Tag Archives: Adobe

October 9, 2024 · 23:48

Personal perception

It is always funny to see greed and stupidity in one compact package. In this instance I am introducing you to the American department of Justice. The one that will not prosecute Microsoft, the one that hands their economy to China and the one that throws away whatever economic options they have. Hobbled by ego trippers without a clue, chastised by a failing religion, one nation under the league of flaccid atheists. 

Is that clarity enough? In comes the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62504lv00do) giving us ‘Google threatened with being broken up by US’ where we see “The US government is considering seeking the break-up of the world’s biggest search engine, Google, which it accuses of causing “pernicious harms” to Americans.” Really? The US government is accusing Google of “irreparable harm done through evil or insidious corrupting or undermining”? Who is the idiot making that accusation? Lets have a rundown

It was founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. They released Google search and they were clever they had the IP properly patented. Two clever dudes designed something that Microsoft never considered. Microsoft who was licking the rear end of the CFO’s of the fortune 500 were outsmarted by two students who gave people a system they needed, they handed system the people needed. So in this daytime and age, who would you rather appeal to? 500 persons who think they know it all, or a few million who are happy to be grateful? One implies money, the other gives you clusters of happy workers. In 2010 they improved the search engine making it twice as fast. At that point they had the cornerstone of modern telecom electronics. And  that is when 4G came out. And Google became the power player it is today. The story is a little more complex but this is the gist of it. The power player who proclaimed to be innovating were surpassed by two students who actually were innovative. Apple took the option of letting the innovators be and offered their technology for a large payout. 

There is more to all this, but the lowdown is that innovators recognise other innovators (YouTube) and they came up with Google Ads and in all that time the so called innovators (Microsoft) couldn’t even get close to what Google designed. They failed to offer a decent search engine (Bing) and they had nothing to offer against Google Ads (Microsoft Advertising) they failed 4 times over. And now we get stakeholders to push for breaking up Google. So let’s see how stupid that is.

In 2019 Huawei created HarmonyOS. In 5 years it created a decently worthy opponent to Android. It is now available in 77 languages. Last year it created HarmonyOS NEXT. It allows several smart devices to talk to one another. We can speculate that Harmony OS NEXT is more than a worthy opponent to Google. It will allow Huawei to hand the people in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East with mobile solutions that will be happily accepted in the houses there. That is what the DoJ is achieving. And this is not the first time they are interfering where they seemingly have little knowledge. And for me it could open another door (yay me). 

All this matters because Huawei Harmony OS NEXT will enable seamless interactions among a wide array of device forms, from earphones and automobile head units to smart TVs and mobile phones. Google does this with the devices they have, but until now they had no real competitor, Microsoft was too soft and not enough micro and beside that they are spread too thin. Now that the DoJ is seemingly planning to break up Google Huawei gets a nice clean playing field to promote their brand outside the USA and with that America loses more and more market share. So whatever deceitful claim America makes They are about to be sliced and diced in the mobile industry by Huawei, TikTok (ByteDance) for video and on the electronic field by Tencent. Three companies that have real innovators and the one innovator that needs the space to continue their work is hobbled by “If the DOJ pushes ahead with the proposed remedies – and they are accepted by the judge in the case – it would represent arguably the biggest regulatory intervention in the history of big tech” which hands a clear victory to Chinese entrepreneurs. How silly they are.

As I see it, they are about to lose seven times over with the losses they have and looking at timeline of the innovators, the stakeholders as I personally see it are handing Chinese companies massive victories and I reckon that those ‘siding’ with America will change sides to the Chinese corporations before the ink dries of whatever bankrupt statement America gives the world and with the 35 trillion dollars they have less then 4 years to avoid that and I have no idea what happens to whatever Wall Street will side with. This is my personal perception of what is about to happen. Many will say that I will be wrong and I could be, but there is too much data siding with me and whilst these stakeholders get politicians to side with the need to line their pockets America keeps on losing more and more. 

In 2022, Saudi Arabia signed $4 billion worth of arms agreements with China, including deals for armed drones, ballistic missiles. In 2024 it has grown to $50 billion. This is partially important as I wrote on the 21st of February 2021 ‘How to miss out on $20,000,000,000’ And I was wrong, I stand corrected. Their revenue grew to $50 billion a mere three years later. I saw it coming a mile away and now it is happening. And the DoJ is making it worse. As I see it Google, Adobe, IBM and Oracle are the last of the real innovators and the DoJ is about to hobble one of these four, it will soon be that bad. 

