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February 11, 2020 · 17:26

Value of original gaming IP

When my mind designed the sequels to a new Elder Scrolls game, Far Cry and Watchdogs I did not care about the revenue, I did not care about the revenue factors in gaming franchise, I was merely one creative mind devising new ways and new stories, because the story is everything, it really is. 

Consider the intro and staging of Far Cry 3 against Far Cry 5, the stage of Assassin’s Creed 2 versus AC Unity, or AC Origins versus AC Odyssey and you might get a glimpse of that setting. In all honesty, I never considered revenue in any of it, but I realise that it is a driving force of the houses that publish them. Lets face it, would Mario exist if we did not consider the value of the $650 million it represents? In that same light Call of Duty, GTA, FIFA and Zelda, they all represent a serious level of coins. As such I see the need to continue some franchises, yet  wonder when we test their push for the storyline, how far will some get?

Consider in all this that the Elder Scrolls represent less than a billion, Skyrim alone represents half a billion dollars and has sold over 20,000,000 copies. And let’s face it, we always want to do better than the previous one, which is what drove me to set the story design of Elder Scrolls: Restoration.

Yet even as we see more versions of a game, Apple and Google are driving the need for original IP, it is the larger drive in gaming, not because it is Apple and google, but because the makers see that the original IP can be the beginning of a massive drive towards a system. There is also the fact that when we get a new system we do not want to play the same game over again on that system. 

Yet there are exceptions and they tend to be System driven. The Last of us on PS3 and PS4. Skyrim xbox360 – Xbox one and PS3 – PS4. Pretty much anything involving Mario, and the list goes on, yet Google and Apple do not have that yet and they need to rely on original IP to get the people in. That part was shown all the way back to the Nintendo 64 and the first PlayStation. 

IP that is owed is easier to evolve and more important, when the first game is a hit, it tends to be easier on revenue expectations as well. However, as we look at Apple, we see the need and the logic to have the subscriptions, yet when we see a game like Pilgrims with a mere 14,000 subscribers, the path for Apple is still less than stellar. Now we can push franchises like No Man’s Sky (Hello Games) there, however if Apple is to make a name for itself, it needs original IP, an original RPG, and original racing game and so on. that will drive sales, that will drive longevity in gaming and in a $120 billion industry last year alone, it makes sense to carve a name for yourself.

Yet there is also the stage where the expected and the non-considered walk. When I started to first design an original IP, was it truly original? It was (for the most) and I even added a new game mode that none had considered. Arcade is the way we consider, yet who has considered ‘historically accurate’ as a game mode? 

In this I wanted a more original RPG were the stage is Scandinavia (Norway and Sweden mapped), where you start in the land and get a choice of three places to start, from there you grow your village, grow your interest on the terrain and grow, after which you need to plunder, need to destroy your neighbours and add to your place (and take it from there), an RPG where you can set the rune tone to one god and receive the back handed prayers in success. Yet how can we link ‘Arcade’ and ‘historically accurate’? Well there we get the test of how good a person can play and basically they play two games. Even as a person buys provisions (with real cash) to get an advantage, they buy more, because the purchase in an arcade also comes with a ‘boon coin’ in the ‘historically accurate’. So if a person buys a load of fish in Arcade, they also get a boon coin with a fish in the historically accurate, which sets the chance to find a fish shoal to 100% there. Get two for the price of one. The same for weapons where a kart is bought for one side and the other side gets the smithing coin, giving them a 100% chance of a quality forged weapon. I even set out the stage that an actual player in one village would influence the growth in the virtual version where another player is a neighbour (like choice of stone, location and direction of growth)

I also wanted to make sure that ‘historically accurate’ was there to show that life is not a game and when we slice and dice like in Viking: Battle for Asgard, yet I thought that the game was too small, it was too easily defeated (except the boss at the end) and even as the game had good points, I wanted to see this game in a much larger setting. I wanted compelling to translate to addictive and I wanted a lot more to stand out, I also wanted to make sure that the choice of a god rune had a much larger impact, so over time as people played the game, they would have a new experience if the village rune stone was not set to Odin, but to Loki, Thor, Balder, Frigg, Vidar, or Tyr. What benefit do you want to see? And when chosen in Arcade it will be the set stone for ‘historically accurate’ as well. As such as the history of your village evolves we see that people realise that the impact one would hope for in Arcade would have a different term in the ‘historically accurate’ (HA), we forget in playing that famine was a real think in those days, as was disease and that could go from village to village. We could push it to Greece on the same premise and see where this leads, yet Scandinavia where the weather would have a much larger impact seems to be a more preferred personal feeling in this. So how many games take that into consideration? 

Yes, games like Fallout have a survival mode and there we see “The only means of physically saving the game is to sleep in a bed, on a mattress or in a sleeping bag. The exit save function is still available, but is a temporary save that is deleted automatically upon loading“, it is almost like hardocre mode in Diablo, how many times did you have to die before you figured out that running into batle is as stupid as it could be? As such the HA mode will give the player a much larger consideration to what he’s doing, it is not intend to drive microtransactions, which is why you can optionally only buy stuff in the arcade mode and only the real gamers and winners will get through the game without ever buying anything, that is why I would add an achievement named ‘no purchase required’, how many games heralded the need to not embrace microtransactions? 

It was a stage that my mind evolved over a few days and that is the easy part of the creative element in a game, I wonder how many creative minds are out there in the gaming industry, because I feel personally that people like Sean Murray and David Braben are as rare as it gets in this industry (no insult to other game makers intended), for me it is a stage where I see where places like Apple Arcade (and Google Stadia) are and where they go, so far I am actually not that impressed, not when it comes to companies this big.

 

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January 31, 2020 · 15:22

The Bully’s henchman

Yes, we saw it before and again we see a new ploy into the bashing by a bully. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/29/uk-chance-relook-huawei-5g-decision-mike-pompeo) gave us “Britain has a chance to “relook” at its decision to allow Huawei into its 5G phone network in the future, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, declared as he flew to London for a two-day visit to the UK“, the fact that the number one US bully (as some see him) sends out Mike Pompeo warrants more scrutiny. Lets not forget that on a global scale the US has not actually produced ANY evidence that Huawei is a security concern. We see merely that the US firms will lose their data drops on a global scale as Huawei makes a larger impact, and that is a much larger fear for the US than anything else. Even as we see news with senators with privacy concerns, we see an absolute lack of actions towards Google and Facebook to amend its protocols and data capture activities, all set in some loophole, flaws which are still legal and legally set in stone (of a sort mind you). Yet the undocumented claimed fear of Huawei and the Chinese government has still not been shown to actual cyber specialists and to actual independent hardware experts. 

So as senior (read: ancient) advisors of the Trump administration give: “insisted that sensitive American information should travel only through “trusted networks”” we see a lack of evidence by them. We also see that the US is changing its tune, the claim “But our view is that we should have western systems with western rules, and American information only should pass through trusted networks, and we’ll make sure we do that,” is it the changing claim of the bully that has changed evidence for ‘we should have western systems with western rules‘ is evidence of that. In addition to that its weak and waning “The secretary of state emphasised that work was being done between the two countries “to make sure that there are true competitors to Huawei” so that “we can deliver true commercial outcomes across real secure networks that aren’t subject to the Chinese Communist party’s control”“, where we need to valuate ‘work was being done between the two countries “to make sure that there are true competitors to Huawei”‘ reads more like a flaccid 90’s software sales agent with a concept to sell than an actual commitment. This situation merely exists because governments stopped seeing infrastructure as a priority and as US commercial people saw ‘gains’ elsewhere (read: cheaper/easier way to make commission), hardware needs lagged and the US is almost 3 years behind in the 5G circuit. Like in the BBC article yesterday, we see “The US says Huawei could be used by China for spying, via its 5G equipment” hiding behind the word ‘could‘ whilst not producing any evidence. All whilst presurring on “Mr Ren’s military background and Huawei’s role in comms networks to argue it represents a security risk” that is all slanted on a time when Mr Ren actually looked young and served for 9 years, he left the army in 1983, which was when Mike Pompeo was in High School optionally hoping to fondle a local cheerleaders boobies (we can presume), oh and by the way this was all 37 years ago, as such the lack of evidence on the equipment apart from an almost 10 year old case that was settled, the evidence presently seen is a joke.

This is all about the US losing its data collecting position and it is willing to sell anyother nation down the drain, all becasue the US became lacks, stupid and flaccid. Is that the legacy that the EU and the UK have to look forward to? Lets not forget that no matter how happy Nokia and Ericsson become, they are a little over 5 years in the running and well over 3 years too later to adapt to the high-tech that Huawei is currently releasing, that is the price of iterative technology.

The fact that my personal IP surpasses the US tech stream is further evidence still, in 1992 I was really behind the curve, it makes for the difference of innovative thinking and as the world relied on the US, its flaccid actions are now a real issue. 

In addition to all this, Wednesday also gave us “A group of anti-Huawei Tories want an assurance that the government will work towards reducing the Chinese company’s influence in UK infrastructure to zero, ultimately stripping it out of the 4G network as well” which is linked to “any provider deemed high-risk by the intelligence services should be phased out of the supply chain” and the problem here is not that Huawei is a claimed spy tool for the Chinese government, it is the fact that (as Alex Younger) stated that no infrastructure should be in the hands of non-UK corporations, which is acceptable. Yet they will hand the hardware over to EU and the US government, which is slicing the meat on the other side and almost as pointless. Let’s be clear, Alex (big boss MI6) gave a clear and understandable point of view. UK infrastructure needs to be in UK hands and as such we can accept that. Yet British Telecom is nowhere near this situation and as such we see a failing of policy on more than one shore.

So as we get to “Unhappy MPs held a series of meetings in Westminster, although they are keen to operate behind the scenes to push for a concession, several senior Tories believe they have a chance of getting the 45 rebels needed for a successful backbench revolt on legislation relating to regulation of Huawei” which would boil down to a conservative mutiny on a few fronts, the question that I am currently posing is: “If I investigate these 45 ‘proclaimed rebel’ members, how many will reveal a carefully denied personal link and gain from a non Chinese Telecom market?” Is that not an interesting side either?

And the intentional limitation of 35% would that be to keep American commerce happy, or is there an actual security setting here?

There is too much on the surface that we should investigate and it is not. Even as the article makes a reference to American diplomat Plus One, whose wife Anne Saccolas is accused of causing the death of 19-year-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn. They still insist on their bully tactics and they will refuse to make public any evidence of the Chinese government links to Huawei hardware, all whilst the massive bugs in the Cisco routers are ignored by all.

So whilst we all cry over non existent hacks on Huawei equipment, we are faced by Cisco insecurity, and whilst some will not get this, the fact that the bulk of all servers in the world rely on Cisco Switches. so when we get (source: Cisco) “2020 January 29. A vulnerability in the web UI of Cisco Small Business Switches could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected device. The vulnerability is due to improper validation of requests sent to the web interface. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a malicious request to the web interface of an affected device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause an unexpected reload of the device, resulting in a DoS condition.” Now apart from the local need to fix this, there is no real blame at Cisco, this happens and whilst we see

Vulnerable Products

  • 200 Series Smart Switches
  • 300 Series Managed Switches
  • 500 Series Stackable Managed Switches

So whilst everyone is crying over non proven proclaimed weaknesses, there are actual weaknesses in the hardware leading to the internet and that gets my goat up, the entire Hawei matter is about the US losing too much revenue and the US being out of the data loop, and we support that….why?

