July 11, 2020 · 20:34

The Price of knowledge

There was an article in the BBC two days ago, I kept it on the side as I wanted the knowledge to sink in. There is optionally nothing wring with the writer, yet the stage is flawed. The stage includes everyones favourite Essay writer with a matching political agenda, It’s Eggy Calamari. Although she apparently uses her altar ego identity Agnes Calamard at 405 East 42nd Street, New York. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53345885) gives us ‘Qasem Soleimani: US strike on Iran general was unlawful, UN expert says’, OK, we are in a stage where we need to differ between what is just and what is lawful, and I get that. Not all just actions are lawful and plenty of lawful actions are not just. That is how it has always has been, so what gives in this case? Well that part is seen with “the US had not provided sufficient evidence of an imminent threat to life to justify the attack”. Are these people for real? Qasem Soleimani was direct threat to Middle East stability every moment he was breathing. This is not some general like most nations have them, this was an absolute virtuoso in the art of terrorism wherever he went. 

So when we see “He was in charge of the Quds Force’s clandestine missions and its provision of guidance, funding, weapons, intelligence, and logistical support to allied governments and armed groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad”, we see that apart from whatever lawful way he had destabilising the Middle East, we also see that he funded three terrorist organisations, namely Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and that is not enough evidence? These three are a constant threat to imminent threat of life any given day of the week. It seems to me that just like in previous attempts, Agnes Calamard is all about catering to the ‘concerns’ of Iran for some politicians to keep the conversation going for whatever needs these politicians have.

For those who are not in the know of General QS. Let’s take a look. First is 2019, when we consider Iraq, we are given “Baghdad: The Iraqi people refuse the pro Iranian personalities”, I will let you guess what happens next, next we see “Soleimani traveled to Iraq aiming to convince various political parties to maintain Mohammed Shia’ Sabbar al-Sudani? as the new candidate for the prime ministry, the Al-Arabiya website reported on December 16. Al-Sudani? is member of the Islamic Dawa Party led by former Iraqi PM Nouri Al-Maleki who is charged with embezzlement, corruption, murder and terrorizing his opponents. al-Sudani? was also a minister in Maleki’s cabinet. Another candidate is Ghosi Al-Sahih. He was a minister in Adel Abdol Mehdi’s cabinet and close to Nouri Al-Maleki. Following his nomination for the PM post, the Iraqi people protested in numerous cities including Baghdad, Naseriyah, Najaf and Basra.” The issues becomes that Qasam Soleimani is not a diplomat, he doesn’t negotiates, he hands out ultimatums and if they do  not know that at the UN, then those people have become slightly less than useless. 

We can go back in time, 2018, 2017, 2016, Qasam Soleimani was there dispersing his brand of justice through the powerful arms of terrorist organisations in the Middle East. That can all be set to the stage of a direct threat to life, an imminent threat to life and an absolute waging of war against civilians. So when we see two botched reports (as I personally see it) against Saudi Arabia, relying on cone cure and ignoring the lack of evidence and now we see her making a black letter law call? I wonder who is paying her ticket, I am not much for conjecture but this is the third case that calls for an investigations into the acts of Agnes Calamard, the fact that this is not happening, implies that certain people require the need for Middle Eastern imbalance and who does that serve? In this economy it actually serves no one but the ones needing funds to go in specific directions for a longer time to come, whilst the need cannot be shown. I would ask the people at Palantir, but they are too busy going public regarding their shares (I am not stating that this is illegal or a bad call).

We can hide behind the price of knowledge, but the actions of Qasam Soleimani are well documented for close to half a century and the opposition got to him before he made a mess of Iraq as well. I reckon that this is the part that upsets them optionally more then taking out the financier of three terrorist organisations, and those are the three we openly know about, there is enough to indicate Qasam Soleimani in dozens of other cases, other fund distributing actions. In most cases he merely approved them, he was not directly involved and we will never find any, including his hands in the entire Yemeni situation, which is interestingly not investigated. Can anyone tell me how 50+ Iranian drones and 200+ Iranian missiles got into Houthi hands without him knowing and approving it? #Just-asking

 

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July 11, 2020 · 03:08

The image we are offered

Yup, it happens, we all have an image of a person. Not in any good or bad way, just an image of how we have seen him the most. In my case, this reflects on Eminem. The rapper has been part of my music appreciation life for around two decades. It started with the Marshall Mathers LP, which I bought because I liked the song Stan. The album brought a lot more than merely one song, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t get parts of it, I am not an American, the issues he sings about are issues I never witnessed or faced. I bought 4 albums and over the years I lost sight of his music. Not intentional, the world is filled with music and I try to learn as much as I can. So when I saw him looking like a F1 racer with beard and all, I took a step back. As I took note of ‘Eminem criticises non-mask wearers on new rap track’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/10/eminem-criticises-non-mask-wearers-on-new-rap-track-kid-cudi-covid-19) I learned of “Eminem has entered the debate about face masks in a collaboration with Kid Cudi, tackling an issue that is the subject of fierce disagreement in the US and UK”, and the lyrics are set to the spice of Eminem (read: less subtle in bringing the message) and as we see ““Bunch of halfwits up in office. Half of us walking around like a zombie apocalypse. Other half are just pissed off and don’t want to wear a mask and they’re just scoffin’. And that’s how you end up catchin’ the shit off ’em. I just used the same basket as you shoppin’, now I’m in a fuckin’ casket from you coughin’.”” Is the direct approach. They are not wrong, but the fact that this situation has been brought to rap and the Guardian voices that in another way by stating “Eminem’s lines are a long way from any that the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, would ever use but they articulate similar sentiments.” It is a global scene and in light of 200+ doctors now giving nice to the fact that Covid-19 is airborne sheds a different light on the matter. We see politicians making light (to some extent) of the situation, yet the story does not reflect the death toll. And team Eminem-Kid Cudi are alerting us to a much harder reality. So whilst we see a correlation between US and UK politics, we get to see  “Downing Street has faced questions about why more cabinet ministers are not wearing masks. There have been no public sightings of Boris Johnson wearing a face covering, while the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was pictured serving food to customers at Wagamama with nothing on his face but a grin.” If presentation is key in issues, we see the failing of politicians to a much larger degree and when the population starts taking heed of team Eminem-Kid Cudi whilst removing politicians from the circle of trust and belief, we could state that the shit has truly hit the fan. 

