Category Archives: Media

February 19, 2022 · 18:14

Direction of education

I have been contemplating a separate direction of optional IP. You see, the studios are all focusing on the ‘next big thing’, to seemingly achieve that they tend to go towards the big successes and hope that they have one more slug to deliver. This is not a bad plan, but there is an equal danger on that larger stage not meeting expectations. This is not some curse, it comes from expressions like ‘it rains on the just and unjust alike’, ‘dress for success’, and that list goes on. Yet when we look back, what did Star Trek look back on? What inspired ‘Dallas’, ‘MASH’ and several others? Then I remembered something, something I saw 45 years ago and it still comes up in my mind every now and then. It was a series called ‘Once Upon a time’ and it ran for a long time. It was originally called “Il était une fois…”, a French educational program created by Procidis.

It is time to dig into such a corner (not that corner). You see, we forget that those who inherit the world might not vote, but they are a powerful group and the big wigs seem to forget that THEY too were young once. Consider Marcus Aurelius, the fifth of the good emperors. He died in 180 AD, he was also a philosopher who wrote Meditations, a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. Some still call it a literary monument to a government of service and duty. I was taken aback when I read [6] “to disbelieve the professions of sorcerers and imposters about incantations and exorcism and the like” written by a person who died 1600 years before BS Puritans decided to burn 14 women at the stake in Massachusetts Bay for witchcraft (Salem). All whilst these puritans optionally were afraid of women who merely needed a good fuck (optional speculation). In the end 19 people and two dogs were burned, 1600 years an Italian told them the truth of the matter, and it is time that historic figures more in a life like setting are the stuff of inspiring on TV and not cartoon like. I have nothing against cartoons, yet it is time for the next generation learn on how inspiring, innovative and generation crossing these greeks and Italians were. Some of the Italian practices are still in use 2000 years later. Julius Caesar started encryption by coding his messages. Aurelius wrote a guide that still inspires today. And that is before we consider Homer, Aristotle and a few others. History needs to teach and the classrooms aren’t getting it done, so it is time to give them a hand and the streamers are always looking for new IP, but they seemingly forgot to what the past achieved and what could be possible. Everyone wants another Game of thrones, yet those under 14 needs to be prepared for the future and a good grasp of history is the way to go. If I can create a way to create a concept of burning down a nuclear reactor using an invention from 1900 by Mr Perzy I, what could the next generation achieve when they get a good grasp of Homer, Pythagoras, Gauss and Hilbert, how good could this world end up being? There are of course no guarantees, but considering that the Pentagon cannot be relied on to properly vet translations, people elect a person as president who seemingly is proud on ‘I grabbed her by the pussy’, we seem to ignore basic knowledge and it goes beyond mathematics, or basic philosophy. As I personally see it the media (TV) has forgotten to educate, it is all about the wow, the numbers and the profit and there is every chance at least one generation is coming up short, and we get that it is not all fun and all Game of Thrones, but we need to do more, or streamers should do more to offer a wide interesting scope of educational programs. We could rely on the Squid games to control the population but is that the way big wigs want to go at present? They need numbers for circulation, for ratings and when you decrease the population by X, those numbers would never be reached. Now an argument could be made that certain ratings are easier met when you only have 78% of the population to work with but that requires math, does it not? 

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February 18, 2022 · 19:23

Unintentional?

Whilst playing a game (Horizon 2, Forbidden West) my mind was drawn into a setting I have not openly done before. In the intro part we are (optionally) drawn into the conflict of intentional versus unintentional shortsightedness. A thief preventing theft is the clue (not giving away anything. But consider that I consider Microsoft to have shown (several times) the application of intentional shortsightedness. This goes back from the Xbox One and after. For whatever reason they did this, they set up intentional shortsightedness on storage for the longest time (since 2011).  And I have scolded them for it, I could do so because their competitor (Sony) set up an option where it could be solved. They did this in the PS4, PS4Pro and PS5. Microsoft since the Xbox One avoided that and only now (2020) offered another option, I reckon because they could no longer avoid that. Now we see streaming and I warned about congestion, the setting in the UK is now “UK’s biggest network operator, might soon become its biggest 5G provider. EE currently has 5G live in the UK in 160 places and plans to cover the whole country by 2028.” So proper national 5G in the UK by 2028, implying congestion in a lot of rural places. Europe and the US are in no better state. There we see “All of the major U.S. wireless carriers say they have nationwide 5G service, but industry analysts say that service is largely indistinguishable from 4G LTE service”, yet 4G LTE and 5G are not the same, in no uncertain way! So we see an industry who is hiding behind  shortsightedness to leave one third in the dark and that applies to the UK, US and Europe. 1/3rd is not worthy to be properly connected and in that we see a problem, it will taint streaming systems (and it works for Sony in no small way too). But I am not here pleading for Sony, I am here pleading for gamers.

