Category Archives: IT

April 12, 2023 · 07:13

A weird choice of thoughts

I have them at times, not merely during the daytime, at times the ones at night are even weirder. I was in what I think was a Google location. It was extremely sunny and warm, as such I think I might have been in California. I was in the foyer of a building, it was open and spacious. Almost like a circle, there was a circle in the centre where receptionists were working and assisting people. Around me were windows, they had a lower part and an upper part. The lower part was about 80% of the height of the room, the upper part was about 20%. The upper parts were different, they had stained windows, each window had a Google logo in stained glass style, the logo was surrounded by milky white glass. It had an interesting effect on the foyer, the foyer was bathing in colours. Each logo was adding colours to the room, one part was a little less bright, this logo was not surrounded by milky white glass, but by black glass, it was the Stadia logo. As I looked around the foyer I saw the Drive logo, the YouTube logo, the cloud logo, mail logo, calendar logo and several more. I started looking at the people and they all looked stressed, they looked worried, but I could not see a reason. The circle only had 2 of the 5 computers switched on. I started to walk around and I walked up the staircase. People looked frantic they were talking, but they were also looking though papers. I saw in one hall that only one row of computers was switched on. The conference rooms were empty, TV’s were not switched on, the coffee corner had its coolers switched off, or so it looked. There were people all around but it was a population of less than 10% of what was made room for. 

As I walked around I saw more and more people nervous, some scared but not of each other. It seemed to me that there was a massive shortage of electricity, an energy crises unlike any one I had ever seen. I had seen the energy issues on Crete, but it was a minor issue, this was a lot worse and a lot more intense. I could not feel the het, but everyone around me was sweating. The rooms had a distinct Google feeling like I had seen them in Sydney. I looked outside but I saw no ocean, perhaps the angle was wrong. On the other side I saw high rises nearby, at least a dozen buildings. Not sure where I was and for some reason I could not any of the conversations. It was almost like they were talking alien, or I was not hearing correctly, but there conversations were not meant for me, or I was not part of that side, I was merely there to see, to watch and to observe. People were massively underdressed, dressed like they knew it was a 40C degrees day, thin flimsy and mostly covering their bodies in this both men and women had taken heed of slight covering is better than melting away, and with the obvious lack of cold drinks they were relying on water, or so it seemed to me. This is nearly all I saw, I merely heard the words ‘That’s enough’, the only two words I heard in the entire dream. Was someone showing me what will be? It was only a dream and I have no idea why I saw this. I had seen data all over the place, but is this the setting the US will face in the near future? Places that cannot continue because the energy crises is overwhelming places? I have no idea, for me it was merely a dream, but one that felt uneasy, it lacked the comfort I usually have in a dream. A setting where a government due to inaction needs to find a new path, a new approach to satisfy the need of corporations and they all need energy a setting we saw for years but the greed driven were telling everyone that there would be enough time, there would be options. It seems that this setting has been passed and passed without activity. I wonder what will come next and as I am trying to make a tally, Texas, California and New York will need at least two, two and one nuclear reactor to keep on par with the energy requirements, the alternatives will not roll out in time and these reactors would not be build in time either. Yet as I consider that part, I realise that the EU and UK are in similar settings. They have a lack of energy resources and the shortage gap is merely increasing.

It was a weird choice of thoughts to have, but I think it has been fuelled by the decrease of oil, the numbers and numerous tables and charts I was looking at and I think my subconscious filled in the blanks through a story. And it is about to get worse for these places, summer is coming and that implies millions of AC units draining energy from June onwards. In this Texas and California are the strongest places, but New York is another place. The New York Times gave us 11 hours ago “The high cost of natural gas and electricity is prompting many to prepare for outages and shortages.” Yet personally I feel that it is not only the price of electricity, I feel that there will be an actual shortage and in that setting, for the warmer summer states late July through to mid September will be challenge to say the least. In California and Florida, those with theme parks will have their own set of problems and a lack of electricity will be the smallest of issues. A stage that would come, but now it comes sooner and even my dreams have no answers. In part because I cannot tell when the shortages hit, in part because I know very little of the energy solutions that nations have, it is not my expertise, but I do realise that energy can be seen in what is available and what is used and that is a simple tabular setting and as such I understand the shortages that several will face in a summer state in the northern hemisphere and as such when that happens a lot will happen and it will happen all over Asia too. 

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April 10, 2023 · 00:55

And the lesson is?

