January 2, 2022 · 18:49

The company we keep

There is a setting that we tend to ignore, we are by the grace of our own undoing limited by the company we keep. And here is the problem, when that person is Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri it tends to be a problem (for the US). The man is allegedly a traitor (decently proven) and a thief (a little less proven). Although, when a person comes into a country with $387,000,000 questions tend to rise, especially when that person was an intelligence officer. I will be honest, to the best of my knowledge no government pays its intelligence officers THAT well. Doubt me? Ask MI5 (+4420 7930 9000) or MI6 (same number), I could give you a whole range of numbers, but after these two and the laughter you’ll experience, you will have had enough of it. Oh, I just discovered that the money Al Jabri had amounts to 50% of the entire DGSE budget, so there.

So why does this matter?
Well normally I do not give a hoot, no matter how it plays, but when the Middle East Eye gives us ‘US court dismisses Saudi case against former intelligence officer Saad al-Jabri’ (at https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-saad-aljabri-us-court-dismisses-case) it does matter. For one, the man is and lives in Canada, so why is the US involved? The quote “US government intervened to stop classified documents being used in the case as it would ‘harm national security’” if there was a real national security issue it might sway people and it does make sense to protect national security. And when we are given “As a top spy, Jabri worked with the CIA on counter-terrorism projects. He was a close aide to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the former Saudi interior minister ousted by Mohammed bin Salman as heir to the throne in a 2017 palace coup, which prompted Jabri to flee to Canada.” In this is no one wondering why he did not move to the US? So when we are given “Sakab accused Jabri of embezzling state funds while working under Mohammed bin Nayef, which Jabri denies” question need to be asked and they are not being asked. Why is that? Then we get another setting that was reported on earlier and we see with the quote “Jabri filed a lawsuit in the US saying that Canadian authorities foiled a plot by a 50-strong “hit squad” sent by Mohammed bin Salman to kill him in Canada. The alleged incident is said to have occurred less than two weeks after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.” So pardon my directness. If someone needs Al Jabri dead, one person might fit the bill, 50 do not. This was about something else and in this there is a case that the US is looking away. So whilst there is no claim on the Canadian side, all this goes to court in the US (yet again) and no one is asking questions. 

As for the imagination, depending on the security he has, a mere one person job with a drone carrying a claymore will most likely do the trick, the other 49 were overkill and useless. If the hit is done properly, the pilot is 4-6 blocks away, has a near direct line of sight, flies in boom! Problem solved. Yet in all this I am not afraid to ask questions from the other side either. When we see the quote “a lawsuit filed by a Saudi state-owned firm, Sakab Saudi Holding, which accused Jabri of embezzling state funds.” What evidence does Sakab Saudi Holding have and if it is enough, why not hand it to the press? At this point no one is getting anywhere and as far as Bazooka Joe knows, Al Jabri is a mere CIA operative working on counter-terrorism projects. So why does he have to do that from Canada? It is a simple enough question. 

The Americans made. Choice, which is fair enough, but why is Al Jabri hiding in Canada? And in all this we see case after case and no one is looking into the matter how Al Jabri got his fortune, or why exactly he has access to billions? Then we see Al Jabri pleading to the US to get his kids out of Saudi Arabia, so why not ask Canada? He is hiding there, is he not? There is however an upside to all this, at some point if the US would like to hold onto the weapons sales with Saudi Arabia, they might have to retracts all protection from Al Jabri, should be fun seeing exactly what protection Canada will offer, and particularly where the alleged stolen fortune from Saudi Arabia becomes a national security issue for the US, perhaps the CIA was involved in that heist. I actually  do not know, I am merely speculating but the more I read on these events the less any of it makes sense, from any side. 

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January 1, 2022 · 10:16

That lucky blow

Yes, these things happen, the point where luck is a factor and in some games they do happen, but the factor is not as profound as a Ravenclaw boy hoping he gets noticed by Emma Granger, or was that Hermione Watson? No here we apply the Skyrim principle. Instead of grinding, later in the game, I enter the embershard mine wearing dragon plate and before the bridge there are two miners, I walk up to them and let them have a go at me, with Dragon plate my armour rating is well above 550, so they can pound on me whilst I have dinner, read a magazine and at the end I am up 1-3 levels and my heavy armour is now legendary 100. A simple solution.

Yet what happens when we change the premise? What happens when the bad guys get a lucky blow as well? Consider:

  • Bandit
  • Bandit Marauder / Plunderer
  • Bandit Chief

There lucky blow rating starts at 1%-3%-5%, yet as levels go they can go up to 5% – 15% and 25%. Now that game changes a lot, but we can introduce negative influx. A 25%-50% and 75% protection through blocking and defence parameters. A stage that alters the game somewhat. So my approach of walking into their midst would no longer work (well likely a very limited version). It is the old battle setting that all attack without defence is pointless and all defence without attack is useless. A setting we all forgot about, or at least too many of us forgot about it. Oh, and their lucky blow is a blow that does 300% of the normal damage.

That same principle applies to sneak as well, we tend to see ‘a failed sneak’ as a side effect, whilst a failed sneak giving the opponent a free first hit is much more intense and optionally realistic? Many RPG games see a failed attempt at the stage of a loss of positive elements, whilst introducing no negative ones. That failing stopped the gamer from becoming clever at what they to, a setting that is a failing in the game because the game needs to contribute, always contribute. 

I believe that having a lucky blow element is nice for us, but it needs to contribute by being nice for them too (to coin a phrase).

We can never rely on more of the same, we can never rely on the easy path because it will undo gaming in the long run. And in this Skyrim is a perfect example as it has shown itself to be close to perfect for over a decade now. And the only way we get better games it to push that envelope. Did you think I was kidding when I stated that Amazon with its Luna has an option to sell 50,000,000 consoles? It isn’t that Google is not worthy, they decided not to develop games. And any clear and massive bodyblow to Microsoft is a winning punch for gamers everywhere. We gamers must stick together because Microsoft only stands for itself, it has shown that for well over a decade as well.

