October 23, 2021 · 22:41

You again?

That was my first thought when I saw the Guardian give us ‘France and Israel hold ‘secret’ talks to defuse phone spyware row’ with the added ‘Stephanie Kirchgaessner’. I have seen her work before and it happened on March 26th 2021 when I wrote ‘The joy of discovery’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/03/26/the-joy-of-discovery/)  there I stated “this was an article that an intern could have written and as such more and more question marks on ‘Saudi bashing’ surface and the ring of those doing this is is becoming more and more debatable. Yet in all this, no one is asking questions, no one seems to notice. I did initially in a previous video article with Stephanie Kirchgaessner, but it could have been an editing issue, now I am no longer sure. I am not questioning the stage we see here, yet such a space for a threat all whilst dying children in Yemen get less space, whilst Al Jazeera gives us ‘People in Yemen are not just dying, they are being left to die’ (2 days ago), I start to wonder what the focal point of a US investigative reporter has become”. Now I see her in this piece and the hair on the back of my neck is standing up. So, let’s see if I am right again.

The first thing I see is “In July, it was reported that the phone numbers of some French cabinet members, as well as Macron himself, appeared on a leaked database of mobile phone numbers which included some selected as possible targets for surveillance by government clients of NSO” I and others reported on this, in several sources thee is debate on the truth of that leaked list, the second part is that the list was also regarded as fake in another source years ago. I discussed this part in ‘From horse to course’ on July 23rd 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/23/from-horse-to-course/) it is there that I mention the Guardian who gave “NSO has said Macron was not a “target” of any of its customers, meaning the company denies he was selected for surveillance using its spyware, saying in multiple statements that it requires its government clients to use its powerful spying tools only for legitimate investigations into terrorism or crime”, the setting that the so called leaked list sets the stage that the NSO group must have had an income surpassing $600,000,000 which they never did (they are doing well, but not that well). In addition the lack of any dashboard and a lot of other elements make the stage a waste of time. In this I personally see that Stephanie Kirchgaessner has become the journalistic joke she might always have been. The cranky aunt you keep around on Christmas to entice you to have more eggnog so her voice fades into background noise. 

In this there is (as I personally see it) no leaked list, there might be a list, but it is someone else’s list. And the waste of time is seen with “There is no firm evidence that the phones of the five cabinet members were successfully hacked, but the Mediapart allegations indicate the devices were targeted with the powerful spyware, which can intercept phone conversations, text messages, emails and photographs. It can also turn a mobile phone into a listening device by remotely controlling a phone’s recorder”, so basically through this, the Guardian has now less credibility than Russian news organisation RT? In the second, if there is no evidence, how is behind “the Mediapart allegations” why are we not given that? So as the article ends with “Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit, and Amnesty International led the journalistic collaboration”, I personally wonder if that part should read “Fake Stories, a Paris-based glossy joke, and Amnesty Insufferable led the tantrum collaboration”, I personally wish that these jokes were buried (alive) and that these articles will not be allowed again until these so called journalists present a proper dashboard, they’ve had months now. It would have been one of the first things I did, just like the Pandora papers, all alleged claims and no verified substance. And like before why on earth is so called ‘Stephanie Kirchgaessner is the Guardian’s US investigations correspondent’ involved in something that is happening in France? Doesn’t the Guardian have credible journalists in Europe (preferably in France) or Israel? Did no one consider that little hiccup of debatable information?

And what are these so called traces? Its always nice to see anonymous sources and with “citing multiple anonymous sources and a confidential intelligence dossier”, all whilst the debatable sides are out there, it seems that the Guardian is slipping from top tier newspaper to some Murdoch wannabe glossy production. Feel free to oppose me, but do some of your homework and you will se that I am right. 

I wonder when people will catch on that this is a mere ploy, optionally an anti-Israel one. 

Enjoy the weekend!

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October 23, 2021 · 06:02

Reversal

It started in a few ways, one of them was a game called Idle Necromancer. Even with the few glitches (one actual whopper of a bug), the game was fun for two days. Then the issues hit, the same over and over, grinding towards nowhere. You see, in RPG we accept grinding. Grinding can be a simple way to get the equipment you are looking for and we all have our locations. For me it was the Rockmilk Cave in Oblivion. Two groups fighting each other, decent loot and its segmentation made it easy to clean house. In Skyrim it was the Halted Stream Camp, a few opponents, good loot, iron ore and tusks. All a person in dire need of funds and resources needs. We all look for the easy grind and over time we need bigger places to get the experience points. Grinding has its pay-off, and when there is no payoff? It stops pretty quick and in this Idle Necromancer has a lot of changes it needs to do (and fix a massive bug), but the irritating part is that the game looks good, has optionally a challenge and almost no advertisements, so I do hope they fix it because this is one of those games that could have a very long life. I would think that they would add a few sides to the game, scenery (101 levels of identical scenery will not work), you need to level all the creatures, so in stead of clicking on each type 1000 times (my monsters were level 1000 on day 2), having a level selection button (1/10/50) would not be a bad idea. The music was really nice, yet there too alterations might make it more enticing, the music was nice, but the idea (to take a page from Fur Fighters), setting the melody in the song to whatever creature is dominant (it makes sense when you played the game) is not a bad idea, optionally, certain instruments are added as you unlock more creatures. It sounds like a lot, but it is not, the larger problem is that you are grinding to nowhere, that is the actual issue. Wave after wave, redoing it and licking to add levels to your creatures. They could take a page from Diablo and let the stage start that at times loot boxes drop with equipment for the necromancer. Have the scenery in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, optionally altering the music slightly. Moreover, the dead do not care about the weather, but it could be used to set a hindrance to a creature. In winter the FrankenZombie might become slower, in Summer Ghosts and Wraiths lose power faster and so on. All small changes that change the game by a lot. Optionally every 10 waves a boss group, or a village that has a lot more opponents (with the optional treasure). All options someone might notice on day one. Yet the game remains enticing. This was all good and nice, but it is not about a free game, it set the old noggin in motion and as I was contemplating that the thought of ‘Life imitating art’ came to me and from there the ‘Why does art not imitate life?’ thought came. There is an old statistical saying. If there is significance in Factorial results, there cannot be any discriminant results.