That is at times the issue and it does at times get help from people, managers mainly that belief that the need for speed rectifies everything, which of course is delusional to say the least. So, last week there was a news flash that was speeding across the retina’s of my eyes and I initially ignored it, mainly because it was Samsung and we do not get along. But then Tom’s guide (at https://www.tomsguide.com/news/samsung-accidentally-leaked-its-secrets-to-chatgpt-three-times) and I took a closer look. The headline ‘Samsung accidentally leaked its secrets to ChatGPT — three times!’ was decently satisfying. The rest “Samsung is impressed by ChatGPT but the Korean hardware giant trusted the chatbot with much more important information than the average user and has now been burned three times” seemed icing on the cake, but I took another look at the information. You see, to all ChatGPT is seen as an artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by OpenAI. But I think it is something else. You see, AI does not exist, as such I see it as an ‘Intuitive advanced Deeper Learning Machine response system’, this is not me dissing OpenAI, this system when it works is what some would call the bees knees (and I would be agreeing), but it is data driven and that is where the issues become slightly overbearing. In the first you need to learn and test the responses on data offered. It seems to me that this is where speed driven Samsung went wrong. And Tom’s guide partially agrees by giving us “unless users explicitly opt out, it uses their prompts to train its models. The chatbot’s owner OpenAI urges users not to share secret information with ChatGPT in conversations as it’s “not able to delete specific prompts from your history.” The only way to get rid of personally identifying information on ChatGPT is to delete your account — a process that can take up to four weeks” and this response gives me another thought. Whomever owns OpenAI is setting a data driven stage where data could optionally be captured. More important the NSA and likewise tailored organisations (DGSE, DCD et al) could find the logistics of these accounts, hack the cloud and end up with TB’s of data, if not Petabytes and here we see the first failing and it is not a small one. Samsung has been driving innovation for the better part of a decade and as such all that data could be of immense value to both Russia and China and do not for one moment think that they are not all over the stage of trying to hack those cloud locations. 

Of course that is speculation on my side, but that is what most would do and we don’t need an egg timer to await actions on that front. The final quote that matters is “after learning about the security slip-ups, Samsung attempted to limit the extent of future faux pas by restricting the length of employees’ ChatGPT prompts to a kilobyte, or 1024 characters of text. The company is also said to be investigating the three employees in question and building its own chatbot to prevent similar mishaps. Engadget has contacted Samsung for comment” and it might be merely three employees. Yet in that case the party line failed, management oversight failed and Common Cyber Sense was nowhere to be seen. As such there is a failing and I am fairly certain that these transgressions go way beyond Samsung, how far? No one can tell. 

Yet one thing is certain. Anyone racing to the ChatGPT tally will take shortcuts to get there first and as such companies will need to reassure themselves that proper mechanics, checks and balances are in place. The fact that deleting an account takes 4 weeks implies that this is not a simple cloud setting and as such whomever gets access to that will end up with a lot more than they bargained for.

I see it as a lesson for all those who want to be at the starting signal of new technology on day one, all whilst most of that company has no idea what the technology involves and what was set to a larger stage like the loud, especially when you consider (one source) “45% of breaches are cloud-based. According to a recent survey, 80% of companies have experienced at least one cloud security incident in the last year, and 27% of organisations have experienced a public cloud security incident—up 10% from last year” and in that situation you are willing to set your data, your information and your business intelligence to a cloud account? Brave, stupid but brave.

Enjoy the day

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April 8, 2023 · 22:36

Anyone seeking wealth?

This is a genuine question, there is no hidden trap, there is no signing up. It is a simple setting that I would love to solve (I am not adverse to wealth), yet the problem is that I see an issue and in this case, as I am not a programmer I cannot solve it. I can clean data, I can mine data and when it comes to all kinds of data I can solve it. I am not a programmer. So here is the solution in this one article that could fetch you a lot of money, because no one has anything proper at the moment. And it is the word proper that counts, because it matters. 

The clock
I have written about the clock once before, the Android clock being better as it allows for a 24 hour digital clock in Android, iOS is all about look and not much about function so the analog clock is all you get (you can buy the digital version). And for me, I have 4 times on my mobile. Vancouver (Los Angeles is too pretentious), Toronto, Amsterdam and Riyadh. I do not travel, but I have friend in Europe and I wrote about the middle east regularly, so knowing what time it is over there matters. 

What else?
So I was sitting and checking a few issues whilst I suddenly realised that I needed more information, which is not a problem. Yet, why was it not handy at the push of a simple button? Over 15 years and no one thought of this? I was baffled and as far as I saw, there is no solution at present and that is your option. OK, I saw one solution that offer only time and weather, but it is on top of your screen, all about pretence and not set to the comfort of the international travellers who are adding up to 10,000,000 a year according to some sources.

