Tag Archives: Fox

Spend, spend, spend

Yes, that can be seen as spending three times over. We are of course referring to the debilitating debt the US has and now it is about to cost them a lot, in the larger stage this has had my attention for some time, but today three articles brought it to the top (yet again). The first one comes from the CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/debt-ceiling-us-scrap-1.6836090) where we see ‘The U.S. debt limit is again stoking fears across the globe. Why not just scrap the thing?’ There are of course several answers to that part, but it is ““I don’t think there’s any reason to have it exist anymore,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, who is the current president of the right-wing think-tank American Action Forum.” I think that Douglas has been sniffing the alternative Gatorade. You see, if there was no reason to have credit limits, I would take out a $50M loan with my IP as collateral and move to Dubai. Have a nice one floor apartment and live of the rest with $300K a month at my disposal until the day I die. The reality is that we all have credit limits and most of us have a credit limit that is in the basement. As such nations and governments have limits as well. It is the idea that Americans think they do not have one, but that is a false assumption. It might have had a delusional ring of truth when they were a super power and when they had all the innovations, but they first off shored the knowledge they had because the board of directors had more bonus options, but they are now either retired or mostly dead. Now India has that power, now Saudi Arabia is the innovative player and now China is about to become the one true superpower. All negative things for the US, but this is what they wanted and they shunned Saudi Arabia too often and now they lose them as an ally as well. The one player that really has all the cash is shunned. Well done America! In the mean time spending went on and it was catered to by people who have close to no ash in the first place. Now the Fortune 100 have less American companies and several of them have a spin on what they really own. The largest players who really have things are Google, IBM, Amazon and Adobe. The rest are wannabe collapsing entities. There is Netflix, but they will be in turmoil for at least a year and there is no way to tell how they are pulling through. Facebook is under the gun and they are about to lose another segment, in the meantime Meta is nowhere near ready. 

So off to article two, this is Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/us-debt-standoff-overshadows-g7-finance-leaders-meeting-2023-05-11/) giving us ‘US debt standoff overshadows G7 finance leaders’ meeting’, which could be true. You see, Japan is in deep waters, optionally too deep, but that requires financial knowledge I do not have, what I think is the case, is that they are too deep in debt and when the US goes, so does Japan. The 7 nations are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Italy and France are already in deep waters, in part of the overspending my Mario Draghi, in part of a slowing economy. The UK has its own set of troubles which basically leaves Canada and they cannot hold the fort by themselves but that is the group that is in some kind of meeting and the conversation to raise the debt ceiling is a farce, they all know that the US is fighting of shadows of their former selves all alone, all because no one was willing to do something about overspending and they are decades too late in overhauling their tax systems. All these small issues line up to a setting where there is soon an America defaulting on ALL their loans, bonds collapse and that also pushes Japan over the edge. The Reuters article also gives us “U.S.-China tensions also cloud the outlook for the global economy that is already under pressure from signs of weakness in the world’s second-largest economy China.” This is a stage that I find debatable, from my point of view (optionally not a correct one), the Chinese economy is already surpassing America and now that they have the stage for the Middle East with larger venues into Saudi Arabia, they surpass America. The fact that Saudi Oil can now be bought with Yuan is the one push America never needed and never really could handle. With Saudi Arabia about to launch their own version (in English) of Al Jazeera will mean that advertisers have an alternative to Fox and CNN and when that channel branches out to Indonesia, Egypt, Bangladesh and India, the numbers will vastly surpass 500,000,000 viewers. In this I didn’t even consider Pakistan at present. As such where do you think Advertiser will go? America pushed the wrong buttons for years and now their birds are roosting in other nests. The third is also Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/yellen-warns-us-default-would-threaten-global-economy-undermine-us-leadership-2023-05-11/) giving us ‘Yellen warns US default would threaten global economy, undermine its leadership’ where we see “U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday urged Congress to raise the $31.4 trillion federal debt limit and avert an unprecedented default that would trigger a global economic downturn and risk undermining U.S. global economic leadership” in this I personally believe that the US hasn’t been a real economic leader for some time. It started just before the age of Trump as the US learned that they could no longer afford the things they were doing and now these accounts are all coming up empty all at the same time. So at the end we are given “Yellen said Republican brinkmanship on the issue amounted to a “crisis of our own making” and that just the threat of a default could lead to a downgrade of the U.S. government’s credit rating, as occurred during a debt ceiling fight in 2011.” I personally feel that this is totally bogus, the issue was overspending and both sides of the isle were doing that and both sides were doing that. In addition they alienated the one player who was loaded, the rich relative was made a pariah and that didn’t sit well with that relative. This is why I approached them with my IP. I feel better when someone with the cash pays for my IP than the fakers who have a maximised credit card, implying I would be without cash for too long whilst they walk away with my multi billion dollar IP. I will not allow Microsoft anywhere near it, as such I would have no issues selling it to Tencent Technologies (with a few attached clauses mind you). And I have reason. A clear solution that could have given Google and/or Amazon billions was shunned by them giving me the excuse to go wherever I needed to go to get my golden retirement. And they connect. You see, they are all about contracting economies, all whilst innovation will go where there was no one and in my case in several cases there was no one, only in one case there was someone (Gucci), but they are only on one side of one IP I had and I had several other venues connected to it, optionally to android phones as well. And you see that same issue here. We see ‘raise the debt ceiling’ whilst 4 presidents did not stop overspending, it was not an issue and now as they lose tens of billions in industries that are all headed for China, they are all up in arms with “Yellen wants G7 debate on restricting investment to China”, just like the Huawei issue and we never were EVER given any evidence regarding Huawei. That is the effect of a bully who lost whatever innovation they had to players who were truly innovative and now they are running out of time, they are running out of fairway and they have nothing left. Two elemental parts were ignored for too long the first was overhauling their tax system, the second was overspending and in 2011 the point of no return was reached, both Democrats and Republicans worked together in making that happen and China merely waited for it to collapse and that is now about to happen. Will there be another raise? I cannot tell, but this is not enough, after this one another one will come and that is how this game is being played, almost like bluffing in Omaha poker, the issue is that bluffing is too dangerous and can often fall flat, for someone to think that they can bluff for this long is a new level of delusion. 

No matter what, we are about to find out how much longer the US can play that game and they returns to the stage of tax the rich, another delusional setting, which by the way works out well for Monaco, the Bahamas and Dubai to name but three where the retiring rich could go to actually enjoy their cash. 

Enjoy your day unless you have a PacWest Bank account, at that point you are decently screwed at present.

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The bigger shift

The news that caught me today is (at https://dohanews.co/saudi-arabia-mulls-launch-of-english-news-channel-to-rival-al-jazeera-reports/) giving us ‘Saudi Arabia mulls launch of English news channel to rival Al Jazeera’. I actually originally got it from the Financial Times, but they are behind a paywall, so I cannot use them as a source. So Saudi Arabia is now considering an English News Channel. This changes things. First E-Sports, now sports (Messi And Ronaldo), Formula one and now we get “A Saudi state-backed media organisation is considering the development of an international English-language news station, seen as an effort to counter Qatar’s flagship Al Jazeera network and boost the kingdom’s media influence”. I personally think that there is another reason. You see, if tourism develops in Saudi Arabia, the need for an English Channel rises and it’s need will rise exponentially. It also allows to dig into advertisement funds that have been denied them for decades. You see, the advertiser goes to where the people and the money is. The money is already in Saudi Arabia, but soon so will be the people. The stages of sports will allow Saudi Arabia exclusive news channelling and that leads to more revenue and more visibility. Even as we are given “The Saudi Research and Media Group reportedly approached media consultancies to assess the viability and scope of the endeavour, according to a number of people familiar with the project, the Financial Times reported. They said it will be the second-largest English-language broadcaster in the Arab world, after Al Jazeera English, although the preparations are still in the early stages.” And this is not all, there is another reason. As western media ‘embraced’ their Share holder, stake holder and advertiser approach to filtering information. They lost credibility and the audience. Most places no longer call it news, they refer to it as information entertainment (Fox anyone?) In addition to this, the west would finally get real information on Aramco (not filtered by Brent), on SAMI (not filtered by the pentagon) and sports. It would even propel interest into things like Camel racing, the Emirates Ice Hockey League and from that we could see the development of a Saudi Ice Hockey league. We know that they are still not a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation, but to see Saudi Arabia grow teams in Jeddah, Dammam and Riyadh, taking on the UAE teams from the Emirates Hockey League (EHL). We could see names like Abu Dhabi Scorpions, Abu Dhabi Storms, Al Ain Theebs, Dubai White Bears, Dubai Mighty Camels propel all over the western TV stations. 

