Tag Archives: BBC

September 1, 2020 · 17:56

Just the facts?

Isn’t that what it needs to be in media? Just the facts? The issue is that media in general and in this case the BBC specifically is setting a different stage and I am not sure why. Now, I will give up front that it is my opinion and perception against that of the BBC and the stage is up in the air. For the most, or basically nearly always, the BBC is on point and is highly reliable. In this case, some facts are debatable and one factor is that I do not have all the inn’s and out’s (pun intended). That is also a factor and I am trying to keep that in mind. So the article ‘Saudi king sacks defence officials’ would initially be something I would have glanced over. Merely because even if I would be applying for the position of Defence official for the Saudi Arabian government, I do not speak the language and I reckon that there are plenty of Saudi nationals eager to get that position. In the second, the role was until recently in the hands of Prince Fahad bin Turki, and I am no prince (no matter what the ladies say). In addition we are given “The men, along with four other officials, face an investigation into “suspicious financial dealings” at the Ministry of Defence, the decree said”, implying that this is all about the politics, and I never cared for politics. It all starts with “critics say the high-profile arrests have been aimed at removing obstacles to the prince’s hold on power”, my first question becomes, who are those critics? In the second, in light of how things are in Yemen, I see no real setting that Prince Fahad bin Turki is any kind of obstacle in the current power setting in Saudi Arabia, now I will admit immediately that I have no real idea on who is in that power cycle, yet I wonder if those ‘critics’ are aware of what is and who are, or are they merely setting the stage for others to set a presentation stage? You see the accusation is given speculated strength via ‘critics say’ yet we do not get any mention of who those critics are, do we? Yet the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53980115) goes off the deep end when we see “However he has been embroiled in a series of scandals, including the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in 2018 and an alleged murder plot against a former Saudi intelligence agent in Canada”, this is achieved in a few ways. In the first, the entire Khashoggi debacle is set to flawed intelligence, especially the ‘added’ intelligence by UN essay writer Agnes Calamard, I dealt with that in several articles, especially in ‘Demanding Dismissal’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/07/04/demanding-dismissal/), so not only can we prove that Jamal Khashoggi is murdered, we can merely speculate on that, and that is before we need to realise that there is absolutely no evidence that there was any directive from Saudi Arabia to allegedly kill Jamal Khashoggi, if there was it would have ‘leaked’ to every newspaper in the world, all we got was a level of emotional outbursts devoid of evidence. And there is the alleged plot against Dr. Saad Aljabri, the allegations went so far that they try to convict Saudi Officials in another country, how is that for failing evidence? Yet that same court has no real intentions to seriously look into “Saudi officials accuse Aljabri of leading a group that misspent $11 billion of government funds and skimmed $1 billion for themselves, the Wall Street Journal reported, an allegation he denies” interesting is it not? 

So it seems that the critics are all about spinning yarn, if not they would have been out there supported by actual and factual evidence, they are not. And the implied situation in Istanbul, which comes up in every Saudi story is this time linked to the sacking of defence officials, all whilst the evidence attached is drowning additional events is disbelief and more credibility is removed from the situation. That was not hard, was it?

 

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August 30, 2020 · 19:24

Sweden has it too

We know that the far right is not blessed with a lot of intelligence, and as such I did not expect Sweden to get overly right winged, but the Quran burning in Sweden is proving me wrong. So when the BBC gave me ‘Protest against Koran-burning turns violent in Sweden’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53959492) I was a little surprised. And there was more, with “Earlier on Friday, police barred far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan from attending the Koran-burning rally” we see that the hatred prolongation against Muslims is a lot worse then we thought, it is a European problem and they are not dealing with it. It started with the images of Mohammed, which in turn made me come up with the script ‘How to assassinate a politician’, which could optionally be eligible for an International Oscar if it was made. I just don’t get it, I thought the Nazi’s were stupid with their book burning, which they optionally got the idea from Girolamo Savonarola, who burned my copy of the Decamerone (bloody bastard), and he became the original designer of the Bonfire of the Vanities. So the Nazi’s got a hold of that idea and now we see a repetition of stupidity by the Swedish far right. As I see it christianity is waning, after 2000 years we are finally seeing that reflections don’t help, it merely assists the greed driven in setting up shop and trying to prove me wrong merely assists the far right and the atheists. I don’t comprehend this level of stupidity, why burn books, why burn any book? In doing so it just pisses of the Muslims, which is apparently their goal and it is less intelligent than any other option and that is saying something. I have no issues with Muslims and I have no issues with people who are not pro-Muslim, but keep it to themselves. There is a level of acceptance that christian people seemingly have. Perhaps there is a sizeable group that are not cheering for Muslims, but as we are in a station where we accept other religions, I accept that we have Muslims in our midst, we have a welcoming nature, so it is fine with me. I see no problem, and I get that some people get nervous, but is it nervous out of knowledge? I doubt it.

