Tag Archives: Amazon

September 5, 2023 · 17:58

The yoke is on Microsoft

Yup, this is a ‘create howls of deriving laughter’ on Microsoft, but not in the way you would expect it. So, this all started a few hours ago when I saw an unknown party called ARN  give us ‘Microsoft blames Aussie data centre outage on staff strength, failed automation’ (at https://www.arnnet.com.au/article/708608/microsoft-blames-aussie-data-centre-outage-staff-strength-failed-automation/) where we see “Microsoft has blamed staff strength and failed automation for a data centre outage in Australia that took place on August 30, disabling users from accessing Azure, Microsoft 365, and Power Platform services for over 24 hours.” And my (first) thought was ‘Is Microsoft really THAT stupid?’ You see, to see that thought you need to be aware of a few small issues. The first is “Microsoft confirmed Monday that it’s eliminating additional jobs, a week after the start of its 2024 fiscal year. The cuts are in addition to the downsizing announced in January that resulted in 10,000 layoffs. The software maker also disclosed a small number of cuts this time last year.” With the additional “US tech giant Microsoft has axed more Australian jobs after the company made major staffing cuts across the globe earlier in the year. About 50 Australian employees are believed to have lost their jobs this month, Nine newspaper the Australian Financial Review reports.” Now, job losses happen everywhere at this time and we get it. There are all kinds of issues and Microsoft is one of many shedding jobs. But to see ‘Microsoft has blamed staff strength’ after they shed 10,000 plus jobs is just the joke of the century. I get it, one job is not another job, but when you have shortages in a place that is riddled with ageism and wannabe hires (dynamic young people) whilst your operational settings are below par just doesn’t work for me. I see the same fake jobs from providers like Hays and they will not respond and often ignore you. That is the party to be for players like Microsoft and they now claim that there is no coverage does not hold any water with me.  So when ARN gives us ““Due to the size of the data centre campus, the staffing of the team at night was insufficient to restart the chillers in a timely manner. We have temporarily increased the team size from three to seven, until the underlying issues are better understood and appropriate mitigations can be put in place,” Microsoft wrote as part of the report.” I wonder if their cost cutting stages are merely a joke and what company would have trust in such a system when “Azure, Microsoft 365, and Power Platform services” were down or unreachable for over 24 hours. That point is clear, is it not?

Consider the simple math. How much traffic and how many companies rely on that data centre? How come that there are only 3 people at night? So consider “Microsoft said that the cooling units could have been restarted manually, which was not possible due to the unavailability of enough personnel at the data centre” with the added “the staffing of the team at night was insufficient to restart the chillers in a timely manner” so do you think they royally screwed that part up? And in that setting how many data centres (all over the world) are understaffed? When the coolers cannot be manually started in these places, how much revenue will Microsoft miss out on, because these affected firms might optionally have a case to sue Microsoft for damages. No matter how that report phrases it, the lack of data centre labour (especially after they sacked well over 10,000 people) will not be met with a friendly judge and for Microsoft there is an additional danger. When third parties like Evroc start getting business from companies that once held Microsoft high in its banner, the walk-out might become a lot more severe and that could spell more bad news for Azure (something Amazon AWS will love) and there is a decent chance that some will optionally switch to Google or IBM. All losses for Microsoft who thought that keeping 3 people at night in a data centre was enough, all whilst THEY THEMSELVES give us “the cooling units could have been restarted manually, which was not possible due to the unavailability of enough personnel at the data centre” and that is the stage all those using a Microsoft data centre face? It is my personal opinion that someone bungled the minimum staff at a data centre during the night and even as winter is now coming to the northern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere is going into summer. So what about the Data centres in Riyadh and the UAE? In Riyadh it is around 45 degrees Celsius and in Dubai it is only 3 degrees cooler. So what happens when they need a manual restart of the cooling units? All simple questions and we could say that Microsoft has that covered, but it seems that according to ARN they do not. A simple operational question: ‘What is the minimum required staff coverage at night in a worst case scenario?’ As far as I can tell (trusting the ARN article) they were not ready and the fact that they upped it by over 100% shows that Microsoft was simply clueless on this issue. Feel free to disagree and I expect you want to talk to the corporations that lot Office and Azure for over 24 hours, but I reckon that we will not get access to those names, and that is fair enough. But do the companies who had to go through this feel the same way? I doubt it.

Enjoy the warm Tuesday coming to you.

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September 3, 2023 · 20:09

The Shallow sea, an idea?

