Tag Archives: Microsoft

March 14, 2021 · 07:38

First the sting

Yes, it happens, we get stung every so now and then. It is one thing when it actually happens, it is another when it is done for secondary reasons, which were the main reasons. Forbes gets us there with “Yesterday, there was a roundtable with Xbox and Bethesda folks talking about the recently finalised purchase of Zenimax, with the biggest news being the reveal that more or less every recent Bethesda game you’ve ever heard of was now being added to Xbox Game Pass as soon as today”, we get it it is a reason but a secondary one. There is also the exclusivity reason which is equally secondary and it is given as well with “a bunch of future Bethesda games, likely including the big ones like Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield, are going to be Xbox exclusive”, but it also gave us “on any device that can access Game Pass”, which will be their secondary Xcloud push. The article ‘Microsoft Stuns With Reveal It Bought Bethesda For Xbox Game Pass’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/03/12/microsoft-stuns-with-reveal-it-bought-bethesda-for-xbox-game-pass/?sh=27455bf8fa48) is more than that. The PS5 has broken all records and at present we get that over 4 million were sold in 2020 and it will rise to an expected 17 million in 2021. There is some conjecture because Microsoft is scared of the numbers, but it seemingly amounts to 2:1 on average sales two PS5’s for every Xbox series X sold, and it will likely rise to 3:1 when Sony stocks are globally replenished, these numbers scare Microsoft, which is why Twitter is drowning in XCloud advertisements. I also believe that it scared Microsoft enough to pay $8,500,000,000 for Bethesda. Bethesda has a loyal following and they hope that enough Playstation fans will drop the playstation to go wherever Bethesda is, the bandaid with the timed exclusive of Deathloop on the PS5 is merely a bandaid to deceive the minds, any gamer knows that the power of gaming is Elder Scrolls and Fallout. That is what Microsoft needs and that is why I had placed the setting of a new RPG as freebee for any Sony exclusive designer. I am about to add to that. And it might upset enough board members at Microsoft when others get for free for what they had to pay 8 billion plus, I am all about the sarcasm, unless it backfires, then it becomes irony.

You see, the largest challenge was that I am trying to avoid some Elder Scrolls replica, which is why I took the path I did and I added the generation stage, there is only so much exploring a person can do in one lifetime and I had the improvements for Assassins Creed to consider. So I created an altered stage for the player. 

The stage is set in phases, but I had to consider how to set the stage

Path APath BPath C
Path AXX
Path B1X
Path C2XX
Path D1

The story has a number of paths, we map the ones we take, but in this I am also allowing and setting the stage for the paths not taken, as long as the path has been discovered. To illustrate this, perhaps we can think back to Fallout 4, the first place you emerge from had a cold weapon at the end, but you have no skills to get there. So how many have forgotten that weapon? I certainly did the first two times I played that game. Yet it is about more than just a chest or a location, I wanted books, scrolls and tomes to be much more profound, I also wanted to make sure that you cannot carry like a mule and that the chest in your house does not hold a container full of stuff. Most RPG players are hoarders, as such I will need to change that premise too. As You see in the table, the first person (path A) will take paths B and C,  this is where the shoe gets a new style, there are two outcomes, the person dies before betting back home, in which the next generation has no idea where to seek, other then follow the same map to find his parents remains, this is a limited chart as there are only three options, but the stage is seen when the parent goes home after path A,2. Now as he is home the next generation gets their diary and tomes filled, more important, some of the skills are automatically gained. As such the next generation will not start from ground zero, and whilst that person has every option to take skills into new directions, it will be up to the player to do so. The second part is the map, I made mention of it in an earlier story, but what if we take what Assassins Creed does to a whole new level? There are dozens of RPG’s and they all map similarly, what if we change that? Each generation is at least a decade apart, we get to evolve mapmaking and transcribing maps during the game, so consider the AC2 map of Venice, going to the top of a tower fills it in, yet there was no learning curve. 

I want that time is an equaliser and evolving stage here, as such generation one will give entrances to a place with roads but not much more, all whilst generation 3 will map out roads, hazards, and also give rise to dangers AFTER you visit it, not before, unless the diary had given out the dangers in a place. These are just a few additions, or alterations to current RPG games. Like the blowpipe, I needed to get away with the bow and arrow, optionally crossbow. I wanted the blowpipe and later allow for something like a catapult (slingshot) to be introduced to keep range weapons alive and to give something new to the game. As one goes away a new portal opens and that was the intent all along. As evolution becomes a much larger stage in this game, we are confronted that death is pretty permanent and it allows for a new dimension if you play it in permadeath. In the end the stage is around these parts, but the story is still the most important aspect. So take the previous stories as a template and see what happens when generation one goes into one area, but as generation two you can travel in opposite directions, to set the land to that contrast requires a larger map, more options and different kind of hurdles. And there we see the initial part, with well over half a dozen stages that Bethesda never considered (or optionally rejected), and now it is in the public domain and we can show Microsoft what it feels like to spend eight point five billion on something that looks and tastes like a lemon, but that is merely because they thought it would solve all their problems and I am happy to add to their misery (I have to do something). So let’s make games and set the bar of Sony versus Microsoft to 5:1 or better, gives those Micro$oft people something to cry about, most of us will like that part anyway.

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March 11, 2021 · 19:10

In your face space

It happens, something is staring me right in the face and I lay it beside me. It happens, it happens to us all. This trip started in 1992 (I believe), at a consumer electronic show in Amsterdam (RAI) we got to see the first Mini Disc, the first thought I had that it would be a great digital system for computers, it was roughly 4% of a Bernoulli disk whilst being able to store 600% of what a Bernoulli could store. The idea was rejected by Sony, too incompatible they claimed, nowadays we know more, it would have been a great option, it would have pushed players like Apple to the limit 5 years ahead of the curve. Yesterday I was confronted with that thought as my DVD was acting up (the disc, not the player). Now consider the new players, the new way to watch TV. All whilst the telecom companies want you to use more and more bandwidth, the more they can harvest, the more dependent you get to become.

