Tag Archives: Netflix

December 4, 2021 · 11:07

Merely a dream

I had a decently weird dream last night. It might be a movie, but I think it is not good enough for that. It might be a popcorn movie, merely for streaming and DVD sales and that would be fine too. The setting is that the dream started a few other things and I wonder where we are in less then a year.

It started in Toronto, I was there for whatever reason. There was a lot of chaos, a lot of shooting and a lot of damage. It was primarily in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. It is around February 2022, the US has defaulted on its loans. The people lost almost everything they ever owned and the stage is that ultra right angry people are whipping up the others who are coming to terms that their politicians are as useless as everyone expected them to be. Canada suddenly has to deal with 30-50 thousand invaders all angry and all taking whatever they can, they have nothing left. I saw police officers in Yorkville getting shot, store windows were getting crashed and houses are overrun. The American had turned into rabid dogs. The army was trying to create bottlenecks but an army spread over Canada having to deal with three clearly way to large fire points and a lot more in the rural areas is not an army that can get a whole lot done. And nearly all Americans were wielding firearms. It is then that I see the army starting to shoot to kill and I wake up.

Now, that was merely a dream, but the larger station remains. Everyone is in this ‘lets hope’ phase, but America has been utterly broke for well over three years. And every time the debt ceiling is raised. A political system that cannot take responsibility, that uses the blame game and points at the previous party if it is a different political party. They both failed and they both refused to overhaul tax laws for well over over 25 years. In the 90’s the idea of a trillion dollar firm was ludicrous. Now they have 2, maybe 3. These firms did NOTHING wrong. They adhered to tax laws and they did what the tax laws demanded that they would do. So every time I see another tax the rich, whilst these people look at three parties (ignoring 15 others), I get nervous. The larger station is not that they refuse to overhaul tax laws. It might be that they are too stupid to overhaul them.

And this too is nothing new. What will be new is that the US government will take a look at their patent office and make (forced) deals with any isolated (registered in America only) patent and demand a financial deal with that owner. So lucky my IP is not registered in the US. A setting of grab it whilst you can will start soon enough and whilst the US will be in denial, there will be behind the scene deals with Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft and IBM. All to get a little more use and traction out of the failing US economy. All whilst it has been clear for decades that the tax laws need a complete rewrite, a setting where everyone is taxed fairly. But that will not likely happen. That will upset the large donators and political friends they have and they would lose them, so nothing will happen and the dream that I have will come closer to becoming an optional reality. 

Is it a wish or a dream? No one wishes for this. Not when you consider all the innocent lives struck by American stupidity, but the larger station is that a lot of Americans are close to desperate and the default will push them over the edge, I feel certain of that. Even as the news (mainly media) is now flaming their need for digital advertisement, hiding behind the announcement that the US of A could default next week, we also get a mere 16 hours ago that ‘U.S. Senate passes bill to avert government shutdown, sends to Biden for signature’, but that is not the same is it? A shutdown is one thing, a default is something else. There are paths that they could walk, set up a massive loan with JP Morgan, Blackrock or Morgan Stanley, the turnaround will need to be massive and that is how the slippery slope becomes a diagonal sheet of ice. A timeline extended and extended, all whilst the premise of stopping this going from bad to worse is ignored.

It was but a dream, I realise that, but perhaps my brain is working out a few financial items covered in nightmares. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, movies, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 28, 2021 · 20:37

Historic detours

We all do them, I do them a lot. On any course from A to B, I tend to take detours every day. For one, I walk a lot and I like the scenery to change, it might not make much sense if you are the avid automobile fan, yet when you walk it makes a lot of sense. It can be that one route has a cinema and I want to see what is coming. That thought makes less sense nowadays, but in the past there were windows with photo’s of movies coming and movies playing. Then thee are the detours the mind makes. Those tend to make a lot less sense, even to the wielder of that brain. The Brain wants to let you know something and it tells you in its own way. Through the dream state when you are asleep, through a day dream or even through a small jump away from what you were thinking. We all have them, we pay attention (at times), we will it away or we ignore, we tend to take different strides with any mind jump. 

This happened to me today when I was doing something meaninglessly simple, mind-numbing and the brain just took over. I was at a school, not sure which one, or where. The kids spoke English, but I did not connect to the location and I have no kids, so I am at a loss on that part. The kids were eating food and a I saw a ‘pretend it is Mexican day’ sign. The sign was troublesome in a few ways but that does not matter. It was then that I noticed the food. I thought they were all enjoying enchiladas. The rolled or is that wrapped food in a thick tortilla, it was then that I took notice of the smell, the sweetness, the stuffing and then things started to make sense. The kids all had rolled up pancakes, rolled like a tortilla and the stuffing was not that of an enchilada. It was filled with fruits. Then I saw others with some kind of chili, but it was I think cranberry mash with berries, bananas and stuff, the enchiladas had some kind of jam, dried fruits, tangerine parts and I think apricot slices. They were all having fruit dishes all shaped and imaged after Mexican food, the sign made more sense now. And it makes sense, the detours allowed me to design the 5G solution I created, this is not the same, but set to a similar premise. The mind can fill voids, but it can also label and identify things it is aware of. So what if kids see the same shape as a bowl of chili, as a enchilada yet not the same. What if the apple served can no longer hold the attention it once had? What if the premise needs change? It is not unheard of, it is not even that weird. The detour can serve as a journey marker and that is how we get to the actual stirrer of the trouble I saw. 

