October 13, 2020 · 21:47

One matter is not another

Yup it is that flaky, it all started with two events, I saw the first event, but I basically ignored it, it was more of old news and politicians getting in on the tailcoats of another is a setting we have seen too often. Then there was the other new news, the was based on the old, and I will start with that, it makes more sense that way.

I got the news (and I had seen it) Pikmin 3 is coming to the Nintendo Switch. I knew it but I had not made up my mind yet. A budget implies that I cannot go out and buy whatever tinker trait is out there. I am not in the worst setting, but blatantly buying a game is jut not on. What made it interesting is the Nintendo added a demo to their shop, so I went out and played the demo (twice) and I recaptured the feeling that the first Pikmin on Nintendo Gamecube left me, the endearing feeling of using the Pikmin and keeping them safe, it is a weird setting, the feeling that came to me almost 19 years ago (18 years and 49 weeks to be a little more precise). The game was a true original and never disappointed, a full blown homerun for Nintendo. I am not exaggerating when I say that Shigeru Miyamoto outdid himself with that one. There are times when we rejoice when something is knocking on our door and we see it is something we have seen before, this is quite the opposite to the first matter and is when we see ‘Australians sign Kevin Rudd’s call for inquiry into Murdoch influence’, you see, he is now in full show with a goatee, perhaps so that he looks as endearing as Rolf Harris once did. Oh, no, it is more of an actual beard, my bad.

Yes Kevin Rudd is calling for an investigation into Murdoch industries, something he never achieved when he was Prime Minister, did he? When we look back there was the Leveson inquiry that focussed on the UK and gave us a series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. It resulted in the Leveson Report in November 2012. I remember it because I have it, all 2200 pages. In April 2012 we were given ‘Rupert Murdoch gives away more than planned at Leveson inquiry’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/apr/25/rupert-murdoch-planned-leveson-inquiry), so whilst Kevvie was Prime Minister, what did he call for? Nope, he left that apparently to get back into politics, now it is ‘‘A cancer’: Kevin Rudd calls for royal commission into ‘Murdoch monopoly’’, so that took him 8 years to figure out? If it takes that long, he has no business been in politics in the first place. But I agree slapping around an 89 year old multibillionaire might optionally be entertaining, yet in this I find the sanctimonious actions of a former Prime Minister who did nothing when he was in office a bit much. And I am not alone here. When we see ‘Rudd has become Murdoch’s accuser, but once he was his cheerleader’, with the added “Under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, Murdoch took over the Herald and Weekly Times publishing company, which gave him control of newspapers accounting for about two-thirds of daily circulation”, so not only does Rupert Murdoch have the power he has now, but it was the Labor party the enabled it, can sarcasm be any prettier?  As such, when we get to “The Herald reported that “cabinet colleagues were appalled at Rudd’s flagrant courting of News’ favour”” we see the mess he made of it, and now he wants to get back into politics by opposing he former friends? Well, that is politics I reckon. And the result? Well, I have to agree with “But what could a royal commission achieve? It is impossible to see any legislation improving the situation. Journalists often justify their efforts to bring transparency as being in the public interest with the words of American Justice Louis Brandeis that sunlight is the best disinfectant” (source: Sydney Morning Herald), the Leveson inquiry showed us how useless this path is, the media will cry like prissy little bitches all claiming that they can do better and continue in the same way they did. We merely need to look at the headlines on MH-370 we were given in 2014, basically the ink of the Leveson report had not even dried at the point. Politics and media, it is a stage where one hand feeds the other, whilst the left and remains ignorant of the actions of the right hand, a stage that will not improve until the laws get adjusted FIRST, a stage that is never ever going to happen. So whatever Kevin Rudd has planned, voting for whomever is the other person remains the safer bet. He did this to himself, a sage that is fraught with danger, yet like the Pikmin, they are the consumers getting the idea of what is safe, but in this case it is not Captain Olimar guiding the consumers (Pikmin players will get this), it is Corporal KRudd the we must trust and he will guide the red Pikmins through the shallows and uses the Yellow ones for the Bulbears, in this I fear for the lives of consumers (sorry, I meant Pikmin), I am slightly surprised that he got 100,000 foolish enough to sign his so called ‘intent’ all whilst there is absolutely zero chance that is ends up amounting to anything at all.

I agree, that one matter is not the other, but both are pages we have seen before one leaves us happy and relaxed, the other does not, for those wondering, the political side is not the fuzzy one.

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October 13, 2020 · 04:45

The Jet joke

The old joke goes “How do you know the plane is full of politicians? When the engines shut down and the whining goes on”, I believe it should be followed by a da-dum-dum. Yet the stage is set and it has been going on for a while now. The BBC article ‘Amy Coney Barrett: Democrats attack ‘shameful’ Supreme Court hearing’ got the better of me and the whining (in an age where we we have actual problems) got on my nerves. OK, I will admit that I am mostly Republican in mind, the issue of this president is one that I am not happy about. From my personal point of view, this president is no Republican, I consider him a greed driven loon, yet he was elected and as I wrote earlier, the constitution allows him to nominate a Supreme Court Judge, and the senate gets to confirm the nomination, this is what the American constitution gives us, yet the BBC gives us “But one Democratic senator on the committee described the process as “shameful””, so which Senator was that BBC? Do the people not have a right to know? In addition, what legal premise is this senator working from? In addition, the BBC gives us “The Republicans – who currently hold a slim majority in the US Senate, the body that confirms Supreme Court judges – are trying to complete the process before Mr Trump takes on Democratic rival Joe Biden in the election”, which is correct, but what are the names in the panel? The BBC also gives us “this process has been nothing but shameful. Worse, it will almost certainly lead to disastrous consequences for Americans”, as such I wonder what evidence can Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy give us? So far he is giving us nothing but air, not even hot air. At what moment in time, has any supreme court judge been anything but legal? Yes, we get it, they all want to have liberal judges and no one denies that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a force to be reckoned with and she was a liberal judge. Yet the law was clear, the elected president gets to nominate a Supreme Court Judge during his tour as president of the United States, electing a Supreme Court Judge is one of the few long term policies he can set, and as such President Trump is allowed to do what is happening today, but the media is nothing if not ‘appeasing’, they will print the ramblings of Democrats, because the larger belief is that this president is most likely a one term president and the media needs brownie points. 

