Tag Archives: Netflix

December 15, 2025 · 15:55

The lie without lying

That is the conundrum we face on a daily basis. And in the marketing realm I was pleasantly surprised yesterday. I saw an engagement advertisement apparently in the Boston Globe. It was an image of a man known in his role of Mickey17 (the first 16 were better) flogging himself to the girlfriend of Tom Holland, yes I am talking about Zendaya. With the engagement story to give a glimpse of a movie.

I actually didn’t have a clue or any interest in that movie, but now, I might actually got to the cinema to watch it (A cinema is a great room with loads of chairs facing a big screen), I thought I’d mention this to the Netflix population as they might not know what it is.

It hit me by surprise as marketing has gone globally bland, the only exception is that crazy marketeer named Ryan Reynolds (Blake Lively’s husband) his advertisements of Mint Mobile and American Gin are pretty out there, so to see a second marketeer stretching his (or her) legs into the creative pool of goofy alliances is pretty neat so say the least. And I reckon that Square Peg who is the distributor needs to give whomever got the idea of this marketing campaign a raise. 

And in this world a marketing population of one is not a real deal, so I am happy to see that there is a contender for the role of the craziest marketeer on the planet. You see in marketing we have Awareness and Perception are like concentric circles, we first come aware of something and then we get to Perception of the matter, which at times is a reflection of the subject on self. In this Focus, Process and Objectivity are matters of something liked and sometimes not linked matters that inflict the awareness and perception of the matter. It sounds overly academic and it needs to be. We come aware of a movie and when we become more aware we start to get the perception of that movie. How do I relate to that movie and most often it is a mere setting of entertainment. Will I like this? Is it what I want to spend my time on? The second question is the banger for Netflix. If that movie is not your cup of tea, you switch it off or you select another movie to watch. Especially In America where your time is seemingly more precious (and travel comes with its own set of challenges) Netflix is largely the only one that gives the least impact on your timeline. So Cinema’s are down (a lot) and as such marketeers need to be more and more alert to what could drive a person from aware to a deeper a focussed set of perception. That is what drives people optionally to the cinema. Still cinema’s need to address their settings too (really $8 for a popcorn?) And it is a hard setting, space is expensive now and over the last 20 years that setting switched for doable to no longer affordable. Cinema started in 1895 and from 125 years of a good setting we see in the last 20 years that this stage has largely become unaffordable. So a good campaign is more and more important to a dying stage of entertainment. In this, whomever set that stage to The Drama (April 2026) with Robert Pattinson and Zendaya set terrific campaign and applause for whomever did.

As I see it, they perpetrated a lie without actually lying, a rare feat to say the least.

Have a great day and for those in Canada, still enjoying Sunday have a great day too.

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December 11, 2025 · 01:11

The lighting of a stage

That is what I am wondering about. You see, first we hear that Netflix is acquiring Warner Brothers and a few connected things too. A day later we hear “US president Donald Trump says the Netflix deal ‘could be a problem’” Next thing we hear that the son in law (Jared Kushner) is spearheading this hostile takeover. Of course all the conspiracy boys are in town blowing this up to an amazing extent. I think that there might be a setting where the boundaries of ethical borders could possibly have been trespassed on, but as I don’t know the clear picture, I will refrain from voicing them. There is of course the setting we can ‘debate’ on.

As the Business Insider has a more oiled version of what has happened. The story (at https://www.businessinsider.com/paramount-wbd-saudi-arabia-qatar-abu-dhabi-elllison-hostile-billions-2025-12) which comes with the headline ‘Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi want to put billions into Paramount/WBD. Why?’ It is after all a fair question and I am a little thrown by the setting that this is Qatar AND Saudi Arabia AND the UAE are working together on this. I can figure out the why, but about that later. You see, Business Insider has an additional gem to throw our way. It is “Those three nations won’t have any say over a combined Paramount-WBD, the Ellisons say. So what will they get?” And we are given “The governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi want to invest billions of dollars into a would-be mega media conglomerate made up of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery.” And there is a part missing, the gaming IP’s that is floating around there. But the end of the article gives us “If Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi are looking to put anything close to $24 billion into an enormously powerful media conglomerate — one with huge reach in both the US and ambitions for the rest of the world — will they be satisfied with purely financial returns? Or do they expect something else for their money?” I get that part, you see I had been working on IP doing that very same thing. There are 1.9 billion Muslims in the world and there is only so much the current studios can cater for and with this they have a firm hand towards places like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia which together with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE sets the handle to over 50% of the entire Muslim population. And as there is clear evidence to see real growth in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE for tourism and as that growth continues more is needed and with Paramount and Warner Bros. They have just that. I was fishing another angle, but that too was driven towards these 1.9 billion customers. Too bad Amazon never accepted this issue and the Saudi government (Sydney Consulate) did not accept it either, as such I was out of luck and Google had dropped their Stadia. So I was out of luck in that too. Still I considered other avenues as well. I got one Script done and offered it to Dubai Media, but they weren’t accepting any scripts at present (or my script was really bad, which is equally an option) 

But I saw these stages all over the Middle East happening and in that setting there is a growing chance. America with its valve setting is not a real option. Every script can only when the 15 middleman get a share of all that and I will much rather give it away to Canada and never get a penny. But the script was meant for a Muslim audience, so not much use in Canada. The other three optionally, but they are still being written. A have written megabytes of script, but it hasn’t been ironed out yet. I am relatively new to Final Draft. 

