November 4, 2023 · 22:16

Voice of the Peoples Republic

It is not a voice we hear often, most times we try to ignore that voice on a multitudes of given premises that are by some account unverified. We merely accepted it and for the most we see the Tiananmen square image. We were all lulled into a state of denial and sleepiness. Now I am not stating that the pavements of President Xi are innocent, that is not the case I am going for. Consider that well over a dozen communities in the America’s are now extinct, all due to the greed of the Vatican. How do YOU see the Vatican? That is a serious question and you should ponder it. You see, some of this surfaces when we consider the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67305453) giving us ‘China and Australia: Frenemies who need each other’, I get the premise, yet this premise is incorrect for us. You see, as far as I know China has never engaged in hostilities with either Australia or New Zealand. We are also not at war with them. We merely boastingly push them away because of America. The article gives us “In recent years Australia and China have accused each other over human rights violations and perceived threats to national security. Public perceptions of the other side are more negative than they have ever been. But when it comes to trade, they cannot afford to let go of each other. At the peak of their trading relationship in 2020, almost half of Australia’s exports went to China.” It is true, we (Australia) do need China. America has less an less options to fund whatever they overspend. For China Australia (optionally New Zealand too) is a path setting a trade and commerce setting with the entire Commonwealth, with Canada optionally abstaining due to the borders of America. But that gives them Australia, New Zealand, India, Bangladesh, Bahamas, Jamaica, and in the end the United Kingdom and optionally Tuvalu. Tuvalu sounds like a joke, but the moment China gets to place a base there, Hawaii becomes an interesting setting. A place where the USA is no longer safe and it impacts most of the Pacific Oceans strategic area. 

The article is also giving us “Sure enough, a string of Chinese tariffs and restrictions followed on an estimated $20bn (£16.4bn) worth of Australian goods. Among the many products affected were barley, beef, wine, coal, timber and lobster. “Basically the Chinese government was sending a message. They were unhappy with the Australian government and decided to use economic coercion to make that point,” Professor Golley added.” Getting back to that, did we ever see a complete document on the origin of Covid-19? We saw that the media whore itself to all the digital dollars we can get, we saw some of the accusations, but were we ever presented a clear version of what actually happened? Preferably from an independent source? We have acted or presumed acting against China for the longest of times, but it is time to disregard certain media, disregard certain politicians (US politicians) and start listening to what we (in a national sense) need to get ahead. The fintech people made that abundantly clear and most of them are on Wall Street. Then we get something that gives me a question mark. We are given “He reminded Australians that trade with China was worth more than with Japan, the US and South Korea combined. Clearly, normalising relations between what he called “two highly complementary economies” would be a priority for his government. Whether China’s so-called economic coercion was successful is doubtful. Australia is still openly critical of Beijing on several fronts – but there is no question that Australian businesses and workers took a hit because of China’s trade restrictions.” The first is that America is becoming a liability. As its economic value decreases, so does the voice it holds and lets be clear America has used its own version of coercion for the longest of times. Its defence apparatus, the hardware we were ‘allowed’ to obtain and that list goes on. There is a question on economic-coercion from China, I am not saying it isn’t (or wasn’t) happening. I am stating that as the media has remained silent on too many sides, it is also the least reliable one. It is the cross that players like the Sydney Morning Herald (and other Australian papers) will have to carry. There is truth that China needs Australia, I reckon it needs New Zealand too. In all this BRICS will win and America will lose more and more ‘allies’, the economy has pushed for that part. I reckon that once the they acquire a clear business setting with the United Kingdom, the settings for Margrethe Vestager (EU commissioner) will change a lot. Her digital age will change from a field of dreams into a harsh pitfall as EU members will side with the UK hoping to salvage whatever they can, the EU will soon thereafter collapse, it is on the brink of failure right now. The EU had in March a total debt exceeding $14,689,200,000,000. So how long until more banks will have to pull the plug? I gave you all part of this in ‘The finality of French freedom’ which I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/17/the-finality-of-french-freedom/) on March 17th 2017. I saw the dangers SIX YEARS AGO. I compared the EU economy kept in place by 4 anchors, with the UK gone it would be three anchors. So the moment China gets the setting to woe the Commonwealth to the BRICS organisation, the EU anchors will collapse. I even mentioned that that economy cannot be maintained with two anchors and I believe that France will buckle before Germany will. The greed and gravy train embellished economy will not support itself when the gravy train collapses, these politicians will side with whatever pays their food stamps and America has none left at present. So yes, we might call China a frenemy, which sounds clever. Yet where is the evidence? We see a mention of coercion, but is it not the customer who is allowed to decide WHERE to buy? Were trade agreements broken? It might be, I merely do not know and the media is not properly informing us. This BBC article is good, it gave us more questions then answers and that is not a bad thing. The issues for a place like America is that the straws are now escaping their grasp and with each iteration we see BRICS gaining strength. It alas means that Russia will be in a stronger position and I reckon that for Chine, for them to win the long term gain they will need to remove Russia out of the equation. Russia is seeing that and is trying to set up more partnerships. But the overall picture with the players is somewhat clear. America and Russia fought so long that the sum of them is now less than the total power of
China and it is now fuelled with Middle East trillions, the one player that had all the cash was shunned and rejected on ego driven factors by America, how stupid was that and I have warned about that stupidity for well over a year. 