When we wonder how we care on who gets our data, we seem to forget that someone gets it, yet the US wants to be the only runner in this race, based on decades of feigned superiority and now that they are in the race and moving from first to 4th position we seem to grant them all the leeway they need, whilst on the other side we see no improvement on personal data intelligence security, why do we need to continue this situation?

That issue becomes larger when we see the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/96c79040-40ea-11ea-bdb5-169ba7be433d). Here we see “Wealthy individuals are scrambling to lock down their privacy in the wake of the alleged hack of Jeff Bezos’ iPhone, as personal cyber security experts warn that the rich and famous are increasingly becoming the target of sophisticated cyber criminals“, which makes sense and the supported ‘a report last week alleged that Amazon founder Mr Bezos was hacked by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2018‘ in all this there are (at least) two sides

  1. We see a proven part where ‘sophisticated cyber criminals‘ are getting onto more and more mobiles (an issue that will continue faster and more intense in 5G. 
  2. The world is realising that corporations are not lucrative targets, the softer market and larger market of one million mobiles might be worth a lot more, and the collected information could lead to a switch in ‘criminal economies’, that part is optionally seen in “Rubica, a company that provides more affordable digital protection for families, added that had he received “lots of inbound” inquiries last week from clients about how to better protect themselves from adversaries“, and as we see “According to data compiled by RSA Security, 70 per cent of fraudulent transactions in 2019 originated on mobiles“
  3. (Optional) The guilt of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was never clearly established and is by some experts in the field regarded as a strange choice of actor to incriminate in the first place, as such it implies that there is a larger concern that the ‘vested’ parties cannot make clear statements on guilt and providing proof on who did it. Making the cyber setting a lot more dangerous, especially as insurers will try to seek more ways on options to not having to pay out (making more stringent contracts), this setting could hurt millions of people whilst the actual criminals go on without prosecution.

We see a shift in the market and this shift becomes a much larger issue in 5G, as such do you want your 5G infrastructure to be 3 years behind the latest technology? It will go faster and faster as I saw what the direction was and my IP would (hopefully) lessening the impact by almost 30% whilst 400 million starters (globally) will get a much larger slice of their marketing pie for their small businesses, whilst keeping more control of their information. All because some people forgot to look in one direction, that too is the effect of flaccid American innovation. I would never be a contender if they upped their game, so when my ship does come in, I will have to thank them for that.

Marc Rogers, vice-president of cyber security at Okta is right when we see “The cache of data on these devices is just growing, We’ve seen a massive escalation of theft [from] mobile devices because criminals are realising that people are storing immense amounts of personal and financial information,” is part of that crux and the US whilst bullying their Huawei part are basically not ready to deal with this, because they will claim that is up to you and your insurance. Which is an interesting ploy to give out in the near future as Cyber crime will spike and all whilst most global governments still do not have a clear and well documented Common Cyber Sense setting in play, many are hiding it in some HR document and using that to sack people when the damage becomes a little too pronounced, or the transgression becomes a ‘politically correct’ consideration. 

I see a much larger problem and the US is merely adding fuel to the fire and whomever they send will merely be the spokesboard of US data collection groups (as I personally see it) that need their data to maintain existence. 

So who is ready to play catch with the next henchman that the US sends?

 

 

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January 16, 2020 · 10:30

The time is now

Yesterday, an article in the BBC made me aware of a few items. Now, I was aware to a larger degree of most items, yet I kept it in the second drawer of the third desk of my brain, it was something I took for accepted and then shrug it off, so what changed? Nothing actually changed, but the article seems good enough to take a few items on view.

The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51115315) gives us “Google has announced a timeline for implementing new privacy standards that will limit third-party use of a digital tool known as cookies“, now this is nothing new, it was always going to happen, yet we also see: “analysts say the move gives Google more control over the digital ad market where it is already a major player.  To make advertising more personal web browsers collect small bits of information that allow them to create a profile of the users likes and online habits“, the question becomes, is that actually true? And when we see “This presents a core problem from a competition perspective. It is yet another example of Google diminishing ad rivals’ access to data for the stated purpose of protecting users’ privacy“, a quote from Dina Srinivasan, a lawyer focused on competition issues is not really that truthful, is it? Apple made a similar move in 2017 and when we go back in time, we see Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Opera. Most will have forgotten Netscape who became defunct in 2003, and basically stopped making a blip 2 years before that. We seemingly forgot about the exploitative market that Microsoft had in those days with Internet Explorer and all the crap it added to our HTML files (as did Word when we saved as an HTML file), in those days data in files was still an issue because there was a limit to what we could safe when we were not rich. Chrome was the first to keep our files clean, or at least lacking a lot of rubbish. Netscape was however on a different route, an employee of Netscape Communications, which was developing an e-commerce application for MCI. MCI did not want its servers to have to retain partial transaction states which was a killer for storage, as such they asked the people at Netscape to find a way to store partial options and methods of transactions where it mattered the most, at the side of the buyer, Cookies provided a solution to the problem of reliably implementing a virtual shopping cart, Google found a new way of using that idea and used cookies in the far reaching solution it currently has, they innovated, others merely took on board someone else’s solution and not they are all crying foul. Perhaps when these people had taken the time to innovate, they would have the choice, and the option of two years seems decent, so when I read “advertisers had hoped to have more time before it was implemented” is as I personally see a larger BS issue on timeframes and exploitation, if advertisers are in the now, they would be all about advanced implementation, yet they like their bonus and they seemingly do not like to spend money on investments to counter the timeline (an assumption from my side). 

Google’s director of Chrome engineering, Justin Schuh gives us “Users are demanding greater privacy – including transparency, choice and control over how their data is used – and it’s clear the web ecosystem needs to evolve to meet these increasing demands“, which seems slightly too political to my liking, but there we have it. Business Day gives us “But GDPR also made life harder for a cohort of second-tier adtech players trying to compete with the likes of Google and Facebook. The regulation’s provision to prevent data being shared wantonly with third parties seemed to give the tech giants an opportunity to tighten their control over user data” where we see that this was one of the foundations that led to the end of SizMek, some state that it was DSP Rocket Fuel that ended the heartbeat of SizMek, yet everyone ignores a simple truth, ‘an overcrowded ad tech market with independent vendors with an inability to face serious cost pressures to their pricing structures‘, they all arrogantly believed that THEIR solution was the real one and they all basically read cookies like the ones Google had distributed. You can all claim to have the magic potion that Asterix drinks, but when the truth comes out that he drinks Darjeeling tea from India, the playing field gets overcrowded and when the customer figures out what they get priced for the end is pretty much around the corner of the next door you face.

So as we are told “third-party ad sellers will need to go through Google to get information about internet users. But critics say that is an advantage that makes the market less fair and safe“, in my view my question becomes: ‘Which critics, names please!‘, the problem is that third party ad sellers have no rights, none at all, the rights should be with the owner of the computer, Google (Apple also) are setting (not by their own accord) that stage, Microsoft is using their Azure Cloud to counter the Cookie option on PC and Microsoft Console, but the hard sight is already there, the people who are unable, unwilling and cannot afford to set the stage still want their freebee and they are now starting to complain as they are made aware that their time has ended, even though this was the direction we saw in US politics and EU politics well over three years ago. The EU had their General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and everyone shrugged their shoulders stating that it would not happen that fast, yet that was three years ago and now the time has been set back to merely two years to go and the ad sellers are feeling the pinch of the cost they will actually face. Moreover, they are seeing the red lights of career ends. The Verge gave us “an industry that’s used to collecting and sharing data with little to no restriction, that means rewriting the rules of how ads are targeted online“, they gave us that on May 25th 2018, so 1.5 years ago, why is this now a problem? The people wanted this, ad soon it will be here, Google has not been sitting still updating their systems accordingly, and as such we see that the flaccid and non-concerned rest is now looking at a deadline a mere two years away. When we look to the larger field we see Criteo, LiveRamp, Trade Desk, Rubicon, and Telaria, all losing value as ad-tech providers, yet the opposite could also be true when they offer to the customer a value, a value where most ad-tech companies never bothered going. Yet the power of any ad-tech was never the cookie, that was for the most merely the revenue. They had 5 years to consider the power of ad-tech and they didn’t. The power of this is basically engagement. Facebook showed this year after year and now it is out on the larger field, those who engage will survive, the rest will end up on a dog eat dog football field and a few will survive but only as long as they push to the next hurdle and make it, if not they will end up on the obituary page (just like Netscape, however Netscape ended there for other reasons). 

I wonder if that is why Google is so adamant about its stadia? It would get a massive tier of small time developers creating engagement content to be released on mobiles. That i me merely speculating. 

Still the words of Dina Srinivasan are not entirely without merit, she gives the Facebook issue (at https://www.wsj.com/articles/yale-law-grads-hipster-antitrust-argument-against-facebook-findsmainstream-support-11575987274), and she makes a good case, yet the history of certain players need to be taken into account. Even as she was her own misgivings about the evolution of the digital advertising market, history had been clear, some of them basically did not bother, they wanted it handed to them for free and in the beginning they got away with it. And she made a point with “How could a company with Facebook Inc.’s checkered privacy record have obtained so much of its users’ personal data?“, yet equally we need to weigh this with the words of U.S. Attorney General William Barr. He gives us “he is “open to that argument” that consumer harm can exist through the use of personal data, even if a service is free. “I am inclined to think there is no free lunch. Something that is free is actually getting paid for one way or the other”“, which is what I have been saying on my blog for around 4 years, so happy to see people wake up in January 2020. So when I see “Ms. Srinivasan would prefer that Facebook be forced to change certain business practices, including how it tracks users when they are off the company’s platforms“, I wonder when they give account to the small truth that Facebook is a free service for a reason and they are no longer alone in this, you are going after the large players when they are in the largest danger by losing slices of that revenue pie to contenders elsewhere in the world (EU and China). 

Whatever you want to do is fine, but realise that it will put a large group of people in the streets without a job, I am not against them losing their job, but that revenue and that data will also flow in other directions and that is the one part that all players (with political support) are trying to counter as much as possible. I wonder if they will succeed. The weird part is that if this group had been properly taxed 3 out of the 5 major issues would also fall away and in that view a workable solution could be pivoted to.

 

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January 14, 2020 · 12:27

The cornered bully

We all have these moments, when we have to speak out against dopey (the bully in the corner) but the boss we report to is a spineless sack of shit and he will not do anything, more importantly he seems to be heralding the voice of the bully like he has credibility. So there we are, the bully (America), the spineless boss (pretty much most nations in the EU and the Commonwealth) and the people ready to speak out, the IT experts who are muzzled by bosses, because they are afraid to start a fight.