So whilst far right politician Geert Wilders sets in motion “Geert Wilders revived a controversial Prophet Mohammad cartoon competition. The Dutch politician declared the winner to be a dark drawing of a bearded man wearing a black turban”, we see the repetitive acts of intentional insulting Muslims, and anyone doubting the idea I had on the movie project ‘How to assassinate a politician’ would be an allowed stage where a person not unlike far right politician Geert Wilders ends up being dead (in the movie that is). So as we are getting over the shock that Sweden is just as discriminating as any other EU nation, we see a larger issue making it to the surface. In a stage where people hide behind ‘freedom of speech’ whilst knowingly and intentionally whacking others is just a slime move. So as we turn back the clock to April 2019 and we see ‘presentation on Gendered Islamophobia in Europe’ (at https://efomw.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/EFOMW-Strasbourg.pdf), I wonder about that setting, I am not saying that the setting does not exist, I merely state that there is a much larger stage of ‘presentation on Islamophobia in Europe’, gender is not an issue, the discriminants see man and women of muslim faith both equally unacceptable in their region. Yet all this should not be given to you without ‘Danish man who videoed himself burning the Quran charged with blasphemy’, a situation from February 2017 with the by-line “Case is first time Danish prosecutors have charged anyone with blasphemy in 46 years”, as such I accept that there is forward momentum, yet that was three years ago and there is not much evidence that forward momentum is a given. And if we accept Danish law “Under clause 140 of Denmark’s penal code, anyone can be imprisoned or fined for publicly insulting or degrading religious doctrines or worship”, I wonder why Rasmus Paludan is still an elected official or even a free man, don’t you? 

 

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August 28, 2020 · 04:25

The tech is out there

Even now, as the larger players (Microsoft and Wall-mart) are starting a bidding fight for TikTok, we see the flaw on several levels in the digital age. I illuminated it yesterday, in my previous article.  We are in a stage where everyone is shouting that they have Digital Media Managers , Digital Marketers, Account Managers, Social Media Managers and so on, and so on. Yet, where it counts, we see (at https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/WIGOV/bulletins/29bf2b8) the statement on Kenosha and the shooting, but when I looked at the site in ‘Self destruct initiated’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/27/self-destruct-initiated/) there was no mention at all and that was at 02:57 on August 27th, whilst the shooting was on August 23, it took 4 days for the digital media manager to wake up. Yet the police section in the news of the City of Kenosha website is still empty, so why do they have a website and who manages it? It is nice to have politicians and captains of industry hide behind the Internet of Things, digital media and digital needs, but where it counts, are they even aware that they flunked the pooch? 

A second set is given by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53930775), here we see ‘Facebook says Apple ad-blocking settings could halve revenue’ where we get introduced to “Apple’s plan to require all users to actively opt in before they can be tracked “may render Audience Network so ineffective on iOS 14 that it may not make sense to offer it”, Facebook said”, whilst we also get “In the upcoming iOS 14, apps have to explicitly ask users’ permission to collect and share data, meaning ads will no longer be able to just “follow” users to apps outside of Facebook”, all whilst everyone is ignoring “way for advertisers to extend their campaigns beyond Facebook and into other mobile apps”, lets be clear, FaceBook has every right to advertise on its site, it is the price of getting a free service, yet where does it state that the people have to agree to be followed “into other mobile apps”? In that article, where does it state the need and rights of the consumer? (I am not attacking the BBC or the writer of the article), we overlook technology to the mere shallow assumption related to it. We see the attack on Apple from Epic games (Fortnite) and we see Microsoft supporting Epic games, yet thee fact that the rule that Apple relied on is pretty much the same rule Microsoft has in place, so how did that make sense? It only looks clear when we see the path Microsoft has in play and they mobile XCloud is relying on the millions of iPhone users. I mentioned that in ‘The stage pushed by Microsoft’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/24/the-stage-pushed-by-microsoft/), so again we see a tech setting that is getting a shallow treatment and in this case I do not attack the media (even though I think they fell short), for the media it is all the emotion, as such we see the BBC giving us ‘Apple Fortnite players left behind in new update’, yet the stage where Epic games would be allowed back if they remove the external link in the game, which is against the developers agreement that Epic games agreed to when they got on the Apple store, a rule that Microsoft has in play as well and the media pretty much smoothed over with what I would personally see as ‘applied ignorance in action’.  

