Category Archives: IT

August 31, 2023 · 23:59

Sentimental journey

We all have these. It usually is about something personal, something we are passionate about and mine for the longest time has been gaming. I took a sentimental journey by replaying Far Cry 3. It still had all the flaws (replaying on the PS5). One was a design flaw, one that massively annoyed me, one was a ‘weakness’ and one was open to debate. I replayed the game 4 times and in order were the PS3, Xbox360, PS4 and now PS5 and this time I stuck around to get the platinum achievement. Three I never had, one was due to me not looking at the issue, one was because I never found it (that Hollywood star with his head above the sand). The toxo thingy (because I never realised that you could do those with explosive arrows and the gamble bully as I never cared for poker. This time around there was just the poker part missing as such I ended doing a side quest I merely shrugged at and now I have it. OK, I looked up that Hollywood person. I initially thought it was one in my party to save. So when I found the solution I had to giggle. This is one of those moments I applaud the makers for such a sneaky achievement. 

This also stirred a few other things. You see, there is a game I want remade, but remade different and now it might not come to consoles because this is a streaming option. I also have been rethinking a few settings in the original games and how it might be done differently and that got me to a new approach to ‘family’ trees. Whilst everyone is rethinking ChatGPT and taking swings at their version of ‘AI’, I have been considering another use. A use in gaming not used before, not to ‘extent’ the gamer, but to extent a system that allows for ‘shoddy data’ and is set to parameters where we decide what to include and what to filter out. I considered it for a while and I suddenly that in some trees pruning is not the reward, but correctly pruning leads to a bigger reward and that is merely one stage to enhance an old game 30 years later and create a very new game. As such I now have 2 out of 4 stages of that game thought through, the third one is also there, but I believe that we need to tune that a little more. So whilst Microsoft is spending billions and billions to acquire IP, I merely thought it through and have a setting of close to half a dozen games ready to add to the Amazon Luna and Tencent handheld stables. I just can’t stop giggling at that premise. They (Microsoft) is trying to spend $69,000,000,000 to buy Blizzard and an idea that could be seen as outdated, I am about to hand Amazon and Tencent Technologies IP at less than 0.1% of that and they end up with half a dozen games that Microsoft does not have and will not have. In the meantime thanks to a brisk idea Vint Cerf had when he was an old-boy at DARPA led to an idea to a new approach to NPC enemy intelligence. Yup, Microsoft really played that part in a boneheaded way. And now (after they spend $7.5 billion for Bethesda) all eyes are on Starfield. I am not focussed on it, because I refuse to get the new Xbox and should that title fail, the goose of Microsoft will be sorely done. I honestly hope it will go well, because hoping for someone’s game to fail is just a dick move. I will merely never play it (unless it comes to PS5, which is a not going to happen). So I am not a starfield hater, but Microsoft placed a bar too high for normal games and now all eyes are on Starfield. I however decided to be more creative and designed several games exclusively for Amazon and Tencent, several of them I placed in the Public Domain for exclusive free development for these two systems. Yes, I know that this was a stretch, but the more I design and the more Microsoft fails, the bigger the loser they are showing themselves to be. It is a stage of lose some and lose some more. And now that my first IP is close to completely redrawn, Tencent Technologies stands to make a fortune on the space that Google Stadia once had and that spells out more bad news for Microsoft. 

Still the sentimental journey played its part. I have been driven (over time) towards games like System Shock and stealth games. Now I see that these stages are also drivers for new IP, not a copy of an old idea, but completely new IP, and as I personally see it Microsoft has nothing to counter it. Yes, Starfield will be new IP, but that is one IP on one system and they are still feeding the Game pass. I have several pieces of NEW IP, new that is never used and to a degree never seen on consoles. As such not only does Microsoft have contenders, but with their Call of duty fetish, trying to counter Epic and its software, they left too much lying on the floor and Tencent Technologies is starting to catch on where Amazon, Google and Microsoft decided not to look and now they are about to become the competitor Microsoft never banked on and as such they have more contenders to fields they never completely understood. First there was Apple with their iPad and the Windows Surface giggle never got close, then there was Amazon with AWS in the first (eat your heart out Azure) then with the Luna and there is Microsoft losing the streaming console war all whilst Netflix is a new contender costing Microsoft even more. Then there was Sony beating the Xbox version X (or was that the Nth degree). And now Tencent Technologies is about to enter the field giving more and more competition to Microsoft in streaming solutions. Making Microsoft the loser 5 times over. So Bethesda has an abnormal amount of pressure on it to make Starfield a lot better then good and after the epic failure that Redfall has become with additional promises not met 3 months later, all eyes are on Bethesda and I do not believe that is fair on Bethesda, but the premise was pushed by Microsoft and they will need a scapegoat should things go south, no idea how they will do that, but there you have it and I am handing over IP for free to anyone that is not Microsoft. You see, to avoid fish getting caught, you can either take the fish away, or make the pond a lot larger. I opted for a combination of both and when my initial premise of 50 million gamers is met, Microsoft will have to hand over the field yet again. Because it is not merely that I gain these gamers, Microsoft will lose those people in a few ways and that was the initial stage. It might be delusional, but I believe that giving gamers pure gaming pleasure is one way of gaining their trust. Not the trust of some analyst and some bing stage, but a stage where gaming for the sake of fun will endure long after Bing went the way of the dodo. I had hoped it would be an Amazon/Google win, but there is every chance that it will now be an optional Amazon/Tencent win and that will lead to a lot more damage to Microsoft over time. 

So whilst some will throw all this to my delusional side, I decided to blog the ideas so that they became open and Public Domain and I there is no regret here, I just came up with another part to an idea that could please a whole cluster of gamers, how large the cluster is is unknown. I understand that this is not some Call of Duty clone and as such plenty will not care for that game, but I believe millions will and that opens other doors and close the doors of Microsoft all at the same time. Why use energy twice, right?

I just have another idea. I think I wrote about it before. I should give it to Netflix as soon as possible just to piss Microsoft off and the more streaming gamers out there, the less is left for Microsoft and lets face it they have 238 million subscribers, so giving them IP merely slows the Microsoft cattle and diverts some of them to other places, a stage Microsoft cannot control and they lack ability to coach. Yup, now just to hand it over to Netflix and another loss for Microsoft is coming their way.