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December 31, 2021 · 23:42

When figments take over

Yes, that is a question, I am not sure if I have an answer because my mind is all over the place. It is like the scent I am picking up is taking charge on whatever comes next. It is a little weird, a little unsettling and even weirdly more, a path into the unknown.

First all, I have no idea where I am. My mind had taken me to some gritty (but clean) food place. It looks nothing like a restaurant, from the inside it seems like I am in a wooden shack that is set on top of concrete slabs. Not a place I have ever been, as far as I can tell. The prices are in Euro’s so I reckon I am somewhere in Europe. The staff looks at me awaiting my order. I order the triple carapace for €20. I get a large pewter plate, the plate is set in three areas almost like the old US eating trays. I get three parts of lobster, one is deed fried, covered with cheese it was a few small potatoes on the side. One is (I think) broiled and comes with steamed carrots and cauliflower, the last part is fried with butter, it has fried capsicum, mushrooms and a thick gravy with small pieces of lobster. It smells terrific and the weird thing is that I never had this before in my life, not even any of the individual parts as it is shown to me. I sit down and every bite is heavenly, I buy a bottle of water and drink it the part with the mushrooms is a little salty but still awesome. I get up and walk out of the shack, I am back in my living room. I have no idea where I was, I have (to the best of my knowledge) never been to this place and even now the scent of fried lobster, capsicum and mushrooms are filling my nose. I cannot explain it. The slightly delusional side of me is thinking back, over two years my mind created a little over $10,000,000,000 of IP, the delusional side is as I haven’t sold any of it, it might amount to a mere $10. The mind takes over at times. I cannot explain it and for now my brain is getting drunk on the smell of prepared lobster, which is weird as my last lobster is about 9 years ago and it was served Japanese style with fresh Wasabi, so I have no idea where the smells are coming from and I do not smell that good, not ever (thank god), I would take up cannibalism in a heartbeat, even my own heartbeat.  

Yet the situation remains, what was the vision, a mere scene for one of the scripts? Nothing happened, there was no hint, no clue no nothing, merely me eating and enjoying lobsters in three ways. So why write it down? Well for me writing down is keeping me busy, it brings clarity and in the back of my mind at times other things happen, it is not the first wave, it is the second wave that gives additional insights and I have had it on a few parts, for now I merely wonder if I can fit additional parts of the stage of ‘Residuam Vitam’, it also might b the third time I altered that title. I have parts in place, but I need a deeper need towards the parts that Meng Po plays in the story, her side it too one-sided, to facilitating and that does not work for me. You see some stories are ‘decently’ articulate in giving us “Lady Meng took the initiative to create a bowl of soup that would allow spirits to forget the suffering of their material life.” I believe that is merely half a story, you see facilitation only gets you so far, no matter how selfless a person is, when you are on a bridge handing out soup for 1000 generations, 10,000 moons there is a nourishing factor, I just haven’t figured out what it is, and the soup is important, smell is important. What if she hopes to meet the lost love in his next reincarnation? It matters as the soup is important for the story, it also matters as Hades and Anubis have alternate needs and a larger hunger, so what gives? 

It is hard for the figments to take control, but it helps setting a stage to the story and I for one still haven’t figured out all the cogs. The main lines are there and the players are known, but it needs to fit, not like a glove but like the cogs of a Swiss timepiece. The players have been around for millennia, so their stage of timing perfection matters. We go into any story, any interaction of divinity with small tokens, but the divine are timeless, so they think in centuries, not years and to make that story work requires a different brush. This is not a Winslow Homer aquarel, it is the Nightwatch by Rembrandt van Rijn, two different styles, two different approaches. In the first the player was The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch. A little element too often overlooked, there was a 9 year gap between to commissioning and the delivery. There are all kinds of reasons and we can guess, let the critics set the tone, but time is the element that plays here. A photo in that identical stage would be taken in 1/125 seconds, the painting took months if not years. To set that time in different parallels we need to see that that any of the divine players can see any scene, any second like a Hasselblad H6D-400C, even whilst we are mere Kodak instamatics, scent is part of that Kodak but the camera does not record scent. So the stage needs to be altered and it is now I see the alternate scene, the part the lobsters never told me (they were getting eaten). So what if the soup does more than the players realised? What if the scent of the soup also captures the scents once forgotten? The spirit bathes in forgetfulness on the road to reincarnation, but what if Meng Po captures every scent experienced? What if she needs one specific memory and consider that in ancient China a little over 10% was blind, the beggars in the streets, ignored by all as they went on their business, but the blind still register scents, what if Meng Po was seeking a specific scent? It might work. All due to a lobster dish I never ate (poor poor me).

So at times let the figments take over, you never know where they are headed and in my case, I was clueless until the story was completed.

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December 30, 2021 · 22:34

Lest we forget

This is not some Marilyn Mason album (which was really good), this is not some WW1 reference. This is in part an accusation of the media, in this specific case the Canadian media. I stumbled upon this by mere coincidence. In the age of lockdowns I tend to watch a lot more walk video’s, the more extreme (location) the more I want to see it. I have seen a fair bit of them and there are several really good ones, so in the age of lockdown I have seen the streets of San Francisco (I had to go there), Monaco, London, Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto and several others. So this evening I saw (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRuRPszR0-8) a Canadian style Christmas market in Monaco and it looked awesome. So why did the Canadian media not put this out as a human interest story? There was an ice rink, a sled hill (no real snow), stalls on Quebec, Ontario, generic Canadian and it was awesome to see in quality. I reckon that when your nation gets a cultural boost in a place like Monaco a single page on CBC or even Global One is not overly weird, but I did not see any of that. 

