Category Archives: Science

September 22, 2021 · 15:30

Wake up or slumber more?

Wake up or slumber moreYes, we all have that at times, the smallest doubt we give ourselves “Shall I slumber just a few minutes more?” We are allowed it, we were so clever, we set the alarm clock to 30 minutes early and we ignore the first alarm because we had 30 minutes left. At times that is the best sleep time of the night, to know there is 30 minutes left. And I feel the same way, yet I feel that this is the time to realise that the alarm went off a week earlier and we kept on slumbering a little more and a little more and now we are out of time. We are awoken by two articles, not related yet linked. The first is the Guardian who gives us ‘anti-vax radio shows reach millions in US while stars die of Covid’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/21/anti-vax-radio-hosts-dying-covid) we are told that Phil Valentine was anti-vaccine, he even plagiarised the song Taxman and made it his own. We are also introduced to Marc Bernier, Dick Farrel and Jimmy DeYoung. Yet, we need not worry, they are all dead now, they all died of covid and the millions of ‘fans’ they had, a lot of them will be dead soon too. That is the natural selection we are part of. And it is then that the claim “Media watchdogs suggest that some basic level of responsibility to the public should be required to keep a broadcast license” seems to seep in, but it is already too late. Even as some of the exploiters are realising that things are going overboard, they forgot the basic rules of the game, to gain riches you need a population and that population is now becoming redundant. Local radio hosts ignored by the big players, but the people are local people, they are the foundation that the US stands on and it goes way beyond USA, believe it. The stakeholders are the first and the direct franchisers of levels of exploitation and they are now seeing the impact I warned for for well over a decade. You can live on the premise of fooling people, but the strongest reality has now and always been “You can fool some of the people all the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time but you can never fool all of the people all of the time” and that is now pushing towards a reality the exploiters never realised. They realise it first because they need a population and it is dying, with 697,000 dead in the US and an expected 100% rise between now and February 2022 the numbers will take a massive offset. 

So how did I get there?
There are three elements driving it. The first is the Delta variant, the second is the anti-vaccine movements and lets be frank ‘stupid’ people driving anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown sentiments and the third one was given to us by Jenet Yellen giving us a mere two days ago that the US is in danger of defaulting on the US loans in October, the first time in history, all whilst investments in retirement funds are stopping. The three together giving us the waves that follow, waves in hospitals losing funds, funds in resources slowing down, so as hospitals are filling up and in June AP News gave us ‘Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated’, so as the hospitals are full, the unvaccinated die and more will die soon enough. The unvaccinated take up 98.9% of ALL the COVID cases, the vaccinated a mere 1.1%, the difference is that staggering and as the people are embracing stupid anti-vaccine hosts, they follow those people to their grave, quite literally and there is an upside, it will end unemployment in the USA, it will lower unemployment in the UK, Europe and Australia. 

So whilst people are ‘listening’ to some media watchdog, I need to warn you that they have been sitting on their hands for way too long. I alerted the people to hold media accountable in 2011, that was 10 years ago. 

So how is this connected to the second story?
The BBC is the one giving us ‘Covid vaccine stockpiles: Are 241m doses at risk of going to waste?’, so if we consider “The UK promised 100m of that pledge, so far it has donated just under nine million”, we can consider that they did nothing wrong, we can consider all kinds of things, and considering is perfectly fine. Yet there is a larger stage where they did nothing wrong and there is the rub, over a year, less than 10% was donated and the media let it slide, until people start realising that the media adheres to share holders, stakeholders, and advertisers. So who stopped it, or perhaps better stated, who silenced it to a mere whisper? 

And no one is looking into these stakeholders. So whilst we look at crowd after crowd we see more and more, but the three stages, the ‘normal’ people, the anti-vaxxers and the people in panic is now a larger unstable mix. The normalised people are a massive minority and the other two shouting are ahead of all, yet they are now dying and as anti-vaccine versus panic people are in a mix, we see that they all become panic people and they seek a solution but the hospitals are full. The nursing staff (doctors too) are tired and sick of them all so all these panic people have no one to turn to, merely their own undoing and that is the good news. 

Why is it good news?
In the first governments will have to act, so whilst the UK is dealing with Insulate Britain activists we see the tart of a new age, an age of draconian laws, a stage that follows when resources are dwindling down, and these two nations are not alone. France, Germany, Netherlands, UK, USA, Australia they all have to take larger steps in changing direction and this is the stage most of us did to ourselves and the media was kind enough to help, all whilst their stakeholders are running for the hills with a bag full of money. They are now trying to find a place where they can be relatively safe, that is, until the limelight hits them and their actions.

And it is escalating, as some are all about hating the rich and taxing the rich they still fail to see the larger problem. Governments are to blame, they REFUSED to properly adjust tax laws and that has been the case for well over 2 decades. Did you think it was different? Amazon was given the headlines “Amazon had sales income of €44bn in Europe in 2020, despite lockdown surge the firm’s Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss”. Amazon is not breaking the laws, black letter law states what they are allowed to do and they did so, they never broke the law, governments let them off the hook again and again for over 2 decades and it is happening globally. As such the phrase “Kill the rich” should to be “Kill the exploiters” and that list is a hell of a lot longer than you think. The stakeholders have now become afraid that in the 11th hour their gig is up and they are hoping to score one more time before the gig is up forever.

