So, there I was being happy, reading tweets when an article passed by. It was an article from July 2020 no less, although I did not notice the date at first, the title ‘The hidden costs of Microsoft Flight Simulator’ had me a little captivated, so I took a look. In all this, let’s be upfront. I have an issue with Microsoft on several levels, they screwed up their console, they (as I personally see it) betrayed their customers and I am not a Microsoft fan. Yet, there Flight Simulator is different, it is a ‘game’ for a select group of people. I am not a sim fanatic, but I get it, we all have needs and for them Flight Simulator is ‘da bomb’, I do not object. I bought my first flight simulator when I got my CBM64 (with disk drive). I bought the program in the early days for around $175 (Dfl 299), I was not bonkers about the game, but it was a new level of gaming. It came with a book, not a small manual, but an operations guide that was formidable, 4 maps and a disc. I never regretted buying it. I got one on the PC later on, I got the flight simulator X and one more. Even as I was not a great fan, the Flight simulator is a different level of gaming, so when I saw the new one announced and I saw first images on YouTube, my mouth dropped. It was overwhelmingly amazing, it was the best a non pilot could get and that person would get as close to flying (without the $300 an hour lesson fee) as humanly possible. So this article got me piqued.
Now, as I said, I am not Microsoft fan and bashing them is almost a civil duty the first hour and done for personal pleasure the 6 hours that follow that, but I do try to keep a sense of fairness, so the article felt bad, it felt insincere. The article (at https://www.pcinvasion.com/hidden-costs-microsoft-flight-simulator/) gives us the following “However, simulation titles, particularly flight sims, are notorious for nickel-and-diming their customers. On day one, the new Microsoft Flight Simulator will continue this trend that it birthed right out of the box.” As I see it, this is their clumsy approach to a few items, the first are the three Simulators out there. There is a standard, a deluxe and a premium edition for $59, $89 and $119. We get “the simulator itself, the entire world map, over 37,000 airports, 3D telemetry of select cities, and 20 flyable aircraft, and replaces 30 airports with hand-crafted versions. It is available for one-time purchase”, the deluxe edition has 5 additional airplanes and 5 handcrafted airports and the premium edition has 5 more above the deluxe edition. If you are new, you might not want to go the distance and stay with the standard version, yet, I get it, the sim people do want more, they want the Beechcraft Baron, Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the Cessna Citation Longitude and so on. Even though we see ‘extra’ no one is looking too deep at what the standard has, and it has plenty. Like the Boeing 747-8, the Aviat Pitts Special and 18 others. As for airports we might look at that, but I found the information given “Each World Update has replaced additional procedurally-generated airports with hand-crafted models. World Updates are available in all editions for free, bringing the number of airports available in the Standard edition up to 45”, so in the ‘FOR FREE’ side, we see 15 additional airports. In this, the hand crafted versions replace the procedurally generated ones, it is more precise, it is the one you want and that is if you want to go to this airport. The simulator has 100% world coverage including over 37,000 airports, 2 million cities, and 1.5 billion buildings. There are programs out there requiring the same pay with only 1% coverage (if they get to 1% that is).
As such, I have no idea what the writer of “it’s really the price difference of this new release that has some folks reeling. The Standard edition will start at $60, but the Premium Deluxe is double trouble with a gut-churning $120 asking price” is bitching about. The simple sim matter is that sims are a niche market and if you are not a sim person, or if you want to find out, you can either pay the $59, or get the Xbox game pass (it is included there), with the world (on your computer), you will be engaged for months, if not years to see if you are Sim material and that is part of the choice, a niche market is not for everyone and the makers of that program will not cry if you are not. Microsoft Flight Simulator has millions of fans and well deserved so. I enjoyed playing them, I am not great at them and I get that some people pay the $200 for real flight controllers. Yet above all else, the FS2020 blew me away ad I was honestly not ready to be that impressed, but they achieved that and that too requires attention. I will happily slap them when they do something wrong, but not here. Microsoft got the FS2020 really really right and perhaps if I ever get another overhyped PC I will get this flight simulator as well. CNet gives us “The minimal specs are fairly reasonable, but for the ideal graphics, you may need a more powerful setup”, which is is to be expected. Yet when you consider that you will need a XFX AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT RAW II for 4K images, some get scared and some accept this. Yet when you get to see:
You know there was a reason that you bought that card, however the starter will find plenty of amazement in the low resolution setting which needs a GeForce GTX 770, however this card is $379 with the premise that if you have no hardware this close, your PC is decently outdated to begin with. As such, I am always happy to slap Microsoft around, but not in this case, they really outdid themselves for the sim fanatics and they will not hesitate to Pau the $50 more for 10 additional planes and 10 additional airfields. They will get over the all the other things soon enough and as far as I can tell, whomever want to slap the FS2020 around better be loaded for bear, when you can claim “100% world coverage including over 37,000 airports, 2 million cities, and 1.5 billion buildings” you did something really really right and that too is worthy of mention, excellence will always be admired in gaming, whether it is your cup of tea or not, excellence is where it is at, excellence creates immersion and that is key to any game hoping to become a legendary product.
Yup, I started it yesterday, and part 2 is today as I had a few ideas on the subject. These ideas can be used as public domain by Amazon (Luna), but Microsoft will have to pay big time (if they can hand over $7,500,000,000 to Bethesda, they can pay me at least 1%).
Changes (by David Bowie) The first thing I will do is to introduce Milestones, it is for the most part merely a name change to ‘Achievements’, yet over time it will be a little more. The second is to add a second tier to this, I will add ‘Discovery’ to this, yet all you Susie Dent boffins can clearly see it is a Synonym, yet the function of Discovery is different. As you discover something in one game, it gives you a token that can be spent as YOU see fit. For example if you find a ‘golden chess piece’ in a game like Clue, or a ‘Golden Revolver’ they will become Discoveries that wield the token of a revolver, or a Chess set. In a game like Battle Chess (in normal or battle mode), the Chess token will unlock a Greek Chess set, The golden revolver could unlock a weapon in another game and so on. This is one of the nice parts of the Cloud, we can add a lot more over time and give the people a reason. David Bowie sang:
I watch the ripples change their size But never leave the stream Of warm impermanence So the days float through my eyes
I think it is time to take a page from that, we see gaming chances in perspective, but never remove you from where you are. I am setting a stage where that is possible, where games have a longer lasting appeal and I am offering the stage where the player tries something else as well. Most gaming options outside of the console and singular streams do not offer you this, merely an optional DLC and an optional skin, I want the token to take on new life and a much larger stage. This is about gaming and this is about making gamers happy. The nice part is that there is no guarantee that the token is there at game 1, I thought it through, yes there are some internet driven completionists, yet it is time for them to smell the reality of gaming.
We have largely ignored the masters of yesterday because they were 8 bit, yet some of them with today’s graphics and better intelligent response mappings could become the heroes of tomorrow and the nice part is that the groundwork is already done. Consider Millennium 2.2 with an upgraded map of this solar system, with additional information, more options and a larger stage, can we truly think it will not matter? I wrote about Murder on the Zinderneuf, Seven cities of gold and a few more in the past, close to a dozen games ready to be ‘captured’ (if the IP was abandoned), and the early bird that hesitates grows its own worms, so let’s get cracking.