How is your weekend going?

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November 3, 2023 · 22:50

Weeds in the reeds

That is not a term you are too familiar with, but in the old days (really old days) it became important to clean the reeds of all weeds. Weeds take the nourishment away from the reeds. It seems trivial but when a farmer had to live from a one acre field the impact of weeds becomes irritating and almost damaging. It is that setting that gets us to the Guardian who gives us ‘Microsoft accused of damaging Guardian’s reputation with AI-generated poll’ The article (at https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/31/microsoft-accused-of-damaging-guardians-reputation-with-ai-generated-poll) gives us “Microsoft’s news aggregation service published the automated poll next to a Guardian story about the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old water polo coach who was found dead with serious head injuries at a school in Sydney last week.” In my personal view it is a populist setting by a desperate joke (Microsoft). 

Take a moment
You see, AI does not exist that is the first thing you need to realise. We do not have the technology to have AI at present. I believe in 10 years we will be able to do so. IBM has two elements that are still in their infancy. The quantum computer and shallow circuits are still not up to speed, but these two essential parts are missing everywhere. I stated before “Machine Learning and Deeper Machine Learning” are two elements and they are awesome, but they are not AI. 

The second stage is that whatever Microsoft has, it is lacking data, they don’t have enough and their data is not clean. To be stupid and tasteless to give us a poll with the three options “murder, accident or suicide”, so whatever idiot (at Microsoft) playing spokesperson with the lamest of all excuses “We have deactivated Microsoft-generated polls for all news articles and we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content. A poll should not have appeared alongside an article of this nature, and we are taking steps to help prevent this kind of error from reoccurring in the future.”

Stage Three
Stage three is painfully obvious. You see the two missing parts of any poll we see tends to be ‘Don’t know’ and ‘no opinion’, but that doesn’t fit the populist agenda of Microsoft. It wants to rock, rule and conquer and it is done emulating generals like Cadorna, Pillow, Haig, Ludendorff, McClellan and fear not, Microsoft has plenty of stupid people ready to emulate whatever they need to make their ego’s shine at the expense of everyone else.  

The second part is that any poll is set to a hypotheses and the data once verified will result in top-line numbers. The hypotheses is based on insight and whatever Microsoft has can’t do that. In addition any poll needs to be overlooked and optionally revised. This is pretty much 101 in market research. Microsoft ignored it all, just like they ignore all the usual culprits and they care only for the bottom line. That is one of the clear results that this poll gives you. So, whatever idiot was linked to “we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content” should not be in any IT business. This should never have happened. All the issues state that their was no proper testing, no proper oversight BEFORE publishing and those hiding behind “better to ask forgiveness then ask permission” will merely assist bringing Microsoft down (and that is fine by me).
And consider that in one swoop they also diminished Microsoft Start, which is about to make it market failure number eight. To lose market share to all these competitor eight times over. How long until the core subscriptions will also lose market share. Google and Adobe are ready to take over. In one article some time ago I made mention on how Adobe could set a much larger stage. A stage where Microsoft will only have Excel to rely upon. So how do you think they will maintain their $198,300,000,000 (2022) annual revenue when they lose fight after fight being short sighted and overlooking the obvious? I will let you ponder that but the results and evidence is showing up in more and more places. So how long until others figure out that Microsoft is pretty much the paper tiger we see, we admire the origami skills that were required to fold it, but we forget that any origami can be crushed with the hand of a child. The one obvious setting overlooked by all and especially people listening to Microsoft Marketing who will claim it is the prettiest and it has the sharpest claws of all the tigers in the world. Yet in the end a small child can crush it, not entirely unlike what Nintendo with its Switch did to the Xbox series X. Once you see that spin you will realise the parts I saw appear on the edge of my eyesight 3 years ago and I have written about it often enough. So when Adobe and Google make a partnership and we see that evolve Microsoft with its Office, its Office365, the connected outages, the Exchange server security holes and we can go on for some time. It is (as I personally see it) a diversifying screw-up of the highest kind and now that players like Adobe, Amazon, Google and IBM have their ducks in a row, they can start taking over Microsoft marketshare. This will not happen overnight, but before December 2026 Microsoft will be what we call an empty egg, all shell and no substance. That was the larger danger that they opened to everyone else and I reckon that a player like India will see their own indie developers take the first bites out of what was once a great company. They merely left it (as I personally see it) to greed driven executives, their biggest mistake. So when I made reference with  the chihuahua stating “try Azure, Azure smells nice” I wasn’t kidding. We saw (a few months ago) “Microsoft’s Azure revenue is at least 25% lower than our previous estimates”, so was this fraudulent reporting (like the stuff Sam Bankman-Fried is found guilty of) or was this Microsoft ignoring the system missing part, something any market researcher knows from the get go (see Stage three). Your guess is as good as mine, but a drop of 25% is not a rounding error, it also gives me consideration why Microsoft was so desperate to partner up with Oracle. But Oracle has no master, it can optionally partner with Adobe, IBM and Google too. What it does show (to me at least) is that the Sybase engine that Microsoft bought in 1989 (I think) is no longer hacking it. It was once a contender, now it is down 25% and lagging massively behind Amazon. 

