Tag Archives: BBC

December 10, 2020 · 20:47

Uniform Nameless Entitlement Perforation

As I stated yesterday, lets take a look at the Emissions Gap Report 2020, I wanted to see where the lifestyle change to the super wealthy would solve the environmental issue as Tim McGrath rote in his BBC article, which I covered in ‘Hatred of Wealth’ Yesterday. There we saw in the BBC article ‘Climate change: Global ‘elite’ will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles’ the mention of  “And for the top 10% of earners, this would mean cuts to around one tenth of their current level. But for the richest 1%, it would mean a dramatic reduction”, in this he also makes mention of his friend at chapter 6, who was a contributor, as such we should look there. When we get there we get a few facts. As we see “Average consumption emissions vary substantially between countries. For example, current per capita consumption emissions in the United States of America are approximately 17.6 tons CO2e per capita, around 10 times that of India at 1.7 tons per capita. By contrast, the European Union and the United Kingdom together have an average footprint of approximately 7.9 tons per capita (see chapter 2).” Here we need to take a little gander. ‘per capita’ gives us a Latin term that translates to “by head”, and the UN does nothing without a reason, so why not ‘per person’ does it seemingly looks ‘more intelligent’? You see India has well over 1.3 billion people, America has 325 million people. Which now implies that one nation has a different pattern when we take the whole look. Anyhow, they come to the conclusion of “A range of estimates point to a strong correlation between income and emissions, with a highly unequal global distribution of consumption emissions. Such studies estimate that the emissions share of the top 10 per cent of income earners is around 36–49 per cent of the global total, whereas the lowest 50 per cent of income earners account for around 7–15 per cent of all emissions”, this is not a bad view, I do not agree, but their report does not need to give in to my considerations. It is here that we introduce the data from the European Environmental Agency (EEA) where we get “Half the damage is being done by just one percent of industrial plants”, as such in Europe 50% is done by 147 industrial plants? Where in this view do the wealthy users of private jets stand? You see on page 84 we see the only two mentions of Jet in the entire report, it is “IEA estimated that the mean production costs of aviation biofuels in 2018 were approximately two to three times that of fossil jet kerosene (IEA 2018)”, it is not precise, it is an estimation, and it reflects on cost, not on pollution, as such where did Tim McGrath get his data? I found mine in two minutes, and the BBC let him. So as we consider the impact of this report (which is better then I expected), as such I wonder what the issue was with the lifestyle of the wealthy when in Europe alone, 147 factories would have set the marker of 50% of the damages in Europe, so which (or how many) factories have a similar view in the US and India? I would add China to that equation as well, optionally Russia, so how much improvement can we get if we go after the right targets and not waste our time on the wealthy jet owners (as Tim McGrath want). 

It took two hours to look into the report, less than an hour to look at the EEA and when we consider this against the BBC article, how much time did they spend (read: waste) on something a person without clear present knowledge could debunk in a matter of minutes? It took me 5 times longer to type this point of view against me making the case. 

But this is not enough, Tim McGrath was making his point coming from the graphs on page 89, where we see “Per capita and absolute CO2 consumption emissions by four global income groups in 2015”, you see the chart looks really clever, but here is the data? And when we see the EEA stage where we see that 50% of the damage is allegedly DONE by 147 plants, who owns those 147 plants? This all matters as the report is optionally ‘hiding’ behind “Ivanova and Wood (2020) find that a large share of the emissions of the top- emitting European Union households are transport-related”. This might be true, yet the larger stage is not merely on the transport related part, it is how much of that emission problem is mass transport? Trains, metro’s, busses, how much of the transport emissions are they a part of? You see, the data their will be found lacking. Consider Spain, Italy and Greece alone, this against the UK. Are you seeing the larger picture and how convoluted the setting of ‘transport-related’ emission issues are seen when the EEA gives for Europe a clear stage of 147 industrial plants and 50% of the damage, in all this the entire wealth setting is merely a smoke screen, like the ones we see way too often and in this case the BBC is optionally a co-conspiror of the created smoke.

It is merely my point of view and feel free to disagree, but in this you need to make up your own mind on what is there and what is debatable.

egr20Download

 

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December 10, 2020 · 02:19

Hatred of wealth

We have seen it, we at times observed it, but for the BBC to actively support it is taking this to a new sight. This is the feeling I had when I saw the article ‘Climate change: Global ‘elite’ will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles’ an hour ago (at https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55229725). We have seen the options, we have seen the banter, but this article by Matt McGrath is taking it into a new direction. You see, some have a lifestyle that is slightly higher in carbon, mine might be a lot lower, I have no jet or helicopter. Yet what gives Matt the setting he has? 

Let’s look at some numbers given to us by Statista. The graph shows us that in the last 15 years plane travel went up by well over 15,000,0000 planes, this implies almost a million lanes per year more. So Matt, how many jets and helicopters are there? Now, we might see their use of a jet as a spillage, and perhaps it is, consider however, that for them there are fuel requirements, staff requirements and here Forbes was very useful (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/douggollan/2019/08/22/private-jet-travel-is-greener-than-you-think). The quote “Two private jets would bring $170,000 in spending, 55% more than the full 737, with just over 25 tonnes of CO2 emitted, one-sixth of the commercial airliner”, and when we see the numbers of 38 million airliners, knowing that there are nowhere near as much jets in the world, I wonder just what the game of Matt is, perhaps it is merely kicking rich people. 

