Tag Archives: Amazon

About that woman

Yup, the Amazon. And if you think we are talking about that woman in a tight leather bodice hiding perky breasts looking like a 30 something woman called Gal Gadot, you’d be wrong. We are talking about the other Amazon, the one with a wrinkly face selling books. A few articles hit me a few hours ago. The first one on the table (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyjjr7kzj2o) is the BBC, Fortune with its paywall was rejected) is the one we see first. It sets the tone with ‘Amazon to spend $11bn on satellite firm in growing Starlink rivalry’, now I accept and respect competition and the quote “Amazon is aiming to build-up its satellite business to offer internet and mobile phone services by spending $11.57bn (£8.5bn) on an acquisition of Globalstar. The deal, announced Tuesday, will allow Amazon to get thousands of satellites into low-earth orbit through the Amazon Leo project the company has been working on for several years.” But the added part starts making this setting a more desperate look, with “Amazon will be in closer competition with Starlink, an increasingly popular satellite-based internet and phone service company launched by Elon Musk in 2019. Starlink has a significant head-start on Amazon’s Leo, which currently only has around 200 satellites in orbit. Musk’s company, which is private, says it already has more than 10,000 active satellites offering internet and mobile phone service to more than 10 million paying customers.” Star link is already seeing head waves with the rejection by Canada and next Europe with the sabres rattling that President Trump is throwing in the air. The last words have not been spoken about that and as soon as Ursula von der Leyen is setting the tone of what the American Administration is accepted to get hearing of, this field will become a lot less profitable. But besides that, under the guise of AI (lets keep it real and call it fake AI) “As of January 2026, Amazon is cutting approximately 16,000 corporate roles to reduce bureaucracy and embrace AI, following a previous round of 14,000 job cuts in October.” We are already raising eye brows as that is setting too many people out into the cold and now they are playing with $11.57 billion to play with the competition they have no chance of catching up to? 200 makes no competitor out of 10,000 satellites and as I see it, Starlink is setting several amazing views, does Globalstar have anything to match it? Its like Microsoft with its 5% market share stating that it is time to replace Google, who has over 88% share. It is never going to happen and as I do not trust AI, I will still google things, no matter what some media claims people do and millions of people are on the same side that I am on. 

I reckon that $1 billion could have given these 30,000 people a job and that is before we take under consideration a few other things. Some say that a data centre has 3 to 5 years (source: Fortune) so how can you keep these data centers when the return on investment is at least 5 years out? These are the makings of a pot stew, one that usually is standing besides a few players playing some version of poker. It sounds like the consolation price for something no one needed, or at least that sounds to be the case. You see, this drive to data centers requires a population and as I see it Europeans are now actively rejecting Microsoft and everything that comes with it (like data capturing). So what gives? 

Then we get CNBC, who (at https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/09/amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-ai-spending.html) gives ‘Amazon CEO Jassy defends $200 billion AI spend: “We’re not going to be conservative”’ with some of the key points being “Amazon CEO Andy Jassy released his annual shareholder letter, where he once again made the case for huge investments in artificial intelligence. The company has said it expects to spend roughly $200 billion on capital expenditures this year, with the lion’s share going toward AI development. Jassy wrote that AI revenue in its cloud computing segment has hit a $15 billion annual run rate.” And here we expect a few things. You see, investing $200 dollar to get back $15 per year sounds stellar, but it also means that you are 13 years away from getting the original $200 back and now when it concerns billions, there is the matter of interest. Given that they might be drowning their revenue, there is no interest, but it is a large thing to take into account if it is the company handheld on the white that AI becomes real in the next 13 years. I think it is touch and go there, but still the second sized wave of technology will be massive. Once IBM releases the shallow circuit advantage they have, the will cost Amazon billions too, I have no idea what Google has on that term, but as I see out Amazon does not. So, as I see it, Amazon is paying poker with a bank of over $220 billion and the outcome is definitely a gamble and one of the highest order as well. So as CNBC gives us “Amazon shares have struggled so far this year as investors question the company’s aggressive AI spending plans and grow increasingly impatient about when the investments will pay off. Amazon shares closed up 5.6% on Thursday. The stock is up more than 1% year to date. Jassy has said that Amazon needs the capital to go after “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” and to keep pace with “very high demand” for the company’s AI compute.
I merely wonder if anyone has a clue what kind of a gamble Amazon is making, because that bill comes due and it comes due in a most unfashionable way. So whilst we look (and optionally gawk) at what is shown, can anyone see what about to happen? 

Then. We are ‘hit’ with the final setting and it is given to us (at https://nationaltoday.com/us/wa/seattle/news/2026/04/14/goldman-sachs-lowers-amazon-price-target-ahead-of-key-earnings/) where we see ‘Goldman Sachs Lowers Amazon Price Target Ahead of Earnings’, which is always going to happen, but the quote “Wall Street analysts see both opportunities and risks in Amazon’s AI-driven growth strategy.” The one side to look at this (an optionally wrong one) is that the added risk is downplaying the opportunity in the field here. That is beside the point, as I see it, that the added quote is merely filling with “Goldman Sachs has lowered its price target on Amazon stock to $275 from $280, while maintaining a Buy rating ahead of the company’s expected earnings report on April 30, 2026. The revision signals a broader shift in investor attention toward the key risks and opportunities shaping Amazon’s next phase, including the performance of Amazon Web Services, the impact of rising energy prices, the commercialization timeline for Amazon Leo, and the growth of Amazon’s advertising and marketing platform.” But what matters is “Amazon’s aggressive push into artificial intelligence through AWS has become a critical driver of the company’s growth, with AWS already reaching an annualized AI revenue run rate exceeding $15 billion. However, the heavy AI spending also comes with trade-offs, as Amazon is significantly increasing capital expenditures, which could pressure free cash flow in the near term. Investors are closely watching these developments to understand Amazon’s trajectory in 2026 and beyond.” As I see it, the risks are adding up and we are likely to see an addition of maturing trade-offs to make the screens, making investors jittery. Personally I don’t think that it is the “pressure of free cash flow”, I believe that there are several risks of Globalstar ignored and that will rear its ugly head soon enough, because at some point Starlink will boost their presence with requirements towards ‘space safety’ and whilst no one is expecting this, I reckon that Globalstar is not ready for those ‘demands’ and as such $11.52 down the toilet as they say, a risk that is (at present) undocumented, but that will raise the risk levels on a few levels, but what do I know. I am originally from tech support, not in any way connected to economic forecasting. 

