Tag Archives: BBC

Boom goes the dynamite

Yup, I got this from a trainee presenter in an American show, it stuck and now as we see the numbers come from Beirut and the devastating boom that the population in Beirut is facing, the term stuck again. I have waded through 4 hours of video, I read the articles and the sage does not  make sense. Yet, be aware that a lot of it is speculative, so do not take this as gospel, or as given facts, even as I try to go from some of the revealed facts, they too are up for reconsideration of optional inaccurate facts.

The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/aug/04/beirut-explosion-huge-blast-port-lebanon-capital), gives us a lot of small facts, but some sources like CNN (and others) give us “2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive material used in fertilizers and bombs, had been stored for six years at a port warehouse without safety measures, “endangering the safety of citizens,” according to a statement”, first of all the number comes down to 2,750,000 kilograms, which is not a lot, it is a massive amount to have. In a nation (with explosive needs or not), where there is a shortage of all things, that amount of fertiliser amounts to 125 40 foot containers, filled to the brink with fertiliser, and it was there for 6 years (according to some). When you realise the events can be seen in other light, the numbers do not add up, yet the explosion was real. 

Speculation
So why if there was more than fertiliser there? Consider Iran has been supplying Hezbollah with volatile goods for a long time, what happens when TNT (or dynamite) stats sweating? Now consider that we weren’t dealing with 125 containers, but with a mere 4 containers, but with TNT and it was kept in what some would consider the safest place, also consider that it had been there for a few months and sweating explosives tend to sweat nitro glycerine. Consider that Iran made a deal with surplus stuff and it backfired on its customer.

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. Even as it is understandable that the real cause cannot be known yet, we see within 13 hours “2,750 tons of chemicals detonated”, the explanation is very much too soon. But I get the inkling of dire need to set a story out there, in light of the explosive nature of goods that Hezbollah relies on in Beirut. So when we consider “Over time, regardless of the sorbent used, sticks of dynamite will “weep” or “sweat” nitroglycerin, which can then pool in the bottom of the box or storage area. For that reason, explosive manuals recommend the repeated turning over of boxes of dynamite in storage”, and when we consider that and the supplier to Hezbollah, no matter where it would be stored, is my speculation so thin? Or is it a lot closer to the truth than you would imagine? And when we consider the shortage seem in Lebanon, consider 125 containers of goods untouched for 6 years, or 4 containers with Dynamite untouched (or partially touched) for 6 months, what is more likely? 

It is linked to a second speculation, what if Iran had to get rid of explosives that have a limited time left? Who would be appreciative of receiving explosives at below cost price? I feel certain that this is a direction that Iran did not anticipated, but it is what it is and remember, I am speculating here, yet in this case is it more likely than not is the question and yes, we need to await the real news, but as I see it, the media is accepting the 2,750,000 kilograms of Ammonium nitrate that was in folly stored for 6 years, and remember one small detail “Ammonium nitrate does not burn on its own”, and there was already a fire, I will also give you “Ammonium nitrate decomposition can be set off if an explosion occurs where it’s stored, if there is an intense fire nearby. The latter is what happened in the 2015 Tianjin explosion, which killed 173 people after flammable chemicals and ammonium nitrate were stored together at a chemicals factory in eastern China” The events seem to add up, but the amounts do not (as I personally see it), no matter how we see this, certain people have lost a lot, they will lose a lot more and Iran gets to be a supplier yet once again.

 

1 Comment

Filed under Military, Politics, Science

What light is the limelight

We all wonder at times why certain matters are brought to attention, we now automatically assume that issues are revealed to seat the limelight, not merely TV and other media, the press is seen in that same way. It is not that we are bombarded with fake news, there is now the assumed feeling by many that the media is giving us fake news (they tend to call it direct and speculated views from experts). 

This view is supported (to a degree) by Al Jazeera who gave us “Long before “fake news” had a name, the BBC was a master of fake news, in fact fake news of the most dangerous, the most vicious consequences, casting nations, not just individuals, into direct calamities”, they did so in November 2018, they also give us “The role of BBC in the overthrow of Mosaddeq was not out of character or unusual. In a piece titled Why the taboo tale of the BBC’s wartime propaganda battle must be told published by The Guardian, David Boyle writes about characters like Noel Francis Newsome (1906-1976), who “as director of European broadcasts … led what is still the biggest broadcasting operation ever mounted, in 25 different languages for a total of just over 25 hours a day, across three wavelengths.””, in this the BBC does not stand alone, there are scores of producers that have had the ear of their governments. 

The problem now is that the media is flaunting the #Fakenews items and procrastinate on what they regard on what is fake news, yet they themselves have been heralding tweaked news and scores of misinformation through either omission or ‘non disclosed sources’ and the people have caught on, they have caught on for a while, so whilst they disregard newspapers, they embrace another level of debatable news that others publish on social media. 

And everyone is seeking the limelight, yet the most obvious question becomes slowly apparent to some, what sort of light is the limelight? And what sort of light was it supposed to be?