I applaud the move that these two have made, social awareness tends to be more easily embraced through music and the issue is important. And when we see the claims some people have made, it matters.

The first is ““The United States has done far more ‘testing’ than any other nation, by far!” Mr Trump said this on 25 March, when the latest official data showed that a total of 418,810 people had been tested in the US.” 418K over a population of 235,000,000? That is a little less than 0.1%, all whilst South Korea tested 0.7% of the entire population, as such South Korea exceeded testing by 700%, not a proud moment for the White House. 

The second one is important: “Mr Trump said he thought the true death rate, based on “my hunch”, was “way under 1%”.” That in a stage where 25% of all reported cases are in the US, whilst 136,000 people in the US died, a non-living rate of well over 4%, in this the White House was wrong by well over 400%, as such the numbers matter and as such the album, The Adventures of Moon Man and Slim Shady, will matter as well. We can throw numbers at you all night long, but the reality is that we need to take notice and we need to take action. And should you disagree then I say fine, do that, and if you die my value merely increases. We can go that way too, so in light of the stage where the words of a rapper actually have direct global meaning, we need to take notice of the casual approach that politicians have shown to have. 

This is not about bashing President Trump (a mere added bonus), the global political stage is weird and irresponsible as to how they perceive the state of the global stage to be, the fact that all these political ‘heavyweights’ are shown to be largely inferior to the Prime Minister of New Zealand (Jacinda Arden), a (rather small) nation that according to the Facebook Image is not linked to the rest of the world, should shows us all just how serious matters have become. 

We have ignored at the impressions of some people, whilst the stage was serious, it was deadly and that needs to be reflected, again and again like it is a lesson from the Teletubbies, as I personally see it team Eminem-Kid Cudi might optionally be a little late, but they are there a lot faster than some of these so called ‘serious politicians’, we the people have a problem and we need to realise it a lot faster than we are, our lives actually depend on it at present.

 

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July 11, 2020 · 00:16

Presidents are us

Yup, the fight for the White House is intensifying. The BBC gives us ‘Biden challenges Trump with ‘Buy American’ economic plan’. Well that is a step we saw coming, in a stage where any corona virus hit nations will rely not merely on the export of goods, but on the locally required spending consumer base. With the FAANG group in its own world, the US democrats have decided on ‘Buy American’. It makes sense, although the claimed $700bn plan is likely to cost close to twice that amount and will only truly be a win if US export does not collapse whilst the US population will rely on US goods instead of importing. If those two parts are met then Joe Biden does have an optional working plan. The current president says that this plan will fail, but in light of all his claims, does anyone care what he thinks? So whilst the BBC gives us “Many voters are concerned by the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic. His divisive approach to the country’s recent wave of anti-racism protests has also come under sharp scrutiny” and they are correct, even as there are a few more issues surrounding Trump, there is a larger concern on his presidency and as the foundation of the Republican group are in a stage where they are doubting his presidency can show any positive impact for the Republicans, the idea that a Democratic win for them at present is better than the current White House occupant is also a larger concern as the elections draws near. Even as we see “Analysts have urged caution in over-interpreting the polls, but Mr Biden’s lead is far greater than that of Mr Trump’s 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton at the same point in the campaign” the analysts do have to some degree a point, the American population has NEVER EVER been this polarised before and as some see it, there is a much larger white power population, Al Jazeera showed ‘An Al Jazeera investigation identified some 120 pages belonging to bands with openly white supremacist and racist views’, which adds up to another issue that Mark Zuckerberg and his book of faces has been unable to deal with. And these pages tend to flow towards Trump, not Biden. (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/exclusive-facebook-extensively-spread-neo-nazi-music-200710075507831.html) and that is merely the tip of the iceberg that is optionally the reason that the US Titanic will be sinking in unknown waters. The articles also gives us the PDF and “The 89-page report by civil rights experts heavily criticised Facebook, saying it needs to do more about anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish and other hate speech.” In this the article is important when we get to Chapter 6 (Algorithmic Bias), there we see “algorithms used to screen resumes to identify qualified candidates may only perpetuate existing gender or racial disparities if the data used to train the model on what a qualified candidate looks like is based on who chose to apply in the past and who the employer hired; in the case of Amazon the algorithm “learned” that references to being a woman (e.g., attending an all-female college, or membership in a women’s club) was a reason to downgrade the candidate.” Yet the same model could optionally be used to misinform (or disinform) the person through links that have ‘altered headlines’ One party could use it to flame to larger base of the other party and no matter what claims Facebook makes, the PDF report shows that they are seemingly clueless on how to stop it. You see, even if Facebook decides to block politics, it does not stop one account from posting an image, and even as the image might not be political, it can still impact the political base with the misinformation it spreads and Facebook would be largely unable to stop it until it was too late and as it optionally stops one side, the other side can make it worse, so here we see the application of Shareholder, Stakeholder and Sponsors, the S3 equation of big business. 

