Category Archives: IT

November 16, 2023 · 01:48

Time of the signs

This is the stage we at times face. It is not a sign of times. Time was not the operator here, the signs were and some remained in denial. One of the better game reviewers (Eurogamer) gave us ‘More people are playing Skyrim on Steam than Starfield’ today (at https://www.eurogamer.net/more-people-are-playing-skyrim-on-steam-than-starfield). There are a few issues, but that is not on Eurogamer. We get the setting that on Steam Skyrim versus Starfield ends up being 15,386 – 11,563, as such on steam a 12 year old program has more traction than Starfield. Skyrim is great, it still is. Skyrim was a 90%+ game and that matters, good games always do, all whilst Starfield is barely getting above 80%, in one case it is a mere 70%. That is the impact of mediocrity and Microsoft has spend billions on that. 

In contrast, Sony’s Spiderman 2 has sold over 5 million copies. Compare that to the Starfield list of what some say is “the game sees over 504074 daily players on average”, a mere 10%.

A game that is shooting itself in the foot by being merely on 2 systems. It was the right of Microsoft to bar it from Sony systems, they did spend all that money, but now the stage changes. New (and at times free IP) will be pushing in on that field and with the small announcement that “It’s fair to say, it will probably be a while before we hear anything more about how The Elder Scrolls 6 is progressing” the new players get almost free reign with creating RPG IP and that setting gets worse for Microsoft when the Tencent Technology handheld is released. 

So we see that modders are trying to improve the program, we see more and more that Starfield was not worth the hype, although with the lack of games that Microsoft has on its contraption, it might be the only thing on that system. In the meantime we see Sony pushing ahead and they did not have to spend a total of around $80,000,000,000 for Bethesda, Mojang and Blizzard their goose is properly cooked. We see all kind of half baked release signals by no one is setting the stage of what ACTUALLY will be released and when. In the meantime Microsoft will ned up with more and more competitors. And we get it Bethesda will not rush ahead and that is fine and perhaps they will create a new titan in RPG, they basically have done that 4 times already, but this time around 108,000,000 gamers are not connectable as Microsoft is making Bethesda games exclusive to their system and that includes the 40 million PS5 players. The not so nice part for Microsoft is that if there is even one successful new RPG IP, Microsoft will miss out on a lot more and after all that money they spend, what a shame. And with some stating on Redfall “Very mediocre game at launch. Combat feels sluggish and unpolished. Characters and dialogue are uninteresting” is merely one side, you see that proper game testing is essential and as I see it that baton was passed in both Redfall and Starfield. You see when we are given “Bethesda released another Starfield beta update, its second such patch in November” my mind wanders in another direction. You see the game was OFFICIALLY released on September 6th 2023, so why do we see ‘beta’ patches months later? And when you start looking, you will find a lot more. You see, none of that is fair on Bethesda, yet as they are now part of Microsoft, they will endure a lot more and the Arkane failure (Redfall) didn’t help much. Now their last straw will be a news Elder Scrolls and that is seemingly not out until 2025, as such several developers will have the field to create something that holds up to scrutiny and when they do the damage will be on Bethesda (and as such on Microsoft too). They already have felt damage from the Horizons games (both of them) and number three is coming. When is utterly unknown but if they get it out before the end of 2024 Microsoft will be handed another painful defeat and now it is AFTER they spend all those billions. The stage I tried to push for is coming to terms and should Tencent Technologies (or Amazon) take my share towards 50 million users, Microsoft will diminish. None of this is fair on Bethesda, but that is what they signed up for and the steam numbers show that they had glorious days, but a lack of gamers is about to undo whatever they created between 2005 and 2019. It saddens me because Bethesda had great gaming moments. Even now I am hoping that Oblivion and Fallout 3 will make it to PS5, these games were that good. But the Microsoft stage is different and leaves no place for Sony. The one fear I have is that they will create some kind of portal to capture user data of all Sony players. There is absolutely no evidence for that, but Microsoft needs data, it lacks data. Google has one side, Amazon has another side and Sony and Nintendo have the final side. A triangle of data and Microsoft is the piggy in the middle and that game is already frustrating with merely two players against the piggy, in this setting (as I personally see it) Microsoft is wearing itself out a lot more than Don Quixote rushing after windmills and in all that the profit they seek is no Dulcinea. 

It is at best the old hag from some old movie we all forgot about.

