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October 29, 2023 · 00:05

War never changes

I was about to look into something that bothered me in Saudi Arabia when news hit me. That news stopped me in my tracks. You see it is 15 years ago today that Bethesda launched Fallout 3. I had never forgotten about that game, I even missed it to some degree. Fallout 3 after Oblivion was a massive step forward and together they were the start of Skyrim. As Bethesda became a Microsoft subsidiary, Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration became lost to them and I started to push that game in parts towards public domain. But there was one part that was never part of this. The introduction and Fallout 3 reminded me on how important the introduction was. The entire introduction is seen in Vault 101. A simple but strong setting to get you into the game, to start the narrative and to give away a clue or two. I had forgotten about that part, I had forgotten on the importance of a start. In Dune (the book) the beginning is given to us as “A beginning is the time for the most delicate care that the balances are correct.” In the 1984 movie we hear “A beginning is a very delicate time” both are correct. I had never forgotten either, but I see that I overlooked parts of that. I didn’t in the movie I create ‘How to assassinate a politician’ or the TV series ‘Keno Diastima’ in both those settings the introduction is the start and the beginning are the connected prequels. There I have that space, in gaming you do not. In Restoration the game in the very beginning reflects back to Oblivion, a game too often overlooked. Bethesda did a really good job (until they became part of Microsoft). 

As such there were solutions. As a separate game it becomes a different puppy and that had be going. The entire setting is no longer on the elder scrolls list, as a separate game you need to set a different schooling and I did a dissimilar introduction, but now it becomes a much larger station. So what happens when we create not one, but three introductions? When we create introductions for the choices made we get a new gaming setting. We create a smaller infusion of longevity and that is the first step to LTG (Long Term Gaming) that is the stuff that streamers (Amazon, Tencent Technologies) require. Streaming relies on at least 2-3 LTG games and Microsoft has two, when we take those options away by creating a real LTG, we get a new setting, we deprive Microsoft of revenue, something they desperately need after spending $69,000,000,000. Soon they will be haemorrhaging all over the place and denied revenue is one, the other I keep for later. Those two will push Microsoft over the edge and I am driven to that because they invaded our safe gaming space by pushing THEIR needs on all gamers at the expense of everyone else. That angered me, they did nothing wrong in the legal sense, but they did in the spiritual sense and when Tencent technologies and Indies programming for them get that IP (as I am making it public domain) the Game pass loses value, especially as they denied certain games to be there in year one. The greedy will be served, that is what I always believed and now I am making it a reality. And as Microsoft seemingly invested $13,000,000,000 in genAI there shores are stacking up and a few more bad news (like missed revenue and less customers) will set their doomsday clock to 0:01, which works well for me in this case. As I said once before, I will hand my IP to Saudi Arabia for 35% of the value, before I will let Microsoft near it for 165% of that value and making a lot of it public domain works well for me, I might not get a dime of that, but Microsoft cannot make exclusive IP claims when it was published and that is the part everyone forgets about. You see “Software patents for computer-implemented inventions are treated as typical patent applications and must pass the same tests of novelty and inventiveness.” You see, when something is on the internet or a blog, it fails the novelty test. Microsoft will have to share space and cannot claim anything. I open the space for indie developers and they can go wherever they want to go and with thousands of indie developers in China, Tencent technologies will have an advantage and that mean more trouble for Microsoft.

They were warned, but they were eager to ignore everyone to the request of their board of directors. In the end they lose 5 times over. Apple took the tablet, Amazon the Web systems (AWS), Sony took the console, Tencent technologies is about to take streaming services (GaaS) and Google is biting into their office revenue (not as much as I hoped, but still). Bleeding on 5 sides and I will (hopefully) add two points of pressure. In the end their $82 billion investment will come up short. Yes GenAI is all the rage, but it needs a pedestal to grow from and that pedestal is vanishing fast. I wonder which banks will buckle first. Wall Street is at present obsessed with AI, but soon they will realise that this setting needs a platform top start from and the Microsoft platform is waning that much is a given all over. I wonder how long they will be able to keep the spin up. At some point these banks want evidence and if FTX is anything to go by, a lot of banks are starting to get worried, not in the least by my speculated weights of banks with too much US treasury bonds. We see the news on how 10-year treasury  bonds are a green light, but are they really? When that goose sparks a lot of people will be without savings and I fear that that moment is not too far away, giving more added pressure for Microsoft to perform. Consider that the ‘investments’ requires them to make AT LEAST 4 billion just to pay for the interest. Now consider that the media gives us that they made 198.3 billion USD, you would think that this is a no brainer and I would agree. Now consider that they lost 5 times over (6 if you include Bing) to competitors. They are still making some money, but the numbers aren’t adding up. Bing currently has a market share of 3.02%, which is nothing. There are too many cost issues that are not registering as I personally see it. So when we look at the whole picture, they are seemingly bleeding all over and the numbers cause me to show question marks. So am I wrong? I could be, but Microsoft has become too big, everyone is shouting against Amazon and Google, but they stay silent against Microsoft and they just got a new bigger player. 

War never changes the premise is sound, but you win the war by changing the stage the other one is stepping on, or you diffuse its support systems and the others all forgot one thing, the population is a support system in this war and Tencent Technologies is about to come into this field, Amazon had options for several years. They squandered it on I know not what. Now Tencent Technologies optionally with Huawei will get a larger stage to work from, all whilst the Microsoft stage is shrinking. As the middle East turned to China, Microsoft lost even more and that is what too many are trying to be in denial of. I wonder what Microsoft loses by the start of 2024, it will be something but I have no idea what they will lose at present. 

