Category Archives: movies

September 25, 2020 · 18:27

The new disaster movie

Yup, we all have seen them, buildings on fire (Towering inferno), silly snappers with appetite (Jaws), Catching your stones (Deep Impact), shaking your love (Earthquake), warming up the neighbourhood (Dante’s Peak), or solving the greenhouse effect (The Day after tomorrow), yes we have more likely than not seen at least one of them, especially when we still have our 2012 diary set to that day in December. And we all love these movies, especially when it is a fight of man (or woman) against nature, the person becomes the automated underdog and we know the we really do not have a chance, especially those who remember Will Yun Lee in San Andreas. Nature is a bitch any given day of the week.

So what happens when we take the premise and really give you a nightmare scenario? The idea popped up when I was looking to the absolute lack of intelligence coming from the Oval Office. So when we got the quote “Well, we’ll have to see what happens. You know that. I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster”, it was at that moment when I remember a situation in history, you might have heard of it, a guy named Nero and what he decided to do to Rome. It was at that moment when the mind started to think things through.
For your consideration

The setting is given to us in a stage where a person is opted to join Google and offers for sale all his 5G IP (let’s just pretend that is me, it is an ego thing) and it goes better than the main character ever considered. He is promptly paid the initial fee ($25,000,000 post taxation up front) and he hands over the IP, all of it and it is a winner, Google learns where they forgot to look and the main character gets a hell of a lot more than even he considered ($12B pre taxation), so as the IP becomes all Google, the main character heads for a nice early retirement with the largest golden parachute in history. Yet the people around him take notice, Russian organised crime, greed hungry bankers (a reference to HSBC) and they gang up on him, in this even American politicians and members of the CIA take care to snap up what they can and he ends up with nothing. This sets in motion a wave of rage never seen before and the silly criminals are all laughing, because they got the cash. But the creative mind goes to town and vows vengeance. He sets the stage with access to a larger NBC arsenal. Into the stage where he unleashes 13 nuclear sites, most of them near the spaces of the criminals, now suddenly everyone is crying like little bitches and how unfair it all is, but the main character is beyond caring, he sees the ultimate equaliser, it is loss, when the criminals and the corrupt are confronted with the loss of everything THEY care for, the need for a compromise by the criminals and politicians alike. He then sets on a larger binge, even as some think that they have a handle, he starts with the Nuclear bombing of Grand Coulee, Palo Verde, W. A. Parish, Monroe, Bath County, and Peach Bottom. These 6 changes the power options to the largest extent and no matter how great their protection was, having a 2 megaton bomb explode next to it renders such a place decently useless. At the same setting he sets of the 4 bombs near the goons responsible for being playing bad Santa to the main character, taking care of Chicago, San Francisco, San Antonio and Miami, the last to go off in Virginia setting the FBI and the CIA in a stage where they have nowhere to go. It is not the end, the Russian criminals are now in a stage where the law and a few hundred thousand Americans are hunting them down. As the rage in the main character goes on, we see the he had set the stage before the first nuclear bomb went off, where he had ‘liberated’ a few really nasty bedfellows. The bombs made reporting the issue a non-option, but as the nation is learning what had happened, the main character had seen everything taken away from him. He releases the diseases in Washington DC, Boston, Los Angeles and Jacksonville. The panic is now complete, as all plead for a compromise, we see the person put a gun towards his mouth, whispers ‘I will all see you soon’ whilst in the background a mustard gas bomb the size of a fuel bomb goes off, he swallows the barrel and pulls the trigger. We will vows that this will never be a reality, yet when we sit at home and we see ‘HSBC Stock Pummelled by Financial Crimes Report’ with the additional “hit by the fallout from revelations of the bank’s involvement in facilitating criminal activities” which happened three days ago. Crime and opportunity seekers tend to go after the people they think are weak, so what do you think happens when they go after the wrong person? This is not nature that you cannot stop, that opponent is still for the most predictable, it is the person that loses his or her mind, that person becomes unreasonable and unpredictable.

It becomes even more fun when we realise the HSBC was not alone, it is not. The Guardian reported three years ago ‘British banks handled vast sums of laundered Russian money’, am I still dreaming? Greed is like mother nature, it is predictable, and I do believe that insurmountable loss is the only thing the corrupt and the greed driven truly fear. The corrupt tend to think the it is for a greater good, you only have to blow away their children in front of a corrupt person to see their armour dent permanently. In that do you think that a person losing billions will listen to reason? Especially when government officials are involved? You might think that this will never happen, did you? But that is probably what you thought of banks as well. Greed has no limits, neither does rage and in this it tends to be a fight to behold, especially as unbridled rage equals a volcano or a meteorite that is on a path, neither of them ever wavers.

So yes, we can all agree with President Trump on “we’ll have to see what happens”, however do you want to be there when things go ballistic? I certainly don’t, but then this was merely a small movie idea, just like ‘How to assassinate a politician’, which I wrote about in ‘Sweden has it too’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/30/sweden-has-it-too/), I wonder if the people in the Critical Incident Analysis Group – CIAG (University of Virginia) the people who give us “But we are wrong about that. Mass shootings are not unstoppable, and there are people trying to stop them. They are not even inexplicable, because every time Trunk hears of one he understands why it happened and who did it”, I wonder where they were when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold decided to throw a little party at the Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. 12 students and one teacher did not make it out and there is every indiction that the damage could have been much worse. So what happens when you push a person over the brink, a person that designed a solution the 114 thousand people at Google had not considered. Sundar Pichai might be one of the 100 most influential people n the planet, but no one will blame him for not considering everything. So when the person with the one original idea goes nuts, what will the impact be? I believe it could be the disaster movie of the decade, a step on the chessboard that none of the hundred think tanks in the US can consider, they are not ready for the parameters and in that meantime the most damage is incurred.

Well, that is my sense of humour satisfied, have a nice weekend and sweet dreams, don’t think too much of the power station near you, any of them have at least 4 flaws that they all forgot to report on.

