Category Archives: Science

August 26, 2021 · 05:03

Blame Canada

Yup, the award nominated song from South Park, the title will forever reverberate in my mind, and in this case Canada was on my mind for a week. The reason? I will get to that, but first we will need to take you through some essential comparisons. In the first Canada is almost the size of the USA, it is a little smaller, but not much. The second part is that it has 10% of the population that the USA has. So nature rules in Canada on a few fronts, including the small fact that most Canadian women are a lot more beautiful than the American ones (A.J. Cook, Laura Vandevoort, Alison Pill, Ana Golja, Annie Clark, Nanci Chambers, Erica Cerra and hundreds more) have graced the screens large and small and they are a fine example of the Canadian women. Yet, this is not about the women it is about nature. You see, we see apps and games on hunting and survival, yet it is always set to a set of parameters, so what if we take that away? What if we create a map from satellites, real and decently accurate map sizing 1000 by 500 Km stretching from British Colombia to Saskatchewan? In this map you get dumped and from there on it will be about TRUE survival. There will be settings like starter, amateur and pro and those three rings will determine hunger, thirst, hypothermia and hostile nature. The program would set all the elements are faithful as possible, giving the people a real taste of survival without harming ones self. The amateur gets a few lives, but the rest is hardcore, one life and that is it. So how long could you survive in a game where everything matters. You see, it dawned on me that it started a little further back when I heard someone claim in a games shop that survival is simple, you merely have to understand what the game needs. That started the entire progress and as I learned more about Canada, I saw the options that they could give a gamer. More interestingly that same map could be used to spawn stories and cultural history on the First Nation, the stories of a collection of ghost towns, the call of the wild and hunting lessons, a game that gives people a decently real taste of that life without killing the animals, or (more importantly) getting killed by them. 

So why did I mention the women?
You can go into the wild just on your own, or for a reason, one reason is that your family (one of the actresses fictively being your wife) has gone down in Canada and a rough location is know. You are dropped off by chopper and with a radio and a backpack of goods, so can you find her? Can you safe them all (if the program allows for that)? A setting where survival is taken on a hype and to be honest there is no place like Canada to test it, it is one of the most rugged places on earth (if we ignore Russia). A stage that could be larger, because if you remember yesterday, the map is merely one side and we can fill it or better stated overlay it with other games. And if it takes a lifetime to explore a map that size, consider what gaming challenges could be added to that map, or perhaps better stated the challenges that a game has and it uses the same map. 

Does it matter?
Not really, but gaming can only evolve when you push the boundaries and we cannot rely on the consoles or streamers to push, they are for the most in a holding pattern until 5G grows up and that will take another 2 years, just as I foresaw and it gives another side. China can do pretty much exactly the same, they have similar settings and they have the space, but they also have 1.4 billion people and a lot more roads. In all this I have always believed that coming first gives you an edge and with IP on mobiles and other sources growing that space for options is diminishing, as such Canada only has a real advantage whilst China does not go that way, will they? I have no idea, yet so far none of the other players have taken their map to such a degree and that opens options as well as opportunities. 

As we see what we have, we need to look at where we could go, not where we should go. This is because nearly everyone does that and as such we get a dozen flavours of the same ice-cream. But at some point someone will figure out that borders need to be crossed and when they do it when 5G does become a solid reality they will be late for well over a year. So why Canada? There are two reasons, they have the space, they have a lot of the knowledge and they have a dozen local software developers, so they are almost ready to get started. They merely need the information from NRCAN to get the map data (and it helps to smile politely at the lost boys of the CSIS). When the map is done they have the largest component for several games, all set to multiple systems. 