So when we see “Democrats demonstrated that they want Amy Coney Barrett’s hearings to be about the Republican rush to seat a new justice before the elections and the possibility that she could be a deciding vote to strike down the increasingly popular healthcare reforms passed under Democratic President Barack Obama”, so where does it state in the constitutions that this is about  “the Republican rush to seat a new justice before the elections”, all whilst all parties (except the Republicans) ignore the constitution that states “When a vacancy occurs, the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints a new justice”, that is the law and the law was abided to, it might not please the Democrats, but the is what it is, so now they all whine like little bitches (I meant like jet engines). Yet in all this we see no clarity on the panel, do we?

As such, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court , who exactly are these members?  Well there is a majority group which consists of Lindsey Graham (SC), Chairman,  Chuck Grassley (IA), John Cornyn (TX), Mike Lee (UT), Ted Cruz (TX), Ben Sasse (NE), Josh Hawley (MO), Thom Tillis (NC), Joni Ernst (IA), Mike Crapo (ID), John Kennedy (LA), Marsha Blackburn (TN). These 12 members are the majority, the 10 minority members are Dianne Feinstein (CA), Patrick Leahy (VM), Dick Durbin (IL), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Chris Coons (DE), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Mazie Hirono (HI), Cory Booker (NJ), Kamala Harris (CA). 22 members ‘interrogating’ the next Supreme Court Justice, but the confirmation is set when all senators vote and the Republicans have a majority, a very slim one, as such the Democrats have one option, to ask the right questions, as they pound on those, they can merely hope to sway 3 senators away from the ‘Yay’ vote when the confirmation vote starts and they need a majority to make it pass, if ALL democrats agree this will not happen. The is as good as it gets for the Democrats. Will this happen? I do not know, the previous confirmation was Justice Kavanaugh and took 48 hours as well as more than 1200 questions. Will we see a repetition of this? We are about to find out. 

I wonder how much media will actually be focusing on the questions the democrats asked, and why they were asked. A similar setting does apply to the Republicans, yet the setting of “Democrats are avoiding the divisive topic of abortion, which motivates political adversaries as much as it rallies allies, for what they feel is more favourable political ground”, as such we see the chance of finding a justice with a focus on law is low compared to the Democrat need to find a person that is politically convenient. I merely wonder why they want judges to begin with.

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October 12, 2020 · 20:43

When we reconsider

We reconsider at times, we all do. It is not merely a stage of changing of minds, it is a stage of giving a game another chance. In my case it is F1 2020. The last one I had was F1 2000, a game that I got with my PS2, I am not much of a racing fan, but I enjoyed the game to some extent. The ‘some extent’ is not to be mistaken with some critical view of the game. I do not have one, I like racing to some degree, I am not a lover of it. It’s a simple stage. Another game I had was Project Gotham 3, it came with my Xbox 360. That game I loved, it was fun, the F1 game is less fun, more of a simulator, till it is a nice challenge to have and at times we reconsider getting the game, so after 15 years I am willing to get another F1 game. Some go with statement like ‘cleansing the palette’, some go with ‘something else to devour’, some people (like me) never thought negative of the game, merely saw it as something that was not their cup of tea. Yet we all get to a stage that we want to try tea again. It is partially natural. For me, in part it was the stage where F1 2000 was actually a good looking game, I merely was decently lousy in racing. And the F1 game was a decent simulator. That in position to the fact that Project Gotham Racing III was more fun, slightly less of a simulator. Yet this is not about the F1 game, it is about FIFA. The BBC introduced me to ‘FIFA 21 review: ‘The virtual, beautiful game is passing off old as new’’, as well as the Verge giving us ‘FIFA 21 Is Limping Toward Retirement’. Now we should all accept that it is one hell of a test to prolong a franchise, even as soccer is one of the most favourite sports in the world, renewing it for 20+ years is still a massive task. Now, we can all go Monday morning quarterback on the makers, but in the end, I wonder if anyone could have done the job the way EA did. Now, I am not blowing their horn, they have a marketing department for that. In addition, I support their view that loot-boxes is not gambling. I have always supported that side, even as they clearly have made a few mistakes, the fact that they were made is open to debate. And even add the UK gives us “The Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport (“DCMS”) has launched a call for evidence on the impact of loot boxes in video games to help it determine whether they should be classified as gambling products” I still have a personal nagging that this is is a rigged setting. 

Even as we see things evolve, we see a larger stage the is not explored, which is partially an option for discussion. Yet the stage is still in the open. Like the F1 game I looked at, others look at FIFA in a similar way, I am not a FIFA fan, I am an NHL fan and the disturbing part is the here in Australia, the game still cannot get ordered, which is an optional EA play push and a Xbox Billing wish. 

I get the stage that this is, not many Australians have a preference to Hockey. I played it when I was younger. Hence, my interest (and my delusional dream that San Jose, Ottawa, Edmonton, or Calgary calls me that they are in desperate need of a goalie and my name came up), who has not had that thought? Which soccer player does not want to be able to bend it like Beckham? There is a weird interaction with sports games, especially the one we really prefer. We go for the annual setting, but there too EA dropped the ball more than once. It is their right to drop it, but it seemingly gets them in the situation they are in now.

