Tag Archives: Microsoft

October 14, 2023 · 21:24

The sides of different matters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy the weekend.

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October 10, 2023 · 05:11

The job never evolved

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy the day.

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October 6, 2023 · 15:41

The dangers we ignore

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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September 29, 2023 · 21:41

Narrating tomorrow

It all started yesterday. I had a new idea on story lines and narration. In this the idea of a new game (exclusive to streaming systems) that is meant for Amazon Luna and Tencent handheld. You see, in this Amazon has a wide advantage (I will get to that later), but in all this The Tencent handheld could benefit from this station. The idea was set around trains. There are a whole range of train movies that could be used, with the exception of the Hogwarts Express, which is IP that belongs to JK Rowling. The idea is a setting against an AI, but to do this we need a few things and in all this the narration matters. You see, if you are going for a long haul, having the same dialogues all the time will make for a dreary game soon enough. 

Machine Learning

Machine learning is at the foundation of this (there is no AI at present), but Machine learning is an awesome machine that can really set any locomotion driving forward. In this the narration has a few stages.

Intro
Storyline evolution through location 
The elements (people, objects and rooms)


These three can be programmed for, but how to get them in line? Well for that I considered a few things. We can start by Agatha Christie, but we can also use Dorothy L. Sayers, PD James, Ruth Rendell and a few more. Machine learning can be awesome and it can crunch stories like no one else. As such we give it the same parameters, but now it creates 4+ stories. And that is just for starters. Amazon has the advantage of owning Audible, as such they have access to a whole range of voice actors.

Randomisation
Randomisation is a problem. A friend once told me that randomisation is an exact science and he was right. As such I do not like the random setting that much, but it can be a tool. For example I like the multi usefulness of Sudoku, as such we can create 999 sudoku’s create a random generator for one number and attach the number to a Sudoku, now sort the buggers and we have a random setting that is truly random. 

I used it as an example in a story in May 2022, it was one approach, but it can be used in a number of ways.

Trains
The trains are a consistent in the story and for a reason, yet here we have a new option, or perhaps an opportunity. Consider Murder on the Orient Express. As we chose the gender of our player, that player will be one of the passengers (except for Poirot) as such the setting changes dramatically every time you play the game. Because you get assigned a role and it comes with advantages and weaknesses. But there are more stories. Strangers on a train, Silver Streak, Emperor of the north and so on. The one setting that is exact is that the trains are as exact as possible. This is of course interesting as you find yourself on the Maharajas’ Express. The idea is to find clues and evidence over 10 trains. You get killed, you start from scratch. 

So now you see that this takes a very different kind of narration and the use of machine language becomes clear and the nice part? This has never been done before. A who dunnit (we already know this at the start), but I want to throw a few logical twists in the story and I do have one that is a gasser (and a screamer at the same time). But it is about the narration now. You can go through the game a few times and after 10 times you will get something you saw before, but that will be also new, the narration might sound the same but the elements keeps the story different and that is the larger stage of a game that was never made before and players like Microsoft will never create something this unique because their boner is set to buying existing IP, which is why they will lose again and again. For now I see a new game evolve, one never made before and that could spell all kinds of disaster for the optional new owners of Call of Duty. Gamers go where the new stuff is, they go to new frontiers, not to places already visited. Yes, they will love their Call of Duty, there is no doubt, but that alone doesn’t hold the bacon and certain people just do not get that. I hope that Tencent is awake and realising that getting Game Pass is merely a temporary band aid to a larger problem they have to solve. Lets be clear, Game Pass was and is an awesome idea, but that too has issues as Microsoft already announced that they will raise the price. And for some this is not an issue, but when certain people do decide to buy my IP and they have the 50 million subscriptions, they better have a stage to satisfy all those needs. Because Game Pass might not cut it (my speculation on the matter). 

Still there is more to do. Restoration was one, now we have another and there is still more to come. Half a dozen games designed in my mind within a year, they are on this blog (in part), so there is clear evidence. This is why Microsoft will lose, they lack creativity, they did for the longest of times.

Have a nice day.

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September 22, 2023 · 23:58

A delusion within a delusion

A few things happened today that gave pause for thoughts. I believe it that it reinforces the ideas I had from the very start. Some (especially Microsoft sycophants) will state that it is exactly the evidence making me delusional. I will let you decide.

To state this I will take some detours. The setting I always had was that by the time phase one was completed, 50 million subscribers would be added. A few parts support that media, yet I will not mention them here due to some sycophants. What you need to know is how I got there.

