Tag Archives: education

Now what?

Well that is one way to say it. I am tired of all these AI bubble stories, I stand by my point of view and there is a slim chance that I am wrong, but to be honest. I very much fear that I will become like Jamie Shipley getting hauled over at the end by Standards and Poor (see the Big Short) and I am tired. This blog will bear out the correctness of my view over time, too many are in denial and I don’t care about the losses that they incur, they are not my losses and I told my piece on this. Time to move on and I still feel strongly about a possible solution for the Apple vision pro (or the Meta Quest Pro) and I created two solutions that could bring either a rather hefty revenue cycle. One in linguistic and one in entertainment (Based on Horizons Zero Dawn/Forbidden West), the fact is that the Vision Pro was discontinued production in late 2024, but the story behind its failure tells us more about the future of mixed reality than any marketing presentation ever could. And that is one reality that some can sprout, but I saw the idea for a global linguistic solution (via Ubisoft and Guerrilla Software) two solutions that could have worked out if people at Apple had any brain and I put it here as early as November 9th 2024, in ‘the easy lesson’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/11/09/the-easy-lesson/) but seemingly Apple took a runner, as such the idea would now fall to the Meta Quest teams (3 or Pro) and I reckon that Meta would love a linguistic solution they could vendor to the world (together with Ubisoft), I reckon that catering to billions would please both those teams. As such I was overthinking the two solutions I concocted. More in the trend of what books could be used to cater to the lessons and my first thought was to use ‘Famiglia Romana’ to introduce into the Latin setting, but also into the Italian side and even into the other languages. As such each language also include another language which they get for free. There is nothing like a free sample to get the juices going. And from there every language that has one book that is transferred to all other languages. As my setting catered to French, Italian, English, Portuguese, Japanese, Latin and Spanish (AC Hexe) and there is the crux, why wouldn’t they use the idea? How many people are trying to learn one of these languages? The idea that DML is being used for teaching languages is novel (to say the least and 80% of the solution already exist (for all languages mentioned) and that is where these players (as I personally see it) lack vision. So at what point do they look at any idea and think “That would never work” or perhaps it is connected to the idea that a little more work could unfold a lot more revenue and as Far as I now it, the people with pupils like dollar signs (salespeople) are never shy for inviting revenue to their front door, especially as 80% is already done. And they merely need to include parts of the game and it is all covered with NPC’s. So I don’t see the point of walking away from this. And it is not that I am a coward, but Ubisoft already OWNS the IP, so there is little I can do. The other IP (Guerrilla) might open another door (beyond the gaming side). They could set the people of these places (Carja, Banuk, Oseram) to Native Indian languages and there they could invite a whole new linguistic side and even propagate these languages to the world. I might have initially designed the game specifically to the Meta Quest based loosely on Pokemon Photo, but there was a lot more to be had there and the fact that I can see these IP’s evolve and the owners did not is pretty laughable.

And lets be clear, there is life and software solutions beyond AI and the sooner these people realise this, the better they are off (as Google and Amazon decided to leave on excess of 6 billion annually on the floor). It is a setting where we see that the French language has Sans Famille (Hector Malot), I read it in the 70’s on Dutch, as such I knew of the book and I loved it, but there also is Les Trois Mousquetaires (Three musketeers) by Alexandre Dumas and Les Misérables (Victor Hugo) that makes merely three books and there are so many more and as such the French version takes shape. And when you get through the languages released as I saw them and we have 5-6 books per language and bind them in mini games in these games, you get a true linguistic solution. And the DML solutions we have in customer support could measure the correctness of the participant. One s of several solution I thought through in this approach of software induced linguistic training skills. The fact that I saw through the solution that Ubisoft has and they remain at least partially blind to this is even more humorous, and that is beside Meta being seemingly asleep at the wheel.

So if there is nothing else, it is time to do some snoring as it is almost 03:00 in the morning. Have a great day today as for most of you it is Thursday and I am already on Friday. 