And the stage of sport games is larger than we consider NHL21, FIFA21, Madden NFL 21, EA UFC 2020, Rugby20 2020, F1 2020, NBA 2K21, PGA 2K21, a stage that is a lot bigger than we realise and even if we are not a great fan of some games, EA and others had the option to change the stage and get a much greater following, but they set the game to an event of capture the dough. We can all be or become Monday morning quarterbacks, yet what will this resolve?

We are in what I call a clear stage to reconsider, the gamers and the makers. This is not about sport games, yet this is the larger stage of gaming and to set the what is new, and the why renews. A stage the gaming seems to overlook again and again, As I personally see it it comes with the marketing field who increasingly limits the scope ‘How to acquire new money and how to get as much of it as we can’, it is a natural setting for marketing and that makes sense. But if gaming leads, it is time to set a very different stage. Even as some as in the setting of ‘What if that does not work?’ Nintendo faced that with the WiiU, yet that led to the Nintendo Switch, a system that broke all their records and pushed the Microsoft console from 2nd to 3rd position and as Switch is in 2nd position, still growing its markets, still growing after 3.5 Years. 

It is time to reconsider the plays that are currently being made.

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October 11, 2020 · 22:45

Pleasing the minority

There is a stage we all face, at times we have to please the minority, I have nothing against that. There is a first need to do this at times, and it is also a stage where we see that ONLY pleasing the majority tends to set an empty example. Let’s set the stage by asking 5 questions, in 5 cases 80% says yes, 20% says no, now consider that the questions are related somehow and the ‘no’s’ never overlap. So there is optionally a state here an unanswered question exist where 100% would say yes, but now it is never asked. It is an extreme setting, but they do exist, and the stage is that if we please the minority at times, we have a stage where there is a diminished need to polarise. Now, this last part is speculative from my side, but it is one that exists to some degree.

Yet it is not about some theoretical side, it is a real side and we have been exposed to the largest stage of it. A global economy in shambles as we gave in to lockdown after lockdown, which is fine (to some degree), I understand and accept that actions were needed. 

Yet in all this, consider that we are in a stage where we are trying to please a group of people that amounts to 2.7% of the people who will not survive the Coronavirus. Now I am all about reducing risk and the setting is not the 2.7%, but the expected 4.3%, which we need to name the stage of expected and actual morality rate. No matter how we turn it, the 95% is trying to please the less than 5% of the population who will not survive the event. 

I understand the face masks, and certain preventive measures like social distancing, we want to do as much as we can, but that stage is not always possible, the lockdowns show that. And in all this we are trying to fictively please a minority to continue all this, consider that we told the news that we are locking down nations because of a flu, how would that have ended?

Now consider the headlines ‘Second national lockdown possible, says top UK scientist’, ‘India’s coronavirus outbreak in 200 seconds’, and ‘Israel’s second lockdown slowing outbreak, data suggest’. We can jump any way we want, but until there is an actual vaccine that works, slowing down is as good as it gets and the stage of lockdowns only results in a stage that destroys global economies and nothing more than that. Even as the BBC gives us ‘A visual guide to the economic impact’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51706225) we see the larger impact. Yes there was always going to be an unemployment issue, but the economy was already weak, this merely pushed it over the edge. Yes, we see ‘More people seeking work’, and a weak economy was in part to blame, the lockdowns merely intensified it. And as we seek other reasons, no one is looking at the part the we ignored, when the lockdown started, we were left at home with nothing to do and the shops were closed too, result, millions of people turned to Amazon, which gave Jeff Bezos a $12,000,000,000 sandwich, and I reckon that it tasted good. Now, none of this is the fault of Jeff Bezos, lets be clear about the, global economies overreacted and we got into a stage where Amazon is one of the few beneficiaries clearly having a profitable stage. I agree that governments had to do something, so there is nothin to state against a first lockdown, but as we now see in the UK, and France as the headlines of France24 give us ‘French coronavirus cases set new 24-hour record with nearly 27,000 infections’, lockdowns are not a solution, we merely need an actual working vaccine and until that happens, people will die, optionally me as well. Am I happy if I do not make it, of course not, but if I die I get to avoid my next tax-bill, is this the silver lining, or the dark close the follows the current silver lining? I actually do not know. 

But we are in a stage where we see politicians act the same solution again and again and expect a different outcome, and before you wonder, yet I am coming with an Einstein setting. He stated “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”, and when will we catch on that this is not working? Even as we see ‘Supermarkets, chemist and Bunnings among alert venues after NSW records five new COVID-19 cases’ (source: 9News), consider that New South Wales has 8.2 million people, most of them in Sydney (5.3M), on 801,150 km², outside of Sydney 3 million people are in a stage of being hindered life on all matters. Of course Australia is an example that is a bit of an outlier, yet I feel that France, Germany and the UK have similar stages outside of the big cities. Consider the overreaction of 5 new cases on a place that is larger than 35 nations in the world.