So even as the news was that the FAANG group saw $58 billion wiped after Trump slammed the ‘immense power’ of big tech (Business Insider), we seem to forget that that same group saw their stocks rise in excess of of $637 billion, so they still made decently well over half a trillion dollars. When you consider that, who do you think that the FAANG group wants as the next president? In all this the entire China matter remains an issue as the US goes towards the polling booths, yet in the end, there is absolutely no guarantee that President Trump is a one term president, yes there is the wishful thinking group, but the issues seen in the economy and the soaring profits that the FAANG group is making is a much larger concern, especially as their voices are a lot more powerful than anyone realises. In all this, the final touch is that so far I have shown again and again that the media is massively sensitive to the needs of the S3 group they dance for, in all this, do you expect to get any neutral news? Consider this week the insincerity of Fox News with ‘Fox News apologises for cropping Trump out of Epstein and Maxwell photo’ and whilst the Guardian reports on this, not many did, and when we realise the byline “Network says it mistakenly eliminated Donald Trump from photo with Maxwell and Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in February 2000” take a moment to consider the choice of words ‘mistakenly eliminated’, which is bias, it is (in my personal view) a form of censoring, which is interesting as it is the media that are all in arms on ‘censoring’ which was shown by Lord Justice Leveson through a novel that exceeds War and Peace (an apt analogy), even as the media reflected on it like it was the horror story fo the century, we see that the media has no issues to ‘mistakenly eliminate’, optionally hoping that no one will notice and there is every chance that a lot of people remained unaware. So in light of all this, there is no way to predict the winner. Even as we hope that Joe Biden will be supported to a much larger degree and that it will be a fair fight, I am not so sure about either premise in this equation.

 

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July 10, 2020 · 02:23

Let’s call a spade a spade

It is an old expression, lets call a spade a spade, the pot calling the kettle black and so forth. It is (when I grew up) the expressions that refer to let’s call it what it is, let’s label it directly, let’s not beat around the bush. So when the BBC gives us ‘Loot boxes: I blew my university savings gaming on Fifa’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53337020), we see the story of an idiot, an idiot named Jonathan Peniket, who basically is voicing whatever excuse he has for the simple reason that he is (as I personally see it) indeed an idiot. So when we see “Better players give you an advantage, and there is a virtual currency and market where these cards are traded. You can buy packs containing a random selection of cards. The idea that it was gambling seemed ridiculous to me at the time. I understood that the chances of ‘packing’ my favourite players were low. I spent the money, opened my packs, got lucky a couple of times, and tried to be positive, despite being left feeling slightly underwhelmed. ‘If I could just spend another £15…’, I thought. Four years followed of spending more and more money on player packs – each time seeking that buzz that would only occasionally come.” We see here the driven and almost educated response of a crack whore trying to get someone else to pay for her addiction, a little bitch looking for the 3600 cards and a person who wants the 1200 cards in month one. I know it sounds ominous and even offensive, but that is life. So when he was a teenager, like two years before his first card (at 17), he got inflicted with the Pokemon vibe (gotta have them all), that empty feeling was transferred to FIFA and when we see “How one teenager spent nearly £3,000” we see a person who is too stupid for his own good. The game is a mere £55, so how stupid do you need to be to spend 60 times that amount? The BBC writers Felicity Hannah and Jane Andrews are quick to dismiss in a short term the truth of the matter behind “They say Fifa Ultimate Team can be played without spending any money and that purchases are entirely optional”, it is a truth, I play NHL, I get 3 packs a day, free of charge, the packs add up that in a month you can save up pack points to get to specula bronze packs, two silver packs and two gold packs. In addition, every pack comes with virtual money to buy other cards online (bid for them), in the second months, I had all 30 arena’s, close to all home and away jerseys for all the NHL teams and most of the goalie masks. After 6 months, I had close to 800 hockey players, a few legendary, and several really rare cards, the game also unlocks upgraded players as you play more and reach milestones (game achievements) you unlock even more players and upgraded legendary players. I cannot answer for FIFA, but it seems that this approach has been mimicked over all the EA sport games, as such I have all that and NEVER paid a cent, showing you just how stupid this boy Jonathan Peniket really is, but the BBC writers are happy to convey “I accept responsibility for what happened. The decisions I made to spend that money were made by me”, yet the little tough guy was eager to state that he “was addicted to the buzz of chance when I bought packs” and “I was spending £30 at a time, then £40, then £50. By the time my card began to block my transactions, I was throwing £80 into the game four or five times a night”, so that the statement “video game packs and loot boxes [a general term for in-game purchases involving chance] are a form of gambling”, yes you can go that way, but when a junk is taking drugs, he isn’t really medicating is he, so what he states it is is merely a form to avoid as much guilt for his stupidity as possible. Loot boxes are not now, not ever gambling, so until we see one of these packs give us the 15 cards all stating ‘Thank You’ it can never be gambling. You get cards, there is always one rare in EVERY PACK, and you can always try to trade it. Consider that there are 3600 cards, 1200 are rare, meaning that you have a 1/1200 chance of getting Neymar, Mbappe, van Dijk, De Bruyne, Lewandowski, Ronaldo or Messi. That is the simplest top-line stage and people with the intelligence of porridge (Jonathan Peniket) decided to spend £3,000 and optionally still hasn’t learned that lesson.

In all honesty, I am no fan of Electronic Arts, they made a few errors on several levels and the loot box stage is optionally too exploited, yet it is not gambling. I remain firm on that part. The fact that some are too stupid to be allowed near a Credit Card does not mean that it becomes the fault of Electronic Arts, and if someone state that Electronic Arts needs to do more to temper per person spending that I would not disagree, but it doesn’t make loot boxes gambling. Only when there is a chance that you lose all, that there is no reward at all, then it becomes gambling. 