Say what now?
In factor we go from an interval to a result group, in Discriminant we go from a group to an interval. Yet the link does not work BOTH ways. If a factor succeeds, a discriminant test will fail and vice versa. Oversimplified it means that  incomes could determine what gender receives it, but a gender cannot be the foundation to the income. It is oversimplified, but I need to in this case.

What?
Yes, I see that you are confused and it will get worse soon enough. You see, I saw the news pass by on Dave Chapelle and Netflix. Now, I do not particularly care about Dave Chapelle. I have not seen his shows and let’s face it there only one true comedian (Jimmy Carr, I had to go there). Comedy is set to the watcher, we like it, we tolerate it or we loath it. It is often in several settings, it is how we are wired. So when I saw headlines like ‘Netflix workers walk out over Dave Chappelle special The Closer’ and I wondered what was going on. So I read some of the stuff (I did not watch the show) and I took notice of Mike Bary who gives us “Yes, there is freedom of speech, but you don’t have to be mean when you make jokes. I think Dave Chappelle, a funny person, needs to understand a little more about the jokes he’s making and how they can affect people” In this there are two sides. For one, comedy comes in all forms and sizes, offensive, the other kind and several flavours in between. When it comes to gays, lesbians and trans people everyone has their own station, some accept it, some love it, some do not care (that would be me) and some hate it. Now in this case there is a chance that Dave Chappelle is catering to the not so positive group and is that a problem? The easy way is to switch the channel if you do not like it. There are comedians that do not come to my screen, some aren’t even funny, some are but I do not get their humour, we all have that. The problem with the left slighted people is that they attack whatever does not play their tune. Why is that? The article (and a few others) already gave us “Mr Sarandos said Chappelle’s language did not cross the line into inciting violence” and why would he? It is similar with abortions, the pro-life group is at the very end of one stick and the other team take on the other extreme. I believe that there is a need for abortion, I think it happens too often and some see it as a cure (which it is not) and the pro-lifers are all about zero abortions. They are allowed to have that view, but they seem to be actively aggressive to whomever does not follow THEIR point of view. The attacks on abortion clinics is clear evidence. These elements now go into a bucket to be stirred because there is a larger stage to come. You see, it now sets the stage that I created with the earlier mentioned settings. You see, we forget that all the Political Correctness BS is a stage that pushes insincerity and outright lies into the open. We need to take a page from gaming. There are stages that are different, we are not all the same (and we never ill be) and sometimes life is too much like a game, we grind our hours and we go nowhere. Now consider the Idle Necromancer issues and the stage of discriminant analyses. We need a new key in gaming. One that might be as simple as the stage where actions of the player, as well as the character played might give a stage that the game alters whether a man or a woman plays the game. We are not the same and we forgot to coin that prospect into revenue. We see terms like ‘Women friendly games’ but are they? Is a makeover game girl friendly? 

What if an RPG becomes intelligent enough to capture the players actions and can then determine the gender (beyond the play style) of the player and alter the game play accordingly? And it is not merely gender, it is also the stage of a junior versus a senior gamer, a defensive versus an offensive player. All elements that can unfold to shape a game, not shape the gamer according to the story of the character. And as it was with Chappelle some will not like it, some will complain and cry like a chihuahua. But there will be a group that will enjoy that game evolution. As I stated, the problem with Ubisoft is that they were about pleasing everyone. If you do that you end up not satisfying anyone. The games we play are the ones we are attracted to, the ones that challenge us and I believe that the best challenges are given by games that are open enough to evolve the game and the story according to the playing party. This is not a new thought, but only now are consoles strong enough to cater to that setting and with Streaming systems evolving that stage will become important, a lot more important than anyone can understand at present. We are being bullied into some flaky form of Political correctness that is neither political or correct, gaming is an outlet, so let’s use that form to challenge the people to a whole new form of gaming. One that alters (read: adjusts) as the player plays. At present it has never been done before so there will be a first. 

