Category Archives: IT

September 13, 2022 · 19:42

The perilous seesaw

Yes, the seesaw, a Childs toy, but as a balancing methods it is dangerous. You see, the one we judge tends to stand on the axial and that person lets the balance fall where that person likes it to be. In this case it is me. There is a chance that I am striking out a third time, but I cannot give up. There is a chance where I get a payday that is a slice from $500 million and a second pay day that is 3% of the income for 20 years. Only 3%, as such the numbers are appealing and when did you see anyone walk away from $500 million a month? As such am I delusional? The seesaw becomes a tool, on one side we see delusional (holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument, having faulty judgment) the other side is visionary (planning the future with imagination or wisdom, a person with original ideas about what the future will or could be like), and of course I lean towards the visionary side. Now this is not the first time. In 1997 I came up with the idea to hand out a free internet account that gave the people the option to talk to each other with marketing in the centre setting the stage for all to see. The so called managers at the time stated that this had no business sense, it was not the mission statement. And 4 years later we got Facebook. Now, my version was nowhere near Facebook and as such I would be surpassed, but those 4 years it would be my centre of a universe. So I know I am a visionary one. These managers now proclaim that they saw it all coming. They were bloody clueless. So this time around I will find a way and even as Google, Amazon and a third party are optionally blind, and I will not allow Microsoft near it (the merely screw up IP for the need of Azure). I will find a way, but I am tempered by the setting of self measurement. There is always doubt in me, I know that but the payday of a slice of $500,000,000 is too appealing. I merely need to find the right party. Yet I also need to be careful, If I give away too much they make it their and leave me with nothing. Americans tend to be that way, as such I have a decent challenge. Where to find that party, where to find the ones willing to pay and optionally those who do not care about ‘losing’ $50 million (post taxation) and a few other items. The payday for them os well over 5,000% of investment. An optional good deal. So how to make sure that I get the right players? I could turn to China, I could find the billionaire who is willing to take a gamble (Elon Musk) and there are a few others. There is optionally Tim Cook, he has a value of $1,800,000,000 and might not even miss the $50 million, and with the solemn swear of $500,000,000 a month adding to his fortune might be the juice he would be willing to take a chance on and after that payday when it comes to fruition he would not hesitate to hand over the additional 3%, not whilst he gets to make the 97%. Like any seesaw, these equations need a balancing act, especially as 50 million is not nothing, even for a billionaire it is still money. As such people like Elon Musk and Tim Cook have alternatives, there is Jeff Bezos (but Amazon is seemingly a failure), Larry Ellison remains an option and Michael Dell (Dell computers). There are a few others, but when they are too old, they might not like the challenge of something new that has not been done before. The Googlers also seemingly failed to act, so I need to find other venues. There is a chance that people like Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani might want to enter the tech sector. The same could be said for Crown Prince Shaikh Mishaal Ahmad Jaber Al-Sabah, Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Salman who is worth over 2 trillion, which is why a first part was offered to the Consulate general of Saudi Arabia to Sydney. I have to make moves that are not predictable and retirement is looming (with empty coffers) and personally I do not care who grows the solution, as long as it grows, I am a person like anyone else and as such hindered by ego (to the smallest degree). And the idea to enter retirement smiling looking at a new pair of ski’s whilst some wannabe’s out of my past are sitting in a chair holding a drink wondering what they missed, is appealing, very appealing. 

But I realise that I am standing on the axial, pointing the seesaw towards visionary, I get that and I wonder “Could I be wrong?” The numbers, the solutions they all show me I am right, so why didn’t Google or Amazon see that and doubt sets in, but I believe in myself. I know that I have the winning hand and I have to see it through, because that 3% adds up $15 million a month, making it $180 million a year for 20 years and that is one hell of a payday. So I stand strong believing in myself, but doubt is just around the corner and I have done the equations again and again, starting on a new piece of paper every time and the predictions come up the same and I held onto the most conservative version, not the most optimal version, because that is the step that leads to the delusional path, if that goes good, if that goes right. It is the wrong way to make a case and I heeded for that mistake, as such it is the path where almost everything goes wrong and I still end up with the payday I never had before. Time will tell the truth, but when? I wonder.

