Tag Archives: Eaton Centre

August 3, 2026 · 10:43

Valid questions

After the surge I felt when I was ‘valued’ at $150,000,000 I got all happy and dreamy on the subject (that would be me) and delusional thoughts of Sergey Brin offering me $50,000,000 but he needed one small favour of me. You guessed it, he wanted Gemini to get exclusive access to my articles and he had set the premise of moving me to Google Blogger to get that done (not the worst idea) but it was not merely delusions. My brain in the background was working out other things and the dopamine that the scenario was giving me seemed to push that carrot along (there were more dreamy thoughts and the carrot in that setting makes sense). So, as I was considering an additional life in Toronto, with a long weekend trip to Quebec and the Galeries de la Capitale, my mind went on a surge. Things in the aftermath of it all doesn’t make much sense but at that moment It did. I stopped at M. Souvlaki for a pita Gyro and it all started to make sense to me when I saw the visitors card (online at the website of Galeries de la Capitale). Where we learn that “Out-of-town and international visitors are entitled to our visitor’s card which provides access to exclusive discounts at select retailers. *Visitor’s address must be 40km from Quebec City. An ID with proof of residence is required validation to obtain the visitor’s card. Some restrictions may apply.” You see, I have never ever been to Quebec, but consider the setting international (and Toronto Eaton Centre), this visitor pass could be the ticket to drive commerce in specific places and tourists are the ones who really like discount offers. Sydney (Westfield), London (Covent Garden), Netherlands (Bijenkorf) and many other places could adopt that idea of a visitors pass. It is marketing that earns itself back almost instantly. 

You see, I have no idea how I knew about the visitors pass, but there must have been a notice I saw out of the corner of my eyes. It is the only thing that makes sense. So, 8 hours ago the Economist gave us ‘What will Kevin Warsh do if America’s economy breaks?’ Because as I have seen this for a few months, it is about to break and as I see it, the Chair of the Federal Reserve of the United States will openly have to defend the stupidity of this American administration and I think he won’t be able to, as such he will be dealt the ace of spades quite quickly and it will not include a serenade by Motorhead. So, as I see it, I saw opportunity in my view, but it quickly translates to a generic economic opportunity. I reckon that malls in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are contemplating similar settings. I don’t think that places like Harrods (London) and the Dubai Mall need them, but there are all kinds of malls all around these two places that might consider getting these few steps of visibility.

And as the Telegraph (UK) gives us ‘US and Japan take action to prop up yen’ I wonder why the United States wants to do this. Is it merely to score brownie points, or are they worried that the Yen and the US dollar can now no longer counter any serious act to own the dollar? The connected news from 24/7 Wall Street is ‘The $1.2 Trillion Reason Scott Bessent Just Bought Japanese Yen’ I get the connection, but not the reason. You see president Trump is all about MAGA and America First, which is a scuttled wreck to say the least and I will be the first to look at alternative reasons, but being a non-economist I have no real chance of finding it, but anyone who wants to really know that, I would advice them to call Prime Minister Mark Carney (at +1 613-992-4793), because he would likely know. 

So whilst we are given ‘As Trump cites progress on deal to end war, Iran and Israel remain on alert’ (source: Washington Post) we are also given ‘Iran war live: Tehran says Hormuz negotiations with Oman in ‘final stages’’ (source: Al Jazeera) which leads me to the conviction that there is no deal to end the war coming and Tehran is setting the stage of more disruptions. As such the only act that makes sense is that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (with optional help of the United States) put the pressure on the Houthi terrorists and make sure that the Bab-al-Mandab Strait remains open for business, because that will also impact Egypt and the Suez Canal. The complication is seen in Iraq as we are given ‘Yemen’s Houthis are attacking Saudi Arabia from Iraq, sources say’ (source: Reuter) and as I have given voice to better strategy from March 1st onwards (even creating new weapon systems to do so) I am left with a dangerous question. Is president Trump fueling destabilisation on the Arabian peninsula? That setting is getting more and more traction on a global level. As I have predicted (several times) the economy of the United States is done for, so the only option left is to minimize their losses and make sure others have a lot more to worry about. Is it a valid question to ask whether the United States is working from the premise “It is not enough that I succeed, all others must fail” a setting we have attributed to Genghis Khan (ca 1200) and Larry Ellison (1988) who was the head honcho at Oracle. So does my setting make sense? You only have to see the clusterfuck the Iranian war seemingly is and the effects of of spending 39 billion on trying to achieve on what I could have done with merely 1 billion and of course the ‘expedited’ dismantling of 10 refineries, closing harbours and stopping their railways. A simple setting I gave months ago and been now we see some kind of scenario, all whilst Iran is doubling down on gaining the ‘trust’ of Oman?