Gaming, Consoles, Netflix, Dave Chappelle, Idle Necromancer, RPG, Mike Bary, Skyrim, Oblivion, 

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October 21, 2021 · 16:45

Political tools

We all daydream and I am no exception. Yet I believe that my brain is bonkers (probably related to the casing it is in). This all started last week when I saw Official Secret (2019), now I need no encouragement to watch anything with Keira Knightley, so when I saw the name, I picked up the title. I saw it was a spy story based on actual events. It was seeing the film that overwhelmed me. The movie was amazing, one that John Le Carre would have ben proud of if he had written it (it was written by history). It was still in the back of my mind when it crossed tracks with an event that started to play out two weeks ago. A man named Sywert van Lienden had allegedly “send a series of critical tweets to ensnare the Dutch health ministry, the tweets were arranged to create pressure”. From my side (not the most popular one) I believe that the Dutch Health department was foolish on a few levels. In the first Twitter is not a reliable source, so ego driven politicians jumped up fast and they did not do their homework by testing the tweet origins. Trolls have been using that method for years, so I think that Sywert was aggressively creative, some will call him deviously sneaky. Yet the two parts gave me an idea. In the proposed setting of all these honourable military complex vendors. You see, hackers are always the ones copying data FROM servers. Now consider the setting that an ammunition maker has devised a new kind of shell, a .50 shell that works like a drill, it might only in part get through bulletproof glass, but the delay and impact pressure will change the course. So the inner part like a mercury exploding bullet, there are a few items that [secret patent content deleted from story] 

So here we are, a manufacturer who has the inside track that no one else has. However, the Pentagon is not willing to buy it, because there is no need. So the maker engages with hackers to insert a secret file into the RFARP (Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects) server. The department also known as “Фонд перспективных исследований” will be hacked (the makers arranged that via another channel), so the hackers upload a similar but not identical one, it even has a fixed flaw that the makers left untouched. So when the CIA makes enquiry the report is given (a little) praise with the setting that they will incorporate that design in the next batch for testing. Now with the Russian data the maker secures an initial order of 50,000 bullets with a larger order coming if the first order proves its worth (and of course it does). A station where the CIA is ‘used’ as a tool for selling hardware the Americans never really needed. 

Now consider the setting as the hackers overwrite the server with an inserted trojan over a seemingly empty damaged file. Now they are in the clear and it becomes a CIA versus GRU game. The stage of what some think they need whilst the deciding players never correctly did their homework. A setting that could make for an entertaining (thrilling) 97.2 minutes.

Just an idea.

P.S. To any Russian investigator, I have no idea how this story got on my blog. (Nudge nudge wink wink)

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October 21, 2021 · 12:47

The mobile reward

We love the words ‘free’ and ‘rewards’. In this I am no different. This setting all started when I was taking a look at some version of ‘merge life’ iPad game. The game starts nice enough, challenging enough and I saw the warning ‘absurd amount of advertisements’ yet initially when I started that was not really the case. So after 10-15 minutes I had reached stage 2 and the game was oddly satisfying. It was then that the advertisement wave hit me. Close to one advertisement EVERY 30 SECONDS. Yes, that was absurd and after 2 advertisements I deleted the game. But the mind took a wander and I remembered something from the AC Brotherhood time. Yes Ubisoft did do good things, even innovative things. But the idea got twisted in my mind to something more. I wrote in a previous article about games for Amazon Luna, not sure if I did this (I have written over 2000 articles). There are two stages in this.

Stage One
Board games. Most forgot about the power of board games. They are simple games, but a setting we always return to. We do not need to kill everyone (I mostly do). There is tranquility in a game of chess, a game of checkers, a game of Monopoly, a game of Backgammon, a game of Shogun (and so on). But what w forget is that most people prefer to play alone. Now, there is some need to connect to like minded people, people who just want to play a game. For them there are three options. Set up the Luna to facilitate for 2-4 players, connect to up to 3 online players and play alone with computer managed NPC’s. The powers behind consoles and streamers forgot about that, didn’t they? Now the optional connected IP is separate and for another day.

Stage Two
When it comes to rewards, Ubisoft forgot a side (it was fair enough) but when we have mobile games they could lead to a lot more visibility. For the example I will use the Fable Pub games. You play the games and you get the rewards. In the mobile game it might be about money, yet the goal is to get to the 5 star (might have been 4 star) point. When you get there you will get 2 rewards. So each game there (Keystone, Fortune’s Tower and Spinnerbox) will result in a direct reward, a weapon, or an outfit that is linked to Fable in Amazon Luna (just as an example), the second reward is a Luna Key. Each board game will get a Luna Key, so if you play 4 games, each of the 4 games will get a key. And the Luna key will open a special option. So in the examples given Chess will give you a new board and a new chess set, Backgammon will give you a new board and stones (there are Indian, Egyptian boards and stones), Monopoly will give you an NHL, NFL or other city board, Shogun has additional colours and Japanese family crests and so on. Additional rewards that can grow the interest in other games and that is beside the setting that could be offered. All stages forgotten or ignored and why? Is the setting of a Luna Key so complex? Is the setting of offering the player something more not enticing? I would think that with all the bugs Ubisoft introduced they might go overboard pleasing the customers they so often disappointed. 