So there is the setting that three and three and three make nine. I state that it could be 729. So how did I get here. Well, (3×3)3 is the quick route. But that would be regarded by most as flim flam numerology. So how did I get there?  

Consider two persons, person A and person B. They both have 4 million followers. You would think that you get to 8 million which makes sense, but you would be wrong. Consider these two persons. They both have interests and for the simplicity we will take random groups. Fashion, Books, Technology and Art. In these classifications they can attract each 2 people. As such the equation now becomes 2+2+2+2 times 8 million. We now have 64 million. There will be overlap, yet the more diverse these groups are, the lesser the overlap. It is a little bit like anti clustering. New clusters that are similar but not alike. This (sort of) relates to Späth, H.: Cluster dissection and analysis: theory (1986). Another person who talked about this was Iliya Valev (around 1998). 

Now I have to make a side jump. It is an old setting for a tri-sided dagger, or a Jagdkommando knife. The response on it is “The tri-dagger’s problems all begin with that godforsaken twist. It lacks a proper cutting edge, and it’s wide shape means that, as a slashing weapon, this thing is about one step up from paper cuts”, so how does this connect? Well, I have always ben a fan of a tri sided blade. It is forbidden as an actual weapon, but in my view I see it as something with three sides. Presentation, Perception and Principle. They support and reinforce one another. Perception is reinforced by Principle and Presentation, Presentation by Perception and Principle and Principle gets support from Perception and Presentation. No matter how you wield it. We see the opposition we read earlier, but we see it as a knife. You need to realise that the origins of the stiletto was invented in the 15th century to be an anti-armour knife. Not meant to slice but to stab and it went straight through leather and most metal armour. The ‘recipient’ basically bled to death on the spot. Now, hindered by its own armour it could not get any bandage applied before he bled to death. The jagdkommando knife is similar, the wound becomes to hard to heal or apply first aid, which was why it was forbidden. But the application of it is still valid. It was meant to kill with certainty, plain and simple.

Out of bounds
This is exactly why I never wanted Microsoft to get involved. They can spin whatever they like, and as they waste 69 billion on some call of duty solution, I am in the process of taking their population away from them. You see, you can spin innovation, but when the results are absent. You become part of the problem. This is supported by two part. In the first part one source gave me that 75% of the Xbox population is the Xbox series S, as such they already lack next generation solutions. The second one is harder. This was seen two days ago (at https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/20/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html) where we are given ‘US debt rises to $33 trillion as government shutdown looms’, we know there will be some last minute ‘solution’ but that is now becoming increasingly less and less likely. Microsoft has a system that ‘thrives’ on US government and its allies and that is a massive chunk of its business. So when that machine starts going idle more and more, their goose is cooked. This is why I speculated on a 2026 fall of Microsoft. Google decided on another path, so they are out and Amazon doesn’t seem to be waking up. Now China has three sides of a square nearly ready. The media is happy to spin that this is merely three sides of a heptagon and they too are pretty spiffy on presentations. Yet there I am with the other solution.

Why Canada?
Canada was part of the solution from day one. Even as I had no idea on the impact Microsoft was facing at that point, for the simple reason that I never cared about Microsoft. They merely were. But on the 5th of November 2021 I wrote ‘Egg-timer please’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/11/05/egg-timer-please/) there I wrote about Randy Lennox, CEO of Bell Media. There were two reasons, one he was Canadian (Americans were starting to get a global bad rep), he would not have that against him, which mattered to me to progress my IP. In addition he had sides of a documentarist which would be important for part of my solution and as a CEO he had international access (something I will never have). In addition Canada was a commonwealth nation and as a commonwealthian that mattered to me. 

So why the numbers?
You see, the numbers sound nice, but to get to the 50 million subscriptions I need a acceleration curve, anti clustering shows that acceleration a lot quicker. The simplest example I can give you is the difference between ‘You need to be a biker and you need to be a painter and you need to be a technologist’ and ‘You need to be a biker or you need to be a painter or you need to be a technologist’. It is not that simple, but it shows the difference the quickest. If acceleration is key, the ‘or’ group is the acceleration you need. 