What a lovely way to start Friday (in 9 minutes).

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August 30, 2023 · 07:35

A simpleminded A, B, C

It started yesterday when I saw a message pass by on LinkedIn. (See below). 

The honest first thing I thought was ‘Are you effing kidding me?’ It was like an episode of comedy capers. I thought that this level of shortsightedness was a thing of the past, but it seems to me that people will get themselves into heaps of troubles for the longest of times. And what was that term “endless digital potential?” A call to arms for the stupid people? 

So here I am educating the wannabes and the short of cash people, because it is essential. An API is an Application Programming Interface. It is a set of definitions and protocols for integrating application software, or to ‘simplify’ this “a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other.” It is a way for others to talk to your software or data. It allows access. To give another reference. You are about to connect an anchor to your boat. But there are Danforth anchors, plow anchors, fluke anchors and several others. It depends on the size of the boat and WHERE you tend to park that dinghy, that largely decides what kind of anchor you need, not what is the prettiest anchor, that tends to be a factor in losing your boat. 

To put it in a better way “digital potential” will be seen when you connect YOUR data to anyone else’s data. Did you consider that? You see this blinders approach to information is nice and those with dollar shaped pupils take notice and want to race to that digital potential, yet the reality is something less nice. It is the chapter of risk.

RISK
Risk is the number one consideration, there is no other. Is it worth doing ‘approach A’ to get to the finish of revenue? 

Bad coding
This is perhaps the largest foe. Right off the bat, if you start off with the premise of bad coding, you are exposing yourself to serious API security risks and that is an issue. But fear not this person thought of that. We are given “That’s why we designed IBSuite as API First!” Yes, really? Security risks are still a massive danger. Unrestricted access to sensitive business flows is the stuff nightmares are made of and a security risk will bring that to your front door. 

Inadequate validation
A security researcher discovered an API payload that would send invalid data to their own user process, which would repeatedly fail to be handled correctly. This error handling loop prevented further access to their user account. This is perhaps the smallest issue, the problem is that failure to handle something correctly implies that something goes somewhere else. Do you know where that somewhere else is? Consider that your former colleagues spend decades optimising the data you have now, would you like others to enjoy that hard work, or keep that in house? 

Hesitating over API utilisation
Some state that in big companies, sometimes management can neglect to track APIs and their utilisation numbers. From this point, you can incur many charges and leave yourself open to security risks due to exposed APIs. So not only are you in danger to hand over your data, you can get charged for it too. Utilisation of data and greed in one nice compact solution, who would have thought it possible? 

Accountability
This does sound like the odd duck out, but in reality it often connects to data loss, Since API’s connect external users and applications with a firm’s internal applications, they are potential paths to a firm’s data. If access to these paths is not controlled, data can reach the wrong hands – and can be stolen, modified, or even irretrievably deleted. So data could get copied and then deleted, to make sure it does not hinder YOUR storage. I wonder if they will charge you to hand the data back? Just a thought.

Risks of XML
I admit, this is the hardest one for me. It is not always easy to put your finger on XML, its usage is too widespread, in the 90’s it was never an issue, more of a fab for some. Yet, 3rd party APIs could be compromised and leveraged to attack other API services. Attacks such as SQL injection, XML External Entity injection, and more, should be considered when handling data from other APIs. This part tends to be tedious but essential. It is time consuming ground work, but it must be done. 

APl incompetence
This is harder for me, I have a massive lack of knowledge here, it is specific niche knowledge that the experts have, yet it amounts to the ability to have a fault-tolerant system. Consider that in the 90’s there was accounting software. If I used a specific expression, the program would crash. No biggie you would think, but at that point I ended being in THAT system, now completely open with supervisor privileges. I had access to the entire mainframe with access to everything. This was a specific setting that was solved 3 weeks later. But what happened when it was not found? Consider that your system is open to anyone that employs such a solution and they get access to everything including the porn pics of your wife and your data. I am willing to bet that option one was a lot more upsetting to you, weird that.

Lack of security
You would think that this is covered, but it is not. Akamai (a US cybersecurity firm) reported “Of note, fewer than 50% of respondents have API security testing tools in place. Even fewer have deployed API discovery tools. Although the survey results suggest enterprises recognise the security risks of widespread API usage, there is no clear consensus on where to prioritise investments”, this matters. Security should be everything when it is about your house and your data. 

This is all mere top-line header consideration. So consider the intro I reacted to and the lack of risks that it shows. So how much risk are you willing to take with your house and your data? If I was inclined to be that short sighted in promoting ‘digital potential’ I would have gone with “APIs are not required, but if you consider and adhere to the risks in a proper way, they are the safest way to connect and explore digital potential. Any eco-system has risks, which is why we designed IBSuite to be a safety first option in exploring the digital oceans for revenue you cannot see now, but to get there in a digitally safe way, one that keeps your data YOURS.” Is it as good? Perhaps not, but it instills value that you as a customer and the data YOU have is used for safe navigation and that matters.

This was a functional boat once, they chose the wrong anchor and in the wrong place that cost them their livelihood. What will you do? Look deeper, look better, look elsewhere? All good questions and it all started by understanding the risks of an API because everything has a risk, not looking at it implies you are taking too many risks with something you can only lose once. 

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August 17, 2023 · 17:15

Strike Two

This started earlier. It started weeks ago and I was aware, I took notice. Yet, that was about it. I mean no disrespect. I do not live in the US, I am not California and as such I am merely partially aware. I see what most outside of the US see. We see the strike, but yesterday I saw an opinion piece in the LA Times and that woke me up a little more and would you believe it, this morning I got more awake. There was an advertisement on YouTube, it was the Pilot of Lioness and it was one hell of an ad. It was 50 minutes, it was the pilot. Yup Paramount Plus took their balls and hung them up the wall. OK, this is a first that I watch a 50 minute advertisement. Yet, it was not about the ad, not about Lioness but it gave me focus, so lets begin.