It came to me yesterday, but I was uncertain what I was looking at. It was not a game, it was at best a stage, but the idea is set in the environment (sort of). We (most of us) are all about extremes when we game and I wonder why that is. As such I got the idea of ‘The Shallow sea’ the stage is set on a train depot, the water has risen and the trains are under water. A mere 3 meters under water, so when you stand on a cargo cars you are up to your shoulders in water. You would be dry on double stacked containers and there are some, but not all. So here we are in a place called the Santa Fe Freight Depot (the place I initially chose) you see, this stage could be a mere stage, but it would be a game in itself. If not for looting, then it would be to find stuff to keep your community afloat so to say. You see, these stages are nice, they are big and they have a whole range of options. But that is the nice part of Streaming games, you can make them a lot bigger than any PC or console game. This setting was done to emerge ourselves into the water life around there and as the trailers would have been there for years, finding goods is a bit of a challenge. Small sharks, barracuda’s, turtles, plant life. A place that evolves over time that you play this level (or game). You see, I was a little irritated with Far Cry 4. Far Cry 3 was awesome and they tried to replicate this. The scene is beautiful, yet well over a dozen times and hour to hear ‘eagle, eagle’ and to get that irritating budgie take another health slot and the irritating ‘heal on my screen’ ALL THE TIME was getting to me. That fictive place Kyrat has more eagles than the nation of Tibet has people. Add to that all the other ‘predators’ and you see why that game has no real setting for a long life. These parts matter, because in a place like I just described, a small shark might appear, but it is really rare. A stage where we can admire the sea life and have a story as well. And the larger setting is not whether this is a game, but what game could achieve the close to impossible when this is merely a level and that is what we forget. Gaming and RPG is not about milking and farming. It is about enjoying the sights. Bethesda and Ubisoft took that away from us and it is time to create games where the people can enjoy the sights again. Yes there should be a conflict and ‘challenge’ side to this, but it should not take away from the joy of gaming. The joy of lore and the joy of going somewhere. I believe we lost parts of that and the streamers could give that back to us. Consider The Horizon games (Zero Dawn and Forbidden west), would they not be even more fun if you can walk through these worlds (after you finish) the games? A stage where the machines are diminished by 90% after the game is completed so you can enjoy the art, the looks and the amazing graphics that the game brought? Restoration might no longer become a Elder Scrolls game, but the sentiment and the setting could be a nextgen. Whilst people game more of the same with Hammerfell/High Rock another developer could bring out a while new kind of RPG gaming and there is space for more, there really is. The new Horizons is likely to come in 2025, A new Elder scrolls with a speculated date of 2028 and that is pretty much it. There is a lot of space here and the Streamers (Amazon and Tencent Technologies) could create amazing new IP by early 2025, with Horizon 3 being to only opposition for years. That is what I tried to tell developers. And if they aren’t getting that, they will be complaining on the side roads. A few more ideas came to mind, but that is for another day. You see, the population of gamers (those who aren’t focussed on some Call of Duty clone) will change and with the tablets forcing advertisements down their throats, it is likely to change a lot and that is where the streamers came in. All paths Microsoft ignored and now there are other options and Microsoft will not be invited (the joker isn’t allowed in bridge). You think I am joking, but I am not. You see gaming for the joy of the game is a forgotten art and those shouting ‘their fragrance’ are about to learn that not listening to gamers comes at a cost and they will go where the joy is, that was why my IP had the appeal (a speculated shine). And that was why I was trying to sell it to Kingdom Holdings. A business man like Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud would know what the power of 50 million subscriptions brought. There is every indications that Amazon and Google overlooked that part and Microsoft was not invited to that party. So there we are in the shallow sea. ?The water up to our shoulders and the question becomes. Would you nag, or would you see what beauty below the surface of the Santa Fe Freight Depot could be brought to life? I leave it up to you. 

Enjoy Sunday. 

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September 1, 2023 · 23:39

Are they really?

I have had my issues with Microsoft for the longest of times and for the most I never cared, that was until they decided to mess with the serenity of gamers. At that point I became livid and I made mention of this as late as yesterday (read: previous article). Then I saw a piece by the Verge and I had to let that sink in. The article (at https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/30/23851902/microsoft-bing-popups-windows-11-malware) comes from writer (Tom Warren). He is a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012. He still looks like a teenager in the photo, so he might want to update that one. Even as the article starts with “I thought I had malware on my main Windows 11 machine this weekend. There I was minding my own business in Chrome before tabbing back to a game and wham a pop-up appeared asking me to switch my default search engine to Microsoft Bing in Chrome. Stunningly, Microsoft now thinks it’s ok to shove a pop-up in my face above my apps and games just because I dare to use Chrome instead of Microsoft Edge.” I reckon that Microsoft has been desperate for a while and I had my issues with sicofans pushing edge in my Google search issues, but now we get that Microsoft is on that same page. So when we get to “We are aware of these reports and have paused this notification while we investigate and take appropriate action to address this unintended behaviour,” says Caitlin Roulston, director of communications, in a statement to The Verge.” As such it is the same BS spin we have seen too often before. As I personally see it, a pop-up is not unintended behaviour. It is the mark of intent, as such how does ‘investigate’ fit? Is it their way of trying to ascertain how far they can go with these actions? Well, when you lose a match 5 times over (see previous article) that sense of desperation seems on point, not correct, but on point. You see, I wrote this before and I do not mind repeating this. I foresee Microsoft collapsing in 2026. It is still a fair bit away, but when the 5 lost battles also gets a new player on the field (Tencent Technologies) and that combination invokes close to 15% of the global population going somewhere else. How much damage will Microsoft endure? How much more damage will Microsoft spin until the banks start to catch on and even as we see reports that they only have a debt of $60,000,000,000 (which is not much compared to their revenue). The setting of losses across several industries imply that Microsoft will have to prune their corporate tree no later then next year, not doing so implies (implies is not a given) that 221,000 employees will have an impact on the total revenue and that is about to become a shifty one. 

You see if that was not on the premise of shifty, Microsoft would not resort to pop-ups telling people what to do (they will call it politely giving consideration to change). It took me some time to undo the unrequested changes that Microsoft minded people did to my laptop, as such I reckon that these pop-ups have larger impacts all over the field. How far it goes is unknown, because the media is too unwilling to look into matters. Microsoft is too large an advertisement account to unsettle (a personal issue I faced in 2012 with Sony), but it applies to all advertisers and now we see how filtered information works. When I seek (in Google) “Microsoft pop-up news” I get three hits, the Verge is one of them. None of the news media picked it up for any reason. Weird that.

The Verge also gives us “This isn’t Microsoft’s first rodeo, either. I’m growing increasingly frustrated by the company’s methods of getting people to switch from Google and Chrome to Bing and Edge. Microsoft has been using a variety of prompts for years now, with pop-ups appearing inside Chrome, on the Windows taskbar, and elsewhere. Microsoft has even forced people into Edge after a Windows Update, and regularly presents a full-screen message to switch to Bing and Edge after updates.” And this is before they hit the upcoming hard times. So when you consider that Microsoft has become the bully of IT, how much longer before you consider switching away from Windows? To Linux of Mac? 