Two headlines needs to be shown. Once gives us ‘Amazon is ‘nearing a deal’ with EA to produce a Mass Effect show’, the second one is ‘Ex-Bioware Writer Explains His Concerns About a Mass Effect or Dragon Age TV Series’. They matter, but not the way you think. There is one clear truth that I never steered clear of. The Mass Effect series (1-3) is one of the 10 best stories to ever grace the ENTIRE video game industry. In 2007 they started something that had not ever been shown before and the universe of gamers took notice. It was a few years later that we were treated to a sequel which was nothing less than one of the best games that would ever launch on a console. Yes, Mass Effect was big and even as there were rumblings on episode three, I never joined them, the story as a whole was amazing and that story can still compete with almost anything today. They screwed it up with Andromeda, but the original was and will remain a legendary achievement. 

Soon on console and TV

So whilst I do not know if there will be concerns, if there will be issues, if there will be larger ‘fears’. Consider the first game, when we go beyond the game, the setting that we forget is that the Citadel is well over 4 times the size of Manhattan, optionally a bit bigger and that implies that there are 3-4 seasons ready to be made. 

Consider Doctor Michel, getting extorted, running supplies to a merchant in the Lower Wards in order to avoid a “secret” of hers getting out. A 5 minute mission, easily converted to a full episode, or as a sideline in larger storylines over two episodes. Now consider that the first game alone has over 60 side quests, all optional stories in their own rights. We might not care about some of them, but the truth is we were never given to goods so that we would care and that matters. Just consider that we remember the stars of a show, yet how many can give us the sidekicks in Buffy? The sidekicks in Bones? The sidekicks in Battlestar Galactics? Dexter? Now consider that Spike (from Buffy) was supposed to get killed off in the beginning. Yet he stayed around for 7 seasons. The writers had something to work with and they were handed time to show value in a character. That could happen to Mass Effect as well. The benefit (for Amazon) is that they get handed something with a proper foundation, a story that can go places. And in this we see a larger stage evolving, the games are starting to set the need for TV and movies. We knew about movies, we all saw Jolie (aka Mrs Smith) in Tombraider, but the stage is now altering, games are making a larger headway into TV and the solver screen. I wonder if this is to the well of creativity drying up, or is it that games bring optional a million plus fans to the TV screen and that startup is interesting to producers. I am not sure what the answer is, because I never really considered that setting before. Yet if that is true, then the settings for Bethesda will alter a lot over the next few years. And that too matters for gamers, because the franchise that grows tends to evolve and gamers love a game that truly evolves (not iterates like Ubisoft). In this there is no telling what Ubisoft can do with their AC franchise. 

Yet in all this, I wonder what we will be treated to next. I am not siding with the worry population, I will see and judge when it hits the TV or big screen. I have seen enough on both sides to worry up front, and we all saw our fill of ‘failed’ series. Yet plenty of those ended up being true gems (Dollhouse 2009, Firefly 2002, Rome 2005, Star Trek 1966) and it is interesting that Star Trek ended up with 9 spin offs and 10 movies. So taking the word of the critics is debatable from the start. 

I hope that Mass Effect will get the proper audience and get the right stage for people to care about a good story, because the story is everything, especially in TV. 

So why this detour?
You see, what we see and what we perceive is not the same. What we see is what we are offered to see and what we perceive tends to be based on the presentation of others and the ‘critics’ as well as ‘critics’ who have other venues to promote are the fake news bringers, especially in this day and age. Some of these ‘critics’ know that people have one purse, they can only spend money ONCE, so they are getting more and more careful on what they spend money on and Amazon Prime knows that (its a Netflix issue), so they need to get the larger population on board sooner, and some ‘critics’ have friends at Netflix and other places too, so they are eager to promote one and push down the other for whatever reason they hand us and they have a larger digital market to push their view, their need and the need of their friends. That is the stakeholder game and it is hitting TV series as well, yet only now will the push be more pronounced then ever before. But that is merely my view on the matter. 

Will Mass Effect succeed? I cannot tell, I will not give my answer one way or the other, but take notice. It comes from one of the truly great stories in gaming and that matters. I reckon we will see something real in 2023-2024. 

Have a great Sunday.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, Media, movies

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

November 26, 2021 · 22:14

Stupid people never learn

This is not an accusation, it is merely a setting we need to accept. This all started half an hour Aho when the BBC gave us ‘Protesters hit Amazon buildings on Black Friday’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59419572), with the setting “An international coalition of unions, equality and environmental groups called “Make Amazon Pay” is staging a day of action, demanding concessions”, it is like the approach of a hurricane, and making the one person who left a window open giving him (or her) a bill for the draft damage. People just do not get it, and I am at a loss why that is. It is not hidden information, it is not secret information, it merely is information out in the open for anyone to read.

