September 4, 2020 · 14:04

The face carrying the egg

Yup, I woke up giddy (a good meal will do that) and I have been thinking about new IP when the BBC made me giggle with ‘One of Europe’s biggest brothels goes bust’, now this is bound to happen, yet the situation reminded me of an old slogan: ‘Due to a death, the cemetery will be closed for 3 days’. Now I have nothing against the ladies of the night and the business people counting on the mattresses being used day and night, yes they will have a larger issues with a pandemic lockdown. It is nice to see “Some 120 prostitutes usually work at Pascha. It employs around 60 staff including cooks and hairdressers. Mr Lobscheid criticised the German authorities’ handling of the pandemic – particularly their ability to be clear when the business would be allowed to resume. He said officials would tell them every two weeks that they would not be able to reopen”, I am not judging mind you, but the effects of a lockdown implies that you cannot work, not even on your back and when your clients are in lockdown, so will you be. That is the low down on the issue and to see “We can’t plan like that. We might have been able to avert bankruptcy with the help of the banks if we had been promised that things could start again at the beginning of next year”, OK, that is fair, when a brothel is run like any business, that includes paying tax, it is fair to say that it should be allowed governmental protection, and lets face it, if the governments protects its politicians, why not its hookers, there are plenty of situations when most people cannot distinguish one from the other, as such the humour is increasing. Yet the other side is also in discussion, we see this with “Mr Lobscheid criticised the German authorities’ handling of the pandemic – particularly their ability to be clear when the business would be allowed to resume”, I wonder if Mr Lobscheid has all his ducks in a row, you see this pandemic is unique, we haven’t faced anything like this in 100 years and the last time we did it there was a little picnic called World War 1 which had just ended, as such nations were largely in disarray. We have been lucky so far and if governments had taken a longer look at their infrastructure the mess might (i emphasise might) we smaller, but optionally not by a lot. So in all this, as businesses are in lockdown, are in a stage where larger businesses cannot run, we see a brothel, but we also see Airlines, hotels and a whole range of companies losing out of revenue, so in part a business that is properly set up and is paying tax, should be entitled to some form of protection, yet the statement ‘their ability to be clear when the business would be allowed to resume’ is a bit of a stretch. It is almost like the hooker who goes to the doctor because of a symptom and the doctor tells her to stay out of bed for three weeks. yes, it is unfair that businesses like airlines and the one mile high club needs to stop functioning, but I wonder if people have any clue what the impact of a pandemic is. The Spanish flu set the need for 20 million to 50 million tombstones, at present that need is a little below 874,000, so we are only at 5% of the previous caper, now we can toss and turn, or we can adjust. I am in favour of the second, but that too comes with a risk. You see as long as we lockdown the disease remains a risk and the steps make sense, because the more time we have, the more time will be set towards finding a vaccine, and optionally a cure. We are given all these options, but the short, sweet truth is ‘There is no cure or treatment to prevent COVID-19’, as such until there is a treatment, lockdown is what there is and that is it. In this, I accept that the BBC gave us the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54016791) that there is more to life then awaiting death and the setting of Pascha is what it is (as a priest once told others), but the setting that we see with ‘criticised the German authorities’, is to be honest a little insane with the larger stage of unknown variables and minimum distance of 2 meters. I know that some call it a long john, but it’s not that long, not by a long shot. Yet I am still pondering “We might have been able to avert bankruptcy with the help of the banks if we had been promised that things could start again at the beginning of next year”, I know that over religious types go into a banter, but at least it is a business that pays taxation, and if rumours are correct a lot more than a speculated member of FAANG does, so there! 

So when we consider the face carrying the egg, we can point at Lobscheid, or we can look at ‘‘The venues are packed’: Labor Day parties cause concern for another COVID-19 spike’ (at https://www.11alive.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/labor-day-weekend-covid-19-worries/85-e320d391-da34-49e7-b8c0-1ebb35061367), with the added quote “Georgia health experts are concerned Labor Day weekend could usher in a new wave of COVID-19 infections just as the state’s cases have started to slow down. Despite the warning, large parties are scheduled over the next few days in metro-Atlanta, as state and local officials are doing little to stop it”, so whilst we see one person in denial of clarity, we see a whole group of people in denial of the actual situation. For the unemployed it is good news, as 874,000 move towards 2,000,000, we see that jobs become available, houses become cheaper and it will be all over the US, the EU and a few other places as well. For governments there is another upside, as people get jobs, the cost of governing goes down and as such it starts the end of a recession, positive news all around.