The game gives us the stage of unintentional shortsightedness, because can we predict what happens or what is needed in 1000 years? Of course not, but the clarity we could see in 2011 was addressed by one and not the other, that makes it intentional. They cannot hide behind ‘We did not see that coming’ because nearly all could see it coming a mile away. Some hid behind what would expected to come (trade agreements) and someone boasted his trumpet too soon and the brand suffered, the other one made a video of one person handing a disc to another person and made short of the situation, but they too hoped for change and it is seen in there terms of service, the media largely ignored it whoring for digital dollars, but they too are guilty. 

These are all stages of intentional shortsightedness. So when does it become unintentional shortsightedness? Because of the filtered business approach, the approach of common sense or the approach of what a board of directors stipulates? I honestly do not know. I am willing to go with common sense, but common sense and business sense are not aligned, or better stated they are more often not aligned than aligned. There is the stage of common sense versus service level agreements, there is the stage of common sense and dependancy of suppliers and there are a few other stages. Yet if the the UK is any indication, the delay to national 5G (real 5G) until 2028 sets a much larger premise. The ability to offer 5G solutions and 5G added abilities to a nation when it needs to rely on other means. It is (as I personally see it) as the 80’s setting that Dutch Luc Sala stated as the have’s versus the have not’s and it is coming to actual deployment in the next 5 years and not merely in the Netherlands, it will be seen on the global stage. A stage of technological discrimination, the problem is to see the difference between intentional versus unintentional shortsightedness, because even as a game brings it to the forefront, this stage has been deploying for close to 3 years and if you want to refresh your information (I stated it several times) at present only Saudi Arabia has a national deployed 5G network, and it is more than that it is merely 700% faster than the US, it is a nation that took serious steps to make its nation 5G and over the next 5 years it might get a lot more benefits in its wake than any other player. South Korea might have an advantage as well, but that will be seen over the next 2 years. A stage that we saw coming a mile away, so is it at that point intentional or unintentional shortsightedness? I will let you decide. But the lack of services that we will see pop up all over whilst some providers hide behind ‘It works fine under 4G LTE’ and whilst the media keeps n ignoring certain steps should inspire you to seek out the real information bringers and make sure that the media starts operating less under the appeasing structure and more supported by the common sense pillar. 

Just to recap the important setting “In theory, 5G is likely to reach speeds that are 20 times faster than 4G LTE. 4G LTE has a peak speed of 1GB per second; 5G could theoretically achieve speeds of 20GB per second. … But where you might get 10Mb per second from your 4G network today, 5G could possibly provide 100MB per second everyday speeds”, so it becomes the “Do you really need 20GB per second?” And you think you are swayed, but the part ignored is that banks and others can have 20 times the transactions, so when you are in a bidding war and you will (nearly) always be missing out on a bid, it becomes the option where those who have will get the goods, those who have not will miss out on the goods. Transactions that are 20 times faster, the seesaw in a truly unbalanced stage. Consider your business where the information is brought to you at 5% speed, how appealing is that to some?

All matters that were out in the open for 4-6 years, now slowly pressing on your business, on your home, on your gaming and on your stream speed. You really think I was kidding when I saw congestion as the next big evil coming to your front door? So when short sighted people give you (on June 4th 2018) ‘NBN chief blames online ‘gamers predominantly’ for fixed wireless congestion’ and whilst we see see “The fixed wireless component of the NBN covers approximately 600,000 Australian homes. 234,000 homes are currently connected.” The larger ignored setting is that “streaming 4K video can use as much as 7 gigabytes (GB) per hour”, a clear setting of intentional shortsightedness, as (Australian) Netflix users surpassed 11,000,000 the Q1 2019, as such we see a massive cluster of shortsightedness. The issue here is prediction when does prediction become intentional? I cannot tell and Covid changed the metrics by a lot, but the levels of congestion were clear, they were clear before covid (2018), there are cogs that are connected, but I can tell you right now, that those claiming to see the difference can not always tell (including me), but I saw a lot of the factors upfront and I blogged them at the time since before covid. As such I feel that I have proven that a lot of unintentional shortsightedness was indeed intentional shortsightedness. Yes, I agree that some cases can be made in a few directions, but not all and too many points were unattended by too many industrials, and not merely in one nation, but near global and in the upcoming 5G commercial wars it will give raise to several failings that we are bound to see in 2023 and 2024. Perhaps suddenly the issues I raised in the streaming wars are a little less innocent, especially from the view of some of the industrials as they gave them. Consider some ‘stream’ presentation and consider who in the end they are really for.