The setting is not “Amazon takes too much and gives back too little”, the setting is that governments would not overhaul tax laws for the longest of times. I first make a case for overhauling tax laws in 1998, now 24 year later none of it EVER happened. Amazon did not take too much, it took what Amazon was entitled to take. Amazon (only) gives what it is mandated to give. There are las out there and Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Facebook and Google adhere to these laws. All the rest is merely discriminatory bullshit. So when I see “Worldwide, nearly 50 organisations have signed up to a list of “common demands”, published by the Make Amazon Pay coalition”, so I wonder who they are. And it does not really matter as they cross over from one into the other. Consider “A global union federation representing 50 million workers in 140 countries in a range of sectors”, this implies less then 350.000 per nation, which includes the US, which imply that they basically amount to nothing. Then we get “A global union federation of journalists’ trade unions, representing more than 600.000 media workers from 187 organisations in 146 countries” I merely wonder whether they include the same essay writers that grace the ICIJ, a fair question, because journalists are supposed to be smarter than this. All the flames, the bullshit and the need for click bitches that spike digital revenue, all to have a go at a company that struck it big by being actually innovative. 2 years ago Amazon would not be on the mind of console gaming. Now the Amazon Luna overtakes what Google and Microsoft have and that is just for starters. They equal Apple in a few ways and there is no end to Amazon at present. All that and they adhere to laws, or lets just states that they adhere to what their legal department states that they need to adhere to. And no one is putting actual and factual pressure on the politicians that need to get shit done (like overhauling tax laws) but then people get quotes like “It is a really complex situation”, so complex that in 24 years nothing was done, so the utter nonsense of 50 organisations that have call signs making them close to ludicrously useless. If they were not useless, they would put pressure on politicians overhauling tax laws. 

The lesson has been out there for almost 25 years, the facts were out there for almost 25 years and still the people will not learn, the politicians do not want them to learn, because they will have to do something and over time it might amount to something pissing of the rich friends they have. In all this, the setting is much larger then the FAANG group. It includes people like the Walton Family, the Green family, the Koch family, the Yuan family and as such several dozens more. All billionaires, all doing what the law allowed them to do. The feigned anger against Amazon is just pointless bullshit and we need to wake up. Flames and emotions will not get us anywhere and that is the problem with Grassroots people, all about anger and emotion and when the anger subsides, when they realise (if ever) that the law was adhered to we see the pointlessness of the situation and stupid people never do so, in this, how come the journalists are part of this? Who do they serve? Because in the end they serve the shareholders and advertisers. But what of their stakeholders? Who are they and why are they embracing pointless actions? Did you ever consider that part of the equation? 

As such will you learn, or will you just pointlessly embrace a coalition that wastes another two decades going nowhere? It is up to you, you can chose and making the choice that goes somewhere is always better, even if the destination is not better, sometimes things get worse before they get better, that is the outcome of change, the changing process is never better, the outcome can be, it is up to us to make that so, and it is not an easy fight, that much is an absolute given.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 4, 2021 · 15:14

Utter insanity

To get to this part, I need to grab back to another article which I wrote on May 6th 2020 called ‘New World Order’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/05/06/new-world-order/), yet that one also takes a step back and refers to an initial article I wrote in 2013 called ‘It hurts every time, but we love it’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/02/06/it-hurts-every-time-but-we-love-it/) . In 2013 the US debt was $17,000,000,000,000 (17 trillion), and over 8 years 8 trillion was added, a nice $8,000,000,000,000. This implies that the US government overspends a trillion a year with no exit strategy on how to cope with the debt and it is on both Republicans and Democrats. They raised debt ceiling again and again and this president might be the one who gets to live through the fallout of such stupidity. We (me too) might grab at the ludicrous waste of billions upon billions in only two defence contracts (F-35 and USS Zumwalt) but the problem is a lot larger. The decades wasted by not overhauling the tax system (I suggested changes in 1999, might have been 1998), it would not have solved everything but it could have optionally solved a few things. It is the relentless boasting government approach towards “My Credit Card is too big too refuse!” Yet that is at this point exactly what is going to happen next week Friday. Unless there is another ceiling raised and it merely pushes the problem forward. The larger problem is not merely the politicians, it is their favourite tool the media as well. 4 days ago the Financial Times gave us ‘The US debt ceiling needs to be raised’, and they do give us “The very regularity of fiscal cliff edges inures people to their seriousness. The markets expect Washington to fear default enough to do what is needed in the end.” However none of the media told in clear harsh language to politicians (and naming them) that they need to act and as it is soon too late, the US population will get one of the loudest and harshest wake up calls since December 7th 1941. It will hit them square in the face and there will be no escape. A setting of pensions gone (the US is bankrupt), for many their homes will be lost (the debt collectors will collect on EVERYTHING), infrastructures will collapse (the money is gone) and systems will stop functioning (the US credit card will be destroyed). A setting that continues on for decades, unless the US has any friends left, the US seizes to exist and on the side lines China and Russia will howl with laughter. 