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September 9, 2022 · 16:37

Timing is key

That is the truth of the matter, and in my case it is not precisely timing, even as timing cmes up. In my case it is pure luck. So as we see (at https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3862066/saudi-arabia-unveils-10-initiatives-develop-online-stores) ‘Saudi Arabia Unveils 10 Initiatives to Develop Online Stores’ I set my plan in motion as well, actually, I set my plan in motion three days earlier. At some point in the past I stated “I would rather hand my IP to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for 35% of its value, then let Microsoft have it at 165% of its value” and I made other claims (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/09/01/resetting-contemplated-options/) just over a week ago in ‘Resetting contemplated options’. There I wrote “You see, for me it cares as part of the deal is that I get 10% of the IP and sales value (plus a starting fee). 10% of 50,000,000 subscriptions could be anything from $25M to $50M and when this takes off, I have no idea where it will end, but even at a mere 1-2 years I could end with $25M to $50M a month in the second year if its running” and I put my actions where my mouth was and as such the first part was handed to the Consulate of Saudi Arabia in Sydney. A stage where Amazon or Google could have made a killing three times over, it is not in hands of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with that a stage where they could make well over $500 million a month. Amazon and Google were seemingly not interested, or perhaps they hoped to get it all for free. Now it becomes a much larger stage with a few nice additions and it could make Saudi Arabia a new player in the IT field, optionally a power player, but that would take a few years. One could say that it as all about the timing, but in my case pure dumb luck might have played its cards too. I have hd my fill with wannabe managers stating to me “We’ll do right by you”, now they end up with nothing and when (not if) my IP works out, they will come with all the excuses they can grab for, but in the end as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia surpasses them, they will have no excuses. It will show them that they were never good enough and that is possibly the best reward of all for me. Moreover, when the stage picks up, they will surpass the total sales of the Xbox One, so it is perfect on several levels. Even as that was not the intent (it was not part of the equation) in the first two years my solution will surpass Microsoft and their boast of the most powerful console in the world. I cannot tell how high it will go, but the 50 million subscriptions is the minimum I had foreseen and when these projects come to fruition I will tell you exactly what I had done and how Microsoft, Google and Amazon failed to see what was in front of their eyes all along. I feel weirdly giggle and happy. Those who claimed that I would not make it will now see that I will end up ahead of the game, ahead of the rest. But I need to be cautious here, as Saudi Arabia has not stated that they are ready for a fight like this, so I need to be patient (something I was never good at). And in all this, I am ready for what comes next, because I have now completed phases two, three and four of that solution, it was always going to happen, but the speed at what is now at play is a new consideration. It is a new consideration as I have to cross my t’s and dot my i’s. So as the KSA is staging to “develop the sector of electronic stores, based on the results of a survey that measured consumer satisfaction with the performance of e-commerce in the Kingdom” I added a much larger stage that will open digital sales and digital awareness to a much larger group than the Saudi Ministry of Commerce had envisioned, as such it will not happen immediately, but over the next 2 years that stage will explode international needs for the KSA and that is also an interesting side. I had never played for that stage, but it merely cropped up and now that it is here, I will need to reset views and test the stage towards what the Saudi Ministry of Commerce has in mind. And all this was not timing (perhaps for the KSA it was) in my case it was as stated pure luck and that counts too. For me it counts as it ups the value of my IP by a lot, or at least decently more than I had envisioned and that is under the condition of 50 million subscriptions, if that goes up by too much more this early, I have no idea where my IP ends or more precisely at what value. I do believe that timing is at times important, I merely never thought I was going to get this lucky, not after the five years I had. For now it does not suck to be me. Oh joy!

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September 8, 2022 · 17:39

Weasels in the limelight

Yes, this is about some weasels, others call them members of media. As such, I am only handing you the Arab News link, the western media DOES NOT DESERVE any consideration at present. The article (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2158496/media) giving us ‘Disney found ‘substantial portion’ of Twitter users fake in 2016: former CEO’ is the larger setting. So as I have given you all my point of view in several articles in the past months, even accusing the media to be nothing more than creators of click bitches. We now get the fact that the evidence that Elon Musk was right all along in this article (and several in Western Media). They are now at the end of what they can exploit, so NOW we get the real deal? The fact that the Disney setting was that a situation existed since 2016 gives us the true setting of western media. For a large extent they have less credibility than a crack whore high on cocaine. Filtered information that meets with the approval of their stakeholders. That is what we have been exposed to. So now as we get to see “Iger did not specify what he meant by “substantial.” Twitter has consistently reported that fewer than 5 percent of its “monetizable” daily users are bot or spam accounts. Iger’s comments come amid a legal battle between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and Twitter over Musk’s deal to buy the social media company for $44 billion. Musk, who is trying to walk away from the deal, has claimed that Twitter has misrepresented the prevalence of spam or bot accounts on the platform.” And the media was aware since 2016 and now when we look back to the articles in western media, we see no mention of the Disney deal whatsoever, the media is THAT corrupt towards digital dollars and stakeholders. And you wonder why I do not trust the media? Well, this is about to get a lot more interesting over the next few weeks when I give notice of a much larger setting. The stage we see now is one where the media is sucking up to whomever they can to not be disregarded as obsolete. They did this to themselves and I have no pity or mercy for them.

And now as we see “In his memoir, “The Ride of a Lifetime,” Iger wrote that he had second thoughts about a deal with Twitter because of the “nastiness” of the discourse on Twitter that he feared would become a distraction.” So the media (and their book sections) and many other parts have had the information for years and we got to see nothing of it, now it does not matter. I had my evidence, Trollrensics had evidence and Elon Musk had evidence. The media is now obsolete, a voice for stakeholders. They no longer deserve their 0% tax group as they are mere digital dollar marketeers. But the politicians are unwilling to hold the media to any level of accountability. 

