Yes, we all look towards the rest of our lives, yet how much of it is left? There is every indication that is is a little less than we expect it to be. I was looking forward to write more on the TV series my mind created (Keno Diastima), I was adding a little more science to it all, science makes fiction easier to swallow for the sceptical among us and I like plenty of science with my fiction, so there.
Yet, as I was brooding on this, I saw the Coronavirus messages from all Directions. The Netherlands is banning all flights from the UK, a part of Sydney now has a larger problem and the news keeps on coming in, I especially ‘liked’ ‘Covid: WHO in ‘close contact’ with UK over new variant’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-55382212), there we see “The new variant is spreading more rapidly than the original version, but is not believed to be more deadly”, it is the application of ‘is not believed’, which basically implies that they do not know and that is fine, we accept that not all answers are available at point zero. Yet, who considered the impact on these to approved vaccines? Is vaccine one good enough to fight off and prevent version 2? What will happen when there are more mutations? And the largest issue the media and most people ignore is the 1% speculation. In June (6 months ago) we could see a global increase of 1% over 3 million cases, which is 30,000. In September the number was 7 million, in three months, the number had doubled, as such we come to a stage of 70,000 new cases. Day (globally), now the total number number is 76,635,408, 10 times of what there was three months ago and it is time to button down the hatches, because the 1% rule gives us 766,000 cases a day (globally) and all whilst some sources make claim that in India there is a 60% setting of people with the Coronavirus, 60% of 1.35 billion, a number we do not see anywhere, making optionally the source unreliable, yet I have had my concerns with the Indian numbers for the longest time. You merely need to see actual footage on the population pressure in the Mumbai region alone to see that question mark. The reported figure are present is at 10,031,659, When w apply the 1% rule we see 13,500,000 a day, and so far that number has been exceeded on a global stage by nearly every country, so not in India? Consider the population:
If even one person in this crowd has the Coronavirus, how many will have it tomorrow? That is the ignored part, partially because most non-Indian people have no idea just how populated India is and that is the larger danger, we tend to ignore what we do not know and in this case it is a dangerous setting to have. And this is not some sought special picture, Google Search can give you well over 100 images like it, all from different areas of India.
As such, when you contemplate the rest of your life, did you consider your life (if you have any left) after the coronavirus? The numbers are in my favour here. The 1% rule was surpassed by a lot over the last 6 months. We might lockdown everything, but it takes one stupid person to ignore this and quickly visit a friend, and the scared ones do it more quickly than any other.
At present the BBC (at best) give us “There is no clear-cut evidence the new variant of coronavirus – which has been detected in south-east England – is able to transmit more easily, cause more serious symptoms or render the vaccine useless”, which is fair enough, more importantly, we also do not know what we do not know, this sounds complex, but variants are tricky bastards and there are no real answers until a laboratory have positively analysed the mutations, this is fair (at https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55312505), but the number one scare for governments is “or render the vaccine useless”, several players paid billions for the vaccine, so the term ‘useless’ is one they do not need to hear, but in the end, we simply do not know. Neither do we know whether the vaccine to strain one will also lower the power of strain 2, 3 and optionally 4. Anyone who believes that this ends today is paving the road to hell, all on their own.
In this the West Australian had the funniest setting for all this, they give us today “Coronavirus crisis: WA Premier Mark McGowan says hard border with NSW needed to ‘save our Christmas’”, yes because saving Christmas trumps the need to keep our lives safe, that made perfect sense and if you are forced to self-isolate celebrating Christmas is really topping your chart, isn’t it?
Well, whatever you do, you will have the rest of your life contemplating it, and should you die tomorrow, then I hope you resolved whatever you were brooding about. #Oversimplification
We have all heard the setting, when we set the new premise after the fact. Most will remember the average male response to the option of sex before marriage “Maybe I’ll marry you tomorrow”, and we then congratulate ourselves, as we got some. Some have a slightly altered versions and especially in the Netherlands no one has forgotten some of the songs from the era of the VoC, especially when sharks were thwarted and the other vessel had silver. But that one too did not end nicely for the sailor, he was also promised the daughter of the captain, the other vessel was sunk, but the sailor never made it. After the fact is in some cases brilliant, but is it? That is the question we see when we consider ‘Urgently Waive Intellectual Property Rules for Vaccine’, (at https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/10/urgently-waive-intellectual-property-rules-vaccine), yes it might be a week old, but the vaccine search started a year ago, and now, some want to avoid the IP rules. That is not fair on the makers of the vaccine. Their motives might have ben greed driven, but over half a dozen firms started to look for a solution. That solution is not a cheap one and in this the firms took that investment, because the vaccine sales would set them right. It is a fair setting, the governments were not able to step in to make it themselves and they bought the vaccines, as such I might not like the approach, but I get the setting that is being met. As such seeing “help boost global access to Covid-19 vaccines, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said ahead of a key World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Geneva on December 10, 2020”, is as I personally see it utter bullshit. How loud were these two (on every channel) fighting for this a year ago? Why was there nothing to be seen in the mass of newspapers and digital news bringers?
Yes, after the fact is nice, but AI and HRW do get get to sulk like little bitches a year later. There could be a case if the bulk of the newspapers and media had mentioned that setting over the last year, but they did not, did they?
I get it, it is not completely fair on some places, but what options were given to these locations by the UN buying vaccines for these regions?
When we consider the setting we see in the first “At the WTO meeting, the governments will discuss a proposal by India and South Africa to temporarily waive some provisions of the Trade Related Aspects of the Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. The proposal would facilitate technology transfers so that Covid-19 medical products, including vaccines, could be produced quickly and affordably by manufacturers around the world”, and in the second “Higher-income countries have already made deals to buy up the vast majority of the world’s potential vaccine supplies for 2021, so the move would help scale up access for people in lower-income countries”, the question is what will the pharmaceutical companies do?
