December 16, 2022 · 22:28

Via pellegrino

Today at 13:45 I decided to go to the cinema. My budget doesn’t really allow for it, but I haven’t seen any cinema movies since Dr. Strange 2. At times we need to treat ourselves (and pay for it afterwards). I loved the first one, so I was really into seeing number 2. The critics are all over the field. A large cluster hates it, a large cluster loves it and I am in team 2. James Cameron was brilliant, not merely for the cinematography, but the story. The way it shapes is also magnificent. The early years of exploitation in whaling. The early years of exploitation by colonists in America. Not unlike the feelings you harbour for the Sioux in Dances with wolves, we all tend to side with the Na’vi on everything. The humans (sky people) are portrayed as exploitative conquistadors, not caring about balance, merely the bottom dollar. A little part of the brain is worth $80,000,000. The rest is garbage and it sets us up for anger and hatred. What was a beautiful looking planet is soon seen as destroyed soil, and that happens from the very beginning. So we do not seem to mind every human who is killed and we see to bleed for every Na’vi that gets wounded. It is a spectacle and it is a rollercoaster ride, but one we cherish every minute of the 192 minutes we see. I saw it in 3D and it was worth it, like the first, yet now in different ways we see that the 3D is not for the main course. It is most often the stage AROUND it and it makes for a magnificent vibe. There is of course more, yet the stage is not what we see, but it is the story and it is a story really well told, the images are icing on the cake and what a piece of icing!

In the end you have to make up your own mind and consider with every 1 star rating why it was given, I and hopefully you will side with the large group of 5 star views, the movie is well worth it. The movie actually started something else as well. You see, when I arrived and there was no one behind me, I ordered tickets for the movie ‘Via Pellegrino’, the poor cashier could not find the movie, but when she learned it meant ‘The way of water’ she caught on. You think it is lame, and perhaps it was. But at times these people deserve a little entertainment too. The thought however was still in the back of my mind throughout the film. You see I have been thinking on season 3 of Kenos Diastima. And this got me there. To see a little tip of the blanket lifted we need to consider the stage of the cold war. No matter how it started in 1947, at some point you will stop at the Truman Doctrine. You can see it how it is presented “support for democracies against authoritarian threats”, yet for me, the storyteller it becomes more and more about the military advisors versus the academic advisors and that is merely one side. For me it matters that I can wield that part in a larger stage and that would be the premise of season 3. It was the images that moved in the direction of the Conquistadors that started the view and that also enhanced the image of the VoC. You see, it was allegedly disbanded in 31 December 1799, but was it really? In our society we talk about the Gnomes of Zurich (banks), The network (technology) and the Discordian society (anti government), but we all forgot about the academics calling the shots. How did that happen? They have a lot of pull all over the place and they are trivialised. Up front now I am stating that I am not against academics, I have no ill will or negativity towards Dr Fauci. But our lives have been taken over in so many way by academics, it beckons the thought why we aren’t looking there? It is in part because the Truman doctrine is about something else, and there I found the idea to propel my views for season 3. I was just amazed that no one else had made that leap of faith. And there remains not one but two hidden banking players with global pull. The first is the Rothschild banking group, the second one is the VoC, the group that was made defunct on December 31st 1799, at that time the richest cartel based institution on the planet. Did you think that those billions evaporated? And yes, it was into billions, a lot more than the Rothschild had. And that doctrine also gets us to the Bilderberg meetings. A meeting of political leaders, experts, captains of industry, finance, and academia. The group we forgot, the academia. So yes, I think I have a fair idea now how to shape season 3 of that story.

Sometimes we get the idea from the corner we never saw in the first place. So the movie got me a little more, hip hip hurrah! Also today is the day that I produce my 100th story in succession within a limit of 24 hours. I already wrote over 2625 stories, but this is the first time I get 100 within a daily limit of 24 hours. A nice achievement. I might take it easy this weekend.