I do agree that the lack of clarity breaths confusion and aggravation, but there is no real solution; until the people realise and clearly realise that the last pandemic took well over 20 million lives, only then will they realise that there is a larger setting and they are taking risks with their lives, the clever people will not. The situation is that at present, new cases are set around 290K a day and that has been the case since July 24th, so well over a month, and since July 17th the number of non living increases by 5,000 a day. These two numbers are not a given, and things will get better, but do you think it gets better when hundreds are together in a bar celebrating labour day? It gets to be a lot worse when we see ‘CDC’s autumn vaccine hint fuels fears of pressure from Trump’ (source: the Guardian), there we see “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had instructed states to prepare to distribute a coronavirus vaccine to healthcare workers and vulnerable populations – just in time for the 3 November election”, but at present there is no reliable news that there is an actual vaccine, several sources give us that there is one coming, but when we look at the Sydney Morning Herald (at https://www.smh.com.au/national/how-is-the-new-covid-vaccine-designed-to-work-20200819-p55n33.html) we see “That letter of intent is contingent on the vaccine working – and, scientists have emphasised, we don’t yet know if it will” and that is not all, that was on August 19th, so far we do not see a daily update that there is an actual confirmed vaccine and when we consider “among the more than 165 COVID-19 vaccines under development around the world”, so everyone is racing to fill their pockets with a working vaccine, but so far none is in existence. I do accept the setting “ChAdOx1, the vaccine Australia’s government has signed up to buy, is one of the leaders”, and I know it will take time to confirm, but in all, the stage we are about to see is one that is a dangerous one and too many people have decided not to sit still and ponder the impact of ignoring what is in front of them, time will tell, but the setting is a lot more dangerous than before, the Guardian gives us that with “critics of the Trump administration have worried that the White House would pressure the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), the CDC and other agencies to rush a hasty coronavirus vaccine to market before the election” and that is merely the larger stage, the idea that a place like the CDC could be pressured implies that the lives of the people that they are supposed to protect are not protected at all. This is seen with “a key agency in the process, the FDA, which would have to grant emergency use approval for any vaccine candidate to be distributed before the full completion of trials, has shown itself vulnerable to political pressure”, and it is ‘distributed before the full completion of trials’, is the part that should hit you. If that happened, people could be confronted with a vaccine that is optionally worse than Covid-19. I need to be careful, because I will not speak out against vaccines, but we need to realise that proper testing is needed and that requires time. And in this time is the one element that the people are not willing to give, and those on that train will be wearing egg, and a lot of it.

Time will tell us what was the proper course of action, time will tell us what the effects are of lockdown, because that can only be seen afterwards. I am merely nervous that in the end a lot more people will die of the Coronavirus than was needed, merely because governments were too lazy (or too late) to act. And it is not all their fault, that is seen in the Australian Financial Review with ‘Masks are pointless, says Sweden’s maverick chief medic’ (at https://www.afr.com/world/europe/masks-are-pointless-says-sweden-s-maverick-chief-medic-20200730-p55gre). Here we see “With numbers diminishing very quickly in Sweden, we see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport”, and we are surprised that people follow this, he is an MD, he should know and all whilst we see hundreds of medics all over the world give us all kinds of images, but a lot give us something like the image seen here. So when we see that and we see the statement by Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell. So when was ‘better be safe than sorry’ not a golden rule in an age of Pandemics? 

We still have ways to go, but in all this, I predict that a lot more people will be the careers of egg on face than we think there are and when we learn that lesson it will already be too late.

 

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September 3, 2020 · 12:21

Overkill anyone?

There is no going around the news that Alexey Navalny did not slip on a bar of soap in the bathroom. Yet the news ‘Nerve agent Novichok found in Russia’s Alexey Navalny: Germany’ given to us (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/germany-nerve-agent-novichok-russia-navalny-200902135330447.html) and other sources needs to be evaluated on a few levels. The media is of course eager to give us “Novichok – a military grade nerve agent – was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the United Kingdom”, that event had a few issues and this one has even more. First of all, I do not really know the man, so my information on him has a few dubious sides. Consider his life in Moscow, on his walks in Moscow there are well over a dozen vantage points where his life could be snuffed out with a cyanide tipped bullet (or Ricin), two much more stable compounds than Novichok ever was. From each of these vantage points, I would be able to get to 1-2 streets over and after that simply vanish, the M24, or DVP Druganov equivalent I would leave behind, as a present for the eager beaver. As such Navalny would be dead. There are alternatives with Lithium, and several more opportunities that end life permanently, so we do have options. In this we now get another stage. This is the third known Novichok attack where the person does not immediately die, or does not die at all ‘Comatose Russian dissident Alexey Navalny arrives at Berlin hospital’ (source: CNN). And even as the media hides behind ““Only the state [FSB, GRU] can use Novichok. This is beyond any reasonable doubt,” Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said on Twitter, referring to the FSB internal security and GRU military intelligence services”, I had shown in ‘Something for the Silver Screen?’ In March 2018 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/03/17/something-for-the-silver-screen/) we see that the statement ‘Only the state [FSB, GRU] can use Novichok’ is not true, there are at least two instances where reach of Novichoks are outside of state actors, that is separate from the issues shown in the OPCW papers and in this, there are more questionable acts by Vil Mirzayanov in this. And let’s be clear, if the FSB or the GRU wanted Alexey Navalny dead there are over a dozen of ways to do that. If you need to get rid of the neighbour, you don’t resort to nuclear weapons, it is a level of overkill that is apparently accepted by all the media whilst no one is looking at the larger picture. Novichok is massively unstable and way too dangerous. These are known properties and no one is looking into the matter or asking questions. 

Is that not really really weird?

