Category Archives: movies

July 12, 2022 · 21:36

The blind seeker

This is not a riddle, it is simple. I cannot tell what the rules are for getting a script. I created three of them and I get it, it needs to be a certain format, it needs appeal, but as a storyteller, I do not care, and that is not some short sighted look. Around 35000 stories are submitted and only 350 get made. I am not some person seeking wealth (well I am, but not in stories), and as I have stated in the past. I lived the FX slogan, ‘The Story is everything’, it has been true for the longest of time and it ill remain true decades from now. So as I recall an article I wrote in ‘The stage of a game’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/09/24/the-stage-of-a-game/) almost 2 years ago, someone in Hollywood or Netflix should have woken up.

The fact that a comic (1965-1982) with artists like Don Lawrence; Oliver Frey; Gerry Wood; Philip Corke; Ramon Sola; Ron Embleton; Miguel Quesada can still tempt the mind of the reader a generation later should have alerted them to the setting that they have a winner here. In the age when special effects and CGI are so close to the real thing that we can no longer tell the difference whether something is real or CGI should have triggered the idea that the Trigan Empire could be big bucks. The fact that this remains a hidden treasure is delighting in so many ways. The series I started to follow at the age of 5 (2 years after it was released) and still has this appeal on me and on thousands who were around when they first appeared is a wonderful feeling. It gives rise to the appeal that Flash Gordon had in the 50’s to the previous generation and this generation who is a lot on the Hogwarts stage. Every generation has its special stories and to consider that the next generation could enjoy on the screen what the previous generation loved in equal measure in comic books, is overwhelming. I wonder if it ever becomes real. Well, Valerian became a reality in 2017, 50 years after the comic book launched. Even as the movie flopped (according to the numbers), I was happy to see it and as part 2 is now ready to be filmed and a part three is on route to become a reality too, I merely hope that I live long enough to see all three parts. But the small voice in me silently hopes that the Trigan Empire will become a reality too. And there is a lot more in the comic books that never graced the American shelves. Don Lawrence gave us Storm, the Spanish artist Vicente Segrelles gave the world a comic named ‘the Mercenary’ in an age of knights, magic and dragons. 

So many awesome stories that one wonders how blind are these Hollywood seekers, these diggers for Netflix, Hulu and Apple+? A stage that is merely waiting to be found by a limelight, any limelight. Dozens, if not hundreds of comic books, all undiscovered as they never graced the American comic book shelves (a speculation of mine). Yet in the stage of what we see now and what we hear now, so many series flop. I honestly do not know why, some I have never seen, some I saw and it was not my favourite, yet it was not bad. The reason of what we see and what some things are rated as follows definitions that some might think ludicrous and mostly because we do not understand what drives the ratings. So under those rules will series like the Trigan Empire and the Mercenary make it? I cannot tell, but I hope they do, to see my childhood hero (Valerian) make it to the big screen was mesmerising, I hope to see the other two there as well.

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July 6, 2022 · 21:31

The responsive thinker

I got called out again. It happened during the day and there was a little too much profanity in the words, as such I assume it was an American. It was in regards to an article I wrote in April called ‘Creating magic’. The article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/04/07/creating-magic/) is about the ‘magical drink’ called Giggle-water that mades its first appearance in Fantastic beasts and where to find them (2016). At some point (after the third movie) it dawned on me that this drink might not be wholly imaginary. You see, in the past Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) was used by dentists. Now we have fruit-sugar (or fructose) with the formula C6H12O6. Now if we can connect a nitrogen to one of the oxygen parts we are in the clear. But it will not be that simple. 

I reckon that we need something like a strawberry of raspberry vinegar to get traction and that is me assuming a whole lot. I haven’t looked at chemistry since 1987, so its been a while. But if we can get that link working than this would be the added element to an alcoholic drink and we have the making of Giggle-water and with the hundred of millions of Rowling fans out there, there is a definite market for this drink. A drink that hundred of millions will try just for the hell of feeling less muggle? Oh you won’t need an egg timer to watch that line form. It is a little fun, because it was the Butter-beer bar in New York that gave me the idea of a printable display, so it is only fair I do something for that audience. 

