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October 4, 2020 · 18:33

A coin with 2 sides of greed

This morning started out alright, I was still pondering on what I had wrote yesterday and I still stand by it. Any voices on complexity are not dimmed, the issue is larger than I wrote about it, but to take the full scope makes the matter too complex, I was all about oversimplification, as that tends to show things, but it also polarises any view (including mine). This is what was in my mind when the news on Proton-mail and Andy Yen hit me. You see the moment any firm goes into some preaching stage of ‘App Fairness’ mode, the hairs in my neck tend to rise to the occasion. Now, those who read my blog regularly will have seen that I have no issue slapping the big boys silly whenever I can. So like the proverbial pitbull, I have had a mouthful of pants with Apple, Google, IBM and Microsoft logo’s and a chunk of their asses. No matter how big they are, I do not pull my punches (much more fun the way), so let’s have a look at Andy Yen, actually, let’s do something else first, it helps you to understand the station where I am at.

In 2008 Apple launched the App store, initially with around 500 apps. Apple saw in the early days the third party developers would bring home the bacon, but in those years it was not easy being a developer. Those developing for windows had well over a decade of experience and in those days the Software Development Kit would cost a developer $1500, with the additional programming packages and consultancy lessons. So ANY developer would be out of pocket between $3,000 and $5,000 and they would not have anything to show for it. The cost would drastically increase when the program was ready, but the was for another time. So in those days Apple got clever about it and gave us “To publish apps on App Store, developers must pay a $99 yearly fee for access to Apple’s Developer Program”, now consider the first setting of $99 versus $3,000, a new stage that allowed the dreamers and the wickedly clever to publish without a setting of some bulk investment and there was another part, “The income app stores take is 30%. Apple started setting that as a standard – they weren’t the first, but the iOS app ecosystem has been used as a model by many other players in the mobile app space”, now consider the you are a small developer, selling your software will need servers, protection software, shopping kart software, income checkers and go on from that. Apple delivered a system that does it all, so the developer will only need to upload their readied product. Thousands of dollars saved and the small developers get an almost free ride and they pay later through every sale. 

This is beyond fair, because the one million programs that came in the first decade would evolve, these people had a second option. They would sell their program for $0.99-$5 and Apple merely takes 30% of the sale, 70% remains with the makers and that contribution setting was already in play with software houses from the 90’s, yet those programs were often $299-$999. A mobile with the option of programs costing less than $5 are more easily sold and these makers suddenly made thousands of dollars, most of them massively happy. In that same light under Microsoft these developers would never exist. The cost of being up and running would strip all revenue away. As such Apple (and Google too) would create a wave of people creating the thousands of dollars to fuel the system would basically be paid for by the more successful players in this field.

So when I see the headline ‘Why we joined the Coalition for App Fairness’, I merely see a greed driven non-truth that is (as I personally see it) fuelled by greed.

So now the you have some of the background, we see the real deal, people like Epic Games and Proton-mail, they had an idea and they used that system to get ahead, which is nice for them, yet now, now that they made it, they want to avoid fees, they want the 30% that they initially signed up for as well. It is basically the same with Epic Games, once they made the numbers, their success went to their heads and they are now fishing (or is that phishing) for the 30% they signed up for? They want to avoid the apple fee and for one player it makes sense, yet this system was designed so that the small players would get a chance to become big, a stage that many faced. So when I see these ‘displays of fairness’ I merely see greed driven players merely wanting more.

The setting is however larger. The quote “First, to be clear, our mission at Proton is to foster an open, free, private, and secure internet. We exist today because a large community of people agree with these goals and support our work. Helping to found CAF does not in any way signal a deviation from these core values. Proton will always remain fiercely protective of our independence in order to put user interests first” gets to be ripped to shreds when we see “to foster an open, free, private, and secure internet”, yes they do have a free option, but it is limited, which might be fair enough, their goal is to be ready for the 4.00 € and 24.00 € a month users, whilst their free accounts are limited, the paying ones are driving this and so far they got 10 million people in their accounts, I am not aware how many constitutes free accounts.

Another point was “Our purpose for joining CAF is not about advancing the goals of Spotify and Epic, but about making sure that you, our community, have a voice in this important debate”, is the so? I find it debatable, for the simple reason that we are also handed “ProtonMail is run by Proton Technologies AG, a company based in the Canton of Geneva, and its servers are located at two locations in Switzerland, outside of US and EU jurisdiction”, whilst this sounds nice, outside of jurisdictions comes at a price and one could argue the organised crime finds the approach appealing, as do some people the want to avoid data accountability, but for the most, I am on the fence of how reliable data safety outside of jurisdictions tend to be (I am not making any statement on the security they run). So the app store has them as a free app, which implies that they are free, but they offer ‘Offers In-App Purchases’, and their own Twitter account gives us “We actually don’t understand the significance of paid account here? ProtonMail doesn’t offer in app purchases on Android, so purchases need to be made through our Swiss website”, and there is the kicker, they want it via their own website to avoid the 30%, exactly how Epic Games set it up, once they have the foundation of users, they want to avoid Apple (and/or Google) fees. 

I need to admit that Andy Yen is in a slightly different setting (as is Epic Games). You see, he started with the backing through kick-starters and ended up with a beginning capital of $500K, 5 times of what they needed to get started, a lot do not have that option, which I admit is not the stage that Andy Yen cares about (yet he claims the opposite), we get it, but when we see ‘a better internet that puts people first’, we need to realise the this was exactly what Apple did (Google too), by setting the contribution cycle almost EVERY developer had their chance at stardom, and whilst we see ‘free app’, how many people would have taken it up when the app had to be bought at $9.99, or $19.99? You forget that if we avoid the contribution cycle, we see the the funds need to be found somewhere, do they not? You really cannot get it both ways and for the most the contribution cycle is the most fair, because it is only taken from actual sales, so the newbies get to be there for free or for nothing (or both), and the big players basically pay for the little people.