What if we take that away? Consider this Compact Flash, one card, not 26 discs, merely one card and it is not even the start, in a time and place where collections are complete book cases and we can replace it in almost all cases with one card per TV series. The fans have a perfect copy per card and there is still the option to upgrade over time, in the age where 4K will define new boundaries, the retail side also needs to adhere, a setting where we can drive innovation, not merely follow it. Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, Babylon 5, Teen Wolf, Games of Thrones, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, Dexter, Midsomer Murders, the Star Wars saga and so on, one card per setting and the technology is already here to set the stage to a much larger degree to meet the customer beyond halfway, a customer that can watch their series in perfection, one card that can last a lifetime. I reckon that players will have larger settings, they have the space, open up any blue-ray or 4K player, most of it is space and adding a CF, or SD card reader (optionally both) is the easiest thing to do. Not walking back and forth to the player getting the next disc, merely one card and all seasons are there. Yes, newer series will likely go per season, but at present there are hundreds of series all well above a dozen discs, and the fans have needs, they want that card on their mobile, on the road and the card can take a lot more than any disc could, so what stopped a player like Sony? Another ‘too incompatible’ mention, or the fear of piracy? Piracy is already there, the disc allows for newer protection and even in store upgrades. Go to any store where you buy movies or TV-series, now consider a box (like GoT) and that box will be able to contain a dozen of your favourite series, now consider the space it is taking up and consider that one card could have all seasons and you keep it in your placer at all time, to be able to play it at your hearts content. So why is that solution not here now? Consider all the telecom players trying to be clever with their 5G, all whilst it is just not ready and do you really want your bandwidth to depend on your 5G router? Consider that IT Pro gave us a week ago “as they promote Kubernetes as the secret ingredient for closing the gap between 5G’s promises and 5G problems. Kubernetes does indeed have some potential to make 5G actually work well. That said, it’s not necessarily the holy grail of edge computing and telco networking that it is sometimes made out to be” (at https://www.itprotoday.com/hybrid-cloud/can-kubernetes-solve-5g-problems-partly-not-soon), there we are told “They make promises like “5G networks will one day offer peak data rates of up to 10 Gbps” and “5G’s hyper-fast speeds will revolutionise the way we live.” If you read statements like those carefully, you’ll notice that they’re predicated on theoretical future developments, not what 5G is actually delivering to the typical user today. That’s because, to date, 5G network implementations haven’t been all that impressive. They turn out to be slower than 4G in many cases, not to mention less reliable. 5G, in other words, has become “a bad joke.”” A setting I have been mentioning for close to two years and the joke gets to be worse, at present Saudi Arabia has a 5G network that is well over 700% faster than anything the US can offer, their BS marketing drive is that bad and it will get worse, as such do we want to rely on congestion, or do we want an option where we can watch what we love unhindered, optionally in a better setting than now? So whilst we take notice of “it won’t address all 5G problems, and it will take a long time–several years, most likely–before Kubernetes is a full-fledged 5G solution”, which I predicted a few times in the last two years, I made no mention of Kubernetes, I merely observed the greed driven stupidity of some and watch these ships wreck left right and center. So whilst American politicians are blaming China for their own lack of innovation, I created the setting of a 7th device that can push innovation and change. And when we consider that innovation drives creativity, I wonder what someone else can come up with tomorrow, I already set the design of a new device for IOS and Android, that is how I roll. All whilst Microsoft is pushing Forza on your mobile, I came up with two new pieces of hardware, yup, I feel decently good, especially as we see Microsoft falter again and again and now it get to pull the wool over the eyes of Apple and Sony too (life can be satisfying). Did I figure out everything? No, I did not, but if I had done so I would make life for 1,000 researchers at Microsoft impossible and that is not fair either, oh wait, I really do not care about that, sorry!

All this in a day, so what is stoping these moguls of achieving true innovation? #JustAsking

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March 8, 2021 · 12:00

The wide net

We all have the idea to go phishing, we want trout, we want salmon and we use the biggest net possible to get at least one. So when AP gave us ‘Casting a wide intrusion net: Dozens burned with single hack’ (at https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-europe-eastern-europe-new-zealand-f318ba1ffc971eb17371456b015206a5), not only was I not surprised, I had been warning people about this for a few years, that setting is apparently upon us now (or at least some are admitting it now). There we see “Nimble, highly skilled criminal hackers believed to operate out of Eastern Europe hacked dozens of companies and government agencies on at least four continents by breaking into a single product they all used” this does not surprise me, this happened in the late 80’s as well when someone used Aston Tate’s DB3 to introduce a virus, it is simple find something they all use and hamper its function, a basic strategy that an Italian (Julius Caesar) introduced 2000 years ago, there he hampered the roads and not servers but you get the idea, the classics still work.