How weird is all that, so I fear for those who are in some kind of ‘entrusted’ setting with the American administration, because that will bite the trusted allies really quick and quite soon. As we see the BBC give us a few days ago ‘US economic growth sees surprise slowdown in second quarter’ makes me wonder as this was clearly in the cards, Is the BBC catering to another premise and need? Is that a valid question?

I leave it to you to see the numbers, the effects and the questions voiced, whilst the valid questions are not answered, not anywhere as far as I can tell (or at least not in sources that are supposed to be valid) but it might merely be me, which could be all kinds of valid, but I have been asking similar questions for months, so  don’t think its me and I handed my IP to sources that seemingly needed them, so I feel verified and sanctified (a weird setting) because it as not done out of greed, but out of the facts I see and Iran had to be stopped. And if I can clearly see that, why can’t the Pentagon see that? Unless they are facing a different war at present. I will leve that up to my readers to consider that setting.

Have a great day today.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Military, Politics, Tourism

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 1, 2026 · 03:19

Hatred explodes

That is what I saw in the last few days and a lot is misdirected sycophant stuff. And in support we are given (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq5637p7qpno) ‘Xbox tech boss says ‘unacceptable’ outage should not have affected disc games’ where we see  “Xbox’s technology chief said an “unacceptable” outage on Monday should not have stopped people from playing their games on physical discs. “We’re looking into reports that some players were unable to access games using discs as expected during the service interruption,” Scott Van Vliet said in a statement. He said the outage, which lasted around 20 hours, was caused by a licensing issue failing to correctly check if a user was allowed to play a game.” As such Microsoft has an additional issue, but that is not my concern (I threw my Xbox away years ago) And as I see it, as systems ‘develop’ (often not in a good way) the entire licensing issue is moot, especially if there is a physical copy. So, the “outage on Monday should not have stopped people from playing their games on physical discs” and instead of setting a licensing option, handing the Xbox the license settings in a daily login was not an option? And that license file is ‘abandoned’ if it is a week old didn’t come to mind of these wannabe innovators? That stops anything messing with gamers and their need to game and as Microsoft is given a week to fix their licensing setting, it would seem enough (at present).

But I am not interested in that, it was merely a nice sidestep, the issue is Sony. I initially took notice after the reporting and I wrote about it in ‘Food for Thinking’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2026/07/03/food-for-thinking/), I still believe that the physical copy will be important because out will destroy the rural gaming community. And gamers have to protect one another. Then there is the Net Neutrality issue that will come up and the business end of it will rear its ugly head making gamers lose another side of things. So the thoughts of Sony do not make any sense, not at all. They know their population going back to 1994, most gamers tend to live there, where they have all their lives and outside of Japan, Korea and Sweden do not stand a chance having a decent gaming option in rural settings. As such gamers need to unite and they are

So, in less than a month, we see the exploding hatred from the announcement that Sony will go fully diskless by 2028. We have time, but the setting is that the this is merely a year and Sony tends to set boundaries this early for a reason. Optionally the PS6 is showing issues with drives and the might be the reason to do this and I saw someone throwing the setting of “No Drive, no buy” and that makes sense, Not for Sony, they will in 2028 speculatively entertain the largest walk out on a brand they grew since 1994 and I am in the same frame of mind, “no drive, no buy” setting. I would hate to lose to play the latest Santa Monica Studio games when that comes to PS6, as well as the Guerrilla Games games Horizon 3, which is implied to be a PS6 launch game. They could even boost PS6 systems selling with a pack with the first two games added for PS6, I reckon that this would propel the PS6 to unheard heights, that might be the solution that makes all sales records grow bleak. It would be an enormous result, but not without the physical drive. So, what is the issue? People will buy the drive if they need to (like the PS5pro setting) I don’t have one, because of obvious reasons and the fact that the PS5 is doing its job brilliantly and it has been doing so since December 2020, so almost 6 years and I never regretted buying it. So what is the deal, because it is nothing like Sony to drop a serious chunk of their gamers into some abyss. The setting doesn’t make sense at the moment and the only speculated thought I am having is that the issue is somehow involving the PS6. And their I have a few questions, because the PS5 is still doing massively great and the only reasons for a pushed upgrade is that the two aforementioned companies is throwing a serious upgrade to their games. Yet as I see it, Laufey is showing to be the bees knees, which means it is top tier gaming (there is nothing wrong with the legs of Deborah Ann Woll, for evidence see her work in True Blood).