The LA Times Story (at https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-08-15/netflix-antitrust-anticompetitive-labor) gives us ‘Hollywood strikes prove Netflix and other streamers have grown too powerful. Time to break them up’ here we are given “Many have called the stalemate an existential crisis because it concerns new issues such as residuals from streaming services and rules for the use of artificial intelligence. These go beyond the usual labor issues such as wages and benefits and cut to the heart of an industry in which streamers such as Netflix can dominate all aspects of the business.” It is one side that I had not seen before. ‘Entertainment’ has become an end-to-end business over ALL verticals. I had not considered that merely because I am not part of this industry, I never was. Yet here we are given “Antitrust laws need to be invoked — as they were in the 1940s in U.S. vs. Paramount — to break up streaming services that both produce content and distribute it. This vertical integration has deeply changed the longstanding entertainment industry ecosystem, which allowed employees to survive and studios to prosper.” Which gets us to “In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled against the studios, requiring them to divest themselves of their movie theatres if they wanted to continue in the production business. Shortly thereafter, theatrical films began to be aired on television with no additional compensation for creative talent. This led to the strike by both the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild in 1960, the last time the two struck simultaneously.”

With finally “If Netflix and its streaming peers like Apple+, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Max can maintain their vertical control, it will be next to impossible to settle the Hollywood strikes in ways that could preserve the ability of creators and technicians to earn a decent living and protect creative diversity. The old vertical studio system was broken up by the Justice Department. It may be time to do the same with these 21st century behemoths.” And that was the wake up call I needed. The Paramount ‘advertisement’ was apt and consider that Lioness is new stellar series. Kidman, Saldana and several others are making a bundle. They earned it, their work is first rate, as is the director and the director of photography. They all did a stellar job, but it would not have been possible without the writer, without the writer there would be no script, nothing for the director to work from. So how much is he making? 

We see the accusations that the top person, which in the case of Disney is Bob Iger, in 2022 he made well over $14,000,000. This amounts to well over a million a month. Now lets take a look at the image below.

So a series that streamed over 3,000,000,000 minutes, making it one of the most profitable and most successful series even, the writers were collectively paid $3,000. Please explain to me in what universe 3 billion streamed minutes gives us a combined pay check of $3,000? You see those three billion minutes amount to 138,121.5 years. Does it make sense now? The writers are beyond underpaid. They are the legal slaves of America and they deserve their right coin. But American history is seeded with injustice and exploitation and to be honest until the LA Times piece I did not see it, so who else was unaware? We are given snapshots, yet until you see the entire vertical of exploitation it makes little sense and now with that streaming vertical exposed you can see just how unfair it is and one series, the series suits, showed us just how much the writers are fed up with being ignored what should be rightfully theirs.

Enjoy the day.

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August 12, 2023 · 05:36

Tapping an economy

This happens, some other (or new) player sets the stage where they can become a major player. This is a rare case but it can happen and now I seem to be witness to one that could end up being a much larger stage than I ever expected. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66310714) gives us ‘Why it matters where your data is stored’. The article is all about the cloud, yet this article gave me parts that brought out questions that allowed the consideration that the new player could in a short time frame become a major player. Yet to see this, we need to look at the parts.

Part 1
The first question is coming from ““The American authorities have the right to go in and see any data that is stored in an American cloud, even if the data centre is in Europe,” Mr Åström says.” That was a selling point for American firms and with the IP in data centres the Europeans will become concerned. The American credit score is dwindling down as such they will become more and more concerned with THEIR value, a view Europeans will not share, or will be willing to chance sacrificing asI see it.

Part 2
Then we get to “it’s big enough to rival the major US cloud providers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and Google. They have a 65% share of the world cloud market between them, according to Synergy Research Group”, here I miss the IBM and Apple clouds. Apple is a different issue, they have a niche market and they are optionally decently safe from what is coming. IBM is different, they have been on the corporate data shoe forever, so why is IBM avoided? The numbers give me “IBM Hybrid Cloud has market share of 1.88% in infrastructure-as-a-service market. IBM Hybrid Cloud competes with 71 competitor tools in infrastructure-as-a-service category.” Perhaps they are ‘too small’, time will tell but that doesn’t matter. With this setting Evroc has the momentum to become a major player, perhaps slightly below AWS, but to go from a wannabe to a player next to AWS, possibly surpassing Microsoft is not done lightly and as far as I could tell has never been done before. But that is not the worst of it (for Amazon and Microsoft). You see the EU is larger in population, as such more services are needed there, but this could flow over into Canada (as it is a Commonwealth nation) then the larger concern (for Amazon et al) will be the Middle East. I reckon that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE might want to be separated more strongly from American firms. If I were China, I would be pushing that button too. As such Evroc as localisation bubbles could grow even further. 

Part 3
“Evroc has secured €15m in seed funding and plans to build eight data centres in Europe in the next five years. The first will be a large pilot data centre in Sweden next year.” As I see it, should they decide to add two more clouds (KSA and UAE) they could tap into a few massive organisations and that should make the US a lot more bothered than they ever considered. I had issues with ‘data sharing’ in the late 90’s but I was laughed at, I was overly BS howled at. Well, it seems that I was right all along and now that the US needs its corporations to do well, Evroc comes in and takes away even more. I never saw this coming, yet as I see it Mattias Åström played his cards well and at the right moment. There is no telling how far this goes, yet the idea that (based on the numbers) “Microsoft increased its share from 23%, up from 21% the prior quarter, while Amazon fell from 34% to 33% and Google remained steady at 11%.” Evroc could grow by taking 20% of the others, we get 18% Microsoft, 26% Amazon and 8% Google, Evroc could grow by 12% (optionally towards 20%+) almost overnight (if a night lasts 7 years) That puts them ahead of Google and Microsoft making them a new major player. That is beside the damage they could do in the Middle East. With Aramco, SAMA, Al Rajhi banking, SABIC, STC, MA’ADEN, International Holding Company (IHC), ADNOC, Emaar Properties and a few more more. You might think this is all fun and games, but it is about to get worse.