We see the Washington Post give us ‘Coronavirus vaccinations have started. But people in Africa face a much longer wait’, and before we start screaming foul, remember, that so far only 1.6 million on 75 million people died and these numbers show is that 23% of ALL the deaths are in America. This leaves us with a mortality rate of 2.13% (which is not a really fair setting), yet what is also given is that 70% makes a full recovery, we seem to forget bout those parts. In this the survival part is more accurate than the non-living part on a few issues, we see that basically, 27% of those who contracted the disease are not out of the woods yet. As such, n this setting we see over reaction and opportunity seekers, opportunity seekers is that this is happening AFTER THE FACT. I get it, they didn’t want to do it ahead of time, because the pharmaceuticals have no intentions to make something for free, which makes sense too. So when we see “Kenya, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Pakistan have joined India and South Africa to co-sponsor the waiver proposal. The proposal was welcomed or supported by 100 countries, most of them low- or middle-income. But a small group of high-income countries and their trading partners have opposed it; including Brazil, the European Union, Canada, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom”, we get that the low income nations need a solution and it will come, but the overreaction in light of the numbers we see are a bit out there and even as I have been against a whole range of pharmaceutical issues in the past, they do have their rights too, and TRIPS was there to enforce rights and duties. So to abolish it to deal with fear is just a bit of a no-no as I personally see it.
Is it fair on India and South Africa? Well that remains to be seen, but I do not see why, in India 144,914 died of the disease whilst India has well over 1.35 billion people, implying that their national mortality rate for Covid-19 is 1% of 1%, so what are they needing a vaccine for? The fact that 9,530,530 recovered from the 9,987,949 cases is also debatable, but that gives them that 95.4% fully recovered, as such why is India so up in arms on this? Perhaps the fact that for well over a year the numbers never made sense, perhaps India has a much larger problem, yet their pride got in the way of it all, so if they cannot properly inform us, why should they receive special consideration? I know, you might not agree and that I fair, but that is the setting. That is what we think plays. The Print (at https://theprint.in/health/india-is-missing-about-90-infections-for-every-covid-case-latest-govt-analysis-shows/567898/) gives us “Latest analysis by DST panel, that predicted end of Covid pandemic in India in February 2021, finds that about 60 per cent Indians have been infected so far”, that in light of the reported 9,987,949 total Covid cases, whilst the population of India is 1.35 billion makes less sense when those numbers were reported, all whilst they give us now (well three days ago) that 60%, implying that 810 million people in India have Covid-19, so what happened to the 800 million Indians in the numbers?
At some point the ego of governments need to be held to account and I see no reason why they get to take the pharmaceutical players for a ride. In this I wrote this on October 31st “Even as India has well over 3 times the population of the US, there is no way that the numbers add up, with the US having over 9 million cases and India barely passing 8 million, the stage is not completely seen”, almost 2 months ago I questioned the Indian setting, the numbers never added up. I did that in ‘As jobs become available’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/31/as-jobs-become-available/), but no one (in the media) asked serious questions regarding that stage, why not?
As such, as I personally see it, India has nothing to complain about, perhaps they need to elect officials that will give them the actual setting, not some story by Mother Goose. It is the stage they set themselves, as such the ‘After the Fact’ premise that we see given now is as I personally see it, a cold spud in space.
And the 100 supporters need to consider their own numbers. India might be the most visible one, but it is not the only one and this Covid-19 stage was a serious one and another one will come, there is no doubt about that part, as such these governments better start playing nice, better start giving the others the numbers that are true, a much larger stage could have been prepared by the world as India hd been upfront about the 800 million missing infections, perhaps the lesson they are handed now will improve their view of what matters, their ego or reality.
Yes, it almost sounds inhumane, but we accepted responsibility of certain choices, like laws, trade laws and IP Laws, we cannot switch them off when it pleases us, because we might as well throw all laws overboard in that game, a stage that bodes a lot of harsh stages when this happens.
There is of course the conversation that India and South Africa can have on what to do the next time around and that is fair, that is just and yes, it is a stage we must acknowledge, yet it is not after the fact and that is the proper stage to play and perhaps it will result in an adaptation to TRIPS, I cannot deny of oppose that setting, the question is what the pharmaceutical players will set at that point. We can all accept that their IP, is just that, it is theirs. It does not mean that a deal cannot be worked out, but it is done in advance, it is a set stage where they can decide how to act and at that point the HRW can be all dog and less humane, what happens then? Time will tell, for now we have this issue in play and we still have no real view on how many distribution point there are and how 4,000,000,000-6,500,000,000 vaccines will get to their destination. Because that too is a stage we forgot to look at, that many vaccines will imply that mutations are almost a certainty, yet how many we will see is not clear, when that happens, global travel as we know it will change forever.
OK, this is not the most subtle article I have ever written, but at times subtle just doesn’t do the story any justice, it happens. So this is a question to parents “If you have a daughter between 22-32, and she looks like Laura Vandervoort, Olivia Wilde, or Alexina Graham. Can I please fuck the bejesus out of her vagina?” To be honest, I don’t really need to, but it has been a while, so there.
Are we all awake now? So consider ‘Facebook and Apple are in a fight. Your browsing history is in the middle’ (at https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-apple-are-fight-your-browsing-history-middle-n1251612), apart from all the hackers getting access through Microsoft, we see another stage develop. The headline might not get you on board, so perhaps the by-line will “Facebook on Thursday ran its second full-page newspaper advertisement in as many days, attacking Apple’s plans to tell iPhone and iPad users when apps are tracking them online”, which implies that Facebook does NOT want you to know that apps are tracking your every move, and Apple does. It seems to me that Apple is in a stage to put awareness and security at the centre of your digital life, Facebook not so much. Now, I have no problems with Facebook keeping track of my actions ON FACEBOOK, but dos their ‘free’ service imply that they are allowed to do that anywhere I am? I believe that this is not the case and the money Facebook is getting is starting to feel tight around my digital profile, their actions had already made it important to delete Facebook software from my mobile phone (it was draining my battery), but the stage is larger and that is seen in the NBC News article (and a few others too).