So, all the evidence seems to point to issues with the PS6 and they are merely hiding that fact because it would stop them from addressing that issue, but that is purely speculative form my side if things.

I get the exploding hatred, I am not a fan, but I get that all gamers need to protect one another and that seems to get into the hatred field, gamers have a very short fuse if their universe is messed with and Sony should know that, they have over 30 years of experience dealing with gamers. As such the equation does not make sense to me. But perhaps I am not seeing all the facts. It happens, I am (just like anyone else) dependent in the news given to us and in this case it was bad news. 

So I wish all a great day and if you are a gamer, feel free to bludgeon your gaming nemesis (aka big boss) to death and make him your bitch. That top feeling tends to release the right amount of dopamine where it needs to go. For example Jacqueline Natla (big boss of first Tomb Raider), Marco Bartoli (Tomb Raider 2), Helis, aka The Terror of the Sun and I can name several others, but you get the picture. We have been slaying bosses since 1994 and we don’t want that to end. More important, we want to make sure that this is a setting rural gamers can also enjoy for many years to come. So Sony better be warned, because they have Don Mattrick to be the example, remember him in June 2013 where he made a speech and the Xbox went from 2nd place to dead last? Don’t be a Mattrick, remain faithful to your gamers. That is what I think of this.

Write more to you later readers, darn its lunchtime in Toronto, wish I was there so I could have a cheeseburger with fries and it is conveniently close to the Eaton Centre. Looks like I have to wait 300 minutes to have breakfast in Sydney. The crosses we have to carry, so unjust.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 24, 2024 · 19:58

Bee, Bee, Bee, the Eye Pee

Yup, I am going off the simulated drive straight to the edge of what I consider wonky space (aka idea town). I have two reasons to do this. In the first there are a few indicators that LVMH is already on route to this and there is nothing more fun than to blow the surprise of the biggest baddest luxury brand on the planet, so that they know they are less ahead of the pack than they think they are. As for the second reason. It is always fun for a blogger to be able to say that I got there two years ahead of the rest and that is done by publishing the idea now and not when they want it to be published. Its al connected towards he said, she said and I merely show the published article to prove my point.

As such we get to the first hurdle. I was walking around in nowhere land and I got to mix what I designed two years ago after seeing malls impacted by COVID issues. At that point I designed a new technology for interacting retails and consumers. It was based on mobiles and glasses to give the people more. As such I had a thought today. To get you on board I need to take you on a mission of mercy (to protect your mind) to something that is 70 years old.

We get to so see two images, one red based (for the left eye) and one green based (for the right eye) these two images do not interfere, but with the glasses you get to see a 3D image of the image. One image for the left eye, the other for the right eye. Almost like a mono coloured view-master. We adapted the technology to use grey scaled glasses and that is how I saw Gravity in 3D in the IMAX theatre. A movie by Alfonso Cuarón with George the Nespresso man Clooney and Sandra Speedster Bullock. Gravity was the most impactful movie in my life and I still think of that movie has had the most impact on me. The technology employed that is, it was a great movie all around. You see, I thought of another ploy. The grey screen with glasses can give us an additional privacy filter. We have a mobile screen where we can filter what people see and only if you are directly facing the screen can you see the information. On an angle you can not. So this already exists, so what the beef? Well, I reckoned that a screen with ‘intelligence’ could interface with the grey glasses.

Now consider that the glasses could be given a setting that gives any wearer of these glasses individual privacy and in the second setting 3D capabilities. And with the interactions you get a new level of 3D interactions (and privacy) to new tablets (and mobiles). 

The main event
Yup, now we get to the main event. You see as I stated, I was there over 2 years ago and I wrote about it in ‘The mind it continues regardless’ on June 6th 2022 (and before that) where I saw a new application to augmented reality. Eaton Centre was the first application where I saw it, but it would be highly regarded in places like the Dubai centre. I also wrote ‘A Promise kept’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/04/05/a-promise-kept/) that is more up to date to this story. You see what people fail to see is that malls rely on engagement and these times (the COVID era) are bringing that need to the surface. As such I also I got to an idea that would offer a lot more to jewellers (see A promise kept). You see, there are two phases. The first is a QR code.

