December 12, 2020 · 23:00

Lessons to be learned

We all have our flings, a lot of ladies still have an ongoing fling with ‘Sex and the City’, Whilst the man cannot help themselves but to run to the nearest cinema when they see the calling card ‘007’ (also known as 003.5 when he was young). Loads of people (myself included) were nuts about Star Trek, many were Babylon 5 fans (me too) and a lot of us could not wait for what would come after Star Wars. Some franchises get to us and they capture us. The same for the Marvel characters. But over the years I learned that a binge fetish comes with an attached version of digital tummy bounce. Too much, even of a good thing is not always good. I know, I had my events, there was the evening with two T-bone steaks (1.2 Kg beef in total), there was the 6 mango pancakes occasion when having Yum Cha in Chinatown, there was the case of me and the 11 turkey tandoori drumsticks in Stockholm and the less said about me and a two litre jar of custard the better.  This happens with movies and TV series too. During the lockdown I had a binge with 19 seasons of Midsomer Murders, Star Wars 1-9 (plus Rogue One), NCIS season 1 through 15, as well as a revisit on Blu ray of ALL Marvel movies. 

They tend to weigh on us, it is like we accept the universe we watch, but we also understand that what we see is not real, for some reason the borders face during a binge, have you never noticed that? So when I saw ‘Disney ramps up Star Wars and Marvel franchises’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55269531), I had my concerns. Now, for those who love the binge, who love their passion of Star Wars, Marvel or Disney, I am fine with that, I wish you all the best (and loads of happy fun), yet the article gives us two parts.

The first is “it also announced price increases from February next year”, OK, £7.99 per month might not seem a big deal, but with unemployment the way it is, it will make a lot of people unhappy. Australia gives us $8.99AUD per month (or $89.99 per year) which is interesting as it implies that for a year, you get 2 months for free, it would make the stage more interesting, but overall, it implies that Australia is getting Disney Plus almost 50% cheaper than the UK (which translates to $14.04 per month), as such in this global age, a lot of people will not be happy. This was merely an observation, not a stage of discussion.

The second part is seen with “Disney said that it planned to offer 10 new TV series in its Marvel and Star Wars franchises over the next few years”, and yes, we have an issue with ‘over the next few years’, which is blatantly inaccurate. The hype creators gave us WandaVision, Loki, Hawkeye, WhatIf, Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel 2, Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, as well as several movies (at least one title confirmed for 2022) as well as “roughly 10 Star Wars series are coming to Disney Plus, but it also gave some early details about a few of those series and other Star Wars projects”, which the Verge (at https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/10/22167976/disney-investor-day-2020-biggest-announcements-plus-marvel-star-wars-pixar-animation) gives us. 

We want to make it bout the money, but we need to look at the fact that a lot of people get to enjoy well over a dozen series in a setting that they LIKE, all whilst the US produced over 500 series last year that most of us (non-Americans) will not get to see. So is the stage of £2 (per month) really a lot? No, but it is the £7.99 (£80, or £96) a year that matters. You see, we all see the full time incomes, but there are plenty on £13,803 for part-time roles, which is not a lot, especially when the bills are paid.

Yet this is NOT about the money, consider the annual cost and consider the focal point of Disney Plus. There is off-course more to Disney Plus, but to have such a driven focal point can slap back to the owners. Yes, they are and should be proud of what they offer, but like gaming, we might have a favourite game, but at times we want something else and there are alternatives, but there is the snag for Disney, if the people turn away from Disney too often, someone will figure out to be a paying member two months a year and catch up on those months. What will Disney do, turn these paying customers away? 

The stage of annual fees versus returning fees will soon become a much more focussed debate and a focal point for revenue investigators all over, because it is not merely Disney that faces this consideration. In this, I have nothing against Stan, HBO, Netflix, Disney Plus, or Apple TV, but the people in a much larger setting have limited funds, they could consider one, some might consider a second one, but that is pretty much it, the quality of life in most of the Commonwealth and the EU is not in a good place. So whilst some are fighting over the pie, the consumer is considering another buffet

MonthChannel
JanuaryNetflix
FebruaryApple TV
MarchDisney Plus
April
MayNetflix
JuneApple TV
JulyDisney Plus
August
September
OctoberNetflix
NovemberApple TV
DecemberDisney Plus

In this setting we see three months a year, some might go for to month a year and optionally safe a little money, in that setting both Disney and Netflix will enter a tunnel of massive problems, their stage is not fitting the cost endured, you cannot make a case of $15,000,000,000 of costs a year and people merely coming for two months a year, the system will collapse and that is what Disney faces too. The people are lacking cash and optionally bandwidth too.

Do you think they will waste time on too much monthly fees, or will they wisen up and binge when they can, let’s not forget these executives promoted bingeing when it suited their needs, now it will not, and the spreadsheet deck that they hold does not permit the thought I am voicing here.

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December 12, 2020 · 04:05

Yay discrimination!