When we are given “The Accellion casualties have kept piling up, meanwhile, with many being extorted by the Russian-speaking Clop cybercriminal gang, which threat researchers believe may have bought pilfered data from the hackers. Their threat: Pay up or we leak your sensitive data online, be it proprietary documents from Canadian aircraft maker Bombardier or lawyer-client communications from Jones Day.” It might seem rash but the people relied on others to keep their data safe and whilst we see more and more that they cannot contain the bacon the clients are suffering, this is not a simple station and we get it, but package solutions tend to come with flaws and that has been a truth for 20 years, so why are you all crying now? It is the final part that has more bearing “Members of Congress are already dismayed by the supply-chain hack of the Texas network management software company SolarWinds that allowed suspected Russian state-backed hackers to tiptoe unnoticed — apparently intent solely on intelligence-gathering — for more than half a year through the networks of at least nine government agencies and more than 100 companies and think tanks. Only in December was the SolarWinds hacking campaign discovered by the cybersecurity firm FireEye. France suffered a similar hack, blamed by its cybersecurity agency on Russian military operatives, that also gamed the supply chain. They slipped malware into an update of network management software from a firm called Centreon, letting them quietly root around victim networks from 2017 to 2020.” This is important because of what happened in the last two years, remember how ‘stupid’ American people started to blame Huawei for all the bad whilst offering absolutely no supporting evidence? Huawei does not need to bother to aid whichever government there was, silly software developers are doing that for them, we see an abundance of intrusion problems that include SolarWinds, Accellion and Cisco. A stage where thousands of systems are at risk, but no, the ‘silly’ people kept on blaming Huawei. Even I knew better and as Sony gave me the idea for an intrusion method called ‘Plus One’ (a viable way to drive the Pentagon nuts) with an alternative direction that I call ‘Vee One’, but that one has a few hiccups I reckon. Then I got creative and saw a new parameter in play. One that is based on a little part I read in a Cisco manual, the text “When You Add A Hard Disk To A Virtual Machine(VM), you can create a new virtual disk, add an existing virtual disk, or add a mapped Storage Area Network (SAN) Logical UnitNumber (LUN). In most cases, you can accept the default device node. For a hard-disk, a non default device node is useful to control the boot order or have different Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) controller types. For example, you might want to boot from an LSI Logic controller and use a Bus-logic Controller With bus sharing turned onto share a data disk with another VM.” You see that small text indicates that there is a nice workaround in Cisco CMX and it opens up a lot more than they bargained for, that in conjunction with the share issues thy were already facing gives out a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Copy me I want to travel’, n’est pas? (for the French victims)

It is a much larger stage, most laws aren’t ready for this, prosecuting the guilty parties is close to impossible and any quick fix they make will only make things harder, the setting was and has for always been the makers of software, time constraints and lack of deep testing makes for a lousy solution and in most cases these players have a pushy marketing department (example: Ubisoft), and yes ‘You be soft!’ because the small tidbit that AP gives us with “Attackers are finding it harder and harder to gain access via traditional methods, as vendors like Microsoft and Apple have hardened the security of the operating systems considerably over the last years” yet it is a small stage and not a correct one. Weaknesses in Azure, issues with advertising in apps and a larger stage of programming, we see it clearest in .NET, but it goes way beyond that, for example “The problem of memory leaks is not uncommon in any technology. Simply put, the framework doesn’t release the memory that it no longer needs. .NET is frequently criticised for memory leaks and memory-related issues. Although .NET has a garbage collector for this sort of problem, engineers still have to invest additional efforts into proper resource management. And the leaks keep on growing as the application scales.” (source: Altexsoft) and it shows the smallest part, if there is a leak in one place, there will be in other places too and the leaks are not the real problem, getting it to semi-crash and taking over its right on a network are a quick way into any system, I saw the example with an accounting program (censored name), I got the program to crash (took about 20 seconds) and I ended up with the administrator rights to the entire mainframe from ANY location running that software. I get it, there will always be a bug in any place and the makers were quick to fix it, but for a few weeks there was an entrance point that took minimum efforts and that setting is only increasing with routers and cloud systems, these companies rely on marketeers that are ready to push for the investors sake and leave the client swimming in a swamp, I have seen it more than once and it will happen again, and this setting has been going on since 1989 and over the next 3-4 years it will grow to 150%, the push to billions and to quickly get to billions will be overwhelming for too many players all whilst the law will not be able to protect the victims, they will merely point at torts law, even though that you are the victim, most contracts are offered as an ‘as is’ solution and for the most software makers can avoid prosecution for the longest time, long enough for the hackers to get away with your data and sell it, what a lovely system you bought. Oh and before I forget, organised crime is way ahead of me, so for some it will already be too late.

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March 7, 2021 · 02:00

Science in art, deception through science

Just as I got past the first female night-horse (read: nightmare) I got into another one. I am not sure why, but for some reason it matters, in this there is a CIA wet work operative played by Graham McTavish, there is a spotter with him, he minds the listening system. They are watching a man seemingly talking to himself, but it is too much of a one sided conversation, the sniper (McTavish) changes the scope to thermal, now he sees a shimmer, one he had seen before, it was digital cloaking. He signals the spotter, who starts changing the dials on a small box and after several seconds he nods, he listens. He says ‘the other person is whispering Greek’, and he listens, they are looking at an almost surreal setting, it is almost 30 seconds until the spotter states ‘I cannot be here’ McTavish looks around, the man is absolutely pale with fear “I cannot be here” he states again, puts his sidearms in his mouth and pulls the trigger. The sniper gets out fast, they were both using suppressors, as such there was too little sound to set the alarm off. He grabs all the gear and he gets out as quickly a possible, all whilst sending the alert signal.

The scene was weird, I do not remember seeing it on TV or in the movies, but it got me thinking on communication, and soon thereafter encryption, do not ask why, I have no idea, but the slithers of one, connected to the idea of another. To show this here is an image

As you can see, it is in foundation a sudoku setting, an 81 figure number (nine times nine), yet the stage is to some degree predictable, every number used once, per square and no number the same in a row or column, even as there are only nine combinations, there is a larger stage for encryption systems to work on, but what if we look at killer sudoku?

As you see in the image, the stage becomes a little different, we get a combination of puzzles and it is that combination that could give reality to a new encryption method. A stage where the sudoku itself is merely part of the puzzle, it is the other part that gets us the encryption. Is it a 2H box, a 2V box and so on, but in that stage it becomes a lot harder to figure out the numbers. The shapes can be anything, a letter, numbers, any combination. The numbers are numbers but there are ways to encrypting that too, and as every level is larger the computer undoing the cypher will take more and more time, all whilst there is an optional setting to reset that setting, a solution in apps that makes any high end encrypted system a much larger option for diplomatic staff to keep encrypted data with them, without them knowing what they are carrying, or anyone for that matter. If they are not part of it, they are merely the vessel that the channel carries.