As such, is my perception wrong? It might be, but my presumption has been a lot more correct than it has been wrong. No matter how you view it the entire Google mess is being mishandled (as I personally see it) pretty much from the beginning. 

And now America gives the option for a much larger win to Huawei Technologies. It will not impact  America, but Google is very likely to lose market share on several fronts. There is a much larger loss if Huawei would include TikTok on every Huawei mobile. Should these mobiles come with HarmonyOS NEXT the damage would increase and with their multi sharable sides Apple revenue would also be impacted as well as a loss of revenue to all kinds of accessories. These losses of revenue will hit Apple as well as Google. As I see it a simple creation of imbalance by people who (by my reckoning) have no clue on the internet of things. What a lovely present ego makes for others.

Enjoy the coming day.

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January 30, 2024 · 00:57

The Apple conundrum

Yup, it is a mystery and honestly I do not get it. Now lets be clear they haven’t done anything wrong. But a few cogs started grinding after an article in the Guardian. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/11/apple-macbook-pro-m3-review-beloved-laptop-is-back-in-black-battery-screen) was placed last year, on December 11th. There we see the new MacBook Pro and it is a beauty, especially when you have been exposed to silver editions for about a decade, that jet black is a black diamond, nothing less. It isn’t cheap, but the Apple M3 Max chip with 16‑core CPU, 40‑core GPU and 16‑core Neural Engine can be upgraded to 128GB RAM (I would select the 64GB RAM for sentimental reasons) and can be upgraded with 8TB storage, a little much to my liking, so I would chose the 4TB edition. I wrote some time ago about an Apple/Adobe deal and Apple should consider it for the configuration I am ‘considering’. You see vloggers either go big or they can go home. The market is that way and too many are working below par. They either strap up or become irrelevant and the MacBook pro could allow for that. But that is not why this article is here. You see, Apple has another stallion in its stables

The old iMac’s were not my thing (I had the G4, G5), the old iMac didn’t do it for me, this one is a beauty and for vloggers the workstation to have, or is it? You see the iMac can only have 24GB of RAM, which is enough for the bulk of all vloggers, but the limit of 2TB is not. I have no idea why Apple didn’t allow for the upgrade to 4TB. Now, with the vlogging groups and medium format digital camera’s (at 100MP), having 4TB makes perfect sense. Why don’t the people at Apple see that? Doing the Microsoft path with extra external drives doesn’t hold the mustard. And this is not a time setting, the MacBook Pro is out for a while now, that means that in addition to that, Apple had 3-8 months to mull things over. So why wasn’t this done? The iMac is gorgeous, as such any vlogger would love many hours behind their workstation with that 24” screen making their videos look absolutely perfect. And yes, to get that level of result Adobe is pretty much a minimum requirement. Nothing against the GoPro and its software, which (as far as I have seen it) is pretty good, but today’s vlogger needs to edit and past basic options the only real player here (with no competition) is Adobe. 

All this is pretty much basic information out in the open, am I the only one seeing that? Consider that 2TB is a lot, but it already needed the operating software, other software (whatever you also need it for) and 100GB for the complete Adobe suite (as far as I can tell), now at this point you will see that 2TB is enough. However, 4K vloggers need 45GB per hour, as such you require the max of that iMac within a year and then you better clean up fast and much of it. This is why the 4TB is enough and gives you enough time. Consider one project, 2 hours, editing space that is quickly amounting to 200GB space, so 5 of these and the first TB is gone. Space gets lost pretty quick and those salespeople relying on you keeping your space clean have never considered the creative mind. This is why the 4TB matters and the MacBook Pro does that (even more then needed), so why wasn’t the iMac offered that option at present? I get that it might not have been an option when it released, but now? And consider that this requirement was clearly visible for almost a year. The lack of space doesn’t make sense to me. Should that person rely on medium format digital camera’s that space gets lost even faster. Consider that this could allow for PSD files up to 2GB (their Maximum), consider that a photoshoot could be anything between 50-300 images making this a 600GB nightmare and nightmare is the right word. You see any pro photographer has 1-2 photoshoots a day and managing system space is not their highest priority, making the Apple stance even less comprehensible (to me at least).

I see a lack of interactions, a lack of outreach to the photographer environment (a slight assumption) and in all this Apple is coming up short. What frightens me is that I expect these shortcomings from Microsoft, to see them from Apple is a little bewildering. But that could be me.

Enjoy your day.

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November 30, 2023 · 02:23

Memories

We all have them. And for a lot of us it goes back to almost simpler times and we miss them. As such I was hit by them when I got to the page (at https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-xp-wallpaper-takes-spot-on-microsofts-new-ugly-sweater) with the appealing title ‘Microsoft’s 2023 ugly sweater lets you wear the famous Windows XP wallpaper’ I had to read it. You see, I was never aware that they had an ugly sweater and one could say that it is so ugly, it is actually cool again.