And after all this, you should wonder how come the media is avoiding this issue. Why the media is just ignoring the bullied plight of millions, because that is what this amounts to and this is far from over. So when we consider that Edge’s is 8.1% on desktop and just 0.1% on mobile (another lost battle) and with Bing having a marketshare of 3.02%, which implies yet another battle lost. How many losses will Microsoft endure before considering to refocus on strengths. You see they are slowly losing the office market share too. So you still think that my predicted downfall of Microsoft around 2026 was a jest? How many times does any army need to lose before it is regarded as a has-been and now seen as a joke?

I let you figure that one out, but consider that their only asset is the ability to spin, how far will that get them? 

Enjoy the weekend.

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August 31, 2023 · 23:59

Sentimental journey

We all have these. It usually is about something personal, something we are passionate about and mine for the longest time has been gaming. I took a sentimental journey by replaying Far Cry 3. It still had all the flaws (replaying on the PS5). One was a design flaw, one that massively annoyed me, one was a ‘weakness’ and one was open to debate. I replayed the game 4 times and in order were the PS3, Xbox360, PS4 and now PS5 and this time I stuck around to get the platinum achievement. Three I never had, one was due to me not looking at the issue, one was because I never found it (that Hollywood star with his head above the sand). The toxo thingy (because I never realised that you could do those with explosive arrows and the gamble bully as I never cared for poker. This time around there was just the poker part missing as such I ended doing a side quest I merely shrugged at and now I have it. OK, I looked up that Hollywood person. I initially thought it was one in my party to save. So when I found the solution I had to giggle. This is one of those moments I applaud the makers for such a sneaky achievement. 

This also stirred a few other things. You see, there is a game I want remade, but remade different and now it might not come to consoles because this is a streaming option. I also have been rethinking a few settings in the original games and how it might be done differently and that got me to a new approach to ‘family’ trees. Whilst everyone is rethinking ChatGPT and taking swings at their version of ‘AI’, I have been considering another use. A use in gaming not used before, not to ‘extent’ the gamer, but to extent a system that allows for ‘shoddy data’ and is set to parameters where we decide what to include and what to filter out. I considered it for a while and I suddenly that in some trees pruning is not the reward, but correctly pruning leads to a bigger reward and that is merely one stage to enhance an old game 30 years later and create a very new game. As such I now have 2 out of 4 stages of that game thought through, the third one is also there, but I believe that we need to tune that a little more. So whilst Microsoft is spending billions and billions to acquire IP, I merely thought it through and have a setting of close to half a dozen games ready to add to the Amazon Luna and Tencent handheld stables. I just can’t stop giggling at that premise. They (Microsoft) is trying to spend $69,000,000,000 to buy Blizzard and an idea that could be seen as outdated, I am about to hand Amazon and Tencent Technologies IP at less than 0.1% of that and they end up with half a dozen games that Microsoft does not have and will not have. In the meantime thanks to a brisk idea Vint Cerf had when he was an old-boy at DARPA led to an idea to a new approach to NPC enemy intelligence. Yup, Microsoft really played that part in a boneheaded way. And now (after they spend $7.5 billion for Bethesda) all eyes are on Starfield. I am not focussed on it, because I refuse to get the new Xbox and should that title fail, the goose of Microsoft will be sorely done. I honestly hope it will go well, because hoping for someone’s game to fail is just a dick move. I will merely never play it (unless it comes to PS5, which is a not going to happen). So I am not a starfield hater, but Microsoft placed a bar too high for normal games and now all eyes are on Starfield. I however decided to be more creative and designed several games exclusively for Amazon and Tencent, several of them I placed in the Public Domain for exclusive free development for these two systems. Yes, I know that this was a stretch, but the more I design and the more Microsoft fails, the bigger the loser they are showing themselves to be. It is a stage of lose some and lose some more. And now that my first IP is close to completely redrawn, Tencent Technologies stands to make a fortune on the space that Google Stadia once had and that spells out more bad news for Microsoft. 

Still the sentimental journey played its part. I have been driven (over time) towards games like System Shock and stealth games. Now I see that these stages are also drivers for new IP, not a copy of an old idea, but completely new IP, and as I personally see it Microsoft has nothing to counter it. Yes, Starfield will be new IP, but that is one IP on one system and they are still feeding the Game pass. I have several pieces of NEW IP, new that is never used and to a degree never seen on consoles. As such not only does Microsoft have contenders, but with their Call of duty fetish, trying to counter Epic and its software, they left too much lying on the floor and Tencent Technologies is starting to catch on where Amazon, Google and Microsoft decided not to look and now they are about to become the competitor Microsoft never banked on and as such they have more contenders to fields they never completely understood. First there was Apple with their iPad and the Windows Surface giggle never got close, then there was Amazon with AWS in the first (eat your heart out Azure) then with the Luna and there is Microsoft losing the streaming console war all whilst Netflix is a new contender costing Microsoft even more. Then there was Sony beating the Xbox version X (or was that the Nth degree). And now Tencent Technologies is about to enter the field giving more and more competition to Microsoft in streaming solutions. Making Microsoft the loser 5 times over. So Bethesda has an abnormal amount of pressure on it to make Starfield a lot better then good and after the epic failure that Redfall has become with additional promises not met 3 months later, all eyes are on Bethesda and I do not believe that is fair on Bethesda, but the premise was pushed by Microsoft and they will need a scapegoat should things go south, no idea how they will do that, but there you have it and I am handing over IP for free to anyone that is not Microsoft. You see, to avoid fish getting caught, you can either take the fish away, or make the pond a lot larger. I opted for a combination of both and when my initial premise of 50 million gamers is met, Microsoft will have to hand over the field yet again. Because it is not merely that I gain these gamers, Microsoft will lose those people in a few ways and that was the initial stage. It might be delusional, but I believe that giving gamers pure gaming pleasure is one way of gaining their trust. Not the trust of some analyst and some bing stage, but a stage where gaming for the sake of fun will endure long after Bing went the way of the dodo. I had hoped it would be an Amazon/Google win, but there is every chance that it will now be an optional Amazon/Tencent win and that will lead to a lot more damage to Microsoft over time. 