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Saudization

A term I got introduced to last week. It stands for “the Saudi nationalization scheme and also known as Nitaqat, is a policy that is implemented in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development, which requires companies and enterprises to fill their workforce with Saudi nationals up to certain levels” I think it is a great idea. I think more countries need to embrace such a scheme for a few reasons. I believe it is essential that skills are moved locally to avoid being at the massive risk of an American need and that is a bad idea on a few levels. Now, this is not an anti-America sentiment, but the media (America too) have left us with the notion that we cannot be certain of almost anything and there is the larger setting that it goes to other countries too. Perhaps there is an Emiratization, an optional Indonesization (these two words might not exist) and several others (Pakistan, Bangladesh) and so on. So why is there not an open video channel with options on both YouTube and TikTok handing these skills? If I merely push this to myself. There is the option to train people (non-Arabic) in IBM Statistics (formerly known as SPSS) I trained people for over a decade and that is a skill that can be taught. Edit the movie with a localised soundtrack and you have a solution to optionally train dozens of people.

If we create a few hundred videos we could optionally train a whole legion of people and as the elder generation (including me) could leave a footprint handing this knowledge out to others we continue training people after we are gone. I also worked in call centers and whilst the world is filled with silliness and chases after AI, the skills that are out there will be lost soon enough. As such we (read: some)  need to create the stages for the next generation. Whilst all are on the AI train we might see a setting of dwindling down sources and in a decade when AI misses its target the world will suddenly see that they lost more than they bargained for. As such a video station that allows Saudization to grow into the people who cannot see what they need and can freely learn to grow their own future is a proper way to harvest talents where they freely grow.

So you might think that this comes for free and that might be the case. Yet the older generations feels that they can contribute to any setting that will listen. As such these skills will require verification so that quality will prevail. Yet is it such a hardship on the older generation? They contribute to all kinds of non profit organisations. Is it so hard to believe that they would assist in creating the future generations? The world is not what big corporations believe it to be, it is what the next generation wants it to be and as such this idea stands a chance. In the setting we see now it might benefit Saudi Arabia. Yet when these movies get a larger setting in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uruguay and other places, we grow the knowledge in all kinds of directions and as it should be offered free knowledge will emboss all people, not just the ones who can afford it. 

It is just a little idea I am playing with, but I reckon that some governments will embrace what hundreds of people could contribute to their national causes.

Have a great day

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Memory block

Today I fought through a memory block. My mind kept on playing a classical beat, it played for several notes and that was it. I had no idea why I got this setting and I had to beat my own brain and after a little time I found the solution. I heard the classical beat of the Count of Monte Christo, the 2002 edition. It was the scene where the invitations were handed out to the people and the balloon arrives. Now, the setting comes as to why. At first I had no idea, but then it hit me. The book has sold over 200 million copies. But that was not enough. There was another setting and I wrote about it a few months ago. The setting was that what was merely Apple, could now be set to Meta glasses and other means. I reckon that Huawei will bring its own version in due time. But the setting that to merely accept one source (Ubisoft) to give it the upper hand is somewhat foolish. So I got to thinking that this book might inspire the option of learning French and that is where we set the marker. Consider that the book could inspire people to learn French. This ‘lesson’ system is nothing like the real book. It is the setting that it gives the reader. The introduction is until you get to Chateau D’iff. There the lessons start. The 14 years are 14 lessons around the prison cell. The setting is that each ‘year’ will give you lessons. One year on numbers, days, times, and such. one year on family names and ranks. The setting that we get asks and lessons and as we complete them we get to the better stuff. The 14th lesson is about escape and getting to the treasure. 