As I see it, I hope that Elon Musk gets whatever he wants and should he be forced to buy Twitter, it should be no more than a maximum of 6 cents to the dollar. As such Jack Dorsey ends up with a 2.7 billion dollar payday and that is overvaluing Twitter by a lot. And after that, when the media is thrown OFF Twitter, I wonder how long they can hold on. It would irritate me that Elon Musk might lose 2.7 billion, but I reckon he could afford that and more important, when Twitter goes the way of the Dodo (just like the media) I get to introduce a new part of social media to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, just like the initial part I offered to the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Sydney this week. If that goes right a new market will open and now the media will have no say over the matter, they are as obsolete as possible and not welcome at what comes next. They clearly cannot police themselves, that much is shown all over the field. Even if I only get 3%, that over $17,000,000,000 is a lot more than I ever made before. The game is set, the orchestra engaged and now we see if the media (as well as their political and stakeholder friends) can dance. Out there in the limelight. Like weasels trying to hide away from the light beams, not realising that the grass is flat, the lights are high and every bit of grass is exposed. We all get to see the weasels jump and run in every direction hoping to find shade to vanish in, but not this time. This time they really went to far (as I personally see it).

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September 6, 2022 · 22:12

Just to be clear

Yes, that is essential. I am about to throw caution to the wind and do something (optionally extremely stupid) that has never been done before. Yet that is for tomorrow (or the day after). For now we focus on Microsoft. I did not plan this, yet with the article (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/uk-watchdog-further-probe-microsofts-687-billion-activision-deal-2022-09-01/) we get ‘Microsoft’s $69 bln Activision deal could harm competition, UK says’ I keep my voice in the middle in this. You see I always applauded exclusives, in any system. It made Nintendo the behemoth it is today and Sony has had its successes as well, as did Microsoft with its Master sergeant in Halo. All systems had this and even as I hated Microsoft buying Bethesda, it was a brilliant tactical ploy. I did counter it by giving away RPG IP to all Amazon Luna and Sony Playstation developers, but it is a valid ploy. Yet Microsoft keeps on buying companies. It is their funeral. Yet the UK only reacts to Activision? So when I see “Microsoft Corp’s $69 billion acquisition of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard could harm competition in gaming consoles, subscription services and cloud gaming, and it needs to be investigated in depth” this might be fair enough, but it seems that there is a larger issue here and it is not with Microsoft, I have more questions regarding certain ‘investigators’. Now, as stated before, I am no Microsoft fan for a few reasons and those who have read my articles know what I am about. But here is something more and I was happy that some people had (again) not done their homework. This is seen with ““We want people to have more access to games, not less,” Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith said. “Sony, as the industry leader, says it is worried about ‘Call of Duty’, but we’ve said we are committed to making the same game available on the same day on both Xbox and PlayStation,” he said.” I am hereby calling Brad Smith a LIAR! You see with the purchase of Bethesda they have clearly stated that the new Elder Scrolls is now an Xbox exclusive. As such we see Brad Smith as the liar and Sony gamers as the victim. But there is another side. Microsoft has been pushing its cloud gaming, and that is the path they will take, to host Microsoft cloud games on other systems, so that they can honestly claim that they service all systems, as long as it goes via their cloud capturing data (a speculation, I admit).

And the cloud solution is seen with “the deal would not be anti-competitive if competitors were given access to Microsoft games, as Microsoft has pledged” It is the ‘access to Microsoft games’ part that is the stage and interestingly enough there is no ‘release on other systems’ part. It is a larger capture and I get it, it is decently brilliant. As such I gave the others a new RPG game, parts of the stage, parts of the story (to get them started) and within a week another nice surprise that will cost Microsoft dearly (if all goes well) and on September 30th several parts become public domain, and only the clever sleuths will be able to find it. A new way to push the industry in a new direction. It is a crazy step and it took me months of pondering, but as I was given the afternoon off, I went to a local internet cafe and activated the timer. It is the start of one hell of a ride that might not go anywhere, but it will make the headlines and show the shortcomings of a few tech players (including Microsoft), yet the article bothers me. You see I believe in exclusivity, as such the quote “Microsoft needs to give a greater deal on assurances and put down in writing certain specifics around exclusivity” bothers me. What specifics? An exclusive game is an exclusive game. That is the case for Nintendo, Sony and as such also Microsoft. They are allowed exclusive games and if they buy Activision for 69 billion, they got the company and the exclusives are theirs. I might not like it, but that is the game, I countered by handing a totally new and unique RPG game to Amazon Luna and Sony Playstation free of charge. That was my choice, and over time I do believe the stupidity of Microsoft will be the death of them (I will be happy to help out though). 