It is the time of the signs and one of those signs are the old days, the old days where developers saw that fun was a determining factor, something too many developers have forgotten about. I wonder how many other developers Microsoft will drag down before they realise that they are merely making it harder on themselves to hold onto anything at all. When it was merely one console it was fine, but now it is billions in several directions and the hardship is merely increasing from what already is and with 2 more players adding into that field the setting becomes unsustainable for Microsoft and as such for a player like Bethesda as well. Perhaps they will create the next Elder Scrolls to be a 95%+ game and I hope that they do, because it will up the level of games all over the field, at present it is not likely to increase gaming quality, sad. Really really sad.

The latter part of the week is now in play for me. I wonder what I will find in 16 hours.

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November 15, 2023 · 13:23

Considerations

We all have them and in this I am no different. As I was mulling things over, my mind saw the end of season 3 of Kenos Diastima. Things were falling into place and even as I was going in that general direction, my mind set in place the specifics of that setting. As these cogs turn and turn I was seeing the setting that got the story to there, and I have forever in the stage to end that series at season 3, a story with an open ending. Like the famous director Terry Gilliam I love open endings. A stage where the viewer gets to mull over what comes next. It leaves me with a sense of accomplishment. In that same way I also considered additions to the last two episodes of Engonos. On that note, I thought I had put the story here already. However I did not find the image.

My mind saw an additional cog, an additional layer to add to the story to the conclusion of season You see, what if we add a pinch, a setting for more and it is all linked to the fountains of Tartarus. These fountains were the ingenuity of Heaphestus and they are surrounding the palace of 

Hades. As I recall there are 32 of them in three styles. The image you see merely represents (to some degree) one of the styles, but they are important and they aren’t nice and they are also a form of defence for the palace. The inner layer being eternally protected by the damned Myrmidon. They are not nice and they never will be. They are kept in place as they ignored the orders given to them and grandpa was always a stickler for rules. Those who weren’t oath breakers but slide the rules of the ‘game’ off the beat end up in eternal service of Hades and he does not waste. Myrmidons were trained better than any other soldier in that time and they were ‘rewarded’ with eternal protection of the palace. It is all they know and they do not play nice. As such his lair is plenty protected, not that anyone would want to attack it. One does not attack the lair of a god, not even in Tartarus.

So as my mind started to make sense of the developing story I saw that I had already opened the link with Heaphestus, so that part is good, I merely have to add a few tiny bits and that part is clear. As I was going over all that the story I handed out yesterday on a Final Draft project management starts making more sense, becomes more clear and more defined. Locations, people, objects optionally a graphical representation of all the elements. In that stream of data the story is disassembled into elements and as such anything missing or unconnected becomes clear, shows up clearly and that allows for a better story a more robust narration and it all improves the quality of the story. As FX had as a slogan ‘the story is everything’ especially to a story teller. But everyone, including me needs the right tools. With Pages a writer writes the story, but we all get it that for a script Final Draft is the better tool. I reckon that as you have more projects, managing any project becomes the top need. 

So as my mind is tinkering with Onganos and Kenos Diastima I also see that the season 2 midpoint will need work and it all makes sense. Not everything should be in a cliffhanger. I have nothing against them, but at times a mid season conundrum fuels the soul of the watcher, making it a more defined experience. All this and soon there is more on other matters too, but that will be for later today.

Enjoy the upcoming mid-week. 

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November 14, 2023 · 11:00

A gap preceding a gap

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

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

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

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

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

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

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November 9, 2023 · 17:07

The dark mark

We all have it, a dark mark. For some it is jealousy, for some it is envy and I have one dripping with creativity. You see dark marks aren’t always set to the seven deadly sins, or are in any way connected to them. OK, there tends to be a connection to lust and desire whenever we act. There is also the claim some make that our actions tend to be induced by lust, pride and/or vanity. And I get that, but what happens when it is not the seven deadly sins? What happens when the push is a simple mere exercise of creativity?

That is where I found myself this morning. I am currently rewatching NCIS and during season 7 which is on right now I (my mind) suddenly redesigned a new kind of gun, one that makes nearly all forms of ballistics useless. A form that redesigns a new kind of barrel and when an element is changed, merely one element, most of the ballistic tests fall through the floor and make them obsolete and optionally redundant. 