Yup, that has to go down like a kick in the head, does it not? But that was the thought I had when I was confronted with the BBC article ‘Mastercard severs links with pornography site’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55267311), now personally I do not care about Pornhub. I don’t think I have ever been there, honestly. I am not anti or against porn, in Europe it was available on nearly every corner and a lot of it for free, as such I got over that need decades ago. So, whatever, I (for the most) do not care, but I hate hypocrisy, I hate it with a passion. So when I see “Mastercard says it is ending the use of its cards on the pornography platform Pornhub after a review confirmed the presence of unlawful content”, yup, it is an option they can take, but at the same time they are setting themselves up for a court case regarding discrimination by Pornhub. You see, when we consider “Members of China’s Uyghur ethnic minority are being used as forced labor in factories far from the so-called reeducation camps that have held them for years in Xinjiang, according to an extensive new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think-tank founded by Australia’s government” (source: Quartz), if I remember my law lessons, slave labour is illegal, is it not? 

As such, how many Nike shops were banned by Mastercard as well? How many Apple Stores are not able to process Mastercard? The New York Post (25th July) gave us ‘Nike should quit lecturing on social justice — and atone for using slave labor in China’, where was Mastercard at that point? Oh and according to ABC VISA is doing the same thing and for both I see no actions on Nike, Apple and a few others, like fashion stores that have been involved in ‘Aussie fashion retailers accused of driving poverty in Bangladesh with cut-throat pricing in new Oxfam report’, this came from Nine News 3 weeks ago regarding an Oxfam report, so where were VISA and Mastercard barring “Some of the biggest Australian fast fashion brands” in this? Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, I say. But it seems that hypocrisy is high with the financial institutions. Now, I am not stating that Pornhub is innocent, even as we are told “A New York Times investigation accused the site of being “infested” with child-abuse and rape-related videos”, it calls for investigation and pressure, but the voice of Mastercard and VISA stating some holier than though barring, all whilst they have no issue processing slave labour goods is a bit much, even for me.

So when we get “Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof named it in his New York Times article, saying he “didn’t see why search engines, banks or credit-card companies” should “bolster” Pornhub”, I am willing to initially side against Pornhub on matters and when we see a name like Nicholas Kristof, we all want to see where and how he got the data he used, fair is fair, yet in this, I see the actions by VISA and Mastercard as a BS approach towards the limelight. Especially when we see reports of Oxfam and several others on the other issues. But I reckon that these two card companies will hide behind the ‘too complicated an issue’ and will continue as usual, but as I see it, they are discriminating foundations and if Pornhub wants to extract a billion in losses from these two, I would be able to live with it, but it does not take them off the hook. Even if we are told “Pornhub, which has denied the claims”, I would want to look into the evidence of Nicholas Kristof, I have had my doubts on journalists several times, but this is a Pulitzer Prize winner, they tend to remain well above board, in this Pornhub is the lesser trustworthy of the two on a mere glance, and I state that speculatively, I have not seen the evidence and I hope that Nicholas Kristof will hand over that evidence to the press on a much larger stage. Yet, we need to see Pornhub like a much less puritan version of YouTube, or Facebook (me thinks), as such they facilitate automated distribution, just like social media, but they too need to look into matters to a much deeper degree, if I believe that social media must do this, then players like Pornhub must too, and if there are criminal issues, they need to be dealt with and fast. We cannot say for sure what is criminal and what is fake criminal and the track is not an easy one, a source (Tweaktown) gave us in December 2018 “Pornhub saw 4.79 million videos uploaded in 2018, with 147GB per second”, this might not be as much as YouTube, but it cannot be too far off and a place like Pornhub does not have the infrastructure that Google has (my speculated view), as such there is every chance that criminal activities will pass the filters and not be seen until it is much too late, and yes, something needs to be done, but we can do without the hypocritical BS that VISA and Mastercard are giving us, if anything Pornhub needs the funds to upgrade their hardware on detection, investigation and reporting, that’s how I see it.

You know, this article might have the most use of the letters pee, ohh, arr, enn ever. Oh Joy! Well, time to enjoy Saturday with a strong cup of coffee and a sandwich.

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December 11, 2020 · 23:36

What gives experience?