Just like the weeds in the reeds, to be an eight time loser takes a particularly creative kind of stupid. But that is just me. 

Enjoy Friday, the weekend and its 48 hour span are upon us.

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November 2, 2023 · 08:47

The flag of me and my parents

The Khaleej Times stopped me in my tracks today. There was nothing critical about it, no reference to Gaza, no reference to British anti-semitism, it was a simple story of pride. The article (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/dubai-over-200-items-in-uae-flag-colours-sold-in-supermarkets-as-nov-3-draws-close) gives us ‘Over 200 items in UAE flag colours sold in supermarkets as Nov 3 draws close’. I have seen these events before. Queens day/Kings day in the Netherlands April 30th, National Day of Sweden on June 6th, The Queen’s birthday on 21 April (United Kingdom) and I have seen how people tend to react in very positive ways. As such I took notice of the fact that we see “The spirit of patriotism is taking over Dubai yet again, as Flag Day (November 3) draws closer. The vibrant hues of red, green, white and black have taken over souqs, supermarkets, and grocery stores in the city” gave me pause to smile. I reckon that with all the achievements in the UAE, including two astronauts namely Sultan Al Neyadi and Hazza alMansouri that nation has a lot to be proud of. Tallest building, biggest growth, consistent growing economy and even an Olympic gold medal in 2004 by Ahmed Al-Maktoum. They might not have competed in any Winter Olympics yet, but I reckon that this is no longer of the table. The fact that Saudi athlete Fayik Abdi is the first to do this is an indication that he will soon no longer be alone. As a little comparison consider that Fayik is now 44th on the Men’s giant slalom. The 44th position belongs to a citizen of Saudi Arabia, ahead of people from Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. 

The fact that the UAE competed in the 2023 IIHF World Championship Division II is a decent indication that more is to come, as such the UAE has plenty to be proud of. We all (those who have been to Dubai) will buy a T-shirt like below and a hat, but that tends to be as far that we as tourists take it. 

There are plenty of other options and I have seen how nations take pride in their country and for me it was always nice to see how other nations did this. I have been through Australia Day with a hat and beer stubby, two things I would never have bought in other conditions, but on Australia Day? Absolutely. 

We all have these moments, but if you travel, or on vacation, take a look how other nations celebrate it and see if you can add one or two items to your souvenir range.

I for one now know that the UAE celebrates November 3rd which is on a Friday this year. I wonder what other things I will see on the YouTube walk around tours for Dubai that day. It would be nice to see people go enthusiastically nuts over their own nation. We see the Dutch go absolutely orange on April 30th, they even have a special orange bitter that sells out on that day. We all have our points of celebrating our roots. Some have Canada day and worship a syrup tree, America has its 4th of July. We all have our moments, but the larger fun part is not the commercialisation, it is seeing the pride that people take in their own nation. And when you see how people take pride, are you on par with your own nation, are you more or are you less devoted to your nation and your nation of origin? 

Simple questions, but the answer tends to be less simple. We all have that and we all adhere to certain values, even if they are hidden under our skin. 

Enjoy the day.

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November 1, 2023 · 11:54

is their governmental fence broken?

That was the first question I had when I saw the events in Dagestan evolve. The BBC Article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67269477) gives us ‘How social media fuelled antisemitic violence in Dagestan, Russia’, yet that is merely one symptom. You see, we might accept “At the designated time, hundreds of young men arrived at the airport, overwhelming security guards. They made their way onto the runway; some even got on to the roof.” I believe that is less than half the truth. I believe that Russia has OK’ed anti semitism and could be fuelling it. Their war is going south fart and they need new scapegoats. Israel fills that bill for them.

We are given “We also found other local Telegram chats sharing similar antisemitic rhetoric and calling for violence.” I believe that the FSB (Federal Security Service) has been told to stand down.

Consider the following video (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-odGhIBoCXA) the fact that such a mob got through and no actions were taken by the FSB (or at least a mere minimum) is concerning for two sides. The accusations by Russia are a joke. The fact that western powers would have such an impact on the FSB and the Russian army implies that there is no Russia left. The larger picture is that it is seemingly clear that the Kremlin is now relying on populist agenda’s to take views away from the Ukrainian – Russian events. In his (translated) words he is now siding with Palestine. The second part is seen with “its posts provided detailed instructions for those gathering at the airport, including forming a crowd to block the exit when passengers arriving from Israel left the plane” this implies (no proven) that airport officials are involved. The FSB and the army did not intervene. A mob got complete access to the airport and of course criminals and drug dealers got access too, and a simple way to walk out. The Telegram messages implies more than mere anti semitism, it implies government steering as the FSB would have had access too and they did not intervene. 