Is this a good thing? I don’t think so, but the larger setting wasn’t to give the law a hard time, it was about the simple setting that any test can be overruled and overwritten. Even as I come up with a new idea ballistic tests will be upgraded. Yet in the mean time defence attorneys all over the world (where common law is in place) will have a new handle to include enough to create reasonable doubt. All these issues are a simple consequence through the vitriolic well that others pushed me into and now my mind becomes a mind forever voyaging and through that more and more creativity is released. First there was the idea to create a new way to meltdown a nuclear reactor and all I had to create this idea was a simple snow globe. As I also saw the issues with deployment and hiding the solution, I designed a new kind of valve and I also created a new spray paint canister, one that can alter colour on the spot. I described the foundation of that in ‘After a fact to begin a fact’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/16/after-a-fact-to-begin-a-fact/). A simple solution I never saw in the shops, but these solutions would have multiple applications and now I have created a new solution to upset ballistic tests. 

The larger station is not why I did it. At times I cannot control my creativity. I considered a new way for a tracking system (a highly flawed one), but it was a solution I never considered before. Then I had the nuclear solution, which was to stop Iran, but over time I figured it could possibly  work on the Russian systems too. Then I had some ideas on cyber protection for flying equipment of the airforce. Some of them might have been solutions that DARPA considered and rejected for whatever valid reason I am unaware of. 

The idea I believe that is in play is an image I added to ‘IP Intoxication’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/05/27/ip-intoxicating/). As I place it, where I am now is beyond the edge of what is, because as I see it, that is where innovation lies and that is (a personal believe) is where too many big-tech companies are not willing to be. You see, it is much easier to iterate and market that as innovation and I personally believe that is where Microsoft is and that is why they lost battles eight times over to Sony, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Huawei, Adobe and Google. It sounds harsh, but that is where it all is. the setting of the next tech-war will be who has the most innovative ideas. And all that time Microsoft is delusional even to itself. You do not lose eight times over unless there is a massively wrong point of view in place and that is why I will not allow them near my IP. 

But this is not about Microsoft, it is about my dark mark. I know I have it because if I didn’t have a dark mark, the ballistic solution would never have come to mind. And even as I was delusional myself at some point (making claim that Me vs DARPA was 3-0) the larger setting was that I personally believed it was a reality. But there is also the simple fact that an idea is no guarantee to a working solution. I get that, but it is time to watch a little more NCIS so that I can watch season 20 tomorrow (I will skip 12 seasons and rewatch those after I saw season 20). 

All in all I wonder what I will come up tomorrow, hopefully a new idea for a new game which would make it not a dark mark element.

One day away from Friday, hip hip hurrah.

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November 5, 2023 · 20:15

The second confirmation

Today I saw the second confirmation. China is now ahead and I am unlikely to ever see a dime of this IP. This is OK, but in that same setting neither will Microsoft and that makes me happy somehow, it shows that I was ahead of them by well over 3 years. It also shows that statement I made (several times) that Amazon and Google were dropping the ball, now the field gets to be a little clearer.

I gave some of the load in ‘Girdle your loins’ on November 30th 2022 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/11/30/girdle-your-loins/) even as I mentioned there and in pieces over the two years before that that I was onto something, but Amazon rejected my offer and now as I see it Tencent Technologies is close to complete to get at least 50 million subscriptions, surpassing Microsoft almost overnight and trivialising (to some degree) the Amazon Luna. Google had already vacated the area, but now the game changes. If Tencent is able to keep the consumer trust, they will become the new top three players in Gaming and GaaS. You see, I made mention that the ‘G’ was gaming, and I saw today that several indie developers are on the mark with what I predicted. Microsoft spinning their Xbox360 arsenal, all whilst they left billions on the floor and it is starting to show, the moment the numbers on the Tencent Handheld start to flood the market, now with the Middle East squarely behind this, their 50 million will grow to over 150 million and that was the simple setting no one saw, or too many were willing to ignore in favour of their own ego’s. I don’t have an ego (well, I might be in denial there). I saw the solutions and I saw a few more, so I can lose some IP, I have more, but the larger benefit is that once the others see what they are losing out on, they will want some of the other IP and that is my meal ticket. They can of course wait until it is too late and hand even MORE to China, but that would be on them. The fun part was that Google had a larger option to win this all, they left it on the floor. I know why, and that does not matter. It was THEIR call and they were allowed to do what they did, but now we see another field that will soon be in the hands of China and all the US crybabies will not matter. The thoughts were clearly online, clearly in Public Domain and everyone can see how they fell short. I feel good. Really really poor, but good.

And for those in doubt, when was the last time you left 25% of the population of this world on the floor as an optional consumer base? It is a simple enough question, it was not really that hard. 

Enjoy Sunday, a full working week ahead for you.