Enjoy the weekend.

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October 26, 2023 · 09:25

The case file of linked technologies

That was the setting I was in yesterday. I love linked technologies. My first real interaction was connecting my Gameboy Advance to my Gamecube and in a game, the game boy was the map to the game I was playing on the Gameboy. This was neat (dorky but accurate). In the past I wrote about parts of this, but in a slightly different setting. In this case I am in the process of remastering IP (making it new or optionally innovative IP). The stage is that a game (or games) use a connection to something like ChatGPT to create case files based on writing styles like Chandler, Le Carre (an essential writer in my view), Desmond Bagley and Alistair McLean. That setting as the case file is merely a short story will not impede on the original writers. 

So why does this matter?
You see, games tend to have the EXACT SAME narrative. This is not on the games, but evolution is where you could create it. You see, even as Restoration has some alterations towards the narrative, this game requires a different approach to be a bigger hit. You see, the group of people who are gamers and are also bookworms (or enthusiast readers) is rather large. Another cluster that Amazon, Google and Microsoft missed. As such Amazon with the Luna and Kindle will have an advantage. That is until Tencent Technologies creates such a setting, or partners with Alibaba or Amazon to do the same thing. You see, what happens when a game you love creates (through ChatGPT, or an alike) create a case-file (read: narrative) that you can read and send to your friends, or place on your profile so that others can read these narratives. That makes the ChatGPT essential. Thousands of case files, similar but not exact copies. That create new waves, new interactions and new fans. All options that the larger three missed (a few times over). Now we get the narrative to a remaster all missed. 

You see, streaming games need to evolve and bring more to the game. They will never replace the Nintendo or the Sony consoles, but they will be a brother to the other two and that is where the larger gains can be made and that is where I am looking and the larger three are all missing the boat. Well, Google dumped the Stadia, so they aren’t even in the game anymore. But the larger setting with Kindle can create a double whammy, especially when you consider how small some margins are, that sets up all kinds of new connections and create new evolutions in gaming and I am all about evolving gaming, as I get better or more inclusive games, me, myself, I and all other gamers win and winning is the marker we all accept.

All innovative directions the big three either ignored, rejected or never saw and it is not about the Kindle. You could set this to a PDF. The setting is that you add to any profile to make the profile more, not more advertising, but more profile we all win and that is the second tier of creating waves. Let the game push all sides of gaming, not merely the game, or the narrative. As I personally see it another side ignored by the two remaining players (Amazon and Tencent Technologies). Now to be fair Tencent is new to this, but they are more and more in a position to take up a massive chunk of gaming marketshare and if they do it well, it is fine by me. I as a gamer win (other gamers too) and that is what I am after. More and better games, not Microsoft or Ubisoft iterations, but more and better games. 

So whilst we see iteration after iteration, gamers hunger for more and that time is already now. So, lets see what time and innovation will be brought to gamers and readers alike.

Enjoy the day before Friday.

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October 20, 2023 · 23:36

Elle Tea Gee

LTG or Long Term Gaming was today’s topic. It was a tweet that brought me to this point. It wasn’t entirely that tweet. When I created the foundation of Restoration replayability was the setting I focussed on.

As such the image made me giggle but then I considered the impact of what could be and that is going to be all the rage in streaming games, or GaaS as some techno dudes set their cap.

You see, would it not be an idea to have a blend of iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 when you play that game in 2024? And I am not merely talking cosmetic. You see in a game like Watchdogs 2, the phones could have additional power and optionally additional protection. Sneaking into a parking lot (one of the WD2 missions) could make it a lot more challenging. That setting is overlooked. It is not the fault of the creators, this setting was never an option in gaming. But now it is possible. For example in Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, some of the elite guards could in 2024 be sporting Body armour by manufacturer XTEK. You see, games never had the additional parameters, but the new streaming consoles will be different, gaming will be taken to a whole new level making it essential that games are upgraded, as will be the need for more and better equipment. Before you start going on ‘that’s too hard’ consider that we see now what was never an option in the Commodore Amiga or the Atari ST. Games and systems evolve and now we get a setting where one system (a streaming system) will add new dimensions of gaming. I will not part with my PS5, I love it too much, but having a streaming system next to it will become more and more commonplace. Now these evolutions are not a given. Assassins Creed Mirage will not be impacted, it plays 1200 years ago. But there are plenty of games where if COULD apply. Newer speedboats, new model cars, new model nearly everything and there is a larger setting.

On February 13th 2022 I wrote “Just like the stage of combining deeper machine learning to a lens (or google glasses), a camera lens that offer direct translations, and the fun part is we can select if that is pushed through to film, or merely seen by us, now consider filming in Japan with machine learning and deeper machine learning auto translating ANY sign it sees” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/13/looky-looky/) in the article ‘Looky Looky’ Now we see advertisements by Google iPhone doing that very thing. Another example where my creativity trumped a big tech company, in this case Google. Gaming was about pushing boundaries and it could do so again, not at the behest of Microsoft when they finish some new piece of software, but ahead of that software. People like Sid Meier danced on the edge of the CBM64 with Pirates in 1987. He did what even Commodore did not consider possible and he was not alone. We need to push art back to that stage and streaming systems are the most logical choice here. A setting where long term gaming could evolve and for the streamers (Amazon and Tencent Technologies) that stage needs to be explored sooner rather than later. When gamers see that they get a new dimension in gameplay. They will come and tip their toes in the water. Gamers always do and that is why Sony was scared of the SEGA Dreamcast. 

