August 30, 2021 · 02:20

The Iranian play

There were two stories out there. In this for now I am ignoring the Afghanistani part, as the BBC gave me a nice idea. They actually have a nice uncut gemstone in their possession and I need additional time (as I have only one set of eyes). So we look at the Yemeni setting where the media is happy to report on Houthi attacks, but there is a lull in this. The Yemeni do not have the required weaponry, implying that Iran is still driving this stage of concern. It is Al-Jazeera who gave us (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/29/several-killed-in-houthi-attack-on-yemens-largest-base) ‘Dozens killed in Houthi attack on Yemen’s largest base’ the start is nominal, but it is “At least 30 soldiers killed and 60 wounded in rebel attacks on major military base housing Saudi-led forces” that is the concern, the base is in most SW art of Yemen in Lahij. The issue with me is “armed drones and ballistic missiles”. You see, the missiles are one thing, there are too many players who want to grease their pockets, so until forensic evidence comes through, it is anyones guess where the missiles are from, but the armed drones, they are the problem. Yemen has no infrastructure for this, Iran is the only player willing to supply Houthi forces and that is the problem. You see as Iran pushes and pushes and both the US and UK are hopelessly stuck in their ego’s Saudi Arabia stands alone against Iran. Yes, the US and UK make claims, but they have backed down at economic sanctions, even though they are aware that this step will never work and with China and Russia making deals with Iran, Iranian funds keep on going towards Houthi forces. As far as I can tell, from the western media only Reuters looked at this, the Guardian, BBC, Washington Post, LA Times and many others ignored it, isn’t it nice for the media to largely avoid having to mention Iran in a negative light? What do those take holders have to care about (apart from their wallets)? Yet that is not fair on my side either with all the Afghanistan issues, I get that, but this has happened a few times before and it is bothering me, the transgressions by Houthi forces and by Iran are passed by. In this particular instance the Houthi forces attacked a military target, and it might not be nice, but I need to stay fair. In other instances they knowingly and blatantly attacked CIVILIAN targets and that was ignored as well. 

So when we see another threat in the light of ‘Iran vows to respond in kind if Biden targets nuclear program’, I wonder if I should sell my solution to meltdown their reactor to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, seems fair enough. I reckon that suddenly the western media will be all over the KSA for this, so I need to mull this over and there is the additional issues that it is still a concept, I never felt good about people selling concepts, not in IT and not anywhere else either. I reckon it makes me a service minded person, not a sales minded person. 

Yet it also feeds another sentiment. When the people really on one side, Iran might finally consider that they no longer have option, other than end up being the courtesan to either Russia or China. If they feel happy about that, so be it. As I see it, we need to start giving open support towards the KSA (or openly hostile towards Iran), either will do. But staying on the fence is no longer acceptable. If we do not do this, we need to equally silence the voices of the UN and HRW on Yemeni issues, is that not fair? If we do nothing, we need not look at articles in the news on what happens there either, those articles seem like empty reminders of what sitting on ones hands looks like. 

I get it, some will see this as an overreaction, but so far how many Houthi attacks were there on CIVILIAN targets in the last year alone? How many were reported on? Who reported them? When you tally these elements and you see how one-sided the media has become it might dawn on you that silence was never golden and it is no longer acceptable. And I get it, some will state that they support the Houthis. I get that, but do that loudly to and when Saudi Arabia closes the oil-tap, consider that you enabled that step, and it is fair, if we need not consider our non-allies, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has the same right, but I reckon that the stakeholders in certain areas are really desperate to avoid that step, it would cost them a bundle and they like feeling rich in the wallet and poor in the soul. It is a state of mind some people can live with. 

I never did and yes, I have supported the wrong people in the past, but I was always direct, people always knew where I stood, it is time to set open policies all over the middle east, we have that right, and I believe we are running out of options. 

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August 29, 2021 · 09:08

Thames based tears

To be honest, I needed a few moments. It happens to us all, we all get overwhelmed by anger and frustrations at times and I am no different. This all started a few hours back when the Guardian gave us ‘Revealed: Foreign Office ignored frantic pleas to help Afghans’, now this happens, and I get it, the Afghans are optionally worried about things, it is the second part “Thousands of urgent messages from MPs and charities had not been read by the end of the UK evacuation from Afghanistan” as well as “including cases flagged by government ministers”, in this my first personal response was “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Let’s be clear, the entire Taliban debacle started in 2001, 20 years ago. And instead of eradicating the Taliban, a sit on your hands tactic was deployed. 

