June 5, 2025 · 17:07

The snag we don’t see

That happens, we don’t always see the settings that open up to us. It is one of the stages of what some call the ‘Aha!’ erlebnis. It is actual intelligence and that is why artificial intelligence will fall short for a long time. Yesterday I had some time to relax and I used it to watch the final two episodes of the October Faction (Netflix). Apart from being totally awesome, I also found the dastardly news that it is a one season only setting. Too bad as it was really awesome. Yet, I digress. During one of these episodes I suddenly had a little brain strain and a few things came into full view. It brought me back to a story I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/01/15/it-was-this-simple/) called ‘It was this simple’ where I had the idea for a new game that was also (in part) educational. Yet last night I had an idea that I was going about it the wrong way. You see, the start isn’t one of the three gods (Hades, Poseidon or Zeus), it is a destination. The idea is to invert that stage and start with pone of the ‘smaller’ gods like Hecate. You see, as I see it Hecate gets its setting from the mortals and animals. So do the other ‘smaller’ gods. As do Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Hestia, Dionysus. And as we unlock their abilities, we will then get access to one of the three. Or I might am considering that Zeus is only unlocked when all others are unlocked. 

As I see it some gods connect to merely one of the three, some to two gods and some to all three. As I see it this game would need to be replayed three times to unlock it all, but in this game the second game already gives you the areas you unlocked in the first game and the second is not the same, merely a continuation of the first (makes for a challenging lore). And beyond that as I see it, the game will incorporate several gaming styles giving you a larger game and a more fulfilling gaming time. But I wanted more than a hack, slash and pretty picture.

You see, it is merely a setting to a game, but there we also see that we unlock educational parts. What is more enticing than gaining knowledge of classical works whilst gaming? Not the ‘essence’ of a classical work but the full text of people like Hesiod, Homer, Sappho, Alcaeus, Pindar and many many more. I still think that the Amazon Luna, with a link to the Kindle, or even now the Tencent console with a link to the the MatePad Pro or MatePad Air might be an alternative. A setting to see a more inclusive form of gaming and as such un-enabling those with the ‘turbo’ style of gaming trying to getting people in line to more advertising. Short term enabling and set gaming back on the track of a more enabling setting of gaming like Bethesda enabled for almost 2 decades. 

We are all do taken back by the turbo setting of games (especially the young) whilst the more complete setting of gaming is largely ignored and as I see it, there is more to gaming. You see we cannot (in good mind) waste the entire day gaming. I get that, but we can rotate that interest to give people a larger backstory. You see, according to classicist William Hansen: “the Greeks and Romans had all the genres of oral narrative known to us, even ghost stories and urban legends, but they also told all kinds that in most of the Western world no longer circulate orally, such as myths and fairytales.” I want to resettle that lost art. Some gamers have tried to do so in the lore they give us, but they fell short as they didn’t consider the larger stage. It was not their fault, until recently and the promise of the IoT (Internet of things) and the larger stage of Bluetooth we never considered where we could go and that is merely another setting the Microsoft failed to see (they are racking up a setting of missed opportunity) and Google cannot be given this failure as they basically dropped the Google Stadia, which was their right to do so and as I see it, Amazon and Tencent now have a larger stage to become the new heralded kings in gaming. It is not a smooth or even an easy ride, but as I see it they both missed out on gaining at least 50 million gamers. 

So could I be wrong?
Yes, of course that is possible, but what the ‘advertisement’ courtesans fail to see is that the people have had enough of advertisements and that is something they are in denial of as the money is too good. But as I see it, the one who does see it will get a larger setting of gaining the field advantage to this and that is basically Nintendo and Sony. It is the third place that becomes interesting when we see in January ‘Microsoft’s AI revenues up 175%, while Xbox’s results remain disappointing’ (before the builder.ai exposure) and ‘Microsoft’s Xbox Handheld Plans Reportedly Shelved; Company to Optimise Windows 11 Gaming Performance’ (last week) and I reckon that the spin will continue as Microsoft is scrambling to bury bad news as Nintendo is making larger strides into gaming. As such there is space for either Amazon or Tencent to gain the number three spot. This is not a given but massively likely, especially as other news sees my other solution grace the limelight in sight of some Hajj numbers I see roll be and an optional solution that roughly 900,000,000 million users are up for grabs (yet another space Microsoft missed). So as some will see “Asus’ Xbox branded handheld, codenamed Project Kennan, is reportedly on track to launch later this year”, I merely wonder when that changes from later this year to next year and after that it being silently cancelled (my personal speculation). You see Asus also sees the market and the knee-jerk actions from an tariff driven administration won’t last long, especially when Huawei is showing its MateBook Fold and that is making the filtered news. I personally don’t know how good it is, but the larger setting is that the world is watching and now that it is less than 1.2Kg and uses Harmony OS. The first and it is a banger. So when that system as well as Tencent takes the world by storm (which it is very likely to do) we see yet another loss for Microsoft and not merely that, Apple, Sony, Google, Samsung and even Nintendo will see its impact (Sony and Nintendo less so). This was the setting I expected to come about 6 years ago and it is here a little faster then expected. 

This is all important because the advertisers will start losing out and that will stop gamers in their track as their games are less fulfilling. You see ad break gaming is nice in a turbo setting, but when the gamer considers where they ended up being they will want (read: demand) a more compelling form of gaming. This is good for people like Bethesda, Ubisoft, Guerrilla Games (and several others), but (for example in the UK) the 1,801 independent and publisher-owned studios. These studios employ around 75,000 people. The number of studios has grown significantly, with 251 new studios founded between December 2021 and April 2023 it is not good news, because what we don’t see is that these developers are relying on advertisement to make some of their money and when that falls away, these developers will fish behind the net of revenue.

And as I see it, Ubisoft has options in these glasses devices and they could also launch on Sony and Nintendo, but others will have to streamline whatever they thought was an option and others will merely collapse. As I see it, we haven’t see the power of Harmony OS yet but it will come and as America shuns away from that (for the most obvious stupid reasons) Europe and others are very willing to give their economy a boost from what HarmonyOS brings and now that the hardware is out some people will finally get the thought “How can this benefit us?” And that will be the start of a lot more and as I see it, Amazon has the inside track to grow more business (outside of the US) and there lies the setting for them. As some might ‘speculate’ that Amazon would not be profitable without its cloud business. We also see that the shape of the cloud is about to change and that is where the larger money is, because cloud gaming is only gaming in name. It can be a lot more and as I see it, the solutions I gave will become massively and not merely this game (I put it online for a reason) it could start a much larger wave and that is where I see my surf time (perhaps literally so). I reckon that the ‘older’ quote “HarmonyOS, Huawei’s operating system, is designed to work with a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, and PCs. While it’s not directly tied to Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the same way as Android or iOS, you can still use it to access AWS services and resources.” I reckon that Amazon sees that this lack is about to end, because they have a clear goal to increase their visibility and whilst others are taken back, Amazon is seemingly embracing the options it opens up to. As I see it, people will prefer that setting then feeling blue (read: Azure). Yet another field where Microsoft is falling short of soon enough. Their failures do seemingly seem to stack up, don’t they?

