January 13, 2022 · 22:07

Bitches be like….

This is the start of an issue I have with a BBC article. The article is not wrong, it is merely short sighted and incorrect, yet the BBC did nothing wrong here. Let’s be clear about that. The shortsightedness comes from the complainers who want to blame Google (YouTube) for everything, but the larger picture is ignored and there my issue starts. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59967190) gives us ‘Fact-checkers label YouTube a ‘major conduit of online disinformation’’ I do not disagree here, it is, but when we get to ““livelihoods have been ruined, and far too many people have lost loved ones to disinformation”. It goes on to accuse YouTube of not making enough effort to address the problem, saying that it “is allowing its platform to be weaponised by unscrupulous actors to manipulate and exploit others”.” This is as I personally see it the moment the wheels comes from the wagon. Let’s take a look. 

Example 1
In the Netherlands there is a person named Willem Engel, he was removed from Twitter for violating rules. The man is a Dutch Covid conspiracy theorist. Now the removal seems plain and simple, yet he created close to half a dozen new accounts within 24 hours, some people go through that trouble and this is merely one person. 

This reflects on YouTube as the same thing happens there, but the problem is a lot larger. First how large is this issue? Some sources give us that EVERY MINUTE 500 hours of video are uploaded, that gives us 720,000 hours of video EVERY DAY. This also sets a different premise as YouTube is visited by 122,000,000 people every day, over a billion hours of video are watched every day.

Example 2
We are given ‘too many people have lost loved ones to disinformation’, yet who of them vet the information? We have to take responsibility people, we need to check and check the data and numbers given to us, we all do. And let’s not forget the disinformation does not merely come from conspiracy theorists. There are over 30 hedge funds channels on YouTube, yet we also get (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQEpHwYer-o), which comes from the University of Buffalo. So is one evidence of the other? Hedge funds are too often about deception, to grow they need your money, yet in the end it is still a heads or tails game. Where is the disinformation here? Where is the disinformation when game makers use young kids offering them the game if they can write something nice? How do you think influencers are made? I have seen video’s that do not seem to be deceptive, but until you bought and tested the product, you cannot tell, so how can YouTube? 

Example 3
We get food, we get it all the time, so we are influenced what YouTube video’s offer us and (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHjbujGPX8Q) we get the view of ‘Tricky Ways Fast Food Restaurants Deceive You’ and we get it, people can often not be completely honest when they are in marketing. 

So here is the conundrum, which are misinformation? The first for certain, yet examples two and three? Who decides that? And whilst you are contemplating this, thousands more movies were uploaded. 

So when I see “YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez told the Guardian the company was already investing in ways “to connect people to authoritative content, reduce the spread of borderline misinformation, and remove violative videos”.” I get the steps, but there is another step that these 80 group are ignoring. The need to make the act of spreading disinformation criminal, that is a stage they could take, but in the US there is the First Amendment, the US cannot act in Russia or China and the list of limitations goes on, and even in the US and UK (and many EU nations) we see a lack of acts mainly because the law was never meant for such actions and too many fear a first step towards a totalitarian state. I get it, but to blame YouTube again and again is just folly (but it seemingly give places the limelight they desire). 

So when we we see ‘More context and debunks rather than just deleting videos’ we see the beginning of a dangerous premise towards censorship, also that is not on YouTube is it? Debunking information is YOUR job, it is called vetting information and it has been around since before the Sudan Wars (1885), Julius Caesar dealt with misinformation by coding his letters (2100 years ago) and the list goes on, so when did we become absent of common sense? 

So when you give premise to “a British man who died with Covid-19 after refusing to be vaccinated, made – according to his family – a “terrible mistake” of being influenced by online anti-vaccine content.” As well as “Florida taxi driver Brian Lee Hitchens lost his wife to Covid-19 after they were influenced by Facebook content that claimed the pandemic is a hoax” consider that Dr. Faucci has been blowing the horn of vaccination for the longest time, a real scientist, so when were you stupid enough to listen to a nobody on Facebook, whilst a doctor who

  • Joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a clinical associate in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’s (NIAID) Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI).
  • He became head of the LCI’s Clinical Physiology Section in 1974 
  • In 1980 was appointed chief of the NIAID’s Laboratory of Immunoregulation. 
  • In 1984, he became director of the NIAID, a position he still holds.
  • Fauci has been offered the position of director of the NIH several times, but has declined each time.
  • Fauci has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to contend with viral diseases like HIV/AIDS, SARS, the Swine flu, MERS, Ebola, and COVID-19. 
  • He played a significant role in the early 2000s in creating the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)
  • Driving development of biodefense drugs and vaccines following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

is largely ignored and debunked by nobodies, in some cases even by presidential nobodies. At what point does a nobody on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube have anywhere near these qualifications? So, we do not care if you kill yourself in one of the most stupid ways imaginable, however I think you need to stop whining like little chihuahua’s and just die so we can take your job and your house. The central point is vetting information and that is on us. Yes, I have been duped once or twice, but it needs to be a real clever person to dupe me (yes, it can still be done). So when I see another this will make you rich, or I can offer this house to you so cheap, I know it is a scam. You see people give good deals to friends and people they really know, if it is someone else then no one wants it, or it is a scam, scammers win by making you believe that you won the lottery even when you never bought a ticket.