Now, we are all interested in doing something for the environment, so how about stopping 10% of ALL Air traffic? I do not think that Matt McGrath is doing that, he would upset powerful people and the BBC does not do war with powerful people. Or perhaps he might take notice of “It is estimated that approximately 706 million gallons of waste oil enter the ocean every year, with over half coming from land drainage and waste disposal; for example, from the improper disposal of used motor oil”, I did not vet that information, yet it seems that neither did he, and the setting of doing something about the stage of ‘706 million gallons of waste oil’ is as I see it more impactful than slamming some person with a fat wallet and a jet (or helicopter), oh and these helicopters tend to be taxi services, you want to take the car from a taxi driver? Seems a little vague to me. 

So for those in doubt, let me add an image of a jet, something you might silently dream of and never get (just like me). And whilst I am on a roll (yes I am), consider all these flights, now identify the salespeople who are going to some pricey seminar, lets take those as well as sales people on some binge in Vegas to ‘be inspired’, as such how much environment did they waste? 

And when we get to “The global top 10% of income earners use around 45% of all the energy consumed for land transport and around 75% of all the energy for aviation, compared with just 10% and 5% respectively for the poorest 50% of households, the report says” which is a new level of BS. The poorest 50% cannot afford any vacation, due to sliding hourly wages, I will admit that rich people are at the head of that, but not all wealthy people, and the stage of pre-covid 2020, we see 40 million flights, all whilst the number of private jets are set to 4,600, and this includes jets that are corporate jets. So I want to see that report so I can cut Matt McGrath more to size. With the additional ““The UNEP report shows that the over-consumption of a wealthy minority is fuelling the climate crisis, yet it is poor communities and young people who are paying the price,” said Tim Gore, head of climate policy at Oxfam”, I see another person I need to cut down to size. The fact that I saw holes in this article in less than 10 minutes and the fact that the BBC is enabling this is jut too weird. Well at least I have another windmill to fight and bring to attention of the readers. Oh and before you think I am biased, consider that the 4,600 will include the jets owned by royal families and dignitaries and governments, consider this, when you saw the first number, do you really want them to charter a Boeing? To be honest, I cannot tell how many planes are in that group, I did not find any numbers on that, but the larger stage is that instead of them looking into matter that matter, we see a stage of ‘over-consumption of a wealthy minority’, so what EXACTLY is over-consumption? And per jet, how many flights were made? So let’s say a person like Bobby Axelrod (a fictional character), how often was he in a jet in 4 seasons? I am using this example to avoid using real people, because the question stays the same and we can argue that some like the Waltons from Kmart might fly less often than some whatchamightcallit from Wall Street, as such, the article has a few issues all over the place, I am making it my mission to look at that UNEP report, lets see what we can find there and how time was wasted on that report.

From my point of view the UN has become the largest waster of funds and options in the last 10 years, so I am ready to roar at that mouse, you betcha!

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December 9, 2020 · 04:27

Markers of identity

There are several news articles out there. They are not related, not directly, not indirectly, but the underlying events are. The first one is (on the light side) ‘Tesla announces second $5bn share sale in three months’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/12/8/tesla-announces-second-5bn-share-sale-in-3-months), it is the given quote “Tesla’s shares touched a record high on Monday, pushing the electric-car maker’s market value above $600bn”, he has, as one might say, almost reached the midpoint of his directly achievable wealth. The second part is seen in ‘Christchurch massacre: Inquiry finds failures ahead of attack’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55211468), there we see “correcting these failures would not have stopped the Australian national, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole earlier this year, from carrying out the attack, it said”, as well as “the patchwork of clues discovered by police after the massacre – including his steroid abuse, a hospital admission after he accidentally shot himself, and visits to far-right websites – would not have proved enough to predict the attack”. These issues are unrelated. It is about the markers, whether they are markers of wealth, markers of rage, markers of alleged insanity, the list goes on, but we are driven and pushed by markers, all whilst there is a larger stage where these markers matter not, not now, not ever. It is there that we need to look and we need to identify the pushed markers, the driven markers and we need to hold them out to the light and openly debate them. 