That is the setting that the Guardian introduces us to with ‘Using Huawei in UK 5G networks would be ‘madness’, US says‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/13/using-huawei-in-uk-5g-networks-would-be-madness-us-says). We have seen it before, the US is now getting more and more afraid of the billions being missed out on and they are going full throttle with the fear mongering. Even as we see “Matt Pottinger, presented an incendiary dossier which they said featured new evidence of the security risks of relying on Huawei technology in future phone networks“, we get introduced to the Gerbil-in-the-groceries Matt Pottinger the new flagship for presenting ‘news’ just like Colin Powell with his Silver briefcase. You see, I am not afraid to face that music, neither are the hundreds of intrusion experts who have been unable to validate the wild fantasies of America, America took the VHS example and is trying to steer the ships of nations and now they are boasting an unwillingness to share intelligence. This is nice, but in the end, the Intelligence from the US is backdated and there is every chance that it is as false as any news they spread. The entire bully network comes to blows when we see “The intense and public lobbying presents an immediate headache for Boris Johnson“, I also do not disregard “having been repeatedly advised by the UK’s security establishment that any security risks can be contained“, this is equally important, because Alex Younger who is the official Big Boss at MI-6 stated that infrastructure this important should not leave British hands, this is not a case of Huawei being a danger, it is a national policy and that is fine, I would even state that this gives the UK and option to buy the Huawei technology, rip it apart, set it under a loop and optionally give BT a chance to become a contender, US firms will jump at that opportunity, to have Huawei technology without the Huawei fear. Let’s face it, Huawei offered that solution to the US last year, but there is a larger concern and for the US it is not really spying, it is the fear where data will end and there are several new players all non-American whilst the American data gatherers are tapped out (financially), so the US is bullying all others to wait hoping that Silicon Valley will come with an American solution that is actually real 5G, all whilst it is not coming and at present all those who delay are losing momentum and twice the amount of time on the 5G path, so any delay up to a year means a 2 year delay and they all know that you are either better (the US is not), you are first (the US can not) or you cheat (the only path the US has at present). 

This all gives us two distinct realities, the first is that for the first time the US is not the first at the top in technology, a shock they have a hard time surpassing and they are not the only 5G company, they are really not ready for real 5G, you see in my past blogs I showed that whatever they call 5G is really not 5G, nowhere near, not at those speeds. The Guardian also gives us “Ahead of the UK decision the head of MI5, Andrew Parker, said over the weekend that he saw “no reason to think” that using Huawei technology should threaten intelligence sharing with the US“, Mr Parker is right, but mainly because the quality of US intelligence is seemingly fading, they are losing sources all over the Middle East and they have too little in the Far East, as such we lose out on a source that is mostly redundant. Mr Parker’s assertion is in opposition to “a senior US official who was part of the delegation, who said: “Congress has made it clear they will want an evaluation of our intelligence sharing.”“, two parts are shown here, the fact that the bullying continue and the fact that this ‘senior US official‘ is left nameless, just like the fact that this matter is on the desk of a deputy national security advisor. In the age where America goes to vote next year, no one wants to burn their fingers and their career on this, and when the truth comes out (and it will) their careers are gone in the international field and the national field no longer has the juicy options it once had. 

When we get to “The officials, who had flown in specially from the US, would not spell out what the “relatively recent information” that they had shared with their UK counterparts was“, it is all a load of HogWash (American expression), you see, If there was any actual danger the US would spread it like a wildfire to EVERY security IT Consultant, but they did not and the news is flat on that. What we do get is ‘Facebook and Google are as much of a threat as Huawei‘ (source: Marketwatch) where we see “Facebook is already undermining the democratic process, including in the U.S. itself, where the platform has facilitated foreign interference in elections.

 

In addition, Facebook has fueled division and fear, and refused to remove hate speech, Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic posts. The platform has been described as a “megaphone for hate” against Muslims, and it is accused of facilitating a genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar. For these reasons, the British actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen recently called Facebook “the greatest propaganda machine in history.”” This is true but it is only he side effect of the matter, the real issue is not there it is seen in “these threats already exist, because Facebook (which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp) and Google (which owns YouTube) have an astonishingly comprehensive range of data about their users — their location, contacts, messages, photos, downloads, searches, preferences, purchases, and much else” It is not the porridge, it is the spoon, the data is everything and as the data no longer merely flow to America, but it will flow to China as well (via aps and so on) in a larger growing slice it will no longer flow to the US, that is the real fear, it will impact all firms relying on data and that is the real ticket and it will have an impact sizing up to billions of dollars every year, it is a larger impact as data becomes the new currency. I will go as far as setting the stage that the IP I had designed will impact it even further for the globally based 400 million small business firms. Even as America sneers at the little guy, they are the foundation of data, not Google and not Facebook, they are merely the facilitators not the creators. That reality is now up for grabs in more than one way. If it was really all about security, the news would have picked up to a much larger degree to ‘Cisco critical bugs: Nexus data center switch software needs patching now‘ with the added text “Cisco has disclosed a dozen bugs affecting its Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) software, including three critical authentication-bypass bugs that expose enterprise customers to remote attacks” (source: ZDNet), this is not the first time, I gave more info months ago when at least one such an issue woke up and whilst all are screaming about 5G security and feigned Chinese values, they all ignore the Elephant in the room (Cisco), I do believe that it was an honest mistake, there was no ill practice at work (from the side of Cisco), but there is a larger concern and those security advisors connected to the Oval office do not seem to care (or optionally merely not comprehend), it is a larger issue that is impacting the Fortune 500, but the press is blind to it. In support there is also ‘A Cisco Router Bug Has Massive Global Implications‘ (source: Wired) with the added information “The devices play a pivotal role at institutions, in other words, including some that deal with hypersensitive information. Now, researchers are disclosing a remote attack that would potentially allow a hacker to take over any 1001-X router and compromise all the data and commands that flow through it. And it only gets worse from there“, which was given to us last May, with the almost complete rundown by researchers from the security firm Red Balloon. And the added information “Once the researchers gain root access, they can bypass the router’s most fundamental security protection. Known as the Trust Anchor, this Cisco security feature has been implemented in almost all of the company’s enterprise devices since 2013“, this is the setting, an impact that is global and the US is keeping it quiet, yet the unproven stage without any real evidence is heralded to the max, which gives the larger implication that this is about data and about the financial security of the US, and why should we pay for that? They were flaccid for years, they refused to innovate and China started to innovate, even as we see in the Guardian article that the kit from Huawei “cheaper and more advanced than rivals“, we see one part, the fact that the US has nothing to counter what Huawei offers is the larger concern (for America), they are 2-3 years behind and that implies that they have nothing to enter the field with until 2025 and become a real contender, at which point Huawei is the new standard and as such data will flow via Huawei and not via American solutions, the data loss for America will be to some degree crippling. their revenue from advertisement, their revenue from data sale and other revenues liked to that are all impacted, it could cost the US 50-150 billion in the foreseeable future and that is where the US fear kicks in, their debt is out of control and that amount would have a much larger impact on the infrastructure that can no longer be paid for, one system after another will fail, a cascade of systems all collapsing because the US has no reserves left, the EU is also out of reserves and they see the 5G part as essential to surpass American firms and most need to contend with spineless politicians and long winded ‘talks’ by the EU gravy train, the are all in it for the money and commercial EU is seeing it all come apart, they can hold on if they get the 5G edge, an option that the US dreads. 

As such the cornered bully is getting more brazen, relying on past tactics that exploded in everyone’s face and they are still doing it, hoping that they can get away with it the second time around, optionally they will rely on other technologies, as long as they are not Chinese, it is not the hardware, it is the data. Ericsson gives us “5G is designed for industrial applications. This means that falling behind on 5G as a platform for innovation will jeopardize the European industrial base. With two global vendors based in Europe, the continent has the prerequisite to lead” (they merely fail to inform us (for valid reasons) that the two players are Ericsson and Nokia, but their solutions are almost two full generations behind Huawei, they would need two years to upgrade and that is what they face, they were all asleep at the wheel and now that the ferryman wants to get paid for all the time they were asleep, they are no longer willing to foot the bill, 4G is almost at a break even point and that is stopping most to go forward, even as they see that 5G is going to take over, they are all afraid that the next iteration of hardware is just beyond the horizon. And they are still setting larger foundations for themselves, because the real cash is the data, not the hardware and that is the stage where they all need to select an optional new provider, the devil you know beats the devil you know not and they want their coins. 

In all this the bully in the corner is getting more and more aggravated and we see that, but they did this to themselves, when I can surpass the US in IP (something I never thought possible) that is the point you need to realise where the US failed, their IP is just not there and they have no real counters other than the Silver Briefcase scenario hoping it will buy them enough time.  You see, when we accept the foundation of one quote: ‘5G Antenna Market was estimated to be US$ 9,835.0 Mn in 2018 and is expected to reach US$ 34,720.1 Mn by 2027 growing at a CAGR of 15.5% over the Forecast Period Owing to the Evolution of Smart Antennas‘, we see what the US is missing out of, the antennas alone are setting the stage of 9-15 billion each year surpassing my estimation of 50 billion value by 2022, yet that is merely the antenna’s, Huawei launched their 5G routers last week and that is where the money becomes a serious setting. When we combine the stage offered “The power of the chipset enables the router to be the first to support commercial application of 4G and 5G dual-modes. It is the first to have the capacity to perform to industry benchmarks of peak 1.65Gbps@100MHz download speeds” with “LTE Advanced has been available for several years now and some carriers (notably AT&T in the US) are calling it 5Ge, or 5G Evolution, even though it is most definitely not an official 5G standard, but rather the latest iteration of 4G” (source: Forbes) you get to see how dire the US situation is for the US, they claim to be 5G and they are not, they claim that Huawei is a danger and they cannot prove that it is, the data is everything and they are at an ever growing risk to lose large chunks of it. Now that Huawei is forced towards their Harmony OS, we will see a growing non US population switching, meaning that the data is no longer going to the US in a readable format. That is the larger loss for the US and they are getting close to desperate. 

In my view, that is the consideration of dumping the brains that they needed and that is the consequence of a flaccid business path, down the track it tends to cost and the US is scared of that moment, hoping to scare all others, we see that the EU is considering their options and as the US loses nation after nation we see  larger stage, when the data surpasses into national hands again, they will not care about US substandard intelligence, most will have their own and a new generation of apps will be adopted by its users on a global scale.

 

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January 8, 2020 · 13:56

Needs of the public

This started last Friday for me, I had taken notice before and I even wrote about it earlier, yet the shift of the view also implied and made it a shift of priorities. In this age and the age of needing to matter, we see a shift in priorities of all the players. Keri Paul the writer has a clear view and that view matters and is on point, yet the dangers are not his view, it is the other side of the coin. Weirdly enough it is a card game that is similar to this, it is Androids: Netrunner that gives us the view that we can explore and dig into the depths we need to. It is Hacker (user) versus Corporations and Government.

