February 7, 2016 · 21:41

We do not Care Bears

Today, or better stated, the last few days have seen a wave of articles going on, many form newspapers and several from every source possible. Mostly the message is that Brexit will cost the people. Messages like a prospectus for sale issued by the financial trading business stating “a UK exit from the EU could impact the group’s profits“, which is interesting when we consider the fact that it also states “Following the UK general election in May 2015, the UK government has committed to hold a referendum by the end of 2017 on whether the UK will remain in the EU“, which is interesting, because is that referendum not being held in 2016? Some sources stated “A deal in March could mean a September 2016 referendum“, but overall the date is a little in the wind, almost like the independence of Scotland one might state. Yet the people have had enough, Prime Minister David Cameron is very aware of it, and like François Hollande, he has his own Waterloo to deal with, in the case of Merry Old England it is UKIP. In that the Isle of Man courier had an interesting article yesterday. ‘Nigel Farage demands ‘I want my country back’ at Grassroots Out rally’ (at http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/regional/nigel-farage-demands-i-want-my-country-back-at-grassroots-out-rally-1-7719267), which is what the British constituents want. It is what the Conservative party is trying to deliver, but the painting is not that clear. You see, the British people are ignoring a massive part in all this, yet they no longer care. Politicians on several paths are directly responsible of ignoring an angry mob.

You see, Greece is the cause of much of this, but so is the EEC and the IMF. The quote “Can we kick out the people who make the decisions for us? Can we have that fundamental privilege to govern ourselves?” is linked, it is also linked to Greece. In all this too much money is going to Greece, in addition (at http://www.businessinsider.com/tempers-flaring-up-again-in-greece-2016-2) we see that more and more protests are going on all over Greece, making their GDP shrink even more, their appeal as a nation shrink more and more. Yet the Business insider is making an interesting claim. “Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is stuck between either pushing the reforms through to appease international creditors, or attracting the wrath of thousands of Greeks“, which is odd as they are one and the same. You see, either the creditors get pleased, if not the Greeks are pleased, so either no money and no functioning government, or raging Greeks and money in the bank. Yet, weirdly enough, the second option will forever remain a temporary solution that leads to a dead end.

You see, the parts that are central in this is legislation. In 2015 the EU has passed laws on Data Protection, GMO food laws, a Net neutrality law that reads like an episode of the Comedy Capers, yet the issue of expelling irresponsible governments, an issue visible for 5 years has not been touched. So far, the press and political parties at large refuses to acknowledge ‘Withdrawal and expulsion from the EU and EMU‘ by Phoebus Athanassiou. The fact that the ECB put its logo on that one gives it credibility (at https://lawlordtobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ecblwp10.pdf). So that part is still not dealt with and it is making the blood of Brits boil. Not because the Greeks are in a bad place, they are angry for the mere reason that money keeps on getting pumped into all that and the people behind it walked away with plenty coin, they are not held accountable in any way and the Europeans at large are no longer willing to pay for it as they see their quality of life go into the sewers. Personally I feel that my conservative party has not done its share to acknowledge that at all!

This is what is fuelling the progress for both Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen. So when we see the title ‘Warning from Europe: you can’t always get what you want‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/07/europeans-warn-david-cameron-eu-exit-would-cost-britain-world-status), we see in equal measure that those people making the statement are equally unable (read: too weak) to hold Greece to account, again a greed driven status quo that is going nowhere fast, which implies that the speakers have other interests. You see, the article reads nice, but again, there are sides we have to deal with. You see one side is that in the UK no one knows who Rafal Trzaskowski is, for the most, nobody cares who he is! Now, for the Poles, they care, Rafal Trzaskowski has grown Poland’s GDP by 25% and that sounds like an achievement (it actually is), but for others, Poland was never much more than a simple blip on the radar. Now, Poland counts, but do they? You see, when we see the quote “If Britain says ‘I don’t like the working time directive, I need an opt-out; I don’t like provisions on tobacco because they hamper my sovereignty, I want an opt-out’, it is not going to happen“, which is less of an issue. The issue has been Greece and a few other players and no one is holding Greece to account that is for many people the issue that matters. In all this the UK and Germany have options that could work if the belt is tightened by a lot and without what can be construed as: ‘the political population within the EEC shores spending money they do not have‘, that is where the wagon goes off the rails! So, yes, we can acknowledge that Rafal Trzaskowski matters for his nation and for the mission of his nation, no one will deny that. Yet in all this, it is about the British side and the people are largely fed up with the flaccid actions of the EEC, those who are in charge have painted themselves in a corner and large chunks of nations in the UK, France and Italy do not care for the colour they used. As per today, Paul Goodman reported on Conservative Home (at http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2016/02/party-members-give-camerons-renegotiation-an-unequivocal-thumbs-down-in-our-survey-over-two-thirds-likely-to-back-brexit.html) that the conservative party members have shifted in a massive way. Over 65% are now likely to back Brexit. Add the Farage group to that and Brexit now seems a certainty. I wrote about this risk on May 22nd 2015, so almost a year ago. The press was so in ‘denial mode’ happily publishing threatening articles that involved Paul Kahn, the Airbus UK chief as well as several banks, with the HSBC amongst them (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/05/22/is-it-all-greek-to-you-2/), what does differ is that I had not anticipated the Conservative wave to be as strong as it is now. I feel that the realisation I learned later that Grexit could never be enforced is part of all this, and if self-inflicted expulsion is the only option, it seems that a massive part of the UK (and a growing slice of France and Italy) are now on the ‘let’s get out before it is too late‘ horse.

We know and no one denies that the UK has debt issues, but they are working through them and whilst more and more money has to go to the places that cannot hold their budget, that part needs to stop and in the last 3-5 years no clear legislation has been erected to stop that, whilst we see that a new week with more funds for Greece are needed. The UK is not the only one that thinks that the Greeks should be held to account and yanking them out of the Euro no less than 2 years ago would have been an optional solution, now that this proverbial ship has sailed, the people are looking for another solution, whilst the EEC and the IMF are pushing for a business as usual approach. Too many people in both the UK and France are no longer seeing that as any form of solution. A mere legality that could have stopped this upcoming train wreck is now out of control and the people want actual change, change that keeps them with options. Given that the refugee situation does not help, but in that case there is no blame, not for Greece and not for the refugees, but they are draining resources all over Europe, resources that were already at a low. Again no blame there, because these things happen, yet the EEC need not have happened, especially the Greek scenario, so the people, scared and in a bad place for a longer time is now pushing for any solution. A game that is so far playing nicely to both Farage and Le Pen.

So, this is not ‘news’, even if the news states it is. I have mentioned these elements a few times, long before the press caught on, what is now interesting is that the two initial parties are fuelling part of Europe, something that was until recently not a reality. Politico (at http://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-chance-europe-stumbles-crisis-euroskeptics-le-pen-enf-wilders/) gives us “In Austria, Heinz-Christian Strache’s FPÖ won 31 percent of the vote in a city election last October in Vienna, putting it in second place in a historic stronghold of the Social Democrats“, there is no doubt that the FPÖ would gain traction, but this amount is really unexpected, which is now giving additional fuel to the power of Matteo Salvini. All this because greed driven organisations wanted their status quo, they are very likely to see the hefty invoice of that mistake.

So, should the UK lead in all this starting Brexit? To be honest, I am uncertain how this is to be avoided. Those in power (especially in France) are on their way out, that part is a given, the only question becomes, who will replace François Hollande, that part is not a given, yet whomever it becomes, if Brexit did push through, France will not have any options other than uniting with Germany and Italy, hoping they survive, that is, unless Germany sees the danger of Frexit to become too realistic, they might want to get out before it hits them. In addition, because the Italian elections are not until 2018, Italy will be in the hottest of seats, which gives Salvini the least options should Matteo Renzi and/or Beppe Grillo call for the Italian exit. The last part is only a reality if both Brexit and Frexit happen, in the latter case either Frexit or the departure of Germany from the Euro could spark it, but Brexit alone will not do that.

Again it all starts with the UK, England will lead, but in what direction?

This gets us back to the conservative survey, which gives us “This suggests that, in numerical terms, the Prime Minister’s renegotiation has made no difference whatsoever to the views of Party members and that, in political terms, it has received an unequivocal thumbs-down“, this is perhaps a first that the UK is overwhelmingly controlled (read: voters) by the ‘we do not care bears‘. The people have seen so much quality of life slip away that a united Europe is a curse and not a blessing and in my personal opinion, it was all due to Greece and the need for the status quo to those profiting from it all.

 

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February 6, 2016 · 12:36

Penis Aqua Rosa Congressista

The Dutch used to have interesting names for classifying people. There was ‘Penis jujubes’ (originally: Droplul), which amounts to Liquorice Penis, which captions the non-Dutch titles dick, asshole and idiot. The other one was ‘Penis Aqua Rosa’ (originally: Lulletje Rozewater), which gets us Rosewater Dick, which is an expression for a man that has no backbone, a man that is weak and submissive. The latter one seems to apply to the US Congress in a few ways.

You see, the  article ‘Drug company boss Martin Shkreli refuses to testify to Congress‘ gives us part of it all (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/04/martin-shkreli-refuses-to-testify-congress-drug-daraprim), an issue that might be seen in the wrong light, if you only go by the one side of the story. You see, this is situation that Congress and their US laws created for themselves. Even if we get the ’emotional’ statement: “One member begged him to examine his conscience“, we all seem to ignore, that this is something Congress achieved all by themselves. You see the quote “Earlier, Shkreli and Turing’s chief commercial officer, Nancy Retzlaff, were criticized for hiking the price of Daraprim despite the fact it is the only government-approved treatment for the rare infection toxoplasmosis, which can be fatal for some Aids and cancer patients and endangers babies in-utero” is at the core of this.

Instead of setting up the law that fairness was at the centre of it all, politicians set the speculation that every pharmaceutical company and their fields would be ‘distributed’, that there was no overlap (for the larger extent), as such pharmaceutical had a clear field for maximised profits. How long did you think it was going to take before someone weaselled themselves into that crowd, with the simple goal of maximising his Return-on-Investment? The United States of America has always been about capitalism and living the dream. Martin Shkreli is doing just that, now we get what some might call ‘sissy noises‘ from the Halls of Congress!

Let’s be Frank (or Punch and Judy; whatever works for you), what Martin Shkreli does is utterly unacceptable, yet, it is Congress that did not legislatively clip the wings of unbridled greed. They sat around as President Bill Clinton called for the end of the Glass–Steagall Legislation. As the majority remained silent additional doors to greed got opened. In all this, the lack of visionaries in Congress, even after 2008 lacked action when it came to protecting the citizens of the United States of America. So when I see the response from a member of congress “member begged him to examine his conscience“, I will kindly tell that congressperson to cry me a river and I’ll do so whilst playing worlds tiniest violin.