This code could be outside any jeweller, but in my view I saw the jewellers in Monaco and the millions of tourists they have to ‘appease’ to. As such I formed the idea that we would add the code to the image of a hand and the image of your hand (your finger) will be placed inside of the image of the ring you wanted and there we have an approximation of Deeper Machine Learning in use with a mobile and the retail industry. I worked out parts of it and I gather that LVMH has even gotten further with this. Well, you gotta admit that they are are being paid to work on it every day and I thought that android systems (iOS too) and by next week Huawei could implement this using HarmonyOS, this could have an interesting setting where everyone could have an image of an unaffordable ring on their finger, without LVHM endangering their stock and this would be an eye catching ability in Monaco to say the least. And this could be pushed even further when we consider the privacy shield with 3D capabilities and glasses. The Deeper Machine Learning options we now have could design an image from the 3D stage and the ring (as a QR code) and create a perfect fitting ring where a $26,500 ring might merely be owned by a few, but in this setting millions could see themselves graced with such a ring and when LVMH does this every quarter you get more than a return population, you create a global wave. And that is what I saw and now with the alternative idea we could see our hand graced (in 3D) with rings we could never image ever holding (I reckon that gets 98.3433% of the female population eager to try it).

Just my sneaky sneaky sense of humour. Because I wanted to state (for some kind of record) that I got there first, well kinda anyway. So all those people making claims, I have 3288 articles in my blog showing for over 10 years a few ideas that others dream of (or so I hope). It was a stage of innovation, which is why I can call Microsoft as the masters of mediocrity. I am ahead of them by miles.

You all have a great day, I am now 4 hours from Monday and perhaps another new idea.

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 26, 2023 · 05:54

What business plan?

The very first thought when I saw a Nordstrom video less than an hour ago. In light of the closure of Nordstrom someone made a 4K walkthrough of the Nordstrom shop in the Eaton Mall in Toronto, which is their flagship. The shop is about 220,000 square foot and the first thought out of my mind was ‘Are you flipping kidding me?’ And I suddenly understood why Nordstrom never made a profit. I cannot understand why the people there did not see this right off the bat. In the first the shop looks pretty amazing, but overly spacious and not in a good way. The shop has about 70,000 square foot of unused space, that is a third and mall space is expensive. So to be wasting space to the likes of 70,000 square foot. I found one source with a price (not verified) of $1,450 per square foot, implying that Nordstrom was wasting $101,500,000 EVERY YEAR on empty space. So what kind of business plan is that? And the video (at https://youtu.be/6IQMgV_7uqE) clearly shows the waste of space. You could setup the entire shop in half the space and when you reduce the cost of one shop by $51,000,000 it amounts to a large sum of money. I do not care what the vision of these people were, when you optionally have 13 stores in the same setup, you are wasting hundreds of millions a year. Now, we know that the others are smaller, but it still implies that the stores were wasting close to half a billion every year. So what gives?

When I wrote ‘The unplanned story’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/21/the-unplanned-story/) on the 21st of March, I did make mention of “there is a weakness in your business model, but I do not think it was enough”, in this malls tend to be the same and I did not give it the consideration I optionally could have. I never expected that Nordstrom wasted space to the degree they did. There is more, it seems to be some elite store and Canadians aren’t too elite based (well over 40% of the male population loves their hockey jersey). A shop like this fits Los Angeles, optionally Rodeo Drive, but even then this flagship there would become a money pit soon thereafter, especially when you waste 70,000 square foot of space. 

I keep on coming back to the thought, who were these people wasting money to this degree? You see, covid or not, I expect that covid had a massive impact, but the clear waste of space is boggling my mind. Malls are expensive and that keeps on badgering my mind. It also reminded me of a place called Meddens in Rotterdam. A fashion store with exactly the same setup in a place called ‘Lijnbaan’, there is however a difference. The people behind it were brilliant and they bought the entire block. They became an eccentric and exquisite shop, but as they owned the block, their $100K gamble became a multi million euro win and it funded expansion after expansion and after 180 years (in 2010) the 6 shops stopped. I reckon 180 years is a good run. A shop like Nordstrom that stated to CBC last month “Despite our best efforts, we do not see a realistic path to profitability for the Canadian business.” Well, when you waste that kind of space I am not entirely surprised. And it will not take long for places like Holt Renfrew, Hudson’s Bay, and Simons to gobble up the clients. Personally I hope that the staff members will find space in these places as well. They tend to be victims of a business plan, not the instigators of it. It took the parent company less than 10 years to see wisdom and with an earlier quote (I think it was CBC) that they never had a profitable year I actually wonder why it took this long. 