My issue with the BBC article is that there is a much larger stage and the first step to that stage is the law, we all know it, but we all ignore it. Just like ‘Tax the rich’ (tax laws), we seem to fall for it every time and it saddens me. In the 70’s I was a youngling (almost a youngling) and I was trying to become smarter and around me were people that were smart (some only made that claim), now it seems that no one takes the trouble to investigate, the answers are on social media and there every minute another sucker is born. Yet in all this, how do the fact checkers look at government propaganda? How do they see through media filters that intentionally keep you in the dark? As the barrier between news organisations and filtered information bringers goes ever thinner, fact checking goes out the window. So let’s not blame YouTube for all this, perhaps more could be done, I will never deny that, but what an be done when people are unwilling to test the setting against the law, that first step? And in all this I reckon that TikTok and Facebook also bare some of the blame, but they are not mentioned here are they?

So when we see the article end with “It cannot be left to internet companies to decide how to tackle bad information or choose how transparent to be about it” we see an uncomfortable statement that is not wrong, but who will do this? Oh, and to be clear who will check TikTok? And how will these be checked? More important, what will we do about the disinformation up-loaders? That too deserves attention, if we are not willing to prosecute them and when we are unable to prosecute them, how can any of this be with YouTube/Google?

If you want to stop disinformation, you need to factcheck yourself, that has been a truth for millennia and we forget that part of the equation a little too often, do we not?

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January 13, 2022 · 17:22

Greed, Consumerism and safety?

There is a dangerous stance, a stance not on the safety of people, but on the revenue that they represent and there is every chance that this level of greed driven consumerism is at the core of a lot worse to come. 

Part 1
Part one is seen in the article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-criticizes-china-canceling-some-flights-over-covid-19-cases-2022-01-12/) called ‘U.S. criticises China over canceled flights’. There we see ““China’s actions are inconsistent with its obligations under the U.S.-China Air Transport Agreement. We are engaging with the (Chinese government) on this and we retain the right to take regulatory measures as appropriate,” a U.S. Transportation Department (USDOT) spokesperson said.” OK, we can accept that, but in that setting can that spokesperson please show us the paragraphs that deal with issues like pandemics? The greed driven will see and focus on ‘obligations’, but what of the safety of the people? The Chinese government is obliged to look after the safety of people, so where is that part? I am not taking a side whether one or the other is right and which party is wrong. Yet when I see “identify a path forward that minimises impact to travellers” I wonder who they are working for. In December, Bloomberg gave us ‘Omicron May Double Risk of Getting Infected on Planes, IATA Says’, I heard from a friend who went on vacation that the return flight was filled with people coughing and yes, two days later he had covid too. When will people learn that IF YOU ARE SICK YOU STAY AT HOME? And more important those who get sick on vacation are all about ‘safely getting home’ dangers be damned. And that is the core problem with air travel. So I cannot fault China for its position, I understand the greed driven side for getting people to travel, yet it seems to me that the greed driven do not care as long as they see the revenue, infections be damned. Those stating that they take all precautions are delusional, there will never be a safe route in this.

Part 2
The second part is given to us by SBS. There we see (at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/another-53-people-have-died-from-covid-19-as-nsw-posts-record-92-264-new-cases/4809f03d-d922-4c30-bfe8-6c1251568bfa) that ‘Another 53 people have died from COVID-19 as NSW posts record 92,264 new cases’, the issue is that when we see it next to the UK (120,000 cases) all whilst the population of the UK is 300% larger, we see that things do not add up, in that same setting the US with 829,000 cases are a larger setting. The us has around 500% of the population of the UK, yet they have a lot more infections. Now this is not the proper way to vet numbers, but there should be some linearity and these numbers are all over the place. So in this India with 247,500 cases all whilst they have 4 times the population of the US does not make sense. The numbers do not add up, I get it there could be a dozen elements influencing other facts, but the numbers are wrong, and I personally believe that India has a much larger problem, so when we consider that is it really wrong for China to act the way it does? 