From that part the lessons get a rather tasty setting. Now you have to mingle in the crowds, converse with the ‘people’ and see the lessons through. I was thinking to take a lessons based on the Chamberlain version of the movie (1975). Where Danglars (Donald Pleasence) is ruined in a few ways and that might be a nice way to ‘expose’ the French banking system and communications in the old days. The idea is to set the ‘game’ to 30-35 lessons (including the time on Chateau D’iff. There are still a few snags in my mind on how to set the stage, but the setting becomes that these VisionPro/META Quest Pro devices becomes the next iteration of a learning tool. Ubisoft might still have the inner track lading, but the idea that other settings could be versed  will propagate the setting as these vision settings could be a learning device. Ans as it all runs on
Unreal Engine 5 with added linguistic settings (optionally microphone and speakers) there is a larger setting that can be explored. Alexandre Dumas gives us French (and perhaps others too) like Victor Hugo (Les Miserables) and a few other come to mind. I don’t want to focus on merely French as we have English (John Le Carre), Italian (Umberto Eco), Spanish (Miguel de Cervantes) and a few more. In this setting and in the setting of each book, we get to dig into that nations culture and we get to explore the languages we can learn. The benefit is that this path is highly interactive, so people can learn on their own. That is the larger setting, the path of languages can only be learned through interactions and that is the larger benefit. A setting where the start of one book is the stage where millions can learn a language mostly up to intermediate skills. Yes, you will need to interact with others, and that is what I have in mind for the languages when completed. A setting where we can get multiple people in one place, like the house of the Count of Monte Christo and there we can test our knowledge and this place will remain ‘open’ for a while. Yet when you ‘redo’ the language lessons, that access will stop until all the lessons are done again. And there you have a larger setting. A language class that allows you to redo as often as needed to gain all the skills you need. I reckon that when the system had grown to include Chinese, Japanese and Arabic, the maker of these classes will have a massive following. And this is not all ‘business’ consider the classical languages like Greek and Latin. There are a lot of options in that stage and when you consider the input with these vision bringers. The one who considers that action might get millions of sold devices. In light of the Apple data that we see that Apple has likely sold under 500,000 Vision Pro units worldwide since its launch in February 2024, I wonder what the hell they are doing there. Is my idea delusional? It could be, not every innovation imagined is one that will actually work, but as I see it, the larger setting could be reached. Wouldn’t it be great if META succeeds where Apple fails? It is not one or the other. The setting as I see it could be applied to either solution and I reckon that whatever Huawei brings could set this as well, but that is mere speculation on my side. So whilst sources gave us in January 2025 ‘Apple reportedly ceases Vision Pro production amid sluggish sales’, so where were these super intelligent boffins? What stopped them from taking the next step? Were they thinking ‘Here’s a device, make some software.’ If that worked the software library of Sony and Nintendo would have never made it to today. That oversight and here I am giving them (supposedly) direction.

So consider what I wrote and consider where your problems and solutions are. Have a fun day today.

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The clever get the advantage

That was always the setting to be envied, when the bullies come calling, the last breath is given to the clever people. In this the NY Times gives us (at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/us/harvard-trump-reject-demands.html) ‘Harvard Says It Will Not Comply With Trump Administration’s Demands’ and I was skeptical at first, but as we see “Harvard University said on Monday that it had rejected policy changes requested by the Trump administration, becoming the first university to directly refuse to comply with its demands and setting up a showdown between the federal government and the nation’s wealthiest university.” My skepticism comes from the setting we saw last year when the Guardian gave us “Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University, appeared beleaguered and uncertain as one Congress member after another assailed her over her institution’s supposed inaction to stop it becoming what one called “a hotbed of antisemitism and hatred”.” For universities to let anti semitism unanswered and the setting of “who became Columbia’s president last July, into changing her testimony after she earlier told the Democratic representative Ilhan Omar that she was not aware of any anti-Jewish demonstrations at the university.” Which is a massive problem at the first setting as I see it. Now that Harvard sets a new line, they could massively profit by that standard. So as we see “Harvard’s response, which called the Trump administration’s demands illegal, marked a major shift in tone for the nation’s most influential school, which has been criticized in recent weeks for capitulating to Trump administration pressure.” We see two advantages for Harvard, the first first being that the wokiest woke people (whatever that means) will take their money out of their previous donation university and basically had it to Harvard (the people who openly hate President Trump might do the same), the second advantage is the academics who were unsettled by the federal ‘guide lines’ are likely to make a move from place previous to new place Harvard. This will name Harvard more renown than ever before and I reckon (a mere speculation) that these academics might increase the distance between Harvard and whomever has places 2 through 8 and in the academic world that matters (a lot). 

Is it right? Well, I think that the federal setting should not have gotten involved (but that is a personal view), I do believe that if a university is guilty of crimes than that is a different matter, and as most law student have been cast in the reading of the Nuremberg trials and the acceptance of illegal orders the setting for Harvard was (blatantly) simple. Don’t think it is a simple setting, because Harvard has the most money at present (read: the richest), other universities are a lot more dependent on Federal funding and that makes it a hard sell for a lot of them, but perhaps the setting that Harvard now has given the rest of America, others will follow. 