Microsoft throws money at everything, wouldn’t it be nice for players like Amazon (optionally Netflix too) to show them how silly that idea was? You see, I love Bethesda products, I really do, yet I also believe that gamers like the next fresh (and original) game. Consider that the top 100 of all time (by Metacritic) has a top 10 with 3 games older than 20 years and an additional 4 games that are between 10 and 19 years old, giving us that the 70% of the top 10 is 10 years or older, these numbers are in front of everyone and as far as I can tell, none of them are Electronic Arts or Ubisoft and 30% of the top 10 is Nintendo. So I have a clear case here, so why are the different board of directors pushing for some game every year, cool graphics will do the trick or perhaps having the most powerful console is the solution. As I see it, without a really good game they will not continue and that evidence is all over the place.
So where to go after this? Well that is up to I reckon the Indie developers, they will need to choose an optional winner and in that platform create their original or remastered and revamped game. Consider that Elite was released in 1985, now the revamp called Elite Dangerous has 500,000 active monthly players. Ubisoft has plenty of successful games not being that busy, as such we can see that the old games still have appeal. OK the difference between Elite and Elite dangerous is larger than the Grand Canyon, but the foundation remained the same and that is the pull we need to consider that close to a dozen games released in the last decade could have a great revamped and remastered life on streaming even if they were not that successful in an earlier life. The difference is to truly look into a game and see what is possible. Like a sculptor to take that block of marble and chip away what is not needed and reveal the Torlonia statue and yes, it is not merely about chipping away, in some cases it is about polishing, upgrading and adding which we cannot do in a statue, but the statue could be given a shield, a sword (or trident). All options and streaming will give us a larger and adjustable stage as well. A stage where your game will be in the streaming stores for close to a decade. There are clearly options for streaming and it will not hinder consoles, the console gamers will most likely choose an additional streaming solution on the side.
Consider the next setting, I am in the Harrods foodcourt, I feel the meat-pie as my right hand caresses the side pf the pie, I see two small basins of ketchup, I grab the knife in my left hand as I slowly use the sharp knife to cut a part of the left side of the pie. I cut through the pastry and the what I think is minced meat. It looks a little dry, but the overwhelming scent of fresh and warm meat enters my nostrils. I add a small bit of ketchup to the pie. The slice is cut in half and I slowly eat the part on my fork. My senses overwhelm with the spices in the meat, the pastry and it does not taste dry, it is an amazing experience and this is merely the first bite.
All what you saw before is true, all came from my imagination. You see I have had meat pie in the past and I envision what might be the perfect meat pie. I have been to harrods twice, but I never set foot in the food courts. Not for any particulate reason, I just never got around to it. I hope to do so in the future, but that will be part of the future that I see, or it might never happen. This is life. So what was this about?
The train of thoughts started a little while ago and that train entered the station again when I stumbled upon same article today ‘Netflix reportedly plans push into video games market’ by the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/02/netflix-reportedly-plans-push-video-games-market). The thing that got to me was “Streaming company said to have approached game industry executives with project at early stage”, one could argue that they kill their own project by approaching Ubisoft, Ubisoft has another setting of needs and their product is what I personally would call ‘faulty at best’. Yet it is not all bad news “Netflix has been approaching senior game industry executives about joining it to lead the creation of a subscription games service, according to reports from the tech news site the Information and Reuters”, is the right sentiment, but as I see it, the safest route is to take the route Apple is seemingly taking. Games absent of in app purchases and absent of advertisements. These two elements will spell a much larger stage of doom on the industry than you know. Places like Android and iOS are now filled with phrases like “These ads are driving me insane, every level again”, and it will not be long until people have had enough. Then there is the stage of deceptive conduct in advertisements, a decently new approach to getting people to install your software. But these two elements will have a disastrous impact on gaming soon enough, and it will hit Apple as much as it will hit Google. Then there is the competition, Amazon did a lot better than I expected it would. I (personally minded) thought that it would be an easy win for Google, a tech maker if ever these was one. And it is ahead of Amazon, but I never expected Amazon to be this close to Google in the first place, as such the Amazon Luna remains in the race and there is an element that might not make Google the winner in the end. Google’s approach to exclusive games is not that impressive (as far as I can tell, they have none), Amazon Luna has acquired the knowledge it needs to make that difference. And the article repeats my thoughts towards gaming, with “However, the new offering is at a very early stage, with executives focusing on Apple Arcade as the potential competition. Users of that service, exclusive to Apple’s iPhones, iPads, Macs and AppleTV, pay a flat monthly fee of £4.99 for access to a library of downloadable games, spanning genres and target audiences. Apple sets strict rules on developers, banning them from monetising their games through in-app purchases or advertising, in order to try to keep Arcade a premium service” is the right move, but they made one mistake, a big one, there is no mention of the Amazon Luna and the Luna is in a primed spot to become the number three system behind Sony and Nintendo (yes, I have written off Microsoft to remain a competitor), so even as Netflix has the advantage of a subscription group that makes the head spin of all streaming gaming solutions, good games is where it is at, innovators and makers of original creators that is the winning combo and Netflix (might or might not) move into a field where it is not certain it will become the third position player, or what they classify in the Tour de France, the polka dot player. On the plus side (from my point of view) it will soon thereafter reduce Microsoft to the 6th position, behind Sony, Nintendo, Amazon, Netflix and Google. So as I see it, their investment $7,500,000,000 investment in Bethesda goes tits up and Bethesda is not to blame, the board of directors at Microsoft is.
I remain a Sony person, hence my Playstation remains on its pedestal, I would say right next of the shrine of Panigale, a Ducati shrine where the executives of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati come to pray for inspiration, OK, there is no Panigale there, because I could never afford one and I am not a racer, but engineering perfection can be recognised by plenty of people, so there! Yet the stage is given, inspiration comes from excellence in creativity and that is what a good gaming provider offers. I wonder if Netflix is considering what they need to do to get there. Microsoft merely bought the IP out there hoping it would thrust them there, but they had too much against them, like the most powerful console in the world that has nothing to offer (at present). They might in the future, but with all the bad decisions haunting them, all whilst Amazon is already on the run towards an upcoming third position, they might not be in time to make a real difference anymore. All this whilst they are trying to bash xCloud streaming everywhere. They become their own worst enemy and when it happens, the people will not trust Microsoft, I see elements of that everywhere and they, what I personal regard as a push towards whatever influencer they can muster is more than a bad call.
Microsoft (as I personally see it) forgot that good games come from the mix of imagination and creation, they used to know that, yet it seems that they forgot, I have no idea why, the wrong board member, the sentiment of revenue over substance, it could be a boatload of things, but there you have it. And Netflix?