You see, millions a year travel over timezones. The most visible one is London – New York. Over 11,000 a day travel that route and when you consider Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, London, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Munich the numbers start really adding up and they all have the same need. Not merely the clock they see, but when they click on that clock they would like to see more. Weather, optional exchange rates, and more. What more? Well I cannot tell what they need, but weather is a first and there is no solution. There is data all over the place offering it, but no one considered connecting these dat houses in a really robust solution as a widget or an app. Yes there are all kinds of widgets and you need to adjust for every one of them, but one solution that takes the destination THEY need and add the data around it? Nope, as far as I can tell, no one was that customer friendly.

Well over 10 years in 4G and no one considered uniting these data sources. Why not? And when you get to charge $1-$5 for a power widget that does just that, you are looking at an interesting amount of money. I am not calling out that maker a millionaire yet, but it has the option of adding to that. And someone will figure it out before I am a decent programmer, so I am making the idea Public domain and let the faster and better programmer win. It is all yours.

Have a great day, have fun and do not stumble over the DO UNTIL and ENDDO statements in your source file.

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April 5, 2023 · 06:33

Advanced Ignorance

Yes, this is about AI, the big issue is that it does not exist (not yet anyway), the sales bozo’s are giving you some talk about how it exists and yes the naysayers are right, but they are confusing one version of AI with another. Well part 1, Artificial Intelligence does not exist, it really does not and there is no alternative to this. What you see is machine learning and deeper machine learning and these two parts are AWESOME. They really are, but there is a hidden snag. These two elements rely on data and they are therefor dependent on Human Error and there is plenty. This is seen even today at Google. Now, things happen and errors are seen and at some point they will be corrected for, but until that happens, the machine learning part fails and it will fail a few times.

To illustrate this, lets take a look at a British Hollywood giant, namely the actor Tom Holland. Now, there is nothing wrong with this youthful young lad. As image 1 shows above. As you can see he was born June 1st 1996, on the same day as my mother, just a few decades later. He is from (read the pic) and so on, so far so good. I actually had to check something, as such I needed to see his movies. (See below).

Now we get to the good stuff, he did Psycho 2, 13 years before he was born. That makes him a temporal god, which is odd as far as I can tell I am the only one who travelled through time at present, but OK. If I can do it, so could he. And that is where we see the stage, it is seen in the picture below. 

As you can see, there was ANOTHER actor named Tom Holland and he did Psycho 2. But the learning machines never picked it up because the rule to check for errors and movies a person before that person was born did not occur to the software engineer at Google who did this part. Errors will creep in, they always do and there you see the failing of today’s AI when you get one and you might not see it, you will not notice it, because they are rare, but in AI no errors are allowed, they change the outcome of the algorithm and that breaks the AI sooner and sooner. 

This is why I do not trust any AI at present, the minimum stage for AI is nowhere near reaching. It is coming, but I reckon it is t least a decade away. Mainly because ONLY IBM has at present a quantum computer that is required for this and their computer is not ready yet, so at present it is all a version of machine learning which relies on data and it relies on people making the formulas and people are flawed, very very flawed. 

So when you see another AI BS story, feel free to steer clear, AI does not exist and the salesperson who relies on ‘his’ AI story cannot be trusted, he is selling you something that does not yet exist.

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April 5, 2023 · 01:57

A promise kept

It all started a little before February 1st 2022. It was when I wrote ‘The opportunity for 2022’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/01/the-opportunity-for-2022/) this is when my brain saw the opportunity that Augmented Reality saw for what it was. It took a little longer before I set it the premise to paper and with the videos of the Eaton Centre Mall (Toronto), I saw the setting to engage the audience of a mall (pretty much all 116,000 malls) that AR was the ticket to drive engagement It was then that my mind created 8 pieces of IP, the 9th came one day later when I realised a few items that tarted to mingle in the process. You see, we see mobiles and AR, but we (basically they) do not see the larger stage. 

From my MAPINT days, we were working with maps and thematic layers. It is nothing complex. It is a map and over that map we set a transparent layer which we fill with information that overlay the map. Population, usage information, measurements. It could be nearly everything. But when we put a OVER a mobile phone, the phone maker needs to adjust for it. It can be done ‘as is’, but images become messy, and now we get to the setting.

The maker (Tiffany for example) ads the code on to a business card (the back side most likely). The code is for example a ring, a high end ring that now does not need to be shown to the people, with all the dangers of it getting stolen. But that is only a small part of it. The larger part is that the ring is now advertised by the people to everyone else. Thousands will send to thousands and the Tiffany product will reach millions in the stretch of a day, all it costed them was a business card. Optionally the edge will show the Tiffany logo.