So as the quote “Facebook on Thursday ran its second full-page newspaper advertisement in as many days, attacking Apple’s plans to tell iPhone and iPad users when apps are tracking them online” is given, how many of you are considering the following:
A full page ad in the newspapers is pretty expensive.
Facebook is seemingly untouched that multiple apps are following us.
We are seemingly not allowed to know all the facts!
This is the big one “attacking Apple’s plans to tell iPhone and iPad users when apps are tracking them online”, so why are we not allowed to know what is being done to us, that we are being followed in a digital way and Facebook does not want us to be aware? This is where we see my (not so) subtle hint regarding your daughter and “fuck the bejesus out of her vagina”, how many fathers will be slightly less than enthusiastic? I get it, your little princess (your consenting and adult) little princess needs a knight on a white horse and always bring flowers and chocolates, have honourable intentions and to set your mind at ease keeps your daughter a virgin until the day she marries. It is not realistic, but parents are allowed to be overly protective of their princes and princesses. Yet Facebook seemingly does not want you to be in that park, they want you to be unaware of what is going on, and Apple drive it to the surface. So when we see “Apple is planning to roll out a new feature on its devices that will alert people when an app such as Facebook is trying to “track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites.” People will have options such as “Ask App not to Track” or “Allow.””, they did something really clever, if Microsoft (after they resolve all their hacks) does not follow suit, Microsoft stands to lose a massive slice of the consumer pie and that will not make them happy. I for the most am completely on the Apple side when we see “Users should know when their data is being collected and shared across other apps and websites — and they should have the choice to allow that or not”, I personally am realistic enough to see that Apple has an additional side to this, not sure what yet, but this is about a lot more than mere advertisements, I am however not too sure about what that is. When we see “Facebook uses data such as browsing history to show people ads they’re more likely to want to see, and to prove to marketers that its ads are working”, we need to realise that I would have no issues with any link opened within Facebook towards whatever we were going to in any advertisement. For example, if Facebook opens up a browser window, within Facebook and tracks the clicker, I would not completely be opposed to it, but Facebook realises that the data it I tracking is a much larger stage and I feel that this is not merely about “prove to marketers that its ads are working”, I believe that these trackers keep tabs on a lot more, keep tabs on what we do, where we do it and how we do it. I believe that it is a first step in the overly effective phishing attacks we face, Facebook might not be part to that, but I reckon the phishing industry got access to data that is not normally collected and I personally believe that Facebook is part of that problem, I also believe that this will turn from bad to worse with all the ‘via browser gaming apps’ we are currently being offered. I believe that these dedicated non console gaming ‘solutions’ will make things worse, it might be about money for players like Epic (Fortnite), but the data collected in this will cater to a much larger and optionally fairly darker player in this, I just haven’t found any direct evidence proving this, in my defence, I had no way of seeing the weakness that SolarWinds introduced. It does not surprise me, because there is always someone smarter and any firm that has a revenue and a cost issue will find a cheaper way, opening the door for all the nefarious characters surfing the life of IoT, there was never any doubt in this.
And in this, it was for them NEVER directly about the money, in this look at the ‘victims’: The US Treasury Department, The US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), The Department of Health’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), The US Department of State, The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) (also disclosed today), The US Department of Energy (DOE) (also disclosed today), Three US states (also disclosed today), City of Austin (also disclosed today) (source: ZDNET). It was about the information, the stage of a more complete fingerprint of people and administrations. It gives the worry, but it also gives the stage where we can see that Apple has a point and we need to protect ourselves, because players like Microsoft will not (no matter what they claim). In this I name Microsoft, but they are not alone, anyone skating around margins of cost are potential data leaks and that list is a hell of a lot larger than any of us (including me) thinks it is.
So whilst we look and admire the models, actors and actresses and we imagine whatever we imagine, consider that they are not a realistic path, a desirable one, but not a realistic one and that is the opening that organised crime needs to claimingly give you ‘access’ to what you desire whilst taking your data. It is the oldest game in the book, all wars Arte based on deception and you need to wake up, the moment your data is captures and categorised you are no longer considered an interesting party, you are sold and they move onto the next target. So whilst you get trivialised, consider that Apple has a plan, but whatever they plan, it seems you are better off on that side, than the one Facebook is planning. When was the last time that you were better off staying in the dark on what happens to your data, on what happens when others keep tabs on you?
And in this consider “Facebook is making a last-ditch effort to persuade Apple to back off or compromise with industry standard-setters.With offline ads in newspapers such as The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, the social networking company is trying to rally to its side the millions of small businesses who buy ads on Facebook and Instagram”, so in that quote where do we see any consideration on the people or us as the consumers? When we see “millions of small businesses who buy ads on Facebook and Instagram” where is the consideration that they should have for the customers who walk into their business? When you get in any shop what do you hear? How can I be of service? Or do you hear: What do you want? I let you consider that whilst you consider the position Facebook needs to have and consider that non digital advertisement never kept track of what other newspapers you were reading.
We seemingly forgot that there is a price for the presence of IoT, Apple is making us aware of that. I am not silly enough that Apple is holier than though, but at least they created the awareness and the greed driven players are not looking too good today, are they?
This is a question that has been forming in my mind for some time now, and today the question rose again. The article that started it all is “Oil tanker off Saudi Arabian port hit by explosion caused by ‘external source‘’’ (source: the Guardian). The setting is not new, we have seen it a few times in the last year. We all want to point fingers and blame people left right and center, but the truth of it is that the problem goes deeper and the west is largely in denial or refuses to acknowledge the events. Less than a decade ago, an attack on Saudi Arabia was for the most unthinkable. Even as we see the crying blame game, this is not a Houthi issue. You see, the Houthi’s are firing drones and missiles on Saudi Arabia, but everyone is in denial and refusing to look at Iran. There is no Yemeni infrastructure to create and optionally test drones and missiles, there is no quality control, there is no technology available in Yemen for any of this and that has been shown by different sources over the last 2 years. Even as the New York Times gives us an opinion piece that gives us “Saudi Arabia is not entitled to U.S. military or diplomatic support. It’s not a treaty ally like Japan. Its importance to U.S. security has dwindled as the United States seeks to reorient its foreign policy away from the Middle East. And if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s tutelage is any indication, the kingdom is proving to be a wildly destabilising force in the region”, Saudi Arabia, for the most has been the stability the Middle East (outside of Israel) needs, feel free to give it to Iran, but in this, the next time they elect another Ahmadinejad, all the linked nations will target Israel AND the United States AND Europe, is that what you want?