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December 16, 2022 · 00:11

The fickle entertainment industry

A few hours ago we were told that Henry Cavill will not return as Superman. The reason is not known to me. It was clear that he was eager and he did a magnificent role in Man of Steel, Batman vs Superman and Justice League. We saw him twice in a little exit shot in two movies, Shazam and another one. I honestly was looking forward to Gerald of Rivia to return as the man of steel (another fine franchise with Henry Cavill). We can speculate all we want, but the DC stage is up to James Gunn and Peter Safran and they have quite the plan brewing (from other small clips), their world is a lot bigger than the man of steel, how it all fits together is unknown to me and after the initial news in October that Henry would return, the setback will suck for all the Cavill fans around and he has plenty of those all over the world.

So as the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-63983600) gives us “Gunn and Safran took over DC Studios in late October, just after Cavill made a surprise appearance as the Man of Steel during the credits of the Dwayne Johnson film Black Adam”, with the added “Among those on the slate is Superman. In the initial stages, our story will be focusing on an earlier part of Superman’s life, so the character will not be played by Henry Cavill.” It makes sense that this is chosen, but that also does not rule out Cavill in a future Superman movie (but that is pure speculation from my side). I reckon that we will have to wait until the new year as we are given “we’ll be able to share some exciting information about our first projects at the beginning of the new year”, so I reckon that January is a month of DC revelations and with the hit that is Black Adam, it could go in directions we cannot yet tell, but there is every chance that the DC fans will go bug nuts when they get the actual information. No matter how this turns out, we still have 2023 with upcoming Argylle. And three other titles with release dates that are currently TBA. There is The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare, The Rosie Project and some Highlander reboot. So there will be no shortage of Cavill in the cinema. For the rest, no matter where he is, he remains a local boy supporting the Jersey Reds. 

So we get it plans change and the entertainment industry is fickle to say the least, but to change gears to this degree in a span of 6 weeks is a little harsh to anyone facing it, and I think he took it and responded like a champ.

For me? Well I was looking forward to the next Superman movie because I remember the comics (Death of Superman) and the follow on where Clark Kent was revived and ended up a lot more Kryptonian than Kevin Costner left him, so I was kinda looking forward to that comic sequence to become silver screen reality. Still, I will have to wait what the DC bosses have in mind for us. I cannot give you anything real or any facts, I have to wait what comes just like all of you. Still, the stage gave me a few ideas to pursue towards the stories I put on this blog. I have now a clear grasp of Keno Diastima season 3, but a few issues on how to fill in the story, still I could not resist to make NASA part of it. And with the peeking solution called the James Webb space telescope I can look in other directions as well. The mini series is still at a standstill. I did come up with one hell of a twist ending, but there are a few other sides to it all, what we cannot see and what we were told (in school) are different settings and it gave me a few ideas. I’ll tell you soon how it pans out and there is a few more items on the shelf, I have not forgotten them, merely taking my time to consider the story on how it should (or could) evolve and that is the issue down the line. I have three plot lines running into season 3 and 4, and I am still looking at season 2. The stage that becomes the beginning of season 3 needs more ‘umph’, I cannot describe it any other way. The danger of any story written is that it has the danger of becoming too linear and I am trying to avoid that. Such is life. Time to snore and time to prepare for tomorrows challenge. 

Have fun all!

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December 15, 2022 · 08:04

Bonking to a new place

It started on December 3rd (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/03/how-to-destroy-an-economy/)  with ‘How to destroy an economy’, now we see an article giving us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-63948740) ‘Bali sex ban: Indonesia tourists won’t be charged under law’, it is a fair response, but one given in fear. You see it becomes LAW, and at that point there is no distinction, the issue was from the start “and foreigners alike” that is the killer, so when we see “the governor of Bali, a holiday hotspot, said authorities would not check the marital status of tourists.” We need to see that the man is acting in fear, stopping that law could have prevented it, but some lame excuse with the added “Authorities would not check” will not work, the law is in effect (well in three years). How long until some person makes an open complaint to the Indonesian media? Optionally in an election year. At that point will make an example of one or two couples to get by. Do you want to be the example they make? And lets be clear, if you are married you are fine, it is the other 60% that has a problem coming their way and no amount of wheeling and dealing will help. Their only option is to adjust the law to make sure that this law does not apply to tourists. So how many nations have you seen adjusting their laws to tourists? I personally have not seen any, as such Indonesia will see its tourist economy drain only to see it crash near completely in 2024. 