And it does not end there, Al Jazeera also gives us “Sergei Nechayev, who was summoned to the foreign ministry on Wednesday, asked for evidence and received “no answer, no facts, no data, no formulae”” as such, we see the accusation, we see no facts and no real evidence, and even as I am willing to accept that there was something real here, there is still a larger car where this is not a state operation, but another setting where Russian organised crime is involved. This does not absolve the Russian government but it does show a much larger setting and optionally a case where the Russian government is not guilty. The act of one corrupt official does not make a government guilty, and is that not a nice surprise “In December 2010, Navalny announced the launch of the RosPil project, which seeks to bring to light corrupt practices in the government procurement process”, it seems that Navalny has been dipping his feet in the pool of corruption hoping to see what is swimming there and who the sharks are (a West Side Story reference). Yet the media is not looking too deep there, because someone mentioned the word Novichok. In this the very first setting in this situation is that the use of Novichok is a massive overkill, and no one is catching on, why is that?

And if the west is so about freedom and about being nations of laws, why are they all negated in several cases? 

 

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September 1, 2020 · 17:56

Just the facts?

Isn’t that what it needs to be in media? Just the facts? The issue is that media in general and in this case the BBC specifically is setting a different stage and I am not sure why. Now, I will give up front that it is my opinion and perception against that of the BBC and the stage is up in the air. For the most, or basically nearly always, the BBC is on point and is highly reliable. In this case, some facts are debatable and one factor is that I do not have all the inn’s and out’s (pun intended). That is also a factor and I am trying to keep that in mind. So the article ‘Saudi king sacks defence officials’ would initially be something I would have glanced over. Merely because even if I would be applying for the position of Defence official for the Saudi Arabian government, I do not speak the language and I reckon that there are plenty of Saudi nationals eager to get that position. In the second, the role was until recently in the hands of Prince Fahad bin Turki, and I am no prince (no matter what the ladies say). In addition we are given “The men, along with four other officials, face an investigation into “suspicious financial dealings” at the Ministry of Defence, the decree said”, implying that this is all about the politics, and I never cared for politics. It all starts with “critics say the high-profile arrests have been aimed at removing obstacles to the prince’s hold on power”, my first question becomes, who are those critics? In the second, in light of how things are in Yemen, I see no real setting that Prince Fahad bin Turki is any kind of obstacle in the current power setting in Saudi Arabia, now I will admit immediately that I have no real idea on who is in that power cycle, yet I wonder if those ‘critics’ are aware of what is and who are, or are they merely setting the stage for others to set a presentation stage? You see the accusation is given speculated strength via ‘critics say’ yet we do not get any mention of who those critics are, do we? Yet the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53980115) goes off the deep end when we see “However he has been embroiled in a series of scandals, including the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in 2018 and an alleged murder plot against a former Saudi intelligence agent in Canada”, this is achieved in a few ways. In the first, the entire Khashoggi debacle is set to flawed intelligence, especially the ‘added’ intelligence by UN essay writer Agnes Calamard, I dealt with that in several articles, especially in ‘Demanding Dismissal’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/04/demanding-dismissal/), so not only can we prove that Jamal Khashoggi is murdered, we can merely speculate on that, and that is before we need to realise that there is absolutely no evidence that there was any directive from Saudi Arabia to allegedly kill Jamal Khashoggi, if there was it would have ‘leaked’ to every newspaper in the world, all we got was a level of emotional outbursts devoid of evidence. And there is the alleged plot against Dr. Saad Aljabri, the allegations went so far that they try to convict Saudi Officials in another country, how is that for failing evidence? Yet that same court has no real intentions to seriously look into “Saudi officials accuse Aljabri of leading a group that misspent $11 billion of government funds and skimmed $1 billion for themselves, the Wall Street Journal reported, an allegation he denies” interesting is it not? 

So it seems that the critics are all about spinning yarn, if not they would have been out there supported by actual and factual evidence, they are not. And the implied situation in Istanbul, which comes up in every Saudi story is this time linked to the sacking of defence officials, all whilst the evidence attached is drowning additional events is disbelief and more credibility is removed from the situation. That was not hard, was it?

 

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September 1, 2020 · 05:36

The stage I partially ignored

We all have that, we hear and see something and partially ignore the small print (if it is stated at all), she deals are good. I have made no secret of my aversion to Microsoft, that remains, yet I thought that the Game Pass was a great idea, so when I was shown ‘Xbox Game Pass is a steal — so why aren’t people using it?’ (at https://www.laptopmag.com/news/xbox-game-pass-op-ed) two days ago, I was a little confused. I might not be a Microsoft fan, but there are plenty who love Microsoft and Xbox, it is their choice and they are welcome to it, in that part I would think that they would love the Game Pass, yet the article give me a few items that I was not aware of.