Now we get to the thematic layer. That shows the ring in high resolution, but it does so over what was under the layer. So when you photograph your hand with that layer, the intelligence that was in the thematic layer will place the ring on your finger and the intelligence does the rest. Rings, bracelets and you photograph it to set on your hand and photograph it with that selfie you could send it all over the place with the question “Does this look good on me?” And when it is a Tiffany ring the responses will come from ‘great’ to ‘amazing’ A simple equation added to a phone, an iOS or Android phone. I saw this happen well over a year ago and no one seemingly picked it up. Go read up, no one had it and no one wanted to buy it, so I am handing this out for free. So when a Huawei phone adds this option and you can show your feet with the new Nike shoes that only can have 50,000 owners, would you do this? I am certain that you will. The pull of short term gratification through selfie has been well documented for well over a decade.

The AR code was a way to liven up malls, they need to create waves of interactions and that was one of them. Victoria secrets has the option of setting an AR window that overlayed part of their shop, now they have a daily run of Victoria Secrets models showing their goods and it will create a huge following (leave it to single men admiring women in lingerie) and that is not merely the start of it. The AR window is aganst the outside window, as such the models will walk over a local catwalk whilst never being there.

Jewellers, fashion even book shops have options in their repertoire and it draws in the people. It was that simple a jump and who has done it so far? Who got to that point? It is now known that Tiffany and I believe it was Gucci are setting serious coin towards Arm towards the digital development of their wares, which is good. But let it be clear I got there a year early and now because of the Public Domain event, everyone can get there. So you all have a nice day and see what you can make of your goods and where AR can take you.

I kept my promise and I will snore like a sawmill today (its 01:50).

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April 4, 2023 · 09:07

Weird Wall Writing

Yes, that is what it amounts to and it is making me giddy. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65157555, a mere 8 hours ago) gives us ‘Oil prices surge after surprise move to cut output’. Why is it making me giddy? Well that is simple. On March 29th I wrote ‘The snooze that does not wake’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/29/the-snooze-that-does-not-wake/). Then there was ‘Oil in the family’ on November 23rd (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/11/23/oil-in-the-family/) where I stated “Its games are now backfiring, should oil deliveries decrease by as little as an additional 1 million barrels US economy could implode with all the nightmares and trimmings that come with that.” The messages go on and on and it goes well before ‘Two Issues in play’ which I wrote in November 2018 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/11/20/two-issues-in-play/). As such I have ben pointing to this danger for 5 years, but people all around me were shouting that I was mad, that this would never happen. Now the BBC gives us “the US has been calling for producers to increase output in order to push energy prices lower. A spokesperson for the US National Security Council said: “We don’t think cuts are advisable at this moment given market uncertainty – and we’ve made that clear.”” Oh, and how many oil farms does that person have? The US played the commodity war for decades and it has been to their favour for too long, now that idiots playing with the government credit card increasing debt after debt, the commodities that they do not own become an anchor. Oh, and that being said. How much oil did Brent keep on American soil to keep the price down? Last I heard 89% is exported. So before you scream, look at ALL the facts. So when I see “This surprise announcement is significant for several reasons.” Was it really? I warned for this danger for years, the last warning was a year ago and I reckon that the 1 million barrels a day will go to China. A stage everyone disregarded. So whilst we all cry against these mean mean Arabs, consider that America has been playing this game for favours for decades, now that the tables are turned it is suddenly a problem?

The second laugh I got from “Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG, warned that the oil price surge could make the battle to bring down inflation harder. However, she said that rising oil prices won’t necessarily lead to higher household energy bills.” Hah! Tell me another one, I got a bridge for sale, nice view on the Sydney Opera house. Yes, the price hike will not be immediate, but there will be a price hike, I feel very certain about that. Consider that 1,000,000 barrels a day might not seem massive, but there is already a shortage, as such the hike will come no later than 90 days for now (which is a personal speculation).  

Here the writing was on the wall and Aramco (as well as Saudi Arabia) might have had enough of the false friend naming by the US (EU too), this is their response, it is one that China has been looking forward to, I reckon Russia as well. 

And here endeth the lesson today. However I have another surprise coming up. After all these clowns shouting at me, I will make another IP Public Domain within the next 24 hours. I will show you just what Apple, Google and others missed out on and it seems nice for Tiffany (and Co) to see the impact of public domain, this time it is on Augmented Reality. Have a great day.

