August 18, 2022 · 02:15

There was that idea

Part 2
I had only left that barn 2 minutes earlier when an idea hit me. I slammed on the breaks and turned around. It was less than a minute when I returned to the barn. I walked into the shop and grabbed a kart to the left. The man saw me come in and looked at me wondering what I was up to. I rolled straight to the water stack. I grabbed 20 packs with 24 bottles and shelled over the $200 it amounted to. He looked at me. I stated that I heard that provisions aren’t reaching them. They have been working all day. He stopped me. “Wait!” I wondered what he had in mind. He came back with logs, or so they looked. I can only keep them for 2-3 more days. These are black pepper cake logs. Not the worst and they will have a filled stomach. Take them, he grabbed a box and threw in a few knives. These are old, don’t care what happens to them. I started to load up the car with water and cake. Well, we will let them eat cake too I thought. I closed the hatch. Brought the kart back. “Go bring it to them, you are a good man!”

I got into the car and drove off as fast as I could. I had returned the turnaround point in 30 seconds. I turned to the right and got towards the point I needed to go. It was less than an hour later when I saw a patrol car wave me down. He looked at me. I pointed at the back. Food and water for the firemen. He looked at the stack of water and waved me to go on. “Have you seen them? I asked” “Nah, I have only been here for about an hour. They are about 10 miles north of here” I nodded and drove off. It was more like 7 miles on when I saw firemen on a hill, some kind of small tent. I drove up the hill on a rough path towards the tent. I had a great view, it was a good idea. The firemen looked at me, wondering what I was about. “No press, no press” they shouted. I got out and walked to the back. I opened the door and got two trays of water. Food and drinks from the Red barn. You can use it I reckon. They looked like parched toddlers. I reckoned that water was gone and they were decently starving. I got the box of cakes and knives. Here is some food, it is not great, but it should keep in the heat. They lunged for the food. They were indeed starving. They were not complaining. How much? One asked. It’s on the house I stated, I even sounded magnanimous. I glanced at the flames all over the place. It was then that I saw something different, something was off, but it was not here or by the lake, more to the left. The flames were not the same, but only I could see that, my Olympian gaze gave me more, The flames had a green and purple shine and those two shines were outstretching past the flames. “What is that to the left?” He looked and looked into the distance. Another fire, I reckon it is around Glennville a community in Kern County, why? Just curious I said. Anymore troops in the wild down there. I casually pointed in the lowlands towards Glennville. He pointed a little more to the left. There is a team of 5 working, I grabbed a log a knife and put it on the stack of water I still had. From the second pile I grabbed two more packs. And handed them over. I will bring them food and drinks too. Why is provisions so bad? I asked. Something about the truck breaking down. “I think I head that on the radio, but I wasn’t sure. So we decided to not take chances and here is the water and a log or two. Will more people come back here? The firemen nodded. I handed over two more trays and closed the door. The man nodded, the others were still eating like famished vultures nodding and putting their thumbs up. I had to admit, this kind of dedication was well appreciated, and if I could make a difference for them, I would. I drive down the track and turned right, in the general direction. I saw a path branching to the left and I took it. It was 5 minutes later when I saw the group of men, clearly exhausted and they looked weirdly at my car, clearly a car that is not often seen in these places. I opened the backdoor and took out a tray, with the log and knife on top. The man clearly saw the water. They walked towards me. “Can we help you?” I just came from the tent, they told me where you 5 were. Here is a tray of water and a log of black pepper cake. Not the greatest, but if you are hungry, you will not care. They all nodded, but it was clear that the water was what they needed. 24 bottles would go well over these 5 people. I handed over the stuff. Can I get to Glennville this way? The man looked at each other. Yes, it should get you there, just hold left with every branch you see and you should be good. Do not stray off the paths and roads, getting stuck in these places is a death sentence. I nodded and drove off, time to see why the flames around Glennville were different. 

To be Continued

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August 17, 2022 · 19:11

I’m not crazy, I’m an airplane.

It is an old joke from the 70’s, and when the NOS (at https://nos.nl/artikel/2440333-russische-bevolking-kampt-met-collectieve-depressie-sinds-inval-oekraine) is treating its readers to ‘Russian population suffers from collective depression since the invasion of Ukraine’ we get another part of Russia problems thrown into the face of daily events. We are also given ““Society is collectively in shock. I received a lot of people who were completely panicked. Since March there have been four times as many requests for a consultation at our clinic. Almost everyone is consumed with horror, incomprehension and fear. And they don’t know how to deal with that.” According to Khokhlova, this is a fairly natural reaction to such a drastic event. “Many people are reacting in this way to the terrifying news about Russia’s actions in Ukraine.”” It shows us a Russia that Russia does not want anyone to see. Apart from the events where we see more and more stages where Russian soldiers are now being charged with war crimes. A setting where President Putin was making short claims and this is now turning into a long term war, something that is embarrassing and humiliating to the Russian Kremlin. Not something it was looking forward to, it even nullified that chance, but that is merely the beginning of the problems, the problems go far beyond Russian borders. In the Netherlands, Dutch politician Thierry Baudet — leader of the Forum for Democracy (PvD) and the head of its parliamentary group is so pro Russian that it conflicts with the status of the Dutch, even when the Russians have to back down, this person will ‘hide’ behind the misrepresented ‘nuance’ of the statement. It is not the only nation with rather large issues, but it is the most visible one. There are two streams in all this. I am with the second one. It is a persons right to choose sides, no matter how wrong that choice is. However, there needs to be accountability, as such There will be larger issues for the Dutch Forum for Democracy (PvD) and the longer the war between Russia and the Ukraine takes, the larger there issues will be. And I reckon that its members are starting to see this, which means that the 5 seats that the PvD currently has, little with be left of it in the next election. 