If the west is embracing sports Saudi Arabia has the making to replace a whole collection of news channels that lost too much credibility. And it isn’t merely influence. As I personally see it the KSA lacks perception and awareness in the view of the non Arabian people and this could be a first step to open that door. Beyond that there are several markets where the KSA could set foot into and in this world in this current economic climate that will go a long way, what is important that the first steps are made setting the larger stage towards doing something and that is where it is at. Will it happen? This happening is a logical step after setting claims towards E-sports, Formula 1, Football and Ice hockey. Beyond that is the stage where the people will get first looks on the Line (that long building) and several other innovations coming towards us from Saudi Arabia. 

A bigger shift is underway and the US with their deceptive ‘entertainment’ like Fox and even CNN, they will have nothing to counter it. In the last 5 years they wasted too much credibility opening the door to other players and as I see it the KSA stands to add an audience of close to half a billion in the first 2 years, would you like to see the advertisement money on that pool? 

Enjoy the day before Friday.

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Is UNemployed a thing?

In the first we need to put a pin in the end of yesterdays mentions. The presentation I saw yesterday l saw literally blew me away. It involved Snowflake and Coalesce. It makes the show for the new Bentley look feeble. What a show and what an approach. Players like Aramco need to taker a look, because the future of data mobility was shown to me and they can check it out in June in the SumIT in June in Las Vegas. They would be able to show people like Brent oil how far they are behind the curve. 

But today it is about something else. It is about the Dominion (not the Star Trek one), they went after Fox and Fox was eager to settle, the spinners of lies and misdirection got their First Amendment handed to them in a few ways, which beckons the thought ‘Should Fox be allowed to  exist as a news organisation?’ But about that more at a later date. 

First up is the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/19/the-legal-problems-still-overshadowing-fox-news-after-its-dominion-settlement) who gives us ‘The legal problems still overshadowing Fox News after its Dominion settlement’ there we see “Fox agreed to pay voting equipment company Dominion US$787.5m, ending a dispute over whether the network and its parent company knowingly broadcast false and outlandish allegations that Dominion was involved in a plot to steal the 2020 election” in this I personally believe that they settled because of the roll call to the court. These people would paint themselves in a corner to such an extent that it would cost more then viewers. Several of them would pretty much end their TV careers, not even E! Entertainment would hire them as a joke. Yes, it is a personal view, but I think I am hitting the nail on the head in one. In the second degree the fact that Rupert Murdoch would be in the dock as well. So what will the Wall Street Journal do? What will the Times, or several of its other papers? Spin the story and lose a bulk of readers, or just keep silent? It is anyones guess and the setting is far from over, the settlement which was only $787,500,000.00 is small fries against the claim that Smartmatic launched and it has been given a green light. Their claim comes in at $2,700,000,000 which is decently higher and even if Fox settles that one, it will be a much higher settlement. Smartmatic has no free ride, it must prove malice and even as Fox wants to hide behind ‘reporting’ and relying on the freedom of the press. But with the Dominion settlement the stage of lies has been proven and there the shoe becomes tight. You see, when you report on lies is that freedom of the press? And there is a catch the Smartmatic people must prove the addition ‘knowingly’ and that is a much harder case. There are the bulk of the views which include that Tucker guy who will still enter the dock for testimonies. I wonder how many of them will rely on ‘I don’t recall that’, still if the attorneys taped the events, they might have a decent case (in case Fox accidentally loses all their recordings) in addition there is one reflection from the side of Fox as well. It is Bill O’Reilly, who (at https://www.billoreilly.com/b/Special-Message:-Fox-News-Settlement/883858753726419363.html) gives us “Going forward, Fox News faces a similar lawsuit from the Smartmatic Company and perhaps thousands of lawsuits from Fox shareholders. What a disaster. This is what happens when money becomes more important than honest information. Since I left FNC, the template changed from “Fair and Balanced” to “tell the audience what it wants to hear.” And millions of Trump voters, to this day, want to believe the 2020 election was rigged. That opinion can certainly be presented if you provide a counter opinion – equal time.

However, once the facts begin to overwhelm any point of view, a news agency has an obligation to say that. On BillOReilly.com, I examined all the fraud charges and concluded that no federal court would accept the cheating allegations. Therefore, the election was not going to be refuted by our legal system.” This shows that Bill O’Reilly might not have been everyones taste, but he was a real voice and he might have lost a thousand premium members but he remains a winner until the very last, what a class act and as I see it Fox lost the one Republican beacon it actually had, all for weak minded people catering to the voice of ‘THEIR’ people. The loss will be unmeasurable for Fox in the end. I reckon that is what happens when you become friends with a former president, the man who has no real funds, lots of debt, lots of losses and is proven to be nothing more than a paper tiger at best.

Last there is the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65320001) and with ‘Fox News lawsuit: Can it afford the $787.5m Dominion settlement?’ And with that article they do not offer a lot more, but they do give us “It still has outstanding cases against Fox’s smaller rivals Newsmax and OAN plus several of former President Donald Trump’s associates.” As I see it, these small players have their own legal sharks and they smell blood in the water. Should Fox settle Smartmatic, or lose in the trials these small sharks will come and take huge chunks out of the Fox cadaver. No matter how you slice it, it will leave a gap for any contender of Fox to step forward because for 1-2 years it will have to contemplate how to go forward and how to invest funds going forward and that leaves their number one customer the Republican Party. Any contender could snatch that client away from Fox, which leaves Fox in a bind. Because the Democrats will not do business with them and as the Republican Party goes, so do their advertisers. A future happily bestowed on them by some loser paper tiger and they ‘associates’ of that paper tiger are going after the paper tiger as well, they have too much to lose now. For some TV presenters it will mean the end of their careers no one will hire them after this law setting, they are scared for their own stations and media. Now these people will be set into a new setting. They will allegedly be working for the United Nations as they are soon to be UNemployed?

Enjoy the day

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Too cheap?

It is not a statement, it is a question. I started to ask myself this when I had a deeper conversation with one of the people I actually trust. I have mentioned it here before that I have certain IP for sale. The parties are Google, Amazon, Huawei (Tencent) and I added Elon Musk (that man can turn good ideas to gold). The initial stage was that thee was an idea that allowed Google (Stadia) and Amazon (Luna) to sell in excess of 50,000,000 consoles. Yet it was a low estimate. I believe it to be well in excess of 75,000,000 consoles. In the mean time Netflix has entered the field and even as they have nothing to really bring to the table, it seems that these three are not to serious about their streamers, but somehow Tencent seemingly is? And that started the exploration conversation that my idea was too cheap. Was it? You see the second pay cycle gets me 10% of the IP and sales value, so the second payment would be massive and the first one left me without worries, so why ask for more? I am not a teenager with the dream to have lusty gorgeous 20 year old ladies doing a balancing act on mr John Thomas every day, well not anymore that was decades ago. 

I now look towards a relaxed retirement and whatever comes with that. As such I created three IP bundles which (after some serious travel) received the automated release date on September 30th on 4Chan. An encrypted solution that was innovative and something a player like the NSA could not counter on 4Chan, not with that amount of images. As such no computer I touch will ever go near it, I merely have to wait for a clever person to figure it out and once released it all becomes public domain, a stage no one can counter, no one can make claims at present as they played their own silly games. A stage where ONE title puts the streamers on par with the larger consoles, straight in a temporary second place and that is on my numbers. If the numbers increase (which has a decent chance of happening) that console will stay in second place with an option to get pole position.  A stage Sony NEVER faced before, and this is not against Sony, I love my Playstation (yes, I need help). 

So here I was trying to convince my friend the simple setting that enough is enough. Why go greed driven for numbers that are too weird to my universe? And of course that station is rejected because if everyone else is greed driven, I have to be greed driven too. Yet when greed overwhelms you, you forget the sight of things. I created 8 parts of IP, I got there by looking around, not by looking after greed and that was merely the starting stage. I understood but never accepted ‘Greed is good’ (Wall Street, the movie), although that sentiment lives strongly on Wall Street as well. Yet in my setting what have they missed so far? Over the last year I have shown all kinds of IP (some open and public), but these ideas should have been in the hands of BigTech. At least one of them at least a decade, but greed is limiting their view and I am showing others this again and again. Yet, for some reason they are not catching on. So whilst they slap each other on the back billions elude them. There is now a chance that the third IP bundle is gaining mass and therefor value, I still thought that 2.6 billion was a little high, and there are risks that I cannot foresee, but looking deeper some might state that my estimate is too low. Is it? If I end up with 5% of 2 billion I will not complain, but the IP is now estimated at 2.6 billion and will optionally be higher. So is the estimate too cheap, am I delusionally too cheap or is the truth of the matter somewhere else. The issue almost came to blow as I looked at the Twitter issues (yesterday) where some are ignoring what is out in the open, what else are they missing? It becomes a much larger station when players like Forbes give us ‘Local News Losing Billions In Revenue Each Year From Digital Media Giants’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2021/05/17/local-news-losing-billions-in-revenue-each-year-from-digital-media/) where we see “Local TV news continues to be a trustworthy and primary source to millions of viewers. This connection with the community and trust has been important, never more so than during the pandemic when local TV news reported strong ratings growth (although with the economic slowdown ad revenue was sluggish).” It is the added “A recent research analysis from BIA Advisory Services and commissioned by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), entitled Economic Impact of Big Tech Platforms on the Viability of Local Broadcast News, reported that local TV newscasts lose an estimated $1.873 billion each year from Google Search and Facebook News Feeds.” It gave me the the following parts.