The stage of giving a player more is important (and growing in need), especially now. There are the bugs the glitches, yet when you add the congestion it comes down to the choice of limiting yourself to urban players, or give rural players options to play when there are too little. There is also the need to feed the beast (the players), they need to go to work, they need to be somewhere else and setting a stage where the player can optionally play a fitting mobile game (like Ubisoft did for AC Brotherhood) where the player can play to get a new unique 5 star blade, pistol, outfit or whatever. A stage that adds to the game, not replace it, or circumvent thresholds. Offer more, offer unique and they will love the brands they embrace even more. Machiavelli stated (in some form) “There is such a gap between how people actually live and how they ought to live that anyone who declines to behave as people do is schooling himself for catastrophe” it gives the setting for leaders to adhere to needs, but there is a hidden side here. “There is such a gap between how people expect rewards and how they should see them that anyone who declines to lead as people expects them to do is schooling himself for massive setbacks” It comes down to the stage of what exactly is a reward, if it needs to be earned (not paid for) it will grow in value, and gamers are all about earning showing that they had the goods to play the game. As an example CDPR (makers of Witcher III) created an in-game game named Gwent, we got to play for extra’s and it became a separate game too, now that game makes well over a million dollars annually. People got into the game and now it is a separate game that is leading gamers to more and the gamer has become willing to pay. The setting is that it is free and as people get into it they will spend the few dollars they need to get more cards and expansions. For streamers it is not that easy. The enticement of a monthly fee needs to be there, so as games add more value, the threshold for gaming THERE lowers and people become more eager to play and will play for all the free rewards, which is an oxymoron. As gamers get more by playing, they will play more and call other people to their cause. Yet we must not forget that at times the player needs a solitary moment and as systems accomodate that, the gaming borrow will become ever more comfortable. Consider the board game Man, don’t get angry (Indian: Pachisi). A 1914 game that so far has sold more than 70,000,000 copies. Yes most in an era that is pre IBM PC XT, yet we have always returned to places of comfort, for nostalgic reasons, for the simplicity of play and for the stage of pure randomness. You see too many games are all about changing the setting of what the dice do, too many are seemingly less random than we think and within ourselves we see that, even if the brain is not detecting it yet. You think it is chance that you are one square away from winning when the ‘computer adversarial pig’ throws double six? We automatically feel that it is bad luck because we see ‘dice’ but we forget it is a computer animation and that setting is starting to bite more and more, so the power of real randomness, of a real chance to win is becoming more and more important. In this as Amazon is developing games and Google is not, they have the advantage (I do not know where Netflix stands at present). And it is up to Amazon to create the most comfortable burrow (read: man cave) we can have before the competitors catch up. For now they are all about ‘Let Ubisoft do the cool stuff’ (glitches included), it is about comfort levels, especially in gaming. Niccolò Machiavelli wrote about this in 1513 (yes over 500 years ago). The greed driven seem to ignore it, the lesson was quite clear and whilst the greed driven come up with more versions of some form of Antón Castillo we can just investigate the list and see that games like Call of Duty did make $20 billion, but it is a mere 20% of what Pokemon made and Pokemon for the most is Nintendo only. There is an upside to tailoring to fun, it is what the people want and it is a lesson Microsoft (Sony too) have forgotten to much, too easily and too completely and it makes Nintendo the real threat to Sony, Amazon could go a similar route and surpass Microsoft more easily than they think (the fact that Microsoft is often in denial helps too). 

As I see it the consoles (streaming or not) is one, yet the ability to correctly connect a mobile or tablet has a lot more going for it than most realise and as that link is more and more visible the connected system (console or streamer) will reap additional rewards as well.

Just a thought, enjoy the day.

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October 20, 2021 · 21:51

The abacus paradox

The stage of what might never be is out there. There is a larger stage of what is about to happen and what might never happen. And I for one have no idea where to stand. You see, it is about what we read and what we do not know, or do we? To get there I need to do an old setting, a simple calculation, like you had in primary school (year 1) the stage is 34-15. Now you do it like there is no tomorrow, but then it was different. In that setting we had four minus five is not possible, so we borrow 10 then it becomes fourteen minus five making nine. Three minus one is two, that minus one is one, one and nine make nineteen, that is how we learned the simplest calculation (in 1969). It is not the math, it is the setting of borrowing one from the left making fourteen instead of four minus five. It is the borrowing part. You see, a setting hit me when I was confronted with ‘Micron to build $7 bln plant in Japan to expand DRAM production – report’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/micron-build-7-bln-plant-japans-hiroshima-report-2021-10-20/). In the article we see “U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc (MU.O) will build a new factory at its Japanese production site in Hiroshima at a cost of 800 billion yen ($7.0 billion), the Nikkan Kogyo newspaper reported on Wednesday.” Under most situations I merely shrug my shoulders. What do I care? Yet when my mind saw this, it raced back to several of these announcements. I believe it was 2018, it could have been 2017. Yet the stage then was that the resources needed for DRAM were limited. A finite equation on resources and the pressure was on. I personally believe that shortage was never dealt with, so it is nice to see a plant being built ‘too address shortage of DRAM’, but if there is still a shortage for manufacturing the problem merely shifts, it does not go away. TechRadar gave us in April “the company wants to optimise the use of its limited supply of silicon”, as one source gives us in May “Demand is much higher for all types of silicone products than one year ago. Demand started to increase in 4Q 2020 as global economies opened. Even when parts of the world were hit with second and third waves of Covid, economies did not shut down as they did in 1Q and 2Q 2020. As of today, demand is the same or slightly higher than prior to the pandemic”, this is not enough. You see it is one of the most common elements in the world, so we should not run out, but the mining and acquiring of it comes with health risks and there lies the rub. Forbes also gives us “China has called chip independence a top national priority in its latest five-year plan, while U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed to build a secure American supply chain by reviving domestic manufacturing. Even the European Union is mulling measures to make its own chips. But success is anything but assured.” There we also see more. The article (at https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-chip-production-why-hard-to-make-semiconductors/) gives us a lot to think about and if it isn’t the $7,000,000,000 they expect to spend, it is nothing against getting the right people, as such it could be seen as a severn billion dollar long-shot. Yet the stage of getting the Silica Dioxide has not been reached yet. The article also shows us “Building an entry-level factory that produces 50,000 wafers per month costs about $15 billion. Most of this is spent on specialised equipment—a market that exceeded $60 billion in sales for the first time in 2020.” So exactly how does one save on a plant that is already 8 billion short in month one? The numbers make no sense. Now, it is perfectly possible that they are two different plants, but the stage of 7 billion is weird all whilst several plants are being build and there is still a need for Silica Dioxide for the wafers. 