So whilst some will throw all this to my delusional side, I decided to blog the ideas so that they became open and Public Domain and I there is no regret here, I just came up with another part to an idea that could please a whole cluster of gamers, how large the cluster is is unknown. I understand that this is not some Call of Duty clone and as such plenty will not care for that game, but I believe millions will and that opens other doors and close the doors of Microsoft all at the same time. Why use energy twice, right?

I just have another idea. I think I wrote about it before. I should give it to Netflix as soon as possible just to piss Microsoft off and the more streaming gamers out there, the less is left for Microsoft and lets face it they have 238 million subscribers, so giving them IP merely slows the Microsoft cattle and diverts some of them to other places, a stage Microsoft cannot control and they lack ability to coach. Yup, now just to hand it over to Netflix and another loss for Microsoft is coming their way.

What a lovely way to start Friday (in 9 minutes).

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August 28, 2023 · 13:49

The speculated danger

Yes, that is where I am. Whatever I am about to give you, there is a decent amount of speculation involved, as such there is every chance that there are issues that aren’t covered and people with that kind of knowledge aren’t speaking out at present. Not to debunk my speculations and not to enforce it. I believe that the filtered media we are getting is now likely the more danger we face. This all started last night when I saw ‘UAE records hottest day of the year as temperature crosses 50 degree mark’ (at https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2023/08/27/Temperature-crosses-50-degree-mark-again-as-UAE-records-hottest-day-of-the-summer). Here we see “The rising heat in the UAE crossed the scorching 50 degrees Celsius threshold on Saturday, marking this summer’s highest temperature. According to the National Center of Meteorology (NCM), the mercury touched 50.8 degree Celsius in Abu Dhabi’s Owtaid in Al Dhafra region at 2:45 p.m.” We see all kinds of heat messages, but for a place like the United Arab Emirates to give that to the readers is a little new to me and that place is warm on any usual day. This started me to mull several things over and it also made me think back to the 60’s (when I was young and innocent. Yes, I was innocent once). That year is forever marked in my brain. Not because of the year as I am not certain what year it was. Yet I remember that it was -20 Celsius. The coldest I could ever remember. In addition to the ice flowers on my window, something I had never seen before there was something else. The streets were iced. Now we had ice in the winter, I grew up in a city named Rotterdam. But this was different, the streets were covered in ice. I could literally skate to school which had never happened before and I do not recall that it happened since. This is what I would call a temperature outlier. These things happen and there is nothing strange about it. Now consider this heat in the UAE. In addition consider (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/08/10/the-part-we-seem-to-forget/) the stage I reported in ‘The part we seem to forget’ where I quoted “Within the next two decades, temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and bringing widespread devastation and extreme weather” (source: the Guardian) You can forget about the decennia part, I personally believe we are there now. To get that stage we need to add three elements. 

  1. “Researchers say deforestation has caused the Amazon to absorb less than half as much carbon dioxide as it did twenty years ago.” With the added “In the last fifty years, Brazil’s Amazon has lost about a fifth of its forest cover—almost 300,000 square miles. This includes at least 5,110 square miles lost in 2021”
  2. “From 2001 to 2022, Indonesia lost 29.4 Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 18% decrease in tree cover since 2000, and 21.1 Gt of CO₂e emissions” which gives us Indonesia. 
  3. “Beginning in March 2023, and with increased intensity starting in June, Canada has been affected by an ongoing, record-setting series of wildfires. All 13 provinces and territories have been affected” with a total of 13,999,922 ha displacing well over 250,000 people. With Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/23/mapping-the-scale-of-canadas-record-wildfires) giving us “Canada is battling more than 1,000 active fires, and nearly two-thirds of them are out of control”

This is where the speculation starts. We have decimated our forests and the ability to regain the oxygen. Now, this is not going anywhere soon, our atmosphere has a curtain of well over 5 miles of oxygen, so we aren’t running out. But we now have a markable point where we use more oxygen than nature can correct for. The three largest places with forests are down by too much and there are side effects. The smoke of the Canadian fires, that go all through to the US will have a secondary impact

People wear protective masks as the Roosevelt Island Tram crosses the East River while haze and smoke from the Canadian wildfires shroud the Manhattan skyline in the Queens Borough New York City, June 7, 2023. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

The sun will warm us less and you might think that is a good thing, but you would be wrong and that is why I made mention of the outlier in the 60’s. I personally believe that we are about to face the harshest winters ever and it will not be one year. This will start a trend that will be a 3-7 year stretch, not all at once, but we will face at least 2 harsh winters over the next 5 years with a few more after that. Even if the forests in Canada are replanted using Team Trees with Mark Rober, it will take close to a decade to see that impact and the forest fires will return next year too. Less likely to the same scale, but forest fires are a normal setting in Canada, the three elements combined is different and new.

Some will have seen the Netflix movie How it Ends and we aren’t facing that, but the nuclear winter that follows such fires are not entirely impossible, I would go on stating that they are becoming more and more likely. The media will trivialise this and state that I am a doom sayer, yet they have never given us the real deal in this and they are unlikely to do so now. I am not saying this will happen, but I feel certain that we are heading to really harsh winters and the first one will hit us before January 2025 which is expected to cripple the UK and Europe to a larger degree. Canada and the nordic nations will not be crippled to such a degree, but they too will feel the bite of the winter that comes. In the meantime with the winter hitting us and the heat being a larger problem extreme weather is coming our way and it is coming now, not in a decade. 