These places and others too have a stage where politicians and scientists are setting a stage that is not a wrong one, but it caters to the minority. I get it, they want to safe as many people as they can, but now the economy is setting a stage of a much larger time of hardship, I reckon that Amazon is pleased of whatever comes next, they are still roaring, and consider that a new lockdown gives us a stage of two new console and several new games and only Amazon will be able to hand over the goods to people in houses staying away from the debatable diseased areas. This is NOT about Amazon, they did nothing wrong, we need to find another solution, something that results in not getting the Einstein insanity definition thrown into our faces. I get the first lockdown action, it made sense, but now that we see that it is not working and when we see that the White House population was a massive spreader of the virus, we need to wake up and consider that for the coming year we will place ourselves in danger, we cannot solve the setting until there is a cure, until there is a vaccine. We can merely protect ourselves as best we can, we can all wear the facemark, we can prosecute the infected who did not for negligent endangerment, and get indicted for a lot more if it results in a fatality. We  might think that all lives are to be saved, but what happens when the economy dies? Was the economy not worth saving? I am not sure about that part of the equation, I do not know if it is worth saving, and perhaps neither are the people. I cannot profess to be wise enough to make that judgement, yet I believe the inaction is a mortal sin, and so is feigned inaction, by doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, different outcomes. 

Consider what you have done in the last 6 months and see what you gained and what you lost. Close to 99% of the people had a significant loss, so why do we cater to the minority in all this?

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October 10, 2020 · 21:46

Reality is a lot more scary

Yes, this is not some setting of new IP, not some setting of a new game or even a setting of financial woes that we are about to face, it is about something a lot more scary. It is not something that is new or anticipated. It comes with the certainty when you decide on a 25,000ft drop and you realise 5 seconds after the start the you are wearing a backpack and not a parachute. That is the stage we find ourselves in now, we are at the beginning of the drop and if only we decided to act in the last two decades, the setting would be different, but we decided to listen and give power to the greed driven, so now we have a new setting.

If we want mankind to survive, we are now in a stage where we have to put 96.4% to death, no delays, not let’s filter out the pretty people, the clever people and the wise people. Even if we put 100% of ALL adults to death, we are not done, we still have too many survivors, as such we will have to kill 20% of all the children in the world. The is what your inaction forced to come to term. And if for some reason, no matter how valid that not all adults should get their life ended, the amount of children the will have to die grows increasingly from the 20% in case one.

That is what our inactions have gotten us, no matter the news we suppressed on the dozens of animals all now extinct, no matter the bylines of the dozens of plants no longer in existence. Some might have seen the news on a ‘radical’ David Attenborough, the extinction of Koala’s, whales and we see more and more sharks dead on the shores. The list becomes larger and the extinction of us might have to start with the current generation of people. And it was the Guardian a week ago the gave us ‘40% of world’s plant species at risk of extinction’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/30/world-plant-species-risk-extinction-fungi-earth), 40% might be a bit much, but if it holds true, this generation will see the direct result of inaction, the direct result of politicians catering to big business, to people catering to exploitation of nature and we remained inactive, like the couch potato’s we clearly are. So when I am stating the 96.4% of the people have to die, it is not a bad joke, it is not some stage of speciality of the situation, it is merely the grim reality caused through the inaction go us. And if you think that my words of euphemism are an exaggeration, consider “The UN revealed last week that the world’s governments failed to meet a single target to stem biodiversity losses in the last decade”, so we did not miss a target, or miss a number, we missed ALL targets and milestones for at least a decade. Can you comprehend the situation when global governments ALL fall 100%, can you grasp the impact of inaction? So when I say that 96.4% of all people needs to die, I might well be the one who is optimistic. There is every chance that the goal of 97.2% is actually the realistical side, not the pessimistic side. All due to inaction and do not blame one government, one white house, one House of Lords or one Monarchy, they all failed, all the time, consistently for well over a decade. How is inaction grabbing you now? 

In addition, we see two numbers that age the setting, the first is “In 2019, Nic Lughadha reported that 571 species had been wiped out since 1750, although the true number was likely to be much higher”, and the second one is “The 2016 State of Plants report found one in five were threatened, but the new analysis reveals the real risk to be much higher. The main cause of plant losses is the destruction of wild habitat to create farmland”, as such, we have been ransacking nature since 1750, optionally longer. Did you think that we could escape such consequences? And lets be direct, when we clean up this planet of us, whatever remains will have to find a balance with hundreds of life forms and thousands of plants less, the impact of that might be someone ignores, but I reckon it is too late, we destroyed ourselves in the end. I wonder if Walter Crawford Kelly, cartoonist and creator of Pogo and animator to several Disney movies ever considered how right he was when he stated ‘We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us’. It is a setting we created, so as I see the twilight come our way, I merely put the IP I created in the digital trashcan, and it deletes the dream of a life in Monaco I will never have (and never would have had), and I will let it all unfold, I will let it all end in inaction. As numbers go, this is not a stage where we get to have additional options, we ignored the options for too long and now none remain.

And as we see optimism with statement like “the world’s population is expected to rise to 10 billion by 2050”, I personally do not think we have the much time left. We are already short on supplies to a much larger degree, and those who are trying to hide this, will not be able to do so for much longer. if we want to be alive in 2050, we better find a way to create some extinction event the dies out 50% of the population, and this comes with one very disturbing setting. For every 1% of the animals and plants lost at the event, another 3% of people needs to be made deleted from existence. We are now in  setting where only the short sighted think that we can escape what is coming. 

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October 10, 2020 · 02:32

Creativity & insomnia

Yup, a different side of it all and it is highly speculative. I am the only test case of me and as my brain goes into creativity mode, insomnia seemingly sets in. You see, one source states that gamma-aminobutyric acid is essential and when it drops below levels, it blacks things and insomnia sets in. I reckon the when the brain goes into overdrive in creation (not when you get heavy with a beautiful woman and you wonder whether it is real), a similar process seemingly occurs and I am speculating that the insomnia is the brains way to stop being overly creative. It is merely a though and it is highly speculative, but there it is.