These factor made me realise that Microsoft would never be the solution, they keep on buying and missing the innovation. They will state that they are the innovation that works like an anchor, but the innovation of an anchor is not because it is working, but because it didn’t work and we see plenty of that at Microsoft, but they never improved their models and I spoke about these failures too often to rename them now. Amazon was for the longest time the larger option to get it all done, but they decided not to wake up (I actually gave them the heads up). As such Andy Jassy and Jeff Bezos struck out. Now we have a new option. You see, I considered Apple, but they had their own niche. I respect niche players, but they come with blinkers. That is optionally not a bad thing (as long as they pass the qualifying question) but without that I am giving away the play to them and giving Apple something for nothing is just too unacceptable to me. Hence I contacted the Saudi Government in September 2022, I admit it did not go the way I had hoped, but not all was lost. If the Kingdom Holding group would accept the stage I presented, all would be well (I am still waiting). A new player that reared its head in January 2023 was the Tencent Technology group. They had the drive to make it work, but I believe a lot more could be achieved if Amazon or Apple were part of that deal (and I do prefer to get paid). It was also around that time that the secondary impact became visible. Meta would lose more and more market share and as such, so would Twitter (read ‘X’). Their losses would not be immediate and would take some time, but their granularity would be lost as my IP gains speed. So when these two lose 30 million people it would hurt their bottom dollar to some extent and from there the damage merely increases on a few fields. It was the advantage a player like Amazon could use to really impact global business. 

Mister X
Mister X does not relate in any way to Twitter. I considered the second person in that equation and I suddenly realised that this person could put the media out of business to a larger extent. The media that has been spinning for the need of their stakeholders and advertisers as well as their digital dollars would suddenly lose a massive amount of revenue over the short initial time. They would not be able to correct for this and they would have to bend over backwards to become anyones bitch. That works for me as the media has become a much larger problem and I suddenly realised that this could be used to wield information in a different direction and lets be clear, these two people stand to make a nice slice of the initial $5,000,000,000 annually. And I am not forgetting about little old me, I stand to make a nice retirement fund as well (which was my initial reason). I care more about my IP being successful but that will hand me a very sizeable retirement parachute too. As such I do hope that certain people will see what they are about to get, not in the least CEO Talal Ibrahim Al Maiman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. The second one doesn’t need the money, but when his royal highness gets to stick it to both the US and the media at the same time, he might do it just for the fun of it. In the meantime I wonder how fast the US shutdown would affect Microsoft. It will not initially do so, but this is the second shutdown danger in as many years and the third is not far behind and when that becomes a threat a third time, the chance of a last minute resort becomes less and less likely. So when the US government shuts down, how will Microsoft receive its cloud revenue? Its 365 revenue? So, how big is the actual Office 365 Government service description? When that shuts down, who pays for the $35 a month, per employee? Did you consider the amount of revenue Microsoft at that point will miss? 

Consider the slippery slope the US is on, consider what they sacrificed for the good of ego and you will realise that I was correct all along, optionally I was correct going all the way back to 2021. 

Enjoy the upcoming weekend.

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September 21, 2023 · 13:13

Look back in yearning

This happens and weirdly enough it hit me a few hours ago. You see a few days ago I started to replay Hogwarts Legacy again (third time). I started as Ravenclaw (I like blue), then Hufflepuff and now Slytherin. You see, Gryffindor is the least interesting house as Harry-the-Snape-sycophant-Potter has been showing us that house for 8 movies, so that place is last. And my view remains, yet there is some doubling up as you replay the game, but the game is a true work of love the houses and their common rooms show that part. There is not one better house, but there is a house for every HP fan and it is a great game. I truly hope that DLC’s or an additional game is not far away (like somewhere in 2024). I do not car about the haters and their views of JK Rowling. I never heard what she said, I do not care what her believes are. We all have believes and some opposes ours directly. That will always happen and dumping a perfectly good piece of IP (one she did not create) is just insane. 

Yet that point also woke up part of me that I missed. You see, I am not much of a racing fan. I enjoy a race, I enjoy some realism and I have enjoyed an F1 game in the past, but it is all ‘too realistic’ and I am not racer. I loved Ridge racer on my PSP, yet one title always stood out. 

It was Need for Speed Underground by Electronic Arts I loved even more. I loved it because it was more like arcade (Outrun example) racing games. Need for speed had a few additional sides that gave it the flair I enjoyed and when we look at the games nowadays, it is all about ‘realism’. Don’t get me wrong, Grand Turismo and Forza are amazing games and they have their own following. But these two lack an arcade setting (for lack of a better term). As such we forgot about Need for Speed and that is a shame. I didn’t like what they produced afterwards, it was too much about short term adrenaline rushes. But that game took my feelings back to 1982, Pole Position on the Commodore 64 which got an 85% score. 

In addition there was 1990 when we were given Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge by Gremlin graphics (85% rating). Yes, graphically there are much better graphics now, but these two games brought fun. They brought fun to racing and the games we see today are drained too much of fun and all about the implied rush and short term adrenaline events. Forza, Gran Turismo and  the Crew should take a hard look at themselves and not about outspoken claims (whilst ignoring tens of thousands of others). 

