Category Archives: Science

December 7, 2021 · 17:29

Stating the obvious

It happens, we all do it and we do it for all kinds of reasons. We get into a place, or a state of mind and we state the obvious. There is no accusation, there is no giggle, it happens to us all (me too). So when he Dutch NOS stated ‘Education Council warns of inequality of opportunity through private tutoring’ (at https://nos.nl/l/2408491), I merely raised an eyebrow. You see that setting has been known since I was in school there well over a quarter of a century ago (around 1974). In those days it was merely to keep up with others, a stage I never actually faced. 

As such when we are given “Access to quality education now depends too much on the wallet of parents. Therefore, the role of the growing number of commercial tutoring, exam training and homework guidance providers in primary and secondary education needs to be carefully considered.” I think it was not stating the obvious, I started to think that the game of education in the Netherlands has changed and not for the better. I personally believe that it is not about “Access to quality education now depends too much on the wallet of parents”, I believe that there is a larger chance that overall education is slipping and the standard foundation of education will not allow the average student to push ahead to higher education. The reader gets the blah-blah “Government and school boards are not sufficiently aware of the risks that this development entails. The Education Council advises schools to think more carefully about ‘what is necessary’ for education and ‘what is nice’ to do with it. Everything that is needed should be freely accessible to everyone.” I believe that this is a shot across the bough. Those in eduction have been ignoring a setting that had been around for decades and now the government remains inactive on the premise the stage is shifting, the people without funds become those without a future. A stage that Dutch Entrepreneur and writer Luc Sala had been warning the people about since the late 80’s, it will become a setting of ‘those who have and those who have not’ and I am still around to see his wisdom come to fruition. The larger problem is that the EU is close to bankrupt. 

We see “European Union Total Debt accounted for 732.5 % of the country’s GDP in 2019”, a debt that increased with 7%, amounting to well over € 10,000,000,000,000. As such nations all over the EU are cutting corners and schooling is one of the earliest (and for some easiest) cuts. In the article we see with “The Education Council advises schools to think more carefully about ‘what is necessary’ for education and ‘what is nice’ to do”, yet the arts tend to be ‘nice to do’ and the business people do not realise that art and considering the artful is an essential element in what drives innovation. Looking at spreadsheets does not make you innovative, seeing how something could also apply, that does the trick and I have over a dozen of IP setting proving that (presently alas not cashable). But it is not about the cash, it is about the ability to get there. I have no idea how Sony makes their TV’s, but I found a way around it and come up with the concept of a printable solution for entertainment, education, information and military applications. No essential or necessary part of the education got me there, it was the ‘nice to do’ part that got me across the finish line, it also gave me a way to optionally meltdown the Iranian reactors (which will be more essential soon enough). 

The setting that Dutch entrepreneur Luc Sala presented decades ago is now tapping on the doors of Dutch schools and this scares a few people, as well it should. It is not merely about the stage of those who have and those who have not. It will be the stage of lasses that will be pushed upon everyone and there are more than a few people walking beyond their station (relying on the BS principle) where that is a concern, not merely those who follow guidelines. It will impact who gets to be on those guidelines and with schools failing all kinds of needs that setting will increase all over the EU, not merely the Dutch. The French, Italians and Spanish will see similar changes soon enough. It becomes a larger setting when it is NOT reported on there. Schools with all their ‘allegiances’ to international schools and their stage for international students will impact soon thereafter and that is when the budgets fall over. Because governments all over the EU will cut corners more and more and education will take a dive giving the US and Asia, especially private schools, a much larger advantage in the coming two decades. So whilst plenty of people in the US, Asia and Middle East are looking towards the boundaries of 6G in 2026, some people in the EU (in the Netherlands too) will then wonder what 6G is. Those who have and those who have not will polarise at that point and that setting is optionally less than half a decade away.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , ,

December 7, 2021 · 04:40

To be considered

We all have these moments when we recollect a movie, a movie that had an impact when we saw it. It might not have been a great movie, but there was something about the setting. In this case I was considering the 1984 movie Runaway. In it was Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons and Cynthia Rhodes. The idea of killer robots (spider edition) was not unique, not new, but there was something about it that had  something. I reckon that in todays world, the idea of rogue systems, hacked systems with a killer result is actually a lot less weird than it was in 1984. The movie had more, but consider what this diamond in the rough could contain. Even if it merely holds a reference to the original, the stage of remote killing a person is appealing to a lot of people, and when we consider that in those days the smart bullet was a figment of science fiction, we now have the setting that in 2008 the EXACTO program began under DARPA to develop a “fire and forget” smart sniper rifle system including a guided smart bullet and improved scope. Even as the systems is seemingly not working, or not well enough, we got there or close to it 40 years later. We have zero day issues, we have hacked systems, and in 2019 the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) gave us “In late March, the agency warned that computer hackers can easily gain access to implanted cardiac defibrillators made by Medtronic.” In this we optionally got to the scenario that we saw in movies. In this, there is now a reason to consider that movie as the foundation of something new, whether it is a movie or a mini-series is up to the maker. I merely hope that Gene Simons will get to reprise his role as the evil party in this case, he really was a lot better then I thought he ever would be. 

Whether it would be called Runaway (again), Remote by Rogue or merely Zero Day Kill would be up to the makers. Yet anyone in that field should take a look at that movie and see what was a figment in those days and what might be a lot less delusional in this day and age. And when we consider the impact of electronics, the right chip might give us a lot more options in that field and there would be all kinds of people interested in that, as such there are plenty of avenues to walk. I reckon that it might make a decent mini series (in 3-4 parts) but that is merely my view on the matter. 