I reckon that if the subject was Australia, the UK or the Netherlands their media would go all out on it (an assumption on my side). So why are the human stories neglected when it is not the brassiere of some celebrity the story goes to the ‘horse no show’ category? You think I am kidding, but seek events that are international that impact your nation, who gives it any kind of visibility? And lets face it, Monaco is not any place, it is the place where the richest of the rich live (help me out here Jeff ;-)) it is subtropical and the temperature is around 23.4 degrees Celsius warmer than it is in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec or Ottawa, so the idea of watching people in a winter stall in summer outfit will work well on anyone. So why are these events missed? This might be the one I noticed, but I feel certain that it is nowhere near the only one.

So you take a look at that video (especially if your Canadian) and consider why it was missed, a Christmas stall is a Christmas stall and it will always pique the interest of someone, especially if it involves a group of people eating Poutine right next to a Louis Vuitton shop, don’t you agree?

And let’s face it, seeing the locals there having a go at Canadian Bacon will be worth the watch too, but that is merely my sense of giggles turning a frown upside down.

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December 30, 2021 · 16:59

The drop-off no one saw?

Yes, that is one of the settings that could be seen. A drop off no one saw coming. Yet, is that true? I wrote about if a few times, and even as I was not in agreement on all counts, I was clear about certain dangers. So as we are given (at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/30/covid-hospitals-england-asked-look-4000-emergency-beds) with the headline ‘Hospitals in England asked to look for up to 4,000 emergency Covid beds’, I merely wonder if it will be enough, there is every chance that they will need at least twice that amount before the UK is at the end of January. 

I wrote two stories ‘Cross here to die’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/11/cross-here-to-die/) on December 11th and ‘The double check’ on December 16th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/16/the-double-check/) the second one gives us “There is another side that I actually did not look at, the idea of “175,000 hospital admissions”, even over 5 months (Dec 1st – Apr 30th) that implies 1158 admissions a day, which is almost double of what is at present the case, And consider that the average length of stay in a hospital is 8-9 days for non ICU patients and 12-18 days when ICU is required. In that setting the numbers reveal that before the end of January all hospitals are beyond breaking point and no hospital in the UK will have any beds available with optional settings that London patients might have to be  be transferred to Wales, which is hilarious on a few levels”. So, basically I saw the setting we see now two weeks ago, as such well over a week ago actions would have been required, but were any taken? At present we see that the UK has “another record rise with more than 183,000 daily Covid cases”, this now gives is the speculative 1,830 speculated admissions a day, and treatment in hospitals will (if you are lucky require 8 days), as such my numbers were cautiously optimistic. So the stage of 8,000 additional beds might be short. This still does not mean that I agree with the mortality numbers, but they are not as unrealistic as they seem when I initially saw them. 

The danger is that there are still unknown parts, there is no clear stage of how dangerous Covid Omicron is and I am not debating that it could remain a mild version, the case is that the mild version replicates faster than a bunch of horny rabbits. So the smallest group that does need medical treatment in hospitals is growing too and over days we are now already where I expected the situation to be at the end of January, a month earlier and that bites (especially if you need hospital treatment). 

And this gets me to the second stage. You know that bunch of wankers (the labour party), aka the people who thought that Jeremy Corbyn was a decent human being, that group! So when the Guardian gives us ‘Johnson blamed for Covid test shortages as cases hit record 183,000’, the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/29/johnson-blamed-for-covid-test-shortages-as-cases-hit-record-183000) that gives us “Labour criticises PM over ‘total shambles’ of some essential workers being unable to access test kits”, my subtle sense is wondering in what room the were tossing off their Johnson when it was clear that people needed lockdown, that people needed to keep distance, needed to keep masks on. That group that had ex-Labour members put on a show in the Daily Mail so that there would be some form of deniability. Did the tories make errors. Yes! There is no denying it, yet the clarity was that there wasn’t enough information 3 weeks ago, and even as it was more transmittable, the PEOPLE had a clear stage where they COULD avoid contact, but they thought that covid would keep the holiday spirit as well, so how did that end up? We can push for blame, or we can accept responsibility of avoiding contact. I myself was lucky, my family is either dead or on the other side of the freakin planet, so avoiding was easy. I did not take time to have a festive holiday at DisneyWorld, or HarryPotter town for that matter. There is a pandemic and it is wrecking havoc on the world. Did anyone catch that news? 

We all knew there would be more cases, but even some scientists are reeling from the 183,000 cases a day and that is not even the worst, the world is facing 1,000,000 cases a day at present, a stage it never had before and even as I was right to see the healthcare systems collapse, it is happening a lot sooner than I expected and I take no fun on that, because doctors and nurses are collapsing and that means that if you need medical assistance, you can check yourself in and lie in some corridor, the hospitals will be out of beds a per today I reckon, the fact that they needed close to 8,000 beds almost a week ago implies that the NHS will not be able to deal with the pressures for much longer and if hospital staff runs home to care for their loved ones, I will not blame them. The news as we saw it yesterday ‘Police appeal after ‘appalling’ attack on a test and trace centre by anti-vax protesters’, my point of view is simple, you can all go home and die for all I care. Hospital staff can leave you to rot wherever you fall down and the unvaccinated are (as I personally see it) not allowed covid hospital care unless these people pay privately upfront!  When I see “Video footage from the scene of the Milton Keynes Theatre showed that children were frightened while the rioters abused staff and appeared to be stealing equipment”, I am bloody well losing it. Let these wankers die of covid, let them pay for covid hospital care and let everyone know who they are. So far I have taken delight in over two dozen obituaries of anti vaxxers, they all died of covid, so I like my odds and I would like it better if you all protected the hospital workers from these idiots. 