And in this COVID is ending their song sooner than they had hoped. Yet it is a dangerous stage. We see that typical stakeholders are investors, employees, customers, suppliers, communities, governments, or trade associations. Yet in this list we see no facilitators or lobbyists, these exploitive players aren’t on any list, they are couriers from corporations, yet never in service of them, they are only in service of themselves and now when we consider the Economist on July 17th (at https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/07/17/the-republican-anti-vax-delusion) we see “Populist conservatives are to blame”, yet is it that simple? Populistic people are easier to control as they need a place to voice ‘issues’, yet stakeholders see that these are groups of people easier to exploit too and there is the problem, so whilst we see the ‘Trump’ example which could be true, there are more players in that stage and those players all hate the limelight, as the populists love the limelight, they get it all and as such the stakeholder now seen as a lobbyist fades into the shadows. A game played for a long time and now that the fallout of their actions are backfiring their need to vanish becomes increasingly important. And when you think that this is out of thin air? Consider that the United Nations reported this in 2013, which was based on Constantinides et al, 2007. There is now a stage where stakeholders saw a portal to use media to set a much larger stage to fulfil corporate needs. It is given as “The rise of social networks has changed both the way we communicate and the way we consume information. Even within the relatively recent internet era, a major evolution has occurred: In the initial phase known as Web 1.0, users by-and-large consumed online information passively. Now, in the age of social media and Web 2.0, the internet is increasingly used for participation, interaction, conversation and community building”, a stage we have been seeing for over a decade. A stage driven by populists to become internet influencers and the stage of “community building” will be transformed into “sheep herding of the easily adapted” that is the stage we now face, and if you think that they can be changed, you would be wrong because it is already too late, the people saw the Yellen message, they see the overfull hospitals and the anti-Vaccine group is not becoming a panic group and those people listen to no one and it will be fuelled by ‘241m doses at risk of going to waste’ soon enough and the stage does not end there. So when the US (and other places) run out of vaccines the panic driven people will escalate and with statistics that 98.9% of all deaths are unvaccinated ones the state of panic is close to complete and in winter when isolation adds to the issues panic will reign on a global scale. So when you are in bed slumbering to get to the office and you consider taking a sickie, also consider that this is the one sickie you should not have taken. The safe zone is miles behind you and there is no hospital left in front of you and that merely fuels the panic. So when we take notice of “Nearly 70% of Florida hospitals are expecting critical staffing shortages” consider that this is not an American or a Florida issue, it has become a global issue. London gave us all (earlier this year) “London hospitals would be short of nearly 2,000 acute and intensive beds” and when we realise that millions more will die and that this issue has surpassed the 1918 flu pandemic numbers and estimates, consider that it will get worse, a lot worse. The last one is my speculation but the numbers are fuelling my point of view. So will you take a longer slumber? It is your choice, and if you are dedicated anti-vaccine person, the queue of Hades awaits. Feel free to oppose that view, it is your right, yet India a mere hour ago reported ‘India reports 26,964 new Covid cases’, which might be true, but the other numbers cannot be true, there is too much of a sliding scale in play. So how fast will the US emulate India? I honestly cannot tell, but the numbers show a grim reality and in the end the games that some people played will burn the soil in front of them, that is the realisation that history gave us. So do you really want to slumber a bit longer?

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September 21, 2021 · 11:58

DARPA and NSA versus little old me

Yes, that is the stage I am setting. After designing a stealth system to sink the Iranian navy, a novel approach to melt down Iranian nuclear reactors it is time to challenge the US Technology boffins and the US intelligence boffins to a nice little game set and match (advantage me). Yes, my ego is so big that I am willing to take on these to players at the same time (suicidal ego tends to be funny at times).

The idea that formed in me came from an idea from the past (90’s) and is altered to to deal with intrusive crypto miners, a way that will set these people back to the stone age. The stage is that with the additional crypto currencies, these intrusive miners will become a lot more than a nuisance and with energy prices spiking, we need to do something sooner rather than later.

90 something
It was in the early 90’s that someone made the dBase virus. The virus was brilliant, it was a data virus which was rare, but the foundation was awesome (from an academic point of view). The virus was introduced and started to change the data, more importantly whilst the virus was there no one was the wiser. Yet when the virus was removed all dBase data became useless. The virus was a filter to read and write it and it was almost unique for any user, so there was no replicating and for a while it was a nightmare for some.

Now
So what happens when we introduce a self monitoring program in the PC that is linked the the GPU?  A program that is unique and set to THAT GPU but will not interfere with anything. Yet when crypto miners uses your system remotely the program will turn data into garbage and soon these crypto miners will have to investigate all the garbage they collected

A simple solution for a nuisance that will soon out of hand. So you two boffins, I created to elements to stop Iran and now I challenge you to do something for nearly everyone else. I wonder if they can make it happen. In the second part, there is an upside, the creation of personal non interfering floating programs could have a much larger implementation on a much wider field than most (including me) could comprehend, the question is can we do it safely?

This was the idea that was floating inside me as I was considering a few other things, so I reckon that I will have more for you quite soon, optionally linked to new gaming, or is it entertainment? I still cannot tell at present.