Yet what I didn’t know until today is that the movie was originally reviewed by Neil Gaiman (the man behind Good Omens, American Gods and the Sandman, He gave us “The race to outwit the cybernetic psycho is gripping stuff, mostly, with a terrifying showdown atop an unfinished skyscraper; and as the hero cop with no head for heights, Selleck is fine. In between, he spends too much time just being a heart-throb.” OK, I can see that view and it is in that that there is a much larger stage that could be walked by the right visionary (not me). I will leave it up to others to do this. I merely hope that this Michael Crichton original is not overlooked in a race for mediocre streaming series. There is plenty out there that could make for awesome stories. That is the nice side of what we can do today compared to what was created in the 80’s.

Leave a comment

Filed under movies, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 1, 2021 · 21:37

Covering one another

In light of yesterday, it is equally important that other information is given to you. Remember headlines like ‘South Africa slams ‘unjustified’ reaction as Omicron continues to spread across the globe’? We saw the ‘unjust’ approach and even as we accept that some nations (the Netherlands) apparently have data showing that they had a case before South Africa reported it, the source of that case is still unconfirmed. That does not mean that South Africa is too blame for this issue. And as we are now given (by Reuters) that “the Omicron coronavirus variant detected in southern Africa could be the most likely candidate to displace the highly contagious Delta variant, the director of South Africa’s communicable disease institute said on Tuesday”, do you still think that it is a bad idea to close borders? All borders no less. There is still a lot that the scientists do not know and we get that, but leaving the borders open in a stage where a disease has now killed over 5 million people, that is a stage that should worry everyone and when we see that 263 million have had the disease, we do get that the mortality rate is low. Yet how do you feel when your parents and grandparents are the dead ones? Still think that closing the borders is the wrong move? Mine are all dead, so I do not care, but you might. 

13 people on a flight from South Africa had that variant, so it is being spread and that might not be the South Africans that are at fault. For all we know (I do not know) the people infected were Dutch people visiting South Africa (for whatever reason). We can guess all we want, but the data is limited and it has too many gaps. We also do not know what causes the mutation, so there is a lot that the scientists do not know. And to help them it seems (to me) important to lockdown as much as possible. Am I right? I do not know, but the politicians are seemingly helping one another out and that is an actual flaw we cannot afford. And as some papers (the SMH in this case) gives us ‘Infections in Europe pre-date Omicron’s identification in South Africa’, we still cannot tell where that version came from, or what made it mutate. And before some people want to use the brush containing the blame paint on South Africa. Consider that Germany gives us “German authorities said they had an Omicron infection in a man who had neither been abroad nor had contact with anyone who had been”, as I have a few issues with ‘nor had contact with anyone who had been’, there is too much we do not know, as such the traveller might have sat next to him on a bench, in a mall, behind him in a coffeeshop and so on. But the fact that he had not been abroad still matters. Either this version is massively infective, or there is an element the scientists are still in the dark about. 

The larger problem is that this entire equation has too many captains and not enough crew, which is a generic failing in the EU. As I personally see it, this will cause more and more gaps and less standardisation of data, as well as reporting over the European nations. We get it that there is a global issue, but this issue should not exist in the EU and I saw just how largely this failing tends to be from my (trying) approach to getting some form of clear data. And now, as the amount of nations with Omicron rises, so will the uncertainty, the fear and the economic drawbacks. A stage we all saw coming (to some degree) yet we never thought it would come this fast, or this completely. So as we view the news of more people ignoring lockdowns, ignoring safety and considering that bleach is a much better anti covid solution than a vaccine is, also consider that now with Omicron we might relax as it will be the death of them. Some might argue that the benefit of these actions is that in California 117 jobs a day open up. I get it, it is crude, but that is the setting. Do you think for one moment that Wall Street cares about you (or me for that matter), it sees the revenue needs, and unemployment numbers drive that down, so they are (silently) happy. And this is not some USA push, the UK is in a worse shape, with only 20% the population it has twice the amount of deceased people, and now we all get Omicron and a larger unknown of how effective our vaccine is, because that is unknown, we hear speculations, all lacking evidence at present. 

So as politicians are covering each other on points of view, we see a larger lack of support of the scientific and medical staff. The media is in part to blame, they are all about flames. Yet I personally believe that EVERY newspaper on the planet has a responsibility to make sure that the views of Dr Fauci (and medical experts like him) are shown everywhere and the absolute idiot at Fox who caused ‘Outrage as Fox News commentator likens Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor’ should be taken off the job, and optionally get treatment from Dr Mengele, so he can feel firsthand how wrong his view was. 

Lets make one thing sure, we need the medical people and its experts. They can wait for us to die and take over all the good mansions on a global setting. We need them, they do not need us to be a risk for them and their family members. Take that consideration to heart. So if you see a medical professional today and tomorrow, buy him (or her) a coffee, a tea and say ‘Thank you!’ We owe them a lot more, but this gesture might take away some of the stress they face on a daily basis and I would like it if politicians take that message to heart, they should be championing that resolve all over the world.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

November 30, 2021 · 22:49

Notice not given

We get that, we sometimes do not inform people. Yet in a stage where lives are in danger, where lives are on a stage where we cannot say whether they live or they will die. Is it moral, or even justified not to inform the people?