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September 24, 2020 · 18:59

The stage of a game

We all have an idea, some have the idea of a life time, but I cannot make that claim, not because I do not have one, but because I have too many. Yes there is the call to make remasters (Knights of the Sky), there is the call to reinvent the wheel (System Shock by Nightdive Studios), or there is the need to take it to the next level, a next level that was not possible in the past, mainly because technology did not allow for it.

This is how I always saw Pirates (by Sid Meier), there was a chance where Black Flag was a nice tribute, but it was the dawn of PS4 and Xbox One and Ubisoft took a cowardly way to progress a franchise on a lack of factors. So as I initially played Black Flag, my mind went racing. And then I remembered another pirate game, a board game with additional bluff cards. So what happens, when w take the foundation of Black Flag and make it more towards the original the Sid Meier made? The map would be well over 20 times the size, a lot more like the actual map of the Caribbeans in those days, the game would not be some fruity assassin, it would be your version and you get to live the life of a cutthroat, a buccaneer, a privateer, it is up to you, to go from a small skiff to a full-grown galley or slave ship if you are good enough. You see, there is something totally awesome about the way the game Elite Dangerous is designed (by David Braben). There your life does not matter, the game does not care, nor should it and it is time to set that stage to RPG and a pirate RPG makes a lot of sense. You cannot always be a captain, you start as a simple sailor. And in this you could get to a rank if you are good enough. 

So how do we go about it, we tend to look towards the wars of adjustment, yet there are so many wars the were never on the radar, the Dutch independence wars (which took close to 80 years), the age of piracy and lets not forget the Sudan wars (Mahdist War 1881-1899), all places that seem to be forgotten. Who remembers the siege of Khartoum? Some are so set in a stage of winning, the we sometimes forget that half the fun is surviving, so how far will you get? The original siege went on from 13 March 1884 to 26 January 1885, so what happens when you are in charge, how long will you last? Games are so much about winning, the we forget the enduring is nothing less. To make it to the date or even past it would be a victory and a half. It is so American to be the victor the most of them do not understand ‘the Last Samurai’, it is not about winning, it is about not losing, or better stated, the way you live towards the final days matters more, we forgot about that part, didn’t we?

We can set any gaming stage, but it is how we play where we see if we measure up, not if we merely tap the mile poles in a game. I reckon that the achievements made us all a little complacent in games. We can go in any direction, a Hindenburg flight simulator, yet in there we will always come up short against the Microsoft flight simulator, it makes more sense for them to add the Hindenburg. Yet what happens when we turn the script? What happens when we set the stage to a simple thing, what if the player is a no one, yet his/her grandfather was Hades, Poseidon or Zeus? What happens when we map a place like Monte Carlo completely and get him to retrieve a relic that one of the 2,261 millionaires or 50 billionaires has. Is it in a house, is it on a boat or is it somewhere else (like a museum)? We can simplify any game for as much as we can, but in the end we need a healthy story and for the most Wars tend to do that (an unhealthy endeavour if ever there was one). I saw the need of a game on mines, and remembered some bomb defusing game on the CBM-64, so where to go from there? The stage of a game is important, because it sets a vested interest of the gamer, Ubisoft had the down to perfection in Assassins Creed 2 and Brotherhood and after the they lost the plot, they almost won it back in AC4 Black Flag and they definitely got it back in Origins. I would think the a Battlestar Galactica RPG is one the would be favourable with the BSG fans, but not much outside that, the same can be said for Babylon 5, the Star Trek fanbase is huge, so that tends to be a close win any given day of the week, but that does not guarantee a good game, the issue is seen when an idea with a small base entices a large following, that is the stage we all seek. CD Project Red did so with Witcher and seemingly is about to do it again with Cyberpunk 2077.  It is the setting the fuels the story, and the story is everything, I have always believed that, it is the power of an RPG. It is because of the that we see out the great stories (Tolkien), yet I wonder what happens when we try this with Herbert on a larger scale with Dune, not merely on Arrakis, why if all the other places become involved? Perhaps a visionary will see that option with the next Dune movie (2020). In this books have been the strongest source of inspiration, mainly because there are so many of them. Yet most of us go to the same source, why? I agree that it is appealing, but there are so many nations with alternatives. That is something we saw when someone created the Untitled Goose Game, brilliant t in its foundation, as such I wondered if someone had considered the same thing with a cat (Minoes, Annie M. G. Schmidt), a writer the has a following of millions in the Netherlands and Belgium. In that same setting, as Skyrim became such a hit, did anyone ever look towards the famous Spanish Comic books of the Mercenary by Segrelles? It has all the makings of a much larger game, a stage where some are set not in multiple games, but one game with a season pass and several DLC’s.

Then there is the comic hero Rork, by Andreas, or even the Trigan Empire by Don Lawrence. I remember growing up to these stories and the stories of Ravian (Valerian), I am a little surprised that the Trigan Empire never made it to the silver screen or the computer, Don Lawrence has a flair for imagery and the computer always needs this. So what is the stage of a game that will be set next? The is the question and the is where players like Sony and Google/Apple will find themselves. Microsoft might be acquiring the brands (Bethesda), yet they do not have the stage alone and the next innovator might be just around the corner. For me, the idea that the $7,500,000,000 lemon the Microsoft acquired (not Bethesda mind you) would backfire largely and loudly and the would be OK with me.