Consider that and the fact that there is a price for being able to chose from 1.75 million app on a store. If that setting did not exist these store would end up having well over a million apps less. And this year, in the covid year, there is suddenly the need to avoid paying because the investors need to be appeased. As I personally see it greed is the final equaliser against choice, because these players want to be the only provider and the current stage allows new developers deploy their system, optionally a real innovative one, but they get a to because the costs of starting are not there, not like it was anyway.

Happy now?

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October 4, 2020 · 03:46

The mind stage

Where is the border of sanity? The is the question that is central at this point. Yes, we are having slightly too much fun with the new President of the United Stage, it is Mr. Covid, he is only 19 but running the US. As the news is exploding all over the news and the internet, we are given name after name, cluster after cluster and it is hitting the White House, the Senate and optionally Congress as well. After that there have been the dozens of attacks on Saudi Arabia, yet Iran is left outside of consideration and Ubisoft is getting hammered. Now, in part Ubisoft has itself to thank for what is happening, and I am not referring to the news that 25% was a witness or victim of unacceptable behaviour, or whatever that means. I am not making light of the situation, I truly am not. Ubisoft is part of its own problem, as marketing is trying to inflate hypes, we see this with ‘Prince Of Persia Remake Nintendo Switch Box Art Leaks Online’, as well as ‘Ubisoft Appears To Tease Rayman Project, Deletes Post After Fans Get Too Hyped’. The problem with hypes is not the they are hypes, they are the figments of illusional marketing. To set this straight I need to take you to an alternative setting

2 out of 3

There are three levers for a new house, one has the settings Cheap-Expensive, the second is called ‘Fast build – Slow build’ and the third one is ‘High quality – Low Quality’, the issues is that you can only select two, the third one will be set against you, which ones do you choose?

Marketing has a similar stage. Large visibility- small visibility, quick – slow, large placement versus small placement and high quality versus low quality. There are a few more elements, but this is merely to illuminate, in these four only two can be set and now you see the danger for Ubisoft as it ignored timing and quality, whilst keeping visibility and placement to large, and now the ignored quality is costing them. So as we see leak after leak (which I believe has been orchestrated by marketing element), we see all the setting in place and there is no consideration towards quality. So whilst we see “The players are back in the game but the way Ubisoft handled the whole ordeal didn’t hold up to a good standard. As a way to thank the players for patience with the patch, the devs offered some freebies to lessen the inconvenience caused by tardiness. One of them was the custom Desert Eagle and the other a grand total of 1,200 Skell Credits” we see the adaptation of quantity, and to fix it the gamers are treated to ‘some freebies’, as I see it the horse has left the stable and the stable is no longer theirs. And that setting is about to be set in a real live testing. The two games where things cannot go wrong for Ubisoft is AC Valhalla and Watchdogs: Legion. If either goes wrong the larger downfall stage for Ubisoft will be set. 

As I personally see it, they seemingly just will not learn, the last time they got it right was 2017, and I believe the they are at present out of options. As their marketing hands us story after story, leak after leak, they are sailing from the setting they need to be in (and perhaps behind the screens they are), and I hope they are, but the first hurdle is 40 days away and they better not miss a beat. 

So how does this touch on Saudi Arabia?

We see marketing via the media and newspapers, anti Saudi Arabia and the silence towards Iran. First things first, Saudi Arabia now has the initial setting of full 5G completed. No matter that this is Huawei, there is a stage where China now has options to open talks on all kinds of matters. Pompeo gave us via newspapers that they are using seduction and nuclear weapons, but that might merely be a second stage. Even as Huawei is opening technology, China does have the option to open up towards larger weapons contract, destabilising US interests in the middle east. All whilst Saudi Arabia with a functioning 5G becomes a testing ground for 5G, allowing Saudi engineers to create a larger benefit, optionally setting up new apps, all tested and ready to be deployed outside of Saudi Arabia. it is merely the setting on the side and the people opposing this are the ones who are afraid to lose too much coins.

Now, I am really willing to accept that it is all in my mind, but the setting stages of media marketing and media exploitation is getting out of control and that is what we now see, we see marketing driven media out of control yet the people who need to see what is going on are ignoring it. And the weird part is that it is happening to Ubisoft and it is happening to Saudi Arabia, two seemingly unrelated pawns in a much larger game, yet is it a real larger game, or one that is merely in my mind? Ignoring this is wrong, it is the same stage that these conspiracy theories have (I am always right, I am the only one who sees this). I try to back all the things I see with other links and verified news, Yet that does not stop a person to see what that person believes, but it does not mean that it does not exist. It is a larger stage of data versus insight. One cannot compare apples to pears.

So even as I see the marketing and media frenzy, I see both elements as separate ones, these two players are merely hit in a similar way. Consider the pro Saudi News, the one relating to Neom city, so a 500 billion dollar investment and we see in Google 21,000 hits? Whilst we see 54 million negative mentions towards Saudi Arabia. Does that not strike you all as weird? Now, I am not stating that Saudi Arabia is innocent, that it has no issues, but the world (pretty much all of it) tends to go coo-coo where money is concerned, and $500,000,000,000 is a lot of money. It inspired me to make four parts of my IP. And let’s be fair, out of $500 billion, even a 0.1% is well worth anyones time (I am hoping for a mere 1% and I am willing to end with only 10% of that), so as we set that trickle, do you think that the players like Google and Apple are not ready to jump in at similar settings at a moments notice? You have got to be kidding, but the media remains silent, 21,000 hits on Neom city? Are you for real? The same can be seen in light of Ubisoft, 6.5M, yet only 1.5M when it comes to Ubisoft and PS5, a lot more mind you, but there is a stage where they seemingly overlap in treatment by the media and that is what I saw. I feel justified in what I see and I feel justified in bringing it to light. Even as a lot will agree that Ubisoft has coming what it asked for, there is a larger stage which is completely absent of fair dinkum (an Australian expression meaning fair play) and I have an issue with that, just like the never ending anti-Saudi news. I saw a right wing poll with the question “Single Greatest contributing factor behind decline of UK”, from the 3237 votes, 72% voted that Islam was the reason, a stage that together with the anti-Saudi waves has become unacceptable, yet all these governments making anti-discrimination claims are massively incapable to do anything.