A setting that gives us that in almost every way it is more appealing to watch Gal Gadot with perky breasts in a leather bodice than it is to look at the presumption of revenue by speculative economic forecasters of Amazon inc. But that might be my hormones talking and not my wallet, which has zero Amazon stock, so I am not listening to my wallet at present, who is eerily empty.

So you all have a great day and consider the risks you are facing today, if you are watching Gal Gadot, the risks are good, if your fortune is in Amazon, a little less so.

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With the coming of Linux

That is not entirely the truth, Linux has been here for some time but now France is going the way of Germany and Denmark, pushing Microsoft out of the door. I reckon that Microsoft played their cards too early and against the wishes of their audience. We cannot blame the Trump administration for everything, so as France goes. I reckon that Monaco will also dial down the Microsoft beast and not to forget Lichtenstein. It has deep roots with both France and Germany, as such there is every chance that they, labeled one of the world’s wealthiest countries, boasting a GDP per capita exceeding $200,000. Which is uncannily high. It has a specialized financial services industry and also has deep roots with Switzerland. So, there is a chance that this might also end the power of Microsoft in the land of cheeses (banks also). I don’t think that Microsoft will yield the field, Excel for its origins in Lotus 1-2-3 has become the power system to call home for many in the financial industry snd there is no way that others can dethrone Excel, but that is pretty much the only application that is sitting safely and pretty. 

TechCrunch gave us (at https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/10/france-to-ditch-windows-for-linux-to-reduce-reliance-on-us-tech/) the setting “The country said it plans to move some of its government computers currently running Windows to the open source operating system Linux to further reduce its reliance on U.S. technology.” It is high time that this happened, but it still might be done in time before all these data centers would be holding onto EU data, they’ll still hold a lot, but not everything and that is when the dollar value of Microsoft goes into decline. Brian Sozzi (Executive editor Yahoo Finance) gave us “Goldman Sachs analyst Gabriela Borges pinned the company’s 23% plunge this year to two factors in a new note on Monday. First, upward revisions to capital expenditures without commensurate upward revisions to Azure cloud sales. This resurfaced concerns about returns on investment and Azure’s competitive positioning against peers such as Amazon’s (AMZN) AWS.” I reckon that the hundreds of millions of users that Microsoft will lose in 2025 will add to that pain, but to what extent, I personally have no idea.

With the American Administration the way it is, that pain is only getting worse, because the bulk of the world does not like that this American administration can get access to any data server that is founded on American soil, even if these data centers are in Denmark (or France, or the EU), these people want out as fast as they can. And that is happening right now. I don’t think that all EU nations will leave, still the idea that Satya Nadella lost roughly 450,402,641 users will have to hurt his ego a tiny bit. And I reckon that the stock price of 370.87 will equally take a hit, as such the valuation of 2.75 trillion (aka 2,751 billion, or 2,751,000 million) will decrease. I have no idea how much it will decrease, but as I see it, the gaming section was hit harder then they expected and now we see other venues take the proverbial dive. That is before people realize that the 27% stake in OpenAI is also seeing some ‘hindrance’ and as they quite recently invested $13 billion in that field. All whilst OpenAI also had a deal with AWS for $50 billion, rumors are there that the Microsoft legal divisions are ready to get their shares back, but I have no idea how deep this is and how far along this is. But when we see this on top of the setting with Fractal Vision (aka DeepSeek with AI for a fraction of the cost OpenAI is heralding), it seems that when the dust settles, the chance of Microsoft seeing 2 trillion vanish like snow in a volcano is not entirely unrealistic. 

How deep this losses go is unknown to me, but you could optionally ask Jamie Dimon (phone: +1 212-270-6265) at JPMorgan Chase & Co. He would know better than me. Still, France is a new cog in this delayed revenue fading machine. And it has the option of dragging several nations with them and from there the losses merely increase. The old expression goes ‘It never rains when it pours’ and I reckon that Satya Nadella has never seen a version of Compound Troubles seen explode on his table and here I was thinking that Microsoft CT was about community training. Ah well, you learn something new every day.

Well, I have to stop now, because I am giggling slightly too intense to enjoy coffee at present. So you all have a great day and consider downloading LibreOffice, it is 245 MB, free and installs easily. Time for me to consider another setting in gaming later today.

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Creation and creativity

That is the setting I see. Someone ‘alerted’ readers that Israel will be preparing for a ‘forever war’ and that might apply to some extent. They reacted poorly to Iran, but not all in all unexpected. Israel was under attack for the longest time of my life either direct, or indirect by Iran. So their setting makes sense to me. But in that same setting a new door is opening up for the UAE. They get the option to open the door of creation and creativity is where the bucks come. You see, if my setting of the United States make sense, America is about to become hindered by its own arrogance and their new reality of ‘we can no longer play that game’, but in that same sense of one, the other setting also becomes clear. 

So I will take a step back and lead you through that setting. Arabic is spoken in most of the Islamic nations and in that setting we get: 

Which gets us a population of more than a billion and we still have all of the gulf states to get through. These are merely the top 6 and as I see it, it will be soon that the population of the United States will no longer be able to service them. A billion in Business Intelligence and all the dollars that combine them (as well as the Gulf States) and it is business right there for the picking up. So whilst we get IBM and their statistics, Oracle and their databases, Oracle Database provides extensive support for the Arabic language through its National Language Support (NLS) architecture, which handles character sets, sorting, and cultural conventions. But that setting might lose ground support from the United States, now combine that with Business Intelligence, the training of these people and the support from other regions is now getting close to a freewill and adjusting regional support (like Tourism) gets a new lease on life. Combine this with the settings that NICE (an Israeli customer care solution) gives the world, we see settings that might (might is still the operational preferred word) to a population of well over a billion and for the UAE and its near unique position would be able to service this setting to these nations and other too. And as things go from services, the education there might also be in a near free-fall as we see that the United States will lose more and more handle as their services fall short. The UAE could be one of the first to pick up the shortfall and takeover of these elements. As such the UAE comes out stronger and now we see an acquired setting where others might not be ready to take over the elements that were in hands of the United States for the longest of times. But as its settings fall short, they will make knee-jerk reaction to hold on to so many things and more and more service will fall free into the air. A perfect opportunity for the business sense of the Emirati people. 

