I am trying to remember something. Yesterday I came up with short story number three, I dreamt the story and the big lines were done, but now I forgot the dream, only fragments remain. A stage where it is about one thing leading to another, I see the ending but I can no longer see the beginning. It is a shared setting that eludes me, and every time I my mind moves back to the story, it is overwhelmed with other facts. It takes me back to yesterday as I was writing the Kaseya story. The BBC is giving us “Researchers from the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure found the problem and were helping Kaseya plug the hole long before the hackers found it”, yet if we are to believe ‘long before the hackers found it’ I wonder why Kaseya was continuing on the path they were. More important, if that was really true, why was Kaseya not monitoring the situation 24:7? In my case the story is not completed, I am creating it (almost) on the go. Kaseya is seemingly in a stage where they are in denial. First a few, then up to a 1,000 and now, after other sources give us a stage that sets the premise to up to 100,000, some sources give us ‘Between 800 and 1,500 companies potentially affected by Kaseya ransomware attack’, I get it, it is optional a seesaw that is balancing between optionally managing bad news and the speculative media on the other end of the seesaw. Neither side is overly reliable in my personal view. Yet the BBC gives us “the way the cyber-security world has pulled together to reduce the impact of the attack has been incredible”, you see, I have been involved in IT work since 1982, I have never seen competitors pull together, so the story of ‘the cyber-security world has pulled together’ remains debatable. They are all scared, they wanted solutions faster, automated and cheaper, it is like the house where you can choose 2 out of three, now the choice is nil, because the underlying factors are haywire. In this setting, and yes, this is all speculative. We have a solution that is faster/slower, automated/manual and cheap/expensive. They wanted it fast, but that requires matching hardware and software. This is where ‘plugging the hole’ is a problem, as such there was never a cheap solution. Then there was the automated setting, that is the one that they could pull off, but in a stage where there is too little security, and if ‘long before the hackers found it’ is to be believed, I speculate that the need was manual when the wrong parties opted for automated. And in the third we have cheap and expensive. They needed a solution that was cheap, but they needed a lot more expensive elements. This is ALL speculation, but the setting where we see system after system fail, in my personal opinion is all a setting towards shortcuts and that led to the weakness we now see exploited. I personally believe that players like Kaseya are too plenty and when we see ‘the cyber-security world has pulled together’, we see a stage where they all have a seemingly fat meal, they all get to set a field of limitations for all others and that will have long term repercussions. Microsoft, Solarwinds, Kaseya are examples that how us that the hackers are gaining more and more advantage and that is the larger stage. In this setup hell will get one happy resident and it is not the ruler of hell, I will let you consider who I am talking about and it is not a player that is mentioned in this article, neither is REvil, they seemingly found a gap that they exploited hoping to bank $70,000,000 but the stage is out there and the snippet “were helping Kaseya plug the hole long before the hackers found it” is merely a factor, so how long did the plugging take and why was it not successful? The words ‘long before’ should be an indication. So why are we (clearly) seeing several facts and the hack was still successful? The article is (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57719820) merely one factor, the amount of MSP’s are another and the lack of alarms is a third part. A dangerous setting of cheap, seemingly fast and proclaimed automated systems in a stage where no one was the wiser. Consider a fast automated system without proper alarms and without logs, and that is merely one player using (or claiming to have) cloud solutions. A stage that is no solution (ask COOP in Sweden if you doubt me) and one that hands over cash to organised crime. How much risk are you willing to take with your business?
Category Archives: Science
Your data or your life!
It is not the dream, not this time. I was persecuted by a Construction AI with diminishing reality capacity, but in the humour side there were a few criminals trying to get away with a golden car (like Goldfinger) and they got in the middle, so there. No, today is about Ransomware. Reuters gives us ‘Ransomware breach at Florida IT firm hits 200 businesses’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/200-businesses-hit-by-ransomware-following-incident-us-it-firm-huntress-labs-2021-07-02/). Like the solarwinds issue we see “The attackers changed a Kaseya tool called VSA, used by companies that manage technology at smaller businesses. They then encrypted the files of those providers’ customers simultaneously” and no one, most visibly the media is asking the questions that needs asking. The Microsoft Exchange issue, the Solarwinds issue, now Kaseya. We understand that things go wrong, but as I see it the hackers (read: optionally organised crime) have a much better understanding of matters than the lawmakers and police do, we see this with “encrypted the files of those providers’ customers simultaneously” and that is before we consider that ‘an American software company that develops software for managing networks, systems, and information technology infrastructure’ has the kind of security that can be trespassed upon. And why do I think this? It is seen “The attackers changed a Kaseya tool called VSA, used by companies that manage technology at smaller businesses” and contemplate the issue that this had been happening for the last 5 months. A lack of larger systems as well, and all this continues as the law is close to clueless on how to proceed on this. We see statements like “In their advisory and further incident communications, Kaseya said that only a few out of their 36 000 customers were affected”, yet CNet gives us “REvil, the Russia-linked hacking group behind the attack on meat processor JBS, is linked to the Kaseya attack, The Wall Street Journal reported. Security firms Huntress Labs and Sophos Labs have likewise pointed to REvil”, which gives the law the problem that a member must be a proven member of REvil and that is largely not the case, moreover they have no clue how many members are involved. When one player gives us “We are in the process of formulating a staged return to service of our SaaS server farms with restricted functionality and a higher security posture (estimated in the next 24-48 hours but that is subject to change) on a geographic basis”, all whilst one of the victims is the largest grocery store in Sweden (COOP), the setting of “only a few out of their 36 000 customers” becomes debatable and it will affect the retail stage to a much larger degree, especially when you consider that they are cloud based. I stated in the past (based on data seen) that 90% of the cloud can be transgressed upon. And they are all servicing the larger stage of people dealing with IT requirements on a global scale. Now consider that cloud systems remain largely insecure and beyond the fact that ITWire was giving us “SolarWinds FTP credentials were leaking on GitHub in November 2019” and it was a direct results from someone who thought that ‘solarwinds123’ was a good idea. Oh, I remember a situation involving Sony and stated that there might be an issue that someone (I implied the Pentagon) had a router with password ‘cisco123’, I did that in ‘The Scott Pilgrim of Technology’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/23/the-scott-pilgrim-of-technology/) in MAY 2019, and did anyone learn anything yet? It is now 2 years later and still we see these levels of transgressions? Some might say that IT firms are helping REvil get essential revenues, some might say that these IT firms got themselves in this mess. So when we look at some firms relying on ‘Five years of experience for an entry-level job’, or perhaps “Any of the following will be grounds for immediate dismissal during the probationary period: coming in late or leaving early without prior permission; being unavailable at night or on the weekends; failing to meet any goals; giving unsolicited advice about how to run things; taking personal phone calls during work hours; gossiping; misusing company property, including surfing the internet while at work; submission of poorly written materials; creating an atmosphere of complaint or argument; failing to respond to emails in a timely way; not showing an interest in other aspects of publishing beyond editorial; making repeated mistakes; violating company policies. DO NOT APPLY if you have a work history containing any of the above” (source: Forbes). All this in a stage of age discrimination and narrow minded thinking of HR departments. Yes that is the dynamic stage of people that have bad passwords and a stage of transgressions. So whilst we might think it is a stage of ‘Your data or your life’, there is a larger stage where the law has a bigger issue, it has the issue of IT firms cutting cost and having a blasé approach to the safety of their systems, and more important their customers. And whilst ABC New York gives us “The number of victims here is already over a thousand and will likely reach into the tens of thousands,” said cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank. “No other ransomware campaign comes even close in terms of impact” (at https://abc7ny.com/amp/ransomware-attack-4th-of-july-cyberattack-kaseya/10859014/) we see a first stage where the statement ‘only a few out of their 36 000 customers were affected’ is as I personally see it marketing driven panic. And that is a much larger case. I get that the firm hit does not want too much out in the open, but between a few, 2% and optionally a stage that could go beyond 27% is a setting too many are unable and too uneasy to consider. And when we see that 27%, do I still sound too ‘doomsday’ when I state that there is a much larger problem? And when we see the media go with ‘MSPs on alert after Kaseya VSA supply chain ransomware attack’, all whilst I stated a few issues well over 2 years ago, they should have been on the ball already. I am not blaming the MSP’s, but I do have questions on how their systems are so automated that an attack of this kind (the stated 1000+ customers hit) all whilst some sources state 50 MSP’s, there is a stage where triggers would have been there and the alarms were set to silent because some people might have thought that there were too many false alarms. This is a different stage to the larger playing field, yet I believe it needs to be looked at, especially when the damage can be so large. I am not certain what work lies ahead of the hit customers like COOP that had to close down 800 supermarkets, but in all this something will have to give.