Hah! I did not give up, I persisted and it came to me. I was looking at a way to set levelling in the RPG game that I discussed in previous blogs and I have a handle on it now. You see, Bethesda was not wrong, they were merely incomplete (as I personally see it). They almost got it right in the past but they set a different premise (something they are allowed to do), as such, in the RPG I devised there is a different jump. The artisans, the members of arcane houses, they all have settings of levels, but they are all DIFFERENT. It took me a while to set that premise. So as I started to discuss them in ‘Playing the stage’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/18/playing-the-stage/), there I started with the House of Forests, and introduced the Floating house. It was in ‘Invoke the liquid mountain’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/20/invoke-the-liquid-mountain/) where I mentioned House of Chimes and I almost forgot about the Monks of the Sulphur Cave and the House of Bones. There is some (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/22/chimes-are-wind-translators/), and it did not dawn on me to make the levelling different for each class. As forests can only exist by preserving it, as such the power and levelling of druids come from seeing the sick trees and save them or kill them and replaced the killed tree by a new sapling. As his staff is instrumental it will be the focal point of experience and levelling. A similar (but not the same) approach can be used on the Monks of the Sulphur Caves. It is different for the members of the Floating House, the water specialists. It would make them swimmers and water breathes, but that would be too shallow, they are rain invokers and their experience is set to the amount of spells they cast. As I am showing now, I am not completely there yet, but as we are confronted with a player that has an arcane and an artisan cast, we see different levelling systems, you have to become more aligned with the person you create. Gender might no longer be a real concern, but the choice of arcane and artisan house more so. If we see this we are looking at one of five and one of four levelling systems, we will not now, not ever become all round specialists of everything, but that is the price we get for something new. It also sets a different focal point in taking out enemies and overcoming barricades in the game. It is perhaps not completely original, but in this shape it is completely new. We can be an expert, the expert, we merely cannot be the expert in everything, it seems lacking Zen, but I believe that this approach will make the game a more Zen experience. I reckon that this will also create an optional very new ‘New Game+’ version. Where we optionally reincarnate with part of the abilities of the previous life, but not the powers derived from them, an option to have additional stamina and a larger setting of magical hubris (read: mana), it is merely a stage and this gives me the setting where I designed the larger stage for a few options in less than 4 weeks all by myself (yay me). Or as I would optionally say “Ubisoft eat your heart out”, but that is just me. So I got some of the arcane done, a larger stage of levelling, now I need to concentrate on the larger main stories and some of the side stories. Perhaps I will put them here too soon enough. 

All this and it is not even midnight yet. Whatever will I do next?

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December 11, 2020 · 20:54

A weird vindication

Yup, we all face vindication at some point, it can be ‘I told you so’, it can be ‘Yup, I watched it and it went exactly as I expected’, and it can be ‘You should have listened to me’, To be honest, I hope at times it is almost never the third one, there will ALWAYS be an exception, but the third one is laced in arrogance and I personally think that it is laced to deeply in arrogance, as such I tend to side with the first two sentiments. 

Now, this day started weird. I woke up from a slumber. We all have those moments at times, in this instance I had  sort of waking dream, so I cannot say what kind of dream it was, it might be a movie script, yet the setting was a little too surreal. It was in the Netherlands, apparently the Dutch Military Police (they also guard the royal family) had set a parameter where the non used royal houses were used as stash locations. They were instructed to investigate a reporter who had found a snippet of that setting and they decided to smear his career in several ways as to take focus away from those locations. They involved the foreign office to muddy the waters. It was a small group of less than a dozen agents, but the stage was sullied by VEVAK as one of its agents performed a ‘service’ once and they had an inside scoop on technology that was stored in one of the locations. As the foreign office operative was smearing the reporter, VEVAK had altered the information to the smallest degree, but it woke up Mossad and as they started to look into the matters the reporter as well as well as the crooked military police agent were all in their  alleged private hell and as Mossad as played in a few ways the criminal police officers had no place to go but towards handing over the technology to Iran. Anyway that is when I woke up, and I saw that I missed out on the first hour of the Game Awards 2020. 

So why is this vindication? The Last of Us part 2 (7 wins), Ghosts of Tsushima (1 win), Final Fantasy 7 remake (1 win), 9 wins, all Sony exclusives, that is what I mean with Microsoft being off their game by a massive amount, there were more non-Microsoft wins (Animal Crossings) as such the weakest console got the award when the most powerful console did not. Microsoft did win the   Sim/Strategy Game Award and the Flight Simulator that they have left no surprise, it is BEYOND amazing, fair is fair. But that is one title, in this game award show Microsoft was a larger absent force, to get to the top layer you have to up the game to a much larger degree, Sony did, Microsoft to a larger degree did not, the absence of Ubisoft needs to be noticed too, there is a larger stage and both Ubisoft and Microsoft are no longer in the centre of it, the fact that Microsoft got mentioned (in light of Sims) is fair but it is one in a stage where they used to be a contender to a much larger field, fo me this is an ‘I told you so’ event. 

The exclusives matter, if they rock the field they rock gaming, and this year is a sore point for both Ubisoft and Microsoft. I wonder what will happen next year. CD Projekt Red has fixing to do, yet they could end up taking some of the awards, There are a few more players, but the stage is shifting and in this there is a larger push for Sony to rule the complete center stage. The 9 awards are a clear indication of that. It was always hard for any fight between two Sony titles, as such there is a little surprise that Ghosts of Tsushima only got one, but the competition was fierce and The Last of Us part 2 was a price fighter here. No matter who of the two won, the players and the gamers in the end they won, especially if they had both games. So as we are about to enter Saturday I will continue on the RPG I was working on, still haven’t worked out the new levelling system, well actually perhaps in part I have, but I need to think through whether it will not become too chaotic. In gaming chaos is fine, in programming a little less so, it allows for too many bugs and glitches to creep in. Innovation is cool, but the path towards it, often enough, less so. 