Part 4
This part was not in the article and that is not on the BBC. You see I have looked in this direction before. In 2020 I wrote ‘Institutionalised Positioning’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/02/institutionalised-positioning/) where we see ‘Microsoft Security Shocker As 250 Million Customer Records Exposed Online’ (source: Forbes), and add to that the recent forged key issue, an issue that the NSA warned them for 3 years ago, we see a much larger stage. A stage where Microsoft is bleeding faith, the faith the customers had in them is dwindling down, as such Evroc could take away a much larger part of that blue joke. As such Microsoft could face a much larger loss. It would be nice to state that Amazon loses less, but certain other parts might not make that realistic. The only player optionally not losing any is Apple. Their largest base are iPhone users with subscriptions. 

These 4 parts show that Evroc is the new player to watch. If that is the case they will need staff all over the world. Even I would like to work for a new player and that is the second danger that they (mostly Microsoft) faces. If Amazon and Microsoft only lose 5% of their cloud workforce they both face shortages all over, and this is in a place where you need all hands on deck. This last part is hugely speculative, but with 8 new centres coming and optionally 2-5 more in the middle east Evroc is set to grow beyond the assessments of analysts. As such Mattias Åström and its new Evroc could be a force to be reckoned with and as such bring massive cash coffers into the EU and towards the Middle East as well and all that revenue goes out of the US and that is a loss the US was not ready for.

Enjoy the weekend 

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August 3, 2023 · 13:43

Envoy of Coca Cola

This all started with a weird dream. In the dream I was meeting up with a marketing friend in Sweden who had become the new Marketing director of Coca Cola. He was bringing me gifts. There was a box with 12 bottle of cola (4 classic, 4 cherry and 4 vanilla cola). There was a second box with all kinds of swag, embroided polo shirts, T-Shirts, and the piece the resistance a metal model of the original cola delivery truck from 1927. We were talking in a seating corner in what I think was supposed to be his office. We were going over some details and then I woke up. I might have woken up, but the elements were already in my brain and I went to work.

The Envoy system
You see social media has become unreliable, even unpredictable at times. As such I came up with the envoy system. To see the larger frame, lets take a look at its Twitter profile. 

As you can see 3.3 million people follow Coca Cola, not bad. But the untamed fields are there and the larger corporations are the first who can wield in the results. To see this lets take a look at the envoy system. There is the company and their server(s), the envoy and the instance. Every cycle the envoy needs to make sure that their instance is up to date. Their instance is a personalised setting for every social media setting. As such the instance will cover Facebook, Threads, Twitter, Instagram and whatever else is out there. As such one person can have well over 4 connections and in that one instance all five are reached and inform so that all their friends get the message. This is not direct marketing or mass marketing. This is personal marketing and it is set in a new light. This is not some blanket setting, this is one department optimising the message, their mission statement and the envoys are the way to get there. 

So as I see it, the the aware person sets the instance (the unaware person), both message the server (a verification of A and B) and from there the message starts and now those people lets say 100K envoys will give message to 1-50 million people, none of them following Coca Cola, but they are still getting the message. No advertisement money used and it will have larger impact. Would you believe a company stating that they are good, of a friend or influencer stating that this company is good? This is not an easy track or the small or the faint of heart, but I reckon it could send a much larger message than we currently see and I reckon that at some point all the larger players will some kind of system like this.

Well that is another nice day, all ready to go towards an evening of gaming and perhaps a movie, enjoy yours and remember, tomorrow is Friday. 

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August 2, 2023 · 19:41

My presumption is real

This article goes over several parts, parts you might agree with and parts you will not agree with. That is fair! You see several parts are set to presumption, which is still better than speculation. The difference is seen in the meaning. Presumption is an idea that is taken to be true on the basis of probability. There is more than probability in my case. I have worked in IT since 1983, as such I have been around (at least twice). Speculation is the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence. And both are important because I am talking from the past, which is not always seen or accepted as evidence. This is fair, and this is why people might disagree and I get it, never take anything for granted, not Ven when I say it. I love the expression from NCIS in this case ‘Trust but verify’ Gibbs was right, always verify what you learn. It is the only real way to move forward.