Soul Calibur was something that no one had, not even Sony. SEGA pushed the envelope and of course Xbox360, PS3 and PS4 had their own innovative successes. Now it is time for a new level of innovation and it is my believe that streamers could be holding that trump card. How players like Ubisoft will go about it? This is anyones guess, but I reckon that a player like Guerrilla Software and Santa Monica Studio are looking into that chapter right now, because the first one in will get the larger slice of pizza, that has always been a given and it is one of the reasons I oppose Microsoft invasion of the safe space that we gamers had. It was not about making gaming for everyone, it was pure and simple greed and greed will diminish a game EVERY TIME. There is no exception to that rule, which is why I am making a lot of my thoughts public domain. I hope to inspire and spark independent game makers. Yes, I had a dollar sign on my head as well (a person needs to eat and pay rent) but a lot is already PD here, so I will never see a penny of that myself. 

So, whilst I am ‘evangelising’ Long Term Gaming, the setting in a GaaS (Gaming as a Service) is not new and it will exist and it should exist. Game Pass was a brilliant idea. It was Microsoft’s decision to not include several games until 2024, but there could be a legal reason (I do not know). 

What matters is that I just had an additional idea that no game is sporting at present, that is not on those games. They were limited by hardware. With streamers it is a lot less limiting on deployment and physical copies. It is a different animal where we get a new stage, a new kind of food and a new kind of animal, but not one we have ever seen before and that makes it exciting.

Enjoy the weekend. Down here Saturday is a mere 1827 seconds away.

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October 19, 2023 · 14:01

The definition of insanity

We have all heard this one. The setting that people doing exactly the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different outcome. A patent clerk named Alfred came up with it according to a fair amount of people, but here you would be wrong. It originated somewhere around 1980 apparently by Narcotics Anonymous. The US government has taken this setting of insanity to heart as we can see. 

Not the first but we get at some point that the US government was stopping Android towards China, Huawei especially. The consequence was that Huawei created HarmonyOS. They are now at 4.0.0.121 which is available in 77 languages, so not just in China. It might not have the following that makes it a threat to Google and it likely won’t be for years to come. But the stage has been created. To give some kind of relativity “Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group claimed that HarmonyOS had reached 300 million smartphones and other smart devices, including 200 million devices in the ecosystem and 100 million third-party consumer products from industry partners.” The setting that it is now in 300,000,000 smartphones and smart devices implies that those machines are NOT using Google’s Android. Nice example of stupidity US government.

So here is the prequel, now we get to the main event dished to us by the BBC. Here (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67141987) we are given ‘Beijing unhappy at latest wave of US restrictions’. The setting sounds one way, but when you get to “The measures target chipmaking tools as well as advanced chips, including two from market leader Nvidia. The move is being seen as an attempt to close loopholes that became apparent after an initial wave of chip controls last October. America said the measures were designed to prevent China from receiving cutting-edge technologies that it could use to strengthen its military, especially in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).” So stupidity continues in a few ways. You see AI does not yet exist and the one player most likely to push that into completion is IBM. And for the statement “prevent China from receiving cutting-edge technologies” is pretty much a joke. China already has cutting-edge technologies. Huawei is more advanced then anything the west has and we see that in action all over the Middle East. The second part is that Nvidia is a market leader, but it became one through business based cutting corners. This is not negativity, what they did was sound, clear and business based. But there is a downside for the US (yet again), like HarmonyOS, China can create its own chips. Granted that it will not be as powerful as Nvidia but it will work. And there is a second tier to all this now. 

For example the PNY NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation Graphics Card is next level shit, we can all agree that this is the case and for $15,790 it is all yours. Yet, who could afford that? Now China gets to be in the place to create a competitor that can only do 90% of what this card could do, but for $3,500. The bulk of people who cannot afford the Nvidia card will jump at the Chinese option and then what? This is not some speculation, it is a given certainty. The US is throttling whatever they can and alternatives become a reality. First HarmonyOS, then we see that Saudi Arabia has the fastest 5G by leaps (over 700% faster than 5G in the USA) and that list merely becomes bigger, all whilst they set the stage for others to take over marketshare. Have they forgotten the harsh lesson they saw in 1985-1995? They blocked Russia from getting PC’s and other hardware and as a result Toshiba became a world player with an annual revenue surpassing ¥158.94 billion (2021). Marketshare lost to Compaq, HP, Dell, and so on. So, what will the US do when China stops exports to the USA? Cry? 

America thinks it is a global player, but that is no longer the case and their 325 million people includes well over 50% who cannot afford any of it. That gives China the option to expand into Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The two richest nations (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) are now in a stage where they give more and more expansion options to China. I like the comparison that the West Wing gave us “America designed a pen that works in outer space, it costed them millions. Russia? They used a pencil” That stage is returning to us again and again. China will create new processors and through that new cloud systems and notebooks. In the meantime as people need to get cheaper stuff will end up with Chinese hardware. Europe has roughly 750,000,000 people, twice the population of America. Africa has a population of 1,215,000,000 people and the Middle East has around 370,000,000 people. All now getting a small nudge towards China. So, what will America do when it defaults at the same time that the people of the world moves towards Huawei, Harmony and whatever comes next? 