Sapphire or Tourmaline
This all started some time ago, but it resurfaced as I started to replay AC Origin. In lockdown land any change of gaming is a well desired one and AC Origin is actually quite good. But that is merely the start, as I was playing (and as some missions are identical to the first time around) my mind wandered to a delusional IT manager in the early 90’s (1991 I believe). He stated “a resource shared is revenue doubled”, it is that idiotic level of fortune cookie wisdom that as actually rewarded, I never got that part. Yet there was a small gemstone of truth there, but not where he thought it was. As we make a jump to another place it is time for a question. How many real simulators are there? As far as I can tell there is one, only one. Nearly all others are games. The only one true simulator is made by Microsoft and it is the Flight Simulator, currently known as FS2020. Isn’t that surprising? A whole range of games but no one truly dug into the real of simulators. It tends to be really really hard, too hard for a lot of them.
Yet here we get to see the light, Ubisoft has options (well it always had them, but more often they were ignored), yet with AC Origin they opened a door and now we have a ballgame. What if AC origin is merely the start of a dynasty game, a true simulator about life in Egypt? They have nearly all the graphics ready, the maps need adjustment and the spacing needs to change (like 1:9), so that every area is at least 900% in size but consider a true simulator where you are the beer merchant, the farmer, the fisherman, the embalmer, the priest and above all other arts, the overwhelming pressure of the gods and a monarchy that shows little to no mercy, a true first comprehension of what life was about then. And you cannot do it all, a stage where you get assigned a map where you were born and a role you were given, you have some choices as did the people then, but their options were very small, they had little choice. A true historic simulator and guess what? There are none. It has never been done before and I reckon that no one ever considered it to this degree, the technology stopped them, but with Google Stadia and Amazon Luna (and 1-2 alternatives) it is now possible. Even as I still believe that “a resource shared is revenue doubled” is utter nonsense, there is a gem of truth there. Some resources can be used again and that does not mean that revenue is doubled, but the second stage becomes easier and with hardship out of the way there is no reason not to contemplate a path none dared to walk and there is also the second ego reason, being first somewhere counts, being the first who gets it right to this degree is massively rewarding, others will have to fight to equal what you pulled off and it will vex them to no end. Will it happen? I do not know, as I said, this has never been done before and that is also the most rewarding part, especially for Ubisoft if they go there. The educational value is enormous. We are smitten by movies like the Mummy (Brendan Fraser edition), the 10 commandments, Rome, Spartacus, Cleopatra and it fills the mind with what could be, but people like Julian Fellows (Downton Abbey, Belgravia) has opened to some degree our eyes, just like the Vatican game I had in mind. This simulator could wake up an entire generation. Just like Steven Spielberg did with Jurassic Park. Who did not want to see the Triceratops? We have a similar fascination with the Roman and Egyptian era, yet books and movies is all we have and now we could for the first time get a true simulator. Yes, I will agree that it is not for everyone, but there is another upside to cloud gaming. We are willing to try a lot of games when it is included in some package, and there lies the gemstone. Apart from those who want to see Egypt is the past, there is another group of people who want to try everything. It is merely the sense of us as we explore and especially explore when it costs nothing extra, we are nearly all like that.
Will it happen? Time will tell, it usually does.
Mercy on stupid people?
In this age when we have 8,000,000,000 people walking around, should we show mercy on stupid people? I am not talking about people with some mental disorder, I am not talking about people with a speech impediment or people with a physical disorder. No, I am talking about people with a greed disorder, a mental stage of everything is for free. Should we allow them to be alive? It is a serious question. You see, the BBC gives us ‘How hackers are using gamers to become crypto-rich’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57601631) and the BBC adds to the stupidity to put a picture of a nice girl there, although these transgressions are most likely done by well over 90% males. The list “Versions of Grand Theft Auto V, NBA 2K19, and Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 are being given away free in forums” implies that. You see NOTHING is for free, and nowadays, the sun might be (for now) the only thing that comes for free, but air is close to no longer free. In the last decades we wasted air quality to such a degree that more and more need oxygen and that stuff is not free and not cheap. So when I see “hidden inside the code of these games is a piece of crypto-mining malware called Crackonosh, which secretly generates digital money once the game has been downloaded. Criminals have made more than $2m (£1.4m) with the scam, researchers say.” I reckon that this goes far beyond the UK borders and as such the revenue will be a lot higher, in addition, the stupid person thinking that they are getting a free game are using electricity like there is no tomorrow. So any gamer having anything from a 750W Corsair to a 1200W Asus Thor will be donating $0.50 – $0.75 a day per PC to that criminal group. And that is the best news theory, if they leave the computer on and unattended the price could go up by 200%-400% a day, which means that this free game is costing you a lot more, optionally buying that game in the story will cost you $48 at Amazon, implying that you will pay for the game more than once after 15 days, if you are lucky after 20 days. So how free was that game? You might not pay for the electricity yourself but it will reflect in the bill and mom and dad will hold your PC up for ransom if you do not pay the electricity bill.
