough. More is needed to make this a great game, but I got them this in under a day (it is basically Microsoft IP). So feel free to to wonder what Microsoft is blundering around. If I can get this done in under a day, what are they seeking to rehash the old days? Don’t get me wrong I played Age of Mythology when it released in 2002 and it is a great game, optionally to play again. But considering all the IP they have (or should have) this is not enough. Lets face it they have GREAT IP. The Flight Simulator (2020) has truly become a great game (it was always great). It is a niche market, but for those into flight simulators it is the bees knees. Bioware had many great games. My personal favourite in D&D (Neverwinter nights, 2002) is still one of the greatest fantasy games ever. Both Dragon Age and Jade empires (not my favourites) are good games, where are they now? The problem is that some games need their scope readjusted. To coin an idea, the Multiplayer version of Mass Effect 3 could have been launched on the Xbox series X as a free to play game on that console. And free to play is important is important. They can still offer the loot boxes in the same way they did. For points fought over, or for a few dollars. And there is a market. This game is still played after 12 years. The is one hell of an achievement for a game released in 2012. So why didn’t Microsoft act? I got to the top 1% of players in 2013, there were over 1.2 million players at that point. Considering that the PS5 outsells the Xbox-X by 5:1 I would think that they squandered their markets. And this is a game that can flock hundreds of thousands to the Xbox (in addition to any other system), and no one thought this was a good idea?

As I personally see it Phil Spencer was all about capturing the player base (read: legally stealing), yet the the idea of bolstering its player base by offering playability was seemingly lost to him. And his hard times are yet to come. As I see it I might not have another option but to hand my IP to Tencent technologies. Partially this idea comes as Facebook removed my previous post under the fake guise of spam, which was not the case. The idea has merit as within two years Facebook would lose millions of advertisers. Troll farms create a lot of traffic, but not a lot of commerce, merely fake locations to advertise to, when retailers figure that part out, they will find another place to go to and there is my solution. I saw this three years ago, Whilst everyone was diving for digital dollars any way they could. I saw that the power of it all relies on engagement. And a troll farm only ‘seemingly’ engages. True engagement is seen elsewhere. That is the achilles heel of Facebook and the strength of Amazon (Tencent optionally too). So as I see it Microsoft lost out two times. Didn’t you wonder why Chrome has a market share of 65% and Edge a mere 5%? They aren’t looking in the wrong direction, they aren’t looking in the proper place to begin with. And I added my gaming idea as optional evidence part N. 

A setting overlooked due to the principle of spin. So whilst Microsoft relies on ‘The most powerful console in the world’, Sony and Nintendo are relying on the factor of fun and play and they are winning This year Nintendo had 123,000,000 players. Sony has 118,000,000 players. Now compare that with Microsoft and their 27.7 million consoles. And Tencent technologies is knocking at the door taking optionally more market share away from Microsoft. That is how bad it will get and I saw this 3 years ago. This is why I tried to get the solution to Kingdom Holding (so far no luck). In this environment Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud could score big, optionally the largest gain they ever had (speculative thinking by me). 

My weekend has stated, in Vancouver the day is only starting. Enjoy!

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July 18, 2024 · 20:53

Doubt it if you want

I got another message last night on me claiming that Google drops stuff and that I was sitting on IP worth billions. They all want the complete rundown, but these wannabe claimers and optional IP thieves want another freebee. I can do you one better. 

The setting is that your phone takes an image of any text and google Translate will translate the image. That was recently. Or better stated I got an advertisement on the matter today and things just clicked in me. You see (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/13/looky-looky/) which I wrote on February 13th 2022, so well over two years ago. I gave the setting that we see now. In my version I used Google glasses with a bluetooth link to the mobile. It was a setting to a new Watchdogs game. Now we get ‘the real deal’ that Google can translate it. Now, I am not claiming that they stole my idea. Google does its own thing and there is even a large chance that they never saw my story. So, what am I trying to say? Well I have been in IT over 40 years. I got into IT in the beginning of the 80’s. When you are that connected to hardware, software and IP. Your mind designs one, the other, or a combination. It is a natural setting. So when I stated that Amazon Google et al left billions on the floor, I was not kidding. The article ‘looky looky’ gives the example that I was ahead of Google by two years (more likely one year, the application did not write itself) as such they have a good idea and they made it work. I was venturing in another direction, one that Google rejected. As such only Amazon and Tencent Technologies remained (Apple as a possible third) The fact that Amazon left these billions on the floor as well made me go tsk, tsk, tsk. Now in the given example with the Google Glasses it was the story towards a game, nothing more. 