That was the setting we have seen in the last few days. I took notice to some effect, but in a stage where I have no influence, I merely set myself into some setting of a wait state. Awaiting more information before I take a larger stand against or for something. 

So the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59453842) 22 hours ago ‘South Africa’s president calls for lifting of Omicron travel bans’, you might want to say that is fair, but is it? Consider “Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted”, unjustified? How about informing the people and the experts of the larger setting that omicron forms? The Dutch NOS gave us (at https://nos.nl/l/2407414) ‘Omikron is in the Netherlands, many questions on this new variant’. As such 13 of the 624 passengers have the omicron variant, so the Dutch get a plane full of the people and no one thought of making sure that these people do NOT travel? And when we see “Little is known on the omicron variant”, as such the other message on the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59463879) where we see ‘No need to panic, South African minister says’, I think he has got to be out of his fucking mind. And even as we see “The heavily mutated variant was detected in South Africa earlier this month and then reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) last Wednesday”, and how come the Netherlands are seemingly in the dark? The variant is seen in several nations, so it is clear that a travel ban needed to be more complete and a lot more shown across nations. It is now in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. We are told that the Ditch cases come from South Africa, I cannot tell if the other nations have the same origin. Yet the stage of a new version in this many cases and South Africa crying on lifting travel bans is just too ludicrous to consider. The larger question remains. How did this variant gets out so far and so wide? I wonder if we ever get a clear answer to this. 

And when we see “South Africa reported 2,800 new infections on Sunday, a rise from the daily average of 500 in the previous week” we see a larger setting. It is not sure how this version got to be, but South Africa has been instrumental to allegedly spreading it all over the globe. In addition, the NY Times reports that scientists are trying to find out whether the current vaccines can stop Omicron, it seems that they do not know. So as such the response we see in the BBC article “Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted”, is complete BS. If anything the travel ban should have ben imposed a lot sooner then it was. 

In addition, when we see “Salim Abdool Karim said he expected the number of cases to reach more than 10,000 a day by the end of the week, and for hospitals to come under pressure in the next two to three weeks”, which now implies that several nations will be in serious trouble soon enough. In this Salim Abdool Karim is the South African government adviser and epidemiologist. And from those assessments, there wee see a government person stating that the travel ban is unjust? Go cry me a river (please).

A stage that might not be blamed South Africa, but in light of what we see, I reckon that Cyril Ramaphosa needs to be clearly considering that the rest of the planet is considering that it was unjust that he let this variant spread on such a global stage. And this is not the first time that governments are slow to react, or to impose clear restrictions. Well on the upside, if this kills off another few million people the unemployment issue will be largely solved, optionally housing issues in metropolitan areas might be solved too. 

And there is a larger stage that will be there soon enough. How many houses/apartment will not be sellable until it has been biologically cleansed? How long until COVID statistics are part of the reporting governments? These are a few of the notices not given, but governments (always eager to blame someone else) might not get a choice here. If COVID is an impediment on commerce, the reporting of COVID will be regarded as important and there will be government needs to belittle related issues soon thereafter. 

What a nice week we are heading into. 

P.S. There are no numbers from Russia, China, Egypt, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. It is possible that they avoided this risk, but I do feel it is too soon for them to howl hurrah! Especially as the World Cup in Qatar started this week.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 30, 2021 · 18:59

The Trap

There is a trap out there, we all fall for it, it is in part our own ego, it is in part the way we believe, or we think we believe and it is in part the elements steering us. I fell for it yesterday and there is no shame, it happens to us all. I was merely happy I figured out what I was doing. I will not give the exact trap I fell for, but it comes down to a weird thought. An example is “People are old when they turn hundred, because that is the boiling point of water”. The link between the two is 100. There is no other link, but the mind at times uses the link to get more out of it and as it finds these supposed links we fall into the trap. As stated it happens to us all at times. So as I was relaxing I noticed two articles by the CBC. 

The first is (at https://www.cbc.ca/radiointeractives/docproject/warhammer-40k). We get ‘Warhammer 40,000 was a sanctuary during my high school years’. This is true, but then we also get “The irony that some Trump fans equated the 45th U.S. president with 40K’s desiccated Emperor isn’t lost on Gillen, author of Marvel Comics’ first Warhammer 40,000 mini-series, Marneus Calgar”. The issues is that behind the larger story (which is actually quite good) is “it has been embraced by Trump supporters and white supremacists”, you see there is another expression we need to see: ‘The sun shines on the just and unjust alike’. This matters, because if you do not you will fall in the trap I almost fell for. The just and unjust all need a game to play, they all need to relax and some play Warhammer, some play Skyrim and some play ‘Bo Red takes a gander’, it does not matter what they play. The game does not make them extremists, they were that and they decided to play a game. Yet there is a larger stage, the unjust will find a game where they can talk and where they can communicate and the more that is done outside of the monitoring elements the safer they feel. I saw this in 2011 in a game (I think), it think it was called ‘Lords of Ultima’, this has nothing to do with the game makers, they had a game and people in a guild could communicate privately, there were 99 private channels. And over time more games offered the option to communicate and the makers got cash for everything. 

