June 14, 2023 · 23:50

The cross over

Yes, we have all seen it. Episodes where one crosses over in the other. It happens in gaming too, but it is seemingly more rare there. Yet what happens when we take advantage of this? An example is Azura’s Star. An item that has the ability to be massively powerful if you use it right. And there is the nag. Due to some constraints that is almost impossible and there is no fault, no blame. The fact that this game still has a hold on people after its release date of 11.11.11, almost 12 years later is nothing to be sneered at. Bethesda has earned the right to its legendary status. The fact that most of us (me included) would love to replay Fallout 3 on a PS5 shows that there is a lot Bethesda has to be proud of. So what is this about?

Consider that we would be able to build a charging station for Azura’s star. It is not instant, it will take hours, perhaps a day for Azura Star or a Grand Soul Gem, or a Black Soul Gem to get charged. Yet that stage offers a lot more than merely a powered gem. A setting where we have a mission to create a charging pedestal. Another mission that is all about functionality. Why no one considered it? I cannot tell, but in an earlier article a few years back, I created a magical duplicator for a castle (the one you could conquer in an expansion of Oblivion). A device, created and over time it would duplicate the item you had. In this one case Bows. As such it would take increasing more time. A hunting bow would take 30 minutes and a glass bow would take several hours. But once the stations are filled. The guards on the walls could upgrade whatever bow they had to a much more powerful bow. And it could be done with almost any item, but a sword would take another duplicating station. It was my idea to offer the setting where the guards as NPC’s would get upgraded to a much more able opponent and the items are locked to that NPC. When they die the weapons vanish. Swords, great swords, maces, Axes, Bows. You could create a real guard that was the fear of anyone trying to invade your castle. But how to create it? Well that was the easy part. It is how you can create a balance, or an imbalance that does not affect or benefit you beyond the normal scope. That is the key question. Even in the game I set up for the developer of Amazon Luna, PS5 and basically all non-Microsoft systems. Balance is still important. Too powerful and you damage the game, too weak and it is not worthy of pursuit. So there are settings we need to consider to make it worthy of chasing. And it falls into the realm of evolving NPC’s in your game. Because that will be a next step in most RPG games that would want to take their game a decade of more past its inception date. Charging stations are merely one step, a natural step, not even a gimmick. It came to mind, because if Fable will become the game whose trailer brought a smile to my face, we all need to up our games. This is how it should be. A powerful Microsoft implies that Sony, Amazon and Tencent will need to up their game too. As such I have set a lot online for all the non-Microsoft companies to take a learning from. More could and should be done. If this means that gaming in 2025 comes at an all time high, I will have done what I needed to do in my lifetime to progress gaming. A worthy endeavour if ever there was one. 

My brain had a much less noble thoughts on cross overs, but that does not matter. I was able to set it right and that is what matters to me. And crossovers could be applied nearly everywhere (as long as you own the IP). I made mention on this in the early development of the Luna and in my case the Luna key. So in this example that I am giving you, what happens when you have game 1 (System shock) and game two (Cyberpunk 2077) allows you to make a much more powerful firearm charger? I added another example in the past where Fallout Shelter could upgrade Fallout 4 (or whatever comes next) and that is interesting because you now have interaction between a mobile or tablet with a console. Gaming to a wider degree without compromising either. We need to consider these steps as we Crete new games. Ubisoft tried this with AC Brotherhood and did not get it quite right. Not wrong, but not quite right. Still it was worthy of trying and it did play out nice. Yet I believe they could have taken it much further. I personally believe that they were not serious enough. They didn’t create two games, merely one to add to the other. That wasn’t a great step, but it was their step to make. 

Often enough these additions are merely cosmetic, but they do not need to be. Crossovers are an option often ignored or denied for decent reasons, but what happens when we overcome that weakness?

Enjoy the day!