We can see the snags we think we fail to see, we can ignore them or we can find away to make it work for us. So have a great day and consider where you could be in 2026 or 2027, because thinking you get there in 2025 is nice, but largely set to economic turmoils of the days we expect them to be according to some media. Consider where some people will END the stage of their products and see where HarmonyOS is merely beginning at present. It makes for an interesting read. Consider that WPS Office (by Kingsoft) its here for HarmonyOS and also on Amazon Fire tablets. Merely two places and as I see it, as this is free software there is a larger stage where Microsoft will end up surrendering market share. So as I said, have a great day. 

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June 4, 2025 · 12:32

About the setting of prayers

This is about the Hajj, it is not a negative piece as I refuse to put any religion negatively. Perhaps the Catholic side as I was raised a Catholic. So as we get the the Hajj, which starts in a little over 12 hours. We start with the Bangkok Post (at https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/3038397/no-permit-no-hajj-says-saudi-arabia) where we see ‘No permit, no hajj, says Saudi Arabia’. I get that and as we see “Last year, 1,301 pilgrims, most of them unregistered and lacking access to air-conditioned tents and buses, died as temperatures soared to 51.8 degrees Celsius (125.2 degrees Fahrenheit)”, as well as ““Since the end of last season, we realised the biggest challenge is preventing unauthorised pilgrims from undermining the success of the hajj season,” said one official helping organise the hajj, requesting anonymity” I get that, I pointed this out in my lest years writings, even as many did not, they were all about blaming the Saudi governments of that failure. In addition, these settings of media never dug into the tour operators fleecing profits and living these tourists to their doom. But the media ignored that side of the equation as they reported their blame settings. Even with these unregistered Hajj seekers, the casualty list remains below 0.1% of the visitors, and when we filter this out we get a setting that the casualties in a setting of 51 degrees heat celsius remains a mere 0.018%, which is nothing short of absolutely astounding. I reckon that any western nation has yet to reveal a setting with over 600,000 people (half of what the Hajj got) and that little casualties. Consider that the Saudi government does nearly everything to keep people safe. A remarkable setting to say the least. 

Then we get to the second item, which is given to us by News Central Africa (at https://newscentral.africa/saudi-arabia-tightens-crackdown-on-unregistered-hajj-pilgrims-after-deadly-heatwave/) where we see ‘Saudi Arabia Tightens Crackdown on Unregistered Hajj Pilgrims After Deadly Heatwave’ and here we get “Saudi Arabia is intensifying its efforts to prevent unauthorised participation in the annual hajj pilgrimage, a year after extreme heat led to the deaths of over a thousand pilgrims, most of whom were unregistered.” With the additional “One organiser, who wished to remain anonymous, said that since the end of last year’s pilgrimage, preventing unauthorised worshippers has been a top priority. The hajj is one of Islam’s five pillars, and Muslims who are physically and financially able must perform it at least once in their lifetime. However, due to a quota system, permits are limited and distributed via a lottery, making the costly official route unaffordable for many. As a result, some pilgrims opt for cheaper, unofficial alternatives” I personally see why this person wants to stay anonymous. As I personally see it, their ‘sales staff’ seemingly saw a way around the permit setting and sold them using alternative settings. It is a speculatively view, but the setting makes sense when you consider the 1100 casualties without a permit and the 14 countries that has the ban are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Nigeria, Jordan, Algeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Yemen, and Morocco (according to a source). It makes a lot more sense when you consider the facts that ‘Nearly 270,000 pilgrims without permits stopped from entering Mecca’ (source: Euro News) where we see “Saudi Arabia has stopped nearly 269,678 pilgrims without authorisation from entering Mecca during the annual Hajj pilgrimage. The government blames overcrowding at the Hajj on participants without permits. It also says they made up large numbers of the 1,300 people who died in last year’s searing summer heat.” So, so you think the pool of an additional 15% all came to the thought by themselves, or were tour operators involved? The Guardian gave us last year that tour operators made promises that caused the deaths of several, and as I see it (at least through western media) this was never investigated. This does not mean that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia didn’t investigate this, it merely means that I don’t know what happened in that specific scenario. My view that I had last year is also seemingly proven correctly as Euro News also gave me “Officials have also imposed penalties on more than 23,000 Saudi residents for violating Hajj regulations and revoked the licenses of 400 Hajj companies.” I get that over the cuties there are a lot of companies involved, but the setting of 400 Hajj companies clearly astounds me. 

And with this I salute the Hajj 2025 participants and wish them a blessed and meaningful Hajj, and I hope for Allah’s acceptance of their pilgrimage, or in shorter terms Hajj Mubarak. Let their journey be a safe one and their pilgrimage a fulfilling one. Have a great day you all.

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June 3, 2025 · 16:56

It is time

That is something we often hear, yet I haven’t said these words for almost ever. You see, news media is now realising that the Russians are closer to losing the war that ever. For this I think it is time that we go back to (the beginning) February 24th 2022. This set it all in motion and we were given “The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was accompanied by practices of information warfare, yet existing evidence is largely anecdotal while large-scale empirical evidence is lacking. Here, we analyze the spread of pro-Russian support on social media. For this, we collected messages from Twitter with pro-Russian support. Our findings suggest that pro-Russian messages received ∼251,000 retweets and thereby reached around 14.4 million users” these are the opening words of Dominique Geissler, Dominik Bär, Nicolas Pröllochs & Stefan Feuerriegel. We are then given “A widespread concern is that practices of modern warfare in form of large-scale Russian propaganda campaigns are used to shape the narrative around the war, yet corresponding research is still nascent. On the one hand, the Russian government enforced new legislation exerting power over traditional media outlets to persuade citizens to support the war. As a result, domestic media outlets are forced to adopt the official narrative. On the other hand, Russian propaganda has been suspected to influence other countries outside Russia, in particular, by using social media to promote hostility against the West”

The funny part is that as far as I have seen, the western media largely ignored this setting and the consequences of that setting. This paper was published in 2023 (at https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-023-00414-5) and was readily available. But the western media at large, always happy to cater to clicks and being the bitch of the digital dollar left it standing as it was. They also give us the settings that they used (particularly the numbers involving ‘#1standwithruss1a’ (I changed two digits as not to ‘support’ Russia) and that gives us that The Atlantic (at https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/russian-propaganda-zelensky-information-war/629475/) gives us the story by Carl Miller. There was a much larger setting to the Putin war and as I see it, the media left left it alone. I reckon the revenue that the digital dollars gave them was preferred against informing the people in what dangers they were. These four also looked into the Botometer and several other methods, relying on verifications by Prolific. The results are pretty horrific “We applied further filtering rules to select only messages where the content was pro-Russian (see Methods). Overall, this yielded messages. The messages further generated nearly 1 million likes. To measure the global exposure to pro-Russian messages, we estimated the overall readership based on the number of unique users that followed authors of pro-Russian messages in our dataset, amounting to ∼14.4 million users.” As I see it, Twitter is big business and they (of course) partially relied on these ‘bots’ to spice up advertisements. 