The game and its makers are not to blame, the events are merely there. There is no deeper connection (at present). The second story is (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/holiday-movies-christmas-inclusive-1.6261313) the article is called ‘Diversity in holiday movies improves, but gaps still need to be filled’, so why is that? I am not opposing, I am asking. You see movies and TV shows are a business, they cater to the largest section they can because it gives them the best revenue. Do you think that Hollywood is anything but a siphon for revenue? And in that setting the bulk of all there watchers are white. It has a market. Bollywood (India) and Nollywood (Nigeria) figured out that there was a gap and they  figured out how they could fill their pockets with the gaps. So will there be a Gollywood, a Lollywood, or a Tollywood? I cannot tell, but those in that direction are seeing whether they can make a profit in this market. Collywood (China/Hong Kong) is steadily growing and as its watching population grows, so will they. So when I see “the film industry is making moves to change what some have previously called a “whitewashed” movie genre, some critics say more work remains to be done”, I am not sure I can agree. You see the business model is there but it is not inclusive. And in that setting when we consider Gollywood, Lollywood and Tollywood. We see people in that market like David Geffen, and they weren’t making large moves to set up that premise, why is that? I reckon that at present the business model is not affordable enough. Even break even might do the trick, but that doesn’t seem to the case. So when we see ‘Geffen has an estimated net worth of $10.8 billion, making him one of the richest people in the entertainment industry’, as well as ‘David Geffen has been ranked the most polluting individual American and second most polluting individual in the world, largely due to his yachts’ we need to wonder how much of it is true. You see, there are 17 yachts bigger than him, and yes none of the owners are American, yet who bought the yacht that was owned by Paul Allen? What happened to the yacht of Bill Gates? So when I see ‘the most polluting individual American’ all whilst we can find the larger setting of “nonprofit Environmental Working Group tested tap water at 19 sites in Northern Virginia and found levels as high as 62 parts per trillion”, a pollution setting three times higher than was noted in 2019, in two years it got to be this bad, but that doesn’t make for good gay-bashing, does it? There was the EPA giving the US citizens “In 2020, about 68 million tons of pollution were emitted into the atmosphere in the United States. These emissions mostly contribute to the formation of ozone and particles, the deposition of acids, and visibility impairment”, as such, does anyone want to make a serious bet that the most polluting individual American was not behind that, or even any serious part of that? So who were and why are their names omitted from any report?

The trap is that we make claims that ‘gaps need to be filled’ all whilst the people with the ability to fill them do not want to fill them and as long as the media is willing to emphasise on partial claims like ‘the most polluting individual American’ whilst avoiding all other kinds of information, we see a larger station, a station of obfuscation and denial. The trap the media sets out for us, just like the Guardian with their ‘carbon print’ all whilst they do a lot to avoid the 15 million flights increase over the last 15 years. 47,000 (or there about) a day more and that situation has no carbon footprint? 

So did we put our foot in the trap, or are we avoiding to look into the direction where the trap is? It works for the stakeholders of the media either way. And that is the larger trap we are faced with. 

Enjoy the week.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

November 28, 2021 · 21:34

For those still in denial

Yes it happens, it even happens to me, but not in this case, not today. There was a discussion going on and a person (not this one) had a view, I do not agree with that view, but it is a view that the person was entitled to have. It did not match mine but that is not the case.

The image was a third person, a so called marketing person gave their view, which you see in the image. There is in denial, there is stupid and there is being stupid as well as being in denial. And the views matter. So here goes and this is information that is out in the open. 

‘97% Of People Entering Hospitals For COVID-19 Are Unvaccinated’ (source: NPR), then we get “Of the total admitted to hospital, 153 (3.3%) were confirmed as fully vaccinated, while 844 (18.1%) were partially vaccinated and the rest (3657) were unvaccinated, or their vaccination status was unable to be established.” This implies that 78.6% of all hospital admissions for Covid are unvaccinated, in NSW Australia. We see similar stages all over the world. The Dutch RIVM reports that 70% of ALL intensive care admissions are unvaccinated. And this amounts to 241 people in the month of October 2021. We see that these settings in Australia, the US, the Netherlands, and the UK are not alone. We see similar settings in Germany, Italy and Belgium. Belgium is a matter of debate. We see sources (Xinhua) giving us that 98% of covid cases in hospitals in Belgium is unvaccinated. Yet that too is debatable, I find that number to be weirdly high compared to other European nations. I can understand that there will be reporting issues, connected health issues, as such a 75%-89% makes sense, yet to see a 98% number is just too weirdly high. 

I try to see all the numbers and that revealed an interesting flaw in the media as well. As they are all about flaming and emotional wear and tear. There is a flaw in the metrics. Even per nation there is not any clear numbering and percentage standard in use. I found the RIVM (Netherlands) to be the clearest and even then it was not always easy to find (but it was there). The setting in the EU is one of massive failure and in light of the fact that this has been going on for well over a year makes the failure even worse. Yet in all this the setting of someone claiming to be in marketing and giving us “The unvaxed in hospitals are few and far between”, all whilst I see dozens of media outlets, several data outlets giving us a very different story. There are times when it is ok to be in denial, yet when there are over 261 million sick people and we have 5,215,057 cadavers, to be in denial is silly, stupid and it has far reaching issues. Although there is a case for that too. The Texas Tribune gives the people ‘Unvaccinated Texans make up vast majority of COVID-19 cases and deaths this year, new state data shows’, so we can postulate that they have a solution for the unemployment numbers of Texas. It is a drastic solution, but it will work, it always does. So feel free to listen to marketeers who give you “The unvaxed in hospitals are few and far between”, because Texas allegedly has 50,000 cemeteries, there will be one who has a place for you too and at that moment someone else can take over your job. Nearly all problems solved. 