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June 14, 2023 · 01:11

There is a larger play

Something stirred in me when I saw the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2023/jun/13/saudi-arabia-golf-pga-tour-public-investment-fund) called ‘Saudi golf takeover is blueprint for what they want to do everywhere else’ and I had some issues with this. You see, we might give credence to “Players who had turned down eye-moistening sums of Saudi money out of what they laughably believed was a reciprocated loyalty to the PGA Tour found out, like everyone else, when their phones started pinging”, as well as “Even most of the PGA Tour board had no idea what was happening. Does this strike you as the behaviour of a regime concerned with winning hearts and minds? The brazenness, the wall of silence, the smoke and mirrors, the decision to present this deal to the world as a fait accompli: this is all part of the performance. The projection of power matters as much as the power itself. It says to the world: we bone-sawed a journalist, we bought golf and you didn’t even know anything was happening”. And there is more when you read the article. The largest stage is not set and not given. The largest set is that the US and EU are broke. They give a nice presentation, but the largest stage is that they are broke and the sports need to survive. As such the players, the teams and the largest settings are moving house. F1 is going because the middle east is almost the only one who can play jet set with money. Football is much harder, but the players that matter are moving house. They can try to be prima donna in a saturated world, or they can be the shining star in a place where they are alone. They can spread their wings and perhaps become a little better, or create the next generation of winners. Ronaldo and Messi are examples. The NHL is losing people to the UAE and the Middle East. Pakistan is becoming a more fearsome adversary in Cricket and that list goes on. The PG is merely one example and soon the NBA will see players go to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The middle east is becoming a sports contender and whilst we are all wondering why. Consider that these sports wanted inclusion and that is what the KSA and UAE did. Soon the KSA will have a new English news channel and I reckon about that time they will be casting sports to anyone interested in sports. A new conversation on topics we heard for decades and people will pay attention. Consider that we will get (in English) Arabic newscasts on sports and now the advertisers will take notice. These two players played the long game and the advertisers will come around. This is a given, they will go where the people are and the people want sports. It is a game that the Middle East plays well and they played it well now. The channels lost credibility, they lost teams and sports and now the harvest for the new channels will come in. Add to that the Vision 2030 by the KSA and you get to see a new stage, and in all that the interest in Islam will flourish too. The Christians who are hating everything will lose more and more. Doubt that? Look at Florida. People in Nazi outfits in front of Disney world parading? That is what remains of the US. A place no one wants anymore and the Middle East is enjoying every Karen and dopey video that graces TikTok and YouTube. The aversion against the US and EU is growing. Everyone is shouting and no one is speaking sense and the Middle East is cleaning house because of it. 

So how long until places like the UK and Australia will wonder how the Dubai White Bears are doing and what the scores are for the Emirates Hockey League this week. They will still watch their own teams, but there is a shift happening and it is happening all over the sports world. It is not merely Saudi Arabia, there are more. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is growing visibility and that is merely one of many. Until recent no one had heard of Fayik Abdi. In 2022 at Beijing Olympics he finished 44th out of 91 competitors. A man from a place where there is no snow is now in the top 50 best ski contenders in the world. Let that sink in. He beat a whole range of people who get to practice it every day, they are from places where there is snow most of the year and a Saudi surpassed them. Our view of the Middle East is off by a lot and we have been lied to by the church since 1094. We are set in a view that no longer applies. The Middle East can ad is becoming more and more a contender in sports we never considered was a threat to anyone from our local stages. Art Schenk (NL), Andrew Symonds (AUS), Lucas Braathen (NO) will soon see new contenders for top spots. Sports fans will cheer Fayik Abdi (KSA), Babar Azam (PAK) and Juma Al Dhaheri (UAE) that too is the consequence of inclusion. And the sooner we learn that anyone can play sports, the sooner you learn that these steps we see now are a natural next step in sports. We might focus on the money, but that is merely a sidestep. How much attention did the PGA get? Who now could afford to play golf? The media focusses on on every scandal it can, because scandals are emotion and emotions relate to clicks. So how many non-scandal related sports stories have you seen in the last week? When was it about the joy of a sport? Who remembers what the BBC reporter Andrew Jennings brought to light? 

Sports is not merely in turmoil, the fans are seeking a way to actually enjoy sports, something they get less and less of. And all the providers are charging for the ‘honour’. As I see it the Middle East has a larger advantage coming their way. But that is merely my point of view.

Enjoy today.