That is the question, in people like Freddy Mercury and David Bowie got to be exposed to the purest form that was discovered in 1837, at that point we had: “limelight was used for the first time to illuminate a stage, at London’s Covent Garden. During the second half of the 19th century, theaters regularly utilized this powerful form of light, which could be focused into a beam to spotlight specific actors or an area of the stage”, the stage was set to illuminate and give visibility to, in this case titans of music. In other forms we see the pink limelight, which in this case is not a version of ‘La vie en rose’, it is a version to make softer the harsh reality of a situation that we face, we see it whenever the limelight needs to be on Iran, we see it when bad news must be tempered for the good of that government or for the good of the political needs of THAT moment. In this stage we also need to see the omissions of news and I am not buying the usual ‘we ran out of space’ BS all whilst digital space costs nothing and any additional space implies more advertisement space too. Some might have noticed on the massive lack of reporting whilst Houthi forces (via Iran) were firing missiles on the Saudi government. To merely quote one of the (many) sources “When important news is omitted, we get a skewed or biased perspective”, as I see it, the Saudi example shows a few issues, as the larger lack of reporting was shown, right around the time several governments were setting the stage of no weapons to Saudi Arabia. And in all that mess, the lack of reporting on the actions of Iran take a larger view and we need to do that. We see a global stage that is changing, whilst a group of politic Ians are setting the stage based on their egotistical needs, and that group is getting too large, all whilst the political field of the US is dwindling down and European politics is getting a dangerous overhaul. In this stage of changes, some have figured out that a new way of setting the tone of news is not changing the story, it is adjusting the limelight. As I see it it will open differently across forms of media, but the readers will have a lot more issues to distinguish between news and fake news, you see, there will be news, adjusted news and fake news. The problem is that all have a professional looking character, yet the impact differs. It gets us back to the 90’s when the 256 greyscale solutions came, but the setting is an important distinguishing one. We cannot distinguish these 256 grey scales. Our eyes are not that good, and our brains are even less distinguishing, as the overlap between real, adjusted and fake messages increases, our ability to distinguish becomes a larger issue. In this a personal view is that there is a correlation between phishing and adjusted news. It becomes harder, if not close to impossible to see the difference. I almost fell for two phishing attacks, even as I knew what to look for, the message was indistinguishable from the real deal and news is going the same way, the media relying on ‘adjusted news’ is not helping any. The one clear part (from factcheck.org) is “Not all of the misinformation being passed along online is complete fiction”, the question is when does it become too hard to see the difference between a story that is not ‘all fiction’ and a story that is not ‘all true’. When can we no longer tell the difference? And as some come with the treated excuse ‘Is there not an AI solution?’, the stage becomes rather large, because AI does not exist, not yet at least. You see, the salespeople are selling AI, because it is marketed at all, just like the 80’s when printers had to be sold, they came up with Near Letter Quality. Wit AI we now have True AI: “True artificial intelligence is autonomous — it does not require human maintenance and works for you silently in the background” and there we see the problem, the identification is still done with human intervention, and the part in this that I did not report on is that AI, or perhaps more clearly stated True AI requires to be learning. That is not yet possible as it requires quantum computing with shallow circuits. IBM is close to getting it, but not completely there yet, only when that is ready, complete and true AI becomes achievable. So whilst that stage is still evading us, the issues of adjusted and fake news keep on going. Yet I am concerned with the question “What is the light they use as limelight?”, in this we consider it as we need to contemplate that news should not change when WE change the light, so real news will remain  the same whether it is rose or lime light, adjusted news will change slightly, but perhaps just enough for us to see the difference. It is speculative, but I believe that it is a future option.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Science