Now, I could be very wrong here, and that might be the case, but consider that 2020 gave us ‘TSMC to build advanced chip plant in southern Taiwan’ (May 2021), ‘Bosch opens Dresden chip plant as Europe aims for independence from Asia’ (Jun 2021), and let that not misdirect you, there are hundreds of plants, a massive amount of them in China, the stage becomes not merely who creates the chip, but who will have the plant to mine and create the required Silica Dioxide. It could be another stage for Saudi Arabia as sand is something they have in abundance, but to get one into the other takes time and takes the right secure machines as well as a few other skills. When this implodes (a not unlikely setting) the one who HAS the Silica Dioxide has an advantage. China claimed to be independent at present, most others cannot make that claim. China produces 64% of all silicon on the planet and the US pissed them off. Almost 10% is in Russia that leaves a lot less for the rest of the planet, so when I see the stage of two plants being build, I merely wonder where they get their source materials. The US at present creates less than 5% of all Silicon and the UK even less (number unknown to me). So when we see the larger stage and we look for Mineral Commodity Summaries we might learn that there are a few more kinks in those cables. Yes, I am willing to accept that they MIGHT solve those. Yet when was the last time you made a long-shot using billions on the word ‘MIGHT’? 

In all this I might be the one wrong here, but when you see three of these plants being made within a year and you realise the cost involved and there is a stage where the required resources for manufacturing are in many places, yet the bulk is in two places that certain politicians cannot reach. How does that investment sound to you?

I wouldn’t bet my stove on that risk, let alone a house (or apartment) but they are willing to bet the bank, I wonder what optional short term benefits they get before these tactical deciders seemingly run off with a large bonus to a beach far, far away. 

P.S. WordPress is still not fixing the colour issue.

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October 19, 2021 · 21:58

Searching for a reason

We all do that at times, we all search for a reason. Whether it is for a solution, to blame or to incite. These are the most likely reasons, but they are not the only ones. The thought came to mind when the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58961836) gave me ‘Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ‘may have lied to Congress’’ a stage where ‘may’ is operative. So there is not even any level of assurance that he ‘had most likely’ lied, that on the premise it was highly likely that he was not truthful, or any other stage of ‘creating doubt towards sincerity’. We are also given the claims that “Amazon copied products and rigged its search results in India to boost sales of its own brands”, as well as “sought to correct the record on the inaccurate media articles in question” and in finality we get “they were considering referring the firm “for criminal investigation””, so in the third, what ‘criminal investigation’? For allegedly rigging results in India? For inaccurate media articles? It is an open field and in all this, we need to consider that US congress is merely trying to get fines from rich companies any way they can get, it is what incompetent people tend to do, play the blame game. 

Yet to understand it we need to take a look at the Reuters article (at https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-india-rigging) where we get ‘Amazon copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands, documents show’. Here we are given “The internal documents also show that Amazon employees studied proprietary data about other brands on Amazon.in, including detailed information about customer returns” this is indeed a solid accusation. In addition we get “It is difficult to develop this expertise across products and hence, to ensure that we are able to fully match quality with our reference product, we decided to only partner with the manufacturers of our reference product”, it is quite the accusation, yet this happened in 2016. So in the first, why is this not in Indian courts? In the second, why do we see a bland US Congress setting when it is not an activity on American soil? It was Amazon.in, it was in India and referred to Indian products. In addition we get the small part at the very end of “In sworn testimony before the U.S. Congress in 2020, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos explained that the e-commerce giant prohibits its employees from using the data on individual sellers to help its private-label business. And, in 2019, another Amazon executive testified that the company does not use such data to create its own private-label products or alter its search results to favour them” I see it as two parts, in 2019 there is a stage of “Amazon executive testified that the company does not use such data to create its own private-label products or alter its search results to favour them” which would support the stage of wrongful action mentioned earlier, and in 2020 we get “prohibits its employees from using the data on individual sellers to help its private-label business”, as such a stage optionally exists that a flaw was found and dealt with. Optionally there remains a stage that in 2016 “Amazon employees working on the company’s own products, known as private brands or private labels, planned to partner with the manufacturers of the products targeted for copying”, so a stage remains that Indian employees became creative to create their own private fortune in debatable ways, a stage that was close over time and there Reuters has a larger issue. The documents, what EXACTLY do they prove? I am not against Reuters here, they have proven themselves a few times over, so I am asking exactly what internal documents were in play? If they were emails and there the language and the path is also important. Reuters might be on the money, but they start with “A trove of internal Amazon documents reveals how the e-commerce giant ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoff goods” and there we see the assumption it is linking ‘internal Amazon documents’ towards ‘the e-commerce giant’, yet these employees, how high up the ladder were they, were they all Indian? In that case can a quality case based on quantifiable data be made against the e-commerce giant, or is this the event involving a few rotten apples (sorry, rotten pieces of fruit). So when we see the questions that rise from the Reuters article, the US Congress made leaps without investigating the evidence before referring it for Criminal investigation. You see, there needs to be a viable case before referring it, so there needs to be decent questionable evidence and so far, no one has seen it and I reckon it might not be there in the way the BBC article gives us the goods. I think there is a lot more and in all this, when we see “sought to correct the record on the inaccurate media articles in question”, we could have seen evidence and more importantly the media can show the evidence that it was wrongful data handed to them, but we do not see that either (at present), the media is very protective of one another at the alleged expense of anyone else. 

