Every now and then I keep my eyes on Zendesk. There is a reason for that, my origins are technical support and customer support. I am proud of my past, I went from nothing to a decent high ranking technical support person and I always fought for EVERY customer. I did not care whether they had one single license, or if it was an important customer who owned a site license (which drove sales insane). All were equal in my eyes and all deserved and received 100%. So when the article (at https://www.reuters.com/business/zendesk-rejects-16-bln-offer-private-equity-consortium-2022-02-10/) passed me by, I took notice. You see, the header is one ‘Zendesk rejects $16 bln offer from private equity consortium’, I remember that it started not too long ago (2007) and it grew fast. Well there is a reason for that. No matter whether you look at SCOPUS, SIEBEL or another CRM solution, they claim that they have a technical support part, it was meagre and all based on a sales foundation, which makes it (in my eyes) not a technical support solution. So beyond Zendesk there was nothing. It is a good place to be in, it allows for the growth they had. Yet the article sat with me and not entirely in a good way. The first one “facing calls from activist investors, including hedge fund Jana Partners LLC, to abandon its proposed acquisition of SurveyMonkey parent Momentive Global Inc , which it agreed in October”, is regarded (by me) as moronic, you are about to see why. The second one “Thoma Bravo had made a takeover approach to Zendesk” with the added “Thoma Bravo and Jana declined to comment.” As I personally see it, it is not about Zendesk, it is about the amount of data they wield via 17 offices in a lot more countries than 17. They are after the data. A Company with an operating income of $175,000,000 is not valued as a $16,000,000,000 on the value of its SAAS operations, that has to be about the data and that will be a scary thought. When my technical support skills, given to the customers will be used to bleed them dry of intelligence. It is a scary thought. Then there is the added. You see Marketwatch gives us “Jana Partners LLC, which is opposed to Zendesk’s deal to buy Momentive Global Inc., is planning a proxy fight, according to the WSJ report. Momentive shares were down 3%” me thinks that the acquisition implies that too many eyes will be on Zendesk for some time to come and that does not sit well with Barry Rosenstein. So for me the response becomes: “A reactive and impulsive decision? My ass!” I think that Rosenstein had similar plans as the other (unnamed) player and it seems that these management firms have data currency on the mind and Zendesk in its near unique position is one juicy steak (with sauce). So no matter how unique the placement is, as long as it has data these Investment management companies will see the long term gains and there is a larger stake (or is that steak) in play, it is not Schrems 2 (discusses yesterday), it is all those nations that lack that level of protection and it seems that these Investment management companies have an additional customer that needs no mention, no written agreement and that makes for a lot of coins and they will hand it over eagerly, especially in light of the escalation we globally see, in that setting data is everything. To add to that, I have to admit that there is another setting, which I still cannot see, it is because I know next to nothing on Orlando Bravo, the man behind Thoma Bravo. It might be that he is on the same track sharing the risk and revenue with Rosenstein, yet they are lonesome hunters (optionally predators), but because Orlando the software esquire also has Proofpoint, Sophos, Kofax, Motus and Aptus there is every consideration that Orlando Bravo has other considerations including solidifying fleet contracts to a larger and more complete approach and having a more substantial SAAS umbrella. So he is the larger unknown and there is a rather large expansion option for Zendesk, so I am not certain, but I feel certain that Orlando might have been better off without Barry, but that is just an initial vibe I am getting and that vibe is not evidence based.
Category Archives: Media
Out with the old?