  1. What is local news? Honestly, the news tends to be Fox, CNN, BBC and a few others and they are global. More important they ALL trivialised the Twitter numbers.
  2. This gets us to number two. Trustworthy is merely an 11 letter word that has less and less value in media and in filtered information (news that is approved by media shareholders and stakeholders). 
  3. So who places news on Facebook? I placed images from several sources, they are not news items, they are deceptively placed forms of advertisers placed BY the media themselves. 

A setting that goes on and on, so what numbers if Forbes bitching about and more important. When we look at some research instigated by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) I feel certain that I will find a whole range of issues. Painting the street in the colour of preference has consequences, yet Forbes is not too hassled on that are they?

As such where we are given “Whereas, ad dollars for local television are projected to be flat in the years ahead, digital media are forecast for year-over-year percent double-digit gains in ad spend.” It was a greed driven setting where local advertise systems ruined the market on greed, and when Google launched a true fair system the people en mass moved there. After decades to be given a real number was overwhelmingly interesting to advertisers, and now they all cry foul, all destroyed by their own greed and the Twitter setting merely echoes that. So why would I join those losers? I might not end with anything, it might just become public domain, but if I won’t get it, the greed driven will not either and when it comes out in months and they all come with “I could have gotten you soooo much” I can reply, so why didn’t you? It is the defeating move to the greed driven, to see them end with nothing, the sweetest victory of all. 

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The Ronald McDonald factor

This is a hard article to write. It is not about my IP, it is not about gaming, it is in part about me and you show me a person who will honestly look into a mirror and describe what they see with happiness, and I will introduce you to a likely liar.

To start, I have for the longest time been a Republican, I believe in the Republican values, I believe that Make America Great Again is a nationalist right for Americans. National values are important, national values are a nations right and it tends to drive national interests. Take any nation. Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Canada, USA, France they all have nationalists, people devoted to THEIR nation. It is not a shame, it is not negative, it merely is, so when I saw the hats with MAGA, I merely shrugged, it was bound to happen. What was not bound to happen is that a clown like Donald Trump would set the stage to ridiculous values, fake values and hidden personal needs. So when you today ABC ‘MAGA’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ have turned on Donald Trump and are now spilling his secrets’, Another media with ‘Donald Trump says he would pardon Jan 6 rioters if he runs and wins’, as well as the most despicable one ‘Donald Trump should not lead the country again, says the Republican leader of the National Governors Association

So, why despicable?
You see, when we see the headlines, the inactions against Trump and his machine and more over, what I personally see as Republican rats, coming out of the woodwork, I see a party that is shaken to it foundations, destroyed by the Trump quake and they are all seeking shelter anyway they can. Not one of them gave light and support to Liz Cheney who was right all along. In her corner is Mitt Romney and that is pretty much it. How can I remain in support of a party that disgraces itself, that destroys its own values. With at present seemingly only Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney as honourable Republicans. The least said about Mitch McConnell the better, he stayed on the Trump side for too long, now that he is showing to stop (to some degree) Trump for office (again) he is showing himself to be disingenuous at the least and a turncoat in the nominal setting, and since that turncoat Benedict, who would have thought that to be a good idea. Which takes me to the article ‘Donald Trump should not lead the country again, says the Republican leader of the National Governors Association’ (at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/donald-trump-shouldnt-run-in-2024-national-governors-asa-hutchinson-2022-1) which aired hours ago and whilst Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson gives us all kinds of settings that is pretty much highlighted with “And, you know, the Republican Party has many different voices,” Hutchinson said. “And it’s important in this time to have those voices and they should be concentrating on this election cycle” this political entity was very clear in not giving the people that Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney were correct from the start and that lack of recognition needs to be seen as a setting with a sinking ship and one rat thinking he has a chance to get to the big piece of cheese, all whilst his chances were better with a smaller chunk when he acknowledged that Romney and Cheney should get the largest chunk of cheese. Even now, I see all signs that Fox is using Cheney and Romney in the smallest setting, all whilst these two deserve the limelight. It seems that Fox has a side which hopes that Trump pulls of a trick, and these people are now relying on tricks, they are willing to depend on tricks to set the democratic agenda of the United States. So what does that tell you? How can anyone have faith in the Republican setting when its party has close to two honourable players? If I were a betting man, I would hope that the Republican ticket would be Cheney-Romney, with that ticket the Republican Party could clean out its isles with wannabe’s and incompetent politicians and put them to the sewage they are entitled. And this is a Republican minded person speaking.

The indirect factors

As I stated there is no direct need for my IP, yet indirectly it matters to me how the US does its business, because no matter how it plays out, the larger tech players will soon have no option but to register all new IP in the Commonwealth and/or EU. As I feel the setting change, the political players are enabling a massive brain drain, the January 6th events not properly dealt with are a first, but the larger setting is the political upheaval that tech and engineering firms face and in that uncertainty all their new IP will be a decent lot safer in Commonwealth/EU settings. When that happens the US stands to lose a power value no less than 10% and optionally up to 31%, it is a wide field but in one setting the IP value of pharmaceuticals in Ireland went from €37.5B in 2018 to €105B in 2019. I was unable to see the growth in 2020, but that value has gone up and it will go up again in 2021. So consider that ONE industry has cause a brain drain towards Ireland (EU) of well over 300% over three years, I will let you ponder who lost out on those coins. There is no clear shift in the papers, but I feel certain that the US lost a lot and the tech firms are starting to do the same thing. So when I stated (well over 6 months ago) that I preferred to see my IP in Commonwealth hands, I did know what I was talking about and happy for me both Google and Amazon have global filings, so I am still up for that race and with two new IP’s coming (I will write about them soon to some degree) I feel certain that my time is still optionally to come (wishful thinking).

Yet if any political players are crying like little chihuahuas show them that they had this coming. They accepted Ronald McDonald as a president, the people will seek their fun in places where politics are not set to a clown but to a serious person and that is the view of a simple Republican, not a democrat and not an independent.

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Covering one another

In light of yesterday, it is equally important that other information is given to you. Remember headlines like ‘South Africa slams ‘unjustified’ reaction as Omicron continues to spread across the globe’? We saw the ‘unjust’ approach and even as we accept that some nations (the Netherlands) apparently have data showing that they had a case before South Africa reported it, the source of that case is still unconfirmed. That does not mean that South Africa is too blame for this issue. And as we are now given (by Reuters) that “the Omicron coronavirus variant detected in southern Africa could be the most likely candidate to displace the highly contagious Delta variant, the director of South Africa’s communicable disease institute said on Tuesday”, do you still think that it is a bad idea to close borders? All borders no less. There is still a lot that the scientists do not know and we get that, but leaving the borders open in a stage where a disease has now killed over 5 million people, that is a stage that should worry everyone and when we see that 263 million have had the disease, we do get that the mortality rate is low. Yet how do you feel when your parents and grandparents are the dead ones? Still think that closing the borders is the wrong move? Mine are all dead, so I do not care, but you might. 

13 people on a flight from South Africa had that variant, so it is being spread and that might not be the South Africans that are at fault. For all we know (I do not know) the people infected were Dutch people visiting South Africa (for whatever reason). We can guess all we want, but the data is limited and it has too many gaps. We also do not know what causes the mutation, so there is a lot that the scientists do not know. And to help them it seems (to me) important to lockdown as much as possible. Am I right? I do not know, but the politicians are seemingly helping one another out and that is an actual flaw we cannot afford. And as some papers (the SMH in this case) gives us ‘Infections in Europe pre-date Omicron’s identification in South Africa’, we still cannot tell where that version came from, or what made it mutate. And before some people want to use the brush containing the blame paint on South Africa. Consider that Germany gives us “German authorities said they had an Omicron infection in a man who had neither been abroad nor had contact with anyone who had been”, as I have a few issues with ‘nor had contact with anyone who had been’, there is too much we do not know, as such the traveller might have sat next to him on a bench, in a mall, behind him in a coffeeshop and so on. But the fact that he had not been abroad still matters. Either this version is massively infective, or there is an element the scientists are still in the dark about. 