That is not me. You see, the Bliss image takes me back to 2004. Things were simpler then and to be honest, I have never known a negative day with my XP, not with Office, not with the Adobe suite. In those days things actually worked correctly. Yes, they screwed it up with Vista, but that is the nature of the beast. 

I was set in a stage of things working, Microsoft not being evil (or more accurately not being stupid). Bliss and XP took me back to the good times and that matters to a lot of people, we all revere the good times we had (or have). The really odd part is that for the bulk of all people, the good times is in the past, in some cases the distant past. 

As such, whomever brought life to this idea at Microsoft has earned a raise. To be honest I did not expect Microsoft to ever surprise me, but they did. And for all the good times reporting they are giving the world with expectations being surpassed. Lets not forget that they just spend well over $65,000,000,000 on a setting that has given them a few issues. One voice gives us “Bethesda tried to make a brand new game concept/idea using old ideas and an old game engine. It just didn’t work. Even modders will have a hard time because the game engine is one of the biggest problems and modders can only work within the limitations of the engine”, you think it is the big tamale, but it is not. You see, most people will overlook the fact that fixing the game is seemingly in the hand of modders. So, when did you rely on your price turkey being fixed by a third party? Add to that the redfall fiasco and you have the making of a problem and the beginning of what I would consider a fiasco. We see all kinds of news on exclusive games coming in 2024, but the larger setting is already that the games they have so far just aren’t adding up. You see I do not care about the Xbox, I dumped mine. What is important that Sony games were better because Microsoft was on their heels, now that the PlayStation has an overwhelming advantage, they might not go all out on the PS6 (whenever that one comes). Good gaming is where it is at and that is why I have been handing over gaming IP to the independent developers (as long as they were not releasing on Xbox). Simple, Microsoft bought it all, now they can prove they actually have it all and have good gaming solutions WITHOUT my IP, they paid enough for it, so now prove it.

In the end this started with the sweater, because that showed us our memories for better and simpler times. It matters to me because the Xbox360 was awesome. Now we see that the Xbox One and the two iterations after that, they are nowhere near what they had. They might claim they have the most powerful console in the world, but the Nintendo Switch being the weakest of them all had much better sales results. It is that bad for Microsoft. We see the mention that Azure is doing better, but what we aren’t told is the simple fact that Oracle saved their bacon. Bing currently has a market share of 3.02% or Microsoft has failed to pick up even 3% of market share in its 10 years of selling Surface PCs. A mere 11% against the 39% that Apple has with the iPad, a superior system. We can argue on how it will come (not ever likely), ore can see that consider that Microsoft is the De Ponzi solution to tech schemes (a I personally see it). Buying more and more and when it does collapse (still set for December 2026) this all falls away. I reckon that late 2025 people will start to realise how dangerous Microsoft has become and I reckon that a early indication will be that Azure users will move towards the AWS flock. It is a speculative view but I believe that I will be proven correct in a years time. The fact that Microsoft is either in denial or refuses to see this is up for debate. But the surprise was the ugly sweater, that win they deserved and according to some sources is almost sold out, so they have that going for them. So what revenue was theirs? And how much revenue are they not getting from their Surface Pro, their Xbox, their Bing and their Azure? That is merely four sides where they never got any decent traction. So what happens when a Google/Adobe partnership impedes on their Office and Office365 setting? How far from home will they be then? Their Office solution is keeping them afloat. For the most their Excel is doing all the heavy lifting. Their Outlook showed issues in the last 24 hours. So when others come calling with solutions that actually work Microsoft will have a a lot more problems and no sweater will save them then. 

Believe me, don’t believe me. It is up to you, but when you start looking at multiple reliable sources the puzzle becomes a reality and it is not a pretty picture, no bliss in sight.

Enjoy the day.

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November 19, 2023 · 16:56

Right in front of you

We all have this at times and sometimes it doesn’t even apply to us. We sometimes see the setting and we see the elements, but it takes something more to connect the parts. It can be timing, it can be the past, it can be budgets, there are a whole range of settings and they could all optionally apply. 

As such I was looking at the MacBook Pro. Not for any massive applicable reason, I am quite happy with my own laptop edition (and I am roughly 99.9% missing for the $6,799.00 acquisition). And this was not about the money (the article that is). You see, we all have budget constraints and   choices to make, but at this point as Thanksgiving is merely days away and soon we get Saint Nicholas (Netherlands and Belgium) and Christmas an opportunity opens up for both Apple and Adobe.

