Tag Archives: London

August 19, 2023 · 00:41

Our house is burning down. Down!

By now we have all heard of the fires in Canada. There is nothing that I can say, invent or imagine that makes this setting easier. These fires are making the fires of Rome (64AD) and burning of London (1666AD) look like a simple BBQ (or clambake if you are from the US). At this time the fires are well over 13,500,000 Hectare, and it has displaced around 200,000 people. Which is almost 1% of the population. The largest fire in recorded history. I have never ever heard of a fire this big and I have been around for well over half a century. I wonder what the eco-deniers make of this setting, who will they blame? The fact that from all over the world firefighters are coming to Canada to fight a fire too big to comprehend is only one setting. The stage that planes are so loaded that they need to turn away those fleeing the disaster they face. 

People wear protective masks as the Roosevelt Island Tram crosses the East River while haze and smoke from the Canadian wildfires shroud the Manhattan skyline in the Queens Borough New York City, June 7, 2023. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

And that is before you realise that NYC is orange, orange from smoke by Canadian fires. An event that has never happened before. So yes, I looked at plenty of issues before I looked at this. I am on the other side of the planet, but I took notice, I took notice several times and now I decided to write about it. 

The setting hasn’t changed, I did. I am starting to realise that that much forest gone will impact our oxygen supply and it will take lose to a decade for a decent amount to be rebuild. We can argue on the timeline. But the forests in the Amazon are depleted, the ones in Indonesia have seen depletion as well Indonesia lost 29.4 Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 18% decrease in tree cover since 2000. Did you think that was nothing? Now the forests of Siberia are almost all that remain and I reckon that this is not a path we want to walk on. This fire might not be what we wanted, but there is a negative part in me that states that this is the fire we the people (not just Canadians) have been entitled to. A small reminder that exploitation of our world will hurt us all and people more intelligent than me would have been aware of this for several years and the Canadian fires are merely bringing it to the foreground. Some articles are drawing in the people by looking at how it started, some are set on the blame factor, but if you need someone to blame you only need to look into a mirror. Politicians are not held to account, all whilst driving the gravy train. We are being told that places like the UK that woodland creation has increased by 40 percent since last year to 3,128 hectares. It isn’t much, but it is a start, all being it being half a decade late. People like Mark Rober (formerly with NASA) have aided organisations like Team Trees, an organisation that as of 29 June 2023, the project has raised $24,438,806, exceeding the fundraiser’s goal to plant 20 million trees. As anticipated, more than 20 million trees have been planted. So one ex-NASA with an organisation achieved more in 2 years that the UK achieved in a decade and it is people like this that Canada will need, their solutions will be required when the fires are stopped. When? Your guess is as good as mine and it will rely on guessing as we have never faced a fire like this ever before, not in well over 2000 years as far as I can tell. 

So what is the option? I am not sure we have one, our house is burning down and whilst most houses have a garden to evacuate to, the planet has nothing surrounding itself but empty space and that is a place where we cannot survive. I wonder how long it will take some to blame the rich, tax everyone and whatever other solution people give, but the simple equation is that until we change our lives from a consumer based life towards an essential goods stage this will keep on going on. And with a little over 8,000,000,000 consumers in this house, we are destined for a larger failing than we care to admit to. You see it is not merely the fires, it is the simple equation where 34 million acres are not there to give us the oxygen we need to breath. So how short will our oxygen supply be in 2024? You can ignore it all you want but that will be the largest topic we ever faced and it is coming. None of it is the fault of Canada or Canadians. We all did our best to ignore Brazil and Indonesia. The media skated around the issue and now the blame game starts. Well as soon as the fires have been digitally exploited to the maximum. That is how I see it. Do you think I am wrong?

Enjoy the weekend and consider the numbers, the numbers tend to be correct.