So consider what I told you, fell free to check the numbers you can and be certain that you take note of the trivialisation you see in the media and take note of the media that trivialised it. They are no longer to be trusted ever. They are filtering the information to keep you asleep, especially in a time when you should have been awake a lot more. It is not the one thing, there is no one thing, it is the combination of a whole range of issues and it is not the private jet setting, that is utter bullshit. What they are all happy to ‘ignore’ or forget is what I mentioned in ‘A COP26 truth’ a setting we see (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/11/13/a-cop26-truth/) two elements stand out. “over the last 15 years 15,000,000 additional flights were added. That amounts to 41,000 flights a day, every single day. So how much CO2 do these flights create?” The Guardian was all about private jets and made no mention of this element. Do you really think that these flights were essential? Then there was “We are that close to suffocating. On the other side, we have seen clear reports that 50% of the damage comes from 147 plants, the media ignored it, I wrote about it and placed the documents of UNEP and the EEA for you to read, they had graphics too.” How interesting was it that the Guardian and its environmental pages did not mention that report. Two elements and you were kept in the dark and now these elements start to form a biased opinion (from me) but feel free to come up with better settings and this has been going on since 2021. So with all the space they had they ignored the European Environmental Agency? 

It is my personal speculated believe that these elements are part of a greater impact and the Canadian fires with the deforestation elements are adding up to a new picture. I might be so brazen to suggest that the 8 billion people this year onwards (for some time) will be using more oxygen than the planet can renew, this has a larger impact now, the winters and summers will both be harsh, more harsh then anyone can remember. I would leave it to the media, but I don’t thin they can be trusted any longer. In fact there are trust issues on all sides and so there should be, but those who give us the news aren’t (it is now filtered information). Am I right? Am I wrong?

I honestly do not know, but this is my speculated opinion. I might be going from numbers, but it remains speculation. 

So breath and get through the day, the weekend is behind you the next one might be coming in 5 days. Enjoy.

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August 19, 2023 · 00:41

Our house is burning down. Down!

By now we have all heard of the fires in Canada. There is nothing that I can say, invent or imagine that makes this setting easier. These fires are making the fires of Rome (64AD) and burning of London (1666AD) look like a simple BBQ (or clambake if you are from the US). At this time the fires are well over 13,500,000 Hectare, and it has displaced around 200,000 people. Which is almost 1% of the population. The largest fire in recorded history. I have never ever heard of a fire this big and I have been around for well over half a century. I wonder what the eco-deniers make of this setting, who will they blame? The fact that from all over the world firefighters are coming to Canada to fight a fire too big to comprehend is only one setting. The stage that planes are so loaded that they need to turn away those fleeing the disaster they face. 

People wear protective masks as the Roosevelt Island Tram crosses the East River while haze and smoke from the Canadian wildfires shroud the Manhattan skyline in the Queens Borough New York City, June 7, 2023. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

And that is before you realise that NYC is orange, orange from smoke by Canadian fires. An event that has never happened before. So yes, I looked at plenty of issues before I looked at this. I am on the other side of the planet, but I took notice, I took notice several times and now I decided to write about it. 

The setting hasn’t changed, I did. I am starting to realise that that much forest gone will impact our oxygen supply and it will take lose to a decade for a decent amount to be rebuild. We can argue on the timeline. But the forests in the Amazon are depleted, the ones in Indonesia have seen depletion as well Indonesia lost 29.4 Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 18% decrease in tree cover since 2000. Did you think that was nothing? Now the forests of Siberia are almost all that remain and I reckon that this is not a path we want to walk on. This fire might not be what we wanted, but there is a negative part in me that states that this is the fire we the people (not just Canadians) have been entitled to. A small reminder that exploitation of our world will hurt us all and people more intelligent than me would have been aware of this for several years and the Canadian fires are merely bringing it to the foreground. Some articles are drawing in the people by looking at how it started, some are set on the blame factor, but if you need someone to blame you only need to look into a mirror. Politicians are not held to account, all whilst driving the gravy train. We are being told that places like the UK that woodland creation has increased by 40 percent since last year to 3,128 hectares. It isn’t much, but it is a start, all being it being half a decade late. People like Mark Rober (formerly with NASA) have aided organisations like Team Trees, an organisation that as of 29 June 2023, the project has raised $24,438,806, exceeding the fundraiser’s goal to plant 20 million trees. As anticipated, more than 20 million trees have been planted. So one ex-NASA with an organisation achieved more in 2 years that the UK achieved in a decade and it is people like this that Canada will need, their solutions will be required when the fires are stopped. When? Your guess is as good as mine and it will rely on guessing as we have never faced a fire like this ever before, not in well over 2000 years as far as I can tell. 

So what is the option? I am not sure we have one, our house is burning down and whilst most houses have a garden to evacuate to, the planet has nothing surrounding itself but empty space and that is a place where we cannot survive. I wonder how long it will take some to blame the rich, tax everyone and whatever other solution people give, but the simple equation is that until we change our lives from a consumer based life towards an essential goods stage this will keep on going on. And with a little over 8,000,000,000 consumers in this house, we are destined for a larger failing than we care to admit to. You see it is not merely the fires, it is the simple equation where 34 million acres are not there to give us the oxygen we need to breath. So how short will our oxygen supply be in 2024? You can ignore it all you want but that will be the largest topic we ever faced and it is coming. None of it is the fault of Canada or Canadians. We all did our best to ignore Brazil and Indonesia. The media skated around the issue and now the blame game starts. Well as soon as the fires have been digitally exploited to the maximum. That is how I see it. Do you think I am wrong?

Enjoy the weekend and consider the numbers, the numbers tend to be correct.

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August 13, 2023 · 20:56

Discrimination Legislation of America

This is not new and I have talked about it before (some time ago). This all started with a Tweet, not the most academic source, but it gave me somewhere to start.

Then I went out and looked for something more reliable and Forbes handed me (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/alangassman/2023/04/07/bidens-war-on-billionaires/) a story from April. 