In all this the mental state of the Russian people matters, because that gives a handhold to the actions of its current government. And even as we get sporadic information, often unverified. The larger setting for Russia is not merely the war, there is every stage that Russia needs its fuel to warm the houses of Russia and that is not looking too good, as I personally see it, the Russian fronts will have to do with 20%-35% less fuel, if that does not happen, many Russians will not survive the winter that comes and with large explosions on the Russian airfields, the Kremlin might have to choose in the very near future to either fuel the tanks they still have, or fuel Russian houses. It seems that the 10,000 bonus for women who have more than 10 kids was not a short sighted idea. (As one source gives us) ‘Putin brings back award created by Stalin that rewards mothers with 10 kids’ it could possibly be the only way they can stay warm this winter, and as such, has anyone figured on what life will be created? In a nation that is short of nearly everything? That is the short sighted knee jerk reaction from the Kremlin and it seems to me that Russia has much larger problems, mental health is at present possibly the smallest one of all. But that would be merely my speculated view on the matter.

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August 16, 2022 · 18:59

The old debate

The BBC is hitting us with another version of a debate that has been going on for a while. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-61594815) gives us ‘Report blasts “manipulative” video game loot boxes’, first off, they are not lying to you, this is not misrepresentation. In this, I do not completely agree with the point of view of some. The article gives us “The contents of the virtual boxes are only revealed through either game play or by making a payment. While some contain useful tools or desirable extras which improve the experience, others are worthless.” These facts are true. There are two sides here. In the first, why allow for payment? It is the right of a person to buy something, we set ourselves up for that one. Yet in all this, the people who paid 12,000 euro for boxes. No one is debating the utter stupidity of these people. No one is debating that as an adult YOU are responsible for your actions. But the press was all about those poor poor junkies, weren’t they? The other issue is “others are worthless”, what makes the card worthless? It is a direct question. What makes a card worthless? In the NHL game, there are functional cards (stadiums and players), there are cosmetic cards (outfits) and there are support cards, so what makes a card worthless? Then we get “The report authors, the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC), say gamers are being “manipulated” into spending large sums of money on the chests.” I have an issue with that. Which games were they? How was there manipulation? The NHL game gave card packs on milestones, and there were a lot of milestones. In addition, you got three free packs a day, and if you connected to the game (logged in) often enough, you got enough markers (there is one in EVERY pack) to exchange those markers for an expanded pack, giving you 12 or even 20 cards. The packs also had a betting coin card. One per pack and these funds allowed you to bid for other cards. Within 3 months I had all the stadiums, all the NHL jerseys and hockey masks, as well as over 100 players. I NEVER spend a cent, this was all free. So please tell me “How was I manipulated into spending large sums of money?” There are always the stupid people who want it all on day one, is that the fault of the game maker? Is it THEIR responsibility for the stupidity of others? The next part of my disagreement is seen in “Critics say the boxes are a form of gambling because players cannot see what they have actually bought until after they have paid to open the contents”. In this it is important to see WHY I disagree. You see in CCG games like Magic, Star Trek, Star Wars, The lord of the rings and more we see that a pack has one rare (optionally one super rare), 2-3 uncommon cards and the rest are common. This is a set formula. So if a game set has 50 rare cards, you would be buying at the very least 50 packs. The optional rest is gotten through swapping with other players at events and at tournaments. It is NOT gambling because one element is missing. The element of gambling is that you lose everything, so until there is a pack where you get all blank cards stating “Thank You!”, it is NOT gambling. You always get a set equation, you always get something. It makes it not gambling. 

In this I oppose the setting of “Finn Myrstad, director of digital policy at the NCC, said: “The sale and presentation of loot boxes often involve exploiting consumers through predatory mechanisms, fostering addiction, targeting vulnerable consumer groups and more.”” Yet there is a sparkly of truth here too and I do not deny it. Players like Electronic Arts played the exploitative element too much in FIFA, it backfired. There is exploitation, especially when the complete pack contains 10,000 players. However I disagree with the ‘predatory mechanism’ part. There is a whole range of predators on YouTube with there ‘card reveal’ channel, there “Do this to get something for free” and that is never a good thing, but these groups did not separate the exploiters from the makers, did they? Lets be clear the makers are not freshly white innocent. Only the people from Mass Effect 3 who introduced these loot-boxes in their multi player element, they were phenomenal and massively innocent. Others used that stage to make big money. 