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August 10, 2023 · 19:35

When the past and present meet

I made a promise yesterday and it is time to keep it. This idea is freeware for EXCLUSIVE development of this in game form for the Amazon Luna or the Tencent Handheld (or both). This will be a streaming game, Sony does not need my help and it is too big for the Nintendo. A few nights ago I took a walk down memory lane regarding the Dawn of the Dead. I saw both the remake and the original by George Romano. 

I loved the original and I enjoyed the remake, yet it was then when the investigations I recently did regarding my new IP and looking into malls took a sidestep. You see, there was once a CBM Amiga game based on that movie. I barely remember it, but I knew of it. Then my mind took me to a new setting. You see our computers and streaming systems are a lot more powerful. So what happens when we make the setting a lot more realistic. Not waves of zombies with trigger points and trigger events. But a scene with a set amount of zombies and the setting for every level is a mall and the two blocks around the mall (whenever possible). As such the game could start in London giving us
Trocadero mall
Liverpool street station mall
Battersea Power Station

The setting is that the malls are completely mapped out, the Liverpool Street Station Mall is above a station, so you need to find other ways to get a secure location, the malls have doors, shutters, just like in reality and the task is more than just take out the Zombies, you need to survive for 5 days in each place. As you progress you will find upgrades, new weapons and unlike all other shooters, ammunition is an issue, so you might find weapons, but ammo is an issue making weapons like bow and Arrow, crossbows a lot more important, as do all kind of melee and slash weapons. The stage is that the initial level will give you the intro and will introduce a party NPC. Party NPC’s could be anywhere and you need them to upgrade skills and keeping places more secure. As you progress through the game you will get additional resources from NPC’s and that gives you the larger game. The big burger is the mall, where there is an abundance of goods, but swarming with Zombies. 

Then we get the Netherlands with
Bijenkorf Amsterdam
Magna Plaza Amsterdam
Shopping centre Rotterdam

You basically get to test and try options to secure places and stay alive. As far as I can tell there is no game like it, not one that takes zombie apocalypse survival in a serious way. They are all about the turbo and the cutscene setting and there are all kinds of games in this we get to the third place which is Los Angeles, and after that Dubai with its Malls making the last one (Dubai Mall) the largest enterprise, with over 5.4 million square feet will be the largest challenge and it also has a supermarket (Carrefour market) and when you get through this you will be zombie apocalypse master certified.

The nicer part is that as a streaming game you get to tweak a few things, there is no way you get this right without serious testing and the setting of using the actual mall in a game is novel to say the least. I have no idea of the legal implications, yet I believe that visibility to well over a million gamers will be a boost for any mall. 

In the setting I looked at the environment. How to survive and how to find stuff you can use. I still have some internal questions on the NPC’s, some stay, some will come with you to a new mall (one per city), the rest you need to find, but the boosts and skills they gave you are permanent, so over the towns you will learn more and more. The idea of an Alpha Zombie comes to mind. One in every level. You can kill them from a distance, you can engage them (very dangerous move) but they will always have a unique thing. It could be a bulletproof vest, it could be a piece of clothing you cannot acquire any other way. There are a few things more, but I will let you figure that out for yourself. So good luck and I hope you get a nice slice of these gaming billions that some claim are out there. 

Close to the end of the week now, so enjoy the day.