So consider that I was able to set the stage (a partial design) of what Google is not able to do. Once they connect to google glasses it comes close to exactly what I had in mind. As such I am speculating that I was three years ahead of them. As such I feel comfortable with the setting that 50 million console in stage one and up to 250 million consoles would be possible (any higher is possible, but I remain driven to conservative numbers) and in this in 4 territories are the focal point. Once this goes towards a massive crowd whomever goes that way will see a lot more revenue. Consider that this streaming solution would break the record that the PlayStation 2 had with 155 million consoles, the most successful console in history. I merely did this by expanding the scope of a console. That was the setting that Amazon and Google left on the floor. In a time when they are all shedding jobs, they overlooked in excess of 5 billion a year (based on my numbers) in the first phase. In addition to this recent numbers from the sources give a rise to speculate that it is possible (depending on production) that the 50,000,000 consoles would be reached within a year and that is less than 10% of a population in three regions and there are at least 9 more regions, so I am confident on my numbers. Amazon and Google left that much on the floor (Microsoft is not welcome here). So when you see that I came up with an idea more than two years ahead of Google, wonder what more they left lying around? I am an IT brain. There is every chance that other people have a different focus that people (and me) do not have. So what can you come up with? I merely focus on gaming and IoT. There is a lot of settings that others can see because their focus is there. A year before that I contemplated that these Walking tours on Youtube could be used by Google to consider a new trace. You see wouldn’t a walking tour video be more interesting if a retail client on that tour could place its advertisement in that video (close to where the shop actually is)? Consider that we got in April 2024 “buyers aged 18-34 are 130% more likely to book a showing if there is a virtual tour available for a listing” and several walking tour makers have well over 100,000 followers. That is real money and that is a real population. I mentioned this around 2020, so what did Google do about that? I still get all kinds of nonsense advertisement. So how much did Google miss out on in this setting? I don’t know, there is a lot I do not know on this, but it is possible that Google does not know that either. Perhaps it is not profitable enough. But what was true in 2020, might represent serious cash in 2024. Johnny Strides (Toronto) has 111K subscribers. Several Dubai video’s have almost 900K views. This is a direct population. People with interest in a topic is a population that engages with the maker (by watching and optionally with feedback), so what happened? Was generic pumping of advertisement enough? With so many fake accounts and farms, at some point Google will be requested to up the quality of their ‘population’. When that happens and advertisement can no longer be seen as a direct marketing channel. They will have to change gears, or they can start to up the quality of their viewers. Two simple examples and as soon as the 5G option for real estate starts elevating real estate in a place like Dubai the numbers start adding up. They had in Q1 2024 $29.9 billion. If this solution would only add 1% (I thing it might be as high as 3%), that amounts to an additional $229,000,000 And that is only ONE CITY. So what about London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco? You still think this is merely a bluff? All directions that Google should have done already and they didn’t. But they were were ‘eager’ to state two months ago “the company is “simplifying our structures to give employees more opportunity to work on our most innovative and important advances and our biggest company priorities, while reducing bureaucracy and layers.” Which is optionally their way of stating that they shedded 12,000 jobs. I just gave them two reasons to not do that, well one reason, they already dropped the Google Stadia, they never saw the 50 million consoles option, which leaves Amazon, optionally Apple and Tencent technology. Are you starting to see that they (others as well) dropped the ball?

All levels of people are rehashing the view of others on AI and IoT (Internet of Things). So why don’t they act what they preach? Oh and my real estate is merely one channel of a much bigger setting. Real estate was merely the most visible one, but not the only one. 

So have a great day and enjoy the upcoming Friday, for me that day is only 3 more hours away.

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July 6, 2024 · 12:15

Taking a step to the left

Something just hit me (ouch). I was wondering about people learning Arabic. I have been contemplating this. However I do not have a job requiring me to learn it. Still, the idea was in my brains and I contemplated things that would help me (without taking classes). You see we can always to some extent revert to books.