Happy days!

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 27, 2021 · 21:41

Hindered by bias

I am in a few cases hindered by bias. I will admit this, there is no denying it. To throw diplomacy on the side, it is my personal opinion that the average crack dealer on a schoolyard tends to have more credibility than the average journalist. The media world has become that bad. Not all mind you, but the larger group has lost credibility.

To show you an example, I will take you now to Reuters, one source that is actually good (for the most), but the story they give you (at https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-privacy-lobbying/) gives a few items that I have a problem with and it might merely be me. I will let you decide.

The article ‘Amazon wages secret war on Americans’ privacy, documents show’ shows a few sides I have a problem with and even as Reuters tends to be a good source, the article shows parts that do not fill me with confidence, you might feel different.

It starts with “This story is based on a Reuters review of hundreds of internal Amazon documents and interviews with more than 70 lobbyists, advocates, policymakers and their staffers involved in legislation Amazon targeted, along with 10 former Amazon public-policy and legal employees” In the first, how did Reuters get a hold of these documents? The word ‘documents’ is shows 14 times, not one of them gives a stage HOW the documents were acquired, and how these documents, these internal documents add up. We see one mention of that word with “The premise of this story is flawed and includes reporting that relies on early, incomplete drafts of documents to draw incorrect conclusions” in the second, we see the mention of 70 lobbyists. Which lobbyists? We see the names Anthony William, Meade Spotts, yet there is mention of 70 interviews, if only 2 were set in some light that comes over as optionally as debatable, it becomes a simple equation of statistics. And to be more precise, there is no mention that these lobbyists did anything illegal. It implies an optional debatable situation with 2.8% of the interviewed lobbyists, that is when you consider that the article gives us that in 2020 Amazon had registered at least 180 lobbyists in 44 U.S. states, the percentage is a joke. We are most likely to get more criminal behaviour from Catholic priests. 

Then we go to “Consumer advocates considered the resulting law essentially worthless, said Shankar Narayan, a lawyer at the time for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state. “It’s riddled with so many holes; it’s like a Swiss cheese,” Narayan said. “It falls in the category of bills that try to make you feel better about biometrics without providing meaningful protection.”” Here there is one direct issue. Lobbyists do not draft laws, Amazon does not draft laws. Lawmakers do that, and which lawmakers were investigated in that bill? Then there is the small setting of “Amazon dominates U.S. smart speaker sales. An estimated 69% of smart-speaker users, about 64 million people, use devices from Amazon, according to research firm Insider Intelligence” Here we have a few issues, one is debatable, but I am a stickler for the small stuff. So what exactly is a smart-speaker? There are 4 mentions, yet none give us a definition. And where does the 69% come from, how was 64 million people assessed? Consider that there is Google, Amazon, Sonitrek, Harmon Kardon. You see, one source gives us “Global Smart Speaker market shipments hit 154 million in 2020” that number does not come with any drill down in brands and 64M from 154M is not 69%, more importantly the 154M number was 2020 only, so when we go back to 2018-2021, how many were sold? That gives a light towards the shoddy practice in the article as I personally see it. If it was all on the up and up (not relying on creating emotions) the 64 million would be specified in a few ways. 

And then we get to “only after lobbyists for Amazon and other firms had chiseled away at its privacy protections by convincing lawmakers to insert alternative language, often verbatim, according to emails between lawmakers and Amazon lobbyists obtained by Reuters through public-records requests”. Other firms? What other firms? And if lawmakers were convinced to change the language, what was done by Amazon lobbyists and what was done by ‘other’ firms? Google perhaps? Google has a decent share of this market, so why is that part not chiseled out with some precision? And when we see “often verbatim, according to emails between lawmakers and Amazon lobbyists obtained by Reuters through public-records requests”, why does the article not give us examples? No names of lobbyists and lawmakers? There is (as I personally see it) an issue here. At this point I get to “Amazon representatives never took a public position on the bill, relying instead on trade groups the company funded to oppose it at hearings, according to Amazon documents and public records of the debate”, so as it stands, who were these trade groups? And what evidence is there that these trade groups were funded by Amazon? The lines become blurry in several ways and I am willing to bet that Amazon never broke any laws, they never did anything illegal, but Reuters gives us “Amazon wages secret war on Americans’ privacy”, they never give us “Amazon uses legal methods to undermine privacy” (with specific evidence presented), ass such I wonder where this article will ever be taken and who will they take into the limelight? 

Finally we need to consider “The reporter’s data request revealed that Amazon had collected more than 90,000 Alexa recordings since 2017 – averaging about 70 a day”, so over a period of 4 years, there are 90,000 recordings. All whilst in 2020 alone 154 million smart speakers were sold? And the earlier quote “An estimated 69% of smart-speaker users, about 64 million people, use devices from Amazon”, 90,000 recordings over 64,000,000 people is a mere tenth of 1%, did anyone do that math, so what is this article? A mere slap Amazon around article? Perhaps I can help Reuters out here. You see, I discovered how Jeff Bezos got to be so very rich. I saw that Harrods sells shampoo at $240 per bottle, Jeff Bezos does not need to spend that on shampoo. Actually I have lived in apartments with a lower monthly rent, so that is how he allegedly got to be this rich. So there! 

