Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be | Journey to the Justice Brennan award

August 13, 2016 · 13:20

Media against the Law

When it comes to events within the law, the bulk of the publishers tend to remain in the dark as to what matters and what does not. Which might be fair enough when you consider the fact that they are more and more about numbers in circulation, not about the clarity of reporting. So when I saw certain reports on how there are issues with Hello Games (read: No Mans Sky) and the law, I tend to get curious fast.

There were to instances. The first one was regarding Sky TV. Because the issue was settled, there is not too much official news in play. As far as I was able to tell, from the various sources. We get “The root” of the “secret stupid legal nonsense” is down to Sky’s belief that it owns the word “Sky” in the context in which Hello Games planned to use it”. Can anyone explain to me why any judge would not throw this out of court in an instant?

The fact that this is of course linked to Rupert Murdoch in some way, means that plenty of people are too scared to go against that fossil (I hereby apologise to all fossils who feel offended by their media categorisation)!

In law however, there could have been a case and there was a case and in consideration, beyond the academic parts of Trade Marks law, there was, as I see it never a case. In the case where we see that action brought against the decision of the Fourth Board of Appeal of OHIM of January 30th 2013 (Case R 2398/2010-4), there are three players.

On one side we have

British Sky Broadcasting Group plc & Sky IP International Ltd

And on the other side there is Skype Ultd.

One issue is and has for ever been, more alike than not. Which is one that Sky versus Skype (hear: Skaip) would win, yet, one could argue that British Sky Broadcasting Group plc and Sky IP International Ltd are not alike Skype Ultd in any way. Yet it is the service Class 38 that works in favour of Murdoch again. These are Telecommunication services and as such, there could possibly be a conflict. Of course the non-legal academic mind realises that the Sky services is there for people who contemplate suicide, whilst Skype is about communicating with others. There is no overlap at all (unless you’re talking to your mother in law).

Yes, there is an unfair issue here. Because there is in no way any clear overlap from a consumer point of view, there is as I see it no chance of mistaken service here, but the legal point was made by Sky. It is the issue at [17] where we see “the risk that the public might believe that the goods or services at issue come from the same undertaking or from economically-linked undertakings constitutes a likelihood of confusion“, which is unlikely, yet not impossible and as such Skype lost the trial. The support was found from case Laboratorios RTB v OHIM — Giorgio Beverly Hills (GIORGIO BEVERLY HILLS).

So why bring this up?

You see, there is one part where there is a relevant part in the more likely than not as well as more similar then not. This is however not the case for Hello Games. First of all, this product of service is not telecom, it is a video game. In that regard Rupert Murdoch has a lot less knowledge of video games then Robert Maxwell, you know the other tycoon who took a swim on November 5^th 1991. I know that to be a fact! In defence of Robert Maxwell, he was visionary enough to see that video games had the real future (he was the man behind Mirrorsoft), he would be proven correct less than 5 years after his death.

So when we consider British Sky Broadcasting Group plc. Sky IP International Ltd or Sky, there is absolutely no similarity between the one and the game ‘No Man’s Sky’. That case should have been dismissed of the bat. In addition, if Sky did not start a case against the following movie titles: ‘October Sky’, ‘Fire in the Sky’, ‘Iron Sky’, ‘Island in the Sky’, ‘Castle in the Sky’, ‘Red Sky’, ‘Sky Captain and the world of Tomorrow’, ‘Vanilla Sky’ and ‘Sky High’, can we contemplate that if these cases had not gone to court, the injustice against Hello Games should be trialled for against Sky IP International Ltd?

You see, for Hello Games, the initial case could have been decided against them if the game was called ‘Sky of no man’, this is not the case so the dissimilarity is there. In addition, this is a video game and unless there is a clear sky game ready for the office, I am better of not getting close to it. As I see the likelihood of confusion would have never been a case so I am getting the idea that there is more. Yet, without the court papers there is no way to tell for certain. What is known are some of the facts in play? You see, the part “Too close is determined by whether the relevant consuming public would likely be confused by the second mark“. I can state with 100% certainty that those buying the game will never be confusing the mark of the game, with the mark of a Murdoch corporation.

In addition we can raise the following cases:

Jockey International, Inc v Darren Wilkinson [2010] ATMO 22, where Jockey was sufficiently different from Throttle Jockey and Chris Kingsley v David Scott [2011] ATMO 20, where Rebellion was sufficiently different from Soul Rebellion. As such, Sky should be seen as sufficiently different from ‘No Man’s Sky’. Yet, I will accept that without the full court data elements might be missing from the case. So I am keeping an open mind to some extent.

Now we see that Hello Games is in another situation, yet now on an optional case regarding the feat of patents, or is that the alleged featured use of a patent?

‘Dutch company claims No Man’s Sky Uses Its ‘Superformula’ without permission‘ (at http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/dutch-company-claims-no-mans-sky-used-patented-superformula-create-its-massive-universe-1571747), the news now three weeks old gives another side of the entire universe. Wherever there is a true innovator, there is a vulture trying to get on the gravy train! In nearly all countries we see the application of it. In Belgium Law we see “De machine is patenteerbaar, evenals het proces van de aanpassing in functie van het draaimoment van de motor of de kracht op de snijkop. (voor zover dit voldoet aan de 4 voorwaarden voor een klassiek octrooi, maar laten we dit even aannemen). De wiskundige formule die gebruikt wordt om deze functie te berekenen niet.” (Translated: A machine can be patented, so can the process of adjustment in function of the rotational moment of the engine on the power of the cutting head, the mathematical equation to calculate this cannot). You see, this is at the heart of the matter, in academic reality you could patent the universe, the methods of how it was conceived was not in addition, as the game is unique, Hello Games now have the copyright, yet not on the formula.

In addition, I need to show you the article by Eurogamer, who did some of the legwork (at http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-21-why-no-mans-sky-fans-are-worried-about-a-patented-superformula), they make a few references, more important is the fact that they got through to a few of the connected parties. Now we get to the gritty part of it. You see, there is orchestration in the wind (not by or through Eurogamer mind you).

Consider the quote Jeroen Sparrow gave Eurogamer, as stated in the article: “Genicap is working on a project to create revolutionary software based on the superformula that can be used likewise by indies and the major game studios. Using the superformula to generate natural objects enables you to create endless varied and original objects such as trees, rocks, beaches, planets and mountains. Currently most of this work is still done manually. We are still in the conceptual phase. We expect to be able to tell you more in autumn“, which is, as I see it a load of bollocks! Consider, that initial publications of teasers of No Mans Sky started in December 2013, it was introduced at the E3 2014, now we see ‘We expect to be able to tell you more in autumn‘, how is this even contemplated to have any kind of value?

You see, part of all this is linked to the patent claim EP1177529 (A1). You see in Patent Law, whenever the first element fails, all subsequent elements fail too.

So consider the first claim: “1. A method of creating a physical form, comprising: programming a computer with a computer application for computer graphics or computer aided design or the generation of physical waveforms, with a representation of the following formula r = 1 1 a · cos m 1 ·φ 4 n 2 ± 1 b · sin m 2 φ 4 n 3 n 1 <img class=”EMIRef” id=”188164907-ib0037″ /> where r is a radius value at an angle φ, selecting values for the parameters a, b; n 1, n 2, n 3, m 1and m 2, at least one of n 1, n 2and n 3and at least one of m 1and m 2being variable; generating a pattern via the computer based on the selected values input into said formula; transforming said generated pattern into a physical form.“, here you might be confused, but you need no math, just plain English “transforming said generated pattern into a physical form“, here is the simple crux. A virtual representation, is not a physical form. A supporting thesis can be found (at https://unfoldingform.wordpress.com/about/), if there is one upside then it would be that this all introduced me to the work of Kris Henning. The abstract quote “a design investigation exploring the transition between the virtual representation and physical fabrication of folded forms” gives the goods: ‘transition between the virtual representation and physical fabrication‘, they are two different dimensions. Whilst we could argue that Jeroen sparrow is finding new ways to fund a tax party and here the quote “transforming said generated pattern into a physical form” does not hold the bacon, because this is not what Hello Games are doing and as such, we could regard Genicap as a simple vulture trying to get scraps from someone who was able to create. You see, Dutch patents are very similar to those in Common Law nations “De vinding moet gaan over een product of productieproces, en je moet kunnen aantonen dat dit technisch kan functioneren. Zo kunnen diensten, ideeën zonder concrete uitwerking, natuurwetenschappelijke theorieën, rekenmethoden en esthetische vormgeving niet beschermd worden door een patent” The invention needs to be on a product or production process and it must be shown that it technically functional, services, ideas without concrete solutions, natural theories, calculations and aesthetic shapes are not protected by a patent (translation), so as we cannot fault Eurogamer for lack of Dutch, plenty of Dutch sources did not give this the attention it needed to have. This case is likely to go nowhere!

So we see the collection of people lacking innovation and applicational genius and trying to weasel in on their flaccid approach of inability (perhaps I am oversimplifying the issue?)

When we look at the final part of the Eurogamer article (which is quite excellent), we see “If Hello Games used our technology, at some stage we will have to get to the table. We have reached out to them but understand they have been busy. We trust that we will be able to discuss this in a normal way“, whilst, as I see it, there is enough to debunk the patent claim, there would still be issues of copyright. Yet, there is an issue there too. For this we need to take a step towards Forbes, who published on May 19th 2014 (http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnvillasenor/2014/05/19/how-much-copyright-protection-should-source-code-get-a-new-court-ruling-reshapes-the-landscape/), where we see “Consider a programmer who writes source code to implement a complex weather forecasting model. Models for weather forecasting are not subject to copyright, but the programmer (or, if the programmer is an employee, his or her company) may nonetheless have an enforceable copyright interest in the specific code written to perform that task“, which actually gets us pretty close to the heart of No Man’s Sky. the mathematical model has no protection (if it was used), but Johan Gielis could have ‘an enforceable copyright interest in the specific code written to perform that task‘, yet that part is stopped, because that part was built from scratch by Hello Games, so even if the superformula is in whole part of No Man’s Sky, it seems to me that the application was re-engineered and as such, Genicap has nothing. Nothing is as I see it should be, because they come up with “the superformula to generate natural objects enables you to create endless varied and original objects such as trees, rocks, beaches, planets and mountains. Currently most of this work is still done manually. We are still in the conceptual phase“, whilst a demo has been visible for close to two years? I reckon that they were asleep at the wheel (possible trying to come up with a mathematical formula to grow mentioned wheel).

In the end, Hello Games is growing an industry in a direction no one foresaw, the even better part is that I blogged an additional application for this solution well over 6 months ago implies that I surpassed Genicap regarding any superformula (without ever seeing it), even before they went into some conceptual stage, I found it another application. So what does that tell us about Genicap and Jeroen Sparrow?

So, be like me and enjoy playing No Man’s Sky (and thanking Hello games for coming up with a brilliant game).