Consider the quote “The Taliban are a revolutionary movement, deeply opposed to the Afghan tribal system and focused on the rebuilding of the Islamic Emirate. Their propaganda and intelligence are efficient, and the local autonomy of their commanders in the field allow them both flexibility and cohesion. They have made clever use of ethnic tensions, the rejection of foreign forces by the Afghan people, and the lack of local administration to gain support in the population.” We get this from the Carnegie endowment for international peace, the author is Gilles Dorronsoro and it was published well over a DECADE ago, in 2008 (at https://carnegieendowment.org/files/taliban_winning_strategy.pdf). As such the US and UK had a decade to respond and to alter their tactics. So if people get angry over “Thousands of urgent messages from MPs” it will be mostly acceptable. In addition, can we get a list of those ‘thousands’ of whiners? (Charities are permitted to whine) Afghanistan was a joke from start to finish, a joke that came with a multi billion dollar invoice. Instead of eradicating, the US and others started to pussyfoot there and it merely ended up being the foundation of their casualty list. 

And in all this, Afghanistan is almost three times the size of the United Kingdom and the Taliban took it bak in less than a week, and no one is asking questions? The Afghan army got overrun like nothing you have ever seen, whilst they were 5 times the size of the Taliban and it remains to be seen how many of those Afghan troops changed sides. So whilst we start crying “Oh, what a poor people” there is a much larger concern and it has not been dealt with, not for almost two decades. And whilst the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/28/revealed-foreign-office-ignored-pleas-help-afghans-mps-evacuation) gives us “However, amid accusations of government incompetence over elements of the evacuation effort, the Observer has seen evidence that an official email address used to collate potential Afghan cases from MPs and others regularly contained 5,000 unread emails throughout the week”, we get additional questions on who monitors that email address and can we get a tally of who mailed it, how often and whether they were MP, Charity or other? And more interesting is a fact not shown here, and that is why I want the names of those MP’s. You see this was going to happen, and it was clear that this was going to happen in 2020, early 2020. So whilst we tend to know that MP’s leave a lot until the 11th hour, starting certain steps like evacuating translators would have been prudent almost 26 weeks ago,  so how many were evacuated? And this in on the UK, the US has a much larger mess to deal with. So as we start considering a number of events, consider that the list of Monday morning quarterbacks (another name-tag for some mp’s) needs to be set next to a list of ACTUAL actions they started to get people out of harms way. That is all before we start digging into the reach of ISIS-K and how in that mess they got a person loaded with explosives into Kabul and right towards the airport. In all this when we see the mess on several fronts too many issues are outstanding and not considered, a side the Guardian and the Observer are seemingly void on. I use seemingly because it implies that I read everything these two are bringing and I never did that part. 

So whilst you consider that poor poor tactic, take time and make a list of all actual and factual actions over the last 20 years and how Afghanistan got overrun again in a week by the Taliban, the allied forces never had that option, so why not? For those who oppose me in this (an always valid side), go cry me a river and when it comes to the size of the Thames, let’s compare notes, you might not like the result but if that wakes you up, it is fine by me. 

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August 27, 2021 · 20:55

And the mystery is?


It is one of those ‘I told you so moments’. I am not happy or proud, but the profound sadness that hits me when I see the way it is reported on is just staggering. A few are reporting on it, but the larger stage is likely to be found in places like the Verge soon enough. The people who get it will soon understand that it will be worse and that my 90% of cloud transgressions was no joke. Yet to see part of that nightmare, you need to realise that the Microsoft Azure cloud has been in existence since October 2008, almost 13 years. Now it took the business to grow its customer base. Yet consider that the article at Reuters ‘Microsoft warns thousands of cloud customers of exposed databases’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-microsoft-warns-thousands-cloud-customers-exposed-databases-emails-2021-08-26/) gives us “A research team at security company Wiz discovered it was able to access keys that control access to databases held by thousands of companies” Now we can only speculate how long that flaw was there, or perhaps that design error. Yet the damage is enormous. With “Microsoft agreed to pay Wiz $40,000 for finding the flaw and reporting it, according to an email it sent to Wiz” we might think it is trivial because it only costed $40,000, but it is not. Thousands of firms with BILLIONS in IP values and other values have been in danger for years, at the most 3 years, yet the article does not really reflect on that (which is not the fault of the BBC or Reuters). And when we are told “We fixed this issue immediately to keep our customers safe and protected. We thank the security researchers for working under coordinated vulnerability disclosure”, I wonder just how bad it is. Now, I get it, it might be fixed but if that was an easy fix, it might equally mean that it could have been easily prevented. 

So when we get to “This is the worst cloud vulnerability you can imagine. It is a long-lasting secret. This is the central database of Azure, and we were able to get access to any customer database that we wanted.” We get to see that Wiz Chief Technology Officer Ami Luttwak (a former Microsoft employee) now working at Adallom LTD and Wiz. Now we get it bugs happen, yet one would think that proper testing would be done and this bug whilst not proven to be transgressed upon went undetected for no one nows how long until an external group decided to test Microsoft access (optionally on Microsoft orders). So whilst some might think that “Microsoft only told customers whose keys were visible this month, when Wiz was working on the issue” passes the mustard, but it does not, mainly because the length of the transgression enabled time is still unknown, and that is not all. When we consider “The company was breached by the same suspected Russian government hackers that infiltrated SolarWinds”, as well as “a wide number of hackers broke into Exchange email servers while a patch was being developed” with the cherry on top of “A recent fix for a printer flaw that allowed computer takeovers had to be redone repeatedly” a well as “Another Exchange flaw last week prompted an urgent U.S. government warning that customers need to install patches issued months ago because ransomware gangs are now exploiting it”, as such one might speculate that they need to adjust their marketing vision, with the first optional change being “We advertise the most powerful console because the other stuff is buggered” and it seems that Microsoft has all kinds of testing and investigation flaws, that is merely my speculated view, yet for the customers who feel threatened by this, consider looking at Open office (at https://www.openoffice.org), I cannot guarantee it is more secure, but it is free and you are now paying for all the transgressions in a multitude of ways (including an annual fee) so you can at least negate one factor. 