As I personally see it, Microsoft pissed of true gamers and that group of people doesn’t pull punches when they play with their idols, we do not fault Bethesda in any of this, but aligning with Microsoft was not the best idea, as some say, you are only as good as your next game and Bethesda had plenty of winners, but what is next? We look not merely to the stage of the game, but to the next stage of gaming and I believe that they are too often hiding behind terms like ‘hype worthy games’, yet that is a setting from the mind of a marketing department, they predict that people who play games, will think this is a hype. Yet true hypes come from games the are on the edge of what is possible in gaming, the Witcher 3 is the perfect example there. Cyberpunk is also on the stage, neither of them are Microsoft games. Yet it was brilliant to buy Bethesda, but the also means that those who do not love the Microsoft console will look to the borders and see what else is possible, optionally setting the stage for the $7,500,000,000 lemon, not because of Bethesda, but because gamers have a lack of trust in Microsoft and the fact that some had the numbers that only 1 out of 3 considered the new Microsoft console, the gives me the impression that Microsoft has a much larger problem and buying software houses will not solve it, making visionary games do and the is the lesson Microsoft has not learned. They opened the door for Sony to look what else is out there, what else could become an exclusive and the is where Sony will win and gamers will win. Because it is on the edge of possible gaming where new gamers will be born, new games will be born and at the end of my life I see that there are options coming towards gamers, games the will create new gamers, it will create new creativity and new thinking through gaming and this is a good thing. The simple truth is the there is real gaming beyond Ubisoft and Microsoft, true gaming is never soft, it is challenging and the is where we need to look, we need to look where they are not looking. That is how I got most my IP in several fields. Not by being some bullet point presenter like all the others, but by looking in a direction they decided not to bother looking. That is how most revolutionary IP is created, and it is funny as this is the way Microsoft and Ubisoft started, to look where no was. Too bad they forgot about the part of the equation and I reckon the Sony is waking up to that lesson at present.

 

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September 21, 2020 · 23:28

And that was a hard sell?

OK, we all have these moments where we think ‘I can do that’, in my mind I can be an NHL goalie, becoming the wall in a goal that no one can pass (Wayne Gretzky eat your heart out). I can be as delusional as I want to be thinking that I could be the goalie of the Edmonton Oilers, the San Jose Sharks, or perhaps the Vancouver Canucks. Yup, nothing wrong with my capacity to dream, but what happens when we truly believe that? When we create something bigger than ourselves? I have created the IP of 5G, of videotapes that have not yet released and the other day I came up with the concept of a new TV series, based on an all time classic. Yet what happens when we add our own spice to the equation? In my case it is a space station, it is about 500 meters, roughly vibe shaped and when the 8 people wake up, they realise that they are no longer home, but they do not know where they are. It is that setting that I used to create a new series. So far 8 episodes per season. 

As I started, I got to (avoiding spoilers as much as possible)

Introduction, backstory

Here we start the introduction of the 8 people, it seems a little familiar, because that is how introductions tend to be. We see it from the first person, then the second person, all are confused and all are a little scared, both the males and females alike. The 16 represent different people, the pragmatic lady where we see flash backs where she is a bag lady in Chicago, now cleaned and like the others in some kind of a white overall, the African American who is on the flashback a hedge fund manager, cold and calculating, a mechanic from Paris Texas, looking at the rooms around him, having his own thought. The story continues and as we see the rooms who are all spic and span, we end the episode where they see a large window with fish, corals and no light in sight. The fish are according to one of the man, really deep sea fish.

Where are we? (+ continuance backstory)

The story continues, but more focussed on the where they are, with here and there a small back story recall. We see the icons on the doors, the coloured icons on the wall, the 3d maps and icon based settings of the rooms, as they are setting in their new environment, three groups form, two groups of 5 and one of 6. At that the groups start to focus on the icons on their overalls, speculating on the icons of gender and trying to work out the meaning of colour.

Symbols, iconography, Rosetta Stone (+ continuance where are we?)

One of the 5 groups finds a stone, The icons that are around them and on them and the stone gives three other versions of the symbol, the gender, the setting mechanical, financial, medical, logistical, and many more, they all reflect on what is on the station in one way or another. It is the that another group finds a tablet, and group three finds another display tool. When they unite they compare notes and they united in the rosetta stone room to share the knowledge they have found and what they think things are.

First breakthrough, water

They are still in the setting that thy do not know just how deep they are, there is nothing to set the stage of how deep they are, the entire setting is a little unnerving. Yet they start to identify icons and when they see the icon for water, they all rejoice, their first stage of survival is found, they now have water, thirst and the need for a bathroom.

That was a bidet. second breakthrough food, first 24 hours passed

As they approach the first 24 hours in their new environment, they find the food stash, the C-Rations give light to them being in a military experiment. 

The map room, memories, the last hour of some

In this episode they find a map room, giving them status, giving them a view of the size of the station, and we see the last moments of some of the members, their abductions are in a stage where they were in a bad place.

Coffee corner with coffee, the map room continuance, more water

As they are outside to the map room, the corner there is a place where they relax a little. The setting is one where they discuss what some of the systems are, and as they are somewhere deep in the ocean, they are not willing to test the devices that much, fear sets in, but everything looks OK, they sit together translating the icons as much as they can. It leads to a different water symbol, one that turns out to be the showers, they have found a place where they can clean up.

Almost 48 hours, the view of a lifetime, where are we? and what is that?

This starts in the so called coffee corner, there is a button that was out of sight, one of the women finds it and presses it, the wall moves up and they get to see the vast blackness of the ocean, or so they think. So as the stare t the blackness, they see the light come from the side, it is bright light, and as the view becomes more in sight, they all realise that they are staring at the sombrero galaxy, almost a dozen times bigger than the Hubble telescope can project. Then one of the men realises something and they run through the corridor to the other end of the corridor, where a similar wall is, they press the button and they get to see the spiral galaxy, it is absolutely huge, they are not in the ocean, they are in space and they are far from earth, the view ends season 1. So far I got most of season 2 designed with a rather spooky cliff hanger towards Season 3 and I got to be a little eager beaver when I set up the cliffhanger to season 4, but left the rest of season 3 alone.

Yup, that was my creativity, and I reflected on the Rendez-Vouz with Rama, a book by Arthur C. Clarke, a book he wrote in 1973. My introduction to the book was a video game produced in 1996 by Sierra On-Line. It was my introduction to the story, it is what drove me to make my version of it whilst trying to embody the thoughts of Arthur C. Clarke (based on 2001). 

So when will you design something unique to you? I got my creativity with me, the list is long and distinguished. And I do not care where this ends, I have a plan with my 5G IP and it will more than set me right for life. The direct way to deal with greed is to make the other thoughts public domain, so that no one can claim them and they are basically free to use, that too is an option in IP, only the greed driven forget about that part of the equation. Should you deny that part, then have a little look at the HSBC bank and the FINCEN document leak, look at that level of greed and consider where we are. When we see the facilitation to crime to this degree and we realise that governments are basically doing nothing, you know where you are and I bet you haven’t even realised that you are without a paddle. I think that Arthur C. Clarke got it right when he named the vessel the Rama. He got it right 47 years ago, so how wrong have we been for the last few decades?