The larger problem is that this entire equation has too many captains and not enough crew, which is a generic failing in the EU. As I personally see it, this will cause more and more gaps and less standardisation of data, as well as reporting over the European nations. We get it that there is a global issue, but this issue should not exist in the EU and I saw just how largely this failing tends to be from my (trying) approach to getting some form of clear data. And now, as the amount of nations with Omicron rises, so will the uncertainty, the fear and the economic drawbacks. A stage we all saw coming (to some degree) yet we never thought it would come this fast, or this completely. So as we view the news of more people ignoring lockdowns, ignoring safety and considering that bleach is a much better anti covid solution than a vaccine is, also consider that now with Omicron we might relax as it will be the death of them. Some might argue that the benefit of these actions is that in California 117 jobs a day open up. I get it, it is crude, but that is the setting. Do you think for one moment that Wall Street cares about you (or me for that matter), it sees the revenue needs, and unemployment numbers drive that down, so they are (silently) happy. And this is not some USA push, the UK is in a worse shape, with only 20% the population it has twice the amount of deceased people, and now we all get Omicron and a larger unknown of how effective our vaccine is, because that is unknown, we hear speculations, all lacking evidence at present. 

So as politicians are covering each other on points of view, we see a larger lack of support of the scientific and medical staff. The media is in part to blame, they are all about flames. Yet I personally believe that EVERY newspaper on the planet has a responsibility to make sure that the views of Dr Fauci (and medical experts like him) are shown everywhere and the absolute idiot at Fox who caused ‘Outrage as Fox News commentator likens Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor’ should be taken off the job, and optionally get treatment from Dr Mengele, so he can feel firsthand how wrong his view was. 

Lets make one thing sure, we need the medical people and its experts. They can wait for us to die and take over all the good mansions on a global setting. We need them, they do not need us to be a risk for them and their family members. Take that consideration to heart. So if you see a medical professional today and tomorrow, buy him (or her) a coffee, a tea and say ‘Thank you!’ We owe them a lot more, but this gesture might take away some of the stress they face on a daily basis and I would like it if politicians take that message to heart, they should be championing that resolve all over the world.

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The first step

Today I was confronted with a first step in the right direction. NPR (and others) give us ‘Dominion Voting Systems Files $1.6 Billion Defamation Lawsuit Against Fox News’, the baseless accusations and the empty facilitation by merely shouting the same messages by Fox (and a few others) all whilst there was no proper investigation or follow up now has consequences. The NPR article gives us ““Fox endorsed, repeated, and broadcast a series of verifiably false yet devastating lies about Dominion,” the complaint states, including claims that the company’s software manipulated the results of the 2020 vote.” This first step is one that seals the fate of Donald Trump. The bully tactics and the baseless accusations now come at a cost and should Dominion Voting System end up with a success, the base and foundation of Trumpism will see several additional court cases come there way, paving the way for honourable men like Mitt Romney to clean house and return the Republic party to sanity. It is also the first time that we will see the media being held to a higher level, one that had been surely lacking, which in turn will give the Washington Post a hard time too. With the additional “Dominion has also filed defamation lawsuits against Trump ally and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, lawyers who worked with Trump on his post-election flurry of legal actions. The company is seeking $1.3 billion in damages from each of them”, we get to see a new stage, we get to see the ‘friends’ of Donald Trump seeking the caves (like Osama Bin Laden once did) as well as the tall grass to avoid detection, they have upset too many people and too many corporations, each of them seeking their pound of flesh. So how will this end? It is too early to say, but when we see “Last month, Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against the network, and named Fox stars Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro.” We might take notice of the dismissal that Fox News is seeking, but their stories are out there and at times copied by smaller players and there is no hiding from that, so as I personally see it “the network also canceled Lou Dobbs’ Tonight show” is merely a first step and Fox, should it survive they will have to clean its house in several ways, optionally introduce ethics to its field. The article (at https://www.npr.org/2021/03/26/981515184/dominion-voting-systems-files-1-6-billion-defamation-lawsuit-against-fox-news) has a few more items, but it is a start, and no matter how it turns out the outcome will introduce new versions of rage all over the US, a setting that the media condoned, yet now that their chickens are hatching they fear the outcome and they seek some level of immunity, so as the US faces its own version of the Leveson report, I wonder how it will play out, because any outspoken politician will get tainted by it, any Fox source relying on freedom of speech will be held accountable to the impact they created and the US has well over 100 million really angry people at present, which means that it is not a good day for Trumpism to seek the limelight, not with Fox in the balance of their views with an optional $4,000,000,000 ticket awaiting impact. 

I do personally believe it is a good day for accountability in the mix and that has never been a bad thing.

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The future arrived Yesterday

I was at an interesting gig yesterday. I was introduced by a friend to several new options to engage with an audience, and options to interact in engagement, not mere presenting, we got to see true engagement. Several solutions that by them self are impressive enough, but combine the abilities we see options for engagement that will knock the socks off from players like Marvel and Nintendo, options that large players like Microsoft set aside for too long, options missed by some players as they are pushing for similar results again and again. Yet like the failures of Ubisoft in the past, as I stated it ‘a game that was designed to not be a failure will in equal measure never become a true winner‘, Ubisoft learned that the hard way with the their Assassins Creed franchise and now, we see opportunities that EA Games could get with FIFA19 and micro transactions, not just that, the act of engagement would allow for plenty of additional visibility towards groups that are currently not considering certain products. Engagement has always been the primary key in that and I saw a truckload of that, much of it in a new wardrobe that fits basically everyone.

So even as some are given to be a display towards retail, they have the ability to be much more, this is a marketing dream and all available for so many participants before this year’s Christmas shopping spree sets in. Options that are more than just engagement, they are optional content distributors, unlockable gems that people in certain areas love, a simple image that can immediately translate with you in the foreground and your destination in the background, combined send as a postcard to your mobile on the spot.

It is a simple setting, where an RFID scanner that could instantly reveal what the Nintendo Amiibo offers to the customer in store, not relying on dodgy third party lists, one Nintendo list and places like EB Games could in store reveal what the person is buying. The applications are here and not in the stores, not used by players that could gain the brand additional momentum, so what gives?

Well, for the most retail and larger places are seeing these devices and solutions as a cost, which they are (to some degree), but they in equal measure forget the opportunity that they bring. If we consider Market Watch (which I question), we see the setting that the games market, in particularly the Augmented reality Gaming Market, we see a forecast where we are treated to According to Infoholic Research, the “AR Gaming Market” is expected to reach $284.93 billion by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 152.7% during the forecast period 2017-2023“, I still think that this is ludicrous, I have zero percent faith in that, or to state this that I am predicting that this is 100% wrong. Gaming is a 135 billion dollar market globally, if we get “expected to reach $75 billion by 2023“, then this would be an awesome result for AR gaming. I am certain that Infoholic Research did not just get their wires crossed; I feel that they are buttering someone’s bread on both sides. In both normal gaming and gambling, we see that there is a trend on the rise and some of the systems shown yesterday can grab in on these potential markets in several ways, it is up to the creative marketing mind in the larger places to use this not merely for branding, but also for creating awareness and grow interest through engagement.

Consider that this goes further than mere advertising and branding, consider the information kiosks, you might wonder what a mere information kiosk could add. The new generation can also scan you or what you are holding. A logo, a brochure, or merely a QR code. These parts can immediately be converted to a shop with location, a digital travel brochure that can be interacted with on the screen or merely a QR code that your mobile device can scan, giving you the app, the additional information or a mere YouTube video to watch. All options actively available now and when you place such solutions in a place like Neom (for those not in the know) “Neom is a planned 26’500 sq. km transnational city and economic zone to be constructed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia close to the border region of Saudi Arabia and Egypt“, and Saudi Arabia has set aside 500 billion for the creation of that city. The option of being the first and more important, setting up the 5G hub allowing a primary spot for a 5G growth in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, a place where Huawei is already roaring to set up shop, they have the lead there, and now consider that the push from the Saudi Arabia government is all about being ahead of the rest, the smartest of all smart cities and it will not take long before they realise that to get ahead of all the others you need to be willing and ready to have solutions for engagement there, primed, active and ready to grow. More important, three months ago, we were treated to “Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei is already committed to training 1,500 local engineers over the next two years“, so this is one place where Telstra got in way too late, as did the European players. The hub for a 120 million customer 5G population, when I mentioned this in the beginning of this year I was not kidding. Now we see that certain paths have started, we need to look at how you can get a smart city population to engage, because that is the trigger for growth. This directly relates to gaming as gaming is the big equaliser here, it has always been that, as early as the early 90’s. For 25 years I have seen how gaming and engagement lowered the threshold for those nervous about technology and yesterday I saw a whole range of engagement opportunities. Not merely interactions and RFID application in other ways to show interaction, but a setting where it pushes non-personalised data to a tenfold and that data can push the curiosity towards engagement for everyone.