When you get to think of this, you might think that the United States would hold on to this, but when the first services started to fumble, a lot more comes clear for a free-fall. The AFR gave us (on Tuesday) ‘Jamie Dimon is counting the straws that will break the market’s back’, Forbes is giving us “Every April, Jamie Dimon publishes his annual letter to JPMorganChase shareholders, and every April, the financial press spends a week dissecting his views on the economy, geopolitics, and regulatory reform. Meanwhile the technology section and references—arguably the most consequential parts of the letter for anyone working in banking or fintech—get the least attention. But not from me. Here’s what Dimon said about technology, and why every community banker and fintech executive should be paying close attention:

In a section on new products, Dimon wrote that the risks around customer data misuse are “likely to get far worse with AI and agentic commerce.” He framed this as an opportunity for JPMorgan to position itself as a trusted intermediary—essentially a consumer data guardian—and flagged plans to roll out products around “control of personal data, safe commerce and customer-friendly algorithms.” Community banks should be asking themselves who their answer to that question is. Buried in the macroeconomic risk section, Dimon mentions that five hyperscalers (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple) will spend $725 billion on AI-driven capital spending and construction in 2026, up from $450 billion in 2025. The scale creates two problems for smaller banks: 1) the infrastructure gap between large banks and community institutions is widening at a pace that periodic tech upgrades cannot close, and 2) the talent required to actually deploy AI—not buy it, but configure it, govern it, and integrate it—is getting absorbed by the hyperscalers.

But personally I believe that the story is incomplete (and partially inaccurate) AI is not here, no matter what people say. There is a doom setting towards people not implementing AI, but AI is not here yet, it won’t be ready for decades and people are in this tailspin of doom and all the headless checks squawking ‘Get AI, get AI’ are delusional (some call these squawking chickens Influencers)  and if you pick through that balloon you get a lot of air, but that is all it is. Still the setting of DML and LLM could give some kind of relief when properly applied. I never denied that, but DML/llm is not AI, no matter what the chickens say. And in all this one name on the list is missing. IBM and their Business Intelligence and that is a powerful setting and take their BI and apply it to the top 6 you get one hell of a business venture. And normally there is no getting in-between that. But President Trump and his Big Beautiful Baloney gave life to this opportunity. Too bad for them that the internet is fueled by a WWW setting, not a BBB setting. And now this becomes the option for the UAE (optionally Saudi Arabia as well), but the UAE has a more powerful BI and business setting (this is a speculative setting I see, but I could be wrong), so as we see how the United States is faltering, the failing services for the top 6 named here gives rise to the business opportunity that is falling almost directly in the lap of the UAE. And whilst I might fail to see the how it falls, I believe that Abu Dhabi and Shariah might have the strongest settings. I am not short selling Dubai, merely seeing that these new ventures might be served better in a lower costing setting.

So whilst we see the BS the media feeds the population in the US and optionally EU too, a gap of options will open up in the UAE. Snowflake is already in the UAE (in Saudi Arabia as well), but I lack the knowledge to see where they are at present and I believe that the opportune mind will see a larger field of opportunity. So whilst the world is all screaming (like headless chickens) “Apply IA, apply AI” we tend to forget that only 5 years ago that setting was nil and BI was for almost three decades and out is that soon as the services from the United States are faltering, the UAE now has a option to capture this market and make it Arabic, because the language is part of the new stream, these 6 nations will be the first to capture that opportunity. That has always been the case. As such I say, look where you would go and the United States turned it always into: “Come to us” and when that falls flat, the new players will see what is there for them and I see great options for the UAE (I also want them to enjoy the shortfall others have) which gives rise to the statement “The UAE comes out stronger” and I believe that this believe in self is what is required to had a larger win of an economy handed to the USA for far too long.

So have a great day, my run to the weekend started 90 minutes ago and consider, what else did I miss? I cannot tell where your shortfall is, but I do know that I cannot have seen all the settings of opportunity in a mere three hours. I am clever, but I am not THAT clever, I don’t mind.

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The fear behind us

There is a setting, one that requires scrutiny and one that demands closer looks. You see, I do not completely agree with the setting that The Guardian gives us (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/26/how-to-replace-amazon-google-x-meta-apple-alternatives) with the illustrious title ‘Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more’ the first big thing is that there is no mention of Microsoft in that title. So that is the very first thing that comes to mind. Especially as CoPilot was mentioned earlier this week of sifting through our confidential emails. I can drop the ‘alleged’ as Microsoft admitted to this and basically said ‘Oops’ as an implied reason. So what gives?

It starts with “So many ills can be laid at its door: social media harms, misinformation, polarisation, mining and misuse of personal data, environmental negligence, tax avoidance, the list goes on. Added to which, Silicon Valley’s leaders seem all too keen to cosy up to the Trump administration, to shower the president with bribes – sorry, gifts – and remain silent about his worsening political overreach. And that’s before we get to the rampant “enshittification”, as the tech writer Cory Doctorow describes it, which means that by design many big tech products have become less useful and more extractive than they were when we originally signed up to them.” OK, I can go along with this. And the sentence “many big tech products have become less useful and more extractive than they were when we originally signed up to them” gets a mention from me because some of these ‘culprits’ seemingly have no idea what innovation is, for the you have to look towards China, specifically Huawei and Tencent. So we get to the first hurdle. 