Am I biased? I personally feel that I am, but this article shows too many shady sides, too many shoddy approaches to slap the rich, this is all the premise towards another joust for ‘taxing the rich’. I have nothing against that as long as it is done fairly and that requires an overhaul of tax laws. And in regards to ‘the secret war’? If it gets to be in Reuters, it cannot have been that secret, can it? And in all this Google has similar goals, so where is Google in all this? You see lobbyists tend to have an open hand to the masters that pay them, are any of these lobbyists paid by Google? Was that checked, or investigated? 

All questions that beckons an investigation on what the holy bloody hell Reuters has been up to, and with the lack of actual and factual information, the article becomes a mess, with an aftertaste that represents a bad joke, but that is my personal view on the matter. So what gives?

What do you think this was really about? Creating flames or handing over information?

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 27, 2021 · 01:01

Delusion in two part harmony

There is a time when we get creative, we all do that and we let the mind take a gander into a direction we never considered before. In one part it is an essential journey towards finishing my novel, I left that part alone for the longest of time. Even as I already set out 55,000 words with about 20,000 on the back burner. Things were going from place to place, but it was too linear, too much of an expected anticipation (if that made sense). Then two things happened at pretty much the same time. The first one is that either I am getting hacked (in a clumsy way), or the Optus network is in a massive level of disarray, it is not doing its job, whether it is from a congested network, or services are failing on a much larger degree. But it also gave me an idea for the book.

I will try to explain.
Consider a cube, consider the image of a cube. The absolute centre is a large battery, it creates 101% energy. The corners of the cubes are smaller and in their way they also create 101% energy.

If they are maxed, they hand power over to their neighbour. First the other corners, then the midway points. As such the complete cube consists of 20+1 energy points.

As the power is maximised the system can operate on 100% all the time, the rest is bled out towards a matrix taking the cube to (for example) a hexagonal prism, from there to a 8 sided shape. The issues is when maximum power is maintained for too long. That is what my mind wanted to figure out. It seems silly, but it matters for the story and I believe that the story needs to be as well set as anything else. To let the story go on faith is for fantasy and I have nothing against fantasy, but there is a larger setting here, so I feel it matters that I try to make the story fit on as many parts as possible. 

In the image the symbols are atoms, but in this, what they are cold fusion systems? The problems is that ‘our’ version of cold fusion systems are flawed (to say the least) to get it to work you need two elements (see the book when it is done), one of these elements is on Jupiter (3-5 miles deep), the other one is not in our solar system because the element requires a specific situation, the element is called Celestrium and that is a 8 layer noble gas which we do not have here and it cannot be manufactured. As such we are in a quandary, but I always stated that is where we tend to get really innovative. 

So in this setting we can fuel a large system (or ship) but not all the time, or at least to some degree all the time and the larger this system becomes, the larger the ship or the larger the power output. In all these settings there is an equation, but that one eludes me for now (my science degrees only took me so far). So as I rely on science drenched fiction (which is not the same as science fiction). I see a larger station to add pages to the story and it also gives the larger reality of a place without all the elements and all the facts, making speculation and innovation a larger setting towards reality (or at least as I see it). 

So my delusional mind came up with a few more pages into a tory that might lead to something larger, or so I hope. Anyway, the idea goes back to anther state of mind, It is one I had in secondary school. I considered that a dimensional element has a shadow that is one dimension less. So a line leaves a point as a shadow, a cube leaves a 2d shadow, a 4d shape leaves a 3d shadow and so on. It is simple, lame and clearly debatable, but that was my thought at the time, so my mind was always in the setting that space leaves the shadow like a cube, so what does the shadow of time look like? And my young mind could never figure it out. 

But the journey of learning that I had limitations is also a nice one. You see, limitations are good, it allows us to look beyond and seek new paths to overcome limitations and some journeys are positive and some are negative, that is always the case. In this we rejoice in achievement, but we learn so much more from failure, some learn this early in life, some will never learn it. It is up to the person learning to handle that lesson and we all do that in our own ways. We always do.

The creative person finds a way, the less creative circumvents it, or avoids it, whatever their preference is. I am merely happy that I found another element in a larger story and that story matters, because it started in Iran, in early Mesopotamia, in the age when someone build a ziggurat known as the Tower of Babel (a much larger story) and that part is still important today, even if we ignore it, but not the fable, not the christian lore of apprehension, it is the real part of a story that has larger considerations, or so it is my thought on the matter. When the lore fails, the words can be seen for what they are and there is more into that side. We need to see beyond lore, especially in storytelling and gaming, because that will enable us to create and recreate what was into a story that we find easy and able to digest, because digesting stories is what it is about. It is our own approach to delusion in two part harmony. I have mentioned Bethesda several times in the last few weeks, but they did create greatness, it is seen in Skyrim, who did not consider to live in Skyrim? Who did not want to have a house like Windstad Manor, with our own fishery, a nice comfy bedroom and a cellar where we could smooth the day away? When you realise that want, that internal need, you can start seeing the application of lore, the application of an altered story. This is not about changing truths that are centuries old, it is about an altered narrative that comforts us, not history, but fiction and fiction is all about personal comfort, it has been for decades, even longer when we go back beyond Jane Austen, Charles Perrault, Laurence Aldersey and that already takes us back 500 years. We can go back a lot further, or we can see how far we can move forward. And what can we do to get there? I do not have all the answers, you will not either, but together we can see what is possible. Yet this is merely my view on the matter.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

November 25, 2021 · 21:25

Height of the threshold

We all have thresholds, one allows for choices, one bars choices, one allows, one denies. You can go on with that premise for a long time to come, it is how we roll. I saw (on YouTube) some of the NHL22 video’s. I also saw a few complain video’s and a few other videos. I understand the complaints, they do not bother me (I am no NHL player, alas), but I get that some of the issues are there and they will not be resolved any day soon. 