I believe that these developers are wasting a marketshare and this is about to become a time when marketshare should not ever be wasted. Yes, I see all the Twitter feeds on games that were released 25-35 years ago. Almost like influencers trying to get create waves at the behest of marketing departments. I do get that and I (for the most) do not care, but actual gems are left out there to rot in the sun. We are now in a stage where a lot of us have forgotten a game like Boulder Dash, a game that brought addiction to millions. The 1984 game got an 80% rating with “A very special Game with ugly Graphic. Boulder Dash is one of THE classics of the C64.” The interesting part is that graphics were set to 40%, implying that today it could become a 90% game. It was already a 90% game on playability. As such the streamers of today could have an interesting game that takes little bandwidth. You see, when streamers become of age and internet congestion becomes the larger problem (expect that in 2026) these games and games like this will drive gaming forward. It is about the fun and that is the part that too many developers are in denial of. I reckon Ubisoft has the biggest problem with that aspect of fun. In case of Ubisoft, I still believe the original stage I saw. ‘When you create a game to appease everyone, you end up with a game that pleases no one’. It was true in 2014 and it is even more true in 2024. As such these thoughts blended together missing out on arcade style racing. I wonder if these developers are seeing that part of the equation, because as I see it now we have the Amazon Luna developers and they can connect to the Tencent technologies handheld with their software opposing Chinese developers who are on the ball and could soon create a lot more ‘remastered’ IP and they could get away with it. You see players like Electronic Arts let the CBM64 and CBM Amiga IP expire and now the stage evolves for these new indie developers. If they can create a game that is distinct enough, they could create new IP and at that point all the wannabe Microsoft developers are set out in the cold (and not just them). As I see it, as I see what Tencent Technologies is up to, it will soon be another field where the US is fishing behind the net and when these developers are relying on their advertisement incomes, they are merely one step from becoming redundant and I reckon that Apple and Google will be on the same boat. Not merely because of what they proclaim, but it is what HarmonyOS (4.0.0.113 by Huawei) is setting the stage for and the moment that Tencent Technologies opens the door to that option it will not merely gain access to one market, it will gain access to three markets and when the others forget about the fun those others will get their goose cooked. If you think I am kidding, consider the advertisement (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvkMp0JuyPQ) when yo think this through and not hide behind the ‘sexy’ label, we see that Nintendo was right all along and Nintendo figured this out 16 years ago. Preppy and fun was the story and they delivered. In the meantime Microsoft lost a truckload of market share and Nintendo gained on Sony by miles. I like the ad as it is set against the PS3 and I had both (and loved both systems). Now we see that nearly all systems have forgotten about the fun part and a new market for indie developers opens up. With the streaming systems they can create for more than one in one go and now the others will have created a new competitor, merely because they adhered to marketing and business intelligence. The problems is that they are all opposed by a knife with three sides. That knife is awareness, perception and reality, the problem they face is that they are adhering to the wrong voices and forgot about the true fun side of a game (not everyone mind you), so all those developers forgot about one marketshare that is growing fast and is about to become a lot bigger and it is yet another reason why one brand is losing more and more marketshare. All because some of them disregarded the impact of fun and now Google and Apple are about to make that part even worse. So as the older gamers look back in yearning, the new gamers see what they are missing out on and they are about to wise up. At that point who will be in the top three? Sony will be, Nintendo will be and place three? That remains to be seen, but we now have another market where Microsoft ends up in 5th place, which is way behind the pole position they once coveted, once a long time ago. 

Enjoy the day.

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September 10, 2023 · 21:05

As ideas evolve

This is a story with a few sides. The most prominent side is based on the continuation of Ludum Scriptor, which I wrote 2 days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/09/08/ludum-scriptor/) there is set out a new premise, one that could have larger benefits. You see, as I was evolving certain ideas. One of them was to give football and fantasy football a new tool to provide their thoughts for progressing their game.

An old game for football addicts was Subutteo. We forgot about the old ideas, but they were good ideas. Now consider that with Deeper Machine Learning we an create any football game and as they are virtual and not based on plastic, they will look a lot more like the players. Any team in the world. Football, NFL, NBA, NHL and that list goes on. People can write and blog about their teams, they can write it in any way they want and that was when the wheels went in overdrive. You see, player cards and all kinds of other means could be made available for bloggers all over the world. And that list does not stop, not for some time. You see Deeper Machine learning as a tool for something like I wrote can do more and YOUR imagination can only drive it further.