So whilst some feel sorry for that multibillion company and how sad things are, consider that Azure is an issue, especially when you realise “Microsoft and outside security experts have been pushing companies to abandon most of their own infrastructure and rely on the cloud for more security”, when that comes to the surface, we see that Microsoft seemingly embraces ‘sharing is caring’ and with everything people have in that cloud sharing everything with EVERYONE, we might see Microsoft as the most caring behemoth in the universe, but I reckon the customers who pay a pretty penny for that ‘privilege’ will see this differently. But there is light at the end of the tunnel (well not really). Compare the logos of Microsoft and the olympics, now consider that only the black elements (the hackers) were not yet represented, but it seems that Microsoft gave them an internal challenge and so far the hackers are leading three to nil, which is the larger danger. 

And that larger danger is given to us at the very end with “But though cloud attacks are more rare, they can be more devastating when they occur. What’s more, some are never publicised. A federally contracted research lab tracks all known security flaws in software and rates them by severity. But there is no equivalent system for holes in cloud architecture, so many critical vulnerabilities remain undisclosed to users, Luttwak said”. 

So it is here that some might realise that 

  1. Some cloud transgressions are never shown the light of day.
  2. Many critical vulnerabilities remain undisclosed.
  3. (Speculated) The makers might not even be aware of some vulnerabilities.

That is the stage that cloud customers are exposing themselves to and in this, with too many corporations reducing their IT security staff and relying on the security of the cloud, how much is this costing the Fortune 500 who created that erroneous overly simple mindset? It was never a mystery to me, I have written about these kind of dangers since 2017, so if people are just now waking up, good morning and enjoy the coffee you have, you’ll need it.

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August 26, 2021 · 22:12

As credibility moves to the arctic

Yes, today is another day to look at the media BS and in this case the BBC. Now, let’s be clear, in this specific case they are optionally not deceiving you, but they are part of the problem and not part of the solution (as I personally see it). The article ‘Climate change: Consumer ‘confusion’ threatens net zero homes plan’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58306288) sounds nice but they are painting with one brush, a massively large one and they are tinkering towards what I personally expect to be the needs of stakeholders. 

You see, I gave you a few parts (again) in ‘Ignored by media’ a week ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/08/19/ignored-by-media/). That pesky European Environment Agency gave a report a little over 6 months ago that showed us clearly (in their way) that 50% of ALL pollution came from 147 facilities, I even added their graphics. Did any of these media courtesans give us that? Did they clearly oppose it with reasons? No, they did none of that. No, they are giving us “efforts to curb emissions from millions of homes in the UK will be at risk”, so whilst we see the BS arrangement to give us “they need the right information and tools, particularly when it comes to adapting their home. “By getting things right now, the government can give people the confidence to make changes and play their part in getting to net zero.”” Which sounds nice and I get that part, but in all this we see the spending by millions of households whilst 50% of the problem is given to us by 147 facilities, so 147 facilities against millions of households, in addition the media to the largest extent has not now, NOT EVER, dug into that lit of 147 facilities and gave us the lit of 147 players and started their name and shame game (I reckon that involved stakeholders will not allow for that). So whilst the BBC is reporting “offers financial support such as grants, low-cost loans and financing”, and I apologise so pardon my French, so where the fuck is that list of 147 facilities, the amounts of taxation paid by the people behind these 147 facilities and how much non taxable funds they are making? Now, we should understand that these facilities might not (most likely are not) be in the UK or Europe, but in the age of the media giving us ‘the people have a right to know’ I reckon that the people should be allowed that part of the equation too, or not?

So whilst the BBC gives us boldly “Government plans to decarbonise homes are too complicated and confusing, according to a coalition of consumer and industry groups”, why are they not going over that list of 147 facilities and make sure that those facilities are fined so that we all get time and funds to do our side? So when we are given “The carbon generated by home heating amounts to about 20% of all UK emissions”, all whilst we see that several media players are ignoring “50% of ALL pollution comes from 147 facilities” are you not equally wondering why environmental reporters are largely ignoring the EEA report? 

