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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August 22, 2021 · 19:14

Time slice or lemon tart

That is indeed the question, but the question is not that important at present. It all started with a weird dream. In this dream I was in Montreal (Canada), now let’s be clear. I have no connection to the city, and apart from the fact that they have a good hockey team, I know next to nothing on the place, I know it is in French speaking Canada, but that is all. So in this dream I saw someone, it might be a reflective me, it could be anyone. They saved a hawk, or falcon from their balcony. The animal was shivering and clearly afraid, the person put on an oven mitt and offered his hand. The bird jumped on the hand with the mitt and carefully the bird was taken in the house. He placed the bird on top of a chair and got the bird rare roast beef (it seemingly really liked the rare roast beef) and gave it a bowl of water mixed with a lot of sugar. The bird was no longer seemingly afraid, but it was nervous. The person was looking at the clouds and wondered. He then moved what was drinkable and eatable into the bathroom, the bathroom and this is important was one of the innermost rooms in the house, no windows and no direct outer wall. He also placed a chair and a small table (it was a large bathroom), moved the goods into the bathroom and walked around the house pushing the heaters up everywhere, yet not to the highest setting, setting 4 was used on knobs with a 6 setting, I think that mattered somehow. Then he carefully moved the bird, now aptly named Horus with the mitt again and took the chair as well. He then got into the kitchen, took several items and moved to the bathroom where he set the radiator to high. 

Then it started to happen, Montreal was hit with a cold snap, it was only October, or November, but the cold-snap happened and well over 50% of the people in Montreal froze to death. 

Now, none of this is a mystery. I saw the Day after tomorrow, I played AC Origins, so all the elements (all except Montreal) fell into place, no real mystery or divine intervention.

Then I remembered every time I played a new game of Minecraft. Did you play it? The first day is important, because you need to create a safe location before the sun goes down. That part is important because too many RPG games are a service where it is at your convenience. Whenever you get around to it, and Bethesda has used that setting since I started playing it in Oblivion, in that same setting Fallout 3 onwards has the same stage. Yet what happens when that is not an option? When a house is on fire, it does not help to hand the bucket to the owner of the burning house when you get to level 13. He (of she) needs it now, or really soon. This is a stage we forgot about, the time slice. There are two issues.

  1. Do you have the minimum skills to cater to a time driven need?
  2. Should such a stage be set and always be achievable?

These two setting are important, there are gain two stages we must contemplate. In the first we cannot always be there, that is a mere fact of life and programming around that element is often folly. The second is that if we have a proper RPG, we have houses (guilds), but what if your first guild is not a mage or a tinkerer? So early in the game you see a setting where you can only watch, be that famous Monday morning quarterback and watch others do the job. Then we get to the important part, we need to set these parts to some level of randomisation that instigated when you START the new game. Not when you get there. So we see the need to have 20-40 missions with a decent rewards, but we need to be partially lucky, so that the internet cheater miss out as well. That is setting a larger story, especially when success unlocks a larger side quest. And the second part in all this, it enables and fortifies the replay of a game. So in the dream we can see that Horus was the trigger, but what happens when you never noticed that bird? Would you be ready? Would you make it to any shelter? And most important, without resources you will go hungry, thirsty and optionally will continue with decreased stamina and health (a day without food makes a person weak, try it for yourself if you doubt me).

So is the approach of having time sliced missions a hit or a lemon? I cannot answer that, I think it could be great if you program this properly and it will take proper programming to get it done. Programmers could ask Anunnaki (god of fate), but there is a chance that you will not receive any help from that direction. It will be a challenge on several levels, but should you pull it off you will be the one adding a new dimension to RPG gaming, a dimension that has been lacking for close to a decade, before that systems were just not strong enough.

In this I merely remembered the settings I came up with in Mass Effect Andromeda 2, Base of the pillar. And yes, I will admit that I had some overlapping ideas that I had for Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration, but I think that a good foundation (as long a the story is completely different) is not a bad thing. I saw the massive mass driven mistake that Andromeda was and there was a setting to fix it and regain credibility, but in that setting ME Andromeda would pack the second game with the first game, and even as a lot was the same, it was added with an enormous amount of changes and different storytelling. One needs to be faithful to the original trilogy. 