Can Amazon have done something wrong? Yes, absolutely, the firm is too big, things fall through the cracks. Yet the chance of Jeff with the Telly Savalas hairdo Bezos, or Nate Sutton, Amazon’s associate general counsel to openly lie to Judiciary Committee is too ludicrous to consider. That is the stage and when I see “We strongly encourage you to make use of this opportunity to correct the record… as we consider whether a referral of this matter to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation is appropriate,” I feel that this is an attempt to get another fine out of Amazon. Yes, I agree that the letter is merely good form, but I reckon that the players would have done a decent level of homework before that letter went out, and with another shutdown 9 weeks away, America needs all the cash they can lay their fingers on, I am merely wondering if their path is all on the up and up. But that is merely me, questioning whatever I see. I merely wonder if anyone else noticed the questions that the article brings up, it might be my not so trusting nature.

If Amazon did something wrong, OK. It happens and a fine will be the result, but this happened in India, so why is there no reference to a request from India, a request from Indian vendors and a more thorough investigation into the evidence. All that seems to be missing, weird, is it not?

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October 19, 2021 · 05:41

Adaption 103

I just had an idea, it got to me when I was tweeting with a person I know. A few minutes later my mind grabbed back to the age when I had a Dell laptop. Then an idea grabbed me. I wonder why Apple never considered this. When you have more than one device, when you need your MacBook Pro or air too regularly. Did no one consider the power of the docking station, or the port replicator? Instead of connecting device after device, having a station on your desk where you can connect your iPod touch, your iPad, your MacBook, iMac or Mac Pro to all with one replicator in the centre of it all. A setting where they are all connected, with the station also connecting to an external keyboard, external drive and optionally a larger screen. The power of direct connectivity when you get home. The songs, the tablet and all of it to a  larger screen, more storage and not to forget interacting all with one another. No worry whether you had the document on your tablet, your laptop or even your iMac or Mac Pro. Connecting them all through one station. You see, when you have one Apple product, you might have more, I do and many other do too. Even for non Apple products the setting of connecting laptops, desktops, music solutions, and tablets, all whilst giving any the power to connect to Bluetooth speakers is becoming increasingly important, especially as streaming will go from device to device. A multi system station, no matter if it is a docking station or more aptly seeing it as a connecting port replicator will take the foreground in the near future. I synch my iPad, and soon my iPod touch (my iPod Classic will not connect), a larger setting of interactivity is required and consider that when you get home, via the replicator. Connecting to data on tablet, laptop and desktop they can all grasp the data of one another and they can all be used in conjunction. A setting that none have offered, always in the second degree, so why not in the first degree? That would be real innovation and so far none have opted for it, They all want to do each other work, they all want to do the same, but the laptop makes you less mobile, the tablet has its own restrictions, but on the road it is OK. And so on, yet at home we need access to all, we need it all without a larger setting and the cloud is too often a limitation, especially when it is confidential data. The people need their secure environment and anyone stating that the cloud is a safe space is lying to you. Some give you “Cloud security is tight, but it’s not infallible. … But the bigger risk with cloud storage is privacy. Even if data isn’t stolen or published, it can still be viewed. Governments can legally request information stored in the cloud, and it’s up to the cloud services provider to deny access.” 

So why not set the stage where it is with you and with you alone? And when we look at the data breaches with. Microsoft, Estee Lauder, MGM Resorts, Facebook, Zoom, Magellan Health, Cognizant, Nintendo, Twitter, and Whisper. These are places with large infrastructures and cyber sections and they could not keep THEIR data safe, how much of a chance do you have? I am not anti-cloud. It has its uses, but it has a bad safety reputation, as such the replicator gives more and offer more too. It is just a thought, but it Tok me less than 30 minutes to seek out part of all this and write it down and when we add the streaming gaming platform the need increases rapidly.

All devices that need connection, whilst the connection does not always exist. 