It is a saying and I have heard it many times. Out with the old, in with the new. Yet in the world of media as an aggregated whole, that saying does not make much sense. For a few reasons my attention came back to Infamous:Second son I gave it an 83% rating when it initially launched (and I stand by that). You see, the game has brilliant and spectacular moments. In all but one setting it is close to brilliant. The one setting is linearity and in a near open world it is worse than a death curse. Linearity makes everything too predicable and that was the short coming of that game. It starts brilliant, the brother setting, the awakening of being a conduit and the power of smoke. It was amazing and until the second power comes into play it is all great, after that the party sizzles and linearity sets in. But that first area in Seattle is just grand. Then I thought what to do and I do not need to do anything, but Sony might. Consider that the game has a good and a bad setting. What if Reggie didn’t had a brother, but twins Delsin Rowe and Darren Rowe. One goes good, the other bad and that becomes a much larger story, one for the TV or whatever streaming service Sony has. They already own the IP, so that would not stop them and the setting could be larger, not larger in the stage, but it could give Seattle more than Amazon and Frasier (to opt an idea). The setting in the game was great and the antagonist Augustine was better thought up than most other antagonists in TV world. They both get the stage to clean Seattle each in their own way and there we need to set the station where the good one wins the concrete powers (and cleans up the streets and heals the reservation victims), as well as open up a much larger conversation. Can we separate people who are different? You see, Augustine is seen as evil, but her motives were pretty pure (from her point of view) and even as the game never went into that, the TV series might just do that and to be honest, the powers we saw in that game were freakin awesome.
I am a little surprised that no one had thought of that track with a game that was optionally much larger than we all thought it could be. Especially as studios are vying for streaming successes. Sony has a few IP’s in stock that they could alter in many ways and Infamous:Second Son is merely one of them.
The street we know
It is a different setting, we tend to relate to the streets we tend to know. Any technology is set upon a familiar setting. The benefit is that we know where we are and as such we get to where we think we want to go faster. The negative part is that this is a problem when it is true innovation, we cannot continue an iterative line if we want true innovation.
So when I saw ‘Saudi Arabia announces $6.4 billion investments in future tech’ (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/funds/saudi-arabia-announces-64-billion-investments-future-tech-2022-02-01/) I took notice last week but merely that, it was to be expected. So when I looked at it again this morning, I noticed “include a $2 billion joint venture between eWTP Arabia Capital, a fund backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Alibaba, and China’s J&T Express Group, minister Abdullah Alswaha said”, I had overlooked that initially. But it makes sense, as ties with China grow, the Chinese IT sector would come in. It spells bad news for the US, for Amazon in particular. The options that were there are shrinking, they are not gone, but China is now in position to take the cream from the barrel and become the new fat cats. My IP still has options, but it might not go the highway I had hoped for (we all have that), still I do have the innovation advantage and when others fail I can step in.
There is another side, a side that Amazon had in hands, you see with Neom and Vision2030 Amazon had a larger option if there was a data centre in Saudi Arabia, not a simple online store, but a real data centre, they would need one for a few reasons and even as the media gives us “showing its continued business interests there despite a public dispute between Riyadh and the company’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos”, we can see the hindrance there, we can see that there are issues (I am ignoring the FTI Consulting issues here), but in a larger stake worth billions, the need to find solutions are clear for Amazon. They could walk away and leave it all to AliBaba and the J&T Express Group yet who profits then? Not Amazon, not the US and it is another spark that goes into the direction of China. It is a problem for the US for two reasons. The first one is simple revenue, the US desperately needs that. The second one might not be that clear. You see Saudi Arabia has at present a full fletched 5G network, so those there can do all kinds of prototyping to a much larger extend and see the impact of congestion in a complete 5G network. You see at present we see assumptions via 4G LTE and other settings, this implies that other issues will not be captured when things go wrong. And with all the transgressions we have seen in 2020 and 2021 these systems need proper adjustment. Saudi Arabia has the advantage and now it seems so does China (outside of China), another step not to the advantage of the west (as expressions go), so how many steps do we all need to fall behind before people take this disadvantaged setting seriously?