So far two places out of a lot more gives us:
United States: 11,856 victims
United Kingdom: 8,946 victims
As such the $2m is delusionally optimistic, the damage is more than likely a lot higher, especially when we see
When Crackonosh is installed, it takes actions to protect itself including:
disabling Windows Updates
uninstalling all security software
And that was merely the better news, when you consider elements like
computer slowing down
wearing out components through overuse
You end up with the short end of the stick, and you better believe that it is a lot shorter than you hope it is. So should I feel mercy when a stupid act degrades a persons PC, sets the cost of living a lot higher per week, but that does not matter, does it? You got a free game out of it!
There is one side that bothers me, it is the quote “Tracking the hackers’ digital wallets has revealed the scam has yielded over $2m in the cryptocurrency Monero, Avast says”, it is the part ‘hackers’ digital wallets’, wallets is plural, as such there is every chance not everything has been found and there is even a much larger chance that they will find one group and have several groups walk away, because they were never spotted, and they were optionally a little more clever than the other players. The damage I a lot worse, yet when it comes to stupid people, I do not mind, more game time, more original game time for me. And this is merely the first setting, you see, I took notice because it flushes the one element out into the open. I touched on this with “I believe that it is a first step in the overly effective phishing attacks we face, Facebook might not be part to that, but I reckon the phishing industry got access to data that is not normally collected and I personally believe that Facebook is part of that problem, I also believe that this will turn from bad to worse with all the ‘via browser gaming apps’ we are currently being offered. I believe that these dedicated non console gaming ‘solutions’ will make things worse, it might be about money for players like Epic (Fortnite), but the data collected in this will cater to a much larger and optionally fairly darker player in this, I just haven’t found any direct evidence proving this, in my defence, I had no way of seeing the weakness that SolarWinds introduced. It does not surprise me, because there is always someone smarter and any firm that has a revenue and a cost issue will find a cheaper way, opening the door for all the nefarious characters surfing the life of IoT, there was never any doubt in this.” I wrote it in ‘Not for minors’ in December 2020 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/18/not-for-minors/) and anyone (read: Epic) with claims that they will stop this, would be lying to you. Criminals are massively intelligent and their opponents (police and FBI) are not equipped to deal with this, that is beside the manpower shortage they would face. So when you get to slide between stupid kids and greed driven short sighted IT solutions, the people are about to lose a bundle, for the tech criminals it will be Christmas for them 340 days a year (with 25 very well paid holidays).
And that was just the beginning, how long until these easy virtue characters offer games with even more powerful ways to mine? A version of some merge 3 game but now utilising 95% of your processor 100% of the time? It will not interfere with receiving calls, it will not interfere with laptop, tablet and other device, but you become the pawn in a need to mine and it will cost you a lot more than you think. How long until someone combines screensavers and locked screens with the old SETI program and let devices mine the truckloads out of massive data files and we all contribute for every downtime minute every day? That was the danger that greed driven Epic contributed to (as I personally see it), that is the danger that we all face, and it gets worse. You see Yahoo told us ‘Epic is deliberately keeping ‘Fortnite’ off Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Game service’, isn’t that interesting? The cloud is their competitor, so they want to open up all the markets for THEM, but they are not that eager to hand their game to a streamer where they cannot collect as much. As I personally see it, it is about their margins, it always was and as such I personally consider their case to be a bogus one, but they opened a door, a door criminals will be eager to use, so how long until they offer Fortnite cheats, Fortnite chests with weekly prices, hardware and skins? It will be the gateway to more systems and the law is not ready and the makers of games will find out too late that the floodgates had been opened. That is how these events usually go, but in the end it will not cost them anything, because they will cover all third party solutions and it will be up to the gamer (and their parents) to pay that price.
Big Oil in the family
We all have moments where we look at the sky and roll our eyes. Today was my moment when I was treated (by the Guardian) to ‘Big oil and gas kept a dirty secret for decades. Now they may pay the price’, in this I start with “Was it really a secret?” You see, we all want to blame someone else for the problems we helped create. And when the (what I reverently call) the stupid people are bringing about “An unprecedented wave of lawsuits, filed by cities and states across the US, aim to hold the oil and gas industry to account for the environmental devastation caused by fossil fuels – and covering up what they knew along the way”. You see that is is merely one element of stupid. I gave light to ‘Uniform Nameless Entitlement Perforation’ on December 10th 2020 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/10/uniform-nameless-entitlement-perforation/), I emphasised on a report by European Environmental Agency (EEA) where. We see that 147 industrial plants create 50% of the pollution, the media seemingly ignored the report I have not see the media go out and bash the nations for these 147 plants, we even had a joke (read: BBC article) by Tim McGrath on how the “Global ‘elite’ will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles”, so how stupid do people need to get?
This reflects on the now when we see (at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crimes-oil-and-gas-environment) “Coastal cities struggling to keep rising sea levels at bay, midwestern states watching “mega-rains” destroy crops and homes, and fishing communities losing catches to warming waters, are now demanding the oil conglomerates pay damages and take urgent action to reduce further harm from burning fossil fuels”, just when you think that Americans can no longer become any more stupid, we get the next iteration of ‘stupid is as stupid does’. Statista shows us that in 1975 the US requires 1.747 BILLION kilowatt hours a year, this went up again and again until that number was well over doubled in 2005 (3.8B KwH), then it roughly stays the same. There was one spike in 2018, yet one source gives us “From 2003 to 2012, weather-related outages doubled”, I personally believe it is not all weather related. I believe that energy delivery hit a saturation point around 2005. This is why the last decade has so many of these failings and outages. Consider that it was not merely oil and gas, it was energy, the underlying need that drives this. If you doubt this you need but to read the entire ENRON scandal papers to get a clue on how it has always about greed and not about big oil and gas. When I see ‘Big Oil and gas’ I personally think it tends to be a hidden jab towards the Middle East. There have been carbon neutral solutions for almost two decades. Yes, they were expensive in the beginning, but how much effort was made to push this? It is about profit margins, it is about cheap and it is about exploitation. Oil and gas check most marks, but are they to blame? We can ignore settings like “In the early 1990s, Kenneth Lay helped to initiate the selling of electricity at market prices and, soon after, Congress approved legislation deregulating the sale of natural gas” that was almost 30 years ago, so how was electricity created? How do we get energy? And why is Congress not in the same accusation dock? Until the late 80’s the idea of Electricity at market prices was a lull and instead of protecting that part, it was left to the needy and the greedy.