As such Russia had taken out all stops to present their ‘winning’ war. The Guardian reported on February 27th 2022 ‘‘Don’t call it a war’ – propaganda filters the truth about Ukraine on Russian media’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/26/propaganda-filters-truth-ukraine-war-russian-media) there we see “Kremlin clamps down on Facebook and threatens to muzzle outspoken independent news outlets” with the supporting text “the Russian government has taken extraordinary steps by throttling Facebook and threatening to shut independent media outlets such as TV Rain and the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which published an edition in Russian and Ukrainian this week with the banner headline “Russia is bombing Ukraine”” and that is merely the tip of the iceberg. The larger setting becomes that people like Weird Duk (a Dutch Telegraph reporter) was, as I personally see it ‘filtering’ the anti-Russian news away. The setting we were given by Ukrainian writer and analyst Mykola Riabchuk was ‘Wierd Duk’s silence on Ukraine is deafening’ with the implicated “What is strikingly missing in Duk’s deliberations is Ukraine, and the silence is deafening. Omissions can be as important in rhetorical strategies as words. In his article any reference to the war, to its victims and culprits, would immediately put in question his central argument: that the West shares equal responsibility for the crisis with Russia” That is the larger setting. I am happy that at this point I don’t work for the AIVD, because in a few months they will have their hands full. You see, the Dutch will be experiencing a setting (not unlike) that dwarves the Dutch hunt of NSB agents (and operatives). And in Dutch media land there will be a culling of these people. I reckon that this will happen in Belgium, Germany, France the UK and Canada too. And all these people will cry like little bitches on the freedom of expression, the freedom of speech and the freedom to expose the ‘facts’ as they saw it. But one-sided reporting makes that harder and a lot more finicky for them to keep up. Partially I am curious what will happen to Thierry Baudet, massively pro-Russian. He is the founder and leader of the far-right Forum for Democracy (FvD). Baudet is opposed to the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement. Together with GeenStijl and the Burgercomité EU association, Forum for Democracy was one of the behind the campaign to collect the signatures required for the 2016 Dutch Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement referendum. Why this is important is that during the campaign, Baudet at multiple occasions spread fake news, including false reports of purported crimes by the Ukrainian military, and associated himself with pro-Russian activist Vladimir Kornilov. A setting that seemingly connects to the entire social media warfare by Russia.

So as we take tally:

We see that after three years the Russians are down almost one million soldiers and they still are nowhere near a victory. I would like to start an autograph collections on confiscating the entire Hermitage collection to hand over to the Ukraine for reparations that was done by over 7,400 missiles and 3,900 Shahed drone strikes against Ukraine. And when President Putin has to hand over that collection, he will start feeling the sting of starting a war he had no business of starting. 

And when some people say that this is merely speculation, consider that the media collected this evidence for publication, even the pro-Russian media did that and now as the pebbles are in boiling water, these weak minded people (traitor is seemingly too harsh a word) will need to set their tally to a new horizon, because Russia is no longer clearly winning and the moment President Putin sees that the game is up, he will cut loose all connections he had to social media and pro-Russian reporters, and as such the lives of people like Wierd Duk and Thierry Baudet will become massively complicated and they will hand over any name they can to get clear of the blast zones, where they are the target. The Dutch might remember that setting during the manhunts they had in 1945-1947.

A nice sidestep is the interrogation of Max Blokzijl the radio reporter of the NSB, yet the freedom of the press didn’t stop him being put in front of a firing squad in September 1945, as such I wonder how people like Wierd Duk think they will do. They might get some support form the 60,163 members that the FvD has, but the Netherlands has roughly 18,000,000 people, not really a majority seeing that he would hope for. And lynching in 1945 was not unheard of. So here are two people that might apply for a high life insurance, but only with the death by natural causes  clause in place.

And the Netherlands is not the only place that will face this. I reckon that the bombings of Olenegorsk air base in Murmansk and the Belaya air base in Irkutsk might have something to do with that. 

So have a great day and consider what you think is the right move, who should you support and I am not saying that you need to be an outspoken supporter in whatever direction you take. Because sometimes, certain choices are harder than you think. But the media gets no sympathy, they were paid to do a certain thing and they decided on other actions and that will scar them for life as they have been part of the ‘Digital Solution’ for years.

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June 2, 2025 · 16:59

The obvious under attack

I have my own views on settings. In the first I am certain that Hamas needs to be eradicated. It is not for Israel, although they benefit massively. It is the fact that Hamas is the nameless animal that Iran uses to inflict pressured on parts of The Arabian peninsula that do not go their way. And I see that certain Hamas leaders are getting funds from other parties as well. In short, they will attack Saudi Arabia and the UAE at some point as they gain more and more certainty in the world. This does not sit well with Iran. I voiced their eradication as they are likely have ‘tools’ to influence the structural integrity of several parts of NEOM. It won’t be big, just a concrete ‘anomaly’ but one that will cost the KSA millions to fix and it will make them look bad. That is my personal believe and it might or might not happen. But as I see it, under Qasem Soleimani it would have definitely happened. Yet now, Israel is shooting themselves in the foot by setting the premise (according to Al Jazeera, at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/1/saudi-arabia-calls-israel-barring-arab-ministers-west-bank-trip-extremism) ‘Saudi Arabia calls Israel barring Arab ministers West Bank trip ‘extremism’’ It leaves me with several questions. So according to the byline we are given “Foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE had planned the visit to discuss Palestinian statehood and end to war on Gaza.” As we take a look at the second article giving us (at https://arab.news/bm5bm) ‘Arab ministers denounce Israeli ‘arrogance’ over blocking West Bank visit’ where we are given “Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the Israeli government’s refusal to allow Arab ministers to the occupied West Bank showed its “extremism and rejection of peace.” His statements came during a joint press conference with counterparts from Jordan, Egypt, and Bahrain in Amman.” The question I have is why Israel is involved, they could enter the West Bank from Jordan. The ‘legalized’ setting is that “As of June 2024, 146 (75.6%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations have recognised the State of Palestine within the Palestinian territories, which are recognized by Israel to constitute a single territorial unit, and of which the West Bank is the core of the would-be state.” I actually get that Israel has to be involved, but this setting shows that there is a much larger stage where Israel is getting kicked around and the has to stop and Hamas made this impossible with their hostage situation. Even as they should not be part of this, the shouts of ‘Palestine should be free’ by radicals who have no idea what is happening and this is where they can rely on a million plus anti-Semites, and as their troops are dwindling, they use whatever they can. As such I see that there are issues, but Israels setting to block this visit isn’t helping anyone, not even the state of Israel (as I personally see it). 