I came up with a new idea, it is not really new IP, but it would be innovative IP and overall it set a different scope, it sets the scope of personal settings. We all have the part, even if we do not admit this to ourselves. As such, I had one idea, that grows into another and another and another and the stage is seemingly set to a much higher stage. This might result in an innovative patent, but the links and the stage around it is a separate patent, a full patent. It is for me not bout the patents, not bout the age, but one must think oneself at times. And as I pondered the situation, it could over time become an additional setting to two stage identification, optionally setting a stage of two plus identification, one automated, one not. And it is not merely about 4G and 5G, it is about a stage that cannot be identified yet, the technology is not ready, but I am getting head of myself. I saw a stage for a new idea and soon thereafter the idea was thought out, but then I wondered what happens when we want to keep things private? What happens when things are for our eyes only? What if you have a picture of your bride on your desk, but you want the lingerie shot to be there just to remind you to go home on time? We have a lot of that now, there are all kinds of digital frames, yet the setting we do not see is what happens when we have a digital dog tag, that merely unlocks the other shot when we are less than 2 meters away. More important the digital can be a dog tag, it can be sub-dermal.

And the tag can hold any kind of encryption keys. Consider that a tag so small that it can hold well over 100 complex codes, a stage we are already moving towards, yet until it is active with all people, the dog-tag option will have to do. Even now as you look at how small the nanoSD card is, the largest component here are the connectors, when you realise that in a closed system, it becomes a weird stage where the security part will be the largest part, not the CPU or storage. And even as I got here via a mere photo frame. The stage for larger needs is optionally getting dressed. The console that will not allow your profile to work until you are there, no matter where you are. A sage where the dog tag is optionally one part of the id check when you pay bills over a certain amount. Some of it is already in play, some of it is already here, but the stage where systems rely on the presence of the dog-tag are largely missing and the part is one of the settings that I see coming in 5G, so much more data, also sets the stage of so much unused bandwidth. Yet the business world is largely uncaring of additional security and privacy, they merely want the stage of more push towards consumerism, the big tech companies are in part cause of that, in part they merely facilitate to those with the limited mindset.

Yet we must continue the good fight (to coin a phrase), we will get into a stage where larger id-checks and better privacy is essential for all. So how did we get here from a simple photo frame? It all started with the need with to protect what was ours and create a shell of privacy and security around it. We automatically do that to family it is in our nature, but we all seemingly forget that family is more than a body of flesh, they are memories, they are acknowledgements and they are anticipated responses, too much of that is now present in data, as such that data requires and deserves a lot more protection than it is currently getting. It is not merely our bank accounts and our gamer scores that require protection, it is basically all that is around us that requires protection, the art we dive into, the images of us, our memories and all that we touch, all that we feel and all that we remember, the photo frame  brings it to the surface, yet it all is set on a wider stage, a stage we still ignore. If you consider that wrong and if you have a mobile, look at it, look at it now. It is not a mobile, is it? It is your music, they are your contacts, it is your social media actions, they are your photographs and optionally your credit cards. It is your personal data server and you have no idea what you leave in the open day after day. It is as reprehensible like leaving your car unlocked and leaving the keys in the car. How long until you lose your car? Your personal data server is pretty much the same thing, the group of people who can exploit it is a massive amount smaller, because most lack the skills and those who can are more often than not not interested in you, but in 5G that will change, you will within 2 years be duplicated, your id token, your accounts emptied and your photos will all be handed to social media as a mere laugh. The is what awaits all. You still think that this is a jest? Consider that in 2019, 650,570 or 20 percent of all complaints, were related to identity theft. Identity theft claims fell from 2015 to 2017 by 24 percent but began to increase again in 2018 and were up 46 percent from 2018 to 2019 (source: Insurance Information Institute). That is now, in 5G with 10 times the access, the numbers will really roll over and the law is nowhere near ready. So what do you think will happen? Your insurance covers it? Consider how much you get hen you tell them the you left your keys in the stolen car? You get zilch (which is almost nada, or nothing), and that is where we see ourselves, mere losses, no chance of getting back what we lost and lets not forget, once we hand over our memories, everyone has them and our value merely plummets. So as we see ourselves in the stage looking at our photo frame, the image that was for us only, so how long did you think that this will last? The only picture that is private is the one we make with our eyes and brain nd that is soon under debate too.

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October 9, 2020 · 17:46

Warrior Women Librarians

Yup, it is about the Amazon tribe, the one that is managed by no one less than Jeff Bezos. They caught my eyes twice today (well once was at 01:34 roughly), so I decided to take another look. First the second story, it was an opinion piece in the New York Times called ‘Don’t Let Amazon Get Any Bigger’. The article (at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/opinion/amazon-antitrust.html) gives us “the evidence presented this week in a long report by the House Judiciary Committee, following a bipartisan investigation of the tech giants, tells a very different story. Amazon’s website forms a choke point through which other companies must pass to reach the market. It has exploited this commanding position to strong-arm other companies, control their means of distribution and drive them out of business”, I am on the fence here. In the first no one was interested in Amazon, now that they have traction everyone is crying foul. It’s like watching gangs cry like little bitches because they aren’t getting scraps, all whilst they forgot that in a library a 9mm is not of much use, a book on the Dewey Decimal Classification is. If I have a firm, I do not give wannabe’s access to my IP, if they do not have their own, they miss out, it is that simple, no matter what size I have. And for the longest time, we see certain firms getting called out, all whilst the grandfathers of this approach (Microsoft and IBM) are given leeways and passes on a non-stop foundation, or perhaps the whinging members of the House Judiciary Committee would like to have a deep conversation in the IBM dealing with NATO, its members and their system 36 (or was that their system 38) approach on ‘distribution’ in 1978-1980, I feel certain that former members of the Digital Equipment Corporation, as well as those of Hewlett Packard would like their day in Congress asking direct questions on certain non-outspoken choices. 