So whilst the New York Times is slamming Saudi Arabia, or seemingly so, it is actually proving the opposite. Saudi Arabia is entitled and worthy of support. It’s events into Yemen was done by the elected government of Yemen, and that is also ignored most of the time, just like the setting that Houthi forces are getting direct support from Iran, the Houthis are getting Iranian hardware, missiles and drones. They seemingly smuggle it by all naval intelligence operations. It is almost like the EU and the US are keeping the Middle East destabilised. That is at least what it looks like, you see, for the last two years someone is feeding the Houthi forces drones and missiles and that needs to stop. I would venture that the involved parties like the price of oil to go up, up by a lot.
In this I will tell you right now that this is my speculative view, I cannot prove the latter part (other than the Iranian support which has been proven by several parties), yet the media is silent on that part, why is that?
My mind has been busy considering an anti drone option, but as I see it, the larger part of Saudi Arabia is an empty sandbox, so how to go about it (without creating ecological and environmental devastation), a setting that needs thought, because the cure cannot be worst than the disease. The Brookings institute (at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2016/03/16/six-ways-to-disable-a-drone/) give us 6 methods, but to deploy them in any rural situation (which is the bulk of Saudi Arabia) is not a good thing, yet it did give me an optional idea, not a great one mind you, but one that might work.
They had Radio waves (3) and Hacking (4), This gave me an optional idea. What if we create a wifi network, one that actively pushes. Consider 4 jeeps, each jeep is a network node, and as you can see, moving the second jeep to another location sets a larger and a different curtain. Now, consider that the latest Iranian drones can fly up to 250KM/H, now the Houthis will not get those (and they lack monumental amounts of skill to operate them), but the older ones are slower, as the jeeps get a lock on a danger, the remote operator uses the created network to disrupt drone operations. I reckon that a setting of 8 jeeps might be a good start, but how to deploy them? I see the need to create 3-5 clusters of up to 4-8 jeeps, it gives the remote operator a decent amount of time to crash the drones far away and safely, optionally (and harder) is to land them so that the evidence can be collected. A secondary option is to fry the electronics, so that the drones would return to the point of liftoff, giving Saudi Intelligence a place to work from. This is the drones, not sure yet how to stop (in a cheap way) Iranian missiles, but I reckon Raytheon has something they eagerly want to sell. I merely want it to cost Iran the farm, not Saudi Arabia, like in Charlie Wilson’s War, there Charlie Wilson provided the Afghans with stringers to stop the Russians, Stinger $38,000, Russian Hind (Mil Mi-24) $36,000,000, so almost 1000:1, those are numbers to work with and that stage needs to be found to top Iran as well. So as I was looking into the Shahab-1, Shahab-2, Shahab-3, can the same network be used to create a false image, or a setting to fool the missile?
GOT systems It is one of two systems, and any Go-Onto-Target missile has three subsystems (or so I am told), they are :
Target tracker We are told that the target tracker is also placed on the launching platform, yet is that so with the Iranian version? If that is true, then we need to find a way to infect both, or find a way to disrupt the link.
Missile tracker This is where it is, I asked the missile, but it had no sound system installed, hence, I watched a USAF training tape and I learned “The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn’t, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn’t, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn’t be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error”, this seems effective and simple, I merely wonder what if we could find an automated way to mess with the error so it will assume wrongly where it was, and if this accumulative, it will crash ahead of schedule, optionally in a place where there is only sand.
Guidance computer Guidance computers are in the missile and in the target tracker, it has the same setting as the Target Tracker, we cannot intervene in time, but what happens if we flood the missile with both disrupting and false information? (At the same time mind you)
This is where I found myself, my only reference to missile technology is pointing my own missile at a biological silo (me, as a once proud teenager), I just had to go there to make this story not too serious. Yet there was corroborating materials (not on the Silo though), it is seen in Northrop Grumman’s Patent US4589610A, the Guided missile subsystem. Here I see a little more, but it also gave me a thought. The patent gives us “The IMU driven Kalmanised radar track loop accommodates the use of a high performance radar, like a synthetic aperture radar, for example, which operates to measure radar data at a low rate on the order of 1 Hz, to generate estimates of relative target and missile kinematics to drive the control loop at rates compatible with high performance missile kinematics”, I believe that Iranian missiles are not that advanced, but the groundwork matters. The idea that we have “operates to measure radar data at a low rate”, so it reads signals to differentiate, what is we mess with that instance to create a different error in the Shabab missile? Radar is basically a radio signal, a specific one and specific signals are more easily messed with, yet can it be done efficiently and not expensive, or can we create a setting where on system can impact the next 200 missiles fired?
The second system is a GOLIS systems (go-onto-location-in-space), it is autonomous and created for targets that do not move (for example the IRS building at 300 N. Los Angeles St.), I would presume a building almost everyone hates, especially in Hollywood. I will not go into all the details, but it had one option I recognised, it was the Hyperbolic navigation, DECCA. Maritime uses (or used) it. It requires 3 stations to operate and if that is so, that is something we can use. We can actually guid a missile when we alter the signal of any two out of three elements. The nice part, as it is obsolete, there is a decent chance the Iranians are till using it, the DECCA system was pretty decent as a concept and for maritime navigation (before we had satellite navigation) was the most precise way to find ourselves in the ocean, it was precise up to 7M2, when you are 2432 KM from shore, that is pretty awesome. So as we see “Hyperbolic navigation is a class of obsolete radio navigation systems in which a navigation receiver instrument on a ship or aircraft is used to determine location based on the difference in timing of radio waves received from fixed land-based radio navigation beacon transmitters”, that is one principle, there is every chance that if we can intercept and relay 2 of the signals, we can create a different error and as such the missile becomes a lot less reliable.