And the quote “Indonesia’s deputy justice minister promised foreigners would not be prosecuted” does not help. The next deputy Justice minister could have a very conservative islamic view and the problem rears its ugly head again. Stopping the law is the ONLY option Indonesia has at present. ABC adds to this (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-13/indonesia-summons-united-nations-official-after-laws-criticised/101763920) with ‘Indonesia summons United Nations official after criticism of newly ratified criminal code’. Here we are given “deputy chief of Indonesia’s tourism industry board Maulana Yusran said the new code was “totally counter-productive” at a time when the economy and tourism were starting to recover from the pandemic”. Yes, he would be right and he sees similar data to me, Indonesian tourism will take a 40%-60% fall in the first few years, and that is before you take the Australian backpackers and schoolies into account, the damage will hurt the Balinese economy to a massive degree and after that there is no coming back for close to a decade, the law would require a rewrite and before that is all in effect it could be 2027 with a large number of commercial places already shut down. And the tourists? They will be bonking in a new place like Singapore, Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur. 

I honestly do not understand what the Indonesian law bringers were thinking when they did this and the setting was three words “and foreigners alike”, all whilst the stage of “tourists are exempt” would have prevented this, three words to destroy billions. This has got to be the most expensive typo in history.

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December 14, 2022 · 10:42

The stressed mind

We all have that at times, and I am no different. Stress gets to me like anyone else and it hinders my creativity, which is mostly why I hate it. Now this story started yesterday with ‘Scuttle the ship’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/13/scuttle-the-ship/) where I offered an opponent to Epic Games and now it is time to give you the goods. This IP is one with a difference. It is a freebee fr anyone who EXCLUSIVELY creates games for the Amazon Luna, no one else. Not even Sony. It is time to bring the pain to Epic Games and even as this might not be enough, it could be a decent start and the maker could end up with millions in royalty. 

The stage
The stage is one that required thought. You can have your randomness of events and that is fine. But to create a setting that entices players you need something more. As such I created stages of war, where the stage could be NPC driven, or it could be multiplayer driven. Than that drive needs to set the stage of weapons, but here I wanted to take a different turn. So I went back to the stage. And my mind came up with several stages. These stages are part of a lager whole, not unlike the multiplayer levels in ME3 (which was a huge inspiration) so there is space to manouver, but there is also limitation to how far you can move. This was the first instance and it gave me the following options. 

Battle of Rorke’s Drift, 1879 (Zulu, 1964)
Battle of the Somme, 1917
Ludendorff Bridge attack, 1945 (The Bridge at Remagen, 1969)
First Battle of Seoul, 1950
Battle of Ia Drang, 1965

These are merely starting points, but with 5 scenarios the game could start. In battle of Rorke’s drift we are in that same farm that we saw in the movie. There we need to survive for an amount of time and kill well over a certain amount of numbers. It is imperative that it is more accurate. It is the start and it starts in different ways.

You see, when the numbers are achieved portals open, and they take you to a new event, the problem here is that the event is random, moreover when you play with your friends they are likely to end up in different areas and there is a reason for that (explanation later). You see we see the event a one whole and that is true, but I am splitting it up the stage where we fight and the weapons we fight with. 

The weapons
In Rorke’s Drift that would have been the Martini-Henry. And the game will benefit with historically accurate weapons. That is the weapon everyone will get in the game and when they get the Lee–Metford and after that the Pattern 1913 Enfield. Yet that gun will not become the gun you carry in Rorke’s drift. It will unlock that weapon for the Battle of the Somme. They also have the .303in Short Magazine Lee Enfield (SMLE) but you get the idea. Through loot boxes (which you earn through gameplay) the Martini-Henry is upgraded to MK2, MK3 and MK4 making it more efficient every time, so the score will be higher and the kill count will go up. The stage is however that you get an upgrade card and it is YOU that decides which weapon to upgrade. Thee are cosmetic upgrades (uniforms) and there are support upgrades (health boosts and support boosts). Support upgrades are for one battle only, cosmetic and weapons upgrades are permanent. And as we go from these wars we can add more and more stages to the game. As you get into different stages and unlock more boxes you will learn that there is a weapon card which is NEVER for the current stage, but goes randomly to a stage and if you get there you see the unlocked weapon, there is the grand platinum (a 50% more expensive box) which is the only box that offers weapons for the CURRENT stage as well as another stage. The rest is the same, but at times having a better weapon in that stage is important and these boxes are earned by getting the scores in the game. Money has no value here (the dead never miss their coins). 