The station of choice

As we see that we have stations of choice, we also see that our choices were limited. We are overwhelmed with some flu version that has the name of a Mexican beer, we are overwhelmed with what the media calls ‘bad news’ and they are not playing a game with you (most are not), towards the stage where thousands of jobs are gone in any nation that has signs of Covid-19. And we haven’t even seen the main event in any of that. So whilst we see the BBC giving us “HSBC plans to speed up job cuts after interim profits plunged and the bank said bad loans linked to the coronavirus could reach $13bn (£9.8bn)”, OK, we get that, loans were all amassed and extended and then the people got sick, startup companies and existing companies, all got hit. But then we realise the headline and we need to consider the impact of ‘HSBC to speed up 35,000 job cuts as profits slump’, some choices were not choices at all, not for those 35,000 and not for the hundreds of thousands that also are losing their job. Some seem unavoidable, yet the stage of a bank needing to shed 35,000 jobs has another stage to consider, a stage where the bottom dollar and margins are the movement reasons in this particular time. Let’s be clear, it is a time that we have not seen for a little over 100 years. In Australia Victoria is now in a stage 4 lockdown, a second lockdown. There will be businesses hit, there will be consequences for a lot of people, yet when I saw last year in 2019 reporting 23% more profits, I find it a little distasteful to read about 35,000 jobs lost, all whilst banks have been filling their pockets for close to a decade, if there was one situation where loyalty is leaving the building the this is it. There is however an upside, if we consider that 2% of the American people has the Coronavirus and a percentage of that will not survive, we see that job openings are coming. Globally we are moving faster and faster towards 20,000,000 Coronavirus patients, we are almost there, almost 750,000 people were lost on some official places, yet there are loads of articles giving us that the number of deceased people is a lot higher, as such loyalty is not something bosses want to take chances on, but that is merely my view on the matter. Let’s be clear, a lot of them were retired, yet not all, so they need replacement and when the financial sector, after non stop massive profits is shedding its staff, there is nothing stopping a place like Saudi Arabia starting a new financial cornerstone, they are getting access to well over 100,000 people on a global setting. 100,000 people with knowledge of the sector and the clients. Now that they are not spending billions on Newcastle, they could set a corner in the financial sector and setting up shop, with staff needing a job it might not be the worst idea and they have the billions, a lot do not. The world market is soon to be about choice and a lot are handing over the options and opportunities they have to merely meet a short term bottom dollar. I get it, plenty of catering, bars and restaurants do not have the options, or the reserves, they are with their back to the wall and trying to survive, no blame there, but the Fortune 500 and banks shedding jobs, it makes no sense. A situation where they rely on governmental hand-outs whilst they went around making as much profit as they could whilst paying as little tax as they could (which is no crime mind you), but there is a stage where the feeling of insecurity becomes slightly distasteful. Even as we understand that there is a station of choice, yet we seemingly forgot that the station of choice is one with limited settings. It becomes a much larger setting when we consider the impact of 5G, no matter what choice we had, we now see ‘Experts say expanding 5G will boost regional economies during COVID-19’, yet we also see “Although the pandemic has brought uncertainty to our lives, the advantages of 5G infrastructure are increasingly clear. The outbreak has led to increased demand for ICT solutions specifically in areas like 5G amid a boost in network usage and 5G 2B innovations. Meeting that demand will require new forms of public-private partnerships based on open collaboration, supporting strong industry policies that will enable social value, economic development and provide enhanced service experiences to consumers across the region” So when we realise that ‘new forms of public-private partnerships’, some might get the idea that it means new jobs, but this is exactly the danger I had spoken about and this meeting of the SAMENA Telecommunications Council Leaders was in Dubai and Huawei was making enough noise to unite the 5G community in the Middle East towards Huawei, not just Huawei, but there is a clear station where they are coming out on top. It was the scenario I have described a few times and now that the view grows towards ‘new forms of public-private partnerships’ via Huawei, the stress levels go up, the US has a lot to lose and they will lose a fair share of it, in an age of loss of jobs, we get to slowly witness a market shift towards Huawei and the Middle East in almost EVERY segment of 5G and as western corporations fall short on innovation and lack of speed in their apps, we see the danger flexing in a few new directions, I saw several of them as the US is bullying others to drop Huawei, but so far has NEVER shown clear evidence of Chinese governmental dangers. Especially in light of the open dangers that Cisco is leaving out in the open (not intentionally mind you), I think that in the networking environment we have larger dangers that have been confirmed, also by the maker of the hardware. Even as we see the buyout of chipmakers, we see a dangerous setting, we could lose a lot and as I see it, most nations are blindly accepting the stage that America is feeing Europe and the Commonwealth, most are getting more and more aware that 5G is for some treasury coffers will be the last straw of one with coins and one with IOU notes and the stage we are approaching is now set that 5G will be lacking in speed and will be behind all with Huawei hardware. That is the stage we are moving forward to and a stage where job loyalty is at an all time low, a stage where others move in on fields they were never able to move in on and now 5G will move faster. Ericsson gives us “The frontrunners in 4G – largely in the US and China – became the big winners of the “app economy.” The same dynamic will play out with 5G but on a potentially massive scale”, consider that quote, consider the advantage that Huawei has and now consider that players from the Middle East will be entering a field with freedom of movement for well over a year and that stage has never existed before. Consider that in 2018 the stage was “US 4G leadership also resulted in more than $40 billion in additional app store revenue”, so that stage was a large benefit for the US, who is now losing that stage where Asia and the Middle East will get a much larger share than ever before, do you really think that app designers aren’t packing up ion a stage where nations lose more and more loyalty? If Google wants to stay in the race, they need to grow at least three more data centres in the next year alone, and that is merely Google, the others need to grow a much larger input into those regions to stay ahead of the game, the advantage that they had ib 4G is now gone, India was making waves and when they realise the losses they will get as Huawei is shown the door is staggering. In a stage of $40,000,000,000, we see the new economy rise an d Europe and the US will only be a smaller part towards it, the stations of choice are dwindling down and those who SHOULD do something about it are indecently silent. It worries me because it will impact the Common wealth for far too much, as America stops being a superpower, the Commonwealth will be alone taking up the baton of the free world, we will have to seek a partner and Europe is unlikely to make it, so how can this so called ‘free world’ be insured when the option for the Commonwealth becomes Russia or China? I don’t see it, do you? And even as there is no cold war, there is a new war coming, not with fighting units and out in the open bashing, but it will be a new war. The Digital war will be new, it will be massive and our team has thrown out the most important options from the get go. It worries me and it should worry you as well. 5G is too important a battle, and so far both Ericsson and Nokia are all making marketing claims, but are they showing equal or more advancement than Huawei? As far as I can tell no, and that is where Samena comes in. A council where we see STC, Batelco, Arabsat, Etisalat International, Mobily, Omantel, Orange, Sudatel, Zain Kuwait and of course Samena. A stage where there is a much larger stage for meetings that impact the Middle East as it becomes a larger stage for players like Huawei. So here’s hoping that the current US president is not getting this wrong as much as his stance on the Coronavirus, because the cost will be a lot higher this time around. A stage where the big players handed over revenue to Asia and the Middle East via a conscripted setting of ego, it will be a first, yet at present it iOS close to certain to become actuality.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Politics, Science

Innuendo on the aftermath

The BBC is giving us more, and more, and more. Now they give us “The coronavirus crisis might be causing widespread economic upheaval around the world, but the world’s biggest tech firms are thriving.” And why is that? Consider the simple truth, Apple, even though not completely innovative, does give us something lovely. A lot of people got access to their Super early because of the Coronavirus, we do not want to splash and splurge, but when you are in lockdown, you cannot escape yourself, you can stare down the walls, go insane, or do something else. Surf the web using a Apple iPhone, or a Google Pixar, read a book, play a game or watch a DVD that is ordered via Amazon, then there is the surfing and 2 billion visit Facebook, so yes ‘the world’s biggest tech firms are thriving’, shops would not have been a great offer, lockdowns do that, but the people can order things and some get the hardware to do this. When you have one day to live, the option to see in brilliance and astounding quality matters a great deal to that person. And in all this, the digital highway will be travelled a lot more than usual, people working from home, people being denied high resolution Netflix because the internet if congested, but the advertisements go through, and we all see them. Then we get “At a hearing in Washington on Wednesday, lawmakers grilled the companies about whether they were abusing their dominance to quash rivals, noting the sharp contrast between their fortunes and many other firms”, as I personally see it, they aren’t quashing rivals, they are using their expertise to gain faster and more. 

Beyond that there is “Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner asked Mark Zuckerberg why Twitter had removed a post by the US president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, discussing the efficacy of the drug hydroxychloroquine. Twitter is not owned by Facebook. “I think what you might be referring to happened on Twitter, so it’s hard for me to speak to that,” said Mr Zuckerberg.””it gives my earlier view on the stupidity of politicians, as Jim Sensenbrenner cannot tell who owns what and addresses the wrong person on the matter, we see the Cowboy show I expected to see, a waste of time, and poor entertainment at that. 