And as you see there is a a way to do this (might not be the most efficient way). As I was contemplating this I remember something from my Japanese lessons (years ago). They had a card  set they had two half (like a domino stone) there was an image of something at the top. And the beginning letter at the bottom. It looked something like the image at the bottom. 

The Japanese version is slightly different, but the idea stands (if this translation is in error, I apologise, my knowledge of Arab is is zilch, zero, rien, non-existent). Still, the thought was there Arabic has 28 letters, it could be supplemented with cards stating the days of the week, the months in a year and so on. It could be a set up to 75 to 100 cards and sold at a bundle. Now considering that there are plenty of Chinese people trying to learn the language at present. Added to that is the premise (given by pro-literacy) that 50,000,000 within the 22 Arabic speaking nations that cannot read of write. A tool like that could be useful. If the literacy needs to be evolved, having tools that empower such a setting needs to be spread more rapidly. Now I have no idea if such a card set exists, the fact that I never seen one is no indication. The internet does not give one either. So there are indications that this is an idea that someone in Saudi Arabia or the UAE could use to optionally make someone rich. There is nothing I can do because I do not know any Arabic. But with all the people that Saudi Arabia is trying to get for jobs. This is merely a tool that enables these people to learn Arabic faster, it is merely a thought I am having. 

Have a great weekend.

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July 4, 2024 · 20:03

In the beginning

Two issues came to light, the first one is about an American cop. The BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c72ver6172do) where we see ‘A Bugatti car, a first lady and the fake stories aimed at Americans’. We are given “A network of Russia-based websites masquerading as local American newspapers is pumping out fake stories as part of an AI-powered operation that is increasingly targeting the US election, a BBC investigation can reveal.

A former Florida police officer who relocated to Moscow is one of the key figures behind it.” We knew this, it is nothing new. The Dutch company Trollrensics is actively hunting down trolls and illustrating all the fake news we see (well most of it anyways). This article brought a small art to light that requires actions by both Amazon, Google and Microsoft. You see the BBC gives us “But before the truth could even get its shoes on, the lie had gone viral. Influencers had already picked up the false story and spread it widely”. This is a dangerous setting. Influencers are all about the traffic, they mostly lack integrity and have no clue on the desire to gain followers and their desire to get their golden YouTube sign. 

It is time that the United States and the European Union start to pressure these tech firms to chastise these influencers. If they cannot give ample validation of how they got the evidence how they verified the authenticity they get the full brunt of the consequences. If they are found spreading fake news, their Google rating is diminished, their video’s are all downgraded. And their video’s are skipped in searches unless a person asks for this (former) influencer by name (at which point several people can find the seekers). It is a little crude but the Russians are becoming too much of a nuisance. Oh, and by the way if they follow through on the threat to bomb the Netherlands, I will put my nuclear deterrent (a solution to make a nuclear reactor meltdown) on every BBS in Chechnya. See how they like that condition. Russia made enough enemies, if they have to protect every nuclear reactor in Russia they will lose 15% of their deployable troops protecting buildings they never had to before. Actions are needed and no one is doing them, they are all concerned with the bottom line. You see spreading fake news and false information is not a freedom. In this day and age it is a duty of everyone to not spread fake news and misinformation. Now I understand that not everyone is able to distinguish fake news from real news. I usually seek two official sources (the Guardian, BBC, Al Jazeera, Arab News, Washington Post, Boston Globe, LA Times) there are more but you get the gist. The complication is John Mark Dougan, an American ex-cop. Just questioning. Why would anyone in Florida relocate to Moscow? No matter how valid his reason is. As we are given “an AI-powered operation that is increasingly targeting the US election” we are given the notion that this is all about Trump (my speculation) and it goes from bad to worse. As such I need to do something. I am not a man of action (when you pass the 60 mark that happens) but I have a decent imagination to look outside of the box. Russia has 38 active nuclear reactors. They collectively have 200,000 people working there. Consider that the Russians would need to check them all, secure them all. That implies thousands of troops. Then they need to inspect all new arrivals. It will be a nightmare I reckon. In the mean time they face Chechnya and Pro Ukrainian Russian troops. Plenty to worry about and with the solution out in the open, the Russians get a new danger and optionally their other enemies come out of the woodwork. 