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April 3, 2023 · 00:48

I’ll buy that for a Yuan

It is a little unlike I stated things earlier, yet Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/program/counting-the-cost/2023/4/1/can-russia-and-china-succeed-in-dethroning-the-dollar) gives us ‘Can Russia and China succeed in dethroning the dollar?’ I cannot agree, because personally I believe that any partnership there will be facing an united front to dethrone that idea. Yet I made notions to some degree that there would be coming a new world order, America is exiting the stage on the right and with the debts they have it is game over for them. If only they had taken my warning 25 years ago and overhauled their tax system. I personally hoped that the new world order would include the Commonwealth (I am commonwealthian after all). Here, in Al Jazeera we see more but not the names. In some sources I saw a list of countries. Yet I personally believe that this list is most likely to include China, Saudi Arabia, India and personally I would include the Commonwealth, not merely the UK. And the issue is that China could pull this off, the US and EU are too weak, they are all hot air and they aren’t getting the job dome, they are both too deep into debt and the EU is dragging half a dozen members along who are slowing them down, they all want a slice of the pie and aren’t contributing enough. 

Yet in my view, I never considered dousing the dollar (perhaps my folly), and with oil being the ignored requirement Saudi Arabia becomes a required ally for that new order. India with its consumer base of one point four billion cannot be ignored either, that and the case that they have the ability to fill IT infrastructure needs nearly everywhere. There might be one or two other players China needs, but they will feel that inviting the Commonwealth might do the trick, as Canada in the west and Australia in the east will settle issues the assassination triangle will be filled. You know, I wrote about it. Segregation, Isolation, Assassination. America segregated itself with silly settings of free speech (Karen’s anyone? Proud boys and that list goes on), now they are one step away from becoming irrelevant and obsolete, if only they had acted these last to years. We saw someone start an insurrection, claiming to take the nation back. This act is now 2 years old and still the people behind it all are walking the streets free with in the end a porn star ‘saving’ America. That time is now showing to be their downfall, inactions from too many sides is hurting them bad and all along China kept moving slowly step by step and now that China has infrastructure and defence deals their goals are almost met. The wet merely grinds towards a halt through inactivity. The news is all around us and the media is carefully ignoring a lot of it. The benefit of stake holders I speculate.

I warned of parts of this well before 2019, well before covid and now that timeline is nearing completion. That all sounds nice, but am I correct? That would be a fair question, but consider that the larger deals out there involve China and Saudi Arabia, who of them has the US dollar? I am not saying this is essential, and as long as there is an alternative, these two might seek the alternative. And consider the two refineries that are commencing the build, where will the oil come from? Exactly, from Saudi Arabia and the peace process that China instigated will give them even more oil, we might shout loudly, but in the end, the US gave us the expression that was hanging around too many necks. Money talks and bullshit walks. And now others are telling the US to keep on walking.

I merely hope that this new order will exclude Russia (who is now presiding over the Security Council) and it will include the Commonwealth. Now consider that the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) has been around since 1945 and we are given “The Security Council’s five permanent members, below, have the power to veto any substantive resolution; this allows a permanent member to block adoption of a resolution, but not to prevent or end debate.” Now consider that NO ONE seemingly had the idea to remove the veto right of any permanent member who instigates a war for the duration of that war? For some reason that never dawned on any of them and the 5 members (China, United Kingdom, Russia, France and the United States) merely accepted that setting? How is that working out for them now?

The United States is now massively boxed in and to a much larger degree it is all due to their own inactions. As such there is every chance that the mediocre 5G technologies will soon see a lot more of Huawei, because they have been fully rolled out in China and Saudi Arabia, who had until recently (I didn’t recheck the numbers) a 5G network that is 700% faster than the US, how is that adding up to your view of a technology first nation? To be behind Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Canada? Al Jazeera raised a point that most were happily willing to bury anywhere, but I believe it is slightly too late for that. 

Enjoy the day and for your consideration there is a Canadian 16 year old blasting a whole range of records and she set at least two new world records. According to CBC, she is nowhere near done yet.

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April 2, 2023 · 02:03

Fortune cookies

This is not the food stuff (which I love), these are phrases that appear on social media. I dislike them for the most, they tend to be snippets of a much larger framework, as such the message is trying to lure in an audience on an incomplete part. This is the main reason why I dislike them and life cookies shouldn’t be on LinkedIn, but that might merely be me. I will happily admit to that flaw in me.

Yet in the last 24 hours I got two messages that did make a ring to me, that made appeal which instilled something in me. OK, it happens. I am not without flaws or without wonder if need be.

Music is what feelings sound like
That was the first phrase. It seems shallow, but it is not. Is this why older people tend to appreciate classical music? And if music is the noise of feelings, how complex does music needs to become before some are struck by it? And there is no alternative, as such those who do not appreciate or accept music, what of them? I do not know, I am asking. I went from the young need of pop music, I felt connection to Jean Michel Jarre and David Bowie from the 70’s onwards.

I became a Jean Michel Jarre fan when Oxygène (Part IV) became a hit in the Netherlands in 1977. I am still a fan to this day and I tend to play his albums at least once a month. My introduction to David Bowie was in the same year with Sound and Vision, which was on the album Low.