The first part is “If you’re in the middle of a long RPG like Final Fantasy XV and it is removed from Game Pass, you’ll have to buy it. In Game Pass’ defense, the service gives you a month’s warning when games you’ve downloaded are about to leave. You also have the option to buy the game at a discount”, as well as “Some players feel more comfortable buying and downloading games individually rather than getting them through a service like Game Pass. It sounds like semantics considering you’re downloading games regardless, but perception is key, and to some, knowing they are getting a game through a service turns them off. In their eyes, Game Pass removes ownership” it gives a stage where we basically never own games, we merely rent them and there is a plus side and a down side to that, it is slightly more clear when we set the Microsoft store quote next to this “Get 2-4 free games every month and save up to 50% on game purchases”, so basically you pay $15 a month and that gives access to some games, whilst buying a game is up to 50% cheaper. So imagine Assassins Creed 15 (whatever version) and any AC fan wants to own them, so that month the bill could be at least $65. How long until the basic setting of the game pass is no longer a real sweet deal? 

And that is not the end, the more people are hit with the temporary setting ‘removed from Game Pass’, the gamer gets the setting of an expensive pass. I am actually amazed that Microsoft did not do a better job there. How long until we see that the games that they offer have a mere 1 year (or perhaps even 2 year) shelf life? It is not a path I expected Microsoft to make and when we see “Game Pass is $9.99. For $14.99, subscribers get Xbox Game Pass for Xbox and Windows PC along with Xbox Live. This also includes access to play online games. An additional $5 on top of the $10 for Xbox Live doesn’t sound so bad, but to some gamers, it could very well be a deal-breaker”, which is not news, but when we see the temporary approach to ‘renting’ games, the entire matter changes. There is no denying that $15 is a good deal if the games are forever yours to play, in a temporary setting and the obligation to buy some games afterwards the setting becomes a non-deal for a fair amount of gamers and when we see this on top of the other stages that Xbox gamers have been exposed to since 2012 we see a stage where Microsoft might only have its Cloud and mobile gaming left, they squandered whatever advantage they had and now we see a stage where Xbox ends up in fifth position behind the Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia and Apple Arcade, that might be a setting I get to see in 2022, as such if Microsoft does not adjust its path they will end up dead last in a game where they could have been in second place.

That is the price of setting a business stage in a world where you do not comprehend the participants.

 

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August 31, 2020 · 20:17

The Pakistani seesaw

I took an interest 2 days ago when the news of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia came across the screen. Yet that is not the part that got to me, it felt like an element, not the main beef and I was proven right with ‘Pakistan’s balancing act may be failing’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/pakistan-balancing-act-failing-200828164701825.html), which gives us in the by-line “Pakistan’s strategy to keep good relations with everyone is no longer working in an increasingly polarised Muslim world”, that makes sense, polarisation is found almost everywhere. Pakistan is in an almost impossible situation, I want to blame Pakistan for their own situation and I would likely be right, but there is no real evidence of it, merely a long line of political choices that Pakistan went with and that makes sense from a Pakistani point of view. Yet we are also given “Qureshi said Islamabad expects the Jeddah-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to convene a meeting on Kashmir. Otherwise, he said, Pakistan would be “compelled” to “call a meeting of the Islamic countries that are ready to stand with us on the issue of Kashmir”. Qureshi’s comments have widely been viewed as a veiled threat to create a new bloc that would rival the Saudi-dominated OIC”, Saudi Arabia responded and it was not good for Pakistan, but they did this to themselves. From my (limited) point of view, we need to acknowledge that Kashmir is a much larger issue and it makes sense for Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to not rush to conclusions ahead of time, because it either leads to the alienation of Pakistan or India and I reckon that the Islamic countries do not want to alienate an optional consumer base of 1.3 billion people. This does not mean that the Islamic nations are against the Pakistani stance in the Kashmir region, but that situation is a lot larger than we imagine, no matter how we turn it, it is either an Indian choice or a Pakistani choice, yet I wonder what the Kashmiri choice is, the media tends to report little on that (or so it seems to me). 

So when we get to “Soon after General Bajwa landed in Pakistan, Qureshi left for China, sending a clear message to the kingdom that Islamabad is diversifying its alliances and re-evaluating the value of its strategic partnership with Riyadh”, we see that Pakistani wants options, it felt threatened by the pressure on Saudi Arabia that backfired, and in this China was not a solution, merely a trade opportunity as long as China allowed for it, because China has too much to gain from deals with India, they too see 1.3 billion consumers and China wants them, 221 million Pakistani does not add up, especially as the poverty line in Pakistan is 25%, India is at 22%, but with a population base that is almost 6 times larger, China sees a larger interest in India, which doesn’t help Pakistan much. 

There is more, the article also gives us “Today, Saudi Arabia has several reasons to value its deepening partnership with India more than its historic ties to Pakistan. While the annual trade between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia stands at around $3.6bn, Saudi-India bilateral trade is worth more than $30bn. This trade differential partially explains, despite persistent Pakistani requests, why Riyadh has avoided raising the Kashmir issue beyond mere tokenism. Unlike Pakistan, Saudis do not take a zero-sum view of their growing economic cooperation with India. In fact, economic overtures towards India are part of MBS’s post-oil economic diversification efforts”, it is like I stated, India is increasingly important, the diversification efforts are increasing in Riyadh and that is seen all over the globe and China is part of that, all whilst India is already a larger part of it. You do not toss overboard 900% of trade so settle one issue, an issue that is increasingly difficult to set, one might argue that both Saudi Arabia and China might prosper even more if Kashmir became an independent nation. 