As such I wonder what comes next, because if Russia starts supporting Hamas, the setting for a much larger war stage with several added players. The other side is that by these acts they get access to all kinds of pro Palestinian lone wolves. 

In the UK alone that implies added dangers from thousands of lone wolves and Russia would love that. Then there are the lone wolves that ‘grace’ America and with one attack Russia has gained eager recruits in the Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and United States. One action achieved that, as such tactically a brilliant operation, for the west a lot less so. The problem is that this will set a new breach between left and right and makes socialist parties nothing more than communist tools and after the gutting of intelligence operations all over the Commonwealth, I reckon that they aren’t ready for what comes next and I believe that was exactly what Russia have been waiting for, A smoking gun that they could exploit without it slamming back on them.

So, I wonder what happens when these socialists learn they were played by some top people for reasons they do not understand. I wonder what happens when they see again and again the simple truth “An apology is no defense” and they are prosecuted for acting for hostile states. These people when they are Palestinians will see their residency revoked. It is all good until you sign up for living in a war zone, because that is the reality that some protesters (the non no-violence protesters) will face in London, Toronto, Sydney and all over the USA. That is the stage we face and it is up to the political powers to make decisions, because they just unleashed the setting where they could be bothered by hundreds of lone wolves for years to come.

Enjoy today.

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October 30, 2023 · 23:00

Behind door number two

That article arrived a mere hour ago and had me on edge. It came from Reuters. The title ‘Graphic pro-Israel ads make their way into children’s video games’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/graphic-pro-israel-ads-make-their-way-into-childrens-video-games-2023-10-30/) looks to me, a little bit like a hatchet job. 

The quote that does it is “The puzzle game on his Android phone had been interrupted by a video showing Hamas militants, terrified Israeli families and blurred graphic footage. Over a black screen, a message from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the first grader: “WE WILL MAKE SURE THAT THOSE WHO HARM US PAY A HEAVY PRICE.”” You see, if you know you know. But for those who don’t lets educate you in this matter, there is no blame to you, you might never have considered these parts.

We know that Angry Birds was the game and I feel that this is not on them. What does bother me is “Spokesperson Lotta Backlund did not provide details on which of its “dozen or so ad partners” had supplied it with the ad.” The fact that the ad partner pushed this through Android and possible iOS too. So who was the culprit? We are also given “Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ head of digital, David Saranga, confirmed that the video was a government-promoted ad but said he had “no idea” how it ended up inside various games.” It makes sense that this was Israeli government and I am willing to believe that they didn’t push it through, but the ad partners could, someone laced this to get a negative spin going. You might not push this to a game, but this game has at present 263 million monthly users, as such up to a quarter of a billion people are being made aware. Now, all things being equal this means that the ad partner that pushed the ad is important to colour and classify this culprit. If only to learn whether this was a mere short sighted salesperson (these ads cost money) and these salespeople like their coin, or was this something more? I cannot tell. To give this kind of visibility to any political song requires a few issues and I get that a person like Lotta Backlund wants to play nice with all parties and she is likely seeking answers too, I get that.

You see an advertisement is made, a project is created, the advertisements are added, that project gets vetted and then pushed online and set against a budget. As such two parts of that stream were either ignored, diverted or altered. Whomever created the project is one, whomever vetted the project (on the game, android and/or iOS) side is the other. If it is only android it might be the same person, but I doubt it. Behind door number two is a new setting, one too many people did not worry about. Even when we ignore all the emotions games are exploited for advertisements and now they are ore and more likely show a message that should not be placed on children. In their defence there are plenty of Adults who like Angry Birds too, so there is that issue but until we get who pushed the advertisement campaign has that project, and as such it tells us how widespread this campaign went. To how many people, in what countries and optionally we get even more personalised data on the who were shown the advertisement. 

The budget will tell us how much interest was given to the project. Without that we cannot see the optional damage created. Yet that part is equally important, this might be the first event we see, but it will not be the last. The moment more and more people learn that THEIR political game can be pushed into a game, the more radical players will show up on the radar and that amounts to  really bad news for governments trying to limit the damage, yet with the populist agenda’s out there, there would be added desire to push messages to games. 

It is still the day before Halloween. So here is a little dark humour.

Question: What is red, in a corner and shrinking?
Answer: A toddler with a cheese grater.