Well the article gives us the important stage “One key decision that has not yet been finalised is whether a game subscription service would also require Netflix to develop games itself. Apple Arcade is filled entirely by third-party developers, but other gaming subscriptions rely on first-party exclusives to drive signups.” They are hitting the nail on the head, it is the exclusives, Microsoft forgot, Google never embraced and that is the stage why Amazon Luna is in a good place, Netflix could be too. One of these two needs to get these 2-3 exclusives that no one thought about that they are locked into third position and in an industry that is about to have a relevance of 90.7 billion, with a stage that has an annual increase of 24%, it matters, the difference between third and fourth position implies the stage representing several billions, when you consider that good AAA games cost (according to some) $500,000,000 to make, but that result in a God of War with a 97% rating, it is the price of an original masterpiece and it sold over 10,000,000 copies, implying that the game close to a billion. In streaming land, that setting will be a nail driver, 2-3 games like that and people will jump on that bandwagon a lot faster than you think. So as Microsoft gave us (via sources) that they will build native games for the cloud, why would anyone buy one of those overly stated powerful Xbox’s? And in that stage, would you trust a provider who dropped the ball three times in a row to provide you with original games, all whilst they bought the talents and are trying to grow through that premise? So far Netflix might make it, but as far as I can tell, Amazon Luna is most likely primed to get there at present.
And that too will set the indie developers off into a direction, where they end up I cannot tell (it will be their choice), but there are a few indicators that it will not be in a direction Microsoft will like. As I see it, outsourcing gets you a labour force, hiring creation and imagination grants you a universe of opportunity. I will let you work out the rest.
This partially reflect on what I stated yesterday in ‘The stage of what is’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/06/20/the-stage-of-what-is/), it is however now that I take notice of news that Reuters gave us on the 18th. There we see ‘China must develop unified, open-source smart car OS -ex-minister’, now for the most it comes to be in the ‘bla bla bla’ shape. I never much cared about cars, but for some reason I took notice of ‘China must develop’ (at https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/china-should-develop-unified-open-source-smart-car-operating-system-says-ex-2021-06-18/), for the most, I do not care, but the notion of that part of the sentence made me stop and read the article. There we see “the world’s biggest auto market, should develop its own unified, open-source operating system (OS) for smart vehicles, as well as auto chips, to maintain its advantage in the electric vehicle (EV) industry” there was nothing to disagree with, it is in any national interest to further its goals whether it is China, the US, India, the United Kingdom or Australia, we all have national interests. Yet when I took notice of “China should learn from the United States’ curbs on Chinese technology companies and boost its independence in vehicle-related technology” the cogs in my skull started to spin, which took more alarm to “U.S. President Joe Biden in April said the United States must ramp up production of electric vehicles to catch and surpass China”, which was interesting as I thought that the US (with all its marketing) was ahead of China in that field. So we have a different setting, one wants to catch up (and Democrats do not do that too well, all talk and no achievements tends to do that), China wants to make more headway optionally unbalancing the automotive industry even further. Yet it is the end that gives us “The Harmony operating system of Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies Co Ltd (HWT.UL) can be used in vehicles as well as smartphones” and that is the killer. I talked about that yesterday, I stated that HarmonyOS was a much larger problem and now we see the direct impact in a second industry, all whilst the Democrats (Republicans too) want to wage war on BigTech, yes, when was that EVER a good idea? So you are gearing up for the marathon and the first think you do is shoot yourself in the foot, now we see that the idiot athlete is shooting itself in both feet, so where do you think that athlete will end? Wanna buy a wooden spoon for the awards?
Yesterday I also referred to an earlier story from 2020, where I mentioned “if HarmonyOS catches on, Google will have a much larger problem for a much longer time. If it is about data Google will lose a lot, if it is about branding Google will lose a little, yet Huawei will gain a lot on the global stage and Apple? Apple can only lose to some extent, there is no way that they break even”, now it seems that this was less accurate, and ‘if HarmonyOS catches on’ should be replaced with ‘as HarmonyOS is catching on’, you see if China gets the advantage there, it can offer that solution to Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK all fighting to gain the upper hand in Europe. Do you think that they will ignore the HarmonyOS solution whilst the US is marketing itself ahead without evidence of actually being ahead? The damage to Google and Amazon will add up a lot more in this way and as HarmonyOS gains momentum, it will also gain momentum in 5G domotics and smart-wear. Yes, the Americans will say no, no, no, we already have something, so buy OUR solution. Yet the numbers from Tom’s guide (less than a month ago) give us:
And now compare that to Statista from September 2020, yes there is momentum but when you are trailing by 80% to number one, you have a massive problem.
Consider that Australia is wielding a 5G solution 300% faster than the US, do you think it does not matter? Think again, the US is desperately behind nations it used to look down on and China is ahead, by a lot and with the HarmonyOS trump card (also a card Donald Trump handed them) the headway that China is making in 5G will change the setting of who Europe aligns with, they have no choice, their debts are crushing them and China would be a way out, so at what point will the US dump the BigTech BS that is largely its own fault and was created and grew as the other players became complacent? We can now use the line the US tended to use against all of us against them
Winners talk, bullshitters walk
A stage they set in motion and fuelled by relying on buying IP (and viagra) and not working hard to keep innovative ahead of the game, now they get to see the other side of the equation, one where they are in line to lose industry after industry because the shots were called by stupid people. How is that working out for them? So as President Biden is trying to create a united front against Huawei (China) he will be noticing that the armour used is less and less effective, as HarmonyOS matures (towards version 2), America’s only way is to find a solution with players like Google, Amazon, Apple, IBM and Microsoft and their BigTech front will have to collapse, or they need to accept that China takes all in the end. That is the setting and when politicians from both sides of the aisle are crying ‘regulate BigTech’ its own enemies within will delay matters more and more, which works out nicely for Huawei, so when France or Germany allows HarmonyOS (Germany is more likely), HarmonyOS will sweep the landscape from automotive to 5G domotics and that is just the start, the backset for Google will grow. The issue is that Google still has options and the lag is not that large, but in that setting US politics need to grow up and wake up, the latter part is more important at present. So whilst we needed to take more notice of earlier news, the news that was earlier and needed to be properly addressed was in 2020 and that was not done, and now the US has a massive problem in multiple fields, so how is that coming across? And as the Daily Telegraph apparently gave its readers two days ago that Trump admitted defeat, we see that the former American El Jefe was almost 6 months late in learning simple top-line statistics, so what happens when this president is unable to learn from those blunders and make matters worse? Lina Khan is merely a first step (which I am not blaming her for), but not the only step. When we see losers crying foul (at https://lawstreetmedia.com/tech/google-asks-court-to-narrow-scope-of-rumbles-antitrust-case-in-mtd/) on the setting of ‘monopolisation of the online video-sharing platform market’, all whilst Tik-Tok (a Chinese invention no less), grew by well over 110%, in addition to the stage that YouTube was bought in 2006 by Google and they made something real from it (they bought it for less then $2B) and it made them $20B in 2020, so a decent invention, all whilst Rumble came 7 years after YouTube and is a Canadian solution almost no one has heard of, so they seemingly try to make their money in court (as I personally see it), and this wave of crybabies is stopping US innovations, you see if these players had true innovation they would be in the game, Tik Tok came three years after Rumble and surpassed them (almost overnight), and is now valued at $250,000,000,000, which is the impact of innovation. It is time for the US and its FTC to stop whinging with BS court cases and have a larger look at the industry and the impact that others have, especially when they should not need to waste time in courts.
The US wants to be number one, but in the process has no issues tying the hands of people who can make that happen behind their backs, how will that ever result in any option to win?