Or in humorous terms (an ode to Danny Kaye) “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!”, as such the issue is not the servant, that person has no idea what they are carrying, a new stage where 2-3 apps set a larger stage and with the security out of the way (thanks to Microsoft and Epic) anyone can be a courier. Yes, when you (optionally) saw ‘Microsoft sides with Epic in its fight with Apple, promises a more open MS Store’ with the text “Microsoft filed a declaration in support of Epic’s request for an injunction against Apple’s plan to remove its access to iOS development tools. The company said in the filing that the Unreal Engine is “critical technology for numerous game creators,” and that taking away Epic’s ability to support it on iOS and MacOS devices “will harm game creators and gamers.”” Most people do not see the larger picture, all this was merely a way for Epic to shun its duties, duties that allow smaller players to avoid larger costs, yet once greed sets in there is a larger stage and they paved the way for organised crime to take much larger steps for people to be tempted to quick cash only to learn at a much larger stage that they became mules. It is that stage that also allows for a new encryption systems, with people having 1-2 apps, that the person with the third app will be able to capture what they need, sometimes it will be with the persons consent, but not always, and that is where we are at. The rich taking what they want and not wanting to be held responsible, no matter what damage they are at the head of, what a world we live in, it seems that my nightmares are a much more pleasant place to be soon enough.

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February 25, 2021 · 22:32

Filter by Gender.

Yup we have all done it, we tend to filter. The horny (especially teenagers) want to talk, chat and video whatever to the members of the other gender (well, most of them anyway). We filter by the needs we have, business needs, personal needs and artistic needs, we filter. There is for the most nothing wrong with that. Yet it also tends to keep you in a little box. I come from the previous internet era, I never got into Napster but I loved Audiogalaxy. I had it so I could listen to music when I was travelling and it opened up doors. I learned about the Corrs, Bond, the Dixie Chicks, Linkin Park, Orbital and a few others. It grew my CD collection by leaps and that made me happy, in an age where my work kept me from MTV, Audiogalaxy showed me other venues of music. I forwent the filter and I learned about and got to appreciate bands I would never have considered. Filtering is not all bad.

Yet what happens when filtering goes overboard in another direction? Today I learned a new word, I word I should have been aware of but I do not remember hearing it. The word is ‘Femicide’ and it is not a good word. It was Al Jazeera that made me aware, the article ‘Rage boils over amid Argentina’s unrelenting femicide crisis’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/24/rage-boils-over-amid-argentinas-unrelenting-femicide-crisis). It got my attention in the first as it was about Argentina and my mother was from there. In the second it was the by-line “Femicide of 18-year-old Ursula Bahillo pushed thousands into the streets of Buenos Aires this month to demand action”. In this there are two parts, the first is “About 87,400 results” (when we look for Ursula Bahillo) and the second part is that the big newspapers are missing on the news search result on the first page. A Spanish version from the BBC is at the bottom of the page, no Washington Post, no NY Times, no Times, no Guardian (the list goes on) and it sickens me for another reason. You see, one hour ago the Guardian gives us ‘Princess Latifa letter urges UK police to investigate sister’s Cambridge abduction’, some princess gets the news on optionally being abducted and whilst Al Jazeera reports “Nearly 300 femicides were reported in the country in 2020”, other newspapers keep us in the dark and these idiots demand money from Facebook and Google, whilst not informing us? I see this as one of the clearest ‘What the Fuck?’ moments of the year.

I never felt comfortable bout honour killings. I understand that it exist and in those countries there is an issue, I am massively against that setting in other nations. I cannot convict it as I am not Muslim, yet outside of Muslim nations it is an issue, yet femicide should not be ANYWHERE and the fact that we are kept in the dark by most papers is a larger issue, but I will let you worry about that. It kind of intersects with ‘Australia urged to follow allies in denouncing China’s repression of Uighurs as ‘genocide’’, the fact that genocide is happening and someone needs to ‘urge’ Australia shows that we are not as evolved as we think we are. By the way, the first 5 pages of that search shows no Australian papers at all, as such should they be allowed to exist? That is a more serious question than you think. If the ACCC are all about media laws and the need to blame tech companies, in this my message after seeing ‘ACCC chief claims victory after Facebook standoff’ to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims will be “Sir, I consider you to be a fucking joke! You are hereby responsible to make sure that the events around Ursula Bahillo are to be seen in EVERY Australian newspaper as per immediate. If you (as it seems) champion discrimination, you need to be openly told this”, my issue here is that Microsoft was left out of the media consideration, they were waiting all their resources on their Azure cloud and now that we see “Microsoft will ensure that small businesses who wish to transfer their advertising to Bing can do so simply and with no transfer costs.  We recognise the important role search advertising plays to the more than two million small businesses in Australia” (source: Microsoft) all whilst we see western media absent to the plight of Ursula Bahillo and hundreds more shows that the media was never to be considered any options (if the Leveson report was not enough evidence). As such, how much action did the UN take to the Femicide cause? I know they have done some work, yet when I see ‘United Nations asks UAE for proof that Princess Latifa is alive’ all whilst the Google Search “Ursula Bahillo United Nations” gives no real links on the western media, why is that? That is even beside the fact on how active UN essay writers became against the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they even went so far to push for issues regarding  cyber crimes on an American Industrial (Jeff Bezos) all whilst the presented evidence had several shades of debatability. As I see it, we need larger changes and if the media relies on political bitches (as one might say) to do their revenue work for them, they will need to be held liable, yet I reckon that some editors will cry like little bitches and point towards ‘freedom of the press’, I wonder how long it will take for someone to consider that ‘accountability of the press’ is also a matter that needs consideration. Al Jazeera brought more to the surface than some media players are happy with. Consider your paper, or their website (whichever it is) and look for Ursula Bahillo, how many articles did you find? What we are shown matters, whether is be Femicide in Argentina, persecution of Uighurs or any other news. As I personally see it when we filter by gender and the filtering agent is the media we have lost control and the insane are at the helm of a ship called sanity. That’s merely my $0.02 on the matter.