Yet not all is lost, the US could become part of the Commonwealth again, although the US politicians will mostly be out for a job, Canada could oversee issues for London and the political seat of power will be in Ottawa, did anyone consider that there was more to my ‘We stand on guard for thee’ article? The article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/03/we-stand-on-guard-for-thee/) had a small reference to “CANZUK time, is Canada ready?” When drenched in “Canada has a chance to be a major player in CANZUK to usher in a more politically stable and mutually beneficial version of a modern Commonwealth”, it is the modern Commonwealth part. And in this there is every reason to trim a lot of fat, especially political fat. In 2013 I gave the reader “Those two, when a change is set might mean that the US could be bankrupted overnight” I never saw a pandemic coming, but that pandemic pushed the US straight over the edge into an abyss of debt. It also gave me shivers to sell my IP to an American player, my 5G and I left without anything? Screw that! I would rather take my chances with China. And that is the larger setting, when the brain drain starts and China pays for the IP the avalanche will be complete (not merely me, dozens of others too), the US will have a dwindling IP vault, manufacturing will go to Asia (optionally India too) and the US will be a container of lard, no bones or muscles holding it together. A body of mass with merely the strength of the barrel containing it all. 

So as Reuters gives us a day later ‘U.S. debt ceiling impasse warrants nuclear options’ (at https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/us-debt-ceiling-impasse-warrants-nuclear-options-2021-09-30/) with “That could spare the United States a default, but would force other cuts, possibly in areas like Social Security or military pay.” We see the beginning of a larger stage where the people would soon be left with nothing, it takes a whole new vibe out of “We the people” doesn’t it? And the “Unable to borrow more, the Treasury would have to cut some 40% of federal spending by mid-November”, it is the icing on the cake, a setting of larger dangers to a large chunk of 331,000,000 people in the US. Did you think I was kidding on the US stampede into Canada? The rich will prefer 30% more taxes against nothing and an angry mob at their doorstep. Up to $3.4 trillion in personal wealth will take any option against losing it all in the US. House prices in Monaco will soar (for the really rich) so if Jeff Bezos can offer me €150,000,000 for all my IP (payable in Monaco) I will seriously consider it. Google, Netflix and Amazon will take to the global skies and they will double register their IP to keep it safe and keep it out of governmental hands, because that will be the next stage, the US will need to find money wherever it can be found. A station the US has never faced before. There is one upside, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can get their required hardware for dimes on the dollar and optionally buy out a few factories and all their patents putting them on par for their 2030 promise of taking home based defence build projects to a whole new level. The US laughed and sniggered when Wall Street offered vulture solutions to Argentina in 1998, now the vultures are ready and set to rip the US carcass apart. Is it a fair view? That is not in question, yet the stage is now that it is becoming a likely view the only people treated fair are the hard workers who just tried to get by. 

Should there be an 11th hour solution of debt ceiling raising, the people will need to consider that the end is nigh and the US did this to themselves. Irresponsible spending for well over 2 decades and with no exit strategy the USA will enter a field it so desperately tried to avoid and with innovators moving to other shores their field of choice becomes ever more limited. 

And when you wonder why no one is writing about those dangers, consider that I opted for this day to come for 8 years, I never saw a pandemic, but when you realise that the US was overspending a trillion a year, 83.3 billion a month for 8 years. Did no one catch on that this clambake could come to a sudden stop? Wonder about that part of the equation. I reckon that a lot more people should have seen the dangers after the 2008 events. Now 14 years later the people of the US will face hardships that is 10 times worse than the events of 2008, not merely because of what is now, but it happens when it’s infrastructures, social security and healthcare are totally gutted. 

Mozart wrote Requiem 230 years ago, I doubt he ever envisioned it used on an entire nation, but that is life, or the lack thereof. 

8 Comments

Filed under Finance, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 1, 2021 · 19:59

The idea as it came voiced

I was browsing some real estate magazine and I saw the image. A home theatre for the not so poor. A place where a family can watch a Blu-ray or 4K, stream Netflix or play a game.

The image shows a nice place, a place most would want, and it is made to size, it all makes sense, but then I wondered, what if the family changes? One person loses a partner, the empty chair next to theirs, reminding them every time that their life turned to goo. Or the reverse, they can finally share something, but they end up with one lap dancing the other, or behind one another. Yes the solution is so simple. I cannot tell whether this was done here, but I saw a few solutions where it was not done. It is simple, like the image below.

Consider LEGO, consider the setting of LEGO, a room where we have chairs and support, the support that can be altered to some degree allowing for a change in furniture whilst keeping it a home theatre. It is such a simple elegant solution, yet it is ignored by more than a few, all whilst anyone who ever played with a LEGO set could have come up with the idea, however as far as I can see this, less then a few is taking a long hard look at what ingenuity LEGO could bring their ideas, so could another invention Meccano, invented in 1898 by Frank Hornby from Liverpool (that city where the Beatles are from). It is part of a larger truth I believe in, only limitations tends to push the larger form of creativity. It has been a truth in engineering, IT and design and it is an almost absolute given that will never change. It is when a limitation hits us, we look for workarounds. When SPSS could not give us an age pyramid, I designed a syntax that did just that, it was always there, in the High-Low chart and I published it in 1993 (or 1994). Limitations are there to test us, make us creative and we are not seeing enough creativity. The LEGO idea is merely one side but when you take a larger look at the solutions LEGO, Meccano, Wilesco Steak kits, and Wise Elk toys, all toys that fuel the ideas that kids have, all fuelling the foundations that they have as adults. A foundational step we overlooked for way too long. We all relied on IT greats to give us the foundations, but they are the foundations that THEY want us to take. Microsoft might have its azure, but when we see hack after hack, all because people overlooked security and if it is not there, it will be the Amazon Web services, the Google cloud, IBM cloud, Oracle cloud and so on. So what happens when they all overlook similar stations? It is not an accusation, but it is a larger stage. The assumption that they are all flawless is delusional to the umpteenth degree. 