So am I correct? I believe so, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (I have no idea about Qatar) will need professionals that are decently up to speed and buying Paramount and Warner Bros. will do that. So, when all these professionals are directed towards new grounds with Saudi/Emirati directors and cast they can get a lot more done fast and I reckon they already have a set amount of scripts and screenings ready to get started the moment 2026 knocks on the front door. 

And with the media up and running the Saudi and Emirati media for all their venues is pretty much a given. Not just that, but the African nations are predominantly Muslim, so they can also capture the hearts of them too. Now add Egypt and Turkey and this media engine gets real global potential. Yes, the entire venue makes sense to me, but for me it was clear as I initially investigated that setting for my own IP, so I looked at the equation and I saw clarity, the fact that the price got upped makes perfect sense to me and in that setting Netflix merely loses. The west better start realising that on this planet Muslims are 1:4, 25% and that is a clear destination for the media centers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, so whilst we are so involved with individuality, they merely approached every Muslim asking “Would you like this” and all muslims will very likely make an affirmative sound. We all look at the stage and wonder what was going on and others look at what lighting it needs and they cater to that hand, Now I need to wonder if my script is really bad or do I talk to another media channel. Well, that is my worry and it is for today as it is 01:00 now. Have a great day.

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December 7, 2025 · 10:28

The idea and a half

That is the setting, it started yesterday. To relax me I decided to listen to some Hogwarts ambiance music and I stumbled upon the 4 common rooms under Christmas and as I was relaxing, I suddenly noticed a few things. The shadows, some other details and my mind went racing and as such I created a ‘new’ IP, or better I reengineered one. Ih this story I was arriving at Hogwarts as a replacement student, I was replacing Abraham Ronen for a year as he was attending family business. It was quite the rush seeing Hogwarts after so long and I was giddy as a first year student. As I was attending late, I tried the old ways from my youth and would you believe it, that method still worked. I set the frog in a tree and cast the spell making it a one time only and only for me setting and I arrived in a dusty old room, where the brother of my frog was left untouched for years. There was another frog there and it would place me at the bottom of the curved stairs. I quickly charmed the room and cleaned it up. I saw the dust all over from the years of neglect and I summoned a house elf, which weirdly enough wasn’t answering, so I called my personal house elf and asked him to clean up this room. He nodded in acceptance and a minute later he was busy cleaning and scrubbing the room. I thought for a moment and summoned a second house elf from my house in Irondale, the house elf apparated and soon they were both cleaning the room. I asked the second elf to focus on the cozy chair and the walls. I then walked into the frog and appeared at the bottom of the curved stairs. I was hit with two settings, the first one was that it looked still like I remembered it nearly 15 years ago. The second thought that it was massively empty, there wasn’t a sound other then some hoofs in the distance. I walked to towards the great hall and as I got closer, there was still no sound. Over a hundred students tend to make noise, so it felt wrong, also the rooms were absent of candles and lights making it an eerie setting. I walked through the large doors to see…. Nothing. This was odd, I looked at my watch, I then looked at the room and there wasn’t a sound. I called for a house elf. It didn’t appear. I was slightly confused, no professors, no students and there was the sound of hoofs outside. Not even the ghosts were here. I took my wand a voiced the disillusionment spell. I vanished into a shimmer I then whispered the lighting spell for the lights and it obeyed, but there was nothing. I then saw a portrait looking at me and I made myself visible again. I introduced myself to the portrait of Minerva McGonagall. “Good evening, I am the replacement charms professor. My name is Severus Seafarer, I am standing in for Abraham Ronen. What is going on here?” The response was not what I thought “There was a panic and all the professors and student disappeared. I do not know where, but there was something dangerous in the air and now you have been exposed too” I understood the setting and she continued “There are the ghosts in the castle who have been given tasks to keep Hogwarts safe, sook them out. Also the animals around Hogwarts have been exposed and they are now rabid and dangerous. The most dangerous creatures are I think the Centaurs, but they are not alone and they stick together” I thought for a second and I took my leave of her. I rushed to the potions lab and got all the ingredients I could find and made several potions for health, like Wiggenweld as well as some anti toxin potions. I went through the professors cupboard and took what I thought was useful as well as some sleeping draughts, I thought that might be the way to go. I then took a different route, I was originally a Hufflepuff student and as my entry word was a professors code, it would let me in. If the ghosts were the answer, the house ghost of Hufflepuff would be a first. I entered the Hufflepuff common room and ignited the fire as well as the lights. In less then a minute the Hufflepuff was as warm and cozy as I remembered it to be. I called the Fat Friar, as he was my first port of call. He appeared but he was shaken, I don’t remember him ever to be nervous. I bowed and he recognised me. “Severus?” he said. I bowed and said “Yes, I am here as a professor now, what is going on? Minerva explained some of it, but not all. What is going on?” The fat friar explained that it was something to do with the muggle world. We were hit in more profound ways, especially the magical creatures. The students and the professors weren’t hit, but they took no chances as the magical creatures were more and more rabid” The professors decided on the painting portals. Each house has an emergency painting and they went there with house elf. We patrolled the corridors but the Centaurs got too aggressive, so we went into hiding. And that is how it has been for roughly a week.