You see, most of you might have seen the offer below 

Yet the setting is that plenty cannot apply for that offer (the are no longer, or never were students) and a larger stage comes into play. What if Apple makes a deal that whomever buys a MacBook Pro before the end of the January 2024 (Just to offer a timeline) get in addition a Creative Cloud subscription for 2 years. Time to get adjusted to what Adobe can do, people who want to improve their needs for vlogging and all kind of self presentation will have the best tool at their disposal. Suddenly the need and the contemplation of a MacBook Pro becomes a much larger need. When you can avoid up to $2,500 in Adobe fees, that MacBook Pro becomes a whole lot more appealing. In addition to that after two years people will start to see the benefit of what Adobe brings to the table. One year is not enough, two years could do the trick for both Apple and Adobe. Lets face it, they are well established, but in the holiday season that stage is under duress and to give any customer the best of both worlds tends to be the self fulfilling prophecy any day of the week.

So was this something that was right in front of anyone? The same could be said for the MacBook Pro and a GoPro, but many will have a decent, optionally overkill option in the camera on their mobile phones, as such the connection Apple and Adobe seems more apt for many people. I have been looking at the settings and I was a little surprised that these two had not made such arrangements weeks ago, in that way they optionally had thanksgiving as well in both Canada and  America. So, was that right in front of you? It might not have been and plenty of people aren’t contemplating the MacBook Pro at present, but with all the noise on becoming the next Google partner, or TikTok diva that sets a stage. There are at present 1.1 million TikTok creators and that group is growing rapidly, as such the new players will either go big or go home. I do not always agree with that greed driven term, but in this case you either offer a lot more or you get overlooked. The stage is Youtube is not completely the same. They have 60.2 million creators, there the stage is becoming more and more that either they upgrade or lose people. There are still a fair share of newbies in that regiment, but not as much or as loud as the TikTok community. 

All elements that that I personally believe Apple could and should have considered many weeks ago, but that could be me. 

I will let you sort it out and if you go this path, see what you need and make a proper budget of what YOU can afford. It is wrong to steer anyone into a path they CANNOT afford, my intent is making an optional solution more affordable and the link Apple-Adobe does that. To be honest, unless you have aspirations into Photoshop or Premiere Pro there might not be a reason to go the way of the MacBook Pro, I get that. Still this solution is taring me in the face and it could be for a lot of people a match made in heaven, but that could merely be my view on the matter.

As such Apple (and Adobe) time to wake up, my weekend is still 7.1 hours active and I seem to more awake than they are (optionally a delusional statement).

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November 9, 2023 · 17:07

The dark mark

We all have it, a dark mark. For some it is jealousy, for some it is envy and I have one dripping with creativity. You see dark marks aren’t always set to the seven deadly sins, or are in any way connected to them. OK, there tends to be a connection to lust and desire whenever we act. There is also the claim some make that our actions tend to be induced by lust, pride and/or vanity. And I get that, but what happens when it is not the seven deadly sins? What happens when the push is a simple mere exercise of creativity?

That is where I found myself this morning. I am currently rewatching NCIS and during season 7 which is on right now I (my mind) suddenly redesigned a new kind of gun, one that makes nearly all forms of ballistics useless. A form that redesigns a new kind of barrel and when an element is changed, merely one element, most of the ballistic tests fall through the floor and make them obsolete and optionally redundant. 

Is this a good thing? I don’t think so, but the larger setting wasn’t to give the law a hard time, it was about the simple setting that any test can be overruled and overwritten. Even as I come up with a new idea ballistic tests will be upgraded. Yet in the mean time defence attorneys all over the world (where common law is in place) will have a new handle to include enough to create reasonable doubt. All these issues are a simple consequence through the vitriolic well that others pushed me into and now my mind becomes a mind forever voyaging and through that more and more creativity is released. First there was the idea to create a new way to meltdown a nuclear reactor and all I had to create this idea was a simple snow globe. As I also saw the issues with deployment and hiding the solution, I designed a new kind of valve and I also created a new spray paint canister, one that can alter colour on the spot. I described the foundation of that in ‘After a fact to begin a fact’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/16/after-a-fact-to-begin-a-fact/). A simple solution I never saw in the shops, but these solutions would have multiple applications and now I have created a new solution to upset ballistic tests. 

The larger station is not why I did it. At times I cannot control my creativity. I considered a new way for a tracking system (a highly flawed one), but it was a solution I never considered before. Then I had the nuclear solution, which was to stop Iran, but over time I figured it could possibly  work on the Russian systems too. Then I had some ideas on cyber protection for flying equipment of the airforce. Some of them might have been solutions that DARPA considered and rejected for whatever valid reason I am unaware of. 