We see two versions of limited tech insight. This entire setting also applies to Huawei, the accusations and the lack of evidence is centre to all this. We get ‘Huawei’s networking equipment has not been detected spying’, in a Sky article last July, and it is the driving part in all this, we want evidence and we keep on getting bitching American politicians, one after another all emotions and no evidence. All whilst last week in the Australian Financial Review (at https://www.afr.com/technology/is-huawei-too-big-to-fail-20200824-p55ont) where we get the repeated “shot down by an announcement from the US government that it would use the global dominance of American technology to cut off all supplies of semiconductors to Huawei”, which is stupidity on a new level. It seems that it is not and that would be fair, the short term solution is met as semiconductors are not available. Yet in this for over a year Huawei was ready to that stage making (read: designing) their own semiconductors. When that happens, the US will have a Chinese competitor in another field and the US will lose even more ground. So whilst the US is in denial that Huawei grew because it had a good product, slightly cheaper but a lot better, in all this they rely on “Driven by the belief that Huawei could enable the ruling Chinese Communist party and its military to spy on other countries and their companies, undermine their national security and steal their commercial secrets, the US government used every option open to it”, where ‘could’ is the operative word and the additional ‘undermine their national security and steal their commercial secrets’, and guess what, there is no evidence on any level and the situation merely becomes worse when you consider ‘Critical flaw in IOS routers allows ‘complete system compromise’’, a part that ZDNet gave us in June (and before that, at https://www.zdnet.com/article/ciscos-warning-critical-flaw-in-ios-routers-allows-complete-system-compromise/), it is a simple situation, the Chinese government does not need to use Huawei to spy, they can use Cisco equipment (an American company based in San Jose) and download server by server on a global scale. When did the media give you that part? That weakness and a few more have been out in the open, and we hear nothing. This is not on Cisco, as it warned the users and is working on fixes, but the media is blind to the flaw, why is that?

Both the tech and the flawed tech is out there and there is a growing issue for a lot of people that we get limited and one sided revelations, who is served better to that? I am going with the personal view that the setting of the media catering to Shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers remains firmly in place.

The tech is out there, but who is taking a good look at it and who is using it to the maximum that would be required in the digital age? I’ll let you brew on that for a little while.

 

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August 25, 2020 · 05:21

Games on two levels

The BBC set us in the light of games being played, they are played n two levels, the first one is seen (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53888148) where we see ‘‘Creepy men’ message women on Scrabble Go app’, now in itself it does not raise flags, these things happen, but we see a lot more when we consider “When enabled, players will only receive chat notifications and messages from players they already know and are connected with as a Facebook friend, favourite, or via their synced contacts”, did you pick up on that little part? ‘or via their synced contacts’ is a dangerous step, some people want to play scrabble and not having to deal with the BS, so why did the game not include a mute ALL speech from the very beginning? I will hazard a guess that synching your contacts will be pleasing to the makers of the scrabble game for a few reasons, but that question is not coming from the BBC is it? And “it had also received two about the previous EA app during the first half of 2020” is perhaps a little giveaway. It is all about our contacts. Basic personal security does not see to be the stage gamers are considering when they are offered free games. So even as the BBC ends with “Lisa Forte, from Red Goat Cyber-security, said: “As individuals, we really need to start treating unsolicited online contact with people we don’t know as suspicious until it’s proven otherwise”” and in all this the questions on gathered data is not coning from the BBC, so I am asking it. ‘What data is gathered and who profits?’ It is an essential question, but it is not asked, is it? I see this as a failure to protect consumers and as such there is a failure from government and media to take it into account. The government has a pass. It is not their responsibility to protect people who blatantly install stuff at their own leisure, but in the same side, we see that Apple and Google could be held to account to make sure that NO and I mean NO data is to be gathered via apps in their store, is that the case, or is it not? It is not the app maker that worries me, it is the hacker who uses the app to gather data for their personal needs, that is the larger setting and if the uses would be kind enough to wake up and smell the data they are giving up we might have the start of something sane. Yet the larger issue still plays, the stage of muting ALL from the start would have solved the issue, so why is it not in the app? The story gives out that this is not possible, why is that?

The second level is a little more serious (or so I hope), it is seen in ‘Danish military intelligence head Lars Findsen suspended’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53889612), well on one side, I was looking for a new job, so I’ll take his, but my Danish is really bad, my Swedish is fine though. But back to the reality, when we see “the Defence Intelligence Service is accused of failing to investigate allegations of espionage in the armed services. It has also been accused of obtaining and passing on information about Danish citizens”, we see the repetition of a two edged sword, the first story implies that the people (including the Danish) have no problem handing over their security and data to any app designer, so when we realise that, what are we doing inspecting the actions of Danish Intelligence? It sounds nice that they have an Intelligence Watchdog, but with data being handed over left, right and centre, the setting is a larger stage and we need to see that we are measuring events to two different standards and we need to wake up because this has been going on for years now and we need to wake up. Oh and by the way, why was Danish Intelligence doing what it was doing? Perhaps it was to keep the Danish people safe (an assumed  speculation), all this whilst I am decently certain that the apps do not have anyones safety in mind, if so the chat would have a mute button from the very beginning, not on the required need to synch contacts. 