Congress is in an emotional state, suddenly crying for those who cannot afford it, yet what clear provisions in legislation has it given to the coffers of the United States? You see when we consider November 23rd (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2015/11/23/pfizer-and-allergan-merger-ranks-as-biggest-ever-pharmaceutical-deal) and we see “On Monday, Pfizer PFE +0.10% and Allergan unveiled an all-stock merger that will allow the combined company, Pfizer PLC, to move its headquarters to Ireland and focus on corporate cost cuts“, which is set at $160 billion, you better believe that this impacts the taxability of that corporation by a lot. As far as I can tell from the surface, the total of pharmaceutical mergers LAST YEAR ALONE is well over 600 billion, so half a trillion dollars, all now going via Ireland. How much noise is congress making there? Or do these ‘respectful’ members of congress have a few too many friends in ‘those’ circles? Better to loudly focus on the one man out as Pfizer, Allergan and a few others. Can we all agree that the difference of 600 billion, being taxed at 25%, or being taxed at 17% is worth moving house over? You see, I love Sydney, but when someone tells me that moving will get me $48 billion, I will start singing ‘My heart is in Ireland‘ and I will enthusiastically pack my bags. You see, I can always get a second apartment in Buenos Aires and life of my self-made cash cow, getting me $50K a day and still allow me to double my fortune before I retire, making me live of $200K a day until I die. That is the track that Congress left open. This can be seen (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2015/11/23/pfizer-and-allergan-merger-ranks-as-biggest-ever-pharmaceutical-deal), the quote there “move its headquarters to Ireland and focus on corporate cost cuts“, can be seen as ‘tax cuts’ and now guess what a chunk of those cost cuttings will go? You probably guessed it, the gents (ladies too) of the board of directors of Pfizer.

So, when I state to the person in Congress ‘go cry me a river’, I am being pretty serious. For the mere reason after all those hard words that the media published on how this was going to get stopped, on how some African American in a non-circular room (according to whitehouse.gov) decided to call for ‘Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes’ in July 26th 2014. I am guessing that this was unsuccessful as Pfizer basically walked out with well over half a trillion. The move started in November 2015 and the press has been absent of any failure to stop Pfizer from moving away from the American non-tax havens, towards the shores of paddy’s Irish Whiskey and the real tax havens.

Let’s be clear, that this does not excuse Martin Shkreli from the acts he is doing, or would it stop me from legislatively going after Martin Shkreli if I could. The mere reality is that it will be close to impossible to do because the US Congress had enabled much of what Martin Shkreli did, which is not what they intended to do, yet it is what is the non-emotional result, so in that matter ‘examine his conscience‘ applies to a much larger extent to Congress and its need to clean up the mess that allows corporate American to get around taxation. A mess congress might not be willing to fix for the simple speculation that when not re-elected those members of Congress need to rely on large corporations for their next pay check.

I am not the only one on this horse, as far as I can tell ‘the New Yorker’ and a few others are starting to realise that no matter how objectionable the acts of Martin Shkreli are, there is now a focal point change. This focal point is about how Congress itself is part of the problem, not part of anyone’s solution (at http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/everyone-hates-martin-shkreli-everyone-is-missing-the-point), how there is an unlabelled coffer with funds to buy items of survival for people who cannot afford it. The New Yorker states it as “mysterious corporate bargaining, and occasional charitable acts“, this includes (as I personally see it) Pfizer and their transplanted plus 600 billion, moving to Ireland.

So even when we consider the acts of Martin Shkreli to be vile and evil, how is the inaction of Congress not worse? How is it that we cannot condone the acts of a failed administration, whilst the acts of a person who was in it for the money from day one to be such a surprise?

A man that graduated from Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York, who became a hedge funds manager, ‘evolved’ as an entrepreneur and who is living the American dream.

How are any of the unfolding elements a surprise to anyone?

 

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February 4, 2016 · 23:21

Intimidating the Euro

There have been several issues in the past, some we seem to embrace as ‘dangerous’ towards the survival of the Euro, some less so. There has been a detectable increase (including from myself) into the events as they are occurring. Yet, any nation, has forever had moments of bad news, so why are we so eager to predict the downfall of a united coin?

You see, we all agree that there will be good times and times that are less so, yet in all this a level head should prevail. This means that there is balance. Nations tend to float their coin when things are poor and as decent times return, that floatation option dissipates. As nations were balanced, these waves still happen, but they were less extreme. Which meant that there were currency cycles, which is not a mystery!

So when the Euro came, a stronger more balanced currency became the global player, with a few ‘visionaries’ claiming that this is the haven of all currency. In that regard, let’s take a look at Rasul Shams (at http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/26228/1/dp050321.pdf), a discussion paper from 2005. Here we see “One of the basic statement of a full developed theory of world money is that the world economy exhibits a specific structure, which is changing through time and that the world money adjusts to these specific characteristics of the world economy and underlies therefore itself large-scale changes in the long run. To understand the development of the world money and any long-range modification in its manifestation through time one has therefore first to study the dynamic stability of the world economy” (page 6). On Page 14 we get “Kenen (2002) and McKinnon (2002), both looking on the use of Euro in trading, bond issues, bank liabilities and official reserves, appreciate the strong role of Euro as an international currency but do not believe, it could be in a position to displace the central role of the Dollar. McKinnon refers to the reinforced Dollar standard by the ongoing price stability in the United States as the main reasons why the Dollar supremacy will continue“. In addition we see “Hartmann and Issing 2002; Huismann, Meesters and Oort 2000; Beckmann, Born and Kösters 2002), looking at the evolving international role of the Euro come to the conclusion that the Euro has indeed a great potential to expand further its international role but that this will be a long run process, not to be realised in the near future“. Now we get the first issue.

You see, certain players behind the screens must have made certain events happen to flow the Euro against the dollar as the 2004 crash became a reality. Now consider that the initial European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) was introduced somewhere before 1980 to reduce exchange rate variability and achieve monetary stability in Europe. In that system the currencies were still floated to the minimalistic degree, depending on the local economy. So when the Euro became the coin, that game changed. Suddenly nations lost their personal flotilla device. Now for the larger economies like France, Germany and the United Kingdom it was not that much of an issue. There was a degree of control. The UK had even more options as they remained to keep a sterling position. The other players were however in a less favourable position. They now had other issues to deal with. As those nations all got an interesting credit card, we saw a growing problem. Greece and Ireland being the larger problems, but in no way the most deadly of them. That part must be reserved to Italy and France. The EEC has a total ‘national’ debt of well over 12.5 trillion. With 50% of that debt belonging to Germany, France and Italy. Germany was until recently safe, because their economy was decent and their unemployment rate was below 5%, this is now changing through several parts. The Germans have many sides to their economy, yet when we read that the Deutsche Bank posted a €6.8 billion loss in 2015, thanks to a €12 billion write-down linked to litigation charges and restructuring costs, and it set aside more to cover any potential litigation (at Read more: http://www.afr.com/markets/deutsche-banks-troubles-unmask-bigger-risks-20160203-gmken9), we see new dark clouds. Apart from the DB shares going down to 10% of what they were before the financial crises, we must wonder what other effects are in place. Here is part of the problem. We can state on one side that one hiccup like that should not be a worry, but the economy in Germany is having a slow start. In addition as other nations are showing a slowing need for Deutsche Grundlichkeit, they are looking for alternative providers, cheaper providers, which is a given. Now add the VW scandal, which pushes down Covestro. All parts of multi Billion Euro sided Bayer. Now for a history lesson (at http://www.press.bayer.com/baynews/baynews.nsf/id/Bayer-MaterialScience-to-be-called-Covestro), which gives us “Bayer intends to float Covestro on the stock market by mid-2016 at the latest. The plan for Bayer Material Science to become a separate company was announced in September 2014” on one side, the timing is great for the board of directors who get to write off the losses from taxation and still get that 8 figure bonus. For the German government that is bad news on top of bad news. So as Germany was not a problem for the Euro, it is now a worry that is growing, growing by the day.

In all this I must now add that the national debt of Germany which represents one third of 50% now becomes an issue.

In addition, the hardship from France as it remains in a state of emergency. In addition, as too many people focus on the fact that the French Economy is moving ahead at 1.1%, which is a good achievement. Yet the unemployment rate is slowly creeping to 11%, in addition, the youth unemployment rate in France increased to 25.90, which means that the French hardship is still escalating. So as we see an economy growth of 1.1%, it is countered by ‘French unemployment rises by highest rate since 2013’ (at http://www.france24.com/en/20151126-french-unemployment-rises-highest-rate-2013), which will impact the French budget. In that regard so far (3 months later) no clear solutions have been presented by the current French government. In addition, the extremist and refugee issues are pressing more and more on the French morale, less and less acceptance is seen there. The French political landscape is still under attack, as the issues deepen, more and more people are starting to listen to Marine Le Pen, who is now seeking alliances with Italy’s Lega Nord, which also includes Geert Wilders from the Dutch PVV and Heinz-Christian Strache from the Austrian Freedom Party. These factors are important, for the simple reason that until 2 years ago Lega Nord was not even a blip on the radar of anyone who mattered in politics. That is no longer the case, more important, the stronger and the more united these right wing parties become, the bigger the collapse of the Euro. I would never have considered these parties to be anything bust extreme in chance. The inability of France’s François Hollande to get the economy to any degree on track is central here. The 1.1% melts away to -3% when we see the cost for France rise and rise. The plan for 500,000 vocational training schemes might sound nice, but that is not any guarantee to growth of economy, just an absolute guaranty to cost well over a billion, with more costs down the track. Italy is in a place not much better, even as both nations have products people want, the bulk of people are not buying the amount both governments need to see bought.

Now we see these elements as the UK has given the Brexit referendum to take place on June 23rd, which means that we are about to get flooded by propaganda from all sides, including newspapers on staying in, or moving out. The Guardian was quickly on board on how the environment would suffer (at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-would-return-britain-to-being-dirty-man-of-europe), whilst happily ignoring that a homeless person due to no job and no home has a worry with drowning in the rain and freezing solid in a park in winter. All these dangers because no one was willing to muzzle Greece, or bankers for that matter. So as we now see how Goldman Sachs is stating that Brexit could cost pound a 20% drop in value, should we remember those at Goldman Sachs that they are one of the responsible parties that got this entire economic mess started?

Now we get back to the continuation of the Euro issue as I saw it in the beginning. As we see how political parties are influencing events, the political element not seen is how political players have been spending others people money, without fear of persecution, prosecution or accountability. The mere inability of the European nations to keep a proper budget and to keep debts in check is a massive reason why right winged parties are now growing beyond anything. No one seems to be properly measuring data. As national data is inflated (read: weighted) we see optimistic news all over the place, whilst 90% of data and results should have been adjusted from the very beginning. So, we have one currency and all nations are floating the currency by inflating ‘predictions’ of their part of the economy, by the time that falls over, we see waves of managed bad news, yet the currency was from that point onwards never in a proper state, it has not been in that place for a long long time.