And over time we will see shifts, the streamers will make sure of that, but that is the day after tomorrow. For now we focus on today and tomorrow. And here the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) might be an optional enemy. You see, Mario has been a Nintendo exclusive for a long time, for decades but the CMA did nothing there. So what gives now? They did not act on the buy of Bethesda, so what gives now? They are all focussing on “Call of Duty”, there is no mention of Diablo, a franchise no less important. And I get it, they have a case. Microsoft got greedy and now there is an issue. Yet I still feel bothered, because this stage opens the end of exclusives and that is a problem. It is a problem because the games will end up being as good as the weakest system and that is not acceptable. Am I overreacting? Perhaps a little, but there will always be differences in games. And these differences will make a game better on either system A or B, and that is fine. But when a system MUST be there for both one system will lose out more and they will have a game that is less than optimal and that is a larger problem. Gaming must always be at the edge of technology and that makes gaming great. As such not all games will work on all systems. Some games will be better in one location, some will be better in the other place. Exclusives are more than a game on one system. They are the games that uses that system to the maximum of what is possible. It is one reason why we love our exclusives. So I cannot tell if the CMA has a point but from a pure gaming point of view they are on a slippery slope as I personally see it.

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September 6, 2022 · 04:54

Famous last words

The title is not a conundrum. I am listening to all the albums of Supertramp, Famous last words is one of their albums. I cannot say if the album pushed for the events coming, or the events that I am planning to take gave me the idea to listen to all the Supertramp albums. You tell me. But over the next month I will do something I never expected to do and as such I will not tell you this now. It would be like the butterfingered man telling the crowd ‘Watch this’ and there he drops the mine that he was going to use to give a presentation. The results were ugly to begin with and the man did not survive it. I have nothing this weird planned, but it could lead to social suicide. You see the actor John Barrowman (most likely) and his lack of understanding nuance (as well as basic knowledge of Game of Thrones)  gave me the idea, or at least the insight that at times being intelligent will not matter, people will think what they think no matter hoe the clear facts are pressed into their faces. We can argue that Jack Dorsey and his Twitter are the second part in this act. But about that more later (decently later). 

It all came to blows (within my mind) when I was contemplating ‘famous last words’, the album, not the act. One of their songs is C’est Le Bon, a song I loved for the longest times. In the song you get:

I’m watching the movie go down
Around, about me
I’m watching the merry-go-round
Go down about me. 

You see, when is enough enough? This is a question with a larger stage attached to it. This thought came to me as I was considering the sense of a GoPro Hero 11. Yes it will have some additions, new modes and new resolutions, but it is so stepwise. It matters even more as the GoPro Hero 10 is as close as perfect as anything any competitor could hope to offer. A merry-go-round of products to appease a consumer that does not know what it wants. To appease a consumer that uses 10% of what this product offers (at best) and whilst they all want to make the video’s like GoPro releases with themselves in the starring role. The truth of the matter is that these films are made and enhanced by people with close to a decade of film school experience. It feels like it is it own version of ‘Watch this’ without any dread, a presentation hammered and perfected over 4-7 years with all the previous models in the mind-cast of the consumers. Now, let be clear GoPro did nothing wrong, they are not deceiving you and they are not making you shell out your money, you are doing that yourself. Why go for the new model when the current one is so close to perfect? Why get another version of more modes and more resolutions? The current model gives you 5.3K at 60fps and 4K up to 120fps for slow-motion. A rumoured ‘improvement’ is 480fps 1080p slo-mo capture. And that is also the problem, we still see all these rumours of a camera that is released this month, it would be shipping at present, so the rumours are optionally correct, but why is the whole range of new stuff not out in the open at present? The edge of seat marketing is over, or so I believe it is and this implies that the Hero 11 has little new to offer, and that is OK. The Hero 10 is as close to perfect as a camera this size could ever hope to be. So, why not release the Hero 11 in 2023? It is a fair enough question. Only the Hero fetish people want something like this now. I would support it to some degree if the additions were released by GoPro ahead of schedule, is it? 

The consumer merry-go-round is a dangerous toy to rely on, consumers are fickle and the stronger anti Hero YouTubers could hammer down sales quickly enough and they reach hundreds of thousands close to free of charge. As such the ‘Watch this’ marketing approach should be dead, but it is not, and it is not for all the wrong reasons. 

As I personally see it there are two waves. The “Watch This” marketing and its anti group doing the opposite and the second team has a field day when the first team does not have enough innovations to show and at present GoPro has close to none. I do not mean this negatively, over the last few years GoPro showed so much more and such a large bundle of innovative action filming that it boggles the mind, it really does. And now? Now we see all these elements melt together and in the end the consumer loses, or it merely loses its mind. I am not sure which of the two is worse.

So whilst GoPro is about to release a new flavour of the same, I am about to launch a stage that has never been done before, a stage that hopefully changes everything, but to be honest I have no idea how it plays out, but I do know that plenty of wannabe’s and power-players will not like what I am about to do. But it has become essential to change the game-play so that some are flushed into the limelight. It to some degree reflects Know who you are another song from that very same album. There we hear:

Know who you are…
There’s a world deep inside you,
Trust if you can…
There’s a friend the to guide you.