It makes me wonder who Matt McGrath is catering too, do you not agree to this? In all this Matt is not completely wrong with his article, but the setting is not that small, it has not be that small for well over a decade and when we see the links to ‘Climate change: Europe’s extreme rains made more likely by humans’ and ‘Nature crisis: Talks resume on global plan to protect biodiversity’ you might notice something, I did. You see in these two articles the word ‘pollution’ is seen once. It is seen in the second article in the quote “the nations of the world failed to fully meet any of the 20 targets which included protecting coral reefs and tackling pollution”, all this whilst the EEA report does not get mentioned, not once. In a day and age where the headlines are about ‘biodiversity’ and ‘extreme rains’, yet pollution and the 147 facilities are out of range (read out of expected bounds). 

So what alleged stakeholder is making a speculated fortune by allegedly arranging the media not to take a deep and informative look at the EEA report?
Which so called journalist dug into the data the EEA has, where the 147 facilities were and which of the remaining 14178 could get its pollution damage smothered (by a lot)? 

These are questions that are out in the open and yes, that is not up to the BBC to fix, yet the utter silence of that part is up to the BBC and they need to be starting to ask the difficult questions. Yes they cannot give all the answers, but in this stage no one is asking the questions that matter, I will let you figure out which is worse. 

So enjoy the polluted air and remember, Amazon sells gas masks ranging from $30 to $150, be weary you might need one in the near future and if you see the BS people attacking others on their freedom of choice for not wearing a face mask, I wonder how they will react to the choice between gas mask and breathing (no more). That is in the end the second option, if we let the 35% of all stupid people of the population die, pollution and carbon emissions will be reduced as well, the scales of balance will not care and if one solution will not work, the other one remains. Life can at times be that simple.

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August 26, 2021 · 05:03

Blame Canada

Yup, the award nominated song from South Park, the title will forever reverberate in my mind, and in this case Canada was on my mind for a week. The reason? I will get to that, but first we will need to take you through some essential comparisons. In the first Canada is almost the size of the USA, it is a little smaller, but not much. The second part is that it has 10% of the population that the USA has. So nature rules in Canada on a few fronts, including the small fact that most Canadian women are a lot more beautiful than the American ones (A.J. Cook, Laura Vandevoort, Alison Pill, Ana Golja, Annie Clark, Nanci Chambers, Erica Cerra and hundreds more) have graced the screens large and small and they are a fine example of the Canadian women. Yet, this is not about the women it is about nature. You see, we see apps and games on hunting and survival, yet it is always set to a set of parameters, so what if we take that away? What if we create a map from satellites, real and decently accurate map sizing 1000 by 500 Km stretching from British Colombia to Saskatchewan? In this map you get dumped and from there on it will be about TRUE survival. There will be settings like starter, amateur and pro and those three rings will determine hunger, thirst, hypothermia and hostile nature. The program would set all the elements are faithful as possible, giving the people a real taste of survival without harming ones self. The amateur gets a few lives, but the rest is hardcore, one life and that is it. So how long could you survive in a game where everything matters. You see, it dawned on me that it started a little further back when I heard someone claim in a games shop that survival is simple, you merely have to understand what the game needs. That started the entire progress and as I learned more about Canada, I saw the options that they could give a gamer. More interestingly that same map could be used to spawn stories and cultural history on the First Nation, the stories of a collection of ghost towns, the call of the wild and hunting lessons, a game that gives people a decently real taste of that life without killing the animals, or (more importantly) getting killed by them. 

So why did I mention the women?
You can go into the wild just on your own, or for a reason, one reason is that your family (one of the actresses fictively being your wife) has gone down in Canada and a rough location is know. You are dropped off by chopper and with a radio and a backpack of goods, so can you find her? Can you safe them all (if the program allows for that)? A setting where survival is taken on a hype and to be honest there is no place like Canada to test it, it is one of the most rugged places on earth (if we ignore Russia). A stage that could be larger, because if you remember yesterday, the map is merely one side and we can fill it or better stated overlay it with other games. And if it takes a lifetime to explore a map that size, consider what gaming challenges could be added to that map, or perhaps better stated the challenges that a game has and it uses the same map. 

Does it matter?
Not really, but gaming can only evolve when you push the boundaries and we cannot rely on the consoles or streamers to push, they are for the most in a holding pattern until 5G grows up and that will take another 2 years, just as I foresaw and it gives another side. China can do pretty much exactly the same, they have similar settings and they have the space, but they also have 1.4 billion people and a lot more roads. In all this I have always believed that coming first gives you an edge and with IP on mobiles and other sources growing that space for options is diminishing, as such Canada only has a real advantage whilst China does not go that way, will they? I have no idea, yet so far none of the other players have taken their map to such a degree and that opens options as well as opportunities. 

As we see what we have, we need to look at where we could go, not where we should go. This is because nearly everyone does that and as such we get a dozen flavours of the same ice-cream. But at some point someone will figure out that borders need to be crossed and when they do it when 5G does become a solid reality they will be late for well over a year. So why Canada? There are two reasons, they have the space, they have a lot of the knowledge and they have a dozen local software developers, so they are almost ready to get started. They merely need the information from NRCAN to get the map data (and it helps to smile politely at the lost boys of the CSIS). When the map is done they have the largest component for several games, all set to multiple systems. 