A new stage and one that could optionally lessen the Epic Game impact. If the developer gets the idea, they will be Abe to get more out of the game, especially when the stages double over time and the stage where the weapon is much more integral and more historically accurate is a stage we have almost never ever seen, making this a fun exercise. There are a few more ideas related to this, but I think some developers have to prove their worth first. Thee is only so much we can hand out for free, they have to show that they are vested in a solution first. 

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December 13, 2022 · 23:32

Will you never learn?

I just got across an article from December 5th. It was given to us by the BBC with the headline ‘I had £8,000 stolen but Revolut won’t refund it’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63796738). When we google Revolut we get all the bells and whistles. No hidden fees, ATM withdrawals in 120 currencies and transfers in 29 currencies directly from the app and it sounds amazing. The fact that most people will never see these countries is beside the point. But what is not beside the point is “as of December 2022 they did not have a UK banking licence” and “it does not reimburse victims of authorised push payment fraud.” And now for the stupid people in the back. A financial institution is not a bank, in this day and age if you are not with a bank, anything goes wrong it is on YOUR dime. It costs you! So when we get back to the BBC article we see “The fraudster said her bank account was under attack, and persuaded her to download some software that allowed him to take control of her computer.” Which is never a good idea to say the least and these fraud attacks tend to go on, and until we get clearance to execute fraudsters you are on your own and not being with a bank you will have nothing to protect you for these events. Financial Institutions wash their hands and come with some kind sounding answer that boils down to ‘Not our problem’ and that is what you face. So when we get that Revolut is an e-money company that offers digital banking services, we see the words, but the important part that they are not a bank is missing. And my idea of using targeted killing against these fraud people (not the fintechies) is not without merit. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63736573) gives us ‘Police text 70,000 victims in UK’s biggest anti-fraud operation’, which means that we could keep well over 70,000 people safe by killing these economic terrorists. Yes, they are not merely criminals and we do not care about their age. Just like they did not care about the financial situation they put their victims in. There comes a time when any action is better than the level of inaction we see here. In addition people need to know that places like Revolut is not a bank, they applied a year ago, but they are not at present and the call for reduced fee’s does not hold water, not when you end up with a loss of £8,000, but that is something you see after the fact. 

To be honest, there is another side. There is more and more indications that banks are seemingly not bringing home the bacon in regards to their customers. We saw that in the Guardian when the people were told in June 2022 “UK’s largest banks are no longer “too big to fail” and could foot the bill for their own failures, the Bank of England has said” it does not help people much, but it needs to be clear that you need your savings in a bank, because no matter what you have some protection, with e-money companies, financial institutions and other FINTECH options you have little to no protection, or you are in danger of having no protection and a banking license is pure protection for the bank and its customers. And my so called over reaction? Consider that in this economy a new criminal is born every minute, all hoping for that score. When you start executing the offenders and making sure EVERYONE knows, the wannabe’s might seek other avenues of income, not all of them legal, but avenues that keep them alive. And with 70,000 victims in the balance, I have little problems blowing off a head or two, three, four, five. You get the drill.

We want to be the ones finding a peaceful (non terminal) solution. But the police is losing this war too fast, there are too many victims and the parents do not get to cry that their son (or daughter) was such a good person, not with 70,000 people in the mix and one losing £8,000, and there is clear evidence that this was not the biggest gain. There comes a time when we need to acknowledge that the floodgates are bringing in too much trash and do not worry about where to leave them, Exmoor National Park could shelter well over 1000 cadavers, so there is space to grow.