Yes, we all have that and I am no exclusion, ‘what is’ is the first part of a question that is dangerous. The answer that follows tends to be subjective and personal, as such it is loaded with bias, not that all bias is bad, but it defers from what actually is. This was the first stage when I saw ‘Lina Khan: The 32-year-old taking on Big Tech’. Then we get “when it comes to unfair competition, there is one sector that has been singled out by Democrats and Republicans alike: Big Tech”, this is the beginning of a discriminatory setting. There are two sides in this and let me begin that Big Tech is not innocent, so what is this about? Lets add ““What became clear is there had been a systemic trend across the US… markets had come to be controlled by a very small number of companies,” she said”, now we need to realise that there are two parts here too, in the first she is not lying and for the most, she is correct.
So why do I oppose?
The US, most of the Commonwealth and the EU all have a massive failing, they have no clue what they are doing. I have seen that side for over 30 years and it is the beginning of a larger stage. You see the big tech part needs to be split in two elements big tech and those who ‘use’ (or abuse) the elements of big tech. Big tech was more than the FAANG group (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google), in the beginning there was Microsoft, IBM and Sun as well (there were a few more players but they were gobbled up or ended up being forgotten. When we see charts of technology and market capitalisation we see Microsoft in second place, so why is Microsoft left outside of the targeting of these people? Microsoft is many things, but it was never innocent or some goody two shoes, the same can be argued for IBM, IBM have been gobbling up all kinds of corporations in the last 20 years, so why is IBM disregarded so often? It it nice to target the companies with visibility towards consumers, but that puts Microsoft with more than one issue in the crosshairs, but they are ignored, why is that?
Then we get back to the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57501579) where we see “Her general criticism is that Big Tech is simply too big – that a handful of large US tech firms dominate the sector, at the expense of competition”, she is not incorrect, but there are more sides to that story. In 1997 I gave an idea to bosses (in a software firm) on consumers messaging each other and for a firm to be in the middle of that. Being a gateway and a director of messages and giving visibility to people of other matters (I never used the word advertising). It was founded on a missing part when Warner Brothers created (in partnership with Angelfire) a website hub. So fans of Babylon 5, Gilmore Girls and a few other series could Create their own webpage, they got 20MB for free and an address, like in Babylon 5 I was something like Section Red number 23 (I forgot, it was 25 years ago), the bosses stated that there would never be a use for that, it was not their business and there was no business need for something like that and 4 years later someone else created Facebook. Now I am no Facebook creator, what I had was in no way anywhere near that, but that is a side a lot of people forget, the IT people had no clue on what the digital era was bringing and what it looked like, so as they were unaware, politicians had even less of a clue. So when Google had its day (search and email) no one knew what was going on, they merely saw a free email account with 1GB of storage and everyone got on the freebee train, that is all well and good, but nothing is for free, it never ever is.
As such a lot of companies remained inactive for close to half a decade, Google had created something unique and they are one of the founding fathers of the Digital age. Consider that Microsoft was clueless for close to a decade and when they started they were behind by a lot and there inaccurate overreaction of Bing, is merely laughable. Microsoft makes all these claims yet it was the creators of Google who came up with the search system and they got Stanford to make this for them, just look it up, a patent that is the foundation of Google and Microsoft was in the wind and blind to what would be coming. By the time they figured it out they were merely second tier junkyard vendors. And (as I personally see it) the bigger players in that time (IBM and Microsoft) were all ready to get rich whilst sleeping, they were looking into the SaaS world (diminishing cost to the larger degree), outsourcing as a cost saving and so on, as I see it players like Microsoft and IBM were about reducing cost and pocketing that difference, so as Google grew these players were close to a no-show and do not take my word for that, look at the history line of what was out there. In retrospect Apple saw what would be possible and got on the digital channel as fast as possible. Yet IBM and Microsoft were Big Tech, yet they are ignored in a lot of cases, why is that? When you ignore 2 out of 6 (I am not making Netflix part of this) we get the 2 out of part and that comes down to more than 30%, this is discrimination, it grows as Adobe has its own (well deserved) niche market, yet are they not big tech too? One source gives us “As of June 2021 Adobe has a market cap of $263.55 B. This makes Adobe the world’s 32th most valuable company by market cap according to our data”, which in theory makes them larger than IBM, really? Consider that part, for some reason Adobe is according to some a lot larger than IBM (they are 112th), so when we consider that, can we optionally argue that the setting is tainted? In a stage where there are multiple issues with the numbers and the descriptions we are given, the entire setting of Big Tech is needing a massive amount of scrutiny, and when I see Lina Khan giving us “markets had come to be controlled by a very small number of companies” I start to get issues. Especially when we see “there is one sector that has been singled out by Democrats and Republicans alike: Big Tech”. You see singling out is a form of discrimination, it is bias and that is where we are, a setting of bias and to some extent, we are all to blame, most of us are to blame because of what we were told and what was presented to us, yet no one is looking to close to the presenters themselves and it is there that I see the problem, This is about large firms being too large and the people who do not like these large firms are the people who for the most do not understand the markets they are facing. Just like the stage of media crying like little bitches because they lose revenue to Google (whilst ignoring Bing as it has less than 3% marketshare).
The who? The what? Why?
This part is a little more complex, to try to give my point, I need to go back to some Google page that gives me “What is Google’s position on this new law? We are not against being regulated by a Code and we are willing to pay to support journalism—we are doing that around the world through News Showcase. But several aspects of the current version of this law are just unworkable for the services you use and our business in Australia. The Code, as it’s written, would break the way Google Search works and the fundamental principle of the internet, by forcing us to pay to provide links to news businesses’ sites. There are two other serious problems remaining with the law, but at the heart of it, it comes down to this: the Code’s rules would undermine a free and open service that’s been built to serve everyone, and replace it with one where a law would give a handful of news businesses an advantage over everybody else.”
This is about that News bargaining setting. Here we get ‘by forcing us to pay to provide links to news businesses’ sites’, and I go ‘Why?’ A lot of them do not give us news, they give us filtered information, on addition to this is that if I am unwilling to buy a newspaper, why should I pay for their information? If they want to put it online it is up to them, they can just decide not to put it online, that I their right. In addition some sources for years pretty much EVERY article by the Courier Mail get me a sales page (see below), this is their choice and they are entitled to do so.
Yet this sales pitch is brought to us in the form of a link to a news article. It still happens today and it is not merely the Courier Mail, there are who list of newspapers that use the digital highway to connect to optional new customers. So why should they get paid to be online? In the digital stage the media has become second best, the stage that the politicians are eager to ignore is that a lot of the ‘news bringers’ are degraded to filtered information bringers. In the first why should I ever pay for that and in the second, why would I care whether they live or die? Do not think this is a harsh position, Consider the Daily Mail giving us two days ago ‘Police station is branded the ‘most sexist in Britain’ after investigations find officers moonlighted as prostitutes, shared pornography with the public and conducted affairs with each other on duty’, so how did they get to ‘most sexist in Britain’? What data do they have and hw many police stations did they investigate? There is nothing of that anywhere in the article, then we get to ‘after a series of scandals’, how many is a series of scandals? Over what time frame? Then we get to ‘Whatsapp and Facebook groups used to exchange explicit sexual messages and images have been shut down’, as such were the identities of the people there confirmed? How many were there? What evidence was there? All issues that the Daily Mail seems to skate around and ‘In the latest scandal, PC Steve Lodge, 39’ completes the picture. Who else was hauled to court and is ‘hauled’ a procedural setting in an arrest? When one rites to emphasise to capture the interest of the audience it becomes filtered information, it becomes inaccurate and therefor a lot of it becomes debatable. Well over a dozen additional questions come to mind of a half baked article on the internet, and they get paid for that? And as we consider ‘He was alleged to have’ we get the ‘alleged’ part so that the newspaper cannot be held liable, but how accurate was the article? That same setting transfers to Lina Khan.