Yet the larger setting was opened in 2002 where we were given “However, the “Road Map” states that in the first phase, Palestinians must end all attacks on Israel, whereas Israel must dismantle all outposts.” I personally see that the attacks need to end is essential, the dismantling of the outposts is not. I get that Israel needs to keep its outposts (on Israeli soil), so why is this so hard? They should have seen that 23 years could have been much more constructive if these two parts were kept in the first place. As I see it, in the last 20 years several Americans had ‘their’ view on matters, solving nothing. So why not give this Arabian party of ministers a try in getting things resolved? If Hamas strikes now, they will be building their own coffin and their end is pretty much assured. The second setting is that there are two areas, Area A and B. They are themselves divided among 227 separate areas (199 of which are smaller than 2 km2), this is almost insane. At some point someone needs to back off (implying that this is Israel). These 199 areas makes for an impossible setting and simplifying that might be a first step in resolving issues. So when we see that 11 governorates used as administrative divisions by the Palestinian National Authority, Israel, and the IDF and named after major cities. This setting is shouting ‘disaster is imminent’ and if I get called that I am dead wrong. I will agree, I know too little of this setting to call this, but at times a fresh set of eyes are needed (I am not claiming that I am that view), but I am willing to bet that Egypt (Badr Abdelatty), Jordan (Ayman Safadi), Qatar (Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani), Saudi Arabia (Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud), and the UAE (Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed), they might see solutions that break through some concepts and if it gives the area peace, why block it? 

I personally think that Israel made a bad call in this instance, but then, what do I know?

Have a great Monday, time for me to hit the pasta preparation shelf.

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June 1, 2025 · 03:55

Xenophobia express

That might be the weirdest dream I have ever had and it will make sense in the end. I wasn’t myself. In my dream a secretary was looking at me (resembling Sarah Rafferty an awful lot) and looking whether I had lost it, and by the impression of it, I seemingly had. It is about a motorcycle (plus extras). The bike is outside of my affordability range. It is the ultimate jolty for nerds, who do not appreciate comfort with a healthy mix of NSA toys and a fetish for the alien movies. The price can easily afford you 3 DB12 Aston Martins completely individually customized with all the trimmings it can deliver. This is nothing short of a bike at the cost of an entire host of cars. There were three parts. The bike, the backpack and the drives. The backpack is the ‘operating’ system of the bike. Consider a flat moving box, you know the prefab setting. You fold the box into shape and push in the sides and you have a box. This is a lot more eloquent. This is a backpack, you shape the outside and move the top and bottom and you have a backpack. It is all connected looking weird. But the top inside of the box is the mattering set, set to your back, that side is a mesh of all kinds of connections to you and the bike and at the bottom there is like an old-fashioned drive, almost like a VHS looking like a commodore drive, with logo and all, but I had never seen that logo before. The drive will contain two of three tapes, the original drives will be copied to you, they will never be originally inserted, so you have a ‘home drive’ that copies the two versions of the ‘tapes’ you need. It is not that simple it is like a DAT tape the size of a VHS. The second tape is to record everything you see and I do mean everything. The bike is the big deal (as it usually is). It is unremarkable ugly. The parts are like square shaped mirrors, in some kind lexan kind of plexiglass. A weird kind of polycarbonate, extremely heat resistant. And when you sit on the bike, the seat is extremely comfortable, it just doesn’t look like anything you want to be seen in driving. The only not transparent setting is the fuel tank and the tires, but the fuel tank has the same lexan duffel bag style fabric made from connected scale plates (best way to describe it) and you really look like an overpriced dork on that thing. But then you switch on the bike and thing change. The transparency parts become less transparent and the bike transforms its look into an Alien (the Ridley Scott kind) and the bike becomes a hungry super bike, as you sit down the backpack connects to the seat with a magnetic seal and the flat-wire instructs the bike what it needs and all the recording devices are connected. 

The drive was super smooth almost no sound at all and the helmet you put on (made from the same polycarbonate will shout alien on the outside and the inside you see a whole range of monitors the edge of the visor. It is recording everything, you, the bike and the environment. 

I went on the smoothest ride I have ever experienced (and I sat in a Lotus in the late 70’s as a passenger) it was nothing I could describe. As the tarmac ran under me at 250 km per hour, no bumps were registered. And from what I could see I was sitting on an alien racing towards nowhere I have ever been. As the drive ended, I stopped in front of Sarah Rafferty (I have no idea what she was doing here) and she proclaimed that it was the craziest thing she had ever seen. I couldn’t disagree. This was not some Google car recording the way they went. It was an NSA version recording everything and everyone. Then I suddenly realised that anyone seeing the alien were wondering what they saw. As I see it, their mental blocks never went up, as the brain tries to record what it sees and it does so faster with absent mental blocks. I think that this contraption records everyone and what they were thinking and that would require an amazing lot of data. And when people do that in the evening less mental blocks are up as to get as much dates they can in their environment. I might have seen a hardware setting from things to come, but it was the weirdest dream I have had in over half a century, no doubt about that. 

Putting it here making me write out what I saw (in part) gets me to relive it and even now some parts are fleeting away. It seems that more parts are required, but I have no idea if they are still to come. The entire Xeno bike is still a vague blur to me, and as I try to make sense of it, the bike is presenting itself, the driver is a mere spectator on that bike. A new concept in biking as I see it. So as my mind figures it out, it is about the spectators around the bike. There was something else. The speed indicator changes color as I was riding. The closer to green, the more it was recording, or better stating, the closer to green and the less information was lost in the recording (I think) and these huge DAT tapes could only record 2 hours and it does hold a lot more than audio data and visual data. The one look I saw was that it had three recording heads, which I have never seen before on any recording device. 

I need coffee and egg and sausage at this time and it is still only just before 04:00 in the morning. 4 hours until breakfast. How on earth will I manage that.

