Category Archives: IT

October 23, 2022 · 00:29

Wheels are for sleeping

Yes, that is the indication. So far I have been busy redesigning over half a dozen games and I get the impression that asleep at the wheel is a common factor at both at Amazon and Google, might be at Microsoft a well, but I do not care about them, they can become obsolete all on their own. The redesign is essential as there are factors for a larger audience and one does want to entice that audience as such I started with half a dozen games, kept the overall appeal, kept the foundation of the game, but the rest got upgraded to the improvements we got the last decade. And 3 of them had 90+ scores, so they can be remade into something better fitting this decade and this generation. Even as I am looking into Unreal engine 5 (where applicable), we have a much larger optional setting and this I did after having a sandwich, before I had a cup of milk and I am merely waking up. We have had a lot of games that were contemporary, we had games that were in the stage or the age of the arcade, but why are they abandoned? They were good games and even as we see everyone go nuts for some goat simulator (for some reason Microsoft got that right and it is massively addictive to some), they forgot a game like Soul Edge (1995), the Dreamcast had it as Soul Calibur (1998) where it scored a whopping 97%, a game that close to perfection was partially forgotten and what was rereleased was nowhere near as perfect and the makers decided they were more clever and created a lesser product. The lines in those days were that this game alone was reason to buy a Dreamcast. Why are these gaming executives so short of memory? Soul Calibur was all about fun and they created a game that did that and more. There are a lot more examples and more could be done to make it changed enough to get a new IP registered. One day and I come up with half a dozen games that could be upgraded and Google (deciding not to be a developer and dropping the Google Stadia coming January) is letting $500 million a month slip by, well they must have the corner on something. I for one am willing to guess that they got the corner on Melatonin (sleeping ingredient). And that is merely one part of one branch. I  truly wonder what Tencent is up to, because if they are more awake then there is every chance that Amazon will lose their share as well. And these two got that done in under two years. Good going guys (girls also). 

And as I am vamping a few more titles, I remembered a game from 1991 called Streets of Rage, a simple game, but addictive and a game that could entice plenty of people. You see, this new ‘gaming’ industry is a lot less about making money. It is about the microtransactions, that is where they think the real money is and when my solution is accepted and 50 million subscriptions start cancelling the other options, these people will learn the hard way what an empty IP looks like. They all ignored that gamers want to have fun and for some it is racing, for some it is stealth, for some it is bashing and in these groups none of them are overly excited of microtransactions. So when they get a micro-transaction free environment, they will move. I am completely convinced of that. These people also are not interested to pay by watching advertisements. So there are two elements that would fall away pretty quickly and in all that the current ‘champions’ would end up being tomorrows losers. I reckon that is here Tencent is heading as well, so they will get two tiers of advantages of all those who haven’t figured it out yet and that will cost the wrong people a lot of marketshare. But not to fret, they are willing to lose that marketshare, I know because I cannot  see them making any alterations, so they are definitely waiting until it is too late. But that is big tech for you. So whilst they are asleep at the wheel, I will continue embellishing my IP for the current customer line. And there it will stay, especially when the right people figure out I wasn’t making a funny, and that my part in gaming since 1984 implies I actually know stuff. But feel free to disagree, it is your right and when you come up short, you merely did it yourself.

As such I do hope to have a field day. Because hope is still part of that equation, we all hope, we can do little more. And lets give Microsoft a hand, only yesterday we were given “Many enterprises continue to leave cloud storage buckets exposed despite widely available documentation on how to properly secure them”, and the hand was not in sarcasm. You see ‘despite widely available documentation’ implies that this is a Layer 8 ID10T issue (aka: idiot users). So when we read “SOCRadar, the threat intelligence firm that reported the issue to Microsoft, described discovering the data in an Azure Blob storage bucket that was publicly accessible over the Internet. The data was associated with more than 65,000 companies in 11 countries and included statement-of-work documents, invoices, product orders, project details, signed customer documents, product price lists, personally identifiable information (PII), and potentially intellectual property as well.” Yes, it gets to be that bad and it is NOT all on Microsoft, some is, not all. But keep screaming that Azure is fine, especially when 65000 companies are placing their data on the internet. As such the China and Huawei issues are not an issue, people are placing their data online all by themselves. Cisco was also a factor, but they seemingly fixed the issues they had. In all this it matters, because streaming opens a new can of worms and I am opening a separate one as well, especially when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia buys my IP. In all this we see that there is a much larger need to stop being the inclusive wanker. It is time to call out the larger flaws and stop messing about, or buy a Jaguar (a Crazy People 1990 reference).