Worried yet? 
You should be there is too much happening and nowhere near enough being achieved and I am not blaming the Police, they are fighting this war with both hands on their backs and it is time to alter the game a little, enough for some of these criminals to get worried. And the price is decent, 70,000 victims is not nothing, even as we see “as many as 200,000 people in the UK may have been victims of the scam” and to tamper your anger, we are also given “Fraudsters paid between £150 and £5,000 a month in bitcoin to use the iSpoof service, contacting, at times, 20 people a minute. Those behind the service are allegedly earning £3.2m and living “lavish” lifestyles” as such I believe they had their life, time to end it and capture these funds. Whose with me?

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December 13, 2022 · 11:31

Scuttle the ship

A thought occurred to me a moment ago. You see, we are so in a stage of what to do next, what to do in reaction and it came to me. We already have all the ammunition we need. You see to show players like Epic Games on how it is done, by actually doing hat WAS done and redoing it in a few ways. To take commercial sails away is by offering an alternative and here the Streamers (Amazon Luna) can set a new stage. Because it is not a free service we can ensure that loot boxes become free. Take a page from the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer mode. That part was the best multiplayer experience that I have ever seen, the best experience that I ever faced and the free loot boxes were part of that. OK, not completely ‘free’, it required effort. Yet effort is what a player brings to the stage. Consider any game, any shooter. Now add battle stages to it that are based on parts of the game. Now set a stage of 4 players versus a clever NPC part and slug it out. In the end, the ones standing get the credits and these credits go towards a loot box. In ME3 I had to play 2-4 games to get enough points for a Platinum box, and these rewards were awesome. All elements that we have now. Weapons, armour, support item, cosmetic items and with enough of that you can get a whole generation of people to the new game. Lets be clear, I do not hate Epic (I do think they were overly stupid) but we need to do something about the loot boxes and this is one way to counter them. Have a game where you can earn them without EVER spending a penny. And it will not be an easy fight, but the start is that you can get people to another solution where they do not pay and that is the start of more. Once the stage changes Epic either alters their approach or they become obsolete (that will take some time). But a player like Amazon has the option to make change happen. And this is not the new idea, I feel certain that Tencent is doing similar stuff, but their plan is brilliant (and insidious), they play the long game because they can afford to, the cherry on top of the cake is too rewarding for them and we need to see a counter move whilst we still have options. There is no talking with Epic Games, they are too far gone into the rabbit den of greed, but we can counter with new games, with altered games all with the same setup, Loot boxes for those showing effort. When effort becomes the currency the other solutions start to fade every so slightly before fading entirely. This is not a short solution and it will not come quickly, but it is a solution that has merit, because gamers are all about the showing of effort and gaining achievement that way. It is merely an idea, but I think it could work and when we start the stage of crossover loot boxes, the games will change the premise even further. Just a thought! Now Amazon needs to consider what games they will set to this stage and the first chip from the armour of greed that Epic games wields becomes a reality. 

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December 12, 2022 · 22:21

Mashed faith

That is the setting I am in. To be clear, I do not think I am in a good place right now. There is the abundance of islamophobia. There is the abundance of far right whiners, there is JustStopOil and the list goes on. To be honest I am a little at a loss on how to solve it. There is a creative idea that is forming but it is extreme to say the least. 

The first drops
In the first stage we take a look at far right person Rasmus Paludan. He is stirring hatred on many levels, the Swedish police is trying to stop him, but it is not working. He is item one. Item two id Dutch anti-islam movement Pegida, they too have made claims of burning a Quran. To stop these first drops of inciting much more anti Islamic violence I call on ALL the Arabic nations to reduce oil shipments to the EU by 500K barrels a day (250K for each and whilst these people are still alive). When the EU has to deal with the reduced oil shipments they might finally do something. And for any far right anti Islamic activity an additional 250K barrels a day are taken from the stockpile and where they go is up to these nations, to China is most likely as they require (and have requested) more oil. 