It becomes a larger issues when we see “Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal asked Jeff Bezos for a “yes or no” answer: Did Amazon ever use seller data to make its own business decisions? This was a reference to reports that Amazon has used data gathered from businesses selling products via its site to design and price its own rival first-party goods – something the firm has previously suggested had been limited to a group of rogue employees. Mr Bezos responded that he couldn’t give an answer in such simple terms” That is part of the problem, the lack of knowledge, when we look at “Did Amazon ever use seller data to make its own business decisions?” What exactly is ‘seller data?’, is it a cookie that the users has agreed on, was it sales data from the application that was used, as such, what application data is in play? Was it a customer review? Three questions that rip out the threads of the conversation. As such, as we saw Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal rip Attorney General William Barr to shreds, she should have known better from the start, and we go from cowboy act to dog and pony show. In all this there is also debate on ‘to make its own business decisions’, especially as APN partners have options to make choices and decisions, it was a poorly phrased question and a wrongly lit situation from the get go. And last but not least we see “Republican congressman Matt Gaetz claimed that Google collaborates with Chinese universities that take “millions upon millions of dollars from the Chinese military” and noted that tech investor Peter Thiel had previously accused the company of “treason””, so how stupid is Matt Gaetz and where does he have ANY evidence that Google was taking money from the ‘Chinese military’? It is these levels of stupidity that gets no results, mere innuendo, yet they ALL seems to agree that overhauling Tax laws and competition laws would be a larger need, especially that in light of 5G and optionally 5G plus (a new IP I am working out) the need to both would be essential in keeping the playing field level, but these politicians, but their own account they sealed their own lives. Even as we see: “But Cicilline goes on: “This is the tip of the iceberg. It’s not just about Covid. Facebook gets away with it because there is no competitor. It’s the only game in town.”” I still remember the setting in 1997, I saw so called bullet point executives having no clue on the digital highway, dismissing it of hand as some paths had no business purpose, the setting did not change before 5 years AFTER Facebook was created by people lacking innovative vision and trying to bleed off Facebook settings, and history is about to repeat itself in the 5G environment, the back-fall is that big and US Congress, seemingly ignorant of the digital dimension are making things worse by stopping the only 4 resources in the US who have a chance of c countering what comes next. So well done djotto’s! And it does not end there. Considering the lacking intelligence by these democrats, when the people realise just how far it lacked, we get to see that the upcoming election is not a given, not by a long shot. I keep on wondering what the hearing was about, when will we get to see these documents and so called evidence that they rely on? I wonder how many holes I get to shoot into that part of the equation. I talk about innuendo and here it is, proudly brought to you by the BBC. It was Republican Greg Steube who sets that in motion with the question “Do you believe the Chinese government is stealing technology from US companies?”, mind you that he tried to push for a yes-or-no answer in light of the simplistic minds that these members of Congress have. Yet consider that the most powerful tech bosses and owners of the IP stated “I don’t know of specific cases where we have been stolen from by the government” (Tim Cook), and that is the first part where we see the issue. Then there was “no first-hand knowledge of any information stolen from Google in this regard” (Sundar Pichai), “I haven’t seen that personally but I’ve heard many reports of it” (Jeff Bezos), in this we only have Mark Zuckerberg who gives us “I think it’s well documented that the Chinese government steals technology from US companies”, this issue here is in the first that it was narrow-minded to set a shallow question on a closed answer, all whilst Tim Cook gives us that he does not know the the Chinese government is stealing, but cheap knock off’s, especially when it is promoted by Kylie and Kendall Jenner (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53596192) are getting promoted by people of no mind and a clever approach on what they can get away with, I think they are called criminals. Sundar supports the view, or basically leads in his own fairway that Google was not a victim of that approach. We get Jeff giving us that he has seen many reports, yet I wonder who wrote them, I hope he is not relying on FTI Consulting for more than one reason. Only Marky Mark remains, I cannot fault his view and perhaps he is right, but in light of the Bezos hacking view and the issue on Sony and North Korea, there are too many questions on who does what and so far too many issues have left us with too many questions on how short the comings of come of the US cyber divisions really are, and that is not all. The hand that could be feeding them is the hand they are biting whilst not adjusting for the laws to make a proper job, that is the setting that we are left with in the aftermath and the innuendo around us leaves us with questions on politicians seeking the limelight. And why was Microsoft not there?

It is a weird setting and it will get a lot weirder in 2021. 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics, Science

The Aftermath

Of course, I did one just before and now one more, 4 tech giants and US congress? It was too good to pass up, if I was in Washington DC, I would have opened a popcorn cart at the entrance (if that is allowed), so as I looked via the BBC before, I will do so again.

It starts with democrat Congressman David Cicilline who gives us “a year-long investigation by lawmakers had revealed patterns of abuse by the online platforms” my question becomes ‘Where is that report, can we see it?’ It might have been made public, it might not, I do not know, but I was not directly able to find it, yet the Boston Glob had the headline ‘Today is the biggest day of David Cicilline’s political career’ as such this man seeks the limelight, so why is that report not all over the media? So far in well over half a dozen newspaper sites, none of them had the link to that report, as such h I have questions and I fear that when I read it a lot of questions will pop to the surface. And when we see “The dominant platforms have wielded their power in destructive, harmful ways in order to expand” the question I had in the previous article rises again, why is Microsoft not there? Show clear evidence of ‘wielded their power in destructive, harmful ways’, and when showing that evidence also give rise to what laws were broken please? IBM and Microsoft have wielded power in harmful ways for decades, yet they did nothing illegal. As such proof of illegality would be ni

Next is Google, there we see: “lawmakers accused Google of having stolen content created by smaller firms, like Yelp, in order to keep users on their own web pages” did Google steal it, or did some duplicate their opinion in both to double THEIR visibility? I am not stating that Google is innocent, I do not have the evidence, yet ‘stolen content’ gives rise to a crime, presented evidence would be nice. So whilst we see accusations, we also got “some Republicans signalled they were not prepared to split up the firms or significantly overhaul US competition laws, with one committee member saying “big is not inherently bad”” the problem again is were there any illegalities made? When some go for “significantly overhaul US competition laws” we see the implied non-illegal stuff and that is where the problems lie, the US government, both the senate and congress should have overhauled Tax and competition laws well over a decade ago, their fault not the four tech bosses and I have stated this failing for years, so why go after the four and leave Microsoft (who is also running advertisements) out of the mix, I have some questions on how David Cicilline is seeking the limelight if you don’t mind!