When he European commission gave us the ‘What 5G is about‘ most looked at it and thought ‘Nice!’ what they missed is that is goes beyond mere RFID and Domotics. The direct interactions of Smart Wearables, Smart Mobility, Smart Grids and Smart Parking show that when the car is low on fuel (or an almost empty battery is you have a Tesla), the SATNAV will reveal the closes fuel point, or warn you if you cannot make it to the homestead, the smart wearable can link directly to health care, the nearest pharmacy, the doctor allowing for a prescription on the spot, the phone that now shows a map and receives the information YOU wanted to engage with from a kiosk that is now also a data hub and transfer point of information, all on the fly without YOU having to type anything, all done intuitively on the spot. In all this, you remain in charge of your data and (except for the healthcare part) all null and void of actual personal data.

 

Let’s take this to a next level, some have seen something like this, it looks like an old amplifier volume knob, but it is actually a Bluetooth speaker, place it on nearly any table and it becomes an amazing speaker, yet the next level is not merely a speaker, it is also perfectly placed to be a data hub. Now combine that with a sheet of Perspex as a display (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdDAG0uwg3s), when we combine the three, we get the information on the kiosk, transferred instantly to your ‘speaker’ that is also the data hub and displays the information on that sheet display, wearable or other option. Maps, data, and brochures, all instantly available; Google already owns that solution, a solution that is merely awaiting implementation. A setting driven by what I would call ‘dumb’ smart devices. All the fear of personal data gone and total interactivity remains, engagement and the ultimate lure that draws consumers into your business; that is what engagement allows for, no other way will get that great result because that is the advertisement of tomorrow, not the data they hold, but the curiosity that they bring, all linked to the need for engagement. All those people, millions, who would walk in because your window had something interesting to show, yet now it is not your window, your window is also in every data kiosk, every advertiser point and every screen.
It is no longer about the mobile, people are less trusting with their data, but a smart (dumb) device, their watch, their Pendent or ring, now a data hub and consider that the 15 mm for a micro SD fits into rings, pendants and watches, all optional long term data hubs on the go, without any long interaction and we can get 32 GB for a mere $5. Picking up the ideas and interacting from place to place, our shopping needs and information on the fly when YOU want it; the data kiosks merely one of many places to interact with the addressed needs everywhere.

All settings not yet available in such an advanced state and all options out in the field for those willing to be the enterprising in the new places where they are willing to spend $500 billion in total, to make a next gen tech hub a reality. Or as Jeremy Irons stated in Margin Call: “There are three ways to make a living in this business. Be first, be smarter, or cheat“, he said it and I agree, it is always best to be first and whilst some are still trying to market what they are trying to set as 5G, we see that Huawei who are setting the stage on what 5G could be, Huawei s in the implementation stage of preparing the engineers of setting it all up in a live environment. So whilst America is still in anti-China mode, we see “Now, the whole industry is taking the final sprint towards 5G commercialization. The completion of SA specifications which complements the NSA specifications, not only gives 5G NR the ability of independent deployment, but also brings a brand new end-to-end network architecture, making 5G a facilitator and an accelerator during the intelligent information and communications technology improvement process of enterprise customers and vertical industries” and Huawei has already started in Saudi Arabia, so my other prediction is coming to pass as well, By Q1 2019, Saudi Arabia will become a market leader in 5G and will connect with Europe soon thereafter. In all this Australia things will go from bad to worse, especially as we cannot tell whether we need to consider if people like John Watters, Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer of cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc is bedding Telstra or the USA, the fact that no one has been able to produce any clear evidence in Huawei’s ‘dependency’ on the Chinese government and the overly fearful US Tech as well as Telstra in all this is more than what I consider to be merely a sham, they are currently quite the opposite of embracing engagement and new tech, it will end the end make them look like the fools they should have been trademarked as in 2017.

So as we might remember Telstra at IT News with “Telstra said in a slide deck that “full commercial deployment of 5G in capital cities, major regional centres and other high demand areas” would occur in financial year 2020“, we can now see that they will be almost a year behind Huawei. Al this angers me, merely because it stops advancement and innovation, which makes Saudi Arabia the one remaining golden opportunity for true 5G innovation and yesterday’s presentations showed me how much many more avenues can be approached, because some of the innovations are out here today, in some cases, merely linking the solutions remain. It is important that we consider the Huawei part a little longer, it is important because 5G is so crucial to all this. When we see the article (at https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/59w49b/huawei-surveillance-no-evidence), we see that the title gives us: ‘There’s No Public Evidence Huawei Spies on Americans‘, in addition we see “Huawei’s efforts to make inroads in the U.S. quickly resulted in numerous allegations over the company’s alleged connections to Chinese intelligence. Despite breathless hysteria, numerous investigations (one 18 months in length) found absolutely no evidence of such a threat.“, as well as “a follow up report by Reuters indicates that there has been pressure applied on U.S. telcos to avoid doing business with Huawei, with companies like Verizon and AT&T being told they risk losing their lucrative government business contracts if they strike deals with the massive Chinese multinational“, when we complete it with ““We knew certain parts of government really wanted (evidence of active spying),” one person familiar with the probe told Reuters at the time. “We would have found it if it were there”“, now we see the parts missing, in all this the Australian government needs to be optionally seen as a dog collar without a leash around the neck of a rabid dog named USA. This all smells like AT&T and Telstra in desperate need to not get drowned by an actually innovative technological opponent, who did just that, they became truly innovative. We need Huawei in all this more then most can comprehend.

To get this a little better, we need to look at ‘Media Engagement and Advertising Effectiveness‘ by Bobby J Calder and Edward C Malthouse. Here we see “Traditionally, marketers have thought about advertising as a process of translating a brand, expressed as a benefit, a promise to the consumer, a value proposition, or a positioning in the consumer’s mind into a message that is delivered to the consumer through some medium. This advertising will be effective to the extent that the consumer values the brand idea and the message does a good job creatively of communicating the idea“. Yet when we consider it more fully, we see: “It is engagement with a TV program that causes someone to want to watch it, to be attentive to it, to recommend it to a friend, or to be disappointed if it were no longer on the air“, through engagement, the TV Series Lucifer was not cancelled, it moved from Fox to Netflix, merely by the acts of engaging fans. Engagement can be that powerful and it goes beyond merely revitalising a TV series, it will be the bread and butter for most companies as growth is often seen as  linear with ‘advertising’ whilst we have to accept that exponential growth can only be achieved with an actual engaging audience. Because like in Facebook, that one engaging person is linked to dozens, if not hundreds of others, and their actions are more easily accepted by their close connections then the one advertisement is. In two stages this is seen that one engagement is optionally 900 hits in a low estimation, versus a mere advertisement that gets 5% out of 10,000 shows, so it took 10,000 attempts to get 500 people taking a second look, whilst one engagement event could be the start of 900 instant opportunities, so which option would you more likely turn to?

Yet, we must also be aware of the negative side in engagement. Calder and Malthouse give us that with: “Intrusion may produce a negative response from consumers because the advertising harms the experience of the media content. This in turn could lead to a negative reaction to the advertising, compromising its effectiveness. The consumer may feel that the ad has intruded on the experience with the content and accordingly may have a less positive reaction to the ad“, so in this the interactive kiosk becomes again not merely a vehicle, but THE vehicle in all this and Time is the one currency that is at the centre of it all, it is time that usually and largely triggers the intrusion emotion (waiting, or idle time tends to do that). With the smart ‘dumb’ devices, the automatism of storage whilst the interaction is merely a second, perhaps even two seconds. The element of intrusion decreases and engagement remains, or optionally even increases. It is achieved as the advertisement is not the focal point, but merely part of it and the experience is not impeached, as we get 125Mb in that one second, we get the brochure, the movie clip, the setting, the review and the applicability; all available to watch at our leisure and when we want to decide what to see and how to watch it. So from a $5 32GB Micro SD card, we can get more with a $100 200Gb card, and that is now, in 2-3 years we can get 5 times that storage for the same price. In this non-personalised interaction setting, we achieve to get heaps of analytical information whilst driving engagement. So in that we are confronted with all the latest trailers by merely passing a cinema. And we can just leisurely watch what we need and wipe the rest. It is a brand new day and those ahead in the game get to set that stage of new tech needs for an entire population, engagement is the key element to drive all that.