Even now, the aftermath of Davos will be in favour of both Saudi Arabia and China. Al Jazeera reported “Observers see the high-profile conference as a way for the kingdom to redeem itself in the eyes of US President Joe Biden and the wider international community”, yet my question becomes ‘Why?’ You see, the EU and the US have shown themselves to be unreliable, all setting concepts to presentation in stead of evidence. Now that China is showing themselves to be a much larger player and a willing player could spell a massive loss in revenue. 3 billion here, 6.4 billion there, and several more billions left, right and hither. How much longer until we face the direction that we are losing out? Now this would not be a problem when we have alternatives, but there aren’t that many are there? And consider that one side gives us ‘Deficit shrinks in the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency’ (around $500,000,000,000 less loss), it is a joke when you consider that the deficit is still $2,500,000,000,000,000. And less than a months later the people are given ‘Biden’s $1.7trn social policy will send deficit soaring’, it is another setting of managing bd news and on top of that they lose revenue option after revenue option. So how does that look? The US debt has now surpassed $30,000,000,000,000,000, you have that kind of money? I do not and none of the others have it and an additional problem for the US is that the EU wants to dig into the Saudi revenue pie as well, yet at present China has the upper hand. A setting we ignore because we are lulled to sleep, and that time is gone, when the US debt comes crashing down the EU will join a massive loss and no amount of promise will aid anyone at that point. All because certain players underestimated the impact of innovation and innovation like some are marketing it is not innovation, it is a presentation nothing more. We all tend to keep to the street we know but when that street is on fire, will you merely stop the fire or see what resources are available in the next street?
China did just that and now we see the fallout of political stupidity. Oh, and when Iran does not come across with promises that they made to some middle man, when the unfortunate adjustments come, the middle man will not care, he got his oil barrel bonus, he is just fine, but those who were behind it will get to say ‘Oops!’ Just as I expected them to do. At that point we will see another advantage to China, good going! And what happens in May/June when Iran has enough nuclear materials? What then?
Tumour is the edge of humour
Yes, that is quite the sentence is it not? Humour is a funny thing. For me, I like humour delivered intelligent and/or edgy. The brits are great at dark and black humour. It is the kind I like. I do not know too many national humours, yet every nations has its own likings. So when I saw the BBC giving me ‘Jimmy Carr sparks fury with Holocaust routine in Netflix special’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60261876) I had to stop and read it. You see, Jimmy Carr is not for everyone and he is upfront about this. And let’s be clear, he is not for everyone, several comedians bare (or is it bear) that template.
Now the joke is funny, and it is a truth, he is actually giving a spin to a truth and that is a given setting we did not anticipate. He even makes fun of the Jehovah’s witnesses and their watchtower. Yes, we can get angry, or, here’s a thought, we switch OFF the TV if it upsets us. Have people contemplated this? This is not Bernie reincarnated, this is not a concert of Babe the piglet or even a Tele-tubby, it is humour by the formerly youthful, now not so young Jimmy Carr. We know what he is like, there is nothing out of bounds for him and he gets us by going one way and taking a sharp right whilst we were looking to the left. So I say ‘Well Done Jimmy!’ And in the light of the joke, how many people knew the death camp fate of gypsies, homosexuals and other non Arian likings?
I know (for a few reasons) the scope of some events during WW2. And also let’s be clear, he was not making fun of the jews (in this instance), he was using a specific method to give us a truth with a twist. And yes, some people find it upsetting, but guess what, they had the option of watching something else. There will always be the setting where we watch something that offends us. It is an absolute given. You see, there are some that give us that at present at total 500,000 movies have been made. The idea that you like them all is absolute zero. So the idiocy (as I see it) to create fury is dumb on a few levels. On the one hand those who didn’t know his show will now check it out. On the other hand, those creating fury are merely enabling voices for censorship. Democracy is a great thing, yet that means that we are confronted with things we do not like. That is the consequence. So one side opens the other and that is good. It is important to see where our borders are, it is good to know what is too much for us and when we face it we look away, we change channels or we switch off what is there. It is our right to do so. On one side we should congratulate Netflix for giving edgy stuff, it shows that Netflix is taking a larger circumference towards what an audience wants and they also give us what some might not want. It offers us the chance to find out.
Talk about something in a boring way?