You see, prevention was actually possible (as far as I can tell), now I am not debating the 6 guns, I am a gun person myself and if I had the means and a safe place to put them, I might have them, yet no one is debating ‘more than 7,000 rounds of ammunition’, why is that? Even a gun lover like me, having more then 100 bullets per rifle is a bit of a stretch, so why would he have needed the other 5,400 bullets for and to be honest, I tend not to miss, as such, the 51 people who died, would imply 2 magazines optionally 3 and my one FN FAL (the gun I started my training with in 1981), that is 90 bullets, oh and in the military, if there is not an active war theatre, having more than one magazine is pretty much frowned on, actually it is openly questioned. As such I wonder who looked into this inquiry? Especially as he acquired ‘ammunition online’, I might buy ammunition online, yet I also accept that someone is keeping track of what I buy, and the fact that one person was able to buy more ammunition than the average base has in stock calls for all kinds of questions. The fact that more than 1 box is shipped to one address is also reason for questions. So when I see ‘The commission found no failures within any government agencies that would have allowed the terrorist planning and preparation to be detected’, I have to stop and laugh for a couple of minutes. If one man can do that, what can several lone wolves accomplish? So as I took a look at the report (at https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/), I get to the setting here, the 4 documents (or basically one large one in 4 parts) is actually quite good, it is a decent piece of work and even as some state no fault was due, issues of improvement are there. I see the failing in the second PDF where I see “not for the purpose of keeping records of these purchases”, it reflect on the ammunition bought. They were seen and approved, and they were allowed. So how many documents were seen? To get this much ammunition, you would need to make purchases several times. The math is not looking good here. We see a Marker of enabling, but the marker of questioning is absent. I see this as a clear failure on some part, especially on the system, it might not have prevented the event, but it would have lessened the damage and lowered the fatality list. Volume 3 of the report gives us on page 476 “To assist staff in prioritising leads, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has produced a table that sets out various security indicators and the priority associated with them. For example, “Skills/Knowledge – Research into basic weapons, firearms and ammunition” is identified as a critical indicator of security relevance for assessing whether a person has the capability to carry out a terrorist act”, yet keeping records on ammunition bought (for example 7000+) is not. Who would be the larger danger, the man being able and operate a rifle with a 100 bullets, or one with 7000 bullets? I mean, most man hate their mother in law (some passionately do), but ever we think 7000 pieces of ammo is a bit much. Volume 2 gives more (42.21) “We do not know how much ammunition the individual purchased in total as most sellers do not keep records of the ammunition sold in store. We do know that on 24 March 2018, he spent $1,358.00 at Gun City Dunedin on 2,000 rounds of .223 calibre Remington 55Gr SP.” This is the smoking gun (sort of), in one purchase we see 2,000 rounds at $1,358. I would have chimes every bell possible at this point, especially if this was not a gun-shop or a federal enforcement agency. You still think there was no failure there? A marker of investigation was required and none was found, merely a commercial need to enable a person to buy, buy, buy. He was not buying two Tesla’s, he was buying ammunition. We se even more at (42.22), there we get “we are aware of 11 ammunition purchases made online between 5 December 2017 and 12 July 2018. The details of these purchases are provided in the table below. The individual completed the required New Zealand Police mail order form for these purchases” In December he bought enough to outmatch the entire New Zealand Army, and no questions were asked, failure? I personally believe that is the case. Yes, I cannot disagree with the finding that the event could not be stopped, yet I believe that the casualty list would be a lot lower if more effort had been made. As we look at the markers of identity and the markers of enabling, I feel that we all failed, not just a New Zealand administration. Someone delivered these packages, 1,000 rounds is heavy. When we see delivery from Lock, Stock and Smoking Barrel, Gun City, Aoraki Ammunition Company, Ammo Direct NZ, Ordnance Developments, and Arsenal Limited someone should have sounded the bells of worry, the alarms of wondering and in all this no one seemingly did. Well over $5,000 and no one was seemingly the wiser. He could have rearmed the larger extent of Al Qaeda (or the KKK) and it would only be known after the shooting took place. There was a failure, a larger one. 

Let me be frank, I love guns, I am not a gun nut, but I do not have to be, even I think that this much ammo is just insane. And it was at the top of the pile, there are other parts that I found which were not part of the inquiry, yet I feel that it is important to let these issues lie down for a while, I feel that certain people are looking into matters and me ringing that bell whilst they are near the door is a stupid, silly and all kinds of irresponsible, and I tend not to be any of the three (most of the time).

So why the mention of Tesla in the beginning? Commerce is strong all over, it is essential in too many places and the marker of commerce is too eagerly accepted, all whilst questions are not being asked in too many places. No one is debating that Elon Musk is a genius, optionally a visionary and he is on route being the first trillionaire, yet no one is wondering whether that should be questioned. Consider that any person being the owner of well over 1000 billion has more power than most governments, Elon Musk is about to become that person and s an achievement I wish him well, he did it by building something, as did Mark Zuckerberg, as did the late Steve Jobs (well he set the Apple horse in motion). Yet this stage is supported by a marker that is questionable and we need to see this, or failures like the Christchurch shooting will happen again and again. What if the next time it is not ammunition, what if it is something else? Part of this tragedy was enabled by commerce, I will happily sell the Saudi Government $8,500,000,000 in weapons, yet this is a government, not a person. There is a difference and we need to set the systems up to identify certain markers, if we do not do that the next event will happen and no one is at fault then either, but scores of people will be dead, how does that sound? 

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November 29, 2020 · 23:33

The pun remains

We all seek confirmation, it is for the most in our core, even now (after the idiocy ordeal) of dealing with Indeed and their ‘so called tests’ on a multiple choice test for answering the phone, I remembered things that actually mattered (to me that is). You see, Iran lost a nuclear physicist, the man Mohsen Fakhrizadeh did not see the beginning of December. And when we see “the architect of Tehran’s nuclear strategy, was killed on Friday on a highway near the capital in a carefully planned assassination”, I merely wonder how carefully the stage was planned. Yes, there is a chance that Mossad arranged for the release in stress to the State of Israel, there is also the chance that some hardliners are thinking that the nuclear escalation is not fast enough and they needed to increase tensions, or basically the IRGC promoted Mohsen Fakhrizadeh from citizen to dead citizen. Now, mind you, my view is highly speculative, but think on the lack of security a scientist apparently has in Iran and how little the IRGC has done to ensure ‘prompt response’ on those failing protection, is that not weird?

So whilst the Guardian gives voice to Hassan Rouhani and the quote “blamed Israel and reiterated that Fakhrizadeh’s death would not stop the country’s nuclear programme”, we can look at the horizon for a few matters. So whilst SBS relies to some degree on “Fakhrizadeh has been described by Western and Israeli intelligence services for years as the mysterious leader of a covert atomic bomb programme halted in 2003, which Israel and the United States accuse Tehran of trying to restore. Iran has long denied seeking to weaponise nuclear energy”, I merely wonder, how many scientists do YOU know that sit on their hands for 17 years? How many academic papers has he released since 2003? That too is evidence, if he actually worked towards safe nuclear energy. It is the same as the traps the Rotterdam harbour made in the late 80’s, idle time is NEVER linear. So when we get to the goods we see “He was the only Iranian scientist named in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 2015 “final assessment” of open questions about Iran’s nuclear programme. The IAEA’s report said he oversaw activities “in support of a possible military dimension to (Iran’s) nuclear programme”. He was a central figure in a presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018 accusing Iran of continuing to seek nuclear weapons”, and my need for precision needs to say that this too does not constitute evidence, merely alleged accusations, it is where is his team? A man like that does not work alone and his team and their actions are part of the chain of evidence, so where is it and what did the media uncover (if they took effort). It is a stage and the scientific stage tends to be ego fuelled, the man with the largest team is the most important, that is true pretty much everywhere. Only the established experts in a field that is too limited, too precise tends to be small, the nuclear field cannot boast this setting. Oh, and as for Mossad getting an operation this deep into Iran, weird, but OK, I can go along with excellence and well managed, yet that too is evidence. It implies that the IRGC is dropping essential balls all over the place and that is also an indication, perhaps Israel might be interested in Gorman One and Evia Miden, I have to sell to someone, Christmas is coming and I want to give myself a nice present, I reckon that these two weapon systems will do just that, how pathetic is my life? Me, willing to sell a weapon system to harm Iran for a video game and a cheese pizza? (Which was me oversimplifying matters).