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Tagged as British Sky Broadcasting Group plc, Case R 2398/2010-4, Chris Kingsley v David Scott [2011] ATMO 20, EP1177529 (A1), Eurogamer, Genicap, Hello Games, Inc v Darren Wilkinson [2010] ATMO 22, Jeroen Sparrow, Jockey International, Johan Gielis, Laboratorios RTB v OHIM — Giorgio Beverly Hills (GIORGIO BEVERLY HILLS), Mirrorsoft, No man's sky, Robert Maxwell, Sky, Sky IP International Ltd, Skype Ultd

August 8, 2016 · 18:11

An early verdict

So many people have been speaking about No Man’s sky and I am now joining them. Those who know me are aware that I have idolised the game since I saw the very first teaser 2 years ago. It is still three days away, yet I could no longer wait and I saw the stream by DJ Angel (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqmjEv7l3u0). There are two reasons to look at this one. You see, for all the good, it also shows one debatable part.

From the first part, as far as I can tell, No Man’s sky is promising to be everything I hoped for. No quick glitches, or short cuts, just a play through. The fact that every planet is procedurally generated is also an indication that your planet could be very different from the one you are seeing, so watching this is not too much of a giveaway for what you face. The game gives the goods and the others. I am not stating it is the bad side. I am stating that as an explorer you need to think, so when you try to get to a milestone and you want to get something from your ship and you get introduced to ‘ship out of range’ you know you needed another solution and wandering so far from your spaceship was not the best idea you had. Yet, like Minecraft you can get lost in time and suddenly realise you made the milestone of 10,000 steps and you go Oops!

Not sure how DJ Angel felt, but I thought it was brilliant. So in the last weeks I saw people screaming upcoming disappointment, I saw people claiming to play this game and ‘finishing’ it in 30 hours and now I see a 6 hour play through (I watched a little over half an hour), where I see a player just trying to get by the elements. Short on items and getting ‘hindered’ by inventory full. I saw an option to buy a multi-tool upgrade and a few items you will have to see for yourself. I am moving towards a fair amount of sleepless nights I gather. No Mans Sky is about to exceed my personal expectations!

Now, The graphics (this is on a PS4), are pretty awesome. I reckon that other presentations were on PC, yet this resolution and the details we see are really good. The amount of icons in the field give decent indication of what I need to be aware of. Now, here is the part that I need to be mindful of. You see, I might not be in a desert environment, I might start on a temperate planet with seas, or in the icy cold. I will not know for another three days, yet this video shows clearly that we the players will be in for an excellent ride through our console universe. In earnest, Paul Tassi at Forbes raised a few issues I agree with, also sets ease many minds so you need to read the article ‘What’s Going On With No Man’s Sky’s Awkward Launch?‘ (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/08/06/whats-going-on-with-no-mans-skys-awkward-launch/#5730666621b3). For the most he asks fair questions in a way that should not worry you and moreover, on Wednesday you will have a clean server and a game with a day one patch to work with.

Yet in the negative, I would want to add a possible essential fixes to the achievements. This is based upon the IGN list of achievements: I saw several ‘milestones’ in the game, like ‘beginner’ for learning 8 words. Considering that 10 words gets you the bronze achievement, which is fair enough, yet another review I saw implies that the achievements were too easy (no idea how many words are needed for Silver and gold. So far, I am unable to oppose it and personally I do hope that from the initial verdict that this person gave where the achievement list is set to 4/10 (in difficulty) it will be shifted more towards a 7/10 or even an 8/10. I would feel sad if this ends up being an easy chase to the platinum cup (which does not lessen the gaming experience in any way). Yet, this is just my personal view and it is based on missing information. So, be aware that I might be wrong on that count, as I got this from none too reliable sources.

What DJ Angel clearly shows is that Hello Games completely delivers on the promise they made over the last 2 years. In addition, I do hope, based upon the IGN list, the following additions will be made:

Abreu – Survived one extreme planet for no less than 2 hours outside of a base or spaceship (Bronze).
Amundsen – Survived three different extreme planet for no less than 3 hours outside of a base or spaceship (Silver).
Armstrong – Survived five different extreme planet for no less than 4 hours outside of a base or spaceship (Gold).

I am going with extreme Heat, Cold, Radiation and Toxic, so I am hoping there is a fifth one.

That is pretty much the only negative part that we could possibly face and there is no guarantee that this is a fact, so no matter how you feel regarding the achievements, apart from all the BS we have been exposed to for many months, DJ Angel gives a few spoilers, but only if you land on a planet with these weather and ecology markers, which has a rough probability of 0.000002324%, those are truly gaming stats that make you smile!

We are a mere two days away from a great moment in gaming history! If Minecraft was anything to go by, I reckon I will be spending in excess of a thousand hours over the next year in this game. For Sony this is another notch on their guns of revenue. When we consider the past there were a few moments when one game was worth buying a console for.

With the PS1 this was Tombraider, with the PS2 that list was pretty big with God of War & Soul Caliber leading my list. The PS3 would be worth buying for Metal Gear Solid Guns of the patriot, Skyrim or the Last of Us and now on PS4 No Mans Sky joins that famous list. That game alone is buying a console for! In all the games published not many titles can make that claim, yet from what I have now seen No Mans Sky delivers the gaming goods!

Yet for those feeling nervous, there is one more fact that should be considered. This has been stated by several decently reputable sources. The two elements are that the database gets wiped, which means that those early players have no advantage and that you will discover your fair share of elements, life forms and planets. The second part is that there will be a day one patch adding even more replayability. Things like ship diversity, meaning there is a larger list of ships all with benefits and drawbacks. Additional depth in trading, meaning more fun for you and your ship as well as multiple endings. These are great facts and none are too much a spoiler. What is clear is that a team of 11 have outdone the larger developers with a comfortable margin, which is good for other claims I made in the past, and even more rewarding for me as I start playing No Mans Sky tomorrow (wishful thinking).

So I hope you join me in spirit as you embark on your own quest through a universe as Hello Games procedured it to be, a fun trip for anyone holding their PS4 controller!

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Tagged as DJ Angel, Forbes, Hello Games, IGN, No man's sky, Paul Tassi, Sean Murray

August 3, 2016 · 18:54

A simple choice for real gamers

We are forever confronted with choices, some clear and many not so. We seem to rely in most cases on experience, yet in some cases, your gut feeling is all you have and at that point, the more emotional you are, the less likely that the choice was a good one. Now this is nothing special, we all do to some extent that very same thing, the mind, the gut, the heart and the sexual drive. Although that last one tends to be highly driven by emotions, especially when you give into lust, temptation and desire. That is not a bad thing, it is just the way we are.

Gaming is another place where emotions run high. Some part is about desire, but most of it is about a drive, drive to experience. For me that drive is there. Yet I am on a different scale than many are. I am not on the list of those needing to go Call of Duty on my fellow gamers, although there will forever be a thump of my heart for Mass Effect 3 multi-player. In my view the best multi player action a console ever had. No, I am on a reserved list of players that will forever be smitten and tempted by games like Minecraft, Skyrim and Fallout. You see, the challenge of RPG is met in Skyrim and Fallout, yet the fun of just wasting a day away playing Minecraft, exploring, building is not lost on me. Like a kid with his bucket of LEGO, I will never stop feeling for Minecraft. I will walk away for months at a time, but I will always pick it up again and soon thereafter I will have as much fun as I had when I played it in the beginning. I have it on all my consoles. At the initial price of $20 and the upgrade to a NextGen console for a mere $4, it’s probably the best investment I ever made. So when I get confronted with ‘Gamer who bought No Man’s Sky early reaches galaxy center, deflating fans’ anticipation’ (at http://www.polygon.com/2016/8/1/12341236/no-mans-sky-how-big-length-beaten-center-of-universe-galaxy), I wonder what is wrong with people, especially the writer of the article.

The first quote “Daymeeuhn, the Redditor who bought the game, said his 30-hour play through was not simply an attempt to reach the galaxy center as fast as he could” is already a giveaway. You see, 30 hours is a lot more than many games offer (Tombraider offered a mere 10 hours and Infamous Second Son offered less than 20). Still people are worried. Why?

From what is given away there are two enormous elements to consider.

If he has a review copy, he has a limited version of the game.
The game will not be released for another week, so how did he get it?

Now we get the quote: “I actually intentionally took time out of my warp jumping over the course of going to the middle to explore planets to break up the monotony of it”

Which gives us the following points of evidence.

He was basically trailblazing. Did he not run out of fuel? How did he refuel, with what funds?
He admits to not doing all the major ‘events’.

So we see a person, who for example like in Minecraft build a house and thought that the game was done, or glitches himself to the ender dragon and killed it. How? By cheating? If we stick to Minecraft we get a few parallels. Finding the fortress, getting to the Netherworld, Mining Obsidian, finding diamonds and getting blaze rods. The path is not short and chasing to get there defeats the purpose. No Man’s Sky, as I see it is about seeing the other worlds, actually spending time there, learning a ‘language’ grow your character as equipment evolves and as you see the universe, this does not mean mindlessly doing the following:

Select jump point towards centre of universe
arrive at next location.
Go To a.

Which seems to relate to the oldest Basic program:

10 PRINT “Daymeeuhn is an idiot”

20 GOTO 10

Yes, that makes you a programmer in the smallest of ways. So this person is one of what I personally regard as ‘a mere wanker’, who wants to know a detective story, so he reads chapter 1 and the last chapter, then publishes quickly ‘The Butler did it!’. So not only did he not care for the story or the writer, he also decided because of his ego to just spoil it in falsehood for everyone telling an incorrect and half-baked story. And something like that calls himself a ‘redditor’? In addition, many of the game review places should know better and for the most ignored the actual story just to try and cash in on curiosity. A Murdoch approach to a world none of them seem to understand. Not only is that person off the boil, he was willing to pay $1300 to prove that there is something wrong with him.

Which leads me to the following question.

How come that anyone had the game four weeks in advance and how did he acquire it? In addition as this wet though eBay, how come the FBI is not all over this? Perhaps because it is an American company, but a British victim and as such they do not care? There is a decent amount of evidence suggesting that eBay was used for criminal purposes. That was not considered by anyone?

I like the response that Forbes gave the best. They stated: “There’s no way we can trust this Daymeeuhn character. Just look at the facts. He bought a video game on eBay for $1,300 just days before it was set to launch for $59.99. That’s crazy. You can’t expect people to take your opinions, analysis, or observations seriously when you voluntarily spend an extra $1,240 on a video game just so you get it a few days early. It isn’t rational behaviour, strictly speaking, and certainly ought to colour others’ reception of your opinions” (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2016/08/01/its-too-early-to-start-panicking-over-no-mans-sky).

They hit the nail on the head, the fact that other gaming sites are not really on top of things makes me question a few more things, more than I am comfortable with, mainly because the overall quality of reviews and gaming sites has been deteriorating way too much. Another linked video is ‘Trophy Review | No Man’s Sky‘ (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyfCYnUZ0SY). The reason is that I was curious on what trophies there were. The interesting side to all this, is that this video also refers to ‘a person’ who defeated the game in 30 hours and it took him a few days to get all the achievements. This is now turning into another issue altogether. So this person has been spreading himself all over the field giving us an even longer timeline as to how long that so called early copy has been out in the field.

Now, I cannot stress enough that I have no idea how true or false the claims are, yet I have seen the trophy list on PlayStation Trophies dot org. Here the following trophies come to my attention.