Why Microsoft will fail
That was my premise and I kept on referring to a chihuahua stating ‘Try Azure, Azure smells nice’ was only to some degree a joke. But someone on LinkedIn gave me an idea.

You see being on par for a year gets you 1 (or 1365), but the smallest increase gets you to 37.7, 37 times the one you were one year later. And then there is the decrease. Even when you consider 0.99365. You end up with a mere 0.03, that is the difference between the innovator and the copycat. Microsoft lost out sixfold and they will lose out more and more. They are buying all kinds of firms, but like in the 90’s it is a recipe for disaster and innovators will walk out, they nearly always do. You see, in the end it will bite their bottom line and soon their board of directors will make knee jerk decisions making matters worse. When I stated I would make my IP public domain before I allow Microsoft access to it I was not kidding. Microsoft is as I personally see it becoming the larger problem in any equation and it does not stop there. I made mention of Deeper Machine Learning. This is awesome, it is not AI (AI does not yet exist) but it got me thinking. You see, we now see mention of AI in construction. This is about to go bad, really bad and Trusting these buildings will become folly soon enough. I will try to explain that soon enough. 

The evolution
I looked at the idea before I figured out that there were 600 million bloggers. I have no idea there are on the Vlogger side, but I expect that we are looking at interesting numbers. There are millions of fantasy football fans, hundreds of millions of sports fans and giving them space to expose that idea to them will offer more and more space others would like to try that option. We are in all effect dipping our toes in the water and all these numbers does not mean success, lets be clear about it. My idea remains that, an idea that could be liked by a lot of people, all that considering that others have done close to nothing, makes my idea stellar to say the least. 

When you consider that and when you consider creating ML and DML tools aiding people will create evolution of their work and optionally more people considering this. Not all people are creative, they merely think that their writing is not enough, these tools will enable those on the fence and that is already a win for the exploring team. What matters is that on the end of the weekend I came up with more, all whilst others seemingly came up empty. A nice end to the weekend. I have been considering additions to the field of Vloggers and also places where vloggers can propagate their work. Bloggers have their own space and for that I have additional ideas too. An active field where we switch the awakening to the pro-active, but that is for another day. I did my cerebral activity to keep me happy, time for some Ravioli.

Enjoy Sunday.

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September 7, 2023 · 10:03

Media Markets

That was what stuck in my mind when I saw the Guardian view of Starfield. The writer Keza MacDonald crying like a little girl, giving us view and “Along with several others, including the greatly respected games publications Eurogamer and Edge, we were left waiting until the game’s early access release last Friday to play it.” Yes, there is seemingly some cherry picking happening, but that has been the case for years. What does matter is that Starfield is not that great release. Some ratings are as low as 70%, that is a massive miss for the budget and alignment of stars. Skyrim with one exception was a 90% plus all across the board. There is a reason that this game has been heralded since 11.11.11, not because 11 is the crazy number (yo figure that part out). Skyrim is no matter how critics see it mind boggling. It still rocks the current generation hardware based on a previous generation console specifications. So when the Guardian gives us “It is very much like No Man’s Skyrim, as much about menus and mining and navigation as it is about finding interesting quest-lines and exploring planets on a whim”. For me this is funny as both Skyrim and No Man’s Sky are ‘earth’ shattering products, they are both unique in their own way and it seems that Starfield is neither. The reviewer gives us “Starfield has had a mixed but broadly positive reception so far”. The article reads like a cry song on how the Guardian is not one of the chosen few, but does it give a good view of Starfield? Nope, it does not. No we are given “Negotiating all this is part of the job for games journalists” all whilst the title ‘Bethesda chose not to give us early access to Starfield – and it’s readers who lose out’. My view? Nope, the readers lost out as you whined like a little bitch. So when we are given “I am reliably informed that this is one of those games that might get its hooks into you after the first 10 or even 20 hours” with the added “though, the forthcoming fantasy Elder Scrolls 6 might be a more worthwhile investment of time” and that is a review? Go cry me a river. Oh, and before I forget the new Eder Scrolls 6 is (for now) not expected before 2026. Does that mean you will whine another 2 years? So the Guardian shirked their duty (as I see it), when the floodgates go away they could have given us the goods. What is good, what is less and what sucks. No, we get a ‘I am not a chosen reviewer cry song’. 