Yes, that is one way to put it, you see we can drone all we like, but until certain players wake up, smell the coffee and realise that they are aiding Iran through silence, we will never get anywhere. It started yesterday (actually a few days earlier) and I did mention an event before that. But yesterday it started as Reuters gave us ‘UAE says it blocked drone attack, shadowy group claims responsibility’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/uae-says-it-destroyed-3-drones-that-penetrated-its-airspace-wednesday-2022-02-02/) there we see “The first three assaults, including a missile attack on Monday during a visit by Israel’s president, were launched by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in an escalation with a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and which includes the UAE.” In this we are also given “Wednesday’s drone attack was claimed by little-known “True Promise Brigades”, citing UAE interference in Yemen and Iraq as justification, according to U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group, which follows militant websites”, which I personally reckon is one of two players. The article does give us “the group, which is unknown to Iraqi intelligence or security officials, is actually active or capable of such attacks, or if it is a front for Iran-allied militias”, but that is not all. I get the setting we see here. Yet when we consider the gathered intel from Saudi Spokesperson Turki Al-Maliki who gave is last month and showed us all video that not only is Iran actively involved in Yemen, but so is Hezbollah and there is no mention of Hezbollah at present is there? More important, the western media shunned any mention of Iran and Hezbollah in Yemen ACTIVELY attacking the UAE and Saudi Arabia. There is not the question whether it has happened. The attacks on Aramco (14 September 2019) could not have ben done by Houthi forces, or Hezbollah for that matter. The attacks and the precision clearly implies an attack by Iran, but that as never properly investigated by the west was it? So I decided to design a weapon system to stealthily sink their navy and I gave it to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (as well as put it online), the idea of melting down their reactor I put online. It needs to be clear that if no one will deal with Iran, I will (I needed a hobby anyway).
But this is not about me. This is about Iran and this is about the UAE attack. So the second article comes from Arab News (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2017681/middle-east) there we see ‘UAE foreign minister condemns Houthi attacks in call with Iranian counterpart’, I personally wonder what UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed actually told Iran, but I think it is clear that these attacks are not the result from Houthi forces. I am also amazed that the drones got that far. There is more in this and the technology required to get that far implies clearly that it is Iranian hardware, definitely training by Iran or Houthi forces and the reach of the hardware implies stronger measures have been delivered to Houthi forces and only one source is the delivery agent. It was Iran, whether they went via Hezbollah is another matter. Yet the text “the UAE’s air defences intercepted and destroyed three drones on Wednesday before they had reached residential areas” the question becomes was the target military or civilian? That is not easily answered, but the setting requires a much larger response from the west, If they want any credibility at all. Yet there is a larger station to consider. Why is the west (aka US Navy) unable to stop Iranian (or Hezbollah) smugglers? This setting is already beyond 7 drones, the hardware required is not a simple setting. There needs to be at least three teams or more advanced cluster Drone control and the second part implies a lot more training and a lot more knowledge that previously expected and there is no way that this advanced expertise of drones is in the hard of Houthi forces or Hezbollah.
The second part is drone control, there are at least 3 stations available. Whether we track or hack, something needs to be done and so far the failures of the blocking navy (US, UK) is out there and more questions are out there on smugglers making it though. I might pull a rabbit with a solution out of my hat, but I got nothing (at present) yet the Americans and Brits out there are not getting it done either so something new is required and if I create a new IP on taking out Iranian interest I will put them here, but at present smugglers are the problem and so far no one has anything to stop them and the one that got caught is not enough, the weapons might count, but drones and drone control is making it through and that needs to stop. It needs to stop because soon the stage becomes that the UAE and Saudi Arabia are forced to set the tone to open warfare with Iran. The flaccid politicians (Us and EU) will be too late then and no one will give them any consideration, at that point we can no longer be neutral and as I personally see it, the commonwealth will have to openly support the UAE and then what? You see at that point we are at a point of no return and we had the option to stop it earlier, if only politicians and their stakeholders had a clear solution to avoid the point of no return and as we can see it will soon be too late for that. At least I offered at least two parts in stopping Iran, more needs to be done and the west is not doing it. The Wall Street Journal gave u 17 hours ago ‘U.S. Sees Iran’s Nuclear Program as Too Advanced to Restore Key Goal of 2015 Pact’, the Jerusalem Post only 11 hours ago gives us ‘The US is negotiating a shorter, weaker Iran Deal’, and I wrote on November 19th 2021 ‘Uranium, Iranas, Iran it again’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/11/19/uranium-iranas-iran-it-again/). There I stated (almost three months ago) “the first dose of reality is only a week away, when we see the absence of strong media representation, the absence of strong language and the absence of clear shot time lines, I feel that my point will be made and I only need to see one of the three to be proven correct. This has been going on for 7 years, enough is enough I say”, and that is all after the stories going back to July 2020, there has been that much inaction from the west, and equally that little achieved.