This is one of the reasons I do not want Microsoft anywhere near my IP, and that is in part why I offered it to Saudi Arabia. These tech players might bully me, but they have a much larger problem if they mess with Saudi Arabia and when the Saudi party realises just how big the IP can be, Microsoft will be kept outside, of that I am convinced. It was also in part why I hoped that Amazon would have called earlier, but they slept for months, so I am happy to head to plan B. And as I embellish my IP the chances will increase and increase. Some wheels might be for sleeping but my cogs rotate unrelentlessly and they keep on rotating, I owe that to myself even if it is merely to show where all the others went wrong.

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October 20, 2022 · 14:01

The evolution of gaming

I have spoken on this before, and in that I tended to be specific, almost micro-manageable. It comes when you design IP, it is a path where you want to track every element so that you are not left in a loop, left with too many unknown parts. It is the way things go and especially when you do not have a brain-storm team, you end up designing as much as possible all parts of the equation. This is not new, this is how it is. 

However, In this stage I need to take a helicopter approach, I need to oversee everything (sort of), I need to take a wider stroll over this stage because the next part is not how to create a game, most can do that, most can set that stage. I need to create a stage where close to a dozen games a year can be created, a dozen a year for 3 years at least. So that the people are given new choices, new options. Streaming is a different kettle of fish and it cannot be approached in old ways. Weirdly enough the one I bitched about the longest (Ubisoft) has a clear advantage in streaming games. As such their approach towards GaaS is not the best but it is the most evolved one and they have a truckload of IP that comes with it, as such they are in pole position to get there. They lack elements, but they have a clear group of titles that could become clear winners in a streaming station. There are other elements in play and not all the players are clearly identified and there are other elements, like certain titles (example the Horizon games) that people would want to play again and those are not contenders, they are happy alliances. But it cannot be just about that, any system needs new titles, remastered titles and the less known, the better the chances. It comes as an addition towards the 50 million subscriptions I made a claim towards, but to sit on my laurels is not my way, If I can make the essential steps to make it not 50 million, but up to 75 million from year one onwards, I will have succeeded to a much larger degree and to end up seeing Microsoft executives choke on their Azure yaps, all whilst none of them look blue is a clear win for little moi and I like my wins, especially when it is warranted. And for them? Well the old saying (my old saying) applies. The blowback of sarcasm is merely irony, and I like to serve my irony with a wooden spoon award. It is not enough for them to fail, I want all others to see why they failed, why they should have been regarded as stupid from the get go and that is merely my bonus. So I am vamping up two of the three elements and it should be enough to get the ball rolling, and then I hit a snag. Well not exactly a snag, because I cannot test the snag. It leaves a trail and that I cannot use at present (well not until after the Saudi government paid me). And I have a stage that needs to be repeated a dozen times so that there is a floor-plan to work from and that is going according to plan (for now). There are two elements in play. How to make a worksheet, a plan of attack on the premise of art where we can identify enough elements to make sure that most hurdles are addressed, that most issues are identified. That is the task and that is not simple project management. Some project managers will make claim that they can do that, but outside of less than a dozen, how many +90% games have been released? The Xbox has released 6 games with a 90+ rating since 2020, over two years only 6 make the cut. Sony had 8, a clear win, but still low when you consider the investment of the dozens of games that were created. And it is not merely the 90+ games. One real hit was AC Origins which only got 81%. So there is another pool to work with and I decided to look at another pond altogether. I wrote about that too and when you consider the alternatives the investment per game decreases enormously creating a shifted investment number, one that is ultimately more rewarding. And there we have the station we need to look at, the second branch is close to complete with well over a dozen titles. It will take mere days to get the second dozen and branch two will be close to complete and then branch three starts, but I will not write to much about that. I like my surprises a much as I like to serve my plate of irony.

The evolution of gaming is underway, not because I said so, but because streaming games have advantages over console games, but it comes with additional dangers. A much better testing phase is required, the one elements too many game designers are weak on. Do not take my word on it, you merely have to look at the title AC Valhalla, released two years ago and it was still receiving patches three weeks ago. That side needs to improve, it needs to improve a lot. And there is the rub, any solution consultant that gives you the ‘these things happen’ line is wasting your time. Proper testing takes care of that and this is not done by too many. Streaming can only truly evolve when they have a better handle on it. This is not because it is GaaS, it is because Service will only last when the product is properly made and there Ubisoft left too many issues in the field. So you need an alternative to what they have, and there the second branch is the optional solution to getting traction to more people, and in streaming traction is the game that makes you the winner of the streamers and I have no intentions of losing, that is one definite that I am making clear to one party and optional Tencent too. But Tencent is complicated, they decided to work with Microsoft, making them the optional loser from the start, but that is the stage I am faced with, the question is what are my options next? If the Saudi government buys what I have, I am in the clear and my retirement starts. But if they decide otherwise, I will need an options and this is merely one of three IP bundles, so I am not out of the game yet, but I reckoned that the idea and proof towards $500,000,000 a month would have been enough, but I cannot rely on people making sense at times, as such I need a fallback position (as expressions go). And there I am doing work that is less creative, way too much tedious but essential, I get that. So here I am trying to work things out. On the other hand, in 6 hours 55 minutes and 23 seconds the premiere of Black Adam starts, so off to the city I go and have a bit of fun, I have earned it. 