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August 25, 2021 · 19:50

Maximising digital exploitation

Yes, that is what you all fear is it not? To get digitally exploited and would you believe it, governments and politicians are making it happen. The first one to do so is South Korea. The news (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-antitrust-tech/s-korea-parliament-committee-votes-to-curb-google-apple-commission-dominance-idUSKBN2FQ05V)  gives us ‘S.Korea parliament committee votes to curb Google, Apple commission dominance’ and here we see “a key step toward banning Google and Apple from forcibly charging software developers commissions on in-app purchases” and it is not just that, we also get “the amendment bans app store operators with dominant market positions from forcing payment systems on content providers and “inappropriately” delaying the review of, or deleting, mobile contents from app markets” As I personally see it, this is what organised crime has been waiting for and South Korea just made it happen. So as you ponder ‘or deleting, mobile contents from app markets’ consider that one infected app maker can now make claims rejecting deletion (or massively delaying it) and as such thousands of tablets and mobile phones will get infected and spreading the backdoor. There was a reason for the jumps that Apple and Google had made, in this we were decently safe. Now consider that we become the infection point because we were told that brand X is 25% cheaper, gives 50% more credit and is just as fast. That short sighted thinking will get you slammed, will get you hammered and could cost you your device. So as other sources give you “We do not expect any issues”, or “We are not aware of any issues at present” consider the carefully phrased denials and the consequences for your hardware. And whilst you remain in denial of this all being for consumer good. This all got started by some greed driven upstart that was making $5,100,000,000. So how much extra do you get? When you consider that one player has V-bucks (their currency) is at 1000 for £6.49/$7.99. When did they give you more for the same amount? They did made over 5 billion last year alone. So when we get to the quote by someone we care not for we see “Dominant app store operators with large platforms should by now look to profit from value-added services, not just taking a cut from apps sold on its store”, yes, so how stupid was that? Now the value added services like security, testing and storing must be paid for, as such the small players will soon stop existing, all to help out the multibillion app players. In the old setting all developers had a decent chance, that will now seize and as the damage to consumers start stacking, the larger failing will be seen in 2022, or as soon as you suddenly get a message that you became a DDOS agent. So whilst you get rid of all the games and utilities, it will be too late. You will need to factory reset your device hoping it will be enough (it might not be). Yes that was real clever thinking and when we regard “the rushed process hasn’t allowed for enough analysis of the negative impact of this legislation on Korean consumers and app developers” which is given to us by Wilson White, a policy director at Google. We will need to ascertain a few issues. In the first when this is pushed through we can no longer hold Apple or Google accountable when we get transgressed upon, we will get to drag these politicians into courts and in front of the camera and we can advertise just how stupid and shortsighted they were, it is the smallest reward for days and optionally weeks of our devices not being able to function because short sighted people thought they knew what they were doing. As I see it a ‘sorry’ statement will not be any defence and that is the larger setting, these politicians will openly ignore the damage done to the people, they will deny catering to organised crime and we are left with the damage. Yet they too will feel that impact hen EVERY developer will have to pay to be on the Appstore. When 10%-25% fall away, the larger players who were greed driven will merely shrug with a ‘so what’ and the rest will be looking for a job and that will have a few larger impact settings as well. The Appstore settings as they are for now will enable developers to get decently quality systems to develop. When that comes with the additional $750 annual bill that falls the developers way. Consider the impact when you consider that there are 23 million Apple developers and well over 6 million Android developers. When they get the additional bills it will push a whole lot of them out of that field, the impact will be seen and felt in almost all walks of life. As I personally see it there is every chance that 2022 will become the year of the digital exploiters and in that setting it will not be about Apple or Google, but I will leave you all to figure that part out and be sure to feel the pain of what happens when you go to any other app store to save a dollar or two. The impact will be seen and felt almost everywhere. 

So as we see that South Korea got there first, the US is right behind them. They are hiding behind the quote “a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would rein in app stores of companies that they said exert too much market control, including Apple and Google”, so when the damage hits, it will hit hard and it will hit almost complete. Consider that I am wrong and consider these advertisement statements we see and how much deceptive advertising you have seen on your phone or tablet? And that part has been around for almost a year. If these politicians cannot even keep the advertisement section clean, how much use are they when you get infected? That is the setting none of them are willing to stay around for. 

That is the danger and it is not merely on a simple setting, when the app store can be ‘avoided’, we will get to see headlines like “Mobiles Hacked for 5th Time in 2 Years in Latest Breach; Nearly 150 Million Affected”. You think I am kidding? Last week Newsweek reported that something similar happened to T-Mobile with only 50,000,000 victims. So there if you are an American there is a 1 in 6 chance that you are one of them, so how often do you want to lose control of YOUR data?

That is the larger danger and that danger is currently rapidly increasing. 