The entire setting of flight have to continue in an era where we live in a pandemic, someone needs to wake up. The entire need to travel all whilst a lot of issues can be resolved virtually gets to be on the centre stage. In addition to that view we see “China has all but shut its borders to travellers, cutting total international flights to just 200 a week, or 2% of pre-pandemic levels”, is it right, it is wrong? It seems to me that it is to stop a wave of infections that have close to free rule in any nation that did not lock its borders. Last November the NY Times reported “At least 13 people who arrived in the Netherlands on two flights from South Africa on Friday were infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, and more cases will most likely be found, Dutch health officials said on Sunday.” We saw South Africa protesting that it was a mild issue, now we have over 3 million new cases EVERY DAY, so how is that mild? How is the drastic shortage of hospital beds a mild consideration?

Is this what happens when greed shakes hands with consumerism? I do not know, but from where I sit, the view regarding the safety of people is close to totally ignored. There is every chance that those who closed their borders stand a much better chance. That is unless you open borders for tennis players who later admit “that he released a statement with new admissions, including the fact that he sat for an interview and maskless photoshoot knowing he had Covid without disclosing his status”, so a person who knew he had covid went knowingly and willingly maskless. And China is the one that is painted as the attacked party? I reckon that our laws and our regulations are blatantly failing in these pandemic stages, I will let you ponder on why that is and before you blame China for anything, wonder why no spokesperson raised issues on pandemic obligations that should be out there. I wonder how consumerism won that side of the battle. And before you think it will be easy peasy, consider what optionally might come AFTER Omicron and when that part is less mild, what will the consequences be? 

I do not know, but more important, the scientists that should know do not know either, it is new turf for them. So when we listen to obligations and consumerism lets also wonder how safe these obligations were in the first place, especially as yesterday gave us an additional 3,201,862 new cases. I will accept that most will be mild, but 1% might not be and that means that globally for 6-8 days 32,018 new beds need to be secured for the yesterdays cases alone. So what about tomorrow and the day after that? How many beds are left then? I do not know, do you?

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January 12, 2022 · 22:43

Commencing Crazy

This all started before ‘Call for change!’ Which I wrote on October 25th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/25/call-for-change/), I saw the numbers and the idiocy of non-vaccination. I do not care what they call it, it is their life, but in that it is their life and they also need to accept the consequences. So as I wrote “The first port is that anti-vaxxers and those not vaccinated with a good provable reason will have to pay UPFRONT for any hospital admittance for COVID. So there are no stories about “Anti-vaxxer Kristen Lowery”, or those radio hosts and stories on how sorry they were lying in a comfortable hospital bed. They can tough it out at home and optionally die there.” I saw a station we were all heading to and today (11 hours ago) the BBC gives us ‘Quebec to impose health tax on unvaccinated Canadians’, the story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59960689) is not the first one, others have reported on similar settings, we also see some of these facts here. Singapore took my advice (seemingly) which requires Covid patients to pay for their own medical bills if they are not vaccinated. Greece imposes a fine and others will follow, when their national health care systems collapse due to those non vaccinated, this is a result and it was always heading this way. I do like the response that Premier Francois Legault gives. He states “I think right now it’s a question of fairness for the 90% of the population who made some sacrifices,” Mr Legault said. “I think we owe them this kind of measure” and I agree with him. Even as some news agencies are hiding behind positive flames like ‘Omicron may be set for rapid dip in US, UK’, I merely wonder how stupid these people are. They are (clinically speaking) telling a truth, but behind that facade we see numbers that globally went from 1.7M cases on January 1st to 2.4M cases on January 9th, All whilst the cases were 50% to 65% lower a week before. This is not going away soon or quietly. It has become a numbers game and in that game the numbers are overwhelming a stretched health care system on a global stage. All this whilst one source gave us 20 hours ago ‘Intensive care doctor reveals EVERY critically ill Covid patient being treated at his hospital is unvaccinated’, that is the reality and it is not the vaccinated people who are the larger danger, they do get sick but their symptoms are seemingly mild to really mild. And in the UK with so many unvaccinated people the dip as some might call it will not matter, a lot of them will die (which brings down housing prices), so there will always be a silver lining. Just not the one the media or anti-vaxxers rely on. And still the the issue is not as good as you think it is. The numbers from India with 1.3B people does not add up, so there will be a lot more coming all our ways. So whilst CNBC gives us ‘U.S. sets fresh records for Covid hospitalisations and cases with 1.5 million new infections’ today, we see the need to vet the journo’s who give us ‘Omicron may be set for rapid dip in US, UK’, as the data show us it was not directly a lie, yet the underlying issues we are already seeing, the people catering to that article are out of their minds. And in all this I reckon that the US and UK will soon follow the path Canada is taking and it will happen to people who cannot afford to pay, so they are denied access to hospital health care. It is one way to cull the herd, but it is not one that comes from choice, it is one grown through necessity and that is a much harder lesson to face. When the systems buckle, when the systems that gave us the protection we expected, when they collapse the real crazy starts and it will be some sight to behold, that much is an absolute given. 