In all, is it true? Did we never see the drop-off coming a mile away, or were we trying to avoid staring at it. I get it, and I do not lay blame if this was your position, the issues becomes larger if you avoided what was clear in sight, went through life ignoring covid, masks, vaccines and distancing, when you ignored all those factors I believe that you are in a stage where you did whatever you could to die earlier in life. Do not get me wrong, it is your right to do so, but at that point you need to accept responsibility of what you decided on and not blame all the other parties that could have seen some things coming (Boris Johnson), yet there was a scientific absence of actions, political people delaying votes. It is hard to understand that, I get it and I feel needy to blame them, but then we get those pesky scientists giving us that this is a mild version. No one did the proper number games, which is why I saw issues all over the field two weeks ago and I was also in the believe that there was a little more time than we actually have and that is on me, I take responsibilities for my choices, but I kept at least 4 out of the 5 elements in check, so I feel fine (unless I get covid, then I will feel miserable for a few days). 

There is plenty of blame to go around and politicians are not free from blame and they need to be asked serious questions, questions from serious people (aka the labour clowns are out of bounds). To be honest, if anyone told me that I would end 2021 by holding Ed Davey in higher regard than Jeremy Corbyn or Keir Starmer I would have called them bonkers, but apparently miracles to happen, and there you have it. All kinds of drop-off points, some we saw, some we saw a mile away and some creeped up on us. 

So when we see more politicians starting their blame game, we need to consider that this is a setting we have not seen in 100 years (Spanish Flu) and now there is a vaccine, those people never had one and we are all skeptical on vaccines? Really? And when the UK crosses the 200,000 cases and family members are left to die, do you still think that being an anti-vaxxer is about you living or you betting coached to die? What is the clever move? I am going with living longer, but I am an incurable optimist, and I will happily join the people wishfully thinking that a female Hollywood star is knocking on my door hoping that she can stay warm in my bed, yes at present that is a lot more realistic than the spouting of BS by anti-vaxxers, and that is saying something.

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December 29, 2021 · 13:21

Epic moments

We see some moments as epic, but what makes them epic? You see Epic is subjective, it is constrained and defined by what we have experienced. This is not a negative thing, this is an almost liquid setting, what is epic for one is mundane for the other, this is merely how it is. And for me the setting starts with a daydream. This happened this morning as I was enjoying a cup of coffee. I was sitting on a couch in a shopping mall, enjoying a lovely cuppa. My mind wandered away. So enjoy the story for what it is, a mere story to keep thy bones warm this Christmas winter.

I was in some tech corporate place north of Oslo, no idea why. It was the midsommar weekend and some woman in the firm invited me to experience midsommar in her town of Floro, a town 500 km WNW of Oslo. I accepted the invitation, only learning a few hours later that it was an 8 hour drive, actually it was more like 6, she embraced formula one standards of driving and I gained three years of grey hairs in 6 hours, nature does seem to find a balance. Of course being invited I went shopping that afternoon, as we were off next morning. I got a kilo of smart food (lollies), some ice coffees a few bottles of red wine and white wine for the party and I loaded up the car. Apart for her amazing looks and her amazing thrill of speed limits the trip was pretty uneventful. It was Floro that grabbed me more. It as alike a huge village. Every building pristine, every building outspoken traditional and every street clean, lovely and inviting. It one of the loveliest villages I have ever seen in my life. We got to the house and of course she had relatives. They all surrounded her, hugging her and speaking fast in Norwegian, My Swedish allowed for some parts to pick up and they came to me shaking my hand and then they realised that my Norwegian is almost non-existent, many switched to English, a nice surprise too. It had a thick nordic accent, but it was a lot better then some English you hear in London, so I was good. I introduced myself and I introduced myself to the host and hostess (parents of Lotte). I handed over the two boxes of wine, one white and one red. I saw the loud cheers going on, I reckon that French wine is not something they usually had there and I was greeted like an old fashioned hero. 

We all had some coffee with something called krumkakes and something called school bread. We sat and I listened for most of the times. Some of the men asked me questions and I answered as best as I could. Yet the corner of my mind was screaming and I did not understand why. Everyone was so nice, but it seems that Lotte had the goods on me. She shushed everyone and told me to take a nice walk, she haded me a thin raincoat to wear over my clothes and she gave me a small direction finder. She pushed a button and it pointed to the house. She pointed to the roof, the direction finder would always point to the house, it seems she had seen this before. I took a nice walk, I saw part of Floro, I walked past shops, I noticed people looking at me, but I was at a loss why, perhaps all foreigners and tourists stand out in this place. I walked on, watching the water and seeing the tranquil waters seemed to quiet the screaming in my head. 

As I walked I seem to wonder about the openness of this place and the natural beauty it has. It was about a hour later when I realised I had been walking in one direction, I wanted to turn around when the screaming intensified, I looked up the road, a dirt-road I noticed but it seemed almost invisible. I walked up it only to see a cave. I really did not want to walk into that cave, it screamed bear. And bears are not too uncommon in Norway. I just walked in and with my flashlight I went down the cave. A cave that felt colder with every step I took, it was less then two dozen steps later when the shivering was slightly too uncomfortable for me. I saw the show and the ice and I stopped, but the brakes were suddenly slammed from underfoot, I stepped in ice and slid down a lot further than I was happy with. I slid down a ramp that would make any bobsledder jealous and it was almost two whole minutes until I came to a halt. I saw two men frown in ice. Men, statues, it could be either. The ice was pointing behind them like it was blown over them. Then I noticed two objects. Objects that were covered in ice, I kicked one and it did not break, the ice was tough as steel. I looked around and I saw a stone, a sharp stone, I covered my hands and started hitting the one object, first the ice broke and that took some doing, I continued hitting the object only to see it as some kind of axe, it did not look like a woodcutters axe, it was slightly smaller, more outspoken and a little longer where the cutting part of the axe was. It took almost 5 minutes to get the ice from the axe. Then I looked to the two men, they were still in ice, but I could not tell whether they were men or statues. I used the axe on the other object and ice went flying everywhere with every hit, this axe was nice. That also gave me ideas on how to get out of here. With an axe like that I could chisel steps in the ice in no time, yet that was when I realised that the axe was warming me to some degree. It could have been the exercise, but the cold was gone and a few hits later I saw that the object was a hammer, but not some hammer I had ever seen before. Almost like an oversized blacksmith hammer, actually it was nothing like the hammer of the movie Thor (that maroon man from Queensland) but it resembled those upside down hammers that people wear as jewellery. Like the axe, the hammer felt warm and I decided to hit the ice closest to the man that was next to the hammer. The ice broke like it was nothing. I hit again and ice started to chip from everywhere. Then I saw the ice break off from his arm and the hand looked massively human, very meaty and not a statue at all, was it my imagination? Did the hand move? It seemed to grab towards the hammer and I pushed the hammer into his hand.