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February 17, 2022 · 18:00

The game you hope for

This comes one sleep away from the game Horizon’s forbidden west (PS5), the sequel from Horizon Zero Dawn. It was a great game, a great journey and as I see it, this game put the Dutch firm Guerrilla Games on the map as a top tier developer. The game was new, original and the story was close to amazing. The first game was a good journey into awesome IP and of course the people who got hooked on the first game want to jump into game two (that includes me). Yet it also reminded me of others, what had been. You see, I remember a game called Steep, as 

I was getting into winter sports, this game had appeal, which fell to zero almost at the point of arrival. You see beyond the claims is the engine, and the engine was made for people who like ‘turbo’, so there is no stage where someone just enjoys training downhill, it has to accelerate (all the time) and the game shows this, the moment you go down, the acceleration is off the wall, and in real live it never is like that. In the end one (of several) views were “Simply put, Steep is average at best” and that is a shame because that 71% game could have been an easy 85% if the makers did the numbers and especially did not charge another $20 for extra game modes. You see it matters and Horizon Zero Dawn gave us the whole enchilada and that was quite the trip. Now, comparing these two games to each other is like comparing coconuts and pineapples. So I am not comparing games, I am comparing effort and as I personally see it Guerrilla Games has it, Ubisoft does not, or had it and lost it is perhaps more precise. But there is another side too. It has been my experience that too many YouTubers are trying to appeal to the software houses too much. There are of course the ranters, but they will always be there. That being said watching a review and then a ranter tends to show a few settings you might not have considered. And in the end it is about finding the right game, especially as a budget is getting more and more towards one game every other month at best. It is at that point that Microsoft shows its Game Pass and the deal you have. But consider this one view gave us “Yet, currently totally free with Xbox Game Pass, Steep is still worth a quick backflip or two. Find out all there is to know about one of Ubisoft’s worst” and hidden there it shows the problem. A pass that allows us to be happy with a 70% game, why is that? The game pass needs to show us that you can play 12 90% games in 2022, but that is not really the case is it? We want to play Ratchet and Clank, Ghosts of Tsushima, Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden west and 8 others, but the Game Pass cannot give us that, can it? Although, it will give you the flight simulator and that is truly a 90% game. 

We hope for that next 95% or better game and my hopes are with Horizon Forbidden West. 2022 will bring at least 5 more games to PS5 and we all hope for the best, we have good hope on what came before but there will always be a sliver of doubt until the game arrives, it is in our nature and in this I am no different, we have all seen decent games, decent games that could have been 90%+ games if only a little more effort was taken. We want to blame Ubisoft and they are a clear example, but they aren’t the only one. The problem is that the game pass has the ability to make the choice field smaller and soon it will be just Ubisoft for some consoles. It is one of the strongest reasons to see Streaming consoles (Amazon Luna) grow faster and stronger. It will soon be the best path to the games we hope for, we want to embrace Sony and Nintendo, yet the clarity is that it will not be enough, we need a new generation of game makers, the list looks impressive, but these are games that were coming for some time. You see the games you never saw coming (like Ghostwire) are coming less and less, gaming is moving from the wild west into corporate west and that leaves us with dwindling choice, have you not noticed that?

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February 17, 2022 · 00:29

Ka-pow pow pow pow

This is a dark piece, it is not about an idea, it is not about IP and it is not about some lame excuse called justice. This all started when I saw a CBC article named ‘4 Alberta border protesters charged with conspiring to murder RCMP officers’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/coutts-protest-charges-laid-court-appearance-bail-1.6352482). There are a few parts here, but in the first, I need to say upfront that I have nothing against the RCMP, I think that the organisation is part of the best that Canada has to offer, and that I wish them no ill will.

That being said, at least 7 of these weapons enables me to decimate a group of RCMP, there disregard for regular safety and the fact that they had at least two weapons per person gives me the feeling that these people are wannabe’s, a group of nut-jobs relying on liquid courage. The article gives us a dozen men, a dozen pussies I reckon and the fact that they face charges of conspiracy to commit murder, mischief (of all things) and possession of a weapon and all that at a blockade gives pause to who is talking to these people, this is not a blockade, this is optionally an attempt at armed insurrection against the RCMP. My first thought was “Can’t we just feed them to the bears?” I know, not the thing a law abiding citizen does, but mischief? Really? 

