December 26, 2023 · 13:16

Canada betrayed

This is how I see it. It started a few days ago (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67787843) I was dragging my feet a little as I wrote about that Dutch monster during, or just after the trial. And now we see ‘Amanda Todd: Dutch court cuts jail term for fatal cyber-stalking’ where we are given “had his sentenced more than halved”, as such, how fucking insane are Dutch judges? To give you a little part, consider that this man had “Coban sent Amanda more than 700 online messages” (read the court transcript at https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/sc/22/18/2022BCSC1810.htm) we are also given that the stalking and bullying by “Coban began targeting Amanda Todd on social media in November 2009, when she was 13, using fake accounts to lure her into performing for him on a webcam.” And when we saw that “Amanda died aged 15, weeks after posting a video detailing how he had tormented her online for years”, as such she went through hell for years and this is how the Dutch jurisprudential setting treats this? So how about we all do to their children and grandchildren to what the Dutch system condoned for? How ‘forgiving’ will they be then? I wonder how adjusting they will be until they get skin in the game and there is a premise for this, the 700 messages, close to one each day will give us the accepting nature of this rage. And when we see “Explicit photos of her had also been leaked online.” The anger based person is wondering if any of the judges daughters or granddaughters have explicit twats to show the world? Is it their fault? No, it is not. But neither was it the fault of Amanda Todd and she isn’t given any consideration here, is she? The decrease of his sentence, that monster is making it so. Then we are given ““I’m feeling quite comfortable with the six-year sentence today because there was a chance the sentencing, conversion sentencing, could have been zero,” Ms Todd said.” I feel like I should agree but I cannot. She is right with the zero part, but consider that he was given “13 years by the court in British Columbia, he was returned to the Netherlands and the court in Amsterdam was given the task of converting the sentence to Dutch standards” one could argue (and I would agree) that 13 is a fair amount, “Coban had already been arrested by Dutch authorities in 2014 and jailed in 2017 for 10 years and eight months.” And that is part of the issue, there is every chance that now that verdict is done for, at the most another 2 years. So will he remain in prison until past 2030, or will some clever lawyer claim that this constitutes some form of Double Jeopardy? You see, that means that a person “In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges” and in this case it is the “or similar” part that matters, it is everything here and cyber stalkers are repetitive monsters. That is where my rage comes in. I have always seen the internet as a source for good, for information. A monster like Aydin Coban does not deserve to be here. I will go one step further that I would voluntarily go to Tartarus to keep him there for all eternity torturing his soul until he is the last person in this universe. 

That is quite the bold claim, but I believe that is the very minimum that a person like Amanda Todd deserves, to be able to watch her tormentor being tormented for all eternity. Too bad the Dutch legal system hasn’t caught up to the massive injustice that they are doing the people. 

That is merely my point of view, and as ever, I could be wrong.

Enjoy the Christmas spirit (there are 4 according to Brittlestar) and Charles Dickens agrees.

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December 25, 2023 · 16:01

How stupid could stupid become?

Yup that was the question and it all started with an article by the CBC. I had to read it twice because I could not believe my eyes. But yes, I did not read it wrong and that is where the howling began. Lets start at the beginning. It all started with ‘Want a job? You’ll have to convince our AI bot first’, the story (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/recruitment-ai-tools-risk-bias-hidden-workers-keywords-1.6718151) gives us “Ever carefully crafted a job application for a role you’re certain that you’re perfect for, only to never hear back? There’s a good chance no one ever saw your application — even if you took the internet’s advice to copy-paste all of the skills from the job description” this gives us a problem on several factors, but the two I am focussing on is IT and recruiters. IT is the first. AI does not exist, not yet at least. What you see are all kinds of data driven tools, primarily set to Machine Learning and Deeper Machine Learning. First off, these tools are awesome. In their proper setting they can reduce workloads and automate CERTAIN processes.

But these machines cannot build, they cannot construct and they cannot deconstruct. To see whether a resume and a position match together you need the second tier, the recruiter (or your own HR department). There are skills involved and at times this skill is more of an art. Seeing how much alike a person is to the position is an art. You can test via a resume of minimum skills are available. Yes, at times it take a certain amount of Excel levels, it might take SQL skill levels or perhaps a good telephone voice. A good HR person (or recruiter) can see this. Machine Learning will not ever get it right. It might get close. 

So whilst we laugh at these experts, the story is less nice, the dangers are decently severe. You see, this is some side of cost reduction, all whilst too many recruiters have no clue what they are doing, I have met a boatload of them. They will brush it off with “This is what the client wants” but it is already too late, they were clueless from the start and it is getting worse. The article also gives  us a nice handle “They found more than 90 per cent of companies were using tools like ATS to initially filter and rank candidates. But they often weren’t using it well. Sometimes, candidates were scored against bloated job descriptions filled with unnecessary and inflexible criteria, which left some qualified candidates “hidden” below others the software deemed a more perfect fit.” It is the “they often weren’t using it well”, you see any machine learning is based on a precise setting, if the setting does not fit, the presented solution is close to useless. And it goes from bad to worse. You see it is seen with “even when the AI claims to be “bias-free.”” You see EVERY Machine learning solution is biased. Bias through data conversion (the programmer), bias through miscommunication (HR, executive and programmer misalignment) and that list goes on. If the data is not presented correctly, it goes wrong and there is no turning back. As such we could speculate that well over 50% of firms using ATS are not getting the best applicant, they are optionally leaving them to real recruiters, and as such handing to their competitors. Wouldn’t that be fun? 