So this all started yesterday with an article. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66118831) gives us ‘Gallium and germanium: What China’s new move in microchip war means for world’, they say it is 8 hours old, but I saw the article a little over 25 hours ago, so not sure what changed. The setting is “Under the new controls, special licences are needed to export gallium and germanium from the world’s second largest economy. The materials are used to produce chips and have military applications. The curbs come after Washington made efforts to limit Beijing’s access to advanced microprocessor technology.” You can turn and twist this to your heart content, but the setting is inaccurate and largely incorrect. Not what you read, that is fine. But there is a whole mess that precedes this and to see this we need to go back to the 90’s. You see, the IT world saw hoe the arms race was going and how military contractors were filling their pockets and the IT world took a page from that stage and started its IT Armistice race. I was caught up in it as well. A 386, a 486, a 486DX2, the Pentium, the Pentium 2, the Pentium-450, the Pentium2, as such between 1993 and 2002 I had wasted thousands on 7 systems, 7 systems in 10 years and I had enough. You see for the most the Pentium2 was enough to do 90% of everything I did, except gaming. Then I switched to consoles and saved myself thousands more. As such I avoided to the largest extend the graphic card war which might seem small but high end gaming needs a $1200 card, my PS5 was less then a thousand dollars on day one. In this Microsoft also pushed the borders, making us upgrade again and again. Oh, they played their cards cautiously and they played it well. Yet consider “Vista alone had 50 million lines of code, 10 million lines more than its successor, Windows 7. Because of the excessive amount of bloat and code, it was very slow on devices at the time, even on the latest and greatest hardware of 2007. This meant that it was more expensive to buy a machine that ran Vista properly.” Between Windows XP and Windows 7 we had the Vista nightmare and it cost too many too much. Yet weirdly enough with a little effort (Suse Linux at $99) you had an equal if not much better option, it would work on most Pentium2 systems like lightning. You could download it for free but for that money you got the discs and a DVD, the DVD had all the discs which included Linux and a truckload of programs, even open office I believe. If not it was easily downloaded. A linux lookalike version of Microsoft office that was free. It had an SQL database and so much more, even a nice collection of games, but they were not high resolution games. Fo that you needed a console and you saved thousands. It is this armistice race. We went though thousands of processors and that is what counts, because that drained the Gallium and Germanium we had and now China is one of the few that has it now. You see, we might act against China, but Gallium is found in Japan, South Korea, and Russia as well. China has however 90% at present. That does not mean there isn’t more, but finding it is not easy. Germanium is also found in Canada, Finland, Russia and the United States. China has about 60% and that is where we see the odd duck out (on your left). And is it not interesting that the second material is not mentioned that it is also found in Canada and the US? In this greed was again a much larger stage to this. The IT Armistice race dwindled whatever the west had and now China and Russia seem to have the upper hand. Still the larger stage is not merely who has it, but it becomes who can find it better, because that is where this is heading. I get it, we all need the latest PC (or MAC) but ask yourself, what allows you to do what you need to do? That is the question that IT providers like Dell and HP were eager to avoid at all cost as it impacted their bottom dollar. They will make the ‘party line’ To enjoy the best of Windows (whatever version) you are best off having a (the latest chip). That is what caused a large part of the drain and I was every bit as guilty. By the time I figured out what was going on I my bank account had about $22,000 less (11 systems with 2 still in use). You can scream whatever you want on how I could ‘save’ some dollars, but the truth is that we all enjoyed that feeling of the latest system, but it came at a price. So when we now see “a Pentagon spokesperson said the US had reserves of germanium but no stockpile of gallium” and why is that? It it is such a crucial element, why is there no stockpile? That is an easy answer, but no answer will be forthcoming. A race for supremacy, all whilst at least two racers are no longer able to keep up and that race is about to turn nasty for at least one of them. The Commonwealth might rely on Australia, but until the deposits are found the UK is in a tight spot. As I personally see it we might have to take a step back and see how else we can get the job done. As such I am phrasing an extremely speculative question. French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran found in 1875 the substance we now know to be gallium, it is in group 13 of the periodic table and is similar to the other metals of the group (aluminium, indium, and thallium. My question becomes Is there another solution that employs indium or thallium? I honestly have no idea, I do not even know where these two are found and whether they can do what Gallium does. Also there is Rhodium, can it (or a combination) get the job done? I have no idea, but it seems to me that the head-banging against a wall we raised ourselves is massively stupid to say the least and there is every chance that there is a chemist and an electronic engineer who will laugh at my suggestion, which is fair enough. To see this we need to look at 1965 when Friedrich Schächter created a ballpoint that works in space as it is a pressurised ink solution. In in 1967 it was reported that NASA purchased approximately 400 pens for $2.95 a piece, all whilst Bic pens were $0.29 in those days. Russia decided to solve it by using a pencil, which costed $0.39 at the time. So we can caress our ego’s or find another solution.  And this is merely one of many issues. So will you embrace someone who adds 10 million lines of code, or seek whatever else is out there? I get it, the other solution will not work for everyone, but over 2 billion people use a PC out there. I am willing to bet the bank that at least 25% could do with a cheaper solution. There are (according to some) an estimated 300 million computers in production annually. I feel certain that at least a third doesn’t need to be bought and if Microsoft woke up and recreated Windows XP for households and adds a decent office version to it several other gallium issues could suddenly be less stringent. In 2018 970 units of Gallium were used. In 2022 it was almost 3500 units (the chart did not clearly give me what the units were). Why is that? I know that PC output is not over 300% in 2022. There might be other uses as well, but I would not know that, but the more I see the more questions I end up with and the BBC (or its article) isn’t giving me the goods. There was no mention of Canada or the US in it, was there?

It is time for plenty of people to wake up, I for one would send a wake up call (plus coffee) to Dr. Stefanie Tompkins of DARPA, perhaps they can find alternative options for these two metals? Not the weirdest idea and as the Pentagon needs these materials it seems to me that between lunch and diner DARPA might find an answer, these boffins are kinda clever so it is one way to go. What do you think?

Enjoy the middle of the week, its all uphill in anticipation to the weekend until Friday. 

 

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July 31, 2023 · 23:09

A wild side to creativity

To get to this point, I need to take you on a little tour into my (optionally devious) mind. In the mid to late 80’s I had an idea. An idea any horny man in his twenties will have. In this setting (I was an amateur photographer) I was talking to Claudia Schiffer, convincing her to pose for me naked for one picture. We would then edit the image to show the bikini she would pose for and that one picture would ensure hundreds of bikini shots and she would get a royalty for every photograph produced. Yes, you laugh now, but in those days Photoshop was merely a whisper, the editing options we now take for granted did not even exist in those days. It was a slightly delusional idea and guess what, it never happened (big surprise). That was the premise that happened a long time ago, decades even. Today I had another daydream, I dozed off and I lost a competition, my consolation price was taking a picture of Mischa Barton (no idea how she got into the mix), she was wearing a very transparent top (extremely transparent) and I had to make a handbag picture. So I had her hold it in front of her face, her arms hid the nipples and the byline was ‘I do not use my face to promote a product’. You are laughing now, but there is a lot more to this. You see, in the early 90’s I tested a product from Macromedia called Director. 

The product had things that were beyond imagination (in those days). That image is needed, as it sets the stage for the now. You see when we consider that old program, it had options for presentations that many have forgotten about. What was the case is that you could set a stage, complete with people and objects and it would get us the setting like below (now in full 3d).