Then we get the US president “a long-time critic of Amazon and threatened his own action on Twitter, writing: “If Congress doesn’t bring fairness to Big Tech, which they should have done years ago, I will do it myself with Executive Orders.”” It sounds nice, but pointless, there is a lack in legal sides in both competition law and tax laws and a nation of laws cannot reside in a discriminatory state living of executive orders, whilst they can be legally countered. As I see it, the entire charade was a cowboy approach to something that has no bearing, will pay lawyers for a decade and will amount to nothing, all whilst overhauling two sides of the law is ignored again and again.

In this I have to take the sides of the tech boys. With the added side that if David Cicilline does not spread these legal documents of ‘wrongdoing’ these hearings are merely the end of his political career, and in light of the fact that I have never heard of him not a good thing I reckon (OK, that was my egocentrically side). The more articles I read from more newspapers, the more that the feeling of a cowboy and Indian approach by this congress is the stage we face, in light of the non committing towards overhauling Tax laws and competition laws merely strengthens my feelings on the matter.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics

When Congress becomes something more

So as I stated in ‘The Fantastic Four and the Bully’, the four getting grilled are not the bad guys. Well, there is some debate, but the foundation is that these four tech entrepreneurs are getting grilled by people who are clueless on tech matters. So as some read the BBC part “At issue is the fact that Apple doesn’t allow apps to be installed onto iOS devices from alternative marketplaces, and that it enforces tough rules over the way subscriptions and other digital items can be sold.” The issue soon becomes, will congress be responsible for any bad app and data gathering app that Congress would want to allow for? Even as an android user, I see that there are very few bad apples around, as such most apps are safe. There are a lot more dangerous apps on Android. This is not the fault of Google, there are several ways that a personal device gets to be the victim, there are a lot less issues on Apple, as such and as Congress might demand third party options, will they not be responsible for the damage that they put on Apple and its users? There is another side, a these tech giants come under fire, the chances of Chinese hardware makers making it bigger only increases by 35%-55%, how is that of use to congress? We might see Fitbit mentions and other mentions, but these products are closely followed by Asian alternatives, the entire setting does not add up. Then we get the advertisements, until Google Ads was here, we had DoubleClick, there were versions that equal Epom, with price tags that started at $250 a month, then $1000 a month, $2500 a month and higher. So, can the US Congress give us a list of all the small business and small startups that had that kind of cash? Google Ads was one of the first AFFORDABLE solutions for small business units, the fact that the bulk all switched should be a larger consideration, in addition, Google Ads was one of the first to truly die a larger rise to localisation and languages. Usually one or the other was missing, as such, is the growth of Goole Ads to be blamed on Google, or on all the others who could not be bothered? Not everything is perfect at Google, we all know that, but we also know that the ignorance in congress is a little too large to wonder who they are serving, they claim the people, but in reality? I am actually wondering who they are setting the stage for, I see it as a different stage that the one they tell us we are on.

And even as we accept Sundar’s optional defence of “Today’s competitive landscape looks nothing like it did five years ago, let alone 21 years ago, when Google launched its first product, Google Search”, we need to see that this landscape is largely influenced on the upcoming 5G and as it is now, especially as well over 50% of all searches are done via mobile, the only thing I see coming is that China gets a much larger share of it all and Congress intervening on matters that they do not comprehend is a much larger danger to that happening. I have always been favour of Huawei technology, that does not mean that I want China to have the bulk of all the business. The White House wants us to think it is the same, but it is not. They have set the stage that unites Huawei in a political tool for China to set a much larger field, they were pushed by US stupidity, not Huawei needs. The US took it away and now we see a very different stage, one where Huawei is still independent, but taking the customers that China is pointing at. The stage is changing and Congress is adding fuel to that fire by chastising the big four tech makers, each entrepreneurs. Each understanding the digital landscape. I had no clue in the early 90’s when Amazon started, I thought it was mad to continue when the losses were so great, now the owner has is worth in excess of $35,000,000,000, a personal value that exceeds a lot of nations. I am not saying that all is kind and kosher with each of the four, I am stating that when we are getting told changes, we are properly getting told by people who understand that business and in Congress, I doubt that they can rub together 2 one dollar coins on the subject on digital advertising. The more ‘diplomatic’ answer comes from Facebook’s own Zuckerberg. With “Our story would not have been possible without US laws that encourage competition and innovation. I believe that strong and consistent competition policy is vital because it ensures that the playing field is level for all. At Facebook, we compete hard, because we’re up against other smart and innovative companies that are determined to win” and some of them are Chinese. Some are Russian and others are all over the place, yet Facebook has other problems too, privacy and marketing do not go hand in hand, not in their granular market and that is where part of the problem lies. We could decide that from the four, they are the bad apple in this, but that would be wrong. I worked for people who had no idea how to dress a Facebook market when it was offered to them, their bullet point presentations could not deal with that unknown side of business, that was the strength for growth for Facebook, it was so new, there were no defining borders and there is where we see part of that problem, a lot never caught on, not to the degree that Facebook represents and there I see the dangers of the US Congress, they are not that clued in (as I personally see it). So as we get to one of the topics ‘One of the matters concerning the committee is the degree to which three of the tech companies now control the market for online adverts’ we need to recognise that these players made it affordable for a lot of businesses, the old way was dictatorial and something only rich companies could afford, they refused to give way and when Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon gobbled up the small fry, the large fry moved positions because their provider was no longer the bee’s knees. Three never ruled it, the grew it changing the rulers and the old stage should never return. And finally, according to numbers one in three uses Bing and Microsoft search and are therefor exposed to Bing Ads, so why is Microsoft not in that stage? There are 4 players and one has well over 20%, so why is Microsoft not in the meeting? Is that asking for too much?