The ice broke everywhere. And within a minute he was free. He had a cold demeanour, he looked at me and I looked back, I did not know what to do and then he looked at the axe. I pointed at the other figure, he looked and spoke to me in some nordic language I could not make out. I merely stared. He made a drinking gesture and I pointed at my body and shook my head. It seems he understood me, he was still unable to move too much, but he pointed towards deeper into the cave, he made some reference with his hand that could have been a flask or a bottle. I grabbed the axe and went that way, the ice was all snow covered and not that slippery anymore. I saw a pedestal with a flask, I reckon that this was what he wanted. I looked around and there was nothing else. I cautiously grabbed the flask with my hands covered in jacket. I picked up the flask that as surprisingly heavy and moved back. I handed the flask to the man, he drank a whole heap of it and gestured me to take a sip, I was a little apprehensive but he gestured again, it was seemingly important. I took one small sip and it was like my body was on fire, one sip was like a whole bottle of aquavit (Nordic Gin), I started to sweat. He took a piece of cloth from his top and drenched it, then he put the cloth into the mouth of the other figure. He poured more liquid on the cloth and moved away. H took some leather string, tied the knots around the neck of the bottle and hung the bottle around the neck of the other person. He then gestured me up the hill, I started to cut out the steps. I laughed grabbed my back jumper and coat and before I knew what hit me we went up and a whole lot faster then I originally went down. We were up and at the entrance in less than 30 seconds. He looked at me and I remembered my direction finder. We walked back to the house, even as it seems darker, but with white nights you can never tell, we got back almost 30 minutes later and everyone was staring at me and Lotte looked surprised. The others then noticed the hammer in the man and they all looked star struck, the man stated something in what I can only assumed was some deep Norwegian, he slapped my back and took off, the man walked away. Everyone was cheering and slapping me and I was at a loss what had happened. Lotte merely looked at me like I was an actual alien. It was then that I saw in the distance a chariot with goats? Man, that was some alcohol, let me tell you. So when you get to Floro, be careful what you drink, that stuff they call aquavit is massively hard on the senses.

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December 28, 2021 · 23:36

Is there tinsel in this town?

We seem to get rather fickle on what we see on the big screen and the small screen. We are pushed from event to event by marketing trying to create the new hype, from makers hoping for us to indulge in a new taste of Tinsel and we are letting it happen, we are giving in. We give in too often and we give in to readily. Yet the danger is that in that stream we lose sight of the good stuff, we lose sight of what could be awesome. 

I am not debating whether a series is good or not, it tends to be set to individual tastes, but marketing does not allow for individual taste, it requires clusters, because it is cheaper to tailor to a group. The problem is that it works too well. To give this a spin, lets look at data

In a normal setting we see 

Good ratings – 23
Average ratings – 37
Low ratings – 31
No ratings – 9 
Total – 100

Now consider that marketing sets the stage for people to only see the top 25 percent, in this setting we see that those with good ratings does not cover the 25%, so some over the average series drip in. But marketing hands to us that those with no rating do not count and now we get a different setting through what some call user missing values.

Good ratings – 23 (25%)
Average ratings – 37 (40%)
Low ratings – 31 (33%)
Total – 91
No ratings – 9 
End Total – 100

23 out of 91 is now 25% and as such the threshold is made and ALL the average series are disregarded by the marketing department as as such they fall from your view too. The truth is a little more complex than that, but the setting fits. The problem is that YOU did not vote, 100 people voted in this case. But is that not based on THEIR personal preferences? This is in part the problem with clusters and statistics. Statistics have their purpose, I believe in them, yet if we do not see the danger they pose we will be marginalised into the outliers we are so eager to avoid. 

To see what we might love, we need to see a lot more than we are given and the cluster marketeers are eager to avoid that setting, they represent THEIR client and what that client is bringing and it is now, in the era of Covid that some realise that we are given to shallow a choice, it is the setting of time and the setting of available time that made us look around and now that we see more we wonder what we are missing out on. I personally had reservations when the Name of the Rose was redone a a series, but when I found out it was an amazing journey I took it in. A series largely avoided by too many for all kinds of reasons, but who of you saw The name of the Rose with John Turturro, Rupert Everett, Damian Hardung, Stefano Fresi and others? Explortion is the one thing that tinseltown marketing fears, it disrupts their clusters and changes the way we see series. We are already changing this through Disney Plus, Netflix, Amazon Prime and others, the setting that we pay monthly and get all they offer is a setting that marketing is not completely ready for, but in the era of Covid the setting alters even more, now the entire field is seen and it worries the marketing departments in entertainment, we have too much free time and still that same monthly budget. These departments now fear the power of Churning, especially Netflix and Disney Plus are empowered by churners and the field will get larger. Soon there will be a new players that offers both for a nice price and that is when the field changes even more. Channel Plus and Foxtel faced that stage around 1999-2003 and now we see the first settings where Netflix and Disney Plus might face it soon enough too. In this, I expect that statistics will play a larger impact here. It is nice to see these two players throwing billions a year, but the numbers do not support that stage and a setting where they can work on a 60%-80% budget and share the members is preferred to the stage of losing them. There is still Apple, HBO and a few others. And this is their fear, they claim it is not, but the numbers are out there, because if the others unite the idea of getting 5-7 channels for one fee will overwhelm them and it will cost them over time a lot more, all whilst they still fight each other with new and more exciting IP, IP I equalled in a mere two months as I had some free time. 