The idea I believe that is in play is an image I added to ‘IP Intoxication’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/05/27/ip-intoxicating/). As I place it, where I am now is beyond the edge of what is, because as I see it, that is where innovation lies and that is (a personal believe) is where too many big-tech companies are not willing to be. You see, it is much easier to iterate and market that as innovation and I personally believe that is where Microsoft is and that is why they lost battles eight times over to Sony, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Huawei, Adobe and Google. It sounds harsh, but that is where it all is. the setting of the next tech-war will be who has the most innovative ideas. And all that time Microsoft is delusional even to itself. You do not lose eight times over unless there is a massively wrong point of view in place and that is why I will not allow them near my IP. 

But this is not about Microsoft, it is about my dark mark. I know I have it because if I didn’t have a dark mark, the ballistic solution would never have come to mind. And even as I was delusional myself at some point (making claim that Me vs DARPA was 3-0) the larger setting was that I personally believed it was a reality. But there is also the simple fact that an idea is no guarantee to a working solution. I get that, but it is time to watch a little more NCIS so that I can watch season 20 tomorrow (I will skip 12 seasons and rewatch those after I saw season 20). 

All in all I wonder what I will come up tomorrow, hopefully a new idea for a new game which would make it not a dark mark element.

One day away from Friday, hip hip hurrah.

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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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July 31, 2023 · 23:09

A wild side to creativity

To get to this point, I need to take you on a little tour into my (optionally devious) mind. In the mid to late 80’s I had an idea. An idea any horny man in his twenties will have. In this setting (I was an amateur photographer) I was talking to Claudia Schiffer, convincing her to pose for me naked for one picture. We would then edit the image to show the bikini she would pose for and that one picture would ensure hundreds of bikini shots and she would get a royalty for every photograph produced. Yes, you laugh now, but in those days Photoshop was merely a whisper, the editing options we now take for granted did not even exist in those days. It was a slightly delusional idea and guess what, it never happened (big surprise). That was the premise that happened a long time ago, decades even. Today I had another daydream, I dozed off and I lost a competition, my consolation price was taking a picture of Mischa Barton (no idea how she got into the mix), she was wearing a very transparent top (extremely transparent) and I had to make a handbag picture. So I had her hold it in front of her face, her arms hid the nipples and the byline was ‘I do not use my face to promote a product’. You are laughing now, but there is a lot more to this. You see, in the early 90’s I tested a product from Macromedia called Director. 

The product had things that were beyond imagination (in those days). That image is needed, as it sets the stage for the now. You see when we consider that old program, it had options for presentations that many have forgotten about. What was the case is that you could set a stage, complete with people and objects and it would get us the setting like below (now in full 3d).

The 3d model optionally starts naked, but can be dressed like a barbie, we add the elements, accessories, the lights and the image starts to shape. The rectangle is what the camera sees and when we are happy a 24 bit image is created from scratch. You think this is a joke, it is not. Consider that there are 75,000,000 professional photographers in the world, the amateur photographer group is at least 4 times bigger, so we now have an optional population that is closer to half a billion. Consider that a photo model costs $200 upwards to $15000 an hour, and it does not need to include people, there are plenty of photographers that go for food, cars, luxury items and now we get a entirely new stage. It is not merely the photographer. It becomes a prototyping scene for what some call AI (which does not yet exist), but the deeper machine learning systems rely on data and now we have a system that offers creation whilst that data feeds the learning machines, and besides that, it becomes a 24 bit photographic prototyping system, something that doesn’t even exist at present. All these students can work deep into the night without worrying about the $200 an hour taximeter called the photo model. I think that this all escalated when I was thumped to death by these ‘free slot machine’ advertisements. We all think it is a scam, but this seems to be about free slots and that makes no sense, unless an operator like Las Vegas wants to test a prototype new slot machines and tweak it to be the most efficient one until it is release to the money feeding audience in Las Vegas. A free slot machine system makes a lot more sense now, does it not? You can feed the revenue beast all you like, but until you find the angle that does not cost you money, optionally making you money in the process the endeavour is nothing more than a money pit. And in comes the hungry gamers who will never go to Las Vegas in the first place, now there is an optional need. 