The 3d model optionally starts naked, but can be dressed like a barbie, we add the elements, accessories, the lights and the image starts to shape. The rectangle is what the camera sees and when we are happy a 24 bit image is created from scratch. You think this is a joke, it is not. Consider that there are 75,000,000 professional photographers in the world, the amateur photographer group is at least 4 times bigger, so we now have an optional population that is closer to half a billion. Consider that a photo model costs $200 upwards to $15000 an hour, and it does not need to include people, there are plenty of photographers that go for food, cars, luxury items and now we get a entirely new stage. It is not merely the photographer. It becomes a prototyping scene for what some call AI (which does not yet exist), but the deeper machine learning systems rely on data and now we have a system that offers creation whilst that data feeds the learning machines, and besides that, it becomes a 24 bit photographic prototyping system, something that doesn’t even exist at present. All these students can work deep into the night without worrying about the $200 an hour taximeter called the photo model. I think that this all escalated when I was thumped to death by these ‘free slot machine’ advertisements. We all think it is a scam, but this seems to be about free slots and that makes no sense, unless an operator like Las Vegas wants to test a prototype new slot machines and tweak it to be the most efficient one until it is release to the money feeding audience in Las Vegas. A free slot machine system makes a lot more sense now, does it not? You can feed the revenue beast all you like, but until you find the angle that does not cost you money, optionally making you money in the process the endeavour is nothing more than a money pit. And in comes the hungry gamers who will never go to Las Vegas in the first place, now there is an optional need. 

Director was a brilliant idea, especially in an age when certain graphical options were not available (neither was computing power) and it set a new tone. It also gave us a new direction to consider and even as Director was a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia and managed by Adobe Systems until its discontinuation ten years ago, it was a great idea in an age when there was nothing. It is now surpassed, but I do not think that the concept should be forgotten. For this we could look at the 1991 comedy ‘Others peoples money’ with Danny deVito. It was about the New England Wire & Cable Company and how one man’s need for greed takes it to the slaughter. The nice evolution was that the lawyer (Penelope Ann Miller) searches for a solution and finds it in a Japanese automaker that wants to hire New England Wire & Cable to manufacture stainless steel wire cloth for making automobile airbags, something which will make the company profitable again on a new expanding industrial product.  That is where we are, finding alternative uses for good products because Director was that. I merely wonder if anyone considered making it a two sided solution one one side a photographic prototyping tool, on the other side a system to teach deeper machine learning solutions a way to learn graphical sides to an artsy problem, one that requires containers loads of data, if not a load more than that. 

Well that was my Monday being creative, have a nice day.

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July 30, 2023 · 08:20

It started with a book

Yes, I have something for you the game developers. There is however one catch, this is for developers that make games exclusive for Amazon Luna and/or Nintendo Switch. Under those conditions this IP is free for you, no Microsoft allowed. I stated that I will aid in their downfall anyway I can and handing IP to developers in other regions is fine by me, optionally the Tencent handheld can be included in this deal.

This all started a long time ago, it was just a dream, an idea that involved time travel. In my mind it could have ben a movie, but then some time back I considered that it could make a game too. A stealth game and the burning of the Quran brought it back to the forefront of my mind. You see, we have lost a lot due to fires. So I came up with Quantum Theft, a stealth game (with a catchy title). In this game you are an entrepreneur in discrete entry and removal operations. Yet in this day and age, you will be found, unless they do not know that there was a theft. So in comes the time traveller (you) and you get to sack places. But there is a catch, you can not get caught or it is back to the start you go. You need to sneak into a place, replace the items and you only get 1-4 hours to get the job done. No save games in between and as you are a better thief you will get better gear, more options to loot and more options to gain fame. The introduction is the Library of Alexandria. It caught fire some time ago (48BC) by Julius Caesar, who swore to me that it was an accident (as if).

As you see the mage of Desperados above, there are similarities, the view so that you can see where people are looking, but in this game the colour is also important. In 48BC slaves would look and ignore, until you become a hazard to them or their masters and they would shout for help and the guards tends to not be so nice, so not being seen is important. The game would be larger, like Aloy in the Horizons game. I wanted to set a tradeoff with gender. The female character is more agile, but cannot force doors, and she carries less but be faster whilst carrying stuff. The male can force doors, carry more but be less agile, so they can have very different routes in the game. The game will take on elements from the original Tenchu game (PS1), as such guards and slaves have different routes every time you start again. In the first 2 levels you get the introduction, but you still have set targets. Also every stage, you look the part of the time, as such you blend in, but I wanted to have a few extra elements there. In ancient Greece colours mattered, as such I wanted to exploit that part in the game, also the senatorial robes would be excellent to fend of the guards, but I still want it to be a challenge. 

The first two levels are

  • Library of Alexandria – 48BC
  • Athens and Piraeus – 86BC 

The second level has streets and houses, there will be more chaos and you need to take heed on how to proceed. You kill anyone, you change the timeline and the game resets, you get caught, the game resets. You get trapped, the game reset. You need to copy the item, so that the timeline remains intact, remove the original and get out. This is a game of pure stealth. 

In the first to levels it will be about getting scrolls, amphoras and figurines.

Then we get to the real levels and I came up with the following

  • Constantinople – April 1204 (4th Crusade)
  • Florence February 1497 – Bonfire of the Vanities (what gave me the idea for this game)

Florence will add a new setting, books and paintings. Under the cloak of stupidity worn by Girolamo Savonarola the people decided to burn books and paintings that they deemed secular. This level will also have a lot more places and more people, the challenge becomes harder. 

  • Iconoclastic Fury 1566

This will be a different challenge, you see this happened all over Belgium and the Netherlands. But you only get two stages. Instead of relying on the same area this level could by in Zürich, Copenhagen, Münster, Geneva, Augsburg, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Maastricht. As such you get two locations to loot. 2 out of 8. A setting that has never been done in gaming. You have to first in some fields and this is one. 

  • French Revolution, Paris 1791
  • Kristallnacht, November 1938
  • Nazi Plunder, Berlin Fire Department, March 1939

In the last three levels all stops come off, both have masses, armies and you need to remain unseen, but by that time you should have a fair amount of upgrades aiding you in that process. This is merely 8 events I singled out. There was the burning of Rome (64AD) when Nero (aka Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, also know as that fat fuck) decided to have a little fire, the critics are not all on the same page as for what the reasoning was. I still remain that he was an arson driven little shit, but that is me, always seeing the good in people.