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September 19, 2021 · 18:22

Gaming to get a degree

This is a state we should consider. We all have had our share of subjects that made us shiver in secondary school and college. Some ran away from these subjects, some cheated to pass these subjects and some dug in. I was the third group, but it was close. There was every chance I could have gotten into one of the other two teams.Yesterday as I was mulling things over I took a look at Law Empire Tycoon on my iPad. Things were happening in the back of my head but it was still a silent whisper. A second part was that I was rewatching the West Wing (I am now at season 3), and it took a little while for things to step into gear. The idea was forming in the back of my head, but it was a whisper, nothing more. Today the idea pretty much exploded in my mind. The game Law Empire Tycoon is an adjusted version of Bullfrogs Theme Hospital. It is not a copy, it is the same style, the same way (in many ways) but it is an original game. The graphics are new, the interface is similar but it has a few more sides to it and a few added complexities. It is an excellent game (as far as I can tell at present), like all games it does need some infusion of dollars, but not too much and even if you do not, you can still play the game, but a lot slower.

I wonder what happened if we turn this system around and make it an educational tool. Consider the White House, congress, US house of representatives and these are three games where the people learn, really learn more about their government. It can be the foundation for similar games in Canada, the UK and Australia. A game all set to teach about government. It will have a few sides and it will have a few questions left, right and centre. Yet it could be an idea and the makers of Law Empire Tycoon have a larger setting ready, so are they the ones creating an educational game that teaches the people parts and sides of their government. It is merely an idea, yet will it work? I am not certain, but it is an option to consider, especially when the student (gamer) gets the lowdown and learns in a way books seemingly are not doing it to way too many people. 

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September 16, 2021 · 08:13

The same gramophone

It started over a month ago with ‘From horse to course’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/23/from-horse-to-course/) there we saw the attack and the debatability on some of the presented evidence. Today we see (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/15/eu-poised-to-tighten-privacy-laws-after-pegasus-spyware-scandal) ‘EU commissioner calls for urgent action against Pegasus spyware’ and it would make sense, until we get to “The investigation was based on forensic analysis of phones and analysis of a leaked database of 50,000 numbers”, so in well over a month there are no top-line statistics? The list was attacked by a few well over a month ago, but here we see the Guardian, specifically Daniel Boffey hash over the same stage with nothing to show for it, so is he what some might call ‘a fucking tool’ for stakeholders or a wannabe journalist? Consider that we pretty much get the same details we saw in my article and these parts came from the BBC and the Guardian’s own article from last July. That article gave us “NSO has said Macron was not a “target” of any of its customers, meaning the company denies he was selected for surveillance using its spyware, saying in multiple statements that it requires its government clients to use its powerful spying tools only for legitimate investigations into terrorism or crime”, so whilst we now see “analysis of a leaked database of 50,000 numbers, including that of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and European Council president, Charles Michel”. So did Daniel forget to do his homework or was he acting on the needs of a stakeholder? I actually do not know, hence I ask here. The largest failing is that the Guardian gives us some emotional charged article and no homework was done, there is no top-line on the nations involved with the 50,000 phone numbers. All whilst I also showed (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/28/retry-or-retrial/) a few days later when The Verge got involved that 50,000 numbers imply a cost of no less than $400,000,000 which is still not looked at, so why is the Guardian (BBC too) this unable to perform? In that article ‘Retry or retrial?’ We see the Verge giving us “The Washington Post says that the list is from 2016” and that journalist no one cares about was still alive. A setting that is seemingly overlooked by TWO news organisations and none of them vetted information through a top-line which is what I would have done first. So how many of these numbers are EU numbers? How many are in France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany or Sweden? In over a month neither newsagent got that part done and if the Verge is to be believed the 2016 list without a top-line shows newsagents to be massively incompetent. 

Added here we see the added part “A consortium of 17 media outlets, including the Guardian, revealed in July that global clients of the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group had used hacking software to target human rights activists, journalists and lawyers”, that part negated is that the NSO group is a service branch towards governments on the tracking of criminals and terrorists. This caper costs a government “$500,000 for an extra 50 phones” (source: The Verge) all whilst the entire list represents a minimum value of $400 million. So which governments spend that much on these numbers and when you consider that it was a list of governments, we see additional info that the leaked list is a fictive list, there is no leak that hands the phone lists of all these governments and that is before we consider that one number might be on several lists. Consider that both Macron and Johnson want to know where Merkel gets her lingerie (ha ha ha). OK, that was a funny, but the setting is valid, there is a genuine need for several governments to keep track of a person and when we consider that I could have made a top-line within a week (depending on how the data looks) why did the Guardian and the BBC not succeed? Why do they not have any reference to the leaked list being a 2016 list? 

Also in the end we see the Guardian give us “NSO says it “does not operate the systems that it sells to vetted government customers, and does not have access to the data of its customers’ targets”” when we consider that we see more debatable sides to a list of 50,000, we see the lack of actions for well over a month (almost 2 months) and at no stage do we see any clear allegations against any government apart for some mention of Hungary, all whilst the top-line results could have pointed the finger at someone. Do you actually believe that the UAE or Saudi Arabia have any interest in a Dutch Human rights activist? At the prices that the NSO charges, I very much doubt it. 

So here I stand asking the Guardian (and specifically Daniel Boffey) what on earth do you think you are doing? Who are you serving, because the lack of evidence and lack of clear verifiable data implies you are not doing this for the readers, if that were true the article would have looked very different.