Google has cornered 90% of the search market for the past decade, but it is often no better, and sometimes demonstrably worse than its rivals, perhaps on purpose – Doctorow has called Google: “the poster-child for enshittification” citing its alleged strategy of worsening search quality so that users spend more time on the site. But changing the default search engine on any device is extremely easy. I’ve been using Ecosia for years. Instead of using your searches to fill corporate coffers, it uses them to plant trees. The Berlin-based company claims to have planted nearly 250m trees since it launched in 2009 (you can even get your own personal counter to feel extra virtuous). Ecosia commits 100% of its profits to climate action (over €100m so far), produces more clean energy than it consumes via its own solar plants, and collects minimal data on its users. Ecosia’s search results are not always as thorough as Google, admittedly (in the “news” category, for example), though the toolbar does give you options to search via Google and Bing if you need to.” The issue is that Ecosia is for all intent and matters Microsoft Bing. So this is seemingly a sales talk by a journalist because there is a massive problem finding anything by Microsoft reliable. And then we get the real stuff, Microsoft knows it is in hot waters, so we are given “The French company Qwant is similarly privacy-oriented (its slogan is “The search engine that values you as a user, not as a product”) and is now mostly independent (having started out based on Bing). It is now partnering with Ecosia to build a new “European search index”.” Yes but Microsoft is American ands as such your data will be copied and frowned on, browsed through to all their hearts content. If this is wrong, Ecosia and Qwant better clearly state that they are independent of Microsoft, because it is still the issue in Europe and for what they state the their DATA is completely secure, the issue becomes where are the backups? If they are on an American cloud or server, the setting of privacy is set to 0%. 

I can agree with the Browser chapter and even as I still rely on Google (it has never failed me), I get that no everyone is in that chapter of things. I get the Office part. I myself downloaded LibreOffice (download only, no installation yet) and I will look at it at some point, the Apple apps do their work brilliantly. So we are given “Many of them, including Austria’s military and local governments in Germany and France, are switching to LibreOffice, created by the Berlin-based, nonprofit, The Document Foundation. Businesses and individuals are doing the same. Ethical Consumer has used LibreOffice for some time, says Fraser. “It’s an open-source version of Word, and all of the Office tools. It works and looks basically the same.”” I personally reckon that this is the problem Microsoft has and getting the data from Ecosia might be their last handhold to European data, this is not a given, but I expect that this is the inside not Europe to some degree. And whilst everyone is concerned with the privacy of data, I reckon that similar to the setting of 1998-2002, no one is digging and questioning the stages of backups. But that might merely be me and as I am no longer living in Europe, I casually don’t care.

Then we see the mobile settings with a shoutout to Fairphone in the Netherlands. I have nothing against Fairphone, but it always makes me wonder if Fairphone had the same idea that Tulip had in the 90’s. That doesn’t make it wrong, it is merely a Business Ploy that should be considered. I am now and always have been a Google guy. So when we see “There is a catch: most of these phones still rely on Google’s Android operating system, but any phone can be fully “de-Googled” with the /e/OS operating system (it comes as standard with Murena phones), developed by the global, mostly European, nonprofit, e Foundation.” I can think of a way where Google can set this with their Pixels. When the consumer can select Google or A Linux version that does most of the stuff, Google clearly wins in several chapters. I reckon that these flower can merely snap market share because of this, when Google leaves it to the consumers, Google wins nearly automatically. Oh and in all this there is no mention of HarmonyOS in this and I reckon that these smaller players are adjusting to HarmonyOS as we speak, or cater to, or appease that branch. Not everyone in Europe is ‘China hating’ material. And that is merely the smallest setting of these parts. I am personally not touching the shopping side. I was raised as a follower of ‘Support your local hooker’ a phrase from the late 70’s. In that age we got malls, supermarkets and such and die to that escalation loads of local stores went through a foreclosure setting. In that same way I don’t order from Amazon. I have nothing against Amazon and they closed the gap of rural places having no way to get stuff to them having plenty of stuff and over 60% or Europe and 71% of rural USA is now served. As such Amazon did them right. I just believe that I should get to the local stores to get what I need. I only had to resort to Amazon twice in the last 10 years. So I am happy. And all these Amazon haters can go sit in a corner trying to work out the function of a cheese slicer (revelation: the red corners that are diminishing have figured it out).

But my issue is that Microsoft is shown in a ‘favorable’ light, they aren’t and they aren’t due that setting as I personally see it. The fear behind this is not the Big-tech, it is the policy that comes through the CLOUD Act (2018), it gives America too much ability to get to out data and in several cases non-American IP, which is even more frightfully. these hundreds of data centers have no reason to exist if the CLOUD Act (2018) what made illegal, that is how I see it and there is no saving Microsoft, because we get ‘blunder’ after ‘blunder’ and how long until we get another ‘Oops’ setting but now corporate IP was set in some AI hole? That is the larger fear that I see and there is no stopping it, whilst corporations are breathing the AI cloud through wannabe’s who want to move up in the world, that data is most likely to get compromised and as corporations are not setting the HR and data loops to any scrutiny, this is likely already happening and will continue to happen until the then valueless corporations see that they had to act a lot sooner than the day before all their data is in other hands. We already have Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence (2025), Bartz v. Anthropic (2025/2026), Disney & NBCUniversal v. Midjourney and the best case is United States v. Heppner (2026) where we see that documents drafted using a public, consumer-grade AI tool were not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine. And that is the setting that people miss. Should someone at IBM use that setting this work becomes public, so consider that this is not IBM, but Microsoft using Copilot or OpenAI (ChatGPT) the work of your corporation becomes for all intent and purposes Public Domain, did you sign up for that?

There is plenty in the article that makes sense, but the ones that aren’t mentions are a larger fear creator than anything you are trying to hide from. Just an idea to consider. Have a great day this day.

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Where is the edge?