Those who have read my articles over the year have seen that I have chastised each and every one of these four (5 if you include Microsoft), but here I see no blame, not from any of the 5, the stage was set, the rules were followed and when the opportunity was there 20 years ago, most would not wonder there, I was a personal witness when some stated that there was no future for a business form of Facebook in 1997, as such what is the US Congress bitching about? And as we look at the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-53582909) we see the graph by eMarketer, yet Microsoft and their Bing is absent, why is that? So whilst they claim it is merely about the smaller rivals, it is about something more and something different, I wonder if we will ever be told the truth. As I personally see it, the members of congress have a different set of needs and I wonder what they are.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Law, Media, Politics, Science

He/She said, she/he said

There is a much larger issue, a much larger problem and for a while a lot of people have been ignoring it, not really on purpose, but as long as it does not hits them, they ignore it, and I will admit that for the longest time, I was very much on that same horse. Even if I did it away as a joke, it was my way of acknowledging that it is here. For example as a Sony fan I would say ‘I hate discrimination and Xbox users’, in all honesty, I do not really hate them, but it was a way to getting the point across, a joke tends to do that, but discrimination is not a joke, so as the BBC and other sources give us ‘Wiley: Rapper deleted from Facebook and Instagram after abuse of Jewish critics’ with the quote “The latest comments were shared on Wiley’s personal Facebook profile, and not his official fan page, which has also been taken down. Although they had relatively little engagement – less than 100 likes and comments each – they were visible to the public”, my issue is not the actions, but the speed at which this is happening, at this speed it will take decades to get a real result and that is where we need to take heed. It seems that cutting the head of a journalist gets results a lot faster than calling a person discriminatory names. It seems that the stops get pulled out by a lot when it ‘matters’ to them, and that is the rather large issue we are confronted with. Even as there are plenty of celebrities and a lot of others setting the stage to fight it, and as the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/25/antisemitism-labour-warns-of-cash-crisis-as-cases-grow) gives us “Labour will this week be formally notified of a batch of potentially costly new legal actions over antisemitism – days after a warning was issued to the shadow cabinet about the devastating toll the crisis is taking on the party’s finances”, we need to recognise that the inactions for years are adding up and this is more than merely a social media problem, the inactions by government as it ignores scores of discrimination issues (on a global scale mind you), and the media has been lagging (not lacking) in this and it is time for a larger global sounding and working initiative against discrimination. In the USA things are going from bad to worse, especially in the economic light of COVID-19, we see sources giving us all kinds of titles, titles like ‘A new study found fine-dining restaurants in Seattle told white applicants to start immediately, while telling Black jobseekers they’re ‘not hiring’’ are not the exception, they are apparently the norm in the US and they are not alone, whilst we see screams and demands for equality, the opposite is happening, and it is happening right now. Now, I have always been about realism, and the reality of the situation and the economy is that discrimination is too much of a problem, not merely in the long run, in the short run we see the direct station of hurting well over 31% of the global population, and yes that is not the issue for governments, but in their own backyard it is an issue, in the US alone the issue of discrimination is well over 35%, that implies that one in three will face discrimination and that is on race alone, when we add gender and religion, the picture becomes a lot less charming. In this the UK and Australia are not far behind. Many countries in the EU face similar issues. And as some are ignoring the dangers ahead, in this economy we need to create an air of inclusion, we need to move from inclusion to phases of opportunity. These happen not overnight, but they need to happen a lot faster than whatever solution social media comes with. You see, at the core of inequality is the inability to live like a person, to live like a human being and as that is taken care of, we can create time and create other means to stop discrimination. Anyone who gives you a 5 step plan is plainly a loon, this cannot be done overnight, it cannot be done in 5 steps, and at the core is clear education on just how wrong discrimination is. There is a quote, a quote I locked inside of me in the 80’s, “Change is valuable, it lets the oppressed be tyrants” I believe that this phrase is more important than you might imagine. I did not know it at the time, but the phrase is from Jenny Holzer’s ‘Truisms’, consider the option that the oppressed become the tyrants, where would you be? We need change, but one that does not include oppressed and tyrants, it requires equality and we are running out of time, if you doubt that, consider what happens in the US, when we first get to see that the USA has to admit that they are no longer a superpower, then we get consumerism collapse and in this we get to see that those so called captains of industry are left with lagging incomes more and more, what do you think happens next? And make no mistake, this is not about the USA, the Commonwealth (with minimum impact in Canada) and the EU face the same predicament, the only bad thing happening in the near future if they all get hit at the same time, a scary prospect, no? In all this we need change, we need it fast and we need it by making any setting of discrimination ‘actionable perse’, we have little other options at present. It was never that clear before but the entire Covid-19 issue brought it to the surface more and more, and if the US want to do more than merely become a police state, they actually have no options left, they might be the first, but they are not the only ones, the UK and the EU are ripe and ready for a lot more. The problem is not can we fix it (it should be) the problem in the immediate future is to lower the inequality curve, from the range it is now, towards a 25%-30% lowering curve within a year, with an additional 30%-35% lowering in the year after. These are seemingly achievable numbers, but it will not be easy, anyone claiming that it will be is at the very least insane and optionally delusional as well. We can look at a whole range of options, but in the end government after government will have to decide what is the best way for their nation. I do understand that each nation has its own priorities and its own way of dealing with matters, that was never in question, but they need to realise fast that they no longer have leeway in doing it later, that option past about a decade ago.  

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Politics

Baa baa who?

I got alerted, OK, alerted is slightly too strong an expression to a BBC article by Elisabeth Mahy. The article was published two days ago and I probably overlooked it. Yet, it is a shame I did, so better late than never. The article called ‘Sheep wool ‘barely worth selling any more’’ is a weird one, well, it is not really weird, but it comes across weird. Wool is an essential fabric in our lives and has been for generation. Suits are made of it, Tweed has its foundation in wool, as do many other forms of clothing and the idea that 8 billion re quire clothing gives a rather noticeable rise in the required availability of wool. It reminded me of Ghandi (Ben Kingsley) giving us the state of India and that setting “thus Mahatma Gandhi started spinning himself and encouraging others to do so. He made it obligatory for all members of the Indian National Congress to spin cotton themselves and to pay their dues in yarn. He further made the chakri (spinning wheel) the symbol of the Nationalist movement.” I remember seeing it in the cinema, I would state that I preferred to see it with my own eyes, but I am not THAT old, this happened a long time ago and the movie made it stick for me. So why are we all in the Commonwealth not in a state of supporting the need for wool? As I become aware of: “Wool’s popularity has been in decline since the 1950s – and this year, coronavirus has added problems that businesses can ill afford. The global wool market closed in February. This has led to vast volumes of wool lying unsold in depots and has pushed prices down.” I see the impact of the exploitation and pressures of big business. Why is wool under such scrutiny? I still hope that I will be able to afford myself and actual Tweed, although, in Australia there is merely the midwinter when that stuff is functional (it is really too warm here for Tweed), but that situation is less of an issue in the UK and Canada (Commonwealth) or Scandinavia for example. Why are we not looking into pushing the need for wool? If my memory serves me, clothing is required almost everywhere and pretty much all the time, so why is wool ‘out of favour’? I get that wool at times is slightly too warm in places, but we also require blankets (most of the time), high end carpets are often made from wool, so I feel that there is a cog missing. Now, I might miss the cog because I do not have wool on the brains all the time, but when I read “Farmers used to be able to pay a year’s rent from the price of wool, but it’s barely worth selling anymore.” I feel the misalignment. When I look around I see “wool carpets can range from $140 to $500”, as well as the idea the suits still cost a few pennies, with a population at the size it is, my mind is still wondering why wool is under such pressure. 