So when they have another go at ‘Big Oil’ (to be honest, I have no idea what they are talking about), consider that the drive to have your own car started in the 50’s. Forbes gave us in 2020 ‘Traffic Congestion Costs U.S. Cities Billions Of Dollars Every Year’, which is fine, but that too relies on fuel, so when they gave us “New York had the highest economic losses out of any major U.S. city with congesting costing it $11 billion last year. Los Angeles lost $8.2 billion while Chicago suffered the third-worst impact at $7.6 billion.” And how much fuel is wasted in that setting? Do you want to blame ‘big oil’ for that too? This is a case that will go nowhere, the only thing it enforces is something I will touch on a little later. You see, when we saw the messages on how companies had enough of California, they vacated and left, Texas is such a much better place (it actually might be), and Forbes again gave us in February ‘Texas Energy Crisis Is An Epic Resilience And Leadership Failure’, yet how much consideration are we seeing when we get sources feeding us “There are several reasons tech companies shave been moving to Texas – lower housing costs, lower tax rates, less regulations have made it easier for companies to operate in Texas. There is already an abundance of technical talent all over Texas. Any company moving here can tap into a well-experienced talent pool. There is also a well-educated stream of new talent graduating from top schools like Texas, Rice, University of Houston, and Texas A&M.” I am not debating the act, I am fine with the action taken, but when you consider that the following companies moved to Texas, how much of a drain on energy in other places will that give you and when you see the sudden spike in some places requiring a lot more energy, all whilst the other places are not diminishing their offer, because people will always need power, how is ‘Big Oil’ to blame? So lets take a loot at that list and most names moved less then 2 year ago (or are about to move)
Guideline, Contango, Done, Carbon Neutral Energy, Tailift Material Handling, Estrada Hinojosa, GBS Enterprises, Wedgewood, Verdant Chemical, Ranchland Food, Drive Shack, Invzbl,Markaaz, XR Masters, Elevate Brands, Harmonate, Einride, Green Dot, NRG Energy, Caterpillar,Flex Logix, Leaf Telecommunications, Katapult, Wayfair, Ribbon Communications, BSU Inc, Avetta, First Foundation, 5G LLC, TaskUs, BlockCap, Element Critical, City Shoppe, CrowdStreet, Lalamove, NinjaRMM, Gilad & Gilad, MDC Vacuum, FERA Diagnostics, Roboze, Leadr, SupplyHouse.com, Eleiko, Firehawk Aerospace, International Trademark Association, ZP Better Together, Precision Global Consulting, Loop Insurance, QSAM Biosciences, AHV, Dominion Aesthetics, Sage Integration, Quali, Samsung, Truelytics, Alpha Paw, Sentry Kiosk, ProtectAll, Optimal Elite Management, Ametrine, Digital Realty, Amazing Magnets, Lion Real Estate Group, NeuraLink, Maddox Defense, DZS Inc, The Boring Company, Oracle, Hewlett Packard Enterprise,Tesla, Optym, Longevity Partners, Iron Ox, Palantir, 8VC, Bonchon, Titans of CNC, Saleen Performance Parts, CBRE, Slync.io, Baronte Securities, Omnigo Software, Incora, Vio Security, JDR Cable Systems, FileTrail, Sonim Technologies, Murphy Oil Corp, Buff City Soap, Origin Clear, QuestionPro, SignEasy, Sense, Astura, Charles Schwab, Splunk, Bill.com, Chip 1 Exchange, McKesson, and Lonza. This is not a complete list and I am not considering (at present) which ones are doing it for all kinds of tax hypes. Now consider how many people will move as well. I get it, California is expensive, but how will this change that represents the population of more than one large city impact the power needs in Texas that is already has it fair share of brownouts, and that is just for starters, how many gas and oil energy producing plants will Texas get? Is ‘Big oil’ to blame, or do they merely offer a commodity that EVERYONE needs? Consider that a powerful computer required a 200 Watt power unit in 1997, today it is 600Watt or even higher. There were roughly 51 million units sold last year alone. I cannot state how the division on laptop and desktop is, but the need for energy is unrelentingly large, how large? Consider all the staff moving to Texas and consider how many more energy issues Texas has in the next two years, that is your marker and ‘Big Oil’ had nothing to do with this.
So when we reconsider “wave of lawsuits, filed by cities and states across the US”, how many of these claimants voted against wind farms, against solar power and against nuclear power? They did it for all kinds of reasons and we get it, some are expensive and you do not want your children to go to school glowing in the dark (yet in winter that is a case for less accidents), but in all this blaming ‘Big Oil’ is just too ludicrous to mention. So as for a promise earlier in this article. When the US goes on with silly and stupid court cases, how long until the owners of IP and Patents will consider the US to be too dangerous to remain in? Consider that the US has an IP value of $21,000,000,000,000 (trillion), it represents almost 90% of the S&P 500 value, so what do you think happens when a massive slice of that moves to Asia or the Middle East, optionally to Europe? I reckon that over 70% of Wall Street executives are on a floor above the 30th and there is every chance that well over 40% of them will do a (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEpKcBkkVMY); now consider the stage of blaming the wrong party. I am not stating that any of the energy delivering components are innocent, yet we are all guilty, in almost every nation. We remained silent when energy prices remained the same (somehow), we have known about alternatives and most people never pushed their politicians, we have known about the dangers of erosion for decades and we see pollution report after report, yet nothing is done. We are all to blame and putting ‘Big Oil and Gas’ in the dock will never ever go anywhere, I reckon that Kenneth Lay set the charter for that. When we realise that we allowed a utility to become profit driven which we clearly get from ‘the selling of electricity at market prices’, we changed a whole range of processes and now that we see the impact we should not cry, we should look into the mirror for blame.
The future doorstop
That is how we sometimes see a book, a doorstop, a missile towards our partners (and sometimes really annoying elderly teens), a weight for the papers we need, when a book is not really what we wanted, it gets a secondary function. So even as some saw this specific book as ‘A beautiful defense of the common man and woman against a technological elite’, I consider a book like ‘The Tyranny of Big Tech’ as one that is not stating the issues.
Did I read it?