As I see it the numbers are working for me and even when that population becomes a whole lot bigger, so will the outliers in the data. I reckon that we will see a first stage in 2023, when 5G becomes a much larger stage and if covid goes on the way it does a change in 2022 is not out of the question. 

You can wonder all you want, or you can wait to see what happens next. In this stage that will work in your favour. In September we were given “Netflix is expected to boost content spending on an amortised basis by a healthy 26% in 2021 to $13.6 billion — and the streamer’s budget could hit $18.9 billion by 2025, as it increasingly shifts the mix toward originals”, now consider that globally, Netflix had in Q3 2021 213,500,000 members. How long do you think this spending continues all whilst churners are now becoming a much larger stage for concern? At $10 a month (and not for the 4K option) we see a monthly stage that goes around $2B a month, so 6-7 months for the spending and we forgot about infrastructure, under those spendings Netflix has a near balanced stage, a stage that goes wrong they get more than one series wrong as a hit. And there is every chance that 2022 will get more people to the cinema, covid might have stopped us, yet we never forgot about the big screen Tom Holland showed that much with his $1B plus view on the new Spiderman and more is coming. Netflix and Disney Plus are in a dangerous stage. Disney might have reserves but when you spend well over $10,000,000,000 there will be hardship and when you add it all together we see that the numbers cannot continue as they are at present, I hope you see that too and when the clustering marketing efforts fall away, when the view digresses to the stage that becomes smaller as time is no longer a luxury we once had, the stage will take another turn, at that point we all wonder what comes next. We wonder what will happen, we all do and that is fine, but in that stage Netflix (Disney too) will need to alter the game they are playing at present. I see no other option for them the game they play now will prove to be too expensive for several players in that game.

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December 28, 2021 · 04:42

Card or Con? Friend or Foe?

Forbes got my attention, just as I was reconsidering part of something that happened a few months ago. It was the article https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/03/20/i-need-medication/ titled ‘I need medication!’ It reverberated in me as I took notice of Forbes (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/12/27/is-it-time-to-disrupt-your-call-center/)there I got served the quote that matters, it was “I recently received a letter from a major credit card issuer. To process my application, they needed some additional information and verification. The problem? I had not applied for a new credit card. The letter was valid, but the application was fraudulent. The letter instructed me to send the required information for verification or call a toll-free number, with no option to text or chat. I opted to call the toll-free number. This was truly a call center, not a contact center.” The setting where we have “Monday morning, I navigated the maze again and got into the hold queue where I was informed my hold time was one minute. Success! Two hours and twenty minutes later I hung up. I looked up the credit card fraud phone number for the provider and called them. Within moments, I was connected to an agent. Yes, she would be able to help me. Before I could speak, I was transferred to — you guessed it — the same number I had called previously.” Here we get a setting, a setting that takes hours, in that time all kinds of fraud could have been commenced. Of course there is all kinds of chances that Forbes was adding the spice of drama, but I think it is simpler than that, there is a failing in Fintech as a whole. It seems that it is about revenue and for the most they will not care about the people, no matter what claim they make. If there was a true customer service then there would be checks and balances, there would be more than “To process my application, they needed some additional information and verification.” I believe that this is not an American issue, it is a European, a British, and Australian, a Canadian and several other nations. A massive failing in Fintech and the policy makers and lawmakers are falling behind, no matter what the excuse, they are falling behind. 

We see some laces giving us numbers (they call it statistics).

  • In 2018, $24.26 Billion was lost due to payment card fraud worldwide
  • Identity theft makes up 14.8 percent of reported fraud
  • 69 percent of fraud starts with a consumer being contacted by telephone or email, such as overdue loans or prize scams

Those were the numbers, now we see: 

  • Instances of identity theft by credit card fraud increased by 44.6% from 271,927 in 2019 to 393,207 in 2020
  • Identity theft by new credit card accounts increased by 48% in 2020.
  • From 2019 to 2020, the number of identity theft reports went up by 113% and the number of reports of identity theft by credit cards increased by 44.6%.

This shows (to some degree) that the larger stage is Fintech and a much better system is required, a much larger check needs to be in place. The fact that a consumer got “they needed some additional information and verification” could be seen as evidence. Overall systems are designed as ‘customer friendly’ all whilst it is (as I personally see it) a system for automated credit allocation not allowing a person to take time to reconsider, a straight push for credit and spending sprees. What happens if credit cards are treated like the acquisition of a pet? To set the stage of a ‘cooling off period?’ Is it that weird to let the person going for the credit reconsider for 24 hours? 

In this day and age there is a larger concern, it is not merely that we see the passing of 5,419,538 people, a large amount of them might be facing all kinds of fraud and hardship and that passes on  to the next of kin who are already devastated. 