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December 11, 2020 · 11:07

Tripped by a thought

Yup, this happens. We watch things, we read things and it mixes into an idea. The first element in this was the movie Kingdom of Heaven (by Ridley Scott). I love this movie, for some reason it feels more real than any of the other movies that are founded on the crusades are. There are a few other reasons, there is always a good reason to watch any movie with Orlando Bloom and Alexander Siddig and the fact that it also had Liam Neeson, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons and several others did not hurt that cause either. I was struck by the charisma that Ghassan Massoud brought to the screen in Kingdom of Heaven. That movie is pretty much forever in the back of my mind. The second element was something I read. The quote “An ifrit can further be bound to a sorcerer, if summoned”, as well as “In the latter account, the “ifrit among the jinn” threatens Muhammad with a fiery presence, whereupon the archangel Gabriel taught Muhammad a Du’a (Islamic prayer) to defeat it”, this struck a chord as it is the only reference I have seen at present where Christian faith and Islamic faith crosses (perhaps there are more). But it got me thinking. What happens if an Afreet, a dweller of the sands is confronted by the invasion armies of the west? The Crusaders, the Templars, the Teutons, and some of these organisations still exist today. So what happens when an Afreet goes on a quest to understand the enemy of its sands? The idea is not entirely new, the Afreet made an appearance in True Blood and in American gods, but in both cases it is less seen from the view of the Afreet, and as a demon they are part immortal, or at least can exist for thousands of years, anyone with that level of timespan has a different view on matters. As such the Afreet can be in the past and the present giving us a very different stage.

We have been so obsessed with the western folklore, that we forget that there is a large area of folklore that has almost never been tapped into and when we consider that Netflix is present in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, I wonder why we get this oversight. Of course they can also go for the other movie I came up with ‘How to kill a politician’ which optionally might be a big hit in the Islamic world, it might not be something that a person like Geert Wilders likes, but it is a door he opened himself and France added spice to that soup. 

All options I did in mere hours, as such I wonder what is keeping some so called creators in creating actual new stuff (instead of a new version of old stuff). It is as I personally see it the difference between iterative and innovative. A stage that America is shifting in, they are moving more and more towards iterative because they can no longer find the innovative people. A sad state of affairs as I personally see it.

Is it me? Am I tripped by a thought, or am I seeing it correctly that we are missing out on true innovation in both movies and TV series? I am not ignoring the stage where we are told that there are “In 2019, the number of original scripted television series in the United States hit 532”, I am not doubting that, I am merely noticing that other places in the world, these series are missing, or not shown. And to be honest, I have my doubt on all 532 series being actual innovative series. There is nothing wrong with iterative series, but they are a prolongation of something else. Another CSI, another NCIS, another Star Trek, another Superman. I will agree that there are plenty of fans for them, but at times we need to offer something so new people gasp at the notion of difference. I get the setting that this does not always ends up being positive (Firefly, Dollhouse) but they were true innovations, they were different and they have scores of fans, but it was not meant to be. I get it and perhaps my ideas will never become reality either, but I remain innovative in my thinking, it did lead to several 5G IP parts and I expect a few more in the coming year. 

Yet in this I do not pursue a path, I let it was over me just like the Afreet did, just like the soon to be dead politician (in the Movie) and the stage of being between two universes (Keno Diastima), a stage I found in mere hours, yes I agree they are not finished, yet I did most of the work by myself in mere hours. So I wonder what others are capable of making, even if we do not see these results on Netflix, Stan, Youtube or TV. I wonder what became of the 532 series, because so far what we get to see is “Find Out Which Series Will Return for Another Season”, a stage that we accept, but there is more then returning series, they are an accepted and essential part of TV (and streaming), but where is all the new stuff? 

It is a thought that is tripping me and making me trip (to coin a phrase).

And all this is happening whilst I am trying to find a new and original way of levelling up a character in the RPG I have been writing about. We tend to see RPG’s in missions, kills and achievements. I want the levelling to be different, but I am still seeking a way, perhaps I will return to the mission stage of levelling up, but I am trying to avoid it, an RPG can only stand on its feet when it offers more and different stages, not merely more of the same, we have all seen that and as such I am considering other methods, yet the thought of how is not clicking into the frame of mind and the frame of gaming, yet I hope that to be a temporary thing for now.