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September 15, 2021 · 16:46

Speculative design

Many do this at times. We look at something and we think ‘What if we move part N to location X?’ It is a perfectly valid idea and it keeps a brain active and in creative mode, which tends to be good for several reasons. So I was busy thinking things out, in one it is the side of pushing another IP towards public domain, it is too soon, but not by much. So the mind started to wander. The first part was the new trojan that the NSO group is suspected off (see previous story), the second was a line in the West Wing (which I am watching again during the lockdown plus curfew. There we hear about a pen designed for NASA that works upside down, one mentions that Russia solved it by using a pencil. You might not think it, but it is actually an important part. So as these elements rolled in my mind, I wondered on adding a setting (just to piss off the Iranians) in a stage to get two for the price of one, they do use Russian hardware. As such I thought that we need a few clever boffins and as such the people should call on the NSA (No Such Agency). What if we find a way to introduce a hippocampus to the hardware? A hippocampus is a trojan that is submerged (in this case) into the firing solutions. You see at some point a target needs to be setup and that moment the link becomes a weak link. You see not all systems have additional redundant systems and I am willing to bet that Iran has the latest hardware, but not every internal system is up to the latest standard. Implying that we can add something. So what if these missiles would then automatically start to be set to point X plus 1-10 miles? A submerged trojan horse might pull that off. There are a few questions that require me to have a lot more firing system knowledge. Yet when we consider the elements rocket-firing solution-guidance, we might see that the firing solution will be the easiest transgression and these systems do require to get to a base. A solution  that will hit EVERY firing system by infecting all the systems and the infection stays where it is until it fires and then it becomes a nice 4th July showtime. And there is a nice secondary part, the person firing is the one hitting ones self. Passive aggression in full view. 

So is my view realistic? I do not know, I do not care. I merely try to design a way to stop players like Iran and I will use any way possible. All whilst politicians make claims to do something and after spending truckloads on funds on long exclusive trips that tends to include a few 5 star hotels, I on the other hand, sitting on my sofa came up with ideas that had no cost, merely a few dimes of electricity. One works in whatever way the brain gets to be (more) creative. It was the same path I followed when I designed a way to push a  meltdown in the Iranian nuclear plants. OK, I also engineered two additional valve ideas and when I file for these I might get a few additional dollars as well. I do know that these solutions are pure concept, there is no guarantee it will work. But it keeps my brain busy and if it doesn’t work, it might make for a nice additional part to some TV series or movie. The creative brain can come up with a dozen ideas, just be ready that it ends up where it was not expected to go. You might find that funny and it is, but when you consider how books, games and movies got an infusion of brilliance. You merely have to consider how they got to be. Games like Ultima 3 became inspirations to a lot more RPG games (made by other makers). The EA game ShadowCaster was by way too many overlooked, yet when you see “the 49th best computer game of all time, calling it “an admirable attempt to show that RPGs don’t have to be boring””, so why was this game not remastered and redesigned for consoles and streamings? In that same light we can review all kinds of neglected hardware and see just how creative we could get with it. Everyone is so busy in making things not work that they overlook the option to make it hurt the activator and not the target. Perhaps we need to instil the need for people who work for no such agency to get better acquainted with gaming. You might not realise it but games have been on the fringe of hardware for at least 3 decades, optionally even longer and even as some ‘embrace’ that nowadays games are more advanced, people forget that the CBM-64 and Atari ST allowed for games that were often not possible, yet the game makers found a way around their limitations. Consider a game like Impossible mission (Epyx) and the fact that this game can still be enjoyed on an 8 bit system by any number of gamers today, and they got that done on a system with a mere 38KB, it can equal a game that requires an 8GB system, so there!

There are of course a few more ideas, but it is about the concept of working with limits. I ned not explain this to programmers, but some of them will grab an Azure SDK and start from there. We forget that that same company gave us the Microsoft Assembler. Azure solutions start at 765 kilo bits, whilst assembly gives us one of the smallest useful programs for a mere 4 bytes. It is not merely what solution is used, it is about what limitations can be used to our advantage and as a snow-globe gave me the idea to meltdown a reactor, an assembly program used to overcome some security on an EA game (8 bytes) might be the path to set the firing point of the Qiam-1 to the destination point as firing point + 10000 if the destination is measured in metres. At times we forget that having more space does not work, it requires limitations to give us the creativity we required to get it done.

Just my 2 bytes on the matter.

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September 15, 2021 · 07:58

As questions rise

The BBC gave us the rundown late yesterday (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58540936) where we are given ‘Apple rushes to block ‘zero-click’ iPhone spyware’. A setting that comes at times and this is not against Apple, yet the article left me with questions. I get that there is initial finger pointing, as such pointing to the best in the field makes perfect sense to me and it is done with “it had high confidence that the Israeli hacker-for-hire firm, NSO Group, was behind that attack”, I do admit that the term ‘hacker-for-hire’ will be one that requires more precise explaining. Bill Marczak from the University of Toronto’s Citizen which first highlighted the issue gives us “we previously found evidence of zero-click spyware, but “this is the first one where the exploit has been captured so we can find out how it works,”” and this got me thinking. 

Where is the timeline? With what version of iOS does it start? Version 14, version 14.5, version 13? So how long was this in play? It is not the fault of the BBC and it is the first issue.

We then get “the security issue was exploited to plant spyware on a Saudi activist’s iPhone”, so how many activists are monitored? When was the transgression detected? How was the transgression detected? At least two of these questions require investigation and the BBC did not go there. We can argue whether they were required to do so. 