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August 25, 2021 · 06:18

Both options

This started last week, as we are in lockdown and curfew I decided to play Watchdogs: Legion again. I like the game and more importantly I will try to get all the missing achievements. I had to reinstall the game, which is fine and this led me to find a new bug, which irritates me and off course the announced DLC with Assassins Creed, which hit me two days after the reinstallation, so I was overall happy. The 25GB addition has been added just now (I did not look at it yet), but at some point I started to think about protagonists and antagonists. Gaming is full of it and that took me towards Infamous, which was a really nice game (the first two), the third was graphically good and the start is nothing short of brilliant, but it then simmers down into a linear steeplechase which you can do twice to get the good and the bad parts. It is that reminder that got me thinking on the path we play, not the part, but the path. It is often to much to ones side, all good or all bad. So what happens if we take a new character and take a page from the books of Tartarus? On a few occasion (and a few sources) we see that Hades had children Macaria, Melinoë, Plutus, Zagreus, and Erinyes. Then we get to a very different chapter, that is the chapter of Nikolaos. Nikolaos was mortal, which seemed odd as he is the child of Macaria and Ares. So that character could set in motion the idea of change. Consider that death is what nearly all people fear most, a child of the rules of the underworld and the god of war could be able to change the gameplay. So if we take a page out of the Infamous page. One does not need to be all good and all bad, both sides gives us abilities and to draw n that you can also punish in much more defined ways. Consider the setting where an exploitative CEO is take (alive) to the underworld to be tortured for all time by their victims, and the better the punishment, the more relieve of the torturer, moreover, that damage to the soul becomes energy that you need and you can harness. 

That is merely scratching the surface, if you are ready to become a deity you must appease both mum and dad and you know dad, dad is never easily pleased.

From there the gameplay deepens (not alters) as a person of two dimensions, you have to keep track and satisfy the needs in both, even as the underworld is your domain, it still adheres to rules of power, it always has, you merely need to brush up on your historic writings to realise that. And t consider this now makes sense in a few ways. As streaming systems become the larger front, it will be important to write to a much larger audience on a larger stage. More important, if you consider that Watchdogs, one mere addition is taking 25GB, what will the next stage imply? That is not on or against Ubisoft, they are giving you a free DLC, yet consider that 4-5 games do that, now consider that most of you are alone and in rural places that much bandwidth is the end of your free monthly usage, that implies that you are now due for a much larger invoice ($10 per 1GB), as such we need to rethink how we do things, how we distribute games and how we tailor to these needs. Streamers are not in that stage yet, it needs time. You see one source gives us “According to Luna, the standard option might use up to 10GB per hour.” This implies that many will hit the maximum bandwidth after 30 hours of play, that is less than a week, as such there needs to be a larger evolution of streaming games and it will keep consoles around much longer.

So did I change topic?
No, they are linked, to evolve RPG gaming is essential, to get the technology up to speed to allow for that is a massive second. And in this we get the new setting and Ubisoft showed us the way (yes, they do get things right at times). Cross-play is seen as one thing, a game that is played on many different systems, but cross-play can also mean that one environment houses multiple games. As Watchdogs London gives rise to Watchdogs and Assassins Creed we see a new environment evolve, just like we had thick clients and thin clients in client server environments. The stage where we create one environment, but over time it will house several games and here we see a new stage, one where streamers become thin streamers. Yes it will not be today (or tomorrow) but when your streaming system is added to your PS5, or Microsoft contraption we now choke streaming bandwidth to a fifth or less. More importantly there will be an option for independent developers to create near perfect versions on Manhattan, London, San Francisco, Washington, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm and we can add to that. Now consider that a game like Assassins Creed or Watchdogs is no longer defined by WHERE they play, but by what you do there and now we see the consequence of changing the roles of protagonist and antagonist, optionally joining them. 

Consider that you are the next Watchdogs and even as a lot of the mission seem similar, the fact that they are not in the same place alters it, the buildings might still exist, but the buildings will be different. It will require an evolution of programming and also the evolution of gaming data, to set a stage to such a large domain will take a massive evolution, but we gamers are worth it and in a stage where gaming revenue is likely to top $175 billion in 2022, the players with the most evolution will decide the game play and that is where developers need to find themselves, a larger stage where the IP is not set to a location, but it is optionally set to ANY digitised location. A stage no game developer ever considered before, but that time is changing a lot sooner than you think, no matter how fast 5G will be, if there is a data plan there is a limit, as such they need to find ways to circumvent these limits, it will create a whole new level of loyal customers and the rural players (which is still 40% of all gamers) is too large a group to ignore. To emphasise towards an exploitative business model will backfire, of that I am absolutely certain. 

So what about Nikolaos?
Well that is still in the works of the brain, but consider that he can develop his powers and please mummy and daddy at the same time on a much larger scale, can set the premise towards punishment and relief to people in many ways, we can see a new stage of networks (Watchdogs), streets (location) and souls (people) and now take the previous givens and consider that these are linked. We can address people via networks and via locations, the locations gives access to people and networks and people can find networks and locations. The option of taking over anyone in Watchdogs: Legion was a lot more brilliant than we think in that regard and in the next era that could go a long way. 