So, as I personally see it. Things are about to get worse and it will come with populist claims, it will come with the blame game and when the reality pulls through and we say the unvaccinated people do not get a voice in all this, that is when matters get worse fast. People are all about complaining and not about taking responsibility of their acts and their life. It is the nanny state on steroids and now we will see just how strong the nanny state vibe will be in several nations. I reckon the next two weeks will be decently exciting ones.

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January 12, 2022 · 08:20

The next challenge

Gaming IP is always a challenge. There is the iterative challenge of getting a sequel or a remaster into play. Even as the innovative charge does not hold up for too long, a great game remastered can fill the coffers of a software house rather fast and nicely. We have seen it in the past, we could optionally see it when someone decides to take SEGA Dreamcast IP to a new setting. I personally think that both Fur Fighters and Wacky Races are undervalued and cast aside. Fur Fighters has its own challenge and graphically on the Dreamcast it would be able to hold itself up against most of the IP we see today. It had the quirks that made us wonder what else would be possible, and that is a good thing.

There there was the Hanna Barbera classic Wacky Races. It was a race game that held up against Mario Kart and it was unique, a setting where the racers all had special abilities and overall each racer was gifted with all kinds of options, it was when the game was done against one another when it truly started to shine. There are of course more, but a lot of them were done in new ways and with new options. Yet these two were forgotten and in the age of play that is a shame.

When we look at the innovation station, the setting becomes oblique, there is a lack of clarity, in almost everyone and I am no exception. You see, we look at the games that exist and how we might do better or how we might change the way we play and that is hard, it really is, I do not deny it. I created several pieces of IP, yet I am also gifted with the weakness of looking to those who did make amazing games. I believe that is a problem, not a big one, but one none the less. I tend to look at the age that stands between the CBM-64 and the CBM Amiga (Including Atari ST). That era gave us so many games and so many could be upgraded and improved upon. Not  because the makers failed, they did not. But what is possible in 2022 was not an option in 1986, moreover there is every chance that the makers never considered it in those days. In this David Braben might have been one of the few to move Elite (1985) into Elite Dangerous (2014), it was great then and it became overwhelmingly amazing in 2014. It is one of the few games that made a multi generation leap and the best part is that there are dozens of games that could have that ability. I wrote about it in the past. The 1983 EA game ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ could be the next thing. In this that it could be revamped, set to a larger stage and it gave me the idea to set the streamers (Google Stadia and Amazon Luna) to a new set of achievements one that could transfer into other games. Setting a new premise towards gaming and optionally trying new games. Yet that does not make it innovative. I believe my generation RPG, see previous story ‘Recap to the intro’ on September 25th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) for details. The question becomes how many original new parts are required to move from iterative to innovative? I actually do not know. An RPG is not like other RPG’s and I avoided to copy the settings that Bethesda had, and I added options that Ubisoft ignored in the Assassins Creed. Sucks to be them! I ended up with more than 1 IP and a setting where Amazon could grow its population by 50,000,000 (not a typo). All settings that Microsoft just overlooked and ignored. The strongest console in the world? My ass! A ship is only as good as its captain and their board of directors are pushing ideas for self preservation whilst they do not understand what gamers want and need, as such they tend to lose battle after battle and it was Nintendo (the weakest console) that overtook them in less than half the time Microsoft had to grow its population. 

Yet the station remains valid. If we need more gamers, the need for innovation is adamant. Yes, we ca add iterative new games and that keeps the interest going for a little whilst, but it is long term games that a console need to gain real traction with consumers and that is why innovation remains key. Innovation is the next thing that drives hardware sales and that is what Ubisoft forgot about long before their 11th hour was up. And now that we see partnerships and all kinds of marketing messages (all whilst they lost another creative director), we can see that players like Ubisoft is trying to make their life last a little longer, all whilst the gamers know and see that their game is done. My prediction given last year was a lot more on the nose than most expected it to be and it matters. There is every chance that the headlines of Ubisoft that left become the new indie designers we hoped for and in this both Google and Amazon have a need to set that directive to their systems as fast as they can.