A small sidestep that has little (not nothing) bearing on Amazon. Amazon has grown, it has grown dramatically, but it was founded on the stage of an online bookshop. A dream the became a behemoth and Jeff Bezos does have some reason of pride. To be honest, I am not much of an Amazon fan, I have nothing against them and I see that there are places that benefit greatly of their presence, yet just like I prefer my local hooker, I am determined to support my local bookshop and local retail outlets, that is how I roll. It is the first article that I saved for last that has the larger frame of becoming an issue.

It is not the article I initially saw, yet ‘Yes, Amazon Luna dodges Apple’s cloud gaming rules — when will Nvidia and Google?’ (At https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/25/21455343/amazon-luna-apple-app-store-rules-cloud-gaming-streaming-google-nvidia) that is the larger issue. You see, it is not bout being naughty or about going rule dodging. It is seen in “Amazon Luna on iOS is not a traditional app. It’ll never appear in the App Store, and it doesn’t need to”, did you catch on yet? No? OK, let add “it’s a progressive web app (PWA), which is mostly a fancy name for a website that you can launch and run separately from the rest of your web browser. Engadget says it can even appear as an icon on your home screen, making it look like a normal app before you tap it”, I get it if you are still in the dark, so let continue the tory, The verge also had something I did not know before, they give us “Streaming games are permitted so long as they adhere to all guidelines — for example, each game update must be submitted for review, developers must provide appropriate metadata for search, games must use in-app purchase to unlock features or functionality, etc. Of course, there is always the open Internet and web browser apps to reach all users outside of the App Store”, so even as the Verge is wondering when Google and Microsoft will catch on, the larger danger remains. 

This for organised crime is a dream come true, and anyone denying or countering it is a blatant fool. A system the can reside in RAM and sets a stage of multiple systems is the holy grail. For the most as it was all system based, there was no real issue, if things did get wrong, one player is held accountable and it tends to end there, now there is a new stage where one system could open a gateway to basically rob you. Now, you are unlikely to lose a lot $1 at the most, so you might not wake up, but when this happens to well over a million players the amount tends to add up and organised crime (as well as entrepreneurial criminals) love that part, becoming wealthy as they sleep and when the system resets, the evidence is gone. No indications of long doing and the justice systems tend to not engage when the stolen amount is less than $5, so there is that, the interested parties could double their income overnight. But in the long term a person could lose $12-$50 over a year and they might not care or even realise this, but when this is done to 20-50 million people it all ends up being a serious amount of money.

A stage where we all watch things happen all whilst nothing will be done, the ego driven will Tate that it is under investigation, and deny wrongdoings, the secondary stage where some careful phrased denial in the some shape that gives us “We have seen no wrong by we are adding safeties just in case” and the jurisprudential parts that give us, it seemingly is a small crime and involved events of less than $5 the we do not investigate and the clever entrepreneur will walk away with millions upon millions of dollars, the is the stage and greed driven technologists thought they were allegedly clever by allowing a stage where a speculated stage of mis acquisition was an optional reality.

A stage the is increasingly dangerous because it is not merely Google, it I a sage where Epic Games, as well as any other set the stage of avoiding fees from whatever source they owe it to, only to set a much more dangerous stage, one the the cyber crime finals love and one the will all cost us, seemingly not a lot, but enough to make others wealthy beyond their dreams.

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October 9, 2020 · 05:04

As crazy ideas go part 2

Yup, there is a part 2 to this, my mind would not stop considering and as I am not getting any sleep (it is now 4:14) I decided to give up and give in to creativity. I tried to wear myself out by playing a game on my mobile, but the idle games become tedious at best, they are clever but there is one original and the firm makes several copies, one involving dope, one involving western times, one involving swamps and one involving mining and from there we go on, play one play them all. So I went out of my way to consider what I like. There is Merchant, which is a lot more fun that I reckon it is, and I have supported (through purchases) of the Book of heroes on two systems. There are a few others and one that must be mentioned is Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter, which is still utterly gold. I played it on 4 systems so far. And that got me thinking, there was a Westworld game, I never saw it, but it was based on Fallout Shelter. So what if we unite the worlds of Fallout Shelter and Dungeon Keeper? The Dungeon Keeper out there now is an exploitative joke. Yet the combined form might be different. Consider (those who can) the two games. Heroes enter the cave (the fallout entrance) and they need to get to the heart. The heart (at the far right) is always linked at the end of the first level, and on level 1 there are 4 rooms, now consider that you can go down, but the lower level is no use until you move the dungeon heart. In addition to the imps building new levels and additional rooms, we need to move the heart, so there is a larger concern to be strategical about the growth. And as every room and combinations of rooms invite certain troops, you want to be clear on how you go about it. The troll is no longer a trap-maker, but his presence doubles the speed of the imps, and as we take a look of rooms, we see thinned to make choices and to change rooms. The library gets us the warlock, but a library next to a prison gets you a sorcerer (more powerful), a prison gets you skeletons, yet a prison next to a graveyard will result in vampires. By setting the rooms next to one another and by combining the size of rooms, we create a larger stage of fiends to aid us with the hordes of heroes the will come for the heart. A training room will set the stage for stronger fighters, just like in the game, yet a training room next to another could infill the presence of another kind of character and the implies that the setting of replaying will be overwhelmingly more interesting. Especially when we consider that not only our troops could go to level 50, but so does the opposition. We could also set limits, like the game, a temple will invite up to 2 Dark Angels, but only if the temple is next to the Dungeon heart and the dark angels NEVER leave the temple, so their training will only come from heroes travelling through them. As such you can set more limitations and in that stage we get a new game, an optional essential as the dark angels were WAY too strong. Even though it is in part based on Fallout Shelter, Dungeon Keeper is an established game that has been around a long time and as the game changes increasingly, there would not be an IP violation, Dungeon keeper merely went from top view to side view and Fallout shelter does not have inter-depending rooms. So there, a new mobile game thought through in less than 2 hours, not a bad result I reckon. 