Yet all these settings cannot be more of the same, there needs to be a level of evolution. Yes there are plenty of gamers that do not mind more of the same, but they will soon realise that they are stuck in the past and that is as I personally see it never a good thing. And is success a guarantee? No, it is not. I do not offer guarantees, I merely dabble in ideas that can make the next generation of gaming special and enticing.We all might come up with a Nintendo WiiU, and that is fine, but it is not that system, it resulted in the Nintendo Switch and the few who are able to make THAT leap will make it big and that ups the level of gaming for everyone, that I the setting that players like Amazon Luna and Google Stadia (they a little less) get to look t and there is the larger station of play, a setting we have not seen before, not a game that exists everywhere. This is not about exclusivity, but about a totally new level and dimension of play, I think too many are forgetting that we need to push that part and not enough of us are making that leap. 

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August 21, 2021 · 17:08

Agrestally Ignorant

It took a day, I had to ponder several things here. I was drawn to an article by the associated press. The article (at https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-algorithm-technology-police-crime-7e3345485aa668c97606d4b54f9b6220) gives us ‘How AI-powered tech landed man in jail with scant evidence’. Here we have two issues, the first is that AI does not (yet) exist, the second is that AI evidence should not be valid, the rules of evidence are quite clear, so when I see “it came from a clip of noiseless security video showing a car driving through an intersection, and a loud bang picked up by a network of surveillance microphones. Prosecutors said technology powered by a secret algorithm that analysed noises detected by the sensors indicated Williams shot and killed the man.” So for all intent, we might think that the prosecutor was really clever, but as I personally see it, the man needs to be taken behind a bicycle shed and shot in the head, but that is merely my personal view. We might give value to “a secret algorithm”, yet that is merely an approach to not scrutinise the evidence. I have no idea how his defence faltered, but it did. 

In Intelligence analyses there are two parts. The first is that every source is unique and as long as they are NOT connected, they can NEVER support one another. Why is that? It comes from a much older setting which is found in “Trust, but verify!” We can accept all kinds of facts handed to us, but verification is where it is at. Verification gives us the larger setting that this source makes a claim and we verified that claim via other sources and we get the same results and conclusions. This is also why actual news needs collaboration from multiple sources, and it is why credibility of these sources matter. It is why witnesses are tested, cleared and processed to give the other party no option to diminish their testimony. It is so for a person and it needs to be more for any device. And whomever relies on “a secret algorithm”, is soon regarded as non-essential weight to any office. You see, the algorithm was programmed. I am not stating that the person was wrong, or did a bad job, but who knows what the brief for the algorithm was? That brief also gives the programmer more (or less) freedom of programming. Then we get the installation and testing of the microphones, it they are out by half an inch, there is every chance that they picked up another shot, perhaps even a muffler bang, who tested that part? Who looked at the map (a GIS speciality) and considered the noise and the event? Now consider for a moment the byline “ShotSpotter equipment overlooks the intersection of South Stony Island Avenue and East 63rd Street in Chicago on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021.”, this is all installed on a light-pole, so if any car ever hit it, the pole will be off by several degrees, did the software see that, was that ever considered? 

There is a lot more, it is seen in the part “The company’s methods for identifying gunshots aren’t always guided solely by the technology. ShotSpotter employees can, and often do, change the source of sounds picked up by its sensors after listening to audio recordings, introducing the possibility of human bias into the gunshot detection algorithm. Employees can and do modify the location or number of shots fired at the request of police, according to court records. And in the past, city dispatchers or police themselves could also make some of these changes”, so what were the raw collections, what was the distance to the event and what are the specifics of the so called “noiseless security video”, there are a truckload of issues and that is why verification is essential. This is all before we get to “an Associated Press investigation, based on a review of thousands of internal documents, emails, presentations and confidential contracts, along with interviews with dozens of public defenders in communities where ShotSpotter has been deployed, has identified a number of serious flaws in using ShotSpotter as evidentiary support for prosecutors”, it is merely the top of the iceberg, when we consider “classify 14 million sounds in its proprietary database as gunshots or something else”, you think this is trivial, but it is not. You see, this is in part the evidence, 14,000,000 sounds seems impressive, but it is not. You see there are an estimated 72 million handguns in existence, I have no included rifles and other two handed weapons, and if the database of sounds includes mufflers and tire blowouts, that lit is rather slim compared to what is out there. I can see close to half a dozen issues straight of the hockey-stick and whilst people are considering where the puck is (in Pittsburg they call it a biscuit). 