We might not see the larger stage, we might not see the larger goals, but to give a person a LEGO set for IT is not the worst idea. To seek in limitation is what awakes up the mind and as you can see several players preceded us. 

There is a larger stage and it is not on any of those players, but it is on us, if we rely on the people telling us where to look, we end up looking in the wrong direction. We end up not looking where we desperately needed to see in the first place. To be honest, I am not giving you advice where to look, it all merely started with an interior decorator, reminding me of others that took a limited view on the needs of a customer, so when you get the option of invoice A at 100%, or invoice B at 115%, yet invoice B give you options and invoice A does not, is invoice A really 15% cheaper or will it end up being 30% more expensive down the track? 

I will let you mull this over, and consider where you limited your options at the advice of others. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

August 23, 2021 · 20:19

Watch it again!

There is a nice side to the 90’s. We all had a go at new things, there was the start of a new side of gaming, there were new frontiers in IT, there were all kinds of approaches to marketing and there were all kinds of new movies, movies that before that were never pushed to the larger extent. It gave us David Cronenberg, it gave us comic books and there was a new side of horror, at times more playful, but for the people who loved the comics, it was just awesome. One of these makers (Clive Barker) was already pushed into a few realms, but one side was to often ignored, I cannot tell whether it was because of how the non knowledgeable try to sell it, perhaps the review line of “a commercial and critical failure” was linked to it. Yet the story of the Nightbreed, Cabal and Median has potential, not as a slasher movie, but as a horror thriller that needs to be really dark. The kind of story that will make any average psychiatrist decide to retire on the spot. The story has so much to offer, that I am a little bewildered how movie makers 32 years later are ignoring that gem. Craig Sheffer played it decently (considering that there were the 90’s). And. Personal speculation is that he might have been chosen as he more roughly resembled David Boreanaz in Angel (and Buffy) and the makers knew how excited the ladies got over him. Yet I believe that Craig played a decent Boone, the rest of the cast was OK. That is not against them, but against the film makers who were all about slashers and posturing and not about maximising the impact of the large amounts of side stories that Cabal represented (as did Median). I reckon that Nightbreed might too large for a movie, and a miniseries (4-6 episodes of an hour) might make it a lot better and lets face it, this station is ruled by Clive Barker, wasting material that excellent should be considered a crime in TV and tinseltown land. 

Is there more?
Well yes and it is not limited to Clive Barker (although if I can ever revitalise Lords of illusion, I would). Consider the amazing result that IT became and what we saw in the works of Anne Rice in other movies. Now consider the challenge that the Mayfair witches leaved the film makers with The Witching hour. Anne Rice drenched the story in all levels of controversy and that works great in most horror, now add new levels of darkness that we can push for today and you have three books that could ultimately be a next generation focal point of fear for decades, I reckon that the film makers can push into this when the film maker looks at the colour black and considers it to be too light. That is where the boundaries are pushed and there is a larger station, the books of Wes Craven, Clive Barker and Anne Rice have shown them to be masters, they were used for quick revenue fixes and discarded, yet the people at Netflix, Amazon and Disney can make that into a realm of options with 3-5 movies, or larger miniseries with several movies in 5-7 parts, not as a cash cow, but as a station of creating new levels of fear. We can see Neil Gaiman stories making it into that realm, yet he need not be alone (even though he might like it), there is plenty for a while range of stations and now, 30 years later it is time to drill into those treasure troves again, the darker film maker is the most likely winner here and you only have to look at successes like American Horror Story to see that I have a decent case here. 

I wonder if someone in Tinseltown wakes up to that part of the equation, first come, first chance of becoming an accomplished winner. The 90’s produced a whole range of excellent ideas for the big and the 75” screen. 

Leave a comment

Filed under movies

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 1, 2021 · 20:07

COMPUTE BigTechPlotGoogle = ‘Lost’.