Nope, and I do not have to, the article clearly shows a republican (who looks like he recently stopped being a teenager) who is aiming for money from both the left and the right. When we see “According to Hawley, it’s not our politicians, our lawyers, our Ivy League graduates, or our Hollywood celebrities. It’s Big Tech – those big names like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, and Google that have embedded themselves in our lives to an almost irreversible degree”, I see the beginning of a BS string of texts that will most certainly become debatable and utterly rejectable. You see Zuckerberg attended Harvard whilst designing Facebook, Dorsey came up with the idea for Twitter at NYU, Jeff Bezos was already done with Princeton when Amazon became the idea, Apple was the child of Steve Jobs who attended part of Reed and dropped out, Sergey Brin and Larry Page came from Stanford, so what is left of “not our Ivy League graduates”? Oh and I with my 5G IP am from UTS (Sydney), so there! And when we get to “have embedded themselves in our lives to an almost irreversible degree” we get a lot more. Apple (Macintosh) offered what consumers wanted, Google did the same, Facebook did it even more and created a new digital era and they all OFFERED it to consumers, they planned long term and they won, the small minded people lost. The exception is the Amazon guy who doesn’t need to spend on Shampoo, he offered something to rural people all over the world which they never had access too. In the US this is 60,000,000 people and in the EU it is 125,000,000. One firm aimed for a little over 180 million consumers. The people shops forgot and now Amazon is the bad guy? So this is the setting from the start and the man with the teenager look (Josh Hawley) is already off to a bad start. So when we see “the robber barons reshaped the economy into a corporate monopoly to serve their own ends, in which an aristocratic elite govern above the labouring masses”, all whilst the US government stole from the native Americans whatever they could (99.655% roughly) is like the pot calling the kettle black. In this one pushed what they wanted, the other (current big tech) let the people decide on WHAT they desired and the consumers liked the free 1GB email (Google) whilst the internet providers offered 20MB for a fee. What would you do? That same grocery store (still Google) came up with additional ways to service the consumers (cookies anyone?), the offered shopping, information and choice, whilst those dabbling on the internet wee all about grabbing whatever coins they could get. When the consumers were happy players like Amazon created the Amazon Web Services offering a pay as you go approach, a cloud approach to small businesses. First web services in 2002 and cloud services in 2008, it would take IBM and Microsoft years to offer anything near that, the big tech of then were made basically redundant. And with the pay as you go there was a larger SaaS (Software as a Service) setting. The big 5 became big not because “Big Tech is a direct descendent of the Gilded Age robber barons”, but because they offered choice when the others were unwilling to do so. In this Apple stands alone. They were always the elite DTP solution (a lot more expensive than others) and in 1998 they recognised the needs of the consumer and the iMac was born, all whilst the consumer got the amazing phrase “There’s no step 3!”, an affordable solution in an age where PC’s were still running behind the facts. If you were not up to speed you were either lost or you became an Apple user. All this whilst the writer wants to push “descendent of the Gilded Age robber barons”, a stage none of them pushed for, it merely is in the statements of those who were asleep at the wheel between 1996-2006, they lost it all by not pushing the envelope and 5 companies got ahead. The fifth (Netflix) was like Facebook, it offered something never offered before and whilst we had to seek TV provider after TV provider, they offered what we wanted, movies and specifically movies not hindered by advertisements. They went from sales to rental to streaming and as the firm started in 1998, Hulu, Stan, HBO Max and Disney Plus, some well over a decade AFTER Netflix, so the statement from Josh Hawley is not just bogus, it is utter nonsense. So when we see “Washington, D.C. politicians routinely protect the interests of Big Tech over and against the freedom and well-being of the American people” we see the joke that this book seemingly is. These systems were offered to consumers, you can walk away! I kept my Yahoo account for years later, until the information offered was too outdated or too much adjusted for localisation (against my will), so when we see ‘well-being of the American people’ I wonder what data he can actually produce (raw data, not aggregated and weighted data) and in the grand scheme of things, the US has 320 million people, Europe has 750 million and India has 1.3 billion. All enjoying what the five players are offering. In all that, the US is a mere 15% and on the global scale they do not add up to much, and the US is actually part of that failing. In the era of 1990-2010 American firms remained largely absent on the international scale, relying on someone to pick up the ball and none of them did and the American needs were swallowed by the voice of the consumers, no barons, no lawyers and no politicians. The people wanted what Google offered and Youtube now has over 2,000,000,000 viewers (I am one of them), so far none of the offerers were able to meet this and more important by 2005 both IBM and Microsoft were merely relying on Adobe Flash, these two players had nothing to offer. In 15 years they never really woke up and here I get to use Microsoft against itself with “Microsoft Stream is a corporate video-sharing service which was released on June 20, 2017 that will gradually replace the existing Office 365 Video”, so 12 years of inactivity, in comparison, the Chinese (the makers of Won Ton soup) gave us TikTok one year earlier and now has 100,000,000 active users. Players like IBM and Microsoft have been that much asleep at the wheel. As I personally see it, American BigTech is the only player (all 5 of them) that stops the USA from becoming utterly irrelevant, if they were not there China would be superpower number one and they are close of becoming that anyway, any issues with BigTech and every BS article in every newspaper with some ‘alleged’ and ‘watchdog’ is merely another delay and it will help China to become the greatest tech power, US politicians (EU politicians as well) are helping China meet that goal.
BigTech, the virgin
BigTech is not holy, it is not innocent and it is no virgin (they got screwed by global politicians again and again, so they are definitely not virgins), BigTech are merely the innovators we always needed and the rest is merely a wannabe player, even Microsoft and IBM have fallen that much from grace. Microsoft had the most powerful console in the world and within 2 years they were surpassed by the weakest console of all (Nintendo Switch), IBM has its own stream of non-successes, and they are all crying to their politicians as to the bad bad tech companies. Most of them had no idea what the digital era was until they were surpassed by a lot of other players (some of them Asian). So when we consider the stage, we need to see the whole stage, not some setting of “Ending Big Tech’s sovereignty is about taking back our own, and we can begin to do that in the lives we live together. Big Tech works relentlessly to force individuals into its ecosystem of addiction, exhibitionism, and fear of missing out. It seeks to create its own social universe and draw all of life into its orbit. But the real social world, the life of family and neighbourhood – the authentic communities that sustain authentic togetherness – can act as a counterweight to Big Tech’s ambitions”, in this phrases like ‘force individuals’ is massively wrong, people have choices. I do not have Facebook on my mobile, I have no need for it there, I do not order from Amazon (I am a support your local hooker kind of guy) and I have currently no Netflix or Disney Plus subscription. That is 3 out of 5, I have an Apple because Microsoft dropped the ball 4 times in the last 5 years and IBM is too expensive for what it offers. I chose! We can all choose and that is where we realise that ‘The Tyranny of Big Tech’ is like a Chicago politician, all hot air and not too much on substance (judging from the article (at https://mindmatters.ai/2021/06/a-book-review-the-tyranny-of-big-tech/). He might at some point present a few parts that are relevant, I am certain that he will, but as a former Missouri’s Attorney General he will tread on places where he knows the answers, so as I see “holding Big Tech accountable where others don’t dare tread. In investigations, in legislation”, I merely wonder how much legislation against BigTech made it through? It matters because it is what you can prove that matters, not what you claim. I made no claims, it is all timeline stuff, including the Chinese parts.
Consider the choices YOU have, and make choices, it is your right. You need not be on Google, you can select Microsoft Bing. You will lose out on a lot but that is the choice you make. For well over 20 years Google offered choices, YOU were the consumer that selected WHERE you wanted to go and you went there. All whilst Microsoft could not be bothered, it seems to me that the Netscape Victory made them lazy and now they are no longer the relevant company, they are merely the Column B (or C) company. And consider being in a place like Antigo Wisconsin. Now try to buy a game, a DVD, a bluray, a 4K movie, a CD and a book. How many of these items will require Amazon? It was the foundation of 4G (Wherever I am) and it will be the stage of 5G (wheneverI want it), so when will 5G be available in Antigo Wisconsin? Consider these points and consider whatever Josh Hawley is trying to imprint on you and consider what you can find out for yourself. BigTech is not evil, BigTech is because the others became lazy, BigTech merely is and governments do not like the self sufficient organisations, the ones that do not make large contributions to them. In the end if you look into the shareholders and stakeholders of some of these players you get a very different picture, one you need to be wary of.