Yet the first album I bought on CD was Lodger (1979), after that, over time I got most of his albums. If they appeal to our feelings, what are our feelings? Even now (decades later) my appreciation of Bowie is a lot larger than it was 45 years earlier. How come? I have other music I really like. Kate Bush, Alan Parsons and Kraftwerk. Music I still love decades later. There is new music too, but these 5 never wavered. Is it because I cannot identify the feelings? Is it something else? I honestly do not know. We could take these feelings in other directions too. Like thanking Ridley Scott for creating a movie so that Starman finally has a perfect video, and lets not forget that the movie was pretty phenomenal as well. I took this side-road to emphasise that this could become a chicken and egg setting. What was first, the feeling, or the identity of the sound that is seemingly connected? 

To see this to some degree, we ned to take a sidestep to the Troubadour, who was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry from 1100 onwards. He would be replaced to a larger degree in the 12th century by the minstrel. Yet they did not translate our feelings, they instilled the feelings of courage and victory in whatever stage is presented itself. The minstrel was more into getting a gold piece (and food) from the castle lord who he was performing to, as such he tended to play what they wanted to hear and it usually came with clerical sides too, because in those days the church was almighty and as such speaking of biblical virtues would go over well with the clergy in that place and as such with the lord too (who might have preferred songs of adulterous women). 

So when did music became the sound of our hearts? I am not attacking the phrase, it made me think, I wonder how we see music and how we value it and we do value it, consider the best songs from the last 10 years, what song has meaning to you? And it can be for the simplest or most direct reason.

A mind is like a parachute, it doesn’t work if it isn’t open
That was the second phrase, it was not related to the first, but I feel it is connected. It is an important distinguish as I am still working on other IP and a closed mind doesn’t get me there. Even as I have several pieces in play, the larger stage is where else I can go, and I wonder where I can take myself. I believe that there are hard and for some even harder times ahead. As such I need to see where I will go next, where I can be a return on investment and where I will be properly valued, not the wankers near me who make claims and like always, they will never deliver, they want a free ride and I have made 2-3 of these works public domain, so they get nothing and now they are afraid, they never considered that I would make it public domain and never get anything myself. It was their very stupid mistake. I have seen these stupid people trying to weasel fake promise after fake promise only to come with the lamest of excuses afterwards. As such more will become public domain soon enough. Especially some of the Augmented Reality settings. I saw the field and I saw it grow beyond the big 3D screen with Versace. I saw the field where they could set a new age on Android and iOS, but I reckon they missed that boat and now it is about to become Public Domain, the open mind sees what more there could be, it sees that greed is the dampening of an open mind, as such I decided to make some of it PD. So what happens when they miss out more and the 6G ideas become an open field for anyone in that approaching stage? Suddenly some of the larger firms will see that shedding jobs was a clear choice, but not the best one. That is how I see it. 

And before you think I am kidding, consider the stories from the last two weeks. I showed to be correct with articles that are months old, so how much more convincing would anyone need? I do not care, I still have a few ideas in the barrel and as I make some PD, other ideas are added to the barrel. Amazon left well over $5,000,000,000 a year on the floor (as did Google), so what contracting economy were they looking at? I get it Microsoft is a lot cause, but the other two are actual innovators, they should be running circles around me, that is not the case, it is almost the reverse (in some ways only). Yet the thinker would come to the same conclusion I came to a year ago. How am I running circles around them in even one field? That is what the open mind is trying to figure out and as I listen to Iggy Pop I will finish my sandwich and after that snore like a sawmill.

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April 1, 2023 · 18:54

Focal and blinders

We all face them at times, I am no different. The problem is when is what what. Let me be a little more clear, in my case Microsoft is an issue, as I personally see it, if they buy Blizzard, they will need $92,000,000 of profit a day just to break even with the purchase of 3 houses (Mojang, Bethesda and Blizzard), now this is not set correctly, they bought Mojang some time ago, as such the amount is a few million less, but it is not less by much. They already crashed Redfall PS5, which they are allowed to do. They are allowed to do whatever they need to with what they own. Yet, consider that the PS5 has well over 30,000,000 consoles in the field and they allegedly need $92 million a day, does the act make sense? So am I concentrating on a focal, or a blinder. Consider that a blinder lets you NOT see in a specific direction. We attribute all kinds of ‘evil’ towards Microsoft, are they blinders or are they seen as the result of a focal? That is actually a lot harder to answer than you think. When is one could also be the other.