I reckon I will learn who my friends are soon enough, I know the two I have, I have known that for decades, it is the wannabe’s who will make an interesting jump, they are about to put into the limelight and they will not be able to answer any critical questions. What a lovely day that day will be.

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September 3, 2022 · 20:32

Valuation and validating

It is at times a hard decision to make. We valuate what we have and then we validate. It happens and we all face it in one way or another. Now I have to make a choice. Validation through path 1, 2, 3 or 4. And they all have valuations. The problems is not the valuation, it becomes the likelihood of that valuation to become a reality. You see I do not trust Microsoft (for various reasons), but the stage is also that I will get bobkis from Google or Amazon and Elon Musk is an unknown factor. I kept him on the books because he recognises good ideas and ideas he can monetise. In this case that could work for me and now path 5 is opening up with path 6 attached to it. Now path 6 is Tencent, but they are teaming up with Microsoft, I did mention that they cannot be trusted? Microsoft is a walking failure spinning what they can and finding new partners wherever possible as they are leaking revenue all over the place. The problem is who is in charge? Tencent of Microsoft? That now leaves me with path 5 and there lies the rub. Path 5 is an unknown to some extent, but they will recognise revenue and they recognise opportunity and this one is not oil based. Yes, path 5 is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the IP packages will add up to $17,000,000,000 (and some coins). So the moment I produce the presentations and the evidence the stage is set and my price? An initial $50,000,000 (post taxation) and a few loose items as well as 10% of the rest. That is the honeytrap. It is more than a honeytrap. Once the evidence is given they will hand over the cash for ownership of 90% of this and I have what is needed for the rest part of the journey. The moment I get to that part the rest is simple. It is the first stage that tends to be the larger issue, once this is in motion the rest will come easily. There is nothing like a simple stage of proven evidence to get the train rolling. I have given Google and Amazon ample chance to wake up. They did not and when others get the revenue and these players see what they missed they will reorganise but it will be to no avail. The larger stage is not that, it is to keep the stupidity of Microsoft out of all this. Whenever I see them I see the Smackos chihuahua yapping “Try Azure, Azure smells nice” and I feel waves of frustration. And Microsoft ALWAYS has an excuse ‘Microsoft Blames Ubuntu Update DNS Problems for Azure Services Outage’, or ‘Dodgy Microsoft Azure update knocks Ubuntu VMs offline’ yet these stages seemingly ignore “A few months back, I wrote about the discovery of a series of major vulnerabilities in Microsoft Azure by security researchers, suggesting that tenant isolation in the public cloud — which ensures that each organisation’s data is cordoned off from everyone else’s — may be more in question than we thought.” (Source: Protocol) Now any provider in this field has issues. Yet when we see “As of the end of 2021, AWS retained the top position with 32.2 per cent market share, followed by Microsoft at 30.1 per cent” we need to realise that we see ten times the issues on Microsoft systems than on any AWS system and that is AFTER the media gives Microsoft pass after pass. Any questions on why I do not trust Microsoft? And I am hungry for my millions and Microsoft would endanger that, as such I do not want them around. And when the evidence of the 50,000,000 is given they will all race to get a part of it, but at that point it is not up to me, it is most likely up to the shareholder from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who makes that call and now Microsoft is back in to the race (alas), but that would be the right of the owner of that IP (s long as I get my 10%) and when the IP comes to fruition and the people realise that 50 million was not a maximum, it was the bare minimum and there is no way of telling how far it goes, not with over 2 billion gamers in the mix and I am merely aiming for the 3% mark, the rest will follow after that however there is no way of telling how many will follow. Only a delusional mind makes that claim and I am not delusional. But I am face with choices. The entire project would be much smoother with Amazon or Google, yet now I am faced with a less smooth ride and with more clear assurances I get paid. And that is not a balancing scale, not a seesaw or a wedge. There are a number of issues that I cannot properly see because it is a field that never interested me, I merely am a pawn of the outcome. But 50 million subscriptions implies $500 million a month, should that be $250 million a moth it is fine, it also calls out to millions of gamers who get the news that the new player is 50% cheaper and that starts a new wave (in my benefit), even as I only get 10% of that, it is a hell of a lot more than I have now and it solidifies my retirement fund and my long lasting vacation after that. My last true vacation was in 2002, soo I feel that after 20 years I am entitled to it. It is also making me nervous, you see last year there was an inkling of reality, as such I never gave it much value, but now, now there is a serious chance that this could happen and as such I feel nervous, perhaps it is like a marathon runner who sees the finish line 20 meters head and he also feels the exhaustion and they are weighing battle in his mind. I see the finish line and I see that the other parties will pay when there is a clear indication, something I can show. It is a show that played in my mind for years. And I am almost at that finish line. So as my Twitter peeps are unaware (because of certain issues) we get to see a new path, is it path 7? I can only guess, but I am not seeking a new path, merely hoping that one of the first 5 make up their mind (hopefully fast), a stage that has weighed heavily on my mind. In the mean time I have made a first attempt in the finale (of season one) regarding the grandson of Hades. I think I have worked it out to some extend and that means that the cliffhanger could be the last three episodes and the new story will follow in a 2 episode special. Well, I do not see it that way as it I a story and not scripted for TV, but that could be how it plays out in the end. It was when I remembered a fountain in Rethymnon, that started the path  I am on now. As such it becomes more than just the stage and Demeter. I got the surprise guests lined up and now I need to set a stage to get Hephaestus involved, and I think I found that too, in Athens no less. But it is not where the stage is, yet the stage is not the play (not in this case) it is becoming the journey to an arena and that has my attention, just like the paths of IP, this path is there, but it is easier. It merely includes my creativity and that I have to spare (at present). In this I am not entirely original a happy fellow named Plutarch aided me in a few momentary lapses and that drive is now a much larger drive because of it. And there is a second benefit, if the funds come through I can focus 100% on the writing of this tale, as well one other project I have on the shelves (for now). And in all this the validations and valuations are only easy and adhered to when they go our ways, isn’t that interesting. The mind abhors bad news, or negativity on what one creates. Is that not weird too? You might say no, but all life is part positive and part negative and as we go through life, the negative parts are equally driving, so why avoid them?