Just a thought to consider.

 

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September 18, 2020 · 22:27

Not merely another movie

This is not the now, previously (1-2 years ago) I came up with a new idea for a movie, it is not an action movie and it is not a documentary. In the movie a really wealthy entrepreneur (played by Chris Hemsworth) witnesses an event and it sticks with him, as he goes through the day he sees movies about lobsters, all whilst he eats one, he has half a dozen screens in his office and he is bombarded with data upon data. As this man is considering things, an event sets his mind towards seaweed, in this stage he creates a new seaweed farm outside of Chennai, where he farms seaweed, in his setting he also starts replanting seaweed to keep the balance, but it is during this stage that India gets hit with a massive tsunami, even as he has little damage, the eastern coast is hit harsh and that is when he sets up large crematoria to facilitate for the massive deaths and the people are exempt for payment, the receive the ashes in an urn. It is a few weeks later when the media is getting a breakthrough on affordable seaweed and the drying methods that allows for a setting to feed the world, in the end titles we see the presentation where he presents Soylent Green.

OK the twist is a little naughty, but who remembers Soylent Green, the movie that propelled Charlton Heston in 1973 to even greater heights than ever before. Even as it was merely loosely based on Make Room! Make Room!, the movie had a profound impact on me. And there is a precedence for this. When we consider that seaweed grew from 13.5 million tonnes in 1995 to just over 30 million tonnes in 2016. (at http://www.fao.org/3/ca0191en/ca0191en.pdf), there is more information besides the numbers on page 10, there is a larger impact that seaweed has on corals, as such farming where possible for seaweed is not the worst idea. 

We need to start looking in the outer margins not for what we want, but for what does the trick whilst we find ways to overcome other issues. To see this we need to take heed of the words by Douglas Rasher, who gives us “The important takeaway is that competition between corals and seaweeds can cause dramatic changes in seaweed physiology, both in terms of their growth and their defense”, so even as I take sides with the coral, there is both an upside and a downside. The question becomes, am I on the right side? The coral bleaching gives rise to the fact I am, but nature is a stage of balancing seesaws, you set the balance on one, the others go out of alignment pretty quickly, and messing with them all tends to be disastrous, as such the rule of torts law come into effect, small steps, small steps to the end goal and in case of nature the steps need to be smaller still. 

So as I remember the idea I had on the prequel of Soylent Green, the stage we find ourselves in is not the movie, but the original it was based upon. The book explored the consequences of unchecked population growth on society and what the book envisioned in 1966 ended up being almost here in 2020. There is a rare setting of foresight here, even as the numbers are not on the level yet, the movie played in 2022 and this is not that far away, even as the numbers are still a little off, the need to feed the world remains, the UN gives us “An estimated 821 million people in the world suffered from hunger in 2018”, so even as we need to accept the cannibalism is still way off, the idea of adding seaweed to the global food source is not, and we need to consider it in a serious way to add seaweed to every supermarket there is. Yet we also need to take heed on life in the oceans, when a billion people rely on the same plants that feeds the herbivorous fish of the ocean, something will give way and our record on accepting the consequences is not that good, but all we can do is d the best we can, yet is it enough?

Our lives, our exploitations, our shortages and our needs are not a movie, yet we tend to think it is, because our lives are easier this way, when we blame it on the silver screen, or set the watch towards a reality TV show, but reality is less sweet, has less honey and a lot more vinegar. And our sour setting will come home to roost soon enough, when the hunger facet goes beyond the 800 million mark and hits 1.2 billion, it will pour into the realms where the media actually looks, I wonder how the shortage will be introduced, or better stated how those controlling the media would like it to be explained. 

 

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September 13, 2020 · 23:09

Retracing steps

That is the mood I am in, I am retracing certain steps from the last 12 hour. You see, I came up with a new idea for a movie, but I get so many of them, now I am in that state of mind on what I was thinking of. You see, it matters, because even as one thought does not, it tends to move in a direction that my mind was ignoring, and with that, the train of thought was creating a station that could matter a great deal. I know I was in the mindset of quests in TES-VII, then I was remembering the path of Hades, the path of the dead (I was in a stage of setting missions for the storyline of the Necromancers, and it is good to remember the classics (Hades is as classic as it gets), so my mind wavered. It wavered for a moment to the movie ‘How it Ends’ (because of the fires in the US. And then I remembered something, what if the world is saved, not for people, but for all the others? What happens when the path of Hades is a disease so devastating that it deletes 98.7% of all people at present?

This entire world remains with a mere 101,000,000 on the entire planet. I remember an idea for a DNA based disease. You see DNA is used to create proteins, they  are required for a person to function, but what happens when a specific DNA is created, almost shaped like a ‘Y’, the letter can be seen as 3 parts (see image), the included, the excluded and the  method of transformation. It does not matter which colour is what, it was the idea that counts. With a world now at 110 million, nature could repair itself, we have lost many animals, but those who remain would have a setting to survive and this time around, mankind is not as trusted as much and nature will be much harsher to overcome, of course but that is if we can brave the elements, the couch potatoes won’t get to much of a chance. Yet that is the setting we will talk about another time, for now, the idea of a setting of survival, this wouldn’t be a survival story, we have seen plenty of those, it will be about the setting stage of spreading a disease like that, that is why it is a DNA disease, the people become the carriers and the rats setting the plague on their fellow human beings. 

Each person becomes a carrier, every community a lighthouse of more and new sick people. And when the disease surpasses certain percentages, we see governments fold, we see the greed driven run in panic and we see the caring in a stage when there is nothing more to care for and no one left to care for. So why Hades? Hades was the fist born of Cronos, he is not as high regard as Zeus or Poseidon, but in all this Hades as god of the underworld has more options, all those who die serve him, in the end we all end up serving Hades, no exceptions. Also according to myth, he was the most displeased with mankind, so he gets to end most of us. 