We are turning several corners at the same time and I for one am completely ignorant on what might be a solution. I merely wonder if we are returning to the age of the crusades, christians against Muslims and I for one had hoped that we had learned our lesson by now.

So if you think it is in my mind, fine, I get it. However, the Google Searches, the news items, they all seemingly prove me right. And this is all before we take a notice of the growing amount of anti-Islam and anti-semitism all over the western world. Is it all truly in my mind? It is (as I personally see it) not a stage that is merely in my mind, it is a growing stage and it is out there and we can no longer continue on the path that we are.

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October 2, 2020 · 23:52

A new road

We all have new roads, some roads are completely new, some are ‘sort of’ new. We tend to like the ‘sort of’ new roads as they feel more familiar, but it does not imply the this is the best road. This is the way we move forward. In all this, how does one react when we go towards a road we have never seen before? Consider the stage the this is not some adventure, it is a choice of life, a choice that impacts one’s life to the latest degree, do we feel as certain? 

As some are in a stage where they are considering that President Trump could optionally die of Covid before the next election, we see that this is perhaps the weirdest years we face in half a century. In the UK we see lockdowns with a 5 minute warning, now the is one way to change the settings of any game, yet is it wise? It is in the same direction that others face, a new road, different decisions, but is it all really new? We could call all the plays in the international scene, but we have seen it before, it is a play based upon a play that is old and stale. Even now as the EU wants to limit the apps Apple and Google put on phones, it is merely a variant of Internet Explorer V3 all over again, the greed driven will never learn. So whilst we get informed on “Draft rules would force the tech giants to share their data with rivals, and limit how many of their own apps they pre-install on devices”, I am actually surprised that they did not give us “share their data with non-Chinese rivals”, a stage the we have seen before and one that we will see again, to be honest, I am not certain if the people setting the rules have any clue who the people are that they represent, merely the setting of larger tech company trying to get a grip on technology the they ignored for too long. And ever as we are told “The draft rules, known as the Digital Services Act, aim to set the ground rules for data-sharing and how digital marketplaces operate. They are expected to come into force by the end of the year”, we see a stage where tax rules are ignored, it is too complex for them, they will do it later (or so they believe). Even as we are told “The case has taken on urgency because of the dependence of thousands of EU companies on the tech giants for their business”, a setting which I regard to be a joke, because those ‘thousands of EU companies’ refused to budge on several items when too going was good, they merely latched on like leeches, getting max result for zero effort, I know this because if that was not the case, I would not have the IP I have now, and there are only two contestants for the IP to get ownership, the rest is merely dumbstruck on the side of the road and as they are realising that the digital highway os beyond their comprehension and as they feel the floor slip from under them as 5G comes into power, now they all cry like little girls, all with their own version of ‘Google/Apple is such a mean old bastard, boo hoo hoo hoo’ theatrics and optional fake tears. 

My view is given by a few quotes, the first one is “The App Store was opened on July 10, 2008, with an initial 500 applications available”, we then see the that the app store grew with 2 million apps in 2017 and now it has 1.75 million apps. So these people had a decade to get involved with Apple, as such where it their timeline? Bullet point idiots basing their needs on concepts. Where it the actual and factual engineering in place? The story for Google is pretty similar. Global businesses  (not merely EU companies) with short sighted goals, short sighted, merely because their spreadsheet was dictated by financial people, not a long term sight in place. I reckon (my speculation) the some people tarted to reconsider their position when Apple announced the 10 billion download mark somewhere in 2011, but at the point the credit crunch got in the way and the people (more lazy than anything else) decided to wait, but the Digital highway is one where waiting is a sin and Google showed the easy enough. And now, as companies are realising that 5G will merely see exponential options where established apps are in place, unless you have a third party data need and that is overwhelmingly attractive, but there the Google and Apple stores are a problem for them. They will happily play with GDPR fines, yet the Google and Apple stores are the problems and as I see it, and as I see it, the EU is stupid enough to force open the doors to others. 

My vision?

Why is this my vision, because we are told “limit which apps Apple and Google pre-install on your phone”, just like the setting it had in the Internet Explorer v3 age. I thought they would have learned by now. In the first, Apple people go iOS, Google people go Android. In all this we the consumer chose what WE want, but did you see any of the in the article? Our voice is not heard ad not given any power, because it is about appeasing ‘the dependence of thousands of EU companies’, the companies that were asleep at the wheel in the first place, not merely asleep, they have nothing to contribute, a concept at best but when you look at the staff, they have none, yet they will sure others the these people will be hired the moment certain steps are finalised, and it will be a ‘complex issue’ to say the least. In all this, these companies have never considered a new road, adjustment and aggregating what they have and what they are delivering, but they all hide behind players like Epic games with, if a game maker can do it, so can our EU business enterprise, can it not? And there we see the first flaw from the very beginning, these people are mostly clueless. Should you consider me wrong, then consider that on the digital highway beyond Apple and Google, the third player is one the started as a book shop, a bloody bookshop no less (Amazon) and its owner, who copycatted his hairstyle from Telly Savalas (just like Vin Diesel did). So consider that whilst we see another gravy train trap our choices in what THEY call open choices, but it is not, it will make life harder for the consumer, not easier and none of them will guarantee your data.

So in the words of Lieutenant Kojak “Who loves you baby!”