 

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August 21, 2020 · 02:39

Pillars to excluding media

We have seen the issues that the US faces and it is time for the application of a little balance in all this. To do this, we need to look at some sources. As such On August 20th (06:00) we get Reuters with ‘U.S. economy rebounding strongly; fresh aid coming to unemployed: Kudlow’, to some there is nothing wrong with the title, yet, what has the US done for others to be treated to the ‘economy rebounding strongly’ part? The current administration did everything to scuttle the nation, so what economy is rebounding strongly? We can see different sides in economy, but for the US we see the need to export and import. The US destroyed their import option and to some degree diminished their export turnover as well, so how did the ‘economy rebound strongly’? Then we see the cost part, revenue is down, but cost are up. So when we consider the news “Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 1.8 million in July, and the unemployment rate fell to 10.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today” and this was June 2020, one in 10 does not have a job, all whilst between February 2020 and July 2020 9,530 jobs were added and 22,160 jobs were lost. Over the millions of jobs in the US it does not add up to much, but the news (source: the Guardian, May 2020) is also giving us ‘US job losses pass 40m as coronavirus crisis sees claims rise 2.1m in a week’, so when we distill the bad news, because yes, it is bad news, how come we see ‘economy rebounding strongly’ in all this? So in this, the quote “Kudlow, speaking to reporters at the White House, defended a reduction in the unemployment supplement to $300 from $600, saying stimulus measures should be reduced slowly as the economy strengthens” (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-kudlow/us-economy-rebounding-strongly-fresh-aid-coming-to-unemployed-kudlow-idUSKCN25F2KL) we get to consider “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday reported 5,460,429 cases of the novel coronavirus in the country, an increase of 39,318 from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 1,172 to 171,012”, the stage is debatable, I agree that it does not solve the puzzle, but there is a larger stage that for millions the corona stage is still not clear, the total amount of infected could go up, it could go up be a large amount and this also means that free clinics will be swamped, inoculations and other cost will go up, it will impact the US in a huge way, so where does this ‘economy rebounding strongly’ come from? The US has squandered technological progress in the Huawei fight, and this is merely the beginning in all this, as the US loses 5G grounds we will see larger and faster growth in both the Middle East and Asia, for the US their view of the Middle East in 5G is like giving a native American a gatling gun whilst you give them no ammunition or a manual, what they forget is that the data laws and privacy laws allow for the larger tech companies to move to the Middle East and be isolated, no taxation and large data grazing fields, the Middle East is catching on and Asia is already on track. As the balance of the seesaw of technology changes, the infrastructure in the US will be delayed again and again and as I personally see it, in 2023 we will learn through managed bad news that the US went from a first position in technology to fourth if not fifth position. In all this, the message of ‘economy rebounding strongly’ might be seen as one of the larger jokes and that is all before we realise that the US has amassed a debt of $25,000,000,000,000. Twenty five trillion is a lot of money, the interest alone can fuel most EU nations, yet this interest will now go to the banks and financial institutions underwriting this, as such some might consider that the US economy is in shambles and when the FAANG group starts pushing for a protectorate of a true global corporation, that is the final news you need that the US economy is an illusion that can no longer be maintained.

#JustSaying

 