As such the created idea for Giggle water. And it is only that, an idea. You see I was a decent chemist when I was young, but I saw the appeal of explosives a lot more than I saw the interest in Esther (a COOC joke), any chemist will get that one. So the idea of giggle water seems sound, but in the end only a real exploratory chemist will know (the offensive writer was no chemist, that is a certainty). As such I felt that a response was essential.

I never claimed it would work, if so, I would sell the idea to a player like Coca-Cola or Heineken. And I never did that, but perhaps someone over there in their free time can make the idea work. As such if one of these two players comes up with a workable solution, will their stock double or triple overnight? I honestly do not know, but then I did not care in the first place. I am still busy considering a new data format, a new database structure (an open one) specific for Augmented reality registration and searches. You see, when this market comes to a race, someone would want all that data protected, not everyone mind you, but corporate players would want that and that requires a new data format. I reckon it would be a combined matching system of MySQL with a Btree+ thumbprint, optionally with a linked blockchain element. As the number of AR elements increases the Btree+ element will become more and more important. Consider the benefits of the Btree setting and it foundation (it has downsides too), but an iterative search that illiminates 50% with every step. In year one this does not make sense, but by year three you are looking at a database with millions of AR elements. So consider 1,000,000 – 500,000 – 250,000 – 125,000 – 62,500. In 4 steps (less than 0.03 seconds) the database would have reduced the search by 99.93%, as such 0.07% remains to be searched. I think that is worth spending a little time on, don’t you think so?

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June 30, 2022 · 01:32

Cerebral Property

My mind shifted towards the Augmented Reality earlier again. My mind had been testing a few ideas and then matching them against the malls I have visited in my life. These malls are in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Stockholm, London, New York, Chicago, Washington, Sydney, Singapore, Munich, and so on. I have been matching what my mind created for Eaton Mall (Toronto), a place I actually have never visited. The YouTube channels showed me the space there and my mind did the rest. So today my mind went to the setting of QRcodes for AR. I considered the floor plans of Eaton Mall (I never seen them), none of the videos stopped to look at a map or floor plan. Funny, is it not? And my mind considered the approach of AR on a floor plan. I then considered the approach of static and dynamic codes. Consider any floor plan (I have seen them all over the world), now look at them with smart glasses. A floor plan, could but wouldn’t need to be static. As you dial the map and scroll, the codes would alter. The selected map (floor) would be dynamic, with the floor below matted and the one below that ghosted. As you move up or down, the 3d map alters its perception somewhat. It would pretend to be hologram, but it is not. Merely the same floors, with a clear, a matted or ghosted version, as such three versions for every floor and the floor we look at will alter the other floors too. A simple approach with a lot more behind this. As my mind conceived that use, and with the idea’s I had for Victoria Secrets, the mind decided to alter an option for jewellery shops as well. Glass plates that had a QR code within and as you place your hand under (or behind) the glass. The piece of jewellery would appear like on your wrist or finger and the nice part is that this could happen if the shop was closed or not. The shop (if open) would still serve you as needed, but as a guy, be honest. Who would not like to his own wrist with a Breitling, or a Rolex on it? And the ladies, their imagination of jewellery is without limit. It gave the idea that a jeweller could have a card, with a code. A code that could alter monthly, or whenever to be shown with glasses that could hold a code that revealed a bracelet or ring under any glass, something to keep with you. A whole market was opening before my eyes. Bookshops that could show 2 pages of a new book, that people could actually read. Food places with a signature dish, the AR field was opening a lot wider and it was my mind that was filling in the blanks, blanks that are currently in abundance as no one is making these jumps and as the world has 116,000 malls, how many businesses are Amazon and Google overlooking? Google is a lot more to blame than Amazon is but you get the idea. My mind is filling up to a multi billion dollar industry, because malls will have to take some steps sooner rather than later. In any place where the workforce is under pressure, you need to find other ways to promote yourself and leaflets are a thing of the past. 