So whilst we are lulled to sleep with “Security experts have said that although the discovery is significant, most users of Apple devices should not be overly concerned as such attacks are usually highly targeted” which could be an absolute truth, we see the setting that Apple is protected. So why was the weakness there in the first place? The answer might be extremely valid, no system is truly secure, we have seen that for a long time. Yet in the moments where I saw this article I phrased a few questions that I have not seen anywhere else (as far as I could tell). And of all the people who could be infected, we get the mention of ‘Saudi activist’? The article was set to certain measures and without proper and a clear explanation there is every chance that additional questions will be asked from the University of Toronto as well. This is not against them and I have nothing against Bill Marczak (I do not know anything about him), but the stage was set in a few measures and that makes for a worrisome setting. A BBC article absent of a few facts and the insertion of a few innuendo’s. All whilst there optionally might be questions from the NSO Group. A stage where we see a setting where (in my personal opinion) someone was standing of the axial of a seesaw to keep the almost in balance. And as the NSO Group, Saudi Arabia and Apple where alternating on the seesaw, the man in the middle offset the balance by just enough to make is wonder, to make us lay blame. Yet all that happened with several facts missing and the smallest mention of “continue to provide intelligence and law enforcement agencies around the world with life-saving technologies to fight terror and crime”.

We all need to do what we need to do, yet I wonder if the BBC (and Reuters) did enough here.

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September 12, 2021 · 20:37

Where the grass is greener

It is a question that comes from an expression, which also has the answer. And we will look into that later. It seems that the US is taking larger steps in ending the friendship with Saudi Arabia. Politico reported yesterday ‘U.S. pulls missile defences in Saudi Arabia amid Yemen attacks’ (at https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/11/missile-defense-saudi-arabia-511320), now we can understand that some are not willing to sell arms, but a defence system that stops terrorists sending drones and missiles on civilian targets? It seems that the actions are a prelude for the US to get into bed with Iran (highly speculative) and that is a concept worthy of laughter, but I am not laughing. 

The setting that is given is “the perception is very clear that the U.S. is not as committed to the Gulf as it used to be in the views of many people in decision-making authority in the region” we get this from Kristian Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. I think there is more to that, but it lacks evidence. I for one have believed for years that the US (NATO allies too) were playing a one step destabilisation game in the middle east. A game where destabilisation is a mere one step away and that is no longer the case. Until thee is a direct blow between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the larger stage is not maintained and the US is getting out of there. For China it is good news, now that they are looking at another customer for the HQ-9 and a few other options. Yes, we see the western press all shouting on ending arms deals, but in the end Saudi Arabia should be allowed to defend itself and the need to defend against Houthi terrorist attacks is a prime concern for a lot of people there. So is there an alternative? Well, there is the Russian alternative, but they are shipping that to Iran, so to buy those as well is a bit of an issue on a few levels, but those objections work for China. Consider that China now has a direct setting to sell well over $17,000,000,000 in hardware to Saudi Arabia, the same will now be lost to the US in an age where they are absolutely broke. It never made sense to me, it is all nice to have high morals, but in an age where you cannot afford to buy bread and healthcare high morals just leads to more hunger in a day and age where most cannot afford such luxuries. And let’s be clear, this is not some banana republic, this is a well established monarchy. And whilst we see “From the Saudi point of view, they now see Obama, Trump and Biden — three successive presidents — taking decisions that signify to some extent an abandonment.” We merely see more and more options for China and that is merely the beginning, once the stage is set the US will lose more ground and that also leads to a stage where they are completely dependent on Israel to give them intelligence.  A stage that could have been prevented from the start and no matter how they see it and I am accepting that it is their policy, it also comes with the new policy that the OPEC nations might have a new consideration, oil to China and not to the US or Europe (mostly reduced amounts of oil to Europe) And it will not aid Strasbourg to start crying foul here, it is the consequence of closing settings and in all this I personally prefer China and not Russia to get these options, it is a personal matter (NATO related). The larger stage will also hit Egypt, should Saudi Arabia continue with Huawei to set 5G connections in Egypt, the economic footprint of Saudi Arabia will change, all whilst the US ends up with a reduced footprint and that is a stage that is now escalating over the next 12-18 months. 

Will I be right?
That is open to interpretation and it is open to a few factors that are not given, untested and lacking evidence, but there is a larger stage that this could play out and that is really bad news for anyone not relying on Huawei hardware, with the US pulling out of areas that stage will also lose a few more settings, so as Chinese hardware comes in, US consultants will lose more and more traction in larger areas and that is the stage some players (seemingly) overlooked. So when Analysys Mason and Boston Consulting Group start missing deals and getting less appointments you know it will be too late for a few options. There are a few more players there, but they have a much larger stage with more nations and more options, they might end up with a few projects that are China based. 

So why would Saudi Arabia move to Egypt?