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June 13, 2023 · 01:56

Forgotten numbers

These things happen, we forget things, or perhaps better stated, we often do not know the numbers and how they relate, as such they are gone from the mind the moment we see them. I made mention to some degree this on February 27th 2023 when I wrote ‘On the subject of failure’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/02/27/on-the-subject-of-failure/) there we see to some degree the massive failure that Russian supplies and logistics are. Not everyone is on that same page, but in all honesty, setting an army in a battle zone whilst they have no ammunition. What did you think would happen? Russian soldiers using their fingers and shouting ‘pew pew pew’? Do you think the people they attack would play along? Simple questions.

Now we see the numbers as given by one source and we see the losses that they Russian are having. When you consider the losses in Tanks, APV’s and vehicles you merely see a number and that is fair. But consider that most armies in the EU do not even have that many vehicles, and these are Russian losses, how large is the failure by Russian actually? 

You see, there is a number we aren’t seeing here, we see that the Russians lost 215,640 soldiers and between the previous report and now, they lost 980 troops. It now amounts to 400% of the TOTAL personal losses that the US had in Vietnam. But the most important number is missing and  it was another source that made me aware. Russia has so far lost 11 generals. That number will not be sinking in, I get that. There are armies that do not have that many generals, but that is not the important part. A general is more than merely a chief officer. Most armies employ some kind of higher tactical education (like the Dutch: HKS). When they pass this they can go beyond Colonel and become General. These people have had decades of experience putting out internal fires, setting bases in the same settings and educating their colonels to be more proficient. Pretty much EVERY army has that setting. And we would all get it, The Russian Army will have plenty of generals. Especially when the combined armies account for millions, there will be over 1100 generals. When it is merely one it seems petty, but there is a connected setting, one of them doesn’t get there easily (or at least they should not be getting there easily). And when you lose one it takes time for all this to get up to speed on a lot of things. Now with 11 lost the game changes. Just like sending soldiers into a war zone without ammunition. It pretty much becomes a turkey shot (for the Ukrainians). And that makes the Russian losses a lot bigger and it also explains why the counter offensive for Ukraine is so successful. Whatever is left cannot get the whole stage in focus and the losses are adding up. You see, it is not merely the UAV’s, the planes or the helicopters. With 2 out of 3 you also lose a pilot and that is all BEFORE you start realising the price tag of such losses. Soon Russia must choose between a solitary drone strategy or taking forces out of other areas and that could have larger long term implications. 

No matter how Russia wants to spin this, the clear setting is that with a massive lack of logistics and supply systems as well as losing this much of its highest echelon of officers, the outcome will be that Russia can only go from loss to loss. That was seen less than an hour ago when the Ukraine liberated a fifth village. In addition to that Russia is now seeking direct control over the Wagner group. Apparently the cook wasn’t hacking it. In that case you will see a more dangerous setting. I for one have never seen any successful setting where mercenaries and soldiers worked correctly together and with a lacking general this gets nasty real quick, implying that civilians will be in a lot more danger soon enough and that is not good.

Try to enjoy the day.

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June 12, 2023 · 11:48

Variations on an application

That is the theme that I was introduced to last night (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65855603). The BBC informs us ‘Facebook owner Meta plans to create Twitter rival’ and personally I think that this is on Elon Musk. He was given a raw deal, he was overcharged and the media REFUSED to look into the matters that Jack Dorsey pushed for. There was nothing but the flaccid reaction of ‘wannabe’ journo’s all over the planet. We then got a new twitter, a new CEO and a few knee jerk reactions. There was too much chaos, then the charging for checkmarks started, 180 degree actions and plenty of people apparently moved to Mastodon or something else. And now Meta is making its version of Twitter. The problem here is that Facebook is a really solid product, as such they can pull it off. I will prosper later on, but this is not about me. You see, the article gives us ““We’re exploring a standalone decentralised social network for sharing text updates,” they said. “We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”” And in light of all the waves that Twitter caused, they might actually pull it off. There will be other issues, but I will leave that for another day. So when we see “The text-based network – which has a working title of P92 – could turn out to be a greater rival to Elon Musk’s Twitter than either BlueSky or Mastodon” we need to realise that this is more than a move on Twitter, there have been noises on the weirdness of Mastodon, as such all three would lose a massive chunk to the Meta variation, add to that a separate stage for adding visibility to Facebook could imply that Meta is about to makes massive waves on the existence of Twitter, Mastodon and BlueSky. None of them wanted it, but they created that worry for themselves and in this case Elon Musk created a lot more worry overall which might have been the signal for Meta to go ahead with this new development.