Gambling to most is “the wagering of money or something of value on an event with an uncertain outcome, with the primary intent of winning money or material goods.” Yet the operative part in gambling is ‘uncertain outcome’, here the outcome is always the same: 1 Rare, 3 Uncommon and the rest are common cards. And when you realise just how big FIFA is, you need to realise from the start that you can never have them all. In most CCG games the games are at best 400-500 cards (without expansions). FIFA has over 6000 players, as such, your ultimate team will always be limited, you need to make the best of this and lets not forget “Better players give you an advantage”, that is true, but only in the field where both gamers are equal and with a person like Jonathan Peniket that is not a given, it is extremely doubtful. You see if he was a true gamer, then he would get the UEFA cup with West Ham United F.C. (if that was his local team) wouldn’t he? In all this posturing we forgot about the gamer involved, didn’t we? Now, I’ll be honest regarding FIFA, I (pretty much) suck at it, I do not like Soccer too much and that is fine, others love it and that is fine too. I loved the 98 edition on the N64, I played FIFA to some extent on an earlier version on the Playstation (the first one) and it was OK, yet I am not into Soccer, NHL is my game and there I see great things, I love the games, I play my dekes (and fail at times too) and I get beat a lot by kids in the US, Canada and Sweden as they live for hockey. I can live with that, they play it 6 hours a day as such, I expect to get beaten and no matter who is in my ultimate team, I am not going to win. It is simple math and the math shows the truth. I still love the game as I am a hockey man, the NHL game grew and over 18 years I have had my share of it. I loved the original version that came with my PS2, I loved NHL03 on Gamecube and so on, I still love my PS4 version of NHL19. I never had to spend $1 on any pack, so I am not complaining (not much for the Ultimate league anyway).

I have a nice collection of cards and I am happy to report that I got all the NHL jerseys and all the arena’s. Yes there is more to the game and I never stopped enjoying the game, I reckon that the same applies to those loving FIFA and apart from the few who cannot fathom limits, everyone is seemingly happy, oh and the fact that Felicity Hannah and Jane Andrews never gave you a list of all the packs you can get for free on a daily basis is also something you need to take notice of, they are all about headlining ‘EA’s response’ and the ramblings of a shopaholic junkie are equally issues that need to be seen. So as we see the article end with “Fifa was approached for comment, but has not yet responded.” We see the little nags that they reflect to be. What was that, a remark towards laying blame on FIFA for allowing for this? The fact that there is concern on what constitutes gambling should be seen as a first, all whilst there is absolutely no guarantee that under Covid-19, there is no way of telling who at FIFA are aware of this. It is seemingly an issue yet The worlds of Electronic Arts “the well-being of players is paramount – and all their games, including Fifa, have the ability to use parental controls provided by gaming platforms to cap or prohibit spend” are underplayed, so we see here that there was a option to ‘cap or prohibit spend’ and when we realise that this was a mere approach to give a vocal stage to someone who should be given lessened consideration as a junkie is setting the stage? Gimme a break!

In the end, yes EA could have optionally done a little more, but how long until we forget the initial setting that the consumer needs to accept responsibility for their actions and stop nagging like a little brat? He was there spending money on pack after pack and that was on him, not on EA. The part of the act was mentioned, yet focussed on the amounts, not the stupidity of the person spending. 

This is merely my view and you are (of course) welcome to disagree. 

 

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July 9, 2020 · 02:07

Realisation towards achievement

We all realise things over time, I am no exception to that. I am old school (well, old at least), I come from the stock where you buy a product, you get a product and to some degree that is it. I was there from the very beginning. I have nothing against SaaS, I get the concept, I get the notions and the considerations that come with it. Yet when I see how some programs need to find a way to fund its creators, I get it, and I do not oppose (OK, that came across wrong), but you get the idea. There is (for the most) no such thing as a free ride). 

When I look at the beginning of the iPad (I had the very first model), I got deeply into Blockheads. It was a free program and yes that was nice, but the programmer was really smart. He gave the players the option to get production upgraded to twice the speed for a mere $5.99. After a few hours I saw that I was going to like the program and spend the cash. I never regretted it and I still have the program, it served its lifetime stage, a dozen times over at least. It might be the best $5.99 I ever spent. Now, there are ways to get ‘free’ programs going. Micro-transactions was another option. Games had the option to earn the cards, or you could buy a booster pack (Magic) it is another way to get the return on investment. In the beginning games like Castle Age relied on it and it worked well, those who didn’t have the money, or would not spend the money could still play, without purchases you still made progress, but it would be slow and there would be grinding. I had this in Castle Age, I actually only made 1-2 purchases and the game became playable. A decent game for under $5, there can be no objection. 

So as the SaaS model progresses, I looked at both Day One ($2.08/month), and EverNote which is a lot more expensive. I am looking at it a an option next to Tablet Journal, which was free at the time and only charged for the additional backgrounds and icons. I had no issue buying them and now that I am looking at the new iPad, I wanted to upgrade the programs I used. 

Also, over time I noticed a few flaws in the Tablet Journal and I did program once, as such I was thinking to make my own version. Or at least make one that I liked completely (and it keeps me off the street which makes everyone happy). It also intersects with a few other issues I was having and the idea forming in my mind is a new sort of game, but I cannot start on that, my programming skills are just too rusty (the reward for becoming a data miner). 