The article ends with “But the same year Fortnite-maker, Epic Games, decided to let players in its hit video game see what was inside its llama loot boxes before deciding whether to buy them.” And their case agains Apple gained traction. I believe that the Epic Games people are the lest innocent, and their setting will have long term repercussions, it is only a matter of time. The one element not seen was given to us by Android: Netrunner. They gave us a different setting making it fair all around, the expansions were all the same price and always had the same cards, so there was only one pack to buy (once a month). It allowed for a smoother and fair game stage. In addition, the CCG world has something called factory sets. They were slightly different (like a silver border) but that was the only difference. A factory set contained ALL the cards of a game. The game was instantly fully playable, but they do tend to come later. So EA had the option to release a factory set half way through the season, but they did not, did they? Is it on EA? That would be a fair question, and I do not know the answer, merely my feeling in this. Is there a larger exploitation? Yes, but not all of it is on the makers. YouTubers were all over their FIFA cards and the more bang the better their bucks and the numbers of their followers, but we do not see that here either.

The BBC (as well as Tom Gerken) never lie to you, yet I have issues with the article as I have issues with the setting of it. The players HAVE a responsibility and some are pushing it on EA (and others) and the media aided them, which is not fair either. All this is merely my point of view, so feel free to disagree.

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August 15, 2022 · 23:17

From the flames into the fire?

Part 2
The day and evening had gone slowly, the evening had a strange smell, that he could not place, it was a mix of burn, sweetness and weirdly enough peppers. The sky had a red glow in the distance and where he was, he had quite the view. Down the hill cars were riding like nothing was happening, only I knew that there was more. “Patrick, I need a car” He nodded and gestured to the exit. I followed and he took me to the garage. A Bugatti Chiron and two Cadillacs. An Escala and an XT6. I took the XT6, I also looked around for jerrycans. Patrick seemingly guessed what I was looking for and opened a chest. In there was, in sand 6 cans, 4 filled. I took them all and placed them in the back of the XT6. I started the car and drove off. The tank was full, so that meant close to 450 miles. That meant, north around Keene when I needed to look to refill the tank and fill up the 2 empty cans. I drove off. There was traffic in both directions, but it was clear that those going towards LA were avoiding the flames, some of them, as well as their cars did not look too good. It was close to 5 hours later when I reached Keene. Traffic was not nice and stressed people were showing to be the worst.

It was at the Murray Family Farms well past Keene when I spotted the Chevron station. I stopped and loaded up the tank as well as the two cans. There was a big red barn which actually looked kinda lovely. After the car was satisfied, it was my turn. In the red barn was a nice selection of fruit, pies and other needs. I kept to the fruits, there were granny smiths, there were tangerines and a few other goods. I took several pieces of each, and as I was not sure how it was done, I took a few extra pieces so that I ended up with about 4 bags of fruit. There were fruit juices and I took three of them too, as well as two bottles of water. I went to the cash register and paid for it all, the fuel was by far the most expensive and overall a really nice deal. I loaded it up in the car and I heard the man call me. “Would you like some coffee?” It was a nice surprise and I nodded and walked back. The man offered a clean mug with coffee. “Cream, sugar?” I shook my head “No, thank you”. He looked at me And asked me “Are you one of these ‘fire tourists’?” I shook my head again. No, that is not my setting. I need to find something, but I do not know what it is. “We all have that, the man said and laughed”. I took a sip, of the coffee and looked around. The red in the sky was more intense, but not in a threatening way. The man continued. There were firemen here, they loaded up on everything they could. They were exhausted. They talked about a fire that would not go out, they threw everything at it, It was like it was fuelled. It was about 20 miles NNE from here, by Twin oaks, where the cave is, south of Lake Isabella. That was a hint he could use, and 20 miles is not that far, but there was every chance that it was a dead end. There was only one way to find out, and that was to set the curse towards Twin Oaks. I thanked the man for the coffee and drove off, in the beginning not in the direction, but only in a general direction. This was not a god time, or a good place to vacate the roads. The next part of the trip was about to begin.

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August 15, 2022 · 03:17

To the other side we go

The next day was one of highs and lows. The high was breakfast which was pretty much the best one I have had in several days and I was considering having a second one. I decided on another coffee and merely pondered the events of yesterday. The trip was not a concern, the new job awaiting me was not a concern either, but a nice change of steps. What was a concern was whatever was in California. I was aware of Perses, but only in a limiting way. He was with Asteria the parents of Hecate, but that was about all I knew. Hesiod had written something, but I had forgotten it, I needed to reread those works, or ask someone I knew. But that did not seem like a good idea at present. I went back to Iraklion airport and flew to Paris, it was the earliest flight I could get. De Gaulle to LAX was simple enough and I only had to wait 4 hours. The nice part was that I had a first class ticket, which meant that the lounges were open to me. 