Now, France will face the next hurdle. There are too many predictions on how the UK will not go Brexit, but in all this the people are seeing their lifestyle dwindle away and as we see more managed bad news, the British people might have had enough. A strong example here comes from the BBC in December 2015 “Economic growth in 2015 was originally predicted to be 2-2.5%. But in large part because of the decision of the Government to take those bailout talks to the wire that has turned into a 2-2.5% contraction – a deep and painful recession. Now the experts are predicting once again that the economy will return to growth in 2016, unless something else gets in the way“, so as we read this, we see that ‘the experts’ were off by 5%, which is massive, which follows ‘predicted growth’ in 2016. Yet we all know that Greece has had too many problems and when the retirements funds stop because they invested in Greece, where will retirees get their ‘support’ from? They are entitled to that support, but Greece has no more money, debts it cannot pay and it let those who got Greece in that bad a state off the hook. All EEC nations left those Greeks off the hook. So now, as we see that money is running out, which will in the near future could mean that the IMF has to bail out Greece again. If that happens before June 23rd, how do you expect the British referendum voters to react?

One thing is certain, if Brexit happens, François Hollande will get the nightmare situation he dreads, because the Euro without the United Kingdom will not survive through Germany, Italy and France together. In that light it will push Frexit straight to the top, with at some point in 2017 President Marine Le Pen, signing a government act to secede from the Euro and not entirely unlikely secede from the EEC altogether. That last statement is massively speculative, but not impossible. It is nationalism that are driving the French to her and the Italians to Matteo Salvini, there is still the dangers that Nigel Farage will get on the ‘I told you so horse‘, which had a 1:1,000,000 chance to win. Now my £10 will turn into a nice retirement funds for a nice place on Guernsey (if someone honours that deal). A wave started by the mere political short-sightedness of not having a legal door to expel bad nations and their economic acts. An oversight that will result in additional trillions of write-offs and hardship for the European population at large.

A view I stated in 2013, there is now a decent chance that I will be proven right 3 years later, a mere data analyst without an economic degree.

Yet, can I be wrong? Of course I could be, but you should ask yourself: ‘Where is MY benefit?’ I am not asking you to state this in some rage of selfishness. I am asking you to look at your life, your family and all the parts you lost in the last 10 years. All the things you worked for and what you have been left with. Now, many people have not lost what they had, but their financial progress seems to have minimised, largely due to outside influences, some of them due to really bad internal governing. So how does a Brit feels when the hardship he faces comes from the bad acts not just from the UK, but in addition to the acts from Spain, Greece, Portugal and other nations? In addition, we see that those governments do not seem to be held accountable, neither are the decision makers held accountable by other governments. Now, the average Brit accepts that his government makes mistakes, just like the average Frenchman, or Italians for that matter. But neither wants to pay for the cock-ups of another government, especially as no one is held accountable, so that part leaves us with Brexit and the chance of it becoming a reality. Yet when we see the quote in the Independent “David Cameron has urged mainstream Conservative MPs not to be bullied by party activists into campaigning to leave the European Union as he took on his Tory critics with a fierce defence of his reform blueprint“, we have to consider that the risk is a lot larger than David Cameron is comfortable with, which works for Nigel Farage. The accusations that others are now accusing the UKIP MEPs, who allegedly have been intimidating other members of the European Parliament.

So, now, after a year, the UKIP members that were never seen as anything serious are now ‘intimidating’ others? So now we see the picture caption ‘Green MEP Molly Scott Cato admonished Farage and Ukip MEPs‘, yet in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-would-return-britain-to-being-dirty-man-of-europe) we see “It will work with green groups to persuade people that leaving the EU could set back the UK’s nature protection and prevention of pollution many years“, so the battlelines of Brexit are being drawn and the question becomes, where is the truth and why are certain bad elements not being held accountable, that is the real reason why Brexit and Frexit are a reality. As no one addresses that because of the ‘friends’ these proclaimers of ‘other’ reasons have, they are driving constituents straight into the arms of Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini. Nigel enabled Marine (to a small extent), the fear of Brexit pushes Marine to a large extent and all those elements are now making Matteo Salvini a threat to the Italian way of life. The question whether that is for good or bad is too early to tell, but the impact will be massive in all three nations. So whatever comes next will be speculative to a larger extent which is, until June 25th, as that date could be the start of a massive upheaval all over Europe, which could hit as far as Japan and the United States of America.

 

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February 2, 2016 · 20:02

Just an idea I had

The Guardian posted an interesting article that I noticed today (the benefits of reading the Guardian online). The article named ‘Yes we should teach our kids about money, but how exactly escapes me‘, is a very nice piece. It is actually something that the Greek government should take a look at. Zoe Williams gives us the subtitle ‘Pocket money, savings, ponies, Muppets and nails – it’s a minefield, especially when your audience is clueless‘, and here I personally disagree. You see, I think that the question has been given to the wrong people (at http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jan/12/teach-kids-about-money-pockey-money-savings).

So, any app developers take notice, because this article could make you a millionaire!

The quote “miniature bank accounts are brilliant, but not necessarily educational. I use Osper, which is an account for eight-pluses that comes with a card they can use in a cash machine or on the internet” gives us a first insight into the dangers here. Which Zoe shows with the quote that follows “So far, Osper has taught the big ’un that money, with automating top-ups and nobody ever spending it, accumulates as effortlessly as wet leaves in a drain. It also taught him that getting money out of a cashpoint with his own pin is mind-bendingly exciting“.

The one that got the train (the one in my mind) rolling was the quote “most parents just want children to learn the value of money so that they’re not constantly asking for a pony or a Lear jet“, that is where my train went into a station named ‘creative mode’.

You see, I reckon you looked in the wrong direction. I looked at it from another angle. I saw it as a puzzle, a challenge. What is more challenging than a game? You see, kids (adults too), love playing games, more important, they love WINNING games. This is where we see the first test of getting a solution.

What if there is a game that is based on the economy. I am not talking about monopoly. I am talking in the direction of a new version and an online version of ‘Jones in the fast lane‘. The original was decently brilliant, it was made for PC in 1990 and in that game you had to achieve certain amounts of money, happiness, status, and education. In that game there was still the flaw that you could only proceed when you got money, but what if credit cards, debts and events were added? What if debt became an added visible factor?

The player in young and old, would consider the options lost when money was spent. The player would feel the pinch for the credit card. Not as actual debt, but what if debt was shown as decreased time? If debt makes you lost 3 hours a day, what was left? When you get overly in debt and you see that your time is forgone to work, so you get no happiness and no education, how can you win? You would restart making better selection and increasing the choices that show the danger of debt, the danger of no money.

The game Sierra Entertainment created was already well above standard, but it lived by the standards of the 80’s. Now we see that other elements are a part of daily life, which now gives us that this game, if redone, could be an educational tool that could sell on tablets, PC’s and mobile phones with the greatest of ease for a mere $2-$3. I feel certain that it would go to the hearts of parents by the millions! So whomever creates that educational side in a game (not those RPG life click games), but a decent board game will grow a fan base and game solutions tend to go viral on the internet .

So why did I say ‘not those RPG life click games‘? You see, too many games are about looking cool, looking quick and snappy. Interactive it sounds nice, but the board game that JITFL was had a little more, not enough for today’s elements, but it is a massive step in the right direction. Still, a few additional elements should be considered, yet in that light, I feel that the future ‘millionaire-to-be’ should solve a few puzzles so that they can boast that it was THEIR solution, that is fair, is it not?

So, why is my idea so good? Well, I am not sure that it is, but consider the ‘educational’ solutions out there. Instead of trivialising the smaller parts, why not re-focus on the parts that many do not want people to realise. You see time is money, which means that money is time, so what happens when you suddenly need to do it all with 14.6% less time? It sounds so little, yet over 40 hours, it comes to well over half a day. Even on a daily basis it is 3.5 hours less. So, where to get it from? Your working day? Less money, more debts. A second job, or even a third job? This implies a life without free time. You see, through that path, the original Jones in the fast lane shows to be excellent in its origin and could be near perfect with today’s modern complexities. Especially when the prices for rent and education get adjusted. Internet, mobiles, consoles and laptops, all with a partial benefit and all at a cost. When the younger player starts seeing it as a puzzle, they will see that money is part of a solution and a debt is a long term burden.

the lessons that several players want to trivialise, which gets the young saver an insight that banks claim to be instilling on them, yet at Up to 2.85% p.a. they seem to see the benefit of a little gets a little (especially when debts are 15%+), but in that same light, the consequence of the costs of cards are usually not seen in the beginning. So as they reach the age where they have a job and an income there’s an unbalance, a lack of balance on the impact that debts and overspending has. This is the side that is equally ignored. We cannot blame banks here and parents are usually not equipped to let them feel the impact of it. A game is different, to show them the impact that costs have, they understand that no balance means no spending, but until confronted with debt, the impact of interest is usually not comprehended. A game could be elemental in getting the young savers to feel that impact, in a lack of balance in the game and a sliding lack of time.

It is just an idea, it might not be the best idea, but it is not the response Zoe Williams gave us with ‘how exactly escapes me’, there is no fault here, we all often lack that spark and my spark could go nowhere, but the issue remains, the spark Zoe Williams tried to instil on her readers, how can we teach and give insight to the next generation, because in that regard the latest generation got the short end of a stick that came with no explanation, which is what the next generation needs to be protected from, or we will never be able to tackle our burdening economic problems.

 

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February 1, 2016 · 20:50

Where are my lenses?

For a moment I was contemplating the Guardian article ‘National borders are becoming irrelevant, says John McDonnell‘, which could be seen as a load of labour by the Bollocks party, or is that a load of bollocks by the Labour party? Anyway, the article was so shaky that it did not deserve the paper to explain the load of bollocks in there. What is however an interesting article, is the article in the National Security section of the Washington Post. The article “‘Eyewash’: How the CIA deceives its own workforce about operations” is worthy of digging into for a few reasons (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/eyewash-how-the-cia-deceives-its-own-workforce-about-operations/2016/01/31/c00f5a78-c53d-11e5-9693-933a4d31bcc8_story.html).

Initially, the very first thought I had was regarding Lao Tsu, who gave us the quote: ‘Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know‘, which is a truth in all this.

Apart from the title, the first quote to look at is: “Senior CIA officials have for years intentionally deceived parts of the agency workforce by transmitting internal memos that contain false information about operations and sources overseas“, there are a number of issues here, but let’s focus on one thread for now.

You see the second quote “Agency veterans described the tactic as an infrequent but important security measure, a means of protecting vital secrets by inserting fake communications into routine cable traffic while using separate channels to convey accurate information to cleared recipients” is at the very core of this.

No matter how you slice and dice it, the CIA has had a number of issues since 2002. The first is that after two planes got the wrong end of a vertical runway, the game changed, suddenly there was a massive overhaul and suddenly it had to deal with the United States Department of Homeland Security. In 2002 the DHS combined 22 different federal departments and agencies into a unified, integrated cabinet agency. More important, the DHS was working within and outside of American borders.