This is the setting my mind conceived. The setting behind this is Covid-19 and the effect it had on magical creatures, because Covid was made by the asians to counter an invasion of Jiangshi and Oni oil their land, but it had an effect on muggles as well and that is the setting the professor Severus Seafarer faces. The game has 4 distinct environments til settings. Ravenclaw is struck with aerial traps and has invading birds. It is also a stage where you are confronted with Helena Ravenclaw (the Grey lady) and there you get to seek the herbal cures for most of the species. In addition that house will cure the air of Hogwarts, as such no one will get sick after that in Hogwarts and the air will start curing those effected including you. This will be seen that the two house elf will suddenly feel a lot better and will be a controlling force for setting up the Hogwarts defenses against the centaurs where you will have a lethal and a non-lethal setting, the non-lethal setting takes a lot longer, but the reward is a lot stronger. Slytherin is under water, the windows are broken and you need to get to repair the house and drain the water (in stages) as the window defenses are restored. The bloody baron has more on the water defenses and the old spell to set up the widow barriers are the first stage in restoring parts of Hogwarts and the Greenhouses (they are in the lower parts of Hogwarts and also under water) then we get to Gryffindor and nearly headless nick who has the final part of the painting spell and as all the parts are now above water, you can now access the paintings, they are linked and you get the other parts of the lore of the disease setting. Gryffindor has the stage where access to the headmaster tower becomes available and there we learn the last parts of the lore. 

So as we get to clear the common rooms, we also get the settings to clear the disease from Hogwarts. There is more, but for now that is ll there is. As I see it, this IP is readily available for Avalanche Software (as they own the IP of Hogwarts legacy) and as it stands as Hogwarts was completely designed in the first game (by them), it could become a larger DLC for the time being as HL2 is still in design. I have no idea how it fares with Warner Brothers and Netflix, but giving this idea to Avalanche Software might be the better option. So John Blackburn, you have an idea and feel free to use it and keep the scores (read: millions) of Harry Potter fans happy. It (the IP) is yours now.

Have a great day and consider the I wrote this on a Sunday morning, so you owe me a coffee (Jumbo cappuccino with two sugar and full cream milk) as I see it 😛

Have a great day you all, it was great thinking up another game, because that shows how some ore waiting all their settings on a non existing Ai whilst I (coffee deprived) think of new IP with my feeble little brain.

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September 30, 2025 · 12:09

Former Tinseltown

Well, they just picketed for a better situation, then there is a fire and now President Trump walks in and makes a ‘proclamation’.

Now, we all have those rolling eyes moment, but I reckon this is the first time it will cost Los Angeles (read: Hollywood) will they have to pay an additional few billions and they weren’t going great to begin with (to no fault of their own).

You see, if we take a ‘few’ examples. We see:

Jurassic World: Rebirth$867,114,68260.8%
F1: The Movie$626,214,58669.7%
Smurfs$89,700,00074.3%
Inside Out 2$1,698,863,81661.6%
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire$572,050,01665.7%

Now these aren’t the big hitters, but the impact is easily seen. The total global revenue is seen and how much INTERNATIONALLY was brought it, so as such I reckon it is easy to hit those numbers with a tariff as well, the president said it was 100%? OK, that is what we will do, hit a tariff over (30%) it and I reckon that Hollywood will be screaming like a little bitch (or like a scream queen) for all that lost revenue. 

When will this president learn that gracing everything with a tariff does not get him anything, only handing the option for European Markets and Asian Markets to do exactly the same? 

And it is not the the world has alternatives, WE can get our movies from Canada, UK, Europe, and in streaming there is more then Disney Plus and Netflix. We can get movies from Shahid, ADTV (Abu Dhabi TV), Viki and others too and several offer free options. As such this was a really bad move as the people all over the planet need cheaper options and you just gave a dozen channels to branch out to Europe and the Commonwealth. So as interest in the ‘Americanized’ channels recede their advertisement money will decrease as well. So how was this a clever move?

And as I see it, Canada is happy to branch out, but so are the movie makers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, that is the one move they hoped would come and soon there will be an influx of Arabic content in Europe and the Commonwealth. 

So in short, there will be a decrease in revenue to America due to tariffs, Advertisement money will go down and interest in American materials will also decrease. And as I see it, the others will also claim “Thank you for your attention to this matter” mister President.

A lovely day it is, I reckon I might get a few minutes of Schitt’s Creek, Dubai Bling or Qalb Al Adala into my daily watch scheme. Oh and these 5 examples might cost Hollywood a simple 735,798,409.28 (if we charge Hollywood 30% over our ‘brought’ income, so what do you think the other 360 annual movies will give to us? This tariff joke works both ways.

I reckon this might be the sillies move the American administration has brought to its own shores. Hollywood was already fighting an uphill battle, but this might be the traffic threshold set just before the top of the hill that will stop whatever they had going for them.

I reckon there will be a few rounds of Champagne for everyone in the Vancouver Film Studios tonight.

Have a great day and for the desperate American Actors/Actresses, please take note at (https://adtv.ae/en/about-us)., they might be looking for you, there is now too much competition in Hollywood. Oh and all this wasn’t a great intelligent academic work. Anyone with an abacus could have numbered this whilst having a coffee. 