As expected, these French were proud of their culinary achievements, and Air France was willing to share that experience. If breakfast in Crete was great, the snacks and drinks in De Gaulle were nothing short of amazing. The 4 hours and being armed with a few magazines went rather fast. There was an announcement and I walked to the gate to get on the plane. Getting there and on board was easy enough. The smiling flight attendant was a nice bonus and as I went into first class, the idea of sinking into my seat and getting some more sleep was a rather nice idea. I was certain that I wouldn’t be getting any in California.

Part 1
The arrival t LAX was interesting. It was my first time and as I was about to seek a taxi when I noticed a man with an EIB plate. I walked up to the man, he was holding an iPhone and looking like he was comparing it. He showed the image, a picture 3-4 years old. I nodded. His hand gestured to follow him. He walked in a stern stride, not too fast, not too slow. We walked out and towards a large dark Lincoln. He opened the back door for me, I got in. He pointed to the left side “Ouzo and raki”, he pointed to the right of the door “Ice water and orange juice”. He slowly and cautiously closed the door. I grabbed a glass of ice water. The car drove off into the late morning, towards wherever I was going to go. 

It was almost 2 hours later when we stopped at a gate, the gate opened and we entered the driveway. The house was amazing, like nothing I had ever seen before. There was a man waiting at the door. “Good morning Sir, I am the Major Domo. I hope you will keep me on?” I nodded. “Very well sir.” He went on explaining the house and showing the spaces. The office took me by surprise, very spartan, just the way I like it. There was some art on the walls, not really my kind of stuff, but still decent. The nude n the master bedroom however was exquisite. It was an oil painting of a girl standing in front of a window. Her transparent gown down to her hip and her back was turned to the observer. It made me stare at the sea she was staring at through a white window. It was lovely. I could not decipher the autograph. I wonder if the previous owner ever knew the woman. 

I walked back into the living room and into the kitchen. I checked the fridge. “More fruit-juices and ice water please” Patrick the major domo nodded. I looked at the rest, it as all predictable and it was all I had seen before. “I am resting in the office” “Very well Sir” I walked away. There were things to consider. The fires were on the news, but they were all over the place. More than 30,000 fires over millions of acres. It would take time to figure out where to go next, but there was time for that, the TV in the office was big and very sharp. I watched CBS2 and KCAL9 most of the time, they gave me more of the fire information. I had to look into the fire brigade. To find one place in over 30,000 was going to take some time and a lot of effort. But that was for later. I had to learn a lot more on Perses and more important, how he was fuelling the fires in the first place.

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August 14, 2022 · 16:08

The niche to the left

This is a nice change of steps. Someone decided to take matters into their on hands and create. It is always nice to see this. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/13/tinder-for-booklovers-the-new-app-matching-like-minded-readers) gives us ‘Tinder for booklovers: the new app matching like-minded readers’, on one side I want to say this seems lat to the party, but better late than never. And to be honest, if someone comes up with any app that connects rural people together, than it is a good thing. In this case we see “Klerb is ideal for finding companions who share your taste in books, its developer says” and whether this becomes a best seller is beside the point. A good idea is a good idea. So even as we are given ““It was about 20 books on Nazi Germany and 10 Andy McNab novels,” says O’Donnell, an author. “I could feel my vulva constructing its own chastity belt.”” The idea that lass known writer fans can unite and share ideas and share thoughts is never a bad idea. I have a few reservations on “a new app in development is aiming to remove the uncertainty about literary tastes when meeting new people. Klerb has already been dubbed Tinder for bookworms because it matches you with people in your area according to your shared interests in books.” It is not a bad idea, but it seems a little too shallow. I love the books of James A. Carey, but I got to them AFTER I got introduced to The Expanse, I got into The Boys BEFORE I ever saw a comic it was based on, there is an interesting interaction between movies and books. There is every chance I get to see Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, before I have ever seen his comic books. But that is beside the point. There will be all kind of readers and fans to see more people and be connected to more Stephen King fans, and these are only the top of mind writers, there are thousands more and as such for them too a place like Klerb might be the voice box to grow their population of fans. No matter how I see it, no matter how it grows, there is an app that thought of a niche of people and it is a good idea. It will allow the The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society to connect to the Forbidden planet population of London and I cannot see that as a bad thing (beside the fact that the London people will enjoy better food). 