Now, the blissfully ignorant (including a host of politicians) seemed to live with the notion that under one flag and united, these people would start playing nice. Now, apart from that being a shaped a joke of titanic proportions, hilarious and all, the reality is far from that. You see, both the FBI and the CIA (not to mention the NSA) suddenly had to worry about 240,000 people, 240,000 security screenings. What do you think was going to happen? The issue of ‘false information about operations and sources overseas‘ is not an issue until you try to exploit that information, which means that you are doing something ILLEGAL (to the extent of being worthy of a shot through the back of the head). ‘Eyewash’ is only one cog in a vast machine of smokescreens that counterintelligence has to see how certain tracks of misinformation makes it outside the walls of intelligent wailing. You must have heard the story of the Senator/Governor who has a ‘friend’ in the CIA, not all those ‘friends’ are working valid paths. The intelligence community is a closed one for a reason. There is a clear chain of command, which means that the CIA has a chain of command and if a Senator or a Governor wants information, there is a clear path that he/she walks, from that point a politician gets informed if that person is allowed or has a valid reason for knowing. If anyone needs to move outside that path, you better believe that it is for political or personal reasons!

Now we get the quote that matters “officials said there is no clear mechanism for labelling eyewash cables or distinguishing them from legitimate records being examined by the CIA’s inspector general, turned over to Congress or declassified for historians“, I am not sure that this is correct. The question becomes what paths and what changes were pushed through in the last 2 administrations? I am willing to contemplate that errors have popped up since the Bush Government, yet in all this the parties seem to forget that the DHS was a political solution pushed through by politicians within a year. I know at least three companies that seriously screwed up a reorganisation of no more than 1,500 people over the period of 2 years, so what did you think would happen when 240,000 people get pushed all over the place? In addition, when a massive chunk of the intelligence section went private to get an income that was 400% better than there previous income (same place, same job), additional issues became their own level of a problem within the DHS, CIA, FBI (and again the non-mentioned NSA).

There were all levels of iterative issues in DATAINT, SIGINT, IT and Tradecraft. Names like Bradley/Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden might be the most visible ones, but I feel 99.99993422% certain (roughly), that there were more. Eyewash is one of the methods essential to keep others off balance and in the dark what actually was going on, because it was not their business or place to know this. This gets us to the following quotes “But a second set of instructions sent to a smaller circle of recipients told them to disregard the other message and that the mission could proceed” and ““The people in the outer levels who didn’t have insider access were being lied to,” said a U.S. official familiar with the report. “They were being intentionally deceived.”“, now consider this quote from another source “Having DOOMED SPIES, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to the enemy“, which comes from chapter 13 of Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War‘, a book that is almost 2,500 years old, and the tactic remains a valid one. Should you consider that to be hollow, than consider the little hiccup that the British Empire faced (I just love the old titles). Perhaps you remember the names:  Kim Philby, Donald Duart Maclean, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. They made a massive mess of British Intelligence, it took them years to clean up the mess those four had left behind, now consider adding 245,000 names, for the most none of them had passed CIA and/or FBI clearances. So what options did the CIA have? In addition, as we saw more and more evidence of the events linking to Edward Snowden, additional questions on the clearing process should be asked in equal measure, which leads to: ‘What options did the CIA have?’

In that light, the quote “Federal law makes it a criminal offense when a government employee “conceals, covers up, falsifies or makes a false entry” in an official record. Legal experts said they knew of no special exemption for the CIA, nor any attempt to prosecute agency officials for alleged violations” becomes little more than a joke, for the mere reason that not making the intelligence community exempt from this would be a very dangerous issue indeed. You see, today the CIA has a larger issue than just small players like North Korea, it has to deal with business conglomerates all over the world and they have become close to sovereign financial entities in their own right. What happens when a Senator chooses to take a book filled with intelligence anecdotes, just because it is an American Corporation? What happens when he gets the multi-billion dollar deal and he only has to ‘sweeten’ the deal a little? This is entering a grey area that most regard to be a grey area no one wants to touch, but what if it is not a high ranking official? What if it is just a mid-level controller, or a mere IT member looking for a retirement fund? Suddenly, this scenario became a whole lot more realistic, didn’t it?

Eyewash is just one cog in a machine of cogs, it drives a certain amount of cogs of the machine and as certain levels of Intel makes it outside of the walls, counterintelligence has a path to trot on, the article only lightly (too lightly) treads on those elements (yet they are mentioned), but the overall issue of internal dangers that the CIA (et al) faces are almost trivialised, in addition, the entire issue of the DHS and the linked dangers of intelligence access remains untouched. That is perhaps the only issue the article has. Well, from my point it has a few more, like under valuating the need for counter intelligence and the fact that this tactic had been around for around 2,500 years, but let’s not squabble on minor details.

The only additional minor detail I would like to add is that in all this is the missing component of the chain of command towards the Director of National Intelligence (which at present is James Clapper), in opposition, there is no denying that there is an issue that the internal mechanisms for managing eyewash cables were largely informal, which is an issue, even if there would be a clear document, likely higher than Top Secret within the CIA on how to identify and/or classify eyewash cables. Which now only leaves us with the Eyewash cables by No Such Agency like the CIA, but that is something for another day.

 

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January 31, 2016 · 16:59

Not allowed to refuse

Yesterday the Guardian showed us a side that has avoided visibility to some extent. Part of the title is ‘recognise Palestinian state if new peace effort fails‘, the missing part is ‘France says it will‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/30/france-recognise-palestinian-state-if-peace-effort-fails-ultimatum). So what is going on? You see, the Guardian gives us many of the goods, but not all of them, which will lead to speculations (even, or is that especially by me?).

Let’s look at the parts the Guardian does give us, which is “France has issued an ultimatum to Israel, saying it will recognise a Palestinian state if a renewed push for a two-state solution fails“, it is not an unseen strategy that the larger player (sometimes called ‘the bully’) will resort to the ‘do this or else approach’, which we are used to see through American politicians, not to mention those large American corporation. So when France resorts to such a tactic we might be taken aback a little. You see, when we hear the growl from a Staffordshire terrier we look nervous and wonder what happens next, but do we have that same feeling when a Poodle growls at us? I would say no, but there we have part of the conceptual problem, because France is no Poodle, the time of Brigit Bardot with Poodles looking young, sexy and helpless was an illusion that was never the real France to begin with. If we look at the economic power of France, we should regard France to be nothing less than a Dogue de Bordeaux, it seems large and silent, but it is powerful and deadly to its opponents. To give an indication of size: Banque Martin Maurel, Société Générale, Natixis and Crédit Agricole. These are just four financial institutions, but they have the cloud to underwrite the total American public debt of 18 trillion. So you better believe that France has massive cloud here, even as America no longer has it.

Perhaps just like France gave the US Lady Liberty, perhaps the US should give France a statue honouring Monsieur Souscripteur? I am digressing!

You see, the quote “The Palestinians have welcomed France’s renewed efforts to negotiate a two-state solution at talks that are expected to include leaders from the US, Europe and Arab nations“. That quote sounds nice, but it is not in the heart of the matter, for the longest of times Palestine has done nothing to contribute to any peace solution. Part of the information that is missing is shown in the Jerusalem Post. At http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Analysis-Is-Abbas-losing-control-443117 we see: “Abbas has been facing increasing criticism in the past weeks from senior Fatah officials in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It seems that they have tired of his autocratic-style rule. Some of them, including Jibril Rajoub and Tawfik Tirawi, have even come out in public against the PA president, demanding that he share power enough at least to appoint a deputy president“. What would be a better solution for what is ‘regarded’ as Palestine authority to push other players in trying to push Israel in budging. America (at present) is no longer seriously considered a player in the Middle East.

Turkey_strut_small

Reasoning here is that it cannot deal with Russian events and in addition, there is a ‘minor’ in our midst called Turkey who is making new claims regarding ‘air violations’ on Turkish airspace, hoping someone holds their hands (just me guessing).

 

 

 

 

‘My airspace has been invaded!’

Getting back to the Post, we see “Fatah seems to be in even worse shape in the Gaza Strip. Fatah leaders and activists there have accused Abbas of ‘marginalizing’ the faction, and are making unmistakable break-away noises“, which is all about politics, but the fact that Abbas and Hamas are at odds is not a good development, in addition, Hamas ‘pledged’ on January 7th that they were considering resuming suicide attacks against Israel, so whatever acts France has on its mind, it plays towards Hamas, not the Palestinian people and in addition the continued ISIS action in Gaza are fuel for even more concerns, so ‘recognising’ any part of Palestine is a really bad idea. Let’s not forget that they are at the core of a mess that many parties wanted to solve (or at least seriously try to solve for over 2 decades). Now we get to the good stuff! The quote “Fatah leaders in Gaza are furious with Abbas. They have a substantial list of grievances. First, Abbas has not paid the salaries of thousands of their members there, including policemen and security officers who have been sitting at home since Hamas seized control over the Strip in 2007“, so now we see what Abbas needs, he needs money, stability and a large player at his back and that player better brings money and loads of it. Something America cannot achieve. So now we see the links that France is ‘opted for’ to bring to the table. The Jerusalem Post brings even more issues, which are linked but less direct when regarding the French Connection Abbas seems to hope for (apparently through Laurent Fabius), I could go on that it is a socialist situation, but that seems slightly too petty, because believe it or not he is a good and intelligent politician who was in 1984 the youngest Prime minister of the fifth Republic of France to be elected. In addition, I personally believe that a man like that is about French Interests (the price for being born in the Arrondissement de Passy).

Yet, I feel certain that I am not the only one who sees this for what it is, it is an economic play, yet to what extent? That will remain pure speculation. You see, the quote gave us “talks that are expected to include leaders from the US, Europe and Arab nations“, it is the part ‘Arab nations’. I feel certain that whatever deal is struck that can be ‘presented’ as ‘short changing’ Israel, whomever pulls that off will get loads of leeway in the Middle east. As America dropped the ball more than once, France seems to be going into ‘Mastiff’ mode and is taking the game to a new level. There is additional consideration that this play would take loads of Muslim pressures away from France, which is a tactical consideration. Whether that part is at all in play is not certain, as stated, I am also speculating here. The steps make sense, but the facts are not out in the open.  The BBC has hinted in the past months in that direction, but they have not given any specifics in the last two weeks. The Washington Post did confirm in more than one article that Palestinians consider the reign of Abbas an utter failure, which gives us the second side. How can any state be recognised that has been unable to keep its own ducks in a row, it has no real economy to mention and the last numbers that have any reliability have been a decade old. One source (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/palestine/gdp) gives us 6.9 billion in 2013, yet I personally believe that these numbers are inflated. My reasoning? Well, when we consider that they have the following ‘ranks’, Palestine Corruption Index at 26.00 Points, Palestine Food Inflation at 3.72%, and Palestine Unemployment Rate at 27.40%. When we consider (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/palestine/gdp-growth-annual), we see GDP growth, in 2014 per quarter set at 7.1%, 3.9%, -10.1% and -1.1%, that is in my view adjusted overly positive speculation. As per July 2015 it is suddenly set at +9.6% for Q3 2015. Is no one catching on here? The numbers do not add up, it is (as I personally see it) an interaction of overly positively weighted expectations with a massive downdraft when inspected, in addition, with 25% corruption and 27% unemployment GDP can never rise to that extent. The Doghmush clan (now known as Jaysh al-Islām) might be the only growing GDP player. Perhaps the PNA could report whether their economy comes (partially at least) from Jaysh al-Islām?