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September 2, 2022 · 22:49

When one door closes

Yes, that is the stage I find myself in. However I could say when one door closes someone gets to open the window. Yet, even as I am eager to give you that story now, I will await the outcome of Twitter (who blocked my account) and the outcome there will support the article. Which is nice because it makes for an entertaining story. It did however make me wonder on a few parts. You see AI does not exist. It is machine learning and deeper learning and that is an issue for the following reasons.

Deep learning requires large amounts of data. Furthermore, the more powerful and accurate models will need more parameters, which, in turn, require more data. Once trained, deep learning models become inflexible and cannot handle multitasking.

This leads to: 

Massive Data Requirement. As deep learning systems learn gradually, massive volumes of data are necessary to train them. This gives us a rather large setting, as people are more complex, it will require more data to train them and the educational result is as many say an inflexible setting. I personally blame the absence of shallow circuits, but what do I know? There is also the larger issue of paraphrasing. There is an old joke. The joke goes “Why can a program like SAP never succeed?” “Because it is about a stupid person with stress, anxiety and pain” until someone teaches that system that SAP is also a medical term for Stress, Anxiety and Pain” and until we understand that ‘sap’ in the urban dictionary as a stupid person, or a foolish and gullible person the joke falls flat. 

And that gets me to my setting (I could not wait that long). The actor John Barrowman hinted that he will be in the new Game of Thrones series (House of the Dragon), he did this by showing an image of the flag of House Stark. 

I could not resist and asked him whether we will see his head on a pike and THAT got thrown from Twitter (or taken from the throne of Twitter). Yet ANYONE who followed Game of Thrones will know that Sean Bean’s head was placed on a pike at the end of season 1, as such I thought it was funny and when you think if it, it is. But that got me banned. So was this John Barrowman who felt threatened? I doubt that, but I cannot tell because the reason of why this tweet caused the block is currently unknown. If it is machine learning and deeper learning we see its failure. Putting ones head on a pike could be threatening behaviour, but it came from a previous tweet and the investigator didn’t get it, the system didn’t get it or the actor didn’t do his homework. I leave it up to you to figure it out. Optionally my sense of humour sucks, that to is an option. But if you see the emoji’s after the text you could figure it out. 

High Processing Power. Another issue with deep learning is that it demands a lot of computational power. This is another side. With each iteration of data the demand increases. If you did statistics in the 90’s you would know that CLUSTER analyses had a few setbacks, the memory needs being one of them, it resulted in the creation of QUICKCLUSTER something that could manage a lot more data. So why use the cluster example?

Cluster analyses is a way of grouping cases of data based on the similarity of responses to several variables. There are two types of measure: similarity coefficients and dissimilarity coefficients. And especially in the old days, memory was hard to get and it needs to be done in memory. And here we see the first issue. ‘the similarity of responses to several variables’ and here we determine the variables of response. But in the SAP example, the response is depending on someone with medical knowledge and one with urban knowledge of English, and if these are two different people, the joke quickly falls flat, especially when these two elements do not exchange information. In my example of John Barrowman WE ALL assume that he does his homework (he has done this in so many instances, so why not now), so we are willing to blame the algorithm, but did that algorithm see the image John Barrowman gave us all, does the algorithm know the ins and outs of Game of Thrones? All elements and I would jest (yes, I cannot stop) that these are all elements of dissimilarity, as such 50% of the cluster fails right of the bat and that gets us to…

Struggles With Real-Life Data. Yes, deeper learning struggles with real life data because it is given in the width of the field of observation. For example, if we were to ask a plumber, a butcher and a veterinarian to describe the uterus of any animal we get three very different answers and there is every chance that the three people do not understand the explanation of the other two. A real life example of real life settings and that is before paraphrasing comes into play, it merely makes the water a lot more muddy.