01:15 and my mind is still adjusting to other kind of shops and how they can appeal to an AR developing population. As I watched another YouTube of Eaton Centre Mall, the mind saw so many open spaces and optional spaces to use, because I reckon that a mall can be more than shops and foodcourts. Some malls have cinema’s and what is more alluring than a 5 by 2.5 meter presentation of an epic movie poster you can watch there? The Batman scene as seen below WAS in the Eaton Mall, but that display cannot be everywhere, yet the AR version could be in every mall that has a cinema and not that gimmick, now that picture of affordability changes a lot for so many movies. 

And the mind moves on the new shores, to new places where (seemingly) a place like Google is unable to go (for now). And it is not even 01:30 yet. So lets see what else I can come up with before breakfast. Smell ya later folks!

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June 17, 2022 · 21:07

Holes in the equation

That is what I have been confronted with. Looking or trying to see a solution, an IP, yet in the end I am merely looking towards a partial equation and I am trying to look towards the equation and the holes around it by covering it by part of another equation. So as I was looking at yesterday, at the setting of the SD cards (like the one below)

I was wondering how this could be utilised. Then my mind considered the GoogleChrome 2, but that is Google stuff. I was wondering if the ‘cast-bubble’ could support an SD card. Then my mind went on a sidetrack. You see, the makers of computers are less and less about optical drives. That gave me the idea, what if the Google Chrome 2 could be a transmitter connected to your 4K (or Bluray) player? What if that device could hand the images to the laptops in the house and considering I saw (a little while ago) a naked lady do Yoga in 4K (she looked really good doing that) I now know that a Mac laptop is able to show a lot more than an image of a Pokemon. But the setting holds, if the player (connected to a TV) can show the other devices too, the family will get a much larger audience from the one player in the house. We can watch the movie on our laptop, our console connected TV, our additional systems. As far as I can tell, the current Chrome-cast does not allow for that. So this setting is a freebee for Google, on the other hand if Amazon sees this and creates its own innovative patent, well that is up to the person who gets there the quickest. 

So as I went back to the beginning of what happened, the setting of M.A.A.S. Movie As A Service, a station that was once Netflix, the old Netflix and with the lines becoming ever more blurry. The idea that Marvel moves come with a voucher that allows you to see Disney+ for a few days could set the trend in other ways for Netflix, Paramount, Sony, Apple and Hulu too. I was so focussed on the application of SD/CF Cards in movies that I forgot that there are other applications too, not necessarily directly linked to these memory cards. You see, no matter how we are presented the stages, congestion is coming our way, those with a lot of money can avoid it, the rest need to find another way and that is where innovation comes in. How? Your guess is as good as mine at this time, but the larger setting is to surpass the points of congestion, so how to get around that? Gamers are (for now) too small a group. The movie, YouTube and TikTok group is the larger (if not largest) group. So if we can get them in other ways we could optionally delay or to a larger degree diminish the congestion that comes. And this is not a local problem, this is about to become a GLOBAL issue. And for now, I am in the dark on how this can be circumvented. Yet how to go about it? I learned at an early age that you start with the edges and as such set the dimensionality of the Jigsaw. From there you continue. Yet what if the Jigsaw is a kinetic one? A kinetic puzzle is a puzzle that does not show an mage, but a movie reel. When that is known the dimensions are still the first, but after that, how do you continue? That is the puzzle I am confronted with. We aren’t looking at a static event, but a dynamic one and there the brain (the useless one I have) shuts down for now.