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May 30, 2023 · 13:48

My boiling point

Yup, I have one and the Guardian pushed my button. We all have buttons that can be pushed. If you sing “It’s a cruel Summer, leaving me, leaving me here on my own” really off key to Summer Mcintosh there is a chance she’ll blow a gasket too (it is based on classical music by Ace of Base, 1992). Some dislike the limelight, others (like me) have other buttons. And there is the start for today. The article by Rupert Neate a wealth correspondent (whatever that is) is by their own submission a reporter on covering the super rich and inequality, again whatever the hell that is. But let’s look at that article (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/may/29/2-tax-uk-rich-list-families-raise-22bn-year-reform-inequality) where he starts by hiding behind ‘could’ making him some clueless labor tool. The text “A modest wealth tax on the richest 350 families in the UK could raise more than £20bn a year – enough to fund the construction of 145,000 new affordable homes a year – according to research by fairer taxation campaigners” and there is the emotional useless stage. ‘Constructing 145,000 new affordable homes a year’ We will not get the equations there. We do not get locality because that pricing leaves London far outside of the scope. No his goal is limelight, to hide behind ‘could’ and emotions. Then we get “A 2% tax on assets above £10m held by all members of the Sunday Times rich list could raise as much as £22bn, according to analysis by Tax Justice UK, the Economic Change Unit and the New Economics Foundation (NEF).” And still we get no equations or justification on these numbers. We get another emotional ‘tax the rich’ by an emotional tool. And he merely ‘emotionally validates’ some Sunday Times list without justification. 

You see, lets take a look at the Guardian from June 2017 where we were given (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/21/battersea-power-station-affordable-homes-almost-halved-by-developer ) ’Battersea Power Station developer slashes number of affordable homes’, there we see how Malaysian investors slashed 40% of the agreed affordable homes. How did that end? Nothing (and nowhere), you useless tool! Where is the prosecution of exploiting foreign investors? Where are your values there?  In my personal opinion Rupert Neate needs to buy a lollie, sit in a corner, suck on that and shut the fuck up (pardon my language). 

It is always labour minded idiots that are heralding ‘inequality’ and that is a larger problem. I am not against PROPER taxation, but these people according to taxation law paid their fair share and then some. You see in 2022 according to one source “629,000 people paid the additional rate of income tax is 45%, and is paid on earnings above £125,140 a year”, so these people already are in the 45% bracket (don’t worry I have a solution). They have paid their fair share, yet there is another matter. I am not blind to certain levels of inequality. You see fair taxation is also needed on corporations, Apple didn’t become a trillion dollar industry because of their devices. Their tax write offs are unheard of and that had to change decades ago. I wish them all their profits, yet there should be taxation. Retail Gazette gives us ‘UK Apple stores paid less than £800,000 tax despite £971.5m of sales’ did that useless wealth correspondent look at that part? And they are merely one of dozens of companies that are legally stretching the lines of taxation laws. Then we are given “Those on the rich list include the prime minister Rishi Sunak and wife Akshata Murty at number 275 out of 350, with £529m, and the 32-year-old Duke of Westminster, with £9.9bn, at number 11.” And that might be true, so did they pay their taxation? It seems Apple didn’t. And that list grows, whilst the useless people are focussed on people who paid their dues according to tax laws. You see, there is another income stream. We get so much emotional garbage from magazines and newspapers that they should LOSE their 0% VAT setting, we can set that to 6% or 10%, there is your income right there. If you cannot properly report the news, you should be taxed. You forgot about the mirror image you see when you get up in the morning. So I give you another income source. If you cannot properly do your job, you get to be taxed as well.

Issue solved!

You see, if we are to believe the HMRC, six hundred and twenty nine thousand people pay their fair share and then some. So this rich list is utter BS, I say we tax the media, lets see how long they can play games whilst letting some useless wealth correspondent continue their ‘labor’ needs. Yes, this is personal, but we see this come again and again whilst no one is doing anything about tax laws or exploiting investors. Why not? It seems that the Guardian has a few fences to mend and I suggest that they hop to it, I reckon that they could spring that 10% VAT bill, but there is a chance that they will cry like little bitches, just like they did when the Leveson report was released. 

So, they pressed my button and this was my response. So, have a nice day whilst I kill a few people in Skyrim with a bow (we all unwind in our own way), they will never know what hit them.