As such I have been concentrating on my two IP projects. Project Graveyard and Project Cluster. Two very different software and hardware IP settings. They both fit the Amazon Luna and optionally whomever buys the Google Stadia, which is why Kingdom Holdings was on my radar. One will be a decent downfall for Microsoft the other no less, but also takes the steam out of Facebook, and as such Amazon was the logical path to take and not just merely logical, Amazon was about to get a whole new range of revenue because of it. Yet I try not to be smitten by either blinders or focal (no matter how much fun they are). As such I saw the appearance of Tencent on time and even as several players are willing to ignore Tencent, I cannot and I will not. Tencent has seemingly the ability to unite gamers. In addition it allows China to grow in one additional industry where Americans thought they would not exist and now Microsoft in particular will have a problem because of the required $92 million a day will become a nose grounded with an anchor around the neck of American economy. And there are plenty of nay sayer spinners on the internet. It is all Microsoft and they are all getting on top of things. So lets have a go at that list 

1. Microsoft would acquire Mandiant to solve their solarwinds issue
There was one news cycle and then suddenly it went dark, there was no more news. I raised it in ‘What we hope for’ on March 7th 2022 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/07/what-we-hope-for/). It became part of Google and it is a Google solution now. After that Microsoft and cyber solutions went a little dark on the matter.

2. Microsoft had a new Tablet to WOW the world. No, it didn’t never got close to the Apple iPad and it got even less close to the iPad Air, two devices that were more able and had a larger following and it still does. It still has a lot more to offer, but the spinners came with the ‘with the keyboard it was a more complete laptop’. No, it was not and it will never be that more. I saw people howling with agony as they saw failure after failure on their Surface. I still see some people trying to spin that thing. A $1650 solution trying to win over a $500 iPad, all whilst Apple has the more versatile device.

3. Microsoft has the cloud solution, Azure. Smell it, it smells nice. Which is laughingly the biggest loser of them all. In clarity, Azure is not bad, it lacks and it has no business in gaming. Azure is the Microsoft solution and after 3 years it is nowhere near ready to take on the AWS (Amazon Cloud solution). Last month someone wrote (not me) “Azure is more costly. Azure is the finest alternative for a robust Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider and even a Windows integration. If a company needs infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) or a wide range of tools, AWS may be the ideal option”, so where are the SAAS and GAAS comparisons? And when I look, there is always a hidden issue where the people are promoting THEIR solution, no matter whether it involves AWS or Azure (Google is falling behind too much). At the moment the marketshare of AWS is a lot larger and in some reports it seems like Google cloud and IBM cloud are underreported. What matters is that this is another field where Microsoft is not ahead. 

4. The Microsoft gaming console is the most powerful in the world. It might be true, but the weakest console of them all (Nintendo Switch) surpassed the Microsoft sales numbers by a lot and did it in half the time Microsoft with their X/S console were in the field. Even now, these numbers of X and S series consoles are aggregated, the loss is that defining. They are way behind  the PS5 with their X series console, but it is the most powerful in the world. In addition the PS5 has a whole range of next generation titles that goes into the dozen and the Microsoft console is lacking there, even after two years it is still lacking in Next generation titles. 

I will ignore issues 5,6 and 7. 4 fields where Microsoft will need to do a lot better and for years they were not able to do so. So where is that $92 million a day profit coming from? I cannot see it, can you? And that was merely to claw back the investments on gaming alone. Amazon is hungry and they are driving their AWS (and optionally their Amazon Luna too) making the pain for Microsoft larger. Apple has a firm grip on their devices and even as we might not like Apple, their devices are solid and Microsoft has no chance of driving a wedge there. And as I see it, they already lost the console war. In that environment Microsoft is bleeding revenue all over the field, their books are red with blood and red ink. And for their security I have not seen an alternative for Mandiant (owned by Google). So where are they now? When will we see another Solarwinds? It is not a given, but they lack in cyber security, so I fail to see how they will stop the next wave. 

And now the battle field changes further, Tencent is about to arrive, I merely wonder if that was one of the reasons why the E3 was cancelled (I honestly do not know). If Tencent arrives, it arrives with more options and more settings than the Microsoft console field will allow for, no matter how that plays out, it makes the Blizzard $65,000,000,000 a massive anchor around the neck of Microsoft and it will hurt them, no matter what ideas they have. Tencent has been funding a lot of Unreal engine 5 stuff, as such they could wow the gaming community and if they are going the direction I am speculating on, it will hurt both Microsoft and Amazon to a larger degree, in this the pain to Apple remains unknown, or it might be minor. And that is all before some figure out that Project Cluster will enable a lot more than anyone considered, it was meant for that, to be ready for national 5G implementations. How many of them did that off the bat and how many (implying Microsoft) stated “We will get to that when it is ready”, it is the short term focal point of a quarter by quarter BI person. In this none of them have a real long term focal point and that is why Tencent is a danger to them all, they are focussing on 2025 and 2026 (the year Microsoft allegedly collapses).