Whatever happens next, Pakistan has a much larger issue in play, if we are to believe Al Jazeera with “Pakistan’s criticism of Saudi-led Muslim bloc OIC for its inaction on the Kashmir issue has threatened their ties” (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/pakistan-saudi-rift-happened-200827175219872.html), where we see “Pakistan accused the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 57 Muslim-majority countries that is led by Saudi Arabia, of inaction over the Kashmir issue – a key policy issue for Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan”, there is of course the idea to get all 57 views on Kashmir, but that is merely me considering the larger field. 

So in all this, the larger Seesaw is not Pakistan on one side and Kashmir on the other side, it is a stage where we see the needs of Pakistan one one side and the other side we see the needs of either Saudi Arabia or China, with Kashmir at the centre setting the stage of balance, optionally their inaction. Pakistan is not in a good place and it will get worse, as they alienate more Islamic nations, we will become witness of some sort of isolation of Pakistan, that might not be the best diagnosis, but it is the best I can do for now. No matter how I phrase it, it seems to me that the setting in the Middle East will partially be represented by the views of the OIC and their views towards Kashmir might be more important than we realise. 

 

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August 31, 2020 · 13:31

The console stage

I made a claim last week and I forgot to follow up (my bad), and here it is. I was watching on the games out there in the past and games that might have a lovely return. First is the Sentinel. It caught my eye on the Atari ST in 1987, I played it them and I got the remake in my fingers on the PC in 1998, complete with the addictive music by the one and only John Carpenter. I believe that this game would be a nice asset on the Google Stadia (or Sony/Nintendo console), it is a game that you can play, put down and play again when you feel like it. Each of the systems can outdo the PC 1998 graphics without impeding on playability. I believe that the Ultima RPG games, but now with a Elder Scrolls first person look would be another game that could rise to fame (again), the important part is that games 4,5,6,7a and 7b would be one great game, a station that evolves as you play and they set a much larger stage that has not been achieved EVER. As such each of these systems could bank on a million fans almost overnight when properly transferred. And that is only the top of the chart, the state we see when we take the games that were not entirely at the top of the charts (like Paradroid) and we tweak those, we get a whole new range of games that would be out there for a renewed chance of more and more gamers. Another setting is seen in Mega-Lo-Mania, the game was good, not great, but it is set on too limiting a setting. It should be improved on, especially as RAM and hard drive are no longer an issue. The same could be said for forgotten Ubisoft gem Conquest: Frontier Wars, there are a few tweaks suggestions, but for the most, the skirmish part is all that is needed to give thousands of gamers fun for many many hours, and it could be ready for Google Stadia, Nintendo Switch et al quite quickly. I reckon that the Nintendo is especially interesting as it has no real space management games of that magnitude and it allows people to play by themselves and online against one another. Two stages that are easily achieved, Ubisoft does have the knowledge to run out to those fields (and they can use any win possible). In that same stage, who could forget 1989 addictive game Archipelagos, made by Astral Software? I reckon that in its original shape it is slightly too dull and too shallow, but the stage was good and when we consider other games from that era and we can spice things up a bit, the stage changes it from better than average to really good. It is not really a fair setting, because the original was better than ‘better than average’, but it was a game designed on a system lacking resources and as such improvements and additions are an option, yet there is a stage where we see that the 80’s and 90’s gave great creativity on the lacking stage of hardware, and as such we see that there is a whole range of games that can be revived on these systems. 

Yes, we all want new IP, but lets not forget that great IP remastered is still a good place to start and a lot of it is up for grabs and for those not up for grabs, the original makers could get a new lease on life and an additional pay check for the IP they know really well, gamers and game makers both seem to forget that part.

A stage that is in motion, and could set the console wars to another stage, the actual and factual stage where it does not matter how powerful your system is, it becomes a setting on who offers the most fun and that part has been forgotten to the largest extent, I wonder why?

For me, I still remember the many hours I rejoiced playing Fur Fighters on the Dreamcast, the PS2 version sucked, but the Dreamcast edition was massive fun and I still wonder why that game never made it to PS3 or XB360, now that most of the games can make it to a wider selection, I wonder if anyone will pick up the treasure trove before it is too late. Or perhaps the original makers will consider the larger stage that is now open to them.

2021 could be a great year for gaming and not just the new IP, golden oldies could be a genuine important stage for all systems willing to step into that mix.