Is it fair?
No, and that is not what matters. You see this world is becoming a powder keg and we either harshly reduce the danger, or we control how it implodes, minimising casualties. These governments have had years to do something about it and they keep on screwing things up, so lets give them in incentive. This is one way and there are others, but I need to make sure that the people start seeing where the real power is and it is not in the US and not in the EU, not anymore. So we need to make sure that the implosion is directed and directing it to the far right makes perfect sense in this case. 

We are now in a dangerous stage. You see the Catholic churches have shown to be too unreliable. There is corruption, sexual abuse against minors and we saw less than a month ago that this was known all the way to the top of the Vatican a decade ago. There is now a much larger stage to massively separate church from state and it becomes massively important to reduce christian powers all over these governments. And whilst they still enjoy too many benefits of their transgressions we ned to do something. Like in politics is is about alliances and now the atheists and Muslim populations make one massive alliance, outranking christians by a lot. We can sit back and do nothing or set the stage how it really is. Not to the loudmouthed abusers, but to the people who are truly in power and it is not Strasbourg and it is not Washington DC. No matter how we slice and dice it we are running out of time to act, if there is one clear signal than that has been the signal that JustStopOil has been sounding and we see that the people have had enough in London, Munich and Paris. And we better do something clear before this all explodes, because that danger is getting bigger by the day. 

Are there better actions? I feel certain that there are, yet I do not see them and the governments are not acting as they should, as such my method comes to the top, not because it is better, but though a lack of real alternatives. Time is no longer our friend, that time has passed.

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December 12, 2022 · 10:44

Dopey and Grumpy, still dwarves

That is the setting and it is a strange setting, but it relates to ‘When it rains we call the kettle black’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/11/when-it-rains-we-call-the-kettle-black/) which I wrote two days ago. Yet I did not know there was more, and just now I come across ‘Saudi Arabia demanded defense firms set up in country by 2024. So far, most seem unmoved’ (at https://breakingdefense.com/2022/12/saudi-arabia-demanded-defense-firms-set-up-in-country-by-2024-so-far-most-seem-unmoved/), to be honest, I had heard some stuff in that direction, but I was unaware of how deep it went, and now I see “as long as it is related to the government contracts, they will have to have their regional headquarters here”, with the added “analysts said that the biggest players appear confident they can find workarounds — including the use of local partnerships and subsidiaries, as they’ve done in other countries — to keep the market open” and there the stupid factor comes into play. You see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has had enough of fake allies, fake commitments and now China is ready to make commitments and as the KSA is moving towards the 2030 mark of 50% in country defence and China is willing to play nice, the US is set to lose a whole lot of revenue. So there is your workaround, greedy and stupid working in cahoots like Grumpy and Dopey, both sides of a currency that has no meaning where they are, it is the sales prospects that counts and they are giving it all to China. You can only be the biggest player if you sell and there were markers for sale events and now there is a clear understanding in strategic papers no less that China is moving into sales column A. So when we think through what Breaking Defense gave us on December 8th, the US better realise that the age of pretending to do something and doing something else as a workaround is ending and it is ending really quickly. So when we see the larger players like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Leonardo, Thales, and General Dynamics. What happens when the representative $27,000,000,000 goes to China? Twenty Seven Billion no longer to the US, the dollar will take another dive and more importantly, the design of their stealth planes required some Saudi Funds, when they go to the Chengdu J-20, the impact will be seen all over the US, EU and NATO. I made mention of these dangers as early as September 2021. The fact that some American Fat Cats were playing stupid with a customer paying billions is a little new, but there is no surpassing the union of stupid and ego, it makes for a nice package, one that China could be enjoying a lot more than they figured on. And there is a chance that the strategic union between Saudi Arabia and China will go that far. Not only will the US lose their Middle East stage, they will in that same action lose whatever benefits they had in Egypt as well. And just to remind you on a speculative side. If China buys in this deal 2 million barrels a day from the American stack, the US is in deep manure. It does make the grass grow in Texas, but that is pretty much all it does. 