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October 19, 2022 · 17:29

She just doesn’t get it

OK, I have been sitting on this for a few hours. It started when I saw the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/global/2022/oct/17/senator-raises-alarm-saudis-could-share-us-defence-technology-with-russia) titled ‘Senator raises alarm Saudis could share US defense technology with Russia’, I wondered who wanted to play the daily mail card with a title like that and of course, everyone favourite political tool and least acceptable journalist Stephanie Kirchgaessner was there. The person who bashes Saudi Arabia whenever she can. So I decided to take a gander towards PROPERLY informing the people. Well, we all need a hobby, don’t we?

It starts from the very beginning. “A senior Democratic lawmaker has raised alarms about the possibility that sensitive US defense technology could be shared with Russia by Saudi Arabia in the wake of the kingdom’s recent decision to side with Moscow over the interests of the US” this is the first shovel of BS. The kingdom doesn’t side, it seeks a path that is the best for any nation, its own nation. And in continuation the US did this to themselves! So when we get in continuation “following Opec+’s decision to cut oil production, said he would “dig deeper into the risk” in discussions with the Pentagon.” OK, OPEC+ decided to cut oil production, this is the right of OPEC+. Now, we can argue if it was Russia pushing that button, which might make sense, but I did not see the papers on that meeting, so I actually do not know the exact setting there. But oil production was cut and here lies the rub. “If you want cheap oil, you do not bite the hand that feeds you that cheap oil. President Biden promised to make Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman al Saud a pariah and he did keep his word. But it was never based on any actual facts and any factual rulings. So when this happened the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was treated as a lessened ally. This has CONSEQUENCES! So I was pretty much howling with laughter when President Biden and Boris Johnson went like shivering little chihuahuas asking for cheap oil. OK, Boris Johnson probably took a page out of Oliver Twist and asked “please sir, can I have some more?” But both faltered and failed. 

As such we now get “The decision was seen in the US capital as a sign of Riyadh siding with Russia in its war with Ukraine, and as a possible attempt to hurt Joe Biden and Democrats ahead of next month’s critical midterm election by raising the price of petrol at the pump” Now, I personally disagree with the Russia setting, but I get that some might think that. Why? Because they are missing the obvious especially some journalist who is friends with an UN essay writer named Eggy Calamari (or something like that). To see this, you merely need the use of a calculator or an Abacus. We get part of this from Robert Kaufman in Newsweek “The U.S. imports oil because consumption of oil products—about 20 million barrels per day—is greater than the quantity of crude oil it produces, about 18 million barrels per day” this is supported by the EIA (Energy Information Administration) who gives us “the United States exported about 8.54 million b/d of petroleum to 176 countries and 4 U.S. territories.” So it sells its own oil for $100 per barrel (fictive example number) whilst expecting that it can buy crude oil from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for $60 per barrel (also fictive example number) hence pocketing $40 per barrel in its own pocket and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia basically says that this stopes now. The US can buy oil at the Brent Crude Oil price and the greedy people do not want that, so now they need to do with less, even though they know that they sell the bulk of their oil, leaving the US and its citizens without oil. And no one is looking at that part of the equation. 

So when I saw “Both Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress have expressed frustration with the move and called for a realignment in the Saudi relationship, with the US president warning that Saudi would face “consequences” for the move”, my living room just filled with laughter. What consequences? The KSA can watch the US implode upon itself and it better realises that there is also a consequence to it selling its oil. You stopped treating the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) as an ally years ago, you wasted time by censoring too much of the actions by Iran on the KSA and Iran’s actions in Yemen. All this was enough to stop the pumps and Russia would not have been a factor. It is my personal speculation that the KSA is keeping a distance between them and Russia, too close ties might make them lose a lot more friends and the KSA would be left with Russia, Lithuania and North Korea, two nations it does not care about for one inch. And that was all visible, but the wannabe journo does not give you that, does she?

There is however one side that is valid. It comes from Senator Blumenthal. “Richard Blumenthal  seeks reassurances from Pentagon that ‘they are on top of’ risk of sharing information with Gulf state” I believe the question to be unfounded, but it is a fair question. There is an essential need for the US to seek the best path for America and keeping classified out of Russian hands is a fair call to make. Yet the added “siding with the Russians in this manner – is so dramatic. I think it calls for a response” is partly false. You see OPEC+ is a group of 23 members and Saudi Arabia is only one of them. That majority is a lot larger and I do not know (but expects) that Saudi Arabia was one of them. This is the consequence of dropping Saudi Arabia as an ally. The BS sanctions in the US and the UK with the tea granny organisation (CAAT) all whilst Iran is attacking without consequence and now that Iran is sending its drones to Russia, will these two players do anything at all? or will thy merely pretend to make calls to Tehran all whilst they know perfectly well that this will have no consequence? When you drop a friend from your party you should not cry over the fact that there are consequences of that act. Even on the premise of all this, I was happy to offer my IP to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. If this enables more power to them to include technology and social media, my choice will give me the same pebbles but now with a much larger stage where the other wannabe’s can cry over even more spilled milk.