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September 28, 2025 · 17:58

A few days ago 

A few days ago we had the impact of the ban of Jimmy Kimmel and that impact it had. Disney need to raise all awareness flags because like the little weasels they seemingly are, the subscriptions were cut. According to some sources almost $4 billion in subscriptions were lost. Some will howl with laughter, but the impact is a little bigger. You see, soon after that (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/disney-subscription-increase-1.7641020) we are given by CBC that ‘Disney+ is raising subscription prices for the 4th year in a row’, one could say this is exactly why I prefer physical media, but Disney wants people to ‘embrace’ Disney plus forever. That Will never do for me. So as the CBC is giving us “Starting Oct. 21, the ad-supported Disney+ plan will increase by $2 US to $11.99 US per month, while the ad-free premium tier will rise $3 US to $18.99 US a month. Annual premium subscriptions will jump $30 US to $189.99 US. Bundled packages combining Disney+ with Hulu and ESPN+ will also see price hikes, according to the company’s website.” This makes them more expensive than Netflix. We see all the iterations and the settings that others bring, but the short and sweet stuff is that there is a case to be made for owning physical media. You see, what these streamers seem to forget is that the subscription will have two sides. The subscription and the price of internet streaming. Some providers have ‘a tentacle’ setting that those bytes are disregarded from your internet subscription. Yet as I see it, when the going gets tough, those ‘arrangements’ will fall flat and the prices really will add to the equation. And as we are given “The price increase also appears to apply to Canadians. An email sent to a Disney+ subscriber and reviewed by CBC News shows that the cost of a premium subscription will jump from $119.99 to $159.99 on Oct. 28, though it’s unclear if there are other Canadian price increases” we see this setting (optional) in “it’s unclear if there are other Canadian price increases” but we need to reconsider some streaming solutions and weirdly enough. I raised that very topic in ‘Choice, can you choose?’ which I brought to you on January 9th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/01/09/choice-can-you-choose/) and there we see the setting evolve and I was only 4 years ahead of the rest. I also (not there) raise the setting that someone brings is a collective of these channels, because there is the setting that people are willing to pay $20 a month for both Disney+ and Netflix, optionally a little more for others to be included. So when you have Netflix $18 + Disney Plus $19. Would it be an idea to get BOTH for $25? (I personally would prefer $20), but that is where the setting is set. At present the setting does not allow BOTH to be included and in this time where (especially the Americans) will have to live on the Roman setting of Bread and Games which was opted be the Roman Poet Decimus Junius Juvenalis and as I see the setting where “Roman government used free food and public entertainment to pacify the populace and prevent revolts, a practice now used to describe any form of mass distraction that diverts attention from societal grievances” is pretty much what the American government needs at present (my speculated view). And as we see the settings of Army deployments in America, ICE dressing up like bank robbers and a whole range of other settings gives rise to my point of view. 

So will Disney evolve? Will we see the Blu-ray version of the Mandalorian? Or will we see the settings of accumulated streaming? Tune in next week when you will hear nurse Piggy say “Oh doctor, he is not 5G compatible” we look back and see how relaxing and entertaining the Muppet Show really was and we still remember that after 50 years these 5 seasons are still on the minds and in the hearts of millions of people. Well done Jim Hanson and Frank Oz.

Timeless humor is truly timeless. Have a great day and don’t get your coffee from the Swedish chef. I ordered it with the music of the Beatles and got a handful of those critters in his cup of Covfefe.

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June 24, 2025 · 19:51

Stupid people

Yup, that is what we are surrounded with. So lets get to it showing WHY I think that the bulk of these people are stupid. Because there needs to be a reason, doesn’t there?

So before I start with the article, let us get a little refreshment. I have taken a stand as early as 2014, and this article I wrote on October 13th 2017 called ‘Strike a match’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/10/13/strike-a-match/) gives us: 

“So, when was the last time that a corporate CEO got time with a national ruler to discuss national taxation? Because that is exactly what Tim Cook CEO of Apple seems to have been doing in France. With one source giving us “So, when Tim Cook meets with French President Macron, the matter of taxes could make for an icy situation between the two men. Macron has said he wants to promote France as a place for tech companies to set up shop, but he has also been critical about the role internet companies, in particular, play in society. Macron has been pretty vocal lately about how France and other E.U. countries should close up the loopholes that Apple and other tech companies have been able to use to move their earnings around to more tax-friendly countries, such as Ireland and Luxembourg“, is it a first indication that the French economy is in a much worse shape than expected? The fact that Tim Cook is visiting Élysée Palace not because President Emmanuel Macron is buying his wife the new iMac Pro (an assumption from my side). I am not thinking the worst of the French president, but the issue is questionable, especially as Apple is about to open a massive site in the Battersea Power Station, so as Apple (as I personally see it) is trying to spend the money twice, once by spending it in London and the second time by getting tax deduction for the amount just spend in London so he can get a second building for free in Paris.”