Is it good, is it bad? 
I honestly cannot tell yet. Twitter did this massively to itself, even though Jack Dorsey was cause of several issues. Mastodon had a few glitches on its track and I know next to nothing of the third player, but there are more players and now that Meta is getting involved, they will most likely all lose members to the new variation, but that is how it goes. You might be one of the players, but the next innovator will change that setting right quick, this is why I know that all of them including Meta are close to losing millions of members and that writing had been on the walls as early as 2019. So when Meta comes through we will see what happens next.

Enjoy today, tomorrow is another day.

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June 11, 2023 · 13:11

Another player to push Microsoft down

Yes, a week ago Sony got more light in the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/4b410761-78d8-4bec-a48b-79f1373d42e1) gave us ‘Sony chief warns technical problems persist for cloud gaming’ there we are given “Promise of technology remains unfulfilled after more than a decade of development”. This is expected, but in light of certain steps, it is a little disappointing that Sony is not on a better horse. It works out well for me, but that is not the point. You see, these streaming solutions are great if properly aligned. In addition to that we do know that it will depend a lot on a full 5G deployment and in that both Japan and the US are underachievers. Japan is in a much better position than the US and the EU, but those two places is where the actual consumer base is for Sony and they need them, just like Microsoft needs them but they fumbled the ball a few times over. We are also given “Sony’s chief executive has warned that cloud gaming is still technically “very tricky”, playing down the risk to the console maker of the industry quickly converting to a technology on which its rival Microsoft has bet heavily”, as well as “I think cloud itself is an amazing business model, but when it comes to games, the technical difficulties are high,” said Yoshida, citing latency — the fast response times demanded by gamers — as the biggest issue. “So there will be challenges to cloud gaming, but we want to take on those challenges”. In this Kenichiro Yoshida is not wrong, but as I saw in articles I wrote months ago and in at least two cases 1-2 years ago I mentioned that Microsoft and now Sony are both looking in the wrong direction. They are in a stage where they are looking wearing the wrong glasses and that is the rub (for both). You see at present Tencent Technologies is seemingly looking in the right direction and that is the problem. If Sony doesn’t adjust its scope and its approach it will fall short. You see both companies need two parts, the first is a population and the second is the technology. At present all three have the technology, but the approach to getting a population is skewed and optionally right out wrong. This is a problem because Tencent is taking a much wider approach and they have the option to win this game at present. It does not make me happy as I am a Sony person. Some like dogs, some like cats. I like cats and my PlayStation. Yet I am a gamer at heart and that is why I am not turning my back on what Tencent could be bringing. This might not appease the American or Japanese ego, but that is not my concern. As I see it, the stronger the competition, the better the systems. The Xbox led to the Xbox360 and that pushed the PS3 to become a much stronger PS4, of that I have no illusions. Now with the Tencent system, we will see whether Amazon and Sony will become stronger adversaries, or if they will through in the towel as Google did. No matter how we see it there are issues in that Kenichiro Yoshida is completely correct. How they are overcome or swirled around is all up to Sony. One issue is partially seen in “many users have yet to switch from a console or high-end gaming PC to streaming games entirely over the internet, fearing the lags that can be caused by slowing internet connectivity and server speeds”, you see the error here is the ‘switch’ part. That is not likely to happen any day soon. It is why I and many others have a Nintendo next to our PS4 or PS5. The streaming console will be the third system when the offer is interesting enough. And for a gamer the currency is games. For that all three systems need time and they need to focus on what could be gotten now and what can be developed in the near future. The second one is important as is sets a long term goal and I put the design for nextgen streaming solutions as Public Domain for Sony and Amazon free of charge as to give Microsoft greater worries.  There is nothing more nagging when they spend billions on software houses and you hand new ideas free of charge making their investment an anchor around their necks. But that is the price you pay for screwing with gamers and taking away their free choice. They were allowed to do that, they did nothing wrong, but the price is a much larger issue and I was happy to give it to them. 

Yet this news article is not a new setting but one that leaves me with questions. Not merely is the article completely correct and on point? You see this is new technologies and a person like Kenichiro Yoshida will give what he can not optionally all he does have to tell, I get that. 