The setting given is ‘Biden’s War On Billionaires’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/alangassman/2023/04/07/bidens-war-on-billionaires/) it is there we see “All American earners are subject to federal income taxes, but not everyone is subject to the same tax rate. While middle-class Americans pay, on average, roughly 14% in federal taxes annually, the wealthiest American families frequently use loopholes to avoid paying these tax rates.” This is one point of you and it is not an invalid one. Yet, in black letter law the US has tax laws. The law is what nations rely on and I agree it is not a fair one, but guess what. This is the fault of the US Congress and the US Senate. I have been talking about fair taxation for over 10 years. But the law is the law and there is an additional setting, the reason why people focus on Jeff Bezos, this is merely a first step. You see, that 20% will do nothing, America is in too deep, it is a sinking ship and the only thing these political people want to do is step out, so they can say not was not on their watch. It is too late for that. You see when that first law is passed, they might get a chunk of Bezos, but they will also get a chunk of Marc Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Marc Benioff, Larry Ellison and that list goes on. My issue is that this is discrimination, Ageism (age discrimination), economic discrimination is also discrimination. So they are going after the real innovators, real inventors and what America wants is not their money, it is their IP, or at least part of it and co-controlling it. You really want all these systems to be co-owned by the USA? Whatever freedom you thought you had would be gone. The US has been playing stupid since the Clinton Administration, it was the last time that the US had green numbers, since then the allotted a debt surpassing $31,000,000,000,000 dollars. The US is broke and they are now in it to delay for whatever time they can. The USA has become a sinking ship, they are patching holes by cutting pieces out of the same leaking hull, it never ends well. I have pleaded for tax law overhauls for well over a decade. I noticed the slippery slope close to 25 years ago and it impacts the EU and Japan as well. China is growing, China is becoming the next power player in its lonesome position. BRICS is becoming an inner circle with China in the lead position, the moment it sheds Russia, their geese will be count as well. BRICS went from the elite of 5, to a group with 40 nations interested, the lead of the US is gone. No one follows the broke person who can no longer feed itself and with the the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates added to the BRICS group the US has very little left, so now they are setting the stage to go after the billionaires and whatever more they can get. Yet in all this the numbers of what Apple (Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft too) paid in taxation. That would have ben the fair setting, but no one is really digging into this, are they? Fair taxation starts with the corporations that was the first step and that has been overdue for decades, the loopholes had to be dealt with and that never was, that is the real story. Jeff Bezos et al used the legal options like tax lawyers to avoid paying more taxation than was required. Tax avoidance means “the use of legal methods to minimise the amount of income tax owed by an individual or a business”, which is perfectly legal, tax evasion is not legally stated and a crime. This is the stage that brings in the players like PwC, they are one of the leading experts in tax avoidance, this is why a tax overhaul had been essential for about 25 years and now it is too late. The us has its opponents knocking on their gates (BRICS and their members). So we get another populist call for taxing the rich, but it is the tax system and IRS who needed to clean their houses, they never did. I am no friend of Jeff Bezos, I do not think I ever was but that man took an online bookshop and turned it into something huge, then he went against the biggest tech company of all and created an equal if not a better version with his Amazon Luna (against the Google Stadia) which made Google leave the field (leaving billions on the floor), it almost destroyed Microsoft with its Azure through Amazon AWS. Two clear wins by (an online) bookshop. That is what Jeff Bezos did. You have to respect that and the others made their own innovative futures. Now the US wants to go after these innovator? So what happens to the US when these places resettle in BRICS territory? Good luck with that idea. So consider the Discrimination Legislation of America, the DLA, which by pure coincidence (LOL) also means Disability Living Allowance. The pay setting that most Americans are about to get towards to. Consider that the DLA ranges from around $1,000 – $5,000 depending on the member’s pay grade and dependency status. You can normally only receive DLA once each fiscal year. So a maximum of $5000 a year to make ends meet. Where in America can you live of that? I am not certain there is any place that will make America liveable and when the larger corporations leave that will be close to all that is left, until the money is gone. That is the future and I tried to warn you all, not to bite the hand that was feeding the US (Saudi Arabia) and when the tech players leave billions on the floor, why is that? I will let you decide.

Weekend is entering the last hours of the day, it is at the end of Sunday in the East (New Zealand) and at its start in Western Canada, enjoy.

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August 12, 2023 · 05:36

Tapping an economy

This happens, some other (or new) player sets the stage where they can become a major player. This is a rare case but it can happen and now I seem to be witness to one that could end up being a much larger stage than I ever expected. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66310714) gives us ‘Why it matters where your data is stored’. The article is all about the cloud, yet this article gave me parts that brought out questions that allowed the consideration that the new player could in a short time frame become a major player. Yet to see this, we need to look at the parts.

Part 1
The first question is coming from ““The American authorities have the right to go in and see any data that is stored in an American cloud, even if the data centre is in Europe,” Mr Åström says.” That was a selling point for American firms and with the IP in data centres the Europeans will become concerned. The American credit score is dwindling down as such they will become more and more concerned with THEIR value, a view Europeans will not share, or will be willing to chance sacrificing asI see it.

Part 2
Then we get to “it’s big enough to rival the major US cloud providers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and Google. They have a 65% share of the world cloud market between them, according to Synergy Research Group”, here I miss the IBM and Apple clouds. Apple is a different issue, they have a niche market and they are optionally decently safe from what is coming. IBM is different, they have been on the corporate data shoe forever, so why is IBM avoided? The numbers give me “IBM Hybrid Cloud has market share of 1.88% in infrastructure-as-a-service market. IBM Hybrid Cloud competes with 71 competitor tools in infrastructure-as-a-service category.” Perhaps they are ‘too small’, time will tell but that doesn’t matter. With this setting Evroc has the momentum to become a major player, perhaps slightly below AWS, but to go from a wannabe to a player next to AWS, possibly surpassing Microsoft is not done lightly and as far as I could tell has never been done before. But that is not the worst of it (for Amazon and Microsoft). You see the EU is larger in population, as such more services are needed there, but this could flow over into Canada (as it is a Commonwealth nation) then the larger concern (for Amazon et al) will be the Middle East. I reckon that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE might want to be separated more strongly from American firms. If I were China, I would be pushing that button too. As such Evroc as localisation bubbles could grow even further. 