This doesn’t make you stupid, but the larger setting that we see in the newspapers and in this case ABC News who (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-23/jeffrey-bezos-lavish-wedding-in-venice-why-people-are-protesting/105445512) gives us ‘Jeff Bezos is getting married in Venice. Here’s why people are protesting the wedding’ where we see that “One group has plastered banners on the Italian city’s famous Rialto bridge reading “No space for Bezos!”” I think it is utterly BS that anyone would disrupts another man’s wedding (the wife’s anyway), We might take the setting of that is in their hearts, which is “Activists are protesting billionaire Jeff Bezos’s wedding in Venice with calls for a global billionaire tax.” That is what makes them utterly stupid and the amount of stupid people are not to be underestimated. You see the media is fueling that and they go about it like “You need to have your say” even though it will never matter as that is what they are about. Appeasing the shareholders and stakeholders who are AGAINST fair taxation and taxing these billionaires is just not fair. You see, governments (America, EU and Commonwealth) are all about the ‘best’ deal and taxing that is against the need of these long time politicians. So they give you a ‘tax the rich’ stage which would never work and I have been saying this for the better part of a decade and now it is too late the shouting increases and that is where things go from bad to worse. Because the media is not properly enforcing you, keeping these shouters stupid. Because the media relies on these corporations for advertising and when they pay taxation, there is not enough money for advertising. 

People like Jef Bezos, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Ellison are billionaires as they implement tax laws to the letter. And that setting is where it is at. Governments have need to overhaul taxation for decades, basically sing President Clinton was in office and he left office in 2001. Even then the overhaul was essential. As such for over 15 years to stakeholders have benefited from the setting and as such the corporations too. Did no one ever considered that the dice were stacked against you when Microsoft and Apple became (multi) trillion dollar companies? 

We need the media to push for tax overhaul and they won’t because a shouting and cursing mass of people bring in more digital dollars and the flames is what they live off and as such you will never be correctly informed. And it is not merely America, it is a near global setting that hits the Commonwealth, The nations in the EU and Europe as well. And the lager fear is that if one does it, their business walks to another country and that is the setting that Ireland has used to it advantage. Unless there is proper taxation nothing will change and all of us will end up with nothing. As an example I give to you Netflix, who paid just $868,000 in tax in Australia in 2021, so as their profit went up by 49% from the previous year, their tax bill went up from from $554,000 to $868,000. Even though they have millions of subscriptions in Australia. We merely get “Australian Netflix users are billed by the company’s Netherlands-based entity. A Netflix spokesperson said: “We have filed our financial statements as required.””

The issue is the tax bill that governments allow for. Consider that Australian subscriber are ‘collected’ by a Dutch company on the other side of the freaking planet. So take a sip of air considering that the governments set out this tax avoidance setting (avoidance is not illegal, evasion is) and that is a setting that is done all over the planet. As such the BS of tax the rich needs to stop. These shouters need to put the limelight on the lawmakers. They needed to do this for well over a decade. 

As such pushing someone’s wedding in the nasty hatred lights is totally unacceptable. If Mr. Bezos can afford to give his new bride the dreamiest of all weddings and the mayor of Venice approves this, then why not? I would never consider this, but I never had access to 220 billion and even if I had this is not how I would spend it, but that is me. Born a miser and never rose above the wealth of a church mouse. I am in the same sloop that some others are and I know better then to shout at a meaningless futile cause. And the weird part is that when it all goes south, these people will still be shouting at the wealthy, all whilst the politicians have filled their pockets and have considered moving to a tax zero nation, living it up until the bulk of the people are dead 15 years later. For them it will be a problem solved setting.

So, consider who you need to look at. Not the wealthy, but the lawmakers who appeased the corporations and the people who got rich from them.

Time for me to consider a new weapon system. With Israel and Iran striking blows, there will be a small time gap when people will consider my stealth system to keep Iranian harbours empty and I think I can create more IP to give their armies a hard time too. I need to put my thinking cap on.

Have a great day.

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June 5, 2025 · 17:07

The snag we don’t see

That happens, we don’t always see the settings that open up to us. It is one of the stages of what some call the ‘Aha!’ erlebnis. It is actual intelligence and that is why artificial intelligence will fall short for a long time. Yesterday I had some time to relax and I used it to watch the final two episodes of the October Faction (Netflix). Apart from being totally awesome, I also found the dastardly news that it is a one season only setting. Too bad as it was really awesome. Yet, I digress. During one of these episodes I suddenly had a little brain strain and a few things came into full view. It brought me back to a story I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/01/15/it-was-this-simple/) called ‘It was this simple’ where I had the idea for a new game that was also (in part) educational. Yet last night I had an idea that I was going about it the wrong way. You see, the start isn’t one of the three gods (Hades, Poseidon or Zeus), it is a destination. The idea is to invert that stage and start with pone of the ‘smaller’ gods like Hecate. You see, as I see it Hecate gets its setting from the mortals and animals. So do the other ‘smaller’ gods. As do Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Hestia, Dionysus. And as we unlock their abilities, we will then get access to one of the three. Or I might am considering that Zeus is only unlocked when all others are unlocked. 

As I see it some gods connect to merely one of the three, some to two gods and some to all three. As I see it this game would need to be replayed three times to unlock it all, but in this game the second game already gives you the areas you unlocked in the first game and the second is not the same, merely a continuation of the first (makes for a challenging lore). And beyond that as I see it, the game will incorporate several gaming styles giving you a larger game and a more fulfilling gaming time. But I wanted more than a hack, slash and pretty picture.

You see, it is merely a setting to a game, but there we also see that we unlock educational parts. What is more enticing than gaining knowledge of classical works whilst gaming? Not the ‘essence’ of a classical work but the full text of people like Hesiod, Homer, Sappho, Alcaeus, Pindar and many many more. I still think that the Amazon Luna, with a link to the Kindle, or even now the Tencent console with a link to the the MatePad Pro or MatePad Air might be an alternative. A setting to see a more inclusive form of gaming and as such un-enabling those with the ‘turbo’ style of gaming trying to getting people in line to more advertising. Short term enabling and set gaming back on the track of a more enabling setting of gaming like Bethesda enabled for almost 2 decades. 