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November 5, 2023 · 19:36

Thinking towards the past

This is the first part, the second part is not related to this in any kind, but I just got a second confirmation from Beijing and it matters towards this as well. You see, the first part is merely for (or on) Apple. The article (at https://www-bleepingcomputer-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/apple/apple-find-my-network-can-be-abused-to-steal-keylogged-passwords/amp/) comes from Bleeping Computers and the text ‘Apple ‘Find My’ network can be abused to steal key-logged passwords’ seems to be worrying and it very well might be. We see graphics and we see the setting of the consumer (yet again) getting screwed over because BigTech wanted ALL the data they could get. This is not an accusation, this merely is what it is and Apple is not as innocent as many others. 

Yet I thought back to around 1990. In the Netherlands someone came up with a solution named Aegon LAR and it was an awesome solution. The solution does not matter, but the approach to it does. You see, Apple had the longest of times to get a solution in place. The solution was to pair one device to a ‘master’ and THAT master alone. We could set it to daily, weekly, or even monthly. With the optional setting to send one more bleep when the power is down to 5%-15%. 

It would need to be paired by the owner at the beginning and we could pair through an app to PC’s, to our mobiles (iOS or Android) and so on. So instead of getting “They integrated a key-logger with an ESP32 Bluetooth transmitter into a USB keyboard to show that it’s possible to relay passwords and other sensitive data typed on the keyboard through the Find My network via Bluetooth”, Apple had the option to create a service where EVERY Apple user had an option to relay a clear message to ONE receiver instead of someplace abusers could hijack anything you have. But I suspect that the powers that be at Apple wanted more data and now it could cost the consumer a lot more than they thought. The fact that ‘Find My Network’ could be abused is no small issue and I do expect that Apple has been on this from the start, but as I fear the need for data exceeded the need for safety as this article highlights and that is a problem and not just for Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM and Microsoft. The moment players like Huawei and Tencent Technologies SHOW the people that they are more reliable they will gain marketshare and a lot more and a lot faster than ever before. Don’t forget that the western consumer base was never given actual and explicit evidence of any Huawei transgressions. A mere settled case of 2011 was at the most given and that was not showing ay interference by the Chinese government, merely an optional oversight by Huawei.

Getting back to the Apple issue, it needs to be said that I found more voices all quoting the same voice, so there isn’t a second independent voice. It lowers reliability. I am saying that upfront, one voice is not a given but a worrying setting none the less. The larger issue that is this (at www.Heise.de) is correct, the setting is a worrying one, especially if there was a 1990 solution that could have enabled more consumer safety. My setting comes from the front of my mind and it is not tested, but at least I am trying to relate a solution, not merely state that bit one and bit zero indicate that you are either 10 or 17 years old (a byte of a joke). 

Now we have a larger stage, the media at large did not touch this even as the news is more than 2 days old, so in light of all the new Apple products, was this not tested (optionally debunking Heise)? When a new device is $1,849, or perhaps even $8,699 would you not want the guarantee of consumer safety? I reckon it is much more important than seeing it in Space Black (in space no one can here you frustrate) or Silver (when you merely have golden dreams). To know and to see that YOUR safety is adamant matters and I think that Big Tech is forgetting about that part of the equation, but that could be my view as I tend to get exposed to a lot more negativity that others and the media with its approach to deafness isn’t helping any, but that could be my view on the matter.

My weekend ends in 270 minutes, how about yours? Enjoy the day you have left.

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November 3, 2023 · 22:50

Weeds in the reeds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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October 29, 2023 · 17:07

The students of Mediocrates

This is the setting I found myself in. Early this morning (0r late last night) I wrote ‘War never Changes’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/10/29/war-never-changes/). It was several hours after that when I got a message from JB-Hifi who was flogging the Microsoft laptop ‘Surface Laptop Studio 2’ and I decided to search on some reviews. I knew nothing of this device and soon enough I understood why. The Verge gives us ‘Surface Laptop Studio 2 review: this could be so much more’ with the byline “Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Studio 2 has new chips, a new touchpad, and a very, very high price tag”, the review was given to the people on October 4th (world animal day no less) and there we see “there’s the biggest problem for the Surface at this price, which is that its battery life is not anywhere near what Apple can offer. I only averaged four hours and 19 minutes of continuous use out of this device with Battery Saver on” as such this battery is a lot less then what the MacBook Air gave us in 2020, the new MacBook Air is even better. More importantly it loses 7 out of 8 tests against the MacBook Air with a M2 processor. I was horrified that it took Microsoft 47% longer to export 4K video. That is nothing less than a joke. The larger issue isn’t this, it is that Intel just announced its “Meteor Lake” CPU generation, and we expect to see those laptops roll out around December. I have no idea how Microsoft stacks up against that puppy, but I fear the worst for Microsoft.