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October 30, 2023 · 22:29

Out of two issues

I am confronted with 2 issues. The first one passed my eyes a few days ago. It came from Arab News (at https://arab.news/946db) where we are given ‘Saudi authorities seize 3.8 million amphetamine tablets in Riyadh’. This is the second event in a year and my doubts are increasing. Not on the Saudi government. What drug dealer ships in one go enough tablets to make over 10% of a population an addict? Weirdly apart from having no knowledge in this, the little knowledge I have comes from a video game named Elite. There we could ‘smuggle’ decently safe 2% of the cargo as narcotics. As such you could ‘decently’ safe smuggle up to 500Kg in a 20 ton carbo haul. There is another matter. This is either done by a really stupid Saudi (with a lot more money than common sense) or this is something else. I personally belief that this is something else. We see the ‘market’ value, but the people with other interests will merely have the manufacturing costs as an expense. 

You see, if this was a real exercise, it would have made sense to merely smuggle 0.1% of that haul per shipping and it would most likely go right, as such I personally feel that these people were always going to get caught, especially in a nation like Saudi Arabia, a nation with zero tolerance towards narcotics. 

Then the quote “Eleven defendants involved in these activities were arrested. They include seven residents of Syrian nationality, one resident of Nepalese nationality, and three citizens in Makkah, Riyadh, Qassim, Hail and Al-Jawf.” My personal belief is that a government hostile to Saudi Arabia is trying to make Saudi Arabia look bad. This might account for the 7 Syrians and one Nepalese. At that point I wonder how the remaining three were EXACTLY involved. Consider that this is a highly volatile situation. Would YOU trust foreigners to make you run such a risk on you? This is not about foreigners, but lets face it, Saudi’s are for all the right reasons not the most trusting in the world and I expect that the Nepalese person might not be Islamic. Too many red flags are going up and I cannot shake them. 

I wonder what deep investigations with something like Palantir Gotham (if it is still called that) would uncover. My thoughts go towards the manufacturer, 3.8 million tablets is (according to some) set to a manufacturing cost of $3 per tablet. So someone handed over $12 million with a 99% certainty to get caught. It does not make sense, $12,000,000 leaves a trail. There is close to no way that it remains invisible, as such Palantir Gotham is one solution to get somewhere. The reason for thinking in this direction is that this is the second catch within a year. Someone has too much money and someone else acquired a lot of money, way more than some hauls. The largest bust in America was a year ago and involved a little over 650,000 pills. That in a nation with over 300,000,000 people makes ‘sense’, still it was a lot, so to see over 600% in a nation with only 10% of that population makes absolutely no sense at all to me. So, I am in a setting where I believe that someone is out there making Saudi Arabia look bad. I have no idea who, or why. My blinkers make me think the only direct (former) enemy is Iran, but that has no foundation in evidence of any kind, merely a gut feeling. But someone was willing to spend well over 10 million twice over to get that done, it is more than I will ever make in a lifetime (unless Amazon, Kingdom Holdings or Tencent Technologies buys my IP). And all this is based on the purity being average, if these pills were more pure, the price tag changes a lot. 

Enjoy the day before Halloween.

 

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October 29, 2023 · 17:07

The students of Mediocrates

This is the setting I found myself in. Early this morning (0r late last night) I wrote ‘War never Changes’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/10/29/war-never-changes/). It was several hours after that when I got a message from JB-Hifi who was flogging the Microsoft laptop ‘Surface Laptop Studio 2’ and I decided to search on some reviews. I knew nothing of this device and soon enough I understood why. The Verge gives us ‘Surface Laptop Studio 2 review: this could be so much more’ with the byline “Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Studio 2 has new chips, a new touchpad, and a very, very high price tag”, the review was given to the people on October 4th (world animal day no less) and there we see “there’s the biggest problem for the Surface at this price, which is that its battery life is not anywhere near what Apple can offer. I only averaged four hours and 19 minutes of continuous use out of this device with Battery Saver on” as such this battery is a lot less then what the MacBook Air gave us in 2020, the new MacBook Air is even better. More importantly it loses 7 out of 8 tests against the MacBook Air with a M2 processor. I was horrified that it took Microsoft 47% longer to export 4K video. That is nothing less than a joke. The larger issue isn’t this, it is that Intel just announced its “Meteor Lake” CPU generation, and we expect to see those laptops roll out around December. I have no idea how Microsoft stacks up against that puppy, but I fear the worst for Microsoft.

You see, we get that not every laptop is a given for everyone, I am fine with that. Yet to rely on an I7 processor implies you need a sturdy battery to begin with and that one is missing from the get go.

This is the larger setting of Microsoft, wanting to be in a race merely to compete, never to win it. They lost 6 times over already and they are losing more. How much longer before the Microsoft sycophants give up on the brand? Microsoft always had competitors (Asus, Apple, Dell, HP) and now Intel is in a position to surpass them as well. That is the problem with Microsoft, they aren’t in it to win it. They can claim whatever they want, yet when you get “Unfortunately, the Studio 2’s benchmark scores were underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong: it’s certainly an improvement over the OG Studio. Whether exporting in Premiere or running Tomb Raider, it is faster. But these are far from the best numbers you’ll see among premium workstations today.” To be labelled underwhelming is a problem. They shouted for the longest time that their console was the most powerful in the world and within 2 years it was surpassed by the weakest console of them all (Nintendo Switch) and I am about to hand 50 million potential customers (in phase one) to another vendor (preferably Amazon).