So why the hockey reference? The puck moves fast, really fast and plenty of people watching the game lose sight of it in a match, this is no different. Two sources, not connected and well over 50% unverified, how could this man be found guilty? I also have some serious questions for the judge there, but I wonder if it was on his plate, it was on the plate of the prosecutor and as I personally see it, that evidence had no case in court, except perhaps a court officiated by the Marx brothers. 

SZo when we get to the end and we see “ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clark declined to discuss specifics about their use of artificial intelligence, saying it’s “not really relevant.”” Someone needs to take that horse and coach it to the side of the road, what some call AI, is merely machine learning, optionally deeper learning and it makes all the difference. With the amount of human interference (interaction) on the track from the microphone to the court room, those relying on AI are hoping to avoid the setting of bias and programming error, even source comparison errors. I reckon this Ralph Clark is on a slippery slope and with Michael Williams now on the stage where he can claim damages, a decent 8 or 9 figure damage, the 200 cases might represent a massive payout from the Government making the rules of evidence a clear debating point for whomever takes this to the next level and when the government loses a second or third trial it will be up to the Ralph Clark’s of the world to set up a defence perimeter, but I reckon it needs to be a lot more than “a secret algorithm” because at that stage such a defence will not hold water, not by a long shot. It would also help by not hiding behind AI when it cannot be AI, but that is merely a personal observation.

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August 19, 2021 · 20:19

Ignored by media

Yes, that happens, we all see it, we all (to some extend) understand it. Yet what needs to happen for an article like ‘Will I ever be able to fly without feeling guilty again?’ (At https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57917193) to even have value? You see, this has happened before and this time its Lucy Hooker who does the damage. You see, I have no intention of taking the filtered information given to us for granted. You see, the slightly edited quote “Previously a regular flyer, visiting friends in Scotland and holidaying abroad, she says the penny dropped during that trip. And in the end, the decision was easy. She is one of a small band of people who have found flying just too uncomfortable to contemplate any more.” So, how can she afford it? I haven’t flown in 17 years, but that is because I am on a budget. So when we see “One flight from London to New York emits around 1.3 tonnes of carbon according to the offsetting organisation Atmosfair. Other organisations offer lower estimates, but even if you eat vegan and cycle everywhere, you’d struggle to make up for the emissions from a return trip”, I see this as a stupid BS article, a story by Miss Hooker to please others and none of them are particularly interested in the real deal, just like the Guardian and their Jetset BS. 

The largest extend was ignored again and again, as we take notice of the actual issue. The report which I discussed in ‘Uniform Nameless Entitlement Perforation’ on December 10th 2020 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/10/uniform-nameless-entitlement-perforation/), which has the ACTUAL report given to us by the UN Environment program, is merely a part of it, when we combine the European Environment Agency report, we see that 1% of plants do 50% of the pollution damage, but are they looking there? And there is more, 147 plants cause over 165 billion euro’s damage, so why are they not looking there? Why do we get BS article after BS article on some oversensitive person who saw a flood once? And to emphasise, the 147 plants do an equal amount of damage as the remaining 14178 facilities under scrutiny. So how often did the BBC (the Guardian too) do their homework and look into those accusation by the EEA? I bet that will be more crunchy than some sob-story over a person who will not be flying to Scotland to see relatives (or friends). 

Yes, we can all agree that we need to be carbon aware, but this is done whilst the media ignores the larger problem creators. 

And personally I do not care about Maggie Robertson, if she feels she sleeps better by signing up to Flight Free UK, that is fine by me, I avoided travel for 17 years by getting a budget shoved down my throat. And I am NOT ignoring the EEA report, even as the media is. You see, they avoided it, they did not oppose the report, they did not nitpick the report, they merely ignored it, and why was that? 

So if you want the real lowdown on pollution, find the EEA report and learn, also consider that everyone seems to ignore the 147 facilities and they have done so for well over a year, because the report might have been out for 8 months, but these 147 facilities have been around a hell of a lot longer, so why are we kept in the dark whilst attacking rich people with fuel efficient jets and people going on a holiday perhaps once a year, all whilst 50% of ALL pollution is caused according to the EEA by 147 facilities, so which facilities are they?

