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?

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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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July 6, 2020 · 20:44

Presenting facts towards oblivion

There is a saying, if you shout it often enough, people will start to believe. The BBC gives us two headlines in this regard. The first is ‘Coronavirus: FDA chief refuses to back Trump’s vaccine prediction’ and the second one is ‘Indian scientists say the August vaccine deadline – set by the country’s medical council – is unrealistic’ all this, whilst a clear message was given in January 2020, a vaccine could take up to 18 months (and that if we get lucky), as such we see the unrealistic side that governments are bombastically advertising. We understand that the IQ of the man in the White House is nothing to be proud of, yet the Indian government should know better, their country has even higher problems than the US is faced with, as such they should know better and the news of an early vaccine ANYWHERE on the planet is a stretch, as such, can we even trust any government to be on par with its population? 

And this is not all, we get the following via Reuters ‘Hundreds of scientists say coronavirus is airborne, ask WHO to revise recommendations: NYT’, the article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-airborne/hundreds-of-scientists-say-coronavirus-is-airborne-ask-who-to-revise-recommendations-nyt-idUSKBN2460O7) also gives us “Hundreds of scientists say there is evidence that the novel coronavirus in smaller particles in the air can infect people and are calling for the World Health Organization to revise recommendations, the New York Times reported on Saturday” this is huge, it also gives rise to my predictions months ago (not weeks but months) should leave us wondering what the governments are about, other than the creation of discourse. I stated in ‘Vindication is like Maple Syrup’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/06/18/vindication-is-like-maple-syrup/) that the numbers did not add up, I saw that part as early as February 2020, yet the numbers became more defined in June. The setting was direct, the numbers could not be correct, there was more in play. I was not making a claim that I had the answers, but what was presented to us did not make sense and I have to admit that the part of ‘coronavirus is airborne’ is a scary part, but could be part of the explanation. As such the problems we face are a lot larger and if the airborne is proven, at that point these right-wing nuts we see in the US could optionally be prosecuted for manslaughter. So these people without masks infecting others could be seen as “the crime of killing a human being without malice aforethought, or in circumstances not amounting to murder.” yes, in this case “without malice aforethought” and “stupid ignorance” could be seen as one and the same. There is every chance that the light of vaccine time and the White House claim “We are unleashing our nation’s scientific brilliance and we’ll likely have a therapeutic and/or vaccine solution long before the end of the year.” Might be seen as damaging as those with the lack of foresight and deleting the need of a face mask. Consider the fact that an airborne and a non airborne vaccine might require a different track (an assumption on my side) adds to all this and now that we are given ‘China bubonic plague: Inner Mongolia takes precautions after case’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53303457) adds to all this. A deadly flue and the black death in one and the same stage? That has got to be new and certainly is news. I am not blaming anyone, I am setting the stage that we need real answers and not positively charged speculations to make the financial people happy. We seemingly have a massive problem and in all this, the evolution of our systems will take a massive hit, it is no longer about, will the economy survive, it will be will internal government systems survive what is thrown at them? Whilst some hide behind ‘German healthcare market rich with potential for app developers’ others give us ‘How Covid-19 exposed cracks in France’s cherished healthcare system’, it is not a stage of who is right and who is wrong, they are both right, but until there is an ACTUAL solution on treating patients on a global stage, every ‘potential’ stage is merely a stage that stops people from getting treatment and to be quite honest, there is no way to predict what healthcare needs in 2021 and 2022, there might not be enough people alive to consider an app, or a quick solution. At that point it will be about the quality of care, and anyone disagreeing with me on that is allowed to do so, but the facts are out and about. Even as some swallowed the corona news as it was a vitamin drink, we have now seen several examples that a larger amount of news never added up and those entering carefully phrased denials will be receiving public questions and will be demanded to answer, when they give us ‘we were wrongly informed’ they can either be punished themselves or be required to give their sources of information. 

For some it will be a whole new day in the field of accountability. We have not choice, the people have been led astray from the facts for far too long, the media will hide behind the ‘facilitation’ option, but the people can demand that the stake holders seek another path and that the share holders dump the shares at that point the advertisers will seek safer shores. It will be a brand new day soon enough. Of course that is before we realise that the mortality rate is optionally a lot above 5%, when that becomes fact, the people will see another path and violence through stress and loss will be the handling powers. It has happened before and it will happen again. 

We can present the facts into oblivion, but at some point the people will demand straight answers,  for them loss is a massive motivator to get them and governments hiding facts will see another danger heading their way. I will let them figure that one out.