Early access is marketing and I get that and Bethesda, Microsoft and pretty much EVERY game developers will hand over their cherries to the best source of gaming news, which is in this case anyone with the right following that will sing praise of their game. A YouTube reviewer called Parris gave the game four out of five, which translates to an 80% game. He gave us the goods why it is great, on things that are not great and things that need improvement. His review (for a lack of better term) was stellar. That is the review that makes me buy a game and that matters to Bethesda, that was their goal and he delivered on that with  (what I believe to be ) a honest opinion. I see and in this case saw way too many reviews. Plenty of haters there too (not sure why). You see an RPG is rather specific. It is a niche game which grew from small to huge in less than 10 years and Bethesda has been the major driving force in that growth. I believe that they opened the floodgates with Oblivion and the flood never stopped since 2006. Bethesda pulled that off and the added water damage that Fallout 3 brought just kept on going. So we all might have set our views to high after Skyrim, a true crowning achievement for any developer. 

So what went wrong?
I believe that the media is part of that problem, the digital dollars made for a new kind of writing and games are not part of that equation. The media now relies on self proclaimed hypes and that does not sit well with the current developers. Portkey games is a mere example (Hogwarts Legacy) and now Bethesda. So will the media adjust, or will we see another cry story when Guerrilla Software selects their reviewers for the third Horizons game? There is no indication, but that might come before Elder Scrolls 6 (speculative wishful thinking). In the meantime there is a lot more coming and it is not on some developers. You see, I have been trying to keep tabs on the new Tencent Technology handheld console which they are doing with Logitech and how much media have we seen? Not that much. Is it an anti-China thing? That new console will bite into the marketshare of Amazon and Microsoft for sure. It will support Microsoft gaming and as such it will grow fast, but the media seemingly ignored it to the largest extent. I keep tabs on it as it could facilitate my IP and if Tencent wants the 50 million new subscriptions, it can. Amazon seemingly doesn’t want it, Google dropped it Stadia and now Tencent has the option of getting in excess of 50 million new ‘gamers’, surpassing Microsoft within a year, just like Nintendo did with its Switch. Should this come to pass, Tencent technologies will come close to Sony, closer than Microsoft has EVER been. This all matters because the media is keeping gamers in the dark. So when we reconsider the headline part ‘and it’s readers who lose out’ it is not that, it is the media who changed the way they wrote, to adhere to digital dollars, to adhere to emotional flames and that is what most readers are a little sick of. It drive me to create an IP that pushes Facebook and others out of the way. Gamers want to game, but the console has other options too and with streaming that now comes to the surface and a player like Google should have been on the front lines there, not dumping their stadia, but that might merely be me. 

So there will be an upside for Bethesda/Microsoft. Even as their console is no longer the bees knees (it never was), Tencent Technologies could fill a gap that Bethesda might assist filling. Yet I do believe that they need to have a very hearty conversation with reviewers like Parris Lilly (gamertech radio) to upgrade Starfield to ‘Starfield More’. It could propel Starfield from a average 70%+ game to the game that it needed to be (85%-90%) and that would be a massive increase and gamers will applaud that setting. What is funny is that streaming allows for this and for Bethesda to push that envelope to a new setting might be a way to go (merely one of a few) but the crying Keza MacDonald (at the Guardian) didn’t think that through. No, crying and waiting for a 2026 release was the answer that the reader was given. Within an hour I offered a new destiny, a new horizon and a new hope (yes, a Star Wars reference) which in this case applies in more than one way. 

And for me? Well if it comes to the Tencent handheld I might actually play Starfield as well, it might even be a reason to get that handheld (My Switch just died). And that is the gamer field, the gamer field is forever in motion. We might hate Microsoft, we might hate Sony, but we are always looking on that next fix that gaming provides for. All gamers seek it and we are minds forever voyaging (yes, a gaming pun). 

So what next?
Well to be honest, I had closed the Starfield book, mainly because I am not playing it. Yet the Guardian opened that door again with that pathetic article and blood needed to be drawn (I sharpened my Yanagiba knife for the occasion). As stated in earlier articles, I believe in fair play and being honest with shedding blood and tears. Simply put, I will not shed a tear when shedding Microsoft blood, they did it to themselves, but the media doesn’t get that consideration. The media market changed and even as it is not always visible, it tends to be overly visible in gaming. Gamers are a funny lot (I am one of them), pushing their buttons comes at a price, which Don Mattrick learned the hard way on May 21st 2013, now a little over 10 years ago and Microsoft is still bleeding from that event. More-so if Tencent surpasses them by December 2024. Still it is not merely Microsoft, it is the media spin that is pushing gamers into new fields and even as Starfield was to be that force, it is not to late for Starfield, they still have options. I believe that Bethesda has a hidden diamond there. Am I right? I am not certain, but a game that took this much time, energy and resources cannot die on an average setting, Bethesda has created too many great titles for a new IP just to sizzle and that is my view on the matter.