So when we get to “So for now, it’s up to employers and their hiring teams to understand how their AI software works — and any potential downsides” which is a certain way to piss your pants laughing. It is a more personal view, but hiring teams tend to be decently clueless on Machine Learning (what they call AI). That is not their fault. They were never trained for this, yet consider what they are losing out of? Consider a person who never had military training, you now push them in a war stage with a rifle. So how long will this person be alive? And when this person was a scribe, how will he wield his weapon? Consider the man was a trompetist and the fun starts. 

The data mismatches and keeps this person alive by stating he is not a good soldier, lucky bastard. 

The foundation is data and filling jobs is the need of an HR department. Yes, machine learning could optionally reduce the time going through the resume’s. Yet bias sets in at age, ageism is real in Australia and they cannot find people? How quaint, especially in an aging population. Now consider what an executive knows about a job (mostly any job) and what HR knows and consider how most jobs are lost to translation in any machine learning environment. 

Oh, and I haven’t even considered some of these ‘tests’ that recruiters have. Utterly hilarious and we are given that this is up to what they call AI? Oh, the tears are rolling down my cheeks, what fun today is, Christmas day no less. I haven’t had this much fun since my fathers funeral.

So if you wonder how stupid can get, see how recruiters are destroying a market all by themselves. They had to change gears and approach at least 3 years ago. The only thing I see are more and more clueless recruiters and they are ALL trying to fill the same position. And the CBC and their article also gives us this gem “it’s also important to question who built the AI and whose data it was trained on, pointing to the example of Amazon, which in 2018 scrapped its internal recruiting AI tool after discovering it was biased against female job applicants.” So this is a flaw of the lowest level, merely gender. Now consider that recruiters are telling people to copy LinkedIn texts for their resume. How much more bias and wrong filters will pop up? Because that is the result of a recruiter too, they want their bonus and will get it anyway they can. So how many wrong hires have firms made in the last year alone? Amazon might be the visible one, but that list is a lot larger than you think and it goes to the global corporate top. 

So consider what you are facing, consider what these people face and laugh, its Christmas.

Enjoy today.

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December 24, 2023 · 17:47

Through views reenforced

That is the setting and before we go into the news that the CBC is giving us, we need to take a look at a few past settings. I mentioned it going back to way before June 25th 2021 when I wrote ‘Non Comprehension’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/06/25/non-comprehension/) then there was ‘Inspiration and realisation’ on August 7th 2022 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/08/07/inspiration-and-realisation/) and several more mentions. I even made mention that the UK firms who got the portfolio for Neom city were making mistakes. You see, social media is a bottomless hole, it is like shouting against a wall that is white wondering why the wall doesn’t answer whether it is a vestal virgin, or merely a decently clean wall. It is as I personally see it a decently meaningless metric. Marketing firms like OmniChannel and TRO had figured out years ago that the true metric was engagement. Engagement is pretty much everything. You can rely on the millions of messages you send out through social media, but does it help? Does it basically do anything more than gobble up your budget? Those 2 million placements are close to useless. It is the 5,000 – 25,000 – 125,000 engaging responses that really matters. It mattered to them to respond and it is not “there are 10 non responses to every response”, that too is too hollow for consideration. It is the responses towards engagements that matter, it is the bread and butter of any influencer. 

So now we see (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/malls-death-experiences-luxury-retail-1.7065690) ‘Some Toronto malls are booming, but not necessarily because of the shopping’, as such we see that the CBC (and the mall) are figuring out why their malls are now busty with ‘life’ with the added “Instagram-worthy experiences and unexpected places are part of malls’ future success, experts say”. So who are these experts? I have been making clear statements for well over two years. Where were they then? I even created IP to nudge engagement forward, where were they? So when we are given ““In the mall business, you always have to be fresh. You always have to think about what your customers are after and remain relevant for the customer,” said Robert Horst, vice-president of retail at Oxford Properties, which operates Yorkdale.” Where was Robert Horst when I stated this well over two yeas ago? Did he adjust to augmented reality? No, he did not. In the meantime Amazon could come in and make a killing. Consider that America has 116,000 malls, Canada has allegedly 2818 malls, where is their adjustment towards engagement? Oh and that is before you consider that the EU, UAE, Asia adds a lot more to the total number of malls. So where is the nudge towards engagement there? Google and Amazon had 3-5 years to wake up with new technologies at their fingertips. They did nothing and the malls did nothing either. So when we are given “Malls such as Yorkdale and The Well, which recently opened in downtown Toronto, are offering fresh takes on retail and expanding the mall experience beyond simply shopping. Yorkdale estimates it has 18 million visitors a year” did anyone consider just how much they are missing? 

Inspectors General from the 1st Theater Sustainment Command-Operational Command Post inspect a fuel “bladder” at a fuel farm in central Iraq, recently. U.S. Army Central uses forward logistical elements to maintain fuel farms under contract with U.S. Army logistical specialists called contract representatives to ensure the operation is being conducted to the Army standard. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Brandon Hubbard, USARCENT Public Affairs)

It is like pushing an Army fuel bag up a hill, you know it goes nowhere without serious added manpower, and now consider what is required to get new tech and the new IP to get adjusted to a totally new kind of audience. This requires a new kind of nudging. And it is important to use the word nudge and not push. Engagement is not achieved by ‘Do this’, but by ‘Did you try or consider this?’ That is how new waves of engagements are created. I had a similar setting of creating more and more awareness for Neom city (as well as the Line and Mukaab) it is achieved through engagement. As such I wonder who else is asleep at the wheel. 