Then we get to the ‘young roommates’ part. It does not make sense, roommate of what? University? Expel them! A dorm? Expel them! And the blockade/ Well, it seems to be dispersing, but it has me worried. You see, a blockade has two functions. In the first to be a blockade, but it is also a decent distraction of letting people nearby cross the borders whilst the eyes are on the blockade. A trialled and tested method for a long time. So for the dozen or so arrested, their plight is merely beginning, whilst their barrister, or appointed barrister is gunning for mischief, I seeing some of these weapons see an armed militia trying to get a foot in the door and I would take mischief of the table and set them up for attempted murder. The difference between murder and manslaughter is intent and in that setting the ammo box with ammo, the additional magazines and  the armour implies and would be evidence of intent. So I say give these people a pickaxe so that they can spend their lives chiselling the tunnel in Banff National Park for the road between Calgary and Kamloops (who claimed I had no sense of humour?) Between the insanity in the UK, Netherlands, France, US, Australia, New Zealand and a few other places it is time to change the tune too many have been playing and treat these symptoms like any other bully. Let that bully do hard labour, all whilst that bully knows it is a waste of time and it will last a lifetime. Let’s sober the population up a bit. And all that firepower for the RCMP? Screw that notion, we have all seen a year of that BS and I say enough is enough.

Whose with me?

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February 15, 2022 · 14:38

Half a story

Yes, I am as guilty as anyone, yet in this case I say it upfront. I feel that is essential as I see stories from Reuters and others pass us by. Now, I have nothing against Reuters, and nothing negative on Reuters, yet the story is taking a turn as one of my best friends, a good and respected journalist, also one of the founding fathers of Trollrensics (a social media investigation tool) gives us “This is not true, Zelensky did not say that in the video posted on Facebook”, this is quite the setting.

In the Hill (at https://thehill.com/policy/international/594151-zelensky-says-ukraine-has-been-informed-feb-16-will-be-day-of-attack) we see ““We are told that February 16 will be the day of the attack,” he said, according to a Facebook translation of his comments.” The question becomes is the Hill incompetent? I can see that they are hiding behind “according to a Facebook translation of his comments”, but that does not cut the mustard, as I personally see it, the editorial of the Hill in engaging in misleading comments. So what exactly is ‘a Facebook translation’? 

The Hill also gives us “The Associated Press, citing intelligence obtained by the U.S., reported that Russia was eyeing Wednesday as the target date for an attack.” This sounds as vague “the Chinese tailor, a Chinese woman told me where the MH-370 went down whilst she was going down on me”, yes the obvious vague setting of China being mentioned twice. There is a lot wrong with the setting and the (as I personally see it) intentional misinformation of this event is a dangerous thing. Yet in all this the Dutch journalist gives the most reliable stage, the least reliable stage comes from the Hill. The question becomes what was ACTUALLY said, and the issue here is that I do not speak Ukrainian, so I can only give you half a story, but in this case it is a lot more and more reliable then that other news you were given. The rest of the story is as shallow as “”Asked about Zelensky’s statement and the mention of Feb. 16, Kirby said “I’m not going to talk about specific intelligence assessments, I think you can understand that. We have said for a while now that military action could happen any day.”” You see, there is no intelligence lost by giving the CLEAR translation of what Zelensky really said, but that did not work in favour of the doomsayers, did it? There is still a case, but it is not the statement of Zelensky, it is “We have said for a while now that military action could happen any day”, you see, if Putin does nothing the US will have been played for suckers, they will have been played for fools and all the clambake noises we all heard are empty gestures of an administration too close to total collapse. Yes, be aware that my stage setting could be equally wrong, but I am willing to say this upfront, I give you what some (journalists say) so even as FoxNews is loudly repeating what the Hill tells you, there is clearly a debate and no one is giving us the ACTUAL translation, it seems that is not in the interest for the press at this time. I reckon it will be on Thursday, after the event. And Reuters?

They give you ““They tell us Feb. 16 will be the day of the attack. We will make it a day of unity,” Zelenskiy said in a video address to the nation.” It is seen (at https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-hints-concessions-russia-scholz-heads-region-2022-02-14/), so what was ACTUALLY said by Zelensky? 

I leave it with you to get to the bottom of this.