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October 2, 2020 · 02:14

You’re useless and you know it

Yup, quite the opening headline and  would like to tell the reader the it is about him or her, but no such luck, the headline (as is) can only be given to the most useless of useless, the US Senate. Yup, as some voices stated in the past, the US has fruits (US Congress) and nuts (US Senate) and there we sit in the middle of the tutti frutti of the dance floor, one might almost invite Madonna to come over and add a little spice to the mixture.

Yet Reuters who gives us (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-senate-tech/senate-panel-approves-sending-subpoenas-to-ceos-of-twitter-facebook-google-idUSKBN26M6FA) the headline ‘Senate panel approves sending subpoenas to CEOs of Twitter, Facebook, Google’, with the quote “The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday unanimously voted to approve a plan to subpoena chief executives of Twitter, Alphabet’s Google and Facebook for a hearing likely to be held before the election on a prized legal immunity enjoyed by internet companies”, We can go in every direction possible, but lets start with “passed into law as part of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 (a common name for Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996), formally codified as Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 at 47 U.S.C. § 230. Section 230 generally provides immunity for website publishers from third-party content”, In this we see two elements, the first being that in 1996 there was no Google, no Twitter and no Facebook, in the second on larger beneficiary was the online presence of FoxNews, Yahoo and lets face it as I personally see it, Microsoft who started part of the mess we have now. 

To invoke what I did (the useless part), it is important to see “After passage of the Telecommunications Act, the CDA was challenged in courts and ruled by the Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997) to be partially unconstitutional, leaving the Section 230 provisions in place. Since then, several legal challenges have validated the constitutionality of Section 230”, in this Justice John Paul Stevens (Supreme Court) wrote in June 1997: “We are persuaded that the CDA lacks the precision that the First Amendment requires when a statute regulates the content of speech. In order to deny minors access to potentially harmful speech, the CDA effectively suppresses a large amount of speech that adults have a constitutional right to receive and to address to one another. That burden on adult speech is unacceptable if less restrictive alternatives would be at least as effective in achieving the legitimate purpose that the statute was enacted to serve. … It is true that we have repeatedly recognized the governmental interest in protecting children from harmful materials. But that interest does not justify an unnecessarily broad suppression of speech addressed to adults. As we have explained, the Government may not “reduc[e] the adult population … to … only what is fit for children.””, as such how stupid does a US Senator tend to be? It passed the Supreme court, it passed a few stations over the term of 20 years and optional alleged beneficiaries (Google, Facebook, Twitter) are called into a Senate hearing? Some sources even state ‘Letting Platforms Decide What Content To Facilitate Is What Makes Section 230 Work’, the latter one is up for debate, but the setting of section 230 is not, it is a legal thing, so why would someone set the stage for a hearing the is basically pointless set the stage? To get a few free dinners and perhaps tax deductibility? I do not know, I merely ask.

The setting of a stage 40 days before election, is the current view and when we see “top Democrat Maria Cantwell, who opposed the move last week, saying she was against using “the committee’s serious subpoena power for a partisan effort 40 days before an election,” changed her mind and voted to approve the move” I wonder what this really is, because as I see it, it has nothing to do with big tech, and optionally section 230 is also not in play, but what is? There is the optional quote given “Republican President Donald Trump has made holding tech companies accountable for allegedly stifling conservative voices a theme of his administration. As a result, calls for a reform of Section 230 have been intensifying ahead of the elections, but there is little chance of approval by Congress this year”, yet optional settings of “stifling conservative voice” would not change that, this is about intentional hurting facilitation, changing the premise of free expression, the moment big tech is held responsible, no opinion is heard and the anti-Trump (those who highlight stupidity) is seen nearly everywhere, as such, President Trump needs every amount he can get. I do not think that this is the right path and more important changing law on this scale to bake (not make) awareness of something set almost in stone for 20 years does not help. 

In this I want to extend my friendliness to give a shout to the largest part of the problem, mainly Republican Senator Roger Wicker, even s he gives us “After extending an invite to these executives, I regret that they have again declined to participate and answer questions about issues that are so visible and urgent to the American people”, I merely wonder if he has any clue who the American people are. This train of thought is seen as Politico gives us “under the newly unveiled Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act, the legal shield would protect the companies only when they take down specific types of content, including material “promoting terrorism” or which promotes “self-harm” or is otherwise illegal”, as such, when was there an upside when we consider ‘specific types on content’, as I see it it the setting towards a biased filter of what constitutes free speech and freedom of expression. As such the simple question becomes: ‘Who has seen S.4534 – Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act?’ Deputy Counsel Elizabeth Banker did and gives us “Section 230’s otherwise objectionable clause underpins crucial content moderation efforts that make their platforms safer for everyone. Eliminating that clause will make it harder, not easier, for online services to remove content like misinformation, platform manipulation, or bullying that’s neither illegal nor in the bill’s new description of allowable moderation. This bill would also hamper platforms from adapting to future moderation challenges.“We also have serious First Amendment concerns with this bill. This bill would limit the ability of private online platforms and services, including small forums for schools, churches, and local sports leagues, to set and enforce rules for their communities.””, a direct powerful view given on September 8th (at https://internetassociation.org/news/statement-in-response-to-the-introduction-of-the-online-freedom-and-viewpoint-diversity-act/), as such we takeaway “Eliminating that clause will make it harder, not easier, for online services to remove content like misinformation, platform manipulation, or bullying” does this constitute the idea that the speculated biggest bully in America wants a free pass? And there are also “serious First Amendment concerns” which cannot be ignored. 

When we see this level of issues from the very beginning, how stupid is any senator participating in this, and when we demand under freedom of information their names and tell people that this lit constitutes a list of people attacking free speech, how happy will they be? There is of course the issue of the elected Democrat from the state of Washington Maria Cantwell, I wonder what she has to say for herself, especially it he hearing happens before the elections, I reckon that President Elect Biden will not have too much need for her, but that is merely my speculation.