Microsoft is now the favourite corporation to end up with the wooden spoon (dead last in a race). They lost against so many (see previous article for names) and now we see that Intel and Tencent Technologies are potential better players too.
It puts Microsoft on a sliding scale of revenue. It needs to get $4 billion in interest alone on current loans and when their so called mountain of revenue dwindles down because they are losing too many places where they are in the top 2 it becomes awkward and disappointing on several levels. This is the setting I spoke about yesterday and some still call me delusional. Not to worry, the facts are out there and the Verge (at https://www.theverge.com/23900932/microsoft-surface-laptop-studio-2-2023-intel-review) added to the hardship of Microsoft. 

When you get quotes like “right now is a particularly not-great time to be buying a horrendously expensive 13th Gen laptop” especially when the 14th gen laptops are being released next month before Christmas. Then we get “the current Surface Laptop Studio is an okay convertible. For its price, it should be more than that”, as I see it it is Mediocrates all over again. He was the man famous for “Meh, good enough” and in IT that just doesn’t hold the mustard. If there is an upside then it would be the design and the screen. All these parts that I saw looked pretty spectacular. But does that warrant the $3,499.99 price-tag? I personally don’t believe so, but others might feel differently on that. It seemingly has more options to connect and that is good, but as stated lacks a full SD slot. That is an issue I had with the Lenovo Chromebook 5 years ago, but that thing was $349, for $3K more I expect better and the lack of a full slot tends to have other issues when working in laptop mode, but I will agree that could merely be me.

So on Sunday I learn that Microsoft still worships Mediocrates, not a good setting to be in, not at all.

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October 29, 2023 · 00:05

War never changes

I was about to look into something that bothered me in Saudi Arabia when news hit me. That news stopped me in my tracks. You see it is 15 years ago today that Bethesda launched Fallout 3. I had never forgotten about that game, I even missed it to some degree. Fallout 3 after Oblivion was a massive step forward and together they were the start of Skyrim. As Bethesda became a Microsoft subsidiary, Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration became lost to them and I started to push that game in parts towards public domain. But there was one part that was never part of this. The introduction and Fallout 3 reminded me on how important the introduction was. The entire introduction is seen in Vault 101. A simple but strong setting to get you into the game, to start the narrative and to give away a clue or two. I had forgotten about that part, I had forgotten on the importance of a start. In Dune (the book) the beginning is given to us as “A beginning is the time for the most delicate care that the balances are correct.” In the 1984 movie we hear “A beginning is a very delicate time” both are correct. I had never forgotten either, but I see that I overlooked parts of that. I didn’t in the movie I create ‘How to assassinate a politician’ or the TV series ‘Keno Diastima’ in both those settings the introduction is the start and the beginning are the connected prequels. There I have that space, in gaming you do not. In Restoration the game in the very beginning reflects back to Oblivion, a game too often overlooked. Bethesda did a really good job (until they became part of Microsoft). 

As such there were solutions. As a separate game it becomes a different puppy and that had be going. The entire setting is no longer on the elder scrolls list, as a separate game you need to set a different schooling and I did a dissimilar introduction, but now it becomes a much larger station. So what happens when we create not one, but three introductions? When we create introductions for the choices made we get a new gaming setting. We create a smaller infusion of longevity and that is the first step to LTG (Long Term Gaming) that is the stuff that streamers (Amazon, Tencent Technologies) require. Streaming relies on at least 2-3 LTG games and Microsoft has two, when we take those options away by creating a real LTG, we get a new setting, we deprive Microsoft of revenue, something they desperately need after spending $69,000,000,000. Soon they will be haemorrhaging all over the place and denied revenue is one, the other I keep for later. Those two will push Microsoft over the edge and I am driven to that because they invaded our safe gaming space by pushing THEIR needs on all gamers at the expense of everyone else. That angered me, they did nothing wrong in the legal sense, but they did in the spiritual sense and when Tencent technologies and Indies programming for them get that IP (as I am making it public domain) the Game pass loses value, especially as they denied certain games to be there in year one. The greedy will be served, that is what I always believed and now I am making it a reality. And as Microsoft seemingly invested $13,000,000,000 in genAI there shores are stacking up and a few more bad news (like missed revenue and less customers) will set their doomsday clock to 0:01, which works well for me in this case. As I said once before, I will hand my IP to Saudi Arabia for 35% of the value, before I will let Microsoft near it for 165% of that value and making a lot of it public domain works well for me, I might not get a dime of that, but Microsoft cannot make exclusive IP claims when it was published and that is the part everyone forgets about. You see “Software patents for computer-implemented inventions are treated as typical patent applications and must pass the same tests of novelty and inventiveness.” You see, when something is on the internet or a blog, it fails the novelty test. Microsoft will have to share space and cannot claim anything. I open the space for indie developers and they can go wherever they want to go and with thousands of indie developers in China, Tencent technologies will have an advantage and that mean more trouble for Microsoft.