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February 14, 2022 · 03:41

The arbitrary Echidna

Yes, we all have arbitrary moments, this is not mine. Yet something woke up in me when Reuters gave me ‘Google’s advertising tech targeted in European publishers’ complaint’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/googles-advertising-tech-targeted-european-publishers-complaint-2022-02-11/) and I took a look. So there were a few issues and the part of “alleging Google has an adtech stranglehold over press publishers” is merely window dressing. So as I went to a few of these sites, I saw German, Swedish and no English. Now, this is not a stranglehold for me, so I dug deeper. And I looked in a few publications, seeing that there advertisements were a mess, I could not even apply for advertisements in Die Welt, Das Bild and so on. I did not check them all, but the laughable setting is that they seemingly have no idea what they are doing. See the image below

I go to www.google.com and this is the first thing I get in the left lower corner. It was not rocket science, it was precise and clear. And the Advertising gives you:

Simple, precise and direct, NONE of the publications I saw offered anything like that. I got to a page on advertising with Das Bild (I needed Google search to find it), these players are hopelessly lost, they are conceited and running after the facts. Advertising should be a main option at the bottom of Das Bild and Die Welt and it is not there (or better stated, I never found it). The most basic of settings and two of Germans largest circulations are lost beyond hope. So as I personally see it, it is not ‘Google has an adtech stranglehold over press publishers’, as I personally see it, it has become ‘press publishers are hopelessly outdated in the digital environment’, the ‘information’ page I found had one mention of pricing and no relevant actual pricing information. How is that possible in this day and age? Google Ads gives you options, Price per click, price per impression, and many other options and you can select your preference and set how much you are willing to pay. And the Google system is unsurpassed. You might bid $20, yet in the end you ONLY pay one cent more than the previous bid winner. So if we see the following bids:

BidCharged
1$ 20$ 0.54
2$ 5$ 0.53
3$ 3$ 0.52
4$ 1$ 0.51
5$ 0.50$ 0.50

Before Google the advertiser was NEVER given this and it changed the game, the ‘exploiters’ suddenly lost all traffic, they lost their customers and they lost their revenue. This is not a stranglehold, this is giving the customer proper treatment, perhaps EPC Chairman Christian Van Thillo might take notice of that. If we publicly set the advertisement prices over the last six years from Axel Springer, News UK, Conde Nast, Bonnier News and Editorial Prensa Iberica, what will we see then? Even now I could not find precise advertising prices in Die Welt and Das Bild. I get a presentation who they work with, but a consumer wants to know what it will cost them. So when you all go cry at the desk of the European Commission consider that the consumer and the consumer advertiser is given a clear picture and a clear understanding and the stage of what comes next. In addition, when we take “When publishers choose to use our advertising services, they keep the majority of revenue and every year we pay out billions of dollars directly to the publishing partners in our ad network” and we set that against “Google has achieved end-to-end control of the ad tech value chain, boasting market shares as high as 90-100% in segments of the ad tech chain” it is because Google offered and showed value for money from the very beginning, something most advertising agencies have never done. In addition, Google Ads has driven technology that made the advertisers more clever in the way they advertised, something others have never done. 

And in all this, when we see the EPC make claims like: ‘Freedom to earn advertising revenue’ and ‘Freedom to innovate’ whilst two of the partner clearly are lost on innovation, they might embrace earn advertising revenue, but without innovation it becomes meaningless and in that, the advertisers that require visibility see that Google Ads delivers whilst keeping cost down, optionally setting a stage to a new path that is cheaper for the advertiser, so how did the EPC approach that? This is not stranglehold, this is as I see it the path of exploitation and many advertisers have had enough of that and they were willing to try Google Ads and those who did remained in Google Ads, clearly the EPC needs to look up the word innovation, let me help them out: “the introduction of something new”, so where is that innovation in Die Welt and Das Bild? 

Seems that it is another chihuahua crying that they no longer matter, a waste of my time as I see it, not the people that could ever qualify for my 5G solution, that is (as I personally see it) true advertising power, in the hands of the retailer. 

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February 13, 2022 · 19:21

How did the cow catch the hare?

Yes, that has been a question for the ages and that question popped to mind when I saw ‘How did Saudi Arabia make it to the Winter Olympics?’ (at https://www.dw.com/en/how-did-saudi-arabia-make-it-to-the-winter-olympics/a-60736077). Weirdly enough it is not the weirdest question and it had been asked before. There was the Jamaican bobsled team (1988), the event could also be seen in Cool Runnings. Then there was Michael David Edwards (also 1988), a British man doing Ski Jumping and coming from a place where the highest hill is a trashcan, seen in the Movie Eddie the Eagle with Hugh Jackman as the bad as coach. So there have been examples in the past. As such there is plenty of material and I do not know the man, but if Fayik Abdi comes from decently wealthy parents he could have spend his youth skiing the slopes of Canada, Switzerland, Austria or France to get his skills up. And for any man it would be an honour to represent his nation in any olympic event. I would be happy to be the Hockey Goalie for Australia. Oh shocks we do not have a Hockey team (not the real one on ice anyway). So another dream squashed. But for Fayik Abdi it was not a squashed dream, he gets to be there. It does not matter how good he is, how far he gets, he got there making him one in 34,810,000 Saudi’s. And the quote “The 24-year-old found his passion for skiing in Lebanon, where his mother taught him how to ski when he was 4. During his childhood, skiing was just a hobby. But when Abdi got older, he wanted to take the sport seriously. He started traveling to the Swiss Alps in search of slopes, as he didn’t have the access to the sport living in his country.”