 And in all this, we still have not seen any acceptable level of evidence to show it was Israel tht did the attack, for all we know it was Turkey who did this, lets face it we saw the headline ‘Erdoğan uses syncretism of neo-Ottomanism and pan-Turkism to build Greater Turkey’, and they cannot go after Greece, the EU won’t let them, Greece has too many friends, so who has no friends and can be used to show greatness? Ah yes, Iran! The evidence is super flimsy, but Iran is used to super flimsy evidence, so I jut thought I would help them out. You see, when you stop relying on actual data and evidence. Where do you end? Well, that is merely part of the evidence seen and in light of the nuclear aspirations of Iran, we need to start worrying on the EU taking actual notice of the dread that is Iran, when an attack does happen, and the target is Israel, it will hit the Mediterranean and as such it will hit European interests in no less than 8 countries, it is time for the EU to wake up, so when I see the Guardian giving us “Iran calls on international community – and especially EU – to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror”, we need to consider the play that follows this and ‘especially EU’ was not a suggestion, it was a specific tone meant for a specific person, as such we need to consider what we are all getting into, the EU especially because the nuclear game Iran is aiming for will happen in the EU backyard with decades of damage to follow, anyone not seeing that is a clear and proper fool.

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November 29, 2020 · 15:56

Data, Mind setting and Intent

It has always been the case that dat allows for more, Cambridge Analytica might have brought it to the surface, but it was there, it always was. I have been involved with data since 1992, so I see no surprises here. Even as some are ‘befuddled’ or ‘baffled’, I, and many others were not. So when I see the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54915779), I merely shrug my shoulders and go ‘Meh’. Yet the larger part is not seen, it is partially hidden by “buying someone’s name can lead to making guesses about their income, number of children and ethnicity – which is then used to tailor a political message for them”, when I see ‘making guesses about their income’, I wonder who was setting that strange event. When I have a name, I do not need to do any of that, When we combine the election roll data, when we set the stage via social media and when we add real estate data that some have (Equifax, Transunion, Thomson Reuters, Experian, Dunn and Bradstreet), we can start to combine information. I have don this for well over a decade. So when I see the statement from Lucy Purdon, I merely wonder if she is intentionally stupid. You see, it is not about “Data collection is out of control and we need to put limits on what is collected”, it is about “Data collection is out of control and we need to put limits on what is connected”, the shift is two letters which is a huge stage. I have been combining real estate data, past connections, as well as location information. There are really good programs out there and in some cases, I can combine the details of close to a dozen sources, as long as I can create a unique key and that is often possible (not always), privacy is what you had before there was an internet. When we got to the combinations of Merchant house data (Dutch: Kamer van Koophandel), I had the givings of well over a million people, a million more if multiple connections were made and that was in 1994, that was well over 25 years ago and that world did not stop, it never stopped running. Over 10 years ago Oracle introduced array tables, the manual states “Unbounded means that, theoretically, there is no limit to the number of elements in the collection. Actually, there are limits, but they are very high—for details, see Referencing Collection Elements”, it was a game changer, as I saw it it was the first real instance where we could create many to many relationships as well as set that data to a single person. In IBM Statistics I had to be clever and make a workaround, which was per person and a little time consuming, Oracle gave the setting where the computer did all the work, the more powerful the computer. The more data and the quicker we saw results, this was over 10 years ago, and a person like Lucy Purdon should know this, making her either super stupid, or she has an agenda. I do not think that she is stupid, so I am going to make the agenda assumption. There is a stage on what is collected and what is connected, she should know this. Financial institutions are ahed of that curve, because it gives them additional mitigated risk, this is one reason why Google Financial institutions need to keep a Chinese wall on their data away from their Financial Institutions, I gave that view somewhere two weeks ago in ‘A fair call’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/09/a-fair-call/), so when we see the events all clinging together, what are we chastising Google for when the stage is a lot worse? And when the BBC gives us ‘So how do the parties get my data in the first place?’ With the added “The electoral register forms “the spine” of data sources, according to PI, but beyond that it is surprisingly difficult to work out what the parties use”, well, I think I have just given you the run down on the way I did it for aver a quarter of a century, as such the gap the BBC is claiming to have versus is weird, especially when they do not give us “We think that they get from A, through B,C ,D and E, through to the result, we merely cannot prove it at present”, but they didn’t give us that, did they?

Several players have the data, and they have the mindset to make the connections in their need to set an advantage, but the stage of the intent cannot be proven, it remain allegedly, and in light of optional data (if others can acquire that data). It was never about collections, it was about connections and enough players know this to set some serious question marks to this article.

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November 20, 2020 · 22:40

News, fake news, or else?