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December 10, 2020 · 20:47

Uniform Nameless Entitlement Perforation

As I stated yesterday, lets take a look at the Emissions Gap Report 2020, I wanted to see where the lifestyle change to the super wealthy would solve the environmental issue as Tim McGrath rote in his BBC article, which I covered in ‘Hatred of Wealth’ Yesterday. There we saw in the BBC article ‘Climate change: Global ‘elite’ will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles’ the mention of  “And for the top 10% of earners, this would mean cuts to around one tenth of their current level. But for the richest 1%, it would mean a dramatic reduction”, in this he also makes mention of his friend at chapter 6, who was a contributor, as such we should look there. When we get there we get a few facts. As we see “Average consumption emissions vary substantially between countries. For example, current per capita consumption emissions in the United States of America are approximately 17.6 tons CO2e per capita, around 10 times that of India at 1.7 tons per capita. By contrast, the European Union and the United Kingdom together have an average footprint of approximately 7.9 tons per capita (see chapter 2).” Here we need to take a little gander. ‘per capita’ gives us a Latin term that translates to “by head”, and the UN does nothing without a reason, so why not ‘per person’ does it seemingly looks ‘more intelligent’? You see India has well over 1.3 billion people, America has 325 million people. Which now implies that one nation has a different pattern when we take the whole look. Anyhow, they come to the conclusion of “A range of estimates point to a strong correlation between income and emissions, with a highly unequal global distribution of consumption emissions. Such studies estimate that the emissions share of the top 10 per cent of income earners is around 36–49 per cent of the global total, whereas the lowest 50 per cent of income earners account for around 7–15 per cent of all emissions”, this is not a bad view, I do not agree, but their report does not need to give in to my considerations. It is here that we introduce the data from the European Environmental Agency (EEA) where we get “Half the damage is being done by just one percent of industrial plants”, as such in Europe 50% is done by 147 industrial plants? Where in this view do the wealthy users of private jets stand? You see on page 84 we see the only two mentions of Jet in the entire report, it is “IEA estimated that the mean production costs of aviation biofuels in 2018 were approximately two to three times that of fossil jet kerosene (IEA 2018)”, it is not precise, it is an estimation, and it reflects on cost, not on pollution, as such where did Tim McGrath get his data? I found mine in two minutes, and the BBC let him. So as we consider the impact of this report (which is better then I expected), as such I wonder what the issue was with the lifestyle of the wealthy when in Europe alone, 147 factories would have set the marker of 50% of the damages in Europe, so which (or how many) factories have a similar view in the US and India? I would add China to that equation as well, optionally Russia, so how much improvement can we get if we go after the right targets and not waste our time on the wealthy jet owners (as Tim McGrath want). 

It took two hours to look into the report, less than an hour to look at the EEA and when we consider this against the BBC article, how much time did they spend (read: waste) on something a person without clear present knowledge could debunk in a matter of minutes? It took me 5 times longer to type this point of view against me making the case. 

But this is not enough, Tim McGrath was making his point coming from the graphs on page 89, where we see “Per capita and absolute CO2 consumption emissions by four global income groups in 2015”, you see the chart looks really clever, but here is the data? And when we see the EEA stage where we see that 50% of the damage is allegedly DONE by 147 plants, who owns those 147 plants? This all matters as the report is optionally ‘hiding’ behind “Ivanova and Wood (2020) find that a large share of the emissions of the top- emitting European Union households are transport-related”. This might be true, yet the larger stage is not merely on the transport related part, it is how much of that emission problem is mass transport? Trains, metro’s, busses, how much of the transport emissions are they a part of? You see, the data their will be found lacking. Consider Spain, Italy and Greece alone, this against the UK. Are you seeing the larger picture and how convoluted the setting of ‘transport-related’ emission issues are seen when the EEA gives for Europe a clear stage of 147 industrial plants and 50% of the damage, in all this the entire wealth setting is merely a smoke screen, like the ones we see way too often and in this case the BBC is optionally a co-conspiror of the created smoke.

It is merely my point of view and feel free to disagree, but in this you need to make up your own mind on what is there and what is debatable.

egr20Download

 

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December 10, 2020 · 02:19

Hatred of wealth

We have seen it, we at times observed it, but for the BBC to actively support it is taking this to a new sight. This is the feeling I had when I saw the article ‘Climate change: Global ‘elite’ will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles’ an hour ago (at https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55229725). We have seen the options, we have seen the banter, but this article by Matt McGrath is taking it into a new direction. You see, some have a lifestyle that is slightly higher in carbon, mine might be a lot lower, I have no jet or helicopter. Yet what gives Matt the setting he has? 

Let’s look at some numbers given to us by Statista. The graph shows us that in the last 15 years plane travel went up by well over 15,000,0000 planes, this implies almost a million lanes per year more. So Matt, how many jets and helicopters are there? Now, we might see their use of a jet as a spillage, and perhaps it is, consider however, that for them there are fuel requirements, staff requirements and here Forbes was very useful (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/douggollan/2019/08/22/private-jet-travel-is-greener-than-you-think). The quote “Two private jets would bring $170,000 in spending, 55% more than the full 737, with just over 25 tonnes of CO2 emitted, one-sixth of the commercial airliner”, and when we see the numbers of 38 million airliners, knowing that there are nowhere near as much jets in the world, I wonder just what the game of Matt is, perhaps it is merely kicking rich people. 

Now, we are all interested in doing something for the environment, so how about stopping 10% of ALL Air traffic? I do not think that Matt McGrath is doing that, he would upset powerful people and the BBC does not do war with powerful people. Or perhaps he might take notice of “It is estimated that approximately 706 million gallons of waste oil enter the ocean every year, with over half coming from land drainage and waste disposal; for example, from the improper disposal of used motor oil”, I did not vet that information, yet it seems that neither did he, and the setting of doing something about the stage of ‘706 million gallons of waste oil’ is as I see it more impactful than slamming some person with a fat wallet and a jet (or helicopter), oh and these helicopters tend to be taxi services, you want to take the car from a taxi driver? Seems a little vague to me. 