I see part of the equation, but I see the holes too, so as I try to surround the holes I also learn that it is not the solution, because the holes are in motion. That is where I end, holes in the equation, yet the stage is one that I need to master, it will be a nice addition to the three IP bundles I have and at some stage either Amazon or Google will take a bite, because both want the billions and Microsoft is not invited. And as I consider the third player, I will set more time apart to take a look at him in my next article.

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June 17, 2022 · 00:13

In continuation

You thought the previous article was the end of it? Nope, it was merely the beginning. You see, we see the iterations of DVD, BluRay, 4K and we do not stand still on the larger issue. The idea of a disc is nice, it is accepted and it continues. Yet the larger station is that a DVD is a mere 5GB, a BlueRay is 50GB (double sided) and a 4K is 66GB in dual layer and 100GB on triple layer. 

The Player is in every case about the size of a CD player. A SD card is about $35 (128GB) and the CF version is (alas) a lot more expensive. Yet the setting of the SD card is still shrinking in price and the price of the MicroSD is about the same. So consider the idea that you can have the entire Marvel collection in a holder the size of a pocketbook and that need is growing. People who want to watch a movie on route, people who want the kids to watch a movie in the back, people who are left with less and less space, you can look in every direction and the need for discs is falling away, CD’s are already falling away. How long until DVD’s are a think of the past? And even now we see the stage that one (micro) SD card (or CF Card) can hold an entire season of episodes. 

Here Sony is in part to blame. I remember the issue of all region DVD’s, but Sony would not hear of it. And that was a discussion I was part of 6 months BEFORE the PlayStation 2 was released in March 2000. Over that time others also has issues, but I still see it as fear, they had their little island and it had to remain safe even though the issues of safety were blown away in 1992 and was never restored, there was a feigned time of safety with the BluRay and now with the 4K, people will find a way. There is no stopping them and as the law is merely running after the events and not solving anything, stopping evolution tends to detrimental to ones sanity (health too).

So whilst we ignore what COULD be out there and what MIGHT be possible, we merely are part of some insanity roundabout and it goes nowhere. And interestingly enough, the streamers are making this evolution clear and more profound. So whilst you ponder the latest movies on SD or CF card, consider what you have and what you might lose. Especially in light that the quality of DVD’s has faltered in the last 5 years. It might be that the players are less reliable, but they still need discs and over the last 5 years I have seen more movie discs fail than in the 20 yeas before that. Something is failing the people, failing the systems and devices and it is time we ask the questions that matter, because only in the coming year is the price of an SD card a valid excuse, but when we see that this is already no longer the case with Bluray and DVD, consider what the larger station is to stop evolution. I gave the setting for players to allow other formats to play close to half a decade ago, we merely see discs continue. Why? When was the last time you tried to get a CD of a band you liked? I honestly never saw that coming. My introduction to CD’s was somewhere in 1977, 45 years ago. I thought they were forever, but that was of course delusional. Now consider that one SD Card can hold the entire collection of David Bowie or the Beatles. At what point will we concede that technology surpassed our labels of music and soon movies too? And it is not even close to the end. New technologies will come, they will revolt and we will contemplate how to react to it. I am not telling you how to react, how ever you will react it will be highly personal. I myself still enjoy looking at the covers of an album, that will never stop, but to hold a box with an entire season of Xfile episodes, or one SD card that holds EXACTLY the same is another matter. It will open new doors, new venues and new opportunities. And there is a hidden benefit. You see the next few years will be about congestion of the network. So will you be waiting for Disney to download part of the episode so that you can watch, or will you insert an SD card and just watch, without congestion, without delay and without hassle? 

And those who claim that there is no congestion? Well Computer weekly gave us last October “Enea claims first 4G, 5G user-based congestion management solution. Telecoms software provider launches solution based on proprietary algorithms to take pre-emptive action to boost QoE for individual sessions before subscribers experience congestion” Really? If there is no congestion, this solution seems like the most useless solution in existence. The truth is not that simple. The next 5-7 years will be about managing expectations, Service Level Agreements. And these will all have the small print regarding congestion. When we realise that, why do we see elements stopping the evolution of disc entertainment? I believe that this evolution will be a lot more essential in the next 2 years than anyone realises. And that is before you realise that there are even more options available, but I will leave that to you to figure out.

