September 25, 2021 · 19:20

Yaba yaba from the intelligence ignoranus

Yes, this is a story, but it is not bout the Flintstones, even if some of the players come from that era. To illustrate that we need to make a small trip in time. On August 23rd 2014 I wrote the article ‘A spooky situation’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/08/23/a-spooky-situation/) where I wrote “These people can convey messages, set up new ways to deliver news (like trough private channels in a MMORPG game in Facebook or freely downloaded, which is impossible to monitor) and recruit new people who have not left the UK, which would be a disadvantage to MI5. Now it is important to know that this is all speculation on my side. I cannot prove that this is happening, but is it not more likely than not that an extremist would like to propel his ‘rightness’ onto others?” Even though, I need to emphasise on ‘it is important to know that this is all speculation on my side. I cannot prove that this is happening’, I had no evidence, but I saw the stage over 7 years ago, so as we now see ‘Extremists using video-game chats to spread hate’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58600181) where we are shown “That’s when you start to go to other meetings, to smaller groups that aren’t necessarily playing games, talking about politics more explicitly.” So hurray for the BBC to get there 2 days ago, all whilst I got there 7 years earlier, so there! 

And consider why did it took them so long to catch on? Was it the Minecraft level of a concentration camp? I saw the dangerous setting in a Facebook game called ‘Lord of Ultima’ in 2014 and I feel decently certain that it is was not the only game. For 7 years a stage of unmonitored messaging by extremists, cyber criminals and organised crime. All out in the open, all going from public to private channel and no one is the wiser. Not even the members of the Bedrock Police force, the Slate Rock and Gravel Company security services and a few other players. The never had a clue and they never had a chance, the evidence is gone. These people did not mess around, they created private channels and removed them at the end of the chat. 

And that is merely the games we know of, there are several games where most people are in the dark. So whilst some are giving us the yaba yaba on all kinds of matters, the stage is that most of us (me too) are stumbling in the dark without a flashlight, and even if we do have one, we en up in a black room, where all the elements are black and no one has a clue where one particular object is, an object that is removed when the last person leaves. So when you realise that Facebook is only one of well over a dozen locations, when location and localisation sets the larger premise. So when I see the denial “DLive and Odysee have not responded to BBC News’s requests for comment” they might know, but more likely they were in the dark. All people trying to offer options so that they get traction and all players forgot that all traction is there but not all of them positive, some traction is the way to seek anonymity and that is seemingly happening and I predicted it first on August 23rd 2014. 

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September 25, 2021 · 18:38

Recap to the intro

This happens to us all, we need to remember how we got to where we were and I am the same as many of you. So today is about a recap of what I had written before (links given) and the station of where the setting is going. 

Title
Yes, every game needs a title and in gaming, too often it needs to be bold, to be brave and it needs to entice, but I believe that for RPG games that is not that much a given, it is the challenge, so I decided on ‘An almost ordinary generation quest’, it gives part of the station, it gives part of what you face and nothing beyond that. Too many games are about the spoilers, but the game is about the game and how you fare, you will fare different from your neighbour, that is almost a given, unless he married someone special, at which point you want to end exactly where he did (its a defining rule of the universe). 

Links
The story that drove all this was given to us in The Race is on (Sept 30th 2020), Playing the Stage (Oct 18th 2020), Door two of the Arcane (Oct 19th 2020), Chimes are wind translators (Oct 20th 2020), It’s in the Bones (Oct 25th 2020), RPG Arms race (Nov 25th 2020), Mummy and daddy (Mar 19th 2021), The quest for tea (Mar 23rd 2021), Until the lungs give out (Sep 21st 2021)

Separately influences are found in Eureka, sort of (Nov 26th 2020), What gives experience? (Dec 11th 2020), Building NPC faith (Jan 3rd 2021), First the sting (Mar 14th 2021), Then the bite (Mar 15th 2021), River of Choices (Mar 23rd 2021), Belated brilliance (Apr 9th 2021)

So this is the bulk of it, 16 stories (actually there are a few more) that are the foundation of a new game. As I had stated the story is everything and we are too often given a stage to get into, it makes sense, but is that how people like Roald Amundsen, Jacque Cousteau, Yuri Gagarin or Hugh Glass got started? It is always a challenge to set any beginning. As it is a game it is not set to reality, so we create the variables so that WE can become a larger than life character. In my case, I believe in the open beginning, a beginning with choices and it is not a good or evil choice, it is a direct choice. Will you go east, or will you go west? It is that initial choice that sets a foundation and when it is a simple quest like setting the prolonged safety of your house and household that drives a choice. It creates the explorer, it sets the stage of the adventurer and that adventurer needs skills, knowledge and drive. These three need to be adhered to and that is the choice we face, we face a similar stage in nearly all RPG games.

So what can we do to change the stage? That is the question that was in my mind as I tired to develop the idea of this game. And we always played the antagonist, yet what happens when that stage alters? That issue can be made more relevant as we enhance RPG games with machine learning and deeper learning. There is no workable stage to set the workaround on everything (not yet at least). So before we get into some lofty stage of ego, the one element is missing, it is the story or the main story. In RPG games in the past, we had the main story and side quests, so what happens when we alter it? We have 7 main storylines and as you go about it you will only find 1 optionally a second one. The games will still have side quests, but in a stage where we manage what is sought and found. We see the NPC characters, yet what happens when that NPC needs a set of triggers before additional dialogue is released? I saw that stage when we were treated to Neverwinter Nights, yet over the years no one seemed to have picked it up, so I decided to set a stage of ‘discrimination’(well sort of). Arcane quests cannot be given to no-Arcane people. So those who create a pure warrior will miss out on stuff, yet that same person will find other stuff, if someone abhors a non-arcane person, there will be another person who is the opposite.