So when we are given “Jeff Abramson, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, said Saudi Arabia had been a major purchaser of US military equipment, including some of its most sophisticated weapons systems, for decades” true, but not lately isn’t it? That is why China is at the gates of Riyadh ready to sell THEIR equipment to Saudi Arabia, making the US lose even more billions in revenue, and in part this was paid for with millions of barrels of oil per day, as such the United States did this to themselves, but I do recognise that they want their secrets to remain THEIR secrets, especially as we see that Russian hardware is buckling all over Russia and the Ukraine. And it is then we see the larger screw up. It is given with “It is plausible that the Saudis have information about those weapons”, this implies that Jeff Abramson is not clear or is in cautious denial implying that there is no danger or he just doesn’t know what the commercial people informed Saudi Arabia about and it seems to me that Stephanie Kirchgaessner never picked up on that because there is no follow up on the foundation of ‘plausible’ and in addition we see “Prince Khalid bin Salman, said on Twitter that the decision by OPEC+ to cut oil output was made unanimously for “purely” economic reasons” which raises the question of what the US will do about the other 22 votes? This article raises one decent question and hides it in the BS of several other sides. Yes, the Guardian is really proud of the journo they have there, aren’t they?

I wonder what comes next, but if I have my way that would be a moot point because the impact would cost tech firms well over $500 million a month, they will not lose all that money, but they will lose a chunk of it and with that a lot more in the aftermath. Yes, these people really keep their eyes on the price. 

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October 17, 2022 · 19:55

The ranking of potatoes

There was an insight in July. In this I wrote “I sometimes get a month subscription to load up on missed things and I have to as we all have budgets. I reckon that the UK is facing a much harder time. When they get to decide on two of the items (Food, Rent and heating) Netflix will be the first to go, and after that cheaper internet deals” and guess what. The Guardian gave us 4 hours ago (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/17/uk-homes-cancel-streaming-services-to-reduce-spending) ‘UK homes cancel streaming services to reduce spending’, all whilst my quote comes from Realisation, which is three months older (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/07/14/realisation-2/), so the issues given three months ago were largely ignored (like wannabe analysts stating that the loss of subscriptions were a mystery to them, or something like that). I saw the writing on the wall and the Guardian caught up three months later. As such I look at “total number of homes with at least one subscription fell by 937,000 from January to September” I see no real mystery here. As such we also get “The premiere of two of the most-hyped and expensive shows of all time – the $650m (£580m) productions of Rings of Power and House of the Dragon – failed to prove a big enough draw to reverse a decline of another 234,000 homes with at least one paid streaming service in the third quarter” yes, because these people really want to put their housing or food on the template of chance when it comes to a TV series and the setting that they are the most expensive or most hyped shows do not matter. People need to pay for food, people ned to pay rent and these elements were out on the shelf for too long. There is no real cap on food and the rent cap is limited to say the least. So these series miss out and those who have a few quid left, they will buy it when it is released on bluray. Which is given to us as “as cost-conscious households choose paying for essentials – such as energy, food and mortgage repayments – over home entertainment”, a simple part of the equation I saw three months ago and that is to some extent the solution I saw in gathering 50 million subscriptions. Because that will become a much larger station and it will get the one doing it $500 million or more. But then these people were aware, were they not? Consider that I accused Amazon and Google of letting that lie on the floor and three months after I stated the writing was coming to a wall near them. They did wake up and investigate, did they not? For all I care Elon Musk can buy it now and make life for them and Microsoft a lot harder. But I cannot do that yet, I am still awaiting response from Riyadh. So when we are given “The world’s biggest streamer, which has cut staff and become more disciplined with its $17bn annual content budget after earlier this year reporting its first subscriber declines in a decade, is forecast to add just 1 million new signups globally when it reports third quarter figures on Tuesday” I wonder if they caught on at all. More disciplined is a joke expression, it is like Google with their wannabe cheerleading “I am a lion”, all nice, but we know that the hunt is done by the lionesses, the lions just get them pregnant twice a day if possible. You see the lions are their for the lionesses the real hunters and “lions mate roughly every 15 to 20 minutes for two or three days—200 to 300 times in succession”, as such when you realise that what were the salespeople hoping at Google? For me the laughing matter becomes when (or if) Riyadh buys my IP, when they trump Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook all in one swoop. I wonder who will be crying like a chihuahua then? Will it be Reed Hastings, Andy Jassy, Satya Nadella, Mark Zuckerberg or all of them? And it was not a hard equation, the fact that I saw this coming 26 weeks ago makes it that easy and there is optionally more, but I want to have a little more fun with this, as I should be allowed to.