Yet the quote “The promise of cloud gaming is still unfulfilled after more than a decade of development” gives a rather irritating issue. You see there has been no information on certain developments and that is fine. The press does not need to know everything (at times they are unaware of anything), but it makes me wonder if Sony made the same mistake that Microsoft has made and that would give Tencent Technologies a much larger advantage. This is all on the premise of what I do know and I admit right of the bat that there is a whole lot I do not know. Yet that to is under the stage of certain elements and as I see it so far my assessment has been correct, as such I wonder what is in store for us. How deep will Tencent Technologies penetrate the western gamers world? At present their stage looks good, but as I stated, it does depends on a few items and what I have seen from some of the Unreal Engine 5 demo’s they are on the right path and some other information gives us that they are looking in a few right directions and that might bank them well over 50,000,000 consoles global within 2 years, which would shatter whatever Microsoft thinks it can sell and it will also shatter the expectations of Sony, but that is on what I presently know.

So enjoy the weekend and remember Monday is but a day away. 

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June 10, 2023 · 17:48

How to ping a delusional mind

You would think this is about someone and you would be right. This time it is about me, all about me. You see, if you read my previous article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/06/10/without-intro-course/) called ‘Without intro course’ you would see that I am giving a lot more attention to the NPC part of RPG gaming. I have no idea how it is currently done. Yet I suddenly had a spark and I will only lift part of that veil. You see Microsoft is always watching and those losers are out of the game of consideration. This will be only for Sony (Playstation), Amazon (Luna) or the Tencent (Logitech G handheld). I personally would love to include Nintendo, but they would not be able to facilitate this. That is not negatively intended. Their system is awesome, but this is nextgen stuff, beyond the PS5. And then only three remain as I see it. This new system is a reengineered solution that could facilitate up to 25,000 NPC’s in a game. No one has ever done that and I got there in the weirdest way. The first thing my brain gave me was “When is a VOR not a VOR?” Which I got from Die Hard 2 (1990) it started a sea of ideas and as my mind was redesigning what it was designing in the first place a thought came to me and as I thought it through it made more and more sense and this is merely the groundwork. You see as I got thinking I remembered my old classes (UTS, 2011) which got me to the IP of Vinton Cerf. Yet his idea was set to other settings and it as not the obvious of choices, but if I am right, this ‘improved’ patent might fly. You see one setting is “If the improvement is also considered non-obvious, then the patent office would grant you a patent on the improvement”. I feel certain that Vinton never considered this application. The idea of game streaming and usage for the NPC characters never existed and until this moment doesn’t seem to exist. Some issues we see in Skyrim (not a bad word about that game) and the Horizon series never seemingly touched on this. Yet if I am right, my brooding has moved me to an entirely new setting of RPG gaming and that I keep under wraps and add this to my first IP as an optional bonus. There would be more less obvious advantages, but that would be giving away too much of what my delusional mind just set in motion. No matter how this turns out. My imagination engines are running full throttle and it isn’t even Sunday yet. 

Have fun.

 

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June 10, 2023 · 09:50

Without intro course

Yup, almost going there. You see I got to this station in a slightly unusual way. I think it all started about a week ago when I saw the mermaid show on YouTube, where a youthful young lady (looking a lot like a partial tuna) was swimming in the Dubai aquarium with the sharks around her. Then last night I had a dream where a woman looking remarkably like a young Kelly Lynch (Roadhouse, 1989) was getting eaten by a shark. The setting however was that is was orchestrated (read: murder). The culprit had overlaid the back of her tail section with red paint and waxed that. The red paint was a stage of aloe vera and fish blood, the wax took the smell away. And after a minute of swimming, the wax started to give way revealing the fish blood and that had the sharks attention (all of them) and human blood might not be their forte, fish blood woke them up and send them into a frenzy eating the badly tasting tuna and destroying the evidence in the process. 