 

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September 29, 2020 · 20:42

Using the limelight

It all started a few days ago and for the most I kept you all informed. The latest news was in my possession for well over an hour. I waited because I wanted to see how the others were reacting. And I was not disappointed, they did exactly what I expected, basically, they did nothing.

It all started with ‘Saudi Arabia says it took down ‘terrorist cell’ trained by Iran’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/29/saudi-arabia-says-it-took-down-terrorist-cell-trained-by-iran), so should we say it is real or not? It is a fair question to have, yet the quote “Saudi Arabia says it has taken down a “terrorist cell” that had received training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, arresting 10 people and seizing weapons and explosives”, leaves me with the setting that this is factual. We are also given “Among the items seized were improvised explosive devices (IEDs), dozens of stun guns, kilos of gunpowder and a variety of rifles and pistols, according to the statement. It did not say where last week’s raid or arrests were carried out”, yet the western media has nothing. Not the BBC, not Reuters, not European news offices, and not FoxNews. It seems to me that Iran is given an option to get away with any action that is not set in America or Europe. And this is where we get the larger issue, the news is filtering what they think we need to know, as such we see a totally destabilised view of what is going on. 

This news matters because it gives strength to something else I stated, which was speculative at the time. I speculated that someone was painting the Aramco targets so that the drones would be more effective. These 10 men could have done just that. The arrest off the 10 men does not make my setting any less speculative. It does however open a larger stage, the news was avoiding a lot of what happened, eager to use ‘speculative’ and ‘alleged’, which is not unacceptable, yet it sets the stage that the western media is optionally complicit is setting a stage that is not part of what happened (like the Khashoggi disappearance). We see even the UN side with Turkey (where the most incarcerated journalists in history are), blatant statements even as there is no evidence is supporting any of it. 

So in this we have a much larger guilt, we are part of the problem, the media is filtering what is happening and no excuse makes up for that. It goes beyond the media, there is some indication that Google and the social media are part of this. Google calls them omitted results, social media merely hides the events on the timeline altering most results and chronological results, the last part is speculative, but the seems to be happening.

Why does this matter?

The UK, US and EU have been throwing the ‘terrorist’ word at us for the longest time, and we merely had to swallow it, now that there are additional indications that Iran is part of the problem we are left in the dark. The Saudi government gives us ““The competent authorities will conduct investigations with all those arrested to find out more information about their activities and the persons connected to them in the kingdom and abroad,” the statement read”, yet I wonder if the is enough, I wonder how much shielding Iran is receiving, Yemen and the Houthi actions made it clear that this was happening, now we are set in a stage where shielding is a lot larger making the media less reliable, I wonder who they are working for, because as I personally see it, it is not the advertisers. This all does not make the 10 men guilty, but it sets a stage of questions that most do not want to entertain, what is Iran actually up to?

 

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September 25, 2020 · 18:27

The new disaster movie

Yup, we all have seen them, buildings on fire (Towering inferno), silly snappers with appetite (Jaws), Catching your stones (Deep Impact), shaking your love (Earthquake), warming up the neighbourhood (Dante’s Peak), or solving the greenhouse effect (The Day after tomorrow), yes we have more likely than not seen at least one of them, especially when we still have our 2012 diary set to that day in December. And we all love these movies, especially when it is a fight of man (or woman) against nature, the person becomes the automated underdog and we know the we really do not have a chance, especially those who remember Will Yun Lee in San Andreas. Nature is a bitch any given day of the week.

So what happens when we take the premise and really give you a nightmare scenario? The idea popped up when I was looking to the absolute lack of intelligence coming from the Oval Office. So when we got the quote “Well, we’ll have to see what happens. You know that. I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster”, it was at that moment when I remember a situation in history, you might have heard of it, a guy named Nero and what he decided to do to Rome. It was at that moment when the mind started to think things through.
For your consideration

The setting is given to us in a stage where a person is opted to join Google and offers for sale all his 5G IP (let’s just pretend that is me, it is an ego thing) and it goes better than the main character ever considered. He is promptly paid the initial fee ($25,000,000 post taxation up front) and he hands over the IP, all of it and it is a winner, Google learns where they forgot to look and the main character gets a hell of a lot more than even he considered ($12B pre taxation), so as the IP becomes all Google, the main character heads for a nice early retirement with the largest golden parachute in history. Yet the people around him take notice, Russian organised crime, greed hungry bankers (a reference to HSBC) and they gang up on him, in this even American politicians and members of the CIA take care to snap up what they can and he ends up with nothing. This sets in motion a wave of rage never seen before and the silly criminals are all laughing, because they got the cash. But the creative mind goes to town and vows vengeance. He sets the stage with access to a larger NBC arsenal. Into the stage where he unleashes 13 nuclear sites, most of them near the spaces of the criminals, now suddenly everyone is crying like little bitches and how unfair it all is, but the main character is beyond caring, he sees the ultimate equaliser, it is loss, when the criminals and the corrupt are confronted with the loss of everything THEY care for, the need for a compromise by the criminals and politicians alike. He then sets on a larger binge, even as some think that they have a handle, he starts with the Nuclear bombing of Grand Coulee, Palo Verde, W. A. Parish, Monroe, Bath County, and Peach Bottom. These 6 changes the power options to the largest extent and no matter how great their protection was, having a 2 megaton bomb explode next to it renders such a place decently useless. At the same setting he sets of the 4 bombs near the goons responsible for being playing bad Santa to the main character, taking care of Chicago, San Francisco, San Antonio and Miami, the last to go off in Virginia setting the FBI and the CIA in a stage where they have nowhere to go. It is not the end, the Russian criminals are now in a stage where the law and a few hundred thousand Americans are hunting them down. As the rage in the main character goes on, we see the he had set the stage before the first nuclear bomb went off, where he had ‘liberated’ a few really nasty bedfellows. The bombs made reporting the issue a non-option, but as the nation is learning what had happened, the main character had seen everything taken away from him. He releases the diseases in Washington DC, Boston, Los Angeles and Jacksonville. The panic is now complete, as all plead for a compromise, we see the person put a gun towards his mouth, whispers ‘I will all see you soon’ whilst in the background a mustard gas bomb the size of a fuel bomb goes off, he swallows the barrel and pulls the trigger. We will vows that this will never be a reality, yet when we sit at home and we see ‘HSBC Stock Pummelled by Financial Crimes Report’ with the additional “hit by the fallout from revelations of the bank’s involvement in facilitating criminal activities” which happened three days ago. Crime and opportunity seekers tend to go after the people they think are weak, so what do you think happens when they go after the wrong person? This is not nature that you cannot stop, that opponent is still for the most predictable, it is the person that loses his or her mind, that person becomes unreasonable and unpredictable.