Of course, if anyone else then EA actually creates that game, they will face a few charges of ownership (EA bought Bullfrog), but the stage could be altered and if it is different enough, it might be made. Oh for those making games, let the gamer switch off the bloody music for your game and do not force them to listen to it through the entire tutorial, some do not care how nice it sounds, we merely want to play the game, not listen to the bombastic fanfare of ego.

And that is merely the beginning, when we consider the old games and the new games (Impossible Mission / Covert Action), in this, we see a stage of partial ‘action’ and a game of tactics, so what happens when Impossible mission is much more tactical? As the altered phrase goes ‘You won’t stay a while, you’ll be there forever’ and if the gamer likes the challenge, why not?

All this within an hour (4:59 now), my job is done, time to see if my sawmill can start (the snore capacitor). Time to prepare for the weekend (after some Zzzzzzzzzzzzz).

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October 8, 2020 · 22:51

As crazy ideas go

OK, lets be clear, Ubisoft is not suddenly a good place (not judging on the massive amounts of pushed events), yet they have the advantage through Watchdogs 2. So what happens if the map is increased, what if it is close to identical to the real deal? Now we are going to add things, not some almanac we have to chase, but events we have to fix.

Consider San Francisco, now add episodes of Charmed, the Streets of San Francisco, Full House, Monk, The Circle, Blue Jasmine, the Rock, Bullet, Pursuit of Happiness, the Presidio, so many movies and TV series that were made and based in San Francisco, what if you have to fix it all, fix productions, get the rights scripts to the right people. Props to the right locations, Hunt for people out to get the actors (wink at the Dead pool) and so on. It has never been done before and what is more, it is a game that is expandable, that is the nice part of San Francisco. OK, Ubisoft has one hell of a legal predicament to work on, but it would be original, and it could be an eye opener for the nextgen systems. In all this, a stage to look forward to, and let not forget, the overwhelming group  of gamers, they do love their movies. So whilst I am brooding over the next part of my short story, this idea came into my head. 

So you start s a young executive (a real Joe does it all), has to get the actors to the set, has to get the props, has to place the crew and scripts. Yet the stage is not as straightforward. There are things he can delegate, and things he cannot delegate. For example, the diamond prop in the jewel store heist (one of the TV series) are also needed on the set of the Presidio, so you are racing from place to place, getting the right stuff and delegating the right tasks. And as we go from level to level, more stages, more scripts and more challenges. All this whilst you need to build up credibility, revenue and stage bigger margins. As the game goes forward there is the need for more of everything and over time as we add more and more series and movies, the unlocks increase. It was only a first thought, but something like this has not been done before and it is not easy, some studios are very protective of their IP, so the game is not an easy fit, but it could be a nice challenge. I wonder who at Ubisoft had looked at that, with the larger need for exclusive gaming, Ubisoft has its challenges ahead of itself.

Anyway, it is more appealing than the hundreds of messages about a fly on the presidential debates. And whilst the world watched the, I had a first inkling of a new idea, I feel that I am on a roll. Yup, I have earned my mac and cheese tonight. 

In light of all the remasters and re-releases (which is still a good thing), I came up with an optional new game. I am still thinking o it and also trying to convince myself to create more new gaming IP, you see so much has already been done, coming up with a brand new IP is a much larger challenge than one thinks. I had the idea of a time thief, but the stage is much too large. The idea came to me when Assassins Creed gave us the original bonfire of the vanities DLC. The person was real, there was a Girolamo Savonarola, he did start ‘ethic cleansing of art’ by having his own kristalnacht, so what happens when you go to the night, copy the artwork and steal to original without being seen. As such what can be done before 7 February 1497, what can only be done on the night, with art treasures the in today’s world would exceed a billion dollars. Hundreds of pieces of art. So how far would you get? Being spotted ends the game, and makes you restart it, or you can retire, but only the successful retire rich. And it is not the only time this happened.

The obvious moment is WW2, yet it was not the only case, WW1 has had its share of events, there is the 17th century fire that destroyed much of Brussels, 1654, a gunpowder magazine stored in a former convent exploded in the Dutch town of Delft (I lived there, which is why I know), destroying the works of Carel Fabritius. An optional art education on top of all this. The 1734 fire of Seville’s royal palace, destroyed hundreds of pieces of art, including works by Diego Velázquez, Leonardo d Vinci, Anthony van Dyck, El Greco, and Raphael. And there are several of these events. So what happens when we realise the tie theft is very very expensive (power for time travel and so on), so one can only progress if enough is ‘saved’. Two ideas in one day, not a bad call, is it? And if you wonder why all the big houses cannot one up with original idea’s, I will shrug my shoulders. I got this done with a gatorade and the need for Mac and cheese in my belly. All this before 11PM, sometimes I even scare myself. So whilst there is a Star Wars movie in the background, I wonder if anyone has considered a slightly more arcade version of Knights of the Sky, and in light of Star Wars Squadrons, did anyone consider a viper simulator for the Battlestar Galactica. It is merely an idea, but the series has plenty of fans, and shooting down Cylons? Not the worst way to spend time (sorry Grace Park). We see the easy marks, yet how many had considered Time theft? We can go 1st person (thief), take a Commando 2 approach guide several characters, use a third person approach (Dead Space), all whilst we consider the choices here, I am considering another game. Oh well, there is no stopping the creative mind.