The ranking of potatoes is not who is the biggest, it becomes a ranking of whom was the most idle of the lot and that insight might give you a few handles on where you have to go with what you have. 

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October 16, 2022 · 22:16

There are many roads leading to Rome

It is an old expression and when I was young I never understood it. It is simple, I grew up in the Netherlands. For us it was take the road that leads to the E35, which takes you to Rome. Those in Belgium and Germany had a similar direction. Of course that is not the explanation of the expression, but I was 7 at the time, there was time to learn. And for the most I learned how to learn, so I ended up with two benefits. One, the road to the best Pizza and two a manifest on how to learn. So when I saw the BBC article ‘Office time is not for video calls, says tech boss’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63217973) I was taken aback a little. You see, there are many roads on how to manage a workforce and some marketing firms learned through Covid, that a home founded workforce is efficient, terribly efficient. It also reduces the bottleneck of networks. It might not be enough, but in some cases it is enough to keep the workforce. Also the corporations with a high turnover saw a turnover reduction, not a big one, but large enough. I myself prefers to work in an office. I prefer my home and work to remain separate. That is easily explained. I am for the mot a workaholic. Work comes first and it has done so for decades. To go home is on one side to take the pressure off, on the other side to see if there I anything else that can relax me. So when I see “But being in the office should be an opportunity to do things that cannot be done at home, argues Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s chief executive. Sitting at a desk with headphones on is not one of them, he says.” But sitting in your office with a headset (or plugs) listening to music as you work is? I am not opposing his view, because there is merit in his view, but for a lot of companies so is the homework or hybrid setting. I am not one of those, but plenty are. He is a friend of “He champions Amazon’s idea, introduced by Jeff Bezos, where each attendee reads a six-page memo at the start of a meeting as a briefing note, rather than sitting through PowerPoint presentations.” OK, fair enough but not unlike Google, they too left $500 million a month on the floor, so there is improvement available all over the field. I do like the approach as I have an active dislike of meeting PowerPoints. There are plenty of times when this works, but the size of the group where it does not is steadily rising. 

There is a growing need to adjust the workforce. I see a weird traverse of approaches on an international level to find workers and I see the flood on LinkedIn on how great they are instead of properly informing who they are and what they do. A social approach on steroids and they fail to see the point, but it is equally possible that I fail to see their point. I get that, but it is the workaholic in me that take that point of view. And when you filter out the fortune cookie marketing in LinkedIn, how much value do you get? I see offices where video calls are not merely the workforce, it is also the office meetings. Instead of 8 people vacating to a big office, they sit in their offices, at their desks listening to meetings and that is the weird part. It seems that in these meetings people are more intent on listening, the responses are seemingly more clever, but I could be wrong. And this was part of the settings whilst I was contemplating a few new versions of older games, I contemplated what could be possible to take that into a game. Yet I was cautious. You see that as the narrated stage of a game called System Shock. A great game that is (as far as I know) still upgraded to todays gameplay. The game (through videos, messages and voice) give us the backstories on several floors between all kinds of people giving us a setting of what was going on when things were going wrong. I miss that game, it was so close to perfect and its successor (System Shock 2) was equally overwhelmingly as addictive. This too gave me pause to consider. You see when you think back on the original planet of the apes (with Charlton Heston), the idea of a survival game in that setting is interesting, but a game that follows the movie, without copying it is equally appealing. Having a new IP is intriguing, although a week before Gotham Knights not the most illuminating one. And these issues all strike back to the office. All these thoughts take a backseat to office work. In the office it is about work and at home (or anywhere else) the other thoughts come to the foreground, they always do and a hybrid setting is caging off those thoughts, or allowing them to be everywhere and that is how blunders are made. I get that and I was young once (nudge nudge wink wink). We all have things that occupy the brain and it happens. Consider working next to a bakery with fresh cheese rolls being baked every other hour. It doesn’t happen too often, but it happens and now you are working at home metres away from the warm stove making muffins, rolls and all other goods. How long until the homework is driven by rolls, hotdogs and icy cold beer? What we separated for decades (some merely years) does not stop the brain. We still have a load of lessons to learn and until we can shut off work or shut off the home in the brain, we will get issues, we all will. So I have issues with the BBC article, but nothing wrong is stated or presumed. We are all individuals and I believe that I where Stewart Butterfield failed. He had his point of view, which I consider valid, but there are many roads that lead to Rome and there are solutions there too we all need to realise that part of the equation.