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May 31, 2025 · 12:46

All dressed up

Yup, that is an old expression, I heard it somewhere in the 80’s and if you know, you know. If not, you might figure it out during this article. The setting has been revised before, but now (at https://www.travelandtourworld.com/news/article/north-carolina-and-oregon-unite-with-florida-new-york-nevada-arizona-california-alaska-as-canadian-travel-to-the-us-plunges-this-april-amid-political-backlash-and-tourism-boycott/) we get a more direct setting. We are told ‘North Carolina and Oregon Unite with Florida, New York, Nevada, Arizona, California, Alaska as Canadian Travel to the US Plunges This April Amid Political Backlash and Tourism Boycott’ it seems trivial and that site is, but it is merely one side of this. We are given “Canadian travel to the United States has plunged this April as North Carolina and Oregon unite with Florida, New York, Nevada, Arizona, California, and Alaska in reporting steep declines in visitor numbers from their northern neighbor—an alarming shift fueled by mounting political backlash, a growing tourism boycott movement, and rising disillusionment among Canadian travelers over the current state of U.S. affairs”, as well as “Canadians are now increasingly choosing alternative destinations, citing concerns over the political climate, cultural discomfort, safety perceptions, and dissatisfaction with immigration experiences.” And this is merely the start. Travel Tour World gives assisting data. We are given “According to official data, land travel from Canada to the U.S. dropped by 35.2% in April 2025 compared to the same time last year, while air travel declined 19.9%, marking one of the most significant cross-border travel retreats in recent memory” And it gets to be worse, for that we look towards the story (at https://www.cubaenmiami.com/en/expertos-temen-por-las-perdidas-economicas-que-pueden-traer-la-reciente-disminucion-del-numero-de-turistas-internacionales-en-estados-unidos/) there we get “According to a report by Oxford Economics, unfavorable perceptions regarding trade and immigration policies are causing international tourists to choose other destinations, which could result in an $8.5 billion drop in foreign visitor spending in the United States this year. The decline in travel, which represents a roughly 5% drop compared to the previous year, is due to a decrease in foot traffic. According to Aran Ryan, head of industry research at Tourism Economics, an affiliate of Oxford Economics, international visits to the United States are expected to decline by nearly 9% this year, according to a report released last week.” This is not all, in addition we see “The United States could experience a loss of $21 billion in tourism-related revenue this year if current trends continue, according to estimates by the U.S. Travel Association. According to the trade group, every 1% reduction in international tourist spending represents an annual loss of $1.8 billion for the U.S. economy. Furthermore, experts indicated that a strong U.S. dollar could be driving away international visitors.” Even though only Canada is ‘sifted’ out, the European losses could be close to equally large. I saw this yesterday in a YouTube video on the Epic Universe. The literal quote was “There is no-one here” and this is in the opening month of one of the most desirable theme parks I have ever seen. The damage could be a little bigger than the news we are getting. I saw two restaurants where little to no people are seen and in one case they were the only customer. This is a sight I have never have seen before in any theme parks and this one looks a lot better then most I ever saw with my own eyes. I don’t wish this on anyone and where are the people going? Well, my bet is that Abu Dhabi in the UAE on Yas Island will be raking in the cash. The people decided on another place and as Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand decide to seek greener grounds the sands of the United Arab Emirates might be the greenest grass of all. Even as we get one source giving us that “Walt Disney secures future of Euro Disney with €1bn refinancing”, I am drawn to the setting that this is not the destination of many who abandoned the idea of getting theme park rushes in America. I guessed that these people might be going towards Tokyo and its Universal, but the drop of 4% gives me pause to dig deeper there and I am considering that most went to the UAE and the numbers from Gulf Business (kinda) prove me correctly with “International visits to the theme parks also saw significant growth, with a 40 per cent, rise, led by a substantial increase from key markets, including India, China, the UK and Russia” and there I wonder if they investigated the stream of Canadian and European visitors. Yet 40% increase is not nothing, it is huge, especially as America is looking to a drop of well over $21,000,000,000 in business and that is not including all the bed and breakfast and fast food locations that usually see a much larger interest during these days. The tariff and 51st state mentions will be taking its toll on America a lot sooner than they think. I reckon that European (Australians too) will decide that Canada is a much better place to be than America, as such this coming winter Aspen will dealing with a zero minutes queue time at the slopes. This means that America is looking towards a two dreadful seasons, summer and winter. We can speculate how large this becomes, but there is no real data on this and the bulk of the people will not see these results until springtime 2026. Anything earlier is loaded with inaccuracies as the data they have been training on was never captured to the degree it needed and some form of forecasting analysis (the process of using historical data, trends, and statistical methods to predict future outcomes) as it is based on achieved data and this has never happened before in America going back to the before the 80’s, as such there is no forecasting settings and it needs to be done on actual data captured now, and these results are not looking good. Even if it is a ‘mere’ 21 billion, over 8-9 states the impact is nothing short of disastrous and America was never in that great a shape anyway. This is propagated by the real time risk of two nations dumping their bonds before they have the value of toilet paper (yes, China and Japan) and even whilst Japan has the largest amount and they are hanging on, they do know that if China is pushed to dumping their bonds, Japan will be racing to get there as son as possible, merely to safe some of their value. Considering the escalations that the BBC reported on a mere 10 hours ago, there is a chance (a small one) that China will respond by dumping the US Treasury bonds they have and that is pretty much a sequential set in ending the American economy. This America Administration will not be able to recover from that and whilst the Chinese portfolio is set to US$765.4 billion, which is 20 billion than a month ago. They might be gambling that Japan tries to drop their $1.13 trillion ($1,300,000,000,000) bond, especially as their own debt is now a debt-to-GDP at 260% and the Bank of Japan already owning more than half of outstanding Japanese government bonds, as it seems (according to people with the economic knowledge and foresight) that Japan is boxed in. Should China dump their bonds they could gain America and Japan at the same time. A sight never seen before in our history. So what does this have to do with tourism? Everything. You see if America cannot pay its debts, America becomes the third world country no one wants to visit and that makes it a nasty place within months. America has around 22 million millionaires. I recon that at least 15 million will get out in time, the rest is not ‘rich’ enough and those with a jet (around 15,000 of them) will go to any country that will take them and they will move fast. The rest? That is anyones guess. It reminds me of that B-movie where the wealthy and refuge in a theme park as it is the only one with enough food and security to make it last. But that is an overly dark (and unrealistic) setting. What is a given that these people will seek a safer haven, because America won’t be one for decades to come. 

Still, the first setting is tourism and that setting is under increasing pressures. And as I personally see it, it wasn’t President Trump who set this of, it was the short sighted views (my personal take on this) of Governor Ronald Dion DeSantis who chased away $1,000,000,000 in investment settings in Florida, that was the start. We saw a whole lot of anti woke and anti LGTBQ settings making Europeans (and likely Canadians) weary of safety issues in Florida, which would have impacted both Disney, Universal and Warner Brothers. That was as I saw it the start and the tariffs merely escalated that setting. The damage would have been horrific if Warner Brothers Abu Dhabi had started their Harry Potter park expansion a year earlier, yet as it stands it is now kinda set for a late 2026 opening. And as Disney is coming there too the bad news for Florida keeps on adding to the larger picture. That and as the UAE is one of the safest places in the world, the appeal of the UAE is easily spotted. That is besides the fact that Abu Dhabi has 4 theme parts and one of the largest luxurious malls in the world (right behind the Dubai Mall). The additional setting that you can travel from Abu Dhabi to Dubai in a mere 30 minutes by train, the appeal is close to complete. The zero tax setting that the UAE offers is a mere cherry on their yummy pie.