As such we can look at the storylines to be 7 lines, or one rather long line over 7 generations and that is where the story takes us. A stage where the generations are important, but then so is the family line and the characters that become family. Because as you start as you, but the one you select to share your life is equally important, even if you have no control. You might not have it at that point, but the next generation is a combination of both and that is how the story unfolds and that is the change of creation, it comes with a handicap. And as far as I can tell, no other RPG has EVER taken that route. So as we consider how to design a new game, look at what I left you, consider the other stories, some with a quest line, some with a background and all with a much larger stage. A stage to replay the same game and find new challenges, finding new options traits and skills that will educate you and the generation that comes after you. As far as I can tell, no game ever considered going there, so it makes for one new true original RPG game. 

Have fun and enjoy the weekend.

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September 24, 2021 · 20:28

A short sighted wire

I was taken by surprise today, the BBC gave me ‘EU rules to force USB-C chargers for all phones’, the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58665809) gives us “Manufacturers will be forced to create a universal charging solution for phones and small electronic devices, under a new rule proposed by the European Commission (EC)” which is stupid on several levels. It remains a surprise on how we see the computation of IQ of a population being  AVERAGE(group), whilst the IQ of a collection of politicians seems to adhere to LOWEST(group). Now let’s be clear. I would love to see a stage where power supplies all adhere to the same settings, but the USB-C charger of my MacBook will not charge my Chromebook, my USB-Micro charger of my android phone actually does charge other devices and a generic charger will not work on my android phone, as such the entire setting of all using the same cable is a laughable stage. More important, generic power boards with USB points will not charge everything either (it would not charge my Chromebook), so where set the standard? Set the standard at what each battery has to accept? 

So when we see “EU politicians have been campaigning for a common standard for over a decade, with the Commission’s research estimating that disposed of and unused charging cables generate more than 11,000 tonnes of waste per year.” So how about a mobile phone that lasts well over 5 years? I reckon that this element will save a lot more waste space required. But under what conditions? So how about all chargers for anything battery operated like a wireless WiFi, photo camera’s, film camera’s, webcams, speakers (like Bose and JBL), bluetooth devices. The list goes on, they ALL have to adjust? How stupid is that train of thought? When any asian market decides to take a turn to the right, when they find a new innovative way, where will the EU be left? A setting that can be hammered straight out of gateway, set to ‘unused charging cables’, all whilst the charging cble is the one part that often needs replacing long before the charger is too broken to be used. And these charge cables are also used for consoles, printers, scanners and other devices. So who was the local yahoo that set for “All smartphones sold in the EU must have USB-C chargers”? Someone with a friend at Apple, or perhaps someone who hates non USB-C systems? Perhaps some yahoo who forgot his Android cable that still uses USB micro?

When we see the elements of that article, the numbers do not add up. Even Apple, the people who embraced USB-C give us: “Apple has warned such a move would harm innovation”. So when we see “In 2009, there were more than 30 different chargers, whereas now most models stick to three – the USB-C, Lightning and USB micro-B” we see a level of raw BS. You see my Apple USB-C charger will not charge my USB-C Chromebook, a simple test overseen in 10 second. Then there is “the Commission’s research estimating that disposed of and unused charging cables generate more than 11,000 tonnes of waste per year” I know that this is equally a setting of utter nonsense, because there is no division between unused and broken cables and they cannot, it is mere estimation work. The reason I know this is because I have three chargers that are still in my desk for backup. In case one of the other ones break, the cables are equally important. When at work I keep one cable there in case I forget to charge the night before. All reasons to have more than one cable. I have two additional cables for other reasons and some over time broke. All settings that are an issue, so when we are given that the cables changes are required for 

smartphones
tablets
cameras
headphones
portable speakers
handheld video game consoles

All whilst the console controllers are not part of that equation. This is an attack on the Asian market, it has nothing to do with landfill. That is how I personally see it and that is why I consider that compared to these politicians Homer Simpson is pretty much the Einstein of them all. Oh and then there is the stage that at times the same port is used in multiple ways, so what about portable speakers that cannot be connected to a laptop because the laptop does not have a USB-C port. Issue upon issue all whilst a group of people are now setting a technology limit? So consider one part not seen there (no blame to BBC) “The USB-C connector was developed by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the group of companies that has developed, certified, and shepherded the USB standard over the years”, so a filtering to less then 1200 companies? How is that not segregation and discrimination? And when we take that list of 1100-1200 companies, how is that drill down per nation? And when we take a close look at waste per nation we see “European plastics production almost reached 58 million tonnes” and we see an article on 11,000 tonnes? This adds up to 1% of 1% of an actual problem, I think the people in the EU needs to sack without any pay the people from that European Commission. To underline that part, consider that my Wifi Router and my Mobile phone use the same USB-Micro charger and when it is not charging it is disconnected, all whilst the Chromebook and the MacBook both need DIFFERENT USB-C charger, as such the line “encouraging consumers to re-use existing chargers when buying a new device” becomes equally debatable. 

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September 23, 2021 · 19:00

Wake up or slumber more?