Yup that is the statement that I am going for today. You see, at times we cannot tell one form the other, and the news is making it happen. OK, that seems rough but it is not, and in this particular case it is not an attack on the news or the media, as I see it they are suckered into this false sense of security, mainly because the tech hype creators are prat of the problem. As I personally see it, this came to light when I saw the BBC article ‘Facebook’s Instagram ‘failed self-harm responsibilities’’, the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55004693) was released 9 hours ago and my blinkers went red when I noticed “This warning preceded distressing images that Facebook’s AI tools did not catch”, you see, there is no AI, it is a hype, a ruse a figment of greedy industrialists and to give you more than merely my point of view, let me introduce you to ‘AI Doesn’t Actually Exist Yet’ (at https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/ai-doesnt-actually-exist-yet/). Here we see some parts written by Max Simkoff and Andy Mahdavi. Here we see “They highlight a problem facing any discussion about AI: Few people agree on what it is. Working in this space, we believe all such discussions are premature. In fact, artificial intelligence for business doesn’t really exist yet”, they also go with a paraphrased version of Mark Twain “reports of AI’s birth have been greatly exaggerated”, I gave my version in a few blogs before, the need for shallow circuits, the need for a powerful quantum computer, IBM have a few in development and they are far, but they are not there yet and that is merely the top of the cream, the icing on the cake. Yet these two give the goods in a more eloquent way than I ever did “Organisations are using processes that have existed for decades but have been carried out by people in longhand (such as entering information into books) or in spreadsheets. Now these same processes are being translated into code for machines to do. The machines are like player pianos, mindlessly executing actions they don’t understand”, and that is the crux, understanding and comprehension, it is required in an AI, that level of computing will not now exist, not for at least a decade. Then they give us “Some businesses today are using machine learning, though just a few. It involves a set of computational techniques that have come of age since the 2000s. With these tools, machines figure out how to improve their own results over time”, it is part of the AI, but merely part, and it seems that the wielders of the AI term are unwilling to learn, possibly because they can charge more, a setting we have never seen before, right? And after that we get “AI determines an optimal solution to a problem by using intelligence similar to that of a human being. In addition to looking for trends in data, it also takes in and combines information from other sources to come up with a logical answer”, which as I see is not wrong, but not entirely correct either (from my personal point of view), I see “an AI has the ability to correctly analyse, combine and weigh information, coming up with a logical or pragmatic solution towards the question asked”, this is important, the question asked is the larger problem, the human mind has this auto assumption mode, a computer does not, there is the old joke that an AI cannot weigh data as he does not own a scale. You think it is funny and it is, but it is the foundation of the issue. The fun part is that we saw this application by Stanley Kubrick in his version of Arthur C Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is the conflicting part that HAL-9000 had received, the crew was unaware of a larger stage of the process and when the stage of “resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission”, which has the unfortunate part that Astronaut Poole goes the way of the Dodo. It matters because there are levels of data that we have yet to categorise and in this the AI becomes as useful as a shovel at sea. This coincides with my hero the Cheshire Cat ‘When is a billy club like a mallet?’, the AI cannot fathom it because he does not know the Cheshire Cat, the thoughts of Lewis Carrol and the less said to the AI about Alice Kingsleigh the better, yet that also gives us the part we need to see, dimensionality, weighing data from different sources and knowing the multi usage of a specific tool.

You see a tradie knows that a monkey wrench is optionally also useful as a hammer, an AI will not comprehend this, because the data is unlikely to be there, the AI programmer is lacking knowledge and skills and the optional metrics and size of the monkey wrench are missing. All elements that a true AI can adapt to, it can weight data, it can surmise additional data and it can aggregate and dimensionalise data, automation cannot and when you see this little side quest you start to consider “I don’t think the social media companies set up their platforms to be purveyors of dangerous, harmful content but we know that they are and so there’s a responsibility at that level for the tech companies to do what they can to make sure their platforms are as safe as is possible”, as I see it, this is only part of the problem, the larger issue is that there are no actions against the poster of the materials, that is where politics fall short. This is not about freedom of speech and freedom of expression. This is a stage where (optionally with intent) people are placed in danger and the law is falling short (and has been falling short for well over a decade), until that is resolved people like Molly Russell will just have to die. If that offends you? Good! Perhaps that makes you ready to start holding the right transgressors to account. Places like Facebook might not be innocent, yet they are not the real guilty parties here, are they? Tech companies can only do so such and that failing has been seen by plenty for a long time, so why is Molly Russel dead? Yet finding the posters of this material and making sure that they are publicly put to shame is a larger need, their mommy and daddy can cry ‘foul play’ all they like, but the other parents are still left with the grief of losing Molly. I think it is time we do something actual about it and stop wasting time blaming automation for something it is not. It is not an AI, automation is a useful tool, no one denies this, but it is not some life altering reality, it really is not.

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November 19, 2020 · 21:17

Citizens of Jahannam

Yes, the bulk of us transgressed to a new village, a new town, optionally a city. We all moved to the city of Jahannam, we enabled the politicians who diverted the laws that enabled the corporations. And as Eve spoke to the guy on her needs of an apple product, she stated, yes that would be nice. So he got her a iPhone 7 SE (Swedish edition) and to make sure that it would last longer, the maker of Apple products slowed the battery down, to enable it to be older. Does it sound familiar? The story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54996601), give us ‘Apple to pay $113m to settle iPhone ‘batterygate’’, basically it took 76,000 victims to break even. Yet the news gives us “Millions of people were affected when the models of iPhone 6 and 7 and SE were slowed down in 2016 in a scandal that was dubbed batterygate”, and as such we see the first part, the second part is seen in the Verge who gave us “11 million customers that didn’t need to buy a new iPhone”, you still think that crime does not pay? Yes, there will be all kinds of noise that there wee more cases, more settlements, but all that money is TAX DEDUCTIBLE, as such we get to see a larger stage and it is high time that the people involved get the limelight. When we consider “Any legal fees or court costs incurred will be deductible as well as the cost of resolving the suit, whether the company pays damages to the plaintiff or agrees to settle the dispute”, So this is how you get to become a trillion dollar company, you set the stage in one direction, and as long as it cannot be proven, you tell the people something fitting, take the profit and pay the fee which is a tax option, so can we come to the conclusion that in this world criminals are better protected than the victims ever will be?