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August 25, 2021 · 19:50

Maximising digital exploitation

Yes, that is what you all fear is it not? To get digitally exploited and would you believe it, governments and politicians are making it happen. The first one to do so is South Korea. The news (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-antitrust-tech/s-korea-parliament-committee-votes-to-curb-google-apple-commission-dominance-idUSKBN2FQ05V)  gives us ‘S.Korea parliament committee votes to curb Google, Apple commission dominance’ and here we see “a key step toward banning Google and Apple from forcibly charging software developers commissions on in-app purchases” and it is not just that, we also get “the amendment bans app store operators with dominant market positions from forcing payment systems on content providers and “inappropriately” delaying the review of, or deleting, mobile contents from app markets” As I personally see it, this is what organised crime has been waiting for and South Korea just made it happen. So as you ponder ‘or deleting, mobile contents from app markets’ consider that one infected app maker can now make claims rejecting deletion (or massively delaying it) and as such thousands of tablets and mobile phones will get infected and spreading the backdoor. There was a reason for the jumps that Apple and Google had made, in this we were decently safe. Now consider that we become the infection point because we were told that brand X is 25% cheaper, gives 50% more credit and is just as fast. That short sighted thinking will get you slammed, will get you hammered and could cost you your device. So as other sources give you “We do not expect any issues”, or “We are not aware of any issues at present” consider the carefully phrased denials and the consequences for your hardware. And whilst you remain in denial of this all being for consumer good. This all got started by some greed driven upstart that was making $5,100,000,000. So how much extra do you get? When you consider that one player has V-bucks (their currency) is at 1000 for £6.49/$7.99. When did they give you more for the same amount? They did made over 5 billion last year alone. So when we get to the quote by someone we care not for we see “Dominant app store operators with large platforms should by now look to profit from value-added services, not just taking a cut from apps sold on its store”, yes, so how stupid was that? Now the value added services like security, testing and storing must be paid for, as such the small players will soon stop existing, all to help out the multibillion app players. In the old setting all developers had a decent chance, that will now seize and as the damage to consumers start stacking, the larger failing will be seen in 2022, or as soon as you suddenly get a message that you became a DDOS agent. So whilst you get rid of all the games and utilities, it will be too late. You will need to factory reset your device hoping it will be enough (it might not be). Yes that was real clever thinking and when we regard “the rushed process hasn’t allowed for enough analysis of the negative impact of this legislation on Korean consumers and app developers” which is given to us by Wilson White, a policy director at Google. We will need to ascertain a few issues. In the first when this is pushed through we can no longer hold Apple or Google accountable when we get transgressed upon, we will get to drag these politicians into courts and in front of the camera and we can advertise just how stupid and shortsighted they were, it is the smallest reward for days and optionally weeks of our devices not being able to function because short sighted people thought they knew what they were doing. As I see it a ‘sorry’ statement will not be any defence and that is the larger setting, these politicians will openly ignore the damage done to the people, they will deny catering to organised crime and we are left with the damage. Yet they too will feel that impact hen EVERY developer will have to pay to be on the Appstore. When 10%-25% fall away, the larger players who were greed driven will merely shrug with a ‘so what’ and the rest will be looking for a job and that will have a few larger impact settings as well. The Appstore settings as they are for now will enable developers to get decently quality systems to develop. When that comes with the additional $750 annual bill that falls the developers way. Consider the impact when you consider that there are 23 million Apple developers and well over 6 million Android developers. When they get the additional bills it will push a whole lot of them out of that field, the impact will be seen and felt in almost all walks of life. As I personally see it there is every chance that 2022 will become the year of the digital exploiters and in that setting it will not be about Apple or Google, but I will leave you all to figure that part out and be sure to feel the pain of what happens when you go to any other app store to save a dollar or two. The impact will be seen and felt almost everywhere. 

So as we see that South Korea got there first, the US is right behind them. They are hiding behind the quote “a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would rein in app stores of companies that they said exert too much market control, including Apple and Google”, so when the damage hits, it will hit hard and it will hit almost complete. Consider that I am wrong and consider these advertisement statements we see and how much deceptive advertising you have seen on your phone or tablet? And that part has been around for almost a year. If these politicians cannot even keep the advertisement section clean, how much use are they when you get infected? That is the setting none of them are willing to stay around for. 

That is the danger and it is not merely on a simple setting, when the app store can be ‘avoided’, we will get to see headlines like “Mobiles Hacked for 5th Time in 2 Years in Latest Breach; Nearly 150 Million Affected”. You think I am kidding? Last week Newsweek reported that something similar happened to T-Mobile with only 50,000,000 victims. So there if you are an American there is a 1 in 6 chance that you are one of them, so how often do you want to lose control of YOUR data?

That is the larger danger and that danger is currently rapidly increasing. 

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August 21, 2021 · 17:08

Agrestally Ignorant

It took a day, I had to ponder several things here. I was drawn to an article by the associated press. The article (at https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-algorithm-technology-police-crime-7e3345485aa668c97606d4b54f9b6220) gives us ‘How AI-powered tech landed man in jail with scant evidence’. Here we have two issues, the first is that AI does not (yet) exist, the second is that AI evidence should not be valid, the rules of evidence are quite clear, so when I see “it came from a clip of noiseless security video showing a car driving through an intersection, and a loud bang picked up by a network of surveillance microphones. Prosecutors said technology powered by a secret algorithm that analysed noises detected by the sensors indicated Williams shot and killed the man.” So for all intent, we might think that the prosecutor was really clever, but as I personally see it, the man needs to be taken behind a bicycle shed and shot in the head, but that is merely my personal view. We might give value to “a secret algorithm”, yet that is merely an approach to not scrutinise the evidence. I have no idea how his defence faltered, but it did. 

In Intelligence analyses there are two parts. The first is that every source is unique and as long as they are NOT connected, they can NEVER support one another. Why is that? It comes from a much older setting which is found in “Trust, but verify!” We can accept all kinds of facts handed to us, but verification is where it is at. Verification gives us the larger setting that this source makes a claim and we verified that claim via other sources and we get the same results and conclusions. This is also why actual news needs collaboration from multiple sources, and it is why credibility of these sources matter. It is why witnesses are tested, cleared and processed to give the other party no option to diminish their testimony. It is so for a person and it needs to be more for any device. And whomever relies on “a secret algorithm”, is soon regarded as non-essential weight to any office. You see, the algorithm was programmed. I am not stating that the person was wrong, or did a bad job, but who knows what the brief for the algorithm was? That brief also gives the programmer more (or less) freedom of programming. Then we get the installation and testing of the microphones, it they are out by half an inch, there is every chance that they picked up another shot, perhaps even a muffler bang, who tested that part? Who looked at the map (a GIS speciality) and considered the noise and the event? Now consider for a moment the byline “ShotSpotter equipment overlooks the intersection of South Stony Island Avenue and East 63rd Street in Chicago on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021.”, this is all installed on a light-pole, so if any car ever hit it, the pole will be off by several degrees, did the software see that, was that ever considered? 