In all this I needed to address replay-ability, challenge, growth and independence. You might think that this is a joke, but the last element is actually a lot more important than you think. During AC Brotherhood, Ubisoft almost had it right, but their focal point was in another direction. As such I now see that the mobile/non-mobile environment needs to be embraced, not separated on or merged. 

Gaming is a state of mind that must be protected and embraced, the mind is in different settings, the mind is the centre piece in the game and the makers seem to ignore it too often. Most game makers seem to see the brain, the person as the added appendage to the game, yet this is not the case, or at least I personally think that this is wrong, the brain is the entire piece n all this and the game is designed around it, as such the failures of Ubisoft become clear, when you make a game for everyone, you make a game that pleases no one.

We all have different needs in gaming, some prefer puzzles, some prefer stealth, some like it in RPG mode, some love closed levels, some need them to be open. I think that this is why Minecraft is such a hit, it is open and allows us to fill in the part we want to fill in. Yet, I have no intent of making some version of Minecraft, I believe in setting the stage to a group of people, so some will like it and a larger group will not, but it would be my intent to make it as appealing to those who want it as possible. 

So what will it bring? I do not know yet (the rusty programming skill makes it a question mark). Yet, the larger stage is not what w like, or what we might like, it is the stage of being apart, being different. Just as I hope that Cyberpunk 2077 has larger true hacking skills, we see the need for a game that is about making us seem more clever, not a game that links piece one and piece 2. I am not referring t a puzzle game like Myth, but the added setting that puzzles brought in rendez-vouz with Rama. So not getting two cogs to compete the puzzle in Tombraider (no negativity implied here), but a stage where we need to see the puzzle and consider the solution, not fitting 2 parts, but finding the proper 4 parts out of 50 offered. 

I get it, not everyone likes puzzles and some will not like the option offered, but I would make it for those who do like this side of gaming, the part where the mind figures it out. You see I always believed that games are a great educator and the proper game still needs to be paid for, but as the joy and educations progresses, we see a price that is eagerly paid by the player, all whilst those who lack funds (or prefer not to pay) can still play the game. 

When we realise that we are better or feel better with the program in our midst, at that point the $5.99 is not a hurdle, it is the threshold to the next stage in our lives and if games like Minecraft, Blockheads, Magic, Archero and Fallout Shelter can please its audience, any other creator can too.

 

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July 8, 2020 · 23:38

The Dreaming team

There are these moments where we all tend to think and to believe that some matches were made in heaven, but what happens when the realisation hits that a match is just one step forward to hell? I got my MacBook Air two weeks ago (after waiting 7 weeks), my iPad has currently not drives and that waiting time is about to end week 8. Now, I do not regret getting the MacBook, it is slim, it has 2TB storage and it weight less than the average steak and cheese sandwich, as such a good call. And the media tends to agree.

I have been restoring back ups, setting flags in place and yes, I have no regrets. Yet then I realised another matter, I also got Disney Plus for free for a year. It was an uncalled benefit, but seemingly a benefit none the less, so I went to take a look and there the road to hell blame clear. 

At first I was looking and my look was equal a person who had died and gone to heaven, Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, Westworld, the X files, I had happy thoughts that surpassed meeting Grace Park, Evan Rachel Wood and Dominique Tipper naked, So I started c licking as the happy SciFi Camper I am, but wait, here it comes, nothing there is for free. The Expanse was $8 per season, Battlestar Galactica $10 per season and the Plan $23, so where is the ‘One year of Disney Plus for free?’, I am logged in, my Apple ID is clearly there, which made me wonder whether Disney was merely the facilitator, So I decided to look for Tron: Legacy, I had not seen that movie in a long while, it might help me relax. Nope, that too is $15, I could rent it for $5, but in a year, why rent? Even Disney’s own the Nightmare before Christmas is $15, what a Christmas present is that? It seems that the Grinch is holding onto its coins and running Disney as I see it. 

So perhaps it is may Australian side, perhaps ‘One year free’ means something different in America?

As far as I see it, Netflix has nothing to worry about, the way Disney goes about it, and as I personally see it, there won’t be much of a Disney plus under these conditions. And when I see that the search bar gives no results for ‘The Mandalorian’, or ‘Mandalorian’, that is when I see that some American firms will never learn, or learn too late. Even the new and noteworthy ‘Marvel’s Inhumans’ is $3.49 per episode. As such I wonder why the media has not picked up an any of this, so as Business Insider gives us “Beyoncé’s new film “Black Is King” will stream exclusively on Disney Plus starting July 31.” My question becomes, at what price?

 

I wonder if Apple can be held to account for the viewed deceptive conduct, there was never any mention of prices for anything, but that is perhaps just me. When you consider that thousands bought Apple hardware, how many did so because there was a ‘One Year of free Disney mention?’

Just Asking, I let you decide on how this unfolds.

Free DisneyPlus? They must have been dreaming!

 

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July 8, 2020 · 02:56

Casing the BS

I get it at times, as, I reckon a lot of others, the case when we read something, we are driven (whether justified or not) to the thought that we are getting fed a case of utter bullshit. Now, this comes from a BBC article and the state I am in is not reflecting on the writer of the article, or the BBC, but in light of all this, the grub smells too foul to accept.