That was where I was, I had no idea what to write about for the first time in 11 years, but fortunately the BBC helped me out in two occasions. The first one (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crkrkd2xlx6o) gives us ‘YouTube’s $60bn revenue revealed amid paid subscriber push’, which his not surprising. The people who initially turned down that offer must befitting themselves over the head with this. So when we see “The figure, which totals the money generated through advertising on YouTube as well as paid subscriptions, far surpasses streaming rival Netflix’s $45bn revenue. It appears to be the first time Google has individually highlighted its video platform’s yearly revenue since acquiring it in 2006.” I reckon that all these data centres require Google (aka Alphabet) to show that they are doing well in regards to other expenses. So when we see ““YouTube is one of – if not the – most-used of all digital offerings, with over 70% of international consumers using it weekly, and over 50% using it daily,” she told the BBC, citing Midia consumer survey data. Kahlert said the different ways the platform makes money – such as through adverts, or charging a monthly subscription to remove them – means it can “capitalise well” on its large audience.” And I reckon it is a way to thwart Netflix with “Netflix has recently sought to ink deals with content creators, including popular YouTubers, in an effort to boost its own offerings.” I reckon that a company getting 33% more revenue than their competition is a decent way to thwart that setting. But what am I thinking? You see, there is more in play here and I reckon that Google will let us now that as soon as they are ready. Perhaps they might be considering the stage I gave with Augmented Reality in malls. You see, malls need an overhaul and rather quick. The eyes of the consumers are too adjusted to malls and at present one mall is as good as another (with the exception of Harrods and the Dubai Mall I think) but outside of these two, they are nearly all the same and an overhaul is required. I think that there is a new level of revenue coming from that, but what do I know?

I think that the optional damage that Netflix might bring and the Data Centre setting is reason why we now see YouTube revenue and that also brings a decent danger, because stable isn’t sexy and the revenue require an annual boost, but how? That is the setting when you make $60,000,000,000 per year and when you consider that this is $500M per month and when that falls down with an expected quarter not being reached, the game changes and that might have been the reason why Google never gave that number, so either Google is stretched too think with the Data Centres, or Netflix is making headway into YouTube content creator. I don’t know which one and it might be both to some degree. 

What is a given is that Google needs to look into new areas of advertising and digital awareness creation. I gave then (via my blog) more than one solution for over two years, so it is up to them to pick up that ball. Pretty simple, not?

But there is more to consider, you see Nintendo just announced (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckglk543x3go) that ‘Nintendo Switch becomes gaming giant’s best-selling console in history’ with “The Switch is now the best-selling Nintendo console in history, having surpassed 155 million sales since it launched in 2017.” As such, Nintendo is just short 5 million from the Sony achievement and Sony had 25 years to get here, Nintendo did it in only 8, so it is a given that the Switch will break the PS2. That is not a bad thing for the PS2, it was surpassed by the PS3, PS4 and PS5. It had its day, for me it was more important to see Microsoft fall down to a lousy third place with nowhere near the numbers Nintendo or Sony had to give ad I am still ager to dwindle it down to 4th position, but that requires a few people to move their asses in gear. And with Tencent, the chances are that Microsoft will end up in 5th place. They would be the worthy winner of the wooden spoon (I have a nasty sense of humor).

But this could also drive Googles ‘revenue’, or at least a more global awareness. You see, what I saw as a Sony setting (which they never pushed for) is now up to Google. The option for your Google account to link a secondary account, a gaming account where the gamer decides whether they are openly linked or not. With the secondary account that gives the goods on your gaming settings to an account site and connecting with your friends there so that you have complete communications with them (or not) and show off your achievements in that page and it could connect to all your consoles, so you get a Nintendo account, A Sony account ad a streaming account. (Amazon Luna, Tencent) so now you have your abilities online too, and it is one directional, from the console TOWARDS the account. The same account, but a distinguisher whether it is Nintendo (1), Sony (2), or Streaming (3). And you can set a singular connect (Sony people only see your Sony dealings) and you can add the other accounts to that, with the stage that they are connected over all the devices or not. This gives Google a large benefit towards gaming advertisement and so on. And as Google gets more and more data, the gaming setting becomes more and more important. But it should be left to the gamer if they want that connection open or not. No matter what is done, Google wins and so do the gamers. Because the gamer is central in this. I am weirded out that Google seemingly never considered that, especially as they left billions on the floor with the Google Stadia. But that isn’t really my concern.

What does matter that with the publication of the YouTube revenue, more players will come because they want to capture their grains for greedy purposes. I am considering that like the revenue display, the advertisement revenue and gaming revenue will enable this isn advertisement too much, It is becoming a behemoth of revenue and these ‘princes’ of advertisement (lets call them Mad Men Wannabe’s) are too willing to strike into anything that they can exploit, but that might be merely my distrustful personality. So you all have a great day today. I am melting in the evening with 30 degrees and no relief for me in sight until 06:00.

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The Grass on the grave

It comes with a setting. The first is the grass is always greener on the other fellows grave. The other setting is that we are on the setting that we are given that one good turn deserves another.

Do I sound a little weird? Yes, that is the case, but it comes with the numbers that we are being smacked with and as we are considering what a brain drain will do to the United States. This setting is one that might need work.

To set the first stage we are given: 

It concerns over 88,000 people who are getting made redundant in these 5 companies alone, I reckon the whole set will be a lot worse soon enough and when you think that they are with their backs against the wall, consider the following.

That is just Saudi Arabia who is in need for thousands of position, as such the Muslims in America might have a decent solution coming their way and the UAE is in a similar state, both nations needing IT staff, which puts the people at Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle in a decent state. Both places are in a good setting for job placements and those who cannot live in a more strict muslim way might consider the UAE, but that is not me side setting the job offerings in the mix, but most of these forms are doing it to deal with the cost of data centres and that is not a good enough reason for me. The brain drain that it leads to might be more disastrous than anything else the United States could be headed to.

Now both Saudi Arabia and the UAE could post advertisements in the metro sections of the news papers in the places where these job losses occur with an optional website where these people could apply and upload their resume. At that point it becomes the setting for these two nations to see who they could use and who not. At the setting we see with Aramco (Saudi Arabia) and ADNOC (UAE) and that is before they are looking at people for their data centres. I reckon that the braindyain will be very real for the United States. I reckon that the advertisement we see in the Arab News might soon have a much smaller number. 