There is a lot more, it is seen in the part “The company’s methods for identifying gunshots aren’t always guided solely by the technology. ShotSpotter employees can, and often do, change the source of sounds picked up by its sensors after listening to audio recordings, introducing the possibility of human bias into the gunshot detection algorithm. Employees can and do modify the location or number of shots fired at the request of police, according to court records. And in the past, city dispatchers or police themselves could also make some of these changes”, so what were the raw collections, what was the distance to the event and what are the specifics of the so called “noiseless security video”, there are a truckload of issues and that is why verification is essential. This is all before we get to “an Associated Press investigation, based on a review of thousands of internal documents, emails, presentations and confidential contracts, along with interviews with dozens of public defenders in communities where ShotSpotter has been deployed, has identified a number of serious flaws in using ShotSpotter as evidentiary support for prosecutors”, it is merely the top of the iceberg, when we consider “classify 14 million sounds in its proprietary database as gunshots or something else”, you think this is trivial, but it is not. You see, this is in part the evidence, 14,000,000 sounds seems impressive, but it is not. You see there are an estimated 72 million handguns in existence, I have no included rifles and other two handed weapons, and if the database of sounds includes mufflers and tire blowouts, that lit is rather slim compared to what is out there. I can see close to half a dozen issues straight of the hockey-stick and whilst people are considering where the puck is (in Pittsburg they call it a biscuit). 

So why the hockey reference? The puck moves fast, really fast and plenty of people watching the game lose sight of it in a match, this is no different. Two sources, not connected and well over 50% unverified, how could this man be found guilty? I also have some serious questions for the judge there, but I wonder if it was on his plate, it was on the plate of the prosecutor and as I personally see it, that evidence had no case in court, except perhaps a court officiated by the Marx brothers. 

SZo when we get to the end and we see “ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clark declined to discuss specifics about their use of artificial intelligence, saying it’s “not really relevant.”” Someone needs to take that horse and coach it to the side of the road, what some call AI, is merely machine learning, optionally deeper learning and it makes all the difference. With the amount of human interference (interaction) on the track from the microphone to the court room, those relying on AI are hoping to avoid the setting of bias and programming error, even source comparison errors. I reckon this Ralph Clark is on a slippery slope and with Michael Williams now on the stage where he can claim damages, a decent 8 or 9 figure damage, the 200 cases might represent a massive payout from the Government making the rules of evidence a clear debating point for whomever takes this to the next level and when the government loses a second or third trial it will be up to the Ralph Clark’s of the world to set up a defence perimeter, but I reckon it needs to be a lot more than “a secret algorithm” because at that stage such a defence will not hold water, not by a long shot. It would also help by not hiding behind AI when it cannot be AI, but that is merely a personal observation.

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August 19, 2021 · 20:19

Ignored by media

Yes, that happens, we all see it, we all (to some extend) understand it. Yet what needs to happen for an article like ‘Will I ever be able to fly without feeling guilty again?’ (At https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57917193) to even have value? You see, this has happened before and this time its Lucy Hooker who does the damage. You see, I have no intention of taking the filtered information given to us for granted. You see, the slightly edited quote “Previously a regular flyer, visiting friends in Scotland and holidaying abroad, she says the penny dropped during that trip. And in the end, the decision was easy. She is one of a small band of people who have found flying just too uncomfortable to contemplate any more.” So, how can she afford it? I haven’t flown in 17 years, but that is because I am on a budget. So when we see “One flight from London to New York emits around 1.3 tonnes of carbon according to the offsetting organisation Atmosfair. Other organisations offer lower estimates, but even if you eat vegan and cycle everywhere, you’d struggle to make up for the emissions from a return trip”, I see this as a stupid BS article, a story by Miss Hooker to please others and none of them are particularly interested in the real deal, just like the Guardian and their Jetset BS. 

The largest extend was ignored again and again, as we take notice of the actual issue. The report which I discussed in ‘Uniform Nameless Entitlement Perforation’ on December 10th 2020 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/10/uniform-nameless-entitlement-perforation/), which has the ACTUAL report given to us by the UN Environment program, is merely a part of it, when we combine the European Environment Agency report, we see that 1% of plants do 50% of the pollution damage, but are they looking there? And there is more, 147 plants cause over 165 billion euro’s damage, so why are they not looking there? Why do we get BS article after BS article on some oversensitive person who saw a flood once? And to emphasise, the 147 plants do an equal amount of damage as the remaining 14178 facilities under scrutiny. So how often did the BBC (the Guardian too) do their homework and look into those accusation by the EEA? I bet that will be more crunchy than some sob-story over a person who will not be flying to Scotland to see relatives (or friends). 

Yes, we can all agree that we need to be carbon aware, but this is done whilst the media ignores the larger problem creators. 