They were warned, but they were eager to ignore everyone to the request of their board of directors. In the end they lose 5 times over. Apple took the tablet, Amazon the Web systems (AWS), Sony took the console, Tencent technologies is about to take streaming services (GaaS) and Google is biting into their office revenue (not as much as I hoped, but still). Bleeding on 5 sides and I will (hopefully) add two points of pressure. In the end their $82 billion investment will come up short. Yes GenAI is all the rage, but it needs a pedestal to grow from and that pedestal is vanishing fast. I wonder which banks will buckle first. Wall Street is at present obsessed with AI, but soon they will realise that this setting needs a platform top start from and the Microsoft platform is waning that much is a given all over. I wonder how long they will be able to keep the spin up. At some point these banks want evidence and if FTX is anything to go by, a lot of banks are starting to get worried, not in the least by my speculated weights of banks with too much US treasury bonds. We see the news on how 10-year treasury  bonds are a green light, but are they really? When that goose sparks a lot of people will be without savings and I fear that that moment is not too far away, giving more added pressure for Microsoft to perform. Consider that the ‘investments’ requires them to make AT LEAST 4 billion just to pay for the interest. Now consider that the media gives us that they made 198.3 billion USD, you would think that this is a no brainer and I would agree. Now consider that they lost 5 times over (6 if you include Bing) to competitors. They are still making some money, but the numbers aren’t adding up. Bing currently has a market share of 3.02%, which is nothing. There are too many cost issues that are not registering as I personally see it. So when we look at the whole picture, they are seemingly bleeding all over and the numbers cause me to show question marks. So am I wrong? I could be, but Microsoft has become too big, everyone is shouting against Amazon and Google, but they stay silent against Microsoft and they just got a new bigger player. 

War never changes the premise is sound, but you win the war by changing the stage the other one is stepping on, or you diffuse its support systems and the others all forgot one thing, the population is a support system in this war and Tencent Technologies is about to come into this field, Amazon had options for several years. They squandered it on I know not what. Now Tencent Technologies optionally with Huawei will get a larger stage to work from, all whilst the Microsoft stage is shrinking. As the middle East turned to China, Microsoft lost even more and that is what too many are trying to be in denial of. I wonder what Microsoft loses by the start of 2024, it will be something but I have no idea what they will lose at present. 

Enjoy the weekend.

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October 28, 2023 · 07:56

Escalations

This happens, things escalate. It is not always the intent, it is not always predicted, but it happens. I just saw one of the largest escalation events in a while unfold. It basically started with the attack on The Nova Festival in the Negev desert in southern Israel. A group of approximately 50 Hamas gunmen arrived in vans and sprayed gunfire in all directions. There were mention of paragliders and some YouTube videos seem to show just that. And whilst some news agencies report that at least 260 bodies from the party grounds. It becomes one of the deadliest concerts in history. It starts the offensive by Israel on the West Bank. I remember Rafah, I have personally seen it and I reckon that this is not a good place to be. The West bank becomes an exploding tinder and whilst we see all the media and all Humanitarian wannabe’s shout cease fire issues. They are all eager to step over a concert and the impact it has. We hear of rapes and kidnaps from eye witnesses, but the western media isn’t giving it too much attention. We are all given the impact of. Hospital and we see accusations from both sides. I cannot tell who is speaking the truth and who is making false accusations, the media is no longer the most reliable source, so who is?

I honestly cannot tell at this point. What I saw in 1982 versus what is now feels like my year with the United Nations Security Council was a waste of time. I don’t regret going there, I don’t regret the decision, I merely hoped it would have ended more positively.

Now we see the larger escalation. After all the hundreds of missile strikes, one got through and hit a building in Tel Aviv. So whilst Hamas is hiding in a mountain of Palestinians we see that the Palestinians is hiding Hamas and now Israel has had more then enough, the impact in Tel Aviv will fuel a lot of actions and it will fuel escalations. The Israeli people have faced inactions all over  Europe in 1933-1939 and they are no longer accepting that. Al Jazeera reports ‘Israel-Hamas war live: Israeli ground forces ‘expanding operations’ in Gaza’ we see “The General Assembly has overwhelmingly adopted the non-binding resolution, 120 votes for, 14 against, and 45 abstentions” towards some humanitarian truce, but the Nova Festival in Negev makes that almost impossible and now that there was one successful strike on Tel Aviv, that truce becomes a delusional air castle. Palestinians allowed for Hamas to take the lead, Hamas hid between the people and now that there is no more hiding a lot of Palestinians will get hurt in the process. The attack on October 7th 2023 was a desperate act by Palestine to stop the normalisation between the state of Israel and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and this is the result. I reckon that within a week another 10% of all buildings will have been reduced to rubble. An official mention was given 22 hours ago. We are given that the total death toll is 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 minors, according to the ministry. I believe that this number will double soon enough, all through an attack on a music festival. We are also given that Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip on 7 October, killing more than 1,400 people and taking more than 220 hostages. The 260 dead people at the music festival was merely the beginning, even as Hamas is now ‘hiding’ behind 220 hostages it seemingly is not stopping the IDF, thy now want blood and the one successful hit on a building in Tel Aviv is fuelling them along as well. The BBC reports that the Israeli military has massed tens of thousands of soldiers along the territory’s perimeter fence, along with tanks and artillery. It has activated some 300,000 reservists, alongside its standing force of 160,000. That group will face Hamas with about 25,000 people in its military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. As I see it, Hamas is facing a war machine in a place with no fuel and no electricity. It is facing a fight where rockets have little impact and ammunition will run out soon thereafter. No matter how many ammunition they have, it will be limited to the people who can carry it, their deployment options is most likely to be obsolete within 8 hours of that event. 