That is what American tourism was facing all along and now with the tariff wars the escalations are debilitating whatever was left of American tourism future, because if you are willing to fly to Florida, the idea that flying to the UAE for close to the same amount would be a desiring call for any tourist that wants something new.  So if you want to dress up, you might as well try an Emirati Kandura, looking good and looking different, having that real vacation feeling that you might never have had before.

Have a great day and consider where you might want to go and where you could go, especially for those who are sick of Americans referring to Canada as the 51st state and the Europeans who are not too happy on America annexing 2.166 million km².

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May 30, 2025 · 15:34

The size of that

Something no woman has ever sad to me, but that is for another day. You see, the story (at https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/saudi-arabias-ai-co-humain-looking-for-us-data-center-equity-partner-targets-66gw-by-2034-with-subsidized-electricity/) In this DCD ( Data Center Dynamics) gives us ‘Saudi Arabia’s AI co. Humain looking for US data center equity partner, targets 6.6GW by 2034 with subsidized electricity’ and they throw numbers at us. First there is the money “Plans $10bn venture fund to invest in AI companies”, which seems fair enough. But after that we get “The company said that it would buy 18,000 Nvidia GB300 chips with “several hundred thousand” more on the way, that it was partnering with AWS for a $5bn ‘AI Zone,’ signed a deal with AMD for 500MW of compute, and deployed Groq chips for inference.” I reckon that will split and split again, the shares of Nvidia. Then we get the $5 billion AI zone and then the AMD deal for 500MW of compute and deployed Groq chips for a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning. Yes, that is quite the mouthful. After that we get a pause for the “How much of Humain’s data center focus will be on Saudi-based facilities is unclear – its AMD deal mentions sites in the US.” As such, we need to see what this is all about and I am hesitant to mention conclusions for a field that I am not aware of. Yet, the nagging feeling is in the back of my mind and it is jostling in an annoying way. You see, lets employ somewhat incorrect math (I know it is not a correct way). Consider 18,000 computers draining the energy net of 500 watt per system per second. That amounts to 9,000 GW energy (speculatively), and that is just the starting 18,000. As such the setting will be several times the amount needed for fueling these AI centers. Now, I know my calculations are widely of and we are given “At first, it plans to build a 50MW data center with 18,000 Nvidia GPUs for next year, increasing to 500MW in phases. It also has 2.3 square miles of land in the Eastern Province, which could host ten 200MW data centers.” I am not attacking this, but when we take into consideration that amount of energy requirements for processors, storage, cooling and maintaining the workflow my head comes up short (it usually does) and the immediate thought is where is this power coming from? As I see it, you will need a decently build Nuclear reactor and that reactor needs to be started in about 8 hours for that timeline to be met. Feel free to doubt me, I already am. Yet the needed energy to fuel a 66GW Data centre of any kind needs massive power support. And the need for Huawei to spice up the data cables somewhat. As I roughly see it, a center like that needs to plough through all the spam internet it gets on a near 10 seconds setting. That is all the spam it can muster in a year per minute (totally inaccurate, but you get the point). The setting that the world isn’t ready for this and it is given to us all in a mere paragraph. 

Now, I do not doubt the intent of the setting and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is really sincere to get to the ‘AI field’ as it is set, but at present the western setting is like what builder thought it would be and overreached (as I see it) and fraudulently set the stations of what they believed AI was and blew away a billion dollars in no time at all (and dragged Microsoft along with it) as they backed this venture. This gives me donut (which I already had) on the AI field as the AI field is more robust as I saw it (leaning on the learnings of Alan Turing) and it is a lot more robust then DML (Deeper Machine Learning) and LLM (Large Language Models), it really is. And for that I fear for the salespeople who tried to sell this concept, because when they say “Alas, it didn’t work. We tried, but we aren’t ready yet”, will be met with some swift justice in the halls of Saudi Arabia. Heads will roll intuit instance and they had that coming as I foresaw this a while before 2034. (It is 2025 now, and I am already on that page). 

Merely two years ago MIT Management gave us ‘Why neural net pioneer Geoffrey Hinton is sounding the alarm on AI’ and there we get the thing I have warned about for years “In a widely discussed interview with The New York Times, Hinton said generative intelligence could spread misinformation and, eventually, threaten humanity.” I saw this coming a mile away (in 2020, I think) You see, these salespeople are so driven to their revenue slot that they forget about Data verification and data centers require and ACTUAL AI to drag trough the data verifying it all. This isn’t some ‘futuristic’ setting of what might be, it is a certainty that non-verified data breeds inaccuracies and we will get inaccuracy on inaccuracy making things go from bad to worse. So what does that look on a 66GW system? Well, for that we merely need to look back to the 80’s when the term GIGO was invented. It is a mere setting of ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’ no hidden snags, no hidden loopholes. A simple setting that selling garbage as data leaves is with garbage, nothing more. As such as I saw it, I looked at the article and the throwing of large numbers and people thought “Oh yes, there is a job in there for me too” and I merely thought, what will fuel this? And band that, who can manage the see-through of the data and the verification process, because with those systems in place a simple act of sabotage by adding a random data set to the chain will have irreparable consequences in that data result. 

So, as the DCD set that, they pretty much end the setting with “By 2030, the company hopes to process seven percent of the globe’s training and inference workloads. For the facilities deployed in the kingdom, Riyadh will subsidize electricity prices.” And in this my thoughts are Where is that energy coming from?” A simple setting which comes with (a largely speculative setting) that such a reactor needs to be a Generation IV reactor, which doesn’t exist yet. And in this the World Nuclear Association in 2015 suggested that some might enter commercial operation before 2030 (exact date unknown), yet some years ago we were given that the active member era were “Australia, Canada, China, the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), France, Japan, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States” there is no mention of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and I reckon they would be presenting all kinds of voices against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (as well as the UAE) being the first to have one of those. It is my merely speculative nature to voice this. I am not saying that the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) is a passively safe generation III+ reactor could not do this, but the largest one is being build by Hitachi (a mere 4500MW) and it is not build yet. The NRC granted design approval in September 2014, and it is currently not build yet. That path started in 2011. It is 2025 now, so how long until the KSA gets its reactor? And perhaps that is not needed for my thoughts, but we see a lot of throwing of numbers, yet the DCD kept us completely in the dark on the power requirements. And as I see it the line “Riyadh will subsidize electricity prices” does not hold water as the required energy settings are not given to us (perhaps not so sexy and it does make for a lousy telethon) 

So I am personally left with questions. How about you? Have a great day and drink some irradiated tea. Makes you glow in the dark, which is good for visibility on the road and sequential traffic safety.