So whilst we are given “The Biden administration has denied it was trying to hurt China economically, but Beijing’s foreign ministry branded the move “forced de-coupling for political purposes”.” We need to consider that this is a final act of desperation and the news that Chinese stock is down 1.2%, consider what happens to the stock of Microsoft, Google and Samsung when HarmonyOS is releasing 5.0 which is likely a year away. When the CEO of Huawei tells the world that their HarmonyOS is now in well over 500 million devices, that is the point that big-tech starts getting nervous and when Tencent technologies is told to end its partnership with Microsoft we will see the first sparks of a race that had only one outcome, all due to ego driven political posturing. I know that this will be an event as I have several pieces of IP that none of the other players have and I should not have this advantage. I got it by looking at what was possible, not what greed demanded I would do and that would result in some losing 3%-5% marketshare and that was why I initially went to the Saudi government. They can afford to buy it, the American firms will hide behind “Trust us, we’ll do right by you” but they will not deliver, they merely want freebees and now at the end of the margins that sloppy setting will cost them their house. 

Could I be wrong?
That is the first question I ask myself and I ask it all the time. To critically look at your own settings is how you can find flaws and I did find a few but consider that HarmonyOS did not exist before 2019. Consider that there was only Google and Apple and now one in 20 houses have Huawei and optionally HarmonyOS to some degree. It might be slow now, but in 2-3 years that amount will have doubled. Apple and Google are still safe and still firm, but this third player was never a blip before and now they are more than a blip. I personally believe that their grow markets are the Middle East and Asia. I reckon that India is the first setting. We were given “We are open to doing business with any company anywhere as long as they are investing and conducting their business lawfully and are in compliance with the Indian laws,” A statement by Deputy Minister for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar, as such India is now open for business. Huawei is re-entering Pakistan with smartphone solutions no later than early 2024. That opens up the corridor  between China and Egypt and when Egypt comes across, which it already did in January as we saw “Telecom Egypt, the country’s first integrated telecom operator, in cooperation with Huawei Technologies” sets the stage that Huawei is now at the front door of Europe. The moment that Ericsson fails to remain on par, which it isn’t at present the flood gates into Europe open up and all this could have been prevented by focussing on innovation, which the telecom providers failed at all over Europe and in the USA. So that is the consequence that a lack of innovation brings and still the same old greed driven play is being pushed by America and as they financially buckle more and more, the game will get a different continuation. 

This is not the first mention of this, I made several publications going back 2-3 years into this field and now that the stage is at the edge of readiness we see some mention of “it could use to strengthen its military” I merely laugh. The bulk of American politicians want to stop supporting Ukraine against Russia. If they are not ready for that setting they will not like what military encounters with China will look like. China doesn’t need to fight, it can just wait until America collapses and as things go that moment is coming closer and closer. The nanny state looks good on paper, but when you have too many children and only one nanny chaos is an absolute certainty, ask any mother. They can tell you just how bad things can get. 

As I personally see it the US-China chip war is a paper tiger. It might sound nice now but it is staged on a setting that nothing changes and that is never a reality. Change is the number one part in evolution and innovation. In 2022, the total number of invention patents filed in China reached 4.21 million, of which 3.28 million were held by inventors from mainland China, do you really think that all innovation comes from America? Lets not forget that Nvidia only had an additional $60 million in revenue over the last year and that is one number that greed driven Wall Street does not like. There is no telling what happens when China get its own systems running and that is a certainty, no government will rely on foreign technology. Not in the west and not in the east. Yet that marker seems a lot more clear in the east, but feel free to refuse my view on that matter. That would be fair enough. 

What will happen next? That is anyones guess, I stated clearly what is out in the open and what I expect to happen next. Make up your own mind and always check what you are given, no matter what or who the source is.

Enjoy the day.

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October 14, 2023 · 21:24

The sides of different matters

We all have this, we all have moments when we combine things that are separate, we all do this. At times it amounts to making a balance, a balance of issues. I have had that today. Today I am disgusted beyond believe. It is because of the most disgusting shit Australia has ever known, Peter Dutton. 

In his case there is no right, there is no honourable, he is just pure shit. A pure shit with his “If you don’t know, vote no”, with that in mind, the Australians crossed and deceived the aboriginals yet another time. The larger issue started to form in my mind. 

The second issue is Microsoft. They have been cleared to buy Activision and Blizzard. Now, I have remained on the fence. It is a dubious, yet not illegal business practice and Microsoft has too many media people trying to grab a few coins in their corner. You see, we get the spin from the media (spin, not lies) that they now own:

– Crash Bandicoot (2020)
– Spyro the Dragon (2008)
– Guitar Hero (2015)
– Hexen (1995)
– King’s Quest (1998)
– Space Quest (1995)
– Quest for Glory (1998)
– Tenchu (2006)
– Pitfall (1982)
– Tony Hawk Pro Skater (2020)
– Zork (1991)

And a whole range more. The problem is that this is spin. It is true, that much fits, but the total value of all that IP does not surpass 1 billion (if even that much). 