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October 12, 2022 · 19:52

No one wonders?

It all starts with a BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63207771) where we are given ‘Chinese technology poses major risk – GCHQ Chief’, there are two settings here. The first one was the BS approach by the Yanks (that place between the Pacific and the Atlantic river, South of Canada) and the UK issues. The Americans basically called Huawei (China) evil and refused to hand over any evidence. The UK stated that no foreign nation should be in charge to a major infrastructure. The UK is setting the centre stage to policy and that is fair and decent. In the Netherlands that same policy was used by founders Rob Romein and Franz Hetzenauer to create Tulip computers and they got rich real quick. You say Potato, I say Tomato. But policy is a real issue and that is fair in any government. So today I get to see “China has deliberately and patiently set out to gain “strategic advantage by shaping the world’s technology ecosystem”, the head of the intelligence agency told an audience at the Royal United Service Institute for its annual security lecture. Sir Jeremy argued the Chinese Communist Party was aiming to manipulate the technology that underpins people’s lives to embed its influence at home and abroad and provide opportunities for surveillance”, OK that is a decent accusation and it will not be easy to prove that, or basically it will be a stretch to prove it. We then get “China’s development of the BeiDou satellite system – a rival to the established GPS network which he said had been built into exports to more than 120 countries. He claimed it could be used to track individuals or combined with plans to knock out other countries’ satellites in the event of a conflict”, which is one approach, but could the Chinese government not claim that GPS could do exactly the same thing? In addition we get “the intelligence chief said he would not stop children using TikTok – which is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance – although he said young people should be more aware of their personal data and how it could be shared”, OK fair point and awareness of personal data is a good thing, but doesn’t Facebook (and Meta) do he same things? I have seen advertisements on Facebook that should never have appeared, as such too many players are doing exactly the same thing, but for us China is red and evil, would they not claim the same thing regarding Facebook and YouTube? We are then given “He said the UK should continue to welcome students from China but “be really clear on the areas of technology where we will require additional safeguards”. Areas like artificial intelligence and quantum computing were particularly important, he told the audience”, which is a fair point. Although it is not out of the question that this should be a marker between commonwealth countries and any other country. In that regard places like Canada, Australia and New Zealand have to agree on similar settings. In this Sir Jeremy Fleming (a more dashing lookalike of Michael Andrew Gove) has a few issues on the table that make sense and although we wonder why the Americans are so easily accepted, they issues all make sense. It reflected for me how I am happy that I offered my IP to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and not to China, although the new partnership between China (Tencent Technologies) and Microsoft is not making any waves at all, funny ain’t it? I wonder if we are hitting a critical point of nationalism at this point, and where should the inventors sit? The fact that Google and Amazon are decently clueless on where I found the grounds of 50 million subscriptions will also hit Facebook at some point and I accidentally stumbled on this, the invention had a different foundation and direction, but as I aw where it could take me, I left it to these two titans to slug it out and Google dropping the Google Stadia implies that they are losing more than they reckoned on and that leaves Amazon (who is seemingly still in the dark), so now my hopes are that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia accepts my offer. But the underlying stage also exists. I still have my 5G hardware, a stage I saw two years ago and no one else is seeing this, they are all hoping that Facebook makes good on their Meta and they are all in some wait state that it comes for them, I designed my hardware with the view on Neom, as well as the changing stage of marketing, a stage that ill be very different from 2024 onwards (OK, it might be 2025). But those in a “wait-state” will lose out if they cannot adjust their course and I will (extremely hopefully) retire with a nicely filled bank account to sing out my retirement with good food and seeing nice places, I worked 40 years, so I feel entitled to my decently whistling wish. Yet between the lines there are battlefronts. The issue for the Commonwealth to find the right allies, to align with the proper parties and be decently neutral against the others. Yes, we all oppose Russia in the Ukraine stage and that is fine, but do not for one second believe that America is our ally, our friend. Their friendship changes election after election and in the end they are merely their own ally, so when America implodes, and it will, we should be aware and we should be willing to continue with true allies, one that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia could be, if we could for one minute stop listening to stakeholders, whose alliance is their wallets and their wallets alone. I tried to warn people for 3-5 years that stakeholders are corporate tools that releases the media as their goals see fit, I showed years of data in that direction and soon there will be no choice, if they get their wish, they fill their wallets, they say ‘Oops!’ And they walk away, and where we will we all be at that point? The larger issue is not why we were unaware, but where the media was when the elements were in view. The missing Iran reports regarding Yemen, the list of Pi Phone articles that are only now showing up, the serious questions that the media should have lobbed at Jack Dorsey and Twitter over the last few months and the list goes on, filtered information is not news, it is news founded on discrimination and that is the stage we face, but what else are we not given? Who knew on the partnerships between Chinese Tencent and Microsoft? Who asked the serious questions? I will let you seek and search that part yourself. 