When we consider “Servers are created, net security is hooked into place and agendas are advanced, with the runner having to take a blind guess at what these cards might be. Does that server contain the game-winning agenda, or is it a “cerebral overwriter”, which will leave them damaged if they touch it?” (source: the Guardian) And that is the setting in real life too, we cannot rely on an actual whistleblower at the Google Board of directors (I also oppose such actions) we need to consider what the priorities of Google are. In my view its priorities are set around data and China has endangered their market to the largest degree, it does not matter why it happened, because the value of data has always been without question, the entire Trump-China matter merely advanced the time-line, this was however always going to happen and it is Apple (Microsoft too) and Google that are rich enough to counter it to some degree. I myself would have thrown myself onto the growth sector in the Middle East as it is will be the new powerhouse for China (and particularly Huawei), a fact too many are ignoring. This gets us to the first quote in the Guardian article (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/03/google-executive-human-rights-activism) “Ross LaJeunesse, the former head of international relations at Google and now a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Maine, said he was forced to leave the company after reporting discriminatory practices, and that his work to combat censorship was at odds with Google’s desires to expand into a growing market in China“, it is not the wildcard ‘reporting discriminatory practices‘ that matters here, it is ‘desires to expand into a growing market in China‘, Huawei is merely the most visible path, and their new Operating System Harmony is merely the start of a much larger concern for the US. China has 1.3 billion people, let’s say that only 700 million users, that is still well over twice the amount of US people, as Harmony gets traction in China for certain, it will be able to grow in other regions too, the Middle East is a first where the threshold is the lowest with close to 160 million optional users, Egypt really makes a hit there, and as China applies its customer service to the Middle East we will see that within 5 years parts of Europe will consider switching, this is the 90’s in reverse. As the 90’s saw marketing of Microsoft push people to another level (Windows 95 did help), we see the roles reverse, now we see the exploitative tactics of Microsoft and Apple backfire as those tactics come under fire, there will be too much documentation showing these actions. 

Now that data comes into view, we see another economy, this economy that is set around data and IP, more important WHAT ELSE can be done and this is where quote two comes into play ““In reality, I don’t think we can trust Google,” he told the Guardian. “It has been shown time and time again, whether in how it handles personal data to when it’s asked to address violent content online, that we cannot take Google at its word any more.”“, in China it leaves data concern to the Chinese governments, as long as they can come in. Democrats and Human rights are all about the rights of the people and their personal data, yet governments do not care about those rights, they never did (if you think they did, you are nuts). Yes that hurts, but it is the truth. If America embraced Human Rights so profoundly, insurance and other players would not have the data they do and Cambridge Analytica would merely be a nightmare of the paranoid brain, but it is not, is it? within the law the setting of data is too large a sif and both China and the Middle East have their own settings for what data is and what rights are and like in the 80’s companies tried to accommodate whatever they need to to turn a dollar, that path is more profound now than it ever was. We see this path in “LaJeunesse spearheaded a 2010 decision to stop censoring Google search results in China and worked to establish a company-wide human rights program – efforts that were challenged when Google returned to the Chinese market with a censored search product code-named Dragonfly in 2017” it is a reality that many face and now that there is a larger concern for wat is affordable, players like Apple will see their profits shortened. 

It is the last quote ““When I started at Google, there was a sense that we really believed in the power of technology to make the world a better place,” LaJeunesse said. “It’s not like that any more”” that hits home, you see, the world changed, the needs for margins increased and the need to get more sold at the Google margins than ever before, that is the game we all see played when stockholders and shareholders are involved. I remember a conversation with a commercial manager in the 90’s who stated that this is not true, I was proven correct within 14 months after that, and that is the other path, even as margins are low the profits need to come from someplace and data is the next hurdle, a large economic hurdle, you can own it all, but that path is not economically viable, yet accommodating government needs is and they will pay through the nose to get a good handle on it and stream that data to their analytics. The Chinese know this and the people in the Middle East are figuring it out, in that setting Google has two options, be a player in that field or leave it to others. What do you think they will choose? Did you really think that Page and Brin departing was such a big deal? I reckon that it sped things up, they needed other people to voice needs and I personally think that they got that done by changing their board of Directors (merely my personal view). 

The entire setting changes a little when we look at places like CES2020, when you think of it it is a lot about data and that makes sense, but the handling of data is now a larger issue than ever before, even as we consider the impact, we overlook it. The quote “interpreter mode allows an Assistant-powered smart display to translate a conversation between two people, each speaking a different language. Google says more businesses have committed to using it this year, including American Airlines, HSBC banks and a handful of hotels around Vegas, San Francisco, LA, Japan and Qatar“, we see the technology on the spoken word and that has a much larger impact than you thought it would. Even though we get “Google Assistant isn’t supposed to record anything you say unless you start the sentence with “Hey Google”“, we also get “that doesn’t always work. Sometimes things on TV will cause Assistant to perk up its ears; other times you might be mid-conversation and only realize you somehow caught Assistant’s attention when it responds “Sorry, I can’t help with that.” With that in mind, you’ll now be able to say “Hey Google, that wasn’t for you” to have it wipe its history of the last thing you said“, yet how many considered the leap from when it started until you stated the correction and it “wipes its history of the last thing you said“, here we see it, what is ‘the last thing you said‘, there is your margin and it will affect its use nation by nation, they all have to file for corrections and of course, some nations like the margins they have and optionally want to widen it. An automated secret police, right in your very own home.

This is not some paranoid consideration, it is reality and it is coming this year, all whilst Harmony is on the heels of Google being in the same setting of life and data. It is the setting where it changes, the IP and who owns it makes the larger strides in two areas where it matters and at present Huawei has more IP, they merely have an advantage and that is the area where it matters, because whoever has the IP has the battle turned to their favour. Did you think there was no hindsight from me when I offered my IP to China? The entire setting of the US changing its mind like bad second hand car dealers is the controlling stage, a stage where the people in the American Administration cannot make up their minds leaving the inventor in the air whilst the corporation make headway. There is a larger issue especially when we look at the US, UK and China in jointly owning IP, it is becoming a lot more murky in recent years and that stage is almost literally fraught with dangers for the maker of the IP, in that stage trusting your company to be fair to you is now open to discussion. 

This is not nearly the end, especially when we consider the IP side, this part was given to all by Sophos when we are treated to “Google has temporarily disconnected Xiaomi’s IP cameras from its Home Hub service after a user reported that he was seeing images from other people’s devices” a mere 10 hours ago. Did you think that this was only happening 10 hours ago? This has clearly been going on for a longer time and we are merely informed on it now, as we see that part and consider that other phones have optional weaknesses on this side and we add the consideration of user rights from one to another and the ‘excuse’ “The Chinese manufacturer admitted the mistake and explained that it was down to a caching issue on its server“, did you think it was that easy? Why was it even cached on a server? What other data is cached? A lot more questions become open to interpretation when one mistake merely opens the can of worms that was there and the issues are only increasing, global marketing is making sure of that path. Oh and this is not just Google, there are a number of questions that rise when you consider the weird choices that Microsoft made with their Azure cloud, that part becomes visible when you switch on any Xbox made after 2014, yet it is buried by them by stating that this is the responsibility of your telecom provider, even when you are trying to explain to them that it is about the upload, not download. it is a global problem and that is a bad thing, but that is quite literally the game we are signing up for.

Google is only one of many and they are not evil, they are trying to stay afloat in a world of providers and data capture solutions. When (not if) data becomes a viable currency those who are in charge of the data will decide what comes next and that is a game that is now being played between governments and corporations, and where are we? If we are the Android: Netrunner players we are the hackers and we need to set the hardware up for what leaves our hands and we get to say less and less in that regard. The problem becomes, there are 4 billion people (read users) and a lot of them do not have the skills to install any backdrop and the information on the internet is not to be trusted in many cases (they always want you to install THEIR solution) which negates the entire issue as data is siphoned. And as you realise that someone owns your data, the question becomes: ‘Who will you trust?‘ all whilst they merely want the same thing, my personal idea is not to trust anyone and for the most I do not care where the information ends up being, it merely ends up somewhere and it is for that reason that I NEVER link any social media. It is merely a good idea to hand over as little as possible.

In the end this is coming, Harmony will be available to smartphones this year, so the battle will soon intensify and we will start to get weird fear mongering stories from the US on how Harmony will crash your mobile and other things, yet in the end JHarmony will merely start at the Huawei users and as they get no issues (other than US blocks) we will see a technology polarisation in mobiles, it is the stage that Google is desperate to avoid at all cost. And as Harmony gets rolled out beyond China Google will get more and more willing to be flexible, no matter what the US government states, that is the part the US administrations are intentionally blind to, the US has 325 million people, in a world with 8,700 million people, the US does not add up to much on population numbers, corporations see that.

All whilst Google needs to content against numbers like “the company’s inability to work with companies like Google, Huawei’s business has been thriving. The company’s fiscal third-quarter revenue increased by 24.4% year-over-year, and smartphone sales jumped 26% year-over-year in the first three quarters of 2019” (source: Business Insider), all whilst Apple phone sales went down and by a scary amount, and at present it seems that the 5G market is decided out of US hands, making Google even less happy, as mobile markets are their eggs and bacon, they need to do whatever they can to be part of that and for Google this is decently easy, for players like Microsoft less so. The issue is harder for the US, we see all the news and information on heralding 5G in New York giving the user 36Mbps (in one 5G movie), yet when we look at the 5G specs we see: “5G speeds will range from ~50 Mbit/s to over 2 gigabit at the start“, so we see 5G marketing and 5G pricing at below 5G speeds and the people are not catching on, you might see this as a separate issue, but the net runs on speed (quote literally) and the US hiding behind marketing is not catching on, that is the stage where Google wants to get ahead of the curve and therefore it needs to be in a Huawei environment, it needs to be in China for several reasons, the US and its administration is all about misdirecting the people whilst corporations know better and the ardware people want to get ahead of that curve so that they do not fall behind, Google has too much to lose. We might see it as the need of the public, but that need is fuelled by corporations and Huawei is at the top of that chain (at present) so other players like Google need to set a larger stage where they are players and no longer mere service facilitators. 

In all this China and the Middle East are surpassing the US and that is a stage we have never seen before. Wired Magazine gave us “AT&T launches its new next-generation wireless network, but breadth of 5G coverage in the US still lags South Korea and China“, which is the issue, at present the US is in third position in a market they used to rule, and they are in danger of reverting to fifth place by the end of 2020, for the first time in history the US will be trailing others, Google wants to get out of that cursed position as fast as it can. The US (via Wired) gives us “so far, the fastest 5G download speeds in the US top out at around 1.8 Gbps, according to tests conducted by data analysis firm OpenSignal. Those are the fastest speeds in the world, but they’re rare“, I myself did not see any video or evidence showing anything over 200Mbps, making the statement more debatable (like testing setup versus actual connection), yet that is my personal view whilst I am not in the US. The Verizon options are in 24 cities (the US apparently has a lot more places), so that is lacking, it also gives for New York that ‘5G Ultra Wideband near these city landmarks‘ in Midtown, Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem and Downtown Brooklyn, so there is a lot missing and you need to check this for all the regions you plan to be in in 2020, even as you ‘scale back’ to 4G LTE, did you pay for that? Well apparently you did at Verizon, and they are one of a small amount of providers and none of them are national, that is the back push that you see in the US. I am not stating that China is better, they are not, but they have the advantage of Huawei and so will other regions in the world soon enough. 