It is clear that Iran is using flaccid western politicians and western stakeholders to get their message and levels of inactivity out. So as the New York Post now gives the people ‘New Iran deal wouldn’t stop production of nuclear bomb: White House’, so as the gloves come off, the stage of either support Saudi Arabia or face the chaos that will ensure for decades to come will pass through inaction, or through actions done too late. Inactions will have pushed the Middle East to a brink of chaos and we are all in part to blame, we have seen a year of inactions and filtered news so any journalist now making claims that they were caught unaware can go screw themselves. This has been out there for years and we are soon in a stage where we could face the ordeal of letting it all get out of control.
We can drone all we want, but we forgot that there was a larger stage and not calling that one out was on the plate of all these so called reporters, yet they didn’t do that, did they?
Hatchet do your job
It is perhaps the first time that I ever felt shame to have given Amnesty International consideration. It is the first time that I saw a once good organisation fall from grace straight into a sewer, that is the Amnesty International I saw today.
I started to read their report ‘Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians’. The problem starts on page 14. There we see: “Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued an explicit policy of establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic hegemony and maximizing its control over land to benefit Jewish Israelis while minimizing the number of Palestinians and restricting their rights and obstructing their ability to challenge this dispossession. In 1967, Israel extended this policy beyond the Green Line to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which it has occupied ever since. Today, all territories controlled by Israel continue to be administered with the purpose of benefiting Jewish Israelis to the detriment of Palestinians, while Palestinian refugees continue to be excluded.” Perhaps AI needs a historic education. In 1948, the Jewish population started to see the impact Germany had, the impact inaction from others had. The German European rock tour of 1939-1945 had caused a holocaust where an estimate of 6,000,000 jews were put to death, they were put to death using industrial methodology, a system NEVER used before and the Germans almost pulled it off, a complete act of genocide using industrial methodology.
[speculative part] I believe that the allies feared what would come next, thousands of super angry Jews would hunt collaborators and antisemites in EVERY corner of Europe, it would halt European rebuilding for decades. It gave urge for a State of Israel as fast as possible. And in 1948, less than 2 years after the end of WW2 it became a reality.
So when was the last time any issue of this size was settled within a decade?
[end speculative part]
The state of Israel was created and the first thing the jewish population needed to do was to ensure their SURVIVAL. They needed to make certain that the world could not complete what the Germans had started. And within 20 years the state of Israel was stronger, yet also angry. The millions of ‘resettled’ Jews learned that their places of living were now becoming the most sought after and most expensive real estate in Europe. Areas in Amsterdam, Munich, Paris, and many other cities were now worth a fortune, its inhabitants thrown away and cast aside.
That report does not give this, does it? The people of Israel were thrown from one place into another place, a place where everyone wanted them dead. A return to the fears of WW2. That part is not given to us either is it? The report gives us one mention of ‘Second World War’ it is in footnote 69. The report gives us First World War, yet I find no mention of WW2. I searched several other words, there is no mention making this report a joke. There was a real fear for the Israeli’s in the state of Israel, there was a real fear of genocide and AI casually paints over that setting like it never existed. The word ‘holocaust’ appears twice in a report of 280 pages, a setting that was the most real fear jews and the people of the state of Israel ever faced and that fear is still real today with the abundance of antisemitism all over the world and Western Europe, the report ignores this. And it seemingly casually edits the events. I find no mention of “Kill the Jews” a setting that the people of Israel see thrown at them from Palestine, from Iran, from Lebanon. Israel is surrounded by enemies of the state of Israel and the Amnesty International report is blatantly unaware of that, or does a real good job pretending to be ignorant.