So that is the small setting that we are facing now and the job cuts that American companies are putting themselves on, might be the solution that Saudi Arabia, the UAE and even other nations might need. So if you are on that redundancy train, here is a little reminder that “Your next big opportunity may be where you are right now” and lets see that solution work for you, because when you are one of 88,000 the setting does not work in your favor, as such I thought of giving some who might need your expertise to set the stage for you and not against you. 

So you all have a great day and I will find a way for others to know what some of you might be going through at the start of 2026.

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Filters

If life is filtering, we are thrown between conspiracy theories and perceived loyalty information. Then there are the setting of media influencer and media de influencing. We are thrown in these 4 battles and the media is part of at least two of them, almost all time. And there is no going back. Yes, this is highly speculative but there is an underlying consideration to that. I am forgoing the first two for now (even as my view might be seen as ‘evidence’ of the first view. 

When we go for the second two there is ‘new’ evidence. I have said over the last 5 years that nothing gets printed by the media unless it has approval of the shareholders, the stake holders and the advertisers. That is how the media tends to work and then there is a new layer that works for some of the media. Flames are published at the bequest of the designers (or the editors) through which the digital dollar elopers work. Flames get people riled up, they respond to flames more eagerly and that results in clicks, hence digital dollars. As such the media has lost their point of neutral view and left us with the view that captures their clicks. This is not only detrimental to the truthful view (aka the news they bring) but it also gives us their wanted view, their ‘click-ability’ as views go. 

So the new ‘evidence’ is seen in a few ways. There is Forbes who gives us “Over the past decade, Oracle stock has emerged as a premier capital-return engine, distributing a remarkable $158 billion to shareholders—the 9th highest total in corporate history. This payout is composed of $35 billion in dividends and a massive $123 billion in share buybacks, representing roughly 31.5% of the company’s current market capitalization. Separately, earnings and revenues beat expectations, but the stock went down? Supported by resilient cash flows from its shift to cloud-based infrastructure and database services, Oracle’s strategy emphasizes enhancing earnings per share through aggressive stock repurchases. While it trails leaders like Apple ($847 billion) and Microsoft ($368 billion) in sheer volume, Oracle’s consistent return of capital highlights a mature balance between funding its high-growth cloud and AI initiatives and rewarding its long-term investor base with reliable financial yields.” Forbes gives us this news (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2026/01/29/how-oracle-stock-returned-158b-to-shareholders/) and could be seen as ‘news’, some will see it that way (including me) but what caused this all? Was it a mere setting that players like the Motley Fool (at https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/01/29/why-oracle-stock-slumped-on-thursday/) who gives us ‘Why Oracle Stock Slumped on Thursday’ with the subtext “There was no company-specific news to explain the enterprise database and artificial intelligence (AI) specialist’s decline. However, a cloud competitor posted results that investors found wanting. Oracle released the results that were greeted with a similar, chilly reception. Revenue of $16.1 billion grew 14% year over year, while adjusted EPS of $2.26 jumped 54%. Its remaining performance obligation (RPO) jumped 438% to $523 billion, highlighting Oracle’s vast backlog.” It could be seen as news and perhaps it merely is. There is however a new power in play and I cannot see the full form because the bulk of the media is hovering away from visibility and they no longer have trustworthiness. I believe that a new power is rising to undo what corporations are doing, I merely believe that it works at the bequest of some governments to either short sell whatever these companies have or represent, or to gain through short selling. I know it is merely speculation but this is my belief. Now there are ‘hairy’ investment settings and they are on Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle to some degree, but there is another force at work here and I cannot see the complete stage, merely shadows and shims of it, the media has become too unreliable and they want to cut back on the value of these three participant (optionally more participants). I know I have spoken out against AI on numerous occasions, but now we get certain parties illuminating the parts the required no illumination and I don’t think it is by accident.

What Gives?
SO, am I the conspiracy theorist, or the perceived loyalty information giver? I could be the second part (the first one too). I almost blindly belief in the good of Oracle, so the second is an option and it is perceived as I do not work for Oracle, as such I am not in the know. Oracle has been a force for good for over 30 years, as such the faith in Oracle is almost blindly, is that a correct setting to take?

I know that Oracle is in the deep with all these data centres, but are then all owned by Oracle? Are certain governmental parties driving the price down so they can cut costs? As per now Major hyperscalers (Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta) are expected to invest approximately $400 billion in 2026 alone to meet this demand. In the U.S. specifically, nearly 3,000 new data centers are planned or under construction, adding to over 4,000 already operational. 3,000 planned per 2026 as such Oracle stock should be going through the roof (Alpha, Amazon and Microsoft wouldn’t be doing so badly either), but that is not what we are seeing. And I have to wonder why. There are of-course energy issues, but Oracle is providing the technology. So how many data centres are owned by oracle? The image does not compute (as the term goes) and the image is not being given to us clearly by the media and that gives us the two second filters. So isn’t anyone wondering what is in play here? Most will not care either way and for the most neither do I, but in the current political situation where the United States does what it damn well likes regardless of all other voices now gives us a new setting, the transference of powers to a new wielder and neither of them likes the power the current 4 biotech are wielding and they might have gotten away with it if they left Oracle alone, that gave me the lights and some might say they are merely pretty Christmas lights, they are a little out of time, but I am seeing dashboard warning lights and not the good kind. As such is it me (it could be) or is there more to this all?

That is now the question and as such as the weekend is starting for me and Vancouver has to go through today, find your way to coffee because there is never a bad time to have a cup of that.