So consider what you have and how easy it would be to connect it. Now, if you only have 2 devices the value is not really there, but consider a desktop and a laptop connected giving the user access to both, would that make it? I thought initially to connect the Apple devices, but the setting is much larger and will grow over time. Consider that the MacBook Air has a max of 2TB and so does the new iMac, so why have 2 backups when both can be connected and be connected to a much larger drive, seagate offers 4TB for $99, WD has 6TB for $200, and that offers perspectives to keep your music in one location, not on all locations. Option after option are added as we see more devices connected and I am surprised that no one took it into that direction, especially Apple. 

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October 19, 2021 · 02:47

Direction and Course

We are all driven by doubts. We are all driven by needs and we are all enticed by desires. There is no exception, none at all. Not if you are a cleric, Christian or Muslim. Not if you are a farmer or a politician (although too often I think that the first party is more intelligent than the second one). We are all driven by surges, by vectors and by elements outside ourselves. They are the particles that fuel the internal engine in us and the mindset that accompanies it. I remain on the fence regarding the building scandal in Rotterdam, the political power-drive for a place called Vestia. The simplest side is a mere tally, 524 homes are removed to be replaced by 137 locations to inhabit, with an added 101 apartments for higher incomes and 143 apartments for sale, the tally does not add up. A new station is created with -143 locations. This was about money, plain and simple. So whilst Vestia hides behind “We achieve this by taking an effective and innovative approach to rentals, sales, liveability, maintenance, investments and operating costs. We are committed to providing good service to our customers: the people who rent and buy our homes”, so whilst we see one, we also see that they enabled the removal of 387 social housing locations, it was the simplest math problem. Someone got rich here. Yet in the setting of greed, there is so much out there, Rotterdam is not even the smallest blip on any, not even a Dutch radar. 

There is more out there, the stage of the media is getting out of control, stake holders, the setting of lobbyists that are gracing the foundation of media is getting larger, os getting stronger and the media itself does not care, it is like watching a crack whore reach for the goods. Their grasp towards digital dollars without contemplating the larger stage is ludicrous. As an example look at the home page of the Independent (independent.co.uk), the Los Angeles Times (latimes.com), The Washington Post (washingtonpost.com), and Dagens Nyheter (www.dn.se). Notice the advertisements? Let’s be clear, the papers are allowed to do that, yet consider who can afford that. Consider the cost of a front page advertisement in the paper versus the front page of a website. Consider the stage of who gets the visibility and how they got there. Now there is an opposing side to this some are merely advertising, there is no ‘stake holder’, there is no political need, but that stage is fluidic and siding with the stake holders. Consider the past, how many advertisements for some Microsoft device passed you by? How many claims of mobile data for less, how many ads are localised? Consider seeing the LA Times, seeing “Coliving Homes in Sydney. Coliving homes for rent in Sydney from A$1,300/month, inclusive of weekly housekeeping”, now there is nothing wrong with the ad. And it is powered by Google Ads and there is nothing wrong with that. Yet consider that an apartment costing A$1300 a week has an ad on the front page of the LA Times. The setting is so much larger than even I can understand. This is global and this is not some anti-Google setting, I am making the claim that there is a layer between the media and advertisers. Electronic lobbyists, I call them Stake Holders, and they are raking in millions. The view is not easy, and I am not making a claim that I have it, it is so convoluted on the global scale that no one really has an idea, it would require the Google source data and a very powerful computer to suss it out to the smallest degree. I saw glimmers as Microsoft was advertising its Surface pro, but that could just as easily be seen as a glimmer of delusion. The problem is not me, it is not anyone who might not be able to see it, it will be the media, they are part of it. They are setting a new course, they are setting a course towards their digital dollars at the expense of the people, what I often refer to the ‘click bitches’ they create though emotional articles. A newspaper will give you ‘Pandora papers: biggest ever leak of offshore data exposes financial secrets of rich and powerful’, whilst they also give you “the move was not illegal, and there is no evidence the Blairs proactively sought to avoid property taxes” Consider that journalists waste time on non-illegal actions whilst we see some papers give us ‘Houthi blockade restricts aid’, is that not interesting? The UN was all about attacking Saudi Arabia recently whilst keeping (according to media) Houthi and Iranian elements out of that think-tank presentation. So why are we not given the full view whilst some are wasting our time on “the move was not illegal”. I believe that political lobbyists and digital lobbyists are uniting to some extent, optionally the political lobbyists are also on the digital platform calling themselves ‘stake holders’. This is speculation, this is not proven (yet) and there could be all kinds of ‘evidence’ proving me wrong. I do not know yet, but the views I have seen over the last 15 months proving me to be correct more and more. And now, I am taking the light to my work and looking deeper into it all, because anyone not criticising and digging into his own data will fail from the start, and I do not like failure. But that is just me, to seek a direction and course requires energy and it needs a drive, but what that drive is remains open to debate, even for me.