This is important, because this is what set the start of the State of Israel, the Jewish people accepted their own state, but it was set in a poisoned well, a well that the Allied forces set upon the world so that they didn’t need to deal with all the collaborators and antisemites in Europe, a setting still true today. It took me less then 5 minutes to get to this and yes, I did not read the entire report. Just like I never needed to read the whole story of Blood and Oil by Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck a setting where journalists rely on fiction to get their wealth in. In the AI report we see “The following, by no means comprehensive, set of developments in the history of Palestine and Israel are pertinent to understanding the issues covered by Amnesty International’s report.” Interesting the the set of developments that I gave you all is not in their report. And that matters, WW2 was a catalyst of unimaginable proportions, to ignore that is to ignore the room where this political card game was played and this report is a political card game, to what end is not clear to me just yet. But just like the UN with their hatchet job on the Jamal Khashoggi case this report is equally dangerous. Certain people want to start a staged play, I do not know what stage or what play at present, but it is clear we are being played and that is a dangerous setting that the AI report gives us.
It is a story dipped in misrepresented facts and that is perhaps the most dangerous game of all, because facts are one, but the underlying stream of events that led to these facts are in cases such as just equally important.
Questioning presentations
I am not without faults. I have a decently evolved mind, but I rely on evidence to form an opinion, to blatantly go on faith has burned me too many times. So when the Associated Press gave us (at https://apnews.com/article/winter-olympics-sports-business-2020-tokyo-olympics-foreign-policy-817f522caca44af57a35e0e479a2fdc3) the story ‘FBI chief: Threat from China ‘more brazen’ than ever before’ I had questions, and I needed a little time to mull things over. I was not taking the word of a chief, not even the FBI one. You see the issues started in 2018 when the accusations against Huawei started, we saw the accusations yet no one was even given any evidence. The accusation against Huawei remained and contract after contract went to people who sat on their hands in the 5G race. It went so far that in 2019 Statista reported that Saudi Arabia (with a fully deployed Huawei 5G network) was 725% faster than anything the US has, it ended up the fastest 5G before South Korea, before Australia and before Canada. The Saudi network has twice the speed Canada has and well over 350% faster than Germany. That is the reality people face.
So I had questions. And the article gave me “When we tally up what we see in our investigations, over 2,000 of which are focused on the Chinese government trying to steal our information or technology, there’s just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, innovation, and economic security than China”, you see, there is no doubt that this happens. There is no doubt that technology firms, that some companies take short cuts, but that would still be a large reach from hacker to ‘Chinese government’, and I think that FBI Director Christopher Wray needs to present evidence. We did not get it with the Huawei debacle and the less evidence we see presented, the less government credibility remains.
“The harm from the Chinese government’s economic espionage isn’t just that its companies pull ahead based on illegally gotten technology. While they pull ahead, they push our companies and workers behind,” Wray said. “That harm — company failures, job losses — has been building for a decade to the crush we feel today. It’s harm felt across the country, by workers in a whole range of industries.” Is equally a debatable statement. US fat cats got rich and lazy, they relied on their bonuses to keep them supplied in viagra and all the women they could bed, all the shallow extra’s they could afford (aka cars, yachts). If you look at the setting, the larger steps (in the US) are clearly made by people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. In an age where the US claims to have all this innovation, I have well over a dozen IP, Elon Musk came up with an evolutionary mobile concept, a new approach to energy winning and a few things more, where are the other innovators? Where are the other tall orders? Microsoft spins technology via marketing. In this setting IBM remains with true new technology in Quantum computing, the rest presents on something that comes, relies on their AI, something that does NOT even exist. So where exactly are these 2,000 investigations going?
The US is facing a decade of crush to stupidity, short sightedness and laziness. In that equation I should not even make a dent, but here I am with a dozen of IP that the US does not have and some of that was discussed in previous articles so feel free to not believe me, but I made mention of the IP, including the concept of printable displays. Something even Sony does not have.