There were plenty of other events like the great earthquake of 1906 which redesigned San Francisco and that list goes on. What matters is that the stage as I wrote it here has never been done before and there is a lack of stealth games, even though the Horizon series shows that there is appeal to that kind of game. There is even an additional upside, but that is still int he works. When you play those on the Amazon Luna, the idea is to be able to put the scrolls to your Kindle so you can actually read the scrolls you ‘saved’, the paintings and statues you can see on your Luna and might have a link to more too. Like your safe-house where you can admire the art you saved. Just a thought, but this is something I thought up in hours (and some will not see this a an optional game), on the other hand, Microsoft hasn’t had an original idea for some time now, but they buy for billions and they seemingly have nothing to show for it. Now the Amazon Luna and Nintendo Switch (optional the Tencent Handheld too) get a gaming idea that they didn’t have to pay a penny for, life is hard for some and for some fresh roses are delivered at no cost at all.

By the way, Microsoft reported a slowdown in growth of parts of its business recently, lets see if we can add more bad news to their future by giving all other systems great games. If they can match it, they can go right ahead, they paid all those billions haven’t they? So where are their great games? Me laughing out loud now.

Enjoy the weekend, its almost over.

 

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July 29, 2023 · 08:55

It only took three years

That was what pushed into view. I was about to write about something else, a movie idea I had. Yet several other messages came into view which pushed me to realign my focus. You see, I had the view just before CES2020 that Huawei was going to be a large player, much larger than anyone guessed. Even I had not thought that far ahead as certain plays by the STC (Saudi Telecom Company) were not in view yet. Now it becomes a much bigger play and two players (Huawei and STC) could reenforce each other, a setting that was not visible in 2019. So lets take a look.

Article One
The first article was brought to us by the Hindustan Times last year (the year of Soylent Green, another idea that I already wrote about but came to the top of my mind again last night). Here (at https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/huawei-launches-harmonyos-to-compete-with-google-s-android-71622644049707.html) we are given the idea that Huawei is pushing for a release to 200 million mobile phones. An achievable mark to say the least, the rest was bla bla but the notion was given. 

Article Two
Tech outlook gave us two days ago (at https://www.thetechoutlook.com/news/technology/os/harmony-os-4-0-to-debut-on-august-4-mate-60-5g-expected-to-debut-alongside/) ‘Harmony OS 4.0 to debut on August 4’ and that is the part certain people were all waiting for. The text “Apart from Harmony OS 4.0, the Chinese manufacturer is rumoured to announce the Huawei Mate 60 5G at the HDC 2023 event. As mentioned above, it will be the brand’s first 5G flagship phone after facing US sanctions. While the Mate 60 series is expected to be announced at HDC 2023, the company will hold a dedicated launch event for it in September or October this year.” You see the ‘US sanctions’ part reads nice, but the play doesn’t go there. STC and Huawei has as of the coming month a larger setting. This setting will include Egypt, BanglaDash and Indonesia. This gives them a lot more than the targeted 200 million phones and the moment STC enters the EU they will have the needed traction, the STC 5G network will have some serious ‘umph’ as the expression goes. More important, a network that stretches to that degree will push the US and EU out of a few areas, or at least make them suffer the loss of expected revenue by some analytics, they will tumble twice over. 

I’ll be honest, I saw the play, but not to this degree as the STC was not on my radar. I reckon that there was always a chance that Etisalat (UAE) would grow, but that is not in the cards at present. This is important as the needs of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are in the same direction, but they are not aligned. That difference is important and there is a chance that the STC will offer services that include the UAE. I reckon that the UAE might want to connect to Center3 and the STC for the additional business it will bring them, but that would be pure speculation on my side.

What does matter is that with the release of Harmony 4, on August 4th a new play opens up and it might go a long way to allow a digital setting to the MBC group to the settings they have in play at the moment. They will push the sports and news groups that are in the making with larger digital channels, just after they make their IPO offer (which Bloomberg mentioned only 3 weeks ago), now with the channels and digital groups in play it goes well beyond the shores we see at present and with Huawei at the mobile front, they can offer something larger than most have ever had and it will appeal to the hungry revenue entrepreneurs in Indonesia and BanglaDash. They will add hundreds of millions to their pool, hundreds of millions that haven’t ever had access to anything (of that nature). I reckon that by Q1 2024 the STC could have doubled in value and they were never a small player to begin with. Now add Egypt and you get a much larger population, mostly Muslim and all eager to be economic players. I reckon that BRICS had a few ideas on adding Saudi Arabia. And the US? Well they are still screaming middle east stability and requiring cheap oil in a play that is already outdated. And as we can clearly see, Saudi Arabia and China are getting along just fine, no EU or US required. That was a danger for some time and new we are about to see the fruition of these players. You still think the US was in Saudi Arabia for merely ‘stability’ reasons? Come to think of it Janet Yellen was in China recently, with these elements now in view was it really about what they say it was? 

This is in part speculation, it does not make it true, yet you have to wonder if I saw these events unfold, they did not? I might not have seen the impact of the STC and MBC groups in 2019, but these people (Jellen and Blinken) get a large 6 figure income more than me (Jellen gets a 7 figure income), you mean they were in the dark? Go cry me a river, please.

Huawei should have enough to get their target from Egypt, Indonesia and BanglaDash alone and they have close to half a dozen nations more on their mind (China being not the smallest one) and as expansions go, with the Huawei 5G network in play, the STC can grow a lot faster, allowing the MBC sports and news channels to reach a few additional nations. This alone will make people in the EU want to see what they are missing out of. I reckon that the advertisements alone will pay for this caper and then some. A stage that grew in under 4 years, as such the EU and US now have a problem. You see all these TV channels and media players are about to become obsolete to a much larger degree. They can shout MAGA and Karen’s all they like, the rest are able to switch the channel to something they would much rather watch and there it seems that the MBC Group has you covered. I personally wonder what Murdoch is worth by the end of 2024, because when the advertisers go away, he is just shouting arranged news to people who are not interested in listening, that part of the pool he soiled himself as I personally see it.

Enjoy the weekend, or as they say at MBC in Arabic “رحلة جديدة في الخدمات الرقمية”

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July 23, 2023 · 16:59

Blue laundry leaking

It happens, sometimes the colours get into the other colours and your white stuff is no longer white. I had my issues with myself, overlooking a red sock with my white shirts and behold, I was suddenly the owner of pink shirts. This is a problem as it is not fashionable pink, but a melee of pink shades in white shirts. The fashion looks a righteous mess. This is something we all dread, and in IT land it is not different, especially when the detergent is Microsoft.