The article gives us ‘or rather a perceived lack of competition’ as well as ‘markets had come to be controlled by a very small number of companies’, they are generalising statements, statements lacking direct focal point and specifications. In the first ‘perceived’ is a form of perception, biased and personal, ones perception is not another ones view of the matter. It is not wrong to state it like that, but when you go after people it is all about the specifics and all about data and evidence, as I see it evidence has been lacking all over the board. And when we consider ‘markets had come to be controlled by a very small number of companies’ I could add “PetSmart has 1650 shops in the US, they could set the price for tabby’s on a national level, is that not a cartel foundation?” Yet these politicians are not interested in a price agreement of pets are they, it is about limiting the stage of certain people, but by doing so they will hurt themselves a lot more than they think. On November 14th 2020 I wrote the article ‘Tik..Tik..Tik..’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/14/tik-tik-tik/), where I wrote “if HarmonyOS catches on, Google will have a much larger problem for a much longer time. If it is about data Google will lose a lot, if it is about branding Google will lose a little, yet Huawei will gain a lot on the global stage and Apple? Apple can only lose to some extent, there is no way that they break even”, and a lot ignored the premise, but now as HarmonyOS has launched (a little late), the stage is here. When it is accepted as a real solution, Google stands to lose the Asian market to a much larger degree and all because a few utterly stupid politicians did not know what they were doing, more important Huawei still has options in the Middle East and in Europe. So the damage will add and add and increase to a much larger degree, especially if India goes that way, for Google a market that could shrink up to 20%, close to 2,000,000,000 consumers are per July 1st ill have an alternative that is not Apple or Google, that is what stupidity gets them. My IP will connect to HarmonyOS, so I am not worried, yet as I see it the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) better start getting its ships properly aligned, because if HarmonyOS is indeed a decent version from version 2 onwards the US tech market could shrink by a little over 22.4%, the US economy is in no way ready for such a hit, all because politicians decided to shout without evidence and knowhow of what they were doing, a nice mess, isn’t it?
The stage of ‘What is’ depends on reflection and comprehension and both were lacking in the US, I wonder what they will lose next.
So is a person eager to be vindictive, or does that person seek vindication through eagerness, they are not the same but at times we cannot tell the difference within ourselves. Yes, there are a lot of people who are angry because Bethesda games are not coming to Sony Playstation, it is the consequence of Microsoft paying $8,500,000,000 for Bethesda and all that is around it. I get it and even though we find it a dick move, if I owned Bethesda I would have done the same. Strategically speaking it was a pretty brilliant move. So as we took notice of quotes like “Bethesda’s SVP of global marketing and communications Pete Hines offered an apology to PS5 owners, claiming that he understands the frustration, but there’s also very little that he can do about the situation. At the end of the day, it seems that the exclusivity is just part of game publisher politics!” And the man is right, it is the trump card of a system, we feel stricken because millions of gamers embraced Bethesda on their console and that got me thinking even more. I had already handed out free IP to any Sony exclusive game, but what if I add Amazon Luna to that list? You see, the idea came when I saw “Microsoft outlined the future of the Xbox platform. It was a quick focus on how we’ll be playing games rather than what we’ll be playing. Part of this new design strategy was outlined in a Q&A with Xbox head Phil Spencer and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella” in the PC Magazine that was headed by ‘Microsoft Expands Xbox Cloud Gaming, But Streaming Won’t Replace Consoles’ and PC Magazine is right, but if we give IP to Amazon Luna (Google Stadia made a few wrong decisions), which was seen 3 days ago with ‘Ubisoft keeps Google’s ship afloat as exclusives dominate the show’, yes, if Google wants to embrace gaming mediocrity it is their choice, and even as they see it as a valid one, I do not think that relying on Ubisoft will help them that much, as I personally see it Ubisoft dropped the ball too often and has become slightly too unreliable. So it seems that the Number three spot after Nintendo might in the near future become Amazon Luna. Microsoft will remain around in gaming ranking, but it will be 4th, or 5th (more likely) position. So as I have a bit of free time, I will try to make the $8,500,000,000 invoice to seem like it was a $28,500,000,000 one, and by handing out free IP to Sony and Amazon exclusive games is one way of doing it and as I am creating novel and never seen before gaming IP, Microsoft will have to counter and that is the funny part of a vendor that buys ideas, they more usually than not are utterly incapable of creating their own (Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk).
So as I was pondering a few ideas I suddenly realised that cloud gaming comes with another benefit, games can take new directions in a much larger field. It is like handing an artist who grew its art through drawing on A4 pieces of paper, an A1 sheet. In the beginning, he might think of how much bigger his art is, then he will see that he can place 15 additional pieces of art on one sheet, yet when you combine the two thoughts, you get a very different stage and that is where cloud gaming can take you.
I created in the past a game IP (situated in Amsterdam post apocalyptic) that had a wink towards Mercenary (a very old Atari ST game), but what if we change the premise, what if the sandbox is not merely one we create, but what if we can move from sandbox to sandbox? So what if we create the algorithm that can give us Europe around 400BC, 500AD and 2700AD and 3500AD? The same for a sandbox in China, India, South America and America? Not the people, but the lay of the land. So you end up with 20 sandboxes and the gamer can try and master them all. As we set the stage to a larger frame of mind (and a larger sandbox) we now can use that same sandbox in a few stages and in several games. So far none have offered that option, because it was not part of their setting, but they never considered the advantage of a much larger piece of paper, yes you can use it for larger art, but how many considered the ability to change that one piece of A1 and turn that into 16 pieces of A4?
Yet that was merely the land, so what next? Well that is where it takes a shine to other fields and for that I need t remind people of something called Zoids, but with caution. I never saw the manga, I only saw the toys in a shop, but it was presented to me in a different fashion, two pieces make a larger third piece and even though I thought it was novel and nice for the kids, I never gave it much thought after that, but the idea stuck in the back of my mind somewhere. So what happens when the gamer is such a Zoid and by exploration the gamer can find and salvage more and more parts evolving over time and adding abilities, requirements and staging a much larger area. There was seemingly (never seen by me) something called ‘Zoids Saga DS’, it had the right idea, but like so many other things it was seemingly a really nice idea, but it was ultimately limited by gaming and that was 25 years ago, in this stage something like the Amazon Luna or the Sony PS5 can turn that idea into something serious and as we detach area from gaming premise we can add game after game in the same sandbox, the gamer can select which sandbox he plays this on, like an adaptive RPG, the stage will no longer be depending or limited on where you are, but what you become. Gaming as far as I could tell never took that sideway towards a larger highway, so as we are dumped in what would become Madrid, Paris or Oslo, the adaption takes a different turn and we will not have seen that part before, cloud gaming allows for that and if we can bitchslap Microsoft marketing around on what they present to be innovation compared to actual innovation we might wake up whole scores of gamers as well. In this there is an old saying: “The analyst will show you what the best direction is, the politician makes you look forward to the invoice that follows”, yet the business world has more and more adapted from actual analysts to storytellers and now they have a problem, the politician adjusted to the storyteller, yet as I offer materials and foundations to others, the storyteller can adjust for what they have, not what others get. They can merely watch it happen and that puts the politician that the company relies on in a precarious situation.