So for those in doubt, let me add an image of a jet, something you might silently dream of and never get (just like me). And whilst I am on a roll (yes I am), consider all these flights, now identify the salespeople who are going to some pricey seminar, lets take those as well as sales people on some binge in Vegas to ‘be inspired’, as such how much environment did they waste? 

And when we get to “The global top 10% of income earners use around 45% of all the energy consumed for land transport and around 75% of all the energy for aviation, compared with just 10% and 5% respectively for the poorest 50% of households, the report says” which is a new level of BS. The poorest 50% cannot afford any vacation, due to sliding hourly wages, I will admit that rich people are at the head of that, but not all wealthy people, and the stage of pre-covid 2020, we see 40 million flights, all whilst the number of private jets are set to 4,600, and this includes jets that are corporate jets. So I want to see that report so I can cut Matt McGrath more to size. With the additional ““The UNEP report shows that the over-consumption of a wealthy minority is fuelling the climate crisis, yet it is poor communities and young people who are paying the price,” said Tim Gore, head of climate policy at Oxfam”, I see another person I need to cut down to size. The fact that I saw holes in this article in less than 10 minutes and the fact that the BBC is enabling this is jut too weird. Well at least I have another windmill to fight and bring to attention of the readers. Oh and before you think I am biased, consider that the 4,600 will include the jets owned by royal families and dignitaries and governments, consider this, when you saw the first number, do you really want them to charter a Boeing? To be honest, I cannot tell how many planes are in that group, I did not find any numbers on that, but the larger stage is that instead of them looking into matter that matter, we see a stage of ‘over-consumption of a wealthy minority’, so what EXACTLY is over-consumption? And per jet, how many flights were made? So let’s say a person like Bobby Axelrod (a fictional character), how often was he in a jet in 4 seasons? I am using this example to avoid using real people, because the question stays the same and we can argue that some like the Waltons from Kmart might fly less often than some whatchamightcallit from Wall Street, as such, the article has a few issues all over the place, I am making it my mission to look at that UNEP report, lets see what we can find there and how time was wasted on that report.

From my point of view the UN has become the largest waster of funds and options in the last 10 years, so I am ready to roar at that mouse, you betcha!

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December 9, 2020 · 04:27

Markers of identity

There are several news articles out there. They are not related, not directly, not indirectly, but the underlying events are. The first one is (on the light side) ‘Tesla announces second $5bn share sale in three months’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/12/8/tesla-announces-second-5bn-share-sale-in-3-months), it is the given quote “Tesla’s shares touched a record high on Monday, pushing the electric-car maker’s market value above $600bn”, he has, as one might say, almost reached the midpoint of his directly achievable wealth. The second part is seen in ‘Christchurch massacre: Inquiry finds failures ahead of attack’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55211468), there we see “correcting these failures would not have stopped the Australian national, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole earlier this year, from carrying out the attack, it said”, as well as “the patchwork of clues discovered by police after the massacre – including his steroid abuse, a hospital admission after he accidentally shot himself, and visits to far-right websites – would not have proved enough to predict the attack”. These issues are unrelated. It is about the markers, whether they are markers of wealth, markers of rage, markers of alleged insanity, the list goes on, but we are driven and pushed by markers, all whilst there is a larger stage where these markers matter not, not now, not ever. It is there that we need to look and we need to identify the pushed markers, the driven markers and we need to hold them out to the light and openly debate them. 