There was no intro, this was a clear act and there was no culprit in sight. As such the dream did not make sense to me, other than a scene for a movie that was not yet made. But it was several hours later when that scene opened up doors to the stages of an RPG I have been writing here. You see, we think of small terms, but in the age of streaming this stage alters. And to prevent rehashing the same missions I am doing now in Skyrim (and enjoying every second of it). It dawned on me that a new kind of NPC hoodlum was required. Also the stages I am writing about take a different approach. So what if someone was ‘colouring’ the clothing of fishermen and when they go out, the dinner bell smells loudly in the waters? I had been tinkering with a new NPC approach where we could evolve NPC reactions and options, but we need a similar stage for the antagonists. And lets face it, murderers tend to swim alone. Like rogue males in a contested battle arena. As such I would need half a dozen storylines each with a mastermind, some henchmen and  a setting. Most work for money, but some have other drives and as such we create 6-12 storylines all with location settings and targets and the nice part is that with every new game these settings alter. So different locations and different people. Yes, the methods can be identified, but you will not play the same game. You still have to find out who is the one you need to kill as well as finding the henchmen in that caper. As such we get bandits, assassins, smugglers and revenge minded people. This is a stronger setting because smugglers and revenge minded people might not be acting legal, they might not be wrong, they might be good people upping the ante of the game and your game play. 

Then we get to set out the bandits, they are clearly in one set minds (greed and lazy incomes). Yet as they are in different locations and in different locations per game that gameplay will alert you to unexpected sides as well. In some games we go to the same places, especially in the beginning of the second game you play. Yet what happens when you do that and you find a very different adversary, or none at all? You are merely off your game, you get to immerse yourself into the lore much more strongly and is that not the essence of any RPG? 

As such I have found another gimmick all in the new game, all options the RPG designers to the best of my knowledge never aimed for before, in the first it was not possible, but now we get to the stage where the consoles CAN offer this, but the stage is not explored. Or perhaps they are still working it out. But in all, this is where the streaming systems can evolve into the next console of choice. There is no intention to take out the PS5, but consider it net to your PS5 and Nintendo Switch. Sometimes you want to drown in RPG  for so many hours. It is good that there will be a system offering this to you. 

Consider that thought as you sleep through your weekend and thoroughly enjoy that sentiment.

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June 9, 2023 · 10:53

That same stuff

That was the first thing I considered when I was reading some story about recruiters. The same thing we have seen for decades. Interrogations, not an interview. Fake promises (experienced that myself) and forever the need to collect as many resumes as possible. It is the old way and covid changed ways, yet it seems that recruiters are in the dark on what they need to do. Like taximeters, trying to get to the next ‘cling’ on the timeline.

And then the largest failing of any recruiter. No communication at all. It is like sending a ship in a bottle into a bottomless pit, never to be heard from again. This is exactly why recruiters have lost well over 90% of credibility of whomever they had contact with. I have (to the best of my knowledge) never had any feedback from a recruiter and over a decade only one has ever arranged an interview. I didn’t get that job, but when I saw the scope of what they needed, they would take someone more experienced. So no hard feelings. One in 10 years. 

Recruiters need to alter their scope, their vision and their approach. Yet as far as I can tell there is no chance of that happening. To be honest, I saw one interesting approach last week. One recruiter (or firm) set the advertisement with the line ‘Would you like to be a millionaire in 2023?’ OK, this might be largely fake, but it would catch anyones eye. And an eye catcher is good, but the rest still matters. And in the past LinkedIn was the one place to go, but it seems that they are taking a page out of the approach that Seek had been making. Job notifications are merely advertisement space and that is how it feels. I might be wrong, but for that the job posters would have to communicate. In this the problem is that my setting is that I have had less than 2% response to my application with 60% of those being “We have received your application” the rest were right out rejections, but that is fair. At least you know where you are at that point. 

Still in Australia in a place where ageism is key, I would think that the people who have the decades of experience are learning. We see messages like “Australia’s skills shortage shows no signs of improving as the latest job reports point to gaps in industries” are abundant, and this was less than 3 months ago. Yet the cold shoulder approach that recruiters give are no sign that there is any work shortage and as stated the thousands of jobs that places like Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, and Google had shed are decent proof of that.  

As such, I am also looking international. Yet at my age that is a dubious approach to take. On the upside, if a firm is large enough and they require me to also man a desk in an international office, that might not be the worst idea to consider. I am still hoping that places like Google and Amazon pen their eyes to the fact that they left billions on the floor, but hey, we can all wish that someone opens their eyes, can’t we?