Now this is no indication that all is bad for Microsoft, they will have home-runs and they will have plenty of good days, and they are entitled to those too, yet within the next year Microsoft and their Azure work desk will add limitations and they will set the need for gamer data and as gamers will realise that always online means something different for Microsoft as it does for a cloud game, people will catch on, they are to some degree merely a revenue asset and that is where Sony, Nintendo and Amazon can shine and win. They always treated the gamer as a gamer and they gained the revenue, Microsoft and Ubisoft saw the gamer as a revenue piggybank and as I personally see it approached them as such, the moment the larger group of gamers catch on these two will take a dive and that is why my view of Google Stadia relying on Ubisoft gets hurt in the process. As I see it, should Amazon Luna embrace the qualities of Sony and Nintendo, they will end up in third position of the gamers list, with Google and Microsoft trying to catch up. I wonder if that is what Microsoft aimed for the whole time, spend $8,500,000,000 to end up in fifth position. I do not know, I am merely speculating and created a few ideas in the process. So as I left an (intentional) gap in the thoughts I offered, have you figured out what I am seeing all whilst Google Stadia and Microsoft Xcloud rely on Ubisoft+ titles? When Ubisoft+ becomes a separate vendor, something we have seen in streaming more than once, what will become of Microsoft, Google and its gamers? Amazon Luna has an advantage and over the next year it could evolve into an impressive amount of forward momentum, a stage that could degrade Microsoft in 4th position, so the maker of the strongest console in the world is basically a year away from moving from 3rd position to 4th position in gaming. I wonder if they consider that part when they handed over $8,500,000,000. I would not be surprised if they offer PS5 gamers Xcloud and Microsoft software on PS5 in some near future. I doubt Sony gamers will trust Microsoft, but you never know.
So as we accept that we see “Xbox has roared to life at E3 announcing 30 new games for Series X|S”, we think it is a lot, and when we see “it laid out two years of exclusives including Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5 and Starfield from Bethesda”, yes over two years, implying 15 a year and more important, the big guns relying on a Bethesda game now need to create a hype that is staged for November 11th 2022. 11 years after Skyrim and it is still 511 days away and a lot can happen in that time, more important, their big guns are presented a year early and we saw that happen when Bioware did that with Mass Effect Andromeda, how exactly did that end?
The old expression: “You never know how the cow catches the hare” (answer: with a fishing rod)
Yes, hard to see that is it? It is perceived, perceived by me, by you, by people who are clueless and by people who are basically mindless. Perception is a dangerous thing, but the US is trying to get a handle on it. This issue starts with that I am not making any claims, I am not stating or implying that I am wiser than the US House Judiciary Committee (wiser is not the same as more intelligent). Yet the US House Judiciary Committee (via Al Jazeera) is giving us “if passed, would bar Amazon from selling its own branded products, Amazon Basics, for example, or Apple from offering Apple Music, or Google from providing specialised search services in travel, local businesses and shopping”, In addition we see “The proposal could also threaten Google’s $23 billion display-advertising business. Google runs an exchange for ad transactions and provides the technology used by website publishers and advertisers to buy and sell digital advertising, but it also competes in the marketplace as a buyer and a seller”. As such this article was aired two days ago, which I initially missed, but when I read it (about three hours ago), I fell over laughing and I did not stop laughing for an hour. The absolute irony of the issue is that my IP avoids all that and in addition creates new waves too. So, not only am I feeling great, there is every chance that Google and Amazon will be vying for my affection (Apple is not a consideration at present). So not only is my IP valuable, it now in addition optionally negates the $23,000,000,000 Google business giving it another avenue of release and that one is one the US House Judiciary Committee cannot attack, my setting was founded on decentralisation.
So am am I perceived to be stupid, or are they (Not judging)? Consider what we see (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/6/11/us-tech-titans-would-have-to-exit-key-businesses-under-house-plan), the text “Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and other U.S. technology giants would have to sell or exit key businesses under sweeping antitrust legislation proposed by House lawmakers”, is this anything less than the US government trying to take control of a business they have no business being in? They will call it something like “Let the little fish grow”, yet the flaw is that any business is entitled to go where it wants and now we suddenly see the larger stage where Canada and the UK could reap massive rewards, just because some people were discriminatory against the FAANG group. Consider laws and bills to discriminate against 5 players. I stated yesterday that this would not go well, and I believe I am correct (we all believe we are correct), but in a stage where not only am I proven correct, the stage soon becomes that my IP will flourish even more than I had ever thought possible.
Granny in sights
So, even though the bear is not killed yet, someone gave me an Accuracy International .50 sniper rifle (with 3 rounds) and I get to take down my target from 100 metres, and if I hit that target I will become a multi millionaire, so yes, that granny with her walker will not have a chance to cross the road alive. I reckon one bullet is quite enough. And there I was thinking that I would end up with a paint-gun with metal pallets.
So the old setting of “prohibit tech companies from owning a business that competes with other products or services on their platforms, among other measures”, a stage that players like Microsoft and IBM enjoyed for decades is out of the way. Yet it also muddies the water. Consider that Microsoft bought Bethesda ($8.5B) and Minecraft ($2.2B), which was their way of giving Sony the finger, now we will see a very different stage and that might work, but it also means that these player will hire all the talent out of other software houses and dim the lights in other ways. Did they even consider the impact of their plan and if they can do it, players like Chengdu Nibirutech Inc, Augegame Network Technology Co., Ltd., GamesUnion Technology Co.,Ltd and several others, so when they start tinkering on the other fence, what happens then? Too many people lost faith in players like Ubisoft, they might give nice presentations, but so far too many of their products are bug ridden, the gamer have had enough and in that stage we see that the US government is tying the hands of big tech as they compete with China and Russia. How was that ever a good idea? Oh and that is before independent developers consider an upgraded Neom as a place of development. Especially as Fierce Wireless 2 days ago gave us “Users on Verizon’s 5G network in mature deployment areas don’t yet notice much difference in performance than 4G users, according to new analysis from Tutela”, in a stage where Saudi Arabia has a 5G that is 700% faster than the US, is this really the time to have a pissing contest when one is lagging on a technology field, a economic field and a manufacturing and project field? But that is all good news for places like Canada and the UK, as such the economic field will adjust and it will take the sails out of Wall Street as I personally see it, but in that regard I might be wrong. These elements matter, If you think of it Amazon was a book seller, so is all to be sold off? In this how much more expensive will your lives end up being? Google might be in a better place, but when we see “Google runs an exchange for ad transactions and provides the technology used by website publishers and advertisers to buy and sell digital advertising”, when that goes into the air, do you think the scam and phishing era is gone? No, it will go from one a week to several a day and you will not block them all, more important, if you see places like Twitter, we already get the issue there, advertisers trying to call in the ‘click bitches’ hoping to get revenue of dozens of pages, all whilst that EVERY PAGE there is a trojan danger by people they never knew, but the advertisement money os too appealing, especially if they get a dime a page per person. Do you think that these advertisers are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts and matters will go from bad to worse and that same US House Judiciary Committee is clueless how to stop what comes next, they never explored the dangers there.