And personally I do not care about Maggie Robertson, if she feels she sleeps better by signing up to Flight Free UK, that is fine by me, I avoided travel for 17 years by getting a budget shoved down my throat. And I am NOT ignoring the EEA report, even as the media is. You see, they avoided it, they did not oppose the report, they did not nitpick the report, they merely ignored it, and why was that? 

So if you want the real lowdown on pollution, find the EEA report and learn, also consider that everyone seems to ignore the 147 facilities and they have done so for well over a year, because the report might have been out for 8 months, but these 147 facilities have been around a hell of a lot longer, so why are we kept in the dark whilst attacking rich people with fuel efficient jets and people going on a holiday perhaps once a year, all whilst 50% of ALL pollution is caused according to the EEA by 147 facilities, so which facilities are they?

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August 18, 2021 · 23:02

As the pie shrinks

Yes, we all see it, we all notice it to some extent, but that is not a given that what we see is complete. As I personally see it, the stage is one one hand seen in ‘UK defence giant Ultra agrees to £2.6bn Cobham takeover’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58228657)

where we see it is not the first caper, Both Ultra Electronics and Meggitt are now US owned. So whilst we are sussed to sleep with ““safeguarding and supporting the UK’s national security” including national security clearance arrangements”, supported by “It has also pledged to protect existing and create new UK manufacturing and engineering jobs, and to increase investment in research and development (R&D) in the UK” some people will hope you ignore the larger picture, and a lot of you will. You see there is more to this and if someone did not notice the total invoice of £8.9B the American were happy to pay, consider that they need to get that money back and then some. They will keep to the letter of the agreement, which is anyones guess as it involves National security and no one (except for a really small few) will get to see it. 

What we see ignored is not what is done, but what it enables the US firms to do. You see products are phased out all the time, but now the Americans can phase out the low margin articles at their own speed, in more than a few cases 3-5 years sooner, giving the UK all kinds of headaches and the logistics of it as well as existing inventory will not be the shortest list there. There is an upside to the American setting, they get to call the needs and the make of a lot of articles to the largest degree. 

So, let’s create a fictive example. Consider that the UK Navy has all its operational and tactical stations record on a betamax tape, it gives the admiralty a good show of who and what is performing and what is not, it is standard operational practice. The Americans have a VHS alternative, but in the end it does the same thing. The UK took Betamax as it has the highest quality and they had no local alternative, the US took VHS because it is American. This is not new or unique, most nations have this. To give an example, the Dutch maker Tulip computers would not exist in the 90’s if that rule was not in place. So now consider that 3M buys the UK firm and now it can over 2-3 years phase out Betamax. Now we see a new stage, the UK admiralty will have to upgrade ALL the recorders and players in the ENTIRE Navy. 

The UK will over time face this. I personally see it as a given setting. Now consider these are not recorders and players, but Goalkeepers, Gatlings, and other parts. 

Now also (from the Ultra Group website) the optional stage of “Many nuclear facilities across the world are facing the rising challenge of replacing or refurbishing outdated and obsolete sensors and transmitters. Ultra’s advanced ageing and obsolescence technology transforms nuclear power plants and ensures economical long-term operation.” And consider the outdated (or soon to be) sensors in Nuclear submarines and other vessels, that is just the start, so over the next 10-15 years the UK will get an overhauled Navy, but on the time schedule and overspending of the USA. So in what universe was this allowed? I get it, there is a larger playing field, but now that field is decided on US needs and as their logistical stage changes, so much the UK or find another solution. Now, the UK budget cannot simply cut defence, it is adjusted for the American format and it will see large amounts of funds go to America. Or in another setting, we will see that a bullet normally costs 0.10, the making is 0.07, so the stage is 0.03 per bullets taxed. In the new setting we see 0.01 per bullet on paper, 70% of 0.09 goes to the USA as contribution (0.063) and the income per bullet is taxed at 0.027, which is now at a loss, so no taxation there. Moreover there would be a massive tax deduction, so that is one place to go I reckon and this is not a fictive setting, this has happened before and it gets to be better when the list is not ‘bullet’, but an amalgamation of all kinds of ‘perishable hardware’ a totalised invoice, which is much harder to tinker with. Yes as I see it for the Americans it is a very nice investment that will pay back well over 200% before year three is out. And as they are interacting with other players, the massive profits that usually serves the internal good of the UK will now go to America, so who approved all this?

Time for you to find out, have a great day!

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August 13, 2021 · 00:19

Who you gonna trust?