So many question and no one wonders how a simple guy like me has the inside track on 50 million optional customers, you think Google would have dropped their Stadia if they could gain 50,000,000 optional customers? Figure it out and yes, some will consider the main point that I might be spreading that stuff that grows the grass in Texas, but I asked myself questions and also doubted myself. Stakeholders will not do that, they will merely proclaim that the other side does not exist (or is irrelevant). 

It is time for you to wonder what else they are missing and that is aimed at my 5G IP. A side of 5G none of them have. 

Enjoy the day, you should, preferably before the Russian decide to make all the Ukrainians glow in the dark.

 

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October 10, 2022 · 22:02

In doubt we trust

Yes, it is the most uncanny of statements and there is al kinds of opposition to it. For me this started yesterday when I saw the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-63157632) titled ‘Molly Russell: Dad wants no further delay to online harm bill’ and I get it, he wants to do something and it all makes sense. But then we get “He also said online platforms must stop self-regulating their content” and there the trouble starts. In the first we have the UK, Canada, the US all having their version of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. And it get to be worse. The UK (like a well trained group of pussies) decided to largely ignore the Leveson report. The media CANNOT regulate themselves and even after Leveson we have seen several examples where the media is unable to police and regulate themselves, as such why hold tech players and online media to those standards? The second setting is that these players can move from place to place. It is too large a sewer to see any clear management done on any level. And I feel for Ian Russell, I really do. Yet when we see “The current government has said that they want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online and yet we’re still here and we’re not regulating the platforms. I think it’s really important, firstly, that something that is illegal in the offline world must be illegal and we must be better protected when it’s found on the online world” we see the dream state, it is the best description. The man is not wrong, but with the cloud there is even less oversight. And it is a multi tiered prong we see. We go after regulating platforms but we do not go after the POSTERS. State per nations that any poster of social media is held responsible and make sure that the penalties are harsh. It will be a first hurdle and there are over a dozen to go. You see, when that hurdle is fixed, others will offer services on an international foundation and the problem starts again. His only real option is to make sure that EVERY poster of  certain materials are published with their real name and real address. That is when the game changes. Some will stop and hide under a rock, others will get more clever about matters and we are back at square one. For one Facebook adds “more than 300 million photos get uploaded per day. Every minute there are 510,000 comments posted and 293,000 statuses updated” Facebook tories are worse they are only there for 24 hours and can only be watched by a person twice. There is no policing or managing that. It is a life of its own and that is merely one source. Add Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube and half a dozen more and you see the scale of the matter. YouTube is the centre of 720,000 hours of material EVERY DAY. The scale cannot be managed and anyone who says different is lying to you. And that is only in places where some have oversight. With TikTok it becomes a much larger mess. So we might trust in doubt, but that doubt needs a formidable bat. Making the poster responsible and these media outlets reporting and having some  grasp of the posters is essential and that is a first. It will not make a huge dent, but it could give governments and people a handle of the poster of the harmful content and there is the first setting. These people want the limelight, but when their faces are on the news and they are being asked the hard questions, they will hide behind the freedom of speech and there is the real problem. The laws are centuries old and they never considered mass media and mass slander. These concepts did not even exist in those years. It is not bout regulation, it is about the laws being adjusted and there is also the problem, when that person places it on a server in Russia, India or China, can that person be prosecuted? 

It is a rather large mess and the law followed decades behind, so I reckon that a first solution will come to shine by 2035, which might make it no longer valid. 

It is merely my view and plenty will disagree, but look at what is now and how much could be regulated and do not rely on AI, it does not yet exist. In the mean time, I need to find a contact in Riyadh, the one in the Saudi Consulate seems to be non functioning (with the option of $500 million a month for their government), the levels of inaction are weird to say the least, but that is my problem, not yours. 

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October 9, 2022 · 23:51

Beyond the nightmare

Yes, there is always a beyond the nightmare side. I was watching two things. Earlier today I watched a dreadful video, the voices were out of synch and that was the best part of the video. Then later I rewatched the second Downton Abbey movie, yes the one with the France scenes and the camera crews. And it also took me back to the movie Singing in the rain. Then it occurred to me, there are so many silent movies, so many examples. As such I am a little surprised that Adobe and the other players do not have an assortment of training materials where any Vlogger could train precision in sound insertion. It is a simple exercise and the people would have some sound dialogue but after that it would become their own materials. It could open all kinds of new materials and with the millions of GoPro Hero 10 and now GoPro Hero 11 out there, there is a pressing need for them to up their materials, to differ from the average vlogger. And as I was seeking, I saw nothing out there, or at least way too little. So why aren’t some considering what is needed, what some need and why they aren’t covering it? I want to say ‘Do I have to do everything?’ But the reality is that I cannot be the only one thinking this. I do wonder when we will see the storm-flood of new, larger and higher quality vlogs. Now there are plenty of really good vlogs out there, but we can never have enough high quality vlogs, now can we? 