So is Microsoft my blinder? Is it my focal, or did I see the stage for what it was one that offers great options for some and not that much for others. They limited their abilities by hanging an additional $65,000,000,000 anchor around their necks. I am calling it as I saw it. Perhaps I am wrong, you tell me. I gave you the numbers and the works, you can do your own research.

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March 25, 2023 · 21:50

Another promise in the works

It was a mere 15 hours ago when we were given ‘UK regulator no longer thinks Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard to make Call of Duty exclusive’, which might be true, but Microsoft created waves when we were told that Redfall was made an exclusive the moment Microsoft bought Bethesda. Now this does not mean that Call of Duty is becoming an exclusive, but there are other things that Microsoft could do and over time we have seen them do similar actions and they have made a $68 billion wager on ‘their’ success. As such I feel that I need to counter the setting by creating a new IP, never seen before and it will be an Exclusive for Sony and Amazon (well optionally whomever buys it will have it all to themselves. Yet the idea of slamming Microsoft in a few ways is oddly satisfying. The IP is at present set to counter whatever Bethesda and Blizzard have in the works. Of course there will be a time of growth and there is a timeline. Only stupid people think that they have a solution ready of the bat. I already created IP to counter Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls with IP that was actually meant for Bethesda, but when they became part of Microsoft, that went into the drawer. Now it serves my need to drown Microsoft in their own arrogance. So in the net IP instance, I focussed on an First Person game, the reason that CoD is First person, but there is a rather large need to go in another direction and I think I achieved that. I looked at combat, I looked at healing parameters and I looked at some of the weapon settings. Two elements I solved and even as you can collect some things, the aim of collection is set to a more redundant stage. A world with 800K opponents does not need to rely on weapons, it needs to rely on favours and I think I set that in a new limelight. The idea of blending favours and favoured weapons is something not done before (as far as I could tell) and in this world we all adhere to one master, well two if you are a proclaimed master of self. Then I considered the world of income and I discarded it in this case to a much larger extent. There will be options for barter, but bartering will be set to other needs (not missions). Then in light of my everlasting need for replayability I set mana to a different score, to the enhancement of passive abilities. There will be melee, ranged and weapons of reach. And your first choice matters, there will be no real switching in the initial game if you want to stay alive. You see in the old days people could hardly afford one weapon, let alone several. So I decided to set the combat to knife, dagger, gladius, sword, axe, club, mace, pitchfork, spear, bident, trident and a few more. But the game needs to be a challenge and there we have the larger stage (which will be revealed to some extent at a later date). As my mind sifts through challenges and opportunities it is important to keep this an open sandbox game, to give the people choice to go in any direction and to consider the realm they are in. I wanted more than a simple game with trigger points and that is where I found myself. There will always be people that prefer CoD, but when you consider what they achieved in NEW innovations, I feel I have a chance to make Microsoft regret their choices. If this game gets its own following and merely persuade 10% of the gamers to try something else than CoD, my job is done and when Microsoft has to do a Ubisoft and sell the game at 50% less (or more), that additional $68B anchor (in addition to Bethesda) it becomes a $100B chokehold and as I wrote 2 days ago in ‘One thought counters another’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/23/one-thought-counters-another/) the simplified quote “To merely break even Microsoft will have to exceed 72.8 million of PROFIT every day between now and 31/12/2026 and that is merely to cover the last three spendings, not all their waste.” As such I ignored a few items, but the short and sweet became that they need $72.8M a day to break even, so when my IP allows Amazon Luna and Sony to diminish that to a mere $32M a day with the added thought that in gaming they have no chance of getting anywhere near that $72.8M a day, especially with GamePass in play, they stand to lose more and more money. The added benefit of IP that is there not for Microsoft products, Amazon will grow (still hoping they buy the other IP which would land them well over 50,000,000 subscriptions)and Sony will grow a little more too Sony might not grow too much due to me, merely because they have an amazing lineup of games already. But I am adding them to make sure Microsoft gamers will see that there is more out there and the CoD fans will stick with Microsoft, I get that and they are ‘devoted’ fans, but when they merely get more of the same and they seek out other shores, Microsoft will truly be done for and at that point the Exclusive needs of Microsoft are merely nails in their expensive coffin. 

This is seemingly becoming such a nice weekend. I will have a cheese sandwich and consider to meditate on an old expression of adding the angel’s share to the game. I could not find anyone who did the same ever.  A game with over a dozen unique parts never seen in FPS games before. It sucks to be Microsoft soon enough, for now lets see how arrogant they remain.

Enjoy the weekend!

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