It becomes even more fun when we realise the HSBC was not alone, it is not. The Guardian reported three years ago ‘British banks handled vast sums of laundered Russian money’, am I still dreaming? Greed is like mother nature, it is predictable, and I do believe that insurmountable loss is the only thing the corrupt and the greed driven truly fear. The corrupt tend to think the it is for a greater good, you only have to blow away their children in front of a corrupt person to see their armour dent permanently. In that do you think that a person losing billions will listen to reason? Especially when government officials are involved? You might think that this will never happen, did you? But that is probably what you thought of banks as well. Greed has no limits, neither does rage and in this it tends to be a fight to behold, especially as unbridled rage equals a volcano or a meteorite that is on a path, neither of them ever wavers.

So yes, we can all agree with President Trump on “we’ll have to see what happens”, however do you want to be there when things go ballistic? I certainly don’t, but then this was merely a small movie idea, just like ‘How to assassinate a politician’, which I wrote about in ‘Sweden has it too’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/30/sweden-has-it-too/), I wonder if the people in the Critical Incident Analysis Group – CIAG (University of Virginia) the people who give us “But we are wrong about that. Mass shootings are not unstoppable, and there are people trying to stop them. They are not even inexplicable, because every time Trunk hears of one he understands why it happened and who did it”, I wonder where they were when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold decided to throw a little party at the Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. 12 students and one teacher did not make it out and there is every indiction that the damage could have been much worse. So what happens when you push a person over the brink, a person that designed a solution the 114 thousand people at Google had not considered. Sundar Pichai might be one of the 100 most influential people n the planet, but no one will blame him for not considering everything. So when the person with the one original idea goes nuts, what will the impact be? I believe it could be the disaster movie of the decade, a step on the chessboard that none of the hundred think tanks in the US can consider, they are not ready for the parameters and in that meantime the most damage is incurred.

Well, that is my sense of humour satisfied, have a nice weekend and sweet dreams, don’t think too much of the power station near you, any of them have at least 4 flaws that they all forgot to report on.

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September 24, 2020 · 18:59

The stage of a game

We all have an idea, some have the idea of a life time, but I cannot make that claim, not because I do not have one, but because I have too many. Yes there is the call to make remasters (Knights of the Sky), there is the call to reinvent the wheel (System Shock by Nightdive Studios), or there is the need to take it to the next level, a next level that was not possible in the past, mainly because technology did not allow for it.

This is how I always saw Pirates (by Sid Meier), there was a chance where Black Flag was a nice tribute, but it was the dawn of PS4 and Xbox One and Ubisoft took a cowardly way to progress a franchise on a lack of factors. So as I initially played Black Flag, my mind went racing. And then I remembered another pirate game, a board game with additional bluff cards. So what happens, when w take the foundation of Black Flag and make it more towards the original the Sid Meier made? The map would be well over 20 times the size, a lot more like the actual map of the Caribbeans in those days, the game would not be some fruity assassin, it would be your version and you get to live the life of a cutthroat, a buccaneer, a privateer, it is up to you, to go from a small skiff to a full-grown galley or slave ship if you are good enough. You see, there is something totally awesome about the way the game Elite Dangerous is designed (by David Braben). There your life does not matter, the game does not care, nor should it and it is time to set that stage to RPG and a pirate RPG makes a lot of sense. You cannot always be a captain, you start as a simple sailor. And in this you could get to a rank if you are good enough. 

So how do we go about it, we tend to look towards the wars of adjustment, yet there are so many wars the were never on the radar, the Dutch independence wars (which took close to 80 years), the age of piracy and lets not forget the Sudan wars (Mahdist War 1881-1899), all places that seem to be forgotten. Who remembers the siege of Khartoum? Some are so set in a stage of winning, the we sometimes forget that half the fun is surviving, so how far will you get? The original siege went on from 13 March 1884 to 26 January 1885, so what happens when you are in charge, how long will you last? Games are so much about winning, the we forget the enduring is nothing less. To make it to the date or even past it would be a victory and a half. It is so American to be the victor the most of them do not understand ‘the Last Samurai’, it is not about winning, it is about not losing, or better stated, the way you live towards the final days matters more, we forgot about that part, didn’t we?