The future arrived yesterday, whatever will we get treated to tomorrow?

 

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When we shift the sands

Sit down and consider a simple question: ‘When was the last time you got played?‘ Not by some sexual partner you wanted, or some deal where the profit remained absent, not the kind that truly takes life’s pleasure away (for a lot of people), the kind where we see that whatever sport you love to watch, being it the NBA, NFL, NHL, IFL, Premiere League or Cricket. When was the time you sat down and knowingly were watching a game that was rigged? How much fun will you have when you start watching the game, knowing it was rigged by others who have profit in mind? How much fun will that game be to you than? Not after the fact, but you in this example you get to know the game has been rigged before the start. How much fun will the game be at that point? To give a slightly better illustration, There was an earlier article by me on March 19th 2014 when I wrote ‘Any sport implies corruption!‘, which dealt with some of the parts of the Qatar 2022 allegations. In there I refer to several links that give us the initial important quotes: “The 2026 World Cup television rights in North America were awarded without a bid to Fox and Telemundo, who had complained about the Qatar schedule change, for which they hold the broadcast rights“, “Six European federations demanded Fifa clean up its act. Three top commercial backers, Coca-Cola, Adidas and McDonald’s, did so too” and “Of the 11 men who voted on 2018 and 2022 World Cups who are no longer on Fifa’s executive committee, only five provided answers to Garcia’s inquiry. Two could not be located at all“. This is how the sport becomes a joke and a mere vassal for corruption and commercial exploitation. Now consider the fact that a person gets the ‘honour’ to become an official, elected to give a vote on who would be the best nation to represent soccer, there are not small people, they tend to be directly linked to captains of industry, the kind that are on the Forbes 500 list. So when we see ‘Two could not be located at all‘, my pondering becomes ‘Who got them assassinated?’ You see assassinating a person is simple, getting rid of the body evenly so, the trick is to know the rules of evidence and not leave any for the prosecution. The Qatar allegations implied a new shot to a billion dollar industry. If these people ask questions, YOU WILL BE FOUND!

The entire mess left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

The BBC comment (at http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-31605149/2022-world-cup-scudamore-very-disappointed-with-decision), shows bigotry and greed all in one setting, with “Premier League Chief Executive Richard Scudamore has said that he is “very disappointed” with the recommendation of a Fifa taskforce to hold the 2022 World Cup in Qatar in November and December. Mr Scudamore told the BBC that the European leagues felt let down, both by Fifa and Uefa“, it is bigotry because it shows plain intolerance for those in different time zones and seasons. And these people are back in the game now!

In addition, there are still issues with the Sunday Times on that. At the time, also quoted by CNN (as stated at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/07/28/the-old-reasons/), in ‘The Old Reasons‘ we see “We’ve seen millions of documents that prove without a shadow of doubt that corruption was involved. There is clear evidence linking payments to people who have influence over the decision of who hosted the World Cup“, were these people ever subpoenaed, was the evidence, if not, were the editors prosecuted in any way shape or form? No, they were not and nothing was given or achieved. Some of the players understood that the price might be too high. As the FIFA got rid of their corrupt bladder, or is that Sepp Blatter? We now see a second push. Suddenly FIFA found a former president to fall on his sword. Consider that NOW; we see that there are allegations that Nicholas Sarkozy took bribes regarding Qatar 2022. The timing is almost flawless, you see, this will not be a long event, some of the players like the Lard dealer McDonald’s and his clown, The fuzzy dilution to sugar, namely Coca Cola and credit hog system Visa are all about maximising their potential, that is not possible in Qatar, and as such they need it changed and it can only be done if the switch is in weeks, not months. I reckon that these players will ‘suddenly’ give loads of support to whomever takes over, which might be likely the US. I am speculating that if Qatar is suddenly deprived for other reasons, we will see that Atlanta will become the winner (Morocco was never a realistic player on their bid), and guess what, Atlanta will within a few months claim that they can push the event ahead and would be able to get 2 years ahead of schedule. The one nation that has been unable to keep time lines and budgets for DECADES is now suddenly achieve the ability to be ahead of schedule. Now, this is pure speculation, yet in light of ‘sudden allegations‘ which implies an actual need for evidence, evidence that was never available in 2014 and 2015 is suddenly there in 2017? That is beside the joke that the Sunday Times (mainly their editor Martin Ivens) has proven to be with ‘We’ve seen millions of documents‘, I doubt that, I very much if he even looked at 1% of that amount of documents in his studies to get to his A levels, so there is that!

My anger is not about him, I don’t know him. It is the blatant level of facilitation that is shown towards big business and media needs, the sports fan be damned. The media REFUSED to do anything about Sepp Blatter for the longest of times. They did whatever they could to minimise the people of being exposed to Andrew Jennings, the investigative reporter in all this. When you Google ‘Andrew Jennings‘ and FIFA in Google, see how much news comes up, see how the media skates around the central person who exposed the levels of corruption that FIFA had embraced, you’ll find very little. These are part of the shifting sands. I reckon that the entire Saudi-Qatar pressures have not helped any. It merely opened the door for big business to see if they can push towards their advantage.

It is the Australian Financial Review that gives us “Sarkozy’s lawyer, Thierry Herzog, denied any wrongdoing by his client and pointed out that Garcia’s report stated “no evidence was found” linking Platini’s vote with any investments. A source claimed the investigation was “politically motivated”. A spokeswoman for the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office said that they were “carrying out two separate preliminary inquiries” into the Veolia deal and the Qatar World Cup bid“, in this there are two parts. The question why there is a political motivation regarding a former president (there might be, I just wonder how political it could be). The second part is that there had been several issues with the Garcia report first it was withheld, then there was only a summary and after that he leaves. Several sources gave us “Head of the investigatory chamber of FIFA’s Ethics Committee, Michael Garcia, has resigned from his post after FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee dismissed his appeal against the summary of the 430-page report that Hans Joachim Eckert, head of the Ethics Committee’s adjudicatory chamber, issued on 13 November 2014.In the appeal, Garcia calls Eckert’s summary of his report on the 2018/2022 World Cup bidding process “incomplete and erroneous”.“, which happened around the 17th of December 2014. So now the report is merely used, merely observed or neither? In all this Joachim Eckert has played a role to some extent, the summary can be seen as evidence on that. In all usage there are several more questions and we had seen a lot of mentions at the time. The fact that Joachim Eckert was pretty much thrown out of the building in May 2017 implies that there is a chance he had the option, and opportunity (a speculative statement) to ‘foul’ plenty of other parts, giving more and more questions regarding the actions of Qatar, I am willing to go as far as to state that none of the evidence should be allowed into any court or be used in any decision until a board that includes Andrew Jennings and Michael J. Garcia and that board would have to investigate every piece of evidence offered. In addition, if any evidence is found that gives rise (not necessarily proves) that McDonald’s, Coca Cola and Visa had any hand in any of these events, they must be banned as FIFA advertiser and sponsor for 15 years, see if that refocusses their need for greed!