So when we get to David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, who was so about the power of big-tech, yet the Boston Globe (at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/06/11/metro/unemployment-fraud-hit-one-rhode-islands-congressmen/) gives us “In March, the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training (DLT) reported that 43 percent of claims turned out to be suspected and confirmed fraud during the pandemic, and about $37.6 million was paid out to confirmed fraudulent claims. Another $209.6 million was paid out to suspected fraudulent claims. The good news is that it could have been much worse. The state believes it stopped at least $3.2 billion in payments to suspected fraudulent claims between March 2020 and March 2021.” The article also gives us that 15 Rhode Island residents were charged in a nationwide unemployment scheme, yet do you think that these 15 were responsible for the $209 million, or the alleged thwarted $3,200,000,000? I personally believe that he has no clue what is about to hit the US when these big tech bills becomes a reality. And as I said it yesterday, a tax overhaul is decades late.
I saw the fake tunnel in the distance in 1998, that is almost a quarter of a century ago, it has been that long that US politics decided to remain inactive and now they are making matters worse by overreacting, but that will works out nicely for other nations, so if Amazon and others relocate to Toronto (CAN) or Ipswich (UK) the US will have done it to themselves.
In some cases I say ‘Time will tell’ yet here the phrase ‘Surprise, surprise. Time is here!’ seems more apt.
My mind has been busy on a few levels. The first is that the new system that I name ‘Fibretech’ is currently standing still, It is partially by me, it is partially by the ned to connect two elements, it is both hardware and software, not sure how to see the solution yet, but I am in no hurry, my initial focus is now and remains the 5G parts. The three devices (one now Public Domain) is in a stage where I want to add another device, or another system. I see loads of POS (Point of Sale) advertisements, but they are all in a stage of previous tech, basically setting a stage of 30 days free and then no longer free. I am not against the capitalistic view, but it is based on what was and that no longer suffices. As I was thinking things through, I remembered that I had these thoughts before, in another stage and yes, on November 25th 2020 I wrote ‘An idea is born’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/25/an-idea-is-born/), the idea went in a different direction, yet the foundation was the same. What happens when we do not carry a shopping basket, but what happens when WE are the shopping basket? It is a different key system, a system that recognises what we bought in rollover settings (weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annual and annual), that systems has a check in a locked stage, only accessible by YOU to set a stage of creating internal awareness towards what MIGHT interest you.
As such, you get to alter and edit the list, I for one am NUTS about liquorice, especially K&H currency liquorice, not sure why, I merely am. We have all kinds of needs, cravings and interests. The problem is that most people under 4G are all about centralising knowledge, it made Facebook superrich, so what happens when we set a stage where we take it away on one end and give the people that stage? Consider that you are now directly advertised with 90% relevant advertisers, no matter how many push advertisements to everyone, it will never reach you. Is that not what you wanted all along? If Domotics is making the house smart, what if we make the user the people smart? What if your wearable, your mobile or your personal smart drive gets a filter direction from a tag on perhaps your keychain that filters?
It might also be an evolutionary stage to limit, or at least diminish to some degree skimming. We cannot stop all events, but as the key is highly encrypted, we get a setting where the POS systems is facing two levels of encryption, more important, it might not decode one, but it can register one, the skimmer will merely try to capture the Credit Card details (its limited), and as such we will be able to see a larger stage of where and who is getting skimmed, optionally where it got skimmed too. It is a side effect, but a nice one.
So as domotics and personal shopping identification tags evolve we see a new stage, a stage where the people ONLY (or at least mostly) get relevant advertisements, decentralisation is key there, centralisation has not worked, not for some time and the new 4G systems are merely making matters worse. Why? Because they were set up that way, iterative thinkers trying a new jacket all whilst the couture of the jacket went out of fashion half a decade ago. It is not all bad news, these POS systems are still evolving and they will also evolve in the 5G era, I am merely considering a few options to get ahead of the game. I have awareness creation of the user, recognition and awareness levels of the shops, especially in a stage where the shops is in control, so as domotics is in the frame of too many makers, the personal tag made sense. Especially in malls and larger cities. Consider the average Westfield Mall, we know that JB Hifi and EB Games sell games, but there are plenty of cases where others do too (small shops, Target, etc), the tag will create a situation where the interest in PS5 games is detected (in an encrypted way) and that tag will allow for the arrival of advertisement, even as the advertiser has no clue who they were reaching, the person would have been made aware of the other shops, more importantly a stage of special PS5 deals would be visible, if there were any. The consumer is kept informed.
The stage of recognition and awareness creation will be key in 5G, as 4G was all about ‘Wherever I am’, 5G will push ‘Whenever I want it’ and the consumer always wants it now. The setting makes sense, but in this age, it will be more powerful in a decentralised setting, give the shopkeepers the power back, and those who do not care? They will miss out on all kinds of revenue, I believe it is time for lazy people to feel that pain. Whenever I see some shopkeeper be active 12 hours a day to get a larger chunk of the revenue pile I see a need to cater to that whilst not stocking up on more and more work, but a workflow that makes sense and shows to be its own reward. Even as some might say that Google Lightbox Advertisements were the answer, it was, but it could go so much further and that is what I aimed for, and so far I reckon I am on the right train, yet in this I wonder will Google or Amazon make the larger steps to head the technology drive? In this there is a larger debate going on, it is no longer merely whether Google Stadia or Amazon Luna will occupy the third position in gaming, there is every chance that Netflix is pushing to become a contender too. You see, when we consider IGN with ‘Xbox Series X DRM Makes It Near Impossible to Play Games Offline’, Microsoft is till playing its games, and now it will hurt them massively. What happens when the weather is taking its toll on landlines in Australia, UK, US and parts of the EU? If you cannot be online, what then? That is the shortsighted view of Microsoft. Now, let’s face it, when that is down cloud gaming is also not an option, but in all this, there are a lot of players that would have their cloud system next to a Switch, or a Sony and that is when Microsoft falls away. It is currently losing to Sony in a 2:1 stage, I personally reckon that it is 2:2:1 (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft), as such it will not take long for the ‘most powerful system in the world’ to become player number 5, or perhaps even 6. These pushes all matter, it is last decade thinking ‘always online’ and it is not always possible with ransomware and hackers making life hard on too many systems, there is a larger need to decentralise and those who can will be around, those who cannot will slowly perish.
In that stage I see tagging systems evolve, not because we are online, but because we should not always be online. It is a failing that is getting more and more exposure and those making the claim that this is essential and it will always be, those are the one relying on 10 year old technologies trying to fuel their needs a little longer. In that stage we see the media, all dressed up and ready to make digital claims, all whilst they weren’t even relevant, Google and Amazon made sure of that, so whilst the media was chasing a path that was not realistic, I was considering a path that gave the power back to the people. And I think I am on the right track, or perhaps better stated ‘I am personally and speculatively considering a different path that might work’, will I be correct? I hope so, but I cannot vouch for that. No person can, time will prove me right (or not).