That is the issue I have and you should too. The news is no longer reliable, catering to people who they have no business of catering too. The numbers are questionable, many articles are all on a template that I personally call ‘How to create a click bitch’, but in this too I wonder who is right. This is given to us by the Daily Mail (at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9885013/Pfizers-Covid-vaccine-42-effective-against-Indian-Delta-variant-Modernas-76.html). Here we see “Pfizer’s Covid vaccine is only 42% effective against Indian ‘Delta’ variant while Moderna’s jab is 76% effective, Mayo Clinic study suggests”, the problem is that I am not a health official and the Daily Mail is throwing plenty of graphs at us. There is a clear admission, we see this with “For the study, published on pre-printer server medRxiv.org – meaning it has not yet been peer review – the team gathered data on more than 25,000 Minnesotans from January to July”, yet I will also admit that Minnesota, a state with 5.75 million people, a group of 25,000 is decent.
It is the claim “The Delta variant being able to bypass the existing vaccines also confirms what many feared, that the virus could potentially mutate to a point where it can bypass vaccines.” That is the scary one. There is no clear setting to prove it yet, but the numbers give rise to this and in the past Dr. Fauci gave a similar worry. I am not sure who to trust, but the setting is starting to get louder, at least if 10% of the population dies, nature might in part restore itself, and the 10% might be low, you will have the anti-vaxxers to thank for that part. 

The issue is actually worse, from my point of view, when we see the numbers from India, I believe that they are low, beyond acceptable. Now, here I will not blame the Indian government. With a population of 1.3 billion, no system will hold up, not in this case, but the numbers are way low and all these people screaming to open airports and travel, they might be pointed at when we see a larger escalation in Delta and Echo variations (I am assuming that there will soon be an Echo variation).
Yet this is not about speculation, so when we look at the CDC, we get “In two different studies from Canada and Scotland, patients infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalised than patients infected with Alpha or the original virus strains”, as well as “CDC is continuing to assess data on whether fully vaccinated people with asymptomatic breakthrough infections can transmit. However, the greatest risk of transmission is among unvaccinated people who are much more likely to contract, and therefore transmit the virus.” These are merely two quotes, yet they counter certain people and even worse people almost openly opposing the vaccine. In this several newspapers now give us ‘Anti-vax Red Cross nurse ‘injected 8600 people with saline solution instead of vaccine’’, here I get the urge to ask ‘How can a red cross nurse be ‘Anti-vax’ and work at the red cross?’, There is a reason for vaccines. I grew up in the 60’s whilst Polio thanks to the humanitarian push by Jonas Salk who invented it, and unlike many, he no wealth, he made it an open solution, he did not patent it and as such 34 years later Polio became eradicated in the US in 1994. So when we see “In the late 1940s, polio outbreaks in the U.S. increased in frequency and size, disabling an average of more than 35,000 people each year”, now the number in the US is ZERO, it has been since before the 80’s, there are cases but these are all cases that come into the US. It took a decades to eradicate polio and there is every chance that COVID will take time too. The bigger issue is that polio did not mutate to the degree COVID does and yes at all times getting the vaccine is better than not getting it. So when we see the Guardian giving us last Sunday ‘Rightwing radio host and anti-vaxxer dies of Covid’, we need to consider that even as this is in the US, they are not alone, the anti-vaxxers are everywhere and when we see “Dick Farrel was a vociferous critic of Dr Anthony Fauci and urged people not to get vaccinated”, some might be happy that he is dead, but the problem is not that he is dead, thousands are voicing similar non scientific thoughts and it is becoming a problem.

And as Sydney had its lockdown protests two weeks ago, we now see 345 new cases of Covid in NSW, so with the protests, what are the chances that this number goes down over the next week?  Two months ago, we had a mere 3 cases added, over 8 weeks this escalated to 343 cases with a 7 day average of 312. When you consider this and you also consider that Australia has 25 million people, consider what the damage is expected to be in India with 1300 million and a population pressure that is a lot higher than Australia has, you still think I am talking out of my ass? India peak of May 9th has now decreased from 414,000 new cases to 42,000. I personally believe that there is no way that this is correct, implying that a lot more problems will emerge in
India quite soon. You see there are 200M cases and India has a mere 15% of the cases, you might think that this adds up, because the numbers match, but India with its population pressure and its lack of medical supplies as well as a lack in vaccine should be in a much larger setting, I would personally speculate that the numbers should be 30%-40% higher at the very least, and the media for the largest extent is not looking into it. In addition a few sources, give us that by end July half a billion doses will be done in India, yet what everyone ignores is that the population of India is 1.3B, implying that 2.6B doses are requires, so a mere 20% will have one shot, and whilst we now see that there is dealings over 50M more shots, it also shows that with that many not being inoculated the Delta variant can reap a lot of losses in India, but we do not get that stage illuminated, do we, or the larger impact of how these vaccines will not stop Delta, yet there is also the acknowledgement that for those who had the vaccine, they are most likely to recover from the delta versions. There are no real numbers out there, but several sources gave us that most recover. I am voicing news sources, but when we look at the greater setting there is a larger stage of who and what is to be trusted, I honestly do not know, but I do believe that places like the CDC are the most reliable ones. 

Am I right or am I wrong? I could be either, but I truly believe that the real scientific places (like www.CDC.gov) will be the most reliable source for covid information. I also believe that the people trying to silence Dr. Fauci are not opting for freedom of speech, they are betraying their constituency, leaving them to die of their own devices, but that part is something that the almighty USA and their first amendment are not willing to call out for, in history this is the first time where the first amendment is one of the handles in the USA that will get people killed and a lot of them too. I am certain that the American forefathers would never have dreamed that freedom of speech would throttle science and common sense, but here you have it, that is the setting and I have no idea how large the casualty list will be in a few months. With global protests on common sense solutions, the casualties will merely go up, but in London that also means that housing prices will drop, so there is that to look forward to. 