However, it is not all Fintech. Forbes also gives us “I received a phone call from another card issuer’s fraud department. Their question was simple: Did I apply for one of their cards? When I responded no, they immediately flagged it as fraud and advised me to check my credit reports for other suspicious activity. Their systems analysed the same data available to the first bank and flagged it as possible fraud.” So some are better than others, the question becomes, how can the system be improved? That is the real conundrum and the customer service part is essential in all this. Whether we look at a Friend of Foe solution, whether we have a connected bank or not. I reckon that there is a solution to implement blockchains that allow for a much more secure station, a setting that is not propagated. What if the block chain is in two parts? A part that only the consumer has, one part that the bank has, one can check the other, yet a new bank will not have that part, only the current bank has it, a setting that could limit the damage we see with 

  • Identity theft by new credit card accounts increased by 48% in 2020.

It is not a perfect setting (yet) but when we consider the part I wrote about in the earlier blog. “To make sense, I need to take you back to the 80’s. There was a fab in those days, radio’s had a sort of enhanced METAdata part, so when a song was playing, you saw the band and the title in your display. It is almost like someone took that idea and put it on steroids, I cannot think of another explanation, what is more, I have no idea what my brain was working out. It is like someone figured out to hide more than a FoF (Friend or Foe) message in the radios broadcasting, with some cypher that gave the relevant information to any visor it faced. Yup, quite the ride and it went on for some time in my dream, the arrows had numbers, but the numbers made no sense to me, but to the co-pilot they made a lot of sense. They were following along the path of a canal with several branches, and the arrows were pointing along the canals they were on, several (not all) pointing in some sort of flight guidance setting.” So what happens when block chain meta data points at the actual person, not the applicant. There might be a station where we see that the 48% increase dwindles down by a lot, optionally arresting a lot of fraudulent players in the process. This is not a given, it is a mere thought, but I am trying to consider a new approach, one that a lot of players are not making, I am not saying that they weren’t doing anything, because I cannot answer that question, yet as I see it a lot of issues are ignored due to ‘customer friendly’ issues, whilst it tends to benefit fraudulent behaviour a lot more. 

And it is essential, because in 5G this station will get a hell of a lot higher and the Law, Big Tech and Fintech are not ready, none of them seem to be. However, that is merely my take on the issue.

Enjoy the day.

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December 27, 2021 · 06:21

The questions not asked

We get that there are unanswered questions, there always are, but what of the questions no one is asking and more important, why are these questions not asked to begin with.

That was the state of mind I had when I was confronted with ‘Saudi-led coalition hits Yemen rebel camp in capital Sanaa’. In the first is that the western media is massively absent here. It seems that some of the stakeholders need to compose themselves after too much Christmas dinner and snacks. Even when you see something in the news, it will be mostly ‘Saudi bashing’, yet the question that should be on our minds is seen with this quote “the attack was a response to ‘an attempt to transfer weapons’ by the Yemeni rebel group”. You see, after all these years there are weapon transfers? A cluster of weapons to this degree, the degree that clears an airstrike implies that someone is arming the Houthi forces. So after all the bitches stop whining about arming Saudi’s, we see clear indication that someone is arming the Houthi’s (aka Iran), but we see no whining there, do we? We have not seen any whining on that side of the fence for way too long, so why is that?

So then we get to the partly replicated quote “The coalition, which backs Yemen’s internationally recognised government against the Houthis in the civil war, said it destroyed weapons storehouses in the rebel-held capital, according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).” Yet it holds two elements. The first is “destroyed weapons storehouses” which implies larger collections of arms and we see an absence of that reporting for the longest of times. The second one is that we see the western press ignoring or avoiding the SPA (Saudi Press Agency), why is that? 

And now, only minutes ago the Khaleej Times (UAE Newspaper in Dubai) gives us ‘Saudi-led Coalition says Iran, Hezbollah aid Houthi militias in Yemen’ (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/gulf/saudi-led-coalition-says-iran-hezbollah-aid-houthi-militias-in-yemen) I knew about Iran, they are not much of a surprise. I knew about the activities by Hezbollah as well, but seeing Hezbollah in this setting in the media is rather scarce, the western media for the most avoided it, they have political games in Beirut, they do not need these revelations, I merely wonder why not?

You see, if Hezbollah (apparently speaking for all Palestine) wants help, they better come forward with the list of activities that they are involved in, I am not holding my breath on their stupid actions that blew up Beirut, they are all hiding from that massive (pardon the expression) fuck up.

And when we let the claim sink in. The claim that tells us “Arab Coalition spokesman presents proofs of Hezbollah militants’ support to Houthi’s attack on Saudi Arabia”, we see the danger Palestine now faces. You see instigating war by ATTACKING Saudi Arabia has larger consequences. Palestine is now in danger of alienating Egypt as well as Jordan in this and that is a stage they cannot afford, you see Iran cannot cover all their needs and the backlash will be large and so far the western media ignores it. They might think ‘If we ignore this, it will go away’. There is the speculation that they all watched the movie ‘Don’t look up’, but it is a speculation given by but a few people. 

The accusation is there and the evidence was shown by Turki Al Malki “Malki showed reporters a video clip which depicted “the headquarters of Iranian and Hezbollah experts at the airport” where, he alleged “Hezbollah is training the Houthis to booby-trap and use drones”.” It is as suspected a few times, but this is the first time I see that there is a decent level of evidence. In this light it will be important and essential for the EU, UK and US to stop ALL AID to Palestine until matters are resolved. That setting also comes with a new alleged setting of evidence. If Hezbollah is still training Houthi forces on using drones (which might be fair enough), it also means that Houthi Forces could NEVER have hit Aramco the way they did. That was out in the open for almost 2 years. With this evidence we see the first brick unveiled that the attack was done by Iran, optionally with Hezbollah but Houthi forces could never have hit Aramco to the degree it was. Yet I reckon that the media, the western media will ignore it more and again, it will be too uncomfortable to the people the media reports to and I can tell you right now that the people were never a consideration here.