This setting is important, because Google needs itself to be heading that wave, not following it and in that regard it needs to be in China (and the Middle East), as such the second statement I gave (from the Guardian) is the most important one and Google is all over it, plenty are not (read: most cannot afford the cost) and in this stage where Data is currency, we see that this war may leave the US crippled because of the limitations it pushes onto itself, even whilst the claims were never supported by any evidence and that is not merely my view, it is also the view by a large amount of cyber specialists that are a lot more knowledgeable in that field.

All these issues are linked to the movement of Google and from there the needs of the public are addressed, from an American perspective it will be Google or nothing, yet the non US part is looking at another setting where it is Google versus Harmony and at present I cannot tell whether Harmony will be a bad choice. That is the scary part for Google, as the public tries Harmony and nothing sets them back in the use of their mobiles, we will see a larger and a quicker curve towards other solutions (or away from Google). 

That is the fight that will be in the up and coming this year, as Harmony gets released we will get governments making huffs and puffs away from Harmony, yet let there be no mistake, it will not be towards your data privacy, it will be the currency that pushes them and data is the current they need. We will be ‘lied to’ whilst they will stop at giving out evidence as much as possible. That is what we get to look forward to in 2020, the needs of the public, our needs are what governments and corporations make it to be, not what we decide and that is for a lot of people the largest issue at present, even as it is about data, is it not interesting how they all circumvent that part of the equation?

 

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January 2, 2020 · 10:52

Twenty twenty is visual

Yes, we are in the new year, yet this year (according to Forbes at https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/12/29/us-and-china-technology-conflict-heres-why-2020-is-so-critical/amp/) will be a lot more critical than anyone thinks. Yes it is about Huawei, however not in the same lame way that the US administration brings it. Here we see: “Huawei has 42% of the huge Chinese market and more than 25% of the Russian market to get it started. Then on December 28, China’s state media announced that its “Beidou” alternative to America’s GPS satellite navigation system will be completed“, now this is a different kettle of fish. It is not about government intel (in a way it is), it is about who gets the data and the lies that seemingly originated at the oval office are now no longer about ‘the chinese government connections’ it is more about how the US government is not getting the free data that they have had for so long, moreover as we take notice of “But Beidou—“Big Dipper” in Chinese—will not stop at China. It will focus on converting markets in South East Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, price- and investment-sensitive markets” we see a much larger concern for the yanks, they are at risk of gaining access to a little over 50% of all given data by the end of 2020, that is something to notice, and in my view they had it coming. They make one accusation after another and never show any data to support it. Even now (yesterday) as we see the number of links of TikTok and data, I was able to find well over a dozen US sites where the advertisement of the TikTok app continues, one is called seemingly hypocritical national security (I actually do not know the Tik Tok situation), the other is money and money trumps Trump.

I am baffled why the US would think that this free reaping would continue, I am actually amazed that Russia did not have its own version of software ready. We even see “Russian President Putin described the U.S. campaign against Chinese technology as “the first technological war of the coming digital era.” His point was that this is the start of something much greater and more significant“, he is right in more than one way. Do you think that I would offer my IP to the US when I know that I am getting lied to? I wonder how large the failing list is actually hitting Google and Facebook, the fact that people are intentionally getting misinformed should show up in their numbers as well. For those who have no real affiliation to Social media, China is becoming more and more interesting, the moment that it has a real Facebook equivalent, we will see a much larger jump. For Google the mess is not that big, YouTube is an engine that people cannot live without (pretty much the medical condition is ‘acute VideoitisfromYoutube failure‘) so as we cannot get treated on that, we will continue in the YouTube realm. I personally believe that if the news was a year ago that China was launching its own services the news would have been accepted differently, the entire ‘China is all about spying through Huawei‘ got us on the wrong foot, just like Iraq, just like two other events afterwards the US have been handling billions of free voices and the free voices are through with a lying party like America.

So whilst we take notice of “For China, it will increase its independence and influence. For the U.S., its grip on key standards will loosen and for some of its key players there are risks they could loose material market share“, that is the ballgame, the ‘loose material market share‘, until the beginning of the internet, the US has never had an equal in this fight and in the economic place they are now they are scared. Consider the interest on $23,000,000,000,000 all whilst they are facing a technology user setback of 10%-25% in the first year, and as Asia, Russia and Europe start folding away from the US solutions the interest is impacted and can no longer be paid, for example try the Apple solution for $1749 (down from $2365) and as things ‘suddenly’ become affordable for the people, think of how the population reacts to the coin grab of 2010-2019 when they were trying to make ends meet. This technology wave will follow an anger wave that the US is unable to stop, and beyond that, Huawei has a much larger base soon enough. In Saudi Arabia Huawei was able to set the stage of a strategic memorandum of understanding, healthcare is only the first step and as it shows the progress it will entice Egypt and India, at that point Huawei will achieve two paths that the US only hinted at and sneered (their version of enticement) for well over 10 years whilst never delivering. The people who decide things saw no eager listing to pursue, now that the numbers are getting called in 2020 and 2021 the game changes and there have been too many lies (oops, I meant ‘intentional misrepresentation’) coming from the US players.

And as the EU gives us: ‘European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen voiced skepticism Friday over involving Chinese tech giant Huawei in the rollout of Europe’s 5G networks amid concerns its equipment could be used for spying by Beijing‘, we see that optionally the career of Ursula von der Leyen will be cut short too. She might be the President of the European Commission for a month now, but I am certain that her history lessons included the time when we hung those who hid behind ‘befehl ist befehl‘ and even now, as we traverse that time, the US will not have any dimes to sit on, those spreading the US message without evidence could be demanded to be called on, even now as Germany (and India) are moving against the warnings of the US, warning that have never seen any real evidence since the beginning, will now have a coin marker, people like Ursula von der Leyen will see that as other European nations demand evidence, their place in the hierarchie will seem unholdable, held together by US promises that they will fall back on and fold on when the moment is nigh. That is the ball game for the US and the Europeans will not have alternatives, especially as Nokia is showing several cracks in their veneer, as their 5G outlook changes and as the backlash of bribery scandals, the US will find themself in a stage that is not holdable, and they are not alone, Ericsson is right there next to Nokia when it comes to scandals and the US was not ready for that. The impact will be larger than they expect and that part will bite too. When the EC members will look towards alternatives and there is only Huawei, they will shift gears and give the boot to whomever supported the US and stopped them to get their bonus, people are easy to anticipate in that regard.

If only there was direct evidence of the US claims. There was a reason why I used the Colin Powell and silver briefcase example in the past, there was no way around it, the game that was being played was short for whomever was counting the cards and too many were out in the open, the US had two plays left and they chose the wrong one. That becomes more and more clear when we look at the actions of Sony last October, that setting changed the anger levels of Third Point to some degree, and as I cannot tell who was right, the fact that Daniel Loeb lost out against the Sony view ”no concrete proposals to improve the business“, who is eagerly spending a billion to get on the market is a larger issue than you can imagine, the Japanese government has a larger stake in all this then even I can surmise. Japan will have to take on a few players and they are behind (really behind), yet they are all in it to win it and their ego’s will collide, the US will have to find new areas to push against and as we see that this is being fought, we also see the American dream is under pressure of failing and that is one concrete version why the american corporate views are not what they are surmised to be, it will be a stronger difference as the year progresses, but I reckon that half way, when that American super villain Taxman has to give documentation as to the values it holds dear (numbers on a spreadsheet) we will see additional cracks, there is only so much that people will live for and the US has no reserves, it lost those a little over three years ago as the debt kept rising. In this as we saw one month ago that “Dan Loeb sharply boosted its net long position in equities,’‘ we will see managed bad news over the next 6 months that will reduce that position (as I personally see and anticipate), that will be the first (of many) cracks in all this and China is not merely a crack in their armor, it is a flaming hole the size of the Grand Canyon. And still my IP is outlasting theirs as they have no idea what they should have been looking at, it is becoming more than a spreadsheet user versus a visionary, the US status is becoming a spreadsheet user to someone who does not comprehend a cross tabulation, and that is not a situation that the US can hold up. 

In this all these solutions give China an advantage, because as we see more and more dubious statements from people who caress the limelight, we also see that the chinks in their armour are lighting up and that is where Russia and China only have to ask: ‘what is that?‘ (pointing at the chinks) and those people will not have the setting to answer. 

It is a stage we have not seen before and will not see again any day soon, but in 2020 it will matter, it will drive the global population away from any American solution. They will only have themselves to blame soon enough, they vied for it but will do anything to make anyone else pay and the people are taking notice, they are no longer willing to take the idiocy and the current American administration made it happen, at least that part has no push towards previous administrations. When that happens, the loss of revenue will increase faster and faster and all others are ready to step in wherever they can, I am happy I have no stake in any of the American hedges, their national product is about to lose value and a lot, I merely wonder how long it will take, as we saw in several situations in 2008, the $1.1B bill to Moody’s was paid without hesitation, I wonder what and who will delay the news this time around and those who got out late, will they have any recourse? I reckon not, at some point we will see certain academics make a statement that the technology sector was too complex and too covariant to clearly see any pattern emerge, at that point whatever rating existed will be thrown out and as we see that, the people will run to any technology that has proven themselves and at present that is Huawei (and Huawei only), that is the part the US is unwilling to see, even as we see the Verge (only three weeks ago) give us both “T-Mobile has been saying it’s got a smarter, sounder 5G strategy than both Verizon and AT&T” and “They also won’t support 5G on other networks, so if you switch carriers, you’re hosed” implying that there is no real 5G standard in the US and they are all merely marketing 5G whilst not having any real 5G (my personal view) and the Verge supports that view I have (at https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/16/20997594/tmobile-5g-600mhz-low-band-speed-tests-oneplus-samsung) when we see “you’ll never get the speed thrill of downloading an entire movie from Netflix or Prime Video in seconds“, all whilst the 5G advertisement is about that part alone, we see the hose job in the making and in 2020 that will not be tolerated by the people, in the US there is no alternative, yet Europe, Africa and Asia have other options which enables Huawei and that is the short play that the US is not ready for and the EU people are about to get a dose of reality soon enough, when the MoU that Huawei has signed show actual progress, Europe will run towards whatever shelter they can whilst ignoring the pleas from the USA, it will be that simple, people like Ursula von der Leyen will run towards what pays them and what keeps them safe, warm and dry, they will soon see that ‘befehl ist befehl‘ fell short the second time around too and at that point they will enable whomever has the technology and America is about three years late.  

It is the biting reality that 2020 brings, whilst the vision of twenty twenty is negated at every turn whenever possible and it is the ‘whenever possible’ part that will fall short soon enough (sooner rather than later).

 

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December 4, 2019 · 17:47

Challenge accepted

As I was making my rounds of IP on the TV ranges last week, someone decided (or so he thought) to throw me a curve ball. The challenge that I was unable to come up with anything new was a given. 

I accept

So here is the initial part of something new, I let you be the judge (although my version of ‘How to kill a politician‘ is still on odds favourite to see getting an academy award for (we all have dreams). And of course to make that movie in Saudi and play part in the Netherlands should be great fun in promoting chaos (which is always nice).

But here without delay is a taste of something different.