These are merely a few thoughts and they should be seriously considered (except targeting the IRS building, these people have lives too), if we can change the game for Iran we can support Saudi Arabia in creating more stability, less stability is to adhere to Iran, I wonder if the New York Times considered that part that they are voicing, whether it is opinion or not.
OK, I knew about DECCA from my days at the. Merchant Naval Academy, so that might not be completely fair, but this is me thinking out of the box (and out of bed), which implies that this was another day, another dollar, and all done in less than 2 hours. I wonder what more Iranian stuff I can screw up this week, we all need a hobby at times.
The first sentence that waved like a hammer and sickle flag was “according to people familiar with the matter”, this was not some official brief by the FBI or the DHS, it was some anonymous setting and as that nations current president is mad as a hatter (or in possession of less common sense then the Court Jester entertaining Reniero Zeno) gives rise to worry. Now, let be clear, I am not stating that this isn’t happening. Consider “but three of the people familiar with the investigation said Russia is currently believed to be responsible for the attack. Two of the people said that the breaches are connected to a broad campaign that also involved the recently disclosed hack on FireEye, a major U.S. cybersecurity company with government and commercial contracts”, so now it is not from one source, but one journo has access to ALL THREE? Then there is (the secnd one) “cyber spies are believed to have gotten in by surreptitiously tampering with updates released by IT company SolarWinds”, which also affects the military, and in this, we grb back to the earlier statement “they asked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to investigate”, really? Military integrity is in play and you think that none of the Defence intelligence groups, or cyber command is invited? Then we get the end which gives us “The hackers are “highly sophisticated” and have been able to trick the Microsoft platform’s authentication controls, according to a person familiar with the incident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the press”, that and the consideration (not fact) that “Hackers broke into the NTIA’s office software, Microsoft’s Office 365. Staff emails at the agency were monitored by the hackers for months”, consider that and set the light towards a transgression on the Microsoft Azure cloud that makes their cloud useless, or turns it into a public domain Bulletin board, something EVERY industrial wants to hear. You think that this was not out in force and Microsoft was on every channel on the PLANET explaining to the people that there was no cause for alarm? All this and some Christopher Bing has three sources? Anyone else concerned with the quality of news? And the last line giving us ‘because they were not allowed to speak to the press’ did it for me.
Is this a ploy to avoid the limelight, or make sure that the stage lights are pointing somewhere else? Now, I reckon that the Russian government is forever trying to get its fingers on all kinds of hush hush details, the CIA does pretty much the same thing, yet in this we see “highly-sophisticated, targeted and manual supply chain attack by a nation state”, what evidence is there? This is important, because it could well be organised crime or a super rich singular player who wants the low-down on deals that syphon his or her money more efficiently and that has been done before as well. In this the entire approach is one of chaos, even if the chaos seems organised. The fact that it was allegedly possible to “Staff emails at the agency were monitored by the hackers for months” with the mention of Microsoft 365 and the news was limited to one person at Reuters? That and the fact that it as seemingly ‘months’ is a larger cause for concern, the fact that this was going on for well over a week and not every Christmas light would shine brightly red at 2624 NE University Village St, Seattle, WA 98105, United States is a first, the fact that not every siren is blasting on EVERY Microsoft 365 and Azure data centre is a second. But no, we get “there was a breach at one of its agencies and that they asked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to investigate”, yes because dimensionality in alarms and corporate dangers are passed on forever to the FBI in such a blasé way.
So I have several issues on the matter and in all this I can in all honesty not determine whether the light shining is a limelight to give visibility to someone else, or a stage light to make the people look to the left all whilst the people on the right are running off the stage, hoping no one will notice. It can be either or both, but the picture they are painting for us does not make sense and lust like that Italian dude (read: doge), the 45th no less, had his own battles to fight (mostly with Genoa), it was set in one quarter, but had underlying conditions (like Michael VIII Palaiologos) and in this certain nobility members profited greatly, I wonder why that never got properly investigated. And as such I do not oppose the pointing fingers at the Kremlin, but doing so before we see “the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to investigate” deliver a finished report is a little fast, so fast even McDonalds cannot compete. All whilst cybercrime has a much larger reach to a great deal many more people and still Microsoft remains silent.
There is a bright light over yonder, yet what it is used for, I cannot tell.
It is a harsh stage, at times we tend to, according to our own nature, be cold, ice cold. In some cases (like mine) inhumane cold. I am not doing it intentionally, but I do get that some see me as cold insensitive bastard, and I like ice cream too. So here I am in a setting that does not appeal to many, but outspoken so that you know what is in play. You see, we see and some feel the hrh reality of the Coronavirus, and the BBC gives us ‘Coronavirus: Germany to go into lockdown over Christmas’, I get it, we need to be careful, but the cold numbers (as reliable as they can be) give us 72,221,006 corona cases, 50,607,364 recovered and 1,613,868 cases ended with a heart rate of ZERO. So basically we see 69% made a recovery, 3.18% did not make it, the rest is still in a stage of healing. Consider all the actions, all the ruckus and all the settings for these numbers. Now, I am all for stopping the disease. 1.6 million is not nothing, and as we see all the presented decks on more people dies in the US than in WW2, we are all overreacting. Whilst we see that WW2 ended the lives of 405K Americans, another source gives us 291K deaths, so who can we trust? The numbers are less than a month old, all whilst WW2 ended in 1945. As such when we consider that several of the sources tend to be seen as reliable, who fed them these numbers?
You see, the reactions we are seeing is on a stage of 3.18%, all whilst we also see “11% of all deaths and 42% of CVD deaths” (CVD=Cardio Vascular Deaths), this was in 2018, so how much fuss was made over heart issues? When we see the numbers next to others, Corona does not amount to too much. I am not stating that we ignore the event, I am showing you that the over reaction is a little much. Especially as we entered a recession in the end of 2018, an economic setting that nearly all governments are trying to avoid, especially in light of the debts that all these governments have. Another ploy that Wall Street is happy about, they got to blame a disease and optionally the CDC as well.