I admit that my emotions are getting the better of me, and I also agree that this is not a good thing. The shifting sands of greed and corruption have gone too far. It is bad enough to see corporate greed in your almost daily life. It is quite another when the sport has become so commercialised that corporations and the media decide on how the sport is played beyond the levels they were already doing it nowadays. You see it is the Financial Times who gave us some of the goods yesterday (at https://www.ft.com/content/36f8ceca-76d2-11e7-90c0-90a9d1bc9691). In this we might notice ‘Gulf media unleashes war of words with Qatar‘, and in addition we see ‘Saudi-led alliance weaponises satellite channels after exhausting diplomatic arsenal‘, yet someone has been considering the longer play and the impact that depriving Qatar 2022 might be. I think that this was short sighted by those players. I always believed that sports could unite disagreeing parties, pushing sport away limits the options for all parties in this. I also believe that the players in Saudi Arabia made an error, a serious one. When we consider “Riyadh and its allies escalated the crisis so rapidly that they have few left themselves with few realistic options to apply more pressure on Qatar, the top exporter of liquefied natural gas” as well as “Some Saudi journalists say they have come under government pressure to criticise Qatar. One Saudi editor described how officials have been using a mobile phone messaging group to instruct journalists on how to shape coverage and what stories to focus on. “These are orders, not suggestions,” he says“. The issue is seen in other ways, not the ways stated in the article. In this Ahmed Al Omran made the flaw that he did not consider (my personal view). You see, I never much looked into the matter of Saudi Television, mainly because I do not speak the language (or live there) and I reckon that the stations do not come with subtitles, which is fair enough. So when I quote the Wiki statement “State-run television consists of four channels: Saudi One, the main channel in Arabic launched in 1963; Saudi Two, an English language channel; Al Riyadiah, a sports channel; and the news channel Al Ekhbariya. Government-owned terrestrial television has changed little since 1969” that was what I expected to see. Even as Saudi Arabia has over 30 million people, the idea of these stations was not shocking in any way. The UK merely had BBC one and two for a much longer time frame. Yet, then I looked up and found MBC, the Middle East Broadcasting Center, when we look at that we see a lot more. At http://www.mbc.net/en.html (there is an English version) we see something more commercial looking, we see opportunity for Saudi Arabia. Not the mention of “how to shape coverage and what stories to focus on. “These are orders, not suggestions,”“, that is where the flaw is. To change it Saudi Arabia should have been creating its own Al-Jazeera, they forgot the truth and freedom of the press is the double edged sword that works for any nation. As people decide to censor and shape news, not report it, they become the one not being watched. If exposure is power than exposing media corruption is the strongest most powerful exposure we know. It is the kryptonite against governments that play the crooked media game, often the governments are no longer in charge, the media decides and they tend to decide whatever their sponsors and stakeholders tell them to. We have seen that time and time again, I have reported (read: blogged) on this again and again. In all this, the level of exposure is the calibre that turns any BB gun into the deadly weapon it needs to be. So as we see an escalating play using peaceful means, the players forgot that there are many more millions watching and some do not know all the facts, I reckon that there are many in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt are only apprised of the Al-Jazeera view. I am not stating it is a wrong or incorrect view. Yet the reality is that there are always three sides to a story, your side, their side and the truth, because the truth when spoken (or written) is always smitten with elements of compassion, valor or honesty. We see this in ‘A man threw another man into the sand‘, yet when we realise that the truth unspoken was that the man saw the scorpion, or he saw that his bisht caught fire, only then do we see that one man did not throw, the other man was not thrown. We see that there was an act to protect and safe a life. It is a very simplified example, but there tends to be points of view in any truth, the question is which exposure matters? Al-Jazeera grew as there was no alternative. We now know that there could be competition, as the west in equal measure have grown tired and distrustful of Fox News, CNN, TRT World and a few others, we see that there are still places to grow. Yet in this ‘These are orders, not suggestions’ will not carry weight in the visibility of any news channel.

The shifting sands are treacherous and offer dangers, yet in equal measure they offer opportunity to those who see them as such. We see how large corporations are taking whatever steps they can, try to get every opportunity, whilst hoping to manoeuvre their competitors into a place where they step and the sands drown them. That is the game and how it is played, yet at times we see that large corporations have been taking their game too far and as such, when they trespass on the things we hold for granted and holy, than we see the injustice and we demand clarity. In this large corporations try to make the moves that remain always one step away from that. The fact that we see these attempts against Qatar 2022, has nothing to do with Qatar, they have to do with the process they set up, large corporations demand that they win every time, so now, when they will not win, but at best play even, now we see the petulant children they are and the consequences of enabling them to the extent that they have been. Many (not just me) are upset. For the most they are not all soccer fans. Some merely want facilitation of as many games as possible, every day another match and as there is an overlap, some of the participators now get upset, they go into tantrum mode. Yet the realisation that you grew the exploitation game with 209 FIFA members, did they not expect that they would get the losing ticket at least once? So when it is not Qatar, but Samoa or Cuba? What happens then? What happens when Mauritius gets the sponsors it needs to host, how will that upset everything? This is the part that everyone ignored, because those nations could not afford to host, yet Qatar was another matter altogether. This is the first time that the exploitative engine that is FIFA, saw the cogs they designed work against them. Now there is an issue and we see that several players are in a state of panic, there were no options but to lose this one round. The pressures through Saudi Arabia have changed panic into opportunity; they just need the right person to fall on their sword. The question is how willing is Nicholas Sarkozy in all this and who is the party that voiced the allegations? Where is their evidence? These are all questions that are more likely than not to come with false answers, that is, until the games are done, we can expect some sudden revelation, humble apologies and carefully phrased denials and innuendo from politicians and media soon thereafter (likely at the immediate same time). Their question would be closed soon after the need of their assassinations. Oh, my bad! I meant to say: “The involved parties could not be located for comments and response in any way shape or form“, apparently that is how events are shaped with and because of large corporations.

 

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The Dangerous Zuckerberg Classification

Even as Microsoft seems to be quiet and in denial of what is uploaded without consent, we have a second issue that is floating to the surface of our life. Now, first of all, this link is not what we should consider a news site. What came from Forward.com is also known as The Jewish Daily Forward, published by Samuel Norich and has Jane Eisner as the editor. Its origins goes back to 1897, so it has been around for a while. They are not some new wannabe-on-the-block. It is an American newspaper published in New York City for a Jewish-American audience, and there are plenty of those around, so this is a valid niche publication. Yet no more than a day ago, it did something dangerous, perhaps unintentional and perhaps it is a sign of the times, but it remains a dangerous path to take.

This path all started when Mark Zuckerberg had an idea. He created this place called Facebook, you might have heard of it. Within there we get to ‘like’ things. Now, we can do this to complement the poster, we can do this because the subject interests us, or when we use the machine correctly, Facebook would send us more stuff from topics that we like. This already shows three different approaches to ‘like’ and when Forward starts the article with: “Canadian Mosque Shooter Suspect ‘Liked’ Israel Defense Forces, Marine LePen“, it basically shot itself in the foot.

This is part of the problems we are all facing, because the world is changing and it has shifted the values that we have given words over time and shifted them into concepts of what it might be. We see the same shift in the Business Intelligence industry as tools like SPSS (read: IBM Statistics) are no longer used to get the significant statistics needed and the ‘sellers’ of the story that the client wants told rely on tools like Q Software to tell the story that matches the need. The problem is that this story reflects what is offered and from that there is more than one identifier (weight being one) that the reflection is less accurate and often warped to fit the need of the receiver of these data files. Meaning that the actual meaning unlikely to be there, making a correct assessment not possible and any action based upon it, without scrutiny will come at a hefty price for the decision makers down the track.

So when we see “Canadian Mosque Shooter Suspect ‘Liked’ Israel Defense Forces, Marine LePen” we need to be cautious at best, at worst we are being told a fair bit of rubbish! Now we also get “Authorities claim that Alexander Bissonnette, a student at the city’s Laval University, perpetrated the attack, calling in from a bridge near the mosque to report himself“, which could be very true, but it also averts the first signs we see of ‘Lone Wolf‘, because a real lone wolf will go into the night if he or she is lucky without a trace and plans his/her next attack. This one attack person seems to be seeking the limelight as I personally see it. For what reason is at present unknown. Perhaps it is about fame, perhaps the evidence will find evidence of mental health issues. Time and the proper people will need to assess this. We see this in the picture of a tweet by @Rita_Katz when she states ‘making Jihadi ties unlikely‘, which could be true, however I got there via another route. What is interesting is that when we look at the Toronto Star we see “Rosalie Bussieres, 23, lives across the street. She told the Star her older brother was in school with Bissonnette. He was “very solitary” and “very antisocial,” said Bussieres. Bissonnette studied at the Université Laval, according to a statement released by the university late Monday. He was a student in the department of political science and anthropology, according to Jean-Claude Dufour, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences

This is interesting as those in political science tend to be decently social minded, so there is a lot more under the water than we think there is and the fact that Forward only gave us the likes, means that there is a part that they either ignored or overlooked. You see, what else did his Facebook account have to say?

The Toronto Star gives us a lot more “He was on both the Sainte-Foy and Université Laval chess club“, with Forward we got more on Rita Katz. “Rita Katz is the Executive Director and founder of the SITE Intelligence Group” is one, and the next part is the one we should consider: “the world’s leading non-governmental counterterrorism organization“, as well as “Ms. Katz has tracked and analyzed global terrorism and jihadi networks for nearly two decades, and is well-recognized as one of the most knowledgeable and reliable experts in the field“. Which makes me wonder why it is the Toronto Star who gives us the part I did not initially showed “with his twin brother, said Université Laval professor Jean Sévigny, who said he knew Bissonnette and his brother through the club“. So how come The Forward didn’t have the goods on that?