Time is running out and when gamers look around for a good game, it would be really nice if they are ready to support those gamers. Sony is ready, yet as a gamer I feel that a good gaming environment requires more than one platform and Microsoft is no longer a contender, so who will be the number two? Nintendo? Will the the people at Google and Amazon take this console war serious? We will let them decide.

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January 11, 2022 · 17:08

Media in Limelight

That is the setting, is it time to put the media in the limelight? It started yesterday in Al Jazeera which was based on an article that came from the Wall Street Journal. The article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/9/iran-likely-smuggling-weapons-to-yemen-confidential-report) gives us ‘Iran ‘likely’ smuggling weapons to Yemen: UN report’I got there over three years ago, with a little later, in December 16th 2019 when I wrote ‘Joke of 2019: United Nations’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/12/16/joke-of-2019-united-nations/), where we see the UN giving us in some delusional Tate of denial “The UN has reportedly so far been unable to confirm Iran was involved in drone and cruise missile attacks on two key Saudi oil facilities in September”, they were that much in denial, one could argue that the UN allowed itself to be steered clear of any evidence involving Iran and the media was happy to oblige. If you search for these elements in Western media you will find very little. The Wall Street Journal who gave us two days ago (at https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-navy-port-emerges-as-key-to-alleged-weapons-smuggling-to-yemen-u-n-report-says-11641651941) “Thousands of weapons seized by the U.S. along supply routes for Yemen’s Houthis likely originated from Jask in Iran’s southeast, according to a draft report” might be one of the first that takes a larger look at the acts of Iran, well, I have to say that it took them long enough. I have a three year head start on most of them as such I wonder which stakeholder is out in the cold now?

A stage most ignores for the longest time is now a hot potato. So we do hope that General Turki Al-Maliki, serving the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will get the support he has been entitled to for well over two years. And all this is before you realise that Arab News gave us (at https://youtu.be/6Ab-8bIHY90) the setting of what Saudi Arabia was getting done in Yemen. Now, I am willing to be skeptical and not one sided, but the media did not report on any of that did they? It would be fair to see opposition, there always is, yet that part is also missing. We see blunt debatable attacks by tools like Stephanie Kirchgaessner (the Guardian, Washington DC) and a few other tools, but that is the extent, this is one of the larger first articles that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and in particular General Turki Al-Maliki has been rowing upstream for far too long all whilst the media shuts down any reporting on Iranian actions towards and in Yemen, why is that?

If there was opposition, disagreements on matters it would show, it always does, one side reports on knives being delivered, the other party will state that the manufacturers of stone knives are being pushed out of a job. This is life, but the shutdown on news regarding Iranian actions is another matter and the Wall Street Journal (as well as Al Jazeera) seemingly broke rank. And when we see the response in the WSJ “Iran’s mission at the U.N. said Iran doesn’t interfere in the conflict in Yemen, as a matter of policy. “Iran has not sold, exported, or transferred any arms, ammunition, or related equipment to Yemen in contravention of Security Council resolutions,” the Iranian mission said in an emailed statement.” We get the political side of the statement, yet the part where we see “thousands of weapons seized” tell a very different story. So whilst there will be twisting and turning for some time (which always happen) the one side that does not get to be in denial is the media, two sources? The media are all over each other whenever possible and Yemen is no exception. We need to consider the media and the irresponsible acts of keeping news from us. Keeping us in the dark on what Iran is doing, we need to set the limelight on the media and their stage of denial, it is that simple. When they all start doing their job, the job of some become more outspoken and we see a much larger wheel in motion, and perhaps the headline we saw in September 2021 ‘Iran Selling More Oil In 2021 But Middlemen Reap The Profit’, the setting is simple. In what universe does the middlemen reap the profits, close to all the profits? I wonder if the media will grace us with a list of names, yet I doubt that, the stakeholders on a few levels will not allow for that. This is of course personal speculation, yet consider the revenue that oil has and now we see that the alleged Iranian profits go somewhere else? Do you not think we need to know where they go? Do you think that the CIA, FBI (and many others) are not interested where billions in profits sailed to? The media is suddenly not interested?

If Toyota released another ISIS model, the media would be all over the design teams and asking them which of the members had middle eastern relatives. Now they are quiet? I do not think so! I believe that the Wall Street Journal (al Jazeera too) is exposing a little more than they bargained for and the call for exposing and illuminating the media in the limelight is the right call to make. 

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January 10, 2022 · 15:46

Expanding story time

Yes, this happens. Sometimes we get more to a story, but when was that when it was expanded on the main system and not a DLC or expansion? When was the last time that you were confronted with an additional story in the main game? I reckon that most of us cannot clearly give an example. And when someone pushed a demo of the Unreal Engine v5 to YouTube showing us a broken down version of Riverwood, my mind went 145% on the body and thoughts came to mind. Now in this case it will not apply, because Riverwood is decently fresh in the mind of all gamers, but when they see the new (older looking) Riverwood they should catch on.