As updates go
I got a few messages on the previous article named ‘Perception is merely the start’, several readers had a hard time comprehending this, and off course it is my fault. Well, OK, I will accept that, yet I also assumed a few people being ahead of me in a few regards, so the fact I had to explain this was a little weird, but OK, fair enough. It seems that those in several industries were in the dark of a few items there, so here goes.
Perception
The perception circles are a stage where we go from what we perceive to what is unknown, in middle is what we are aware off. Some put that in a different order, yet perception is the larger circle. We perceive and within what we perceive (complete awareness), there is hat we are merely aware off (partial awareness) and the inner circle is what we do not know. People expect it is the other way round, but this is from niche to speciality. For example, we perceive a firearm, we are partially aware of the calibre, we are partially aware of ammunition, spare parts and cleaning kits of a firearm, yet the parts and specific spare parts of firearm is unknown to us. The same is applicable to games. We are aware of a type of game, we are partially aware of objects, scripting, optionally programming, yet we are in the dark of programming itself. And this repeats itself when we look at the larger approach of cloud gaming and optional other tools of gaming (like Google Glasses). We see the elements, but we do not see how they interact, not precisely.
Assessment
Then at some point I mention “In a simple form it is about Awareness, Perception, Recognition, Identification, Assessment and Proper response.” In the second graph, we see how identification and assessment goes, now we see that it does not go from the outside inwards, it goes from the unknown to the perceived. This might seem weird, but the brain goes the other direction, we auto label what we know until we are left with the unknown, but the assessment setting goes the other way, the brain merely discards all the steps according to what is known, that is the first issues we see in AI, I left it to linguistic sides, but the AI has a larger problem to identify, because it never learned to learn. Our brains got that from creation (and childhood), we learned to learn and that is our benefit, yet AI (what sales people call AI) relies on deeper learning and AI, when it crosses the unknown it is lost (until the programmer adds options as wide as possible), there is the larger setting where games fail. So we need to set a larger data pool and when we add additional signals we get a level of immersion, it is a data overload and the brain now takes over, it will use what it comprehends and relates to, we enter the game on a deeper level and it seemingly overtakes our sense of reality, because we are vested in THAT game, as the brain has less time for what is around it, we seemingly forget about it until we are yanked out of the game. An example is to see ourselves as a horse in traffic, we are aware of traffic as we have a wide perception, but now )as a horse) we are given blinkers. Their function is to limit vision “a piece of horse tack that prevent the horse seeing to the rear and, in some cases, to the side”, we can get that same effect with other means (like the Google Glasses), as the brain gets more info, it drops what is not relevant, as such the real world falls away. Now, it is important to realise that my model is imprecise (or incomplete). In the assessment stage there are levels of verification that we do automatically. Consider that you are walking and you see a sign stating a time (3:30), yet when you are closing in, you suddenly realise that it was 3:38, the brain verified what it saw again and again until there was clarity, we forget about these automated processes and that is where AI also fails, when it has the data, it is assumed to be correct and on point of what we require, yet when we grapple back the ‘Yo mama’ expression, the AI cannot tell when it is about your mother, a formal declaration of defeat, or a joke. It never comprehended what was real, the programmer never taught the AI and there are waves of missing data pointers. The part we are often given is linked to deeper learning and there we see a lot of good (really a lot). In this Saga Brigs wrote “You can’t search for something you’ve already found, can you? In the case of deeper learning, it appears we’ve been doing just that: aiming in the dark at a concept that’s right under our noses” and that is the problem, an actual AI has the wisdom as a situation approaches, our brain does that, it has that ability, the computer does not. As such it leaves a lot blank (optionally a lot to be desired), yet our brains pick up on a lot of that, hence my anger at Ubisoft and their embrace of mediocrity. Yet as I see it, if we give the brain MORE to deal with, like an HUD in Google Glasses, or something similar, that game changes, the blanks (as our brains see it) fall away, we get a lot more and the brain is now fully engaged, the effect, or immediate effect becomes that the game is seemingly a lot more immersive. So what we perceive increases by factor N, as such the game becomes (seemingly) a lot more rewarding to the player.
Validation
This now gets us to a model you will have seen in all kinds of versions before, it is validation and verification. Yet in this setting we see Verification (A), where we control what we see and we either confirm what we see or we let the brain think it is doing so (through a second display like the Google Glasses), as it does this it involves a larger stage to immersion, yet this alone will not do this, the other side it gives us Validation (B), it is a bird? (Superman), is it an enemy? (AC Origin), and that list goes on. On the other side it is where we are, where we go and the consideration that we are on the right track, in the middle is the neat stuff. It is the system, the deeper learning, or perhaps a better stage is the data we are given, yet there is an upside and a downside. The upside that if there is data, it will always be correct. Yet our brains have always been in a stage of checks and balances and if the test and the data is always 100% correct, the brain becomes less and less convinced and the model fails in a game. Checks and balances are missing too often and that is where it goes wrong, so if we give the brain more to do it takes longer for it to catch on, the immersion os more and more complete. And these three models are always active and always relating to one another in some form, so as the brain is given the specific item of some table, it shuts down in disbelieve, nature is never perfect and that is where the game goes wrong, the brain was no longer convinced. That is the setting where cloud gaming could become the next thing. We had the provide stage, we knew nothing (Atari 2600), we moved towards seek where we learned what was out there (Atari ST), we entered connect to what we were playing (Playstation 2+3) and now we enter the imprint stage where the game imprints its brand on our needs and desires (Playstation 4+5, Cloud) and this is where the cloud becomes (optionally) more.
All this was part of yesterday and the developers and IP people should have been on this page long before I put it out here today, so that is where we are now and that is where gaming can go in 2022-2023, will it? It depends on the stage of immersion they are banking on, I reckon that consoles will take longer because of the model of software, but cloud gaming (like Amazon and possibly Netflix) can go further, it will be about a lot more than merely the graphics and the story, I wonder if they are ready for that.
Perception is merely the start
This starts with a dream, I have done this before, but in this case the dream is not the real issue, it merely pointed me at the issue. In the dream I was in a weird firefight, I was shooting at something that looks like an Amsterdam canalboat, yet I was not in Amsterdam, the feeling I got is that this was in Germany, or perhaps Switzerland, I am not sure where it was, the boats were chasing me. They were chasing me over what seemed to be train bridges, a weird looking aqua-duct, and for the most I felt exhilarated, that was until I blew up the canal boat chasing me, at that point exhilaration changed into dread, a dee level of dread and I felt lost. It was at this point where I woke up, the dream made no sense.