That consideration comes (in part) from “Two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max aircraft were partly due to the plane-maker’s unwillingness to share technical details, a congressional investigation has found” (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54174223), with the additional ““Boeing failed in its design and development of the Max, and the FAA failed in its oversight of Boeing and its certification of the aircraft,” the 18-month investigation concluded”, even as we suspect t the there is something wrong with the statement ‘the FAA failed in its oversight of Boeing’, yet could that ever be proven? What does matter the the lives of people are optionally ignored when the bottom line of a corporation is under fire, just like the USS Zumwalt that cannot fire any of their smart bullets (at $1,000,000 per shot). As such, when we read the “The nearly 250-page report found a series of failures in the plane’s design, combined with “regulatory capture”, an overly close relationship between Boeing and the federal regulator, which compromised the process of gaining safety certification”, I wonder what the optional price was of ‘an overly close relationship between Boeing and the federal regulator’, several ideas come to mind, none of them really proper for vocation, yet the setting is there. Again corporate needs are protected as the courts seem to be in a stage of protecting those who do not deserve it and fail to protect those who were in need of protection. And the people wonder why we do have become so distrustful of governments, really?

We might have a few questions on the unrealistic minimum-cost estimates of the USS Zumwalt, yet will those who heralded the unrealistic minimum-cost estimates the inside of a court having to explain their actions, I doubt it, as such is the thought that we have become Citizens of Jahannam.
Too much of a leap? 

Consider the issues that we face, the political egos we allow for and ask yourself, how much more will we have to accept before the law does what it showed do and protect victims? As such, we need to ask the questions we at times fear to ask. And even as we accept the pragmatism is at times the safest course of action, yet the acts of Apple and Boeing give us a very different story, the story of pragmatism being the death of far too many people, yet that is a side we are seldom to see, is it?

I merely wonder what corporations are saved from facing next, I wonder if my choices to be slightly selfish were so bad in the end. If Apple can become a trillion dollar company the way it did, could I not become slightly less rich without dec option and by keeping my (slightly stubborn) disposition of fair play?

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November 17, 2020 · 17:20

Cursed by choice

It is a setting some will remember, some fondly, some less so. It is a state where you have too much options. Let me try to explain this, for example, your iPod you find after a year and you see hundreds of songs you have not heard for some time, but you cannot decide, or perhaps a choice of 5 RPG games and you have select one to play. The inability to seek between good options if you want.

It is a setting the reflects on to situations. The first is the one, the only, the musk (Elon to insiders). BBC reports “Tesla’s share price surged about 14% in New York following the news it was being added to the index. Given Mr Musk’s 20% stake in Tesla his net worth rose to $117.5bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His wealth has jumped $90bn this year as Tesla’s share price has continued to rise”, I look at the setting differently, some say he has the Midas gene, he can anything he touches to gold, I reckon like Steve Jobs and a few others, he has the ability to turn generic outliers into commercial successes. We can go from the fact he knows what is useful, we can go with he knows where to push, who to push and how much to push. We can look at it in different ways, but in basic “Tesla’s share price surged about 14% in New York following the news it was being added to the index. Given Mr Musk’s 20% stake in Tesla his net worth rose to $117.5bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His wealth has jumped $90bn this year as Tesla’s share price has continued to rise”, and that is before he realises (perhaps he already knows) that he is optionally sitting on an additional $1.2 trillion (meaning $1,200 billion) and the wired has seemingly no caught on, I had a few ideas in support of that, but the IP is already his, so why bother, he will figure it out. And that is before he goes to space, there he might make a few coins more. 

It is one setting and the opposing view is seen when we look at the lovely youthful youngling known as Taylor Swift. That BBC view (at https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54969396) gives us “Writing on Twitter Swift said it was “the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge””, here we want to answer in anger, yet the article also gives us “Swift signed a deal with record label Big Machine in 2004 granting them ownership of the master recordings to her first six albums in exchange for a cash advance to kick-start her career”, as such if there is no clause with a mandatory first option to buy back, I wonder if Scooter Braun did anything wrong. The news gives us that she signed over ownership on her first 6 albums, so I understand that she is not happy, but did Scooter do anything wrong? She is not the first, I learned a lot later in life that Paul McCartney has lost ownership of Beatles songs. I actually never knew that. And he is not alone, as such, and especially as we know and have seen that Taylor is very intelligent, why she learned her lesson the hard way. As one is cursed by many options, the other one was forced by a lack of options. The most dangerous part in all this is doing something expecting them to act in another, when we see “US entertainment magazine Variety first reported on Monday that Braun had sold the rights – known as masters – to an investment fund. It said the deal is thought to be worth more than $300 million (£227m)”, I wonder how much the songs were bought for, as such still, one third of a billion is a whole lot of money, I would not sell my IP for that (I would set it to a percentage of the patent value), yet overall I could be tempted. And there is a setting switch, it is about awareness, how many people in the music industry have a real grasp of IP and what it is worth nowadays. Games, movie, TV series, they are all in need of music and there is so much one can compose, it was perhaps one of Ubisoft most brilliant moments in all this, get well known songs or well known artists to support the IP, Imagine Dragons is perhaps one of the more known artists, it propelled the game, not merely the graphics, the music was a large part of it and Ubisoft was exceedingly clever there, they might not own the IP, but they knew a good deal when it was there and musicians need to catch up, especially in this age of Netflix and streaming. Now this is not an attack on Taylor Swift, this might have been her only option, yet the stage remains, what kind of legal advice did she get? I do not know, I am merely asking. So when I see (according to the BBC) “When his company, Ithaca Holdings, paid $300m to acquire Swift’s former record label last year, Swift saw it as an act of aggression that “stripped me of my life’s work”. She accused Braun – who also manages Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and Demi Lovato – of “incessant, manipulative bullying”” we see a lot of emotion, but the stage is did Scooter Braun do anything wrong or illegal? We might say immoral and unethical but neither is a crime according to law and that is the setting we need to see and perhaps Taylor should have appealed to Elon Musk who has well over 3,000 times what she apparently needed, it is merely food for thought, although, I reckon that Elon gets a dozen of these attempts to contact an hour, and optionally when he figures out where his optional missing $1.2T is even more.