Part 3
“Evroc has secured €15m in seed funding and plans to build eight data centres in Europe in the next five years. The first will be a large pilot data centre in Sweden next year.” As I see it, should they decide to add two more clouds (KSA and UAE) they could tap into a few massive organisations and that should make the US a lot more bothered than they ever considered. I had issues with ‘data sharing’ in the late 90’s but I was laughed at, I was overly BS howled at. Well, it seems that I was right all along and now that the US needs its corporations to do well, Evroc comes in and takes away even more. I never saw this coming, yet as I see it Mattias Åström played his cards well and at the right moment. There is no telling how far this goes, yet the idea that (based on the numbers) “Microsoft increased its share from 23%, up from 21% the prior quarter, while Amazon fell from 34% to 33% and Google remained steady at 11%.” Evroc could grow by taking 20% of the others, we get 18% Microsoft, 26% Amazon and 8% Google, Evroc could grow by 12% (optionally towards 20%+) almost overnight (if a night lasts 7 years) That puts them ahead of Google and Microsoft making them a new major player. That is beside the damage they could do in the Middle East. With Aramco, SAMA, Al Rajhi banking, SABIC, STC, MA’ADEN, International Holding Company (IHC), ADNOC, Emaar Properties and a few more more. You might think this is all fun and games, but it is about to get worse.

Part 4
This part was not in the article and that is not on the BBC. You see I have looked in this direction before. In 2020 I wrote ‘Institutionalised Positioning’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/02/institutionalised-positioning/) where we see ‘Microsoft Security Shocker As 250 Million Customer Records Exposed Online’ (source: Forbes), and add to that the recent forged key issue, an issue that the NSA warned them for 3 years ago, we see a much larger stage. A stage where Microsoft is bleeding faith, the faith the customers had in them is dwindling down, as such Evroc could take away a much larger part of that blue joke. As such Microsoft could face a much larger loss. It would be nice to state that Amazon loses less, but certain other parts might not make that realistic. The only player optionally not losing any is Apple. Their largest base are iPhone users with subscriptions. 

These 4 parts show that Evroc is the new player to watch. If that is the case they will need staff all over the world. Even I would like to work for a new player and that is the second danger that they (mostly Microsoft) faces. If Amazon and Microsoft only lose 5% of their cloud workforce they both face shortages all over, and this is in a place where you need all hands on deck. This last part is hugely speculative, but with 8 new centres coming and optionally 2-5 more in the middle east Evroc is set to grow beyond the assessments of analysts. As such Mattias Åström and its new Evroc could be a force to be reckoned with and as such bring massive cash coffers into the EU and towards the Middle East as well and all that revenue goes out of the US and that is a loss the US was not ready for.

Enjoy the weekend 

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August 4, 2023 · 08:56

Three voices

I have ‘complained’ about the media before and this time I come with an example. Weirdly enough none of them are doing anything wrong, but when you see the example you might wonder what the fuzz is about. As I see it is more than merely one stating the bottle is half full and the other stating the bottle is half empty. But I will let you decide. I got there because I am investigating a setting that is approaching maturity and I want my share. Google walked way from well over 5 billion a year and Amazon is leaving it on the floor. Both are entitled to do so, yet now Tencent Technologies is coming and there is every chance that they will not pay me a dime. I am not willing to hand it to Amazon with Andy Jassy stating ‘Thank You’ and pocketing all that revenue for himself. I am not THAT nice. As such I am in a state of worry and the battle arena seems to be Dubai. Amazon has options if it is forced to break up. I think its setting will be stronger if a layer like the Kingdom Holding Company would champion the stage, especially with someone like Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud overlooking the stage. A setting that brings benefits but might not be essential. I do believe that a strong setting could be presented from Dubai, it is a personal feeling. So at times I look at the UAE and that is where the three voices got hold of me. So lets begin.

Voice One: Arab News
Here we see (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2348896/business-economy) ‘UAE’s non-oil economy remains strong in July as PMI stands at 56’ this is good, someway. I like to think that it will be better soon enough, but the Arab News gives us “According to the seasonally adjusted S&P Global UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index, the country’s PMI stood at 56 in July compared to 56.9 in June. This still indicates a positive trend as any readings above 50 are considered a growth in economic activities, while figures below 50 show contraction.” Overall a strong message, there is a little fallback, but the story gives us that is still in the growth margin. The message has the added “Higher business activities were driven by an upturn in new orders, which continued to be boosted by strong customer demand and improving market conditions, the report stated, citing survey panelists. However, it noted that growth eased since June as several firms faced greater competition which dampened sales in the process.” OK, greater competition is a little vague, but that is fine a positive approach to a story.

Voice Two: Khaleej Times
Then we get the article (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/uae-non-oil-sector-continues-to-grow-at-a-strong-pace-creating-more-jobs-in-july) here we are given ‘UAE non-oil sector continues to grow at a strong pace, creating more jobs in July’, which makes sense as it is a UAE newspaper. Here we get “The S&P Global UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) – an indicator designed to give an overview of operating conditions in the non-oil private sector economy – dropped from 56.9 in June to 56.0 in July but remained well above the 50.0 no-change mark and the series long-run average. The reading indicated a sharp improvement in the health of the sector, supported by a marked expansion in output.” It basically gives us the same we saw in the Arab News with the added “S&P said driving activity higher was an upturn in new orders, which continued to be boosted by strong customer demand and improving market conditions, according to survey panellists.” I personally would have a few question marks, but in the end it is how the painting is made. I would state that this critic is looking at the painting, giving the summary and looking at the use of blue paint in the process. This happens, we all have our ways of looking at a painting and it is probably the best way to describe it. 