As such the last week has given us all kinds of revelations via several media sources. But the larger news is that State secretary Pompeo gives us ‘Xi’s visit to Saudi Arabia a result of “bad American policy”’ and the bad news merely stacks. Yes Saudi Arabia is not squandering the connections with the US, their words and they are right. The US themselves are squandering it to China by playing chicken with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to appease their ego’s, and that is what is clearly in place and will shown over the next 13 months. You see, there will not be any 11th hour changes, if these regional HQ’s are not in place by December 2023 China will end up with a massive chunk of Saudi defence spending. China is happy with it, will the US be? I doubt it, but they catered to ego, so there you have it. It does not matter who Dopey and Grumpy are, in the end they were merely dwarves and as I see it, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is willing to make a large change and it will cost the US, it will cost them so much. I wonder how they will spin this loss, because at present that is exactly what it will become. A loss to their ally list, a loss to their economy and a loss of income. All handed to China for the mere satisfaction of ego. Government handed partnerships to players like Microsoft, Sony, Samsung and a few other players for the cumulative sum of a mere 1% of that, did you think the Saudi Government wasn’t keeping tabs? Silly bunnies!

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December 11, 2022 · 20:33

Gaming Oscars, a chalice of achievement

I was looking for a simple list, but none of them gave it, a simple lit with the game and the amount of awards. None supplied it as far as I could tell and it is weird because the Oscars have done this for decades. The simple stage is that Elden Ring (not my choice) got the Game of the Year win. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that Elden Ring earned it, it really did, it is merely not my game. That does not make me angry, if anything it implies that gaming is bigger than me. The two games I had in that in that direction is the God of War: Ragnarok with Horizon Forbidden West as a second choice. 

So when we see GoW, we see that they won Narrative, Music, Audio design, Performance, Innovation, Action/Adventure, 6 wins in total. My second game Horizon Forbidden West didn’t get any, the competition was too fierce and too good. Elden Ring took home Game of the Year, Best game direction, Best Art direction, Best RPG, a total of 4 wins. Gran Turismo got a win too and a few others 11 wins for Sony, whilst Microsoft has 4 (Elden Ring is on both systems). 7 wins for Sony exclusives. It is a chalice of achievements and it was never in doubt. The exclusives are the system protectors and the system evangelists (if gaming was a religion). 

There we have the larger stage, the larger issue that Microsoft is spinning out of view. When it was all good, they were happy to announce it, now not so much. Even sales numbers are a combination of system S and system X. I reckon the numbers are basically that bad and they are getting worse. No amount of software house acquisition will fix that and the fact that Microsoft is spinning the numbers and hiding them is telling me more, in gaming Microsoft is done for. Not completely, they are the number one ruler in flight simulators and they earned that part, they truly do. Yet life is more than straight forward games. It is about the art and HFW and GoW clearly showed that, in 2023 Hogwarts legacy will show again that love of a subject and dedication to that love will make Hogwarts Legacy shine on any platform it appears on. I personally predict that Hogwarts Legacy will up the mark for achievements in a game by a fair bit. Yes, I saw “a Twitter user wrote: “Hogwarts Legacy got a VERY tepid reaction at The Game Awards… and also did not win.”” Yet that concern was not there for Bayonetta 3, was it? I missed out most of the Rowling debate, in the first because I do not care, in the second that people have personal views and they are entitled to them. If it offends you then crawl under your bed please. She wrote a series of books that captured the heart of two generations, in addition it inspired the creation of Hogwarts Legacy. We see all these people cluster around perfection whilst they have no idea what perfection looks like, perfection to them is anyone who agrees with them and that is the important part of the stage. Gaming is not that. This is why my view on Elden Ring matters. It is not my game, but I saw how amazing it looks and it was a clear competitor to the GOTY and they won, there is no negative thinking by me. Gaming is too big! I have shared my displeasure with Microsoft on many occasions, yet the Flight Simulator was a clear win and they won other items too and they will win more over time (until Microsoft is speculatively no more). You see the wins are not Sony, or Microsoft. These wins are made by dedicated people at Sony and Microsoft. Which Sony seemingly has more of at present. I like the reference to the Gaming Oscar’s, but there is a hidden flaw. A decade ago when Microsoft and Sony were on par, the games were better, now that is seemingly no longer the case. Microsoft games are too often makers like Ubisoft who are everywhere. Yet, we cannot discount Microsoft yet. With Fable, Starfield, The outer worlds 2 and an allegedly new Forza, there is every chance that Microsoft will win big in 2023. I like that idea, because it means that Sony will have to go full throttle in 2023 and 2024. When these two fight, the gamer wins and that is how I like it, gamers winning. So the chalice of achievement might be with Sony in 2022, but there is no assurance that they will get 2023 as well. It makes for great gaming years for all gamers, which is what I particularly like.