Yes, today we see that the B is for bad, which also means BBC. A stage we never saw coming, but now that it is out in the open and the carefully phrased denials come out, we all get to see the filthy side of journalism and we see that one we thought was a good element is basically darker than Darth Vader could ever be. And evil is also synonymous with the B of Bing, a company that hijacks your results, they are too incompetent to do anything by themselves, so as I personally see it, they steal it from Google.
But this is not about Microsoft, this is about the evil BBC, the Guardian gave us “Lyons said critics had to accept that the corporation “is not the same organisation it was 25 years ago””, it is seen in the article ‘Fears of ‘feeding frenzy’ against BBC after Diana interview backlash’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/21/ex-bbc-trust-chair-fears-feeding-frenzy-over-diana-interview), in this it is my view that Sir Michael Lyons is optionally (and speculatively) a deranged loon. The media has gotten worse and now we see that the BBC is just as foul as the rest of the media, in this the hidden admission that the BBC knew it was hiding the media filth that is represented through Martin Bashir. When you consider “Lyons said, adding: “But this can’t be time for a feeding frenzy on the BBC.”” We should see the stupidity that Sir Michael Lyons represents. Yes, it is time, you do not get to play deceitfully nice for 25 years in a stage that optionally cost the life of a royal and play nice and timid, you get to take it up any hole we see fit, you do not get to have a choice or a voice in this.
When we consider that Martin Bashir has had a 25 year career based on a lie and on deceptive conduct and he ends up with a 2 million pound house, a wealthy career and he walks out because he was given a tap on the shoulder? Yes, we all get to be angry and we all get to decide what happens to the BBC and in this, many will be livid if the governing members who all touched and protected Martin Bashir get to walk away free and clear. Perhaps you need a reminder of what happened when the British people lost their princess.
If each person who attended that funeral and these events demand a drop of blood from every person involved in this scandal, the BBC becomes devoid of life, so Sir Michael Lyons better realise his tone on trivialisation of the event. I am also taking notice of “However, government sources played down the idea of immediate and drastic action, saying one key test would be whether the BBC’s much-changed structure was seen as less at risk of such failings, both in terms of the initial deception and time it took to emerge”, we can agree that there are sides that are debatable, but the setting of “BBC’s much-changed structure was seen as less at risk of such failings” is wrong and irresponsible. That was seen in my previous blog where we see Lord Dyson reflect on the initial BBC investigation and the fact that Martin Bashir took the money and run, whilst selling his house the fastest way possible. You do not take well over a brute annual income of loss because of whatever reason is given, the speed of sale implies that he was given the option to run and avoid media coverage, even now the media avoids chasing down Martin Bashir for comments, he is THAT protected. The Saudi government got less consideration even as there was no evidence, as such we can come to the conclusion that the larger media is part of that problem and it will be essential to cut the BBC short, prune it (with napalm) to the degree it deserves.
If this was the bad, then what was the good? Well, as I was contemplating a new idea in devices, my mind set a new stage of these devices, an application of silicate weave, lamination and processing. Devices that are created (almost) on the spot, a stage where we see that devices can be created for specific fairs, trade shows and release presentations. A stage that was not thought through enough and whilst we see that these events come with trucks of goods, trucks of mouses, keyboards and wires, a larger stage comes to the light, we can innovate there and that is in the stage before we take a gander at new display technologies.
One stage is not the other, but the view evolved whilst I was looking into the BBC and also getting pissed off to no end with Bing hijacks (bloody Microsoft), it is a stage where Apple is actually not innocent and that is the larger stage, a stage of facilitation and the power brokers are all about helping their ‘friends’ and we merely have to swallows the shit we are given and as such, as the BBC is out of luck, and as a national broadcaster the people will demand their pound of flesh, and with millions making that demand, the BBC will run out of options a lot sooner than it thinks, this is too big, they partially created it to be this bog and now the invoice is due. And in the midst of this I got the idea of new devices, a new level of technology that an be fuelled in a 5G atmosphere and as such there is a lot more to go round and even as some devices will not be the hits until 5G is truly kicking off, it will also fuel new stages of trade, in places that some players never considered because of the overhead involved, and now that I have that idea covered, I reckon that trade can flourish in a much larger stage. In this I might be the Ugly in the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, yet I do not care. I got the idea one of a dozen and even as I feel that it might be my brain telling me that I am running out of time, I am happy that at least I am going on a journey in a wave of creativity, it is perhaps one of the best waves to surf.
We are feeling all kinds of weird at times, we fall for someone, for something, and we also trip at times. These things happen and more often than not we have ourselves to blame, but is that the case all the time? In this I refer to a BBC article 3 days ago called ‘Victim of ‘Elon Musk’ Bitcoin scam loses home deposit’, first of all, the scam used the name ‘Elon Musk’ the man himself has no dealings here. But it was part of the article that woke me up. It is “Ms Bushnell, an investor in cryptocurrency, spotted an item on a website that appeared to use BBC News branding, claiming Mr Musk, the billionaire boss of the Tesla car firm, would pay back double the sum of any Bitcoin deposit”, now in my case the part where I see ‘pay back double the sum’ would raise all the red flags, but it is “an item on a website”, not merely “appeared to use BBC News branding” that got my eyes.
There are two elements here, the first is that more and more advertisements (and scams) rely way too heavily on ‘deceptive conduct’ and the law has been dragging its heels here for 2-3 years on drowning that issue. Stronger laws against deceptive conduct needs to be there, not some political loon relying on some complaints department, but laws that give power to the law to chastise the advertisement agency that allowed for this with fines in excess of £1,000,000. I reckon that these people will clean up their acts when the fine equals a quarter of their revenue. Do you think it is overreaching? I myself thwarted 5 attempts to get scammed last week, and I believe it is getting worse, with Indian developers learning that for a mere investment of $250 they could reap $250,000 matters are getting worse and it needs to be halted, or at least diminished by a hell of a lot. In this I am willing to point the finger at Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and optionally Amazon as well. Some advertisements should not be allowed to continue.
Even when we see the Guardian giving us (some time ago) “investigation shows apparent ease of promoting fraudulent services online”, we see the lack of actions by all. They made these AI claims, so use your AI (actually AI does not yet exist), but there needs to be a much larger level of checks and even as the BBC watered down the stage towards “spotted an item on a website”, which due to a lack of presentable evidence makes sense, the setting is not all towards the victim. Yet in that light, If I had a real option to double your money, do you think I would go open, or go to my best friends? If I had an option that there was a 100% chance of a 100% gain, do you think I would give this to strangers, or to close friends? Consider that question when you go out and spend (read: donate) your money on something that is without evidence and without verification.
And there is a reason to blame big tech in this instance, it is seen in “The fake site is still currently online”, this implies that there was advertisement, there is a trail and I reckon there is a need for action and an option for action. You do not need a big degree in IT (I do have one) and we do know that there are ways to mask one’s digital identity, but wonder should those with a masked digital identity be allowed to advertise?
The article gives more questions than answers, but that is not a bad thing. Getting the questions out into the open optionally raises the bar or perception and if we get that bar high enough, my peers in the House of Lords will wake up and demand action, which gets us at least part of the way there.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 