So it is nice that we see the CBC article and I have nothing against the article, but as my blog shows I was ahead of these people by years and my blogs point that out. Not merely my blog, players like TRO Marketing services and Omnichannel marketing were ahead by close to a decade, but the other voices. Feel free to listen to them whilst they shout at walls. The response is negligible and that is what needs to be seen. We can believe that malls are dying, or we can set a new stage where their lease on life is renewed. It might not help getting an immediate influx on revenue, but these influencers will start something that gives a new second tier revenue and that matters, because in a stage where economies are dwindling, the second tier is all you need to survive a little longer. Will it save every mall? Nope, it will not, but it will save the early adopters and those willing to invest and that is also the path that Amazon (and optionally Google too) needed to realise. Who many companies are in more then 20 malls? We see Zara, Sephora, Gap, Apple and several others (OK, Victoria Secrets too) in these places. So what did their ‘marketing representatives’ do to boost their visibility and boost engagement? I am willing to hazard a guess that it is very little and I left enough clues lying around for well over 2 years that it needed to be done. There is only one Harrods, there is only one Dubai Mall. The rest? They better work harder to carry the favour of engagement. It was the only way and now we see that I am proven correct yet again.  What a lovely way to get to the end of the year.

So enjoy your day before Christmas and enjoy the last week of this year.

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December 23, 2023 · 21:39

Currencies

This is not about money, well not in a real sense. I saw an image and suddenly an old idea came to mind and whilst I am watching everyones favourite Christmas movie (Die Hard), another thought came to mind. A friend just gave me the best Christmas present in a very long time. It is time to return the favour (sort of). As such I have something that is a freebee for any Tencent technology and Amazon Luna indie developers. A word of warning, this is not for everyone. This is not some a game for every player. Some will not like it, just like ‘Welcome to the rapture’ and it matters, because it not drenched in blood or actions. This is a different kind of game. This all started with watching the old Thunderbird movies and seeing Babylon 5. A thought got to me, what if we make it more ‘real’ when I had the thought the PS4 was new and it had nowhere near the powers it needed to be. So in this game we ‘work’ for a living, as such it is not a game for managers (internal lol accepted). So the setting was that we start being an intern on a space station (like the European space station) or Thunderbird 5. We are orbiting this planet and we have to use equipment to complete missions of all kinds. That results in credits and optional super credits, which gets us the funds we need for the second part of the game. These funds will enable us to do space walks and now the second part of the game kicks in. Space walks come with a camera and now we get the option to photograph earth, the space station and other things. The idea is to give the player a sort of photo mode in 4K with the option to save the photos and send them to our USB. Now consider that we have a 4K setting of the earth, a rotating earth and with the camera we can get a decent clear image of the country where we live. We can see the moon in much clearer view and so on. But this is not enough. I saw the setting that if we get all three done above a certain level, we get a promotion. From there we go to the moon. Consider moon base Alpha (or the moon base from 2001, which also gives us the next space station first as well). We learn more equipment, actual equipment and we get to do more and earn more, especially earn more credits and walk on the moon. Now you might think that this is boring and for those addicted to Fortnite, it might be, but there are more gamers, millions more and they just loved walking around the fallout ruins, or walk in Cyrodiil and this game is for them. See it as the part Starfield could not deliver on. A track of achievements that are done with the camera. I also want to set a larger field where we get choices and the choices made c lose certain doors, but open up different doors. For example, the camera allows for espionage missions, but it could close the door on one station and open the door on another one. Just a thought. 

From there we go to a deep space station, like the Coriolis space station (Elite Dangerous), or a station alike Babylon 5 (or the Inner space space station). This now becomes a much larger challenge, not only is it more challenging in missions, but there are more photo missions to complete. In this completing them yields large rewards, but not all missions are easy to get, or to get to. 

Now these two elements are not enough, but you can’t expect me to do everything for you, can you. You see, the entire photo mode part is undersold too often and it can be taken to another level. Yes, in 4K we can make the most amazing images but no one seems to take advantage of that, as such I thought it was a nice idea to use it and what looks better in 4K then space objects? The idea is also that as you unlock the next level, all previous levels remain available. Your clones are send ahead, you are not. As such soon you get to push more and more credits but there is a limit, only 50% gets send to a previous station and 25% to two stations back, so half, or half or half and so on. It stops those doing the minimal and getting ahead that way. Also in the setting of a B5 station, you also need to upgrade your quarters, so that you get access to more of the station and better space walks. 

This was the idea as I had it, but the 4K photo mode was too new when the thought came to me. Also there are a few more sides to all this, but that is for another day. Now consider that parents of RPG games get one side, but the idea of a non violent game with educational sides will have great appeal and in a streaming solution this game will appeal, not to all but to well enough. And it took me less than two days to come up with it (I spend nearly a day mulling this over in 2014), as such consider all the things Microsoft isn’t coming up with and they just spend $100B, now consider we get messages like “Expect new updates “roughly every six weeks” in early 2024” regarding Starfield, a game released on September 6th 2023. So, not only was the game incomplete. Even months later there is now some indication that gamers had merely a beta to play with. When you consider all the parts not there and consider what I basically designed in 2014, how asleep are these people? 

In the meantime there are all kinds of issues (some regrettably) that a game like Starfield has and has been showing for some time. This game was in development for 5 years. Now my part would not have been easy, but they didn’t rock it, so now it is a freebee for indie developers. And when they put out a superior game on those two systems another nail in the coffin of Microsoft appears. So how does it feel for them to mess with our safe space?