And we do get some more news. As we are given ““It’s not a hook-up app,” insists Abe Winter, the New Yorker who is developing Klerb, which is still being tested. “Or a dating app of any kind. But Tinder, which is not without its problems, delivers real value to communities by connecting strangers in geographical proximity. I’m trying to bring that model to reading.” We see that the maker (Abe Winter) is thinking things through, and there is the obvious fact that readers can be separated by tectonic plates (and in California several). But an app like this seems to open the doors to the bookworms in us, I personally believe that this is a good thing.

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August 13, 2022 · 18:16

The plot becomes a mess

The stage was not a good one, I was in a place I did not know too well, one of the fates, fates, who are outside of control of the gods was in front of me and I just moved something through time. It was not looking good. She observed me and seemingly liked what she saw. “You are cautious in acting, you do not act hasty. This is good.” “We were a little concerned when we saw the mess you made in the Platia Rimini, but we saw your approach, we do not disapprove.” She looked at him. “You have a weird future ahead of you, we cannot help, but we can leave hints, like the letter you got. Like a few other things you will see, but it is not the right time yet. There is a much larger problem. These people are now more than a nuisance, they are an actual threat to the force of Gaia and that cannot be allowed. You will have the option to do something and the road you take will decide how many will survive, but a lot of them will have to go. Pollution is damaging the minds of Poseidon and Zeus. The realm of Hades remains intact, but it has its own problems and they must be resolved. Your grandfather is messaging you but it costs him more effort every time he does and that is now at a turning point.” “Summon your bident, now!” He looked at her and complied He whispered ‘psychofágos’ and the bident appeared. Radiant white silver and steel with a core that was not from this earth, it obeyed him and stood strong and with its appearance he felt stronger, he felt more alive and interestingly enough Lachesis suddenly looked like a very old woman, white hairs, but with the body of a 30 year old woman, firm breasts seeping through the thin silk robes. She looked good. “Men will be men”, Lachesis smiled. Obviously happy that she still had appeal to men millennia younger than she was. She took the bident from him and fitted some kind of collar to the base of the two tines and around the socket of the bident. She held a cloth over it that had a weird impact, like welding without heat. She handed the bident back, it felt a little different, but the applied collar was beautiful, it had olympian writing on it, he could not read it, it was small, really really small and the writing curved with the gemstones in the collar. A sapphire, an emerald, a ruby and something white, but not diamond, he did not recognise the stone. There were several sockets not filled. He looked at Lachesis. Where are your two sisters? He looked at her. “They know a little, but not everything, none of us know the entire stage and they are weaving the life lines, life lines that are smudged more and more over the ages and we are concerned. When the lines can not longer be weaved, we become obsolete. We would not know what to do, but to sit in front of an empty loom, with no where to go and no one to talk to. Something must be done.” 

But there is no time, learn the new abilities of ‘psychofágos’, “I will guide you to your first testing ground in the very near future. I have also arranged a new employment. You are now the new investigator of the Piraeus Bank in Athens. You will not be bothered and your income will grow by 400%, you might need money soon. We have also arranged for someone to live 5 years longer, the price was his estate in California, it will be close to the test of flames. It is not merely pollution and environment that is causing the fires. It is the breath of Perses, a titan, it is still captive, but some things are seeping through and the gods ned to be restored to their power of chaos will overrun this world. If you survive that test we will talk about the next step.” 

I was right, I was in trouble. Lachesis continued. “You could die, Hades cannot help, there is no Olympian cure for the embrace of your mother or grandfather, this world will be lost to you and soon thereafter for the billions of souls that will follow.” I looked at the bident, the ruby seemed a little more threatening now. “Go back to London and there you will receive the papers of the address of your new home. Do not move too much, if Perses succeeds the 5 years we gave the previous owner will have been a good deal for him, the breath of Perses will make short work of that place in seconds.” 

I nodded. “Good travels, grand son of Hades. If the tests go well, you will be worthy of an Olympian name”  I looked around, well no one for miles. The church was still there, the windows were still there and he walked towards the scooter and drive back to the rental place. He filled up the gas tank, waived at the woman behind the counter and handed in the key to the scooter. She took it, walked towards the scooter, checked it and nodded in my direction, she signed off the paper and handed me a copy. I went back to the hotel, drank a sip from the fruit juice in the fridge.

Tomorrow would be a new day and with that idea I went to bed and fell asleep. 

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August 12, 2022 · 19:38

Slappers only?

It is a term from games, it means empty hands only. In gaming it tends to be a pugilist arena. I heard it first with Golden Eye, which is remarkably interesting as the HK model 23 with a silencer is more effective, we add the silencer in case the target is in a library 

We would not want to disturb the readers.

And this all related to? Yes, it started with Al Jazeera who gave us (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/8/9/doj-preparing-to-sue-google-over-ad-market-as-soon-as-next-month) where we see ‘DOJ preparing to sue Google over ad market as soon as next month’. There we are given “The US Justice Department is preparing to sue Google as soon as next month, according to people familiar with the matter, capping years of work to build a case that the Alphabet Inc. unit illegally dominates the digital advertising market” I have issues with this, especially the ‘illegally dominates the digital advertising market’, you see Google INVENTED fair advertisement. The others all made sure that the people, the business and others paid TOP DOLLAR. Take the consideration we see next (I mentioned it before in previous blogs).