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As the gaming sense enters

That was the setting I faced yesterday. I ‘suddenly’ had an idea for gaming IP. This setting was for Sony, Nintendo and the streamers Amazon and Tencent. The idea is to separate the parts of a game. The story, the stage and the character. It can to me as I was watching Battle of the 5 armies and that gave me an idea. The Lord of the rings gave me the settings of Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, Helm’s Deep, Lake Town, Dale, Mines of Moria but also Acre, Antioch, Jerusalem, Plassey, Buxar but also more ‘modern’ wars like the the war in Leiden and Rotterdam these are mere stages, but the characters are the ones you define from some of the lord of the Rings characters (based on, not characters as is). During the movie my mind went into the setting what an one man do? So you could be stealth based like a ranger (or elf) a close quarter knight like templar or saracen, German or Dutch resistance. The idea is that these settings are separate, even though they can net er ‘bleed’ into other areas. So, the first character is YOUR choice. LOTR, Crusades or WW2 and you select warrior or ranger and that is your first setting, when you get to a higher level (3 or 5) you get the option to get to an exit and ave your upgraded character. At which point time you get the other character in one of the other levels (or your first choice was an LOTR character you will be able to select the Crusader/Saracen or German/Dutch resistance) and you will ALWAYS get the other type, so if you selected stealth based in the first instance you will be forced to select the warrior in the other timeframe, but you get to select the timeframe. 

It force a more open setting and after that you get to select the next iteration. Whilst the safe will give you more health, a passive attribute and more weapon abilities. The control are slightly based on For Honor. It was not my choice, but it was a whole lot better then what we had before, but the sticks are for the left and right arms, and this will enable more agility for left handed players, whilst  the adaptive trigger is the action for that arm and movement are done via the buttons (triangle, Square, Circle and cross) and their Nintendo equivalents. It will through over the world of the button masher and beyond that I haven’t worked out all the knacks that this brings but I reckon that the left directions are for abilities/tools and the shoulder buttons will have another function.

So as we set these worlds there are more settings to come, but the variable worlds gave me the idea to have some kind of story which only opens up after you enter the second world the it will become enabled and that I got from:

It seems that this might open up other settings too, and whilst you are trying to find things in the worlds you are visiting, it might give a clue towards your goals. You see, the goals that are always tied to your mini-map are merely traverse points whilst the setting becomes the joy of where you are (an RPG quirk I guess). But that setting will be another level of acceptance and whilst this game could start small (merely three maps) a startup company could add the other maps over time (like three maps per month) And the setting of the character you ‘envision’ yourself as might be another setting entirely. I have some ideas about the story but I will not put them here now. And as I set out the game possibilities in under two days I feel pretty proud of myself. It beats having to read the BS the media gives us on what President Trump is up to now and whilst I do not agree with the setting that Secretary general Mark Rutte is giving the world and he might just be ‘appeasing’ president Trump, but as far as I can tell, NATO is pretty much ready for whatever non nuclear solution Russia is pushing down their throats, but that might be merely the delusion I am seeing. Still when I see the Danish parliament howling with laughter on what President Trump was sending them, I feel pretty much correct on my sentiments. It is also the first time a foreign government is howling with laughter on what any president of the United States is offering them, so it is not merely me who is seeing him as a joke.

Still, the creation of new gaming IP is more value by me and as such I got to this and setting this game in a 4K setting makes it ready for Sony, Nintendo (Switch 2) and streaming solutions. The idea I had with the 4 ‘time frames’ Tolkien, Crusades, British India and WW2 is important to the story of the game, but not essential. Optional a 5th setting which gives us Khartoum and Battle of Rorke’s Drift, Falkland Islands, Invasion of Darfur and at least two more are needed but that is a matter of a later day. Consider that these settings could be played almost anytime (when all regions are unlocked) it feeds the gaming need when people can play the battle of Dale or Osgiliath after they watch the movie. It is a strange presence all gamers have and I reckon that this approach might be the next setting in gaming because when the characters are ironed out, including a WW2 character with the wars in Iraq or Yemen would be relatively easy as the architecture would allow additional maps. A game that feeds the next war in the setting of gaming is one that has not been considered before (as far as I can tell) and it allows for a stronger presence on these platforms, all whilst whomever does it for the Switch 2 might gain 10 million fans overnight, but that is a worry for the maker not for me.

Have a great day as I am relaxing now with some ice water as it is 28 degrees now and 31 degrees in my living room.

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Relation to all settings

That is what I had two days ago. I didn’t act on it, because I had an IP idea and that tends to take precedence. But two days ago and for more the entire last week I have been ‘brooding’ over these grocery stores (Microsoft and Amazon) giving us that they were setting ‘localised’ protection settings and there was the rub. So here goes and I am trying to do it in certain orders (mostly chronographically). So I saw news that was a little weird, because “The U.S. CLOUD Act (passed 2018) empowers U.S. law enforcement to compel American tech companies to provide data stored on servers globally, regardless of whether the data is in the U.S. or overseas. It focuses on data control by U.S.-based entities rather than physical location. Separately, “American Cloud” refers to an independent provider offering zero egress fees, focusing on data sovereignty.” And with the intellectually challenged person they put in the white house and his ‘power hungry’ grabbing notions, the world is in clear and present danger. It was only a moment that I was confused, but this made a lot more sense than trying to grab Venezuelas oil. And I think that was what is seemingly all that need for all those data centres, the AI was merely icing on the cake, the real price is the global data that is now slowly heading to all these data centres and only localised non American set data centres are safe. As far as I know there is merely one in Sweden and that is basically it. And don’t think that you are safe, the image below shows the tainted corporations that have at least one American data centre.