So it all started with ‘Deutsche Bank faces $150m fine for Jeffrey Epstein ties’, So, in light of all we have seen in the last few days and in light of what CNN revealed we see “Deutsche Bank has been hit with a $150m fine for failing to properly monitor its relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein”. And it goes downhill from there. In light of the last few days we need to set a proper timeline. Joker JE died on August 10th 2019, he got planted (was buried) after that and the cases we are seeing is the one he did 13 months for in 2008 and he was arrested again on July 2019. So, when we see “the bank had suffered ‘significant compliance failures’, processing hundreds of transactions for the late financier”, we see the quote and we see the hiding of damage, but the largest failure is with the both the regulators and the people scanning all this, for the mere reason that Epstein had a cleared path for well over 10 years, the entire Maxwell situation, and her financial tracks as CNN discovered it gives rise to a lot more. I wonder who checked EVERY account and transaction here, more important, who approved the creation of these accounts and who monitored certain stages of hiding funds, when we consider that these people are optionally equally guilty of endangering of lives of hundreds of children. You missed that part did you not?

So when DB comes with the excuse “It had spend almost $1bn to improve its training and controls and expand its anti-financial crime team to more than 1,500 people”, I wonder who investigated the exact amounts that added up to $1bn, I reckon that the spin people at DB earned their keep that day. How much was exactly spend on training? How much on procedures to identify wealthy people spending money on underaged vagina’s? I reckon that we will hear that this is not the banks job, but the CNN facts giving us “Prosecutors also detailed transfers they said Maxwell made between her own accounts. Since 2016, prosecutors say, Maxwell has held more than 15 bank accounts that have totalled between several hundred thousand dollars and more than $20 million. During that time period and as recently as 2019, prosecutors allege she moved hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time between her accounts: In March 2019, $500,000 from one of her accounts to another; four months later, more than $300,000 from one account to another. As recently as last year, prosecutors say she held at least one foreign bank account containing more than $1 million.” I wonder how many accounts were created by DB, in addition, when we look at the accounts and we see who and where each and every account was made, we might see an additional picture emerge. So why were regulators so eager to get this settled for DB now, instead of when we see the court case finalise with several, questions answered, I reckon that the friends of these regulators are not that eager to see certain revelations in court, the cost could be a lot higher than $150m. Yet, that is merely my point of view of the matter. I wonder what else Shan Wu (the CNN analyst) is optionally sitting on. 

The BBC also gives us “In an internal memo, Deutsche Bank chief executive Christian Sewing said it had been a “critical mistake” to accept Epstein as a client and acknowledged past lapses in the lender’s oversight. “We all have to help ensure that this kind of thing does not happen again,” he said.” So when did this happen, and when we look at the 2008 case and a few other matters, would it be inappropriate to ask whether Christian Sewing has any daughters? Is anyone else interested in the date of the internal memo #JustAsking?

Yet I digress from the one part that is revealing “We acknowledge our error of onboarding Epstein in 2013 and the weaknesses in our processes, and have learnt from our mistakes and shortcomings,” as such there were 6.5 years for damage to continue and in all this we see no revelation regarding how much shuffling was done for Ghislaine Maxwell. I do understand that the accused has rights to privacy, I get that there are laws and they should not be broken, yet the Deutsche Bank has broken compliance again and again and they can make a lot more than the $150m fine in mere hours. As such, will kids ever be safe again with banks the way they are in America, or is that the right setting? Deutsche Bank is global, so how many kids are in danger?

So I wonder, when someone investigates all these accounts that Ghislaine Maxwell was using, when we take transaction after transaction apart and check every terminal this went through, what else will we find, and if the Deutsche Bank is found in error of compliance again, will regulators set proper fines and limitations to banks involved, or will we see a half baked notification in the news with the added message ‘Oops!’ Just asking what is coming our way, and in my case it is not that drastic, yet there are plenty of mama’s and papa’s around to feel slightly different and a lot more stressed. 

 

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July 7, 2020 · 23:52

Picture this!

Yup, we all have these moments, I whilst facing the jabberwocky of insomnia ended up facing a new bout of creativity and I thought of sharing it right here, it can use the benefits that 5G brings but is not reliant on it, it is an altered way of looking at pictures. It is however a little more, ad to be honest, the issues at Ubisoft brought them forward, with an undisclosed part that is depending on certain pats that might come up in WatchDogs 4 (if Ubisoft still exists by then).

OK, to get you there, this needs to go in stages. 

Digital picture frames. We have all seen them, the cheap solutions in some asian setting that allows for some resolution and has some memory to show pics at 480dpi, not the greatest resolutions, but for the family snaps it is OK. There are more expensive versions, that have much higher resolution (and are more expensive), some will allow for an SD card to keep the pics and that is what they display.

The second stage is a new stage, what if the picture frame is whatever you need it to be? Now we move from the family snapshot to the presentation gigs. There are versions that call themselves ‘Clear 3D Rear Holographic Projection Screen film’ solutions and they are good for the usual presentation that are in a preset stage, but presentations on trade fairs tend to be anything but preset. Trade fairs tend to be dynamic, consider E3, ECTS, Horecava, Efficiency Trade Fairs, it is you against the world and sometimes that is quite literal. What if the display technology is adaptive?  Consider the projection screen film, it is a great option for some, but is depending on rear projection and that is not always a solution.

So what happens when we change the equation? What is the film is triple layered and the plasma technology is not set to dimensions? So whatever you screen you cut with scissors, has a determined point 0, but the size at that point allows to become whatever we need it to be? That sheet can placed in whatever frame we need it to be in and at that point we attach the thingamajig (technobabble for Display engine with embedded projection core). And it has what it needs to start the display, it needed a point 0. The rest can be set in the stage of side 2. So we have a sheet, it has two attachments, one with point 0, one with point Y, after that the image can be presented. Any image when one side is known, the rest can be made, no matter the size. If the size grows beyond a stage the engine needs to reflect display technology to deal with the matter (different subject). The issue is only partially solved.