As I stated, speculation, but if Palestine has no economic footprint, how can any headway be made if the numbers don’t add up? I accept that any nation will forever be more than its economy, yet when we see that too many questions exist on BOTH the political and economic field, how can any agreement be kept or be pushed in any direction? A peace process requires both sides to keep to any agreement and there is too much evidence that any agreement will not be honoured by the next player and Mahmoud Abbas is already on the way out, making the efforts of France a mere waste of time to say the least.

 

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January 31, 2016 · 14:34

Where the gamers no longer go

There is an interesting development in the gaming industry. On the one hand, we see that Ubisoft is still cornering the mediocre side. On the other side we see that Gamespot might no longer be the site to watch. Let’s tackle the second part first, so that part one is a little easier to digest. Consider the following sources:

  • Forbes, January 21st 2016
  • PlayStation Life Style, January 26th 2016
  • PC Advisor, January 15th 2016
  • PC Gamer, January 8th 2016
  • Eurogamer, January 26th 2016
  • Gamespot, no review
  • Design & Trend, January 29th, 2016

Can anyone explain why a dedicated gaming site, one that is regarded to be less and less reliable for some time now. Can someone tell me how they did not have a review to offer? In addition this is not the first time. Is this a speculated first indication that this game is not really worth the effort?

Within the Forbes article Paul Tassi gives us “You destroy horns in encampments to prevent reinforcements. You still use beasts to wreak havoc on bases, only this time you can literally summon them yourself, rather than just hoping that the enemies are keeping a dangerous animal in a very flimsy cage on-site” which feels massively familiar to me when we consider Far Cry 3. In addition there is “you stalked around hunting down gun-less enemies with a bow and knife, a tiger at your side, attacking bad guys on command. It’s exactly like that, actually, though now with more combat options” (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2016/01/21/why-far-cry-primal-should-be-more-of-the-same).

These are not negative sides. I loved Far Cry 3, I skipped 4 for a few reason that do not matter here, but so far what I got shown, and what I am told, there are issues and I will mention them, because for a reason that will complete it all.

Second review is PlayStation Life Style (at http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2016/01/26/far-cry-primal-gameplay-video-blowout/), which depends mostly on videos. The linked story relies on the fair enough headline (which they got from FX) “The Story Is Everything“, which is actually true in gaming. This page has a link to the intro of the game, which comes with a fair amount of scripted events. As it is the intro, I have no issues with that, intros require scripting at times to get the gamer to a certain gamer skill level. Only a fool objects to those moments as the gamer learns how to play their character, beyond that point onwards it needs to become the real deal.

The PC Advisor (at http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/new-product/game/far-cry-primal-uk-release-date-features-gameplay-videos-3633525/), gives us additional gameplay, with one issue, namely Who made the play through? The movie came from Ubisoft, which is part of the problem. They give us a decent view, yet, we have seen in past events (the Division that the demo turned out to be a lot better looking than the final version, which is something that Eurogamer uncovered last month. Now we have a new issue, because is what we see going to be decently representative of what we will buy? Now, there is no indication that this is the case, but it is what Ubisoft has done in the recent past as well as the events that took place around Assassins Creed Unity, it is these events that is now, as I see it, to have a downdraft in trust towards the Ubisoft products.

 

It is now taking a turn for the even less optimistic as we see the review in Design & Trend as per yesterday (at http://www.designntrend.com/articles/69262/20160129/far-cry-primal-review-leak-story-missions-worst-far-cry-watch.htm). The title gives us “Its Story And Missions, Called The Worst ‘Far Cry’“, which is not very flattering.

We see in addition “too low quality for a triple-A game“, in addition we see that the review gives us the validation “The reviewer is apparently a career play tester that has spent several days with a near-final version of the product“. Yet in the end, the online magazine screws it up by giving us “Do you think this reviewer truly played “Far Cry Primal?” Are the leaked criticisms a sign of poor reviews to come? Tell us in the poll and comments section!” This is followed by the question “How do you think ‘Far Cry Primal’ will be reviewed by critics?” with the options: Well, OK, poorly and Who Cares?

One comment is not linked to the question, in addition, if the editor had any clear indication that the game was not really played, he had absolutely no business publishing that review. I wonder if by these words Design & Trend have set themselves up for a defamation case. You see, from their words this AAA game is not worth buying, now if there is decent support (through quality reviews) then fry Ubisoft must, yet if this article came from the imagination of an Ubisoft basher, the product is now smitten downwards, which as I see it makes the publisher liable as he questioned the review at the end, so they are no longer mere facilitators.

Now let’s take a look at a side that Eurogamer brought (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym5IYUTaH5M). The issue here: ‘all the buildings are pre-set and build in set locations‘, which is important, I will get to this soon. The video shows, the one thing that the people at Ubisoft do master, which are the graphics. There is no dispute, the bulk of all games have always excelled graphically. Yet here in the video we get “a little on the basic side” and “it would have been cool if Ubisoft had made more of a feature out of it all“, which is at the core of the issue for Ubisoft. Weirdly enough, it is the view that Eurogamer that changed my thought of getting the game, from ‘absolute not’ to ‘perhaps, maybe’, so not all negative reviews are bad or leave a person not wanting a product. That is what a good review achieves!

I think it is also fair that Ubisoft is given defence. This is seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhv3Jq6O-nw, it is a life stream of what I reckon is a final version as it was streamed on January 6th which shows the Ubisoft team showing of the game, so, do not just take my words, but also look at the other side, because you can only make up your mind as you see both sides.

So why going into this?

You see, the reviews and the impressions that Ubisoft is leaving with us is that their games is about recycling technology. This in itself is not a bad thing. The issue is not Far Cry Primal, it is an issue we have seen for too long with Ubisoft. The Eurogamer view on camp building is at the core of what we have seen for too long. Ubisoft had the option of creating legendary games, now we see games that are decent, sometimes good, yet overall no longer really great. Assassins Creed and Far Cry 4 are both examples. We are now getting close to 5 years of gaming mediocrity. Most of the games did not make the 90% or better rating. I will go one step further, the score they did get has been mainly because of the graphic and soundtrack groups. Game design, level design, area design and in game stories have been a problem for some time now and this started as early as Assassins Creed Revelations. Chests in Assassins Creed are the clearest, outposts in Far Cry 3/4, in Primal they are called bonfires. There is an issue here, not on the side of the game mind you. Many tactical players rely on a level of ‘repetition’ (read: goals) in games. Familiar actions to feel able. This is a side I understand and accept. I looked forward to synchronise in Assassins Creed. It gives us a detailed map and the view was always really good, but is it not interesting how synchronise has not ‘evolved’ in 5 iterations? There could have been so much more options than just to get to a high point. Additional to that part, the utter idiocy (as I see it, with the chests). Look, I get it, and having a few chests in there is fine, a link to the past, part of a mission, there are several options. But 20+ per area at times is just chest running and utterly bogus in my view. Now we see repetition in Far Cry. I get that some parts are there, like the sneak (which I love), yet, the idea of changing a gameplay so that replaying a game is not just an addition, it becomes a desired gaming must has not been explored to the levels it could (the fallout series has done this to a better extent). Now, that is not a side I can state for Primal, but the Eurogamer review shows us that upping the ante there could have been a game changer, it could make an 80% game into a 95% game, which does wonders to the audience and the coffers of Ubisoft. So the next Assassins Creed could actually be the last one as we see the interest in that IP change. If Ubisoft is willing to put it all on the line (and fix the massive glitches of the user interface), they have the option to truly rekindle their audience, or they can lose their audience. So far, the reviews on Primal are not great, which is an indication of an issue but in addition, this is not a given certainty for a failed game, do not make the mistake that one supports the meaning of the other, because that would be really wrong.

Until you yourself has seen the actual shared video’s from the released games and never take anyone’s word, not even mine! You should decide for yourself and regard the games you enjoyed playing!

As I see it, the issues that surfaced are the real evidence that the business formula that Ubisoft seems to be employing to prevent ‘failures’, shows that relying on certain repeated choices gives in addition a near certainty that games will not be regarded the legendary games they could have been.

I will remain hopeful that For Honor will crush the expectations of many gamers!

 

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January 28, 2016 · 20:41

Bitches of Technology

There are multiple issues in play, first there is the continuation of the previous part, which I will address here. The second is the article the Guardian published (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/25/uk-should-be-punished-if-it-leaves-european-union-to-deter-other-exits) titled ‘UK should be punished if it leaves EU to deter other exits, say former ministers‘.

My first response in regards to this would be “are you bitches out of your mind?” which sounds highly emotional and it is. You see, Brexit (and the possible upcoming Frexit) is a direct result of the people in charge of REFUSING to take action when they could, in addition, they decided to hide behind ‘Status Quo’ when they should have acted. In final addition, several acts of change have been pushed forward again for the good of big business, which makes me question their intent.

To illustrate this with evidence (which is always important), in my article ‘Dress rehearsal (part 1)‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/07/01/dress-rehearsal-part-1/), which I published on July 1st 2015, I included the PDF at the end of the blog too ‘Withdrawal and expulsion from the EU and EMU some reflections‘. On page 33 we get “it is likely that some Member States would object to the introduction of a right of expulsion in the treaties, coupled with an amendment of Article 48 TEU to make that possible, since this would expose them to the risk of being forced out at some future date. Moreover, apart from it being politically almost inconceivable, forcing a Member State out of the EU or EMU would inevitably give rise to tremendous legal complexities. This, perhaps, explains why expulsion has not been, and may never be, provided for in the treaties“, as the members in charge of that piece of paper were already too deep in the mess on non-accountability, they actually set themselves up for a long fall, one the Greece instigated and even now, reflecting back on all the warnings I gave from 2013 onwards, none would have been considered. Now again in this paper we get on page 11 the text “The silence of Community primary law on the existence or otherwise of a legal right of withdrawal was, in any event, inconclusive, lending itself to two fundamentally opposed interpretations. One is that a right of unilateral withdrawal existed even in the absence of any explicit reference to it in the treaties, since sovereign States were, in any case, free to exercise their sovereign right to withdraw from their international commitments“, the text refers to P. Doehring and P. Hill where there seemed to be the case of favouring the theory that it reflects the hope of the drafters of dissuading Member States from withdrawing. That was nice in those days, but the interested parties of today have had enough of the utter irresponsible acts of other so called world leaders. In addition there is the expression ‘Sovereign power’, coming from ‘Sovereign States’ which has been defined as ‘power not subject to limitation by higher or coordinate power held over some territory’ this comes from N. MacCormick’s ‘Questioning Sovereignty‘.