What is getting clear is that the 90’s approach to recruiting is no longer working and it hasn’t worked for some time. As I personally see it, recruiters are the Direct Marketers of a world that is guiding their postal box straight to the circular filing system. But that might just be me.

For me I am silently enjoying last night’s dream. I was in the Dubai Mall and a baby Cheetah (yes those fast cats) jumped on my lap as I was sitting on a bench, the little rascal curled up and fell asleep. I reckon the holy grail for any cat lover. I woke up with quite the smile on my face.

Enjoy today day, the next weekend is now within reach.

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June 8, 2023 · 12:48

Timing Matters

This thought came to me last night after I have had a few negative encounters with places like JB HiFi and likeminded places. First off, JB Hifi (et al) did nothing wrong. They were all as kind and as customer service minded as needed. What was the small fact is that I had a few dollars at my disposal and I wanted to catch up with music by Bowie, Kraftwerk, Enigma, Supertramp and a few others. None were available. Moreover there is a whole range of other musicians that would not normally be available in Australia. Then I remembered the larger setting. It was IP, but not mine. It was a Dutch entrepreneur named Hans Breukhoven who created the Dutch chain ‘Free Record Store’. It was as impressive as JB HiFi or the Virgin Megastore. He came up with the idea where people selected an album and it would be created at the spot. In the 90’s this was too new, too forward thinking, but I reckon he had the right idea. Now we rely on Spotify, but why? And when bandwidth becomes an issue, places like Spotify will have a problem. What matters is that this idea by a place like Amazon (most likely) could create a special store in the larger cities first, creating such a place. Allowing people to connect to music and strongly local music. 

You see there is no clear number of expats globally, but some sources state it is well over 250,000,000 people. Consider that there are that many people that cannot connect to their original music. We can give you a list, but that list becomes too large and too overwhelming. New York Alone has an expected 3.4 million expats. As such one store offering them a whole range of music done at that point and offered to these people become a viable solution now. After that places like London, Paris, Amsterdam and like minded locations become a next setting. It is becoming more and more easy to create high quality CD’s, the elements are there, the printing options are there and it is not out of the realm of possibilities that a place like Amazon will partner with a place like QuickCopy and complete the circle. Where do you find local Italian music? Name a nation and the names will come pouring out. The idea that Hans Breukhoven had was spot on, he was merely too early with the idea and he left us without seeing it come to fruition. Yet I reckon that this is registered IP and they might want to consider talking to Amazon about it. Amazon is not the only player, but it is the most viable player to make it work and I reckon that an element that has the ability to become a billion dollar industry should not be ignored, but that might merely be me. 

No matter how it turns out for me, I reckon that there is a market which is now becoming large enough to take another look at the ideas that some rejected over the last few decades, but that might merely be me.

For those with the simple setting that I should rely on Amazon, they are not incorrect. You see, I believe in supporting my own local hooker (a term from the 70’s). I get that Amazon is soon the only option for me, but that implies that the local shops have failed and I believe that it is my duty to offer them a solution, even if Amazon is added to it, unless they partner with QuickCopy, making my believe sound fine. You see, it is not merely about the music we all like. How about musicians like Abadi Al-Johar, Adriano Celentano, Sakis Rouvas, Liesbeth List, Rufus Wainwright or Gustavo Cerati. I know merely two of them. But the world is larger than me and the setting of someone wanting an album now is not out of the realm of possibilities and when we have that running. People will have an evolving mind towards movies. DVD’s is an option, but Blu-Rays not yet (as far as I know). A station where distribution will lose out of, merely because they cannot have all and that tracks will have to evolve and the idea that Hans Breukhoven had a few decades ago is now starting to make more and more sense. And I get nothing out of this, which is not a prerequisite. I believe that in this world, in this economy we will need to put all hands on deck to start making an impact. This today was mine, I have had a few ideas in the past and I merely added another one. I do not reject anything because it is not part of my bottom line, that is the stupid approach of a local thinking manager. It is as someone once said Think Local, Act global and I am merely doing my part.

Enjoy the day, soon you are merely one day away from the day before the weekend.

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June 7, 2023 · 20:40

The boom what?