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February 18, 2021 · 21:00

The danger of being wrong

It happens, to you and me, sometimes we are wrong. It can be because of belief, it can be because of presented facts, or it is linked to the faith you hold. Faith, not religion! In this I have a surprising large foundation of preference towards being incorrect, not being wrong. They are not the same. When you are incorrect, it tends to be towards a specific part of the equation, when you are wrong, you are looking at another equation. That tends to set you on the wrong foot, the one that cannot kick the ball.

For me it started roughly 780 seconds ago when the BBC gives us ‘Facebook Australia: PM Scott Morrison ‘will not be intimidated‘ by tech giant’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56109036). To be honest this mess started a few weeks ago when politicians were starting to suck up to a desperate media setting. The larger fear is not merely the new linking and cookie solution that Google is working on, and that is before they realise that my new IP takes the newspapers out of ALL equations. It was not intentional, but the fact that my solution gets rid of ‘filtered information’ carriers is just icing on the cake. So the article gives us “Australians on Thursday woke up to find that Facebook pages of all local and global news sites were unavailable. People outside the country are also unable to read or access any Australian news publications on the platform”, which suit me just fine, it is not my use of social media, as such I do not care of seeing news (read: filtered information) there. So when we consider the information from the same source giving us “The world-first law aims to address the media’s loss of advertising revenue to US tech firms” my initial somewhat less diplomatic view tends to lean towards “Who the fuck are you legalising advertisement revenue and who gets it?” From my seat it looks like that everyone is all about free trade until the friends of politicians lose their trade, then it becomes a political setting towards protecting those moneybags, that is how I see it. The fact that the media did not comprehend what digital media and digital advertisement was until it was much too late, why do we cater to them? In that same setting how much protection will the Yellow Pages receive against that same media outlet trying to rip dollars from tech companies? The world evolves and those who cannot adjust die, or go under. This is how capitalism works. The stage is even less acceptable when we consider the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/11/the-press-were-never-in-a-post-leveson-straitjacket) giving us “It has always suited journalists to suggest it is unwise for victims of illegality to pursue justice against newspaper publishers”, so not only is it unwise for victims to get against their media harassers, we see a larger stage where politicians and laws are devised to protect them from acts of technological evolution. In this at what point are they held to account for their actions?

So when we consider the part where we see “Under the code, news outlets will be required to negotiate commercial deals individually or collectively with Facebook and Google. If they cannot reach an agreement, an arbitrator will decide whose offer is more reasonable. If Facebook or Google break any resulting agreements, they can be fined up to A$10 million ($7.4 million) in civil penalties”, we see discrimination. Microsoft Bing is not in that equation, why not? In addition, why would we want to see any Australian news in our social media? Come think of it, the setting that Facebook has with advertisements goes back to 2007, so over almost 14 years, the media was incomprehensibly incompetent toward advertisements and the impact. 

In 14 years they did almost nothing to counter it with their own version, by the end of 2012 they had passed 1 billion users, 5 years later they doubled that. (at https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/)
And the media sat on their hands, they sat on their hands to such a degree that now politicians are aiding the filtered information bringers to get some more undeserved revenue, in addition these same politicians did nothing to overhaul the tax laws, so how does that play?

As such why do they deserve that leg up? Oh and in this stage if the population is a solar system, planet earth becomes a system with planet Bing, planet IBM, planet Google, planet Facebook and planet media. In this planet media is mercury, scorched from being too close to the sun, Saturn and Jupiter are Google and Facebook, each with their own asteroids and moons, al having their own function, Mercury, like the media has no moons, no services to offer, merely a printed media solution, as such, how much protection did the parchment guild get when the news went to the pulp business? What was left for the paper mills?

The paper mill is a nice touch, I actually went to one, I saw how paper is made and we all go towards: ‘Yes, but that is now obsolete’, this is true, but in that same light, the media we see today made THEMSELVES obsolete. They did not apply the brakes when they had the option and the Leveson inquiry is merely one of a few examples. When one side of media becomes too populistic, people can no longer tell or differentiate, that made them obsolete and now that this is the stage they want to hang to any solution they can, even the ones that require legality, all whilst they hang freedom of speech and freedom of expression somewhere else so they can accuse others of negating their right to show that freedom of filtered information.

Another voice is journalism professor at City University New York Jeff Jarvis, he gives us (at https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-bargaining-code/) ““The Code is built on a series of fallacies. First is the idea that Google and Facebook should owe publishers so much as a farthing for linking to their content, sending them audience, giving them marketing. In any rational market, publishers would owe platforms for this free marketing, except that Google at its founding decided not to sell links outside of advertisements. The headlines and snippets the platforms quote are necessary to link to them, and if the publishers don’t want to be included, it is easy for them to opt out…”, he gave this yesterday, I was on that train a week ago. And as I see “if the publishers don’t want to be included, it is easy for them to opt out”, the ACCC was eager not to include that little snippet of the equation making them a tool and optionally a joke too. As such we might wonder what politicians are dong (apart from helping their media friends remaining a non-poor entity), I could be wrong, I could be incorrect. I believe I am neither and that is the stage we see, all whilst the bringers of filtered information continue their revenue round one more lap, that is until the race is called. I believe it was called some time ago, but that is merely me. I could be wrong.

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February 16, 2021 · 17:29

Doubt and consideration

Yes, we all have them, doubts that is. And I had mine yesterday and this morning. I got a whiff of a game called Sandship (on iOS) and it did not take me long to get hooked. Now, we all get hooked, but hooked can be short term and long term. This game has all the trimmings that we can expect to see. It has some sort of storyline, it has puzzles, a sort of challenge setting and of course there is always the option of micro transactions. All these games have them now, but in this game it is done in both an ingenious and non-invasive way. As I was looking at what is possible, I realised that there was doubt in me. You see, I feel certain that a game like this would be a huge success on the Nintendo Switch, it would need some tweaking, but the foundation of the game is close to perfect. And as far as I can tell, Nintendo has nothing like this in their arsenal, especially when you consider that there is some level of operational education in the game. I get it, some will doubt my view on this, yet I also find myself wondering whether the makers took a look towards the Console, or are they in a stage where they will rely on micro transactions? For a beginning developer it is a fair call to rely on the micro transactions, yet this is not a game made by a beginner, if so that person is a real gaming savant. 