So who you gonna trust? You better think that through, because now you do it whilst gambling with your life. Will you trust some anti-vaxxer? Will you trust science and doctors? It is your right to chose, but remember, you life has no sequel, and this time it is your life you are taking a gamble with (as well as the people around you). So chose wisely and good luck!

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August 10, 2021 · 02:08

The part we seem to forget

I was reading an article on the Guardian when something hit me. You see, we have been told parts of this again and again since the 90’s, for 30 years, more likely than not even longer, were we warned for the issues we now see unfold in Greece and all over the world. 

When we consider that and we consider ‘Major climate changes inevitable and irreversible – IPCC’s starkest warning yet’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/09/humans-have-caused-unprecedented-and-irreversible-change-to-climate-scientists-warn) we see “Human activity is changing the Earth’s climate in ways “unprecedented” in thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, with some of the changes now inevitable and “irreversible”, climate scientists have warned. Within the next two decades, temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and bringing widespread devastation and extreme weather.” Yet what we do not see, not by any media, is the job the media is supposed to do, the part we expect and the part we should DEMAND they will do, but they will not. The media is the bitch of shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers and their stakeholders will not hear of it, their friends will not like this. We should demand a list, a list of EVERY scientist who opposed the papers showing these dangers for decades. We should demand a list of these scientists and the corporate links they had, the corporate donations they received. The people are entitled to them, but the stakeholders who are behind the screens will not like this and I wonder why not. Actually, I am not that surprised that stakeholders tend to be bitches too, they will have friends they cater too and they do not like it that they are not the powers they pretend to be, but the game is now in a stage where we should look at that part, even as the media is willing to let that part go, just like they play footsie with people like Martin Bashir. So as the Daily Mail gives the people ‘Diana whistleblower who sounded the alarm over ‘dirty tricks’ used by Martin Bashir to secure interview ‘will be paid £750,000 by BBC after losing career’’ we see that the BBC catered to other needs for 25 years and they do not like the limelight of catering, just like others catered to Jimmy Saville and a few others, all (as I personally see it) due to connections to stakeholders, that needs to end. I believe that any media shown to cater to non-media needs, need to get its 0% VAT status revoked for no less than 10 years, see if that motivates them. 

The Guardian gave us (at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crimes-oil-and-gas-environment) “Instead of heeding the evidence of the research they were funding, major oil firms worked together to bury the findings and manufacture a counter narrative to undermine the growing scientific consensus around climate science. The fossil fuel industry’s campaign to create uncertainty paid off for decades by muddying public understanding of the growing dangers from global heating and stalling political action.” This is fine, but this was not enough, the scientists who put their name under some of these marketing plays need to be out in the open, they made their choices, the now need to be banned for life. Catering to stakeholders need to come at a price. It is nice to blame the fossil fuel group, it might not be wrong, but it is shallow, there was an entire support engine of academics and politicians, they need to be pushed into the limelight. Politicians that set the agenda of inaction, supported by academic statements, we need those to be out in the open in all nations, so that we can flush out. The stakeholders, a side the media is for the most unable (read: unwilling) to do. So as the Guardian also gives us “Last month, a Dutch court ordered Shell to cut its global carbon emissions by 45% by the end of the decade. The same day, in Houston, an activist hedge fund forced three new directors on to the board of the US’s largest oil firm, ExxonMobil, to address climate issues. Investors at Chevron also voted to cut emissions from the petroleum products it sells.” So, where were they in the last 2-3 decades? As I personally see it, these people could react well over a decade ago when the water was up to our necks, they decided to fill their pockets a little longer until the water was up to our eyeballs, optionally making reference that clever people had a snorkel. Yet, snorkels have weaknesses, and the eyeballs might see the waves from one direction, not from all directions in that state, for that the water needed to be at no more than neck level, less would have ben better. 

So as we are in this setting, we are all driven to blame fossil fuel and as most oil comes from the middle east it will be appealing to most, yet the truth, the ugly truth is that they could only preserve their income with political and academic support form the west and we want those names, preferable with the names of the stakeholders. 

I wonder if any media will dig into that part, they might say that they do and they might make efforts, but after 2-3 weeks there will be another crises and some stakeholder will drown the effort, that is how the world runs, greed driven against the needs of everyone and at the cost of everything that is not theirs. It is merely my point of view, but I believe it to be a correct one.