Yes, we all have to create variables to set a larger stage. We know that age gives us a lot, but the 15 people of age 18, the 7 with age 19, the 3 with age 20 are useless, yet when we group them in an age classification of 18-23 we get a lot more information out of our data. This is not new, this is. setting that market research has walked on for decades. Even before some programs added ‘functionality’, the people behind programs like Quantum were already on top of mentioned groupings. So when I see Google 9 to 5 giving us “Google is adding five games to Stadia Pro for August 2021”, I wonder if they have any clue what thy are doing. Apart from the fact that we also get “Killer Queen Black, inspired by the hit arcade game, Killer Queen, let’s you fight for your hive with three ways to win. Will you claim your victory by hopping on the snail, hoarding berries, or wiping out the enemy’s queen?” As well as “Stadia Pro is Stadia’s premium subscription service and your gateway to the best that Stadia has to offer. With an active Stadia Pro subscription, you get a variety of perks, including free games, exclusive game discounts, and top-tier visual and audio quality”. Here we now see a setting where Google is not merely fumbling the ball, it is giving the court to Amazon. There was always a risk of that, but to do it in such a direct way is rather silly. There is no Google Stadia without decent games and by confusing gamers by giving them “there’s Killer Queen Black ($19.99), Valkyria Chronicles 4 ($49.99), It Came From Space & Ate Our Brains ($14.99), and Epistory – Typing Chronicles ($14.99)” we see a stage where Google will not be part of any gaming stage soon enough. Any platform needs traction, any platform, especially streaming systems will need a cluster of gamers, that like grapes suck your soil dry for EVERY game possible, the numbers and exclusivity decide the winner. So when I saw this last Friday, I had to ponder what this means, not only does the setup implies that Amazon Luna will rule the streaming environment, it also implies that Google would fall dead last behind Microsoft. A stage I had not expected to happen. Not only should Google be first, it should be way ahead of Amazon, which is apparently not going to happen, so when we get “The count now stands at 29 titles” leaving us with the implied setting that at present Amazon Luna is wielding a games list three times the size of Google, how was that EVER a good idea? It also leaves us with the implied stage that Amazon will soon be the number 3 system behind Sony and Nintendo and it gets to be better, in that setting there is a larger stage where the Luna could be seen as accepted NEXT to the Playstation 5 gamer and Nintendo Switch gamer, optionally we will see households with these three systems. This changes the future for Amazon in a few ways, should they think this through, they can offer a new level of social networking, offering a link to Sony and Nintendo players, so that they can partake on the social scene, they can offer a much larger stage that would offer the Kindle to a large population who have ignored it (for whatever reason) and set a new level of consumer staging. In this there is an optional chance that a new Triumvirate could be created. In line of the old version where the world was ruled by Julius Caesar, Crassus and Pompey. This version will be one that gamers want, because they are getting hat THEY want, not what makers think they want. Sony, Amazon and Nintendo will get a larger stage to unite and perfect gamers needs, the rest will merely watch on the sides as they are trying to figure out what gamers (according to their marketing department) need. It will set their agenda’s back for close to a decade and in the mean time these three will excel in giving us gamers what we truly want. This is not a given, but when we unite the news from different sources, there is every chance that we go in that direction, and it would make me happy, especially if that puts Microsoft dead last in that field. Serves them right! Huh!

OK, that might not be called for but my ego took over for a moment. And there is a larger stage, a stage that goes beyond what we merely think can happen, there are options for Amazon to make it happen, will they? That is hard to say, streaming needs a good internet connection and there is time, but in the next year this war will be settled on the streaming winners and Amazon does seem to be in pole position here, I am not writing off Netflix, but I have no idea where they are at and how they want to offer services, in addition Netflix is also seen as a competitor with the Sony streaming services, a setting that Amazon does not have, so Sony would be eager to add to their functionality without impeding the Playstation and Luna is no threat there, more interesting the Luna, Switch and PS5 can easily sit next to one another and that would sit well with all three, a triumvirate in the making and that is where the others fall away.

I have no idea whether this will really happen, it largely depends on the actions by Amazon and their Luna to show it can be done, but the other two will happily accept a brother in gaming that is not taking the wind out of their sails and Google forgot to see and centre their view to the larger ocean instead of calibrating to whatever coastline they are ogling. That setting of wrong focal point is more likely than not, the stage that will cost them the streaming gaming war, it was up to them and they chose (very) poorly as I personally see it. To be honest, I thought that it would take until early 2023 when 5G is more widely spread for the streaming consoles to set their battle lines and now it seems that at present, with the information given to us, Amazon Luna is all but a decided winner even before the race is off. Considering that they were up against Google and Microsoft, it is an achievement that should not be underestimated. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 26, 2021 · 01:38

Refraining

It happens, sometimes we need to stop ourselves from acting, from jumping, from engaging. It is not that the action is wrong, it is because it is wrong at that stage. I do not know what pushed the act, yet the stage is larger and as I almost decided to trot on the novel I am still working on, optionally by giving away in another setting what comes afterwards, I was able to stop myself from doing what should not yet be done. 

It might also be the impact that Dracula (the Claes Bang edition) has on me. It was probably the first time that marketing drove me to watch anything. The ad (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIEr1Pcu03Y) and it is not merely the billboard (which was all kinds of perfect), it was not merely the cast Claes Bang and Dolly Wells are beyond believe, it is the way the story is set, it is a new and novel gander into the path of the undead, all whilst exposing us to all kinds of fears and in this the vampire fear is actually not the worst one. It pushes the envelope and it pushes us all to  surpass ourselves. Yet whilst doing that, we need to refrain from overacting on our impulses. It is a sort of balance between 2 innovations on one side and 4 iterations on the other. We want to be the 2 innovation side, but over reacting, reacting without some level of self discipline and we become mere iterations of the same. 