Black Box Problems. And here the plot thickens. You see at the most basic level, “black box” just means that, for deep neural networks, we don’t know how all the individual neurons work together to arrive at the final output. A lot of times it isn’t even clear what any particular neuron is doing on its own. Now I tend to call this: “A precise form of fuzzy logic” and I could be wrong on many counts, but that is how I see it. You see why did deeper learning learn it like this? It is an answer we will not ever get. It becomes too complex and now consider “a black box exists due to bizarre decisions made by intermediate neurons on the way to making the network’s final decision. It’s not just complex, high-dimensional non-linear mathematics; the black box is intrinsically due to non-intuitive intermediate decisions.” There is no right, no wrong. It is how it is and that is how I see what I now face, the person or system just doesn’t get it for whatever reason and a real AI could have seen a few more angles and as it grows it will see all the angles and get the right conclusion faster and faster. A system on machine learning or deeper learning will never get it, it will get more and more wrong because it is adjusted by a person and if that person misses the point the system will miss the point too, like a place like Gamespot, all flawed because a conclusion came based on flawed information. This is why we have no AI, because the elements of shallow circuits and quantum computing are still in their infancy. But salespeople do not care, the term AI sells and they need sales. This is why things go wrong, no one will muzzle the salespeople.

In the end shit happens, that is the setting but the truth of the matter is that too many people embrace AI, a technology that does not exist, they call it AI, but it is a fraction of AI and as such it is flawed, but that s a side they do not want to hear. It is a technology in development. This is what you get when the ‘fake it until you make it’ is in charge. A flaw that evolves into a larger flaw until that system buckles.

But it gave me something to write about, so it is not all a loss, merely that my Twitter peeps will have to do without me for a little while. 

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September 2, 2022 · 04:06

Decentralised personal insights

My brain had been pondering a few thoughts and the text bubble appeared with the text “Wake up slow boat”, I really hate it when my brain does that at 03:30 in the morning, yet I have learned that it can instantly change dreams and really nice dreams into utter nightmares, as such I tend to obey it when it screams for action. You see, the idea of decentralised insight is not really new, but Google and Amazon never used that to a full potential. And here I think I have an idea that either could use this idea to cater to thousands of YouTubers and TikTok people. I am not talking about streamers like Nalopia screaming “Stop putting dicks in my ear”, but there is a population of thousands that try to do more and there an idea came forth. You see, they all have their own slice of expertise. Some from work, some from school and Uni and some from tradie work. All experts in their small universe. So what if we could add to that, for them. 

To take a small trip to the other side of the street. There is Wiki and Wiki is not a source that can often be held up to scrutiny of a higher rank. However, it’s references tend to be a different story (see below).

Here the person can select the articles that they feel support their point of view, the ones that do not, the ones they oppose and it is THEIR choice. But what comes afterwards (whether Google or AWS, or a third party) that caters to this need and takes the reference apart, allowing the person to easily seek more on the subject from a source (Washington Post) its writer (Terence McCoy) or anything else like a point in time or even more on a FROM-TO date, that setting will support the Youtuber or TikTokker, or whatever they use. Decentralisation will grow and as the mistrust of media grows it will be a sought after optional solution. Wiki is merely one source, there are a whole truck load of media sources that have similar approaches, even magazines have such an approach and whatever tool these streamers can find, they will use. Yet as far as I can see, there isn’t anyone catering to thus level of decentralisation, where the time and effort of these streamers is theirs (and theirs alone). It could set in motion a new wave of software and services that others need and so far I cannot find anything. Interesting, another (speculated) optional niche they did not see, why not? 

There are at present 431 thousand Youtube streamers (a decrease of 65%) and we see that there are TikTok has 1 billion monthly active users out of 3.3 billion installations. Isn’t it time to offer these populations something that could entice them to continue? The nice part here is that suddenly Amazon could become a contender (due to AWS) and that setting is new to both TikTok and Youtube. Will it work? It is merely an idea but a workable one and if I can figure it out there will be more on this path of enabling that much I can pretty much guarantee.

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August 31, 2022 · 01:33

It is more than a pool full

I got a nice surprise this morning from the BBC. They had an interesting article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62717599), in this article named ‘Undeclared pools in France uncovered by AI technology’ we see an article on something different. It is not a pool on which girl has the loveliest lingerie. No it is a large tub of water. In Franco they however have the rule that “Pools can lead to higher property taxes because they boost property value, and must be declared under French law.” And as such we get to “The software, developed by Google and French consulting firm Capgemini, spotted the pools on aerial images of nine French regions during a trial in October 2021.” This led to finding well over 20,000 undeclared swimming pools with the number leading to “some €10m (£8.5m) in revenue, French media is reporting” As far as I can tell it is the first time a revenue service got to be clever about the tools available in this. A novel and lovely way to find something. This is a case of deeper learning taking a dive into the photo’s that aids the tax office. To be honest, I never knew swimming pols had to be declared and as such there is the added fact that I never lived in France. And as we are given “According to Le Parisien newspaper, an average pool of 30 sq m (322 sq ft) is taxed at €200 (£170) a year.” If that is true, the finding of 20,000 undeclared pools will add to the French coffers in a nice way. So it sucks to be the non declaring swimming pool owner. But that is not the real deal. It is about something more and we get that when we see “His comments come as France tackles its worst recorded drought that has left more than 100 municipalities short of drinking water. In July, France had just 9.7mm (0.38in) of rain, making it the driest month since March 1961, the national weather service Meteo-France said. Irrigation has been banned in much of the north-west and south-east of France to conserve water.” And still some see global warming as a nuisance, something that is not real. Last week I saw an image of the largest sweet water lake in China, now completely dry, now we see images like the image below. 