Yes, we all have that at times, the smallest doubt we give ourselves “Shall I slumber just a few minutes more?” We are allowed it, we were so clever, we set the alarm clock to 30 minutes early and we ignore the first alarm because we had 30 minutes left. At times that is the best sleep time of the night, to know there is 30 minutes left. And I feel the same way, yet I feel that this is the time to realise that the alarm went off a week earlier and we kept on slumbering a little more and a little more and now we are out of time. We are awoken by two articles, not related yet linked. The first is the Guardian who gives us ‘anti-vax radio shows reach millions in US while stars die of Covid’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/21/anti-vax-radio-hosts-dying-covid) we are told that Phil Valentine was anti-vaccine, he even plagiarised the song Taxman and made it his own. We are also introduced to Marc Bernier, Dick Farrel and Jimmy DeYoung. Yet, we need not worry, they are all dead now, they all died of covid and the millions of ‘fans’ they had, a lot of them will be dead soon too. That is the natural selection we are part of. And it is then that the claim “Media watchdogs suggest that some basic level of responsibility to the public should be required to keep a broadcast license” seems to seep in, but it is already too late. Even as some of the exploiters are realising that things are going overboard, they forgot the basic rules of the game, to gain riches you need a population and that population is now becoming redundant. Local radio hosts ignored by the big players, but the people are local people, they are the foundation that the US stands on and it goes way beyond USA, believe it. The stakeholders are the first and the direct franchisers of levels of exploitation and they are now seeing the impact I warned for for well over a decade. You can live on the premise of fooling people, but the strongest reality has now and always been “You can fool some of the people all the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time but you can never fool all of the people all of the time” and that is now pushing towards a reality the exploiters never realised. They realise it first because they need a population and it is dying, with 697,000 dead in the US and an expected 100% rise between now and February 2022 the numbers will take a massive offset. 

So how did I get there?
There are three elements driving it. The first is the Delta variant, the second is the anti-vaccine movements and lets be frank ‘stupid’ people driving anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown sentiments and the third one was given to us by Jenet Yellen giving us a mere two days ago that the US is in danger of defaulting on the US loans in October, the first time in history, all whilst investments in retirement funds are stopping. The three together giving us the waves that follow, waves in hospitals losing funds, funds in resources slowing down, so as hospitals are filling up and in June AP News gave us ‘Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated’, so as the hospitals are full, the unvaccinated die and more will die soon enough. The unvaccinated take up 98.9% of ALL the COVID cases, the vaccinated a mere 1.1%, the difference is that staggering and as the people are embracing stupid anti-vaccine hosts, they follow those people to their grave, quite literally and there is an upside, it will end unemployment in the USA, it will lower unemployment in the UK, Europe and Australia. 

So whilst people are ‘listening’ to some media watchdog, I need to warn you that they have been sitting on their hands for way too long. I alerted the people to hold media accountable in 2011, that was 10 years ago. 

So how is this connected to the second story?
The BBC is the one giving us ‘Covid vaccine stockpiles: Are 241m doses at risk of going to waste?’, so if we consider “The UK promised 100m of that pledge, so far it has donated just under nine million”, we can consider that they did nothing wrong, we can consider all kinds of things, and considering is perfectly fine. Yet there is a larger stage where they did nothing wrong and there is the rub, over a year, less than 10% was donated and the media let it slide, until people start realising that the media adheres to share holders, stakeholders, and advertisers. So who stopped it, or perhaps better stated, who silenced it to a mere whisper? 

And no one is looking into these stakeholders. So whilst we look at crowd after crowd we see more and more, but the three stages, the ‘normal’ people, the anti-vaxxers and the people in panic is now a larger unstable mix. The normalised people are a massive minority and the other two shouting are ahead of all, yet they are now dying and as anti-vaccine versus panic people are in a mix, we see that they all become panic people and they seek a solution but the hospitals are full. The nursing staff (doctors too) are tired and sick of them all so all these panic people have no one to turn to, merely their own undoing and that is the good news. 

Why is it good news?
In the first governments will have to act, so whilst the UK is dealing with Insulate Britain activists we see the tart of a new age, an age of draconian laws, a stage that follows when resources are dwindling down, and these two nations are not alone. France, Germany, Netherlands, UK, USA, Australia they all have to take larger steps in changing direction and this is the stage most of us did to ourselves and the media was kind enough to help, all whilst their stakeholders are running for the hills with a bag full of money. They are now trying to find a place where they can be relatively safe, that is, until the limelight hits them and their actions.

And it is escalating, as some are all about hating the rich and taxing the rich they still fail to see the larger problem. Governments are to blame, they REFUSED to properly adjust tax laws and that has been the case for well over 2 decades. Did you think it was different? Amazon was given the headlines “Amazon had sales income of €44bn in Europe in 2020, despite lockdown surge the firm’s Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss”. Amazon is not breaking the laws, black letter law states what they are allowed to do and they did so, they never broke the law, governments let them off the hook again and again for over 2 decades and it is happening globally. As such the phrase “Kill the rich” should to be “Kill the exploiters” and that list is a hell of a lot longer than you think. The stakeholders have now become afraid that in the 11th hour their gig is up and they are hoping to score one more time before the gig is up forever.