You see, we get that not every laptop is a given for everyone, I am fine with that. Yet to rely on an I7 processor implies you need a sturdy battery to begin with and that one is missing from the get go.

This is the larger setting of Microsoft, wanting to be in a race merely to compete, never to win it. They lost 6 times over already and they are losing more. How much longer before the Microsoft sycophants give up on the brand? Microsoft always had competitors (Asus, Apple, Dell, HP) and now Intel is in a position to surpass them as well. That is the problem with Microsoft, they aren’t in it to win it. They can claim whatever they want, yet when you get “Unfortunately, the Studio 2’s benchmark scores were underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong: it’s certainly an improvement over the OG Studio. Whether exporting in Premiere or running Tomb Raider, it is faster. But these are far from the best numbers you’ll see among premium workstations today.” To be labelled underwhelming is a problem. They shouted for the longest time that their console was the most powerful in the world and within 2 years it was surpassed by the weakest console of them all (Nintendo Switch) and I am about to hand 50 million potential customers (in phase one) to another vendor (preferably Amazon).

Microsoft is now the favourite corporation to end up with the wooden spoon (dead last in a race). They lost against so many (see previous article for names) and now we see that Intel and Tencent Technologies are potential better players too.
It puts Microsoft on a sliding scale of revenue. It needs to get $4 billion in interest alone on current loans and when their so called mountain of revenue dwindles down because they are losing too many places where they are in the top 2 it becomes awkward and disappointing on several levels. This is the setting I spoke about yesterday and some still call me delusional. Not to worry, the facts are out there and the Verge (at https://www.theverge.com/23900932/microsoft-surface-laptop-studio-2-2023-intel-review) added to the hardship of Microsoft. 

When you get quotes like “right now is a particularly not-great time to be buying a horrendously expensive 13th Gen laptop” especially when the 14th gen laptops are being released next month before Christmas. Then we get “the current Surface Laptop Studio is an okay convertible. For its price, it should be more than that”, as I see it it is Mediocrates all over again. He was the man famous for “Meh, good enough” and in IT that just doesn’t hold the mustard. If there is an upside then it would be the design and the screen. All these parts that I saw looked pretty spectacular. But does that warrant the $3,499.99 price-tag? I personally don’t believe so, but others might feel differently on that. It seemingly has more options to connect and that is good, but as stated lacks a full SD slot. That is an issue I had with the Lenovo Chromebook 5 years ago, but that thing was $349, for $3K more I expect better and the lack of a full slot tends to have other issues when working in laptop mode, but I will agree that could merely be me.

So on Sunday I learn that Microsoft still worships Mediocrates, not a good setting to be in, not at all.

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October 27, 2023 · 08:45

The added chapter

In continuation of yesterday’s part. I did more mulling (or brooding) on the setting of the case file. If you consider that the case file is a collection of three mini games, the first thing I considered that three did not make the cut, so I came up with two more mini games. That led me to two considerations. The first was on the setting of ‘evidence’ the second was on progression.

Danger One
The first danger was that you get too much of a “then I went there, then I did this then I saw that”. I need to consider another path. Almost like a diary, but with changing premisses. 

Even as we adhere to some setting we can start with the date, the action and the location can be programmable. As such, we get more than a dozen versions of the first element which contains the action and location. From there we get (as illustrated) 4 versions as a start that describes the event we ‘just played’. That part is set with actions and clues. The clues (hints we uncovered) are set to text parts and these elements make up for a chapter in the case file. The problem here is not that it is too detailed, it becomes what elements are required. On the other hand, if I set the larger wheels in motion, the re-engineer will solve the setting. 

Complication One
The 4 versions are the four versions of the text, it might be that ChatGPT can ‘solve’ it all making the solution easier to get up to two dozen versions and that is ‘painted’ with the writer style that is selected. So that every case-file has a different artsy approach resembling the thriller and espionage greats of the past. 

It is rather invigorating, trying to engineer a new solution from scratch. With the IP I made it was somewhat simple, now that I am getting to the nitty gritty part of the bottom layer, I need to set a different premise. The original solution that had 3 64KB mini games now becomes a lot more connecting. Each mini-game will not merely be larger, it will also give us more properties and more parameters to consider, to implement and to keep on the side to make the story work (or make it more of a story). 