So as children of Hades, the Erinyes (furies) could come to people in dreams. The quote “the Erinyes, that under earth take vengeance on men, whosoever hath sworn a false oath”, now consider that marketing is often about ‘deceptive conduct’, if that is a false oath they should be scared shitless on getting a visit from the Erinyes. As such so should any CEO, CFO, and optionally any COO as well. Now consider Plutus, this one is the odd duck found in Greek and Christian settings, in Canto VII from Inferno by Dante Alighieri we see “Plutus is a demon of wealth who guards the fourth circle of Hell, “The Hoarders and the Wasters”. Dante likely included Plutus to symbolise the evil of hoarding wealth”, we now have a whole lot of new materials to work with and that is merely the beginning stage. 

We can look at limiting all we can, but when you consider that there is still a larger cost to streaming and that is one part people want to avoid, evolution of gaming becomes central. We get it, we can stream via our consoles and that is fine, but the data-man (your data provider) will exact revenge for usage (via a monthly fee) and overdrawn is a costly experience, so we need to evolve one to get the other and there are ways of doing that. I merely wonder if the makers ever considered to taking a very large leap to the right (where the creative part of the brain tends to house itself). I hinted at a few other things, but left them unspoken. It is for you to consider them and see where it can take gaming. I can’t do everything myself. 

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August 24, 2021 · 19:11

When two makes a good three

I was watching some movies when a thought dropped in on me. The thought was driven by a few factors and they include a former boss, the setting we see now and the larger station of keeping some of our thoughts (and data) private got me on this journey. 

I am making my thoughts public domain because I do not own any of the IP and this evolution benefits my IP, as such I am a nice guy. The issue is not merely having an USB drive, the problem is keeping that data secure. The cloud is less of a solution and as we se the largest IT corporations hacked, their solutions are not much use either, so you need an optional alternative.

So when we see the USB key, w consider that there is more to have. Now that they have 2TB solutions, the options to keep larger solutions out of reach of other hands, we need to consider what is possible. There are drives with some keypad and you can direct a code there, but these solutions will always be hacked. I saw some of the most ingenious security settings and I saw a man (not me mind you) look at it, consider it, look at his friend, they looked at each other, they tried a few things and less than 25 minutes later they had a 12 byte solution and the security was avoided. That is the real setting we face, so we need to split the solution.

So when we consider the split solution, the drive and the key, e also need to set a larger security, the stage where we do not have the options, but the makers have a website, and we get one option to initialise the drive with the key, once that drive is initialised, only THAT key will unlock it. There are all kinds of of disadvantages, I get that. But at some point you need to consider that if you lost your drive the data would be lost too. So why hand the data to the other player when the other player could end up with all the efforts without the payback.

I merely wonder why no one else took this setting to the next level. It is not unheard of to have a set of drives that require a hardware key, I just think they should not be on the same device. So the USB drive, the security key and you could make a great three and so far no one offers it to anyone (or so it seems), why is that?

The need for secure data is largely increasing and it will increase a lot more soon enough. With an almost daily barrage of hacked players many need an alternative and the cloud is seemingly not that much of a secure solution. So when we look at what is out there, we also see that combining two good ideas could make a decent combined product and I am merely wondering with millions of seeking a secure place for their data, why the larger players who already have the solutions never jumped on it.

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August 23, 2021 · 20:19

Watch it again!

There is a nice side to the 90’s. We all had a go at new things, there was the start of a new side of gaming, there were new frontiers in IT, there were all kinds of approaches to marketing and there were all kinds of new movies, movies that before that were never pushed to the larger extent. It gave us David Cronenberg, it gave us comic books and there was a new side of horror, at times more playful, but for the people who loved the comics, it was just awesome. One of these makers (Clive Barker) was already pushed into a few realms, but one side was to often ignored, I cannot tell whether it was because of how the non knowledgeable try to sell it, perhaps the review line of “a commercial and critical failure” was linked to it. Yet the story of the Nightbreed, Cabal and Median has potential, not as a slasher movie, but as a horror thriller that needs to be really dark. The kind of story that will make any average psychiatrist decide to retire on the spot. The story has so much to offer, that I am a little bewildered how movie makers 32 years later are ignoring that gem. Craig Sheffer played it decently (considering that there were the 90’s). And. Personal speculation is that he might have been chosen as he more roughly resembled David Boreanaz in Angel (and Buffy) and the makers knew how excited the ladies got over him. Yet I believe that Craig played a decent Boone, the rest of the cast was OK. That is not against them, but against the film makers who were all about slashers and posturing and not about maximising the impact of the large amounts of side stories that Cabal represented (as did Median). I reckon that Nightbreed might too large for a movie, and a miniseries (4-6 episodes of an hour) might make it a lot better and lets face it, this station is ruled by Clive Barker, wasting material that excellent should be considered a crime in TV and tinseltown land. 