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August 17, 2020 · 03:09

Mirror of delusional beliefs

We all have that feeling to some degree, something we really want and if we cut our budget for one week we can buy the suit we wanted to have, so we buy the suit, then we push forward the budgeting to the last week, then we delusional remind ourselves that if we make the adjustment to our menu to the last three days, we don’t have to adjust our budgets, so we do that, we keep on pushing forward until it is the 25th day of the budget, we bought the suit and we ran out of money, we pushed the menu forward, the budget forwards and now that we have 6 days to go we are running out of money. We have all done it, whether it was to buy a gaming console, a laptop, fashion, concert tickets, we can come up with all kinds of reasons, we have all done it. This is how I at present see Debenhams. In the article ‘Debenhams hires liquidator in contingency plan’ which was published 6 hurts ago (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53797371) gives us “if the administrators, FRP Advisory, fail to find a buyer or new investment, Debenhams faces liquidation – putting 14,000 jobs at risk. A spokesperson for the department store said: “Debenhams is trading strongly, with 124 stores reopened and a healthy cash position.”” Yes we can push forward all we can and then ignore it, yet when we consider “It gets to be even worse when the Guardian prints the pragmatic “It’s all hairdressers and coffee shops and nail bars. People won’t come here to shop – they’ll go to a bigger town like Canterbury instead“, which in itself is a truth, making me wonder what is getting into some of these delusional big brands. The entire setting of the larger players has been under fire for the longest of time and the essential need to revisit locations is becoming an essential need for all of them, as such the statement: “Conservative MP Damian Green described the news as “very disappointing”. On Twitter, he wrote: “We need to redouble efforts to strengthen the town centre.”” becomes one of worry.” A few small details I revealed to the readers in April 2019, as such the statement of ‘Debenhams is trading strongly, with 124 stores reopened and a healthy cash position’ is nothing short of delusional. Now, we cannot blame the situation completely on Debenhams, because they have never faced anything like the Covid-19 situation and it would be unfair for them to be completely ready, yet dwindled resources is on them. I spoke about some of it in April 2019 in ‘When a dream is too delusional’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/04/28/when-a-dream-is-too-delusional/), as such the delusional part was pretty visible then too. So how from a distance the clear part of ‘124 stores reopened and a healthy cash position’ that comes debatable this clear is an issue, especially when others are merely accepting the news without a clear investigation into the debatable mindset of Debenhams corporate officers is a bit of a question. I know that there are sets of stations where they (apparently) know what they are doing is fine, but the small ‘124 stores reopened’, whilst a year ago my article ended with “I wonder which of those should never have been made, but that is merely my view on the matter and with up to 50 stores up for closure I personally reckon I might have a case on that.” So as we see 50 stores up for closure and a year later we see 124 stores reopened, I wonder if some people are stretching the stage where optionally (and speculatively) tax laws were used to push into a nice neutral setting and now that we see “2,500 more jobs, on top of 4,000 cuts it announced in May”, all whilst the larger stage is set to “Debenhams faces liquidation – putting 14,000 jobs at risk” and no one asks serious questions as the jobs for 14,000 people are on the line. Is it me or is there a clear case for us all to asks questions of these (what I might optionally incorrectly call) tax shelters? I wonder what their so called “healthy cash position” is.

A station of all kinds of impressions and interpretations, but the truth is that no matter how ‘great’ Debenhams is shown, it is a bleeding behemoth and the 14,000 depending people are about to be thrown on the sidewalk, I am pretty certain that the board of Debenhams will phrase it  differently. 

SO in the end we can think of it in any way possible, but the stage of these houses is pretty much over, Covid-19 made sure of that and those in doubt, consider “Debenhams entered a pre-pack administration which allowed it to keep trading” and investigate who made that happen, what allowed the station of ‘keep trading’ whilst there is actually no significant amount of consumer cash is going into these places, not when you state it in relationship to the cost that these centres have, the balance of that equation might surprise you.

 

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August 15, 2020 · 04:00

It is more than a ban

It has not been an easy rise for game makers, now that Microsoft has shown its initial hand, now it is time for some of the game makers to show theirs. It starts with “Apple and Google both removed the hit game from their app stores after Epic Games bypassed their payment systems, to avoid giving them a cut of sales”, I get the sentiment, and the BBC article ‘Fortnite: Epic Games sues Google and Apple over app store bans’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53777379) gives part of it. We got some of the other side in the GamesRadar article that I discussed in ‘the Silent reason’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/13/the-silent-reason/) where I gave “Xbox Game Pass is the next generation of Microsoft gaming, not Xbox Series X”, in this we see the start of the big players to set a new generation of GaaS, Games as a Service is the next thing and it allows Microsoft to set another revenue bar, it is the one realisation on top of the other ones that made me give up on Microsoft and now the larger players are using GaaS to gain revenue. In this, I have nothing against the approach that Epic is making, even as I am not a Fortnite fan, it is a free game and as such it has every right to make this approach, yet Google and  Apple will not be left out of any revenue loop. Gpay and Apple Pay are their own devices and they have a stage and it requires their view or perhaps the stage is their vision on the services offered. I  am not sure how to react, in favour or against the ban laid on Epic, but both the Google store and the Apple store have their own rules and the idea that Epic circumvents the stores might be seen as optionally cheaper to the player, but the downside is that as third parties get their own direct access, their store access becomes available to come under fire and that is not a good thing. 