Yes, a few hours ago, the AL-Monitor gave me the news (and anyone else who reads it) that ‘Canada’s arms exports boom to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar’ (at https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/06/canadas-arms-exports-boom-saudi-arabia-israel-qatar) now you think this is great news (as in size of the news), but you would be wrong. Canada, the other commonwealth nations as well as America are waking up to the coffee (optionally served by Tim Horton himself). When we read “most of the shipments coming from a $15 billion contract reached in 2014 but only approved for export by Canada’s current government” and you consider ‘Is it too little, too late?’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/06/02/is-it-too-little-too-late/), which I wrote on June 2nd and you take the scale of the setting, you will see just how desperate the US is at present. Is it that Saudi Arabia is siding with BRICS? Is it because Saudi Arabia decided to cut production by a million barrels per day? Your guess is as good as mine, yet this is the setting and the Canadian BS line that it only got approved by the current government does not compute with me. This is the result of bad management on too many levels of US administration and now that the end-line is in view and the US is seeing that several nations, and a few not friendly to America are ahead of them. They are trying whatever they can to avert disaster and I am not sure if that is even possible at present. As I personally see it, China played the long game and they are now the expected winning team. Ahead in defence contracts with the KSA, ahead with infrastructure contracts with the KSA and Telecom contracts and now that the others are waking up, we get “The aims of Blinken’s trip, analysts say, include regaining influence with Riyadh over oil prices, fending off Chinese and Russian influence in the region and nurturing hopes for an eventual normalisation of Saudi Arabian-Israeli ties.” What a surprise! I wrote on June 3rd in ‘Would you believe that?’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/06/03/would-you-believe-that/) where I mentioned Russia, China and Iran. I also gave a list where we see these 4 points now directly or indirectly mentioned. 

2. Oil prices.
3. BRICS membership.
4. Defence spendings lost.
5. Iranian diplomatic settings.

And it does not end there. The article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/7/blinken-starts-saudi-arabia-visit-aimed-at-steadying-relations) also gives us “Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Washington, DC-based think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that discouraging a closer Saudi Arabian-Chinese relationship is probably the most important element of Blinken’s visit.” With the underlining “[Blinken should explain] why Chinese interests do not align with Saudi Arabia and why closer relations in a strategic way inhibit closer relations with Washington”. You see, here is the delusional stage. They are thinking that America still has options. I personally believe it is too late for that, if that was the case then this stage would be handled in 2019 (2015 would have been better), not in 2023. As I see it China merely waited for the US and EU bungle this to the largest degree and that happened in 2020 as China successfully courted The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a whole range of issues and with the US president labelling the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia a pariah, that moment was reached. It wasn’t merely the straw that broke the camels back, it inhabited the entire convoy of Camels and now the end-game is coming into focus. For me (where I am now) it would in part be nice if Blinky Tony (Anthony Blinken) pulls it off, but he will have to sweeten the deal by a massive amount, not merely 1-2 promises, but a whole range of issues on paper signed by the president of the United States and here Congress, as well as the Senate better get out of the way, the loss will be too great if they bungle this. Still the chances of success are slim as I see it. Too much has passed and even as the United Nations played its anti-Saudi cards it might not be enough. As such a whole range of issues that got started by a United Nations essay by someone no one cares about, just like that columnist, that names eludes me for now.

More of my ‘insane predictions’ as some trolls would say are now a matter of fact and slowly we see the facts placed on papers as what is ‘stated’, but last week there was none of this. As such is the media doing its job? Are they looking into matters? What else are they missing? For me the case does not change much, other than the chance that Amazon wakes up to the billions they are missing out of, for me Tencent Technologies is a viable solution, it might cost me a little, but that is nothing to what Amazon and Facebook will lose out of. Google decided not to go ahead in this direction and as I am seeing certain players evolving ideas I had on a few occasions, the timing is decent (but it could have been better), still in light of where America is heading, I should be thankful for every dollar I will get out of this deal and as I see it time is growing shorter and shorter. Still as we see America trying to avoid sinking on the spot, we are all in decent fear of how it hits us, because there is no way that the western world (as well as most Commonwealth nations) will not get hit to some extent. All because we had faith in ego driven idiots (sorry, I meant politicians).

So, how is all this playing out for you?

Enjoy the midweek, we are now at 50% of the next weekend timeline.

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