Enjoy the day.

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September 6, 2023 · 11:28

When the competitor launches cloud 9

Yes, that is the setting and it does refer to the previous two articles as it involves Microsoft, but this is not about Microsoft. You see, Microsoft exposed its jugular and I am always looking for a new job (a new challenge is more like it) and as Microsoft screwed the pooch (the Chihuahua and their customers as well) I decided the take a look. 

Google
With Google (a preferred first) there is a initial first, a bungle of sorts. You see a small quirk. Google dropped the ball (not the first time) and it is shown in the image below.

So when I search ‘IBM Cloud’ and ‘EVROC cloud’ I get the option ‘news, in the case of Google, I do not, I actually have to enter ‘Google Cloud News’ to get the news option. So how is their (so called) AI? You do know (and I have been explicit about it) on the fact that AI does not (yet) exist. It is all machine learning and deeper machine learning and it is all awesome, but it is not AI. To be a little frank. I usually search for topics and seek out news and for some reason my Google search does not catch on, so how is that AI? It is all data based and as such it is flawed, the fact that I still have to enter the search more than once adding the word ‘news’ is indicative of that. 

Beyond that we get (when I got it) ‘Google Cloud spearheads a revolutionary shift in cloud tech with generative AI’ which we got on the Next’23 even where we are given “We are in an entirely new era of cloud, fuelled by generative AI. Our focus is on putting gen AI tools into the hands of everyone across the organisation—from IT to operations, to security, to the board room. As the industry’s most open cloud, our goal is to help companies use AI and other cloud technologies to streamline their operations, increase productivity, and create entirely new lines of business.” Yet from my point of view all this needs to be data driven, and as such (as Microsoft opened the rift) their data centres and especially their worst case scenario better be upgraded (daddy needs a new pair of shoes). And when you consider the blunder of a previous mentioned participant, that review better be done yesterday. 

EVROC
Now we get back to an article the BBC gave us 4 weeks ago (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66310714) where we learned ‘Why it matters where your data is stored’, and here we are given “Evroc has secured €15m in seed funding and plans to build eight data centres in Europe in the next five years. The first will be a large pilot data centre in Sweden next year.” And the ‘silent’ setting is that they want to secure a chunk of Amazon business and that is fine. Yet, I already highlighted that their option was the Middle East (Riyadh and Dubai), they have billions in vested interests and EVROC could make a nice coin on the side for these two places alone. I mentioned that, but that was before the the massive bungle that a certain company (with the same first letter that MacDonalds has) made, so now EVROC has additional options to clear business thresholds. That does not take Google and IBM out of the race, but it does open the doors of business opportunity for Evroc, as it does for Amazon, but that is for later.

Amazon
And later is now, you see ARN also gave us ‘AWS hints at partner program changes for AI and partner engagement’ and their selling point could include ‘We do not go down for over 24 hours’ but that too requires an overhaul and testing for its operational stations and even as winter is coming to Europe (no dragons in sight), the setting changes a little. You see one company exposed its jugular and three other players are now out for blood and they will secure some of it. Not all, but it will hurt the other bungler their business. I did not mention Apple and IBM, they have their own settings and they are solid in what they offer, but there too is the warning that their operational settings better be tested immediately. You see a night shift with 2 extra workers might cost a company up to $300,000 a year more but that is earned with adding less than 10 small customers. That was the bungle, and some customers are charged a lot more than these two employees cost and when you realise that part you see the massive bungle I described a mere 17 hours ago. That was visible on many fronts and now others get to step in to make the damage to that one player worse. 

All this is a setting that could have been avoided by the simple application of checks and balances. Now does the stupid response ‘We lacked staff’ make sense, or better does it make sense how stupid the response was? I never bothered reading the report, it is a document to appease customers and shareholders and I am neither. Common sense told me what I needed to know and now that I am adding these elements I hope I satisfied the over enthusiastic fan that responded with “What do you think you know?” You see, then sarcasm backfires it becomes irony, so I hope that todays article was loaded with the irony he (or she) needed. The cloud field will not change too much, but one player will likely lose a lot more than they are comfortable with, but that is my personal view on the matter and I might be wrong, but in a stage where nearly every customer wants to cut corners on cost and staff, it is a pretty safe bet that I will be correct. That is all apart from the fact that places like Amazon and Google (and now EVROC too) are always seeking more revenue.