The Dutch Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation (NOS) gives us that 100% of the Dutch media has American links (what a surprise) and for the rest, there is little else, only the psychiatrists have only 56% ‘tainting’ by yanks as the expression goes. As such this was brought to the surface by the Conversation who (at https://theconversation.com/microsofts-ai-deal-promises-canada-digital-sovereignty-but-is-that-a-pledge-it-can-keep-272890) gave us ‘Microsoft’s AI deal promises Canada digital sovereignty, but is that a pledge it can keep?’ Which was given to us on January 19th, as such it is BS in a jar, because as you saw, the 2018 act gives America access to it all and you have seen how boated this White House is, so as such you have no chance in hell to keep your data safe. Fortunately I had a second setting and as I ‘exploited’ a Banyan vices weakness in cloud settings, I am a little more safe than most and do you think that this is limited to global personal data? How long until you are forced to watch how American ‘corporation’ use whatever IP they can find? Some give us ‘OpenAI Plans to Take a Cut of Customers’ AI-Aided Discoveries’, so how long until the fading between that and ‘OpenAI Plans to Take a Cut of offered AI-Aided Discoveries’ that threshold is a lot smaller than you thought possible. And whilst other sources (read: NBC) give us at https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/15/amazon-sovereign-cloud-europe-expansion.htmlAmazon’s European sovereign cloud launch is a ‘big bet,’ AWS CEO Garman tells CNBC’ Yes and it makes no difference. Amazon and AWS are American companies as such America can grab that data. It’s like a sugar addict telling you that your jollies are safe. In this regard no follies are safe and as I see it several government should have acted in 2018, but most of these governments were possibly lulled to sleep with BS promises. As such the world has no longer any time to adjust. Personally I think that a specialized form of what was called in the 90’s as the DB virus. The virus was incredibly clever. It was a data virus unlike any other. The virus changes all your data and data went from 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 to 5 2 7 5 9 0 4 1 3 the problem was that until the virus was removed no one had a clue what was going on and when the virus was removed all numbers got to be hustled up, making the data useless. I reckon that a slightly more evolved setting is required here. And whomever objects can go catch an arial coitus (they are in towns with a population of 1 (you). It is all I can come up with in a few seconds but that is set into a larger setting, the viral setting is the desktop, and as it is ‘divided’ from the cloud data there is nothing America could do about it. All those Exabytes of useless data, makes my cry with laughter that is. So whilst AWS is giving us “The cloud will be “physically and logically separate” from other AWS regions, the company said.” It wouldn’t mater because AWS/Amazon is still an American company and this white house doesn’t care what you think. It is all America first, as such my option might make a little more sense. And there is still those dedicated Swedish (optionally Danish) cloud providers too who rely on Linux or at least non-American software solutions. And we all need to consider what is at stake, because this White House is a lot more desperate that we think they are. I am still sifting though data (and I have too little validation) but it seems that Goldman Sachs just offloaded $847 Billion in US Bonds (a part I cannot validate yet, but the papers are allegedly with the SEC) and if that is the case, the final pushes are now in play in America, as such they need all our data as they are getting desperate, which might take a while because the SEC has over 4400 documents involving Goldman Sachs.

But the premise of this situation is a little too dire for me to blatantly copy what other media is stating, and the media is not the trustworthy in my book. So have a great day this Sunday and as It is 14 degrees cooler than yesterday, I should be good, but with this heat I would rather be in Canada (and I reckon they prefer to be here).

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A sense of self

That is at times the setting and we accept that, but have we ever truly set that in gaming? There are examples. There is The Talisman by Peter Straub (Stephen King too), there are numerous other examples and I even wrote that setting in a previous blog, a basic setting that is. So consider an altered example. The image below

Shows 13 areas, the middle gives us the start. Now consider the setting that the start region is WatchDogs 3 Legion, it gives access to 4 other regions, they are in the background. Now one of these regions is AC 2 (AC Brotherhood) and that gives access to Areas 1,2,4 or 2,3,6 or 4,7,8 or 6,8,9 and so on. The object is to create a giant puzzle and the setting is to give each regions it own set of rules. So whilst I am looking at the series Caprica, we can see how the alternate reality gives a more docile or less docile setting whilst ‘throwing’ concepts like gravity, time, behaviour and classifications of people and of positions are thrown into the mix to be altered in each region. As I see it, the goal is to set a more distorted sense of self. That is the one side that gaming never explored. But the stage where we all throw it into the wind remains seemingly untouched, all whilst devices like the Meta Quest 3 could open that up to a much larger extent. We tend to reflect on what WE are, but not on how we manipulate ourselves. We play RPG, Minecraft all whilst Ernest Cline in Ready Player One opened a larger stage as early as 2011, now that we have much better technology, no one seems to be heading that way. It is not about the VR setting, it is how we see ourselves that is not addressed in gaming to any real setting. (OK, the real is debatable). And that setting is overlooked time after time again and as I see it, there has been 15 years of technology and no one thought of that approach to give the gamer the ride of their lives? When we consider a cross mix of technologies, the setting to hand the setting over a larger place is also overlooked. You see with the Meta Quest 3 there is the setting of streaming consoles and an ability to set both gaming realities in some kind of overlap would help. I reckon that the last time that this was done to ‘some’ extend was the game System Shock, but actually to set these linked technologies to real technological puzzles is missing. That same setting is partially seen in a game named Portal (Rob Swigart, 1986) and it seems that no one ever. Considered the next step in what makers like that would have seen impossible in their time, but now this option is ready to be explored. I actually placed a story here somewhere where I addressed that setting (too tired to find it now as it is 100F at the moment) So whilst we all go for the ‘cosmetic’ in today’s gaming, the larger setting is to take a leap and make some changes actual and yes there is a drawback to program to the Meta Quest 3, but I already handed several setting where the device would be an actual asset and it sets the setting to much more intensity when we alter that perception, and I for one think that the visor with a streaming solution like Amazon Luna or the TGP (Tencent Gaming Platform) Box. I reckon whomever get in first will get the larger following and I recon that It also pays (for me at least) to let this evolve with the console setting I saw over the last three years. I reckon that there are 50 million consumers just for starters who will embrace this and that would be merely phase one. In the later phase I have no idea where it will end but 100-150 million consoles in not out of the realm of possibilities and after that I get hesitant. I would love to be the one guy who get this to 200 million plus, but I am hesitant to get overly ‘confident’ I am certain it will work, but to see the one solution that Google and Amazon can’t see makes my confidence shaky to say the least. At least I got to imagine another Gaming IP even if it is based on other settings, but that is merely cosmetic in some form. Whoever designs the new IP will have a strong sense of achievement and here I reckon that Ubisoft has the inner track and after they just sacked dozens of people all over the world, they might be thinking on what to do next. Well, they need to not look further at present.

So have a great day and as I am melting like the wicked with of the witch of the west in this heat, I will take the slow lazy setting to avoid heat getting to me.

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