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April 12, 2023 · 07:13

A weird choice of thoughts

I have them at times, not merely during the daytime, at times the ones at night are even weirder. I was in what I think was a Google location. It was extremely sunny and warm, as such I think I might have been in California. I was in the foyer of a building, it was open and spacious. Almost like a circle, there was a circle in the centre where receptionists were working and assisting people. Around me were windows, they had a lower part and an upper part. The lower part was about 80% of the height of the room, the upper part was about 20%. The upper parts were different, they had stained windows, each window had a Google logo in stained glass style, the logo was surrounded by milky white glass. It had an interesting effect on the foyer, the foyer was bathing in colours. Each logo was adding colours to the room, one part was a little less bright, this logo was not surrounded by milky white glass, but by black glass, it was the Stadia logo. As I looked around the foyer I saw the Drive logo, the YouTube logo, the cloud logo, mail logo, calendar logo and several more. I started looking at the people and they all looked stressed, they looked worried, but I could not see a reason. The circle only had 2 of the 5 computers switched on. I started to walk around and I walked up the staircase. People looked frantic they were talking, but they were also looking though papers. I saw in one hall that only one row of computers was switched on. The conference rooms were empty, TV’s were not switched on, the coffee corner had its coolers switched off, or so it looked. There were people all around but it was a population of less than 10% of what was made room for. 

As I walked around I saw more and more people nervous, some scared but not of each other. It seemed to me that there was a massive shortage of electricity, an energy crises unlike any one I had ever seen. I had seen the energy issues on Crete, but it was a minor issue, this was a lot worse and a lot more intense. I could not feel the het, but everyone around me was sweating. The rooms had a distinct Google feeling like I had seen them in Sydney. I looked outside but I saw no ocean, perhaps the angle was wrong. On the other side I saw high rises nearby, at least a dozen buildings. Not sure where I was and for some reason I could not any of the conversations. It was almost like they were talking alien, or I was not hearing correctly, but there conversations were not meant for me, or I was not part of that side, I was merely there to see, to watch and to observe. People were massively underdressed, dressed like they knew it was a 40C degrees day, thin flimsy and mostly covering their bodies in this both men and women had taken heed of slight covering is better than melting away, and with the obvious lack of cold drinks they were relying on water, or so it seemed to me. This is nearly all I saw, I merely heard the words ‘That’s enough’, the only two words I heard in the entire dream. Was someone showing me what will be? It was only a dream and I have no idea why I saw this. I had seen data all over the place, but is this the setting the US will face in the near future? Places that cannot continue because the energy crises is overwhelming places? I have no idea, for me it was merely a dream, but one that felt uneasy, it lacked the comfort I usually have in a dream. A setting where a government due to inaction needs to find a new path, a new approach to satisfy the need of corporations and they all need energy a setting we saw for years but the greed driven were telling everyone that there would be enough time, there would be options. It seems that this setting has been passed and passed without activity. I wonder what will come next and as I am trying to make a tally, Texas, California and New York will need at least two, two and one nuclear reactor to keep on par with the energy requirements, the alternatives will not roll out in time and these reactors would not be build in time either. Yet as I consider that part, I realise that the EU and UK are in similar settings. They have a lack of energy resources and the shortage gap is merely increasing.

It was a weird choice of thoughts to have, but I think it has been fuelled by the decrease of oil, the numbers and numerous tables and charts I was looking at and I think my subconscious filled in the blanks through a story. And it is about to get worse for these places, summer is coming and that implies millions of AC units draining energy from June onwards. In this Texas and California are the strongest places, but New York is another place. The New York Times gave us 11 hours ago “The high cost of natural gas and electricity is prompting many to prepare for outages and shortages.” Yet personally I feel that it is not only the price of electricity, I feel that there will be an actual shortage and in that setting, for the warmer summer states late July through to mid September will be challenge to say the least. In California and Florida, those with theme parks will have their own set of problems and a lack of electricity will be the smallest of issues. A stage that would come, but now it comes sooner and even my dreams have no answers. In part because I cannot tell when the shortages hit, in part because I know very little of the energy solutions that nations have, it is not my expertise, but I do realise that energy can be seen in what is available and what is used and that is a simple tabular setting and as such I understand the shortages that several will face in a summer state in the northern hemisphere and as such when that happens a lot will happen and it will happen all over Asia too. 