When we are given “The Justice Department in 2014 indicted five Chinese military officers on charges of hacking into major American corporations. One year later, the U.S. and China announced a deal at the White House to not steal each other’s intellectual property or trade secrets for commercial gain”, we see an example 8 years old, I do not doubt that, but I wonder what the Chinese government has stolen exactly. It cannot be 5G, what they have is massively superior than what the others have and even now Nokia is allegedly selling off parts to keep their R&D going. There is no doubt that there are issues and that there are hackers. Yet in all this consider that Google acquired YouTube and became a massive powerhouse after 2006, in 2016 China launched TikTok (Douyin) and ByteDance Ltd. a Chinese firm became known in 2020 as the fastest growing brand, and in 2021 as the most popular website, a new powerhouse that is nowhere near the size of YouTube but a clear contender. Innovation at strength, I warned people again and again that innovation trumps iteration and this is what happens when you sit down and relax. So I leave it to FBI Director Christopher Wray to present us all evidence and clear evidence that clearly divides Russian and Chinese hackers and either clearly connect them to their government, or separated them from their government. Yet I believe that Christopher Robin needs to take a larger look at his 100 acres accusation meadow and give the real goods. Yes the US is in a downward spiral, but the US did this to themselves. When the fat-cats go lazy, the hungry ones get the cream of the forest. Huawei showed you all and so did TikTok. I believe that there is a larger level of industrial espionage and there are plenty of fingers to point at real dangers, yet at no point do we see evidence that all of it is government driven. So far the REvil gang has seen arrests by the FSB, others have been arrested and at present no evidence is clearly shown to see government connections. I am not stating that these connections do not exist, I say that evidence has not been shown, and we get too many accusations and too little evidence all whilst at present too little innovation comes from the US. To state that only three parties (Bezos, Musk and IBM) is not entirely correct, but they do get all the media, so when the media gives us Microsoft iteration after iterations making claims of their most powerful console in the world and the weakest of all consoles (Nintendo Switch) passes them by with the greatest of ease. It is not because of “company failures, job losses — has been building for a decade to the crush we feel today”, it is because what marketing spins and the reality of what the people want is not the same. And that is a hard lesson to learn and the US is seemingly unable to learn it.
The opportunity for 2022
I was just watching a video (Monte Carlo Walking Tour), I was watching it because there is at present no plans or chances to visit the place, so I might as well watch a walking tour so that I get to see what the place looks like and to be honest, walking tours give a better impression of a place than most TV or movie alternatives. So as I was watching I suddenly realised that Monaco has a huge opportunity and no one is taking notice of it. High buildings with a naked wall, a bare piece of stone that looks nice, but could do so much more. What happens when Monaco installs QR codes in several places to invite augmented reality to the thousands of people filming and photographing Monaco? A QR code on a crane or a wall that shows on the phone an augmented F1 car in the street, a special yacht in mid air or simple an area name on your screen. Monaco has so many options and even more tourists. Thy have annually over 365,000 tourists, that is well over 1,000 a day in a place no larger than Hyde Park. In this walking tour I saw 5 cranes, all empty metal husks, a QR code, even two QR codes would not hinder, and it can go so much further. The same could be said for Nice, St. Tropez, Cannes, and that is before you look at the big places. I see an abundant of construction fences, all bland, all non engaging, all whilst technology can offer so much more for the people there. So why is it not implemented? Just saw Crane number 6. That is close to 2 dozen places people try to avoid with their eyes all whilst it could be an eye catcher is very different ways. In a place where pleasing the eye is on the mind of thousands, I see no augmented reality. Why not?
And let’s not forget augmented reality can be used for information, tourist attraction, local advertisements of events and several other options, from air to water, Monaco has it all, well all except augmented reality.
And Monaco might be on the mind at present, but there are close to a dozen large cities who are not using that opportunity either. London had 19,000,000 tourists in 2019 and the list goes on for some time. A decent innovative impression creator ignored. Why? By people who do not understand it, or by people thinking it is a waste of time? As Monaco showed me 6 unused cranes and a dozen other locations, how many locations were overlooked in London? What could Cannes offer? Why is Amsterdam not leading that march and why do I see an utter lack of augmented reality in Los Angeles/Hollywood? All places that thrive on tourism and NEARLY EVERY tourist relies on their phone. So, what gives?
It is only January, some of these places could deliver an augmented summer, and 2022 needs a good start after all that….. achoo!