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August 18, 2021 · 23:02

As the pie shrinks

Yes, we all see it, we all notice it to some extent, but that is not a given that what we see is complete. As I personally see it, the stage is one one hand seen in ‘UK defence giant Ultra agrees to £2.6bn Cobham takeover’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58228657)

where we see it is not the first caper, Both Ultra Electronics and Meggitt are now US owned. So whilst we are sussed to sleep with ““safeguarding and supporting the UK’s national security” including national security clearance arrangements”, supported by “It has also pledged to protect existing and create new UK manufacturing and engineering jobs, and to increase investment in research and development (R&D) in the UK” some people will hope you ignore the larger picture, and a lot of you will. You see there is more to this and if someone did not notice the total invoice of £8.9B the American were happy to pay, consider that they need to get that money back and then some. They will keep to the letter of the agreement, which is anyones guess as it involves National security and no one (except for a really small few) will get to see it. 

What we see ignored is not what is done, but what it enables the US firms to do. You see products are phased out all the time, but now the Americans can phase out the low margin articles at their own speed, in more than a few cases 3-5 years sooner, giving the UK all kinds of headaches and the logistics of it as well as existing inventory will not be the shortest list there. There is an upside to the American setting, they get to call the needs and the make of a lot of articles to the largest degree. 

So, let’s create a fictive example. Consider that the UK Navy has all its operational and tactical stations record on a betamax tape, it gives the admiralty a good show of who and what is performing and what is not, it is standard operational practice. The Americans have a VHS alternative, but in the end it does the same thing. The UK took Betamax as it has the highest quality and they had no local alternative, the US took VHS because it is American. This is not new or unique, most nations have this. To give an example, the Dutch maker Tulip computers would not exist in the 90’s if that rule was not in place. So now consider that 3M buys the UK firm and now it can over 2-3 years phase out Betamax. Now we see a new stage, the UK admiralty will have to upgrade ALL the recorders and players in the ENTIRE Navy. 

The UK will over time face this. I personally see it as a given setting. Now consider these are not recorders and players, but Goalkeepers, Gatlings, and other parts. 

Now also (from the Ultra Group website) the optional stage of “Many nuclear facilities across the world are facing the rising challenge of replacing or refurbishing outdated and obsolete sensors and transmitters. Ultra’s advanced ageing and obsolescence technology transforms nuclear power plants and ensures economical long-term operation.” And consider the outdated (or soon to be) sensors in Nuclear submarines and other vessels, that is just the start, so over the next 10-15 years the UK will get an overhauled Navy, but on the time schedule and overspending of the USA. So in what universe was this allowed? I get it, there is a larger playing field, but now that field is decided on US needs and as their logistical stage changes, so much the UK or find another solution. Now, the UK budget cannot simply cut defence, it is adjusted for the American format and it will see large amounts of funds go to America. Or in another setting, we will see that a bullet normally costs 0.10, the making is 0.07, so the stage is 0.03 per bullets taxed. In the new setting we see 0.01 per bullet on paper, 70% of 0.09 goes to the USA as contribution (0.063) and the income per bullet is taxed at 0.027, which is now at a loss, so no taxation there. Moreover there would be a massive tax deduction, so that is one place to go I reckon and this is not a fictive setting, this has happened before and it gets to be better when the list is not ‘bullet’, but an amalgamation of all kinds of ‘perishable hardware’ a totalised invoice, which is much harder to tinker with. Yes as I see it for the Americans it is a very nice investment that will pay back well over 200% before year three is out. And as they are interacting with other players, the massive profits that usually serves the internal good of the UK will now go to America, so who approved all this?

Time for you to find out, have a great day!

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August 18, 2021 · 02:05

Sliding media values

I got a little angry as I took notice of ‘Lily Cole: Model apologises for posing in a burka on Instagram’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58245304). Here we see the BBC in an alleged new attempt to create click bitches. You see, why would the legally allowed acts of a writer (Lilly Cole) require her to publicly apologise for something that is in the first not illegal and not even immoral. In the second, I hereby request a list of ALL the critics that we see in “Critics said posing in the garment, worn by some Muslim women, did not help diversity and was ill-advised given the current unrest in Afghanistan”, so I want that list of critics (and stakeholders too). Diversity is not seen through fashion, to be clear it is my view and when I see “Cole said she understood why the image upset people and wanted to “sincerely apologise for any offence caused”. She agreed it was “ill-timed” and said she “hadn’t read the news at the time”.” I personally wonder who is pushing this anti islamic bullshit. Now, I am not muslim, I do not are whether a person (disregarding religion) decides to wear a Burka, a Niqab, a Hijab, or a Chador. Is that not the freedom we signed up for? 