And in this COVID is ending their song sooner than they had hoped. Yet it is a dangerous stage. We see that typical stakeholders are investors, employees, customers, suppliers, communities, governments, or trade associations. Yet in this list we see no facilitators or lobbyists, these exploitive players aren’t on any list, they are couriers from corporations, yet never in service of them, they are only in service of themselves and now when we consider the Economist on July 17th (at https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/07/17/the-republican-anti-vax-delusion) we see “Populist conservatives are to blame”, yet is it that simple? Populistic people are easier to control as they need a place to voice ‘issues’, yet stakeholders see that these are groups of people easier to exploit too and there is the problem, so whilst we see the ‘Trump’ example which could be true, there are more players in that stage and those players all hate the limelight, as the populists love the limelight, they get it all and as such the stakeholder now seen as a lobbyist fades into the shadows. A game played for a long time and now that the fallout of their actions are backfiring their need to vanish becomes increasingly important. And when you think that this is out of thin air? Consider that the United Nations reported this in 2013, which was based on Constantinides et al, 2007. There is now a stage where stakeholders saw a portal to use media to set a much larger stage to fulfil corporate needs. It is given as “The rise of social networks has changed both the way we communicate and the way we consume information. Even within the relatively recent internet era, a major evolution has occurred: In the initial phase known as Web 1.0, users by-and-large consumed online information passively. Now, in the age of social media and Web 2.0, the internet is increasingly used for participation, interaction, conversation and community building”, a stage we have been seeing for over a decade. A stage driven by populists to become internet influencers and the stage of “community building” will be transformed into “sheep herding of the easily adapted” that is the stage we now face, and if you think that they can be changed, you would be wrong because it is already too late, the people saw the Yellen message, they see the overfull hospitals and the anti-Vaccine group is not becoming a panic group and those people listen to no one and it will be fuelled by ‘241m doses at risk of going to waste’ soon enough and the stage does not end there. So when the US (and other places) run out of vaccines the panic driven people will escalate and with statistics that 98.9% of all deaths are unvaccinated ones the state of panic is close to complete and in winter when isolation adds to the issues panic will reign on a global scale. So when you are in bed slumbering to get to the office and you consider taking a sickie, also consider that this is the one sickie you should not have taken. The safe zone is miles behind you and there is no hospital left in front of you and that merely fuels the panic. So when we take notice of “Nearly 70% of Florida hospitals are expecting critical staffing shortages” consider that this is not an American or a Florida issue, it has become a global issue. London gave us all (earlier this year) “London hospitals would be short of nearly 2,000 acute and intensive beds” and when we realise that millions more will die and that this issue has surpassed the 1918 flu pandemic numbers and estimates, consider that it will get worse, a lot worse. The last one is my speculation but the numbers are fuelling my point of view. So will you take a longer slumber? It is your choice, and if you are dedicated anti-vaccine person, the queue of Hades awaits. Feel free to oppose that view, it is your right, yet India a mere hour ago reported ‘India reports 26,964 new Covid cases’, which might be true, but the other numbers cannot be true, there is too much of a sliding scale in play. So how fast will the US emulate India? I honestly cannot tell, but the numbers show a grim reality and in the end the games that some people played will burn the soil in front of them, that is the realisation that history gave us. So do you really want to slumber a bit longer?

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September 23, 2021 · 18:51

The house advantage

It was early in the morning when ABC alerted me to news, this is not new. It happens all the time. And as I was glancing over the text, one little bit took my attention. It was ‘The West is playing the wrong game’ and it alerted me to reread a little more closely this time. As such, the article called ‘Despite what Joe Biden says, we’re not approaching a Cold War’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-22/joe-biden-cold-war-language-china-authoritarian-super-power/100482238). There we see a lot, several arts were known to me, but a few ones, like “the Rand Corporation think tank pointed out in a study in 2018, there is nothing straightforward about China’s role in the world. China’s engagement with the global order, it says, is a “complex and contradictory work in progress”” was not entirely new, but it was also a little unexpected. Apart from the fact that the paper is well over two years old (making us all wonder what the fuck Donald Trump was doing), the other side is less shown. If we accept “complex and contradictory work” I have to ask what on earth was driving the US and the UK to drive billions in revenue straight out of their coffers and in the hands of China? The initial steps between China and Saudi Arabia are now in an escalated stage of acceptance, implying that China is set to add $6BN-$24BN in revenue to its coffers whilst the US, UK and EU will lose it. So why be that stupid? 

So to emphasise, we see “the rules of Wei-Qi point out, it is about “breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting”. This concept is known as shi — creating a strategic advantage”, we see but we miss the line. It is simple, UK, US, AUS and China will play a game of monopoly and during the preparation the players are all told: “They need to bring their own dice, two dice are needed, so that they can throw 12”. The three players bring their two six sided dice, whilst China brings. 

China gained a black letter advantage of 100%, and this is the game, this is actually happening now, although it is not a game of monopoly. So as we take notice of “the Rand corporation study argued, it should look to “hedge” China’s power. The goal, it said, “should be to shape the context so that it is resistant to Chinese coercion and aggression”.” And it is here that the Rand corporation misses the goal, because they looked at enemies foreign, and forgot to weigh the actions towards the corporate enemies that were domestic. The Huawei bashers that engaged politicians without producing any valid evidence, the corporate short cutters like SolarWinds and several others and the digital organised criminals that found a scapegoat wherever they could and they all shaped the game into something they could use, yet the essential need what it needed to do was missed by well over a mile. And it is one of the final parts “it also requires preserving US power and strengthening alliances as a counterweight to Chinese influence. It requires more than just military might or more powerful submarines”, in this the Rand organisation is absolutely correct, but the game is already shaped in way the wrong ways and that will hit them in several ways. One of these ways is seen in “strengthening alliances”, but how is the question. That answer is not easily given as corporations and media rely on stakeholders and they answer to no one, more often the goals of these stakeholders who cater to corporations is almost totally opposite of what governments need to happen and that is also shaping the game in other ways. 