As such Sunday is drawing to a close (it’s 23:49), as such Monday morning is a mere 600 seconds away.

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October 9, 2022 · 11:14

As nightmares go

Yup, we all have them and I am no different. Yet this one was not that scary. I was walking and avoiding some big guy lobbing at me with a baseball bat, spiked no less, the size of an outdoor lamp post. And soon thereafter I got the upper hand and won, so I was facing not a real nightmare. It took a minute to realise that I was in some boss fight, but that is when The game changed for me, the second fight was the same guy, the same area and the bat seemed more menacing. But that was before I realised that he hat hit one of the potted plants and when I passed the plant, I slipped. I got up in time to avoid the bat on the head event and I took to running to keep my distance and my mind started to scream ‘This didn’t happen the last time’ and suddenly I realised that this wasn’t really a nightmare, it was a point of revelation. You see I fought and killed so many bosses in so many games, the mind realised that the boss fights are close to identical every time you face that person and that was the weird setting. What happens when bosses have an added edge? When you face them again added difficulties are faced making this a real boos fight? Environmental elements, weapon facings and challenges. The boss gets to be stronger, to be quicker to be smarter and there the environment works for him, not for you. Count the games that offered this, I cannot come up with one version where this is an option. There is no ‘New Game +’ or another setting where the people we face have added skills. Adding this could prevent grinding from becoming actual grinds, where boss fights to get more and more powerful rewards to be given that at a cost. It is a setting no game offered, why not? It is not the most of novel ideas and over the decades of gaming I never saw that brought to life. In all this no one is asking the question why. I believe that streaming games offer more and could offer more still, although this implementation could be an option in console games too. So whilst my previous IP is now at 3.0 with two additional products, I took a gander and added something to gaming as well. So whilst Google is leaving the area and we are left with the nobody Microsoft and Amazon and its moonshine, it is the Amazon device that has the option to gain 50 million subscriptions and make the Microsoft show how irrelevant they have become, and I merely added a new side to boss fights to games and make the Microsoft solution even more irrelevant. I believe it is time for my morning coffee and I do believe that I earned a muffin to boot. 

Blog more later readers.

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October 8, 2022 · 15:30

Another fine mess I got myself into

Yup, a paraphrased line from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. It is still in part true. I got yesterday’s IP and created a second iteration making it more and more innovative. It was already innovative, but I want to stretch the IP to its maximum. Yet there was also the printable display. Even as a concept it is worthy of pursuing and improving upon. The initial part is not merely the materials used, but how they are applied. You see, if I can make this solution a little more flexible, than they could fit a column. I checked dozen of mall video’s (not just the one in Toronto) and I saw that there are options for hundreds of columns. So there could be a market for thousands even tens of thousands displays. The printable display was a solution with 1-2 markets in sight, but now I see that there is a much larger application if only part of the solution could be set to a more flexible mould. It is not out of the question, but I tend to focus on longevity. The solution needs to work 5 years from now and that is a rather tall order when the foundation of the display is too flexible. So I got myself into a little bit of a mess. I can see the solution, but not what materials are best to be used for the flexible display. I still have v1.3 (non flexible printable display) yet my soul is greedy for the cerebral victory, I have to solve this. And solve it I will, but that is the mess I got myself into. 

A such my mind wanted to travel all over the place and see what else is possible, but to be honest. I do not really have to the first version of the printable display is optionally fine and is close to becoming public domain. It is a setting where I feed the hungry small fish public domain, a setting that the larger fish cannot have and they become jealous and wonder what else I have and now we have ourselves a clambake. You see I feel certain that when the larger firms see all this IP pass them by, they will suddenly decide to wake up (a speculation from my side) and suddenly they are all interested in all the other stuff (except for the military applications, they are DARPA and DARPA alone), OK, that was not quite true, one solution was handed to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia because if Europe and the US will not deal with the Iranian navy, I reckon that the KSA was entitled to this freebee. In addition with the Russian threats, when they act on them the snow-globe solution (see previous blogs 2021 and 2020) becomes public domain too. I have to let then know that there are people who do not now and not ever trust Iran and those willing to act will get the ammunition they need. Which off course implies that I got myself in additional settings that relates to ‘That’s another fine mess I got myself into’. As such I tend to get myself in plenty of messes, but for now I am focussed on getting my printable display to V2.0, which should be enough, but the mind yearns for challenges and it seeks new frontiers to investigate. I will let it do its stuff, it is how I got the latest IP in the first place. I have no idea what the value is, but I actually do not care. The larger station is now my streaming solution that could entice well over 50 million new subscriptions. It is enough for now. 

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