A stage that was out in the open for the longest of times and it is also riddled with questions we never saw asked, why is that and why is the reporting on these events so one sided, not by them, by us? We are so about freedom and the right of expression, so why do we express that right by keeping silent on what we see, we keep silent of what is clearly out there and we keep silent on Iran and Hezbollah. Why is that? When you know the answer to these two questions you will know a lot more than you think you do.

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December 26, 2021 · 01:47

Can covid glow in the dark?

Yes, an odd question, but an essential one. You see there are a few larger settings out there. In the first a complete collection on all sources on COVID is not really there, and what is there is not that reliable anymore. We think that the global increase of 748K a day is reliable, but it is not. You see, India with its 1.3 billion are registering an increase of +7,189 cases. It is about 50% of the Netherlands with its 25 million population, it does not add up and perhaps there are delays in reporting, but the setting is too much like political players staging numbers and in this day and age, it is too dangerous to play that game. If they disagree, then they better stop yapping like bloody chihuahua’s wanting vaccines. You cannot be fair and open, you get zilch. That is how I see it and that was the introduction, let’s go to the main event.

The news given to us by NBC a mere 16 hours ago shows that there are indications that China is now facilitating to Saudi Arabia on getting ballistic missiles. Personally I think it is high time, the political player downplaying on Iran and their actions were beyond stupid and now there is every indication that Iran is playing another game, we will see over the next week, but I will not be surprised to see more tantrums coming from Tehran and I think it becomes increasingly important that Saudi Arabia is ready. The article (at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/saudi-arabia-building-ballistic-missiles-china-iran-rcna9893) gives us “The assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies is that the kingdom, which is long thought to have acquired missiles from Beijing, is now manufacturing its own, according to a source familiar with the matter and a U.S. official.” Which is both BS and instrumental nonsense. You see the Kingdom has always been against this step, but was forced into this direction as American and European politicians are flaccid like marshmallow dildo’s and it shows. Iran is playing them six ways from Sundays, others are playing the ‘lets not arm Saudi Arabis card’ and now we see the beginning of hundreds of billions forsaken by the US, the UK and the EU all these funds will go straight to the treasury coffers of Beijing. 

I personally feel that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia needs to do what is best for its Saudi’s and its land, Iran does not fit into that stage and as Iran feels that its options are falling away, they will become the screaming Chihuahua making claims of false and unfair business all whilst they all catered to stupidity and with them the politicians hoping to fill their pockets in some way. Iran itself reported ‘Iran Selling More Oil In 2021 But Middlemen Reap The Profit’, in this I wonder if we will ever see a list of these middlemen, or will it be a nondescript setting where suddenly a lost more business men and its politicians will have a lovely stage of support funds? 

No matter how you slice it Saudi Arabia was sold the short stick and China is now allegedly standing up and offering alternatives. Consider all that and the US sales of billions falling away. The US might play the coy game, but there is a larger stage of danger for them. We are given through all kinds of channels that the blocking of the $650M of arms sales failed, but what happened to the other billions? Lost? Nowhere? Well China clearly has a plan that goes way beyond missiles and Saudi Arabia recognises it needs to be ready as the western politicians just aren’t up to the task. In this I have no idea how it will play out, but the stage I wrote about a year ago is now coming into play (alas without my bonus). 

And as I see it it is not about the missiles, it will be about the billions of revenue losses. Some sources gave a number that goes beyond half a trillion dollars. Not sure it was ever going to be that much, but if the US, UK and EU miss out on that much, their goose will be cooked and any economical setting they hope for goes out of the window until 2025 and that gives China the leverage that it needed all along, even with the setbacks they had, the change of stage implies that US or Russian partnerships with larger players is no longer THEIR benefit, once China will have proven itself, it will surpass both in the arms field. I do need to tell General Wei Fenghe, Minister of National Defense that I think he needs to send a Christmas hamper to the tea grannies of the CAAT at Unit 4, 5-7 Wells Terrace, London, N4 3JU, United Kingdom. They were the first to make it happen, they do deserve their cup of tea for depriving the UK billions in revenue, do they not?

And there is a larger upside for the General. You see with the Huawei solutions deployed all over Saudi Arabia, and the Neom City cluster coming online there is a new stage, Saudi Arabia can evolve its network into Egypt, it also opens doors for Chinese defence operations ready for sale and deployment all over Africa as well. It is a stage others neglected, but Saudi Arabia is about to become a telecom powerhouse, and soon thereafter a defence structure as well and when the first stupid Iranian thinks that someone will praise him by firing a missile into Israel hell will unleash and Iran will not have any options, even Turkey will set up a giant out of office notice at that point. Iran will be isolated and at the mercy of everyone and with the Chinese solutions in Saudi Arabia, they have no navy, no airforce and no missile solution, whatever they send will be stopped and the response in five fold or more will end Iran, they will feel proud with all their nuclear accelerators and they can slap their glow in the dark chests when it goes south, because it will go wrong. Iran was so busy getting ahead of themselves that they forgot on checks balances and infrastructure. A recipe for disaster on day one and now with the US, UK and EU lacking funds, a lot of funds. It will be Russia and China who will sit at the table with Saudi Arabia and find a solution, in this they have no further need for the marshmallow dildo’s we trusted (aka politicians and stakeholders). 

If anyone asks me on whether it was a good idea for Saudi Arabia to have these missiles, I will say that it is the wrong question, it was a clear case that Saudi Arabia was forced into this area as the west was unable to deal with Iran and that is where the real issue is. No one deals with Iran and now a stage exists where Saudi Arabia and Israel can deal with them. It will not be a nice way, but it is the only remaining way.

So here we see the question whether Covid can glow in the dark, the answer does not matter, our inactions with Iran for the longest of time will have made this an upcoming reality that will most likely happen and it will be bad for everyone around. Inactions tend to have negative results, it nearly always does and we did it all to ourselves. 

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