And in this we see the two elements that are at the very end. The first is “this is not the Cold War 2.0”, the second one is “Xi may prove to be destructive, and confrontation may be unavoidable. That’s not yet the game he’s playing”. You see, as I personally see it, this is Cold War 3.1b, corporations are an active player in hedging their needs and the needs of their board rooms, which comes with the notion that Xi might be destructive, mainly because Chinese firms are under attack, under direct governmental attack, because the corporations demanded it from THEIR politicians. And in all this no one adhered to any rules of evidence. There was no evidence and these board members were too busy to test the stamina of body parts when constantly exposed to the satisfying need of models and cheerleaders. So whilst they were adhering to personal tests, China took the time to develop 5G to a degree that outclassed them in a few ways and now corporations need all kinds of adjustments to keep revenue, even though they took the blue pill and Viagraded themselves out of the game. 

The house advantage works, but it also changes the game and I personally believe that the Rand corporation forgot about that element, especially when that element has grown way out or proportions.

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September 22, 2021 · 19:41

Consuming expectations

Yes, this happens, but it is not about food, it is not about what we expect, it is where our expectations lie and here I found myself in a weird stage. Due to lockdown events I have became an international man of mystery (sorry Austin Powers) by watching city walkthroughs. Places I had visited like Rotterdam, Stockholm, Munich Chicago, London, more London and places I had never seen before Monaco, Montreal, Toronto, and many more places. As such I became more and more interested in the Hero by GoPro. I wrote about this earlier, and over the week (yesterday and today) I saw a lot more on the Hero 10. Yet in all this, I also saw a few anti Hero 10 video’s. Most of them seemed to be people lacking expectations, some were people pushing a few weird limits two stood out, one was an Italian giving us why he did not recommended the Hero 10, but the reasoning was quite interesting. He gave us that the Hero 10 was an amazing great system, but compared to his Hero 8 overpriced and particularly as his Hero 8 was doing well above what he needed. I liked that. Yes, at times it is always about getting more whilst what we have is just fine. The other one is the one I want to focus on, it was all about the system being so expensive, He was a day 1 buyer of the Hero 7, Hero 8, and now the Hero 10. This is important because we need to consider what was and what we have now. 

I am a photographer. I was never much of a film geek. My first film camera came in 1998, it was the JVC GR-DV1, it had 100 times zoom (almost ridiculous much) and together with the docking station, it added up to $1049 dollars. I used it in my first long vacation that year after 10 years of not having a real vacation. And the camera was nearly always there. I never regretted buying it even if I barely used it. The film seed was planted. For the most I moved on with photography and filming was never forgotten, but it was in the back of my mind. It roared its head in 2010 when I was offered a really nice deal in 2010 with the Sony Handicam and I went for it, for two reasons, I was interested in filming, but I wanted digital video and the Sony offered it, it costed me $1100 with all the bells whistle’s and extra’s and I could afford it. There was also the added benefit that I could export to memory and edit it. I did not have the software, but overall the Sony was a leap forward, so now 12 years later there is the GoPro Hero, version 10. I missed the previous versions but there are a few parts that people seem to overlook.

The first camera only gave me 1080, it had sound but almost no smoothing, no colour settings and no frame rates. The Sony had a lot more and more importantly was able to export to USB. A few additional options, yet the larger stage was not there and we cannot blame Sony, they gave us a lot for less than the previous versions. Now we see the Hero 10 and people (quite a few) are complaining. Some places have it for a mere $499. The delivery is stated as 11 days but that is OK for plenty of people and for a system less than half the price that I paid for a system with less options, we are given 5.3K at 60 fps, 4K at 120 fps and 2.7K at 240 fps. The bundle includes a 32GB card. I looked and found a card with the same high speed and in 256GB for $40. A system that surpasses all others, has smoothing 4.0 which does things neither camera could ever do, have all kinds of colouring. And a load of extra’s that work on all Hero’s, batteries that are the same as the previous versions and we are told that upcoming software releases will give the consumer even more. And this camera is a mere 50% of my previous one. So what are people bitching about? 

We are so obsessed with getting things for free that we forget that compared over time a lot of electronics have become to that lowly priced. PC elements are pricing annual more and more, all whilst camera’s are in some cases the same, we seemingly get more and more for less. I am not digging into the wisdom of it, but consider that a GoPro cameraman can close to equal a TV News film crew and upload almost as quickly, so how long until someone sets that stage? As we see it in many places, the news is outdating itself more and more by going for the emotional story so that they do not need to report on things that matter. So when people figure out that one GoPro person can deliver equal to 5 news teams, how long will their future remains? 

This is not about the news, it is not about people and skills. It is about people and their expectations, or perhaps it is the expectations that are fed to them. I do not know, what I do know is that there are makers that drive creativity and that is always good. Where it ends we do not know and that is good too. Because as I personally see it, the creativity we never expected is the one that makes us smile and I do believe we need to find a reason to smile, even if it comes from a piece of hardware.

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September 22, 2021 · 15:30

Wake up or slumber more?