The doubt is whether I am seeing it correctly, I am to some degree anti-MT, yet I understand that these MT’s are a good starting point for any developer. In addition, even as I accept that some people want to play on their phones, some games need a tablet or a decent TV screen. It just works better that way.

The consideration is for some of these developers, once they have a starting capital, did they consider setting the game, optionally adjusted on a console and with cloud gaming on the rise that consideration will soon be a lot more important than ever before. It is more important because extending existing IP is a lot more important and optionally a lot cheaper than making up new IP. 

This gets me to part 3 in this, you see there was a game in 1985, it was made by Epyx and it was called Chipwits, now the game seems redundant, but the educational side as well as the challenge in all this was amazing, especially for a computer with only 64KB (RAM and ROM), consider what could be done with a Nintendo Switch that has 62,500 times the memory and a CPU that is probably just as excessively more powerful than the 6502 in the CBM-64 was. One of many games that are as easily remembered as some of the other games that some gamers idolised. Why? Because these games were truly innovative and original. And even now as as we see some developers concentrate on the flash and the bang, they are all seemingly forgetting that gamers come in all shapes and sizes, in addition, plenty of younger gamers are dependant on the parents and guess what, these parents are not a great fan of games like Manhunter 2, but they are  always seemingly willing to buy the additional game that has an educational character. But that might be mere speculation.

What is in view is that too many games rely on one path, whilst they could add paths to their software range and in these days having more than one path is important, especially when the waning range of downloadable games that can be surpassed every new week, yet the games we purchase are the games we keep around, often for a long time. There are plenty of examples. 

It is that part that shows the folly of Google when they dropped certain paths from their Stadia range, I wonder what Amazon will do, because we have 4 generations of consoles that show us that original and exclusive games make the console. PSX, N64, PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox360, PS4 and PS5. They all had their range and gathered clusters of 1000’s if not hundreds of thousands. Microsoft had their Master Sergeant, Sony had Lara, Kratos (and a few others), it is the exclusives that makes and break the console, yet original games are still part of that equation and the makers need to realise that, because there is every indication that some are relying on makers like Ubisoft and EA (complete with bugs), yet that comes with a risk, the moment the gamer has had enough the entire development house will be regarded as toxic, whether that is fair or not, the gamer will almost always act out of emotion and emotion does not really consider the balance of the topic, merely his bruised ego and the aggravation of glitches. As such all consoles need a stack of options, options that Google (as I was told) has done away with, giving a larger playing field to Amazon. It is in this light that we will optionally sooner than expected see:

1. Sony
2. Nintendo 
3. Microsoft

Turn into 

1. Sony
2. Nintendo
3. Amazon
4. Microsoft
4. Google

This is not a typo, Even if Amazon wins, there is no real telling how Microsoft ends up against Google Stadia, I think that is the fear that drove their Xcloud. You remember the pictures? 

Why keep on pushing this when you have a console that comes close to the PS5? No one is asking that question. We see speculative settings on Xcloud and mobiles, yet the real gamer does not consider a mobile screen to be a real screen. So facilitating to more games will push Microsoft further to the back of the console line. I wonder how much Amazon and Google are considering that path, and there are options, there are games that matter, but will the hardware people consider the options that are decently in abundance?

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February 15, 2021 · 09:43

From drain to sewer

To be honest, I am not surprised. In this day and age of overruling greed and the lack of care I see a change and this change will set woe to Australia and its local brands. It all started with overly stupid shareholders and stake holders, who engaged greed driven politicians on prolonging the lifestyle that some would and should never have been allowed to continue. I am of course talking on those relying on journalism. This is not about the journalists, although they are not entirely without blame. The news was happy to side with a player who has less than 5% of the market. So they were happy to go towards a player who has a mere 1/20 slice of the advertisement cake, this was never about fair, or about realism. 

In the first when we see “Under the proposed bill digital platforms would be required to pay media companies for content” EVERYONE is ignoring the part where the media can decide not to be on the digital format, they can decide not to post their messages on Google Search or place them on Facebook. So why is it an option. It is like advertising on the Yellow Pages and demanding the Yellow Pages for payment for the privilege of showing these articles. The ACCC and a few other players were happy to ignore that part, in addition we see them ignoring the fact that some of these papers have articles that ALWAYS push the link to a payment portal. There is more, these greed driven silly people relied on Microsoft and their Bing flaw to take the forefront into staging the response of “both would have to better compensate news publications for displaying their content, as well as give outlets more information about their search and newsfeed algorithms”, in this, the stage of ‘better compensate news publications’ as well as ‘give outlets more information about their search and newsfeed algorithms’, in this Microsoft who only has at best 5% is eager to increase its market share, yet there is a reason that they only have 5% and the news is only getting worse. As Australia moves away from Google search, they are cutting their fingers in a few more places as well. As silly people are all about their personal gains and personal wealth, the idiots owning the media that they are demanding payment for are all in a stage that they never understood in the first place. The Conversation gives us ‘The old news business model is broken: making Google and Facebook pay won’t save journalism’ (at https://theconversation.com/the-old-news-business-model-is-broken-making-google-and-facebook-pay-wont-save-journalism-150357). There we see “The code is meant to help alleviate the revenue crisis facing news publishers. Over the past two decades they have made deep cuts to newsrooms. Scores of local print papers have become “digital only” or been shut down completely”, as such, we seem to overlook that the elderly owning news media (example the Murdoch wannabe’s) never understood the digital part. We optionally see this in “To understand why the commercial news model is so broken, we first need to recognise what the primary business of commercial news media has been: attracting an audience that can be sold to advertisers”, Google already has the audience and Microsoft wants them too, so silly people (optionally including the politicians) are setting a slippery slope and Australia is about to lose whatever global foothold they have. In this the silly people are clueless on the damage that will hit. 