Shows us the story that matters. OK, I never would have guessed Lebanon, but I got the second part right and after 20 years he is ready to represent his nation. Yet in all this, I believe that the quote “The Saudi’s first participation in the Winter Games brings back memories of the nation’s first Olympic appearance in Munich’s Summer Games in 1972. The purported vision of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is to explore new industries and encourage people in Saudi to be more active. He believes participation in Beijing will help achieve that goal” is equally important. Exploring new industries is always good, yet it does at times require nationalistic people with another brand of representation and there Olympians could set the larger stage. It does not matter if they do not get the first three position, participation is everything here and I believe that Fayik Abdi is doing more than representing his nation, he is cementing a different path that will bring honour to his family. As any person would be proud to do. If there is a side I have some issues with then it is “The Saudi Winter Sports Federation has had royal backing from the beginning. But it is still searching for business investors to build a planned indoor ski resort, which would help provide vital training access.” It is a natural setting against ‘indoor’ winter-sports, for the most the real feeling of that sport is the outdoors. It could be made for Curling, Bobsled, Figure skating and Hockey (the real one on ice). Curling and bobsled are out in the open, yet the other two would find all kinds of Islamic opposition in one case and with Hockey, there are two that might be surpassed over years, but that leaves Saudi Arabia 12th out of 12 and that is not a good place to be in, apart from the years of funds required. Making Curling with more nations and representation in men and women a much better option. Yes we see skiing, and that makes sense but how many people make that passion, that expensive passion a realistic option? Fayik Abdi should be seen as one in a million (35 million to be slightly more exact). And even if there is a larger need for its nation, it does not take away the achievement that Fayik Abdi reached, he became an Olympian. Just like Michael David Edwards and a few rare people who got into the stage against all odds. I remember how I could not make any Fencing team, no sponsor and no options, but that too is a sport Saudi Arabia could engage in, and they did. Lubna Al-Omair got into the 2016 Olympics, she might have lost, but she got saddled with Taís Rochel, a Brazilian who was number 80 on the world list, talk about bad luck. There are all kinds of sports and Saudi Arabia could be in many of them, yet my mind keeps on nagging towards the ‘planned indoor ski resort’, it does not sit well with me. You see, I have seen my share of snowboards on dunes and if Saudi Arabia has one thing more than oil, it would be dunes. So why not exploit that? Why not set up a station where snowboarders can board in near tropical heat? It will be a setting that requires a different bottom to keep the board intact, but that too is something that Saudi Arabia can ‘push’ for. And as we get a new stage of dune boards and  optional new kind of tracks, we will be introduced to (optional) indoor boarding. Anyway I digress, you see, the article touches on all subjects, but no one is taking that time to consider the achievement that Fayik Abdi got. He ended #51 in the first run, defeating 38 others which is a lot better than the (roughly) 38,433 people who did not get into the Olympics in the first place. Today is run 2, he might make it, he might not, yet at present he is on the short list of becoming one of the 50 best Olympians in the Giant Slalom and for a nation that never sees solid forms of water, that is quite the achievement. You see, Canada has plenty of snow (hills too) and only one made it to that list. So I think that we should make a little more noise on the achievement we see here. Because it is one I never saw coming. But then for me Jamaica was never a bobsled nation, so there is that.
Oh, and how the cow caught the hare? With a fishing rod (of course). 