It is about data. Especially the data they can get when they focus on Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Diablo, and Overwatch. This was always about personal data and aggregated data. Minecraft with its 131 million players was the first step. The larger station is Candy Crush had 255 million users, Overwatch with its 23,544,632 monthly active users. Diablo was a let down for Microsoft with only 5 million monthly active users, Diablo 3 sold over 30 million copies and that is what Microsoft was hoping for. It is falling behind and like the losers they are they merely acquire to make up for the short fall. And now they have committed $69,000,000,000 to that cause. This also presents an unique option as I see it. As Microsoft committed to one side of the chess table, all of us, not just me have the ability to support its competitors (Amazon and Tencent Technologies) with our creativity allowing them to get the games to keep these two ahead of the game. This means that the pool of users all down for Microsoft and with that their data pool fails and they wasted sixty nine billion on that caper. I would have loved to have done this alone, but that is not my forte, it is too big for me alone. I am not alone in this. You see Microsoft still has Sony and Nintendo as competitors and they are stronger, optionally not strong enough, which is why we need the other streamers to have exclusive options. I do not think Netflix has what it takes and they will partner with Microsoft at the drop of a hat when Disney gets too close. 

But there are options and it is high time that Microsoft learns the hard way of intruding on the safe space of gamers. Microsoft might have pushed for the other loser (Ubisoft) to connect for the cloud gaming, but it is most likely too little, too late for them. There is a decent chance that Microsoft acquires this under another hat, or push enough business that way to avoid Ubisoft from collapsing. AC Mirage was a step in the right direction, but I fear that it was not enough. I reckon (extremely speculative) that Microsoft will make a portal for game pass towards Sony and Nintendo, so that they can capture data from those gamers too. It keeps them in the race and a lot closer to the data vaults Google has and that is how their own weakness becomes exposed. I also speculate that ‘repairs’ on games on Sony and Nintendo will find delays and we will get the acceptable answer “our system first”. I cannot fault the approach, but there are too many larger issues here. As such the weakness was exposed and if I can create enough waves with IP for Tencent Technologies and Amazon, Microsoft will be in a decent amount of trouble. They never considered creative minds handing over idea’s in gaming to competitors, it stops their millstones rather effectively. They will spin this in any way they can, but when the tally is made, they will see less and less revenue from an investment that was folly to begin with. 

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick leaves with Chief Communications Officer at Activision Blizzard Lulu Cheng Meservey after testifying at the northern district of California during a trial as U.S. Federal Trade Commission seeks to stop Microsoft deal to buy Activision Blizzard, in Downtown San Francisco, California, U.S. June 28, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

And as I set forth the ideas in my mind, another thought occurs to me. I wonder if Microsoft ever considered that part of the equation. You see Reuters at some point gave us “Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco pressed FTC lawyers on where their economist got the data to show the deal would harm consumers.” And I get it, it was all about a shooter, well I figured out another path and now it will matter a grea deal. But I will let you figure that out yourselves. It is optional that Microsoft never saw that small detail either and now that part could cost them a lot. I need to consider how I set that information free. Perhaps places like the Khaleej Times, the Arab News, Al Jazeera or some other source where Microsoft does not control the narrative. It is not a given, merely a thought and an option.

Enjoy the weekend.

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October 10, 2023 · 05:11

The job never evolved

There was an article in the Sydney Morning Herald and it angered me. The article (at https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/recruitment-labour-hire-companies-collapse-amid-worker-reluctance-to-swap-jobs-20231006-p5ea8q.html) gives us ‘Recruitment, labour hire companies collapse amid worker reluctance to swap jobs’ it is there that we are given “the slowing economy makes employers more reluctant to fork out money to external recruitment firms who are struggling to fill job vacancies with qualified candidates.” First of all, the recruitment firms in Australia are a joke. They never learned anything. They keep on playing the same games for resume collections and mass marketing job filling. Over the last 10 years I have had less than a dozen confirmation emails. We are talking in excess of 300 job applications and less then a dozen replied with something like ‘We have received your resume’ or even ‘We regret to inform you that you have not been selected’ Less then a dozen in over 300 applications. That is the recruitment firm setting, a setting that has less credibility than a cocaine pusher in Sydney’s drug capital called Kings Cross.

They are all about cutting corners and all about reducing costs, all whilst they lose more and more credibility. As such there is every chance that employers are more and more becoming self sufficient in this task. There are more and more corporations with talent pages and career pages.

And the stage of “recruitment agencies were struggling with more vacancies than they could find qualified candidates for” is laughable to say the least. Ageism is merely one factor, the other factor is that more and more recruitment agencies have staff members that seemingly have no clue what they are doing. In one event I met the same recruiter a week later by pure chance and he stated that he hadn’t had any time to read my resume. But there he was collecting more resume’s.

So why don’t we give the setting a twist towards the reality of the stage? Perhaps it should be ‘hire companies collapse due to staff competency and repeated outdated actions’, I think that this is a much more to the point reason. In addition we see all kinds of recruitment firms popping up. There is every chance that one person was good at what he or she did and started their own firm. Makes perfect sense to me, but now we have 8 instead of one firm and these 8 firms are not communicative at all, the previous version wasn’t either. 

There are of course valid reasons and the SMH gives it to us via “A broader collapse in the construction industry, including high-profile businesses Porter Davis and Mahercorp, has reverberated through labour hire companies such as Duet Recruitment, ARI Recruitment, Collar Up Recruitment, GRB 365 Recruitment and PG Labour Services, who have called in administrators as their work dries up”. I reckon that in IT similar settings are happening. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM are all shedding jobs. So there would be an impact. Yet the larger issue is that we see dozens of jobs every day in LinkedIn and those jobs are often pushed by recruiters, who keep on doing the same thing again and again and not communicating any of this. So when we see ‘worker reluctance to swap jobs’, the setting might be that these workers do not trust recruitment firms. All promising a calf with golden horns but in the end whatever they promise isn’t set in stone. Firms promising warm calling and inbound calls all whilst the result is that they are cold calling firms and people don’t like cold callers and whatever bonus is promised is a joke. Recruiters haven’t learned their lesson in over a decade and they continue in the trend of  direct mail companies, all whilst that setting is decades old. You either evolve or you become irrelevant. It is that simple.