Wake up or slumber moreYes, we all have that at times, the smallest doubt we give ourselves “Shall I slumber just a few minutes more?” We are allowed it, we were so clever, we set the alarm clock to 30 minutes early and we ignore the first alarm because we had 30 minutes left. At times that is the best sleep time of the night, to know there is 30 minutes left. And I feel the same way, yet I feel that this is the time to realise that the alarm went off a week earlier and we kept on slumbering a little more and a little more and now we are out of time. We are awoken by two articles, not related yet linked. The first is the Guardian who gives us ‘anti-vax radio shows reach millions in US while stars die of Covid’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/21/anti-vax-radio-hosts-dying-covid) we are told that Phil Valentine was anti-vaccine, he even plagiarised the song Taxman and made it his own. We are also introduced to Marc Bernier, Dick Farrel and Jimmy DeYoung. Yet, we need not worry, they are all dead now, they all died of covid and the millions of ‘fans’ they had, a lot of them will be dead soon too. That is the natural selection we are part of. And it is then that the claim “Media watchdogs suggest that some basic level of responsibility to the public should be required to keep a broadcast license” seems to seep in, but it is already too late. Even as some of the exploiters are realising that things are going overboard, they forgot the basic rules of the game, to gain riches you need a population and that population is now becoming redundant. Local radio hosts ignored by the big players, but the people are local people, they are the foundation that the US stands on and it goes way beyond USA, believe it. The stakeholders are the first and the direct franchisers of levels of exploitation and they are now seeing the impact I warned for for well over a decade. You can live on the premise of fooling people, but the strongest reality has now and always been “You can fool some of the people all the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time but you can never fool all of the people all of the time” and that is now pushing towards a reality the exploiters never realised. They realise it first because they need a population and it is dying, with 697,000 dead in the US and an expected 100% rise between now and February 2022 the numbers will take a massive offset. 

So how did I get there?
There are three elements driving it. The first is the Delta variant, the second is the anti-vaccine movements and lets be frank ‘stupid’ people driving anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown sentiments and the third one was given to us by Jenet Yellen giving us a mere two days ago that the US is in danger of defaulting on the US loans in October, the first time in history, all whilst investments in retirement funds are stopping. The three together giving us the waves that follow, waves in hospitals losing funds, funds in resources slowing down, so as hospitals are filling up and in June AP News gave us ‘Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated’, so as the hospitals are full, the unvaccinated die and more will die soon enough. The unvaccinated take up 98.9% of ALL the COVID cases, the vaccinated a mere 1.1%, the difference is that staggering and as the people are embracing stupid anti-vaccine hosts, they follow those people to their grave, quite literally and there is an upside, it will end unemployment in the USA, it will lower unemployment in the UK, Europe and Australia. 

So whilst people are ‘listening’ to some media watchdog, I need to warn you that they have been sitting on their hands for way too long. I alerted the people to hold media accountable in 2011, that was 10 years ago. 

So how is this connected to the second story?
The BBC is the one giving us ‘Covid vaccine stockpiles: Are 241m doses at risk of going to waste?’, so if we consider “The UK promised 100m of that pledge, so far it has donated just under nine million”, we can consider that they did nothing wrong, we can consider all kinds of things, and considering is perfectly fine. Yet there is a larger stage where they did nothing wrong and there is the rub, over a year, less than 10% was donated and the media let it slide, until people start realising that the media adheres to share holders, stakeholders, and advertisers. So who stopped it, or perhaps better stated, who silenced it to a mere whisper? 

And no one is looking into these stakeholders. So whilst we look at crowd after crowd we see more and more, but the three stages, the ‘normal’ people, the anti-vaxxers and the people in panic is now a larger unstable mix. The normalised people are a massive minority and the other two shouting are ahead of all, yet they are now dying and as anti-vaccine versus panic people are in a mix, we see that they all become panic people and they seek a solution but the hospitals are full. The nursing staff (doctors too) are tired and sick of them all so all these panic people have no one to turn to, merely their own undoing and that is the good news. 

Why is it good news?
In the first governments will have to act, so whilst the UK is dealing with Insulate Britain activists we see the tart of a new age, an age of draconian laws, a stage that follows when resources are dwindling down, and these two nations are not alone. France, Germany, Netherlands, UK, USA, Australia they all have to take larger steps in changing direction and this is the stage most of us did to ourselves and the media was kind enough to help, all whilst their stakeholders are running for the hills with a bag full of money. They are now trying to find a place where they can be relatively safe, that is, until the limelight hits them and their actions.

And it is escalating, as some are all about hating the rich and taxing the rich they still fail to see the larger problem. Governments are to blame, they REFUSED to properly adjust tax laws and that has been the case for well over 2 decades. Did you think it was different? Amazon was given the headlines “Amazon had sales income of €44bn in Europe in 2020, despite lockdown surge the firm’s Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss”. Amazon is not breaking the laws, black letter law states what they are allowed to do and they did so, they never broke the law, governments let them off the hook again and again for over 2 decades and it is happening globally. As such the phrase “Kill the rich” should to be “Kill the exploiters” and that list is a hell of a lot longer than you think. The stakeholders have now become afraid that in the 11th hour their gig is up and they are hoping to score one more time before the gig is up forever.