We can set any gaming stage, but it is how we play where we see if we measure up, not if we merely tap the mile poles in a game. I reckon that the achievements made us all a little complacent in games. We can go in any direction, a Hindenburg flight simulator, yet in there we will always come up short against the Microsoft flight simulator, it makes more sense for them to add the Hindenburg. Yet what happens when we turn the script? What happens when we set the stage to a simple thing, what if the player is a no one, yet his/her grandfather was Hades, Poseidon or Zeus? What happens when we map a place like Monte Carlo completely and get him to retrieve a relic that one of the 2,261 millionaires or 50 billionaires has. Is it in a house, is it on a boat or is it somewhere else (like a museum)? We can simplify any game for as much as we can, but in the end we need a healthy story and for the most Wars tend to do that (an unhealthy endeavour if ever there was one). I saw the need of a game on mines, and remembered some bomb defusing game on the CBM-64, so where to go from there? The stage of a game is important, because it sets a vested interest of the gamer, Ubisoft had the down to perfection in Assassins Creed 2 and Brotherhood and after the they lost the plot, they almost won it back in AC4 Black Flag and they definitely got it back in Origins. I would think the a Battlestar Galactica RPG is one the would be favourable with the BSG fans, but not much outside that, the same can be said for Babylon 5, the Star Trek fanbase is huge, so that tends to be a close win any given day of the week, but that does not guarantee a good game, the issue is seen when an idea with a small base entices a large following, that is the stage we all seek. CD Project Red did so with Witcher and seemingly is about to do it again with Cyberpunk 2077.  It is the setting the fuels the story, and the story is everything, I have always believed that, it is the power of an RPG. It is because of the that we see out the great stories (Tolkien), yet I wonder what happens when we try this with Herbert on a larger scale with Dune, not merely on Arrakis, why if all the other places become involved? Perhaps a visionary will see that option with the next Dune movie (2020). In this books have been the strongest source of inspiration, mainly because there are so many of them. Yet most of us go to the same source, why? I agree that it is appealing, but there are so many nations with alternatives. That is something we saw when someone created the Untitled Goose Game, brilliant t in its foundation, as such I wondered if someone had considered the same thing with a cat (Minoes, Annie M. G. Schmidt), a writer the has a following of millions in the Netherlands and Belgium. In that same setting, as Skyrim became such a hit, did anyone ever look towards the famous Spanish Comic books of the Mercenary by Segrelles? It has all the makings of a much larger game, a stage where some are set not in multiple games, but one game with a season pass and several DLC’s.

Then there is the comic hero Rork, by Andreas, or even the Trigan Empire by Don Lawrence. I remember growing up to these stories and the stories of Ravian (Valerian), I am a little surprised that the Trigan Empire never made it to the silver screen or the computer, Don Lawrence has a flair for imagery and the computer always needs this. So what is the stage of a game that will be set next? The is the question and the is where players like Sony and Google/Apple will find themselves. Microsoft might be acquiring the brands (Bethesda), yet they do not have the stage alone and the next innovator might be just around the corner. For me, the idea that the $7,500,000,000 lemon the Microsoft acquired (not Bethesda mind you) would backfire largely and loudly and the would be OK with me.

As I personally see it, Microsoft pissed of true gamers and that group of people doesn’t pull punches when they play with their idols, we do not fault Bethesda in any of this, but aligning with Microsoft was not the best idea, as some say, you are only as good as your next game and Bethesda had plenty of winners, but what is next? We look not merely to the stage of the game, but to the next stage of gaming and I believe that they are too often hiding behind terms like ‘hype worthy games’, yet that is a setting from the mind of a marketing department, they predict that people who play games, will think this is a hype. Yet true hypes come from games the are on the edge of what is possible in gaming, the Witcher 3 is the perfect example there. Cyberpunk is also on the stage, neither of them are Microsoft games. Yet it was brilliant to buy Bethesda, but the also means that those who do not love the Microsoft console will look to the borders and see what else is possible, optionally setting the stage for the $7,500,000,000 lemon, not because of Bethesda, but because gamers have a lack of trust in Microsoft and the fact that some had the numbers that only 1 out of 3 considered the new Microsoft console, the gives me the impression that Microsoft has a much larger problem and buying software houses will not solve it, making visionary games do and the is the lesson Microsoft has not learned. They opened the door for Sony to look what else is out there, what else could become an exclusive and the is where Sony will win and gamers will win. Because it is on the edge of possible gaming where new gamers will be born, new games will be born and at the end of my life I see that there are options coming towards gamers, games the will create new gamers, it will create new creativity and new thinking through gaming and this is a good thing. The simple truth is the there is real gaming beyond Ubisoft and Microsoft, true gaming is never soft, it is challenging and the is where we need to look, we need to look where they are not looking. That is how I got most my IP in several fields. Not by being some bullet point presenter like all the others, but by looking in a direction they decided not to bother looking. That is how most revolutionary IP is created, and it is funny as this is the way Microsoft and Ubisoft started, to look where no was. Too bad they forgot about the part of the equation and I reckon the Sony is waking up to that lesson at present.

 

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September 16, 2020 · 00:52

The delusional stage of me

Yup, that was always going to be a phase. Even if it is merely academical, the best setting towards a stage of balance is to reflect on the matter that I might be bonkers. To others this mean gaga, mad, insane optionally freaking bug nuts. Some people might be afraid of setting their mental capacity to minus 365, but I do not share that. There is the chance I have been correct on every count (I usually am), but to set that stage I must reflect on the chances that I somewhere to the right of insane and to the left of being bonkers to the umpteenth degree.