And in this, what if Olympian DNA is part of the disease, if the method of transformation is Olympian, the gods and Demi gods are automatically immune. Yet that would not be enough, the stage is not merely what they could do, but the stage that they arrived here gives more rise to the place where their ship now is (in the Peru-Chile Trench) at roughly 7,600 metres depth. So when we consider the first hurdle, it is not Hades giving us the DNA finger, it will be Hades convincing Poseidon to allow it to happen, which gives us the stage of vengeance of what man did to the oceans and Poseidon was on board, in this Zeus is made useless as Poseidon and Hades united in their disappointment of mankind. There is more, but that is where I got in about an hour, the (optional) mini series would be about how we flaunted and spitted on what we have and when nature is in a stage where it does not care where we end, we see a consumer driven population that cannot fend for itself. It would result in a slightly less optimistic view on the world in 10 parts of about an hour. 

There is a nice symmetry here, we denied the Greek gods, the Italians overrun them and now the Greek gods get to overrun all of us, it merely a matter of perspective, and the DNA virus? I forgot where I left the Genome Compiler, you see, the idea was set not on the station of merely DNA, but the setting of what happens when we add two new elements to the stream, we see the two elements as merely a stage, but what happens when the two new ones interact with the four known ones and connect? That is why I came up with the ‘Y’ shape and no DNA has any defence against the two parts it never met before, in this the stage where a mere 1.013171122% gets to have an actual immune response, and when you consider COVID-19 where only 4% is deadly, it should be enough to pretty much scare you to death, if not that, then consider the city of New York, with a mere 109,187 left alive, it will be a case where those left alive will ponder the setting of ‘the deafening silence’ not for a moment, but in EVERYTHING you do, it should be an unnerving experience for all. 

Anyway, I was merely playing with ideas and as I create new settings, I also set new idea’s for whatever is in front of me, in this case it is a mission for the Necromancer guild, a station where we see an optional new challenge for those in need in Cyrodiil, in this case a temple that needs to get erected, in this case, either the Niben Bay or the Panther River, I haven’t decided yet. But I am decently sure that I will set a very different altar near Anvil, a set stage that allows for much more entertainment, especially if you need to get there from Elden Root, ahh, so much to do, so little hard drive space. Life remains full of challenges (for those still around in a year or so), fate is a fickle thing, so let’s be marry and enjoy an Irish Stew, optionally with a red ale.

Retracing my steps was a little more entertaining then I thought, but I will accept that 7,683,000,000 might disagree with me, so go complain to Hades, or Ralph Fiennes, or Cheyenne Jackson, or James Woods, or whatever he calls himself now. I am happily a non caring person at present (because I am hungry). 

Have fun!

 

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August 24, 2020 · 16:25

In Netflix we trust

Yup, as marketing titles go, it is not the worst and to be fair, Netflix has its ups (and downs), yet there is no denying, they have been offering a lot more than most and the really good series that they do not have (Billions for example) does not mean that they are not on a high. In that setting I was considering to additional titles for the Netflix barn.

Title unknown

It is a weird title to set the stage to, I saw the movie about 25 years ago and I still remember parts of the movie, this movie sticks with me like nothing I have ever known. In the movie a man basically commits a misdemeanour and unknowingly leaves the state, as he lives his live, a well respected man, engaged to a nice lady and a decent breadwinner, he is contacted about the event. He is willing to pay a fine, he is willing to make repairs (he did no damage to anyone), and he is offered a deal one months of light jail time in the state the crime was committed and the slate is wiped clean, when he gets to the town he is arrested and in court he is made an example of, nothing of his goodwill is shown and he gets a much longer jail term and not in a light jail, the system intentionally thoroughly destroys the man and after a long time, he escapes. A little later we see the man approaching his fiancé, she asks him how he will survive, his response “I’ll make it, I’m a criminal now”, the man is a psychotic shade of his former self.

I was unable to find the movie, but I would love to see it again, I also believe that this movie could be remade into a modern version, I reckon Will Smith might be a great fit, but that is not a dealbreaker, there are several really good actors, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Don Cheadle, all great choices, all established actors, because this is not a soft movie, this would be a much darker version as today is a much darker reality than the people in 1950 could dream of. 

Hiding Out

Hiding out is a 1987 comedy drama. It is not one of the best 140 movies from the 80’s, yet I still remember the movie. I believe it to be a diamond in the rough (sorry Disney). Jon Cryer made it into an above average movie. And it could be made into a serious piece of work, perhaps a 3-4 episode mini-series. The story is about 3 stockbrokers passing off bogus stock for the mob, when the issues start the mob get rid of one of them and the other two run for cover into the arms of the FBI, yet on route things happen and one more bites the dust. The one remaining (Jon Cryer) goes underground in high school. I believe that it could be a much larger story, especially if we add darkness and realism to the remake. The original was fine, especially in 1987, but in 2022, if we set the stage in episode one into a more realistic view of stock markets and how bogus junk bonds are created, the risk involved and how the US government is basically unable to stop it, merely limit the damage at best. From that we get to episode two and shed light on FBI protocols and activities. How they work (to some degree) and the options of evading the FBI (and the mob) as the protagonist ends up in a less visible state (like Arkansas, Ohio, Idaho, or Wisconsin). As such we see the stage of how the new protagonist sets up his new identity in one of these state colleges as an economics teacher. Episode three will be set in college life and how he falls for one of the other teachers, and her life (so we can use the ATM part to get the mob and FBI back on track), and in light of that we get to the final episode where we get the showdown, the arrest of some (not all) of the mob and the essential need of the protagonist to enter witness protection. The episode ends with him falling of the radar and some look on how witness protection works. I state all this in an academic approach, but it will be a drama (some comedy would be nice too), Jon Cryer is too old for the role now, but I believe it would be nice having him as the clued in FBI agent, or perhaps one of the mob bosses. Merely two ideas mixing in my mind, and it is only Monday, what will I be capable of on Wednesday? 

Well, that will be another story, optionally another creation whilst I wait the terms I have to wait for.