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June 15, 2022 · 20:48

Is it IP? Is it not?

Introduction
This is a story in parts, so lets begin with the introduction. In the old days (90’s) a company named SPSS (now part of IBM) came with a product called Answertree. It set the premise that Direct Marketing companies could either mail more or mail more clever. Th program allowed for the second part. So normally to get 15% more, you would have to mail 25% more, yet what happens when you get that result mailing 10% less? The system allowed for looking at the population you had, the population that responded and the two allowed you to see a tree, a tree with branches and connections. Soon you would see where to prune the tree, the parts that were not worth the squeeze wee pruned away and as you continue to prune this tree, you got a decent set of elements that were profitable. You learned that some elements are essential and others were not, you had a set of parameters to work with and in the old days you had 3.2% response, you got a new set where you only set out a mailing that was 80% of the first size and now you had a 6.8% response, it as clever mailing.

This reflects on Netflix and their ‘Netflix To Spend $17B On Content In 2021’, so what will they do in 2022, in 2023? That is the setting and there we get a new stage. What can be reused and what needs a rewrite, two settings that are still a lot cheaper than creating from scratch.

Prologue
Today I was thinking of an old hero. A Dutch actor named Joop Doderer. Those from my generation and the previous generation will all know him if they spend months in the Netherlands between 1955 and 1975. Joop gave view to the vagrant ‘Swiebertje’ and in those years there was not a Dutch person who did not know that name, a branding that could now not be matched by the Game of Thrones. As such I kept eyes on his work and knowing he was in something always brought a smile to my face. That is until today when I learned that there was one movie I actually never saw. In it were also Derek Jacobi, John Gielgud, and Richard Attenborough so several reasons to know this movie, and I missed it. It was The Human Factor (1979), the story was by Graham Greene all good reasons, and that is one side.

The next part is the view on intelligence. You see in this day and age there is practically no difference between state players and corporate players. Do you think that a fictive player like Zoogle will rely on the FBI to keep their AI safe? 

Business Intelligence is no longer simple data analyses, it has not been that for years. Now we get 

1. planning, 
2. identifying decision makers’s intelligence needs, 
3. collecting and analysing information, 
4. disseminating intelligence products and services, 
5. evaluating intelligence activities, 
6. promoting intelligence services among a client base,
7. additional industry-specific issues. 

Competitive Intelligence Division members concentrate on developing their competitive intelligence skills to assist them in functioning more effectively as intelligence professionals within their respective organisations. Combine these two elements and you could have the making of one hell of a killer thriller. You see we know that places have traitors, and nationally seen it is to black and white. I know as an Australian I am still bound to an oath to the Dutch Royal family, this oath stays in place until the day I die. As such I have no issues (and never had any) regarding the execution of a traitor. And there is a part I left out, you see, the Traitor Manning did something far worse, I saw it and some others saw it, but the bulk missed it, and that is good, because it links to all this.

Yet in the corporate stage this is a lot more grey, there is no white which is merely less dark grey and black which is merely less light grey and at that point the story could go in all kinds of directions. The good part is that the foundation written by Graham Greene is top notch and that quality of material should not be left to waste. 