In this I created an approach to one game in my article ‘Electronic Entertainment Expo 2019’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/05/10/electronic-entertainment-expo-2019/), yet there I merely considered the approach to one game. 

Yet in the larger stage we create a very new kind of sandbox. Where every coloured ball is a new addition, a new DLC if you must that is added to the game, making the game a lot larger over time, so what I started with the teaching of Islamic religion using Medina as a centre stage, could evolve into another direction, a sandbox game that allows your person to evolve, to increase into a larger game where religion now becomes a segment, as we added new forms of gameplay, we didn’t alter religion, we merely enlarged the stage, a side of exploring, a side of economy, allowing you to get a house (in the game) and interact with others, whilst exploring the knowledge that is given to you, teaching you history and economy in new ways, altering what you know by letting you see what others saw. But in this, refraining becomes a much more essential stone. It is not like some Americans do, adding and adding. Sometimes more is not more, it is merely clutter and the overall experience is lessened. But how to go about it?

This is where QA becomes the essential side of developing any game, in the streaming world we will be able to create more, but it becomes a lot more important to create better and that is an essential lesson a maker like Ubisoft never figured out, not over at least a decade and I have no time to hold their hands, but the right people can take lesson from what I say, they can create and optionally create the right way. And my bonus is that Microsoft is equally not on the learning side, they are all about their azure and it will cost them, the sales of their latest Xbox One series X-file is so far proving me right. Between all the ‘hidden’ numbers, we see that the PS5 has well over 250% more consoles sold than its Microsoft counterpart and that difference is merely increasing. Yes, their golden boy talks a good talk but they are faltering in the field, all about cloud gaming now, optionally deserting the gamers on what they call the most powerful console in the world. There is an acceptable understanding that games need to evolve and that exclusive games take the cake (one Microsoft cake versus 15 Sony cakes), and we see that streaming will be the long term battle, but there they are falling hopelessly behind Amazon all whilst Google remains a player in that field and Netflix is yet to show it serious intent. And as we look at the options out there, they are also optionally restricting their stage and setting. All whilst I (mere little old poor me) came up with three games, one with the optional stage for up to 1,000,000,000 interested players and one stage where I redesigned three AAA+ games in new editions. And why is Microsoft failing? They have seemingly no alternative options to show in any direction. One UK newspaper gave us three hours ago “GAMES with Gold subscribers are getting closer to the official reveal of the free Xbox games for August 2021, but will Microsoft add a new Xbox Series X optimised game to the lineup?”, with all the careful leaks we see, this list is apparently more secure than the Windows source code, odd, is it not?

And these races are important too, you see, these races show the essential gaming experience that streamers can have, the consoles have too many ‘more of the same’ titles, all of them, even as we accept that there are markets and exclusives, but they are not the full range, mere icing on the cake, in a world where the three big cakes are the taste makers, two are too much alike and that is the market where the streamers and cloud games can rule. This why the Google decision on Stadia made no sense and I reckon that Amazon is loving that approach, it gives them a massive advantage. To be honest, I am a little shocked, 2 years ago I had no view on Amazon Luna, they were mostly one of the lot, a position 3 or less, now there is a decent indication that the Amazon Luna could evolve into the second best system in less than 4 years, that is impressive, they have a chance to overtake Nintendo by 2023, Sony will take longer, but if they push innovatively, they could be the ruling system by 2025 a setting I would never have anticipated in January 2020. That is the second marvel of gaming, true gamers are always on the edge of technology, a setting a few makers forgot about. Amazon apparently did not, is it a given, no it is not, but the fact that this stage is entertained implies that Amazon got a lot further than anyone anticipated. 

Is this till about refraining? To some extent it is, Amazon is not alone, even as the story of Microsoft can be dumped overboard, their story remains the same in the end, Google could change if they alter their current course and Netflix remains an unknown for now. So, Amazon Luna has the stage, it is what they do over the next 6 months that will decide how large their cake might be. Google sees (in their search) that refraining is merely another word for abstinence, a big mistake, refraining is halting action, stopping to act, it is also a setting to pause and reconsider, a tactical move to oversee what can be done, what is the best path to go and an optional form of balance between the fastest road and the shortest road, because these two are not always the same. I will need to keep my eyes on Amazon Luna for now, I wonder how close they end up getting to what Sony has achieved. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

July 24, 2021 · 13:45

The power to teach

I wrote about the idea in the past, I wrote about it specifically on one side, yet it dawned on me (whilst watching Star Wars) that I wasn’t looking at the larger picture. This happens, you, me, we all tend to focus on our own street. Yet the streamers (Google, Amazon and optionally Netflix) allows for a new setting of teachings. Just as I saw my mind create a game based around the Vatican, there is nothing stopping a nation like Saudi Arabia to create a game of education around the Quran and Islam, Israel a game around the Torah and the Jewish teachings. And these are games for all. Consider people actually learning about the Quran through playing a game, To walk the streets of Medina (optionally Mecca too) whilst rebuilding the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi. And as we unlock conversations, as we unlock teachings and historical figures, we also unlock more of the Quran, and this is not something I can do, this Neds to be done by Muslims, together with Muslim clerics to give the proper allocation of passages allotting to the entire Quran, a true face of islamic teachings. If we accept that the statement “Islam is a major world religion, with over 1 billion followers worldwide (1/5 of the world population). It is considered one of the Abrahamic, monotheistic faiths, along with Judaism and Christianity. Although usually associated with the Arabs of the Middle East, less than 10% of Muslims are in fact Arab. Muslims are found all over the world, of every nation, colour, and race. The most populous Muslim country today is Indonesia, a non-Arab country”, an educational game with an interest base of 1,000,000,000 and optionally growing. Why didn’t anyone else think of this? The same for Christianity and all the other religions. 