Placement, bid and Google price
1 $25 $0.54
2 $20 $0.53
3 $10 $0.52
4 $5 $0.51
5 $0.50 $0.50

So as they would charge the number one bidder $25, that same bidder merely pays $0.54 cents with Google Ads. Before Google Ads this was not an option and there we see the larger stages of Yellow pages, advertisements in newspapers and magazines. These places were racking up massive profits and Google undermined it, giving the people a better deal, as such 99% ran to Google and it caught on, Bing (Microsoft) tried to make it work, they could not, the metrics of Google were vastly superior. So there is no illegal domination, it is domination through superior systems, Amazon had its own system that was on Amazon, yet With Google Ads and Google YouTube, the advertisement world had dug its OWN grave. They slapped the people with bills that were beyond obscene and Hollywood gives us a (highly exaggerated) taste of that in Mad Men and the people are becoming increasingly angry, they are paying for the ego of a few men and when Google Ads becomes the adult player the people switch and the switch en mass. A group of people are now in massive trouble and they cry to every politician they ever gave a nice deal to. The DOJ is involved and we are in this mess now. And we see not one clear explanation of ‘illegally dominates the digital advertising market’, we are merely given a story.

This gets me to the article (at https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/09/the-doj-is-reportedly-prepping-an-antitrust-suit-against-google-over-its-ad-business/) there we see Ted Crunch giving us ‘The DOJ is reportedly prepping an antitrust suit against Google over its ad business’, here we are given “the new lawsuit would focus on the company’s command of the digital ad market. Bloomberg reports that DOJ antitrust lawyers are in the process of wrapping up interviews with publishers after “years of work” that will ultimately culminate in the coming lawsuit” as well as “In 2020, the DOJ sued the tech titan over its dominance in the online search market, accusing the company of “unlawfully maintaining monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising in the United States.”” This is a lot more to the point and I still have issues. You see we see “its dominance in the online search market” we are not given “Google set out a new look on searching information, they had it made, they patented it and as such they had the new solution for the next generation of computer users”, we are also not given the simple setting that when Google realised a shift, they acted, all whilst IBM and Microsoft ere playing with their dinkey winkey’s pretending to be master of the universe. OK, IBM was going in different directions, but they were still there as well. So these so called captains of industry were asleep at the wheel, but we are not given that, are we? I remember that I voiced the setting of sound-cards in PC’s in 1992. I voiced it to an executive on the IBM trade show stand he merely stated ‘Sir, we are IBM’ and had security escort me off the IBM stand, so where is that wanker now? I reckon making statements that IBM always viewed the multi media market as important. Him and a few others never had a bloody clue. It was merely pretentious ego and it was ‘fake it till you make it’ and now I am here with a dozen of IP solutions, and they? They have little more than their supply of Viagra and stories about their great achievements. I know and should still have emails on the solution now known as Facebook, and I had it 4 years before Facebook. I have seen the folly of these executives and I trust none of them. In the mean time there is Amazon, Google and Elon Musk taking larger strides in the unknown and seeking the new frontiers and those wannabe’s are setting sights on that what is not theirs. And my evidence?

It is seen in “wrapping up interviews with publishers after “years of work”” it took the DOJ years of work, this is not a court-case, I personally believe it to be orchestration for the benefit of losers not unlike Microsoft. To give them a slice of a cake they do not deserve. And that is the problem with America, it only works when a machine driven by the corruptible get their cake too. Even though they are not entitled to it. I saw the daily changes in Google Ads, I saw what was achieved whilst the ones who should be working, were merely leeching. So how is that progress? I run circles around those wannabe’s and I have three systems ready to go (one too depending on Meta, so there are risks) in a world where I should not matter, I am the one with the IP, and that is the station where Google has to go to court. I wonder if it ever amounts to anything. The media wants their slice of beef and as they are hurting to become irrelevant, they are happy to see Google bite the dust, but why are they biting the dust? Because they never understood what was coming and when they woke up the train was already a station further. That is the actual setting, but I reckon that we never get to see that part of the equation. I wonder what happens when 4Chen shows my IP and these wannabe’s they are now seeing billions in IP become public domain, I would really like to see the faces of those wannabe’s who realise that it is becoming public domain and most of it in China. How many years of interviews will that take? They set the stage of slappers only, but the orchestration implies that it is anything but slappers only, that view is reserved for the people they are trying to fool. I am not buying it.