3. The leaks that Ubisoft shows, is also a larger need to keep things confidential, so what happens at trade shows? So what happens when these displays are all set with a Micro SD card that has the cloud encryption so that a player like Ubisoft can keep its presentation on a Paris server, or Microsoft on their Seattle PCXT, IBM on their, you get the idea, marketing HQ keeps their presentations under wrap and the presentations would not be able to get leaked. 

4. The displays are merely part of the solution, there would be SD/MicroSD options to reflect that, but the larger stage is that not merely in trade show, in EVERY shop, the location can decide what display format fits them best. Almost like a TV to fit your exact size and that is where we go with this. 5G will allow for that approach and not all requires the internet. Mobile 5G stations can present whatever they need. Like the Schwarovsky Rose presentation is saw a few years ago, the option to localise whatever you need to present, a stage absent of one of the most important parts, heavy TV’s monitors, whilst most of that device is never used, a stage where we overthrow the part we require to be left with the part we need. 

A TV that is set to size using a pair of scissors, I wonder if we see that in Cyberpunk 2077, I might just have given a few idea’s to the technical nerds on planet internet.

 

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July 7, 2020 · 03:40

Light reading

We all have those moments, when the reading gets tough, because we decided to take a stab at Umberto Eco’s the Name of the Rose, James SA Corey’s Tiamat’s Wrath or Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, we tend to require some light reading, in this I am no different, although, my choice was ‘Country Reports on Terrorism 2019’ the US Department of State to provide to Congress a full and complete annual report on terrorism for those countries and groups meeting the criteria of the Act.  It is here that I found a few items that made me wonder, I’ll merely look at one of them.

Now, the important part in all this is the fact that we need to consider what constitutes ‘a complete annual report’, I need to set it in that way, for the simple reason that the application of ‘complete’ is not always a given in some settings. This piece of light reading is set to 304 pages, so I will safe you the state of affairs in a few items and focus on an immediate issue that could be seen as a direct danger and not merely to the US.

Hezbollah, is there another one?

The US Department of State names them Hizballah and then gives us “Aka the Party of God; Islamic Jihad; Islamic Jihad Organization; Revolutionary Justice Organization; Organization of the Oppressed on Earth; Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine; Organization of Right Against Wrong; Ansar Allah; Followers of the Prophet Muhammed; Lebanese Hizballah; Lebanese Hezbollah; LH; Foreign Relations Department; FRD; External Security Organization; ESO; Foreign Action Unit; Hizballah ESO: Hizballah International; Special Operations Branch; External Services Organization; External Security Organization of Hizballah”, OK, fair enough, they are known in several ways, so we get the entire list of references and no one will ever object to clarity. Yet then we see “In September 2018, Brazil arrested a Hizballah financier, and in December 2018, tunnels reportedly built by the group were discovered on Israeli territory along the boundary with Lebanon. In September 2019, Hizballah launched attacks directly on the Israeli military, firing anti-tank missiles targeting an army base and vehicles near the border. 

Strength: Hizballah has tens of thousands of supporters and members worldwide. 

Location/Area of Operation: Lebanon and Syria”

This is all true, yet it is incomplete. The entire setting to Hezbollah in Yemen is overlooked, intentionally or not is not important. 

The first source is Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-group/saudi-led-coalition-says-hezbollah-fighters-killed-in-yemen-battles-idUSKBN1JL0YR). They give us ‘Saudi-led coalition says Hezbollah fighters killed in Yemen battle’ in June 2018 “Forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition have killed eight members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group in Yemen in battles with the Iran-aligned Houthis, the coalition said on Monday. Hezbollah officials could not immediately be reached for comment.” In addition we see ‘Yemen’s Houthi rebels raise nearly $300,000 for Hezbollah’ in 2019 and the entire setting continues until deep into 2020. As I personally see it, the Area of Operation has been proven (via several sources) to include Yemen and that is overlooked. In 2019 there are over half a dozen sources giving us news of Hezbollah in Yemen, I see that as a massive reason for actions and identification, especially as several sources name Hezbollah as the trainer/co-operating partner in the missile attacks on Saudi Arabia.

It gets to be worse if some sources can be trusted (unchecked), When we see ‘Hezbollah Isn’t Just in Beirut. It’s in New York, Too. The trial of a senior operative reveals the extent of the terrorist organization’s reach in the United States and Canada.’ We need to equally question “But last month, the criminal prosecution and conviction in New York of the Hezbollah operative Ali Kourani revealed disturbing new information about the extent of Hezbollah’s operations and activities in the United States and Canada.” The issue is as I see it a lot larger, it is not enough that they are recognised as a terrorist force, yet the lack of mentions of their activities outside of the Middle East in 2019 is a rather large factor, especially if their activities in the US, Canada and Europe were published by media sources. The British newspaper ‘the Telegraph’ (OK, not the greatest reliable source) gives us ‘Europe has not faced up to the threat of Hizbollah’ with the added text “Iran’s primary terrorist proxy group, Lebanese Hizbollah, has been deploying operatives to Europe for many years.” We can add text after text, yet the question in all this becomes, why is the ‘Country Reports on Terrorism 2019’ incomplete? As I personally see it, it is an ‘incomplete annual report’, all this whilst this year there are added factors, that give rise to the fact that the Houthi forces as well as Hezbollah has been firing drones and missiles on civil targets in Saudi Arabia making them a much larger threat and optionally the proven threat that Israel has always claimed them to be. 

Light reading or not, when the item is set to complete, I say, it is not. I wonder if I am the only one claiming this and the only one claiming that Hezbollah is a much larger problem than the US Congress is being made aware of. I wonder why?