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April 8, 2023 · 22:36

Anyone seeking wealth?

This is a genuine question, there is no hidden trap, there is no signing up. It is a simple setting that I would love to solve (I am not adverse to wealth), yet the problem is that I see an issue and in this case, as I am not a programmer I cannot solve it. I can clean data, I can mine data and when it comes to all kinds of data I can solve it. I am not a programmer. So here is the solution in this one article that could fetch you a lot of money, because no one has anything proper at the moment. And it is the word proper that counts, because it matters. 

The clock
I have written about the clock once before, the Android clock being better as it allows for a 24 hour digital clock in Android, iOS is all about look and not much about function so the analog clock is all you get (you can buy the digital version). And for me, I have 4 times on my mobile. Vancouver (Los Angeles is too pretentious), Toronto, Amsterdam and Riyadh. I do not travel, but I have friend in Europe and I wrote about the middle east regularly, so knowing what time it is over there matters. 

What else?
So I was sitting and checking a few issues whilst I suddenly realised that I needed more information, which is not a problem. Yet, why was it not handy at the push of a simple button? Over 15 years and no one thought of this? I was baffled and as far as I saw, there is no solution at present and that is your option. OK, I saw one solution that offer only time and weather, but it is on top of your screen, all about pretence and not set to the comfort of the international travellers who are adding up to 10,000,000 a year according to some sources.

You see, millions a year travel over timezones. The most visible one is London – New York. Over 11,000 a day travel that route and when you consider Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, London, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Munich the numbers start really adding up and they all have the same need. Not merely the clock they see, but when they click on that clock they would like to see more. Weather, optional exchange rates, and more. What more? Well I cannot tell what they need, but weather is a first and there is no solution. There is data all over the place offering it, but no one considered connecting these dat houses in a really robust solution as a widget or an app. Yes there are all kinds of widgets and you need to adjust for every one of them, but one solution that takes the destination THEY need and add the data around it? Nope, as far as I can tell, no one was that customer friendly.

Well over 10 years in 4G and no one considered uniting these data sources. Why not? And when you get to charge $1-$5 for a power widget that does just that, you are looking at an interesting amount of money. I am not calling out that maker a millionaire yet, but it has the option of adding to that. And someone will figure it out before I am a decent programmer, so I am making the idea Public domain and let the faster and better programmer win. It is all yours.

Have a great day, have fun and do not stumble over the DO UNTIL and ENDDO statements in your source file.

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March 2, 2023 · 09:55

Every source is useful

This is the actual case, we get information from sources, some we deem essential, some we see useful and some we seem as nice to have. That is the case when you look at it, but it is not always true, sometimes the source is less relevant than the information they bring. They were on the ball, they were in the area and they were connected are three options that come to mind, but in some cases the events just blow you away. As it was with me, I tend to follow a Canadian comedian called Brittlestar. He is funny, he is on point and he comes with local issues that might never have caught my eye. 

So here I was reading the tweets and there he has alerting me to a BBC article called ‘Abortion UK: Women ‘manipulated’ in crisis pregnancy advice centres’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64751800). I tend to look at BBC events, but this one I missed and it was a Canadian comedian, waving their red and white flag proudly on top of a humongous Maple leaf tree alerting me to an event in the UK. Now, it makes sense. From the top of a Maple leaf you can see the UK (on the other side of the Atlantic river), I standing on top of the Centurion (tallest tree in Australia) couldn’t see the UK because India and Africa are hindering my viewpoint. These things happen. 