 

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August 30, 2020 · 19:24

Sweden has it too

We know that the far right is not blessed with a lot of intelligence, and as such I did not expect Sweden to get overly right winged, but the Quran burning in Sweden is proving me wrong. So when the BBC gave me ‘Protest against Koran-burning turns violent in Sweden’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53959492) I was a little surprised. And there was more, with “Earlier on Friday, police barred far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan from attending the Koran-burning rally” we see that the hatred prolongation against Muslims is a lot worse then we thought, it is a European problem and they are not dealing with it. It started with the images of Mohammed, which in turn made me come up with the script ‘How to assassinate a politician’, which could optionally be eligible for an International Oscar if it was made. I just don’t get it, I thought the Nazi’s were stupid with their book burning, which they optionally got the idea from Girolamo Savonarola, who burned my copy of the Decamerone (bloody bastard), and he became the original designer of the Bonfire of the Vanities. So the Nazi’s got a hold of that idea and now we see a repetition of stupidity by the Swedish far right. As I see it christianity is waning, after 2000 years we are finally seeing that reflections don’t help, it merely assists the greed driven in setting up shop and trying to prove me wrong merely assists the far right and the atheists. I don’t comprehend this level of stupidity, why burn books, why burn any book? In doing so it just pisses of the Muslims, which is apparently their goal and it is less intelligent than any other option and that is saying something. I have no issues with Muslims and I have no issues with people who are not pro-Muslim, but keep it to themselves. There is a level of acceptance that christian people seemingly have. Perhaps there is a sizeable group that are not cheering for Muslims, but as we are in a station where we accept other religions, I accept that we have Muslims in our midst, we have a welcoming nature, so it is fine with me. I see no problem, and I get that some people get nervous, but is it nervous out of knowledge? I doubt it.

So whilst far right politician Geert Wilders sets in motion “Geert Wilders revived a controversial Prophet Mohammad cartoon competition. The Dutch politician declared the winner to be a dark drawing of a bearded man wearing a black turban”, we see the repetitive acts of intentional insulting Muslims, and anyone doubting the idea I had on the movie project ‘How to assassinate a politician’ would be an allowed stage where a person not unlike far right politician Geert Wilders ends up being dead (in the movie that is). So as we are getting over the shock that Sweden is just as discriminating as any other EU nation, we see a larger issue making it to the surface. In a stage where people hide behind ‘freedom of speech’ whilst knowingly and intentionally whacking others is just a slime move. So as we turn back the clock to April 2019 and we see ‘presentation on Gendered Islamophobia in Europe’ (at https://efomw.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/EFOMW-Strasbourg.pdf), I wonder about that setting, I am not saying that the setting does not exist, I merely state that there is a much larger stage of ‘presentation on Islamophobia in Europe’, gender is not an issue, the discriminants see man and women of muslim faith both equally unacceptable in their region. Yet all this should not be given to you without ‘Danish man who videoed himself burning the Quran charged with blasphemy’, a situation from February 2017 with the by-line “Case is first time Danish prosecutors have charged anyone with blasphemy in 46 years”, as such I accept that there is forward momentum, yet that was three years ago and there is not much evidence that forward momentum is a given. And if we accept Danish law “Under clause 140 of Denmark’s penal code, anyone can be imprisoned or fined for publicly insulting or degrading religious doctrines or worship”, I wonder why Rasmus Paludan is still an elected official or even a free man, don’t you? 

 

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August 29, 2020 · 18:08

Tickle me this!

I got an award today (who by remains confidential), it is an award many man want, but alas, I got there first (for the ward that is), I am getting the 2020 award for impregnating Laura Vandervoort, don’t get me wrong, we never had sex, we never had a date, but there you have it, I got the award none the less. That is the situation we see today when GamesRadar gave us the Gamescom 2020 award winners.

Best Action Adventure Game: Watch Dogs Legion, Ubisoft
Best Sony Playstation Game: Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt RED

There were more, but these two stood out. The games are not out yet, the games are not released, so how did they win? Now personally I would agree with the Cyberpunk 2077 win, but if I hols one to a higher station, I need to hold both to a higher station. Cyberpunk is currently set to a 19 November 2020 release date. Any further delay and it would not apply to any 2020 win. The same could be set about Watch Dogs Legion, which is set to a 29 October 2020 release date. Some of the other nominees are coming out in November and now, on the 29th of August they have already won? How is that even possible? So if they get to make that statement, I get the Knock Up LV award. I had little choice, in my Freebie top 5, she is still the only one not married (as far as I know), so there you have it, the stage is set.

And there are more awards to come, yet will they be set to the right station?

We can argue that: 

Best Simulation game will be the Microsoft Flight Simulator (there is no substitute).
Best Sports game has three options, but the EA games are not coming until later this year.
Best RPG is up in the air, but Cyberpunk 2077 has a good chance if it comes in 2020.

Best Remaster? Best PC Game? I have no idea and I have no real setting of what will come in 2020, but to award it to a game that is not yet pleased is insanity and folly, but it made me dream of the most unlikely of all encounters, me and Laura Vandervoort, apart from the situation that she is on the other side of the Pacific river and that is merely the first of many factors in place and in this we see the larger stage, Gamescom wanted to count, it wanted to be the captain of industry, Covid-19 be damned and I get it, but it is not right. That the award are given to the games released in the previous year, makes sense, or even over the last 12 months, but to give them out to unreleased games is folly.

And this has nothing to do with my sentiment towards Ubisoft, I believe that in this case the game I am yearning for is in the same mix, as such the game should not have won until it was released. Some will agree, some will not, but the stage of so many awards and they are optionally based on unreleased games is wrong.

It is a stage where we see more and more events set to timely publication, for them Covid-19 must suck and I get it, but to set the stage to award games not yet published is getting a bit weird. It is merely my $0.0325 on the matter (my 2 cents with adjustment) and feel free to disagree.