Enjoy the day.

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October 6, 2023 · 15:41

The dangers we ignore

That is the setting we are confronted with, or perhaps better stated the danger that Microsoft exposed itself to. Now, I have been happy to snap at Microsoft at every option I see. Them souring the gaming world gives me ample reason to, or at least that is how I see it.

Yet the poll at LinkedIn gives me another view that I am not alone and yes, as you see I see Azure the biggest intrusion danger of the others mentioned. It is not the only setting that people face and I have issues with some of them. 

You see, there has been a larger issue with Microsoft and they are all about buying their way into other streams at the cost of $69,000,000,000 and we see very little issues on RESOLVING safety and security issues. There is (as I personally see it) a massive architectural problem with the Azure setting. Now, I have NO evidence that this IS the case, but the listings are starting to add up.

July 2023: How a Cloud Flaw Gave Chinese Spies a Key to Microsoft’s Kingdom
June 2022: 6 ‘nightmare’ cloud security flaws were found in Azure in the last year.
Mar 2022: Source code for giant’s web browser app, virtual assistant allegedly leaked

That list goes on for a while and the examples are all out there in the media and online. Yet, instead of setting resources that can fix and redesign that part we see too much spin and not enough fixing. Or perhaps what one fix achieves, it also opens other ‘windows’ into a blue blue data pool.

Now this is speculation from my sider, but the sources as I set them out were never mine. Microsoft is losing and shedding marketshare. This brings me to the article that partially sets this article off.

It was the Verge (at https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/5/23904375/uk-cma-microsoft-amazon-cloud-investigation) that gave us ‘Microsoft and Amazon face UK regulator investigation over cloud services’. In this my issue is sen with “It’s part of a fresh investigation into public cloud providers in the UK, after telecoms regulator Ofcom “identified a number of features in the supply of cloud services that make it more difficult for customers to switch and use multiple cloud suppliers.”” The stupidity of ‘that make it more difficult for customers to switch and use multiple cloud suppliers’ is the delusional setting of some wannabe. You see, you cannot have multiple mainframe operating services running next to one another, you cannot have more than one operating system for a SERVER to run together. You might have two servers and they may have different data settings, but that requires a specially designed API to exchange information, which is a massive security risk, which any corporation does not need. The interesting part is that this same danger would be a case with IBM and Google too, but they are not in that mess are they? Azure and AWS are the larger players and someone wants to cut them short (for whatever reason). A stage made optionally by stupid politicians, optionally with friends that have a solution no one wants (a speculation from my side) and no one is drilling into the claim that we see from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). I want to see the complete documents and the sources who investigated both Microsoft and Amazon. And the link we see in the article that relates to “Microsoft recently restructured the deal to transfer cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft”. From my point of view Ubisoft after the next failure to bring a good product (AC Mirage raked at 78%) makes Ubisoft willing to bend over backwards to survive another year. 

As a character from ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit’ states: “this whole thing smells like yesterdays diapers”. And we are all in a stage to accept parts of this, but the political side is seemingly lacking in a larger stage of cloud systems and the amount of transgressions due to Microsoft failures are not met with official investigations and that is before they will block (as one might expect) any investigation into their shortcomings. 

Should you wonder about this, consider the 90’s and mainframes, or perhaps mainframes today and wonder how easy it is to switch those services. Yes, it might be possible, but consider the amount of dollars needed make such a switch non-realistic to say the least and that is on ALL providers. I feel uneasy to say that this should be possible, but I understand that it might have been an essential future issue. Yet, when we see the dangers of cloud services and the way that they are transgressed on. It might be that IBM and Apple clouds are the safest, or they are too small to get any representation and they are both in the other section, which is only 8%, as such the idea of either being a mere 4% against Azure scoring 50% must be some kind of hell for Microsoft and the amount of visibility of their issues are gaining strength all over the media. The Verge is not alone in any of this. 

No matter how people, media and Microsoft are spinning this, they have a problem and them diversifying in fields they do not understand for the mere setting of greed (as I personally see it), is a stage we should have been able to avoid and we are not, because the political parties in too many countries are willing to let too many Microsoft issues slide and that is one of the problems we all face. Is too much of what I write here speculation? That would be a fair question. Yet what actions have political parties taken to keep their national corporations safe? I am asking that question. You see, there is no top-line data from any media on that simple given part. The media seemingly doesn’t want that, Microsoft definitely does not want that and there we see a dangerous setting of ‘advertisers’ versus informing the audience. The setting that I have referred to in the past as the connected stakeholders. Yes, I could be wrong, but I have been in the IT business since 1979. I have seen a lot and I have a long memory, as such there is plenty of evidence all over the field. So why am I the only one seeing this? Yes, again, it could merely be me. However, is that the case? 

I will let you mull this over and draw your own conclusions. Enjoy the day, the week is almost over.

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October 2, 2023 · 06:27

Just now

I was just about to snore (loudly) when I remembered a message pass by on LinkedIn. It was the fact that someone I am most loosely connected to one attending the Monaco Yacht Show last week.