No idea how they feel and I do not care. I am off learning a little more and setting the stages for Final Draft 12 today and tomorrow. Have a lovely day, the 24th is now merely a few hours away for me.

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December 22, 2023 · 23:44

Collected work

This is what we see at times, we see several cogs, we see that there is a connection, but we cannot see, or comprehend the connection. I am no different. I miss things at times. I am not smarter than you all (merely smarter then some). 

As such we see news, but can we see the connections? I started it yesterday with the phrase “it is a place where the bullies and the woke decide on the fate of others, regardless on what the others want” now we get a few settings, all at the same time. The first is ‘Trump caught on tape pressuring Wayne County officials not to certify election’ (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rudy-giuliani-bankruptcy-new-york-election-b2468135.html) There we are also given “Rudy Giuliani, filing for bankruptcy after being ordered to pay $148m in damages to two Georgia election workers he defamed” You see, this is weird, especially when we see ““No person could have reasonably believed that Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be able to pay such a high punitive amount,” spokesperson Ted Goodman said.”. Rudy is a politician, a lawyer and Mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001, as such, how many defamation cases did the city of New York face between 1994 and 2001? Did any media look into that? Was there any way out of this? The more you look into the matter, the worse it gets, the less the media seems to check, the less politicians seem to do in equal measure (example Zelensky and false yacht rumours). 

Now we see, through ABC (at https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-surge-threats-colorado-justices-ruled-trump-primary/story?id=105855615) ‘FBI looking into surge in threats against Colorado justices who ruled Trump can’t be on primary ballot’ it is here that the bullies are shown in force and the insurrection on January 8th 2021 shows just how much problems America has. The bullies are seemingly taking over. In all this they have a larger problem. If this isn’t stopped now, it goes out of control fast. When supreme court judges are swamped with threats, the problem is now starting to look largely out of control and it gets to be worse. On one side we see that 16 states are moving papers to remove Trump from the ballots, and even if that happens, when the primary starts and whomever gets that part decides to put Trump on the ballot America faces another danger. When his ‘friends’ are given leeway and convictions overturned or removed the danger of chaos increases by a lot. If the FBI remains incapable of stopping insurrections and prosecuting bullies the chaos starts in another direction. No matter how that goes, American business will take a massive dive in revenue and that gives America another turn of bad luck and it already has several bad turns to deal with. So whomever (especially Americans) think that I am full of wind and this will never happen ready up on what is going on. The fact that the two media cases on disinformation (Giuliani and Jones) still have no end in sight, the victims are deprived of all funds coming to them and now that Jones is on X and has (according to some) 800,000 followers you should see just how bad things could get. But there is an upside (possible) the amount of nations that will take in Americans is vanishing faster than snowflakes in a heated oven.  In all this America has prized themselves out of many markets, and as such the largest danger becomes will America implode and become a haven of dangers. Some state that the US economy is growing less than ‘predicted’, but it is worse than that. France has gained defence contracts that America was hoping for, so that is $8 billion less. China is gaining more projects in construction, defense, telecom and infrastructure. So they are up more billions and America loses additional billions. So what was not clear here? This has been going on since 2020 and the media was taping over these issues with flammable content. In this the EU is not out of the woods either, more issues are rising and when we add the ‘free Palestine’ and ‘Just stop oil’ cults all over the EU, the picture becomes slightly more complete. They are seemingly heading towards an equally bad place. So feel free to disagree, but the writing is on the wall, on the web and on the Walkman. You merely have to look on what is real and fake and that is another matter that needs attention. Media is too much about fake news. The BBC gives us that a former US Marine (now living in Russia) was allegedly behind the story that Volodymyr Zelensky bought two yachts. Not only was the news false, at least one ship is still for sale. I do not care, but fake news has impact. It seems that members of the US Congress making crucial decisions about military spending were repeating the accusation. Apart from the stupidity that members of US congress have on not vetting information. According to the BBC Tom Tillis, a Republican Senator is one of those less-intelligent people. 

All these matters are important as they connect to a dislodged population and a very dislodged administration (Congress). As such the collected works of bullies and false prophets are now in full swing all over America and I am not sure if the FBI and CIA are equipped to deal with it. The CIA because not only is this a former marine, he is setting the stage from Russia no less and it is impacting US politics and policies. The bullies threatening Colorado judges are getting away with it and the FBI seems unable to deal with this at present. So I think I made my case. There is a stage with collected works and the are diverting the light, the cameras and are giving the limelight to fake news, that is how I see it.

Enjoy the day, the Saturday before Christmas is now 20 minutes away.

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December 22, 2023 · 02:52

In titles

It is a setting we do not see, some of us will never see it. That is not on us, it is not some flaw. We look ahead, we never ever look in a mirror at ourselves whilst acting. As such we will only ever know what we look like through the eyes of others. This is how it is. It remains simple.