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May 29, 2025 · 05:01

The secondary drive

That is what some have and it is not always in the field you expect. I was contemplating a few things whilst playing the remastered version of Oblivion. I am playing me second character as I am stuck (due to a bug) in the first one. It gave me pause to consider a few settings. These settings I can convert to the game I already had in mind, but I can spice things up now (now is a word as the default setting is not entirely accurate). You see, I created the game to counter Bethesda. The operative word might take a little tweaking. It actually started yesterday when I saw a list of upcoming Playstation games, 15 of them this year and I kept on hearing ‘soul type gaming’ (way too often). You see making more of the same is not more gaming, as I see it, it is the introduction of blanded (just more of the same taking away gaming hunger). As such my mind kept on revisiting settings (and movies) in all directions. It also brought to mind a game named Fable (Microsoft title) and it had great ideas, especially the first and second game with the second being a vastly improved IP over the first. It also made me realise that I had created a dislike for the word ‘Chicken-chaser’ (a word EVERY Fable enthusiast remembers). So what happens when we ‘cross-pollinate’ ideas? And moreover, what if we set this per guild, house or location? 

That is merely the first step. You see, most people have ‘accepted’ the use of nick names and when capture this in combination with the SNPC (smart non playable characters) concept I put in here last year a RPG game could really be spiced up. I see it as a setting to create passive achievements, achievements you will have to work for, but they don’t have any real controllable action and as such you could get a real setting that controls you and you do not control it to that degree. You see when you play an RPG over and over again, you get to be blanded, a blanding like setting that takes the joy out of the game, it will take it out of any game, but when you can divert that feeling by adding ‘soft-achievements’ I predict that this feeling diverts somewhat (it will never take it all away). Added to the changeable setting of dialogues and missions, the game gets to be a lot more rewarding for a lot longer. And today’s consoles can handle that challenge. 

I already set some parts in ‘motion’ in my mind as early as 2022 and up to now, no one considered the ideas I had (or never enacted them) and in my mind, the reengineered idea that originally came from Vint Cerf might be a game changer in RPG gaming. Such directionality will up the game for wannabe ‘fighters’ and ‘assassins’ quite a lot. I get that in the past these ideas were not really possible and now we can do them all, perhaps Bethesda is enabling these ideas in the new Elder Scrolls game, but that will not be known until 2027. What is clear that there is a risk that we will see too many things that we saw before. In the YouTube video that game me the list of 15 that I saw in under an hour I had at least half a dozen time things that I had seen before. To be honest, the only real cracker I saw was Code Violet, not ragingly new, the style of gaming is known to stealth game preferred players, but in the setting that we see, is a new fresh paint of a horror classic and that is at least something. Go see the trailer if you are curious. Anyway, that gave me pause to another setting. You see some will remember ‘Knight Games’ (CBM64), and Bethesda has a ‘sort of’ version in that called Arena, but Arena is a joke to stealth players. Most of the rounds I have no opposition. With a bow and stealth I go right through the opponents in seconds. So what happens if all contestants have Candlelight (Skyrim) cast over them? It takes away the stealth advantage, come to think of it, what if the security of a location ‘auto casts’ Candle light over the trespasser of a location? You need to get close to the cast location and perhaps there is a workaround on that too, another thing you have to elude, now breaking and entering comes with a little snag. 

You might (not entirely incorrectly) think that this brainstorm setting only sounds nice. But tell me, when was the last time that you witnessed true gaming innovation? I reckon that for me it was Horizon Forbidden West (2022) and as such I am trying to blend new ideas (at times re engineered old ideas) to add to gaming and to offer a solution that looks in more directions than Bethesda (not that Bethesda is bad, far from it) but a choice of one, is not a choice.

Well, I need to rethink a few more settings (which I already am), but I think better during breakfast and that is roughly 183 minutes away. So back I go, back in my design shell and watch what others are missing. Have a great day.

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May 28, 2025 · 02:15

The call for investors

That is at present the larger setting, everyone wants investors and they all tend to promise the calf with golden horns. As I see it, investing in gold mining, Oil mining and a few others are near dead certain return on investments. The larger group that will seemingly want to invest in AI, the new hype word. Still, considering that Builder.ai went from a billion plus to zilch is a nice example what  Microsoft backed solutions tend to give. You see, the larger picture that everyone is ignoring is that it was baked by Microsoft. Now, this might be OK, because Microsoft is a tech company. But consider that Builder.ai (previous known as Engineer.ai) was supposed to be all ‘good’, yet the media now reports ‘Builder.ai Collapsed After Finding Sales ‘Inflated By 300 Percent’’ This leads me to believe that there was  larger problem with this DML/LLM solution. Another source gives us ‘Builder.ai’s Collapse Exposes Deceptive AI Claims, Shocking Major Investors’ and another source gives us ‘Builder.ai collapse exposes dangers of ‘FOMO investing’ in AI’ yet that is nothing compared to what I said on November 16th 2024 in ‘Is it a public service’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/11/16/is-it-a-public-service/) where I stated ““a US strategy to prevent a Chinese military tech grab in the Gulf region” and it is my insight that this is a clicking clock. One tick, one tock leading to one mishap and Microsoft pretty much gives the store to China. And with that Aramco laughingly watches from the sidelines. There is no if in question. This becomes a mere shifting timeline and with every day that timeline becomes a lot more worrying.” With the added “But several sources state “There are several reasons why General AI is not yet a reality. However, there are various theories as to what why: The required processing power doesn’t exist yet. As soon as we have more powerful machines (or quantum computing), our current algorithms will help us create a General AI” or to some extent. Marketing the spin of AI does not make it so.” You see, the entire DML/LLM is not AI, as we can see from the builder.ai setting (a little presumptuous) of me, but the setting that we get inflated sales and then the Register ended their article with “The fact that it wasn’t able to convince enough customers to pay it enough money to stay solvent should give pause to those who see generative AI as a replacement for junior developers. As the experience of the unfortunate Microsoft staffers having to deal with the GitHub Copilot Agent shows, the technology still has some way to go. One day it might surpass a mediocre intern able to work a search engine, but that day is not today.” Is perhaps merely part of the problem the “the technology still has some way to go” is astute and to the point, but it is not the larger problem. It reminded me of the old market research setting, take a bucket of data and let MANOVA sort it out. The idea that a layman can sort it out is hilarious. I have met over the last half a century less than a dozen people who know that they were doing. These people are extremely rare. So whenever I hear a student tell me that they had a good solution with MANOVA, my eyes were tearing with howls of deriving laughter. And now we see a similar setting. But the larger setting is not merely the coded setting of DML and LLM. It is the stage where data is either not verified or verified in the most shallow of situations. And now consider that stage with a 500 billion solution. Data is everything there and verification is one part of that key, a key too many are seeing aside because it is not sexy enough. 