And in this COVID is ending their song sooner than they had hoped. Yet it is a dangerous stage. We see that typical stakeholders are investors, employees, customers, suppliers, communities, governments, or trade associations. Yet in this list we see no facilitators or lobbyists, these exploitive players aren’t on any list, they are couriers from corporations, yet never in service of them, they are only in service of themselves and now when we consider the Economist on July 17th (at https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/07/17/the-republican-anti-vax-delusion) we see “Populist conservatives are to blame”, yet is it that simple? Populistic people are easier to control as they need a place to voice ‘issues’, yet stakeholders see that these are groups of people easier to exploit too and there is the problem, so whilst we see the ‘Trump’ example which could be true, there are more players in that stage and those players all hate the limelight, as the populists love the limelight, they get it all and as such the stakeholder now seen as a lobbyist fades into the shadows. A game played for a long time and now that the fallout of their actions are backfiring their need to vanish becomes increasingly important. And when you think that this is out of thin air? Consider that the United Nations reported this in 2013, which was based on Constantinides et al, 2007. There is now a stage where stakeholders saw a portal to use media to set a much larger stage to fulfil corporate needs. It is given as “The rise of social networks has changed both the way we communicate and the way we consume information. Even within the relatively recent internet era, a major evolution has occurred: In the initial phase known as Web 1.0, users by-and-large consumed online information passively. Now, in the age of social media and Web 2.0, the internet is increasingly used for participation, interaction, conversation and community building”, a stage we have been seeing for over a decade. A stage driven by populists to become internet influencers and the stage of “community building” will be transformed into “sheep herding of the easily adapted” that is the stage we now face, and if you think that they can be changed, you would be wrong because it is already too late, the people saw the Yellen message, they see the overfull hospitals and the anti-Vaccine group is not becoming a panic group and those people listen to no one and it will be fuelled by ‘241m doses at risk of going to waste’ soon enough and the stage does not end there. So when the US (and other places) run out of vaccines the panic driven people will escalate and with statistics that 98.9% of all deaths are unvaccinated ones the state of panic is close to complete and in winter when isolation adds to the issues panic will reign on a global scale. So when you are in bed slumbering to get to the office and you consider taking a sickie, also consider that this is the one sickie you should not have taken. The safe zone is miles behind you and there is no hospital left in front of you and that merely fuels the panic. So when we take notice of “Nearly 70% of Florida hospitals are expecting critical staffing shortages” consider that this is not an American or a Florida issue, it has become a global issue. London gave us all (earlier this year) “London hospitals would be short of nearly 2,000 acute and intensive beds” and when we realise that millions more will die and that this issue has surpassed the 1918 flu pandemic numbers and estimates, consider that it will get worse, a lot worse. The last one is my speculation but the numbers are fuelling my point of view. So will you take a longer slumber? It is your choice, and if you are dedicated anti-vaccine person, the queue of Hades awaits. Feel free to oppose that view, it is your right, yet India a mere hour ago reported ‘India reports 26,964 new Covid cases’, which might be true, but the other numbers cannot be true, there is too much of a sliding scale in play. So how fast will the US emulate India? I honestly cannot tell, but the numbers show a grim reality and in the end the games that some people played will burn the soil in front of them, that is the realisation that history gave us. So do you really want to slumber a bit longer?

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September 21, 2021 · 23:16

Until the lungs give out

I have been thinking of the RPG game that I set up as a free IP for Sony and Amazon developers, a sort of exclusive freeware IP for all except Xbox developers as a response to their Bethesda tactic. There were several parts set in earlier articles, but over time my mind got bogged. I had a new version of arcane characters, I set the stage to replaying the game in new and never seen before ways and as I looked at the past, my mind went to the future. I added different stealth parts and I added new elements to other sides of the arcane. Yet the fighter class remained. And now I add another part of ranged fighting. As you see in the image (I believe in emancipation, so both genders can be assassinated) yet even in the past there was a stage of armour, and precision. So as you see can see that there are to aims, the size of the circle is influenced by distance, by stamina (out of breath) and the stage is also hindered by people wearing armour, so we have a much larger stage of getting the ranged attack being successful, slightly unlike in Skyrim where I successfully expired people, animals, draugr, trolls and even dragons with my bow and arrow. The Green Arrow, Robin Hood and William Tell would be proud of me. It is a good feeling, although I do know that it is a slightly delusional one, if it was real the digital graveyard I filled would be greater than the city of Tokyo (10 years of Skyrim does that), and as I go forth I considered that we need new ranged weapons, not more of the same, so the blowpipe became a reality. Also there would be a stage to evolve the blowpipe, just a it happened in history. Different woods, different arrows with optional toxins to paralyse, sleep or poison would add to that impact. Than we get to the stage where we always run to a blacksmith, but the blowpipe is different. Several of them do not come from the blacksmith, the stage of that allows for more options in the game, it will also add to additional (read: different) skills to master. 

As we see in most RPG’s the bow and the arrows, this game will have the pipe and the darts, there will be additional darts and there will be an additional ranged weapon. I wanted the weapon to add to your abilities, not forced to set a stage for guided evolution, so I came up with an altered rungu, The rungu is still there, but there is a cup added to the other side of the stick opposite of the ball-end of the stick, making it a rungu able to throw with precision and much harder a stone at the head (or other body part) of any target. With the rungu we set a new need that we haven’t seen in a while, a ranged weapon that needs strength as well as precision. So as we add weapons and add choices the player can evolve more towards what he or she prefers and chose a weapon that fits the need. In addition to this, I want to make add a personal style. I want to add the main-gauche into the fight, not merely relying on sword and shield. I personally always loved the parrying dagger and the stage sets a new style of fighting and we get an altered level of fighting. It is essential to offer a different stage to what Bethesda has, it makes for a much more acceptable game that is a lot less of Bethesda like gaming, we need to up the game and change the game, so I opted for that. I am also considering altering the spear to be adjusted so it can work underwater, a sort of speargun (rubber driven) with a rope, yet in all this we see the need to add to weapons, not to set a stage where we have 15 weapons. A stage thought through so that we have a larger playing field that is new to those who prefer ranged weapons (me being one). The parrying knife gives an added side to stealth (especially when you are seen), and as I loo what I had wrought in the digital world, I see the need for graveyards, the setting of plants only found in cemeteries and optionally a few herbs that have arcane and alchemical uses, all sides that Bethesda never used, so I am adding them to the IP I create for those ready to make money in creating original (read: limited exclusive) Sony and Amazon games. 