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October 18, 2021 · 03:47

As fiction becomes real

Who remembers George A Romero’s Dawn of the dead (1978)? I remember seeing it in the cinema. And the idea stuck with me. Dreams of having an entire shopping mall to myself. The idea stuck for a long time and even as games entered our lives, the setting was never close enough. The idea that we had an entire City centre to ourselves, preferably without the zombies. Not some game where the enemies spawn again, but a stage where there is a city centre, complete with 35000 zombies, a finite number and as we secure our place, grow our place, we renew the settings of security, safety and goods. And I voiced it before and now we seemingly have the game ‘The day before’ a game that seemingly is close enough to my dreams to make it a reality. The game can be played single player (a must for me). And the idea that the game will grow appeals to me. Consider that the mechanics, once they are ready allows for the game to seek us in other ways too. An alien invasion (Skyline, 2010), a pandemic (Contagion, 2011) and the list goes on. Now, I have no idea on how The Day before is set or how it works, but I saw a small play video and my old thoughts of Day of the Dead returned. The idea that you need to stamp out your safe space. Get goods, get sustenance, get ammo, find weapons and so on is very appealing. You wonder how far you get, how long you will last and none of that respawn shit. One life, and between 35,000 and 350,000 opponents. How will you fare? I wonder how far I will get. And for the makers of that game it offers a new kind of DLC/Expansion. We might have 3-5 locations to start, but the appeal to see how far you get in London, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Munich, Paris, Moscow and so on, the chance for the makers of The Day before (Fntastic) are close to endless and it does not stop there. The setting of a real final number is appealing on several levels. The idea to redo Day of the dead in Harrods London will be appealing to thousands if not millions of gamers. Setting up the New York City Police Department – 5th Precinct as your own fortress (Assault On Precinct 13 anyone?) is close to intoxicating. And from there the world of us getting close to the movies we watched will be enticing and I reckon for a large audience. In previous years it was merely a ruse, now with the PS5, it becomes an achievable reality. And as I see it 2022-2025 could optionally become great gaming years. 

And when the survival part in us is quenched we can return to our normal daily routine of being a sniper (Ghost warrior), or perhaps a racer (Gran Turismo) some will prefer their daily life as pilots (MS Flight simulator), no matter to what life we return, we do so knowing that more and better games are coming our way, preferably less glitchy then Ubisoft is making out to be. 

P.S. WordPress still has not fixed colours.

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October 17, 2021 · 20:19

It was the smell of coffee

We all have this and we all try to ignores it when it is not Sunday. Yet that was for me the setting this morning. I was going through the Guardian with the smell of coffee in my nose. Still half asleep I noticed the words ‘shun workers’ and I saw the picture of a lovely young lady (Genevieve LeJeune) and my mind went ‘whats this about?’ And I started to read the article. As such the title became ‘Sex discrimination: why banks shun workers in adult entertainment’, I saw the word ‘sex; and I am a simple guy, so I was very much in the ‘lets read this’ mood. So the article gives us that the HSBC bank was part of “I didn’t think for one minute they would have an issue with what the business was about. And why would they be concerned, as long as I’m cashflow positive and I do all the right things, and it’s completely legal?” It was basically as was stated “She said she told the bank that she ran a community for the “B” in LGBTQ+ and was not chased for any further information”, by her own account a community with 16000 members. They were suddenly cut off and we get “She has spent more than four years battling HSBC for access to more than £20,000 trapped in those accounts” with in the finale “only regained control of the cash this spring after complaining to the Financial Ombudsman Service”. There are two parts that catch me in the article. The first was the setting given “she ran a community for the “B” in LGBTQ+”, and the subsequent part of the article that paints them all as “sex workers”. One is not the other and even as we accept that Bi curious women might see of there is a penny, it is not a given, it requires evidence and that is even a larger problem because are stated they are not breaking the law. So let’s take a look at the other side. 

In 2018 we get ‘HSBC ‘divests’ from Israeli arms company Elbit Systems’, HSBC only acted when pro-Palestinian voices became too loud and personally I do not think they had to give in. 

. Oh and Elbit Systems is an electronics company (mostly drones), the ICIJ reported only last year ‘HSBC moved vast sums of dirty money after paying record laundering fine’, so a laundering company makes waves over skirts? How is that for irony? So when we are given (at https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-vast-sums-of-dirty-money-after-paying-record-laundering-fine/) “HSBC was profiting from an international criminal scheme even while on probation for having served murderous drug cartels and other criminals. HSBC had admitted to U.S. prosecutors in 2012 that it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world, including at least $881 million controlled by the notorious Sinaloa cartel and other Mexican drug gangs”, we see a setting where Bi-curious women have less rights than drug gangs in the eyes of the bank? I reckon that the drug gangs didn’t have to go to the Ombudsman (why is that?)

And only last July the Guardian reported (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/28/hsbc-faces-questions-over-disclosure-of-alleged-money-laundering-to-monitors) ‘HSBC faces questions over disclosure of alleged money laundering to monitors’ with the byline “Bank was under supervision by US Department of Justice-appointed team because of previous violations”. I think we need to do something else. Something I have never ever done on this site before. I am calling ALL readers to see if they or their friends use the HSBC as a bank, and ask them all to switch banks, to whatever bank they prefer. It is time to give HSBC an education on hypocrisy. I have no connections to that bank, and I hope the large numbers of readers (especially in the UK) will move to another bank. 

I feel this is the only path open to us. Now if you feel that curious women are to be discriminated against, I leave it up to you, but a bank with these standards acting against people who broke no law whilst they are on the US laundering top 10 with ties to drug gangs should not be allowed to function, should they?

P.S. WordPress still has not fixed colour issue

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