I gave my largest attention to the PS5 version of NHL22. Now I need to be clear. I am not certain if this was a final release version, or a beta. What one states is not always the case. But the thought came to mind as I was considering a few items.

Pro
The look and feel is awesome, presentation has taken a large foundation and it looks good. The previous version I has was NHL19, so over three years there is bound to be some improvements. And as we see the way things present, it looks good.

Con
I saw a whole heap of glitches. Now, I might have missed them if I was playing, but compared to NHL19, the glitches are a lot more profound and ugly I might add. The unnatural skate movements that players make, the way the fallen player gets up and the unnatural skating done at that point. It was riddled with glitches and that is why I wonder whether this was a final version. The look of the players is really good, the rink looks good and the names are nice, but no everyone will like them. I cannot vouch for controls as I was watching and not playing. 

I saw more video and more complaints about puck dynamics and puck response, I also saw a few more glitches and a few that are not really glitches, but it did not add up. This can be my view on the matter and I prefer to say that upfront. The game on the PS5 did look decently amazing. So it did not quite blow me away, but it did impact. And I have not seen all the modes, so there might be more good news that I missed out on.

Threshold?
For me there was a threshold. You see my team (Capitals) won the Stanley cup. So I was eager to get the new edition with Ovechkin on the cover, but EA Sports decided that for Australians, it was digital only (bloody bastards). I am not paying $89 for a digital product and I am not interested in some digital subscription. As such, a threshold of frustration was reached. 

What will happen to NHL22? Well, apart from budgets in play. There is still the issue of a physical copy. I get it, NHL is not on the Australian mind, it might have something to do with water not turning solid in almost all of Australia, so I get it. But the fact that it cannot be ordered, that it is digital copy only is a problem (for me). This is how it is, plain and simple. 

It also related to another setting. As I was brooding over two pieces of IP, a third option came forward. Now, it is too early to comment on it, because there are a few sides that need ironing out, especially on the privacy side of the matter. Yet an idea is starting to take shape and depending how it irons out, I will put it online too (too busy with other options at present). 

It is how we see the digital world that matters. Or perhaps not see it, experience and feel it at present. I have been brooding on making domotics and wearables a larger stage, but that too is fraught with obstacles. We want to have it all, we want to offer it all, but how long until a third party exploits it? As the law fails its citizens, I feel that the threshold of publication rises and raises a lot more questions than I am happy with at present. Can we in all honesty fight for revenue in domotics when it endangers the privacy and safety of people? I feel that it is wrong to push for one setting whilst ignoring another side of that very same coin. As such we see thresholds. 

You see, to get back to the beginning I need to push towards a program called SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). They had a procedure called PLANCARDS. The simplest stage is “PLANCARDS produces profiles, or cards, from a plan file for a conjoint analysis study”, this is all fine. But the problem is that today that data is used in very different ways, often in ways that the ‘targets’ were never made aware of. An optional context could be “By using a fractional factorial design such as this it was possible to get the information for each of the sixteen sport event product profiles displayed”, now we need to see this as a clever way to get insight, but it can nowadays be warped. You see, the setting of Fractional Factorial design is seen as “A fractional factorial design allows for a more efficient use of resources as it reduces the sample size of a test, but it comes with a tradeoff in information”, the problem here is that ‘efficient use of resources’ still relates to the 80’s-90’s setting of computer resources. These computations would take hours. Now it becomes a very different field, but the people using that often forget the part ‘a tradeoff in information’, or even more accurately stated ‘a tradeoff in lack of data’ one glove washes the other would be cruel and unjustified, but that setting is actually the one that matters. You see people with a less clear intent towards your good choice, they will be all about exclusion, not inclusion which was the initial PLANCARDS setup. The intentional creation of thresholds. Almost what Microsoft did by buying Bethesda. That amount was the hope that their failed console would be bought by Sony players who were missing out of the next Elder Scrolls and the next Fallout. It is a brilliant strategy, but I decided to make a new RPG, an optional new way of playing RPG’s online and make it public domain for Sony and Amazon Luna. The reality is that this approach does not really stop Microsoft from using this, but the visibility that they paid for Bethesda whilst the new game has many parts that were online and free would be a decent reason for firing the board of directors of Microsoft. Yet that is not the point, the point is that any iteration or innovation towards inclusion can also be used to do the opposite and push for exclusion, a side we all (including me) seem to forget until it is too late. It is for that same reason that I published a way to sink the Iranian fleet, whilst not putting online the solution to melt down their reactor. Not because it shouldn’t be done, but because I figured out that the ramification are a lot larger than I initially considered (I was happy that I did in time). 

We can look at what exclusion does and what inclusion does and see how our solution impacts all. And I for one failed that considerations a few times in the past. We all do because it is in our nature. It is (as programmers state) the dangerous setting that THROUGH and THROUGH TO tend to have a little different impact, but do that a few times and you end up losing an entire population cluster. We all faced that and when we do we go ‘Oh bollocks!’ We can redo the setting, or if we were stupid we get to redo it all, it is not that you make a mistake, it is the impact of forgetting about rolling back data, that is when you end up getting royally stuffed. 