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February 13, 2022 · 16:41

When the well dries

This is a setting many businesses know. They want to get back to work and they are unable to. The well has dried up, the people after sitting (forced) at home, being with family suddenly start remembering what is important. There is of course the other issue of issues like discrimination, ageism and a few more isms. Suddenly these places cannot find the people and they cannot approach the people they turned down 2-3 times. The well has a bottom and that bottom is in sight. For those seeking jobs the meadow clears up, the more stupid people with their anti vaccine issues, the more will be dead and that means jobs and cheaper houses. A blessing on all houses so to speak. In the UK yesterday 167 jobs opened up (speculation as I do not know the age groups) and in the US up to 873 jobs opened up, the meadow looks like a decent place in the sunshine. So between the UK with up to 159K lost workers and the US with up to 942K lost workers the pickings for some are rather slim. So when I initially saw ‘Raytheon says it is a ‘target’ of a DOJ probe into industry hiring practices’, I wondered what was up. Raytheon is no  WallMart so their sea of choices was never very big to begin with and the people have a much larger need to stay at home. It was “Raytheon had received a subpoena in late 2019 focused on alleged hiring restrictions between Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of Raytheon, and some of its suppliers of outsourced engineering services. It also included requests regarding Collins Aerospace”, as well as “A former Pratt & Whitney employee and some other employees of outsourced engineering suppliers were charged in December for restricting the hiring and recruiting of engineers and skilled labourers in a way that violated antitrust laws.” I get it, there are certain rules in place and they must be adhered to, yet this is almost ludicrous. You see Pratt & Whitney is a subsidiary of Raytheon. It seems out of focus and out of touch. We see more detente between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden in these heated times. It feel like (a personal speculation) that someone at Pratt & Whitney would like their sibling organisation to be valued a little longer. It feels highly political and that is a weird stage for Raytheon to be in. Now I get it, there are laws and I am a creature of laws, so there is a setting I can appreciate, especially when it is between two of the three (Google, Amazon, Apple), to see the DOJ go batty on Raytheon and its sibling seems counter productive on a few levels, and more in these hard to find people times. 

Oh, and due to shoddy programming on the side of Reuters, the link has not been added here today. The stage is not properly set (for both Raytheon and Reuters), I am not sure what to think, and wherever I look Raytheon comes out as the employer to be with in many places and many sources. So there is a real drive to get to Raytheon. The question becomes ‘How does Pratt & Whitney fare?’ Well checking that, it seems that these people are in a similar setting as Raytheon is. As a sibling of Raytheon it makes sense. So I go back to the DOJ need, why is this on their table in the first place and when setting the stage to ‘former Pratt & Whitney employee’, I wonder what his/her beef is, more important when the ratings are that good, why would anyone want to leave Pratt & Whitney? I am not making an accusation, I am asking and the fact that the Reuters article was lacking on several sides, optionally hoping that the name Raytheon would call the reader in (which in my case it did), there are all kinds of questions. Yet I hope that the DOJ realises that 942K people left to job pond (in a coffin), the need to look beyond the law seems essential in this case. And that is just the US, whatever they have in Australia will have its own numbers and consider that Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Thales are fishing in the same pond, the issue is a dangerous one and it merely helps their opponents. 

This can be seen in mere minutes, so the DOJ issue whilst based on a perfectly clear legal balance (one Reuters never presented), is still a dangerous place and when siblings push them into that limelight, I merely wonder what is going on. 

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February 13, 2022 · 01:21

Looky looky

It is always nice to go to bed, listen to music and dream away. That is until this flipping brain of mine gets a new idea. In this case it is not new IP, but a new setting for a group of people. You see, during lockdown I got hooked on walk video’s. It was a way to see places I had never visited before, it is one way to get around and weirdly enough, these walk videos are cool. You see more than you usually do (especially in London) most of them are actually quite good, a few need tinkering (like music not so loud) but for the most they are a decent experience. Then I thought what if GoPro makes a change, offering a new stage. That got me going, you see, most walks are on a stick, decent but intense for the filming party. So we can set the movie from a shoulder mount, a chest mount, or helmet mount. Yet what is filmed? So what happens if we have something like Google glasses and the left (or right) eye shows what we see in the film. We get all kind of degrees of filming. And if we want to ignore it, we merely close that eye for a moment. I am surprised that GoPro had not considered it, or perhaps they did. Consider that the filmer now has BOTH hands free and can hold something towards the camera, the filming agent can do more and move more freely. Consider that is works with a holder, but there is a need (in many cases) to have both hands available. And perhaps there is a need for both, the need to use one hand for precision and a gooseneck mount to keep both hands free. The interesting part is that there is no setting to get the image on something like Google Glasses and that is a shame, was I the first to think of it? It seems weird with all the city walks out there on YouTube, but there you have it and in that light, I was considering revisiting the IP I had for a next Watchdogs, one with a difference (every Ip creator will tell you that part), but I reckon that is a stage we will visit again soon enough, it involves Google Glasses and another setting that I will revisit. Just like the stage of combining deeper machine learning to a lens (or google glasses), a camera lens that offer direct translations, and the fun part is we can select if that is pushed through to film, or merely seen by us, now consider filming in Japan with machine learning and deeper machine learning auto translating ANY sign it sees. Languages that we do not know will no longer stop us, it will tell the filmmaker where they are and consider linking that to one lens in google glasses that overlays the map? It that out yet? I never saw it and there are all kinds of needs for that part. What you see is what you know, if you know the language. Just a thought at 01:17. I need a hobby, I really do!