It is a fair question and it sets a much larger stage where Neom city will be all 5G and to stretch out towards Egypt makes perfect sense, one large network that stretches from Cairo to Jeddah, to Mecca and via Riyadh to Dammam, a network that also includes Neom, one of the biggest 5G networks in the world and it would be all Saudi, now consider the lack of credibility that the west has in a place like Egypt and now a fellow Islamic nation offers to include Egypt, what do you think Egypt will do? And lets not forget with all the band and embargo’s and collateral damage the US has in its name, Egypt is ready to seek a telecom alliance with Saudi Arabia and their numbers look really good compared to the US, it is partially speculation yet in this the Huawei announcements in 2019 give validity to my train of thought, Now add to that the media rollover I discussed a week or two ago and you see a much larger stage and the promise that Saudi Arabia made on having more than oil as a form of income is now coming to pass with a rollout that could be ready long before that deadline hits in 2030, there is a stage that should see a larger readiness in 2025, long before the US has anywhere near that level of 5G completion. In May of this year we were given “All of the major U.S. wireless carriers say they have nationwide 5G service, but industry analysts say that service is largely indistinguishable from 4G LTE service.” This implies that the Statista numbers we saw last year remains accurate for at least two more years, implying that the Saudi 5G is well over 700% faster than anything the US has and that is just embarrassing. So when we see Telecom and defence falling away from the west, how much more losses do we need to see before someone realises that we are cutting ourselves. Morality is nice but the hungry need food and they do not care how they get it. A stage where the middle east becomes the tech centre is weird, completely unexpected and whilst we see stories on Silicon Valley, I wonder if they have anything left? When the middle east is driving tech innovation the west becomes a mere iterator trying to keep up. I personally see it as the result of concept selling, it is all good and nice but the customer wants a product, it needs to get working and as we see hype after hype on AI all whilst it is merely machine learning and deeper learning, we need to consider how long this can continue until the stage implodes on itself? 

So where is the grass greener? On the other fellows yard! (Billy Jones, 1924)

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September 12, 2021 · 15:00

More darkness behind the lights

I have been twisting and turning on this one, there is the case that you should not give an audience to crazy people,  because that is what it initially seemed like. Yet, I decided to take a deeper look and even as I do not agree with the Vlogger, he does put forward a decent argument and I can not pass up a decent argument. The argument (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo-ub56O2Vw) starts right off the bat and the man (Decoy Voice) brings a good argument, yet there too we see issues and I am not blaming him, he brings the facts. Yet how far did he dig?

The Healthcare systems are buckling, not in the first in COVID, but on stupid patients making some freedom chant against vaccines and we see  again and again these people dying in some ICU on how wrong they were. Well, in the first they had no medical degree, they listened to other people who had no medical degree so there! 

Then we get the Horse Goo side of the story consider several sources giving us ‘Poisoning Caused By Horse Dewormer Up 168% Amid Right-Wing Propaganda’, so how wrong is this? Well there is a horse dewormer that was approved for human use, Ivermectin is a drug that is specific for intestinal problems and even then a few very specific ones. As such I wonder who prescribed that? It is not for the flu and it has no flu diminishing options, the scientific world at large warns about this. Yet I still fall short for calling these people nuts, some sources give us that none other than Fox News have made statements making claim that it was an option, I am merely repeating what other sources (Washington Post) claim and we have always seen Fox News as a news group, so people will fall for it. 

Then the Vlogger goes on pretty much attacking Jimmy Kimmel and there he misses the boat. Yes he is making these statements, so the Vlogger is not lying, but it is a comedy and his point of view is shared by me and many others. In a stage where healthcare is buckling you want to give priority on the patients who did everything right. The COVID part is not a fab, we have (at present) well over 4,638,546 cadavers and over 20,000,000 still being treated. This is not a US thing, it is global and I do not mind, when the stupid people die their jobs go to others lowering unemployment. 

Stupid People?
So why am I calling these people stupid? Medication is only one part, there are the anti vaccine people, the anti lockdown and the anti social distancing. In the first, there are reasons why people are anti vaccine and I accept that, but in all these cases (some religious) I accept that they want to live by the faith rule, but then the faith rule it is and you need not rely on doctors. The others are what I personally see a group of anti social people who seemingly want whatever they want at the expense of anyone else. Consider the image below, if only 5 people had it on that day, by the end of that day 50-100 more will have it on that day spreading the disease like wildfire. Now, I hate the lockdown just like anyone else, but this disease kills, it kills 2% and that was in the old setting, the new setting (the Delta variant) spreads faster and gives additional long term issues. 

How do I know this?
I listen to ACTUAL experts on the matter of infectious diseases. Dr. Anthony Fauci did not make the claim. He worked in this field from before 1983 in that time he gained the Maxwell Finland Award (1989), Ernst Jung Prize (1995), Lasker Award (2007), Robert Koch Prize (Gold, 2013) and a few others. So this man was working actively in the field of infectious diseases before some of the self proclaimed false prophets wielding their ‘cure’ were born. And there is no stage where I find it acceptable that healthcare people have to take the insult, the abuse and the loudly voiced claims, in this I support Jimmy Kimmel ‘Let them die’, we could do with fewer people on this world I say. 

I get it, it is not fair on those who did everything right and they got it all done (including vaccinations) and there is a small group who will still not make it and age is a factor. Yes, I agree in some cases it is not fair, but so is the stage given by USA Today when we saw (Yesterday) ‘Alabama man dies of cardiac event after 43 hospitals with full ICUs turned him away’, so can you take that in for a second? Around Alabama 43 hospitals had no beds in ICU to treat this man. As such, my personal feelings were that the anti vaccine people taking up those beds had to be thrown out of the hospitals to take care of actual sick people and here is the rub. Those who self inflict disease on themselves, they should not be allowed to take the bed of those who work according to the rules of the game. Here is where I go up against Decoy voice. Jimmy Kimmel gave his view and he is allowed this, we see the first attack on Jimmy at 00:38. As I see it Jimmy was not the arbiter of truth, he gave his point of view and I agree with him, so will many others. But in this I do not attack Decoy Voice his point of view. I might not completely agree yet at 5:12 his point of view comes out and he does make valid points. When NBC Today (seemingly) tweets that the head of the CDC stated that the third one was based on hope not data, that is an issue and Decoy Voice should bring that in his Vlog. 