I can understand that the covid situation makes selling temporary harder, but the article seems to press on a much larger station, and it partially baffles me. Yes, we know that it is about what the market demands, but there is a growing concern that wool is kept off the consideration list for other reasons. We can point fingers and make claims left, right and centre, but I am not sure if there is a clear reason, or one that I am not aware of. From my personal side I have suits (or had them), and I never looked down on wool, at times aware that it is not the cheapest stuff, but whatever you buy in wool tends to last, so you have something worth buying, so when I read “it’s barely worth selling anymore”, I personally remain puzzled. So when I read “Each farmer’s costs are different, but in Gerallt’s case, it doesn’t make financial sense selling the wool this year.” I wonder how we failed to this degree and “I’m not going to spend 30p on packing [a fleece] to get 24p back” really does not help. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53421546) leaves me with a lot of questions. And that is long before you consider that the packing material is valued higher than the wool, how could we fail an industry producing a needed substance like wool to this degree? And overall the statement “British Wool is currently storing 14 million kg of wool in its depots” does not help any, as I personally see it, this is not due to the Coronavirus (it will have an impact, but not to this degree), so what are the players in all this ad why can we not increase the need for wool, so that one industry is not a lamb chop away from existence? 

It is a stretch from the state we had in our childhood (well, mine at least)

Which was 

And has become:
Baa, baa, black sheep

Have you any wool?

Yes, sir, yes, sir

Three bags full

One for the master

And one for the dame

One for the little boy

Who lives down the lane

Baa, baa, black sheep

Have you any wool?

Yes, sir, yes, sir

Thousands of tonnes

the master and the dame

Want none to claim 

And the boy down the lane

Wants cotton that is plain

I personally believe that as we looked and listened to those telling us what was fashion, the view on wool moved to rear, we can state that this is how the world turns, and that remains true, I merely wonder how an industry was pushed out of existence, not that fact that it happened, but that it happened under my own view and I never realised it. So what else did we miss? What did we lose without taking notice? My mind wanders around the room, on what might be added when we add wool, and apart from a plaid on the sofa and a new blanket I honestly do not see it, on the other hand, why are we not pursuing new fashions with wool? We can twist and turn in any direction, but the fact remains, when the material that never stopped being useful is no longer needed and that it is worth less than its packing material, that is not a good thing. We might want to blame ourselves, but is that fair? Can we blame anyone? Let’s be honest, when was the last time you went out to buy gramophone needles? Some articles are deleted due to evolution, I get that, but on the whole side of it, I never expected that wool would get there and that is weird, apart from the small issue that it is worth less than packing materials. 

It will take some time to get over an invoice that reads 1 wool fleece $0.02, packing $0.25, postage $4.99 total due $5.26.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance

Can’t stop the message

That is the name of the game, at times, no matter the source, we cannot stop the message, we can optionally reduce the impact, that is as good as it gets and that has been the centre stage, not for a day, a month, a year, a decade, but for several centuries. The message will get across, history is filled with examples of that all over the world.

So when I wrote “the same model could optionally be used to misinform (or disinform) the person through links that have ‘altered headlines’ One party could use it to flame to larger base of the other party and no matter what claims Facebook makes, the PDF report shows that they are seemingly clueless on how to stop it.” In ‘Presidents are us’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/07/11/presidents-are-us/) I knew what I was talking about, as such it gives me great pleasure to see the BBC give us ‘ISIS ‘still evading detection on Facebook’, report says’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53389657) with the added text “One network’s tactics included mixing its material with content from real news outlets, such as recorded TV news output and the BBC News theme music. It also hijacked Facebook accounts, and posted tutorial videos to teach other Jihadists how to do it. Facebook said it had “no tolerance for terrorist propaganda”.”” They are basically all stages we have seen before and stages we will see again. History has shown that you can not stop the message, you can merely delay the spread and optionally the impact. That is as good as it can get and the fact that we still see: “The researchers believe that at the centre of the network was one user who managed around a third (90 out of 288) of the Facebook profiles. At times, this user would boast of holding 100 ‘war spoils’ accounts, saying: “They delete one account, and I replace it with 10 others.”” People basically never learn. 