The article gives us “Fortnite’s latest update offered all players a 20% discount on its in-game currency V-bucks – but only if they paid Epic Games directly rather than using Apple or Google’s payment systems. This broke rules applied by both stores”, The danger of a third party is something neither Google or Apple find appealing and I feel certain that their fees avoided is equally unappealing to them. And lets be clear, as GaaS evolves over the next 2 years, we will see the players exposed to all kinds of ‘direct from the source’ deals, because it allows the gathering of data and data is more revenue for whomever has it. The problem as I see it is not the fact that there is GaaS, the fact is that the stage will be overwhelmingly younger players. Even as 63% of Fortnite is 18-24, there is a stage where there are supposed to be 12-18 year old players and there are supposed to be a large following of them too, yet the toppling charts I saw does not reflect them properly, in light of 350,000,000 players I wonder how large that 12-18 group is and even as it is not their credit card, someone is paying that bill (most likely their mommy), yet that stage also gives Google and Apple a larger concern and I reckon that they are programming the stores to raise all kinds of red flags before they fall in a trap that is not unlike the one Electronic Arts is facing with their loot boxes. In all this there is a lull in the life of the lawmakers, GaaS is new, so new that most laws are riddled with holes and that is not a good thing. A lot needs to happen to bind and limit financial institutions from allowing gamers to be used and exploited. Now let me be clear I do not believe that loot boxes are gambling, in that same stage I believe that Epic Games has done nothing wrong, but consider other games that pushes for additional movements and choices that come at a price, whilst their algorithm is set to always set the bar at your effort +1% (speaking figuratively), so how is that fair? I reckon that Google and Apple are set against that stage (whilst getting their own grains of revenue) and that is perhaps not the worst idea, yet I see the other side too, especially as Fortnite is free to play, to gain the upper hand you can buy V-bucks to buy loot boxes and skins. It is one way to get the income, it is of course a risk, but knowing you have 350 million fans, the stage is set in a decent way and when you consider that they made $1.9 billion in 2019 gives rise to the GaaS platform. It is a platform that does allow for more than one game to be part of it and that is what players like Microsoft are hoping for, I reckon that Apple and Google are on that same train. And it is there that we see the balancing act that both Google and Apple face. It is appealing to lock the door to players like Epic Games, but they are not alone and over time, other options will become available, of that I am absolutely certain

 

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August 10, 2020 · 06:51

Government driven destabilisation

That is a term you are not familiar with, is it? Yet it is more now than most other things, even as some are all about ‘donations for Beirut’ all whilst the larger groups ignore corruption there as well as the stage that Hezbollah is not in the clear for storage of explosives in the Beirut harbour.

Last month Houthi forces fired on Saudi Arabia, now there is an issue. First of all, the target was military (King Khalid Air Base) making it in my eyes a valid target, yet the western press for the most ignored it completely. The Jerusalem Post gives us “Saudi Arabia said it intercepted ballistic missiles fired from Yemen overnight between Sunday and Monday. Four missiles and seven drones were launched by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen”, the fact that the Iranian part in all this remains largely unreported in the EU and the Commonwealth is still a massive issue, I have little faith that the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) starts being of use in any way (other then prolonging the war in Yemen), yet the larger issue is not the attacks, the issue as I see is that as I personally see it, governments feel happy to set a stage of destabilisation in the Middle East, so that they can feel safe, at least from their Ego driven point of view. The paper also gives us “The military of Yemen’s Houthi group said it attacked and hit a large oil facility in an industrial zone in the southern Saudi city of Jizan” and in all this the amount of goods that is required coming from Iran is still not being investigated, and the dangers that they bring can be wielded in a few directions. My personal issue in this is why we are not getting a full constant update from the Middle East, why are the papers ignoring the actions from the Iranian side and Houthi atrocities in 

Yemen? We might give rise to the article (at https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2402186/yemeni-speaker-complains-un-over-houthi-violations), yet the western media steered clear of ‘Yemeni Speaker Complains to UN over Houthi Violations’, so when we consider this, who was aware of “Yemen’s National Alliance of Political Parties (NAPP), a group of parties loyal to the internationally recognized government, had also called on the UN and its envoy to condemn the ongoing Houthi attacks against Yemeni pro-government leaders”, how many Commonwealth and EU newspapers took notice? And when we take notice of “The parties added that the militias insist on continuing the series of their crimes against the Yemeni people, rejecting all international efforts to reach peace in the country. “Such behavior is reflected in their decision issued last March to sentence 35 Yemeni pro-government deputies to death,” after charging them with cooperating with the Saudi-led Arab coalition, the statement added”, how many newspapers took the trouble to see what the humanitarian impact is of Houthi decisions here? 

We can argue all week on what is right and what is wrong, yet consider that we cannot argue on matters that most newspapers do not publish, so when we see ‘Huawei-supplied stc wins 5G contract for Saudi mega-city’ (at https://www.capacitymedia.com/articles/3826056/huawei-supplied-stc-wins-5g-contract-for-saudi-mega-city) in here we see “NEOM’s infrastructure will utilise AI, robotics, and human-machine fusion to deliver greater predictive intelligence and enable faster decision making across all NEOM sectors. The procurement and deployment of a future-proof wireless network is a critical first for NEOM in realising our goal of driving innovation in the future digital economy”. Considering that I wrote about that part in ‘There is more beneath the sand’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/11/15/there-is-more-beneath-the-sand/) almost 9 months ago, and on some matters even before than, two weeks earlier I raised ‘Change is coming’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/09/01/change-is-coming/), all matters on Neom City and 5G that the western press left unattended, so what else did we not get to see?