In opposition
In opposition we need to consider a few items, the first is that this disease is still evolving. There is now a Delta variant, the initial vaccines have an impact, people who get the Delta variant will get sick but their system will get over it faster and better. If any vaccine will take 15-18 months, we will not see a proper vaccine for the Delta variant until January 2023, so how many people will die in the mean time? The fact that Pfizer and Moderna were able to produce a vaccine 6 months ahead of schedule is nothing short of a miracle, but the media does not really wonder about that side, do they? Should we take a vaccine based on hope? That is the hard question and I would listen to the point of view of Dr Fauci, the ACTUAL expert. 

Why the doubt?
I remain to some degree in doubt. You see I have no idea how the entire Ivermectin got started, it got started somehow and I wonder how it was, but it is for the FBI to investigate and prosecute the people behind that part. You see this is not about freedom of speech, this is about causing the reckless death and dangerous health conditions, I reckon that the headline ‘Poisoning Caused By Horse Dewormer Up 168%’ takes care of that and now the FBI will need to investigate Fox News as well, if they voiced that than they will have to show proof publicly or be denied the airwaves. I reckon that we will get all kinds of crying executives when FoxNews gets a 120 day shutdown order on all digital media sources. The media blatantly shows information without proper vetting and that needs to end, people are dying here. 

I missed a few items, but you can watch the video, because he does bring decent point of argument, I do not agree with several of his points but perhaps you do. In the end I am all for freedom of speech and in this the threshold for a Vlogger is lower than a news media, he is merely opinionated  and he uses plenty of sources. He merely got on my bad side when he attacked Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy is funny as hell nearly all of the time (Matt Damon seemingly disagrees).

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September 11, 2021 · 03:53

Missing hardware

This train had been on route for a while, and there are a few reasons for that. In the first my mind took the easy road, but as I pondered the stage again and again, my mind was trying to view another road, even if I remained unaware, I try to not look into the back of my mind. It is a messy place and covered with corpses. We all revere the idea’s we complete, but the others not that much, in this I am just like anyone else. There is no excuse, like a good IT person, I can be as lazy as the next person. 

The new hardware (of course a free idea for Sony and independent Sony Playstation and Amazon Luna makers is set in two parts (I’ll get to them soon enough). The thoughts came more clear as I was finishing the last Harry Potter movie. In the back was also an idea that Peter Molyneux had in Black and White, the gesture system. But it is one of the few times that it was employed. Harry I Potter games are a natural thought and Someone made it a harry potter game as well (Book of Spells), I never played it, but the wand was ugly as hell, It was a mere sign of the times. 

Now consider the image below, a wand we can buy and they are there for nearly any Harry Potter character, now consider that in the next batch onwards it was two small compartments, each for a cylinder that is no more then 3mm thick and 11-17mm long. One at the tip and one at the handle with two small metal points that connect to the inside, so that it can be charged without opening your wand all the time. 

Now consider that the first part is like the observer, like what the Nintendo Wii had, but not in one part, in two parts. One goes to the middle of the upper or lower side of the TV, the other to the middle part of the left or right side of the TV, two parts so that the scan will be much more accurate (even thought the Wii was pretty accurate), the second one, the locators are in this case in the wand, or perhaps a steering wheel, a sword, a bow and arrow and we can go on from there. 

Locator

These locators can be ordered per 2 and are relatively cheap. Yet what is more interesting is that a gamer can now get ‘almost authentic’ wands of choice, the gamer gets to choose and as we see the market bounce back, we see a much larger stage, because who wouldn’t want something almost geeky alike whatever they love? The steering wheel of Steve McQueen (GTA V), The sword of Viggo Mortensen’s Anduril (Lord of the Rings), you name it we tend to get overly enthusiastic on some movie and some special item, the Lord of the rings gets to hundreds of millions, Harry Potter Merchandise is well over 20 billion and that is a mere two movies. What happens when we add the Fast and Furious steering wheel that Dominic Toretto uses? And there is an upside, you can go as expensive, or keep it as cheap as possible, the steering wheel would merely need to two small hidden compartments with the two small connectors for charging. The generic locators would do the work with the scanners on the other side, and as the group of games expands over more devices, the gamers can consider buying two more locators, I reckon that a gamer will end up with 3-5 locator sets, they’ll start with one and buy another one when they get the two games they always wanted. After that they will exchange the locators to their new device of their game of choice, yet a steering wheel can optionally be used in nearly all racing games. The sword in plenty of games and as we see this grow we see a more complete engagement in gaming, something all game designers hope for and by setting the premise of a steer or anything to be as cheap or as realistic as possible will open new markets as well. Yes for the younger players that thing that case with the Book of Spells will suffice, but when that 9 year old turns 15-16, they want something more alike and those wands are anything between $9 and $90, it will be open to the gamer to decide what they spend on, we merely need to add the hardware to allow for that and as their choice of gaming adjusts, the locators can be moved from one to the other. 