But it is about the article and it filled me with dread, It starts with “The centres operate outside the NHS and tend to be registered charities. Most say they don’t refer women for abortions, but offer support and counselling for unplanned pregnancies”, which is followed with “Some 21 centres gave misleading medical information and/or unethical advice about abortion” and I wondered, could this be any worse? And then I see “Jo Holmes, of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, said: “From a professional-standards point of view… they are not there to advise, they are not there to guide, and they are… not there to give their opinion. This language is designed to make the client feel guilty.”” With added mentions of “We visited the Crossroads Crisis Pregnancy Centre in Harrow, north-west London, which opened in 2005 and is based in a Baptist church. The centre’s website says its trained counsellors provide free and accurate information. An undercover reporter told a counsellor she was three weeks pregnant, and asked what an abortion would involve at that stage. The counsellor replied: “The baby is waiting for the pill to kill it and to get rid of it.”” And it is not the weirdest thought that a church is part of deception, they have done so for almost 1,000 years. And there is a much larger stage from this, it will speed up the stage where they are trivialised as christianity is thrown into a corner and ignored after spouting 2,000 years of lies and deceptive conduct, oh and lets not forget about the paedophile priests (which is on the catholics and not the baptists as far as I know). 

Is it so hard to give one group (women) true and unbiased information? Is it that much of an issue with people? These deceptive priests, have no issues handing forgiveness to raping fathers of their children, adulterers and all kind of sex crazed daddies. Is it too much to ask for a true neutral response to women? It is not a hard question, most of these people ignore homelessness, war, famine, big company exploitation, as such can we just give the women the neutral advice so that they can decide on what to do next? The article is a lot more important, there is no need to lace it with comedy and other matters, but the stage is a lot larger that anyone ever imagined. As such, great applause to the BBC Panorama article by Eleanor Layhe & Divya Talwar, they uncovered something sinister and unacceptable and it is time to set those charity people in the limelight and ask them public questions, especially when they hide behind the faceplate of ‘Charity’.

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January 29, 2023 · 22:32

Evolution in gaming

That is the subject of today. As I wrote a few chapters in the past regarding that, some people had questions and questions are good. But to coin a phrase, I just got you an evolution here. This is merely a setting, merely an example and I believe it opens up the game stage for everyone involved (mostly for the Amazon Luna). 

The game I selected here was Crush, Crumble and Chomp by Epyx. A game I bought around 1986 as a CBM64 disc game. 

As we see the image above, we see the map as the CBM64 was able to manage with its 64Kb. It was a big thing in 1985, in 2023 not that much and in this case we see the first step of evolution, we use the map that was used in Watchdogs 2, which also plays in San Francisco. 

Like in the movie Rampage we start with three monsters. Godzilla, Dwayne Johnson (oops, I meant the giant Gorilla) and the wolf. What makes this different now is that this game has three game modes. In mode one we are the government side. We get to automate (to some degree) the police, the army and the fire brigades. As the game progresses we get to enhance the intelligence of the government sides and we get more hardware to do so. In the second mode we get to play the monster and we can have a free for all on the city of San Francisco. The more damage, the higher the score, and of course there will be options to have a snack in the shape of Malin Åkerman, its only fair as she played the Corporate B from hell. It is mode three that becomes the stage, we now get to ‘program’ the monster and we got through the motions to make it as smart and devastating as possible. More important when it gets to level 4 (my mind came up with 5 levels) you can put your monster online and see how it does as others try to play the game with YOUR monster and that gets you ‘international’ recognition. You see, as I personally see it, the game that Jon freeman and Jim Connelley designed deserves a second chance to life and I thought it was limited at the time, but that was due to the memory restraints on the CBM64, now we can turn it to something real with real sides. Of course Ubisoft would have a large advantage to produce it as they created the city, but that shouldn’t stop others. Ubisoft has more advantages, as it adds Chicago and London and more importantly, as they add New York the mayhem is close to complete. 

 I would like to try and find a way to incorporate the music used on the CBM64 which was Mussorgsky – Night On Bald Mountain, it set the tone nicely and was a great choice to have. This took less than an hour to create and the library for a dozen more games are coming to mind. A stage that would service the 50 million subscribers in one setting and optionally the Amazon Luna setting too and this was not the best game to begin with (compared to thousands of other games). For the GAAS environment enhancements are the future of gaming and when Amazon figures this out they will be off to the races leaving Microsoft far behind them, as they should have in the first year of operation against Microsoft. Microsoft can buy all the software houses they want, but those with a lack of imagination will hollow out Microsoft faster and faster. Creativity cannot be bought by those who embrace fake it till you make it. That is how I see it.