Attain ‘Naturalist’ status in Uploaded Discoveries, with a nice reference to a cult movie. This trophy implies that you will have to upload plenty of discoveries of the planetary flora and fauna to get it. I would speculate that it requires more than one planet. So consider the time, walking around to get it.
Attain ‘Legend’ status in Ships Destroyed. Now this might not require as many kills as getting the Elite Status as a fighter in Elite dangerous, but it would be quite a few.
Attain ‘Magnate’ status in Most Units Accrued. This means you have massive funds and coin, enough to find a planet with Dragons, a white wall and enough coin that it would make Cersei Lannister to act and motivate Lena Headey to find you on that planet and asks you to stay with her for all the nights of the rest of your life.

Now, there is plenty of options to get this when it is a limited review copy, yet there is a growing and overwhelming sense that we are being fooled and this is a heist by a Troll with a hatred of No Mans Sky. As I see more and more fake hype attempt by all kinds of sources, I wonder why anyone is so afraid of a game that people are looking forward to. There is no moral or logical justification.

Can I be wrong?

I always ask myself this, in nearly any issue that I write about. Now consider the Achievement ‘Attain ‘Babelfish’ status in Words Collected‘ which is a gold achievement and remember the demo’s that Sean Murray gave? If those shrines all have one word, how many shrines do you need? Now also consider the fact that this is generated, so there are no maps and the ships scanners gives you dozens of interesting places all for different reasons, how long until you get to the 10^th or 25^th shrine (just calling these Obelisks that)? Not in a few days I reckon. That is besides the fact that some places are ultra-hot, ultra-cold or ultra-irradiated. As we see fact by fact add up, the mere claim by ‘Daymeeuhn’ seems to hold less and less water. Now, as Forbes stated. Wait for a week and decide then, I will get it regardless. There is enough shown to see that this could be the game I have waited for, for well over 2 years. With 5 major releases until the end of the year, no matter how you slice it, there will be plenty to play.

What bugs me is the lack of quality support by those who call themselves quality gaming sites and game reviewers. Those who did get a hold of play time at the previous E3 and other options have been too silent. How weird is that? In addition the sites all ‘heralding’ the unreliable news have not been looking at the potentials that this so called gamer missed. So in the end, we will know in a week and I am holding onto my copy for dear life, because like Minecraft, getting most blocks is not that hard, it is how you grow your world that matters and as I can see and by what was shown, the pleasure of just admiring the views that the planets are offering is already more overwhelming and reliable than what I consider to be the empty claim of a 30 hour games defeat.

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Tagged as Cersei Lannister, Daymeeuhn, Elite: Dangerous, Forbes, Gamespot, gaming, Hello Games, IGN, Lena Headey, No man's sky, PS4, Sean Murray, Youtube

July 30, 2016 · 15:10

When they get it right

For those who have read my articles, you will have seen how I have had a little bit of an issue with Yves Guillemot and his software company, ‘the soft of Ubi’. Now, ever as we will acknowledge that it is not he, but Jason VandenBerghe who deserves the Laurels, it is still the CEO who gave the OK. What looked interesting a year ago when I was initially introduced to it, has moved from ‘interesting’, via ‘need to keep my eyes on this’, via ‘this seems really cool’ to ‘Holy crap, I need to get this’.

This game is also an additional piece of evidence that proves the point I had all along with Ubisoft. If you rely on a business spreadsheet to avoid not having a flop, you will in equal measure never get a real hit. This game has shown in more than one way that it went all out and it left the beaten path months ago. From an expected online only, to an online with single player elements (like Evolve), to a game with full campaigns. Geoff Ellenor shows the intro mission for the knights (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WzhdaVj8N4), not only is it a female knight (something in reality unheard of), which we have not seen to this degree since Gwendoline Christie has been playing Brienne of Tarth. So not only can you imagine playing this bad ass lady, one must not forget that this is a video game, so we get to have plenty of freedoms. The intro is extremely impressive and very educational. Not only is this a 360 degree combat system that is better than anyone I have ever seen. The simplicity of control makes me wonder how established brands like Soul Calibur and Tekken never considered it. In addition, this game shows that button mashing is not a way to survive this game. The graphics are beyond sublime, I realise that this is likely shown on a system bolstering the highest end graphics card possible, but it shows clearly that we are offered top rank gaming. In addition, the introduction offers a nice twist at the end which you will have to see for yourself. Intro or not, the makers went all out showing a valued and worthy intro to a game that has been promoted to one of the expected top games 2017 will be offering, so even though many titles are unknown and unseen, this game will be the expected contender for best game of the year. That is a verdict I am stating. Those who know me know that I have never been a real fan of these hack, slash and fight games.

How wrong am I?

Well, that is still an option, yet over the course of a year, I have seen what was already really impressive a year ago and over time have seen this evolve into something bigger. Now, I still have to give this some serious gameplay on a console to see how it holds up under the scrutiny of a PS4, yet I am convinced that the elements shown in sound, in graphics and in game play make this an easy 85%. This is not a final verdict, because the game could realistically gain another 10%. This is done through exposure of AI (read NPC interaction) and storyline. You see, the demo does not show how the game will interact with your style of play. The AI of your opponents will be crucial in this game. We can agree that the intro is about learning the interface and controls, yet the game passed that point will be all about the AI and what level of challenge the opponents offer from then on. Not just the bosses, but the soldiers. They did not really show opposition in the intro, yet in the full game after that level, those soldiers need to be a little better than they are in the intro. The challenge and satisfaction, as well as the total hours of gameplay that the campaigns offer. There we find the additional 5% that makes a game no longer great but legendary. In reality, it just needs to be over 90%, for the mere reason that nearly all games over 90% should be regarded great. In my view, the remaining 10% comes from two areas. The one is the game the second is how we react to the game. Our levels of satisfaction with what the game offers. For example Dark Souls 3 shows that achieving victory in that game is near impossible. It gives us tremendous satisfaction when we do get there and frustration when we do not. Now, with the Dark Souls series we know that they are for gamers with an Olympic level of playing, but when I reviewed a game in the past I looked at two elements in a game. The first was the playability and the second one was the replayability. In that view I have had a passion for RPG games. So even as I admire Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne as graphically and inter active as perfect, the skills required to get to the end of this game is beyond normal which is an issue for the masses so I would see it as a ‘97% with a warning’. The warning is that if you are not an above average gamer, this game would not be for you.

Fair enough!

So back to the main event. For Honor has so far moved boundaries, opinions and expectations towards a likely ‘legendary’ status. So, as I see it those who are ready to slay their opponents, better realise now that this game will be released on Thursday February 14^th 2017, so there is a chance it will be on your table untouched for one day (I’ll let you figure out why). I reckon that taxation year 2016 (July 2016 – June 2017) will show us some of the best games we have ever seen, not just the remastering of what were great games. But the addition of actual new and novel games. No Mans Sky, Skyrim, For Honor are definitely there, games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Resident Evil VII, God of War 4 and Final Fantasy XV are extremely likely to make that list. However those we have not seen to the degree we need to see to make any kind of assessment like: the Last Guardian, Scale bound and Call of Cthulhu. No matter how you slice it, there is enough evidence to show at present that we are moving towards a great year of gaming and that For Honor isn’t just on the list, it is moving towards the high end of that list. How high? Well that is also influenced by you the player. You see, some of you will due to passion and preference automatically move Andromeda or Final Fantasy to your number one spot. This is very valid, because it is about your experience. In that same light For Honor will likely move towards your top list too!

This means that Ubisoft got it right for this game and I can’t wait to add it to my collection.

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Tagged as Bloodborne, Brienne of Tarth, Call of Cthulhu, Dark Souls 3, Final Fantasy XV, For Honor, Geoff Ellenor, God of War 4, Gwendoline Christie, Horizon Zero Dawn, Jason VandenBerghe, No man's sky, Resident Evil VII, Scale bound, Skyrim, The Last Guardian, Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot

July 28, 2016 · 21:07

What we waste away

This is an issue that bugged me for a little while. Even though it started small, the near exponential growth of waste is now looking towards me, looking at me as I look into an abyss of squandered opportunity. You see, this is in part the Monday morning quarterback speaking, whilst in that same view I should hold a mirror to my own choices. Just like you should do.

The idea for this article started small, it started when I realised that Huawei was willing to sacrifice its Australian market share by tweaking the skewing profits they have. They are now making short-sighted decisions and as they do that, they stand to lose close to 10% of the Australian market share. So why waste that? Let’s not forget that before the P7 Huawei was almost synonymous with ‘whazzat?’ and now after the P7, which was and still is awesome, after a less appreciated P8, Huawei is close to being a global household name. Now with the Nexus being a little outdated (Nexus 6P), the 9P could have been ready to gain a decent market share, hurting both the iPhone to a lesser degree and the Samsung phones to a larger degrees. So what does Huawei do? They decide to not release the 64 GB in Australia. Now until recently, we could have expected that, yet when you consider the exponential demand for mobile games that Pokémon GO is pushing, the fact that we now see ‘Apple plans to invest in augmented reality following success of Pokémon Go‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/26/apple-earnings-pokemon-go-augmented-reality-steve-cook), whilst the players are not thinking their decisions through could be regarded as a larger (read: massive) act of wasting away opportunity.

So why is this a waste?

Until Pokémon GO, the need for storage had not been visible to the degree we thought we needed. Even I did not see this coming and I have been connected to games and gaming in excess of 30 years. Forbes (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2016/07/25/these-photos-show-how-crazy-the-pokemon-go-craze-is-in-hong-kong) gives us a clear view with the quote “special phone plans from local companies offering unlimited data usage just for the game“, which shows the amount of users, but not the need for storage. The fact that millions of people are now getting dozens of screenshots every day (more than before) of every Pokémon they caught and even more interesting where it was caught. Of course the average teenager is also feeding the image streams on how they caught a Diglett on their boxer short, so the wildfire of images is growing. All these images require storage and this is only the first game, within a year I expect close to a dozen games with features requiring storage, because there will always be copycats. So do you really think your 32 GB phone will suffice? I think not, with all the other needs your mobile life has, buying any phone less than 64 GB from this point onwards is a massive flaw. It is short-sighted, even if you are not a gamer, this market is erupting into new fields and the chance that this will not affect you is near impossible. So as the difference should be no more than $100, sticking with the 32 GB is in my view for the nuts and fruits, the fibre based mobile user needs 64 GB, yes there is in some cases a 128 GB, yet this is except for the very few really overkill, you need to be a seriously intense user of large files to really need something this big, but by 2019, who can tell?

In my view, you need to consider a mobile phone for the next 2 years. 32 GB will not cut it, especially as Android OS is also growing and will require more space.

Now it is time to take a look at the Apple side, the Guardian gives us “The comments came during an earnings call to discuss the results of the company’s third financial quarter, the three months ending 30^th June, in which the company earned $42.4bn in revenue, a 15% decline from the same period last year“, so as Tim Cook is making claims towards Augmented Reality (AR) he seems to have forgotten that Nintendo, with their 3DS got to that point 5 years ago. So, not only did he miss that entire cycle, we can conclude that 3 iterations of new Apple products were not near ready either, so he is running behind the ball, whilst someone saw the AR on the 3DS and game it a little more thought. As we see how Microsoft has been bungling some of their projects, in all of those steps Apple wasn’t just absent, they had no clue where the gaming world was, so as they are trying to pick up the pass, we see the lack of innovation and shear absence regarding the creativity of options that Apple happily avoided. Now as some ask questions we see a sudden mention of AR whilst none of the hardware is ready to facilitate innovation for this track.