We see events, we see some as acts against us, we see some as acts against those who act against us. It is not simple, but it tends to be straightforward. In America a weird setting is going on. It is depriving America to be America and its land to be land of the Americans. We can blame so many people but that is the blame game. We can act against actions seen and perceived, but is that the right action? Consider that one state alone, the state of Colorado has now said that Trump can no longer be on the ballot for the primary citing the insurrection of January 6th as a reason and it was not unanimous. Now we see “Lawyers for Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the US supreme court to reject a request from the special counsel to expeditiously decide whether he was immune from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, contending prosecutors lacked standing to bring the petition.” Lets look at the simple setting. “whether he was immune from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results” Is that an admission of guilt? We have two distinct settings here. The first is the inability to prosecute all parties to the United States Capitol attack on January 6th 2021, now almost 3 years ago. American law failed on several levels. Now we see “The papers filed by Trump’s lawyers in essence amounted to an attempt to refreeze the case – and indefinitely delay the March 2024 trial date – after prosecutors sought to bypass the potentially lengthy appeals process by directly asking the nation’s highest court to resolve the matter.” As I personally see it, should the Trump legal team pull this off, it will not be a victory. It will be the first clear sign that America is out there to protect bullies and criminals above all else. It will impact American lives for the largest setting. Their allies will stop being allies, corporations will start moving away from the US because the setting has changed and in other settings will we see that others will take a chance on BRICS and its members to give them a fair shake. 

America has taken ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ to new directions and in new settings. It is not some setting I can prove, but I see that many others feel the same way. America is no longer the dream we pursue, it is a place where the bullies and the woke decide on the fate of others, regardless on what the others want. A new form of Shanghai recruitment a naval activity going back to the 1850’s is now in a new setting. For some to take what they want, not what they are entitled to. It changes the game and when corporations start feeling that impact, they will all leave and then what will the big boys do? When these engineers feel that they are no longer treated fairly places like IBM and Google will need to set up new headquarters, one that is nowhere near America. Yet in that same setting what law will they rely on? That is not an easy question to answer. Because when America crashes, Japan will follow soon, no more than 3 years behind America and that takes a whole range of stages in new directions but the larger stage which would be the past tense of America will see places like Amazon, Apple, Google and IBM to save whatever they can, because the simple truth is that without its engineers, training and service solutions these firms will not get anywhere soon and that opens up new players and all of them non-American players. A stage we would not have deemed realistic before Trump started to mess things up. We see (with laughter) that the American Qanon Shaman now reels against Matt Gaetz, but that is merely the beginning. When these people don’t get ‘their’ promised land chaos will come a lot faster. Even now we see threats against judges in Colorado because they upheld the law. 

This is (as I personally see it) getting bed fast and it will get worse soon after that. Stages in motion, motion through the momentum that cannot be controlled and control though laws that are faltering. It seems a simple line, but it is not that simple and the levels of interactions on multiple levels make for what I would see as escalation towards levels of worse. It is not scientific, but it is my view.  So when we go from one view to another view we see the self destructive path that America is on. It is not an accusation, it is an observation. You see, some see suicide as a right, not because it is a right perse, but anyone is entitled to be stupid. And stupid acts tend to end badly. The stage of all this was seen before 2018 when Jamal Khashoggi went missing. The continuation of ignoring basic facts, the stage of evidence to be replaced by the CIA setting of ‘highly likely’ as evidence, which it never was. And as one stage was replaced by another stage we see more and more presumptions, more emotions and lacking more and more facts. The media is largely to blame for all this and as they delved into the world of digital dollars we saw less facts and more emotions. All these events are connected but not linked. It is my personal view that certain people rely on stakeholders to path the way as they do with corporations and policy makers, but now the impact is larger and these stakeholders are getting in each others way. For them it is ego and the money they gain, but in that setting America has been losing more and more and now they rely on less intelligent administrations to claim their goals and bonuses and that is where the train goes off the rails. It is my view and it might be a flawed one. Yet in all this consider that I saw certain military changes to come in late 2020 and these changes are now upon us. It is not the strongest part, but the clearest one as America is down 20 billion in revenue. So how do you think infrastructures are paid for? That and a debt of 31 trillion makes for a really bad setting. Then they upset their wealthiest allies and let China walk in and capture more and more of that revenue. So how will this end? Well, I do not believe it will take much longer for the beginning of the end to come out, but as the ties between China and BRICS become stronger, Europe needs to make choices and they are on their own side, not on the side of anyone else. All this is happening at the same time in many places and I believe that this is due to stakeholders, although I am not sure how they are doing this, I feel that they are gaining terrain at the expense of everyone else. All due to the fact that cash was king and the law fell short. 

I might be completely wrong but that is how I am seeing this.

Enjoy the day, it is Friday here.

 

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December 21, 2023 · 04:01

In development

For me over the last 20 hours, 2 issues were on the rise (like bread getting ready) in my brain. The first involves Final Draft and that setting will come to a new stage in about a week. From there I have two options, one solves it immediately, the other is a pondering stage. But about that more later. The second one was the arcane in a new RPG. You see, the one (for now) powerhouse is Bethesda and they created true greatness. Only an idiot will deny this. They took one of the most obscure gaming styles in gaming history and made it gaming mainstream. This in itself is an achievement that should never ever be forgotten and it took 4 titles. Oblivion, Skyrim and Fallout three and four. These four changed the face of RPG gaming. Now that they are part of Microsoft the issues will come and will settle all over their faces. Now, we do not know what will come next but the next Elder Scrolls is Xbox and PC only and 2026 at the earliest. As such a gap comes into play and the innovative designer can now get slices of a gaming market that will need innovation. It is why I placed so many ideas online, to entice makers to push RPG to Amazon Luna and Tencent Handheld. You see, whatever they miss and it might be enough and from there they will lose more and more marketshare. In addition it could get to PS5 (or PS6), but the larger station is that Sony has a platform, has exclusive titles and now 2 other platforms could become contenders too. They might not be a threat to Sony, it is not required. Enough innovation and they will nibble at the Microsoft population. All due to a war they never understood and a fight they weren’t ready for. 