The smiling lady

in a place that seems to look like most other places, all whilst there was little to no sound this place had its own noise, the rustling of fallen leaves, the noise of the wond puishing pieces of a newspaper, the soft sound of electricity as it powered lights. The view we see could be a place in London, Paris, or a specific place in New York, Los Angeles or Hong Kong. Yet, if we were to speed to these places, the sounds would be ever do sdifferent, not hugely so, but in the smaller details a little different and the woman who was casually walking these streets, she would know, she saw everything, heard everything and took notice of all the details, she looked in one part like any woman, a stunningly gorgeous one, making step after step through the street, lust looking around her and taking in the view. In either of these places a man would approach and as the man approaches her, her good looks would be the reason for him to do what he would do, for no other reason that he thought it was his risght, and as he approached her all versions were the same, she merely smiled at him and he would feel a sweet sensation as life would fade from him, he would fall to the ground wondering why he felt so good in the final minute of his life, and she would continue like there was nothing else that mattered, she would continue on her path, in this case towards the left, she caressed the knob of a door and it opened, she entered and cimbed the stairs, closing the door behind her. 

She climbed the stairs only to get to the door of an apartment, she entered the apartment hearing the soft sobbing of a girl, in the bedroom this girl had just given birth, holding onto the baby like there was no tomorrow, the lady smiled, she softly talked to the woman and caressed her arm. She blew over her face and the girl started to smile, still looking at her small born baby, she muttered a few words and left life behind. The woman took the baby and softly kissed it on the forehead, she placed the baby next to the mother, the phone in the other room fell off the hook, the number 999 was auto dialled. Even as the other side was giving of a faint ‘hello’, she knew that actions were taken to find out where this was. a vague faint shape was next to the woman now, she saw that life was inside the baby and the shape felt happy, the woman gave a small kiss to the little baby and covered the baby and put it next to the mother, the woman smiled and looked at the shape ‘Come, your work is done’, she slowly ushered the shape to follow her The shape was seemingly a little taken aback when she asked ‘Who are you’, the woman looked and with a happy face she said ‘I am Macaria, come you’ll be late, you will see your child again when it has done what it must do and it will do so much’, both moved towards the window as both faded away and they had left just as the ambulance people walked into the room seeing the deserted place revealing only a dead young woman and a crying baby. 

Violence and Chaos

It was a warm day in Cannes, a man was walking on the Boulevard du Midi Louise Moreau, on the footpath, seeing the water on his left side, and looking over the waters as he walked towards a large building. He saw less than half a dozen people, he liked the empty space that he normally would not get to see in this place, in an hour or so he tourists would be awake, all wanting to see a part of Cannes and another day of mayhem would begin. He took a small sip of his water flask. The water was icy cold, he liked that feeling of cold water, he always had. He kept to himself and slowly walked past people. Yet in an instance, one person was seemingly happy to seek chaos, he shouted something the man was not listening to, yet when the stranger attacked, he found himself thrown into the water like a raggedy Andy without any consideration. His friends were suddenly making noises and shouting at the man, he gave them no look at all, when two of the men walked towards him shouting he merely lifted a small ornate pugio from under his T-shirt, the casualness and the lack of consideration they got made them whinge back, this is not the kind of person they usually deal with, and the Pugio was ornate, not some trinket knife, they felt quiet and moved back. The man merely walked on and slowly placed he knife from where he got it. He walked on towards a coffee place where he stopped for coffee and a baguette, As he sat, he felt a difference, he saw the people react to other people and it was not the usual reactions. it was like every person took offense and resentment to a person next to them, it took a few seconds, but he saw what as going on, there was a girl at the centre of it all, she was pretty and wearing shorts and a pink Tshirt with a golden apple printed on it, he knew her, but he had not seen her for for a long time ‘Well Hello’ he whispered to himself, he stood up to walk towards her, he looked around and quickly paid the standkeeper, and walked towards her, she noticed him and smiled just as he was about to cross the street two of the earlier bunch catched up to him and they made their final stupid mistake, as one sliashed out, his stright hand slammed like a chopping block into the side of his throat, the man was suddenly reflective on his lack to breathe, the second one had a small billy club which he used, only to miss and whilst he missed, the man kicked him in the side of his right knee, the man fell down and got his head slammed into the wall for good measure. The man walked to the girl, and stated ‘Well, look who we have here’, the girl looked surprised and puzzled for a second ‘Egan?’, the man smiled, “Yup, it’s me” and they both laughed for a second, within 10 seconds there was a lull, everyone seemed to relax a little, she looked around ‘I was bored’, “I noticed” Egan voiced. 

So here it is, a mere introduction to three characters in a new play, optionally a new tragedy, it took less than 10 minutes to think off and an additional 15 to type (and find a place to set the stage). When people ask me the question, how do you come up with IP, my answer tends to be the same, whether it is a device or a story, my mind can fathom beyond beyond the need to seem clever, I organise the weakness of one part and design a solution around it, when it is written IP it is different, I rely on a classical education and the option to dream. That is all that is required, and all this I should ever need. Oh and whilst I diod take notice of the requests of hardware IP, I ignore it because the registration of the IP I have there is limited to two players at present Google and Huawei, and there is a price, so whilst it sounds nice to put it all on paper, until the IP value is met, I will not make any haste in revealing the IP, unless I see that someone else has found what I did find at that point I will plaster it out in the open so that patents on what I initially designed will be harder to file.

 

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November 12, 2019 · 13:57

The art of marketing

The art of marketing is not new, it is often not understood (even I doubt whetheer I know what they talk about), even more often the people who do the marketing are clueless on what exactly they are doing but they are doing something and that counts according to their needs.

It all started as I made a stop at ‘SuperYachtWorld’ what they would call the ‘the global magazine for superyacht owners’, Now I am not one of them, I do not even own a tinny, Yet I was on that site for a reason, Lurssen and Damen were producing new ships, I was curious as I used to have Damen as a neighbour (of sorts) and I was curious about his second SeaXplorer sale, a 75 meter yacht. I was curious about his dinky toy. Anyway, the article was nice and ended with “You can read more about EYOS Expeditions in the forthcoming issue of SuperYacht World, which publishes tomorrow“, I do not know whether I will buy it, I was just curious, so I decided to click the link ‘subscribe now’ I was curious on how much such a magazine costed. The next is much funnier in graphic form, as you see, I am showing you the first two pages (of the buy a subscription), and explain to me how I can ‘subscribe’ to ‘SuperYachtWorld’? Now, the subscriptions was not really sincere, I merely wanted to find out how much a magazine would cost. Yet the foundation of digital marketing is seen right here. No matter what you can sell, sell it as soon as possible, they merely forgot to give ‘SuperYachtWorld’ the benefit of whatever they wanted to sell.

Or perhaps something else went wrong, but that is the foundation of digital marketing. I even tried the search option, but alas ‘SuperYachtWorld’ was not recognised by Magazinesdirect.com. There are at least 4 flaws in the digital marketing at this point, lets numbers them

  1. Magazine link did not work
  2. Alternate link should mention ‘SuperYachtWorld’ first, or start with a link to that magazine
  3. TI Media Limited (the people behind MagazinesDirect.com) should have spacing before they start their marketing of their magazines.
  4. After the MD dot com element there was a whole part of empty white, after which we got the magazine issues, there too was a ‘subscribe to the magazine’ but that gave a 404 error which is error number 5.

I can go on for a little while longer, but I would think that a magazine who deals with customers dealing with items worth millions of dollars would be a little more finicky, it is the consequence of digital marketing, it’s a cavalier attitude to ‘We will fix it on the flip side‘, I was just so surprised to see it in this area. Ships captains are at times as anal as it needs to be and on the ocean there tends to be no time for ‘Oops, will fix that on the flip side‘, at that point it tends to be too late for that. Feel free to ask the Captain of the Herald of Free Enterprise, which was Captain David Lewry, there were apparently three warnings, the third warning was covered with a (according to magazines “they were busy, go away“, as such 193 lives were sacrificed to the Channel where temperatures of the water were -3C, so there. The entire event took less than 4 minutes. Yes, on Friday 6th March 1987 we learned how disastrous ‘We will fix it on the flip side‘ can be when it involves boating. Digital marketeers will go with the assumption, ‘When we make mistakes it does not cost lives‘, yet is that true? Now consider me a winner of the lotto (I am not, do not worry) and I wanted to read that specific article because I had money for a Damen Ship of 95 meters (again, I do not, so do not worry), now we get into murky waters, the short-sighted view of one limits the access of many, that is actually why I designed the 5G changes as I did them, that is why I came up with a different distribution system, one that is for the small businesses, that is why I came up with the Stupid Smart Device, it fit the needs we will see in 5G because as speeds go up, time becomes more and more a straight pass through of ‘Time is Money‘, who was up to speed? The person selling his wares will be up to speed more and more and that is why changes will push through faster and faster, Places like Google Ads, will require a stranger selling point and when the changes can be made immediate, the term of time is money will be a stronger stage in all this and that is why I decided to go after the 400 million small business owners, they all want to be on the 5G horse as fast as possible, they will drive the next changes even more than those people in telecom will. They are still twisting their thumbs on what to do next and soon enough that system will change, but not today, Places like Google and Huawei will need tome to set a new stage where the Telecom operators are the followers, no longer the deciders. As they are all in the hurry to make deals as far as they can they are 4-7 iterations behind, my IP will optionally change that.

Because by the time you check, ‘SuperYachtWorld’ are most likely, not updating their website, so more likely than not you and Damen miss out on changes, I designed my system to be depended on the two elements that drive marketing needs, the person selling and the person buying. Too many digital marketeers are about ‘I am in the middle, I know when it is right‘ Yet a decade in software sales told me that the Marketing person is the person inhibiting supports (hence diminished sales) because they want to sell it ‘Now!’, they give some response on how it is all with the ‘shareholder’ yet the shareholder does not realise what they are in for by selling a solution that is only 80% complete, the maker knows when it is ready and that is the moment that the buyer wants it. Should you doubt this, look at places like Ubisoft (Breakpoint) to see that part! TechCrunch had a good article on that (at https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/14/the-3-biggest-sales-mistakes-enterprise-software-companies-make/)

  1. Good product-market fit is not good enough

Yes that is true and we see a good explanation on that, I fought a few iterations of that battle with my bosses, because I was always service minded. Yet they were all sales people, they never got it. The article givers an example of ‘are still challenged with sales cycles longer than ideal‘ OK, that is fair enough, yet I countered it in my solution to be able to set the force of changes when the salesperson thinks it is ready. In addition, a sales cycle should be zero, when the person comes into the shop that is when he/she wants to buy. Yet I know that this is retail thinking, but is enterprise thinking not merely a large customer that comes in now? I get it there are other options and this person wants to buy the best solution, so he is seeking, but that is marketing, not sales. Marketing makes sure that they sell on paper what the salesperson can sell for a price (OK, I get it, it is a self-denying truth) but that is how I roll. We need a solution taking marketing out of the loop, if time is money, marketing is the delay in this, and optionally it needs to be sales driven, when YOU can sell.