The more I saw of this video the more questions came to me and I have no idea what these board people were thinking (if they were thinking). I might seem happy, but I am not. I do not relish anyone’s downfall (Microsoft being the exception) and this shop was managed floor by floor by people who loved their job and their space. You can see that with EVERY display in that shop and there are many of them and we would want to give them a pass for covid, but the shop was not doing well years before that point and that partially angers me, waste tends to do that. A weird start to Sunday for me, but when I see the evidence I am not really overly surprised on the outcome, merely on some people not seeing this clearly years before me.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 21, 2023 · 23:45

The unplanned story

That happens to us all and there are any number of reasons. I thought I was done with the subject for now, that is until CB gave me ‘Nordstrom Canada will launch sales at its closing stores starting Tuesday’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nordstrom-canada-liquidating-stores-1.6784540) about 11 hours ago. There was no surprise. I covered this in part in ‘It as one keyword’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/04/it-was-one-keyword/) and that story links to a few others. I casually captured the folly of Nordstrom but I left a few things out. You see, we can all agree if you have been working from a place of loss from day one, there is a weakness in your business model, but I do not think it was enough. Covid was too unexpected and the world reeled on it, but it was already to late as I saw it and even if my IP was accepted by the right people, for Nordstrom it was already too late, it would have merely given them a little more time, time they could not hand them a better result. Their business model and their prediction model was off by too much.

You see, to see this we need to look at a picture. The picture is below. 

As you see here, we see a mall and this time around it is not the Toronto Eaton Centre, this is the Hyat Mall in Riyadh and it show the same weakness, which is the problem for malls. Yet as I see it, the problem is a lot bigger for western malls (USA, UK, EU) they have the same touch, the tough of non identity. You can scream the name all you like, but these malls are all the same. Go to a mall anywhere in the US and you could not tell where you were from walking there. It was a formula that malls were based on and between 1990-2015 that made sense, but after Covid the world changed and that is where the problems starts for these malls, all 116,000 of them. Yet there is a solution and both Gucci and Tiffany is already tapping into that, but I reckon they are missing part of it and that is where Google, Samsung and Apple come in. I wonder if these two players figure out what I saw over 6 months ago and it is a juicy one. Optionally Elon Musk could use it to give more needs to his Pi Phone but in itself it is still an android solution. The image is based on identity and interaction. You see, that need is not effort, it is engagement. Market Research (at least a few of them) have seen that engagement is the metric that really matters and Augmented reality is the core of that and that is what is missing in malls. Lets be clear, for Nordstrom it is too late, the question becomes will malls change into retail graveyard places over the next 5-10 years or are they given a new lease on life and that matters. How much real estate is in 116,000 malls? When they die the local places will light up and I personally am a firm believer in ‘Support your local hooker’ which was an expression we used in the 70’s. 

So am I right because Gucci and Tiffany are tapping into that idea? No, I believe I am right because the nature of the beast (the consumer) has changed and is still changing. They are catching on that a new prerogative is required and AR gets them there. So when they are done with ageism and other forms of consumer categorisation, they will figure out that their predictive model is wrong on a few levels and that is where we see the larger stage change. I merely wonder if some of them will wake up in time. If not, I watch it all go to hell and when it does I can point to my previous articles and tell them “Told you so” and whatever excuse they have will not hold up, because I wrote it months ago and I wrote it in several stories over a span of about a year (perhaps a little longer). So when they wake up, I wonder if it is to the board directors who are fed up with the colour rd in their books, or the conveyancer trying to measure up the place for new usage. I can’t be to the smell of coffee, because it is too late for that and it will not be to me as Amazon, Apple and Google all decided they never needed me. Fine, whatever.

So when we complete the consideration of “In approving Dacks’ liquidation request, Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz agreed, saying Nordstrom is facing a “difficult time, but this process is unfolding in a very co-operative manner.””

At least I kept it out of the hands of Microsoft, not a bad stage to consider. Yet consider two final things. The first is Nordstroms liquidation actual liquidation or euthanasia? The second is, is Nordstrom alone? How many other places are on the brink of really bad times in the next 5 years? 

Have a great day.

3 Comments

Filed under Finance, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,