A new stage where some will chose the cheap plastic sword and some will go for the Weta Workshop originals (or is that near originals?) It is up to you to choose, but we need the hardware makers to consider that there are parts of any choice that rely on the decision of the gamer. That is how the market rolls and we need to adhere to that because if gaming cannot lead the way the other markets are pretty screwed from the word go. That is a clear sign we have seen over the last 20 years.

Is it an option? I believe so, I believe that the markets are ready to show us that they can offer something new, is it enough? Time will tell.

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September 10, 2021 · 07:56

Yesterday was fun

Yes, yesterday was fun for several reasons, not in the least that some people (referring to themselves as a member of the Anony Mouse population) are in the misgiven idea that I could be Mr Theodore Raitor. Nothing could be further from the truth!

In the First
In the first the arms industry is a business. I did not make it that way, the American did that during the Vietnam war. They made it a business and less than a dozen boards of directors took home billions in all kinds of manners. I am not opposing that, I am not offering another view, I could but there is some wisdom in taking that route, it comes with successes and it also comes with failures. 

In the second
Following the first, I have at all times the direct believe that ANY sovereign nation is allowed its ability to defend itself, that includes Middle East and Far East Nations. The ability to arm and defend itself should be open to any nation. The Belgium Fabrique National in Herstal founded itself on that premise and for them in the 80’s (optionally 90’s as well) business was good, really good. 

These two rules are there out in the open, the media tends to not report on that side of it all. You see the media relies on ‘click bitches’ and their reporting is centred around that premise. National defence is a well trusted stage for emotional reporting and I am not objecting to that, they merely made a choice. Thats also where I drew the line to failure. Ford created the Edsel and for 3 years they tried that but after year 3 they stopped it, their losses came down to what would now be regarded as a $2 billion loss. They quietly let this failure die, which is what they were allowed to do and yes, we all (the older people) make jokes on it and Hollywood added to that in Peggy Sue got Married. It was all good. Now we see that the Lockheed Martin boys (girls also) are trying to continue their stage after making an investment well over 1000 times and they want it to continue. Losses a thousand times bigger than Ford had, is anyone seeing that marker? Now it is up to Lockheed Martin to do whatever they need to do, because it is their right (and other people’s money) and that is the larger stage, the US taxpayer is paying for that failure. 

For me there is a simple setting. There is a customer (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) that has a right to defend itself, so I would happily sell them the BAE Typhoon, but there the UK cut themselves when we see the CAAT (Campaign Against Arms Trade) with all these grannies with signs telling the UK government that Saudi Arabia is evil, it cannot have weapons, but they do not hold that candle up to Iran who is funding Houthi attacks on civilian populations. So there is an alternative, China has an alternative. And even if that makes me a really well paid courier. I am willing to ferry those papers between buyer A and seller B. Yes, I agree that getting 3.75% out of $11,000,000,000 is a bit much, but I never made those rules, did I? The US and their business enterprises did that. I merely saw the ball falling and I decided to pick it up. China is not in a war with Australia, the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group is a respectable defence ability offerer (most usual to China) and the US has a lemon, so there is nothing wrong and those trying to create click bitches need to consider that I never made any of these rules, I merely use the rules of the game to get a job and to get a decent payment. If the KSA decides that I cannot have the $412,500,000 and that I am only allowed $50,000,000 I will not be upset (optionally a little disappointed), but that is any mouse who gets the slice of cheese and not the cheese wheel in a building filled with cheese wheels. 

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a right to get defence materials and the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group has a right to sell them to anyone their government is not at war with. These are not my rules, the Americans did that and they stood by whilst the Taliban ended with over 8 billion in American hardware and they also did close to nothing when ISIS got their hands on more American Toyota 4 wheel drives then can be found in Guttenberg, New York. So there!

Do I stand a chance? Not really, but the fact that I am willing to do business where there is business also implies that there are other players and as a former NATO boy, I rather see these funds go to China then to Russia with their Sukhoi Su-57 or their new puppy the Checkmate. This is the consequence of making defence a business, its all good and overpaid fun until someone creates a lemon. A lemon one that costs the taxpayer $2,300,000,000,000. Are you awake? Can you see the cost of one article (read: lemon) currently equals the total debt of Germany? 

Do I want in? Absolutely! This one deal could make me more money than half a century of day to day slaving, it is like getting the golden lottery ticket and this really pays off! 

Is it bad for Lockheed Martin? Yes it is, like Ford with their Edsel, all failure is shared, but it could result in a big win, you merely have to watch Nintendo who turned their WiiU failure into a homerun success (Nintendo Switch), I personally see the Lockheed Failure in the same way as we see failures from Microsoft. Too many politicians who ignore the core business and try to steer towards the Fata Morgana of mountains of gold on the horizon, when you do that you merely steer from failure to failure and the defence players better catch on quick. You see the buyers are not interested in hype creating marketeers, they want results and Lockheed Martin is not delivering that and whilst we speculate that the media is taking notes from speculative stakeholders, the buyer in the end is a defence industry who is not interested in marketing, they have a clear goal, not a fictive on on the horizon and that is one ferry I am happy to board (with permission of its captain). It is the direct result of a labour force who is all in touch with feelings and not in line with expected needs and KPI sessions. So yes, yesterday was fun for more than one reason and it could end up being a whole lot more fun if I do get that job.

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