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August 11, 2022 · 19:49

Stirring the soup

Things are afoot in the Kay es Ah (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), but to see this we need to reflect on a few items. The first one is (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-10/twitter-former-employee-convicted-of-spying-for-saudi-arabia/101318490) and gives us ‘Former Twitter employee convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia’, the simple setting is that this happens, If Jack Dorsey had played a few items over to the NSA, no one would hear if it, but when a non-American agency gets the key to the Twitter Data Kingdom, it becomes news. So when we see “Ahmad Abouammo, a US citizen and former media partnership manager for Twitter’s Middle East region, was charged in 2019 with acting as an agent of Saudi Arabia without registering with the US government.” And then someone slips, the text becomes “used their positions to access confidential Twitter data about users.” It is ‘their positions’ which is plural, so how many were caught? We get it with “This included their email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses, the latter of which he used to identify a user’s location. A third man named in the complaint, Saudi citizen Ahmed Al-Mutairi, was alleged to have worked with the Saudi royal family as an intermediary.” So was the second man? We see that in the end when we get “The FBI still lists Ali Alzabarah and Ahmed Al-Mutairi as wanted.” Well, this is 3 years ago, so the other two are optionally celebrating their success in Riyadh. Espionage happens, it can happen where ever we see this much user data. The fact that this had gone on, and we do not see HOW LONG this had been going on should also be reflected on all this, it should see us accept the larger Elon Musk discount for data copied into other places. Transgressed data loses values and as stated “This included their email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses, the latter of which he used to identify a user’s location.” And nowhere do we see for how long this was going on before the alleged culprit was arrested. I state alleged, because we do not know (or we are not told) what spy one did and what spy two did. The court-case might shed light on this, but he was acquitted of several points, so there.

Then it is time to add vegetables to the soup in the form of a story (at https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2022/08/10/china-saudi-arabia-announce-massive-strategic-partnership-energy-agreement/) there we see ‘China, Saudi Arabia Announce Massive Strategic Partnership Energy Agreement’, it was what I said months ago, they might drill more but that does not mean it goes to the place we hope/expect/wish it will go and now we see this, a larger gain for China and the agreement between Aramco and Sinopec, which showed a fear I expected to come for almost two years, with “The two companies will join hands in renewing the vitality and scoring new progress of the Belt and Road Initiative and Saudi Vision 2030” we see a larger gain for Chinese construction and a loss for western ones. This was the setting I feared, because it means that there is no relief for western construction. The little tidbits thrown at them like scraps are the only ones they are likely to have. In a place that I about to invest well over $1,000,000,000,000 for new buildings in Neom, as well as the line, there is now a decent chance that the small hidden engineering texts will be Arabic/Chinese and not Arabic/English. A station that was always likely to happen, but now it seems it is becoming the passing of a fact. 

The third ingredient in any soup is the stock and water. That is given to us through an article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-egyptian-investment-co-invests-13-bln-four-egyptian-firms-2022-08-10/) by Reuters. There we see ‘Saudi Arabia invests $1.3 bln in four Egyptian firms’. It is not the amount, when you invest 0.1% in companies after you set in motion  building bill, we see the appearance of dwarfism. It seems like a speck, but you would be wrong. This event will give larger rise to the final ingredient and here we see “The companies are Abu Qir Fertizilers and Chemical Industries (ABUK.CA), Misr Fertilizers Production Company (MFPC.CA), Alexandria Container and Cargo Handling (ALCN.CA), and payments firm E-Finance for Financial and Digital Investments (EFIH.CA).” And we see nothing weird here, not when you consider the larger building needs, this makes absolute sense and “Saudi Arabia has already provided billions in support since Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power in 2014. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait this year all promised to increase their investments in Egypt” does not change that. But the water and stock are mere building blocks for the vegetables to connect to, it is the beef, the beef completes the picture. This is seen (at https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/mobily-signs-mou-with-telecom-egypt-to-build-submarine-cable-from-saudi-arabia-to-egypt/) and you might think that it does not make sense. How does ‘Mobily signs MoU with Telecom Egypt to build submarine cable from Saudi Arabia to Egypt’ imply beef? Well this started for me at least a little over three years ago, 3 years ago, before the Covid started hitting us that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had, with Neom an uncanny option to become the large (optionally largest) 5G powerhouse of the Middle East, stretching into Egypt and becoming the 5G powerhouse in the Mediterranean with larger options towards stretching into Europe. Now, I do not fear it, telecom powerhouses are often awesome, but this states that the larger players (like Vodafail) are seemingly asleep at the wheel and the KSA has nothing opposing Huawei, it is the foundation of Saudi 5G, so now the 100,000,000 Egyptians will fuel the 35,000,000 5G users all over the KSA and as Neom becomes a 5G hub for Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia becomes the one powerhouse no one saw coming, and those who did were awfully quiet about it. 

A stage that I saw coming 3 years ago is now gaining momentum and optionally they will get a lot more over the next 2-3 years. And Europe with their promises will go nowhere, as someone ones said, a promise and an empty sack are worth the empty sack and with the beef giving fragrance and texture to the soup. 