 

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August 29, 2020 · 05:26

Jealousy

We all have it and I am no exception. Yes, I am keeping the IP I have to myself (for now), and I have been involved in video games since 1985, so when I see ‘EA Executives Blocked From Receiving “Exorbitant” Awards’ (source: Kotaku) all whilst we see “Earlier this week, investors shot down EA’s proposed payment plans for their executives” in the same frame when I proposed a version of Mass Effect that would undo the damage the previous one did and give the players a 400% boost in exploratory gameplay is set on a slippery slope. When a group of people getting millions of bonuses for making junk why would I bother helping them? (slightly miffed me), yet when we see the list of games coming out, we see a drove of remastered games (now also coming to Nintendo Switch), with a huge spoonful of sport games, which was always their core business, yet there is now a hole, even as we accept that there is a border to Sims, there is an edge to the Medal of Honour and there is a life expectancy of Dead Space, EA had good games and that is merely in the near past. Especially now in the Google Stadia stage, they seemingly forget Populous, Populous 2, Seven cities of gold. Yes, we get it these are old games, but so are a large group of remastered games. EA has a large opportunity, Google needs fuel for its stadia, EA has a whole range of games that likes players and with Ubisoft the way it is now, EA has the advantage. We might see the temporary influx of a gem like Battle Chess and we all see it, yet it became a game that was (for a while) liked and optionally loved by a whole range of people with zero interest in chess gaming. So what happens when the tutor part of Battle Chess increases a lot more, what happens when a whole new generation of players can get into chess, optionally with the added play online, set groups of players and so on. A categorical side of Elo, the chess rating. There is still the option to add Battle Chess 2, yet the question becomes how many people warm up Chinese chess (different pieces, different moves). When we accept that we are willing to engage into the side of puzzles that need solving, chess puzzles are there for all and in the stage that Google Stadia finds itself in, there is a larger need to get the gaming fuel going and the fuel they are all forgetting about is the fuel that is out in the open. And it is not about the identical port, but it is about what more the games could offer and these games have plenty to offer, all whilst the IP is still in the hands of EA (most of them anyway). EA has a massive advantage. Even as there is a lot of anti-EA people, the quality of games was never below the par line, not like the par line Ubisoft waves anyway. There is also the stage to grow, a game like Shadow Caster was not the great game it could have been then, but the stage now could lead to a lot more gaming and dare I say it a higher quality level of gaming? And they are not alone, Ian Bird created a game called Millennium 2.2 31 years ago. A game that I still remember playing on the CBM Amiga, The CBM Amiga had to deal with 512KB of RAM and a disc holding 880KB of storage, Any system can surpass that now, so we could see a setting where this game could be restitched at the tailor giving us a new style of clothing, in new colours with more versatility. That is the stage that I feel the most on with Severn Cities of Gold. Ubisoft makes us chase in game loot boxes, yet the origin of this comes from discovering things and Seven Cities of gold delivered. Nowadays it does not hold up to our needs, but what happens when we set the stage to a much higher level, yet the original idea was sound. Yes, I know, we hear all these people with ‘I can do this much better’, but where are they? Where is their product? 

I am not claiming to do any better, but I see what is and what can be and they are merely mulling it over with their ‘improved product’ and not showing anything. It is a shame because there is a stage where Google Stadia can surpass Microsoft and I have a vested interest in showing them how wrong their approach was, treason to gamers is a stage I take very seriously and I am driven to see them fall, if only to show them the error of their delusional stage of self preservation. OK, I admit that this is a little over the top, but to see them having to swallow their words ‘We have the most powerful system in the world’, letting them surpass themselves by the weakest system (Nintendo Switch) and optionally set the stage of the Google Stadia surpassing them as well is a nice notch on my 6 shooter. The fuel for gamers is games and adding a whole range of games that entice, reward game time and let them feel the joy of gaming is rewarding to me. 

And the stage of setting loose on the gaming world of amazing games is just icing on the cake. In this EA is a good start, they had excellent games, no denying that and a package deal there would be a larger win for Google. I believe that the games that enticed the previous generation can still entice the current generation when we upgrade and adjust the game to what we expect in today’s environment. Let’s not forget that most games were created in a pre controller age, as such the quality of game play will go up a lot, and I believe that this stage is one that Google Stadia as well as Apple Arcade would want to pursue. They cannot beat Nintendo or Sony, but they can catch up with marketing driven Microsoft and optionally surpass them, I would see it as a personal achievement. A setting where bullet point driven executives are shown the door by the gamers they set up to milk. So I admit, there is some jealousy when my evangelical approach to gaming is not rewarded and the inferior approach to gaming is, on the other had, they delivered a product and I do not deny it, I merely wonder why some products (the non-sport games) aren’t better, yet I also recognise that the umpteen versions of Sims allow for jewels like Unravel to make it, one hand washes the other and we let slide the disappointment that was Mass Effect 4, especially as there is a stage where the mistake can be undone. All whilst those who love the Sims get another influx of juice, Jedi juice is you like.