What happens when we add a few villages, not unlike Riverwood, off the beaten track, off the caught setting and all storylines by themselves. A setting that some might recognise in Spinalonga Island on Crete. It had its own story, but remains a ghost town even now. So what happens when we find the story, evolve the story in the now, solve the story, the riddles and the curse (or other reason for abandonment) and when we find refugees, traders and other people we could direct them to the empty village. Riverwood had a trader, a smith and an inn. There is no stopping us from adding shops, and it would fit the equation towards building the local economy as well. As I wrote earlier. Too many RPG’s are depending on US to build the economy. Yet what happens when the NPC’s are in a secondary stage that they too become drivers of an economy? What happens when traders build economies, adventurers do, mercenaries do and as such, some places will grow even larger, grow more and grow distinctive. In this we can set markers like you need to have certain ranks in the main quest, and side quests as well as levels of fame before your word is accepted, but at that stage your influence grows too. We need to realise that in RPG games we are NOT the machine, we are a mere cog that fuels the machine, but we are one in many cogs and that has never taken a larger stand in RPG games and that has been overlooked for too long. I do understand that some might state that this was not possible until the PS4pro. I believe that this is not merely that case. Game makers are too often in an iterative mode, we get more of the same (Far Cry, Assassins Creed), there are leaps forward (Fallout and Elder Scrolls), yet I believe that more could be done and I also believe that the PS5 now shows that more is possible. And it will not take long for the streamers to show that they are capable of more. And until these players consider that the main quest is nothing more than an outspoken side quest we will not see the leaps forward that RPG’s are capable of. The fact that I came up with TESVII: Restoration and the fact that I am still finding new ways to grease the system into other directions, directions that TESVI:unknown place might not even touch on is speculative, but not entirely impossible. A stage where we see that RPG makers are for a lot about more of the same (not their fault) is a little troublesome and When I wrote about a new RPG, a generation one that I summarised in ‘Recap to the intro’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) which I wrote last September and even now I am still gaining more ideas that could grow that IP to larger stations is interesting to say the least. The side quests are merely one setting. Growing a virtual economy is another one, but it all sets the station where we have an RPG game where there are two stations. The station of you the player and you the influencer, both important, yet influencer we can become through skills, through power and through achievement and they all interact to some degree, and it is those influencer sides that give a much larger unknown to the game and how it shapes. We need to do it in that way, so that the system is free to evolve, if we merely have two settings with a clean and a deprived location (A Fable II event) we lose the plot, we will not see the impact of flourishing villages.

I believe that this is the expansive side of gaming, it fuels replayability and optionally dampens grinding. The last part is not a given or a real event, but could be the impact of influencers, it is merely a thought. So when did you see your last creativity on the sliding scale of something you haven’t figured out yet? A station that keeps me busy, why? I can tell you that I can, but for some reason I feel more comfortable with the thought “Because I have to”, and I am not sure why at present.

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January 10, 2022 · 00:40

Early Christmas for China

Yes, it is not the headline you wanted to see, but there is a not unrealistic chance that Christmas for China is coming 10 months early. It is seen in the first in ‘Saudi Arabia may run out of interceptor missiles in ‘months’’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/9/saudi-arabia-may-run-out-of-interceptor-missiles-in-months-ft). Al Jazeera tells us here “As Houthi rebel attacks escalate, Riyadh has ‘an urgent situation’ as it runs out of missiles for its air-defence system, Financial Times newspaper reports” this is the wake up call. It is “There is an interceptor shortage. Saudi Arabia has asked its friends for loans, but there are not many to be had,” one of the people told the publication” that takes the cake. Terrorists are firing missiles (with Iranian support) on Saudi Arabia and civilian targets and we have to be serious on “there are not many to be had”?  Are you freaking kidding me? Well, there is an alternative, a Chinese alternative and when someone states that the interceptor is better, I cannot really counter that with other than “You have no stock, so what do you care?” A stage where the Americans decided to upheave their arms sales, first planes, then Navy and now Interceptor missiles. Well, the Chinese have the HQ-9, or Sea Red Banner-9 missile. There are a few alternatives so the Chinese will have a few versions for Saudi Arabia. So when we see “In February last year, Biden said he would end US support for Saudi Arabia’s “offensive operations” in Yemen, including “relevant arms sales”” we can all nod or realise that the interceptor has a defensive nature. But that might be me. In all fairness, my goal is still to get the 3.75% commission, and on sales that now could extend well beyond the $300,000,000,000 ends up being a really nice sum of money and as I see it, America does not need that revenue, they can go bankrupt with or without it. And there is the other side that Saudi Arabia would enable a much larger set of infrastructures to go via China, the EU seemingly not needing international revenue to go their way either.