As I stated that all (including me) missed the hype this caused and yes, it is a hype but one that is creating a beachhead, not one that is fading away. So Nintendo has options and opportunity here. Beyond the IP needs that are now rearing its ugly head, we need to realise that Apple is now moving to the shallow end of the pool. They moved from innovator to facilitator and until they change the mindset on what a gamer wants and what a game needs to be Apple is now the one barking up the wrong tree. In that regard evidence of their hardware is simple enough. Only the iPhone 6 started to have 2GB or RAM. The issue is that games tend to be memory hungry and no matter how good the swap architecture, the fact that you need it will drag gaming speed and swapping speed down, which makes for a bad solution. The fact that Huawei is skewing profitability by limiting storage is less on an impact, but knowing full well the impact on mobile gamers, the fact that Huawei has not adjusted it view means that they will not be able to keep up. That last one is a little incomplete for Australia, because it is one of the few places where the mobile phone providers do not offer a 64 GB edition, whilst the models do exist. Here we get that Kogan.com is the only open provider offering 64 GB phones, in the non-open field it is only Telstra that offered it (their iPhone 6S), the rest is now trailing storage land with a dangerous backlash that could come their way.

So how important is storage? It might not be that big on one side, until you run out. Ask yourself, when was the last time you deleted pictures, removed MP3 tracks and removed APPS you never use? The moment you run out of memory and as you suddenly see that you do not have enough storage you will freak out like the short-sighted PC users who used to think that 20 GB was enough for their PC. Most of those people ran out of resources less than a year after getting their PC, when they did not know how to clean up their PC they started everyone except themselves. That is what you now face with your upcoming needed Mobile, because that moment with your kids, or your partner who just made that one gesture just as a bus passes by and the water pool near her feet became the inverted waterfall covering her, that moment when you miss it will introduce you to the term ‘frustration’, which is the moment as you realise that storage was everything at some points.

Yet these were not the only parts, just the directly visible ones.

There are more options and several are being missed out on. I am currently sitting on a billion in revenue, yet until the right person comes along. I can’t afford to move towards it without leaving it open for others to pick it up. I just need to get lucky. In that same way, some game developers are sitting on optional IP, some are now finding its way towards us in other ways, some through redesign, some through the mini console gadgets, yet they are coming. Is it enough? That depends on your point of view. For those coming with the mini console, it is a way to cash in on old IP in an easy way, a way where the seasoned gamer will get joy from. Just remember that this $99 solution, with the original games which would have come at a price of almost $1900 when the games were initially released, yet I digress.

You see, the need for gaming is still growing and it is moving away from consoles and moving towards the mobile realm of gaming needs. AR is only one field and it is not the only field. Ubisoft had initially created a small wave with a brotherhood app, one that interacted with the console/PC games and soon thereafter stuffed it up with the AC Unity versions by not proper testing and considering options. Yes, that Ubisoft! Still, they are not done! Consider the options they still have. For one, they have the IP of Just Dance. How long until they get the idea to push songs to the mobile and kids in schools and colleges start holding a little Just dance marathon? Sydney of all places is one place where a dance app could make it big not just in the parks, but on the streets too and summer is coming!

How long until that Just Dance would evolve to work in selfie video mode, so that you can get a rating? This would require storage and some of these speculated options could be just around the corner. Even though Ubisoft dropped the ball initially, they are leading the way of combining gaming with mobile gaming. So there are more options that AR games, even if everyone is running that direction (which is not a bad idea), it will require an open mind to find something that could create the interest that the tsunami of Pokémon GO gamers crave. I will let the developers work that out.

The final part can be seen outside of the economic requirements of technology. It is found in the overly eager acceptance of ‘speculative estimation’. It is not based upon what could be, it is not set on the prediction of what already exists, it is seen in the quote “Shares plunge 10% as revenue falls short of analysts’ estimates amid modest gain of 3 million users“. In this case it is Twitter, you know that great tool. A connectivity tool that link you to existing interests, both professional, personal as recreational. No matter that it is limited to 144 characters, it enables you to get the information you care about. An invention that is profound and its value drops as revenue falls short of what a limited group of people expects it to make. So as we see a solution that is making “Twitter forecast current quarter revenue of $590-$610m“, we get the cold shower because some people claim that it is “well below the average analyst estimate of $678.18m“, so we have half a billion profit and someone says it is not enough. This is the waste, reduction in value, reduction of what those who do not create anything is just not good enough. Yet, this picture that the Guardian initially paints is not accurate either. We see should consider this when we take into account Revenue and Profit, no matter what the profit was, it did beat the expectations of some, making me wonder why analysts cannot get their act together.

Some of those are pretty much the same types who would increase the value of Nintendo by 10 billion, even as Nintendo themselves did not make Pokémon GO. Those same category of people who seem to expertly know that Twitter is supposed to have up to $70M more in revenue, did not realise that “Tokyo Stock Exchange has plummeted 17% in one day, apparently due to investors belatedly discovering that the company doesn’t actually make Pokémon Go, the latest mobile gaming phenomenon“, even as we all knew from day one that Niantec is an American development company in San Francisco, they were not making any mention when Nintendo stock went through the roof. So is this just plain playing the field or just short-sightedness? Even as shares went up 13 cents per share (up 3 cents), they had no good news on Twitter. It seems to me that there is a massive waste coming from analysts predicting values, setting targets that are a little too weird even as Twitter had achieved 20% revenue gain, it still missed targets (according to analysts). The pressure on false targets and fake values is dragging down people and it is dragging down quality of life for those who still made well over half a billion dollars. How is that not a waste?

It seems to me that we need to make large changes, not just on the way we think, but on the way we accept certain values. How is pushing by externals in any way acceptable? Let’s consider the following parts. These analysts we all about predicting the ‘opportunities’ for Greece in the era 2009-2012, even as we saw misrepresentation in more than one way. How did that work out for the Greeks? Brexit was never going to happen, they did not catch on to that part until the day of the election, how again did Wall Street overreact? Now consider the following definitions: ‘Slavery existed before written history, it continues through such practices as debt bondage & serfdom‘. Now consider debt bondage, where we see ‘a person’s pledge of their labour or services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation‘, our debts, our essential need to work, the pledge of labour as analysts seem to chasten Twitter (and many other companies). Serfdom is another issue. It is not the same as it was. As the description might be seen as: ‘Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the lord of the manor who owned that land, and in return were entitled to protection, justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence‘, many might deny that this still exists, yet in an age with high levels of unemployment we seem to push out own boundaries to do whatever it takes to keep levels of ‘protection‘ (read: not being unemployed) and ‘rights to exploit your position‘ (read: additional work requirements), even as we might disagree with parts of this (which is fair enough) the similarities are close to undeniable. In all this we see an iteration of analysts changing predicted needs, raising expectations, after which their errors are released through waves of managed ‘bad news’. Now, this might be just my speculative error of insight. Yet the evidence is all around you. In that regard, many analysts also get it wrong the other way. When we see Facebook exceeding ‘expectations’ by 59%, can we at that point agree that the analysts making the predictions have no real clue? In this age where we can all miss a trend, the fact that we see a 60% miss is not as much as a miss, as it is a massive inability to read your market, which is how I would see it (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/27/facebook-ad-sales-growth-quarterly-results).

You are now wondering how the latter part connects to the initial part. As I personally see it, we are receiving more and more hindrance from places that make one claim, yet in reality they are mere facilitators towards profitability to ‘satisfy’ the greed of ‘investors’ on the terms of analysts. I have nothing against profit and profitability. No company forsaking its ROI will live for long, yet when we see a company surpassing the 600 million revenue and they are turning a profit, everyone seems to have this surrealistic love affair with ‘Number of Users’. This gets us to what is behind the screens, you see, when we see the blind focus on number of users, is it about the product you have, or the data you collect? Those who are still about mere virtual profit through acquisition of personal data, those who proclaim comprehension, those are the same people who were unable to comprehend the value that products like Minecraft and Pokémon GO. Even if I got one wrong, I did not get both wrong, in that same light I can see that No Mans Sky will raise the bar for gaming and even as some proclaim the word ‘disappointment’ with the initial Alpha release of ‘We Happy Few’, I believe that this game can be a lot of fun and can end up being a decent game with a 90% score. Now, it is important to mention that this view was from a reviewer with a good reputation, it is a good review and as such it should not be ignored, yet in all this, it is still an Alpha version and as such there is plenty of space for improvement. This is possible, because the initial engine does look good.

These elements are all linked, the link is imagination and creativity. Not the imagination of hope in the view of ‘I have the winning ticket‘, no it is in the path of ‘What can we do to make a change‘. It is about the imagination to employ creativity to achieve a result. In the first case it is for Huawei to adjust its incorrect (as I see it) stance of that what they make available and for which nation at the bequest of whatever Telco. This is a mere adjustment of policy, it comes with the smallest requirement of creativity and a decent comprehension of data.

The second case with Tim Cook, which requires both immense creativity and imagination (and a good development team). We can make whatever claim we want, but the reality is, is that too much value is given to reengineering, and way too little towards actual true innovation. Where is the creativity and insight that brought us the iPod, iPhone and iPad? Oh, right, I forgot, he died! Yet, should Tim Cook be any less than his predecessor? So why are they not looking at raising the bar and instigating a different mode of gaming? Perhaps the next hype is not gaming at all. I might not have the answer here, but the bringer of the next challenge that will create a real hype might know, for Apple the need of finding that person makes all the difference.

Pablo Picasso once said “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up”. I wonder if that is still just the case. So far I have learned that “Any innovator will soon after their first big success become the pawn of the needs of Wall Street”. If you doubt that, then consider Adobe, Apple, Coca Cola, IBM, Microsoft, Nintendo and Twitter and let’s not forget that they all started through true innovation.

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Tagged as AC Unity, Adobe, Apple, Augmented Reality, Brexit, Coca Cola, Facebook, Greece, Hello Games, Huawei, IBM, Kogan.com, Microsoft, Minecraft, Nexus 6P, Nintendo, No man's sky, Pokemon GO, Samsung, Telstra, the Guardian, Tim Cook, Twitter, Ubisoft, We Happy Few

July 24, 2016 · 18:37

Out of the two issues

There are two things bugging me. One is technology based and I will get to that one next (read: article). You see, it is not the most important one and it fades against the game that is now on rotation. The first one starts on a good note, which tends to be a little awkward as it involved George Brandis, the Attorney General. The headline ‘George Brandis warns against assuming all attacks are terrorism after Munich shooting‘. I actually agree here. There was an extremely graphical video that I discussed (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/05/01/homerun-by-ukip/), on May 1^st 2016, yet the video is all about implying targets. Here we have the crux, what makes the implied target a real target? Well that is for the boffins in the intelligence world to resolve. Yet when he states “He was obsessed with mass killings, owned a book on US school shootings and played computer shooting games. Most of his victims were fellow teenagers, five of them under 16“, I am placing a few question marks at his quotes. Just as Pauline Hanson is eager to blame religion, Brandis mentions that the German gunman played computer shooting games, which in light of the statements made by Andrew Scipione recently is slightly too enthusiastically and way too easily spoken.