A day well traversed and that is when I consider that this was the second article written, I had to make sure that gaming was not forgotten or ignored. And we can do this until the lungs give out after which the blowpipe becomes useless, so there is that consideration. 

Have a great day.

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September 21, 2021 · 11:58

DARPA and NSA versus little old me

Yes, that is the stage I am setting. After designing a stealth system to sink the Iranian navy, a novel approach to melt down Iranian nuclear reactors it is time to challenge the US Technology boffins and the US intelligence boffins to a nice little game set and match (advantage me). Yes, my ego is so big that I am willing to take on these to players at the same time (suicidal ego tends to be funny at times).

The idea that formed in me came from an idea from the past (90’s) and is altered to to deal with intrusive crypto miners, a way that will set these people back to the stone age. The stage is that with the additional crypto currencies, these intrusive miners will become a lot more than a nuisance and with energy prices spiking, we need to do something sooner rather than later.

90 something
It was in the early 90’s that someone made the dBase virus. The virus was brilliant, it was a data virus which was rare, but the foundation was awesome (from an academic point of view). The virus was introduced and started to change the data, more importantly whilst the virus was there no one was the wiser. Yet when the virus was removed all dBase data became useless. The virus was a filter to read and write it and it was almost unique for any user, so there was no replicating and for a while it was a nightmare for some.

Now
So what happens when we introduce a self monitoring program in the PC that is linked the the GPU?  A program that is unique and set to THAT GPU but will not interfere with anything. Yet when crypto miners uses your system remotely the program will turn data into garbage and soon these crypto miners will have to investigate all the garbage they collected

A simple solution for a nuisance that will soon out of hand. So you two boffins, I created to elements to stop Iran and now I challenge you to do something for nearly everyone else. I wonder if they can make it happen. In the second part, there is an upside, the creation of personal non interfering floating programs could have a much larger implementation on a much wider field than most (including me) could comprehend, the question is can we do it safely?

This was the idea that was floating inside me as I was considering a few other things, so I reckon that I will have more for you quite soon, optionally linked to new gaming, or is it entertainment? I still cannot tell at present.

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September 20, 2021 · 21:18

Taking and making what it gives

Yes, we seem to think that this is the stage we need to be in, and at times you are correct, that is what there is. It dawned on me that at times innovation, or innovation alike can drive creativity. In the past there was an option to get into movies required a fortune, so you either tinkered by the side of the road, or you were some rich kid, that was the reality. Now consider that this is no longer the case, the stage is set to two elements (three actually).

1. GoPro Hero 10 ($600)
2. Mac Airbook (up to $4500)
3. Software (up to $500)

So for $6000 (max) you could have all you need to become a cinematographer. The laptop idea is expensive, there are cheaper solutions, to under $6000 there is a stage where you can make all kinds of movies and there is no cost for film or development. As we were in lockdown, the mind wanted to travel, so I started to watch the walking tours, a lot of them in 4K and most of them made with older GoPro devices. You might laugh, but some of these walking tours equal decent TV and in some cases cinema trips. I saw Portofino, Cannes, Monaco, Vancouver, Montreal, Buenos Aires, London (several), Riyadh, Jeddah and a few things stood out. The movies were well above average, the streets in Canada are amazingly clean, Portofino was worth the watch for a few personal reasons and so on. I believe that we are one step away from a ‘small’ company like GoPro to put a massive dent in Hollywood and that is before you realise that we will be drowning in amazing movies, the stage is already there that amateur film makers can make ‘their’ version of the Blair Witch Project. Another version of Cloverfield and we can go on in all kinds of directions. I myself was entertaining an idea in another direction (no matter what), but I am an idea man, not a movie maker (not yet anyway). 

And even as GoPro is making headway into setting the dynamic movies to a new height. I predict that they will corner the market in several ways within the next 2-3 years. I believe that the information given here is incorrect “The number of GoPro devices shipped worldwide has been decreasing since its peak of 6.58 million units in 2015, to around 2.8 million units in 2020”, there is not a decline, mainly because some people STILL use the GoPro 4, a lot are still using the GoPro 8, so there is a market of well over 15,000,000 film makers and I believe that with the additions on the GoPro Hero 10 that group will increase (a lot). And when you consider that this can directly be spread via YouTube channels, for GoPro the sky is the limit. Whether the film maker will decide to rely on GoPro tools, on Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro or iMovie, there are several solutions and as people tart to become more and more active there is a new market evolving. A market of services, critical evaluation and creation, all working in some form of symbiosis. And as the makers set out there options of short movies, I wonder when it will be a GoPro Hero user who in the near future will be the first to win a Academy Award for Best Short Film (Live Action) using a GoPro because the hardware is now definitely up for it, we now only need to wait for the creative soul to make that step (it will not be me), and I would not be surprised that thee will be more evolutions in this direction before the end of 2023, a stage that (as I personally see it) evolved and came to a much larger live during lockdowns and curfews. 

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