So even after we saw the useless and toothless statements from some in the past regarding “throwing Greece out of the Euro and the EEC“, we see an even more toothless statement from several former ministers at this junction regarding the punishment for those leaving the Euro/EEC. It is given additional voice in the quote “We should not encourage other populist forces campaigning on exit such as National Front in France or Podemos in Spain. This is a very important consideration. This is in the interests of Europe that we do not encourage other EU countries to leave. The common interest of remaining members is to deter other exits. This should have an impact on the terms Britain gets”, words spoken by the former Polish deputy prime minister Leszek Balcerowicz. He is probably realising that his goose is cooked soon after Brexit and Frexit. Even though he looks ‘good’ on paper, 53% debt of GDP still comes to 236 billion dollars, in a nation with 38 million people. They are all panicking now, because the British referendum is not going good (read: the way they want it to go). If only someone had the balls to strongly intervene with Greece, and in better terms clean up legislation a long time ago, this mess would have been speculative at best. Now we see the texts that the writers want us to focus on, but in all this, in that same air, we see the ignored facts. Facts, that (as I see them), Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor is not eager to inform his readers on.

The little part in all this is something that was mentioned twice, including the photo caption. You see, this is an exercise to debunk issues by the Open Europe Think-tank. You might notice some ‘fluffy’ facts, yet the truth is, is that these people are speaking whilst at their backs (read: they are the political shield) for players like Jardine Matheson Holdings (61 billion plus) and British Petroleum (358 billion plus), with a lot more then these two, we see that Open Europe is a shield for the bigger players, all behind a fluffy website (at http://openeurope.org.uk/). These groups are very dependent on keeping the EEC as is, the Status Quo to be, but the people all over Europe have had enough of this non-accountability from both politicians and large corporations. That is exactly why Le Pen and Farage are a worry to them. Even now we see (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/25/northern-ireland-irish-republic-eu-referendum-enda-kenny) the first mentions that a referendum is not needed until the end of 2017. That stalling is exactly what Farage is hoping for, showing more vigour in this fight! We see that Reuters is giving us “To loud applause, Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, told a Grassroots Out campaign event that Europe’s policy of taking in migrants with few checks had endangered the lives of those living in the 28-member bloc“, with an additional “Farage was joined on the stage by Britain’s former defence secretary Liam Fox from Cameron’s ruling Conservative party who is also campaigning for an exit“, which is now a growing issue.

Now I need to get back to the previous article, even though this time it is not about the man or the victim, this is about data and data systems. you see, certain amendments were to be made in Serious Crime Bill (at the http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-06/06/cybercrime-bill-life-sentence), Wired informed us regarding “there is no existing offence of owning manuals that offer advice on how to groom or abuse children sexually“, which might not help Breck Bednar and family any regarding the circumstances. In addition, the Serious Crime Act would in this case apply AFTER the damage is done, so no matter how many improvements, Breck Bednar ends up remaining terminally dead no matter what.

When we look at the Serious Crime Act of 2015, we see at section 3 we see ‘Unauthorised acts causing, or creating risk of, serious damage‘, but this is AFTER the fact and even then, many of the facilitating acts will remain unanswered. In my previous blog I got some comments on ‘the Nigerian prince‘ issue. They were fair enough, but in some of these parts we have two issues. We can go with the part that Breck Bednar got himself killed by not listening to his mother. Which to some extent makes sense, yet in the same light, we see that levels of facilitation remain unanswered in many ways.

Consider the following

  1. The administrator of a server service gets to intentionally misrepresent himself or herself. We have two issues, one, is that we already have issues of misrepresentation. The issue given is “He claimed to be a 17-year-old computer engineer running a multimillion pound company“, the fact that this misrepresentation comes with “he was invited into an online gaming group – a ‘virtual clubhouse’“, in the foundation there is no initial cause of imminent danger, but the danger could have been avoided in a few ways.
  2. What if such servers need to be openly registered and linked to a registered corporation or firm, which now gives us the issue that Lewis Daynes would have been better known, moreover, the police would have seen more red flags possibly intervening before Breck Bednar entered a state of being permanently dead. I will go one step further, what if, not unlike ‘Raising the bar’ in IP law (2013), we see, contemplate and try to adjust the validity and the accountability of the facilitator. Now we get that change!

You see, Lewis Daynes would have to answer several questions, logs would have been available for the police to investigate. That is the one step too many sides do not want to consider, because accountability in too many cases seem to deflate maximised profits, yet in all this, is that a valid train of thought for any government to consider?

  1. Consider that on February 17, 2014 Breck Bednar ended up dead, those facts had been in court for a while (he was convicted in January 2015), yet knowing that this issue was already playing we see (at https://www.nspcc.org.uk/fighting-for-childhood/news-opinion/flaw-law-online-grooming-legislation/). The headline ‘PM announces new online grooming offence‘ sounds nice, and there is forward movement, yet there is a massive gap in the prevention of grooming, which is not even correct in this case, when we consider the law. Most laws would have been able to use the path of facilitator, most social media will still be able to hold onto the defence of ‘innocent disseminator‘, yet, the action of Lewis Daynes do not allow for that. His continued interactions stop him from that path giving us an option to grant an additional level of protection to future victims, whilst not hindering business and profit as a whole, because the bulk of all social media is founded on interactions by users and facilitation by the system. Even in the most precise case of scripting, it is not towards ONE individual, it would be towards a spearheaded group of thousands. Breck Bednar would have been in an automated introduction amongst thousands and in this case there is safety in numbers, because the actions of Lewis Daynes would have raised many more flags, enough from barring him from a system he did not control and in his own system he is not the facilitator. It is the lack of many organisations (governments, corporations and legal parties) to dig into the option of setting safety parameters regarding ‘facilitation’.

As seen, there needs to be an additional circle of protection, which addresses the dangers of the ability for grooming. This is a hard issue to address and in light of any Brexit it could become a lot harder, if any law has to be addressed, than in light of all the changes the next 10 years will bring, a massive change to digital devices, for example, the new Huawei P9 will come (read: is rumoured to come) with 4GB RAM, 64GB ROM, 8MP front camera and 16MP back camera, and installed Android 6.0. It comes with a 64-bit processor that outperforms plenty of laptops.

Now we get back to part one, because the two are linked in cyberspace.

You see, the chance of Brexit which was 39% in November 2015 is now surpassing 48%, this means that there are a few issues coming forward, apart from the growing danger that UKIP seems to be. You see, this is not just a Nigel Farage thing. There is a rather massive jurisprudential lag in prosecuting economic crimes, especially economic cyber-crimes.

Some of the information can be found (at http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/news/british-crime-survey-reveals-extent-of-fraud-and-cyber-crime-in-sngland-and-wales-oct15). The article ‘British Crime Survey reveals extent of fraud and cyber crime in England and Wales‘ gives us “the cost of fraud to the UK economy estimated at £30 billion more needs to be done and more resources are needed to assist law enforcement to help victims of crime and prevent further victimisation“, which sounds nice in theory, but the foundation needed is stronger legislation.  Yet in all this, there is an issue with the article. The quote “This is new crime in our society and it brings new challenges for policing in prosecuting offenders and protecting victims. Notwithstanding the cuts to police budgets we must find ways of responding to the needs of victims of fraud. Alongside this policing response the UK needs to begin a prevention revolution to educate the public on how to stop hackers and fraudsters from taking our money“, which focusses on the money, just on the money, in all this there are other venues where there is an issue (perhaps the name Breck Bednar sounds familiar).

The issue is to deal with the facilitators without strangling true entrepreneurial options, which is what has been lacking both within the Commonwealth and outside of it. You see, the danger to the many sides of life through technology, including the children is growing on a near exponential level. First of all, the main issue is IPv6, it was essential to conceive this new technology for the mere reason that its predecessor has actually run out of options. With a mobile growth that seems to double on an annual base, the new phones won’t just have IPv6 (as the mobile industry started to adopt it since around 2009), the growth of IPv6 has doubled in the last 12 months. At http://betanews.com/2016/01/05/ipv6-adoption-nearly-doubles-in-a-year/ we see that usage went from just below 6% to well over 10%, falling just short of 84%, here I mean that over 10% of all traffic to websites is now IPv6. For the most, this cannot be clearly monitored, which means that with the next mobile iteration, we will see a growth unlike we have seen before. You see, Statista (at http://www.statista.com/statistics/263441/global-smartphone-shipments-forecast/) forecasts a sale of 1.4 billion phones in 2016. This would include the upcoming Huawei P9, the Apple iPhone 7, Google Nexus 6, HTC One M10, the Samsung Galaxy S7 and a few more. These phones will ship with up to 4GB RAM (in two cases 6GB is rumoured), several of them with 64GB internal storage.

This is a nightmare to the intelligence community, as well as the CPS and the DPP, yet I feel that for parents the worry should be bigger, a lot bigger. As social media gets more and more derived solutions, niche groups will be a consequence, which means that children like Breck Bednar could end up being an even larger target, because there is too much evidence at present that monitoring those groups will become technologically near impossible. IPv6 Now (at http://www.ipv6now.com.au/primers/IPv6SecurityIssues.php) shows us a few issues. The first quote is “With 18 billion billion addresses in a /64 subnet, sequential scanning is pointless. It would take 500,000 years to scan a single /64 at a million probes per second“, I will immediately admit that I left a little part out of it, so there are options, yet let’s see my reasoning.

That part is seen in the quote “In IPv4, multiple addresses are always possible, but rare. But in IPv6 they are very common, arising from SLAAC, temporary DHCPv6, link-local addresses, multiple prefixes, overlapping lifetimes, as well as IPv4 addresses. Admins must be aware of all possible interface addresses and the capacity of network devices to create their own addresses“, this implies that the admin is all on the up and up, but when we consider those with other agenda’s like Lewis Daynes and we see apps appearing that allow for a peer-2-peer approach, a system that piggybacks messages. At some point someone will miss out on checking, especially when they are distributed in other ways. Financial opportunists, organised crimes, schoolkids and monsters in the making a system that cannot be monitored in any way because governments ended up being too lax in a world where those in power requiring ‘space’ and not realising who else they were enabling, or perhaps they did know but did not care.

Now we are beyond running out of time, because of the Statista is even close to correct, the world could have an IPv6 based mobile server park (as well as a data cloud) that ends up being unmonitored. Now, I am not evangelising not allowing for these iterations, yet the need to adjust legislation that additional options exist to hold certain groups to account becomes an increasing essential need.

There is one final side that IPv6 Now gives us. The quote is part of auto configuration (which is too often way more dodgy than I care for) gives us “DHCPv6 (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) allows a server to supply addresses to hosts. DHCP in IPv4 needed external support, but in IPv6 it requires nothing but a working router for the connected host to be immediately reachable“, if we consider that any mobile phone is a router, how reachable will this modern host be and more important, what data could be gotten access to, especially in an unmonitored way?