Voice Three: Reuters
It was the first article I saw (at https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lower-sales-weigh-uae-non-oil-business-activity-july-pmi-2023-08-03/) making me look at the setting a little deeper. The start ‘Lower sales weigh on UAE non-oil business activity in July’ with the added “The slowdown was attributed in part to an easing of growth in new orders, although demand remained strong, with the sub-index falling to 57.4 in July from 61.0 the previous month, which was the fastest rate of expansion since June 2019.” Now we get an interesting sight, this article is cautiously pessimistic (headline) but the overall message is still positive. Yet the numbers are not matching. It might not be wrong as they use ‘sub-index’, but which one? Then we get the added “Owen added that the “the easing of sales growth was substantial and, if accelerated in future months, suggests that the demand boom could have reached its peak.”” The reference is to David Owen, senior economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. Yet the station is how does ‘substantial’ apply? Is this fear-mongering for investors, is it biased negativity towards the Middle East? You tell me, I have no clue. But the fact that we have these three voices is important because it shows us that there is a media flaw. Now, there are all kinds of flaws and flaws due to arbitrary interpretation is nothing new and optionally not a flaw but the stage is there and now we have ourselves a ballgame. So which one is true? They might all be true but the anarchy in the three voices tend to impact us all. My gut tells me to go with the Arab News, but that is instinct and not a given view of evidence. I will let you decide which one is more apt.

Enjoy the day, Friday is about to start in Vancouver, the rest of us are already there. 

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July 27, 2023 · 13:47

Sportwashing, what does it mean?

I have had my issues with the media for the longest of times. This time something on sportwashing, written by a woman (of course) where the Guardian gives us (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/revealed-saudi-arabia-6bn-spend-on-sportswashing) ‘Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s $6bn spend on ‘sportswashing’’. This setting comes across as a massive joke (to say the least). So when we are given “Billions deployed since early 2021 in a move critics say is an attempt to distract from human rights record”, so who are these critics? Names please? The reality is a lot easier to set in. This is not about some wash, this is about the beginning of the end for media players all over the globe. The setting al almost 2000 years old and was given to us by Decimus Junius Juvenalis who phrased ‘panem et circenses’. He accused his world of “to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace, by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).” The west (especially America) took this to heart and for decades it worked for them. We all got the NFL, NBA, NHL and so on. The problem becomes when the well dries up, when the coffers are empty. This was an event that people like Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (aka Caligula) faced and now the west does too. That being said, as I stated a few times over, Saudi Arabia is about to become the largest 5G hub in history, connecting Africa, Asia and Europe via Saudi Arabia (STC), as such the new (soon to become released) news channel makes sense. In addition to that they need to create waves of watchers and as these high end sports will all set the focus to Saudi Arabia. Football, Formula One, eSports, Golf and that list keeps on growing. Soon all eyes will be on the STC and the MBC Group soon enough and that matters, the MBC group started in 1991 and in 31 years they grew and they are about to become the biggest player of them all. I saw part of this and adjusted my IP accordingly (to some degree). And as they go live, the advertisers will walk away from the BS channels we watched for decades. Advertisers will go where the money is and that has nothing to do with sportwashing. That is the business of the day. As such I have no idea where people like Ruth Michaelson get their ideas but they are massively flawed. Then she starts to add fictive settings based on the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, which is interesting (apart from that essay joke by the UN), no one ever presented clear and defining evidence on that part. It is my speculation that some people accepted some form of guilt after the immense bashing by the media and political players (I will exempt the Washington Post from this). It all starts to take shape and tis shape took some time to gather as this was a long play and the media is finally starting to figure out what I saw well over a year ago. These media people are about to become obsolete. All these ads in the UK and US, now pushing female football. This is simple, as I see it the other gender will be broadcasted all over the channels that the MBC group has and once they start owning stations in Europe the final part of this strategy becomes clear and just like Google buying YouTube, the MBC group will gather billions in advertisement revenue within the span of a year making Fox News close to obsolete, moreover over 300 sports channels will at some point show the MBC group logo and that is when the coins really start flowing into the coffers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Losers like Microsoft and peers like Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta will bend over backwards to connect in some partnership to the MBC group. As such the evidence is out there in all kinds of messages and news casts. You’ll have to dig, because the western press has been drowning whatever news came from the KSA, but it is out there, as such I wonder who came up with the lame term ‘Whitewashing’ more important, as the media does close to nothing to the actions in places like Iran, do you think that Saudi Arabia needs to spend billions to hide whatever Human Rights issue is in play in Saudi Arabia? What a farce that presumption is. Saudi Arabia and other Islamic nations rule and act according to the Quran, the rules of Islam and they are just a few steps away from being the most dominant religion on the planet. Perhaps doing something about catholic paedophiles well over a decade ago was the best course, but feel free to disagree on that one. And there is a second upside, the NHL will prosper as other nations add their visibility to the global population, not in the least by the UAE Ice Sports Federation and its 50 members. Did you know that the Ice Sports Federation in the UAE was that big? What else are you not ware of and what is being kept out of western news? So which Cricket fan saw any matches on TV that were Pakistani or Indian based? Consider all the sports we will be getting soon and wonder why the others did not give us that, kept it from us. Why?  It boils down to money and short earned cash at that, when you play the long game the earning are different and the earnings could be long term. So consider all the sports that the US and EU have to bid for, all whilst they have no money left, only on paper, but that does not pay the invoice, especially when the banks fold. 

Enjoy the day, one day left to the day before the weekend that comes.

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