But I personally feel that teaching people about Islam and the Quran will be an option to fight Islamophobia. Fight religious discrimination through a game, who considered that application of streaming systems? There is nothing stopping the games coming up on other consoles, but the exclusivity applies strongly to streaming solutions, and this is not a game that is done in a year and it will take growing steps, it is a large undertaking, no matter what religion is the focal point. 

Quran App

This all started longer ago when I was trying out the Quran App, I needed to learn a little more about the Quran, I do not trust any source that is one sided telling me what is true, so I tried to learn more, but having an app with the Quran is not a decent way to teach about Islam, a lot more is needed and games are an excellent form of teaching. I have that seen to be a reality for decades, I am merely surprised that no one considered teaching the young and old more about religion this way. There are a lot of questions that I cannot answer, for one, I do (only recently) know that there are no images of the prophet, but who else in the non-Islamic community knew that? If we know that, the French secular move to have a teacher show the images of the prophet is not educational, it is merely insulting against Islam, games can offer a better stage, a global stage and in all ways an educational and optionally a cultural stage. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, Religion

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

July 21, 2021 · 23:54

Two to plenty

I have had enough of looking at covid numbers, and I have had enough of several things. As such, I feel the most at ease giving service (I did it for more than a quarter of a century) and creating new IP.  And as I was playing a personal favourite, I realised that Microsoft was holding two massive trump cards and to overthrow that, the other makers need to consider taking a leap, a leap that will make the Microsoft position shaky, very shaky indeed. This solution will optionally fit Amazon the best. Netflix has a chance, but if Google does not change its position, then they are up at the mercy of the developers. It is a choice they made. 

So what is out there? You see, I always knew that our lives revolved around creating places to live, kill things and eat (let’s not forget about the food). Minecraft drilled into that brilliantly and as Markus Persson, Jens Bergensten, and Stephen McManus played on that brilliantly, they sold it to Microsoft in 2014 for two point five billion. Then there was Bethesda who created Skyrim on 11/11/11. A game that for a very long time avoided (not completely) the levels of grinding. And Microsoft offered $8,500,000,000 to the makers. Yes a brilliant move, but it also implies that if someone makes a game like these two for Amazon, the Microsoft gaming share will drop by a decent amount. And it is a tall order, to make something alike and different enough not to be seen as a copy. It can be avoided to some degree. For one, the building materials can be set to marble sorts (Romans and Greeks), giving us all kinds of other challenges and achievements. In a lot of ways Minecraft was brilliant and close to perfect, but it can be done in other ways too and the Minecraft setting will require a streaming solution, which get us to Amazon Luna. But they are not the only player, anyone picking these ideas up can design something for Google Stadia. And it matters, with the massive amounts of revenue to be seen in the next two years, would you turn away a billion dollars? I wish I had been more pressed as a programmer in my youth, I would have done it myself. Alas, I made choices, I have no regrets, but if I was a decent programmer, I could have had more (not in a greed driven way). And now I get to spout other non 5G ideas to the world giving them a chance to take a slice away from the Microsoft pie. 

I will leave it to you, but consider that Skyrim has over 15 million players, Minecraft has 126 million players. Do you still think it is a bad idea? And as the gaming frontiers are changing, as Microsoft is trying to sell THEIR Microsoft Cloud all over the place, the gaming dimension polarises, Microsoft only respects what their board of directors tell others what matters and I have no intention of seeing my devices being overrun by some Azure thin client. As such I see the need to set my dreams and non 5G IP considerations towards public domain, to let you all grow on non Microsoft fields. Azure might have the advantage, but that does not mean that Google and Netflix are out of the race. It is merely a speculative idea and I will let you consider where the race takes us all.

So when you are creating YOUR version of a sandbox game, you can focus on building (and you need to), yet the stage of that can be done in various ways. You can focus on how the Greeks and Romans did it, so you need to create a place create income and become part of an economy. Anything else and you face the dangers that it is too much like Minecraft. As you grow your status and economy, you can opt for one side in game one, the other in game two and every iteration opens up the free game to a much larger extent. If you are in Volos, Larissa or Ladochori (Greek places) you will have to employ different solutions, but in a sandbox game, location is not the key, it is the surroundings you face. A setting that shapes all your decisions. You can only go with the flow and create, and seek, and pillage, and murder and explore. And in all this pillage and murder remains open to addition or choice, but in a sandbox game you make the decisions, you set the tone and you become your own legend (sanctified by Amazon, Google and/or Netflix).

If I feel up to it I will draw out a much larger setting towards real social media for gamers, not marketed messaging for large corporations.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,