Part 2
This is not directly related. I was watching  remake of the Creedence Clearwater Revival hit ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain’. In it I saw Jack Quaid (the dude from the Boys) and his love interest Erin Moriarty, so I looked up what I could in case the hit was connected to season 3 somehow (it is not). I also learned that his dad was the Astronaut wannabe Dennis Quaid from the movie InnerSpace. You know the movie where he tries to get to the girlfriend of Martin Short (Meg Ryan). OK, I took some creative liberties here, but lets be honest, Jack could have been the son from that pilot from Independence day named Randy Quaid. But he is not and these elements all play because I suddenly remembered another gem by daddy Quaid. It was D.O.A. I never saw the original so this was what I had and consider that story, same premise but the poisoning is clear and in the beginning, and Jack needs to find out who robbed the IP of a place like Zoogle before the toxins overwhelm him (they all think he did it). As such we see a steeple chase of events where we see more grades of grey and in the end as he dies, we see that it was his lady who switches the ring with a duplicate and walks off towards the competition. Under the ember was a reflective side making a minuscule chip invisible and the chip fits into a holder showing billions in IP, and the two movies are connected by a hand with one small element (like a pearl bracelet) which we do not see until the final moment in movie two. Two good movies that become great as each population will entice each other to see the other movie. So each movie is no longer seen a X and Y but as 2*(X+Y), a nice little bonus is it not?

And it seems like the players in stream land are not seeing that, they are not seeing the benefit of remaking a good movie (regardless of revenue) and remastering it to the setting we see today, the corporations are all in their own right governments and we all seem to dance around that. Oh and there is a reason for the prune story, but that is something you will have to work out, life is just not rewarding without a decent challenge.

It bears thinking, does it not?

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June 12, 2022 · 16:02

The ideas that create

That is a question and partially its own answer. A few different settings overflowed into me and it gave me the idea for a new series. I am not going to write it, but if someone can do something with this idea, go for it. It all started as I was watching the new Jurassic movie. It was fun, not great, but fun. It was not the story, not the acting. It is perhaps the setting of a 6th movie in the series. I reckon Isabella Sermon had the most fun being the opposing teenager. For some reason the answer to a riddle (a juvenile one) hindered my thoughts. The dinosaur ‘Lickalottapuss’. Not sure it is connected, but it was in my mind, so I mention it. As all this was happening. I considered what if in 1197 a knight of the Teutonic order saved the wrong person, not merely q person he could not save, but as such an Afreet became part of him. He leaves the order after his service and whilst he realises that he is not ageing as he should. He travels the middle east, trying to make sense of it all, all whilst a captured afreet is within him trying to make sense of the world he is in now. An afreet and his 850 year journey from the knight that basically saved him and then from first born son to first born son, century after century. And after 1965 he feels that he has gathered so much knowledge that he can make a difference. 

Yet, what if this afreet is not pure malevolence? What if he merely is trying to make sense of it all and the 850 years allowed him to do just that. What if any person has 23 generations of knowledge, not merely know where the skeletons are, but where some buried the bodies, precisely where they are. And that could make for an interesting view on what was and what could be.

A simple Teutonic order knight that evolves into a much larger setting. One where we can see the larger wheels in place. So what happens when the push of rage is taken from a demon? What happens when knowledge becomes its oyster? We are all about what is good and what is bad, but we forget what we can change and that good and evil are not polarised, merely harsh to change and knowledge is the first beacon of change. 

In that stage we have stages all over the world where this could apply. It is merely an idea, but I offer it freely to the one who can make something from this.Well that is my good deed for this century, next good deed June 14th 2122. Enjoy!