Director was a brilliant idea, especially in an age when certain graphical options were not available (neither was computing power) and it set a new tone. It also gave us a new direction to consider and even as Director was a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia and managed by Adobe Systems until its discontinuation ten years ago, it was a great idea in an age when there was nothing. It is now surpassed, but I do not think that the concept should be forgotten. For this we could look at the 1991 comedy ‘Others peoples money’ with Danny deVito. It was about the New England Wire & Cable Company and how one man’s need for greed takes it to the slaughter. The nice evolution was that the lawyer (Penelope Ann Miller) searches for a solution and finds it in a Japanese automaker that wants to hire New England Wire & Cable to manufacture stainless steel wire cloth for making automobile airbags, something which will make the company profitable again on a new expanding industrial product.  That is where we are, finding alternative uses for good products because Director was that. I merely wonder if anyone considered making it a two sided solution one one side a photographic prototyping tool, on the other side a system to teach deeper machine learning solutions a way to learn graphical sides to an artsy problem, one that requires containers loads of data, if not a load more than that. 

Well that was my Monday being creative, have a nice day.

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June 24, 2023 · 10:11

Path of a slippery slope

We all have that at times and this time it is me on that slippery slope. You see I made reference to the loss that Facebook would be facing, and yesterday I decided to dig deeper into that. You see, I have nothing against Facebook (or Meta), I am not after their channels. Yet my new design will give a larger stage and it will cost Facebook 10%-15% (a rough estimate), I doubt it will go beyond that, and if it does, it will not be for many years. Still according to the numbers I am finding (2022), that would mean a loss of $11-$17 billion to Facebook and there is no other side to that. It will not become my revenue (the revenue of my IP). It will trickle down to me to a small degree at some point and I was contemplating how I could enlarge that trickle effect. But I am deciding against it, because it will impact the bottom line which implies that the negative effect is a lot larger than the positive effect. And as I was looking deeper, I saw that the other branch has additional positive effects. Not more money (perhaps over time), but it sets the stage that the revenue of stage one will be met quicker, which is absolutely good. It is the third branch that has a few items, no negative sides, but I have been looking into getting a more positive impact, positive revenue stream sided. Still there is time for that and perhaps as the third branch is executed, more options become available. In the first I am looking into the option of the Tomes that are connected. There is a stream coming there and it is positive, but there are no numbers, no numbers from any reliable source that would give me this stage to be considered quicker. 

As such there are more sides to consider, especially as Facebook is coming with its own Twitter, there is nothing realistic yet, but I have been considering on how this could be accessed. As Twitter is playing games, I see no real benefit at present, but Facebook has other goals and there more options could evolve. 

Still I am on a slippery slope. I was feeling content and safe when it was all about the IP, as such I am not focussing on the revenue streams (other then a return on investment). You see, here we get Microsoft (who is not allowed near my IP). They are a 5 time loser. The first was their Tablet approach (that Surface thingamajig), which is nowhere near Apple, not even a dent in their revenue stream. This was their first loss. Then they lost their cloud solution to Amazon (that bookshop) which is loss number two, then they lost the console war to both Sony and Nintendo. This beckons the laughter that the strongest console in the world lost to the weakest of them all. That gives us loss number three. They are losing market share to both Apple and Adobe in their core office setting which is loss number four and the streaming war they will definitely lose it to whomever ends up with my IP. And in addition to that, they will lose to Amazon for sure and they will lose to whatever Tencent Technology will bring and they are likely to lose to Apple Arcade (I do not know enough of that solution) as well. This makes Microsoft a loser five times over and as such the implosion of Microsoft is still on for 2026. Which after all those billions invested in keeping Sony smaller is just hilarious on many sides. These elements matter because it places my IP in a premium spot. The idea that I have the ammunition that boots Microsoft in the ass makes me happy, no matter how little I get for it. Still, I need to focus. You see, getting overly happy on one side is not good. I require a critical mind to consider what could be done in three stages.

The first is what I must have (Unreal Engine 5)
The second is what I should have (a clear population with a mission statement)
The third is nice to have (A Foxtrot Uniform to Microsoft and optional additional revenue streams to moi)