  1. Are you competitively disadvantaged?

Nope, my solution came up with the standard you sell when you are ready to sell, and you are not disadvantaged, you merely focus on those who want your product in your neighbourhood. We also get “80% of on-premise software vendors operate a channel program to enable other companies to sell their products, while only 20% of SaaS vendors operate similar programs“, it is all about the stage of selling, and tho whom you sell, a lot of the sales systems in place are marketing driven, so when we change the view of marketing we tend to change the view of sales. It is hard to explain, so let’s get back to boats.

When you see the image below, we see a solution of where the other ships need to be, but we forget that the setting is that we are losing 2 out of 4 sales options, if marketing was on the bow of the ship, he could have guided those two additional sales towards THEIR solution, and in the 5G world that solution starts taking shape, software vendors go from tall order to tall order and at that point forget the 4-9 customers they could have gotten by adding their solution to the front of their convoy, looking for the small enterprises. I decided to change the wheel and the steering of such solutions. There is no competitive disadvantage; there is merely your own advantage and how quickly you can turn around sales.

  1. Bad timing — outta sync, outta luck

I never got that part, ‘sales cycles’ are basically whenever the customer comes to shake your hand and you get to explain on what solution you sell, or basically the customer wants to buy and you either have what they want or you do not. And in a marketing solution where YOU are the solution applicant, it is easy, you have what they want or you do not. At the very end of that setting we see: “and most important deals, people skills are ultimately at the top of that list” is the part where we need to focus on, because only you can sell what you sell. In the end that is YOUR power and there are 400 million small business owners that relay on that believe I merely gave them a clear solution to talk into. The rest is up to them, at their speed with their options at their fingertips.

It was that simple!

The art of marketing is not some solution that one person, or one through gives out, we see too many times that the small business units feel that they are told that they are competitively disadvantaged and they took that as some truth whilst they merely wanted to sell, I am setting the stage where they get to prove it, they get to prove it the moment they get to 5G, the game gets to change, let’s see who is ready for that. Now I need to add a part, I am not taking marketing out of the equation, I merely placing it where it needs to be, before the sales cycle, not part of the sales cycle. For the small business owner that is the game that counts, IT forgot about that part and it is time that we recognise that, and fix it, because in 5G Time will truly be money and every delay is a sales opportunity missed.

 

 

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October 14, 2019 · 13:40

Update to include monsters

I was thinking of some of the old games I used to play, especially one I never mastered. The game was released in 1985; I played the Atari ST edition. The game was called ‘Balance of Power‘ and it was basically the east versus the west and through the interface you could interfere (take control of) the balance of power between east and west. In the end I got overly comfortable to the expression “You have ignited a nuclear war. And no, there is no animated display of a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. We do not reward failure“, yes diplomacy was never my forte. There was an update 5-10 years later when the 1990 edition was launched, I never played that edition.

I believe that the world is ready for a true update of that game. When we add the atrocities by Turkey only a few days ago, when we add the Khashoggi debacle and the impact of social media and spin doctors at the heads of media outlets we see that the world has changed to a much larger degree and the impact of what actually could happen is perhaps worthy of a new game. We need to see and play with the impact of ISIS minded forces as political parties play with the impact on a global stage. The fact that the USA is no longer a real superpower and the fact that the treasury of Saudi Arabia, the consumer base of India as the technology footing of China are much larger influences than foreseen; we get to debate a much larger spectrum of what the balance of power looks like. I believe that when the people see the impact of these elements, we see that the world reshapes almost like some Sim City version with larger repercussions. When we consider the global powers of Google and Facebook we see that the game of world politics gets filtered by economic markers. The evolution of what was once regarded as the ‘Balance of Power‘ is optionally now the stage for a larger form of balance (or is that a forum of balance) staged in a collection of seesaws where one resets the balance of two others. the old balance of power staged on the bear and eagle are outdone, less valid, the entire proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran clearly shows that and the impact of the media as they filter the news is also a larger impact and we have never been able to truly look at the impact there is, hence the idea of a new Balance of power, optionally called: ‘the Power to balance powers‘, the optional new truth that Turkey is the fourth power to instigate multiple genocides (America as it degraded the population of Native American tribes to zero, as well as the Catholic powers who removed well over a dozen civilisations, and Russian combined actions in 1931 and 1932) is something we need to consider in a much larger scope.

It is this stage where we look at the news and we are confronted with ‘The Kurds’ commander in chief explains why his forces are finally ready to partner with Assad and Putin‘, I have no way of seeing how this plays out, but there will be larger repercussions on many stages. It is time that the youth takes a serious look at the large issues that their parents are dumping on their doorstep, we need to figure things out and it is time that this is done out in the open, no longer hidden behind a screen of media filters and silencing diplomatic teams as they are trying to remain ‘non-accountable’ towards actions chosen.

The problem is not merely that we ignore the actions; the larger stage is that all kinds of ‘compromises’ are being made for the long term and the next generation needs to learn what those repercussions are and I believe that the right video game could do this. The previous generation was apparently taught that evil should never be allowed to win, yet 25 years after WW2 we all became complacent and we thought that evil was gone, evil never is and we all have optionally become part of evil as we condone the actions of many, hide behind the shallow needs that social media offers and we remain unaware as the news is decided by the wealthy (read: corporations) as they became the shareholders, stake holders and advertisers; they get to tell the media and the news what is important, what is filtered out. That is the stage where the balance of power can educate a lot of people just how dangerous our status is at present, not dangerous as if a war comes, we are beyond that, I mean dangerous as we have set the stage for multiple generations of anger, hatred and feelings of revenge, and a growing lack of tolerance towards one another. It is almost like a 4 seat seesaw and each of these seats is the balancing point for another seesaw, it becomes a game of trying to stay balanced, it also means that there is a lack of movement available, which implies that some parties will be about claiming actions when none (or that specific one) was not available.

when we see the media, we are pushed to the question ‘What is the omitted Information that Remains Missing?‘, this is a spin on two levels, the first is ‘Which question should have been asked?’, which brings us to ‘Has a quote or testimonial been taken out of context?‘ this is harder to answer, but it is an influence, which gets influenced by: ‘Is someone approaching the issue from a different set of values?‘, as well as the stated answers ‘Are the claims supported by well-done research as well as based on reliable sources?‘ and that is the foundation for merely looking at the media how it filters information, the entire stage becomes a much harder game to program, yet should it not be done because of that?

And that is all before we get to the political and diplomatic stage on “If the answer is not helpful, can we change the question to make it so?” these two elements interacting in media causes all kinds of communication (read: presentation) issues whilst both sides remain intentionally ignorant to the equation. The next generation needs to be educated on what a mess this generation is creating. That part is seen (only in part) with: ‘12 Hours. 4 Syrian Hospitals Bombed. One Culprit: Russia‘ (source; NY times), with the quote “The Russian Air Force has repeatedly bombed hospitals in Syria in order to crush the last pockets of resistance to President Bashar al-Assad, according to an investigation by The New York Times“, which was set to events on May 5th 2019, many newspapers gave that information when it happened, the repeat from the NY Times gives us the quote “Russia’s position as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council has shielded it from scrutiny and made United Nations agencies reluctant to accuse the Russian Air Force of responsibility“, this is important as the United Nations Security council is now presented as an umbrella that offers a shield from actions it was supposed to stop, a stage we knew existed, but not to the degree we see now.

So when we see the NY Times quote: “Nabad al Hayat Surgical Hospital in southern Idlib Province served around 200,000 people before being destroyed in a Russian airstrike on May 5” which comes with assisted high resolution graphics of 40 mega pixels or better whilst we look at the exploding hospital, we wonder how lucky that photographer was, or perhaps someone knew in advance what would happen, we are left with too many questions and no real explanation that fits the morality and values within us.

It is becoming more and more important that we see the world as it is now being pushed by the monsters among us, we like to set the stage to merely Iran, Turkey, ISIS and Hezbollah, yet the real monsters are the ones claiming to fight the atrocities and in the end merely facilitate to it, it goes beyond the wear events, the technological feats we see in regards to 5G is also a global impact, and we can go on and on on all the events that are part of the stage, and it would soon become too complex. Perhaps that too would be the strength on any new version of ‘Balance of Power‘ the fact that too many issues are intertwined for several reasons. Yet when we add greed to the mix, the game becomes awfully transparent, add to that the actions by some making claims that they cannot prove; the created stage of carefully phrased denials, all out in the open and when we ask specifics we are left with half-baked answers that are not answers at all. This is a part that plays a role in all this, we seem to forget that governments have a duty to properly inform us, yet in the listing from government, through corporations to media to the viewer, we forget that there are three iterations of information, all bound by their own personal issues. It is almost an applied variation from Mark M. Lowenthal ‘Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy‘, the application of stages towards the drive of any policy (governmental or not) is also baked into the media and is subject to what we are allowed to see. Consider that impact, as well as the impact of data on the whole, it might become a massively complex new game, yet when we are able to show the impact of these elements to the people, we would optionally get a much more informed person, one who ends up asking the right questions, the questions that politicians, CEO’s and CFO’s fear. When that part comes out in the open, we get a first stage to truly fix things.

Yet with my sense of humour, we should make a lot more space to include the stages that Darrell Huff introduced us to when we were given ‘How to Lie with Statistics‘, and this gets us to today, we know that the balance of power is not merely what we have, what we get and how we get there. There is an internal stage where political power is also set to the stage of people in jobs (as enabled consumers) that was proven ages ago. Yet how that stage is managed is an entirely different matter. the pushed stage where enablers, facilitators and consumers become the ‘have group’ the rest will be the ‘have not’ group.

As we got told today (source: the conversation), we see this stage in Australia, “Centrelink generally requires evidence of looking for 20 jobs per month in order to keep receiving Newstart“, that sounds fine in theory, yet in the applied practice we see that the job search government links to a job search collector, whilst the seeding player of this group is another matter. So when we look at IT jobs in Sydney we see: ‘594 jobs with 715 positions‘, with the largest bulk (over 90%) being Adzuna, yet the reviews from some are stating that this source is riddled with ‘scam’ mentions, as well as overly positive claimed stages. There is a larger issue afoot and there is not enough scrutiny, even as the people can go to really valid places like Indeed, LinkedIn and Jora; the choice we see in the governmental site calls for question of scrutiny.

Why on earth did I mention that?

We see that the balance of power is set to what is done and what can be achieved, yet when we are confronted with a stage that is not available or realistic, how will we interact? When we are set in a stage of age discrimination on a stage where our issues are not heard, or set in a long winded stage of registration where the IT parts fails too often, the government gets to optionally report that no complaints were received. In Australia the mess with Centrelink data matching, the failing Biometrics Identification Services, the UK failures on IT in the NHS and the list goes on where the costs keeps on adding billion after billion, that directly impacts a government, its budget and its waning options, very much issues on a larger scale and the claim we see with “aggressive ICT outsourcing has led to agencies being left at the mercy of external vendors“, whilst there is no proof that growing the internal options would not have resolved the issue. It is a stage where corporations have a hold over the government, pushing cheaper solutions (another reference to age discrimination get pushed to the backbench and no solutions come forward. this is a direct application of the earlier mentioned ‘in the listing from government, through corporations to media to the viewer, we forget that there are three iterations of information, all bound by their own personal issues‘, which in the application of the Balance of Power means that corporations have a much larger option to disable or limit government actions. That is what the impact of corporatocracy is. In the original games there was no real corporatocracy, nowadays there is. The US is perhaps the strongest example and the impact we see in the FDA and DEA (see yesterday’s article) as well as the ATF limited through the powers of the NRA and by corporations addressing attachments to governmental needs we see a larger impact of where governments show limitations on the world stage.