Am I overreacting? That remains to be seen and it is a fair question to ask, yet I am showing you the numbers, the charts and the percentages, those you can calculate yourself (you might find a rounding adjustment at best).
The sight that we see is a scary one, governments have ordered billions in vaccines, a vaccine that we do need to have, but the bombastic fanfare is one we could have done without and no one is looking hard at the recession, are they? ABC gave us last week “The recession is technically over but for wages and jobs, the recovery is a long way away”, is the recession really over? Is the overreaction and shifting of the blame towards Corona justified? Ask yourself that question when you see the extended amount of unemployed people, when you see the lack of controls on corporations when we consider the impact of what should have happened. I said it from the very beginning, the numbers never added up. I was merely unsure what they were supposed to be and when you see numbers not matching on a whole level of fronts, perhaps you will wonder where the numbers came from as well, there is a level of facilitation in play that is happening on a number of levels and it seems that the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing, in all honesty I wonder if you can figure out what the right hand and what the other one was all along.
We all have our flings, a lot of ladies still have an ongoing fling with ‘Sex and the City’, Whilst the man cannot help themselves but to run to the nearest cinema when they see the calling card ‘007’ (also known as 003.5 when he was young). Loads of people (myself included) were nuts about Star Trek, many were Babylon 5 fans (me too) and a lot of us could not wait for what would come after Star Wars. Some franchises get to us and they capture us. The same for the Marvel characters. But over the years I learned that a binge fetish comes with an attached version of digital tummy bounce. Too much, even of a good thing is not always good. I know, I had my events, there was the evening with two T-bone steaks (1.2 Kg beef in total), there was the 6 mango pancakes occasion when having Yum Cha in Chinatown, there was the case of me and the 11 turkey tandoori drumsticks in Stockholm and the less said about me and a two litre jar of custard the better. This happens with movies and TV series too. During the lockdown I had a binge with 19 seasons of Midsomer Murders, Star Wars 1-9 (plus Rogue One), NCIS season 1 through 15, as well as a revisit on Blu ray of ALL Marvel movies.
They tend to weigh on us, it is like we accept the universe we watch, but we also understand that what we see is not real, for some reason the borders face during a binge, have you never noticed that? So when I saw ‘Disney ramps up Star Wars and Marvel franchises’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55269531), I had my concerns. Now, for those who love the binge, who love their passion of Star Wars, Marvel or Disney, I am fine with that, I wish you all the best (and loads of happy fun), yet the article gives us two parts.
The first is “it also announced price increases from February next year”, OK, £7.99 per month might not seem a big deal, but with unemployment the way it is, it will make a lot of people unhappy. Australia gives us $8.99AUD per month (or $89.99 per year) which is interesting as it implies that for a year, you get 2 months for free, it would make the stage more interesting, but overall, it implies that Australia is getting Disney Plus almost 50% cheaper than the UK (which translates to $14.04 per month), as such in this global age, a lot of people will not be happy. This was merely an observation, not a stage of discussion.
The second part is seen with “Disney said that it planned to offer 10 new TV series in its Marvel and Star Wars franchises over the next few years”, and yes, we have an issue with ‘over the next few years’, which is blatantly inaccurate. The hype creators gave us WandaVision, Loki, Hawkeye, WhatIf, Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel 2, Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, as well as several movies (at least one title confirmed for 2022) as well as “roughly 10 Star Wars series are coming to Disney Plus, but it also gave some early details about a few of those series and other Star Wars projects”, which the Verge (at https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/10/22167976/disney-investor-day-2020-biggest-announcements-plus-marvel-star-wars-pixar-animation) gives us.
We want to make it bout the money, but we need to look at the fact that a lot of people get to enjoy well over a dozen series in a setting that they LIKE, all whilst the US produced over 500 series last year that most of us (non-Americans) will not get to see. So is the stage of £2 (per month) really a lot? No, but it is the £7.99 (£80, or £96) a year that matters. You see, we all see the full time incomes, but there are plenty on £13,803 for part-time roles, which is not a lot, especially when the bills are paid.
Yet this is NOT about the money, consider the annual cost and consider the focal point of Disney Plus. There is off-course more to Disney Plus, but to have such a driven focal point can slap back to the owners. Yes, they are and should be proud of what they offer, but like gaming, we might have a favourite game, but at times we want something else and there are alternatives, but there is the snag for Disney, if the people turn away from Disney too often, someone will figure out to be a paying member two months a year and catch up on those months. What will Disney do, turn these paying customers away?
The stage of annual fees versus returning fees will soon become a much more focussed debate and a focal point for revenue investigators all over, because it is not merely Disney that faces this consideration. In this, I have nothing against Stan, HBO, Netflix, Disney Plus, or Apple TV, but the people in a much larger setting have limited funds, they could consider one, some might consider a second one, but that is pretty much it, the quality of life in most of the Commonwealth and the EU is not in a good place. So whilst some are fighting over the pie, the consumer is considering another buffet
Month
Channel
January
Netflix
February
Apple TV
March
Disney Plus
April
May
Netflix
June
Apple TV
July
Disney Plus
August
September
October
Netflix
November
Apple TV
December
Disney Plus
In this setting we see three months a year, some might go for to month a year and optionally safe a little money, in that setting both Disney and Netflix will enter a tunnel of massive problems, their stage is not fitting the cost endured, you cannot make a case of $15,000,000,000 of costs a year and people merely coming for two months a year, the system will collapse and that is what Disney faces too. The people are lacking cash and optionally bandwidth too.
Do you think they will waste time on too much monthly fees, or will they wisen up and binge when they can, let’s not forget these executives promoted bingeing when it suited their needs, now it will not, and the spreadsheet deck that they hold does not permit the thought I am voicing here.