We can only hope.

In other news I just saw that Canada had to bid farewell to Gerry McNamara at the age of 90. As a wannabe goalie I give a heartfelt goodbye salute to this actual former goalie and former General Manager for seven seasons of the Toronto Maple Leafs. And I give my condolences to his family, friends and former team mates. And below we see Gerry McNamara at a slightly younger age

Have a great day and enjoy the end of the pre week today, midweek tomorrow.

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Software directions

That tends to be the norm, some software BI person looks at where the masses are and then shoots his net, so that he can catch the biggest population. And I (initially) tended to think the same way. We can call this the wrong way. 

So this started last night when Wired (at https://www.wired.com/story/can-gaming-save-the-apple-vision-pro/) gave me ‘Can Gaming Save the Apple Vision Pro?’, OK, I admit, the story was two weeks old, and none the less relevant to this conversation. Personally I didn’t know that the Vision Pro required saving, but that is my wimple setting. You see, new devices open up new frontiers and on November 9th 2024 I gave the world (apple too) ‘The Easy Lesson’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/11/09/the-easy-lesson/) and in under an hour I designed a near original game an adaptation from a world favorite game. Yes it took me less than an hour to think of a solution. 

Now there is another idea based on all time favorites and used in a very different different setting. You see, people look in the same direction over and over and hoping that something new hits them. I look in the opposite direction and that is why I have over half a dozen original IP settings and this one could bring Ubisoft the fortune it so immensely desired, the dream of growing to greatness. The funny part is that most of the work is done already. You see, schooling is required all over the world and the chances are that Ubisoft overlooked it. And apparently Timmy the Cook did too (said to be the CEO of Apple). 

The setting is larger to be considered as more and more need is out there for languages. OK, there are some hangups. But the larger setting becomes visible in mere minutes and 80% of the gamers have had that feeling, especially those who played any of the Assassins Creed games. You see, we all want to be that assassin, but the missed part is that they loved walking down the streets of Florence, Rome, The America’s, New York, Paris, London, Egypt, Greece, Iran and Japan. The one thing that Ubisoft excelled in were the graphics. When these games get upgraded to Unreal Engine 5 it becomes a very different game. Now on Apple Vision Pro (optionally MetaQuest as well) people can actually practice their language skills in a private setting and there are millions ready to get ready. Now there is no killing, there is no climbing all over the place. It becomes a walking setting, with optional reward settings and Ubisoft actually opened the door to this when they had the expansion The Discovery Tour added to the game AC Origin. It gave us a different setting to the game and also gave us just how deep they had taken the game. Now consider that we get access to languages English is gotten from AC Syndicate and Watchdogs Legion, and optionally AC3. French from AC Unity (when it is properly fixed), Arabic from Mirage, Italian and Latin from AC Brotherhood and optionally AC2, Greek and Egyptian from AC Origin, and most of the work is already done. Now there is one setting that takes precedence.

About a month ago I saw someone program a chatbot to take on scam centers. His view was that when they are held busy by chatbots, scammers cannot scam. But that impact is larger. People can now be set in chatbots engaging in the use of natural speech. As such there is a unification of skills and in that setting Ubisoft could offer a much larger population. According to ‘records’ in 2022, the United Kingdom had the most students learning English as a foreign language. There were approximately 262,400 students who were learning English as a second language that year, followed by Ireland with almost 116,000 foreign students. The third place ranking was completed by Canada, with around 105,000 students learning English as a foreign language. That implies a population of billions who want to learn English. When the modules are ready Ubisoft could cater to millions of people who want to learn any of these languages and with a subscription model they could cater to hundreds of thousands of them. To make it fun they could add the villa in Monteriggioni and as language assignments are completed they could get another painting added to the villa. There is also the notion that ‘midterms’ in several stages would upgrade Monteriggioni. You will not get a well and a few other things, but most other upgrades become possible. And as you engage with the people in Florence and Rome you could get lots of interactions. With Latin you get the added nun/priest outfits and get access to the old Vatican. Linguistic skills are valued globally and for those who want to learn Arabic there is the world of Mirage (just Bagdad) and there we will see what more there is to learn. Any language student gets assigned an address and as your skills progress you will get a ‘better’ address. All this was already possible and now it serves a much better purpose. There is classic English (AC Syndicate) and modern English (Watchdogs Legion) the setting already exist for the most. But the added setting of interactive chatbots will push the Ip to new heights and the graphic skills of Ubisoft have seldom been questioned (only in AC Unity). So this took a little more than an hour, but it was there for the longest of time. It just required Yves Guillemot to wake up to see what he had and now that this writing is out in the open, he could wake up and seek new frontiers. There is the thought that Unreal Engine might not be a solution everywhere, but it will give the most lifelike views on Vision Pro and MetaQuest. As such it just fits better. 