When will people realise that it is too late for some high moral point of view? It is nice if you have the coffers to feed nations, but the US and the EU nations gave that away to banks and meaningless spending, as such they have to chose whether it is a population going hungry. It is just like these politicians having a go at Google and Amazon, all whilst Microsoft is overlooked as they install bloatware after bloatware interaction reducing the options and rights of billions. So when will these people take the proper scope in sight? For me there is a selfish reason. I am not Saudi, but I am massively anti-stupid and anti-enabling. So when the media gives us “in light of the October 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives in Istanbul” all whilst no clear evidence has ever been reported or presented is just too stupid for words. So if I can get a few crumbs of billions by high lighting that, why would I not do that?

And in the second setting. The fact that Houthi forces have anything left to fire on Saudi Arabia and no one has stock to replenish, what does that tell you? When will these idiots act against Iran? Whilst we are treated two hours ago to ‘Iran denies interim nuclear deal reached – report’ (source: Jerusalem Post), so why are we getting denials, deferences and deflection in a stage where one player is becoming more and more dangerous. There is now an actual stage where at least one nation is willing to go to war. I tried to avoid that by making an idea to melt down the Iranian reactors without the need for bombs, so I did my bit and it is growing ever more likely that China will do their bit to, so where does all the inactions leave President Biden with the USA and his administration when inaction is all that they can offer? It is the worst political stage of enabling a competitive nation (China) I have ever seen and the EU is in a stage not much better at present. 

So where do they go when they have nothing left? I reckon it will be the path of the Chihuahua, but that might just be me.

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January 8, 2022 · 21:25

A next step

Have always heralded and championed the need for innovation, it is harder but ultimately more rewarding than iteration. I am not against iteration, it has its place and it has its benefit. It was that setting that I entertained this evening when I watched Remains of the Day again. I had the DVD for the longest time, but I had not watched it for well over a decade. And as I was watching an idea came over me and it was specific to this situation. You see, the movie is based on the classic masterpiece by Kazuo Ishiguro. This matters because some film fanatics, some film lovers want more than a DVD, Blu-Ray, or 4K movie. It is of course nice to get a higher resolution, but it is limiting. Why is there not an option to link with it the second screen, or a screen within a screen that allows us to see the script and/or the book that this movie is based on. It is of course not applicable to every movie, and there are stages where people merely want the script, but both have equal desire with their fans. Whether it be the Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), Twilight (Stephenie Meyer), and so on. The list is almost without end. Yet there are movies like for example Remains of the Day where both the book and the script would be desired to be seen side by side, and now that screens tend to be over 50”, there is enough space to keep on on the side of the movie. I doubt that this will not happen quickly and it will be overnight, but as the movies go beyond 4K, the storage will increase and someone will ask why there isn’t more about the movie on the disc. It is a fair question and it remains to be seen if it is the stage we will turn to. Perhaps the movie will keep track with the script on a Kindle, or similar device. It is an iterative step, but I reckon it will be an almost unavoidable one. As movies attract fans to the cinema, the makers will see the need to add more to the media disc, to give the people a larger desire to satisfy questions, to satisfy curiosities and not to forget to increase the desire for the media article. 

If you want numbers, statistics and data proving this, I will not be able to satisfy that request. Yet as a movie lover I have a fine (and large) collection of movies and I see that there is a growing need. You see as the movie is shown with a script it will remind people that there is a book (at times). The Twilight and Hunger Games fans do not need reminding, but how many have seen the book Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs? This is not an accusation, I got the book after I saw the film, I never heard of Ransom Riggs and the books he wrote. The entire matter comes at a stage where the people need more than the 134 minutes that the movie offers and plenty of movies add making off, specials, bloopers (always fun), ad several other attachments. Yet it is rare that a script is added, it has been done, but merely as an extra, not a an added layer to the movie. Yet perhaps some will push for this and we will see this in a new version or new release of the movie.

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January 8, 2022 · 03:28

When the plot thickens

This happens, it happens all the time. We notice it in movies and books, we sometimes face it in real life. There are moments when the plot thickens, but it tends not to happen in games and in RPG games fit rarely happens. There the NPC threat in singular directional, it always awaits your command, your action and your dialogue. So why is that?

It cannot be the technology, the technology was on par 1-2 generations ago. Is it gaming technology versus scripting? It could be, I am not the best source of information on this. 