So as we close that part, we get to the next part and the first part will make sense later on. Consider what some claim is AI and what really is AI. The AI as Alan Turing saw it. In this I refer to the periodic table of AI, it shows how complex and evolved AI needs to be. In a simple form it is about Awareness, Perception, Recognition, Identification, Assessment and Proper response. This is merely the syntax reception, and the proper response. The right reaction to terms like ‘Yo Mama’, ‘Show me the money’, ‘X marks the spot’ and the setting goes on, the stage where the AI goes haywire as it never understood what was given to it. You see todays IT solutions that are laughingly called AI, are pure responding to the data and programming THEY HAVE. This is nothing new but as I was pondering this, suddenly the dream made sense, it was not about killing (perhaps a little) it was about the sudden feel of dread and how to apply it to gaming.
If gaming needs to evolve, we need to consider another stage, an evolved stage where the player gets a lot more information. You see, the gamer (person) is like an advanced computer, so we need to create the sting of dread. We have numbed ourselves to the screen (display), but what if there was a second screen? What if we add something like Google Glasses to the equation? I set that in motion in the stage that could one day be Far Cry 7, but the application is a lot wider. What happens when the glasses are not a camera, but an HUD that reacts to the screen, what we see on the screen becomes the input for the glasses to be the HUD and basically we are already in the clear for that, one might state that stream games are better equiped for this than the consoles and PC’s are.
What if immersion is not merely the story, what if it becomes a larger stage of next generation games? When we find another way to add Image Identification, Data analytics, and add Knowledge Refinement and drive that through the Google glasses, we add a dimension to the game, it gives a larger stage towards immersion, the brain becomes much larger vested in the game and the game feels more real towards the player (however if it does not work it goes bad big time). When we game, we always know that we are gaming, because the brain can differentiate between the screen and what is around it, when we deprive it of that, the game becomes (optionally) a lot more immersive and therefor a lot more real to us.
This is where cloud gaming might become the next step in gaming. If we can offer more immersion, the brain will see the game as the only place we are and that takes some doing, yet in all this, there might be a side effect. Not that it is a bad one, but when we cannot tell the difference the stage of balance becomes unhinged and I actually do not know what happens at that point, I reckon a psychiatrist might be the person the game developer needs to talk to.
Clouds with a change for gaming
Yup, I started it yesterday, and part 2 is today as I had a few ideas on the subject. These ideas can be used as public domain by Amazon (Luna), but Microsoft will have to pay big time (if they can hand over $7,500,000,000 to Bethesda, they can pay me at least 1%).
Changes (by David Bowie)
The first thing I will do is to introduce Milestones, it is for the most part merely a name change to ‘Achievements’, yet over time it will be a little more. The second is to add a second tier to this, I will add ‘Discovery’ to this, yet all you Susie Dent boffins can clearly see it is a Synonym, yet the function of Discovery is different. As you discover something in one game, it gives you a token that can be spent as YOU see fit. For example if you find a ‘golden chess piece’ in a game like Clue, or a ‘Golden Revolver’ they will become Discoveries that wield the token of a revolver, or a Chess set. In a game like Battle Chess (in normal or battle mode), the Chess token will unlock a Greek Chess set, The golden revolver could unlock a weapon in another game and so on. This is one of the nice parts of the Cloud, we can add a lot more over time and give the people a reason. David Bowie sang:
I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes
I think it is time to take a page from that, we see gaming chances in perspective, but never remove you from where you are. I am setting a stage where that is possible, where games have a longer lasting appeal and I am offering the stage where the player tries something else as well. Most gaming options outside of the console and singular streams do not offer you this, merely an optional DLC and an optional skin, I want the token to take on new life and a much larger stage. This is about gaming and this is about making gamers happy. The nice part is that there is no guarantee that the token is there at game 1, I thought it through, yes there are some internet driven completionists, yet it is time for them to smell the reality of gaming.
We have largely ignored the masters of yesterday because they were 8 bit, yet some of them with today’s graphics and better intelligent response mappings could become the heroes of tomorrow and the nice part is that the groundwork is already done. Consider Millennium 2.2 with an upgraded map of this solar system, with additional information, more options and a larger stage, can we truly think it will not matter? I wrote about Murder on the Zinderneuf, Seven cities of gold and a few more in the past, close to a dozen games ready to be ‘captured’ (if the IP was abandoned), and the early bird that hesitates grows its own worms, so let’s get cracking.
Microsoft throws money at everything, wouldn’t it be nice for players like Amazon (optionally Netflix too) to show them how silly that idea was? You see, I love Bethesda products, I really do, yet I also believe that gamers like the next fresh (and original) game. Consider that the top 100 of all time (by Metacritic) has a top 10 with 3 games older than 20 years and an additional 4 games that are between 10 and 19 years old, giving us that the 70% of the top 10 is 10 years or older, these numbers are in front of everyone and as far as I can tell, none of them are Electronic Arts or Ubisoft and 30% of the top 10 is Nintendo. So I have a clear case here, so why are the different board of directors pushing for some game every year, cool graphics will do the trick or perhaps having the most powerful console is the solution. As I see it, without a really good game they will not continue and that evidence is all over the place.
So where to go after this? Well that is up to I reckon the Indie developers, they will need to choose an optional winner and in that platform create their original or remastered and revamped game. Consider that Elite was released in 1985, now the revamp called Elite Dangerous has 500,000 active monthly players. Ubisoft has plenty of successful games not being that busy, as such we can see that the old games still have appeal. OK the difference between Elite and Elite dangerous is larger than the Grand Canyon, but the foundation remained the same and that is the pull we need to consider that close to a dozen games released in the last decade could have a great revamped and remastered life on streaming even if they were not that successful in an earlier life. The difference is to truly look into a game and see what is possible. Like a sculptor to take that block of marble and chip away what is not needed and reveal the Torlonia statue and yes, it is not merely about chipping away, in some cases it is about polishing, upgrading and adding which we cannot do in a statue, but the statue could be given a shield, a sword (or trident). All options and streaming will give us a larger and adjustable stage as well. A stage where your game will be in the streaming stores for close to a decade. There are clearly options for streaming and it will not hinder consoles, the console gamers will most likely choose an additional streaming solution on the side.