So, I went to YouTube to see some of the video’s there and there was plenty to see, but it occurred to me that one of my IP, the one for real estate could easily also apply to these places. The exhibitors and sellers having one channel that does not rely on paper and it will be there offering its services to all who pass 24:7. That setting is one we tend to forget. The people passing by in the evening, they pass by on day 1 and they pass by when it is super busy and this service will provide all who pass their vessel. So when you are trying to sell the vessel of choice and you want in excess of €8,000,000. The idea of having a $149 solution that works those three days 24:7 is not a real investment. It was meant for the $1,800,000,000 Dubai real estate market as well as the Toronto market (which made me design the solution). As this IP becomes more and more valued due to a larger deployment, as well as my first IP reinforced by the Mississauga Center Mall. I feel that 2024 my actually be my year and that could guarantee a 3 years early retirement (wishful thinking by the workaholic I am). 

Still, the larger station gives me pause to consider where else this IP could work and I see that there are more places to go. You see if it works for Monaco, it would most certainly work for the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. The IP would not be ready for their 2023 boat show, but the 2024 boat show is an optional setting and when the Monaco results would come in, their hunger for this new sales channel is almost a definite given. Then there is the Dubai International Boat Show, which in light of the real estate angle could be a double whammy for little old me.

No matter how much this is wishful thinking, the application of an IP to a larger area is always a reason to feast (I had Spaghetti Bolognese) and as the idea is set to my blog (and is still mulling over a few more items in my mind) I see that what started as a simple retail tool could optionally become a lot more. The fun part (which I mentioned in the past) is that Amazon, Apple and Google do not have this and they should have been way ahead of me. Sucks to be them I say.

Monday is here for me, let’s make it a lovely day.

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September 30, 2023 · 21:27

I tend to disagree

There are a few issues and they all relate to the CBC articles. I do not think that the CBC is doing anything wrong. They merely report on a point of view I disagree with and we all have that at times. It started earlier, but what set me off was the article (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/national-security-canada-military-defence-ward-elcock-1.6963391) where we see ‘Canada needs to ditch the complacency and get serious about national security, experts say’. My initial question is ‘Who are these so called experts?’ I know I am not one, but I think these claiming to be could be seen as Monday morning quarterbacks. We are then pushed onto “something unexpected happened last week when the Business Council of Canada issued an urgent call for the federal government to develop a national security strategy with economic security as one of its pillars”. So who exactly are the members of the Business Council of America? It gets worse from here. You see, when we go back several weeks we get (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/foreign-interference-china-russia-csis-business-council-canada-1.6958627) ‘Business council says CSIS should start warning private companies of foreign interference’. This sounds nice, but we have two issues at this point.

  1. The validity of Business Intelligence
  2. The issue of American linked businesses.

The CSIS (aka the Client Server Integrity Society). If the NSA is allowed its ‘different’ version (No Such Agency) then the CSIS is allowed the same thing. My larger issue is “One of the country’s leading business voices warned Thursday that Canada’s economic security faces external threats — and called on Ottawa to give its spies the power to share intelligence with private firms being targeted for foreign interference.” The direct linked question becomes “Who exactly is that leading business voice?” And which idiot yahoo decided to throw sharing intel with places that have leaks larger than any sif into the mix? You see, there is a larger station here. ‘Targeted for foreign interference’ is a large setting. We tend to think China and what the reality is, is that Wall Street is also a source of foreign interference. Those people do not play nice. In addition too many  Canadian businesses would have to up their cyber security by a lot. I merely showed one aspect earlier this week, one of close to half a dozen. Microsoft cannot stop emails leaking, what gives you the idea that Canada is any different? 

So when we get to “The group — which has a long, influential history of pushing for policies like free trade, fiscal responsibility and tax reform — said it believes Canada is deeply vulnerable in this era of renewed great power competition.” We get to the larger disagreement. Canada is not more vulnerable, it is less interesting to a lot of power players. It is roughly 10% of the US and merely 50% of the United Kingdom and is spread over a whole area. In all this the larger station is not merely foreign interference, it is the danger of American interference for its own need for greed and that takes a different approach and until the Business Council of Canada gets its members to up their Cyber Security by a lot, any action is a wasted one and the CSIS keeping its actions secret is the best course of action at present. This might not be the right view, but it is my view.

Then we get to the interesting quote “CSIS jealously guards its sources and methods of collecting information. In one espionage case, it even kept the RCMP in the dark about a former sailor who was stealing classified information for the Russians.” The CSIS is confronted with too may leaks. There is no factual evidence that it amounts to corruption, but that word was mentioned more than once in sources I looked at. The important question was whether that traitor was caught in time. How long was that person active and how was that person (in the end) caught? It was not jealousy, that is the word of a reporter out for flames. The larger station becomes that Canada has vulnerability issues and not all of them are from China or Russia. American businesses are ready to expand and get the Canadian corporations as well, some politicians seem to cater to that need and the CSIS for sure does not. As such whatever the CSIS is doing now, it is seemingly doing right. From here we get to the dangerous statement “Neiman said Canada’s allies have found ways to strike that balance between secrecy and disclosure.” I believe it to be dangerous, because  Canada’s allies are all catering to big business. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM and Meta. You name it, it has a stakeholder trying to find a balance of intelligence at their exposure and risks they can mitigate and Intelligence at the expense to mitigate risk is not sharing Intel, it is giving nations options away to greed driven people and the CSIS, in particular that person with grey hairs (aka David Vigneault) needs to cater to the need of Canada and its citizens, not the needs of a Business Council and its friends.