We can channel our jealousy, we can ignore our jealousy or we can deny it, it is up to you to decide on your view, your choice and perhaps your drive. I will leave it with you, and to give a little shot to your drive, gaming revenue represented $120 billion in 2019, if you want a slice of that, get to work.

 

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August 28, 2020 · 04:25

The tech is out there

Even now, as the larger players (Microsoft and Wall-mart) are starting a bidding fight for TikTok, we see the flaw on several levels in the digital age. I illuminated it yesterday, in my previous article.  We are in a stage where everyone is shouting that they have Digital Media Managers , Digital Marketers, Account Managers, Social Media Managers and so on, and so on. Yet, where it counts, we see (at https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/WIGOV/bulletins/29bf2b8) the statement on Kenosha and the shooting, but when I looked at the site in ‘Self destruct initiated’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/27/self-destruct-initiated/) there was no mention at all and that was at 02:57 on August 27th, whilst the shooting was on August 23, it took 4 days for the digital media manager to wake up. Yet the police section in the news of the City of Kenosha website is still empty, so why do they have a website and who manages it? It is nice to have politicians and captains of industry hide behind the Internet of Things, digital media and digital needs, but where it counts, are they even aware that they flunked the pooch? 

A second set is given by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53930775), here we see ‘Facebook says Apple ad-blocking settings could halve revenue’ where we get introduced to “Apple’s plan to require all users to actively opt in before they can be tracked “may render Audience Network so ineffective on iOS 14 that it may not make sense to offer it”, Facebook said”, whilst we also get “In the upcoming iOS 14, apps have to explicitly ask users’ permission to collect and share data, meaning ads will no longer be able to just “follow” users to apps outside of Facebook”, all whilst everyone is ignoring “way for advertisers to extend their campaigns beyond Facebook and into other mobile apps”, lets be clear, FaceBook has every right to advertise on its site, it is the price of getting a free service, yet where does it state that the people have to agree to be followed “into other mobile apps”? In that article, where does it state the need and rights of the consumer? (I am not attacking the BBC or the writer of the article), we overlook technology to the mere shallow assumption related to it. We see the attack on Apple from Epic games (Fortnite) and we see Microsoft supporting Epic games, yet thee fact that the rule that Apple relied on is pretty much the same rule Microsoft has in place, so how did that make sense? It only looks clear when we see the path Microsoft has in play and they mobile XCloud is relying on the millions of iPhone users. I mentioned that in ‘The stage pushed by Microsoft’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/24/the-stage-pushed-by-microsoft/), so again we see a tech setting that is getting a shallow treatment and in this case I do not attack the media (even though I think they fell short), for the media it is all the emotion, as such we see the BBC giving us ‘Apple Fortnite players left behind in new update’, yet the stage where Epic games would be allowed back if they remove the external link in the game, which is against the developers agreement that Epic games agreed to when they got on the Apple store, a rule that Microsoft has in play as well and the media pretty much smoothed over with what I would personally see as ‘applied ignorance in action’.  

We see two versions of limited tech insight. This entire setting also applies to Huawei, the accusations and the lack of evidence is centre to all this. We get ‘Huawei’s networking equipment has not been detected spying’, in a Sky article last July, and it is the driving part in all this, we want evidence and we keep on getting bitching American politicians, one after another all emotions and no evidence. All whilst last week in the Australian Financial Review (at https://www.afr.com/technology/is-huawei-too-big-to-fail-20200824-p55ont) where we get the repeated “shot down by an announcement from the US government that it would use the global dominance of American technology to cut off all supplies of semiconductors to Huawei”, which is stupidity on a new level. It seems that it is not and that would be fair, the short term solution is met as semiconductors are not available. Yet in this for over a year Huawei was ready to that stage making (read: designing) their own semiconductors. When that happens, the US will have a Chinese competitor in another field and the US will lose even more ground. So whilst the US is in denial that Huawei grew because it had a good product, slightly cheaper but a lot better, in all this they rely on “Driven by the belief that Huawei could enable the ruling Chinese Communist party and its military to spy on other countries and their companies, undermine their national security and steal their commercial secrets, the US government used every option open to it”, where ‘could’ is the operative word and the additional ‘undermine their national security and steal their commercial secrets’, and guess what, there is no evidence on any level and the situation merely becomes worse when you consider ‘Critical flaw in IOS routers allows ‘complete system compromise’’, a part that ZDNet gave us in June (and before that, at https://www.zdnet.com/article/ciscos-warning-critical-flaw-in-ios-routers-allows-complete-system-compromise/), it is a simple situation, the Chinese government does not need to use Huawei to spy, they can use Cisco equipment (an American company based in San Jose) and download server by server on a global scale. When did the media give you that part? That weakness and a few more have been out in the open, and we hear nothing. This is not on Cisco, as it warned the users and is working on fixes, but the media is blind to the flaw, why is that?

Both the tech and the flawed tech is out there and there is a growing issue for a lot of people that we get limited and one sided revelations, who is served better to that? I am going with the personal view that the setting of the media catering to Shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers remains firmly in place.

The tech is out there, but who is taking a good look at it and who is using it to the maximum that would be required in the digital age? I’ll let you brew on that for a little while.

 

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