 

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July 8, 2020 · 23:38

The Dreaming team

There are these moments where we all tend to think and to believe that some matches were made in heaven, but what happens when the realisation hits that a match is just one step forward to hell? I got my MacBook Air two weeks ago (after waiting 7 weeks), my iPad has currently not drives and that waiting time is about to end week 8. Now, I do not regret getting the MacBook, it is slim, it has 2TB storage and it weight less than the average steak and cheese sandwich, as such a good call. And the media tends to agree.

I have been restoring back ups, setting flags in place and yes, I have no regrets. Yet then I realised another matter, I also got Disney Plus for free for a year. It was an uncalled benefit, but seemingly a benefit none the less, so I went to take a look and there the road to hell blame clear. 

At first I was looking and my look was equal a person who had died and gone to heaven, Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, Westworld, the X files, I had happy thoughts that surpassed meeting Grace Park, Evan Rachel Wood and Dominique Tipper naked, So I started c licking as the happy SciFi Camper I am, but wait, here it comes, nothing there is for free. The Expanse was $8 per season, Battlestar Galactica $10 per season and the Plan $23, so where is the ‘One year of Disney Plus for free?’, I am logged in, my Apple ID is clearly there, which made me wonder whether Disney was merely the facilitator, So I decided to look for Tron: Legacy, I had not seen that movie in a long while, it might help me relax. Nope, that too is $15, I could rent it for $5, but in a year, why rent? Even Disney’s own the Nightmare before Christmas is $15, what a Christmas present is that? It seems that the Grinch is holding onto its coins and running Disney as I see it. 

So perhaps it is may Australian side, perhaps ‘One year free’ means something different in America?

As far as I see it, Netflix has nothing to worry about, the way Disney goes about it, and as I personally see it, there won’t be much of a Disney plus under these conditions. And when I see that the search bar gives no results for ‘The Mandalorian’, or ‘Mandalorian’, that is when I see that some American firms will never learn, or learn too late. Even the new and noteworthy ‘Marvel’s Inhumans’ is $3.49 per episode. As such I wonder why the media has not picked up an any of this, so as Business Insider gives us “Beyoncé’s new film “Black Is King” will stream exclusively on Disney Plus starting July 31.” My question becomes, at what price?

 

I wonder if Apple can be held to account for the viewed deceptive conduct, there was never any mention of prices for anything, but that is perhaps just me. When you consider that thousands bought Apple hardware, how many did so because there was a ‘One Year of free Disney mention?’

Just Asking, I let you decide on how this unfolds.

Free DisneyPlus? They must have been dreaming!

 

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May 4, 2020 · 13:22

Remaking the past, facing tomorrow

I have been working on my novel, at 58,000 words, I am more likely only 50% done, but there is a lot more to come and as I was considering (creating in the mind) a new IP in the form of a new TV series I realised that the same idea could be an addition to the book I am writing. As such I felt a little bit of a traitor, as such I feel I have to make amends, even as no one has been hurt, I felt that smudge of treason to the idea. As such, my mind decided to take a turn towards the past, not the distant past (Iran in the old days), but a little more present (like the 70’s). I have written about the best drama series that the UK ever made (I Claudius), yet it was not alone, in that age two other series were made, both in the 70’s and both had a Greek origin. The first was Who pays the ferryman and the other was the Aphrodite inheritance. Both (for that time) excellent pieces of work, both based on excellent books and both with a setting that was mesmerising. Who pays the ferryman gave me the interest for Crete an interest that still lives on today, I have seen it three times. 

Cyprus (where the Aphrodite Inheritance was made) was less on my radar, yet the story was fun and gripping. 

I believe that places like Apple and Netflix could turn these two into interesting remakes, put Greece again and more visibly on the map. Even as the episodes are timely, the remake could set the spirit in the now and the issues that grip Greece, the stories could be upgraded and the issues that were skated round can be gripped with connected nearby historic places like Spinalonga, a stronger interaction with Agios Nikolaos and so on. Crete has plenty of stages and plenty of options. 

The Aphrodite Inheritance, started strong and the story takes on a nice turn, yet in today’s environment, the stage could be set with optional IP theft and industrial espionage (on top of the relic part in the story). It all hit me as I saw the Aphrodite inheritance on YouTube the other day, I believe that the older series and especially the mini series are getting more and more views, not because of the lockdown (partially driven by it), but the fact that plenty of Americans are now looking through the UK base of drama and it has them hooked (I agree that is speculative of me). Yet the number of views and the turn that SBS is making with Name of the Rose, shows that there is a growing interest in remaking good drama into something larger and even more astounding. I admit that I was skeptic on seeing the first few episodes of Name of the Rose, but so far that series exceeded whatever I thought was possible and I think that players like Netflix and Apple are always looking towards new IP, yet they too realise that what was made almost half a century ago was often not surpassed in all these years and the two titles I mention are on that list too. 

And in addition, no matter how many franchises there are and how many Marvel movies are coming, the people also want excellent drama and a lot of franchises just do not deliver on that to the degree described (neither do the Marvel movies). This is nothing against the Marvel movies as their origin is very different from many movies and we get that, and we love them. Yet we want more and we seem to want it now. Apple seems to be on top of the New IP with the new shamalamadingdong series (the man who made the Sixth sense) and now with Servant he makes another stab at our dread factor, he does it (as stated by others) in an exceptional way. 