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January 27, 2023 · 21:31

Banking on it

This is the case as I read it a few hours before, it also strengthens my case against banking apps. You see, the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64240140) gives us ‘Mobile phone fraud: ‘They stole £22,500 using my banking app’’ and we get “A pickpocket took Jacopo de Simone’s mobile phone and used his banking apps to steal £22,500”. In this case I have a few questions. You see, when I have my phone on me it is ALWAYS locked. A locked phone can still accept phone calls. So as I see “He said his bank investigated but found him liable for the losses so he is still fighting to get the money back.” To be honest, I cannot completely disagree, I also agree with “banks need to do more to tackle it, according to charity the Fraud Advisory Panel” which becomes the issue. I always though on a separate app that is NOT next to the app for certain bank activities and that app needs to receive a code within 30 minutes. And when the app receives three (my magic number) wrong codes the app is blocked from that person until he goes to one of his bank’s branches where they can unlock and reset the app. Everyone is always nagging about simplicity of usage, well if you are willing to surrender £22,500 for that convenience  you are welcome to proceed, but somehow I feel certain that it is not worth that much money. So when I see “Criminals are stealing mobiles not for the device but to try to access finance apps to steal thousands of pounds, the Fraud Advisory Panel said” I feel a little happy as I keep zero financial apps on my mobile. I never ever trusted those and the Optus and Telstra issues we had in the last year merely strengthens my resolve on that issue. As such, when I see “Mr de Simone fell victim to the crime while walking around London Bridge in May 2022 when his phone was pickpocketed” the question comes back “How the hell did they unlock his phone?” Then there is “Use different pin numbers for unlocking your phone and opening banking apps” as well as “Don’t store passwords or pin numbers on your phone” in this case I never put pin numbers there and I do keep some passwords, but they are encrypted and my skill of half a dozen languages helped here and if these people can decipher those codes, good luck. The password for my discontinued UTS password is all yours. But there is another setting, like Google allowing for encrypted notes, encrypted via a number. I am a little surprised that they did not cover that after a decade (well, they dropped the ball on a few other matters too, one of those costed them 50 million subscribers). So there is always space to improve things. But when I look at the case of Jacopo de Simone I at present will side with the bank. Parts do not make sense, but the issue of improving security on banking apps remain, more needs to be done and a separate app makes sense. It reminds me of a solution 30 years ago that the insurance agent Aegon had. They called it Aegon LAR. The app contacted the server that agent X needed contact and within 60 seconds the server contacted the agent. As such all the security was on the server side and triggering a hack would not work from a remote location, it contacted the router on a specified number and there were security protocols in place, so you had to be there, you needed the codes and any deviation would stop activities. Simple and  decently safe. How come we let all that slide for simplicity and ease of use? 

It never made sense to me and I do not need a banking app for a few reasons and my distrust of security levels on a few levels makes me avoid ALL banking apps. It is just how I am wired, nothing personal, it is the application of Common Cyber Sense.

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January 4, 2023 · 23:19

Follow by example

Early this morning I was alerted to news from the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64082923). There we see ‘Foreigners now banned from buying homes in Canada’ and when home pressures are as high as in Canada, that makes sense. But there is more. You see Canada states “As of 1 January, the ban prohibits people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents from buying residential properties” so we can state that the term ‘foreigner’ is applied loosely. Then there is the list of people with critique and issues. But consider, why would you want to buy a residence when you are not a citizen or a permanent resident? Consider that and then consider how the London Real estate atmosphere is spiced and spiked due to hedge funds and wealthy investors? Canada had to do something and they chose this. And it is not a new thing. New Zealand did something similar in 2018. We also get “federal housing minister Ahmed Hussen said the ban is meant to discourage buyers from looking at homes as commodities instead of a place to live and grow a family” and here I personally believe that Ahmed Hussen is correct. What is interesting that the BBC did not give us any results from the 2018 act by New Zealand. Did it reduce pressures? Any answer would have been nice and also illustrative, but they did not, why not? 