Last there is “One of the phenomena that we have seen develop more recently is the development of lone actors who self-radicalise, often very quickly, most commonly online,” he said. “Very frequently these are young men with psychological disturbances, they don’t fit into the conventional or traditional understanding of a terrorism network”, which is true and fair enough. There are plenty of other sources that make similar claims, which does not make them false or wrong. It beckons the thought on how a kid of 18 got the gun. You see, Germany has a much stricter handle on guns, as can be seen in the article ‘Germany and gun laws: a chequered history‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/23/germany-guns-chequered-history-munich-shootings), the quote “three school massacres were instrumental in forcing through political reforms which are widely seen as making the country’s gun controls amongst the most stringent in the world“, even as many German’s have legally owned firearms. Germany is 4^th on the world list of guns legally owned per capita. So, on one hand stealing one would be relatively easier (statistically speaking) in Germany, although that premise is an empty one without clear evidence on how the gun was obtained. So where did he get his gun from?

Now, this is not me stating that ISIS was involved, I am merely asking whether ISIS would eagerly use a tool like Ali Sonboly for instigating terror. Now consider the ‘news’ where we see the statement “Gunman Ali Sonboly used Facebook account to lure victim with offer of free food“, he apparently (according to the telegraph) used a fake Facebook account with the name ‘Selina Akim’ (other sources stated a hacked account), if that is true, than we have another iteration of issues. Not the fact whether or not he was a real mental health case, because this does not necessarily diminish that part. So when we consider the quote by George Brandis “when a search of the man’s home did not find any Islamist-related material, or any other political, religious or ideological material“, which we can consider in partial error. The ‘planning’ and creating a fake identity on Facebook (or hacking an account), trying to lure people of the same age group to McDonalds gives way to planning and to the act of contemplating. Contemplating because he viewed an approach with continued attention (aka tactical planning) and he observed or study thoughtfully (the use of a fake pretty girl profile). Now this does not make him any less of a mental case. Yet there is question on whether he himself came up with this or whether he was cautiously ‘coached’ by an outside source.

There is at present no way to tell, because even if no external evidence exist, until the origin of the firearm can be found, we all (me inclusive) will have a decent amount of speculations. So, I am not stating that George Brandis is wrong or incorrect. I am merely asking the questions that most have left untouched. The quote in the Telegraph (I know, not the best source to use) is “Police said the killings were not terrorist-related. They added that Sonboly was armed with an unlicensed Glock 9mm pistol and had 300 rounds of ammunition in his backpack“, the issue is regarding both the unlicensed Glock, where we do not wonder whether a Glock requires a license to exist, but the fact that the serial number could be traced back so quickly to an ‘unlicensed’ owner. In addition, the part of ‘300 rounds of ammunition’, so were these three boxes of 100? Six boxes of fifty? All issues, including the fact that ammunition outside of Canada and America tends to be a whole lot higher in price (I speak from experience here). In addition, German laws are stringent in this matter, so he would have needed to acquire/steal it somehow. There are more question marks rising now. These question marks are all linked to those proclaiming to have the facts, which makes it dangerous. In that regard, I am asking question, yet, am I asking the right questions? I feel that I am, because the actual answers might shine a more clear light on what allowed the events in Munich to happen. It still will not invalidate the views of George Brandis, yet questions need to be asked. When we know the following:

At almost 18:00 a shooting starts. Initially they think that there are three shooter (as there were three events), at the mall 300 rounds of ammo were found in a backpack.
At 20:30 gunman Ali Sonboly was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. (the Guardian stated that he was found 21:30 local time, as well as the statement that a post-mortem examination would be needed to see if he died from officers’ gunfire).

Now we get statements as him being into violent video games, on how this is planned, with references to books. The Independent gives us “One book found was a German translation of Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters, written by Peter Langman, an American psychologist. Mr De Maiziere said that Sonboly had researched a 2009 school shooting in Germany, as well as Breivik’s Utoya massacre“. I find it odd on how he went for such a specific book. Now we add another fact from the Guardian. ““It’s a little disturbing,” said Peter Langman, who was unaware that the Munich shooter had a copy of his book until the Guardian called him at his home in Pennsylvania on Saturday. “I don’t know quite what to make of it. I don’t know why he had it,” he said“, I share the concern of Peter Langman here. So less than a day after the event, the press seems to have all the facts, all the ‘goods’ of gossip, whilst a clear investigation takes longer. In addition, if there was a terrorist concern (which there was in the initial hours), the Press would not have gotten hold of anything ‘juicy’ and we would have seen at least one day of speculation.

The entire Munich event is calling for a lot more questions, question that have few answers. Now consider that the boy, obsessed with the extremist Anders Behring Breivik, on the day of the anniversary and he leaves his backpack with ammo behind? Now, we can argue on it and I am even willing to admit that under pressures our minds can go a little wonky, but with the essential need of ammunition leaving it behind seems a little too weird. In addition, we see the German website ‘the local (at http://www.thelocal.de/20160723/munich-attacker-was-shy-video-game-fan) state 16 hours after the event “Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae did acknowledge that Sonboly had extensively researched the theme of rampages and may have read about the lethal killing spree by white supremacist Anders Behring Breivik, saying there was an ‘obvious link’ between Breivik’s crimes and Friday’s shooting“. So, when this ‘conclusion’ is made after a mere 16 hours in public, how many hours were taken to investigate this? Was this one computer source? Several sources? Was Ali actually doing that research on his (or someone’s) computer?

When we consider the statements and the time line, I end up with a fair bunch of questions, questions that lead to even more question marks and no clear answers. So are we now being played or is this the German need to suss this quiet real fast? Let’s not forget that it could have been the solo act of Ali Sonboly, yet German security services do have an issue with escalations that involve refugees. It was only 4 days earlier that a 17 year old refugee started to play ‘me and my knife and axe‘ on a train in Wurzburg, also in Bavaria. So the police has every need to not see violence escalate, but at present what we are told and shown, I am not sure if the local population will accept the given as gospel truth. You see, the fact that both events are stated to not having any links to Islam extremism is not an issue, the fact becomes what pushed these two kids over the edge. There might not be a given answer to the first case as a knife and axe are readily available in nearly every hardware shop. A 9mm pistol with 300 rounds of ammunition is another issue entirely. As there are no links or clear indications where the gun came from and how he got his fingers on one. We become the people raising question marks whilst those who should be with answers are unable to provide any acceptable ones. This gives more and more weight to this issue being one with consequences.

It will take days before the dust settles and we have some chance of actually seeing the facts, yet the reality should sink in to many of my readers. There are iterations of cycled news, to some degree based on questionable data. Yet in this case it is less about the people and the fiction we see from the press, in this the press seems to be handed a less than sincere handshake from certain officials. Those officials have to push for agenda’s that make their live manageable, which is only partially fair enough.

The question we end with is: ‘Yet, was it good enough?’

I am not sure who has the answers, mainly because several of the released facts are too questionable.

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Tagged as Ali Sonboly, America, Anders Behring Breivik, Andrew Scipione, Canada, George Brandis, Glock, Hubertus Andrae, Pauline Hanson, Peter Langman, Selina Akim, the Guardian, Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters, Wurzburg

July 19, 2016 · 21:11

The Silvery Goon

To give a little form to this exercise I will alas need to mangle the lyrics that gave additional visibility to Doris Day, a song going back to 1910 when it was initially released.

By the light of the Silver Grey Goon

I shall thee groom, to be the sultriest slut I hump

Honey-pot keep your legs far apart

Your silly sight, not very bright, we’ll be laughing loud soon

That game is not really real.

So here is the start, direct and as I might add, intentionally offensive!

All this got started by he who did not get elected, it is NSW police commissioner Andrew Scipione that takes a front seat today. Not the events in France or Turkey. You see, here on our home front we have an old enemy that is rearing its ugly head and the people who seem to casually start to take the front row as the facilitators here are part of a much larger problem.

First in all this, there is the small issue that it was repetitive. You see, something similar was addressed on August 6th 2012 (at http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/violent-video-games-incite-kids-to-crime-says-scipione/story-fn7y9brv-1226443402160). So as the headline read at that point ‘Violent video games incite kids to crime, says Scipione‘, we see a repetition from the people who should be doing the actual work, not the speculation on matters they do not even seem to comprehend.

Now, there are several studies that go back for at least a decade stating that ‘playing violent video games can lead to an increase in aggression‘. There is an issue with that part, you see, I think that a person who has an aggressive nature will choose a more aggressive game. Meaning that the aggression was already in that person, not given to the person by the game. In addition, this was happening in a time where professionals did not have a proper handle on issues like OCD or ADHD. This is important as this group of people is a lot larger than many are willing to admit to. When looking at American numbers we get the goods from the CDC and they tell us: “Approximately 11% of children 4-17 years of age (6.4 million) have been diagnosed with ADHD as of 2011. The percentage of children with an ADHD diagnosis continues to increase, from 7.8% in 2003 to 9.5% in 2007 and to 11.0% in 2011“, I think that this group has been ignored for far too long and they took refuge (or shelter) within a mindset of video games. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders version 5, the APA got creamed when NIMH withdrew support for DSM-5 in May 2013. NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health), gives us the quote “Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure“, so this operation is looking into clinical evidence and even as they admit that there is a link between violent games and aggression, they state “Finds insufficient research to link violent video game play to criminal violence” (at http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/08/violent-video-games.aspx). So as we see the repetition by a Police Commissioner to rehash an old story, the fact that he is unaware on matters published 3 years after his initial ‘speech’ and the fact that these findings are a year old, in that light his speech does not seem that great or that qualified in a conference on violence in the media in Sydney.

This is however not all. The issue goes on, because he had more inaccuracies to state. We also see “When you see video games that reward behaviour, where somebody’s murdered, where somebody is abducted and raped and they get credits for that – what sort of messages are we sending our children“. You see, that part is another issue entirely. For this we need to take a look at 2014, where we see in ‘the Conversation‘ (at http://theconversation.com/virtual-rape-in-grand-theft-auto-5-learning-the-limits-of-the-game-30520) the following part: “After the release of GTA5 last September, there were discussions about whether players should be able to rape within the game. Wisely, Rockstar Games, the game’s developers, did not take this suggestion on board” in addition we see “But hackers did. They created a mod that allows a user to enter another player’s game, often as a naked or near-naked man, lock onto another player and then thrust persistently back and forth. All players can equally fall victim, regardless of character or player gender. And there is no way to prevent or stop an attack“.

So not only is the Commissioner misleading readers and listeners, but he is spinning another tale. As I see it, the game was never released that way, so the game was altered. We could go as far as to state that they are illegal versions of the game? In my view as I see it the question becomes why has Andrew Scipione not arrested those hackers and if they are not from his jurisdiction, why is he even talking about it? Is there not enough media circus issues in Sydney? In addition, there was a clear reason for 18+ games. When we see the quote “Given that children and young people are large consumers of this sort of content“, can we now be clear that children are not supposed to have those games and if they do, perhaps it is a clear parenting problem and those parents should be ‘losing’ their children? If the ‘child’ is over 18 that ‘child’ would be an adult and it is again a non-issue.

He sounds an awful lot like that confused and hypocritical person in South Australia. Michael Atkinson is his name, I believe. I regard him as hypocritical as he was awfully eager to leave the house he lost control of regarding Labor Premier Jay Weatherill. If Michael Atkinson was so about child safety, he should have intervened a lot sooner. So as we see the ABC quote “While he acknowledged there were fundamental issues within Families SA, he said a “whole community” approach was needed to protect children in the future“, we can draw a straight line to parent responsibility and proper games. So here is the third strike from Andrew Scipione. As I personally see it, this entire exercise is another step on the road to mere censoring.