That same BBC is very motivated to push any link to Martin Bashir out of the news (or as far to the back as possible). So I am understandably angry. I do not know what the motivation, or the choice was of Lily Cole to give rise to diversity. And when I see the utterly slim connection of “Cole, 33, posted the pictures as Afghanistan was being taken over by the Taliban, who forced women to wear the burka when they were last in control there in the 1990s” is beyond belief. First these idiots (oops, sorry critics) will optionally be found to have been super silent in cases of Syria and Yemen as well as the inactions by America in Afghanistan, the latter part is getting all kinds of exposure. In the second, the global Islamic population is almost 2 billion, making it 25% of the world population, the Taliban is an estimated mere 230,000 making it a 0.015% of the Islamic population and a 0.00294% of the global population, so why the overreaction? I am speculating and willing to bet that this is due to anti-islamic sentiments and the BBC is reporting this, whilst allegedly ignoring all kinds of issues for their stakeholders? 

Does anyone get the drift that the BBC needs to overhaul their editorial staff? I need to be honest, the BBC has done its share in exposing anti-Islamophobia, that should not be ignored, but this piece could have been done a hell of a lot better. So when we look at some of the quotes and we see “The Times columnist Janice Turner accused Cole of “putting Instagram posturing before universal human rights”.” In this I am willing to call Janice Turner a bit of a raving loon. Why? This is about a book, Lily Cole’s book and if she thinks that she is doing the best to produce and promote her product then it is her choice. I have nothing against JT messaging Lily Cole stating that she is not taking the right route, no, the BBC made it all public and no matter how you slice it, she did it on HER instagram account. When I search for Instagram+Scandal I get 85,000,000 hits on Google. In this day and age when ACTUAL journalism is sliding, was there any value in giving Lily Cole visibility in this way? Then we see “Anjum Peerbacos, co-founder of the Hijabi Half-Hour podcast, said the pictures were “disrespectful””, which is a separate and different issue. I cannot comment on that (not Islam and lacking knowledge) and what the BBC did not give us is that she is also a member of AVOW- Advancing Voices of Women against Islamaphobia. OK, this view has merit, but the BBC did not take that path, the path was all accusing on Lily Cole and with the exception of Anjum Peerbacos it was the wrong route to take. 

We all make mistakes, there is no denying that. Yet to hammer an activist who just wrote a book it is unacceptable to take such an approach. I believe that islamic people have a decent stance to talk about dress-up, yet her answer “If you are serious about it and you’re passionate about it and you want to see diversity normalised, you bring women forward that are from that diverse background and you platform them”, is a decent intelligent one. A view that almost falls into the background, too far into the background. 

So why is it making me angry?
The BBC was ignoring several cases of houthi missile attacks on Saudi civilian targets, the BBC has been adamant on giving the highlights on many causes and that should not be forgotten. Yet in this case it could have taken a very different route, whether this is good or bad for Lily Cole is something that I cannot predict, but I wish her the best. Advocating diversity is a good cause and perhaps Anjum Peerbaco could set up a special in the Middle East Eye (a paper she writes for), or perhaps via AVOW. Let’s not forget that we all make mistakes and teaching us the why can almost never be a bad thing. It might help Lily Cole, I do not know, I am merely fishing here.

Yet I believe that the BBC with that article made a larger mistake and they should repair the damage they do, I truly believe that. And in the end, is fighting against islamophobia and for diversity to some extent not an overlapping interest area?

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August 17, 2021 · 02:31

The stupidity of catering

Catering is a double sided coin, there is a plus side and there is a negative side. In this there are to problems with that equation, in the first these are not sides of the same coin, they are two coins, one is larger than the other and as such we see the reflective setting change. Consider two coins, like a dime and a dollar, or a pence and a pound. Now consider that they both have heads and tails, you can choice one or the other and you think that the biggest one is your gain, but that would be wrong, it is the smaller one and the other side of the larger coin is the headway and losses you make and they tend to be larger. It is the price of catering. Like the stupid manager with dollar shaped pupils, they see revenue, but they do not recognise cost, it is part of another branch of their company, so they sell and dump all the support to the services side, in some cases (what I personally witnessed) selling things that will not work. It was their revenue and their bonus. After which they will suddenly become helpful and let their services department solve it all, making sure that delays are set in motion so that the 90 day threshold is passed and then whatever is paid back will not affect their bonus. The stupidity of catering is always one sided. Even me, I cater to me, I admit that and I have no issues with catering to me, but I will remain fair. I will not sell what will not work, I will not cater to the impossible. And that is the setting we see today, catering to the impossible.