At this point, we seem to become nothing less than the bitches of technology. I could state that there is a group that will try to align certain paths, but it is already too late for that. People, their lives and whatever they own is streamed on a near 24:7 foundation and in all this there remains a technological lack in the places that cannot afford not to have it. When we see the news on the ‘evolving’ systems fighting fraud and other creative (and sometimes graphical) activities, we see that the gap of our safety and our allowance for accepted acts is widening to the extent that everyone is an evolving target without any clear means of staying safe. There is support for that statement. It comes from the Czech Ministry of Education (at http://services.geant.net/cbp/Knowledge_Base/Network_Monitoring/Documents/gn3-na3-t4-cbpd132.pdf), now we will accept that this is a 2011 document, yet, this does not diminish the quote “IPv6 configured hosts on an IPv4 network can bypass defined security policy or hide their identity using temporary IPv6 addresses“, consider that in conjunction that many users (young and old) tend to use free Wi-Fi locations whenever possible, making monitoring an even lesser option. Now consider those places and the traffic that they could (unintentionally) offer through ‘temporary IPv6 addresses‘, so what safety is there?

Clearly we have become the bitch of technology and the law is falling behind more and more. The EEC has done too little and Brexit could go either way in protecting the people, but the danger here must be acknowledged, if ‘protection’ becomes too draconian it would not become protective and only drive away commerce, a mere lose-lose situation for everyone involved.

 

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January 24, 2016 · 22:05

Persecuting the prosecutors

Sometimes things get to me. We all have those moments, we all consider the things that touch us in different ways. For me, I have been a gamer since the beginning of gaming. This world started for me in 1983 with the Vic-20 and was followed up with the CBM-64 a year later. I never stopped gaming, so when I got hit with the article ‘I couldn’t save my child from being killed by an online predator‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/breck-bednar-murder-online-grooming-gaming-lorin-lafave), I kind of lost it. This gaming world is a world I share, virtually and in reality. I talk to my co-workers on the new games, the challenges some games give and how we feel about some games. A few friends are all about GTA, some share my passion for Fallout, Diablo 3 and Minecraft. Whilst some games we all play by ourselves, because we cannot be into every game that is a mere reality. We hunt down the mutants, kill them with our rifles (all by ourselves), and when we get that legendary monster we get to talk about it the next day. This is a world of fun, joy and challenges. We do not ignore the real life, we interact with others too, which is not always about games. So, I was slightly dismayed when Olivia Wilde chose Jason Sudeikis over me (it must have been the beard). Life goes on, so as you see, we have our dreams, our fun, our joy, our fantasies and we go out of our way to get as much joy into our lives without bringing harm. That is as I see it a way of life that the bulk of us gamers have.

Some are a lot more competitive and even relenting on gaming as they kill virtually to be the best, some of them have a too vivid drive to be winners and dissing the losers or at times being the wannabe’s that strike out to winners. In that world we have all kinds, but actual harm, those cases are rare to say the least. So as I read the article, a form of anger flushed over me. This is for the mere reason that, for a large part of my life, I have been driven by logic and common sense (apart from that Olivia Wilde moment). From what I have read, there are several things wrong here. Not towards one person, but towards a few, including the victim himself.

This is the first quote that actually came after the second one “He claimed to be a 17-year-old computer engineer running a multimillion pound company. Sometimes he was in New York, working for the US government. Other times, he was in Dubai, or off to Syria” and “the ringmaster, whose server they played on. While the other members were known to Breck or his friends, Lewis Daynes was not someone they knew in real life“.

These two quotes should have been a red flag to all parties. We cannot blame a 14 year old, but this should have been the red flag to upset the parents. You see, I will never be a multi-millionaire (actually if Larry Page listens to an option I came up with, I could be). What is the issue is that gaming comes at a price, for the most the really wealthy ones work too much to get time to be on gaming servers. In addition, his location should have been all over the place, any Cyber squad could have seen that, it would have been a real orange flag to the victim that not all was on the up and up, the first thread on the loom of disaster would have been dismantled.

The quote “Lewis says I don’t need to finish school as he can get me a Microsoft apprenticeship when I turn 16” is the second flag. It should have been the alert on several levels. The man was either some ‘multi-millionaire‘ working for Microsoft, or again this was a ruse. The additional “I should be allowed to game as long as I want“, should have alerted parents and police. You see, in common Law even at 16 Breck Bednar would have remained a minor. So, why is a stranger deciding on what someone else’s child does?

The final quote on that topic is “I’d be telling Breck to get offline and he’d literally have Dayne’s voice in his earphones telling him not to listen. I could see Breck’s face, torn between me and his cool mentor who had the whole world going for him”, which now gets us a stranger involving themselves in the life of a minor.

The police as well as the cyber groups should have been all over this, in addition, did anyone contact the FBI here (even though after the facts it seemed an irrelevant act)? You see, the events not yet known could have been averted before zero hour, as Lewis Daynes was from Grays, Essex. This could have diffused a lot of issues. His stories out in the open, for Breck Bednar and all his friends to know what kind of a person Lewis Daynes was before he could strike. Now we can blame the police, and I am doing that partially. Yet in all this, we must also expect that there is a limit to the resources the police has, limitations in time and hardware. Not all is a given.

But there is an issue when we go solely from the article we see in the guardian. You see the quote “I told the call handler what I’d heard, what I feared. She obviously didn’t understand online grooming” has more than one side.

The known elements here are that Breck Bednar was a minor and that there was a clear indication that Breck Bednar was unlikely to be the only minor. We have the following parts, when we look from the other side: ‘Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk an individual. It may include monitoring, identity theft, threats, or gathering information that may be used to threaten or harass‘, I edited the non-relevant parts out of here. So we see that Lewis Daynes was monitoring, we have identity theft, we can make that case as he assumed to be a person, moreover an industrial who did not exist. This could be seen as a danger to the life and wellbeing of minors.

The elements here are now another matter. You see, in the eyes of the court there is no established guilt, or even crime at this point, yet exposing the elements would have diminished the threat Lewis Daynes was and would most certainly have protected at least one child, leaving us with the reality that Breck Bednar could have been alive today. In this we might consider that the police is to be blamed to some extent, but in equal measure, they did look for the elements, the issue here is the fact that does also count. When we see the quote “Daynes later pleaded guilty to murder with sexual and sadistic motivation“, we are confronted with a combination that is really rare, and with the elements as found, or better stated those that were missing, mainly that the police didn’t find a single image or text about bodies or sex. Certain flags were never raised, but as stated, from what we can see, enough flags should have been raised to take this serious, to give clear indication to Lewis Daynes that he was under open investigation, perhaps enough for him to back off. Enough to diffuse the situation.

Here is my part that is now also an issue. This took me mere minutes, which also beckons on what more precisely happened. You see the police is not lacking or stupid, I would go even further that the involved people might be burdened with guilt. So why is it so clear to me? Well, first of all, to see this in the article is simple, a mere exercise of logic. The true elements over time are a lot less clear, but in all this, the main elements were gamers, gaming platforms and servers, they have time lines and logs. Any level of logs missing would have been another red flag, any other interactions would create even more red flags. So why were these elements missed? Where did the police system fail? In my view there was a clear failure here. Police 101 had failed in a few ways, but it is uncertain whether the failure should allow any level of blame. You see, there is an element that is in the article, but cannot clearly be weighted. it is  “Now 18, he was unemployed, living alone in an Essex flat where he bought server space and used it to game with teenage boys“, we are looking at a 2012 system, so what kind of server space? Did he have his own server? Or did he lease hardware? Unemployed and cash for that? If it was a solitary server, we see another element, because it would not be in an enterprise environment, showing even more flags, if it was a personal server, the cyber division had a place to look at, who had Lewis Daynes been interacting with? Even more parents would have been alerted, other gamers would have been informed that he was a jobless no one, and not the 7 figure income person dangling IT jobs from Syria, New York or Dubai.

All elements, all flags and more issues. All out in the open could have prevented the fatal consequence to Breck Bednar, but that is me talking after the events. As stated, this one article is not a proper setting for it. Yet the BBC article gave a few more issues to consider. The fact “Five other counts against Daynes, including the rape of another boy, were not pursued as there was not a realistic prospect of a conviction, the prosecution said“, so perhaps the fact that the element of rape might have been an additional flag that there was a real risk of danger to Breck Bednar. Yet, the BBC is unclear as per when those criminal elements would have been known. Yet there is additional evidence. If there had been a clear investigation the evidence “encrypted electronic equipment” as stated by the BBC could have given additional issues, because they might have been there validly in an organisational situation, in the case of an unemployed 18 year old, such elements could give rise to flags of a criminal aspect, a criminal aspect that had children in the mix.

Even though there have been investigations and even though a misconduct notice was brought, it took almost no time to find enough flags to raise concerns on several levels. This gives concerns to what else is getting missed. Not because I am so bright (I am that), or that the police is that stupid (they really are not), but the need for an evolving infrastructure. If you think that issues are missed now, what do you think will happen when the transition to IPv6 really gets underway? With handheld and mobile devices all stronger than the average data server in 2007, what was reserved to data servers and corporations, is already in the hands of individuals, most of them having no clue what they are holding onto and what these systems are capable of. How can any police force sustain its workload if it is not reshaped into an evolving infrastructure that is able to adjust to other criminal elements? This level of evolution is currently not happening, moreover, it is not happening in many nations. Which is a worry when we consider the case of Lewis Daynes, you see, in this age of economy, the danger of extreme behaviour in a time when people have no jobs, no outlooks and no prospects, these souls are more likely to become extreme, that is a given, yet the extent to it happening is not known, it cannot be predicted and it requires for a better level of investigation. If we are to lower the dangers that kids like Breck Bednar face, we have no other choice but to evolve and change the way we investigate these issues. There has been a clear call for a long time that legislation requires adaption to all kinds of cyber-crimes and cyber based crimes. This for the mere reason that the jump to IPv6 allows a jump from the 4.3 billion addresses that IPv4 gave, to the amount that every person on the planet would have a unique address for every device it owns. More important, IPv6 will allow for every person on the planet to have 1,000 devices, each with their own address and even after that less than 0.1% of all available IPv6 addresses would have been used. We are pushed into an evolution because IP addresses are no longer available. Our devices, each 1,000 times more powerful than the computer that got Apollo 11 to the moon, the computers required to monitor the satellites is now no more than an app and nearly every mobile phone from the previous generation would be able to run it. We moved technology that far ahead. We are now moving to the situation where we see that almost 4 Exabyte a day is transmitted. All that data, once we are in IPv6, all that data can be identified per person and the amount of data will increase almost exponentially. When we get there, how impossible will it become to find extreme elements like Lewis Daynes? That is just the extremes, we haven’t even considered what organised crime could be up to. A situation that brings more questions than answers. Some answers are being sought by Lorin LaFave and I wonder if enough parties are asking the right questions, because some questions come with the element of costs, and they will grow, yet the costs will already be high to begin with. A dimension many politicians are not ready for because the coffers are empty and budgets constraints will limit the steps that need to be made, many are aware of it and nearly no one are voicing those elements.