Yes, the entire game has become a lot more complex which in the end leads us to the question, is any application of the ‘Balance of Power‘ still actual and realistic? That is partially seen in 2013 when the NY Times gave us: “Eight major companies, led by Google and Microsoft, are calling for tighter controls on surveillance of their customers’ data by governments“, yet the opposite was never put in place, the existence of Cambridge Analytics, the application of selling consumer data as well as the abuse of data collection through apps has never been stopped. We get all kinds of options to market through mined data giving a larger rise to corporatocracy, whilst the media remains silent on the dangers of corporatocracy. So when we see ‘This is what happens when corporations run the government‘ (Washington Post, March 2019) and ‘Australia’s march towards corporatocracy‘ (the conversation Feb 2017) we see merely two mentions on Google search page one, whilst he situation set the stage that there should have been dozen of clear mentions and investigations, yet the media seemingly have almost zero mentions, how is that? I think that there is a clear stage where corporations do not want to see any mention if possible and as I mentioned earlier ‘in the listing from government, through corporations to media to the viewer, we forget that there are three iterations of information, all bound by their own personal issues‘, and here we see how ‘through corporations to the media‘ is directly inhibiting exposure. The Balance of Power would be an awesome game if we can incorporate it into a new game, especially when we see how the media and corporations make sure that a lot of the information will not be shown, active censorship in nations that proclaim freedom of speech and freedom of expression, when you own the printing house you get to tell the people what they care about, we apparently forgot about that small part again and again.

It is the beginning of a rigged game where the next generation gets to pay for the screw ups of the current generation, feel free to ignore or deny that, yet when we consider the US with a debt of $21 trillion, the EU has around € 10.1 trillion and on a global scale we see that the Global debt had reached an all-time high of $184 trillion in January 2019, we see that the Balance of Power is a term that has become debatable, a stage where banks are basically in charge, limiting or directing the options that any government is allowed to consider. The original game never anticipated that reality, but there you have it. John Perkins tried to inform the audience with ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004)’, yet even after Berrett-Koehler published it, gaining an instant bestseller, whilst the major U.S. media refused to discuss Confessions or the fact that, because of it, terms such as “EHM” and “corporatocracy” were now appearing on college syllabi. A stage where the media claiming to advocate freedom of speech, whilst we see that its absence is allegedly corporation controlled, a direct (still alleged) piece of evidence showing that whatever balance of Power we envision, when it is set to nations and governments we get less than 50% of the players in view, making a larger injustice to the people.

In this, I wonder who exactly the real monsters are; are they identified by the acts of nations like Turkey, Iran and North Korea, are they the acts by organisations like ISIS, Hezbollah and Hamas, or are the corporations and the media they control a lot less innocent in all this. Will the next generation be ready for what we, the current generation have facilitated for?

I honestly do not know.

 

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October 8, 2019 · 11:22

When the cure is part of the disease

Have you seen that issue in your life, the claim that the cure is worse than the disease, or perhaps that the cure is not worth the disease. There are medical situations where this applies and they are usually used in cases of huge risks, but it is always in a stage where it is about optionally curing the person who got that winning lottery ticket, and the cure will hit him or her full on. It happens, yet what is the stage where the cure is the disease? I am not talking about a vaccine where we are making the body stronger by fighting a weaker version of the disease, no this is a stage where we give the person Ebola or Hantavirus to let the body cure it. The problem becomes that once you have the virus you are actually sick and the complications start from that point onward.

This is the stage we are confronted with in ‘IMF accused of ‘reckless lending’ to debt-troubled states‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/07/imf-accused-of-reckless-lending-to-debt-troubled-states). It is not merely “the Fund broke its own rules by not ensuring sustainable debt burden“, I personally believe it to be a much larger problem in all this. It is also not merely: “encouraging reckless lending by extending $93bn of loans to 18 financially troubled countries without a debt restructuring programme first“, I believe it to be a larger play to push revenue away from vulture funds to create a systemic problem for these nations to become part of the consumer feeding frenzy to banks for generations. when we see: “Debt sustainability has come into the spotlight over the past year after the IMF controversially lent a record $56bn to Argentina even though its annual debt repayments far exceeded the Fund’s own limit” the given excuse ‘The IMF said Argentina, the second biggest economy in South America, was a special case‘ the handed excuse should be casted aside and given no value at all. the supporting evidence is seen in “The crisis intensified when, on 5 December 2001, the IMF refused to release a US$1.3 billion tranche of its loan, citing the failure of the Argentine government to reach its budget deficit targets” (source: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/11/business/argentina-scrambles-for-imf-loans.html). When I asked about the situation about 5 years ago from these so called Australian ‘economic reporters’, none of them had any level of a clear answer for me. The case was clear 5 years ago when certain vulture funds issues got to the surface, and now 17 years later they are giving out $56 billion, whilst refusing a $1.3 billion option 17 years earlier. There is a much larger flaw in all this and there have been whispers (read: gossip) that the IMF is very much into facilitating towards the needs of Wall Street and the financial operators out there. The bottom dollar line of Wall Street needs to be met and no one cares how it is done.

the stage becomes a lot less acceptable when we consider the stage Afghanistan; Angola; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Chad; Ecuador; Egypt; Ghana; Jordan; Mauritania; Mongolia; Pakistan; São Tomé and Príncipe; Sierra Leone; Sri Lanka; Tunisia; and Ukraine, all whilst Egypt, Pakistan and Ecuador are regarded as high risk, I personally feel that the risk factors of Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Jordan are also way above normal with only Jordan being in a better long term position however, if Jordan does not address its water shortage issues, Jordan could drop into the ultra-high risk group a lot faster than anyone could state: ‘Would you like a glass of water?‘, and in all this we see a larger failing.

It becomes a more visible issue when we see the IMF spin doctors at work. We partially accept the statement: “More than half that amount is accounted for by one programme – Argentina, which has unique circumstances“, yet I am much less forgiving when I see: “We have clear guidelines about not lending into unsustainable debt situations and all programmes require approval by the IMF’s executive board“. It is my response that they publish clearly all their guidelines (and policies), but we will not ever get that. In addition, the Argentina matter after the Vultures were done with it is also a failing of the highest degree, the fact that over 17 years $1.3 billion has required $56 billion implies more than merely 4,300% more funds needed. It gives rise that over 17 years a debt increase of 23% year on year was accumulated one way or another. It is a direct optional sign of complete and utter governmental financial malfeasance. It is a failure on a scale never seen before and the fact that no one stepped in shows the larger failure by the IMF. You see, the overall lack of illumination also constitutes evidence that the players wanted this to be kept out of the lime lights.

In addition, when we look at the 17 nations, when we ignore the obvious three, we see a larger issue in Jordan. Jordan stepped up and towards the issue that there are well over 1.4 million refugees in Jordan and Jordan was not ready in any way shape or form to deal with that. In their current state the Jordan desalination plants will not be able to keep up (so far it cannot keep up) and the fact that the Jordan population grew by 14% in 2-3 years due to the refugees was never clearly illuminated and now Jordan has a larger issue, even if another desalination plant is added in the Gulf of Aqaba, the issue will not diminish and the loans towards Jordan would become unsustainable. In addition, when you consider Sri Lanka, the newspapers all gave the same quote a month ago: ‘Sri Lanka’s economy has shown a ‘fair bit of resilience’‘, they quoted that to the letter, yet who was feeding them that information? Only 14 hours ago we see: “Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals in September were down 27.2% from a year earlier“, those factors did not really change did they? When we consider a month ago, we see an economy that is getting hit hard, especially when Reuters gives us: “a sixth consecutive monthly fall“. It seems to me that Sri Lanka are betting on the required roll of the dice, when we get the clear indication that the dice are loaded and it seems that they are loaded towards the needs of the IMF/Wall Street and not in favour of Sri Lanka.

When we add the Reuters information: “Arrivals in the five months from May to September were down 44.4% to 468,737 from 843,569 a year earlier” we get a level of clear indication that the quote: ‘Sri Lanka’s economy has shown a ‘fair bit of resilience’‘ should be seen as media BS. And there is more regarding Sri Lanka, the quote less than 24 hours ago is “Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said all the money the current government has borrowed since 2016 was to repay the loans of the previous government of Mahinda Rajapaksa“, if that is true, then there are additional questions towards the IMF in regards to their spin doctors giving us: “Our decisions to lend to countries are not simply based on numerical thresholds, but on comprehensive debt sustainability analyses and policies needed to address economic imbalances and debt burdens“, which in the case of Sri Lanka shows a much larger issue, the fact that the quote on repaying from a previous government and that loan has been in place for 3 years shows a larger problem, so how much was given to them? In addition to this I wonder how much of the $56 billion is going to Elliott Advisors, so much is the IMF helping out Manhattan bad boy Paul Singer? In my view, the question becomes: ‘How much of the $56 billion goes to Hedge funds manager Paul Singer?‘ Under those conditions I reckon anyone could get their fingers on the penthouse in Sky Lofts building in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighbourhood. If it is good enough for Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis), it is good enough for the Lawlordtobe (Lawrence van Rijn), and I could do with a change of scenery, especially if Google buys my 5G IP portfolio.

So if my new address becomes 145 Hudson St New York, NY 10013, I promise that I will not consider the ’13’ in my zip code to be a bad omen and at least I will not have used the IMF to gain my fortune (although I will admit that I am perfectly willing to do that too #weallneedtoeat).

When we see these two issues and we see that I have not even looked at the 12 others (three were known issues) I wonder when any reporter will give us the entire down low on these so called analyses and policies that the IMF has in place, I feel with some level of certain ty that I will find a lot more issues under the waterline than the IMF spin doctors will be able to hide. Especially when we realise the quote in the Guardian: “concerns that a general election later this month will oust incumbent president, Mauricio Macri, in favour of the populist Alberto Fernández and his running mate, the former president Cristina de Kirchner, triggered a flight of investors, a run on the currency and sent the interest rate on the country’s publicly traded debts soaring“, more important, under that change the entire case which would have been part of the $56 billion ‘donation’ that we see through “Argentina agreed to reduce its fiscal deficit to 1.3% of GDP this year, down from 2.2% previously and a balanced budget next year“, especially when we see the required drop of 0.9% deficit, I cannot remember any elected official making that part of their campaign, it tends to leave them unelected at the polls, so in all this, not only does the JDC have a point, we see that Sarah-Jayne Clifton, director of Jubilee Debt Campaign should be considered to be a lot more serious and is in my personal view entitled to massive dose of limelight from the global media, so that she can ask the questions that the IMF would have to explain in a clear and transparent way, would you like to take a bet on the chance of that actually happening?

I believe that people like Paul Singer will set that bet to an estimated 250:1 chance (of it not happening), and as he personally was able to acquire $3.5 billion, I am not putting my hopes on high here. I merely wonder if the people in Argentina have any decent level of Christmas to look forward to this year and the many years that follow.

 

 

 

 

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