The news (at https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/8/16/the-us-the-taliban-and-the-stunning-defeat-in) gives us “The Taliban victory is a major humiliation for the US”, it is not a weird consideration and there have been like mind voices in the past. I myself voiced issues with inactivity as early as 2013 and 2014, yet the Americans made noise that they knew better and now we see another stage. A stage that the media is ignoring. Yes they give their ‘click bitch’ emotional setting, but the larger stage that Al Jazeera hints at with “It was expected, yes, but not so rapidly, so victoriously, so humiliatingly”. The issues is troops and material, as I voiced the Comanche approach (an American approach no less) well over half a decade ago, the Americans catered to stakeholders and set on a perch. They should have taken a page out of the book of Quanah Parker who gave them hell in the late 1800’s (around 1870), that would have been a way to deal with the Taliban, but they decided to sit on a perch and halt any action and now we see the other side of that coin, the Taliban overran nearly all of Afghanistan in less than a week, they had the troops, they had the hardware and no one had a clue.

Now as we see Kabul being overrun, we suddenly get ‘Afghan President Ashraf Ghani flees Kabul to ‘prevent bloodshed’’ (I personally think he ran for his life caring only for self, but that might be merely my thought). There is also ‘Afghans Need a Humanitarian Intervention Right Now’, yet if you believe that this will happen you are quite crazy. I find the call by Micheál Martin calling ‘calls on Taliban to respect humanitarian law’ and this is politics? The loser in a war does not get to make demands, that has been a set result long before the Americans held that clambake from 19 Apr 1775 to 3 Sept 1783. The Dutch had a picnic opposing the Spanish in the years from 1566 to 1609, as such, I have no idea what will happen in Afghanistan, but it will not be pretty, that much I feel certain about. You see ABC news gave the people 8 hours ago ‘Who are the Taliban and what do they want?’, the did not go into any part of the folly that allowed Afghanistan to be overrun so fast. And the people in the media are not asking that question, not the Democrats, not the Republicans, and as I personally see it both sides catered to stakeholders and the maximisation of war revenue which to the largest degree gave the victory to the Taliban. When you consider the projects that USAID finished in Afghanistan, when you consider the costs and who got paid? How were they paid? A group that can overthrow a nation in a week and we need to consider “USAID completed the construction of three generation plants in 2009, 2016, and 2019 and is constructing three solar power plants and a wind farm that will add 110 megawatts of power to the national power grid” and those are merely the highlights. 

So what will happen next?
That is actually the question that is harder to answer, because it depends on the Taliban and not on the politicians that make claims that there are options and that they are working on this. Because that will be something that is so far from the truth it will become laughable. And it gets to be worse than this, you see the ‘allied’ forces abandoned their translators, the world is seeing that so any encounter where translators are needed it will be on the US forces to find them and secure them beforehand, a much larger tactical advantage then they are considering. 

A stage that might seem to be evolving, but that would be wrong, the larger stage is not that they merely lost, it is that the intelligence services in that region had seemingly no clear insight into their opponents and their resolve, their size and the materials available to them. Afghanistan is 270% of the UK and it got overrun in a week, is anyone waking up to these numbers? The afghan military was useless and their weapons pointless, the same might be said for the departing allies the Afghan army had, as such we see defeat in three ways and the media is not picking up on that, how weird?

The Guardian gives us “The Taliban have 80,000 troops in comparison with a nominal 300,699 serving the Afghan government”, this now implies that the Taliban went up against an army almost 400% their size and still overtook Afghanistan in a week, a cause for alarm and a cause for concern, so when we see ‘The world must not look away as the Taliban sexually enslaves women and girls’ we see that they too forget that to the victor go the spoils, all the spoils. England learned that lesson the hard way, The Dutch taught the Spanish and the Indonesians taught the Dutch, it was an easy lesson and history is filled with examples and the biggest lesson? These winners did not sit on a perch, it never ever works. 

As such the largest station of lessons is about to unleash and it will be worse, because now the Taliban will cry for their right to vaccines, so which nation will ingratiate themselves by providing vaccines? I reckon we will know a lot more when we get to the next weekend when we can sit on our own perches again, preparing for that Monday morning game as a quarterback.

And the Afghan people? It seems to me that the stakeholders will not care, it is not part of their spreadsheet.

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