That is how I see it and I might be wrong, but so far in history whenever a business person wanted intel to be shared, we were confronted by a leak the size of the Grand Canyon right behind it. So before we rinse, shave, grate and repeat Trevor Neiman and optionally these non mentioned friends of his, we should be told who they were EXACTLY. In that the CBC missed the plank by a fair bit.

Enjoy the weekend.

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September 25, 2023 · 06:13

A habit is an issue

Yes, that is true, a habit is an issue (when you are not a nun). Yet the first part of any issue is recognising this. And here the CBC comes into place (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/political-advertising-parties-meta-1.6972446) where we are given ‘Some parties have cut back on Meta advertising — but experts say it’s a hard habit to kick’. It is here that we are given “Federal political parties have diverged in their approaches to advertising on Facebook since legislation meant to support the news industry touched off a public brawl between the federal government and the social media giant.” This is fair and there is a lot more (read the article. Yet when we get to “For the real players here who are attempting to really influence voters on a mass scale with real budgets, they’ve just invested so much money into these platforms over the years, they’ve collected so much data, that starting from scratch with something else is not realistic” This might sound seem true, but the overall issue is set into different stages, it is set into an optional stage of imagination versus awareness, awareness versus perception and perception versus reality. Now we have always known that there is a gap between imagination and awareness and for teenagers that gap is massively larger (if in doubt ask Canadians Laura Vandervoort, Blake Lively  and Kim Cloutier). 

The problem is that this difference is massively large with advertisement too, not just photo models. The unspoken problem is that with advertisement that gap reaches a lot more groups, and the more groups are affected (age, gender, social status) the larger the problem becomes. Facebook might have over 3,000,000,000 active members each month, but how real are they?

This is not anti Facebook (or META), I have liked my Facebook for over 10 years, but I have limited use, as I see it is a dangerous place. I have had dozens of fake people trying to interact with me, I see attempt of interaction from places that I have never been to and I do not know anyone who has and for the most I use it to keep people from my past all over the planet informed. That list is dwindling down as over 30% is now dead. Time catches up with all of us. 

You see, the issue isn’t merely time, it is ‘they’ve collected so much data’ and in this data just for the sake of data ends up being a really bad joke. If I have a day of sifting through that mess, I will find all kind of data issues, data verification is no joke and it tends to show that ‘data investments’ tend to be a form of shifty sand and it will drown you. The setting of time is that EVERYTHING evolves, all data collections are based on a stage of hierarchical settings and they change, sometimes twice a decade. Facebook avoided that part and now the wrong people see that as gospel, but that is the most dangerous step of all, relying on the wrong people. In all this the media holder is also a stage we need to understand. Weirdly enough it was a Canadian who did just that. His name is Ryan Reynolds, you might not know him, he was an extra on the X-Files season 2 (I looked it up to be certain). He is into booze (Aviation gin) he likes his football (Wrexham) and he has his phone calls (Mint mobile).

He also sees that media has larger options and through that he is linked to MNTN (https://mountain.com/) as they call it themselves ‘The hardest working software in television’, you see, the stage of creating awareness is just that ‘creation of awareness’ and that is NEVER set to one channel. In that stage I mentioned earlier Imagination, Awareness, Perception and Reality. How much verification has been done. What methods of verification was used? I know, the META presentations are good and every data seeker is getting a hard on (read: boner) on the presented granularity. Yet in it in what some Google Ads people call impressions versus clicks. Not every person that got the impression will click and there is no realistic number to get that, not even a notion of one. Now you can live through impressions and that is OK. I will overlook 97% of all impressed onto me and forget it before I am half a page further. Sometimes I take notice but I do not click. So where do I fit? And I am merely one of many millions. Whatever table or chart I became part of is already incorrect and like me millions fit that bill, so how hard a habit is something to kick when the numbers do not add up?

So there is in the first an option to ‘return’ to television marketing and there are more options, but it does require a different view to data and perhaps the notion of returning to different data is not great and it will give nightmares to this who are faced with it. Yet, when others start questioning the data presented, the data in hand and demand verification. What will they say? META (or Facebook) says it is so? Did you become that much of a teenager overnight? You might want to give Kim Cloutier a call asking her feelings towards the teenage boy population, you might not like the answer, although you might see a reason to invest in tissues at that point. Advertisement goes with the times, we have seen that for almost a century, like Yellow pages, Facebook is facing hard times and they will get harder over the next 3 years, it is the consequence of evolution. Facebook has had a really good time, much better then most, but they either evolve (and meta is trying that too), or they end up fading like the yellow pages did in too many places.  

True data is the just capture of data of an evolving system in motion and it is not a 4K film, it is a snapshot of THAT moment, that is what data has always been. Thinking it is more is the danger, that is the dangerous event we all have to avoid. When someone tries to sell you a polaroid moment stating it could be a 4K scene of Laura Vandervoort and it is not film, but real, you are getting conned and you get what you deserve. An empty hand with data that has no meaning and at that point there will be no meaning, because there is no way to verify the data you have and that was the second trap. The second trap was always verification. Did you really think that the Nigerian prince is real? In march we saw that a record figure of approximately 2.2 billion fake profiles were removed from Facebook. Now, were they all removed from the very moment of creation, or were they found to be fake? If the second is true, how many data tables are they inhabiting? Now consider that a place like Nigeria (just an example) has 215 million people. Do they all have internet? So really, where were these 2,200,000,000 from? Verification is an ugly business that has been pushed to the background where it can be ignored. Kicking a habit starts by knowing you have a problem.

Enjoy the new week.

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