Here endeth the lesson, enjoy the day. If it gets too sunny, know how (and be able) to restart the cooling fan.

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September 5, 2023 · 17:58

The yoke is on Microsoft

Yup, this is a ‘create howls of deriving laughter’ on Microsoft, but not in the way you would expect it. So, this all started a few hours ago when I saw an unknown party called ARN  give us ‘Microsoft blames Aussie data centre outage on staff strength, failed automation’ (at https://www.arnnet.com.au/article/708608/microsoft-blames-aussie-data-centre-outage-staff-strength-failed-automation/) where we see “Microsoft has blamed staff strength and failed automation for a data centre outage in Australia that took place on August 30, disabling users from accessing Azure, Microsoft 365, and Power Platform services for over 24 hours.” And my (first) thought was ‘Is Microsoft really THAT stupid?’ You see, to see that thought you need to be aware of a few small issues. The first is “Microsoft confirmed Monday that it’s eliminating additional jobs, a week after the start of its 2024 fiscal year. The cuts are in addition to the downsizing announced in January that resulted in 10,000 layoffs. The software maker also disclosed a small number of cuts this time last year.” With the additional “US tech giant Microsoft has axed more Australian jobs after the company made major staffing cuts across the globe earlier in the year. About 50 Australian employees are believed to have lost their jobs this month, Nine newspaper the Australian Financial Review reports.” Now, job losses happen everywhere at this time and we get it. There are all kinds of issues and Microsoft is one of many shedding jobs. But to see ‘Microsoft has blamed staff strength’ after they shed 10,000 plus jobs is just the joke of the century. I get it, one job is not another job, but when you have shortages in a place that is riddled with ageism and wannabe hires (dynamic young people) whilst your operational settings are below par just doesn’t work for me. I see the same fake jobs from providers like Hays and they will not respond and often ignore you. That is the party to be for players like Microsoft and they now claim that there is no coverage does not hold any water with me.  So when ARN gives us ““Due to the size of the data centre campus, the staffing of the team at night was insufficient to restart the chillers in a timely manner. We have temporarily increased the team size from three to seven, until the underlying issues are better understood and appropriate mitigations can be put in place,” Microsoft wrote as part of the report.” I wonder if their cost cutting stages are merely a joke and what company would have trust in such a system when “Azure, Microsoft 365, and Power Platform services” were down or unreachable for over 24 hours. That point is clear, is it not?

Consider the simple math. How much traffic and how many companies rely on that data centre? How come that there are only 3 people at night? So consider “Microsoft said that the cooling units could have been restarted manually, which was not possible due to the unavailability of enough personnel at the data centre” with the added “the staffing of the team at night was insufficient to restart the chillers in a timely manner” so do you think they royally screwed that part up? And in that setting how many data centres (all over the world) are understaffed? When the coolers cannot be manually started in these places, how much revenue will Microsoft miss out on, because these affected firms might optionally have a case to sue Microsoft for damages. No matter how that report phrases it, the lack of data centre labour (especially after they sacked well over 10,000 people) will not be met with a friendly judge and for Microsoft there is an additional danger. When third parties like Evroc start getting business from companies that once held Microsoft high in its banner, the walk-out might become a lot more severe and that could spell more bad news for Azure (something Amazon AWS will love) and there is a decent chance that some will optionally switch to Google or IBM. All losses for Microsoft who thought that keeping 3 people at night in a data centre was enough, all whilst THEY THEMSELVES give us “the cooling units could have been restarted manually, which was not possible due to the unavailability of enough personnel at the data centre” and that is the stage all those using a Microsoft data centre face? It is my personal opinion that someone bungled the minimum staff at a data centre during the night and even as winter is now coming to the northern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere is going into summer. So what about the Data centres in Riyadh and the UAE? In Riyadh it is around 45 degrees Celsius and in Dubai it is only 3 degrees cooler. So what happens when they need a manual restart of the cooling units? All simple questions and we could say that Microsoft has that covered, but it seems that according to ARN they do not. A simple operational question: ‘What is the minimum required staff coverage at night in a worst case scenario?’ As far as I can tell (trusting the ARN article) they were not ready and the fact that they upped it by over 100% shows that Microsoft was simply clueless on this issue. Feel free to disagree and I expect you want to talk to the corporations that lot Office and Azure for over 24 hours, but I reckon that we will not get access to those names, and that is fair enough. But do the companies who had to go through this feel the same way? I doubt it.

Enjoy the warm Tuesday coming to you.

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