As such I was considering the Arcane part in RPG. I made a few inroads in previous articles. Yet I started to wonder about the foundation of the arcane and then I remembered the foundation of one game you needed to find Sulphuric Ash and Spider silk (if you know, you know). It made me reconsider a few sides. What if the arcane needed more then a mana bar? What if the foundation of that power was a talisman and its catalyst? More in line of ‘the old days’, but now we get more. We need to get stuff, magic doesn’t come from nothing (when in doubt ask that insufferable Harry Potter) LOL.

So we get a new and novel use of jewellery. I had one element in my hand when I came up with TES7:Restoration over 2 years ago, but I merely saw that as the foundation of the introduction and part of the story. Now it escalates in a new arcane setting.

So the training goes one side. The talisman (necklace, ring or staff) the other direction, lets call it focal point and the catalyst (reagent, leaves, resource) is the power behind it. Now the arcane becomes an entirely new challenge. And this is not some and and and for power. The and and or in that equation gives the stage plus sides and negativity like we might face in real life. Consider a bicycle, we can adjust all elements for speed, but there we lose acceleration. We can have the tyres to get more grip, but with rain that grip goes away. It becomes a new stage, a place where it is about balance. And as the player has its own sides, that player needs to focus on options to chose from. In the beginning more power is everything, but over time you will see that arcane traction makes you more versatile and that is a side Bethesda NEVER used. They saw what was best and they were right, but other parts were missed and overlooked and now that the systems are much more powerful we see more in a game, as such we need to create a different playing field. For those who remember Oblivion, there was the Rockmilk cave a good grinding spot. It also made me create improvements (see previous articles). What now matters is that we had two factions in one place who were fighting each other. In that setting you need a different arcane play. It also gave me the idea to adjust arcane fighting and with the different storylines that is not an issue. What matters to me was the fact that the arcane we did have was a little too rigid. It made me think in this direction. 

So as we have an arcane fighter we need to enhance gameplay by giving the player a new way to prepare, like a ready equipment setting. 

Example:
Pendent one and ingredient five
Necklace One, Ring three and ingredient 12

This reads weird, I know, but the setting is that you will find and upgrade certain jewellery and you keep them, there is not merely a stronger one (well there is), they reflect on catalysts differently as such you need a new way to be able to get through a place that has two different parties, like a cave with brigands and spiders. YOU must be prepared for both and that takes a different way of thinking and you need to adjust your equipment accordingly. As such you might have a ring and a pendent, but they are both for different enemies and in this you might not have your staff, but you have in one hand leaves for one and in the other hand ingredients for the other and when you combine these abilities you get either different results or you make yourself really visible to one or the other fiend (never a good thing). It is a new way to play the arcane and of course that usage will develop your player in new ways, which pushes replayability forward. A side I worship in RPG gaming. So whilst (according to some) Bethesda is remastering Fallout 3 rumoured on PC and Xbox only, others can look at a totally new way to play an RPG, some will love it, some will not, but both groups will be introduced to more and more innovation in gaming and that is ALWAYS a good thing.

As I see it almost a dozen new innovation that no RPG game has ever handed you before. Now to be honest, before the PS4 there was no power to do so, yet these innovation are now in part to the public domain, giving two new systems innovative play, all whilst (according to rumour) the more powerful console in the world will be playing a new iteration of a 15 year old game. Perhaps it will have new sides, it is apparently not coming to Sony, so I do not care. What I do care about is pushing gaming forward and that is what my writing does, opening the eyes of indie developers to offer something others did not and I feel that I am succeeding.

Now it is time to brood more on Final Draft and see what I could deliver to the MBC group or Al Saudiya (or both) and have a little more fun there too. It is time to put the final part on How to assassinate a politician and see what I can make of it. And never forget (I don’t) that it could all be a great flop. There is no shame in that. Nintendo got there with the WiiU and surpassed their fortunes five times over with the Switch. One led to the other and we all face these moments and some state (and I do not disagree) that sometimes you learn more from failures than from previous successes. 

The Switch is now around 132.46 million sold units. It is now their second best console in history and surpasses the PS5 with 50 million and the Xbox Series X and Series S with a lot less than Sony has (no precise numbers available). So consider that Nintendo outsold Microsoft by well over 300%, so where is that most powerful console in the world now? Where is Microsoft now with their $100,000,000,000 investment? They might claim that good times are coming, but I am not seeing them. Yes a remaster is nice, but gamers want innovation, not iteration and remasters. The remasters are nice to feel good about the past and we need that at times NEXT to new good gaming. As such I was right all along and now the new indie developers have well over 15 months to capture an audience that is looking for the new and the exiting. As I see it a 75% game called Starfield isn’t getting it done (presumption, as I never played it), but consider that a game so overhyped and so rumoured about only gets a 75%, how sad is that?

Innovation is where it is at and Sony was correct all along. Time for streamers to tech Microsoft that lesson too and when more than three parties shows them how wrong they were from the start. Will they catch on? I created more innovative public domain IP one year  for non-Microsoft players than Microsoft achieved with spin and presentations in 10 years. So they can take that to their overstretched banks too.

Enjoy the day.

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December 19, 2023 · 23:03

Who wrote what for whom?

That was the very first question in my mind when I read the article in the Foreign Policy called ‘How Saudi Arabia Could Use Its Leverage in Gaza’ (at https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/18/saudi-arabia-israel-gaza-mbs-leverage/) there are a few settings I had an issue with, so let’s go.