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February 13, 2022 · 00:21

An acquired taste

Yes, there are all kinds of acquired tastes, but for many the one that comes from the intelligence dish is rounded a weird taste. Ask any tom, dick and harry and they all claim to be Sean who finds the taste disgusting. You see there is something afoot in the OK corral and it isn’t the lawmakers. The BBC gives us ‘Lawmakers allege ‘secret’ CIA spying on unwitting Americans’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60351768). And before we go into the article, there is a view you need to consider. Would you rather deal with the FBI or the CIA? Or Perhaps the CII (Central Intelligence Investigations), the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigations) and there are two more to consider. The point is that the stage (and pissing contest) of the CIA and FBI is out of whack. The larger problem is not that the CIA has to deal with terrorists, it has to deal with some of them IN THE USA. The problems isn’t the funders, it is that the funders are American, or foreigners based and housed in the US. This setting continues on several fronts and I get it, the CIA keeps a tight lid on its intelligence data (as does the FBI), but the two stages are folly, the transgressor sees no borders it sees opportunities and they do not rely on borders. There is a larger failing here, but I am not certain it is the failing of the CIA. 

The article gives us “The agency has “secretly” conducted warrantless surveillance through a newly disclosed programme, Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich alleged”, as well as “A Washington Post analysis of the Snowden leak found some 90% of those being monitored were ordinary Americans “caught in a net the National Security Agency had cast for somebody else”.

Top officials had until then denied – and even lied under oath to Congress – that they were knowingly collecting such data. The programme, known as Prism, was later ruled unlawful by a US court”, the problem is that the terrorists know this feud is going on and they make sure it is brought to light so that they can continue unabated. The problem is not that Americans were caught in a net, the question becomes did the NSA get the end result right? So when we are given “declined to declassify the other, citing the need to protect “sensitive tradecraft methods and operational sources”” so is the story that the CIA is pushing away democracy, or is it that that Senators Wyden and Heinrich are endangering American lives? I leave it up to you to decide, and please do not become the one moron that relies on Benjamin Franklin’s “Those who give up liberty for security deserve neither.”, Franklin actually said “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Yet that stage was specific and it was on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor. “The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family,” it was 1755. In a stage where the frontiers of war were 250 years apart and the stage was unaware of terrorists, it had its saboteurs but the stage was different. In today’s world the CIA and NSA have to deal with bitcoin transfers that tend to remain off books, stakeholders that claim to be on the American side but seem to drive Iranian needs for a price and there are chaotic people doping whatever they can to get a bitcoin or two and it is in a day and age that America can no longer trust the diplomatic words of MANY nations, each nation having its own legitimate national needs, but those needs do not adhere to American National security. I do not think THAT is the point, because EVERY nation has its valid needs, yet some pucker up to Iran at a moment notice (example: Turkey), so how many turks are there in America? The intelligence gathering field is a minefield to say the least. In that atmosphere the CIA and NSA need to fight off all enemies of America both foreign and domestic, they have to because the entanglement of foreign people in America has become too great a consideration and the FBI has nowhere near the resources to do all that. 

Yet the old setting of domestic (FBI) and foreign (NSA, CIA) is a much larger folly. That level of distinction implies that too many people get to play their game with American security at their own convenience and that does not sit well with the people in the American intelligence branch. Moreover as the American military (DIA, NIA et al) cannot really operate on American soil (outside of the military. And now two democrats are asking questions. They were valid in the 60’s and 70’s, but now, in a stage where the wrong chaos could topple the entire American finance sector, it has become too dangerous. Do not get me wrong, it will topple soon enough by its own accord, we do not need lone wolf actions and foreign based actions to help that process along. And that is merely the stage we can see. You see there are 18,925,137 bitcoins in existence, representing $806,210,836,200 dollars. Consider that 10,000 bitcoins could destroy US manufacturing needs on several levels, now consider that most bitcoins are out in the open and there are close to no way of tracking it all. Do you think that the people out to actually hurt the US will declare untraceable funds? You have got to be joking. And in all this the US is not alone, a similar danger is with the UK, France, Germany and a lot more industrial nations. I reckon that the FBI, CIA and NSA need a very different charter and consider that what I state here is known with people like Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich. I get it, some politicians are real devoted democrats, but this reminds me of the person who was worried about a proper shave 2 hours before his head got cut off by the guillotine.
We understand that in the final hours when the last act is a proper one, the quality of that shave means a great deal, but is it that time yet? And can the US afford the setting it is now boasting about?

I let you consider that stage.

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