Yet in this day and age, movies and TV series that rely on the Wow factor do not make it very long and that is where the stage of drama can add to the venue. In the first, the rewatchability of any drama is a lot higher than most other series. Yes, we love horror and Science fiction, yet how often will we rewatch them? Consider an American drama series like The West Wing, the fact that even today a lot want to see it again, even as the series ended well over 10 years ago is decently exceptional, there are other series and yes, there are plenty of wow based series that have the same, but the stage of drama is larger, there is no denying it. Whether a drama is dipped in Fantasy, Science Fiction or Horror does not matter, it is the drama effect that draws the people in and I believe that the audience wants to see more of that and there is every chance that Netflix needs to adhere to that part if they do not want to witness a audience transfer towards Apple plus. That will be seen towards the end of the year as more series and remakes hit Apple plus, they took a swing and hit the ball out of the ballpark. The remakes are more than just a choice, series and movies that were quirky and often fun will optionally become the TV series that are drama’s with a coating of wow. There is no way to tell how this will fare, and this is not an attack on Netflix, but Apple took the war to the next stage and they were ready for bear in this fight. To coin a phrase ‘they brought a bazooka to a gunfight’, and that bazooka merely has to be aimed into the vicinity of Netflix, Netflix will get hit no matter what, the amount of damage cannot be foreseen and the entire Covid setting brought it to the forefront. It hastens the setting we see now and even as Netflix has a lot more series, there is every indication that a 10% shift might be enough to get the Netflix investors running for cover and for them to find a way to break even at best. Yes, we see how Netflix shares are rising faster and faster, but lets not forget that as Americans and Europeans get back to work, they will stop using Netflix to a much larger degree, and in all this the internet congestion we see all over the world does not help Netflix, Internet providers were not ready all whilst they claimed they were. I warned people of that fact in 2018, now I am proven correct, even better, there is every chance that the entire congestion stage will increase over the near future and it has nothing to do with gamers. Zoom with its conferencing side will set a much larger international stage and consider how many firms work internationally now and under the strain of a reduced workforce how many more zoom meetings people have to look forward to.

A stage that goes from bad to worse and there is no way to stop that event. Yet this too is a stage we must give value to, as I see it the entire congestion setting is a drama all by itself, a stge of interactions that will not work and will show other wait time and loading icons, but no movie and no shows to see. It is important because it will hit both Apple plus and Netflix. 

There is nothing as hilarious as both offering 4K whilst the internet providers cannot deliver, the entire Corona stage is merely pushing to the foreground what was there all along. So as that stage is debunked more and more all over Europe and the US, we will soon see a stage where the material not the resolution matters and there we see another stage evolve, the quality of the story, because a wow film is only as good as we get to 4K and uninterrupted view and so far there was a lag and has been for almost 2 years, and as we see the congestion pushed to the foreground more and more, because under 5G the matters will only get worse, not less. 

Yet in all that the remakes will give rise to another lag, the stage of crowd control on the internet. Yes, you might laugh yet the stage is already there, the people will demand the full service all whilst Netflix, Google and others are limiting resolutions to appease the covid pressures of online. And in that stage we see a much larger need, the need to deal with congestion right in the middle of the stage of switching between 4G and 5G. Congestion has not been dealt with and cannot be dealt with, not in the immediate future, as such the people will see a much larger shift to appease their demand and the smaller players will now face the hardship of not being able to deliver, it is a drama all by itself.

No matter how we see the coming of more remakes, they are the stuff we demand, for all kinds of reasons, yet enjoying it on a decent quality will remain a question not merely for the direct future, for the larger timespan, even as people will stop to some degree the stage of streaming, the stage of TV series without advertisements is a lot more appealing than most think and when they are confronted with advertisements the entire stage of Apple Plus, Netflix et al will come to the forefront again and still it comes with internet congestion just below the surface, pushing its head above the waterline sooner than ever before. 

A view to face in the sights of tomorrow.

 

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April 26, 2020 · 05:00

What is the good place?

It’s Sunday, I am currently watching the original Planet of the Apes, it is one way to pass the time, just watch an actual classic. I have had an interesting day. With my mind on creativity, the series ‘the Good Place’ inspired me to a different miniseries. Consider a simple inventor, the man is a Civil Engineer, and he comes up with the bright notion of inventing a different kind of heavy metal filter, a way that is based on centrifugation. It is a simple yet novel idea, and he submits the idea and registers the patent. It is not a week later when he is suddenly invited for a meeting with an ‘interested party’, when he gets there he sees that the ‘interested parties’ involve a politician and a former employer. Before he knows what is happening, his patent is under attack, the politician and the former boss have sought legal assistance and they claim that the patent was stolen. In the end, after the court case they take 100% and he ends with nothing. Over time he learns that the judge was in on it, he had become a silent partner in the event that scores them $6,000,000,000 split 6 ways. 

This starts the plan where he starts to get even. The clock now jumps 12 years, the 6 are of course really happy, and during that event the social engineer walks in and shoots the entire party, the thieves their partners and 11 children. 

The next moment we see that they are in heaven, the 6 families are there, and they have large mansions, cherubs that take care of their needs and they are seemingly happy. It is at this point that the floor comes down from under them. The idea is that the civil engineer got away from hell somehow and is not wreaking havoc in heaven, yet in all this, heis focused on the 6 families, taking one child after another, all to be collected and placed on a cage of emonic thorns, making the children sign over their souls for their parents non prosecution of theft, all the kids agree and are dropped into hell, at that point the parents have to select heaven or hell, in the end only one accepts the exchange and jumps into hell with the key that will unshackle his child. 

That is as far as I got, the link to the good place is seen when in the end it shows that they were all in hell, the heaven impression was done in a deal between the head demon (Asmodeus) and the civil engineer to get his revenge. The deal was his soul freely given to teach the thieves a lesson. Yet the civil engineer has another part in all this, as the thieves sign over their allegiance towards their soul for the absolution of their crime, the second plan comes into effect. It will be his ticket out of hell. 

That is as far as I got, it took about an hour to think it through, there is a lot more, but I will not bore you with that part, not for as long as it is not properly scripted. 

This was my state of mind as the news hit me on the Coronavirus, the idea that the US has 52,000 deaths to the coronavirus, 25% of all global deaths, and they are now reopening (to some degree) their country, apart from a president making (sarcastic or not) some claim that the body can be cured from the coronavirus by applying detergent to it. In all this, we get the realisation that Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck Trump both seem to live at Pennsylvania Avenue 1600,it seems that Disney characters are getting a living upgrade. Not bad for a weekend, is it?