I have nothing against people with a pool and for the most people are not hindered by drought, not in Europe, but the fact that France now has the driest month since March 1961, before I was even born gives a much larger stage, one that we cannot deny. It is not about the pools, it is about water and we need to figure out how we can unite all the data on water and find a common factor. I know, it will be people. But consider that the Seine took care of a few hundred in 800AD, and went from 1960 with 46.62 m to 2021 with 67.50 m people. This is a growth of 44.8% in 61 years, now they do not all spot by the Seine, but it gives a rather large stage when we consider that In 1600, there were roughly 220,000 Parisians; in 1650, approximately 450,000 in 1700, Paris had about 550,000 inhabitants. Now Paris is a city that houses 2.161 million, that shows a growth of 390%, now we have a different picture. And here deeper learning might give organisations a better view and we need to do this, not next week or next year. We need to start looking at the facts now, something needs to be done now. And it has nothing to do with pools, that is merely taxation fun for some. The question becomes have we hit a larger point in our evolution? How long until we have drunk all the non salt water? You think I am kidding, but we need to consider that the population of this planet was 2 billion in 1900, in 122 years time we went to 8 billion. 8,000,000,000 people needing 400% more than the population in 1900. I am not kidding, we might have hit a point of no return in the population. The planet can no longer support this population. Consider that we need 16 billion – 24 billion litres of water EVERY DAY to support this population. And that is before we look at what they need for the washing machine, the shower and so on. I am not putting the pools on that list, but someone will and now the need for deeper learning towards water, water consumption and water levels becomes a little more clear, does it not? This planet had a water cycle, it was a natural order, but we disrupted it and we pretty much destroyed it. Water does not get replenished, it merely recycles in different ways, but 8 billion people consume water too making the cycle smaller every day and soon there will be no water. I do at least have an escape plan that allows me to live out my life without the danger of running out of water, but it would help if Amazon or Google (or Elon Musk) buys my IP, sooner rather than later mind you. So when you consider the issues in Pakistan (see below), consider that nature has a massively strange way to seek balance, but is it really balance, or is it something else, something we did by keeping silent to appease the greed driven?

It is a serious question and most governments were part of this all, so they do not get to lecture, but deeper learning could give us numbers on the global aftermath of water shortages and we need to start now, not tomorrow. Data collection needs to start the moment we can, not when it suits some. That time has passed and is gone forever.

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August 29, 2022 · 17:31

Behind door number two

Yes, the ink for slapping Twitter is not even dry and we get to have a go at Instagram. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62686375) gave us ‘Instagram says precise location is never shared’. There we are given “But Instagram said this is not the case and the feature does not share locations with other users.” Now, there is an old expression (in Dutch) that would consider me an ant-fucker. This is a person who looks at the smallest details. You see, Instagram does not give us “But Instagram said this is not the case and the feature does not share locations with anyone.” It relied on people not considering the larger stage with ‘other users’ and advertisers are not other users. So when we see “it was praised when it was first released as a way to improve user privacy on mobile devices because it offers an alternative to the blanket application of location services. The setting is automatically enabled for users on apps given permission to access their location.” We are given the stage of ‘enabled for users’ but does that mean that apps cannot get a link of precise locations? So as the accusation is given “They also said if users were to post a general location of a city, people would still be able to see exactly where you are as a pin on a map.” We do not see any evidence in one way or another way. We are given “we use precise location for things like location tags and maps features.” Perhaps it is a correct statement, but that does not stop some clever app makers using tags and mapping options to get a handle on precise locations. Thee first adjusted statement would have taken care of that, but Instagram never gave that to the people did they? They merely gave us “the feature does not share locations with other users.” And I have issues with that. But I admit that this is slicing the cake mighty thin, and Instagram could have prevented that, but I personally reckon that they merely needed to be as honest as possible allowing them maximum degrees of freedom on spin, and that is what I expect is happening.

So whether I am right or wrong, it is founded on the language that the media gives us regarding the quotes BY Instagram. It is what we see behind the stage and what we speculate is the case of the used language. It could go either way, but Instagram could have prevented it by being clear and the fact that they were not gives out a rather large problem regarding Instagram and precise locations.

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