You see, prevention was actually possible (as far as I can tell), now I am not debating the 6 guns, I am a gun person myself and if I had the means and a safe place to put them, I might have them, yet no one is debating ‘more than 7,000 rounds of ammunition’, why is that? Even a gun lover like me, having more then 100 bullets per rifle is a bit of a stretch, so why would he have needed the other 5,400 bullets for and to be honest, I tend not to miss, as such, the 51 people who died, would imply 2 magazines optionally 3 and my one FN FAL (the gun I started my training with in 1981), that is 90 bullets, oh and in the military, if there is not an active war theatre, having more than one magazine is pretty much frowned on, actually it is openly questioned. As such I wonder who looked into this inquiry? Especially as he acquired ‘ammunition online’, I might buy ammunition online, yet I also accept that someone is keeping track of what I buy, and the fact that one person was able to buy more ammunition than the average base has in stock calls for all kinds of questions. The fact that more than 1 box is shipped to one address is also reason for questions. So when I see ‘The commission found no failures within any government agencies that would have allowed the terrorist planning and preparation to be detected’, I have to stop and laugh for a couple of minutes. If one man can do that, what can several lone wolves accomplish? So as I took a look at the report (at https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/), I get to the setting here, the 4 documents (or basically one large one in 4 parts) is actually quite good, it is a decent piece of work and even as some state no fault was due, issues of improvement are there. I see the failing in the second PDF where I see “not for the purpose of keeping records of these purchases”, it reflect on the ammunition bought. They were seen and approved, and they were allowed. So how many documents were seen? To get this much ammunition, you would need to make purchases several times. The math is not looking good here. We see a Marker of enabling, but the marker of questioning is absent. I see this as a clear failure on some part, especially on the system, it might not have prevented the event, but it would have lessened the damage and lowered the fatality list. Volume 3 of the report gives us on page 476 “To assist staff in prioritising leads, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has produced a table that sets out various security indicators and the priority associated with them. For example, “Skills/Knowledge – Research into basic weapons, firearms and ammunition” is identified as a critical indicator of security relevance for assessing whether a person has the capability to carry out a terrorist act”, yet keeping records on ammunition bought (for example 7000+) is not. Who would be the larger danger, the man being able and operate a rifle with a 100 bullets, or one with 7000 bullets? I mean, most man hate their mother in law (some passionately do), but ever we think 7000 pieces of ammo is a bit much. Volume 2 gives more (42.21) “We do not know how much ammunition the individual purchased in total as most sellers do not keep records of the ammunition sold in store. We do know that on 24 March 2018, he spent $1,358.00 at Gun City Dunedin on 2,000 rounds of .223 calibre Remington 55Gr SP.” This is the smoking gun (sort of), in one purchase we see 2,000 rounds at $1,358. I would have chimes every bell possible at this point, especially if this was not a gun-shop or a federal enforcement agency. You still think there was no failure there? A marker of investigation was required and none was found, merely a commercial need to enable a person to buy, buy, buy. He was not buying two Tesla’s, he was buying ammunition. We se even more at (42.22), there we get “we are aware of 11 ammunition purchases made online between 5 December 2017 and 12 July 2018. The details of these purchases are provided in the table below. The individual completed the required New Zealand Police mail order form for these purchases” In December he bought enough to outmatch the entire New Zealand Army, and no questions were asked, failure? I personally believe that is the case. Yes, I cannot disagree with the finding that the event could not be stopped, yet I believe that the casualty list would be a lot lower if more effort had been made. As we look at the markers of identity and the markers of enabling, I feel that we all failed, not just a New Zealand administration. Someone delivered these packages, 1,000 rounds is heavy. When we see delivery from Lock, Stock and Smoking Barrel, Gun City, Aoraki Ammunition Company, Ammo Direct NZ, Ordnance Developments, and Arsenal Limited someone should have sounded the bells of worry, the alarms of wondering and in all this no one seemingly did. Well over $5,000 and no one was seemingly the wiser. He could have rearmed the larger extent of Al Qaeda (or the KKK) and it would only be known after the shooting took place. There was a failure, a larger one. 

Let me be frank, I love guns, I am not a gun nut, but I do not have to be, even I think that this much ammo is just insane. And it was at the top of the pile, there are other parts that I found which were not part of the inquiry, yet I feel that it is important to let these issues lie down for a while, I feel that certain people are looking into matters and me ringing that bell whilst they are near the door is a stupid, silly and all kinds of irresponsible, and I tend not to be any of the three (most of the time).

So why the mention of Tesla in the beginning? Commerce is strong all over, it is essential in too many places and the marker of commerce is too eagerly accepted, all whilst questions are not being asked in too many places. No one is debating that Elon Musk is a genius, optionally a visionary and he is on route being the first trillionaire, yet no one is wondering whether that should be questioned. Consider that any person being the owner of well over 1000 billion has more power than most governments, Elon Musk is about to become that person and s an achievement I wish him well, he did it by building something, as did Mark Zuckerberg, as did the late Steve Jobs (well he set the Apple horse in motion). Yet this stage is supported by a marker that is questionable and we need to see this, or failures like the Christchurch shooting will happen again and again. What if the next time it is not ammunition, what if it is something else? Part of this tragedy was enabled by commerce, I will happily sell the Saudi Government $8,500,000,000 in weapons, yet this is a government, not a person. There is a difference and we need to set the systems up to identify certain markers, if we do not do that the next event will happen and no one is at fault then either, but scores of people will be dead, how does that sound? 

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December 7, 2020 · 20:46

Not just a shotgun

It comes back to an old jab I heard somewhere “You get more done with a shotgun and a kind word, then merely with a kind word”, it is true. The bulk of all people require external motivation. Arab News gave me an update yesterday and I was actually a little surprised. 

I had expected that Saudi Arabia had well above the basic needs there, but it seems I was wrong. The article (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/1773046/business-economy) gives us ‘Experts warn businesses in Saudi Arabia to ramp up their cybersecurity’, which is fair enough, but that opens up a whole range of other issues as well. Remember the accusations handed against the KSA (specifically their Crown Prince), I dealt in part with it in ‘Evidence? Why?’ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/01/24/evidence-why/), consider that it was Julius Caesar who taught its armies (now known as Esercito Italiano) “The first rule of war is to install your defences against enemy retaliation”, he did that 2073 years, 4 months and 15 days ago (roughly). So as the Arab News gives us “As Saudi companies become more technologically advanced, cybersecurity experts have warned of a general lack of awareness about industry best practices and are worried that businesses are not adequately protecting their systems”, we see an implied lack of cybersecurity, as to what stage is there a lack all whilst the teams of the Crown Prince were accused of attacking Jeff Bezos? I hd a few doubts when I read the article, I have a hell of a lot more now. The added “95 percent of businesses in the Kingdom last year were the victim of a cyberattack” give rise to additional questions and in all this, when we see the American goods that the KSA is acquiring, no one asked or looked into the cybersecurity issues there? I wonder why?