We are all do taken back by the turbo setting of games (especially the young) whilst the more complete setting of gaming is largely ignored and as I see it, there is more to gaming. You see we cannot (in good mind) waste the entire day gaming. I get that, but we can rotate that interest to give people a larger backstory. You see, according to classicist William Hansen: “the Greeks and Romans had all the genres of oral narrative known to us, even ghost stories and urban legends, but they also told all kinds that in most of the Western world no longer circulate orally, such as myths and fairytales.” I want to resettle that lost art. Some gamers have tried to do so in the lore they give us, but they fell short as they didn’t consider the larger stage. It was not their fault, until recently and the promise of the IoT (Internet of things) and the larger stage of Bluetooth we never considered where we could go and that is merely another setting the Microsoft failed to see (they are racking up a setting of missed opportunity) and Google cannot be given this failure as they basically dropped the Google Stadia, which was their right to do so and as I see it, Amazon and Tencent now have a larger stage to become the new heralded kings in gaming. It is not a smooth or even an easy ride, but as I see it they both missed out on gaining at least 50 million gamers. 

So could I be wrong?
Yes, of course that is possible, but what the ‘advertisement’ courtesans fail to see is that the people have had enough of advertisements and that is something they are in denial of as the money is too good. But as I see it, the one who does see it will get a larger setting of gaining the field advantage to this and that is basically Nintendo and Sony. It is the third place that becomes interesting when we see in January ‘Microsoft’s AI revenues up 175%, while Xbox’s results remain disappointing’ (before the builder.ai exposure) and ‘Microsoft’s Xbox Handheld Plans Reportedly Shelved; Company to Optimise Windows 11 Gaming Performance’ (last week) and I reckon that the spin will continue as Microsoft is scrambling to bury bad news as Nintendo is making larger strides into gaming. As such there is space for either Amazon or Tencent to gain the number three spot. This is not a given but massively likely, especially as other news sees my other solution grace the limelight in sight of some Hajj numbers I see roll be and an optional solution that roughly 900,000,000 million users are up for grabs (yet another space Microsoft missed). So as some will see “Asus’ Xbox branded handheld, codenamed Project Kennan, is reportedly on track to launch later this year”, I merely wonder when that changes from later this year to next year and after that it being silently cancelled (my personal speculation). You see Asus also sees the market and the knee-jerk actions from an tariff driven administration won’t last long, especially when Huawei is showing its MateBook Fold and that is making the filtered news. I personally don’t know how good it is, but the larger setting is that the world is watching and now that it is less than 1.2Kg and uses Harmony OS. The first and it is a banger. So when that system as well as Tencent takes the world by storm (which it is very likely to do) we see yet another loss for Microsoft and not merely that, Apple, Sony, Google, Samsung and even Nintendo will see its impact (Sony and Nintendo less so). This was the setting I expected to come about 6 years ago and it is here a little faster then expected. 

This is all important because the advertisers will start losing out and that will stop gamers in their track as their games are less fulfilling. You see ad break gaming is nice in a turbo setting, but when the gamer considers where they ended up being they will want (read: demand) a more compelling form of gaming. This is good for people like Bethesda, Ubisoft, Guerrilla Games (and several others), but (for example in the UK) the 1,801 independent and publisher-owned studios. These studios employ around 75,000 people. The number of studios has grown significantly, with 251 new studios founded between December 2021 and April 2023 it is not good news, because what we don’t see is that these developers are relying on advertisement to make some of their money and when that falls away, these developers will fish behind the net of revenue.

And as I see it, Ubisoft has options in these glasses devices and they could also launch on Sony and Nintendo, but others will have to streamline whatever they thought was an option and others will merely collapse. As I see it, we haven’t see the power of Harmony OS yet but it will come and as America shuns away from that (for the most obvious stupid reasons) Europe and others are very willing to give their economy a boost from what HarmonyOS brings and now that the hardware is out some people will finally get the thought “How can this benefit us?” And that will be the start of a lot more and as I see it, Amazon has the inside track to grow more business (outside of the US) and there lies the setting for them. As some might ‘speculate’ that Amazon would not be profitable without its cloud business. We also see that the shape of the cloud is about to change and that is where the larger money is, because cloud gaming is only gaming in name. It can be a lot more and as I see it, the solutions I gave will become massively and not merely this game (I put it online for a reason) it could start a much larger wave and that is where I see my surf time (perhaps literally so). I reckon that the ‘older’ quote “HarmonyOS, Huawei’s operating system, is designed to work with a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, and PCs. While it’s not directly tied to Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the same way as Android or iOS, you can still use it to access AWS services and resources.” I reckon that Amazon sees that this lack is about to end, because they have a clear goal to increase their visibility and whilst others are taken back, Amazon is seemingly embracing the options it opens up to. As I see it, people will prefer that setting then feeling blue (read: Azure). Yet another field where Microsoft is falling short of soon enough. Their failures do seemingly seem to stack up, don’t they?