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December 11, 2022 · 00:00

When it rains we call the kettle black

Yup an amalgamation of expressions and in this case it is a little more applicable than expected. You see a mere 11 hours ago I wrote in ‘Ruler of law goes metric’ “should the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia want it and limit the shipments of Crude Oil by an additional mere 1 million barrels a day, the US will explode in a stage of anarchy” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/10/ruler-of-law-goes-metric/) and 7 hours ago we get from the ABC ‘China promises to buy more Middle East oil, urges Arab leaders to replace the dollar with yuan’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-10/china-xi-promises-to-buy-more-mideast-oil/101757852), it isn’t a victory when the nightmare scenario starts, but this is what the US was facing all along. Several world leaders learned the hard way what happens when you start wars on multiple fronts. People like Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler and Wilhelm 2 all learned that lesson the hard way. Now that the US has a stage with Russia, it had to play nice with Chine to some extent, but it was already too late. Huawei was fresh in China’s memory and the US did NEVER EVER produce clear reports of the dangers that Huawei was. They got tools to make similar claims and none of them produced evidence. Now China sees a way to get back at the US. You see, if China buys 2 million barrels a day the American goose will be cooked within 2 months in the middle of winter no less. This is part of the horrific result of giving Wall Street free rein and now there is no second stage, no escape. The US had clear options a year ago, now not that much and the few they have they are squandering on the wrong priorities. And it is a mere 42 minutes ago when China and Saudi Arabia signed a strategic deal, which now implies that Huawei would get free rein on technology adaption for the Line, that straight building that goes through Saudi Arabia and optionally a lot more in Neom. Did you really think I was out of my mind when I was willing to sell my 5G to Saudi Arabia? This is happening a year earlier than expected, but no one saw the Ukrainian war happen and even less saw it excelarate the way it did in the end. Now China has the option to make the impressions in Saudi Arabia and optionally soon in Egypt as well. I saw this coming and no one believed me, but there is a lot more to Neom than most see, because the US media kept on belittling it and now as the truth comes out we see knee jerk reactions and large claims of miscommunications, and that is not all, if the Yuan will be accepted as currency, the Yuan will get a tour of the Middle East and Africa giving a slam against the power of the Dollar. Now, that does not mean that the dollar ends, but there will be an impact and the dollar will take a hit. All this to a larger effect because certain people relied on ego and not on facts or true innovation. Feel free to read the article (at https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20221210-saudi-arabia-and-huawei-sign-strategic-deal/) with the added quote “The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) also reported that Chinese and Saudi companies had signed 34 investment agreements in clean energy, information technology, cloud computing services, transportation, construction and other sectors. The agency did not issue figures for the deals but confirmed earlier that the two countries would sign initial agreements worth $30 billion.” It seems to be a simple claim that might not go anywhere, yet the adaptation for net zero carbon data centre’s in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and optionally two additional places are now supporting that my initial IP had a lot more power in Saudi Arabia than even I suspected and this also elevates the options that the Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) has in several places. What was an optional annual revenue of $763 million could start with an 800% growth and leading to well over twice that amount in less than 5 years. Should these data centres become reality than there is a clear case that these centres will be bought by European players, they would not have a choice in the matter and the US claim of danger to national security will not go anywhere, they played that card already. So when it rains, it pours as well as the interaction of the pot calling the kettle black. Two players that were ready and the others were not. 

It is in the end merely that simple.

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