This is seen in two parts, the first is “2021 Cloud Report from Cockroach Labs ranked Google Cloud Platform as the best-performing of the three major public cloud platforms, offering an impressive threefold advantage in throughput capability”, so not only is Microsoft out of options, they are severely outclassed by Google (and optionally IBM as well), a stage that is influencing a global stage that we see (at https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/consumer-industrial-products/articles/global-powers-of-retailing.html#), so consider the players that have some global visibility. Players like Wesfarmers, Woolworths and JB HiFi. All players that were until 2020 in the top 250, now consider that they are removed from that field. This is because Microsoft does not count on the global field, not with a mere 5%, 7% on the global stage, we get it that Microsoft wants it desperately, but the silly people never realised that the media is now influencing a stage where others will no longer count as well. It is the purest form of ‘Think local, act global’ it would sound nice, but it merely makes Australian brands no longer a global player, a stage that will make New Zealand the number one consumer target for Australian brands and wherever they are second place, they become obsolete. The ACCC should be proud of not comprehending the larger stage. And in all this as the Conversation informs us of “before 2000 print media attracted nearly 60% of Australian advertiser dollars, according to an analysis for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Digital Platforms Inquiry. By 2017 it was just 12%”, we see the initial folly, it almost reads like the setting of Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin where we see ‘There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader’, but the media was never a leader in the digital media (or media for that matter), they were merely facilitators to shareholders and stake holders, as such ‘their’ people are already the population of planet Google and Microsoft wants to annex that population in any way they can. So whilst the ACCC is setting a Microsoft stage, the media is still clueless on what is required. As we see “the core of the problem is that funding such journalism through advertising is no longer viable. Other solutions are needed – locally and nationally – to ensure its survival”, it is the larger setting they all relied on advertisers, advertiser whores for a better reference, yet in all this the newspapers are all drowning most pages in advertisements, it is partial evidence of remaining clueless. The owners needed to act over a decade ago, that is seen in the decrease from 60% to 12%, a decade of decrease and nothing was done and now that they are desperate Microsoft steps in, they will save the day, or so they say but will they? They only have a 7% global penetration, they did this to themselves by forgetting that the consumer had become in charge to some degree, it is what Google wanted all along, they merely became the facilitator of whatever the consumer required and requested, the media does not understand as they think that they are the centre of the universe, but in a global setting with thousands of voices they are merely a discord in a choir at best. 

So as the small players listening to the media are throwing away whatever options they have to the media, the media is locally acting to fill its pockets, although they will not see it that way and Microsoft is in a stage where they gain 25,000,000 bing users. And in that stage where 5G passes Microsoft by, the Australians will see a decade of hardship with no future options at all. Well some players will proclaim in their presentations that this is not the case, but when their presentations run dry and when we get to 2023 and players like Wesfarmers, Woolworths and JB HiFi will no longer be on a top 500 list, at that point some people will wonder why they listened to the silly people. I can only hope that my IP is sold before that because the hardship Australia faces with no global audience is not one I hope to rely on, and when you realise just how dangerous this setting is, you will not want that either.

In this when you realise that the media pushed you to a room in the sewer with that view, will you finally realise that the media, their shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers have sold you a bag of goods whilst calling it ‘life on quality street’? Who will you hold accountable the moment you realise that?

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February 11, 2021 · 05:27

A penny for your brain

On the side of the road was a car, it was near Buvika. The car was empty, yet next to the car was a blanket, on it a man, a woman and two children, a boy and a girl. They were having a nice lunch in the summer sun, basking in the sun. They were enjoying the weather and the food, it was a stop a they were on the road towards Molde. It would take a few more hours, so they would arrive in the early evening, yet in these white nights, there would be great visibility until long after they arrived. The parents were having a conversation, what about was unknown to Inge, but she was enjoying the view of the field towards the water. She got up and walked towards the Trondheim fjord. She was enjoying the view of the water, she looked for a few more minutes when she heard her father shout, she turned around waved and she walked back, yet as she had walked less than a dozen steps her foot gave way and her leg sunk into the grass. She got up and looked down, she saw two yellow coins, she picked up the coins, put them in her pocket and walked back. Her mother looked at her smudged light trousers. She shrugged “A small hole I stepped in”, and laughed. They got into the car and drove off, they ended up at their destination 4 hours later.

In the burrow was a man, he was a frightening man, he was a warrior with power and authority, as he felt his treasure leave the silent shout was almost deafening to any who could have heard it. He felt betrayed, he was stolen and he would have payback. The shield was broken and rotten, but the skull cleaver was comforting in his hand, he focussed and he felt the ground give way, and as this happened he moved up and forward, even now as the light dimmed, he felt the summer sun on his skin, and as he noticed looked to the south west, he saw a golden glow, that is where he had to go and he made one step after another.

It was not for many hours when he came up to a farm, he could feel life in there and he had no army, he stepped towards the farm, the door was there but he pushed the door into splinters and threw it into the house like it was nothing. He walked in and a woman looked around, this shield maiden screamed and he took notice, he pushed the skull cleaver into her chest, she never had a chance. A man came running in, he too was dispensed with, there was no other noise but the sound of horses and cattle. It was only one hour later when the warrior had two new soldiers, the man picked up a pickaxe, the woman picked up a hoe and they looked at the warrior, he never spoke but they followed as he made course into the fields towards the golden glow.

Well, I came up with the ‘draugar’ horror story a few nights ago and this was as good a time as any to add it, making it the foundation of movie number three in as many months. I was amazed just how much folklore there is on the Nordic Draugr, there was even more I never knew (who knew) and I have not used that part yet. A stage where we see the danger coming from the North, so with Covid from the east (and now from any direction), Draugr from the north. I wonder what we can throw against us from the west (perhaps a Trumped up demon) and optionally an Afreet from the south, not the worst day to do something about the population explosion, so far Covid-19 only killed a little less than 2.5 million, so we might as well write in a few more options. And let’s face it, when Wall Street does not have a few billion consumers to worry about, they might overhaul their greed driven numbers system.