That first step
We have all heard it, the first step is admitting you have a problem. There is of course debate on WHAT the problem is. I am not any different. I hate stupidity, hypocorism and bot to mention short sighted issues. One of these issues is ‘Tax the rich’, we see all these stupid people screaming ‘tax the rich’ whilst the system is set, there is a tax system, there are tax laws and instead of all screaming to adjust the tax system we see the empty gesture to tax the rich, the rich do not care, they adhere to tax laws, so these laws will PROTECT them. Another issue was seen in ‘Greed and Law helping each other’, I wrote it on July 9th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/09/greed-and-law-helping-each-other/). There I set out the short sighted setting of the Oxycontin setting. I wrote “Yes, there are culprits in this story. You see some sources give us that in 1996 316,000 prescriptions were dispensed, it grew to an impressive amount topping over 14 million prescriptions with an estimated value of $3,000,000,000. The issue we see everyone painting over is ‘prescriptions dispensed’, this is not something that a person can get, it needs a doctor and it needs a pharmacist.” You see there are laws and rules, and they were massively broken by doctors and pharmacists. So when do they go to court?
It is Reuters who give us today (at https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/sacklers-near-deal-contribute-more-opioid-settlement-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-2022-01-31/) the story of ‘Sacklers near deal to increase opioid settlement in Purdue bankruptcy’, I personally do not believe that members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma LP were completely innocent, yet that is not the setting is it? SOMEONE handed a paper to dispense Oxycontin, a pharmacist handed over the drugs. Yet nearly all of them banked the money and did not ring the alarm bell (some really did that) and those who cashed in on 14,000,000 prescriptions? Why are they not in court? Members of the Sackler family cannot hand over prescriptions, they cannot dispense drugs to people, they can merely distribute to pharmacies. So I do not believe that they are completely innocent, but to go after them and not after the doctors and pharmacies is (as I personally see) immoral.
Yes, I know that in Torts you go after the money.
So in that setting: “Jeff Bezos, I do believe you owe me $50,000,000 post taxation, pay up please!”
But is any of that fair? You might say that fair has nothing to do with it and it is not incorrect but it is wrong. So when Reuters gives us “An agreement involving members of the Sackler family and several state attorneys general could potentially end a legal challenge that has prevented Purdue from exiting bankruptcy, and clear the way for a plan aimed at helping to abate the opioid crisis” my personal thoughts are wondering how many of these state attorney generals went after the doctors and the pharmacies? Justice handed in August 2021 a verdict, ‘Doctor Sentenced To More Than 15 Years In Prison For Conspiring To Distribute Thousands Of Oxycodone Pills Illegally’, there is no way in hell that only ONE doctor did that, so how many are serving 15 years?
It is U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss who gives us “Dr. Emmanuel Lambrakis wrote medically unnecessary prescriptions for thousands of oxycodone pills – an addictive and potentially fatal opiate. Instead of abiding by his oath to ‘do no harm,’ Lambrakis pumped deadly drugs into the community. Lambrakis put his own greed before his duties as a medical professional, and for that he will now spend a lengthy term in federal prison.” And as stated before, there is no way that there was merely one doctor guilty of that, in addition, there are truckloads of pharmacies that require the same amount of attention and that too is not being done to the degree it had to be done, it is my personal opinion that some state attorneys general’s were lazy and decided to go after the money, go for the easy conviction. Yes, the Sackler family benefitted, but who prescribed? Who handed them over? I see close to nothing on that. It is a simple tax the rich approach to a failing in law and a failing to observe the law and there are clearly a vast amount of doctors and pharmacies more guilty than any of the Sackler family. But we do not get to see that, do we?
As I see it, it started with that first step and the law has a problem, it cannot properly dispense justice to the wrongdoers. It merely went to the richest person and found them guilty. So what happens when it becomes about something more problematic? What happens when someone figures out that any Ponzi scheme can be done online handing the mess to Apple or perhaps Epic systems? So what happens when the hackers find the weakness in something like Nvidia’s GeForce Now service? What happens when 300,000,000 people lose $10-$35 and Epic goes ‘Not my Problem’, and Nvidia goes ‘We know nothing’? Who will end up with that bill of $3,000,000,000-$9,000,000,000 because the people will demand payment and as I see it the Justice departments will be globally clueless on how to proceed. The nice part here is that the court setting makes Apple automatically innocent, they had to open up the system and the people will merely lose their money.
How a spindled world wide web we weave.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 