Have a great weekend (Friday is prep-day for weekend).

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October 7, 2020 · 19:06

The stage of Medici

Yup, we understand (or most at least) the stage that the Medici bring, it is a political stage, it does tend to get a bit confusing when those who who employ the tactics of the medici also study medicine, they are not the same. In this we call the stage (or boxing ring) between Dr. Fauci and Dr. Atlas. In one corner we have Dr. Fauci, an immunologist has had a career in infectious diseases since 1984. This man is extremely qualified on the stage of Covid-19. In the other corner we see Dr. Atlas, a neuroradiologist. It is a subspecialty of radiology focusing on the diagnosis and characterisation of the central and peripheral nervous system, spine, and head and neck using neuroimaging techniques. So oversimplified, one takes pictures and one looks at infectious diseases. I am arrogant enough to say that I could do (after learning it) what Dr. Atlas does, but I would never be willing to claim that I could ever do what Dr. Fauci does.

In all this it is nice to take a look (at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/scott-atlas-hits-back-critics-questioning-science-fauci-redfield-2020-10) the link to the article, there we see “a health-policy expert who spent months speaking out against lockdowns and advocating the full reopening of schools, to the White House coronavirus task force in August prompted outrage in the medical community”, in light of a massive part of the White House, now in a stage where no work can be done, all whilst the cases are till growing globally by well over 300,000 each day. There is not. Lot more we can do, because there is every indication that the numbers are tweaked, incomplete and misreported making the US look worse off, but that stage is (as I personally see it) largely incorrect. In the stage I am on the fence, because the stage is larger and there is a lot of fear mongering. No matter how important we see ourselves, the morality rate is still around 4%, optional a little lower when we consider that several nations have not reported or insufficiently tested for hundreds of thousands of people. All whilst 96% will endure. Yes we would like to see 0% death, but that is not realistically, the over reaction is too often ignored, and when we see “after months of Atlas appearing on Fox News and speaking out against lockdowns”, I am not sure if I can disagree with him, the larger stage is about protecting 96% of the people in amber, which is counter productive and almost pointless. I do not disagree with “members questioning his qualifications to advise the president since his background is in health policy and neuroradiology, not infectious diseases”, if we can accept some lists, we could reflect on Sweden, currently in 42nd place, with 96,145 cases and 5883 Covid casualties, giving them a mortality rate of 6.1%, yet the percentage seems 50% higher, but the economic impact was avoided to some degree. There is also the issue that Sweden is massively rural with the exception of the villages Stockholm, Malmo and Gothenburg. There would optionally be a reason to impact these villages. There is a decent setting that this approach could never work in London, Paris or the Netherlands, the population pressure is too high, it also gives a larger stage that the numbers from India do not add up, yet for the US there needed to be a more fluidic setting. Yes, lock down New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, yet doing that in Arkansas, Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kansas and rural settings makes a lot less sense. Even now, I get it, Face masks is in too many places unavoidable, and I do not object, but the mass fears and the mass ashes were not the greatest ideas. So in this, the Medici move gives rise to “In recent years, however, Atlas has transitioned to a career in health policy. He works as a senior fellow at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution and has advised politicians including Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani on heath policy”, yet in this case, in the case of Covid, his knowledge is inferior to Dr. Fauci, as such, (again oversimplified) it is a speaker of Medici opposing a speaker of medicine and too many do not understand the difference. I see the wisdom in “his background is in health policy and neuroradiology, not infectious diseases” and I see that too, Dr Fauci is the better expert on the matter, but for any health care worker ever confronted with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, we need to understand that this is not a medical book, it is a book for legal settings. It is a rosetta stone so that health professionals can converse with legal professionals and that is the setting a lot of people seem to miss.

I am aware of the stage where psychiatrist Allen Frances has been critical of proposed revisions to the DSM-5, with the generalised quote “it will medicalise normality and result in a box full of unnecessary and harmful drug prescription”, all whilst I am in a stage where I state “if you had to grasp art the book you know there was an issue from moment one of going there”, and in the end it is not a medical book, it is a reference (of sorts). 

So whilst the Fauci and Atlas are brushing up on pugilism, we are standing on the sidelines, tightly packed to see as much of that fight as possible, forgetting that we can make changes to the choices and optionally keep ourselves and other safe. The first lesson that these fanatics seem to forget, because if their actions can be used as optional evidence that they infected others, those relatives of these people could push for arrests towards negligent homicide. At that point it is not about ‘personal rights’ it will not be about ‘freedom of expression’, they got (optionally) others killed and as thousands are getting arrested and jailed before the election, that stage will set a new record of accusations towards election tempering. It is more than merely a silly thought to have.

Yet on the other side I get it, there is a larger overreaction to the situation. It is the impact of fear (as I personally see it). There is no clean setting (other than the Dr. Fauci vs Dr. Atlas setting) and there this president has created a problem for himself. Especially as deaths are on the rise in the US, and it takes only one death in White House staff for the situation to explode (or implode) in a much larger form of consideration, why did President Trump ignore Dr. Fauci in the first place? So far he has not been wrong. I accept that the president has an issue with the ‘better be safe than sorry approach’, yet that is almost every doctor and in this stage Dr. Atlas has a larger disadvantage. 

No matter how this goes, Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli has been howling with laughter for days, the fact that the medico are now medico di Medici is something he never expected and he is clearly having fun.  I feel like celebrating (and giggling) too, let see if he has any of that Italian grape juice left.

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