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May 21, 2022 · 15:21

Feeling confused

Well, there are two things, the first is that I got a workable idea to a final twist in ‘Exhaurire vitam’ the mini series that predominantly plays in New Orleans. There are a few scenes in other places, but the bulk is there. There are a few more issues that I uncovered in ‘How to assassinate a politician’, as such I have it close to ready, a movie and a mini series. Then there was the series ‘Kenos Diastima’, I have been tossing and turning on that and I feel that leaving it (for now) with an open ending at season three is the best way to go. Then I got another idea, this one was initially for ‘Exhaurire vitam’, yet the new series (the one I talked about a few times), has more traction with it and it opens up a nice can of worms. You see, the gods are all over all places, so there much have been some dependency. So what happens when one of them is in debt, or better stated, what happens when the debt was opened to a new source? That was the setting I contemplated on the subway. As such the main character would be open to all kinds of other things. That was the setting my mind worked on. And as I contemplated what could be possible when Bastet is thrown in the mix, the equation changed and that has long repercussions, not bad ones, but unforeseen ones and that tends to be good, because the unforeseen brings more than a surprise or a plot twist, it gives the story a new direction and I am all about that. But in part I have no idea why the images are coming to me so rapidly and so directly, that is the part that has me confused. It is like your brain playing some year at Hogwarts and you create the setting, but you never created the stage. In this example we all know it is J.K. Rowling. But the stage I create is new, has never ben contemplated, or written about. I have no idea where it all is coming from, so for now I follow the thoughts and create more stories and optionally more scripts. And I have no idea where it all goes. Even as I seek the implementation of Saudi TV in the movie, I wonder where it will end. So whilst I get that “Bryan Fogel says Netflix, Amazon and others wouldn’t buy ‘The Dissident’ because they were scared of angering Saudi Arabia” my story does EXACTLY the opposite and as such might be loved there, what I do not get is why not more are considering that step. In the end, good business is where you find it and basically I found it. 3 TV series, one movie, a game, console settings and the evolution to another 50 million consoles and beyond that I reengineered several Ubisoft games and created several 5G IP. Not bad for one person in less than 5 years. So if you are wondering what stops others doing the same, I have no idea. But I do believe that they are all looking in the wrong direction and I feel that more and more of that is proven. But the confusion stays. What if this is all between my ears? I do not believe that this is so, but if you cannot look at it from opposition from a distance than it means you have gone bonkers, have gone round the bend. Oh, and I also designed a weapon to get rid of the Iranian navy, so there (and that part is already online). But the confusion stays. I have no idea what is driving this all. Perhaps a last knee jerk action by the brain before it stops? Your guess is as good as mine, I am honestly clueless.

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May 20, 2022 · 19:03

The missing ingredient

We all have that. It does not matter whether it is food, drinks, series, movies, games. When an ingredient is missed, it counts, especially when it is an ingredient we thought highly of. In Assassins Creed it became Ezio Auditore. In Tekken it was your favourite character, in NCIS for some it was Tony DiNozo, for Charmed it was Shannen Doherty. And movies have their own crosses to bare (or was that bear?). Anyway, these thoughts came up as we lost Fred Ward to Eternity. I saw him first in Escape from Alcatraz. I always considered hm a good actor and I enjoyed watching his works, especially tremors. But my mind suddenly set on Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, which was shown in the Netherlands as Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous. There are a few issues with this movie. It would be the first time I saw Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway of the USS Voyager). It was not the greatest film made, but it had humour, which made the movie fun to watch. Joel Grey as Master of Sinanju Chiun was slightly too much over the top, but still fun. What was interesting was the plot. There we see an investigation of a corrupt weapons procurement program within the US Army. You see, that plot was new, or at least I had not seen it before and then the cogs started turning. Why does Netflix buy these rights and overhaul it into a mini series? You see a movie is nice, but 4-8 one hour episodes leading to a much larger, deeper and darker story might be a lot more rewarding in the long haul. And lets face it with the non functional weapons out there (USS Zumwalt, most of the Russian tanks) the setting for a large increased plot theme (especially when we pull the EU (Strasbourg) front and centre, the story could be appealing to a much larger audience, of course we will miss Fred Ward as a key ingredient, but nature tends to be unrelenting in these matters.