You see, it is easy to blame Reuters, but the merely propagate the news, do they not? So when I see “U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said he is confident there will be effective 5G competitors to Huawei from Western vendors at comparable costs, adding that he believes Western technologies will come to dominate telecommunications” some could consider that I am not alone in the fashion house with the long sleeved shirts, but that is just them. When I see ‘Western technologies will come to dominate’ I see a clear admission that China is ahead in 5G and they are. This s further fuelled by “I am confident that there will be a cost effective deliverables from Western trusted vendors that can deliver the same services or better services at comparative cost”, there we do not see ‘trusted vendors that will deliver’, but ‘trusted vendors that can deliver’, it sets the stage to a presumption. The former CIA director is precise with his language, he is no fool, not by a long shot. This sets a different scope for me, to counter it, I will be pushed to offer my IP to either Saudi Arabia or the UAE, an alternative is Qatar, but that has its own issues and it might cost me in the long run. If the ‘person of patent calculations’ os to be believed, I would have a lot to lose, but there is no way that I can trust most of the governments, yet Google and Huawei is a polarised field, in this setting Saudi Arabia or the UAE could be the in-between to whomever bids next, and that might be Huawei, they have the advantage on software and they are a smudge ahead of Google in that matter. The Reuters article is limited and one of the smaller articles, it is like Reuters is merely setting out one paragraph of a memo. I see no questions, no rhetoric of even speculative settings towards what is and what could be, Reuters is playing this cautiously, which in light of the ‘revelation’ is interesting, but the stage is one that I cannot ignore. Dealing with Huawei is the safe bet on the value of the IP, yet the bully tactics of the US are starting to pay off, and now that the UK government has handed ARM to Nvidia, the stage will turn for yet another turn. In all this the media remains oblivious on delivery times by Apple that in some cases are set to 20 weeks, a 2 trillion dollar company with a delay of 20 weeks on their iPad air? That means that there is a shortage of unbridled proportions and this is not merely the COVID stage, there is more, there has to be. 

When you cannot deliver for that amount of time, yet you open more and more stages of shop displays (in other chains), the shortage is fundamental and as I see it, when chip shortages hits 5G hardware, it will be fun to see some people panic. This is not a given, and not speculatively, Sony already has issues with its SoC chip. They are expected to ship 4 million less PS5 consoles in the coming year. 5G also has a SoC chip (a different one) but if one has issues, the setting that others have it too is not too far fetched. Gizmodo gave us a little over a month ago ‘MediaTek supply for 4G chips run dry, fresh stock to arrive by 2021’, it does not matter how Mediatek voices it, if it cannot supply the world with 4G chips, it will not be able to keep up on 5G either, and that is what matters. Because the moment China has a decent alternative to offer, 100% of that stock goes straight to Huawei increasing the advantage they have and at that point, how many of them will go to the US? My speculative guess is 0%, and that is where the Middle East comes into play. Huawei needs to make nice and the EU is not ready, but the Middle East is, Egypt too, although not sure if they have a lot fo needs at that point. But the stage that I predicted months ago is still coming to pass, although chip shortage was not on my radar, merely the shortsighted actions by the American govern mental administration.

And me? My delusional stage? Well that is out in the open, either Saudi Arabia or the UAE can get hold of my IP for $25,000,000 upfront with shared patent ownership, as the investor they get 60%, I keep 40%, which would be an awesome payout, especially when the US has no options but to buy in. It was a choice and a risk to play it like this, but there was no trust with some corporations, as such there was only Google and Huawei and Huawei is becoming an international discriminated party, it will hurt me, so I am taking an alternative road and these people want to play on the 5G table, I had to make a choice and I have everything to gain and nothing to lose, in the worst case I make my IP public domain, if that happens it means that governments and corporations are so greed driven that engineers on a global scale will walk out and start for themselves, I wonder if I see that happen.

Well, have a great (delusional) day.

 

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September 9, 2020 · 20:20

The Yesterday approach

I was looking at the Google Stadia setting for games, and naturally I got a list of the games that is on all the other systems. The problem is that Google is just starting, and even as it has good games, it also has a few titles where we can wonder how many disappointments the gamers will be introduced to, this is not about bashing Ubisoft, but they do not have the best track record at present, giving the Stadia almost half a dozen games less. One option would be to renew the old games, and I am not merely pointing towards games from the PS3/Xbox360, which is not the worst idea, but another level of gaming. I mentioned Murder on the Zinderneuf in a previous blog, but today I was re-confronted with an old classic, Tower of Babel, it was a Rainbird production in 1989 and made by Peter Cooke. We might think that the game is simple and that is only partially true, what is important the this is a game that the younger players can play, it can be upgraded to 4K if need be, but the moment the Internet congests, I wonder how much playtime people will get. The game fitted originally on a 1MB disc, as such the game could be upgraded to some degree, but it was already a good game, and as I see it, the amount of puzzle games is a little on the low side on nearly all platforms. And it is not the only game that could make it there, I mentioned Millennium 2.2 in an earlier blog and as such there is a rather large game pool that can be connected too, and that shows the larger flaw in the Google Stadia arsenal. We see what some call ‘the cool games’ and plenty of others too, but for any console to copy the other ones, is merely an exercise in catching up at best and yes, the Google Stadia has the potential to make it to third position, but if they want to differentiate themselves they need and a larger arsenal and a different level of additions. Puzzle, strategy, RPG, but not merely the ones already advertised, they need more and the old games were really good, as such a streaming game that is an upgraded version is still a lot smaller than some of the 30GB games and in streaming that counts as well. And that is not all, NBA 2K21 is supposed to be coming, yet the games has all kinds of issues on the other platforms. Park not working, players are prevented from joining games, we see mentions of ‘hailstorm of issues’, which let’s be honest, was always going to happen, but on a new console, the more games with issues, the less appealing it is. Yes the Microsoft and Sony solutions had the same thing, but they had a pol of titles to rely on and Google does not have that. Nintendo has had this a lot less and they have the advantage there, but for Google being on par with Sony and Nintendo was never going to be realistic, as such Google needs its own pol of games, games that have been properly tested and they will need close to a dozen games added, a dozen Google games and the old games are a good option. So how many Chess games are there on non-PC systems? What is the range of games per category? I am actually a little surprised that Google lacked in that regard, at least according to their own pages. So I wonder who were the deciding voices at Google, especially as the Stadia list has Breakpoint, a game regarded as the worst game in 2019, and that is before we consider some of the other titles (without judgement), titles that have been ‘heralded’ as ‘more of the same’, is that really how Google wants to start a new console? There are a few other titles, but that would be kicking certain makers whilst they might be really wanted by other players, my view is merely my view for the games that I like, others like other games, yet no one will like a lack of games and in this Google has its work cut out for them. 

 

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