These three streams are always considered in the short term, medium term and long term. Americans hate long term, the often lack focus and vision. Yet the long term is always important. It matters towards whatever mission statement you cloak yourself in and how you present the solution. It matters a great deal. Only spreadsheet users focus on the next quarter, but it is not about the next year, it is about the next three years (at least) and that is how I saw that Amazon and Google were leaving billions on the floor (Google more than Amazon). It is a realisation on where one could be heading where the real profit is, because the bulk of all revenue seekers are focussed on the next quarter (where their bonus is). And because of that they leave larger revenue options untouched. Feel free to oppose me on that, but when you do, look at your boss and their bosses on where they are focussed on. It is always a next quarter stage and you tend to lose a lot of revenue that way. Even now we see all the tech companies and places like LinkedIn shedding hundreds of jobs, all whilst a place like LinkedIn had options, they had in their niche options to diversify and keep to their niche. Others are in a similar stage, and when we realise that, other can have a go at finding their option. You see when you the delimitation of a corporation (that next quarter thing) your options open up, not merely mine. All those willing to dream and design past a next quarter will have options they never considered before and that is when you see the meadow with lost revenues. A meadow that Microsoft, Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Meta, Salesforce, and several others. They are all shedding jobs and perhaps for them it is a valid setting, but that also means that they aren’t able to make critical adjustments when people are needed and that is where the visionary comes in. I was lucky that my IP started well before they shedded jobs. I was in a pristine place where no one was looking and I have that advantage now, an advantage that will not last. I get that. But for now they aren’t seeing what I am and with the tens of thousands of jobs gone, the manpower to seek around is also faltering for them (which is good for me). Still I know I am on a slippery slope. There are elements that I am most likely to overlook and I do not know which ones (because if I knew, I wouldn’t be overlooking them). 

Still it is a nice weekend for now, I will see what tomorrow brings. Time is not one element one tries to anticipate, it is too tiring an exercise and you tend to overlook more and more elements, they say a stitch in time saves nine, but for the most you tend to live on borrowed time instead of enjoying life and that is a big no no in my book.

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May 31, 2023 · 07:42

The Gimmick

Every game needs to have one and during the night I contemplated how much more important it is to have one when you are replaying a game. This was all set in motion when I was replaying an RPG (which one does not matter), as such to enjoy replayability the game is either massive or (I will say AND) it needs a gimmick. Not something that the game has, but a gimmick it can hand to you to make it yours. You see, we all have these recollections whilst playing a game and we sometimes make notes. Yet what happens when the game is intelligent enough to make YOU a notebook whilst in the game? Your journey is set to paper every time you play that game again? Not just text, but drawn illustrations of what YOU saw in the game? One drawing that is added with every day of playing and that text can be saved to a USB in PDF form? Literally no RPG game has this and you can print it at home, n a much better printer in the office or at university or something like that. The font will be some version of Dancing script, Caveat or Pacifico and that too changes every time you replay the game, with make and female versions, small changes that make it unique. As such you and your neighbour would get two very different versions of their notebook. A story that is a journal and is added to the game as you play with you deciding how social you want to be with that journey. No game has it and if Microsoft  or one of its houses copy this idea, you will see what a losers they are (internal LOL added). 

My main thought is why no one considered this. It isn’t a hard thought to have and I feel certain I am not the first to think it, but no one added this to their game (not in all the RPG games I ever played). So is this a fluke and the idea is bad? Consider all the notes you make on games you play. Now you have a journal that keeps track on your progress, and in the game I designed here (title: Generations) that step makes more sense. The added evolution your as a gamer face in the game would benefit even more. As such the next generation (in the game) would start book 2 and you create a chronicle. Even more when we add mapping to the equation. No matter how you see it, one gimmick is nice but not enough. So where is gimmick number two? Well, I have to sleep on that one, but if my mind can evolve one gimmick, it can do so again and as I evolve this game and leave it for designers and programmers to make a new unique RPG for Sony Playstation/Amazon Luna/Logitech G Cloud and optionally Nintendo Switch. Microsoft will then have a new problem. It also supports my setting with Microsoft getting the Wooden spoon for being dead last. Even though I though it would finish behind the Google Stadia, now we have Tencent in the mix and that could spell more disaster for Microsoft. There is nothing like a console and a game pass (which is a good product) to be left on the road as the others have no need for it. For that you need GOOD exclusive games and over the last few years Microsoft didn’t add any and Redfall is apparently seen by a lot (I never played it) as wasted hard-drive space, which would equally apply to cloud space.

I just had another idea, but more about that hopefully tomorrow. I need to mull a few things over for that. You see, I wrote about part of it (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/25/the-stage-of-commerce/) when I wrote ‘The stage of commerce’, but what happens when we have a select group of NPC that we can evolve? We could apply it to all, but the game would become too messy. What if some NPC’s become cogs in the commerce machine? What happens when we enable them to be more by OUR actions? Not just a shop having more cash, but some NPC’s that become more powerful as we enable them to get education or skills? We would enable a larger dynamic in the game. How? That is the part I am mulling over at present. Schooling and buying business (or upgrading it) is merely one side and I think more could be done. Yet the how is in my mind at present. I feel pretty proud. I added several sides to RPG gaming that do not exist at present, as such the new developer could really come to the game with a massive bat to wield. A good stage to be in I believe, but that is what every innovator believes, the believe that self will prevail, I am in that regard no exception. We all have a similar stage to see this.