I will offer you the position of the fifth element in an image, it is the soul of tastebuds and it matters, because the place and ownership of the fifth element are not a given, not even how they will become part of the equation, but they are there, not in the tall grass, but out in the open. Someone has a double role to play and I honestly do not know who, where or what they represents, but when you make soup, you can add your own ideal mix, or rely on people to grab the fifth element, and that is what I did. I added little of the spices, so the consumer of soup will add it themselves opening the field for player number five.

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August 10, 2022 · 19:50

The jab from the left

That is the setting I was contemplating today. It all started with the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62488144) where I saw ‘Elon Musk sells $6.9bn of Tesla shares as Twitter lawsuit looms’ it was at that moment I was contemplating a larger jab from the left. Consider that I reckon that one of my IP will bring in half a billion a month. What if I offer that to Elon Musk? It is not his field, but that has never stopped him before. What if I was the on giving him optionally surpassing 5 billion a year (not in the first year) for some time to come? My way of giving the media the finger, as well as some tech places. We still see the BS from media ignoring the Fake Twitter accounts, we see some BS approach like ‘she cried, she cried louder and we wonder what happens’, well if it helps Elon Musk, I am game. There is also the augmented reality IP, as such there might be another stage where Elon Musk gets the visibility in 116,000 malls. I think it is a good day to give the finger to hypocrisy and the media with there digital dollars? They can watch from the stage as they become more and more redundant. Hmmm, the idea has merit, and if I can set the stage for places like the Line to show it all first we will see all these tech companies come up with “We are working on something much better” yes, like the virgin who is in denial that she was pregnant, a toilet seat must have done it. Well, two can play at that game and I have the IP to make it happen, as such I see a much larger option to have a go at these hypocrites. 35 years of frustration watching wankers and weaklings hide behind fake it until you make it, hide behind their bullet points, like it was the ammunition that could not miss sales targets. There is something totally satisfying watching them cry like the little chihuahua’s they actually are. Will it happen? I have no idea, I think not, I doubt Elon Musk even knows about this blog and he has more pressing concerns at present, but the idea to show the media that we have had enough of the BS they spout by giving billions in revenue to the man they hate, and for that reason only will upset big-tech in a way they have never seen before. 

There is nothing like the sight of a hungry glutton being denied their next meal to see chaos truly explode and that is what would happen. Never mind the Microsoft losers, places like Amazon and Google will take notice, for them having to acknowledge Elon Musk as their equal in mobiles, cars, battery technology AND gaming. That will have a much larger impact and the media will seek all kinds of shelter, crying that their was no place in their publication, crying that they never hd the know how, that it is all the right of publications to chose what to write about and if I can drive the dagger home with a few issues on the EEA and their ignored reports, so much the better. 

So whilst the BBC is not doing anything wrong with “After news of the share sale was made public Mr Musk responded to a tweet asking whether he had finished selling Tesla shares with “yes”, adding that he needed the money in case he was forced to buy Twitter and was unable to secure some of the funding for the deal.” Some might realise that the recent ‘confession’ that Twitter is deleting a million accounts a day and that adds up to a lot more than some are comfortable with. There is a larger station and I feel it is not the worst idea to scorch the media with a flamethrower (I had run out of daisies). 

The jab from the left is one the media is too often not ready for, they will ‘debate’ that there are compromises, all whilst we know that compromise politics is the most corrupt of all politics. And it is time that the proper people get the proper acknowledgement and we can get there by denying the other players their slice of cake. I’ll make it even more extreme. There is at present nothing stopping me to make it all public domain, and when the lists go public on September 30th that might very well happen. All it will take is 1-3 clever people who can look beyond the rim of their coffee cup (something most politicians have not been able to do for some time). Clever people on 4chan could end up with a treasure trove of IP on several grounds (apart from melting down Iranian and Russian nuclear reactors), that one I left somewhere else, I am not THAT irresponsible. And the idea I had came from a snow-globe, but I already wrote about that. 

Just in light of the setting of these days a solution for Iranian arrogance, through a snow-globe ending their nuclear reactors. How could I ever pass up on that? I reckon that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would owe me too and that is not the worst setting to be in, to be owed a large favour from the richest nation in the world. All that because the media would not do their jobs, how is that for freedom of the press and freedom of expression? I am using my freedom of expression the way I can, and they use the freedom of the press to get digital clicks through flaming. I reckon I am in a better position, but that is merely my view on the matter and lets face it, they could call it delusional. I wonder what they will call it AFTER I am proven correct? I reckon it will be stated that this was too complex an issue for people with a university degree in journalism. 

In the end, I still get my money, or my share and I am willing to make amends to that setting, the reward of screwing over the media will be that big a deal for me to cut a few corners leaving me with millions less. Or I still end with the amount of zero, the amount I always expected to end with when it all becomes public domain. I wonder, if I do this, will it be public domain, or pubic domain? Not the weirdest question to get, although, pretty extreme for a Wednesday. 

Such is life!

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