We can see the snags we think we fail to see, we can ignore them or we can find away to make it work for us. So have a great day and consider where you could be in 2026 or 2027, because thinking you get there in 2025 is nice, but largely set to economic turmoils of the days we expect them to be according to some media. Consider where some people will END the stage of their products and see where HarmonyOS is merely beginning at present. It makes for an interesting read. Consider that WPS Office (by Kingsoft) its here for HarmonyOS and also on Amazon Fire tablets. Merely two places and as I see it, as this is free software there is a larger stage where Microsoft will end up surrendering market share. So as I said, have a great day. 

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May 22, 2025 · 15:02

The line of a story

That is at times the premise we attend to. This is not bad, not wrong. It merely is, as such we get to The Union. I only saw it last night, no biggie. I just had other things on my mind and after 35 minutes I had worked out part of the plot. Don’t get me wrong this is not a bad thing, or me dissing a movie, which I almost never ever do. The cast Mark Wahlberg, Halle Berry, JK Simmons, Mike Colter and Jackie Earle Haley all play marvelous, a setting worthy of watching (and rewatching). The movie has its set of special effects, but they do not overwhelm, or seemingly steal the show. Yet the final member of this crew should also be mentioned. It is David Guggenheim who wrote the script and it is was turned into a great movie. 

As I see it, it is the most fun I have had watching a movie this year. There is a reason this is a great movie and as such we need to watch these kind of movies a lot more as I see it and Netflix, always ready to cater to the needs of their audience, is building a production site in New Jersey. So, as we were given a week ago that ‘Breaking Ground on Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth, Our State-of-the-Art Production Facility in New Jersey’ we can expect a lot more in 2027 and 2028. As I see it, the loss of the coming franchise of True Lies (with Arnold Schwarzenegger), will surely be missed. Yet at this point the Union might be a worthy replacement and team Berry-Wahlberg is likely to be a sure attention grabber for Netflix customers and wannabe Netflix customers. 

The weird thing is that this might be the first setting where Streaming would have had the upper hand over big screen releases, even though this was a worthy big screen release. Yet another mention of Mike Colter. He plays an absolute prick in this movie and soon there is likely another path for him in the movies. He might be remembered for the stern Luke Cage, and not everyone was a fan, but this role here, he nailed it with a hammer to the top of the Chrysler building. You will love to hate him and with that fashion sense he showed, he absolutely should be 😛

There are too many little details in the movie to give you a rundown (and I don’t want to spoil the fun), yet as I see it, even though Rotten Tomatoes gave it a mere 38%, I get the idea that some people miss the point. It is called Action/Thriller, I think there is too much comedy in it, to merely see it as such and the few times we see the Australian Jessica De Gouw run around seemingly British (her accent is nearly impeccable) the truth of the matter is that they all played their roles really well and there is enough tongue in cheek settings to merely sit down and enjoy the fun on your screen with a nice snack on the side. As I see it Netflix owns a very new and nice IP that is good for at least a few more movies. 

So feel free to check it out and make sure the snacks are at your hand to eat whilst you enjoy this work of art. Have a great time watching this movie (if possible).

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November 2, 2024 · 07:04

Strangled by greed

I saw an article in the BBC last week, I took notice as it collided with something else I saw, but I could no longer find it. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6er83ene6o) gives us ‘Hollywood’s big boom has gone bust’ It is here where we see “The actor and aerial cinematographer turned his hobby of flying drones into a profitable business in 2012 just as the streaming wars were taking off. For a decade, he was flying high above film sets, creating sleek aerial shots for movies and TV shows on Netflix, Amazon and Disney. Now he’s on the verge of becoming homeless – again. He was evicted from the Huntington Beach home he shared with his wife and two young children and now is being booted from the Las Vegas apartment they moved to because they could no longer afford to live in Southern California.” As I see it, it is a much simpler equation, even as we are given “the good times ground to a halt in May 2023, when Hollywood’s writers went on strike. The strikes lasted multiple months and marked the first time since the 1960s that both writers and actors joined forces – effectively shutting down Hollywood production.” You see, some people are blaming the strike, but the strike wasn’t the reason it is a interaction drive between cinematic analysts and greed driven studio bosses. Even as we see “with layoffs at many studios – most recently at Paramount. It had a second round of layoffs this week, as the storied movie company moves to cut 15% of its workforce ahead of a merger with the production company Skydance.” And none of it is the actual reason. Hollywood has decided to rely on mediocrity and the attached collection of yes nodders towards some numbers of utterly unreliability (as I personally see it). Lets take a step back to 1966, a new youngling in Hollywood came with an idea a science fiction tainted wild western called Star Trek. Lucille Ball from Desilu Productions was one of the driving forces on pushing the success of Star Trek. In the mean time the series is the longest and most successful series in history pushing 11 spin offs and 13 movies. At the end, the cancellation of Star Trek was proclaimed In 2011 “the ranked number four on the TV Guide Network special, 25 Biggest TV Blunders” and still Hollywood will not learn. Now we see other issues in 2005 a series named Threshold was created, it lasted for one season.