And now we get to the investors who are in “Fear Of Missing Out”, for them I have a consolation price. You see, RigZone gave me (at https://www.rigzone.com/news/adnoc_suppliers_pledge_817mm_investment_for_uae_manufacturing-27-may-2025-180646-article/) hours ago ‘ADNOC Suppliers Pledge $817MM Investment for UAE Manufacturing’, and as I see it Oil is a near certainty of achieving ROI, and as everyone is chasing the AI dream (which of course does not exist yet) those greedy hungry money people are looking away from the certainty piggybank (as I personally see it) and that kind of investment for manufacturing will bring products, sellable products and in the petrochemical industry that is like butter with the fish. A near certainty on investment. I prefer the expression ‘near certainty’ as there is always some risk, yet as I see it, ARAMCO and ADNOC are setting the bar of achievement high enough to get that done and as I see it “ADNOC said the facilities are situated throughout the Industrial City of Abu Dhabi (ICAD), Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi (KEZAD), Dubai Industrial Park, Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA), Sharjah Airport International Free Zone (SAIF Zone), and Umm Al Quwain. They will generate over 3,500 high-skilled jobs in the private sector and produce a diverse array of industrial goods such as pressure vessels, pipe coatings, and fasteners.” As such the only danger is that ADNOC will not be able to fill the positions and that is at present the easiest score to settle. 

So as we see the call for investors coming from the sound of a dozen bugles, remember that the old premise that getting the call from a setting that works beats the golden horns that some promise and the investors will need another setting (or so I figure). And in the end, the larger question is why builder.ai was backed inn the first place. Microsoft has a setting with OpenAI and as one source gives me “Microsoft and OpenAI have a significant partnership, where Microsoft is a major investor and supports OpenAI’s advancements, and OpenAI provides access to powerful language models through Microsoft’s Azure platform. This partnership enables Azure OpenAI Service, which provides access to OpenAI’s models for businesses, and it also includes a revenue-sharing agreement.” I cannot vouch for the source, but the idea is when this is going on, why go to it with builder.ai? And was builder.ai vetted? The entire setting is raising more questions than I normally would have (sellers have their own agenda and including Microsoft in this is ‘to them’ a normal setting) I do not oppose that, but when we see this interaction, I wonder how dangerous that Stargate will be and $500,000,000,000 ain’t hay. 

And going back to ADNOC we see “ADNOC’s commercial agreements under the In-Country Value (ICV) program have enabled facilities that allow businesses to benefit from diverse commercial opportunities, the company said. The ICV program aims to manufacture AED90 billion ($24.5 billion) worth of products locally in its procurement pipeline by 2030.” More impressive is the quote “ADNOC’s ICV program has contributed AED242 billion ($65.8 million) to the UAE economy and created 17,000 jobs for UAE nationals since 2018, according to the company.” You see, such a move makes sense as the UAE produces 3.22 million barrels per day, that has been achieved from 2024 onward and some say that they exceeded their quota (by how much is unknown to me). But that makes sense as an investment, the entire fictive AI setting does not and ever since the builder.ai setting it makes a lot less sense, if not for the simple reason that no one can clearly state where that billion plus went, oh and how many investments collapsed and who were those investors. Simple questions really.

Have a great day and try not to chase too many Edsel’s with your investment portfolio.

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May 27, 2025 · 05:22

Battle against the sun

That is at time the hardship that any organizations faces and for Saudi Arabia it tends to be heat. Yesterday I saw in Arab News (at https://arab.news/w7bxj) the setting ‘Eco-friendly and safer walkways expanded by 33% at Makkah Hajj sites’ with the subtext “Saudi authorities have announced the expansion of roads made of flexible rubber asphalt by 33 percent this year. (SPA)” 

I personally do not believe to have ever seen such improvements to any event anywhere else in the world. And when you realise that the setting is stated to be “with work on the road extending from Namirah Mosque to Al-Mashaer train station in Arafat, raising the total area to 16,000 sq. meters” you will be baffled by the improvements made. I myself have walked almost 5729km within the last year, I have some experience with distances, although I have to admit that I never walked those in the Saudi sun in summer. In light of the statistics that we are given “Hajj 2025 is expected to start on June 4, subject to confirmation by Saudi Arabia’s official moon-sighting authorities.

As of May 21, 2025, 755,344 pilgrims had arrived in the Kingdom from abroad through air, land and sea entry points, according to the General Directorate of Passports, also known as the Jawazath” as well as “Saudi officials expect the number of pilgrims for Hajj this year to surpass last year’s figure, which the General Authority for Statistics counted at 1.83 million. Of that number, 1.61 million arrived from outside the Kingdom, while 221,854 were internal pilgrims, including citizens and expatriates.” These improvements will matter. You might find this strange that I am impressed with these statistics as a non-Muslim. Yet I have seen walks from all kinds of locations. Yet less than a year ago I completed the Saint Frances Way (Florence to Rome), which was 503km, so you can say that I am somewhat familiar with the concept of walking. And it will a very international event with Indonesian pilgrims are expected to form the biggest delegation again for Hajj 2025. Last year, 221,000 Indonesian pilgrims arrived in the Kingdom for Hajj, followed by Pakistan with 180,000. India was third at 175,025, Bangladesh was fourth at 127,198, and Nigeria completed the top five with 95,000 pilgrims. The expected Saudi support system is likely to baffle the world to see it in action. I saw on YouTube a video on the support system at the Hajj. It was called ‘How Millions of Hajj Meals 🍝 Are Cooked Daily In Makkah 🤍 Incredible 🤯 Hajj 2025’ by ZubairRiazz (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlHO_1XF_zU&t=100s), these meals are prepared three times a day in the Arafat Kitchen Makkah. I don’t speak Arabic, so the information wasn’t clear to me, but the view on this kitchen is totally unbelievable. I have never seen an operation like this put to view, not one Army kitchen view of this size have I ever seen before and this kitchen is there to service 1.83 million meals three times a day for the duration of the Hajj. I am not certain if this is the only kitchen working on this Hajj. But the needs of the Hajj pilgrims is well catered and cared for. 

And before you start thinking that this wasn’t done last year, think again. People are shouting about the lives lost during last years Hajj better remember that the bulk of these losses were people who didn’t have a Hajj Visa, they illegally invaded the Hajj. Even though they would have likely received food, the tents, and resting facilities are only for the owners of a Hajj Visa and they are strictly enforced. So those people miss out on the resting places (away from the sun) as well as water fountains. I wonder if any of the criminals peddling these ‘travel arrangements’ of fake Hajj permits were ever arrested and prosecuted. 

I guess we will have to see, what is clear is that the 16,000 sq. meters of new flexible rubber asphalt will improve the hardship on the elderly making the pilgrimage this year. 

Have a great day and take a walk for the bloodstream if needed.

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