We tend to see the Louis 14 approach in gaming, the world revolves around the gamer, it is like the missions. As the missions are lacking time needs, as the missions can be completed at YOUR convenience, we get to do it all. I think it is wrong and I think we need to alter our perceptions here. We cannot do everything, we can not please everyone and we cannot be everywhere. Just like good RPG games need an economy, it needs a transitional stage, it also needs  servicing stage. Mercenaries and guards that do take charge. Games like Shadow of Mordor invented and realised a nemesis system, I reckon that was a real step forward in gaming. So why did we not adjust RPG gaming to be more challenging? Was it that much of a leap? 

There is nothing like a stage that has no opposition, it becomes docile, it becomes a stage of non-stress. So what happens when you are there but so is the stage of mercenaries that can finish your jobs, making you lose fame and more important making you lose credibility. A stage we have never faced before. There is always the more seasoned adventurer, this happens. Yet in gaming we do not see that part. We are denied the challenge. Why is that?

When you create a career and you grind the same levels, we think we are being clever. Yet what happens when you lose out to a lot more? What happens when another adventurer becomes the famous one? Not in a multi player environment, but a single player environment that has its own nemesis system, not merely opposition, but a setting of peers and antagonists that become more that a mere hassle. It sets your career mode in a mode of bland anticipation. A station where you are not the best thing since sliced bread, you are merely the last resort and starting the game out like that is not the worst idea either. It shows the player that they need to be on their A-game all the time. And so far the RPG games have not been facilitating in that degree. Why is that?

It cannot be that I am the only one thinking in this direction, it cannot be that technology stayed behind. I believe that Bethesda pushed RPG into mainstream gaming and left a few things out. It is not their fault because their Elder Scrolls and Fallout series are pretty amazing. Yet by pushing that into mainstream they left something out and we all lost a little, it is a shame and at present there is no one replacing or contesting them. I pushed a few ideas to the surface in earlier articles, yet I also overlooked that part in RPG games. I apologise and I am trying to alter what I have at present to add that setting to future games, or at least inspire others to reconsider what they have and there is a lot that could be done. Will it? I hope so, but at present there is no way to tell, so we will have to see who picks this gaming direction up first.

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January 7, 2022 · 00:39

Intentional Procrastination

All whilst my back is killing me, I decided to write a little more (sleep is going bye bye). You see, there was an article plaguing my mind on TV’s that would enable taste by licking the display. I honestly cannot tell if that is wishful thinking, an April fools joke or real. If it is real, I wonder how long it will take for the adult entertainment industry to catch on and we see advertisements like ‘Does He/She really taste like Chicken? Find out!’ So how long until 1,546,768,114 teenagers of both genders will have a few of those movies hiding with some of their other ‘treasured’ possessions?

It then dawned on me that there is a side setting that I had forgotten initially about. Perhaps you have too. When I was young I was in the Netherlands and they had something called ‘snoep papier’ (candy paper), it was paper and you could actually eat this paper. So why not add something like an inkjet paper, but instead of colours, it will print tastes. Cherrie, Chocolate, Banana, Orange and so on. But not a normal inkjet, but one of those older plot printers, with up to 16 tastes. You can print a message that can be devoured, you can print advertisements and the people will get a taste of what you have. I am a little surprised that I have never seen something like that. Did I miss it? 

Now we seem to hold on to the pastry tastes as they tend to be the most outspoken tastes, but there is nothing stopping a player like Coca Cola to push forward their needs. Would there be a market? I reckon there is and with covid lingering on for another year at least, marketing departments will have to make do with what they can and novelty does tend to bring in the bacon.  Yet that could be merely my shortsighted view on the matter. And even as we take notice of 3D food printers, there is a larger need to print something that can be laced in an envelope, as well as the small fact that it might be (for now) a whole lot cheaper than 3D food printing. 

So whilst we take notice of any idea, we tend to tinker with these ideas to see if it fits the need WE have and that is fine. But so far I see people trying the newest ideas and they are forgetting to look behind them, that is where I found all kinds of ideas that did not fit then, but now those ideas that were rejected could actually bring about a new era. It is how I got the idea of printable displays (no joke). If is founded on an idea from around 1988 and people forgot to look there because there was new technology. Yet the old ideas can be rewrapped in all kind of ways, in some cases even in new innovative idea’s. So is it intentional procrastination, or is it the foundation of new and innovative intellectual property? I will let you decide, and consider looking behind you, there is all all kinds of stuff there that the wielders call junk because it is 15-30 years old, but it could be a lot more, reinventing the wheel is nice, yet reengineering a wheel tends to be more productive, more feasible and more profitable.

Have fun!

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