Such is life!
There are two groups cursed by choice, one group has too many, the other has (far) too few. Which one do you belong in? And what makes you think that you are in one or the other, because that contemplation tends to be a solution in itself at times.

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November 17, 2020 · 00:45

Ignoring the dangers

We all do the at times, we ignore or minimise the dangers we are facing, some do it so the they can get their own needs filled and others again do it for what they call ‘the bigger picture’. So as Al Jazeera showed us ‘Iran blasts ‘hate-mongering’ in Saudi king’s comments’, I decided to take a quick gander in the Google Search, When seeking ‘Iran Saudi Arabia’ in the news, the western press was abundantly absent on the matter, yet the BBC did gif us 4 days ago ‘US election: Gulf Arab leaders face new reality after Biden victory’, they seemingly all have other ‘important’ news to give us. 

Yet the Al Jazeera article is more important than you think. When we consider the BBC ‘Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile ’10 times limit’’, it is the first of a lot of markers, it is the setting for more, when we consider the constant interference from Iran into Yemen, with the Houthi forces ‘US warns of possible Houthi missile strikes on Saudi capital’, the issue here is that the missiles and drones cannot be made in Yemen, the infrastructure is not there, as such only Iran could have smuggled them and it seems that the so called Western Navy has so far been unable to stop anything. Now that Houthi forces are deliberately targeting civilian population centres the stage is set in other ways too, Saudi Arabia has little choice but to hit back. So when we see “US officials warned of possible Houthi missile strikes on Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, after the kingdom reported it intercepted several armed drones and missiles fired by the rebel group in Yemen”, even as we get the watered down ‘US special representative on Iran, checks what Saudi officials claimed were Iran-made Houthi missiles and drones intercepted over Saudi territory last year’, we see Brian Hook on stage, but the International media remains in denial (through silence), on the simple fact that the Houthi forces cannot manufacture these missiles, they have a supplier named Iran and too many of these Iranian events go unnoticed by the western media steering clear of it. So when we are treated to “The kingdom stresses the dangers of Iran’s regional project, its interference in other countries, its fostering of terrorism, its fanning the flames of sectarianism and calls for a decisive stance from the international community against Iran that guarantees a drastic handling of its efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction and develop its ballistic missiles programme”, we see more than a truth,. We see a setting stage where we must act now, or it will be too late. Iran is too careless with what it has and it is willing to arm anyone willing to fire on either Saudi Arabia or Israel. When that happens we have a stage that can no longer be turned. So the tactic seems clear as Iran gives us “Iran criticises Saudi monarch urging global action against Tehran, calling for unity among Muslim nations”, yet it is the Iranian actions that require actions. The non actions, when it is too late these so called ‘world leaders’ in the EU and the USA will have to sit back and remain silent. They had their option but their ego’s are too consumed with some action plan that will never work in Iran over the essential need to call Iran to attention. 

We have ignored the stage for too long and there aren’t many moves left, the move we make when it is too late will seal the deal where no-one in Saudi Arabia will be willing to take calls from anyone in the EU or the US, is that what we truly want? Diplomats have been played with and kept on an Iranian leash for well over 5 years and it is time to learn our lesson, Iran will never be a civil voice in any of this. How is the for ignoring the dangers? How does any of the actions from the EU and the US even make sense in all this, it is time to act, we played for too long with the brazen incriminations and actions by Iran. So whilst the Arab News gives us ‘Iran and Turkey ‘losers’ in emerging new Middle East order, say analysts’ what do you think that people in Turkey and Iran will do with their overinflated ego’s? Do you think they play nice? 

As such when Alex Vatanka, senior fellow and director of the Iran program at The Middle East Institute gives us “I see Iran as a loser in the sense of losing out geopolitically, ideologically and politically at home”, how do you expect Iran to react? They will not care on the lives of Houthi or Saudi forces, they merely want to look important and they are willing to send all the wrong toys to Yemen. His majesty King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is correct, the problem is not what he is saying, it is what the EU and the US are not willing to listen to and that is the larger game, ego. Ego in the people who think the they can till matter still look important all whilst Iran has decided not to listen. I reckon an enriched Uranium stockpile of 1,000% of what was allowed is sufficient evidence, as are the Iranian missiles fired on Saudi Arabia from Yemen. Either is enough, but for the global players to ignore two pieces of evidence? I will let you decide on how dangerous the game with Iran has become.

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November 11, 2020 · 21:10

Brother, can you spare a clue?

Yup, we all need clues at time. In some cases it is a simple as a vowel or a consonant, a stage where the word is still hidden to us. At times it is a clue to a larger picture, like the Guardian giving us ‘Biden to Trump – you’re embarrassing US’, now I am no Trump fan, yet the elections are not called yet in two states (31 electoral votes), we are optionally facing a recount in Wisconsin and Arizona (21 electoral votes), and there we see the larger difference, it is up in the air who becomes president. The media is shouting and screaming that Biden has won, which would be nice, but I deal in certainties and this is not certain. Georgia is leaning towards Biden, North Carolina is not. Yet until these two are officially called this race is still on. We can scream ‘count every vote’ and I support that, but not all the votes have been counted yet and there we have the larger station.