There is a lot more in the article It starts with “85 percent of Saudi respondents said that they had witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of attacks over the past two year” and it gets to me a lot bigger when we consider that Cisco is lending  hand in the KSA (at https://www.cisco.com/web/ME/sa/netversity/whatis.html). 

So where does the shotgun come in? Well, it doesn’t directly, but when Americans see ‘shotgun’ they tend to take notice. Indirectly, when we consider the activities of Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Booz Allen Hamilton, and a few others in the KSA, no one raised the issue of cybersecurity? I have no reason to doubt Arab News, but there is a larger setting and it does not add up. You see the quote “Al-Jaber applauds the new government improvements being implemented by the National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA) and the new Saudi Cybersecurity strategy, and recommends that those concerned brush up on their cybersecurity protocols to ensure that they are being protected”, you see ‘cybersecurity protocols’ is something to some, but a partial solution to others, there is version control, OS update and upgrade protocols, investigation into software solutions and apps, it is nice to know that the KSA has the fastest 5G in the world, but if that is not met with correct cyber protocols, it merely means that more and more data goes somewhere else, the question is where it goes. 

And this gets us back to another piece of evidence, it was given to us in the Financial Times on January 22nd 2020. There we see “The forensic analysis of Mr Bezos’s phone could not ascertain what alleged spyware was used. However, the report said: “It is believed that the compromise was likely facilitated by malicious tools procured by [Saud] al-Qahtani””, the imbalance of cybersecurity and cybertools is way too high, especially when we consider “forensic analysis of Mr Bezos’s phone could not ascertain what alleged spyware was used”, in light of the overall stage of cyber imbalance of the KSA, this statement (at https://www.ft.com/content/83dcdf74-3c9b-11ea-a01a-bae547046735) is equally a consideration for additional questions. As such, the questions I had almost a year ago are now roosting and giving birth to additional questions. That is beside the questions I have on conversations that others should have had with decision makers of the KSA on Saudi cyber security. Do you not agree?

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December 7, 2020 · 00:19

Salmon in the cinema

Yup, there is a new setting, not for food, but towards the entertainment. Even as we see Google allegedly miss the plank, the streamers are setting the stage to a larger degree. In streaming nature there is Disney, Stan and off course there is Netflix, so when the BBC gives us ‘Dune and Matrix 4 streaming plan prompts urgent talks from AMC cinemas’ is was not overly surprised, the Movie machine is on a tour and Corona slowed it down, but did not stop it and in this stage, too many vacant chairs remain in the cinema. We can feel for the cinema, but there are many places where the pain is coming, so the cinema is merely one of most. As such when we see “The move will enable film fans to watch the forthcoming sci-fi epic Dune and the Matrix sequel on HBO Max at the same time as their cinema release” (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55180055), we see a stage where the movie makers are maximising whatever they can, and I cannot blame them.

Consider that Cale Boyter, Joe Caracciolo Jr., Mary Parent and Denis Villeneuve allegedly pumped $200,000,000 into that movie. This I a risky business, moreover as SCI-FI made their version with Alec Newman in 2000 and it was an amazing piece of work, I still watch the BluRay nowadays at least twice a year. That does not mean that this Dune will not be seen, I look forward to it and I do prefer the big screen, but any next lockdown and Netflix or BluRay might be my only option, and I am not alone in this. The average number one movie in the US after the Cortona lockdown made 4 million, before the coronavirus lockdown $100 million (Bad Boys for Life), as such the sentiment of the producers of Dune and others are well understood. $200 million is nothing to sneer at and whatever deal they can make, they will. At present in 2020 Bad Boys for life leads the revenue charge wth $200 million, It should have been at least double that and as such Dune is in a dangerous place, not by choice and not by effort, the trailer blew me away and the stars involved make it shine even more, it seems only fair that the makers try to get the best deal possible. This is the stage here we merely see impact, we do not get to have too much choice in the matter, no matter how angry Glossu Rabban (Dave Bautista) gets. In the end I feel slightly less for Adam Aron than I do for the actors and actresses that put their sweat and blood into this movie, in other news, when did the cinema adjust (temporarily) their prices? In this setting as we currently see it, why would anyone take a chance at AU$18, when streaming is $15 a month and at present safer. 

We want to be protective of the moviemakers, but in the end, at present, we are merely a Salmon that goes up against the streamer. In this setting I understand why AMC Cinemas wants to talk, yet in the present condition we face, is it a realistic step to take? As such, there is truth in the statement “We will aggressively pursue economic terms that preserve our business”, but consider that billions of people have been denied access to entertainment, I want to start that Adam Aron has the right setting and he has a right to be in this setting, yet in the stage we face, can he push for a setting that is not entirely realistic?

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