The first part is seen with “While some observers may be surprised by Hamas’s heinous Oct. 7 attacks and the eruption of a major war, others had long dreaded such an outbreak of violence. Due to the desperate desire of both Israel and the United States to see a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia, the unresolved and simmering Palestinian issue was largely ignored.” Is that so? Several governments as well as the United Nations have been eager to ignore the events of October 7th. The United Nations took that vicious cowardly attack from all considerations, others merely painted over that event like it was an undesired breakfast. It was what set rage in the hearts of Israel. The word Hamas is mentioned in this brief twice, one you saw above. So that is the second setting in all this. We can understand and to some degree agree with “Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan is leading a diplomatic committee mandated by the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, to tour various international capitals and argue for an immediate cease-fire.” As an observer I understand that Saudi actions is driven by the need to protect Muslim lives, nothing wrong with that. Yet the biggest problem in all this remains Hamas, and as one source told me “until someone stops Hamas effing around, there is no stopping the IDF” a very valid argument from the other side and as I see it the largest issue is right there. Hamas must be stopped. They opened the door with 1,413+ kills, 8,745+ wounded and 248+ captured or abducted. The IDF hit back and in Gaza we are told the damage is 19,453+ killed, 52,286+ wounded and 7,000+ missing. The problem here is that Hamas is hiding in-between the civilians giving us a one sided reported issue. We see too little reporting on events like “the video, which has been replayed by dozens of news outlets, seems to confirm what Israel has long claimed that Hamas uses innocent Palestinians as barricades by installing their headquarters and arsenals beneath schools, hospitals and other public institutions in a vast complex of subterranean tunnels.” The Washington Post did not keep silent and for reference, the dozen news outlets should alert you. For reference, in America alone there are 204 counties in the United States with no news outlets. There are 1,562 counties with only one and a global total of ‘dozens’ mentions of that event? This should and needs to be a wake up call, especially when we collect the number of European news outlets as well, ‘dozens’ is an outrage and that is also part of the equation.

So now we get to “The Saudis are also using an overlooked diplomatic tool: silence. Their outright refusal of any political discussion before a cease-fire is also generating pressure by disallowing Israel a clear political horizon after the campaign. As the Saudi foreign minister said last month: “What future is there to talk about when Gaza is being destroyed.”” Here we can agree or disagree, but silence is a valid tool and Saudi Arabia is doing what it feels to be best for Muslim lives, no one can deny that, what does matters is that the west is equally in silence by gives no explanation on why it does so and ignoring the October 7th events does not happen. For reference Al Jazeera covered the October 7 events, many news outlets trivialised those events.

So when we are given “It does not want to allow itself to be politicised for Israeli political ends. In other words, the Saudi ruling elites want to avoid being “spun.”” I can accept and get behind that, because in any war there are at least two sides and they both want to spin to accentuate THEIR view. I can get behind that train of thought of not getting spun. 

Then we get to an actual truth that matters “Israel will never match the financial capacity of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Its economy is struggling, and according to a recent report by the Bank of Israel, it is losing $600 million a week during this campaign. The Israeli central bank has also suggested that the war costs from 2023 to 2025 will amount to some $53 billion.” What is equally missing is that America as well as the EU neither have these funds. One source (allegedly Vanity Fair ;0) has stated that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has spend well over $53B during dinner in the past, as such the KSA has the funds. 

As we add the one reality that should have been number one from the get go “Nowadays, nothing in Saudi Arabia is spent unless it is deemed to be serving the kingdom’s interest; “Saudi Arabia first” is the principle that Saudi’s foreign policy is based on.” I personally believe that this is the only stance that should matter to the KSA and that is the setting. Then we get to the real meat. The statement “The truth is that Saudi Arabia has always had a leading role in this conflict, but it preferred a leading-from-behind approach. This approach allowed it to use its diplomatic and symbolic weight without being on the political front line and potentially risking its strategic interests. The Saudi ruling elites came to the conclusion that they had mustered a great deal of political effort for a fruitless process and thus have never injected themselves into the intricacies of the Palestinian-Israeli final status negotiations.” Is a real deal. You see Americans want to talk about everything and produce nothing, members of the KSA merely want to achieve what is best for the KSA and according to Islam is best to Muslims, that is what is here and that is why the case of Hamas is a tough one. You see Hamas is all Muslim, it merely works towards selfish reasons and the events we see in Gaza shows that. The one truth no one is entertaining is how much better Palestinians are better off without Hamas. One example is Tawhid al-Jihad, so where was Hamas when these new players were unfolding all over the West Bank around 10 years ago?

As I personally see it there are several players and most of them serve self interests. In this KSA is perhaps the only one who does not. And as I see it all parties ned to realise that Hamas is the one selfish voice in there. The events regarding al-Shifa should be taken as clear evidence in this. With only a few exceptions nearly all civilised nations have agreed that Hospitals and schools are not to be considered military outlets, especially with all the civilians in place.  A reality too many news outlets are ignoring.

The article in Foreign Policy ends with “Before Riyadh steps up and shows greater assertiveness on this issue, the Saudi ruling elites need to see a clear political horizon and an improved structure to the peace process. At that point, they might use their considerable financial leverage to shape the outcome.” You see, my issue here is that this sounds like American policies on the Middle East, so who was the source? An American political player, a stakeholder, or something else? In my (oversimplified) view, the stance most governments needs to take is that the one self-serving player here is Hamas, they are the actual danger and the actual threat. This all started as Saudi relations with Israel were normalising and I personally believe that the message on wrecking that came from Qatar, It is either Ismail Haniyeh directly or someone in his office that pushed those buttons. But that is merely my view and what do I know? 