The TV series was really good (my personal view) and the actors including Carla Gugino, the youthful young sprout who played the ex of Dwayne Johnson in San Andreas, Brent Spiner who played the mad scientist in Independence Day, Charles S. Dutton known for many roles, Rudy being one of them, Peter Dinklage who shined in Death at a Funeral and the game of thrones. The TV series was drenched in achieved talent, however as the TV series didn’t get the desired ratings, the series were dropped. Star Trek wasn’t enough of a lesson for Hollywood. And this wasn’t the only lesson. Defying Gravity (2009), Firefly (2002), Doll House (2009) all series dropped for the mere reason that it wasn’t bringing in the cash from day zero. As I see it Hollywood hasn’t gone bust. The audience has stopped putting their faith in Hollywood productions. An entity that doesn’t seem to comprehend Science Fiction and Fantasy is the maker of imaginary worlds? 

We see a whole range of attached reasons, but the number one reason isn’t shown. The fact that advertisements aren’t of interest to people and that is the one thing that drives players like Netflix. TV stations are fed that advertisement is the drive of all entertainment business and to some extent this is partially true. The fact that the people after 50 years still look forward to some form of Star Trek is because it is a more surreal form of escapism and that image isn’t clear to Hollywood. I see it as a reason why Canada and Australia are growing players in this field. In Hollywood every dollar needs to be spend at least twice to become valid and all that time writers are massively underpaid. I see it as the number one reason why we will soon see an overshadowing of Hollywood by Dubai Media and the MBC group. And that is before Hollywood figures out that the people demand continuation of the story. The number one issue around Threshold, Defying Gravity, Firefly and Doll House. The are regarded as not ‘profitable’ but they are represented by millions of watchers who wonder what comes next and too many of these disappointments of cancelations are getting to them and now they look at places where there is continuation. 

My initial view is that someone needs to take a hard look at how ratings are measured, because I think that is the core of the issue. I refuse to believe that some cancelations are valid. Consider the series Lucifer, it was booted at season 3, taken over by Netflix who did 3 seasons more. Now we see “In 2021, Lucifer was the most-streamed original series in the U.S., with 18.34 billion minutes viewed”, so how is that not a success and it makes us wonder what drove the cancelation by Fox? The stream data contradicts the Fox statement that is was a “ratings-based decision”. I think that this is happening too much and as such I have doubts that there is a issue with how ratings are ‘found’ and those in that area together with some analysts are setting the stage for whatever they think that matters, but that is merely my view on the matter.

I see it that greed driven decisions by some are strangling others from fulfilling their view. Avatar (2009) made $2,923,706,026 and I get that, but is it better than Oppenheimer (2023) $975,594,978? As I see it Wall Street wannabe’s are tainting the field of artistic achievements and I get that revenue is part of the equation, but Hollywood was the place of dreams, it has now become a nightmare for many players. Why is that? 

Enjoy the weekend.

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October 23, 2024 · 23:11

Out of the blue

That is what happened. I had a stream of ideas out of the blue. I do not know what fuelled this. Was it reading about the failures of Ubisoft? Was it another setting? My mind went racing and I went back to 1995 and Tia Carrere. In that year she was part of The Daedalus Encounter. It was a fun game and I had fun laying it. But then a thought came to me. That game in 2024 could open other doors. Doors opened through machine learning and deeper machine learning (AI does not yet exist). The track my mind went through was interesting. You see, the movie world made rules for (what they call) AI. But this setting might not completely apply to games. 

Now consider the first stage of creating these kind of games using the technology complemented with Unreal Engine 5. We can make new versions of Rama, Infocom games, but now not as text games. More like Zork nemesis, with actors and actresses. Infocom created more than 20 games and they could now entice a much larger following. As the games develop new technology would also develop in creating games. The larger fun of this is that many more developers will get a handle on this form of game development. 

That brought me to the next level. In 1984 The Dallas Quest was developed. As such Datasoft created “one of the best games out on the CBM 64” and it held sway over pretty much the entire gaming community, even those who didn’t follow Dallas (example: me). We now have the technology for streaming systems to hold the sway of all who love this level of games. That wasn’t the only setting. You see players like Netflix could optionally create a new level of games using these technologies. The setting of of these new options could set in motion a new form of gaming. Consider what was. And now take another direction. Creation of these kind of games using TV series. Grimm, Babylon 5, Charmed, Buffy, Doll House and several other series that have been discontinued. Now consider the implementation of ChatGPT, and with a library for every character of that series. Now we get a new technology. A game where the player can be any character in that series and the interactions will shape the ‘episode’ of that game. That trend could be pushed forward. Now consider another venue of these games. Egyptian Musalsalat: A Social Construction of Reality has strength all over the Arabic world. Now take these elements and build the new template. An interactive game where the player decides on the route of the episode. In The Dallas Quest we needed to make choice, like finding the football tickets in the lobby, if not you get stuck in the game. Now machine learning will be able to avoid getting stuck. And the game can evolve even further. Consider the setting that Grimm has, millions of fans still love this series. Now they can continue their TV fling in this new direction. Consider the streaming solution and consider that I gave the option of 200 million consoles with the directions before I came up with this. Now it could become a whole new dimension of gaming. 

Oh, and whilst you contemplate how Ubisoft blew game after game and delay after delay I came up with this new idea (within two hours). Don’t get me wrong, this will be a complex undertaking and the idea to use the Infocom and the Dallas Quest first enables this technology to grow and to adapt to some sandbox approach. I believe this could entice millions more to the gaming population and it has options over time. There is even the idea that former adventures could be evolved into new versions on a new template in a new shape with new possibilities. What a difference a few hours make.

Have a great day.

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