Yet they did give us “François Deschamps, member of Quebec’s Refugee Welcome Committee, told the La Presse newspaper that he recognized Bissonette because the man had often left hateful comments on the group’s page. “I flipped when I saw him,” he said. “We observe much of what the extreme right says and does. He’s made statements of that sort on our Facebook page. He also attacked women’s rights,” Deschamps recalled“. The full story is at http://forward.com/news/361614/canadian-mosque-shooter-suspect-liked-israel-defense-forces-marine-lepen/

So as we are invited to judge on likes, I see a hole of intelligence. How many friends? How many clubs? Was he linked to Chess groups? Was he linked to his Twin Brother, and was his twin brother on Facebook? There is no one mentioning whether the twin brother was reached and what he had to say (if he had been willing to talk), which he might not be willing to do and that is perfectly understandable. It is just such a weird experience to see a total lack of effort in that regard (especially by the press).

Forward is telling its readers a story, yet the Toronto Star (at https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/01/30/six-dead-two-arrested-after-shooting-at-quebec-city-mosque.html) seems to offer a lot more. In that view ABC news in Australia blunders (as I personally see it) even more when we see (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-31/quebec-city-mosque-shooting-lone-wolf-attack-student-charged/8225294), ‘Police charge ‘lone wolf’ student suspected of terrorist attack‘, so what evidence is there? What is the definition of a Lone Wolf? Perhaps we need to agree on the shifting sands and make sure it is sand and not quicksand. They both might contain the same 4 letters, but the experience will be mind-bogglingly different.

So as we now see that the US is using this attack to justify its actions, we need to take heed on the dangers we invite. The first is like the attack in Sydney, Australia at Martin Place, on December 15-16 2014. We again see a link to extremism that is incorrect and misleading. Yes, the act was extreme, but we have seen for decades on how mental health patients are very able to act in extreme ways. You only need to see the footage from Paris attacks to see how actions in places like Nairobi and Paris to clearly see that they are different from events in places like Martin Place and perhaps the Quebec Mosque.

We can argue on how correct the FBI setting is, yet it is an important one! “Terrorism is the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives“. So what were the social and political objectives of Alexander Bissonnette?

There is a lot we don’t know and won’t know. Yet at present Forward is presenting the dangers that social media rely on, they rely on quick and classifiable actions and label them in the most general way possible. The dangers that we see in the Zuckerberg classification is that it relies on the quick acceptance of the ‘audience’ yet in the same way the danger is that the ‘like’ itself becomes a problem. You see, too many elements are about specifics and as we see less and less, we see that people in general will start to rely on an aggregation of ‘reportable elements’, not even on an aggregation of facts.

Heavy.com, another place that is not really a news site gives us a whole range of additional ‘facts’. They refer to Reuters, who reported (at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-mosque-shooting-idUSKBN15E04S), where we get “Initially, the mosque president said five people were killed and a witness said up to three gunmen had fired on about 40 people inside the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Centre. Police said only two people were involved in the attack“, in that part the Lone Wolf no longer applies and it is either ‘lone Wolves’ or something else. Forward however gave us “Police investigating the shooting at a Quebec mosque that killed six have narrowed down their list of suspects to one man” Yet 5 hours after the initial message Reuters (at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-mosque-shooting-toll-idUSKBN15E0F6) gives us “Police declined to discuss possible motives for the shooting at the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec. They consider this a lone wolf situation,” a Canadian source familiar with the situation said“, which is a statement that should be under some scrutiny to say the least.

All this links to an event one year ago, which was covered in the Tech Times, where we see ‘Sheryl Sandberg Sees Facebook Likes As Powerful Weapon Against ISIS, Other Extremists‘ with the quote “Rather than scream and protest, they got 100,000 people to Like the page, who did not Like the page and put messages of tolerance on the page, so when you got to the page, it changed the content and what was a page filled with hatred and intolerance was then tolerance and messages of hope“. This is now a linked issue. You see the part ‘they got 100,000 people to Like the page, who did not Like the page‘, this implies that data was intervened with, so if that is happening, how reliable was the ‘like’ part in Forward.com?

The fact that papers all over the place are trying to ‘cash’ in on this by adding a page with ‘the latest facts‘ or ‘what we know at present‘, like The Globe and Mail, whilst showing an avalanche of news on the matter. Actually, the page The Globe and Mail brought was pretty good. It is Heavy.com who does something similar, yet at that point they move into the ‘5 things you need to know‘ mode and give us a stream of links. Links to classmates and how they thought. Yet, are these facts correct and complete? Heavy links to the Globe and Mail, and in addition gives us the part we needed to hear: “He also likes U.S. Senator John McCain, a moderate Republican who has opposed Trump on some issues, President George W. Bush, the Canadian New Democratic Party and late Canadian politician Jack Layton, who was a leader of the left-wing NDP, so the likes do not shed much light on Bissonnette’s beliefs“, Forward.com, and as such linked SITE Intelligence Group had nothing on any of that in the article. So anyone relying on Forward is now missing out of essential facts. In equal measure, the fact that many of these items are not voiced by other papers make the statements of Heavy.com equally an issue until confirmed.

And finally there is the impact of how the like was obtained. Plenty of sources started with a few ‘like to win’ campaigns. How many people have clicked on a like and forgot about doing so? Yet in this light, the ‘like’ is implied to have a much larger impact, much larger than the user considers or even comprehends. The places using those likes for telling a story have left that concept behind, giving us unclean and incorrect data, which now implies that any conclusion based on it is pretty much useless.

Be aware, I am not stating, or accusing these posters of fake news, yet there is the option that some will see it as such. As I stated at the beginning regarding Forward.com, their origin goes back to 1897, which means that they have been around for some time. So why were so many facts missed and why did Forward link this suspect to both the Israel Defense Forces and Marine LePen, especially in light of what others reported?

What is not related to the Facebook side is the news that the initial news of two shooters (up to three) is now reduced to just the one. When a witness states up to three, there is a clarity to assume (to some degree) that there was more than one shooter (which is a speculation from my side). So what happened to the second one? Just be aware that there might just have been one shooter, yet the documentation we are seeing implies more than one.

So how is this a Zuckerberg thing?

Well, apart from him inventing Facebook and bringing about the evolution of Social media, his ‘like’ is almost like his ‘poke’, they are Social media tools, yet the value the users tend to give it is different, it is even debatable whether the users at large could ever agree on the usage of it, making it a transient value. A shifted number whilst the contemplators cannot agree how the value is to be used, so the usage of ‘like’ in the way it was used in by the press becomes a debate as well. Because what we like implies where we are. That is not a given, even better it is incomplete. You see, you can state your like, but as you cannot state a dislike, we end up having no real comparison. It is the old debate of Yes and No dichotomies, if you did not say ‘yes’, there is no validity that you stated ‘no’, because it might have been overlooked, or it was the fourth option in a list of three. There is a decent abundance of reasons to take that point of view.

fox_poll

Let me show this in another way. The Fox poll of the Refugee Ban (see image). We see the full story at http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/01/29/poll-nearly-half-america-voters-support-trumps-immigration-order, but what we do not see are the specifics on what would have given this value. You see, we do not know the number of responses, where it was done and when it was done. It is at https://poll.qu.edu/ that we learn parts of the facts, “From January 5 – 9, Quinnipiac University surveyed 899 voters nationwide with a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points“, can anyone explain to me how Fox was so stupid to use a base of 899 to set a national value? Doesn’t the United States have around 320 million people? And as we realise that there 50 states, how can 18 people be significant on a view in state, and this is before we consider whether the use of gender was normalised, because men and women tend to feel different on emotional issues and is there is one element in abundance on issues concerning refugees it will be emotion.

 

So in all this, we see recurring waves of generalisation and trivialisation. Mark Zuckerberg is not to blame, but he is a factor. In addition there is an overwhelming lack in educating its customer base (by both Fox and Facebook), so we need to consider the dangers and well as the irrelevance of these ‘revelations‘. It is in this scope and in the application as seen used where classification becomes dangerous and a danger, because how will the people around a person react when they see that this person likes something people find offensive (and that is when we keep it to simple things like actors, actresses and politicians)? This will impact on the like as there will be peer pressure, so how can this Zuckerberg element be undermined? That is the actual question!

Is it as simple as condemning the press for using the fact? Is it as simple as giving out complete information? The Zuckerberg Classifications are here to stay, there is nothing against it and the fact that they are is in no way negative, but the usage of it leaves a lot to be desired and as such it is a misleading one, other than ‘this person clicked on the like button of this page, for reasons unknown’, giving it any more value is as meaningless as setting the national acceptance of a refugee ban based on 899 unquantifiable votes which represents at best 0.00028% of the United States population. If any vote was incorrectly vetted, the number will go down fast making the poll even more useless.

 

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