Issues in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iran all remain unreported. And I admit, there is a reach from unreported to Government driven destabilisation, I will admit to that part, in all this there is a larger stake, when we consider that papers are run by people adhering to the needs of Shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers, we get the first part in this, and yes it is subjective and there is space for debate and disagreement, I do not deny this. But when did you (if ever) wonder on matters not published in Western media? OK, in this, I admit that this is still a far stretch towards destabilisation, and that is a fair call, and I would be wrong if it was 1-2 items, but when we add the numbers Houthi attacks on civilian Saudi targets in 2018 and 2019, Iranian intervention in Yemen 2015-2020, with ‘US Navy intercepts ‘Iranian weapons’ bound for Houthis’ (at https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/us-navy-intercepts-iranian-weapons-bound-for-houthis-1.978874), we get a larger stage, how many newspapers reported on this in the EU or the Commonwealth? I also have https://news.usni.org/2020/02/13/video-uss-normandy-seizes-cache-of-iranian-made-weapons-in-arabian-sea and a few more newspapers (like the Adelaide Now), yet over three pages of links, no BBC, No Guardian, no Washington Post, No Dutch, Swedish, or German Newspapers. There were Middle Eastern newspapers and the Jerusalem Post. Did you consider that part of the equation? When we see the redaction of Iran smuggling drones and weapons to Houthi forces in Yemen, what other matters are you not aware of?

#JustAsking

 

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August 9, 2020 · 19:16

This is boom, that is not

Yet, Beirut, the place where buildings get free air-conditioning through the application of 7.62mm ammunition, the place where something went boom and it enraged a whole lot of people, yet on August 5th I wrote in ‘Boom goes the dynamite’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/05/boom-goes-the-dynamite/), we see “It is speculation, but consider the blast, according to some the blast was noticed well over 100Km away. I do have a point of reference, the Fireworks blast in the Netherlands (Enschede) had a similar effect, but nowhere near the size, the video’s I saw told a different story, one car on the highway with a distance of around 2000 meters away got its windows blown out and the rear view mirrors got blown off the car, and that is one of a few video’s that show me that this was no ordinary blast” and it was merely the toppling of issues. We get to see a better picture when we consider “Ammonium nitrate does not burn on its own” (Source: American Scientific), it is merely the foundation. When we consider “For combustion to occur, oxygen must be present. Ammonium nitrate prills provide a much more concentrated supply of oxygen than the air around us. This is why it is effective in mining explosives, where it’s mixed with oil and other fuels. At high enough temperatures, however, ammonium nitrate can violently decompose on its own. This process creates gases including nitrogen oxides and water vapour. It is this rapid release of gases that causes an explosion” we need to look any the explosion again (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdSHRbSZkwc), it is one of many explosions, and as you see there was a fire in the vicinity, but the explosion is violent and complete. The stage is in two fold, in the first, Ammonium nitrate doesn’t burn well and to explode oil is used. The images we see could not be done if it was merely the ammonium nitrate. It is my view and I am not the expert (I did study chemistry), yet experts tell me ‘Ammonium nitrate does not burn on its own’, all the footage I have seen give implication that this was not merely ammonium nitrate, yet Scientific American also give us “It’s stable under normal conditions, but you can do things to it that will cause it to misbehave. The main trigger is an external heat source. Depending on how you want to count it, there have been probably somewhere between 20 and 30 major catastrophic explosions with ammonium nitrate since it came on the scene as a commercial product in the 1920s. And fire is a frequent trigger. It’s the heat of the fire that warms up the ammonium nitrate that can become a problem”, it seems that everyone is willing to give Hezbollah a pass on this event. I am not willing to do so, even if they merely blew up their own city, there is a stage where we need to consider what else was there and was it meant for pro-Houthi or anti-Israel actions? In an age where we see a whole range of analytics and geometric based analyses, in this the Guardian gives us ‘The explosion that devastated the city was no accident and anger is boiling over’, and then we see “It was so huge it was heard in Cyprus. It was so huge it shattered glass and ripped doors off their hinges kilometres away. It incinerated trees, tore the red roofs off centuries-old buildings and brought the blue sea inland. It left 5,000 injured and 154 dead – so far. There are many still missing under the rubble”, which leaves us with the setting that it all went up in one big explosion, consider the fact that it required (read: used) 2,750,000 Kg of ammonium nitrate, I get that there might be an explosion, but IT ALL exploded at once is the larger issue, the facts do not support it. And the fear of some is merely strengthening my view. With “We don’t really know how this ammonium nitrate, confiscated from a ship and stored in unsafe conditions in the middle of our city for six years, ignited. Because those who are responsible are actively rejecting an international investigation”, and in this I see their fear, international experts will bare out what I expect, there were explosives there and that contributed to the much larger explosion, not a fire, and that gets us to Hezbollah, it will feel the brunt of rage from the Lebanese people. Something it cannot afford at present. My initial speculation that Iran handed out of date materials beneath cost price is still on the table, as dynamite sweats nitroglycerine and in the heat in Lebanon it would fuse the ammonium nitrate as well. Yet some media is giving us ‘it requires a combination of things and that seems to have happened’, or something to that regard. They all avoid Iran and Hezbollah in all this, true there would be some speculation linked to it, but things that go boom to this degree requires much more investigation, I do not disagree with this, but blasé painting over the stage with paint of the colour ‘that seems to have happened’ is not the way to go. 