Conjecture
To understand this piece, we need to consider the meaning, when we use conjecture we imply and mean “an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information”, the media tens to be in this state well over 90% of the time. They call it something else, something like ‘from sources who revealed this under condition of anonymity’, or perhaps you have heard the statement ‘people close to the matter revealed to us’, yet it remains conjecture, the information was not complete, it almost never is. So when the Middle East Eye handed its readers the headline ‘Can Saudi Arabia develop a major domestic arms industry by 2030?’ Early this morning (18 hours ago), I had to think this through. I saw the setting last year, or the year before and I shrugged at it. You see ‘a major domestic arms industry’ is generic, too generic. Yet the setting is interesting as it will remove billions in revenue from the EU and the US. This after all the BS the US and the European nations gave them is actually refreshing. But the generic side remains. It is hand weapons, armoured vehicles, naval vessels, airforce crates (an old term for airplanes) the list goes on and they cannot have it all, but a nation like Saudi Arabia could set in motion armoured vehicles and hand weapons. I want to continue, yet lets take a look the article (at https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-develop-national-arms-industry-vision-2030) first. We get to see “Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) – a state-owned defence company – set up a joint venture with the US aerospace and defence giant Lockheed Martin, which, according to a SAMI statement, “will develop localised capabilities by transferring technology and knowledge, and by training a Saudi workforce in manufacturing products for, and providing services to, the Saudi armed forces”” is point number one. Then we get “Riyadh has successfully been able to divert some money formerly earmarked for imports to developing domestic alternatives and has reaped the benefit in terms of Saudis employed, but the goal of going from two percent domestic spending in 2018 to 50 percent domestic spending by 2030 is unrealistic if Riyadh wants to maintain its capabilities and maintain an arsenal of the best equipment,” she said” which they get from Emily Hawthorne, Stratfor’s Middle East and North Africa analyst. Yet I am not entirely convinced. I agree that 50% will be a tall order, I am not sure if 50% can be reached by 2030, too much needs to happen. Yet 2035? Is that out of reach? I am not convinced. You see, we all focus on one side, but this entire enterprise has two sides and we seemingly forget that. You see point one gives us ‘training a Saudi workforce in manufacturing products’, my issue is that this is a focal point not a destination. You see, the military is a destination, The focal point of that workforce needs to grow beyond that. To see this we need to look back at WW1, yes that long back! You see no matter how amazing the Sopwith Camel was (I think the New Zealand Airforce still might have a few), it came from the Sopwith Pup. A plane that was introduced by Sopwith Aviation Company in 1916, during the war, yet the company was founded on 15 December 1913 before WW1, implying that the design was altered for war, which makes perfect sense. That timeline shows that there is a larger stage to any plane, often used for war later on, that premise changed as the arms industry saw the massive benefits of wealth during WW2. It changed nearly everything. The arms industryu continued, but came from something else and it also came from a direct need. For the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (as my personal conjecture goes), it is in one part to strengthen national defence and it needs to diminish import in this area. A stage the others never had, they were always about the export. I tried to hide that clue in an earlier story named ‘The impact of insanity’ on January 20th 2019 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/01/20/the-impact-of-insanity/), the clue was “The idea came from a famous Dutch bank robber named Aage M (70’s)”, it was a clue, because outside of the Netherlands this man and his book would be widely unknown. I used an engineering solution and made it into a stealth weapon (we all have a bit of Alfred Nobel in us). The secondary clue is seen now (which was unintended), but in the original story I did write “Yet, the brain needs nourishment, in my case it is music, I found out that different scores, will set my mind in different directions and it is not set in the style of music, Whilst one album gave me the brain jump to get me to find the Zumwalt pounder (initially merely a solution to take down the Iranian navy), it was David Bowie, and his album ‘the Next day’ that pushed me to make an initial design of the Elder Scrolls X (formerly known as ES6). I never figured out why it happened, merely that it does”, the underlying part I that other elements drive us to push other areas forward, the Military push is NEVER from the military, it comes from somewhere else, and in this case it is most often civilian needs. We look at the internet and decentralised computing (as DARPA brought it), but the stage is almost never in that direction. It is a business need that fuels a consumer drive and it then becomes a military option. That is more often the case. So look and consider Saudi Arabia, or as the fat cats say, a lovely large sandbox. This sandbox has it own approach, its own needs, elements and drives. We in the west think we know, but there is too much we do not and cannot know.
So I give you an alternative, we tend to seek an understanding of what is available, yet what is the stage of observation? We look at planes, we look at drones, but what if we take this in another direction? What if we redesign a much older concept?
So consider the previous image and consider the Battle of Fleurus (1794) where they were used first. In those days they had to be big, but today, with what we have in electronics, we could suffice with something that could be found at Toys-R-Us. Did SAMI ever consider (perhaps they did) to use a whole range of stealth kites? We tend to look at it as something like
Yet that was then, that was civilian, so who considered redesigning that kite in dark colours, make it more stealth like and give it its lightweight electronics that allow for a 25 mile observation with a 5G connection to its base station? No fuel, a silent observer in the night and one most ground forces will not see until it is too late. The Middle East is a different stage, its theatre of war is on grounds seldom seen in the west, as such different solutions will work. A thought that I have not seen explored by DARPA (speculatively) and Raytheon/Northrop Grumman (less speculatively). We all need to consider that the offered information comes from conjecture (even mine) as such I have n clear image of what actually is, but I can see where others did not look (which gave me my 5G IP) and now SAMI has another venue for investigations on what could be done to spend less in other nations (feel free to financially support this poor poor blogger) and consider what else no one has been looking at, because in one of the other stories I left another link, which involves two valves that apparently do not yet exist and that opens up other venues of export. It even gave me a third idea just now. It reflects on an old premise that started the origin of Ceramic glaze, it had different functions, now consider the two-part epoxy adhesive, consider that if it is in two parts, it is an adhesive, yet what if the container it holds has two liquids as well, separate innocent, but if you remove the separation you get a secondary reaction, a chemical reaction that does something else, we now have a nice little chemical detonator, no danger there, until it changes the compound it reacts too, we now have a different setting. All elements that have been abandoned for larger and more accurate electronics. Yet what happens when we change the need of electronics? They need batteries and they tend to have their own flaws, chemicals do not, we are all about relying on the latest ‘electronic’ solutions all whilst the people forgot to look at the other solutions. You see “It has some disadvantages too, e.g. higher cost per detonator and the need for intensive training for users”, when timing is not essential, chemical detonators have their own benefits and in mass production they are cheaper and the need for a larger trained workforce and assembly environment becomes less so, all elements that are not what the seller wants to give you, but the buyer can rejoice when it is faced that way. It does not apply all over the place, but the question becomes, what allows for a different curve that allows for a real application of reducing the investment a cost of developing an arms industry that is applicable to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by 2030, there were two elements, the first is ‘develop a major domestic arms industry by 2030’, the second is ‘spending around 50 percent of its military budget on local sources’, yet that could be seen in two parts as well, spend 50% less of its budget and spend amount X on local sources. If $10B is spend in the US and you can reduce it by Spending $7B less and $2B on local sources the trip is near complete. Consider in that the cost of a US drone (like the MQ-1 Predators) all whilst a refurbishes Kite might cost no more than $15,000. So we get $40,000,000 versus $15,000. Yes the MQ-1 Predators can do a lot more, but how effective is that in Saudi Arabia? Most look at how cool you can fly for $40,000,000, all whilst 15 kites can cover a lot more ground and these groups merely have to observe and guide the MQ-1 Predators to its destination. It is conjecture that we know what is out there, all whilst the term conjecture implies we never knew. Be honest, how many of you considered the deployment of a stealth Kite? A device that uses no fuel, makes no sound and in the dark desert is seemingly as invisible as the night.
All this whilst we need to consider that as SAMI becomes more successful, the US and the EU will miss out on billions each year, a station that they themselves had a hand in creating. In that time I came up with two additional novel ideas (that might not work). Have a great day!
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 