 

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July 4, 2020 · 15:27

Oh what a show

Yes, Oh what a circus, Oh what a show. It is that setting I am listening to, Evita the soundtrack with Antonio Banderas and Madonna starring. It was updated only 4 hours ago, yet the founding article was placed almost 13 hours AFTER I published my story. The article ‘In pursuit of Ghislaine Maxwell, authorities allege mysterious financial dealings with Jeffrey Epstein’ (at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/03/us/ghislaine-maxwell-mysterious-financial-dealings-jeffrey-epstein/index.html) will give the people a lot to consider, especially when they give us “Maxwell was living on a 156-acre New Hampshire estate purchased for $1.07 million in cash in December 2019 “through a carefully anonymized LLC,” according to court papers and the realty company”, a 156 acre piece of real estate in New Hampshire? So, Jeff Bezos, wanna buy 5G technology concepts for $25 million post taxation? It is not the weirdest question to state, consider that before CNN rolled the die I gave you all “We see “Prosecutors allege that between 1994 and 1997 Ms Maxwell helped Epstein groom girls as young as 14. The charges say she would build a rapport with them – including by taking them shopping or to the movies – and would later coax them into giving Epstein massages during which they were sexually abused.”” I gave you more in the article ‘The FBI Snooze button’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/07/03/the-fbi-snooze-button/), in this, I am not doubting CNN, I am also not doubting the words of Shan Wu, a CNN legal analyst who gives us “that arouse my suspicions are the large transfers in the millions between her accounts and Epstein’s accounts, which raises the question, is there some kind of laundering going on?” And the star is decently given, it sets the stage that it took time to get some of the details and consider that I made some of the speculated conclusions within an hour if getting access to the data, al that and it took the CNN machines months? We accept that Shan Wu would need time to set the proper legal stage, but in all this there is a time lap where those connects to Jeffrey Epstein would have been able to vanish into the wind and I did make a speculated sage of numbers (based on Catholic numbers thanks to the Boston Globe) that there are optionally 300,000 child hunters out there, a person facilitating to these people should have been regarded as beyond dangerous, as such we see a much larger stage and the stage was out in the open, so why was it taking this long? Consider that Epstein died in August 2019, so where was the witch-hunt that the US had no problems to paint China with? Why was it not aimed at optional facilitators that cater to the needs of people like Jeffrey Epstein? Is that not a valid question?

CNN gives us more, yup they were on the case. They give us “Prosecutors say that between 1994 and 1997, the period that covers her indictment, the two were in an “intimate” relationship and that he paid her to manage his various properties, which ranged from an Upper East Side mansion to a sprawling ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico.” This gives us a rather large issue, the published Affidavit from Miami (see earlier mentioned blog), as well as the blog from January 2015 (art https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/01/07/as-we-judge-morality/) we see a much larger absence, there is every indication that they are missing from the unsealed documents as well (this is my speculation, I did not read those documents). As such, how much did the FBI miss? Were they asleep and did they miss the snooze button, or did they bring a Rohypnol Mickey? It is not the weirdest idea, it is like they walked up to a vagrant and the vagrant asks them ‘Does this rag smell like Chloroform?’ 

It is a stage where too many pieces are simmered to silence and either the media accepted this or were not willing to actually investigate. It took me an hour to find a lot of it and that was by merely investigating open sources. And all this gives us one other part that is not out in the open. The quote “federal prosecutors disclosed that for a five-year period beginning in 2007, Maxwell and Epstein exchanged more than $20 million dollars between their bank accounts, with the sums going first from Epstein to Maxwell, and then back to Epstein.” The question becomes ‘What does the IRS have?’ Let’s face it the US treasury coffers are empty at minus 25,000,000,000,000 dollar, so the question is relevant, more importantly what is the registered value of the New Hampshire estate and what are the tax briefs on that part? So are my questions out of bounds? I believe that this is not the case and that is before you take a look at Jeffrey S. Pagliuca, who is (as far as I can tell) seen at https://www.hmflaw.com/attorney-jeff-pagliuca.html. This man as an amazing career in law, this gives us that a man like this costs a lot more per hour than I make in a week implying that the retainer of this man can fuel a small state. So where does a socialite get access to this kind of money? We did see what money was involved, yet consider the last 5 years, how did she get her income (the IRS link again) and she has decently massive living expenses as well. This is not the kind of girl that is satisfied with $2.98 Hershey bites at Walmart, does it not fuel your questions? I think that people like Shan Wu have found a lot more, I wonder who is setting course of the CNN sails (perhaps for very valid reasons), yet when you consider what was out there for close to 15 years, I reckon that American citizens should not asking questions, they should shout at their congressional and senatorial representatives for endangering their children, yet that is merely my view on the matter. I wonder what Governor Chris Sununu and Senator Maggie Hassan both from New Hampshire will have to say on the matter during the week, don’t you? Og and when you are consider all the complex parts in what is part of all the estate and other matters, who dealt with those and as such what cogs were in play? To keep her name out of pampers takes time and involves a fair amount of people, were they ALL in the dark? I will let you decide. 

 

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July 3, 2020 · 07:25

The FBI Snooze button

Don’t you just love your snooze button? I do, there are these moments that I have to be up at 07:01, but not always, and the idea of the snooze button that I remain under the warm blankets just a little longer in a half awake and half not stage is pretty addictive, intoxicatingly addictive. I reckon that there are loads of people who feel that way, even the FBI, even though one could argue that their snooze button is set to an annual option.