There is a reality to that, but the reality we need to address is the nightmare Lorin LaFave is forced to face and she is not the only mother who should be worried.

 

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January 23, 2016 · 22:49

Rampling was the domino

It is a side I had not thought of for quite a while. I have my own views, movies I like, movies I go to see. When I do, there is no regard towards race or religion. I just want to see a good movie, for the mere reason that going to the cinema is expensive, so when I go there, it better be a good one. So when I initially read the article ‘Charlotte Rampling finds herself outnumbered in Oscars diversity row‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/22/charlotte-rampling-finds-herself-outnumbered-in-oscars-diversity-row), I was not entirely sure what to think. For me, I am still slightly upset on the Golden globes, because no matter how much I enjoyed the Martian, it is NOT a comedy. A light-hearted drama at best. So in my eyes, the foreign press desperately wanted to get the Martian elected even though EVERYONE knew that the titanic achievement ‘the Revenant’ could not be equalled. So, they were willing to screw over Paul Feig or Judd Apatow, depending on your view of comedy. In that same light Matt Damon should not have won, not because his achievement was bad, it was quite excellent and I will look forward to own this achievement on Blu-Ray in 17 days, 13 hours and 14 minutes (roughly, but who’s counting). Yet, I will see this as excellent drama, not as a comedy. All the movies I saw, had a Caucasian caste. I thought nothing of it, no bad thoughts; no directed thoughts. There was an African American in Star Wars and he played his part really well, just nothing I would nominate a Golden globe or Oscar to. The day is young and I will look forward to him rocking my world as an actor in a future movie hr does. I have seen my share of excellent acting in Sidney Poitier (Heat of the night), Morgan Freeman (loads of movies there), Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop/Harlem Nights), and Don Cheadle (Traitor). Here I pause for a moment, you see, this is a serious piece of work based on an idea by funny guy Steve Martin. The result is a spy thriller of unrivalled proportions and until the very end, you have no idea what will happen. As Spy stories goes, this is a killer! We tend to look at Freeman in the Shawshank Redemption, or one of my favourites ‘I, Robot’ with Will Smith, but in all this, we are limited by the exposure we tend to see through marketing (trailers). Because of that element I almost missed out on a gem called ‘Seven Pounds’, which is an amazing piece of work. Yes, it is sentimental, and there are truths in the view Todd McCarthy from Variety has, but it seems that his world is about one view, it is his view. I try to see multiple views, not always mine, one I can agree with or a comfortable one, but the fact remains that we all have our own skeletons, sometimes they are dark and leave no sunlight or a shadow. In this his last ‘view’ was “an endlessly sentimental fable about sacrifice and redemption that aims only at the heart at the expense of the head” (at http://variety.com/2008/film/awards/seven-pounds-2-1200472723/), but in all this Variety forgets that movies are made to appeal an audience and in a directly addressable audience of well over 3 billion, there is a need for everyone. It is for that reason I have a similar appreciation for Lars von Trier’s ‘Dancer in the Dark‘ (and ended up being depressed for well over a week).

The question becomes, how correct is Charlotte Rampling. She is not wrong and I feel that the issue goes a lot further than is currently illustrated. That part is also shown in the Guardian article when you see the video on that page with Mark Ruffalo. But neither show the element I am aiming for. You see, it was not until the Golden Globes that I saw that Will Smith was nominated for a role in a movie I had absolutely ZERO awareness of. Wiki and the trailer of Concussion shows a drama that hits at the heart of America. It shows two sides, one, do not ever mess with their ‘sport’ and the second issue is that America remains in denial as long as it is convenient for their bottom dollar. In that Concussion seems to surpass several dramas. You see, this issue goes a lot further than what we see from either Charlotte Rampling or Mark Ruffalo state, although Mark reflects on the direction. You see it goes further than we see in the article. the quote “An analysis by the Los Angeles Times in 2014 found that the 6,000-plus members are 93% white and 76% male, with an average age of 63“, a system that is set around a nation where the median age is 39, state wise spread from Utah (29) to Maine (44). You see, the people looking at the entertainment industry are no longer representative of their age, which gives a new problem. It is their marketing and publication side. The fact that a gem like Concussion, a 2015 movie that only gets visibility after the nominations of the golden Globes is a bigger problem than many realise. Now we see in the Hollywood Reporter, the following quote by Charlotte Rampling “I simply meant to say that in an ideal world every performance will be given equal opportunities for consideration“, which is true and part of the problem, because that is unlikely to be the case. Equally true is the quote we see from Michael Caine “You Can’t Vote for an Actor Because He’s Black“, which is equally true. The actors I mentioned earlier did the work, the hardship and ended up with the nominations, yet in opposition I offer that my view is in equal measure that there is an indication that votes are lost, or not duly received because of colour. In that light I offer ‘the Color Purple‘ which in 1986 rocked da house! The Academy awards had given it 11 nominations, ZERO wins. Whoopi Goldberg did get her Golden Globe, but they lost out on 4 other nominations. One out of 15, which is statistically a joke. Yet is it mere fate? You see Out of Africa was good, but not great (a personal view). I feel this because I enjoyed both movies, but I have since (1986) watched the Color Purple at least 8 times on DVD and Out of Africa? Nil times! In other lights, it had fierce competition from Prizzi’s Honor (Anjelica Huston) and Ran (Emi Wada), yet are the other 9 times deserved non-winners? I feel I cannot state this for certain, but with the exception of Best Original Screenplay I have a few too many question marks.

In all this we see that the Color Purple is more than a failing marketing and visibility campaign. Which is at the heart of non-recognition. In 2016 there is another side that we see in the Oscars. Concussion gets zero nominations. Here is it harder to oppose it, because the Revenant, Spotlight and Bridge of Spies are massive pieces of Work, which does allow for the situation to exist, yet in that same light, as we see the group that represents the Academy Awards, how many were clearly aware of Concussion and how many of them would see Concussion as the gem it is? In that same light, did the failure of marketing and publications now propagate the situation that Concussion is not making the BAFTA list? We have to accept that this is about American Football and as such, when we see that the BAFTA’s stated purpose is to “support, develop and promote the art forms of the moving image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the public“, we have to consider that American Football is an American interest and as such, Will Smith could miss out for the interest group, not because of his quality or the fact that he is an African American. But the issue remains, has marketing and publications cut themselves in their American fingers?

An issue that will remains for a longer time, because as the power players are growing away from the average younger audience, the selection could become a lot more disjointed, which might actually be a little too strong an expression.

The truth remains that we all have valid questions at times, yet in that same light we must accept (to some degree) that the bulk have an opinion, an impression and a preference. It is at times influenced by marketing as the people are given the royal tour by the promoters of the movies. We see at PRSA.ORG “Oscar campaigns are not cheap — campaign budgets can run $24 million per film. Mailing DVD screeners to the Academy’s 6,000-plus members, advertising in trade publications, attending festivals, hosting screening events and conducting media tours are only the beginning“, the Public Relations Society of America is decently outspoken here. Money rolls, which means that the name alone will not do it. Will Smith is a bankable name, but in the end, it is more than just the name, the DVD screeners and opportunity here. It is a business model, which now implies that art is not at the heart of the matter, product marketing is. The question that remains here is that if a movie needs that kind of marketing, how memorable was it?  Perhaps that is the wrong question too. Not everyone has time to see all the movies and the fact that some movies are not released on disc long after the Oscars is equally an issue, so is that approach wrong?

I cannot vote against it unless it is more than the actual book, the movie or the soundtrack. Optimising any product is far enough, but in that light, was Concussion properly optimised for exposure to the public and the audience at large? If not, who was behind that part? It is a Sony production, yet should this be about the awards? I wonder if the really good actors really take a role for that reason. In this I like to quote Tim Mincin In his UWA acceptance speech. There he states “Happiness is like an orgasm: if you think about it too much, it goes away. Keep busy and aim to make someone else happy, and you might find you get some as a side effect“, which seems to be (in my mind) how the great actors could think. Will Smith has had 85 nominations and 45 awards. None of them golden globes or Oscars. In the Golden globe section he lost out to Russell Crowe and Forest Whitaker who both delivered amazing performances that year, yet as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air he lost out to both John Goodman and Jerry Seinfeld, both series I was never a fan of, but they have their own following. In the Academy Awards he lost out to Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker. A much harder choice, because both The Pursuit of Happyness and The Last King of Scotland are amazing works of art. I found the call between Ali and Training Day much harder because of my admiration of Muhammad Ali. So I know that I have bias here, I feel valid bias as the arts are about moments and ideals, Will Smith has been on that fine line many times. It is CNN (at http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/18/sport/nfl-head-injuries-will-smith-movie-concussion/) that gives us “I probably won’t be getting my free Super Bowl tickets this year“, which is part of all this (apart from the fact that I never received ANY free tickets for any of the Ashes games), we see again that America will be in denial or in opposition as the NFL is the bottom dollar at least one day a week. I cannot oppose this. Yet reflecting on this, I feel a little uncertain when it comes to an outspoken #OscarsSoWhite. My issue in this case is that the opposition this year is massive, Spotlight, the Revenant, Bridge of Spies and the Martian are outstanding pieces of excellence. We can complain that these roles were too absent of African American roles, but that is based on different elements, in my view, not a #OscarsSoWhite view, or is it?

In all this we must see that we are not part of the actual world the actors and actresses live in. They would have a more realistic view, which makes the entire #OscarsSoWhite such an uneasy issue. You see, I feel that #OscarsSoWhite is almost a personal attack, I see the movies I like, and because of the reasons I see them. So, even as a written off product like ‘Seven Pounds’ is one I enjoyed, I enjoyed Gravity as well, and I enjoyed the Martian in near equal measure (the special effects in Gravity were just so awesome). In all this race was never a consideration. That is my personal view, I cannot answer for others, you must decide on your reasoning and your preference, which is as it should be with anything that comes from the arts.

This now gets me to the final part. As I saw it, from the first moment I saw the movie (not when it was released as I was 5 at that time), is that Virgil Tibbs made ‘In the Heat of the night’ the movie it was, the legend it became. Sir Sidney Poitier made the movie what it was (Rod Steiger was great too). So here we have our issue we want to feel that #OscarsSoWhite is valid, we do however want to base it on the now, not on 50 years ago. So can we question the issues, or is there a second layer that we are to some extent conveniently ignoring. One of marketing and PR, the other on the denial that the NFL (Americans with their idolisation of their sport in general) seems to bring. Two elements that seem to equally make the movie Concussion fall short. Those elements are not illustrated in equal measure here, which does not give any less value to Will Smith, it only impacted the topic Will Smith illustrated (as I personally see it).

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