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August 9, 2021 · 11:31

To serve the gamer

Yup, that is a topic that is open for debate, but in my case it comes from a different angle. I need to explain how I got here. You have read my ‘displeasure’ with Ubisoft, they bungled (again and again), yet I also clearly stated that AC Origins is one game they got right. I actually disagree with the high 80’s scores the game had been receiving, I believe it to be low 90’s, but that is my view. The topic rose as I (due to lockdown time) decided to play it again and get some of the achievements I missed out on, I got half a dozen so far and I finally got to the Curse of the Pharaohs. I had the DLC, but my PS4 crashed to death somewhere in 2019 and as I had a little manoeuvring (covid retirement savings) I ended up with a PS4pro in 2020. And until a month ago I had no time for it, but in the last three weeks with being locked down I decided the play it again. So whilst gunning for ‘Old Habits’, I stumbled on ‘Where’s my Black Flag’ and a few others. But it was the Curse of the Pharaoh that made the difference. The first time I entered Aaru my jaw dropped. It was amazing, the field of reeds, the places, it was amazing and the boats made it all slightly surreal. The makers outdid themselves here. But this is also the place that gave me an idea. It was the side mission ‘Love or Duty’, the mission does not matter, the interaction does not either, but the mission clicked something in place. I had some similar ideas for Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration, but as it was not considered, it could be set to other RPG’s and even the one I designed. 

Your home is your castle
In nearly all RPG games, we are confronted with a house, unless you had Oblivion and you completed the Battlehorn Castle mission, in that case you have a castle. And there is the crux. In the light of Magic Carpet I want a castle with archers protecting what is mine. I had a few idea’s like the Magical armoury (a very different mission). And now the idea comes to add servants and more important make them a lot more useful. Consider that a person (a he or a she) is driven by needs, so if you can make one person happy (really happy), the others will pick up on it, and increase the power of your place.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy
To get to this stage consider that you have servants, some through concern and protection, some bought (yes in fantasy games slaves are real) and the proper treatment of them makes them more useful, yet if we can give one of them real happiness, an elated feeling of achievement or recognition they will become a sort of Uber-servant, a person that infects the people around them to be better and more productive. When we take the Battlehorn location, we see the Forge, the kitchens, the walls, the stables, we see a person in charge, but if we can fulfil the personal needs of one servant in that area, we get an area that is twice as productive. The house is cleaner, thee is more food, the weapons are better and the list goes on, it changes a 100% castle in a castle with 150% resources and optionally 150% defence (250% defence after the magical armoury mission). 

In RPG games it is all about us doing the missions, but a setting where we influence another to be the better person and set a non directive, a automated directive is almost never seen and that is a pity, because a game can become a lot more rewarding that way. Consider the old classic Dungeon Keeper, the monster we had fought for themselves, we could train them, we offer options, but we cannot set the marker on them, merely on the area. That element is often missing in RPG, it is not a fault, it is not a flaw, it is a choice and it is not used often enough, too many are about giving ALL the power to the player, but the world never goes that way, we forgot about the fact that we are not the deciding power, we tend to be merely influential. There is the thought that the reward is not 100% plus, but it is a random number between 150% and 200%, making it optionally a stage where we please a second person in that area, but the game also denies a red line approach, so the missions are not given directly, they need to be found and they depend on the persons we have, implying that we might never get more than one option, or even one setting. It is the second flaw on RPG. The ‘we always have an option’ clause. At times we should not have one, it is the hand dealt to us, and optionally it is a hand that sucks. That is the RPG we need to see but were never given. In an age where consoles will in be surpassed by streaming systems, the need to evolve gaming in general and RPG games specifically will become more and more pressing. To be another version of a game we have known for 20 years will soon come to an end and then? That will be the cruncher and streamers with one central game hub will have a lot more manoeuvrability than any of the consoles, the consoles will not phase out, not for the next decade, but when we do get to 2031, the field is highly debatable who will be in there. Because of stupid decisions in the 5G field, there will always be a need for consoles, as such there will be a Nintendo and there will be a Sony PS6/PS7, but streamers at that point will be a much larger field and optionally there will be a streamer next to a console in well over 50% of the cases. 

And in that light the need to evolve RPG’s (and a few other game forms) will become essential, it will show for the streamers, yet those who evolve gaming will survive (Nintendo and Sony for sure), the rest will be close to forgotten when we get to 2031.

Doubt me? Fair enough, just remember I said it first, I was the one stating it a decade earlier.

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August 9, 2021 · 00:26

Propagated negativity

OK, this is not a nice article. I admit that it makes me look despicable and a few other not so nice words. I can live with that, especially when it does what it needs to do, wake up whomever reads this.

You see 2022 will be my year, even though I should be preparing for retirement in some form. There is ever chance that job offers will come through soon. Jobs in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France (even though I do not speak French), Sweden, Norway, Canada (I love hockey) and a few other places. You see, this is all due to anti vaxxers. Even when we see the image below, we seem to ignore the larger stage.

Michael Smith is right in every way, and this case is not unique, but still the anti-vaxxers continue, and they take others with them into death. From June when the fatality list was at 6,345 to a stage less than a week ago when we see a number of 10,237 daily deaths. This is a global number, but when we look locally, we see several nations with fatalities, but that number is increasing because of anti-vaxxers. It is sad, but my skills are clear and when someone with my skill list is lost, finding a replacement is hard, really hard. So thanks to all the anti-vaxxers in these places, you are opening up jobs for me and as three places need me, and there is only one of me, my value goes up.