So is this like Michael Atkinson another religious ‘enthusiast’ to spread the option of censoring?

Let’s be clear, both man can be as Baptist and as Anglican as they want to be. I have nothing against religion (being a Catholic and a partial Anglican). Yet it cannot influence the job that needs doing as long as no laws are being broken. The fact that we are introduced to a ‘presentation’ of inaccuracies is a large problem!

So as we realise that there is a clear 18+ category and as was said in 2012: “Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare says the new category will inform consumers, parents and retailers which games are not suitable for minors“, we wonder what the speech was all about.

You see, Andrew was not alone. So now we get Elizabeth Handsley, professor of law at Flinders University and the president of the Australian Council on Children and the Media. Now we see quotes that actually have a little value: “the number of people who become desensitised or oversensitive to other people’s aggression is going to be greater, and that will have that broader, society-wide effect that we won’t necessarily be able to identify“, she has a partial valid point. You see partial as it is her part that is also a problem. The part that both are skating away from. An act that is as I see it likely to be intentional is the accountability of the media in general. The ethical uncaring nature of the media that will trample basic rights of privacy to get the knickers of Kim Kardashian on any media at a moment’s notice, a media that after getting scared to death by the dangers the Leveson report brought, did fake gestures of sincerity and they were up to their old tricks before the ink on the Leveson report had dried. That side is not dealt with by either of them, because the fact that the Press gets away with murder (well almost) and that accountancy firms are suddenly not responsible for large corporations overstating value and losing billions in value. In all this the people linked do not end up in jail. I reckon that this side of reality is a lot more damning on those kids and their optional shift towards non-legal actions than a video game is. The fact that these sides of the media are not set forward is equally damning on Scipione as it is on Professor Handsley.

In addition there is what the conference called a certain ‘Distinguished Professor Craig Anderson‘, when we see the topic ‘Media violence science, video game industry lies, and responsible public policy‘ we need to also take heed of a part not shown here. The case Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 564 U.S. 08–1448 (2011), a case that was struck down by the Supreme Court. A massive part in this is that the First amendment was seen as overstepped by stopping these video games. I am not completely in agreement here. You see, I am all for 18+ games. As an adult I want to play them, I want to play them completely and unfiltered by some half-baked censor. Yet, I am on the front lines to agree that Grand Theft Auto is not for children. We can argue how old a child should be, but the rating was clear, you need to be 18 to play it. I do not object. By the way, when was the last time you read the stories of Grimm? How docile are those stories?

I also support then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who stated in 2007 “a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions“, which is what age ratings are all about and any parent giving their child a mature game is a bad parent and should be held to account. Getting back to this ‘distinguished’ professor. When we see issues on methodology, the fact that the APA gives view that there is no evidence that violent games link to criminal acts (or more precise there was insufficient research), gives weight to the debatable part whether this conference is anything else than a tax write off for travelling academics remains. When we consider the opinion from the supreme court in the earlier case mentioned (at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf), where we see the mention of ‘admitted flaws in methodology‘ and the fact that I got all this in one hour, I get to wonder what on earth Andrew Scipione was thinking when he made his speech and I wonder in equal measure what Professor Handsley was thinking in her part. You see, the quote “potential harms of violent video games were often oversimplified” is not the issue. Proper investigation has been lacking, because (as I personally see it), political hatch jobs that cause the problem for whatever crusade they think that they are on. As Michael Atkinson blocked whatever he could under what I consider to be a false premise is the actual danger. In all the research I saw ZERO indication that properly investigated the opposite side. Not the violent games create aggression, but that people with aggressive tendencies go towards violent games. In case of OCD/ADHD people, there is a life of frustration and there is a chance that they are releasing steam by playing games. In this age, where the bulk of parents are getting less and less connected to their children, often because of the cost of living, long hours and exhaustion are also influences that create pressures and mental health dangers in every family affected here.

If there is one side in that conference I would have attended, then it is the part by Dr Wayne Warburton, where we see ‘Media violence and domestic violence: Subtle and not so subtle links’, you see there is one side that is open to debate on a near global level. You see, in June 2014, I stumbled upon an article (at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/08/police-fear-rise-domestic-violence-world-cup). Here we see “domestic abuse rates has revealed that in one force area in England and Wales, violent incidents increased by 38% when England lost – but also rose by 26% when they won“, as well as “In Lancashire – where during the 2010 tournament domestic abuse rose by 25%“, so when they are talking about Media violence, will they raise the issue of soccer and domestic abuse? If not, how reliable was this conference? It seems to me that there is an awful lot of aggravated censoring of video games when there is enough evidence that the people involved have no comprehension of video games, or the people playing them, as well as their background and medical history of those involved.

Isn’t it weird how the same issue is raised again and again, especially against video games, which is still not proven, whilst the evidence of domestic violence, which is a proven link to criminal behaviour in kids is interestingly negated, perhaps an actual fight for the safety of children is beyond them? Why bark up the wrong tree again and again? Was it not Einstein who stated: “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results“, I reckon that I have shown that to be the case of more than one speaker.

So have a good night and remember to look up when you are trying to catch them all in Pokémon GO, especially when you aimlessly walk into the Pacific River!

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Tagged as 564 U.S. 08–1448 (2011), ABC, ADHD, Andrew Scipione, APA, Australian Council on Children and the Media, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Dr Wayne Warburton, Einstein, Elizabeth Handsley, Flinders University, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grand Theft Auto, GTA 5, Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare, Jay Weatherill, Kim Kardashian, Leveson report, Michael Atkinson, National Institute of Mental Health, NIMH, OCD, Professor Craig Anderson, Rockstar Games, the Guardian, US Supreme Court

July 13, 2016 · 07:33

Not seeing the hype come

I have been connected to gaming since the mid 80’s. In a time where only geeks were into games, where the average Joe was into booze and ‘pretending’ to have sex, games were not on his (or her) mind. The population would not see a surge into gaming until the PlayStation came and even then it was a slow boat to wherever. It took until the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 for things to change. I reckon the Gameboy also made a dent in that world, but the move to the masses did not truly start until 2005. It has now been 11 years and what was an ignored industry is now a 200 billion dollar market and everyone wants a slice. With mobiles evolving the way they have in the last 2 years, that device is now also more and more the gaming solution for those on the move, which has added a new dimension.

Here I missed one sign that I did not see coming. I saw how the predicted success Minecraft even outdid my expectations, I have seen games come, I have successfully predicted winners and especially losers and average wastes of time, yet last Friday I witnessed something I did not expect, in the same way I did not expect Skylanders to be the success it became.

There is a game called Pokémon GO, which was released this month and the amount of people I have almost literally tripped over since Friday is beyond normal. I have been a Pokémon friend since Sapphire and Ruby were released on the Gameboy Advance, yet what is shown all over Sydney now I did not see that coming. It is almost everywhere. On trains, in busses, sitting in the park, walking on the street and in the office, people are trying to catch them all. It is a little overwhelming to see this big a leap in interest, yet this is what happens. Even as we now know that No Man’s Sky went gold last Friday, which means that production of the shippable discs will be a reality soon, the fact that this game came from almost nowhere towards an IOS and Android release is more than just great. You see, it is not just that this game is a hype (for now), the fact that an established game can be vamped into a new mobile dimension is absolutely fantastic. It means that leagues of games could find their own evolution into the mobile industry and into the gaming minds for those holding onto their mobiles.

Another side has been illuminated by Forbes. Their quote “The best approach you can take is to make that impact positive by embracing the game and making the Pokémon GO experience a memorable one for both you and your potential customers” gives a first nod towards the use of “Pokémon GO has a purchasable in-game item called a “Lure Module” which attracts Pokémon to a particular PokeStop for 30 minutes. Those Pokémon it attracts? They’re visible to and attainable by everyone in the nearby vicinity. Use it during a typically slow period of your day to get more foot traffic, and then use your creativity to turn them into a paying customer“, which now gives retail another option besides ‘free Wi-Fi’. We will soon see methods of using gamers to lure groups of people towards any location, especially if this is a route towards legendary Pokémon’s from either a hatched or an unhatched egg.

There is one other side to all this. The fact that this game relies on movement (GPS linked) and being out and about is a first step to get some gamers from Couch Potato mode into the Go-Getter stream of an active population. I reckon that deserves a lot more merit than most people are giving this game. Although, with the speed that this game is finding itself towards mobiles is pretty amazing and it is about to become a global success!

So, what can we learn from this?

The fact that I missed a winner? True, I did, I have missed winners before and I will do so again. Because the public tends to be fickle and it has plenty of distractions pointed in their ways. They are equally influenced by others who tell them what is cool, what is worth trying and what makes a difference.

The growing Hype? Yes, there is a massive growth, especially amongst people who I know to have never shown any serious interest in Pokémon. The question becomes is it because it is on a mobile device, or is it the mobile nature of the game? For now, I feel that there is not enough information to give a clear answer, yet the fact that people are making detours into Hyde Park to get rare Pokémon’s gives value that the trendiness of mobile gaming is one that many are exploring. Giving the makers of this game a large advantage over other games for now.

Yet there is just one part that requires mentioning. You see, what bugged me a little was not that I have missed spotting a winner, but the facts that were shown in Forbes yesterday (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2016/07/10/pokemon-go-about-to-surpass-twitter-in-daily-active-users/#3f90dc517455). The quote “Data published today by SimilarWeb indicates that the mobile game may be poised to surpass Twitter in daily active users on Android“. Now consider that Twitter is global and that Pokémon GO has been in released in three countries. The US, where this game is installed on 5.6% of ALL Android devices (according to Forbes). In Australia where I passed 150 active users from Town Hall to the UTS building (I stopped counting at 150) and in New Zealand, where it is popular with the people and according to the gossip it is popular with roughly 3.4332% of the Sheep population, including a few Flaaffy’s and Mareep’s.

There is no doubt that this trend will follow through in other games. As soon as issues with batter drains is solved, this game will grow its user base even faster. Which beckons the call, are we all gamers now?

You see in the original Star Trek series, in the episode ‘Shore Leave‘ we get the quote ‘the more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play‘, which could be considered a truth in itself. Yet another lane in that road can be gotten from the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset who stated “tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are“, another truth, yet today, that might we one for debate as we see the user population shift all over the mobile field from Facebook to Tinder. In that regard, as we see our delusion that we can devour any line of data and responses into our brain, we are confronted with ego in a nasty way. We seem to lose direction and we seem to lose the ability to correctly sift what is cognition and what is noise.

So how does this apply to ‘Not seeing the hype come?‘ It is for the simple reason that market interpretation is not seeing the noise, but the ability to value the noise to the extent of what is actual data that should be regarded as ‘analysed factual events‘. I believe that the levels of play that Pokémon offers are interestingly simple, yet overall still a tactical challenge. Pokémon lives (as I see it) next to Minecraft when it comes to ‘simplicity of play’, yet the interactive and tactical side to the game makes it fun and challenging. You see, the foundation of the game remains to be a variant on Rock, Paper and Scissors. In the game, Fire defeats Grass, Grass defeats Water and Water defeats Fire. Yet Pokémon took it to an entirely different level as they have Normal, Fire, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Psychic, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dragon, Dark and Steel. Some have two elements (like Fighting and Psychic) giving additional tactical options. All this in a game that has been around for 20 years. The fact that we see new life into a game title through evolved gameplay shows that the 91 billion dollar gaming industry is still growing in several directions, all leading, not just towards additional revenue, but to additional forms of gameplay, which is what a gamer tends to like!