And it is not better, not gets to be worse, I wrote in 2013 “This technology should also include Microsoft services including their search engine Bing. Tracking in mobile devices remains a key point. The big advantage of Microsoft’s emerging technology is that it could track a user across a platform.” In the article ‘Patrons of Al-Qaeda’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/10/22/patrons-of-al-qaeda/) that was more than 6.5 years ago, do you think that these people sit on their laurels?  So if big-tech can be flaccid and automated to keep track of nearly anyone, what do you think that Trolls and Terrorists will use to get their message across and this is not new, it is not news, it is the situation that has been out in the open for years. As the BBC gives us “another key to the survival of ISIS content on the platform was the way in which ISIS supporters have learned to modify their content to evade controls.” Yes! And that is news how? Consider that the top 10 technical universities graduate close to 15,000 every semester, so 3 teams a year. Now consider that these parts can only persuade 0.1% (which is massively low), that implies that these players gain 15 tech savvy experts every 4 months and that is before we add those who cater to organised crime, in that numbers game we see that the government’s involved are not in a place to compete, their infrastructure had been downplayed for close to a decade and as salespeople from big-tech come around on the ease of automation we see that the mess merely gets worse and that INCLUDES several defence departments in Europe, the Commonwealth and America. That is the situation and there will be no release any day soon (except for the tech person on the help desk relying on his right hand, plenty of release there). So when you consider that I was merely looking at 10 schools, and the mess is actually a lot larger, how much of a joke is the entire ‘dealing with election bias’? If players like Facebook cannot stop or largely diminish a group that nearly all want gone, how about a situation where a larger group is in doubt of acting? How many backdoors will be given to the Cambridge Analytica minded people? That question becomes a lot more important when we consider the LA Times giving us less than 5 hours ago ‘How Facebook keeps its biggest advertisers happy’ with the quote “The social media company made nearly all of last year’s $71 billion in revenue from advertising and has worked hard to build relationships with both brands and advertising companies through a clubby network of invitation-only groups called client councils”, do you think that people spending $71 billion are kept happy with “offering everything from birthday cakes to ski trips, and dinners at the Silicon Valley home of its chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg.” Do you think that is all it takes? So the people ending up having dinner at that place will also get access and that is where some will be looking, the people with access and that is why the message cannot be stopped, that is why some will persevere and that is before my 5G IP hits the markets. I honestly have no idea to stop some, because some will not be stopped, I can only minimise the dangers, but I am also at the mercy of some Telecom minimisers (or was that mini-misers). Anyway, if Trolls and Terrorists get through 0.5% of the time, those with election needs and other message needs are likely to get through 20-40 times as often and any of the Big-Tech players will remain unable to stop them, unless we employ the bullet through the back of the head solution, this will not ever stop, history has proven me right and the fact that I saw this well over 6 years ago and the BBC got up to speed just now (OK, that was an exaggeration) gives wind to a much larger problem. 

You can never stop the message. Wake up! It is actually that simple.

 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Military, Politics, Science

The image we are offered

Yup, it happens, we all have an image of a person. Not in any good or bad way, just an image of how we have seen him the most. In my case, this reflects on Eminem. The rapper has been part of my music appreciation life for around two decades. It started with the Marshall Mathers LP, which I bought because I liked the song Stan. The album brought a lot more than merely one song, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t get parts of it, I am not an American, the issues he sings about are issues I never witnessed or faced. I bought 4 albums and over the years I lost sight of his music. Not intentional, the world is filled with music and I try to learn as much as I can. So when I saw him looking like a F1 racer with beard and all, I took a step back. As I took note of ‘Eminem criticises non-mask wearers on new rap track’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/10/eminem-criticises-non-mask-wearers-on-new-rap-track-kid-cudi-covid-19) I learned of “Eminem has entered the debate about face masks in a collaboration with Kid Cudi, tackling an issue that is the subject of fierce disagreement in the US and UK”, and the lyrics are set to the spice of Eminem (read: less subtle in bringing the message) and as we see ““Bunch of halfwits up in office. Half of us walking around like a zombie apocalypse. Other half are just pissed off and don’t want to wear a mask and they’re just scoffin’. And that’s how you end up catchin’ the shit off ’em. I just used the same basket as you shoppin’, now I’m in a fuckin’ casket from you coughin’.”” Is the direct approach. They are not wrong, but the fact that this situation has been brought to rap and the Guardian voices that in another way by stating “Eminem’s lines are a long way from any that the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, would ever use but they articulate similar sentiments.” It is a global scene and in light of 200+ doctors now giving nice to the fact that Covid-19 is airborne sheds a different light on the matter. We see politicians making light (to some extent) of the situation, yet the story does not reflect the death toll. And team Eminem-Kid Cudi are alerting us to a much harder reality. So whilst we see a correlation between US and UK politics, we get to see  Downing Street has faced questions about why more cabinet ministers are not wearing masks. There have been no public sightings of Boris Johnson wearing a face covering, while the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was pictured serving food to customers at Wagamama with nothing on his face but a grin.” If presentation is key in issues, we see the failing of politicians to a much larger degree and when the population starts taking heed of team Eminem-Kid Cudi whilst removing politicians from the circle of trust and belief, we could state that the shit has truly hit the fan. 

I applaud the move that these two have made, social awareness tends to be more easily embraced through music and the issue is important. And when we see the claims some people have made, it matters.

The first is ““The United States has done far more ‘testing’ than any other nation, by far!” Mr Trump said this on 25 March, when the latest official data showed that a total of 418,810 people had been tested in the US.” 418K over a population of 235,000,000? That is a little less than 0.1%, all whilst South Korea tested 0.7% of the entire population, as such South Korea exceeded testing by 700%, not a proud moment for the White House. 

The second one is important: “Mr Trump said he thought the true death rate, based on “my hunch”, was “way under 1%”.” That in a stage where 25% of all reported cases are in the US, whilst 136,000 people in the US died, a non-living rate of well over 4%, in this the White House was wrong by well over 400%, as such the numbers matter and as such the album, The Adventures of Moon Man and Slim Shady, will matter as well. We can throw numbers at you all night long, but the reality is that we need to take notice and we need to take action. And should you disagree then I say fine, do that, and if you die my value merely increases. We can go that way too, so in light of the stage where the words of a rapper actually have direct global meaning, we need to take notice of the casual approach that politicians have shown to have. 

This is not about bashing President Trump (a mere added bonus), the global political stage is weird and irresponsible as to how they perceive the state of the global stage to be, the fact that all these political ‘heavyweights’ are shown to be largely inferior to the Prime Minister of New Zealand (Jacinda Arden), a (rather small) nation that according to the Facebook Image is not linked to the rest of the world, should shows us all just how serious matters have become. 

We have ignored at the impressions of some people, whilst the stage was serious, it was deadly and that needs to be reflected, again and again like it is a lesson from the Teletubbies, as I personally see it team Eminem-Kid Cudi might optionally be a little late, but they are there a lot faster than some of these so called ‘serious politicians’, we the people have a problem and we need to realise it a lot faster than we are, our lives actually depend on it at present.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Media