Enjoy the day (it is almost the middle of the week).

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May 13, 2023 · 18:09

A weekend of revelations

Yup, this happens. However, before I go there, I need to take you on a little trip. It all started in January 2022. I set the design for a new Watchdogs game and I wrote about it in ‘Looky Looky’ which I published in February 2022 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/13/looky-looky/) it was the second time I made mention of it (I could not find the first one). Yet at times reality catches up with gaming. That much was clear when I saw ‘Google’s ‘translation glasses’ were actually at I/O 2023, and right in front of our eyes’ (at https://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-translation-glasses-were-actually-at-io-2023-and-right-in-front-of-our-eyes/), my gaming idea was ahead of reality by almost a year, which is not a bad marker to have. It also shows that I had a much better grasp of the IoT world than some proclaim I have (which is nice too). Here we are one step away from pictogram deciphering. So as we are given “unlike Google Glass, this new concept, which didn’t have a name at the time (and still doesn’t), demonstrated the practicality of digital overlays, promoting the idea of real-time language translation as you were conversing with another person.” The nice side effect is that my approach to Augmented Reality is now close to completion. Yes, Google might have the glasses, but I have at least three more options and they are all about to become Public Domain, which might not make me rich, but it shows I was right all along. In addition to this it will bump my other IP, as well as the 5G plus plans I had. Which is still wishful thinking, but with more and more of my early writings becoming reality, it shows I was on the right track all along.

The side effects are nothing to be sneered at. I get that, but a dozen greed driven fuckers poisoning the well aren’t nice either and I will turn all my IP public domain before I let some fat fuck come at me with the “let me help you matey”, that person has no idea what a ‘mate’ is, all greed driven, all bullet point driven and utterly clueless in nearly all IT manners.

So as we realise “Twelve months have passed and the popularity of AR has now been replaced by another acronym: AI, shifting most of Google and the tech industry’s focus more toward artificial intelligence and machine learning and further away from metaverses and, I guess, glasses that help you transcribe language in real time.” We see that at Google, there is an equal distorted sense. They might have mentioned AI 143 times as ZDNet counted, but AI is not real. AR on the other hand is here now and it could have much larger repercussions for retail and malls. I wrote about that a few times over and even as Gucci and partners are on track, a lot is not and that was the larger stage for Google. 144,000 malls with many well over 100 shops. And that was also the profit setting. Do once and distribute to well over 10,000 malls at a time. It does depend on the amount of malls a shop is in, but the message is clear. AR is the direct future and will have an evolution over a few other matters. 

The second revelation (for me) was given by something called the Verdict (at https://www.verdict.co.uk/sap-google-cloud-team-up/) there we see mention of SAP and Google teaming up. Unless you have larger BI involvement you might miss it. Yet the stage of these two working together is a much bigger hit then you think. With SAP Dashboard and Google statistics there is a new field growing and it is there for everyone, which is the start of decline for Microsoft. A company that is now the focal point of PHAAS, and as I saw today the howling laughter of people trying to install their Office365 only to learn that their subscription ended in 1968.

I initially thought it was a direct attack to a person I knew, but it is happening all over the place. Microsoft has serious issues and all whilst they are trying to acquire gaming firms for 68 billion more. Yes, that is the place to go! As such Google already had a clear advantage, but now with the SAP link all corporations that are above small businesses, Google will have something more to offer and SAP as well. A stage that was in the making and when Adobe joins that team the disaster moment for Microsoft is pretty much complete. I cannot tell how this unfolds, but the larger stage is Microsoft dropping the ball all over the place and now that we have Google and SAP picking it up, the losses for Microsoft will increase and within a year they will be massive and as such the small firms dumping Office365 and joining the Google family will pick up more and more. Now however it will not merely be Google, SAP solutions will be all over the place hindering IBM Watson growth as well. There was a large slice of the pie for whom IBM Watson was just too big, to cumbersome, but as I see it SAP has that under new management. And as IBM Watson goes, so do all the blue settings (Azure) that Microsoft was hoping for, it is almost pathetic how that translates into ‘wishful thinking of unrequited love’ (me howling with laughter now).

Yes this is quite the revelation weekend for me. I should consider another gaming IP for Amazon Luna and Sony. There is something rewarding to kicking a corporation when it is on its knees thinking it was too good for anyone else. The joy of being mean (not a synonym for average). 

Enjoy the weekend. I am, that much is a given today.

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