Here we see another level of gaming, which is why I mentioned No Man’s Sky, a game that has been 3 years in development. We were introduced to a hype and even though the hype ‘died’ many are still looking forwards to this game that is still destined (at present) to be released on August 10^th. This game seems to embrace the simplicity of play through the size of the Universe giving us the option to travel to the centre of the universe again and again until the day we die, with the chance that most planetary visits will be unique experiences. Pokémon gives us ‘simplicity’ in another way, when we consider these elements (in light of Minecraft) that it is interesting how game designers seem to forget (or ignore) what an important element simplicity is in regards to gaming. We might want to ignore Space Invaders and Pac-Man as there were no games in those days.

Yet Galaga was not alone and is still regarded after 30 years as one of the best shooters. Now we see other Kickstarter projects come to life with shooters like Iridium, a very successful title in the golden age of the Commodore 64. It seems that some gamers are figuring out what the people need. A trait larger software houses changed into the premise of ‘we are offering the people what we think they need‘. Now, that premise is not unwarranted, because the gaming industry is to offer what they think the people seem to need. Yet certain failures in the past from more than one software house bring debate to that approach. When we see a ‘definitive edition’ of Tombraider which is graphically amazing, yet comes with a life cycle of 10 hours, we need to wonder whether the developer had thought it through. The fact that I was able to get through the entire game from Friday and finish it Saturday evening gives visibility to the flaw of the game. In light of time there is another game I want to bring to your attention, but in an opposite direction. It is Metal Gear Solid, Phantom of Pain. A game so large that many players have not finished it. Even the blogger Lawlordtobe (yours truly) with the history of gaming has not completed that game at present. So as value goes, it is by far the best bang for your buck a game like this has ever offered. Yet, as I spoke to a fellow gamer who literally stated ‘this game is just too big’, I have to wonder if it is the game or the gamer here? Have we been lulled into complacency by 20 hour games for so long that we no longer recognise the challenge that a real game like Metal Gear Solid V brings (without relying on non-stop repetition)?

I think that there is a balance between size and simplicity. Minecraft, Candy Crush, Threes, Angry Birds and Bejewelled are the most visible examples. Yet the other end of the spectrum does not seem to apply, the more complex a game, the shorter it can be. The fact that Tombraider, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Ryse and Mirrors edge were regarded as too short gives light that the equation is not entirely that simple. In the end, learning what game will actually hypes seems to remain in league with the ability to read tea leaves. You see, I have had a long time high score in predicting winners and I have made a few bad calls too. I did not see Pokémon GO to the extent I should have noticed it and this comes from a person who has been trying to catch them all since 2002. The game has been repetitive at times, yet it never bored me. The brilliance of interaction that the sets needed with Ruby & Sapphire, Fire-Red & Leaf-Green, Black & White, X & Y and the soon to arrive Sun & Moon have given us fun moments to gaming.

And with all these versions, I still did not see this tidal wave of usage coming, because that is where I do not completely agree with a friend who told me that it was because it was free. IOS and Android have plenty of free games, this level of usage has not ever been seen before.

Niantic Labs is sitting on a home-run gold mine. Good for them!

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Tagged as Forbes, José Ortega y Gasset, Metal Gear Solid, Minecraft, Niantic Labs, No man's sky, Phantom of Pain, playstation 3, Pokemon GO, Shore Leave, Skylanders, Star Trek, Tombraider, xbox 360

July 5, 2016 · 21:33

What is Hiding Underwater

What is the reality of surface life? That is the first question that comes to mind when I look at the fallout that Brexit is creating. You see, to comprehend this part I need to take you back to the 15th April 1912, in that year New Mexico and Arizona become part of the Union that is now regarded as the United States of America and the first Balkan War has not yet started, no at this time the titanic sinks. The world gets introduced to the dangers of an Iceberg, the danger s that 90% of an iceberg remains below the surface. A lesson that will reverberate in many ways. This one event changes the rules of safety regulations for ships at sea forever (for the better I might add). The part that has been dramatized again and again is about a ship going down. It would not be until 1997 until someone truly turned this event into a money maker (James Cameron), it would fetch a little over 2 billion dollars, not a bad result for a movie. The reality is, that for most, the unknown fact was that the Titanic was the direct cause of something else. It would be the reason for something that was created in 1914, it was the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). Let me add a little spice here. If the Titanic had not met up with that proverbial ice cube, there is a decent chance that the amount of fatalities from WW1 and WW2 would have been a lot higher.

You see, what lies beneath the surface is an issue, especially when we do not know what is there. We can only arm ourselves with the lessons we are taught and the common sense implementation that our logic allows for. So when I saw two articles today, my mind went into wander mode. The simplest of reasons is that certain events do not make sense. I feel that we are being played. This is a feeling I have and I could be massively wrong at this point. I accept that, but let me tell you about these articles and these facts and it will be up to you to decide.

‘Construction becomes first casualty of Brexit as housebuilders get jitters‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/04/construction-first-casualty-brexit-housebuilders-jitters-eu-referendum).

So there has been a referendum and a vote has been cast. We now read “their stockpiles will reach to the moon and back. That’s the message from private sector house builders, which have looked into the industry’s crystal ball and concluded that there is no reason to expand supply for the next six months“, in addition we get “As the former head of the civil service Lord Turnbull said last week, the industry is extremely sensitive to economic sentiment and will not build a single house more than it believes can be sold” as well as “the industry is unable to build the homes that the nation needs, where it needs them and at a reasonable price“. You see, when we see messages on house shortages, on the fact that houses are absolutely unaffordable, is it not weird that one referendum, a referendum that will take time to sort out suddenly has this effect? As I see it, the prices have been pushed up and up in a bubble and the people have been victims. This is partially sown/proven when we consider “Tony Pidgley, the chairman of Berkeley Group, who pocketed a 42% rise in his take home pay to £23m last year, could not close the supply gap even if he wanted to“, as well as “He needs to make a profit for his hungry shareholders, who have set him a target of generating £2bn in pretax profit over three years from 2015“. So we now see that we have been the play toy of ‘hungry’ (read: greedy) shareholders. Exploitation of an unacceptable level and I wonder why the people at large accept this. Pardon my ‘off grammar’ English when I state “Can we get rid of these bloody shareholders, preferably with extreme prejudice?”

You see, when we reread the article in another light we get:

Pity the poor brick makers; Why? Bricks are needed, they have a certain cost and they are always needed.
There is no reason to expand supply for the next six months; why? There is still a housing shortage.
Will not build a single house more than it believes can be sold. Wrong? This is perception of when it will be sold. There is no need to not build, mainly because there is a housing shortage. People need houses.
The industry is unable to build the homes that the nation needs, where it needs them and at a reasonable price. This is now proven to be untrue. This industry has become a vulture driving up prices artificially by reselling a house at times more than once, even before the house is build.

It seems to me that the law can be adjusted, so that a house cannot be sold until 2 years after the house/building has been completed. That takes out the speculative vultures and it would drop house prices to a level where a population at least 15% larger than initial would be able to afford a house. So when I read about Tony Pidgley and his shareholders, I would suggest that if Mr Pidgley desperately needs that 2 billion in profit, he should consider explaining to these shareholders how to make £20 per half hour selling services in areas like Soho? It sounds a bit over the top, but when we see profits that run into billions, we have truly overstated levels of acceptability. Perhaps moving away from the EU forcing another path where 64 million Brits could regain a life that is affordable is truly the best thing to do. Let’s not forget that an affordable mortgage, means that families will spend on quality of life, this implies that commerce will grow and no stimulus (in the way Mario Draghi is applying it) would be required.

The second article is actually a very different channel. The article ‘Standard Life shuts property fund amid rush of Brexit withdrawals‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/04/standard-life-shuts-property-fund-post-brexit-withdrawals). The quote here is “The £2.9bn fund, which invests in commercial properties including shopping centres, warehouses and offices, is thought to be the first UK property fund to suspend trading since the 2007-2009 financial crisis, when some of the biggest names in investment management stopped withdrawals because they did not have the money to repay investors” and it makes me wonder what game is on here. The article links to ‘New Star halts property fund withdrawals‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/money/2008/nov/26/new-star-suspends-investor-withdrawals), which was the 2008 meltdown. So now, when we see Standard Life’s property funds referring to “Investors in Standard Life’s property funds have been told that they cannot withdraw their money, after the firm acted to stop a rush of withdrawals following the UK’s decision to leave the EU“, I wonder how many investors, where they are from and the reasoning is behind the withdrawal.

You see, there are two options. The first one, the straight path is the one where we see the links to ‘shopping centres, warehouses and offices‘, these places are still needed, commerce will go on, even if the downturn is stronger, people need food, people need their goods. This will not change. The part that will change is the one we just dealt with. Unacceptable ‘profit margins’, which implies at present that these ‘investors’ are little more than vultures, do we need more of those?

It is the next quote that implies that there is a secondary path: “The selling process for real estate can be lengthy as the fund manager needs to offer assets for sale, find prospective buyers, secure the best price and complete the legal transaction. Unless this selling process is controlled, there is a risk that the fund manager will not achieve the best deal for investors in the fund, including those who intend to remain invested over the medium to long term”, here I wonder if the fund manager has been ‘juicing’ expectations, which could only continue in a ‘Bremain’ world. The fact that the news cycles go wider as the mere intent that the reality of Brexit made the Dow buckle is equally weird (initially).

When we consider the words from Mark Carney, who stated “U.K. banks can be part of the solution, not part of the problem“, in that mindset I can offer a first option. If we get rid of Tony Pidgley and his shareholders, the UK gets to not see these 2 Billion go elsewhere. Now, let’s be fair, the UK would never make that much on it, so if the coffers can accept a mere £200 million as a profit margin, an amount that is most likely more than taxation of the 2 billion, the UK coffers still win and life becomes a little more affordable in the UK for all who buy a house.

I will be the first one to admit that my view is not realistic and too optimistic, yet am I wrong? The housing bubble is only one event that needs to be fought. Taxation loopholes have to be dealt with, dealing with the s a decade overdue and it is one of several reasons that the UK economy is in such a bad slump. Now we get additional news that the EU is in an even worse state than we have been kept informed about. The Australian gives us “Italy’s banking system is in trouble, with about $540 billion of non-performing loans and a desperate need for new capital. Given the dearth of willing alternative capital-providers, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi wants to inject the equivalent of about $60bn of public funding into the system to try to stabilise it. The problem for Renzi and Italy — and the EU — is that the rules of the European Banking Union forbid taxpayer bailouts as the first resort for troubled banks” (at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/stephen-bartholomeusz/italys-banking-crisis-a-bigger-problem-than-brexit/news-story/d4e0c5007fb133db959cc569f9678804), the Italian issue has been known and I have reported on it in the past, yet the fact that banks are still the biggest issue in the EU and they still have not been muzzled to the extent that they need to be remains an issue. An issue that shows on another level that Brexit was not the worst idea. So when we see Reuters stating ‘Draghi could have done more to help Italian banks in 90’s, says PM Renzi‘ whilst this issue has been known for well over a year and for the fact that Italy’s antiquated bankruptcy laws have never been properly dealt with, especially in light of the 2004 and 2008 events makes me wonder where Matteo Renzi got the idea to blame other places, when his office should have made clear priority in these matters and he should have made equal mention that people like Enrico Letta, Mario Monti and Silvio Berlusconi who had been Prime Minister in batches going back to 1994 forgot to deal with that situation, and now we see that the EU is in a state much less healthy than most predicted. I knew about several issues, but not all, it seems that all news on the stat of the EU have been overstated by way too many players in this game and it makes me wonder in equal measure how it was possible for Mario Draghi to spend over a trillion that he is still ready to spend even more.