Country-Reports-on-Terrorism-2019-2

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July 7, 2020 · 01:04

Death of the creed

Before I begin I must warn you, if you are an AC fan, a fan of what Ubisoft produces, you will hate this story. The second part is that this is based on personal views, speculations and what the ‘leaked’ 30 minutes of AC Valhalla brings. The game is still in development, so the end result could differ. Keep all that in mind!

We saw the creed getting killed, its fans have seen a steady decline since the third game, and that is where we stand, it took 8 years. It took this long because no one will argue that AC4 (Black Flag) and ACO (Origins) are indeed excellent pieces of work, but it was marketed by what I like to call a group of people without any backbone, softcovers the lot of them. Black Flag is an excellent game but it is not an AC game (the escape from prison level is perhaps an exception). Black Flag is the pirate game that Sid Meier dreamt of making, but technology stopped him and Ubisoft had the inside track here to make a new piece of memorable IP, but they moved away and set the stage to a much larger IP hoping to set new standards, perhaps they partially succeeded, I will let you decide. After that the quality went down fast and as I see it they had a chance to make a new IP with Origins, they took a separate detour and it was truly an amazing product, but they spoiled it with Odyssey and now we have Valhalla, one person had the same idea I had, it is Odyssey with a new skin, it feels like that. Graphically it does look good, but the parts I saw is all about spicing and lacking substance, one viking goes into the fray, onto the breach and into the masses and slaughters what can be slaughtered. A lot of posturing, it feels off and I was afraid of this from the beginning, their marketing was so intent on creating hypes, this early, 6 months before the game is out, that usually reeks of shallowness and in all this, the game is as disappointing as I feared. The Creed was murdered by its own friendly forces. An IP dragged to death by shallow idea’s and a lack of creativity and staging of braced ego, or is that braised ego? It is a shame, for even as the first one lacked to some degree, it was an amazing start, after which we got Ezio in 2 and Brotherhood and legend status was reached. There is a decent case for revelations, but it was downhill from there, which is a shame, including AC3, the story was pretty amazing, there was a much larger stage and even as some (including me) did not consider AC3 to be a great game, it did bring surprises, there was no denying that. The Graphics department has never disappointed and that must be stated out loud, graphically the game remained at a high point all the way to Odyssey, even as we dread the last game, it was close to sublime in the graphics department. 

Perhaps this is the future for all who wants to make a game pleasing everyone, as I see it you are left with a product that pleases almost no one, it is my view on the matter.

So as I consider the Valhalla leak (no idea how the game was leaked, I think it is marketing, afraid of what is most likely to happen), I see a game that is shoddy on several fronts, but I do realise that I was watching something that had not been released yet. However, the stage I saw is in line of what AC had become. Yes, it is a game, as was Odyssey, but when you realise that not one fort on the planet had thousands of arrows, their aim was not that great (especially as they cannot shoot things in the night that moves), we see a much larger lag in gaming and a lag in the AC series. You merely need to see the first two seasons of Vikings to get that picture across to a much larger degree. To create arcade gaming situation in sandbox games implies the game needs triggers and that leaves you in a stage moving from mini game to mini game, did you sign up for that?

It is hard to write anything positive, and that too is an issue, apart from the graphics which has been far above par again and again. So even as we see the ‘leaked’ footage, we realise that the stage that Ubisoft created was the makings of hypes with no game play, it was perhaps the most stupid thing they could have done, and they should not have started the creations of hypes until October at the earliest, perhaps the birthday of the board of Directors on October 4th might have been a good idea (World Animal Day). If the game continues the way it is (as I saw it) there is every chance that it will be the last AC game to be made, I only bought AC Odyssey as it was on special at 80% discount, I stopped playing it after day 2 as the game was massively inferior to Origins and as I see it Valhalla is going to be even worse. If not, then Ubisoft better make it very clear in a next presentation with actual gameplay. 

Can the IP be saved? I am not certain whether it should, there have been too many massive misses, a new IP station makes a lot more sense and they have options there, they merely decided to ignore them (as I personally see it). So whilst we might consider bashing the Guillemot members (which is never a bad idea), we need to realise that they have bigger problems at present, because as I expect Valhalla to disappoint us, they only have one shot let, Watchdogs: Legion better be a slam dunk home run, if not the existence of Ubisoft might be done for. After Odyssey and Breakpoint, Ubisoft cannot handle any more disappointments, even as the Division 2 is heralded by its fans as a serious step forward, it does not get bonus points, Valhalla needed to be a win and there is every indications that this is not going to happen, implying that the life of Ubisoft will be in the hands of Watchdogs: Legion. It might not be fair, but that is how it is and even as it is shown to be pretty amazing, the failure of Valhalla will impact Watchdogs: Legion as well, unfair, but that is life, often not fair. Can I give Ubisoft any advice? Yup, they should have listened to me when I stated again and again that games need proper testing and both Odyssey and Breakpoint can be seen as evidence that this was not done. 

Could I be wrong?

Yes, of course I can, but those who have seen and flocked to the 30 minute leak will agree with me that Ubisoft has massive problems and not everyone is a Rainbow 6 lover, a game that so far has remained well above par (according to those who play it). So whilst the Creed is that ‘everything is permitted’ the Ubisoft board might have taken this too literally and releasing below par games should have been prevented, it is merely my view on the matter.

Oh and in the coming stage of the PS5 (and the Microsoft alternative), they better stop the entire stage of 25GB+ patches, it will hurt their business even more as I personally see it, and Ubisoft actually knows this, you merely need to see the opinion of internet in Rural France for that (which is France outside of Paris, Bordeaux, Cannes, Lille, Lyon, Marseille and Nantes) and Europe has a few of these places, as such, the people interested in Ubisoft games will be dwindling down faster than they are happy with.

 

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