Software directions are out in the open. The trick is not to take the mundane direction that everyone seems to be taking. As such I offer this thought to the wannabe captains of industry.

Have a great day and think of what language you would like to learn, because that is a universal thought we all have. It might be that you want to learn the dead languages (Greek and Latin), you might want to broaden your horizon with English, French, Italian and Japanese and for those wishing to learn Spanish, a case can be made to include AC Black Flag. The rest? Well that gives a person a dozen languages to learn, but cases can be made for other languages as well. How that goes? It would be up to Ubisoft. 

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You were saying?

After yesterday I had all these ‘complaints’ and how wrong I was, that this would never happen and I rejoiced, because the evidence was already there. I was actually dreading todays article (which will now happen tomorrow) and puts Apple and Google in a setting of funny money. But first this part. So, people were sure I was wrong? So let’s take a look at Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/8/25/saudi-arabia-considering-chinese-bid-to-build-nuclear-plant-report-says) gives us ‘Saudi Arabia considering Chinese bid to build nuclear plant, report says’ where we are given “Saudi Arabia is considering a Chinese bid to build a nuclear power plant in the kingdom amid frustration over the United States’ stipulations for supporting Riyadh’s quest for nuclear power, the Wall Street Journal has reported” which with the added “In 2019, a senior Chinese official said Beijing could build as many as 30 overseas nuclear reactors through its “Belt and Road” infrastructure drive over the following decade”. So to give you the bland numbers, a nuclear reactor will cost between 6 and 8 billion. So 30 of them amount to around $200,000,000,000 that is revenue the US is now losing directly, one deal cost that much. I have no doubt that China will get a mere 1-3 reactors to start with, yet this amounts to well over $20,000,000,000 from the start. Revenue the US (optionally partially EU too) will lose. One deal sets that strain on the US revenue needs and partially European too. Now we also get (from an unknown source at http://www.ecns.cn/m/news/culture/2023-08-25/detail-ihcskrzm0994854.shtml) there we are given ‘Saudi Arabia to teach two Chinese classes weekly in secondary schools’, if this is true then the KSA are tightening bonds with China and that spells a bad year for America. I might have foreseen a lot of this, but to see operational steps being done implies that the USA is done in the Middle East. In addition to this I wonder how far the steps are at present with the UAE. You see they are both joining BRICS, as such they both stand to gain by these steps at present. Even as the UAE might not be seeking nuclear power, they (especially Dubai) stands to gain a lot by having at least one. So whatever is under options with Saudi Arabia, I reckon that the UAE is not far behind on this. In a day we see the stage where the US, due to its own stupid actions is about to lose out on well over 200 billion, and it is seemingly all going towards China. So you were saying? And how much more losses will America cop before it starts to realise that the folly approach from 2019 onwards was stupid on a premium level? 

And this is merely the beginning. As NEOM grows, so will the opportunities that China will get, America, the UK and EU pretty much priced themselves out of those markets. And the news goes from bad to worse. None at the moment, but in Q4 2023 there will be a lot more news clippings on options that are now no longer going to the American Coffers, that part is pretty clear at this point. So I was right all along. It doesn’t make me happy or joyous, yet for the Americans who realise that they are out they might want to have a heart to heart with the politicians and analysts who should have seen this long before I did and if they did, why was nothing done?

Enjoy the weekend.

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