Thresholds are a way how we keep issues we care about in check and they are personal thresholds, yet in domotics it is not merely about your house, it will be (for the wrong kind of people) to learn where YOUR thresholds are, we all have them and for the revenue greedy people it will be about finding the exclusion threshold, because that is when they can offer THEIR package and you will vacate your old provider. As I see it large players have seen them and they are looking at the setting where they are most likely to entice you and that is in part on what makes you dump your current solution and select THEIR solution. In this domotics and wearables will change the game as the larger true 5G network rolls out on the global plain and its solutions are accepted by most of the people looking at more ease, more comfort and less hassle. Yet there is the danger, like the tradeoff we saw in one part, here the tradeoff is less hassle means more outspoken data of what you want. Did you consider that?

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

November 24, 2021 · 18:54

When anger takes over

On November 19th I wrote ‘Uranium, Iranas, Iran it again’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/11/19/uranium-iranas-iran-it-again/). In that article I wrote “the absence of strong language and the absence of clear shot time lines, I feel that my point will be made and I only need to see one of the three to be proven correct. This has been going on for 7 years, enough is enough I say”, that was a week ago. Now we get to see:

Reuters, 10 hours ago ‘IAEA’s Grossi says in Iran that he wants to deepen cooperation’, and this gives us “detailing its conflicts with Iran, from rough treatment of its inspectors to re-installing cameras it deems “essential” for the revival of the nuclear deal”, as well as “The agency is seeking to continue and deepen the dialogue with the government of Iran…We agreed to continue our joint work on transparency and this will continue”, in this, as I personally see it, we see Director General Rafael Grossi of the IAEA playing some ego game, pretending to be a diplomat, all whilst the clear setting is that the other party (Iran) is playing its own game which includes stalling as the essential part of their strategy. They are playing for time.

Arab News, 8 hours ago ‘Iran taking ‘arbitrary measures’ against IAEA inspectors, says Saudi representative’ where we are treated to “Iran is taking “arbitrary measures” against International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, Saudi Arabia’s governor at the UN watchdog said Tuesday”, as well as “Iran’s nuclear policy revolved around “blackmailing the world through its nuclear program”

In the mean time, Iran is stopping the IAEA to assess just how much they have enriched, the bully tactics, the delays, and it never stops, it has never stopped. As far as I can tell, Director General Rafael Grossi of the IAEA is on a fools errant and he, and his American ‘friends’ are willing to sacrifice both Saudi Arabia and Israel in the process and that is a side we should be unwilling to accept, if this goes through, the Mediterranean would be in danger in several ways and none of them will look good on France, Spain and Italy. Egypt will take the brunt of that danger as well. All settings that could have been avoided by hitting Iran where it hurts, where it really really hurts. And in this, the bankrupt nations are unwilling to act, too much ego and too little common sense and lets face it, the EU needs the Suez Canal, America has alternatives, And when it does come down we all get to pay the price. In the US Gasoline is set (today) to $3.395 per gallon. When this go south that price will be a loverly memory, it will drive prices up by 100%-350%, there is no clear predictions here, Yet the setting will become that any household will have options to select heating, a car or food and they can only select one, some will be able to afford two, so how does that grab you?

And it is not the setting you might like, but it becomes the one you deserve. You deserve it because when it was time to act, you all preferred to wait it out. I had no issues to design a way to turn their reactor into a meltdown machine, it would end their needs right quick. Will it work? I honestly do not know, if it works great, if it goes boom perhaps even better. But the time of inactions against Iran is over. I (and many like me) are done with that trail to nowhere.

The fact that ego driven people are willing to let two sovereign nations face the consequence of the ego of some politicians is not that funny, not that hilarious and the delay trail has too many bad settings, too many dangers and optionally too many victims. It is not a setting of numbers, with Saudi Arabia and Israel representing 45 million, versus Iran 84 million, I say let Iran fry. It is a choice they made. And in light of the setting that people will not be hit, the idea of a meltdown at Bouchehr is not optimal as it is too close to the Sea of Dammam (what Iran calls the Persian Gulf), yet the benefit is that their gulf side land will become unavailable for decades. I still have to consider what I could do to both Natanz and Fordow, never considered crashing an enrichment site. Do I want to? Hell, no. I never wanted to get involved, but the inactions of the IAEA, its flaccid approach to Iran gave me no option. Israel faced a few extinction events, they have faced their ordeal, Saudi Arabia is crucial to stability in the middle East and to be honest, no one needs Iran. Not anymore. We can just do fine without them. 

I admit, in me anger is taking over, but I have decent ground after watching this shot show go down. Too many players are hoping for their slice of pie and they are willing to sacrifice two nations to get their cake. It is a price I am not willing to face, in this sacrificing one nation means a 50% reduction in damage. When numbers can be used to make a case the individual person always loses out, there has never been a case where that was not happening. If you wonder about that, consider all the articles I wrote where 147 facilities were responsible for 50% of all the damage (pollution), and still the media ignores it. Not my view, the view of the European Environmental Agency given to all a year ago, so why is that?

These matters are intertwined, they all use the same ego driven groups of people. You still think that inaction gets it done?

Leave a comment

Filed under Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,