It all started (at https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/stolen-microsoft-key-offered-widespread-access-to-microsoft-cloud-services/) with ‘Stolen Microsoft key offered widespread access to Microsoft cloud services’ where we are given “Redmond revealed on July 12th that the attackers had breached the Exchange Online and Azure Active Directory (AD) accounts of around two dozen organisations. This was achieved by exploiting a now-patched zero-day validation issue in the GetAccessTokenForResourceAPI, allowing them to forge signed access tokens and impersonate accounts within the targeted organisations.” I was at first cautious. There are intense haters of Microsoft and they do not throw around any kind of evidence, as such I wondered how far this went and behold, ITWire gives us (at https://itwire.com/security/danger-from-microsoft-azure-breach-still-remains,-warns-wiz-researcher.html) ‘Danger from Microsoft Azure breach still remains, warns Wiz researcher’ and here we are given “New York-based cloud security firm Wiz has warned companies and organisations affected by the recent Microsoft Azure breach that the impact of the intrusion may be much wider than reported, and could affect applications beyond those claimed by Microsoft to be impacted.” In addition we are given “Our researchers concluded that the compromised MSA key could have allowed the threat actor to forge access tokens for multiple types of Azure Active Directory applications, including every application that supports personal account authentication, such as SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, customers’ applications that support the ‘login with Microsoft’ functionality, and multi-tenant applications in certain conditions”, I see this as an issue. The larger scope is not merely the cloud. That thing has all kinds of security issues. No, the small ‘hidden’ text becomes “The breach came to light on 13 July, with the email account of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo cited as one of the more prominent accounts to have been breached” it came to light as a ‘prominent’ account was breached. So how long was this mess there? There is a reason I do not trust Microsoft and as such I do not want them anywhere near the 50 million accounts that I see coming, or the ones that follow, which will be a massive amount of accounts. Even more I reckon as I concluded a new stage in Dubai. I saw the opportunity when I investigated the Dubai Mall, the Mall of the Emirates, the Dubai Marina Mall and the Battuta Mall. There were a few more, but the setting of malls this big all in one city was something I never considered and it gave me more ideas, more options and that made me consider the interactions of my Augmented Reality IP with two other IP’s. Actually four, but that is a story for another day. What is absolutely clear is that I do not want Microsoft anywhere near it. Not with the mess they have, so either Amazon wakes up, or Tencent technologies gets it all. I never discontinued my interest in Google, but they basically took themselves of the field. No idea where Apple is, but that is not my problem at present. You see, the larger stage is the security risk that Microsoft is and it is also seen with “The news agency said Adair’s client had not forked out what Microsoft demands for its premium security suite, and hence detailed forensic data was unavailable.” Really? They are all about the forking out, all whilst their solution is like a 45 year old prostitute claiming to be a virgin? I would suggest that forking out is the least of their problems. That is even beyond the fact that the transgressions are requiring ‘detailed forensic data’ all whilst the transgressions are what the first article is implying “by exploiting a now-patched zero-day validation issue”, all whilst IT Wire implies that the damage is well beyond the ‘pretended’ scope and as such might (a speculation from my side) not be patched, not to the degree it needed to be. And anyone wonders why I do not trust Microsoft with my IP? They haven’t been able to close their barn doors, at least since 2019, optionally long before that. So your data (and my IP) would have been at risk for well over 4 years. We are also given “This isn’t a Microsoft-specific issue, if a signing key for Google, Facebook, Okta or any other major identity provider leaks, the implications are hard to comprehend. Our industry — and especially cloud service providers — must commit to a greater level of security and transparency concerning how they protect critical keys such as this one, to prevent future incidents and limit their potential impact” This might be, but I have never seen these levels of transgressions on Google Cloud or Amazon AWS, but that is merely my point of view. Then we get an interesting side “while Microsoft had ensured that Azure Active Directory applications would not longer accept forged tokens as valid, by revoking the compromised keys, the danger from the breach still remained” well, it might be, it might not be. Microsoft stated that they had the most powerful console in the world and within 2 years that Nintendo launched the weakest nextgen console of them all, they surpassed all sales records Microsoft claimed to have had, so I am not holding my breath here. The number one question is ‘Why could Microsoft not differentiate between real tokens and forged tokens?’ That would have ben my first question, but I am not seeing that here. Possibly for very valid reasons, but the missing out is a case here. So whilst some stare at “setting up application-specific backdoors”, my issue is that with every application, the change of interaction and transgressions increase. It just does. For example (a bad and debatable one), if EVERY application has a zero day issue (pure speculation) we get with 3 applications a speculative 9 zero day problems. So what happens when the average corporation has Azure and 35 applications. This implies that this customer has 42,875 risk factors. Yes, it is a speculation, yet the ITWire article gives us this with “The full impact of this incident is much larger than we Initially understood it to be”, as well as “We must learn from it and improve”, a setting that sounds nice, but consider that Azure was launched 14 years ago, if you are still learning, you have a much larger problem. In December 2020 I wrote ‘Historic view versus reality’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/26/historic-view-versus-reality/) there I quotes the No Such Agency giving us “National Security Agency warns hackers are forging cloud authentication information”, as such the Microsoft claim “Microsoft had ensured that Azure Active Directory applications would not longer accept forged tokens as valid” as a hollow joke. The NSA made the statement 3 years ago, as such Microsoft should have put (buggy) solutions in place to stop forged keys, but it seems they never did. Another mess they made with their own hands. Don’t take my word on this, the NSA send out warnings in 2020. Warnings that Microsoft seemingly never took to heart. Still happy with your blue cloud? I reckon it is time for people to consider Amazon AWS, Apple iCloud, Google Cloud (GCP), Oracle Cloud or wherever you will be trying to keep your data safe, as I personally see it Microsoft is not that place and with that they are scuttling yet another (what I personally like to call) a spin system, just like a washing machine trying to tumble dry your data on servers where you do not have access to them. But that might be my short sighted feel on the matter.

Enjoy the day, Monday is now but a day away.

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