It is after-all about the weapons procurement program, and the stage where someone walks away with billions on a model that never went anywhere is a nice touch. It is even better if some elements are kept as close to the truth as possible. You see, Forbes gave us (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/10/30/an-82-year-old-is-suspected-of-decades-long-scam-selling-dangerous-weapons-parts-to-us-military/) ‘An 82-Year-Old Is Suspected Of Decades-Long Scam Selling Dangerous Weapons Parts To U.S. Military’, then there is ‘Metallurgist admits faking steel test results for US Navy subs’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59186655) and there is more where that came from, but consider the second part, consider the idea that the North Koreans (and Russians get a hold of that and a list of Los Angeles attack class submarines that have that steel? Now consider the play that could be made to get a submarine to a specific location and scuttle it ‘accidentally’ because the flaw was unknown. The story that some could write might keep the TV audience on the tip of their seat for the entire mini series, and the bulk of that work was already done. So as Netflix is trying to cut cost, here is an idea that they could use. But I think that they owe it to Fred Ward to have his picture somewhere (as an admiral) or as a father pic of the hero of that story, there are all kinds of ways where we can have a silent tip of the hat to a person who should not be forgotten like yesterdays news, but that applies to so many actors, I will be happy to admit that. When you know your games and consider Sir Alec Guinness as the CEO of Tri-Optimum, you know exactly what I mean. A simple setting of a series done in a few hours, Netflix get to work!

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April 22, 2022 · 02:54

Pure Flicker

Yes, many of us enjoy it all the time, the pure and the flicker. Some of us (like me) have it 3-4 months a year, two around Christmas and two around summer. And there are who do not like it at all, or they settle around Disney, Hulu or Stan. They are all in a seemingly stand-off. They all vie for the same population. As such, members will shift. I wrote about it before, it was always going to happen. This time there is more and there are a few sources. Lets take a look at two of them. In this we have 9 News who gives us ‘Netflix loses more than $US60 billion in minutes as investors flee’. Here we see “Shares of Netflix are imploding after the company reported its first quarterly loss of subscribers in more than a decade. The report far underperformed expectations, worrying investors who had been betting that a handful of big tech companies would continue to grow at a rapid clip. What’s happening: Netflix’s stock dropped 30 per cent when the market opened on Wednesday, instantly wiping more than $60.54 billion off the value of the company.” It is merely one part, channel 9 also gives us “Netflix said it shed 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year, when it had been expecting to add 2.5 million”. Here we have the first issue. You see ‘it had been expecting to add 2.5 million’ based on what expectations? You see there are two parts here. The first is that the covid era is sort of ending (sort of is the best I can give you). As such people are now expected to work, they cannot stay at home watching TV, so as millions go back to work, they will slide their subscriptions. As such the adding of 2.5M is one part, the loss of 200K makes sense and both numbers are up in the air. We can end up anywhere between plus 2.5M and minus 200K. Neither bother me, so the loss of $60B seems like an overreaction. But then we have the second article by the Guardian giving us ‘No wonder Netflix is bleeding subscribers – it’s become the new cable’ and they give us “Netflix posited everything from the war in Ukraine to people sharing passwords. But what if the reason is much simpler – that Netflix just isn’t really making much people want to see any more? It’s been a long time since Netflix was the total package: the home of cherished sitcoms like The Office, buzzy dramas like House of Cards, the exclusive venue for cinematic events like Bird Box and all for less than 10 bucks a month. Now, as the streaming service’s value nosedives, the big question is: are you still watching? And if so, what exactly?” It is a fair question and the stage I predicted well over a year ago is now coming to pass. One year prescription, spread over three providers. That is the reality of cramped budgets and these so called analysts with their expectations should have seen that coming a mile away, I saw it a year ago in my article ‘Choice, can you choose?’ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/01/09/choice-can-you-choose/) and there was another article. So the minus 200K is not too surprising and I do not understand the ‘scared’ investors. This was ALWAYS going to happen. But I am also not surprised. You see the statement “investors who had been betting that a handful of big tech companies would continue to grow at a rapid clip” shows us the American who is short sighted. The one who does not comprehend that markets saturate and as such they have this dumb believe that numbers can only go up. And until 5G is a national solution for a lot of countries this will happens and worse will happen when internet congestion starts biting, because that too will be a factor. As such I personally see the overreaction on Netflix as a storm in a teacup and only the scared investors can make it worse for themselves. 

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