So in light of all this, how could the UK return to a place that is killing itself, that is allowing for inaction that is not prosecuted in any way. So when you watch Rose Dawson push Leonardo DiCaprio to his icy grave, consider that the EU debt is like that Iceberg, it can sink anything and 90% is kept below the surface, sustaining the tropical life of less than 1,000 banking executives. The people in the UK need their own Safety of Life against Greed (SOLAG). If these players were decently less greedy, none of this would have happened. Perhaps one day we will see a modern European Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and we will accept his book ‘The SOLAG archipelago’ and the wave it brings as a given wisdom.

Time will tell!

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Tagged as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Arizona, Australian, Berkeley Group, Bremain, Brexit, ECB, Enrico Letta, European Central Bank (ECB), Financial Times, Italy, James Cameron, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lord Turnbull, Mario Draghi, Mario Monti, Mark Carney, Matteo Renzi, New Mexico, New Star, reuters, Safety of Life at Sea, Silvio Berlusconi, Soho, SOLAS, Standard Life, the Guardian, Titanic, Tony Pidgley

July 5, 2016 · 17:49

Democracies are decided through Income

It has been a week, and there is a mountain of events evolving, many all about how a second referendum is needed and in addition to that, the amount of issues that are now surfacing. First we need to take a look at the valid parts. A valid part was seen on Sunday (at https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/jul/03/parliament-must-decide-whether-or-not-to-leave-the-eu-say-lawyers), where we see ‘Law firm says article 50 cannot be triggered without full debate and vote by parliament‘, which is fair enough. Let’s face it, the people have voted on what they wanted, but in reality, Any Referendum is not legally binding, so legally the Government can ignore the results. Yet, for the Government to ignore such a massive size of a population seems to be a weird approach to democracy. Does the Law firm have a case? The quote “A prominent law firm is taking pre-emptive legal action against the government, following the EU referendum result, to try to ensure article 50 is not triggered without an act of parliament“, which is fair enough, yet this is followed by “on behalf of an anonymous group of clients, solicitors at Mishcon de Reya have been in contact with government lawyers to seek assurances over the process, and plan to pursue it through the courts if they are not satisfied“. I wonder who these ‘so called’ anonymous clients are, perhaps the banks who are now freaking out?

Yet, issues aside, how strong is this case?

First, the current government called for the referendum. Those who sit in the House of Commons called for the referendum and 72.2% of the people reacted and voted, in the end 51.89% were in favour of Brexit!

Now, we see all these new groups, all trying to create mayhem, all crying like the little bitches they are. Boo hoo hoo, so unfair, we want a second vote! It is utterly pathetic. Yet, there are a few issues that should not be ignored. The main reasons this all got started is that certain players took a stand. First there is Nigel Farage who started it and is now resigning as UKIP Leader, he apparently wants his life back. We can argue whether we have pressure issues. Perhaps I should step in as the new leader of UKIP, although, I am and will remain a Conservative. I just have an issue with people who desert when the actual work needs to be done. Second is Boris Johnson, one of the main players in Brexit, he too now seems to be turning his back on the entire process. Yet in all this the votes are still done and many of them were either Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems and pretty much all members of UKIP. The issues is shown all over the UK. Work must now be done, yet we see a shift, we suddenly see the issues rise after the vote. Is it not interesting how we are all getting played?

Remember the voices of Grexit, how parties were all considering Grexit and how we were being played, only to learn well over a year later that expulsion from the EU was never an option, only voluntary exit is an option! Now that the UK decided to exit it voluntary, we see a massive wave of business people and people in the financial and legal industry making things near impossible to continue. No matter how we see these facts, the issue raised by the solicitors at Mishcon de Reya remains valid. Yet, is it not interesting how none of this was clearly stated all over the place before the vote? Is it not interesting that the media seems to have broomed that interesting part under the nearest rug?

Now consider the quote “The outcome of the referendum itself is not legally binding and for the current or future prime minister to invoke article 50 without the approval of parliament is unlawful“, is it not interesting how that part is equally not brought to light before the vote? It seems to me that the people of England have been played. A vote, whilst the players knew that the referendum was not even the beginning to the change. We always knew that there was more in play and as such the Brexit path was always going to take some time, yet to what extent should we see the path that the UK faces?

Now, I regard the part we see from Mishcon de Reya to be possibly very valid. Yet is that in other cases equally so? In opposition there is the article ‘Nick Clegg calls for general election before article 50 is activated’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/03/nick-clegg-general-election-article-50-activated-eu-referendum). My initial question becomes “Wasn’t he some politician in days gone past?” And of course, I would be right, it is the former leader of the Lib Dems, not Tim Farron mind you, who is now calling for an election before Article 50 is enacted. The quote “Our country is in a tailspin. An election of a new parliament in which MPs act responsibly to manage our historic divorce from the EU is the only way to forge some order out of the present chaos” gives the impression that we are dealing with some version of Captain Caveman. Consider the quote ‘a new parliament in which MPs act responsibly‘, so is there something wrong with the current parliament? Then we get the quote “before people have had an opportunity to cast a judgment on what life would actually look like outside the EU would be deeply undemocratic“. Eh, was that not what the referendum was all about? People made the vote. Perhaps Nick is now getting active because his daddy was the Chairman of a bank? Perhaps the banks are truly getting scared of the impact Brexit is starting to have on the Dollar and the Dow? This is perhaps speculation on my side, but only to a small degree.

In that regard all the elements are taking turns for the comical. When we see in addition Tony Blair making the quote “for as long as it takes to get an idea of how the other side looks”, I wonder how long parliament reconvened and started re-elections when the UK had WW1 and WW2 to consider. It seems that the players who were not ready to believe the danger that an irresponsible EU had been bringing that the people have had enough and now they are all reconvening for the friends they have in the banks, their friends in big business. As I see it, a wave of people panicking, all in fear of losing the Status Quo, a clear fear that was given in many occasions and the strongest by Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England in his presentation to the House of Lords. Too many people complacent on the Status Quo, relying on people not wanting change, now all screaming bloody murder!

That is not the scenario we can afford and it is one that many in the financial industry are hoping for, because the EU cannot be drained as much and it will stop soon thereafter when the EU buckles. A scenario, with Frexit on the horizon that might not be avoided.

Yet there is another item to link here. It is shown in the article discussing the departure of Nigel Farage (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2016/jul/04/the-guardian-view-on-nigel-farages-resignation-an-unserious-man-but-a-serious-party), you see the quote given in there is “Yet they never once said what leaving would actually look like. They mocked anyone who expressed concerns“, yes, that is true, mainly because nobody had a clue what would be the result. The presentation at the House of Lords by Mark Carney already implied it. There was no way of knowing and it had never been done before. Yet in all of that the UK stood in a better place than France will be. The UK had remained with the Pound, so this sterling currency has the ability to bounce back fast and remain sterling in more than one way. The article than starts to rely on what I regard to be intentional miscommunication. An opinion article devoid of identity, an editorial, so can we state now that it is Katharine Viner who is now intentionally misdirecting the audience? You see the quote “After 23 June it can no longer parrot the old cry that everything will be better if we are out of Europe. We are out of Europe. So what does Ukip stand for now?“, You see, there is still a likely truth that leaving the EU will hold better results down the line for the UK, but not immediate, that was ALWAYS a given! And the UK is not ‘out of Europe’, it is now merely in the process of seceding from the EU, which is another matter entirely. This path will take time and there are unknowns. It is likely that if played right the UKIP could grow massively, but that requires Nigel’s A-game, a part he is not playing and perhaps his knowledge on how to play an A-game is equally a mystery to him, I do not know.

What I do know is that the Guardian identity less is equally contemptible as they make Nigel Farage out to be, or Boris Johnson for that matter. What is interesting is the quote at the very end, there is a ring of truth in there, but not one the ‘editorial’ is trying to imbue. The quote “If the next Ukip leader possesses the seriousness that Mr Farage ultimately lacked, the consequences could be profound and deeply worrying“, why is that?

You see, nationalism is often treated as a dirty word, but is that true? You see one issue the EU pushed was some open border policy hoping that a blending of cultures would all make it one grey, one shade of ‘whatever’, large corporations were banking on it as they pushed debts through every European nation through political representation. Yet, the UK is and should be a proud nation, sometimes proud for the wrong reasons or in the wrong light of day, but it has a genuine right to pride, as does France, Germany and Italy. The people behind the screens forgot about that and the pushback is massive in all 4 nations. Frexit could be next. The NY Times is saying it won’t be so (at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/opinion/why-frexit-wont-happen.html), didn’t they state the same about Brexit? You see, I am not certain it will happen, but it is a lot more realistic than Brexit was. The French population that has had enough of the EU has surpassed 61%, making it a strong majority at present. That is only the population of France, the power players are now in a direct confrontation with Germany. Any talks between France and Germany have been problematic to say the least in the past, but that was with the UK as a stabilising element, without the UK those two will come to blow sooner rather than later and Italy could be the wildcard here too. Unless it finds levels of stability the EU talks will take an interesting dimension soon enough.

There is one element that makes the NY Times the punching hammer to take notice of. The quote “Now comes the naked truth: For the past 10 years, the European Union has failed to deliver on the main objective it was set up to achieve: shielding its citizens from insecurity. Over the past few days, European leaders, in a state of shock, have hastily identified three priorities on which to focus if they want to save their union: security, migration and economic growth“, it is part of the issues that drove Brexit. Not immigration, not racism, but the realisation that the EU is not delivering, whilst its ECB is stimulating national governmental debts by spending trillions. With ‘investors’ looking towards Mario Draghi on opening new stimulus packages, we all need to wonder why is allowed to take this path. It appears that banks are back in risk taking mode, the ECB is ready to spend another trillion (exact amount is actually not known), yet no one is asking the questions that need to be asked, the reason that got us to Brexit and will soon push forward Frexit stronger and stronger. The mere inability to properly budget within governments and Mario Draghi playing ‘Spending Clause’ in July should worry the population of the EU at large.

The Guardian editorial decided not to take any of that on board, mainly because bashing Farage is still the easiest job to do and the last thing they want is to illuminate that democracy is not set to the most votes, it is set to who has the most influential income to push the votes of others, which was never any form of democracy, not in my book at least.

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Tagged as Boris Johnson, Brexit, Conservatives, Dow, ECB, EU Article 50, France, Frane, Germany, Governor of the Bank of England, Grexit, House of Commons, House of lords, Italy, Katherine Viner, Labour, Lib Dems, Mario Draghi, Mark Carney, Mishcon de Reya, Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage, NY Times, the Guardian, Tim Farron, Tony Blair, UK Parliament, UKIP

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