Yet the idea of making an iteration of the Good Place wasn’t my initial idea, yet I reckon is that this series has had its impact, yet my version is not a comedy, it is much darker, heaven almost exceptionally puritan, and hell is dark and fire red in aspects (I haven’t been there yet so my view on this place is still shaping. Yet if we agree that we are driven by the seven sins and the seven virtues, the trap we make for ourselves is that there is a lack of balance. If Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness and humility are on one side, what is on the other? Pride? Avarice? Envy? Wrath? Lust? Gluttony? Sloth? As I see it, they nullify one another, like a seesaw we are on the twisting point between sin and virtue, how can we chose the balance? If Lust and Chastity are on a seesaw and our setting is the axial, how can we select? Love is a combination of many facets, lust and chastity are part of it, but they do not stand alone and we are in a stage to keep the seesaw balanced. The issue is not lust or chastity, it is fear and greed. The US reopening their places (to some extent). In all this the numbers are screaming part of the idiocy (as I see it), all these nations, the EU at almost 750 million citizens. Then we get India, Asia and in all this, the registered deceased spans 25% of the world, that is the US. Reopening stores and trying to get back into the swing of things is a choice and perhaps it is the better one, I do not have the knowledge to debunk it, but the larger healthcare message is lockdown, there is wisdom in that too. Knowing what is best is not for me to say. I understand both sides and as we see Bloomberg giving us one side,the NPR rolls in another direction, like the seesaw, the axial of balance is in the middle, yet to what direction should we swing? The problem is that for most of us the balance point is influenced by fear and equally by greed. Greed might not be pronounced outspokenly by a lot of people, but greed is a reason we must address. Even as for most it will be about the ability to pay the bills, is it any less greed driven? We might all see greed as evil (I at times do that too), yet the need to survive is also laced with greed, the need we have to pay our bills, we call it differently, but it remains a form of greed and not all greed is pure evil. This reminds me of an original Star Trek episode, it was called ‘the Enemy within’, the realisation that the good Kirk and the evil Kirk need one another, if balance of ruthlessness and empathy is essential to make sensible decisions, we see another path that we all face. The more primal the drive,the more direct the balance between both elements is seen. We are at times driven to deny the negative emotions, yet the early lockdown the harsh decision (or logic) behind it might have lowered the curve for the US, we cannot tell for certain, it is too late now, but the fact remains, in a nation with 325 million people, out of a population of 8,000 whilst there are over 2.5 million of cases and the number of deceased in the USA represents 25% of all corona victims. The numbers seem to indicate that lowering the curve sooner would have been better, but I have always stated that there is more to this virus, and so far the US is still in a beginning stage, as such the 25% might be a low number for now and the bad side is that the reopening of the US in a week might signal a very negative situation. We can speculate on this until we are old and grey, but reality will show us what will be soon enough. 

We will all make up our own minds, some will blame 5G and burn down Wifi masts, some will blame the chinese (again) and come up with more matters to prosecute and in all this, the history of the other versions of corona are ignored, we can ask any cat, but they are seemingly merely the victims in all this. It seems that the bosses that mploy a lot of us are soon to be seen as good and bad, which will upset the curve a lot, but no matter how we look towards the future and where we look, we need to find a balance within ourselves and propagate that outwards, that is essential to create a balance within ourselves, because no matter how this all goes, there is every indication that the month may will see the first of several cycles of blaming the people around us. 

 

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April 11, 2020 · 00:28

Creativity wins

It has been a hard 2 weeks, for most workaholics the entire shutdown issue is a little larger than normal, gaming or not. So to treat myself I decided to design a new TV series (we all have jobs), it did not turn out the way I expected it, yet it was still a win for me, as it enabled me to set a plan for 30,000 additional words to my novel which is at present (excluding the addition) at almost 57,000 words, so I feel that I am now beyond the 50% marker. To be honest it is an addition I actually did not see coming, and that’s the beauty of creativity, it takes you at times in unspoken directions. 

It is almost like a dream I had, which I cannot recall at this time. I wanted to remember it, but some dreams take a weird flight, they tend to delete themselves from memory, in the end it is still a win for creativity. 

There are more elements linking to all this, but for now, that is all I have to say about the elements involved. I had some notion to try and connect the initial idea on ‘How to kill a politician’, but that is a separate project, I saw that early on. Yet the lockdown is throwing my levels of creativity in overdrive and I am actually less happy about that. On one side I do not mind, but there I believe that there is a link between my creativity and the dreams/nightmares that follow the dose of creativity that I enjoy when I am awake. It seems to me that the brain can give in one direction, and after that gives in the other direction. It is a speculation, but it is based on a world, or a universe that seeks balance, a balance that is almost universal. Instead of the initial idea that I had that action in one direction,implies the need for inaction in another direction. Unlike a computer, the brain does not accept inactivity, it actively rejects it, which beckons me to consider whether I can direct activity in a direction. I know that I can to some degree, but I am not yet aware if this can be pushed to certain limits. There is plenty of  materials on this, but there is less available and less reliable information available to push the dreamer from a dreamer into a lucid dreamer. The benefit is real and direct, if we get control of our dreams we get to utilise the strongest computer ever built (the human brain) in other ways. Whether it is to complete another branch of my IP, another story or another idea, we need to complete it and these weeks are showing us all that the workaholics get another part to play, to push new boundaries in the fields we work in. I do not know if it can be done, but the idea is a larger push towards new ideas and that is an addictive push to face. 

The important part in all this is that this is not merely my journey, I believe that the entire Corona lockdown has a much larger impact. Others are facing a similar journey, the dreamers, the creators and the makers are facing a side they have not been pushed into to a much larger degree and this lockdown is pushing it to the surface. We have been running to keep up with the payments and bills we face and forgot to take time to ourselves. Inthe last two weeks we have had loads of time to ourselves and it seems to show to some people that there is a lot more in them. I would not be surprised that some bosses fave a new era, where their employees have surpassed them and are making the most of what they can o next. For me not much changes. I had set the stage where I can write, I can consider and I can design, That will continue, yet now there is an optional new field where the dreamers and designers at Microsoft, IBM, Apple, HP and a few other places will figure out that innovation is not what marketing says it is, but what the designer makes it. That might over time be good news and we might actually see more innovation, instead of iteration marketed as innovation, the difference is massive. 

The entire Corona event might have losers, yet there is at present a chance that there are also a fair amount of winners and that is the silver lining that no one saw coming.

  

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