Yup, that has to go down like a kick in the head, does it not? But that was the thought I had when I was confronted with the BBC article ‘Mastercard severs links with pornography site’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55267311), now personally I do not care about Pornhub. I don’t think I have ever been there, honestly. I am not anti or against porn, in Europe it was available on nearly every corner and a lot of it for free, as such I got over that need decades ago. So, whatever, I (for the most) do not care, but I hate hypocrisy, I hate it with a passion. So when I see “Mastercard says it is ending the use of its cards on the pornography platform Pornhub after a review confirmed the presence of unlawful content”, yup, it is an option they can take, but at the same time they are setting themselves up for a court case regarding discrimination by Pornhub. You see, when we consider “Members of China’s Uyghur ethnic minority are being used as forced labor in factories far from the so-called reeducation camps that have held them for years in Xinjiang, according to an extensive new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think-tank founded by Australia’s government” (source: Quartz), if I remember my law lessons, slave labour is illegal, is it not?
As such, how many Nike shops were banned by Mastercard as well? How many Apple Stores are not able to process Mastercard? The New York Post (25th July) gave us ‘Nike should quit lecturing on social justice — and atone for using slave labor in China’, where was Mastercard at that point? Oh and according to ABC VISA is doing the same thing and for both I see no actions on Nike, Apple and a few others, like fashion stores that have been involved in ‘Aussie fashion retailers accused of driving poverty in Bangladesh with cut-throat pricing in new Oxfam report’, this came from Nine News 3 weeks ago regarding an Oxfam report, so where were VISA and Mastercard barring “Some of the biggest Australian fast fashion brands” in this? Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, I say. But it seems that hypocrisy is high with the financial institutions. Now, I am not stating that Pornhub is innocent, even as we are told “A New York Times investigation accused the site of being “infested” with child-abuse and rape-related videos”, it calls for investigation and pressure, but the voice of Mastercard and VISA stating some holier than though barring, all whilst they have no issue processing slave labour goods is a bit much, even for me.
So when we get “Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof named it in his New York Times article, saying he “didn’t see why search engines, banks or credit-card companies” should “bolster” Pornhub”, I am willing to initially side against Pornhub on matters and when we see a name like Nicholas Kristof, we all want to see where and how he got the data he used, fair is fair, yet in this, I see the actions by VISA and Mastercard as a BS approach towards the limelight. Especially when we see reports of Oxfam and several others on the other issues. But I reckon that these two card companies will hide behind the ‘too complicated an issue’ and will continue as usual, but as I see it, they are discriminating foundations and if Pornhub wants to extract a billion in losses from these two, I would be able to live with it, but it does not take them off the hook. Even if we are told “Pornhub, which has denied the claims”, I would want to look into the evidence of Nicholas Kristof, I have had my doubts on journalists several times, but this is a Pulitzer Prize winner, they tend to remain well above board, in this Pornhub is the lesser trustworthy of the two on a mere glance, and I state that speculatively, I have not seen the evidence and I hope that Nicholas Kristof will hand over that evidence to the press on a much larger stage. Yet, we need to see Pornhub like a much less puritan version of YouTube, or Facebook (me thinks), as such they facilitate automated distribution, just like social media, but they too need to look into matters to a much deeper degree, if I believe that social media must do this, then players like Pornhub must too, and if there are criminal issues, they need to be dealt with and fast. We cannot say for sure what is criminal and what is fake criminal and the track is not an easy one, a source (Tweaktown) gave us in December 2018 “Pornhub saw 4.79 million videos uploaded in 2018, with 147GB per second”, this might not be as much as YouTube, but it cannot be too far off and a place like Pornhub does not have the infrastructure that Google has (my speculated view), as such there is every chance that criminal activities will pass the filters and not be seen until it is much too late, and yes, something needs to be done, but we can do without the hypocritical BS that VISA and Mastercard are giving us, if anything Pornhub needs the funds to upgrade their hardware on detection, investigation and reporting, that’s how I see it.
You know, this article might have the most use of the letters pee, ohh, arr, enn ever. Oh Joy! Well, time to enjoy Saturday with a strong cup of coffee and a sandwich.
As I stated yesterday, lets take a look at the Emissions Gap Report 2020, I wanted to see where the lifestyle change to the super wealthy would solve the environmental issue as Tim McGrath rote in his BBC article, which I covered in ‘Hatred of Wealth’ Yesterday. There we saw in the BBC article ‘Climate change: Global ‘elite’ will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles’ the mention of “And for the top 10% of earners, this would mean cuts to around one tenth of their current level.But for the richest 1%, it would mean a dramatic reduction”, in this he also makes mention of his friend at chapter 6, who was a contributor, as such we should look there. When we get there we get a few facts. As we see “Average consumption emissions vary substantially between countries. For example, current per capita consumption emissions in the United States of America are approximately 17.6 tons CO2e per capita, around 10 times that of India at 1.7 tons per capita. By contrast, the European Union and the United Kingdom together have an average footprint of approximately 7.9 tons per capita (see chapter 2).” Here we need to take a little gander. ‘per capita’ gives us a Latin term that translates to “by head”, and the UN does nothing without a reason, so why not ‘per person’ does it seemingly looks ‘more intelligent’? You see India has well over 1.3 billion people, America has 325 million people. Which now implies that one nation has a different pattern when we take the whole look. Anyhow, they come to the conclusion of “A range of estimates point to a strong correlation between income and emissions, with a highly unequal global distribution of consumption emissions. Such studies estimate that the emissions share of the top 10 per cent of income earners is around 36–49 per cent of the global total, whereas the lowest 50 per cent of income earners account for around 7–15 per cent of all emissions”, this is not a bad view, I do not agree, but their report does not need to give in to my considerations. It is here that we introduce the data from the European Environmental Agency (EEA) where we get “Half the damage is being done by just one percent of industrial plants”, as such in Europe 50% is done by 147 industrial plants? Where in this view do the wealthy users of private jets stand? You see on page 84 we see the only two mentions of Jet in the entire report, it is “IEA estimated that the mean production costs of aviation biofuels in 2018 were approximately two to three times that of fossil jet kerosene (IEA 2018)”, it is not precise, it is an estimation, and it reflects on cost, not on pollution, as such where did Tim McGrath get his data? I found mine in two minutes, and the BBC let him. So as we consider the impact of this report (which is better then I expected), as such I wonder what the issue was with the lifestyle of the wealthy when in Europe alone, 147 factories would have set the marker of 50% of the damages in Europe, so which (or how many) factories have a similar view in the US and India? I would add China to that equation as well, optionally Russia, so how much improvement can we get if we go after the right targets and not waste our time on the wealthy jet owners (as Tim McGrath want).