What matters is that one could argue that Hamas is openly acting against the needs for Saudi stabilising matters in the middle east, Israel was a first step and there is seemingly not much left of that now is there?

Enjoy today, I am now 65 minutes from Midweek.

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December 19, 2023 · 00:16

Triviality makes a surprise

You think that cleaning is trivial and for a lot of is it is so. Yet Gulf News surprised me in this. To get that I need to give you a list. Amsterdam, the Hague, Rotterdam, London, Birmingham, Portsmouth, Munich, Geneva, Paris, Orleans, Antwerp, Lourdes, Madrid, Budapest, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Beer Sheva, Ashkalon, Sharm El Sheik, Stockholm, Goteborg, Malmo, Copenhagen, Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Singapore, Bangkok, Buenos Aires and Montevideo. I visited all these places during my life (some very very young). Yet in all these settings, the one place I only saw through video and never visited, namely Dubai, must have been the cleanest city ever seen. As such I was a little surprised to see ‘‘Clean UAE’: Over 7,000 volunteers net more than 10 tonnes of waste in Dubai’ (at https://gulfnews.com/uae/environment/clean-uae-over-7000-volunteers-net-more-than-10-tonnes-of-waste-in-dubai-1.99987248) there we see “As many as 7,327 volunteers from diverse backgrounds collected 10.5 tonnes of waste in Dubai on Saturday as part of the nationwide ‘Clean UAE’ campaign led by the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG)” that is an amazing goal, especially in such a hot environment as the UAE.

I am truly surprised, not merely regarding the amount of people on this, but the amount they still were able to clean. The video’s I saw were from way before this and as such I never noticed. I saw over a dozen walkthrough videos and none of them showed that much rubbish, not even close to the amount cleaned up. As such I am surprised, not merely to the amount of volunteers and to the amount of cleaning achieved, but as I personally see it, it takes national pride for so many people to pick up the hoe, rake and shovel and collect that much rubbish. 

I honestly didn’t think something like this could surprise me, but it did and I reckon I am not alone here. Aren’t you pleasantly surprised by this?

Enjoy the day, Tuesday just started for me. Time to snore.

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December 18, 2023 · 10:22

Commonwealth Internet Intelligence

This is the call, it is a simple one. In this I believe it should have started well over a year ago, but that is just me. Perhaps it has already started, but I wouldn’t know that. The setting started with an image

There was also a text. The text was that a Russian Troll was able to shutdown an Ukrainian information channel on YouTube. Interesting how Google wasn’t able to disseminate information. Yet this opened up a new need. 

The Commonwealth needs to set a rather large collection system. It needs to collect all relevant data from all relevant social media sources on who is spreading what. And there is no freedom of speech, when you tally towards terrorist organisations you become the problem. Another source (Newsweek) gives us ‘Russia Loses 37 Artillery Systems, 1,250 Troops and 19 Tanks in a Day: Kyiv’ (at https://www.newsweek.com/russia-artillery-systems-casualty-count-tanks-avdiivka-ukraine-1853110) that news is less than 12 hours old. The losses in Russia are adding up to something surpassing the total of losses from WW2 (German and allied) and the losses in tanks surpass the total tank stock of several NATO nations. Russia is about to get desperate and internet lies are cheap. As such the Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and United Kingdom) will need to keep tabs on what is being spread. When you consider the abilities of a software solution like Trollrensics and the modelling setting of Palantir you should be able to get a lot more aggregated intelligence. Those who cannot afford Palantir could look at IBM modeller. A setting that has now become essential. You see, from disinformation comes the setting of lone wolves and that is the next step that Russia will rely on and that chaos will hamper any nation, as such there needs to be a clear data collection  and the laws need to be equally adjusted, so that some 17 year old idiot cannot hide behind “I wanted to look cool”. Siding with terrorism needs to come at a price and as we want to reduce their rights (I believe it to be a valid option) we need to collect that data to make sense of it all. It remains a tall order in light of troll farms and identity theft, but a longer term data collection setting should allow us to see the true data and make sense of it all. You see, we get that some people accidentally or not get one message wrong, but to get a whole range wrong is a much larger problem and I reckon that Russia could be relying on lone wolves from mid 2024 onwards. They are already (according to some sources) pushing expats and now that their losses include the purchase of 346,000 body bags (from start until now) that setting becomes even more an issue. The 135,000 new conscriptions doesn’t even come close to what they need, especially as their deployment and resources are dwindling down to alarming rates as well. You can see this in whatever way you want, yet the setting is that the 20th largest army brought the second largest army to their knees and even if tougher times are ahead. Even when US support falls on its knees, the setting does become that Russia will need to rely on lone wolves and misinformation making the needs for a CII essential. I reckon that a player like GCHQ will hoist the banners on how it should be run, but the other nations need to get on board fast. The US is not much of an ally in all this and the Commonwealth better get ready when the others are all about the talk and not much about actions. The fact that YouTube (read: Google) was unable to see the truth behind Russian trolls is further evidence still in the need for additional social media data collection. 

Think of this what you will, but in your heart I believe you know that I am right, or at least not entirely incorrect. I see that there is a chasm between the two, any critical thinker would see that.

Enjoy the start of a new week.

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