If someone says I am sick, I disagree, so far still healthy, but the total list of 4,304,126 deceased does not lie. What was given to us as an annoyance in 2020, the media making clear that ‘it might become a pandemic’ when it was already a pandemic. The media never did what it was supposed to do. Over the months we saw more and more issues and even Sky News Australia saw suspensions on YouTube because of misinformation recently. The disease continues and in Australia, a place that had a decent grip on things we now see 242 new cases in New South Wales. It seems small, but when you compare it to less than a dozen in the two months before, it shows just how effective this delta variant is and if I avoid it before my second shot I should be fine for a whole range of job options, all over the world, perhaps even Denmark, Israel or Saudi Arabia. Yes, they have all had their lockdowns, but they forgot about the service minded people. The lack of support technicians and trainers works in my favour and as the people are fighting to get their revenue back up, I get to chose where to go. All thanks to anti-vaxxers who are helping my career by getting dozens and dozens of people killed on a nearly daily basis all over the world. That is the reality that the media and governments face. Those who give rise and support to unfounded and non-scientific methods that result in fatalities will face a larger audience soon enough. Because for now, it is all about themselves and their way of life, but soon thereafter it will be about pointing fingers, so the anti-vaxxers and places like Sky News Australia will get another wave of accusations to deal with, optionally a few will go to court and then these stories will get a whole new life. 2022 might end up being a very interesting year.

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August 8, 2021 · 19:50

Late to the party

It happens, we all are late to a party at times, I am no exception. I was busy looking at the stupidity of law, the stupidity of plaintiffs, waiting the courts, all whilst the approach to common sense was kept at bay. As such I did not read the BBC article ‘MP Maria Miller wants AI ‘nudifying’ tool banned’ until today. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57996910) shows the stage of what is called ‘a nudifying tool’. We can argue that the tool does not exist, because AI does not exist. You see, what some call AI is nothing but deeper learning. Someone took a deeper learning approach and accepted and acknowledged the setting that ‘sex sells’ and used that to create a stage. It is a lot worse than it sounds. You see when we consider ‘Nudifier APK for Android Free Download’ and we consider the hundred of millions horny guys (of all ages) and we see a market, a market for organised crime to exploit as an injector of backdoors (no pun intended) and in this Maria Miller loses from stage one. You see the app gives us “allows you to pixelate parts of your photo so that the illusion that your body is naked is also there”, they know how it will be used, but this statement washes their hands. Nothing is ever for free and this free download comes at a price I reckon. And with “By the way, packed with decorative elements for the picture, for example, the magazine cover is also paid separately. And that’s $ 0.99, which is the same price as the app.” We see the setting where the maker is looking at the setting to become a multimillionaire by September 30th. 

So when we get to see some Getty image of a despairing woman with the text “Currently nudification tools only work for creating naked women”, we wonder what on earth is going on, even as we also get ‘one developer acknowledged was sexist’, just one? How many developers were asked? It becomes a larger stage with “similar services remain on the market, many using the DeepNude source code, which was made publicly available by the original developers.While many often produce clumsy, sometimes laughable results, the new website uses a proprietary algorithm which one analyst described as “putting it years ahead of the competition”.” Is no one standing still at the one small part ‘a proprietary algorithm’? Proprietary algorithms are never handed over, this has a larger stage coming and even as we see the actions of Maria Miller, I wonder how far it will go, the moment someone attaches the word ‘art’ whilst not taking responsibility of the images used (the user does that), where will it end? 

And I am right, the end of the article gives us “The goal is to find what kind of uses we can give to this technology within the legal and ethical [framework].” But in the meantime we will see hundreds or even thousands of senior high school girls see their images with a nudified version, all whilst the stage was known for the better part of 2 years. I reckon that within 5 years the glossy magazines will all have nudified versions of every celebrity, thats how the money flows and that is how the station will go. Is it right? Of course it is not, but the larger stage of ‘sex sells’ has been out there for decades and the law never did anything to stop it, yet some MP’s listened to silly old clerics and they merely attacked porn, now we see that the larger station is evolving and the involved parties are all wondering what to do next. And in this no one takes notice of ‘one developer acknowledged was sexist’, just the one? The UK has approximately 408.000 software development professionals. The US has almost 4 million developers. And we see that one developer who acknowledged it was sexist? I have not even included the EU and Asian developers. So in all this, I reckon we have a much larger problem, optionally the writer Jane Wakefield needs to take another look at the article. So whilst millions of 14-23 year old boys are looking to find DeepSukebe’s website, hoping to reveal a slightly more interesting view of Olivia Wilde, Laura Vandervoort, Leslie Bibb, Emma Watson, Paris Hilton and the cast of Baywatch? We need to consider  that this was always going to happen, there are shady sides to deeper learning and whilst the enterprising and greed driven people are pushing for others to take a look, so are the members of organised crime, so are the enterprising people who considered an IT solution to push millions of paparazzi’s out of work. You really thing that some glossy magazine will ignore images when the people cannot tell whether it is real or fake? Consider the image below, as the technology becomes so good that we can no longer tell the difference in a face we have seen in dozens of movies, do you think we would be able to tell whether the boobies and shrubberies we never saw were real or deepfake? And when the images achieve 2400dpi, do you think the glossy magazines  and gossip providers will ignore them when circulation and clicks grow? 

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