Then we see China optionally requiring a legal clue, we see this in BBC article ‘Hong Kong disqualifies four pro-democracy lawmakers after China ruling’, a lot of us might go all huffy and puffy, yet does that remain when we see “The expulsion came moments after Beijing passed a resolution allowing the government to disqualify politicians deemed a threat to national security”, as well as “China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee says that lawmakers should be disqualified if they support Hong Kong independence, refuse to acknowledge China’s sovereignty, ask foreign forces to interfere in the city’s affairs or in other ways threaten national security”, a setting that is open to interpretation. Especially when I consider “Freedom is the non-negotiable demand of human dignity; the birthright of every person—in every civilisation. Throughout history, freedom has been threatened by war and terror; it has been challenged by the clashing wills of powerful states and the evil designs of tyrants; and it has been tested by widespread poverty and disease. Today, humanity holds in its hands the opportunity to further freedom’s triumph over all these foes”, which President George Bush gave us from the White House in 2002, it comes in context with The National Security Strategy (NSS) which is a document prepared periodically by the executive branch of the government of the United States for Congress. It sets a tone towards the outlines the major national security concerns of the United States and partial methods on how to to administer these plans for dealing with issues. The legal foundation for the document is spelled out in the Goldwater-Nichols Act. The document is purposely general in content (read: Ambiguous), and its implementation relies on elaborating guidance provided in supporting documents. Both are choices in execution the need for a national security. Did you actually believe that the stage where Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898 was the end of that? After WW2, 50% of that lease period was surpassed, what did you think was going to happen? China giving up on the most profitable region in history? It is emphasised when we consider the Conversation giving us a year ago “Since 9/11, American domestic and international security policy has been focused on individual terrorists, terrorist groups and rogue countries as the primary threats. The country’s defensive response has been focused on the military and law enforcement capabilities. That’s natural, because the military knows how to shoot, drop and launch things at threats like that. And those dangers still exist”, do you think that China was not doing that as well? Since 2000 almost 100 attacks (mostly lone wolves) have been nipping at the heels of the USA, do you think that China is waiting for an attack? It will be minimising risk and Hong Kong is seen as all risk. 

Yet these matters are out in the open, there is a whole range of issues the remain in the dark, in the US, in China, in the Middle East and in Russia, each having its own baton of transparency, each having a different working method and in position we see the media pushing buttons and giving a partial view whenever possible, they too have their share holders, their stake holders and their advertising needs, it does not help many of us getting a clear picture. Consider the AP 4 days ago when they gave us “On Saturday, Biden captured the presidency when The Associated Press declared him the victor in his native Pennsylvania at 11:25 a.m. EST. That got him the state’s 20 electoral votes, which pushed him over the 270 electoral-vote threshold needed to prevail”, which is by all accounts a fair call, but the votes are not counted yet, the 31 out in the open and the end result could become Biden 276-Trump 262. This is an awful close call to be celebrating when votes are still being counted, one contested state is all the is required to show is all overboard and Wisconsin with 10 electoral seats might get us Biden 266 – Trump 272, that is the ball game. This is where it is at and the previous stage will be abandoned by so many it will scare you. You see, I am no Trump fan, and the chaos will ensure that the US will see several attacks, it infrastructure is massively undercut, its resources strained in the wrong directions and we are all screaming: Biden save us, all whilst the stage is not yet set, a stage that the Lone Wolves are really liking at present. Consider Savannah Georgia, Long Beach California, Seattle, Houston and South Carolina, they all have something in common and they neglected a lot in the last decade, the finds were not there. So when problems come calling the American people better have a real focal point instead of the reds versus the blues, we saw how that happened in Gangs of New York, how did the city fair there? It was set to Herbert Asbury’s 1927 nonfiction book The Gangs of New York. Yet what set it all apart, how do you remember the New York City draft riots? You think it does not relate? Consider that it was the moment when the population of New York fell below 11,000 and the area’s demographics changed pretty much forever as a result of the riot. You think that the second time around it will be better? When the reds versus the blues come calling instead of uniting, the US stands to lose a massive amount more from the start and this time around nationwide. I agree, it does not help when one of the players isn’t the sharpest tool in the tool chest, but the stage needs to be secured, China did it from the start, here we see a stage that is open for all with a gun and a loud mouth. Still thinking I have gone coo-coo? Consider ‘Three-quarters of Americans fear post-election violence and riots, Independent reveals’ (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/election-results-2020-riots-trump-biden-b1700559.html), a stage given to us 2 days ago. That stage still exists, and it still holds water and there is the larger danger, not the rioters, but the opening the they give the lone wolves waiting for a signal. We are given “Such fears appeared directly linked to Americans’ concerns that it will not be clear by 4 November who won the presidential race”, now consider that one week later this issue is still in play. I watched two states remaining at 99% for 3-4 days, so what is hampering the final count? 

As you can see, in light of the unknown and there is quite a lot of it, brother, can you spare ME a clue?

Oh, and I was not done yet (well, not completely). You see, the Goldwater-Nichols Act is the foundation of a larger issue (at https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a525942.pdf), you see when we consider “Goldwater-Nichols may have made DOD more efficient but at the cost of civilian control. It has also politicised the Armed Forces. Like the law it replaced, it has created a national military command structure that ignores the separation of powers. The amended National Security Act has consolidated dispersed powers into one office, unintentionally establishing conditions under which an imperious Secretary might abuse them”, as such we can surmise that the US will be under a larger version of exposed danger until the 19th of January, 2021. You did not actually think that these lone wolves are sitting on their hands, did you? The danger is not red versus blue, it is those seeking an advantage during that time and as I personally see it, the US is not ready to deal with that danger.

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