I personally believe that Canada made the right step, whilst too many governments are catering to investors and speculators, there is a larger need to stop all this. And Canada made its move. Also the Canadian governments made a mention in December “the Canadian government announced some exemptions to the regulation, including for international students who have been in the country for at least five years, refugee claimants and people with temporary work permits”, as such we see that the heart of the Canadian government is in the right place. Will this be enough to reduce pressures? I cannot tel, I do not know enough about the housing market and specifically the Canadian housing market. Yet, overall when we consider the mess London and several other places are in, the move makes sense. If there is one loser, then that would be the players who invested in building ‘The One’ on Bloor street West in Toronto. That building screams investors and they cannot get a place as far as I can tell, but I reckon that the government will find a loophole for that as that place has nothing below a million and it caters to a different group.

I wonder if the results will be made public enough at the end of 2023 to see the impact. It might be a report that places like New York, London, Amsterdam and Paris are waiting for. In a time when the cost of living is going nuts, reducing housing stress makes perfect sense to me.

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December 12, 2022 · 22:21

Mashed faith

That is the setting I am in. To be clear, I do not think I am in a good place right now. There is the abundance of islamophobia. There is the abundance of far right whiners, there is JustStopOil and the list goes on. To be honest I am a little at a loss on how to solve it. There is a creative idea that is forming but it is extreme to say the least. 

The first drops
In the first stage we take a look at far right person Rasmus Paludan. He is stirring hatred on many levels, the Swedish police is trying to stop him, but it is not working. He is item one. Item two id Dutch anti-islam movement Pegida, they too have made claims of burning a Quran. To stop these first drops of inciting much more anti Islamic violence I call on ALL the Arabic nations to reduce oil shipments to the EU by 500K barrels a day (250K for each and whilst these people are still alive). When the EU has to deal with the reduced oil shipments they might finally do something. And for any far right anti Islamic activity an additional 250K barrels a day are taken from the stockpile and where they go is up to these nations, to China is most likely as they require (and have requested) more oil. 

Is it fair?
No, and that is not what matters. You see this world is becoming a powder keg and we either harshly reduce the danger, or we control how it implodes, minimising casualties. These governments have had years to do something about it and they keep on screwing things up, so lets give them in incentive. This is one way and there are others, but I need to make sure that the people start seeing where the real power is and it is not in the US and not in the EU, not anymore. So we need to make sure that the implosion is directed and directing it to the far right makes perfect sense in this case. 

We are now in a dangerous stage. You see the Catholic churches have shown to be too unreliable. There is corruption, sexual abuse against minors and we saw less than a month ago that this was known all the way to the top of the Vatican a decade ago. There is now a much larger stage to massively separate church from state and it becomes massively important to reduce christian powers all over these governments. And whilst they still enjoy too many benefits of their transgressions we ned to do something. Like in politics is is about alliances and now the atheists and Muslim populations make one massive alliance, outranking christians by a lot. We can sit back and do nothing or set the stage how it really is. Not to the loudmouthed abusers, but to the people who are truly in power and it is not Strasbourg and it is not Washington DC. No matter how we slice and dice it we are running out of time to act, if there is one clear signal than that has been the signal that JustStopOil has been sounding and we see that the people have had enough in London, Munich and Paris. And we better do something clear before this all explodes, because that danger is getting bigger by the day. 

Are there better actions? I feel certain that there are, yet I do not see them and the governments are not acting as they should, as such my method comes to the top, not because it is better, but though a lack of real alternatives. Time is no longer our friend, that time has passed.

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