 

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August 5, 2020 · 23:46

EU fart bit, Google Fit Bit

Yes, we leap left, we leap right and as we see options for choice, we also see options for neglect. In Reuters we see “Google’s parent company Alphabet agreed a $2.1bn (£1.6bn) takeover of the wearable tech firm last year. However, the deal has yet to be completed”, we see that at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53647570, and as we see the BBC article, we wonder about a lot more. Yes we acknowledge “While the European Commission has said its main concern is the “data advantage” Google will gain to serve increasingly personalised ads via its search page”, and in the matter of investigations we see:

  • The effects of the merger on Europe’s nascent digital healthcare sector
  • Whether Google would have the means and ability to make it more difficult for rival wearables to work with its Android operating system.

From there there are two paths, for me personally the first one is Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, to be honest, I do not trust her. I will admit right off the bat that this is personal, but her deal relying on what was requires her to get a win, any win. The setting is founded on “officials acknowledge that the EU’s competition enforcer faces hard choices after judges moved to quash her order for the US tech company to pay back €14.3bn in taxes to Ireland”, which was a juridical choice, but in all this she needs a win and I reckon she will do whatever er she can to get any of the FAANG group. For the most I would be on her side in the tax case, but on the other side the entire sweep of the Google Fitbit leaves me with questions.

The first point is on ‘effects of the merger’, so how is this in regards to the Apple Smart Watch, the Huawei smart watch (android), and a few other versions, how much investigation did Apple get? How much concern is there for Huawei? Then we see the second part ‘Whether Google would have the means and ability’, it is not a wrong position for Margrethe Vestager to take, but as he does it upfront, in light of the EU inactions regarding IBM and Microsoft, it seems weird that this happens upfront now (well to me it does). And as we see ‘difficult for rival wearables to work with its Android operating system’ I see Huawei and the solutions they have, Android solutions no less, so why is Google the problem? 

Then there are two other parts. The first one is “Analysts suggested part of the attraction for Google was the fact that Fitbit had formed partnerships with several insurers in addition to a government health programme in Singapore”, the second one is “Google has explicitly denied its motivation is to control more data”, in all this there is less investigation in regards to what data goes to Singapore, or better stated the article makes no mention towards it, and as I see it, there is no mention on it from the office of Margrethe Vestager either. The second part is how Google explicitly denies its part, yet that denial does not give us anything towards the speculated “its motivation is to have access to more data”, and when you decide on a smart watch, data will end up somewhere and the statements are precise (something that worries me), I have no issue with Google having access, but the larger issue is not Google, it is ‘partnerships with several insurers’, the idea of privacy is not seen remarked upon by Margrethe Vestager and her posse of goose feather and ink-jar wielders, the focus is Google and is seemingly absent from investigations into Fitbit pre-Google in an age where the GDPR is set to be gospel, so who are the insurers and where are they based? Issues we are unlikely to get answers on. Yet when we consider “John Hancock, the U.S. division of Canadian insurance giant Manulife, requires customers to use activity trackers for life insurance policies in their Vitality program if they want to get discounts on their premiums and other perks”, so what happens when that data can be accessed? Is the larger stage not merely ‘What we consent to’, but a stage where the insurer has a lessened risk, but we see that our insurance is not becoming cheaper, there is the second stage that those not taking that path get insurance surcharge. So what has the EU done about that? We can accept that this is not on the plate of Margrethe Vestager, but it is on someones plate and only now, when Google steps in do we see action? 

So whilst the old farts at the EU are taking a gander at what they can get, I wonder what happens to all the other parts they are not looking at. Should Google acquire my IP, with access to 440,000,000 retailers and well over 1,500,000,000 consumers, will they cry murder? Will they shout unfair? Perhaps thinking out of the box was an essential first requirement and Fitbit is merely a stage to a much larger pool that 5G gives, but as they listened to the US, they can’t tell, not until 2022, at that point it is too late for the EU, I reckon that they get to catch on in 2021 when they realise that they are losing ground to all the others, all whilst they could have been ahead of the game, lets say a Hail Mary to those too smitten by ego. 

 

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