To see this we need to take a look at the Law and Crime site (at https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/anonymous-individuals-fight-possible-unsealing-of-details-related-to-alleged-epstein-sex-ring/) where we see on March 20th 2019 the following “The Second Circuit Court of Appeals is deciding whether or not to unseal documents from a lawsuit against a woman accused of running a sex trafficking ring with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Judges had given parties 15 days to argue why documents in a lawsuit brought against Epstein’s former partner Ghislaine Maxwell should not be unsealed.”, you know what, it might be longer than an annual snooze. The court records indicate that the FBI could have done a hell of a lot more to do something about the Maxwell factor in paedophelia. The BBC reported (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53268218) that she was arrested with ‘Jeffrey Epstein ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell arrested by FBI’, yet the setting does not match up, I had initial questions when I saw the affidavit in January 2015 and that was 9 years later. OK, I will say now there was no link to Ghislaine Maxwell at that point, yet the stage seemed delimited. You see the affidavit shows on pages 16 and 17 6 censured names, we cannot see the names, but if you consider the affidavit, the stage was larger, and that size was already visible in 2006, almost 14 years ago, so why did it take the FBI that long to get any traction? And let’s face it, it did not happen until AFTER Epstein allegedly committed suicide. And the affidavit describes events from almost a year before that date, the issue was larger!

Now that Maxwell has been arrested, the question is not what will she get, the question becomes who else is part of all this and what remains hidden as such, because the events that are criminal and part of sealed court documents whilst others remain untouched is as I see it a new low in American jurisprudence. There is actually a lot more in the BBC article. We see “Prosecutors allege that between 1994 and 1997 Ms Maxwell helped Epstein groom girls as young as 14. The charges say she would build a rapport with them – including by taking them shopping or to the movies – and would later coax them into giving Epstein massages during which they were sexually abused.” Yet when we see the timeline we see that optionally these girls who were still in high school, some would have been exposed to Ghislaine Maxwell and there is no clear trail how. If we look at it from a distance, grooming requires identifying, prepping the stage where they will have a conversation with an unknown person like Ghislaine Maxwell, and that is after you realise that this had been going on since 1994, 26 years is a long time to create a clientele, so there is every chance that she was not merely setting the stage for Epstein. If we consider the stage of Ghislaine Maxwell, a socialite, we need to consider the stage. A socialite is (according to the dictionary “a person who is well known in fashionable society and is fond of social activities and entertainment”, it is a title that also limits her activities, one failure and she is exposed. As such we ca argue that she had a system, a system with co-conspirators. And let’s face it, how often do you see a socialite scouring high school? Especially when the socialite is well over 50 (OK, she was half her age in those days). The stage does not match the activities, she had serious help, I see no other way there.

Even if we casually dismiss “claimed that Maxwell recruited her to be a “masseuse” for Epstein when she worked at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida club owned by President Donald Trump.” We see places (one that former president Clinton visited), a stage where security is a lot larger then normal, as such others wee in the know, camera’s that would have set the stage where people too young to be allowed were let in, the stage does not add up, when you start reading the affidavits, the documents and the connected briefs, there is a much larger stage to be seen. Do you think that a place like the Mar-a-Lago gets by with below par security? Several people avoided the boat with “In return, prosecutors declined to bring federal charges.” It was not about Epstein, in that phase a lot more would be brought to light, I have absolutely zero doubt about that. That part is partially visible when we consider “The agreement, which was offered by prosecutors working under then-federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta (President Trump’s current U.S. Labor Secretary), was made without informing any of the alleged victims in the case.” In addition, we see several people now in a stage where they are at the top of the legal profession, among them Kenneth Star and Alexander Acosta. So when we see “The appellate court ruled that the district court “failed to conduct the requisite particularized review when ordering the sealing of the materials at issue.” So what else did the district court fail to conduct?

And this has been out and about for close to a decade, so do we like the FBI snooze button at present? The fact that in all this federal players were left in the dark seems completely impossible to me, as such we need to include that there is every chance that Ghislaine Maxwell is part of something much larger, involving other players too, this is not the stage of a socialite, this is the optional stage of a facilitator. If this deviant behaviour is possible in 6% of the clergy, how many rich people would optionally be driven by similar illegal needs? If we accept that there are a little over 5 million multimillionaires in the USA, the 6% mark hands us that Ghislaine Maxwell might have had access to (or being sought by) up to 300,000 very wealthy people requiring her services. Now let’s be fair, they do not all know Ghislaine Maxwell, but see might and that makes this issue a lot larger than we previously considered. And it brings forth the issue of the FBI snooze button, perhaps I am wrong and they were very awake, and it took this long to get a group of people subpoenaed, but consider what I stated and the evidence as it was out and about, and in the media no less.

How many looked away whilst some of this was happening under their very noses?

 

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