Is there more?
Well yes and it is not limited to Clive Barker (although if I can ever revitalise Lords of illusion, I would). Consider the amazing result that IT became and what we saw in the works of Anne Rice in other movies. Now consider the challenge that the Mayfair witches leaved the film makers with The Witching hour. Anne Rice drenched the story in all levels of controversy and that works great in most horror, now add new levels of darkness that we can push for today and you have three books that could ultimately be a next generation focal point of fear for decades, I reckon that the film makers can push into this when the film maker looks at the colour black and considers it to be too light. That is where the boundaries are pushed and there is a larger station, the books of Wes Craven, Clive Barker and Anne Rice have shown them to be masters, they were used for quick revenue fixes and discarded, yet the people at Netflix, Amazon and Disney can make that into a realm of options with 3-5 movies, or larger miniseries with several movies in 5-7 parts, not as a cash cow, but as a station of creating new levels of fear. We can see Neil Gaiman stories making it into that realm, yet he need not be alone (even though he might like it), there is plenty for a while range of stations and now, 30 years later it is time to drill into those treasure troves again, the darker film maker is the most likely winner here and you only have to look at successes like American Horror Story to see that I have a decent case here. 

I wonder if someone in Tinseltown wakes up to that part of the equation, first come, first chance of becoming an accomplished winner. The 90’s produced a whole range of excellent ideas for the big and the 75” screen. 

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August 22, 2021 · 22:44

Is a coroner required?

Yup, that is at times the question. Not in all, but in some. You see, I am rewatching Contagion, Steven Soderbergh did an awesome job and now with Covid, it is almost a documentary (nyuk, yuk, nyuk). Yet this is not about covid, it is about mortality rate. It is in the beginning of the movie when Jude Law gives us “Print media is dead, I’ll save you a seat on the bus”. It is that part that woke up something in me. Yes, print media is dead, or to some extent it should be. So as we look into that direction we see a few items. The first is that the quote comes from a 2011 movie, so there is one side. We see all kind of magazines being removed from the magazine stands and that reinforces the view, yet in opposition we see Forbes giving us less than a year ago ‘Stop Saying Print Journalism Is Dead. 60 Magazines Launched During This Crazy Year’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/andymeek/2021/12/30/stop-saying-print-journalism-is-dead-60-magazines-launched-during-this-crazy-year/ ), yes that is one view to have and it is a relevant one. We get “the saga of print journalism over the last several years has been one of decay and rot; layoffs; budget cuts; shrinkage. And it’s easy to see where the pandemic has made all that worse. A moribund economy means fewer advertisers are spending money, which dries up print revenue, which means cutbacks, circulation declines, fewer employees, a greater reliance on wire copy — you get the idea. Proclaim your love of newspapers all you want” and we get in addition to that “NBA star Stephen Curry’s wife Ayesha Curry launched a quarterly food, home and lifestyle magazine called Sweet July with help from the publishing giant Meredith”.

We need to consider two things, the first is that new magazines are started all over the world, they al think that they have the formula that advertisers will want and people will want to buy. That is not a bad thing, it merely is a something that happens. A year ago some might have seen ‘News Corp announces end of more than 100 Australian print newspapers in huge shift to digital’, this is as I see it a policy shift, it does not end the publication, it merely shifts it to the digital side. And that is what Forbes and others are afraid of, to be disregarded, so the 60 magazines sounds nice, but how many of them lasts beyond year 1? How many are left after years 2? In this it is not merely the buyer, it will be the advertisers, if they stay away, the publication ends and 60 minus 112 is still a negative number. In this I merely looked at one nation, when we add the New York Times we get ‘More Than 1 in 5 U.S. Papers Has Closed’ and that is almost two years ago. So in all this, the response from Forbes seems a little feeble and desperate. 

So is the print media dead? I agree with people stating that it is dying, but dead? No, I do not believe that this is the case, yet I do believe that print media needs to change, how? Not sure, but the catering to everyone will not work, in this it is like gaming. If you make a game that is supposed to please everyone, you end up with a game that satisfies no one. I believe that print media is on that same setting. I also believe that it is the reason why niche magazines will outlast most others. It is also why the dip on local newspapers are missing to a much larger extent. The people like their local news, the national newspapers will often not cover it, and as such we see more and more newspapers disappear.

And when we take the pulse of something like this we also need to consider what the fallout will be on a much larger scale. You see if they do not, those who advertised in print will only have the digital wave, all whilst examining the population per magazine might reveal a few alternatives and here the local newspapers can pick up the slack to a much larger degree, they are in a good place, the niche in some cases is beneficial to a much larger community and I reckon that we will see a lot more of that in 2022-2023. To those who ignore the setting of “Print media is dead”, that is your right and I have nothing against that, but I do recommend you get a data coroner to see where you can get a benefit or two, because the early bird that hesitates, gets worms.

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