As I personally see it, Hamas will have ended Palestinian existence in the West Bank, no matter how they phrase it, the bulk of Palestinians are most likely to be dead before Halloween. As Hamas hides within the population, Israel will see both as a valid military target and the Nova festival gave them that option. I cannot tell how valid it is, Hamas has ben hiding within the Palestinian population for decades and the population led that happen, they will now be caught in the middle. There is no setting of fair, there merely is a military setting. Ghazi Hamad can run out of whatever interview he wants to, the consequence that no one is willing to give him a pedestal to make claims from, is gone now, unless he takes the next plane to Moscow. Hugo Bachega asked the hard question and Hamas had no answer, their footing is washing away on nearly evert front they once had. As I personally see it, the most stupid of all actions was to attack a music festival loaded with civilians, there is no coming back from that and the Tel Aviv strike will be making it worse soon enough.

Enjoy the weekend if possible, it might actually be a lot worse in some places soon enough.

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October 27, 2023 · 08:45

The added chapter

In continuation of yesterday’s part. I did more mulling (or brooding) on the setting of the case file. If you consider that the case file is a collection of three mini games, the first thing I considered that three did not make the cut, so I came up with two more mini games. That led me to two considerations. The first was on the setting of ‘evidence’ the second was on progression.

Danger One
The first danger was that you get too much of a “then I went there, then I did this then I saw that”. I need to consider another path. Almost like a diary, but with changing premisses. 

Even as we adhere to some setting we can start with the date, the action and the location can be programmable. As such, we get more than a dozen versions of the first element which contains the action and location. From there we get (as illustrated) 4 versions as a start that describes the event we ‘just played’. That part is set with actions and clues. The clues (hints we uncovered) are set to text parts and these elements make up for a chapter in the case file. The problem here is not that it is too detailed, it becomes what elements are required. On the other hand, if I set the larger wheels in motion, the re-engineer will solve the setting. 

Complication One
The 4 versions are the four versions of the text, it might be that ChatGPT can ‘solve’ it all making the solution easier to get up to two dozen versions and that is ‘painted’ with the writer style that is selected. So that every case-file has a different artsy approach resembling the thriller and espionage greats of the past. 

It is rather invigorating, trying to engineer a new solution from scratch. With the IP I made it was somewhat simple, now that I am getting to the nitty gritty part of the bottom layer, I need to set a different premise. The original solution that had 3 64KB mini games now becomes a lot more connecting. Each mini-game will not merely be larger, it will also give us more properties and more parameters to consider, to implement and to keep on the side to make the story work (or make it more of a story). 

From there I will need to consider the elements to make it a framework. As such it is not a framework, but a setting to create a framework for each case file. When I get that I avoid replication to a larger degree making it much more long term, or at least longer term. You see the case file is merely one side of the appeal. The cases need to have the appeal for the whole game to remain interesting, not a connection of repeated actions. The idea to enhance the original was for me a trigger to create a better game, the case file was merely an extra. Yet the idea to make it a way to connect your gaming to any other mobile solution (for the case file) will add to the larger interest for gamers and that could also be set to enhancing the gamer profiles of gamers (if the gamer desires). There are still several parts to dig into. The first is to let the gamer set the connections and data collectors in place. That gave me a few ideas to enhance the game further. The second was to set the game in a ’24 hour’ setting. 

Consider this example. Even as we see that action one and action two are interchangeable in the beginning, the setting past the second timeframes is that we could see different information in time frame three. When we add to the fact that action one and action two gives us different data we get a different and larger frame to work with, yet I also believe that any upside needs to receive a downside. We get on one side, but we are through that way denied other intelligence to work with (sorry for sounding cryptic). It becomes an altering frame within the game and now we get a new premise. We can create cases with altering time constraints. It adds to the dimensions of gaming enthusiasm. Adding the two ‘mini games’ was’t the challenge, it was how t fit it into the frame for players. Getting the introduction levels to get the first two ‘tools’ to teach the players what to do, then we get the ‘main tool’ and in the second intro mission we add one tool and in the third mission we add the second tool and after that the real missions start giving me a lot more challenges to upgrade the game from what was into what could be, but that is for soon enough.

Enjoy the day.

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