From there I will need to consider the elements to make it a framework. As such it is not a framework, but a setting to create a framework for each case file. When I get that I avoid replication to a larger degree making it much more long term, or at least longer term. You see the case file is merely one side of the appeal. The cases need to have the appeal for the whole game to remain interesting, not a connection of repeated actions. The idea to enhance the original was for me a trigger to create a better game, the case file was merely an extra. Yet the idea to make it a way to connect your gaming to any other mobile solution (for the case file) will add to the larger interest for gamers and that could also be set to enhancing the gamer profiles of gamers (if the gamer desires). There are still several parts to dig into. The first is to let the gamer set the connections and data collectors in place. That gave me a few ideas to enhance the game further. The second was to set the game in a ’24 hour’ setting. 

Consider this example. Even as we see that action one and action two are interchangeable in the beginning, the setting past the second timeframes is that we could see different information in time frame three. When we add to the fact that action one and action two gives us different data we get a different and larger frame to work with, yet I also believe that any upside needs to receive a downside. We get on one side, but we are through that way denied other intelligence to work with (sorry for sounding cryptic). It becomes an altering frame within the game and now we get a new premise. We can create cases with altering time constraints. It adds to the dimensions of gaming enthusiasm. Adding the two ‘mini games’ was’t the challenge, it was how t fit it into the frame for players. Getting the introduction levels to get the first two ‘tools’ to teach the players what to do, then we get the ‘main tool’ and in the second intro mission we add one tool and in the third mission we add the second tool and after that the real missions start giving me a lot more challenges to upgrade the game from what was into what could be, but that is for soon enough.

Enjoy the day.

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October 26, 2023 · 09:25

The case file of linked technologies

That was the setting I was in yesterday. I love linked technologies. My first real interaction was connecting my Gameboy Advance to my Gamecube and in a game, the game boy was the map to the game I was playing on the Gameboy. This was neat (dorky but accurate). In the past I wrote about parts of this, but in a slightly different setting. In this case I am in the process of remastering IP (making it new or optionally innovative IP). The stage is that a game (or games) use a connection to something like ChatGPT to create case files based on writing styles like Chandler, Le Carre (an essential writer in my view), Desmond Bagley and Alistair McLean. That setting as the case file is merely a short story will not impede on the original writers. 

So why does this matter?
You see, games tend to have the EXACT SAME narrative. This is not on the games, but evolution is where you could create it. You see, even as Restoration has some alterations towards the narrative, this game requires a different approach to be a bigger hit. You see, the group of people who are gamers and are also bookworms (or enthusiast readers) is rather large. Another cluster that Amazon, Google and Microsoft missed. As such Amazon with the Luna and Kindle will have an advantage. That is until Tencent Technologies creates such a setting, or partners with Alibaba or Amazon to do the same thing. You see, what happens when a game you love creates (through ChatGPT, or an alike) create a case-file (read: narrative) that you can read and send to your friends, or place on your profile so that others can read these narratives. That makes the ChatGPT essential. Thousands of case files, similar but not exact copies. That create new waves, new interactions and new fans. All options that the larger three missed (a few times over). Now we get the narrative to a remaster all missed. 

You see, streaming games need to evolve and bring more to the game. They will never replace the Nintendo or the Sony consoles, but they will be a brother to the other two and that is where the larger gains can be made and that is where I am looking and the larger three are all missing the boat. Well, Google dumped the Stadia, so they aren’t even in the game anymore. But the larger setting with Kindle can create a double whammy, especially when you consider how small some margins are, that sets up all kinds of new connections and create new evolutions in gaming and I am all about evolving gaming, as I get better or more inclusive games, me, myself, I and all other gamers win and winning is the marker we all accept.

All innovative directions the big three either ignored, rejected or never saw and it is not about the Kindle. You could set this to a PDF. The setting is that you add to any profile to make the profile more, not more advertising, but more profile we all win and that is the second tier of creating waves. Let the game push all sides of gaming, not merely the game, or the narrative. As I personally see it another side ignored by the two remaining players (Amazon and Tencent Technologies). Now to be fair Tencent is new to this, but they are more and more in a position to take up a massive chunk of gaming marketshare and if they do it well, it is fine by me. I as a gamer win (other gamers too) and that is what I am after. More and better games, not Microsoft or Ubisoft iterations, but more and better games. 

So whilst we see iteration after iteration, gamers hunger for more and that time is already now. So, lets see what time and innovation will be brought to gamers and readers alike.

Enjoy the day before Friday.

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