Which is an essential thought when you consider that Microsoft bought Bethesda for $7,500,000,000, EA spend $2.5 billion on IP and that race will continue on an exceeding scale, so me throwing some free IP towards public domain on areas like movies, games and TV series is not the worst idea. So whilst two players have spend a combined $10 billion, I hand out IP to public domain and original decent game developers will get a shot at showing those two players that the power of original IP will trump bought IP, IP that is not original pretty much any day of the week.

I do have a hidden agenda, but it is not time for that yet and the idea of showing Microsoft the error of their way is a massively satisfying stage for any ego, even mine (which is not that big to begin with).

When players learn that solidified dreams cannot be set to currency, they might actually learn the one lesson they ignored for well over a decade, I will be there the laugh in the rafters, to that I have no doubt.

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February 8, 2021 · 05:57

Colour the stage

I was almost asleep when an article in the Guardian passed my eyes. The article was from Feb 3, but I read it only now. This happens, there is only so much my eyes can deal with and this is one of those moments I am catching up, it is 05:15, as such I am still ahead of the curve. 

The article called ‘Amazon, Google and why you can’t just invent a blockbusting games developer’ is an excellent piece by Keith Stuart. There might be a few quotes in there, but I will try to avoid it as the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/games/2021/feb/03/amazon-google-and-why-you-cant-just-invent-a-blockbusting-games-developer) is a gem from start to finish. You need to read it. 

You see, we are looking who wins the Cloud gaming rush, but even I forgot the setting that is forgotten. I touched on it in the past and I did point out that Amazon is doing much better than expected against Giant Google, yet that is not enough. The lesson that Microsoft refused to learn is upon all three of them. In my view these three are staged in a mindset of ‘Business staging art’, which is the wrong setting. It is now and has always been ‘Art pushing business’, it is the one side that they all forgot (Nintendo and Sony as an exception). Art is the power over business, not the other way around and Ubisoft is learning that the hard way. They forgot the station they were in when they got their business executives push the thought ‘A new Assassins Creed every year’ that is when they lost the plot and if Google and Amazon do not learn that lesson quick enough they will be out of the race too. At present there are thoughts that Amazon is now in the lead. I cannot tell as I do not have certain links and connections, but those who voiced it have a decent case, Amazon might win this, a race I actually never saw. I thought that the people at Google were googly and artsy enough to see that, yet I could be wrong there.

So as cloud gaming is taking a slow stage towards the gaming of tomorrow, the stage is larger and it needs to be painted. Not by some painters R Us franchise, but by kids and dreamers who dream of tomorrow, who dream of what might be and then we see if the artsy people can guide these younglings into a frame of gaming, not the business executives on what looks cool, but art people on feels cool and what plays truly cool, a stage ignored too often and also pushed into silence by the wrong people. Keith makes mention in his article on the business stage of AAA game development, yet the business needs will be the collected data and cloud services and the art of gaming falls away. Just as Microsoft was blinkered into the Azure stage, we see Google and Amazon making similar if not too identical moves. Parts were seen almost a year ago in Forbes when they gave us ‘The Console War Is Over Because Sony Left Microsoft Behind From The Start’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2020/02/28/theres-never-really-been-a-console-war-because-playstation-left-xbox-behind-from-the-start/), a stage most saw coming a mile away. Only because Microsoft still doesn’t get it, they never did. Not for almost 7 years, they lost the plot and they had to answer to board members who never understood it in the first place. That is the stage that Google and Amazon face at present and the one getting it last (or not at all) will be the loser in this. To be honest I expected Google to win this, I did not expect Amazon Luna to be on par with Google but they were and if they can solve the software issue, they will be ahead of both Google and Microsoft which is a race result I would never have bet on a year ago, but there you have it.

So when we look back at a quote in the Forbes “the console war is over and Microsoft has moved on, leaving Sony in the dust”, we see the problem. It is a business quote, it is a cloud quote and it is a presumptive quote on what gamers need. Yet the gamer wants a good game, it does not matter where it is and they prefer to play on THEIR system. By making the cloud the axial and not the game Microsoft lost and it will lose bigger because cloud gaming requires a good connection which takes out well over 30% of Europe and well over 35% of the US, so these executives are running in a race with both hands tied behind their back, they will claim that their legs do the running, but the arms are required to keep balance, and without balance they do not stand much of a chance. Even now, as we see congestion after congestions, they keep on saying it is about cloud, but the stage of the cloud is the internet and the connections and they are not on par, 5G is too far away, so those with the options will look at cloud and there the games matter, so Microsoft is out of the race and it is now between Google and Amazon and the Amazon horse has now optionally an advantage.

So even as Forbes is setting the (wrong) stage by consoles and how Microsoft only has one console on that list in the top 10, the Xbox360 in 8th position. We forget that time was an issue, and in a short time Xbox 360 became an actual contender, after that the wrong people at Microsoft started to talk and others were told to listen, it gave folly to the Xbox One and more folly to what came after. All whilst Nintendo completed the Switch and that ended Microsoft. Now Microsoft is a mere distant third and if Amazon gets its game right, optionally Microsoft becomes 4th at that point the people will abandon that system. The titan that was created in 7 years was utterly destroyed 8 years later, and as I see it there will be no coming back from that. This saddens me, not because of Microsoft, but with Microsoft where it was Sony had to up its game and that is the part that matters. It is not about the PS5, it will be about the PS6 in 2028 and without Microsoft the difference between PS5 and PS6 might not be to the degree it should be. I look at the future and gamers, true gamers will look at the games that are dreamt up right now, the dreamers will require hardware that does not exist yet pushing consoles and optionally cloud systems, but any gaming cloud system set to the premise of business people will not have that much of a chance. 

I might be wrong, but so far in gaming I have been right a lot more than wrong, so I feel confident in my view of the matter.

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