But that is another matter. For now we need to take care of the influencers. They are the first hurdle to stop traction of fake news. In this Amazon, Google and Microsoft could change the rating of anyone spreading fake news, Google especially. Put their ratings to minus 150 and the influencers seize to be a relenting problem. Remove these accounts and their flocks disperse. Now I am not sure if Google can do that. You know that any account holder of a Google/Youtube account has rights. Just changing this on the fly does not go over well. But Google can stop the fake news from spreading, they can also look at the followers of that influencer. But I get ahead of the issues. Something needs to be done and not enough (as far as I can tell) is being done. 

Enjoy the day.

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June 29, 2024 · 12:00

As limits are reached

The Khaleej Times give us (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/uae-summer-switch-off-non-essential-appliances-for-one-hour-every-day-urges-sharjah-authority) ‘UAE summer: Switch off non-essential appliances during peak hour daily, urges Sharjah authority’ where it starts with “Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority said the Conservation Hour or Peak Hour initiative will start in July and last until September” with the additional “Along that line, the authority has called on those living in Sharjah to participate in an initiative called Conservation Hour or Peak Hour from July to September”, for those unaware Sharjah is directly North of Dubai. The addition given is “The initiative will require residents to switch off non-essential electrical appliances during peak hours, which is from 2:30pm to 3:30pm, every day”, this situation was going to happen and it will be a global problem. I raised the issue in January 2023. The first part was in ‘Inactivity by the overpaid‘(at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/01/13/inactivity-by-the-overpaid/). There I raised “There will be a power shortage by 2030. Personally I think that he is overly optimistic. I would reckon that clear shortages will be visible no later than 2027 in the Netherlands” In this Article I raised the issue that I made in May 2022 and again in June 2022. There I looked at solutions. There were a few sides and Dubai would benefit from that solution. Part of that solution was given in ‘Will you feel frisky?’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/28/will-you-feel-frisky/). There you see that the concrete that sets the floors/ceilings have space in every building to leave a mica underground, with on top of that solar panels. Now ads I see it Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah all have hundreds of buildings that benefit from these panels (the sunny side of the building) In my case I illuminated London as well as Austin Texas the day before. However this is now a race. There is a limit on solar panels. First one in, the less limitations that place has. As we now see, Sharjah is at present the first to step on the breaks. 6 years before the NOS (Dutch news media), as such I believe that the limitations will be seen all over Europe in the next two years, depending on the summers. London, Paris, Orleans, Cannes, Nice, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, and several other places. In my view I see the following solution:

The mat with the solar panel. That panel is set to be connectable to other mats, I envision a sort of Scalextric (that old racing game) connection on one side the can be connected to a wire, that connect the panels on the separate levels to a battery on top of the building. I just used the Tesla solution, but other solutions could be used. Depending on the size of the building it would be an expected 2 x 2 or 4 x 2. So that one side can be fully charged and the other set of batteries is used to fuel the net. 

Now this solution does not fully solve it (initially), but it will reduce the stress on the electricity net. As more buildings are fitted out with this solution, more stress on the electricity net is reduced. I reckon that two dozen buildings all over Sharjah might reduce the pressure enough for the peak pressure to go away. And it will push a zero carbon setting too. 

All this is not a given, but I reckon that Chinese developers will see this as a way to come in as this path could see billion in revenue. Tesla has the battery advantage, I have no idea what China has in this area. You know what is the most striking one? I had in part the solution here in this blog two years before the rest had admitted that there is a power problem coming our way. The issue becomes that as time passes, not enough time will remain to implement the solution as well as the given that too many places at the point need this solution all at the same time and no one will be able to deliver this solution. To give a rough estimate Manhattan, Texas and Los Angeles will need a rough 12000 batteries. London is another 3500 batteries and I have no idea what the EU will need. Consider that one source gave the 2030 option, it would imply that at least 20,000-35,000 batteries are needed. I am certain that these numbers are hard to reach. So that leaves the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Australia and several other countries. Soon enough it will become a rat-race for the components. 

Enjoy Saturday, preferably with all appliances still getting power.

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