It took two hours to look into the report, less than an hour to look at the EEA and when we consider this against the BBC article, how much time did they spend (read: waste) on something a person without clear present knowledge could debunk in a matter of minutes? It took me 5 times longer to type this point of view against me making the case.
But this is not enough, Tim McGrath was making his point coming from the graphs on page 89, where we see “Per capita and absolute CO2 consumption emissions by four global income groups in 2015”, you see the chart looks really clever, but here is the data? And when we see the EEA stage where we see that 50% of the damage is allegedly DONE by 147 plants, who owns those 147 plants? This all matters as the report is optionally ‘hiding’ behind “Ivanova and Wood (2020) find that a large share of the emissions of the top- emitting European Union households are transport-related”. This might be true, yet the larger stage is not merely on the transport related part, it is how much of that emission problem is mass transport? Trains, metro’s, busses, how much of the transport emissions are they a part of? You see, the data their will be found lacking. Consider Spain, Italy and Greece alone, this against the UK. Are you seeing the larger picture and how convoluted the setting of ‘transport-related’ emission issues are seen when the EEA gives for Europe a clear stage of 147 industrial plants and 50% of the damage, in all this the entire wealth setting is merely a smoke screen, like the ones we see way too often and in this case the BBC is optionally a co-conspiror of the created smoke.
It is merely my point of view and feel free to disagree, but in this you need to make up your own mind on what is there and what is debatable.
We have seen it, we at times observed it, but for the BBC to actively support it is taking this to a new sight. This is the feeling I had when I saw the article ‘Climate change: Global ‘elite’ will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles’ an hour ago (at https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55229725). We have seen the options, we have seen the banter, but this article by Matt McGrath is taking it into a new direction. You see, some have a lifestyle that is slightly higher in carbon, mine might be a lot lower, I have no jet or helicopter. Yet what gives Matt the setting he has?
Let’s look at some numbers given to us by Statista. The graph shows us that in the last 15 years plane travel went up by well over 15,000,0000 planes, this implies almost a million lanes per year more. So Matt, how many jets and helicopters are there? Now, we might see their use of a jet as a spillage, and perhaps it is, consider however, that for them there are fuel requirements, staff requirements and here Forbes was very useful (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/douggollan/2019/08/22/private-jet-travel-is-greener-than-you-think). The quote “Two private jets would bring $170,000 in spending, 55% more than the full 737, with just over 25 tonnes of CO2 emitted, one-sixth of the commercial airliner”, and when we see the numbers of 38 million airliners, knowing that there are nowhere near as much jets in the world, I wonder just what the game of Matt is, perhaps it is merely kicking rich people.
Now, we are all interested in doing something for the environment, so how about stopping 10% of ALL Air traffic? I do not think that Matt McGrath is doing that, he would upset powerful people and the BBC does not do war with powerful people. Or perhaps he might take notice of “It is estimated that approximately 706 million gallons of waste oil enter the ocean every year, with over half coming from land drainage and waste disposal; for example, from the improper disposal of used motor oil”, I did not vet that information, yet it seems that neither did he, and the setting of doing something about the stage of ‘706 million gallons of waste oil’ is as I see it more impactful than slamming some person with a fat wallet and a jet (or helicopter), oh and these helicopters tend to be taxi services, you want to take the car from a taxi driver? Seems a little vague to me.
So for those in doubt, let me add an image of a jet, something you might silently dream of and never get (just like me). And whilst I am on a roll (yes I am), consider all these flights, now identify the salespeople who are going to some pricey seminar, lets take those as well as sales people on some binge in Vegas to ‘be inspired’, as such how much environment did they waste?
And when we get to “The global top 10% of income earners use around 45% of all the energy consumed for land transport and around 75% of all the energy for aviation, compared with just 10% and 5% respectively for the poorest 50% of households, the report says” which is a new level of BS. The poorest 50% cannot afford any vacation, due to sliding hourly wages, I will admit that rich people are at the head of that, but not all wealthy people, and the stage of pre-covid 2020, we see 40 million flights, all whilst the number of private jets are set to 4,600, and this includes jets that are corporate jets. So I want to see that report so I can cut Matt McGrath more to size. With the additional ““The UNEP report shows that the over-consumption of a wealthy minority is fuelling the climate crisis, yet it is poor communities and young people who are paying the price,” said Tim Gore, head of climate policy at Oxfam”, I see another person I need to cut down to size. The fact that I saw holes in this article in less than 10 minutes and the fact that the BBC is enabling this is jut too weird. Well at least I have another windmill to fight and bring to attention of the readers. Oh and before you think I am biased, consider that the 4,600 will include the jets owned by royal families and dignitaries and governments, consider this, when you saw the first number, do you really want them to charter a Boeing? To be honest, I cannot tell how many planes are in that group, I did not find any numbers on that, but the larger stage is that instead of them looking into matter that matter, we see a stage of ‘over-consumption of a wealthy minority’, so what EXACTLY is over-consumption? And per jet, how many flights were made? So let’s say a person like Bobby Axelrod (a fictional character), how often was he in a jet in 4 seasons? I am using this example to avoid using real people, because the question stays the same and we can argue that some like the Waltons from Kmart might fly less often than some whatchamightcallit from Wall Street, as such, the article has a few issues all over the place, I am making it my mission to look at that UNEP report, lets see what we can find there and how time was wasted on that report.
From my point of view the UN has become the largest waster of funds and options in the last 10 years, so I am ready to roar at that mouse, you betcha!
